The beat that my heart skipped *****

This brilliant film manages to portray a hard man hero’s sensitivity, without softening the gritty violent world the he inhabits.

No effort is required to believe in Thomas Seyr; the main character played by the cool Romain Duris, I found myself liking him despite his flaws. There is no gloss at all in this story, it has the kind of reality that the French seem far better able to achieve than does Hollywood.

It reveals the power of music and the result of having the courage to make big life changes

(The only thing that marred my enjoyment of this movie was the fact that half way through, someone in the row behind me let off with the most gag-inducing effect. One person at least actually complained and moved seats. Fortunately it blew over in a few minutes).

Yesterday afternoon

Cycle Shop

In the late sixties (I would have been around 5 or 6 years old) I used to go to Safeways (somewhere on the south side of Glasgow) to watch my mum do the shopping and to have a burger and milkshake at the snack bar. A little later we did a project on the Romans at school which featured mosaics. The only example of a real mosaic that the class might have seen, that the teacher could come up with, was the big Safeways "S" on the wall of the shop.

In the seventies I lived in Harrogate and used to pedal to the construction site of the new Conference Centre and Morrisons shop to watch the cranes and to be amazed at the speed of progress, (despite having no idea what was being built). Today the last four Safeways branches will be reopened as Morrisons.

I'm sure there is a moral in this tale, particularly as it is my birthday and I like Taoism.

Coping again

I'll stick with a mullet thanks.


A few weeks a go my friend mentioned that he was going to see a Matisse exhibition in Denmark. I like Matisse and after a little chat about various things including the fact that, earlier this year, I had visited the chapel he decorated in Vence and after my friend mentioned that his daughter didn’t want to go (and so there was a spare ticket) he suggested I went; so I did, last Thursday.

We arrived at the very handsome airport (unlike the Crawley Arndale Centre which we had set off from) just before lunch and made our way by foot to the hotel. We were working on instinct and so headed off in the wrong direction. Eventually we were given directions by a police man by which time we were a both a bit peckish and ready to sit down. As we came by the train station again, I was walking slightly ahead of my companion, when I heard his bag hit the ground behind me. I turned in time to see him hit the ground very soon after. He then rolled off the pavement into a puddle at the edge of the road; he is epileptic by the way. We weren’t looking very expensive when we eventually entered the Grand Hotel. I don’t think my friend had fully recovered from his episode as he got quite angry about the lighting arrangements in his room. He complained, got dried off and we went for lunch.

This meant retracing our steps yet again, passing the interesting looking Tivoli Gardens, earth’s oldest theme park, which was closed for the application of Christmas decorations. In due course we got to the more interesting part of town. By the station, as is often the way, the City is a bit bleak but you don’t have to walk far to find an attractive, buzzing centre with plenty of cafes and happy looking people. We found a restaurant down a side street which we liked because of its lack of touristiness. It was quite dark inside, pictures of kings and queens on the wall. It was busy with locals, many of the tables had large platters on them which looked good. When ours arrived it had two pork chops, two breaded haddock, portions of other fish and various salads as well as a tasty thing that we decided to call ham and mushroom surprise. We ate the lot; very good it was too at 15 krona per head, about £14.

Afterwards we felt we deserved a rest and retired to the hotel for a couple of hours before retracing our steps again, headed for a bar or two. Bar number one was quite uninteresting. Bar number two; Oscar, looked inviting. My sidekick found a table whilst I went to get a round of drinks. It was much friendlier in here. I placed the drinks on our table and as I sat down, mentioned that there was a very large jar of free condoms on the bar. This didn’t seem to register with my friend; I said, “it must be because it’s a gay bar”. “Is it?” he looked round. “There are some girls over there”, he countered.

In a short while a couple of lasses sat down at the table next to us. They were lovely. The girl opposite me had a kind of tight skinned alien quality, the girl next to me was less feminine. We chatted and bought each other drinks for an hour or two before leaving about elevenish. The women walked with us towards our hotel (they were getting a train home) and pointed out where they had been married two years ago at the town hall, Beautiful Alien proudly showed me her wedding ring.

To be continued………

Tales from a past life - baptism of fire

Before I worked for Big American Company, I worked for Smaller American Company. I was the sales office junior. The company was doing very well and some people were earning lots of money. I moved from Yorkshire to start work there in the autumn of 86, I think. Initially I stayed in a bed and breakfast before sharing a house for a while in Chiswick and then a flat in Ealing. The office building was brand new and quite imposing, situated by Langley Station near Slough. I spent about two and a half years there. It was a bit of an eye opener.

At the first Christmas party (in a local restaurant), I was surprised that most people were dressed as though they were going to do some gardening, I was looking quite smart, at least to start with; by the end of the evening I was soaked and covered in all sorts of stuff. Moments after arriving at our table, it was on fire and I don’t mean a singed napkin, I am talking kitchen staff running into the restaurant armed with fire extinguishers, and using them. I was shocked not so much at the pyrotechnics but at how funny everyone in my group thought it was. Not long after that the bosses were on the table with trousers down and there was food flying in all directions. I got into the spirit of things a bit better than the people from the company who had booked the other half of the restaurant.

The next few years of what you could laughing call my career, were punctuated by a number of similar meals, for which it has to be said, I was better prepared. One of my favourites was at a sales conference at a hotel in Bristol. The evening had started with flying food etc but by three in the morning in the bar, many people having left through fatigue and after the barman had got the hang of not falling for being distracted, whilst people stole booze, there was a quiet little cadre, giggling the night away. That was until a particularly naughty member of our team (who has gone on to be an important person in the industry ), despatched someone into the dining room (adjacent to the bar) on some pretext or other. There were no lights on in there but the tables were set for breakfast. Once his friend was in there fumbling about, our hero launched a salvo of large silver trays into the darkness; moments of silence were followed by very loud crashes and prostestions. Needless to say everyone sobered up quite quickly and a couple of people grabbed the protagonist and we all headed into the foyer. I ran ahead to call the lift but was overtaken by a large plant in a pot which smashed against the wall by the lift button. I can remember the way the mud stuck to the hessian. Things degenerated from there. The next day a number of us were summoned to the Sales Director’s office for a bollocking. To his credit, the nutter tried to take the blame. I will always remember the director’s response, “ Your attitude is creditable, but I have spoken with the hotel manager an there is no way that one person could have caused that much damage, at least you have the balls to own up; unlike your colleagues here”. I wish I had had the temerity to protest “no really; it was all him”, as it was I was singled out as I had not been drinking.

Later at Big American Company there was a Christmas lunch which took place at a restaurant called Borscht’n Tears in Beauchamp Place; chosen because it advertised itself as a “dancing on the tables” kind of place. Again we were one of two companies who had the whole restaurant to ourselves. The first hour or so was quite quiet. Amusingly, one of us would occasionally lob a piece of turkey or the like on a high trajectory (so as to make the source harder to trace) into the other company’s area. This typically caused a minor skirmish to break out amongst them. As the afternoon went on the tension was increasing and there must have been those in the other company group who suspected what was going on; but felt unable to act without proof. Eventually we were too careless and a gravyed potato was seen leaving our section of the restaurant, destination carnage. The escalation of hostilities was immediate, it was all out war. Within a few seconds (the guitarist having fled) our table was on its side so that we could shelter behind it taking turns to stand up and throw two or three handfuls of anything you could before dropping behind it again to regroup, like Paul Newman and Robert Redford.

Very soon the restaurateur was dancing about, apoplectic, trying to restore order. My favourite memory of that occasion was, through the mayhem, observing the crowd of people outside on the pavement peering in through the windows (before the police arrived).

Another phone shot

Broken Flowers ***

This is a film that has been quite hyped. I like Bill Murray and Jim Jarmusch (I thought Lost in Translation was delicious and Night on Earth is one of my favourites) but this is not the work of the director at his best. It had a similar style to Lost in Translation except that it over-did things on the laid back front, enjoyable nevertheless with some amusing moments.

George Best

In 1994, one Saturday luchtime, I wandered into a restaurant called Pucci in the King's Road for a pizza. I didn't normally go in there, despite it being quite a reasonable place, my favourites were Picasso's or Mona Lisa. There was only one other customer, sitting a couple of tables away, quietly studying the TV mounted on the wall; Italy were playing some other country in a World Cup match. The waiters were all bouncing about the bar screaming their passion at their team. Meanwhile, one of the most uniquely qualified men in the world was not to be found in front of a microphone, elightening the fans. Instead he was sitting in silence, three thousand miles from the action and his peers, alone with a capuccino.

The Golden Pig

Whilst sifting through memories of trips to Brussels, I came across a particularly fond one. At the previously mentioned two week training trip, one of the students was a dapper little Parisian guy, in his late forties. We had chatted a little although he didn’t tend to mix with us yobs. I asked if he would like to join us for dinner one night. He agreed and at the appointed hour we set off for (I think) Rick’s American Café on Avenue Louise. There were probably fifteen of us, I was near the back of the group as we approached the restaurant. Going through the door I felt a tug on my sleeve; Pierre was not happy about our choice. He had a young technical chap with him from the Paris office and he suggested that I should pick one of my mates and the four of us would go somewhere he thought would be better.

So we got into his 205 and headed across town. (Waiting at a traffic light, a Belgian in lycra crossed the road pushing a state of the art racing bike with only a rear wheel; Pierre chuckled “ah les Belges”). After twenty or so minutes we parked up in what appeared to be a residential part of town, walked across a square and up a few steps into an unprepossessing establishment called the Cochon D’or. It had only four or five tables. Immediately Pierre got into quite a serious chat with the Maitre D’. We stood around helplessly. After a few minutes Pierre asked us to wait and he and the main man disappeared into the kitchen. Another ten minutes later Pierre emerged saying that everything was ok. We sat down, I was never offered a menu. It was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten.

Tales from a past life - still at Big American Company

The year ended with my boss being moved sideways and replaced by Jenny. He explained that he didn’t like me and would make it one of his goals for the year to get rid of me. I pointed out that I just had one deal that I wanted to close, before I would be very happy indeed to leave, (it would take over a year for both things to happen).

Jenny was the man who had interrupted a conversation he was having with someone one morning to turn to me and say:
”Hey, you’ll know the answer to this. Last night I was having dinner with some people and we got into an argument about what QED stands for. Some of us thought it was ‘question easily done’, others reckoned it was ‘quite easily done’”.
“It stands for quad erat demonstrandum”.
“No, but in English, does that mean quite easily done or question easily done”?

Of course, once I had closed the deal (the biggest in the history of the UK division), they sacked me without paying me the commission. It was quite easily annoying as it had been the only reason that I had stayed but I suppose I had had a good year. When I had asked the HR bloke how they could sack me, he cockily announced that they would “make something up”. The same thing happened to my friend only he got an excellent termination package, after revealing to Mr HR, (who had said the same thing to him), that he had recorded the conversation.

Meanwhile back in the previous year, the company was still riding along on that wave of 80’s optimism. My boss at that time was a bit of a loose canon, he was the first to admit that he was a bit wild. But looking back, I liked him and he supported me better than I him. He used to say that if we couldn’t do our jobs in three days a week, we were in the wrong job. He seemed to manage to do his in even fewer. Consequently he was often fully engaged with arranging extra curricular activities, like trips to the States.

We used to fly business and often Mike (my boss) would have managed to get quite a posse together, so those flights were quite good fun. I didn’t drink in those days (but more than one senior person approached me on the quiet and warned me about the dangers of abusing illegal substances), the truth is that I didn’t take anything except one sugar in my coffee. So we were flying to Boston, to meet with members of one of my customers. Much alcohol was consumed aboard the 747 and as usual I had the job of driving the hire car at the other end. There was quite a bit of snow. Have you ever tried handbrake turns with those American cars with hand brakes for your foot?

The following morning, after a big night, we all met at the office. Twenty minutes into the first day of three days of meetings with this customer, an American revealed that he had not done what he had previously said he had and so the raison d’etre for the trip no longer existed. I was quite a new boy and was fully expecting that that would mean an early flight home (and maybe even some kind of bollocking) but three days of shopping and partying followed. Another time we were meeting one of the big four banks at the same office. The president of our company had his own dining room on the top floor, there must have been ten or so of us (including members of the customer’s company) who all traipsed up there at midday to meet Mr Big. The main bank man was quite a scary bloke and it turned out that the president of my company was not. He spent the whole time shaking so badly that his cutlery rattled and much of the food that left his plate never made it to his mouth.

At the sales conference in Lisbon, I ended up in a taxi full of prostitutes. Some Americans had asked if anyone could speak French; I liked to think I could and stepped forward. “Can you translate for us?” “Bon soir”, I had offered. “You fucky fucky?” one of them had asked. (Don’t worry mum, fortunately I didn’t know as much French as I thought).

Twenty or so of us from the UK offices, as well as a number of others from around the world, went for two weeks training in Brussels. The attendance at the classes dropped off quite quickly; who knows if the tutor was still turning up by the end. The amenities that the town had to offer were indeed enticing when compared with listening to a chap with poor English and an apparent lack of desire to be there himself, talking about IT hardware. There were big, unofficial dinners to attend every night. During the day there was the fabulous swimming pool and cinema complex near Heisel Stadium to enjoy. I was particularly proud of my performance in a local snooker tournament (being the only non-Belgian to win a frame).

Trike caption?

Beijing traffic.

Caption Sensible?

A couple of monks outside their temple in Xian.

View from my phone

Tales from a past life (I)

I worked for a big American Company, I was based in the centre of London in a small office. Amongst others, there was a big fat bloke (who we said had a ball park figure), there was a guy whose middle name was Belgrove, so he became known as Belnob. There was a bloke who always found excuses to hang out in the head office in Wallington instead of doing any proper work, he was called Wallnob and there was a man whose surname was Wheeler; Wheelnob. Sometimes a bloke from head office would visit (later he would sack me) called Taylor, a friend of mine referred to him as Jenny, Jenny Taylor. You get the drift. Most days we would all go out and have a big lunch in one of a number of restaurants, our boss would decide which customer we had entertained and sign it off as an expense.

One day I walked into the (open plan) office and sat down as a phone call arrived for me. I wasn't happy with the person on the other end of the line and gave them a bit of a hard time, so much so that the rest of the office went quiet. When I replaced the receiver someone asked me if I was alright. I replied that I wasn't because only several minutes before, crossing Clerkenwell road, I had been run over. This illicited quite a big laugh; less so when I showed them my ripped trousers and cut hands; certain people were still chuckling though.

In order to keep happy, we would go wet biking in the docklands or go-karting. I had a customer in Milton Keynes. Periodically I would drive up there to try to convince them of the merits of doing more business with Big American Company. Afterwards I would visit the James Hunt Racing Centre, an outdoor circuit with larger than usual karts. I would still be in my suit as I sped round the track. I enjoyed a particulary big spin on one occasion, throwing dirt up in a big plume. I sat in cloud of dust for a few seconds before emerging to carry on. Back in the office I was talking to a group of people when I dropped my pen on to the floor, bending over to retrieve it, a small pile of gravel fell out of my shirt pocket.

Wallnob tried to punch me once in the kitchen but I moved out of his way. George and I blew the cylinder head gasquet on Belnob's Cavalier whilst reversing quite fast in a big carpark.

Next time, trips taken whilst working for Big American Company.

Selected Top TV Characters

Bender....................Futurama
Woody.....................Cheers
Hong Kong Fuey............Hong Kong Fuey
Moira Stewart.............Breakfast with Frost
Dr Cox....................Scrubs
Sam.......................Cheers
Barry Grant...............Brookside
Dougal....................Magic Roundabout
Gordon Honeycombe.........News at Ten
Tony Soprano..............The Sopranos
Zap Brannigan.............Futurama

Food intolerance.

Captions invited.

After lunch in Pacentro, we rolled into a sleepy Sulmona, home of confetti. It was mid-afternoon, not much action; Mig captured the mood.

Goodnight from him

"Toilets in a local police station have been stolen. Police say they have nothing to go on".

"The search for the man who terrorises nudist camps with a bacon slicer goes on. Inspector Lemuel Jones had a tip off the morning but hopes to be back on duty tomorrow".

A History of Violence **

So, I've been to see the new David Cronenburg film this evening. I had high expectations, having read several reviews, but they were not met. This film had such potential as an idea but just didn't hang together properly for me, I kept saying to myself "it wouldn't happen like this". It is as though the makers thought they'd try everything; cheesy schmultz, full on violence, raunchy sex, bung it all in and we'll see what comes out.

The idea is a good one, the hero runs a diner in Indiana somewhere and makes the news having most effectively dealt with a couple of no-goods who wander in to his establishment and try to make trouble. The thing is that he has been just a little too effective and members of the mob from his previous life and from whom he has been in hiding, are able to track him down, thereby pissing off him and the other members of his idyllic rural family. So things escalate and at times I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to be laughing or scared. This disorientation was accentuated by the casting; Maria Bello was all over the place as the hero's wife and William Hurt has brilliantly played dithering and indecisive too many times to make the transition to mob boss.

This film should have been made by the Cohen brothers or even Luc Besson, at least it would have known what it was.

It's main redeeming feature was that it held my attention till the end, who knew what silly thing was going to happen next?

Top ten bands

Not everyone shares my belief that Simple Minds is a superior group to U2; I thought I might as well table my opinion of the other nine favourites in my top ten.

The Stranglers
The Psychedelic Furs
Bauhaus
Magazine
Boards of Canada
Scritti Politti
The Cure
U2 (Some songs are good but many are not).
Human League
ELO (well they were the first band I ever really listened to)

Actually, this list could be nonsense as I realise that there is the possibility that someone could mention another band that I would want to insert into the list. Perhaps I will do another list of more contemporary bands, then again I might do a list of favourite roundabouts. I noticed yesterday that Channel 4 are airing a programme which lists the top 50 dramas later this week. We must only be a little way from a programme listing the top 50 top 50 programmes.

United Colors

Operation "new pullover" has been a complete success. I am writing this in a busy cafe in a studenty part of L'Aquila. The top in qustion is green with a zip.

We are staying with Gemma's grandmother who has no English and doesn't understand my version of Italian. She always has a glass of wine with her lunch and dinner; I don't tend to drink wine. On Saturday morning we announced that we were going out. "What about lunch?" she apparently asked. When it was explained that we were going out for lunch she fell about laughing. The following day a few people came round to the house and I showed them some of the photos I had taken so far on Nonna's 80's tv in the kitchen. These included a photo of lunch the previous day. Nonna made a comment looking at me and nodding which I am told roughly translates as "so you have wine when you go out but you won't drink mine". There was a bottle of wine on the restaurant table.

Later I offered to help out if there was something needed doing round the house or in the garden, she lives alone. When my offer had been translated there was more laughter. She took me round the garden and showed me that "tutt' a posto", everything was in it's place, she had stacked all the wood for the winter etc. I headed back for the house and she turned to Gemma and asked "what did he think he could do anyway"? She's rock hard Nonna Felicia.

Korrectiv

If you haven't tried this blog before then I would recommend that you do. I visited it earlier today and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Hit and miss

It appears that by simply typing any old crap here, I can illicit the thinly disguised favourable "comments" of faceless commercial organisations wishing to sell us their stuff.

Why not try this at home?

Last night I found a couple of organic chicken breasts in the fridge. Firstly I did that thing they do on the TV where they cut them so they kind of fold out, then I wrapped them in cling film and bashed them a little until they took on the traditional "escalop" form. Having seasoned them generously I lay strips of pancetta on top of each one, completely covering them. A quick dusting of flour before placing them pancetta-side down in a hot frying pan (there was only a table-spoon of oil in the pan as), this allows everything to cook in the pancetta fat....mmm. After 2 minutes or so and having dusted the top with a little flour you can turn over the escalop to reveal the golden, ever so slightly crispy pancetta. 2 more minutes and it is ready to serve.

Yesterday we enjoyed one of these delicacies with some steamed broccoli. (The other is in the fridge and will become Gemma's sandwich filling for today). On another occasion, I might serve them with a little crispy salad; lettuce, avocado and cherry tomatoes with a drizzle of freshly made honey mustard dressing (some of which I will save for the escalops).

Next time; the recipe for my version of shepherd's pie, which my brother aptly christened "over-head bicycle crash".

The power of The Blue Hand

Hold the blue hand and you can lift off the ground, with concentration you can control your flight. Too much concentration and the power will diminish. Feel the energy run up your arm, fill your body, electrify the seat of your pants. With the correct attitude you can let go the hand and continue to enjoy its energy. Squeeze it too hard and the force will leak away, 4oz of strength is what the taoists say.

Big nose

Yesterday I booked flights to Italy. The Ryan Air experience. I don’t feel as excited about going as I normally do. I don’t think I am not going to have a good time; I suppose it is a little to do with work and the fact that there is a number of things that I need to ensure happen over the next few weeks.

I feel like I will just wait to be surprised by something nice happening when I get there. I imagine I will get a new pullover from Benetton in L’Aquila, I always do. L’Aquila is a very attractive place, on a hill it seems to have its own climate, sometimes it seems to be looking down on the clouds around it, perhaps that has something to do with it’s name, L’Aquila means the eagle, that is how someone can be said to have aquiline features, although I would be more inclined to say they had a big nose. In China a guide told me that the Mandarin colloquial for a westerner is Dai Beezer (obviously my own spelling) which means big nose.

Anyway, you have to drive a long way across the Abruzzo plains on roads that rarely turn corners to get to L’Aquila. You might be driving off the end of the planet. The town is ancient and walled, full of tiny little roads to explore. It is always a shame to leave. I would like to live there for a few months and find out what it is really like. There is a restaurant with vaulted ceilings that we have been to two or three times, top pizza. Last year Ralph and I had a few drinks in a tiny bar whilst the girls did something else. On one occasion I noticed that they have a velodrome there, I love the idea of a velodrome, somehow so civilised and a bit futuristic. Ralph asked me what sport I would go and see at the 2012 Olympics; put me down for a velodrome seat.


tiny bar

I have been to a few places in various countries that feel like home. They don't have to be conventionally beautiful. In the film La Haine (the hate) a group of kids get up to all sorts of shenanigans in a very rough, concrete suburb of Paris. Throughout the film the energy of the place really came though and I fancied having a go at living there. Apologies to anyone who has seen the film, it is quite shocking and I’m not trying to glamorise its harshness.

Saint Louis Obispo looked good. We had driven from San Francisco down the coast and stopped there. Some people walk their dogs on the beach of an evening in front of their houses on stilts (that would be the houses rather than the people or the dogs that are on stilts). Others are having a drink on their balconies; the Pacific really does feel like the edge of the world. Me, I checked into a hotel and feeling quite smug, bent down to test the temperature of the water in the pool, thereby snapping my credit card which was unusually located in my front jean pocket.

What do Ikea?

Earlier this week we went to Ikea. Once or twice a year I go, having vowed never to go again after each ocassion. Having driven up the A23 for an hour and twenty I parked in a nice spot. We went in and had a coffee. We walked round once slowly and once quickly and then stopped for lunch (no items selected at this point). Neither of us had meat balls. Then we made a bee line for the filing cabinet thingy we had decided on, queued to speak to a lady about the spec, she printed off our list and we made our way to the end of aisle 57 downstairs (via the congested market place). There was a gaggle of stressed customers hanging about at the "full service" desk, looking like they were at Bogota Airport waiting for news of friends and relatives from and lost plane. A notice advising that it would take 30 -45 minutes to get your stuff was scribbled on a white board. There were a number of tense interactions between the long suffering Ikea lady and customers. After an hour our boxes arrived and we headed off to the tills. Twenty minutes in that queue, we were ready to pay when I noticed that we did not have on our trolley what we had expected. By way of feeling I had achieved something, I bought it anyway. Remaining calm I drove cautiously out of the carpark, mounting the pavement only once.

Maria Full of Grace *****

This evening's award winning DVD followed the trials and tribulations of Maria, a seventeen year old pregnant Columbian girl who decides she needs to affect some changes in her life and allows herself to become a drug "mule". The film feels real, one of those which helps with your perspective. Taking a big risk can be very dangerous or it can open up a new world. Catalina Sandino Moreno who plays the main role is most lovely.

I'm not scared (by Niccolo Ammaniti)

This novel might have been written by Enid Blyton after she had endured a prolonged nasty experience. It is non the worse for this, very very easy to tune into, less easy to put down, I read it in two sittings. If you are looking for a several hour diversion, I would recommend it.

Healthy option

On Saturday I acquired some tasty looking crispbread thingies with seeds on them, (they looked to be to Ryvita as a king sized bed would be to a bumpy ground sheet) from an expensive healthfood shop. Indeed I had a couple for breakfast yesterday and felt quite smug about how much good they must be doing me.

So come dinner time I was enjoying another with a bit of omelette when I suddenly felt quite replete. This was due to the fact that I had tracked down the origins of the small maggot that was gyrating across the table cloth in front of my plate to the unseeded side of the remaining crispy slices where a number of his clones were continuing to gorge themselves. There is something about the way maggots seem to enjoy themselves that really adds to the afront.

The Assassination of President Nixon ****

This was last night's DVD entertainment. Sean Penn is a very believable in this plausible story of a man's increasing alienation from his environment. There is definitely a bit of the character he plays in me and I've always enjoyed stories of one man against society, everything from Albert Camus' L'Etranger to Sylvester Stallone in First Blood. (Other films of this theme would include Glengary Glenross and Fallen). Enjoyable and the climax is worth waiting for, though a slow burner this one.

2 Films

Rating

***** - Stoater
**** - Most adjacent
*** - Okidoke
** - Rough
* - Oh dear

3 IRON - *****,

A young guy spends his time breaking into houses and flats, on the front doors of which he had previously left flyers. (If they had not been taken off a day or two later, he assumed the owners were away). He spends a night or two in these places, tidying up and doing the laundry in lieu of rent. Things get interesting when a battered wife turns out to be skulking about her house whilst he does his thing.
A great film which manages to combine the real and the surreal. Despite being a bit clunky at times, it transcends itself (and it took me with it).

CRASH - *****,

Thought provoking, carefully assembled jig saw which explores relationships between ethnic groups, individuals and good and bad. Left me feeling for all the characters (as well as a bit for myself)!

Terror risk

When you go out in the street these days, you know that there is a chance that people will approach you and ask for money, that you will step in something unpleasant or that you will have an altercation with someone. You are even aware that, although the chances are very small indeed, you could be run over or even involved in some kind of terrorism incident. You might not like it, but you go with it.

However, I noticed myself feeling differently at the idea that I could be sitting on a tube train reading my free copy of Metro and without warning be shot by people paid to protect me. I even caught myself wondering if I should dress more smartly next time I go into London.

What the Germans are doing in China.

So, I mentioned recently that I had enjoyed a day I Shanghai last year and that that was partly (largely) due to a trip we took on the Maglev Train to Pudong Airport which is itself a stunning bit of architecture by the way.

I had intended to use the train on that particular day but hadn’t been able to ascertain exactly where the station was in town. On a previous day I had entered a Shanghai subway station and attempted to find the Maglev line on the map but not only was it impossible to communicate with any station staff; we had not a common word between us, even “Maglev” drew a blank expression, but neither the station in question nor the line appeared on the map. The only thing I came away with was another packet of delicious little dried fish. I came to the conclusion that the organisers don’t want to make a big deal of it at the moment. Having travelled on it I can see why, I reckon it would be inundated with thrill hunters who would be justified in travelling half way round the world purely to sample what must be the fastest land speed available for a six pound return ticket.

So having failed to find the station we took the easy option the following morning and asked the doorman at the hotel to sort us out with a taxi to the maglev terminus. This he did and a half hour of interesting cab ride later we arrived in a quiet part of town that featured some large expanses of grass surrounded by new housing, in the middle of which was what could be nothing other than a station for some kind of futuristic transport. There was an eerily low amount of activity, but somehow that didn’t matter, there was a real air of expectation about the place. About forty feet above the ground there was a hundred or so meters of what appeared to be a large “slinky”. Projecting from one end of this there was the concrete track, no sign of a train. The entrance to the station was beneath the slinky where we stepped on to an escalator. At the top we found the place to be almost deserted but the ticket window had a girl behind it. We bought first class tickets because it wasn’t going to be every day that I got to ride on this thing (and also it cost next to nothing). Having passed through the barrier we caught first site of the shiny projectile. It looked very relaxed, like it was taking things all in it’s stride. I remember going to a Lennox Lewis fight, he had that same aura about him before knocking his poor opponent about most effectively.

I have to confess I was excited. I had wondered if I would ever travel on a train that ran using electromagnetism since a physics class when I was thirteen when a sheet of metal had shot across four feet of desk. The teacher had reckoned that we might.

Inside it was like any brand new train except that it was a bit wider and was obviously not mass produced. The seating, for example had an amateurishness about it, like something from a Thunderbirds set, that made the whole thing even wackier.

There was only a handful of passengers. We went to the front where we found the drivers cockpit door open and no one there. No levers, no steering wheel, a couple of screens a few buttons and a mouse were all the consul comprised.

Tempting though that mouse had been, we were installed back in the carriage when we started to move. I couldn’t stay in one seat, I kept trying different ones. The trip takes 8 minutes, most of which is taken up with accelerating and decelerating with a minute and half or so of top speed: 430 kmph (270 mph). There is a speedo above the door between carriages, if it hadn’t been for the awesome spectacle through the windows, that in itself would have been mesmerising. By the time it showed 431 kph I was giddy. I had my picture taken under it and the previously demure Chinese businessmen, the only other occupants of the carriage, started to do the same thing. Outside there was a motorway, we were passing cars travelling parallel with us two hundred miles an hour slower than us. The track banks for turns and you look down on the bizarre sight of that slow motion world.

At the airport we had a very nice cup of tea and skipped back on board the train. This trip was just as much fun. The thing I will remember about the return journey though was the experience of another train coming the other way. On your Intercity 125 your leisurely progress is punctuated by the occasional thump and three of four second woosh as people leaving the place you are going to pass you by on there way to where you have been; I have to say that I find even that quite exciting. However, to be sitting at a table (possibly drinking coffee and reading the magazine of your choice) travelling at 240 miles per hour when you are passed by a train doing the same speed coming the other way is a jolt that induces a split second of full body terror followed by a big grin (well in me anyway).

Funny chairs.

Maglev sets off.

To Maglev.

Not Maglev.

Told you.

Maglev

Megalithic

We spent last week in Scotland. We arrived on the Monday and spent till Wednesday in Glasgow where we took in some restaurants and pipe bands (an unexpected pleasure) and selected the elements that will form my mum's new bathroom.

Monday evening we ate at Cafe Gandolfini in the Merchant City having enjoyed a drink in the Bar Gandolfini upstairs. I would recommend both, the haggis was very good. The following day we met Dom and ate at Fratelli Sarti in Wellington Street. I liked the atmosphere here and the food was ok. Dabbling in my own kitchen as I do, I felt that my Modena sausage with lentils and tomato sauce was a good enough bit of tuck but not a twelve quid dish. Dom had the Tuscan sausage on his pizza observing that maybe TVR names it's cars after sausages. Lunch on Wednesday was at Grassroots. The salads looked very fresh; my Thai soup could have powered Discovery into orbit.

Then off to Castleton (a handful of houses) near Lochgilphead. We lounged about on the Thursday and took the ferry to Arran on Friday.


Monolithic

There we came across Machrie Moor, the site of countless stone circles and burial grounds. I love a good stone circle.

Tall story

One of the best days of the year for me last year was spent in Shanghai. We did two things of note; travelled on the Maglev train which runs from the Pudong District to the new airport, a distance of 30km; it takes 8 minutes (reaching 430km per hour) and secondly we had a drink in a bar called Cloud 9 which is on the 86th floor of the awesome Jin Mao Tower. I will report on the totally crazy Maglev another time but I found the card for the bar the other day and thought I'd try to explain how it felt to go there. (Also Cloud 9 was the name of a band Dom and I were in in our teens, Dom sucessfully and for a reasonable period of time, me for one practice).

The tower is also in Pudong which is a former area of marshland where mega-buildings are emerging as though they are growing. The building sites are manned 24 hours a day, at night they are brightly lit, there are stacks of porta-cabins on site where the off-duty shifts sleep.

We had visited a number of amazing places in China, seen the Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace in Beijing and the Terracotta Warriors, all of which were amazing. But I never saw people react to a tourist visit the way they were, coming out of the Jin Mao Tower. It is 88 storeys tall; and there is an observation floor at the top. We thought we'd probably do that, but I knew that there was a bar in the Grand Hyatt Hotel which occupies the top 30 or so floors. It was less straight forward to get to but we eventually made it via several lifts and passing through doors that were for guests only.

The building itself I would liken to a giant metal worm. I remember learning in the former stable that served as the "science block" at school that worms have little barbs on them called chetae that help pull them along (and prevent them from being pulled out of a calculator, but that's another story). The tower is like a massive erect, square cross-sectioned wormbot. It is so massive I would admit to finding it a bit scarey to look at, particularly in the dark, when it is lit to awesome effect. The bar cunningly occupied two floors so the windows were double height and then the floor stepped up to the core of the building all the way round so that no matter where you sat you had a view of street level (rather than just the sky). The spectacle was enhanced but the fact that it was quite dark in the bar. The blackness and the exposed girders everywhere lent it a bit of a "batman set" feel. A bar where you need a drink.

Two or three cocktails and several descents in lifts later we were back outside the monster, giddily gazing up and trying to correlate the surreal fact that we knew we had just been all the way "up there" with the fact that moments later we were now in the street. There were a handful of coaches parked nearby and tourists were being disgorged from the door to the observation deck lift. Like me they were all gazing upward, many of them were jumping about and laughing nervously/excitedly as if they had just had a miraculous win. (Batophobia is the fear of being next to tall buildings).

Charity work

Yesterday I received a text from a ring tone company confirming my order and the fact that they would be charging £4 per week for their services; they went on to offer me the opportunity to cancel my order by dialling a premium rate number. I had of course never heard of them.

Last week though, I got a letter from the National Trust, thanking me for my continued support and reminding me that they would be taking £36 from my bank account in the next few weeks. Perhaps five years ago they successfully removed a similar amount from my current account despite my having cancelled my direct debit at least a year before. This latest letter had been forwarded to me by my bank; "we have a mutual customer; we have lost contact with him, blah blah blah". I contacted my bank who were super friendly about it, offering to call the offending charity and sort it out, (the person I spoke to had their number readily at hand) and stating that if it proved that I hadn't issued them with a new instruction, they would reimburse me and then chase the naughty charity. When I pointed out that I relied on them not to let anybody who fancied it, remove arbitrary amounts of money from my account willy nilly, they said they'd find out who was at fault. I asked them how it could happen and they told me the organisation in question may have invented a new reference number.

It is all depressingly cynical.

"Hello Mr Bank, we are a big charity and you have been our bank for some time. But we're thinking of changing to a bank that helps us generate more cash. We used to have an arrangement with some of your personal customers. If you don't mind, we will have a go at removing money from their accounts (many of them won't notice), if you'd be busy with something else whilst we're at it, that'd be jolly amenable; this will ensure our continued beautiful sybiotic relationship. Lots of love, Bent Charity".

Perhaps I should get in touch with that supercilious bloke from Radio 4.....probably could, but the arse who came up with the scam, sold the idea to his bosses by pointing out that I don't really have the time or inclination (The bank just left me a message to say that they've credited my account with the £36 that the NT swiped from my account last year....without me noticing!)

Magic Roundabout

A friend/someone I do some work with and I travelled to a meeting together in his Vauxhall VRX thingy this morning. It has had a number of adaptations to make it faster than a normal one. I was actually a little uncomfortable at the speeds we were doing on the A3 in reasonable traffic, I think that had to do with the size of the car and my friend's use of the brakes. On a previous occasion we were in a Lambourghini Murcielago going very fast indeed and it felt much safer. We duly dismounted the A3 and spent a very happy several minutes circulating the roundabout below. I started to feel sick largley due, I reckon, to the sticky competition tyres he has on the car (it has only done 1500 miles, some at a track day, and already the rubber looks very used), corners had to be taken very fast to get the tyres to let go at all, I was reminded of ride on the Waltzer. Anyway, he kindly let me take the wheel and so a few more revolutions of the roundabout were enjoyed before heading for the solicitor's office.

Traffic, speed bumps and various other obstacles meant that best fun to be had from this thirty thousand pound go cart was to go round in circles.

I would like one.

Julian Vilarrubi's work

Study from Umbrian Hilltown

Happy Days

Dom in Knossos, '84

Reality TV

"Confirm Discovery is 2 engine Zaragozza". The words of Eileen Collins when the shuttle reached the point, a couple of minutes after lift-off, at which it could land in Zaragozza, Spain, in the event of one (of the three) engine(s) failing.

Newton Mearns

A while ago I was in Glasgow and drove to where I lived for a couple of years when I was four or five in Newton Mearns. There is a small block of flats there called Broomcliff. We lived on the first floor, I don't recall the number, but I do have many sharp memories of that time. Behind the flats was a row of garages next to which I learnt to ride a bike (my brother and I called the bike Tronic because the right pedal rubbed agianst the chain guard every time it went round and made the noise: tronic) and behind the garages there seemed to be a permanent building site. When I ventured in there, the blokes working there would sing "Hadrian, Hadrian, the one coat paint", which I am told was an ad on TV at the time. I got extremely muddy in there once. The flats had a distinctive kind of clean smell, which they still have. There were rubbish shutes on each floor which was quite exciting. There was a hill down from the garages to a kind of roundabout at the front of the flats where the kids played on their bikes, I managed to turn over my tricycle going down that hill and cut my knee open. I recall crying in the lobby, mum phoning dad to tell him she was taking me to hospital, more crying and the smell of TCP. I was given a Chopper as an early birthday present, it was orange and was one of the original ones which had adjustable handle bars (not fixed like later, safer models). There was a boy who had got kind of Chopper copy for passing his exams to get into Hutchison Grammar, but mine was the first actual Chopper in the area although mine was not earned through hard work but my nagging rather a lot I seem to remember. Setting off on it for the first time was more exciting than driving my Porsche off the forecourt for the first time.

Occasionally I would attend coffee mornings with my mum, I particularly remember an older lady from upstairs called Bunty making me laugh. We would get Lucky Bags from the newsagent down the road. My uncle (who must have been 17) and I locked ourselves in a bedroom to play on the Scalextric set that my brother had been given for his birthday that day. I used to play chess with an older boy from a flat upstairs. He would come down to our flat in his pyjamas, I think he let me win. There was a scandal when he got expelled from school or something. I remember a very Action Man and Meccano oriented Christmas, my mum's hair piece coming off before a dinner party, fondue, getting our first dish washer, eating Scotch pie and beans at the table that is next to me as I type this, the smell of fresias, going to bed in the afternoon because we were going to the circus at the Kelvin Hall that evening, my dad's new aubergine Ford Zodiac, having to stand up in the back of my mum's Mini when I had had a toilet related accident at school and going to visit Uncle John and Aunt Anne (pronounced "an tan")in Cambuslang, they had the first colour TV I had ever seen and a model of Concorde. Their kids had the most astoninshing set of Action Man gear including jeeps, tanks and I think a parachute. We would eat chips there, and a skinny friend of their's from up the road called Graham could eat loads.

Police food

Spaghetti Carabinieri
Cold Bill
Paddington Greens
Cop au Vin

Generation gap

The other day I asked my friend's eight year old daughter how she was getting on at school. She said that it had been sport's day that week.
"Did you win any prizes?" I asked.
"No," she looked a little disappointed.
"She came first in two races and second in another," her sister said.
"You just get stickers," the little athlete reported.

It struck a chord

As I hadn't used it for years and it was just gathering dust, I sold my guitar the day before yesterday. I had put it on the Friday Ads web site and within 15 minutes I got a call. A chubby 12 year old and his little sister wobbled down the stairs with it half an hour later. Judging by the many calls I have had since, it was rather under-priced. I hope he and it have fun.

Everywhere I go now there is guitar music playing.

Cap that

At the corner where a spur turns off from the little peninsula that is Cap Ferrat between Nice and Monaco, you can take some steps down to a little restaurant on Paloma Beach. The stony little cove looks out on to gently rippling blue and green water which supports twenty or so boats which are anchored about 100 metres away. They are mostly posh yachts. Occasionally a little launch will bring diners to the jetty avoiding the diving kids. The restaurant itself is not much more than a two storey shack. The word Paloma stands on the roof in red letters stylized as though they were a 60's motor racing brand. The dining area is mailnly beneath large cream awnings. The diners are varied; today there were Italian businessmen, a small peleton of cyclists (excuse the choice of collective noun, but I like the word), tourists and people from the boats. From the edge of the water you can look up at the stonking residences nestled in clumps of fur and cypress tress. Swim out a little way for a better view and you can hear the cutlery clinking on the plates; they've probably got a man to do it.

During lunch a fat Italian man's chair gave way under the strain.

Can you tell me..............

.........that stroppy bloke's nationality? Cors i can. Good afternoon from a very warm Promenade des Anglais in Nice. We arrived here yesterday from Corsica. First time I have been to Corsica and I liked it. The terrain is somewhere between Scotland and Arizona. Many of the people I had cause to interact with were refreshigly rude, which is fair enough. I was put on my guard immediately as the taxi driver who took us from the airport to Ajaccio resolved our minor disagreement over how much I owed him by butting me with his big tummy like those people in inflateable sumo suits do to each other. Bienvenue, I say. Bonifacio is perched dramatically on cliffs which is good because the drama ends right there, everyone starts packing up at about nine pm. Porto Vecchio, I liked very much. It has a buzzy but relaxed atmosphere (including some characteristically kurt locals), cool bars and shops. What is fabulous about this town is its poroximity to delicious white sandy beaches and the most unusually shaped mountains. The beaches are lined with aromatic pine trees where you can get out of the heat. In the mountains there are numerous walks. We went did one which takes you to the vertiginous (literally tranlated) Chicken Piss waterfall.


Cascade

It was quite a strenous morning, climbing up and then down to the bottom of the very noisey cascade. So much so that I went for a dip in a stream a little later. I took the precaution of finding a pool well off the beaten track as I had no suitable clothing, anyway it is much nicer without, I find.


Sorry....no jeans

I had got out and dressed with seconds to spare before a small group of people looking for a quiet place to micturate popped over the ridge (so it's not just the poultry). On the way back to the car I must have looked a bit deshevelled as a concerned hiker asked me about how difficult the walk was and even offered me some bread.

Once again I have packed prism glasses unneccesarily.

Big Blue

Going to Corsica tomorrow. Looking forward to it but for the time being, the things I need to do today are deflecting from the pleasant anticipation, which is probably a good thing as otherwise everything would not get done. That doesn’t explain why I am writing this rather than getting on with my list.

Also going to Nice which is somewhere I would like to live, I can already feel the warmth on my back and see the brightness of the light. I can hear the traffic banging along the Promenade des Anglais but that doesn’t bother me, I like the fact that Nice is a city as well as somewhere with a beach. You can lie on your towel or drive in the mountains. You are a few minutes from Monaco, Italy, beautiful countryside and the airport is five minutes from the town centre. You can be in your flip flops in the day and Patrick Coxes in the evening, swimming in the blue water by the Paloma Beach restaurant or pretending to be wealthy in Casino Square. I once rented a scooter, put on a jacket and tie and went to Monaco for the evening. I gave myself a budget of 500F (£50) and proceeded to lose almost all of it on the Roulette wheel before a couple of big wins meant that I was up in quite a big way. I boarded my scooter at 4am for the noisy ride back through the empty streets to Nice; feeling good despite my empty pockets.

Swedenblog

I was perched on a stool in a café by the baggage hall in Terminal 1 at Heathrow, reading about the Joad family setting off for California in their over laden car to truck conversion in the Grapes of Wrath when there was Dom. He and the rest of the passengers on his flight from Edinburgh had apparently been circling the clouds before the plane could land.

We headed for terminal three where we checked in and established ourselves in the SAS lounge (courtesy of Dom’s gold thingy). After some water and a V&T we boarded the plane where I ate a Dime Bar and Dom had something he liked.

At Arlanda we jumped into a taxi operated by an Iranian man intent on cheery conversation and speculation that we were only there for the Swedish girls. He dropped us in town for our appointment at the Ice Bar. However the Ice Bar folk had no record of this date and so we arranged to come back after dinner.

We wandered towards our hotel which was on an island called Gamla Stan. My room was neat and compact. There was a TV mounted on a bracket at shoulder height at the foot of my bed so I needn’t have packed my prism glasses.

I persuaded Dom that we should have Tapas for dinner, as there was a nice looking bar round the corner from the hotel. The food was tasty and afterwards, Michael, the barman set about getting us a bit drunk with various shots including one that tasted of bubble gum and a fiery one (called a Flat Liner) comprising sambuca, Tabasco (quite a lot of it) and tequila. Consequently we were warmed up for our rematch with the desk staff at the Ice Bar.


Inuit, I didn't; how to speak Swedish

This time though we were sped through check-in and in no time we were wearing our silver ponchos and gazing through the window of the airlock into the misty depths of the bar. Indeed everything inside was ice, the tables, the sculpture, the walls and even our glasses. There was quite a party atmosphere, from what I remember. Two Swedish blokes wouldn’t believe that Dom was English, such is his proficiency with the local lingo. Indeed they kept speaking to me in Swedish as they thought there was some scam going on. The butcher (cos that’s what he said he was) and his mate must have been a bit loud, although I don’t remember this, as the bar man would not let me buy them a drink (for clarification, he was happy to serve us). This created a slightly awkward hiatus but when we saw that the blokes were chatting to a Danish girl we re-entered the airlock and returned to the Tapas bar via another bar. More odd shots.


Odd shot


I watched a nature programme about the ten most deadly snakes in the world the following morning before Dom rang enquiring after my health. Such was the size of my bathroom and the relationship between the basin and the toilet that the latter had to be mounted from a jaunty angle. Why this should interfere with proceedings I don’t know.


After breakfast we headed towards the city centre and spent a relaxed day shopping and eating. I did some Zhan Zhuang (Jam Jong); standing like a tree in the garden that surrounds the main library. We had good burgers before setting off by cab for the Kent gig. The venue was a large circus sized big top tent. It was unusually well decorated and lit inside, quite eerie. It was raining hard and every so often a small torrent would find a gap between the sheets of canvas. There was a digital clock that counted down to the band starting, we arrived with about 1 hour 20 to go.

Impressively, the band started playing on the zero seconds to go. There was a zingy atmosphere, I was squashed up against a couple of young (I would guess experimental) lesbians who were experimenting quite a bit. Dom was squashed up against a heterosexual woman, though he had his back to her. The music was great, I knew about half the songs but enjoyed even those I’d never heard.

After the music it was back to the Tapas bar for some more bubble gum (in my case) and something more refined for Dom.


Photo opportunity

Next morning a brisk walk across town to the site where the Museum of Modern art had been temporarily located whilst the new building was made ready and then on by cab to the real one. I really enjoyed myself. There was an architectural section which featured many beautiful models including the Michelangelo Laurentian Library which I have visited in Florence on account of it purportedly being inspirational in Mark Rothko’s room at the Tate Modern (originally done for a New York Restaurant). Mark Rothko; he was an interesting man. Whilst I remember, I must go to the Matisse decorated Chapel in Vence when I am in the neighbourhood.


Museum of Modern Art

We spent a very relaxed rest of the day before heading for the airport in the late afternoon. The journey home seemed to go by very quickly as there was lots to talk about. I think it would have been good if the journey had taken longer.

Thanks Dom.

Workshop

Attended a Chi Kung Workshop yesterday. It proved to be a pleasant day out and I met some people I liked. The workshop itself could have been better. Despite his enthusiastic presentation style, the leader's slightly dodgy English meant that I missed some points (asking questions, by the way, often made the fog more opaque). If I am going to see someone who calls himself Master Something, perhaps I should not be surprised by such things.

Moolaade

I saw the above film a the National Film Theatre yesterday. Despite the frightening topic (female circumcision) this is a beautiful, perfectly paced thing. It is about progress and the unfortunate stuff that we do to ourselves along the way. Reading The Grapes of Wrath at the moment which I find to be a stoter of a book and shares some common ground with the film.

Wistful

As I may have mentioned on this very site before, I feel I can be better described by lists than anything else, not that it is necessarily of any interest to anyone, but I quite like to find patterns. Perhaps I will start another blog comprising of lists, in order that I can then produce a list of lists and eventually sum up my existence with one word, (which I forecast might well be "truth", or the lack of it).

Intitial stab at list of lists (in no particular order):

Surgical procedures
Books read
People loved
Things that could be eliminated from life
Favourite places
Favourite films
Groupings of types of people (as previously referred to)
Pieces of art which resonate
Clothes
Things to do (I have a new one which I may post soon)
Sources of energy
Purchases that proved to be excellent

I have also, lying in bed before getting up, been thinking of Venn Diagrams. I enjoyed them aged eleven but have never used them since.

First stab at the Excellent Purchases list:

1988, Hublot Watch, still a thing of beauty
1987, JVC 4 inch TV. Bought from Harrods, quite pricey at the time but still a perfect thing, used regularly. Watched Ayrton Senna go from fifth at the fist bend to first by the end of the lap at the European GP, Donnington 1993 on this TV
1993, Grey Armani leather jacket, always felt good in that(until I started to get a bit fat)
Circa 1978, G&S Fibreflex Bowlrider skateboard deck, much pleasure derived
1999, Kickboard; three wheeled skateboard with steering, I still use it. WIll be traveling from Victoria Station to Lambeth Bridge and back on it this very weekend.
1987, Porsche 356C. Owned until last month, much pleasure received in the early days even if not exploited latterly. Something that caused me to smile when I used it, how many things do that?
Circa 1990, Prism Spectacles. Specs that you wear to watch TV whilst fully supine. I wear them almost every day. Good for reading too.

Film Recommendation 2

This weekend I enjoyed the particular pleasure that is 'going to the cinema on a really sunny day' which adds a little to the basic pleasure (partly because there are very few people in the place), but not as much as 'going to the cinema when your supposed to be working' which is a delicious thing that I have tasted on very few ocassions.

Anyway, outside it was bright, so much so that my enjoyment of the trailers was hampered slightly by the fact that the usherette (are they still called that?) left the door open (thereby allowing shards of light to penetrate the inner sanctum; it was cinema 8 at the Odeon in Brighton, right by the back door, which leads on to the sea front).

Once the opening credits role we a ceiled in and transported into thirties New York before moving along to Amalfi, there to enjoy the intrigue and clever quips of "The Good Woman", the story based on Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan". If you want a bunch of beautiful people (including Scarlette Johannsen) playing clever people in a period drama in a stunning setting..........

Snacks on a different scale........

.......or scales on a different snack.

If you visit China you might be pleasantly surprised, as was I, that in many places they sell little dried fish in packets.

One of the best things about them is that if you like them and if you travel with a party form the west, as I did, you will be able to eat almost as many as you like, because in a sample survey of 12 occidental people of a variety of ages and sexes (well, 2 sexes), I was the only person to find them yummy.

Indeed, on a flight to Shanghai from somewhere else in China, we were given them by the delightful cabin staff (they are delightful by the way) and I had most other people’s from my group. On that flight I also enjoyed the kind of purple rice dish that they have for breakfast.

Film Recommendation

This weekend I thoroughly enjoyed the film, The Station Agent. Three isolated people becoming less isolated and making me laugh and feel a bit emotional along the way.

Her name was Rio

The other day I had lunch with Jose and Julian at a pub in town. I must have had quite a few lunches with them.

I suppose I must have been in my late teens when for a while, pretty much every week, Jose (Julian’s dad) would pick me up from my mum’s on the way to picking up Julian from his, on the way to going to a nightclub called the Warehouse in Leeds....for Sunday lunch.

They served food upstairs. Jose knew the owner, an American bloke I seem to remember. Having scoffed our burgers, Julian and I would go downstairs to watch the band, usually a fruity disco group called Best Friends. “Put it in the slot”, they would sing. There were also the Space Invader, Galaxian and later on Asteroid machines. Usually we’d end up amongst the last people there after the act had left the stage, Jose carousing with the beautiful people upstairs, me shooting lines of grunting luminous crabs, Julian watching.

There was the Sunday when we didn’t stop in Leeds but went to Milton Keynes to see UB40, Squeeze and the Police amongst others; Jose left us there and went on to London with his pal, picking us up on the way back later. Muddy, Milton Keynes Bowl.

We went to some massive discos in Spain circa 1981. “Operation Suntan” started as a 30 hour bus trip from Leeds to Barcelona to meet Jose. We stayed in Spain for a couple of weeks during which time we climbed into Salvador Dali’s garden and were the only trunked people on a nudist beach, (whenever I think of that I cannot get the sight of the naked German windsurfing bloke out of my mind). Then we headed off to France, driving fast along the motorways the bright sunshine bouncing off the blue sea, the car full of the sound of Duran Duran, Jose sharing a private joke with his girlfriend; the twenty four year old model, Julian and I wondering.

More recently Julian and I visited Jose at his home near Barcelona so we could attend the Spanish Grand Prix. Rosa, Jose’s friend from school would cook a lovely meal for us before we’d go out in the evening get drunk and play with the road signs. (Actually I’m talking about myself there, I blame those continental measures).

Jose, the Catalan septuagenarian, is still cool, always smart, always tanned, smelling cosmopolitan and expensive. He tells me he can’t be bothered to chat up girls anymore but I don’t believe it.

Commuting

In Sedona there is a small airport on the top of a plateau. It looks like a large rocky aircraft carrier. I drove up the hill and at the T junction at the top, was confronted by a sign offering about ten companies to the left. There were fewer to the right; I turned right. I parked and walked into the small terminal building and immediately knew how to choose which company to use. On his own playing a game on his PC was the Benny Hill look-a-like who was receptionist, chief executive, pilot and presumably everything else of his company. He couldn’t hide his excitement at the fact that once we’d gone out to look over his powered glider, I had said I’d like to take a trip.

The machine had two seats, side by side. Once inside we drove off to one end of the runway, abruptly he summoned full power; there was a lot of noise and moments later, still travelling quite slowly, we left the ground. After ten or so minutes he turned the engine off and so it was much easier to communicate; he told me that he lived a half hour flight away. On a typical day, he got up, stepped out of the house where his plane was parked, flew to Sedona, played computer games and flew people like me about and then flew home. Here was a man who was happy in his work and had given up trying to look otherwise.

With the engine off, we soared about the canyons sometimes skirting across the rims, frightening a little group of dear, sometimes plunging into a deep orange chasm as though on a massive, silent big dipper. He showed me ruins of American Indian cave dwellings and I remember seeing a very deep hole that he explained had one day recently appeared in the landscape without warning.

I glanced across at him a few times; he was grinning from ear to ear as was I. On one occasion we both looked at each other simultaneously and there was a slightly awkward moment before we quickly looked away and pointed out some landmark to each other.

After about a half hour, he radioed the airport and made an arrangement to land. We arced round gracefully so that the runway was stretched out in front of us. A few moments later we landed, the whisper of the wind shattered by the noise of the plane hitting the ground like a box of toys.

Water shock

For argument’s sake, lets say I am 75kg, just under 12 stone (or 168 pounds, good afternoon American readers ) and that 70% of that weight is water (a conservative estimate) which comes in at about 52 kg or, in fact 52 litres. A large bottle of Volvic is 1.5 litres, I therefore have about 35 bottles of water in me, or one bottle short of six 6packs of the type that you get at the supermarket.

If I could be dehydrated and rehydrated prune-like , at my destination, then I could arrange for my transportation in a handy 23kg pack carried by a friend or relative on a major airline, but not Ryan Air where it would be cheaper for me to buy a ticket and travel full of H2O.

Wedged Up

There is much fear about. It could be that of terrorism (although I personally don’t know anyone with that particular type), being poor (quite popular), worrying what people will think (I suppose I have that, but I am better able to recognise it in others), getting ripped off; that’s quite a personal one. People are easily vexed when they think that they have lost something rightfully their’s. Their concern is not really about losing the thing in question, it is a very primal thing, to do with clans and hierarchies and finding a mate, an so on. If you want to be sure that a tiger will track you down and eat you, apparently you help yourself to one of his kills. I saw a documentary recently where a miserable Siberian had done just that. So convinced were people of his fate that they wouldn’t let him stay in their houses. Sure enough, several days and miles later, his remains were found strewn about his camp-site.

I am in the supermarket, in the queue at the checkout. The person in front of me has loaded their gear on to the conveyer belt and I am starting to fill the space that is left. Check out what happens when you fail to place on of those “next customer please” doofers in the gap between his super size bottles of diet coke and your goats’ milk yogurt. You don’t have to wait long before he will slap one of those plastic wedges on to that rubber as though I’d just helped myself to few glugs of his low fat fizzy drink.

Does my failure to have positioned the plastic toblerone symbolise the fact that I might be about to grab his wench by the hair, and drag her, kicking and screaming, back to my cave. Mister, are you seriously that worried that you might accidentally pay for my daily portion of friendly bacteria? No, we are in fact talking about a hunter-gatherer-territory thing!

I suppose we should be thankful for those small wedges otherwise people would be micturating over their messages.

A Peeling

A few years ago I went to the see an exhibition in the East End of dissected and “plasticized” human bodies.

I left with a new respect for mine. There were lots of different types of exhibit, one of the most beautiful was that of a child whose blood had been replaced by resin and then everything other than his blood vessel network had been removed leaving an intricate sculpture. Whilst I rated it highly and found it to be very informative there was undoubtedly an air of the performance about the display.


Flay Boy

That turns out to be nothing compared to the first of four programmes called Anatomy for Beginners and featuring the slightly bonkers Dr Gunter von Hagens (responsible for the previously mentioned exhibition) dissecting human bodies, which was shown last night on Channel 4. Almost as revealing as the exhibition it was nevertheless a little bit like watching a spoilt child blowing a wad of his dad’s cash on rubbish with no one able to take him to one side and have a word with him. The good doctor got a clap for goodness sake, for managing to remove the donor’s spinal chord and the associated nerves leading down one leg to his foot, in one piece (and without taking his hat off).

But I’ll be watching again tonight as the oddest thing of all is the taboo around dead bodies which means that I know as little as I do about how mine fits together.

Last of the f*cking whining

Sunday evening, (when last week ends and next starts. Nowadays almost all children are at this moment listening to their iPods, slaughtering folk on their Play Stations, texting their friends and being rude. Not that I'm jealous. I can look back on a Sunday evening when Dom and I would attend chapel, tea and then the off-license; on the way back from where we would consume a bottle of cider each in preparation for Hart to Hart and a pot noodle. Or heading off to Cleckheaton for the week in my Cortina after a Chinese Take Away on Leeds Rd), it's a barometer.

Sangfroid

Yesterday I went to the town hall. I filled out the forms and joined the queue where I started the Sudoku puzzle in the Times. (I have become hooked on them, despite the fact that the part of my brain which causes me to return from a trip upstairs to collect the car keys with a flap jack and no keys, adds to my failure rate).

Next I chat to someone about where in China I went last year. When (in June) they learnt that I‘d been there and particularly that I’d been on a boat trip, they told me not to bother showing up for six months; they were quite nice about it. I went into the next room and waited to hear my name. When called, I went over to the other side of the room and lay down next to a very attractive Eastern European girl. The podgy, friendly bloke in his blue uniform seemed, not surprisingly, seemed a little reluctant to turn his attention from the clear skinned girl to me. More questions then; “you will now feel a sharp scratch”. About a pint of blood lighter I sat up on the bed, I was the only person in the room now, the staff had all gone off on their break.

I forewent the biscuit and tea, (I had had a Bounty before-hand) and left the bag of my bodily fluids to be transported to the National Blood Bank in Tooting last night. Apparently most blood is separated into a number of components to be made into various products. Where will my chi end up? I like to think it will be of some good. I wish it well. I have type B negative which 1% of the UK population has (but 20% of the Japanese have). I think they like O negative best because anyone can receive it. The Hopi Indians who live in the Mohave Dessert in Arizona have something in their blood only found in the blood of Japanese. Their folklore says that they travelled the world thousands of years ago before choosing to settle in what must be one of the most challenging places to live on the planet.

I am interested in the Hopi and when in Arizona a while ago, decided to go to see where they lived. My expectation was that we would find a fairly touristy place. Consequently we took a picnic. We found what I would describe as a run-down council estate in the desert. We are talking basic. Many of them have refused to be wired up to the electricity and telecommunications networks. There are a number of villages in the area. The one we arrived at was on the Second Mesa (a plateau in the desert). There was a shop, the lady was nice, she seemed to be aware that we were expecting something different. She suggested that if we followed the noise of the drums we would arrive at the local school where there was some kind of celebration going on in the car park. Very big energy there indeed, there were no other white people; kids of all ages in bright costumes dancing around in front of their proud families.

At the third Mesa we found the village of Old Oraibi, some say the oldest inhabited community in the United States. If anything it was even more bleak than the Second Mesa. There was another little shop. I bought a silver pendant with the image of the Ancient One on it. He looks like a space man.

Despite the harshness of the environment, there was something very powerful and attractive about the simplicity of the place.

Kent wait

Listening to the album Vapen & Ammunition by Kent as kindly sent to me by Dom in order that I can revise for their concert in May. Am very much enjoying it indeed.

I am in front of a big screen. The John Cussack character is reflecting on having been ripped off in a leafy street, or speeding down a dramatic coastal road having retrieved something that the baddy is going to want back, or celebrating in a bar with his mates, exchanging a furtive look with an unavailable girl across the room, or maybe typing up the critical information; cigarette dangling from lips, stopping to knock a big slug of ash into his plastic cup, smarting from the smoke......

Tanks

It was dark now, the driver dropped us off at Tiananmen Square. You cannot be ready for how big that place is. People were still flying kites. There is a large building in the centre of the square which is Mao’s Mausoleum, a day or two later we would join the queue to file past what is supposed to be the remains of the man himself. His face could have been made of marzipan.

It was a balmy evening and we strolled about a bit. It certainly feels like stuff has gone on there. It is adjacent to the Forbidden City and the government offices. From time to time you will see a posh black car with people in suits going about the business of transforming their county into a super power. There are no rubbish cars around as they haven't had cars there that long.



Anyway we had been wandering about for about 20 minutes and we were approached by a very smiley Chinese bloke. A few people had wanted to sell us something. He was more persistent than the others, more charming too. For the next two or three hours he was our unofficial guide, it didn’t matter that he was being paid by the shops and tea houses we visited; it was worth it. During the day he teaches English at the University but cannot afford to accommodate his family in the City, they lived out of town; he stayed during the week in a Huton, a one room apartment (without a toilet) off a little communal square. Everywhere in Beijing the Hutons are being flattened and replaced with tall buildings.


"no rubbish cars"

Whilst we were still in the square I asked him whereabouts the student was standing when he confronted the tanks. He looked at me like I had just taken all my clothes off. Through a fixed smile, glancing over his shoulder he said, “you cannot talk about that here”.

Pelican

October 1994; we were going to Florida. The flight followed a path down the east coast of the states, I tried to identify cities from 30 000 ft. By the time we were on board the hire car, heading for Miami Beach, it was getting dark and starting to rain. We had no bookings anywhere and it was several hotels before I had found one that showed the ESPN channel on the TV in the rooms; I wanted to know if Michael Schumacher was going to win his first world title.

The following morning we awoke to the remnants of Tropical Storm Gordon. There was a lot of rain and we were told to expect it to last a while. We moved to a cool hotel on the beach called the Pelican. But the weather was still interfering a little. We drove around through the floods in our convertible.

The pair of us considered flying inland to New Orleans or somewhere but in the end decided to drive south. We had to drive all the way to Key West before the sun came out. A bit knackered, we checked into the first nice and very expensive hotel we found. This was on the basis that we felt due some “r and r” and we could move somewhere cheaper later. We never moved.

Every evening there is a bit of a party to watch the sunset. One evening we found ourselves sitting side by side in a Tiger Moth. As it flew over the little crowd by the port we were joined by another old plane and we did some modest aerobatics; we even saw a shark in the clear sea. Another evening we were on a sailing boat and became witnesses at the wedding of a drunk bloke and his much older slightly less inebriated partner.

I went on a dive. My diving buddy seemed surprised that I didn’t know Ridley Scott (as I lived in London) and on the way, talked a lot about how much he enjoyed diving. I had never dived before but I wasn’t the one who freaked out. On my second dive I let too much air out of my regulator too quickly and when the bubbles had dissipated I found myself standing on the bottom with a small group of divers around me. I learnt that before I stood on it, they had been studying a baby shark on the sea bed.

When you dive you can move by the way you breathe.