Barging about

I have just spent a very enjoyable week in France visiting the parents who are travelling through that strange and charming country, living the retirement hippy dream of a barge lifestyle. It involved plenty of lock work - looping ropes, fending off, looking out for boats coming the other direction, and other boaty goodness, as well as eating plenty of nice food, drinking beer and wine and playing with the dog, so all in all, a lovely sojourn.

Getting the ferry across the channel was also fun - travelling as a foot passenger along with my brother - as I always used to wonder when I was younger why anyone would be travelling by foot, how you could end up needing a ferry crossing but no car, and now I know as I was one of those people.

However, the good folk of Calais have certainly no desire to please the foot travellers of this world, with little help or information for the onward journey you need to make in the town to stations. Still, through a combination of walking, ranting and taxi drivers (bizarrely wearing English football shirts but actually French) we managed to make it to our connections - well, excluding the ferry we missed on the way back because we had to spend 20 minutes waiting for a bridge to raise to let a large Danish boat out of the harbour in Calais.

Back to the barge. It's a strange idea, that you can just move your home around as you wish, waking up in one city and moving to the next, having negotiated a few locks and long, slow bends of course. Then you're free to wander the towns and fields at your leisure. We stopped in a lovely town called St Quentin which has a fascinating history and some lovely architecture and monuments.

We were passing through the heart of the First World War battle grounds, with flat and gently sloping fields rimmed by hedges and trees and numerous cemeteries and monuments to the fallen, a war now 99 years old.

Working with your hands is great (if you can do it)

I read a great book recently about the world of work and why office life is not the luxurious evolution of years of toil we believe it to be, but is in fact a drab, unstructured place full of vague management speak, unsure ground and a complete lack of answers.

Many would not need a book to tell them this, but in Matthew Crawford’s The Case for Working with Your Hands: or Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good he makes the case with allusion to philosophy while comparing it to his own experiences as an electrician, motorbike mechanic and other similar trades, and makes a compelling case that much of work in an office is bad for the soul when compared with the single-minded work of a fixer, builder, craftsman, who is set a task with a single, clear goal: to make it work, and can only be right or wrong.

So, when I bought myself a small, linen clothes bin, that required some self-assembly, I was ready to enjoy the task at hand, to screw a few screws, assemble some wood, pat myself on the back for a job well done. After all, it was only four pieces of wood and some screws: easy but satisfying.

Some 25 minutes later, frustrated, enraged and cursing the self-assembly Gods of Argos, I heard myself say out loud, “Couldn’t this thing just come pre-built!”. I recalled the book and its mantra of building, creating, self-fulfilment through doing, not thinking (as so much of modern work has become: “How do we measure the customer satisfaction of our latest loan insurance policy”? – I have no idea).

So I persevered and, of course, my brain taxed itself enough to actually get the stupid thing built and now I have a place for my dirty clothes – what a fun bank holiday. 

My Dad can build and fix most things, from cars to showers to cookers, while I am utterly bereft of such abilities, (despite many attempts at teaching). Where does this difference come from? Innately or self-taught, or both? Probably both, but then living in the late 20^th century, with its flat-packed, self-assembly fittings and pop-up tent camping gear, it’s not surprising I, and so many people my age, are clueless when confronted by anything requiring true craftsmanship or a working knowledge of woodwork, electricity, construction.

Furthermore, as Crawford notes in his book, nowadays designers and firms don’t want people tampering with their stuff. A friends’ Dyson vacuum broke the other day, but there was no way to take it apart as the screw sockets in use were bespoke, not suitable for an of the array of screwdrivers in his Man Box. Even our fleeting attempts at wanting to fix something, or try to understand it, proved impossible, instead being forced to get A Man to fix it.

Anyway, whether you love your office cubicle or feel it’s a prison by another name, I recommend the book, even if some of the philosophy went over my head at times. Not a philosophy, not a builder, not both as Crawford. What a failure!

Singing out for Christmas

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!

Villas, smarter Londoners and books in bed

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 holiday and 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 change and enjoyable days in the calendar: Halloween, Bonfire Night, that Christmas thing which seems to be as popular as ever. All in all, it's not a bad time of year.

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

From now on long, smooth winters coats, elegant scarves and fancy gloves are the norm and baggy, ill-fitting, garish t-shirts, shorts and flipflops 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 great winter 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 spend more time curled up inside with a good book, too. There are few finer things in life than lying in a bed on a cold, blustery day with an enjoyable piece of writing that you can plough through as the weather howls impotently outside.

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

It had a lot of interesting historical, social and maritime facts, stories and topics within its 400+ pages and although not the best non-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 the great, grey slab of water that lies off the coast of Cornwall and churns and thunders unstopped until it reaches, by turns, Canada, the US, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, then it would come with a hearty recommendation from yours truly.

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

Skiing and trying to get an expensive holiday on the cheap

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?

Keep on Running (and therefore enjoying pizzas more)

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...

Sliding doors

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.

Echoes

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".

Around the coast

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.

More books

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

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?

World Cup memories

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?

Canoe Man!

A couple of years ago, when the story of John Darwin hit the headlines, it was with fascination that the truth of his 'disappearance' was discovered.

Three years on and I came to watch a dramatisation staring some actory types in the roles of John and Anne Darwin in which Anne was shown to be somewhat of an unwilling victim in the scheme, caught between love of her husband, and the despair of the situation, aware of the crime they were perpetrating.

It was a fascinating story at the time, and it still remains so. They planned it so well, fooled their own sons ("that's the part the public will despise you for" a journalist told Anne in the story), and then, at the last, fell apart when they agreed to be photographed and didn't look into the visa situation of Panama.

If this story were told as straight up fiction people would enjoy it but sigh, "well, what nonsense" but it's even more incredible that these things happen all the time. Trying to think of other amazing stories along these lines, any suggestions?

Back to reality

So after 14 days of not having to respond to emails, or update websites, arrange interviews and so on, I am now back at work. Sob.

Ah, it's not so bad. I had a great few days back in Cornwall with the family. It's so fantastically dark and quiet where we live now. Being in London for so long means you can forget what real, blinding darkness, is like. Even more impressive is straining your ears and genuinely not being able to hear a sound from any direction in several miles.

I could waffle on about Benicasim and some of the adventures, anecdotes and insights, but it's probably one of those 'if you haven't been you don't care' things, so I won't.

Finally, I bought 'Leviathan: or, The Whale' on Saturday, winner of the Samuel Johnston prize for non-fiction, and read about a quarter of it on the train on the way back from Cornwall. It's so far a fantastic read, very well written, full of interesting and unknown facts and information, and a unique and beguiling subject matter. Hopefully it will continue in the same way.

Hopefully this passes for a catch-up, back to the coalface blog?