Dan Worth's Blog or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blog

Grammar schools and crying

2012-01-13T19:30:00.000Z

I watched a fascinating little documentary on BBC4 last night about the grammar school setup that existed in the UK after the war and the benefits, and limitations, it offered to those who went and those that didn't.

While it was great hearing tales of inspiration from both those that passed the dreaded 11+ and those that didn't what was most interesting was seeing those that had gone to grammar school recalling with such fondness - and indeed tears on some occasions - the teachers that had inspired and encouraged them throughout those formative years.

In some ways it was a telling example that it's not always where you go or what you know but who's there and who you know that dictates where you end up.

I had a great history teacher at secondary school which inspired me to go on to study the subject at university, whereas my geography teacher...well, let's just say when I heard on the grapevine that he was, eventually, sacked I wasn't that surprised and only wished it had come sooner so I wasn't stuck with him for four years of boredom.

But then what would your school days be without a few crushing regrets?

Weekend Waterloo trains

2012-01-08T11:35:00.000Z

Most days the train from Wimbledon (which I like to pronounce Whim-bley-don) to Waterloo is nothing but a commute.

An early-morning jamboree of tish-tish headphones, pushing-people and Metro readers, all weekday morning indicators, while the evening is much the same, although you may see the odd loosened tie.

However, take the train on the weekend, and rolling up to Waterloo takes on a completly different air: it's relaxed, almost like you're going on holiday such is the change in atmosphere from the weekday. Where normally the train is taking you to offices, computer screens and sandwiches eaten Al Desko, the weekend train holds the promise of the theatre, friends, galleries and other fun.

It's almost enough to make you forget the prices went up again and twice in the first four days back the trains were affected by various delays.

Singing out for Christmas

2011-12-30T19:06:00.000Z

So, that was Christmas 2011. It always goes so fast, after such a long build-up. Still, it was a nice one this year, with mild weather, plenty of cocktails and nice dog walks with the family. My brother and I spent some time noodling around on the guitars and piano too, and even got around to bashing out a Christmas song, after discussing whether or not it was that hard to actually write one. You can take a listen to our efforts in the embedded video below. Enjoy, and roll on the New Year!

A short review of all the books I read in 2011

2011-12-10T15:17:00.000Z

Another year, another collection of books read. I must be getting slower as I read fewer than in 2010 which was in turn fewer than 2009. Or perhaps I'm reading longer books.

Anyway, a short few lines on each one, with links to previous and longer reviews I wrote during the year where relevant.

1. Do Not Pass Go – Tim Moore

An enjoyable and mostly entertaining jaunt around London looking at the history of the creation of the Monopoly board and an insight into how each major square has evolved since that time.

2. Why England Lose - Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski

An engrossing read on that perennial question of why the England football team are no good, and it was refreshing to see that we're not just useless in our inability to "get stuck in" but also due to our utter lack of technical capabilities.

3. Nocturns – Kazuo Ishiguro

An underwhelming series of short stories from an author I normally enjoy. Each one seemed too flippant and throw-away to capture the interest and all lacked a plot strong enough to remain in the memory.

4. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet – David Mitchell

A fantastic novel, set in isolated Japan during the 1700s when its sole contact with the outside world was an artificial island used by the Dutch as a trading outpost. Probably the best Mitchell of the lot.

5. Notes from a Big Country – Bill Bryson

A slightly tiresome serious of columns collated into a book that sees Bryson riffing on the craziness of the US of A.

6. The Hours – Micheal Cunningham

Seen the film so read the book: very clever and engaging.

7. In Europe – Geert Mak

Some 900-pages of Europe's history told by a journalist travelling around the continent at the turn of the millenium. A long-slog but great insights and anecdotes throughout.

8. Chemistry for Beginners – Anthony Strong

A clever idea of a novel told through science papers (and diary extracts), that started strongly but the plot was slightly woolly and was about 100 pages too long to really sustain the interest.

9. Why We Run – Robin Harvie

A nice, philosophical take on the notion of running, by a chap who regularly runs 40-miles each weekend. That's a lot. It felt strained at times, though, as if the quotations from the great philosophers that he uses were found beforehand and then each chapter moulded to fit around them.

10. The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim – Jonathan Coe

Coe always tells a good tale and this one was no different but it just wasn't quite strong enough in any direction, either the characters, the plot or the attempts to show the madness of the world modern (See: What a Carve Up!), as his others, but nonetheless it was enjoyable.

11. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

On purchasing a Kindle I went on a free-classic-book buying spree, with this the first work I downloaded. As witty as you'd expect and surprisingly gothic too.

12. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe

Man trapped on island and the subsequent adventure he has. Good fun.

13. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson

I just kept hearing the voices of the muppets in all the relevant characters having seen the Muppet's version so often during my childhood but the original work still contains plenty of excitement.

14. The Jungle Book – Ruyard Kipling

A collection of stories, rather than a single tale, which contains some elements that went on to form the bulk of the famous film, but is different in many ways. For instance, Sher Khan is killed by a stampede of wildebeest organised by Mowgli - inspiration for The Lion King?

15. Inverting the Pryamid – Jonathan Wilson

A detailed look at the evolution of football tactics of which I still find amazing that the first formations were 2-3-5. Madness.

16. Reading like a Writer – Francine Prose

Reminded me of being back at university but it was interesting to look at some of the reasons why the best writers are just that.

17. The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen

Finally got around to some Franzen. Engrossing and moving in places but the story of Chip going to Lithuania just didn't work for me at all.

18. Trouble on the Heath – Terry Jones

A load of rubbish. Read in a day, found it lying around, waste of time.

19. To the River – Oliver Laing

Another semi-philosophical book akin to Why We Run in essence, using the writer's affinity with Virginia Woolf and the river Ouse to contemplate her relationship with rivers, the writings it inspired, its role in history and beyond. Quite beguiling in places.

20. I’m Feeling Lucky – Douglas Edwards

Man joins small internet start up called Google, the rest is history. A bit dry in places as Edwards worked in the marketing area but nonetheless still a great insight into the madness of a company that grows from nothing to world's biggest in a few years.

21. The Good Man Jesus and the Scroundrel Christ – Philip Pullman

Pullman proves he's quite a good writer once again, with a clever take on how Christ became the cult figure he is today by stealing the thunder of his more humble brother Jesus.

22. The Atlantic – Simon Winchester

A nice read on some of the history of the Atlantic, the people around it and it's role in human history. Some chapters were a touch week but most offered some interesting insights and anecdotes on the cold, wide ocean separating half the world.

23. Freedom – Jonathan Franzen

After one Franzen, another. This one was, for me, not quite as good as The Corrections but an interesting, clever, damaged novel with a motley collection of characters going about screwing up their lives in unique and odd ways.

24. Player One – Douglas Coupland

A nice antidote to Franzen's endless words, with this short, fast-paced thriller taking an interesting idea that the world reaches its peak oil production and subsequent mayhem ensues. The idea only five people would be an airport cocktail lounge in a major US airport seemed a tad odd but there we go.

25. The Valley of Fear – Arthur Conan Doyle

A classic bit of Holmes, with Doyle using his two stories in one trick. First he sets up and the solves the mystery while the second half gives the back story of how the amazing turn of events came about in a sleepy English resort. A lack of Holmes in the second half is a let down but the story was interesting enough.

26. How to be Good – Nick Hornby

Another quick easy read, which took a cleverish idea and ran with it as far as it could before becoming too ridiculous. I liked the character of Katie and thought the ideas of charity and the lack of relationships with neighbours in the streets in which live for years on end were well played out, but it's hardly a Great Novel.

27. A Film by Spencer Ludwig – David Flusfeder

Not sure what I really thought about this one: on one level a simple, fun road-story about a father and son: the father dying, the son a sort of successful film director but also a bit of a failure at life. But, while it flowed nicely, I couldn't shake the feeling the author was trying a tad too hard all the time. I appreciate that's a bit woolly but that's the only way I can describe it.

28. The Sisters’ Brothers – Patrick DeWitt

One of my favourite books of the year: a beguiling, lyrical and engrossing story of two murderous brothers heading to San Fran in 1851, the height of the gold rush, to commit, well, a murder. The historical setting let DeWitt paint some great scenes (one brother discovering toothpaste for the first time, shooting a bear that was killing his horse, meeting a mad prospector by a river), while the story is suitably engaging and strange to keep you hooked throughout. Recommended.

29. The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes

The Booker Prize winner and a very clever novel. Short but concise and at times reading more like Barnes musing on life than a novel, but the plot is nevertheless well structured and keeps you guessing until the end and beyond.

30. The Steve Jobs biography – Walter Issacsson

Read for work but I enjoyed this on a personal level too as there's no doubting the impact Jobs made on the world, whether you liked him or not. Jobs comes across as a huge tyrant but one who knew what he was trying to achieve and more often than not he succeeded, with almost those on the end of his tongue-lashings also revealing that their time working with him was some of their best working days.

31. Perfect Rigour – Masha Gessen

A study of a reclusive mathematician who proved the Poincare Conjecture was not a book I thought I would enjoy but Gessen tells the story as a writer first, rather than as a great maths genius (as she is too). This helps make the tale of a genius from Russian surviving the random machinations of Soviet Russia to become a great mathematician working in the US, going on to solve one of the world's most complex maths problems then reject the $1m prize a fascinating read.

32. And God Created Cricket - Simon Hughes

A slightly tiresome read, as Hughes adds a lame joke to the end of every other paragraph charting the history of cricket from Ye Olden Days to The Present Day. There's some nice colour and interesting anecdotes throughout, but the Ho-Ho sarcastic tone is too wearisome to be enjoyable.

33. Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond

Probably one of the first academic (or semi-academic) works I've read since university, this is an interesting and thought-provoking work examining the reasons why Europe and to a lesser extend Asia became the world super powers (of the last 500 years), rather than the Africas, Americas and Australia.

Diamond's argument is, roughly, that a combination of temperature, the abundance of animals and plants fit for domestication and the availability of certain materials, and a resistance, or lack there of, to disease spread by these animals, helped these areas of the world develop at a faster, more technologically advanced rate, than those without, which lead to an unfair balance when they first came into contact.

Cyril Hartley Moore

2011-12-01T21:30:00.000Z

History is a fascinating subject. I should know I studied it for three years at university so it makes me something of an expert in the field. One of the most interesting areas, on an individual basis at least, is that of the family tree and the lives of unknown relatives. Certainly the success of shows like Who Do You Think You Are? is a clear indication that people discovering the stories of their family prove highly popular.

As such it was with great interest I received an email from a current family member with information on some research he'd done into my great grandfather's brother Cyril Hartley Moore. Through some clever emailing and tracking of information to Canada he'd been able to reveal a bit more light on his life, and the fact it was actually cut short in 1901 in the Boer War when he refused to surrender to overwhelming opponents:

"The Boers succeeded in cutting off the retreat of a small party of ten men he commanded. Three times the enemy called on him to surrender, but on Lieutenant Moore refusing to do so, he was shot through the heart," reads the report of his death.

Refusing to surrender three times despite clearly being beaten and ending up shot through the heart certainly sounds like the behaviour of someone in my family.

Overall, while I'm not going to cry about it (unlike the folks that go on the BBC show who the producers must surrounded with onions to produce the money shot), it's a fascinating and bizarrely profound insight into the life of someone who, while dimly related to me, is nevertheless part of my family's lineage and make-up.

Wimbledon skies

2011-11-20T11:27:00.001Z

I moved to Wimbledon at the start of October from Putney. It's a very nice area (although no The Thames running through it, shame) and it has some ridiclously massive houses which all have four cars in their gated-off driveways: one 4x4, one sports car, on estate and one "runaround", which is mostly a very new Mini.

I quite enjoy wandering around the streets, just to nosy around the area and discover any shortcuts and while doing so snapping some pictures.

This leads me to the chance to post this picture up that I took which I was quite pleased with for capturing the multitude of colour Autumn always presents.

Booker books and the Kindle

2011-11-20T11:14:00.001Z

I decided to join the modern world recently and read two of the Booker Prize shortlisted books I picked up during an enjoyable sojourn in Cornwall.

The Sisters Brothers: This didn't win, but it was very good. Set in the Gold Rush era of the US and charting the journey of two murderous brothers, one with a conscious, the other without, it was a lyrical tale of odd characters and beguiling set pieces that was both engrossing and readable. Sometimes it felt like you were reading a movie script such as the short but elegant descriptions and brief dialogue and I wouldn't be surprised if it was turned into a film if the book achieves enough commercial success.

The Sense of an Ending: The winner and you can see why: dense, cleverly structured and very well-written, it's a sad reflection on memory and the damage people do to one another without ever knowing how or why. At times it read a touch like a man just thinking about life rather than a story, but the plot is sufficiently engrossing (and actually pretty dark) to keep you hooked throughout.

Both of these books, it should be noted, were also beautifully produced, with lush page textures, aesthetically pleasing fonts and great cover designs, a testament to the beauty of books over Kindle and their ilk (one of which I own and enjoy using). It made me think that books and e-book readers are not rivals at all but complementary systems of reading and it's merely a matter of preference to which device you choose for which book.

For example, before these two books I read the Steve Jobs biography, which in hardback is a huge, weighty brick of a thing, but I downloaded it to my Kindle and it was a joy to devour as it was so easy to carry around and read on the tube as I rattled around London. But the real books described above were improved some 10-25% (if you can quantify such things) but having the physical, well-designed thing in my possession to touch and hold.

One of my favourite books of all time, the non-fiction Leviathan by Philip Hoare was a similar such book, my love of which was undoubtedly enhanced hugely but the sheer beauty and craft of its physical design. Reading it on a Kindle would have been a hollow experience.

A few book reviews

2011-10-24T19:26:00.002+01:00

In classic fashion, here are a few more book reviews from a series of novels I have read since Freedom, in order.

Player One - Douglas Coupland: An enjoyable, fast-paced thriller set during a mini apocalypse after the world reaches its peak-oil limit, that takes place solely an airport cocktail bar. The four major characters use the experience to reflect on life and what their lives have meant, as well as their own failings, all while trying to stay alive during the period of intense civil unrest that the oil crises causes. Enjoyable and quite unique.

The Valley of Fear - Sir Arther Conan Doyle: I've always been a bit of a Sherlock Holmes fan, I'm not entirely sure why, but the chance to read a ripping yarn of his always goes down well, and this was no different.

The first of the story is classic Holmes, with the highly confusing case solved with wit and resilience, while leaving his intellectually inferior companions utterly in the dark. The story then settles you down for the second half, in which we hear the back story that caused the events in the then present-day.

I never like it when Holmes disappears for the entire second half of a book, as he's the best thing about the stories, but it's a good tale and told well-enough as the central protagonist of the story relives his time in the Wild West where he helps bring an evil gang of vicious men to justice by infiltrating their gang as one of their own.

A Film by Spencer Ludwig - David Flusfeder: An interesting and different story of a son and his very ill, fragile father going on an impromptu road trip from New York to Atlantic City. The relationship between the two characters was well imagined, and the change in their roles from child-adult to adult-octogenarian was well told and full of pathos. Some odd scenes in the book didn't quite gel for me - the father accidentally winning thousands of pounds at backgammon - but overall an enjoyable read.

How to be Good - Nick Hornby: I was after something light for a trip to Berlin that involved a 4:45am start, so this seemed perfect and indeed it was. It's a fun little tale, told with enough zip to keep you engaged with and some nice idea based around society, neighbourliness and consumerism that's only peppered lightly throughout. Hardly a classic or a must-read (what is?) but nonetheless a fun, easy, light-hearted read.

What you can achieve in a twenty-one hour day

2011-10-23T15:44:00.000+01:00

OnWednesday I had the pleasure of enduring a twenty-onehour day for work – this involved rising at 4:45am and getting to bed at 1am.In this time I flew to Berlin,drank several beers, wrote a lot of words, and even managed to compare car insurance while sat at the airport.

The day started early, as mentioned, and involved a quick taxiride to the airport, followed by a zippy trip over the Atlantic and into Berlin, in which time Iread 120 page of How to be Good by Nick Hornby. It has beengood so far.

Then we arrived and were taken on a whistle stop tour of Berlin, mostly bycoincidence, as the coach taking us from the airport to the event happened togo by the Brandenburg Gate and several pieces of the Berlin Wall.

I then did plenty of work – including two videos, a reviewand a news story, phew – before eating some currywurst mit kartoffelen whichwas sehr tasty, although my fumbling attempts at GCSE conversational Germanwere thwarted by instant replies in perfect English from the chefs serving thefood. Curses.

From there it was back to the airport with the company offour other journalists for our 9pm EasyJet flight home. Except this being life,the plane was delayed by one hour and forty minutes, meaning we had some fivehours to kill at Schönefeld airport – one of those small,shed-like airports which only servers the cheap airlines.

Still, we made the best of it and imbibed on German beers and some surprisinglygood burger and chips from "Cindys", the airport's own knock-offMcDonalds, where the nice manageress took pity and kept the kitchen open justlong enough to feed us.

We chatted about many topics: our envy of the worldpresented to baby boomers, the best mobile phone and some of the recent filmswe'd seen, and I also managed to message several friends, read all the day'snews and consider the best car-protection deals.

Sometimes I get these flashbacks to another point in my lifeand wonder how I would react if I was shown a snapshot of where I have ended upat certain points in the future.

I sat there, in the bright, harsh lighting of the airport departure lounge,sleep-deprived, drunk, and fed up with EasyJet, longing to be back in my newhouse in Wimbledon, and wondered what the 21-year-old me would have made of thescene, when he stepped off the train in Paddington in 2007 to start his Londonlife.

Eventually, the plane left, we had the Obligatory CryingBaby the entire way, I fell asleep for ten minutes, awoke startled and confusedby the light below me that I realised was London and soon enough we landed.

A 45 minute taxi journey home later and I was wearilyclimbing the stairs into my flat, and thinking that perhaps I don't need a carafter all – I find all this traveling far too tiring.

Clapham Common 10km post-race thoughts

2011-10-23T12:36:00.001+01:00

Long, long time readers will remember in 2009 I ran the Richmond10km in 42:20 minutes, setting a then personal best for my 10km abilities. Sincethen I’ve always wanted to try and go sub 40 minutes - you know, just because.

I entered the Clapham Common 10km, which was promised as afast, flat race, perfect for breaking your PB by a friend, and after my entryin March was delayed due to a broken toe, I finally got back the fitness andstamina to use my deferred entry for October’s race.

So, last Sunday, while Australians and New Zealanders drunkthemselves into oblivion in bars around the Clapham area, I and some 400 otherfitter souls took to the start line at the Clapham bandstand.

My attempts at sub 40 minutes were easily out doneby the chap at the start line promising to go sub 34 minutes and within 100m hewas storming head and eventually broke the course record in 32 minutes somethingor other - terrifyingly impressive.

Me, though, I pounded on and kept up the pace I needed tohit to break my target, although by the fourth kilometre was conscious I was fallingever-so-slightly behind too, so kept having to ramp up my speed, before easing off, which isn’t the best wayto do it really.

The course itself was not actually that conducive to a fastspeed, either,as it was annoyingly twisty and turny, and filled with stragglers from the 5kmthat set off before the 10k runners, which led to some annoying moments tryingto pass on the corners.

The fact it was two laps of the same course was alsoirritating as psychologically you know there’s nothing new to look forward toand you have the same dull course to do as you start the second lap.

I camethrough half way at almost dead on 21 minutes, one minute off the pace, and not looking forward to my second lap, especially with the heat of the day now bizarrely hot, considering it's October.

I tried in vain to make up that errant minute but it’s very hard to run thesecond half of a race faster than the first and although I managed to aboutbreak even and I only managed a disappointing, but respectable, 42:52 to finish 26th. Noteven a PB.

I think I needed to have done more speed training around theroads of Wimbledon and it shows that perhaps my performance at the more hilly Richmondcourse really was at the height of my fitness, some two months post Londonmarathon.

Still, it was fun to do and now I have the latent fitness for 10kms I cantrain harder specifically for the sub 40 minute barrier, rather than thedistance of 10km first and then hope the speed is there afterwards.

While writing this blog my girlfriend asked me why I wantedto write a blog about running a 10km – the answer is that I don’t really know,I just find it interested to document the experience of the race.

I know notmany people read this blog really, but hopefully those that do, or stumbleacross this post, might find something to interest them – the internet is toobig anyway, so one more blog entry hardly matters anyway does it?

Freedom? Yeah, right

2011-10-10T21:35:00.000+01:00

As promised, I downloaded and read Freedom by Jonathan Franzen over the last two or three weeks and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It's a strange story considering it runs for some 600 pages: in essence nothing more than a bunch of people's lives, how they mess one another up, and they all reach some sort of vague conclusion of happiness, or something like it, come the end. It would be hard to sell it to a commissioning editor if it wasn't Franzen and his name behind it, I suspect.

Yet, the characters are wonderfully defined, their backgrounds and histories real and well imagined, their interactions with one another laced with enough disappointment and anger to help you identify, care and empathise with them, or be repulsed, sickened or shocked.

There are some weighty themes going on too. Environmentalism, vapid consumerism, the endless waste of the west, the me-first culture of North America, all clearly targets of Franzen's own world view given voice in the character of Walter Berglund.

While probably not quite as good as The Corrections, which had more humour infused throughout while I found the character of Joey hard to believe in places - flying to Paraguay to buy scrap truck parts for a contractor with a $300,000 loan sitting over his head, aged 20? - Freedom is certainly worth most of the heavy praise it generated on release.

Why Fox should cancel The Simpsons

2011-10-06T21:00:00.000+01:00

The Simpsons was one of, if not the, greatest TV shows ofall time. It was smart, funny, moving, charming, enjoyable, intelligent yetsimple and always managed to create stories that were a fantastic combinationof the sublime and the ridiculous.

Yet, over time this quality has, perhaps not surprisingly,ebbed, and not flowed back.The writers have clearly run out of plot ideas of what to dowith a bunch of character stuck in the same age groups and have used up almostevery idea they could possible use anyway.

The news Fox may have to force the stars of the show, the actors voicing the characters, to take a paycut makes me think they should just can it altogether.

I always remember seeing the episode where Lisa convincesBart and Homer they have leprosy and so they get themselves sent to an islandretreat to be cured and thought, for the first time,"well, that was a load of rubbish".

The film was the first time in a long time I felt I waswatching The Simpsons again. It wasn't incredible, but it was funny, and it hadthe characters acting as their true selves, not as their caricatures, which isoften how they are now portrayed.

Homer has gone from one of the greatest comic creations ofall time to something of a boarish oaf who shouts and screams a lot without muchredeeming qualities. He is hard to like in many episodes and does things farbeyond his character's former, realistic, comedic boundaries.

If you ask me, Fox should just cancel the show and have done with it. It hasnothing to prove to anyone and there's more than enough quality in the firsteight to 10 seasons to ensure the show remains a classic that futuregenerations will plough their way through on DVD or through online streamingthat no-one will, for once, think any less of Fox for pulling the plug.

Villas, smarter Londoners and books in bed

2011-09-21T08:00:00.000+01:00

Today is official the last day of summer. Yeah, I know,ridiculous right? It's September 21 and only now is it technically autumn,despite it clearly being cold enough to have justified booking a villa holidayand high-tailing it out of here for about three weeks now.

As I said before, though, I like autumn a lot. It's full of colour and changeand enjoyable days in the calendar: Halloween, Bonfire Night, that Christmasthing which seems to be as popular as ever. All in all, it's not a bad time ofyear.

One thing I've always thought about the autumn/winter season in London is just how muchsmarter Londerers looks during the colder months than in the summer.

From now on long, smooth winters coats, elegant scarves andfancy gloves are the norm and baggy, ill-fitting, garish t-shirts, shorts andflipflops are mercifully hidden away for another 6-9 months of the year.

I've been fruitlessly trying to track down the medium sized version of a greatwinter coat I saw in a TK Maxx that only seems to be stocked in the large.Curses.

One other nice thing about all this is that you can spendmore time curled up inside with a good book, too. There are few finer things inlife than lying in a bed on a cold, blustery day with an enjoyable piece ofwriting that you can plough through as the weather howls impotently outside.

I once read the entire novel The House of Sleep by JonathanCoe on one such day, and it was bliss. Recently I've been doing likewise (preand post rugby world cup matches) with The Atlantic, Ocean of a Million Storiesby Simon Winchester, a man who's led a very interesting and varied life as ajournalist and writer.

It had a lot of interesting historical, social and maritimefacts, stories and topics within its 400+ pages and although not the bestnon-fiction book I've read of recent years, it was certainly an enjoyable yarn.

For anyone that's had more than a passing interest in thegreat, grey slab of water that lies off the coast of Cornwall and churns andthunders unstopped until it reaches, by turns, Canada, the US, Mexico, Braziland Argentina, then it would come with a hearty recommendation from yourstruly.

Ah, the sunny climes of Braziland Argentina,it's enough to make you book that winter summer holiday without a thought forthe price.

Little known histories

2011-09-12T19:43:00.003+01:00

There are so many stories from history. To many to ever be remembered. But here's a fascinating piece of maritime history I read about today. This extract from Wikipedia says a lot:

At 9:04:35 AM, the cargo of Mont-Blanc exploded with more force than any man-made explosion before it. The ship was instantly destroyed in the giant fireball that rose over 1.9 kilometres (1.2 mi) into the air, forming a large mushroom cloud.

The force of the blast triggered a tsunami, which rose up as high as 18 metres (60 ft) above the harbour's high-water mark on the Halifax side. It was caused by the rapid displacement of harbour water near the blast, followed by water rushing back in towards the shore.

Captain Haakon From and most of the crew that were on the bridge of the Imo and on its decks were killed by the tsunami. A black rain of unconsumed carbon from the Mont-Blanc fell over the city for about 10 minutes after the blast, coating survivors and structural debris with soot.

Sleepovers

2011-09-12T19:31:00.002+01:00

When you're young the idea of a sleepover is incredibly exciting. The chance to stay at a friend's house, or have them to yours, is the stuff of "Please mum, pleaseeeee" for years. Yet, even as a child, once the hallowed night has taken place, there's something mildly disappointing about the whole thing. It's just sleeping somewhere else, really, but not as well and coupled with waking in a strange, alien world, of if it's at yours, with a bunch of friends you wish would leave sharpish as they're driving you crazy.

Growing up, such events are obviously far rarer, but the night buses and the early closing of the tube mean that crashing on on good friend's sofa post night out, or after a wine and US Open tennis 2am evening, is preferable to a two hour journey with drunks and weirdos across the city from north to south.

Even so, waking at 7am having had a terrible night's sleep, miles from home, facing a day of relentless yawning, you can't help but wonder if you would have been better off risking the nightmare buses after all.

It's disappointing how quickly sleep becomes an important part of your life, your thoughts, and defines your ability to function. Not in an active way, an "I must go home to sleep soon" controlling way, but a passive, next day "why did I go to bed so late" moan, that becomes ever more frequent each year, the days of going out til 3am and suffering no ill effects the next day long, long gone. And don't even get me started on two to almost three day hangovers.

Or maybe I am just a wimp. Thoughts?

The changes of September

2011-09-06T22:30:00.000+01:00

Throughout life, until at least the age of 21, life changes every year in September. From a young age it represents a new school year with new expectations, challenges, events and so forth. Then it's university starts, and each year throughout not just a new term but often a new house and housemates to boot.

Since then I, like many others, seem to have stayed in the September to September housing cycle, each month representing a different location, a different set of housemates again, this time though we are professional, clean(ish), and wealthy (compared to former student selves at least).

Not only that, but during September autumn marks its arrival: leaves fall, evenings darken, temperatures drop and the combination of personal change coupled with seasonal change always infuses the month with a sense of, well, possibilities. Of new beginnings and new opportunities. A chance to use the darkness and the cold to get more things done, to enjoy snuggling in pubs or taking brisk walks across moors, heaths, parks.

There's also a loosening of that sense of guilt that rare hot summer days bring. That sense of urgency to do something, to make the most of it. A rare autumn day filled with sun is a luxury, something to fritter away with quiet surprise and enjoyment that we have been afforded an day of warmth and sun.

The angles of the sun throughout this time of the year are wonderful too: lasting just a few weeks but offering a unique combination as the sun tracks from its zenith to the nadir, changing each and every day to offer different shades, tints and hues of sunsets and sunrises, skies and clouds.

I think for all these reasons September may be my favourite month.


Putney sunset as September begins

Bob Dylan, Buenos Aires and Rhyming Dictionaries

2011-09-05T21:25:00.001+01:00

Bob Dylan has so many songs it's ridiculous to try and pick a favourite. But it's still fun to highlight moments from his canon from some of the lesser known songs.

For me, Brownsville Girl and The Groom's Still Waiting at the Altar are two songs that will never feature in a Best Of, but would make my top 20 without question, maybe top 10.

Groom's Still Waiting...has a brilliant edge to it, the entire band sounds like they're only playing the second or third complete run through of the song having been introduced to it by Dylan during a late night session. Every guitar line sounds partly improvised, a guitarist jamming rather than recording The Take. Furthermore, it contains one of my favourite Dylan verses and indeed rhymes of all time:

Cities on fire, phones out of order,
They're killing nuns and soldiers, there's fighting on the border.
What can I say about Claudette?
Ain't seen her since January,
She could be respectably married
Or running a whorehouse in Buenos Aires.

That rhyme, January / Buenos Aires is just sublime, especially with Dylan's delivery. It's so well constructed too, the entire verse leading to that rhyme - it's not a rhyming dictionary job that's for sure.

You can listen below.

Books update

2011-09-04T14:05:00.001+01:00

Since reading The Corrections I have read a couple of otherbooks recently the first of which was To The River by Olivia Laing. A nice,meandering book about the joys of rivers, water, walking and literary it was,as you can imagine, right up my stream.

It charts a walk Laing takes along the Ouse from its source to its estuary,while taking in the nature, history, society and literary background of thesurrounding area. It reminded me of a slew of books that seem to becoming morepopular now that use a central subject or cypher around which the authorruminates on various topics. The best examples of this are Philip Hoare's Leviathan,but I also read a similar book in Robin Harvie's Why We Run.

For anyone familiar with the area, or keen to read an interesting take on ariver talk and Virginia Woolf it would come with my recommendation.

Second was I'm Feeling Lucky by Doug Edwards, a recounting of the adventures of a mid 40sman taking job number 59 at Google, in the days when it was an unknown start-up. There's plenty of techno speak in there, but also human angles, insightsinto one of the world's biggests companies, and personal stories to interestthe more casual reader, although you'd have to have some base, underlyinginterest in Google, to make it all the way through. I may do a fuller review for work too,seeing as it's about technology.

That takes me to 21 books for the year, still way off the 51 and 47 I achieved in previous years, but I put this down to reading several very long works this year, mostly In Europe by Geert Mak which took my about six weeks.

Mo Farah winning the 5,000m

2011-09-04T13:52:00.000+01:00

Earlier this year I was sat in a restaurant in Hong Kong. I was exhausted,hungover, jet-lagged and hungry. Despite this I felt compelled to try andconvince two of my dining companions that running races are genuinelyfun when the topic reared its head.

I can see why those who have never strapped on some trainers and testedthemselves against the road, the elements, distances and indeed others, wouldpossible view running as a staid, dull sport, but those who have done it,particularly those who race, understand it is so much more than that.

Watching Mo Farah sprint to victory having already run 4,800m in South Korea earlier today I was remindedof this, having myself just laboured to a measly 2km around the streets ofSouth West London. The hit of adrenaline you get as you storm towards thefinishing line, over any distance, is like nothing else. I play football andtennis but the buzz from running, particularly as you near the finish line, is betterthan these sports for a sense of exhilaration you rarely experience in day-to-day life. That runners high you so often hear about.

I once finished 17th in a 10km in Cornwall. It was a hard, wet, muddy,cross-country route, but come the final 200m I found myself neck and neck withsome club runner from Newquay. I thought I had the measure of him coming intothe final stretch and so started to kick for home, pulling a few metres ahead,then I sensed him coming back at me, no doubt determined to prove hiscredentials. He was on my shoulder.

We matched each other stride for stride. Itold myself I would not let him past me, I would beat him. I dug in again,pushing harder again, and once again pulled away by a few meters. We werebarely 50m from the line. The crowd of friends and families that had come tocheer on loved ones noted our battle and cheered louder as we hurtled into thefinishing gate. He was closing again but I dug deep and held him off to claim17th, rather than 18th.

Utterly meaningless of course, but at the time, in the moment as it happenedand the glow afterwards, it was exhilarating, and of course exhausting. He shook myhands afterwards and we congratulated one another on a great race.

That moment, more than the London Marathon or other races I've run, alwaysreminds me of why running really needs to be experienced before it can bejudged, why my two associates in Hong Kong where so wrong to laugh at thesuggestion running can be fun and it's why watching someone like Mo Farahsprint to the line to claim gold for Great Britain is so exciting.

Me post marathon with Will.

When John Gray and Karl Marx collide

2011-09-04T13:38:00.003+01:00

I've always liked John Gray, he writes in a nice style of grand statements peppered with historical facts and quotations that augment his argument very convincingly.

His piece on the BBC about Karl Marx and why maybe his views of capatilisms inherent instability is being recognised more widely is exactly that. Worth reading.

English Summer Rain, always the same, such a pain…

2011-08-06T13:22:00.000+01:00

What on earth has happened to this summer? I know we complain about English summers a lot but this one really has taken the biscuit. The damp, soggy biscuit. It's enough to make you want to hightail it to an airport, grab some travel money and go somewhere sunny as quick as possible.

We're always surprised that the English summer is such a washout but it's always the same. It's clear the geographical layout of the nation, after millennia of glacial drift, has positioned itself in a way that makes it damp, cold and dreary and there ain't nothing we can do about it.

August and September are usually better, though. In fact September is usually one of the best months of the year with long, lush days of warm sun, billowy clouds and latent heat which the UK population goes crazy for, knowing the winter - cold, bleak, dark and filled with the X-factor – is just around the corner.

I remember a September night out in Angel oop North London a couple of years ago that was utterly crazy because everyone out seemed to be going out of their way to soak up the last great days of the summer; people chatting away, drinking merrily, sitting on pavements and in parks basking in the rays.

This short lived summer obviously gives us some benefits, though. We don't need to siesta to escape the sun, and er, that's it. Oh well, better dig out the coats, scarves and gloves soon, be winter again soon.

Well there's another positive, actually. Us Brits look much smarter in winter attire then we do in our hastily thrown on, quick-the-sun's-out-let's-get-a-tan, summer clothes that are always ill-fitting, outdated and, let's be honest, slightly ridiculous.

Still, before that happens, best get some travelmoney, the passport and the suitcase and escape to wherever the sun isshining.

The Corrections

2011-08-04T20:11:00.001+01:00

I've heard a lot about Jonathan Franzen, mainly since Freedom came out last year and garnered absolutely rave reviews from all and sundry. Since then I've been itching to read some of his works, but decided I would plump for The Corrections first as a) it was written before Freedom so chronologically makes more sense and b) it was given a 1% better rating over Freedom by a trusted friend who's read both.

So I downloaded it to my Kindle in 12 seconds or so, which was cool, and began my digital odyssey. It is a great book, as I'd been lead to believe, full of wonderful writing, clever set pieces, wit and characters that are wholly real in their contradictions, lack of resolve and general hatred at everything, everyone and themselves.

If that sounds depressing then in one respect it is, as you're treated to the inner monologues of people that are by turns deeply unhappy, dysfunctional, self-loathing, and riddled with disease.

Yet there is more to it than this, with characters displaying humanity too, realising their errors, trying hard to rectify them, perhaps failing, perhaps growing, but all immensely human.

It also offers a view of the world as it's changed from the middle of the century towards the end of the century, as the US shifted from a manufacturing world, to a service world, from a world of make do and mend to unashamed rip and replace, a world where money sloshes around with ridiculous ease yet never seems to end up in the hands of anyone but a few wealthy individuals, where random violence and illness are never far from the surface.

Perhaps the only bit where it falls down is the way the character of Chip seems to so nonchalantly travel to Lithuania to get involved with gangsters when he's a university academic. The coolness with which Franzen describes his life there seemed slightly unrealistic, but it's a minor point in an otherwise absorbing tale of how family life, and the structures that support it, can never be erased, forgotten or changed, no matter how hard you try.

Freedom next, at some point in the next month or so.

Thoughts on the end of The Sopranos

2011-07-24T23:10:00.005+01:00

Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while, a great wind carries me across the sky.

So, that was why everyone was so hung up on the end of The Sopranos. Did Tony die or did he not (he, did if you ask me)?. And, the oddest thing, I felt so sad when I realised that. A man who cheat, stole, murdered and much more - it did me in. The idea, unseen, of his death, of his family’s grief, actually made me upset in a way little other, if no, literary or cinematic work that attempts to manipulate that in you has before.

Of course, 83 episodes of following a character around and you’re bound to reach a state of like, respect even, for them – even if they are the head of a ruthless mafia crew in the suburbs of New Jersey. You can’t make a character that’s nothing but evil: the character has to have empathy, understanding, insights, abilities (to take control, to save the day, to outsmart all his rivals) that endear you towards them, and be set up in a situation where you at least understand the way they behave, even if it’s abhorrent.

Tony spends his life surrounded by grief, by misery, stuck in a world where an emotional response is lower than a murderous one – Johnny Sack never recovers respect after crying at his daughter’s wedding when the feds come to take him back to prison having spent just six hours at the event. The hook for The Sopranos comes by sticking Tony in counseling to see the toll a life in the mob can take and its impact on a standard family, while countering this with the extreme violence of the 'work' he's in.

Life is a stress of unimaginable strain, one that obviously causes human responses to close down: horror, fear, respect for life all seems to be dulled, or missing. It reaches like tentacles, the wives seems unaware - although clearly aware - of where the wealth comes from, the children too aspire to the status of their fathers (mostly) fully aware of the awe they too could command in that position: but most end up dead.

Come the end in that amazing final scene, Tony is sat, back with his family again, having presumably won through again, this time a civil war between the families of New Jersey and New York, to retain his status, but he has learnt nothing, never realized it can never end without death or jail, and it looks like death for our hero.

It’s bleak, relentlessly so: family members are killed off for behaving incorrectly, for being stuck in impossible positions between loyalty to loved ones and the FBI demanding information or the risk of jail, for aspiring to a position already occupied.

Tony cheats death once, but he will not do it again. We know this, we cannot see a way out for him, we will it – why, he’s despicable? – but we know it will not work. Then, the end, nothing, blackness, a shock cut to black, the music abrupt, ending, dead.

The realisation of what Meadow sees as she arrives, of what the others must experience: it’s setup and foreshadowed with wonderful writing, setting and camera work: sat in a glorious boat on a beautiful lake discussing the end, which comes as is expected.

Writers’ know what they’re doing, it’s premeditated, planned and executed like a hit.

What a life

2011-07-10T11:59:00.002+01:00

One of my favourite musicians is Bruce Springsteen, ably enabled by his epic E Street Band, including the excellently-faced Steve Van Zandt. I saw him in London twice and both times and Bruce and Steve (sounds so simple like that) were having a whale of a time, alongside the now sadly departed Clarence Clemens.

I've been watching The Sopranos since about February, ploughing my way through the entire box set and have reached the final season now, and it still freaks me out to know that Silvio Dante, Tony's consigliere is the same man.

I mean, is it not enough to be a guitarist in one of the greatest and most enduring live bands of all time, that you then need to act in one of the greatest TV show's of all time? Ridiculous.

The spitefulness of TFL

2011-06-18T10:31:00.001+01:00

My girlfriend sometimes calls me a grumpy young man when I begin ranting and raving about my dislike of various things, and perhaps in some ways she's right, but my contempt for TFL often feels entirely vindicated.

Two examples from this week:

At Piccadilly Circus the electronic board proclaimed a train was one minute away. We stood there for at least five minutes before it arrived, and then it was utterly packed and getting on was basically impossible. It took two more trains before I was able to board. Why claim a train is one minute away when it isn't?

This morning, at Leicester Square there was a large poster board at the top of the escalators that said "On June 3 TFL and the British Transport Police conducted ticket inspections of travellers at Leicester Square at found X number of passengers fraudulent tickets and X passengers without tickets. £75 was gathered in fines".

This whole thing is idiotic.

So TFL are proudly warning all travellers through the station that all their checks – which included manpower from the BTP for goodness sake – raised a total of £75! Should they be pleased by this? They're boasting about £75? It's pathetic.

What a shocking waste of time, energy and resources that surely could be applied to more useful, meaningful tasks. The BTP in particular should not be deployed in this way, what a hateful thing to do – is that why people become police officers, to facilitate the fining of travellers on the underground to return £75 in revenue?

Also, what' the point in the board? As a warning to travellers, a deterrent? What for? If people try to skim the system then they will regardless and no fines (a total of £75! ha!) will stop it.

The only people that actually suffer are legitimate travellers impeded on their journey because of stupid ticket checks or who, probably due to genuine reasons of forgetfulness or mistakes, forgot to top up or have the wrong Oyster Card on their person, but are ruthlessly fined merely because TfL can – despite running a service at a level that passes as nothing more than competent.

Treasure Island, the Jungle Book and muppet voices in my head

2011-06-16T22:30:00.004+01:00

I read Treasure Island recently, as part of a mini-drive to read some old classics (facilitated by my Kindle which makes such books free!) and have to say it was very enjoyable – you can certainly see why it’s such a classic.

What was amusing for me was that as I read the book, with character Hawkins, Blind Pew, Billy Bones and of course Long John Silver turning up and performing their dastardly piratical deeds, was that every character took on the look and sound of their Muppet Treasure Island equivalents, having seen the film on numerous occasions when I was a child.

Of course, Long-John and his famous “smart as paint you are lad” line was Tim Curry, but for the rest, such as Smollet, we have Kermit the Frog, and Squire Trelawney as Fozzie Bear and so on, which made for some odd voices in my head during the commute to work in this truly dreadful summer we’re having, as ever.

After that it was The Jungle Book, which interestingly is actually five stories, with Mowgli, Shere Khan, Baloo and Bagheera merely the first of these five stories at the start of the book and it differs in many ways to the film – Baloo is far more serious, and Mowgli causes the death of the evil tiger by leading a wilderbeast stampede upon the tiger in a ravine, from which there is no escape.

Of course, again, the movie from my childhood had conditioned me to hear the voices of the characters in a certain way, so despite Baloo trying to be serious, I just heard the scat-loving comedy character of the film.

The other stories concern a seal leading his kind away from evil men, a mongoose killing snakes to protect a family, a young boy witnessing a midnight elephant rave and then a bunch of military animals discussing their role on the battlefield, and why each is braver than the other (with strong pro-empire overtones about doing your duty and the importance of a system and the rule of order).

It was a very enjoyable read, though, and nice to have finally read some Kipling, having eaten so many of his cakes too.

Lost in translation

2011-06-07T20:25:00.000+01:00

It's been a month since I returned from China and Hong Kong and I can't believe I forgot to write a blog about the wonderful Lost in Tranlsation moment that occurred when I checked in to my hotel in Shenzhen, China.

I was hugely jet lagged (leaving at 6pm means you arrive at about 2pm, but to your body it's about 4am) and was also in a slight state of "Crikey, I'm in China, the red state", and so already susceptible to confusion and bewilderment.

Our bags were taken by the bellboys, and we ascend the lift to our rooms, I went inside and checked out the view, and waited for my bag to turn up before I could grab some much demanded sleep.

Sure he enough he turned up and left my bag in the room before heading back to the door, so far, so good. Then, as he got there, there was another man behind him, in workmans clothes, holding a large round bottle connected to a long piece of tube with a nozzle on the end that looked a little like a blow torch.

They both looked at me, I at them, bleary-eyed and the bell-boy pointed at the bottle before pointing at the bathroom. I nodded, "Ok?" I offered, but they didn't understand and so we all just stood there.

I rocked on my heels, the two Chinese men looked at each other, and I felt we might be there forever, until the bell-boy, smart as paint, remembered his mobile phone.

He whipped it out, and showed me a list of tasks he had to do of which number one was "1. insect". I immediately let out an "Ohhhh" noise, as in "Oh, I see", when of course I of course didn't.

I gave him an eager thumbs up and watched as the blow-torch man went in to the bathroom. There was a short swooooshing sounds and then they both left, smiling and happy.

I peered in to the bathroom, wondering if he'd just pumped a lot of insects in to my barthoom as part of some local custom of welcome, but not, don't be stupid ridiculous tired and confused Dan, I thought, they've just removed on from somewhere.

With that I went to bed.

Castaway with Robinson Crusoe

2011-06-02T08:39:00.000+01:00

I read Robinson Crusoe recently, thanks to my shiny Kindle, and a very enjoyable story it was too, even if it is written in ye olde English language.

He sets off, is shipwrecked near Hull, then goes to sea again and is captured by a Moor king in Africa where he is a slave for two years. Then he escapes, goes to Brazil, makes a fortune, is shipwrecked on a slave gathering mission (that'll learn him), lives for some 20 plus years on an island, rescues Friday from cannibals, rescues a Spanish man and Friday's father (first ever novel and it's got a mental plot twist, cha!) helps overturn a mutinous English ships and then uses the ship to return to England. Then he escapes wolves in the Pyrenees.

Book two, the sequel, (it's very Lost-esque) sees him return, meet the Spanish men who've inhabited the island, battle with more cannibals then go on to the Far East and then in to China and Russia to escape Dutchmen who believe he has stolen a ship and is a pirate – he's not, he was tricked in to buying it.

Thus you have the plot of Robinson Crusoe and I would say you don't really need to read it yourself now.

Driving to Bruce Springstreen

2011-05-22T11:06:00.002+01:00

Can it really be almost a month since the Royal Wedding? I'm back at work and Wills 'n' Kate are back in Anglesey where she's shopping in Waitrose and no doubt having to sort out heating bills and comparing car insurance to get the best deals for her and hubby...possibly.

I was fortunate enough to be driving myself for the first time since Christmas and I had a lovely moment driving in to Falmouth for a night out with my friends while listening to Bruce Springsteen, on tape(!), as I did so (I got a taxi back, before you begin to wonder).

There was Bruce singing about Glory Days and about, "Friday night I'd drive you all around" in I'm Going Down, and there I was driving along the glorious Cornish coast to my old home town to see friends I've been drinking with since I was 18-years-old-and-not-a-day-younger.

Something about The Boss's music is just so well suited to driving, the hint of reckless it offers, the surging rhythm, the lyrics of so many of his songs about the drama of escape or trying to be cool: See Born to Run, or the wonderful Racing in the Street.

I don't have a car in London, thankfully, as I imagine London must be one of the worst places in the world to drive – the traffic, the confusing signals, the mad pedestrians just trying to get run over, it must be a nightmare.

Conversely, driving in Cornwall is about as far removed from London as you could possibly get – on some corners you're better off trying to hear if there's anything come around the tight, narrow, tree-encroached bends than looking left and right.

On other occasions cars pull in to the only suitable passing place on a tiny roads and wait as cars come down from across the other side of a small river valley –,a level of courtesy you'd never imagine or expect in London.

Of course all these windy lanes can make for some hairy moments as the locals buses come whooshing past, or you clip errant stones, branches and sheep (okay, not really sheep) as you drive along.

Still, at least I'm insured, so I don't have to worry too much, much like Kate as she pops to Waitrose. We're not that different after all I suppose.

Travels to Hong Kong

2011-05-16T23:25:00.000+01:00

Travelling for work can sometimes be a tiring chore, but other times it can be fantastic, with the chance to visit far-flung corners of the world on someone else's account.

Last week I was lucky enough to be sent to Hong Kong and Shenzhen in China for work, and squeeze in a couple of days of holidays to travel around the former British territory.

That's one of the main things that hits you about the place, actually, is its Britishness, with all road markings and signs the exact same design, colours and shapes of British equiviliants.

This may not sound very interesting, but when you're 6,000 miles away from home and everything looks like an English city, it's quite odd, but also reassuring.

The skyline of the city is incredibly too, because it's a huge sweep across the bay of skyscapers, all far, far higher than anything you usually see in London, and then set against an amazing mountain backdrop of towering peaks and greenery.

Those that live at the very top, where the amazing 45 degree peak-tram runs, have amazing views back down over the city, the bay and Kowloon on the other side.

I didn’t really get much of a chance to explore China, as I was only in Shenzhen for one day and that was predominantly for work, but it seemed like the economic powerhouse that much of China is becoming.

There were construction sites and skyscapers in every direction, thousands of cars streaming down every road you could see, while air-conditioning shopping malls are open til midnight selling everything from high-end phones to clothing.

It's communism, but not as we know it.

London is so odd sometimes

2011-05-16T20:57:00.001+01:00

One time, standing on a train, a man was hunched down, rocking on his ankles reading a book, in the middle of the train carriage, while also holding a cup of coffee in a Starbuck's cup.

This was a packed train during the rush hour and he was taking up about four standing spaces by doing this – he didn't look odd, he was wearing a suit and probably in his 30s and off to work. Eventually someone asked him if he could stand up and regrettably he did so – I wanted to get a picture.

Then, today, I saw a man sat (literally, sat) in one of those Metro paper dispensers they have in stations where people grab their slice of free-news in a morning, reading his book.

The dispenser was empty, so he obviously saw it as the perfect place to sit and finish his novel, as the rush-houring commuters filed by. Again, he didn't look that odd, but it goes to show you never can tell, doesn't it Chuck?

These are just two stories of many that no doubt exist in London, but it's the fact both occurred during the rush hour, where presumably sane(ish) people are merely trying to get from A to B - without encountering any Cs - that makes these people all the more noteworthy.

Still, these people had one thing in common – they were both reading books. So perhaps we should rejoice in their dedication to the printed word.

Brighton Rock – what's the deal?

2011-05-16T20:26:00.000+01:00

I've read Brighton Rock, I've seen the old film and now I've seen the new film and I have to say, I just don't get it.

It's sort of a classic (certainly in shops it's always displayed prominently) but it's just not that good a story. In the novel it starts off a mildly interesting murder mystery between warring Brighton gangs before descending in to a bunch of religious hokum. The films are worse, as they have the chance to shed this fat and turn it in to a potentially good story, but both are long, boring and ultimately implausible.

The whole thing falls down due to the central conceit of Pinkie trying to marry Rose to stop her testifying. He's meant to be a vicious gang murderer but for some reason seems unable to dispatch Rose, instead deciding to charm her and marry her to gain her trust and therefore silence.

Yet he does this by abusing her and being utterly cold-hearted to her and in return she, for no clear reason (no background to explain why she loves someone acting with clear hatred towards her), falls in love with him in spite of this and we are left watching this hate-love set-up with nothing but bemusement and then boredom.

She should leave him, he should just kill her. Instead, it labours towards a lame conclusion on the cliff tops as he attempts to get her to commit suicide in a fake lovers suicide pact. Why doesn't he just kill her himself? What's more she's so pathetic throughout the book / film and then willing to go through with the pact that by the end I wanted her to just get it over and done with and save us all some misery.

The Royal Wedding, horses, carriages, stupid hats and more royal history

2011-05-02T13:36:00.001+01:00

I quite enjoyed the royal wedding. It was all pomp and ceremony and England at its most quintessentially English and foreigners must have absolutely loved it, helping them see that, yes, we really do live in a land of castles, princesses and horse-drawn carriages.

It's utterly anachronistic but the Royal Family, and the notion of royalty, stills cuts a huge swathe through the UK that, for better or for worse, (in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer (Did Kate smirk when she said this?)) links together the long history of England and the royals even today.

The TV commentary was ridiculous, with dress designers and royal protocol experts falling over themselves to squeal or intone in equal measure about the ceremony and banal contributions from the public that had turned up.

We learnt, several times, that Kate and Wills are "fun" and have "wicked senses of humour", which is nice. They themselves looked wonderfully awkward for most of the ceremony, like most of those getting married I imagine, which is reassuring I suppose.

Still, I wish them well, sincerely, especially as I only found this weekend that Diana was 20 when she married Charles and was well aware he was having affais at the time, and she basically was a Royal-Baby-Producing-Machine for the Windors (if that is their real name (which it's not)).

Something about that left a nasty taste in the mouth, and makes the clearly real affection between WAK (Wills and Kate) all the more, well, normal.

Princess Beatrice clearly won the award for the most mental hat in attendance.

Whoever advised her, or lied to her, that it was a good hat should be locked in the Tower of London for a week, as should the person who applied her eyeliner, which if it was her, should mean she goes there herself.

I think Camilla might be mad as she looked lost and confused on several occasions, although maybe she's always been like that?

Skiing and trying to get an expensive holiday on the cheap

2011-04-10T19:33:00.006+01:00

The weather has been glorious since I got back from Las Vegas (see below) so what better time to get ready to go skiing in the Alps thanks to my mother's ability to find excellent last minute cheap holidays?

I've been skiing several times in my life and each time at a similar time of year because, basically, you get a much better deal for your money if you wait until the spring time than in the winter – plus it's usually a good deal warmer too.

Skiing is a bizarre holiday if you think about it – you get up early, put on mostly uncomfortable, unfashionable clothing, carry a bunch of cumbersome equipment to the bottom of a hill, get taken up the hill on chairs on wires that drag you to the top of a mountain over and over again so you can slither back down on six foot pieces of plastic at the risk of injury and embarrassment and you do this for between five and seven days in a row.
Combine this with travel and often alcohol, and you've had a holiday that really requires you to take another break once you're back to help you recover from the exhaustion you've no doubt succumbed to.

Still, at least that gives you an excuse to look for another cheap holiday, and what with two bank holiday weekend coming up, there's no shortage of time in which to do so.

I'll be heading back to Cornwall for the first time since the frozen, snow laden days of Christmas (doesn't that seem a long time ago?) where hopefully now all will be green, light and warm.

And then it's the Royal Wedding, which seems to have come about awfully quickly. I remember everyone moaning we'd be inundated with Royal Wedding stuff until the big day and, while we have, it doesn't seem to have been overkill really, does it?

Still, you can guarantee Wills 'n' Kate won't have to worry about trying to get a cheap flight when they go on their honeymoon, it'll be first class champers and caviar all the way. How the other half live eh?

Back from Vegas to Europe and its history

2011-04-10T13:01:00.006+01:00

I spent a few days in Las Vegas again last week, man that's a strange place. They really want you to shrivel into a prune given how cold and continuously they put the air con on for.

I lost $20 on a single spin of roulette (oh, high stakes!) when it landed on 00 which made me realise gambling is for mugs – I put another $20 to try and win back this $20 and lost this too. So I was $40 down, which is what I won last time I was there in October so I quit while I was, even.

I also flew in a private jet, from Cary in North Carolina to Vegas, which was quite something, far better than any normal plane, obviously, with plush leather seats, unlimited food and booze (nice stuff) and masses of leg room – coming back to the UK on a nine hour flight wedged against a window and a bizarre couple with no video on-demand service from Virgin Atlantic was not pleasant by comparison.

Still, I had a nice time and interviewed a man who is worth about $8bn which was enjoyable - he was a nice guy and gave some interesting thoughts on the market in which his company plies it's not insignificant trade.

I also finished reading a book I've had on the go for about a month called In Europe in which the author traveled around Europe in 1999 looking at the history of the continent and the current lifestyle of the place now – via Ireland, Ukraine, Greece, Portugal and everything in the hinterland.

It was an excellent read, full of in-depth personal stories of tragedy and insight set against the grand conflicts of the 20^th century in Europe which dominated and shaped its journey through the time.

The Guildford return

2011-03-20T15:02:00.002Z

I returned to Guildford on Saturday, not for a 10km this time, but to go for a nice long walk (6.2 miles!) with my girlfriend.

We had a lovely time exploring the route I had run at the time (more sedately of course) which involved a blood curdling screams at the sight of a wasp, hurting our necks through staring at a woodpecker in a tree, and arriving at the stunning views of St Martha's Church (see picture).

It's lovely escaping London for a while, even if only a few hours on a Saturday in another town only 30 minutes away. The novelty of seeing a bus that doesn't let you use your Oyster card (that symbol of TfL oppression) is never lost on me.

In the future, perhaps NFC technology will mean all buses will have a standardized computer system for ticket purchases so we are never without money to catch a bus, which would be handy.

Ironically, I had been set to run a 10km today but due to breaking my toe a couple of weeks ago, I was unable too. I am walking normally though, as my 6.2 miles jaunt evidences, but it'll be a little while yet before I strap on my running shoes again yet.

Arsenal, Barcelona, the global game and Spanish breakdown cover

2011-03-16T17:20:00.000Z

My last post on my first premiership football game reminded me of a conversation I had with a taxi drive in Barcelona in mid-February that started around the time I was pondering what the Spanish for breakdown cover was.

This was because, you see, we were whooshing past an English number-plated car that was pulled up on the hard shoulder with its hazards flashing.

However, my taxi driver was far more interesting and helped me to really live through that old cliché: "football is a global language".

He was a very friendly chap, keen to talk about London because his beloved Barcelona FC were playing Arsenal that night (this was the first leg of the tie, remember) and he wanted to know if I supported them. I don't.

But, despite his enthusiasm to talk footyballs, he's English was not great, while my Spanish is non-existent. Yet, through names such as Messi, Rivaldo and Ronaldhino we were able to spend a fun twenty minutes discussing the best players the Catalan team had produced and I asked him what he thought of these great players he's seen.

He said was Messi is "electric", Rivaldo was a "great thinker" and Ronaldhino was a "magician". Magician had to be mimed through a charade-like performance of him mimicking pulling a rabbit from a hat.

I got it eventually and we both laughed at this in that lovely, 'overcoming-a-language-barrier-to-reach-common-understanding' way that foreign people do.

For my part I outlined my admiration for Messi by saying, in a lilting, faux-Spanish accent, "Ah, Messi, si, footbul, gol, gol, gol, gol, gol,", as in, he does score a lot of goals, doesn't he?

It was a great way to see that, despite all football's negatives (and there's been plenty recently), it really does provide a common platform that can bring people together from any background and give them something to talk about with enthusiasm and interest.

Oh, and cubierta de la interrupción is Spanish for breakdown cover.

P.S. for non-football fans I promise that's an end to this flurry of blogs on this topic.

Premiership football

2011-03-15T17:26:00.000Z

I went to my first premier league football match last Saturday to see Fulham v Blackburn. It was a great game that ended 3-2 with a last minute penalty.

I've been to a few football matches around London, such as Arsenal Carling Cup games and saw Wales play various nations like Slovakia and so on in Cardiff, but to see a premier league game did feel different.

There was more of a frisson of excitement, more an air of being at an event that was of wide interest to those beyond the game because it's the premier league.

The fact I was there with a friend his three Canadian uncles who had traveled over for a few days traveling around to see as many live games as possible only underlines this.

The crowd was rather sedate, though. I mean, they cheered and chanted and all the rest, but the people in front of us where two couples, one with a baby, who chatted casually during the match.

In fact it seemed the two people to our left, a father and son pair I am sure, were the only "diehard" fans in our immediate vicinity who seemed to be make pronouncements to no-one about the games various goings on.

It's a nice ground, properly old and retaining the sense of history by being perched on the banks of the Thames and opposite a bunch of normal houses. Must be a bit of a pain for those living there every time Fulham play, but you probably know that's going to be an issue when you move in.

While I enjoyed the game and was very glad to have been and would go again at some point in the future, I still can't quite understand the passion of some people who would go week in, week out home and away to watch a game.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet thoughts

2011-03-14T17:51:00.000Z

It seems sadly apt to be writing this blog post now, but I recently finished the latest novel from David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, which is set in late 18th century Japan.

It concerns a tiny island in the habour at Nagasaki that's connected to the Japanese mainland through on which Dutch traders live as they conduct businesses with the nation – which otherwise bans all foreigners to enter, or natives to leave.

It's a great set up for a novel, and one you can imagine Mitchell stumbling upon and realising he could turn in to a great novel by combining the realities with his gift for very personal story-telling (historically the book is very accurate).

It's incredibly detailed and intricately told, with many characters and subtle discussions criss-crossing their way through the novel, which also includes a love story, an evil cult, a war and the rise of the British Empire.

I've read all five of Mitchell's novels now and this was definitely my favourite, for both its originality, and sheer breadth of interest and imagination – the combination of factually history mixed with excellent narrative is a winning formula, similar to Wolf Hall.

Incidentally I found a glaring typo in the version I had, with Jacob written as Jacon, so if any body wants a close reading book copy editor, you know where to find me (it's here, in case you didn't know).

It's sad now to think of this book, set on the coast of Japan, against the back drop of the horrible images coming from the nation in the wake of the almost incomprehensible devastation that has overcome the nation since last Friday's tsunami and earthquake.

Whales

2011-03-03T18:07:00.000Z

Long-time readers will remember I used to write a lot about Whales about 18 months ago, well I wrote about them a few times.

This was due to my reading the brilliant Leviathan by Phillip Hoare, being inspired to read Moby-Dick there after.

Anyway, this obsession led me to pitch a clip joint article for the Guardian's weekly online blog of the same name – which was duly published a few weeks ago. I just hadn't got around to writing obligatory post to give it another link in Google's massive search engine.

Anyway, click the link and enjoy.

In the money! (For travel insurance...)

2011-02-21T12:06:00.005Z

I won some money last week. Not a lot. Not a lot at all actually. Just £25 quid. About enough to cover the standard stuff in life – some travel insurance, a week's tube fare (almost), some beers…that sort of thing.

Winning the money was great, unexpected, a surprise, a nice cold-winter's night treat. Yet, winning just £25 felt bad in some ways. So little when it could have been so much. Why are we humans wired in this way?

Shouldn't any money we gain unexpectedly be greeted with glee? Find a tenner on the floor and you've a spring in your step for many an hour. Yet nothing is spent as recklessly as found or won money.

It's unreal, unvalued, free to be frittered away on fripperies. But if it’s your own money, well, then any purchase has to be considered for its value and only parted with after due deliberation – well, perhaps not quite this level of thought, but you get my point.

It's like at Christmas when your elderly relatives give you a crisp £20 or a cheque. I always feel a sense of duty to spend it on something rather than wasting it on nothing. Sticking it in the wallet causes it to become just another note, for beer or lunch during the working week.

Keeping it separate on the side, though, makes it mean something – that it should be spent on something I want or need – books, clothes, travel insurance, whatever, so I can tell the person who gave it to me that it went on something specific, tangible, worthwhile.

That's why I always ask for vouchers. That way, you have to get something good from that shop – perfect solution.

The sun, sunworshippers and holidays to Spain

2011-02-08T21:24:00.006Z

It's on a day like today when the sky was a perfect blue and the sun is shining brightly for the first time since who knows when that the idea of getting a westbound Piccadilly line to Heathrow and getting flights to Lanzarote or numerous other sunny climates really starts to appeal.

The first glimpse of spring sunshine at university was always met with a plethora of barbeques, sunglasses and flipflops, which being Wales usually meant a sudden shower drenching all and sundry.

The history of humanity has be governed by the sun – from the sunworshippers who welcomed each day the great sun god returned with glee to us modern 21^st century dwellers who, while spending the entire winter in warm caves lit by electric bulbs and surrounded by gadgets galore, dream of the sun, beaches and gently lapping waves to pass the darkness.

Even in such an advanced age nothing lifts the human spirit more than the sight of pure, undistorted sunlight entering windows, reflecting on glass and other nice descriptions of things the sun does to the Earth.

I’ve always liked the idea that the sun is 93 million miles away, so it takes seven minutes for its light to reach us. This means the sun we see is actually the sun of seven minutes ago and if the sun exploded we wouldn’t know about it until seven minutes after the event (unless this event spewed cosmic sun vomit at us in fewer than seven minutes, which it may well might).

In fact the sun is about to get a whole lot more interesting for us humans as two satellites we fired into space way back in 2006 to view both sides of the sun in its entirety have reached their positions and are now sending back full images of the sun for the first time in humanities history. Not bad for a bunch of six foot bipeds.

Something to think about next time you jet off, anyway.

Keep on Running (and therefore enjoying pizzas more)

2011-02-03T18:13:00.005Z

Did you have a good Christmas and New Year? I did - it was too good in fact. I had far too much food, booze and even the occasional take-away, thanks to a tempting pizza menu offer that came through the letter box one cold night.

As such all my good fitness based work that had taken place in the autumn was completely undone. So, during a night of quite contemplation, I decided the only thing for it was to enter a 10k race to force myself to get training.

So March 20 in Clapham Common is the location and going sub 40 minutes is the goal.

Long-time readers of this blog will remember I did a 42.20 in Richmond about 18 months ago which is the fastest I've ever run (over that distance) when it was quite undulating and very wet. I also did a 44.12 on a three-lap course in Hampstead that took us up a climb of almost one enter kilometer each time around. As such I am confident I have the capabilities to hit this time, even if it is going to be painful training for it. Still, no pain and all that…

I'm not just a speed merchant though, and do enjoy running purely for the pleasure. Even on cold nights there's actually sometimes nothing better than getting outside and pounding the pavement for a few kms, listening to some choons (Arcade Fire's The Sprawl II, the top song of the moment (still)), or chatting with my running mate around the highways and byways of South West London.

So far training is up to 4.5km in 22minutes, which is not too far off, need to add 500m and lose two minutes, and hopefully with increasing light and receding cold this will become easier as well.

The other benefit of all of this running is now I can enjoy a pizza after work without any guilt...

Return to blogging

2011-02-02T19:08:00.001Z

Where have I been? Busy, that's where.

I went to Paris for a day and a night – I found the Eurostar quite boring actually, not much to look at. Just a train really, isn't it? No fishes out the window or anything like that.

I also saw a play about sub-editors called Subs, which was fun, although was in Kilburn which was not so fun. It was quite good, although the main driving force of the play was an incredibly irritating Welsh man who shrieked and cat-called his lines –as he was no doubt meant to-but it became a bit grating after a while.

Even more enjoyable than this was seeing my girlfriend's play – Dirty Laundry – be performed at the Putney Arts Theatre a couple of weeks ago. Am dram is great, I love the people you meet, the willingness to get involved, the sheer creativity that occurs when people are forced to think innovatively about creating sets and costumes and all those such things.

I have begun running again, heading towards 10k in Clapham in March where I want to get sub 40-minutes (just because) and I am reading as always. Recent books included Do Not Pass Go by Tim Moore (The book I lost on my flight back from Las Vegas last year but found for £2 in a shop over Christmas so bought to make up for that loss) and now Why England Lose At Football, a very interesting pop-economics book on how data in sport reveals that traditional thinking of sports, especially football, is bunkum.

Oh, and only four episodes from finishing The Wire. What a journey.

Expect more updates as and when possible.

Strange woman on the train

2011-01-12T18:43:00.001Z

Strange woman on the train

There's nothing worse than when a four-carriage trains arrives at a station where people are spread out along it expecting an eight-carriage dealy. It sends people, me including, rushing down the platform to squeeze into tightly packed carriages.

On clambering aboard I ended up stood next to a man who was in turn next to a very feisty, hairpinned back to pull her-eye-balls-back woman who acted very oddly at this intrusion. She huffed and sighed, put her bag down, picked it up again, turned around, turned back around again, all the time while having a face like a slapped you know what at the sheer rudeness she no doubt felt our climbing aboard represented.

At the next stop I watched her closely to see how she acted when more eight-carriage good four-carriage bad passengers had been caught short and sure enough when a women climbing on had the misfortune to rub against her and said "excuse me", she immediately said:

"yes excuse you, you didn't need to that"
"do what?"
"The elbows thing!"
"What elbows thing? I said excuse me"

The woman who showed remarkably calmness then pushed on into the crowd and took up residence. The bitter woman continued to stare at her like she was the devil. Moron.

Two stops later a man told another man to "just fuck off will you" because he was apparently pushing in to him. The other man said "I'm sorry, it was just my bag".

It was 8.56am.

London is lovely sometimes.

Sliding doors

2010-12-20T23:52:00.005Z

One of the best things about Christmas is watching endless films. Repeats, classics, randoms and films you'd watch at no other time than during the lazy festive period. Tonight I watched Sliding Doors with my family post dinner and it was one of the worst films I've ever seen.

Utterly dated with terrible music, clothes, dialogue and acting, but mostly for some horribly dated shoe-horning in of US references to help sell it to the US market (Seinfeld and Jeopardy were mentioned by two otherwise highly British-afied characters), and then the most incorrect out of date reference to a former pop star Gary Glitter:

I'm on the rebound myself in a way.

Who are you on the rebound from?

A girl called Pamela. My whole life pivots around Pam and I breaking up.

When was that?

We were eight.I bloody loved that woman. No warning. Just up... gone. Left me for somebody else.

Who?

Gary Glitter.

Get out.

Gary Glitter, for crying out loud. I mean, all my friends were being left for Donny Osmond or David Cassidy. I could have come to terms with that given time. But Gary. Oh, she wanted to touch him there, yeah.

I mean, surely this bit should have been edited out, seeing as that's sort of what basically happened?

The whole thing was tired, boring and directionless, and a clear example of a clear attempt to cash in on the success of Four Weddings (don't tell me you've never watched Four Weddings - Jeez, Peep Show).

I wonder what's on tomorrow.

The Perils of Buying a Sandwich

2010-12-02T22:22:00.000Z

Everyone says that's better to shop a local, independent stores, rather than faceless conglomerates, and for the most part they're correct, but sometimes I find the personal element of these stores – something that is part of their charm – the thing I enjoy least.

If you go in to Pret to buy a sandwich they act all matey, and it's very friendly but it's a façade, one we are all happy to buy in to. We say hi, smile at the cashier, complete a transaction in 30 seconds maximum and leave again with our food. Yes, we're just in-out numbers to be processed, but I am sort of fine with that.

Head into a local place and the same basic thing happens but because it's small, because it's a 'real' person behind the till, you are thrust in a 'genuine' customer-seller situation, and I seem to struggle with those.

Example: In Soho there is a nice little café that does good, tasty, reasonably priced sandwiches, yet I always approach its door with trepidation. Every time I go in I am treated like a stranger, while everyone else, without fail, gets a big hello, and a "how are you?" and a chat about the weather or football.

Today, I ordered a BLT. This costs £2.80 (40p for the special focaccia bread). Yet when I went to the pay the man behind the counter had to get his own menu to look it up – despite it being on the board behind him. Then I said, helpfully, casually, "It's £2.40." (referring to the sandwich alone of course, assuming he'd know to add the bread price on) and he immediately replied, deadpan, "It costs more than that mate", as if was trying to short change him or something.

The whole thing was almost excruciating. Except it wasn't. Not really. But it was enough social exhaustion to probably send me back to Pret the next nine times out of ten I venture out to buy lunch. Most days I make it myself though. More straightforward for all involved.

Every book I read in 2010 reviewed

2010-12-02T16:37:00.011Z

This is a list and short review of every book I read this year - mostly on trains, tubes and planes. Each review was mostly written a few days after I read it and has only been touched up slightly here. Some books got reviewed on this blog during the year and I have linked to them as and where relevant. I had hoped to reach 50, after last year managing 52, but fell just short - probably because I read some very long books this year

This list is not meant to be any sort of bragging or anything about 'how many books I read' but more an interesting insight into the books I have read, what I thought of them and possibly as a helpful series of mini-reviews of well-known and lesser known-books out there that a real person has read and had a reaction too (me) that may help other real people decide whether or not to read that book.

1 Focoults Penduleum: Incredibly detailed historical comedy taking the piss (sort of) out of holy grail stories and other such nonsense.

2 Harry, Revised: Disappointingly bland book about a rich doctor who cheats on his wife, causes her to have unnecessary breast surgery that leads to her death that we're supposed to root for. Rubbish.

3 Old Patagonian Express: For many years had I wanted to read Mister Paul's book of travelling south, and I did, and it was worth the wait. Funny, insightful, angry and rude, everything you'd want from a travelogue

4 Ghost: Second of Banville's Frames trilogy, equally as dense and wordy as the first, can't claim to be a fan but for some with wordy aspirations will be a must read.

5 Invisible: Paul Auster's (at the time) newest work ploughs themes he's covered throughout his life. Good read and interesting, but nothing new to rave about.

6 Rites of Passage: Disappointingly labourious read of a ship's crew heading for Oz in the 1800s. Lots of social and religious issues.

7: 39 steps: RUBBISH (read my full review of why the 39 Steps is rubbish here).

8 Never Let Me Go: I re-read this and it's still one of the saddest, most moving and well put together books I have read. Film out early next year.

9 The Great Railway Bazaar: Mr Paul does it again with this his classic, fame finding book of travelling across half the world by train in the 1970s. A must read for anyone with a passing interesting in travel writing

10 Midnight's Children: Finally picked up this tome to see what all the fuss was about and man was it worth it! Read reviews by me here for more...

11 Remember Me: Hugely disappointing Melyvn Bragg effort. Full review here.

12 Artist in the Floating World: A very enjoyable (as all Ishaguro's are) piece detailing post WWII Japan and society coming to terms with the defeat, through the eyes of an artist (hence the title...obviously)

13 Buddha of Suburbia: Fun and different book of life growing up in London with a strange family of misfits and weird friends too, worth the read.

14 Waterland: A very, very good book. sad, profound, moving, touching and all put together with tremendous panache and style. Swift's best that I've read.

15 Born to Run: Very interesting book about running (something I know a bit about) that fuses a fascinating history of a Mexican running tribe with the rise of ultra running races. Recommended to runners

16 Brighton Rock: Disappointed by this book, way too much catholic nonsense towards the end and hard to really believe any of it in 2010.

17 Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: Theroux re-trace's his steps of Great Railway Bazaar some 30 years later and the results are equally as compelling and amusing. Definitely worth reading if you've read the first. Don't let thought of retrace put you off.

18 Orwell Diaries: Full review here.

19 Wolf Hall: A big read! very complex, hard to keep with if mind fliting around, but full of wit, character and style.

20 Ever After: Swift does it again with a sad, moving tale combining history and education (seems to be his style it turns out)

21 The Noughties: A dull book really. lists of things that happened in various segments of the world in the noughties.

22 The English Patient: Set in Tuscany and I read it in Tuscany, which was a nice coincidence, this was a gift from my girlfriend and nice one at that. highly romantic and yet set among the horrors of war (ohhh, such juxtaposition!) it was a moving tale that I gather is a popular film too

23 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep: Some sci-fi now, a gift from little bro, this was an enjoyable tale, a ripping yarn if you may, about robots and sheep and humans in a future planet where all is not as it seems...worth reading if your a non sci-fi fan but just want to try something a bit different etc.

24 Birdsong: Ohh, so much is said about Birdsong, namely, "You aven't read Birdsong deary? My word, lar de dah and fancy that." I enjoyed it and the first world war is always a moving setting for any dramas of the heart and the head (my god what a stupid war), but I found it to be nothing more than a satisfactory read. I felt Faulks has somehow been overplayed as some literary great when, on this book alone admittedly, he seemed just perfectly ordinary.

25 The Art of Travel: Du Botton gets heavy on a plane. We've all had thoughts sitting in plane window seats staring down at the earth below of, "Argghhh, what the hell am I doing up here". But Du Button applies some philosophical grounding to this and dissects what it is about travel that is so good for the soul, man. He then goes off about art for a bit.

26 The Kingdom by the Sea: Theroux returns with vengeance. He attacks all things British, the seedy seaside camps, the crap B&Bs, the British take on the ongoing Falklands war, popping in to see artists and writers on the way. Miserable and not trying too hard to write all that brilliantly (but still being somewhat brilliant anyway), I really enjoyed this.

27 The Five People you meet in Heaven: Saccharine sentimental schtick that tries to hard to make people feel wonderfully wonderful about everything and everyone, not really worth reading, but it's so short I managed it in a day

28 Persopolis: A comic, sorry, graphic novel here now (Isn't that Stephen King's forte?) this is a fantastic tale of the pathetic Iranian revolution in which a free thinking state of liberalism and mixed schools become a stupid backward country run by men who fear everything for no good reason (I am basing this polemic on the book alone, pretty much). It seemed to lose it's way somewhat in the middle as the girl's story of adolescence and finding herself seemed to get too convoluted, but overall a fantastic read.

29 All my Friends are Superheroes - A short, fun read about a man who's not a superhero but all his friends are. one of the books that's worth reading but if you paid £6.99 for it you'd feel a touch ripped off.

30 Essays in love - Back to Botton and we're in love this time - not me and him, obviously - but he is talking, in great, minutiae, about what it's like to be in love. quite interesting throughout, although with one or two moment that felt a bit silly, this is otherwise a worthwhile read if you're predisposed to overly analytical readings of life.

31 The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - A short, sharp shock of a read about a kid deciding to defy authority, through the medium of running. yes, it can be done.

32 Stewart Lee -How escaped my certain fate: Mr Lee explains all his jokes from his last three shows in the form of footnotes on transcripts of the shows from the live DVDs. If you're a fan, it's a must read.

33 Light of Day: I like old Swifty and this is my third read of his, but it was undoubtely the least good (Note, still good) of the three. sad, tragic and full of the same themes again as his other works, this one lacked and final push in the final-third/quarter to really raise it up to the same heights as Waterland (which really is stunning).

34 I Believe in Yesterday - I was told Moore was good so got the first (only) book of his I found in the library. I should have waited as while this was perfectly good to read the subject matter is just not me - historical reenactments, bleugh.

35 Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4: I've never read this so got it from the library. Fun, silly, and short, great. Man in the library gave me a funny look when I handed back in. The cheek.

36 The Perfect Fool: Lee's only novel is a fantastically wordy world of weirdos and winos all converging on the Holy Grail - I am sure Lee was challenging the spirit of Dan Brown when he wrote this book, a man he has oft criticised, so perhaps this was why he chose this subject.

37 Flat Earth News: see review.

38 The Mango Orchard: An enjoyable tale of a man setting off to find his lost family in Mexico.

39 Sex and Bowls and Rock and Roll: one of those books of a man being A Bit Useless at Everything in his life, yet somehow having a perfect life and a wife who supports him. Enjoyable enough but not worth the time.

40 Wuthering Heights: I had a an ereader so started reading this Bronte classic and actually really enjoyed it. Longer post here.

41 Superfreakeconomics: I saw the two authors talk on stage about this book and a friend lent it to me about two weeks later. Very interesting, one of those books you read and think "Wow, I'll remember all these facts and impressive people on this hot topic debates like global warming" and then promptly forget everything a day later.

42 All at Sea: A book about a man who rowed acros the English Channel in a bath. Fun and at times a bit funny but also a bit linear narraitve - what did I expect though, eh?

43 Do Not Pass Go: I lost this book after two chapters, but I was enjoying it a lot more already than I Believe in Yesterday, so it gets on the list. I had to pay a fine of £8 from Putney Library for the privilege too. Damn it.

44 Kawlang Tong: Paul Theroux's first fiction work for me and a very enjoyable jaunt through Hong Kong during the run up to the handover back to the Chinese it was too.

45 Washing Dishes in Hotel Paradise: A series of short stories set in Argentina that were nicely evocative but also a bit hard to really get in to in much detail due to their very nature and the slightly dream-like way characters flitted in and out of stories.

46 White Tiger: A sort of poor mans Midnight's Children. A rag to riches tale, showing up the huge dichtomoies that exist in India, and how it's changing as Western influences, namely technology enter the nation, but it was a bit linear and somewhat light on detail of some of the characters, which made it hard to really care or hate anyone. Still, not bad overall.

47 Give Me a Chance: A woman (the author, funnily enough) recounts her eight-day stay with the Lennons in their bed-in in Montreal. Short and sweet and I think purposefully written in a 16-year-old girl tone of voice (Which she was at the time), it gives a brief and quite interesting insight into the people she comes across and of course the Lennons themselves. Perhaps just a bit sparse on vivid descriptions of the room, the people, the Lennons, but for a short jaunt through an amazingly random life experience it was enjoyable.

Disposing of old fashioned photography

2010-11-29T16:42:00.002Z

I was at a Turkish wedding reception on Friday night – it was a lot of fun – but something interesting happened while we where there that I thought was just a nice snapshot of how technologies we (my generation and above) know never used to exist are already engrained in the minds of youngsters who can imagine nothing else.

My girlfriend took a photo of her sister and a little girl, maybe aged seven, with a disposable camera and immediately after the flash went off the little girl grabbed it (nicely) and peered at the back, clearly expecting their to be a digital image of the photo. Her face when she saw there was nothing to look at was one of complete bewilderment.

"Yes, in the old days you took photos, had no idea what they would look like, then took them to a shop where a stranger developed them, sometimes as quickly as an hour, but often longer - several days maybe - before giving them back to you, and it cost you about a fiver, and you could only get about 24 or 26 photos on each camera. And each camera cost about a tenner, and they were pretty shit. It wasn't good no, digital is so much better. How did we cope? I've no idea. Right kids, on your hoverboards, we're off to the moon !"

Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home now, woah oh woah oh

2010-11-08T21:39:00.008Z

I reviewed an e-reader device for work the other day, and as such started reading Wuthering Heights to test out the functionality of the device and see what it's really like using an electronic book for reading novels and the like.

I actually quite liked the device, as the review gives testament, as I found it quite convenient to have something so small and lightweight on my person that contained an entire novel, and could have held 1,000s more. It wouldn't replace books for me at all, but I can see the value and benefit of having one.

During my intensive testing I actually got quite into Wuthering Heights, at least to the point where I was determined to see it out so I could say I've read it -and what a strange tale it is. I've always known the main thrust of the story, but the ins and out, (see what I did there), are highly peculiar, all fall of cousins marrying one another, inheritance scams and strange walks across moors, essentially telling two stories joined by one complete life span of the central character, Heathcliff (It's me,Cathy, I've come home now, oh woah oh woah...).

Yet, as I was reading I was also struck by how useless the house keeper who retells the story to Mr Lockwood is throughout. She frequently fails in her duties, is passive to the point of being complicit in some of the key scenes, almost aiding and abetting Heathcliff, and fails to work out what is plainly about to occur when agreeing to some fairly daft requests. She also has an amazing ability to miss the bleedin' obvious. Apparently, I read afterwards, critics have commented upon this, and I am pleased to see that they have! Rightly so, this woman should be locked up! Oh yes, she's fictional.

The name in question is Nellie Dean, which will mean something to you if you've worked, or more likely drunk, in and around the streets of Soho.

Overall I think Ms Bush, by writing a truly epic and unique piece of, erm, baroque pop (can I coin that?), has actually made a " good but hardly worlds-best tale" something that is now ingrained in the majority of the popular consciousness through her warblings, which is fantastic. I also very much like the guitar solo on the song, which is often overlooked I think.

Walking the UK

2010-11-05T18:39:00.000Z

So, he's done it. Nat Severs has walked 7,000 miles around the entire mainland coastline of the UK, including all the wiggly bits of Scotland and island connected by footbridges, the mad bastard.

He set off in January(!) and spent some 2-3 months zigging in and out of the Scottish lands while we all watched England be cut to piece by Germany in the World Cup.

He's raised from £3,000 for charity, and there is of course plenty of time more donation to each of his three charities (one, two, three) so you should certainly give him a little something for what is an amazing achievement.

And I don't think I ever heard anyone ever mention that stupid Proclaimers Song, 500 miles.

Four film reviews

2010-10-29T19:15:00.001+01:00

The planes to Vegas and back provided ample film watching opportunity, here are my four reviews.

The Godfather: never seen this before, but found it very enjoyable but watching it on a tiny screen on a plane was not ideal as struggled to keep up with who was getting bumped, who was double crossing and what was happening in quick asides and glances.

Toy Story 3: fast, fun, well paced tale of the toy gang I remember first seeing aged 10(!). Idea for passing the time painlessly on a plane.

Wall Street: 80s excess combined with some great scenes and ludicrous moments, while Daryl Hannah's acting should have seen her accounts frozen it was so wooden. Also, Gecko says, "Greed, for want of a better word, is good", not "Greed is good", which is the quotation I have always seen in text online.

Cemetary Junction: an enjoyable, coming of age film set in 70s backwards Britain, with uncomfortable casual misogyny and racism (of the era etc) mixed in with the more pallid bland aspects of that era, set against a cracking soundtrack and a good cast.

Viva Las Vegas

2010-10-27T00:40:00.001+01:00

I am in Las Vegas. I’ve been here for 60 hours and have been married twice, won and then lost £2m and wrestled a tiger. No, not really.

I did go for a walk down the Strip though and that is a strange place indeed. Gaudy, bright, too bright, a custard pie in the face of the desert, in short, , it’s a bizarre place. New York New York and Paris are impressively accurate to the real thing (at least for Paris, never been to NY NY) while some of the other buildings are just massive.

Unless you have enough money to gamble a lot, I can’t see what else you could do here other than sunbathe perhaps – there’s nothing much to do that I saw.

The amount of people trying to offer you little call girl cards was unreal too, about six on each street corner, all brazen, wearing shirts, women too, and offering to everyone, even middle aged couples wandering around – why? Do they ever take one?

Anyway, that’s my indepth, one wander down the Strip review of Las Vegas.

Ill leave you with this Facebook update joke I made (which is true, and got six, yes six, "likes"): I am in Las Vegas. I sat next to a northern couple on the flight over and I hoped the man would say to his wife, "Eey oop lass, Vegas", when we landed. But he didn't."

The Wire continues

2010-10-20T07:35:00.001+01:00

So season two of The Wire (it's not about wires, I have now worked out) and it's easily already one of the best television shows I have seen (and I've seen lots).

Showing the many and varied links between all sorts of competing forces in Balitmore, and by extension the rest of the world – Greece, Russia, Le Harve in France – it's a fascinating piece of both story-telling and a representation of reality.

Twelve hour long episodes really gives the writers huge amounts of time (essentially four three hour movies) to develop characters, storylines, and setups, so they can fully explore and mine themes throughout the show.

So, while I'm many years behind the curve, it's definitely worth watching if you haven't see it already.

Also I went to see The Social Network t'other day (i.e. Facebook the Movie: Zuckerberg's revenage) and really enjoyed it. The story was excellent and well told while I particularly enjoyed the dark, menancing soundtrack that hovered in the background throughout. More of my thoughts here.

Arise, Sir Chicken

2010-10-13T17:52:00.001+01:00

I find it both strange and wonderful that coronation chicken was actually invented for the coronation of the queen in 1952. What a British way to celebrate a new monarch – make her a cold chicken dish.

I've also heard that gammon, egg and chips was invented for Henry VIII, but that could have been a lie.

Also, it's cold now – I think my previous claim that those last few days of niceness in London over the weekend were the end of the beginning of winter were correct.

Going to Gauguin

2010-10-11T18:45:00.001+01:00

To Tate Modern on Sunday (for the first time (I think) since moving to London, shocking) to see the Gauguin exhibition on there. Here comes the reflective bit...

He's a painter I knew nothing about at all really, despite knowing the name. Lots of famous artists and the like you seem to learn bits about through osmosis but Gauguin I had never really heard anything about. But I learnt he lived in Tahiti, was a bit of a rebel and painted some interesting art.

One thing I did note in the crowded exhibition halls (too many people!) were the few yummy mummies attempting to teach their gaggle of children aged 4-8 about the works of a painter they neither know or care about. As my good friend Severs once blogged, it comes across more as the mother showing off to those in ear shot what shes knows than a genuine desire to teach children about Gauguin (Gauguin!).

If I'm wrong in their intentions, while it's admirable to have such lofty educational ambitions for your children it's surely a bit too much, too young, and certainly too public. The Tate Modern is a great building though, isn't it? I enjoyed going to the seventh floor for the views over the entirety of the immediate north side of the river and beyond – and all for free.

Also, is this weather marking the official end of summer? You always seem to get days like this in October that cast a few final rays of sun and heat across the nation before the plunging despair and black dog of winter draws in night by night, stalking across the land.

It'll be Christmas Day before you know it.

All singing, all dancing

2010-10-11T18:17:00.002+01:00

Ok, I'm not ashamed to admit this: I went to a musical on Saturday night…and I enjoyed it.

There, I said it. The musical was Sweet Charity with Tamzin Outhwaite (her off Eastenders) and fair play she can fairly well act and sing and dance, as could the rest of the cast – then again who can’t on the West End?

That's the thing about any of these shows, whether you actively like musicals or not, you'd be hard pressed to actively not enjoy it to some degree as everyone in them is so damn talented. The voices, the dancing, the timing, the choreograph of the dancers, even the musicians, are just fantastic.

Seeing anything in the West End means you should have a right to expect it to be brilliant and maybe if you went week-in, week-out you'd start to spot flaws but for the random theatre-goer (very much me) it means you're almost always guaranteed to have an enjoyable time.

Eggscellent

2010-10-08T18:56:00.000+01:00

I tried to make an omelette last night and end up with metaphorical egg all over my face. Let me explain.

I had fried some mushrooms and chopped a couple of slices of pepperoni to add in to the dish and everything was ready for the addition of the eggs so I grabbed the egg box and took an egg from the box.

I should clarify that, despite what I am about to tell you, I have made many omelettes in my life, at least 40 I would say, maybe 50, and know how to make them. Yet somehow in the rush and excitement of the frying mushrooms and the egg in my hand my brain let me down.

I cracked the egg on the side of the pan and, at the same moment, said aloud, "Is this how you make an omelette?". The egg splashed and broke across the pan, immediately beginning to fry. "No," I said aloud to no-one, "this is how you make a fried egg".

Man, did I have egg on my…oh wait, I've already made that joke.

For closure nuts out there – I just turned the meal into fried eggs, mushrooms, pepperoni and a handful of chips I had already started making in the oven. Disaster averted!

River Running in Putney

2010-10-06T18:14:00.000+01:00

I've been living in the sumptuous surrounds of Putney for about six weeks now and it's very nice.

Putney Heath is lovely, I saw a heron perched on a sign in a lake that said "No Fishing" – even the herons are witty! – while it's nice having a high street so near that has major shops. Don't get me wrong, Stroud Green Road has its charms, but it also had it's very odd shops.

Mostly, though, I like the vicinity of the river – I like catching glimpses of it from the tube as you rattle over the bridge, I like spying it down the high street, and I love walking and running by it.

With the evenings creeping in I've found myself jogging along the silent river in near darkness, with the lights of the city illuminating and reflecting up against the river into the arcing light in the sky – Putney's east-to-west layout makes for some wonderful colour-changing skies too – and I get a new burst of energy by the sight of all this combined together, finding it both relaxing and yet enthralling, while beside the river just rolls on, rising and falling throughout the day, as we scurry madly above, below and on it, as we have done for millennia, and doubtless will continue to do so.

P.S. back to Double Deckers - it was my girlfriend who introduced me to these delights, the record should show.

Flat Earth News

2010-10-05T17:38:00.002+01:00

I have just finished reading Flat Earth News today by Nick Davies, a hugely detailed expose of the way the media and the reporting of news has changed in the last 50 years over time as big business and commercial interests have overtaken the need for quality reporting and truth telling.

It was very interesting to read as a journalist – a news one at that – and touched on many issues I have seen myself: the rise of churnalism, the clearly fabricated story that gets run everywhere becaue it's easy and everyone else is running it, the wealth of PR nonsense that seems to invade the papers every day and so on.

But it also offered a lot more insights into specific newspapers and how they have changed and moved to become stagnant, reactionary rather than investigative, and downright duplicitous in the stories they run.

Davies seems to have save his real anger for the Daily Mail, rightly so, underlining its repeated, seemingly purposeful attempts at destroying people's lives with a lack of clear or any evidence, but instead merely appealing to the whim's and prejudices of its ramshackle readership.

He disguises his contempt well, letting it trickle through behind the sea of facts, stories and quotes the uses to make his points, the whole thing creating a feeling of deep mistrust at any of the stories you'd ever read in the paper, a lesson worth remembering when those always reactionary and scare-mongering headlines are looming up at you from petrol forecourts, WHSmiths and news agents stands.

Microsoft and chocolate

2010-10-05T17:31:00.001+01:00

I went to see Steve Ballmer talk this morning at the LSE. He's a funny chap. Quite interesting and not in anyway a wallflower, which made for an on-your-toes kind of talk as his random way of accentuating certain words meant you couldn’t switch off.

This was a Good Thing as it started at 8.30am and all the free food promised before the event had been taken when I got there – only students would ransack free food quicker than journalists.

Ballmer reminds me a touch of the character Rawls from excellent TV show The Wire – of which I am not half way through season two and enjoying very much. I am about five years behind the curve on this show, as noted, but if you're like me I would still reinforce everything you've read about the show and tell you to watch it.

Also, massively off topic, I have really got in to Double Decker chocolate bars now, what's all that about?

Apparently the man who invented it was sacked for breaching company rules by creating it - pah (click on the above link to get this definitely true story from Wikipedia).

Soho alleys

2010-09-22T19:42:00.006+01:00

For almost one year now I have been tramping the streets of Soho to and from my offices as part of my daily commute, about as far removed from my original walk out of Pimlico tube station as possible.

I’ve seen celebrities, arty, media idiots dressed like a hurricane in a clothing store, all manner of drunkenness and was once even stunned to be offered “live show darlin?” by a woman behind a glass counter in a Soho alley as I walked back to the office before midday.

This week, three walks to the tube have led to three incidents that sum up this mad collection of side streets in central London. Firstly, I saw three men leaving a side door on a street, where they were immediately approached by two men in plain clothes, who then flashed police ID at them and proceeded to ask them what items they had on their persons. I lingered for as long as I could but didn’t get to find out what happened. It was a surreal moment, though, given how much of just this sort of thing I have been watching on DVD as I finally watch The Wire (see below).

Then, yesterday, two drunk guys were shouting at each other over the cost of some bar / strip joint they’d been in, clearly one was not as prepared as the other to pay “this f**king money” any more.

Today, I saw an elderly gentlemen leave a bar on one side of a road and saunter, a touch wobbly, over toward The Great Windmill Club where he proceed to casually study the menu/information board thing outside, as busy meeja types strolled by, somewhat amused by this.

Great stuff.

The Wire

2010-09-21T18:16:00.001+01:00

I am finally watching The Wire.

I know, I know, I am only five years behind the curve, but, in my defence your honours, I was always wary of watching such a well received show on the variously poor TVs I have owned. I now live with a good friend who has an excellent TV and together we have made a pact to watch the show, and we are now just embarking on season two.

There isn't much I can say, I think, from what has probably been written about the show already but 100 journalists and more, mostly from The Guardian (har har) but it is one of the most engrossing shows I've ever seen in the way it slowly, subtly, pulls out threads and strands of plotlines over sprawling, hour long episodes.

Also, some of the scenes are so much like a cut-scene in Grand Theft Auto it's uncanny; the music, the camera angles, the dialogue all match up perfectly.

Diary keeping

2010-09-19T11:09:00.003+01:00

I read The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole recently, something of an oversight from childhood not to have read it, or if I have read it, I don't remember reading it.

It's a funny book, and one that is probably enjoyed equally as an adult or a child due to some of the subtle jokes and throw away lines that exist within in. I particularly liked the line where Moley holds of buying a wedding present for an elderly couple set to get married given their extreme ages.

I also particularly like his poetry in the diary and it's quite a feat by Townsend to be able to write poetry that is bad, yet funny, while sort of good in a perverse way, and yet make it utterly believable as a 13-year-old boys work:

Pandora
I adore ya.
I implore ye.
Don't ignore me

Wonderful.

There are some bits that don't make sense, unless I really missed something along the way, but Mole reads War and Peace in two days and many other complex, long novels in equally short spaces of time. He also seems to be able to update his diary almost in real-time sometimes, which is an impressive feat.

Blogging is a bit like diary keeping, but also, not at all like it.

Worse luck.

Stand up comedians

2010-09-09T18:13:00.001+01:00

I finished Stewart Lee's new book this week, How I Escaped my Certain Fate, and it was a very interesting, informative read from the 41st best standup comedian ever, 3!

Following his progress from up-and-coming star on TV and stage, to despair with the profession, back to his triumphant return to comedy (said in best Krusty the Clown voice), the book contained the three transcripts from each of Lee's three most recent stand up shows, with footnotes littered throughout explaining the origins of certains jokes, references being made, or asides to other comedians.

This was the most interesting aspect of the book, hearing Lee explain in detail, often over a page in small, footnotey font (why is footnote font so small?), about his time working with Harry Hill and Robin Day, or explaining that he bought a certain joke from another comedian to help lighten the mood of his otherwise often long-winded affairs.

Reading his scripts without knowing the delivery would give you no clue as to how funny Lee can be, the way he repeats jokes over and over again, with changes throughout perhaps, to build laughter from what could be awkward repetition. Or that, as Lee admits, sometimes is just awkwardness and the audience fails to get the delivery and therefore the jokes.

A final point on the book I found interesting, was Lee's choice of introduction music for his shows.
For each one he used piece of jazz to help him identify, or even turnaway, potential troublemakers: "If they can't handle the music, they probably won't like the show" is Lee's (paraphrased) rationale behind this and certainly one that seems to make a lot of sense.

Overall then, if you're a fan of the man and want to know more about the thought processes behind his shows and the world of interesting, clever, thought-provoking comedy, this book is one for you.

I give it 41/100.

Echoes

2010-09-03T15:32:00.003+01:00

This clip of Neville Chamberlain announcing war between Germany and the United Kingdom in 1939, some 71 years ago, is very moving, profound and interesting. Worth a long listen to for such lines as, "Hitler would not have it" "I know you will all play your part with calmness and courage", and of course, "this country is at war with Germany".

Public Squeaking.

2010-08-23T12:09:00.003+01:00

I gave a speech at a black tie dinner in March 2009. It was fairly nerve wracking but I memorized the gist of the speech, and had a little mnemonic for each section and got through it unharmed, with a few laughs, and that was that.

This weekend I was at the wedding of two very good friends from university and they kindly asked me to read First Sight by Phillip Larkin at the service. I decided I would learn it by heart in order to give the best performance I could and, thankfully, it went fine: I stood, I poetried, I sat again. Phew.

It was strange, though, having to learn something word perfect, for possibly the first time ever, to deliver as impeccably as possible. The best man, groom and father of the bridge speeches must all be scary and exciting too, but at least you can ad lib, or um and err your way through them. For poetry, you have to get it perfect, everytime (talking widely here now, not about myself).

Anyone else done a poetry reading / recital? I might try The Waste Land next…

'This music crept by me upon the waters
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline

Is Billy Joel any good?

2010-08-14T20:24:00.005+01:00

Growing up, driving around in a black, weather faded Renault, then a highly economical Passat, my parents subjected me and my brother to many a songsmith, from Bob Dylan to Clapton to, you’ve guessed it from the title, Billy Joel.

Years later and my love of Dylan is strong, Clapton, meh, and Billy Joel…well, I just don’t know. Some of his stuff is overblown tripe, I think, but other songs seem deceptively good, I think.

It doesn't help that songs like Uptown Girl have moulded his reputation in the general consciousness (mostly probably mis attributed as a Westlife song too I would bet) and he seems to have this vague air of “ha, Billy Joel? Don’t make me laugh…” A sentiment my brother and I both developed as we grew up but that now I think we would both admit has passed into grudging respect, even enjoyment.

A song like Piano Man is the very model of a genuinely good pop hit. Melancholic, rousing, reflective, engrossing, uplifting if you wish, downbeat if that’s your mood, it's up to you.

Goodnight Saigon is a damning reminder of the pointless waste of the Vietnam War, complete with dramatic helicopter sound effects and a huge military chorus of “We will all go down together”. It’s actually kind of heartbreaking.

We Didn’t Start the Fire is an incredible piece of showmanship, even if some of the rhymes are a bit forced. Yet again, it’s also sort of laughable when you hear it too many times. It’s certainly ripe for parody too.

Then we come to Scenes from an Italian Restaurant. A seven minute plus pop epic that starts with a slow, almost saccharine love song chorus then randomly shifts into a fast, three-line stanza-ed rock song complete with madly upbeat clarinet work, trumpet solos and jaunty piano fills and trills that all flit around a song about the “popular steadies Brenda and Eddie” realising their love isn’t that strong and falling apart. It’s bizarrely epic and inappropriately upbeat.

Also, a lot of Joel's lyrics actually make sense. Someone like Elton John is a clear example of a similar type of musician (broadly speaking), yet some of his Bernie Taupin's lyrics are scandalous: "Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kid, in fact it's cold as hell...and there's no one there to raise them, if you did". What the hell does that mean? Sheer nonsense.

Yet rarely, if ever, does Joel ever seem to feature in any Top 100 this, or Top 50 that lists. I feel this is an oversight. Although they did make a stage musical of his songs. Which is something. Also, we share the same birthday. So that’s nice.

Any response to all these musings? Good, bad, indifferent? Well?!

Around the coast

2010-08-12T20:13:00.005+01:00

Britain is a coastal country. This is well known. You can rarely be more than 50 miles from the sea. For some people in some countries the idea of being 50 miles from the sea would be as good as being on the coast.

One man, Nat Severs, is, as I blogged before, currently walking the entire coast of the UK at the moment. That’s 7,000 miles. A long way. He’s now heading south, after many months of northward walking, in and out of the endless inlets of the west coast of Scotland, and eating up the miles as heads back to the starting point of Portsmouth, where he began on January 10. It’s all massively impressive and if you want to know more, then go to his website and read more. Most impressively, have a look at the map of his journey and see each individual days walking he did.

Complementing this blog I am here writing at this very moment, is a book I recently read by another previously blogged topic, Paul Theroux, in which he travels around the UK coast, not as literally as Nat, but close enough, following the same clockwise route through walking, buses and, of course, trains. I read it last week as I rattled home on the First Great Western train to Truro out of Paddington, at one point, always the best bit, passing the sea, mere waters from the sand filled with walkers, dog owners nad fisherman. It seemed very apt to be reading of his trip around this very coast some twenty five years earlier when Britain was at war with Argentina.

Theroux’s trip is marked with heavy sarcasm, almost resentment of the places he sees, not always, but often, and his distain for the UK holiday industry of Butlins and the like, of people in box cabin caravans in fields is clear throughout. He sees no better future for the UK coastal future, predicting a continuation of such drab, bleak holidaying of citizens enjoying cheap, regimented fun.

Yet, he was wrong. The UK coast now is fancy, expensive and much sought after. I’ve seen my home town turn from a sleepy sea side place to a growing tourist trap filling slowly with the same chain stores as anywhere else, Costa, Nero, FatFace, and the like. Yes, some areas are untouched by this gentrification, but many are not, and it’s interesting to think that in the 1980s as Britain was a drab, soulless place (through Theroux’s eyes) that seemed to be falling into further disrepair, it has now become home to the likes of Rick Stein filling towns like Padstow and Falmouth with expensive fish and chip shops, growing numbers of arts festivals based around the water and shoreside apartments used by city workers for two weeks a year, if that.

It's interesting to imagine the various futures that people imagined in store for Britain throughout the 1980s, or before, as we do now. Where we imagine, perhaps, failure, continuation of stagnation, it can offer be quite the opposite.

The enchanted kingdom of McDonalds

2010-08-12T08:28:00.003+01:00

Hiding from the rain in a McDonalds on Tuesday night in Putney, a girl, maybe 16 years-old, walked into the golden arched palace I was sheltering in and, to my fascination, looked around agog at her surroundings.

Never before had she seen such splendour, or such ornate decorations and furniture, her face seemed to say.

After she had stopped and taken in the sumptuous surrounding she slowly stepped forward, as if scared of shattering the dream she had wandered in to by stepping to heavily. She craned her neck up in wonder at the ceiling, as if Michelangelo himself had painted them.

Then suddenly it was too much. She went outside again, stared up in disbelief at the giant M outside.

"Could it be," she wondered. "Is this really what a McDonalds is? My parents had told me they were evil, dirty, downtrodden places where the masses come to fritter their finances on fries and milkshakes."

She stood still, wondering what to do next. Then, strangely, she left. Turned tail and removed herself from the scene, and tramped off into the rain. I looked around. No-one else seemed to have noticed this strange creature so enraptured by the place.

I continued chomping, sent a text, received a text, texted back. In this time I never noticed she had returned. She sat this time, wearing dark sunglasses, at the end of the long formica bench I was sat on, as if she was the coolest girl in the world because she had found a McDonalds.

She was an odd one, no doubt about it. I wonder what her reaction would have been if she'd had any food. She may have exploded.

Some film thoughts

2010-08-02T22:14:00.002+01:00

A lazy, lazy Sunday (in which my main activity was a walk to the local Oxfam book shop where I bought The Kingdom by the Sea for £2.50), was complemented by a few films watched.

Johnny English. Is this film good? I can't decide. I've seen it before, of course, and only watched the last 45 minutes of this before I headed out (as mentioned, lazy day, hungover and very tired from much sport playing on Saturday). It's sort of funny, and Malkovitch is brilliantly over the top . But then some of it is so over the top and stupid and obvious that it seems quite lazy. I guess it doesn't matter really.

Brighton Rock (original). I thought this was terrible. I know it's from a loonnnggg time ago (maybe 50 years!) but I just didn't get it. There was so much random cackling from characters, often weirdly out of sync with their lips (it seemed to me), the acting was mostly pretty lame and I still don't buy the plot (book or film) of lame thugs and stupid girls. The remake is out later this year, so I look forward to seeing if that makes an improvement.

Frequently Asked Question about Time Travel: Strange one this. Some of the plot was quite clever and nicely linked together, but then again some of the piece were really stupid ( the future party of people dressed like them / the "editors" who come back and kill people). A pretty cheap film, the kind of film that in 30 years will have the same heavily dated, cheap British film look that 1970s films have to us know.

Also, I finished Birdsong last week. I enjoyed it, but also thought it was a touch overrated. It has such a high standing in literature from the last twenty years, and Faulks is seemingly so revered, but I found the writing pretty average, but in a good way. It wasn't bad, but I had imagined it to be better. Still, it was a strong narrative, but then again anything about WWI is always moving. It really was the most ridiculous war, in which human's really did show their innate stupidity through and through (at least from behind the front lines). I digress.

Sher locks Homes

2010-07-27T20:57:00.006+01:00

Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Homes, Lock Homes. Most fictional detectives’ names make a play on the ideas of security, or their personalities. Morse (code), Creek (up without a paddle), Frost(y) personality…er…well, it does fit in some cases - an old theory from an university lecturer...

As a big fan of Jeremy Brett’s Holmes (definitive) I was interested to see the new adaptation on Sunday on the Beeb. It was indeed very good. I particularly the rift on “three pipe problem” into “three patch problem”. Modern.

There was also some nifty smartphone’s interaction, which was, well, even more modern. You can't beat the idea of someone very smart, working everything out very quickly from the facts, like, and brow beating those around him. I think we all like to imagine ourselves as a bit like that, as a slight git who calmly, unshakably brings order to a situation. But we aren't like that, are we?

The plot was a bit manic, but it was set up well for the next two episodes, (liked the idea of Mycroft as a government stooge). London looked nice too, including the dirrrttttyy streets of Soho, and it'll be interesting to see whether the next two episodes keep up the popularity the show has had so far from critics and twitter people so far (my yardstick anyway).

Obligatory use of the word elementary in a piece about Sherlock. Although he never said "elementary, dear Watson", instead saying, "elementary".

Thoughts on returning from Latitude

2010-07-20T08:11:00.003+01:00

There are many mediocre comics in the world: The comedy tent is always a good place to stop by and enjoy some, well, comedy, but this year there seemed to be a blight of utterly mediocre and downright boring comics on the stage. So many just churn out anecdotes “I swear this is true”, that aren’t really that funny, or just endlessly talk about their “embarrassing sex life” that it was quite painful to watch at times.

The winner of the young comic of the show award (name escapes me), did nothing but silly voices, terribly improv and even “I pretend to be French when approached by charity muggers! I’m mad I am!” It was awful.

And another thing, so many of them say, “I’m such a geek!”, as if this is what makes them so uniquely comic, but the thing is, we’re all geeks now. We all like Twitter, Facebook, all discuss mobile contracts, network coverage, our phones capabilities, we all look at random stuff on the internet, and all these other various things they think make them geeks (more or less). Stop saying it to endear us too you.

Also saw Josie Long doing some comedy musings in the literature tent on Saturday night, which was also pretty terrible. Just because someone is cute and whimsical doesn't mean what they say is funny, and the stuff she did was almost cringeworth. (A cartoon picture of Nye Bevan talking in a mad, screechy voice).

Saying all this, David O’Doherty on Friday afternoon was probably one of the funniest live comedy I’ve ever seen.

Musically, some bands I saw I hadn’t heard before but enjoyed were Chief, Schools of Seven Bells, and Midlake and also Temper Trap were surprisingly enjoyable. Saw lots of other bands, but these stuck in the mind most. Flo was good, but a tad over long, Vampire Weekend quite enjoyable, and Belle and Sebastian predictably cute and nice, but also fun and worked well for the festival’s vibe.

Sebastian Faulks is such a cliche of the quiet, well spoken, thoughtful English novelist it's unreal, but he is also interesting, so that saves him.

Although the news of what happened at the event was terrible I saw nothing bad happen anywhere else on the site of any description, and thought the security was as reasonable as necessray, i.e. not heavy handed or over the top, but suitably present at relevant points. But then again, after what happened, I'm probably wrong.

My hatred for festival food (over priced, bland, tasteless, and unfulfilling), got another layer of disgust this time when I got some mild poisoning during Saturday (from a burger or noodles, not sure), and was promptly ill later that night. Joyous.

Overall though, a fun weekend.

Staggering

2010-07-12T19:02:00.000+01:00

When did the Stag Do become a 'thing'. In the old days they were the night before the wedding right? A terrible idea, surely? Many a font must have been graced by unholy water (amongst other things) from green-faced grooms at the altar.

I experienced my first one this weekend. It was fun. It involved some beaching and footballing, and best of all some clay pigeon shooting (men eh?), and copious alcohol in between, as to be expected.

All this took place in the delightful surrounds of Bournemouth, a slightly terrifying seaside town, where an undercurrent of simmering violence and sexual frenzy felt ready to burst at every minute, perhaps explaining the proliferation of sex-chat cards in the town, more than I've ever seen anywhere in my life.

It was, as stated, fun, but the idea that I could potential go on 10 more of these, spending a lot of money each time, and possibly having to go abroad too, fills me with a vague sort of dread and ennui, but then, that's probably true of lots of things.

We stayed in a Premier Inn, it was surprisingly good.

The Jim Beglin Phantom Voice Syndrome

2010-07-07T16:44:00.001+01:00

Last night, during Holland's 3-2 win over Uruguay in the World Cup (a Football Manager style result if ever there was one) commentator Clive Tyldesley was forced to go without his commentating mate Jim Beglin, who was ill.

Strangely, ITV had no replacements for him, so Clive was alone, a single voice talking to the millions back at home (or possibly no-one at all). Even stranger, though, than this decision, was the fact that despite Beglin not being there to chip in with agreements or further "insights" I could still hear want he would have said.

Example, say a close offside, Tyldesley would say something like, "That's a tight call by the linesman", and there'd be silence. But I'd hear Beglin, in those dusky, back of the throat tones adding, "Oh, you know I think the linesman's got that one wrong Clive". I imagine many other viewers suffered from the Jim Beglin phantomn voice syndrome throughout the game too. Perhaps ITV were banking on this?

It worries me that I have, by only the age of 25, heard so many of Beglin's phrases when he is sat next to Clive for all those Champions League games, that my brain can conjure up his voice and his phrasings itself.

Anyone else get this sensation during the game?

More books

2010-07-06T13:32:00.002+01:00

Three books read over the holiday described below.

Ever After by Graham Swift. Having thoroughly enjoyed Waterland (recommended, highly) I noticed this book in my local Oxfam for £2 and splashed out. It was definitely worth it – a sad, somber, reflective book on life, art, religion and death, it covered the life of a university tutor, knowing he is something of a fraud, ruminating on the death of his wife, his mother, his step-father, and at the same time, researching an ancestor's fall from grace as he came to question the existence of God in the 1850s. Moving, well-written stuff.

The Noughties 2000-2009: A Decade That Changed the World by Tim Footman. A supposed reflection on the 2000s, this book was really little more than a list of different ways a theme of the decade was interpreted among the art world (X wrote book Y, Z produced film A, after event T and so on (can I use other letters like that?)), and the bare facts around the events of the decade – 9/11, global warming, globilisation, war on terror, financial collapse. Only the chapter on shopping, which contained some stomach turning quotations from a chief of Starbucks about why people go to Starbucks (i.e. for the 'experience maan'), was particularly illuminating

The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje: Possibly more famous from the film (that I've not seen, but may seek out now) this was a highly-lyrical and interesting novel set in Tuscany (where I was, how apt), at the end of WWII, detailing four strange individuals thrown together in a crumbling Italian villa, and their interactions with one another from shared pasts, and possible futures. Some very clever and original set pieces, and character back stories made the book very interesting, but the ending felt a tad rushed, a bit too instantly dramatic, when one character suddenly loses his sense of purpose on hearing of the atomic bomb drops in Japan. Still, worth reading.

Any thoughts on any of the above most welcome.

Horsing around in Italy

2010-07-06T13:21:00.002+01:00

I was in Italy for the last few days. I saw the Palio in Siena, which was truly spectacular. Three laps of the Campo around which ten horse riders, from 17 of the cities districts or Contrada ride barebacked, in a mad race to be victorious for their people.

The emotions on display where utterly raw, with tears of despair and joy on the faces of all those involved, the winning jockey paraded aloft after the race, and celebrations going on past 3am (when my friend and I gave up for the night…)

For days up to the event there is singing, parades, singing, horse-blessings, singing, and practice Palios, all making for 70 seconds of sheer drama and excitement.

Siena itself, Palio or not, is also a spectacular place, full of narrow cobbled streets and towering walls where shops and houses intermingle with ramshackle brilliance.

From there we went to Florence, where it was 35 degrees without a breath of wind which was almost unbearable, but we still took it all in. A lovely place, no doubt, but a bit more touristy than Sienna and probably mostly doable in two days.

We flew Ryanair, but in truth it was absolutely fine: what'd you'd expect for flights to Europe and back for £60. No service to speak of, but just take off and landing, all you really want from a two hour flight. When we landed in Pisa they played an celebratory trumpet burst (over the speakers, not the captain himself), which was a bit of fun. Because it is worth celebrating a landing, is it not?

Moving lives

2010-06-28T17:31:00.002+01:00

I helped my girlfriend move house on Saturday. Man alive it was hot. We had three flights at the other end of the move, from just the one at the place she was leaving. Strange to think you'll never go back to somewhere, never tread those boards, get annoyed at the rubbish shower, stare out of those windows, all the quirks a house, home, can have.

All someone's worldly goods packed and pressed away into the boot of a car, all to only be unpacked and repurposed in a new location. Cavemen must have done the same.

In other news, I finished Wolf Hall on Sunday. Took me five weeks to read it (admittedly with a break to read an Orwell book I was reviewing in between). It was an enjoyable book, but also required absolutely concentration: so detailed, and so full of voices was the book that a moments idle wanderings of the mind and speaker, time, location could all change in an instant, leading to utter confusion for the reader.

Still, it did help remind me what a fascinating bunch of people the Tudors, and the ilk were, all intrigue, rumour and affairs and the desperate desire for male heir (it's almost banally ironic that after Henry VIIIs six wives, all in the attempt to bring him a son, it was his daughter, by Anne B (who was executed for basically not giving him a son) who would become the saviour of England) as well as hideous forms of death they had for people considered traitors, who just a few months before could be receiving the highest praise from all of Christendom.

Would I recommended the book? Well, no, but I wouldn't not recommend it either: it's up to you.

I have moved on to Ever After by Graham Swift now, he of Waterland and Last Orders fame, and it's already very enjoyable.

Catch up

2010-06-24T19:47:00.003+01:00

Hello, been too long since something was entered here.

Tennis. 70-68! Where to begin; tennis is sometimes unfairly maligned by people, believing it not to be a hard sport, not tiring, not exhausting, but any sportsman that can play a game, hurling their body around for almost ten hours is clearly some sort of athlete. What's more you have to do it while battling moments of calm, reflection in between points, and then pull of incredible shots, often under immense pressure of 'one mistake and I'm out'.

I've been reading Wolf Hall (still -it's very long...) but it is also very good, in places, which is hard to fully explain, but it's just that in some places the story really picks up and rattles along, and with a little historical knowledge, some of the asides, or hints at the future are very well handled ("You know she's a witch," says one character of Anne Boleyn before she marries Henry, and we all know how that turned out...).

While I am enjoying it I am looking forward to finishing it too, before I go away on holiday next week, as it's a massive book, even in paperback, and quite a tough read, requiring full concentrate; not that I can't concentrate mind you.

I finally got a smartphone too, after months of writing about the things, and it is very nice having a such a sleek piece of tech, that enables me to bring up maps, email and the internet as and when required. That's all really.

The World Cup is coming to life too, although I've not been disappointed with it at all. It always starts a little slow as teams try not to lose, but come the end of the group stages, you often see enthralling end to end games as teams suddenly have to win, as evidenced today with Italy's somewhat surprising loss to Slovakia.

Er...the weather's nice isn't it?

Short words, long words

2010-06-16T17:04:00.003+01:00

George Orwell ws good at writing. He wrote some very good things indeed. I read his diaries recently for a review. They were very good. You can read it here. I enjoyed reading it and writing the review.

World Cup memories

2010-06-10T22:38:00.001+01:00

Four years ago today I awoke bleary eyed, tired, and robbed. It was the day after my last exam at university. My bank account had been skimmed to the tune of almost £400 from Bulgaria (Have you been to Bulgaria? The woman in the bank asked me...) and I had, in spite of this, gone out to celebrate the end of student life – it was a fraudulent celebration as I was actually on for a post-grad course, but hey ho.

Later that afternoon, I, and about 19 others, went to the pub to watch Germany play out a highly enjoyable 4-2 win against Costa Rica. It was the start of the World Cup 2006. The sun shone, the atmosphere was carnival, with students everyone winding up their final exams, and the massive over expectation that the "Golden Generation" (snigger) would finally deliver.

They didn't of course, and later that month, back in Cornwall, we slumped out of the local bar after England's dismal showing against Portugal.

In 2002 I slumped into Geography half an hour late after England's dismal 2-1 defeat to Brazil in the quarter-finals. The only player who had a shot in the second half was Danny Mills, which shows what a weak team we had. This was the world cup of early morning kick offs, of the tournament being over each day at about 1pm UK time, leaving you free to make the most of the afternoons – if you were a schoolboy who'd completed his exams of course. For workers it must have been terrible.

In 1998 I was at my auntie's 40th when Croatia stuck three past Germany, to much celebration from those assembled, and the next day I can still vividly remember commenting, struck with wonder at the thought of such an age: "At the next World Cup I'll be 17…". I had been at home for the England v Argentina match, and watched as the team swash-buckled their way out of the tournament after an engrossing match.

In 1994, I only really remember watching Brazil v Italy, in the drab, Americanised final in the Pasadena Rose Bowl. It was a limp match, ending on penalty shoot out. Poor.

Interesting though, measuring out your life by major events, notably the World Cup, I can only imagine where I'll be when 2014 in Brazil roles around.

Anyone care to join in?

Raging against machines

2010-06-06T22:46:00.007+01:00

Just got back from seeing Rage Against the Machine in Finsbury Park. I've been running around Finsbury Park for about three years but never thought I would see one of my favourite bands - from my teenager years at least - play there for free. But then it's funny how life works out.

The set list was full of well known songs, to any Rage fan at least, and was preceded by a very funny animated version of Simon Cowell bemoaning "the horrible Rage Against the Machine" for denying him the chance to make more money with X Factor. Later on, before the final song, Killing in the Name was played (which was why everyone had ended up in the middle of my local running park) a little montage of the race to Christmas Number one was played, which drew load cheers. This was played over the top of Joe McElderry's The Climb, which was a nice touch.

During the middle of the set, including the songs, Bombtrack, Bullet in the Head, Testify, Bulls on Parade and Freedom, Jon and Tracy Morter, the two people who set up the Facebook group and caused the whole shindig (and who I follow on Twitter), were brought on stage so that a cheque of a significant amount could be handed to the UK homeless organisation Shelter, combined of the sales of the signal donated in full by Rage, and the money donated by all the fans buying the single too. A great mix of music and politics, done without any of the crass showmanship of, say, a Bono or Sting.

Speaking of which, frontman Zach de la Rocha was impassioned as ever, issuing several rallying cries, specifically regarding the recent Gaza blockade issues, and other similar things, and he remains one of the few singers in the world with genuine stage presence and an ability to mix sincerity with a righteous anger. Lines such as "Your anger is a gift", and "All hell, can't stop us now" would never sound as convincing if the man delivering them didn't have a personality to carry of such heavy handed sentiments.

Throughout, it as funny to think I was watching a band who I used to listen to on shared headphone on the school bus home. Back then Rage were no more, having split up, and my friends and I often lamented what a shame it was we would never see them. Eventually though, with a bit of patience, it turns out they would come to me anyway. Fantastic.

Walking out to the sight, feeling a bit peckish, I thought I'd buy some chips. The wagon promised "chunky, tasty chips" and the pictures looked good. I paid up my cash, a slightly high £2.50, and bit into what were some nasty, dry, tastless, cold chips. "Believing all the lies that they're selling ya..." never seemed so apt.

Train whistles

2010-06-01T16:57:00.005+01:00

“Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.”

What is it about trains? Those railways sing bewitchment…as Paul Theroux wrote, and he's right. They are timeless, yet historical, they swerve and glide, sink and shuffle their way across all manner of landscapes, in a manner that no other form of transport has managed to replicate. They get you to B from A, but through C, D, E and beyond, giving you a true glimpse into a world a plane, or car, can never do.

Theroux may have gone around most of the world's countries by train, but even my four hour journey home to Cornwall is a mix of strange pleasures: the stolen glances into people back room windows, the fisherman, dogs being walked, cows, sheep, rivers arcing, the sun streaming in over wide open land that is so English, the rest.

Drowsy too: no need to worry about directions, or control, just recline, stare, read, engage with others. Theroux so often meets interesting, intriguing people (or has the ability to make them seem so), on his trips, and admittedly he is in far away lands, on 20-hour journeys in shared cabins, so perhaps it comes easy, more naturally, but it is still part of the potential thrill of travel.
My cousin traveled from Beijing in Brighton by train after her travels around Asia and said it was fantastic. Trains inspire in a way that many people identify with, but in ways that are hard to fathom, to exactly pin-point.

I've read three Theroux's now, each one a tome to his love of railways, their uniqueness, grandness, ramshackle-ness, and beyond, and each time I left with a sense of something, I don't know, A sense of falling, like an arrow shower, sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain (Too much? Well, more railways in art at least).

This is a video of Lou Reed reading an abridged version of the open page from The Great Railway Bazaar set to music, it is rather great.

Victorian people

2010-05-28T13:13:00.000+01:00

What I like about London, and it's something I sometimes 'forget', is just how many weird and wonderful events there are every single night. Gigs, viewings, cinema showings, sport events and talks.

I love a good talk about interesting, off-the-beaten track things. Last year I went to a great one given by two BBC wildlife camera man, and last night I went to see Daniel Maier, who writes for TV Burp, give a talk about "Ideas Man" Sir Francis Galton.

Galton was a strange chap, a quintessential Victorian who spent his life trying to measure the world, exploring the world, and inventing all manner of weird and wonderful things. He was very much into statistics, and Maier's explanation of how Galton had decided to work out if his new house could hold all the world's gold, was fantastic. Galton also had a terrible track record with animals, usually killing them, to put it blunty.

The final section, on how Galton had devised the perfect way to cut a cake was hysterical, with the Victorian gent landing on the perfect solution to stop the sides of cakes be left exposed in order to prolong its life, but all the time working to measurements of cake that made the need to keep the cake for more than one day irrelevant.

It was a very enjoyable, interesting and quirky way to spend an evening and if Maier does the talk at other times then it could be one to catch.

For the record, one of my favourite Victoria / turn-of-the-century figures is Emily Hobhouse, a Cornish woman who came before many of well known heroines of that age, who helped improve the diabolical conditions for the displaced in the Boer War, mainly women and children, and caused such a stir with her protestations, that she helped advance the peace talks between the British and the Boers.

She helped inspire Ghandi with her form of peaceful protests, so much so he called her "one of the noblest and bravest of women" while Lord Kitchener found her meddling so irritating she was known as "that bloody woman". This was the title of a book written about Hohouse recently, the author of which I interviewed for an article about a year ago in Cornwall Today.

In South Africa she is a well-known figure, with states and submarines named after her, and her story taught in schools. It seems a huge shame she is so unknown in the UK, and even in Cornwall, her county of birth.

Behind the scenes at the museum

2010-05-26T18:11:00.001+01:00

Ah, the BBC. A fine, venerable institution, as old as slippers, as warm as a roaring log fire, full of heroes of yesteryear, and new names, keen to make an impact. (That should be read in a Terry Wogan ever-so-slightly patronising tone of voice).

I was inside the BBC on Monday, deep in its cavernous bowels, being ushered into a green room (yes, really) to take part in the first recording of Dave Gorman's show Genius. I was a genius. Or hoped to be, if my idea was to be discussed. Long story short, it wasn't. I got to read it out, but guest Chris Addison (who just does not look old enough to have two children) and Mel from Mel and Sue, didn't think it worthy of more discussion. More's the pity.

For the record it was a pay-per-snooze alarm clock that would deduct money from your bank account each time you hit it. Evil genius. I doubt I will get mention it on TV, but I may make the cut. The jolly farmer next to me did get to discuss his idea at length though so perhaps my grinning mug shall be on TV at some point. I'll let you know.

On the way in they have the Audi Quattro positioned prominently, a Tardis on display, and lots of large posters of grinning stars and people I've never seen before in my life. Everyone was very jolly, and sandwiches and cakes were laid on for us too. That's license fee value right there.

It was a fun show to be part of, due mostly to large amounts of audience interaction. I chatted to a nice girl (who may have been on drugs) who said she imagined portholes in peoples heads into which reality escaped, or could be entered (I forget which). She also explained her idea for telling good and bad actresses apart during rain-crying scenes, by creating eye-umbrellas which would ensure dry under-eye areas at all times, so you could see if an actress was actually crying during a scene in the rain, instead of just using the rain as her tears. Understand?

Minds, they work in funny ways.

Films and books

2010-05-25T19:24:00.000+01:00

I like reading books, I like watching films, I like watching films of books I have read.

I watched Remains of the Day on Sunday evening. Perfect film to end a hot British weekend. The book is a fantastic tale, told in sumptuous, almost hypnotic detail, about a repressed butler's all-too consuming devotion to his Lord played out against the world-changing issues of time: the rise of Nazism, British appeasement, and hugely rigid and highly-defined class layers.

The film was an excellent adaptation. Not quite as strong as the book, in ways you'd expect – a characters internal monologue can't be utilised directly, for example – but still full of excellent set pieces and subtle but strong scenes of pathos and anger.

Christopher Reeve was excellent too as a congressman at the hall, and subsequently the new owner. It was the first time I've ever seen him in anything other than Superman and I thought he was excellent.

On a similar note, I finished reading Brighton Rock. I didn't really enjoy it that much, truth be told. They're making a film of that for later this year, which will star Helen Mirren, so it will be interesting to see how that does and how closely it matches the book. I imagine they'll lose a lot of the repetitive religious mutterings that overtook the strong story the book begins with.

They also made a version some years back staring Richard Attenborough, which is meant to be good, so I might try and watch that first too.

Panic at the airport

2010-05-21T18:42:00.001+01:00

Airports are funny places, I've said it before. Yesterday, flying out of Rome I went through several emotions, mostly fear, frustration and mad running, as I attempted to grab an earlier flight home.

It worked, but only just. You'd think upgrading someone to an earlier flight would be easy, but it comes with surcharges and taxes and incurred costs. Or it would, if the carrier's computers had of been working. They were down though, so they sat there, looking all Italian, shrugging their shoulder nonchalantly, "Waddya want me to do about eh", they seemed to say.

Nevertheless the company who had flown us out there was very accommodating and said they would do it for us (me and another journo), via their booking agency. They did. But, despite the man at the check in desk refreshing his screen like there was no tomorrow, nothing came up on his system. Much confusion all round

So instead I spoke to man at the check-in desk instead: "We're trying to pay, we can't pay over there, and there are seats free, what's the loss?" and he relented, letting us through…at the exact moment they check-in for the flight was closing. We had about 35m before boarding. Could be close…then we saw the passport and security queue. Long…very long.I shouted to everyone, "really late, missing flight, please let us through"…amazing how kind people are when a mad English man is shouting broken sentences at them.

We went through, panic rising all the time as the clock ticked down 20 minutes to go. Then the man from the booking agency rang. "It's sorted, you're on the flight." "Great, we're going through security" I said. "Make sure you make the flight, otherwise you'll have missed the plane and your seats on the other plane will be gone" he replied. Great, just what I wanted to hear. We hurtled through security, no time to put belt back on, went careering on towards the gate to reach…a dead end. What?

A nice Croatian man said, "There's a train, it will be here in a moment". Four or five minutes pass. Getting close now. Throat very dry, nerves rising. Train arrives, pulls in, doors don't open for 30 seconds…it’s a test train (A TEST TRAIN!). One minute later, real one arrives. All fine, zips to gate, we get out, and arrive…boarding delayed by 10 minutes.

A New Zealand man says, "I saw you running, thought we were late or something". He was off to New Zealand. Rome to London to Hong Kong to NZ. That last leg would take 11 hours. Our globes and maps must not give true perspective on distance. You could fly to LA from London in 11 hours. And that's across the globe. I am confused by distance.

Still, made the plane, sat down, arrived home three hours earlier, in daylight, at no extra cost. Exciting. Sort of.

Norfolk

2010-05-17T13:45:00.002+01:00

I've never been to Norfolk but it's a place that literature has taken me to, twice. Firstly, in Ishiguro's heartbreaking Never Let Me Go (that's not a flippant assessment, it's one of the saddest books I've ever read (but don't let that put you off, it's stunning)), and recently in Graham Swift's Waterland. Norfolk it seems, is a sad land. Flat, barren, wet, cold and wild, and full of tragedy.

Waterland, set across a span of history from the 1800s, through to the 1980s, is an amazing book that deals with themes covering the family, childhood, work and love, and perhaps most grandly of all, the idea of history itself. Swift tells a tale interlinked by the history of the fens of Norfolk his forebears rise to prominence through land reclamation and ale brewing, his protagonist's childhood spent living with his father and mentally ill brother, and the repercussions the events of this time come to have on his later life, when he teaches history in the fear-of-nuclear-Armageddon obsessed world of the 1980s.

Swift was shorted listed for the Booker for this novel, but lost out to J. M. Coetzee Life & Times of Michael K. He subsequently did win with Last Orders in 1996 though, which was made into a film with Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren and Michael Caine.

There's a film of Waterland too, made in 1992 and set in Pittsburgh (with flashbacks to Norfolk – phew). Reviews don't seem stunning but I would be intrigued to see if the film could in anyway capture the book's crushing sense of despair and futility that creeps along in the background, interspersed by moments of halcyon days of childhood, however fleeting they may be, before its gut-wrenching ending.

What goes up...

2010-05-14T09:38:00.003+01:00

I can remember, when I were a lad, helping my Dad navigate endless pages of Teletext share prices at the end of the day, trying to understand what the endless rows of capitalized digits and letters actually meant. My Dad had, and still does have I believe, a canny knack (a jazz musician from the 40s, Canny Knack), of being able to spot a company whose shares were about to soar, but then he would always forget to buy them and watch forlornly as they rose in value, daily, on that digitized Teletext display page, leaving him and his fistful of pounds behind. Ah well...

I am now endevouring to follow in his footsteps (somewhat) but entering the world of stocks and shares. Buy low, sell high, greed is good, money money money, all that. Might as well yes? It's been two days. I have lost money. I am excited, it is quite fun. I suddenly feel immense loyalty to the two companies I have invested in. I hope they do more 'good' business to help their shares go 'up', rather than performing 'badly' and therefore going 'down'. Apologies if the financial language there confused you.

Teletext was a funny old service, it would always revolve around to the page you wanted after endless refreshes 8/13, 9/13, 10/13 until you were about to reach the one you wanted, before it would randomly jump to 12/13 leading to huge levels of exasperation as you had to wait for it to work its way around again. I used to leave Teletext on when big football matches were taking place, just to hope the little pixilated name would flash up Giggs, 34, or Kanchelskis, 74. A different world that.

Turning 25

2010-05-12T19:59:00.003+01:00

Ah age, what a strange concept. Time, moving on, marking it off as random days pass. Can you really be sure it is the day you were born? In all those days are we sure someone didn't lose count and we're running a day behind or ahead?

Well, of course not, but you know, it's an interesting idea. I turned 25 the other day. A nice round number to turn, I went silver at midnight, just for a flash, then back to skin and things. I think I've done enough things for being 25, run a marathon, given a speech, written for the nationals, seen a solar eclipse, that sort of thing. But some people are millionaires by now, or have won Olympics gold medals, so I guess it's swings and roundabouts.

I was ill on the day itself, great. It was day 8 of a 10 day cold/infection that seems to be going around. It was not enjoyable. But I screwed it and had some whiskey and food and an enjoyable day was the outcome.

Mostly though I thought, in passing, not in some great deep thinking away, about where the next five years will take me. It will be almost to the day that the next election takes place, my life in fives mirroring our new coalition government. Me as the nation, like a poor, less relevant or accurate Saleem Sinai. We'll see I suppose, where it all goes, whether it's up or down, forwards or stagnation.

So, advice and tips please, what things should I do between now and 30? Serious, fun, silly, all welcome. But nothing cliched or impossible.

Brave new worlds

2010-05-06T19:58:00.004+01:00

This morning, in the queue to vote, I got caught up in some electoral confusion as the ballot officials managed to get their numbers confused (how do those people get those jobs? any security / criminal checks? Who's in charge of dispensing the boxes? I digress...). As I stood there, watching the three of them recite a list of arbitrary numbers to one another, I said to the chap behind me, "We need that electoral reform, eh?", he nodded, said,"Yeah..." and that was that.

Elections are funny things. This was my second, but the first of much significance. I remember my Dad refusing to tell me who he voted for in the 1997 Labour landslide and I invested a lot of meaning in this, this sacred act of voting meant that even my own Dad wouldn't, or as I viewed it, couldn't, tell me who he had voted for.

Now, everyone bangs on endlessly about why you must vote Labour or Lib Dems, but just not Tories, for all kinds of reasons, in openly public arenas such as Twitter and Facebook. Yet, place people in a box, with a piece of paper and a pen(cil), and all the online posturing goes out the window. I imagine a lot of people may vote very differently from how they act/talk in public, where they are acting in an effort to keep up of appearances with, or an unwillingness to disagree with, the views and ideals their chosen social networks / friendship groups talk about and promote.

The Americans must find out one month sprint election process very odd, when set against their eight month effort which begins with primaries in various states for leadership choices within their own parities, before moving on to the epic cross country traversing they must endure between NY and San Fran.

Imagine, DC (Cameron, not Washington), might have to travel, at most, between say, Plymouth and Newcastle. Barely a stone's throw in the US. Such a small country.

Whatever happens tonight and into tomorrow, there was a definite sense today that, even if only seen through the highly distorted leftist view of Twitter, people realised today was a day that could shape all our lives for the next four or five years time. Especially for those, like me, who will be going through some (potentially) highly transformative years in our lives, as we move out of post student years, and on towards our 30s, and the ideas of mortgages, housing, children, schools, education (x3) and all the other trappings of the endless momentum of time.

More books

2010-05-02T20:07:00.003+01:00

Read a few books recently.

An Artist in a Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro. Very enjoyable and thoughtful story set in post war Japan that deals with, through a domestic setting, the way pre-war and post-war society reveres, then reviles, those who led them into the war, be that through political decisions or propagandist art. Interesting stuff and as well told as ever by Ishiguro.

The Buddist of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi. A great, spiralling story of growing up in the London suburbs. Set in and around London I knew some of the locations and streets, even if it was based in the 1970s. A great mix of high realism and slightly mad story plotting combined to make a highly enjoyable, and without being pretentious, profound novel on the ways of parents, children and growing up interlink.

Remember Me by Melvyn Bragg. Melvyn Bragg has had a tragic life. His first wife killed himself and he had two breakdowns before he was 31. True. This book, 550 pages long, is that entire story of Joe (read Bragg) meeting Natasha (his wife, Lisa) and their life growing up until her death. It's sad to know that happened to a man who is so watchable on interesting shows, but it's sadder still that I just found this book so boring. So much telling and not showing. The amount of times that Natasha is described as "wonderful" and "one in a million" by other characters, without any hard proof for us, as the reader to understand this, drove me mad.

She says nothing of note, nothing funny, interesting, clever, profound, nothing.

She does write a book, but we see nothing of this process, we are just told that she begins it, then finishes it. It is published and reviewed favourably. Talented, clearly, but so in your face with the fact that "this is what happened, take my word for it", that I found it tiresome to be given no chance to see anything, but instead be force fed the story.

The Quiet Carriage

2010-04-24T11:42:00.003+01:00

Rattling home on Thursday night on the 18.03 out of Paddington I was sat in the Quiet Carriage, A, enjoying my book and the views when suddenly some woman started talking on her mobile phone. Very poor form.

Some old boy, sitting in the seat in front of me said very loudly and matter-of-factly to her, "This is the quiet carriage, you can't use your phone in here". She replied, "I'm talking to my children, I haven't spoken to them for three hours and I need to check if they're okay". "Well, that's all well and good but it doesn't put you above the rules, if everyone thought like that the system wouldn't work. Why don't you do what every one else does and take yourself to the section outside the carriage and make your call there". She replied about having been sat down for three hours and very tired, which made no sense but nevertheless ended her call.

About two stops later she stood up to get off and you could see she was still fuming. As she walked past him she said, "I hope you enjoy the rest of your journey you moaning old man (or words to that effect). I almost said to her, "He was right, you should have just gone outside like other people have been", but didn't.

Instead, I leaned forward through and seats and said to the man, "Good for you, you were spot on". He rolled his and said, "Well...", in an exesperated manner, as if dealing with such moronic persons was all part of his daily crusade against quiet carriage abusers.

You go old man, you tell 'em.

Killer squirels

2010-04-21T09:13:00.003+01:00

Seem to be blogging about animals a lot lately, hmm.

Anyway, as a former Cornishman, I am well aware of the dangers of fat, unafraid seagulls swooping down and stealing food from your hand. It happens all the time.

In London this problem doesn't really exist. But I reckon it soon will but with seagulls being replaced by foot solider squirrels. They are becoming increasingly tame, and more than willing to take food from your hand (evidenced by the fat critter pictured, snapped by my brother.)

It won't be long before Metro or Evening Standard carries a story of a child being attacked by a squirrel that wanted its food. The revenge of Gaia.

I am the new James Lovelock and David Attenborough.

Snake in the park

2010-04-18T22:10:00.002+01:00

London is a mad place. This is well known. It reaches absurd heights sometimes though, taking the sublime and rubbing it in the face of the ridiculous.

Today, a bright, cloudless, vapour trail-less day, a real spring day of the highest order and, like many in the city, I take myself to a park with a sickly, over-marketed cider in tow. Waiting for friends on the corner of the entrance to one of these green areas of the city I see coming towards me a young lad, maybe in his early twenties, carrying a massive python.

Yes, a snake. He'd chosen to visit a London park on a glorious sunny day with his pet python. As you do.

I mean, fair play, but why? Is it even legal to take a snake to a park?

Bread

2010-04-16T08:24:00.001+01:00

I like bread. I bet you like bread. Everyone likes bread. Man shall live by bread alone, that's what God said, and I bet God likes bread. That is what he said right?

There was an interesting documentary on BBC4 last night before the election debate nonsense about the history of bread...wait, come back...honestly, it was really interesting; it's such a simple, everyday commodity but, like so many everyday things, it has a very interesting back story.

For instance, did you know, (if you're of a certain age you will), that in rationing times, the government forbade (WE FORBADE, they would intone to the nation), the selling of fresh bread to stop people eating too much of it? "Give 'em day old hard stuff and they'll only eat what they need," was their ration(ale). What a world it was.

Still, bread is expensive now. It's often £1.39 a loaf of squashed white or brown from a convenience store. I remember at Cardiff when it was 79p a loaf. I went to that Spar to buy that bread for three years and the women behind the till never acknowledged me as a regular, dammit.

I hate bread that doesn't fit in toaster and worse of all has a hole, that often runs through the entire piece of bread (i.e. each slice), up at the top...do you know what I mean, it's hard to explain...that annoying hole at the top that breaks the bread in two. Drives me mad.

My favourites breads are browns, baguettes, olive bread but sometimes nothing beats a clean white bread sandwich with nothing but fresh cheddar cheese. Mmmmm, lunch time!

Weird life skills

2010-04-13T18:11:00.000+01:00

I seem to have developed an amazing ability in my short time that I have lived in London. When a tube is heading down into a station I can just tell, somehow, that it will either be empty, moderately packed, busy, or absolutely rammed, before it even passes me.

There's just some air of knowing that is swept down in front of it. Maybe it's the speed it's moving, or the way other people on the platform behaviour, as if they too have this sense. Of course, you may say it's the time of day that makes these things obvious, but not so, as it can often happen at either rush hour(s), morning or evening.

But, this only really happens on the Victoria Line as it's the line I have commuted on for three years (nearly), so maybe I have just got very good at readings its mood.

Incidentally, I complained about a journey for the first time ever about three weeks ago and got a £1.80 reimbursement thing back from TFL, which was nice. If petty.

Anyone else got any good life skills they've developed, without any reasoning behind them?

Accidental bird watching

2010-04-13T08:31:00.005+01:00

On Saturday while out enjoying the nice weather I got caught up in a bit of bird watching, by mistake. While I was waiting for my girlfriend and her friends to turn up I noticed a comorant standing guide over the river, and so decided to take a quick snap...which soon turned in to several more as said comorant did all he good to provide some good photo opportunities, including drafting in a friend of his to help. The results of this are below. He's called Albert, as it was right next to Albert Bridge. It was strangely fun. Click on images below to enlarge.

The man on the tube

2010-04-12T17:53:00.000+01:00

So, there we were, rattling northwards on the rollercoaster line, aka Victoria, when a man appeared at the window. Not the windows that look on to the platform. No, the windows, the slits you may say, between the two carriages, where only the brave and the beggars dare walk.

I looked at him: his hair was long, unkempt, and it was flying madly around in the air that whooshed between the carriages. When we skidded to a brief halt at Green Park it became clear that he was drunk. Plastered. Hammered. The blasting air must have been cooling his alcohol-addled brain.

He drooled too. Twice. Long hanging trails of saliva falling downwards on to the tracks.
Every time we set off his hair would shoot out, leaving his carriage, entering ours, as it flailed madly in the air tunnels of the tube.

Then, at each stop, the slowing movement of the train saw his hair slowly return to its natural position of stuck firmly to his head, and then he’d opened his eyes, stare around with an inane grin on his face, checking where we were.

And it was Sunday night too, so I guess he had no job.

Walk on

2010-04-12T15:26:00.005+01:00

About two months ago I interviewed Nat Severs as he passed through Cornwall as part of his epic walk around the entire coast of mainland Britain. So all of Wales, all of Scotland (look at the west coast, yeesh! So many inlets).

Nat's blog and photo diary has made for fun reading and it was great to be able to write about his epic walk. As you can see from the images attached, click to enlarge and read (just about), he's certainly looking the part of the lone walker, striding out each day to rack up 20 miles plus.
Have a read of the article if you wish to learn more, or visit his blog and slip his charities a little virtual something for his troubles.