The power of sport

Duck Rock

I don't dare look at what the critics say about this album. All-bum, I imagine. I don't want to hear anything negative, because this is my musical equivalent of The Life of Brian. It never fails to cheer me up. It's lightweight, but there's no makeweight songs, and even those Supreme Team radio station clips don't spoil things. They are mercifully brief. Malcolm McLaren must've been among the first non-musicians to find a way of producing a worthwhile album, from samples, clips, and with a shedload of help from his friends.

The two hit singles, Buffalo Girls and Double Dutch are authentic hit singles that retain their energy and impact thirty years later. It probably helps that the copy I'm listening to isn't some de-luxe thirty years anniversary special edition with bonus tracks and all those added extras that get in the way (see, in particular, the 'enhanced' Love Forever Changes CD in my collection, which you have to stop before it descends into half an hour of out-takes, rehearsals, false starts, and Albert Lee trying to talk the drummer through delivering the sound he wants for one of the songs). Just the album as it was originally issued, thanks. That usually works better than the all-singing, all-dancing, digitally remastered, bonus material versions.

All that scratching is making me itch.

As if all that wasn't enough, I now have the indelible mental image of BLISS demonstrating Double Dutching (without the ropes, naturally) in the kitchen this morning. It does make you jiggle. Unless your ears are unconnected to your arse.





Superbowl XLVIII

As an old git, I can remember when, on cup final day, the place came to a standstill. As soon as the final whistle went, all us small boys went running to the park, boots on, and started playing our small-sided games, trying to emulate the heroes (and villains) we'd just seen on TV. The roads and pavements were deserted. If anyone was about, they would be a bona fide wierdo, one of those with the odd clothes, glasses held together with pink elastoplast, a bag of sweets, and some puppies at home for you to go and look at. The ones your parents warned you about. Everyone else was glued to the game. The prime minister (as was traditional until Thatcher, who didn't get sport – along with other things, like respecting people, and human life) would attend, along with the queen, and usually some other royals. Absolute proof of the wreckage Thatcher left behind and that she hated and set out to spoil society and community, and of the selfishness her reign left as a legacy: cup final day is just another day. I think that's sad.

Another legacy is that it's okay to bunk off sport. I'm with Darren Gough. Asked whether school sport should be compulsory, he responded “Absolutely. They made me do geography, and I was crap at that.” Sport and maths, two subjects it's considered okay to be rubbish at, and the thinking that sport shouldn't be 'inflicted' on anyone without enthusiasm or ability is fundamentally flawed. Or why force kids with no language abilities to do at least one foreign language up to GCSE level?

Anyway, back over in the states, viewing figures for the Superbowl last year were 48% of the population (I think that's 48% of the population's tellies were tuned to the whole game) and peaked at 60%+. That's amazing, it puts us to shame. They have Monday as a sort of unofficial bank holiday, and food sales are second only to thanksgiving weekend, as families settle down with beers and drinks and snacks and do something together. Not all of those folk are sports fans or football fans. Many will only watch the one game all year, and probably only pay full attention to the half time show (performers have included U2, The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, The Who, Prince, Bruce Springsteen) (which this year is The Red Hot Chilli Peppers) but they will get together, sit, eat and drink together. Socialise. That's something that gets lost by those that don't inhabit changing rooms: sport is a social activity.

Through cricket, I've made friends among our opponents, guys I look forward to meeting up with, catching up with, and having an after game drink and chat with. These are robust relationships. Not soured, not dented, not even scratched by over-celebrating their wicket, immune to on-field banter. However friendly and laid-back (on the face of it), however old and infirm, however playing on the “they've dragged me out of retirement, again, they might've been better off playing with ten men!” premise, invariably followed by a few wickets or a few runs or a tremendous diving catch, and then, after limping up to the bar, endlessly talking anyone stupid enough to stick around and listen through it time and again, however apparently uncompetitive – there's twenty two players, all of them desperate to win.

We should stage the cup final on a Sunday. Then all have the Monday off. Families and friends should get together to watch the game. DIY tools should be confiscated by the cup final police. Crisps and lager should be free. The super-rich should have to adopt a homeless person for the day and show them a good time. Cars should be disabled for the afternoon, roads closed, bunting hung from the lampposts. Anyone even thinking of going to IKEA should be locked away until they realise the error of their ways.

Thatcher day OUT! Cup final day IN!

January Neighbours (UK)

Neighbours (UK)

David Cameron is outside his house in Chipping Norton, in his dressing gown.

CAMERON: [Humming] Just and ordinary Joe, that's me...

WAYNE: Oy! Cammo! What're you doing up at ungodly, bruv? Matters of state keepin' you up?

CAMERON: [Surprised] No. No. Er, bit of a domestic emergency, actually.

WAYNE: D'ya want me to 'ave a look fer ya? I'm pretty good with a screwdriver...

CAMERON: No, no thanks, old chap. [Laughs] I don't think this is something for the likes of...

WAYNE: Give us a chance, Dave, you might be surprised at what I can do.

CAMERON: [Laughter subsiding to a wry smile] I rather doubt it. This is a technical matter. I've called in the specialists. I'm just waiting for them now.

WAYNE: Well, if you're sure.

CAMERON: I am sure, I'm afraid, this requires the highest levels of specialised skills...

WAYNE: Is this them now?

A van arrives, signwritten in the logo of the national grid engineering company. It crunches on the gravel of the drive, and comes to a halt. Kev and Pete jump out, in their overalls, clutching toolbags.

CAMERON: Right. Well. If you'll excuse me, I'd better brief these gentlemen on what's going on.

WAYNE: Hey guys.

KEV & PETE: Alright?

WAYNE: Yes. Good, how're you doin'?

KEV: Yeah, good thanks.

CAMERON: Shall we?

Kev and Pete go in. Two minutes later, they're leaving.

Inside the Camerons:

CAMERON: Well, as usual my decisive action in mobilising the specialists has resulted in...

SAMANTHA: Is the light working now?

CAMERON: Yes. I was getting to that.

Outside Wayne's, Wayne, Kev and Pete hold steaming mugs of tea.

WAYNE: A fuse?

KEV: Nah. Not even a fuse. A breaker'd tripped out.

WAYNE: Nah.

PETE: Yeah, honest, a circuit breaker. That bloke's runnin' the country.

This police water cannon thing...

...how long before:

Dispersing protesters

Providing the only solution

Extinguishing flare ups before they ignite

Dissolving concentrations of protesters

Cleaning up the streets (okay, enough's enough)

turns up in the papers?


Take a look at the numbers

The politicians love some statistics.

The Six Nations Rugby will attract over 4.5 million viewers, nationally, and will be broadcast to 170 countries.

Today in Parliament attracts 500,000.

Just one of so many examples, take hospital A&E's being overrun:

Cut to one of those spinning-vortex newspaper montages, and my money is on there being some of those “granny left on trolley in corridor” headlines under Thatcher's tories, under her boy's new labour, and now under the unholy alliance. How many words have been flung to and fro the talking shop and across the despatch box, how many 'hear hear's and 'rubbish's and how many impassioned pleas and robust rants, without anything changing?

World Cup Final? 320 million.

Superbowl? 110 million.

We have the best part of a county under water and a government scientific advisor who states categorically that there is now consensus on climate change, and that it is affected by man-made influences, and that the only dissenting voices come from those with axes to grind or mistaken non-specialists piping up where they don't belong. Yet we still have an environment minister who is a climate change sceptic, based on the expertise his degree in history bestows.

This weekend I will be absolutely glued to:

Wales v Italy and France v England (Saturday)

Arsenal v Palace (Sunday)

Ireland v Scotland (Sunday)

Seattle Seahawks v Denver Broncos (Sunday / Monday)

Australia v England T20 (Sunday)

Secure in the knowledge that whatever politicians are feathering their nests, looking after themselves and their mates, globally and locally, nothing is likely to change, and certainly not for the better, until people regain the freedom and the ability to govern themselves.

No skipping

I know my pecking order place

Or I knew it. It appears to have slipped a bit. A bit further downwards. I found some Primula cheese in the fridge. “Ah.” I thiought. “Primula cheese. With ham. Not vegetarian that. Must be left over from Christmas”. So I found some crackers and set about it. Then DLL came into the kitchen.

“Oy” she said “that's the dog's.”

“Eh?”

“That's the dog's training treat.”

“Never mind, I don't mind sharing.”

“He licks it directly straight from the tube.”

“Oh.”

Too good for the likes of me, then.


ASDA – not the most imaginative

There's a flash on the label of ASDA own brand sparkling water. It says:

“Good for hydration”.

Right. Water. Good for hydration. Not exactly earth-shatteringly original. “Useful for making a lovely light batter for pakoras, tempura and suchlike”. Okay, not too catchy, but hydration? ASDA water: clear, wet and, er, kinda runny. Can be frozen to make ice cubes. Only consume when poured out of the bottle first.


Same old same old

RBS (Rubbish, Bailedout, Suckers!) are making an £8bn loss. We, the taxpayers, own 80%.

£3bn is a fine for being dodgy, agiain.

£4.5bn is the cost of creating a bank within the bank to hold the toxic debts (who said the lessons of overcomplication and obfuscation had been taken onboard?).

The board have voted to bypass the EU regulations, in order to award bonuses of 200% of salaries. That's twice your annual salary, as a reward for being dodgy and losing £8bn after being bailed out.


Oy! That's my rubbish in that skip

There's a law against fox hunting. The police and the Crown Prosecution Service do nothing. The RSPCA were criticised for spending on bringing a case to court, a case they won. The CPS still does nothing.

The police have arrested blokes for taking tomatoes, mushrooms, and cheese from the bins out the back of a branch of Iceland. Great work, boys. They initially charged them with burglary. When that wasn't going to stick, they went for some outdated, archaic law about vagrancy or something, backed up by the CPS. There's weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth about lack of confidence in the justice system. A lack of confidence that seems well-founded, when resources are wasted chasing guys raiding bins for food that's landfill-bound if they don't intercept it.

Help! Emergency!!!

Boom boom – out go the lights

If you ever start to feel some sympathy for politicians, if your hard heart ever melts, even a little bit, just around the edges, remember this:

Our prime minister, born 1966 and therefore a man, in his late forties, called out the emergency electrical repair engineers.

They flicked the circuit breaker and restored order to the chaos.

A forty-eight year old man lacking the ability to find the fuse board, see that one switch is down when all the others are up, and flick it. Apparently, the board was neither in an obscure location, nor was any special equipment (like a chair) needed to reach it.

Now, you could maybe, just maybe forgive someone. Someone who is clearly different. Say, Stephen Fry. A minor royal used to having someone flick his switches (matron!) for him. Elton John. Were he still alive, Michael Jackson. Not a national treasure Robert Wyatt.

I don't suppose Prince knows what a circuit breaker looks like.

But Dave's been busy piling on the 'man of the people' baloney. He tells us he likes The Smiths (who responded by saying he was to desist immediately) and Pink Floyd, and does ordinary bloke things. So he's busy telling us. Aided and abetted by the PR team sculpting his public image.

Well, he's actually way too posh for any of that, really. He rides out with the local hunt. He can't achieve something that is between filling the kettle and changing a plug in complexity, yet he insists he's just a normal Joe.


A frosty climate...

...greeted Owen Paterson in Somerset, or Somerset-under-Water as it's now known.

The environment minister (or secretary of state, or whatever) is a climate change sceptic. That's like appointing the local paedo to run the playgroup. Spending on the environment on his watch? Last year £29.1m, this year £17.2m. The affected people were not, apparently, pleased to see him or hear that no additional funds would be made available.

His buddy, Greg Barker (degree in history and politics) has backed Gummer on fracking. The opponents are opposed on 'idealogical' grounds, he says, and their objections are not based on the science. The science he's well-armed to understand, having obtained a BA in history. And politics. Maybe the idealogical grounds are the ideology of not buggering up the environment for little gain?


Sister Act

The Sisters of Nazareth ran a care home for children. Children they forced to eat vomit.

A lib dem candidate has received death threats for posting a cartoon of Jesus and Mohammed on Twitter.

Spite and nastiness are not exclusive to the church, but it seems to have more than its fair share.

January Price of Darkness

January Prince of Darkness Special

Peter Mandelson is sitting in a large leather chair. He is flicking through Men's Health magazine, and sipping a peach and nectarine splash. Through a straw. Terry staggers into the room, with a large cigar in one hand, and a can of lager in the other. He is wearing headphones, and a “Champions of Europe...we know what we are” t-shirt.

MANDY: Terry. TERRY. TERRY! [He throws the magazine at Terry to get his attention].

TERRY: [Removing the headphones] Oh. Boss. What can I do for you?

MANDY: Terry, do you have to persist in wandering about the place with a drink in your hand? I'm on Dry January here you know, and...

TERRY: Well, boss. That's up to you. But it's a load of cobblers.

MANDY: I'll have you know that I'm the comeback king and my body's a temple...

TERRY: Yeah. A temple. Somewhere that smells of stale joss-sticks, where no-one wants to go and having a good time's forbidden...

MANDY: Terry! That's very hurtful. [He looks as if he's going to cry].

TERRY: Well. The name's rubbish for a start. There's Mo-vember. Catchy. Stop-tober. Clever. And dry January. Exactly that. Dry, and boring. And it's rubbish...

MANDY: But why?

TERRY: Because ninety percent of the population will be bladdered on new year's eve...

MANDY: Yes, naturally...

TERRY: And they'll be up long after midnight...

MANDY: And?

TERRY: And, what's the date after midnight, new year's eve?

MANDY: The first of...er...January.

TERRY: Exactly. Doomed to fail even before you start. You can pack up the fags at midnight on the last day of September. You can start the 'tache on the forst of November. But Dry January's already knackered before the kick-off. Set up to fail...

MANDY: [Looking at the alarmingly long ash on the end of Terry's cigar] Mind the carpet Terry...

TERRY: You see? With that...that...

MANDY: Peach and nectarine splash...

TERRY: Whatever. With that it's all “do you have to, Terry” and “mind the carpet Terry” and “my body's a temple you know, Terry”. After a couple of glasses of wine, it'd be “never mind, Terry, it's good for the carpet” and “is there any spare take away curry, Terry?”

MANDY: That's unfair. I'm going up to have a bath. Where's my bottle of goat's milk and placenta skin treatment and scented candles?

TERRY: [Laughing, replacing the headphones] Scented candles. [Sings...] I left my wallet in El Segundo, Gotta geddit, I gotta gotta geddit...

Essex and Coventry

Essex

First stop, Maldon. Already running late, I took the last remaining parking space. Then a paramedic car arrived. Then an ambulance, which blocked me in for twenty minutes. On the way out I noticed the 'sheltered housing' sign on the gates. No wonder no-one was paying very much attention – must be a daily event.

Then Chelmsford. For the first time, driving through, I caught a glimpse of the County Cricket ground. What a great venue, right in the town centre.

Next Basildon. Previously, I'd worked on a travel agent's superstore fit out in Basildon, including one of those half buried cars sticking out of the wall (a Cadillac), a scaled-down Statue of Liberty looking down on the whole shebang, and a new cruise desk, complete with life saver, ropes, and boat-shaped console.

Onto Brentwood, and you would now be forgiven for thinking Essex is a county made up of huge retail parks and a road network between them. I parked in a pay and display at the rear of the Swan Pub, where I had to traipse through some pretty toxic looking puddles to get to the machine to buy a ticket. The car park clearly was used by the patrons of the Swan, after the Swan shut its doors.

Harold Wood was next. Near Harold Hill, and the roadsigns inevitably had 'This is What You Find' playing in my head:

Home improvement expert Harold Hill of Harold Hill,

Of do-it-yourself dexterity, and double glazing skill,

Came home to find another gentleman's kippers in the grill,

So he sanded off his winkle with his Black and Decker drill

Obviously, either Ian Dury wasn't any sort of DIY enthusiast, or he couldn't come up with a rhyme for 'sander'. Or 'sanding attachment', which it may have been back in those days.

Last, Upminster, and more Ian Dury, this time a mental image:

The final call had a M&S food only place on the ground floor, and as I parked there, I promised myself that I wouldn't do the shop, spend over a fiver and get the parking charge knocked off the bill. That proved to be bit a test of my resolve. One my resolve failed miserably.

There have to be clichés, don't there? There were no big, hooped earrings or Tango orange fake tans, unless I was concentrating on the roads and missed seeing them. However, the population of Essex does seem to spend all day on the mobile phone to each other. Aliens would be under the impression that humans have two arms, one swinging freely and the other permanently attached to an ear.

Coventry

Brought some fantastic fans to the Emirates last night. They are playing their home games at Northampton at the moment. So the 100-odd miles to London was only sixty five more than to one of their 'home' games, and only an additional hour travelling. Arena Coventry Limited own a perfectly good ground, but won't negotiate lease terms and a stalemate has resulted in the current ridiculous, disgraceful situation. A lesson to lovers of sticking points and playing hardball everywhere: the only inevitable outcome is invariably lose / lose for all parties, and usually with collateral damage, too.

Frack off Gummer

About National Treasures

I've read some disturbing things recently. In separate articles, Robert Wyatt, Iain Sinclair and Will Self, described as national treasures. I like Robert Wyatt, Will Self and Iain Sinclair. They can't be national treasures, because I like them, and I don't like national treasures. Not on any principle, I just don't like them. There's different routes to national treasure status, and it's the process I'm suspicious of.

To prove it isn't a matter of principle: Trevor M^cDonald. He's a national treasure and a thoroughly sound geezer, as far as I know.

Route 1: being whiter than white. Examples include the Queen Mother, and Michael Owen. No-one's whiter than white. Those two have been seen disappearing into the bookies with a rolled up copy of the Sporting Life in their back pockets. Heroes and treasures are better with faults, failings, and vulnerabilities. Makes them more human.

Route 2: not dying for a long time. Examples include Bruce Forsythe, and, er, the Queen Mother (before she died). Longevity, regardless of crapness, inevitably leads to national treasure status.

Route 3: having been a totally irritating git, becoming marginally less irritating. For example, David Beckham, Alex Ferguson. I think I have a low irritation threshold.

Route 4: being on the television. No matter how crap and / or irritating, being in the telly get you there. Examples abound and include Ant, Dec, and Parkinson (who also comes under 1, 2, and 3).

There's many more, I suppose.

Iain Sinclair writes such dense, compressed prose that some paragraphs approach unintelligibility. In Ghost Milk he relentlessly rips into the destruction and roughshod riding the Olympics project brough to parts of Stratford.

Robert Wyatt is anti-establishment, and produces music that takes repeated listenings to appreciate. He's a militant left-winger. He wrote Cuckoo Madame, a searing, bitter, vicious song attacking Thatcher.

Self, for christ's sake, writes in the New Statesman.

Hands off, national treasure selection committee. Stick to what you know. The bland, the unchallenging, the middle of the road establishment. You can take your pick from so many, don't come over here poaching. You can have Beckham, Alans Shearer and Hanson, and the jug-eared crisp salesman. I'll have Patrick Viera on his most snarling, attritional day heading for another red card.

You can have Elton John, George Michael, Chris Rea, Ollie Murrs, jesus, the list's endless. Leave Robert Wyatt alone and don't even think about going anywhere near Tom Waits.

Have who you want for the comedy. I'll have Frankie Boyle.

Expert advice on fracking...

...from Cambridge University, where they've done the science and the maths, suggests that the fracking companies should be paying around £6,000,000,000.00 per year to compensate for the damage they will cause to the environment. That's the reasoned assessment underpinned by an understanding of the underlying science.

Lord Gummer of Madcowburger thinks we should simply welcome them with open arms and anyone who dares think otherwise is a raving Trotskyist. That's underpinned by his degree in history and a history of using young family members for political mileage.

What's that smell? Rat? Overstuffed brown envelope?

Sports Books

The Guardian's top sports books

The top ten is heavy on boxing. So I've made a note to see if they're available to reserve at the library. Otherwise, I was surprised to have ticked so many off the list.


This Sporting Life.

I read this a long time ago. A tough, gritty novel about one of the toughest and grittiest sports, Rugby League. A snapshot of life in the north of England in (I think) the 1960s. Unusual among the sport book lists, a novel rather than a biography or factual reporting.


The Art of Captaincy.

Mike Brearly was (and is) unusual in so many ways. Certain to be the last captain to retain a place in a test cricket team through his ability as a captain more than through his merits as a player. All nations now adopt the Aussie way: pick the team, then pick the skipper.

Educated to some ridiculous level, cerebral to some ridiculous extent (there were rumours of months spent in caves in the Himalayas meditating about brainy stuff), he got the best from everyone, effortlessly.


The Boys of Summer.

An absolutely beautiful book. You don't need to be a baseball fan, or even a sports fan. The author (I'm not checking this, so names, teams and details could be wrong) was a reporter following the Red Sox in the days when they pioneered including black players. There's background, the story unfolds, and then the author sets off to find and interview the players long into their retirement. Fascinating and enthralling writing.


Paper Lion.

George Plimpton. Novelist, poet, and sportswriter, goes undercover into the Detroit Lions summer training camp as (allegedly) some sort of fourth in line backup quarterback. It didn't take long for the players to work him out. Under-fit, underweight, under-muscled, older and slower than anyone for miles around, there's then the double-bluff where the players don't let on that they know there's a cuckoo in the nest, as he wins their trust.

There's real respect in the end and love and friendship between journalist and prey.


Beyond a Boundary.

On my to do list. Cricket, like so much sport, is more than just a game. It's long overdue for the education system to abandon the teaching of the out of date, discredited, make-believe that is religion, and start ramming home to the non-athletes and non-interested, that sport is absolutely central to society, community, and, as much as anything else, can show humanity at its very best.


The Blizzard and The Nightwatchman.

I'm on a Nightwatchman catch up. Long article football and cricket magazines, both full of wit and humour, insight and intelligence.

Three out of ten - must do better

Made a mistake...

...and finished the report I was writing with the Manure Sunderland game in the background, and called it a night at about nine o'clock. So I missed what must've been among the most hilarious penalty shoot-outs ever. It finished 2-1 to Sunderland, so between them, they managed to score three from ten, with seven missed or saved.

What You Tube is for. Moyes shouldn't put Wellbeck into the penalty taking lineup, because his first though on entering the area is to fall over, maybe Adnan Januzaj isn't he new messiah after all, Jones went for the Chris Waddle ball into orbit technique, he may have a future in pizza adverts. Raphael spends every game in the Dirk Kyut pose, arms outstretched, protesting furiously about anything and everything, so the fact that his attempt was saved can't possibly be his fault.

Stan Collymore

Wants Twitter to do more about abuse and death threats he's received.

There's no doubt that threatening to shoot someone on their doorstep is wrong. To do so just because he thinks you centre forward took a dive to win a penalty is wrong and absurd. Racial abuse, like any abuse, when it becomes cowardly and bullying, is wrong.

But a black mail letter is clearly wrong.

However, it isn't the Post Office that should be in the dock for delivering it. Or for being unable to trace the sender.

There's a trend to blame the Internet and ISP's and anyone who isn't really responsible. Politicians don't trust the Internet, because they can't control it, and they set the agenda of blame.

Don't blame Twitter, Stan. It's a police issue.

The police want water cannons

They want them because...

...and if you don't almost choke and spit out your tea at this, you're more cynical than me...

...because “as the austerity measures continue, there's an increased likelihood of protests”.

Free speech? The right to peaceful protest? Or raging assumptions and a police state? Predictably Boris Johnson and the right are all for it.

The Premier League are going after pubs showing games

An own goal. They're prosecuting pubs showing foreign feeds of Premiership games. So, instead of a social at the pub with the game, there'll be a social at someone's flat with the laptop plugged into the widescreen telly, with some supermarket lager.

Every season, the game streaming improves. Right now, if I'm not watching every Arsenal game with just the occasional stop / start and maybe one change of stream per game, I'm wondering if I'm in a pre-2010 timewarp. The Premiership needs to get real and accept the signs of the times.

Mad Dogs, series one ends...

About fish

Apparently, we're surrounded by all sorts of great, fresh fish. Yet we eat just cod, haddock and prawns, in the main. They account for a huge percentage of the fish sold, and it's little wonder that certain species are over fished, stocks are falling, and there's a load of perfectly tasty stuff thrown back into the sea because no-one wants it.

BLISS has her own fish rules: no heads, no tails, no bones, and definitely no faffing about.

I've never resolved to cook my way through a cookbook before. Mostly because the very first recipe gets thoroughly mangled before the list of ingredients is completed:

“Don't have any of that or those. I'll use these and this instead. Don't much like that, I'll change it for one of these, and we'll skip the salt and / or sugar and double the vinegar / lemon / lime” and so on.

But I've decided to slowly work my way through Rick Stein's seafood lover's guide. I love seafood, and the book is geographically based, on a trip around the coasts of the UK. There's a couple of rules: (A) I won't slavishly follow the recipes, but will try to stick to them as far as is reasonable (I don't weigh, (unless it's flour for bread or pizza) and I don't measure (unless it's water and yeast for bread or pizza)), and there'll have to be some substitution of unavailable ingredients; and (B) so that BLISS and DLL can at least try everything to see if they like it, there'll be no meat, so cod with bacon and parley cream (say) will become cod with parsley cream.

Almost forgot. (C) never shop for recipes. Shop for what's in good nick and the best value and in season and local (and all that worthy stuff) and make the recipe fit.

Mad Dogs

The concluding episode of series one. More loose ends than something riddled with loose ends, on loose end Tuesday, in The International Year of the Loose End. My turn to hide my head behind my hands, because I hardly dared to glance at BLISS. Loose ends are not her thing.

Her favourite series conclusion was to Six Feet Under, where the future of every major character was summarised in the closing montage. Surety. Closure. She approved. In spades.

Loose ends and cliffhangers? Not the way to her heart. There was some laughter, but of the nervous variety, as we awaited the potential explosion. Naturally, series two episode one has been postponed, in protest.

The TV awards...

...just confirmed my point of view, that there's an infinite number of better ways to spend your time. Among the winners were:

• The ever punchable Ant and Dec (with endorsements from: their mothers, Robbie Williams, Simon Cowell, and Alan Shearer – the lowest value endorsements since some poor soul called Mad Frankie Frazer as a character witness);
• Dr Who (a revived children's programme) – best drama?
• Strictly Come Dancing – I'd rather squirt lemon juice into my eyeballs than watch a millisecond;
• Coronation Street – a soap opera, the equivalent of doing jigsaw puzzles or staring aimlessly into space;
• Best entertainment? I'm a celebrity...get me out of here! I think just about sums things up.

Unqualified advice

John Selwyn Gummer

John Selwyn Gummer. Here he is:

Here he is feeding his daughter a burger to put everyone's mind at rest about the mad cow disease scare:

It didn't work.

He advises the government on environmental stuff. He has a degree in history. Which, in understanding the science of the environment, is in the chocolate fireguard usefulness zone. His advice, predictably, is that fracking is a great idea, because lots of his friends stand to profit from it. Perhaps this time he'll lower a granddaughter down a drill-hole with explosives strapped to her, to show us all just how safe it is.

He was John Selwyn Gummer, then became just John Gummer and now he's Lord Deben. He can't even make his mind up about what his name is.

He says that climate change campaigners have extremist views close to Trotskyism. Does that sound like one extremist accusing others of extremism? Should he be rebranded once again as Lord Black of Pot 'n' Kettle?

The gay marriage laws have brought the floods

It must be extreme nutter Monday.

This is David Silvester:

He's a UKIP councillor. Henley-on-Thames. He's UKIP because he defected to them after election as a tory. So he and his views were endorsed by the tories. He believes the recent floods are a direct result of passing the laws introducing gay marriage.

He has some sort of fire and brimstone religious belief, and claims to have warned that there would be repercussions should the bill be passed. Where do belief issues become mental health issues? Surely he's crossed the line into the land of the padded cell and straightjacket? Who on earth voted for him? Is Henley-on-Thames some sort of hotbed of Old Testament values? Is there a Nutters Estate, with Brimstone Broadway, Sodom Street, 10 Commandments Close, and the Red Sea Pedestrian Walkway? Do lightning bolts rain down upon the good folk of Henley-on-Thames the minute they consider straying from the straight and narrow?

Considering UKIP claim to have had a clear out of the “extremist, nasty and barmy”, you have to wonder what those on the 'no longer required' pile must've been like.

Mad Dogs and Harlequins

Once upon a time. Long, long ago...

A television pundit said that should Match of the Day feature a particularly vibrant, compelling and tightly contested game of rugby, some tastes and obsessions might change. Well, that comment came to mind today watching the Scarlets v Harlequins game. Two teams going at each other, going hammer and tongs at each other, both teams only interested in winning the game, playing it out in sheeting rain, making the best of the conditions. Throw in a tight finish, down to the wire, and there's all the evidence you could ever need. Stick this on BBC 1 at ten o'clock instead of the insipid Chelski Manure game, and you'd have untold converts to the egg-chasing game.

Elpida

Places soapbox, and clambers aboard, here goes:

D-the-dog was thrown over th fence at the Elpida dogs' home in Greece as a puppy. If anyone wants details of a lucky escape from illness before he pitched up here, BLISS is your girl.

Now.

BLISS is active on some dog owner social media, she's a whole lot more patient than I am, a whole lot less sweary, and a whole lot more willing to debate things than I am. She works tirelessly: auctions, eBay, running food and blankets and essentials up to Crawley for the trips made to Greece from there. Basically, her heart's absolutely in the right place, and her money's where her mouth is.

Now. Time for my mouth.

If you've paid for a dog when there's rescues needing homes, your opinion is worthless, because you're below contempt.

If you do anything other than back a cash-strapped vicar's work to raise funds in order to assist with the trip to Greece, you're some sort of hate-filled Daily Mail type and your opinion is worthless, because you're below contempt.

Don't even think about commenting about foreign v domestic rescue dogs, or me and Mr D might just pay you a visit, you Daily Mail retard.

In any case, google it, and chip in or help out if you can. Dogs are dogs, they deserve happy, loving homes.

Mad Dogs

We watched the first three episodes. At one point DLL and me were laughing our socks off, and BLISS was cowering, covering her face with her hands. “Why aren't you laughing?” we said, “it's too stressful” she said. “How're they going to get away with it?”

We tried. We really, patiently tried to explain that it isn't real, and that if they don't get away with it, it'd be the world's shortest ever series, all to no avail. “But it's just too stressful....”

Beautiful.

Apparently not too stressful...

...viewing is Botched Up Bodies. BLISS threw it casually into a conversation:

“On Botched Up Bodies last night...”

“You what?”

“Botched Up Bodies”

“Have you got some sort of special remote control with access to otherwise hidden rubbish TV channels?”

“No. There was this bloke with...”

As if I shouldn't be questioning the sensibleness in viewing a programme called Botched Up Bodies. Like that's normal telly. DLL is just as bad.

“It's interesting”.

If you have that special, secret remote control, apparently, it is.

A minor win is still a win...

Some (very) minor success

KIZ (full of gratitude): You've nicked my parking space.

KIZ: (she stayed up a bit late): I heard you banging about at six o'clock. I put the pillow over my ears and went back to sleep.

Here's the good part:

KIZ: (on hearing the doorbell working) You fixed it! Awesome! (I changed the batteries).

KIZ: (on the threshold bar being fixed down – the massive matter of half a dozen screws) Fantastic! No more tripping over all the time.

I didn't tell her that I'd tripped over it so big time that morning that there was no question of not fixing it down, as it was flapping about six inches above the floor.

The big matter of the lights remains unresolved, but I do now have a series of photos of the switch (disassembled, no defects visible), the ceiling rose (disassembled (despite the rose surround preventing access to the rose) and no defects visible), and the outside light switch (disassembled, no defects visible). That no visible defects thing – that's not what I was hoping for. But a big thanks to Kiz for making me feel a whole lot better.

MM's club night

I can't pretend to understand, because I never really got the disco thing, but maybe I would've were it not for the poor quality of so much of the music being churned out when I was the right age to go to clubs. That was a time when I did a rare thing, and made a resolution I've stuck with, to not be the oldest swinger in town. You know the sort of thing. Shirt open. Hairy chest. Medallion. Ten to fifteen years older than anyone else in the room.

I do understand the love of music, I understand anything goes as long as it's vinyl. I understand the win-win-win of punters having a great, wild Friday night at reasonable cost, MM and a couple of others doing well out of endless hours of work pulling the whole thing together, and a small, independent venue doing well out of hosting those punters and promoters.

The idea of independent DJ's playing stuff they believe in makes sense too. Well done mate. Keep it small and real for a while and let it build organically, I'm sure it will.

Adopt a...pigeon?

BLISS' favourite peg-leg pigeon may mean us building an outdoor, or even an indoor (look, over my dead body will evaporate after one smile to “well, maybe” and after another to “okay, where do you want it?”).

Top of the (premier) league

That's where we are, with what we've got. But, without a doubt, we either spend now to enhance what we've got, or see Citeh and Chelski power past us in the next six months.

That wasn't convincing against Fulham, but I love seeing them done over since they (men) bashed us Gillingham (under elevens) up. I have no respect for that club, or their fans, and would gladly see them relegated through the ranks to non-league football where they belong. Even the toughest, most ruthless crews of the football violence years would've let schoolboys go with just a fright, at most.

Eating, alone and sharing

You are how you eat

I watched a bit of the Big Bash cricket. Adam Gilchrist was in the commentary box. He talked about an ex-team-mate, an opening bat by the sound of it. One of those intense, single-minded characters.

“You know when you all go out for a some Thai food” Gilchrist said, “and you order, I dunno, Pad Thai, and someone orders a green chicken curry, and there's fish and prawns and dishes all over the table and everyone grabs bits and pieces from whatever takes their fancy?”

He went on:

“Well [whoever it was, I didn't catch it] would have none of that, he would say 'I've ordered what I want and that's what I'm eating'”.

While I'm quite happy to eat alone, I'd actually rather share a meal with a paperback book or newspaper than have some bore banging on while I eat. But I like that communal ordering and getting to try a wider range of dishes than would otherwise be the case. I've always likes the dim sum trolly idea. If time's not a problem, then you can sit there all afternoon, picking. Left to my own devices I'd never pick up a steamer basket of curried whelks, but with enough people around the table, someone will, and with luck, there'll be someone who enjoys them.

Er, where's the road gone?

Somewhere between disconcerting and terrifying, an interesting drive through the rebranded Sundridge-in-the-Sea and Braested-under-Water this morning. It was about a foot deep in places. Always ready with a jolly speed camera and ticket, the police were absent when some, or any traffic information and assistance would've been a great help. It was left to a couple of firemen giving half-hearted “slow down, mate” gestures to every fourth of fifth car.

Now there's two types of “go help with directing the traffic” for firemen.

One is when there's a better than even money chance of ending up to your elbows in blood and gore. In that case there's little resistance from the more blood-and-gore-adverse among the crews to doing a bit of stop, go, proceed with caution traffic control, rather than trying to stem some arterial bleeding or fill a metal bucket up with detached bits and pieces.

It's very different when what you're asking is for someone to go and do the most boring of jobs, when they're not really qualified to do it and it isn't their remit.

“Can you take Redlight there and direct the traffic for half an hour or so” will get you a sour face that suggests the bloke would rather do just about anything else, and that he and Redlight might just go on the missing list for a bit, have a couple of crafty fags somewhere, try to rustle up a tray of teas, and you can shove your traffic control detail.

As a training school instructor put it, “when there's no-one else to call upon, they call us out”, so if guys who seldom if ever say “actually, that 'aint my job” say “it 'aint my job” they usually have a valid point.

The Pietersen Philosophy

Real progress and the Kevin Pietersen way

There's a fantastic article on Kevin Pietersen in the first issue of The Nightwatchman, by Tom Holland. Now, Pietersen's far from ordinary. He's among the top five, certainly the top ten in the world at what he does. But it's the early paragraphs of the article that are interesting in wider terms, and they set out why Pietersen has appeared to be a troubled, and a trouble, player.

Pietersen's irrelevancies

Holland writes that there are two traditional ways of dealing with cricket's powers that be: (a) tug the forelock, kowtow, and get on with playing the game on the field, keep your thoughts and ideas to yourself; or: (b) rebel. Say what you think and don't hesitate to give them a hard time if you think they deserve it.

Pietersen does neither, because, to him, they're just irrelevant. Powers that be being powers that be, they would rather have a rebel than someone who does what they need to do and brings home to them that, with or without them, the world goes on. They'd rather deal with a rebel than with someone who recognises them for the irrelevance they are.

The same with race and colour. Pietersen's South African, playing for England, in an era that still saw South Africa picking players on a political quota basis rather than on ability and form. Politically naeve, maybe, and certainly so for someone otherwise so PR savvy, Pietersen sees race, colour, religion, and all the rest of that BS for the irrelevance it is. Or, rather, he fails to see it. He just gets on with playing his game and recognises none of the artificial distinctions beloved equally by the tories, UKIP and the rest of the right-wing nutters, and the looney left huggy happy clappy social worker types on the left.

The way forward

Social progress, and political improvement won't happen until Pietersen's Way is adopted, and it won't happen here for a long time, unless something revolutionary happens, or some rebels put something in the water.

There needs to be a general recognition that forelock tugging has to become a thing of the past. Knowing your place isn't desirable. Being run by and for a bunch of toffee-nosed public school cartels has to stop, unless everyone's happy to be some sort of waged slave of the corporations, and the dodgy politicians looking after themselves and their banker mates. There's still a lot of sharp intakes of breath at the Russell Brand “why vote?” approach, but, when the same old same old results whoever wins, what is the point? Unless and until there's some real viable alternatives determined to change things, why waste the time?

Race, colour, ethnicity, whatever, will always be an issue until the politically motivated shut up, and let the sports world (players, not 'supporters') set the agenda.

We've got a prime minister, looking over his shoulder at losing votes to UKIP, giving speeches reminiscent of the Rivers of Blood hate-rant. Way to get the existing eastern europeans on your side, you comb-over berk. Makes you feel really welcome and happy to be forking out a fortune in taxes every year for you to play about with.

There's the good-hearted, but equally negative social worker types who want to pile on the baggage of history and impose quotas and targets instead of chasing the only real way forward:

1. Treat everyone the same, in terms of opportunity to maximise their potential.

2. Let nature take its course.

Equality means just that, and you get that by education and opportunity, then let the best man or woman win.

The Pietersen Way: recognise the irrelevancies and the rest will take care of itself, naturally, and rather more quickly then with continued interference, by the powers that be.

Don't swear at opponents, don't win either

What's the first thing you do on getting to work?

Before the kettle, even before the kettle, as long as I arrive before office hours, is music. Early starts and late finishes are made much less frustrating and tedious with some music playing. At a previous office the ear-buds in were a signal that someone was trying to get a report or spec finished against a deadline, and were not to be interrupted.

It's the same in the car. Long drives, two to three hours, take careful planning. Okay, there may a cursory glance at the tyres, check the oil, top up the window washer bottle, but the main thing is to sort the cd's out. Unless you're BLISS, in which case the main thing is emergency supplies. I think there's sufficient rations in her car to get through at least a couple of weeks in a snow drift.

I shouldn't laugh, really, because she'd be on the news “woman braves weeks stuck in snowdrift – found alive and asking for some salt”, whereas I'd either not make it or be found in the woods somewhere complaining about the tedium of a raw squirrel and berry diet. “Ill-prepared lunatic found in wood raving about curry-cravings”.

Milk. That'd be her undoing. A need for builders' tea means fretting about not having access to milk.

I've picked up a couple of new musical genres from the ?uestlove book:

Yacht-rock: the sort of inoffensive, soft rock music you'd expect to hear playing behind the chinking of glasses filled with expensive and sparkling liquids on board a rich man's plaything. Typical example, I suppose, would be Hotel California.

Dentist radio: those awful radio stations people seem genetically predisposed to tuning in to when they hit middle age. Heart FM and the like. Radio stations devoted to Yacht Rock.

Dentists' music: the output of dentist radio stations.

Contrary to what I say, which is...

“I don't want to be told what to listen to...”

...when explaining a dislike for music radio, actually, I do like to be told what to listen to, because that's a good way to find new stuff to listen to. What I don't like is being told what to listen to by producers bound by playlists formulated by what's selling, sterilising change and stagnating listening patterns, and by radio stations governed by pleasing listeners who want familiar, singalong stuff to please the advertisers and keep the corporate moneymen happy.

Just as, if Denis Potter came along today, he'd be ignored in favour of lavish costume dramas and reality telly shows, there's no John Peel legacy on the radio, you need to look around the internet to find music radio worth listening to.


Someone called Andrew Hale tweeted this:

@BumbleCricket Clarke setting another fine example with very clear obscenities thrown at Buttler. How many kids watching will emulate?

I don't understand people who claim to like sport, and to understand the intense competition and passion that is involved, then have some sort of pantomime dame skirt-hitching, bust rearranging meltdown about a bit of swearing.

Andrew, I'd happily have kids hitting runs and gobbling up catches the way Clarke does, and playing the game hard, giving their opponents a hard time. The Aussies have absolutely rinsed us over there this winter, and it's no coincidence that our captain is a perfect gent, while theirs has copped a match fine for telling Anderson to “face up and get you f*****g arm broke”, nor that they've adopted a much more in your face approach.

Remember the year we beat them at home, after a period of Aussie dominance? The series started with Steve Harmison thundering the ball into someone's helmet and leaving them dazed with the physio stemming the flow of blood and patching them up. A signal of aggression and intent. Nothing wrong with that on the field of play.

I'm a gout lout - there's progress

Gout

Yep. The random, inexplicable pain and inflammation in my right ankle has an explanation. Gout. What have I become? Some sort of feudal lord in the olden days? Have I been transported in a timewarp to the times of feasting on whole roast large animals washed down with gallons of mead? Have I, suddenly, got loads of peasants farming my land and paying with cartloads of vegetables?

Apparently not

Apparently, gout is a thoroughly modern disease, and is on the increase. I can vouch for one thing, it's no less painful for being trendy. The most unsightly trendy since Jeremy Clarkson got some of those male leggings for Christmas.

So. Easy-peasy. To the gout helpdesk pages for some straightforward advice.

Or not, as the case may be.

Bad things are, well, obviously, bad: beer, spirits, red wine. That leaves white wine (pulls a face, ok in cooking) and naff all else. But! Ah! No mention of cider in the adverse column. Then, good things are, well, bad. Oily fish. Liver. Offal in general. Lean red meat. Nuts. What's left?

Then there's the catch-all get out of jail free: genetic predisposition.

“But doctor, I've not had any beer / wine / nuts / liver / blah, blah, blah, for weeks, and look at this red, hot, swollen, excruciatingly painful ankle...”

“Ah...” raises eyebrows, sorrowful sigh “that's that genetic predisposition, is what that is, right there...”

So. Waiting room, waiting, poking and prodding, and that diagnostic thing beloved by the medicals and the forensic-minded. What difference to me? What help? Yes, you've had your fun, got me back for a (pulls a worse than white wine face) fasting blood test. For what? To tell me what it is (that's just putting a name to something – you say gout, I say [insert made up gibberish here]. Unless there's a use for the process, then the process has no value.

The Broken Toe situation

[See Pulp Fiction, The Bonnie Situation]

“Man, my toe's broke...I think”

“Wait here dude” [hours pass]

“Man, wake up, x-ray time” [toe gets x-rayed] [another long, long wait]

“Yo. Man. Yo toe? Broke. Like, broke man”

“So what happens now?”

“Now man, we call Mr Wolf” [enter Harvey Keitel]

“Tape it to the other toe”

“Do what?”

“Please. Pretty please. Pretty please with sugar on top. Tape the toe to the next toe. Now. Bye.”

So I learnt. The next time, no trip to A&E. Just to Boots for that surgical tape, and I splinted the big toe to the next-to-the-big-toe until things settled down.

This gout thing – looks like going the same way.

We are [temporarily] top of the league

Well, that was, and wasn't, and then was fun again

That's why you have to watch sport live and in full or, really, accept a thoroughly degraded experience: knowing the result sucks away the tension that real-time involvement provides, and watching someone else's idea of the cut-away important parts can never tell the whole story, particularly as the editing, Match of the Day style, is too often real simplistic lowest common plastic pretend fan potato stuff.

Specifically, by way of example, and here's an ideal opportunity to say:

“We are [albeit, inevitably, temporarily],

top of the league [although with a squad inferior to that of Citeh and Chavski],

we are top of the league.”

Aston Villa 1 v 2 Arsenal

First of all, we lost to these, at home, on the opening day of the season, and they've been absolutely rubbish ever since. So what've they got against us? We owed them a spanking and in the end delivered a narrow defeat.

There were distinct phases to the game. We looked good, dominant, with them looking (very) infrequently dangerous on the break. This creates tension, and a game you can't look away from. When...

...all that routine, tedious, boring, rubbish is cleared from the brain. Although it is far from relaxing, numbing, or comforting (the sort of release I assume is provided by, say, jigsaw puzzles, rocking back and forth in a chair wearing a hospital-issue nightdress, or watching dreary reality television (here I admit to not differentiating from watching, say Peter Andre or Celebs Dancing Strictly for the Saturday Night Sofa-Bound, and being sedated in a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest scenario, albeit by the BBC)) it is engrossing, nerve-tingling, and impossible to tear yourself away from...

...and then, two goals within a minute on the match-clock, and, to be honest, from my seat in front of a laptop computer view, there was a 60 / 40 probability of a third, and then...

...the big (inevitable) comeback, sparked by a misplaced pass leading to a consolation (as it turned out) goal, 1 – 2, and then they 'pressed'...

...pressing meaning hoofing the ball upfield and hoping for the best, which was repelled by determined defending by us which meant...

...winning the first header, and then hoofing the ball up their end.

All of which ended up in a breathless, unconvincing, un-league-winning-crenditial-endorsing performance that saw us go back to the top of the league on a Monday night. It was magic. Tension, release, more, almost unbearable tension, and a nail-biting finale.

That's sport, it isn't entertainment, or a diversion, or a business, unless you don't fully understand.

There's plenty about that don't (fully or partially) understand (and who want their say in the media).

Shape! Lets get our SHAPE!

Once again...

...one thing leads to another. Good things. I'm reading Mo' Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove. The Roots drummer is about twelve or fifteen years younger than me, and their tour and operations manager, who contributes, is about the same age. So there's a chance to look at what those guys were listening to in their formative years, in Philadelphia, then as globe-trotting musicians.

I've already been reminded to listen to Rufus. Agreat band, with a great singer in Chaka Khan, but all about the music and the band, and that was a better vehicle for her great voice than the solo wailing diva stuff. There's some Stevie Wonder to revisit and some new jazz to listen to, too.

Battle Royale

Watched this with DLL and MM. All three of us had been meaning to watch he film for a while, so it was nice to all sit down together. It'd be too easy to call it a Hunger Games on steroids with a shot of adrenaline, but apart from the 'last man standing' concept of the contest, that's way too glib and does both a disservice.

It's a film about love, and friendship, and death. With lots of blood, splatter and gore thrown in.

Thankfully the tory party is bit of a cultural wasteland, or Gove might be looking at this a model for inner city education.

Shouted from the dugout

“Shape! Lets get our shape!!!”

On a Saturday afternoon, this may mean “think about what we spoke about, the game plan, pick up your men, lets get tight and sensible for a bit...”

On a Sunday morning: “line up nicely, like those plastic blokes on the table football game...”

“Options. Give him options!!!”

On a Saturday afternoon this may mean: “you're all a bit static lads, how about giving the man on the ball a couple of options and backing up the play a bit better?”

On a Sunday morning: “we've got a throw-in, I'd better shout something...”

“Get a foot in.”

On a Saturday afternoon: “could someone think about making a tackle, please?”

On a Sunday morning: “could someone boot one of the opposition into next week, please?”

They work hard...apart from me, apparently

They work hard...

...well, some do anyway.

It started off innocently enough. Musical hotbeds. Wales, choirs. New Orleans, jazz. If your three best mates start a band, you're more likely to pick up some drumsticks or a bass guitar and pitch in. Then there's the BLISS point of view (from now on the BLISS POV):

BLISS: It's handed down, too. Look at the Poles...

I looked at me.

BLISS: ...they're studious, serious. They like classical music. They're hard working...

Here's the payoff:

She then flicked a thumb at me, one of those dismissive thumbs, a casual thumb, but clearly indicating me.

BLISS: Well. Not all of them. Most of them though.

So. That'll be me then. Serious and studious, likes classical music but workshy. I suppose I'll have to settle for that.

It took a while to regain composure and stop the laughter tears and giggling fits. It was the thumb flick thing that set me off. Definitely the thumb thing.

They like cabbage...

...didn't stop there. We like cabbage. Apparently. Cabbage, and pickled herrings. Pickled anything, apparently.

DLL: We're out of gherkins.

ME: OK. I'll pick some up.

BLISS: See. Part Polish. Pickled gherkins.

Woods under water

The dog walk is 50% under water. The other 50% is knee deep in mud. The dogs don't seem to mind.

White dog is mud-phillic.

As are my boots, trousers, hands, sweatshirt, and jacket.

Continuum

Corporate dominated future. Rebels use a time warp device to return to 2012, but take a policewoman with them by accident. The nerd that makes things worse in the future accidentally taps into her comms system. Some want to get back to their own time. Others don't. Complicated. Fast-moving.

What's in that lasagne?

A rare lunch with BLISS today

Her manor, her call of venue. I'm invariably drawn towards bargain basement curry outlets, noodle bars, and the seedier end of the ethnic food industry. She chose a café and a healthy jacket potato. What to have? I went for the lasagne. With chips. That irresistible café speciality, a pasta dish, with chips.

I'm a little bit baffled by how café lasagne works. I'm baffled as to how it's made, actually. It is like some sort of ultimate, bland, comfort food. The constituents appear to be:

Mince: a sort of generic mince. Almost without texture, and without sufficient flavour for provenance identification purposes. It's like minced whatever, with added reformed vegetable protein, and cooked without seasoning or flavouring.

Cheese sauce: the only reason you could know it's a cheese sauce is because you know lasagne has a cheese sauce in it. It's more a butter, flour and milk sauce with a dash of cheese without any vestige of the flavour of cheese grated into it.

Sheet pasta: soggy, tasteless pasta without any resistance to the bite.

Spices, flavourings: forget it. Nothing of interest allowed.

Where do they source the ingredients? Do they just buy it in ready made? How does it still somehow work despite all the shortcomings?


Parking meter fruit machines

Later, I parked up and there was a bloke walking down the street, systematically stopping at every parking ticket dispensing machine and pushing the coin return button. Something you might expect someone obviously down on their luck to be doing, but this was a tidy-looking bloke, wearing new and clean clothes.

Perhaps he'd been ripped off once too often by the machines in the area, and was determined to tilt the balance back in his favour.

Before I got too shocked and stunned, I remembered my experience at a pay and display somewhere. I filled the bloody machine with all the change I had. I pressed the ticket button. Nothing. I pressed the coin return button. Nothing. We were running tight for time, for the pictures, I think. Someone passing by said “hit it” I must've looked uncertain, “no, honest mate, it's always playing up that one, hit it”.

So it hit it, and got about a quarter of my coins back. So I hit it again. Back to about 50%. So I hit it a couple more times. Then I found I was enjoying hitting the machine for being so rubbish and trying to nick my money. Better still, for every satisfying, cathartic slap, the thing coughed up more coins. I kept going until they stopped coming and getting to the pictures was really, really tight.

Corny old point of view, but if we can land blokes on the moon but can't organise machines to give change, then, well, they're exploiting people's need for parking spaces, and when the machines don't do the single job they are designed to do, they deserve a good bashing up.


The Nightwatchman

Two fantastic articles in the Nightwatchman magazine, about the development of cricket (historically) in Papua New Guinea, and (recently) in Ireland. It seems that there's strict transparent rules to the ups and downs of the second, third, and etc. tiers of test cricket. But breaking into the top teir, well that's like becoming a member of some exclusive gentlemen's club.

A low-profile injury

Not the most high-profile injury ever

DLL: What've you done to your hand?

ME: [looking at the cut on the back of my hand] I'm not sure exactly. But I did a bit of juggling with the tape, camera, notepad and pencil. I think it was the propelling pencil that did the damage.

DLL: Oh.

ME: Yeah. Probably among the least-glamourous injuries ever in the history of un-glamourous injuries.

You end up letting your kids down, don't you? Why didn't I say “there was this bear escaped from the zoo...” or “as I was fighting the muggers for the old lady's handbag...” or “it was either rescuing that family from their burning house or climbing that warehouse roof after that little cat or...”

Or, actually, pretty much anything other than “I did it on my propelling pencil”.

I don't suppose many A&E's are ever overrun with propelling pencil related injuries. Not unless James Bond's on the rampage and the only weaponry open is Rymans. Mind you, I don't think there were any safety instructions [Don't stick the pencil in your eye as this may impair your vision and result in partial blindness] so I may have a claim against Uni.

There's a fountain in Braintree

It's absolutely fantastic. Don't have a clue what it's all about.

The Dartford Crossing and human rights

BLISS should start her own blog. I may start a collection of BLISS-isms, or get one of the kids to do a “S**t My Dad Says”-type job on her.

BLISS' B*ll*cks, they could call it.

Anyway, all I said was that from December 2014, the Dartford Crossing is going to be pre-pay only, with mobile phone, smartphone and online payment options.

“They can't do that” she said. I could tell she was revving up a bit. “That assumes everyone's got a mobile phone or a connected computer” metaphorically, she was rolling up her sleeves and the gloves were coming off “how can they do that?”

So. Dartford Crossing. Welcome to the BLISS hitlist. Rather you than me.