*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.
It's not a very good picture, but it's all he deserves. This week, he's proved himself to be far too small and flighty to withstand despeckling.
Contrary to how it may appear, Henry has always remained staunchly uncontactable outside the buildings he calls home in Oxford and Wimbledon (the 'phone' in the photograph is made of foam). A man of principle, over the years he's stood by and lost countless friends to their Nokia 7110s and Motorola StarTACs, each time a little more embittered at having his company put on-hold while yet another front is flipped.
Most of us, content with a succession of newer models, remembered our old friend with affection - and, for those of us who could put our 'phones down for long enough to think about it, a certain admiration. But not any more.
Henry writes:
The final bastion of the Old Order has fallen. The years of merciless attack had left me cold, alone, utterly defeated. A pale shadow of my former self, I was no match this weekend for the combined forces of my brother's old mobile phone and my father's old pay-as-you-go contract.
So. Happy now?
If you want to call me, I'll be in my room.
If you want to text me, I'll be in my room: [Henry's email address]
If I'm not in my room, I will be out engaged in Very Important Business or having a Very Nice Time with Other People, and will on no account answer any calls directed to [mobile number].
Please email me your numbers so that I may burn them. And never let it be said that I am not gracious in defeat.
Bastards.
Henry
I always knew something terrible like this would happen, and frankly, I'm disappointed. He's already stolen my penchant for real ale (previously he drank Carlsberg), and beaten me to London's best party venue for ale drinkers last year. Now this - and I bet he's got a better bloody mobile than I have.
When I think of the years of my life I've wasted on this man, arranging every single aspect of our meetings with absolute precision and then having to turn up on time. The rewards will be small; I shalln’t even have the pleasure of helping him to choose his first ringtone (my money's on the one they call "Provincial", which is the mobile 'phone's answer to a suburban housing development named "Badger's Rest"). In common with the many others who have stood by Henry and loudly taken our calls through the hard times, there'll be no credit for me.
He’ll soon be bothering us at all hours. In my experience, the late adopters tend to be worst when it comes to manners behind the mobile. Another of my good friends who withstood temptation for a number of years now passes the time between calls and texts with the odd game of snake. I remember when she had a right ear.
Well, I’m done with Henry, even if he does still leave an elegant double space after his full stops (I'm not allowed to these days). I shalln't be talking to him ever again, the swine. Not unless he texts me first.
Thank heavens the media has remained relatively calm since the confirmed outbreak of H5N1 in Suffolk over the weekend. During the last wave of panic, some of the country's top journalists approached the story as though it would be the making of their career, blissfully missing the irony of a bulletin topped by Monty Python's dead parrot. This time, we've probably been helped by the fact the news broke on a Saturday, leaving fewer people on duty to co-ordinate national hysteria with purposeful walks up and down the newsroom.
But if there's one person who's almost unconscious with calm about flu - albeit the standard human variety - it's my Doctor.
After two weeks of the most debilitating symptoms I can remember, I finally agreed to conquer my fear of the surgery and visit my GP for a little advice. An appointment was booked, the visit duly made, and an agonising 75 minutes later than scheduled, I was called in.
I'm no GP, but if were I'd assume that when a man who's visited the surgery just three times in thirteen years appears on the guest list, there must be a big problem. But throughout my consultation, the GP was disarmingly blasé about what was wrong - he'd clearly seen it a hundred times before.
Unquestionably charming and with an excellent bedside manner, he listened as I reeled off the unpleasant signs of impending death as I saw them, nodding sagely with each one. A quick listen on his stethoscope front and back, and he proclaimed it to be 'just flu'. I'd need to agree to lots of rest, drink lots of water, take lots of tablets, and all would return to normal in about a week.
Just flu?! As opposed to what, exactly? What could possibly be more debilitating than the dose of flu which has stopped me from getting out of bed, from concentrating, from eating and drinking, and ultimately from going to work?
The answer? The kind of flu which I bet many patients have convinced themselves they have. You can bet your life that every hypochondriac in the country has been gobbling their way to the doctor's surgery today, summoning the odd sneeze and persuading themselves they've not been feeling right since Christmas dinner. For once, the media are not panicking, but you can bet your life the people will be. That's probably why I had to wait so long for my appointment...
It must have been a relief for the Doctor to see a man whose glands genuinely were sticking out on either side of his neck, instead of somebody wearing a rubber wattle for attention. I shall never again be afraid of visiting the Doctor. It's he who should be afraid of us.
Last night a party was held, somewhere in the East End, and largely for my benefit (premature birthday: hint, numero uno). A few things to note. The theme, decided upon in a pub in Greenwich one Sunday afternoon, was "Bollywood". No, we weren't jumping on the Big Brother bandwagon but I have had a lot of Inddian experience lately, so it was fitting to spread the joy. I suppose it is a slightly offensive theme, but wonderful. And so easy. Go to Whitechapel market, pick up a few saris for £10 (for those on Facebook, I suspect photos will appear at some stage), buy some bracelets, a couple of Bollywood DVDs and raid the "Indian" food section of Tesco. Genius. Hilarious party. Plenty of spontaneous dancing. And too much drink. And the worst thing, we've decided, is not the clearing up. It is deciding who will get up to buy the papers, milk and orange juice in order to continue the gentle awakening into Sunday afternoon.
Well let me tell you, I've had it with First Great Western, too.
My fuse has blown on the basis of cumulative frustration rather than any one bad experience. Since they took over the franchise on my routes into London and Oxford, I've earned a reputation as the man who's always late. I once spent so long crawling between Acton and Paddington that I had to cancel my entire evening, theatre and all, because I knew I wasn't going to make it.
Best of all was the night when thirty of us were dumped at Didcot Parkway by a rail replacement bus and told to wait for a connecting train which never arrived. In the small hours of Monday morning, we ended up begging the driver of an empty train to take us back to Reading on his way to the depot.
Unsurprisingly, I have an entire folder on my computer for the letters of complaint I've written to First Great Western. To their credit, I usually receive a reply which has, at least in part, been tailored to the particular issue I've raised. They sometimes dispute that the train was running late at all, or point out that I'm not entitled to compensation under the Passengers' Charter because it wasn't late enough! But, as a 'goodwill gesture', they usually enclose a few pounds worth of tokens to be redeemed on my next First Great Western journey which they hope will be a better experience.
It rarely is, but at least with tokens in hand I'm shielded from the full sting of the fare increases we've endured of late. Today, for a pretty run of the mill journey from Reading to London Paddington, I was charged a breathtaking £13 for an off-peak cheap day return! Granted, the service (as billed) is fast and frequent enough to make it a clear winner over road transport, but surely we should be pricing more competitively than that? Today I've been to a show, travelled across London by tube, had a two-course dinner and taken a taxi home (the late-night buses in Reading are appalling, too), and if £13 isn't quite the largest sum I've shelled out all day, it's certainly the least good value for money I've received...
... And here's why. Today's lunchtime 'fast' journey from Reading to Paddington was packed, it managed barely more than a crawl between Southall and its destination (some 12 miles), and it got me to London 20 minutes later than it should have done. Tonight's return journeys after 1900hrs were absolutely heaving, to the point where I let several trains leave without me in the hope of finding a seat on the next. The train I eventually caught, the 1948 to Cheltenham, had passengers standing throughout its woefully inadequate five-carriages, and was delayed before it even left. The usual old stuff.
But if I feel I've received bad value for money with my cheap day return, imagine the bitterness of commuters who've paid through the nose simply for the privilege of leaving London before 1900hrs. Those earlier services (which ticket restrictions [and the will to live] prevented me from taking) were unsurprisingly even more packed; and clearly a huge percentage of those on board had left work knowing full well they wouldn't be sitting down until they reached home.
Precisely what is First Great Western offering these people for their extra cash, other than the crudest possible form of transport since Third Class was abolished?
It was abolished, by the way, by the old Great Western Railway, arguably the most celebrated of the 'big four' railway companies and the one held to have been the most proud of its work. It’s ironic that First should seek to continue a brand which recollects such halcyon days of rail travel without displaying any of the characteristics itself. Brunel shall not rest until something is done - and neither shall the passengers.
I bring bad news for her. A few extras seem to have sprung up...
... and as you can see, she'll have to travel a little further than Cockfosters or Elephant & Castle to visit many of them. Lucky that we're prepared for the odd overnight stay:
Now here is a bold extension to an already ambitious project: to visit every known rip-off of London Transport's distinctive roundel, evidently the ultimate envy of designers and branding experts across the world. Together with the sharp, reassuring Johnson font, it's what you see when you close your eyes and think about London. And Byculla Mecanicks, obviously.
It would take years to do it, if indeed you'd ever finish. But the photos she'd take at some of the 'stations' would certainly lend variety to her blog...
So, I've come to a decision. Not to be beaten by the fact that inspiration dawned at Tubewhore's sliding door before it reached mine, I shall embark on an altogether more ambitious tour. I'll take a great idea, add a little twist, then badge it as my own - just as the creators of these signs have done.
Shame my Oyster won't take me further than the first stop...
More tube related musing at Annie Mole's great London Underground Diary, which is always worth a look.
After three days in bed with a dose of something nasty, it strikes me that only the Grim Reaper will ever stop me from doing things. In spite of the impressive portfolio of symptoms which have all but closed down my body, it's been very much business as usual in the mind department. Every opportunity has been taken to claw back a few seconds from Dr Death in order to catch up on a few errands - the odd bill to pay online, letters to write... in short, any excuse to wear reading glasses and make my bed look like Rymans.
I'm incapable of switching off - the very reason, I'm assured, why I'm stuck in my eiderdown office in the first place.
So it's been nice to work on something worthwhile over the last 24 hours, something I've been threatening to do for many a year. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you this...
It's alarming how quickly we fall out of contact with old friends, and just two years on from leaving my University radio station, there are just a handful of one-time daily acquantances whom I see with any regularity. So I'm hoping this should do the trick, not just for me and the friends I made during my time there, but for generations before and after us. A chance to remember happy times...
For the moment, it's gathering people's attention as a group on Facebook (the virtues of which are so often extolled here, but let's remind you once again that it's a very good thing). Twenty people have signed up on its first day, and I'm certain word of mouth will bring more. Soon there'll be drinks, friendships reunited, maybe even the need for me to buy Cilla's hat - it can only be a good thing.
It comes on a day when I'm reminded how much I owe to my time at Burst. Today also brought the news that I've got a brand new weekly show to look forward to, beginning in March, which looks set to become the kind of programme I've always wanted to present. It'll be live on a Saturday evening, at a time when creativity and spirit in the audience is high, and late-night story telling comes into its own - I can't wait. Who needs Russell Brand? More news on that when I have it.
So, not a bad day's work for sick boy. Now, where's that note...
After my experience with the parcel sent via Aberdeen last week, I wasn't at all surprised when the man from Tesco Direct 'phoned at 9.15 this evening to say that he and our shopping were waiting outside... a house in Keswick. Some mix up straight out of One Foot in the Grave had resulted in our online shopping being dispatched to an amalgamation of my flatmate's old and new addresses; whilst the road name was (by fluke) correct, the destination was actually some 291 food-miles further north than was ideal. Slightly less than Direct, then.
The Reading end of the conversation was a delight to hear:
"No - that's not my address. You should be in Reading... near London... Yes - in the South!... I realise that, but could it be sent from another depot?"
Unsurprisingly, it couldn't, which meant a late night visit to the supermarket for poor Bryony, waiting on me hand and foot as I battle with a nasty dose of flu. But for all at the southern end of our transaction, there was to be a little silver lining...
Late night shopping brings unexpected bargains, like this one:
For just £1, here's a whole feline toy box full of goodies to keep your cat amused. A cuddly fish on an elasticated string, which dives tantalisingly into padding range and then quickly springs back again; and a little toy mouse which looks (and squeaks) for all the world like it might make a tempting dash for freedom at any second. Ideal reward for young Basil, who's really coming out of himself these days, and occasionally now dares to join us in the living room. As the bag says, cats love catnips...
... except Basil, it seems:
Being scared of unfamiliar human beings we can fully understand, and try as we may to persuade ourselves that he ought to be used to his latest owners by now, we forgive him for the odd moment of cowering as we enter the room. But as for being this petrified of a tiny pretend mouse, I don't think so.
Having taken refuge under the coffee table the minute his new toy was unveiled, Basil had greatly underestimated the tenacity of the 'mouse' when in the hands of his new owners. Little by little, 'mouse' was moved closer until he too was sharing the shelter of the table. Eye to eye, there was to be a stand-off.
Minutes passed, and only when we both grew bored of watching did a little white paw reach out and roll the mouse over, perhaps in curiosity as to why it had remained so still, but probably only because Basil wanted to get it sorted before he was forced to cope with a menacing white fish which was now bouncing onto the horizon...
The mouse will be useful as we try to reacquaint Basil with the outside world. Bizarrely, his days as a street cat have left him nervous of outdoor life (not that he's King of the indoor party, as we've seen). We're having to tread very carefully. Most days we take him to the front door and show him a little sunlight, but he rarely wants to know. One of these days he'll show an interest, and knowing him, he'll decide it's what he's wanted all along. Doubtless we'll be getting another call from Keswick that night...
Now doesn't that sound like a good idea. Perhaps if I had a spare 270k I would invest in a hotel room too... check in here. I still prefer the truffle tree idea.
On a day where just about everything seems to have been blown off course, it's good to see that one thing ended up where it should have done.
Or, at least, where it was sent. Spot the mistake...
What you see is not a result of today's disappointing licence fee settlement necessitating our relocation to Aberdeen, but a small slip of the mouse made by somebody at the BBC's music library when dispatching a parcel.
I'll forgive them. Not only is the service they provide normally excellent (they're essentially the music equivalent of Oxford's Bodleian library), they've managed to find a record that's outnumbered by NHS dentists specialising in hens. Given that I've waited four years for the contents of the parcel, one more day won't make any difference.
Back in the days when I was younger even than Ollie, I used to spend my evenings lingering at Radio Bristol in awe of a man called Richard Lewis. A production pedigree to inspire such awe in itself, he was probably one-time executive producer of your favourite light entertainment programme, and he's almost certainly written scripts for your favourite television drama or comedy. He's also one of the finest broadcasters I know, and his evening show of the time was cult listening across the west country.
Eventually they gave me a job on the show, and it was from the great master that I learned so much about how to engage an audience. The show was weird by design, "another way" of broadcasting as we called it, and that's why it was wonderful. Listeners would 'phone to share stories as colourful as the lady who was nipped by her new puppy and arrived at hospital bathing her left breast in vodka; and the man who, when selling his old car, had removed the speedometer to turn the clock back a few thousand miles, only to find the legend "Oh no, not again" inscribed on the reverse of the dashboard...
... And he used to play a wonderful song called "Loving You Has Made Me Bananas", by a man called Guy Marks.
I remember the song from my first evening there, and it came to embody everything that was so different about the show. Soon my days too were filled with dreaming up ideas for the show, and after a little treatment from the master, we'd all roar with laughter as they made it to air. And every now and again, in knowing appreciation of an idea well crafted, the Guy Marks song would appear. Minds in harmony, and not a word spoken.
Around the time I left to move to Radio Berkshire, I narrowly missed buying a vinyl copy on eBay, the only one I've ever seen. Hoorah for the BBC music library in London, which now has a copy on CD... with, guess what, 14 other records by the quirky Mr Marks.
Once I've indulged, I shall send it to Bristol (via Aberdeen, of course) for Richard to use on his show, these days in a well deserved daytime slot with an audience as huge as the list of celebrity guests he attracts. Rumour has it, though, I may be needing it back in Berkshire soon...
"Your red scarf matches your eyes, you close cover before striking... loving you has made me bananas".
Is not just that it rains as soon as you step out of the door at 8am in the morning and again as soon as you step out of the Office at 11.30pm at night. It is that because it was raining when I arrive in Canary Wharf for work this morning I decided to get off at Canary Wharf DLR station as opposed to Heron Quays. For anyone who doesn't know the Wharf, it is possible to get to Bank Street from Canary Wharf DLR station without coming above ground. If you get off at Heron Quays (closer to Bank Street), then you need to walk outside and therefore if it is raining, battle the elements. So, this morning I got off at Canary Wharf DLR in order to avoid the rain. Bad decision. I had to walk through the shopping malls. I had bought a dress and top in the sales. All before 9am. Damn.
Yesterday, I dismissed the music grabbing habits of billions of mobile 'phone users as a 'fruitless addiction', something technology has provided us with the opportunity to do, without there really being any great need.
Tonight, I appeal for technology to get on and solve some problems in a way it does best, by saving me the bother. So then, we can quench our desire to hear just about any song at any time and any location* we choose (*3 Mobile customers excepted), Mr Technology you spoil us so. Why then is it still not possible to paint a bloody ceiling without ending up like this?
This has to be the worst job ever, and every sodding time I find myself faced with it the indignity gets worse. Last time, I ended up bathing my cochlea in vinyl silk as the excess dripped straight from my roller into an upturned ear. Today, Homebase's milk white matt emulsion went one better, launching its attack directly from the ceiling with remarkable precision.
In case you think this was a fluke and that, by the law of averages, a stray drip was bound to strike the bullseye eventually, be in no doubt that you're wrong. This was an opportunist drip who knew exactly what he was doing, and struck within 20 seconds of the roller first touching the ceiling. It's almost like Lord Sainsbury of Homebase (whose staff I really put to the test earlier today) had a hand in it himself. Or a watchful eye.
And still we go on carrying out this ridiculously ill-fated job with virtually no assistance from the boys at technology HQ. They're probably all busy reinventing the toothbrush, or finding new ways to make skin products sound more sexy (added aqua, anyone?). Meantime, I'm unwillingly left to highlight my lashes with splashes whilst risking life and limb at the top of a ladder. Surely there must be a better way?
I'm certain there is. And what's more, I think the technology is already in place, and somewhere lies the top secret blueprint for the world's first automatic ceiling painter. The reason we haven't yet seen it is that, in the meantime, it's far too funny for people like Bryony, my flatmate, when they hear cries of help from a one-eyed man torn between sorting out his affliction and making sure further drips don't go on the carpet. There just wouldn't be a market - at least, not until I've done the kitchen, too...
It took nearly two years, but the road sweeper has followed me to London. Remember the dire road sweeper that used to trundle up and down the Turl with its deafening growl? Well now, at about 11.30pm each night the road-sweeper droans up, and then down, my road with orange lights flashing. Agh!
I could honestly say I've never been tempted to reach for my mobile 'phone to download music... right up until Sunday morning.
In principle, I stand by my long term view that anybody doing so regularly has either too much money to their name, or else a fruitless addiction to novelty. It's not that I'm behind the times - I just happen to think there are so many better ways of downloading and playing music these days, through pieces of kit which are designed specifically with this in mind. So why the heck would you want to use a tinny old phone?
Well, one reason might be that you have Mika's fantastic new single 'Grace Kelly' bouncing through your mind, and require an immediate rendition in whatever form you can get.
That's my excuse, the fact I have a fruitless addiction of my own. Since the moment Ken Bruce first hit the button to play it on Radio 2, I've barely stopped singing it. Shame most of the notes so effortlessly tackled by Mika are a little out of my reach...
It's a great song, not just because it's catchy and memorable (which to me are fairly basic requirements, but so often underplayed by the critics), but it's a clever song with a purpose. Listen to it casually and hear a man desperate to please, perhaps, a would-be lover by offering to be anything she likes; relatable or what? Talk to Mika himself, as Emma Jones did, and you'll find you're actually listening to an attack on the music industry and its insistence on moulding artists to fit convenient pigeon holes.
Just as relatable in every walk of life, I'd say; the temptation to try understand new ideas by translating them into old ones; the writing-off of individual brilliance because it's "strange" (Mika's word). You only have to look at reality television to see that we're mostly working from the pigeon hole out.
But Mika's an individual in every sense, and I applaud him for that. He's proved the merits of his individuality by battering the industry over the head with a song that's very different, and very, very popular. I like it.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to clear some 'phone space for the rest of his album. Yes, I'll be buying a hard copy, and downloading it on iTunes... but I'll need the 'phone for emergencies.
... when the contents of one's fridge amount to tomato ketchup, mayo, horseradish sauce (don't ask), two cans of diet coke, two cans of beer, garlic puree (no idea), some coffee and some flora... the cupboard contains seven tins of tuna fish and a jar of olives... and the freezer contains half a bag of chips and some frozen peas... I don't think this is particularly healthy.
I was chatting to someone the other day about living in the London suburbs. I mean Wimbledon, Richmond - why? Why subject yourself to an hour long commute on the District line, just so you can reside in a leafy street. I'd just go the whole way and quit the City entirely. However, earlier today a few friends and I went to Greenwich. I have to say I have always been a fan of Greenwich. I've said this before: it has the water, it has the park, it has an array of shops and restaurants, and of course it has the fantastic market on a Sunday. It is very relaxed, with people of all ages, all dress-types and both Londoners and tourists. But it is a form of Suburbia. It doesn't have the hustle and bustle of London. And it is pleasant. Then this afternoon / evening I visited my cousin in Kingston. Again, definitely Suburbia. It was quite pleasant to wander to his house along "normal" streets and eat dinner in a restaurant in a normal town. At the same time, I don't think I would like it. There is something about feeling as though you live in London. Despite the grime and rough edges, living towards the centre of town has its advantages. It is all very pleasant to escape to Suburbia, or indeed into the Counties surrounding London, but, nah, not for me. Not just yet, anyway. I'll stick to my Sunday visits for now.
It may surprise you given the content, but I did actually have to think about what I was going to post and write a haphazard list. The challenge is over. All 14 posts are done. Only another 351 and I'll have posted one for each day of 2006...! It has made me realise how much I have missed posting, so I shall endeavour to turn the face of Dayorama away from the BBC and back to more wittering and girly drawl (with excessive typos, of course). My final thought for the day is this: facebook. Over the past few months, more people from my "past" have added me on facebook. I don't think we are the facebook generation. Well, perhaps we are the facebook generation, but certainly the teenagers of today are on it from the time they leave secondary school, so the network starts at a much younger age and becomes automatic as soon as they reach University. But when will it stop? Will we always be adding "friends" even when we are 30? Will it come to it that our neices and nephews* one day reach the age of 15 and add us as "friends"? When we meet a friend of a friend in a bar one night when we are 29, will we go home and pop their name into the search facility to see if they are on facebook and then "add" them? It is a strange thought, but one that I doubt is far from the inevitable truth.
*have just realised that this is a really silly thing to say since both OJ, Ollie (sort of) and I are only children.
I know at least one Dayorama reader who is a fan of postsecret.com. Well this weekend it has come to London.
For a little bit of background, the artist Frank Warren distributed post cards across the US and asked people to send them back to him with secrets written on them. These were then posted on a blog. Now people from all over the world send in secrets. It is an incredible phenomenon - people who can't confide in people close to them can tell their secret over a website. I suppose some will be made up. Some are also clearly based on teenage hormonal anger and resentment. But others are heartstoppingly moving. Ironically, the website has now become a forum where people turn for help. They realise that they aren't "alone". An incredible manner in which the human phsyc can be affected.
Anyway, this weekend some of the postcards are on display in Foyles Bookshop on Charing Cross Rd. That's all I wanted to say.
Nutritional Information. I'm all for this to be displayed on food packets. There's a large push to move the 7,000,000 kcal from under the flap of a Mars bar to the front. And rightly so. But Diet Coke? They now display the kcal on the front and work out the % of your daily intake. Isn't this a little mad? Surely if it says 1.5kcal, we should know that a man would have to drink nigh on 1,000 cans to reach their daily allowance? I suppose if we are going to label one food, we should label them all... but this does seem a bit pointless.
I don't know what to do. I have had my hair cut at the same salon since I was 6. That's a long time. It is a very well respected family affair based in Kent. Jamie, both my Mum and I's hairdresser, knows everything. He knows the holidays we've been on, the times my Aunt comes to stay, knows my A level grades and more importantly knows my hair. Don't laugh. I know you boys only pay about £5 to have yours cut, and then grumble. My shampoo costs more. But it is important. My hair is relatively long and I don't have the time to deal with it, so it needs to be cut well. At the moment I should have my hair cut, but I am actually trying to grow it a bit, so time is less of the essence. The problem is, Jamie has Hodgkins Disease. He is unlikely to return to work before the summer, if ever. There is a large part of me that feels terribly guilty having it cut by someone else. Almost a betrayl. I know I could go to the same salon and have someone else, but it wouldn't be the same. If he doesn't come back, it will be a loss but not so hard to have someone else. It is just the thought that he may come back and I don't want someone to cut my hair in the interim. Having said that, I think it will need cutting in about 6 weeks, let alone 6 months. We'll have to see. It is a strange feeling.
In life, there are those things you areeternally grateful to your parents for. And then there are those things that you are less grateful for. Last Saturday evening I was at home with my parents. My Mother had begun to watch Soapstar Superstar. She forced me to stop watching the DVD of Pirates of the Carribbean No.2 to watch it. And since I have followed it all week. I have only managed to catch the repeats / after programme on ITV2 this week, but last night I was in and actually watched the main show (semi final). I even voted. What is happening?
Until an article on BBC online yesterday, I had no idea about the meaning for jaywalking. Heavens knows why, I of anybody should probably pay attention. I am utterly useless at crossing roads. In fact, it was a good thing in Mumbai that I was with someone who appreciated this fact. I was restrained on several occasions and also got reprimanded for "squealing in a very girly manner" (I am a girl, I am allowed to) at times when I was about to be run over by a bike or something. So there we are. Jaywalking. I've learnt something new.
I'm struggling now. Seven posts down and seven to go. Anthony and I were at church last Sunday and I have to say, I never knew Epiphany was so complicated. I think perhaps the preacher over-complicated matters slightly by producing all manner of boxes (don't ask) but it really was quite an epiphany (sorry). Although this does lead me to a New Year's Resolution. A colleague from work and I have decided to do at least two cultural things per month in the hope that we will get out of the Office. At least we should both understand if we have to cancel etc. So, we're thinking of seeing Twelth Night. We've booked the ballet in February, so that's one tick box. But we still need two for January, and time is ticking. I must sort something, actually. And my other NY Resolutions? Oh, the usual. Lose weight. Some things, will never change.
I've always had an NHS dentist. And I've always had my teeth checked every six months. Well, it is January and my six months are up. But how can I get to my NHS dentist in Kent? I'd have to take time off. And how can I register with one in London? Nigh on impossible. So I have gone private. There is a firm discount - not that this really dents the bill. What a difference. The dentist spoke to me. She chatted away. My appointment was 30mins - and it started on time. I was also able to read the "current" edition of Harpers (no Hello or OK) whilst waiting. At the same time, I just wanted to get in and out; the dentist isn't really the place I want to have a discussion about anything more than the weather. I can say this much though, it was relaxing and it was effortless (the fact it is a 1min walk from the Office helped).
No, I'm not getting married! I don't think I'd announce it on Dayorama first, if I was. Whilst I may not be, other people are. Two friends from school to be precise. One in February and the other in August. Now that is just scary. Everyone is growing up. OK, so I have a flat and a car (-glove box) but marriage? At the same time, they are both raging Christians, so perhaps that explains it.
It wasn't all good. On my return my car had been broken into. That wouldn't be so bad. It's life. You own a car, you expect the consequences - the failed MOT, the punctures, the chip on the windscreen that means you have to replace the whole thing etc. But these cretins. They broke into my car by smashing the front passenger window. Glass everywhere. They didn't steal my walking boots (always in the car), or a pair of trainers (also in the boot), they didn't steal my stereo (I never have any CDs or valuables in there anyway), they didn't steal my big umbrella (I would be angry if they had) and they didn't steal my maps. Oh no, they stole the following:
1 x cigarette lighter
1 x spare tyre
1 x jack (for the tyre)
1 x car manuals
1 x door to my glove compartment
So, I had to get the police out to check the car and also Mr Autoglass. The police managed *not* not notice that my spare tyre had been stolen despite the gaping hole in the boot. And the following has cost me the following inconvenience:
1 x cigarette lighter - I'll have to ebay this
1 x spare tyre - cost me £100, had to get it from Kent, ended up driving home illegally. Oh, they also stole the bolt thing that holds it in place so my Dad ended up making one with an old egg poacher. That's another story.
1 x jack (for the tyre) - not botering to replace. The RAC will always change a tyre
1 x car manuals - oh well. I'll never be able to change a windscreen wiper again now
1 x door to my glove compartment - it would cost £120 to replace from Renault. I'll be ebaying (may even find my own on there) or scrap-yarding that one then.
I'm not angry (if I had lost my brolly and boots I would have been angry) I am just slightly bemused and put out. It takes time and effort to sort this. It also doesn't feel nice to think someone has been in my car.
I can honestly say, that my five days in Mumbai were fantastic - and I came back very relaxed. I promised Ollie I'd write a post akin to some of OJ's way back when he was in Princeton. However, the time seems to have come and gone. Instead, you can have this abridged dribble.... 2 1/2 days of work, 2 1/2 days of play. It was good/useful to experience the Indian office environment and to put the work that I have done over the past few months, and will be doing over the next few weeks, into context. Mumbai as a City is fantastic. Certainly one of extremes. From the window of a taxi it looks quite daunting - there are people absolutely everywhere and the poverty is horrific. But when you actually walk through the streets, you realise that this isn't the case. Whilst I was never on my own, I didn't ever feel threatened. On our days off a colleague and I did all the "things you must do" in Mumbai... the architecture is fantastic (gothic, wonderfully English and yet at the same time so very Indian)... the hotel was fantastic (google the Taj Palace and Tower Mumbai and you'll see why)... the restaurants served the most wonderful cuisine (gorgeous marinated fish)... Elephanta Island, home to caves containing carvings of Siva is a must - wonderfully tranquil in parts... the street markets are fascinating... the beaches are fantastic, especially if you manage to have a drink in a outside bar overlooking the beach at sunset... clubbbing was an experience (3 nights, 6 clubs, lots of bars, lots of booze)... and Virgin upper on the way back. What else can I say?
Yes, OK. It is now the 13th January and I feel thoroughly guilty for not posting this year. However, as always I have been either chained to my desk or out or asleep. In fact, this is the first time I have turned my laptop on in my flat (which says a lot) and I actually had to sign into Dayorama as it had "forgotten" me.
So far, 2007 has been quite fun. It started 5 1/2 hrs earlier than everyone else in India (more on that later) and has continued to be quite pleasant. So, Happy New Year.
I am now going to make up for 13 days of not posting... by posting 14 times today. I made a promise that I would, so here goes...
There I am in the car outside Leckhampstead village hall, in West Berkshire, contemplating making the dash between the two. Berkshire was not blessed with the finest weather today.
The reason I'm out in the sticks of God's own county is housing. I won't bore you with details but the Rural Housing Trust are putting up some new houses here, and my word it's tricky finding somewhere to live in Berkshire - if you're on my wage at any rate.
Sadly (for me) you've got to have a local connection to get in on the Leckhampstead act, but there's a bit more chance down at Wokingham, which was my next stop.
It's the same deal there - this "affordable housing", where you only buy a percentage of your home. It's the only way for a lot of people to get on the housing ladder now, I suspect me included.
In case you've not come across it, I'll explain. Say I want to buy a £200,000 house or apartment. At the moment I could rent it, which would cost me £800 or so a month in Berkshire. I can't afford that and it's £800 down the drain each month.
I could buy it outright with a mortgage. Good luck to me trying to find a mortgage to cover £200,000 on my salary. Good luck to me even finding the deposit. Out of the question. If I could somehow do it, it'd be costing me £1,000 per month (we worked all these figures out earlier).
With one of these "affordable housing" shared ownership schemes, I'd only have to buy as little as 25 per cent of the house. So I go off and get a mortgage worth £50,000, which I could certainly do. The housing association buy the rest of the house for me, but they get some rent off me each month.
I end up paying just under £600 a month for my £200,000 house, rent and mortgage combined - a saving of £200 on renting it, and £400 a month on trying to buy it normally.
There are, of course, problems. For example how do you stop living in an "affordable" house once you've started? When you sell up you get your 25 per cent back, but then you're only left with enough to buy 25 per cent of another house.
You can get around that: for instance you could keep buying bits of your house over time, building your 25 per cent up to 100 per cent, and then you're on the housing ladder good and proper - that house is yours. But you can't get around the sheer lack of housing, even in its affordable guise.
I spoke to one man who said he'd been on a six year waiting list, and a woman who'd been waiting three years. It's particularly bad if you need three bedrooms, since housing companies assume affordable housing is for young couples, so restrict their developments to one or two beds each. If you have three children and can only afford to buy property this way, that's bad news.
Also, if you're not a "key worker" (emergency services, NHS, etc) then you're worse off. You can still get property this way, but you're not so much the priority.
In other words I could get an "affordable" house in Wokingham if I wanted to, but it might take me a while to earn that chance, and it's by no means something for nothing (which is, for all the world, how it looks when you're told you can get a house for a quarter of its price).
Having been to that meeting it's worth seriously considering for me. I don't see how I'd do it any other way, not around here at any rate.
The sheer daftness of the situation was summed up later on, back in the BBC canteen. The lady serving food told me her daughter, whose other half plays rugby league professionally, has moved to St Helen's with him. They live in a two bedroom house which cost them :£75,000.
I could spend £75,000 to get a two-bed house here... but I'd only have bought 25 per cent of it.
It will come as no surprise that I have much to add to our current canter on radio station webcams. Whereas Ollie is "no David Sheppard when it comes to obsessive pushing of the print-screen key", I am, after all...
It may surprise you to learn that I have only 698 stills in my collection from the webcams of BBC Radio 2, and I could forgive you for asking what I'd been doing with my time to prevent me from collecting more. The answer is almost certainly listening to the radio.
I recall the first day of the Radio 2 webcam - all the talk of radio becoming television and in-vision fees - and unsurprisingly, can offer you one of the very first shots of that day:
To the uninspired it's a fairly unincredible shot of Terry Wogan in action, addressing the nation as it eats its breakfast, alongside the late, great Pauly Walters as he does the same. But for anybody who's listened to the show with any regularity, anybody who feels they're a part of that world, it's a window on a scene they can instantly recognise. It's a reconciliation of imagination and reality, proof that Terry Wogan does exist outside your speaker, an invitation to join them backstage.
Wogan, Walters and the team cleverly recognised the potential of that window, not as a means of adding the glitz of television as they quipped, but as a way of bringing the listeners closer. Although every bit as accessible as the broadcast itself, the webcam somehow felt like privileged viewing. It became an added bonus for those who wanted it, an extension of the jokes, and very soon we were offered sights like this:
And this:
And eventually, a roaming camera was installed to give us this:
Somehow, the Wake up to Wogan team mastered the art of creating unmissable radio whilst pausing every five minutes for equally unmissable stills on the webcam.
Which is why I've ended up with 698 of the things. How could you not?
Only now that I've spent (albeit a little) time at the BBC does it occur to me, there was almost certainly some management brief being fulfilled here. Producers would undoubtedly have been encouraged to begin fostering an interest in the (then) newly relaunched Radio 2 website, and countless resources would, quite rightly, have been ploughed into cross-platform promotions and competitions to persuade listeners of the benefits of visiting the site and going online generally.
And yet, if this were the case, I'm certain that none of them would have generated the interest that the brilliant Paul Walters managed to achieve with his simple webcam stunts. Apparently effortless, in true Walters style, they took us full circle - exemplary 360 degree programming in current BBC speak - and ultimately enhanced our enjoyment of the original product as well as leading us to the new.
The man was a genius, not least because he had such fun being so.
For many, New Year's Eve carries something of a tradition, and for most, it's a tradition that breeds disappointment. Post-Christmas blues are kept at bay with a niggling suspicion that something wonderful is on the way for 'New Year'; yet when push comes to shove, when January comes to December, when Ben's biggety comes to bong, we're usually too tired to enjoy it. We're not just physically tired, of course, but completely drained of the will to party, and with immunity to alcohol built-up to an all time high, even your warmest mulled wine won't defrost the heart of the weary reveller.
This is partly why I've never bothered with big plans for New Year's Eve. I usually spend it at home with my family, and potter off to my radio around midnight to catch up with the chimes (and, sadistically, to see if the New Year plans of various radio stations have worked out). Ollie and I almost volunteered our services as co-hosts for our station's New Year's Eve show, but with such a busy run up to Christmas, decided we probably couldn't do it justice.
Our reserve plan - if a plan it may so be called, given it was finalised by text message only minutes beforehand - was to spend the evening in a quiet country pub, eating and drinking as the mood took us, and counting down to a midnight full of contentment and calm. We couldn't have got it more right.
Bring on the Fox & Hounds in Christmas Common, on the Oxfordshire/Berkshire/Buckinghamshire border, and conveniently a mere few miles from Williams HQ (thus, even more conveniently for some, rendering me the obvious choice as the non-drinking driver). What luck...
I'd been to lunch with friends in Buckinghamshire, so hopped across the M40 to Ollie's house in Stokenchurch, only to find him clad in full suit and tie and smelling like a coconut tree. Apparently, he'd decided on the outfit moments before my arrival in casual blue shirt and muddy trousers, still drenched from my afternoon walk in the driving rain. Very dashing he looked...
For the uninitiated, the Fox & Hounds is a great little place, quite certain of itself at the upper-end of the gastro pub market, and certainly one of the best attempts I've seen by a country pub to shift the emphasis towards quite upmarket food (a move that can be disastrous if the ambience feels confused, or the food turns out to be naff). We went there for the first time on Ollie's birthday and loved it, largely because the food was good and yet the pub was still allowed to be quaint, and certainly unpretentious.
Just as well it remained thus on New Year's Eve. We arrived - him looking ravishing, me looking ravished - and immediately we began wondering what our hosts would think of their two new arrivals, Chalk and Cheese. We (and undoubtedly, they), settled on the verdict that there was something slightly seedy about our appearance, huddled in the corner, Ollie in a suit and tie, me in a Dayorama anorak. It must, we concluded, have looked as though Ollie was being paid for his company by the hour...
Several courses and many indiscretions later, all pointing to that same dreaded conclusion, the time came to pay up. Having paid a chunk on my card, Ollie opened his wallet and announced that he'd be paying the remainder in cash, producing a sizeable bundle of notes which could easily have constituted his earnings for the night. Eyebrows were raised, red cheeks were covered, and we left ahead of time to go and retrieve some items from Williams HQ.
Still keen on the idea of the midnight countdown, we returned to the Fox & Hounds an hour later for extended last orders, much to the mercifully veiled amusement of all present. I'm sure they'd drawn their own conclusions as to the nature of the interlude. Midnight came, along with the desired calm and contentment, and we decided to complete our party piece by leaving more or less on the... erm, stroke of midnight. No 'overtime' from this client, then.
A final indiscretion came on the journey home when, spotting a parked van on a verge with its interior light ablaze, I questioned whether we'd accidentally strayed into dogging territory. Ollie almost spoiled his suit with laughter as, moments later, the sign for "Stokenchurch Dog Sanctuary" homed into view...
A break with tradition certainly did the trick for New Year's Eve, and brought about the happiest possible start to the year, setting (as my escort said) a precedent for future years. Next year I'm hoping for a discount.
Today, millions of people returned from a Christmas holiday, and given my Dayorama reticence since December 20th, you could be forgiven for thinking I'm among them. I'm here to tell you otherwise.
In fact, I've endured possibly the busiest few weeks of my life, a period for which my little overnight stay at the BBC's unofficial hostel prepared me little...
My bedding down in Studio 1A gave rise to a 72 hour period with only six hours of refreshing sleep, followed by eleven hours on-air in three days, and a similar number of hours spent producing behind the scenes. But that's nothing compared to the self-inflicted labours of the Christmas period. Alongside such pains, I've managed to spread myself across no fewer than eight festive parties, seven different turkeys, six house visits, five go-old rings, four DVDs, three old friends, two country pubs, and a Park and Ride in a Peartree... Interchange.
(Actually, the latter comes next week, when I visit an Oxford-based friend I didn't manage to squeeze into Christmas plans. Must do better next year...)
Anyone who regards Christmas as anything like a holiday is either neglecting their duties as an adult human being, or has mastered the art of organising their Yuletide considerably better than I have. Either way, I salute them with what little energy I have left, as I stumble to my desk to resume normal daily life.
There's much I'm eager to tell you, but there's time enough for that now I've been reunited with my PC (I've actually been away from it since Christmas Eve). Instead, I thought it would be timely to reflect on the closing of 2006 from a personal point of view.
For me, 2006 has seemed one of the more static years I can remember. In so many respects, my situation at the end of the year is little changed from when we welcomed the new year twelve months ago. But then, there's no reason it's needed to have changed; it's the first complete year since childhood where I've not been progressed by subscription to a course of sorts, some structure, be it a Key Stage, GCSEs, A-Levels or a degree course.
For the first time, I've been calling the shots entirely, and having chosen to learn thoroughly the rudiments of my profession at the coal face, I've subscribed to what may be regarded as 'the longer game'. It may not have been the year where dreams come true, but I shall regard 2006 as sound investment in the great game, and perhaps the forbearer of some reward in 2007.
Somehow, I've a feeling 2007 will be an altogether faster year. Remember the Grow Your Own bus which we watched intently as it became a man? Well, just look at how two days outside its watery garage in 2007 have seen it shrink back to its original size...
(Fear not - it can be grown and shrunk as often as we need.)
And dear Basil, surely the most cautious cat of 2006; two days into 2007, and already a much bolder cat has emerged from under the bed for a look out onto the wider world. Here's a photo taken from outside the window of our empty house as I arrived back tonight, which marks a major development in cat confidence.
Of course, he was straight back under the bed the moment my key turned in the front door, but at least we know he was there...
All in all, whatever 2007 brings for us, I hope there'll be some of the little gems which made us smile through 2006, and plenty more besides. I'm delighted to be seeing in a new year on Dayorama.
In which of the following scenarios do you think you could reasonably expect to bump into Noel Edmonds?
a) Training to be a journalist for a year in London;
b) Working for seven months at the BBC near London;
c) Having lunch in a quiet Wiltshire pub on 27 December.
Yep, who should walk into The Dandy Lion in Bradford-on-Avon during lunch with my friend Becky, but the man himself. The Deal Or No Deal king, looking far better in real life than he does on TV.
No photos because I've promised myself I'll never stoop to that level, but he had a very good wintry look going on, hair allowed to acquire a refined grey hue, not the off-gold shimmer you see on the box.
He was accompanied by a lady who looked, in a few snatched glimpses, a) fairly young and b) quite attractive. They each had a turkey sandwich - this I know because while it had taken the pub staff half an hour to conjure up cod and chips twice for us, Noel's turkey arrived less than five minutes after he'd sat down next to us. Clearly that's who you need to be to get quick service at The Dandy Lion, whose staff visibly bickered among themselves and appeared entirely ill at ease with their jobs.
I was initially at a loss as to why Noel Edmonds would crop up in a pub in Bradford-on-Avon in the week between Christmas and New Year, but I've since learned that Deal Or No Deal is filmed in Bristol and he probably lives in the area.
Becky's mum was able to shed further light, when told we'd seen Noel in the pub:
"Oh yeah, Noel goes to the same chiropractor my friend Kate does. She said she went to have her back done, and apparently he has exactly the same stuff done by the very same hands!"
While I wasn't about to reduce myself to descending on the poor man like a crazed stalker, it was a shame I forgot the line I could have used to make a pleasant introduction. I work with Maggie Philbin at the local radio station, the lady who of course worked with Noel on Swap Shop (which has been brought back for a one-off special).
Therein lay some common ground. Alas, the best I could do while in the pub was the time Noel had landed on the playing fields of my school in a helicopter. I can't remember why. I have the nagging sensation that Mr Blobby may have been there.
Also seen, daubed across the front of a van in the car park as we left:
I know full well OJ likes nothing more than a good alpaca - so there's two! I'm told books are available from all - well, some, or perhaps very few - good bookstores.
So, Ollie has begun to spring-clean Dayorama, in the middle of a mildly content winter. Nothing surprises me about that boy. I managed to post on Christmas day, nothing short of a miracle. I suppose it is indicative of the fact that for the first time in months I am having four consecutive days off work. Of course, the blackberry keeps flashing, but at least it can be ignored for a while, just this once. As if people hadn't already found out, I'm off to Mumbai tomorrow. I'll be away until the 1st January, so New Year will be celebrated 5 1/2hrs ahead and in an utterly different culture. It should be pretty interesting. Oh it is also 33'C out there too at the moment. It beats the wonderful slogan on the bbc.co.uk/weather site this morning: "another dull and wet day". Wonderful. I've just packed. Certainly marrows and library books. Or was it umbrellas? Anyway.
We've had a lovely Christmas this year: there was no spam, not trip to the frozen North, and my Father hadn't just come out of hospital (last year). Also, since I am working, I suppose it was the first Christmas I hadn't ever really "wanted" anything. Not that to "want" is particularly pleasant, but there was nothing, or at least nothing I thought, that I would really like. It turns out I do actually hint to the people around me and I tended to receive little "extra" things: pressies that just make life a little pleasanter, or lighter, or easier. Such a fortunate way to be, but also rather humbling in a way. We (mes parents) had a jolly trip to the Royal Albert Hall on the 23rd to their Carols by Candlelight, which is a slightly cheesy, but wonderful event and certainly gets you in the mood for Christmas. I then rushed off to see "A Moon For The Misbegotten" - a fantastic, clever, play with Kevin Spacey - a trip which was part of a colleague and I's attempt to do "at least two cultural things per month...". I've also managed to see close friends and speak to family. Not bad for four days off. Do I ever stop? And now I'm back in London ready for work. I've just finished watching Pirates of the Caribbean, *again*, but it doesn't count when it is actually being shown on TV, does it...
On that note, Happy New Year to one and all. I haven't thought of my resolutions yet...
Wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas! I hope all dreams come true, all sprouts remain green and aren't cooked to misery and all cats get their fair share of turkey.
Did you know, only 42% of London's Underground network is actually, erm..., under the ground? Surprising then, that we're always a little bit intrigued by the sight of an Underground train out in the open. Long, thin and short, they always look so small and vulnerable when pitched against their mainline cousins.
But, however exposed you may feel as you ride that wonderful stretch of the Metropolitan Line through Neasden, there are no tube trains more vulnerable than these two:
Perched high above proceedings in Shoreditch, East London, three old 1983 Jubilee Line carriages are keeping an eye on the ubiquitous groundwork for the East London Line extension (which, by the way, is looking well in hand; how fantastic to see such investment in our railways once again). You might well ask what else they're doing there, and more to the point, how somebody managed to put them there. Both jolly good questions, and ones which always fall from the lips of intrigued passers by.
I was led to them yesterday on something of a mystery tour by my good friend Matthew, who's done more than a little research into the matter. On the face of it, it seems it's all to do with trying to 'recycle' surplus carriages rather than simply scrap them (Booths of Rotherham, who usually carry out the 'recycling' rather more literally, might raise an eyebrow at the use of the word).
In reality, I can't help but feel it was just somebody wanting to do something a bit silly and impulsive - and good on them for doing it. These trains will see a new lease of life as art studios, and will bring countless hours of pleasure in their retirement. We certainly enjoyed seeing them yesterday.
Speaking of doing silly and impulsive things, that's how our little mystery tour came about. Matthew's recently joined one of London's new "pay as you drive" car schemes, which allows you to rent cars by the hour, more or less like deckchairs or rowing boats. The novelty is that you're never far from one of the company's cars, which will be lurking in a nearby side street or car park, and it can be booked within seconds.
And because something can be done, we decided over lunch that it should. Between main course and dessert, we'd booked (via WAP) the nearest car, and received an email with the registration number, colour, location, and name of the vehicle (yes, each car has a name. We had Donald.)
Ollie asked a few weeks ago what somebody would have to invent to truly stun you. For me, this is the latest thing; a mechanism by which you can walk into a car park in Baker Street, touch your card on the windscreen of a previously unseen car, and seconds later be driving off down the Marylebone Road. Of course, in some parts of town, a more primitive version of the 'choose a car and drive off' scheme has been thriving for years; but in this instance, the car's paid for.
We toyed with the idea of taking Donald on yet more train related missions, but sadly, time was against us. Lucky, then, that our third mission of the day was a party at the house of some radio folk in Elephant & Castle. It didn't take long for us to smell another railway connection, quite literally, when the bathroom window was opened to reveal an overhead view of the Bakerloo Line's tube depot. In true London Underground style, only 42% of the ensuing house party was spent downstairs with the guests; for the rest, we were watching trains from the roof garden.
Remember I told you about all those sleepless nights I spent over the Summer, worrying that the Waterloo & City line might come back to us that little bit too perfect? Well I needn't have worried.
Not only has the overall character been largely preserved in the trains and station furniture I mentioned, but one long-running W&C tradition is proving itself to be very much alive and well... the fact that the line itself rarely is.
For years, potential 'Drain' users would hold their breath as any traffic report neared its conclusion, awaiting news on the roulette-like odds as to whether the line would be running or not. In theory, part of the aim of the Summer refurbishment was to confine that feeling to history. But judging by the comments of those same users, it would appear not...
In what can only be described as pure PR suicide, Transport for London seems almost to be playing up to the tradition by releasing such an outrageously honest explanation. The perfect parody of the old "leaves on the line" cliché, even the great Reggie Perrin (him again) didn't endure "dust on the platforms at Waterloo" as part of his infamously disastrous commutes. What a comedy memo to the head of Metronet he would have found himself dictating to Joan that morning - if seemingly a little far fetched.
A memo which, perhaps, would be best abbreviated to form this most pithy assessment of the underlying Waterloo & City line dilemma. It's a slice of emotion so raw it could only have come from a commuter who knows the drill and, frankly, is asking himself the exact same question the boss of Metronet must surely be demanding of his staff right now.
So, it looks like I can sleep sound. Odds are, the 'Drain' will be sleeping too.
Ok, so now I've started so I'll finish. I've promised to post for ages,
but never quite got round to it. So I thought if I started writing it on
the DLR at around 6.38am in the dark on a Monday morning the quality of the post
could only improve. Where to begin? Well. I've worked. Lots. I'm competing
with friends who are investment bankers as to who has pulled the most all-nighters
in a week, and I even missed OJ and Anthony's party. However, in
some sadistic way I'm enjoying it, hence why I'm on my way in now.
I've finally decided it is Christmas, despite opening the first eight of
the windows in my advent calendar on Friday, because I had totally
forgotten the meaning of December. I've also written my Xmas cards now -
forgive the awful handwriting, just be grateful that you have one at all.
Anyway, why is I Xmas? Because I was on the phone to a friend
last night and suddenly I squealed - the coca-cola advert came on TV:
that's it, there's no turning back, it is mince pies and turkey from here
on in.
We had our work party on Sat eve, which was lots of fun-got home at 8am
after a night on the town, so that's not bas going. And then David’s
thoroughly unique and enjoyable evening on Sat - a very enjoyable
weekend all told. My dad and I also went shopping for our tree on Sun, which was
lovely: never too old for Christmas!
And now I am leaving work. Currently waiting for Cab so finishing off the
post. But I lie, it is actually now Tuesday evening and I am getting around to post. Not sure I have anything to add. Oh, I have some amusing photos of Saturday that I shall aim to upload.
Welcome to one of the most famous locations in British television.
It's a place to which, even if we haven't seen it on our screens (and few haven't), we all refer with alarming regularity in our everyday lives. It's become the universal measurement for rudeness and absurdity, a place we'd all love to frequent for the novelty, and somewhere we hold in our hearts as an important part of not just British sit-com, but British culture too.
I'd forgive you for not recognising it from the photograph I took this afternoon. But let's revisit the exact same spot thirty-one years ago...
Fawlty Towers, the infamous Torquay hotel from the BBC series of the same name, was real enough. We all know the tale about John Cleese and the Monty Python gang checking into Hotel Gleneagles (which even gets a mention in one episode), and the inspiration he drew for the character of Basil Fawlty.
But this wasn't the building featured in the series. The iconic white and black mansion, perched high on an embankment with its arched porch way, and steps so perfectly placed for comedy, was actually a country club in Wooburn Green, Buckinghamshire. Wooburn Grange, latterly a nightclub and restaurant, was gutted by fire one night in 1991, and was promptly but quietly wiped from the face of the earth by developers.
When I first visited the site a couple of years ago, I was welcomed by a Wooburn resident with words to the effect of "I know what you're looking for". She pointed out roughly where the building had been, and told me stories of the great fire which had apparently been something of a spectacle. I'm always a little suspicious when listed buildings catch fire (twice, in this case), only to be replaced by developments which may as well be goldmines. It's certainly sad that no attempt has been made by the developers to mark the history of the site; there's no plaque, and no real homage to the Grange in the style of the buildings which have followed it. If the flame hath no sentiment, then they've been little better in any respect.
Sadly, it's a common story. Earlier this year, plans were unveiled which threaten to scupper our future chances of visiting Arkwright's shop from Open All Hours (although the sign is safe and well, and what I wouldn't give for it). Another historic site, potentially gone from all but our screens forever. If you ever find yourself playing bingo at Mecca in Wood Green, or visiting a flat on the new-ish estate at Lime Grove in West London, or shopping at Tescos in Borehamwood, take it from me that you're treading on yet more hallowed ground from the history of British comedy. I'll let you work out which ones.
Living quite close to the Fawlty Towers site, I pop back for a look every now and again, hoping somehow the Grange will be back there waiting to give me the visit I so often fantasise about. I'd love nothing more than to run down those steps shouting "snobs!" at the top of my voice, or to emerge from the archway with an upturned gnome on my way to see Mr O'Reilly. It's probably just as well it didn't happen today; the precise spot is now in the middle of somone's sitting room.
I'm pleased to say, though, that other locations in the series are very much still there to be visited...
Mr Sheppard has been remiss in his failure to supply photos of our wonderful Christmas bash aboard the pride and joy of the Broadcasters' Bus Consortium. However we may be able to let him off, given he spent his evening as the bastard offspring of Santa Claus and BOAC air hostess, ferrying presents and wine to the top deck.
So here we go, starting with our mode of vehicular conveyance, Santa stood proudly at the back:
The Routemaster has, of course, been preserved and indeed restored to the highest standard - the addition of a buffet being particularly ingenious and welcome. As we drove down Oxford Street, tinsel adorning the windows, nibbles and drinks being handed back and forth, we passed other buses currently in service. Aboard their top deck sat bored commuters, flicking through battered copies of the Metro or listening to their iPods. What they must have thought when they looked across to see the party going on...
But my attention was drawn to the finer finishing touches to the decor on board. For example:
It appears we had to allow Santa safe passage this once. But then, with views like this to take in, it would have been unseemly not to comply with the conditions of travel...
A brilliant night, including an unlikely loo stop on a ship, a chance encounter with my old voice coach Fenella (heard reading the news the following day, clearly recovered well), and much merriment with a motley collection of good friends. Not least among them Amy J, the star of this video tour of the bus, filmed while it had parked itself up outside Embankment. Many thanks to all!
It's now at least one year and one day since you last ran to catch a bus at the traffic lights. The same time, too, since you last had the comfort of a friendly conductor coming to your seat to collect your fare. One year and one day since London saw this incredible outpouring of grief, as its last Routemaster bus ran in service...
Yesterday saw a commemoration of that fact with a run of preserved Routemasters, including ours, over part of Route 159. It was a journey we'd all made on December 9th 2005, bus fans and Londoners alike, to catch a glimpse of the final Routemaster on its historic journey, and it was great to see that one year on, London was still missing its faithful servant of 51 years.
There'll be some stiff necks in London this weekend, I can tell you. Heads turned, and faces lit up, as the Londoners' friend passed by, not in the pairs for which buses are so famous, but in dozens. If you've ever bumped into a long lost mate in a supermarket, and subsequently had to acknowledge them in every single aisle, you'll know how it felt - except they genuinely were pleased to see each and every one. Ours was among the last of the Routemasters to leave the start of the run at Regents Park, and yet still the delighted crowds reached for their camera 'phones as we made our way south towards Brixton.
London hasn't forgotten. Granted, the Routemaster is now regarded as more of a spectacle than when it was commonplace, but that's just human nature; you don't know what you've got 'til its gone, and all that. On our return journey, we passed one of the modern, one-man-operated buses which replaced the Routemaster on the 159, its panic alarm blaring to attract police as the driver struggled with a violent passenger. You can bet your life he's missing the Routemaster, and the support of its conductor.
In the evening, we invited our mates 'n' mukkers aboard and treated them to what Dayorama regular Amy J has described as "possibly... the most bizarre night of (her) life". I'll let the other authors elaborate (and I'll provide some pictures soon), but sufficient is it to say that Father Christmas and his ticket machine thoroughly enjoyed proceedings, as I hope did everybody who came along.
A final thought as to how London feels about the loss of its Routemaster friend one year on. At one point during the evening, we found ourselves pulling into the busiest Oxford Street scene I've witnessed since the one pictured above. This time, the crowds were eager shoppers about their business, and as we pulled forward from a side street, RML 2394's backside became well and truly wedged in the current of hundreds of pedestrians crossing the road. I watched from the platform and smiled as, one by one, they gripped the conductor's handrail as they passed, subconsciously bonding with their surroundings in a way they've not been able to do for twelve whole months.
The friendly curves of the Routemaster win every time. I mean, when was the last time you had your pole stroked by quite so many Londoners on a Saturday night?...
Every schoolboy knows, or pretends, that when it comes to revision time, treats are every bit as important as books. This is why, after a successful few days swatting for my 'how to run a bus company' exam, I decided to enjoy a night of sheer indulgence. I cooked myself steak (Tournedos Rossini, no less, a dish so rich it will almost certainly kill me by morning), I opened a bottle of something nice, and I unleashed Colin Farrell in Phone Booth, a film I've been meaning to watch since it came out years ago.
If you haven't seen it, 81 minutes of thrilling action centres around a New York telephone box, as a crazed sniper takes hold of its occupant and puts him through just about every dilemma you can imagine, via a telephone. Gripping stuff in an odd sort of way, and not least because you're being terrified only by the voice of Keifer Sutherland, who probably delivered every line from an out-of-vision booth roughly the size of a telephone kiosk, and came about as close to a gun as he did to my Tournedos. (I'd have killed anybody who'd come within feet of it, by the way.)
But if you have seen it, and you thought the call Colin Farrell received was alarming, just imagine picking up this voicemail this afternoon...
"This is a message for Mr Richard Henderson. My name is Francesca, I'm calling from Baddams Law. I've just received your voicemail in response to my previous calls to you in relation to the matter of Plummer and Fenny.
I just wanted to let you know, I've given your phone number... well... for the Chambers... to the defendant, who might call you if he's got any queries for the hearing on the Thursday. Also, the witness, Mr Fernandino, well... I haven't been able to get in touch because the petrol station he worked at was knocked down and rebuilt, and he's relocated to a different workplace... but we do have the statements which we can keep in reserve if it all goes badly - don't know how useful that will be.
Anyway, do call me if you have any queries."
Sufficient is it to say, having received this at around 4 o'clock this afternoon, I did have one or two queries, and I did call her to make it perfectly clear I would not be receiving any calls from the defendant on Thursday. Sadly, Francesca herself was unavailable to take my call in person, but the lady answering the telephone didn't seem in the slightest bit surprised that her colleague had been revealing sensitive information to the answerphone of Mr One-digit-out. Instead, she let out a faint sigh, almost beyond despair, and as if to say "oh, okay - it's happened again", rattled off that she'd "send an email round". They even have a procedure for it.
Let's hope the message gets through, otherwise I could find myself incriminated in some awful court case of which I know nothing. It could well end up with my being pointed at by a sniper in a telephone box. It would certainly buy me some time off from my revision. Suddenly Friday seems a long way away...
Some years ago I used to work behind the scenes of a radio 'phone-in, and often the show was so frantic that the only way for the presenter to deliver instructions to his team was to do so on-air. He became quite adept at throwing in little phrases like "we'll be getting X, Y and Z on the line shortly to help you with that", and with practice, we became equally adept at translating them as subtle code for "haven't you got that call in yet?". I note from the closing lines of Mr Williams' most recent post that the technique now exists 'cross platform' (as current BBC dialect would have it), and that my delay in getting photographs of last night's festive party chez OJ 'to air' here has been noted by the powers that be. Looks like I'm in trouble...
But it's not the first time I've been told off in the last 48 hours; and Ollie himself must share the blame for the first occasion...
Welcome to the foyer of OJ's rather fine pad in Central London, the venue for an equally fine Christmas gathering to which Ollie and I (along with many loyal Dayorama readers, it seems) flocked last night. Slightly weather beaten from a long day at the broadcasting coal face, we found ourselves a little unprepared for the challenge of entering the building, a process which began with the most formidable electronic door we'd seen since our visit to Amy's p(a)lace a couple of weeks ago.
After a quick round of Laurel and Hardy-esque pushing and shoving, we eventually plucked up the courage to buzz the intercom, only to be admitted to the foyer without questioning. Easy peasy. But wait... isn't that a 'phone ringing on the desk?
The centrepiece of a deserted reception, the 'phone was crying out to be answered, and yet neither of us could muster the bravado to enter the spotlight of what surely must be a party jape. Certain that we must be being observed from party HQ, we arrogantly ignored the ring and barged our way towards the lift, assuming that the 'phone would stop ringing the moment we disappeared from sight. Indeed, it did - so it must have been a trick. Now what would happen if we returned to the foyer?...
Surely enough, the 'phone resumed as we approached, and Ollie and I prepared to take the upper hand in this game of cat of mouse. We picked up the receiver, placed it on the desk beside the 'phone, and ran away laughing like little schoolboys. One to us, for sure!
With our point made, I retuned to pick up the 'phone and declare a draw, and was greeted by an unfamiliar Scottish voice on the other end of the line, clearly not OJ as expected, but the building's Porter, who had been trying to reach us with instructions on where to proceed.
"If you'll calm down and answer the 'phone responsibly, I'll tell you where to go..."
Several long moments later, our blushes were spared when the Porter revealed himself to be just as amused by us as we had been by him, and he later proved his good humour by declaring himself to be George Orwell. That well known Scot...
Good humour turned out to be the unspecified theme for the guest list, as we had the pleasure of meeting and laughing with so many lovely people. One by one, the Dayorama readers outed themselves, often with the most dramatic of entrances (Ollie was told by one that it was "just like meeting someone off the television" - I think I know what she means... people are always shorter than you'd imagined them, aren't they?). And then there was poor Anthony...
I'm no expert, but I didn't think he was looking well. Still, at least he'd made the effort to dress for the occasion, and heaven knows how he made such great mulled wine...
A lovely night, and one which will launch me into a week of revision with high spirits. Speaking of which, better get cracking...
Here's the story of how my portrait ended up hanging on the wall of a house in America.
When I was about six or seven years old, my dad got the wife of one of his work colleagues to paint three portraits of me - one wearing my school rugby shirt, one wearing a normal collared shirt, and one wearing a polo-neck sweater.
My dad kept the rugby shirt one - obviously it has sporting significance, not least because it must have been the first and last time anyone saw me in a school rugby shirt.
My mum kept the one with the collared shirt, and the third one - with me in the polo-neck - went to my nan and grandad. However, by common consent the polo-neck portrait wasn't as good as the other two.
Let's fast forward 15 years to Wednesday evening, at which point my dad suddenly remembers he has a story to tell me.
Earlier in the week, the same old work colleague had returned to the business to see how everybody was getting on. My dad had asked after his family and that had reminded his old colleague of an odd phone call they had recently received.
When they answered the phone, on the other end of the line was an American voice, explaining that they were dialling the phone number found on the back of a portrait in their possession.
On further questioning, the American couple revealed that they had bought the portrait - of a young boy in a polo-neck sweater - at a car boot sale in Scotland a while ago, and were keen to learn more about the subject of the painting.
So apparently a portrait of yours truly is hanging in the household of an entirely unrelated American couple, via a car boot sale in Scotland. As you might expect there are one or two missing links here, but I think I can be relatively sure of what has happened.
My nan and grandad have moved house a fair few times even in my lifetime (and many more times before that, my grandad having been in the RAF). Often they have moved house along with my aunt, hopping between such varied places as Brighton, Minehead, the Isle of Arran and even Spain.
This must have meant a good deal of packing, and a good deal of weeding out the things that didn't really need to travel each time. From what my mum and dad have told me about the polo-neck portrait, it was not of the finest order (unlike the other two, with which both parents seem to remain enamoured). It's therefore entirely plausible that between them, my grandparents and my aunt gave it the boot during one of their numerous house-moving phases.
The portrait may have had several homes before turning up at a car boot sale, but the Scottish location seems to suggest it bade farewell to my family when my grandparents left the Isle of Arran, back in the 1990s.
At some point since, our American couple have come over, visited a car boot sale, taken a shine to the portrait, bought it and hung it on the wall at home!
It's an extraordinary chain of events. Granted, somewhere in my wildest dreams there's probably something about portraits of me hanging up in homes worldwide, but I hadn't bargained on it quite yet. Maybe it'll turn up on the Antiques Roadshow before my days are out...
If you're familiar with the concept of Facebook, you'll recognise this as an extract from a news feed:
For the uninitiated, Facebook is all about interacting with 'friends' who allow you to share their news, photos, blogs, etc. and the news feed alerts you to the latest developments in your Facebook community.
So, you might think it's strange that I appear from the above to be interacting with myself, and accepting my own offer of friendship. Well I'm not - I'm actually interacting with Dave Sheppard, from Bristol University. Yes, that's right. But a different one!
To prove it, and I feel I must, here's an extract from my profile:
And here's an extract from Dave Sheppard's profile:
Great hat, but it just wouldn't match my eyes...
As the name would suggest, he seems a very nice chap; at least he appeared to see the funny side of my invitation to become 'friends', and accepted. Good job too; as an alumnus of the University at which he's currently studying, I'd hate to think of my good name (quite literally) and reputation being besmirched by anything less than a good man with a nice hat.
Ah, coincidences... Aren't they always so impressive?
Yes, another one. Not a student, but on the staff.
And guess where he's a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Physiology? Yes. The University of Bristol!
I intend to lobby Dave Sheppard (Undergraduate) into helping me persuade David Sheppard (Senior Lecturer) to sign up for a Facebook profile. We can create our own little group; organise little get togethers where we take it in turns to phone the restaurant and ask for David Sheppard; sign each other's bills. Endless possibilities. And how many other David Sheppards might we discover at the University? Time will tell...
On another note, you'll also see from my news feed that I'm off to London Irish v Northampton tomorrow with some rather prestigious company. A full explanation and report will follow tomorrow, but meantime, I just hope he doesn't show me up. That's probably why they've put us all in a box, to keep us from offending.
I'm very much looking forward to it, always assuming it is me who's off to the rugby, of course. It says David Sheppard on the ticket...
Post title shared with Terry Wogan's second autobiography (2 of 3), a long term catchphrase from Radio 2's Wake Up to Wogan.
Bitter experience tells us that we should never expect things in life to appear as they do in the picture. Amy and OJ certainly received something of a shock on Saturday, when they realised I'm nothing like the rather average-looking twentysomething who appears in my place on the Dayorama banner, but actually a 7ft tall, tanned sex-god. I assume that's why they both gasped.
Usually though, it's a disappointment we prepare ourselves for when visiting a holiday destination we've seen (post-Colourist) on our television screens, or removing food from an optimistically illustrated box. When was the last time your Big Mac looked anything like the giant portrayal on Ronald McDonald's price list?
When this extends to ordering some flat-packed furniture, we go one step further in our anticipation. Sense tells us to prepare for the inevitable disaster on wonky wheels, which after hours of hard graft and Allen key embossed fingers, looks just about fit for the bin.
I was fully expecting this to be the case with my new desk.
What I wasn't expecting was to find it in the bin in the first place.
This is how I met my new desk, roughly three hours into the five hour delivery window I'd been given yesterday afternoon. It was a chance encounter brought about by a need to visit the wheelie bin, and indeed the only moment where I'd dared to stray from the front window in case I missed the delivery van's arrival (our doorbell is currently out of action). No van had appeared, so we can only assume that delivery had taken place earlier in the day, and in the spirit of my relationship with Argos so far, their man had decided to ditch the goods in the least obvious/probably most suitable place. Remember, I paid for this 'service'.
Actually, in spite of my frustration at waiting three hours for a man who'd already been, the desk has proved a surprisingly good purchase. It was fairly easy to assemble, and although bought only as a temporary measure (which inevitably means it will end up outlasting me and my grandchildren), it seems built to last. It does everything the billing suggested it would.
Some final wall fixings are needed, then I might consider presenting a photograph to you. If you've any sense, you'll never believe how good it looks - but I reckon it actually does.
It's good to know that in a consumer world which so often leaves us spoilt for choice, I can't seem to find a bloody thing I want to buy.
That's certainly the case when it comes to furniture. With much leaning over books to be done during the next few weeks, I devoted a portion of today's revision time to buying a desk. It's something every young bachelor should have, but I've been holding out since moving in the hope I'll eventually see just the kind of desk I'm after; nothing fancy, no sliding gimmicks and glass panels to collect the dust - but a good, solid desk that's the right shape and colour for me.
As yet, nothing has come to find me, so I decided I'd throw myself at the mercy of Reading's plethora of cheap furniture stores, who'd surely be thrusting so many eligible desks in my direction that they might manage to surprise me. After all, you can hardly enjoy an ITV programme these days (ain't that a fact) without at least four outlets falling over themselves to push perennially discounted furniture your way, so surely this would be a quick and painless solution?
Finding those outlets certainly wasn't difficult. In Reading, as in most places, they hunt in packs on modern retail parks just outside town. They're all there, DFS, MFI, Furniture World, Homebase; all of them, the Auntie Wainwrights of the flat-pack age, waiting until you come close enough to have something sold to you.
Though it wouldn't be a desk, apparently. Not only were pickings slim in terms of what I had in mind, but desks in general seemed to be in short supply. Yes, there were a few in-store, but they all seemed perfectly comfortable with their topping of papers and telephones, as did the assistants sat behind them, who hardly put themselves out to help me with my mission. They were probably too busy planning for Boxing Day.
Perhaps I've underestimated the popularity of the forthcoming Certificate of Professional Competence in Passenger Transport exam, which could explain why there just aren't enough desks to go round? Or perhaps these out of town horror-stores are just as rotten as the few desks they actually offer for sale? 'Outlets' in every sense of the word.
Accelerated by the need to lean on something, I resorted to visiting the Argos catalogue online (the paper version isn't smelling the same, these days), hoping that the quickest of fixes may still be found. Wrong. Plenty of desks, some quite reasonable, but for anything up to 36 days they exist only in pictorial form.
Above is the billing for the one which would arrive soonest. It's clearly a small flat-packed item, by definition easy for both the manufacturer and supplier to store. Yet, Argos (like so many others today), seem to have subscribed to the idea that, rather than making every effort to keep the stores themselves well-stocked, they won't even bother to offer the option of store collection. Instead they'll allow the customer to endure the inconvenience of a long wait. So much for choice.
I grudgingly accepted the inconvenience, and paid the money.
But hang on, how much money was that, exactly?...
Look closely, and you'll see that, not only am I being forced to wait for the desk to be delivered when really I'd prefer to collect it myself, but I'm also being charged for the privilege. Aren't I a lucky boy?
I'm reminded of a glorious email we once received on the evening show at BBC Bristol. It came from a listener who claimed to have sent it to his local B&Q store:
Come Wednesday afternoon, I shall read it time and time again throughout the five hour window I've been forced to write-off, sitting at home, waiting for my 'convenience' shopping to come to fruition. £4.95 well spent, I say.
Perhaps I should buy a chair and really make a day of it.
Last night, for the very first time, all four Dayorama writers gathered in the same room - and we even let one lucky winner (alright, our friend Anthony) join us for the evening.
Amy took on the role of hostess and head chef to prepare a sumptuous dinner gratefully wolfed down by all.
Meanwhile David played a Facebook-inspired game of 20 questions with Anthony to discover which friend they had in common.
And I received a healthy supply of mildly belated birthday gifts - a badge, a car air freshener, an intriguing book and a lovely scarf, which you can see in the photo.
The journey from work to Amy's flat had gone so well that David and I, to our surprise, arrived first. But it's safe to say the journey back didn't quite go to plan. We got back to Paddington for 11:55pm, only to discover that the next Reading train didn't leave 'til the ungodly hour of 1am.
Refusing to believe this we scurried round the concourse, establishing that since 9pm all the fast services to Reading had been replaced by buses, but all these buses had long since departed. So we were left to fend for ourselves with the few hundred remaning poor ingrates.
Some meticulous, almost Machiavellian planning (primarily to keep us occupied) saw us grab seats on the train in the inevitable melee when it eventually turned up, but the train proceeded to take half an hour longer than had been billed, finally arriving at almost 2.30am.
As David said, "What a lovely evening!" And as I countered at two o'clock in the morning, "If only it would end!" Many thanks to Amy for her wonderful duties as hostess and how nice to all be in the same room.
This little chap looks as though butter wouldn't melt, doesn't he?
And generally, it wouldn't have done. From all reports, he was a sickeningly sweet and good natured child, not unlike an Andrex puppy in his playful temperament, and just like those puppies, we all hoped he might never have to grow up.
But even Andrex puppies have naughty days, and today for Old Shep (the dog as he turned out), one came back to bite.
My local hair salon has just taken on a new girl, and needing a cut in something of a hurry, I decided to give her a go rather than waiting for Ms. Tried and Ms. Tested. She sat me down and made me feel comfortable, and it became abundantly clear that she was the kind of hairdresser who intended to find out all about her client, chipping her way chronologically back through the years with every grade of the clippers.
She was strangely familiar. Very distinctive in appearance and speech, almost Jade Goody-esque, though actually more like the person of whom Jade herself reminded me when she first turned up on our screens.
She was just like a girl called (shall we say) Rachael, who as a child we knew as "Boggard", a cruel playground taunt which spread like fire through our primary school. So widespread was the legend that the children developed their own Boggard variation on the game 'It!', where one naughty boy would itch himself, tap another on the shoulder and declare that he'd passed on "Boggard's fleas". To my shame, even I was guilty of passing them on from time to time (albeit because I actually did think I'd been given fleas, and wanted to get rid of them in the manner I'd been taught best).
Could this be her, all these years later, in another part of town cutting hair for a living? I concluded not. She was probably too old to be Boggard. And too tall. Yes, she was far too tall...
Moments passed, and the hairdresser was embarking on tales of adolescence, when she was interrupted by a colleague making tea.
"Fancy a brew, Rachael?", she asked.
Oh God. It was Boggard, innocent victim of childhood teasing, now a grown woman and taller than I, and... yes, she was brandishing scissors.
I went pale to the point where I was offered tea. I declined, but asked was there any way we might be able to speed up the hair cutting process a little? Mercifully, there was, and the mirror was held up just moments before the topic of primary school was due to be broached.
Judging by my resulting haircut, she probably didn't recognise me. After all, there's very little that's puppy-like about me these days. But I did feel a terrible guilt about what had happened to her at school, and although my part in things had been minimal (as a bit of a fatty, I was more often a fellow victim of gentle playground teasing), I knew the past had come back to make me blush. She'd mentioned she was a bit short of money, so I tipped generously. The very least I could do.
The haircut's taken years off me. I rather like it. The only problem is, as with any haircut, I'll be itching for days.
It's a bit grainy and certainly not broadcast quality, but it's a home video from the very early 1990s which has been freeze-framed then snapped on a mobile phone camera, so we may be asking a bit much. But I hope you get the general idea. It's a kids' football match at a birthday party, and a penalty is just about to be taken.
Now, can you recognise the protagonists?
There's plenty more where that came from. Maybe next time I'll find a way to convert the entire video (including the penalty - do you reckon OJ scored it past me, or not?) into a form suitable for posting online. This is a veritable treasure trove, I tell you...
The map is a satellite view of Long Ashton, near Bristol.
purple shows the route I took in my car;
blue shows the route I took down along Providence Lane;
the gold dotted line shows the A road I could perfectly well have carried on going down.
Right, now let's explain what Providence Lane is and why I ended up going up, and down, and up, and down, and up, and down it.
Trying to get back down to the M5 from Bristol after a training day, I was following my sat nav, which is extraordinarily reliable. Whenever it doesn't work properly, it's because I've messed up. And so it proved in this instance: it wanted me to turn left, I couldn't get into the lane to make that turn, so I had to carry on into the village of Long Ashton.
The sat nav spent about a mile insisting I turn around, but I couldn't fnd a suitable spot to do so. Eventually it gave up and said, well, why don't we just go down Providence Lane. That'll get us back on the right track.
The moment I turned right into - or rather, up - Providence Lane, I knew we were in for some trouble. It's called Providence Lane for a reason, in that you need divine providence to somehow make your way along it unscathed.
Initially we were met with such a steep gradient that we almost rolled straight back down it even in second gear. As the Dodge slowly struggled up the incline, Radio 2 saw fit to strike up with the James Bond theme tune. This was to prove a fitting accompaniment for the next five minutes.
I strongly urge that you go along Providence Lane once in your life, simply to experience what it's like driving down a road expecting to get killed. It's like having your own pocket Basra just outside Bristol. For the truly authentic Providence Lane experience, do it in the dark and the rain like me.
Providence Lane just becomes more terrifying with every hairpin bend. It starts as a normal road on a steep incline but that easy section is complicated by cars parked on all sides, reducing the road to a single thoroughfare but seducing drivers into thinking you can do a fair speed down it. Ten seconds later you're forced into the most almighty test of the brakes you could imagine as a 4x4 swings round the bend, lights on beam, into your face.
Get past the tarmac stage and we're into proper farmland. Click here to take a closer look at the satellite route and you'll see features I had no idea were there as I tried to keep myself alive: a golf course, football pitches, a quarry (for God's sake!), another golf course, and so it continues.
At the end of Providence Lane you need to leapfrog a B road down which cars are rattling at breakneck speed, and that'll take you onto Longwood Lane. At the end of Longwood Lane is a second B road, at which junction the cars get a second chance at you - hurl yourself blindly across that and you're on Weir Lane, then Manor Road, which emerges a mile or so later onto the A road of our choice at Abbots Leigh. By this stage we are single-track all the way through dark, damp, dense foliage.
Do remember, however, not to check your route when you get home. Otherwise - and at this point I refer you to the dotted gold line - you will realise you could just have stayed on the A road you were on to start with, gone half a mile further down it, and ended up in the same place. But where's your sense of adventure?
Everybody's in bed here in Somerset, on the first night of my five-day escape from the world of work (although true to form, I've managed to crowbar a BBC training day into it so as to avoid withdrawal symptoms). Nothing is stirring, not even a mouse (I'm using a touchpad).
So when my mobile phone buzzed in the other corner of the room, I let it go, since I can never keep my voice down and I'd only wake the entire street answering it. But five minutes later it did its trademark ultra-long voicemail buzz, so I answered it and waited for the message.
Knock me down with a feather, but long-time Dayorama reader Amy J has somehow teamed up with short-time Dayorama contributor David to record a voice message! In the extraordinarily funny sequence that followed they left me with no idea how this had been arranged, but made it abundantly clear both were decidedly tipsy.
Listening again it takes the pair 20 seconds to get past "hello", then another 20 describing how scared I might be. Then we have David on a pet topic - pubs - which Amy interprets as secret BBC code, and complete confusion descends.
Bless them, they don't seem to understand that I can't answer the phone. They've just tried to ring back and left a second message calling me a coward. And to think, as my mother would say, "that David says you drink a lot when he's on air". (She's threatening to boycott the show if he continues to peddle such lies.)
Still, as for the real Dayorama drinkers, it's nice to know they're both enjoying their Monday night out. It's going to be a long week, and I'm hundreds of miles away from either of them...
Surely I've had that subject title before? People are complaining that I haven't posted recently. I've got the day off work today (for not particularly pleasant reasons), but I suppose I have a few moments to post. What is new in my life? I have too many clothes. My Father told me this yesterday. He may well have come to this conclusion since my entire bedroom had become my wardrobe. But, Dads being Dads, he just built me a new one. Well, he sort of discovered a new one. Anyway, the long and short of it (short in my case) is that I now have another wardrobe. I can buy some more clothes now.
I'm getting a cleaner. OJ laughed when I told him this. But there is good reason. OK my flat is a box. But I'm in work, sometimes for 16 or 17 hours a day. Come Saturday morning I don't want to spend my time cleaning. Nor do I want to come home to an un-clean flat. It is always tidy, but it will be rather good not to have to worry about the cleaning part. At least I won't be like my Mother: she always used to clean before the cleaner came. It drove my Father bonkers.
I need to do some ironing. I missed by Sunday evening slot. Do they repeat Songs of Praise?
I'm getting concerned by the number of references to buses on this website. A reader came up to me the other day and started discussing buses, and talking about how amazing it all was: I looked pretty blank.
I've never been a fan of following recipes. It's partly good sense, because I firmly believe that understanding the principles of doing something will always serve me better than following somebody else's solution.
But it's largely because I'm a stubborn fool, and tend to think I already know best.
This is why I decided to leave our "Grow Your Own London Bus" in incubation for 24 hours longer than suggested on the packet. I think you'll agree, the results after 98 hours are extraordinary...
Like all buses, fine if you have the time to wait.
But for those who are glad to follow recipes and instructions, I'm happy to concede that the kit is just as satisfying and worthwhile a project:
(Yes, another embryonic one has been sought for comparative purposes.)
The past 72 hours have been a joy. Each morning, often in the wee small hours, I've rushed to the kitchen to check on the overnight progress of our little red friend, excited about what may be waiting, yet ever anxious about some aspect of its development. Should it really be turning banana-shaped? Perhaps it's my fault the water's turning cloudy? Maybe I should be monitoring its temperature, or the light intensity? Am I such a terrible bus grower?
It's the nearest I'll ever come to being pregnant...
Yet there we were, 72 hours later, and The Diabolical Gift People (supplier of the Routemaster embryos, and other 'specialist' gifts it seems) had kept their promise. The bus looked every bit as healthy as it did in the packet, only it had grown, albeit not to 600% its size as claimed, but certainly to four times its original volume. And in any case, the fact that it had grown at all was enough for me.
The bus industry has always held the Routemaster in such high esteem because of its "fitness for purpose"; every aspect was designed with ease of use and maintenance in mind. This little kit has done its job with the same aplomb. Okay, so I might not really have ended up with a full-sized Routemaster, with working engine, lights, horn, etc., (things which were never part of the billing on the packet, but nonetheless will be secretly hoped for by everyone who ever buys one of these little kits) - but we've had some fun trying.
Since time began, through the days of imperial and metric, our nation's sense of scale has been derived from the three most basic of measures: football pitches (for area), swimming pools (for volume) and double-decker buses (for length, width, height, volume of people, and lateness).
Sadly, after almost 48 hours, our little specimen hasn't quite reached the point where he might lay claim to the definitive proportions of a double-decker bus, but he's certainly well on his way.
To give an idea of his current size, here he is parked alongside a OO-gauge model of a Bristol Cityline minibus...
You'll see that, roughly speaking, the two are the same height, and therefore we might say that in OO-gauge terms at least, our double-decker bus has grown to roughly half of its natural size.
Of course, in reality, this gives you no true sense of the bus' size at all. Unlike the real double-decker bus which pops into the spotlight whenever a building or statue requires a sense of scale, a minibus remains the most subjective of measures. How small must a bus be before it becomes 'mini'? Is it to do with the number of people it has to leave behind at the bus stop each time it becomes full to capacity? Certainly, I've just returned from a rugby match as part of a crowd of 9,000 people who, in blocks of 60 or so, were ushered onto a fleet of supposedly full-sized single deck buses. Under the circumstances, they seemed pretty mini to me.
Let's return to our pound coin measure. Our "Grow Your Own London Bus" started out with a length roughly equal to the diameter of a pound coin. Now look:
You'll note it's almost tripled in length, taking it to around 39mm... that's the length of 0.00456 double-decker buses.
Remember that stage of adolescence where every part of the body seems to grow at its own pace? Well, here's how it looks for a bus:
After 24 hours in incubation at our very own reincarnation of the AEC factory, our "Grow Your Own London Bus" has reached the equivalent of its teenage years. Distressed, blemished, disproportioned and even smelly, XRM 1 (as London Transport would doubtless have coded it, 'X' denoting 'experimental') has begun to grow out of its infancy. And crucially, it's showing great potential for the future.
Aesthetically, the net change isn't for the best:
If Douglas Scott - designer of so many British industrial icons over the years - wasn't happy with the final look of the Routemaster (as he never was), he'd hardly be impressed by our little attempt so far. Some parts have started to grow, while bizarrely, others have shrunk or apparently disappeared altogether. The lower deck windows and canopy, for example - whatever happened to them?
But when we consider overall size, the bus is showing good signs of development. As a measure, let's pop into the AEC laboratories and check it against the packaging in which it first arrived as a fledgling Routemaster:
After 24 hours, overall size has increased from the diameter of a pound coin to roughly that of a 2p coin. Not quite enough room for standing passengers just yet, but moving in the right direction.
There are one or two concerns at this stage, though. For a start, the water is starting to become rather cloudy, and if I recall correctly from my all too brief attempt at keeping goldfish alive, this could be a sign that something unhealthy is afoot in the tank. Also, the bus seems to be developing a distinct bow, giving it something of a Titanic-like appearance at the bottom of its 'ocean'...
... two parallels which hardly instil confidence for the hours ahead. Hold very tight.
What can I say. I had an amazing time. New England in the Fall. Shopping on 5th Avenue. The New York Marathon. A talk by the firm's namesake. A few too many gins. Great.
If you're familiar with the A4020 as a route into West London, you'll know there's khaki coloured iron bridge by which the Great Western main-line to Paddington crosses. Years ago, the bridge proudly carried the legend "London's Buses Are Made Here", painted across its full span in huge white letters.
Look across from the bridge, and you'd have seen this, the somewhat unassuming facade of the factory where it all took place, the world famous AEC works in Southall.
Along with most of the British commercial motor industry, it's long since gone, and in its place now stands (among others) the headquarters of Noon Products, a producer of Indian food for the UK market. London's buses meanwhile are plucked from far off pegs in Germany and Sweden, with only a handful of bus factories remaining in the UK.
Great news, then, that a new one opened its doors today. Albeit three days later than timetabled, London Bus production has returned to the UK, here in my kitchen...
Here you see me reviving one of the many skilled, precision processes in bus production which must have been a familiar sight at Southall in the 1960s. Rows of craftsmen, masters of the mixing bowl, lining up in front of their kitchen taps ready to 'sink another red one' (as it's known in the trade). Apparently singing used to make them grow even faster...
I have high hopes for my "Grow Your Own London Bus" kit. It may not be quite the way RML 2394 came into being, but it promises to be an interesting few days, as my embryonic second Routemaster grows from the size of a pound coin to... well, who knows.
20 minutes into the process, it's showing little signs of activity...
... but then, at 0120 on a Thursday morning, it's hardly the rush hour. Even an embryonic Night bus might be found having a quiet moment at this stage. We're all just far too impatient when it comes to waiting for a bus.
More from the new AEC works as it happens. Ironic that here, in stark contrast to its predecessor, buses now grow where curry once cooked...
One of life's beautiful little vignettes is playing out in front of me.
Looking out from my bedroom window I can see a small top floor window belonging to the house next door, overlooking our garden. It's a frosted glass window so you can never see much, not that I've really tried.
About five minutes ago the window opened, revealing a relatively slender, teenage figure - male, by the looks of it - silhouetted against the lights inside the room and blurred by the glass.
Thin wisps of smoke then began to appear around the edges of the window and it soon became apparent, from the extended arm of the shadowed figure, that he was smoking a cigarette. All the while he held the cigarette outside the window, occasionally glancing back towards what I assume is the door.
After a couple of minutes of this, there was a bang from down below in the neighbours' garden. It was probably someone opening the back door or emptying the bin, but our shadowy figure immediately slunk back inside and swiftly, silently closed the window, leaving it just an inch ajar - faint little lines of smoke winding their way out through the gap.
The banging stopped after only a few seconds. Then, half a minute later, the window furtively re-opened and a hand snaked back out, cigarette in tow. Another minute and he was gone, the window once more closed without so much as a peep, the frosted shadow vanishing into the confines.
Hands up who thinks the family next door may include a young man hiding a smoking habit from his parents?
Birthdays can occasionally turn out to be a little stressful. A self-assumed centre stage puts you in the spotlight of your nearest and dearest, bringing the pressure to perform and smile even whilst being sung to down the telephone. Yes, for all these reasons, Birthdays can indeed turn out to be stressful.
They can also turn out to be stressful if you own a cat.
You may remember that feline interaction chez Sheppard is at something of a minimum at present, as we continue the wait for the world's most introverted cat to find his paws. Still happy to conduct his affairs from the cosy confines of an office beneath the bed, Basil the Cat must be applauded for his dedication to the cause. Never before has one cat remained so loyal to one spot, or indeed, to anything, for quite so long.
Until, that is, Henry the Hoover had cause to move in. Having worked wonders on various aspects of DIY around the gaff, flatmate Bryony's parents, Tom and Gail, even set about hoovering the carpets yesterday. With particular reference to the bits which are seldom seen, let alone cleaned, the hoover made light work of various bits of fluff and fur. Just about everything disappeared from under the bed... including Basil.
After a few moments spent searching the house (as Ollie pointed out, the first place we should have checked was actually the hoover bag), we stumbled upon the most terrifying sight of all: an open front door. Fearing the worst, I immediately took to the streets in search of our little escapee, whose confidence and appetite for the outside world had themselves apparently enjoyed sudden liberation.
At first on foot, then by car, I swept the streets with an eagle eye for anything remotely resembling a cat. After several fruitless conversations with autumn leaves and discarded crisp packets, there came a moment of great relief as I spotted them; two triangular ears sticking up from behind a neighbour's bush, followed by two nervous little eyes peeping up on occasion. Thank goodness.
Opening the passenger door, I began beckoning, then calling frantically, but still he would not move. Only when I dropped to my knees and began patting my thighs did the cute little ginger moggy come running... clearly not Basil, but instead the cat of a woman who, all too quickly, I realised had been watching my gesticulations from her front window all this time. I nervously waved like an old friend, patted the cat, and sped away as quickly as my car could manage.
Saddened by the loss of our little friend, I decided that a good strong coffee was needed.
And what d'you know...
Well... I didn't recognise him in daylight.
Yesterday turned out to be the most wonderful Birthday. Perfectly relaxed, with so many lovely cards, good wishes and really thoughtful pressies from all my best friends and family. I stayed up 'til the wee small hours feeling genuinely humbled by it all.
Basil may have beaten me to the coffee, but I reckon I got the cream.
I suppose with my track record, it was bound to happen soon. I've bought another bus.
And here's how I'm hoping it will look in a few days time:
According to the vendor, it'll require very little effort on my part. He's bound to say that, of course; but all indications suggest it's structurally sound, a very quiet runner, and overall a good, solid bus. Besides, for the modest sum of £2.50, how could I go wrong?
Here she is in 'as purchased' condition:
Apparently she's likely to consume more water than the average Routemaster (she must be immersed for 72 hours before service), but in return, she'll grow to more than 600% of her current size. There's another trick the Bendy Buses can't do.
I'll begin the immersion of my "Grow Your Own London Bus" on Monday. Expect full updates here.
Meanwhile, in the world of already fully-grown buses, three exciting bits of news. Firstly, RML 2394 will undergo its Class 6 MOT tomorrow, the stringent test which buses and coaches must pass before they can be used in fare-paying service. Our aspirations to become an operator will depend on a successful outcome at some stage - and our nerves are counting on that being tomorrow.
Another test looming is my Operator's CPC exam, now confirmed for December 8th. This will follow a home-study course on the rudiments of bus and coach operation, and if passed, will name me as a competent person to run a bus company. If failed, it will have cost us lots of money, will leave us without said competent person, and will delay the venture by a number of months. No pressure, then.
Finally, on Monday I reach the age at which insurance brokers will allow me to drive a bus on my current (car) licence. In theory, provided there are no more than eight passengers on board, and none of those has paid a fare for the privilege (I can't imagine they would want to in my first few months of bus driving), and provided the bus is also over 25 years of age, I'm allowed to take the wheel.
Question is, will my "Grow Your Own..." be ready in time?
It's a universal truth that, wherever you live, and whatever you do for a living, there will always be some people in life who make an effort, and some people who don't have to. The latter tend to be people so naturally gifted, rich, handsome (shallow, vain, etc.), they know that however little investment they make in life, things will always turn out right in the end. How we hate those people.
Personally, I'm always in favour of effort, especially when it comes from those who could so easily have coasted along if they'd so desired. It's effort from those quarters which goes into the making of truly great and memorable things.
And if you're looking for truly great and memorable things, try this:
A real-life witch in what could conceivably be her natural surroundings; a grotto below-ground, dripping with cobwebs, lethal potions hanging by the dozen from the walls, and the sound of cackling bouncing from every nook.
I'm almost sorry to say this is all an illusion (you're surprised, aren't you?), for in reality, it's the lunchtime barmaid from The Old Green Tree, one of Bath's oldest pubs and, frankly, the best. I've been here twice before, then during the Summer months, and both times I've been spellbound by what I've seen. This time, that was the intention.
Here is a pub which has no need to prove itself. You can't help but fall in love with the atmosphere, and if I could, I'd probably go there at the slightest whiff of a special occasion. Locals and tourists alike would have poured in last night for exactly that reason, to enjoy Halloween in an environment which, intrinsically, lends itself to spooky celebration. It could have just opened its doors and let them in.
And yet, still everybody had gone the extra mile. The witch was dispensing skeleton lollipops with every pint (if you look closely, you can see my second being offered), and whichever way you looked, you'd find some clever little knick-knack which gave a sense of occasion. Even going to the loo was a treat, taking your pick between the doors marked "poltergeis" and "poltergals"...
The regulars were on fine form, too, but then I can't imagine them ever being otherwise. One man quipped to the barmaid, "You dressed up for something special, love?". Another looked his well turned-out wife up and down (after putting away the most exquisite looking platter of what had modestly been described as 'slices', not slabs, of beef), and warned, "Darling, you have a cobweb on you". You can imagine the warm reception I received when I asked the witch to hold up my lollipop for a photo.
"You Londoners want everything, don't you".
I felt like one of the gang.
Bath as a city is just like its finest pub. It's breathtakingly beautiful in every respect, and yet it still makes a huge effort to go one better. No lazy town planners have allowed modern, incongruous structures to dilute that most distinctive of architectural flavours; the streets are immaculately clean and free from rubbish, as is the River Avon at this point; and, though of course it must have its troubles, it feels like a proud and happy city, home to many proud and happy people.
Having torn myself away from The Old Green Tree, I later visited a pub whose marking of Halloween extended to dumping a skeleton on top of its lifeboat collection tin. (My fault for being lured into a 'traditional English pub' [apparently] which specialises in Thai food - alarm bells probably did sound, but I couldn't hear them above the pinging of the microwave out' back...)
I didn't stay long. Like the spotty chancer who inevitably knocked on your door last night, dressed in civvies, and demanding 'trick or treat' in the name of Halloween, a little bit of effort would have gone a long way.
The following things went wrong with tonight's Basingstoke Town v Worcester City commentary:
1. The commentary team were unable to use their broadcasting kit of choice because it was locked in the car of our rugby reporter, who proceeded to lose his car keys and was thus unable to rescue the kit from his car. He later found the keys in a local newsagents.
2. The commentary team therefore had to drive to the Madejski Stadium, where I was covering Reading's reserves against Arsenal reserves, to pick up two spare microphones. It took the team an hour to travel the three miles from our newsroom to the stadium.
3. It took the team a further hour and a half to reach Basingstoke from the Mad Stad. This meant they were still in traffic when our sports special started at 7pm. Our 4pm-7pm presenter had to stay on and present 45 minutes of the sports special in their place.
4. Our commentary team finally appeared on air at almost the precise moment the match kicked off, but they were unable to use their headphones and therefore had no idea if their commentary was going out on air. For the entire duration of the first half they continued with their commentary in the blind hope that it was being broadcast.
5. They would have been told all was well by our producer back at the studio, but the "talkback" function allowing presenters and producers to chat was broken. Our producer could communicate with the commentary team solely by text message (she sent them 22 messages over the course of the evening).
6. The moment our commentary team took over the broadcast, I was no longer able to hear them in my headphones at the Madejski Stadium. This meant that if the commentary team chose to cross over to the Madejski for an update from me, as they undoubtedly would at some point, I wouldn't hear them and would not speak on cue. Our producer spent 15 minutes hitting buttons until she found one which improved the situation. In the mean time I had to deliver one update while listening to the radio station on my mobile phone to hear the commentators cross to me - the mooted alternative, as in the title of this post, was that the producer would yell "GO!" in my ear the moment it sounded like the commentary team wanted me to talk.
7. It later emerged that while dashing from the car to the gantry to begin their commentary, one of the commentary team had to vault a fence, live on air, while talking.
8. To complicate matters further, during my first update a goal was scored, then disallowed. During a later update a penalty was awarded and scored. It's good to be kept on my toes.
9. Midway through the second half the battery on the commentary team's broadcasting kit died, causing them to temporarily drop off air.
10. As though all this weren't enough to kill lesser broadcasters, the match went into extra time, then penalties, then sudden death penalties. It took eighteen penalties for the match to be decided (Basingstoke won). The commentary team returned to base at 11:35pm, just as I was leaving.
And if you were listening, you'd never have known a thing was wrong. I am surrounded by some of the best professionals you could wish for.
Not least Amy J who, while a lazy student and not a professional, accompanied me to the gantry at the Madejski and proved extraordinarily helpful. It's useful having a second pair of eyes - ones that can see better than mine, come to that - to pick out which players did what, and when. It's far more useful to have a second pair of hands and legs which can nip down to the concourse, buy hot dogs and chicken balti pies, and rush back. Our desk looked like a picnic area by the time we'd finished.
So I've spent the evening at a reserve match, shivering to death in an all-but-empty stadium, listening to FA Cup commentary being held together by the skin of its teeth, talking down the line to a producer on the verge of self-destructing with the stress of it all. And I wouldn't have swapped this evening for anything else. Happy Birthday Me, I'm doing what I love.
I was told off at work by a fellow trainee today: you don't post on Dayorama anymore. He then told me off for leaving early (10.15pm) and not being committed enough to the firm. Tch. I have, however, just had to phone him to say, "would you mind checking if my suit jacket is in my Office" - I need to wear a suit tomorrow and I didn't collect the jacket from the dry cleaners this evening, nor is it in my flat. So, if it isn't in my Office, then I'm in trouble. As the said person pointed out, "well, it's probably in some random man's house somewhere in London". Not true. It really must be in the Office! So what else? Observations of Dayorama (from the same, rather vocal, person): OJ never posts and David, "the new guy", has taken over. The former is a bad thing, the latter is a good thing.
What else? I don't know any news. I now subscribe to the FT. I know that a pelican ate a pigeon in St James Park today. Highly entertaining. I have a party on Saturday evening and I'm being useless about organising anything. Oh and I'm very much acquainted with late night TV. Oh, my Barclaycard was declined last night. That was useful. But it's OK, it was due to the fact I can't add up. Finances are just about treading water. Roll on the Xmas bonus (fingers crossed...)
Did you know you can now renew your tax disc online or by telephone? Well, you can. I received my notice from DVLA earlier this week stating that my car tax was due. With reminder came a helpful little leaflet telling me that I didn't need to root around (well, not that I have to root since everything is nicely filed) to find my insurance certificate, MOT certificate and then find a Post Office. Instead I could simply ring a number (or go online), enter my reference and then my credit card details and all would be done. I was slightly puzzled as to how I would then print out my tax disk, bearing in mind I don't think my printer can cope with perforating circles. It seems my fear was misplaced: they will send my tax disc within 5 working days. So there we are. Just one easy phone call, a few details, a few number punches and all done. Fantastic. At the same time, I don't suppose this does much for supporting the local Post Office. I was actually in Kent with my parents this morning and so had planned to go to our local Post Office. Instead, I rang the DVLA from the comfort of my bed!
Last night I went for a drink with a new friend of mine. Neither of us fancied a big night, just a chance to chat and quietly mull things over with a pint of something well brewed.
And so to the Hobgoblin in Reading, a favourite haunt of each of us it turned out, where real ale doth flow and wooden panelled booths and nooks reign supreme. Here's the view from my favourite two-and-a-half seater booth...
In the heart of town, this little place is a gem - what, if you weren't struck by the fact that it completely defies the need for pretentious categorisations, you might venture to say is the ultimate 'character pub'. Certainly, it's got more than a full measure of character. And characters aplenty, too...
We managed to bag the favoured booth, and when the time came to refuel, I was sure to guard our spot. After a few, quiet moments, the head of a lady appeared at the opening.
"Are you alone?", she asked, eyeing the recently vacated seat. I apologised, and told her I wasn't.
She ventured further. "Oh... Are you with... a woman?", she whispered, now eyeing the empty half-seat next to me. "Only, I'd really wanted to sit quietly in a booth and drink my beer - but I wouldn't want to intrude on anything... intimate."
One of life's wonderful situations that ought to be easier to explain than it actually turns out to be, I confirmed that no, I was not with a woman but that...
"Would you mind if I shared you?" she pleaded. "I'd be no trouble - I'll just read my book, and maybe eavesdrop on your laddish chat."
Utterly charmed, I couldn't resist.
And so when my friend returned from the bar, our evening had gained a middle-aged woman from Durham, half a pint of mild, and her book. I fumbled an introduction, and we continued to make "laddish chat".
Soon, the woman joined in, and proved to be terrific company. It turned out to be her Birthday (that old line, but it actually was!), and she'd called in at the pub on her way back from seeing her son. She'd wanted some company and, let's face it, if the Hobgoblin can't provide that, then where can?
Highlights included the moment she pulled a brand new DVD copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being from her bag, complete with erotic cover, and explained how she couldn't wait to watch it. We were assured that, like the young vendor who'd surreptitiously passed it to her under the counter, we had probably got completely the wrong idea about what sort of film it was. (Looking at a summary, it turns out we probably had.)
An hour or so later, after much mirth, she was on her way, and we were both genuinely pleased that she'd touched our evening. This is exactly why we should love our real community pubs, and go to them as often as we possibly can. It's certainly one of the reasons why I do.
Next week, Simon's coming over to mine for a drink. I'll be setting a third place at the table, just in case.
Yesterday evening I took the Newcastle Metro out to Callerton Parkway to see my friend Helen, who lives in Ponteland, up a bit and left from Newcastle itself.
At Monument station, waiting for the Metro, a man smelling of alcohol asked me if the next train was for the airport. It was, and it was the one I needed. On we got.
I've spent the last three days filiming, editing and doing various story-telling type things, so - if I'm honest - I haven't the energy to properly do justice to the next twenty-five minutes. Instead I reproduce, in bullet point format, the conversation in chronological order:
Time elapsed: Event
2 mins: He's off to the airport. He missed his last plane having turned up with 20 minutes to go. The girl at the check-in desk wouldn't let him on the plane (he referred to her in rather unpleasant terms). He went back into town, ventured into a pub, and is now turning up a couple of hours ahead of the 9pm flight to make sure he doesn't miss that.
4 mins: He lives in Scotland, but grew up near Newcastle. He's flying to Exeter to see a gentleman who owns a trout farm there. My man owns a number of trout fisheries in his own right, it transpires, and is trying to cure a trout disease threatening to put him out of business.
7 mins: Not only is my man flying to Exeter on trout business, he is also - and I hope your reaction to this is the same as mine - flying there to visit his birth mother for the very first time.
8 mins: No, he really is.
10 mins: His real mum lives near Barnstaple, apparently. He's in his forties at a guess, and always knew he was adopted (at the age of 4 weeks). His real mum first got in touch a few years ago but circumstances have prevented a meeting til now. He's having one day at the trout farm and one day with his mum. (Bloody hell.)
14 mins: He's on the phone to the man picking him up in Devon. The conversation is conducted in hushed whispers. When the call finishes, my man tells me his trout fishing colleague was out stalking deer for the duration of their conversation.
18 mins: We're back to his tale of woe at the airport earlier that day. Having been told he couldn't board his original flight, my man was asked to pay £25 to switch his ticket for the later departure. He grudgingly agreed and reached for his wallet - it wasn't there. He'd missed his plane and lost his wallet.
21 mins: On walking, distressed, back to his car, he discovered his wallet in the back seat. By now needing the toilet quite badly (having run to catch his original flight), he went to the loo in the car park, up against a bush. As he was doing this, a couple of air stewardesses drove past in a car. He finished the job then ran to catch up with them, to apologise for having been caught in the act, so to speak. They told him he had parked his car in the airline staff car park, and risked it being clamped if he left it there. His moral of the story: every cloud has a silver lining. If he'd caught his plane, he'd have been without his wallet and found his car clamped on his return.
25 mins: I left the train. My moral of the story: always, always carry your camera with you if up in Newcastle on a video journalism course. What an opportunity...
Whatever else I may have been expecting from my first stand-up comedy gig, I certainly didn't expect to wake up to an email entitled "debut highly amusing".
Okay, so it turned out to be a fantastically well timed piece of spam mail, ostensibly from a Polish woman with some fake Rolex watches to sell, but it's the thought that counts. I'm sure she was there in spirit.
I was even more touched by the reaction of the thirty or so people who turned out for last night's gig at Bar HaHa! in Reading (as much as it hurt, each of us avoided the obvious gag in our acts) - not the most suitable of venues for comedy, nor sadly, the most extensively publicised of events - but a fun night all the same.
The lack of publicity added an extra dimension to the night, not because the crowd turned out to be small, but because less than 50% of those present were sold on the idea that comedy would be playing any part in their evening. Each of the acts made a Herculean attempt to win the full attention of the crowd (which included a rowdy office party of suited 20 somethings), the compere even throwing out the odd abusive line to the "noisy people at the back". I'm no expert, but I'm sure it usually happens the other way round.
Whatever happened, and however good the act, the revellers' attention was not there for the taking. And, in fairness, they were just as surprised to be sharing the bar with us as we were with them. From my point of view, all this reduced the likelihood of being heckled, but likewise meant there were unlikely to be any big belly laughs from within the audience; but then, on my first gig, that was never really on the cards.
I did the act - well, those bits I didn't forget - and with the intimate little audience around the stage, it proved to be a reasonable hit. There were laughs in all the right places, and a couple more chortles besides. I even won the affection of a young lady in the front row, who confided in a fellow comic that she "quite fancied the little one in the tight jacket". I think it was pity.
The greatest of compliments came from one of the bar staff who, having been told that one of the acts was making its debut that evening, asked me afterwards which one it was. I owned up, and she seemed genuinely surprised; at least I'd managed to get away with it. Likewise, I was really humbled by feedback from the other acts - some quite new themselves, and delighted to be able to dispense advice to somebody with less experience - most of whom seemed to think I wasn't a complete lost cause in the world of stand-up.
I've been invited to do a repeat performance on Thursday, but much to the disappointment of the lady in the front row, I'm busy on a date. But, I've got a taste for this tight jacket clowning, and fingers crossed, there'll be more of it soon...
On Saturday, I revealed to you a childhood obsession with the Waterloo & City line which, through thick and thin, refurbishment and replacement, has accompanied me to adulthood.
Tonight, we revisit the world of Sheppard childhood culinary indulgence to extol the virtues of that simplest of pleasures, cottage cheese.
Since their time began, supermarket delicatessen counters have been plying provender which, however disappointing to the taste bud, appeals hugely to the eye. Take taramasalata, for example - the fishy, pink paste which always cries out to be bought by the tonne, but which actually tastes like raw salt mixed with all that's bad about life in the ocean - a favourite of those who will never actually get around to sampling what looks so great in the fridge.
At the other end of the spectrum (and, indeed, the counter), we have cottage cheese, the least visually appealing of dishes which, bizarrely, caught not only the eye but ultimately the heart of a young Mr Sheppard, who at seven years of age, refused to eat a meal unless it was accompanied by lashings of the stuff. Frustrated parents would try to devise menus that precluded the addition of the white, creamy, emulsion-like substance. But, somehow, it always ended up there, night after night, and the plate would be clean.
A recently rediscovered passion for cottage cheese has seen a return of clean plates, and indeed, dirty spoons at midnight, as the fridge is raided for the odd top-up from the hallowed tub. Ironic that my current physique should be a direct result of the only thing in my home which bears the legend "healthy eating". It's also great that, in a world of acidic, fatty offerings, a dose of alkaline cottage cheese becomes almost medicinal in its effect.
Could it be that I'm becoming a little too healthy?
(By the way, if you have a little time to pass, a Google Image search for cottage cheese currently brings up the most unlikely of results...)
Don't ask. I can't think of another title, and I happen to be sitting on my pink cushion. I am alive. News? Well, my Toshiba laptop has died. It took all of 8hrs of being in my good hands. Why did I get a Toshiba? However, I do have OJ to thank for the fact I still had the box, and all the packaging. He may have his anal moments, but he did drum it into me enough times never to get rid of packaging, and I didn't. Amazing.
Let us, for a moment, discuss the word 'convention'.
David and I are sat in his blue VW Beetle, parked in TGI Fridays' car park in Reading, at what purported to be a VW Beetle convention.
In reality it's not a convention. It's a gathering. And a gathering is entirely different to a convention. Gatherings are intimate affairs, just like this one: a couple of rows of gorgeous Beetles, parked up opposite each other, smiling widely as their owners discuss intimate details.
Conventions are gaping, enormous row-upon-row events where you can get truly lost in the crowd. That's what we thought we were letting ourselves in for - having both had relatively taxing weeks (long hours, car on fire, etc), a chance to disappear into a gently throbbing mass of Beetle fans in the middle of nowhere.
TGI Fridays' car park is not the middle of nowhere. I think I had in mind a WOMAD of Beetles - flags, hippies, Beetles (obviously), stall after stall peddling tat you could probably find elsewhere but it's special because you found it here, that sort of thing. David, for example, wants a new VW badge for his car. We're sure the advert promised traders.
And indeed, maybe there are traders here! But if they are, the swines are masquerading as scary VW owners and we're worried that if we get too close, we'll get sucked into something from which we'll never recover. After all, I can barely get my own car home from the garage, let alone discuss the finer points of VW engineering.
A case in point: there's a Ford Focus being systematically gutted in front of a baying VW Beetle crowd for its precious innards, which we can only assume will be duly dispensed to a waiting Bug. It's horrifying! What did the Focus do wrong?
Not to knock this event: it's a beautiful celebration of Beetle culture, and there are some Beetles here I'd be very proud to own (not as proud as the Dodge, but proud). But we're feeling very self-conscious - David's worried his car simply doesn't live up to the standard on show (in a WOMAD-esque convention we'd have got away with that), and I just don't have any Beetle conversation in my armoury, other than, "My mum used to own a few of these!".
Maybe I could show them a photo of my last appearance at a Beetle gathering:
If you're not already an admirer of London's underground network and its finery, I may have difficulty in persuading you of the wonders of the Waterloo & City line. Known to its thousands of daily users as 'the drain', it's hardly the most obvious charmer on paper:
But for me, what links the eastern end of Waterloo station with the heart of our City is actually the eighth wonder of the world - and always will be, it seems.
Its appeal is partly one of anomaly. A freak of rail nationalisation in the 1940s saw the Waterloo & City become the only underground line to be operated by British Rail (rather than London Transport, as was then), so the feel has always been so different to any other tube line. It's also completely isolated from the rest, and the trains have to be hoisted above ground for non-routine maintenance by a crane. More on that coming up.
As a boy, the W&C was always top of my wish list for a visit whenever I was taken to London (wasn't it yours?), and I came to know the whole thing inside out: the quaint little purpose-built '40s trains, with their wooden panels and the warm glow of tungsten bulbs; every twist and turn of the two tunnels, which seemed to take you endlessly left then right as you made your way under the Thames; and even the most minute details of the two stations - the odd tiling on the wall of Bank station, and the little embossing of the Network SouthEast logo on the platform edges at Waterloo.
For an 8-year old, it was a journey made entirely for pleasure. I have photographs at home of a little David beaming from ear to ear, having been allowed to ride inside the driver's cab of one of the trains (number 58, if you really care). I remember it well.
The W&C charm even remained through the rail privatisation era (few lines can boast that, though many have since had a charm renaissance), when London Underground inevitably took over. Admittedly, a little of the magic had been lost with the scrapping of the older trains a year earlier, replacing them with new Central Line lookalikes that didn't quite win my favour initially. But they were still very different up close, and with little investment forthcoming for the line as a whole, things remained pretty much as they always had done.
So imagine my horror when, earlier this year, it was announced that the line was to close. Okay, so only for a few months while major rebuilding and modernisation work was carried out, but this would probably be the end of the line as I knew it. In case it should come back unrecognisable, I went along on the final day of the 'old' line, just to say my goodbyes.
Yesterday, I had my first opportunity to sample the newly reopened line, and how surprised I was. Tiles at Bank, platform edging at Waterloo, that wonderful, unique charm, all... still there!
There certainly is much evidence of modernisation; the trains have been newly painted (albeit in standard LU livery), the ride around those bends is now much less bumpy than I remembered, and finally the London Underground branding has made it to both trains and stations. But otherwise, Dr Progress has left well alone. The fabric of the line has been mercifully upgraded to ensure its future, but the character remains distinct. And long may it so do.
If you haven't yet ridden the Waterloo & City line, then do it - you might see what I mean.
But if all else fails, be sure to look at Metronet's fantastic videos of the trains being hoisted out of the line's own depot for refurbishment, and then dropped back in again with the job done.
Yep, my new car has arrived early! I skipped off from work at 1pm this afternoon to pick it up. But by 2pm, this had happened:
As I was driving my brand new Dodge home, I had to stop in traffic in the small village of Sonning, just east of Reading. That was when I noticed some smoke in front of me. Ten seconds later I noticed it was coming from my car.
But, you know what? I've told this story already - on air. I rang David, who has a Saturday afternoon show whenever there's no 3pm Reading FC match, and the topic on his programme just happened to be things that are new (his producer's new bed failed to turn up - not a good day all round). So, live on BBC radio, my smoking Dodge got its 15 minutes of fame:
To cut a two-hour long story short, a mechanic arrived who concluded he could find no reason for the smoking, which - to him - meant it was either excess oil (or paint) being burned away by the radiator. His solution was simple: carry on driving it, see what happens.
All the while, having been on the radio, I had the pleasant but disconcerting experience of passing drivers waving at me. One dad driving his family past the scene wound his window down, called out, "Are you Ollie?", then on receiving the answer gave me a thumbs up and drove off. It's certainly one way to find out who our listeners are.
So I eventually got back in my car and drove it back to the BBC, at exactly the moment our radio station began playing the Star Wars theme tune, which I will now forever associate with my car. As Star Wars reached its dramatic crescendo, my Dodge soared up Lowfield Road towards its new daytime home.
Now I've driven it home and it has still to erupt with any more smoke, so I think we might just have got away with it. And can I add that, for all the rigmarole it's put me through today, it's a great car and I think I made a really good decision getting it.
Typical bloody American though: 14 miles on the clock and it's already adopted a smoking habit! I'll get out to the driveway tomorrow morning and it'll offer me a Jim Beam and a Havana...
Apologies for the radio silence for the past couple of days. Thursday was an odd day (more of that shortly) and today I've been at a BBC New Media Forum in London (more of that in the near future).
On Thursday morning, OJ and I discovered an old school friend of ours had died aged 22. OJ knew him better than I, but we'd all been to the same school, same university and even same street - OJ to Lincoln College, Oxford, me to Exeter, and our friend Will to Jesus, all on Turl Street.
For some reason, despite our proximity, I never saw Will at university, though I know OJ saw him earlier this summer. It's fair to say Will had had his fair share of medical problems at school and, though I don't know how far these continued at university, I do know he died on Monday - following a coma brought on by a disease he contracted while in France.
It's horrible to learn a friend from school has died, but even more so given our manner of finding out. We discovered Will had died when a reporter from Cherwell, one of the two Oxford student newspapers, emailed me asking for a quote about Will for her article on him.
Of the few people I've spoken to about this, most are appalled that I should receive an email like that from a student journalist. And, of course, it's not a nice way to find out. But equally, I can't say I blame the reporter. Every journalist hates the "death knock", and this is the email equivalent - writing an email to someone whose friend has died, not knowing whether they even know, is equally as unpleasant as receiving that email, I can assure you.
Perhaps the most strange sensation is seeing Will's profile on social networking website Facebook. All of us at Dayorama have these profiles, as do many other students, alumni and employees around the world. And there, Will is immortalised - his favourite books, his favourite movies, a photo, messages from friends ("I got your text, when are we meeting up?"), messages from his girlfriend, and an "About Me" section which concludes: "I don't mean any harm". It's a snapshot which, for better or worse, will never fade.
Here's Test Card D, easily the finest of the pre-clown cards, brought to you as a test transmission from my new wireless hub.
Against all odds, having overcome glitches at every possible stage of its installation, I think you and I agree that it now seems to be working well enough.
As far as the instruction manual is concerned, I haven't actually finished installing it. In fact, I'm further back than when I first started. According to its account of what's been happening on my screen, I've just reached an insurmountable complication, and must remove all the newly installed software before I can proceed. Funny that, since I happened to open a browser by chance a few moments ago, and guess what? Bingo.
I bet in 1964, when Test Card D was first unveiled, nobody thought that 42 years later someone would be broadcasting it to the world from their bed.
Mind you, it was looking unlikely 15 minutes ago...
A fortnight ago, I promised you some pictures of Basil, our new cat, just as soon as he'd gained a little confidence around us.
Well, here he is.
A fine study, I'm sure you'll agree. Perhaps a little lacking in fine feline detail - ears, body, tail, that sort of thing - but it's about as much as I've seen of him these past few weeks.
Things aren't going as well as I'd hoped with Basil. Despite regular attempts at tummy tickling, paw shaking and (when nobody's listening) the odd round of human meowing, nearly all interaction has remained at arm's length underneath the bed. Rumours abound that he springs into life at night, and nuzzles into my flatmate when his affection is least welcome, but the only evidence I've seen of overground activity is in his litter tray (which, bless him, he uses faithfully) downstairs.
And yet, he seems perfectly content with the arrangement. He's far from unfriendly when your hand arrives in his den, tolerating the odd stroke or two, and pushing himself to an affectionate sniff on occasion. That's why, unlike the knees on my jeans, my patience is wearing so well.
Here, we have either an introverted cat, or one very switched on kitty, who's realised that after months on the street, home comforts will be forthcoming without the need for personal appearances.
And to give him his due, I think I'd be scared of a man on all fours pretending to be a cat.
Tomorrow, it'll be 10 long months since Londoners enjoyed their last ride on a Routemaster bus.
This time last year, enthusiasts and Londoners alike were trying hard to imagine life without the friendly red face which had greeted them for over 50 years, to say nothing of the countless bus conductors whose imaginations were struggling with even more fundamental terrors.
By this stage, the many protestors had resigned themselves victim-like to the fact that the buses would soon be gone, and the whole of London stepped outside its office to enjoy the final few months with a stiff upper lip.
Fittingly, the whole affair was terribly British. Here's the driver's log, found in the cab of our Routemaster when it was collected, documenting its last day in service after 38 years.
After months of loving care, the dents have now gone, the horn works, and RML 2394 is more than fit for the road. We all still very much give a @??# about the Routemaster.
And just as well, since in a few months time, ours will be back in service and carrying fare-paying passengers again. Not quite the busy cross-London 73 route which it stormed for most of its life, but an emerging private hire venture will soon see the bus earning its keep once again - and crucially, returning that notorious Routemaster delight to all who hop aboard.
It's a complicated business though, setting up a bus company; and as five broadcasters who have so far avoided proper jobs like this, we're learning much along the way. Before one can enter into the hire/reward arena (as we in the trade know it), there are licences to be applied for, stringent tests to be carried out on the bus, and checks to be made on our finances and facilities.
Plus, one of our number must pass an exam to attain a Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC), which proves our suitability to run a bus company. As the partner who's most recently taken exams, that's going to be me. One forty-hour course and (hopefully one) full-day exam later, I'll be a competent man, ready to arrange transport for your wedding party, day at the races, or Cliff and Una style Summer Holiday...
By the way, last year was also notable in bus circles as the 25th anniversary of the Stagecoach Group. Now one of the world's largest transport operators, Stagecoach started out as two Glaswegians and a bus. I'm happy to report that our little venture can boast the same and more.
There's an old man in Oxford who lives in a pub. At least, I see him there as often as the pub dog, enjoying his three meals of the day, and always at what is undoubtedly his seat at the bar. He knows I don't 'live' there in quite the same way, but we are starting to build up a rapport of nods which say "welcome home, son - good to see you back". He probably thinks I'm a local who occasionally enjoys a pint.
He's wrong in one sense, of course - my house is thirty miles away in Reading - but although I frequent The Kite only once every few weeks when I visit friends in Oxford, it's rapidly becoming my local.
A few months ago, when visiting my friend Guy, my casual "call you when I get there" attitude was blown out of the water by my mobile 'phone battery, which died with approximately 10 seconds notice. I was left without a 'phone, and crucially, without Guy's number. (Hands up anybody who bothers to remember mobile numbers, these days.)
While options were mulled, I defaulted to The Kite for a little solace. Within minutes of my arrival, the pub telephone rang, and following a quick sweep of the assembled company at the bar, the barman approached me.
"David Sheppard?" he asked. Amazed, I nodded, and was handed the 'phone. "It's for you".
In little doubt as to my likely location, Guy had 'phoned the pub, and asked to speak to "the short, blonde man in his mid-twenties, probably wearing a stripy shirt, and probably sitting at the bar". I'd been found, and the evening was rescued.
Last night I went to see Guy again. We hadn't agreed a meeting point, and this time I deliberately switched off my 'phone as I left the railway station. I got to the pub and assumed my usual seat at the bar, ordered my pint from Alan the barman, and waited for the bar 'phone to ring.
It didn't. Instead, right on cue, in walked Guy to claim his seat between the old man and the stripy-shirted twenty something at the bar.
Another night at my local, thirty miles from where I live.
Look left, and you'll see the familiar headlamp of a traditional VW Beetle, its lens as thick as NHS spectacles, bolted down with a chunky chrome rim to suit. Look right, and find the sleek, apparently simplified lines of the VW New Beetle headlamp.
The one on the right is identical to the headlamp of the VW Beetle I drive, and in common with mine, it's not actually shining. For some days now, my driver's side headlamp has been out of action, and it doesn't take an expert to realise the bulb is at fault. However, it apparently does take an expert to change the said bulb. Question is, how many?
The four-page guide to "Replacing bulbs" found in the owner's giant handbook, prefaces its instructions with a warning that "There is a potentially fatal risk when working with vehicles ... if the high voltage part of the lamp is handled incorrectly!". A worthy exclamation mark, indeed.
It also points out that "Special skills are required to carry out this work". One glance under the bonnet, and you begin to feel it may be right.
Quite aside from the intricacies of bulb replacement, you have a finger-sized space through which to access the headlamp itself, between the engine, washer bottle and brake-fluid reservoir. This is not a job to be undertaken even by the anthropometrically sound, let alone anybody whose fingers are as chubby as mine. (At least my hands are small enough to appreciate the irony of the so called 'handbook').
Enquiries at my local garage put greasy nail prints on the head of the world's most helpful mechanic. My father - a mechanical engineer - is puzzled. There is even a web forum (started by a thirteen year old girl, no less) dedicated to discussing the task.
One thing is certain. Since I've been investigating the world of broken headlamps, I've become aware that we're in the midst of a bulb-blowing epidemic. So many cars these days are driving with one eye closed, and as I now know, not necessarily through the apathy of their owners. I don't believe this is an issue unique to the VW Beetle (which, by the way, I've found to be top-notch in almost every other respect), but part of a widespread attempt at driving us to the garage for even the most routine of maintenance procedures. Another assault on the wallet.
Returning to the headlamp on the left (first designed under Adolf Hitler and Ferdinand Porsche in 1938)... three turns of a flat-headed screwdriver would separate rim, lens and back, and enable the bulb to be changed in seconds.
Are you allergic to cats? I've got friends who are, and have witnessed their health deteriorate markedly the moment they come near a puddy tat. One of my friends came to visit me in Streatham, where there were two cats, and we had to sit outside since the cat fumes were overpowering her. Needless to say, the cats came outside and sat next to her.
Well, now nature's got its own back. Meet Cyril.
Cyril is one of my friend Ceri's two new cats, and Cyril is asthmatic. Not only that, but Cyril has his own little inhaler. Ceri explains:
"He has an inhaler - two actually - and a little spacer for it, like they give to young children. But the inhalers are the same as the ones my mum uses. He has to have two puffs, twice a day. He's all wheezy!"
And here is Cyril's inhaler in action:
Ceri points out Cyril doesn't suffer too much at the hands of the inhaler:
"He's not in distress, he is not being roughly handled, and if he gets upset, we let him go. The whole business lasts 10 seconds at a time and he gets lots of treats afterwards too."
And what more appropriate name can you think of for an asthmatic cat than Cyril? At seven years old Cyril is joined in Ceri's family by his brother, Amber, who is a fine looking specimen of a cat. Cyril must wish cat-curses upon him twenty-four hours a day. Then again Cyril may take some comfort from the fact his brother has a name like a thousand female American porn stars. That probably keeps Cyril going.
Ceri, who it is safe to say adores cats, suggests you look at these videos of cute kittens if you like this kind of thing.
Sorry, I don't get this. You build a sculpture from waste products; this is great recycling. Fantastic for the environment. An inspiration for those who don't think anything can be made from recycled products. And then you set fire to it. This then releases smoke into the atmosphere, totally un-doing any good you may have done to the planet by recycling in the first place. I know this wasn't the point: it was about the Exodus of Christ etc. But honestly, setting fire to a recycled statue. That's ironic, surely. Only such an event could take place in Margate...
It's a diasaster. My Saturday morning's will never be the same again. Of course they won't, I'll be working for most of them. Or nursing a hangover. I got paid this week, incidentally. So a fellow colleague and I went and shared a bottle of champagne... then the cocktails... then the gin... then more champagne... then it was about 3am and we guessed we should go to bed. Anyway, my Saturday. The Saturday Guardian magazine has changed. The verdict isn't in yet... I'll have to let you know. But it was such a shock to open the first page and not have the gleaming profiles of Alexander Chancellor and Zoe Williams staring back at me. Whatever shall become of us.
And to go with it, yesterday I found what appears to be a pretend plumber.
Finally motivated to solve the exploding boiler problem which has left me taking cold showers for the past week or so, I arranged to be visited by a kindly plumber who advertised her services in the local paper.
I'd specifically wanted the lady plumber. Let's hear it for the modern woman, I thought, as she lumbered her way up the stairs, clad in remarkably spotless overalls with toolkit over her shoulder. I really wanted her to be the best plumber I'd ever met.
She wasn't, and in fact I'm fairly convinced she wasn't a plumber at all. After moments spent poking around with a torch, sighing, and sipping her fruit juice (real plumbers, surely, slurp lots of tea), her cover was finally blown when I overheard her consulting her "back up" by 'phone about exactly how an immersion heater works.
Delivering a diagnosis of the problem which was almost as comprehensive as the one I'd given her on arrival, she advised me that it might be the immersion heater at fault, but then again it might not be. She'd be happy to change it, but she'd rather not, and she'd probably need to change the water tank as well. There was also a slight weep from the tank which, though fairly common, was quite out of the ordinary, and should be addressed immediately; or whenever. Sparing her the embarrassment of further explanation, I formed a human shield between her and the rest of the house, and ushered her towards the door.
I would have felt sorry for her, had she not been quite so eager to grab my twenty-five pounds on her way out. As far as she was concerned, her job was done. As far as I was concerned, only I had been.
We're bored with hearing about Rogue Traders these days, but it's worth noting they come in all shapes and sizes. It's also worth noting that not everybody is quite so work shy. I've just returned home to find my flatmate has single-handedly managed to fix the boiler, along with the washing machine, the DVD player and the burglar alarm. I guess that's what you get for leaving a woman in charge.
Exactly 30 years after Al Stewart hit the charts with his best-known song, 2006 has turned out to be the Year of the Cat.
Heralded by Ollie's discovery of the 'Kitler' concept (cats that look like Hitler are now so prevalent they've been awarded this umbrella term), a feline flavoured few months has featured such highlights as cats that dance on your desktop, the enchanting BBC Berkshire catcam (another Williams discovery), and last Saturday, 'Voice of the (Lottery) Balls' and Radio 2 chief announcer Alan Dedicoat meowing on my radio show.
Now we've made the feline affiliation official, by getting a real cat involved. Much to my delight, my soon-to-be flatmate has just taken delivery of Pepe, a long-time street cat who got caught in the headlights of her affection at a nearby rescue centre. And what a cute little thing he is, with his cuddly round face and funny white paws that pad everything in sight.
To mark the start of happier times, we've decided he should be given a new name. Early suggestions included Gordon (after the gin maker), Juniper (after the gin making berry), Sultan (think about his original name), and Roger (the cat, obviously); but instead, we've plumped for doffing the feline cap to the world's favourite Torquay hotelier, and have ended up with a cat called Basil.
I'm delighted. I've always wanted a cat to play with, and soon I can begin bonding with Basil and his many balls of string. As soon, that is, as he stops running away from me the moment I enter the room. Given his chequered history, I think we can understand his current penchant for life under the bed, but I do hope he snaps out of it soon. It's an odd place to go for a cuddle.
Having introduced you to Mr David Sheppard, let me bring another new name to the table, albeit in less permanent guise.
My friend Adam, currently studying Spanish and Arabic at Oxford (yes, I winced too), has just arrived in Cairo for his year abroad.
Aside from a trip home at Christmas he'll be spending at least nine months in Egypt, much like BBC correspondent Frank Gardner, whose autobiography I'm still slowly digesting. He spent time in Egypt as a student and it's somewhere I'd like to go, but if we're honest it's a country far better left in the hands of professionals like Adam.
On arrival in Cairo I spoke to him online and this is what he has to say about his adopted home:
Someone's just given me a Ramadan drink in this internet cafe but no one else has one. I'm wondering if they're trying to kill me. Ramadan started yesterday, I arrived a day before, so tough times are ahead!
I'm not fasting but Ramadan makes people do odd things, like close shops halfway through the day. You can't eat in the street during the day - well, you can, it just doesn't look very good.
I'm on my own at the moment, although I start classes on Wednesday. There's two other people coming out to join me eventually.
My only issue at the moment is that I can't speak Arabic! The first guidebook I read filled me with confidence:
"Egyptian Arabic is the language spoken between people in general conversation, however this is so different from the Standard Arabic used on television and in newspapers as to be considered a different language."
Eek! It's as if there were two different English languages - one used "eat" and the other used "consume". The problem is that it's too easy just to speak English if you know your Arabic is going to come out sounding like Shakespeare.
Thing is, I'm keen not to walk in the streets with a phrasebook because unlike in Europe, phrasebooks are a sign you can be tricked and ripped off - which is ironic, considering I need the phrasebook so I can speak Arabic and not get ripped off. It's a vicious circle.
You can read more from Adam on his very own blog at LiveJournal, but I'll be trying to coax stories from Egypt out of him for Dayorama on a semi-regular basis.
Equally if there's anything you ever wanted to know about life in (or at the very least uncomfortably near) the Middle East, drop me a line or post a comment and I'll ask!
This is the sight of the world's most unusual bus queue, as over 700 buses, bound for the same destination, line-up and wait for their public. Not quite the way it's done on Oxford Street, but very much the way at the Imperial War Museum's aviation centre in Duxford, Cambridgeshire, where the world's largest bus show was held yesterday.
If you're a non-gricer, let me see if I can win you over to the attraction of buses. Firstly, leave your thoughts of a stereotypical anorak at home. You'd be amazed by how many people secretly harbour an interest in buses, some of them quite respectable folk (I spotted former BBC correspondent Andrew Gilligan at many of the Routemaster farewell nights in London last year). Turn up to Showbus, and you'll meet thousands of people of quite literally all shapes and sizes, indulging their passion with an equally diverse offering of buses and coaches.
And some fine specimens there were, too. For the transport photographer, this must surely be the perfect event, with buses and coaches cleverly grouped by the areas where they do (or did) their business. Here's East Anglia, appropriately grouped at the eastern end of the airfield:
This not only made it possible to visit your local area and sample its buses from over the years, it also gave a chance to reunite buses and coaches which haven't been together for decades. Which, I'm sure, is why some of the buses looked so happy.
There's our Routemaster, parked in 'London', along Duxford's main runway. Although masquerading as a 15 for the day, ours spent most of its life on the busy 73 route, busying itself between Tottenham and Seven Sisters, through all the salient points in central London. It lasted right up to September 2004 (then aged 38), when the 73 waved goodbye to its Routemasters and their conductors. Yesterday, they looked like old friends as they nuzzled into each other in the queue. And into planes...
It's always great to get together with people who do what you do, and when the result happens to be a spectacle like 700 buses stretched out across an airfield, you start to feel you may be vaguely normal after all. I resisted buying any more real buses, but if I've persuaded you it's the thing to do, there was a very fine orange open-topper with a 'For Sale' sign in its windscreen. One careful owner, apply within.
I think we've been here before, but the contents of my handbag/bucket last night:
1 x mobile
1 x blackberry
1 x wallet
1 x house keys
1 x car keys
1 x blackberry charger
1 x mobile charger
1 x Sat Nav
1 x Sat Nav charger
1 x map of London
1 x novel (the Thorn Birds, again)
1 x diary
1 x notebook
1 x hairbrush
1 x umbrella
5 x pens
4 x pencils
1 x mascara
3 x eye liner
2 x lipstick
1 x foundation
2 x eyeshadow
1 x packet of chewing gum
1 x packet of tissues
1 x sanitiser spray (NHS hygienic to combat germs)
1 x pair of tights
1 x secruity pass
1 x Oyster card
1 x bottle of perfume
Let's hope I was smiling as I drove through Maidenhead today, for I'm almost certainly about to receive a photograph. Not quite as well posed as those little Gillman & Soame efforts we used to have taken at primary school, but likely to be just as expensive.
PC Plod waved his speed-gun at me today, and thus tomorrow will be the first of fourteen days spent waiting to see if Postman Pat will deliver a ticket. I'm far from certain I was actually speeding when the van spotted me (the needle was showing 30mph by the time I'd spotted it); but the fact there's any doubt in my mind means the points would be well deserved.
What's strange is that, even without the photograph, I've already assumed the role of a guilty man. All it takes is a man crouching inside a van, parked behind a bush, and I've forgotten my seven year record of clean, responsible driving. Somehow his stealth makes me feel I'm there to be caught, and not just caught out.
If the ticket arrives, I will request the evidence - if nothing else, it'll prove that my near-side is easily my best.
What are you doing on Sunday? The answer, if you're Mr Wyatt the butcher, is resolutely not working.
After well over a century at the heart of gastronomy in a West Berkshire village, Wyatt's the butchers is soon to serve its last snorker. Unwilling to fulfil our 24-hour, seven-days-a-week craving for just about everything (for that's what we now expect from even the most specialist of shops), the present Mr Wyatt has decided enough is enough.
Good for him, I say. Driving into the village for the first time today, it's so obvious that Wyatt's is the place everybody knows and respects as the village centre. Its polished tile facade speaks of pride in a job it's been doing well for all those years. Why should Mr Wyatt, custodian of the wisdom and expertise of generations of butchers, bow to a fleeting fashion for deli-food?
As he put it this morning when chatting to my colleague Maggie, he's 'a butcher through and through'; and on Sundays, he's a family man.
Speaking of Sundays away from work, I'm about to enjoy my first one for three weeks, poking around Britain's finest aviation museum in Duxford. I'll be interested in the planes, of course, but my primary reason for being there will be the 500 or so buses attending the world's largest annual bus show, the aptly named Showbus. Ours will be among them, and you can expect a full photographic account right here. Expect rain on Sunday, too, as it always rains for Showbus...
Some of my socks and pants now live in a small flat in Caversham, Berkshire, minutes from where Ollie and I work. Other items of clothing and assorted essentials are gradually making their way north of Reading to join them, including the odd pillow, dressing gown and AG Bear.
I meanwhile live six miles away in a house in Ruscombe. At least on paper.
I'm soon to take up full-time residence in the Caversham flat myself, and have pretty much made the leap as far as nighttimes are concerned; but knowing the full move will take a good few days of concentrated effort, I'm waiting until such time becomes available. Ironic, since the gradual but persistent method unconsciously adopted by the undies means they're sure to complete the move before I do.
It does mean that in practical terms, I'm now living in two places, with all the associated traumae multiplied by two. The new flat has a broken washing machine (the socks and pants are dirty, you will glean); the burglar alarm announces me as an intruder most nights; and this afternoon the boiler almost exploded, after I made a handy adjustment that showed quite dramatically why heating systems tend to have fuses.
The good news is that Barbara, a sprightly octagenarian and one of my soon-to-be neighbours, already has a name for my car. As became apparent when she called round to bring the metaphorical bag of sugar last week, she has no hope of remembering my name. 'Daniel', 'Dan', 'Chris', when shouted through the letterbox, prompted little response from within. Yet she knew somebody was at home because 'Bugs Bunny' was parked outside...
Or I thought. Wandering through St James' Park yesterday I came across a blue-billed duck. It looked utterly out of place amidst the common mallard and a few Canada geese. The delights of a camera phone mean that the moment wasn't lost. The duck appears below. So is it a cross breed? Is it a freak of nature? Has some little kid got a felt-tipped pen and coloured in its bill? No, it is a blue-billed duck. Honest. Oxyura australis if we want to be Latin about it. Native to Australia, the duck was introduced into Britain in the 1960s and now is quite common on ornamental ponds and lakes. It is a freshwater duck and likes to dive. Apparently there are around 570 feral pairs in Britain. So there you go. Don't let anyone ever tell you that ducks can't have blue bills. Incidentally, St James' Park, the view from the bridge looking back at horse-guards parade. Fantastic. Best view in London.
It's been years since I got to take some proper photos of my dog, Toby. In fact I think he was only three or four years old when we last trained a good camera on him - now he's pushing 10.
He's always been a dog of simple tennis ball-related pleasures. Even though his hobble's becoming pronounced after very little exercise indeed these days, he still flings himself at the ball with every ounce of enthusiasm in his body. Here he is engaging in some form of exotic Dance Of The Tennis Ball:
Back at school I had a reputation for diving around whenever we played football, but I've got nothing on Toby. Here he has all four legs well and truly off the ground - to the extent that it looks like he's safely stowed his back paws for the duration of the flight:
Meanwhile I'm getting incredibly annoyed with these things:
A couple of days ago they just exploded into the area around where we live in what can only have been some form of mass hatching. The hair salon was covered in them yesterday - I counted more than two dozen on the front window of the shop alone. And when I looked up at the ceiling a couple of nights ago there were nine hanging precariously above my head!
Speaking of hair salons, you'll see Haircast has been updated. I made sure of measuring the hair immediately before going to get it cut, and it finished on exactly 11cm, or 4.33 inches. Now, post-trim, it's at a far more respectable 6.5cm, or 2.56 inches. Weekly updates to follow...
So, I suppose I should update you all. You can't care about the weather when you spend 12hrs of your day in an air conditioned office. It is just not possible. It is inconsequential. Totally superfluous. Especially when you get a taxi home from Canary Wharf because it is midnight. That happened last night. Incidentally, I woke up at 7am... on my sofa. Ouch. I knew there was a reason I bought two sets of work trousers. Actually, tonight was great. I was home by 8pm. But then I was in the Office at 8.15pm. I guess that's nothing. The hours and the pressure will increase. However, I'm enjoying it: of course I feel as though I'm asking far too many questions and I feel I know nothing about Corporate Law, but I also fit. Or I think I do. It feels as though I have worked there far longer than the last week or so. My blackberry has not arrived as yet. Although my swanky laptop will be on its way soon - well, as soon as I get the go-ahead from my Technology Advisor, Mr Oliver Williams. What else? I was at a very good party on Saturday evening, I crammed my weekend with lots of things and managed to see several people and do a whole variety of things. You see, the busier you are the more you can do. I'm not sure there's much more to report for now. Oh, but as I reported to a certain Dayorama reader at the weekend: I need a "tights" allowance. And I also need to find a cobbler to re-heel the stilettos.
I hardly slept at all last night for thinking about cars. Specifically that car: the Dodge Caliber. I want one and I can just about afford one. But will it happen?
The reviews for the Caliber are not, let's be honest, glowing. The Independent's is one of the nicer ones:
So you're buying the looks, the high driving position, the perceived air of ruggedness. You're buying proof that there's a market for an image so strong that the reality doesn't matter. Four-wheel drive? Too many buyers nowadays neither know which wheels propel their wagon, nor care.
Yep, that'll be me. I took a Caliber out for a test drive this afternoon and didn't even know the engine was on when I got in it - it's so much quieter than my Nissan Micra. I had to ask the bloke to make sure before I tried to pull away in what might well have been a switched-off car.
From the Yahoo! review:
The Caliber certainly has its work cut out but its possible to see it carving a niche for itself through sheer force of personality.
All I can say after my test drive is: whoever wrote that review wasn't driving my Nissan Micra immediately beforehand.
Now please don't misunderstand, I love my Micra. It has done many things in many places for its 74,000 miles and has a really nice look to it. But it doesn't have much in the way of luxury, the CD player's temperamental, something behind the glovebox keeps rattling (snakes in a Micra!) and, crucially, it makes a horrendous grinding noise at certain points when pulling away or in low gear.
Now the obvious option is to take the Micra in and get the grinding sorted out. But after the weather we've had this summer I want air conditioning and a fridge for my drinks in my car. With the strange places I end up for work, like the middle of fields, archaeological digs and racecourses, I want a sturdy car which can handle some tricky terrain. And furthermore I want a chunky car in which I feel safe, and the Caliber definitely delivers there.
I firmly expect any Caliber I buy to last me a good number of years, too - this is not a car I'll be looking to shift in six months' time.
So I went down to the local Dodge dealer and tip-toed cautiously inside. I've never walked into a car dealership in anger before and must have reeked of fear to every salesman within a mile of me. After ten minutes of nervous padding back and forth around the Caliber in the showroom I tentatively enquired about booking a test drive:
"One's just arrived, want to go out in that now?", asked the man.
"Yes!" I said, inwardly crapping myself at the very thought.
See, I've only ever driven two cars. The one I passed my test in, and the Micra. I've certainly never driven anything with any oomph to it - the Micra would come off worse against a suitably determined squirrel. So sitting down inside the Caliber, unable even to tell if it was on, was a tad scary. Especially with a gearstick mounted at an angle on the front panel.
I was also asked to sign a form declaring myself to be a fully qualified driver over the age of 25 - which, of course, I couldn't sign. So the salesman simply crossed out 25 and wrote 21. Such sticklers for policy, these car dealers. Still, I survived the 15 minutes in what was, by my standards, quite some style. And this is where it helps to have arrived in a Micra.
The handling is decidedly not "stodgy" by comparison with the Micra, whose steering block might as well be marked "port" and "starboard" such is the effort required to haul it from one direction to the other.
The cabin is not "low-rent" when the CD player in the Micra cuts out a couple of times in each journey in Marvin the Paranoid Android style. And where I currently wedge Diet Coke bottles down the side of the car while driving, the Caliber offers a chilled drinks storage area and two drinks holders that glow in the dark!
And as for the petrol engine being gutless, my word, it's still twice as powerful as the one I'm currently puttering around in! The Micra does a fine job but has been known, on hills, to acquire Lemming status and threaten simply to roll back down into oblivion. The Caliber, accused in one review of being noisy but so quiet I couldn't even hear the engine idling, seems to glide along the road by comparison.
As things stand I'm haggling over finance for it, but it looks likely I'll sign up for one to be delivered some time in October. The Micra will go the other way as a teeny-tiny part exchange offering. The bloke came out to sit in it and assess it for its value. When he switched the ignition on I lost all hope, fully expecting that bloody horrific grinding noise to drown out any thoughts he had of paying a bean for it. But miraculously it kept quiet! Good car. Faithful to the last...
I think I've had an overnight transatlantic flight home once before - from Vancouver seven or eight years ago - but it's safe to say I'm no expert at them. My entire day has been a washout through lack of sleep.
If you're thinking of crossing the pond to Canada then the airline I used, Air Transat, represents great value for money. However, given you're not paying very much money, legroom is certainly at a premium! Trying to squash myself into a comfortable sleeping position was always going to be futile.
A very nice Bangladeshi man named Ahmed sat next to me. He'd taken his wife and five children round the USA and Canada for a month and now they were all on their way back home to Kent.
Ahmed moved to the UK when he was 14 in 1978 and used to run a restaurant - now he buys and sells property and cars instead. He aims to make £20,000 profit on each house he sells and £400 on each car. Business is "not so good", he says, but he seems to be doing well for a man who never went to school in the UK.
He's as keen to go back to North America as I am but he also takes the family back to his native Bangladesh and India. I asked him where he recommends going on the Asian subcontinent and he reckons the train journey from Mumbai to Agra, travelling first class on the Indian rail network, is the thing to do. So that's now at the back of my mind. He says December's the best time to go - "just like an English summer" - so maybe not this year, but next. Any takers?
Ahmed's political views were certainly interesting. He feels sure, he told me, that acts of terrorism against the West will stop the moment George W. Bush is out of office. I suggested I remained unconvinced - there was a bomb under the World Trade Centre years before Bush took power, after all - but Ahmed told me to write his name down and get back in touch when he was proved right. We can but hope...
Well, it would seem I have joined the big world of work. All well and good. I'm pleased the first day is over and done with: all the niggling little worries gone. The next week will be a mixture of training, seminars etc... and then the real work begins next Monday... (so next Monday will be just as scary/exciting as this one!)
However... at text conversation with a friend earlier:
Me: One day of work down. Only another hundred thousand to go.
Reply: It's not the hundred thousand days you need to worry about, it's the nights.
So said one of the air stewards on today's WestJet flight back from St John's, Newfoundland, to Toronto.
The WestJet crew do try very hard not to sound like your average in-flight air crew. In fact WestJet try quite hard to make you think of yourself as a 'guest' and each steward as an 'owner' rather than 'passenger' and 'employee'.
I'm not sure it completely works as intended - occasionally it feels a tad strained, such as "our wonderful pilot has switched off the seat belt sign above your heads" - but it's fun watching them try.
For example, on today's flight our hosts and hostesses opted to recite the pre-flight safety instructions, in their own words, "in the style of Dr Seuss". I wish I'd recorded it. For a whole two minutes every element of in-flight safety was dictated to us in rhyming Cat-In-The-Hat couplets. It was at once ingenious and cringeworthy.
Other gems:
"We're sorry, but there will be no free cookies on this flight as no one brought the flight crew any lobster from St John's."
"If you have any questions, write them on the back of a twenty, fifty or hundred-dollar bill, then pass them back to us. The bigger the bill the quicker you'll get an answer."
And finally, sung for a good thirty seconds just before take-off over the cabin tannoy:
Last week I was meant to see the Boyfriend, and the production was rained-off. Tonight, Anthony and I were supposed to go to Prom 66 at the Royal Albert Hall. What a wonderfully relaxing way to spend my last night of freedom. But no, there was a fire earlier on today in the RAH and the Prom was cancelled. Tragedy. We settled for an enjoyable dinner and wander through Hyde Park... but it isn't quite the same!
The real and fantastically exciting world of Flom begins tomorrow! Corporate-whoredom here I come!
Welcome back to Newfoundland and St John's. Today we've been out to Signal Hill, Cape Spear and the Railway Coastal Museum:
Cape Spear
Darren the friendly taxi driver picked us up from the hotel and took us to Cape Spear, about a 20-minute drive south. Darren beats yesterday's taxi driver, whose accent was barely intelligible, whose driving nearly got us killed, and who wound down his window to spit dramatically onto the tarmac not once, but twice, in a 10-minute journey.
Darren was a vast improvement. He's lived in St John's all his life and is married to an English woman so had plenty of useful local information and good conversation. Mind you, I'd be friendly if my job involved waiting for tourists by reading the paper in a taxi over a view like this:
You might just be able to see the fort at the top of Signal Hill in the distance in that photo. Cape Spear's landmark, though, is this lighthouse:
Meanwhile here's yours truly over the other side of the lighthouse. Beyond this outcrop there's nothing but Atlantic until you hit Europe:
Signal Hill
After Cape Spear it was back across town to Signal Hill, where Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless transmission in the early 1900s. The building there is a fort used in the nineteenth century:
Inside there was a nice exhibition detailing Marconi's experiments, which we wandered before embarking on the trail down Signal Hill back into St John's itself. Here's a view of the town from the hill, looking through the jaws of the bay behind which lies the Atlantic:
Railway Coastal Museum
In the space of a hundred years Newfoundland both gained and lost a railway, a story beautifully told by this harbourside museum. Darren the friendly taxi driver had put me onto it - he lives in a house originally built for railway employees in the early twentieth century, and collects Newfoundland railway memorabilia.
In the late nineteenth century it was decided Newfoundland - an island at least twice the size of Wales, remember - needed its own railway, and by 1890 one crossing the island had been built (although it took the first train two months to make the journey!).
Up until 1949, when Newfoundland joined Canada (it had been independent previously), the railway slowly grew and prospered. But, by the 1950s, the narrow gauge in which it had been built only allowed trains so slow the route was mockingly dubbed the 'Newfy Bullet'. By 1968 there were no more passenger services and the whole operation was closed down and ripped up in 1988. The Trans-Canada highway now runs in its place.
The museum's housed in what was St John's railway terminus and even has its own model railway with a replica 'Mikado' steam engine. For the equivalent of £2.50 each, it was an absolute bargain.
Tomorrow we fly back to Toronto, but not before an evening out tonight. We asked Darren where to go and he recommended Bridie Molloy's, an Irish pub on George Street. Darren's accent was, essentially, Irish, and the entire community has a heavily Irish flavour to it. Bridie Molloy's promises traditional, live Irish music tonight. I can't decide if that's a good thing or not...
I'm currently in St John's. St John's is the mystery location I said I'd be travelling to yesterday. In case you're wondering, St John's is here:
St John's is on the very eastern tip of Newfoundland, itself the very eastern edge of Canada. It's a proper Atlantic fishing town with plenty going on at the docks, like this battered example:
Speaking of battered examples we had an amazing dinner at Oliver's Restaurant (can't think why we chose that), on the aptly named Water Street a row away from the harbourside. The service was excellent and the food delicious beyond words - recommended next time you're passing through Newfoundland.
The weather when we got here was spectacular: driving, horizontal rain which caused us a bit of a bumpy landing and some hurried umbrella-purchasing. Just what you'd expect when this is the first thing the entire Atlantic Ocean bumps into, mind you. You could draw a straight line from St John's to Minehead without hitting land - fact! How amazing is that. St John's, for all its weather, is much further south than Somerset. Thank the lord for the (now endangered) gulf stream warming the UK.
Tomorrow might involve going to the lighthouse at Cape Spear (the eastern-most point of the eastern-most town in the eastern-most territory) or climbing up to the top of Signal Hill above St John's, where the first radio transmission was received and where a fort now lies. Tomorrow might, just might, also involve something far more sporty. We'll see.
Step 1: You lend an Oyster card to a friend.
Step 2: The friend is an absolute s*it, beyond belief. You're still friends, but not enough to trust them with your Oyster card.
Step 3: You ring Transport-for-London regarding a travel card-Oyster. And they advise you (with persuasion from yourself) to cancel the current Oyster card you have...or... you have "lost"
Step 4: You cancel the Oyster card you know your "acquaintance" is using... and gain £11.00 in the bargain...
Step 5: You innocently text the user of the Oyster card to let them know. Who said shit doesn't happen.
The falls are off the agenda. Can't say I'm too disappointed - yes, they're a wonder of the world and worth seeing, but I'm worried they'll have been turned into a hideous tourist attraction fuelled by, well, precisely the likes of me.
Instead we've got incredibly exciting plans for the next three days, but I'm keeping them under wraps for now. All being well I'll provide an update tomorrow night from a special secret location...
But it means Niagara's going on the sacrificial block, as is Ottawa. I'll have to come back for those, the new plans are too good to miss.
In the mean time I'm off to see a performance of Spamalot in Toronto tonight, and from there to the airport tomorrow morning for the next adventure!
Remember my avocado plant? It's now 8ft tall and rather unmanageable for my small flat. I thought I'd try and palm it off on Kew Gardens or somewhere... but here is my very informative email response. Top marks for Kew though in terms of "visitor satisfaction".
"I'm afraid that for plant health reasons Kew cannot accept
donations from the public, so we couldn't take your avocado. Most
other botanic gardens operate a similar policy, so I can't think of
anywhere else that may be able to help you. However, if you live in
a sheltered area of the country like London you could try putting it
outside - although the books recommend a minimum temperature
of 13 degrees for avocados, as temperatures rise there are an
increasing number of reports of avocados surviving and even fruiting
outdoors, for example here.
This is quite a risky strategy as, of course, many that don't make it aren't
reported, but it may be worth it as a last resort.
If you try growing an avocado again, you can avoid this problem by
stopping the first shoot to emerge from the avocado stone once it
gets to about 15cm. Chop the top off, which will mean losing all
the leaves. Nothing will happen for a couple of weeks and you'll
start to worry that you've killed it, but then shoots will start to
emerge from the side of the main stem. these will be slower
growing and go sideways rather than upwards, and if you keep
pruning them when they reach the desired length you'll end up with
an avocado bush rather than a tree trying to escape through the
ceiling. If unchecked, under favourable conditions avocado trees
can reach a height of 20 metres!
I'm sorry that we couldn't be more helpful."
So there we are. Perhaps I'll persaude my parents to keep it.
You have no idea how thrilled I was to discover that Canada has black squirrels. They're like stealth squirrels! They drop from black helicopters and then frolic stealthily before disappearing into the aether. Apparently they're under threat from grey squirrels. Those bastards spoil everyone's fun.
Canada: pros
Lots, and lots, of shops. On every intersection. Massive out-of-town shopping malls bigger than the towns themselves. I have never seen anything like it.
Air conditioning.
A bigger bed than the one I've got back home.
Petrol is ridiculously cheap. It's the equivalent of 40p per litre in some places today. That's outrageous.
Black squirrels.
Drive-through banks. Not in the ram-raiding sense - pull up, then it works like a cashpoint at your window. Very useful.
Amazing scenery. We went to the Algonquin Provincial Park today and walked some of the trails there. We reached a spectacular clifftop view across the whole park. I've never seen so many trees in my life. This one park probably equates to the sum total of all parks in Britain. There are even black squirrels.
Canada: cons
A certain lack of soul about the place. The roads are all the same, the towns are all the same. Where are the landmarks? "How can you say all that?", demands my host, but all the roads go in straight lines forever and it's unnatural, I tell you. At one point the presence of a few bends in the road was even denoted by a sign reading "Winding Road"! England, with its thousands of years of history to back it up, has more going for it culturally at grass-roots level, I reckon.
You can't buy alcohol in supermarkets, or indeed anywhere except government-operated alcohol stores. While I'm no drunkard I think I prefer the British approach to this. It seems odd to be restricted to one of two options for alcohol in the entire nation!
Canadian radio seems to struggle up against the British equivalent. In some aspects this could be down to Amanda being unable to stick with one radio station for more than fifteen seconds at a time - poor Moose FM sent packing almost immediately in favour of Chum FM or More FM (what names) - but essentially they all play the same music, in the same style, with the same traffic and news and weather, blah blah blah. It makes me grateful for the diversity between, say, BBC Radio Berkshire, Reading 107 and 2-Ten. They all serve a different audience.
There are no roundabouts here! I'm beginning to miss roundabouts. They'd break up all these infernal straight roads. It must be so difficult trying not to fall asleep without a good roundabout thrown into the mix.
Think Vodafone has its finger in quite a few pies? Try Rogers, the Canadian equivalent. I haven't gone for more than five minutes in this country without seeing a Rogers logo. When I landed, my phone switched to Rogers. Rogers own video rental stores. Rogers run the TV service in this house. Rogers sponsor the main sports arena in Toronto. Rogers, Rogers, Rogers. It's terrible.
Canadian TV shows are, generally, shockingly poor. The current show of choice is Rock Star Supernova - oh wait, wait! There's a protest going on. Apparently the show is American, not Canadian. It's a show very similar to X Factor, if you're wondering. "You've not even seen a Canadian TV show!", I'm told. Given I've seen a fair few shows in the evenings I've been here, and they've been no great shakes, that has to be a bit of an indictment.
Tomorrow we're off into Toronto to see Spamalot at the theatre, and I imagine Niagara Falls will come into play at some point soon, as will Ottawa.
What a palaver at Gatwick Airport, "The Airport You'll Get If You're Not Willing To Pay".
We've had all the usual security searches given the "heightened level of awareness" (read: BAA panic attack) in the wake of recent events. God help the security staff having to frisk all the chavs here for metal objects - is it any bloody wonder the flight to Mallorca's four hours delayed...
Not that I have any problem with all the security, it's completely fine by me. If you're not intending to blow up the aircraft, you shouldn't be too bothered about a bit of a drop in hand luggage capacity and an inability to carry toothpaste on board with you. In fact, I think I prefer the little laptop bag I have with me to the unwieldy rucksack I'd have been lugging around otherwise.
Indeed I can find only one fault with air travel at Gatwick Airport, and that's all the other passengers. I am about to sound extraordinaly elitist but can we, please, have an airport with some sort of pre-qualifying? Perhaps a verbal reasoning test over the phone when booking, or a special episode of "Test The Nation" on BBC1 which determines the airport you use for the next year. We could have Gatwick Grammar and Gatwick Comprehensive.
The reason I say this is simply the sheer mass of dolts wandering this airport. I've never seen anything like it: a seeping wound of the vacant pouring into the departure lounge. Look at the destinations: Mallorca, Las Palmas, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Corfu. You can see in every second or third person's eyes a look of, "I'm here because over the next week or two I fully intend to not stop drinking."
This is backed up by the tannoy announcements. The poor sod making the last calls for passengers has routinely, in the hour or so I've sat here, been faced with upwards of 15 or 20 names to read out! Where the hell have all these people got to? What's so tricky about getting to the damned plane?
It is horrifying to place the engineering marvel of human accomplishment that is the aircraft itself, capable of flying thousands of miles, up against the evolutionary catastrophe that is the ordinary human passenger, unable to locate said aircraft in a confined environment with clear directions.
My one piece of hold luggage has been tucked away in the bowels of the airport, probably never to see the light of day again and certainly never to experience Canada. Its last hurrah before entering the void was when it weighed in at just under 18kg, a full 5kg under the limit, which I think we both considered a triumph.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to go to the toilet, then go to Toronto.
(I've been trying not to indulge in the macabre but if those happen to be my very last printed words - ignore these - make sure they get published somewhere, they're not bad.)
My post for 27th August 2005 involved rubbish. Rubbish being a work of art. This year, it also involves rubbish. The proposition that we may be taxed for our rubbish. Excuse me? We already pay for rubbish collection in our Council Tax. The proposal is highly unlikely to encourage recycling. Why not just charge us more on the Council Tax and make recycling easier and more efficient? I don't see how paying for our rubbish would actually help - recycling needs to be easy and the citizen needs to have some desire to recycle. A positive drive, not a negative force e.g. tax, compelling us to act.
The comments on the BBC article areboth both interesting and amusing - many are also constructive so they save me the bother of going into the many arguments here. However one of my favourite, more frivilous of comments is the suggestion that if the rubbish tax were introduced then we should simply start with the Labour Party... the biggest load of rubbish in the country...
Today is the start of the August bank holiday weekend, and having been at school or university for every other occassion, I finally get to have a statutory day off from work. This is quite the moment; I've been waiting some time for it, and after four weeks of getting back into early mornings and the like, it is great to have an extra lie in.
So, clearly, the best thing to do with my extra day is to get up even earlier than I would usually. It turns out that BBC Radio 4's Today programme has effectively a bank holiday roadshow thing going on, and this Monday, they're in Torrington, in North Devon. Who would ever have thought? I have tickets, and will be getting up at 4am on Monday to drive up to Torrington and be in my seat for 5.30am, in order to see Jim Naughtie and the sports reporters do some outside link ups. Best of all, though, there will be audience participation, and a report into the teaching of history in schools. Will I be able to embarrass myself with my knowledge of eighteenth century America on national radio? Let's hope not.
Quote from a family friend who got an A* for her Religious Education GCSE in her results today:
"It's easy when they ask you questions, like in maths, but when you just have to write pages I forget loads. One question I just rambled on about teenage pregnancy - I didn't know what else to put!"
Well, what she actually said was:
"it is easy wen they ask u questions like in maths but wen u just hve to write pages i forget lds. one question i just rambled on about teenage pregnancy coz i didnt kno wo telse to put"
But I thought I'd better translate. 91 per cent for her in that particular exam, very good going! Especially since she took it a year early along with three others in which she got As.
The point is, who said teenage pregnancy ruined your GCSEs?
Yesterday evening four twenty-something girls met at Baker Street tube, in torrential rain. Were we dressed for the weather? Sort-of. We had umbrellas. But one of us had ballet shoes on, one was in a skirt suit and we were a little short on warm jumpers and waterproofs. However, we marched on. The aim was to sit in glorious sunshine in Regents Park and have a picnic. After that we would enjoy the Boyfriend at the Open Air Theatre. Sometimes in life things just don't go to plan.
We had our glorious picnic under the bandstand, overlooking the water and watching the rain patter down besides us. We remained mostly dry, but the floor of the bandstand was a little cold and things did look a bit grim. However we had coordinated, with very little coordination actually, a rather delicious dinner. The only repeated items of food were some Tesco strawberries - mine had the origin Kent, and the others were Hants. The Hants were much nicer. We were also impressed that Tesco strawberries were -born/produced/grown - that's the one, grown in Kent whereas those bought in West London were grown in Hants. Tesco bringing food from the local area to the locals? Quite impressive really. Well, perhaps. The blueberries were from Spain or somewhere though so that threw the idea off the bandstand and into the soggy guano covered mud. But it was romantic, it really was. Rather like being in a caravan in the rain. It would have helped if we had been dressed for it, and perhaps if it had been a romantic picnic, rather than four girls (romantic for some though, I'm sure). However it was romantic in a poetic sense, and we were rather optimistic about the chances of the play going ahead.
We did remark at this stage how British we were being - what other nationality would sit under a bandstand having a picnic in the rain. We didn't have a flask of tea though, so that let us down. We had a screw-top bottle of Chardonnay instead: aren't screw-tops wonderful? We had plastic cups and plates, and napkins and hand sanitiser - it was all there you know! Spot the organised girl and the jewish mothers...
So then we traipsed, in the rain, to the theatre. And the skies began to brighten and the performance began. For fifteen minutes. Then a voice asked the cast to stop and the band to cease playing. The stage was wet. Would four members of the audience come on stage to help them mop up? Fantastic. Once again, wonferfully British. And so four members did: A young girl - 12, 13yrs old? An elderly gentleman, in a tweedy suit, probably aged around 70yrs. A rather stylish 40-50yrs old lady who acted flirtatiously towards the 70yr old and tried her own rendition of the Charleston (the band began to play this as they mopped) and danced with her mop. And then finally a young man in his early 30s - looked like he'd never held a mop in his life, probably a City banker, pushed on stage by a woman no doubt and after a while he looked so tired and had the actions of someone simply saying "surely it's done now".
After that, unfortunately the heavens opened. The umbrellas came up. And that was that. End of performance.
We left the theatre and went and enjoyed a much warming hot chocolate and a chat. A couple of people went to watch the performance again today, but I'll be waiting until Sept 9th I think... so any one who wishes to join me is more than welcome...!
A thoroughly enjoyable evening though, nevertheless.
Yes, you read that correctly. It is 23rd August, just over 3mths till Christmas Day and I received my first Christmas catalogue in the post today - wishing me a very peaceful Christmas and Happy New Year. I'm still enjoying this year, thanks. The catalogue is from Christian Aid and arrived along with their quarterly magazine. The irony of it is that I shall probably keep the catalogue and I'll probably just buy my cards from it. So perhaps this early advertising thing works. But August. August? Is it really necessary to send a catalogue out this early? Doesn't it take something away from the joy and rush of Christmas? Or is it just a reflection of out lifestyle today? If this is our lifestyle, I'm not sure I agree. Although, I guess I'd best get used to it as its going to get a whole lot busier in a week or so!
I have a horrific headache. Actually, I think it's more of a migraine. I've had it since sometime during yesterday afternoon, and whilst it has come and gone, it's never truly disappeared. My eyes hurt too. Especially after using the computer. And my scar above my right eye keeps stinging and it is rare that it does this unless I'm tired. I suggested to my Mum I get my eyes tested. And then she laughed. What happened before I started Yr13? What happened before I went up to Oxford? What happened before I began the LPC? I had these headaches, sore eyes and on each occasion I've had my eyes tested; with nothing wrong. So this time I don't think I'll bother. It just goes to show that inwardly I must be quite worried and scared at the moment, even if on the outside I feel absolutely fine and calm about it all. At least I'm still smiling. And I've an excuse to go and buy chocolate.
You may be under the illusion that the purpose behind Dayorama has something to do with a relaxed “current affairs weblog” or something, commenting on anything from “fish bones to degree ceremonies, elections to bus journeys”. Well, you’re only partly correct. It also operates as a form of amazon-wish list. You know, the page where you put all the things you’d like, in the hope that someone will buy them for you when it is your birthday?
Why? Well, last week I grumbled that my Mother had read Dayorama from Croatia and found out about the fact that the house, their house, was rather messy in their absence. Grumble about my Mother reading Dayorama? Never again. A couple of days ago I mentioned Satellite Navigation systems for cars. I was thinking of buying one – if I could afford it – and came around to the idea of asking for one from my parents at Christmas. I’d never mentioned this to my parents, in fact the first they heard/thought of the idea was when they read about it on Dayorama. It just so happens they were thinking of buying me a start of work/well done in your exams present… and so today I received a TomTom 710. A wonderful surprise. Totally unexpected. And lovely. Thank you. However, thanks also to Dayorama.
Mum, Dad… I’d really like a top of the range Mercedes….
Do you think that’ll work? No, maybe not. Worth a try anyway!
*Edit: Darling OJ has just pointed out that when I start work I won't have any time and therefore will be unable to use the Sat Nav. He's just jealous right? On the other hand... perhaps he has a point. He's always bloody right. Damn! But at least I could use it if I had the chance... and the less I go out, the quicker I can save for the Merc...!
It has not been a brilliant day for English relations with the rest of the world, having accused various people of ball-tampering and plane-tampering respectively.
In fact I reckon there's been something in the air inspiring conflict today. We were driving back through the streets of London following the Chelsea v Manchester City match, about which the less said the better, when someone clipped my dad's wing mirror, pushing it 90 degrees the wrong way.
Luckily it's quite a clever wing mirror and remained attached to the car and fully functional - right down to the Batmobile-esque button which folds the wing mirrors in, a feature I would want for aerodynamic showiness rather than fitting into tight parking spaces.
But my dad, bless him, used a four-letter word I have never heard him use before in the general direction of the culprit. Then he spent the next ten minutes trying to win the day by hoping his queue of traffic would overtake theirs, thus establishing us as supreme reigning champions of driving.
Today, I note, is also unusual since it's the first time all this month that I've not actually been in the newsroom. On Friday I had a call from a certain Mr Wooding on a work-related note! That was certainly remarkable. The man is already doing a fine job of creating The Westcountry Wing.
Where to begin?! I’ve started using the calendar on the right hand side of the screen. Well, I say “started to use”. I’ve put in one entry, and thus messed up Ollie’s formatting. I’ve been away for the last few days… to East Anglia. East Anglia as a whole has a rather dismal reputation. Not one which is enhanced by remarks such as these. At the end of the day you have to make the effort to go there: it isn’t a place you drive through (like Kent, or Buckinghamshire or somewhere like that). However it is a tremendously beautiful place: very flat but quintessentially English. Lovely.
It always amazes me though how different the roads are. I was chatting to my Godmother about this, who has lived in both Kent and Suffolk and commutes frequently between the two. Kent driving is fast. It’s cutthroat. It’s aggressive. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this is a good thing, but it’s a fact. It’s a different pace of life and this is clearly reflected in the driving and the ardent haste to get everywhere fast and without taking any prisoners. To that end, I’m rather glad I have the experience of the Kent/outer London roads, but it is much more pleasant to drive somewhere when you can just bimble along happily.
What else? Oh yes. The start of work is looming and becoming somewhat more daunting by the minute.
Now, you could say that I had it coming. I posted on this day last year regarding flip-flops. From Monsoon. They were shockingly sub-standard. This year I went back to Monsoon and refused to pay an inflated price for the same flip-flop, so went and bought some lovely leather ones from Jones instead. And I had the vouchers from when I'd complained about the last pair of shoes turning my feet black anyway. So the flip flops. This morning was a typical "Manic Monday". I should have got up earlier, and should have been more organised before going to bed. Not to worry. I ran around like a headless chicken before the CAB and managed to do all the things I needed to, despite a crisis call from my Aunt, a chat to my piano teacher and then a call from my God Mother. All before 9.10am - having got up at 8.20am. There was a shower and cleaning and a cat and numerous other things in there too. But I made a mistake. I didn't look at the weather forecast. The black clouds should have warned me. But they didn't. I wore my flip flops. And I got to work, and it was raining. And I had to step in lots of puddles, arriving looking like a drowned rat, in flip flops. And then after work I had to scurry around town (it's best to scurry quickly, you don't want to spend too long in Maidstone) and I got even wetter feet. But hey ho. The point of all this is, the flip flops took it. They didn't disintegrate - like the last pair I wore in the rain. And my feet were nice and clean (?), well, wet. There's a few morals in this story. However it is elementary. As far as flip flops are concerned, I shall never learn. And tomorrow I am back at work, followed by London for dinner, back to Kent, Norfolk on Weds, Suffolk Thurs and Fri and back sometime over the weekend. Numerous things to do. A stack of ironing. But all is good. So long as I get to East Anglia in one piece.... (oh I wish I had a spare £215 to buy a TomTom - I'm thinking an Xmas present - not sure the budget stretches just yet!).
Hi there, I'm Troy Mclure, and you may remember me.... yadda yadda yadda.
Yes, it's a post from me again, now that various forces, such as the alignment of the moon, the tides, and a clean desk and working internet connection, have joined together in one moment of glory. I'll try posting more, I really will, but given that the copy I turn out work is decidedly less interesting and less public than Ollie's, expect few work related anecdotes. Especially involving small furry animals. Or super ones, come to that.
Anyway, it's time for a review of theme tunes to adverts. First, for Channel 4's trailer for the next episode of Dispatches on PPI, they're using a track by Seth Lakeman (see Dayorama passim.). The boy has come far in a year, though I'm slightly surprised that he's re-released Freedom Fields with re-recorded tracks, which I might have to go and buy again. Second, two related iTunes things. The very cool track to the Citroen advert with the iceskating transforming C4 has been released, and it's a dance track I've actually gone and bought. A rarity indeed. While there, I also found (don't ask me how) a track from Miami Vice (the show, not the film). It's an instrumental track called Crockett's Theme, and the very nifty guitar riff on it was, in fact, the jingle used by NatWest in the early to mid 90s. You know the one, with the guitar going down the notes in a very manly way. Well, I remember it, and I remember a group of us air guitarring it on the playground aged 10 or so. Now of course that doesn't sound very cool, but now that I know it was from Miami Vice, I'd like to think we were just ahead of our time, given the uber Michael Mann HD visual effects from the new film (which I understand are probably the best thing about it).
This damn website. I posted a couple of days ago about the fact I'm house-sitting for my parents and the house is harder than my flat to keep clean. That does not mean it is messy, I was simply noting the difference. Anyway, I didn't think my Mother would ever read the post: two weeks of posts would surely be too many to trawl through on her return. I was wrong. I received a text this evening:
"Read about MY untidy house. Get rid of those books in the hallway immediately!"
Thankfully it was followed by the phrase: "Just joking". It shows the way of the internet-age. Damn!
But hey, it shows our stats counter works: we had one visitor from Croatia earlier today. Wonderful!
Sometimes I have the most stupid ideas. My parents are away and I am in Kent, house sitting. Well, sort of. I'm living there because it is cheap. Well, three things. a) my grandfather is driving me bonkers; b) my Aunt is continually on the phone in tears and c) the cat keeps bringing in birds and dissecting them in the kitchen, amidst a pile of feathers. Lovely. At least it has rained so I don't have to water my Father's plants. These are all littel things - and in the scale of drought, war and famine, are hardly significant. However. In addition, I've decided to clear out my flat. Incredible how much junk/clothes you've not worn for a year/books one person can accumulate. Well I brought them all home. Today. Right now. The hall is full of books. The living room full of clothes and my mother's washing machine inlet for soap powder needed cleaning before I could use it. Agh. Oh and I'd forgotten about cooking for myself - it was a lump of semi-cooked salmon and mayonnaise for dinner tonight. Stuff the veg and anything exciting. Heh. If I ever consider buying a bigger flat, stop me. It's much easier to potter in a one-bed square box than actually look after a large-ish house. Oh, well, apart from the dishwasher that is! And remind me to find myself a b/f who can cook.
Friendship is a funny old thing isn’t it. They say blood is thicker than water, and that is certainly true. My cousin and I meet up regularly, but if one of us is late, or one of us has to cancel at the last minute, it doesn’t matter. There’s no hard feeling, no animosity: he’s simply my cousin. Perhaps if a friend did this to me on a regular basis, I’d probably be slightly miffed. And then of course there are those dreadful categories of friends: best friend – closest to the relative? Someone who you can call day in day out and who doesn’t care if they see you dressed to the nines and full of laughter or in tears; special friends, close friends – the same as a best friend, but perhaps you haven’t known them for so long and perhaps you wouldn’t always go that “extra mile?”, but perhaps you would? Where is the line?; friends – people you stay in touch with, meet for parties, people you fancy perhaps and wish they were more than just a “friend”; and then acquaintances.
It’s a minefield. And what do you do about the kisses on the end of emails? How complicated. I try not to think about it. And then there are those friends who you don’t see for three to six months on end. It happens to my best friend from school and I, it happened to OJ and I when he was in the States, in a way it still happens to us all (OJ, Ol and I) now, but tonight it happened to me and a friend from Oxford. Six months – different continents, different experiences, different lifestyles, different lives really – and yet tonight it was the same. Six months? It could have been six hours. And he’ll kill me if he reads this, but that’s the sign of a great friendship. It makes you realise that whilst blood may be thicker than water, it’s worth keeping the water as thick as possible.
One or two of you might just recognise this young lady. Particularly OJ, who should know who it is immediately, seeing as we went to school with her for a very long time.
Her name is Gaby and, despite knowing her from the age of about 5, I've been out of touch with her since leaving school in 2002.
Until yesterday, that is. Via an extended series of websites I somehow ended up on her MySpace profile (for those living under a rock these past few years, that's a website where you can have a little profile with photos, music and friends on it).
Turns out Gaby is now a singer and this week she's in Switzerland to perform at the NewBeat festival in Davos on Friday night. How exciting is that? Wish I could be there to see it, hopefully she'll come and do a Berkshire festival sooner or later...
Quick plug: you can listen to her by clicking here, then selecting the song "Green Streets" from the music player that will appear on the page.
Our very own fallen-Hitler cat, Daisy (she has a blob under her chin, so it has clearly slipped from above her upper lip) had a little bit of a dilema yesterday. She caught a bluetit. By the time she brought the "present" to us, the said bird was dead. We contained bird + cat in the kitchen, but would she let go of this damn feathered foe? No. She hissed, she miaowed, she arched her back... there was no way we were picking it up from in front of her... And then, the remains of the steak we had a dinner. The fatty rind. A bit of finest organic beef (since we spoile her rotten)... and suddenly this hissing creature became a purring bundle of fluff. The bird was abandoned and it was head down into the bowl of meat. When we removed the bird there was simply a glance from Daisy as if to say, "oh take it, I'm was never bothered anyway". Bloody cats.
Okay, look, I need your help. I've had this crisis for some years now. Do I have the hair DOWN (or at least semi-down, as per the left) or UP (as per the right)?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments. This is of vital importance.
Well I'm sure you've all missed my sparkling presence. I've been away in Cheshire for a few days, staying with my Aunt. As ever, it was lots of fun and I've managed to come back with a rather nice tan. Some from a bottle, some from the sunshine. Overall the visit was rather "agricultural". We spent an unhealthy length of time judging and dealing with cows - well, heifers actually, of the pedigree Holstein variety (black and white cows) - at the local agricultural show. In addition we looked around the "best farm and herd in Cheshire" and also went to a cattle auction. Immense fun. OK, so not every one's idea of fun, but it was actually enjoyable.
And now it's back down to earth with a bump. Or perhaps a tinkle and a fizz. A fizz, because my wonderful law firm couriered me a magnum of champagne for doing so well in my exams (did i mention I got a distinction.... *cough*) and a tinkle because I'm having piano lessons again. As of about 4hrs ago. I suddenly decided that perhaps I could have a lesson a week for the next six weeks and thus polish my skills somewhat. It's four years since I had lessons and my standard has slipped somewhat. However, I located my old (well, young and dishy actually) piano teacher and I'm back with lessons... and practice! It was bizarre having a lesson again. David (my teacher) looked pretty much the same as he did four years ago. Back then he was aged 24 and had just got married to someone aged 21. When he initially started teaching me he was aged 21. He's an incredible pianist though. So, I am now older than he was when he first started teaching me, and I'm older than his wife was when they got married. Scary stuff. But it's funny how some things just don't change and we slipped back into an easy routine of piano playing, instruction and banter. Let's hope I get somewhere.
Isn't it lovely to see them back again? Maybe OJ will post now? Hmm, it remains to be seen...
I was in Oxford today meeting a friend for lunch, and then went on to Bicester with my Mother. The last time I was there was with OJ's Mum. It was a very very very hot day (and tomorrow is meant to be better... but I'm in the CAB... grr) but very enjoyable. Rather scary though: I started buying my clothes for work in September. Slightly premature since I haven't passed my exams yet, but fingers crossed. Some wonderful sea-island cotton shirts to be worn with cufflinks and a few skirts. The corporate-bitch shoes will come in time. I also managed to pick up a highly amusing hat, the last use of some gift vouchers from OJ about 18mths ago: i'd kept the final £10 in my wallet all that time! That's all I have to report. It's warm, sunny and rather jolly in Kent. Thank goodness for air-con in the car...
After a fantastic four days at the Kent County Show (with a trip to Oxford in the middle) I'm slowly recovering from a combination of extreme tiredness, excessive alcohol consumption, frivolity, lots of driving, being on my feet for 13-14hrs each day and talking to lots of people and probably putting on about 1/2stone in weight. But lots of fun. Today I accompanied my Mum's School on their annual trip. I have to say, I do like taking a bundle of little children around a wildlife park. It's great fun to see their little faces light up and to tell them basic facts that they find fascinating. But after a day of appreciating wildlife, I now feel like a murderer. We've an influx of flying ants in our garden and I was on "nippon" duty, eradicating all in sight. I must have killed hundreds and hundreds of ants. The worst thing is you see their suffering before they die. Horrid. I felt terrible. Never really felt like that before. God's creatures and all that. And if that wasn't enough Daisy caught a mouse. In a bungled rescue attempt my Dad and I managed to kill the mouse - probably heart failure. Feel awful. Poor little things.
There are times in life when you really let yourself down. Sometimes this can be laughed off, sometimes you wish to crawl into a ball. For example, over the weekend I was assessing a DofE Bronze expedition. I collected my dinner late on Saturday evening (self-service school-dinner esque food) and selected what I thought was rice, curry and cauliflower cheese. You think? No, it was rice, curry and rice pudding. Naturally I was the last to notice and was mocked tirelessly for my moment of "blondness". Nothing changes there then. I then had to eat the entire plateful, which wasn't a particularly enjoyable experience. I've been mocked ever since. People began to have weetabix, banana and chocolate for breakfast, in honour of me. And then tonight, I really did let myself down. My Mother and I had been doing the quick-crossword in the Guardian. I had filled in a few clues before she took over. One clue, was "threesome". A four letter word. The second letter an "r". What springs to mind? Well I wrote "orgy". The real word? "Trio". Ooops. Needless to say both parents think it is highly amusing.
Well I've had a very satisfying day: I learnt to silk-paint. I was trying to come up with some inspiration for my quasi-Grandmother's birthday card. After about fifteen years of making her a card each year, I'm running out of ideas. The painting, the stencil, the cross stitch, the dried flowers. All done. So this year I popped into our local craft warehouse and settled on silk painting. I've seen it done before, but never attempted it myself. Anyway, I bought the silk, I bought the paint, I bought a couple of brushes and spent the whole afternoon experimenting. The end result is a card, with a lovely 4" x 4" floral design in painted silk in the middle. I'm rather proud of myself.
In other news, Orange have been wonderful. The local mast appears to be down, so we have absolutely no reception at the moment. I managed about "one bar" in the Village, but not enough to send a text or make a call. Orange customer service were most helpful, identifying that it was a genuine fault and not just my Mum and I's mobiles simultaneously packing up. They also informed me that my sim-card is registering a fault and advised me to replace it. The upshot is I'm getting an upgrade. I've had my current phone since January 2003. Definitely time for a change!
Tomorrow I have a busy busy day... run... CAB... visit a family friend... hair cut... and then... Pirates of the Caribbean 2 at the cinema... can't wait... Johnny Depp... mmm...
... why not buy a Big Issue. Credit to the seller on the corner of Turl St/The Broad in Oxford. But my problem at the moment is a woman who stands regularly outside a tube station in London. She's often there. All days. All weathers. All times. She doesn't sell the Big Issue, she just asks for money. No kids present, no dog, no sign of friends looming in the background. It's hard to tell how hold she is. Perhaps late 20s. Maybe 30s. Maybe 40s. It's very difficult to tell when she is gaunt and unkempt. And yet somehow I feel compelled to give her loose change. I've had this debate often enough, probably even on this website. Should I give her money? I do, because I feel I almost know her. Of course I don't know her, I simply recognise her and no doubt she recognises me now. Perhaps that makes it worse. I must be one of her "regular" givers. I shouldn't, I know that. How do I know where the odd 50p. £1 goes. But then surely she needs it if she is standing there? Surely standing outside a tube, beginning for money must be pretty low. Surely she must have got to such a stage where she simply can't do anything else? Or do I make it worse. Maybe she should just claim benefits and be done with it. Her problems are probably mostly self-made anyway. Doesn't she have any family? But how can I not help her? It's my instinct to do so. Perhaps the good Samaritan element. Such dilemmas.
I was really angry watching Coronation Street tonight. There was a line of dialogue concerning a family who are being evicted (for want of a better expression) from the house that they rent. In the context of the family having to move out, the conversation went something like:
"But they can't do that"
"Yes they can. I phoned Citizen's Advice"
"And what did they say?"
"Oh, they couldn't see me until Wednesday".
Well I'm sorry, but that is terribly bad press for the Citizens Advice Bureau. For the type of query he was asking, we could probably answer it over the phone. There are numbers that are manned 10am-4pm each weekday. There are also Bureaus that do not offer appointments - the main way gain advice is through their drop-in service. I should know. I wish something as influential (yes, believe it or not it is) as Corrie, would get their facts straight. Otherwise people will think "I won't phone the CAB, they won't be able to see me for days". So wrong. Such bad press for such an amazing organisation.
(and I would complain to the Broadcasting watchdog... but I'd first have to find their number... and the CAB appear to be unable to take my call until next week...)
I found this article particularly interesting today. It's nothing new for women to be harassed on trains, on buses or even walking down the street. Surely every woman has had the cliched builder's wolf-whistle or cry of "nice legs, darlin'" in their time? If they haven't, they clearly need to work on their figure or walk the streets (in the non prostitute sense of the word) a little more often.
I remember having a debate on whether women actually encouraged/made themselves vulnerable to unwanted sexual advances/gropings/"assault" or not. I have some pretty strong views on this, and the feminist movement would definitely not take my stance. However, back to the point: should women be fighting back and posting pictures of our so-called "aggressors" on a website? On the surface this strikes me as a rather odd concept. We're encouraged by posters on the tube to keep our mobile phones/valuables out of site. If I felt slightly harassed then last thing I'd want to do would be to say, "actually sexy, just hold that pose while I take a photo of you on my phone".
I know that isn't quite the point - you've clearly got to judge your own safety in terms of getting a phone camera out, being aware of the time of night, how many people are on the tube, and whether you think the act that has been carried out is sufficient enough to warrant police time. Perhaps I've been fortunate, touch wood, that I haven't experienced any severe form of sexual harassment on the tube. Of course my backside has been touched slightly more than necessary by a stranger, and yes there was a disturbing incident one morning where I kept having to edge myself further and further away from a particular man who had an incredibly wandering hand (the front this time, not the back) And then there's the verbal stuff of course. Last night getting on the tube I was told "you're looking good today love"... by a bunch of 16yr old boys. Wonderful. But I hardly felt threatened and I wasn't going to take a photo and report them.
Am I being naive? I don't think so. I think there is some level of "harassment" that women in society have learnt to accept. I have a few friends who get thoroughly incensed by it: I tend to laugh it off. And then of course there is the time when it does go too far - the masturbation in the tube for example (mentioned in the article), or the ardent fear that someone really is about to try and rape you.
Clearly these incidents do cross a silent line and yes, I can see how taking photos (if safe to do so) and reporting to the police is a great thing. But does it really help to put it on the Internet? I'm not going to spend my evenings memorising a website full of photos of dodgy men. if the men in question probably saw it they'd no doubt be flattered by the attention. if I did memorise photos and then spent my time on the tube studying each man in detail to determine whether they'd featured on the website, then I'd probably encourage more attention. I'm sure there is a place for "if you can't slap 'em, snap 'em" but it just seems slightly misplaced.
Yes, perhaps we should create more of a fuss and create a culture where we do respond - maybe this would put men off, maybe they would enjoy the attention, or maybe they would realise they can't get away with it. I'd just be worried about the consequences if I got off the tube, after "speaking out" and the "harasser" then followed me. What is my option then? The fact that the Department for Transport state that 8% of all British women have been sexually harassed on public transport is disturbing. It's not that figure which is so bad, but clearly this must be significantly higher in London/users of the tube. Maybe we just stay sensible, stay alert and try not to travel alone as much as possible. And as a final note, I don't think this is a one-sided argument. At the risk of criticising my fair sex, I've certainly seen bunches of raucous girls going up to men in a fashion that if the attention had been the other way around, we'd almost certainly be crying "harassment".
OJ and I grew up there, we know these things. You might catch Marcus Trescothick, England cricketer, in the Deller's Wharf nightclub. Noel Edmonds once landed at our school in a helicopter. Michael Ancram, then Tory chairman, turned up and shook my hand. That's about it. And now I can confirm Taunton maintains this reputation in the eyes of the rest of Britain.
How do I know? Through a two-minute break in transmission during The Daily Politics on the BBC. BBC editor Jamie Donald explains what happened:
Today on The Daily Politics, Jenny Scott gave a "big board" presentation on the troubles in Gaza - the kind of item where to tell the story we run pictures, graphics and clips into a big screen in the studio with a presenter, standing in front, linking them all together live.
Suddenly, in the middle of it, a picture of a bearded man in a studio flashed up, followed by the BBC Two caption saying there had been a break in transmission. We were back on air within two minutes ... The problem was a straightforward bit of finger trouble: I won’t name names, but someone hit the wrong button in the gallery, was distracted by another problem and there we weren’t.
A comment left beneath Jamie Donald's article, by a man named Matthew, reads as follows:
Well, who was that bearded fellow? And what was the room we were seeing? It seems the BBC is in the business of giving minor people an active say in politics - witness the recent News 24 gaffe with Guy (the taxi driver, actually interviewee.) Oh, and add to that list Blue Peter's recruitment of the gafferboy.... the BBC is making stars out of Z list celebrities - the true all out commoner!
The Daily Politics' Alan Connor responds:
The room was in the BBC's Taunton studio, and the "Z-lister" was Antony Jay, writer of Yes Minister.
How nice to be part of an organisation that a) gives its editors space to talk about how they feel when their programmes go wrong, b) gives its audience the right to leave comments, good or bad, immediately below that space, and c) fosters an atmosphere where employees can weigh in with contributions like Alan did, midway through a comment thread involving editors and audience alike.
The BBC Editors' blog is definitely worth checking out, if only since the editors featured have impeccable taste. Newsnight editor Peter Barron demonstrated this today when he linked to us in one of his posts! I won't link to the article in question - that'd be some kind of bizarre reciprocal-linking-squared and it'd all end in tears. And anyway you should be encouraged to read the Editors' Blog in its entirety. Click here to read it.
Yes, I admit my prediction was pants. Henman played really well in the first set though and then after that... it was pretty easy for Federer to win. I think my money is on Roddick. I've decided he's quite lovely.
I was looking at the SportRelief stuff today, specifically the "run a mile". However, it's on the 2nd Saturday in July and I may be involved in our County Show. If you've any ideas for either Ollie or I, or both though, I'd be interested to hear them! The madder the better.
Mr Autoglass was very satisfactory. Thumbs-up to DirectLine insurance. On another note, I need to sort a pension out for September... (OJ? Help!)
"Off to the Henley Regatta tomorrow to take photos of "fit men in tight pants". Why am I not doing Ollie's job?!! Having said that, I'm meeting a friend from Lincoln in the morning (in Kent), a friend from College in the evening (in London) and having a pedicure in the middle (in Kent). So it's going to be a hectic day! I'm sure the pedicure, spa and eyebrow pluck will be the most stressful!
On another note, I bought some gorgeous earrings and a bangle today. They match the new clothes I (substitute: my father) bought on Saturday. Now, all I need is some lovely young man to take me out so I can wear them... offers on an email please...
Well I went to a hen night last night and rather like Ollie I feel as though "my body is a quivering wreck, battered simultaneously by alcohol, sleep deprivation and sheer weight of laughter". But it was a great laugh and lots of fun, even though I think I'm going to go and have an afternoon nap. I wasn't that p*ssed, but I definitely sunk an incredibly quantity of alcohol throughout the evening. At least the man of the household greeted us with pints of water when we got in and then made us bacon butties for breakfast. Needless to say I didn't rush to drive home this morning!
Prior to the hen night yesterday, I accompanied my parents into Canterbury. Actually, we went in separate cars since I would be going off to the hen night, but at least I agreed to go along. Why did I want to keep them company choosing a bed? Let me see? Because perhaps my father would take pity on me and buy me a new skirt and top? And the plan worked. I then bought myself a pair of red shoes. They're actually very tasteful (and a dull red, not bright red) but do have, as my God-Mother described, "a f*ck me heel". Woe betide the first man who sees me wearing them. My Dad passed amusing wisdom on the female psych though: why did you buy red shoes when you don't own anything red, and then get me to buy you a turquoise top and white and turquoise skirt... when you don't have anything else in that colour? No wonder women are always complaining that they don't have enough clothes that "match". Heh.
Question to the world: Is OJ alive? Has Devon engulfed him? Are you lost amid washing and gardening?!
Oh dear me, what a 24 hours or so. My body is a quivering wreck, battered simultaneously by alcohol, sleep deprivation and sheer weight of laughter. I don't think I've stopped laughing since this time last night, much of it Hitler-cat related.
Not all of it, mind. Some of it was definitely Singstar-related. Singstar is the PlayStation karaoke phenomenon which allows friends to compete against each other singing various eighties anthems (or other tracks depending on the version(s) you purchase). You can see on-screen how close you are to being in tune, how many points you and your opponent have scored, and watch the video for the song with the lyrics at the same time. I can't entirely remember all the songs I did but Kate Bush, 'Running Up That Hill', was definitely involved.
Singstar is great for plain old karaoke but it comes into its own with its unique, hilarious game of 'karaoke pong'. Pong was the seminal early arcade game which took the form of extremely rudimentary computer tennis, using big white blocks to smack a smaller white block from one side of the screen to another and back again. In the Singstar version you use your voice to direct your big white block - 'paddle' - up and down your side of the screen depending on where the ball is travelling (miss the ball and you lose). Emit a high note and your paddle soars upwards; unleash your booming baritone and the paddle plunges lower. It is harder than you think, not least because you end up laughing and the sound of laughter sends your paddle all over the place.
I do have a wonderful sound recording of people playing Singstar pong last night and producing a series of squeaks and growls - I'll try to rescue the audio off my phone at some point.
In other news I can tell you our Ascot Ladies' Day photo gallery received over 100,000 page impressions yesterday, a huge figure, so we're very happy indeed about that. I'll confess, I had my doubts that sixty-plus pictures of hats could hold public attention, but my god have I been proved wrong. If you know an event coming up in Berkshire that'd make a good photo gallery then definitely let me know, they're always immensely popular.
Double Ducks
The Holland Park Avenue Crash
NatWest: Another Day
"Hi! I'm not Troy McClure!"
Yep, who should walk into The Dandy Lion in Bradford-on-Avon during lunch with my friend Becky, but the man himself. The Deal Or No Deal king, looking far better in real life than he does on TV. 
Amy took on the role of hostess and head chef to prepare a sumptuous dinner gratefully wolfed down by all.
The journey from work to Amy's flat had gone so well that David and I, to our surprise, arrived first. But it's safe to say the journey back didn't quite go to plan. We got back to Paddington for 11:55pm, only to discover that the next Reading train didn't leave 'til the ungodly hour of 1am.
Refusing to believe this we scurried round the concourse, establishing that since 9pm all the fast services to Reading had been replaced by buses, but all these buses had long since departed. So we were left to fend for ourselves with the few hundred remaning poor ingrates.
Some meticulous, almost Machiavellian planning (primarily to keep us occupied) saw us grab seats on the train in the inevitable melee when it eventually turned up, but the train proceeded to take half an hour longer than had been billed, finally arriving at almost 2.30am. 
A Holiday?
