Actually, where does all that energy go?

Low (battery) life

Every portable device died on me today. Mobile phone (work, simple); mobile phone (personal, Blackberry); laptop (forgot charger); camera; mobile phone (again, short charge in the car, being used a substitute camera); other mobile phone (again, short charge in the car, being used as the second substitute camera). Where does all that charging up go? The laptop does nothing much. It's a windows machine so Bill Gates probably gets a cut from the electricity companies. The camera is digital zoom only so there's no moving parts. In fact, moving parts don't exist unless the CD drive in the laptop spins up. We're in the 21^st century, this kit should need charging up once a month at most.

Tacos...

...tonight. Thanks MM. Dead good.

Pollack...

...last night, with black pudding and mushroom stroganoff sauce. That turned out OK too.

Tomorrow...

...could well see a fish head back on. Mixed fish and seafood gently poached in a broth with some vegetables for a one-pot dinner.

Black pudding...

...thanks to BO'S for the reminder. Almost everything is better with black pudding. Maybe not cornflakes. Don't fancy the black pudding ice cream, either, when Heston Blumenthal gets around to it.

My personal battery

Seven (first meeting) to seven (left office) yesterday. Seven (started long drive) to eight thirty (parked up back home) today, and have to set off before seven tomorrow. I'm feeling tired. Jaded, too, because apparently it's Internation Being Very Rude and Aggressive week. Tiresome, petty, little folk. Very tempting to give them some:

“Sorry, so sorry. You've got me confused with someone who gives a …”

“Bye. I have so enjoyed our little chat.”

“Thanks. You know. For the input.”

“See you. Give my love to everyone, back in the Shire.”

Goodnight.

The Yips

I love the library

I stopped off to collect two books ordered in for me. Both brand spanking. One is a large print paperback (don't laugh, it was the only copy they had) and the other is hardback. Saraswati Park is a comedy of manners set in a Bombay suburb. That's the large print paperback. The Yips is Booker longlisted. The cover blurb includes a quote and a description:

“There was a rat in the bath”, Gene explains. “It's a long story, but basically I fished it out and was carrying it around by the tail, not quite sure how to dispose of it, when I managed to barge in on this woman having a genital tattoo.”

'Nicola Barker's The Yips is at once an historical novel of the pre-Twitter moment and the most flamboyant piece of comic fiction ever to be set in Luton.'

Can't wait to get started.

Gareth, what was that you said?

For the second time a Charlie Adam tackle has left Gareth Bale on crutches. Bale called Adam a 'coward' and is obviously unhappy about the challenge. So upset, that he said:

“When someone makes a very bad tackle on you, you expect an apology. I've had no apology. And I'm not going to accept his apology.”

Oh well. That's that then. Don't hold your breath awaiting the apology, Gareth.

Swimming...on the radio

I tried to listen to the Radio 5 Olympic coverage while driving. The swimming was on. It just didn't work. Not everything's suited to radio commentary.

Iran and England

Four people in Iran have been sentenced to hanging. For bank fraud. We give ours a bigger bonus or a massive golden handshake. Just saying.

Shooting today...

...is the men's skeet.

Please, that's not a bulletproof vest he's wearing, is it? Is there a H&S nurd just out of the picture with his clipboard and high viz?

Now, I want a bow, not a pistol

Olympics today

Today's events include the women's 10 m air pistol shooting. After those air rifles, I'm looking forward to seeing what the pistols look like. They've got to be huge, futuristic, with enough bells and whistles to make gadget heads drool.

In the sailing it's the men's finn, the men's star and the women's Elliot 6 m. It's the men's individual sabre in the fencing. Individual. I've got a mental picture of team fencing, where there's the main, head-on swordsman, and the sneaky little guy with a dagger operating around the fringes. Or team fencing with twenty and thirty a-side games. Great battlefields of them. Sabre sounds brutal, too. Epee, foil, they sound delicate. All speed of hand and thought, lightning reactions and cut and thrust. Are sabres what pirates used to carry? Great curved blades, designed so that the hit stay that way?

I'm looking forward to the men's individual baseball bat and knuckleduster, and the jet-ski racing, in the Essex arena.

Actually, that's a bit disappointing. Definitely on the cowboy end of the Cowboys and Aliens spectrum. After the rifles, it's almost bell and whistle-free. Thank goodness for the archery, where there's this:

Not this:

How does she do it?

BLISS is on the train up to town (and back) today. Without a book! How can she even think about it? OK with someone, but not on your own, surely?

I can't contemplate travelling on any form of public transport without earphones in, book to bury my head in, and, were it allowed, a t-shirt reading: “No. I don't want to talk to you. I don't want you to talk loud enough for me to hear. Preferably, don't talk at all. Mr Bing Bong? You can stick your station announcements where the sun don't shine. For my approach to children, see Half Man, Half Biscuit's Surging Out of Convalescence...If I wanted nutters I'd be a mental ward nurse. I'm not. If I wanted kids or old folk I'd teach or do geriatric stuff. Nope, neither of those. In fact, if I had to do anything caring in nature, it'd be animal related. Strange as it may seen, left in this bubble, I am serene and happy, and entirely self sufficient. Now. Foxtrot Oscar.”

How can she be so serene and happy with all that outside input. The Envy-ometer is off the scale.

A win!

We're unbeaten this season. On Sundays. Played one, won one.

Big guns and little hitlers

Olympics headlines

I didn't watch the opening ceremony. By all accounts it was very good. I'm afraid I don't do ceremonies in general. Royal weddings, state funerals, all that sort of thing just isn't, well, it isn't my thing.

The first one I can remember is the investiture of the Prince of Wales. It was sold heavily and I was junior school young and approached it without any preconceptions. It might be an exaggeration to say that within minutes I was bored to the point of wanting to slash my wrists with a blunt spoon. It might be, but it probably isn't. When they trundled Elton John out at Di's funeral and he changed the words to the already excruciating Candle in the Wind, I blurted “you're having a laugh” or something similar. Frowned upon. The Polish side. Born without a forelock to tug or the ability to curtsey.

Anyway, I'm glad it went well.

Not so Tory MP Aidan Burley. He described it as “multicultural crap” on Twitter. Surely even the prehistoric opening ceremonies, where the teams followed their flags out onto the running track, walked the 400 metres and went back out were multicultural? Per se? My folks, my family and me are sort of contributors to multiculturalism, like it or not. Burley does not seem to mind all multicultural events, he got in hot water for attending a Nazi themed stag party. No wonder he's back in the fold. New Labour are the old Tories as far as I'm concerned, and the Conservatives could be branded the New Nazi Party. He also described it as “the most leftie opening ceremony I've ever seen”. I suppose it was too heavy on the proles and hoi polloi, and too light on the SS, Gestapo and Stormtroopers.

Jeremy Hunt (Rhyming Slang) also dropped a clanger and almost smashed someone with the bell he was ringing. How is someone so obviously physically retarded minister for sport? Next we'll have inept people with no field experience as ministers for education, health and the like...oh...it seems we already do.

The women's ten metre air rifle shooting

OK, not exactly the hundred metres or even the long jump, but boy, do you get some serious kit to fire a small pellet ten metres. That's, like, only from here to there.

Apparently the bull is 0.5 mm in diameter and the winners just don't miss. Hardly at all. No wonder they need that kit. It looks like a specially imported ray gun from the planet Zog. Impressive. Imagine what they'll be toting in the shooting arena when the big calibre disciplines get going.

Food panics

Fridge and cupboard panics

It's always been milk with BLISS. Milk and some cleaning products I can't name. Blind panic if we get close to running out. I've got a whole shedload of them:

Chilli sauce:

Tabasco. Kiz's fault this one. I like the original, the extra hot and the green. MM likes the barbecue chipotle. Encona's the other one. The straightforward one. Hot pepper sauce. It's always nice to try out others, but I always return to those two.

Then there's soy sauce. Light. Have to have light. Can also have dark and mushroom, but must have light. Lime pickle. So good with almost everything. Creme fraiche. Genius. Instant sauce from a yoghurt pot.

Staples? I'm rice, me. Pasta, bread, spuds, compared to rice I can take or leave those. Basmati, long grain and risotto. We've just run out of risotto rice, and need to get some more. Fresh? Chillies, ginger and garlic, onions. If anything else runs out, I can cope, but not without those. The all-in-one garlic only Lidl seems to do is great. I get bored with the peeling, particularly if the cloves are small.

Decent coffee. Beans to grind or ready for the percolator or French press, but not instant. Tea: white and jasmine.

Milk? Nope. Never worry about the milk. BLISS does that for me.

16 away from 1,000 page hits!

George Obsorne redefines 'disappointing'

Our economic performance, up there with the bankrupt Portugal and Greece, is, according to the chancellor, 'disappointing'. I don't find my pension disappearing, I don't find the prospect of a miserable and skint old age 'disappointing'. Maybe austerity until 2017 or until the currency and our homes become worthless (whichever comes sooner) is 'disappointing', when you are among the very wealthy and unaffected.

Disappointing isn't the word it would use. Not strong enough, George. Are you stupid, are you deliberately being stupid, or is your vocabulary severely limited?

Can I suggest a new term, the Osborneism. Examples are:

WW II: bit of a tiff.

The Black Knight in The Holy Grail.

Intense agony: mild discomfort.

Phil Collins: not awfully good.

Hell: warm.

Pol Pot: on the cruel side.

Booker long list announced

The panel have taken the view that they want novels, not writers, and books that will stand a second and further readings. The bloke on the radio said “we want people to pack these books for their holidays, but after they've read them on the beach we want them to bring them home to read again”.

I did that with 100 Years of Solitude. It was embarrassingly tattered though. The copy of I Robot one of the guys brought was left behind. The robot on the cover had a big hairy willy biroed on before we were off the plane.

What's in a flag? Or a name or a country, for that matter?

The North Korean women's football team had South Korean flags against each of their names on the stadium big screen. They took umbrage and only emerged from the changing room an hour after the kick off was due. If security arrangements were going to form, at least that allowed everyone to get to their seats in time for the start of the game.

The Chief Executive of the Organising Committee, wasn't there. Neither was he at the other game. Rather than attend a sporting event, he was at the opening ceremony dress rehearsal. Speaks volumes about priorities. Two minutes after the closing ceremony, the playing field sell-off will be back in full swing. Even as the politicians go on about their vanity project velodrome, the facts are that the Herne Hill velodrome, where Bradley Wiggins trained (he won the Tour de France, you know) has been under threat of closure for years. A bit like the libraries. It's only still there because of a group of fundraisers, enthusiasts and agitators have kept it going. He called people attending the ceremony rehearsal the 'audience' Sporting events attract crowds. Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals attract audiences. Apparently the mistake as a one-off human error and would not be repeated.

At least not for almost a day. Today a Wales player in the Team GB squad was English, Georgian wrestlers were Russian, who knows what else is going on in the name of human error? In his interview he said the flag thing was “very simply human error, and we have apologised”, then went on to say that “we spent hours explaining the events and circumstances to the North Koreans”. How long does it take to explain and apologise for 'simple human error'?

100, 37 balls, and a record from a single over

Irresistable force, immoveable mountain

An old Chinese paradox. What happens when an irresistable force meets an immoveable object? I prefer the immoveable mountain to the immoveable object version. Last night Scott Styris was an irresistable force, and the answer in his case was “where would you like us to put the mountain, Mr Styris?”^*

100 runs from thirty seven balls. We shouldn't forget the other contributions. Prior hitting sixty before running himself out to bring Styris in (under orders? - only joking); fifty for Murray Goodwin. 230 for three, in twenty overs. That wasn't the end of the evening, because Gloucester (and MM's right: that's rubbish spelling) gave it a go and the difference was pretty much one thirty-four run over when Styris was going particularly ballistic.

Immediately on sitting down we grassed Mr Naughty up for being an away supporter, only to find that we were surrounded by the blighters. It was like a Worzel convention where we were sitting. Maybe the “wannabe Taffs without a bridge” wasn't the most diplomatic line to take.

Not only did we see an awesome innings, we got to see Murali bowl four overs. One of the best spinners in history bowls four of the twenty overs and Sussex still smashed 230 runs. Wonderful. Great atmosphere. Knowledgeable and enthusiastic full house. There was a chorous of Sussex by the Sea in the final over, acknowledged and saluted by Prior.

Balance in all things

Now. The medicals, the health and safety drudges, all the middle-of-the-road people, bang on about the need to jettison excess and look for balance. So. In our little local enclave, two doors away, is a lovely bloke who does something at the railways, and who, I think, has been on one H&S training course too many, and flipped. When he cuts his hedge he wears ear defenders, clear plastic goggles, gloves, and, I should imagine, steel toecap boots. Added to which he will operate the trimmers absolutely to the letter of the manufacturer's safety instructions.

Now. If I did the same, that wouldn't be balance, would it? That'd be safety overload. This means, that in the interest of balance, I have to cut the hedge in trainers (laces undone), leaning all over the place on the wobbly ladder, overreaching like mad, with the MP3 player on full volume to drown out the noise the trimmers make. Then I also have to override the both hands safety levers by securing them with masking tape so that I can get the extra reach one-handed.

Just in case, where is the hospital for rare and tropical bad things?

I've got a bite on the inside of my right forearm. It's been there for days, increasingly red, ugly and itchy. At least a funnel-web spider, if not some even more deadly mutation. Or it was a mosquito and I've got malaria. Something should be done about this. All the fuss about binge drinking, international financial crises, security at the Olympics, and they do nothing about biting insects. Brambles. They should sort out brambles, too.

Olympic highlights

I'm particularly looking forward to the:

Six-a-side paintball; whitewater swimming; table football; swingball; drink-assisted twister; sodoku; and dressage. That's horses. Dancing. Just in case you thought the beach Subbuteo was ridiculous.

*Actually, if the force is actually irresistable, then there's no such thing as an immoveable object. Logically. The reverse also applies: if an object is immoveable, then all forces are resistable. There's also the assumption that the immoveable object is also indestructible. I reckon the smart money's on the force. Forces tend to nibble away at even the stoutest opposition.   

Hunt and Gauke

Jeremy Hunt (rhyming slang) and David Gauke

Jeremy Hunt (Rhyming Slang), who is the minister for sport, has come out against swearing on the playing field. He has a level of smugness that suggests never having played contact sports.

Absorbed fully in the vanity project that is the taxpayer sponsored Olympics (Oy! Coe! Where's my tax-free sponsorship concession? (See Coke, McDonalds, Addidas, etc)), and willing to show his ignorance, and once again illustrating exactly why politics and sport should never mix, Mr Rhyming Slang has come out with the old rubbish about rugby pitches being akin to your local church on a Sunday morning. Still in a job only because he and his bosses inhabit cloud cuckoo land, here's Hunt's sporting idyl:

FAST BOWLER: (the ball has again just passed the hapless bat's outside edge). I say, old chep, you jolly nearly nicked that one! Well done you for being so lucky. Better luck me next time.

FAST BOWLER: (the ball has just bounced over the stumps, missing by the proverbial coat of varnish). I say, old chep, almost got you that time. You should get more in line and watch the gap between bat and pad.

RUGBY PLAYER: (on the receiving end of some eye gouging). I say old chep, would you mind, awfully...

RUGBY PLAYER: (on the receiving end of a crunching tackle). I say old chep, jolly good hit! Now. If I can only get my breath back.

FOOTBALLER: (open goal, places header just wide). Crickey!

FOOTBALLER: (bearing down on open goal, dispossessed by centre half who came from nowhere). Blimey. Well played, old chep.

FAST BOWLER: I say old chep, how come you're so rotund?

BAT: Because...(pause)...every time I make love to your wife, she provides sustenance by way of a biscuit.

What a total Jeremy.

Then there's this:

This is the bloke telling us that paying cash and avoiding tax is morally wrong. Morally right is stealing my tax and spending it on your homes, televisions, Mars bars and moats. Morally right is awarding yourselves your own pay and benefit packages. Morally right is wasting fortunes on opening ceremonies, on Royals, on subsidised food and drink for you lot in bars and restaurants where the laws of the rest of the land don't apply. Mrs Gaulke? A tax avoidance lawyer.

Look again at Mr Gaulke. An old friend, Swanny, on meeting a Gaulke lookalike, greeted him with:

“Jesus. Mate. You're ugly. One more push from your mum and you'd've been a mongol. You fell out of the ugly tree alright. And hit every branch on the way down.”

Swanny was not known for his political correctness. He was a huge, plain-speaking brute and great company. He was no oil painting himself, but then he had no illusions in that regard.

Anyway, Mr Gaulke could compete with the Coes and the Jeremys in smug-lookingness, I wouldn't trust him in a room with the dogs without CCTV to keep him on the straight and narrow, he is so ugly, as the saying goes, that the maternity ward staff ignored his arse and slapped his mother, and, Mr Gaulke, you typical, meddling, godawful politician, when I need a morality barometer I'll arrange one. It won't, by the way, be you good self. Now Foxtrot Oscar.

Chilli madness

That Was the Weekend, That Was

BLISS Tweeted: “Zip. That was the weekend speeding by.” Or something very similar. That's how it felt. Home late Friday evening (work). Up early Saturday morning to go to a meeting (work), back at quarter to two for a two o'clock kick-off (cricket). Play. Quick social and a beer. Home. It felt as if I'd just about got my shoes off before dropping MM off. Back sometime between ten and eleven and, knackered, straight to bed. Sunday? Reading, cooked breakfast for three, cut the hedges, laid on the lawn listening to the cricket for an hour, cooked, ate, watched I Sell The Dead with BLISS (a hard sell but she enjoyed it once convinced by the first five minutes). Suddenly: it's almost Monday morning and there it was (the weekend) gone. Every one seems somewhat the same.

Mental chilli sauce

This was, truly, a massive mistake. At the crossroads of condiment, torture, and human experimentation. Leaning heavily towards the torture. Every so often, you have to push the envelope. This as a shove too far. Ingredients:

Onion, finely chopped.

Garlic, finely chopped.

Ginger, finely chopped.

Chillies (plenty, hot, small, red and green) finely chopped.

Tinned tomatoes.

Sweat all but the tomatoes until they release everything they have. Add the tomatoes, and a massive glug of the Insanity Chilli Sauce BLISS bought as a present. Note that the label warns of hallucinations and other side-effects. Forget that you have previously discounted this as a sales pitch, and come unstuck before. Go for it. Man or mouse.

I had this with last night's bucket barbecue chicken kebabs, rice and salad. No amount of chicken, rice and salad to small amount of chilli sauce rendered it any less than agonisingly painful on the tastebud scale. I got through a litre of fizzy water and plenty of tissues. I was that close to toughing it out but a small amount had to be left with some of the rice. The pain was OK to begin with, but built to a crescendo that was just too much for me to stand.

Cricket tomorrow

Hove, with BO'S, MM and Mr Naughty for the T20 ¼ final. Come on Sussex.

Twenty-twenty is such fantastic cricket, and a game anyone can watch and get into, what's not to like? Good burger and chips, too.

Hedgecutting

Bucket BBQ

There were some Stella Artois adverts that claimed the lager was 'reassuringly expensive'. I didn't really understand that point of view. If something's good, then if it costs less, surely that's better still? The word 'cheerful' always seems more cheery qualified by 'cheap and...'

So the bucket barbecue, at steal from Sainsbury a couple of years ago at £5.99 (end of summer offer) is a wonderful thing. Particularly when you are barbecuing for one, as is the case in these parts with MM away much of the time and BLISS and TTT non-barbecue interested vegetarians. I offer to do corn on the cob and vegetable kebabs but I've had zero take-up so far.

It hasn't seen much use, actually. That £5.99 must work out at about three quid an outing, but now the weather's changed...

I Sell The Dead

Watched I Sell The Dead with BLISS tonight. Absolutely, brilliantly, totally and utterly barking mad and a wonderful film. Grave robbers, vampires, gangs, The Pogues' “Waxie's Dargle”, Ron Pearlman. Gothic sepia colours. Glorious madness.

Women's World

I finished this after cutting the hedges (see below) and before lighting the barbecue, and while half-listening to South Africa having bit of a good fourth day in the Oval test match.

An astonishing idea, compiling cuttings from 1960's women's magazines to tell the story. Not as astonishing as Georges Perec (I've yet to finish Life, A Users' Manual, for some unknown reason, because I was really enjoying it) writing a novel without a single letter 'e', then following it up with another without a single 'a'.

My new jam...

Is Get Higher by Black Grape. This (and similar) was blasting through the earpieces today, drowning out the noise of the hedge trimmers, and the neighbour's dodgy music. Apparently, and thankfully I missed the Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton marathon, but I keep copping the Plastic Pogues (or the Pogue-goes, or the Pongs). I find this odd as you can listen to the real Pogues who are absolutely spot-on.

It's here, please listen: http://www.thisismyjam.com/IstvanFallok

Bob-buh

Bobb-buh

Earlier this season Rich and I helped out a local club who were short of players when our club's opponents couldn't get a side out. The report in the paper got everything wrong. I got credited with Rich's wicket and his catch, and his name was reported as Bob. In our next game, he was exclusively and unanimously referred to as Bob. Or, Blackader style, as Bobb-buh.

Yesterday, weeks after the newspaper report, this casual conversation:

AD: Where's Bob?

ME: France.

AD: Oh.

Margin Call

I watched Margin Call last night, it's an atmospheric, twitchy, tightly-wound take on one of the first nights of the banking crisis, when the figures first start to unravel and the fact that there's nothing underpinning the money appearing on traders screens comes to light.

Milo Minderbinder

Got onto talking about Catch 22 with BLISS in the morning. Milo Minderbinder's chapters, written sometime in the 1950's and first published in 1961, predate the banking crisis by some time, but I remembered the part where M&M Enterprises (with the '&' between the 'M's for Milo and Minderbinder so that people would not think that his one-man band was a one-man operation) ships the mess' eggs to somewhere, sells them for (say) four cents each, then buys them back for (say) seven cents each (no more 'says' now, to be taken as read) and ships them somewhere else and sells for ten cents and buys back again for twelve before returning them to the starting point apparently having made bundles of money in the process.

Another MM and congratulations

LPL has passed her theory test. Well done kid! Only two wrong, one better than MM, who reckons that, now he's passed the theory test twice, he's not far away from driving a car by thought alone. I remain in the family dunce's driving seat, one wrong answer away from failing the test altogether.

MM played cricket for us yesterday, and I really enjoy the games he's available to play. He adds a lot of banter to the changing room, most directed at me.

G, recently discharged after surgery, was bent over his kit bag rummaging around for some of the pills and potions he depends on. He was changed and in his whites, but the room's cramped, and his arse wasn't so far away. He's blessed with plenty of arse, too, so his whites were stretched. “I see the NHS have done well, and the operation was a complete success” I said. “Look at that” said Dave, “a total eclipse of the entire universe.” “They've done a nice job on his ceramics.” I had to throw in the old Anita Harris line. There was some more talk about the surgeon’s danger money, bonus, and post-operative trauma, and about the theatre staff having to push two tables together.

LBW, howzat work?

Women's World

On the back of the copy of Women's World I'm reading there's an endorsement from Raymond Briggs. It describes the project as barking mad, but brilliant. It's an offbeat idea. Drafting the story, then cutting the words to tell it out of 1960's weekly magazines. Apparently it took two years of cutting, assembling and sticking the pieces together.

The story is told at rip-snorting speed, and even just about halfway in is already full of enough twists and turns to keep the hungriest twist and turn fan happy. There's no point trying to explain how and why it works so well, but work well it does.

BLISS on the lbw law

“So, you get a bruise, and you don't get to hit the ball, either?”

“Yep, you might get a bruise, and you don't get to hit any more balls, because you're out.”

“If it was going on to hit the stumps.”

“That's right, yeah.”

Much easier to explain with the aid of hawkeye. I can't help feeling that BLISS finds the whole thing a bit harsh. Like, bruise, ok, carry on mate, that's roughed you up a bit, hasn't it? There, there, never mind. No bruise, off you go, back to the hutch. Lack of sporting experience. Too honest to even consider that everyone (unhurt) would claim the bruise to get out of the dismissal.

What will she think when we get onto being caught off the gloves.

Or one of those non-striker's end run-outs where the bowler gets a fingertip to the ball and deflects it onto the stumps?

Team GB?

In the absence of Irish and Scots, that's actually team England and Wales. They're in the process of having a new one ripped by Brazil. Two nil down after thirty six minutes.

War and Peace

LPL is back from the War and Peace show. Finally. How was I to know there was more than one car park at the Hop Farm?

There were loads of people in army togs, some really fantastic, an American General in full jodhpurs and knee-high boots, a gaggle of sailors on shore-leave, and a spiv, appropriately enough talking on his mobile phone.

A highlight of one re-enactment was a random bagpiper wandering the perimeter of a skirmish dubbed 'bulletproof' by the announcer. Not only did the rain hold off LPL looks like she's caught a bit of sun. I liked her description of last year's “solar showers”. Containers of cold water.

First test

A good first day

Before the media hit fever pitch about running in straight lines, running in circles, and swimming up and down in straight lines, there's a test match going on. England are the top test nation at the moment, and South Africa are the third rated, but it's so close that the winner of this three test series will be top when it finishes.

First day to us, despite losing Straus in the first over for a duck. That must be rotten, personally, though good for the team, sitting there watching just two further wickets fall all day.

There was also a great first day at the open golf, and Bradley Wiggins is wearing the yellow jersey at the Tour de France.

The yellow jersey is for the overall race leader. The white with red dots is king of the mountains. The green jersey is the points leader, with the most points for finishing among the leaders of the daily stages. The white jersey is the top youth (under 25), and the rainbow jersey is the reigning world champion.

With the recent doping history, perhaps there should be the steroid jersey (plain brown wrapper with white discs); the HGH jersey (syringes on a medical green background) and the gimp suit (for masking chemicals).

Oy, outta da way...

I read a book by a journalist who joined a support team for the Tour de France. They were in the car, doing 60 mph down a hill when there was a banging from the rear. They suspected a mechanical fault.

It was a rider who'd had a puncture and was trying to catch up with the pack. He was annoyed as the car was slowing him down.

You finished with that?

The other part of the book I remember is the riders shared on table, the support guys another, adjacent table. The riders ate quickly, then reached over and with impunity helped themselves to whatever they wanted from the support guys' plates.

Fatty Gatting

Beaten by the Shane Warne wonder delivery and feeling pretty awful, all he needed was the “if that'd been a cheese roll it wouldn't've got past you”. I imagine Mike Gatting ate like a cyclist just without burning off all those calories.

Subsidised drivel

We're paying for schools to teach creationism

Thanks to this bloke.

I don't care what people teach their kids. Teach them that Hogwarts exists, that there are real wizards, that there's a platform nine and three quarters at Kings Cross. Teach them that the world is flat, that the sun and everything else revolves around the earth, and that things started off with a bang and a puff of smoke a couple of thousand years ago.

Teach them that evolution is rubbish, that there's a scientific basis for ignoring the science carbon dating the planet and life on it, teach then that god made little green apples. Teach them that Belgians are not all boring paedos. Teach them that television is a stimulating and worthwhile pastime. Teach them that politicians have made the world a better place. Teach them that Windows is a good, stable operating system. Teach them that our railways are efficient and excellent value. Teach them astrology. But, Gove, old boy, don't get the taxpayer to fork out for filling their heads with all that garbage.

I struggle to understand why there are holocaust deniers locked up for denying the facts, while evolution and climate change deniers hide behind religion and energy company money and get to spout their nonsense without fear of being banged up for it. Mr Gove obviously does understand and is happy to pass some of my money onto people running schools and teaching kids whatever they like.

I don't think that's what Mr Whippy had in mind

Wheater, batting for Essex against Middlesex at Chelmsford, has just middled a six and smashed the ice cream van's passenger door window. There's a steward in a high viz vest sweeping up the glass. The commentators commiserated with the ice cream seller, who probably hasn't had the best summer ever, but only after the “that's not what Mr Whippy had in mind” from Bob Willis.

Now, this guy's cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A8IYwm0A0w&feature=related

Hash, Skag, Barbiturates and Cocaine

Heroin, Smack, Blow, Crack

Or HSBC. As they like to be called. Not often you laugh out loud at an item at the head of the radio news. But this:

“...compliance head at the HSBC has resigned after confirmation that the bank was used to launder money by Mexican drug cartels...”

had us in stitches.

Really. They sail the world down the river. They are unable to to anything as everything goes wrong, all thanks to them. They continue to award themselves massive salaries and huge bonuses. Then the news breaks that there are still rogue traders causing losses in the billions. Then it emerges that they illegally rigged the interbank lending rates to suit themselves, cover up the impending meltdown, make it all seem ok for longer, for personal gain. On the back of that those that should've known (like the Bank of England) claim no knowledge (presumably on the basis that being godawful at the one thing you're asked to do is slightly better than admitting you've colluded with crooks).

Then, one of the big players in the industry turns out to be a clearing house for South American drug barons. What's next?

Pot, kettle

G4S have not, I think it's fair to say, covered themselves in glory. Some MPs on a select committee gathered together for a bit of legal bullying.

One, doing his best Horace Rumpole impression asked whether the affair had been a humiliating embarrassment for the security company unable to rustle up a small fraction of the cheap eastern European labour they had hoped for.

“Has this been a humiliating embarrassment for your company?” he boomed the demand.

There was a mumbled response. Even louder and with a pinch of added pomposity:

“Has this been a humiliating embarrassment for your company? YES OR NO!”

This is where I wanted so much for the bloke in the dock to insist that not every question has a yes or no answer. The classic is “have you ceased beating your wife?” You could try “do you still have a taste for human flesh?” or “do you still torture kittens to death?”

Then I wanted him to say:

“Yes”, pause, then, “was the MPs expenses scandal a humiliating embarrassment for you?”, then, whispered, “yes, or yes?”

Isn't it a bit rich to have the people who employed the company turn on them when they fail (again). Isn't this the lot who did the privatised prisoner moving and had a mass escape on their first day? Shouldn't the ministers and others taking the praise and wetting themselves over the Olympics put their hands up when things go wrong?

Now, that's what I call value. Or not.

The BBC in cash-strapped times

They're a bit like the bankers, these celebs, aren't they. In a rhyming slang sort of way.

Bald facts (opinion in brackets).

Graham Norton £2,000,000 a year, that's £166,667 a month, or thirty eight and a half grand a week. (What is it he does, exactly? I struggle to see the point of him.)

Gary Lineker £2,000,000 a year. (That's £1m per jug eared lughole for the Tottenham Tosspot.)

Alan Hansen £1,500,000 a year. (That's £750,000 a year per opinion: “that was dreadful defending from [team name here]” and “that was abysmal defending from [team name here]” and £infinity for each positive thing he's had to say in twenty years (none).)

Chris Evans >£1,000,000 a year. (Is he still going?)

Anne Robinson £750,000 a year. (About 0.0001p per person who'd like to punch her lights out.)

Mark Thompson £779,000 a year. (He's the old director general. Nope, I hadn't heard of him either. Nope, I can't see how he justified that sort of money, either. Nope, I never watch the rubbish they broadcast, either.)

269 'Senior' 'Managers' >£100,000 a year. (Yep. That's 269 people doing whatever it is they do, and copping more than one hundred grand a year for it. If they're like their oppos in the NHS and elsewhere, they do little but keep their heads below parapet level.)

Consultants to identify cost-saving measures £8,200,000 in the 2010 / 11 financial year. (All together now: we think we may have identified a cost-saving opportunity, £8.2 million quid.)

Headhunters to find a new director general £190,000. Only to then choose an internal candidate, and interview only one external candidate. (That's, er...190 grand, one candidate, er...£190,000 per head hunted. I think I may have identified another potential cost saving. Looking at the money on offer, can I have a job?)

Pleasing to see the licence money's so well spent.

By Light Alone

It's back to the library tomorrow for this one. 'Dystopian future' as a setting is becoming a cliché, but this was a great book and the bonus is a new author to back-catalogue if and when things get quiet in these parts. Hard to reveal too much without possibly spoiling it. So I won't.

Woman's World

Just started this. It's written entirely in chopped up bits of 1960's women's magazines. Google Graham Rawle for details. Already, just a few pages in we know the heroine's had some sort of accident, is housebound, and needs to wear various wigs. The first of which caused a lot of problems as it was fashioned from the rocking horse's tail. I think I'm going to enjoy this.

My New Jam

Otis Redding. Beautiful, please listen.

It's here: http://www.thisismyjam.com/IstvanFallok

Who let the dogs out? Who? Who?

The rabbit complicates matters

Before the rabbit arrived letting the dogs out into the garden was relatively straightforward. You had only to recognise that one, the other, or both of them needed to pop out to powder their noses, open the door and let them out. Then either remember to leave the door open or to let them back in.

Now there's a little brown rabbit taken up residence. Nice. Cute little thing, it hops around, eats grass and stuff and isn't out anywhere near the road, at risk of getting run over, and that's all good. The letting the dogs out flowchart has become more complicated now. First you have to check for the rabbit. If it's away elsewhere, then no worries, proceed as previously. If it's there, things change. If we're on the 'yes' arrow of the flowchart, then there's the 'bang on the glass' instruction, and another question. Did that work? That is, did he scarper off and disappear, in which case proceed as normal. If he stayed put or moved a bit but remained visible to the canine eye, then you have to bang again, and consider cracking the door open a bit and shouting at him (or her) to clear off or risk injury or death.

Although she's caught them before, white dog is no expert. She adopts a half-creeping up, half outright “comin' right at'cha, rabbit” ram-raid approach, neither Arthur or Martha, doomed to fail. She must've found a couple of rabbits too laid back or bone idle to run away. Black dog? She'd just jog up to say “hello Mr Bunny, what a lovely white tail you've got.”

21 Grams

We watched 21 Grams, BLISS and me, yesterday. Inarritu directs magnificent films. I'm not really film-picky, but when Hollywood is obsessed with 3D, CGI, sequels, prequels, and, in all honesty, just-the-same-thing-again-but-too-soon-to-be-called-a-remake-quels, when something of real depth and quality hit the screen you're watching, you can't miss it. BLISS had a brief chunter about the non-linear approach, but after minutes she was too involved to care.

Cube, Hypercube, Cube Zero

In Cube, people wake up in a man-sized, oversized Rubik's cube, where all the cubes have six entrances / exits, some of the cubes have deadly traps, and every now and again, just to make life extra-hard, the cubes have a shuffle round to stop you reaching the edge. There's no explanation about what the Cube is, why the people are there, or what the whole thing's about. It's gloriously minimalist in terms of how and why and that focuses your attention on the group trying to get out and their dynamics.

Hypercube is Cube but with mind games and physical effects (gravity reversal, time slowing down or speeding up, that sort of thing) replacing the cheesewire and flamethrowers. There's some hints at a conspiracy theory, but again the focus is on the people and not on what the environment they find themselves in is all about.

Cube Zero is set about equally in the Cube, a lower-tech version than the Cube one, so it's a prequel to the first film, and the control room monitoring the progress of the people in it. It seems they're all facing the death penalty and have signed up for the Cube rather than face execution. Predictably the control room guys become involved with trying to get people out and the whole thing develops from there. There's the added bonus of the chief control-room villain being a dead ringer for Rik Mayall.

Pub quiz

Pub Quiz

Round 1: sport

1. Name a Brazilian footballer.

2. Name an Argentina footballer.

3. Getting more specific, name a French footballer who scored lots of goals for Arsenal.

4. Now name an England footballer who played in goal, had a ponytail, and was also at Arsenal.

5. Name an England cricketer.

6. Name an Australian cricketer.

7. More specific, name the England cricketer, nickname 'Beefy', who performed miracles against the Aussies.

8. Name the England rugby stand-off who kicked the dying seconds drop goal that won the world cup.

9. Any country, any era, name a pole vaulter.

10. Any country, any era, name a fencing man or woman.

11. Any country, any era, name a synchronised swimmer.

12. Any country, era, name a hammer thrower.

Answers:

1. Pele.

2. Maradonnna.

3. Thierry Henry.

4. David Seaman. There was a winning Telegraph dream team entry one season and the manager called his team Do Ladies Prefer Flowers or Seaman? (Tim Flowers played in goal for Blackburn).

5. Freddie Flintoff.

6. Shane Warne.

7. Ian Botham.

8. Jonny Wilkinson.

9. Er. Dunno.

10. Nope. Me neither.

11. Can I Google that? Phone a friend?

12. Oh...er...no. No idea.

Just making sure all the over-excited Olympic-crazies are on message. Some of us do this sport thing every day without fail. You are making a lot of noise and muscling in on our turf. Tomorrow you'll be back where you were before, and the school fields will still be sold off bit by bit, and small local clubs will be paying inflated prices for grass roots facilities. After your two weeks, don't let the door slam.

[Bit grumpy. Cricket called off today.]

Well done kid!

Curry tasting

Congratulations to Kiz. Got a 1^st, and now she's got a job. First interview. Fantastic. Well done. Celebratory meal was fish and chips at the Mermaid, BLISS, LPL and me. Another night off the C-plan diet. The tandoori chicken pieces will have to marinade in the fridge for another twenty four hours, as I'm brimfull of cod, chips, and bread and butter.

Last night's jalfrezi was a cheeky little number. I got some Christmas with ginger and cloves, I got old fashioned Tandoori House restaurant from garlic and cumin. I got heat and little bit of spite from the red and green birds' eye chillies, and a hint of sweetness from the coconut milk.

I also got stuffed to the gunwales as I made a fair bit and scoffed the lot. We're running low on basmati rice, and the lime pickle's taken a big hit.

Brightling, home of the little people

Little chairs in the changing room. Bizarre.

“Here you go G. One for each arse-cheek.”

“Hold on. Neal, move 'em further apart.”

Note the mower in the background, moved to stop Nobby sniffing around it. We think he may have been working up to syphoning the petrol out of it.

Also note in the top left, the great big window. With no glass in it. Those daft enough to get changed on that bench under it had their kit drenched while the rain came in from that direction, which was most of the afternoon.

In the little shack in the woods:

There's a toilet to match the little chairs' size.

Tea and drinks breaks are strictly rationed.

History deals with pearls, ignores dolphins

Diet update

The C (for curry) diet continued last night with a chinese-style chicken, mushroom, tomato, potato and pepper curry and basmati rice. Fresh chillies and cayenne for heat. Wing Yip sauce enhancer from its plastic pot adding some five spice aniseed and takeaway overtones. Yesterday I fell off the waggon and tried the CoS diet. Not the lettuce, that's the cheese and onion sandwich diet. Not as good as the CoDS (cheese and onion doorstep sandwich) diet, and not a patch on the curry diet. The plan is for a jalfrezi tonight.

Actually, history is bunk

Here's why. A revelation. Occasionally, I do get the odd lightbulb going off up there. This one came from the novel I'm reading, By Light Alone. A history seminar, the lecturer proposes the following: standard academic history focuses on the rich. Kings, princes, royals, politicians, so on. Throughout history, human history, over 99% of our species have lived in poverty. The poor fought the wars, built the pyramids, sailed the ships, led the revolutions. Even now, the vast, huge, great steaming overwhelming majority of the world live in poverty. We've had plenty of time to learn, and to do something about it, if, as a species, we were remotely bothered.

In the book the comparison is made between historians and oceanographers. The catalogue of historians, their academic writings, their focus and their narrow approach is like oceanographers looking only at pearls. Ignoring krill to killer whale, ignoring the miles-deep faults with their own (some not oxygen-based) ecosystems, casting aside the 99.9% that is of real interest and beauty and stunning surprises and instead banging on about the tiny minority where the money is.

There's people going on about how exams favour guys able to remember and regurgitate and coursework being the better option at the moment. They forget that applied maths, physics, engineering exams can be real tests in problem solving, in sitting in front of a problem and applying your knowledge to provide a solution. With a real time limit and working on your own, not in collaboration with several classmates and your parents. One thing about my ancient qualifications: their mine and mine alone.

History, geography, the humanities have generally had examinations that have amounted to little more than memory tests. This can change. There's scope for a more intelligent approach without resorting to the death by a hundred cuts, open to huge abuse cop-out that is the marked coursework option.

Cube²

Unfortunately Cube III isn't Cube³, or Cube Cubed. Which would be cool. Cube II, or Hypercube, is basically a Cube rerun, with less blood, splatter and gore, theoretical physics and conspiracy theories added, a strange ending, and is none the worse for all of those additions, or for being a rerun. It put my brain to bed for an hour and a bit after cooking it at work all day. Cube III is actually Cube Zero, a prequel to Cube. That's tonight, if there's time.

The rights to chips?

Our great and good have sold the right to sell chips during the olympics (so some legal variant thereof) to MacDonalds. Other than as the chips in fish and chips. No other burger and chips, just chips, pie and chips, whatever.

Is part of the deal to preserve Seb Coe in a cryogenic deepfreeze topped and tailed with Peter Mendelson? Ugh.

Goodbye, Moyles, you fraud

A long discourse on being a lad

You can't acquire being a lad, you can't force it and you can't fake it. Neither, sadly, can you help it, nor can you turn it on and off. It isn't anything to be proud or ashamed of. It just is. Or isn't. For some strange reason, there's a lot of men who are not, and want to be.

The pretenders will be caught out. The female sports anchor confirmed she wasn't in post for her knowledge when she described a run out as a stumping. Not even a schoolboy error, as it's an error schoolboys won't make. Sooner or later even the best, most skillful wannabe will make a mistake. In the unforgiving lads' world, one mistake is enough.

I don't want to upset or insult anyone. I don't want to appear distracted, disinterested, or distant. I don't mean to be rude. It isn't anything I can do anything about. Here's an example. Breakfast networking meeting. Turns are called and everyone takes sixty seconds to describe and sell their business. Three of us are clustered around DB's iPhone watching the Pakistan v England test on SkyGo. I don't react when my name's called. Twice. I will, and I did apologise. But...I have no choice. You? Your computer repair business? You? Selling mortgages? You? Letting Agent? Or the cricket? There's no choice. In non-lad terms, would you rather be tortured then killed, or have the run of the cake shop?

At any christening, wedding, or similar Saturday afternoon function, sooner or later there'll be a guilty gathering at a telly or in the bog with one headphone radio between everyone, or now around a smartphone, catching up on the cricket or the football or the rugby or the Ryder Cup. It's like a phobia. There's no rationality involved. Like a phobia, either you have it or you don't.

There's something creepy about the don'ts who pretend. Again, no rational reason, just a vague uneasy feeling. Here's how deep it runs:

Paul Weller, The Jam, Saturday's Kids:

Saturday's kids live life with insults,

Drink lots of beer and wait for half-time results...

See? Paul isn't a lad. Half time results? Results are at full time. After ninety minutes. Half times are latest scores. I know that spoils the rhyme, but a lad wouldn't've been able to live with that.

Wait for the racing results.

Wait for the football results.

Either would be ok, and proper.

So, in his statement on leaving Radio 1 today the vastly overpaid plastic lad Chris Moyles accused everyone who didn't listen to his rubbish music in the mornings of “not getting it”. Well, Chris, well, Jeremy (Clarkson), well, chubby bloke off the sports quiz, you may be able to fool middleaged ladies and non-lads, but there's no way you are what you claim so hard to be. You creep me out. My radar tells me that at least one of the three of you (and probably Clarkson) will end up sharing a cell with Jonathan King and Gary Glitter. Nothing personal. It's just such an odd thing to aspire to, given the endless grief it can occasionally bring.

You want a Saturday off?

Leave forms

I'm keeping wicket on Saturday (if it does not rain, see above), which should do the (left) knee and the (right) achilles the power of good. I couldn't walk after Saturday's game and running all those singles (word in the pub after was that most of those singles should've been twos, and that 'running' isn't what I was actually doing). Running or ambling, they're twenty two yards each of anyone's money. Dave-O (Dav the Chav) isn't available. Asked for the appropriate forms, in triplicate, excusing him from the game, he failed to produce them. Apparently, granting dispensation for a week off is at the vice captain's discretion, and that'd be Dave-O. Clearly a breach of club discipline. Why, just two years ago he had a Saturday off. Offering only the feeble excuse of his only daughter's wedding. Surely he could've popped along to the do after the game?

Hit and Miss

End of season one cliffhanger. We're (BLISS and me) eagerly awaiting season two. Well, probably more me, really.

Hosepipes

The ban is a bit immaterial, as there's been sufficient rain every day to render hosepipes redundant. MM's out pre-season training in another heavy shower now. The pitches should be baked hard this time of year.

Raindodging

We've been reasonably lucky, cricket-wise. We've played a couple of games through some stop-start (mostly start, actually) showers, and only lost two to the weather. Giving lie to the Monday to Friday, fine, weekend awful theory.

Dark City

Good film. Had to watch it in four parts due to starting watching it too late, and going off to sleep early. Apparently it's a cult classic.

Cube

Managed to watch this cult classic in one sitting. Must be a short film. Didn't know Cubes II and III existed. I've got them to look forward to.

Remote holidays

That's what I fancy. Somewhere with no phone signal, no wi-fi, no telly. Just a few power sockets for the reading lamps and to charge up the Kindle, and, naturally, for the kettle. Some isolated corner of Scotland or Wales, and a proper work-free five days, the first in too many years.