Don't panic. RTFM.

On the fringe

2012-01-27T13:54:00.000Z

It's been a funny old month. But then January usually is. Christmas is over, and try as hard as we might it seems difficult to really get 2012 into gear. It can't be that the snow has slowed us down. There hasn't been any in these here parts. It can't be because work is slow. It's frantic. It can't be because of lack of opportunity. there are plenty of things to get my teeth into. I even wanted to go and see the 'comedy' Sherlock Holmes in Soho...and despite an impressive prompt, we simply forgot (I'm really, really sorry). It can't be because we are slumped in moribund depression. We have lots to celebrate. But we have for certain caught Auntie Gwen's 'Can't be arsed' gene. Getting out of bed in the morning is practically impossible. I'm sure it's darker when we wake up than when we go to bed.Hopefully with February just around the corner the pace of life will pick up. This week in anticipation, and despite heavy frost on the ground, I cycled to the office twice. Surely a sign that energy levels are returning?

Once upon a time I had more shoes than any man I know. I can't remember the exact number, but it was at least 42. That's pairs, not individual shoes. So I've been vaguely amused to find that suddenly I have no black work shoes to wear. Every one has a hole in the sole, which means that this week as the rain has poured my feet have got soaked. We still have a local cobbler in Bermondsey..nice folks - support Millwall and their politics are probably entirely red and white - and proper locals. For any local shop times have been hard as the chains have moved in, so I'm very happy to give them my support when I can. I could see his eyes light up when I turned up with my six pairs of shoes. They're done and done well now. And I hope he has a lovely weekend.

I may have to eat my words. I may have been rash spouting off about Scottish independence. Ridiculous as it is. My tongue may have been sharper than it should.

The stage is The Cat's one great love. She's doing drama As level, succeeded in joining the National Youth Theatre and performing on the South Bank last year. She can sing you every Sondheim song he has ever written, and has gone to more plays in the West End than any other teenager I know. The Boy is also a great performer. He has a real talent for acting...and his performance in the school's production of Gogol's The Government Inspector is still talked about two years after he had the lead role. He has other interests though so doesn't live his every waking moment thinking of the stage. So two different teenagers, each talented.

The school has decided to take a production up to The Edinburgh Fringe and both the offspring auditioned. They both auditioned for roles. They have both been chosen for lead roles. The Cat's Mother and I are over the moon. The kids are too. We'll be heading north of Hadrian's Wall. Knowing The Cat's Mother, we'll be taking a coach load of supporters. Tonight we will celebrate.

A big Mac please

2012-01-25T13:42:00.001Z

It's no coincidence I am sure that the lawyers I face in the current legal tussle I'm involved in are called leech. Of course they don't spell their name quite like that, but the pronounciation is the same.

I was a little displeased by the Oscar nominations yesterday and was wondering how much they actually reflect true talent, and how much Hollywood politics. Do they know anything? It could just be that my tastes are different....anyway I was really delighted that Pina has made it on to the list of nominees. It was, remarkably, my favourite film of last year. A German film documentary by Wim Wenders about a choreographer. But somehow it succeeded in doing what films should do - capturing the magic. If you get the chance to beg, borrow or steal the DVD, then do, I think you'll surprise yourself.

I thought Tinker, Tailor deserved more, but knew it wouldn't..hopefully Gary Oldman will do well, but I won't be placing a bet. I really enjoyed Midnight in Paris...but best film? No way...it's light, fluffy and whimsical...it must be the Woody Allen factor. Why War Horse is on the list I have no idea. Really no idea. Why it's nominated in the cinematography category is equally beyond me...Spielberg should have learned by now that 'more' is not always more. The Artist is excellent, but I suspect it will end up with many more nominations than actual Oscars. Anyway I shall wait and see the outcome, and then no doubt will get on my high (war) horse again.

There's the faintest possibility that the some of the next Jason Statham film will be shot in my office. The location manager has been round and likes it, so we'll have to see. I'm very excited at the prospect, even though knowing the type of film he makes the whole place will be blown up after a fight between Jason and fifty evil henchmen.

A few years ago, when The Boy was only as high as my hip, we were walking through Brighton when someone stepped out his Range Rover. It was Paul McCartney, so I smiled and waved, and he cheerily waved back. I guess he was still in the first flush with Heather. I then spent some time explaining to The Boy who Macca is and why he's such an important person. Down our road..the office road that is...Paul McCartney is doing some filming today and tomorrow. It was a nice coincidence then that Q Radio was playing some Beatles this morning. I think this is for an advertisement, and I have to ask myself why he would do it....obviously not the money, but perhaps he just needs to keep himself occupied. As some of the filming will take place in the Mews itself, I'm hoping to get a picture. Star struck? Me? Noooooo. It seems that a Range Rover is not good enough anymore as the man is arriving by helicopter. Well obviously. If you were Paul McCartney you would as well.

And don't forget "Dance dance otherwise we are lost". I think that may be my motto for the year.

Rant

2012-01-24T13:58:00.000Z

Opposite the office we have a new White Cube gallery. If you don't know White Cube, it's the spiritual home of the new wave BritArt. The first one opened in trendy Hoxton Square and almost single-handedly made the whole area the trendiest place in London. Not bad considering that before, you'd get mugged/raped/throat slit if you took a wrong turn. That's only a mild exaggeration. The Gallery is splendid - it was an ugly storage depot, and with a few deft strokes by the builders it looks more than passable. I mentioned before that I've been in it, and there's a terminal case of Emperors clothes. Thank heavens they're hoping to open a bar so you can stagger around, hardly noticing that there's nothing to look at. Anyway, it'll do the area good, so I'm not moaning. What I am moaning about though is that there are half a dozen cycle racks on the pavement outside the gallery which have been there for years. And very useful they are too. Clearly having cycles outside a trendy gallery is an aesthetic nightmare for the owners, and (I'm only speculating here) they appear to have prevailed on the Council to have them removed. That's a bit shitty if you ask me.

I'm interested to see that the Government's attempts to 'cap' benefits has been blocked by LibDem peers and Bishops. Now for me this is interesting. The cap is £26,000. If that's a familiar figure to you, it's because that is the UK's average wage. So that means there are millions of people who earn less than that. I may be over-simplifying it, but if the Government wants to encourage people to get a job shouldn't the benefit cap be way below he national average? I think so. An average wage implies you can afford some of the nice things in life...but why would you work if you can get those without work. I may be turning into Mr Grumpy here. Please let me know.

At the other end of the scale I see Vince Cable has set out plans for giving shareholders the say in how much company Directors are remunerated. Well it's a step I suppose, but not really much of one is it. As share values have gone Chief Executives salaries have gone up and we're all right to feel pretty aggrieved about that. But shareholders are, in general, not you and I. They are enormous pension funds, wealthy investors and the like, none of whom represent the people whose jobs and wages are being squeezed whilst the Fat Cats get fatter. Strangely, it seems the politicians have vetoed the idea of including workers representatives in the remuneration committees of major companies. By contrast, in Germany, this is how it is. And look how their economy has performed whilst ours has coughed and wheezed. Of course history says that there is a different economic and social mind set...ours is management vs workers, and theirs is management and workers together. That's not to say Germany has had it all its own way, but at a time when we need a radical change in this country, it might be better for us to look in that direction, rather than across the Atlantic for inspiration.

Back on two wheels, I was frustrated yesterday that the front lamp on my bicycle has stopped working. It was new in August. There it was flashing away when I arrived at the office yesterday morning, and dead as a Dodo in the evening. It's not the battery, and of course, I don't have the receipt to take it back. It's a familiar moan...bike lights seem to last no more than six months...I suspect the makers are on to a good wheeze. It's certainly one that costs me a fortune. Anyway, I wasn't completely caught out and left to cycle the 17 miles home in the dark - Santa had brought me a pair of lights that go in the handles of racing bikes giving a rad glow facing backwards and white light forwards; if I press the button they will flash orange as a turn indicator too - brilliant. Let's hope they last beyond June!

The devil of a post

2012-01-22T21:45:00.002Z

UP is a very clever man. In his wisdom he decided that if he was to see The Artist he would see it at the Barbican Arts Centre cinema, on the basis that you would get a more discerning audience with fewer of the normal cinema distractions. He was right. We went to see it at the Stratford Vue (that's the one in the new shopping centre near the Olympic stadium, not Shakespeare's home town). We knew it wasn't going well when we sat down and from a few rows back we heard one girl turn to her friend and say "Is this in English, I heard it was made by the French", then a couple of seats to our left two girls arrived, one with a large coke and popcorn, the other with two cartons of popcorn - their chewing was as much an accompaniment as the film's soundtrack. Finally, in the seat next to me, half way through the film, there was a sound of a text message arriving. I glared at the woman next to me, but she just smiled in the same way that she always does when she's done something naughty....

Apart from that, it was a fabulous film...a novelty yes, but beautifully put together and with some lovely conceits. Unlike Spielberg's War Horse. I struggle to understand how a stage production with puppets could reduce me to tears with its powerful emotions, whilst on the silver screen all that was completely lost. Yes it was big and glossy, but the tissues remained firmly in my pocket. A travesty.

Matilda, which we went to see last weekend, on the other hand is an amazing stage production and highly recommended for children of all ages from five through to eighty five. I hadn't realised what a great talent Tim Minchin is before, and going forwards I'll pay him much more attention.

I meant to mention, but forgot, and now will, although it would have fitted better in the Meryl Streep post. A friend works for a big accountancy business in London. They have had a presentation from a very senior person in the Metropolitan Police about how to manage people working this year. By way of introduction he said that the Police faced three major public event challenges this year. Obviously The Queen's Jubilee. Obviously The Olympics. But then without missing a beat added 'Margaret Thatchers state funeral'. I wonder if anyone has told the woman that this is THE year. I did a bit of Googling, and it seems it was Gordon Brown who agreed with The Queen that she deserves a state funeral. I'm not going to comment, but I guess everyone will have an opinion. And a strong one at that.

This is evidently my 666th post. That's a lot of writing. I'd say each one takes about half an hour, so 333 hours of my life given over to writing. That's two whole weeks of doing nothing but tapping out the usual drivel. Equally it's two weeks of sheer joy and pleasure. Nappy Valley persuaded me to start, and I'm still absolutely delighted she did. I don't write as well as her, but in my own little way, I'm delighted. I think when I started I wasn't sure "Why?", but I realised pretty quickly that it will be great in years to come back and look at the things we've been doing marking the changes in our lives...the good and the bad. Plus, Grandma in Cyprus gets to know what we're up to...and I think she likes that. As does The Brother. And of course writing this has opened up the blogosphere to me...and reading everyone else's efforts is a real delight.

The lady's not for turning

2012-01-17T17:37:00.000Z

After my little Scottish rant I wondered if I should be a little more considered and even-handed. So here's what I really think. The UK is a constitutional mess and it needs sorting out...and not in the piecemeal way we tend to go about things. At the moment we have devolved Government for Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland....but not England. We have Scottish and Welsh MPs able to vote on things English, but not the other way round. We use an electoral system which does not give us the results which reflect our voting patterns. We have two Houses...Commons and Lords, but the Lords is not elected, nor does it seem to represent anyone in particular. I don't mind if the Scots want independence (although it doesn't make any real sense to me) but it should be part of a much bigger constitutional reform that restructures the Government for the future.

Phew. Glad to have got that out of the way. Hopefully Auntie Gwen will be speaking to me again. Soon.

One of the great political characters of the last 100 years was undoubtedly Margaret Thatcher. Whether you're 'FOR' or 'AGAINST' it is impossible to deny her impact on British society. For my part, although I was grown up during her time as Prime Minister, I look back and realise that at the time I didn't understand what she was doing, or why and the devastation she was causing. And that's quite an admission from someone who studied politics and economics at University in the early 1980's. I should never have gone to a nice middle class university, cosseted away from the harsh realities of life. However, she's been long out of power, and the effects are to be seen today. So with apologies to everyone who suffered either directly or indirectly, my view is clearer. She was a leader with vision, someone who brought about the many changes that the UK needed to bring it into the 21st century. That was something we badly needed. But the way she went about it and the long term consequences have been bad for many people and the country as a whole. I doubt it was necessary to inflict all the suffering to achieve the changes. It is a tragedy that since her 'vision' is something that our politicians have lacked. We need a new vision to get us on the straight and narrow again.

So with this in mind it was interesting to go and see The Iron Lady at the cinema this weekend. My other reason for wanting to see it was that some of it was filmed just outside my office - and at the time I was fearfully excited about the whole thing. I was delighted to get some of the girls to pose for a photo.

As for the film itself, I thought it was terrible....the worst I've seen in a long time. Meryl Streep was fantastic, but all the other characters were caricatures, and it was very disjointed in telling history. I doubt our teenagers would be able to follow it or understand the importance of certain events. Oddly, given the title of the film, there was barely a reference to east-west foreign policy and 'Doing business' with the Russians. Remarkably, her most famous quote, "The Lady is not for turning" was not included. And framing it by presenting her as a dementia-ridden old lady, well that was not for me...I'm not sure why you would do that. It either elicits sympathy or it is irrelevant...I can't see the Americans doing that to any of their past Presidents.

OMFG

2012-01-16T19:44:00.004Z

No one can possibly be more surprised than me at the moment. I've just received a confirmation e-mail that I've passed my audition and will be part of the Olympics opening ceremony!

I've no idea what it will entail, other than there are 24 rehearsals, some five hours long. That's quite a commitment...and I'm over the moon.

Wow.

Second Saturday Shots

2012-01-13T21:32:00.000Z

With the disaster of my phone it's taken me a little longer to find my pictures from December, but here's a few I've managed to retrieve

A rather splendid church in Southwark

The juxtaposition of the old and the new

Blackfriars tube

Evening view over the Thames

Banksy...who else?

More street art

Street art meets the Olympics

Old street

I think I posted this before...I love it

These became....

....these

Sunset out the window

Now what film is famous for a man stepping out of the shadows?

The girls...

Ice skating at the Brighton Dome

Down at the marina

Same bar.....

The Scottish Play

2012-01-12T14:26:00.001Z

Having breezed into the new year last week, it's come as a bit of a shock to the system to find I'm getting knocked from pillar to post by one battle after another...one in particular is shaping up to be pretty gruesome and probably expensive. It involves property and lawyers...never a pleasant combination. And this is giving me sleepless nights.

I had a battle of a different kind over the Christmas period. The memory card in my (android) phone corrupted meaning that the whole thing just went through a cycle of switching itself on, switching itself off, switching itself on, switching itself off,switching itself on, switching itself off,switching itself on, switching itself off,switching itself on, switching itself off,switching itself on, switching itself off,switching itself on, switching itself off,switching itself on, switching itself off,switching itself on, switching itself off,switching itself on, switching itself off,switching itself on, switching itself off,switching itself on, switching itself off,switching itself on, switching itself off,switching itself on, switching itself off, until the processor got so hot I could fry an egg on it. On the card were all my 'apps'...all 200 of them, as well as my music, my messages and my photos. The photos are, of course, very precious to me, so that was upsetting, but what was most irritating was that the icons for the apps just appeared as ghosts on the screen...and like all good poltergeists they just wouldn't go away. It didn't matter what I did, I just didn't seem to be able to solve the problem. Even putting the card in the computer, dragging everything off and then re-formatting it didn't work. It took me until this weekend to get a whole new card, put some music on it, and start downloading the apps all over again. Believe me it took some time, and I'm still left with all sorts of ghost icons on the screen. I've scoured the interweb with no success. So I'm now entirely dependent on Kellogsville to come riding to the rescue. No pressure

When I were a lad...these were absolutely brilliant...filling me with wonderment and joy. I'm so glad they are still going in the 21st century...and getting a makeover to bring them up to dateand infinitely preferable to those 3D TVs

Technology is not all bad..it can provide some entertainment. The sat-nav, when it speaks, has renamed Hove Huv, Lewes is called Loos, Loughton is Lufton, and our journey ended at Arns rather than Anne's. I see the Government has put together a task force to sort out the problem of sat-navs taking people down narrow streets, cycle paths, through rivers and over cliffs. Well let me give them a clue, it's not a technology issue. It's an issue about a lack of common sense. A lack of self-responsibility. Tackle that and the whole world, not just sat-navs, will become a better place.

The other night over dinner, we were musing about how warm it's this winter, and I was lamenting the lack of snow which I love. At this point The Boy piped up that what people don't realise is that global warming doesn't mean hot summers and more sunny days, instead it means more indeterminate seasons and just plain shitty weather all year round. Damn, I will put my sun tan lotion away now. From there the conversation just spiraled...the Brighton flat will be gone washed away by rising tides. Fortunately the house is on the top of a hill, so good for keeping our heads above water, and for shooting marauding less fortunates...that was The Boy's contribution. We debated whether it would be warm enough to keep chickens in the garage (if not there's always the cellar - battery chickens are the way to go), and whether our other livestock should be sheep, cows or goats. The vote went to goats as we suspect they're most productive on the least amount of space...but we may yet be proven wrong. We know where we'll be growing vegetables (there was a debate about sugar beet, but I think I prevailed. A windmill could be fixed to the roof to provide power and pump water from the stream at the bottom of the hill.

Then The Boy threw in about how much space we needed to support ourselves, and what this might mean for relatives who may want to join us. I hate to say this, but if there's a blood-link, the news is not good for you. The girls sentimentally claimed that they loved their relatives, and couldn't do without them. The Boys pointed out the hot air balloon argument, and there was no point in us all going down. There's no room for sentiment. If you can't pull your weight, then I'm sorry you just have to do the decent thing.

At that point it was time to clear the table and wash the dishes.

You wouldn't expect me to miss the opportunity to remark on the Scottish independence issue would you? My informed and considered opinion is that Hadrian's Wall was put up for a reason, and what a tragedy it's been in a state of disrepair for so long. No, with a few exceptions (Auntie Gwen and her family, a few relatives, perhaps one of the two ex-girlfriends who hailed from Alba, and a few friendly readers) I find the Scottish a miserable bunch of whingers, lacking in any sense of humour whilst remaining completely obsessed with turning gentle home-nations rivalry into hating the English for no reason at all. The distribution of taxes means that for years and years and years the English have subsidised The Picts who drown their sorrows in Whisky...or is it Whiskey...and Special Brew whilst gorging away on deep fried everything. They claim to have invented everything, but five minutes reading of the Encyclopedia Britannica shows that is just a myth perpetuated by a country that suffers from low self-esteem. The men wear skirts and a purse...what kind of country is that? It's particularly perverse that whilst the rest of the world is trying to get into larger political groupings, The Scots are going the other way. Since Blair started messing with the political system, we've had Scots MPs voting on purely English matters, whilst English MPs have no say on anything in the Highlands, and woe-betide them for expressing any sort of opinion because that would be meddling. So whilst many people hold with the view that France would be great if it wasn't for the French (not me), I'm of the opinion that Scotland would be great if it wasn't for the Scottish. Bet you're wondering where I'm not headed for my holidays this year.

Celebrity stalking

2012-01-10T13:34:00.001Z

"It's behind you"..or at least it should be.

We trotted off to the local panto on Sunday - Peter Pan flew in. This particular amateur company of thespians have been putting on panto for 51 years. That's an awful lot of Dames. There was enough of us to fill up an entire row. It is a miracle of the modern age that even with an amateur production the tickets had been booked on line, and that was fortunate as there was so many of us. I'm always in two minds about this strange British tradition, but one thing you can't deny is the enthusiasm of the audience for corny. Really corny. jokes. Nor can you deny the enthusiasm with which the cast delivers some pretty awful lines, sings with all their heart and soul and perform with a woodeness that would be better applied to the tumbling scenery. I had woken up curmudgeonly, but got swept along by the whole thing. Perhaps it was remembering my days treading the planks under the guidance of Chris Timothy, including a stint as Genie of the Ring in Aladin, but whatever, it was fun. And not "Two and a half hours of your life you'll never get back" according to one of our number. "Oh yes it was". "Oh no it wasn't". "Oh yes it was". "Oh no it wasn't". Etc, etc

I was out on the town towards the end of last year (and I may have mentioned this already) with a couple of my friends. The Cat's Mother remained at home with a temperature. Unbeknownst to me, we were spotted by some friends of The Cat's Mother, and it transpires there was much discussion amongst the friends about WHY was I out without her, was I playing hookie, and should they dump my pizza in my lap. I may have been drunk, but evidently well-enough behaved to avoid pizza-in-lap punishment. A few days later they passed me in the Homebase car park and I missed them waving and shouting hello. Unobservant may be my middle name. It was getting beyond an an odd coincidence then that we bumped into their parents in a pub in Waterloo...the Anchor and Hope (it may be called the Hope and Anchor...I can never remember) which serves some particularly fine food. So clearly they're following me and keeping a watch on my movements.

It seems that I am the victim of a different stalking. After all it has to be more than a coincidence when you bump into someone half way up a mountain in Switzerland, and then again in a darkened auditorium in Waterloo. Really I don't know what to do about it. I know that celebrities are not what they used to be..after fancy Anthony Worral Thompson getting caught shoplifting in Tescos....what's wrong with Fortnum's or Harvey Nicholls for heavens sake? There we were celebrating UP's birthday at a performance of Noises Off, and I spotted him skulking a few rows behind us. His cover was simple, but I saw through it. He was there with his teenage children...but had failed to bring his wife. And who on earth would take teenagers to see a farce that had seen its best days a couple of decades ago? I guess he recognises that he may also have had his best days - after all did you watch the Top Gear Indian special over Christmas? Yes, it was poor, so no wonder Jeremy Clarkson is looking for inspiration. I realise I'm that sort of guy. Just along the row from him was Babs Windsor, so she must have heard as well. I'm not sure what can offer her that Sid James didn't already.

Exam nerves

2012-01-06T14:40:00.000Z

One of the teachers at The Boy's school put the following on his Facebook status today

"Just sat down in front of 120 pupils doing their Maths mock exam, and completely missed the chair. Who needs dignity?"

I so wish I'd been there - my exams were never that funny.

Untitled (not really)

2012-01-04T14:31:00.000Z

It was probably a bit of a mistake to get to the end of the new Sherlock Holmes and declare to The Cat's Mother that I had added Lara Pulver to my list of five. There was an unnerving edge to her voice when she declared that she commended my honesty, after which I was relieved to find that I wasn't sleeping on the couch. She's always been quite tolerant of my list of five containing only Monica Bellucci, but I may have gone one step too far this time. Anyway, in the interests of good relations I've decided not to add her picture here. Instead I suggest you Google Lara Pulver Dominatrix.

Perhaps I should go for a cold shower? I can now, of course, because the builders did eventually finish the shower room. I'm sure you've been waiting the unveiling...and I was going to take a picture of myself in the shower to give you the full effect, but we've already had enough nudity for one day, so instead here's the new shower room all by itself:

A way back in the early summer, The Cat's Mother and I came across some paintings in a local gallery on the seafront in Brighton. The artist is called Jon Everitt, and you can see a selection of his wonderful works here. It was the humour of the pieces that caught us...and that unlike so many pieces these days, the titles all mean something, rather than the somewhat ubiquitous 'untitled'. Although there was a biggish picture, we were struck by some little 3" square ones which were well priced. But it became quite a challenge to actually buy them as the gallery didn't really seem geared up to sell them. The four of us just about managed to rustle up the cash between us as that was all they would accept and we were a mile from the nearest cash machine. They then fished some bags out of the rubbish bin for us to take our trophies away. Having bought three, we decided we wanted some more, and it was fortunate that he was exhibiting across in Chichester. One of the ones we wanted was no longer available, but that just meant he painted it again for us! It was at that point I secretly asked him if he would create a family portrait for us, which he agreed to. This was to be The Cat's Mother's Christmas present, so there followed clandestine meetings and many communications. My brief was simply a list of things that are important to us in some way...and the rest was down to his talent. I did begin to worry when we hit December and it was still a long way from being completed, but lo and behold it was finished and I collected it on December 22nd. I can tell you that when I saw it, it was a truly emotional moment...as indeed it was when The Cat's Mother took it out of the wrapping on Christmas Day.

And here it is...complete with hares, yellow ducks, Roa painting street art, The Cat playing the flute, The Boy playing rugby, Brighton Pavilion and a German inscription...you may even spot a couple of star constellations

Once more unto the breech

2012-01-03T14:23:00.001Z

Have you ever played Chubby Bunny?

There's no bunnies involved.

And no animals were harmed in the writing of this post.

It's a drinking game. Although I can't quite work out where the drink fits in. But I do know that it is a game best played when drunk.

The objective is to see how many marshmallows you can stuff in your mouth before you can't say "Chubby Bunny" anymore.

Unfortunately, as I gave up eating marshmallows last year, it's a game I fear I shall never play again.

It was fortunate, therefore that we went to see Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker yesterday. If you enjoy dance, you'll enjoy Bourne's modern twist on things traditional. Most famous is his Swan Lake with an all male cast. Startling. Anyway, back to the Nutcracker, no longer set in a sumptuous house, but instead Mrs Dross' home for children. It's more like a prison. Mrs Dross is the epitome of bad, as is Mr Dross and their children. It's a completely different, and more coherent tale than you would normally witness at a performance of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite, and all the better for it. Of the various highlights I shall pick out the dancing Knickerbocker glory and, of course, the Marshmallow Girls

I was planning to stay at home this week, but it says a lot about how relaxed the Christmas period has been that I felt positively enthusiastic about coming back to the office earlier. Obviously I was in a minority of one as the roads were almost completely empty this morning. Not that I was looking too closely as I fought to control the motorbike in gale force winds....but it must have been much easier for me than it was the brave souls on bicycles.

Most people in the media seem to be making predictions for the year...none anything other than gloomy. But my one and only prediction is that it will be the unpredictable that will be interesting, the rest just plain tedious.

Of my particular areas of interest, I suspect we should all be praying for an Obama victory in the Presidential elections. He may be as much use as a wet fish on a bicycle, but that may just be better than electing the Nazi alternatives. In the Middle East, we haven't really seen as much change as we might have hoped, but that is typical of the region. Egypt may yet implode, the Iranians are unlikely to be attacked overtly by the Israelis (but expect a few mysterious explosions caused by 'equipment failures), Libya is now a country ruled by various militias, and there will be blood in Syria. Oh dear. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for Palestinian Statehood, although the wait may just give me arthritis. Russia is gradually slipping backwards politically, although not economically, and that may be no bad thing...at least everyone knows where they stand. Slowly but surely China will continue to make its presence felt....and that will do more to change the world's outlook than anything else. Europe will muddle along...the Greeks will be ejected I suspect, and that will be no bad thing. Here in Blighty, it will be all pain and no gain...but realistically it would be no different (perhaps worse even) if the Millibands were in charge. At least we have the Olympics to look forward to...and the Queen's Jubilee which means another bank holiday...

2012 and all that

2012-01-01T17:03:00.000Z

And so to 2012. A Happy New Year to everyone.

It may seem a little strange.

It may be a little unorthodox.

It may not have been quite what we were expecting.

But our New Year was brought in by a near-naked fire-eating stripper gyrating on top of a grand piano with a vajazzle to preserve the last vestigies of her modesty, and flaming tassles to highlight her well-endowed chest.

We had spent the evening watching, from the "posh seats", La Soiree - contemporary circus that would make the most liberal of us blush. it was more burlesque than Billy Smarts. At the far-end of our row of tables, the younger members of our eighteen-strong party had set the pace by ordering Jager-bombs, whilst we supped more gently on red wine. The event took place at the Roundhouse in Camden. Even the men hadc been most impressed by the 'Singing in the rain' man who could hold himself horizontally on a lamp post whilst his legs 'walked' up an invisible wall to a near vertical position, but probably, on balance favoured the hula hoop girl. For certain The Boy was still dreaming of her the next morning. Honourable mentions to all the other acts too. Camden is an interesting part of the world...I do remember a previous visit and Auntie Gwen being chased down the underground platform by an unknown Irishman asking for her hand in marriage.

On the drive home, many memories were brought to the fore - the new year is always a good time to remember times past. The journey took us past The Boy's old home, and my father's old factory. How times have changed. It's probably forty, maybe forty five years since I'd been near the factory. If he was still alive he'd not recognise the area.

New Year's Eve, marks the beginning of the end of the Christmas season, and it's been so busy that I've not been near the blogosphere for the duration sadly. Christmas Day was as hectic as hectic could be with eighteen people for dinner. It's lovely to have folks from the age of six through to eighty a round, the the busy hustle and bustle reminded me of my own special childhood Christmases, the memory of which I still cherish. Whilst we emjoyed a big Christmas gathering, it was much quieter for Grandma in Cyprus. Many of the ex-pat Brits return to Blighty for the duration, so Grandma and Grandad in Cyprus went out for lunch together. There's more than a twinge of guilt about that, but I hope they know I was thinking about them throughout the day.

It was good to see my brother on the 27th before we retreated to Brighton for that strange, slightly mystical period when time seems to grind to a halt for a few days. We didn't really manage to do anything...not even go on the very, very magical skating rink at Brighton Pavillion, because skating in the rain cannot be a good thing. We did, however, get to enjoy our new bathroom. Actually shower room. the builders finished a day or so before Chritsmas, so the air was still flush with builders dust, but a few days of steamy showers seems to have settled the matter.

We returned in our fastest ever time - one hour twenty three minutes, with practically no other vehicles on the roads. And then readied ourselves for New Year's Eve.

And now I've written his, I'm going to try and catch up with everyone else's adventures over the last two-weeks. I hope everyone has a splendid year ahead.

Christmas

2011-12-24T20:44:00.001Z

Merry Christmas to everyone x

Betrayal

2011-12-22T18:41:00.000Z

I've lost a follower. My number has dropped by one. I don't mind, but I wish I could work out who it is.

Occasionally I've been known to rant and rave about governments, bankers and the state of the world's economy, but often it's a little out of context. So I found this piece on the BBC very interesting and useful. If you get bored over the next few days have a read here. The only thing it doesn't do is say that the bankers all started lending ridiculous amounts to people who could never repay the debt...and they did that because of the lax regulatory framework set by the politicians. So whilst it's simple to look at and understand...it still comes back to bankers and politicians who betrayed us all.

Last night we went to Secret Cinema - me, The Cat's Mother, The Cat and her friend Hopeful. Now one of the rules about Secret Cinema is that it's SECRET. To my immense frustration, the run has been extended through January...and that's a long time for me to hold on to a SECRET. So in the spirit of the thing, I can't tell you what we saw, but I can tell you that it's a film I've wanted to see for years...an absolute classic...and it completely lived up to expectations. I also can't tell you where we saw it either. But I can say that it took place in a building that I've been walking past for the last fifteen years without realising it is kept in a semi-derelict state for use by film companies. It's also next door to a pub which features heavily in one of my favourite films. We ate in a pop up restaurant catered by one of the best restaurants in London, so not only did we see one of the greatest movies ever made, we also dined well too. I think that it's OK for me to show you some of the photos I took, so you can see for yourselves that Secret Cinema is an amazing experience which creates an all-embracing night that we'll be talking about for months ahead.

If the pictures disappear, it's only because I've been accused of betrayal. And we wouldn't want that. if you have any ideas, please don't put it in the comments box, but do email me direct!

I read somewhere...

2011-12-21T14:51:00.001Z

...that this has been the busiest year ever for news. I'm not really sure what that means, but boy does it feel as though 2011 has been full of political, social and economic unrest. Add to that are the natural disasters which only go to show that Mother Nature is still master of the human race.

Worryingly it was only this week that Japan announced that the reactors at Fukushima had been brought under control. Remember the Japanese disaster? No barely...it was months ago, it's off the front pages. In fact it's off the news pages all together. We may well all be evolving into goldfish I think, so it's good that Google Street View took the time to do a series of before and after which you can see on the BBC here Sobering isn't it? Whilst we assume it's business as usual (except for me because the new camera I wanted is STILL not available because the Sony factory was disrupted...I've got my priorities right eh?), there are still thousands of Japanese who are displaced, and tens of thousands who lost friends and family.

I was very glad this week at the return of Millennium Housewife. Her blog was always most amusing, and helped me to become an enthusiast to go out and find blogs that have be come my staple reading. Have a read here

I was genuinely saddened to see that Vaclav Havel has died....his velvet revolution made an enormous impact on me when I was younger, and brought about many of the changes that have so shaped the world today. Without doubt he was a good man, a clever man, and some one who should be remembered as a great statesman. Here are some of his sayings.

The newspaper headlines have roared out this week that it was a lack of police planning that lead to the summer riots spreading. May be it did, may be it didn't, but I can't but help feel that whatever they do the police get criticised...certainly the suggestion that the police should have shot rioters seems more like a Jeremy Clarkson comment than something written by a learned enquiry. It's certainly not British...but then perhaps it is the collapse of any sort of British identity that has led to the underlying problems in our society

One of my favourite books this year has been 'Skippy Dies'. The title may not give you an idea that it's a humourous tale. It's long...pushing 700 pages, and took me a long time to read...not because it was difficult, but it was certainly dense...hardly a word wasted. If you get bored at all over the Christmas break I'd recommend it, as does The Guardian here

Hardly surprisingly I despair at the state of the world's economy. Actually less at the state of the economy, but more at the failure of the politicians to set out a vision, act with resolve and deliver a compelling solution whilst at the same time the banks continue to parade their arrogance in our face. By banks I mean the wider financial community which is still flaying around looking for an opportunity to land the killer blow. I can only say that my fourth favourite street artist Banksy has done well to encapsulate it in his latest work...and yes that is The City you can see in the background

On a lighter note...tonight is Secret Cinema...first one since I don't know when, last one this year. We're going dressed as rogues...and have been told to wrap up warm. Too excited for words.

'tis the time to be jolly tra la la la la la la

2011-12-20T14:56:00.000Z

I seem to be unable to keep up with everyone's posts over the last few weeks...I've done my best, but it's just impossible...so sorry for that.

Christmas has kicked in with a vengeance in our world. At home on Sunday we had sixteen people round the table....that's a lot. They're all old friends of The Cat's Mother, but after three years I'm getting to know them quite well. At least I can remember most of their names. And that's a good start for me. They usually remember mine too. Lunch eventually finished at nearly eight in the evening, and the next day various of the guests spent at least the morning in bed recovering from a dose of over-indulgence. We spent the time after they left trying to clear up.

It was a good job then that yesterday was our office lunch. These things have always been important to me, I don't know why, but the office Christmas knees up always just bring the year to a happy close. Last year we didn't have a lunch as everyone kept chopping and changing so eventually I just cancelled the whole thing. This year we had ten of us round the table at Pizarro (a new Spanish restaurant in Bermondsey street)...it sells Spanish food, not pizzas as the name might imply. It was delightful. Strangely, the wine seemed to take up three-quarters of the bill, and only half of us were in this morning.

I've been trying to book a restaurant for my brother and us to meet up after Christmas. Remarkably every time I've rung over the last two weeks the line has been engaged. I've rung so many times I know the number off by heart. If it was a celebrity, I'd be in court for stalking by now. Eventually I sent them an e-mail. 48 hours later they rang back, I was driving so they left a message to say if I rang them back they would take my booking. I did. They were engaged. I'd have given up, but around us most places seem to be closed on the 27th. Anyway, in the same way that you can struggle for hours trying to open a stuck bottle of ketchup without any success and then hand it over to someone who does it immediately and with ease, The Cat's Mother rang, got through and booked. In the space of 30 seconds.

I was hoping to write a post about our fabulous new bathroom in Brighton. It may not be a major event in anyone's lives, apart from us, but it is the final and finishing step in modernising the Brighton flat. Alas and alack, the builders have done what builders do best. Sending the bill 'on completion' when the shower remains a hole in the ceiling, the electric light is still hanging at knee level, the shower screen is still flying free, the sink is at a tilt so empties its contents on to your lap when you fill it...and so on and so on. I won't comment on the radiator that has been carefull positioned so that when you sit on the toilet, you are guaranteed to burn your knee on it. I may need a cold shower to calm down. Oh. Er. Oh.

Meanwhile at home, and for the record (I don't want to be reading this in thirty years time with important bits missed out completely), one of our number is apparently determined to make our lives a misery and ruin what should be a splendid Christmas full of humour and good will. So if you want an extra person for Christmas time, just let me know....

21st Century living

2011-12-19T11:11:00.000Z

Winter has officially arrived. Yes last week we, in London and the South East, saw a snow flake fall. Inevitably the tube trains stopped running, the buses were consigned to their depots, cars crawled along at less than walking pace, shops immediately sold out of plastic sledges, people wrapped up in clothes that would keep them warm in the Antarctic, supermarkets ran low on stocks as hoarding took hold, employees of some of the leading businesses were unable to make it in to work and many homes were left freezing as boilers broke down one after another. You may well say that where you are had inches of snow and Arctic temperatures to match, but carried on as normal. Well of course you did. You all live near the North Pole and are hardy folk used to the privations of less refined living. Here inside the M25 bubble, we are different. Civilisation has reached a pinnacle, and we live cossetted, man-made comfortable lives untroubled by Mother Nature. The change in weather has hit us hard. Send food parcels...well luxury hampers in Range Rovers at the very least. Please.

Driving back from Brighton (yet again) I felt that 21st Century motoring had truly arrived. I opened an app on my smart phone to listen to internet radio station Q radio. The smart phone was plugged into the car stereo so I could blast out the latest songs at deafening volume. The phone was connected by bluetooth to the SatNav, enabling me to have hands-free phone calls throughout the journey. Of course I could have added yet more technology by using the phone as a WiFi Hotspot for my HP TouchPad to connect to. I could have then used the TouchPad to tune into the internet radio station and connect it to the stereo. But that would have been ridiculous.

At the other end of the car, the exhaust pipe continued to belch out black clouds of diesel smoke.

So it may have been a case of civilising cannibals by giving them knives and forks.

Into battle we go...

2011-12-13T15:23:00.002Z

There is a fabulous shop in Bermondsey Street Called Lovely British. It is indeed lovely, and as far as I can tell after some significant nosing around that everything in it is British. It is irony in no small measure then that the shop is run by a lovely lady with a heavy French accent.

One of the recurring themes in my life is the constant need I have to get into tussles, fights, disagreements with people and organisations. It's monotonous, and causes me to question why it happens. If I won some and lost some then I would just think of it as the ups and downs of life. If I lost them all, or nearly all, I would think of it as just me being a scrapper. But as it happens, there's hardly an occasion when I'm wrong, when I lose. That means to me, at least, that just to get through the mundanities of life I have to fight, fight, fight. Of course over the years this has made me, probably, more aggressive than I should be. This I'm convinced is nurture vs nature and at the moment nurture is the thing.

I wrote some time ago...we may be talking years here rather than months and certainly weeks...that I had taken on the management company for a flat I owned. The result was eight, nearly nine thousand pounds in my pocket. The tribunal had sided with me when they hadn't produced any accounts as required in the lease. The management company then did as they were told and started producing 'accounts'. I was suspicious so I had a look. A close look. They didn't look right. In fact they looked distinctly wrong. The Cat's Mother who is a Chartered Accountant agrees. The management company wouldn't budge, and so after a bit of a hiatus...and a threatening solicitor's letter from them (obviously a firm based in Liverpool - well why not when the property is in London, the managing agent is in Essex, the freeholder is in Surrey or there abouts?), I'm back filing a claim at the Residential Valuation Tribunal. We're fighting over £5000.

In March I changed energy supplier from EDF to OVO...you may not have heard of Ovo, but do look them up, they're one of the smaller suppliers, and it will make your heart feel good. I heard nothing more from EDF until the beginning of November (yes that's a full eight months since I switched supplier. It was a final gas bill - they owed me just under £500. I'm still waiting for the final electricity bill. They would send me a cheque. Come the middle of December nothing so I rang them. Yes they said they haven't sent me a cheque they will. By the time I get the money it'll be nine months since I stopped have energy supplied by them. I find this unacceptable, as I bet they do that to everyone. That's a fat pile of cash they're sitting on which they don't deserve. They offered me £40 to go away. I said more. They offered my £50 if I don't rat on them to the Ombudsman. I took their 40 quid and told them I would complain to the Ombudsman. I have. I think they are a disgrace. I don't much care for the forty or fifty quid, but I seriously object to multinational companies taking consumers for a ride.

I still have an outstanding complaint with the Financial Ombudsman over Lloyds TSB.

I'm popping over the road now to buy something lovely and British.

Dereliction of duty

2011-12-11T20:46:00.001Z

It probably sounded good in the brainstorming meeting which no doubt was run by an expensive marketing consultant, but I somehow felt that the trucking company may not have spent their money well when the side of their lorry was adorned with the line (in italics):

"We couldn't care any more"

I hope they weren't carrying someone's precious antique grand piano.

Europe's a mess isn't it? Whilst I can applaud Merkozy for getting tough about countries' budgets, I doubt that further integration is a good idea whilst the various pan-European political bodies remain shambolic at best and completely incapable at worst. Personally after many years of trecking round Europe changing currency every time I crossed a border I was delighted with the Euro, but it's a bad concept, badly implemented. It's frying pan and fire time though isn't it, and quietly The City must be smirking again as they realise how subservient the British Government is to it.

I've driven to Brighton and back in one day twice this week...which is probably the most the place has been visited in the last three years. We're having some work done there, and it always difficult to do it from a distance. I'm sure that builders are not malicious, but they have a habit of doing exactly what you don't want unless you keep the leash very short. And indeed, my list of corrections after the first visit was very long indeed, so much as I didn't want to, I was up early on Sunday morning to check on progress. No corrections this time, just some concern writ large that the work won't be done before the Christmas break. I still managed to be back within yawning and stretching time of the offspring arising.

There's a stretch of the A23 dual carriageway which has a double bend in it. I remember that when the road was upgraded, probably some fifteen or more years ago, this double bend was left as it was because the trees around it were ancient and protected. Sadly that doesn't appear to be the case anymore, and the whole lot have been chopped down. Perhaps they were diseased, perhaps the needs of road users were deemed too important, but whatever the case, they've gone, which is a real shame, even if it makes the road a little safer.

The Christmas season is well under way...tree up in the office, and now one at home too. To get us in the mood, we all trecked up to town to see Simon Callow re-tell Dickens Christmas carol. A completely bewitching performance managing to wring out every piece of emotion (from laugh out loud humour to tear inducing sadness) that's. That Simon Callow is a genius.

Friday night saw us walking the streets of London with Paul Talling. I'm not quite sure how I first came across him, but I'm glad I did. He is the author of two books - London's Lost Rivers and Derelict London. I have a fascination with old London and changing London, but am a complete junior school boy compared to Paul who has taken his passion beyond a hobby and now writes(Derelict has sold 13,000 copies) as well as running some very well-informed walks and talks during the summer months. We persuaded him to walk us up the old river Fleet, which essentially, is hidden in a sewer underneath Farringdon Road. Even in the freezing cold, the walk was fascinating...from the opening undiscovered (by us, at least) view of the Thames by night just near the remarkable Black Friar tavern (built on the site of a Dominican monastery), past Henry VIII's Bridewell Palace, through Smithfields meat market and on up to Clerk en Well, where we lay down in the middle of the road to peer a down a drain where we could hear and see the fast flowing river all the way to Kings Cross where he bade us farewell. Over three hours he didn't stop regaling us with the history and stories of the Fleet...mostly they seemed to involve nasty smells and carcasses floating down the river. The Boys particularly liked the (surely soon-to-be-revived) tradition of putting women in barrels and rolling them down the hills, the girls seemed to enjoy the more genteel history of the Venetian-like canal that Wren wanted to turn it into. If you get the chance go to Paul's web site here, and join one of his tours next summer...as we will.

The only downside is that I forgot to ask him to autograph the two books we had carried with us all evening

Making waves

2011-12-09T09:58:00.001Z

Brighton beach Wednesday afternoon. How beautiful is this?

Banana sandwich

2011-12-05T12:04:00.005Z

The BBC has published a map of every road death in Great Britain since 1999 here. As a regular cyclist I felt obliged to look at my route. I wish I hadn't. The morning route along the canals is fine...of course...but my winter evening route along the A11/Mile End road is a different story. It's not quite like the Somme, but the tarmac is littered with bodies. I'm not surprised...it terrifies me as cars, vans, lorries and buses duck and weave without a care for anyone around them. Aggressive drivers are the norm; the timid just get cut up. As a cyclist I pedal hard and have a 'positive' attitude to maintaining my ground...but owning the territory is challenging, especially in the dark.

I'm thinking of suing Danny Boyle.

Friday night was audition night, and the man himself was there, smiling away at the 200 odd bodies stretching and gyrating. When I say 'odd' that is a description of the shapes and sizes of the people there rather than an approximation of the number. If I wasn't actually the oldest, I was well up there. At least there were no more leggy, lycra-clad professional dancers to humiliate the rest of us. We had been chosen for our acting abilities/our ability to follow orders in moving our bodies in sync. This time was even harder than the last time but I stretched as far as I could, I twisted right round as I was told and I gyrated but perhaps not in sync with everyone else. It was hard, but remarkably good fun...better than the first time round. Come Saturday though, I had a pain in my back. I've pulled something. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I deserve either a medal or a large compensation cheque.

Saturday The Boy and I went off to Twickenham for a Northern Hemisphere vs Southern Hemisphere match in support of the Help for Heroes Charity. The Boy would have been playing the last match of the season at School, but a shoulder injury ruled him out. Shame. It may well have cost him his colours (again). There were nearly thirty thousand people there and we roared and we cheered...for both teams. It's interesting when you don't have a particular allegiance to either team (yes I know we're northern, but really....). I forgot to take my camera...so just had my phone with me. That doesn't stop me offering you a spot the ball competition. Unlike days of old, there's no £1 million prize...just the satisfaction of knowing you have found it.

And the banana sandwich? I was hungry Saturday morning, the bananas were just beginning to turn, so a banana sandwich it was. Brown bread. Benecol. I seem to remember Grandma in Cyprus making them when I was younger. They may have tasted better then than they do now.

Not a hint of irony

2011-12-01T09:58:00.002Z

A very old and dear friend sent me an e-mail yesterday. She signed it off LoL. I think she meant 'lots of love', but maybe she was laughing out loud at her own note, or maybe me. I don't know. I just don't know.

My blood boiled when I read Alastair Campbell's 'evidence' at the Leveson Inquiry into press standards. Here we have the arch manipulator. A man that 'sexed up' a report to clear the way for Britain to go to war in Iraq leading to the deaths of hundreds of young British men and tens of thousands of Iraqis. This man does not speak with forked tongue. He is the devil incarnate, and no amount of charity work will make up for that. Ever.

Of course, one of the things that has come out already is that not even The Grauniad is immune to making up stories if it helps them sell a few more copies. That in itself is shocking and disappointing. Perhaps, if ever there was one needed, that is the strongest argument for an organisation such as the BBC which doesn't have to concern itself with the commercial imperative. I still trust it implicitly and I'm sure many others do too. It does create its own problems - and tales of extravagance are too common. But on balance I think that's not a bad trade off.

It was fortunate that after writing that paragraph I have become quite curmudgeonly, so tried much harder for the rest of the day to put a smile on my face. And that was fortunate as it enabled me to laugh when I might otherwise have grumbled. Last night I had to go to an annual industry event. It must have been important because I blew out Muffin Dad who had a spare ticket for a gig. Sorry. It's always a good evening, giving me the chance to 'network' and indeed just catch up with people I haven't seen for a while. Anyway, if you want to know how the marketing services sector is performing financially, I'm your man. Well at least I can relay second hand news. Pisspoor is the answer. But no more pisspoor than the rest of business. And not as pisspoor as it could be. As well as learning about the financial health of some of our most creative businesses, there were also speakers from various people linked to the Olympics. Including, government-owned Olympic sponsor and bank Lloyds. As you know my pretties, that's not a business I have much time for, although I cannot tell a lie, the presentation was interesting. The best bit was when the man said that they worked with various agencies, but their procurement department had not wanted to work with one that had had a very bad debt the year before. Now I'm sure I wasn't the only one who nearly fell off their seat, because the statement was made without a hint of irony. Not one ounce. Anyway, it made me laugh when I could have come over all grumpy.

I've come across a couple of terms recently that I absolutely love. One is the word popinjay (from SP's blog. It's not that I hadn't heard the word before, but I hadn't heard it for decades. It means various things including a person given to vain, pretentious displays and empty chatter, or a dandy or foppish person. But I shall henceforth use it to refer to the woodpecker that we can occasionally hear beating its brains out at the bottom of the garden.

The other is 'sea dust' which was referred to in Nursemyra's fascinating blog (I think...but I can't now find it, so apologies if I read it elsewhere - please just correct me). What is sea dust? It's plain old salt. But sea dust gives it a whimsical, even magical feel...in future I shall be asking The Cat's Mother to pass the sea dust and pepper - unless someone has another name for pepper?

Tonight I'm off to the school play. In the 'modern way' the audience will participate and have to move around the auditorium. I'm looking forward to it - The Cat has a part, although The Boy has sadly given up his acting career because he doesn't get on with the drama master. Sad. The Cat's Mother will not be there. She's off with the girls to The Stylistics who are playing at the O2. In case you've forgotten who this group are:

I used to love them but that was a long time ago.

Lancing the Boyle

2011-11-30T10:00:00.006Z

It seems that we are inexorably sliding to a place where nobody wants to be.

I have heard that Comet, JD Sports and Furnitureland have withdrawn all their representatives following the summer riots. Evidently, the riots were a conspiracy by foreign agents and part of a continuing pattern designed to provoke and inflame a crisis. In Iran, the 'storming' of the British embassy by a rabble has given the diplomats the opportunity of a return home just in time for Christmas. How convenient. And probably useful if you are the Ambassadors wife who doesn't want an Israeli bomb landing in your Christmas pudding. Whilst I don't expect our motley crew of Oxbridge-educated civil servants to solve the Middle East problem, not having them there can only make the situation worse.

After my encounter with Frankie at the weekend, it appears that that I must face another Boyle. This time it's Danny who will be conducting the proceedings at the next round of Olympic auditions. That makes me nervous as hell, especially as someone I know who recently swam the English Channel said it was all a bit much, and doesn't think she'll get through. I somehow can't see it going my way. But, cold, an' all I'll be there dancing, prancing, performing and gyrating until I drop. As I seem to be attracting Boyles like dead meat attracts flies, I expect next week I'll be singing with Susan.

As the kids trooped off to school this morning I couldn't help but wonder about how everyone whose offspring are at state school are coping today. 90% are closed I believe. On the one hand I have every sympathy with the strikers...after all if you've previously agreed the sort of pension that will keep you in the life style to which you've become accustomed, then why wouldn't you feel aggrieved. I know I would. But there's a reality which goes beyond Government policy. As the population ages, and there are fewer people to pay the pensions of the retired, less generous pensions are inevitable. The truth is that one of the reasons there has been so much immigration is that immigrants tend to be younger and more fertile (sweeping generalisation...so shoot me down), and that will help re-balance the ageing issue. But it's not enough and the public sector has expanded enormously in the last couple of decades (I believe that effectively the ONLY growth in jobs has been in the public sector), and the only way to pay theses people will be increasing taxes, and growing public sector debt. And we all know where that gets us don't we? Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and Italy all come to mind. So if you work in the public sector today...I really sympathise, but you really are just going to have to face up to reality. It probably should have happened many years ago - the Conservatives are an easy target of hate, but unfortunately Tony and Gordon lived in cloud cuckoo land.

Talking of boiling, here's a picture of The Cat's Mother. Strangely she's smiling. Strangely because she doesn't really cook much when given the chance. In fact Christmas is the one time she cooks rather than heats. That's no criticism, she heats up lovely. Her philosophy is that too many cooks spoil the broth. And one is too many. This picture was taken amazingly two years ago. MY kitchen as it was then was brand spanking new. This was the first time The Cat and The Cat's Mother had come down to Brighton for the weekend. It was lovely. And it gets better and better. So now its OUR kitchen, and strangely we regularly cook together. Sunday breakfast. Eggs, bacon, sausages, tomato and toast. The kitchen is really the heart of the home.

This picture is for Tara's Gallery

Both sublime and indeed ridiculous/gangbang in a minefield

2011-11-28T11:09:00.005Z

We were due to be meeting some old friends of mine on Saturday night, but as The Cat's Mother wasn't up to it I went alone. This was dangerous, particularly as history has a habit of repeating itself: when we were younger we used to go out as a group regularly and then spend the next few days recovering from severe hangovers. At our age we should know better. But it seems we didn't - this was just the start of the evening:

The good old days were much discussed: a visit to KFC to get a schlongburger (which was very funny at the time, after a day on the beach pouring beer down our throats); the time CD (he's on the left in the picture) fell off the kerb, smashed his shoulder on the ground and even now has a very large lump where it should be smooth, and so on. We headed to Pizza East...one of London's trendiest eateries, and after a long wait (nearly and hour and a half) I had to explain to them them that one of our number is genuinely a VIP (not me - I wish!). The result was seats within moments, a free plate of charcuterie and some fawning that would impress even Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. I managed to stay quite sober as one of our number just spiralled downhill, quaffing enough to out do Ollie Reid at his best. This was fortunate because when I got back to Loughton (as my friends returned to their Camden abode) there was an argument with the taxi driver. I had agreed to share the cab because it was so late, but then objected to having to pay full price when the couple I'd shared with had also paid full price, getting out just a hundred yards from our house. For one journey the driver thought he should get paid double....in fact triple as there was yet another person who had jumped in as well. Nice work if you can get it.

Saturday morning I was dropping The Cat's Mother off at the hairdressers. The same hairdressers that she has been going to since the dawn of time. As she's been under the weather all week, this was a good sign that all was beginning to get better. As we arrived, across the road was a 'luxury coach' with 'TOWIE tours' signs on it. I'm sure you know my views on The Only Way Is Essex. My heart sank as I could see there was a posse of elaborately made-up blondes and brunettes gathered by it, together with a camera crew.

I parked and whilst The Cat's Mother's hair was restored to its best walked down to Cost Coffee to grab a flat white and a lump of lard with raspberry jam (advertised as a raspberry and almond bake). I suddenly thought that the man standing behind me in the queue was the somewhat extreme comedian Frankie Boyle, and as that thought crossed my mind I got a text from The Cat's Mother to say that Frankie Boyle was indeed following me into the coffee shop. I thought I might say hello, but unusually my courage deserted me. I somehow felt I was beginning to skip into a parallel universe. He bought his juice and left as I sat wondering what was going on.

The rumour at the hairdressers is that this is a Frankie Boyle programme and the citizens of Essex are in for a cruel and vicious mauling. I wait to see and be amused.

Bronze, Silver, Gold

2011-11-25T10:48:00.008Z

At the Leveson Inquiry, celebrity after celebrity has come along to condemn the awful behaviour of the media. Fortunately these are generally REAL celebrities rather than the Z listers who have nothing to offer except their love of being in the limelight. Away from the proceedings the media barons are not slow to suggest that the Inquiry is simply revenge for the MPs expenses affair. This year we've had the Police on trial for their handling of riots. And I hardly need to mention the behaviour of that other pillar of society - the financial sector which has brought the country and the world to their collective knees. This week a judge was sent to prison for allowing their child to die after failing to get treatment for a burn they inflicted. I'm left wondering why it is that in past times when the very structures that support a civilised society have become so de-based, root and branch change has happened. Revolution even. But here we are with little more than tinkering to a tried, tested and failed system going on. Common sense says that a lot more needs to change than is actually happening. But the problem is that the career politicians in charge are nothing more than middle-managers, and we are bereft of political leaders with vision. It's rare that I find myself in agreement with Ken Livingstone, but I couldn't help but nod vigorously when he said on the Andrew Marr show last weekend that at least with Maggie Thatcher she had a view of how the world should be and her policies were there to drive that vision. Of course he did add that it was as shame that her policies were wrong, but at least she had a vision.

One pillar of society that at the moment appears to be going from strength to strength is the monarchy. I suspect Helen Mirren in The Queen and Colin Firth in The Kings Speech may have something to do with this. After the Queen's Annus Horribilis, the monarchy has steadily rebuilt its stature and standing. Well done Kate Middleton. I remain firmly in the 'Chop their heads off' camp, but at least I can appreciate their efforts. Prince Philip has hit 90, and he keeps the gaffs coming...good for him - here are some great examples which I've stolen from The Daily Telegraph and Wikipedia (always a reliable source):

1. China State Visit, 1986

If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed

2. To a blind women with a guide

“Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?”

3. To an Aborigine in Australia

“Do you still throw spears at each other?”

4. To his wife, the Queen, after her coronation

“Where did you get the hat?”

5.Unknown

“If you see a man opening a car door for a woman, it means one of two things: it’s either a new woman or a new car!”

1963

Speaking about the rate of British tax, he said: "All money nowadays seems to be produced with a natural homing instinct for the Treasury."

1965

On seeing an exhibition of "primitive" Ethiopian art, he muttered: "It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from her school art lessons."

1966
The Duke famously proclaimed: "British women can't cook".

1967

When asked if he would like to visit the Soviet Union: "I would like to go to Russia very much, although the bastards murdered half my family."

1969
The Duke said to Tom Jones after his Royal Variety Performance: "What do you gargle with, pebbles?".

He later added: "It is very difficult at all to see how it is possible to become immensely valuable by singing what I think are the most hideous songs."

On the Royal Family's finances: "We go into the red next year. I shall probably have to give up polo."

1976
On a tour of Canada: "We don't come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves."

1981
During the recession he mused: “Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed."

1984
When accepting a figurine from a woman during a visit to Kenya he asked: "You are a woman aren't you?"

1986
He told a World Wildlife Fund meeting that "if it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it."

Prince Philip's opinion of Beijing, during a tour of China in 1986, was simply: "Ghastly."

1993

To a British tourist in Hungary in he quipped: "You can't have been here that long — you haven't got a pot belly."

To survivors of the Lockerbie bombing he told them: "People usually say that after a fire it is water damage that is the worst. We are still drying out Windsor Castle."

1994
"Aren't most of you descended from pirates?", he asked an islander in the Cayman Islands.

To a Caribbean rabbit breeder in Anguilla, he said: "Don't feed your rabbits pawpaw fruit — it acts as a contraceptive. Then again, it might not work on rabbits."

1995

He asked a Scottish driving instructor in Oban: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?"

1996

Following the Dunblane massacre, he questioned the need for a firearms ban: "If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?"

1998
The Duke asked a British student who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea: "You managed not to get eaten then?"

1999
In Cardiff he told children from the British Deaf Association, who were standing by a Caribbean steel band: "If you're near that music it's no wonder you're deaf".

2000

To guests at the opening reception of a new £18million British Embassy in Berlin: "It's a vast waste of space."

At a Buckingham Palace drinks party, he told group of female Labour MPs: "Ah, so this is feminist corner then."

On being offered fine Italian wines by Giuliano Amato, the former Prime Minister, at a dinner in Rome, he is said to have uttered: "Get me a beer. I don't care what kind it is, just get me a beer!"

"People think there's a rigid class system here, but dukes have been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans."

2001
To Elton John: "Oh it's you that wons that ghastly car is it? We often see it when driving to Windsor Castle."

2002
While touring a factory near Edinburgh he said a fuse box was so crude it "looked as though it had been put in by an Indian".

2002
To the Aircraft Research Association, he said: "If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort, provided you don't travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly."

2009
Said to black dance troupe Diversity at the Royal Variety Performance: "Are you all one family?"

To a young fashion designer at Buckingham Palace he told him: "You didn't design your beard too well, did you? You really must try better with your beard."

2010
On asking a female Sea Cadet what she did for a living, and being told that she worked in a nightclub (as a barmaid), the Duke asked “Is it a strip club?” Observing her surprise he dismissed the suggestion saying that it was “probably too cold for that anyway”.

2010
At a prize-giving ceremony for the Duke of Edinburgh Awards a girl told him that she'd been to Romania to help in an orphanage. He replied: "Oh yes, there's a lot of orphanges in Romania - they must breed them".

"YOU have mosquitos. I have the Press."
- To the matron of a hospital in the Caribbean.

"If it doesn't fart or eat hay then she isn't interested"
- speaking about his daughter, Princess Anne.

"Can you tell the difference between them?"
- The Duke's question after President Barack Obama said he met with the leaders of the UK, China and Russia.

"The problem with London is the tourists. They cause the congestion. If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion."
- on London traffic.

"Well, you'll never fly in it, you're too fat to be an astronaut."
- to a 13-year-old whilst visiting a space shuttle.

“You look like you’re ready for bed!”
- To the President of Nigeria, dressed in traditional robes.

Of more note though than the man's quips is the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Now incredibly popular, in my day hardly anyone got involved. Of course, many do it as a way of oiling the wheels of the application process to get themselves into University, but some do it for the right reasons. I don't normally ask anyone to contribute to the blog, but by a coincidence of timing, I had an e-mail from Zoe McLean of AtoZ Expeditions which organises DofE expeditions, and here is what she had to say:

"Most people have probably heard of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, it has been around now for 55 years. However unless they have taken part, few people will realise the life changing possibilities that a DofE programme holds. Participants are challenged by the different sections of the award which include volunteering, taking part in physical activity and learning a new skill.

The most memorable and testing part of the programme for most people is the expedition. This is an antidote to modern society where young people are often portrayed as cosseted and inactive. Participants have to plan, train and then undertake an adventurous, unaccompanied and self-sufficient expedition. They are given the responsibility to take the lead and manage the risks of the journey rather than being led by an adult – something many, particularly younger entrants, have never experienced. DofE expeditions are not just about technical skills, they are a journey of self-discovery, participants will need to overcome challenges and hardships; becoming more resourceful and confident in the process.

Most participants choose to expedition on foot, carrying all of their kit for the duration, but for the adventurous there are other options such as canoeing, cycling or even sailing.

Today there is much focus on academic qualifications but with increasing numbers of young people gaining top marks, the ambitious need to find other ways to standout. Completing a DofE programme shows that a young person is dedicated, can use their initiative and is not afraid of a challenge – standing then in good stead for whatever their future holds."

I think in this day and age, every pupil should be encouraged to take part....it's a really valuable learning experience.

I said coincidental timing, and by that I mean that Zoe's e-mail arrived on the same day that The School held, for the first time, an awards ceremony for the pupils who had achieved Bronze and Silver. The Cat and The Boy went to collect their certificates and badges. In both cases, the scheme has been really good for their development and I'm glad that The Boy will go onto do Gold. If he gets through, he won't be going on stage to collect his reward...it'll be a trip to Buckingham Palace. He's only allowed to take one person with him...I hope he invites Grandma in Wales as I know just how proud his mother would be.

A new start

2011-11-24T09:30:00.004Z

The Cat's Mother has now left the building.

Yes, it's true. The Cat's Mother is no longer in residence.

Instead she has been usurped by The Baroness Puke Vom Honk'n'Heave. She moved in on Monday.

Let me tell you The Baroness is no match for The Cat's Mother. For a start she lies in bed all day moaning and groaning. There's hardly a smile to be raised.

What's worse is that she doesn't cook, she doesn't wash and she doesn't clean. So the kitchen is piling high with Dominos pizza boxes, the sink is full to overflowing...there isn't a mug to be found which isn't covered in a brown tea or coffee stain. The mice have become emboldened and have taken to organising hurdle races across the sitting room floor. We've been trying to shoot them, but none of us appear to be a good aim - their number are multiplying and we now have so many holes in the sofa and the walls we've run out of fingers and toes to count them. I've run out of clean pants so am now wearing them inside out and back to front, but I'm a feared this may not be a good long-term solution. Given his military bent, The Boy has gone commando. And we don't like to ask about The Cat. We had a go at washing, but when everything came out pink, we thought there must be something wrong with the machine.

On the up side, I've allowed myself to strip the motorcycle engine in the living room. I don't think the oily patches will show after a few weeks on the cream shag-pile carpet. The Cat has moved the drinks cabinet to her room which has given us a bit more space downstairs, and The Boy can now practice his guitar playing and drumming until three in the morning.

On balance, though, I'm not sure that, overall, it's a good deal, so I'm making a public appeal for The Cat's Mother to return. In the meantime, any food parcels would be greatly appreciated, if you could give us a clue about how to switch on the dishwasher that would be great, and if you could get Oxfam to deliver some clothes I'd be grateful.

Round and around and around

2011-11-22T11:20:00.007Z

Today is a bacon and egg sandwich today. The inevitable follow up to a curry and red wine evening last night. Life can be good in the simplest of ways sometimes.

Have you ever Googled yourself? Yes, of course you have. Don't deny it. Today I didn't Google me, I searched for Anish Kapoor, and was surprised and delighted to see that I came up (as in this blog) on the first search page. Of course, that doesn't mean anything, but as he is my favourite artist, I'm delighted to have an association. Irrespective of how tenuous! I first came across his work by accident when I was trapped in Madrid for a weekend by myself. It was so long ago, I'm not sure I was yet shaving. Anyway, I was amazed and continue to be amazed by his work. The first exhibition I took The Cat's Mother and The Cat to was Anish Kapoor. The first exhibit a giant vagina. Still they stuck with it. And my 50th birthday present from The Cat's Mother was a pair of Anish Kapoor cufflinks. Come the Olympics, I intend to be one of the very first up his curious tower which is being finished off at the Olympic park as I tip, tap away.

I've always been a great believer that what goes around comes around. So I recognise that when I'm a grumpy, miserable git, I'll get my comeuppance in due course. I usually do, and I'm glad to see it applies elsewhere. I spent a couple of years doing some work for someone known as a complete bastard. I'm quite adept, so managed to keep on the right side for a long time by most people's standards. But eventually it came to an end, with him owing me some £3000. Eight years down the line, and it was mostly forgotten, although never repaid. I was "disappointed" when I found out that he had bought a flat just round the corner from us in Brighton. An odd coincidence, and an unfortunate one. I secretly have been hoping to bump into him in public just to humiliate him on the streets - but the truth is he is so thick skinned I suspect it would just bounce off. By another interesting coincidence, one of the women I skated with on Sunday I discovered just above him. So I wonder what I could/should have said. Perhaps I should let sleeping dogs lie. I didn't tell her of the occasion when his wife burst into his office with her new born baby. She handed the baby over to the receptionist and said "You're fucking him, you can change his baby's nappies too" before storming out. Nice.

At home, there have been rewards. The Boy has been made Captain of the 2nd XV rugby team at school. One might feel that not being in the 1st XV would be a backwards step, but the appointment is more about his ability to motivate and lead people. An achievement worth a pat on the back. He's worked so hard at his rugby, having come to the school knowing only football, he went from just practicing with the team, to being a sub, to playing to going on tour and then onto the Firsts before this appointment. He's not the biggest lad in the squad, and he's not a natural catcher, but he's an important member of the team. Sometimes hard graft is the only way to achieve results.

I wonder what is going to happen in the middle east..it does seem that the Arab Spring has made the whole region even less stable than it was before. Egypt is a powder keg. Syria? Well who knows how much more blood will be spilled. And what will the west do if the unrest spreads to Saudi? As for Iran. I feel I could almost hold my breath until someone drops a bomb there. Tricky, tricky.

Two wheels on my wagon...

2011-11-21T11:28:00.006Z

Sometimes you think someone is trying to tell you something. Last week I managed to get two punctures cycling in to work. The first I repaired, although it was a bugger and ended up taking me nearly 40 minutes to do, but the second left me carrying the bike over my shoulder for the three or four miles to the bike shop. I asked them to put winter tyres on, and they've promised me that I won't have another puncture for a year. We'll see.

On the other hand, I felt this week is going to be a good one when I was woken up by the radio and the station, Q radio, played all my favourite tunes as I gradually stirred myself from my slumbers.

Q has been incessantly playing an ad for 'Autoglass' - reminding us of how expensive it is to replace a whole windscreen rather than get a chip fixed. The Little Car has a chip, and I've suggested (incessantly) that The Cat's Mother gets it repaired. "Yes, yes" she says. And this is the difference between her and me. Friday she drove all the way to Bath for her weekend of retail therapy and 'treatments' with the girls. I KNEW the windscreen would crack and she'd be stranded for hours until a new one could be found and fitted. She thought nothing of it and went cheerfully on her way. Of course she returned without a problem. She has no worry lines. I'm looking more characterful by the day.

I've never thought of myself as a 'biker' but it does appear that two wheels are my preferred means of transport. Except when I'm on eight.

I've decided that if I'm to audition for rollerblading at the opening ceremony of the Olympics, I should follow my own advice: "If you're going to do something, do it properly". So on Sunday I had a two-hours skate lesson on the sea-front in Brighton. Whilst most of the rest of the country seemed to be smothered in fog, we were enjoying sunshine and warmth as the waves lapped against the pebbly beach. I skated in a t-shirt. And the lesson was invaluable, if just to remind me of how much I'd forgotten and how difficult it can be to make my body do things that feel unnatural. Fortunately I've got two more lessons this week. I can only hope I learn fast.

It was finally time for the motorbike to be repaired this weekend. Whilst a new speedo was being fitted, I was given the opportunity to test ride a new Ducati. As the sales man said, "I'm not going to sell you the bike, you should decide whether or not you want it." Nice technique. yes I want it desperately...it's the equivalent of a Ferrari on two wheels. I was out on it for an hour and a half. It felt solid, it gently flows round the bends and sings when you hit 4000 revs. The whole thing just felt that it had been put together with precision, love and care...just like a Rolls Royce. Gorgeous. By comparison, my KTM is rougher and likes to be chucked around - designed and built by greasy bikers, but it feels a lot more solid than the other bike they let me have for a couple of hours - a smaller KTM which just felt like a toy (even though with a 600cc engine it is fast and flighty enough that it is the preferred choice of jewel shop thieves across London). I'd really love to get the Ducati...my heart is sold on it. Christmas is coming up after all, and I think I deserve a treat. But my head says I should wait. For once I think I shall listen to my head. With a new speedo, and the damage caused by the vandals/would be thieves my orange beast feels great and I enjoyed the ride into work today. Funny how just putting a new speedo made th whole bike feel better.

Swimming in a sea of ignorance

2011-11-18T12:37:00.003Z

The Cat's Mother has taken flight.

Well when I say taken flight she's off to Bath for the weekend with the 'girls'. That will mean a lot of screeching, screaming and shouting. All very Essex.

In theory that means I'm left in charge of the teenagers. As you can imagine that's not a great option. They're lovely. Really they're lovely. Sometimes. But truth be told I could do with 24 hours of peace and quiet. Where better then than a quick trip to Brighton, abandoning the offspring to burn the house down. You can't blame me really can you? I'll be on the seafront on Sunday practising and then having a roller-blading lesson for a couple of hours. I'm determined that if I'm going to an audition I'm going to give it my all. I haven't yet explained to the instructor why I 'urgently' need some lessons. I'm not sure I should. She might laugh at me.

It doesn't matter how old I get I still seem to find out things that frankly I should have known years and years ago. I find this quite exciting really. Some of these things; in fact all of them are quite simple stuff. When I started work at Rover some very many years ago, I, a car enthusiast discovered that some small cars have three doors and some have five. I had always assumed they all had just three. Just this week we were playing 'You Tube safari'...you start with a video of an artist/song you like and when it's finished click on the 'Similar videos' link to see where it takes you. It's great fun. Especially after a glass or two of fine red wine. As they say on the ads 'Fun for all the family'. Sometime into our safari we came across the video for Elton John's Tiny Dancer. It's a song we love. I've loved it for at least two or three years, and have thought it evidence that he's still able to bang out a good tune. So you can imagine my consternation when I read there on the screen that it's a track from Madman Across the Water, recorded in 1971. How could I have missed it for 40 years? I shall never know.

On the opther hand I was genuinely alarmed by a report on the Beeb today that some people think that anti-biotics will cure the common cold. They won't. Nor will the left overs from an unfinished course help you the next time you're ill. Evidently people 'self-medicate' and wonder why it all goes shit-shaped. There's a lad known to The Boy who's had a foot ailment for sometime....we may be talking years now. He's given drugs by the doctor but never finishes them, so it keeps flaring up. You'd have thought the very wealthy and successful parents would be able to manage to read a simple label on a bottle of pills and follow the instructions.

Fun, fun, fun

2011-11-17T16:15:00.001Z

So the real losses caused by the banking sector are now beginning to be crystalised for the tax payer. In the case of Northern Rock, it's around about £400 million.I wonder how much the management team at the time of the first run on a British Bank for a hundred years has paid back. I wonder how much of a cut in the standard of living they have taken. I don't actually. I know. When the great privatisations of the 20th century were going on, the UK's family jewellery was given away for a song, with a very few people made millionaires. I wonder if the conservatives are going to repeat their mistakes again.

I don't remember a weekend as tiring as the last one - it's Thursday and I'm really struggling to wake up in the morning. Friday night was the Old Boys Dinner, an early start on Saturday to take The Boy to rugby, then into town to see Mark Rylance perform in Jerusalem, before returning to go to the Golf Club (I don't play, I just like eating, drinking and dancing) dinner dance. Got up early Sunday for Remembrance day and then went shopping for Sunday dinner. No wonder we crashed out for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Perhaps we were keeping ourselves busy to distract ourselves from a pretty challenging environment at home. Teenagers. Who'd have them? The tension is simmering and I don't hold up much hope there won't be an explosion.

If only we could solve problems the Volkswagen way. It's not that I've been asked to write about about them, and I have to say my experience of an Audi TT (made by Volkswagen) was not a happy one. BUT somebody mentioned a project the company is involved in, and all I can say is that if the theory that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better is right, then it should be universally applied. Especially at home. Now.

This was the video that brought it to my attention

And there's plenty more interesting stuff to be found here

"I cannot tell a lie....

2011-11-15T09:55:00.005Z

....but the place is full of chavs."

It's come as something of a surprise to find out that I made it through to the next round of auditions to participate in the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Worryingly the next audition is 'role specific'. That would be fine, but I suspect I'm auditioning to rollerblade. Now some five to ten years ago I used to rollerblade a lot. Friday nights. Wednesday nights. 15 miles a time. I even did a rollerblade marathon. Truth be told I'm not sure I can even stand up in my 'blades now. Damn. The question is, should I duck out now with my dignity intact or should I go along for the ride, enjoy myself and leave with a painful arse?

Whilst it has hardly come as a surprise, it is a reflection on the true value of democracy and freedom of speech in the US that the 'Occupy Wall Street' camp has been cleared overnight. I think it is little different here - if The City had had its way the London protesters would also have gone by now. Occupy Wall St have made a fair point that 1% of Americans own the majority of the country's wealth. I'm not close enough to know what else they've said, other than they are inspired by the Arab Spring and they believe there is no morality amongst financiers. The authorities have used concerns about health and safety as the excuse to remove them. It's a poor excuse. Peaceful protest of any sort should be allowed in any free democracy...minor inconvenience and embarrassment should not be a reason to stop the proper expression of firmly held views.

Woodford Green is just about as middle-class as you can get. Lot's of lovely detached and semi-detached inter-war and post war mock Tudor houses. Disney would be proud. Cricket is played on The Green, and ducks swim in the pond. Until the recent arrival of a Tesco Express, the only supermarket was a Waitrose. The local garage sells sparkly new Jaguars and Range Rovers. Lovely. So it will cause some real soul searching to understand why in the space of 48 hours there have been two shootings in the area. At the local branch of 'Cakes and Shakes' (of which the headline quote was a description by The Boy's best friend). No one dead. Hardly a ripple on the news media. The only conclusion can be that this sort of thing is happening all the time. Scary.

Meanwhile, if you believe apartheid is wrong, sign here

The last post

2011-11-14T12:15:00.004Z

I'll take it as a compliment when one of the UK's leading plastic surgeons says "You must have had cosmetic surgery." On Friday night we were celebrating at the Old Boys Dinner. Acquaintances were being renewed, and it was good to see some people I hadn't heard from for more than thirty years. The conversation flowed freely. As freely as the complimentary wine allowed. Last year I organised the event; this year I threw my toys out of my pram when I realised this year's President was a fool (IMHO) and next year's is a well known buffoon. We held a two minute silence to remember the fallen, whilst in the background fireworks from some unknown party created sound effects that helped us all think of the trenches.

On Sunday it was Remembrance Day.

There was no sound in the school quad, aside from cable holding the flag clattering against the flagpole. It seemed entirely appropriate and remarkably atmospheric during the the two minute silence at the Remembrance Day Parade at The Boy's school. Then just before the drum signified the end of the silence, a bird noisily flapped its wings and flew off into the clear blue sky.

The whole event was incredibly poignant. Many standing in the autumn warmth and sunshine were moved to tears.

This year two people from the school have been killed in Afghanistan. Paul Watkins, a Gap Year student originally from South Africa who joined the Royal Lancers and Lieutenant Daniel Clack, a high-flying pupil, known to many who stood around the quad whilst the wreathes were laid. Dan Clack's parents attended the event, as did many of his former school friends - at the age of 24, it hasn't been that long since he was just another noisy schoolboy running through the ancient red brick corridors. 24 is such a very young age to die, and I'm not sure how any parent copes with that. Very sad. Very sad.

On Saturday morning The Boy was playing rugby for the school First 15. A match they won 44-0. The sweet taste of victory, and not a casualty in sight. That's the only sort of conflict I ever want him involved in.

Pie'n'mash

2011-11-11T11:32:00.006Z

With remarkable irony, I managed to get a paper cut when opening one of the myriad catalogues that come through the door at this time of year. It was a catalogue for Robert Welch kitchen knives.

I know when it's time to get my haircut. I walk down Bermondsey street and peer in through the window of George the Cypriot barber. If the naked girl on his calendar is a different one from the last time I looked, then it's time for a trim. It's not that I really remember which girl was there before, its just that I recognise that I haven't seen the new beauty before. This week I spied a new girl on the calendar.

George is a feature of the Street, and there are others like him. I would imagine he's been in the street at least thirty, maybe forty or even fifty years. It's changed a lot in that time. Whenever I go in he likes to chat. Just about all his sentences include the word 'fuck' or 'fucking'. And I can always get the latest prices of flights to Cyprus. If I want I can buy a dodgy DVD, batteries, a pen or whatever is his latest scheme to bring in a little bit more money. He has to cut six people's hair a day in order to cover his overheads. I guess from that the rent is not too much. There's usually a good black and white or technicolour film on in the background. I know a lot about his family. His daughter is married to an Italian. I'm amazed that there isn't a Green Line painted down the middle of the road outside his shop. Opposite is a Turkish sandwich shop which I go in a couple of times a week. As far as I know there's no animosity, but I've never seen them speak either. In the Turkish shop I'm known as Mr Marvelous. One of the girls behind the copunter once asked me to marry her. I have a feeling it was more because she wanted a visa than because of the romantic way I asked for a chicken kebab with chilli sauce.

Next to George's is Al's Cafe. I think Al maybe Italian, although I've never asked. It's always busy with workmen buying their English Breakfast...bacon, eggs, sausages, beans and a big mug of tea. Delicious. I'm generally in there after a heavy night out to get my bacon and egg sandwich. White bread, no sauce thank you very much.

Twenty years ago, I started working in another part of London - Clerkenwell which at the time was similar to Bermondsey as it is now. Cheap and cheerful Cafe's and Chinese restaurants serving delicious albeit probably unhealthy foods. The whole area was forgotten and decayed. But in the boom years Clerkenwell changed as the money moved in. Printers were replaced by Corporate Design agencies, textile traders were replaced by contract carpet suppliers. The area became gentrified, the cafes went to be replaced by hyper-trendy restaurants and cutting edge bars. Shabby terraced houses were replaced by high-rise designer flats. On the one hand I can't say it's a bad thing. It's progress for sure, but whimsically I feel some heart and soul has gone forever.

The same is becoming true of Bermondsey. It's now fashionable. At one end of the street is The Shard, the spike of glass that rises high above the London sky-line and will contain designer flats, a fashionable hotel and restaurants cutting edge bars. At the other end of the street is the new White Cube Gallery full of uber-trendy arty types with more than a few bob to spend. And just beyond is Bermondsey Square, the new block of concrete and glass hotels, offices, bars and restaurants. In its centre every Friday is the 'world-famous' Bermondsey market - a now motley collection of market stalls flogging stuff that may well have come from a car boot sale. It's not the same as it was when you could smell, taste and feel the history.

I'm not sure how long George, Al and the Turkish sandwich bar will be around. I'm afeared not as long as I would hope. If I'm lucky they'll be here for another couple of years which is when I'm planning to move out of my office and work from home. Probably a shed at the bottom of the garden if The Cat's Mother has her way.

That's progress.

Olympic dreaming

2011-11-09T11:50:00.006Z

I can't remember the last time that I was as nervous as I was yesterday.

No it wasn't that I was concerned that Berlusconi might decide not to go. No it wasn't that I was concerned that Israel may launch pre-emptive strikes on the Iranians. No it wasn't even that I was worried that Theresa May has allowed hundreds of extremists in to the country because she's worried about people having to queue for too long. I like the gag that's going round at the moment: "Knock, knock" Theresa May "Come in"

No it was far more important than that.

It took me until my thirties before I stopped having stress dreams about exams. It seems I'm not alone...many friends say that it was similar for them. So I hope my experience yesterday will not lead to another decade of restless nights, but it certainly brought back memories of queuing up outside the exam room before the next 'O' or 'A' Level or degree exam.

I mentioned before, though I can't remember when, that I'd got an audition to participate in the Opening Ceremony for the Olympics. It was done in a moment of enthusiasm without really thinking it through. Yesterday, the day rolled round so I schlepped off to Three Mills where the auditions are being held. Although I cycle past there every time I come into work, on this occasion I decided to go by tube, managing to arrive three-quarters of an hour early. Amidst the decay and mess that is Bow, it stands out on the riverside as a beacon of beauty. A large complex of studios based around old warehouses where some of our favourite TV programmes and films have been made. I was not alone, and soon we were all in, registered and measured for any costume we might need. There were 200 of us, and in total, twelve and a half thousand are being auditioned. That's a lot of people ranging from 18 to 70ish, and from rank amateur Daddy dancers to professionals who presumably would like ti on their CV.

We've been sworn to secrecy about what went on...but it's the first time I've participated in any mass choreography. It may well be my last. It was a phenomenal amount of fun. But it must be said that although I regard myself as quite fit, within a few minutes I was huffing and puffing, read in the face with sweat pouring down my forehead. I guess having a heavy cold and cough didn't help things. Clearly the professionals did their thing and did it very well....they obviously had techniques for creating 'stand out' whilst the rest of us tried to even vaguely remember what we were supposed to be doing. My favourite person by a mile was an Indian man who came along in suit and tie whilst the rest of us wore baggy sports wear. Inspite of being encouraged to take it off, it remained on him for the entire three hours. So too did his thick square moustache and the biggest grin I've ever seen. I really, really would like to see him succeed...he was obviously loving it. The organisers were amazingly friendly and supportive...it was a lovely thing to get to do with them.

As for me, I managed some parts OK, did other parts disastrously so have no expectations of getting through. Co-ordination was never my strong point, and that was amply demonstrated throughout the evening. And it obviously hyped me up as last night was particularly restless. I'd really love to get the chance to participate in the Olympics, but I'm not holding my breath. But it was a great experience, and I can now say I tried. And I shall be back to my Dad dancing at birthdays and weddings.

And did those feet in ancient times

2011-11-08T10:06:00.006Z

Whilst everyone was reading the press reports with the name of the new Bond movie which will come out next year, I was through pure good fortune walking through the filmset on the first day of filming. In the arches of Ewer Street in South East London was the venue. No doubt Danial Craig had hop and skipped directly from the press conference to cause some mess and mayhem in our locale. In a school boy way I find this sort of thing absolutely thrilling. It is the collision of fantasy and reality that makes you think it wouldn't be impossible just to slip from one to the other.

This morning too I felt like a bit part player in another movie - Contagion. The tube train managed to go one stop before the driver announced we were halted as someone had been taken seriously ill at Liverpool street and were being removed by ambulance. I buried my head in my book. After a while we moved again, then stopped as the driver announced another person taken ill at Liverpool Street. I buried my head in my book. After a while we moved again, then stopped again as the driver announced another person taken ill at St Paul's. I buried my head in my book. After a while we moved again, then stopped again as the driver announced another person taken ill at Liverpool Street....

Jerusalem is a place I've never been to. Nor do I have much desire to go there. I can't help but wonder how long it may in case be there. You've got Israel determined to have it all, Palestine determined to have their share, and in all likelihood (according to a report which will be launched later this week by the IAEA) the Iranians who might like to flatten it. I've never understood why western powers have turned a blind eye to the Israelis having nuclear capable weaponry. The almost inevitable consequence of this is bound to be a determination by an enemy of Israel to have a nuclear deterrent. So the likelihood of nuclear confrontation is that much higher. And let's face it none of us wants to glow in the dark, do we?

Jerusalem is high on our minds at the moment. In the West End Jerusalem has re-opened. It stars Mark Rylance and McKenzie Crooke, and was amazing when we first saw it a couple of years ago. It then transferred to Broadway where it was a run away success, and has now come back to London, marginally updated to reflect our current financial travails. That it was a success in America is truly remarkable because, on the surface at least, it is quite parochial. It is set around a dirty caravan parked in the woods featuring a motley collection of life's ne'er do goods speaking in heavy West Country accents. Teenagers, drinking, drugs and everything that doesn't speak well about life outside the mainstream is its lifeblood. On a bigger scale, of course, it's about the human condition. The Cat is lucky enough to be going to see it with the school this week, and we all get to see it again on Saturday for our afternoon's entertainment.

I suspect many of the play's character's were at Lewes this weekend. Lewes, the county town of Sussex is a sleepy old place that hasn't really changed for centuries. Yes there's a couple of supermarkets, a Boots and a few other chain stores, but if you peel back the modern skin you'll find it's the same as it was before electricity. It is rich in ancient timbered houses...including one that was the home of Anne of Cleves. The town has a rich history - some of it quite socking. The BBC has a good background to it:

A catholic background

Mary Tudor, was a devout Catholic, and during the reign of her half brother, Edward VI, lived in withdrawal from the Royal Court, and emphatically refused to accept the Protestant faith. Despite a conspiracy devised by The Earl of Northumberland [1502-1553], to prevent her succession to the throne after Edward’s death, Mary Tudor entered London and seized power to the throne from Lady Jane Grey who had been enthroned for a mere nine days.

Mary proceeded cautiously at first, repealing anti-catholic legislation, but soon, with the backing of Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal Pole, she proceeded to reinstate papal dominance and seal a Catholic union with Spain and Spanish King - Phillip II. The year 1554 was momentous. Lady Jane Grey was executed, Elizabeth, Mary’s half sister, was imprisoned and Mary I of England and Philip II of Spain were married. The following year was also one that will be etched on the annals of history with blood. The royal marriage between Mary and the Spanish Philip was deeply unpopular with such a close association with Spanish Catholicism. Mary’s persecution of the Protestants started in earnest in 1555, earning her the dubious name of “Bloody Mary”.

Protestants generally trace their separation from the Roman Catholic Church to the 1500s, which is sometimes called the magisterial Reformation because it initially proposed numerous radical revisions of the doctrinal standards of the Roman Catholic Church - called the magisterium.

Hundreds of Protestants were pursued and forced to languish in appalling conditions in jail while waiting examination or execution. No thought was even given for pregnant women, many of whom gave birth in squalid conditions with both mothers and babies dying in the company of odious criminals. There were eminent Christians in their number too: the Archbishop of Canterbury, several Bishops, dozens of clergymen and scholars – none were spared. Those who were lucky were able to escape abroad to France and beyond.

Toward the end of October 1554, a Bible-reading was taking place in the home of one Dirick Carver, a brewer from Brighthelmstone (now Brighton) with John Launder, Thomas Iveson and William Veisey. Under the command of Sir Edward Gage, the High Sheriff of Sussex, the four men were arrested at prayer. It was a short matter of time before they were brought before the court of Bonner, the Bishop of London in Newgate, London. They were kept there until 8 June 1855.
After forced confessions were signed, their fate was sealed.

On 22 July 1555, Dirick Carver, was taken by his Catholic persecutors, to Lewes town centre to be burned outside of the Old Star Inn, where the Town Hall currently stands. His Bible was taken from him and thrown into a barrel on the pyre. The crowd called to him, pleading God to strengthen his resolve and his faith. He knelt down and prayed, but was then forced to climb into the barrel too.

Carver took his Bible and threw it into the surrounding crowd. His final words were: “Lord have mercy upon me, for unto thee I commend my spirit and my soul doth rejoice in thee!” His Bible was preserved and is on display in Lewes Museum today. Clear evidence of his blood splattered on the pages of Judges, Zephaniah and Ruth is a graphic reminder of his physical ordeal.

On 6 June 1556, a further number of Protestants were taken to their flaming deaths in Lewes. Thos Harland, John Oswold, Thos Avington and Thos Reed had all spent a great deal of time in prison, and still rejected the Mass and refused to go to a church where the language was one they would not understand.

Despite these deaths, Bonner, the Bishop of London was not convinced that the heretics were being persuaded back to the Roman faith. So he arranged the largest bonfire of humans the
The 17 burning crosses serve as a reminder town or indeed the country had seen. The ten hapless Protestants were: Richard Woodman, George Stevens, Alexander Hosman, William Mainard, Thomasina Wood, Margery Morris, James Morris, Denis Burges, Ann Ashdon and Mary Groves.

Such was the conviction of the Protestants’ faith, that they could endure imprisonment, deprivation, torment and burning but they would not recant their deeply held opinions of the fundamental incorrectness of the Roman Catholic faith. The central belief of their Protestant faith was the belief that Jesus Christ was the head of the church, and it was inconceivable that the Roman Catholic Church should put the pope at the head of Christian faith. They stood firm with their principles and endured horrific persecutions, and it was only when Mary Tudor’s reign came to an end in 1558 that they were able to return to open worship.

John Foxe (1517 – 1587), was an English martyrologist converted from the Roman Catholic to the Protestant faith in about 1540, while he was a fellow of Magdalene College, Oxford. He committed the remainder of his life to the promotion of the English reformation. In 1554, he went into exile in Basic in Switzerland, to escape Bloody Mary’s persecutors, in the same
way as so many other Protestants did and he did not return until the Protestant Elizabeth I came to the throne.

It was while he was in exile he compiled an ecclesiastical history, 'Acts and Monuments', justifying the reformation and had it published in Latin in 1563 – the English version not being published until 1641. It became a testament to the Protestant strength of faith and his perceived injustice of Roman Catholicism.

It was through this publication that Foxe set out to prove that the Roman Catholic Church had been a false church since the 11th Century, citing the persecution of those agin the papacy and his declared conviction that the Pope was the anti-Christ. The persecutions in England often involved the death of his friends, turning his academic interest in the Acts and Monuments into a passionate and angry publication.

He wrote a comparatively small amount of the 'Acts and Monuments' himself, the remainder of the content coming from a huge array of letters, personal memoirs, registers and eyewitness accounts. It chronicled accounts from the 11th Century, accentuating the similarity between the reformation martyrs and those of the late imperial persecutions. He continued making amendments and additions from new information supplied.

When he was approached by the church for an abridged version, he refused, insisting on producing further revisions of the entire works in 1583. He was in the midst of planning further modifications to the publication when he died in 1587.

When Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558, she had other religious problems to surmount with Philip of Spain, the husband of her deceased sister, still vying for the English throne, but the religious persecutions had all but come to an end.

The memory of the Lewes 17 is still celebrated with annual torchlight processions through Lewes which attract up to 80,000 people. Five bonfire societies carry 17 barrels of burning tar and 17 flaming crosses every 5 November.

We went to Lewes on Saturday evening. I've been a regular visitor for the last 20 years, The Boy has been a few times, and this was a new experience for The Cat and The Cat's Mother.

On the up side it was dry. On the down side there were 60,000 people crowded into the narrow streets. On the upside the event is still allowed despite our obsession with health and safety. On the downside the streets were full of the cast from Jerusalem. On the upside you're allowed to shout 'Burn the Pope' without meaning it and without being arrested. On the downside there were children who were terrified. On the upside the parades were spectacular. On the downside we queued for an hour and a half to get on the train from Brighton. On the upside we managed to get a good view in the high street. On the downside we had to fight our way through a crush that made you wonder if you'd ever be able to breath again. On the upside the costumes were spectacular (although I didn't understand the Zulu link). On the downside the bangers were very, very noisy and reduced The Cat's Mother to a quivering wreck. On the upside we had tickets to the best bonfire - Cliffe. On the downside it was a long walk. On the upside the fireworks were the most spectacular The Cat's Mother has ever seen. On the downside The Cat's Mother says she never wants to go again.

First Friday Photos

2011-11-04T12:08:00.013Z

Well remarkably this is the first time in months that I've actually done this on time.

The benefit of err erm working from home this morning.

My last cycle home along the canal this year

Evening view across the Thames

Yummy!

TOWIE

Eating out in October

Not the Rugby World Cup

No month is complete without some street art - Ben Eine

Traditional punting in Cambridge

The ski show...obviously

Doughnuts on the pier

Another kind of beach...on the Thames

Cafe tables in Brighton

Boat on the beach in Brighton

Another boat

having fun go round and round

It's all just rubbish

The birthday boy

And his brother

Off to a Halloween Party

UP

The Boy

It's a laugh

Opera Girl

Kids!

Aunt and neice in the media centre at Lords

Seats good enough for a Lord

Cats together

C'mon, c'mon...keep up (3)

2011-11-02T12:03:00.008Z

In blog land I'm still in last week. That's the equivalent of not changing the clocks back (or forwards) some ninety-six times if my maths is right. Which is a lot.

I celebrated Palestine being being accepted into full membership of UNESCO. It may be a small step. But it's a significant one. The US has shown its colours by cutting off UNESCO. That would be justifiable if it had a realistic alternative. But it doesn't. Its' middle-east policy is bankrupt and has been for years under successive Presidents. And whilst the middle-east remains in turmoil there is little question that extremism will grow with almost inevitable terrible consequences. Peace and prosperity in that neck of the woods would bring calm and safety in the rest of the world.

But enough...

After two days hard toil at the office last week I needed a break. You may be able to work five, six, even seven days a week, but I am more a more tender flower wilting under the the glaring heat of stress. Well that's my reasoning anyway....and I can justify it by letting you know about a senior moment I had this week. I had an important letter to post, so I stepped out of the office and walked towards the post box. As I neared, I tossed the letter in only to realise immediately that I'd put it in the black rubbish bin, not the red letterbox. As I stuck my arm in to retrieve it I had to sheepishly explain to the people walking past and whispering to each other my mistake. Well at least it amused them.

As it happens, I had the perfect excuse to escape the office on Friday. The Cat's Granddad was celebrating his eightieth birthday. That's a fine age to reach. That's thirty more years than I've managed, and he still seems to be bright as a bell. So to celebrate The Cat's Mother had organised a day at Lord's for the family. That's the world-famous cricket ground. The biggest in the world (inspite of what the Australian's might claim). It's also home to the most ridiculous trophy for any sport. A broken perfume bottle that may or may not contain the ashes of a stump. Only the English. You may feel that late October is an odd time to be at Lords, but our day consisted of being coached by two former England cricketers...John Lever and John Embury. And what a challenge they had. With the age group ranging from six through to 80 and with talent ranging from the very enthusiastic amateur to me. We were in the Lord's Indoor academy, and it was a lot of fun for everyone. My appalling bowling (it was noted that I had left a former international cricketer speechless with my performance) was compensated by a pretty respectable turn at batting even if I say so myself. Birthday boy had to race his brother round the wickets, and it was a shame we didn't quite capture that on video.

For Up and Muffin Dad, the day was a special treat. The Muffin is the keen cricketer so he was playing on holy ground, and in their younger days Up and The Cat's Mother used to be enthusiasts. UP had kept a programme from years gone by, and it was his opportunity to get it autographed...how touching is that?!

No wonder we needed a quiet weekend.

Oh no. I forgot. On Sunday we forewent the delights of Downton Abbey to see a couple of exhibitions by urban artists which were also being filmed for a BBC documentary. So it may be my second chance of fifteen minutes of fame, although I did avoid the opportunity of being interviewed this time round. There's a thing that worries me. I like modern art, I like street art, I like urban art. I also like more traditional art. The major difference as I see it is that with traditional art, the craft is more important than the concept (although I know many scholars would challenge me on that) but with urban art, too often it's all concept and little artistry. We didn't see any thing we'd like to hang on the wall at home. It would have been a fabulous time, but the teenagers took it on themselves to be teenagers. One spent the evening sulking and the other threw a mini-strop.

If only I'd had a cricket bat with me.

C'mon, c'mon....keep up (2)

2011-11-01T12:49:00.005Z

Well I was somewhat disappointed really.

The Cat's Mother said we were going to spend an evening with Simon Cowell. First class entertainment I thought. As you will all know and appreciate, I'm an avid fan of X-Factor, and often watch repeats when I've exhausted my collection of TOWIE DVDs. So you can imagine the shock when it turns out that it was Simon Callow we were seeing at the Theatre Royal in Brighton last Monday. Worse still he was giving a solo performance (c'mon you know that Girls Aloud wouldn't be half as good if it was just the Ginger One) and it was Dickens. Charles Dickens. I don't know if you've ever tried to read any of his stuff, but frankly my dears it's bloody hard going. Naturally enough to make this all go a little better (less worse) we dined at Caves A Fromage (who should be paying me for the number of times I plug the best cheese, chacuterie and wine shop in the world. IMHO). As it turned out I drank nearly a whole bottle of red wine. So it's testament to the abilities of Mr Callow that I was riveted throughout his performances of Mr Chops and Dr Marigold. It was just remarkable that he managed to bring to life words that would have most schoolboys (and girls) weeping into their text books. So even if you don't like Mr Dickens, if you get the chance, give this a whirl. To cap the evening off, we leapt on a bus (there were no taxis as the sky had opened and rain was falling) and the driver didn't have the heart to charge us the £12.50 for the 10 minute journey it took us to get home. Rumour has it this is the first time The Cat's Mother has been on a bus in thirty years.

Simon Callow had followed a day in Lewes for The Cat's Mother and I as we procured tickets for the somewhat lively bonfire celebrations they have there. It's the one occasion you can hear tens of thousands of folk chanting 'Burn the catholics' 'Burn the Pope' without threat of arrest from Her Majesty's Constabulary. We managed to get the tickets, so I'll no doubt tell all after the event....and in the hope we haven't all been burnt to a cinder or blown up by a firecracker. In this health and safety obsessed age it never ceases to amaze me that the celebrations in Lewes are allowed. I always found Lewes to be a slightly odd and spooky place, and have become convinced that every ancient dwelling contains a witches coven. It's very, very beautiful...and at the heart of the town is a brewery which you can tour around. That is if you can face the two year wait, such is the popularity of the place. I may not have the best bar technique, but frankly two years is a long to wait to be served, even if it is my round.

Tuesday we had another sunny day, and headed round the Brighton Wheel before returning to Epping Forest and work on Wednesday and Thursday and the opportunity to re-engage with the outside world. I was disappointed to have missed the Tory rebellion against David Cameron. Evidently too many country squires still can't see any benefit to being in bed with Johnnie Foreigner. And as it turns out the Greeks are doing their utmost to prove them right. With a referendum which will almost inevitably end up with the Greeks rejecting the EU solution for their fiscal issues, we'll all be stuffed like one of their olive leaves. Which gives me the perfect opportunity to point out that, as I understand it, it was that fine banking institution Goldman Sachs that enabled them to cook the books in the first place.

C'mon, c'mon....keep up (1)

2011-10-31T11:14:00.011Z

We seem to have been doing so much that I'm struggling to keep up with myself....and whilst the minutiae of my life may not be of much interest to too many people, it is to me, and if I don't write it down I know I'll forget...so its all about me, me, me.

On a sad note, today I'm wearing something yellow in memory of Jo McGowran

Last weekend...that's not the one that finished last night, but the one that finished a week ago, The Boy and I went off to the ski show, which this year was at http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifEarls Court. Of note was that I could buy cheaper tickets online before the event, but by the time they'd added their booking fee, I might just as well have bought them at the event. Which was pretty empty really. It was inevitably going to be an expensive trip...it always is. Works on the same principle as IKEA...you go in to buy a £2 candle and come out six hours later with an entire flatpack house costing several thousand pounds. I regard it as a major success if I get out with a bill of less than £200. This year The Boy needed new ski boots. His first pair. I said I would buy them for Christmas. The whole process took about two and half hours, which was a pain as by that time we had only and hour and a half to spare. The net result is that we had to leave before they had finished fitting them (heating them and moulding) so he had to wear them on the tube to make sure the moulding finished off....He has interestingly shaped feet and ankles...even I could see that when he stood in line with a group of other males. His ankles are so narrow, yet the front of his feet are really quite wide. Although there is a family joke to be told, I'm not aloud to say a thing. Anyway, the boots are green...pretty much as I felt when I had to pay.

Sunday we traveled down to Brighton like Royalty. Not in a posh train, nor in an RAF helicopter, but separately. It wasn't that we weren't talking it's just that there wasn't room for us all in the Jeep. A year or more ago The Cat's Mother and I bought in Brighton an old wrought iron column to put a pot plant on. The man loaded it in the back, and we realised that no matter how we tried the two of us would never be able to carry it up the 97 steps to the flat. So it got taken from Brighton to Loughton, where The Boy and I lifted it out and put it in the garage. And there it stayed as there was not an opportunity to take it back to the south coast until this weekend. So a year later The Boy, the column and I drove past the shop in Brighton that had originally sold it to us. Somewhere behind us was The Cat's Mother, The Cat and her best friend Namesake....obviously it had taken them longer to get ready and leave. The column was carried up the stairs without too much bother, the plant placed carefully on the top. And lo and behold it looked wonderful.

That evening we went out to a restaurant and had to cook our own food. It wasn't that the chef had gone on strike. It wasn't that we couldn't afford to pay so had to cook and wash up. It was because we were at Jamie Oliver's Recipease. They supply all the ingredients, and a chef to teach you how to cook. There was fourteen of us tasked with creating American-style pork chilli. We worked in pairs...I was with The Cat's Mother, The Cat was with Namesake and The Boy was with A Complete Stranger. Nobody fell out, in fact we had a splendid time chopping, adding salt, frying, adding salt, boiling, adding salt, mixing, adding salt, etc, adding salt, etc, adding salt, etc. And we all managed to turn out something quite delicious washed down with a couple of glasses of delicious wine. Who said the young don't know how to cook?

And before I go any further...thank you Rol for the comic! And see you at Christmas Scarlet....

Oh what a lovely war

2011-10-27T12:54:00.006+01:00

I love sharing an office with a film location company:

"Did Andy know you wanted to hang someone off the balcony?"

I thought it might be Michael Jackson on the end of the telephone line. But no it's the filming of the new Sweeney!

So do we really think the politicians have sorted out the Euro problems then? No. I don't think so. Not least becasue it will mean pumping yet more money into the banks, whilst the banks themselves pour yet money into the pockets of their staff. It stinks. No wonder wealth disparity has increased so much in the last twenty years. I am a great supporter of the Occupy anti-capitalist protest camp outside St Pauls. Actually, the point is that it's really outside the Stock Exchange. THere's been a great deal of untruths spread about the protestors, but then you can't really expect the City authorities to be too truthful about the strength of feeling the cause has attracted. It is a crying shame though that The canon chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral Dr Giles Fraser has decided to step down, apparently because he disagrees with the Church's desire to evict the protestors. It seems there is an unholy trinity of Church, State and Finance. We saw Giles Fraser earlier this year at a public event to discuss 400 years of the King James bible...that's the one you've probably got tucked away in a bottom drawer somwhere. He seems very personable.

The West Pier was a pier in my beloved Brighton. It was built in 1866 by Eugenius Birch but was closed in 1975, awaiting renovation. It was Brighton's second pier, the other being the Palace Pier

The West Pier was opened in 1866 with a length of 1115 feet, and built with cast iron threaded columns screwed into the seabed. The pier did not have much of a superstructure until 1893 when a pier head was extended and a pavilion added. A concert hall was added in 1916 and a new top-deck entrance in 1932. In 1965 the pier was bought by a company that owned some seafront hotels and entertainment venues. They had ambitions for the pier but as maintenance costs increased the pier was closed in 1975 when Brighton Corporation declined to buy it and the pier passed into the hands of the Crown Estates Commissioners. A trust was formed to save the pier and in 1984 they bought it for a nominal sum. After that time there were many schemes to revive it, most were madcap and one included backing from the now bankrupt boxer and local resident Chris Eubank.

Famously it was used as the back drop for Attenborough's wonderful musical Oh! what a lovely war!

The West Pier had been cut off from the shore (partly deliberately, for safety reasons) since 1975, but the West Pier trust offered regular tours of it until the structure suffered a serious partial collapse during a storm on 29 December 2002, when a walkway connecting the concert hall and pavilion fell into the sea. On 20 January 2003 a further collapse saw the destruction of the concert hall in the middle of the pier. On 28 March 2003 the pavilion at the end of the pier caught fire. With a remarkable degree of irony firefighters were unable to save the building from destruction because the collapsed walkway prevented them from reaching it. The cause of the fire remains unknown. On 11 May 2003, another fire broke out, consuming most of what was left of the concert hall. The Fire re-ignited on 12 May. Arson was suspected: the West Pier Trust refers to the fires as the work of "professional arsonists". Suggested beneficiaries to ending any possible development of the West Pier either local residents who objected to a new development on the sea front, or the threat of competition to the lucrative Palace Pier's business.

On 23 June 2004 high winds caused the middle of the pier to collapse completely. Despite all these setbacks, the West Pier Trust remained adamant that they would soon begin full restoration work. Finally, in December 2004, the Trust conceded defeat, after their plans were rejected by the Heritage Lottery Fund, in part because of problems with achieving the required "matched funding" from outside sources. Subsequent plans to restore only the oldest, structural parts of the pier were eventually rejected by English Heritage. However, in September 2005 the Trust revealed in their newsletter that they were forming further plans to rebuild the original structure with help from private funding.

In December 2005 the last remaining physical structure, the "little white hut", was lost when strong winds broke it away into the sea. Ironically, when the rest of pier had been intact, the hut had been said to be in serious threat of falling into the sea; yet it was the last piece to remain.

These days there is a rotting skeleton...and when The Boy and I had kayaks it was always fun to paddle round and through the structure, which is much loved by the local seagulls.

Since then, the idea has been to create a pier for the 21st century - the i360, is a slender, elegant observation tower the only one of its kind in the world, that elevates visitors in a pod to a height of 150m above sea level to enjoy stunning views. There are some great pictures here. It has been designed by the same people that created the London Eye, so is quite spectacular. If it hadn't been for the financial crisis (yes those bloody bankers again) it would have been built by now. This despite fierce opposition from Brighton's other Pier, the Palace Pier (renamed Brighton Pier by the owners to make a point) which couldn't see the benefits (and visitors) that such an attraction would bring. At the time of going to press there doesn't appear to be a time-scale for getting the i360 built....although they are claiming a 2013 opening date.

So it has come as quite a surprise that at the Palace Pier to find that on a slightly smaller scale we have the Brighton Wheel. A very splendid, if somewhat clunkier reflection of the London Eye, suddenly appeared. Of course, being Brighton, this one is second hand having first made an appearance in France and then South Africa, but who's to complain?! We went up it (round it?) this week during a couple of days off, and it has provided us with views of our city that none of us had ever seen before. Fantastic.

Faces?

2011-10-26T12:14:00.000+01:00

Tara's Photo Gallery continues to thrive I'm delighted to see. I contribute when I can, and today I thought I would with this picture:

We were on a short break to Norfolk with some friends, and we headed to the amazingly sandy beaches when I saw this lady with her dog. I thought she had so much character in her face that I had to ask if I could take a picture of her and her dog...they both seemed to be having such a wonderful time. Surprisingly she was more than happy to be pictured, and this was the result. I wish I'd been able to send her it.

Chaos.

2011-10-21T14:05:00.007+01:00

I still remember that when I was young I didn't know whether chaos was pronounced as a k (as in kite) or a ch (as in chimney). It's strange what things stick in your mind.

I think there is a theory that says the natural state of the universe is chaos. This makes me feel good because for most of my good many years I have lived in chaos. I am somewhat less in touch with the natural world these days as The Cat's Mother sees it as her mission to keep me on the straight and narrow. But there are areas where chaos still reighs supreme, and one of those is keeping track of the blogs I like to read. Some of them are listed to the right, some of them I 'follow' and some of them are just bookmarks. The net result is that I never can seem to keep a track on what I've read and what I haven't...sometimes realising that I've missed a good post by days, weeks even. I now it's all my own fault, but really it's most frustrating.

It's such a shame that in the chaos of the protest against bankers, St Pauls has felt it necessary to close its doors to the public. As The Cat's Mother says...Hitler didn't manage it. I remain entirely sympathetic with their aims, but this does seem to be biting off the hand that feeds them.

The public sector is making enormous cut backs so that we can balance the national budget after all those bankers f*cked us over. We're not quite in the same boat as the Greeks, but then they seemed to be able to retire before they'd even graduated from nursery so they don't illicit a lot of sympathy from anyone. It's not as if holidaying in Greece is any cheaper as a result is it? With this background it does seem surprising that Southwark Council has taken it upon itself to rip up the local park/ancient churchyard to refurbish it. It's a nice place, especially in the summer to eat your lunch, but I can't imagine how it has risen to the top of the council's list of priorities. Worse still. Much worse still is Camden Council which has decided to issue every one of its employees with a Swiss Ball. If you don't know, they're big rubber balls that you tend to find in gyms and are used as part of an exercise routine. In this case, employees are encouraged to sit on them to improve their posture. I'm not sure how many people are employed by Camden, but there's enough to mean that he bill for this must run into tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of pounds. I assume they all had chairs to sit on in the first place. I'm sure that Camden Council will say this is an investment in their employees health and will reduce the number of sick days. But really. Get a grip. This is unnecessary, unreasonable spending. Of taxpayers money. Extravagance is clearly a habit that local council finds hard to kick. I've a good mind to write to the Daily Mail.

It seems my brief on TV has caused a little bit of a furore amongst friends, relatives and others. By declaring I have a large overdraft on national TV, it seems most people assume I'm about to enter the poor house....you may see me begging on your local street corner. At first I laughed at people's response, but now I'm feeling a little defensive. So let me declare here and now, that I'm not broke, I can still afford new clothes and the odd CD or two. The overdraft is just working capital which I get at a reasonable rate of interest. It's a smart business decision, not a desperate plight. Now I've got that off my chest, please tell everyone else so that I can raise my head up again in Loughton High Street as I walk past another TOWIE shop.

And just to round off with Libya, there's not much for me to add that hasn't been said already. Gadaffi's dead, and it's a shame that he was kept alive long enough to be properly interrogated. There are many questions left unanswered, not the least of which being who killed WPC Fletcher and was the truth about Lockerbie. I wonder if there can now be any full closure for the families of his victims. I don't doubt that in the heat of the moment this particular dictator was dispatched by a simple bullet to the head by an over enthusiastic (or hatred-filled) fighter. And as Crispin Black says here wouldn't it have been wonderful to see Tony Blair on the stand as a character witness. So what started as chaos ends in chaos.

The Truman Show

2011-10-19T14:43:00.003+01:00

I'm very good at forming opinions when only aware of half the facts. Sometimes less than half is necessary. This is a skill I was taught at school, and was particularly useful when sitting my history 'O' Level. As I got an A for that, I've always felt it is one of those skills I should hang on to.

So on that basis, let me say, that if I'd built a house without planning permission, I doubt it would have taken the council ten years to tear it down. My sympathies, therefore, lie with Essex Council when it comes to Dale Farm. And it's not too often that you find me sympathysing with authority.

The Middle East has disappeared off the front pages of the newspapers, to be replaced I see by a pretty hysterical warning from The Sun that fish pedicures will give you HIV. So in the interests of balance, let me say that in Egypt the army is pretty much in control and the likelihood of true democracy breaking out is remote. Still in Egypt, the Christians are being beaten to within an inch of their lives, so the chances of me being able to go there and buy the Bible written in Arabic which I should have bought in the Lebanon seems equally remote. In Libya, the fighting is still going on, and I don't think that Gadaffi will give up anytime soon, so the likelihood of me going to visit the amazing Roman ruins there seems erm, erm remote. The Syrian government is continuing to slaughter protesters, so that too is off my list of must go places. Yesterday you may have seen the Israeli soldier Schalit was returned five years after being captured/kidnapped by Hamas. In exchange, the Israelis are handing back a thousand Palestinian terrorists/freedom fighters. In general that seems to be viewed as a humiliation for Israel, and a sign that they had no military answer to the problem. On the other hand, it might be seen that Israel views one Israeli life as worth a thousand Arab lives...and that probably explains the continuing atrocities they commit against the Palestinians every day. You can see where my sympathies lie.

On Monday Loughton High Street was chaos as a film crew was doing what film crews do best. Filming. It was the opening of a new hairdressers, and I understand that the owner is one of the stars of The Only Way Is Essex. That's the second TOWIE owned retail establishment in Loughton...the other is a lingerie shop. I'm told there will soon be a TOWIE nail shop. I may be wrong (but I never let the facts get in the way of a good story - see above), but I think one of the bar/nightclubs is also run by a TOWIE star. If you know anything about Loughton, you'll know you can walk from one end to the other in five minutes. It's not a big place. Have you ever watched TOWIE? OK, have you ever watched TOWIE for more than five minutes? No, me neither. Terrible, terrible people and a terrible, terrible programme which is occupying valuable airwaves which could be taken up more usefully by a revival of Crossroads. Living in a TOWIE world may well be my worst nightmare come true. Hopefully Jim Carey will come and rescue me.

Mid-day in Paris

2011-10-17T13:50:00.006+01:00

Is it me or had Downton Abbey become utter crap? We loved the first series, but second time round it's just not keeping us entertained on a Sunday evening. Too many plots still going on from the last series, too many new ones introduced in this series, and it's all a bit of an Eastenders rollercoaster. We may not last the full series...if only we'd plumped for Spooks instead.

I'm delighted to see that around the globe there has been proper rioting against the greedy bankers....about time too. Interestingly the Metropolitan police decided to 'kettle' the protesters to prevent the protest making an impact. So much for freedom of speech and democratic rights.

Last week was one of those goddam awful weeks that happen from time to time. I'm generally sanguine about them as I know that these things pass on the assumption that things pick up the following week. So it was "a bit of a disappointment" when my phone went off in the middle of the night with a computer message to let me know that the office alarm had been activated. I hauled myself out of bed and jumped on the motorbike, stopping a few hundred yards down the road as it was so cold I thought my fingers were going to fall off. Having put my winter gloves on again I set off and arrived at the office to find absolutely nothing was amiss. Having double checked everything, I returned home, arriving at 6.30 am, just in time to take The Boy to school for an exceptionally early start. When I got back I climbed into bed to give myself a half hour snooze before the day started properly. Not surprisingly, when I did arrive at the office, the computer kept crashing which meant most of the rest of the morning was spent sorting that out. Humph.

It was a good job we had an interesting weekend.

Friday night we saw The Tempest. Actually inspite of having Ralph Fiennes as Prospero it was piss-poor. Poor staging, poor acting and a desperately slow pace. Rank amateur. And this from Trevor Nunn...we can only surmise that he is distracted by his dalliance with Nancy Dell'ollio who is probably sucking his emotional energy out of him like a Dementor.

Sunday we had a day-trip to Cambridge to see a Vermeer exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum. This was a special trip for us because we wanted to see this picture:

We'd seen it in Paris just a few weeks ago when we popped over for a few days, so it was just fabulous to be able to see it again so soon. The exhibition is called Vermeer's Women, and having seen it I can now tell you that in the seventeenth century:
1. All Dutch children were pig-ugly
2. The women spent a lot of time buying fish...
3. ...when they weren't peeling vegetables
I can also reveal that the curator had failed to spot one of the women was in a skimpy Santa outfit. Tardy.

Sunday The Cat's Mother and I went to the fleapit to see Woody Allen's latest film. I've never enjoyed anything by Woody Allen so my hopes for this one were not high. Yet surprisingly it entranced me almost from the opening credits. I'd rate it pretty much the perfect Sunday matinee film...light, jolly and whimsical. We spent a lot of time trying to spot the places we'd been in Paris. I'm not sure we managed very well, but Paris was certainly shown at it's best...no doubt giving the President's wife a part helped them secure some great locations. The Americans were shown at their worst. And for the first time I realised that Marion Cotillard is an absolute babe.

Why she is given second billing and her name is virtually hidden on the IMDB entry. Perhaps the Americans are still not quite on board with the French again.

15 minutes...or 58?

2011-10-14T11:11:00.007+01:00

We managed to miss my starring role on BBC1 last night. I was delighted, but The Cat's Mother was disappointed. She is insisting we watch it on iPlayer later...I checked this morning and she won't have to watch more than 10 minutes of Watchdog to see the important bit. A couple of friends called to say they'd seen me...it's amazing who watches these programmes.

When The Boy and I lived in Hoxton Square, we were in fact living in the trendiest area in London, and as London was at the time the trendiest place in the world, we were de facto living in the trendiest place in the world. Round the back of us was a circus training school, in front of us on the green there was regularly an old traditional circus too, there were some fantastic bars (which, admittedly, were not of much interest to an eight year old boy), some great places to eat...and it probably stimulated my early interest in street art. Our neighbours included the likes of Kylie, and any number of new wave artists. On the Square was the White Cube gallery which showed works by these people - Gilbert and George, Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and so on. Every night seemed to be opening night, and there was always a glass of champagne to be swiped as I sauntered home. It seems idyllic, which is just how memories should be.

By interesting coincidence, they have now opened another White Cube gallery opposite the office. It was a nasty 1970's storage warehouse which they have remarkably managed to transform into the UK's largest private art gallery. Obviously my invitation to the opening night must have got lost in the post, and I was busy anyway trying to sleep through Playboy of the western world. Yesterday, The Cat's Mother and I decided to go and have a nose around. What I will say is that it's a lovely space, and it has a great art bookshop. Apart from that and reflecting on the contents of the galleries The Cat's Mother was spot on when she said something about The Emperors New Clothes. Still I feel it may be a place to go when I'm stressed and in need of a quiet, empty place to go and calm down.

It's a long way for me to cycle into work, so it's a good job I love the exercise. But more particularly I love cycling down the canalside...I think I've mentioned this before. So one of the challenges of the winter months (ignoring the issue of getting cold) is that it gets too dark to go that way...you simply can't see where you're going, and by reputation you're likely to get mugged. Last week I came home that way as it was light when I left the office....unfortunately pitch black by the time I was halfway along the canal. So I've had to reconcile myself that a canal ride home is off the agenda for several months, but for a few more weeks I will still be able to go along there in the morning. Yesterday, I tried the new winter route to familiarise myself with it. It's all roads, and busy ones at that. The upside is that it's a little shorter. One of the things that has motivated me all the time I have done the cycling has been keeping a track of how quickly I can do the journey. My ambition has been to manage it in under an hour. And yesterday I achieved that...58 minutes. Not bad for the 23 km journey...quicker than the car, quicker than the tube. It'll keep me going until there's snow and ice on the roads.

Playboy

2011-10-12T12:26:00.004+01:00

She's quite a babe. And she kept looking at me. Yes, every time I swiveled my head round 120 degrees, she was looking at me. I bet she wanted my autograph...probably recognised me from my blog. She probably fancied me. Of course she fancied me. I guess she just was too shy to ask for my number. I expect I'm on her list of five.

As for the bloke she was with, well what can I say? A shock of white hair. He just sat shoulders hunched staring forwards. Pretending to focus; pretending to concentrate. He didn't look over once. He did look quite self-satisfied. Smug even. Just as if he was successful. But not in the same league as me. Harumph.

I had no idea that Samantha Bond and Sir Derek Jacobi were friends.

They sat behind us whilst we were at The Old Vic watching Playboy of the Western World. I'd been more or less dragged there by The Cat's Mother who has taken quite a delight in getting me to see all the plays that I studied for 'O' and 'A' Level. I hadn't really been able to remember it...at best I was fuzzy on the story. But it was as the curtains went up that my memories came flooding back. My heart sank. The performance last night was a good one. The production was a fine one. But as a play JM Synge's piece leaves me cold. All I could think of were the ridiculous questions asked about characterisation, plot, motivation and dynamics. When it was first written it may well have been a classic, savagely funny and shocking. But it's not aged well. It was pretty dull as I sat at the back of Mr Giles' English class 35 years ago, and unlike a good red wine has not aged well.

So thank heavens Samantha was practically drooling over me.

Outfoxed

2011-10-11T13:48:00.003+01:00

After yesterday's tilting traffic lights, I was concerned to learn that Big Ben (OK The Clock Tower) is also tilting, just like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Evidently, if you stand underneath for the next 5000 years, there is a danger you may die from being crushed by the tower as it topples over. No wonder I'm quite sprightly when I'm in the environs.

This is clearly not my week, so I'm think of crawling back under the duvet and staying there until Sunday.

I was doing some blog tidying up...and have managed to end up following myself. Which is helpful as I like to know what I'm writing about.

I failed to read the small print of my insurance policy, which means that I have an excess of £650 on it. I've never heard of a policy with a £650 excess. When I rang up to question this - it's more than the value of the scooter which is on the same policy as the motorbike - their only response was that I should have read the policy when it was issued and there was a fourteen day cooling off period to do that when it was issued. Stupid me, obviously I should have done that. Anyway, I can't really complain, it is my fault. That doesn't make me any less unhappy though and will ensure they don't get any more of my money. I hope MCE enjoy the couple of hundred quid they got for selling me this.

I hear that the government is going to put a stop to 'Best before' 'Consume before' 'Display until' dates on food and drinks products. I'm glad. The Government feels they are confusing. They are that. Mostly they're used by shops to help with stock control/rotation.

On Sunday The Cat came down for breakfast, and the first thing she said was 'What's the date?' I asked why, and she replied that she needed to know because on '9th October the bread goes off' And why wouldn't she say that? It said so on the packet. Of course those of us brought up when the TV was still broadcast in black and white would know that on day one, the bread is fresh and can be eaten with nothing on it, a few days later it is a bit drier, so needs plenty of butter and jam, a few days later it's dry enough that you need to toast it, and then a few days after that you may well find little patches of blue mould on it....if you cut those off it's still edible...but a day or so later and you probably should be ripping it up and throwing it in the garden for the birds. Milk you can smell when it's off, and cheese is fine until it's covered in mould. Fish - eat fresh or frozen and be wary if it's been in the fridge for more than a few days. Etc, etc, etc. But how could The Cat know this? These sell by dates are on everything, and if you have faith in the label that tells you what the ingredients are and how much it weighs, why wouldn't you believe in the sell/display/use by date. These dates are just one of the many, many things in the modern world that actually end up hindering rather than helping.

Back in the Houses of Parliament it's good to see Liam Fox making an arse of himself. He's the one that started making soldiers and sailors redundant whilst still on active duty...yes please put yourselves up for being shot at, but don't expect us to look after you. Anyway, it seems it's all a bit ridiculous, and we can only hope that someone with such poor judgement gets turfed out of Government...especially someone as instantly dislikeable as this man.

mmm...yummy

2011-10-10T19:57:00.008+01:00

I'm not sure where the communication broke down, and this picture may not reveal everything it should, so I will explain.

Here are some traffic lights. They're just by a new block of flats. There's two things of importance. One they're right by someone's bedroom, so all night their room will be illuminated ...red, red & amber, green, amber, red red & amber, green...and so on. And the second thing is, the traffic lights are crooked. Yes, someone has had to push them over to an angle more befitting Pisa than Bermondsey. For the last several months I've been watching and waiting for the council to come and move them. I'm betting the builders have too. Or may be not. Perhaps the building dimensions are wrong. Perhaps there's been a mis-calculation. But someone has had to push the lights over slightly just so they could build the building. It's finished now, and the flats are ready to be sold. I want to see the estate agent's details.

I hope you understand there is a delicious sense of irony that today was crime awareness day in Islington, and whilst half a dozen PCs handed out leaflets about how to keep your property safe, someone was trying to steal my motorbike, less than one hundred yards away. In the middle of Islington High Street (confusingly known as Upper Street) during the middle of the lunch hour. That screw in the ignition system will cost me a thousand pounds. So I'm a loser. The would-be thief is a loser as he didn't get the bike. The Police are losers as this will go down as an unsolved crime. So it's lose, lose all round.

I've never paid for sex, but this feels like a £1000 screw, and I can tell you it doesn't feel good.

At the same time I was being interviewed for TV, and if you want you can see me on Thursday evening. I don't know which channel, and I'm not sure what time, and I've never watched the programme, so if you can work it out, let me know. It was a consumer programme about Bank accounts. It wasn't Oscar winning stuff I do know that.

Sunday snaps

2011-10-09T17:48:00.010+01:00

It's been a while, as I wasn't so happy with the pictures I've been taking, but I thought I'd see what I've been snapping in the last month:

The Olympics are not so far away in Paddington

Our local pub...picture postcard-like

Spiral staircase...I tried to capture the movement of people going down

In the Louvre...made me think of Escher

Letters - street art

The Shard...lost in the clouds

Birling gap beach

Limestone pebble on Birling Gap beach

Some would say this is over-exposed, but I was pleased with this...showing people moving under the pyramid at the Louvre

I love the way these mirros show the cars below at the new Westfield Shopping centre...gateway to the Olympics

Tower of evil. Canary Wharf.

View of St Paul's Cathedral, with the logo of Jamie Oliver's restaurant Barbecoa reflected in the window

Back at Birling Gap...a beach owned by the national Trust

Seeing red: an act of vandalism

2011-10-06T16:24:00.005+01:00

This week's gallery is 'colour'. Again I'm late to the party, and I'd like to think this is a grand entrance...but may be not! It gives me the chance to show my favourite artist...Anish Kapoor...I discovered him when I was in Madrid a million years ago, and have been an avid fan ever since. He used a deep blue pigment that was just compelling...if you stood close enough you lost all sense of where you were, seemingly disappearing into the work itself...unsettling and invigorating at the same time.

It gave me enormous pleasure, therefore, when he was chosen as the artistic director of the Brighton Festival in 2009. Here are some of his works in an abandoned building revived for the festival. That red is astounding.

"The Rotherhithe Tunnel is a road tunnel crossing beneath the River Thames in East London. which was formally opened in 1908 by George Prince of Wales (later King George V), and Richard Robinson, Chairman of the London County Council. It was originally designed to serve foot and horse-drawn traffic passing between the docks on either side of the river. Its route includes sharp, nearly right-angled bends at the points where the tunnel goes under the river bed. These served two purposes: avoiding the local docks on each side of the river, and preventing horses from seeing daylight at the end of the tunnel too early which might make them bolt for the exit.

It consists of a single bore, 1,481 m long, carrying a two-lane carriageway 14.5 m below the high-water level of the Thames, with a maximum depth of 23 m below the surface. Four shafts were sunk alongside the tunnel to aid construction and to serve later as ventilation and entrance shafts. The two riverside shafts, built in red brick with stone dressings, were fitted with beautiful wrought-iron spiral staircases to serve as pedestrian entrances. They are now closed to the public." (shortened from the entry in Wikipedia)

Every time I cycle to work, I cycle down and through it...along the pavement to avoid holding up the traffic which otherwise would not be able to overtake me. I've not yet run over a pedestrian, but I'm prepared to open a book on that one. It is with immense satisfaction I can report that since I got my road bike, I now go through the tunnel faster than the cars...especially as the average speed cameras restrict them to 20mph. It is known (by me at least) as the graveyard of wing mirrors - the road being so narrow that passing cars and vans are like jousting knights, and the entire length of the tunnel is littered with broken mirrors.

The wrought iron staircases are beautiful and mysterious, disappearing up into the darkness of the shafts. I'd love to ascend into that darkness.

Apart from the sharp bends, the one other feature of the tunnel are the white tiles which line the walls. They are functional, effective and I believe have been up since the building of the tunnel. In addition, they are filthy...like everything else. Not surprising given the number of smelly cars and vans that go through the tunnel everyday. I've often thought it wouldn't be too difficult to wash them all clean...the shape of the tunnel means a giant loo brush with water sprayed through it would do the trick.

And this leads me to the vandalism. Over the last few weeks, the night time maintenance workers have been systematically removing the tiles. I guess about half the tiles are gone now, and the rest will disappear over the coming nights and weeks. I don't know what they're going to be replaced with...I've not been able to find out, but I suspect it will be the large panels omnipresent on most modern tunnels. It's a shame. It's an architectural tragedy. It's the sort of thing that happened all over Britain in the post modern world. Yet another piece of our architectural heritage taken away from our children. Another element of character that gives us our historical perspective gone.

Stubborn as a mule

2011-10-04T11:19:00.003+01:00

I think I've become quite a fan of David Starkey - he was recently severely criticised for his comments about the summer riots when he said that "the problem is that the whites have become black".

In context what he said was that white youth had taken on board gangster rap culture...with all its negative connotations. If you listen to the street talk on the streets of London, you'll know this to be true. As reported by the Daily Telegraph and First Post Mr Starkey says, " "The question we were supposed to be answering was whether the riots were testimony to some sort of major cultural change in Britain. And I tried to answer that question. Nothing that I said on air could conceivably be construed as racist, but there is this hysteria about race. We have this situation in which we can't talk about it rationally or sensibly." Starkey also rounded on those who attacked him in August, among them Labour leader Ed Miliband and Tory MP Lousie Mensch, saying: "You know yourself by your enemies, and I'm quite happy with mine. Isn't it wonderful that I was attacked by Piers Moron, Louise Mensch and Ed Millipede?"

He's right...there are a whole raft of issues we cannot discuss because this country has become so PC that if you raise them you become an 'ist' It's a shame that I have to quote the convicted pedophile film director Roman Polanski who says on the BBC, "I cannot abide political correctness, which only hides the ugliness in all of us under a veneer,"

At the weekend we got to see the new production of South Pacific at the Barbican, which we were all very excited about - it was a birthday treat for The Cat. It was very enjoyable, but lacked some of the oomph it needed to make it brilliant. Fortunately the grumpy old man and the miserable old woman sitting behind us were making so much noise moaning, groaning and coughing and spluttering that they didn't hear me singing along. It's quite a period piece now, and the racist attitude that is portrayed is very much of its time...and something that the teenagers didn't reallly get - yes once upon a time it would truly have been shocking for a white man to marry a Polynesian and father two children by her. Times have changed.

We also watched Barefoot in the Park on DVD - I love this film of the Neil Simon play. It too is of its time - you can see that from the trailer alone. Simpler times, and very funny even after the umpteenth time of viewing

Back home I have lost a pair of Merrell Mules. They were at the bottom of the stairs, and then mysteriously disappeared. Tidied away by 'That Bloody Woman' to somewhere, and no amount of searching has uncovered them. No she doesn't know where they are..that may be because she doesn't really speak English so my attempts at describing them were met with a pretty blank stare. My hopes aren't that high - two framed photos of us all were tidied away before Christmas, and still haven't been uncovered. I know they'll materialise before the turn of the century, but I'd quite like to wear them now...I might like to watch Barefoot in eth Park, I don't want to experience it.

Lucky days

2011-09-30T15:06:00.003+01:00

Do you ever have any lucky days?

I don't mean the one's when you win the lottery, get a big promotion, or meet the woman (or man of your dreams)...not that those days are to be sneezed at, no I mean the ones when you something happens and you know you've been lucky.

Take yesterday, for instance, I turned left at a junction on my motorbike to find a taxi half way over my side of the road. My wing mirror got knocked, and my right knee brushed all the way along the side of the cab. But not a scratch on either me or the bike. Another inch closer and I'd have lost a leg. That's really lucky isn't it? I didn't look back, just carried on really happy at that.

Fish finger pizza

2011-09-29T13:24:00.006+01:00

It's the Cat's birthday today...she's no longer sweet sixteen, but instead can now claim to be stupendously seventeen. To celebrate we are having the traditional 'Sausage Supper'. No, don't ask. I don't understand either!

There's a reason why women are generally in charge of the home and cooking. Not all the time, of course. Sometimes they should be making whoopy in the bedroom. But in any case, men are really quite incapable so shouldn't even try. so it was with a wry smile that I received a press release (you may have it too) which read "We have teamed up with daddy blogger ‘My Daddy Cooks’ to create our brand new children’s menu. The new menu has a lot of exciting dishes for Kids including a fish finger pizza!" Fish Finger pizza can only be regarded as a crime against humanity...worse even than ham and pineapple. Really boys, leave the recipes to the girls....

I've been meaning to do this for a while, and thought that if I don't leap in now I never will. When I first started blogging it was a bit like first year at Uni...in a mad rush to make friends you start reading and commenting on all sorts of blogs, and then after a while you realise that most aren't the sort you want to spend time with. Foolishly I once decided to follow the top ten interior design blogs...it was a mad moment, and as they each post about a hundred times a day I got suffocated under a ton of chinty curtains and Philippe Stark tables.

After a little while longer you end up with a group of blogs that feel like friends...the ones I follow I just love...for all sorts of reasons. Some I just read, and have nothing more to add, some I comment on all the time. There's no rhyme or reason to it. But it's a little easy to get a little too comfortable, and never go and find out what else is going on out there. So I thought I would go on blogging safari. I would simply start with one blog and then choose one that they follow to visit, go there and choose one that they follow, etc, etc. You get the picture, the only rule I have is that I must just follow a link until I can go no further.

Here are the results of my first little blog safari trip....

I started with Scarlet Blue

before moving to

Pearl

And from there to Delusions of adequacy

And then on to Germany and Friko's World

Before travelling by Where's My Effing Pony?

to see Grumpy Old Ken

Before returning here

I quite enjoyed that...hope you did too...I might try it again and see where else I end up....

Goldman Sachs rules the world

2011-09-28T11:05:00.002+01:00

It seems my post yesterday was a little premature...a whole history of my home...so if you're a follower/fan of Tara's Gallery, please have a read here.

Otherwise, did you see this:

It's caused such a stir, leaving even seasoned BBC commentators with their jaws hanging that I suspect that Alessio Rastani may be on someone's hit list; may be even Goldman Sachs. In it he extols the virtues of recession for lining his pockets, and makes clear that governments are no longer in control...it's the banks. There has been some speculation that he is a hoaxer from an organisation called the Yes Men...they pretend to represent organisations and hold viewpoints designed to embarrass them. But it doesn't really matter whether he is a hoaxer or not...because there is a terrible truth in what he says. It doesn't matter about sovereign states, it doesn't matter about the Euro, it doesn't matter about millions being thrown out of work, it doesn't matter about the misery and despair of good honest workers - his job is to make money, and he can do that whether there is a recession or a boom. If this was his approach alone it wouldn't matter, but it isn't...there are traders across the globe crucifying millions all so they can drink more champagne. Capitalism is intrinsically unstable, and that is why it needs close regulation and control...the modern way of doing things which allows profit to be made where it shouldn't is dangerous, destructive and immoral. May these pompous, conceited asses burn in hell.

"There's no crown that comes with it you know"

2011-09-27T10:27:00.004+01:00

I don't know what happened on September 11th. It must have been significant. Whether good or bad, I just don't know. But it has caused an enormous impact.

Don't be daft. I'm not talking about THAT thing which happened on 9/11, I'm talking about the enormous spike I had in the number of people visiting here. I haven't looked at my site meter for months...I used to be obsessed with it, but then I remembered, and kept telling myself that the reason I do this is for the joy of it, rather than anything else, so I stopped looking. Then over the last few days I've had a few messages suggesting that my readership was growing, so that prompted me to take a look. And I was staggered to see that on the 11th September I had over 700 visits...wow that's a lot. But it's a spike, and I'm glad to say that I'm back to my normal numbers...yes one or two visitors a week. Life has returned to normality...but I do wonder what caused the spike, especially as I didn't actually post anything that day. Peculiar.

I've done my bit for the recognition of Palestine. I've signed up to the right organisations. I've put my name on the petition. And I've even put a fluttering Palestine Flag on my mobile. My glass half empty side says this is all in vain, but I live in hope. I'm delighted, truly delighted, to see rumours about Tony Blair and an Israeli heiress. I hope they are true, and that his demonstrable hypocrisy is exposed even at a personal level.

Mr Obama meanwhile seems to have been selling the sort of bombs to Israel that even George Bush wouldn't countenance. What can be said, other than he seems a mirror image of TB, and is taking the world into an even more dangerous place than it is already. What's worse is that his fine words, no action may well let in the Tea Party come the next Presidential elections. For those that don't know, most of them make the Nazis look like a Women's Institute AGM.

Back in Europe, the word is going out that we're going to let the Greeks sink in their very leaky boat. It's evidently the least worst option. The Greeks were always going to struggle because there seemed very little connection between what the Government was raising as revenue and what it was spending...but given the nature of the markets, there seems little doubt that once the Greeks go down, it won't be long before the pressure is put on elsewhere...Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy anyone?

And just to remind myself of how we got in this sorry state, this is the simplified history - lax government regulation allowed unrestrained greed by bankers and other financiers to do pretty much what they wanted to. And like a tightrope walker who's been getting high on drink, they reached a point where they sobered up and realised that they couldn't do it anymore. The banks had worthless investments and would go bust. So the governments reached out to save them, turning bank debt into sovereign debt. Taking the problem away from rich private and corporate investors and saddling the rest of us with the problem. Implicit government backing then allowed the bankers to jump on a new merry go-round making quidzillions again, whilst governments sank under the weight of the new debt burden. The politicians let the bankers get away with it in the vain hope that they'll pull a rabbit out of the hat and prosperity will return. It won't. So that's why you're feeling poor.

Very soon I shall become the longest resident at our building in Brighton. The previous 'oldest' is selling up and heading to Devon....her family once owned the whole building, but she nows owns just the ground floor flat. I first bought there in 1988, and then bought again seven or eight years later to expand it into a maisonette. In the meantime we all bought a share of the freehold and created a company to manage the building. I am now to assume the role of company secretary. At least for a while. My new official and unofficial role seems quite a burden. I don't know why...there's not a lot for a company secretary to do other than file the right bits of paper at the right time. Is should be able to manage that. But being the oldest resident feels a bit like being the oldest person in the world...a title I've never wanted. As we said goodbye, she said, "There's no crown that comes with it you know".

But in any case, it seems fitting to reprint a history of where we live...it was only on reading this that I realised it was once a hospital...for the weary?

"The land occupied by the Crescent and Square was originally part of the Wick Estate, the property of the Stapley family for 150 years until 1701.

Anthony Stapley, a staunch Puritan who had succeeded to the estate at the age of fifteen, was distinguished by having been one of the judges at the trial of Charles the First, and a signatory to his death warrant of 29th January 1649, the day before the King's execution. He was active in the affairs of Sussex, Governor of Chichester from 1643 to 1645, and a Justice of the Peace until his death in 1655. By contrast, his son was a Royalist, and it was for this reason that the estate was intact at the Restoration in 1660.

The estate was sold in 1701 for £,1600 to John Scutt of Brighthelmstone, whose grandson built Wick House, and whose great grandson, the Rev.Thomas Scutt, sold the estate to Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid in 1830. Five years previously to this, the architect of Kemp Town, Thomas Read Kemp, had entered into an agreement with Thomas Scutt, in the hope of building a Kemp Town West on the land to the west of Brunswick Town, but owing to lack of money this scheme was never realised.

Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid planned to build a new estate of houses, and asked permission of William the Fourth to name the crescent after Queen Adelaide. The architect Decimus Burton was appointed, and work began in 1830. The original scheme was for a single semi-circular crescent, similar to Royal Crescent but much larger, and the first three houses facing the sea, and seven facing the Crescent, were either fully or partially completed by 1832. The style was the then fashionable Italianate, with pleasing proportions and careful classical detailing. The central double-fronted house facing the sea was given an impressive entablature and pediment. Individual balustered balconies were provided to the first floor windows of the three houses facing south, and one facing the Crescent. Eight of the ten houses were given unusual second floor windows formed between the large corbels of the cornice, and thus giving the visual impression of a smaller scale house, though many of these have now been lowered, spoiling the effect.

Due to a general recession in the speculative housing market work stopped in 1832, and was not resumed until 1850, by which time the plan for a single crescent had been abandoned, and that of a square leading out of a crescent adopted. The style was changed and simplified, and the scale increased to produce the much larger houses from No 10 onwards. Work on the Crescent was completed in 1860.

Between 1832 and 1833 a most unusual building was erected on ground now occupied by the top of the Square. It was known as the Antheum (from the Greek anthos-flower), designed by Amon Henry Wilds, the architect of Brunswick Town, built with funds provided by Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, and supported by the botanist Henry Philips. The design was a large glazed dome conservatory, on a frame of cast iron ribs and girders, with an estimated 40,000 panes of glass. It was then the largest dome in the world, with a ground diameter of 160 feet, a height of 64 feet, and a circumference of 492 feet. The iron sections were brought to the harbour at Shoreham, and then dragged by teams of horses to the site. The interior was laid out as an exotic garden, with gravel walks, arbours and recesses amongst the cedars, palms and other rare trees, besides tropical and oriental shrubs, and flowers of all kinds. There was romantic rock scenery, a lake with fish and aquatic plants, birds flying amongst the trees, and seating for 800. It was heated using coke supplied by the Brighton gasworks. The opening was scheduled for 1st September 1833, with a band of the Lancers to attend. Admission was to be one shilling, or two guineas for an annual season ticket.

To support the weight of this dome, a central pillar fastened with purlins and diagonal braces was an essential part of the design. Against Wilds' advice, the management unwisely decided to do away with this main structural support. On 30th August, everything being finished, the builder removed the temporary shoring, and the following day the entire structure collapsed. The only person inside, the head gardener Mr Wyatt, narrowly escaped. For over twenty years the tangled wreckage of iron lay where it had fallen, and was visited in 1850 by the architect Joseph Paxton, looking for ideas for his new Crystal Palace.

A map of 1844 shows the Crescent laid out with the first eight houses in place, a gravel pit in the centre of the Square, a piggery on the east side, the ruins of the Antheum, and Ken Nye's cricket ground on the north-east corner by Holland Road.

In 1851 the whole area was included under an Act of Parliament extending the boundary of the Brunswick Square Commissioners to St Johns Road. This body regulated the municipal affairs of the new town, and arranged policing and fire services, administered from the Town Hall in Brunswick Street West. The Hove Improvement Act of 1858 incorporated Brunswick Town into the rest of the new Borough.

St John's Church was completed in 1854, for the use of the new estate, on land given by Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid.

In 1853 work began on the Square. The remains of the Antheum were cleared away, and the heavy Italianate houses constructed, with 'palace fronting' to each of the two ranges. The Doric and Tuscan ordering of the columned porches, the grouping of the upper windows and rusticated detailing were typical of the period, and repeated endlessly across the rapidly spreading estates of west London. By 1862 most of the houses on the west side were occupied, and the work was completed by 1870. The Square was named Palmeira after the title of Baron da Palmeira, conferred on Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid by the Queen of Portugal.

The houses in the Square and Crescent were mostly let by the Wick Estate, administered from the Estate Office at 16 Palmeira Square. Such houses were commonly rented by the large middle and upper class families of the time, sometimes only for the summer season, and needed several permanent indoor staff to maintain the house and family. The servants worked in the basement and lived at the top, with over 100 stairs in between.

A record survives of the servants' wages at 16 Adelaide Crescent between 1864 and 1929. In the early years these ranged from £,9 to ,£25 per year depending on status, and had risen to only £,17 to ,£42 by 1927, sixty years later. Margaret Powell, who wrote Below Stairs in 1968, started work as a kitchen maid at 8 Adelaide Crescent in 1922, at £,24 per year, with a full uniform to buy costing £,2.

Particularly after the First War, families found it increasingly difficult to maintain a large domestic staff, and the market for such rentals declined. The Wick Estate addressed this problem by taking several empty houses together and creating large lateral mansion style flats, and continued with this throughout the period between the Wars, until a significant percentage of the houses in the Square in particular had been thus converted. Many of these large flats survive to this day. The inevitable process of conversion of all but now two houses in the Crescent has resulted in 72 houses becoming 400 separate addresses, and forming part of Brunswick and Adelaide, the most densely populated Ward in Great Britain.

Distinguished residents have included the Duchess of Marlborough at 35 Adelaide Crescent, the Duchess of Cambridge at 36 Adelaide Crescent, the Earl of Munster at 23 Palmeira Square, and Lord George Nevill at 22 Palmeira Square. 24 Palmeira Square was for a time the Lady Nevill Hospital. From 1875 to 1925 a family with the singularly appropriate surname of Bythesea lived at 36 Adelaide Crescent.

During the years after the Second War, towns throughout Britain were suffering major losses of architectural heritage through demolition for 'New Age' developments. In 1945 Hove Council actually passed a plan to demolish Brunswick Terrace and Adelaide Crescent, for replacement with blocks of flats, and as recently as 1966 a plan was considered to remove the Adelaide ramps for road widening along Kingsway. Fortunately, public outcry prevented both.

During the Second War, the post and finial railings surrounding the gardens in the Crescent and Square, which were then for the private use of the residents, were removed for the war effort. Stories abound as to the fate of these railings, one being that they were stored on the quay at Shoreham ready for transport, but having been found to be too low in carbon content were dumped in the harbour. It is certainly true that most such removed railings were found to be unsuitable, but as an exercise in the general war effort it was thought to be unsuitable to make this fact public.

After the War, the Council undertook a poll of the residents to establish if they wished to retain the gardens as private or hand over the maintenance. Unlike Sussex Square and Lewes Crescent, where the residents chose to retain their privacy, general apathy here decided the Council to include the Crescent and Square within their Hove Corporation Act of 1947, and took over the maintenance. A plan of the gardens in 1874, and photographs taken in 1890 and 1938, show splendidly planted and maintained gardens surrounded by dense shrubbery and mature trees. Since then, both gardens have deteriorated, whilst those of Sussex Square and Lewes Crescent retain most of their former glory.

The Floral Clock garden was originally for the private use for the residents of Palmeira Mansions, and enclosed by railings in the same manner as the Square. This too was included in the Act, and the Floral Clock was unveiled by the Mayor of Hove on Coronation Day 1953.

Both gardens, and the Floral Clock garden, were originally perimeter planted with elm trees, noted for their resistance to salt winds, and used extensively elsewhere in Hove and other coastal towns. Unfortunately, Dutch Elm Disease and the 1987 and 1991 hurricanes have wreaked havoc to these trees, and only a very few of the originals now remain. Coastal wind patterns have changed in recent years, and subsequent tree planting schemes have proved unsuccessful.

The front entrance of 3 Adelaide Crescent was for many years graced by the presence of a marble statue on a plinth. A replica of Canova's Dancing Girl, it had stood in the entrance to the old Hove Town Hall until rescued from the fire of 1966."

Dingle Dangle

2011-09-26T09:40:00.004+01:00

It was inevitable I guess. You come across a great looking guy, with a terrific line and a smooth voice, and you end up in bed with them on Sunday morning. It was a real pleasure. Of course we weren't alone and at various stages were joined by Lady Gaga, Amy Winehouse, Norah Jones...and Willie Nelson. We did indeed spend Sunday morning lying in bed in Brighton listening to Tony Bennett's latest duets album whilst the sun shone in through the venetian blinds. Sublime. It made me think of my childhood, listening to Family Favourites on the radio. The perfect way to start any Sunday.

It was distressing, therefore later on that very same day to catch The Cat's Mother with a naked man. Yes there he was lying there stark bollock naked. Suntanned from top to bottom...and todger too. Naturally it was quite upsetting. Especially as by then we were on the beach at Birling Gap...a place owned by the National Trust. Underneath the cliffs were two men with their bits on display and a couple, legs akimbo so you got the gynecological view. I can't deny there was a degree of morbid fascination. The Cat's Mother desperately tried to ring her friend in Berlin where they do that sort of thing all the time in all sorts of places. I'm quite chilled about these things. But really. On National Trust property. I don't think so.

(You may have to click on the picture to see the naked man at the back)

I had two brushes with celebrity this weekend. On Saturday night we were down in Brighton watching The Kings Speech, which is just good second time round as it was the first. I still think Geoffrey Rush was cheated out of an award...his performance is sublime. As the credits rolled, the name of one of the people who shares my office came up. I guess it shouldn't have been exciting, given that the film is based in London, and he's a location man. But it caused a squeal of delight from us both...not bad given that it was at that time when the red wine had begun toi take its toll. This morning I cycled past Baldrick...my route takes me past a film a TV studio, so again seeing a celebrity shouldn't have been a enormous surprise. I didn't squeal as that would have been inappropriate, and he was in a very earnest conversation with another man as they surveyed the canal.

Still it feels like a good start to the week.

Who's Who

2011-09-23T10:52:00.005+01:00

Families are not what they used to be. Once upon a time there was a mummy, a daddy and two and a half children. I know that. I was taught it at school. But these days there are all sorts of permutations as no one seems able to stay married for more than five minutes. I include myself in that. But not in the category of people who seem to think that getting married is a hobby and should be done as often as possible. I guess practice makes perfect.

Nursemyra pointed out that I've not been very good at explaining the relationships in our extended family, so here is a little word of explanation:

The Boy is my son with his mother who had a daughter (The Sister) from her first marriage to The Ogre. When The Boy's Mother died, he came to live with me and she went to live with The Ogre. We weren't close, so my contact over the years has been sporadic. It was The Sister - also known as Handbag who graduated this week...and what a lovely lass she has become - I'm very pleased at her success. The Boy and The Sister tend to meet up at his mother's mother known as Grandma in Wales (or affectionately - if you've seen the musical Wicked you'll understand - The Wicked Witch of The West). Also in Wales is The Boy's Uncle who I haven't yet thought of a name for, because his usual nickname includes his name. Its hard being creative you know!

His other Grandma is Grandma in Cyprus...who for sometime was known as Grandma in Cyprus Not in Cyprus due to the difficulties of actually moving out there. Grandma is married to Grandad in Cyprus, and has been for more years than I care to count. Grandad in Cyprus is my stepfather. My father died a few years ago. I also have a brother, The Boy's uncle, who makes occasional appearances, particularly when he has a heart attack. On that basis, the less he appears, the better. If you see what I mean.

The Boy was best friends with The Cat, and that is how I met The Cat's Mother. They are still best friends, but regularly squabble like brother and sister at which point I say "I don't care who started it, I'll finish it." We all live together in leafy Epping Forest, sometimes blinded by the bling and orange tans as we stroll down Loughton High Street. Loughton forms one corner of the area known as either the Golden Triangle or WAG's Triangle in recognition of the large numbers of footballers who live in the area. Flash cash is the name of the game. I should also mention The Cat's Father who I may refer to as 'Only for emergencies' or ELBA for reasons I cannot reveal for fear of The Cat's claws. He's unlikely to appear.

The Cat's Mother has a brother who I was at school with (though we don't remember each other) and he is known as UP, she has another brother who henceforth will be referred to as The Conductor. Then there are The Muffins - The Cat's Mother's sister's family of one husband and two girls.

Finally there is The Cat's Mother's parents who have yet to appear so don't have a name....suggestions on a postcard please. Of particular interest is that The Cat's Grandmother is married to the brother of the man married to her sister.

Now that should all be clear so don't say I haven't told you so.

Me'n'Brad

2011-09-21T17:09:00.002+01:00

It's deeply disconcerting to see one of my former classmates who is now a Captain of Industry being quoted in the press because his organisation is moving all its funds out of Europe. He and his fellow officers are clearly just waiting for one country to fall (let's assume Greece) and then presumably we will see a domino effect. The 2008 Lehman debacle will seem like a picnic in the park if this does happen. It makes me both sad and angry to see this going on. The crux of the problem has been the behaviour of the banks who transferred all the responsibilities to sovereign nations, and now the financiers are preparing to do the unthinkable...bring the whole system crashing down our ears. Political, social, economic. It really doesn't bare thinking about.

Back in Palestine, the crowds are gathering, ready to have the folly of US policy paraded in front of them. In the words of one commentator, they will once more be consigned to the 'treadmill of doom'. Obama has shown his absolute ineptitude again. If Cameron votes against Palestinian statehood, I'll be digging out my 'Not in my name' T-shirt again.

OK. I know when it is. I know where it is. For once I know something you don't. I am privy to the most secretest information. And for a very large bribe I am prepared to reveal where you can go and stalk Brad as he makes his new film World War Zombie. My imagination has no bounds. No limits. So the bribe will have to be a fantastic one. But I'm prepared to sacrifice all my moral scruples for the right amount of wonga or other prized treasure. Don't let me down will you!

Siblings

2011-09-19T17:29:00.004+01:00

The Boy is taking a day off school tomorrow. He's off to Plymouth to see his sister graduate. I'm very pleased for her...she will soon embark on a teacher training course and so will begin her life in the really big, bad world. I'm even more pleased that he is going down to see this celebration.

Before their mother died they were as close as any brother and sister could be...fighting, squabbling, laughing, playing. After the divorce, I hadn't had the chance to see them together for a long time - as the 'ex' I saw The Boy, rarely The Sister and never them together. But I have an abiding memory of when I took them off by aeroplane to Ireland where their mother had collapsed suddenly with a brain hemorrhage whilst on a business trip. They chatted, they laughed, they were just fantastic together. It was beautiful to see. It was that journey that made me determined that whatever happened they would continue to have that relationship. It was such a shame then that time and circumstance meant that didn't happen, certainly not as I would have liked. The Boy lived with me, and The Sister moved to the south coast to be with her father. A big distance when you're young and not in control of your own social arrangements. Their grandmother worked hard, very hard to keep the contact up, and get them together whenever she could. And as they have got older they seem to have found their own way with their relationship, and that's a fabulous thing - she came over to our place for his sixteenth birthday this year, and now he's off to see her graduation. I don't know if she will pursue a teacher career but whatever she chooses to do I'm sure she'll be a great success.

Film'n'theatre

2011-09-19T12:58:00.003+01:00

"Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884 – August 17, 1915) was a Jewish-American businessman whose lynching in 1915 by a party of prominent citizens in Marietta, Georgia drew attention to antisemitism in the United States and led to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League.

The superintendent of the National Pencil Company in Atlanta, Leo Max Frank, was convicted on August 26, 1913 of the murder of one of the factory workers, 13-year-old Mary Phagan. She had been strangled on April 26, and was found dead in the factory cellar the next day. Frank was the last person known to have seen her alive, and there were allegations that he had flirted with her in the past. His trial became the focus of powerful class and political interests. Raised in New York, he was cast as a representative of Yankee capitalism, a rich northern Jew lording it over vulnerable working women, as the historian Albert Lindemann put it. Former U.S. Representative Thomas E. Watson used the sensational coverage of the case in his own newspapers to push for a revival of the Ku Klux Klan, calling Frank a member of the Jewish aristocracy who had pursued "Our Little Girl" to a hideous death. Frank and his lawyers resorted to stereotypes too, accusing another suspect—Jim Conley, a black factory worker who testified against Frank—of being especially disposed to lying and murdering because of his race.

There was jubilation in the streets when Frank was found guilty and sentenced to death. By June 1915 his appeals had failed, but Governor John M. Slaton believed there had been a miscarriage of justice, and commuted the sentence to life imprisonment—to great local outrage, in part because Slaton was a partner in the law firm that had defended Frank. A crowd of 5,000 marched on Slaton's home in protest, and two months later Frank was kidnapped from prison by a mob of 25 armed men—the "Knights of Mary Phagan"—who drove him 150 miles to Frey's Mill, near Phagan's home in Marietta, and hanged him. A crowd gathered after the hanging; one man repeatedly stamped on Frank's face, while others took photographs, pieces of his nightshirt, and bits of the rope to sell as souvenirs.

On March 11, 1986, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles granted Frank a pardon, citing the state's failure to protect him or prosecute his killers, though they stopped short of exonerating him. The names of the lynchers, though well known locally, were not made public until January 2000, when Stephen Goldfarb, an Atlanta librarian and former history professor, published a list on his website. The Washington Post writes that it includes several prominent citizens—a former governor, the son of a senator, a Methodist minister, a state legislator, and a former state Superior Court judge—their names matching those on Marietta's street signs, office buildings, shopping centers, and law offices today." So says Wikipedia.

You may think the lynching of a Jew would make a strange source for a musical, and indeed so would I, but we went to see 'Parade' this weekend. Parade is based on the terrible true story of Leo Frank. Oddly, the performance was remarkable, and the musical numbers only added to the pathos of the whole thing. We saw it at the Southwark Playhouse under the arches of London Bridge station. Recommended. It'll make you think. It'll make you wonder whether even today's American justice system is all that it should be.

On the other hand, Shrek The Musical, is a jolly old thing which we went to see with just about all The Cat's Mother's family on Sunday. But it doesn't really hit the highs of the original movie. It wasn't helped by the theatre being only half full, but most of the performers didn't really put much effort in. Particularly Richard Blackwood as Donkey...he was a very dull ass indeed. It's a shame that the actors don't just let themselves go, or perhaps the whole thing could be re-scripted as a pantomime...otherwise I can see it shutting up shop before the New Year.

I'd love to tell you all about the twists and turns in the filming of Brad Pitt's new film World War Z, as I've been privy to all sorts of stuff. It almost hurts keeping a secret, but I must. Perhaps if I'm a good boy Angelina will drop round to massage my ego.

The Firsts went down 3-6 on the rugby field on Saturday, and he was rather more han disappointed. And so he should have been. I could only stay for the first half, but really I could see they could and should have won. But to be a winning team you need attention to detail, determination and a twist of luck. I'll be cheering him on next week.

Good things come in threes

2011-09-16T12:50:00.003+01:00

Last night we all went to the cinema to see 'One Man, Two Guvnors' starring James Corden. Of course, this is not a film, but a play that's on at the National Theatre and has been selling out faster than Nick Clegg. We saw it earlier this year, and it was just the funniest thing ever. Really. No really. So we took the opportunity of seeing it again, this time at the cinema when it was live broadcast by National Theatre Live. It was a one night showing. And second time round it was just as funny, may be even funnier. It's going on tour, so if you get the chance, do go and see it. Travel if you have to. I promise you won't have a better evening out this year....even if you're not a theatre fan.

It's not ever that I write about work...I like to keep business and play apart. No chasing secretaries round desks at the office for me. I don't know about you, but I mostly find working a bit of a chore. A bit of a drag. Something that gets in the way of me having a good time. That's even though I run my own business and have been doing so for the last fifteen years. I do love it, but boy can it be a real slog. And not surprisingly it can be somewhat repetitive. It's hard to find something that really stimulates me. The business is called Mandarin, and I often get asked why...is it after the orange, the duck, or the senior government official? No I say, it's because Mandarin is the language spoken by more people than any other...and that's entirely appropriate to my business. So I love the name, and actually I would not rather have done anything else over the last decade and a half. But this week I did something I've never done before, and it amused me immensely. I sent out a press release in Chinese. That's right Mandarin sent out a release in Mandarin. Here's a snippet....actually, unless you're interested in customs and border control in Australia, it's not very exciting. But it IS in Mandarin.

CCD Design and Ergonomics Limited （CCD 设计和人机工程学有限公司）与澳大利亚海关及边境保护局 (Australian Customs and Border Protection Service) 携手合作，重新为该局许多重要的港口与机场设计闭路电视控制室。这些采用最先进技术的新设施可以为该局一线员工提供最优质的技术、桌面、室内环境和控制界面。

澳大利亚海关及边境保护局的科技与实施能力全国代理经理 Nicola Viney 说，这些新设施将协助该局员工开展重要的边境保护工作。

Viney 女士说：“这些新设施确保了本局员工拥有任何时候高效完成工作任务所需要的劳动工具。”

“我们知道，业务的成功与否取决于员工与设施及设备的互动情况，因此，我们邀请 CCD 与我们携手开发本项目。”

为了设计既满足该局员工的需求，又能支持控制室中开展的复杂监视、跟踪和通信活动的设施，CCD 在既有控制室中开展了人的因素和行为研究。

The other thing that has put a spring in my step, but should have you weeping into your collective pillows, is that today I received an invite to audition as a performer in the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. Now as anyone who has heard me sing, or seen me Dad dancing at weddings, bar mitvahs and funerals will know that should I succeed all the efforts of the London Olympics Organising team will have been in vain. Humiliation for the country will be complete. My left leg will be swinging sideways as everyone else is swirling gracefully to the right, I will be singing Lalalas when everyone else will be humming oooohs, they will be clapping whilst I'm waving. I'll be frowning whilst the rest of the ensemble has a fixed smile on their faces, and no doubt I'll be tripping over my shoe laces as everyone else marches forwards as one synchronised unit. The nay sayers will be triumphing about how right they were...it is true that Britain can't organise a major international event. For the rest, abject humiliation, that their dreams of a return to being proud of being British have been dashed by my foolishness.

Of course they may spot my ineptitude before then, in which case I feel there may be a collective sigh of relief.

'twas ever thus

2011-09-15T11:06:00.003+01:00

I walked into the devil's cauldron on Tuesday evening. A birthday celebration for the Muffin Dad was held at a restaurant in the middle of Canary Wharf, so there was no getting away from the Bankers. I tried to scuttle through from the tube station to the restaurant, but losing my nerve as I got close, I checked on the satnav on my mobile phone to see whether I was heading in the right direction. It told me I needed to turn 180 degrees. As I was late already, this was annoying. So I turned around, then turned right, followed the path, turned left, followed the path until I was told to turn left and a little way further on turn left again. Yes twenty minutes after I'd checked the satnav I was indeed back where I started...with a little message coming up saying "Your destination is not located at this point". In fact it was just a little further on. If only I'd had the courage of my own convictions in the first place. A lovely evening spent consuming haggis, whiskey, venison and steak, wine and whiskey was had by all. Even if Wednesday was a little hazy.

The Vickers Report has been published, and so the future reform of the banking sector has been set. After lots of bleating from men in the finest cashmere suits, the reforms won't actually come into effect until 2018. Now even with my basic grade 'A' at 'O' Level I can work out that is a full decade after the great crash. Wow. That's impressive. Even after all the pain and misery the financial sector has caused, the politicians still can't help but suck up to them, whilst the vast majority of the electorate see massive falls in living standards and complete job insecurity. That I regard as breath taking arrogance on the part of the axis of evil. I don't really know whether the changes now proposed would have stopped the nonsense that was going on, because it seems that it was hyper levels of arrogance and stupidity that got us in the mess in the first place...the selling-on of worthless pieces of paper at inflated prices, based on opinions from the Credit Ratings agencies, who have got away Scott free whilst they continue to turn the screws. It seems little has been done, is being done or will be done to stop this happening again. And that impacts on the futures of all our children.

On a very positive note for me, the Palestinians are in the process of applying for statehood at the UN. I have long been a fervent supporter of their cause, and believe that a Palestinian State is reward for all the injustices they have suffered over the last century. The Europeans are divided on the issue, whilst the Americans are scrabbling around trying to prevent this very historic event - not surprisingly really. The US has never been even-handed in their dealings in the middle-east, and it has always felt to me that this policy has created enormous instability in the region. Worse still, it has fed the anger and misguided ideology of organisations such as Al Qaeda. And we all understand the consequences of that. I have signed the petition at Avaaz supporting Palestinian statehood, and I would urge you to as well.

Should I mention the kids? No. They're doing fine. Back at school, getting to grips with their 'A' level work, and peace and harmony reigns supreme. Marvelous. I'm putting notches in the bannister to see how long this lasts.

A tyring weekend

2011-09-12T13:01:00.005+01:00

Oh oh oh. Can you imagine it? 19 middle-aged Essex women on a Greek Island for an extended (four day) Mama Mia themed party.

Yes, this is what The Cat's Mother abandoned me home alone with the teenagers for last week. I feel I got the better end of the bargain. Hopefully she feels that she got the better deal. Sometimes it's good to disagree.

I haven't posted my usual selection of photos this month. Not on First Friday, not Second Saturday, nor even Second Sunday. It wasn't that I forgot, it wasn't even that I couldn't be arsed. It's just that in August my ability abandoned me. I have a fine fine collection of snapshots which hold brilliant memories, but frankly and bluntly nothing worth posting up. Not even the man playing sax on the banks of the Seine, not even night time at Somerset House, nor the dozens of pieces of street art, or a boat trip on the River Lee. Hopefully, normal service will be resumed in September, although we're half way through and it's not looking good.

Saturday I had to get new tyres for the motorbike and at the same time watch The Boy play his debut match for the First team this season. I dropped him off at the ground at 8.45, drove home, picked up The Cat, dropped her for kick off at 10.00 ( how loyal, she volunteered to come and watch and cheer...I explained some of the rules) and watched the opening minutes of the game before rushing off to the garage. It may have been a wise move as the Firsts didn't manage a crushing victory, so came away deflated. The tyres on the bike were inflated, unlike my wallet which was some £316 lighter! I think these are more expensive than the car tyres which are four times the size. I came away a little flat.

After a four and a half hour long cycle ride street-art spotting on Saturday afternoon, it was perhaps a little rash of me to commit to cycling in with the The Muffin Dad on Monday morning. But I did. He's a decade younger than me, fitter and of a more sporting bent. Plus he leaves at between 6.30 and 7, and I leave at 8. So whilst he was pootling along admiring the scenery, I was huffing and puffing, wiping the sweat from my sleepy eyes as we battled the hurricane force headwind. He comes in on a route that I need to know as the canals are not a good idea during the mid winter. I'm amazed he's still alive as the route is a treacherous one on a very, very busy main road into London, and he does it every day. Even the new blue cycle highway is designed to kill you...peppered with bus stops as it is, so you have to swing out into the traffic which largely seems to consist of white van drivers....some of them actually driving white vans. Still we managed to avoid getting splattered...although every traffic light was against us. Anyway, he was very gracious (and sporting) about it all.

After we parted ways, I continued to hit a red light at every junction...so much so that the guy cycling next to me felt the need to pass comment in a heavy South African accent (or was it New Zealand?) "You're just bad luck mate". And indeed it was the case as a little way later, my back tyre went flat, still some 5 km shot of my destination. As I didn't have a repair kit and wasn't allowed on the tube or the bus, there was no choice to throw it on my back and walk the remaining distance. Nothing like a brisk walk in the morning is there? A Chinese tourist (actually he may have been Korean) felt the need to video me as I crossed Tower Bridge. That may well be my fifteen minutes of fame.

Silver linings

2011-09-09T16:40:00.003+01:00

Last night on my cycle home, I bumped into a couple of policemen. I stopped to tell them that I'd seem a pile of credit cards...several hundred of them spilling out of a plastic bag beside the canal. Although we were just by the Olympic Stadium, they weren't familiar with the area. It turns out that they were from SOUTH Yorkshire (I was corrected when I just said Yorkshire) and were in London as part of a very large posse, including 160 police vans, brought to the capital to control any rioting following Mark Duggans funeral today. Very nice and friendly they were too. Clearly the forces of law and order are taking no chances.

In a period of reflection I realised how hypercritical it was that during the riots which briefly broke out in the brief heat of the summer that the government called for a ban on social media to prevent gangs of thugs from organising themselves to fight the forces of law and order. These are the same politicians that have praised the role of the self-same social media to promote dissent in Iran and encourage the Arab Spring. Now we all know that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and that the video evidence suggests that our own unrest was a call for all hours footwear shopping, but are we really that well placed to decide between goodies and baddies in foreign countries. I somehow doubt it. I must admit that I've never been a great fan of democracy, as our own version spent centuries in a state of absolute corruption and then just as it evolved, the world has become so complex that it seems the real issues are beyond the understanding of most voters, who therefore fall back on uninformed prejudices. For many countries and cultures, democracy is so alien that attempts to impose it are bound to fail.

School has resumed, and it has come as a shock to realise that the sweet darlings we escorted to school just five minutes ago are now verging on the edge of adulthood. No longer for them school uniform, instead business suits which make them look smart, sassy and grown up. I may just decide to feel old and retire. The Cat will be able to follow her theatrical passion with a drama AS alongside her more traditional academic subjects. The Boy is starting with the First XV team on Saturday, which is a real achievement for him....and an interesting coincidence as the Rugby World Cup has just kicked off. A real, real shame I don't think I'll get to see him play as I have to get a new set of tyres on the motorbike at the same time...as I have a nail in one, I guess the urgency is reasonable?

It may have been a pretty miserable summer weather wise, but I don't know if you've been lucky enough to see the amazing sunsets this year. I can't remember when I've seen glorious sunsets so often..practically every night I would say. Dramatic clouds and amazing red and orange light. Truly spectacular, and more than enough to lift everyone's spirits. The odd thing though is that they've really given a lie to the old saying 'Red sky at night, shepherd's delight' - but we can't have everything.

Le monsieur croque

2011-09-05T21:29:00.011+01:00

With the teen urchins off to the Black Mountains for a four day hike as part of their DofE Silver, The Cat's mother and I took the opportunity to grab a few days away. We both really needed it being more than a little bit frazzled over the summer - frustrated that commitments had prevented us from getting a proper break giving us the rest and relaxation we needed.

As we only had a few days it didn't seem sensible to be flying off into the sunset, so instead we took the train to Paris, managing to secure a room in the George V hotel. So what to say about Paris in the balmy, sunny late summer days? I've been there dozens of times, for both work and pleasure, and love going there...the Cat's Mother has been there less, but was very excited about a few days in Paris.

An interesting coincidence for us was that we were there at the same time as Cameron's cohorts and Sarkozy's servants were in conference with the Libyans, planning for a non-Gadaffi future. It did feel a bit like the colonial conferences of the past with the imperialists just carving up their share of the booty. The nearest we came to it was that our hotel filled with men who may well have traveled from Saudi Arabia or there abouts.

The Cat's Mother was adamant she didn't want to ascend the Eiffel Tower (in case it fell over or blew down!), so we stayed nearer the ground. Under it in fact, as we descended to the catacombs where some six million Parisians are piled up. That's quite a few isn't it? Anyway, the kingdom of the dead is the strangest of places to enter, and hear about its creation due to (literally) overflowing cemeteries which would mean decaying bodies appearing in people's cellars, and an atmosphere bad enough to curdle milk in an hour. Cheerful place eh?! But the bones are beautifully laid out. Obviously death was on our mind as we discovered that we were staying just a short chase by the papparazzi from where Diana Spencer died.

We did art...a lot of it really - suffice to say the French don't really do modern art, but the Musee D'Orsay is just absolutely spectacular and just the perfect size. The Louvre was great too....but really just too big for its own good. And anyway, who wants to stand in a gigantic crowd to see some dappy woman smiling from the canvas? But we loved it anyway.

Our culinary experience included a restaurant that was so hip it hurt, and patrons who clearly loved themselves. Fortunately the waitresses wore the shortest skirts imaginable, and the food wasn't half bad. Even if one dish came complete with rubber band that they didn't know from it had emanated. We went in one brasserie, sat down ready to order when the waitress came over and demanded to know how we wanted our meal cooked. It took a moment to realise all they served was steak frites. And delicious it was too...no wonder that evening we saw a queue for it snaking down the road. I'm not going to mention staggering down the Champs Elyssee after a couple of very fine Martinis...that would be just too embarrassing.

And that was it really. All very, very nice. Apart from when we ascended from the catacombs, I acquired a stiff back pain which lingered for most of the day until it suddenly turned nasty in the Louvre gift shop and spread to my chest as well...I got very hot and sweaty and began to pass out. Thoughts of my brother's heart attacks added to the panic, but eventually it passed, I recovered, and after a good massage that evening I was as fit as a fiddle.

A good wave off

Should this boat have stopped here?

That's me!

We may have had a wine or two

Smiling woman, and another with a picture of her child

The only queue in Paris, and the man in front had the same sandals as me

Alas poor Jeanne Pierre

Of course we went shopping

That car really would go in the river...designed and built in Britain

Notre Dame

Flowers in our hotel...more than in all of the Netherlands

Going underground

Japing Ape

2011-09-04T11:40:00.000+01:00

We have been away. It has nothing do with the fact that the Japing Ape appears to have moved in next door I'm sure he'll make a fine neighbour.

Stars in their eyes

2011-08-25T13:42:00.003+01:00

I can't let the day go by without recording the verdict of the GCSE Examination board. A*s across the board, bar a couple of A grades. So unqualified success for the pair of them. They're being treated to a celebration supper tonight, and no doubt the champagne will flow, to add to the one vodka they were allowed this morning.

They're very bright sparks, so The Cat's Mother and I are grinning like a pair of Cheshire Cats, as proud as Punch.

Picture this

2011-08-24T15:48:00.002+01:00

This week's gallery is on the theme of world photography day. So over the weekend I took a picture of this house. Its not a brilliant picture but it's very important to me and somewhere that I will always remember. For me that's what photography is all about - creating and preserving the memores that would otherwise fade or blur. I wonder if Grandma in Cyprus recognises it?

Half

2011-08-23T13:08:00.002+01:00

Evidently, the near end of the Libyan conflict has brought a degree of stability to the markets. Which is odd as Libya supplies at most 2% of the world's oil...which is really just a drop in the ocean. And it's even odder that until this week we have been told that it is the instability in the Eurozone which is at the heart of all our problems, excepting the plodding nature of the American recovery as well. Really, its all a load of old bollocks that the press and the markets talk isn't it?

The countdown is well underway, with just two days until the GCSE results are announced. Here's my dilemma, when I was a lad, they just used to pop through the door with the rest of the post, and when you opened them your mum and dad patted you on the head and said "Well done". These days, the tikes have to make their way to the school to receive their results in person and then celebrate or commiserate with their class mates as appropriate. The parents sit and wait with baited breath. I'm supposed to be in a meeting at THE TIME. Should I cancel the meeting, or should I stay as I am? I'm torn.

The Cat's Mother is a bright, sunny positive person, whereas I'm not. I thought the differences between us were well summed up by my journey home yesterday. I was cycling the 18 miles home, and yesterday was no different to any other in that I regularly get passed by other people. Not club-race fit men in their twenties, but usually fat old ladies pootling along on their bone shakers. Once upon a time it depressed me, but now I just take it in my stride. I know my place and it's not at the Olympic velodrome.

As I passed through Woodford and into Buckhurst Hill, I pulled up at a junction and another cyclist went flying by me. This muscular male on two wheels disappeared into the distance whilst I continued to pootle along the high road and down the hill which takes me into Loughton along the high street before beginning a long, steep climb home. It was at this point I realised that I had just caught up with and then actually overtook the cyclist. I was a little surprised, but I was going quite a bit faster than him. Then I forgot him again until nearing the brow of the hill, behind me I could hear a lot of clanking of changing gears and huffing and puffing, until just near the brow, he went past again.

At home I relayed the tale, and added how ridiculous it was as this guy just hadn't wanted someone going more quickly than him; to me it wasn't a race.

The Cat's Mother, however, pointed out how marvelous it was that I had inspired him.

Now would you mind filling up my glass, it appears half empty

Summer's done

2011-08-22T12:45:00.002+01:00

Over here, it's nearly the end of the summer, and over there it's nearly the end of the Arab Spring. Libya is close to being the former country of Colonel Gadaffi, or the country of the former Colonel Gadaffi. Syria might be condemned by "World Leaders" (actually the leaders of Western Democracies) but doesn't show any real signs of change. It seems likely that the additional level of instability which has been added by the events of the last few months may yet come to bit us all...the battling between Israel and Hamas over the recent days has been facilitated at least in part by the lack of iron grip by the Egyptian Authorities.

The Boy has finished his work experience, and has come away with a hoard of new fans. Like us all at his age he stated that he doesn't want to do a 9-5 job...I'm still saying that so I hope he finds a solution to the dilemma of whether to pay the bills or relax and enjoy. He spent Saturday at V Festival, getting drenched to the skin. It made me remember rather wistfully when he and I went off to camp at V Festival three or four years ago, and what a great time we had together. How times have changed...that's the process of growing up I guess.

The Cat is disappointed as her summer is nearly over, but as it's been so action packed I don't think she has too much to complain of. Of course, I remember those long summers that used to go on for ever, and the disappointment that comes with them drawing to a close as September nears. Oh that I could have a long, long summer break now.

The Cat and The Cat's Mother have returned from their French jaunt in Carcasonne. It seemed peaceful and restful, but not full of the ghosts and ghouls of Kate Mosse's books which are set in that region. How disappointing!

The two teens have a week of peace and quiet before they embark on their Silver D of E venture, and it may, finally, give The Cat's Mother and I some well deserved time away together...we deserve and need it.

This weekend, she and I took time out on Sunday afternoon to go for a little trip on a boat on the River Lea...a simple pleasure much enjoyed.

It's what you know

2011-08-19T11:36:00.004+01:00

There are some things The Cat's Mother knows and there are some things that I know.

She knows that, in her absence, the house has gone to rack and ruin, the kitchen is a disaster area, the dishes are still dirty, have become mouldy and are walking around the house by themselves, the rubbish lies scattered around the garden, and there are mountains of unwashed clothes beckoning for her domestic hand.

I know that, in her absence, the house has been quiet, the kitchen is as tidy now as when she left, the dishes are neatly stacked in the dishwasher, the rubbish has been taken out and collected by the bin men, and we've washed the clothes we've worn.

I wonder who's right? We'll find out tomorrow.

Two events have dominated my newspaper reading over the last 48 hours, and caused me to reflect on destiny.

Yesterday the Autonomy Corporation was bought by US technology giant Hewlett Packard for a whopping 10.3 billion dollars. That's a lot of dosh. You may not know Autonomy...and why should you? I only know it because the founder, Mike Lynch attended the same school as me, and as The Boy does now. He's four years younger than me and was always a bright spark, getting there on a scholarship (as indeed did I). Not much more to say other than well done...always good to read about someone you know (of) doing well...and as I understand it, he deserved. I'm not sure what he learnt at school that I didn't, but whatever it was, it's served him well.

The other story is the death and repatriation of Lt Dan Clack in Afghanistan. He was just 24, and a very well liked and respected officer. A man of great potential. He's the first Old Bancroftian to have been killed in action since the second world war, and had been at the school between 1998 and 2005. Lieutenant Clack was killed while leading a ten-man patrol into the village of Dactran to speak to the local nationals and discuss a shura due to take place the next day. Approximately 150 metres from the front gate his patrol was struck by an improvised explosive device, killing him and injuring five other members of his patrol. What a terrible tragedy for him, his family and those close to him. I remember when I was at school one of the things I learnt was that Afghanistan was an unconquerable country that was little more than a waste land. It has a tribal system which suits the place; democracy is not a natural fit. So the other part of the tragedy is that he was fighting an unwinnable war trying to impose an alien political system which has been imposed by western political leaders. If only they'd been in the same history lesson as me.

It's all in black and white

2011-08-17T10:53:00.009+01:00

When I was younger I thought in black and white. Things were right or wrong, good or bad, left or right. But age and experience has proved otherwise...there was never one moment when The Boy crawled and then walked, when he gurgled and then talked, it would even be difficult to pinpoint the exact moment when his mother moved from life to death.

In our day to day lives, things are rarely just one thing or another. Take the police response to the riots. Evidently their response was too soft. This not long after they were criticised for being too hard at the G20 riots. During the height of the riots there were public calls for the rioters to be hung drawn and quartered, but now the sentences are being handed down, they're being criticised as too harsh. It's not a very black and white issue is it?

Over in north Africa, it seems to have finally registered that the motley band of rebels fighting Gadaffi may not be all that we want them to be. So after millions of £s has been spent supporting a liquorice allsort army the diplomats are now talking about a 'catastrophic victory' which might lead to civil war, or a takeover by islamic extremists. Well I hate to say it (I don't really) but that was bloody obvious months ago. The choice has always been choosing between the lesser of two evils. It's never been a black and white issue.

Now talking of black and white, that's the theme of this week's gallery, so here's a picture I took of St Paul's Cathedral...The Boy and I used to go past it every night when we walked home from my office over The Wobbly Bridge and I loved it. I took it with my mobile phone

This picture though isn't black and white...it's a view of the cranes on the St Petersburg sky line when we were there last year. It's just an illusion as it was taken in full colour on my big Olympus camera.

As I said, things are rarely black and white.

Just ignore Mrs Worthington

2011-08-15T14:51:00.005+01:00

The problem with using the name Nota Bene is that when I open up my Hotamil account, the 'system' thinks I'm Italian and offers to translate the whole page for me. It was funny for the first five hundred times, but now the jokes beginning to wear a bit thin. Mama Mia! On the other hand, its probably better than the e-mails that I get from PRs addressing me as Dear Brad presumably because the email address is bradstockboys. If ever I want to change my name to Brad Stockboys, I'll let them know. Or maybe they've seen a passing resemblance to the other famous Brad....its an easy mistake to make.

The Cat's Mother and The Cat are away sunning themselves in France this week, so the mice are out to play. Well, when I say out to play I mean we're eating deep fried frozen pizzas all week, leaving the wrappers all over the sitting room floor whilst slobbing around watching DVDs full of sex and violence. Well, when I say 'we', I mean 'me'. No doubt The Boy will shame me with his goody-two-shoes behaviour. Youth isn't what it used to be.

The Cat's Mother has taken it on herself to make me relive the misery of my (and UP's) 'O' level years by taking us to all the plays we studied for English all those years ago. Shakespeare's Winters Tale is already crossed off the list, as is MacBeth. We've seen an operatic version of Turn of the Screw previously. The Playboy of the Western world is a future 'must see'. This weekend we saw Marlowe's Dr Faustus at The Globe theatre on the South Bank. It was absolutely fantastic...oh that it had been on when I was studying, I may yet improve on my Grade A. If you've never been, and get the chance do go, but make sure you bring a cushion. The afternoon was capped by The Cat bumping into and getting the autograph of Dr Who's assistant. Haven't got a clue about her name, but she's very pleasant, happy to sign away and have her picture taken with hoards of adoring fans...lovely.

This weekend was the finale of The Cat's two weeks course at the National Youth Theatre. She did amazingly well to get a place...the competition was remarkably stiff, but she shone at the auditions. The last two weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions for her, as they built up to this and on Saturday they gave their performance at the National. It was a fabulous thing to see her participate and hopefully this is just the start of a path which will see her dreams come true. If you can spot her in the video, you're doing well...better than I did for half the performance!

Wow, I've reached the end and not a political comment. But I do like Warren Buffet's recent comments which I'm sure apply over here as well as over there.

Statesmanlike?

2011-08-12T14:11:00.002+01:00

On a very positive note indeed, the results are in, and I don't have to worry about diabetes...my tests were perfectly normal. May be it really is because the shock that I might be a sufferer made me stop my marshmallow binge. But whatever, it's quite a relief. I have modified my diet, am doing more exercise and hopefully that will relieve me of the higher levels of cholesterol too.

Did you know, or even care, that the battle for the pound in your pocket is being fought by tech giants not through clever marketing, or even fabulous products, but through the law courts? If you could be bothered to spend more than five minutes looking at places like Engadget, Gizmodo or TechRadar (as I do), you'd know that just about all the tech giants such as Apple, Nokia, Samsung and a good deal of other you would never have heard of are busy suing each other for patent infringement. The latest round has seen Apple use he courts to effectively ban a new product from Samsung that would by all accounts knock spots off the iPad. I've no idea about the ins and outs, but I certainly think it's a very sad day when the lawyers start creaming it in when we should all be able to choose what we buy and what we don't. It doesn't bode well for the future. If you're interested, there's more here.

It's hardly a surprise outcome of Carol Vorderman's study into maths education that she recommends that all pupils should study it until the age of 18. Evidently, too many are unable to work out how much change they get from a £50 note after buying a spliff and two hits of crack cocaine. Or how much they should be getting for flogging new trainers down the pub on a Saturday night. News paper reports barely mention the problem is that kids are not able to do even basic maths at the age of sixteen, although they're already being taught trigonometry. Simply requiring schools to teach maths until kids are eighteen sadly misses the point completely. They just need to be taught until they grasp the essentials of maths which get them through life in a modern world. I'd certainly hate to see The Kat and The Boy burdened with an extra two years of maths which they both loathe with a passion, when they have the maths skills they need already.

Equally unsurprisingly, there has been a complete lack of leadership in the UK over the last week or two. I've already mentioned that the government's comment that the downgrading of the US credit rating vindicates our own economic policy. Now David Cameron has come out with the comment that over the last few days, the police "Got riots wrong". I'm not sure of the full context, but that doesn't matter. As a former PR man, he should know and understand the sound-bites the media are looking for....and got in this case. In the face of a very fluid situation, completely outnumbered the police did a remarkable job. But Cameron's comment today follows on from his earlier statements which could have been made by any Daily Mail reader after their morning tea. What we need and want is a Prime Minister who will stand up and set out a vision for the future not make knee-jerk reactionary comments which just fuel the problem. At this time we don't need another middle-management politician, but some one who can make the leap and make the changes the country needs for the better.

If you've got this far, you're doing well.

This week, The Boy has been doing work experience, at one of my clients. That's enough to make anyone nervous, but it seems to be going well. Today he's sitting in a workshop with a rail company, looking at human factors and ergonomics....don't ask! So if your train is late or uncomfortable you know who to blame. Meanwhile,The Cat is pursuing her interests having been selected against fierce competition for a two week course with The National Youth Theatre. If you happen to be passing the National on Saturday at about four-ish, do pop along and give her a bit of encouragement...she deserves it.

In the meantime, here is my list of riot-inspired songs....music is always good at a time of upheaval I find! I had another list but lost it, so have cobbled this together at short notice, so chip in if you have any additions:

Muse - Uprising
The Who - My Generation
Manic Street Preachers - If you tolerate this

10cc- Rubber Bullets

Rage Against The MAchine - Killing in the name

Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK

Elton John - Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting

The Prodigy - Firestarter

The Clash - London's Burning

The Smiths - Panic

And finally (of course)

Kaiser Chiefs - I predict a riot

Water

2011-08-11T10:40:00.008+01:00

I've not been very good at participating in Tara's gallery recently, but I thought I would this week. I'm a day late, as we were at a funeral yesterday.

This is a series of pictures I call The Swimmer - of course it's The Boy, swimming in Grandma in Cyprus' pool late one evening the first time we had both been there together. There's a slightly eerie, atmospheric feel to the pictures. The pool was the best way to cool off, and a really great thing to have in such sunny climes and Grandma in Cyprus swims regularly to keep fit. The dragonflies like to sunbathe beside it, and the pool has been known to overflow when it rains too much. Cyprus has been going through a drought, but the desalination plants make all the difference now.

The end of the world as we know it

2011-08-09T10:01:00.004+01:00

Wow what an evening that was. Absolutely incredible. Terrible. Never seen anything like it....well not since the Brixton riots of the Thatcher years. I guess it couldn't have come at a worse time, but then equally I guess, the rising temperature of the summer hasn't helped.

I'd been saying to The Cat's Mother that things were getting overheated, and if we weren't careful we'd get burned.

And sure enough that was the case. Things went into melt down last night didn't they?

We were lucky, I guess, that we caught it early on, but there'll be some clearing up to do, that's for sure. We worked late into the night trying to sort things out. I didn't realise it would be so difficult, nor did The Cat's Mother.

You'd have thought that where we lived, we'd have been immune from problems. But I guess even the middle classes can't cosset themselves away from the troubles of a modern world.

We didn't realise there was a problem until we opened the door, but then it was obvious. Mess everywhere. I slammed the door as quick as I could, hoping that would help chill things off. But really when these things happen, you know there's nothing to be done.

Except buy a new freezer.

Yes, typically our freezer died yesterday, leaving the thing full of defrosted ice cream, pizzas, meats and heaven only knows what else. Not that finding a new one was as easy as we were expecting - we have an American-style one, and I guess like all things American they have got bigger in the last eight years. And have you tried to get a white one? We did manage it eventually, after a couple of hours of trawling the internet. Of the 54 American-style fridge-freezers offered by Appliances Online, only one fitted the bill, or would fit through the door. It'll be delivered on Thursday.

Meanwhile, I can report that the very thick clouds of smoke which deposited ash all over our cars this morning, were simply the result of a barn fire. Epping Forest is not really that prone to inner-city rioting, although in Buckhurst Hill a designer dress shop was broken into. Setting fire to the place would have been unfeasible...it may have melted their spray on tans.

I'm still trying to quite understand the man I overheard on his mobile as I cycled home along the canal, skirting round the Hackney and Bethnal Green trouble spots. "Yeah, they're laying a gun on him" I heard. I don't want to think about it....we've enough problems as it is.

A fat poof in a dress for Sunday lunch*

2011-08-08T10:16:00.003+01:00

We can probably all be grateful this morning that it's a pretty lousy summer this year. Cold, damp weather is the best weapon the police have for managing riots, and we've had both in abundance. If you've ever been up to Tottenham, you'll know it's not somewhere you'd want a Sunday picnic. There's an undercurrent of crime just waiting to bubble up to the surface, and this weekend it came. I'm not going to point the finger of blame, nor am I really well placed to analyse the causes, but it's probably fair to say that where there's poverty and inequality there's crime. It's hardly surprising to see the list of other areas that saw copycat rioting and looting.

Some would say, that we are suffering from a lack of leadership...with inner-city districts being being engulfed in flames and shops emptied in the ensuing chaos, and with the world's global markets in melt down. I don't begrudge politicians their holidays, but really sometimes what is needed is for one of our elected leaders to stand up and be counted, rather than continue sipping their cappuccinos in Tuscany. If the markets continue in the direction they're heading we're all in hot water. It was hardly the most statesman like comment to be made that the downgrading of the US credit rating was 'vindication of the UK's approach'.

It was a very happpy moment when The Boy returned from his travels and gave us all a big hug. Despite listening to him for most of Saturday, and seeing his 365 photos (he caught the habit from me I think), I suspect we're still waiting to get the juiciest stories. Over half the touring group went down with tummy bugs of one sort or another, there was heat, there was humidity, there were injuries (but not to The Boy), but there was most of all camaraderie, and the opportunity to do some coaching with Tamils in Sri Lanka...it was this that I think was the highlight for The Boy. He seemed genuinely moved and proud that they could give something back to one of their host countries. He did very well himself, captaining the seconds team twice and playing for the firsts for the first time...and winning an award for 'most improved player'. He won a second award too - for most peculiar purchase: a fake Louis Vuitton suitcase for The Cat's Mother. None of us were short of gifts, including more fake LV goodies, Oakley sunglasses, Hard Rock T-shirts, Armani tie and cufflinks...and so on!

Not surprisingly, he was exhausted after his very long travels, so it was an early night for him on Saturday.

Sunday saw The Cats Mother and I out at a friends 60th birthday celebration lunch. As you would expect, the hall was decked out in fuscia pink feather boas. Amongst the people there was a lad who had appeared on The Apprentice...he seemed a really nice lad, and someone else who had been a guest at Amy Winehouse's funeral, but I'm not sure that counts as mixing with celebrities. The surprise entertainment was indeed 'A fat poof in a dress' (*that was his/her description of himself rather than any comment made by me). Our drag queen provided the perfect entertainment by crooning some great show tunes. It may not be our usual Sunday lunchtime, but was absolutely great entertainment. And some real light relief whilst we're in choppy waters.

Saturday shots

2011-08-06T14:41:00.012+01:00

My monthly round up of the pictures I've taken. It's amazing to look back over the last 31 days and see how much we've done...I shall so enjoy looking at these in twenty years time and remembering 'the good old days'. I've been using my phone a lot to take pictures with a technique called HDR, hence all the very saturated colours.

The windsock in front of the Regency crescent where we live in Brighton. If you look carefully there's a ghost of what looks like a coke can in the sky

Sunset out of our back window in Brighton

Mushroom stall in Borough Market

Borough Market flower shop. Keen Harry Potter film goers may just recognise this building

Candle on restaurant table

Chichester Cathedral

Reflections in the Regency Canal

At Hackney Wicked festival, the biggest Stick street art ever

River Lee by the Olympic Stadium

Canoeing on the river (not us!)

Inside these drawers are posters from the London Underground

On the beach...south bank of the River Thames...he was sculpting a shark

Squid at Borough Market

London smoked salmon at H Formans

The Cat on the paddloes in Brighton

The crowd at the FooFighters...it's heavily edited to get this result

Chichester Cathedral

My birthday present...my own Roas drawn on old hanging files, now framed and ready for hanging

Brighton Beach

Sunset in Brighton

Oysters...yummy!

Self-portrait

Brighton beach huts

Did you ever get one of these for valentines? Love lies bleeding: the flowers when they come drip 'blood'

At Hurts in Somerset House...red ticker tape as the finale

More beach huts

No month is complete without some street art

More street art beside the River Lee

The valentine plant flowers...aren't they stunning?

An art project called Bow Bells

Spiderman

2011-08-05T14:26:00.005+01:00

They say you can't buck the market, and that's certainly the case at the moment. But in a world where profits can be made by driving prices down as well as up, and the truly important test of performance for a financial trader is the profit at the end of the day, we are seeing the global economy throttled. A phrase that I have seen too much of recently is that when governments came riding to the rescue of the banks in 2008, it simply transferred the debt from being a banking problem to being a sovereign one. Since then we've seen banks (I include that any financial organisation) make £billions and bankers pocket £millions. In the meantime, anyone outside the bankers bubble has seen their effective incomes drop, quite possibly they've lost their job, and prices for even the most essential items such as food and fuel rise, whilst their pensions have been eroded.

Alongside this debacle are the politicians who've helped get us into this pickle...firstly by creating the conditions over the last twenty years whereby the the financiers could wheel and deal with impunity, and then once we the crash happened by failing to take the necessary steps to reform the global financial sector from top to bottom. They continue to run scared of the Bob Diamonds of this world who weal enormous financial clout without any sense of responsibility...and as we all know with great power comes great responsibility...or not if you're a banker. Politicians of all colours have shown no sense of leadership, have failed to recognise that the system is broken and needs to be tossed away to be replaced by something that works for the majority, not the selfish minority.

Phew...thank heavens that's off my chest. Last night we were out with one of my oldest friends - The Creative Director (TCD) and his girlfriend (PE) who is a picture editor at news organisation that specialises in listening to people's phone messages. The Cat's Mother asked me what a creative director is, so I explained "he draws pictures" which is a lie, because actually he tells other people to draw pictures. In the past, I've been known to rock home from evenings out with TCD in a 'bit of a state', but last night we were all grown up.

The great thing about old friends is the memories that go with them. TCD has a chip on his shoulder. Literally. One weekend more years ago than I recall TCD and PE were down in Brighton for the weekend. We spent a hot sunny day on the beach drinking beer. Slowly. But the effect was unfortunate. We got it into our heads that it would be really funny to go into the Kentucky Fried Chicken and ask for a 'Schlongburger'. We did, and rolled around in hysterics before we were less than politely asked to leave. As we headed back to the flat TCD tripped up the curb and went down with the most almighty crash. We laughed. Boy did we all laugh as we staggered up the stairs. I guess the pain came on the next day, but he never went off to the doctors, and that's why his left shoulder has a big lump on it, even today.

The other story that we had to recount for The Cat's Mother's benefit was about PE's friend who one day ended up with a mouthful of pigs semen. But I realise you're all to busy to sit and read about that.

Anyway poor TCD had been made redundant earlier this year from his high-powered international job. It happens (see above). Two days before they exchanged on a new flat. They went ahead none the less, and since then he's kept himself busy with freelance work. Let's hope it continues and someone kicks the bankers in the goolies rather than allow them to mess up everyone else's lives.

In lieu of First Friday Photos tomorrow will be 'Saturday Shots', if I can cram it in before The Boy re-materialises. I'm not really sure where he is at the moment, but I have a feeling he has air under his feet rather than solid earth.

On yer bike

2011-08-04T12:17:00.004+01:00

So the markets have started gunning for Italy and Spain now. I'm the last to suggest that their economies are in the best shape, but it does seem that private speculators are hell bent on achieving financial collapse for their own personal benefit. The EU has expressed concern. But what is abundantly clear is that a combination of greedy financiers and poor political leadership is creating a vicious circle that could create economic conflagration, mass unemployment and poverty not seen before. It's been the way for a long time to let the markets decide, but really the time has come for that to stop. That will involve massive reform of the international system...but as the American budget debacle shows, that reform is long overdue.

For the last four years, people have given me a funny look when I've told them that I cycle the eighteen miles to work on a mountain bike. Truth be told, my enthusiasm for it has been getting less and less, especially since we moved to Loughton and the hill at the end of the return journey is like a mountain to me. So my fitness has been tailing off. If I did the journey by road it's a lot shorter, but I much prefer going down the side of the canals and past the Olympic site which is a quite beautiful way of staying countryfied all the way into the centre of town. But as the paths are mud tracks I've had no choice but to use the heavy mountain bike. Until now. The paths have been resurfaced as part of the improvements by the Olympic committee and it's now much smoother, so I've splashed out on a lovely racing bike which is so light I can lift it with one finger. It's beautiful and once again I can get myself fit again. Which is a good thing.

I mentioned in this post about going for a check up by Life Line Screening. The initial results had looked OK to me (I am a Doctor, but a Doctor of Spin so maybe I'm not entirely qualified to make medical judgements), but as I had to pop into the doctor I showed him the final results that had been sent to me. I also mentioned my brother's heart attacks. I wouldn't quite say he panicked, but his air of professional disinterest changed completely. He immediately prescribed statins to reduce my cholesterol, and sent me off to get another blood test because my previous results showed a high likelihood of diabetes.

I took a decision about the statins...not to start taking them at the moment but rather try and tackle the problem with a better diet (one that doesn't involve a packet of marshmallows every day), but will keep it under review. I went for the blood tests yesterday, but hope that everything will be OK. I'll know in a couple of days. It's a nuisance really. But does make me really pleased that Life Line Screening made the offer...and re-inforces my feeling that if you reach a 'certain' age, then it is more than sensible to get a check up, whether by them, another private service or your own doctor.

The Boy meantime will be back on Saturday, and is currently enjoying some r'n'r on Bintan Island, wherever that is. After the depression of losing their last match has worn off, he seems to have cheered up by doing some watersports and riding an electric motorbike. He keeps mentioning it's very expensive. I don't know what on earth he means.

Time

2011-08-02T10:01:00.003+01:00

A couple of years back, before The Cat's Mother and I were an item I was invited along to a fabulous party she had organised to celebrate her birthday. It was held in the garden under a glorious marquee, the disco played and the wine and champagne flowed all night. It was glitzy and glamorous and I new practically no one. But I do remember a very drunk man singing and dancing and celebrating louder and more wildly than anyone else there.

As The Cat's Mother and I grew closer and I became part of the wider circle of friends, I was re-introduced to this man. He was a character, a man who lived life to the full and treasured every moment. For him every moment of life was to be enjoyed to the max. A glass half full kind of person. A person who could bring a smile to everyone's faces through a quick quip or a jaunty jibe. Not a bad bone in him. He burnt the candle at both ends and in the middle as well.

He was part of our group which went off to Russia, and led the celebrations on our sleeper train late into the night, early into the morning. He was one of two that went in search of a kebab along the rest of the train, and was literally kicked down the corridor by a small blond female trainguard who probably spent her spare time throwing the hammer. And sickle. Fortunately there was enough of us that we had the carriage to ourselves and didn't disturb another soul. You may pick him out in the picture above. When we left another female trainguard who in her spare time clearly throws the discus said (phonetically) 'Shobar' which became the 'word of the holiday' even after our tour guide told us it's meaning and we had to hang our heads in shame. Later on that holiday, at the Space Museum and afterwards, he kept us more than entertained with impressions of dogs hanging their heads out of the windows of cars with the wind blowing their ears as they traveled to the space centre to be blasted into space.

Earlier this year, he danced 'til dawn at our New Year celebration, and kept the men in the winning position for the 'hat game' (you know where names go on pieces of paper in a hat and when pulled out you have to give clues...it's known by a million different names) against the cheating women. And again at UP's amazing birthday celebrations he didn't hold back in helping things go with a swing.

It may be just that he knew his time was limited because he'd grown up with a rare illness, one that gradually ate him up from the inside, that he made the most of his time. Or it may be that he was just someone who knew how to enjoy himself and bring a smile to those around him. This year, he went rapidly down hill, but that didn't stop the humour until yesterday when it stopped. Full stop. He wasn't yet 50.

I bet heaven is a riot today.

Poggy's tail

2011-08-01T13:45:00.005+01:00

If you've got a little spare cash...and that's a big IF these days isn't it?...I'd highly recommend a couple of books by Paul Talling...one called Derelict London, and the other London's Lost Rivers. I can't say why the decay of one of the world's great cities holds such fascination for me, but it does, and both these books capture it well, mostly in pictures.

And I guess it's my fascination with seeing odd bits of London that means that when we took our guests into town this weekend we went a rather obscure way...by car, tube, Light railway, boat and finally Shanksy's pony. They're English, but live in Berlin, so they are strangers in their own country, and it was interesting to hear how Queen2B and The Prince viewed this country...a lot more positively than any one else I know does. Even the Italian who sat next to me, was jabbering on about how marvelous our our public transport system is. Mind you, when you've got a slimy dirty old man in charge of your country, you can't expect all to be right can you? I guess that's the benefit of seeing in from the outside. It's not that I don't appreciate all the good things that England has, but there are just too many downsides too.

One of those moments, and I don't doubt that it is one that you had to be there to fully appreciate, was a story that Queen2B told, about how when she was much, much younger, she played with the children of a very upper class family. In true upper class fashion, they were all as mad as a box of frogs, and all the children had been given ridiculous nick names. I would recount them all, but a couple of glasses of wine has made me forget all except one - Poggy. Dear Poggy was evidently a sweet little girl, but unfortunately her bottom kept falling out. I don't mean she dropped her knickers or her trousers, I mean erm, err, erm her bottom kept dropping out. The first time this happened when Queen2B, who was just eightish, was looking after her, Queen2B had not been warned. So was somewhat non-plussed when Poggy asked her to scoop it back....I'm sure it was terrible, but on a Sunday afternoon by the canal, we giggled like we shouldn't. Like I said you had to be there. Poggy evidently runs a shop on the south coast now, so hopefully in her middle age it's all been sorted.

Saturday we did an off-beat tourist tour which took in Borough Market, and ended up at the fabulous production of War Horse which is still running. Again, if you have any spare pennies, it's money well spent....taking puppetry to a new level. I wish the Boy had been here to see it too, but he was supping at Raffles in Singapore. That's something I've never achieved...yet!

Sunday, was entirely given over to food...firstly at my favourite restaurant - Formans -who had failed to return six phone calls and three messages. That's true English service for you. We then moved on to another place, also on the Canal 'Olive E2' where the service couldn't have been more attentive...that's southern European service for you.

A sleepless Sunday night meant that I was up and awake to hear the Americans announce that they'd finally decided to stop arsing around and would sort out their budget issues. All around me I could hear the world breath a collective sigh of relief. But the net result in the long term will undoubtedly be to hasten America's decline as the world's leading (in fact only) superpower. That will be interesting for future generations. I wonder how that looks from Singapore?

Invasion!

2011-07-28T10:57:00.005+01:00

The Boy is doing well on his tour of the far East...although their team track record resembles an English World Cup football campaign. He's been promoted to the Firsts, which he and all his family are very pleased about. From this you will gather we have been in regular communication, and as poor communication is usually at the route of all misunderstandings, this is a very good thing indeed. Today is Wednesday, so it must be Kuala Lumpar.

Back in Blighty, we went off to Somerset House for the UK premiere of Pedro Almodovar's new film - The skin I live in. Four of us went, only one of us thought it was brilliant - 'twas I. For me, the evening started brilliantly when the man himself along with co-star Elena Anaya came and introduced the film, and then there was a fabulous fanfare of lights to get the film started. I'd give you a plot outline, but it twisted and turned in almost unimaginable ways and kept us on the edge of our seats (actually, there's no seats, we sat on the courtyard cobble stones) for two hours. The Cat's Mother's face was a picture as we progressed, from excitement through to uncertainty, to bemusement, to horror. We spent the entire journey 'discussing' the pros and cons and ins and outs. Even today we can't agree on very much about the film...the plot, the motivations, etc....but I'm still excited by it, and would recommend it highly even if it is creepy and pervy. At least we all came away knowing a new word...vaginoplasty. I suggest you Google it.

In the meantime, it seems Colonel Gadaffi has decided to take the fight to William Hague. As I cycled along the canal, I cam across this. Military weaponry hidden away in central London ready to strike with 40 minutes notice. I haven't sexed up this report. At all.

Lazy Hazy Days

2011-07-25T13:37:00.004+01:00

I finished reading a book recently by one of my favourite authors - Jon Mcgregor. I first came across him when I picked up a copy of If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, which was followed by So Many Ways To Begin. Both startling good books. His latest is Even The Dogs. Again a startling read, but I would only recommend it if you are made of stern stuff. It's about death through drug and alcohol abusde, told through the words and minds of addicts. I don't know how accurate it is, but it is absolutely compelling, and sad and difficult to stick with. But brilliantly written. On reflection, do go and buy it and read it.

It says something about the way we get news these days, that I found out about Amy Whitehouse from a news alert from France 24...clearly they were slightly quicker off the mark than the Beeb. It was such a shock that I gasped when I read it, even though in reality it wasn't a great surprise...the subject of her impending? inevitable? early death had been conversation in the office last week. That didn't stop it bringing a tear to my eye. And the hope that maybe, just may be she wasn't actually dead. They talk about six steps of separation, and it may well be true - we know well the mother of the girl that ran off with Blake Fielder-Civil...you won't be surprised to know there were drug problems in that relationship too.

The Boy and I had both enjoyed a very shambolic performance of hers when we went to V-Festival in 2008...for both of us it was a 'festival' first. If her death proves to be a lesson is in any way to anyone, even just one person, who is an addict of any sort, then it will not have been entirely in vain.

Across the waters in Norway, terrible, terrible news which is still unfolding. Perhaps there two lessons may be learnt. The need for weapons not to be in the hands of any private citizen, and that political and/or religious extremism is only bad.

Bigger events are unfolding elsewhere, with debt-rating agency Moody's declaring Greece effectively in default, which is odd as I thought that the second EU bailout was supposed to stop that. Anyway hats off to Moody's...they certainly don't hang back. But I'm sure we've reached a stage where the authorities may just bite back.

And in America, the budget problems could yet sink us all. No wonder Vince called them nutters...he was right about the Murdochs, and it may just be time to rehabilitate the man.

Our weekend, which we didn't allow the above to take the gloss of in any way, was populated by the Muffins who came down to Brighton. It gave me the opportunity to put on my roller blades for the first time in several years. After a wobbly start I was fine...but I may be somewhat short of being able to skate fifteen miles twice a week round the streets of London. Our two days were spent mostly on the seafront just enjoying a leisurely stroll, without a care in the world. Remarkably relaxing, and of course plenty of time for me to whip my camera out.

If only life could be like this everyday.

Money, money money

2011-07-22T14:01:00.002+01:00

I found a €20 note on the way into work this morning. It was just laying on the pavement beckoning...asking to be picked up. It would have been rude to refuse. So I did and sauntered on my way. Now what to do with it?

Kidadulthood

2011-07-20T13:08:00.004+01:00

Yesterday The Boy went off with the school on a three and a half week rugby tour. He'll be in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Indonesia and Bantan island...exciting places, if not the world's leading rugby hot-spots. I dropped him off at school, and he jumped out without turning round; without a by your leave. If it had been his over-excitement and exuberance had got the better of him that would be fine. But in truth there had been a problem...an argument the night before, and a sound lecture from me in the morning during the car journey to the school. The Cat's Mother and I had planned and worked hard to avoid such an event, but there was a morbid and unnerving inevitability about it.

Teenage years are difficult ones - when you think you know everything, when you think the world revolves around you, when you don't have a moment's thought for anyone other than yourself, when you think adults are idiots. So that doesn't make adulthood a very easy place to be sometimes. Certainly not for the next three and a half weeks.

Heart stopping stuff

2011-07-18T12:04:00.004+01:00

Would it be too rash to draw comparisons between the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/Fukushima, the 2011 Arab spring/summer and the News International 'scandal!' that is currently enveloping the country. There are certainly some parallels. In Japan, the natural disaster caused devastation across a widespread area, and whilst it has faded from the headlines, the problems at Fukushima may yet blow up in our faces. Across the Arab territories it all went off earlier this year, and now things are rumbling along, gradually the whole area is destabilising ready to blow up in our faces. And then the hacking by Murdoch's cronies which caused quite a kerfuffle some time ago, rumbled on until it has all blown up as it is now. There may be no value in drawing comparisons about such disparate events, but why not...it's Monday morning.

I'm occasionally prone to accepting free gifts in much the same way that the Metropolitan Police appear to accept cash in brown paper envelopes from News International staff. I don't do it too often...and frankly and bluntly the quality of items I'm offered rarely reflects the status to which I hope one day to be elevated. Please PRs pull your fingers out and give me something that glitters.

The best offer I've had recently is from Life Line Screening. It may not glitter, but it is a free health check. As I've hit a 'certain age', the thought of a health check up had crossed my mind on more than one occasion, so I scooped up the chance like a metropolitan police officer being given a brown envelope by someone from News International. Have I sued that before?

Life Line Screening set themselves up in various local venues...in my case it was at the club house of Wanstead Golf Course. When I arrived, they seemed very efficient, made me fill in the sort of form that I would expect. Over the next 45 minutes they stuck a needle in me, and attached me to various machines that went bleep and others that took the sort of pictures I've only seen when looking to see how baby is getting along. My results will be back in my sticky little fingers within 21 days, but as they said if there was anything that looks suspicious they would refer me to my doctor immediately. The one set of results I got straight away was the cholesterol from my blood test. They suggested I go and speak to my doctor and see what he says. That may be a hint...but they don't look too bad, I'm hoping Auntie Gwen will advise me on the urgent need or otherwise to write my will, and am pretty damn certain they are better than the rest of my family who have over the years extracted more than their fair share of NI payments for treatment for artery/coronary disease. So is it worth it? Should you do it? Well a quick Google will show you that this sort of thing is quite controversial, and Life Line Screening, being American, have quite an aggressive marketing strategy. But...and here's the BIG but....two weeks ago my brother had a couple of heart attacks, and last week had 'a funny turn' which had him back in hospital for a couple of days. He's just 52, and frankly and bluntly, I'd rather not lose my brother yet. So the issue of health is on my mind very much, and a check up has given me some peace of mind. Whether or not you want to stomp up the cost (I think my tests would have come to around £150) is up to you, but certainly I would suggest you check to see whether unbeknown to you your body is not going to let you, and your family, down.