Where did THAT come from?

An idiot abroad

2012-02-11T15:52:00.000Z

1986. My first trip to the USA! Only my second business trip to anywhere outside the UK (and the visit to Lyons in 1984 is best not mentioned). What an opportunity to see a foreign city and do some photography!

Naturally I work very hard and feel I’ve earned my Saturday on Boston, Mass, before flying home that evening. I get into town by about 9am and wander around the city with my map and camera, taking in the skyscrapers rubbing shoulders with old buildings, the markets, parks and squares. It’s a cold but dry February day and I keep my long lens on most of the time to capture the people and their surroundings.

By late morning I’m getting tired, but while traversing a road in a busy shopping area I spot a large red helium-filled balloon floating above the throng. On the other end of the string is a girl, late teens, in a bright pink jacket. This will make a great shot! All that colour against the greys and browns of the buildings and other shoppers!

I start to follow her down the road, pre-focus the camera, and wait for a gap in the shoppers so I can grab a shot. But it’s no use – too many heads and shoulders in the way.

Never underestimate the hunter instinct in a photographer! Half the thrill is in the chase, so I match my pace to the girl’s and follow patiently. Then, oddly, instead of crossing over at the end of the block, she does an about turn and starts walking back up the road, balloon still flying high. I stop to look intently in a shop window before turning to follow.

I am still determined to get my shot, but every time I think I have a clear sight it seems there two guys in the way. Then I realise that these two overcoated gents were THE SAME GUYS who were in the way earlier, before the U-turn!

A girl parading up and down with a big red balloon... Two swarthy guys in overcoats...

With a jolt of horror I suddenly grasp that I’m trying to grab a photo of a ‘belle de jour’ accompanied by two pimps/minders who are unlikely to look kindly on this innocent enterprise.

Don McCullin I am not. Seconds later my camera is stashed in my bag and I’m hightailing in the opposite direction as fast as I can walk. Minutes later I’m in a taxi heading back out of town to the safety of my hotel, thankful that I will live to click another day.

The Doors Alive, Flowerpot, Derby, 2 Feb 2012

2012-02-08T08:35:00.001Z

After their excellent gig in Nottingham last year (Rescue Rooms, 15 October 2011) I wasn’t going to miss another fix of live Doors music as close as Derby. The Flowerpot is a much smaller venue than the Rescue Rooms, with less room on the stage, but with a band like this it doesn’t make that much difference to the experience.

Willie plays the singer role brilliantly. He strides onto the stage after the band has started playing. Glares at the audience, silently stamping his presence on the room ...then it’s straight into ‘Break on through’.

For what its worth I think this band is equal to any of the other Doors cover bands I’ve seen (LA Doors, Australian Doors) and Willie easily beats Ian Astbury as a vocalist for this material. From the opening song there’s a big inane grin on my face.

What to say about the concert? Yes I had a good time. Yes a woman at the front (who seemed to know the band from previous gigs) reached over and had a good feel of Willy’s groin - and then lifted her top to flash her tits at the band during Soul Kitchen. (And yes those of us near enough got an eyeful when she turned as well, very nice too).

Yes, we had an inappropriate shout of “Get yer cock out” from the back (well this was Derby I suppose). Yes, there was chattering around the bar, allowing a “Shut Up!” at just the right place in “When the Music’s Over”. And we all had a little songalong, girls versus guys during the last verse of Roadhouse Blues. And yes, the closing encore number was predictably The End.

I’m sure the sight of a 60-year-old geezer pogoing to LA Woman is more than a little laughable, but frankly I don’t give a **** so long as I’m having a good time (and not crashing into anybody).

A good night, nearly 2 hours of music. But it would be nice to hear Soft Parade, and maybe Who Do You Love, and what about “Love Hides”, some time? I only heard Soft Parade once (The LA Doors I think) and Love Hides never. And I really enjoyed the Moonlight Drive-Horse Latitudes-Moonlight Drive from 4/9/11; hope they repeat this next time.

So how about a "Five to One-Love Hides" next time you're in Nottingham, guys? But whatever, as long as you’re enjoying it, carry on!

Set List:

Break on through

Love me two times

Hello I love you

Gloria

Soul Kitchen

The Changeling

Crystal Ship

Not to touch the earth

Light my fire

Been down so long

Riders on the storm

Unknown Soldier

Roadhouse Blues

People are Strange

When the music’s over

LA Woman

Alabama song

Backdoor man

enc: The End

Nigel Kennedy - Nottingham, Jan 16 2012

2012-01-27T21:01:00.000Z

Nigel Kennedy; everyone’s heard of this idiosyncratic violinist. But it wasn’t until I saw him in concert on TV last year that I thought it might be interesting to see what he’s like live: much of the TV concert was classical, but done with a pizzazz and visual content that I don’t normally associate with classical music.

The programme tonight was billed as “Four Elements”, a series of pieces by Nigel Kennedy himself, followed by Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” after the interval.

An eclectic group of musicians, ‘The Orchestra of Life’ took the stage. There was electric guitar and bass, vibes, drums, electric drums, trumpet, 10 or so assorted strings, and 4 vocalists. Kennedy himself then appeared and plugged in an electric violin – basically a violin-shaped frame with strings – and introduced the concert.

First we got “Air”, a sweet flowing orchestral piece which had me soaring, eyes closed, above mountains like an eagle. (Yes – I’ve been watching the BBC’s Earthflight!)

“Earth” followed , a solidly grounded HEAVY piece with the male vocalist taking the lead. Then “Water” which merged into “Underture”. The tempo and rhythms vary continually with many individual contributions from guitar, trumpet, marimba and, of course, violin. There was plenty of jazz in there and more than a little out-and-out rock. At one point Kennedy took an extended solo the like of which I’ve never heard - the equivalent of a Hendrix guitar solo and certainly enough to blow Sugarcane Harris off the stage and into the next galaxy. (He rather spoilt it by coming forward for a bow when the spontaneous applause he expected didn’t materialise – I think the audience wasn’t used to solos this!)

The use of the vocalists was fascinating – sometimes singing, sometimes whispering poetry over the music, sometimes contributing as vocal instruments either together or in parts. At no point in the first half was the music anything less than interesting and mostly it was compelling.

After a short break the same musicians came back – Kennedy initially sporting a more traditional wood violin. However this was to be a Four Seasons with a difference, initiated by a ramped-up guitar solo (‘Do your thing in E’ commanded Kennedy!). The core tune in the first section was familiar to me, but nothing else, with the result that I think I counted 6 seasons, so clearly there was other stuff in there.

It was clearly a unique interpretation of Vivaldi, with additions, dramatic switches, solos, and at one point seemingly random shouts from the musicians.

In between seasons Kennedy took time out to play a duet with the lead cellist. These two short Bach pieces were mesmerising. Each instrument wove its own path but this meshed perfectly with the other. When I opened them my eyes was as if the two musicians and I were the only people in the hall. (The stage lighting may have helped!) I read later that these were compositions originally written for harpsichord, with violin taking the right hand and cello the left. Bach was pretty OK, wasn’t he?!

A great evening, my only little complaints being the length – I really was ready for it to finish some 20 minutes before the end. (Those Concert Hall seats are good for a max of 2 hours.) And the fact that although he introduced all of the Orchestra by name – the soloists more than once – Kennedy missed out several of the strings players. The meanie!

I blame America

2012-01-17T12:44:00.002Z

Sometimes there’s a song or tune that evokes a deep memory every time you hear it. Maybe it was the background soundtrack to something that was happening in your life. Maybe it reminds you of a certain person or event.

In the winter of 1971/2 I was in my final year at Sheffield Uni and spending a lot of time studying. C was 80 miles away, back home in Norton doing her last year of A-levels. We'd met in the summer and things were getting serious (i.e. the progression from liking someone to realising that that's the person you want to be with). So the odd weekend back home tended to be pretty intense while the stretches in Sheffield were pretty anguished. (There were no mobile phones or email, obviously, so apart from the rare use of a payphone our only communication was via handwritten letters.)

There was always a particular tune playing in the Sheffield pub jukeboxes (yes – there was time for the odd pint with my mates). Its minor key and downbeat lyrics (which I doubt I ever listened right through) hooked into my feelings of seismic emotional changes and desperately wanting to be somewhere else.

All water under the bridge, but 40 years on we’re talking with friends after a nice meal, and the topic of “our song” comes up. I decide to mention the song and how I remember that longing to be with C whenever I hear it.

So why, with one exception, does the whole room erupt with mirth when I say the song is “A Horse With No Name” by the band 'America'?! And why didn’t C speak to me for the rest of the evening?!

AT NO POINT did I state, suggest, or hint that this song - or for that matter the concepts ‘horse’ or “nameless’ - actually make me think of C!!!

In fact I can’t believe that I haven’t mentioned this to her over the past 40 years. Wonder what else I’ve forgotten to mention…

2011 New Year's Eve Classical Gala

2012-01-11T20:07:00.000Z

Well I’ll try anything once. So the “New Year’s Eve Classic Gala” at the Nottingham Concert Hall totally seemed like a good idea.

New Year’s Eve in the Riv house is generally a pretty low key affair. When the kids were younger it was always a Chinese takeaway and film or TV and/or a game. Since then we’ve most often spent the evening with our friend Julie, and just watched TV or played games and had a few drinks.

But this year I happened to see an ad for the gala in the local paper and C was up for it, and so was Julie, so on December 29^th we got three of the last few tickets.

After reassuring C that a classical concert did not require dark suits and long dresses we toddled along. After purchasing a programme we wended out way to our seats (early, so we didn’t have to disturb anyone) and, with a brief ‘hello’ to the elderly gentleman in the seat to my left, sat down.

It was warm in the theatre and I soon realised, as my palms began to sweat, that I had omitted to wash my hands after preparing tea so that my right hand reeked of union. The more I sweated the more onion it extruded, so the only solution was to keep my hand closed and underneath the other hand.

I was surprised to find that I recognised some of the composers and titles in the programme, which was obviously put together for fun rather than anything else. Though I take exception to John’s comment that he couldn’t see me and C “coping with the likes of Mahler and Shostakovich” (cheeky sod). E.g. Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, two Strausses, and, oddly, Cole Porter.

It was interesting to see 40 plus musicians on a stage, and the conductor was entertaining. The music was mostly familiar (Nutcracker, Peter and the Wolf, West Side Story...). But just because you’ve heard something a million times during TV adverts doesn’t make it any more interesting. I nodded off a couple of times before the interval. We then made the mistake of not getting up, with the result that a few pieces into the second half my bum started complaining and I was ready for it to finish.

I was reminded of the interminable West Bridgford School concerts we had to endure, just for the piece where Adam was playing his oboe. Before long I was counting off the items in the programme and deciding that I hadn’t been missing out on anything much by focusing on rock for the past 50 years.

Eventually the last chords of the last piece faded away and the conductor walked off ...only to return straight away and launch into what was obviously a planned Radetzky March encore which truly got them going in then mosh pit. Well we all had to clap, anyway.

Finally that was over and off he went again ...but no! Back he came, and this time the orchestra ripped into that old standard ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Whereupon the audience started to link hands and sing along. For goodness sake! I don’t even know what ‘auld lang syne’ means! Gaelic for ‘let go, I want a drink’ I shouldn’t wonder. (The only words I know are from the Trotskyist version my friend Brian Martin used to sing: ‘Joe Stalin shot the bloody lot, for the sake of the party line...'.)

So it was that I was forced to inflict my sweaty, aromatic right hand on a total stranger. Hope he wasn’t allergic to onions.

Christmas Cheer

2011-12-27T07:12:00.001Z

Friday December 23 2011

Admittedly there are exacerbating factors this Christmas. I have the tail-end of a 2-week old cold – now just an occasional sneeze, sniffle, and hacking cough accompanied by perpetual catarrh, the sort that makes you want to hawk every few minutes just to clear your vocal cords of the thick mucus adhering to them.

C has had a sore throat, nasal congestion, and headache for the past week (same bug, different symptoms?). So the no-kissing rule did not contain the spread of infection. This still seems to be in force - not that either of us feels remotely amorous anyway. We have not had a proper night’s sleep for nearly a week, mostly through C coming down to make a cup of tea and me having to come downstairs an hour later to prise her away from serial Christmas cooking programmes or property porn.

10:05 am. I am standing in the quick baskets-only check-out at the little local M&S. The queue is an unprecedented 17 deep. All I have in my basket is 2 packs of croissants; I prefer cereal for breakfast anyway. At this moment it would be impossible to put into words how much I hate Christmas.

2:30 pm. Doesn't there come a point every year when you just want the whole thing to be over? For me it starts around December 1^st, around the time we start having to use credit cards instead of debit cards, and ends Christmas Day. It has just plateaued. I am sitting on the bed after spending 90 minutes helping to wrap present after present. Any query is met with “That’s not a present, it’s just a stocking filler”.

Let’s be perfectly honest about this. There is no self-righteous rationale here. I have no conscientious objection to the reckless over-spending and profligate consumption that goes with the season. Nor the incongruous celebration of the birth of a religious leader most celebrants don’t actually follow. Nor the inequalities in our society highlighted by this season in particular. (Well maybe a bit.)

But no - my main objections are entirely personal and selfish.

I know it is going to take 5 minutes just to find the spread in the fridge – because every shelf is completely full of utterly alien items.

Dusting most surfaces in the living room and kitchen is hopeless – because they are covered in cards and random yuletide-related knick-knacks.

The cupboards are currently stuffed with biscuits, chocolates, mince pies, cake, brandy snaps and all manner of snack foods – so normal healthy eating goes completely out of the window for 2 weeks. The only reason these items are not seen in the house any other time of the year is because they will get eaten - which is precisely what is going to happen.

A large and exceptionally ugly poinsettia has appeared in the kitchen. Once queried, it relocated to the living room where is it no less ugly but thankfully less prominent.

I am going to have to single-handedly try to keep a 7-foot felled spruce from turning into a few sticks by daily application of sustenance for up to 3 weeks.

Then there’s the dreaded ‘present opening’ ritual.

And the Christmas dinner! I have no objection to occasional feasting – but is it essential to serve 3 kinds of meat, 3 types of potato, and 16 other vegetables at the same meal?!

9:30 pm. We are 2 hours into our annual pantomime trip. For some reason in August I agreed that it would be a good idea to have a family trip to the panto again. Just as I have every August for the past 20 years. It’s essentially the same show every year; only the title changes. It’s always a good show, don’t get me wrong, but you have to be in just the right mood (not my current crabby state) especially after building up a tolerance to the experience over many years.

The best moment doesn’t even happen except in my head. It’s when I turn and smash my fist into the face of the geezer who has been whistling a few centimetres from my ear on and off all evening. (Even the rest of the family, who enjoyed the show, said that the people behind us were arseholes!)

10:15 pm. Show over. After an evening of the Village People and soppy songs about being alone or being together, losing someone and finding someone, I have an overwhelming need to attend a Stranglers concert.

11:45 pm. Bedtime. In 24 hours the preparations will all be over and, a bit like the winter solstice, this means things will start to get better. There will be friends and family to share time and a few laughs with, and maybe some new people to get to know. And I’ll have a wonderful time.

The green dress

2011-12-21T20:55:00.000Z

A Christmas story...

When we first got married C and I did not have any money. She was a full-time student and I had just started working. We lived in a furnished flat which was basically the ground floor of an Edwardian semi. We did a weekly Saturday trip on the bus to the supermarket in town and always argued about which brand of butter, bacon etc we could afford. Any money we could save went into the car fund.

In town we would often browse before doing the shopping. C liked to go into the clothes shops (then it was Chelsea Girl, Dorothy Perkins etc) knowing that we couldn’t afford more than the basic clothes needed for work or college. Christmas and birthdays were times for buying stuff we needed rather than stuff we wanted.

Our first proper Christmas together (1973) we would, as usual, visit parents. C’s folks lived just down the road from mine but did not have a spare bedroom, so it was obvious where we would be staying.

The weeks before Christmas were full of angst concerning what to get mums, dads, and siblings. We would go into town and wander around; there wasn’t any world wide web to help you choose presents! And buying presents is not easy on a tight budget.There were no credit cards to help spread the cost.

However on one shopping trip late autumn I clocked a more-than-average interest by C in a green crushed-velvet dress. I somehow got back to the shop the next day, bought it, and asked a work colleague to look after it (there being nowhere to hide it in the flat).

As Christmas approached we talked about both of us needing slippers, and perhaps there was a new album we both fancied. So expectations were low.

Meanwhile I procured a shoe box and wrapped it up with the dress inside.

By Christmas Day, with a little subtle management of expectations, C is 100% convinced that she is getting slippers for Chistmas. On Christmas Day we are sitting around in the living room with my mum and dad and two brothers, opening presents.

There is some merriment when C unwraps the first present I pass her. It’s a fish slice (which our poorly-equipped kitchen does not possess). Then she opens the shoe box.

...and bursts into tears.

Cold caller colic

2011-12-20T19:53:00.000Z

It’s ages since I had a good rant and moan in this column. But this week I have a stinking cold. And it is nearly Christmas, the only stressful period in a calendar that, these days, is basically stress-free the rest of the year. So here we go.

Cold callers. When the phone rings and, instead of a friendly recognisable voice, it’s “Can I speak to Mr M Rivett?”. The calls that almost negate the advantages of having a land line; that make you wonder why you bother to be ex-directory. The calls that are about as welcome as an unexpected fart in the queue at the supermarket checkout.

I know some people enjoy the interaction – stringing along the unfortunate on the other end of the phone, who is probably just a couple of hours into an soulless 8-hour shift of ringing random people who don’t want to be rung. Letting them get well into their rehearsed script ...and then knocking them down with a killer quip or just some basic rudeness. And who knows, maybe the call operators enjoy the exchange for the variety.

But frankly I can’t be bothered, and most often they only get as far as “I’m calling about your recent accident...” or “The UK Office of Administrative Affairs believes you may have been mis-sold PPI...” before I’m citing the Telephone Preference Service and asking for contact details. Whereupon they generally hang up.

But recently 3 calls in as many days from British Gas really got my blood boiling. The first was about insurance. Just because we have Homecare cover for our boiler they seem to think they have the right to call every few weeks to tell us they can now, amazingly, offer to extend this to freezers, cookers, dishwashers, plumbing, home entertainment systems, electric toothbrushes, pet grooming equipment... If they offered to cover sex toys and drug paraphernalia next it would not surprise me in the faintest.

The second call I also got rid of quickly. Late spring 2011 seemed to be a good time to do a price comparison as everyone knew that gas and electricity prices were going up in the summer. So we switched from British Gas to a lower-cost tariff with someone else, fixed for 12 months and no penalty for leaving after the 12 months. Clearly I wasn’t going to change again this year.

But the British Gas call-centre guy on Day 3 was quick enough to get a conversation going. It went something like this:

CCO: I understand you have a new gas and electricity supplier

M: Yes

CCO: We would like you to come back to us

M: Thank you but I am satisfied with my current provider.

CCO: We would offer a discount of £200 if you come back to us

M: No thank you

CCO: What?! Even for £200?!

M: If your prices were that low I wouldn’t have switched in the first place

CCO: We didn’t know you were thinking of leaving.

M: Everyone knew prices were going to go up this summer. What did you expect?

(replaces handset, thinking IF YOU CAN PROVIDE THE ENERGY I NEED FOR £200 LESS, WHICH IS CLEARLY A FAIR PRICE FROM YOUR POINT OF VIEW, WHY THE F*%$ ARE YOU RIPPING PEOPLE LIKE ME OFF TO THE TUNE OF £200, YOU GRASPING BASTARDS!)

Now I have nothing against call centre operators, and as in all personal interactions I try to be polite and pleasant. Life is generally better that way. And I am encouraged by the recent trend for cold calls to begin with a recorded message – you can simply hang up without feeling guilty. But the fact I am in the situation of having to put up with this crap makes me want to smash something.

Today’s new householders have no idea that, prior to the 1980s these calls were unimaginable. Your water, electricity, train journeys, gas ...even your phone service came from the same supplier as everyone else’s! There was no having to shop around and barter. No telephone or doorstep harassment! No meaningless call centre jobs. (I never felt my work in profit-driven pharmaceutical research was particularly useful, but it had to be a million times more socially valuable than spending all day intruding into the lives of strangers from a call centre workhouse.) And, most telling of all, nobody was allowed to make profit out of essential public services that everybody needs.

And how did this state of affairs arise? All of these services were in public ownership but were sold to private businesses in the 1980s so they could make money out of our basic needs. (And now they are selling the schools as well!)

Was it Tory dogma: a free market is best? Or a refusal to tackle the problem of some services not working optimally? A way to diminish the unions? (...The solution of a 3-year-old knocking down his tower of bricks in a tantrum because the next brick doesn’t fit? ...Of selling off the family silver and rewiring the house instead of replacing a fuse? ...The spiteful dog-poo-in-PE-pumps of a playground bully?)

All of these! And Jeez – Cameron is spouting about ‘moral collapse’ after his own party perpetrated arguably the most immoral act of any UK government since 1956. The nerve of it.

This is the lasting legacy of Thatcher and her cronies. As issues go it hardly ranks with losing your home or family through earthquake, famine or flood. But I will not forgive these vandals for the destruction they perpetrated. And the ongoing aggro week after week.

There! I feel much better now. Not remotely bitter or twisted. Bring on the old movies and the Christmas specials!

From Darkest Peru

2011-12-07T08:42:00.000Z

Adam wants to borrow Paddington Bear to use in his class (of Year 1s). This is not a problem, as C's Paddington, a veteran aged 30-something years lives on top of the drawers in our bedroom. Though no one can remember when he lost his left eye.

Slightly more of an issue is Paddington's wellingtons, which were purloined for use as Adam's, and later Ben's, first pair of wellies. They have been kicking around in the cellar and the shed ever since. Once found, though, it proves difficult restoring them to old P, whose feet seem to have grown in the years he has been bear-footed. In fact, try as I might, I can't get them on enough to get a right angle between foot and leg, with the result that he won't stand up without toppling forwards and has to be propped up against something.

I've never quite grasped why childhood teddy bears can retain their significance in adult years. My teddy became the Guy Forkes on the family November 5th bonfire when I was about 9. (Now I think about it, perhaps my mum was upset about this infantile declaration of independence? After all, she probably bought that for me and cared for it all the time I was little, cleaning it of baby puke etc.)

C brought not one but two manky, threadbare, vaguely smelly, moth-eaten apologies for bears to our relationship. They live, with Paddington, on the drawers along with a modern version which was a gift from the boys.

Mind you, their behaviour does not always live up to the decorum one would expect from their age. On one occasion a few years ago I caught them misbehaving and captured it on camera, a picture which subsequently appeared on a home-made Valentines Day card I gave C.

(Aren't home-made gifts and cards always more meaningful?)

iPod-less in Gaza

2011-11-29T21:37:00.000Z

No, I'm not in Gaza, but I am without my iPod.

Just a couple of weeks ago someone told me that once the battery in my 6-year-old (1st generation) iPod Nano gives up the ghost I'll have to bin the whole thing as it is not replaceable. I was shocked! What kind of shyster would marked a product with such a limited life-span? (And why was Steve Jobs so revered when his company indulged in sharp practices like this?)

No matter - last week I get an email from Apple to say my iPod's battery "may overheat and pose a safety risk"! Now they tell me! And they will replace it if I follow the instructions and return the device to them.

I have duly sent it away in the envelope provided and now have to wait 6 weeks for a replacement.

I am not impressed that the replacement is only "warranted to be free from defects for 90 days" (surely the original 1-year warranty applies?), but hopeful that, all being well, I should have a few more years of trying not to dance on public transport.

Unless Apple are using inferior batteries now.

Stephan Merchant - Andy Hamilton - Mike Harding - Bill Bailey

2011-11-26T09:36:00.002Z

We went to town on the comedy during November; loads of people came who we wanted to see.

Stephen Merchant (7/11/11)

Not everybody’s cup-of-tea, especially if Extras left you cold, but we figured it was worth investigating. A lot of his stuff is based on his purported lack of success with the ladies, his height/geekiness, his reluctance to spend any money, and his Blue Peter badge. Basicly self-effacing; in many ways the opposite of Ricky Gervais. Did not disappoint.

Filth Index: 3

LOL rating: 4

Political content: 0

Overall entertainment value: 5

Best gag: the 20-year-olds in the audience never having had to cope with the hazards of VCR porn (e.g. the tape not ejecting quickly enough when your parents get home early!)

Andy Hamilton (15/11/11)

Very familiar to anyone who listens to Radio 4 comedy; also writes the BBC sitcom Outnumbered. A lot of the gags are related to family experiences with his kids.

Filth Index: 0

LOL rating: 3

Political content: 0

Overall entertainment value: 3

Best gag: His story about his 4-year-old lad throwing a mega-tantrum in a museum gift shop. Andy holds fast and says he will leave the youngster if he doesn’t stop yelling/thrashing about and get up and follow. So he takes his (calm) 6-year-old son by the hand and starts walking towards the exit. Gives 2 further warnings, which just increase the tantrum. Reaches the door and gives a final warning (noticing smugly that the boy is starting to get up) before stepping outside only for the six-year-old to burst into tears - “But I liked him!”.

Mike Harding (18/11/11)

Folk singer and raconteur who has been doing this since the 70s. Performs a mixture of gags, songs, and poems – generally linked to his life in Manchester and , sometimes serious but mostly fun with audience joining in on some numbers. Some age-related stuff (like the reverse advent calendars they send out to over-60s).

Filth Index: 1

LOL rating: 4

Political content: 2 (The four biggest lies in history: “The cheque’s in the post”, “This won’t hurt”, “I’ll only put it in a little way”, and “The NHS is safe with us”)

Overall entertainment value: 5

Best gag: I’m saving that, in case I get a chance to tell it!

Bill Bailey (24/11/11)

Musician and comic genius. His whole show was funny. Amongst the music, banter and general looning about were hilarious put-downs of Cameron and his LibDem minions, sideswipes at Rhiannon, Peter Andre, West Life, people who wear "Bench" on their clothing (so they can remember where they can sit down) and the Twilight films, and respect for particle physicists. But a lot of the humour derives from his West Country origins, his experiences, some audience interaction, and his use of a multitude of musical instruments. The theme of the show was ‘Doubt’ but this was only used to present a series of classical paintings of Doubting Thomas which he lampooned in various ways.

Filth Index: 1

LOL rating: 5

Political content: 2

Overall entertainment value: 5

Best gag: too many to remember.

TV celebrity crushes

2011-11-19T11:42:00.001Z

The recent BBC interview of Diana Rigg by Mark Lawson broughtback a few memories. I didn’t know she was an established stage actress beforelanding the co-starring part in ABC Television’s The Avengers alongside PatrickMacnee’s Steed (1964-7), and the acting establishment told her she was making amistake doing television.

Diana Rigg – or more accurately her character Emma Peel - wasmy first love. (Come on, we’re not counting Robert Fuller in Laramie – I wasonly 9 for goodness sake, and hated girls then! And he was really cool!) Sharp,sassy, sexy, Emma Peel could give as good as she got both in a fight and in theverbal banter with Steed. To my 15-year-old eyes she was a goddess.

She confessed to Lawson that she had no way to cope with thefan mail she got. Her mother answered most of it, merrily providing fakedautographs. (Not to me, though. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked for a life-sizephoto...)

When she went back to theatre I was heart-broken! After theAvengers there wasn’t really another awesome TV heroine until the late nineties.Plenty of very gorgeous actresses - i.e. Sally Thomsett in Man About the House,Shelly Long in Cheers, Leslie Ash in Men Behaving Badly, Jennifer Aniston inFriends, to name but a few, with comedic personas who might inspire a quantumof lust but not devotion. Lindsay Wagner (The Bionic Woman) was OK but andLynda Carter (Wonder Woman) was frankly a bit naff, and neither exactly inspiredundying love.

No - it wasn’t until 1997 that the stars were aligned togive that rare combination of a strong but vulnerable lead character, a beautifulactress, a unique story landscape created by an inspired writer (Joss Wheadon),and excellent scriptwriters - not to mention a superb supporting cast.

I am, of course, referring to Buffy the Vampire Slayer andin particular Sarah Michelle Geller as the eponymous Buffy – blond, funny, supremelynubile - who isn’t so good in class but can kick ass with the best. Wouldn’tany guy leap to defend her from the fires of hell, or at least the mostfearsome uber-vampire or chaos demon? Just in the hope of a coffee date or awater-cooler chat?

I could write at length about Buffy (the show), and probablywill, but sadly the show ended, after 7 glorious seasons, in 2003. Since thenthere have been some notable TV heroines – Hayden Panettiere in Heroes, BillyPiper in Dr Who - and real life ones (the utterly wonderful Helen Skelton kayaking the Amazon!!!) ...but who would have thought that a ginger would be my next small-screengoddess?

That’s enough for now. She’s just appeared briefly on the BBC Childrenin Need telethon and I think I need a cold shower.

Glorious mud

2011-11-08T15:16:00.000Z

First lesson of buying a walks book and following one of them – don’t try to do it backwards. Bear with, and you will find out why.

On the first outing of our New Forest holiday last month I had selected a wood I wanted to visit (Whitley Wood) and roughly worked out a walking route of a couple of miles or so. We got off to a bad start as the car park was shut (‘because of the dogging’ quipped B). But we managed to pull of the road and the six of us set off.

There are many footpaths through the forest and not all are marked on the Ordnance Survey map, so following the planned route naturally involved a fair amount of map reading and compass usage. For some reason the rest of the party got concerned every time I looked at the map. This in spite of my reassuring them that my map-reading skills were second to none, having been honed to perfection during years of tedious Friday afternoon cadet training at school 45 years ago.

Anxiety levels increased each time we stopped until there was a majority feeling that we were lost, stuck in the wood for the night, and likely to be attacked by warlocks and wargs – and should we stick together or split up in the hope that someone will find a town and come back with a search party looking for survivors?

In the event we completed the walk (which may have been slightly longer than planned) at least 15 minutes before dusk without even losing anybody. But they all refused to do any further walks unless there were written instructions.

Fast forward to our last day. We’d had some heavy rain during the week, so we expected the ground to be wet this time. I’d found a 4-mile walk around Gritnam Wood but B and V didn’t want to walk so far. The compromise was to park at Bank and do the walk backwards – then the youngsters could do a bit and then return to the pub for lunch while C and I completed the circuit.

Gritnam Wood was truly spectacular, with fallow deer aplenty, but soon C and I were stepping out towards the A35 and Allum House. The folly of following instructions backwards quickly became clear. Where you “leave wide path when you see the buildings, then pass to the right of the hamlet ”, you are actually walking around the left hand side of the hamlet (with the buildings on your right) looking for a path which you want to join just as the buildings, at this point behind you, disappear from sight. It doesn’t matter how wide the path is that you are aiming for, the only way you are going to locate it is if some less deranged walker has the exact same walks book and has opted to do the exact same walk that morning and has, at that exact moment reached the point where it says “leave wide path...”. Hopeless.

Nevertheless by employing my map-reading skills once more (and much guesswork) we completed most of the loop and got back to the main road whence Bank is just a couple of hundred metres. There was a flat bit of scrub then a bit of a rise, and I was sure the pub (The Oak) is just over the rise.

However there was no sign of the gate through which we would have accessed the road had we been doing the walk in the right direction. We traversed a fence for perhaps 300m before realising that while there may once have been a gate for the footpath - which is clearly marked on the map - this was no longer the case. So it was either a 500m march back along the road and then right towards the Oak via the road, which is going to take 20 minutes ...or jumping the fence and simply heading south east over the bank.

“Jumping” may be a slightly optimistic assessment of our tentative transit over the fence, but we made it to the other side and set off. The ground was mostly grassy with a few bushes. I could see a large wooden notice, about waist-high, but the writing was on the other side. Odd. And a little further we came across another one to our left which read “No access. Dangerous bog”. Mmmm. Well that’s OK – we weren't going that way. The grass did start to get a bit sticky underfoot, though.

Some 20m from the bank we reached a spot where there were definite muddy hollows with raised humps in between. Normally you can stand on the humps and get across places like this fine, but just two paces in I was sinking ankle-deep in mud each step and beginning to wish I’d worn the brown trousers and not the beige ones. I manage to keep going, thanks to the boots but then there’s a cry of “Mike!” from behind.

(It may be worth mentioning that C was wearing trainers, not boots. Posh water-proof ones, but that doesn't help if they become indundated.)

Next there’s an “I’m stuck” and I turn to see C apparently knee-deep in the bog and sinking. Something – perhaps my rigorous military training, perhaps the vision of her disappearing altogether leaving just a pair of glasses resting on the mud – impels me to act decisively. I grab her arm and give an almighty pull.

Nothing happens right away. It’s like pulling a car with its handbrake on. But that considerable force has to dissipate somewhere. With my own feet stuck I cannot compensate and, with all the grace of a beached elephant seal, I let go and fall backwards into the mud. At the same time C, equally unable to move her feet, falls forward.

Fortunately it isn’t that deep. And mercifully she sees the funny side (unlike the time in the Lake District when I pulled her into a stream instead of over it). With more subtle application of leverage rather than force I help her across. But in this state we are unlikely to be welcome in the most desperate of failing pubs, much less the excellent Oak, so we clean up as best we can and wait by the car for B and V to finish their lunch

It was scant compensation to learn that, on their truncated walk B had actually left a trainer in the mud and V's foot had all-but come out of her wellie.

She's back! ...and I love the BBC

2011-10-30T21:08:00.001Z

Alice, of course. This time sporting shorts and pounding a running maching to demonstrate the principle purpose of the gluteus maximus. What a delight!

Times have been lean over the past 2 years unless you watch re-runs of The Coast. Though her one-off exploration of 'wild swimming' was tasty, especially the skinny dip in a remote mountain pool. ("The feeling of freedom is intoxicating" - Go Alice!!!)

The subject matter is, it goes without saying, the main reason to watch "Origins of Us", BBC2's look at how we evolved from arboreal primates to sedentary app users. I would never have bothered finding out about the anatomical changes involved in these evolutionary steps but this series is utterly fascinating.

Full marks, too, to the BBC for "Me, my sex and I" the recent documentary about DSDs (disorders of sexual development) - which are, according to the programme, as common as ginger hair. DSDs may arise from unusual hormone levels in the womb or insensitivity to specific hormones so that gender is not simply a matter of XX and XY chromosomes; it can sometimes be just wrong to label a baby 'male' or 'female'. And sometimes there is no ambiguity at birth and the disorder only manifests at puberty. Better awareness and understanding of DSDs is needed to prevent the prejudice and pain felt by individuals and families affected.

Finally the photography in the opening episode of The Frozen Planet was amazing. The high-definition shot of an ocean wave and a penguin gracefully surfing across the screen was pure magic!

The TomTom

2011-10-11T10:50:00.001+01:00

C and I have a chequered relationship with satnavs. We used one to get from New York to Albany in 2009 and it was brill, but we never felt we needed one at home. Then, whilst haggling a price for my new Astra two years ago the dealer offered to 'throw one in'.

As satnavs go the MyGuide 3100 was pretty primitive and undoubtedly an obsolete model already, but we thought it would be interesting to try out on a trip to Bath.

Unfortunately our part of Nottingham has no GPS signal. Perhaps useful if the CIA are tryng to find you, but not helpful when you are trying to get a new gadget to work. Particularly unhelpful when you are doing the driving and your passenger (C) appears to be tapping menus randomly and ineffectively.

(You know how it is when you're looking at a perfectly intuitive web page but someone else has the mouse and insists in examining the page in detail instead of clicking straight on the option you both want and which is jumping up and down to be clicked? Well it's ten times worse when you can't even see the menu.)

Eventually, half a mile from home, the wretched thing tells me to turn around. Several times. Though we both know you don't go back through the centre of Nottingham (north) to get to Bath (south).

After some marital discourse it turns out that C has entered our home address "to tell it where we are" (!). So the maligned contraption has been trying to take us home. I should point out that C is normally savvy with technology, but I don't think she quite gets satnavs.

Teething troubles over, "Flossy" gove us several months of useful service until earlier this year when I turned it on and the poor girl had an attack of amnesia and forgotten it was a satnav. No matter what I tied, the option for planning a journey will not appear on the menu. Flossy was officially retired.

But I was already hooked. Jump forward to September 2011 and I decide, following some birthday money, that I'll splash out on a new model - the TomTom Start 2o. This is obviously superior to the MyGuide 3100. For a start it comes alive when I switch it on! It doesn't need to be charged up for 14 hours before use! Of course there is no GPS signal so it's first outing is a walk into town in my pocket to check it works. I get to Trent Bridge, perhaps half a mile, and it springs into life. So far, so good.

My purchase is just in time for an important trip to Birmingham (see previous blog), so when I get home I make a point of finding a car park close to the Symphony Hall and saving this destination. I also set up a 'Home' destination too, for our journey home after the concert. Dead easy.

C gets home from work and off we go. Sure enough, the GPS signal comes through at the usual place. All C has to do is tell the TomTom where to go by selecting the Birmingham car park from the list of 2 destinations in the memory.

I sense she's struggling and - with a horrible sense of deja vu - I hear a "turn around when you can"!

"All you have to do is pick the Birmingham destination!!!".

"I can't! It doesn't work!"

There is simply nowhere to pull over and do it myself so I decide to carry on regardless: "Just switch it off!" Maybe we can stop nearer Birmingham where we really need it.

After more tapping C eventually states "I've got it going to Birmingham".

As you expect at 4 pm on a weekday, the journey is hell but at least I know we'll be going the right way. We hit central Birmingham at 5:15. Traffic chaos. Even when you know which lane you want it is near impossible to get to it. But the TomTom delivers us to a car park entrance. I drive to the barrier, only to hear "Take next right"!

What is more, the car park is not the one I'd carefully entered into the memory. Rather than work out how to activate my carefully programmed destination, C has created a new destination "Birmingham" so instead of taking us to my chosen car park we are probably at the central point of the conurbation!

No matter, says C brightly. We can walk from here.

At this point I've parked up and at last have access to the TomTom. I select my original destination (no problem!) and find that it's 2 miles away! Not too far to walk now, but who wants to do that journey backwards in a strange city late at night? It costs £2 for us to get out of this car park and another 25 minutes to get to the correct one, by which time I am so stressed I want to go home. On the train.

The concert was good, though, thank goodness.

PS Anyone want a non-functional MyGuide 3100? Free to a good home!

Crosby & Nash, Birmingham, 6 October 2011

2011-10-10T12:37:00.000+01:00

Yes, I’m convinced! You can have a perfectly wonderfulmusical evening in a seated position without it being exciting and without verymuch in the way of improvised jamming.

Without being a true fan (I only have a compilation CD) Ihave great respect for Messers Nash and Crosby (both for their song writing andpolitics), so when their rare 2011 UKtour was announced I was probably one of the first to buy tickets for the Birmingham concert.What’s more C actually agreed to come (which she wouldn’t if there had been anyrisk of standing/dancing, excitement, or jamming!)

Not that I went for the higher priced tickets. The SymphonyHall in Birmingham is a massive space and the £55 seats were 4 floors up; Idon’t know what the nearer seats cost but the price surely accounts for thefact that only 1400 of the 2260 seats were sold.

Supported by excellent musicians on guitar, drums, base andkeyboards both Crosby and Nash showed they still have the voices to do justiceto their songs. We had a mixture of new and old, the pair more or less takingturns to do their own songs, with a few CS&N tunes thrown in. Some very old – they startedthe first set explosively with Eight Miles High, guitarist Dean Parks amplyfilling McGuinn’s shoes (as he did Stills’s on subsequent numbers) and thesecond set with a big surprise – the Hollies’ Bus Stop!

Each song was performed near perfectly, drummer Steve DiStanislao andkeyboard player James Raymond helping out on harmonies. No anecdotes, butplenty of good-natured banter between the songs. The only extended numbers wereDéjà Vu, with each band member given a chance to show off (except, mercifully,the drummer), and the closing tune, Wooden Ships. (Nice but I’d rather hearKantner’s version any day – especially with Slick or Mangano in the vocal mix.)

My favourites are the songs with some real rock venom: Long Time Gone,Almost Cut My Hair. Graham Nash is just too nice sometimes: compare his “InYour Name” – a sweet little ditty which is actually a heartfelt complaint aboutreligious bigotry and violence – with Zappa’s fiery “Dumb All Over” withexactly the same theme but using a sledge hammer rather than a prayer.

The band came back with just one more number, one of thosefew songs that makes me feel like I’m peeling onions, “Teach Your Children”, aperfect end to a near perfect evening.

…but if I ever volunteer to drive a car into Birmingham city again,please shoot me.

Set List

First set:

Eight Miles High

I Used to be a King

Long Time Gone

MarrakeshExpress

Just a Song Before I go

Old Soldier

Lay me down

Slice of time

Don’t Dig Here

Critical Mass – Wind on the Water

Déjà vu

Second Set:

Bus Stop

Our House

Guinnevere

In Your Name

What are their Names (a capella)

They Want it All

Taken at all

Orleans

Cathedral

Military Madness

Almost Cut My Hair

Wooden Ships

Encore: Teach Your Children

The Inbetweeners Movie and Mr Chris Tookey

2011-09-21T17:17:00.000+01:00

Let’s be clear: I do read the review section in C’s DailyMail on a Friday. But for the very good reason that if the Daily Mail sayssomething is abhorrent the chances are it’s worth taking a look at.

What I don’t expect is to go and see a reasonably funny filmon Friday evening and that night read that I am part of what the reviewer ChrisTookey calls “imbecilic youth”! The “youth” part I get, but to be called‘imbecilic’ I take personally – and am less than enamoured by the assertionthat I am part of a “subnormal target audience”.

I don’t normally take insults in newspapers seriously but Iwas livid! So angry I couldn’t get to sleep from thinking nasty thoughts about MrTookey. And then annoyed about how I’d let myself get wound up by such a prudishmuppet.

I won’t pretend that The Inbetweeners Movie is anything likethe best film I’ve seen this year. It’s what you expect: loads of grossness,exaggerated teen lust, cringey embarrassment, and flimsy plotline complete witha cardboard cutout villain and heroine. It seems he mistook the audience’sgroans of faux disgust - followed by laughter - at the particularly gross bits asevidence that this was the only humour it appreciated.

Unsurprisingly he missed the point that the humour is notjust in the gross bits but in the predictable reactions of the characters tosituations. And in the inexorable build-ups to the inevitable disasters. The highlights, for me, were thelads excruciatingly dancing up to the girls in the club, Si and Jay’s “fight”,and the sublime moment when Si takes the ticket for the All Day Cruise Party.

For all Jay’s teen male bravado all he really wants is agirlfriend. Clueless Si is utterly besotted – by the wrong girl. Will isdumbstruck by the sight of an actual real breast. And Neil is simply happy toplease whoever he’s with. They’ve all made it through sixth form. Scarcelytypical representatives of the “yob culture” that Tookey fears so much.

Never mind. The resourceful Tookey also manages to link thecharacter of Will with a Daily Mail bogey man (Ken Livingstone). He probablygets a bonus for getting the phrase “yob culture” and a term from the DailyMail Lexicon of Left-wing Terms and Phrases into the same review.

Next morning I am not so angry at being insulted, but nowfeel offended by Tookey’s language. What, exactly, does he mean by “Delivers tosubnormal target audience”? By “subnormal” is he suggesting people withlearning difficulties? If so he deserves to be treated with the distain Ireserve for those who used to refer to wheelchair users as ‘spazzies’. If not,then what does he mean?

By all means slag off the films that don’t fit the narrowcriteria of what is acceptable according to your employer, Mr Tookey. That’swhat we expect. But please refrain from expressing your (or your employer’s)opinions about those whose tastes are a little broader. You twat.

Puppetry of the Penis

2011-09-11T16:10:00.001+01:00

I’m baffled! This show is currently touring the UK and I havetried repeatedly to persuade friends and (appropriate) relatives to go and seeit with me but have failed completely.

I’m also frustrated! No matter how hard I have tried todescribe how good this show is to people I am unable to either explain howfunny it is or to even raise a smidgeon of curiosity about it. I’m forced toconclude that I’m simply not articulate enough. (Or is everyone I know is soprudish they can’t cope with thinking about anything anatomical?) When I bring it into conversation people start to look at melike I’m a deviant.

I saw this show some 9 or 10 years ago it was simply oneof the joyously funny experiences I’ve ever had.

I rarely get as far as explaining what the show – orpossibly performance art would be a better description – consists of. Wellfirstly it isn’t sexual. And it isn’t really puppetry.

It consists of 2 Australians, naked apart from capes, and acamera operator. The former create sculptures or instillations (“thehamburger”, “the Loch Ness Monster” etc) using only their wedding tackle. Theywork away, backs to the audience, and then turn to reveal each creation - whichis shown in its full glory on the big screen.

Some of the pieces are amazing. One wonders if they adhereto an exercise programme to develop such elastic scrota or whether this is a geneticasset. (Imagine how the CV would read…)

The puppeteers are reasonably well endowed but there isn’tany arousal – as they say in the intro, the potter cannot work with clay thathas been fired. (Though likewise he cannot work with clay that is too cold, soa certain amount of pummelling - away from the audience! - is necessary fromtime to time.)

You’re right – this is quite the silliest thing since theMonty Python fish-slapping dance. But half of the humour is in the commentaryand build-up by brash confident Aussie voice. In fact I suspect that only Aussiescould get away with a show like this.

I saw the show at Nottingham Theatre Royal with anattractive young colleague who was curious and broad-minded enough to want togo. (Wouldn’t want to go with a male friend – that might seem weird.) I wasactually her line manager, which might have been dodgy had her boyfriend notagreed to come as well. I laughed until my sides hurt.

Oddly C was not impressed with my attempt at The Hamburgerwhen I got home, and is adamant that she will never go and see them, especiallynow the show is in 3D.

Being 60

2011-09-01T21:00:00.000+01:00

Turning 60 in the UK entitles you to a very special mail delivery. It's like the telegram from the Queen when you reach 100, but it comes a couple of weeks after your birthday has happened.

Yes - it's your NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme test kit! Known more simply as your 'poo test'.

As it happens, I am no stranger to this delightful experience. AstraZeneca used to pay for a BUPA Health Check every 2 years and checking for occult blood with a poo test was standard for over-50s. Though, given the mechanics of the test, I would hesitate to call myself a dab hand. Suffice to say that my test kit has been safely dispatched with its 3 days of samples without mishap.

Getting old physically is pretty crap, by and large. I've been very fortunate not to have developed any particular nasties to date (no cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis, lung diseases, mental health issues, cancer etc). My IBS went away when I stopped having line management responsibilities and the annoying tiredness tick below my left eye vanished the day I retired. My prostate, the last time it was checked, was the size of a walnut (thought you'd want to know that!) - which is apparently good. But even so things ain't quite what they used to be.

A physio I had treatment from in 2008 for a knee problem said I needed instep supports, so I have these insoles I use in any remotely flat shoes and rarely walk around bare-footed. (Birkenstocks are OK, and some trainers.) The knee problem cleared up but the knee does complain sometimes after a long day on my feet.

If I've been in a car for more than 30 minutes I get really stiff and walk like I'm 30 years older for the first few minutes after getting out.

My dentist, the very excellent John Hammond, a veteran of many campaigns in the hellmouth over some 34 years, has been brilliant at keeping things reasonably stable - aided by copious amounts of dental cement, crowns etc and backed up by mountains of toothpaste and dental floss, and crate-fulls of toothbrushes (lifespan of about 6 weeks).

Keeping a 60-year-old body asleep at night is a particular problem. Getting to sleep is fine, but I've started waking up in the night with bits of sandpaper inside my eyelids, which I assume means they are dry through dehydration, so have taken to keeping some water by the bed.(Weird - my eyes never get dry during the day, however thirsty I am.) Of course if I have anything to drink after about 8 pm then I'm up in the night for another reason.

At one of the BUPA health checks I was anaemic and was told not to be a blood donor. Figured it was better to add an iron supplement to my veggie diet, so that's a bit of maintenance every other day.

Of most concern are my eyes. My optician (Patti Cranton) detected, on a photograph taken 4 years ago, some cloudy patches which she said were the beginnings of age-related macular degeneration. Dad and his brother and sister all developed this condition. Lutein and zeaxanthin in broccoli and spinach are supposed to protect the eyes against this, so for 3 years I was eating spinach - cooked with a little butter, pepper and nutmeg (nice) - nearly every day.

library image

At the last check-up things hadn't changed much - and I don't have any symptoms - but Mrs Cranton recommended MacuShield daily supplements. They cost over £30 for 90 days (and contain gelatin), but what the heck - if there's a chance they will help me retain my eyesight for a few extra years that's a good gamble, and simpler than having to have spinach in the fridge all the time.

On the positive side my GP assures me that my "10 year risk of developing heart disease or a stroke is less than 20%".

So I guess it's a case of keeping up the exercise, keeping the beer, cake and chocolate intake low, and watching the "5-a-day". Then there's the other factor that no government has seen fit to promote. (See British Medical Journal 1997, 315:1641-44 and 2010, 340: c810. Why haven't we had a TV campaign promoting "once a day" - or even "twice a week"?!!!)

Postscript: this is what my sons gave me for my birthday! Wonderful!

Manuel Antonio - Esquinas - Savegre

2011-08-23T11:06:00.001+01:00

From Monteverde we drop down to the western coast to visit the Manuel Antonio National Park – not large but rather special with its beaches (more pictures here). Instead of herring gulls after your picnic it’s white-faced capuchin monkeys, iguanas, and raccoons.

We broke the journey with an excellent boat trip down the Tarcoles river (32 species of bird in a 2-hour trip). Billed as a ‘Jungle Crocodile Safari’ this featured our captain (‘Douglas’) getting out of the boat beside a sleeping 4-metre crocodile and dragging it around by its tail. This was scary until you realise it has either been drugged or fed already with half a cow. The creature barely blinked.

Nice hotel (Playa Espadilla) with bonus entertainment by a troupe of white-faced capuchins swinging through the trees one afternoon. Here we had rain for the first time, during the night ...I was beginning to doubt Costa Rica had proper rain.

The forest had a different character here – no moss on the trees and very dry in spite of being beside the sea. Loads of reptiles, saw 2- and 3-toed sloth and agouti. Great sandy beaches with good swimming – exhilarating in the strong waves. (At one point I had to hold my breath and go with the wave as I struggled to get my shorts up from around my ankles!)

Next stop Esquinas Rainforest Lodge near Gamba and on the edge of the Piedras Blancas National Park. Although not much higher than sea level this was seriously remote and seriously damp. When it rained it would soak you in a minute in the open. But under the forest canopy you would hear the rain start but then not feel a drop for perhaps 10 minutes.

The humidity, though, was relentless. Nothing that got wet – intentionally or otherwise – would dry. Clothes rinsed out the first day were the same dampness 2 days later.

The lodge was run by local people and had a sizeable caiman in the pond and bats roosting in the bar. In the grounds were colonies of leaf-cutter ants and several species of frog. There were many optional activities and I could imagine staying 5 nights rather than the 2 we had. C went down to Golfito on a dolphin-watching trip but I opted for a forest walk (lizards, beetles, millipedes ...and lots of trees). One of the highlights was a bull-horn or ant acacia, which has a symbiotic relationship with an ant species. In return for nutritious secretions the ants defend the tree against intrusion (vegetable or animal)- but there’s a wren which gets away with nesting in the tree by mimicking the smell of the ants.

The night-time air was full of froggy squeeks, croaks and chirps. We did a guided night walk into the forest and saw many frogs as well as the poisonous fer-de-lance snake. At one point we put out our torches and just listened to the sounds of the forest, including the loud crashing of what sounded like a jaguar which was probably just a mouse.

I was sad to leave but excited to be climbing up to Savegre Mountain Lodge near San Gerardo de Dota beside the Savegre river. This is cloud forest; the moisture is from the clouds, not just from rain, and the dominant trees are oaks – very different from Monteverde. And it was cold! Jumpers and caggies for the first time!

We were fortunate to get a free 4-wheel-drive ride up the mountain behind the lodge. The walk down was fabulous, the trees supporting a sub-forest of epiphytes – bromeliads, ferns and orchids, vines and other lianas dangling everywhere, and a dense undergrowth. C told me off for always being last (looking for the best photo shots) but actually Sylvia was nearly always behind me. Once again there wasn’t long enough to really explore everywhere. Quetzal hunting was a significant activity.

The last night at Savegre the party stacks up the happy hour cocktails and chills. It has been a great holiday: fantastic guide, great driver, and we couldn’t have asked for a more interesting and friendly group of travellers.

After exposure to all these ecosystems it was something of an anticlimax to tour a coffee-processing plant (out of season) and to have the best part of a day in the (largely impoverished) capital city of San Jose.

More about the trip:

Best pictures from the trip are here on Flickr

Previously on myblog:

Jeff Munoz Garcia - guide

Mario Jimenez Ortiz - our driver

Marital Converstations (26)

2011-08-09T12:17:00.000+01:00

(The morning of my birthday. C has just handed me a book-shaped present to unwrap)

C: It's something that will make our lives much happier in the future.

M: The Kama Sutra?

(No - it's Nigella's "How to be a domestic goddess" UK EDITION!!! For full explanation see An Apology to Nigella)

Boat Club, Nottingham, 23 July 2011

2011-08-07T14:09:00.004+01:00

Some snapshots from the party to mark my 60th birthday:

Greeting so many friends and family and not spending enough time with any of them (did make the most of the band (The Barn Burners) though! They were excellent – the second set was one long loud rocky dance fest)

Dancing with C (and loads of other people for that matter)

My brother Mark commenting that it must have cost a lot to “hire all these ‘friends’ for the evening”

Tony asking C (who had a new frock for the party) whose curtains she was wearing

Somebody saying they’d been expecting a Grateful Dead cover band (I confess I considered this but decided the party was for my friends, not for me only!)

C’s teaching colleagues from the mid-70s reminiscing how hot she was in her little PE teacher skirt (the dirty lechers – reminded me of the time we went to play badminton with some friends and whilst waiting for C to change I was eyeing up the legs of this nubile walking towards us, only to realise when she got nearer that it was C! - I started wearing my glasses more after that.)

Indulging in some appalling ‘dad dancing’ with my 2 sons’ partners and getting the comment “they’re too young for you”. (From my old friend, Kevin. Only jealous.)

Being too busy to enjoy the superb buffet (Delilah’s Deli) including the desserts I’d hand-picked personally!

Kevin dancing with my mum (aged 87)

After seeing photos of the younger me, Shelagh saying I looked exactly like Shaggy from Scooby Doo!

A few embarrassing interludes where Martin (my guitarist friend in the band) told some embarrassing anecdote supplied by C

My wonderful sons – and their partners – taking charge and helping when necessary on the party day and at the barbeque the next day

The wholly unexpected 4 minutes 16 seconds when my whole life flashed before me while the band played Oasis’s ‘Half the World Away’.

C had contrived with Martin to put together a sequence of 121 photos she had selected – me from cradle to 60.

There, in black & white of course, were my new parents, babe in arms. There my mum, my gran - and her mum. There me and my baby brother; us two with another baby brother.

There I’m a teenager with my brothers by the Christmas tree. Me with C displaying somewhat longer hair. (How on earth did I get off with someone so attractive? And nice, too!) With friends, with our baby sons, with the boys on family holidays, with mum & dad, with mum after dad died, with grown-up sons and partners.

The tears rolled down my face. (And again later when we played the DVD in bed.) Why?

Because, faced with those images there’s no escaping what a fortunate, happy life I’ve had surrounded by wonderful supportive people. Yes, a biased resume like this misses out all the bad stuff, but I can’t get away from the feeling of being blessed in some way – not by a deity but by the friends and family I’ve had the privilege of knowing. It’s only later that I articulate the common denominator in and behind all those photos – love.

Finally - to all those who come to my party, especially if you had to travel and especially if you didn’t particularly want to come ...thank you (and thanks for respecting the 'no presents' request). And to all those friends who couldn’t make it, or who I logistically couldn’t invite ...thank you too!

More party photos here - and here.

Aftermath

The Last Party for AZ Charnwood

2011-08-07T13:17:00.000+01:00

AstraZeneca’s site in Loughborough, my place of work for over 31 years, has been winding down since the closure announcement in March last year with the loss of 1200 jobs. The place is now something of a ghost town with a few staff finishing off and mostly working out their notice periods.

Billed as “The Last Party”, the sports & social club ran a final event last week and I got to go. There was a buffet, disco and entertainment in the form of a magician, a balloon guy, and a photographer doing portraits to be printed onto a mock-up of a “Hello” magazine front page. Many of my ex-colleagues either have jobs or are changing careers but there are a few who have not yet secured anything. All the best to them.
It was nice to see people again – but sad that this is probably the last time I’ll see many of them.

But the memory which will stick was a missed opportunity.

Occasionally, in the movie that is everybody’s life story, there are unsung heroes and heroines who, though they are not major characters, have a positive or negative impact - perhaps inadvertently and often unconsciously. Back in the mid 1990s my boss’s boss (A) was the head of IT, a star who, instead of being obstructive like several of his predecessors, was instrumental in helping us create the first site intranet and in opening up internet access to scientists and others across the site.

The walk over to the other building for meetings with A was especially rewarding because of his beautiful young secretary (E. C.) – dark-haired, smiley ...and fond of wearing very short skirts. How any of the guys in that office ever did any work is beyond me – it was one thing looking forward to a smile and a glimpse of those wonderful legs every now and again – but to be exposed to that sort of distraction EVERY DAY!!! Perhaps they were applying the First Law of the Workplace. (Which, incidentally, did not apply in my case because she worked in a separate building. So there.)

Fast forward to The Last Party, and E is there – now 40 and long-skirted but still looking great. There is perhaps a chink of a window after the photographer starts and before a queue forms when I could be wildly, uncharacteristically, brazen and cajole her to step up for a “Hello” photo with me. But I bottle out.

...and opt for this “thank you” to one of my heroines for brightening my day so many times (and, I suspect, the days of many other males in Astra Charnwood).

You couldn't make it up

2011-07-26T13:39:00.000+01:00

Harrods 'ladies' code' drives out sales assistant (Guardian, Friday 1 July 2011)

It was Jonathan Pimberton’s favourite part of the day. Morning Parade!

When he first got the job of Customer Perception Manager, standards had been slipping among Harrods’s sales force. The 10-page Dress Code (now 56 pages) was widely disregarded - even to the extent of brown socks being worn with black trousers! One of the girls even had a nose stud! He had quickly introduced pre-opening inspections where the floor managers would check the appearance of their staff before the store opened. Four years on he was personally responsible for these inspections, usurping the power of the floor managers, and staff were having to come in a full hour before starting the day’s work so that he and his dedicated lieutenants could enforce consistent standards.

The repeal of the 2010 Equalities Act three years before had allowed him to gradually get rid of the older and the less attractive staff members (not to mention those who fell pregnant) and was finally approaching his goal of having the workforce that would make Harrods proud. Male sales assistants were now confined to the electronics departments and the store was largely populated by young fair-skinned women in their twenties and thirties.

On most days his inspections simply involved checking hair, make-up, nails, jewellery etc. How he loved scrutinising each young face, its eyes averted from his gaze! How he loved getting his nose close to their necks to check they were wearing the correct fragrance for the month! Making sure they had the right shade of lip gloss... Then he would stand back to check the length of the skirt (one inch below the knee).

His latest innovation was a weekly ‘special parade’ where his team would focus on a particular aspect covered in the Dress Code but not subject to daily inspections. If you don’t check, then people will take advantage – and standards will slip, won’t they?

For example he had noticed last week that there were hairs visible on the shins of one of his darker-haired girls! He’d given her 30 minutes to deal with the problem, and now he insisted on leg inspections at least weekly. But not in the line-up, of course - that might be humiliating since a proper inspection required the removal of tights (otherwise how could he check the fair-haired girls properly?) Pimberton prided himself in his sensitivity: he allowed tights to be removed in the staff toilets prior to a private inspection in his office.

*****

Jen was finishing early today. In the staff toilet she took out a facial wipe from her bag and scraped away at the thick make-up on her face. It was a breezy September afternoon, the sun was shining, and she was looking forward to her afternoon off. Even better, it looked as though Hooters were going to offer her the waitressing job. Anything was better than this horrible place! Only last week Pim The Perv had made her run and buy a Gillette Venus Divine and do her legs in the toilets! AND she's lost the damn thing out of the window!

She was on her fourth wipe (“they ought to provide these, never mind the make-up!”) and beginning to look and feel her normal self when the door opened and a gust of wind swept the wipe out of the open window.

*****
Pimberton had enjoyed lunch and was about to start work on his idea for a revised Dress Code (covering the use of unseen piercings – he didn’t want any girls like THAT working for him. Or men for that matter). The phone call from the head teacher of his daughter’s school made him livid. The 13-year-old had refused to remove the mascara that was against school rules and was being sent home. The shame! Only last week he had searched her room and thrown away a bag-full of make-up! This time he would really teach her not to look such a slut; he began mentally listing his punishment options. With his wife away at a conference this meant he had to get a cab home and then drive to her school to pick her up. He grabbed his jacket and headed for the lift.

*****
In the early afternoon, when he’d had enough food, Koop liked to rest with his other pigeon friends on the windowsills of the tall buildings. But today, as he fluttered up to his usual spot, a sticky wodge of something wafted out of a nearby window and covered his head. He flapped and shook himself but could not dislodge it. It was snagged on the nick in his beak he’d sustained last week when he pecked at something unexpectedly sharp (a discarded razor) in a nearby alley. He couldn’t see where he was! He knew he was going to hit the wall and the next thing he knew the air was rushing past as he plummeted earthwards. Desperate not to hit the ground he flapped wildly, still unable to see anything.

*****

Dave had been up since 4 am and this was his last fare. He saw the be-suited man on the other side of the road step to the kerb and raise an arm. He signalled and braked.

The next few moments he was to tell and retell many times. The man looked up. A pigeon, apparently wearing a hood and obviously in distress – all squawks and wings - landed on the man’s face. He grabbed at it; the creature broke free, but the man stumbled forward into the bus lane

...just as a No 10 bus clattered past.

Aftermath of The Party

2011-07-25T14:07:00.000+01:00

Well now I know why C was suddenly so interested in what I’d been blogging. She had shamelessly plundered my scribbling for anecdotes, confessions – anything embarrassing really – to be made public at my birthday party. The cheek of it! To blatantly take what is effectively a private diary (unread except by the odd unsuspecting Googler who happens to type in “Amy Pond” and “sonic screwdriver” and set me up (AT MY OWN PARTY!!!) for ridicule and humiliation.

Oh well, at least I can be confident she won’t be reading it until I have another party - probably in another decade’s time.

Marital Conversations (25)

2011-07-22T14:49:00.000+01:00

(On our way to the shops, Saturday morning, after I had lunch with ex-colleagues the day before.)

M: Some of them are on Facebook, so we keep in touch. Apple keeps asking me to coffee mornings and things at her church.

C: And have you been to any?

M: No. The only church I would willingly enter is Charlotte.

C: ...

(This silence continues for several minutes, along with a rebuff to any proposed hand-holding or any other sign that I am actually there. Odd behaviour... Mmm... Perhaps it wasn't the cleverest of things to say to one's wife.)

M: It was a joke! I heard it on TV!

C: Well it wasn't funny.

The Legend of Thor

2011-07-22T14:45:00.001+01:00

...and, as told and re-told in the Chronicles of Marvel, Thor in his arrogance disobeyed his father and made war upon the Ice Giants.

When Odin learned of this insolence he took away his son's hammer Mjölnir, the mark of his nobility, and cast him down to the dimension of the mortals, there to live until he had learned the value of humility and the meaning of selflessness. Only by acquiring these qualities, said Odin, could a person, god or man, be truly great. And only in such a person would Mjölnir recognise its owner once more.

So it was, in the month of July 2011, that Odin, taking the form of a female mortal (C) did chastise an insignificant blogger grown cocky in his bad language and family disclosures. (Yes, she's read the damn blog!) For three weeks did this sad apology for a writer walk alone in the darkness until, humbled and chastened, he felt worthy to resume his endeavours.

Now where did I leave that hammer?

Cat in Mi Kitchen

2011-06-28T17:32:00.000+01:00

“I don’t know where Harry is!”. It was C’s turn to fetch breakfast today and to let them out of the kitchen, and she’s also first downstairs later, after we’ve got dressed. Whereas Billy has been up in the bedroom with us, Harry had not put in an appearance and is now ominously missing.

It’s Day 4 of our cat-sitting week. Ben and Vicky are away in Portugal, so we, the grandparents, are taking care of the little ones. They can’t go out, as they would quickly escape the garden and disappear.

The disruption to our lives has been incalculable.

I’m not allowed to put the dishwasher or the washing machine on overnight as ‘it will frighten the cats’. We have to make sure they are not around when we go in and out of the house, and have to make sure the doors are shut behind us. We have to lock them in the kitchen and disable the kitchen motion sensor before setting the intruder alarm. We have to cover the kitchen table with a cloth to prevent claw marks – the only way to prevent them jumping up onto this and onto the worktop would be to tie their back legs together. (C, ever the compassionate one, vetoed this proposal.) And they are oblivious to vases, candle-holders, cups – which either get carelessly knocked over or co-opted for entertainment and wilfully batted about.

The first morning there were paw prints all over the kitchen windowsill and it soon became apparent that the kitchen sink was the place to be, especially when wet.

And how do little bits of white cat litter cat get from the far end of the kitchen into the living room and up to the landing? I think they carefully pick pieces up so they can distribute them about the house just to annoy me. And both of them are aspiring carpenters who have come to the conclusion that the spindles going up the stairs are over-engineered and should be stripped back to something resembling roughly chopped kindling. The legs of the wicker chair in the living room now have a kind of shredded look, a bit like coconut husk.

And now one of them is missing. But where? - neither of us has gone outside yet today! I re-check the bedroom, the bathroom, behind the sofas in the living room. ...Under and inside the piano. I return to the kitchen to find C looking at the washing machine 10 minutes into its cycle... “ I hope he hasn’t sneaked into there”.

I can’t see anything resembling a black and white mammal swishing around in there, but it is an uncomfortable moment.

In desperation I open the door to our Dark Secret (i.e. the cellar) and turn on the light. There at the bottom of the stairs is a cat-shaped shadow. He must have sneaked past C when she went down for a new pack of cereal.

He’s been shut in the dark for 90 minutes. But, thankfully, has not disemboweled any frogs.

The boys are going home today and, I begrudgingly admit, will be missed. To their credit they don’t claw you, are fun to play with, and are very entertaining when they decide to have a mad ten minutes chasing and wrestling each other. But I won't miss the litter tray.

Marital Conversations (24)

2011-06-26T08:30:00.000+01:00

(Wimbledon 2011. We've just had another 'Oh shut up' following a particularly inane observation from Virginia Wade.)

M: Would you rather have a meal with Virginia Wade or Nigella Lawson?

C: Neither. I'd rather commit suicide. Well no. But you'd have to pay me a lot of money.

An apology to Nigella

2011-06-22T10:07:00.007+01:00

Nigella! Never has a TV personality generated so much hostility in the Rivett residence. Almost from her first appearance on the box, C has cultivated an animosity she generally reserves for a handful of footballers she judges to be “up their own a***s”.

Her response to Nigella’s mildly flirtatious finger-licking and hyperbole when describing her culinary creations is almost puritanical in its fervour. Of course I am impervious to the slow insertion of a strawberry or other dainty into those animated lips, the ample cleavage, the seductive voice, and the come-to-bed glances at the camera. And immune to any empathic stirrings when she gets into a ‘fever of excitement’ (she really said that!) over her latest salted peanuts and chocolate treat. Needless to say I am interested only in the baking.

We can all cope with the odd rant at the TV, but some 8 years ago it got personal.

I blame my former workmate Anna Battersby. If she had not brought in to the office a Nigella Lemon-Syrup Loaf Cake, which was utterly scrummy, then I would not have bought ‘How to be a domestic goddess’ from Amazon and we would not have had the ensuing years of unpleasantness.

We don’t use the book that often. But the events of last Saturday are fairly typical of what goes on. We were invited to B&V’s for a meal on Father’s Day and C volunteered to bring a dessert. My choice was for a New York cheesecake, and the only recipe C could find – an absolute last resort – was Nigella’s.

Now I long got used to the complaints about “Why two-thirds-of-a-cup-plus-one-tablespoon? Why can’t she give weights like everyone else?!” and “How do you measure ‘one-cup’ of butter?!”

But this time the recipe demands “1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of graham crackers”. C’s reaction is somewhat less than puritanical: “What the **** are graham crackers! If she means digestive biscuits why not say so?! It’s because she’s up her own ****ing a***!” “And what’s ‘heavy cream’? If she means ‘double cream why can't she say so?!”

Fortunately I find a definition via Google. In fact there is a very useful table giving US and UK equivalents for many food and baking terms. Digestive biscuits will do very nicely.

The cheesecake mix, when ready, is enough for the recommended 9-inch springform pan ...with enough left over for a second 7-inch cheesecake, so C has to prepare a second base, thereby getting annoyed for a second time.

On Saturday evening, while looking forward to getting stuck into the cheesecake the following day, the penny, after lying unregarded on the edge of the worktop for years, begins to drop. And yesterday while I’m in town I pop into Waterstones to check. Sure enough ...we have been struggling for many years with a US edition of the book!!! The UK one has no cup sizes, graham crackers or heavy cream!

So here is my public apology on behalf of my wife (who will probably kill me for this). Much of the verbal abuse to which you have been subjected in this house over the last few years, Nigella, was misdirected.

(Unfortunately if you continue to appear on TV there is not a lot I can do to stop the “she’s had work done”s)

The cheesecake was nice...

Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica

2011-06-16T21:24:00.002+01:00

The grove we walked around near Arenal was impressive, but so dry it was difficult to see it as rainforest. So it was the cloud forest at Monteverde which became the next high point.

It is Day 7 of our trip and the schedule is a walk in the morning followed by optional time in the Selvatura Park complex. The walk is in the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve, an area of forest that is actually leased and managed by the local school. The trails are well laid out and the vegetation lush green. But as we start the walk, Jeff says “this area has been growing since the 1989. It was clear felled before that and it will probably be another 60 years before it reaches maturity.” I’m absolutely gutted! To come all this way – and to the renowned Monteverde area to boot – and be walking not in mature climactic climax forest but in some puny adolescent version!

This feeling lasts about 10 minutes, by which time I am awestruck by pretty much everything – the bizarre flute-like call of the bell bird, the vines and other lianas dangling from high up in the canopy, the way each tree trunk, branch, root is being exploited by mosses, ferns, bromeliads, orchids, fungi to form an ecosystem in its own right ...the huge variety of plants. Everywhere you turn there’s a photograph to be taken. I’m torn between keeping up with the guide and learning about the forest and setting up the tripod to get some good pictures.

After this wonderful experience the coach takes us to the Selvatura Park for its tree-top walkway. The park straddles the Rio Negro and several hills and canyons allowing a trail which takes in 8 suspended bridges over the canyons (the longest is over 500 feet) up to 180 feet above the ground. Looking down and across the canopy you are, again, struck by the diversity of trees – so many different shapes, leaves, fruits, flowers.

The oddly named ‘Canopy Tour’ is actually a zip line adventure which adds little to the experience of being in a rainforest. In Selvatura the whole thing is a rush with little time to appreciate the views before plunging down the next zip line. (Exhilarating, though - I admit to the full-blooded Tarzan call on the second-to-last line...) It’s like taking the trouble to visit the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire and using up time in one of the amusement arcades in Matlock Bath.

Our hotel room is pretty basic but we are entertained by a highway of leaf-cutter ants who march around the building on a well-worn trail late into the night.

(More photos from our trip on Flickr here)
(Next installment here)

The Sir William, Grindleford, Derbyshire

2011-06-09T21:29:00.000+01:00

Just had two nights here; the weather forecast was good, and there was money in the bank, so off we went for some walking and chilling. The Sir William was nice; we ate there both evenings and the several pints of Ruddles I had were a treat. The goat's-cheese-and-sundried-tomato risotto was delicious, but the highlight was the marmalade at breakfast ("made by the Ladies of Hathersage" - i.e. Hathersage Women's Institute). Chunky, just the right sweetness, and loads of flavour. Yum!

This part of Derbyshire is fantastic - wooded valleys like Padley Gorge with its lush oakwoods, grassy fields separated by dry stone walls, hillsides with birch and beech woods, open heath on the tops. Some useful pubs for pitstops, too.

And you're never far from the River Derwent. (Average life expectancy for a damsel fly venturing over the river at the bridge between Calver and Curber = about 30 seconds. You can stand on the bridge, wait for a damsel or dragonfly to appear, and in no time a pied flycatcher will fly out of the trees on the bank and loop back to its perch with a meal in its beak. Double yum!!)

Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica, April 2011

2011-06-01T22:17:00.004+01:00

It isn’t just the heat that hits you in the face. It’s the crazy green exuberance of the vegetation. Massive palms jostle with a huge variety of broadleaf trees. There are small trees, big trees and massive trees. There’s stuff growing up, on, around, and down the trees, many of which are aflame with orange, red and yellow blossom or loaded with seeds or fruits. There’s even stuff growing on the stuff that’s growing on the trees ...and on things (e.g. telephone wires) where, in any other climate, nothing would attempt to grow. Even the fences you drive past are made with 50% posts and 50% living tree stems. You know, of course, that the tropical humidity and sunlight mean more life, but the actual experience of being there is something else.

We are in Tortuguera, Costa Rica, with an Exodus tour – 16 of us plus tour guide (the excellent Jeff Muñoz). The bus driver (ace driver + wildlife spotter Mario Jimenez Ortiz) left us at the jetty where you transfer to the boat which takes you through the canals on a 2-hour cruise to where the village and hotels are. This is where the (protected) green turtles come ashore out of the Atlantic to lay their eggs later in the year.

Why Costa Rica? Well the Eden Project is a good day out, but it doesn’t substitute for real rainforest. And having experienced the magnificent coastal redwood forests of northern California then rainforest was pretty high on my list. And Costa Rica has, since wide scale logging was halted in the 70s, embraced its rich biodiversity in a big way, creating many national parks and other conservation areas.

White-faced capuchin

After the colour and vivacity, the sounds of the rainforest are the next surprise. You notice it first at dawn (having crashed from jet lag early the night before). With mesh insect screens rather than glass in the windows of the Pachira Lodge it is as if nothing separates you from nature. Firstly there are the unfamiliar calls, trills, and whistles of the rainforest birds. Then the short howls and gruff barks of a howler monkey somewhere nearby. (There was a group on the roof of the lodge when we went over to the restaurant for breakfast.) You can’t help but want to get out into the new day.

A network of waterways splits up the forest; I imagine these are natural but no - in addition to the river there are canals created by loggers who worked by clear-felling channels which were then flooded to transport the timber. They do allow you to get very close to the forest and its inhabitants by boat. In two exciting trips from the lodge we saw 3 kinds of monkey (howler, white-faced capuchin and spider), lizards, many birds – egrets, herons etc, turtle and caiman.

We were privileged to watch a troupe of spider monkeys moving through the trees and then crossing the creek – using their weight to bring a branch down to meet another on the other side. A mother did this – and held on, to form a bridge allowing her baby to cross.

Black river turtle

And a green basilisk (also known as the Jesus Christ lizard) we see on a fallen branch actually does run across the water a short distance when startled. There’s a blue heron fishing with bait – it drops a spider into the water to tempt up a fish. ...An anhinga drying its wings, just like our (unrelated) cormorant. A black river turtle basking on a log in the water.

Back at the lodge someone has seen a sloth up in a tree the other side of the site. We duly go and strain our necks for ages until someone spots a vague bundle of fur 50 metres above us, mostly obscured by foliage.

Tomorrow it's on to the Arenal volcano, then Monteverde.

Spider monkey

Quetzal Quest

2011-05-28T13:37:00.002+01:00

Our last day in the cloud forest – specifically at Savegre Mountain Lodge in the Talamanca Mountains south east of San Jose. The plan is to meet at 5:45am to walk to the place where quetzal nest boxes have been put up, to see if there is any interest.

There is no doubt that the resplendent quetzal is a striking bird. With its green, blue and red feathers, and two long tail feathers (“remarkable bird; beautiful plumage”) the male is on the must-see list for visitors to Costa Rica. And our excellent guide, Jeff Muñoz García, bless him, is determined - to the point of a mild obsession - to give us the opportunity to see and photograph the bird.

Not that there are any true birding freaks in the party – but there are plenty of competitive camera nuts and we have been swept up in the quest. Only yesterday C and I missed the wretched bird because we got up 10 minutes too late, and I had already bought a postcard and snapped that to try and make Craig jealous. (Then he sodding well pre-empted this by showing me a first class shot of one he took earlier in the day.)

We have, in fact, seen quetzals already – a female in Monteverde last week and a male high up in a tree on a walk yesterday afternoon, but I haven’t got a photograph.

So I am outside the lodge reception at 5:40 waiting for Jeff and anyone else mad enough to be up. But, to my horror, there is another group assembling as well. We had already bumped into Birders – people on dedicated birding holidays armed with heavy-duty tripods and lenses the size of a tank turret – and had been distinctly underwhelmed by their empathy towards their fellow human beings. The British Birders had been bad enough, jostling for position in front of the humming-bird feeders, but this group was clearly American. Would they be different?

The allotted hour of 5:45 arrives and no one else is here, so I set off walking, but then see Sylvia and Brandon approaching and we decide we should wait for Jeff. At this point the group of 6 or 7 Americans, plus guide, sets off – clearly on their way to the nest boxes. I’d swear one of them has a lens with the aperture the size of a dinner plate. (I thought Jeff -see picture, right) had a big one, but this is ridiculous.)

This isn’t good. Any quetzal seeing this lot is going to think it’s the target of a not-very-subtle black ops team and disappear.

After another 5 minutes Jeff has still not appeared but Petros, another member of the party has. We set off after the Americans, who are no longer in view. The route to the nest boxes follows a road for perhaps a kilometre and then enters the forest for another kilometre.

I normally walk pretty quickly but it takes a determined effort to keep up with Sylvia – who is probably the most avid photographer I’ve ever met – is NOT going to be gazumped by any American Birders (ABs) and is treating this walk as a route march. About 5 minutes into the yomp we overtake a straggler – a lady AB who is too lame to keep up with the pack and has been left to her fate.

We tear past the rest of the group as they are about to enter the forest and somehow keep up the pace as far as the place where the nest boxes are – and blow me, there is a male quetzal looking into one of the boxes! There is even time to set up my lightweight tripod and grab a couple of shots. The bird then moves to a nearby branch and, again, I have time to set up and shoot. By now the ABs, and Jeff, have arrived, and are scurrying to get their equipment sorted out. The Quetzal flies.

So, tripods now armed and ready, the wait begins to see if the bird will return. But suddenly a female AB announces in a loud voice “A good guide goes at the pace of the slowest, you know”. Apparently some of the group got a shot but those at the back of the group didn’t! Oh dear! The first bit of rudeness/nastiness I've seen in 2 weeks of holiday! (Well second if you count the racoons.) And the straggler has not even arrived yet! The AB's guide is talking to Jeff in Spanish and wisely ignores the jibe, but one suspects it's going to be a difficult day for him.

Our group figures the bird is not coming back, so we set off back to the lodge, leaving the ABs to wait. Half way back I am casually chatting to Petras when we see Sylvia and Brandon have stopped and are waving for us to be quiet. There, in a tree not 100m from the road, is the quetzal! Again he waits long enough for photos.

With only a 150mm lens my pictures are not particularly impressive – Petras got a great one – but I’m happy enough never to need to chase quetzals ever again.

Costa Rica por favor

2011-05-14T16:50:00.003+01:00

Sunday 17 April

Bus and boat to Tortuguero on the Caribbean coast. Lunch at our Lodge, then trip over the water to Tortuguero village and turtle beach.

Managed to get DEET insect repellent in my eye and had to follow the guide with one eye shut for 30 minutes. One of the most painful things ever. (Reminded me of an incident in Roth’s “Portnoy’s Complaint” – you can guess the rest).

Wildlife: howler monkeys!

Monday 18 April

Breakfast with the group in lodge restaurant. Whilst masticating traditional rice-and-beans managed to bite the inside of my lower lip, big-time. Very difficult to maintain composure/conversation amid several strangers you are trying to get to know when suddenly in extreme pain from self-inflicted wound. Yes, it’s bleeding, but fortunately no flesh actually detached from mouth.

C found the fruit pastels she had in her case alive with little creatures. Serves her right for purchasing gelatin-polluted treats.

Wildlife: howler monkeys, white-faced capuchins and spider monkeys, lizards, turtle, caiman

Tuesday 19 April

Travel day: off to Arenal. Half-way back to where the bus will pick us up our boat suddenly dies. We are drifting, powerless, in caiman-infested waters! Fortunately a boat from another hotel passes by and kindly takes us and all our luggage on. We leave Freddy, our captain, to his fate.

Six hours later we are motoring along when the Mario, the bus driver, suddenly stops. He looks under the bus then drives along a bit but there is a terrible smell and it is clearly knackered! We are rescued by relief buses just over an hour later, but wonder what the next thing will be. Is this party jinxed?!

Bit lip again, same place. Now that area is swollen, of course, the odds of a re-bite are progressively increasing.

Wednesday 20 April

Bit lip during breakfast. Wound now feels like it is at least an inch wide. Walk to see Arenal volcano. Unfortunately this stopped erupting 8 months ago, so all the guide books are wrong. All you get now is the occasional boulder being dislodged and rolling down the mountain.

After dark we drove for a view of the volcano in the hope of seeing a glowing boulder crashing down. No luck. Much debate about whether we could find a virgin to sacrifice to make something happen.

Is the volcano the latest victim of our party's jinx? Would not be surprised if, following our group’s visit, Arenal has completely stopped all volcanic activity, reducing the whole region to a tourist backwater.

Thursday 21 April

Bit lip again, breakfast. Am beginning to think that the turkey vultures we see everywhere are tracking the smell of raw flesh and blood coming from my mouth. I NEVER do this at home; never more than once a year, anyway.

Got to Monteverde without mishap. Hotel has apparently won awards - but not any time recently: curtains don't fit windows, shower very slow to drain away (and is on a reverse slope anyway leaving 2 inches of water at one end) and place has not been painted in decades.

Bit lip at dinner.

Wildlife: missed armadillo which visited the hotel grounds, and which everyone else saw, at exact moment I was answering a call of nature of my own.

Friday 22 April

Wildlife: completed much-over-hyped canopy zip line tour to be told there had been kinkajous on branch of one of the anchor trees. And I'd been too busy trying to look cool to look for wildlife!

Sunday 24 April

Have not bitten lip for 2 days! Vultures gone!

Smugly told C off for staying in the sun (in hotel pool) after brief swim in the sea, Manuel Antonio beach. Fresh lemonade by the pool, entertainment by troup of capuchins performing acrobatics in the trees. This is the life!

Worst night ever – sunburned shoulders.

Wildlife: excited to see several racoons on beach until realised they were doffing up a much smaller one. Victim eventually limped away after a man drove the perps off. Bloody hoodies.

Tuesday 26 April

Walked the (4 km) ‘Waterfall Trail’ from Lodge. (Guide had said “Don’t do the trails alone”, but for goodness sake, I’m not likely to be coming back here ever again. C insisted on me being back “by 4pm”.) Somehow doubled back and didn’t realise until reached same crossroads. Ended up doing most of the 4 km twice and having about 5 minutes to do the last hot humid km! All clothes soaking wet. (Note to self: must return one day, to do walk in reverse in order to figure out how on earth I went wrong.)

Reopened wound in lip with misdirected, but horribly efficient, chomp. Slight bleeding. Much pain. Also briefly forgot where I was and farted loudly at the dinner table. Now no-one will want to sit with us at mealtimes.

Wildlife: missed dolphins, manta ray, turtle by not opting for boat trip. Missed coati and curassow, which wandered through the lodge grounds while I was out with camera.

Wednesday 27 April

Transfer to Savegre Valley in mountains. Bloody cold.

Bit lip breakfast and dinner. There is something quite perverse about the design of a jaw with the capability of inadvertently biting into its protective case of soft tender flesh. Do other species have this problem? Could it be evidence of intelligent design? (By some fiendish deity intent on causing mischief and misery?)

The last place we stayed was too humid for clothes to dry, this one is too wet and cold. I now have 4 categories of sock: damp (1 pair), damp/smelly (3 pairs), dry/smelly (4 pairs), clean. ‘Clean’ category populated by 1 wearable pair + one pair intended for arctic temperatures and therefore totally unsuitable.

Underwear categories similar but even more disgusting. Have draped damp clothes all over bedroom and bathroom in the hope of a change in the weather.

Wildlife: group walk to find ‘resplendent quetzal’ (the holy grail of Costa Rican birds. Also known as the "I-saw-you-coming" bird.) Somebody saw something that might have been one, high up in the trees.

Thursday 28 April

A bit warmer today.

Wildlife: Went out before breakfast to see quetzal at nesting site. Arrived to find rest of group on their way back – “it was there 10 minutes ago”.

Horrified, on our return, to find maids in room (clothes – including underwear - drying everywhere, stuff all over floor and beds etc) – at 6:45am!!!

Friday 29 April

Tour of coffee processing plant and return to San Jose ready for flights home tomorrow. Damp clothes have dried at last.

Sunday 1 May

Arrived home. Lip now healing.
Wildlife: C found Costa Rican earwig living in bag of laundry.

(OK, the truth is that this was an utterly fantastic holiday in a wonderful country. There is a whole other story to tell ...but this one was fun to write!)

Marital Conversations (23)

2011-05-13T18:48:00.009+01:00

M (After viewing BBC2's - ultimately uplifting but also sad - animated versions of real counselling sessions at Relate): Am I emotionally stunted?

C: I think 'warped' would be more accurate.

Phoenix Dance Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse, May 4 2011

2011-05-09T18:21:00.000+01:00

Four highly captivating dances, six talented and beautiful dancers (am totally in love with the three women, especially Talitha), accessible music: humour, grace, energy. What more can you ask?

Bet where, feckless Nottingham dance fans, the **** were you?! I'll be surprised if Phoenix bother coming back after that dismal turn out. Shame!

Yellowstone: must-dos, optionals, and don't bothers

2011-05-03T09:53:00.001+01:00

Based on a visit in August 2010.

Essentials

3 nights in the Upper Geyser Basin (Old Faithful area) are needed to do this region justice. You need to spend time on all the boardwalks, and to see at least one other geyser blow apart from Old Faithful (the Bee Hive is good!). Worth driving to Biscuit and Black Sands Basins from there, and they don't take long.

2 nights at Mammoth and 2 in the Canyon area would probably be enough, but fewer days in these places lessens your chance to see bison, bears, wolves... Don't expect luxury at Canyon Lodge - essentially a back-packers lodge.

Mammoth Hot Springs, Norris, Fountain Paint Pot Area, Midway Geyser Basin, Mud Volcano (no volcano any more, but worth it just to hear the Dragon's Mouth Spring, and Sulphur Caldron is just up the road). Each of these hot spots offers something different and jaw-dropping. Get the trail leaflets - they're good.

Canyon - South Rim had better views than North Rim; worth walking the trail.

A dip in a geothermally warmed river - either in Firehole Canyon or Boiling River (near Mammoth). If you get just where the streams join, your top half will be warm and your lower half cold!

Drive into Lamar Valley to see bison herds.

Optionals

Firehole Lake Drive optional, but you won't see a hot river steaming out of the mountains quite like this one anywhere else.

The Beaver Pond Trail at Mammoth was a decent half-day walk. OK for birds, but don't expect to see much in the way of mammals; the beavers are long gone.

West Thumb Geyser Basin - nice with the lake alongside, but not as spectacular as the other basins.

Don't bother

Getting up for the 7 am ranger talk in Hayden Valley hoping to see wolves. There was dense fog when we did this; could hardly see across the road never mind the valley.

Mystic Falls trail - OK walk but the falls are not that spectacular. Ditto Wraith and Undine Falls.

The petrified tree off the Mammoth-Tower/Roosevelt road.

Blacktail Plateau Drive - difficult drive and not much to see.

For more Yellowstone blogs see wildlife encounters and general info.

Marital Conversations (22)

2011-05-01T22:27:00.000+01:00

C (some time after we found the corpse of a Costa Rican ant in our hotel bed): I think that ant bit me last night

M: Did you feel a little prick?

C: Yes...

The Aussies - Vardimon - Rambert

2011-04-14T08:44:00.000+01:00

Three contemporary dance treats in a 5-week period! But what a mixed bag...

The Australian Dance Theatre are known for pushing the boundaries, performing complex single works. I've seen them do 'Age of Unbeauty', the most harrowing account of human cruelty this side of 'The Killing Fields' and 'Held' where the choreography is shaped to produce a sequence of seemingly impossible tableaux resulting from high-energy leaps and climaxes and captured by an on-stage photographer and instantly displayed on a big screen.

This time, in "Be Your Self" the theme is 'self', to a soundscape interspaced by blocks of spoken word describing physiological processes in huge detail. This was one of those dances you have to see again - not because of the wow factor, but because there was so much to take in and enjoy that you feel you've missed about half of it.

I enjoyed Jasmin Vardimin's 'Yesterday' enormously. Unfortunately I did not realise when I bought the tickets for the Derby performance of '7734' that, upside down and printed a certain way, the numbers read 'hell'. And yes, this piece, the main body of which is located in what looks like a concentration camp, deals with domination and power - actually rivaling 'Age of Unbeauty' in its unrelenting bleakness. Not fun at all, apart from the clever meltemi scene (you could swear there was a wind machine, but the illusion was produced by the performers) and the playful guard/manekin scene (representing manipulation of a far from playful sort). We had taken our son's partner to see this - I actually felt guilty imposing it on her!

Finally Rambert Dance Company; three dances rather than a single piece. And you know the quality of the dancers will be second to none. The first dance, Cardoon Club was the only playful one - some weird posey stuff (finger extensions?!), but also some energetic coreography - to a 1960s/70s era Hammond-organ-dominated score. The second dance, Awakenings, depicted the encephalitis lethargica patients described in Oliver Sack's book 'Awakenings' and their reaction to treatment. A serious but rewarding piece to sit through. But the final dance, Monolith, was seriously serious. I'm afraid to my ears the music, performed by violin, viola, cello and piano was simply horrible and the whole thing couldn't end soon enough. If I ever hear a screechy violin again it will be too soon.

Annoyingly, the programme indicated the excellent A Linha Curva is still in the company's repertoire. Why did Nottingham get the high-brow stuff???

Mooooo!

2011-04-12T03:20:00.001+01:00

Mothers Day 2011. The family is here for Sunday lunch. I enter the kitchen to find C and the boys have gone out to fetch in the washing I’d hung out earlier; it is suddenly raining. As they come back in I hear my mother comment “Michael’s quite domesticated isn’t he?”

There are so many things to resent in that comment!

The assumption that men are feral and need to be house-trained like beasts. The assertion that engaging in domestic tasks is not normal for a man. The implication that he is less manly for doing so. The core ethos that some activities are expected of women and others of men: that the differences between the sexes must define our roles. And, as his mother told a young Robert Graves over 100 years ago, “where two ride together, one must ride behind”.

Sure, there are differences, but here in 2011 we can recognise our strengths and weaknesses - and prejudices and assumptions – and choice how to let them affect our relationships.

I tried to read ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’ once. I think I bought a copy. But after the first couple of pages, where the author describes storming out of the house when he didn’t get his way, I decided there was nothing that this utter prat could write that would interest me in the slightest.

In Martin Amis’s latest book “The Pregnant Widow”, the daughter of one of the protagonists in the central narrative (set in 1971) asserts that the women’s movement in the 70s ‘went Napoleonic’ – went for the big conquests but failed to sort out the basics back home. The 50-50 rule: equality means equal responsibility, not just equal opportunity. For the cleaning, the washing, the childcare, the cooking, the shopping...

But of course changing behaviours and attitudes is much, much harder than merely changing legislation. (Just look at the numbers of bloody idiots you still see driving around with a mobile held to their heads.) And I don’t argue that there is only one way to run a relationship. Living with someone is incredibly hard, at least for the first 20 years, so anything that works for both partners is OK in my book. But I do find it difficult to really respect guys who have no idea how to look after themselves. It probably helps that I rather like cleaning etc. And kids – exhausting, exasperating, a bottomless sink for your energy, patience and individuality – are utterly wonderful.

And the money side of it. Again there are many ways to make it work. But once C and I knew it was for life we got joint bank accounts and closed our individual ones. I don’t recall any analysis or negotiation: there just didn’t seem to be any other workable way to manage things. Not that we had much money back then anyway, and there were many frequent arguments about what we could afford but never about ‘my money’ or ‘your money’. Who earns the most is irrelevant when you each put everything you have into the kitty.

So if anyone but my own mum had called me ‘domesticated’ I think I’d have to challenge their prejudices. Until then I’m contented to give a low bovine ‘moooo’.

Sky, anyone?

2011-04-05T11:37:00.003+01:00

I'm normally very rational with cold calls. I simply say 'You should not be calling this number as we are registered with the Telephone Preference Service. Which company do you represent?' and when they fail to give a clear answer I hang up. Arguing is one of my least favourite activities.

But last weekend we were at my mum's and the phone rings. She is having difficulty hearing what the person is saying, so she tells him 'My son will talk to you' and hands me the phone. It is immediately apparent that there is a call centre agent on the other end.

CCA: Hello Mr Rivett. We are doing some research. Do you have a Sky disk in your house?
M: Why do you want to know that?
CCA: It's OK, I'm not selling anything. Do you have a Sky disk in your house?
M: Surely Sky know if they have a customer at this address? Why do you want to know?
CCA: (I'm not sure exactly what comes next - the guy had quite a heavy accent - but in the spiel I hear the name "Leonard Rivett", which flips a switch in my normally calm head.)
M: My father has been dead for over 3 years. What do you think you are doing asking to speak to him.
CCA: I'm sorry. That is the name I have here.
M: It's disgraceful that you are ringing this number and upsetting people by asking to talk to someone who is dead
CCA: I apologise for any upset. Does your house have a Sky disk?
M: I am not going to answer that and I do not wish to speak further. (Hangs up)

But 20 seconds later the phone rings again...

CCA: Hello. Does you have a Sky disk in your house?
(Initially I think it's a mistake, but no - we then get a "Mr Rivett" thrown in. By now I am angry.)
M: I don't wish to answer any questions.
CCA: Is there a Sky dish in your house?
M: I don't want anything to do with Sky.
CCA: I'm not trying to sell anything, just to ask some questions.
M: Don't you understand? You'd better off just calling somebody else because I'm not going to answer.
(C, suspecting, with her decades of experience, that a fuse is about to blow: Just walk away. Put the phone down.)
CCA: Do you have a Sky dish in your house.
M: I'm not going to answer that.
CCA: Sir, I am not trying to sell you anything. I just want to know is there a Sky dish in your house?
M: I understand that you are not selling anything. You want information. But please understand that I am not going to give you any.
CCA: Is there a Sky dish in your house?
M: Why do you want to know?

CCA hangs up. I suppose that's a victory, of sorts. But in reality I am seriously wound up and wishing serious harm on the people responsible for this call.

I am now less likely to subscribe to Sky than I am to join the BNP. I would gladly pay twice as much for Virgin services, even if Murdock had nothing to do with the company and C had an epiphany and agreed to having a disk on the roof. (Perhaps my friend the CCA actually works for Virgin?!)

And what's the flaming use of a Sky disk IN the house?! Surely it needs to be outside to get a signal?

Actually I am so incensed that my anger goes way beyond the call centre - or the company which is paying it to annoy me - to the institutions and economic structures that allow this kind of behaviour.

(Worse, I'm bad-tempered for days afterwards. I want to personally behead with a lightsaber those responsible for killing a policeman in Northern Ireland, the entire EDL, the pastor Terry Jones and those he incited to acts of murder in Afganistan, the Chinese officials who have arrested scores of human rights activists and Ai Weiwei... I'll have to stop watching the news for a few days to calm down.)

And why do these people expect to gather information from me for free? They happily pay a price-comparison web site £40 a go for my details. And probably more than that from a credit rating company. I long ago decided if market researchers want my time they can pay a reasonable consultancy fee, say £80 per hour. If they are serious about doing it over the phone, maybe I'll get an 0845 number...

The Last Great Mosh Pit?

2011-03-16T08:16:00.000Z

Flashback to 2004. The Stranglers, Rock City, Nottingham. Effing brilliant. I am up there in the knot of fans in front of the stage with my friends Cathy and Keith utterly going for it, frequently out-pogoing the youngsters from the sheer exuberance of the energy coming from the stage. For most of the concert.

And, beginning an hour or so after the gig, suffer from searing pain behind both eyes for a whole sleepless night and much of the next day. That's it for the poging.

The next time they come I stay on the edge of the dancing fans and join in now and again.

Now it's 2011 and I'm having physiotherapy for a painful neck and also fell flat on my back at the ice rink 2 days ago. So I'm going to be ultra careful and stay at the back today. Wilko Johnson's three-piece band, supporting, is excellent. (He doesn't seem to have changed since the Feelgoods came to Wollaton Park in 1992: he paces the stage, jabbing his head at you with the same demanding stare (albeit with a little less hair), and sounds like a stage-full of guitarists, never mind one. And Norman Watt-Roy has to be the most animated, if not manic, bass player ever. Class!)

The Stranglers take the stage and are 100% pumped up from the start.Visceral rock!

However, the pathetic bouncing-up-and-down-on-my-heels that I indulge in during Grip just feels WRONG! Down at the stage everyone is obviously having a tremendous time. Sure, the music can be enjoyed from a distance, but only in the middle can you really celebrate it - by making like Tigger. So I promise myself that if they haven't already played Hanging Around and No More Heroes I shall go down for the encore.

And I'm not disappointed. Not that it's hardcore moshing at a Stranglers gig. There are two quite petite 18-year-olds next to me, who are clearly not worried about being squashed. Not like the gob-splattered nihilistic frenzy of the late '70s (Richard Hell, Derby Assembly Rooms, 6/1/79, anyone?).

But afterwards, red-faced and sweaty, I think maybe the time has come to call it a day on the pogoing. A mosh-pit would not be the best place to have your first cardiac infarction, after all, and I'm 60 this year.

A three-tissue movie

2011-03-14T11:35:00.000Z

Having been collecting the extended DVD versions of Peter Jackson’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy over several years and having been given the last one for Christmas I succeeded in persuading C to watch them with me.

The first thing to note is that the story, in this extended version, actually makes sense. There was so much chopped out of the original releases that I would be surprised if anyone unfamiliar with the story could follow big sections of the films properly.

But, yes, I am familiar with it. I first read Tolkien’s epic at the age of 17. (My friend said ‘persevere till you get to the Mines of Moria and you’ll be hooked’ – he was right.) My next reading will be for the fourth, and possibly last, time but there has now been a gap of perhaps 25 years; I wonder if my opinion will have changed?

There are many things to admire in Jackson’s films: the characterisation of the main players, the depiction of unearthly power, his adherence to the text (with the dreadful exception of the battle with the Warg riders on the way to Helm’s Deep), and the amazingly apposite landscapes. The action sequences are spot on as well.

For me the first film was by far the most moving of the three, with three points where you might be reaching for the tissue box. (What did you think I meant?) Namely Frodo in the Council of Elrond (“I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way”), poor smitten Gimli’s farewell speech to the Lady Galadriel, and Boromir’s death by arrows.

There were two true moments of horror in the first one, as well: Bilbo’s reaction when Frodo won’t show him the Ring and Galadriel’s transformation. (“All will love me and despair!”)

I enjoyed seeing all three films again – but, with each film topping 3-4 hours, am now committed to sitting through several rom-coms in compensation. C’est la vie.

That's gonna hurt in the morning

2011-03-08T03:43:00.001Z

I have just landed heavily flat on my back. Surrounded by perhaps 100 kids, teenagers and adults, all whizzing about the ice at the Nottingham Ice Centre. Steel blades as sharp as razors slice inches from my ears...

My head feels OK, or what normally passes for OK, so presumably I didn’t bang that on the ice. But I do feel a little stunned and this was certainly the worst spill since I began ice skating 4 weeks ago: and certain to have after-effects, though it is too soon to know what. A very kind youth offers the old geezer a hand and drags me to my feet, for which I am very grateful.

This is my fourth ice skating experience. C thinks I’m mad (and an incredulous friend simply asked her “Why?!!!”) Well I’ve always thought it looked fun, and learning to skate was on my ~~bucket list~~ retirement agenda. But no – I’m not inspired by Dancing on Ice or competitive ice skating on TV (all those woolly tights and navelly embossed body stockings. Yuck.) It just looks fun, and I want to know if I can do it. Hence the adult beginners ice skating course.

(Fast forward to 2:15 am. I now know I have jarred my left wrist, bitten the back of my tongue, and bruised my lower back just above the left buttock, which currently feels like it has the texture of a well tenderised sirloin steak. But why am I awake at this unearthly hour? Just in time to hear the breaking news that Charley Sheen has been fired from Two and a Half Children? Is it the pain? My bladder? Fear of an alien abduction? No – it’s the unfinished state of this wretched column!)

The first session, we five absolute beginners staggered along clinging to the side like hippos in heels. Second session managed to totter from one side to the other without holding on. Third session we (well, most of us) could move from one leg to the other and achieve something approaching speed - and discovered how to turn through 180 degrees.

Today we did ‘How to Stop’, 'Gliding',‘How to go Backwards’ (which is easier than it looks), and ‘How to Turn’ (apparently the way we’ve been doing it is cheating!). It will clearly take several sessions to become remotely proficient at these skills. But no matter! I can skate! Now I just want to go faster!

After our 30-minute lesson we can go into the maelstrom of the public session to practice. It looks scary – all those bodies milling around at different speeds – but somehow everyone avoids each other most of the time. Determined to get my money’s worth I generally do 5 or 6 circuits. Then there is a familiar sequence of events. I decide to do just couple more circuits, get tired, forget to bend my knees, and fall over.

At least I haven’t yet floored any small children. Unlike the time at Centre Parcs when I volunteered to be goalie to help my young son’s badly losing five-a-side team. After fearlessly throwing myself at the feet of a charging seven-year-old striker (Come on, ref, he dived! And I still think the stretcher was a bit unnecessary) I had to be smuggled out the back way when the game finished, to avoid the mob of angry dads and uncles bearing torches and agricultural implements who were waiting at the main entrance.

One more lesson, then we are assessed and might pass “Grade 1”. I won’t be framing the certificate.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre

2011-03-04T11:14:00.001Z

We first saw the New York company ‘Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre’ in 2005 on what may have been their first visit to Nottingham. The dancers were talented, the dances excellent. The final piece, Revelations, by the late Mr Ailey, uses ‘African-American religious music’ to create several discrete passages to evoke several different emotions and religious experiences and ends with a hugely optimistic and uplifting piece.

So this company was certainly worth seeing again. Which we duly did when they returned in 2007. I was, however, surprised and disappointed that the programme was not an entirely different one second time around. There, again, on the programme was Revelations. What had been novel and exciting now seemed a bit hackneyed. I decided that I would not bother next time, if a large part of the programme was going to be repeated in this way.

So along comes the theatre events for 2010 – and there, again, is the Alvin Ailey company. Of course you don’t know what the programme will be when you buy your ticket, but surely they wouldn’t bring back the same old stuff again? I agree with C that I’ll go with her.

And what do we see? Reve-bloody-lations again! This time it feels like I’ve been made to sit through a sermon for 30 minutes.

However we then see that ‘Ailey II’ – the youth wing – is coming to the Playhouse in a few months time. They MUST be worth seeing, and will surely have their own repertoire. Imagine my disappointment, then, when the local paper prints a preview the week before their appearance, and rabbits on about ...Revelations!

So to the Nottingham Playhouse, Friday February 25 2011. The first two pieces, Shards and Echoes, are wonderful; I want to see them again.

I work hard to see the final dance with new eyes and ears but fail. The standard of dancing is probably better than what we saw last year, and the choreography is, in places, brilliant, but now the wafting of hankies and spinning of umbrellas just looks ridiculous and I can’t get over the feeling that I’m having Mr Ailey’s faith rammed firmly down my throat. At least we are spared the routine encore – frankly if I ever hear anyone again tell me they want to ‘Rocka my soul in the bosom of Abraham’ I shall probably help them on their way if I’m not heaving too much.

So that’s it, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. If you want to keep audience members like me coming back you need to have the courage to drop Revelations back into history where it belongs and show us something different. By all means bring it back for special anniversaries but not when you come to Nottingham please!

London, 12/14 February 2011

2011-02-26T18:19:00.000Z

London for a weekend for C’s birthday. She wanted to see the Cirque du Soleil show at the Royal Albert Hall ('Totem' – OK, but not remotely as good as their Saltimbanco show in Nottingham last year, which was utterly jaw-droppingly spectacular) and I also bought surprise tickets for Mama Mia (a big success).

During the day choose to visit the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition at the Natural History Museum. Good choice! (I’m like a pig in clover in that place and we haven’t been since taking the boys some time in the 90s.) The exhibition was £9 each but worth every penny.

You need 90 minutes to do this justice; each photograph has technical details as well as a couple of sentences by the photographer to describe the circumstances around the picture. Then there are a couple more sentences to put what we are looking at into context. Thanks to a sympathetic curator there is a seating area where you can view a rolling display of previous year’s photos on large screens for 15 minutes when you need to rest your legs.

The quality of the pictures is consistently stunning; some pictures capturing an instant of action others a tableau or compelling juxtaposition of natural elements. The Photojournalism and One Earth categories produced pictures (turtle trapped in discarded fishing nets, bear laid out for its bile to be harvested etc) that leave you with an overwhelming sadness.

The ‘Sexual Nature’ exhibition, also on in the Natural History Museum, is interesting and mildly amusing in places, but didn’t seem such good value. Perhaps we were too knackered from the other exhibition to get the most out of it. But I did learn that female mallards have a branching vagina which they can use to divert an unwanted phallus into a blind alley. Girl power!

On the final day of the weekend C isn’t keen to rush off and do anything so we get up late and wander over to the British Museum, where I had read there was a free exhibition “Evolving English. One language, many voices”. This is a revelation: a fascinating, well laid out history of English and how it has changed and been used over the centuries, with lots of audio exhibits. You can record your own accent, for the archive, and register unusual words and expressions that you use (online, too). I could have stayed much longer than the hour or so we had available.

Sushi shocker. Boston, Mass, May 3 2004.

2011-02-19T16:30:00.000Z

I’m in Boston for a 3-day meeting of the project team; 9 of us from 5 locations in 3 countries. It is just the second time the team has gathered together and the project leader, Ken Fasman (nice guy), is keen to do some team building. He has organised a Duck Tour of Boston (in an amphibious vehicle) followed by a meal in a sushi restaurant. My request to be excused the sushi (even before I became vegetarian I would have been quite incapable of inserting uncooked flesh of any sort into my mouth) was firmly refused.

At this point it is necessary to be explicit about a lifelong personal problem - something usually hidden from view, but which can insinuate itself into social situations, causing the sufferer acute embarrassment and cruelly truncated relationships.

This problem is often associated with a related medical condition, which sadly I contracted way back in my teens in some school shower room, and suffered from, year after year until a therapeutic intervention in 2008.

I am, of course, referring to stinkfoot and its fungal companion, athlete’s foot. It is only in recent years that I realised that I have the wrong sort of feet for shoes. Enclose them in lace-ups, trainers, slip-ons, slippers – and, unless it’s the middle of winter, I only have to walk a few hundred meters and my socks will be damp. And after the sweat, the stickiness between your toes that says your old friend Trychophyton rubrum is growing again in its favourite culture. Even in a fungus-free state the discomfort is awful. I frequently have to slip off my shoes in cinemas, waiting rooms, meeting rooms, AND on public transport etc just to ease the throbbing.

Nowadays I only wear enclosed footwear when it is essential and for the minimum length of time possible. (I would rather lose my wallet than my Birkenstocks) In my defence it runs in the family – in his youth my uncle Don was forced to keep his shoes on for an entire flight to Australia after complaints from the other passengers. (It was either put them back on or go sit in the toilet for the duration.)

So back to Boston. Following the trauma described herein I made a point of religiously taking sandals wherever I went on business, so as to free my feet at the earliest opportunity, hopefully before too much damage was done. But today, by the time of the duck tour, I’d been wearing my shoes for some 10 hours. In the sushi place the group is shown to a private dining area. Where everyone starts to take of their shoes before entering!

The shock is like a physical blow. This is tantamount to having to leave my trousers by the door. Not only will my stinky shoes be exposed for all passers by to retch on, but my rancid be-socked feet have to accompany me into the dining area! I’m last in the line and I come this close to doing a runner there and then, but decide it is too early in the life of the project team to start being quirky. Bad decision.

The big dining table is very low down and you sit on cushions with your feet in a well beneath the table. Fortunately I am on the end, thereby minimising the number of people that are going to suffer. However I feel compelled to put as much distance between my neighbour and the source of the problem, and spend the entire meal holding my legs horizontal under the table. I turn red with embarrassment. Acutely miserable, I am too distracted even to make conversation, and am sure I come across as an awkward geek (more than usual I mean).

The seafood is beautifully presented on huge wooden boat-shaped frames (how do they wash them?!) and, to my eyes, profoundly revolting. The only vegetarian food is fried seaweed – OK but you’d need a bucket-full to get a meal out of it – and vegetables cooked in some disgusting batter. The whole wretched business can’t end quickly enough, and months later I find myself apologising to anyone I think was within sniffing distance.

The good news is – I eventually got rid of the athlete’s foot using Lamosil Once (two doses). And I never go anywhere without my sandals and a change of socks.

(For further fungal horrors see White underpants)

Birthday dilemma

2011-02-16T20:35:00.000Z

It's been bugging me for months. And C has been bugging me for weeks. ("You need to decide about your birthday." "Are you doing anything for your birthday?" "When are you going to decide if you're having a birthday do?" or simply "What about your birthday?")

Yes, 2011 is the year I turn 60, which is apparently a Good Excuse for a party.

But do I want a party? Is it, actually, anything to celebrate? I'm not exactly a big fan of my own birthdays. It's just another day. And since birthdays rarely live up to expectations I've always found it better not to have any expectations at all. When I was 40, C organised a surprise gathering of friends, which was very nice, but that's the nearest I've come to having a birthday party since I was 21 (Mum's relatives came and I was a miserable git all day).

But I like the idea of getting friends and relatives together. It isn't something you would do for, say, a 62nd birthday. In fact your funeral is probably the next time they might be in the same place, which is probably a bit late for you to fully enjoy the occasion.

On the other hand there seems an arrogance about throwing a party for your own birthday. To being the centre of attention for an entire event! (Look at me! I'm 60! And I have all my own teeth!) To expect people to accept an invitation and come to Nottingham, with the expense that that means, when they have plenty of other things to do. Or give up a night of clubbing/TV/dogging etc.

Then again, people don't have to come...

Never mind the guests - what about the huge embarrassment of birthday presents! Admittedly there is the tempting prospect of being able to deliver a Bilbo Baggins-esque speech. ("I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve".)

Allied to the 'yes or no' question is the matter of what sort of a do. Just family? Just friends? Just local friends? How much to spend?

Finally, the second week in February I decide. There will be a party. My friend Martin plays in a covers band and and they will provide the live music. I will invite people that I like - friends and relatives. People I see regularly and those I don't see that often. I convince myself that the rationale is to celebrate sharing part of my 60 years with these people rather than the fact than I'll be 60. In fact the party will be a couple of weeks before the actual birthday. And there will be NO PRESENTS.

January blues

2011-02-15T20:21:00.000Z

The year has not started well. For a start I should give up listening to the news. A 14-year-old Bangladeshi girl is beaten to death after being sentenced by fatwa to 100 lashes. Very civilised. Likewise in Uganda where people are openly encouraged to attack and murder gay rights campaigners by the press. And Mugabe’s thugs have resumed their campaigns of violent intimidation.

Here, Cameron speaks on race on the very day the EDF march in Luton. The first library closures are announced in many counties and towns across the UK. Nottinghamshire County Council cuts by two-thirds the grant to Citizens Advice Bureaux. (And a councillor has the utter hubris to complain when many of her constituents – CAB clients - agree to send letters pointing out this is not a good idea.) Six CAB offices have to close in Birmingham. Cuts to benefits, legal aid, and services used mostly by the disadvantaged: many changes which are obviously ideological rather than a response to any crisis. An elderly acquaintance in hospital with a broken leg is told, when she asks for a bed pan, to “do it in the bed”. (Shame on you, York District Hospital). And the sale of Britain’s forests to McDonalds, Halliburton or whoever else wants a piece is going ahead in spite of protests and cynical red-herring delays.

On the bright side those toxic tossers from Top Gear are in trouble for racist comments about Mexicans. What a surprise. And Roy Keane loses his job at (I never forgiven him for that tackle which ended Alfie Haarland’s career.) Schadenfreude rocks!

The new bathroom

2011-02-06T14:34:00.002Z

After the refit ...the tyranny of the new bathroom.

Following all the hassle we are fantastically pleased with our new bathroom. It looks smart, the shower is big enough that you don’t have to worry about banging your elbows on the wall, the room is nice and warm, nothing leaks, and the wash basin is low enough that you can wash your willy without standing on anything.

Of course there are niggles. Like the way the pine panelling has split apart because the wood was not stored at room temperature for a couple of days before being fitted. And the replacement for the broken handle for the bath plug has still not arrived. And the way the shower head suffers from incontinence – it dribbles 10 minutes after use, and sometimes much later (e.g. the following day, which would rather rule out stress incontinence from it laughing at the state of its users).

But the maintenance effort is something else! I’m used to drying around a wash basin after use (basically so you don’t need to clean it as often) but now there is also a pine wash stand to worry about as well. Then, when the bathroom was just a day or two old I was accused of leaving a drop of water on the marble top! It is now necessary to not only towel dry the entire area, but also finish it off with a blow-torch.

And apparently the soap dish is not allowed to be on display. I loath that slimy liquid stuff that calls itself "liquid hand wash", "shower gel" etc and haven't been able to get over the idea that only ponces use bottled stuff - real men use proper soap. Anyway this means that the soap dish is banished to the shower (though I have found I can get away with secreting it out of sight behind the wash basin).

And we have to take turns going first in the shower. Why? Because the last one in the shower has to dry it down – walls, tray, taps, hose - which takes at least as long as the shower itself. The concept of “a quick shower” is now out of the window (not that that opens since I broke the key off in the lock).

Now we need to train the bath and toilet, which are tethered only by flexible pipes, not to go for walks across the bathroom floor.

Marital Conversations (21)

2011-02-06T14:34:00.000Z

(A few days before Christmas)

M: I didn't know you were up here wrapping presents. I would have come to help.

C: I thought you were busy

M: No. I was just hanging out, generally being human.

C: Yeah? How did that pan out?

The Men from the Ministry

2011-01-17T23:04:00.001Z

Chester Zoo, 1982

Since I got my first camera aged 10 I’ve had an interest in photography. I find the process of making a picture through the medium of film, especially, fascinating. To her credit C is very patient with my attempts to be creative, which frequently involve her having to wait ages while I try to get the right shot or for the clouds to change etc etc. Occasionally my hobby has got me into trouble.

The year is 1980. Outside Nottingham, where the Ruddington business park and country park are now located, there is some kind of Ministry of Defence establishment. It is set back from the road and the entrance gates are the far side of a big semicircle of tarmac where the buses from Nottingham to Ruddington terminate. There is never any activity of any sort visible inside or outside the fence – no cars, no people. We assume it’s a disused army base or, if anything, the far corner of a slightly active army base. On the opposite side of the road is a big and very handsome Wych elm tree.

Now 1980 was the year Dutch Elm Disease reached this part of Notts, the single event which changed the English landscape more than anything else (well, apart from road building, the destruction of hedgerows, new housing etc) in my adult life. Naturally I want to photograph this impressive elm before it succumbs. I park our mini on the tarmac and walk over to get a shot of the tree. But when I turn to go back two geezers in suits have materialised from somewhere and are standing by the car. Mmmm, think I, what’s all this about?

As I get closer one of them asks me what I’m doing. “Photographing the tree” says I, as it if wasn’t obvious. To which the response is “You are on MoD property and we are going to confiscate your camera”.

Now there are two responses to a confrontation like this. One is “Fuck you, pigs. Sic ‘im Fang!” and the other is to try and humour the jokers. Since I don’t happen to have an attack dog on me, I opt for the latter.

“But I was only photographing the elm tree over there. It will be dead this time next year” doesn’t help much. Neither does “On what authority do you have the right to confiscate my property?”, which only results in a threat to “get uniformed soldiers over here”.

I get them to agree to process the film and return it and the camera when they see there are no pictures looking at or into the MoD site – but insist on having a receipt. I am more concerned about the film, since it contains the results of a recent weekend camping trip with my friends John and Pete to visit the Avebury stone circle and the Uffington white horse – places I am not likely to revisit in the near future.

So I accompany them into the hut inside the gate for a not-very-official receipt. This is probably the most exciting thing they have had to do in months.

It is some weeks, and some hassle, before I get the camera and film back, but they made a decent job of developing the film for me.

That should be the end of the tale. But some years later I hear news on the radio of a break-in at the depot, possibly with an IRA connection. Suddenly I am very aware of the presence in my sock drawer of an almost forgotten plastic bag full of dried leaves from the C. sativa plant (enterprisingly grown in pots in his living room by John - from seeds left by a reggae band at the uni). And paranoia kicked in. They knew where I lived! I could almost see armed police surrounding the house! Sniffer dogs swarming all over the house! Handcuffs! Bundled into a Black Maria! Losing my job! Prison! Communal showers!

Alnwick Garden "The Poison Garden"

The weed was deposited deep inside my compost heap. (Sorry, John.)

One foot in the grave

2011-01-17T19:19:00.000Z

Retirement is, increasingly, a Faustian tale in reverse. Protagonist sells his soul to the devil (i.e. capitalism in the form of a multinational pharmaceutical company) in return for his freedom and a reasonable pension at the end of 31 years. A bargain? Or a life’s work wasted?

Hardly wasted – I met some great people during my Mephistophelian service, had some fun mixed in with the crap, and did some interesting stuff. And while that was going on, was lucky enough to have 2 babies with C and live to see them grow to be independent adults to be proud of. And to wake up every morning next to a beautiful woman. What’s to complain about?! And I still can't quite believe I still get paid monthly, but not for the work I do - just for staying alive!

I read that, at my age, I have a life expectancy of 23 yrs 1 month. I’d settle for that – provided of course C and I were both in good health, financially comfortable, free from personal tragedy, and still sexually active (preferably at the same time). Not that there is anyone out there with whom to do a deal.

Never mind... Whatever happens, I won’t be around when the consequences of global warming really hit the fan. Best of luck with that, youngsters!

Review of 2010

2011-01-05T08:13:00.000Z

Let’s be honest: blogging is the ultimate form of vanity publishing. And you don’t even have to pay anything to put your creations out there! And now, courtesy of the latest upgrade to blogger.com, you can get hit stats for everything without needing third party software.

Oh the thrill of seeing that 3 people have looked at last week’s rubbish!

In August I became (sadly) elated to find, suddenly, dozens of hits of my filthy Dr Who spoof piece ...until I realised they were not hits on the article, but of the rather tasty picture of Karen Gillan I’d purloined from some other web site.

And since the Google ranking algorithms include a click-through component, the effect is self-perpetuating. I keep meaning to take the picture down, but somehow haven’t gotten around to it. Funny, that...

This year was notable for B leaving home, B getting a 2.1, C and I finally starting to win the odd weekly tennis game after years of trying, me placing my first ever bet (Arsenal to win the 2010/11 Premiership title), me convincing the Citizens Advice Bureau that I am harmless enough to see clients, and a revival of my black-and-white photographic hobby.

Also notable for very little progress towards becoming a guitar player. (Must try harder)

Last year I used a review to list the bits of writing about which I was most pleased. This year it’s about films and books that made an impact.

Films

Most impressive film: Avatar by a mile. Never mind the plot, it takes a leap forward in creating something new the way that Star Wars did in 1977.

Honourable mentions for The Hurt Locker, Iron Man II, Let the Right One In.

I somehow missed Monsters, so am looking forward to seeing that.

Books

After the Flood (Margaret Atwood, though you probably need to read the almost-as-good ‘Oryx and Crake’ first. Great story-telling).

Just Kids – Patti Smith’s memoir of her (early) life with the late Robert Mapplethorpe in 1960s New York, a fascinating portrait of poor struggling artists

Stieg Larsson – second book even better than the first (and I don’t even read crime/thriller books). Very much looking forward to reading the third.

Many, many years after hearing John Peel recommend Jerome K Jerome's 'Three men on the Bummel' I borrowed a copy from my friend Chris and it was worth the wait. His anecdotes can be as funny as anything contemporary, in spite of being written 100 years ago.

Disappointing reads: too many to mention (what was remotely interesting about The Finkler Question?! - plus one LOL does not a comic novel make), but Audrey Niffenegger’s ‘Her fearful symmetry’ was a major let-down, especially after The Time Traveller’s Wife was so good.

Most difficult (for the ultra-violence, not the prose): American Psycho.

Non-fiction: I learned that going potty at Grateful Dead, Stranglers and Doors concerts is actually an expression of 'collective ecstacy through dancing', a tradition that has been suppressed by rulers, governments, and organised religions for 10,000 years (Dancing in the Streets, Barbara Ehrenreich)

Re-reads: as part of my de-cluttering I now only keep books that I know I'll want to read again. (I don't buy books any more as I can order nearly everything I want to read from the local library for the princely sum of 25p per book.) So re-reads should, in theory, result in donations to the Oxfam shop... I'm still keeping Marge Piercy's 'Woman on the Edge of Time' and Ursula LeGuin's 'The Dispossessed' though, both good stories wrapped in very different visions of alternative societies, and just as compelling second-time around.

YouTube

Funniest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAg0lUYHHFc (‘Cheap Flights’ from Fascinating Aida)

Best music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzG4k00CkHQ (Trey Anastasio – the exhilarating joyous 10-minute ‘Push on till the day’ from the Bonnaroo festival in 2002)

Most honest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVOGYtdKnRo (Patti Smith’s on-stage indictment of George W Bush)

Once in a while you get shown the light...

2010-12-29T19:56:00.003Z

An answer to one of the mysteries of life.

As students frantically trying to grow our hair in 1970 the underground press, notably International Times, was essential reading. And what page did we turn to first when we eagerly bought our copy every other Thursday? The news about the latest drug busts? The rock album reviews? The counterculture editorials?

Nope. It was Gilbert Shelton's 'Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers', which chronicled the misadventures of three hirsute layabouts who were the perfect role models for any aspiring hippy. A typical episode would begin with a shriek from Freewheelin' Frank of "Arrgh! We're out of dope! Go score us a lid, Fat Freddy."

In one episode the heroes somehow come into possession of a car and give a lift to a hitchhiker with a dog called Fang. When they get stopped by a policeman, instead of acting dumb, compliant and submissive, the hitcher responds so:

"Sic 'im Fang" always seemed the perfect thing to say in this situation, and I stored this up in spite of never having a dog, but I never had the faintest idea what it meant. (In fact the one time I actually was stopped by a policeman I made such a good job of acting dumb he said I sounded like Frank Spencer from "Some Mothers do have 'em".)

I did look up 'sic' in my Penguin English Dictionary but there was no mention of any second meaning for the word.

Then, last Friday, some 40 years after the above, I read in Martin Amis's "The Pregnant Widow" this:

sick, in that sense, comes from an old dialect version of seek. It meant set a dog on

Maybe not the deep insight implied by the Robert Hunter quote in the title of this piece, but nevertheless an answer to a long-standing puzzle I've found at least as interesting as the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything, to which the answer is, obviously, 42.

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Omnibus was absolutely the Christmas Present of the Year, 2009. (From C, naturally.) My favourite story was actually an adventure of Fat Freddy'c cat. Somehow the cat helps the occupants of a stranded alien spacecraft and his reward is a magic amulet which grants three wishes.

The feline's first wish is to lose the ice cream off his face so he can see what's going on and his second is to have their 8-legged flying creature roasted for dinner.

Then he loses the amulet...

...and Fat Freddy finds it:

Diary of a bathroom refit (5)

2010-12-24T19:30:00.000Z

DAY 20

C does not particularly want to meet the fitter when he comes, but can’t think of anywhere to go late on a Saturday afternoon when there’s no Forest home game.

She needn’t have worried. He doesn’t come. Or ring to explain why.

DAY 22

I’m out this morning so it is left to C to ring the bathroom place again and explain the situation. They are apologetic, and quite understanding when she makes the point that we don’t particularly want those fitters in the house again. In fact if our boiler broke with 12 inches of snow outside and they were the only available plumbers in the East Midlands, I’d be more likely to move into a YMCA than hire them.

The Installations Manager has another fitter (Mike) out within a couple of hours. He disconnects the toilet and advises that the bath should not be used as the floorboards do not look safe. Also he can’t see any way that floor tiles could be put down on such an uneven surface. Also the handle for the bath plug is broken. (Why had the original fitter not reported that?) They need to order a replacement.

DAY 23

Yesterday’s fitter returns with heavy-duty plywood and spends the day laying a really solid floor over the floorboards.

DAY 24

Floor tile man comes while we are out and lays the floor. It looks good.

DAY 25

A new fitter turns up and connects up the bath, washbasin and toilet.

Inexplicably the toilet has moved one inch to the left, so no longer meets the boxed-in area. Also when I reach in under the toilet, my hand comes out wet. It’s leaking again!

DAY 26

I ring the Installations Manager again to tell him about the leak and the skip, which is still on our drive.

Third fitter comes back and re-seals toilet with something a bit more

serious than the seal supplied with the toilet. And returns the thing to its original position. Success! (?) We share a bath to celebrate!

DAY 30

Cleaning company hired by the bathroom place come to clean the new bathroom.

I check the toilet. There is a small pool of water on the floor again. Was it left by the cleaners? I dry everything up and check later – no dampness.

Oddly, nobody has rung from the bathroom compamy to check everything is OK. You would think after all this hassle they migh be vaguely interested.

DAY 31

More damp – it must be a very slow leak. I dry everything again to try and locate the leak

DAY 32

Slight but definite leak detected. I ring the Installations Manager and tell him. He responds with “I wish you’d rung yesterday”. Of course I should reply “I wish you’d sodding well rung yesterday” but I don’t.

It seems his plumber had rung yesterday to check we were good and the Installations Manager had assumed we were – so the plumber had finished for Christmas. However he doesn’t live far away and he will give the plumber a call and see if he will come out.

DAY 33

No news from bathroom place (Palmers of Trent Bridge, West Bridgford if you are interested). It looks as if we won’t get anything done until after Christmas, which is in 2 days time (possibly till after New Year?).

I shall now have, discreetly, to tell all our guests and visitors over Christmas that the upstairs toilet is for liquids only, solids downstairs. And in doing so will attempt, without any conviction, not to sound like the toad man from ‘League of Gentlemen’.

C suggests we decorate the skip with fairy lights.

Merry Christmas.

Marital conversations (20)

2010-12-24T12:25:00.000Z

Second interval at Mother Goose, Playhouse Nottingham, December 23 2010. The first two scenes of the pantomime have been at a fairground and at the seaside.

M: I wonder where they will have the big wedding at the end?

C: I think you'll find it will be a civil ceremony, not a wedding.

Diary of a bathroom refit (4)

2010-12-19T15:57:00.002Z

This is where it gets a bit surreal.
For starters I managed to break off the key in the bathroom window lock whilst trying to open it to help dry out the plaster. So that’s staying locked!

DAY 18

We haven’t seen the fitters since Wednesday morning, as they left before we got home, and they arrived after we left today morning. Wednesday night the pipes to the old radiator are still protruding and the toilet isn’t yet in place.

I’ve been to the building society to have a cheque made out covering the balance we owe them (i.e. 75%) to be paid “on completion”. I carefully place this out of sight in the A4 envelope which contains the plans, invoices etc – which happens to be on the kitchen table.

There are no lights on in the house, so I presume they’ve finished. There is a note on the back of the envelope in the kitchen to say the floor tiles “will be fitted on Monday” and to “have a nice Christmas”.

I go upstairs. Yes! The bath, toilet and basin are plumbed in! The radiator is working. (But the thermostat that was on the old radiator, which was still attached to the pipe last night, has strangely vanished and not been fitted to the new one...)

But what’s this... The floorboards next to the toilet are damp... Perhaps some residual water from when they fitted the toilet? Nope ...I reach underneath to find wetness on the join between the toilet and the wastepipe! AND a sponge strategically placed below to catch the drips! Brilliant.

There is, obviously, no way we can use a toilet that is leaking from the bowl end of things.

I want to check that the other appliances are water-tight. They seem to be OK, but the handle for the bath plug is loose so it comes off in my hand and I can’t see any way to fix it back on.

Now I’m getting worried. I go back downstairs and empty the envelope. Sure enough the cheque has gone. The sod's taken (i.e. stolen) it!

I have visions of having to go to court to get the job finished and it taking months and months of aggro. But a call to the original bathroom firm is reassuring. The fitter will be back Saturday teatime to fix the toilet. The cheque, apparently "fell out of the envelope"!

What do I have in common with Adrian Edmundson and William Willberforce?

2010-12-19T15:13:00.001Z

(... apart from being erudite, handsome and a teeny bit bolshie, that is)

Here's a clue.

We all lived here - maybe not specifically this room, but at the institution of which this is a part.

What could it be? An army barracks? 1930s sanatorium for consumptives? A 1950s institution for young offenders?

No. This picture came into my possession because Pocklington School have started mailing ex-inmates to drum up interest in its 500-year anniversary in 2014. Like I actually give a shit. (Investigations are ongoing concerning who leaked my address to them.)

This picture of a dormitory, exactly how it was during my stay in the late1960s (I'm pretty sure mine was the 4th bed from the left) was part of a newsletter showing changes over the years.

What a stark reminder of a stark place, a place of having to get up at 6:30am for cross-country runs whatever the weather, of fagging*, of terrifying teachers, of wearing grey suits all day every day, a place where a mild punishment was a timed immersion in a bath filled with cold water, a place where their idea of pastoral care for vulnerable teenagers far from home was to offer voluntary Holy Communion before breakfast on a Thursday, where expeditions into the town of Pocklington, just outside the school gates, were strictly controlled or forbidden. A place where the only place you were ever on your own, or had any privacy whatsoever, was in the toilet.

Small wonder that Ade, like me, "after being sent off to boarding school at the age of 11 determined that his offspring's childhoods would be different to his".

But that's enough venom for now. I shall try to be more upbeat for the rest of 2010. Anyway, in ghe way of things, that was a small price to pay for the subsequent 40+ years of relative happiness.

*check out this bizarre practice in Google (type "define: fagging")

Diary of a bathroom refit (3)

2010-12-17T16:40:00.000Z

DAY 4

All the fittings bar the toilet were taken out yesterday and are now on our drive.

An electrician arrived first thing and took out the shower heater and shaver point and central light, moved the main light wiring, put in wiring for wall lamps, fixed switches and fitted the fan (neither of us knew we were having a fan!). Very efficient - he has read the spec and is prepared for everything.

Toilet cistern removed; everyone had gone when I got home at 4ish.

DAY 5

Tongue-and groove finished, toilet removed: just a gaping outflow pipe left, but no other visible progress. At least the rubbish on or drive is now in a skip.

One of they guys shows me how the wall was not straight (perpendicular), but very uneven, making the tongue-and-groove cladding stand off the wall in places. When I thought about this I realised that they were supposed to be plastering the wall above the tongue-and-groove and perhaps this should be done before fixing wood to an uneven wall? Response was ‘we don’t normally plaster’ until I produced the specification which clearly stated ‘plaster all walls not tiled or tongue-and-grooved’. (Have they even bothered to read the spec?!)

They’d left by 2:30 "to see the boss - might be back later". You know snow is more likely to fall in the Sahara because (a) they have removed the dustsheets and (b) they have turned off Radio 1 (unlike when they sit outside in the van or when they disappear altogether to buy sandwiches). Their radio seems to have only one volume setting, LOUD.

C had trouble getting to sleep, worried about rats climbing up the waste pipe from the sewer.

DAYS 6/7

...were the weekend. My visiting mum had to sleep downstairs in the living room for easy access to the toilet. Opted not to paint the wood yet, as it will get mucky when the plasterer comes.

DAY 8

Just one fitter today. Arrived at 9:00 and left 2:30. All he did was plaster-board half the ceiling (7 pieces).

DAY 9

Slightly more progress than yesterday, but they were only here from 10:00 until 3:30. Plasterer should come tomorrow.

I am coming to the conclusion that we are paying far too much for this job. There is clearly no incentive for the fitter to get finished quickly, since he is apparently being paid amply anyway. I think all contracts for bathroom should work require a forensic sealing of the fitter’s own bathroom until such time as he has finished the job satisfactorily. This might instill a little sense of urgency and a taste of the appalling frustration of not having a bathroom and not seeing much effort.

DAY 10

Fitter rings to say he can’t get here because of the snow. The plasterer isn’t coming either.

DAY 11

Fitters turned up with some bags of plaster, waited for plasterer, then went. Plasterer finished around 3. Ceiling and walls plastered! Hooray!

We are up till 11 pm painting the wood around the walls.

DAY 12

Pipework done and shower tray fitted. C insisted they empty the living room of all the boxes etc before they left, as we have friends round this weekend.

Frantically trying to dry out the walls with fan heater overnight as they are coming back tomorrow to do the tiling around the shower

DAY 13

This is a Saturday, but both fitters have come to work! Perhaps they will make up some time... (We have already over-run the “two weeks” estimate by virtue of them starting 2 days late). Shower tiled and looks good. But I'm sure the plaster was not fully dry...

DAY 14

After 3 days of cooking and various mishaps, we spent today painting the newly plastered walls and ceiling (2 coats).

DAY 15

Fitter estimates he will finish on Thursday (DAY 18). Seems confused about where to place the shower head; he wants to place it centrally above the shower tray until C points out that it needs to be at the end. "Oh you're not having a shower door?" (See comment on Day 5 re spec.) (What if we hadn't been in?!)

Diary of a bathroom refit (2)

2010-12-15T19:37:00.003Z

DAY 1 minus 3

The omens were not good. Earlier in the week a crow had circled the garden twice in an anticlockwise direction. The opened tea bag rendered only powder, not healthy leaves. And the intestines of the goat we had slaughtered resembled a Big Mac.

Three days before the fitters are due to start we get a call.

“They are running late on the current job. They couldn’t turn the mains water off and had to wait for Severn Trent to come and turn it off outside the property. They will start on Wednesday.” This is not welcome news; the job ‘might take 2 weeks’ – at this rate it will be 2 weekends of disruption instead on one.

DAY 1
On Monday, the original Day 1, the lorry turns up with the delivery of bathroom fittings and furniture, which the fitter is supposed to check. Only he isn’t starting today. The conversation goes like this:

    Driver: I expected Mick to be here

    M: He’s delayed on the last job as they had to get Severn Trent to turn off the water

    Driver: Not that old chestnut

The living room is quickly filled with various cardboard boxes containing shower components, basin, toilet, tiles, flooring ...and a bath.

DAY 3

Wednesday morning. We are expecting a skip, but next door’s car has been parked in front of our house for 2 days. I go round at 8 am to catch him before he goes to work – and get him out of the shower - with the request to move his car so there is a space for this. Richard is a nice guy and doesn’t complain at all. Not even when he arrives home at tea time, with no sign of any skip.

The fitters arrive around 8:45 but sit in the van having breakfast/ciggies for another 20 minutes. I show them the bathroom and explain that the pine airing cupboard is staying and I will cover it before they do anything risky like plastering. Also we will paint the tongue-and-groove that they are installing on 2 walls before the fittings are fixed in place. I point out that under the vinyl the floorboards are covered with a plywood base because they are not in good shape.

I ask about the skip. No, says Mick, I couldn’t get one anywhere for today. (This job has been fixed since October.)

His next pronouncement is more worrying. “I can’t move the toilet there” he says. “There’s no way into the roof space above the kitchen extension, so the waste pipe has to be over there. Let’s just replace the bath and toilet instead of moving them.”

He is effectively proposing tearing up the plans! And C isn’t here to respond!

Eventually he phones the designer who will call later when C gets home from work. The designer took pictures and checked with one of the other fitters they use, who didn’t think there would be a problem, before making the drawings. Now it seems we have to either have the kitchen roof off or the kitchen ceiling down...

The upshot is that the toilet can be moved but the wastepipe has to be boxed in, which means we can’t have the toilet we wanted, flush to the outside wall. Not a disaster but a disappointment after all that planning.

Stacey Soloman

2010-12-14T14:19:00.000Z

With some horror, and no small amount of skin-crawling, I find I am in agreement with the Daily Mail's dreadful Liz Jones ("Why do I love Stacey? Can I count the ways? There is no artifice about her, no vanity at all — she described her special skill on entering the show as ‘talking’" 6 December 2010.)

Much though I loath the lack of respect "I'm a Celebrity" has for the smaller lifeforms of the Australian rainforest, I have to admit this is a programme that is frequently entertaining and often funny, mainly when Ant & Dec take the piss. And this year Stacey was undoubtedly the star whether she had won or not. You can't help but like her genuine enthusiasm, openness, lack of guile, and unfettered exuberance. Somehow she has passed the development phase where most kids lose their sense of wonder and replace it with a cynicism gland instead (age 10-13), and has retained the ability to be both amazed and grateful. (God help her dealing with normal, shitty, people.) Never mind the annoying voice -you want to ask her round for a meal. Tomorrow.

Then, predictably, Jones spoils it all by claiming Stacey's qualities for herself - by virtue of them both being from Essex. Sorry, love. It's like a frog comparing itself to a blue tit because they're both vertebrates.

Diary of a bathroom refit (1)

2010-12-13T17:04:00.002Z

The refurbishment of our bathroom was not entered into lightly. C first muted the idea shortly after the new kitchen was put into service (i.e. February 2009). Around Easter 2010 she began planning in earnest. I begrudgingly attended several showroom visits.

Eventually the shower heater stoped working and clearly needed to be replaced, so we decide to go ahead with the refit.

I’d like to get our usual plumber, but the job is going to involve some building work and plastering as well. How to coordinate this is something we ponder and eventually opt for a local kitchen/bathroom company who will sort everything out for us. We start talking to their designer, Aimie, who is very keen to implement and build on C’s ideas. Plans are drawn; pretty graphics printed.

This is C’s project (I quite like the bathroom as it is to be honest), fuelled by an eye for interior design and a heavy dose of Changing Rooms, 60 Minute Makeover etc etc, (i.e. the soft side of property porn) but I am given every opportunity to contribute. The problem is that in each area where I actually have an opinion I find I don’t care enough to veto anything that C really wants.

The shower. I’d like an electric shower, for when the gas boiler pack in. (The last time it took 2 weeks to repair in spite of British Gas Homecare cover.) However an electric heater on the wall will interfere with the clean lines and add unwelcome clutter to the room. (Oddly enough, it appears to be no more expensive to fit an electric heater than to use the existing gas combi boiler. Why?)
The bath. C’s vision is an old-fashioned bath with feet like my grandma used to have. This seems an anachronism to me and will surely the open area underneath will be a magnet for dust, fluff, spiders etc. Our existing bath, a neat boxed-in affair with handles each side - ideal for when my mum comes to stay - will be disappearing.
Wall lights. The modern ones, tight to the wall, look really neat. But there is no central light to match them.
Floor: I’m happy to have decent vinyl but no, the bathroom company we’ve chosen won’t dirty their fingers with such cheap stuff – it has to be tiles.
The Victorian washstand. I make it clear that I don’t mind driving to Poulton le Fylde (280 mile round trip) to pick up one C has bought on eBay, so long as we make a weekend of it and do some walking or exploring of this new part of the country. We end up driving there and back, stopping only for lunch by the sea the concrete shoreline of Cleveleys.

But never mind! We will never be doing this again, so it needs to be what she wants, perfect. The job will be done by early December, no worries...

NHS apology after deep vein thrombosis misdiagnosis, BBC News Nottingham, 22/11/10

2010-12-05T14:09:00.000Z

The NHS has apologised after a 26-year-old woman died following a misdiagnosis at a Nottingham NHS walk-in centre

Here's one of those news stories that really makes me angry. Rebecca Cain, 26, from Radford in Nottingham, died in June from deep vein thrombosis two days after visiting the centre with a pain in her leg.

She had visited the local NHS walk-in centre after already checking her symptoms online on NHS Direct and concluding that it was possible she had a DVT. She was sent home with an assurance that the pain was muscular.

A spokesperson said the error had occurred because the nurse she had seen had used a computer-based diagnostic flow-chart and had followed the wrong branch by starting with 'leg pain' instead of 'calf pain'.

Unbelievable. Any information scientist, many librarians and information architects, and anyone who has been involved in constructing a thesaurus or taxonomy - with a smidgen of biology in their heads - would know without thinking that 'leg pain' has to be explicitly linked to 'calf pain'. And any system designer worth a crap would know to build a mandatory path between the two terms for all users. How many other mistakes have been made by people using this shoddy "flow-chart"?

The NHS is possibly the best healthcare system in the world. Staff and patients should not be let down by second-rate systems.

How To Be A Domestic Godfather

2010-12-05T14:07:00.007Z

The culmination of a fraught few days.

Somehow we are cooking for friends on both Friday (total 8) and Saturday (total 6) this week. Since we only do meals like these a couple of times a year it seems particularly bad timing. And we have not had a bathroom since the fitters started 10 days ago. (As I write this on Saturday I confess I have not showered since last Sunday. And I played tennis on Monday...)

On top of this, it is the longest period of sub-zero temperatures for years, which militates against washing in the kitchen sink unless you've had the fan heater on for an hour or so, closed the blinds, and prayed the fitters don't need to come in and turn off the boiler.

In between preparing food and keeping snow off the front entrance we are painting - sometimes until after 11 at night - the bits the fitters have finished, before they install the tiles, bath, washstand, etc thereby rendering this task a million times harder.

Progress was rather set back by me upsetting an entire bucket of (thankfully clean) water intended for washing plaster spills off the woodwork on the stair carpet. It even dripped from the hall floor into the cellar.

Then I knocked a large picture off the landing wall while plugging in the heater to dry out the plaster so they could tile the next day. I’m still not sure how that happened, because the picture was at least 2m away from the socket ...but somehow connected by two horizontal cardboard boxes containing shower panels and an upright one containing a radiator; it's a bit like that Mouse Trap game. The picture and the broken glass are somewhere under that lot.

Anyway last night’s meal went off OK. Now the dishwasher is on for the fifth time in 2 days, C is finishing off Duchene potatoes and I make a start on a dessert. We’ve opted for something easy this time – chocolate brownies with ice cream. Unfortunately my choice of recipe is not entirely to C’s liking.

It’s not that I particularly fancy Nigella Lawson. But there is something about the way she looks to camera, head slightly turned, and confesses that she is in a “fever of excitement” over her latest "salted peanuts and chocolate creation" that seems to demand coq au vin, or if you prefer Greek cuisine, stifado.

Needless to say C cannot stand her, and it isn’t just her suggestive ways. Instead of regular weights for ingredients, her recipes require “a third of a cup” of this and “a cup and a half" of that”. C finds this incredibly frustrating. My attempts at appeasement, by trying to compare favourably C’s cup size to Nigella’s, are oddly unsuccessful.

Then Nigella gives an oven temperature of “350” – Fahrenheit presumably, but since all the ovens we have had since 1975 have been in Centigrade we have to find a converter so we can interpret the recipe. This is the last straw. We’ve already had several “She’s having a laugh”s and “I hate this woman”. Now C’s exasperation spills into “Make it up as you go along and stick your tits out”. (Did I mention she’s from Barnsley?)

Finally we get to the bit where you spoon the mixture (Can’t you just hear that silky voice and see that cleavage in that phrase?) into a baking tray – and realise we have made enough brownie mixture for about 24 people.

They are damn good, though.

Marital Conversations (19)

2010-12-04T18:58:00.000Z

(Scene: the kitchen, 7pm, after a day of cooking. Friends due to arrive shortly and all the cooking is done so I am looking forward to the evening and uncharacteristically elated.)

M: Whoo! (Uttered with a little jump or two).

M: I'm a bit hysterical!

C: Historical, more like.

Careful with that axe, Eugene

2010-11-22T17:27:00.001Z

A dry Sunday, a volunteer day at Bunny Wood nature reserve, and C away so there's no point in staying in bed ...why not get out and give something back to the place you've been visiting and enjoying for over 30 years?

As chance would have it, it is the day of the annual Bunny Wood sale of logs to the public, so what is required today is people to split logs and bag them up ready for sale. Now the nearest I've come to this type of activity is singing the Monty Python lumberjack song, unless you count digging up a lilac tree in our old house, so this was going to be interesting.

There is something very macho about a 6-pound felling axe. Just picking it up is like a shot of testosterone. The tree trunks have already been sawn into short lengths for burning, so you place a 30-cm wide log on your chopping block, heave the axe skyward, and smash it down - and get the huge satisfaction of seeing a 1-cm splinter go flying off the edge and your axe embed itself so deep into the block that it takes several minutes to wiggle it, twist it, and kick the block over before you can retrieve it to try again.

After a few more goes, you don't miss the centre quite as often and it really does get satisfying - the thwack as you hit the log with just enough force, the pale, freshly split wood as the two halves fall away, and the pile of finished logs building up. But then you're knackered and decide to fill a few bags. The logs are being sold in 20 kg, 14 kg and 10 kg bags and naturally since there is a woman (Pam) filling the smaller bags, you go for the big ones.

Strangely enough, after filling, weighing, and humping into someone's boot several 20-kg plastic sacks full of logs you are desperate to be back chopping.

I would not want to do this every day, but there is a quiet concentrated pleasure in this axe work. There are four of us wielding axes but little conversation. Some logs split with just the weight of the axe, others require more force so you take the axe head around behind your shoulder, move your hands down the handle and swing in a fearsome arc from behind your head, trying to give it as much speed as possible before it smacks into the log, sometimes splitting it asunder, other times just carving a deep notch and scattering shards of wood across the ground. Sometimes the axe gets embedded in the log and you have to lift both axe and log as high as you can and hope that the extra momonetum will do the trick.

After 4 hours we've bagged everything and the trickle of buyers has all but dried up and I call it a day.

This morning I have sore muscles where I didn't know I had muscles. Hope it doesn't effect my tennis tonight.

Yellowstone and Grand Tetons - wildlife encounters

2010-11-20T21:28:00.001Z

One major reason I like holidays is that you get to see some wildlife you wouldn’t normally see (either because you are somewhere different or simply because you have the time to be interested). And maybe to photograph some of it. A significant reason for choosing to visit Yellowstone/Grand Teton was the wildlife. Where else can you see wild bison?! And possibly wolves, bears, moose...

The first thing we noticed was the ravens. They’re simply everywhere. They even come and harass you at the picnic sites. Next the chipmunks and squirrels. One of the great advantages of a digital SLR is you can grab a shot and enlarge later to identify something; even if the shot isn’t worth keeping, it has served the purpose. This way we know we saw violet-green swallows and downy woodpecker. The bald eagle, Clark’s nutcracker, mountain bluebird, killdeer and American robin were easier to ID.

For the bigger animals. most significant encounters occur while you are driving. Suddenly the vehicles in front slow down and pull over (if there is room) or else just stop on the road. This way we saw a coyote, black bear, grizzly bear mum with three cubs, pronghorn antelope, and countless elk. I also saw a fox crossing the road early one morning.

It was a huge thrill to first see, and then photograph, a moose. The creatures were mostly too far away to observe properly, though. Not so the bison. You drive into the Lamar Valley and maybe see a couple of dozen distant shapes in the distance. Wow! Just like in the cowboy movies! Exciting enough, but on the return journey you are just as likely to encounter a herd crossing the road, or rather straddling the road.

C spotted early on that there was a lot of interest being shown by the big males in some of the females, and sure enough it is the mating season. A male with identify a female who is about to come into heat and try to isolate her from the herd to keep her to himself. And traffic doesn’t mean anything to a male bison when he’s “juiced up”. (I’m quoting on of the rangers, here!) You just have to stop the car until they’ve moved off. Which often means you get up close to two-ton male bison. They make this ’don’t mess with me’ noise that sounds like an idling Harley Davidson.

You can’t expect wonderful photos of wildlife unless you can put the days/weeks of observation in, which is only practical if its your day job. But just having a little time to observe behaviour is always rewarding, (except when you’re up at 6am in the hope of seeing wolves from the roadside overlook, only to find the fog means zero visibility - two mornings running!)

Not all of our hopes were fulfilled. We returned to turnouts overlooking the valleys several evenings without seeing a wolf, though C saw another grizzly. And we never saw a big-horn sheep in spite of repeatedly visiting the spot where they come down from the mountains to lick the rocks at Sheep Meadows in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Nor any river otters at the spot that was recommended, after driving down a 4-mile dirt track to a bend in the river - all we saw there was a pelican terrorising a couple of ducks for no apparent reason.

But then there were the animals we didn’t really expect to see - yellow-bellied marmots and (best of all) beavers. Twice we watched ospreys swoop down and catch fish. Bison rolling in the dust to look more aggressive, and squaring up to each other is pretty spectacular. A pica returning to its burrow with a crop of grass which it will store for winter was also a treat.

Two weeks was not enough - if only we could have stayed longer!

(More pictures here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/tinfoilskies/sets/72157625206645698/)

Barnt Green Inn, 14 November 2010

2010-11-15T17:43:00.001Z

Well it’s several months since my last restaurant fiasco, so I suppose this one was overdue.

But first I wish to make it known to a certain Mr P. H. that - voluntarily without any coercion - I wined and dined C at our local Felicinis last Friday evening, and very pleasant it was too. I did not even complain the following morning about being awake half the night with indigestion. And this in full knowledge that I would also be coughing up for a meal for four 2 days later to celebrate A’s birthday. Isn't that positively reckless spending, Paul?!

And so to the Barnt Green, a large, impressively old-looking half-timbered building not far from Bromsgrove. The food is very good but two incidents make this a singularly odd lunch.

A waitress takes our order for mains and drinks and eventually our beer, lemonade and half-carafe of Pinot Grigio arrive. Upon tasting her wine, however, C comments ‘that doesn’t taste right’. There is general agreement that the wine is not right. It was difficult to pin down, but if the wine had been left in an open bowl in a damp cellar for a few weeks that’s probably how it would taste.

Ca calls over the waitress who brought the wine. This is Verity (who, incidentally, excels throughout). She explains that this is draft wine rather than bottled, so may taste different, but I comment that it tastes nothing like any Pinot I’ve come across before. She is encouraged to take a sip, and reacts with an ‘Urrgggh!’. We order a replacement bottle.

There is a special Sunday Lunch menu, with an exotic “Treacle and orange tart, clotted cream” which is not on the regular dessert menu. Three of us opt for that. C orders the bread-and-butter pudding.

This is duly brought (by a waiter, this time) along with three plates of what looks nothing like treacle tart. We politely point this out, so he goes back to check with the chef.

Meanwhile we examine the offered desserts. They are much deeper than one expects in a treacle tart and have none of that yummy brown treacly colour. The general consensus is that they appear to be “plum & frangipane tart, lemon mascarpone”. ‘I can see a plum in there’ says someone.

C sniffs one and declares that is contains almonds. Perhaps the order has been taken wrongly?

The waiter returns proclaiming that, yes, these are indeed treacle and orange tarts. No they are not, we protest. So he picks one up and takes it back to the kitchen. And finally returns to remove the other two with an apology.

Another 5 minutes passes, by which time C has consumed her bread-and-butter pudding. The waiter appears.

“I’m sorry but all the treacle tart has gone. I will bring you menus to re-order and will not charge you for dessert.”

Unbelievable! Have these charlatans really tried to pass off one dessert for another because they’ve run out?!

Sadly there is no other explanation. A very entertaining meal but I don’t think we’ll be going back.

The New Forest, October 23-30, 2010

2010-11-05T23:05:00.000Z

The New Forest is has extensive heathland and some coniferous plantations, but probably half of the area is broadleaf woodland. And if there are better (or equally good) places to experience ancient oak and beech woods in the UK then I’d like to know about them!

The reds, oranges, browns, yellows of the leaves last week, especially the beeches and sweet chestnuts, were magnificent. Even on a cloudy day and in the car, where the canopy covers the road, you have the impression of driving under glowing ceiling lights.

Add the yellow-brown bracken beside the paths, the multi-coloured range of fungi on the ground and on fallen trees, and the wildlife, and you are in a landscape that is truly special.

And where else do you have to stop the car for horses, ponies, donkeys, even pigs and cattle on the road?! Thankfully the speed limit is 40 mph on most roads - there’s no point in hurrying anywhere.

This trip was my choice and, apart from the one wet day, we did short walks of 4 miles or so each day to visit the oldest of the woods. The woodland floor was covered with beech nuts and acorns. You can't help but stand on them, and as you walk along little flocks of chaffinches scatter up into the trees.

The second day, in Ridley Wood, C saw something through the trees and sure enough, silhouetted by the low morning was a young male fallow buck - facing away but with turned head to watch us. Predictably it waited long enough for me to find my long lens and then trotted off.

Just 10 minutes later we see a large fallow doe just our side of a fallen tree some 500m away across the wood, then two more - and, amazingly, the repeating bellow of a rutting buck. As we wait a big male comes into view, roaring and strutting about. There may be other does beyond the fallen tree but we don’t want to disturb them. It’s a privilege just to hear that sound for real.

Ridley Wood is just one of the ancient woods in the New Forest, many of which have massive pollarded beech trees and huge oak trees, often several hundred years old. Bramshaw, Mark Ash, Ridley, Stubbs - all are 'must see' places. The only disappointment was Bushy Bratley, which turned out to be a rather sorry place; the atmosphere of a graveyard rather than a living wood.

We didn't escape the woods even during the night. Our timber-built studio ("The Barn" in Burley Street) was beneath a chestnut tree and the nuts were dropping and bouncing off the roof all day and all night!

Best place to eat was undoubtedly the Oak Inn in Bank: good food, good beer (Fullers Seafarers and Red Fox) ...and very nice barmaids.

So, I regret to say, we have a (Norman) English monarch to thank for this. If William I had not designated the New Forest his private hunting ground then there might be none of this left.

And don't get me started on the disposal of publicly owned Forestry Commission-run woodland by the present government. This is a betrayal equal to the heinous sale of the energy and water services in the 1980s.

Marital Conversations (18)

2010-11-05T23:03:00.001Z

C: Thank you. (Far from an expression of gratitude, this is actually C-speak for 'Thank you for stopping whatever you are doing because it is annoying me')
M: I'm checking for lumps
C: You'll be getting a lump yourself, in a minute.

The Retirement Course

2010-10-31T21:46:00.001Z

In 31 years as an information scientist working in industry there were many opportunities to travel to conferences and to meetings with colleagues in Europe and North America. From C's point of view these were basically company-funded holidays to which she had every right to be invited, all expenses paid.

(The fact that you were often in a hotel or conference centre miles from anywhere interesting, working from after breakfast until well into the evenings didn't seem to make much difference. I suspect it was a mistake to own up to the odd champagne-tasting evening, the Duck Tours of Boston, and sailing in Chesapeake Bay, but believe me these were not regular after-work activities.)

So it was a rare event for both of us to be invited to the 2-day company Retirement Course at the HQ site in Cheshire.

Great, thinketh I! At last I can show C a part of the country I've been visiting on almost a monthly basis for the past 5 years! And stay somewhere nice, too, and to choose a restaurant for our evening meal.

Unfortunately, because there are just a few short weeks between the early retirement decision and my last day, there is very little notice before the last retirement course of the year. And all the nice hotels are fully booked! We end up in the budget De Trafford Arms on the main road through Alderley Edge; I've stayed there before; it's fine, but not exactly the lap of luxury.

C is working so can’t make the first day of the course but is coming from Nottingham on the train after work. So there I am waiting on Macclesfield Station for her. As the train pulls in and the waiting passengers get up to embark, a familiar face gets up from a seat further along the platform: Liz, a former colleague who I haven’t seen for perhaps 18 months and who is obviously catching this train. Thus as C alights from her train I am on the platform in the arms of another (young and attractive) woman.

I do resist the impulse to jump on the train with Liz for a catch-up chat but then I then have to break the news to C that the romantic candle-lit dinner for 2 is off. Because also on the course is Ian C , a colleague from our site who will otherwise be dining alone, so it’s a table for three tonight. The meal is fine, but not quite the special expenses-paid treat we’d hoped for.

To round off a perfect trip it is the coldest night of the year so far, and when we get back to our room it is FREEZING. We have a corner room and the heating consists of a radiator apparently designed for a dolls house. It is woefully inadequate, even for the cupboard that is our bedroom for the night. There is an en-suite bathroom, but this has no heating whatsoever.

We resort to placing towels on the bathroom floor - otherwise you would need socks and shoes, as well as outdoor coats, to venture in. And the door does only shuts when you lock it from the inside, creating a cold sink which sucks out from the bedroom what little heat is reluctantly seeping out of the “radiator”. The only was I find to keep it shut is to wedge it with C’s knickers (tomorrow’s).

In all my many trips away over the past 31 years my last company-financed overnight stay is without doubt the worst. Even though it is the only one involving some female company.

The United Kingdom Chemical Information Service

2010-10-18T11:12:00.002+01:00

UKCIS was set up in the early 1970s by The Chemical Society (now the Royal Society of Chemistry) to pioneer computer-based information retrieval services. Based in offices on the campus of Nottingham University, it also provided abstracts and index entries from the UK chemical literature for the (US) Chemical Abstracts Service. This was my work from February 1973 until August 1976.

Whilst I will always be grateful to Martin Robiette and Hamish Kidd for giving me a job when I really needed one (and to Hamish for teaching me how punctuation is supposed to work), the truth is that the work was awful: dull, dull, dull. It was the kind of job where you know exactly what you will be doing in one week’s, one month’s , one year’s time. And it didn’t really qualify you for moving on to anything else

The work involved taking the papers published in scientific journals and (hand) writing abstracts according to arcane rules devised by Chem Abs in 1907 and then writing index entries for all of the compounds and concepts. Any deviation from the rules such as the use of unauthorised abbreviations, a failure to use authorised abbreviations, use of UK rather than US spellings, an inadequate first sentence, poor English (hence the grammar lessons), failure to capture enough experimental detail, omission of a key finding etc etc was rewarded by the editor’s red pen before the work could go to the typists.

The office was a large room of solemn men – mostly chemistry graduates or postgrads but with two or three biochemists– sitting at desks with piles of Chemical Abstracts volumes and collective indexes to which they referred constantly.

The highlight of the week was completing your section of the football pools form. Our syndicate willed a big win, as much as any factory syndicate, which would enable an escape from this drudgery!

The best thing about the job was preparing the papers for the workflow. Scientific journals would arrive every day and had to be disassembled so that each research paper could be handled as a discreet document. Oh the pleasure in ripping the covers off a Biochemical Pharmacology! The venom released when tearing a Journal of Molecular Biology into pieces! The joy of pulling asunder a Life Sciences or a Biochemical Society Transactions!

The money was OK, and we got to use the university sports facilities such as football, tennis and cricket. And the people were OK too – you don’t tend to get idiots who are up their own arses doing that kind of work. And they even hired a few women eventually.

There were some fun out-of-work activities, too, such as the Pete Rhodes Maggoty Apple Wine Making Competition where Pete provided a bag of windfalls and the contestants had to produce a bottle of home-made wine 6 months later. (First prize: a bottle of real wine. Second prize: a bottle of everyone else’s maggoty apple wine...) But eventually I had to get out and opted to go back into full-time education and get an MSc.

Apologies to the residents of Robin Hood's Bay

2010-10-08T18:18:00.001+01:00

From April 1970 till March 1971, although a complete social retard following 7 years of incarceration in a boys boarding school, I had the amazing good fortune to be acquainted with a young lady called Helen Ware, whose father was vicar at nearby West Heslerton. I would sometimes borrow my mum’s car when I was home from university and we would go out for the day.

You can gauge my level of self confidence (and likelihood that there would ever be an actual relationship, as such) from the fact that I would prepare lists of things to talk about before going off to pick her up. No matter - in 1970 I was pathetically grateful that any of those mysterious and exotic creatures of the opposite sex, other than my mother, was prepared to spend even 5 minutes in my company.

On this particular occasion we decided to visit Robin Hood’s Bay on the North Yorkshire coast, which was perhaps an hour’s drive. For some reason we were taking the Ware family dog with us, a creature named Gelert after the dog in the Welsh legend.

Now Robin Hood’s Bay is a small coastal village with no parking, so you have to leave your car in the car park at the top of the hill and walk the rest of the way down the fairly steep road into the village. I duly park up, Hel gets the dog on the lead, and off we go. The car park is about half full; there are people about but it is not crowded.

We begin the walk down the hill; since it is effectively a pedestrianised road, we’re walking in the middle when Gilbert stops and squats.

Fortunately there is nobody around …but unfortunately this hound’s physiology has, on this day and at this precise moment, created perfectly spherical turds. Instead of gathering in the usual disgusting steaming pile, they hit the road and begin to roll downhill, one by one, first bouncing jauntily, then leaping with abandon, as they gather speed toward the innocent village below.

There was nothing we could do. One glance results in a unique flash of rapport: there is no way either of us wants to be following this lot down into the village accompanied by a dog. Without wasting a second, and certainly before they reach terminal velocity, we turn, leg it back to the car, and take off.

I still wonder where the offending objects fetched up. I sincerely hope that their destination did not involve a toddler’s ice cream or an open kitchen window and a pan of stew.

But in the interests of my conscience I hereby apologise to the residents of Robin Hood’s Bay for any inconvenience etc etc.

Postscript

Ms Ware eventually wrote to say it was all over (“We seem to have jarred on a serious keynote”.) I think she realised I was just another normal hormonally challenged teenage male.

Three months later I met C.

Comedy Store Players, Nottingham Playhouse, 4 October 2010

2010-10-05T18:49:00.000+01:00

Brilliant! The funniest, most entertaining evening I've had in a long time. There were more laughs in the first 10 minutes than in the whole of Armstrong & Miller last week (Royal Concert Hall, 29/9).

These people (on this occasion: Josie Lawrence, Andy Smart, Richard Vranch, Stephen Frost, Steve Steen) are as sharp as a paper cut and an absolute joy to see in action.

Double rumbled!

2010-09-29T11:20:00.000+01:00

Eeek! Apparently my mum's friend V has been reading this blog!

This means that V, and probably my mother, now know that the real me has the temper of a 2-year-old toddler, the sense of humour of an 8-year-old boy, and the obsessions of a 15-year-old adolescent. And the urge to shock of a 18-year-old punk rocker. (Why this repetitive arrested development? There's probably a PhD in there somewhere for an aspiring clinical psychologist.)

And why the compulsion to write this rubbish? Is it an illness? An infantile cry for recognition? A need to grow old, as they say, disgracefully? A lament for career that never was? (Though as students we tended to think gynaecology would have been the best career move - 'plenty of openings', as my friend Brian Martin used to say.)

Maybe all of these, but also because it's fun ...and mostly harmless. (I'd be mortified if I actually upset anyone personally - well with a couple of exceptions, but perhaps the tone could be more restrained...)

Anyway I'm bound to run out of things to write about before very long.

Inbetweeners and wardrobe malfunctions

2010-09-25T16:26:00.000+01:00

The first episode of the new series of Channel 4's 'Inbetweeners', a programme I had never watched before, reminded me of something that happened at school.

Inbetweeners is about 4 sixth-form lads and the humour is purile, adolescent and very funny. In fact one of the final scenes - involving one of them modelling tight Speedos on a catwalk with an accidentally externalised testicle - was one of the funniest things I've seen for a long time. (According to one of the producers it was real: "he does all his own stunts".)

Too far-fetched, you're thinking. Well no, actually.

The scene is Pocklington School gymnasium, circa 1965. A class of 14(?)-year-olds is engaged in a game of crab football - this is basically football played on all fours but face-up rather than face-down, so your arms are taking your weight under your back. A couple of us are sitting out the game for some reason. (It might have been shortly after a kid called Ellis damn near broke my wrist by pushing me off the box, involving a trip to York for an X-ray.)

So there we are sitting on the box in the corner, watching the rest of the class scuttling about on their feet and hands after the ball. When something odd comes into view. Kirkpatrick shuffles past, his shorts rucked up by the strange gait he has to adopt, and clearly visible, trapped by the leg of his underpants, is an impressively large testicle.

I don't think we quite believed it initially. But a couple of minutes later he's back below the box and it's still there, leering at all and sundry. Somehow the teacher and players, focused on the ball, have not noticed.

But surely poor Kirkpatrick will realise something is wrong and tuck it away? But no - in his crab position that region is well out of sight - and every time he comes near the box there it is, plain to see, and we are soon in hysterics, stifling renewed guffaws each time he comes into view. The indignity of the pose somehow elevates the comedy to sphincter-threatening proportions.

It is, of course, wrong to laugh at an other's misfortune, so eventually we try, discreetly, to point out his wardrobe malfunction. (You can't exactly yell across the gym 'Kirkpatrick, you've got a ball hanging out!') But it takes several attempts before he cottons on, which naturally makes the situation even funnier.

So there you go. Perhaps a script writer for Inbetweeners witnessed something similar.

Rumbled! (Big time)

2010-09-25T03:58:00.001+01:00

I come back inside, tired after mowing the lawn, to those dreaded words "I've been reading your blog".

It seems C was deleting old emails and came across the link I'd sent her early last year! She was not well pleased. But has only gone through 2010, so far.

What to do now? Go and censor the older ones? I think not - that would be dishonest, and if this blog is anything, it's honest. The one glimmer of light is that she doesn't bother reading the "ones where you're pontificating".

So it's boring titles from now on. And less swearing. And, though I have definitely done a Julie Myerson, I empathise with Tim Dowling. How do you write a family column without including some family stuff?

Perhaps the worst thing C said was that 'the only funny bits are where you quote my one-liners'. Gutted!

"Barlby Community Primary School stops ball games after noise complaints from neighbours"

2010-09-24T06:01:00.000+01:00

“Children at a Selby school have had their afternoon break cancelled and been banned from playing ball at other playtimes because neighbours have complained they are too noisy.” (The Press - Formerly York Evening Press - Sept 18, 2010)

Inside the back of the battered transit bearing the sign ‘Butler and Son. Central Heating and Drains” the tension was palpable. The only light was from a bank of monitors, some showing CCTV from several CCTV cameras, others displaying the readouts from a dozen noise monitors hidden in waste bins, bushes, trees and in one case in a pile of joke shop doggy-do.

DCI David ‘Psycho’ Trotter turned to his subordinate. “Make sure D-squad is in position”. “Yes Gov’” came the reply.

Out of sight in the surrounding streets were 80 specially trained officers in full riot gear, waiting for the signal. Two blocks away the armed response units were in position, and the SAS were standing by just 3 minutes away by helicopter in case anything went wrong.

It would be tight, but Trotter was certain nothing would go wrong this time. He had been thwarted by these criminals repeatedly. And now, thanks to an anonymous informant, in just 10 short minutes, they would be out in the open and vulnerable.

Viewing the scene with powerful binoculars from her front bedroom, Mona Lott was equally excited. As president of the Selby branch of the Non-parent Defence League she had waited a long time for this day. She was fed up of these smug breeders and their spawn, with their free education, child benefit, tax credits and other preferential treatment. And the noise they make. The scum who had been making her life hell - twice every day - for years would shortly be taken down once and for all.

The NDL had employed the best lawyers but their opponents had used all the tricks in the book: constantly changing tactics to avoid the law. They had avoided breaking their noise abatement order by stop specific activities such as ball games, they would stagger playtimes so that fewer perps were exercising at the same time. They had built sound-proof fences, even replaced bells with vibrating pagers for each inmate.

But this time no crooked lawyer was going to get them off. Lott herself had come up with the plan and, bypassing her committee, had persuaded the wealthy secretary to bankroll the operation.

Exhaustive research into each of the enemy had revealed nothing they could use as blackmail. So their ‘contractor’ had simply suggested to the youngest staff member that she cooperate - or else something might happen to her ailing parents. The discovery of their dog, decapitated on the front lawn, was enough persuasion: she’d agreed to release her class for break two minutes early.

Trotter checked his watch. Playtime. The team from forensics were glued to the monitors. These were showing peaks of 45 Db now that break was in full swing for the first wave of kids. There were four minutes before they would be recalled to the classroom and noise levels decline …but in two minutes Ms Honey’s Year 2 class would hit the playground.

The monitors showed a gaggle of 6-year-olds pour into the playground. The count-down began… the dials flickered… noise levels inched upwards…

With seconds to go the noise crossed the legal threshold. Trotter jubilantly flicked on his microphone.

“Go! Go! Go!”

Sir George Cayley

2010-09-20T12:58:00.002+01:00

Cayley was a Yorkshire landowner and engineer who, in the early nineteenth century, published the principles of aerodynamics which underpinned the eventual development of fixed-wing aviation. Of course there was no engine light enough to power an aeroplane then, but in 1853 a glider he had built, carrying his reluctant coachman, flew across Brompton Dale near his home: the first known example of manned flight.

(Sir Richard Branson flew a replica of the glider across the dale on the 150th anniversary in 2003.)

Last Friday, September 17, 2010, Cayley's workshop in Brompton-by-Sawdon was opened to the public for the first time following years of effort by the Sir George Cayley Memorial Committee. At last the trickle of pilgrims and historians of flight who find their way to Brompton can visit the hallowed ground (though they have to get the key from the nearby school - and there isn't a lot to see to be honest since any original artifacts and papers went to museums long ago).

My Mum was invited to the opening ceremony because Dad had done a lot to promote better recognition of Cayley's achievements (e.g. see the booklet "A Yorkshire Genius" - L Rivett and J Matthew 1991, Yorkshire Air Museum, ISBN 0 951237977), so along we went.

It was wonderful to see Dad's efforts recognised and for so many people who worked with him, and knew his enthusiasm and sense of humour, to come and speak to us.

I am grateful to the Committee for the invitation and to Mark and Belinda Evans for their hospitality.

Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 4

2010-09-20T12:04:00.000+01:00

I discovered something devastating while watching a recording of Channel 4’s Sex Education Show. (Come on, I have to have something to do while I’m peddling away on or exercise bike twice a week…)

From the age of 60 your penis can begin to shrink by up to one inch!

I’ll be 60 next year...

Now I know age-related change is inevitable. But I’ve had a lifetime to get used to the idea that that a failing memory, loss of skin tone, declining flexibility, muscle weakness, incontinence, hair loss etc etc are more or less inevitable even without the many major health problems that accompany aging. But this extra indignity really does take the cake.

I tried to convince myself that I won’t even notice the loss of a mere inch or two. It didn’t work. And C was singularly unsympathetic when I gave her the shocking news. (I guess I could take that as a compliment. Except that’s not how she meant it.)

I never thought I’d say this but it really is Too Much Information! Though I suppose it serves me right for watching programmes intended for teenagers.

The Doors Alive, Rescue Rooms, Nottingham, 4 September 2010

2010-09-12T10:01:00.001+01:00

Moi: "Aren't you going to get her number?" (Re cute 5'2 20-year-old - nice dancer - who has been exchanging lyrics and dancing with my youngest brother most of the gig.)

Mark (shocked - he's married with two teenage sons): "No! Anyway she's young enough to be my daughter!"

Moi: "Well that means she's young enough to be my granddaughter!"

Three hours earlier it was a bit disconcerting to be the only ones in the Rescue Rooms. Was anyone else coming? But, though the venue was by no means full, there was eventually enough of an audience to create a great atmosphere.

Veterans of numerous Doors-related gigs (90s cover bands and the recent Manzerak/Krieger bands), we wanted to be at the front to soak in the sound and respond appropriately. And the band didn't disappoint.

Like most Doors cover bands they play faithfully and respectfully the songs as recorded. Quite unlike the Cosmic Charlies (who play the songs of the Grateful Dead respectfully but also as a vehicle for their improvisation skills) the Doors Alive simply play the songs. A different, but just as exciting, evperience.

The singer's voice is quite similar to Jim's and he achieves a presence without frankly imitating; the band have really nailed the sound and the songs. And frankly most of the material is so strong there is a real buzz to hearing live what I have heard so many times on vinyl and CD.

They ripped through all my favourites: When the Music's Over, Soul Kitchen, Roadhouse Blues, Riders on the Storm, Light my Fire, Five to One, LA Woman etc, and I was at a loss to guess the encore, as they seemed to have done everything. A couple behind us has seen them in Liverpool and there was no "The End" so I figured this was off the menu. Bu no - they came back and delivered a very fine 'Moonlight Drive>Horse Latitudes>Moonlight Drive' followed by a roaring 'The End'.

A great night. Will definitely see them again. The only down side was 2 minutes into the first song I realised I should have told my friend Mike about the gig, as he likes the Doors music. (Sorry, Mike!)

The potato salad

2010-09-08T13:54:00.003+01:00

It glares at me every time I open the fridge. It takes up almost one whole shelf, looking reproachfully from behind its tatty clingfilm window, its decorative garnish of chopped now as inviting as yesterday’s make-up.

We’ve eaten it 3 days running and, though I hate to waste food, if I have to eat any more potato salad this side of Christmas it will be too soon. I’ve had it with baked beans and quiche (twice) and also with salad for lunch; C has had it with quiche and then with fried chicken. I could feel it in my stomach while playing tennis on Monday, three hours after eating. And I estimate there is still enough for two more (very) hearty meals.

It is a very fine potato salad. C lovingly created it on Sunday morning for a friend’s wedding do: 2 fresh bags of Charlotte potatoes, a sousance of finely sliced spring onions, and Hellmann’s Light. It was duly handed over when we arrived at the function. However we were busy talking and ended up at the back of the buffet queue (won’t make that mistake again) to find ample cooked pig and rolls - and quiche for veggies like me - but only coleslaw to go with it! No sign of C’s bowl among the empties. She was assured that ‘all the food has gone out’, so assumed it had been eaten.l

However when we returned to the table for dessert, all we found were numerous empty platters - which had apparently held gateaux, cheesecakes etc …and a full bowl of potato salad! So back home it came, and the two of us just had to make the most of it.

But this morning, as we lay in bed after our breakfast C whispered the words I longed to hear. “Let’s have risotto for tea. We'll lob the potato salad”.

Flight BA218, Denver to Heathrow, August 17, 2010

2010-09-07T19:38:00.000+01:00

Having been beaten twice to seats with more legroom at the ‘24-hours before flight’ online check-in (presumably by people with faster broadband) we are in seats 27 J and K on flight BA218 Denver to Heathrow, August 17. C has the window seat, and as we arrive the occupant of the aisle seat gets up to let us past. She is an early-twenty-something American, perhaps 5ft 10, with brown hair who has chosen to wear knee-length floppy sports shorts for comfort during the flight.

Soon after I sit down it is obvious there is a problem.

Rather than sit with her leg in front, my neighbour likes to take up a variety of positions. First one (bare-foot) leg on the floor and the other one up on the seat. Then both feet somehow resting on the magazine pocket of the seat in front. Then one leg folded under, with the other on her seat, knee up in the air. At which point the floppy shorts virtually disappear leaving an expanse of beautiful bare leg a mere 18 inches away from my averted eyes.

How am I supposed to sit 8 hours next to this vision without gazing with admiration?!! Worse, it is obvious from my attempts at conversation that she has no interest in dialogue with a ancient ginger wrinkly, leaving me no excuse for even looking in her direction! She shuffles and now there is even an inch of bare midriff between her rucked-up top and her shorts! C is no use - she’s practically asleep before take-off.

But thankfully my neighbour soon chooses to cover up with the in-flight blanket.

(Damn!)

Yellowstone National Park, August 2010

2010-09-06T21:39:00.003+01:00

You’ve seen the photos in the guidebooks, maybe some footage on TV, but nothing really prepares you for Yellowstone National Park.

Basically a large part of the park is on top of a super-volcano so that stuff underground just gets hot. Super-heated water shoots out as steam, flows out as hot springs, collects in bubbling mud pots or, where the exit is constricted, builds up pressure until it bursts out as a geyser eruption.

Parts of the park are in constant flux: small earthquakes can change hot springs into geysers and vice versa, cause springs to dry up or move, and result in hot springs appearing somewhere new. In one place a wooded hillside heated nearly to boiling point in 1978, leaving a mass of dead, cooked trees.

Everyone has heard of Old Faithful, the geyser that erupts about every 90 minutes, and it is pretty spectacular to see a 100-foot spout of hot water, but this is, actually, one of the least interesting things of the park.

We wandered out into the ‘Upper Geyser Basin’ early on our first morning. There was steam rising from dozens of hot pools and springs, like bonfires on the aftermath of some medieval battle.

Only the larger features have nameplates, but every few yards you came across some new wonder: bubbling pools, spouting geysers, weird shapes created by silica deposits from geysers, often cloaked in steam.

Some pools bubble gently, others seethe angrily as if some tormented spirit is trapped in the water, sometimes disturbing the surface as it tries to break free. In many the water level rises and falls over days, hours or minutes; in one it throbbed like a heartbeat. Each pool, has its own voice: a gurgle, a hiss, or a rumble. Sometimes there is no pool, just a mouthpiece in the rock, spluttering, hissing or puffing at anyone within earshot.

The streams of outflow from the geysers are spectacular but short-lived. Those from the hot springs are constant: either a steady trickle which may flow over, and reshape, the limestone terraces it is creating or, for the bigger springs, a gushing, steaming torrent which could be lukewarm but might be hot enough to cook a trout.

And the colours! Not only the deep blues of the spring pools, but also the greens, oranges, oranges and browns of the thermophiles in the run-off streams, each microorganism preferring a specific temperature so the overall effect is a rich and dazzling spectrum, one colour blending into the next.

You might think that after visiting a couple of these geyser basins you’d have seen enough hot springs etc, but the opposite was true. Every basin had something unique and I would gladly have started hiking to the more remote sites had time allowed.

It was well worth the 9-hour flight and the 12-hour drive.
(More pictures here)

And then there was the wildlife...

(For a list of what to do and not do see here)

The one that got away

2010-08-28T12:23:00.000+01:00

After the 100 mile drive from our cabin in Yellowstone National Park to the Grand Teton National Park we are too early to book in so we stop at Jackson Lake Lodge. The guidebooks recommend seeing the interior of this “National Historic Landmark” - apparently it is fine for the general public to wander round the poshest of hotels if they are designated Landmarks.

So we park up and hop out. I am not taking the camera - after all it’s only a building and I can always come back. As I walk away from the car it is a real pleasure not to be lugging a rucksack containing digital SLR, extra lens, video camera, water bottle, binoculars, sunblock, cagoule, C’s cagoule etc etc for the first time in 9 days. The freedom! (I’m not saying it wasn’t worth it - we’ve seen, and photographed, some great places and wildlife in Yellowstone, but haven’t yet seen a moose, one of our ‘must do’s.)

And the first floor lobby was quite a space with huge picture windows with a fine view of the Tetons, which rise just the other side of Jackson Lake. The hotel is on a rise which overlooks an area of willow scrub between the hotel and the lake.

You can walk onto the terrace and as we stand for a couple of minutes, taking in the mountains, I see a movement on a track which runs along the bottom of the hill. A coyote! I point it out to C. It trots along the track towards the hotel and the disappears into the bushes.

One minute later, not 500m away, out trots a moose followed closely by a calf, across a clearing in the willows. Our jaws collectively drop. Nobody else on the terrace has noticed them. Then they’re gone. There was just time to have grabbed a wonderful shot of moose-and-calf-in landscape!

I decide I moost learn a lesson from this: from then on I only put the camera down to drive, sleep or eat. This is the closest we get to a moose, apart from one shockingly lazy individual which is having a post-prandial doss beside a pond by the roadside. Dozens of cars and RVs stop to look. I wait 90 minutes for the wretched thing to stand up and at least give me a profile, but it doesn’t move.

Le Pain Quotidien, Covent Garden, August 25 2010

2010-08-27T11:11:00.001+01:00

"What can I get for you ladies?"

As you can imagine, the waiter at Le Pain has not exactly endeared himself to me. We've only stopped for a drink and a scone, as we ate breakfast late (at the LSE, Holborn - great value for B&B in central London).

A couple are sitting 2 tables away and the (rather attractive) girl is looking our way, and when I say to C "Looks like I'm a girl again today" she chips in "Well I didn't think you were a girl". What a sweetie!

There is barely enough tea in either of our pots for a single (pompously handle-less) cup. And the scones when they come are revolting - big, but with that leathery texture you get when you microwave something so long it starts to cook again.

I have previously grumbled to C about the Le Pain at St Pancras, saying it was pretentious because they wouldn't serve me a Coke, only a 'natural cola drink' and she objected: "What's it pretending to be?". Well now I know - it's pretending to be a proper cafe.

To add insult to injury, when I get close to C to smeak a quick kiss on the almost deserted escalator at Leicester Square station I get "No! People will think it's two women kissing". !

Summer

2010-08-20T09:58:00.000+01:00

“I still can’t get over how women are shaped” (Kurt Vonnegut - written when he was in his eighties).
We are walking to the shops on a warm Saturday morning in May. I feel a sudden jerk on the hand that is holding C‘s. The last time I felt that, she’d slipped on a fallen mushy pear last autumn, went down, and was out-of-action with a sprained ankle for weeks, so I am concerned…

But there’s no slip this time - she has clocked a skimpy-topped young female with shorts and gladiator sandals right across the other side of the road. And has assumed that I, too, have noticed this apparition; the tug on the arm is an admonishment!!! “You’re so obvious” is the only explanation I get.

Now I won’t deny that I had noticed said person, but absolutely do deny that I was staring in any way! At that point we were walking directly in her direction, for goodness sake, so there had not even been any opportunity for inadvertent head turning! Much less any ‘gawping’, ‘leering’, ‘ oggling’ or any other of those insulting words women use to describe the innocent pleasure of noticing their fellow womenkind.

Along with most blokes, I suspect, I find it impossible not to notice women when out and about. But there is nothing more sinister in this gaze of admiration than when I’m looking at a beautiful woodpecker or a sunset. (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.) And come May we’ve endured shapeless jackets, coats, scarves, trousers, woolly.hats and boots all winter. Now it’s nearly summer and these encumbrances have been cast off.

Suddenly tight T-shirts reveal those amazing curves called waists and hips; short ones, sometimes, a little area of bare midriff - if you are walking behind, the delightful movement of cheeks in tight trousers; low necklines show the beginnings of the breasts below (sometimes exhilaratingly unfettered). Even long floaty summer dresses hint at the soft feminine body underneath.

But best of all, in some cases, the leggings, tights and skinny jeans and trousers that have been covering legs all winter are miraculously shed like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, releasing marvellous bare legs into the fresh air: many colours, shapes and sizes but all utterly wonderful.

I know these ladies are not dressing in this way for my benefit, but nevertheless I am immensely grateful to each and every one of them. Long live summer!

An empty nest

2010-07-26T21:05:00.000+01:00

I’m awake early so I’ve gone down to get the washing on the line before getting breakfast.

Out of the blue, almost as my foot leaves the bottom step, I’m overcome with a feeling of immense sadness. By the time I get outside my cheeks are wet. What the f***?

Our younger son, Ben, got the keys to his house yesterday and we spent the day helping move his stuff. His bed will be delivered today, so last night was Ben’s final night before he calls somewhere else his home. It’ll be just me and C again - just like it was before kids, 26 or so years ago.

Main advantages:

No more wondering how many are in for tea
No more having to lend the car
No more monosyllabic conversations or temper loss following teen-like rudeness
. (I might never ever lose my temper again!)
The house to ourselves! We can do anything, anywhere, any time. (But sadly no longer have the energy or inclination. Well not quite as often anyway)

I’m over the moon that both boys are now independent - and they have both found wonderful partners, but apparently on some level my brain is registering that our Big Adventure of having a family is largely done. Not that you ever stop being a parent, but the day-to-day supporting/nurturing stuff is over once they’ve left home.

But within an hour or so of breakfast I’m up to my eyeballs in bits of flatpack furniture and blind fittings. No time for that emo crap! Too much to do!

Laptop Dancing

2010-07-19T16:25:00.001+01:00

I’m not big on dancing at parties but when it’s the right music something happens. Some tunes seem to connect directly to my autonomic nervous system to cause involuntary muscle contractions which could (very) loosely be described as dancing. (Yes, I know that this function should be under the control of the somatic nervous system but since said movements are involuntary I think there must be a mis-wiring somewhere.)

It generally happens at live concerts, and is about as graceful as a headless amphetamined chicken. But my iPod is also a potential hazard. Like, how am I supposed to stand still with, say, ‘Scarlet Begonias’ or (Man’s) ‘Bananas’ feeding directly into both ears? Responding to the music is, one could argue, the whole point but out of context (e.g. waiting at a bus stop) it tends to make you look like a bit of a prat. (But what, I wonder, is everyone else listening to, immobile, and why?)

Alone in the car I’ve been known to wave an arm about to a particularly good ‘China Cat Sunflower’, or if at traffic lights, both arms.

One evening a couple of weeks ago I’m jacked into my laptop in the living room, probably to listen to last week’s “I’m sorry I Haven’t a Clue via the BBC web site. I end up wandering over to YouTube and idly typing ‘Phish’ just to see what comes up. (I only saw Phish once - Shepherd’s Bush 1996, a very memorable night with Syd Barratt in the audience, a vacuum cleaner solo from Fishman, the full trampette treatment for ‘Bouncing Round the Room’ and ‘A day in the life’ as an encore.)

Low and behold, fourth on the list of hits is Phish with Neil Young performing ‘Down by the River’. I’m not even a big fan of Young, but for some reason, ‘Down by the River’ is the one song that sets me reaching for the imaginary joint and sucking greedily. So if Trey and the boys are backing him on this there was no way I am not going to click on the link.

Result: the most awesomely exciting musical high since Gong in Sheffield last year. Movement is, of course, rather inhibited by the presence of a laptop on my knees but 4 minutes in my upper torso, arms, head are thrashing about with total abandon.

Laptop dancing!

Marital Conversations (17)

2010-07-19T16:25:00.000+01:00

M (whispered into ear with irresistably authentic accent): Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?

C: Non. Bog off.

Blood on the office floor (Accident Reference 4278)

2010-07-09T11:13:00.010+01:00

This is the uncensored story of how, in 2007, our department lost its 100% record for no workplace accidents. Records like this are valued, even in an office environment where the direst hazard, in normal circumstances, is a paper cut. But then some idiot goes and spoils it all.

It is a little hard to blame anyone else for what happened. However, after I’d spent 4 years with a desk next to a fully trained first aider you would think that, on the one day I needed her, she could have bothered to be in the office. (Yes, I enjoyed our conversations, but poor show, Helena!).

Picture the opening scene for an episode of Casualty. A fifty-something geezer is getting ready to go to work. He has his packed lunch and is loading into his boot an elderly, but unused, food processor for which he has found a buyer via the ‘small ads’ facility on the company intranet. Follow his journey to work… Is some space debris going to land on his car as he passes through Costock? Will he be caught in a flash flood beside Coates Mill? Will the railway bridge next to Loughborough train station collapse as he is crossing? No! He arrives at work safely!

So the scene is set. It is now mid-afternoon, and the buyer, who unfortunately happens to be my line manager Neil, phones to say he will be over from the other building shortly, to pick up the food processor. I decide to give the thing a final check - it has been in our attic for several years. As I lift it out of the box, the blade falls out onto my office carpet.

Somehow, perhaps because I am not wearing my glasses, I am convinced that the blade has come to rest in the horizontal position. But this is not the case: the blade is sticking up and as I reach down to pick it up I plunge my thumb straight into it.

There is shock ...and then there is blood. The cut is perhaps two centimetres long and half a centimetre deep, right in the middle of my thumb tip. I pick the wretched blade up and pop it into the box, but it is already smeared with blood, and more globs of blood drip onto the food processor.

Bizarrely, I think I should first clean the wound. So I grab some tissues and head to the gents. Not wishing to appear the plonker that I clearly am, I walk as nonchalantly as is possible through the open plan office whilst clutching the tissues to my thumb. Once there, the flow of water from the tap is only marginally faster than the flow of blood from my thumb and it is obvious that any lurking bacteria would have been flushed out some time ago. But this does provide the opportunity to dump the soaking tissues and re-stock with paper towels.

Back at my desk there is no sign of the blood flow slowing. I’ve probably lost about an armful by now and am finding it difficult to remain nonchalant. But my main concern is the problemette that Neil may change his mind when he sees that his purchase is now a biohazard. I manage to mop up the blood and get everything back in the box but then something tells me I need to sit down or else I may shortly be getting very familiar with the carpet. Time to call for the cavalry.

I dial the emergency number and tell Security the situation; I think I used the words ‘blood’ and ‘queezy’ a lot, just for effect you understand. Then I decide to alert the rest of the office. They are about to be treated to a floor show; mercifully the office is not full today.

When Security put out a call for a first aider, all the first aiders on site are supposed to respond if they possibly can. There is a lull of a couple of minutes when nothing happens …and then first three, then seven or eight more people with first aid packs converge on my office.

The sense of drama is intense; I haven’t had this much attention since I was a newborn. The first arrival dons gloves and takes control, wanting more pressure on the wound. It doesn’t work. Then Lea Hyde, the site nurse, arrives and my five minutes of fame are over as all the first aiders drift off back to work. Lee and the first aider eventually get the flow stopped and she patches my thumb up with a few Steristrips. (You're my heroine, Lea!) The red paper towels are cleared away. Crisis over (apart from the embarrassment of completing the accident report form).

I do remember to advise Neil to wash the food processor before using it. And when I finish work the following year he presents me with a pair of ironic protective gloves. (Thanks, Neil - they are well used!)

The cut heals up fine over the next 2 weeks, but it is months before I get proper feeling back in the thumb, and the scar is quite impressive.

And the moral of this tale is simple. When clearing the house of a deceased parent or parent-in-law, do not, under any circumstances, clutter your own attic with articles that ‘might come in useful’. Get rid! (Or they might come back to bite you.)

Anna and Martina; drugs in sport; more grumblings

2010-07-08T09:09:00.001+01:00

What a delight! I had an hour or so to watch some tennis last week and who should be playing but the ultimate tennis babe Anna Kournikova partnering Marina Hingis in an invitation ladies doubles!

I’d forgotten how love-at-first-sight gorgeous she is! How balletic she looks, moving around the court! How supremely tantric it was, watching her and Martina play in the late 1990s. Sadly Anna never reached her potential through injury and, one suspects, her modelling commitments. But why did Martina stop playing, I ask C. “Drugs” she replies.

I am curious now. What drugs? Was it a debilitating addiction to something that wrecked her health? Was she caught taking a performance-enhancing substance? No - there were traces of cocaine in a urine sample and she was banned in 2008.

Now I, like most people I guess, feel that the use of biologicals and pharmaceuticals to enhance performance in sport is cheating and measures have to be taken to prevent this practice. But who had the bright idea of testing urine samples for other substances while they were at it? And what right does the tennis, or any other sporting authority, to infringe the privacy of sportsmen and women in this way? Who cares, apart from the tabloids, what they do in their spare time?

Cocaine use can hardly be classed as performance enhancing. (If it is - show me the evidence in a quality peer-reviewed journal.) It is certainly illegal - but do the tennis authorities also check whether the players are involved in tax evasion? Road traffic offences? Illegal downloading? Alcohol abuse? So why are they allowed to check for recreational drugs?

Nuke Bridlington!

2010-07-02T21:25:00.000+01:00

Sadly my evil temper has degenerated to the point that this was my response to a news item on East Midlands Today about some kids from Derby being subjected to racial abuse while on a school trip to the Yorkshire coastal town of Bridlington.

When C pointed out that the perpetrators were probably a couple of drunken yobs outside a pub, I did agree that perhaps this response would, perhaps, be just a little harsh on the innocent majority. (Though on reflection I haven't noticed many world leaders being particularly squeamish about 'collateral damage' (aka murdering innocents) and if the majority were so innocent, why haven't they lynched, or at least flamed, the scum?)

The mayor of Bridlington suggest that those responsible were visitors. Nice try Councilor, but I won't be visiting your miserable town again if I can help it.

Wimbledon, 26 June 2010

2010-06-29T13:32:00.001+01:00

Wimbledon! Having watched the odd match, and sometimes much more, every year since about 1968 it is a thrill to have gotten Number 1 Court tickets in the public lottery this year. And imagine my excitement to hear the order of play on Friday evening - Soderling v Bellucci, Zahlovova Strycova v Sharapova v , Malisse v Querrey. (Thank goodness we weren't on Centre Court with Murray, Nadal & Serena Williams; I'm not so sure C was as pleased as I was though...)

We arrive via the train and tube, bizarrely meeting someone C used to teach with in Nottingham on the walk from the tube station. It is fiercely hot so we munch our sarnies (not just ordinary sarnies, M&S sarnies) in the shade on some steps rather than on Henman Hill.

My priority before taking our seats is to find a cushion rental kiosk; for some reason C has forbidden me from taking any of her vast array of cushions. On reflection it was not a good idea to go out on my bike for the first time in 12 months just the day before. (By the time I got home I was practically riding standing up, in an attempt to avoid bruising on the bruises. If you ask me the bicycle seat was probably adapted, with very minor alterations, from some medieval apparatus of torture designed by the Inquisitors to produce extreme perineal trauma in their victims.)

According to at least 2 online sources cushions are available for rental inside Wimbledon, but ominously the location is not marked on the map they sent us. None of the many signposts in the complex are helpful and I am sent halfway across the site by one official before the third person I ask says they don’t do rentals any more. And the souvenir cushions are £20; they must be having a laugh. We arrive at our seats just in time for the first match, and I am reduced to laying my thin summer jacket on the plastic seat.

After the second match we decide to eat. I spot a promising ‘mozarella and tomato Panini’ at one food hall, but C doesn’t fancy anything there. So we wander to the other food hall and she opts for ‘Sizzling Chicken sandwich’. The only thing there is the pizzas which, actually, look revolting - thick crusts with huge untopped borders, so I say I’ll go for a Panini and meet C back here. So I trek back to the first place, only to find they are sold out of paninis! Oh well, the pizzas can’t be that bad.

Wrong! My mushroom feast admittedly has a few mushrooms, but clearly hasn’t seen an oven, even a microwave, for several hours, possibly days. And when I finally find C, she reports that her chicken, far from sizzling, is almost cold enough for rigor mortis to have set in a second time.

So much for Wimbledon food - overpriced and over-the-hill.

But seriously we had a great day out. Our seats were great, there was eventually some cloud cover so we didn’t cook all day, the tennis was good, and best of all Maria won!

Marital Conversations (16)

2010-06-24T11:01:00.000+01:00

(To fully comprehend the abject cruelty contained in this conversation, you need to know that my adolescent acne only settled down about 3 years ago at the age of 55.)

C (observing white powder on bedroom floor, a result of me upsetting a pack of filler into the floor of the cellar and my foot, earlier that day): What's that? Foot powder?

M: No. It's Polyfiller.

C: Oh - it that some kind of substitute for botox?

Notts v Northants, Trent Bridge, 22 June 2010

2010-06-24T10:59:00.001+01:00

Thanks largely to C, my relationship to cricket has come a long way since, as a teenager I loathed it as a toff’s sport I was forced to play every summer. But I can’t say I have exactly embraced it as a worthwhile spectator sport. For one thing it involves sitting down for long periods with nothing much to do. For another, the actual crux of the sport takes place in a nanosecond at speeds which have to be shown in ultra-slow replay if I am to remotely comprehend what has just happened, rendering live viewing spectacularly pointless. This might explain why I was never any good at batting.

But I’d promised to go to a 20-20 match with C some time, the weather is good, and we have a spare evening. And Trent Bridge cricket ground is only a 5-minute walk away. (BUT I already sat through a Simply Red concert for my nearest and dearest this week - I gave her tickets for Christmas - AND Maria Sharapova is on court tonight, and possibly on TV.)

For some inexplicable reason C has chosen to sit on the one side of the ground that is in direct sun. The day after the summer solstice and not a cloud in the sky. Now I like to be warm, but not chargrilled. I had enough hours in a state of high anxiety supervising the boys on beaches during summer holidays, which involved re-applying sub-block every time they got wet and every 30 minutes if they didn’t. And now C has me worrying about her instead.

Quite apart from the risk of melanomas, Caucasian skin exposed to sunlight for long enough over a lifetime tends to assume the texture and appearance of cooked turkey. The results are invariably a disaster. To make matters worse, C’s shirt does not button up to the top and her hat only protects her down to eye level from the late afternoon sun. Suddenly the burkha seems like a good idea.

When she implores me to ‘just shut up about the sun for 10 minutes’, I subliminally agree and look at my watch in order to time 10 minutes and actually miss the first wicket.
Somehow, mostly by maintaining a stream of disparaging remarks about the standard of the fielding, thinking of ways to make the game more interesting, and a passable pint of Worthington we get to the change-over, Northants having a struggled to the miserable score of 121 for 7.

An easy score for Notts to get; perhaps we’ll be home by 8:30?

But no. After 9 overs they have amassed the huge score of 25 for 4 and the match goes the full 20 overs, ending with a tie after a reasonably tense last few overs. Overall it is a reasonably pleasant evening, with subjective time approximating to elapsed time oddly enough. (I’m sure the relationship between these could be expressed mathematically with terms for temperature, wind chill factor and quality of the company you are in...) And Maria is through to the next round.
Ideas for making cricket more interesting:

Arm the spectators (e.g. with paintball guns or catapults) so that opposition fielders running to stop a 4 have to dodge shots from the crowd.
Extra runs for hitting pigeons with the ball (batsmen and fielders). (The ground staff might pack the outfield with grass seed to attract flocks of the birds)
An extra ball - the batsman, instead of having to stand still and have a ball hurled a him every minute or so, is allowed to throw one back at the bowler. (It would probably have to be the non-facing batsman with this opportunity.) This would result in the bowlers having to wear protective gear and might slow them down enough so I could see what was going on.

30 January 1972 - "Bloody Sunday"

2010-06-18T09:59:00.002+01:00

I hear on the radio that the British army had shot dead 13 of its own citizens in Londonderry. Army casualties: zero.

I am deeply shocked. I feel ashamed to be British. (I was naive enough then, to think that being British was something to be proud of, rather than just a lucky accident of birth.) The IRA use hidden bombs and secret murder squads; they don't engage in firefights in the streets where they might get injured: it is obvious that the soldiers have killed unarmed civilians. In 2010 we are accustomed to national and international armed forces killing unarmed civilians in Bosnia, Iraq, Sudan, Afganistan; not then.

The next day I march with others in protest through Sheffield, one of only six or seven demonstrations I've ever taken part in. The event is angry, noisy, subject to disruption by equally angry police. In the aftermath the demonstration is judged to have been a failure and is followed up with a completely silent march a few days later.

Widgery ran an enquiry into the events of the day and supported the army's version, compounding the cover-up. The results were catastrophic: increased recruitment to the IRA and easier fundraising for them in the USA; a 'justification' for all the bombs and murders which followed. And, of course an increasingly violent loyalist response and decades of more deaths and maimings which continue today. A pattern of events which is repeated over and over; look at Iraq, Gaza.

At last the Saville report has put the record straight. And, just as we would want those responsible for Srebrenika to be brought to justice, so, if there is the evidence for convictions, should those who shot those civilians on 30 January 1972. And those who perjured themselves in an attempt to cover up the truth. With action comes responsibility.

Sarah Kavanagh

2010-06-17T09:14:00.001+01:00

I don't know Sarah Kavanagh from Adam. And it pains me to admit that I read about her in the Daily Mail. (For decades after we were married I refused to buy C's daily fix for her, but I have relented in recent years. And sometimes I flick through the wretched thing to see if there is anything I can remotely agree with in it.) But this article about her caught my eye.

There is a particular skill to selecting gifts for people. You have to know them quite well, or else you have to know what stuff they would really like to be given at that particular point in time (e.g. by asking them).

I've always thought that the best kinds of gifts contain something personal - some of the giver's time or particular skill, for example. I guess having a good idea for a gift, thich someone else has not thought of, counts. So does making something, or agreeing to go to dance classes when you don't particularly want to...

But Sarah Kavanagh came up with the ultimate gift for a partner. But, being the shy and modest type, I am not going to get specific here - you'll have to look it up. Admittedly this present may not be appreciated if, say, you have been together just a couple of years. But for a 12th anniversary and beyond - ladies wanting to treat their partners take note - I cannot think of anything to match it.