Not Bognor

Yes I do realise there's more than a striking resemblence with Llandudno and Barnsley...but no you're not quite right...and well done to the clever clogs..we are indeed in Kirzbuhel. I will be taking up the eating suggestions. When we're back I will respond to the comments on the last post..can't now as I'm doing this on my phone whilst doing my best Eddie the Eagle impersonation. We're here with the Muffins...so I'll also let you know whether I can maintain my record of reducing a child to tears by beating them at cards. The Grande Dame who runs the hotel will not be pleased. Oh and The Boy appears to have the offer of a job as a ski instructor here next year during his gap year...they'd have taken him tomorrow if they could!

Wish you were here

Can you guess where?

Dear George

I recently gave you a 'cast list' for Don't Panic. RTFM.  You can find it here.

Gay George and Gay John moved out of the office not long before Christmas...but we've kept in touch.  They decided that they'd like to have a virtual office in readiness for George moving to the country.They're good guys, really good fun to have around and I think of them as friends.....even though Jon's share tips are to be avoided like the plague...as are his betting tips.  I can't tell you how much I've lost through his recommendations.  Whenever I bit and went with one of Jon's tips, a wry smile would come over George's face as he himself firmly zipped up his wallet and put it in his pocket.

Since they moved out, we've saved a fortune in tea costs.  These two are chain-tea drinkers.  They are never without a mug of PG Tips in one hand.  When they first arrived, I thought I could handle it and tried to keep up with them...but the exercise I got from running backwards and forwards to the toilet was wearing me out. The dishwasher could barely keep up as well.

When it came to food, lunchtime would always be a hot dog.  Day in, day out.  The smell was tantalising   And this was frustrating because they would eat lunch at no later than 11...so I had to stick it out for another couple of hours.  Eventually they decided to vary their diet and would wander down to Sainsbury's to see what was on offer.  Anything cheap was good.   Sometimes they would come back with half a dozen shepherd pies which would keep them going for a few days.

Sport was always a hot topic...I could join in using my best 'blokishness', but really didn't have a clue - Cricket, Football, Rugby were daily conversations.  Tennis less regularly...but eventually I found I could express an opinion on whichever team or player and they were wise enough to just nod and agree.  On other topics, the debates could be lively.  George was invariably vitriolic about anything where he had an opinion...trying to get a word in edgeways was nigh on impossible.  We shared a common view on bankers and politicians.

I was due to meet up for a beer with Gay George, but surprisingly hadn't heard from him.

I got this e-mail last night from Jon

"George has had an accident and been knocked off his bike. It happened last Friday and he hasn't been conscious since. There is some pressure on his brain so they are treading carefully. He has facial fractures and fractures to the hip and pelvis. Will keep you posted"

George is married, in his mid-30's and has two young children.  He cycles everyday - their business is 'inventory clerks' so they would go from property to property on folding bikes.  George wears a helmet.

I'm knocked for six by this...and desperately hoping he pulls through.  I hope his wife and family are coping, it must be really traumatic for them 

Foreign sagas

The Oscar Pistorius saga is unfolding as the day wears on today, and it's left me feeling quite melancholy.  Who knows what the eventual outcome will be...it's sad enough that a promising young woman has been killed.  Pistorius helped light up the summer last year, and inevitably, this will cast a shadow over the memories of those glorious days.

Last night, The Cat's Mother did something that she would never have done before she met me.  It's a fascination how we can end up doing different things when we meet someone.  She has spent many years enjoying more 'mainstream' entertainment...I, on the other hand, enjoy different, new, challenging.  Together it makes for a rewarding life.  So we took to the streets of Dalston, one of London's roughest/trendiest areas to find The Dalston Boys Club.  We were going to The Art of Dining - an experiential dinner evening.  The theme was Victorian dining, called 'Eat your heart out'.  With these you turn up and sit amongst strangers...you either love it or you hate it.  As well as your meal, there is entertainment...in this case, a lady and a gentleman extolling the (humorous) virtues and vices of Victorian marriage.  It took a strange turn when  the husband suggested that after the initial passion subsides you should turn to buggery, and the wife suggested intimate friendships with her lady friends.  But apart from that, it was a marvel.  The hall had been decorated with lots of Victoriana (mostly faux, but certainly adding to the theatre of the evening).  It was a five course meal with cocktails and a bottle of wine.  I can remember some of it - to start a beetroot and apple soup, followed by a thinly-sliced heart salad, then a mackerel pate with rhubarb jelly, and then duck and finally a delicious tart.  We started off with a champagne, gin, Cointreau and marmalade cocktail, enjoyed a beetroot bloody Mary, and finished with something else...all washed down with a scrummy red wine.  Apologies if the details are sparse, but neither of us are used to downing large amounts of alcohol in the middle of the week.  This morning was not fun at all.

We sat next to a Russian couple.  Exactly as expected, he was a digital technology guy, and she was a model (she had just come from a photo-shoot with Rankin...and had the photos to show us!).  They were very sociable, and we very much enjoyed their company.  For me what was totally extraordinary was that they hadn't come from the great metropolises of Moscow or St Petersburg, but from a city called Perm.  On his right arm...the whole length - he had a tattoo of the city's Contemporary art museum. I'm betting you've never heard of it...we certainly hadn't.  It has a population of about a million, and from the way they described it, it is a sort of communist-built Milton Keynes.  I think they said it's a three-day train journey from Moscow...that's a long way - it is definitely Europe's most eastern city, and sits in the Urals on the 'border' with Asia.  That is so remote....I looked it up on a map.  For some reason I've got a little obsessed with it, trying to work out how two people from such a far-off and remote place could end up living and working in London.  I think it says something remarkably good about how London in particular, and the UK in general is seen by the outside world.  It certainly made for an enjoyable and interesting conversation.

I don't think our model will thank me for this picture of her

Investing in the future

Given the latest food crisis, I'm a little worried about The Cat's Mother suggesting we have Toad in the Hole for supper.  It was bad enough eating Hot Dog last night.  And as for the Horseradish sauce on the beef at the weekend...

On Monday evevning we fought our way through the snow to go and see an off beat production at The Roundhouse in Camden.  It was my choice, and based on me thinking we would be seeing something different and challenging...just the way I like my theatre.  In fact Robert Lepage's Playing Cards is two and a half hours of tedium....some very clever staging but a bunch of ill-defined and uninteresting characters.  It was quite a spectacle as you can see from these pictures...but it failed the 'bum test'...how long before you start wriggling on your seat - I managed ten minutes...leaving another another 140 to go.  It did pass (oh for heavens sake!) the todger test...yes one of the male characters was all naked and flaunty.  I'm still waiting for some theatre with boobs and bits, whilst The Cat's Mother keeps eye-balling the male offerings.

You know I like Street Art...well here's someone making our telephone exchange boxes a bit more attractive

Crowd sourcing is the new 'thing'.  If you've not come across it, essentially it's about getting a large number of people to cough up a little money to make a thing happen.  Most famous is 'Kickstarter'...currently trying to persuade a very large number of people to find some ready dollars to build a Death Star.  If I remember rightly, they need $54,000,000,000,000.  Which is quite a lot.  I got involved once in the funding for some very clever bicycle lights...called REVO Lights.  They've gone through all the testing, prototyping and so on before going into production.  My set arrived.  I read the instructions, realised that to fit them was more complicated than building a spacecraft, so they now sit unloved in the garage.  If you knew how much I'd spent, you'd think I was an idiot.

Foolishly, I failed to donate to Lloyd Cole's latest album...he was looking for funds to pay for the recording of the music.  I hesitated.  I don't know why...I would love to have thought of myself as a record producer.  I still feel the music world beckons.  Anyway, the album will be out soon(ish)

My latest venture into Crowd Funding is 'Unbound'.  I've contributed to the costs of publishing a book on Street Art here.  If you fancy it, put a little bit of money in...you know I want you to.

I am Superman

I was doing my favourite thing on Friday night...falling asleep on the sofa whilst everyone else was out.  Peace and quiet and a hopeless French (comedy) film - OSS117



But then The Cat materialised and wanted a lift to the station.  I returned to a text from The Cat's Mother that she was nearly at the station after her evening.  Naturally I went to pick her up.  Except she had jumped in a cab.  Even before the snow fell, it was a little frosty.

Saturday daytime was taken up with rehearsals for The Chinese New Year's Parade, before we headed off to a card evening with friends and around thirty two other people.  I hate cards.  And I didn't know the rules for whist.  So whilst consuming large quantities of slow-roast pork belly I drank gallons of red wine.  In my head I was the funniest person there.

And then the early start for the Parade.  There were supposed to be changing facilities...but the women had taken over the men's tent, as well as their own, and got all arsey when we started taking our trousers off in front of them.  So we retreated and I decided that rather than undress in the road whilst getting soaked by the rain, I would get into costume in a telephone box.  I can assure you a telephone box just of Trafalgar Square on a Sunday morning is not somewhere you want to be for long.

Eventually the parade started and we were mobbed by a vast crowd...it was fabulous, although a little un-nerving.  We went up from Trfalgar Square, along Charing Cross Road, down into Sftsbury Avenue and then along into China Town.  Unlike the Olympic Stadium there was literally no distance between us and everyone watching...with all those cameras going, I began to understand what it must be like to be famous.  We all loved it!  We did our choreography...but remarkably someone managed to take this just as we were having a rest!



At the end we cut off and relived our performance in Leicester Square, gathering quite a crowd.  All good fun if a little damp and freezing

It's a joke

Here we go again...yet another food crisis.  We've managed a couple of years without one, so it was well overdue.  I sit here amazed that the food industry...at all levels...can lurch from crisis to crisis...it must be one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the UK as we pander to all sorts of neuroses, yet still it's at home to Captain Cock-Up.  There's only two things about it that I've taken as positives...one - I discovered that Findus still exists...I thought it had died away a very long time ago, in fact probably went out with the floral shirts of the 1970's, and secondly whilst all this is going on the anniversary of Shergar's disappearance has been marked...a cruel juxtaposition I feel.  Personally, I'm quite happy to eat horse, just providing it's gone through he proper channels.  Anyway, it's a shame that these incidents just re-inforce the notion that 'food is bad' rather than the 'food is to be celebrated' as it is in France, Spain, Italy, etc, etc.  At home that shows itself when The Cat refuses to touch anything beyond its 'sell by' or 'best before' dates and woe betide any banana that has even the feintist hint of brown on it. Anyway, the general application of common sense, rather than yet more rules and regulations by faceless bureaucrats would seem the way forward to me.

I can't bring myself to comment on the mid-Staffs hospital crisis as my father was dying of Parkinsons there at the time.  I'm sure a lot of good, hardworking nurses and doctors are feeling their names have been blackened by the poor work of the few.

I was amused by the controversy over a Margaret Thatcher statue that either is or isn't wanted in her home town, and certainly saddened that some unguarded comments by an employee of the local museum have got her suspended.  I'm having to redefine my views about the woman herself...I've always held true that although she caused a lot of angst and misery for many, many people, we should thank her for the changes that brought Britain into the modern world....however, I now think that what she did was lay the foundations for the relentlessly heartless policies of Tony Blair which has dehumanised society to the level that allows the Staffordshire Health Trust problem to occur.....and whilst I'm at it allowed the bankers to screw us over (I'll never get off that band-wagon).

Last week was one of those relatively quiet weeks on the social front for us.  Monday I managed a beer at the local hostelry...not something I do often and it was brilliant to be sitting putting the world to rights over a pint or two of Guinness.  A simple pleasure, simply enjoyed.  And then last night it was comedy evening at The School...three tip top comedians for a tenner...absolutely marvellous:

Carl Donnelly



Jim Smallman



And finally the extremely funny  Markus Birdman



Enjoy the show

Travel traumas

I had the following from Transport for London today:

"I am writing to let you know that if you drive in London, you can now follow us on Twitter for real time road traffic updates in London. Transport for London provide information about traffic disruptions, road closures and re‑openings for road users."

So it's all right to be checking out your Twitter feed whilst driving is it?

As part of the University application process, The Boy has gone off to Warwick University today.  Transport for London hasn't helped by making the Central Line run so badly this morning that he missed his train.  Not to worry though, because the ticket I bought him from The Trainline was an off-peak one, so he hopped on the next train.  Except that the ticket collector decided his ticket wasn't valid on that train so made him cough up another £45.  Now, if I'd been there, I'd have argued my corner and caused a God Almighty scene...but as a seventeen year old he has thankfully not inherited my temperament. It was fortunate that he had the £45 otherwise heaven only knows what would have happened.  Still, it's given me a good reason to ring The Trainline and hurl abuse at them, and I will also do so at Virgin Trains....

Year of the snake

Well it's a bit of a shame about Chris Huhne...although to be fair nobody seems to have a good word for him (and after all, what good sport it is, kicking a man when he's down).  Now I'm not saying that his then wife should have taken the points for him...but, by hearsay, that's not uncommon, but it does seem a shame that an entire career is destroyed by what started off as something so small.  There's an irony that he lost his licence anyway just a few weeks later when caught by the police for using his mobile whilst driving.  I wonder how the ex-Mrs Huhne feels now.  She told the journalist as a woman scorned.  Does revenge feel good?  And if it does, will it still feel good in the future?  I somehow doubt it.  I read that both Mr and the ex-Mrs are best described as 'highly manipulative', so perhaps they should have stayed together as they seem well suited.

This weekend there will be celebrations aplenty amongst the Chinese community as it's the Chinese New Year....the year of the snake.  I was born in the year of the rat.  Why don't they have nice animals for their years?  How about Year of the Pussycat, Year of the Koala, Year of the Budgerigar?  London's ChinaTown will be one of the major centres of celebration, and if you happen to be free come down and have a look in the morning.  No not at the dancing Chinese lions and dragons, but at me, me, me.  Some of the Olympic Opening Ceremony Drummers and Working Men and Women will be reprising their roles from the Pandemonium Sequence.  I will be one of them.  I'm very much looking forward to it.  I won't be able to take the grin off my face.

Welcome to the year of the snake.

Friday night

I'm back on the Marmite again...here we are with a complete collection of limited editions.  The right-hand one is the most recent...you'll notice it is without much branding...that was an idea of Selfridges about reducing 'noise'.

We were in Selfridges just a couple of weeks ago, and sitting just near us was Chris Eubank and a pretty embarrassed mate.  the former was trying to chat up an attractive woman who was having none of it.  Eventually the mate got up and walked out, and shortly former boxer Eubank swaggered out too.  The lovely lady simply got on with drinking her champagne whilst waiting for her friends...or perhaps...date to arrive.

We used to see former boxer Eubank regularly.  He liked to think of himself as a dandy, we thought of him as a tosser.  He used to drive a vast American truck backwards and forwards along Brighton seafront to attract attention.  some people waved, most ignored him.  Presumably he stopped when he was declared bankrupt.

On Saturday night we were in Brighton and went to see Django.  I cannot help but enjoy Quentin Tarrantino films...I think he's brilliant.  The Cat's Mother enjoyed the film too, although she didn't see as much as me as she hid behind her hands every time there was a gory bit.  It's a great story, wonderfully filmed and as usual has a fantastic soundtrack.  Leonardo DiCaprio was at his best, as  are Christoph Waltz and Samuel L Jackson and of course Jamie Foxx.  Tarantino should stick to writing and directing and producing as his acting skills are yet to be found.  The mandingo fighting was grim.  Watch out for the woman (?) in the red scarf...and let me know if you get the significance.

We'd arrived in Brighton very late Friday night having been up The Shard....now being billed as Western Europe's tallest building, since those damned Russians built something taller in Moscow, and evidently that is considered to be in Europe.  It was the first day it was open to the public, and I'd bought tickets months ago for The Cat's Mother's birthday in September.  The view is absolutely spectacular...especially at night.  I would say well-worth the trip, but they've put the price up to £30 each, so 'worth' doesn't come into it.  I would also recommend you take a polishing cloth up there with you to wipe away all the hand and nose smudges which didn't help see London.  Anyway, a great thing to do, if you can find someone to treat you.

It's a voracious sump inhabited by an eternal and mutating Driberg

This is either the best spoof ever...or will make you wretch for hours.  I fall into the latter group.



For no sensible reason, I 'upgraded' my lap top from Windows 7 to Windows 8.  It may have been because I live in terror of getting left behind by anything technological....plus it could be bought for just £24.  It was a complete success, other than the touch-screen is now no longer touch sensitive, and I had to leave it on overnight because I couldn't work out how to turn it off.  This morning I went to 'help' to discover that Microsoft recommends you just shut the lid.  There's progress for you.

When I was a young lad we lived in a typical English village...Hatfield Heath (no where near Hatfield) village green, village church (several of them in fact), village hall, village baker, village pub (several of them in fact), village butcher, village cobbler, drapers, general store, newsagent et al.  There was an annual village fate,cricket matches throughout the summer and generally it was a lovely place.  Even at a tender age though, I knew that it was a good thing our address was Hertfordshire (because that was the location of the nearest town - Bishops Stortford) and not Essex which is actually the county the village is located in.  I don't think Essex had taken on the image that it developed in the eighties, but it was well on the way.

I stayed away from Essex for decades living in either Brighton or London.  But with The Boy growing up and in need of a decent education, we moved from urban Borough High Street to Buckhurst Hill.  It was really the first time I'd been there for a very long time.  And what I discovered was that everything that was ridiculed about Essex was true.  We lived on one corner of the WAGS triangle (Buckhurst Hill, Loughton and Chigwell).  Everyone had a Range Rover or a Porsche or both.  Everyone was perma-tanned.  Everyone had so much bling that you knew where The Bank of England had sold off its gold too.  "Alright babe?" was the native greeting.  The best restaurant in town was Kentucky Fried Chicken.  It made me smile.  It was like living in a cartoon.  I thought they should make a film of it.  They didn't, but they did make 'TOWIE' - the only way is Essex.  Virjazal became common parlance.  Nobody around could recognise themselves in it, and addictive as it was, they rubbished it.  But I cannot tell a lie...it was and indeed is a fair reflection of a large group of the local population.  I can't bare to watch it, so the clip below is just randomly selected from You Tube



But, there's a different Essex.  In fact 95% of Essex is different.  It's really a rather lovely place.  And it has been left to Jonathan Meades to tell us all about it.  Now, I have to confess that I've have always been a bit of a Jonathan Meades Groupy...I find him fascinating and fabulous.  I suspect he's a bit of a Marmite man...love him or hate him.  So I was glad he turned his gaze on Essex.  You can and should watch it on the BBC iPlayer...it's a gem.  Here's the link.

In the meantime here's a clip from one of his previous outings...there are so many to choose from, and I suspect if you watch one clip, you'll either become a complete addict or thow your computer out of the window.

Up to the highest height

Here's a picture I took this week.  I know I've photographed The Shard from many angles, but this one I rather like...not to say I haven't liked all the others.

OK, so we're not actually going to fly a kite...but this is a clue to our nocturnal activities this evening (sort of)

Picture post 142

We bought a rather wonderful spherical lamp made up of sea shells which when you look from across the room look like roses

Umbrella

This is a rather pretty sculpture? installation? just by Borough Market