Result!

I can only remember two mornings that started in slow motion with a phone call at 6.00 a.m.

Yesterday was the better of the two.

It was The Boy calling from Edinburgh where the offspring are still performing in The Actors Nightmare.  It was 'A' level results day for him and The Cat and thousands of other teenagers across the country.

I stopped breathing as he told me the contents of the e-mail from the school.  Three 'A' grades.  Breath, smile, cheer.  Very pleased.  He has his place at Edinburgh University confirmed.

The phone was passed over to The Cat's Mother for the Cat to reveal all.  More breath holding.  A*, A, B. A grade was dropped from her requirement, so began a worrying few hours to discover whether Exeter would still have her.  Advice was given...but without the UCAS official channels open for two hours, it was a matter of nervous thumbs twiddling for her.

Not for us though. We had planned a surprise trip up to Edinburgh for the day to celebrate the results.  This time we would be avoiding the train.  But it did mean that as phone calls were exchanged we had to tell little fibs.  No I couldn't come to the phone...I was in the loo (I was driving to the airport).

Fortunately, by the time we boarded the flight, Exeter had confirmed.  Much relief, much, much joy.

To be honest, I was blubbing like a baby...it's what I do these days when I'm over emotional.  It never used to be like that, I was hard as nails.  But the delight of a successful conclusion to all that hard work, the culmination of all their efforts throughout their school years just got to me.

Our surprise visit was only possible because The Muffins were already in Edinburgh, and had asked the two teens to meet them for lunch...nothing as usual there.

The Boy had arrived at the restaurant before us, so we snuck up behind him.  Nothing but confusion.  Then recognition and a big hug.  Lovely.

The Cat arrived momentarily. Same confusion.  Same hug.  Few tears of joy.

Perfect.

We had a lovely meal with champagne..of course champagne!  And then we went to see their performance again, celebrated with the rest of the cast and crew who had all also achieved their university ambitions before catching the last flight home.

A lovely day we will all remember for ever.

And to cap it all, The Boy was handed a card by an acting agent who rather liked his performance!

Doing nothing

For the first time ever (probably) I checked my Barclaycard statement and couldn't understand it so gave them a call.  By the time we'd run through it (that was about half an hour), there was a discrepancy of £1.23. Their explanation?  'It's for the smooth running of your account'.  Yes, I nearly choked.

 Google has decided that the route I cycle to work is not the right one.  In many ways it is right...not least because on Friday some joker turned left in front of me in Leytonstone and it's as close to death as I've ever been. Even when I hurled four-letter abuse and witnesses remonstrated with him he was adamant he'd done nothing wrong.  The Cat's Mother thinks that one day someone will thump me for getting angry with them...she may be right.  Someone in the office has suggested an anger management course....

Anyway, the Google route (it pops up on my phone whether I ask for it or not) takes me even further along the canals of London and the Home Counties than I normally go.  It's a lot longer, but flatter for most of the way until I come off the canals and then have to climb the North Face of the Eiger. I love cycling along the canals so that's not an issue.  But as I near home, it takes me through the Forest.  Which is fine if you have a mountain bike, or better still a Land Rover, but on my carbon-fibre, Bradley Wiggins style road-bike it's a bit challenging.  It made me think of all those stories about people blindly following sat navs into rivers, off cliffs or down roads so narrow they get stuck.

Although it might not sound like it, we had a remarkably relaxed weekend...it was genuine bliss to have no parental responsibility and no real plans.  We saw the new Alan Partridge film Alpha Papa which only confirmed my view that Steve Coogan does not really have much to offer.  It was mildly amusing, very predictable and not very clever.

We then headed off to a bar that I had spied on my canal-side travels.  The White Building in Hackney Wick.  It was a terrific place...well how could it not be as a bar by the waterside with a view of canal boats gliding past.  The Cat's Mother was concerned that we had doubled the average age of people there...but as I pointed out, they were all beautiful young things and no doubt cutting--edge creative, probably working in digital media...when we left after a couple of drinks, we headed out through the Olympic Park which is gradually taking shape and will be a terrific place when it's finished next year.

Sunday I met up with some friends and fellow OOC performers to look at an exhibition at London Museum of costumes from the event.  London Museum is a really great place to while away several hours as it traces the history of the city from its earliest days to the present day...highly recommended.  But skip the costumes exhibit as it was pretty poor.

The evening was spent curled up on the sofa with The Cat's Mother watching Johnny Depp in The Rum Diaries...that's the film where he met the woman who stole him away from Vanessa Paradise.  I picked the Blu-Ray up cheaply from Play.com, and now I see why.  It is just possible that he has lost the ability to act, and Bruce Robinson can neither write nor direct.  The scenery was glorious, the rest was poor enough that we were tempted to turn it off...which is quite surprising given how much I'd been looking forward to it.

About time we were on the Red carpet

Last week we attended the 'World Premiere' of the new Richard Curtis film 'About Time'.  Not quite as grand as that sounds, we simply bought our tickets to see it in the open air at Somerset House....a truly beautiful setting, although you have to sit on the cobblestones and get a very sore bum for your sins.

We were treated to welcoming thirteen of the cast, and a short speech by the man himself.  Terrific stuff.

Anyway about the film.  Yes, lovely, whimsical tale with not so much humour as his past efforts, but very pleasant.  It's already been slaughtered by the critics of course.  The lead is taken by a ginger Hugh Grant sound alike, and it adopts many of his Curtis' norms...including a transatlantic romance and Bill Nighy.  A fabulous cameo from the sadly departed Richard Griffiths alongside Richard Grant made the older members of the audience think of Withnail and I.  The tone of it made me think of Richard Ayoade's brilliant Submarine.  Anyway a very lovely way to spend an evening...not too taxing on a single brain cell and it has a super soundtrack.

French kissing....

Talking of France and the French, as I was...we were in France a couple of weeks ago, enjoying temperatures of about 38 degrees.  It didn't start well when we went to pick our hire car from Budget/Avis (did you know they were one company now?) at Geneva airport and were told that they'd let our car go because we were late.  The girl on the desk had a victorious smirk on her face...no it wasn't a customer-friendly smile.  This was a car that was booked and paid for, not just reserved, so I went at her like a rottweiler.  The Cat's Mother stood back.  We got a car, and Anglo-French relations have been put back a couple of centuries.

We'd actually arrived in Geneva a couple of days earlier...only just though as Swiss Air tried to bump us off the flight because the temperature meant they couldn't take on enough fuel.  At €250 each, it was a very tempting offer... Driving into Geneva the taxi managed to run into the back of a stationery vehicle.  I was facing backwards whilst The Cat's Mother and her friend were facing forwards.  As no seat belts were being worn, I can tell you that this is the first time for many, many years that two women have thrown themselves at me in an undignified manner.

Coming out of a restaurant in the old town late in the night a young girl of about 7 or 8 came out of the dark scootering towards us crying because she'd lost her mother.  She was desperately upset and in a complete panic.  We took a little while steadying her before beginning to walk her back up the hill the way she came. Suddenly she spied her mother in the distance and was off  without a glance back.  Children.  Mothers.

Down by the river, we sat at a bar whilst the drugs police dispersed the obvious drug-dealing youths with a dog that would strike fear into the Hound of the Baskervilles.  It certainly struck fear into the chihuahua that was sitting close and clearly thought it was going to be turned into a tasty morsel.

At our friends' flat there are rules.  The Swiss like rules.  They have a rule for everything.  I'm not sure why no monkeys are allowed (top right).  No singing in the bath is also to be applauded if you've heard me sing...perhaps you will understand all the rest.

Odd then that they allow the workings of the Lake Geneva paddle steamers to be completely exposed

We drove to Beaune in the Burgundy region for a three day wedding - bride French, husband English.  Beaune is lovely.  The wine is over-priced and not that great...but perhaps The Cat's Mother shouldn't have told the vineyard guide about the pleasures of Chilean wines these days.  She was very French about it.  The wedding was fabulous...in a chateau of course.

What a fabulous wedding indeed

We saw a lot of sun flowers

We saw a lot of chateaux and vineyards

 And wine

 Amazingly this is an early example  of the french national health service...look at the roof!

 And inside....

Fringe benefits

In the same way France is wasted on the French, I would like to suspect that Edinburgh is wasted on our Scottish friends (and enemies), but I doubt that is the case - there is an obsessive pride in wearing tartan and blowing the bagpipes which gives a sense of national identity the English would do well to learn.

Our trip north of the border started with a fairly gruesome journey by (non) Sleeper train courtesy of ScotRail.  It eventually left two hours late, which meant after 2.00 am.  The downside was a very uncomfortable marble floor at Euston, the upside was seeing people return home after a night out on the tiles.  It's amazing how lovely and friendly they were in their inebriated states...probably best were the lesbians who were very excited by our trip, gave us a show and tell of all the things they'd pinched from the bar they'd been at, and were obviously deeply in love/lust with each other as the one explained how the other one kept digging her in the ribs when they were asleep.  We were woken up at 7.30...the time we were due in Edinburgh...by a stewardess who explained that the train had broken down and we would have to change.  then she came back and said we didn't have to change.  Then she came back and said we did have to change.  The Cat's Mother generally retained her sense of humour.

Anyway, we eventually arrived in Alba at about 10.30, dumped our bags and headed up Scott's Monument.  Gorgeous view...but for someone who suffers from vertigo these days, being crowded into a space about the size of a bath tub with twenty other people a couple of hundred foot above the ground was a challenge for me.  The Cat's Mother generally lost her sense of humour as we first fought our way up the 278 steps and then fought our way down again.

Edinburgh is just a fabulous city...it has a solid beauty which must be matched by few others anywhere in the world.  It's fantastically laid out, and really I could wander around for days enjoying the magnificent architecture.

We were there to see The Cat and The Boy perform in 'The Actors Nightmare'.  They can't possibly realise how lucky they are to be a part of The Fringe...it's something that I hope they will both look back on with much affection and pride in the future.

Other highlights were La Clique...a fabulous cabaret show that we've seen before, but that didn't make this any less memorable....particularly the forty-five year old man dressed in a sparkling blue lycra bunny outfit, and Piff the magic dragon who did terrible things to his chihuahua (RSPCA - not really).



(from an earlier tour)

Best of all for me by a mile was 'WotNoFish'...a heart rending tale of the narrator's great aunt and uncle, Ab and Celie Solomon.  The Great Uncle had drawn a cartoon on his wage packet every week and given it to Celie his wife, and together the wage packets told the tale of their life together.  Beautifully told by David Braverman, who manages to subtly draw you in from the beginning, and make you laugh and cry as their story unfolds.  Truly inspiring.



Other than that we saw some hit and miss comedy, and a show that sums up all that's great and bad about British society: 'Shitfaced Shakespeare'...as you might expect it's a performance of Much Ado, with one of the actors completely and utterly legless.  You couldn't help but laugh, but really it's a complete train crash.

Anyway, I took some pictures

The journey home was a little easier

Normal? Service? will be resumed as soon as possible

In the meantime, I read that some 300 people have complained to the advertising watchdogs, the ASA, about the new Marmite advert.  Evidently it demeans the work of animal rescue charities.  If ever we needed proof that people need to get a life (or just a sense of humour)...

Romance...

I had this lovely romantic idea of travelling to Edinburgh overnight on the sleeper train. Unfortunately ScotRail has other ideas as we both sit on the concourse of Euston station past midnight. From the announcements it seems they have lost the carriages. This may not have been one of my better ideas...

Run Fat Boy Run

They say that as you get older, time goes more quickly.  There's even some scientific reasoning to it.  When you're two, one year is fifty per cent of your life, when you're fifty it's two per cent.  So I must be ancient beyond belief as I hadn't noticed how quickly the last week rolled round.

The Boy did return in one piece.  I'm told that if we wait six months we will hear all the horror stories one by one.  So far he has mentioned "there is only one night I don't remember'.  Contrary to our text conversations during the week, I now discover they were essentially leaving their apartment at midnight to go and enjoy themselves...and there was I thinking they were all safely tucked up in bed by then.  According to him 'Geordies are a different breed'.  He means it in a negative way.  I agree with him, but mean it in a positive way!

The Cat's Mother and I went to see Goldfrapp on Saturday evening at Somerset House.  It's a beautiful location, and no band ever sounds bad there.  The Boy's first concert was at Somerset House...we saw Turin Brakes there, and the group remains one of our favourites.  As for Goldfrapp though, oh dear.  She has a beautiful, intoxicating voice and there was no doubting the performance (I think she just about made 50 minutes) sounded glorious.  But the set started off with some slow numbers that nobody knew, and you could see the thumbs twiddling...it wasn't until the last twenty minutes that that the favourites were played. Good for her for not pandering to our lowest common denominator, but really we're a shallow lot and needed her to kick the gig off with something more lively.  She did suffer from a touch of the Kings of Leon too...long breaks between songs when they seemed to be deciding what they were going to play next...so even when the songs were lively, there was no real momentum.  Anyway, a bit of a disappointment...but that won't stop me from buying the new album in September.

I'll skip over the two days spent rehearsing and performing in The Olympic Park for the 'GoLocal' event.  It was quite fun to be up on the same stage that Bruce Springsteen had strutted his stuff to earlier this year, but I was there for the last time doing the choreography as a 'Working Man' from the Olympic Opening Ceremony' with the pandemonium Drummers...what I came to realise is that these things have a finite life...and that time has come and gone.  I loved it at the time, I've enjoyed reprising my stuff, but time to move on...so goodbye to the 35,000 people that were watching us this time.

The absolute highlight of the last week was my run.  The National Lottery Run was 5 miles, around the Olympic Park finishing in the stadium itself.  I really don't enjoy running at all, so have found it a challenge to get 'race fit', but as I suspected lining up with 14,999 of my closest friends was a truly amazing experience. At the front were the celebs...Mel C, Victoria Pendleton, Paula Radcliffe and we were started by Chris Hoy.  Round the park we went until we entered the stadium to the waiting audience (we had all been given two tickets for spectators) to enormous roars and cheers.  Amazingly I was able to spot The Cat's Mother and The Boy and waved happily back as they cheered and whooped.  I loved it.  I may even do some more running...not too much as it will shake my body to bits, but just enough to keep me in shape.

Red hot

When I drove back from Brighton the other evening, I was overtaken by this

It is indeed a stretch-limousine Ferrari.  I can only hope that it is the result of two written off Ferraris being rebuilt as one, rather than someone taking a fabulous sports car and ruining it.  My one other thought though is that from my (limited) Ferrari experience, it'll be so noisy and low inside that nobody will be able to either converse or enjoy themselves.

With just four days to go, I have discovered that I will be competing with Paula Radcliffe at the Anniversary run.  Now we all know lovely Paula, so I have decided that at all costs I must start the race ahead of her and keep ahead, in case she has one of her 'incidents'.  Mind you. I have less of an issue chasing after Victoria Pendleton.

The Boy let me know that tonight he is going here.



Oh dear, oh dear.  What happened to my baby boy?

Now or never

I drove down to Brighton by myself on Saturday.  As the sun was shining, I was able to take the top off the car...no this isn't like a fancy BMW or Mercedes where you push a button and it magically disappears in a few seconds, this is a Jeep, so you twist the latches, unscrew the bolts and lift the roof panels off.  With  a bit of patience you can fit them in the back of the car.  With the poor summers over the last couple of years, you won't be surprised to know that this hasn't happened for a while...if there's a sudden downpour, you just get soaked whilst you struggle to put it all back together.

Anyway, it was a lovely drive, and when the traffic ground to a halt, it was quite fun to be able to stand on the seat and have a look around, just like Rommel in North Africa.  Even better was the return journey home.  There is something truly special driving in the dark with the sky above you and the wind rushing through (what's left of) your hair.  I've even done it when it's been snowing, although many would class that as foolishness.

Whilst the temperature hit 30 degrees as I passed Gatwick, by the time I'd gone through the South Downs, we were at a rather more pleasant 20 degrees.  The sky was still blue, and there was not a spare inch to be found on the beach.  Brighton at it's best.  In the early evening I continued my preparations for next Sunday's run, managing a very creditable 5.8km in 38 minutes.  I will have one more run on Wednesday, when I aim to do the full 8 km, then I'll be set for the Olympic Stadium and ever lasting glory (cough).

I had travelled to the south coast because The Boy and his Sister have a whole pile of stuff in storage there.  In the aftermath of their mother's death, much was put into storage rather than put them through the trauma of having to shift through her belongings and through away stuff that would they would have been emotionally attached to.  However, more than a decade has now passed, the storage costs are phenomenal at £100/month, so the time has come to sort it out.  But we've not visited the facility for ten years so I had to act as the advanced party...firstly finding the place again, then making sure the code for the entrance was still working before opening the combination lock.  I fell at the last hurdle when I realised that the padlock didn't contain two of the digits that I 'knew' the code would consist of.  I had to ask the man to cut it.  Fortunately just as he was about to, he realised that I wasn't pushing 'the button'...so I did, thought of a number, doubled it, added 45, divided by three and then took away the number I'd first thought of and it sprung open.  A quick check shows that most of it is just going to be junked.  I shan't be there as The Cat's Mother and I will be away, so it will be The Boy, his Sister, their Uncle and Grandma in Wales who will be looking through everything.  It will be a very emotional moment I don't doubt, but better now than ten years ago and better now than never.

Bile

Here's some art being painted by ROA, who remains my favourite street artist:



If you want a small moment of amusement go to the Vogue magazine website at
http://vogue.co.uk then using the arrow keys press up up, down down, left, right, left, right, b, a. Keep your eyes at the bottom of the screen.
There is no news from Magaluf which I regard as a good thing. They may be up to some terrible things, but at least (so far) nothing has gone hideously wrong.
We can't help but read the reviews of the things we've been to see at the theatre/cinema...it may be a sign of insecurity I guess. We read one review of Despicable Me2 which had the story so wrong that we concluded the reviewer hadn't actually see the film; we read a review of Kenneth Branagh's MacBeth that a) told the story b) quoted some of the lines as if this was the first time they'd ever been spoken...really if this is what being a critic is all about, I've missed my vocation. I was highly amused to read that after JK Rowling was revealed as the author of a detective novel, sales of the thing have rocketed. Robert Galbraith, as she calls herself, had penned a fine book called The Cuckoo's Calling which had garnered praises from many critics, but sold just 1500 copies. What I wonder suddenly makes it so much better now that JK is known to have written it? Of course I do know...people are like sheep and find comfort in familiarity...I working in the 'brand' industry so understand the value of a brand...this is a great case study. But really, really, really...either a book is something you want to read..it really doesn't get better just because you know who the author is. In my case, I don't like detective stories usually so I'll be saving my pennies.
I love where we live...Epping Forest is a beautiful place.
But, but, but... I struggle with the people who live in our neck of the woods, and the town of Loughton itself. It is a cultural desert. If you walk down the high street, the culinary highlight is a Kentucky Fried Chicken, most of the shops are dull and uninteresting and the place simply has no heart. Is this really the state of small towns across the country? I hope not...it's desperate. The houses in general are also dull and uninspiring - mostly mid-war, many post war with a sad conformity. Even the people who have money (and there are many) choose to create hideous nouveau-riche mansions of which the main feature will be a couple of romanesque pillars either side of the front door, and an electronically operated gate to the paved 'front garden'. The need to show off your wealth means that even the smallest terraced house will have a Porsche or Range Rover parked outside. The people too are a challenge...I notice this mostly when I've spent a few hours in Brighton. They are brash, aggressive and inelegant in their perma-tans and buttock-clenching short shorts or bright scarlet velour jumpsuits.
Friday night was the highlight of the local social calendar - the local sports club Ball. The sight of so many middle-aged and beyond women with their bleached blond hair, even more orange faces and rolls of fat pouring out of dresses that were at least two sizes too small for them and acres of blingy jewellery was hideous. Not that the men were any better...at least it's difficult to go wrong with a Dinner Suit, even if some of the shirts would look better as curtains in the Sound of Music. Obviously 'present company excluded'.
Anyway, I'll no doubt get lynched when I head home tonight.

Inbetween

As I sit here, six brave/foolish young women are scaling The Shard to protest against Shell drilling for oil in the Arctic.  If you're quick, you may just catch it here

If you missed it, not to worry, it's all over the news.

The Cat's Mother has a new car, and she's very excited about it.  A little Toyota Yaris (in fact it's a standard size Yaris, which is a little car).  I've yet to get in it, but I know it's full of gadgets...sat nav, connect you phone through bluetooth, etc, etc so obviously it's good.  Best of all is the glass roof, which almost makes it a civilised cabriolet....almost.

Anyway, on the day she got it, The Cat was out with the 'old' Yaris which is now being shared between her and The Boy.  Whether it happened when she was carefully maneuvering in the car park, of whether it was swiped by someone else, I don't know, but there is now a rather large scratch and dent down the side.  On a new car, it would be a tragedy.  On a car driven by teenagers, it's to be expected and won't be fixed.

The Boy has gone off with some mates for an end-of-school holiday.  He's packed the sun tan lotion and some Euros, and not much else.  They're off to Magaluf.  I'm nervous as hell, and we've both given him a stern talking to.  It'll have fallen on deaf ears no doubt.  And providing he comes back in one piece I'll be happy.  I hope he does at least send me one text a day.  Anyway, for the next week I will not be watching this film

It's grim up north

My running is getting better at the moment.  There's only another 12 days until I have to do five miles around the Olympic Park, so I think I've done well to get it up to nearly 5km.  I continue to loathe the idea of running, although having realised that I can listen to music on my phone helps enormously.  If only the damned headphones didn't keep popping out; I may have to resort to doing what we did in the Ceremony...taping them in.  Anyway, I'm quietly confident that I will actually make it.

Poor UP remains stuck in the hospital.  It's always nice to be relaxing when the weather's nice, but I suspect this may not be his idea of fun.  I popped in for a quick visit yesterday and realised that he was doing well to keep his spirits up.  It's one thing to be practically comatose through illness, where being in bed all day doesn't really matter, but when you're awake and fully functional, it must be tedious in extremis.

Up was supposed to come with The Queen and The Cat's Mother and I to Manchester this weekend, but his injuries prevented this...another reason he will be feeling low.  We went up there to see some friends...and to see Kenneth Brannagh perform MacBeth.

The Scottish play was being performed in an abandoned church in Manchester's North Quarter.  This is one of those areas that is full of satanic mills which are gradually being turned into hyper-trendy shops, offices and  apartments.  Bravo I say...it is a tragedy to see these places being ripped down, when with a bit of imagination they can be turned into fantastically attractive areas.  There is a slight however:  at the moment I would guess there isn't the economy to support the development... I'm talking partially blind here, so may just be talking nonsense, but it certainly felt as though much of the property stock was empty, and the area still had a feeling of desolation.  This provoked a discussion on the way home about how our experience was at least in our experience of the accountancy field and the creative sector, there is not a strong enough underlying economy outside of London to support the level of business the country needs to support its urban societies.  In fact after a gin and tonic or two, we speculated on  the impact not of Scotland seceding from the Union, but what would happen if everything inside the M25 broke free?  Anyway, that's soft southerners talking a load of old drunken nonsense really.

Back to Kenneth...performed in a deconsecrated church with the audience of an aisle filled with mud, this was a MacBeth that will be talked about for a long time.  At the start, water pours as rain from above to confirm this is the bleak highlands.  THroughout, the actors have to wade knee deep through the mud as they move from one end to the other...they must have been exhausted especially wearing such heavy costumes in hot weather.  We were in the front row which meant that we had to keep ducking as heavy metal swords clashed just inches from our heads....you could smell the sweat.  It was earthy indeed.  Poor Banquo came to his very sticky end right in front of our noses, spraying mud and blood everywhere - no wonder the organisers said don't wear your best frock.  The weird sisters were extremely weird, keeping an eye on things with their sinister machinations throughout the performance. Kenneth played his part well...very well, as did Alex Kingston as the mad and bad Lady MacBeth, MacDuff was superb.  Anyway, although tickets have long sold out, you can still get to see it as a cinema near you on 20th July through National Theatre Live.  I don't quite know how they will convey the atmosphere created in the church, but if they can you will be in for an absolute treat...really I do recommend you don't miss it.

Yes, that is blood splattered all over my t-shirt...a MacBeth souvenir from the Globe that caused much comment and appreciation...even from the actors themselves

Norfolk'n'Good at maths

In case you were wondering, UP spent the weekend in hospital.  The Cat's Mother took him off to A&E, and they sternly advised against going anywhere.  His heel is broken in several places...and the swelling has been so bad he's blistered badly.  As usual, in my ever helpful way, I've offered him this to help him get better:

It's funny how mathematical problems can crop up unexpectedly.

Rog wrote last week about a new 'app' that identifies each 3sq metre spot on the earth in just three words...this being easier than trying to memorise 14 digit digital codes.  He did the maths to show that it was more than possible even though there are nearly 57 trillion squares around the globe.  It was a sunny Friday afternoon when I read it, my brain was a bit slow, and it's a long time since I did maths (you should see the monthly invoices I send out...invariably wrong!), so not surprisingly I couldn't quite follow his workings.  That does not make him a bad teacher, but it may make me a bad pupil.  It's worth a read here

They say you can't judge a book by its cover, which is, in my book, nonsense.

Many, many years ago I went on a holiday to Turkey...and our flight home was delayed.  I headed to the bookshop which was quite sparsely populated with books strangely.  My usual technique for choosing a book is to open it at a random page, and if I like what's on that page I'll buy it.  I may have done it on this occasion, but I'm not sure.  I was certainly more drawn to the cover...a dirty, sandy yellow, with the dark shadow of a hound across it. It bellowed MENACE.  As we waited for our flight, I settled in to the book.  I was so engrossed, so hooked, that I managed to read it before the flight was finally called.  It was a dark and indeed menacing tale by an author who, at the time I had never heard of - Ian McEwan and was called Black Dogs.  I then went on to buy all his books and read them avidly.   Some have been made into films or TV programmes, and they are lapped up as well.  I wouldn't like to say whether I prefer Atonement or The Comfort of Strangers - they were both excellent on the screen. I'm still an absolute fan and look forward to every novel.  As he has aged, the core of 'fear and menace' that inhabits his books has declined, and both his most recent books - Solar and Sweet Tooth pretty much avoid it altogether.  But I still enjoy his work very much indeed.

We were fortunate enough last week to be able to listen to the man himself talk about Sweet Tooth at an event staged by the Guardian Book club.  This is not the first time I've heard him talk about his work - I went to a similar discussion some years ago.  It was most illuminating...not least because of the way an author can debunk some of the nonsense written about his own works...what do people's names mean?  Nothing - he tries to keep them completely neutral, although by some remarkable coincidence, the 'hero' of Sweet Tooth nearly shared his name with a real lecturer at Sussex University that had the same interests.  Why was the address of one location so precise?  Because it came up on Google Maps. Etc, etc.  He's a witty, interesting and clearly very clever man indeed...I shall return to Sweet Tooth and have a re-read.  It was a great evening...especially for me, although The Cat's Mother hasn't actually read the book...ooops.

One of the topics of discussion at the evening was the 'Monty Hall Problem'...it's something that makes an interesting appearance in the book.  The scenario is that you can select one out of three doors and behind one of the three is a prize; behind the others, nothing.  Once you have chosen (the door remains closed at this stage), Monty Hall will open one of the other doors revealing that it does not contain the prize.  You are then give the opportunity to switch your choice to the other box or stay with your original choice.  The question is...does it matter if you switch?.  Most people get it wrong...but do you know the right answer?  Problem better explained, and answer given here


And a brief description of how the problem is mis-told in McEwans book (thank you Significance Magazine)


Haley re-imagines the problem as a tale of suspected cuckoldry, in which, after some development, a jealous husband finds himself before three hotel room doors (401, 402, and 403) and knows that his wife is behind one of the doors with another man. He has one chance to break down a door and catch her in the act of betrayal. But which door to choose? Haley's protagonist settles on 403 just as an Indian couple with several small children leave room 401. Convinced that he now has a two-thirds chance of catching her if he switches his initial choice: "He makes his run, he leaps, the door of 402 smashes open and there are the couple, naked in bed, just getting going". Haley titles the story "Probable Adultery".

Haley's work, as Serena well recognizes, is a disappointment logically and artistically. Misguided by rash enthusiasm, he has tried to house a betrayal plot within the shaky walls of a mathematical conundrum, missing the critical point that Monty does not choose a door at random and the larger point that, either way, no reader of fiction is likely to care. What will be of interest to readers is the way, through Frome's reaction to the story, McEwan masterfully turns Haley's creative failure into his own success. By unjustly blaming herself for Haley's mistake--a mistake minds as brilliant as Paul Erdös didn't need a gorgeous blonde to help them make--Serena adds to a pattern of self-condemnation in romantic relationships that has dictated the course of her young life. As with the heterosexual experiments of Jeremy Mott and the dirtied blouse left in Tony Canning's hamper, Serena is simply incapable of telling a man that he has had a silly idea. So, rather than confront Haley with her misgivings, she sheepishly rewrites the details of his hotel scene to make the story, if not artistically interesting, at least logically correct. In this way, the Monty Hall Problem becomes a surprising backdrop to the early romantic frustrations of a female spy and lover of novels.

McEwan's decision to give the most famous of probability problems such prominence in his novel suggests more than a passing interest. The structure of Monty's game, in fact, resurfaces later in the story, when a piece in the Guardian exposing MI5's backing of Haley forces Serena to make a critical and final decision--maintain the lie about her role or confess and risk losing everything. Like so many of the game show contestants that have stood before Monty's two unopened doors, Serena does not turn to a mathematical law or logical rule to get out of her predicament. She relies, instead, on intuition, which proves, in this instance, a less disastrous guide in love than it is probability.