*Yes, we sometimes give ratings
to days or weeks. It all harks back to our beginnings.
The views expressed in this weblog are those of the individual author alone and do not in any way reflect the views of any organisation or any other contributors.
So as not to be out done by Ollie in the "photographing our feathered friends" stakes, here's a couple of ducks shot earlier today. For context, my Mother and I went for a short walk along the North Downs / Pilgrims Way just behind our house - on the way we stopped off to feed the ducks in the village pond:
Edit: Please see below for the reason behind the tiny duck picture (MSN conversation between Ollie and I):
Amy says:
olliieeeeee
Amy says:
what have you done to my ducks???
+--- Ollie says:
they've been temporarily minimised as punishment
Amy says:
oh, but, olliieeeeee
Amy says:
they were cute
+--- Ollie says:
lol...
+--- Ollie says:
[but] it sort of killed [the site]
Amy says:
humph
+--- Ollie says:
i shall restore them shortly!
Amy says:
oh, ok, um, ooops.
Amy says:
sorry
+--- Ollie says:
amy dearest i've told you ten gazillion times how to resize pics for dayorama you're just, RUBBISH!
+--- Ollie says:
but how are you, anyway
Amy says:
blissfully enjoying being rubbish
HUMPH!
For the record, I am usually OK at loading pictures. I'm just being a little rubbish at the moment. I'd upload a photo of the balsa-wood Dodo I made on Xmas day... but that may drive Ollie mad, so I'll refrain for now.
Well, it seems that I am more successful when it comes to clothes shopping. We’ve just had a very enjoyable afternoon, en famile, in Canterbury. We always go on Christmas Eve and there’s always a wonderful atmosphere. As you can see, the cathedral looks beautiful…
We had fish and chips for lunch, another silly tradition, and then leisurely wandered around. We didn’t have anything specific to buy so went in art galleries, book shops etc. - just general mooching around, really. It turns out I need to save around GBP2,000 for a painting by an artist I’ve liked for ages. Hmm, one day. Anyway, I bought a few necessary things – like a 2008 diary, some earrings and a dress for work – nothing exciting. And then my father said he’d treat me to a couple of evening dresses. Well, I think he said he’d buy me an evening dress. I naturally interpreted this as two dresses. I’m usually pretty quick and determined clothes shopping. It’s grab a selection. Try on. Make decision. No fuss. Consequently, my father has always been quite content to sit, wait and appraise: if it’s his money buying the dress, he wants to have a say in which rag is purchased. Sometimes our tastes differ though:
Me (having come out of changing room): “So, what do you think?”
Dad: “The dress is confused”
Me: “What do you mean, it’s confused”
Dad: “Well, it doesn’t know whether it is supposed to be a dish cloth or a dress”
Urr, that would be a “no” to that one then! We did manage to agree on two lovely dresses though, so thank you Dad.
Oh and for the record – probiotic-yogurt-covered-aloe-vera-pieces are utterly unpalatable. I mean, they’re sickly sweet, disgusting, yucky, funnily textured and just urgh. It’s not so much ‘ello vera as goodbye vera. The cheese and plum crisps are OK though.
And to end, here’s a photo of me looking slightly mischievous:
In the Guardian magazine every Saturday, Guy Browning writes a highly entertaining column called “How To [Blah]”. How to have a picnic. How to blog. How to pack. How to effectively encourage your Mother to do your washing (hint, again). Etc. I suppose it’s the left-wing, text form of the Telegraph’s social-stereotype. Anyway, it’s always an entertaining read. What I’m about to write however will probably a) not be entertaining; and b) should, most certainly, be called How not to shop in Sainsbury on Christmas Eve.
So, I woke up around 7am this morning. That’s another thing, incidentally. Silence. I actually wake up to the sound of silence. Nothing. A spattering of bird song. It’s wonderful. Anyway, so despite fluttering puppy-dog eyes at my Mother, I knew that the trip to Sainsbury was inevitable. Now, I actually went to Tesco yesterday. It was awful. I was visiting some friends and in the knowledge I had to replace the brandy and benedictine (see previous post) I nipped in. Horrendous. Queues halfway down the aisles. People having trolley wars. Couples on the brink of divorce. Shelves about to cave-in under the strain of boxes of nuts and nets of oranges. I just abandoned the plan and decided that purchasing the above at around 7.30am in Sainsbury the following day would be preferable. Needless to say, it was.
Anyway, to start off, I was in a silly mood. I insisted on playing a cheesy Christmas CD in the car on the way (it’s the family rule I invented years ago that whoever is the driver i.e. always me, gets to chose the music) and singing along. This was bound to increase the silly mood. On the driving point though, I’ve taken custody of my Mother’s car for the past couple of days – it’s nicer to drive than mine and it’s not my petrol. How has petrol suddenly leapt to around 105 pence/litre. Blimey.
Back to Sainsbury. To begin, I was utterly inappropriately dressed for a trip to the supermarket. Don’t ask me why (it was the first thing in my pile of clothes) I was wearing a large fluffy grey jumper, tight trousers and knee-high boots. It’s actually very flattering, but not for a rural Sainsbury at 7.30am on Christmas Eve. So much so that by the time I’d reached the veg counter a young chap (I think he was probably drunk) had said, “don’t I get a smile, luv” to me and said, “can I have your number”. Score. I smiled and swiftly headed for the cabbages. Now, can someone explain to me why on earth Sainsbury shrink wrap their veg? I actually understand this is being stopped since they’ve had so many complaints, but honestly! I mean, an organic turnip (sorry, organic “swedes” for all of you Southerners who don’t call a turnip a turnip, you call a turnip a swede and a swede a turnip, anyway), for example, is shrink wrapped. It’s organic. It’s meant to have mud on it. It’s a root vegetable. For goodness sake, it does not need to be covered in plastic. It’s described as “grown locally” but then they probably send it to China to shrink-wrap it. Hello carbon footprint. Hello air miles. Hello insanity.
I managed to embarrass my Mother (she really is long suffering) by picking up two melons (yes, you know what’s coming), holding them to my chest and asking her if she wanted them. I am a respectable, mature, 23 year-old with a serious job, car and mortgage, really. I received a scornful look from said Mother. I then insisted we purchased the “camembert and plum” flavoured Kettle Crisps. What sort of flavour is camembert and plum?! It sounds like an air-wick perfume. I also got heavily distracted in the dvd section, but managed to only come away with Amazing Grace , but I did manage to buy the required replacement alcohol. The other utterly unnecessary purchase was a bag of nuts. Well, I say nuts. It’s a bag of, wait for it, “prebiotic yogurt aloe vera & nut mix”. What the bloody hell is the point of a prebiotic yogurt aloe vera & nut mix? Is it sort of, trying to make out that yogurt covered nuts are healthy? Because the yogurt is prebiotic? And aloe vera? I thought that was something you had in moisturising cream and deodorant? In fact, I’ve just realised that I’m sitting in my parents study typing this and there’s an aloe vera house-plant on the bookshelf behind me. Anyway. I just didn’t realise that Mr Sainsbury would package “aloe vera pieces with prebiotic yogurt coating, Brazil nuts & almonds”. Oh well, along with the cheese and plum crisps, the aloe-vera-pieces-with-prebiotic-yogurt-coating will be an “interesting" culinary experience.
I was a useful chauffeur but I question my overall effectiveness in aiding my Mother with the Sainsbury shop.
I think my favourite quote or saying about Christmas, is the following by Dickens: “I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should. We all come home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday -- the longer, the better -- from the great boarding school where we are forever working at our arithmetical slates, to take, and give a rest”. And so that is what I did on Saturday: I came home for Christmas.
I was wonderfully excited about coming home. The past three months in HK have been great, but I’ve been looking forward to a complete break from work, a few home comforts, seeing family and friends, and some solid British food. Oh, and for my Mother to do my washing. On a more serious point though (although, I am deeply serious about my Mother doing my washing and ironing too), it’s lovely to actually feel such excitement / magic / anticipation about doing something. Most of us are fortunate to have all of the material “things” that we “want” in this life. We have ample choice in our supermarkets (more on that in a post later), we have comfortable homes and we can easily be in contact with our friends and family through a wide range of communication methods. I think raw emotions are probably rarer than they used to be – there’s probably less fantasy / trepidation / discovery. However, I really was genuinely engulfed with a sense of childish excitement. It was very magical, very warming (makes up for the weather I suppose) – and just a lovely feeling really. It still is and it makes me want to smile. It seems I’ve ditched the stilettos and corporate bitch attitude for a couple of weeks and turned soft.
So, through rose-tinted glasses, England is of course beautiful. Nothing could beat driving out of London to Kent as dawn was breaking on Saturday and being treated to chequerboard fields, low rising mist, a beautiful skyline and the just the overall English landscape. Greeted by my parents with a richly decadent mince pie (my first one of the season) and champagne breakfast, the downfall to Christmas overeating and drinking began. Oh and my parents have a new breadmaker – it’s divine – I hadn’t eaten bread since being in HK and the smell and taste of warm bread is lovely. I could even be persuaded to purchase one. Nothing beats coming home. Oh and my parents had also, as a surprise, replaced one of the blinds in my flat (something I’ve been meaning to do for two years but have never got round to it), so it was lovely to see that too and see my own little sanctuary again.
Just as an aside, we still received a couple of round robin letters with Christmas cards this year. It seems that despite his best efforts, Simon Hoggart has failed to eradicate them. My parents had to inform me on Saturday evening that a close family friend had passed away a couple of weeks ago. It was a shock and is still rather upsetting. It also fuelled me to drink one or two, or perhaps three or four or five brandy & benedictines (the alcohol, not a monk) (another family tradition, only ever drunk at Christmas, it’s like liquid mince pies and is simply delicious) with my parents. So much so that I actually had to go and replace both the bottle of brandy and the bottle of benedictine earlier today (more on that later) since the three of us seemed to get through the best part of both bottles (meant for the duration of Christmas) in one evening. That’s not bad going for someone who hasn’t drunk for 3 months. And no hangover either: I am my father’s daughter. Anyway, I digress. On about my third drink I was reading one of the aforementioned round-robin letters and I was so appalled with it (I was reading extracts out in a silly voice and generally being slightly silly – it was full of such rot) that I theatrically threw it on our open fire (another wonderful thing about being back – I’ve been strongly fighting with the cat for the prime spot in front of the hearth) and decided that was the best place for all round-robin letters. In retrospect I still stand by my decision, but admit that it was possibly a little dramatic at the time. Ah well.
So, Christmas Eve. A host of angels in my advent calendar today (yes, I actually brought it back with me from HK). Off into Canterbury later to wander around and soak up the Christmas spirit, eat more mince-pies and then home for more mince-pies (there’s a theme here), more alcohol (another theme) and midnight Mass. Our Midnight Mass begins, as usual, at 11.15pm. I’m pleased we haven’t adopted this approach – how can you have Midnight Mass at 8pm? The whole idea of Midnight Mass is a) it’s at Midnight (there’s a clue in the name there); and b) you’re meant to turn up slightly tipsy because it improves the quality of the carol singing.
... great big fat lazy cats grow. Anyone remember the cute little bundle of fluff that Daisy used to be? Well, she's been the family cat for three years now, as of a couple of days ago. This is her present state... utterly flat out in front of my parents open fire, clearly dreaming of nothing but being fed turkey and cream in a week or so. There's no "catching" anything insofar as Daisy is concerned, so she'd never dream of hunting mice. Her only activity is following my Mother and Father around, literally, everywhere (she almost had a trip to the bottle bank the other day when she decided to jump into my Dad's car boot - he'd got half way down the road before he spied this cute little face in the rear view miror and turned back) and biting my Mother's ankle's whenever she's hungry (thus, my Mother's ankle's a pretty much bitten to death).
Oh how we're a Nation who love our pets. In other news, one week and I'll be back in Blighty. Watched a performance of the Nutcracker yesterday and I can safely say I now feel suitably Christmassy. Now I have to pack. Urgh.
Hmm, well my absence has something to do with work. Lots of work. Lots of billable hours. Little sleep. One observation: they say that HK is a City that never sleeps. Too true. In the last fortnight I’ve walked the 10-15minute walk from work to my apartment sometime during each hour from eleven through till 6am. With each passing hour, another part of the City comes to life – whether it be people falling out of bars, people loading fresh fruit and veg into restaurants or the newspaper sellers setting up for the morning free paper drive. Fascinating. Just think, if I hadn’t had to work so much, I’d have never seen this side to HK… hmmm… not very convincing.
I’m not sure where the time has gone. Two weeks and I shall be back in Blighty. Off to listen to the HK Philharmonic Orchestra with a repertoire of Sibelius later this evening. Considering I only got up at 3.30pm, I suppose I’d best get my act together.
I'm not sure I necessarily believe in fate, but sometimes you wonder how the series of choices you make affects the outcome.
This evening I got to my bus stop in Shepherds Bush and discovered it was packed with people sheltering from the rain. One said he'd been waiting "ages" for an Oxford Tube, so I decided sod it - I won't wait out in the cold, I'll nip into the nearby Hilton hotel, sit in the lounge and read a book for a while.
45 minutes later I re-emerged to find an Oxford Tube passing by. Fine, I could wait. But there at the stop was another coach, loading up with passengers. Except that looked rather full, so I decided I'd ignore that one too, since I was in no hurry and they're fairly regular.
As I was bored (stick with this story, it'll go places shortly) I took this photo of the rain sheeting down onto Holland Park Avenue:
And there, to the right of those traffic lights in the lane of oncoming traffic, is where a woman was hit by a car moments later.
The two of us at the bus stop heard the thud and the scream, and could make out a silhouette hitting the floor. We both ran, alongside a few other pedestrians, and a car on the opposite side of the road immediately drew to a halt. And for the first time in my life I dialled 999.
I have always wondered what that would be like. Obviously you never find out what it's like to call the emergency services until you actually need them, and it felt very strange - as a man who grew up with Casualty and The Bill - to be uttering the immortal words, "Ambulance, please".
My legs were soon trembling. A few people were urgently tending to the stricken lady, who was motionless on the floor, while her daughter screamed a gut-wrenching, alien, horrifying scream, as I'm sure any of us would if that had been our mother on the tarmac. I've knocked my mother off her bike, face-down into a road before and that was enough to make me want to pass out with fear, without seeing her hit by any car.
I did the best I could to tell the emergency services where we were, and described what little I could see of the lady's injuries, and an ambulance was on its way. By some minor miracle a doctor had happened across the incident and was now treating the lady, who appeared conscious but could definitely not be moved out of the road.
As you can imagine, it did not take long for the presence of a car and woman, spread across Holland Park Avenue's westbound carriageway on a Friday night, to cause problems. We were right by the junction and cars were backing up thick and fast behind us. I went back to help a couple of vehicles reverse away from the scene, then decided there was only one way to solve the problem. Lo and behold I found myself standing in the yellow hatching of the junction box, and I began to guide traffic around the accident, using one of the two eastbound lanes as an impromptu contraflow.
If I never thought I'd end up dialling 999, I definitely hadn't bargained on standing in the middle of a central London junction, directing buses, lorries and taxis. I had to keep going for at least 15 minutes before the police arrived, and even kept it up a while longer as they established what had happened. Eventually a proper traffic officer took over the operation. My umbrella of power - wafted assertively at wantaway drivers - and I could take a break.
There was one final vehicle to be flagged down by yours truly. With the bus stop now blocked to traffic, I had to head down the hefty queue of cars (the second time in two weeks that I've been partly responsible for a major tailback!) and bang on the door of an Oxford Tube. The first driver didn't want to know but, by chance, there was a second coach in the same queue, whose driver proved far more amenable.
I wish I knew how to find out about the health of the poor lady, and her daughter for that matter. I have always been particularly sensitive to things like that - it properly grieves me when I think people are going to lose a mum or dad - and I have never been so close to raw anguish like that. I really hope everyone will be okay... I don't think I'll be wanting a second go at dialling 999 for a long, long time.
And to think that if I'd got on any one of the four or five buses which passed me by, I'd never have been there at all.
Well, um, another stunningly exciting Sunday of work awaits me tomorrow. I’m rather grateful I got all the necessary sight-seeing out of the way prior to these current beasting at work. A few random musings in place of anything more exciting.
First, my Thursday this week appeared to span a great number of hours more than the usual 24. I was in work until 3am on Wednesday night / Thursday morning, so in effect my Thursday began on Wednesday. Then of course it continued as Thursday in its true sense when I was back at work for 9am. It continued into Friday’s early hours, but for all intents and purposes it still felt like Thursday. And then my friend and colleague who was out in London until the early hours of Friday morning was effectively still having her Thursday night out until around 11am on my Friday morning. It was only then that Thursday finally departed. That’s one long Thursday. All that said, all passed rather quickly.
Second, if one listens to ClassicFM “listen live” at work, from say around 9pm until 1 or 2am (as I have many times of late), one progresses from the lunchtime program into “drivetime” and then, on one occasion, I also managed the opening sounds of “relaxing classics at 7pm”. That’s when you really realize that London is truly half a day apart (and, arguably, that you should be in bed).
Third, I’m astounded by the repercussions one wretched game of football has – OK, so we’ve lost our Euro 2008 campaign and, apparently, prejudiced our Euro 2010 qualification. But that’s nothing. The share prices of various sports retailers fell on Thursday; shops are predicting a fall in sales of England football kits and all associated paraphernalia; and apparently we’re going to be drinking less beer and holding less BBQs next summer as a result. I suppose that shall ease the Governments anxiety over our growing obesity epidemic.
Fourth, yesterday I learnt that if a ship is "listing badly", it means that it is tipping badly / leaning to one side. And there was me thinking it meant that you'd been pretty ineffective in writing your weekly shopping list and had thus forgotten to buy a loaf of bread.
Did you see that big crash on the M40 just after Junction 6 this morning?
If you did, I hope you waved. I was in it.
There's the Dodge, hazards mournfully flashing into the dusk as the blues and twos of the Thames Valley police force whirl behind it.
It had just gone 6am and I was heading up to the Thornhill park and ride to catch the Oxford Tube into London for my first day in my new job.
But about 30 seconds after joining the motorway, two cars in front ploughed into each other. The people-mover in front of me performed an emergency stop, and there was nothing I could do. With my brakes squealing I went into the back of them.
First things first. Happily it seems that nobody in the car in front of me was injured, and so far all I can feel is a dull ache in my knees - and if that's all I come away with, then I'll be able to count myself lucky.
As for the driver of one of the two vehicles in the original smash - who knows. It's not that they were taken to hospital or anything. They ran away! There was absolutely no sign of the driver of the most badly damaged car, he or she had simply managed to do a runner. How on earth it's possible, physically or mentally, to leg it after a crash like that, I have no idea. The other fellow seemed shaken but okay.
Their two cars won't be seeing any more tarmac, but the Dodge has come through it as well as I reckon a car can get through any motorway smash. The front radiator grille has a fairly lengthy crack which means it's a little loose in places, and there are a couple of dents to the bodywork around the bumper, but frankly I'm amazed at how little damage has been done. It could have been so much worse.
I'll have to take it to be repaired, but it made it as far as the park and ride and ought to get me home tonight - none of the lights or electronics have been damaged and no warning lights are showing. The likes of your car magazines might not be the Caliber's biggest fan, but it is a sturdy beast and today it put plenty of itself between me and the crash, with barely a scratch to show for it.
So, back to the scene. Immediately following the awful realisation that for the first time in my life I wasn't going to stop in time, and the dull shunt of bodywork on bodywork, I slapped the hazard lights on. At this point traffic was still doing 70mph behind me (being the last car in the crash) so I am lucky nobody else came barrelling in, or I could be in hospital now.
I got out, abandoning the car sprawled across the fast lane, and with my legs shaking furiously, made it to the car in front to check that everyone was okay. In it was a party of gentlemen making their way to Didcot power station in a leased people-mover. They all seemed fine. The car in front of them, a write-off, had lost its driver. He or she had simply vanished.
Within what seems like seconds, as lorries and cars squeezed through the gap in the middle lane, the police had arrived. They shut the motorway behind us for around half an hour as they swept the debris from the road and we moved our cars to the hard shoulder. The speed, efficiency and calm attitude of the officers was exceptional. The copper taking details, for OJ's benefit, reminded me of our old geography teacher, Mr Beale. I've now got to find myself a police station and present the relevant licence and insurance documents, within the next seven days.
Eventually, having inspected my car and done a little work to repair the grille, I was given the all clear to gingerly pull away and join the trickle of traffic now making it past us in the one re-opened lane.
It was bizarre sitting on the coach as it travelled back past the scene of the accident, heading southbound. There was still only one lane open, a good 45 minutes after I left the scene. The tailback behind the accident stretched for at least two junctions of the M40, and within the queue another two cars had collided, with a separate ambulance and police car on the scene. Funny how when you're in a queue like that, you think you're the most inconvenienced man alive, but having been in the crash that causes one, you wish you'd left it an extra half hour and been one of the chasing pack behind the cones.
I can feel things starting to seize up slightly now, and my only fear is that some kind of incredibly unfunny injury will slowly but surely manifest itself. But for a crash in the fast lane on the M40 at 6am, I'm doing remarkably well to be able to sit down and write this less than two hours after the event. (I won't be able to publish this later, but it's 8am as I type).
Of course, at least it's one way to dispel those first-day-at-work jitters...
... spent in the office. Um, not much to say. But it's 10.30pm and I'm literally just in - so that's a gain of 1 1/2hrs on last Sunday. At the same time, it's great work and it's strangely fulfilling / it'd be boring if it were any different.
Not much in the way of HK to report. Christmas has arrived. Decorations everywhere ranging from the tasteful to the, well, simply vile. *bucks Christmas Blend is alive and well. Oh and HMV is playing vaguely cheesy / Xmas warm-up music.
Light relief for you, the reader, that is. No photos, no ghastly waffle about some temple or what not in and around HK. Nope, this weekend I have spent admiring the view from my office window. And I think I've posted that view before, so I can't even bore you with it again. All well and good though - strangely satisfying.
I decided to have a wander in the Northern area of Kowloon on Sunday, known as Mong Kok. It's famous for being "simply HK" - where real life happens, markets bustle and the food is incredibly authentic, perhaps too much so.
I began at the Bird Market. As the name suggests, it's a market selling all manner of birds from chirpy little song birds through to large parrots. Everything is probably on an engangered species list somewhere - but animal cruelty and temptation to get swiftly on the phone to the local RSPB aside, it was an incredible experience. Elderly gentlemen were sitting around on low stools, watching the birds - apparently listening to find the best songbird since such a bird is meant to bring good fortune - and other birds were hanging in ornate bird cages from tree branches. The
bird cages were beautiful though.
And from there I went to the aptly called Flower Market Road. No prizes for guessing what this road contains. Row after row of plant and flower sellers. Wonderfully colourful and reminded me of Covent Garden.
From there I wandered along a road known for selling fish. Fish are good for feng shui, apparently, hence their popularity. Once again, animal rights go out of the window. Shop upon shop selling all manner of fish in plastic bags (the sort banned from fair grounds in England decades ago), with very little room to move around. Somehow this was much worse than the caged birds. I couldn't look at the shops selling kittens and puppies, but I know they were there.
The eateries were also pretty authentic and I didn't linger long to view the fare available. If you took a punt and suggested that one of the batter covered ball-shaped things probably once had a home in the rodent section of the neighbouring pet shop, you wouldn't be far off. The ducks
were rather recognisable too, although they'd been cooked - the fact they are roasted with their heads on rather gives their identity away. Oh and I don't want to think what the things that look like the inside of some farm animal actually are. Maybe I just did. Yummy!
Swiftly moving on to the Ladies' Market. This is a pretty standard market - cheap trash is universal. Be it London, NY or HK, the fake bags, sunglasses and t-shirts all look the same.
From there I glanced at the nearby temple, but I think we're all aware my love affair with temples was brief and didn't last long. The Jade Market was thankfully just around the corner. Stall upon stall of jade. Pendants, small carvings, bracelets, rings etc. I don't know what jade is "good"
jade, but it was interesting to browse around.
So therein lies my rather fascinating Sunday wander around some of HK's markets. My feet hurt.
And so it came to pass that a colleague and I decided to complete stages 1 & 2 of the Hong Kong Trail today. As I think I’ve said, the HK Trail spans a 50km stretch across the Island. It is divided into eight stages of unequal length and varying difficulty – the Dragon’s Back was stage eight. Our plan is to complete the remaining five stages sometime before I disappear back to the UK.
Today’s 12.5km effort began at the Peak above Central HK and wound its way SE. It was really very pleasurable; the weather was ideal for walking and some of the views during the early part of the walk were spectacular.
That said, the trail is pretty effortless. Well, despite the fact you need to walk of course and there are a few slopes and steps. There’s no real sense of achievement in navigation or escapism since the paths are man-made and are sign-posted at each juncture. Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t make un-enjoyable, but it moves the enjoyment to the company you are with, the general scenery and amazing vistas – rather than achievement in finding your way, tackling a herd of cows or fighting a barrage of brambles. Just a different mentality, I suppose.
An incredibly revitalizing and healthy Saturday all told, though. And to top it all I’ve managed the ghastly task of getting my boots re-heeled and putting dry cleaning in.
Oh and I managed to meet a challenge set by Anthony: I purchased a poppy. The British Legion Poppy Appeal does not end, simply because one isn't on the shores of England. What is it that Brooke said... "If I should die, think only this of me: that there's some corner of a foreign field that is, forever, England".
I think the most appropriate word to describe Macau is eclectic. It is an utter confusion of Portuguese, Chinese, American, English, Catholic and Buddhist influences. As you turn the corner of a street or enter a square it is difficult to predict whether you’ll be immersed in the hustle and bustle of traditional shops, overwhelmed by the magnificence of a Catholic church, confronted with a Buddhist temple, dazzled by a Vegas-style casino, or faced with a combination of all of the above, standing alongside a Starbucks or McDonald’s.
Now a Special Administrative Region of China, Macau was under Portuguese rule for 4 ½ centuries until 1999. It’s relatively small and I was able to cover the main sights during the six hours I was there. Beginning at this picture-postcard edifice, the ruins of St Paul’s, gives you some idea of the splendor on offer in Macau. I suppose you could describe it as the “Acropolis” of Macau, but strangely enough it quickly gets lost once you descend into the hustle and bustle of the streets below.
I wandered around, visited a few of the temples and went inside several splendid Catholic churches, the main Cathedral and a couple of other notable buildings. It was rather comforting to be amidst European architecture again – the architectural detail on some of the buildings was incredible and the warmth of the yellow facades against the blue of the sky was a very pleasing combination.
Perhaps one of the prettiest places was the Largo do Senado or Senado Square. Chinese writing and shops aside, you could have been in Seville or Granada. The square is cobbled, guarded on either side by elaborate buildings and at one end host to an imposing church. I sat and ate an ice-cream on the fountain… green tea flavored Hagen Das. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s, um, interesting.
There are some very pleasant gardens around the centre of Macau, sections of the old City walls, Moorish barracks, and then out of nowhere a large fortress and lighthouse. Perched on top of a hill, this is the largest lighthouse on the Chinese coast. Due to land reclamation, the lighthouse now sits away from the coast and is a distinct symbol of the Macau of yesterday. It’s incredibly peaceful location and affords spectacular panoramic views across the entirety of Macau and away towards China in one direction and the South China Sea in the other.
Moving away from the architectural and cultural delights, you are faced with an entirely different scene: the casinos, the grand-prix race track (which I walked along) and the plush hotels. A mini Las Vegas - think Ocean’s 11, neon lights, fountains with sparkling lights, lots of gold, lots of red carpet, women dressed in cocktail dresses and stilettos, and money. An utter contrast from the remainder of the City – the delights of Asia never cease to amaze.
So, not for the first time in my life...and probably not for the last... I am now using a remote keyboard with my laptop. After the "let's chuck the best part of a bottle of water" over my laptop incident at the weekend, the keyboard has been declared useless by the IT dept at work. I think the technical term they used was "b*ggered".
Thankfully, the water doesn't seem to have seeped to the motherboard, but it has short circuited something in the keyboard, apparently. I can get it fixed in time... just when I get around to affording to do so. Ah well, could be worse. And I’d sort of missed having a slightly broken laptop…
An element of dedication is shown in the manner in which I am having to create this post. Yesterday, in rather spectacular fashion, I chucked water all over my laptop. Thus, my keyboard is well and truly useless and the laptop is off to hospital on Monday. I'm typing this on my BB, will send to myself, cut and paste, and then upload. Photos if we're lucky.
Today I went to another of the outlying islands around HK island. Lamma is an incredibly beautiful island, with no cars and skyscrapers.
It is, however, host to an electricity power station with three dominating towers. Thankfully you can only see it from one side of the island, but even so...
Really not much else to report. I ambled from one side of the island to the other, between the two main villages. Incredibly beautiful flora and forna, brightly coloured butterflies and wonderful birdsong. A world away from the City. Oh and a fabulous fresh seafood lunch.
In order to celebrate the “Chung Yeung” Festival, today has been another public holiday in HK. Also known as the “Autumn Remembrance”, the festival is a day where families journey to the graves of their ancestors to perform so-called cleansing rites and pay their respects.
It is also the day for “hiking”. Apparently the festival also commemorates a Han Dynasty (BC 202-AD 220) legend, which tells how a soothsayer advised the “Woon King” that he should take his family to a high place for the entire ninth day of the ninth moon (today). I’m not sure quite why, but I think heading to the hills was meant to encourage success and promotion. As a result, today many HK families venture into the countryside to walk and picnic.
A colleague and I decided to try a relatively famous walk in HK, known as the Dragon’s Back. We started the day relatively early by catching the MTR and then a bus to our starting point. The bus route was incredibly busy, but the reason soon became apparent. Out destination was not only the start of this stage of the trail, but it was also the location of one of the largest cemeteries in HK island. There were hundreds of people swarming around with incense and bunches of flowers. Quite bizarre.
The walk we had chosen to do covers the spine of the southeast headland of the Island and forms the last leg of an 8-legged trail spanning the Island. It’s relatively undulating, but nothing particularly strenuous.
You can see why it is called the Dragon’s Back though:
From the ridge there are spectacular views overlooking the particularly rugged coastline and across to some of the outlying Islands.
The trail itself was very enjoyable. It was certainly leisurely and relaxing, but there were always a few people around – hardly isolated. It can best be described as if you were on the tourist route up Snowdon or perhaps having an amble around Buttermere.
We ended our walk (around 5 miles) at Shek-O. We had a very enjoyable and leisurely lunch in the quaint costal town and visited the obligatory Tin Hau temple. We then sat on the beach for a couple of hours before taking the short bus-ride back to the City. Most relaxing - not a bad way to spend a day off.
Well, I decided on a rather impromptu trip to the New Territories today to visit the Ten Thousand Buddha Monastery.
I can safely say that I think I’m about done with steps – there were 400 of them up to this Monastery, so on top of the 268 yesterday, that’s enough. Although, it wasn’t really the steps that were painful, it was the humidity level.
I think I can also safely say that I am about done with Buddhas. I suspect that the latter statement could curse me or something, but lining the steps up to the Monastery were dozens and dozens of life-size Buddhist arhats (Saints) that are supposed to have eradicated passions and desires. I’ve now seen enough.
To be fair though, it was a beautiful ascent through bamboo groves and there were wild monkeys running and squawking around – rather surreal.
When you reach the summit of the Monastery, it’s amazing. It’s wonderfully colourful and surrounded by various statues, temples and a nine-storey pagoda.
The reason the Monastery is called the 10k Buddha Monastery is rather apparent when you wander in. The walls are lined with 12,800 miniature Buddha statues. Floor to ceiling Buddhas, each one sitting in a slightly different position or wearing a slightly different look on its face. Incredible.
Also, you know how in every country there is now a McDonalds and a Starbucks, well, it seems something else has now made its way across the globe…
Well, I decided on a rather impromptu trip to the New Territories today to visit the Ten Thousand Buddha Monastery.
I can safely say that I think I’m about done with steps – there were 400 of them up to this Monastery, so on top of the 268 yesterday, that’s enough. Although, it wasn’t really the steps that were painful, it was the humidity level.
I think I can also safely say that I am about done with Buddhas. I suspect that the latter statement could curse me or something, but lining the steps up to the Monastery were dozens and dozens of life-size Buddhist arhats (Saints) that are supposed to have eradicated passions and desires. I’ve now seen enough.
To be fair though, it was a beautiful ascent through bamboo groves and there were wild monkeys running and squawking around – rather surreal.
When you reach the summit of the Monastery, it’s amazing. It’s wonderfully colourful and surrounded by various statues, temples and a nine-storey pagoda.
The reason the Monastery is called the 10k Buddha Monastery is rather apparent when you wander in. The walls are lined with 12,800 miniature Buddha statues. Floor to ceiling Buddhas, each one sitting in a slightly different position or wearing a slightly different look on its face. Incredible.
Also, you know how in every country there is now a McDonalds and a Starbucks, well, it seems something else has now made its way across the globe…
So it was Island hopping for me today. Well, one Island hop. I caught the ferry (though you can reach it by tube) from HK to Lantau. There’s a couple of vaguely interesting facts about Lantau, which are worth knowing. First, it is twice the size of HK Island, and more than half of this sparsely populated, incredibly mountainous Island, is country parkland. Trails wind around here and there across the length and breadth of the Island. Second, in utter contrast to the previous statement, it is now home to the new HK airport. This can, with a stretched imagination, be described as one of Pattern’s legacies. This means that one corner of the Island is pretty ghastly; an airport and a grim town.
The latter however, can soon be overlooked. Lantau hosts the utterly awesome Tian Tan Buddah. This is a seated Buddah – apparently the largest, bronze, outdoor seated Buddah in the world. It’s 34m high and you need to climb 268 steps to reach the top. I was slightly relieved that I’d thought to strap my knee before I left this morning. It’s a really incredible statue, though it reminded me of the Angel of the North in the way it stood (well, sat) tall and overlooked the surrounding area, acting as a beacon for the surrounding villages and towns.
Beneath the Buddha is the Po Lin Buddhist Monastery. This is an incredibly bright and ornate edifice, with hundreds of burning stoves for the pollen-yellow incense sticks that are lit each day. Truly remarkable.
From the Monastery I wandered along to the Wisdom Path. This is a hillside walk lined with tall tablets (they look a bit like railway sleepers, planted vertically in the ground) inscribed with parts of the Buddha’s sutra / prayer. The best bit about the Wisdom Path though is the view. There was quite a lot of heat haze today, so my photos look quite hazy, but to the naked eye it was magnificent. You can look across the lush green of the Island and out to see, as well as glancing up at Lantau Peak (the second highest peak in HK), for a rather awe-inspiring view.
I then bimbled on for around 1.5km along part of the Lantau Path, to look at the vista of the other side of the Island, down across the airport. From a distance, it looks rather impressive – well, for a chunk of reclaimed land that is now an airport. I sat and watched a few planes fly in and out, then climbed back up towards the Monastery. It was incredibly warm, with the sun beaming down, but so so quiet. It was utter escapism from the hustle and bustle of the City. I’ve certainly caught the sun on my chest though and, even though I’ve drunk my body weight in water (well, OK, perhaos not), I’ve got a slight heat-induced headache. What was it I said last week about mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun?!
There’s also a small village (man-made) in the vicinity of the Monastery / Buddha, which was worth a wander, and then I headed for the bus to allow me to reach the major town, and tube back to the mainland. I ended up taking a detour to one of the costal resorts (pretty grim, American-style resort really) just to see what it is like – I pass a sign advertising it every day on the way to work, so I was rather curious – so in the end caught the ferry back to HK Island.
I definitely plan to return to Lantau. For one, I’d like to see the views on a clearer day, and second, I’d like to visit the smaller towns/villages suggested by ye old faithful guidebook. But for now, the rugby calls.
I think the picture below says it all. Check out the queue for a bus in HK this morning. The line of commuters went from the bus stop, backed up the stairs and then along the overhead walkway. Amazing.
In celebration of National Day, there were some fireworks in HK last night, launched from three ships in the harbour. They were pretty amazing - incredibly scenes / displays / sequencing.
Turns out the 23 minute display cost approx. £200,000. That's £145 per second.
No wonder they were good.
Damn waste of money though, really. At the same time whilst the money could do so much good in the world (that's the equivalent a charity asking a donation of £2 per month, for a year, from over 8300 people), it couldn't even buy a decet two-bedroomed flat in London. Money is a funny old thing.
Finally, I have found a park in HK with grass that you can actually sit on. It’s a damn miracle. I have to say though, it may have been grass but it wasn’t particularly good grass: far too much dry soil beneath a thin layer of grass – rather like a threadbare / cheap carpet pile. But, grass you can sit on all the same.
The park was very busy, since it is National Day here (and yet another public holiday). Every Sunday, HK Island sinks slightly from an influx of Pilipino maids. On so-called ‘freedom-day’, approximately 153,000 (it seems a staggering figure, but I can well believe it) line the pavements throughout the Central district of HK. It’s an absolutely fascinating sight. They share food, play cards, chatter away, buy all manner of things from the streets sellers, attend to each others hair, thread eyebrows, pray and generally enjoy their day off. Well, this was repeated today and consequently the park was bustling with the maids, with families and with tourists. There was a very enjoyable community feel, for such a large and arguably anonymous City.
There’s also a so-called “massage path” in the park. People were walking on this, quite steadily, either in light slippers or socks. From what I can tell, it is simply a path composed of pointy pebbles, but it is supposed to have healing properties all the same. The disclaimer on entering the path, however, seemed to dissuade most people from walking along it – no pregnant woman, no one with heart disease, no one with any possible (and they were quite descriptive) foot problem, no one who was old or had problems walking etc – I’m not sure which category I fall into, but I decided against walking on it all the same. Perhaps (see below) I could just say I was English.
To get to this particular park I had to travel on the HK equivalent of the tube, the MTR. It is absolutely spotless and has a reputation for being hugely efficient. My Mother would delight in using it… The train announcer / recorded voice even tells you which side of the train the next platform will be on, so you can hustle appropriately around the correct door. Naturally, you still get advised to “mind the gap”.
In addition to the park, I wandered to the site of the Noon Day Gun. I had absolutely no idea what this was, but it turns out this gun was made by a Portsmouth gun manufacturer in 1901. I am reliably informed that it is a 3lb quick-firing cannon (whatever that may be) and it is still fired each day at Noon. It was this gun (and the firing of it at Noon) that apparently inspired Noel Coward in his song Mad Dogs and Englishmen - only the colonialist braves the heat of the midday sun, whilst the local stays inside… “Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun / In Hong Kong they strike a gong and fire off a Noon-day gun / to reprimand every inmate / who’s in late (…) but Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun”… You’ve got to admit, we’re a pretty bonkers Nation.
Well, I caught a tram today, as per the photo, to Kennedy Town. Highly amusing. Kennedy Town is nothing special – it’s effectively the tram terminus. However, to get there you spend 20mins on an old rambling tram. These are fabulous. They’ve been going strong since 1904 and a hundred and sixty or so of the double-decker fleet hurtle across the North of the Island every day. The journey was fascinating for a number of reasons.
First, the tram itself. They’re really narrow. The photo doesn’t really illustrate this very well, but trust me, they are. They also seem far too tall, compared to their narrowness – clearly a warped centre of gravity. I’d want to be widening their base and decreasing their height. The ride is very relaxing though, but very much like the DLR with its gradual sideways movements and shunting. Also, when the tram goes around a corner, you have that same half-praying sensation as when the DLR hurtles down the bend from CW into Poplar, or pulls itself steadily out of Bank Station.
Second, the journey. The streets really change as you move away from the heart of Central / the main financial district. Here you get the sense that this is where the real people of Hong Kong exist and get on with their daily lives. Hardware stores, basic greengrocers and supermarkets – nothing designed for the tourist – and all the signs are simply in Cantonese, not Cantonese and/or English, as you find throughout the Central district. There are also several herbal medicine wholesalers and dried seafood shops. I’ve passed a few of these walking around, put here there are rows of them, all selling dried fish. Literally, dried fish just hanging up. The smell is, well, overpowering and there’s no escaping that what you’re smelling is dried fish. It’s not necessarily unpleasant, but I’d prefer the smell of fresh fish any day. What was pretty fascinating was actually watching a fisherman lying his fish out on a cloth, in the middle of the pavement, literally covering it in salt and drying it in the sun. Car fumes and pollution perhaps add to the flavour…
Well, once again my rucksack, guidebook, camera, flip-flops and I (oh, and the obligatory pashmina) set off on a mini-adventure. I decided go for a summer dress though this time, after last week’s beach-in-jeans “experience”.
Today was a trip over to Kowloon, part of mainland HK. I set sail in the ferry across the stretch of water that separates the mainland from HK Island. The distance needed to travel has reduced over the years, due to land reclamation, and now it only takes between 5-10 minutes to get across. The Star Ferry has been going since 1888 and is both a famous tourist “must-do” as well as a regular method of commute between the Island and the mainland, and vice versa. The Star Ferries all have very romantic names – mine was called Celestial Star. Others are Night Star, Twinkling Star etc. The ferry cost 2.2 HK$... this is around 10p. You can’t even use a slot machine or go to the toilet at Victoria Station for 10p in England.
So, I landed and began wandering along Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade. It had only just turned 10am, but the temperature was already around thirty degrees. The litter bins amuse me – they look like they’ve been removed from an English train station. I looked at the former KCR clock tower and then wandered along the so-called Avenue of Stars. The HK equivalent of Hollywood, it is lined with lanterns and there are tributes to famous stars and the obligatory hand-prints on the floor…
Then I happened upon a sculpture park. Unlike the sculpture park near Ollie, this one actually has sculptures in it… although at least the Berkshire park is at least, “a park”. Clearly sculpture parks that are both parks and contain sculptures are just not to be.
I then went into the HK Art Museum a) for the air conditioning; and b) for the artwork. I think the former was more instrumental in deciding that I went in, although it was definitely worth it for the latter. This has to be one of the coolest street lamps.
I then wandered north of the City (? whether Kowloon is a city, anyway) and had a brief (by this I mean 90mins or so) wander around the HK Museum of History. Some fabulous artifacts – incredible detail on something so old and seemingly practical – I mean, it’s a pot, right?
Then I wandered along to Kowloon Park…
… and then down Nathan Road, which is packed with every imaginable shop and relentless crowds and people touting their wears. It’s typically famous for the number of tailors that line the streets.
I’d had just about enough of this when I reached the Peninsula hotel around 3pm, in time for a late lunch. On line with Raffles, the Peninsula is one of the finest hotels in the world. For HK though, taking lunch / afternoon tea in “the Lobby” is something of an institution. A pretty expensive one, but worth it all the same. Don’t you love bottles of water that cost around £3.50? HK’s answer for Claridges. It’s wonderfully imperial though, and there are a line of hotel Bentley’s waiting outside.
So therein lies a brief summary of my day. As I returned at 4pm, the clock (a reminant of British-occupied HK) on the Central Pier chimed the Westminster Chimes. It sounds a little whistle-stop, but I was over in Kowloon for 6hrs or thereabouts, so it can’t have been too whistle-stop! I walked for miles though and I confess to being slightly shattered, aided by a touch of sun stroke I think (well, not sun stroke but the effects of being in the sun for so long, coupled with possible lack of salt). My nose has caught the sun and gone all freckly. Also, I did have a broken sleep last night as I decided it would be a good idea to be patriotic and watch the rugby… oh, at, around 3am. But that was fine... I slept from 10pm – 3am and then around 6pm – 8.30amish. I mean, sensible…
Remember when I sent washing home in a jiffy bag from Oxford and the next week my Mum brought it back, washed and ironed?
Well, I've a new equivalent. Write a letter (a poison pen letter to HMR&C in this case about the fact I'm being double taxed at the moment). Print it. Scan it to myself. Email to the parents. Parents print, pop in envelope and post from the UK. Perfect. Let's hope they don't go on strike aka Royal Mail!
Also, my Mother is telling me off for thinking it is a good idea that Boris is the top Tory candidate for London Mayor. I think it's classic. I mean, one extreme to the other. Boris all the way.
It was a public holiday in HK yesterday as part of the Mid-Autumn festival, a rich festival full of lanterns and dancing and things. In short, it is all to do with the full moon in the 8th lunar month. Whilst the full moon was actually on Tuesday, the holiday was on Wednesday in order to recover from a late night moon-gazing.
Legend has it that the Mid-Autumn festival is linked to an ancient fable of Chang O, wife of the Divine Archer, who lived around 2170 BC. Apparently the earth had ten suns circling it, each taking its turn to illuminate the earth. One day, all ten suns appeared together, scorching the earth with their heat. The earth was saved by a strong and tyrannical archer (the Divine Archer) who succeeded in shooting down nine of the suns, leaving only one, the moon. The Divine Archer stole the elixir of life from a goddess (as you do), and, in order to ensure eternal life, his
wife drank the elixir. However, when she drank the elixir she found herself floating / flying to the moon. She remains there to this day and by the full moon of the eighth lunar month, her beauty casts a silvery glow upon the earth.
As with all festivals, there is a particular celebratory food. The Mid Autumn festival has the aptly named, Moon Cake. Apparently, during the Yuan dynasty (AD 1280-1368), China was ruled by the Mongolian people. Leaders from the preceding Sung dynasty (AD 960-1280) were unhappy with submitting to foreign rule and set out to coordinate a rebellion, without it being discovered. Almost in the manner of a Trojan horse, the leaders of the rebellion knowing that the Mid-Autumn / Moon Festival was drawing near, ordered the making of special cakes. They packed into each Moon Cake a message with the outline of the attack. On the night of the Moon Festival, the rebels successfully attached and overthrew the government. Following from this, was the establishment of the Ming dynasty (AD 1368 -1644) and Moon Cakes are eaten to commemorate this legend.
Whilst the legend may be pretty special, the Moon Cakes are pretty vile. They look very tempting, but are made from ground lotus and sesame seed paste, together with egg yolk and other such things. I'm hardly fussy when it comes to food, but these taste rather like yucky protein bars. Sawdust mixed with bird seed. Yes, definitely bird seed. Overly organic bird seed. Or the bottom of a bowl of deeply organic sugar-free muesli - lots of soggy nasty tasteless sawdusty oats. Blurgh.
In other news, Ollie*... no, sorry... um, not Ollie, politics... Yes, what is going on? Are they all getting slightly confused? Cameron described himself as "heir to Blair" and now Brown is likening himself to the "heir to Thatcher". Have they both got their knickers in a twist, here? It's a tough one to call though. Brown, credit where credit is due, has appeared pretty trustworthy so far and his conference speeches have been alright, albeit lacking in much substance. His interview with Mariella Frostrup was entertaining, especially the parting shot: "So when
will the general election be then?" Ms Frostrup asked, in the only way she can. Silence reigned. "Charming as you are, Mariella, the first person I would have to talk to is the Queen," came the reply. Beautiful. Even the Torygraph are praising him. I don't seen the Guardian praising Cameron. Cameron is a wet, murky green, Etonian blanket, who is frequently less in-touch than the England rugby team, and that's saying something. If they called an election tomorrow, the chances are that Brown would get in, albeit with a narrow margin. I'd hedge my bets at voter apathy being at an all-time high too. I think perhaps the Tories could do with their own "heir to Thatcher". It may shake things up a little bit. Perhaps we could coordinate a rebellion. Thatcher Thins, anyone? Brown Biscuits? Cameron Cookies? Yeah, ok. Hint taken. I'm off.
*Would I...?! Course not... love you really, Ol. :o)
I suspect I should be working rather than typing this (written earlier this morning), but instead I am watching an ever-changing view of the HK mainland. One minute it is there, the next it is shrouded with a screen of black clouds and driving rain. It's incredibly romantic, in sort of Eliot / the Waste Land sense of the phrase.
This would be my first experience of the tail-end of the HK rainy season. It began yesterday afternoon with rain, and continued into the evening with a low-level Typhoon warning and plenty of rain. Consequently, I think I managed three, perhaps four hours sleep last night. But, that doesn't really bother me and Wednesday is a "bank
holiday" anyway, so I can cope with a couple of nights of limited sleep. Although, since typing that sentence the chance of me getting the Wednesday off work is diminishing.
Anyhoo. So, last night I'd gone to bed and it was slightly noisy outside - lashing of rain and lots of wind howling around. OK, slightly annoying but I'm tucked up inside, so what does it matter. Then the thunder and lightening began. There was some incredible sheet-lightening over the harbour. The worst of it ('it' being a stormy night) is the air conditioning units. These jut out of each window, so I have three - bathroom, bedroom, living room. They are, in effect, protruding metal boxes. And when the rain comes down, they get battered. This creates a sound akin only to a caravan in the rain. Now, I'm not sure I've really ever been in a caravan in the rain, but I suspect this is what it sounds like. And with three of these units, you get a form of around-sound clatter. Deep, resounding, joy. And then of course I got one of my favourite Stereophonics songs, Caravan Holiday, stuck in my rain... "seven days holiday in the rain with you"... la la la.
Anyway, so, today the rain continues. But it's weird, because although it looks like it should be cold outside, it is actually still mid-twenties (degrees Celsius). Needless to say, I am wearing a big and incredibly warm and fluffy dusky pink jumper. Just because I'm English, and just because I can.
One of the other issues with trying to sleep, was that I decided to try to count sheep at one point. But how can you count sheep these days? I mean, I just started thinking about foot & mouth and bluetongue disease.
At one point, I had the most vivid image of a sheep with a blue tongue in my mind - the sort of blue colour a child's tongue would go if they had just eaten a raspberry lolly pop. Why, incidentally, are raspberry (pronounced ras-berry, not raaars-berry) flavoured things always blue?
It's quite helpful though, I suppose, that the diseases affecting our livestock at the moment are referred to in practical terms. At least we can appreciate that these sheep have issues with their feet and mouths, rather than it being referred to as Aphtae epizooticae, where none but the most proficient in Latin would have an idea what on earth was going on. I was amused by the new[e]s trail yesterday though. Don't get me wrong, I'm not amused by the concept of any disease affecting the farming community, but to begin with one news website reported that 'woe, it was all to do with climate change' (well, they didn't use those words, but that was the jist). The UK has got warmer and consequently the nasty parasite spreading bluetongue disease has travelled North. Then, the headline read 'British climate could save an outbreak' (or a phrase to that effect), since with any luck we'll have frost shortly and it will kill it off. Apparently the disease can't spread below 15 degrees centigrade. Well, I think both are probably quite plausible, so let's just hope the cold hurries on up. It does make you realise some of the more subtle, but largely devastating effects, of climate change (or potential climate change) though - whether this is an example or not, it gives an indication of what could happen.
On an utterly different note, something I forgot to ramble on about in my post on Saturday was the feng shui of a particular building. There's an apartment block in Repulse Bay, HK, just visible in the photo below.
As you can see, it has a hole in the middle of it. The building stands very close to a mountain, but is also very close / overlooks the ocean. According to the principles of feng shui, the hole allows dragons (which live in the mountains) to drink from the bay (they can get through the hole). It is very bad if dragons are unable to drink, apparently. I say this with a degree of Western scepticism, but also respect.
Living here, I can't escape the fact that feng shui principles are everywhere. There's one particular skyscraper - the Bank of China Tower - that is disliked because it has four triangular prisms. These are negative since, being the opposite to circles, contradict everything the circle stands for - perfection. The crosses on the side of the building also suggest negativity. Another skyscraper was disliked when it was built since people thought that it looked like a giant white candle. A white candle represents death. Consequently a rooftop swimming pool was built on the top of the building. The water puts out the flame of the candle and thus the so-called bad ch'i is dissipated. Other examples of feng shui include the fact that the sofa in my apartment faces North.
People at work are crazy about the number eight - the luckiest number. I am blessed with room 43-28 (a good thing) but it has been noted my HK ID number does not include the figure eight (a bad thing). In transactions, the timing for two companies to merge can depend on the date - this will affect whether the business is successful or not. Not strictly feng shui, but when eating you can't stick your chopsticks back in a bowl (as to make them upright). This is said to resemble incense sticks in a bowl of ashes, a sign of death. At this rate I'll be lucky if survive the six months out.
It's currently chucking it down with rain in HK. No wonder the Brits liked it here. I think we're on a low Typhoon warning too. Anyway, so b*ggerd if I'm going out this evening.
I was randomly playing around on the net (some things don't change) and decided to Google myself. There's a reason for it, honest (beyond being a sad git (twice in two days))... A friend had suggested there was a ghastly photo out there of when I won an A Level Physics prize. There is. It's awful. I also seem to be dressed in a very short skirt.
But that is besides the point. a) I am no longer No. 1 in a google.com search, which is quite upsetting; and b) it seems that I have contributed to the Inns of Court School of Law recruitment brochure. I mean, I think I remember agreeing to this (I must have done) but I don't remember reading my quote until today. It's fine... apart from the fact they've removed some commas and it doesn't make much sense. You can read it here. Just wait for the law firm prospectus to come out... classic photo.
I think I shall have to get my domain up and running though. Maybe I'll then hit the top Google spot again (you can see I'm quite put out by this). You also learn so many things when Googling people. You think you know some people reasonably well, but... phonecards?!! :o)
So, I went on a sort of pilgrimage today. I didn’t know it was going to be a pilgrimage, but I’m not sure you ever know these things until you set off.
For many reasons (and those who read my Facebook profile status update can testify to this), yesterday (Friday) was a very strange day and I was in an utterly ditsy mood by the end of it. A very good friend found out he been successful in getting an amazing new job, effectively invented for him, but he went about telling me in the most ridiculously cack-handed fashion that in the end I was just angry, beyond utter belief, with him. Obviously I was over the moon, but telling me at some silly time in the morning when you are on the way to catch a plane out of Heathrow, really isn’t that useful. He also made my best mate hide the fact he’d got the job from me (so he could tell me himself) but then it transpired he expected her to tell me anyway (which angered her). Anyway, all is well, but it put me in the most bizarre mood.
So, when I got up this morning I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. I’d also gone to bed around 11pm (my time) but for a variety of other reasons had been on the phone to the above best mate around 11pm (UK time) so 6am (my time). All utterly fine and unconnected, but it was just a bit bizarre. As a result, I didn’t end up surfacing until this afternoon, to what was the most beautifully sunny day. So, what do all Brits do when it is sunny? Yup, they go to the beach.
I got on a bus – yup, me on a bus. I generally hate buses in the UK (sorry, David) because I never know when to get off them (and hate looking like an utter dipstick –more than I can help it, anyway - in my own country) but here I decided to follow the masses. After a 20-30 minute drive out of Central (HK), the bus arrived at Repulse Bay. According to the guidebook, Repulse Bay is probably the most famous HK beach. Unlike the most famous UK beaches (? Camber Sands… dreadful memories from a Geography school trip… Skeggy… urgh… Blackpool… pretty grim, donkeys aside) it is actually rather beautiful. At the end of the beach there is a shrine to the God of Mercy and around the temple are an entire range of weird and wonderful figures – from fish to rams to other Chinese icons. There is also a Longevity Bridge.
Apparently each time you cross this, it is supposed to add three days to your life. I crossed over and then back again… so that’s an extra six days. I also went in the sea. Well, I paddled. Well, ok, my feet got wet.
Like all Brits I was thoroughly dressed for the beach… in jeans. *cough*. But these rolled up to my knees, so it was fine. The on-beach thermometer only read 36C, so it was hardly warm…
And then from Repulse Bay I got back on the bus and went to Stanley. Now, in terms of payment on the bus, HK has an Oyster card equivalent (as previously mentioned). I think I failed to complete my first bus ride since I didn’t zap off the bus. Thankfully, unlike the UK when this beeps the hallelujah chorus at you, when I got back on the bus to Stanley, it seemed to be quite happy and complete the journey. So, I didn’t zap off the bus to Stanley (in the hope I now had once complete journey) but I did double zap on the way back to Central HK – so fingers crossed I’ll be OK. One day I’ll work out this double zapping thing. So, Stanley. Stanley isn’t a particularly remarkable place. It was one of the more populated areas of HK Island when the Brits invaded in 1841 and now has a famous market as well as a couple of obligatory temples. I wandered around the market – quite an experience and also the temples.
The reason why it is more meaningful for me is that the amazing guy I was fortunate enough to call my 2nd Granddad (don’t go there) and who died last November, was called Stanley. When looking through my HK guidebook before I left with his daughter and son in law, it was generally agreed that I must visit and ensure I had a drink on him. So that is what I did. I sat in a bar, and had a beer and shed a tear as well (which, is utterly pathetic). More fitting is that Stanley is home to Murray House. This rather grand edifice was HK’s oldest colonial building in Central, but it was pulled down in the 1980s to make way for a tower block. The HK government promised to re-build the house elsewhere and in the mid-1990s they rebuilt it at Stanley. However, they had numbered the pieces so badly that it took 3.5 years to put the building back together and even when they did so there were six extra columns they didn’t know what to do with. Now, for anyone who knew my 2nd Granddad, this is possibly the most fitting tribute to him. If there was anyone who could put together flat pack furniture or the like and still have three bolts, two screws and a piece of wood left over at the end, it was him.
I sent a text to relevant family members who suggested I had a beer on them too. And who am I to refuse? So I sat and watched the sun go down in a bar overlooking the ocean.
Whilst doing so, my father sent me a highly amusing email (some antics my mother and he had got up to the previous day). And so there I was, sitting in this bar, drinking a pint, on my own and laughing out loud at my BlackBerry. What a sad git. We’ve all seen people do it – well, today it was me.
I don’t mind traveling on my own at all – in fact I quite enjoy it – but I do find I spend less in a place. You could spend all day at Repulse Bay for instance, but why am I going to sit on a beach on my own? I just go, see it and then move on. Not sure what to do tomorrow… maybe I’ll venture on the HK tube and go to another park out of town. We’ll see. Oh and I’ll probably go to church again. I've been using Shutterfly to load all my phots for parents and thing - highly recommend.
However, first I’ve got to wait up and patriotically watch England get beaten in the rugby. Oh and in more exciting news, I’ve booked my Christmas flights home. I wasn’t going to come home and then I decided it would be a perfect break. I’ll have Christmas at home (I really couldn’t imagine being anywhere but the UK) and then NY in London, probably. I looked at traveling around from HK, but that would cost more than the £500 return flight home. Also, I guess when it comes down to it, although I’m really enjoying it out here and it hardly feels the other side of the world – come on, I packed the day I left and really didn’t give it a second thought – I’m a homing pigeon at heart. And I think all birds go home to roost at Christmas. Unless of course you’re a turkey. ‘Cos then you get eaten, don’t you? Hmm. I’ll stop there.
Or so the saying goes. Well, today I Iearnt to always carry an umbrella with me whilst in HK. Whether it to shade the sun or protect from sudden and heavy rainbursts. An umbrella is a must.
OK, so I have been in HK for a week now and in general I have enjoyed what I've seen of the City. I have a fabulous Office, view from my window below.
I am living in a flat that is around 15minutes from everywhere. It's still pretty hot at the moment, which basically means 30 degrees of humidity and sweat. However, this will calm down in the next month or so. I had my first proper day out sight-seeing today. I went up to the Peak, which is one of HK's "must sees". The view from the Peak is meant to be one of the most spectacular skyscapes in the world. You think? Take a look. You can just about see over to Kowloon in the background.
To get to the Peak you catch the Peak Tram. It's so steep that the floor of the tram is angled so those having to stand don't fall over (or have less chance of falling over). The tram has been operating since 1888 and is still going strong. I'd like to go back during the evening / night to see the lights of the City.
Then I went to the Park, which is beautiful. It has a lovely aviary, fake waterfall, mini lakes, a Tea Museum and is generally a tranquil oasis amidst the bustling City. I like the below. Turtles and fish; scenery; towering Office blocks.
It is certainly a bustling, highly polluted City though. The trams hurtle up and down, the buses thunder along and the taxis are everywhere. But it does seem to absorb both its people and bustle very well.
It seems that if one is to be resident in HK for a time, then you need a HK ID pass. This is, I imagine, something akin to what the Government wish to introduce here (by "here" I mean the UK!). It's quite an effort to get one, starting with a 3 hour herding process from cattle pen to cattle pen. At the same time, the Immigration Dept reckons they see up to 700 people each day and despite the fact it seems a nightmare to begin, I confess that the system is actually quite efficient.
Instead of explaining, I have extracted bits from an email sent to an esteemed friend and colleague. Blackberry's have their use in times of boredom. It was a damn long email in the end, covering everything from underwear to wombats to bonuses (don't ask). The status update on the ID card process came in between other paragraphs. It's a good job we send eqial numbers of emails full of vitriol to each other, and also a good job that inter-office phone calls between HK and London are free.
"Morning. Well, I fear this could be a long email since shall use you to pass the time whilst queuing for the damn HK ID card. I suspect there is an easier way, but I was told faithfully by X to just turn up. Forget about an appointment, just turn up. So, went at ten yesterday - no hope. Back at 8.15amish today... possible hope, but not hopeful. There were about 200 of us penned like cattle in this hot waiting area. Now we've been herded by men in uniform (who look like something straight out of Mao, red berets and everything - can I get arrested for saying that?) up escalators. Now you know that whilst a few people will drop off to other immigration depts on other floors, basically everyone is heading for the 8th floor where you get your ID.
(...)
So, eight escalators up and I am now in another queue. It winds its way around and gets to outside the toilets (but don't fear, no one can go, as they are locked). There's a notice on the wall with a map showing you where you have to go. The map has an arrow which says "you are here". It may as well say "you are f'ked and here for the duration". Now I wish I'd brought a book to read. Something the length of War and Peace would be appropriate.
(...)
Um. Oooh, I have a slip saying 9.30am and the person next to me says 11.00am. There is hope. This slip ensures that I can go up to a counter (at 9.30am with another 50 or so people, also allotted 9.30am), fill in a form and then sit back and wait again.
(...)
I have been seen, I have filled in the form and I'm back in another cattle pen waiting for my photo to be taken. I am number 153, screen currently on 130.
(...)
Numbers now seem to have stopped moving. Great.
(...)
Photo and thumb prints taken. Now back in cattle pen waiting for my number, yep 153 again, to come up. Stuck on 115.
(...)
Have now been seen by a very scary woman and given my temporary pass. I have to come back in two weeks to collect the real thing. F'ing marvellous. I look relatively pretty. I suppose that's a bonus Speak later.
Xx"
And therein lies my THREE hours of fun.
In other news, have managed to purchase the HK Oyster-card equivalent, the aptly named Octopus card. All still well and good and fun! It gets dark around 7.30pm though, which is a bit weird. It's also a bit strange getting in from work when people get up and going to work in the morning when they go to bed.
Lfe is a game of hoops. I've had this discussion with Ollie before. Hoop after hoop. Take today, for instance. Hoop 1: Get to work; Hoop 2: Get through appraisal; Hoop 3: Get home from appraisal; Hoop 4: Get to Oxford; Hoop 5: Attend hospital appointment; Hoop 6: Meet Ollie (now enter nice phase); Hoop 7: Sort work things out; Hoop 8: Drive to London to see Anthony; Hoop 9: Get home; Hoop 10: Sort out some packing. And then maybe 'll be able to rest for a bit. Hoop after bloody hoop.
The upside is, most things coming together. I think it hit me today, driving back from Anthony, that I'm going away. Oh well, still days to go yet, right?!
My Sky has now been disconnected though. Tis a sorry day :-(
So, today was the day I set aside to pack. *cough* For a variety of reasons including a lie in, pub lunch, weak bladder, network cable, draw of the internet and general procrastination, I only began at 5:21pm. I then went out from 7:00pm, returned at 10:30pm and then packed from around 11:30 until 12:00. The thing is, it doesn't really take too long. I've just had to fill my very large suitcase with shoes, clothes, dvds and a couple of books. It weighs a ton though. Serious "heavy" label coming up at the airport. In fact, I think I need to call BA tomorrow and pre-register the fact it is heavy and / or decide whether I take two lighter cases. Hmm, decisions.
The underground is really helping things at the moment though. I was reminded of Ollie's interactive map earlier... In all their wisdom, Transport for London have produced a tube map that highlights all the affected lines. This morning, the only lines that were not highlighted (and thus had no problems) were the DLR lines. Useful, huh?
I really should write something more exciting, but I can’t think of anything. Apologies.
You may, or may not have noticed, that days after Dayorama celebrated its 5th Birthday, we disappeared. Someone, who shall remain nameless, forgot to pay our fees, so we were left to the ether. For anyone who missed us, apologies. For those of you who didn't, shame on you.
I was scrolling through the posts for "On This Day" and on 27th August 2006 I wrote this post. I commented how I thought it was stupid to tax us for our rubbish v our recycling. Well, times change. Views change. I think I now agree we should be taxed for our rubbish. How and what are questions I can't answer. Nor can I answer the question of what happens when people put their rubbish in bins belonging to others, or fly-tip and dump rubbish freely around the countryside to save payig tax. But we should be encouraged to recycle more. The supermarkets do a good job - green points, points / money off for using re-usable bags, the TescoDirect orders come in trays that are subsequently unloaded - rather than trays and then the food in tens of bags. I cooked a pretty impressive lunch for some close friends today and I created half a 'supermarket bag' of rubbish, mainly food peelings etc. I probably had another bag and a half of rubbish that I washed and then recycled - cans, food wrapping, packaging etc. Ridiculous. So, tax away. Or do something, anyway.
OK, so I promised Ollie I’d post. I’ve actually been meaning to post since Wednesday evening, but keep getting distracted by a variety of people and things.
First up, is the O2 / the Dome. I’ve actually been there twice this week, both times to the cinema to see the Bourne Ultimatum. Misleading as that sentence is – the first time my companion and I manage to miss the last showing so abandoned the cinema and settled for a bar. We were more successful on our second venture. Anyway, I was really very pleasantly surprised. There’s a good selection of bars / eateries, the cinema is pretty decent and the whole venue had a pleasing-enough atmosphere. I expect it makes a pretty cool concert venue. At the same time, it still has that air of being something, arguably quite impressive, but also a opulent waste of money. The interior is full of exuberance, but almost unnecessarily so. Good luck to it though, and it’s a convenient cinema. Incidentally the Bourne Ultimatum was pretty cool, actually. It’s forced in many ways, some of the characterization is a bit iffy and there were a couple of lines that could easily be contenders for the top 10 “worst lines in movies” – yes, OK, I’m hardly selling it – but overall it was enjoyable and entertaining. What more can you ask.
Second, and rather unexcitingly, I have a few people coming over for lunch tomorrow and have been cleaning madly all morning. It wasn’t as though my flat was a) untidy; or b) in any way unclean, but I’ve just sorted everything and cleaned my windows and cupboards. I even sparkled (?word) the outside of my kettle. I tell you, it’s gleaming. Oh and I’ve written a couple of letters. It’s hard being a “house wife”.
Next, Facebook. As you are aware, I have a potted approval of the site. However, I was at a very enjoyable birthday gathering on Saturday. When I left, a friend said (in relation to HK), “keep in touch and I’ll Facebook-you”. Now, what exactly does that mean?! Facebook you. I suppose it means a message or writing on my wall via Facebook. But honestly. Will this make the OED in the same way “doing a Delia” has done? I think the phrase “doing a Delia” is defined as the style of the cookery of Delia Smith or something. Could “Facebooking someone” be defined as the style of contacting someone via the website Facebook?
And finally, there was an interesting article in this week’s Economist, titled “Plus ca change? Not quite”. I’d link it, but I think after a week or so the link will die, as you would need to be an Economist subscriber to access the archive. Anyway, it discusses how clichés are gradually becoming outdated… on the basis that technology is overtaking language. Incidentally, the article notes that words such as “Google” and “wiki” have made it into the OED, so perhaps “Facebooking” has a chance.
I’ve digressed. The article comments on how we commonly use clichés, but increasingly their subject / illustrative object are far from reality. For example, thanks to book reviews and celebrity book-club stickers, you probably can judge a book by its cover. With blogs / email / Facebook / MySpace you can be out of sight but this does not mean being out of mind. In the era when everyone (except me!) has an iPod, no-one (except me, for good reason!) can be accused of not carrying a tune. With social evolution, stating “every Tom, Dick and Harry”, should probably be, “every Kevin, Chloe and Muhammad”. To “turn down all the tea in China” would be pretty foolish, but less so than if you “turned down all the cheap clothes made in China”. And of course, now the British are meant to have entered the metric era, we should be extracting 0.45kg of flesh, rather than a pound of flesh.
And so it continues. It’s a slightly far-fetched approach, but I thought it was pretty interesting / amusing all the same. I suppose it could be argued beauty is no longer skin deep, the camera (or at least PhotoShop) does lie and rocket science is pretty old hat. At the same time, these clichés have an important role in both our past and the use and development of the English language. If this article says anything, it should encourage us to continue to use these phrases to ensure they survive in future generations.
OK, so I promised Ollie I’d post. I’ve actually been meaning to post since Wednesday evening, but keep getting distracted by a variety of people and things.
First up, is the O2 / the Dome. I’ve actually been there twice this week, both times to the cinema to see the Bourne Ultimatum. Misleading as that sentence is – the first time my companion and I manage to miss the last showing so abandoned the cinema and settled for a bar. We were more successful on our second venture. Anyway, I was really very pleasantly surprised. There’s a good selection of bars / eateries, the cinema is pretty decent and the whole venue had a pleasing-enough atmosphere. I expect it makes a pretty cool concert venue. At the same time, it still has that air of being something, arguably quite impressive, but also a opulent waste of money. The interior is full of exuberance, but almost unnecessarily so. Good luck to it though, and it’s a convenient cinema. Incidentally the Bourne Ultimatum was pretty cool, actually. It’s forced in many ways, some of the characterization is a bit iffy and there were a couple of lines that could easily be contenders for the top 10 “worst lines in movies” – yes, OK, I’m hardly selling it – but overall it was enjoyable and entertaining. What more can you ask.
Second, and rather unexcitingly, I have a few people coming over for lunch tomorrow and have been cleaning madly all morning. It wasn’t as though my flat was a) untidy; or b) in any way unclean, but I’ve just sorted everything and cleaned my windows and cupboards. I even sparkled (?word) the outside of my kettle. I tell you, it’s gleaming. Oh and I’ve written a couple of letters. It’s hard being a “house wife”.
Next, Facebook. As you are aware, I have a potted approval of the site. However, I was at a very enjoyable birthday gathering on Saturday. When I left, a friend said (in relation to HK), “keep in touch and I’ll Facebook-you”. Now, what exactly does that mean?! Facebook you. I suppose it means a message or writing on my wall via Facebook. But honestly. Will this make the OED in the same way “doing a Delia” has done? I think the phrase “doing a Delia” is defined as the style of the cookery of Delia Smith or something. Could “Facebooking someone” be defined as the style of contacting someone via the website Facebook?
And finally, there was an interesting article in this week’s Economist, titled “Plus ca change? Not quite”. I’d link it, but I think after a week or so the link will die, as you would need to be an Economist subscriber to access the archive. Anyway, it discusses how clichés are gradually becoming outdated… on the basis that technology is overtaking language. Incidentally, the article notes that words such as “Google” and “wiki” have made it into the OED, so perhaps “Facebooking” has a chance.
I’ve digressed. The article comments on how we commonly use clichés, but increasingly their subject / illustrative object are far from reality. For example, thanks to book reviews and celebrity book-club stickers, you probably can judge a book by its cover. With blogs / email / Facebook / MySpace you can be out of sight but this does not mean being out of mind. In the era when everyone (except me!) has an iPod, no-one (except me, for good reason!) can be accused of not carrying a tune. With social evolution, stating “every Tom, Dick and Harry”, should probably be, “every Kevin, Chloe and Muhammad”. To “turn down all the tea in China” would be pretty foolish, but less so than if you “turned down all the cheap clothes made in China”. And of course, now the British are meant to have entered the metric era, we should be extracting 0.45kg of flesh, rather than a pound of flesh.
And so it continues. It’s a slightly far-fetched approach, but I thought it was pretty interesting / amusing all the same. I suppose it could be argued beauty is no longer skin deep, the camera (or at least PhotoShop) does lie and rocket science is pretty old hat. At the same time, these clichés have an important role in both our past and the use and development of the English language. If this article says anything, it should encourage us to continue to use these phrases to ensure they survive in future generations.
I hate to be partiucularly geeky about such things, but there's currently a fascinating program on ye old box. The Secret Life of the Motorway. BBC Four. The three-part series is meant to look at the building of the first motorway, the people who drive on it, the wildlife, those that hitch lifts, those that mainatin it etc etc. It's actually very interesting. Or do I just need a life when I finish work early? OK, so don't answer that one.
So, not long until I go to HK now. Three weeks, but I guess those will pass by. And much to see and do in the meantime. Packing aside, I've people to see, lunches to cook and drinks to attend. Not to mention working and shopping. A hard life, huh?
But, it's a weird time. I suppose it's one of those things, but in life you never stop "doing something new" for the first time do you? Finally, when I began work I thought, "perhaps this is over for a while". But no, one year on and I'm upping ship and moving to the other side of the world. OK, so it's only for six months, but a lot can go on in six months. At the same time, February seems like yesterday, so I guess it will fly by.
Ollie and I met up yesterday and we were discussing what I thought I'd miss. It will be the silly things. Cereal. Cadbury's (even though I don't eat it that much, it's probably something I'll miss). A proper steak in a proper English pub (Ollie is already booked up to take me out when I return). Driving. And that's before family, friends, and England's Green and Pleasant patchwork land. It'll be an interesting time, but one I'm looking forward to very much. If you're really lucky, I'll aim to keep up posting rot on this site. You may even have the treat of a parody on "Born in the USA"... TM OJ October 2003.
But for now I suppose I should reflect on something I think Mandela said at the end of his autobiography. Something about discovering the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb... (although I think this time it's probably HK Peaks)
I’m currently watching the film the Notebook, and it has possibly one of the worst and cringe-worthy love scenes (or not, so it seems) of any film. This really is of no consequence to my post, but I couldn’t let it pass without acknowledgment.
I’m not quite sure when my weekend truly began, but I was certainly awoken early on Saturday morning to the delightful, or not, sound of vehicles akin only to road sweepers. It turns out that, in all their wisdom, the Highways Agency has decided to re-tarmac the road outside my flat on two consecutive weekends. This process begins at around 7.00am on a Saturday morning with the beeps of a reversing JCB, the groan of a tarmac roller and the flashing lights of all wretched vehicles imaginable. I mean? Isn’t a girl allowed any beauty sleep these days. I’d only got to bed at 3.30am too, so it wasn’t as though I was happy to be awoken at that time. And my head hurt!
I suppose it is only fitting that the last event of my weekend (bar, of course, watching this awful film) involved the road. I was traveling back from seeing Ollie and got stuck in a traffic jam on the way back into London. Suddenly the traffic came to a standstill on the A40. There was an accident ahead and we weren’t moving anywhere. Instead, people got out of cars, had a smoke, called people on their mobiles and chatted to people in neighboring cars. It was wonderfully British. Everyone in a twenty-minute queue, one small moment of sharing lives, and then onwards into anonymity.
1. Bl**dy Barclays continue to annoy. I went to my mailbox this morning and collected four letters from Barclays. My heart temporarily missed a beat. What was up with my finances. I opened the letters one by on. i) Bank Statement for my Current Account; ii) Bank Statement for one of my savings accounts; iii) Bank Statement for the current account I have been trying to close down for weeks; and iv) a letter offering me home insurance. Now, why couldn't they have sent all of that in one envelope, saving money on postage, saving trees and saving my heart. And when are they going to close that account?
2. I posted on Dayorama on Sunday about my weekend away. I was pretty tired and decided to post rather than unpack. Stupid decision. I've since worked two very long days and my clothes remain unpacked and my flat is in disarray. It won't be changing before Friday at this rate.
3. The next "event" on my Dayorama calendar is my imminent departure to HK. That's pretty daunting right now.
As long weekends go mine was rather fun. Pure, wholesome fun. For a little bit of context, a friend from secondary school was getting married in Durham on Saturday. My Mother was at Durham *shhh, in the 1960s* and hadn’t been back since. When I announced some time back I was off to the wedding, she said she’d come with me. So, on Thursday night I drove to Kent. At 4am Friday morning we set off for Durham. We arrived in the hotel around 10am. 5hrs of driving 1hr of stops. Mad, perhaps, but utterly painless.
We wandered around Durham and went to my Mum’s College – St Hild, now St Hild & St Bede – and then went off exploring. We ventured North into Northumberland. Absolutely fabulous countryside. We were blessed with a particularly good day weather-wise, so could see for absolutely miles.
We ambled around the countryside and made the obligatory visit to Hadrian’s wall. On our way back into Durham we stopped off at the Angel of the North. It’s an amazing statue. Instead of being impressive from a distance but pretty naff close-up, or vice-versa, the Angel of the North is both impressive from afar and when you are standing underneath it. I’m rather pleased with the below photograph (plus I had to ram myself into a bramble bush in order to take it!).
On Saturday we wandered around Durham Cathedral and Castle. I then attended the wedding – which took place in the Cathedral. It must be said, it’s a rather impressive setting for a wedding. After that we had dinner with my closest friend from school (a PhD Historian at Durham) and then today we bimbled home… but what a drive… We decided to go via Whitby and the North Yorkshire Moors. Absolutely beautiful. The heather was in full bloom and the natural colours were wonderful. Certainly worth it… and I’ll definitely be returning… I’ve also now got some “lucky” heather in my room… let’s hope it will counteract the “unlucky” peacock feathers… only time will tell!
Fear not, this is not another diatribe about the faults of the population who frequent Tesco. No, tis instead an account of how I got distracted on the way to Tesco yesterday. I left my flat at 1pm and returned at around 4pm. The time I spent traveling to and from was around 15mins, and my time in the store around 30mins. By my reckoning, that leaves around 3.25hrs unaccounted for.
However, I must digress slightly first: I should just like to add one qualification to Ollie’s post below. He exaggerates. The excuse of journalist flair. Damn good post, maybe. But he exaggerates. Kangaroos? No, more joeys.
So, back to Tesco. My local Tesco is Bromley-by-Bow. It is built amidst the remains of the industrial East End and backs on to a site known as the “Three Mills”. I’ve often glanced at these Mills. They are stunningly beautiful. Set against the River Lea, one half of the building has a twin-oast and the other hosts a clock tower. Overall the complex is a fine example of Georgian / early Victorian architecture. Behind the main Mills are the so-called “3 Mills Studios”, apparently used for quite well-known terrestrial tv dramas and the like.
The Three Mills are part of the Lea Valley Country Park. There’s a potted history here, but clearly the site has been important since 1066, if not before. It’s undergone some changes, but the current development is a real treasure.
I ventured inside for the first time – it was a glorious day and after sitting by the river for a while I thought the Mills were worthy of further investigation. I was fortunate enough to join a tour group, and spent the next hour and a half or so, having a tour of the Mills – and at the same time learning an incredible amount about the local history of my area. Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a “tourist attraction”, per se. Of course, in essence it is – but sadly like many developments, funding has been minimal and infrequent. The Mills have survived on generous donations and the support of volunteers, rather than from the backing of a well-known heritage trust. The volunteers hope that one day the Olympic legacy will help them on their way – and I’d be the first in line to support the cause.
However, this lack of “official” funding, makes one’s visit intimate and personal. The tour itself centered around the House Mill. So called, because it was situated between two houses. There’s a little about the tour of the Mill on the link above, and but in essence you traveled throughout the floors of the Mill right from the top where the grain sacks were hoisted, to the storage of the grain, the grinding stones and then down to the water-wheels in existence. Rather fascinatingly, and for some unknown reason, the tide of progression is still evident. There are four wheels, yes, but they each represent different stages in the engineering thinking behind the wheels. This hasn’t been displayed like this for “museum” purposes, this is how the Mill was left. Similarly, there are around eight milling stones of one design, alongside four with a more traditional structure. The website has more detail. It’s incredible to see the differences, side by side, and really understand how they developed to both meet the needs of the Mill, adapt to increased engineering knowledge and availability of raw materials.
So, a fascinating and rewarding little jaunt. Not often you can go to Tesco and get to see the UK’s largest tidal mill in the bargain.
Amy mentioned she'd be paying a visit, and we spent yesterday afternoon on one of our usual trips round Berks, Bucks and Oxon, ending up with a very nice pub dinner at a place called the Golden Ball near Assendon. The food took a while but was lovely when it came - recommended if you've got time to spare.
We started off by walking the dog round the sculpture trail, except the dog had already had a walk round the cricket pitch and chose to lie by the fence in the back garden, taking in the rays, studiously ignoring us. So we went round the sculpture trail minus the dog, then did a bit of basking in the sun ourselves on the spacious meadow by the car park.
That photo was taken about five minutes before Amy brought shame on the family, the Dodge, the park, the county and the human race.
As we ambled back down the dusty track near the entrance to find the car, with an elderly lady behind us escorting a medium sized dog, Amy noticed something which apparently required my immediate attention.
"My tits!" She exclaimed. "My tits! There's mud on them!"
Now, I don't know if God has a Reverb button for the dusty track and surrounding woodland, but if he has, he's left it turned up to 11. Amy's succinct observation bounced around the trees like a kangaroo on heat. The medium sized dog and elderly lady froze. Children playing in the distance began to weep. Squirrels fell out of branches.
Having bundled the now delirious Kennedy into the car and away from her horrified public, it emerged that the few specks of mud in question were on her top in that vague area rather than being actually... there. She needn't have panicked a nation. The dog acquired an instantaneous shock-induced perm quite unnecessarily.
We drove on towards Stonor down possibly the only road around Stokenchurch that I've never previously explored. It was beautiful - including one length of road that became a kind of secret boulevard, with vast driveways leading off into the beyond, ginormous houses shrouded in foliage. Still, even the incredibly rich and secretive need a post box:
That post box is in the middle of nowhere on this shady little boulevard, perched a good half a mile from any dwelling, sticking out like a sore thumb. And it's what makes Britain special. Like the postal service in general at the moment, that post box is shockingly striking.
Carrying on down the road, it became apparent that it was quite a bit busier than ought to really be the case. For a tiny, winding lane through rolling countryside in the middle of nowhere, there was a steady stream of traffic going on. The reason soon became clear.
There, appearing out of nowhere on the left hand side, was Stonor Park, home to the country estate and readying itself for an open-air concert that night. Hundreds upon hundreds of cars were stacked up along the lane for miles - Lord knows if they all made it in on time. Of course it might be they weren't going to the open-air concert at all. They'd probably all stopped at the sound of a distant echo...
A fellow Dayorama reader and I went out for dinner last night. A very pleasant restaurant in a hotel, and the food was wonderful… but the service. Oh, the service. The problem was that whilst the waitresses were thoroughly well meaning and cheerful, they weren’t particularly experienced and English wasn’t their first language.
The issues really began when we ordered dessert. Now first, let me digress to the menu. It had little “v’s” next to vegetarian dishes and “n’s” next to dishes containing nuts. The cheese platter indicated that it contained nuts. Now, this isn’t necessarily a misnomer. I mean, you can have cheese with walnuts in it. What was rather confusing though was that the almond tart didn’t appear to contain nuts. Nor did the cake with pistachios in it. Interesting.
To begin, we both had to repeat what we had for dessert, twice – the waitress didn’t quite seem to be able to distinguish between crème brulee and ice cream. We’d had previous problems when we tried to explain we weren’t guests at the hotel, and therefore however many times they asked us for our room number we just didn’t have one. When the waitress delivered the cutlery for desert, she looked puzzled and then gambled saying crème brulee to me (correct) and then gave me a fork and a large spoon. She gave my companion a small spoon, for an almond tartlet. Now, anyone who knew the two desserts would probably think it was logical for the crème brulee to have the teaspoon and the tart to have the fork and large spoon. We swapped the cutlery over.
Then it came to the bill. The puddings were delicious, incidentally. The complication was that we had a 25% discount card. Presented to the waitress, she looked at it as though it was a bizarre creature from Mars. Thankfully, given to her boss, he was slightly less flummoxed and produced our bills. This is where the fun began. We added on a tip and my companion handed over two credit cards. The initial confusion started from producing two cards from one wallet, even though one belonged to me. I’d taken nothing out with me other than a card so had asked him to look after it. Then we said we wanted to split the bill 50:50. The waitress came back with two bills, without the tip we’d previously added. The bill could actually have been split 50:50, but instead I ended up with a bill for £X.19 and the other bill was for £X.17. Why they weren’t both £X.18 is beyond me. In my usual dizzy state, and also under the influence of a good bottle of red, I couldn’t add up and was told to add £X.71 to mine to make it to a round number. Now, think about this: 71 + 19 is 90. Not 100. Two Oxford degrees and impossible to add to 100. So my total was incorrect and the bills had to be returned. Again. Then one of the cards was refused (not mine, incidentally :o) but seeing as the person in question earns over double my salary, somehow I think this could have been the card, rather than the lack of funds). Anyway, somehow and approximately 30mins after we’d originally asked for the bill, we managed to pay and left. Good job we weren’t in any form of hurry. I’m seeing Ollie for dinner later. I hate to think what is going to happen.
Today I realised why I worked. First, Tescos on a Monday is traumatic. It is busy, full of children, under-stocked and dreadful. Why, why, would anyone chose to go to Tesco on a Monday. At least I didn't get asked for ID today, and I managed to get a 1p reduction from my bill for having a recyclable Sainsbury bag-for-life! Second, daytime TV is awful. I managed to catch 5 minutes of Neighbours. I wouldn't have thought it possible but it seems both the story line and the acting has declined in the past five or so years from when I actually watched it regularly. Third, the tube. I caught the tube for the first time in around 6 weeks today. OK, so I live and work in London, but I catch the DLR to work and I have escaped for the past few weekends. The City was full of tourists today, and even when I left Soho around 22:15, it was still heaving. Thank heavens for black cabs home. I'm pretty happy that this side of London is lost on me for the most part, but at the same time I love it. I realised today that when in Hong Kong I shall truly miss London. Naturally, I shall miss England's green and pleasant land, but I'll also miss the buzz, the atmosphere and most of all the anonymity that the Big Smoke provides. Good job HK will be home-from-home in that respect, I suppose!
Apologies for the radio silence over the past week or so, but I have been on holiday in Croatia.
One thing is for certain, I was quickly displaced on Dayorama: Ollie soon leapt to the task of reporting about the weather, and David admirably complained about, what could arguably now be described as his arch nemesis, NatWest.
The wonders of modern technology (e.g. my BlackBerry) meant I could happily feed my Parents the weather reports for Berkshire on a regular basis. My
Father, huffing and puffing at the narrative and the lack of fact (at this juncture I did point out that Mr. Williams was a journalist first, meteorologist second) then went and checked the weather in more detail via the so-called "cyber-room" in our hotel. It was a hot-topic of conversation amongst the various Brits, not that there were many in the hotel.
I am currently writing this post sitting on my balcony. It's around half 8 and I've been fed and watered. I'm packed and simply waiting for the transport to the airport; so what better excuse than to sit and type a post.
By some small miracle, or simply because I'm pretty jammy, I landed myself a rather palatial double room with a beautiful sea view. I can currently hear the sea lapping gently against the rocky coastline and can see (pardon the pun) for miles. Just a few tiny islands and a ship on the horizon breaks the view for what must stretch to
the Eastern Coast of Italy.
*Apologies, the above is reminiscent of the "champagne on the opera house roof post". I shall digress rapidly*
So, Croatia. A stunningly beautiful country. I admit to being quite surprised. I admit I was a little skeptical when I'd been told how tranquil, clean and friendly, not to mention picturesque, the country and its inhabitants were, but it seems my reservations were misplaced.
We stayed on what is known as the Dalmation coast. This is so-called since it lines the region of Dalmatia. Apparently the name is derived from an Llyrian tribe called the “Dalmatae” who lived in the area of the Eastern Adriatic 1,000 years BC, not not because it is full of Dalmations, nor is it particularly spotty. The small resort of Cavtat (pronounced sav-tat) nestles in a small bay, with a couple of churches, a mausoleum, and a spattering of small shops. The harbour is busy with boats coming in and out and people fishing. But, what struck me was how quiet and peaceful it was. In reality, you saw very few people and if you slipped off onto one of the coastal walks, you could walk for several minutes without seeing a single person. That isn't to say the area isn't popular, but it seems to absorb people and sites as a matter of course.
The below is a picture of Cavtat. Rather pretty, yes?
The highlight of the area is of course Dubrovnik. It's incredible to think that the City was under siege as recently as 1991-2 and only escaped from the fear of attack as late as 1995. The scars of the troubles are still visible, but the City has undergone a miraculous redevelopment. It's a highly interesting City from an architectural prospective, as well as seeping in history. There is a mix of Byzantine, Romanesque, Baroque and Italian Gothic architecture - it’s incongruous but it works. The history spans the Crusades, the tussles for power between Venice and Dubrovnik for trade in the Adriatic, the ongoing battle between the Serbian and Roman population and most recently the twentieth century world wars. Naturally there are also various legends, notably that of St Balaise, and the Catholic ancestry is prevalent, not least illustrated by the cross that sits on Mount Srd, overlooking the City.
The below is a view of Dubrovnik’s rooftops, taken from the City walls.
I've often argued with Ollie that buildings look more attractive from behind, or from their roof. I think the above proves my point. [Ollie: I admit you were right about the shed on the green in Stokenchurch!]
The small island of Lokrum is also beautiful. It sits off the coast of Dubrivnik, is a nature reserve, it is practically
unspoilt and is home to hosts of peacocks, not to mention the baby peacocks. I've now got a few feathers. The problem is that superstition is rather confusing on this point. Peacock feathers may or may not be lucky. There's a chance that now I have them in my flat I'll die and old maid. Nothing new there then.
So I think that's about it for my summary from Croatia. It was wonderfully warm and sunny. I’m tanned and relaxed. And I’m not back to work until Tuesday!
It's now fifteen days since I received a call from my bank to check that my holiday in Romania was going well.
It came as little surprise to the man on the 'phone - an operative from NatWest's Group Security and Fraud department - that in fact I'd never been to Romania, and unlike those making large demands on my bank account in recent days, I'd not been busy buying spare parts for a Daewoo Nubira...
Identity fraud is a terrible thing for banks, and not because it costs them a packet in refunding poor sods like me. Indeed, a Police friend of mine assures me that when likely perpetrators do get caught (often at great expense to the Police), most banks are reluctant to press charges. Instead, they're content to write-off a growing chunk of money each quarter to feed the Daewoo men's extravagance, and hang the unpredictability of court cases - along with justice, of course.
No - it's a terrible thing because it exposes every crack in a bank's ability to handle its customers, and for that matter, their money. Of course, NatWest were first to spot the violation of my account, so full (erm) credit to them for putting a block on my card within hours of the obviously iffy transaction.
My qualm is not with that side of things. Rather, it's their inability to deal with the basics of customer service which riles me, an ineptitude which means that fifteen days, four phone calls and five visits to the bank later, I'm still unable to use my account without producing my defunct card and driver's licence across a counter.
In case you're thinking of opening an account with NatWest, here's the timeline I penned on the back of an envelope whilst enduring the familiar wait in my local branch today (I now know them so well I was greeted by name in the queue and shaken by hand by one member of staff):
12/07/07- Call from NatWest to report suspicious activity. Replacement card and fraud declaration to be sent, and activity logged as confirmed fraud;
13/07/07- Visit to main local branch to withdraw money using defunct card and driver's licence as ID;
16/07/07 - Visit to small local branch to check on progress of new card and documents. Told that the new card was inexplicably logged as "destroyed". Second replacement card was ordered;
19/07/07 - Visit to main local branch to withdraw money using defunct card and driver's licence as ID. No news of the card;
22/07/07 - Call made to Group Security & Fraud to enquire about lack of documents. Told that no documents (or card) had been sent because there was "no address details on my account". Erm, not quite sure why, and in any case, nice of them to let me know. I'd need to fill in a fraud declaration at my local branch;
22/07/07 - Visit to main local branch to insert rocket up anybody who would listen. Helpful lady helped me to log my address, and looked into previous card requests. Confirmed that one card had been destroyed, and a second had been "ordered though not checked off". She'd do the necessary. Meantime, I was given a fraud declaration, but told I could have done it via the telephone. Oh, and I'd need to report it to the Police;
25/07/07 - Call from Tilehurst branch (not my local) to report that my withdrawal on 12/07/07 had not been taken from my account, but from somebody else's in error! I told this story on the radio, and later received a text message from my parents (who'd heard), declaring the unfortunate debtor to be my Dad - he'd been chasing the error at his end;
27/07/07 - Call from main local branch to report that my new card had finally been delivered. On collection, I was told I'd need to wait a further 5 working days for my new PIN to arrive (it couldn't be sent to my home address, since there still wasn't one registered to my account).
So, you see my frustration. At almost every stage of this so far futile process, somebody has ill-advised me, processed something incorrectly, or not mentioned a complication which, days later, I'll have to discover for myself. My initial anger at losing money to fraudsters is now secondary to the frustration of losing my independence after 1630 on weekdays (1530 on Saturdays, crippled all day on Sundays), and the countless hours it's taken me to get nowhere with NatWest.
Give it five working days, I may just hand all banking matters to the Romanians. At least they know what they're doing with my money.
Here's the only picture taken this weekend, which shows a bus that isn't submerged to its waist in filthy water.
It's noteworthy for another reason, too. I appear to be in the driver's seat. Yes, hours before much of Oxfordshire became submerged in spewed Cherwell, it was the venue for my very first driving lesson in a bus.
Having been involved with buses since the age of zero, it won't surprise you to learn I've done the odd bit of shunting before. On my fourth birthday, I was allowed to 'drive' a Routemaster on the test track at London Transport's old training centre in Chiswick, albeit on the lap of an instructor who could actually reach the pedals.
To drive one for real - at least with the blessing of the law and your insurance company - you need to be 25. So yesterday was my first taste of proper bus driving; and very flavoursome it was too.
As you'll see, I'm far too small to look convincing as the driver of an 8 ton, 72-seat, 14 foot high beast; indeed, with 30 feet of bus trailing behind me, I felt no more qualified for the job than I did at the age of four. This time, though, there was no lap to sit on.
My instructors - co-owners Steve, Ken and Charles - were alarmingly optimistic about my maiden voyage, shoeing me into the cab at a well chosen industrial estate in Thame. Imagine the look on the face of an already terrified first time driver trying their hand at piloting a red Vauxhall Astra around the same industrial estate, who suddenly happened upon us coming round the next bend in our red machine. They didn't stay long.
Neither did we, it's true to say. With Ken and Charles observing from outside, and Steve alongside me in the cab, several laps of the yard were accomplished, including a tricky reverse manoeuvre between (or, in reality, over) two kerbs. With such rules as "aim for the broadcasters, then steer" under my belt, the most memorable phrase came three laps later: it went something like "fancy taking us back to Long Crendon?"...
I shan't forget the moment when, having barely taken in that I was about to drive a Routemaster on the road, I was hearing the familiar "ding ding" of the bell - this time at the other end of the bus, as a signal for me.
It's a funny thing when some previously forbidden fruit suddenly becomes a possibility.
With supervision aplenty, I negotiated T-junctions, left turns, right turns, roundabouts... all with a basic but entirely new observation at the front of my mind. Buses are quite big.
3 miles later, we reached Long Crendon unscathed, and against my own belief that it was probably all a dream, the photograph above proves it. All agreed it was "a very smooth journey", and predicted I'd soon be ready for a test.
21 years later, Chiswick may earn its latest graduate...
We haven't had anything on Barclays for a while, have we? Well, here's a double dosage.
1. I've finally paid off my student overdraft, so I wanted to close that account down. I have another current account. It transpires it is harder to close a bank account than open one. I emailed the barclays customer service department since I couldn't, unsurprisingly, find the answer to "how do I close my account" on their website. They replied saying I needed to telephone their customer service department. So I did. They told me I needed to a) write to Barclays; b) return my cheque books, shredded; and c) return my bank card, again shredded. The process to close down the account takes approximately two weeks.
2. Actually, praise. I gave a cheque to work the other week for a few expenses. It was returned today. The reason "no mandate". The accounts guy and I were puzzled. No longer. I received a letter from Barclays today. They told me they had refused to cash a cheque for the amount of X to X because they didn't think I had written it. The signature didn't look sufficiently like the one the one they have for me on record. They thought I may have been the object of fraud, and told me to look after my cheque book. It's great they "check" these things... and I'd best be less hasty next time I write a cheque!
That gargantuan monster is perched down the other end of the bed from me, a few hours after we both underwent a bilateral partial nail ablation.
In plain English, someone ripped my toenail out and burnt the nail root at the sides to stop it growing back.
Happily it wasn't just any old someone, it was a very experienced specialist in Milton Keynes who seemed to know what he was doing. That said, it took them five injections to numb my toe - normally they only do two, and I do now apparently hold a record for the Most Stubborn Toe in Britain.
At the moment the freshly pillaged toe is trying desperately to recover under that dressing. Hopefully it'll heal in the next few weeks and I'll be finally rid of the ingrowing toenails that have plagued me for the last, well, eight or nine years.
I was fifteen, maybe sixteen, when I had my left big toe operated on after a good few months' pain. Then two and a half years ago I had to have my right big toe done for the same reason. Alas, it grew back - the doctor who operated hadn't removed the nail root to stop that happening, and frankly I'm glad he didn't, since the anaesthetic wore off during that operation. I've never known agony like it before or since.
Today's operation put 2005's botched job to rights, or at least I hope it did. Only time will tell. I'm told I have a broad nail root and a way of walking that makes me particularly susceptible to these but, given they've both now been properly surgically removed, I'd like to think the nightmare is over.
Not for you it isn't, though. Are you brave enough to take a look at the toe before today's operation? If you're wondering what a particularly hideous ingrown toenail looks like after two years of malignant growth, all you have to do is click here. Dare you.
Oh and if you want to see what it looked like in 2004, before the first operation, click here. And don't say I never provide informative photos.
You might be confused for thinking I was in Wales this weekend. In fact, it was last weekend but I have only just got round to a) doing my washing; and b) downloading photographs.
A wonderful weekend. It's slightly ironic though when you book a trip away for yourself and two friends from Thursday night through until Sunday evening, and you're the last to arrive on Saturday morning after your holiday gets cancelled and you're in work too late on the Friday to drive to Wales that night and instead get up at 4am to get there in time for brekkie on Saturday.
What to say? Amazing weather, good scenery, too much whisky (to the point where the hearts and diamonds on the pack of playing cards began to look surprisingly similar - I'd been up for 21hrs at this point, though) and grand food.
Some amusing incidents too and unsurprisingly I managed to land feet first in a bog, and then sit on a clump of grass and giggle, and giggle and giggle. Oh and eating a 16oz sausage (no euphemism intended) also provided entertainment. I'd recommend this place, too - Ty Croeso. If you want to head away from the smoke and into Wales, the Black Mountains are worth it. Fabulous walking and utterly beautiful. Here's a scenic photo:
I met Ollie for dinner this evening. I was a little preoccupied with work, but then went into relaxed mode (akin to my giggling fit in Wales last weekend, sitting on a clump of grass, entirely surrounded by bog - but that's a story for another day) and began to spout utter rot. I admit it was rubbish. Ollie even began to wonder if my non-alcoholic beer had indeed been pure liquor. But that's what makes life entertaining. Three points for the record:
a) I stand by my theory that buildings often look better from the back. Mixtures of rooftops, chimneys and unexpected additions appeal;
b) I also stand by my theory that road-signs are larger than you expect. When driving along the motorway, they look pretty small. But standing underneath one... well, they're massive. As Ollie said, note this day as the day Amy learnt about perspective; and
c) When will it be so accepted that we can't smoke in public buildings, that it is no longer necessary to display no smoking signs?
Editor's note from Ollie: Amy appears to have forgotten to put a title on this post, so I have added one for the time being. Now, it's not that I despair, but one does fear for the legal profession.
Earlier this week I went to see my grandparents (for the first time in a long time) down near Brighton. During the afternoon we had a look at the many hundreds of photos they've saved up, of all the family over the years - and to my surprise they've also kept dozens of postcards.
This first one was sent back by me. For reasons which will become apparent, I'm not sure where I was at the time, or how old I was.
The aircraft isn't giving much away about the location. Sadly, neither's the back of the postcard!
One would hope one wasn't very old when writing that, although I know many people will suggest my writing's barely improved since. For those that can't interpret the hieroglyphics, the postcard says:
"Dear Nanny: Don't you think this plane is beautiful. All my love, Oliver."
And then on the right hand side, where most people would put the address, I've simply added:
"Have a happy day."
The postal service would have to be incredibly intuitive to have got that back to my grandparents, so I assume a wise old adult bundled it up with theirs and sent them in an envelope. I find it endearing that my priority was not minutiae like names and addresses, but more to wish everyone well in their lives.
Next to it in the box is one that my dad sent back, date 29 July 1994:
It's obvious enough from the postcard (a slightly better choice than my earlier effort) that we're in Switzerland. We used to go there quite a lot for summer holidays, playing tennis and golf. His writing on the back is a wee bit better too, although I'd suggest one or two words need a bit of work!
I sincerely hope these postcards weren't sent at the same time, because that would have made me nine years old, and - even allowing for that legendary untidy scrawl - it would have been a fairly terrible effort. Happily my dad's been comparatively loquacious with his.
"Dear Bill & Jean: Oll and I arrived safely and we are currently crossing the lake en route to the top of Mount Pilatus.
Weather very warm indeed, we are both melting, but plenty of refreshment helps.
Thank you both for looking after Oll and for Christmas, we are looking forward to it.
Take care, Chris."
Well obviously, those are the sort of sentiments I'd meant to convey - but it really was a beautiful plane.
I don't know why I pay X amount per month for the full Sky package. It is stress inducing. a) there is NOTHING on to watch; and b) I end up listening to VH1 Classics as I get ready for work in the morning and today it was playing Bucks Fizz... so had that wretched tune in my mind all day... "make you're mind up"... aghh! It just means I get annoyed about having 550+ hopeless channels rather than 5. Ho-hum.
I'll post about bounce-ability someday. Ollie has it all wrong.
On Saturday night I went to the thirtieth birthday celebrations of a good friend - let's call her Miss X.
I stayed til around midnight then went home. It turns out I should have taken up the offer of the couch for the night, because in leaving, I missed the best of the action.
According to Miss X, at around 2am she was out in the garden with friends, enjoying the bouncy castle she'd taken the liberty of hiring for her house party. Yes, I did say thirtieth, not third or thirteenth. It had been raining quite torrentially so the bouncy castle was fairly wet. I'm sure you can see where this is going.
On attempting to dismount the bouncy castle, the birthday girl fell into a crumpled heap, to the extent that she couldn't get up for the pain. She had to be escorted to bed (every birthday girl's dream, I'm sure), and the party-goers had the good sense and moral vacancy to continue proceedings in her absence downstairs.
Come the morning, Miss X awoke to both a hangover and a dreadful pain in the leg. Two hours later, at A&E, she was coolly informed by the duty doctors that she has sprained her medial knee ligament (bad) and quite possibly her cruciate ligament (very, very bad).
Today I found her on her sofa, watching daytime television, nursing a pair of crutches. She's off work for the next few days but, frankly, she didn't look likely to be making a return to work any time soon. After all, it took her ten minutes to reach the door from the couch to let me in (and I'd already locked myself out of one house that day, but that's another story).
Now, damaging your knee ligaments on your thirtieth birthday is an achievement in itself, but most people finish their birthdays legless in at least one sense, so perhaps it's not the end of the world.
Unless, that is, you've got an interview for The Apprentice on Thursday.
Yes, Miss X could be the next Katie Hopkins (boo), except she's now unable to reach the door, let alone central London for a grilling from the show's producers, now hiring in time for filming of the next series to begin on 15 September this year.
She's sent the producers an email in which she rather delicately admits to having damaged her knee, without revealing the precise bouncy-castle related circumstances. In return they've offered her the chance at an interview in either Manchester or Birmingham next week.
It's touch and go. Should she go to the interview, do you think? She says she's very happy in her current job and had only light-heartedly submitted her application. And now she's in no real fit state to travel. But at the same time she's a competitive soul and has the opportunity of a lifetime to earn a place on one of the most talked-about shows on television. What would you do?
So, there’s no smoking with our pinch and punch this morning. We awake to a smoke-free England. Our friends in Scotland, Wales and Ireland have been smoke-free for a while but as usual, this green and pleasant land (arguably pleasanter now for the lack of smoke) is one of the last to catch on.
The website here changed (I’m told, probably automatically and by code) at midnight last night to reflect that we “live” in a smoke-free England, rather than “we will live in one” come July 1st. I don’t anyone can successfully argue that the smoking ban is a bad thing. In fact, both smokers and non-smokers alike appear to be pleased that it will come in to force. My own father smoked for years, until of course his lung collapsed, and that put an end to the cheeky cigarettes in the garage. Colleagues smoke, I’ve friends who smoke, but all seem pleased the ban is in force. Even Dot Cotton, perhaps one of England’s notorious on-screen smokers, who has been battling with giving up for the past few months, ceremoniously smoked her last in the launderette in Friday night’s episode.
But what real impact will it have? At work, we’ve gained another room in place of the smoking room. There was a suggestion, again on Eastenders, that pubs would be less desirable. Cries of “a G and T won’t be the same without a fag, we may as well stay at home to drink and smoke in peace”, are I feel a little exaggerated. If anything it will encourage non-smokers back into pubs. I’d be lying if I said I’d never smoked a cigarette, and judging by the statistics here, a significant percentage of the population have indeed smoked at one point in their lives, but there is nothing worse than coming back from a night in a pub / club and smelling like one large stale cigarette. Urgh. And it increases my dry-cleaning bill. But what about the clubs? Apparently in Scotland, the smell in clubs following the smoking ban was terrible. Smoke seems to mask the spilt alcohol, the body odor and the smells of sick. Remove the smoke and suddenly clubs and bars smell distinctly unpleasant. I shudder to think what “Filth” would smell like. Oh the sticky floor! So maybe our pubs and clubs will have an utter overhaul and those smoke-stained lampshades and fag-burned carpets will be banished forever.
What’s interesting is how it has been played in the media and in shops / businesses. I’ve already mentioned the last drag by Dot in Eastenders. But as mentioned above, she’s been struggling to give up for months. In Coronation Street, two characters who haven’t really smoked for months, suddenly began to smoke and complain how hard it is to give up. There have been adverts on the DLR, and also I assume on the tube, for weeks. Boots are dishing out patches, gum (that’s a concept I just can’t fathom) and inhalers. Businesses are offering free counseling / courses to aid giving up. It’s all very encouraging, but also it does highlight the so-called “nanny state”. Of course, the smoking ban protects both the lives of smokers and non-smokers who will have been affected through the effect passive smoking. I can see Jurisprudence exam pages in years to come arguing whether the state was just and fair to impose the ban. What will be next? How dangerous does it have to be for the state to “ban” something? Questions that will only be answered through the passage of time.
So what do we tell our children? Will smoking be something only history books mention? Almost like a passing fashion trend. “For the majority of the twentieth century, until the early twenty-first century, the majority of the population of England smoked. Smoking was first brought to England in… etc.” I know my Mother has talked of how different smoking was in the 60s (sorry, Mum, for showing your age!), and I could recall an utterly different situation. Will we talk about how we had our last cigarette in a pub? I know friends who have had, rather sadly, photographs taken of them in pubs having a last cigarette. Or will it just disappear in a puff of smoke? Oh, and what else are we going to get taxed on. The bbc site, linked above, details the percentage of a cigarette packed that was taxed. Hardly the dog-end of the tax regime.
So, with that I suppose we enter a new era. I don’t think we’ll see an iconic picture of Gordon smoking a cigar, aka Churchill, sometime soon.
Sometimes, when I look back on the past 36 hours of my life, it all seems a little surreal.
We begin, rather unusually for me, at the beginning: yesterday morning. I arrived at work and had a conference call at 9am. I then had a raft of research, but had to do this in the cab on the way to a vault to deposit nigh-on €150,000,000 in bonds.
By the time I was back it was around 11.45am, so two colleagues and I thought we'd beat the rush and have an early lunch. We had a glass of wine, and then by half 12 we were back in the office.
Then my effective boss asked me to lunch, and it wasn't the sort of thing you refuse. So I ended up picking at sweetcorn and prawns out of a bowl of rice.
In the afternoon I pottered around and it got to around 7pm. A colleague and I decided to have a glass of wine. Well, we shared a bottle. But it was only around 8pm, so we roped in a good friend and another colleague, and we went on, and on, and on some more.
At about 4am common sense kicked in, so we all went home.
And by 9am we were all in work and in the middle of completing a transaction. Then we had breakfast. I then spent the remainder of the day in a training course.
Thankfully I'm now home. I've a raft of work. That's what tomorrow morning is for. Bring on the weekend!
Exciting times in Minehead - the blackbirds who've made my mum's back garden their home have finally turfed their young ones out of the nest, to develop in the big, wide world. Well, the big, wide back garden at any rate.
Here is one of the youngsters out and about, out back:
"The babies have fledged and this is one of them taken with my new camera lens," writes the owner of the garden. "He is jauntily sitting under the tree preening, and copying his parents in behaving as though he owns the garden!"
There has been much activity on the blackbird front over these past few weeks. Last year, to my mother's horror, a pair of plucky robins built a lovely nest over a pond, only to promptly fall in it and drown. This year the blackbirds have wisely chosen a tree over the other side of the garden, but have had to deal with all sorts of trauma in the mean time, not least magpies invading. We wish them all well.
I've learnt two things about the Royal Mail this week.
First, they are actually quite technologically advanced. Their website, from the postcode finder through to "Fee2Pay", is rather accessible.
Second, they don't just make their money through inflated postage prices. Boy do they make it when the mail sender fails to put the correct postage on an envelope.
My father sent me an A5 envelope but uselessly, didn't put the correct postage on. He was 6p short. The Royal Mail are making me pay £1.06.
The £1 is an admin charge? You what? I correct myself, it is a "handling charge". Better be gold plated, clean hands!
So, some bright spark has decided that tomorrow shall be Lights Out London day.
I don't disagree with this in principle. It's a great idea to help the people of London see how much wasted electricity they use. From 9pm until 10pm tomorrow, all 'unnecessary' lighting should be turned off, and the capital should be plunged into darkness.
I am meant to be at a drinks event tomorrow evening on the top floor of the Gherkin, so this should be an interesting sight.*
But I've got two questions:
i. Why can't we just be encouraged to turn off non-essential lighting every day; and
ii. Why on earth would you encourage turning off the lights at 9pm on the longest day of the year?
I was in a very pleasant flat this evening, overlooking the Wharf and the skyline of London, and it was light until at least 9.45pm. So much for 'lights out London' - it's still partially daylight! The brain-child of someone whose internal lights are stuck on the dimmer switch?
* Shame I'm unlikely to attend since I'll almost certainly be stuck in work...
You may already have seen her on Dayorama's 'About' page for a couple of months and, finally, it's my pleasure to introduce Amy Jones to you.
Amy and I met while I was setting up an Election Special for student radio two years ago - she was the press officer for Oxford University's Lib Dem society. She's played cricket for the university at Lord's and, speaking of lords, there's one in the family. She's just finished at Oxford University and calls Cheltenham, and Botswana, home. Give her a warm welcome.
From here on in, it's Amy...
Hi, I'm Amy J; you may remember me from such Dayorama posts as this, this, and this. Rest assured that the rest of my life is equally exciting. Unfortunately, Ollie extended his invitation to Dayorama at precisely the moment when my life temporarily ceased to be so, because I had Finals looming large and was (mostly) chained to a desk in one of the many libraries Oxford has to offer.
Though I saw this as something of a challenge, and sought to be as interesting as possible for my remaining period at university, events conspired against me, and life really was as dull as I'd feared it might be. However, I am now BACK (not that any of you ever noticed that I went away), and promise to bring you the many exploits of my post-Finals summer including, but not limited to:
England's first match at the new Wembley
The Oxford-Cambridge One-Day Varsity cricket match
A review of every one of John Simm's TV appearances to date
Luckily - and, for those of you who have been living under a rock for the past month, I suppose I should enclose a spoiler warning - I need not wait long to acquire new material for this last adventure; Simm is appearing as 'Harold Saxon/The Master' in this year's two-part Dr Who finale, beginning this Saturday. I wish I could retain an element of decorum about this, but the fact of the matter is, I haven't been this excited about a piece of television for a very long time.
The regeneration of Derek Jacobi's Professor into John Simm's Master last Saturday night represented, to me, the passing of the mantle of "Best Actor Of His Generation" from the first man to the second. Jacobi is now 68; Simm is 36. That gives me at least another 32 years of top-notch telly-watching; you'll be the first to hear my commentary on it.
This comes from the website www.votesaxon.co.uk. I've already clicked "Yes" on the poll asking if I'd vote for Harry Saxon. Well, you just WOULD, wouldn't you?!
Just for the record, here's my mum blowing out far fewer than the requisite number of candles as she reaches that grand landmark, fifty years of age:
Out of all the photos we have I've been told I can only put one up, and this is not the one, but being a journalist I'm never one for following other people's orders. Instead in the above picture you have my mum accompanied by yours truly, looking dignified as ever for the occasion, alongside partner Sheila's kids (L-R: Sarah, Anna, David, Chris).
If you look closely you'll see the cake shows someone playing a saxophone. We have the tremendous good fortune to live a couple of doors down from a brilliant cake shop, who delivered a fantastic cake to celebrate my mum's new-found love for a good bit of woodwind. She's already taken to the stage at Minehead's Regal Theatre as part of a wind band, and is now - shock, horror - due to sit her Grade One Saxophone examination in early July! Life begins, eh...
So, it's pretty poor that no one posted when Ollie was away. Apologies. No guesses for what I've been up to. Boy I love the view from the 23rd floor in my Canary Wharf tower! Actually, I don't have much to report since the weekend was either spent working or with my parents. It's always fun to turn up unannounced, washing in hand, and to invite myself for dinner. What news? Preparation for Hong Kong are coming along. I've had to get hold of my University transcripts though... it will take over 2 weeks! Something about the assistant being away, and then someone else not knowing what to do, and then some time delay. Or something. Ho-hum. But, I have managed something in the past few days. I managed to install my new dvd player... on my own. For those of you that know me, you'll appreciate that this is nothing short of a miracle. And I was tipsy at the time. Perhaps that made it easier?! Either way, it seems to work. Electrical goods are now fool-proof, or I am less blonde than first thought. I'd put money on the former.
I've spent most of the last week getting far wetter than was strictly necessary.
More news of Thursday night - in a World War One trench in the village of Shiplake - shortly, including video to prove it.
But first, to Switzerland.
I flew out to Zurich with my mum on Saturday afternoon, then we took the train to Bern, the beautiful Swiss capital. I'd left my camera at home (I'm in danger of becoming surgically attached to it, ditto my laptop, which also stayed behind), so all the photos here are the mother's:
Central Bern is improbably serene for a capital city, or at least it was for us. Admittedly our timing helped, since Sundays appear to have remained sacred in Switzerland, so none of the shops had opened. The human traffic was minimal, let alone the near non-existent vehicle traffic on the old Bern streets.
We walked down to the chalky turquoise and fast-flowing river, then back up to Bern's cathedral, which offers gorgeous views over the old town and even across to the Alpine mountains in the far distance.
We had a wander around the cathedral and a couple of the other churches in the city centre, being the suckers for architecture that we are. I'm impressed that one particular Bern church ceiling detail looks like a robotic Owl of Death:
Come Sunday night, the real reason for our trip out: Genesis, playing at Bern's new Stade de Suisse, the night before my mum's fiftieth birthday.
That's our view of the stage (and that's a photo off my camera by the way, very proud of that one). We were in the 'Golden Circle' right at the very front - more by virtue of these being the only tickets left when I booked, than any great desire to show off - between the stage and a whopping great big screen.
My mum was initially somewhat concerned about the prospect of so many hours standing up, but soon warmed to the idea when she found an Australian security guard who'd spent eight weeks in exactly the same Norwegian village as us earlier this year, and began to share photos. I have no idea how these things happen to us.
We were in the perfect location as the concert started - and then it began to rain. And then it began not only to rain, but absolutely lash it down with a vengeance. It was bloody brilliant. Thank God I don't spike my hair up any more: even with the legendary strength of my spikes, there'd have been a terrible collapse.
As the band finished off their two-and-a-half hour set, 'wet' did not even begin to describe the state of those of us in the open air at the front. God only knows how the band's equipment - all the lights etc - carried on functioning, and the big screen at the back of the stage died once or twice in the watery onslaught. It was biblical but made the whole evening all the more atmospheric.
Credit to the ever-efficient Swiss rail system: although the queues at the station after the gig were vaguely reminiscent of early 1940s Germany, as experienced by those who weren't German, there were special trains to get us to the stadium and back, and our hotel room was a stone's throw from Bern's main station - albeit another wet stone's throw as the rain persisted.
I think my mum's only disappointment was the journey back the following morning, on her fiftieth proper. She went through at least four sets of passport control at Zurich and Heathrow, and not once did someone notice her date of birth on her passport. You'd think they'd keep a balloon under the immigration desks or something. Disgrace.
Still, Happy Birthday mum - and it doesn't end there. Tomorrow night we're in Cornwall to see Peter Gabriel (ex-Genesis, of course) play at the Eden Project. Scattered showers are forecast, but they'll have to go some to beat Bern. Glastonbury eat your heart out.
When I was growing up, one of the television programmes to which I was routinely glued was Playdays. You know the one - there were different stops each day, like the Roundabout Stop and Dot Stop, and depending where the bus stopped, there'd be a different sort of entertainment for the rest of the show.
Most of the stops didn't really do it for me (I never did work out the pattern behind when the bus stopped where), but the Why Bird Stop was quality. Whenever the Playbus stopped at the Why Bird Stop, the cheeky, irrepressible Why Bird would appear with her computer and generally cause mischief, then play us a nice video.
I'd forgotten all about Playdays til this afternoon, when suddenly, coming the other way up the hill before Sonning Common, was the Playbus!
I tell you, it's a miracle I stayed on the road, with this enormous blue icon of my childhood going the other way. I could not believe it. It's like turning up at Reading Station to find Thomas the Tank Engine pulling the 1624 Paddington stopping service.
So all afternoon I've been wondering what the hell the Playbus was doing trundling out of Sonning Common, given I'd previously thought it entirely a work of fiction.
A quick search of the web reveals the Playbus as a concept is very real. The one I passed was the Oxfordshire Playbus, whose mission is apparently:
To provide, or assist in the provision of recreational and leisure-time activities for children, young people and adults.
In other words they go round the county with a bus full of toys and happiness, and park up wherever they're most needed. What a brilliant bus that is.
And David, the national Playbus website even has a Buses For Sale page! If Mr Sheppard one day becomes proud owner of a blue double-decker Playbus, I will take back everything disparaging I have ever said about bus ownership.
Funny how a programme I watched religiously for years had slipped from my mind until now. I'm off to print out the colour-the-bus page on the Playbus website.
So, I've a bit shafted with work recently. Worked the weekend. Worked till very late last night. Decided to have today off, although have worked all morning anyway, albeit from the comfort of my sofa. However... the exciting news is that I'm off to Hong Kong for 6mths come September. Rather daunting / great / aghhh / exciting / any other mix of emotion! I found out yesterday, and probably haven't stopped smiling since. It's a bit weird to find out about something though, have all of 30 secs to take it in, phone a couple of people, and then walk straight into a meeting, trying not to look like a Cheshire cat. Just wait, I'll be able to send a "sipping champagne from some opera house" post... (TM: OJ September 2003)
I've had a rather strange day. I've been out of sorts. Defensive. If I was a small animal, my fur would be standing up on end. I don't suppose it helped that I was in work for 7.30am. Considering I am usually still asleep at this time during the week, this was quite painful. Especially after a busy week of little sleep and a fair amount of alcohol. I got back to my flat utterly drained and exhausted. It was a beautiful day outside, but I decided to hibernate. Then realised that perhaps what I needed to do was to go home. So that's what I did. 50mins later and I was curled up on my the sofa at my parents. And what Saturday night entertainment did we have? The Joesph competition. In a similar way to "Finding Maria", or whatever it was called, Graham Norton hosts this talent competition... to find the perfect Joseph. It was the semi-finals this week: the last chance for Andrew Lloyd Webber to save one of the two least popular candidates. Next week it is the final... my money is on Lee. He's pretty fit, manly, and has a fantastic voice. My point is, that when this series began my Mother said, "oh I'm not goig to watch that sort of thing again". Famous last words! For one, we had to be in position to watch the show. Second, my ironing (yes, I took two shirts home to be ironed by my Mum's super iron) had to be done in the break between the competition and the results. Third, and rather alarmingly, my Father has an opinion on who should win. His comments are restricted from the exreme of "he's too much like a woman" or "he's good". Conisdering my father is profoundly deaf, this is rather entertaining. He admits to liking Denise Van Outen though, and also said he prefered the "Maria" competition: "I prefered the one with the women". Do men ever grow up?! So there we are. That was my evening. I voted too. Twice. I can't believe both my Mother and I voted! What else? Oh, I stole a bottle of wine, grabbed some post and got a much-needed hug (although, to be fair Ollie had provided me with a wonderful verbal hug earlier). So that's that. Just what I needed to do. I'm now back in London since I need to work early tomorrow, and visit my cousin. Maybe I'll have a day off one day this week. Oh, and my DVD player appears to have died. I'll have to wait until next month to replace that one!
Now, you see I think Ollie was slightly pessimistic about our little jaunt. Many people I spoke to at work yesterday seemed to give up doing anything due to the weather this weekend. Where's the British spirit, eh?! We had the brolly and the fleece all that was missing was the the flask of lukewarm coffee. I suppose it was always going to turn out to be a bizarre day when we rocked up to a very well respected restaurant in jeans. But, money is money. We'd also had an entertaining argument with a Porsche to get into the car park. The driving around also had moments of hilarity. I think it was Ollie's idea to follow the tourist signs. His post neglects to mention our trip to the "Battlefield". This promised to be quite exciting. In all honesty, it wasn't that exciting. There was a memorial to the Civil War, dedicated to Prince Rupert, and a helpful tourist information sign with a map and details of the battle. We could have sat on a bench to admire said battlefield, but it was raining. What else? Well, we saw lapwings, a jay and a woodpecker. That's the ornithology done. My blackberry had its uses: we were able to find out the meaning for why a lapwing is called a lapwing and / or a peewit and also the meaning for "hermitage". Don't ask. You see it sounds boring, but it was fun. And finally, considering we had two sat-navs in the car, we also discovered that all roads lead to Lewknor. Honest, guv.
Right then, so we're back from Norway. Here's a quick fast-forward from then (last Tuesday) til now (this Tuesday):
We left the Lofoten Islands on the early ferry, so had plenty of time to kill in Bodø before the flight back to Oslo. Happily help was at hand in the form of a coach trip to Saltstraumen - a natural phenomenon which creates the world's largest maelstrom, throwing up enormous whirlpools in a narrow channel as water tries to flow both inland and out to sea at once.
We spotted the coach making its way through town before departing, flagged it down and hopped on board. "Don't worry," said the driver. "We'll sort out payment later."
Canny boy, that driver. It cost nearly sixty quid to take this coach the half hour or so to Saltstraumen. Now the trip was quite good, and the audio tour which accompanied it highly interesting, but at thirty quid a person they were slightly taking the Michael.
It was quite a quiet day at Saltstraumen itself, but my mum still managed to get a good photo showing the whirlpools being formed:
Now then, going back to that audio tour on the bus. What a gem this was. Not only did it impart interesting information, but the voice behind the information was truly out of this world. Well, straight out of Yorkshire, actually, with a distinct Norwegian tinge. Have a listen - it's like Norway's answer to Michael Parkinson.
I half thought about writing to the company to offer my services for a new voice-over. But then who'd prefer my voice to that? It's fantastic.
The following morning we flew home - customary ham and cheese sandwich on the way back, do the Norwegians know no different? Ginsters would make a killing in Norway, sandwich variety is at a bare minimum. The weather in England was far too hot! I don't know if it all changed while I was away, but in Norway the pleasant, crisp air had been ideal. Here in Blighty it's gone all warm and stuffy - nightmare.
At the weekend yours truly got to sample Aussie Rules football for a radio report - pics and audio going online on the Berkshire site soon, brilliant afternoon's entertainment and highly recommended.
Then on Monday the one and only Amy Kennedy came to visit. Given the atrocious weather (much more like it) we spent the Bank Holiday driving round southern England in the car. When we reached Stadhampton Amy mentioned something about there being a posh restaurant nearby. We found it:
Avoiding the £45 caviar and £35 duck eggs benedict on the Crazy Bear's menu, we both enjoyed nice steaks, then carried on the pursuit of something, anything, to hold our interest on a damp Bank Holiday. We came up with...
The Maharajah's Well near Stoke Row...
A flooded road which gave the Dodge serious cause for concern...
And a pig farm.
Writing this, it becomes apparent that that's a fairly desperate collection of photos, but funnily enough it didn't feel that bad at the time. We nearly went into the Living Rainforest but were scared off by the ridiculous number of children, and got as far as Newbury before turning round. At least it got us out of the house.
My dad is now back home following his hip operation, which is cause for celebration - he's doing well and is now fiercely guarding the remote control from his new command centre next to the TV in the living room. In the mean time Harry dragged me to the local cricket pitch this afternoon to test his new Kwik Cricket set, and we found ourselves helped by a West Indian far more competent than the ones England are facing - a nine-year-old named Tyler with a mean left-arm seam action.
And in the last few hours I've watched a quite harrowing documentary on BBC4, following a group of youngsters training at a Chinese gymnastics school. Children who can't have been more than eight or nine years old were bullied, threatened and abused by their teachers for an hour and twenty minutes with no narration, just the raw video and audio over a number of months. Then we see them perform and they're amazing, not to mention national Chinese champions. But at what cost? If you ever see this repeated, I urge you to watch it.
Now, either my flat is too small or my umbrella is too big. I have a rather large umbrella. It will appear in one of Ollie's posts, later. And no, umbrella is not a euphemism for anything. But I can't open it out to dry in the hallway / corridor of my flat. It doesn't fit. It hardly fits anywhere else, come to think of it. Time I got a smaller umbrella.
Ok, Ok, let's not get ahead of ourselves here, I'm still blonde. But, I analysed my monthly expenditure this weekend. I'm an adult. It goes on cars and insurance and DIY and other such things. It also goes on alcohol and food and clothes. But, agh. I mean, this weekend: petrol, car tyres (eeek), IKEA (yeah, really good decision to go on the Sunday of a Bank Holiday), and anti-virus protection. All those things your parents bought you for years. All the little things you took for granted. And they hit me now. I think, perhaps, I'm finally growing up. That said, still take my washing home to my Mum... so I can't be too old, yet.
I've just agreed, offered almost, to be a passenger in Ollie's car tomorrow. Heaven help me. Await photos of our aslightly weather-doomed day out!
I can hardly compete with Ollie (I believe he's currently posting from Oslo), but I can rant about my diary issues. I needed a new diary: a) I'm stuck on an academic diary still; and b) my current diary was getting messy. So, I've been looking for a diary. Bear in mind, I have my diary on Outlook at work, then have to reconcile my hand-written appointments diary; find it much easier to write things by hand. Well, I seemed to lose my diary at the same time of thinking of buying a new one. Over the weekend / the beginning of this week I found myself in some form of vortex, without a diary. Most odd. So, I was unable to confirm the trip to the Black Mountains, because I couldn't find my diary. I discovered it, much to my relief, this morning in my wardrobe. Goodness knows how it got there! I then bought a diary at lunch - but it doesn't bloody start until July. Damn. So I've had to convert the year planner for May / June 2008 to 2007 and start that way. Also, no where sells diaries at this time of year. I've settled on some stupidly priced multi-coloured option from Paperchase. Grr. All in all a diary disaster, really. Ho hum.
So, I met with two friends from Oxford earlier today. It's always rather fun when you haven't managed to catch up for two years, then manage to spend a very quick, enjoyable four and a half hours chatting over a few pints. We went to Greenwich, which I do think is one of my favourite places in London. Unfortunately it was raining though, so we had to spend longer in the pub than intended. Shame.
We were all going to go to the Lakes earlier this year, but I got held back with work. We're trying again for another trip. We've decided to ditch the Lakes, on account of it being too far North and a bit touristy. Our choices were Exmoor, Dartmoor, the Black Mountains and the Peaks. We couldn't decide. There was an inkling for the Black Mountains, but we were still undecided.
So, a page was ripped from a diary. The four options written on different bits of paper. The four bits of paper put in the middle of the table. The theory being, we each picked one and the destination on the remaining paper was the venue we were going to choose. Fine.
Exmoor remained.
We all looked at each other and, despite being unable to decide earlier, unanimously said: "Nah, lets go to the Black Mountains."
It just goes to show - sometimes, when you are forced into one path, you suddenly realise exactly what it is you want. Logic and prior planning fly out of the window!
You know you've made it in life when you're a special guest at the opening of a new doughnut parlour, replete with lanyard detailing all available flavours as above.
David, myself and friend Marie starred as the radio station's special envoy to the grand opening of the latest store owned by a doughnut chain which I shan't name. We've been schmoozed, plied with alcohol and bribed with doughnuts to the extent that I'd feel filthy giving them the bloody publicity they actually want, so if you want to know who it is then you might as well do a little research and work for it.
We were greeted by two happy clappy doughnut converts who gave us passes entitling us to free doughnuts for a year. In practice this turns out to be two dozen doughnuts a month til this time in 2008, which is not at all bad, although for reasons which will become clear I doubt I'll take them up on it. The pair pointed out a big red sign which lights up when their doughnuts are hot and fresh.
A third happy clappy member of staff then met us and offered us a tour. This turned out to be a second opportunity to admire the big red sign which lights up when their doughnuts are hot and fresh.
We were then introduced to automatons Four and Five, who we were told had a "surprise" for us. Before giving us the surprise, they pointed out the big red sign, which lights up when their doughnuts are hot and fresh. Bugger the sign, give us a doughnut. The surprise turned out to be a doughnut.
Another doughnut later we were in a marquee by the canal, sipping champagne (strictly inside the marquee - "byelaws", as the marketing lady sighed in resigned tone), watching a widescreen television with wall-to-wall doughnut coverage.
The managing director (of what I'm not sure, possibly the entire company) came over and introduced himself. We all proceeded to chat awkwardly about doughnuts, Reading, and our jobs, and then David did a beautiful job of losing him by telling a story involving urine and Bob Holness. The MD didn't even let the story finish - he made his excuse mid-sentence and beetled off through the crowd to a safe distance.
I could only manage two doughnuts before I realised I don't even like the bloody things, so naturally I was thrilled when they gave us a crate of 12 doughnuts each to take home as we left. We went on for dinner in town and managed to palm one box off on the waitress as a tip, which was inspired and seemed to promote goodwill all round.
My one overriding conclusion from the doughnut event is that cramming doughnuts down our faces was probably quite a bad move. I can't stand the sight of doughnuts now, and the thought of the doughnut emporium is enough to drive me to distraction. Even typing "doughnut" is starting to make me wince. The next-door McDonalds must be lovin' it - it's the quickest way to get rid of the taste. Only a year of the damned things to go.
So, naturally I'm a fan of Google. I have the toolbar on my desktop at work, so I'm now used to it guessing what I say. I've never really taken much notice of how it tries to second-guess what I say, but today was an exception. It seems that it guesses what you are trying to search for based on a) what you said before; and b) the most popular searches.
If I put in "sha"... it second guesses "shareholder...", since that is quite a common search of mine. If you look at the general searches, it suggests Shakespeare... Shakespeare in love... Shakespeare sonnets... poems... etc. All make perfect sense, right? Now, what about recipe. I put in recipe today, as was looking... funnily enough for a recipe. Now, let me remind you. This is based on popular searches that begin with recipe... I got the following list:
recipe devilled eggs
recipe hot cross buns
recipe dog food
recipe banana bread
recipe meat loaf
How bizarre!
*EDIT* Have just tried Amy Kennedy. I get... Amy Kennedy photography... Amy Kennedy oxygen... Amy Kennedy pentecostal. Is there a hidden message, here?
Ollie Williams gets family guy... soundboard... quotes.
Enough now. I shouldn't be allowed out of work early.
Read on if you've ever had to take time to query an erroneous 'phone bill, or to return a faulty item, only to be told you'll be refunded as a "goodwill gesture"...
It's my pet hate. A few weeks ago I bought a new lamp for our living room, only to find (having stripped out the original) that one of the more crucial parts was missing. On contacting the shop, I was told they were "unable to provide the missing part", but could order one from the manufacturers "for an extra eighteen pounds". Needless to say, I wasn't about to write the cheque, and marched the lamp furiously across town for a confrontation.
"We'll refund on this occasion, sir - as a goodwill gesture," I was told.
The light may not have made it to the ceiling, but I certainly did.
Fact is, there's a difference between the free giving of goodwill and the indisputable need for recompense. Which is why I'm utterly gob smacked at the deplorable customer service I received today from what I've already named as "the worst bus operator in the world".
As a goodwill gesture, and by way of identifying the worst provider of customer service in the world, I'll include their logo:
You'll recall that Thames Travel (Wallingford) Limited is responsible for the bus which, on a cold night in March, sailed past my friend Guy and I at the most rural of bus stops. To give them their due, Thames Travel did respond to my answerphone message, and to the subsequent comment form I submitted online, promising to "investigate the complaint".
After a few days, I received a polite email informing me that CCTV footage from the bus in question had been examined, and whilst they'd been able to confirm that we were indeed left at the bus stop, "the lighting at the (bus) stop was very poor". The inference was that the driver, through a mere windscreen, hadn't been able to see the shape of two grown men waving frantically in the road, even though that spectacle clearly had been visible to the CCTV camera. (Wouldn't it look great on YouTube?)
All that aside, Thames Travel offered to do the only decent thing, promising to pay compensation for our tickets and the unavoidable taxi journey to take us back to civilisation before dawn. All in, I calculated that a cheque for £15.40 would make us at least financially square.
Today, that compensation arrived...
... in the form of "a voucher for £15.40 to cover the cost as promised".
As I sit here, contemplating the length of the bus journey I'd need to make in order to claim my full £15.40's worth of Thames Travel credit, I wonder whether there's ever been a gesture so bereft of goodwill. Clearly, my dissatisfaction with the service has been taken seriously to the point that it's been followed up, and that is to be applauded. But in terms of a satisfactory resolution for the customer, this is crass; it would be like presenting a victim of bird flu with a lifetime supply of turkey.
Nobody champions the cause of the small independent bus operator more than I. In this case, though, I take forward the cause of the wronged consumer. Bottom line is, the taxi driver didn't accept my bus ticket, so why should I accept a glorified bus ticket to "cover the cost" of the taxi?
As a goodwill gesture, I'll be returning the voucher to its sender with a debit note for the £15.40 I'm owed. I'll also enclose a credit note for any on-board radio presentation services they may need in the future. They'll be just as likely to use it as I will their buses.
Predictably, yet irresistibly, you're bound to say "David, it's over to you". And you'd be right.
Welcome to your backstage pass for Berkshire's most untidy sleeping quarters, uncharacteristically my very own room in deepest Caversham. Throughout school and University days, my reputation was for husbandry at quite the opposite end of the scale. That's hard to imagine when you see the clutter of the present Sheppard Towers above, but to prove it (largely to myself), here's a shot of friends Brian, Tom and Nick enjoying hospitality among rows of neatly stacked trinkets in my Bristolian lodgings...
(Granted, the curtains needed tidying into a bin.)
My current room is undergoing complete refurbishment which will eventually see it change colour, shape, size and sex - hence the mess. Question is, will I ever get around to finishing?
Or, if this past weekend is anything to go by, starting?...
Friday night was put aside for great things - the moving of the furniture, the relocation of the desk (which still hasn't been secured to the wall after all these months, despite being of distinctly 'wall mounted' design), and a celebratory bottle of rosé to toast progress. Suffice to say, celebrations started prematurely and put pay to any Friday night graft. Oh well, at least Saturday was free...
A hard day's work calls for a hearty breakfast, and with this in mind, flatmate Bryony and I visited our local frying pan for the world's largest breakfast. Naturally, a meal of such magnitude requires a while to settle before any manual work can be undertaken, so a small rest was taken in the sunshine. It's surprising how much hunger all this lounging can promote, so lunch was taken, and again time was allowed for stomachs to settle. You can see how Saturday went on...
Sunday morning came, and I'm delighted to say was dedicated in its entirety to bedroom matters - mainly sleeping off Saturday night's show. Still, plenty of time to work on the room later. If only I'd managed to resist the invitation to pop along to an art exhibition in the Oxfordshire countryside, I could have started immediately...
Mid-afternoon was upon us, and with a barbeque to get to in the evening, I still had an hour or so in hand to begin work on furniture shifting. In fact, I did move a chair... before deciding I'd make the most of the weather and cycle to my barbeque. A journey of ten miles or so, it would take the rest of the afternoon. Shame.
I have to say, this really was the most fantastic barbeque - salmon, king prawns, roasted vegetables - healthy fuel for the cycle home around 9pm, and surely leaving me with a little energy for the task ahead. Unfortunately, on getting back home, flatmate Bryony seemed to be airing one of my favourite episodes of Black Books, and I couldn't resist the empty space on the sofa. It was the one where Dylan Moran's character was finding any excuse to put off something he didn't want to do, eventually inviting a pair of Jehovah's witnesses into his house for a lengthy chat.
Today is Monday - the final day of my slightly elongated weekend. I'll be waiting for the doorbell to ring...
At the risk of being pompous, please note the originality of the title. Sadly, the Chief Kent Correspond... *pause while check Ollie's post to see whether I should continue with an "a" or an "e"... ent was not in the Garden of England when the tremor occurred. I think, technically, I was in Middlesex. It has always amused me how London separates into counties, even though they really have very little purpose at all; I simply live in a London Borough.
So, yesterday I had a blissful day with a friend. We went to Bicester, then camped for 3 or so glorious hours in the lake by Blenheim Palace enjoying the sunshine and our Tesco picnic. I got asked for ID in Sainsbury. Highly entertaining since my friend was also with me and is twenty-six. If they are still asking me when I am thirty or so, I'll be a happy woman. I then went to meet Mr Williams for dinner. We had one abortive attempt at finding a pub - it's closed for refurbishment. At least this means we have a venue for next time... we discussed all manner of things, including Ollie's cruelty to horses. He's yet to apologise for photographing a horse and cutting its ears off. Anyway, so then I ended up in Kent since I had to talk through something with my parentals. I had planned to do this on the phone, decided it was better done face to face, had pretty much decided to visit them for a couple of hours (I'd arrive shortly after 9pm) when at the split of the M25 where I would have to decide, there was a sign saying the Blackwall Tunnell was shut. Decision made. So, to Kent it was. Then back to London this morning and I have trawled Spitalfields and Brick Lane market in search of fancy dress. It's for a 1950s event. I've decided I shall look like a 1950s E-number. A pinky knee-length Grease skirt, a green polka-dot tie top, a neck tie and pink ballet pumps. Oh dear. And I'm a lawyer, right?
Nothing else to report. I've recently read the latest Ian McEwan, On Chesil Beach. There's a Guardian review, here. I didn't particularly enjoy the subject matter. In fact, when I was reading it on the DLR in the morning I should have been more comfortable reading a raunchy scene from a Jillly Cooper. Perhaps this is because McEwan is so delicate, so open, so poignant? I found it uncomfortable. Reading it in public, wasn't for me. Consequently I'm highly amused that in the photo taken of Cameron on the bus this week (in most newspapers this weekend), he is reading said book. Nudge, nudge, best get Cameron reading a best seller. You know, popular fiction. Something that will make him look intellectual, but reading something modern. Oh yes, great idea. How Edward wishes to pop Florrie's cherry. Perhaps I missed something, I wasn't convinced.
Nah, I'm not talking about this site. Although Ollie and I were recalling when, through Finals, OJ, Ollie and I each did things to Dayorama in order to de-spam, it. Ollie re-designed the site, I deleted thousands of comments offering viagra, and OJ did something with trackbacks, possibly? Anyway, who cares. Spamalot. Currently showing in London. A Monty Python marathon session. Fantastic. Well, fantastic if you are prepared to sit for however long it is - 2 1/2hrs? - relax, laugh and get involved.
5 colleagues and I arranged a trip sometime last week. There's a small group of us who are trying to organise events en masse, just so we do actually get out during the week. It's also useful that people understand when at the 11th hour you turn round and say, "actually, I can't go". So, there were 6 of us at 5pm. There were 5 of us going at 7pm. Only 3 left the Office. And the remaining 2 managed the second half and then a few drinks afterwards. Not bad, all things considered.
So, Spamalot. It has mixed reviews. There were some very funny, laugh-a-minute sketches and then there were a couple which seemed to go on and on a little bit too much for me. But such is life. Overall, highly entertaining and I'd recommend it to anyone who was just prepared to go with the flow (oh, and you have to be able to cope with anti-sematic, anti-French, pretty much anti-anything jokes). I think Anthony would enjoy it (no connection intended).
In other news, I haven't started an addiction to tropical fruit, aka Ollie, but I have stopped drinking. I say stopped drinking. I lie. I've cut back. Only 3 units in the last week, which is probably losing a 0 of the end of what I have drunk some weeks. It's just unnecessary, but somehow in the environment in which I work, it seems to happen without noticing. So does the missing breakfast and the eating eratically. So I'm on a health kick. I've also got a black dress I need to fit into!
April will, as I made a point of telling my listeners this morning, soon be disappearing down the back of the sofa. I've barely managed to adjust to writing "2007" when it comes to dating cheques and the like, let alone come to terms with the fact that another third of that year has somehow managed to slip by.
To give myself some perspective on how quickly time is passing, I decided to look back through my emails to see what was happening at precisely this time last year. Unsurprisingly, I remember it very clearly:
This was the message I was - eventually - to find waiting in my inbox on returning to work after a fortnight's holiday. It goes without saying that what I discovered first was the absence, not just of my computer in fact, but of my entire desk...
The "desk next to Richard's" (also affectionately known for the past 12 months as "David's Desk") was now bereft of any sign I'd ever used it. My trusty PC, with all its specialist production software, was now masquerading as one of our eight standard hot-desk PCs, and judging by the constant use it was receiving at the hands of a work-experience student, evidently making a convincing job of it.
It's hard to think it's exactly 12 months since I had to be scraped down from the newsroom ceiling, less than thrilled by this little "re-arrangement". It's also precisely 12 months since I asked those responsible for directions to my forthcoming funeral, since I'd apparently died without realising.
Thank heavens for the wonderful Emma - BBC Radio Berkshire's resident diplomat - who was quick to spot this would all be news to a homecoming holidaymaker, bad news at that, and negotiated for things to be returned to their rightful place.
12 months later, I've managed to resist further changes to the office layout. I don't think anybody would dare.
Then again, I've not exactly taken much holiday over the past year. In a few days time, when April is turned inside out and May pops out of the middle, I'll be off for a much needed holiday on the canals of the South. My anchor, though, will be in use elsewhere...
I'm always unfairly suspicious of eager students who disappear off on years abroad in unlikely locations.
It's my firm belief - though I'm sure many will disagree - that the vast majority of such people are doing so in order to come back and tell everyone what they did, rather than actually do the thing in the first place. Building the huts for the disadvantaged Sri Lankan children is a stepping stone to a decent party piece.
So I've taken the moral high ground, stayed at home, and tasked Interflora with fetching in a basket of exotic fruit to make me feel like I've been somewhere exciting and different. And here's my party piece to prove it.
That's a kiwano. Well actually it's a horned melon since even though the Interflora sheet says kiwano, Wikipedia reliably informs me the name has been trademarked by an obscure bunch of New Zealanders. The same article would have us believe this fruit was once native to the Kalahari desert, but has since found a home Down Under and in California. And now in Stokenchurch.
When you cut it open it's got convenient little compartments, so you can have a go at one at a time and get four or five small spoonfuls of green, gooey goodness out of each. It's like seeded jelly and is a bit like a kiwi fruit, only with a dash of unripe banana into the mix. It's also got a bit of resistance to it - you'll need to dig in to get the goods.
This kiwano's demise marks the end of my opening salvo against the fruit basket, which actually arrived as my birthday present to my stepmum. She's tried some small berry-like object which I don't think we could identify. Here's the rest of the troupe in grainy mobile phone technicolour:
That bizarre pink thing at the front of the batch is a dragonfruit, otherwise known as a pitaya (with no New Zealand lawyers lurking). That might be tomorrow's mission, since my stepmum and dad are both retaining a healthy suspicion of the basket and its contents. I might take it to the speedway just for the enjoyment of the culture clash.
OK, so two gripes concerning the post I received today (this is what happens when I come in from work early).
1. I receive an envelope which says "Motor Insurance Renewal Information / Please check that your details are correct". I knew for a fact that this wasn't from my motor insurance company, since I have direct line and there is always a little red telephone on their envelopes / direct line all over them. This letter is from some wretched insurance broker, promising to beat my current quote. I suppose technically they don't say anything wrong. It is 'motor insurance renewel information', because it is about renewing motor insurance. It is also worth me checking my details, e.g. name and address, I suppose. If I wanted to. But it is just misleading (or could be for some people). It just annoys me. There's enough wasted paper in this world without such junk; and
2. Sainsbury. Yesterday I received a small-ish envelope from them. It was made from recycled paper, as were the contents. For anyone familiar with S/bury, I also received some of their "points" vouchers. All connected with "being green" e.g. x points if you spend x on organic food; x if you buy a 'bag for life' etc. And then today I get another letter on "normal" paper. This includes my regular points vouchers e.g. x on petrol etc. How does that work? How can an organisation pretend to be "green" one day, and then utterly un-green the next day? It just does nothing for my trust in them or my belief that they really do care about my food air miles etc.
On that point, I go back on an earlier post where I mocked the government for suggesting that they tax us for our rubbish. I agree. I recycle drinks cans, food cans, paper, magazines, plastics. The whole works. I can create as little as one "supermarket" bag in a week. OK, I'm on my own and rarely in my flat, but most things besides food waste can be recycled. If I had a "garden waste" bin, I suppose I could recycle this too. It's so easy, and I've decided it really angers me if people don't recycle. I make no apologies for readers who do not recycle. It angers me. In addition, I've even started at work: we only have can-bins in our kitchens on each floor. Well, blow that. I'm not walking to the kitchen every time I finish a can of coke. Fear not. I'm not just being lazy and chucking them in the bin as I used to. I've got myself a separate bin, which I can periodically offload. OK, I'm mad. But it doesn't take much effort. (and perhaps makes up for the fact I drive a car regularly and work for a Firm which must have some of the highest air miles of any corporation in the world...).
A foul rumour seems to have been circulated amongst my nearest and dearest of late, which could soon get me into some considerable trouble. Apparently I can cook.
The odd moment of good fortune in the kitchen seems to have earned me an undeserved reputation amongst friends, who now land at my door with well baked culinary expectations and rumbling tums. Problem is, it's only a matter of time before they find out the truth. Okay, I can handle three or four signature dishes without too much fear of embarrassment at the table - so can most - but I don't really know anything about cooking. I'm blagging it all the way to the plate.
In an effort to keep up the charade, I decided tonight to try and return to the basics of good old fashioned baking. Somehow I'd feel less of a fraud with a few decent pies to my name, and certainly, if I took the time and trouble to follow a proper recipe for once instead of thinking I know best.
The result? This little beauty...
I say little, this is probably one of the world's larger pies, having been baked not in a modest pie dish as suggested, but in a Pyrex casserole dish - the only vessel large enough to accommodate the characteristically ample filling I'd prepared. I say prepared, the recipe suggested "simmering" the steak and kidney (etc.) for an hour and half before allowing to cool, and only then thinking about transferring to the pastry; I managed to have the thing sealed up within the hour. I say sealed, the recommended way of sealing the pie is with water rubbed gently around the rim; I used beer...
Hardly traditional in its making, then, but pish to that - it was delicious, and I had great fun making (and eating) it. I suppose that's all the amateur needs to know about cooking - how to make things work his/her own way. Sometimes it'll go right when Dr. Fluke is on your side, and other times, well... that's when the professionals help you out. It's no coincidence that most kitchens have cookbooks and take-away menus on the same shelf...
As an aside, my eye was drawn this evening to a little half-baked grammar on the Radio 2 website:
Pedants though we often are about grammar (just look at some of the recent comments on Ollie's shockingly under-punctuated posts), it's not too pedantic to expect the nation's most listened-to radio station to show a grasp of the apostrophe on its headline billing, particularly in the first week of promoting a new evening line-up. At least we get a rogue ampersand by way of compensation. And as for "Next On Air", this snapshot was taken at 2340, when Lamacq was already in full-flight...
I too am sorry I wasn't around during Miss Kennedy's visit to BBC Berkshire Towers. It's about the only thing I didn't manage to squeeze into a busy weekend, which saw me hard at work in Middlesex, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Greater London, Surrey... oh, and Berkshire.
Question is, have I had a busier weekend than RML 2394, our Routemaster, which accompanied me for much of the weekend?
Friday night saw the complete Broadcasters' Bus Consortium turn out for a meeting at Ken's Oxfordshire home, with much merriment and laughter punctuating serious plans for our first revenue earning gig (hopefully on August bank holiday weekend). Yet more laughter as I delivered Deadly and Charles back to West London, at one stage almost having to pull over on the A40 with tears running down my face.
Saturday required an early alarm for my morning show at Radio B (if only Miss Kennedy had come for the whole working day), followed by high tails to the bus's home near Windsor. From there, Charles and I whisked the bus to Ruislip where we were joined by a number of his friends who, on a visit from Ireland, had been intending to take the kids on one of London's (ridiculously expensive) sightseeing buses. Smiling faces all round as the children saw their own tailor made tour bus arriving at the stop outside the house.
Having taken in the sights (including Buckingham Palace during the changing of the guard, which is best viewed from the top of a bus doing numerous laps of square, we feel), we returned the bus to base and carried out a little maintenance, before my body finally gave out and demanded sleep.
This I got, briefly, before a quick dinner of sorts and another high tail to work to present the Late Show.
Home at 0130, up again at 0530, in readiness for a day of suburban bus conducting on the London/Surrey borders around Carshalton and Sutton. This proved to be a fantastic day, where the intention to recreate a 1960s bus service was fully achieved to the delight of all who came near. It's surprising, when a bus service is frequent and reliable, just how many people use the buses on a Sunday. It's also surprising that, on two hours sleep, I managed to put in a full day's conducting; with stairs to climb and endless fighting to stay upright, it's tiring stuff. But great fun.
Home at 2100, where I decided I was far too tired to sleep, and instead opted for a claming glass of wine in front of some bad television. My face was lined, my eyes were saggy, my hands were black with ticket machine ink and bus oil, but I didn't care. This had been a good weekend.
Ollie and I will have this long-running argument: I dislike traffic lights on roundabouts. He finds them quite acceptable. I went to Tesco earlier. This involves me joining the A12, coming off at the first roundabout and travelling a further 500yds on a side road. There was an accident / incident on one of the roads leading from the roundabout. This was obviously holding up the traffic on that stretch and the police were, in all their wisdom, trying to sort the traffic. The problem with having traffic lights on the roundabout means that invariably when it is clear for you to go, you can't. And when you can go, there is a whole pile of traffic in your way. I found the whole thing very comical. People were beeping horns and waving arms in rage. Don't you just love the East end. But it just shows that there are times when traffic lights do nothing for the traffic flow.
And so to Tesco. The cashier looked at me, part way through my time at the till and said "are you a vegetarian or do you just like veg?!". OK, so I had bought quite a lot of lettuce / salad stuff... but I'd also bought chicken breasts, minced beef, cheese and salmon. Some vegetarian! Once again... you have to love the East end.
And so, it would seem that to have a truly enjoyable weekend, one must follow the events of yesterday with laziness and sunshine in St James' Park with OJ and Anthony. That was how the afternoon / early evening ended, anyway. Prior to that I cleaned my windows (yes, that great conversation starter... and finisher). The joys of living opposite a concrete works means that as soon as you are done, it is time to start again. Rather like the Tyne bridge. And then onto Hogarth. I admit, I don't find the paintings or etchings at all pleasing to the eye. Although, there is a delightful degree of character expressed in the faces of his people. What is interesting though is the though, the political nature and the social obligations behind said paintings. One must admire someone who can freely paint the aristroctratic classes engaging in prostitution, or a Christening scene, where the God-father (?) of the baby / the Priest is glancing slighly into the breasts / cleavage of the child's mother. And, to top it all, I've seem the infamous St James' pelicans.
OK, so as Ollie said in his post, I paid a royal visit to see him at BBC Radio Berkshire’s home in the depths of the Berks countryside. So, what did I think. Like all good tales, I’ll being at the beginning. Around 1.30am on Saturday morning… I got in from work. Deep joy! I then stayed up until around 3am watching a film; I was awake, I wanted to feel as though I had some evening. So, when my alarm went off at its usual time, I slammed it into a submissive silence. At 10.36 I woke up. And swore. Time for a rapid shower and I jumped in the car by 11am, filled up with juice and then headed for Berks. I could have driven through London, I suppose. But I prefer to hit the open road and take the M25. I arrived, on time, at around 1am and parked next to Ollie’s rather lovely car. It’s the Yorkie bar of cars: not for girls. But pretty fine all the same.
Ollie must be one of the luckiest guys around. I guess we know this. But I may have a swanky Office in Canary Wharf, with great views and fantastic facilities… but he basks in beautiful parkland and works from what is, effectively, a stately home. He’s also doing what he loves. I suppose I am, or at least I was in my old – and hopefully qualification- department. I was really enthralled by the things he was able to show / tell me. Radio is a lie. That’s all I’m going to say. Sadly, I didn’t see Mr Shep, but can now picture him at work.
I then left Mr Williams for the afternoon. Knowing the area reasonably well I decided to head towards Henley-upon-Thames. Since it was such a glorious day, Henley was chocker. It never loses its beauty, but it was still a bit hectic. I decided to pass through. And travel on up through Nettlebed. Old haunts from many past journeys. I passed my father’ s favourite pub – well, for the name, anyway – the Black Boy. Amazing that something like that still exists today. Iin our PC world of today, the historic nature still reigns. And then from Nettlebed I took a quick look at the map, decided that Marlow was a beautiful place and equidistant, sort of, between Reading and Stokenchurch. So, the Sat Nav positioned, to Marlow it was. I’d forgotten how beautiful Marlow was. Rather like a mini Henley, but prettier. There’s a good selection of shops, but I positioned myself on the green, in the shadow of the church and just beyond the bridge, and then read my book (more on that later, or tomorrow). Then I pottered to the river, wondered at the ducks, the Swans and other such wildfowl. I sat and enjoyed the sunshine and studied some Mandarin. Then it was time to meet Ollie – around 7pm now – so I headed back away from the river and sat outside on the green again. Ollie and I had a wonderful dinner – discussing anything from Berlin, to beer, to breasts to nits to (k)nickers to everything, including Dayorama… watch this space…
The moral? We should do this more often.
* Edit: I agree re. the chavs. But I was trying to glaze over them...!
Christ on a bike, it's been a long day. I don't know why because the actual pace of the day has been fairly slow, I've been in no hurry to get anywhere and done everything I needed to, but quite a lot has happened almost without me noticing. A round of golf, a trip to Oxford, a haircut, and covering a tug-of-war team in Sandhurst, has left my head throbbing. This post will be my last action before sleep, and plenty of it.
Not that I can really complain given the day endured by other members of this house. Harry (the human one, i.e. my five-year-old half-brother, not the pony) has had eight teeth out today. Or at least I think it was eight - someone said six at the dinner table, but I don't think those intricacies will matter much to Harry, who it's safe to say has had a worse day than me.
Early this morning he was lured to the hospital for the operation, knocked out with anaesthetic, then it was goodbye to the offending teeth, at the back of his jaw on either side. Needless to say, this has made chewing food a bit of a no-go for the foreseeable future, so he was sat sipping hot chocolate through a straw and taking the whole thing remarkably well when I initially got in just after lunch.
By dinner time things had changed - the thrill of his bravery and tales of derring-dental-do having worn off along with the remainder of the anaesthetic, the poor boy was left with the lasting legacy of his missing molars. I found him sat in front of the telly, unable to consume some mashed-up carrots and other veg, feeling incredibly sorry for himself.
As you'd expect the day has not ranked highly for Harry's parents either. My dad freely admits he wouldn't have blamed Harry for calling his parents "swines" on emerging from the treatment room (I'm not sure that word's in the boy's vocabulary but there's certainly some choice equivalents). Given the little firebrand's temperament he'd been lured to the hospital with nary a word about what might follow, but to his credit he hasn't mentioned this gross betrayal to me yet. The full scale of the cover-up may not have fully dawned on him - if and when it does we'll all be in trouble, but for once I am sure any retribution will be fairly toothless.
Taking a quick break from tales of last week's adventures in Northumberland (final instalment tonight, don't forget to set your Sky Plus... let's face it we must be due a channel), I discovered a wonderful golf course yesterday.
It's called Greys Green Golf Club, although I prefer its informal name, The Dog Golf Club, so called because it lies on Dog Lane next to The Dog pub, and not because of any antics in the expansive car park.
The Dog is a bit different to your average golf club around here. There are plenty of courses in Berks and Bucks, but you're talking upwards of £30 just to play one round, and you'll need to abide by all kinds of rules governing what you wear and when you play.
At The Dog, all you do is turn up and play. Wear what you like, play when you like, to the extent that if there's no one from the club to take your money because you're too early, just go round anyway and pay when you get back.
And yes, you can even take the dog around with you, and it doesn't have to be on the lead if it behaves itself. I saw one lively golden retriever living up to its name by haring after each of its owner's shots, finding the ball, picking it up and waiting patiently for the owner to arrive. It must be like having a portable ball-washer for your entire round.
The relaxed dress code and open invitation to visitors is the hallmark of a municipal course, but this isn't one. It was set up by a local farmer just over a decade ago and has grown from a rough-around-the-edges nine hole affair to having two nine hole courses and a full eighteen-hole course, all set in the lush South Oxfordshire countryside. A round of 18 holes here costs you about a tenner - anywhere else you're paying three times that.
This is all brilliant, but there's just one problem. It doesn't have planning permission.
Well that's not entirely true: there is some planning permission, granted retrospectively following a series of appeals, for the area occupied by one of the nine-hole courses. But around 27 of the 36 holes here seem to be living on borrowed time, with a public enquiry due at the beginning of May.
See, for some reason it seems people in the area don't like the golf course being there. When the course has been denied planning permission in the past (which doesn't appear to have affected it in the slightest - one suspects the local council may feel a little toothless in this respect), the reason cited has been that it diminishes the allure of the landscape.
That's poppycock as far as I'm concerned. This area of the country is not short on good-looking landscape, and the golf course, far from spoiling it, is a positive encouragement to local people to go out and enjoy it. With its low cost and relaxed attitude, the course naturally attracts people who maybe don't normally play golf and, dare I say it, don't normally get out and do this kind of thing much. When I played yesterday I was waved through by four sets of golfers who all considered themselves worse/slower than me - and I'm crap! If I'm going round feeling like the Zach Johnson to their Brett Wetterich, then clearly this is a course for everybody. I think it should be encouraged as a going concern, not persecuted.
Of course the real issue here is one of consistency. Given that the golf course didn't hang around to see if it would get planning permission and just built 36 holes anyway, the council are going to look a bit silly granting it the right to be there if they've had lots of similar requests from other, more patient ventures. Indeed, inspecting the planning permission documents, it looks like this is the main concern: the council know the golf course technically breaks policy at local, regional and even national level.
So we wait with bated breath for the outcome of the public enquiry. I would be a bit miffed, to say the least, if a golf course I've only just found is whipped from under my feet barely a month later! And I'm improving, too. I finished last week's round in Northumberland 16 over par after 9 holes - yesterday I was a mere 15 over par. At this rate I'll be playing off scratch by July...
I've often wondered how much of one's life can actually be lost and found down the back of a couch. That slit-like opening which barely takes a desperately searching hand, seemingly leads into an abyss where objects of any size can take refuge.
Last week, we were surprised to find a Christmas ball-ball wedged into the said opening, having apparently surfaced (in tact) after four months hiding below decks. Strange, we thought, that it should suddenly surrender itself to the mercy of more conventional storage after such a successful escape; perhaps it was being bullied by the remote control.
Having returned the rebel dec to its friends in the loft, I decided to confront the abyss head-on by removing all cushions and drapes to discover what other treasures could be found. Disappointingly, pickings were slim on this occasion.
Tonight, our sofa was the venue for a nice cuddle with our little feline friend, Basil, who's on very clingy form at present. When the time came for bed, he leapt from the sofa, hot on my heels with a series of top-volume meows as I tried my best to part company for the night.
Taking cover in the bathroom, I could hear noises on the other side of the door as Basil hatched his latest plot to secure a space on Uncle David's bed. When all was quiet, I opened the door and tiptoed to my room where, although there was no cat to be seen, there was certainly a Basilesque presence to be felt...
I've no idea where he's storing them, or how many more of these festive treats we can expect in the long months before Christmas; but I've a fair idea where they came from, and I know why the Christmas tree proved such a fascination for a quietly contemplating Basil.
Next time I'm short of change, I shall be looking further than down the back of the couch.
I thought I'd pay a quick visit to Oxford while on holiday. Oxford, Northumberland: home to a crossroads with a small tea room, and not the one with the libraries and the put-upon students. Northumberland does a very good line in places sharing names with more illustrious cousins - you can also find a Preston and a Bolton nearby.
But today (note from future self: this was written last Thursday! I'm now back home but am posting these one day at a time since I had no internet access up north) was about going north of the border to Scotland, and the city of Edinburgh. Even though I was on my way by 9:30am, it took me until 1pm to reach the Scottish capital, and the reason for that is the tiny village of Saint Abbs on the south-east Scottish coast, just over the border.
I'd seen it marked on a list of interesting places, so when a sign appeared on the A1 I followed it down a winding road to a small car park and, yes, another tea room. But the tea room exists very much in the shadow of the Saint Abbs village shop (below, left).
I'm proud to say I bought a Bounty and a Diet Coke in what is officially - according to the framed poster - a village shop Highly Commended in the Calor Gas & Woman And Home "Village Shop of the Year 1994" awards. High praise indeed.
In fact everything in and around Saint Abb's is of a very high standard, not least the sumptuous scenery. Climbing the rocky outcrop that is Saint Abb's Head afforded a superb view of the village itself:
And an even better vantage point for a spot of birdwatching, with hundreds of coastal birds massing on the cliff face:
It felt like heaven to be stood on the cliffs listening to the noisy gaggle of birds below, and squinting as the sunlight skipped off the waves lapping into the bay. Every single person I passed on the way back down seemed genuinely thrilled to be there to witness this combination of weather and wildlife.
Edinburgh, by stark contrast, left me a little cold. I think it's fair to say I'm a person who prefers isolated, natural environments at the expense of the Big City, so it may not entirely be Edinburgh's fault, but that's just the way I am. I started at the Queen's Palace:
This was a fine building but, though I'm always keen on architecture, I could get a little sick of the standard fare interiors of this kind of attraction: giant old portraits, ornate carpets, collections of weaponry, crockery and other trinkets, the same boring-but-expensive furniture in every room. I'm a big fan of old buildings but no lover of medieval interior design, so parting with more than a tenner for a quick tour of the Queen's Edinburgh crib seemed extortionate.
After that I set off up the Royal Mile towards the castle, which is a mightily impressive structure dominating the skyline as you look up Canongate and the High Street. But again, the sheer number of people flocking to see it dulls the spectacle a little. I know this is selfish and more than a little hypocritical - after all, if I want to see it, I can't blame anyone else for feeling the same way - but would you rather visited a near-deserted castle like Bamburgh or Norham (see previous days' entries), or a castle like Edinburgh teeming with people?
To my mind this strengthens the argument for doing your research and finding the places no one else knows about. I've been a bit lucky in terms of happening across interesting places to go, but if you only went to one castle on a week's holiday in the north and that castle was Edinburgh, you'd probably think medieval history was a wee bit crap. Stand in the deserted ruins of Lindisfarne Priory as the sun rises in the morning and you might reconsider.
Not that everything in Edinburgh Castle annoyed me. I found this small garden, set away from the crowds beneath one of the top levels of the castle:
I left Edinburgh feeling a bit disappointed, so the best fix for that was to find another castle as soon as possible, which is not at all difficult given supply exceeds demand in this part of the world.
Sadly by the time I reached it at 5:30pm, the thirteenth-century Dirleton Castle just to the east of Edinburgh (above) had closed for the day, so I decided to head for Melrose - where the monk Saint Cuthbert first entered religion before he arrived at Lindisfarne.
That journey took me on an hour's drive inland and allowed a couple of what I have now come to call 'Bonus Rounds': things to go and see which I didn't know existed til I spotted the signposts. First up was Chesters Hill Fort, in place since before the Romans arrived. Sadly for its occupants there was one major design flaw: whereas hill forts are traditionally designed to afford a height advantage, this one had been built right next to a bigger hill (see below left). Meanwhile, below right, could this be the smallest visitor car park in the world?
Two and a half spaces. Good job the hill fort is a little out of the way. A bit further down the road I got my second bonus round with the Lynn Dean wind farm:
A sign by the side of the road also advertised the presence of a nature reserve, but the number of empty beer cans in the layby far outnumbered the visible wildlife, so I moved on to Melrose. And to think that when I arrived and parked my car, I initially didn't even notice the ruined Melrose Abbey staring me in the face:
This is what it's about. Forget Edinburgh Castle if you ever come to the area to visit. Drive to Melrose and see this building. Can you even begin to imagine what this must have been like in its heyday, newly cut stone etched into the blue sky, light refracting through stained glass windows, and no finer building for tens of miles in any direction? Melrose Abbey inspires enough awe in me in this state - as a fully functional religious house in a time when Christianity powered the country, it's difficult to find the words.
I stayed in Melrose for a nice steak dinner at the King's Arms Hotel, which claims to have been the meeting place for Melrose Rugby Football Club in its early days - the team which, so the hotel claims, invented Rugby Sevens. I stayed a bit too long in Melrose really, because by the time I left it was 8:30pm and I had badly miscalculated how far from the coast Melrose is. I thought it was half an hour at most from the Lindisfarne causeway, but in reality the Dodge and I endured (alright, enjoyed) a 90-minute white knuckle ride, in complete darkness, for between 50 and 60 miles across Scotland and Northumberland back home.
And home is where we'll be going tomorrow, but there's plenty left to do. Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, in what is now Newcastle, were home to the Venerable Bede himself and an important community of Anglo-Saxon monks. Bede now has what I suppose you'd call a monastic theme park and working farm in his name, so I'll be going there, and there might even be a game of golf, or even a bonus round or two.
I threw a slight, good-humoured strop at my Mother for failing to purchase mint sauce from Sainsbury during her weekly shop. How does she expect me to eat lamb without it. Bless her, she tried to palm me off with mint jelly (just not the same) and then suggested she made some of her own (it's ok, I wouldn't want her to have to go to all that effort... my Dad and I still remember the last attempt*). So, whilst on route to buy my Father's birthday present yesterday (a small greenhouse, incidentally, which he is now filling) I went to Tesco to buy mint sauce. Tesco's Finest. Balsamic vinegar. Oak hung mint, or something. And it has food colouring. Let me repeat, it has food colouring in it. Why? Is this necessary? It is good quality mint sauce and they insist on filling it with colouring and gum and tumeric extract (since when did that go in mint sauce?!). I'm distressed. I'll be bouncing off the walls later on E-numbers.
Well, what a wonderfully sunny and cheerful Easter-Sunday morning. I managed to get up for the 8am Service at Church this morning, much to the shock of my Father. And now my Mother and I are off to the local Country Market. There's certainly sometime wonderful about being out of London and breathing the fresh country air. In total I'll be having four days off, too. Four days. I haven't had that many days off since September, and it is wonderful! In other news, we have a pair of ducks, regularly visiting our garden. They are going through bread like anything, but in the interests of their digestive system, I bought my parents "duck and swan food" as an Easter present. I was getting regular "duck" updates from my Mother last week, and I confess that her enthusiasm has touched me. They're fascinating little creatures. No puns about me quacking up, please.
It has made me think of the poem by F W Harvey, titled "Ducks" (to E.M. who drew them in Holzminden prison). The third verse is below:
When God had finished the stars and whirl of coloured suns
He turned His mind from big things to fashion little ones;
Beautiful tiny things (like daisies) He made, and then
He made the comical ones in case the minds of men
Should stiffen and become
Dull, humourless and glum,
And so forgetful of their Maker be
As to take even themselves - quite seriously.
Caterpillars and cats are lively and excellent puns:
All God's jokes are good - even the practical ones!
And as for the duck, I think God must have smiled a bit
Seeing those bright eyes blink on the day He fashioned it.
And he's probably laughing still at the sound that came out of its bill!
Who needs the Statue of Liberty? This man gave a new religion to an entire kingdom. St Aidan, on arriving in Northumbria in the early seventh century, travelled the north east spreading Christianity among the Anglo-Saxon rulers. And it was to Lindisfarne that he came to found a monastery.
Nothing remains of the seventh century buildings - initially constructed of wood, then with lead sheets added to the ceiling and walls. The ruins above are those of the later Lindisfarne Priory, built for the monks on the same site and occupied until Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in his reign. If the ruins are a guide, in its heyday the building here would have been spectacular.
Not that Lindisfarne is without a skyline in the twenty-first century. Just down the road lies Lindisfarne Castle:
This was a much later addition to the island, essentially built to give the French something to think about if nearby Bamburgh Castle didn't put them off. But then, if the French had a fear of castles, Northumberland would not be ideal territory - you can barely move for castles. Yesterday there was Alnwick and Bamburgh, today Lindisfarne and Norham (more on the latter in a moment), and tomorrow Edinburgh, with many, many more in between.
It's funny how these castles have been able to benefit from hundreds of thousands of pounds in restoration and upkeep, but other historic sites are all but overlooked. After leaving Lindisfarne I set out to find Yeavering, site of one of the first Northumbrian Anglo-Saxon royal palaces in the early seventh century. King Edwin presided over a great hall, an area dedicated to craftsmanship and tools, a small wooden amphitheatre, a large enclosure likely used for cattle, and a small chapel set at the bottom of a hill. In an age where no castles existed in England, it would have been a very impressive sight.
Not any more it isn't: it burnt down in the later seventh century and was abandoned, and no one has thought to rebuild it since. On the road to Yeavering there's no signposts acknowledging the area's past, no tourist information centre, and the modern village of Yeavering is so small my satellite navigation doesn't recognise it. So you have to know where you're going, and what you're looking for: a large field at the bottom of a hill. There's quite a few of those around these parts.
Initially I thought I was out of luck when, 500 yards on the other side of Yeavering, there was no sign of anything that might be home to an ancient royal palace. Not that Yeavering was without intrigue anyway - who should be occupying one such field-at-the-bottom-of-a-hill, but the BBC's Springwatch team:
Harbouring as I do no great desire for Bill Oddie's autograph, I went back to my car to turn round. The sat nav said I should go another half a mile and there'd be a turning place. And then, as I drove along, I spotted this sign:
Someone, somewhere, has found the time and money to create a stone memorial and a few small signs commemorating the very field I'd been looking for. Not that there's over much in the field itself, although this contraption might well pass as an ancient artefact:
But after 10 minutes' exploring the field for signs of ancient inhabitation, I felt the current inhabitants were getting a little maaaaaardy:
Time to move on. In the back of the Dodge I managed, with some effort, to squeeze in my set of golf clubs before I left, and with Northumbria basking in glorious sunshine, now seemed like a good time. On the way back from Yeavering I happened across a nine-hole golf course outside the village of Belford.
The only problem was I hadn't played golf for at least two years, and wasn't much good when I did play. Prudence being the watchword I took the clubs to the driving range first, scattering 30 golf balls around a field with just enough conviction to convince myself I could handle a proper round.
52 shots and two hours later I was back, face glowing from the sun, every muscle glowing from an activity they had long since forgotten. Okay, so that's 16 over par after just nine holes, but let's be honest, that could have been far worse. My putting is certainly letting me down. I think I'm going to start touring the golf courses of Bucks and Berkshire during my days off when I get home - for some reason, in my search for an occupation during my midweek days off, golf had entirely passed me by.
Back at the Dodge I realised time was fast passing me by too, so it was back on the A1 and up to the medieval walled town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, highly recommended by my dad, who told me it was near here, in 1980, that he and my mother had experienced the Great Gerbil Toss.
My mother, ever one for animals, had taken a pet gerbil along as the happy couple embarked on a tour of bed-and-breakfasts along the north-east coast. She'd even packed it in a little container with plenty of cotton wool to keep it snug. Alas, the critter found a way to strangle itself using said cotton wool, and by the time our protagonists left Berwick, the gerbil was in a state of permanent exhalation.
Now it's often thought that roadside littering is a recent phenomenon, but it turns out that long before fly-tipping, we had gerbil-tipping. My dad, usually one for the pleasantries, took an unusually hard-line stance on the deceased gerbil. In what he described to me as "the equivalent of burial at sea", my dad took the asphixiated rodent in its little cotton wool coffin, and lobbed it out of the window of a moving car.
There were no such antics on my journey to Berwick, and I was able to park up by the Elizabethan earthen ramparts before a little sight-seeing. The town centre didn't particularly excite me but the bridges across the Tweed are certainly impressive, especially the viaduct. Even the ducks are keen to climb the ramparts for a better view:
After a fish supper from the Cannon chip shop (very nice cod), I set off for Lindisfarne. But on the way back my eye was drawn by a sign for Norham Castle, of which I'd previously heard nothing, but then with the number of castles up here that's not surprising.
With the sunlight fast fading I turned the car around and put the pedal to the metal, hoping to find the castle before darkness fell. Of course there'd be no one there to let me in, but seeing a castle from the outside is always more than enough - it is not for the fancy carpets in the state rooms that I love these buildings.
Just as the last flickering rays were set to disappear over the horizon, Norham Castle came into view, and it's a beauty:
It's a shame I don't have the time to go back during the day for a proper tour, but it's up to Edinburgh for me tomorrow...
No wonder I'm smiling. Taken on my 13th Birthday, I'd just returned from what I still rate as one of the best days of my life. Beginning in understated fashion at Paddington station, I was soon hurried along to Platform 13 where 'something' seemed to be happening.
Sure enough, the smell of steam heralded the arrival of none other than the Duchess of Hamilton, resplendent in maroon and blowing off majestically in front of her crowds. (At this point you must understand it was the locomotive of the same name, and not the Duchess herself, who sees steam even less frequently these days). With a full rake of Pullman dining coaches, I was thrust aboard before I could ask questions, and off we went for a day of first class food and drink, West Country scenery and 90mph steam on the mainline.
Railtours like this bring together all things I've come to love. So imagine how envious I was when my Dad and step mum accidentally revealed they'd been invited to join a similar steam-hauled charter train a few weeks ago. This time they were bound for Carlisle, sans 13-year old Shep, behind the magnificent Princess Elizabeth (again, don't be silly). It's another picturesque journey, with the added attraction of a battle with the mighty Shap, arguably the country's most notorious railway climb which has caught many an engine driver, erm... off-guard.
Thank heavens for YouTube. I may not have been there to enjoy the thrill of the climb myself in the armchair luxury of the restaurant car, red wine and roast beef in hand (I'm not bitter), but I can at least enjoy this magnificent piece of footage showing what, at one time, would have been the everyday sight of man and machine working in perfect harmony.
It's one of the most majestic scenes I can imagine.
(Once you've watched the ascent of Shap, take time to enjoy the tail end of this video, with the perfectly framed shot of Princess Elizabeth storming one of the East Coast main line's sharp bends (around 4 minutes in). I shan't spoil the 'surprise', but a freak of timing results in what, by sod's law, was probably completely inevitable. I shouted when I first saw it.)
You might be wondering where I've been all week. (You might be wondering where any of us have been all week! Then again, you might not.)
I've been up on the island of Lindisfarne, just off the Northumberland coast, holed up in a small hotel and enjoying a few days of travelling to different historic sites in the north east. There was no internet access on the island, which I can assure you was a blessing (I can't remember the last time I spent so much time away from a computer, and it felt good), but each night I faithfully edited up my photos and prepared a piece for Dayorama.
Since I couldn't publish them then, I'll do one a day from now on. I warn you they're pretty lengthy, but if you're interested in history or wildlife then there'll be pretty pictures. Here goes...
Day 1: Alnwick and Bamburgh
Welcome to the island of Lindisfarne, connected to the tip of Northumberland by a fragile causeway, submerged much of the day underneath the North Sea.
I'm sat in room number 10 of the Lindisfarne Hotel. In room 11 there is a gentleman listening, loudly, to the World Service. In room number 7, downstairs, a lady was playing the violin (very well) as I walked past with my suitcase. One suspects the volume of the World Service is in direct relation to the volume of the violin - we can't all be music lovers.
It's been one of the best days I can remember. If you've got the time and you're interested in things like castles and wildlife then you can see photos and find out more about where I've been by reading on.
If you're in a hurry or not overly fussed, in summary:
I drove to Northumberland from Stokenchurch this morning, and I'll be here for three days. Hopefully there'll be some golf and a trip to Edinburgh in between, plus visits to the religious sites of Lindisfarne and Northumberland, which featured heavily in my university thesis despite never having seen them for real.
On the way I paid a visit to Alnwick Castle, home of the Duke of Northumberland, and then nipped across to Bamburgh, a small village on the North Sea coast, home to another equally spectacular castle.
I found Bamburgh - a key trading centre in Anglo-Saxon times - to be a beautiful area with bird life and wildlife in spades, plus one of the most pristine beaches I have ever seen.
The day ended crossing the causeway to Lindisfarne once the North Sea had subsided enough to expose it. The road sits at the same level as the sand, so it feels as though you're driving across the sea bed, and I half expected the tide to come rolling in around the car at any moment - but we made it.
Here's the Dodge bathed in the sunset at Budle Bay, just above Bamburgh on the road to the Lindisfarne causeway, as our day drew to a close. In the background a lone wading bird, seen at the bottom of this picture, spent 20 minutes or so pacing back and forth as gatherings of ducks and birds milled about the background:
The scenery in this part of the world is second to none. I've got the week off and I could have spent it in Ireland, Malta or Brussels - those were my initial options - but the idea of driving to Northumberland, and staying on the island about which I heard so much during my degree, really appealed to me. This was one of the most important Anglo-Saxon religious centres in Britain and even though I can hardly call myself a committed Christian, I've wanted to come here for ages.
Tomorrow will be about properly exploring Lindisfarne. Today has been about diving into interesting places on the way up. It's a five or six hour drive from my house to the place they call the Holy Island, but it's worth it when you find somewhere like Alnwick Castle en route:
From October until April the twelfth Duke of Northumberland and his family live here, with much of the castle restored. The state rooms look like any other you'll have seen with ornate furnishings and carpets, long dining halls and portraits hanging from every wall - except, with the family only just having moved out for the summer season, some anachronisms remain. For example, the library has the prerequisite dusty volumes lining the room from floor to ceiling, but in the middle of the plush furnishings sits a flat-screen television. One small child in the room remarked: "But mummy, I didn't think they had telly in the middle ages!" They'll go far as a history student.
Funnily enough they didn't have witches, wizards and broomsticks in the middle ages either - but Alnwick has seen plenty of them. In case you don't recognise it: it's Hogwarts. Or at least, it's Hogwarts for various exterior shots and some outdoor scenes in the Harry Potter films. Mercifully, while the local tourist board website makes a big deal out of this, Alnwick keeps it hush hush. There's no blue plaque as yet.
I left Alnwick and carried on driving up the A1 towards Lindisfarne but, knowing I'd be far too early for the causeway to re-open (it works on tide times), I headed for the village of Bamburgh on the coast. In the seventh and eighth centuries Bamburgh emerged as a vital trading centre in the Northumbrian kingdom - it's fair to say it's been somewhat eclipsed since then but the great thing about this part of Britain is so many sumptuous castles remain, and I do like a good castle.
Now this wouldn't have been around when the likes of Bede were walking the earth, but whenever you see a castle, chances are the Saxons were larking about a few centuries earlier:
That castle is about half the size of the entire village of Bamburgh. I followed the signs for the "Bamburgh Long Stay Car Park", which advised that during busy periods, you should park first before purchasing a ticket. This was apparently not a busy period:
Yes, of course I paid and displayed. By now though the castle was shut, so I soon moved on and tried to get as close to the sea as I could. That turned out to be a layby about a mile further down the road, and this is now officially my favourite photo of my car:
Leaving the Dodge under the auspices of two ponies I wandered over a small sand dune to find a pristine beach that could have been lifted from a Hawaii picture book, let alone left to battle the North Sea:
And on the other side of the road, a small lake occupied by literally hundreds of birds:
Imagine living here! The castle, the beach, the wildlife, and even a glorious-looking 18 hole golf course that might well get a visit before my holiday is done (I managed to cram my set of golf clubs into the car - despite not seeing the light of day for two years they might yet get one hell of a return to action).
It was starting to get dark and the causeway was about to open, so I made my way north along the coast, but stopped in another layby at Budle Bay to watch a magnificent sun sink behind the trees as the birds wandered the wetlands below. There was absolutely no noise except the occasional, distant chirrup. It's difficult to explain how it feels to find this in your own country, in a place hardly advertised in neon lights as a tourist destination. I don't know how the rest of the world has missed Bamburgh. But I'm glad.
I've got dozens of photos of just this one day, and in reality I only had an afternoon since I spent the morning driving. But if the next three days are like this one, it's going to be a very good week.
A sure sign summer is here: the dog takes refuge under the covers at the cricket pitch during what really wasn't a particularly strenuous game of fetch.
By the way, did I tell you my sisters have bought a horse?
Well, I say horse - more pony. And I say bought - more acquired, then left at the stables for regular visits. I came home today to find a bag containing at least 50 carrots by the doorway, which I found initially inexplicable before remembering our latest addition to the family.
The pony is named Harry. Yes, I do have a four (nearly five) year old brother named Harry. Yes, that is ripe for considerable confusion. I wasn't responsible for the naming of our hooved homey, although I gather he was so-called before joining the team, so I might let everyone off. And I don't believe the rumours that my dad thought he was doing a swap deal.
What is especially galling is the suggestion that we buy horse insurance, when I don't even have life insurance, which presumably instantly makes the pony a more valuable asset. This horse insurance lark must be incredibly big business: it returns over five million results in Google,
And having read the stern words of warning (for which read: sales pitch) on the front of one website, I can see the sense in this plan...
Due to a decision in the House of Lords you are now liable for any damage or injury that your horse does to other people regardless of whether you are negligent or not. So make sure you have third party liability insurance cover if nothing else.
The last thing I want is to end up on the street because our pony turned out genocidal, and with a name like Harry that's not just possible, it's likely.
I was going to get an online quote to see what sort of figure we're talking, but I have enough trouble remembering my own details for these things, let alone guessing the kind of information these sites want. I've just been presented with a drop-down menu containing no fewer than twenty-five choices for 'Colour of Horse', including such delightful options as 'flea-bitten grey', which is hardly going to make my horse sound sprightly and fit to an insurer. Now it's asking for a passport number, despite my insistence that the horse will not try to leave the country.
Not, of course, that we'll be dwelling on the physical fitness of Horsey Harry (as opposed to Human Harry). Apparently he's been declared lame already. I'm told this isn't permanent but it hardly took the horse long to cripple itself and declare running at any speed beyond its capability and comprehension. Hmm. It'll fit into this family all right.
The world seems to have forgotten what a telephone is for. Talk to any mobile 'phone retailer and you'll soon begin to think you've accidentally walked into Jessops or HMV. Telephones, mobile and otherwise, are no longer sold to us on the strength of their fitness for purpose; that's taken for granted, or else neatly lost in the sales patter. We now buy a phone because of all the things it can do almost as well as the purpose-built video camera or mp3 player we already own.
Or else, we buy it because of the name...
My 'new' telephone does little besides its most basic of functions. In fact, at the moment, it doesn't even do that (I've some mending to do first).
But it does talk. From the moment I first saw it topping a pile of rubbish in our engineer's office, it cried out to me. Its slanty but rounded BBC logo dates it somewhere in the late-60s/early-70s, and as an avid hoover-up'r of all things BBC branded, I had to save it.
A conversation with our engineer revealed it had been in store for some time, and that it was probably beyond use (it's not unthinkable for the BBC to press into service something from four-generations ago - mark what husbandry guards the spending of your licence fee). However, he was reluctant to let me have it on anything other than a 'long-loan' basis, partly in case I hurt myself and sue on Health & Safety grounds, and also in case it should come of such value that I might retire from the BBC on the proceeds. Some chance.
So, the 'official' deal is that I keep the 'phone for as long as I'm employed by the BBC. Should I ever stray, though, I'll be sure to request it as a leaving present, and so we're practically destined to be life partners.
I haven't yet decided whether I'll plug it in and use it - probably not. I'll clean it, mend it, and then proudly put it on display in every house I'll ever own. That's what a BBC telephone is for.
Seriously, life is just flying past at the moment. One month into my second "seat" at work. Litigation. Damn it is dull! Worked my first Sunday though today. 9am - 7.35pm - exact, I know, but I was getting bored by the end! I had emailed a document to a colleague in our Paris Office and she wanted me to wait until she had managed to print it... all 167 pages... agh, seemed to take forever. Anyway, so that was my day today. I was going to go to the Hogarth exhibition, but had to cancel. And then it turned out I hadn't booked tickets, but that is another story. So I didn't have to cancel, but anyway.
I was in Oxford yesterday. A couple of things to note. First, traffic lights. On roundabouts. What is that about? "Big" roundabouts with junctions at awkward angles / exceptionally busy roads are fine. But all along the Oxford ring-road even the smallest of roundabouts seem to have traffic lights. Really annoying. Defeats the purpose. Traffic lights on roundabouts are also really dangerous when they don't work - because people expect them to and "normal" roundabout wisdom is utterly thrown. I was going onto the M25 the other week and the roundabout traffic lights weren't working... that was a pretty scary mad dash.
Anyway, so the traffic lights were one thing. And the Morris Dancers (seriously) were another. Thousands of them. It would appear that I decided to go to Oxford (although, strictly I didn't decide the date, it was written in stone) on the day of the "Folk Festival". Lots of folk singers (some good Johnny Cash being played in Bonn Sq) and many, many Morris Dancers. Great fun. It was a sunny day, and spring seems to have finally arrived. Although, strictly speaking it arrived last weekend (nothing to do with British Summertime) but Anthony and I had our first walk of the summer through St. James' park. Summer, perhaps, is coming. So, after the Morris Dancers I had a country drive to Southern Oxfordshire, a lunch, afternoon tea somewhere else, and then a drive home. Rather amusingly, my parents and I left at different times from Oxfordshire (I was behind them) and from slightly different locations (although we had been together) and I ended up over-taking them on the motorway. Amusing. Now, whether that says they drive slow, or I drive a bit too fast is anyone's guess. I think it is probably a combination of the two.
And now I am off, since Persuasion is being shown on ITV. Oh the highlight of a Sunday evening. The best thing about working all day on a Sunday though is that a) I'll actually get up later tomorrow e.g. Monday since the DLR is more frequent so I can leave later to get in for 9am... and b) there is no such thing as a "manic" Monday morning. Small things please.
In true DIY tradition, the week I'd set aside to finish redecorating our hallway hasn't been quite as productive as I'd hoped. For many reasons, my not overly ambitious schedule of preparing and painting the woodwork, VAXing the carpets and applying an immaculate top-coat to the walls, fell slightly short of target.
Instead, I managed to paint a door.
Still, I thought, at least I have Monday - my regular day off work - in which to complete the other eight doors, the skirting boards, the walls, and all the other necessary tasks before unveiling the 'all new' Caversham hallway on cue.
Wrong. The small matter of a 7.30am 'phone call to say that Henry Kelly was unwell put pay to the early part of the day, as I limped into work to present his show. The inevitable work-based distractions took over once I'd come off air at 1pm, and the need for lunch and rest saw me actually put paint to brush at something like 4pm. Still ample time, surely...
Unfortunately, since its last use on Tuesday, some strange chemical reaction had taken place in the paint, and whilst not impossible to use, its application was taking somewhat longer than expected. With time, it became harder and harder to persuade the paint to make acquaintance with its new life partner, to the point where Mr Door's undercoat tenaciously continued to shine through no matter what. All very odd - as is the ultimate finish, which somewhat betrays the care and attention I'd lavished over 2 hours of trying to paint the flippin' thing. It'll need to be re-done.
Still, there was one straightforward yet satisfying task I could complete...
I've always loved polishing brass, and never more so than when it's been badly neglected for a while - battered, scratched, painted over... just like the fittings we've inherited on every door in our flat. Above you see the knobs before and after the Sheppard treatment, which involves a thorough scrubbing with wire wool, obsessive burnishing with heavenly scented Brasso, followed by a coat of clear lacquer to preserve the shine for a year or two. The result, I hope you agree, is very pleasing.
Or was. The newly lacquered knob, basking in glory under the spotlights in our kitchen whilst drying, was pointed out with some pride to flatmate Bryony, who was embarking on some washing up (for once).
"Try not to splash our... ahem... NEW knob", I said, coyly gesturing to the little golden nugget.
With delight, flatmate Bryony reached out to touch, but simultaneously I made a dive to block her path. Somehow in doing so, I managed to knock the stand on which the knob was perched, and we both watched in horror for what seemed like 15 minutes, as the shining knob plunged to its doom. Bouncing once on the worktop, again on draining board, it finally came to rest after bursting its way through Fairyland on the bottom of the washing up bowl.
It strikes me I may have mis-sold yesterday's DoPubs! venture as a bit of a doss. Brimming with fun as it was, this was also to be a day of hard graft.
Welcome to the planning base of our "Day of Pubs". On the face of it, a table at the Three Guineas in the old Reading General station building, but in reality a nerve centre where lightning decisions would be taken at the drop of a pint glass. Completing CAMRA's Mid-Berkshire real ale trail was to be no casual adventure.
Well versed in the timetables for Reading's motley network of bus services, we began our attack on the furthest flung rural pubs. We wouldn't finish all 24 in a day, of course, but we'd bag the tricky ones in time's nick ahead of an evening in town.
Getting around Berkshire by bus is far from easy as our tales will tell, and nor is it for those light of wallet. A whopping £1.50 minimum single fare makes Reading Buses' BusAbout ticket seem like good value at just £3.00. In theory, this is the equivalent of London's Travelcard or Oxford's Freedom ticket, giving you full run of the Reading Buses network. In reality, its scope is limited to central Reading routes, and is therefore useless on our kind of venture - as it is for most, I should imagine.
Guy and I discovered this flaw, not as we were sold the ticket, but the first time we tried to use it. A suitably discontented driver accosted us as we tried to board his bus, exercising no discretion in the extra £5.20 he charged us for the two miles between the BusAbout boundary and our destination. After that, we needed a drink.
Good job The Six Bells in Burghfield was well worth the journey. Great local beers on offer, an open fire, good conversation... it was a shame to leave.
But leave we had to - to come here:
Welcome to Riseley, only 8 miles south of central Reading, but undoubtedly the most ambitious trek on the trail. Meticulous planning went into catching one of the hourly buses that serves rural Riseley, and we were delighted to have made it when we arrived around 3pm. Bloody shame the pub shut at 2.30...
As you'll see, options for entertainment during our 70 minute wait for the next scheduled bus were somewhat limited. In the cold, damp conditions of an afternoon in March, the prospect of a country walk wasn't nearly as appealing as a late running bus back to Reading would have been.
Sadly, buses were not forthcoming (the Reading-bound service had passed at precisely the moment we realised the pub was locked), and we were forced to make our own amusement, Riseley-style...
Good job we'd brought country provisions...
At 4.20, we were whisked away by the friendliest bus driver I've met for a long time, who engaged us in conversation all the way back. The small but obviously well-managed Countywide Buses may take pride where Reading Buses should feel ashamed - hard to imagine this amiable driver telling a customer to "change the number (of the bus) yourself if you're bothered it's wrong", as we'd heard a Reading Buses driver doing earlier in the day.
Hot foot from central Reading to a legendary Berkshire pub I've tried so many times to find. And when you do find it, you're not quite sure whether to knock or ring the doorbell...
This is a pub with a difference. The multiple award-winning Magpie & Parrot in Shinfield is little more than two rooms in a private house, but it has an unbelievable atmosphere which is unlike any other pub I've visited. It feels just like popping over for a drink with friends; you enjoy your drink in the comfort of an armchair; you're surrounded by books and trinkets which could (and did) keep you amused for hours; you've fresh nibbles on your table at all times, replenished before you can even notice you've eaten them; friendly locals, great beers, and a beautiful pub dog (who has as much character as the pub). There's even a classic car rally in May, to which we'll be bringing Guy's Triumph...
Next time you come to visit me in Reading, make sure I take you here for a drink or two.
Question is, how will we get back? Shinfield is on a main bus route from Reading, but after our experiences yesterday I won't be using it ever again. Last orders at the Magpie take place (charmingly) at 7pm, and a conveniently timed Thames Travel bus passes at 6.45. It passes even when two young gentlemen are standing at the bus stop with their hands aloft, waving like fury as the bus draws ever closer. Not only does it pass, it does so with great gusto, as though the late-running driver had put his boot to the floor at the prospect of passengers who might delay him further. Furious, I left Thames Travel - the worst bus operator in the world - a well considered message on their 'out of hours' travel line (yes, this was 6.45pm). They've yet to reply, but I assure you, there will be a conversation soon...
A taxi to Reading allowed us to catch up with a few of the central pubs on the trail, some of them regular haunts, others getting a visit for the first time. For The Queen's Head on Christchurch Road, it would probably be the last visit, too...
Not so for the magnificent Eldon Arms, a long-term favourite and such a beautifully laid-back pub in which to drink. Famed in our minds for its choice of milds, we weren't disappointed to find the full range was 'on' (as we drinkers say). A little merry from our cumulative indulgence, the landlady immediately spotted that "we looked like boys on the trail" and gave us our stickers...
"Plenty of room in there", she said, pointing to the saloon bar. With her words filtering through several layers of inebriation, Guy immediately piped up.
"Oooh, pretty girls in there?!", he slurred, making a beeline for the door... I think they'll remember us in future.
Through the day, we'd harboured a notion that several more Reading pubs would be tackled in the evening. Deep down, we both knew we wouldn't get much further than The Retreat which, alongside the Eldon and The Hobgoblin, is my favourite Reading pub. Okay, so one of my favourites...
Last night we caught it on fine form. With live music from a fifty-something blues duo called "One and a Half Pints", the place was alive with jibes and laughter. After several pints, Guy and I agreed we couldn't really bring ourselves to leave before closing time, and prepared to soak up every minute. Literally...
Six down, eighteen to go - we really must DoPubs more often.
This is the term my friend Bryony and I frequently use to write-off entire days for the taking of pleasure. It's become a little tradition thus to excuse capricious behaviour when we probably should be doing something grown ups do. Meaning simply "Day of Fun", DoFs can result from careful cross-diary forward planning, they can be impromptu, they can even happen by accident; the only criterion for a DoF to be declared is, unsurprisingly, the day must be entirely filled with fun.
There have been many DoFs over the years. Day trips to the seaside, mystery tours (where one/neither of us knows the destination), theatre or museum visits, impulsive attempts to sample every branch of Miss Millie's chicken emporium in one day... a varied selection of activities, each one made a little more orthodox by its association with the DoF brand.
Here I am a few years ago, enjoying a champagne picnic in the centre of Leeds (which almost saw us arrested for anti-social drinking), on a very memorable DoF indeed. Without a clue about why I'd been taken north, I was soon whisked away by Bryony's family to watch a hero at work - the late, great Richard Whiteley, presiding over Countdown at the Yorkshire Television studios. A DoF is when dreams come true...
Full of its success, the DoF concept has been extended over the years to include the WoF (Week of Fun), the NoF (Night of Fun - sadly, not nearly as salacious as it sounds), and even the MoF (Month of Fun), which we've yet to sustain without life getting in the way. These days, with irregular working times for us both, we've even introduced the new Micro-NoF, so that even the smallest portion of an evening may be clawed back to the good-side and harnessed for our enjoyment.
Tomorrow marks an important point in the evolution of the DoF. Keen-eyed observers of the Dayorama prospects will have spotted that a drinking day is to be held in Reading, and keen to excuse what might otherwise be seen as yet another pub crawl, I intend to explain it on relevant forms as a very specific new brand of DoF. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the DoPubs! - an acronym so beautifully suited to the imperative that surely it deserves an exclamation mark.
Tomorrow, we will be obeying its command. The Reading & Mid-Berkshire branch of CAMRA has just published its annual real ale trail, and my good friend Guy and I intend to give it a good thrashing ahead of the Reading Beer & Cider Festival in May. We managed 18 pubs last time, but with the considerable experience I've added to my ale trailing CV in recent months, we're hoping to better that over the next few weeks - visit all 24 pubs, and you receive free VIP passes to all four days of the festival (crucially, allowing us to by-pass the queues).
Bryony will, of course, be fully endorsing the DoPubs initiative when she's finished work tomorrow night, and by closing time we hope to have three happy officials doing what DoFs are all about. Oh, and having fun, too...
The last couple of months chez Sheppard have been something of a trial, not least in the health department. Flu, impetigo, and most recently a relapse of both, I could do with some magic to bring spirits back to a high. At the very least, something to make the hours I seem to be confined to bed these days more bearable, would be nice...
Which is why I've invited AG Bear, my oldest friend and confident, to return to my bed after some ten years absence.
If you've never heard of AG Bears - probably the world's first talking bears - you'll be as surprised as I am to find there's actually quite a following for them. I've had mine since I was five years old, having become characteristically obsessed with them when they launched in 1985. I remember being taken to visit AGs in the shops, knowing they were out of my parents' price range, then returning to my Dad's car to find one sitting in the passenger seat, suitably belted, waiting for me in its box. I also recall winning a competition on Radio 210, in the hope that the "talking bear" might be an AG, and almost crying with delight to find it was actually AG Baby, complete with nappy powder, barely out in the shops.
Since then, AG Bear and his spawn have helped me through many a difficult time in my life. When my birth Mum died back in 1993, I would sit up at night talking with new found wisdom to AG about life and its twists; and whenever his 9v battery was willing, he would talk back, dispensing advice to an 11-year old like he'd been there before.
Since adolescence, AG's been in hibernation in my Dad's loft; but with Dr Death beating heavily on my door in recent months, I decided it was time for him to be pressed into service once more. Albeit silent without his 9v voicebox, which gave out some years ago, he's brought as much childhood cheer to bedtime as ever I recall.
In fact, he seems to be working overtime...
Last week at work, I had to call a man who'd been nominated to receive a surprise call from our Breakfast show, and though he wasn't there to take the call, I was given his mobile number by a woman who was surprisingly interested in the person she was speaking to on the 'phone.
"Is that the David Sheppard we hear?", she asked.
I confirmed it was, and she immediately went to pieces. "You went to Colleton School, didn't you?" she asked, with the kind of nostalgic tone in her voice that immediately suggested what she was about to say.
"I'm Mrs Caton", she said, "you won't remember...."
I stopped her right there. Not only did I remember her - my very first teacher - I actually find cause to think about her every week of my life.
I told her precisely that, and that I remembered her 'smiley face' stamps, awarded for good work. She went quiet, as did I, as we both realised it had been twenty years since we'd last spoken. She told me that she listened whenever I was on the radio, with abundant pride at what "that little five year old boy had become".
I thanked her, and went for a little quiet moment down the corridor.
The following day, a CD arrived from the BBC's central music library, Del Shannon's 'Total Commitment' album, which I hadn't heard for years. This was always a favourite of my Dad, and something I'd been introduced to at around the AG age (again, in the car). Having loved it as a child, I'd ordered it for my Saturday show weeks ago, surprised I was even able to find a copy on CD.
If you've heard of Del Shannon at all, you probably know him for the hit song "Runaway". Though it's undoubtedly a fine song, it goes no way at all in representing Del Shannon's contribution to the music industry in the 1960s/70s, and his unique style both as a writer and performer. Until you've heard such fine songs as "What Makes You Run", "For A Little While", and his beautiful cover version of "Everybody Loves A Clown", you've not experienced sixties music at its finest. Alongside Roy Orbison (with whom I always assumed he was a friend), he's still my favourite singer.
It's been some years since I heard the songs (all were recorded twenty-five years before I was born), but I immediately sang along when I heard them. With AG sat proudly next to the CD player, it was like being 13 again...
The following day, I arrived home to find the most bizarre of letters bearing membership number "50407", the likes of which I hadn't received since primary school. It turns out that the first ever club I joined had decided to reform. Whilst other seven-year-olds were joining the "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" club, young Sheppard was signing up to the "Class 50 society", whose aim it was to buy a Class 50 railway locomotive when they were being withdrawn from service on the British Rail main line. Indeed, we got one - one of my favourites too, 50049 "Defiance" on which I travelled as a child - and now, seven years after the club had collapsed, they're trying to revive it. Not only that, but they now have another three Class 50s to their name... inflation working in my favour for once...
Whatever other tricks AG has up his sleeve, it strikes me that a little cross referencing with my diary from 1987 finds me back precisely where I was twenty years ago - chats with Mrs Caton in the morning, Del Shannon on the way home, and Class 50 society meetings in the evening...
I shall cuddle him tonight in the hope that school milk appears in the morning.
There's a great line I recall from the Russell T Davies series Queer As Folk, where the mother of a gay man warns that whilst "some boys come out, others explode".
It's also true of cats.
Twenty minutes ago, I was preparing to break the news that you'd no longer be receiving updates on our long-term feline friend, Basil. Over the past six months or so, we've watched together as he's grown from timid street cat to introverted house pet, finally becoming the shadow of my shadow whenever I'm in the house. Today, we had a little Basil scare.
Of course, there have been other Basil scares along the way, when a brief absence has caused us to launch a little Basil hunt in the immediate vicinity. But this evening's escapade must surely win the prize.
In the last couple of days, Basil has been showing an unprecedented interest in the outside world, surveying his kingdom from the safety of the window ledge and even pawing at the front door whenever one of us is about to leave the house. Six months of effort to rekindle an interest in the outside world seemed to be paying off all at once, though sadly, he'd caught flatmate Bryony and I by surprise. The cat-flap had, until now, seemed a superfluous measure, and with us both on early shifts this week there'd be no time to help him acclimatise to outdoor life. We'd wait until the weekend, then allow him to make his first foray into the open under controlled conditions.
Good plan. Except that on return from work today, I found something was missing from my usual routine. The mail was on the mat, the milk was in the fridge, but Basil... where were the little ears that usually rush onto the horizon as the key turns in the door?
Gone.
An exhaustive search of every cupboard, window ledge, nook, cranny and more, revealed that in some terrible quirk of irony, Basil had somehow made his break before we were ready. Whether by window (unlikely, since our flat is on the first floor), or by sneaking past when a door was ajar, he'd clearly made a run for it.
After three and a half hours, I gave up the search along with all hope of seeing him ever again. Our little friend was gone, and with so little experience of fending for himself, he was unlikely ever to return.
I broke the news to Bryony when she returned, and her face suggested there may have been some careless front door activity in the early stages of the morning. Optimistically, we left the door ajar through the evening to enable his return, but realistically we resigned ourselves to the prospect of life after Basil.
Dinner wasn't the same without him scrounging. I half expected to walk back into the lounge and find him licking our plates clean the moment my back was turned. Which is why I didn't bat an eyelid when I first noticed him there doing precisely that, bold as brass and back from his travels!
He was a little shocked to see me, and immediately bolted for the open door once again. This time, I wasn't worried - he clearly knows his home - and we followed to see where he'd been. Look carefully and you will, too...
More surprising than the fact he's been spending time under something (a throw back to his days beneath the bed), he seems to have quickly made a friend. On the second dash, we noticed a very cute black cat sitting at the end of our path, presumably waiting for his playmate to return from dinner. As I write, with Basil willingly tucked up safe and sound on my bed, (s)he's still there now, waiting for more fun (of what kind we're not sure) tomorrow...
So Basil is a cat once again. He's exploded back onto the cat scene, has feline friends of his own, and now only bothers coming home for (my) dinner. Bob Martins will soon become Doc Martins, and the moment that cat flap's in place you can bet your life he'll be staying out 'til the early hours. I wonder what other surprises these teenesque years will bring?
Mark my words. I'll be a grandmother before I'm 30...
Welcome to the summer of 1966, and the sight that would have started thousands of holidays each day.
If you've ever travelled to London by coach, you'll instantly recognise the venue as Victoria Coach Station, still Central London's only coach interchange. Journeys to destinations all over the country and beyond have been starting here for 75 years now, and yesterday we marked that anniversary with a modest display of some of the many types of coach that have used the terminal during its lifetime.
Modest it was, not because attendance or interest was low, but because unlike so many of Britain's other great transport landmarks Victoria Coach Station is just as busy as ever, even on a Sunday morning in March. Hardly a moment passed when some National Express giant wasn't arriving with a full load from Penzance or Edinburgh, and with space at a premium for both coaches and passengers, our celebrations understandably had to be kept in hand.
Generously, TfL had allocated one third of the coach station's main stands to our display, and the result was just perfect. With up to seven or eight coaches on display at any one time, and many more taking part elsewhere, they were rotated on a timetable throughout the day, not only giving the many photographers a range of different poses to choose from, but also recreating a sense of bustle and movement of arrivals and departures. There was nothing static about this display.
It also gave a welcome chance to explore a bit of Battersea Park, where the coaches parked up between turns in the coach station. My Dad's coach and its former friend from the West Country seemed to enjoy the sunshine as much as we did.
Transport for London often receive a bad press from those interested in keeping old vehicles alive. On this occasion, they must be praised highly for their magnificent efforts to commemorate the contribution Victoria Coach Station makes to London. The vehicle owners were treated like royalty (I fulfilled the ambition of a roast lunch in a bu... sorry, coachman's canteen, and not a penny was handed over), and the coach station was beautifully dressed with posters and window etchings to mark the anniversary. It couldn't have been better.
And by the way, I didn't take you back to 1966 at all. Only yesterday...
,,, I am 1/4 of a qualified lawyer. Yep, I've sold my soul for 6mths now. The next 6mths should be "steadier". I may have a life, and weekends, back again.
A couple of points to note:
Why is it when you buy "special offer" wine with £2 off or something, it is vile. And you still buy it, becuase it looks like a bargain at £6.99 not £8.99... and it is still vile. No such thing as a free lunch.
Early evening TV is utter ROT (i've been in since 6.30 for the past two days). I have managed to tidy a drawer, do all my filing (since Novemeber... ouch) and sort my DVDs and CDs. Next up is the "shoe" shelf and the wardrobe. Then I'll get a life.
On the "filing" point, I made a resolve to always file bank statements, bills etc the day I received them. When I was a student this was easy. Then worked kicked in. And instead they got thrown in a box-file. I filed everything since November on Sunday. It took me 20mins. Genius. The thing is, I never wanted to do this. I wanted to be organised. I had always criticised my father for lobbing everything into a box and then waiting until the box over-flowed (or my Mum screeched at him) before he filed everything. Well, I think he has a point. Life is too short to worry about it any more than every three months or so.
My Saturday was utterly wonderful but utterly obscure. I spent the day yomping around fields and hills in Kent teaching 14-15yr olds how to navigate. I also fell over in the mud. At 3.30 I was in a field. By 4.30 I was in my flat. By 5.30 I was in black tie, and in a cab on the way to dinner at Inner Temple. By 10ish I was at an engagement party. By 12p I was at a club in the East end. By 3am I was in bed. No point being ordinary.
This has been a very long but very, very good day.
It started with this morning's early sport shift at work, relatively pleasant although unspectacular. But the moment that ended, it all kicked off.
Literally so, in fact. Our top member of the Dayorama recurring character list, Amy J, found herself with no better offer than an afternoon in the pub watching the League Cup Final with me, so I picked her up from Reading station (via a rail replacement bus from Oxford to Didcot for the poor woman), and off we went in search of a suitable venue.
On the way out of Reading we received a sign that the day was going to be a bit special. Driving into the village of Sonning Common there is a field on the right hand side of the road. Suddenly Amy J shouted, "It's the end of the rainbow!" And sure enough, in that field, you could see the end of a rainbow.
I have never seen anything like it - I was sure the whole point of rainbows was that this never, ever happened, but right in front of us was the actual terminus of a rainbow. It disappeared into the fabric of the field. Sadly we were disappearing into the fabric of Sonning Common before we could record this on camera. Yes, I know people say similar things when they see Nessie or Bigfoot, but really. Truly. Honestly. I'll never see that again.
At the very least, this unlikely sighting suggested itself as a good omen, so we pressed on in search of the Holy Grail: a pub with a telly and food. It was approaching 3pm and kick-off when we got to my home village of Stokenchurch, and we had the choice of two pubs in the centre.
The King's Arms Hotel: posh, swanky, refined, well upholstered, ample parking, empty, plenty of food, no telly
The Four Horseshoes: cheap, cheerful, looks a bit knackered, throw the car up against the pavement outside and hope for the best, absolutely rammed full of football fans, answer was "I'll see if there's anything left" when asked about food, but TELLY with FOOTBALL on it
You know which one we went for. We went to the bar with a view to taking a free table at the back of the pub, which was quite far from the TV but it'd do, to find out more about the food situation. The barmaid insisted we go through to the restaurant to order some food, and we could bring it back into the bar to watch the game.
Through we went and we emerged into some kind of culinary paradise. There, in front of a few rows of relatively elderly people cheerfully noshing away, was a portly, welcoming gentleman stood behind a carvery. Lamb, beef, ham and pork were all on display, with an armada of pots and pans holding all manner of vegetables and the like, plus gravy, Yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes by the dozen.
I let Amy go first. "Can I have the lamb please?" She said.
"Of course!" He replied. "Here, have this lamb shank." And out of some tin foil there magically appeared an entire lamb shank. "And there's this lamb too," he added, picking up all the remains of the day's lamb and bundling the lot onto Amy's plate. "Oh and have some beef." On went the beef.
Well by this time I was quaking at the thought of having discovered The Bottomless Carvery, and I walked away with beef and pork, accompanied by a large quantity of Yorkshires and potatoes. All this for £7 each in what has to be the bargain of the century.
Back to the bar we went with not a moment to spare for the football, and we sat at the back table where we could just about see the telly. But then we noticed another television hanging close by on the wall to our right, above a beautiful, roaring, open fire.
I popped to the bar and politely enquired why it wasn't working.
"Oh, it is working!" Said the gentleman who'd just given me half a farm to eat. "I'll switch it on."
Lo and behold we had our own, private widescreen television for the whole of the League Cup Final, with our own table, and a mountain of food and drink.
The game wasn't exactly bad either, was it? Two goals in the opening 20 minutes including one for Berkshire's very own Theo Walcott (must try to get him onto our sports show), the whole John Terry affair for which the phrase "sickening blow" was invented, and the great big brawl at the end with Mourinho and Wenger both on the pitch. Can't ask for much more.
We rounded off the evening watching Spaced on DVD - a series I'd never even heard of til today, despite it being produced six or seven years ago. It's got Bill Bailey in it so it automatically comes recommended, and one episode in particular has reignited my dormant passion for paintballing. Then Top Gear with the grim timeliness of their feature in which a car at a level crossing is crushed by an oncoming train.
To finish, a cautionary tale. It is sometimes difficult, when bringing a girl home to the family unannounced, to make it precisely clear what the relationship is - or isn't - with said girl to avoid later confusion.
This is particularly the case if the girl realises we are both reeking of smoke from the pub and, when upstairs having said initial hellos, asks to borrow a clean shirt to solve the problem. Hours later it occurs to me that disappearing to my bedroom with Amy J, only for her to return to dinner a little later wearing my clothes, may have given off somewhat unintended signals. Wait til we get a house together...
I have an apology to make. Since my rise to television last week, I've been far too preoccupied - autographs, A-list parties and, of course loves, doing coffee - to have posted here. Of course, you all think it sounds very glamorous, but I assure you, it's just a way of life for little old me; the way I pass my time between in-vision engagements...
Or it could just be that I've been ill. Again.
Since my flirtation with what turned out to be "just flu" a few weeks ago, I've not been feeling right. Ollie will testify that I've been a grouchy little bugger, snapping without warning, and at times throwing tantrums of the kind usually associated with people less than a quarter of my age.
I'll hold my hands up to those charges (well, as far as my ailment will allow), but will say in my defence, I've been a very worried man.
Just as the usual symptoms of flu began to subside about a week ago, I began to develop some pretty nasty extras which - sparing you the full details - have pretty much come to affect the parts of my body I use most every day: hands, feet, legs, and worse. Dr Google's diagnoses of the said symptoms seemed unanimous in forecasting my untimely demise, and consequently I've thought of little else.
Today though, I discovered what's really going on. Far from the killer diseases helpfully suggested by the Google School of Medicine, it turns out I've contracted something that is fairly mainstream and commonplace... at least in the nursery school. Yes, some 20 years after conflict was scheduled, my flu-ridden immune system has been confronted in battle by King Impetigo, his army of bacteria bolstered through the years to give a particularly gruesome fight.
For those who've never had the pleasure, impetigo is a particularly nasty skin complaint which usually affects infants. You can only admire the Doctor's diplomacy as she spotted (like it?) the symptoms in a 25 year old man, asking if I "worked with children, at all?". Bemused to find that I'm the second youngest in my workplace, her line of questioning switched to whether I'd "recently played any contact sport?", as apparently rugby players share this with each other all the time. Her face, bless her, showed that she'd already worked out the answer to that one.
So, it's a mystery. The bug is apparently airborne, and can therefore be caught at any time if your immune system is sufficiently knackered. Otherwise, it's a touching thing, passed on by communal use of towels, flannels, even office equipment. My flatmate has already begun burning my possessions, just in case.
But if Ollie, having negotiated his own telly piece from Newcastle in a few weeks, suddenly and mysteriously disappears from these parts for any length of time, we'll have confirmation of another carrier of this bizarre and unpleasant ailment. This never used to happen when we were just on the radio...
Well, if you are so inclined, this week has been pretty interesting for lawyers. In the news I mean. On Monday, we bega with the public humiliation of Rothschild by the Take-over panel. There were various other snippets, and then of course the rather tragic death of the Associate at Freshfields. I don't want to speculate as to whether it was intentional. His memory doesn't deserve that, nor do his family. It's really quite bizarre when the stictly personal life of a normal member of the public suddenly gets turned upside down And a law firm, at the midst of its recruiting events is made to look like a slave machine. I know it makes a good story. I know it fills the column inches in the law journals, but sometimes... can't people just be left alone?
In the great tradition of moving from one extreme to another, here's my new best friend:
Since my flatmate went away last week, our dear cat Basil and I have entered a new and unexpected era. Far from the frightened feline who ventured from beneath the bed only when he could be certain that no human life was nearby, our kitty has without warning found his confidence, cheek and meow. So relentless has been his quest for my company in the last few days, I've started to hide from him.
Not that he's beyond seeking me out, of course...
Every morning for five days, I've been awoken by a very different alarm to normal, one with a great sense of urgency to its ring. No snooze button will silence the meow of Basil in the wee small hours, but only an invitation to join me in the warmth of my duvet where, hopefully, a few more hours may be taken before the meowing resumes. Usually in my ear.
From the second I enter the house to the moment I (pretend to) exit, my shadow is stalked by little white paws. He knows my routine better than I; he waits by the kitchen table, knowing that's where I'll bring the mail; he chases me to the rack of CDs in my room, and then to the stereo in the lounge, probably knowing it'll be Boz Scaggs again; he even waits for me outside the loo, meowing periodically to make certain I haven't fallen in.
So why the sudden affection? One school of thought is that he's feeling lonely in the absence of Bryony, under whose bed he usually sleeps, and who generally spends more time in the house than her erratic broadcasting flatmate. Another says it's only Bryony he fears, and therefore he's making metaphorical hay in her absence.
My money (quite literally) goes on the fact I went out on Wednesday and bought the most delicious looking cat food I could find, far more expensive than his usual cuisine which often goes untouched. He's been wolfing that down just as quickly as he's been coming to Uncle David to ask for a tummy tickle... or is it just to ask for more? The answer could simply be that we have a cat with expensive tastes and a nose for the more refined dish. Cats like Basil, like basil, obviously.
Much as he currently appears to be man's best friend, he's just being a cat after all...
Today's snow has meant all sorts of fun and games for all kinds of people in Dayorama's environs.
Amy J has been out making snowmen in the grounds of St Hugh's College.
My dad had to embark on the treacherous journey to his industrial unit early this morning. It's a big day for him tomorrow - he's running an auction in Northampton - so the snow couldn't be allowed to stop anything. We spent the early evening loading up a huge van as the ice began to get tricky again.
David knows the treacherous drive to work only too well, having been called out of bed at 4:35am to fill in on air for our usual early morning presenter, who was stuck in the snow. He calls today "the busiest" of his working career, but that's his story, not mine.
And I've been at home for most of the day, messing around in the snow in the back garden. The kids are all off school thanks to the conditions so we made snowmen, threw snowballs at each other, and threw snowballs at next door's kids. What more can you ask for?
So here's a picture special of the snow in our village. Hope you got some snow, and hope you enjoyed it without being too inconvenienced! Use the gadget below to browse through the photos, and click on any photo for a larger version hosted on Flickr.
Double Ducks
The Holland Park Avenue Crash
NatWest: Another Day
"Hi! I'm not Troy McClure!"
