A Late Summer's Weekend Tale

I am suffering from that well known 21st Century syndrome known as Blogger’s Block. I think many of us fall victim to this from time to time – except for your Ian Dale’s and co – but I think my problem recently has been that my mind has been preoccupied with weird, wonderful and terrible things at work, and whilst part of me would like to share those stories past experience has taught me that writing about work on a blog is Not A Good Idea. Someone tried to get me sacked once because of it.


I might have written about how stunning West Side Story was at Sadler’s Wells, but Reidski’s account does that task far better than I could ever manage. So I give you –A Midsummer Night’s Dream.


Another era ago, me and a group of friends used to have a weekend in Stratford upon Avon once a year – see a play, row on the river (that’s row a boat on the river, not have a row on the river – although sometimes there would be a bit of both), and drink copious amounts of alcohol. A nostalgic trawl through old photographs of these events recently led to us deciding to bring back the Stratford weekend – and to introduce the second generation to the delights of Shakespeare. (Actually this was my second attempt to teach my lads the joys of Shakespeare – the first not being what you might call an unqualified success…see below for replay of that story.)

This weekend therefore found an unsuspecting Stratford upon Avon invaded by a group of 13 of us. Things started as they were meant to continue with a trip to the pub before the matinee performance we were booked to see. Two of us were on the white wine. We did a bottle between us before the play.

The play itself was a great success in that in had something for everyone; even my A Level English Lit student son who swears he can not understand a word of Shakespeare had enough visual funnies to keep him happy. Only one amongst us fell asleep which was a major improvement on my family’s last trip to a play at Stratford. Nine of us went to see a Christmas production of Great Expectations three years ago – I was the only one that time who did NOT fall asleep. My friend Fiona was snoring….loudly.

Getting back to Saturday we came out the theatre at about half 5 and naturally went back to the pub. Another bottle of white wine for me and M. We were both feeling the effects, when to our dismay another bottle of white wine appeared. We gamely ploughed our way through that too. 7.00 found us in a restaurant – alas – with another bottle of white wine. I am not too clear about how I managed to hold it together by this stage, but it was something to do with M getting weepy through her alcoholic intake that left me worried about and protective of her which I think must have somehow kept me reasonably alert.

The reasonably alert bit lasted until we all went back to check into our hotel. It must have only been about half 8. I remember lying down on the bed – and the next thing I knew it was quarter past one. There were slumbering young people around me and I had no idea if they had been there all the time, or if they had been in, gone out again, and come back, and I wasn’t entirely sure if in fact I might have been out somewhere with them. I found out the next morning that they had been in, gone out and come back – but that all their attempts to stir me had been in vain. I don’t think I have EVER slept as deeply as I must have done then. The good bit was that I was hangover free in the morning which was more than any of the others over the age of 17 could say.

We did row – and row – on the river later. The rowing bit comes from a disgraceful tendency to competitiveness which manifests itself amongst us where ever we are divided into two teams. We hired a boat for 6 and one for 7, and obviously it was very important to ‘win’ the officially non existent ‘race’. As some amongst us are never going to be the next Steven Redgrave the rowing action itself left a lot to be desired and some people as a result ended up very wet – and not a little pissed off. Happily the being pissed off only lasted for about three hours so it didn’t spoil anything.

All in all, a great return to our Stratford Weekends, and we would be very happy to go back again this season and see Hamlet – only it appears that Lisa and her friends have bought all the available tickets :-) I am not sure what the attraction for this particular production might be?????




Here’s the July 2005 Shakespeare story:



The National Theatre has a fantastic offer of seats for £10 each. Both my son's have read some Shakespeare at school, and they like '10 things I hate about you' which I thought was quite promising (sort of Shakespearean), and the clincher in grabbing their attention...Dumbledore is starring in Henry IV Part 1 (and that Michael Gambon is in it too, I'd heard he was 'not bad'). To cut to the chase, I got tickets for me, them and my mum.

You will have seen the 'hoodie' debate. To summarise; any teenage boy who wears a top with a hood up is clearly a hooligan and must therefore be banned from polite society, which apparently includes the good shoppers of Bluewater Shopping Centre. I have never been there but clearly it must be packed with refined persons who would never slap their kids in public, swear loudly at their partners or drop chewing gum any where. It must therefore be unlike any shopping centre I have ever visited. I digress.

Seating arrangements were from aisle inwards Mum (age 70), me, (age secret) D (age 15), J (age 13), Unknown Male (uknown age but approx 30), Unknown Male's Wife (also age unknown). Half way through the first half I notice J is sitting wearing his hood up, and has his face covered beneath the jackets zip. He resembles a hooligan. I am perturbed, but having already been told to 'hush' by the guy in front of me when I opened a sweet...DURING A BLOODY SCENE CHANGE...(I noted he was on his own, billy-no-mates, and I can't say I'm surprised) I didn't dare say anything to him. The hood stayed up. His face stayed hidden. And both boys laughed alot. Partly I was pleased as this could mean they were understanding the jokes, but mostly I was getting a bit stressy because most of the time they were giggling there were n't any jokes being made.

The interval. Unknown Male is out of his seat, and so is J to share with me and mum what D already knows very well. It turns out the Unknown Male has been farting through out the first half, sometimes audibly (and was HE told to 'hush'? He was not!), but ALWAYS very, very smelly, hence J burying his face in his jacket. And how subtle was J in conveying this news? As you may imagine, every one remaining in their seats during the interval knew, including I'm sorry to say, Unknown Male's Wife, who looked mortified, doubly so when he returned within minutes bearing ice creams. She suggested they went for a walk, and I imagine pointed him firmly in the direction of the gents. J refused to sit in the same seat for the second half. My poor mother had that pleasure, but either her sense of smell isn't what it was, or he had done what was required as there were no further reports of anti-social behaviour.

And of course, when any one asks J how he found his first Shakespeare play he tells them that he didn't have a clue what the play was about but.....

The boys done good

Good enough anyway.

Younger son passed all four on higher grades than his brother did this time last year, and older son got an A and a C at A Level and a B at AS Level and has got a place on the course he wanted for September next year (coming up to your neck of the woods Yorkshire Pudding.)

One of the reasons I was so genuinely worried was that my eldest’s GSCE’s were so decidedly average that he ended up taking two subjects at A Level which he should never have been doing – French and Maths. French was dropped within his first six weeks in the 6th Form, and Maths whilst lasting the entire year came to an inglorious end with an Unclassified at AS Level. To get the points tally he needed to get into university he really had to perform in his exams this time round and from where I was sitting it didn’t look like that was happening. The Parents Evening in March this year was just horrible with dire warnings from all his teachers. So I guess when my back was turned he MUST have worked since then – but I’m still not entirely sure precisely when.

My eldest told me afterwards that getting those results was the greatest moment of his life – and he had previously thought nothing would ever beat the feeling he got when he passed his driving test. Can’t tell you how lovely it was to hear him say that. Or what a relief those results really were.

Tomorrow

promises to be a day of contrasts.

In the afternoon Reidski and I are going to Sadler's Wells to see West Side Story (see this for far more articulate praise than I could ever manage on just what makes West Side story so wonderful.) The reviews have been nothing less than gushing and as it is probably my favourite film of all time to say I am looking forward to it is way past an understatement.

In the morning however..........





both my sons get their exam results.


Now it is not that I think either or both of them are incapable of passing exams. GSCE results in the past have indeed shown that they CAN pass exams - albeit it not with flying colours. I had hoped that given how averagely they did achieve at GSCE Level that they would be spurred on to work somewhat harder during their sixth form studies. This has proved to be a false hope.

I was a right little swot at school. For my A Levels I got what my careers teacher told me were "the best results in the school by far." (False modesty apart they WERE the best results in the school by far - but the competition wasn't exactly red hot.) Anyway, what I am trying to say here is that I got my results by working - by working hard - and call me old fashioned but I still tend to think that in order to pass exams you really do need to actually revise for the things. There was no visible sign whatsoever that either of my boys were revising for their exams last June. Even with my most optimistic head on I cannot realistically hope for anything more than them having 'just about done enough' when the results arrive tomorrow.

So to say I am not exactly looking forward to hearing their results is also way past an understatement. And it can be guaranteed that when the media is banging on tomorrow about how A Level results are up again that my cats will be staying well out of kicking range.


(As I was writing this my friend Anne sent me a text asking me to wish them both luck for tomorrow. If only that was all that was needed!)

(Arrghh! You won't believe this and I hardly expect you to but I just got another text before I could press 'publish' from my friend Fiona saying the exact same thing. Do all my friends have psychic powers or are they just trying to cause me additional stress?)

From 'Not the End of the World' by Christopher Brookmyre

Story is set in 1999....

The boat moved off with a loud horn-blast and then the excruciatingly over-familiar opening chords of Prince's '1999'. Steff hadn't heard a song played so fucking much since every restaurant, supermarket, joinery, plumbing firm, tyre-fitter's, DIY store and travel agent boasted to the world that they were 'Simply The Best'. The Huns used it to, over the PA when the team took the field, further proof if it could ever be needed that individuality and original thought were largely incompatible with supporting Glasgow Rangers Football Club.


I would have found it even funnier had not the Cobblers also resorted to 'that song' on occasion - though I always kind of hoped we were only using it give the opposition a good laugh.

Here we go, here we go, here we go

First day of the football season was upon us once again. No sense of expectations for today as we have failed to win our opening home match of the season for the past 13 years. But records like that are of course there to be broken and tonight I am a Happy Cobbler as we won 4-2 today against The Mighty Cheltenham. Don't believe they are that Mighty huh? Well let me tell you that to the best of my knowledge Cheltenham Town have, at various points in their history, spent literally hundreds of pounds on players good enough to wear their shirt. ;-)

And if only the table looked like this come the last day of the season we wouldn't complain too much.

(Millwall lost 4-3 having been 3-1 up with 79 minutes left to play.)

What's been going on?

It's Friday and the past week or so has gone past in a flash.

I have been neglectful of blogging Quick Catch Up time.

TNR and Mrs TNR were down in London staying at Reidksi's place last week and it was great to catch up with them.

Before meeting up with them I put my daughter on the train to deepest Devon where she was going to be staying with friends for a few days. I was so paranoid about this Journey Alone..though she was totally unfazed. I ensured she was sat near women and families - ie no weird men - although I found out later that a very weird old woman got on and harassed her for her forward facing sear later, and a 15 year old boy 'helped her with her case', so so much for my planning.

TNR and Mrs TNR are great cooks - see the link above to TNR's food blog called 'Chicken omelette, nae peas' which if I remember correctly is what a friend is his and Reidski's always ordered at their local Chinese. Saturday night they cooked a group of us some wonderful Spanish food.I am still drooling as I remember it now.

I was back in London again on Monday night which was their last evening in London and yet more wonderful food was had, this time at Wahaca which is a truly brilliant - and cheap - Mexican place in Covent Garden owned, as I learnt then, by a former winner of BBC's Masterchef Thomasina Miers. (The chillies she uses come from Devon. I took this as evidence my daughter would be basking in exotic sunshine during her stay at the Devon coast- yeah right.)

Plans for getting my daughter back from Devon had been carefully laid and involved her being picked up yesterday. Enough to say that those carefully laid plans spectacularly collapsed in the past few days and led to me having to take a 400 mile drive yesterday to fetch her home. I took my 16 year old son with me for company and map reading...although the second of his allotted tasks was scrubbed when he told me as we passed Oxford that he couldn't read maps. I was outraged. "What the bloody hell do they teach you in geography if not how to read maps? I asked. "Coastal erosion" was the answer. I didn't get much conversation either although I did get to listen to a lot of The Libertines, Dirty Pretty Things and Babyshambles. There is a link there somewhere I think ;-) It would have been OK but I got the lyrics 'Bang, bang, you're dead' stuck on relentless replay in my head which was a bit disconcerting.

We stopped for lunch in a little Somerset town called Ilminster where as J pointed out, he was the youngest person in the entire place - and I was second youngest. Lovely meal at a pub called The George - The Good Pub Guide coming up trumps again.

We got an hour on the beach before setting off back again. We drove past Stonehenge and I made a comment about how amazing it was to see those ancient stones there. Sometime later my daughter said "You know how you said those stones were so old?" "Yes?" said I. "Well, I thought all stones were old," she said which at least told me that they do learn something in geography at their school, but did make me wonder what they teach them about this country's heritage.

So that is about the week that was, or at least it is as I am going to spare you the gory details of a story concerning my 11 year old niece, her tonsil, a one and a half inch long salmon bone and three hours in casualty. (She is fine now thank you.)

Off now to see one of my nuttier clients which, believe me, makes this one very nutty indeed. Groan.

Nothing new under the sun

We trained hard ... but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization

Arbiter, Gauis Petronius on Opportunity

Quote from Quotations Book



Petronius (ca. 27–66) was a Roman writer of the Neronian age; he was a noted satirist.

The Big Read Survey

I saw this at Darren's place and thought I would have a go. It is a survey* that originated because “The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed."

So you have to see how many you have read in order to identify those amongst us who conform to their version of the average adult. But what a strange list it is. I suppose though that is what you get when you allow us plebs to vote on books. At least Lord of the Rings has been knocked off the top spot on the most recent poll of BBC viewers by a book worthy of the title Number One Best Book of All Time. (Although I know at least one person who may see this hates Jane Austen.)


1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you love.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them
I would add that 'read' means read, not flicked through or given up half way to the end. It's cover to cover or nothing.

Editor's note.I don't know how to underline so the one's I love are in capital letters. Suggest anyone else trying this copies and pastes from Darren.

Here goes:

1 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien.
3 JANE EYRE - Charlotte Bronte
4 THE HARRY POTTER SERIES - JK Rowling
5 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (Grade A R.E. O Level I will have you know!
7 WUTHERING HEIGHTS - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 CATCHER IN THE RYE - JD Salinger
19 THE TIME TRAVELLER'S WIFE - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 EMMA - Jane Austen
35 PERSUASION - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (to my shame - what a load of crap!)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 ATONEMENT - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A TALE OF TWO CITIES - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME- Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (Who the fuck voted for this??? Life is too short!)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome (probably did when at school but have no memory of it.)
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 HAMLET - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


So I have read, if I have counted correctly 52 of them, though I take no pleasure in admitting to The Da Vinci Code. And I haven't actually read all the Bible, though was red hot on the Synoptic Gospels in my day.

I think they should add another category of how many have you have never even heard of let alone read? Five in my case ....Number's 56, 78, 86, 88 and 92.

Darren didn't pass it on exactly but left it as an open invitation so I will happily follow his example except for naming Reidski because the genius that is TNR has only gone and fixed Reidski's computer so he can get back to blogging at last. But for what it's worth - I enjoyed doing it.


* Note use of word 'Survey' rather than 'meme'. Still not over what that arse who commented on the Fatalist's blog said about me when he did a 'meme' I sent him.

Death has them parted

Warning. This post contains dialogue spoken by my family members. To put it another way it contains lots of swearing.

Yesterday my family came together to say goodbye to my Auntie Mary, wife to my Uncle Bill and mother to my cousins Bill junior and Linda who died last week aged 77. She had been very poorly for a long time and when she died they say she looked thirty years younger. This is a comfort.

I struggle to describe my Uncle Bill. He is my only blood uncle and I love him dearly, but the words obnoxious, cantankerous, offensive and others in like vein spring instantly to mind when trying to provide a pen portrait of him. Johnny Speight must have encountered him some time in the early 60’s. I well remember various horrific moments in my past when I have had to introduce assorted boyfriends to my Uncle Bill - always accompanied by whispered pleas from me not to take any notice of a single word he said.

Uncle Bill was firmly of the opinion a woman’s place was in the home, except in the case of the only other woman he ever loved – Margaret Thatcher. He was always the archetypal Working Class Tory although I suspect he only became a Tory to annoy his dad (my granddad) – a life long Socialist. He never allowed Mary out of his sight. Not once since they married has she ever had a night out without him. We discovered at the funeral yesterday to our collective horror that Mary had met Bill when she was 14. SIXTY THREE YEARS WITH MY UNCLE BILL. Never have the words ‘After much suffering’ been so appropriate in an obituary.

Coming now to Bill junior (aged 50). At some point in the past fifteen years he went mad. He returned to live with his parents (evidence of madness if any was needed) and that was when battle really commenced. To all outward appearances, he and his dad loath each other and always have done. They were, and indeed still are, unable to agree on a single thing. Either would swear black was white if the other took the opposite view. Poor, poor Mary, a door mat if ever there was one, put up with this state of affairs till the day she died. Her daughter Linda – so incensed by the way her brother made her mother’s life even more of a misery - stopped speaking to him over ten years ago. Bill junior in his madness then became a recluse. He was last spotted in public at our previous family funeral five years ago.

Speculation was quite fevered in the family following Mary’s merciful release from this misery. Would Bill junior be at the funeral? (Answer: Yes) Would Bill and Linda be reconciled? (Answer: No) And would Bill senior behave with any decorum at the funeral? (Answer: No, no and no again.)

The service itself, conducted by a priest who did his best considering that he had never met Mary in his life, passed by without incident; or at least they did once the seating arrangements in the front row were sorted out to allow sufficient space between Bill junior and Linda. (Although that did cause some noticeable delay.)

Little digression here but I was reminded of the book I have just read; ‘Behind the Scenes at the Museum’ by Kate Atkinson which makes one think of the many things we do not know about the lives and emotions of our older relations. Yesterday I discovered Mary loved opera. One would never have imagined that Mary loved opera but she did. Quite poignant somehow.

The wake was held at the home of a friend of Linda’s who none of us knew. Linda’s house was too small, Bill’s was out of the question, and the friend very kindly offered before either my mum or her two sisters had a chance to volunteer. Uncle Bill and his warring offspring left the crematorium in the car to return to the funeral parlour where their cars were parked. We were all in the garden of this total stranger for a good while before they arrived, drinking PG Tips and nibbling at dry roasted peanuts. I seemed to have acquired the task of chaperoning an elderly (very) distant relation. (Widower of my mum’s Auntie Win if I got that bit right.) Anyway, I had never met him before but he was quite charming, and even managed not to be boring when telling me about his new hearing aid. (Reidski would say I should have listened very close attention to what he had to say on that subject.)

The genteel chattering was disrupted by the words “For fuck’s sake father!” which heralded the arrival of The Bills senior and junior. My uncle came across to the table where I was standing and started emptying the contents of a plastic carrier bag on to the grass by my feet. The contents included an entire change of clothes including socks and brown underpants. The pants sat on top of the pile and much as I was aware they were making the place look untidy I didn’t quite like to pick them up so they stayed where they were until some time later a horrified Linda scooped them up and away. Uncle Bill was looking for his fags. He declared “I am not fucking staying here if I can’t find my bleeding fags.” One of my aunties attempted to calm him down with the words “I’m sure there will be someone else who smokes here. (One only had to look around to see we were indeed surrounded by other smokers) I am sure they will let you have a smoke.” “They’re not bleeding smokers!” Bill senior declared “They just play at fucking smoking!” Uncle Bill you see is the last man still alive who chain smokes Players non tipped cigarettes and obviously considers all other smokers to be pussies.







Now of course one needs to show a certain amount of sympathy to the recently bereaved, except his temper tantrum was not caused by grief alone, but more as we subsequently learnt because back at the funeral directors he had reversed his car into their wall and demolished it. The car is probably a write off. We suspect Mary may be getting her own back from beyond the grave.

Bill junior asked in a caring manner “Are you sure they’re not in your bleeding jacket pocket you stupid bastard?” “Course they’re not in my fucking jacket pocket!” replies Bill senior. Course they were in his fucking jacket pocket and peace was restored. Bill senior then undid all his shirt buttons, rolled up his trouser legs and kicked off his shoes. He cut a charming picture.

Faced with the prospect of another few hours of this we looked around for the alcohol. There wasn’t any. On reflection, and given the volatile nature of family relationships, this was probably very wise, but at the moment we realised we were trapped at a teetotal affair it seemed like the world had just ended. It was therefore a relief when Bill junior announce “I’m off for a fucking pint”, and me and some of my other cousins rapidly agreed it wouldn’t be fair to let him drink on his own and we went too, at speed with my dad bringing up the rear – although dad makes out he can not hear a thing, he very clearly caught the word ‘Pub’. And so the majority of the older generation were left behind to ask (according to my mum) “Is Young Bill on drugs?” (Answer: No – but he should be.)

A close encounter with one from The Upper Classes

I know I have talked about the man who cuts my hair before. I have known Nick now for well over half my life. He works in his back bedroom in a street of terraced houses once built for the workers in the shoe factories which once upon a time were at the end of every street in Northampton. He is a very talented hair dresser (in my opinion anyway ) and in spite of the distinctly unglamorous setting in which he chooses to work, he has a huge range of clients, not all of them related to me – although at least fourteen of them are.

His dad is ill at the moment. Every time I ask after his dad he replies “He’s still alive – unfortunately.” The story reproduced below from August 2005 one part of that family history but remaining focused on the more recent past I was at Nick’s on Saturday afternoon. Waiting for her turn was a posh type of woman. Example of conversation from this woman: When Nick asked her if her kids had broken up yet she replied “Oh, they broke up weeks ago (which means they are at private schools). That was why we could go on holiday before the riff raff (ie – the likes of me with my kids at state school).” And she really did use the term ‘riff-raff’ without any hint that she was trying to be funny.

So it transpired that she was having her hair done as she was going to a polo match the following day. I had never met anyone before who goes to polo matches. Nick asked her what she was going to wear. She explained the dress code was ‘smart casual’ which she had translated as meaning she would be turning out in a Betty Jackson dress and Miu Miu shoes. I have just done some price checks and discovered that a Betty Jackson dress would cost in the region of £350 and the shoes something like £250. Smart casual indeed. I have no way of knowing what her vintage handbag with real ostrich feathers which she described to us in great detail would have cost.

As I sat listening to this I thought about what I was wearing ( shorts M&S - £15, vest top Gap - £3.99) and wondered at the fact that I share the same hairdresser as this creature from another dimension. This morning I am gaining some satisfaction from realising that no matter how expensively dressed she was, or indeed how good her hair looked , it is highly unlikely anyone looked twice at her when the competition included Kelly Brook (complete with legs), and the incredibly beautiful Emma Watson. Does that make me a really horrible mean minded person I wonder?



The old Nick and his dad story….

This morning I went to have my hair cut. Nick cuts my hair. He is the most brilliant wonderful person. He works in the back bedroom of his house. Occasionally – but only if Nick is ill - I go to posh salons to have my hair cut. It is never the same. For one thing it is always much more expensive, for another, Nick never asks me where I am going for my holidays, whereas other hairdressers always pretend to be interested in that subject, and for another, you never get your hairdresser's dad bursting in to the house, with his dog called Kylie in tow, and starting to sob because his 'lodger' had left him.



Nick's dad was married to Nick's mum, but sadly Nick's mum died a few years ago. Nick looked after his dad when this happened. Nick did wonder if his dad just might be gay when he called his dog Kylie, but at the time put that down to mental illness. Then Nick's dad took in the male 'lodger', AGED 19! He met this 'lodger' in a shop where the 'lodger' was working, and the shop was called (oh Thank You God for this bit!) 'It's A Gift'. And he was so besotted he only went and changed his will in favour of this 'lodger', and against poor Nick! So the good news is that it looks like the will will be altered again, but the bad news is that Nick's dad was very upset, and the worse news is, I had to pretend I could wait another week for a hair cut, because one can only intrude to a certain degree on private grief, and I felt the need to get the hell out of there!

I am easily influenced

When I read reviews of a film like this review of 'Mamma Mia' by Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian that starts thus:

I've been cheated by films since I don't know whe-e-n,
Ta-da-da-da-da; ta-da-da-da-da.
This one's got one good point: it must come to an end.
Ta-da-da-da-da; ta-da-da-da-da.
Look at me now! Will I ever learn?
I don't know who ... thought Pierce Brosnan should sing in it.
How on earth could it not... be... shit?
One more smirk, and then I knew it would bomb,
One more scene and I'd a great need to vom',
Oh-woah...

it rather puts me off seeing such a film.

So when my friend asked me about going to see it I was somewhat less than enthusiastic, but I went anyway and my daughter came too.

Now, never let it be said that Pierce Brosnan can sing, and yes, there were some cringe making moments in the film, but having said that - what a brilliant feel good film it is. I loved every minute. As did the women (the cinema was packed - and 98% of the audience were women) who cheered and clapped when the film ended (bizarre behaviour but it takes all sorts). And I want to go to a Greek Island NOW THIS MINUTE having seen the film setting. Skegness it ain't. You would have to be amongst the most miserable, pretentious people in the entire hemisphere not to enjoy it...Peter Bradshaw and John*, I am talking about people such as you.

But I have form here as on 9th September 2005 I wrote on my previous blog the following:

And oh god, I'm so depressed! On Saturday night I am committed to taking my mum and her sister Renee to see the flaming stageshow Mamma Mia as a belated birthday present, arranged by my sister, only conveniently for her, she can't actually go!
.....
A whole evening of Abba music.

What did I ever do to deserve it?

And I was then forced to admit the following two days later:

Humm, how to put this?

Weeelllll, 'Mamma Mia' was not quite what I was expecting.I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but, uummmm....


"Jane, you loved every minute of it didn't you"

"Mumble, mumble"

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that?"

"Mumble, mumble (slightly louder)"

"Again, so they can hear at the back."

OK, OK.

It was absolutely bloody BRILLIANT. I did in fact love every minute of it, and Yes, I was up and dancing and singing away by the end. I shall tell everyone I know to go and see it if they have not already seen it, and I really want to go again and take H. Humble pie is delicious isn't it?

You would have to be the most miserable, pretentious person in the entire hemisphere not to enjoy it.......

John* really would have hated it!

* An ex who happens to be the most miserable and pretentious person in the entire hemisphere.

Definitely NOT lovely John of Counago and Spaves fame.

A message

from Reidski.

Some of you may have noticed his long term absence from this here blogging scene.

This is because of on going aggro from his computer which for months now has been playing up, and which would now appear to have something terminal in the computer disease (virus?) department.

So anyway, he does still exist and he is not a figment of my imagination, and he does hope to be back bothering you / making witty and pertinent comments (delete as appropriate) soon.

Crossword clue

Cat - carpet. 7 letters.


I still maintain that my suggestion - 'Fluffie' - was quite reasonable if just a little bit 'girlie'.


Reidski is however still taking the piss out of me 24 hours later.

Over the past few months

I have had to get used to a new and unwelcome response when anyone asks after my mum and dad. For many years my stock reply has been "They are very well thank you." Recently though I have found myself explaining that my mum was waiting to have her gall bladder removed and we were worried my dad had prostate cancer.

My mum finally had her operation about a month ago and she is just about back to her old self.

My dad had obviously been worrying that 'something' wasn't quite right as on a visit to our G.P on an unrelated matter he happened to say to her that he had been looking for a leaflet on prostate cancer in the waiting room but hadn't seen one. She announced she would take a blood test there and then as a sensible precaution with a man of his age. A few days later and he got a call to tell him the test had proved positive. Since then, and we are talking about from March onwards, he has been backwards and forwards to the hospital for one test after another designed to find out the stage the cancer was at, and if it had spread elsewhere.

He didn't want me to know, but mum did tell me. He is a typical product of his generation and much prefers to keep such worries private, and it was difficult knowing what, if anything, to say to him. Usually what I know a friend or relation has a health problem I have been consult articles and the internet to know what it is that they are up against, but in dad's case I just couldn't bring myself to google the words 'prostate cancer' because I knew there would be information contained in the articles that I didn't want to have to acknowledge. Whilst dad continued not to talk about it he has since confessed that every ache and pain he has experienced since March had left him convinced cancer was spreading through his body.

He got the verdict when I was in Bruges. Mum went with him but he saw the consultant on his own. When he emerged his face gave nothing away and he just whispered to my mum he didn't want to talk about it in there (the hospital). Mum obviously feared the worst but as soon as they were through the door he practically whooped with delight and annouced he was fine.

He does have prostate cancer but it is in the earliest stage, it has not spread, and it is treatable with hormones.

I have finally been able to look up prostate cancer on the internet. Thankfully my dad is one of those relatively rare men who would not ignore a worry relating to his health, and did get the early diagnosis that is so vital with this condition. That's why I am writing this now -

Men -

My sentiments exactly

Things started to look up

when we arrived at our hotel in Bruges which was formally a 15th century mansion overlooking one of the canals and is now a stunningly beautiful place to stay. When we saw the room rates we had an anxious moment along the lines of "Are you sure when you paid the room was included?" What was immediately clear was that the Guardian travel offer I had picked up was very very good value indeed.

And it included breakfast.


Breakfast included champagne. As much champagne as one could drink.

The first morning we spent a long time looking at the champagne and wondering if we had the nerve to go and help ourselves - watching other guests like hawks to see if any of them had champagne, and if so, how much, and were we SURE the champagne was included? Then when I finally grasped the bullet and went to get some I came back - with drinks - to tell Reidski it wasn't real champagne, it was that pommery stuff...which only goes to show how little I know about champagne. It was real all right. And it was amazing how quickly we got used to - indeed positively expected - champagne for breakfast. Clearly no day should start without at least three glasses of the stuff. Oh yes - and the food was very nice too :-)

Belgium is a small country about which I knew next to nothing before we arrived, but what I do now know is that from the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, it was a prosperous centre of commerce and culture, and present day Bruges still has a centre with buildings that have survived since those days. And very lovely it is too.











We were there for three nights and did loads of walking, had a canal trip - although not, I am happy to say, in the same conditions as the poor sods in the last photo did......



and caught some culture too including Hieronymus Bosch's The Last Judgement which reflects on the nature of Purgatory and was described in the film In Bruges as 'It's when you're not really bad and not really good - like Tottenham.'

We nearly had to kill a couple in the art gallery which could have put a bit of a dampener on our break though. They stood right in front of every painting they looked at, blissfully oblivious to the other people wanting to catch so much as a glimpse of the same painting rather than their backsides.

Rather than go on all day (I am very busy - it is amazing how much one finds to do when one is on strike)I will cut this short now.

People were really friendly; it was easy to get to by train; the bars sold up to 440 Belgian beers; and the chips were every bit as good as I remembered. What with that and the scenery, and being there with someone special, what more could one ask for from a city break?

That water crisis

previously mentioned here is thankfully now resolved. Rumours flew around that it was a dead body that had contaminated the water. It seems that those rumours were
not entirely with out foundation.

Poor bunny.

How much stress

is it possible to experience before 8.05 in the morning?

Quite a lot in the case of our journey from New Cross to St Pancras.

This is a journey that from Reidski's door takes in the region of 40 minutes on a slow day. As we had a train to Brussels to catch which departed at the aforementioned 8.05 we were up and out the house by 6.40 and even drove my car to near the station rather than walk to save a bit of time. That decision in now officially known as Mistake No 1. I noticed as we drove that my right side indicator light was showing on the dashboard as being on - permanently. 'Strange' I think. We park up and I realise the lights are flashing merrily away. I attempt to retrieve the situation - that is to say, I attempted to switch them off, but they declined to be switched off. 'Sod it!'Looking at the time - and we were supposed to check in half an hour before departure - there was no option but to leave the car as it was in the sure and certain knowledge we would be returning to a flat battery (which we did).

We got the train to London Bridge where we went down to the tube station for the Northern Line train to St Pancras. That was when we heard the announcement that no trains were stopping at St Pancras apart from Metropolitan and Circle Line trains and that therefore we needed to change at Moorgate. This change turned out to involve something like a ten minute sprint - Moorgate Station is massive and the lines were miles apart from each other. Blood pressure was rising and time was getting shorter.

It was a relief to get to St Pancras and the Eurostar automatic ticket machines. I followed the instructions on screen to get my tickets and entered the reference number I had on my confirmation letter. I received the following message - 'Number not recognised. Please try again.' So I did.... And then I tried again.... And then I tried another machine.... And then I asked an assistant. 'Are there are letters in your reference number?' she asked me. 'No' I replied. 'Oh, there have to be letters in your reference number' she told me. She suggested we go - post haste as it is now gone 7.30 - to the ticket office, and so we went there to find a queue that is practically out the door. 'Holy Shit.'

We joined the queue and I decided that as I had an emergency phone number for out of hours emergencies - this did qualify as an emergency and I was going to ring it. The guy I rang was clearly delighted to be woken up. He said he would have to log into his computer and said he would call me back in five minutes and fifteen minutes later when he still had not returned my call I rang him back to be told he couldn't log on to his computer and was therefore unable to give me my correct booking reference number (with letters).

Thanks be to whoever at Eurostar was responsible for putting sufficient ticket office staff on that early morning shift we reached the front of the queue and obtained our tickets with precisely seven minutes to spare. Imagine then our joy when the woman in front of us at the ticket barrier somehow managed to break the thing, and further imagine our good humour when Mr Jobsworth wouldn't let us through an open barrier because 'Your tickets have to go through the ticket barrier.'

For the first time in my life (I am British through and through) we queue jumped security, legged it through passport control, and somehow, even with me dropping half the contents of my bag in my panic to find the ticket to show the attendant, although said ticket was in my hand all the time, we made the train with 90 whole seconds to spare.

Here is a picture of what awaited us when we finally made it to Bruges, just to remind myself that all that stress was worthwhile.

So much to tell

but so pushed for time. In the meantime though this is a short post in praise of the Loo's of Bruges.

EVERY SINGLE ONE I used was immaculately clean. Oh that the same thing could be said of public facilities in this country. The video however captures the moment I thought my drinks had been spiked....

Offski

Me and Reidski that is for a few days next week to Bruges.

I have been before but was only ten at the time and have happy memories of canal trips, and tasty chocolate and chips. (This time next week I will probably be considering 9 stone 13.5 pounds as a thoroughly acceptable weight!)

We got what appears to be a brilliant deal through one of those newspaper offers and without wanting to make anyone jealous (she lies) the hotel looks absolutely stunning. So next week I shall mostly be laying in the lap of luxury - unless Reidski has any better ideas ;-)

Before that though a heavy weekend of partying awaits me. It is a tough life isn't it?

Hope you all have as good a week as I intend to.

It is a pity it looks like I am going to miss the blood soaked revolution though.