Wigmore Diary

The soundtrack to my life

2012-01-30T13:46:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make: I used to be a fan of Michael Bolton. In my defence, I was a teenager and Soul Provider was a classic soft-rock album. On the scale of crimes against good taste, I'm someone who delinquently nicked a few sweets from the corner shop, not a bank robber.

This guilty secret came back to me while I was waiting for a Sunday roast in the pub yesterday. Over the muzak dispenser came the unmistakeable strains (in more ways than one) of the classic "How am I Supposed to Live Without You". Somewhere in the back of my mind it stirred an anguish. You might think that as I leave a broken marriage I would naturally be moved by such a heart- (and ear-) rending song, but the lyrics are clearly about unrequited longing. That is much more a teenage experience and I know that at some point this particular song meant a great deal to me. But I couldn't recall at whom my particular unrequited longing was directed. It set me thinking – and service was so slow, I had plenty of time to think.

I’m not a great music lover. There are things I enjoy listening to but I don’t need a constant background sound. Nonetheless I realised during my lunchtime reverie that certain tunes are very meaningful to me. I can never hear “Thank You for the Music” without thinking back to a mundane childhood memory of sitting on the landing while Mum cleaned the bathroom; she must have had the radio on and it just stuck. My German exchange partner loved A-ha and “Take On Me” evokes homesickness in a crammed bedroom in the Ruhr. “It’ll Be Lonely This Christmas”, apart from being surely the most miserable festive song ever, always reminds me of a desperately awkward time in my life, when I wanted to be with someone who I knew didn’t want me. Many years have passed but I don’t think I will ever hear that song without a twinge of sadness.

“When You Say Nothing At All” takes me back to the funeral of my brother’s best friend, who died in a car accident before he’d really lived. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house when that was played – and not just because it was the Ronan Keating version. I’ve had the song on my iPod more recently; I must be mental. On a happier note, “Tubthumping” by Chumbawumba puts a smile on my face every time I hear it. The stadium DJ played it straight after Gillingham beat Wigan in the 2000 play-off final and it was an inspired choice. “I get knocked down but I get up again/You ain’t never gonna keep me down” caught perfectly the mood of the fans that day, a year after heartbreaking defeat to Manchester City. Elation, exhilaration, defiance – the occasion feels like yesterday.

While I was lost in memories in the pub, Mr Bolton faded away to be replaced by Jon Bon Jovi singing “Bed of Roses”. It was an incredible coincidence, because this is a song that’s very much in the present: it was being played by a covers band at the very moment when I realised my marriage was over. Doubly cruel is that it has long been one of my favourite songs, by one of my favourite bands.

Sarah and I got together partly because of a shared love of Bon Jovi - I lent her my Slippery When Wet album and accidentally got her attention. Any similarity between the durability of a cassette tape and our marriage is entirely coincidental. One of the last really good nights we had together was watching Jon and his crew at the O2, and so for "Bed of Roses" to wrap it up was probably fitting.

I am now in search of a song to reflect the next stage of my life. Maybe it’s time to regress. If my Soul Provider hasn’t found its way to landfill by now, burying myself up to the neck in “When I’m Back on my Feet Again” might just do the trick.

I wonder why

2012-01-06T13:13:00.000-08:00

First things first, I'd like to wish a Happy New Year to both my readers.

Today, like Curtis Stigers, I've been doing a lot of wondering why. Here are a few of the things I've been wondering...

Why people think the stairs at London Bridge station in rush hour are a suitable place for a friendly natter.
Why any man would consider even for a second that jeans with elasticated bottoms could be a fashion worth adopting.
Why Ruth Jones has gone blonde for her new TV series.
Why the Shard was built.
Why Essex is The Only Way and why no one has yet thought of another way.
Why the brunette who I used to see on the train every day is no longer there to brighten up my evenings.
Why my front door lock is working perfectly again now the weather is milder, after keeping me outside for five freezing minutes at the weekend.
Why trains on the northern branch of the Kent Coast line take 10 minutes longer on the journey out of London than the journey in; and apparently take longer than they did before the Second World War.
Why I wasted three minutes of my life trying to recognise the participants of "Celebrity" Big Brother last night.
Why mango smells like cat urine.

Answers on a postcard please, or failing that the comments section at the bottom.

Why the beautiful game is still beautiful

2011-11-11T15:01:00.001-08:00

Almost 30 years after I saw my first live match, I probably ought to have got over my love of football. It just hasn’t happened though. All through my life the "beautiful game" has been there, in the foreground as much as the background. I vividly remember the excitement of Friday afternoon shopping at the Co-op because it meant more cut-out cards for the 1982 World Cup album, and shortly after that Panini stickers entered my life. Then I became an avid reader of Shoot! magazine. When I wasn’t fortunate enough to go to a match, Saturday afternoon was about “guess the goals” competitions and score updates on local radio.

Pre-puberty I didn’t have an imaginary friend, I had an entire imaginary football league complete with hand-drawn squad posters, a carefully-typed magazine whose pictures were traced from real-life action shots; and an Amstrad Basic computer program for calculating results. I dripped on my exercise books after sweaty kickarounds in the junior-school playground. I also played occasionally and haplessly in goal for school teams until the move to 8’ goalposts added a decisive lack of height to my long list of weaknesses. As a teenager I spent hours on coaches visiting a few thousand grass-and-concrete square yards of England’s less impressive provincial towns and accumulated books full of notes, lineups and match reports from games I saw live or on TV. I collected probably hundreds of matchday programmes and eventually (briefly) had a job producing one. Many mementos have been discarded over the years but a pictorial record of the Mexico World Cup remains one of my favourite books, alongside a history of Gillingham FC which is worth more than ten times what I paid for it.

I still find myself distracted by under-10s matches when I’m supposed to be supervising my sons in the park and if there’s a game on TV I’ll watch it, even Spurs’ C team in the Europa League. It’s crazy. Everyone knows that football is rotten pretty much from top to bottom. This isn’t new, just more prominent than before. FIFA executives have been taking backhanders (allegedly) for decades. In the '80s stadia were decrepit, full of thugs in and out of police uniform. Now they are more family-friendly, if families aren’t priced out. Cynical fouls, fixed matches, robotic referees, trigger-happy chairmen and ranting autocratic owners were ever thus; even the oligarchic Premier League and its TV-controlled scheduling is now old hat. On top of that we have inarticulate, respectless, mercenary millionaires shagging and swearing their way from the back to the front pages. And raving, win-at-any-cost parents standing on the Sunday-morning touchlines aspiring for their sons to follow in their tabloided footsteps – the millionaire part at least. And inane barracking from the stands. (Mercifully racism has been banished but wit also seems to have gone; I hope that’s a coincidence.) But every now and again something happens in football to warm the soul – and I’m not thinking only about Gillingham’s three victories in seven-goal thrillers this season.

Two weeks ago the Doncaster Rovers striker Billy Sharp lost his two-day-old son Louis. After missing one game, he wanted to play against Middlesbrough, was made captain and scored early in the game with a brilliant volley. At that point he revealed a T-shirt tribute to his son. Normally that would have brought him a booking but the referee overlooked it. Either he was human or, more likely, with tears in his eyes he couldn’t find his pencil. Last Saturday Sharp played away at Ipswich, who twice tried to sign him in the summer. He scored again to give Doncaster a 2-0 lead and wreck the home fans’ hopes of winning a crucial game. Yet those same fans’ response was not abuse, but an immediate standing ovation for Sharp as he celebrated the goal. And that moment when thousands engage spontaneously in appreciation of something more important than the result, is why I still love football.

Dale Farm - a question of semantics

2011-10-19T13:38:00.000-07:00

Sky News ran a poll today:

Should the Dale Farm travellers be forcefully evicted?

The results were perhaps unsurprising: 92% Yes, 8% No.

What I found more interesting was the wording of the question. Most coverage of this story has talked about "forcible" evictions. According to an online dictionary, forcible means "done or effected by force: forcible entry into a house" while forceful means "full of force; powerful; vigorous; effective". To me, forceful implies a degree of force beyond that which is strictly necessary to achieve the goal. I wonder whether Sky's choice of word was accidental or deliberate - and whether the 92% of respondents were actually enthused by the idea of police and bailiffs going just a bit too far.

Of course, the more obvious semantic question about the whole story is why these people label themselves travellers but want to stay put. Unfortunately I'm about the two millionth person to pose the question and no one has yet managed to answer it.

Booze, part 2

2011-10-13T02:35:00.000-07:00

Speaking as the person who usually sticks with soft drinks at parties, I was interested to see this article on the BBC website yesterday. An eminent anthropologist suggests that many of the behaviours associated with alcohol are nothing to do with the physical effects but the result of personal or social expectations around drinking.

This comes as no surprise to me. I've long believed that in many cases inebriation is more psychological than physical. Of course balance, reaction times and the like are impaired; you won't catch me arguing that it's safe to drive or perform open-heart surgery when under the influence of alcohol. But there's nothing in a bottle to make someone become verbally or physically aggressive, jump into bed with a stranger, or do any of the other things that tend to be explained away with "I'd had a few drinks". I'm convinced that what really happens is the drinker sees an opportunity to act outside established social norms without having to take full responsibility, because society has allowed alcohol to be an acceptable scapegoat.

I know a person who when drinking becomes argumentative, opinionated, generally obnoxious. From the very first sip. This behaviour wouldn't be considered acceptable in many other countries where drinking is just as deeply ingrained. In Spain and Italy for example, many people drink a large amount over the course of a week but it isn't seen as extraordinary and doesn't lead to extremes of behaviour. Try convincing a magistrate there that it wasn't your fault, it was the drink. I suspect you wouldn't get far.

Alcohol is a depressant yet we're told some people become dependent, which seems a strange state of affairs. I can understand addiction to a stimulant, but how often do you hear someone say "I had to take more and more to get the same low"? I suspect that alcohol addiction is more about freedom from social norms than anything physical. And maybe there are others out there like me, who can enjoy the taste of a drink without turning into lager louts.

So, back to the subject of alcohol on the coach. Perhaps these secret G&T drinkers aren't bound to misbehave and it's all a storm in an Irish coffee cup.

Booze, part 1

2011-10-13T00:23:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I received an email from my coach company:

It has been reported ... that alcohol is being consumed on a number of the commuters coaches on both the morning and evening journeys.

And that's just the drivers. Boom-tish.

The email warned that anyone found drinking may be thrown out at the next stop. But what caught my eye was the word morning. Although it's not my cup of tea, I can understand a tinny to unwind on the way home from work - and on what I call the party coach there's certainly a pub-like atmosphere at times, with or without booze. But really, if you need a drink before you even get to work, it's time to look for another job, or some help.

Autumn Days

2011-10-03T15:10:00.000-07:00

It was my sons' harvest festival last Friday and one of the hymns was called Autumn Days, by one Estelle White. With apologies to whoever holds the copyright, here are the lyrics.

Autumn days, when the grass is jewelled
And the silk inside a chestnut shell
Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled
All these things I love so well

So I mustn’t forget
No, I mustn’t forget
To say a great big thank you
I mustn’t forget

Clouds that look like familiar faces
And a winter’s moon with frosted rings
Smell of bacon as I fasten up my laces
And the song the milkman sings

Whipped-up spray that is rainbow-scattered
And a swallow curving in the sky
Shoes so comfy though they’re worn out and they’re battered
And the taste of apple pie

Scent of gardens when the rain’s been falling
And a minnow darting down a stream
Picked-up engine that’s been stuttering and stalling
And a win for my home team

According to a post on another blog, Estelle White died earlier this year, aged 85. A former nun and a versatile musician, she apparently wrote more than 160 hymns. I must admit though to surprise that this one is so popular at harvest festivals. Evidently I'm not the first to take issue with it either.

I should point out that my sons' school is CoE and lays on the Anglicanism fairly thick at times. Autumn Days seems at odds with this. My own church upbringing leaves me reluctant to term it a hymn. Usually there would be some kind of reference to God or a theological point. The closest this one comes is in the chorus: "I mustn't forget to say a great big thank you" - which begs the question, to whom? The things themselves? The universe? It sounds as though the children are embracing pantheism. Ms White herself apparently believed in starting from something concrete rather than abstract; it’s a common approach among modern songwriters but hymnists normally include some kind of religious reference along the way.

Of course, the basic theme of the song is to be grateful, to something or other. And this, it appears, is why the choristers in the article disliked it: they didn't believe they should be expressing gratitude for aircraft.

I have a more fundamental objection anyway: semantics. I don't believe many jet planes met in the air to be refuelled, even in the 60s when Ms White claimed it was a marvel, and I've never seen a cloud that resembled a familiar face (other than possibly in Disney's version of Pooh and the Heffalump). Would I really be putting my shoes on before the breakfast is even cooked? And milkmen were supposed to whistle, not sing, even assuming you could hear them above the whine of the electric float. Most of all I dislike the last line. "Home" team is the team playing in its own stadium. "My" team implies favouritism. The two concepts are unrelated: "my home team" makes no sense at all. And nor do I think it's healthy to thank a deity for a sports victory: it poses awkward questions in defeat. Perhaps Ms White had no clue about sport. But then she was a Geordie, where football is a religion, and presumably she spent a good part of her life wearing black and white...

The best compliment I can pay this song is that it meant there was no room on the school's playlist for "When the knight won his spurs". Who aren't my home team, incidentally.

Choosing words carefully

2011-09-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

Two news stories yesterday caught my eye, for quotes that could have come straight from the mouth of Alistair Campbell or Max Clifford.

Part 1

"By finding this shipwreck and telling the story of its loss, we pay tribute to the brave merchant sailors who lost their lives." So said marine archaeologist Neil Dobson on the discovery of the wreck of the SS Gairsoppa, sunk by a U-boat in 1941 with the loss of 84 lives. Bravo Mr Dobson. How ever can we thank him and his colleagues from Odyssey Marine? Oh, I don't know, but an 80% share of the estimated £150m of silver on board should do it.

Part 2

"We want to stay for another 30 years. We want to do what is legal and right." So said Dale Farm resident Kathleen McCarthy. "Legal" and "right" - two words not usually associated with travellers' activities. Putting 51 caravans on a former scrapyard without planning permission is certainly not "legal". I'm surprised the Dale Farm crowd are putting up such a fuss about being moved on. Apart from the fact it seems strange to define yourself as travellers but stay put, hasn't Basildon run out of drives to tarmac by now?

Life's Instructions: A List

2011-09-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

My life hasn't been going great recently. That puts me in a large proportion of the population who at any given time aren't overenamoured with their existence. At such times it's good to read something simple and uplifting, like this which was linked on a blog at work. I wish I could give due credit to the author but as David Booker (the Centred Librarian) doesn't explain its provenance, the best I can do is pass it on. There are many things I could say about items on the list: how I find them poignant, or challenging, or adorable; but instead I will limit myself to a simple comment.

If I can adopt a few more of these in my daily life, it will not only seem better to me but will be better for those around me.

Selling change in the City

2011-09-15T14:12:00.001-07:00

My journey to work usually takes me through the City of London and I never cease to be surprised how much construction work is going on there. I've written previously about the demolition of a pleasant building to make way for the Shard, which is as immensely disappointing as it is immense. Across the river the pace of change seems to be unrelenting.

Construction has started on the Cheese Grater and (after a long hiatus) the Walkie-Talkie, or 122 Leadenhall Street and 20 Fenchurch Street as they are formally known. Slightly further along the bus route, 110 Cannon Street is now shrouded and being stripped back to a skeleton in preparation for a refit. The hoardings hint at an aspirational approach to selling space in the renovated building: it has words such as bright, individual, refined and stylish arrayed in a chirpy font as though the product being sold were a symphony or a biography, not one of a cluster of mid-height office blocks sandwiched between two of the City's main thoroughfares.

A hundred yards further along Cannon Street is perhaps the most remarkable sight in the City at the moment: a vast empty plot which used to be the 1950s-built Bucklersbury House. All that's left of the unmourned behemoth (and a pleasant Art Deco building on the corner) is a two-storey outcrop being used as a site office while the cranes, bulldozers and concrete-crunchers do their thing. Somewhere in there is also the remains of the ancient Temple of Mithras, which was harshly treated in the post-war rush to development but will now apparently be given a more honoured place when a new building rises from the dust. The landowners Legal & General have struggled to find a suitable scheme for what is a large, unusually shaped and prominent location; and it still isn't clear exactly what they intend to build or when.

Is another office building really needed? Directly across the road is the imaginatively named Walbrook, a low-rise development with glass and steel bulges but precisely zero tenants a full year after its completion. Another elaborate reconstruction of a new block behind an old facade just 100 yards away in Queen Street also appears to be still largely empty after probably three years. Cannon Street station itself has been a building site for years, thanks to the replacement of an unloved 40-year-old office block above the platforms with a building that has elaborate steel cross-braces but is probably only 40 years away from being an unloved 40-year-old office block. It's impressive at street level and the concourse is immeasurably improved, but will the building have any tenants?

The trouble is, of course, that developers start projects during times of boom, when borrowing is easy and firms take on new staff and seek opportunities to upgrade to more imposing and sparklier headquarters. By the time the planning process and construction are finished the economic cycle has reached the bust phase, companies are reducing their headcount and austerity takes precedence over making a statement. Result: empty edifices.

Shouldn't we be worried? These are the companies that collectively manage most of our money. But they can't even plan major construction projects to deliver at the time they're needed. My conclusion is that this betrays an unspoken truth about our modern economy: its foundation is not delivering what people need, but convincing them that change is better than the status quo and the new is best.

The price of privacy

2011-05-25T14:24:00.000-07:00

Well well well, CTB the superinjuncted footballer is Ryan Giggs. Who knew?! Only most parliamentarians and about 75,000 people on Twitter, which as one of the newspapers is bound to have mentioned, is about the same as an average crowd at Old Trafford. I found out from the Mail on Sunday. At this point I should make plain that I will never buy this rag while it employs Piers Morgan, any more than I would buy The Sun since its coverage of the Hillsborough disaster. But in the airport lounge a couple of Sundays ago I happened to read a bizarre interview with moderately-famous actor Hugh Bonneville in the Independent and, only a few minutes later, the MoS article linked above.

The purpose of the story is absolutely clear in the context of the recent rash of superinjunctions, one of them taken out by an actor to cover an alleged affair with "Wayne Rooney's prostitute" Helen Wood. But the phrase that caught my attention was in the last paragraph: "Hugh’s devotion to wife Lulu is so strong it is understood he is known to fellow thespians as the Ryan Giggs of the showbusiness world, after the famously family-orientated footballer." Journalistic genius. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

The thing is, "famous footballer plays away with Big Brother contestant" definitely falls into the category of dog bites man. "Famous footballer turns down meaningless sex offered by Big Brother contestant" would be man bites dog. David Beckham seems to have suffered no long-term damage despite allegations of an affair - and he plays the family man card far more often than Ryan Giggs, who for all I knew could have been free and single like the rampant heterosexual Ashley Cole.

Don't get me wrong, I don't condone what Giggs (allegedly) did. I'm old-fashioned enough to think that wedding vows mean something and being faithful is a choice. But equally I'm not sure whether it's anyone else's business what the Premiership's longest-serving player got up to with a pneumatic Welshwoman of questionable repute. Leave him in peace to sort it out with his wife. Nor does it matter to me if Mr Bonneville paid to be violated with an object. There's no "public interest" defence here that I can see, if interest is taken to mean "benefit" rather than "curiosity". The right to privacy ought to be prioritised yet appears to have vanished in the Hello! celebrity culture. But Giggs's attempts to pursue tweeters for naming him is ludicrous. Social networking sites and the new media are clearly well ahead of both the mainstream media for disseminating information whether true or false and of the law in judging what is reasonable. Writs are a blunt instrument in a war against instantaneous and universal transmission of thought. The lawyers are probably laughing now, until the celebrities realise they're wasting their time. The PR people however will continue to rake it in trying to repair the damage. It would be an interesting development if Imogen Thomas sued him for slander over his allegation that she was trying to blackmail him.

According to an article I read recently there are several dozen superinjunctions out there, held by various Premiership footballers, actors and other celebrities. Walls have ears even when they're part of a courtroom and sooner or later the names will leak out. Now, if you'll excuse me, although these stories don't interest me I must go and look up Ewan McGregor + superinjunction on Google...

Toilet humour

2010-09-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

I would like to record for posterity the wit and ingenuity of my work colleagues. Although rarely seen in action outside the confines of the 4th floor, it does exist. In the gents' toilets at least.

In each cubicle, to counteract unfortunate flooding incidents, is a sign reading...

DO NOT USE HAND TOWELS AS TOILET PAPER

THEY DO NOT GO AROUND THE BEND

A few weeks ago now, someone tore a section from one of the signs...

DO NOT USE HANDS AS TOILET PAPER

THEY DO NOT GO AROUND THE BEND

Fair point, well made. But since then someone (perhaps finding the dispenser empty and wanting to heed the advice above) has removed a much larger section...

DO NOT TOIL

GO AROUND THE BEND

Well, they do say many problems are solved whilst seated.

Goodbye - don't let the barn door hit you on your way out

2010-07-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

Emile Heskey has announced his retirement from international football. The subordinate clause that none of the media outlets were cruel enough to add, would have read...

in order to concentrate on his career in Aston Villa's reserves.

I suspect a few more will follow him into the lucrative wilderness that is life after the England team, as opposed of course to the lucrative wilderness that is life in the England team. It can't happen too soon as far as I'm concerned.

One rumour today is that David James will be leaving football altogether: he may be joining Celtic. Boom tish.

World Cup - the final insult

2010-07-14T12:24:00.001-07:00

The dust is settling, Madrid is quiet again (or as quiet as Madrid ever gets), Spain are world champions and Howard Webb will not be as warmly welcomed in Amsterdam as were the runners-up.

The final was, I thought, not an edifying spectacle. It was engrossing enough to lure Sarah, normally an avowed hater of football, to the other end of the sofa and controversial enough to have her shouting at the screen. Unfortunately the pessimists' predictions came true and it wasn't a match that will live long in the memory. So much for Total Football: it was tiki-taca against kickihacka.

The Dutch looked like traffic cones and approached the match with an appropriate sense of adventure: absolutely none. Their energies were spent not running up the field to score a goal, but kicking their opponents into next week. Combine that with the Spaniards' histrionics, falling over lightly and waving imaginary cards at the ref, and it's no wonder Howard Webb found the going tough.

British pundits seemed keen to praise the English referee, as though it would be somehow unpatriotic to criticise a man who'd achieved what 11 compatriots couldn't and gone all the way in the tournament. Personally I thought Webb had a pretty bad match. I understand he wanted to keep it 11 v 11 if at all possible, this being a showcase event, but on the biggest stage of all surely he should have been enforcing not undermining FIFA's directives on fair play. Van Bommel went through Iniesta with exactly the sort of uncontrolled tackle from behind that not so long ago the mandarins were calling to be banished from the game; yellow card. Would the Dutch have continued their tactical assault if the biggest culprit had been sent for a bath barely 20 minutes into the game? Maybe, but it couldn't have been any worse than how it unfolded once he let that one go.

On the infamous karate kick, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to De Jong because I'm not sure he saw Alonso and to Webb because he may have been unsighted. But I wish I didn't understand why Robben wasn't booked for kicking the ball away in extra time, two minutes before Xavi suffered exactly that fate. Unfortunately I know only too well: he already had a yellow card and Webb didn't want to send off anyone else. Ironic then that Heitinga was dismissed for an offence that Webb could reasonably have ignored. It was technically the correct decision because the defender briefly grabbed Iniesta but the Spaniard had every opportunity to play on and instead took the opportunity to fall over and "give the ref a decision to make". Ironic also that when Robben passed up the opportunity to do the same under Puyol's challenge, no advantage accrued. This is Robben who's like a Weeble in reverse: he may not wobble but he always falls down.

What was it, fourteen yellow cards? The Dutch fouled and whinged as they'd done through the tournament, the Spanish mostly just whinged. The pundits (understandably) lost all sense of impartiality in their post-match analysis. Suddenly Iniesta, who I'd barely heard mentioned all tournament, was their star player in the World Cup and FIFA's award of the Golden Ball for best player to Diego Forlan was derided. Almost as if they'd forgotten he almost single-handedly dragged a limited team to the semi-finals. Yep, they had, because he wasn't Spanish and hadn't played in the game they'd just watched.

When all is said and done, I'm glad Spain won the World Cup; all the more so when the immediate alternative was the Dutch thugs in a penalty shoot-out. In the tournament as a whole, except Spain's first game, attacking teams generally overcame defensive set-ups and it seemed fitting that the same eventually happened in the final. The BBC website, always an interesting barometer of British opinion, carried a spectrum of post-match views including a considerable number of fans who regarded the Spanish as boring. Eh? Yes, they scored only eight goals in the whole tournament and most of those late in games. To paraphrase Gary Lineker, "two teams play for 90 minutes and then the Spanish win 1-0". But should we expect them to win 10-0 against teams that (to repeat an already overused phrase) "park the bus" and lack the quality to threaten an equaliser? Spain were there to win the tournament and a single goal was usually enough to progress.

I enjoyed watching Spain play. This probably isn't as strong a team as that which won Euro '08 and the second holding midfielder looked unnecessary, but then they had to cope with a big gap where Torres should have been. They lack firepower especially when Villa plays up the middle, and a player capable of beating defenders with pace or dribbling skills. But I love the way they pass the ball: not 50-yard Hollywood passes like Beckham or Gerrard which as often as not go out of play or to an opponent; but back and forth making opponents work and opening a gap to advance. They play a dozen passes to no apparent effect, then suddenly the ball reaches Iniesta or Xavi 30 yards from goal and someone's running at an angle that the defenders can't easily deal with. Not only that, pretty much every single Spanish player can control the ball in one touch and pass it to a team-mate. When the first XI ran out of ideas, they had substitutes who offered something different. Maybe I'm just too used to lower-league English games and overwhelmed by the novelty of a team who can string five passes together and trust technical ability rather than raw effort. Those who follow the Premier League have higher standards (cough). Football doesn't have to be helter-skelter, just because that's the way English teams play it. Possession was nine-tenths of the law for Spain; for England it's one-tenth, the remainder being getting stuck in and slinging it in the box.

Probably the final would have been more fun with Germany in it. But there's a reason they weren't there: apart from a 20-minute spell in the first half of the semi-final they just couldn't get the ball off Spain. That invites a conclusion about which approach is superior. The Dutch beat a Suarez-less Uruguay more easily than the 3-2 scoreline might indicate, thanks in part to yet another jammy goal by Sneijder, and with some decent attacking football along the way. Apparently the third-placed match was a cracker; alas I missed it.

Overall, the World Cup was the usual mix of good games and fairly poor ones, with probably nary a classic. The standard of football wasn't that high, but in truth has it ever been? The last great final was nearly a generation ago: Argentina vs Germany in 1986. Just as the tournament will probably be best remembered for Suarez handling on the line and Gyan missing the penalty, the final will go down in history mainly for the utter cynicism of its participants. At least there was one rare moment of humanity when Iniesta, after scoring what proved to be the winning goal, revealed a tribute to his friend and fellow footballer Daniel Jarque, who died a year or two back aged 26. For just a few seconds the fierce rivalry between Barcelona and Espanyol was overlooked and a country united in hope. Then Webb yellow-carded Iniesta for taking off his shirt, we noticed the Dutch were berating the officials over a decision that hadn't gone their way in the lead-up to the goal, and normal service was resumed.

About a month from now, a new Premier League season will kick off and for the majority of English football followers, all the above will be just a footnote in history.

The dangers of word association

2010-07-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

Sky have a new publicity campaign running. On the train this week I saw a poster that proclaimed in a lightly-sparkled font, something along the lines of:

Oh Grandma, what fast high-speed broadband you have

This tagline conjured up a one-word response... fairytales. I'm not sure it's quite what the writers had in mind.

World Cup - quarter finals

2010-07-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

I'm well chuffed with myself: I correctly predicted Spain to win 1-0 and Uruguay to edge out Ghana. Actually those were two of the safer bets. I didn't foresee the Netherlands overturning Brazil, and although I did expect Germany to score against Argentina you could have got long odds on 4-0.

The only quarter-final game I saw almost in its entirety was Uruguay v Ghana. There's been a lot of fuss about Suarez handling on the line to keep Uruguay in the competition - and in a way rightly so. But the referee spotted the offence and punished it in accordance with the laws of the game. Ghana had their chance to win the game with the penalty, or subsequently in the shoot-out, and couldn't take it. Let's not forget the free-kick which led to the handball was a laughably bad decision from the ref.

I don't think anyone would have expected that after all five South American teams reached the knockout stages and four the quarter-finals, only one would still be in the competition one round later. Argentina and Brazil were hot favourites but floundered; let's give Uruguay some credit for the spirit they showed in contrast. As for Ghana, my comment in a previous blog still stands: if in doubt, bet against the Africans.

Germany's crushing win over the team previously billed as the best at the World Cup, might suggest England's result wasn't so bad after all. We scored twice against them, after all. But no one is fooled and the inquest goes on.

I quite fancy Germany to turn over the Spanish now. Joachim Loew found a way to neutralise Argentina and if his team can keep Villa and Iniesta quiet I think they can do damage at the other end. I didn't see the last Spain game, not because Paraguay sent me to sleep but because I was out. Apparently it was tight and Villa scored - in other words it could have been almost any Spanish game in the tournament. Meanwhile, the Dutch are hot favourites (less than even money with most bookies) to beat Uruguay inside 90 minutes yet I expect it to be close, possibly with extra time required. A Holland-Spain final would suit me, guaranteeing a first-time winner of the Jules Rimet Trophy, but I have a sneaking feeling the Dutch will face the Germans in a rerun of the 1974 final.

Parenthood in the modern era

2010-07-06T09:18:00.000-07:00

I see Cristiano Ronaldo has become a father. The man most famed for gelled hair, sculpted abs and having questionable balance, has followed in the footsteps of Madonna, Brangelina and Michael Jackson in acquiring a child from a dubious source. Whether he is the biological father, no one seems to know; nor does it matter, since he evidently has sufficient wealth to buy custody of the child from its mother in America. One for Fathers4Justice to celebrate? Maybe not: it appears the child will in fact be looked after by Ronaldo's sister. Presumably he will visit now and again, whenever he tires of his Ferrari and lingerie model girlfriend.

Meanwhile, in the altogether less glamorous surroundings of south London, an ordinary middle-class couple are in trouble after sending their children aged eight and five unaccompanied on a one-mile bike ride to school. They claimed the route was safe, the older could be trusted to supervise the younger on the journey, and they wanted them to experience the freedom that they themselves had known, of not being followed everywhere by adults. The headmaster threatened to call social services and the result is, the children will continue to ride but now in the company of a parent. I can't imagine that a year from now my sons would ride alone to school - not least because Daniel shows no inclination to ditch his stabilisers unless I'm towing him - and I can't say I think it sounds safe to do so in Dulwich. But I'm also uneasy with the notion that parents shouldn't be able to determine what's a suitable way for their children to travel.

Whatever your view on the Dulwich children, they can't be worse off for parents than the new purchase of an preening multi-millionaire playboy.

World Cup - first knockout round

2010-06-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

Sixteen have become eight and all the favourites came through. What have we learned?

Firstly, my predictions were about as accurate as a Uruguayan linesman's eyesight. I expected Paraguay v Japan to be tighter than a Yorkshireman the day before payday and so it proved, the South Americans coming through after a shoot-out in which I read neither goalkeeper came any closer to making a save than during the preceding 120 minutes. I also thought Uruguay would edge it against South Korea and they did, lifting the tempo impressively after conceding an equaliser. Argentina and the Netherlands were always going to beat Mexico and Slovakia quite comfortably. And I anticipated Spain would eventually find a way through a Portuguese barricade, although we could have done without Capdevila faking an injury even if the imaginary culprit Costa had hacked his way through the game.

Maybe five out of eight isn't bad. As for the rest... Chile didn't fulfil my prediction that they would give Brazil a tough game, although of all the teams that are out I'll miss them the most, with their commitment to attack and willingness to get stuck in both reminiscent of the England of old even though their skill level (i.e. they have some) isn't. Ghana overturned the USA, suggesting that Group D really was the weakest of the lot, as The Sun suspected at the beginning. I loved the Ghanaian change strip of red and yellow stripes and the fact that when Gyan could have fallen down to get Bocanegra sent off, he stayed on his feet and scored.

Which, in view of Matthew Upson's feeble attempt to haul down Miroslav Klose, brings me neatly to England. My prediction that we would sneak past Germany was a case of heart ruling head, although both punters and pundits seemed to share my view. Most England sports teams have to be either world-beaters or total failures in the eyes of the Press and the less informed public, because the middle ground is less interesting and doesn't sell newspapers. I suspect that if Lampard's goal had stood the Germans wouldn't have scored twice without reply in the second half, although there wasn't enough in our team's performance to suggest we could have beaten them.The defence was a shambles, the midfield was always chasing shadows, Defoe got no service and Rooney was anonymous again, although I noted he managed a shot on target two minutes from the end, which may have been his second of the tournament. One of my predictions was right though: just after the third German goal went in I told my assembled family that another would follow and in short order, it did.

Predictably the BBC World Cup coverage is now swamped with a dissection of England's campaign, which at least makes a change from the usual vivisection. Now it's whether Capello should go, which players ought to be dumped, whether there's a new generation of better youngsters coming through. I'd prefer them to concentrate on the teams left in the competition who (with the possible exception of Paraguay - did I mention I wish Chile were still there instead?) deserve their places. In any case the wonderful Gills365 pubcast - four ordinary football fans sat in a room masquerading as a licensed establishment - has provided far better analysis of the failings of English football from top to bottom than any mainstream media outlet I've come across.

I'll write some more on England when I have any more enthusiasm for the topic than most of the players appeared to - and that could be a long time coming.

In the meantime I'm thoroughly excited about the prospect of four World Cup quarter-finals even though I'll probably see at most two and a half of them. Argentina v Germany could be a classic. Both teams look better in attack than defence and it will be interesting to see whether Joachim Loew finds it as easy to unpick the Argies as he did England (summarised as "we knew the defence was a mess and they would leave gaps in midfield"). Many observers have written off the Germans but their pace on the counter-attack could cause Maradona's men some problems. I have to go with Argentina but I reckon Germany will score and it could be close.

Uruguay v Ghana is the battle of the underdogs. Both teams impressed in spells during their last games: Uruguay seemed almost complacent in their superiority until South Korea equalised, then raised their game again and eased clear, while Ghana managed a couple of quick bursts early in normal and extra time to beat a disappointing American team. No African team has ever gone past the quarter-finals at a World Cup and I don't think that will change: my hunch is Uruguay will edge it. Incidentally, on the subject of the Americans, Landon Donovan gave a tearful, unintentionally hilarious post-match interview in which he said he'd had "an incredible journey". The comedians on Alan Davies's podcast suggested perhaps he'd been upgraded from economy to business on his flight to a loan spell at Everton, and was overwhelmed by movies on demand. Presumably England were not afforded such luxuries on their return to London yesterday.

I have to back Brazil against the Netherlands because unlike Brazilian teams of the past, they are solid and don't look likely to concede a lot of goals. Robben v Michel Bastos could be a great battle but I fancy Maicon to be a threat on the other side and Robinho can unlock defences, unless playing for Man City. A Dutch win wouldn't be a huge surprise to me but I have the South Americans to win it by a couple of goals.

That leaves Spain with the unenviable task of preventing a Latin American clean sweep in the semi-finals and I think they will do it. Probably they'll find themselves playing against a packed defence for the fourth time in the tournament but their willingness to throw the full-backs forward (Sergio Ramos was brilliant against Portugal) should give them the extra bodies they need to work an opening. I'll take Spain to win 1-0.

To be honest though, I don't mind at this stage who wins either any particular match or eventually the whole tournament. It would be good if FIFA could throw out boring Paraguay and reinstate cavalier Chile - did I mention I enjoyed watching them? Failing that, I will find new heroes and villains over the coming days to root for or against. And may the best team win... provided it isn't Paraguay.

The World Cup - so far

2010-06-25T16:34:00.000-07:00

The World Cup is in full swing. Halfway through according to the calendar, three-quarters by matches played, one-fifth by progress in finding out the winners, and finished already if you're French or Italian. I couldn't resist some good old-fashioned Schadenfreude at the fate of the previous finalists, even though England were perilously close to joining them on the plane back to Europe. The only trouble with the French going out with such a whimper is they didn't get to taste their own medicine; I'd hoped they would be dismissed from the tournament by a terrible refereeing decision like that by which they qualified. Instead, the coach showed himself to be almost barking mad, the players went on strike, everyone fell out with each other and they played some of the most tedious, couldn't-care-less football imaginable.

Along with the gloriously overrated Italians, I was delighted to see the back of Switzerland tonight. They deserve credit for their staunch (and successful) defence against Spain but they had no attacking intent or quality whatsoever. The first set of matches suggested we were going to see a lot of teams like that, as they were too many short of flair and the better teams were afraid of losing. No one seemed entirely certain whether the World Cup was supposed to be a celebration of international sport, or the ultimate football championship. Did New Zealand, North Korea and Slovenia really deserve to be there, or was the tournament bloated by also-rans? As if the fear-ridden football wasn't bad enough, we had to bear the vuvuzelas. In this great football party, not only had we got stuck in the corner with a boring uncle, but someone had invited 50,000 bees. My objection to the horns was that they drowned out any of the other noises that bring a football match to life everywhere in the world except South Africa. Only in two England matches have I heard any significant singing, although the Spanish drummer had a good go.

Thankfully the second set of group matches saw an improvement in the quality, as the fixture combinations obliged the big guns to go for wins. Over the past four days the final group matches have been played, mostly with something at stake, and I know the standard has risen because the pundits have stopped debating the vagaries of the Jabulani ball. Apparently it was to blame for the wayward shooting and goalkeeping errors in the early games. And there I was thinking the players maybe just weren't that good. On the subject of pundits, there were some welcome new voices, including Robbie Savage who donated his summariser's fee to charity after one tedious game "because there was nothing to summarise", and Five Live's Alan Green urged viewers not to waste time watching the highlights of another match. Mr Green though was heard to praise the standard of refereeing in the tournament; possibly the altitude got to him. I don't think anyone was praising the French referee M. Lannoy after he sent off Kaka for an offence he couldn't have seen even if it had existed or the Malian who disallowed a last-minute American winner because three Slovenians were committing fouls at the time. But overall, allowing for some officiousness, the standard of refereeing has been far higher than the standard of sportsmanship - yes, I'm thinking of you Mssrs Fabiano, Keita and Torisidis.

I've seen around a dozen games so far, in full or significant part, and Argentina have caught my eye the most. Their back line may be as solid as a damp spongecake, but any team whose reserve strikeforce dismantles the 11-man Greek defence is fine by me. They have to go far in the tournament because it can ill afford to lose Diego Maradona, who's probably even nuttier than M. Domenech but seems to know more about football and has far better players to work with.

Brazil looked good in their first two games, less so against Portugal tonight when all 22 players including the goalkeeper could have sat in a huddle in the centre circle, so little effort did anyone make to break the deadlock. It was just like Portugal's first game against Ivory Coast in fact. Still on the South American theme, Uruguay declined to beat France in their opening game but won their group all the same; and Paraguay took advantage of Italy's demise to win theirs as well. I haven't seen much of them - mercifully on the evidence of their most recent game. Above all I was delighted to see Chile progress: a team that gets stuck in, plays some good football and apart from the last few minutes tonight look like they will always try to win. Actually I quite fancy the Chileans to give Brazil a decent game.

In contrast to the South Americans, the Africans lived up to the old adage that when a major tournament comes around you should always bet against them. Algeria were one of only two teams not to score a goal, Cameroon lost all three games, South Africa put up a brave fight but never looked good enough to progress and the Ivory Coast were emasculated - the Sven effect? Ghana now carry the hopes of a continent but could well lose to the USA.

Of the minnows, New Zealand managed three draws despite not having a forward line, and but for a dodgy penalty might have beaten Italy. North Korea looked robust for an hour against Brazil, then folded and ended up with a dozen goals against them. But their centre-forward did cry during the anthems so everyone loves him. Australia took a hammering first off but like their fellow ex-colonies avoided finishing bottom of their group, despite two red cards. Japan and South Korea shouldn't be considered minnows and both not only qualified but have more than half a chance of reaching the quarter-finals. Honduras named three brothers in their squad - a World Cup first - but unfortunately only one of them was Wilson Palacios and the team was rubbish, frankly.

The European challenge so far has been led by the Netherlands, who won all three games without breaking sweat. We've seen that before: they usually sprint through the group stage and then lose to someone hopeless at the first knockout round. It could be different this time, with the squad reputedly united for the first time in a generation. Spain got through and apart from an unfortunate defeat to the massed defence known as Switzerland, they've looked good. I expect them to beat the timid Portuguese, who seem to be a one-man team and he hasn't turned up yet. Serbia and Denmark unexpectedly sucked. Slovakia proved they weren't Slovenia by beating Italy but should be cannon fodder to the Dutch - famous last words perhaps. Germany impressed the easily impressed by thrashing Australia with attacking intent possibly forced on them by the scheduling of their most winnable game first. I haven't seen that much of the Germans but their young team has a good pedigree.

So, what of England? I was in a minority in thinking the first performance against the USA wasn't bad, and but for a fluke soft goal we would have been off to a flying start. I would be in a minority of one if I thought the Algeria game had any merits at all beyond not losing - but I didn't. Against Slovenia we should have won comfortably from the chances created and it cost us top place in the group. If we can get past Germany we'll probably face Argentina, who should have too much for a talented but lightweight Mexico; one more goal and we'd have faced Ghana and then possibly Uruguay. It will take a huge effort and a big improvement for England to progress much further and in a way, unpatriotic as it sounds, I don't mind. Although against Slovenia we had more pace and aggression, we're miles behind some of the other countries on technical ability and joie de vivre (or joie de jouer). Spain, Brazil and Argentina happily pass the ball to someone who's marked, confident he won't lose it; we prefer to go back to the keeper. Too many England players are decidedly ordinary at this level and I firmly believe the "golden generation" will fall short again. At least the slow start has helped keep a lid on expectations this time, unlike some previous tournaments. Our easy qualification ought to have got everyone excited, but for once the watching public could see we were patently inferior to at least one close neighbour (Spain - 33 wins out of 34 coming into the tournament, I believe, and they played us off the pitch in a friendly). No doubt by Sunday the anticipation will crank up another notch, although I hope without too many mentions of the war or a match 44 years and 8,000 miles away from Bloemfontein.

If I had to put money on it I would back us to scrape past Germany and then lose comfortably (by more than one goal) to Argentina. I'm not sure if that would be better or worse than just losing to cardigan-wearing Joachim Loew and getting it over with. I can take the despair, it's the hope I can't stand.

Keeping the Faith - Bon Jovi at the O2

2010-06-18T13:59:00.000-07:00

Although they won't know or care, the music of Bon Jovi has played an important part in both Sarah's life and mine. She grew up with the sound of New Jersey from her brother's stereo; I discovered Jon Bon during great years at university thanks to a housemate; lending Sarah a tape (probably Slippery When Wet) was one of the ways I inadvertently and auspiciously first attracted her attention; and playing Keep the Faith LOUD was a surefire way to calm down Bump (who became Adam) on long car journeys.

In light of this, it seemed appropriate that Sarah's first concert should be Bon Jovi and her birthday gave me the perfect opportunity to splash out on tickets for their residency at the O2 arena. When I saw photos taken of another concert from the vertiginous upper tier, I was very glad I paid extra to be within sight of the stage, not just the screens. Although it has to be said the screens, clustered in stacks and mounted on a track around the periphery of the stage or perched on universal joints as a backdrop which turned into a flight of stairs, were a joy in themselves.

The passage of time meant Sarah actually attended another concert first: the Stereophonics at Cardiff. By coincidence it was in the same city that I saw Bon Jovi previously: the 1995 Crossroad tour with support from the brilliant Van Halen and my personal favourites Thunder. A purpose-built arena would be a different prospect though.

Come Sunday we found ourselves witnessing a momentous occasion, although for a rather strange reason. Bon Jovi keyboard player David Bryan has branched out into musicals and was in New York collecting Tony awards for Memphis, the first time in 27 years that he's missed a Bon Jovi concert. Jeff Kazee from the Asbery Jukes stepped in, hidden under a hat, and I couldn't tell the difference.

It's only fair I record that Jon Bon Jovi can no longer reach some of the high notes; a problem covered moderately well by a few altered arrangements and by the old staple of audience participation. I commented whilst watching a Robbie Williams concert on TV several years ago that he got the crowd to sing Angels because he couldn't hit the top notes without autotune, and I was only half joking. Sarah disputed it - she's quite a fan of Robbie and if all else fails, points out he can sing better than me - but reminded me of this comment after JBJ hid from the upper registers. Probably I should also note at this point that Jon should hold off on the botox and let his face catch up with his neck.

Despite this, it was a great show. 23,000 people were there to be entertained and, I suppose in many cases, to remember the old times. There was a broad range of ages and it was noticeable that far fewer people sang along with the more recent songs. Sarah and I were largely lost on anything from The Circle and seemed in a minority in knowing Something for the Pain, which goes back about three albums now. The other big difference I noticed, compared to the National Stadium Cardiff 15 years ago, was that lighters have been replaced by the grey glow of mobile phones and digital cameras, held aloft in their hundreds from start to finish.

A review in one of the London free papers suggested Bon Jovi had rehearsed the show too much, but I just thought it was slick as you would expect with some fun elements thrown in. Richie Sambora led Lay Your Hands on Me (sung almost entirely by the crowd) during a JBJ costume change and about an hour in, the band ventured onto a semi-circular stage between the VIP area and mosh pit for an acoustic interlude which included the brilliant Bed of Roses. There was still another hour, plus the excruciating wait for an encore which included In These Arms and of course finished with Livin' on a Prayer, sung first a cappella by the crowd to the first chorus and then again from the start in its entirety by the band.

For us there were only two disappointments. The first was that the set didn't include the wonderful These Days; the second was that it had to end. I may well never see Bon Jovi in concert again - been there done that and literally got the T-shirt last time as well - but we're now downloading the back catalogue. That should ensure Bon Jovi continue to play a part in our lives in the future too.

World Cup - the English heroes/villains are named

2010-06-01T14:08:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder why Fabio Capello is paid untold millions to be the England manager. There are legions of ordinary men in the street who could do the job just as well if not better. Or so they think. And today, with the World Cup less than two weeks away, they got to play fantasy squad selection - and then see where Signor Capello disagreed with them.

Most of the squad picked itself, given that Capello had already ruled out the likes of Brown, Hargreaves and Zamora with his original 30-man selection. Whichever of the three goalkeepers turns out to be first choice, they were all certainties for South Africa, as were Glen Johnson, Ashley Cole, Terry, Ferdinand, Lampard, Rooney, Heskey and Defoe. Close behind in the odds-on stakes were Milner, Crouch and Carragher. We knew Barry would go if fit, so too King in all likelihood, absent knees notwithstanding. That left questions about cover for defence and the wide midfield positions, key players' fitness and whether Bent had done enough to edge out someone else up front. Did Capello have some cunning plan or was it a straight first team and back up in each position?

The answer, as it turns out, was the latter. It was no surprise to see Darren Bent absent, even though he outscored all Englishmen bar Rooney last season. He's done very little in an England shirt, not least because no one else passes to him. Whether that's because he takes up bad positions or just because he isn't part of the gang, I'm not sure. There's no point taking someone to South Africa who could play in every game and never get a kick of the ball.

Of the remaining choices, Carrick and Wright-Phillips were fortunate to get the nod after poor seasons. Has either of them been better than Walcott, who "sensationally" misses out? Parker and Dawson can't have been surprised to find themselves unwanted after failing to get on the pitch during the recent friendlies but by that token Stephen Warnock also ought to have found himself on holiday; presumably he found himself second in line only because Baines manoeuvred himself to the back of the queue with an atrocious display against Mexico. Huddlestone probably knew his chance had gone once Barry showed signs of being fit, which is a shame as the Spurs youngster had a good season and would have offered something a bit different in the holding role.

Despite rumours to the contrary, King was eventually selected as cover for Terry. I'd have taken Dawson, despite his lack of international experience, because the two of them play alongside each other for Spurs, but Capello prefers almost-relegated Upson. Frankly the centre of the defence is likely to leak like a sieve whoever plays. I'm relieved to see Joe Cole included: he's a class act.

For me the unluckiest player of all - and the most baffling exclusion by Capello - was Adam Johnson. Perhaps the manager took note of what happened with Walcott at the last World Cup, when he was picked on a whim despite Eriksson never having seen him play, and offered nothing at all. But Johnson is a different case. He's 22 years old, has played over 150 senior games and made the step up to the Premier League with ease, displacing a certain SWP from the Man City team in the process. Not only that but in five minutes against Mexico he showed more attacking threat than some of his team-mates had in the preceding 85. Crucially, for me he offers something different: a left-footer who can deliver quality from wide positions, without always having to beat the full-back first. There's a hint of Beckham in that respect. Joe Cole tends to run inside and can get crowded out, whereas Johnson can stay wide if needed and create space for others. I'd have risked Gerrard or Milner in the holding role if Barry got injured and omitted Carrick to make room for Johnson. Maybe this World Cup has come too soon; he has the potential to be an important player for England in the next few years.

Tomorrow the squad numbers will be announced, no doubt leading to more speculation about whether they're significant. Who will get the number 1 jersey? Who will be 9 and 10? Whatever happens it can't be more badly organised than today. The FA named the squad at 4pm but by then a combination of Twitter and well-connected journalists had already leaked the news. Quite why Capello didn't take his squad straight from the plane to a hotel yesterday and name the squad before sending them home, is beyond me. Still, if that's the only glitch in England's run to the World Cup final we'll probably forgive him.

On the rocks (Martini)

2010-06-01T14:03:00.000-07:00

So, Gavin Henson and Charlotte Church have split up. Apparently she was unhappy about his friendship (or should that be "friendship") with an actress.

According to the papers this morning, Welsh rugby player Gav started the healing process by ushering a group of mates onto a plane and getting utterly rat-addled in Spain. The delectable Miss Church, meanwhile, consoled herself by going shopping.

Their entire relationship has been something of a celebrity cliche; it's good to see they're being consistent to the end.

Does anyone know what we wanted?

2010-05-08T02:27:00.000-07:00

Plenty of rubbish has been written in the aftermath of yesterday’s election and it’s my constitutional right to add to it. I’m no great expert on our political system but have been reading with interest the rantings of partisans, the wriggling of Cabinet members and the considered puzzlement of academics. Here’s my summary of an election that produced more questions than answers.

First off, who won? I've seen numerous comments from axe-grinders suggesting this was either an anti-Brown vote, or anti-Labour, or anti-Tory, depending on their particular allegiance. Strangely I've yet to see a claim it was an anti-Lib Dem vote even though they polled fewer votes than the other two main parties. Several commentators have remarked that the British people spoke clearly, they just all said different things. It seems to me (and apparently Gordon Brown) that the only reasonable interpretation is a Conservative victory.

Their failure to secure an overall majority in the House of Commons was due more to the structural imbalance in the constituency map than a lack of support. In 2005 Labour secured 35.2% of the vote and 356 seats; this time the Tories have about 36% but only 306 seats. And Labour's share of the vote is lower now than the Conservatives' last time yet they have 50 more seats. Does the failure to secure 50% backing from the populace undermine the Tories' right to form a government? I don't see why it should. The last time a party polled over 50% was 1935, and that was for a national unity block during the Great Depression. In a first-past-the-post system there's no requirement for an overall majority. After all, no one is claiming a candidate should be elected as an MP only if he has more than half the vote in his constituency. Let's be consistent. Whoever gets the most votes, becomes an MP; whichever party has most votes and most seats, should attempt to govern. Amid much political posturing it's not impossible that Gordon Brown's concession on this point is tactical, expecting Cameron to be unable to form a coalition with Clegg in order that he gets a legitimised free run at it. There are too many ironies to list about the position in which the Lib Dems find themselves.

Turnout was up, at 65% approx, which means one-third of the electorate still didn't cast a vote. It's a shame we have no way of telling the distribution between those unable to vote, the apathetic and the disaffected. I don't believe those who couldn't be bothered, have any right to complain at the outcome of the election or indeed the way the country is run. As for the disaffected, perhaps we should have a "None of the above" option on the ballot papers, but I don't have a huge amount of sympathy for anyone not willing to choose the least bad option or as a last resort, stand for election themselves.

Electoral reform may follow shortly. That could mean proportional representation, or something else. There are other voting systems available, most of which are used somewhere and all of which have flaws. Maybe we could hold a referendum on which voting system to adopt. But how would we determine which voting system to use for the referendum - another referendum?

Pretty much any voting system can potentially lead to a hung parliament, with consequent manoeuvring and internal rifts as party activists disagree where compromises should be made and which potential partners are suitable. I'm not absolutely convinced that on balance first past the post is much worse than some of the suggested alternatives.

Whatever reforms are made to the electoral system, we must resolve the West Lothian question. This election has brought a new twist to the old chestnut, in that the Conservatives have a majority of seats in England but are denied an overall parliamentary majority by Labour's 49 MPs in Scotland. The Scots will claim they could be governed by a party with no mandate: just one MP and 17% of the vote north of the border. A delicious irony is that the Tories have fiercely resisted separatist moves by the SNP, insisting that the United Kingdom should remain so in more than name. It seems to me that any electoral reform should embrace the concept that each of the four countries in the Union should have its own representatives and that where power is devolved to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, MPs from those countries should not be allowed to vote on matters that affect only England. Apart from being obviously the right thing to do, it would also sideline Mssrs Brown, Darling and Alexander in Westminster. But I can't see it happening. It's too sensible for one thing - and would reopen the devolution/independence debate at a time when Britain has other problems to deal with.

Finally, a few words on those who found themselves queuing outside when the polling stations closed. It was unfortunate and clearly there are flaws in the organisation of the poll in certain places - albeit none was a marginal constituency. But, these people had 15 hours to vote. How long did they want? With the EU Working Time Directive they can't all have been at work all day. Not a single person I saw interviewed seemed to consider the possibility that they should have gone at 9am or early afternoon; far easier to blame someone else. It was almost reassuring to see that even in this potentially revolutionary day, the modern British tenet prevailed: It's not my fault, someone else is to blame.

P.S. Paul Clark, the transport minister who voted against his constituents' specific interests, was trounced on Thursday. And the BNP candidate lost his deposit here in Gillingham. Whatever mixed messages the electorate sent to the main parties, they were absolutely clear on these scumbags: you're talking rubbish and we don't want to hear it.

Ask turkeys to vote for Christmas?

2010-05-06T13:26:00.000-07:00

Tuesday: national and local newspapers report that the number of carriages on some high-speed rail services in Kent has been reduced because of low demand. This comes as no surprise to North Kent commuters, who were only too well aware that High Speed 1 was too expensive and delivered travellers to St Pancras, nowhere near most places of work. (As Private Eye commented earlier in the year, it was a service introduced to fill spare capacity rather than meet demand.) Nor is it a surprise to Medway Council, which lobbied fiercely against accompanying cutbacks to well-used services into Victoria. I suspect that among those who held an opinion on the matter, the residents of commuter towns such as Gillingham and Rainham were unanimous in their opposition to the plans. Alas, the local MP passed up a rare opportunity to represent his constituents' view on a matter that was particularly pertinent to them, and voted with the Government in support of the cutbacks.

Thursday: outside Rainham station in rush hour stands an election campaigner. Can you guess for which candidate he was canvassing?

None other than Paul Clark, MP, of course. Private Eye would be proud.

Kind, caring Gordon

2010-04-30T13:47:00.001-07:00

Everyone knows pensioners find it hard to make ends meet. So I commend Gordon Brown for giving 66-year-old Gillian Duffy the opportunity to boost her meagre income by selling her story to a tabloid. If only all politicians were so thoughtful....

I've never voted Tory before, but...

2010-04-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

That Nick Clegg has really shaken things up, hasn't he? No longer does he possess a face only his mother could recognise. In two hours of spellbinding oratory he became the Bright Young Thing of British Politics, a role vacated when Blair cosied up to Dubya and Cameron turned smug.

I didn't see the debate but nor, judging from the viewing figures, did most of those whose allegiance has changed in the past few days. Chinese whispers spread word of his success and the snowball has grown. Like accounts of epic battles in days of old, his victory becomes more glorious and emphatic with each retelling. History is written, if not by the victors, then at least by those who suspect they know which side is about to win. Suddenly there's a third party with a realistic chance of making an impact in a general election. That's long overdue - and very welcome.

We will now see whether the Lib Dems' policies withstand scrutiny. Until now the most serious critique has been by comedians, who were keen to point out that the Lib Dems could promise all manner of unlikely initiatives safe in the knowledge that they would never have to implement or fund them. A zero-percent income tax rate? Sounds good to us, a Lib Dem government will introduce that. The moon on a stick? Sure, why not. Now, we may get to see whether there's a £10bn hole in their budget, as the Tories claim.

But, Clegg and wise grandfather Cable will not get my vote. I could never bring myself to support a party which wishes to subsume Britain further into the morass of bureaucracy, corruption and trough-swilling that is the European Union. This is a group of self-serving careerists who make the Westminster cabal appear quite saintly. Why should we let Italians, Germans and Greeks make our laws and run our economy? It's bad enough that the Scots do it.

Further, my local Lib Dem candidate's leaflet trumpets loudly, in almost so many words, that if you don't vote for him you will get a Tory. Has he not considered that maybe that's what the populace wants? Particularly in Wigmore. The leaflet may have contained some statements on his party's policies but as he didn't see fit to put them on the front page, I didn't see fit to open it and read them. A candidate who defines himself by who he isn't, does not deserve my support.

Besides, as the Conservative spinners will no doubt soon find the courage to advertise, "Vote Clegg, get Brown". Already Lord Voldemandelson, is making noises about the common ground between the parties, preparing for a coalition in which the same old puppeteers (including him) would pull the strings. A hung parliament is probably bad for the country, a hung parliament with Labour still in power would be infinitely worse.

I don't buy the argument that Gordon Brown has no mandate to be PM, at least not on the grounds that are commonly stated. We don't elect the Prime Minister, we choose MPs who then choose their leader. The West Lothian question is a different matter entirely, but not something to which there will be any resolution until Scotland gains independence or England gets its own parliament. I'm also dissatisfied with the notion that Brown is unsuitable to lead the country because he lacks charisma. Blair had that in bags and look where it got us. I can even tolerate that strange thing he does with his lower lip, whilst suspecting his own wife must want to punch him by the end of an evening spent together.

My objection to Brown's reelection is that his government is no longer fit to govern. The moral authority vanished when Blair decided to invade Iraq, based ostensibly on evidence that was either misguided or misleading. Incompetence or dishonesty - neither is a particularly attractive trait for a government. Then there's the economy, which has gone to hell in a handbasket. Admittedly the UK is not alone, we just have it worse than most. Brown was a disastrous Chancellor, although I will concede he delivered on his promise to end boom and bust... by getting rid of the boom. Who increased public borrowing to levels that threaten to cripple the British economy for the next decade? The same man who now claims we should trust him to lead us out of the very mess he got us into. I've had enough of broken promises (remember the referendum on Europe? Brown doesn't) and the same old slimeballs finding their way back into government - I'm thinking of you, Mandy and Camby.

In the midst of all this sits Paul Clark MP (Lab), a loyalist who did his time in local politics and has represented Gillingham for 13 years, no mean feat after it had been Conservative since 1950. He floated into the Commons on the wave of Blairite revolution and has held on, most recently with a majority of under 300. His voting record suggests unwavering alignment with the whip, sometimes at the expense of his constituents' interests - which may be why he is now a junior transport minister. (Anyone see the irony of him voting in favour of trashing our train service?) I have no particular gripe with him but he hardly demands reward for his faithful service to the people of Gillingham.

My conclusion: I may have to vote Conservative. It's a decision I won't take lightly, not least because I'm old enough to remember that the last Tory government wasn't a roaring success. I have no confidence that Cameron & co would do a better job than the current lot. But, I believe they at least deserve a chance. And frankly I'm desperate for change.

Whether the country agrees, remains to be seen. At least they're interested. And for that at least we should be grateful to Nick Clegg.

Gary, gone but never to be forgotten

2010-03-16T12:22:00.001-07:00

I attended my first burial today. By that I mean a proper hole-in-the-ground, handful-of-soil burial, earth to earth and dust to dust; none of this open-curtain-shut-curtain business. It was a beautiful spring afternoon, warm sunshine easing aside the nip in the air as we stood in the village churchyard. Exactly the sort of day, as someone commented, that our neighbour Gary would have been pottering in his front garden, intercepting the residents of the close for a quick (sometimes prolonged) chat as they came and went. Instead he was the centre of attention in a different manner.

Gary, bless him, was going deaf and consequently turned his TV up so loud that at times it kept Adam awake. I really didn't want to raise the subject because I knew he would feel bad - and fate intervened in a cruel way to prevent the discussion. Instead my last conversation with Gary before his sudden death was about our lawn, specifically its recovery after being covered in building materials for nearly a year. I can't think of a more fitting topic to conclude our years as neighbours. Not long after we moved in, he took it upon himself one day to mow our front lawn. He continued to do so occasionally even after his own front garden had been paved, for no other reason than that he was a kind man. And he loved to talk about lawncare and his plans for his garden.

Fleetingly I was sad that those plans never came to fruition. Then I realised that if Gary had lived to 120 he would never have finished. He was a planner and a tinkerer, but not a completer. (Sarah might say I should know.) The front garden was presentable, but the back expressed a paradox of beauty and chaos. He spent many an hour using some of the noisiest mowers you'll ever hear, one of which he later donated to us. Many more hours were devoted to spreading sand, fertiliser and other concoctions designed to produce a perfect square of grass. He'd been a greenkeeper earlier in life and it showed in the results. But the only time the edges were ever strimmed was when I did it for him. And his garden was also a collection point for homeless tools, upturned outdoor furniture, empty pots and lengths of mesh, timber, hosepipe and the like. Anything that ought to have had a home in one of his three sheds, didn't. My occasional guilt at the state of our garden compared to my neighbour's aspirations, tended to dissolve as soon as I actually looked over the fence.

You know what? That was the great thing about Gary. He loved people and loved life - sometimes to the extent that we wished he would slow down a bit - yet he never pretended to be anything other than himself: ordinary, human, contradictory and fallible. The number of neighbours at the funeral today was proof that the close won't be the same without him.

Gary Goodchild, RIP.

Dilemma of the week

2010-01-06T13:10:00.000-08:00

Because it's been cold these past few days, I've been wearing two pairs of socks. Which pair need washing, the pair next to my feet or the pair open to the weather? Or does each pair get only half the dirt? If that's the case, can I wear the same pair of pairs for two days before they need washing? Should I wear the inside pair on the outside for the second day to even out the dirtiness?

I only wish I could think of a terrible pun to conclude this entry.

Hell's Kitchens

2010-01-06T13:06:00.000-08:00

I have a strained relationship with the A303. It's full of promise, being the route to relaxing short breaks in Cornwall, yet seems to hold the destination ever at arm's length. The scenery is beautiful in places, at the cost of fast progress. It's far more interesting than the M4-M5 option, but frustrating.

My biggest bugbear about the 303 is the abysmal quality of the food. You might think anything beats motorway services. But this road always covers breakfast time on our early-morning journeys west, and the only eateries open are Little Chefs. Heston Blumenthal, who was named after a motorway service station (possibly) and is the only chef ever to cook a meal in a Little Chef, got his hands on Popham, near the M3, a couple of years ago but unfortunately that's not usually open by the time we pass. Last week, circumstances obliged us to make a reluctant repeat visit to the same one as last time. It shall remain nameless for fear of libel.

I went for the "Healthy Choice Breakfast" and very nearly found myself with a bowl of Frosties. Don't get me wrong, I like Frosties, but when they're presented as a healthy option you know you're in trouble. Last time we were there, Sarah ordered porridge, thinking no one could get mess that up. Wrong. It arrived looking like putty in both colour and consistency. More fool Sarah, she ate it. This time she looked for something even safer and spotted fried eggs on toast. I'm told - I had no desire to sample this for myself - that the egg was rubbery. No complaints from the boys about their meals; I wouldn't expect any as frankly they aren't gourmands. And the tea was OK - it even came in a pot. All this was dumped on our table by a waitress who I remembered from last time for her particularly unfriendly manner. Talk about service with a sulk. Nor was she alone in being apparently begrudging of our custom. Before leaving we used the toilets. Sarah reported the ladies' was in a poor condition. In the gents', the urinals were sealed off with bin bags and an explanation that they were blocked, and the cubicle wall had come detached from the floor. What amazed me was that the "restaurant" was still busy. But they will see not a penny of our money in future. I'd rather forage for overnight roadkill than breakfast there.

On the return journey, in late afternoon soon after New Year, the red and white chap in the hat was not an option. Sarah and I alone would have adjourned to one of the many roadside pubs offering home-cooked food and a suspicious welcome, but the boys were keen on something in a bun. After long delays in the single-carriageway sections of the A303 we eventually found ourselves in a Harvester on a retail park not far from Stonehenge. I'm not a big fan of Harvesters but I've never had a meal there as bad as this one. Our waitress may also have been the cook and the car park steward, for the frequency of her visits to our table. They'd run out of burgers and mashed potato. How can a restaurant run out of mash yet continue to offer chips? By the time we finished our solitary course a full ninety minutes later they were turning away customers because there was nothing for them to eat. Frankly they didn't miss much. Sarah's chicken was overcooked. We easily could have left without paying the bill, so drastically were the few staff past coping.

And that, dear readers, is why, for all the isolated splendour of the standing stones, and the breathtaking passage across the Blackdown Hills, I really can't bring myself to love the A303.

Horrid Henry

2009-11-20T13:41:00.001-08:00

It hasn't been a good week for football. It's been one to make you shut your eyes tight, press your fingers into your ears and hope that it will all be right again soon.

Today came the news from Germany that 200 matches across Europe are under investigation for match-fixing, and arrests have been made in several countries. It's an open secret that in Italy and some other places, results are arranged, and both there and in Germany referees have been embroiled in scandal. But no one really wants to talk about it, in case the can of worms is a bit bigger. It seems that there may be a whole canning factory out there.

As for the World Cup qualifiers this week, thousands of column inches and probably hundreds of blogs have commented on Thierry Henry's handball. Most things that could be said already have been, along with considerable helpings of piffle. The latter includes several Arsenal alumni commending Henry's previous saintliness, describing this incident as out of character. They can't have been watching his handball against Rangers in the Champions League a few years back, or the disgraceful attempt to get Carles Puyol sent off in the last World Cup. Few footballers are angels but Titi clearly has form.

Henry is not only an adept juggler, he's also great at throwing in empty gestures later than a Paul Scholes tackle. He admitted his handball to the Irish players - after the game had finished. He called for the game to be replayed - after FIFA said there was no chance. How sporting of him, what a gentleman. For better or worse though, football fans have long memories and this incident will define his career much as Maradona's brilliance is rarely mentioned without reference to the Hand of God goal.

The result will stand and Henry will not be punished because there are no rules in place to provide for either. Just like there were no rules in place that allowed FIFA to seed the qualification play-offs, until it looked as though both Germany and France might need some assistance reaching South Africa. And just like there were no rules by which UEFA could punish Eduardo for a blatant dive earlier in the season, as Arsenal's lawyers pointed out after he'd been banned for two games.

According to some observers, the Irish missing out on the World Cup was down to them missing chances to wrap up the tie. It's true that Henry's intervention need not have been decisive, and is not unique in the history of the game (even of that match) but does that mean it should be forgiven? Either he cheated or he didn't. In many things, black or white is too simple but in this case we don't need a shade of grey. Try the "Other people do it too" defence in a court of law...

As to whether video replays should be introduced to football, I don't understand why it's still an open issue. Tennis, rugby, cricket, baseball and even American football (despite seven arbiters) use technology to help officials make decisions during the game. Horse racing, F1 and cycling employ video footage for stewards' enquiries. If it's good enough for those sports, what makes football so superior that we can't benefit from it? In fact, footballers can be exonerated or banned on the basis of video evidence, at disciplinary committees. Yet somehow no one has had the balls to let a man with a monitor help with big decisions. The ref on Wednesday could not have seen Henry's offence, without the benefit of a mirror or X-ray vision. Maybe his assistant should have but he was 50 yards away and didn't even see two players in an offside position. The ref must have had an inkling something was wrong but he can't give what he didn't see. A 20-second view of the video would have caused the goal to be disallowed and Henry booked, and maybe the game would have gone to penalties.

Referees have an almost impossible job at times: there's a limit how much the human eye can record and the brain process, of events at high speed. We have the technology to help. Let's use it. And while we're at it, let's ban the divers.

I hold a lifelong love of Gillingham FC. I defy anyone to watch Arsenal or Barcelona at their best and not admire the pace, fluency, poetry, the sheer beauty of how the players move and work as a team. I defy anyone not to be astonished when Manchester United lose to Burnley, or go two goals down to a Russian nonentity in the Champions League. I defy anyone not to be intrigued by Rafa Benitez's transfer policy, Real Madrid's bottomless expenditure, Phil Brown's permatan. Yet football magnifies what's bad, rather than good, about the modern world. And I don't really want to see corruption, greed, ungraciousness every Saturday; the politicians and bankers are busy enough with it during the week. Fortunately today is Friday, so you'll have to excuse me because there's a League One match just about to finish and I want to know the result...

Road kill

2009-07-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

The American car industry is in big trouble. After a few days here, I know why. Their cars are rubbish. Actually I knew that before I came to Houston: it's hardly a secret.

The strange thing is, Americans still live to drive. Cars remain a staple of TV advertising. This week I twice caught an ad for the Chevy Equinox, 32mpg on the highway. This was billed in green capitals as "The most fuel-efficient crossover on the road". In terms of being damned with faint praise it's right up there with "Slightly less ugly than the Ssangyong Rodius".

I thought fuel economy information might be mandatory in US adverts, but Range Rover studiously ignore it, preferring to venture into anorak territory with "best-in-class residual values". Chevrolet, undeterred, boasts that the Silverado truck (pickup) does 21mpg. There are thousands of trucks in Houston, even though the roads are smooth and no one needs to carry anything in the back, other than spare jerrycans, presumably.

The continuing popularity of American cars in America has shielded the US motor industry from an unpalatable truth: they are behind the times. Nowhere else in the world would 21mpg, or even 32mpg, be considered a selling point. Ford and GM have made some great cars for the global market; Chrysler made some really bad ones. But in the US market they took all the best features of their rivals' vehicles, ignored them and kept doing what they'd been doing for decades, churning out gas-guzzlers the size of Minnesota. Finally, as economic restrictions and high gasoline prices bite, Americans are realising that foreign cars are often more efficient, better designed, more reliable, better built, heck, even better looking. Japanese and European cars are gaining a foothold in the States even as American cars become more disdained and less bought in other parts of the world. It sounds just like the UK motor industry in the 70s.

I don't underestimate the human impact on cities like Detroit when huge companies run into trouble. But there's some comfort to be had from knowing it's happening because a proud nation is recognising it doesn't know best and needs to change its ways. The day that the Silverado, the Equinox and Ford's humungous F-Series become pariahs on the roads of the US, will be a sunny one for humanity.

Back in the land of the free (refill)

2009-07-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

For the third July running, I am in Houston, Texas, which pretty much guarantees the reinstatement of any weight I may have lost recently. A few nights ago I saw on TV a man nearly as fat as a couple of days eating Texan makes me feel. His name is Prince Fielder and he offically weighs 268lb (and the rest). And here's the thing, he is a professional sportsman: a first baseman for the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team.

He was on ESPN participating in the Home Run Derby in front of a full house in St Louis. This consisted of Fielder and several slenderer rivals slugging tame pitches as far as possible. Not exactly riveting even by baseball's low standard of thrills, but the fans were lapping it up. Whoever catches a home run ball gets to keep it and their value seemed not to diminish even as the zillionth plopped into the spare hand of a man wrestling with a burger and coke, or a boy in an outsized hat. I assumed this joust of the juggernauts was the warm-up for a league game but I was wrong. It was the final of a huge competition and Fielder won a trophy not for being the hugest, but for hitting the most home runs.

The football equivalent would be rewarding the player who can score most penalty kicks against a blindfolded goalkeeper. Then again, a footballer as huge as Prince Fielder wouldn't even be able to manage the run-up. But that's the thing about the USA: conventions are turned on their head. You don't need a brain to be president, you don't need to be fit to be a sportsman. It's a land of opportunity for all.

Chariots of fire

2009-07-15T16:38:00.000-07:00

My list of athletic achievements is not extensive. I was never a particularly fast runner at school, although over longer distances I sometimes managed to outlast my more easily bored rivals. Although a regular member of the school football teams between the ages of 10 and 13, I was probably the worst goalkeeper ever to set foot on a pitch - and after that my lack of height meant opponents could lob the ball over me instead of relying on my butter fingers. As a cyclist, my enthusiasm has always exceeded my speed. And a lack of hand-eye coordination works against me when it comes to badminton and squash.

So it was with some trepidation that I entered the dads' race at sports day this week. I agreed to take part because Adam desperately wanted me to, even though I suspected his pride and confidence in me might not last beyond the first few strides of the race. It was also a slightly altruistic move, believing it was better that I finish last (as I inevitably would) than some dad who was ultra-competitive and might need counselling for the trauma. I didn't think I could last 60m, let alone race it. Forget dead last, anything other than dead would be a triumph.

It turned out that machismo and competitive urges generated a sizeable field of entrants, for such a small school. (It must be said this is a school with an abnormally high proportion of nuclear families.) There being too many to fit on the track at once, someone suggested the dads should be divided by age, 35 being the cut-off. As I looked around I questioned who would fall into the younger group and realised on age handicap alone I might have a chance. As it turned out the 15 or so dads were split according to who was keener, and I found myself in the second race. This put me up against Luke, who was a couple of years ahead of me at school and is as weedy as ever (although a lovely chap). Now here was someone I could beat - and who would cope with the shame of it.

The whistle blew and we were off, in a blur of slow motion. After about 20m I was behind Luke, which by my reckoning meant I must be last and knew I would have to find another gear. I have to say, by the finish line I was in full flight. I was confident I hadn't come last, because as I turned around after almost hitting the boundary fence a dad was only just crossing the line. But suddenly one of the finish-line judges was slapping a sticker on me: 3rd!

It's fair to say this is one of the finest achievements of my recent life. Sarah listed the names of the people I'd beaten and in fact I wasn't that far behind the winner. I am choosing to overlook the likelihood that the first race was the faster of the two, so third of about eight might equate to 11th of 16. Adam was in fact quite proud of me. I believe it is time for me to retire gracefully, lest I fail to live up to raised expectations next year. In any case Sarah has promised to enter the mums' race...

Because it's there

2009-07-10T12:43:00.000-07:00

Once a year, as summer's sweaty fug gives way to mornings of uncertain cloud, Wigmore Cycling Club holds an event at Hollingbourne Hill, just north of Maidstone. The official course record is three minutes 1.7 seconds. A couple of Saturdays ago I did it in under two minutes. Unfortunately I was going down the hill, while the Wigmore CC Open Hill Climb has its nature not at all concealed in the name. I happened to be passing through Hollingbourne and thought it a good idea to acquaint myself with the challenge; how hard could it be? The road snakes like a tarmac cobra on the side of the North Downs, a simile that sounds even worse once you get to the neck, upright and venomous. Six minutes of sweat and burning legs had me eventually at the farm gate that marks the summit, and I vehemently believed I was about to expire in a gory explosion of overwrought ventricles and taut sinews.

And that is one of several reasons why my ride from Land's End to John O'Groats next year may not happen. Hollingbourne Hill is one of the most severe climbs in Kent but at only 1400 yards long and 100m of ascent it doesn't compare to the monsters of Cornwall and the wild north. My hopes of coping with a sequence of those in ten successive 90-mile days are twofold, and one of them is Bob. If, however, my confidence suddenly grows by time October comes around, I might go back to Hollingbourne Hill and try again. Not under the eye of Wigmore's stopwatches, but in the company of someone with a handily placed calendar to record which day I start and finish.

I'm old and I know I am

2009-07-09T11:31:00.001-07:00

I am completely out of touch with the yoof of today. This isn't surprising: I know very few teenagers and those I do, tend to be too monosyllabic to convey their thoughts. Sarah reckons I would like Kings of Leon yet hasn't seen fit to buy me an album and I can't remember hearing any of their music. One of my colleagues is Pixie Lott's cousin and provides frequent updates on her burgeoning career but again I've no idea what she sounds like. It's 20 years since I made crude tapes of the Top 40 with Bruno Brookes and then Mark Goodier, tried to predict who would be where, failed to understand why my peers bought Stock Aitken and Waterman songs, and longed for Erasure to be run over by a bus. At least with the current phase of reunion tours I recognise some of the names, although I doubt many of them have any credibility to those aged around 15. Music is only one aspect. I also don't understand why most boys' trousers fall down all the time and couldn't tell the difference between a goth and an emo, or why R-Patz is the hunk of the season rather than Zac Efron.

Thankfully my sons are a few years away from teenagehood, which gives me time to familiarise myself with current trends, before they pass me by in a blur.

There are times though when I'm glad not to understand the world of the young. The tragic story of Shakilus Townsend, whose killers were sentenced yesterday, was one example. Another day, another knife murder - but maybe not. Shakilus Townsend wasn't as innocent as some victims - he was a young offender - but he died because he had a crush on a gang leader's girlfriend. According to the BBC, she felt used by the gangster and led Shakilus on. He paid her attention and offered her gifts. He warned her she was in danger because her boyfriend was angry. And then this girl of 15, presented with a choice, sided with the villain and lured the nice guy into a trap which cost him his life. It's a strange world where being kind and friendly, without it seems any return, is valued less than a knife and an orange dress code.

I do worry at time what kind of a life my boys will grow up into. Knife crime isn't prevalent in Wigmore - or even in the Medway Towns in general - but who knows what the menace will be in 10 years' time. Today I read Shakilus's mother gave birth at 17, which probably seemed like a good idea at the time, with no idea of the "madness" that lay around the corner. What kind of a life did she anticipate her son would have? Certainly not one that ended as it did.

Michael Jackson: Sad

2009-06-29T05:05:00.000-07:00

The King of Pop is dead. I was shocked when I saw the headlines. I know he'd lost weight, but surely divorcing Jordan can't be fatal? Then I found out it wasn't Peter Andre who had died, it was the much-loved, much-loathed, much-mocked Wacko Jacko.

The newspapers have been full of tributes. I read a great quote by a so-called journalist who wrote "Everyone loves Michael Jackson's music." Everyone? I don't. Not that I count, seeing as I still think Then Jerico were underrated and T'Pau were one of the greatest bands ever. But I can't think of a Jackson track I really like. Even "Smooth Criminal" wouldn't make it onto my iPod, although the deliciously ironic "Black or White" never ceases to raise a smile.

Michael Jackson was, admittedly, the man who sold about five billion records in the 80s and released an album as recently as eight years ago. But if he hadn't become a walking freakshow he would long since be old news. It's fair to say I don't feel a great sense of personal loss at his passing. If there's any sadness it's for his children. But then I wonder how good a father he was to them - he claimed to love children yet dangled a baby off a balcony and made the others wear masks in public. And looking at the pictures of his older two children, Prince Michael and Michael Princess or whatever they're called, they are even whiter and less negroid than his recent persona, which causes me to doubt their father died this week.

Seems to me, Michael Jackson's life could be encompassed in a single word: sad. In both the conventional and colloquial senses of the word. From childhood exploitation and alleged physical abuse by his father, through years of disfiguring cosmetic surgery, trying to be best friends with sick children, spending money he didn't have on things he didn't need and couldn't value, deriving children from unconventional relationships, and settling lawsuits, it seemed his talent and success brought him nothing but chaos and misery. He was clearly deeply unhappy in his own skin - and whatever replaced it over the years. According to his autopsy he died chronically underweight, bald and with a stomach containing nothing but pills. (Kind of the opposite to Elvis.)

Try telling me he should be hailed as hero to a generation.

Halfway to double Dutch

2009-03-06T00:11:00.000-08:00

Goedemorgen! That, I fear, is the extent of my Dutch and I know that only because I read it on the restaurant menu this morning. And boy do I feel guilty.

I'm on my fourth visit to the Hague and wish I could speak a decent amount of Dutch. There's no good reason for that wish. I'm at the headquarters of one of the world's biggest companies and English is the lingua franca even among those who aren't first-language anglophones. Besides, most Dutch speak English better than the average inhabitant of south-east England. But there's something philistinistic about going abroad and not being able to meet the locals on their own terms. In ages past, marauders forced submission through superior weaponry. Now, we English wander into foreign lands expecting that our hosts will comply with our wishes because they know our language. It's a big sharp sword of a different kind. Perhaps many Anglo-Saxons, descended from the pillagers of old, are quite happy to wield the power. I simply feel uncomfortable with it.

Dutch is, to the impartial observer, not a language with a great deal to recommend it. The only language to make German sound soothing, it's spoken by a couple of dozen million people in a windy corner of the world's smallest continent, by a few hundred thousand in considerably sunnier climes and understood by a minority in southern Africa. Most of these also speak at least one other language to a high standard. Pronunciation is baffling - witness commentators' attempts to pronounce the names of football luminaries like Cruyff, Kluivert, Kuyt and Guus Hiddink. Whereas I could make a decent stab at single words in several west European languages, Dutch defeats me. Even the name of this place is baffling: Den Haag is a corrupted, ostensibly illogical, short form of 's Gravenhage. Is there another country in the world that allows placenames to start with an apostrophe? 's Hertogenbosch as well - how on earth do you pronounce that? And Cruyff can be spelled Cruijff, because ij and y are interchangeable. Eh?

And yet. And yet. The Hague is reputed to be a dull place to live, unless you like trams and canals or contracting hypothermia or bacterial infections in the North Sea. But I was reassured yesterday when one of my colleagues, bemoaning the limited shopping, hinted the language barrier hasn't been entirely broken down. "You hear rumours that there are good shops around, but no one ever tells you exactly where," she said. Maybe Dutch is alive and well as a preserver of secrets from the expatriate multitude.

My my, how could I resist you? Er, quite easily.

2009-01-19T14:15:00.000-08:00

Sarah has been pestering me for months to watch Mamma Mia! She went to the cinema with her friends, one at a time, in order to see it multiple times. She even took Adam. She bought the soundtrack the day it was released. She bought the DVD the day it was released. And finally at the weekend Daniel requested it as our family film time film - brainwashing taken to an extreme.

I should say at this point that I loved the stage show and not just because it was at the Prince Edward Theatre, which is by far my favourite West End venue. I also like some Abba songs and have enjoyed the soundtrack - or at least those sections repeated for singalongs in the car. But I didn't really get the film.

Part of the problem is that it tried to be real and yet wasn't. Perhaps that's my lack of familiarity with musical film tradition showing through, perhaps it's because I can remember what it looked like on stage. In the theatre you willingly play along with the conceit that this few hundred square feet of wood is really somewhere exotic and because it's all make-believe it doesn't seem so ridiculous that the characters should suddenly burst into song. Transport the action to a real Greek island with bona fide trees, genuine sunshine and stonework that would hurt if it fell on your toe, and it's more difficult to explain the uneasy transition between speech and what passes for singing. I think Chicago, which was much closer to a straight filming of the stage show (and which I also haven't seen live), made the transition more smoothly despite some unlikely casting.

And that brings me to the inhabitants, permanent and temporary, of the island. I rather liked Stellan Skarsgard and Colin Firth played his archetypal bumbling Englishman with the usual charm and an unexpected campness. The young lovebirds were fine - although we noted in the DVD extras that off screen Amanda Sayfried's skin is considerably less flawless than the Greek sun made it appear. Julie Walters was great and I didn't like Christine Baranski's Tanya, which I think was supposed to be the point.

Then there was Pierce Brosnan. He wasn't a terrible Bond, and might have been better if the scripts had been up to much. But the only films I've liked him in were The Fourth Protocol (over 20 years ago) and the Thomas Crown remake. In Mamma Mia! his singing has come in for criticism - and rightly so. It's better than mine, but not by much. Yet it was Pavarottiesque compared to his accent. He couldn't remember from one scene to the next whether his character was English, Irish or American.

And then there was Meryl Streep, last seen by me turning out a mesmerising performance in The Devil Wears Prada. This time though I just didn't understand the casting. At no point was she convincing as the mother of a 20-year-old - even less so as the mother of a 20-year-old conceived as the result of a summer of love. Irrespective of the timeline - which seems rather confused - surely Donna should be in her mid-4os. Dear Meryl is about 15 years too old and looks it. I'm full of admiration for her rendition of "The Winner Takes It All", probably my favourite Abba song, but her character is supposed to be tired because of worldweariness, not plain old age.

And the ending, although true to the stage show (as I remember it), was too sickly for words. Even Dame Julie couldn't redeem that one.

Now, where's that classic work of cinematic genius, Torque?

A mystery solved

2009-01-07T15:38:00.000-08:00

I have often wondered why people drove such rubbish cars in the late 80s and early 90s. The obvious answer is that all cars of that era were rubbish. It surely can't be true. One of these days Mssrs Clarkson, May and Hammond will do a Top Gear episode in which they find some classics from that era, as opposed to comedically decrepit Alfas or (recently) 1970s British and Soviet-Bloc junkheaps. Thinking back to the teachers' car park at my secondary school - which may not be the best benchmark for motoring taste but was the closest I came to a representative sample - I remember a black Lancia and an MG Midget. The latter purported to be a sports car but had the gearbox from a Morris Marina. Whatever the other teachers drove, made no impression on me.

A neighbour of ours had three Austin Maxis and I can remember pushing a friend's Allegro up their drive. My mum was driven to comment on the non-existent ride quality after a lift in a 2CV - the only time I've ever heard her voice an opinion on a car. In the early 80s my dad did up a Triumph 2000 (with overdrive - it was the future) and when he topped 100mph on the M6 it was the equivalent for us boys of a journey into space. I also remember a borrowed Peugeot 604 so huge and thirsty it needed a police escort in front and a petrol tanker close behind; and a Rover SD1 which looked great and had comfortable seats but exhibited typical British build quality for the time (i.e. none). He eventually progressed up the ladder of mediocrity to a couple of Vauxhall Carltons, which had central locking that actually worked most of the time.

Among all the cars listed above I don't think there's a single one whose departure from the roads was mourned. Worst of all, a university friend of mine owned a Lada Riva. Its "solid" construction was a useful asset given his erratic driving skills and that's the only good thing I could ever say about it. I once attempted a three-point turn and discovered it had no recognisable gears. His was last heard of parked in a field, which is its proper home - preferably squarely in the gunsight of a nearby tank. You may recall one was sliced in half by Bond's laser wheels in "The Living Daylights" and even if he'd cut it into a thousand pieces it would still have been too few.

But today I believe I found a clue as to why slow-moving rust buckets such as these were so popular. I decided to enliven yet another tedious journey to life-sapping Ikea with some classic rock and it so happened that Sarah had crammed The Joshua Tree into the glove box. I hadn't listened to its entirety for years although I have the big hits on my iPod. Part-way home, into the unfamiliar later tracks, I started to hear weird noises. Just for a moment I thought the car was breaking down. Then I realised it was U2 doing experimental things with their instruments. Therein lies the explanation.

From about 1988 onwards everyone was listening to this album in their cars and couldn't tell that the bearings were shot, the fan belt about to break and the wheelarches audibly rusting away, because "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "Exit" hid the noise. Indeed they thought Bono and his cronies were geniuses to produce such an exciting range of sounds. The tingle up the spine wasn't because the music was great, but attributable to the draughtiness of cars at anything over 20mph. And when the vehicle burst into flames or expired in a cloud of acrid smoke, the idea for U2's stadium shows was born.

I am delighted to have been of assistance in solving such a long-standing mystery. I shall revel in the warm glow of success as I attempt to erase from memory my experiences as a passenger in a first-generation Fiat Panda.

Happy New Year...

2009-01-07T15:25:00.000-08:00

...to my reader. If you're out there, please post a comment so I know I have an audience other than myself.

Christmas was so hectic that I haven't given much thought to writing. But Adam came out with two classics over the holiday which it's worth recounting.

Sarah's dad and stepmum, David and Alex, were with us for a couple of days and the levels of noise, excitement and activity were quite a shock to them, I think. But they seemed to enjoy themselves and over Christmas dinner Alex embarked upon a joke.

"Do you know why the fairy sits on top of the tree? One year Santa was overworked in the run-up to Christmas. The elves were flat out but it didn't look like the presents would be finished and by Christmas Eve, Santa was getting snappy. There had been too many interruptions already. Then the Christmas fairy put her head around the door. 'I've got the tree here. What do you want me to do with it?'"

There was abundant laughter among the adults. Adam looked puzzled, then enquired, "What did Santa tell her to do with it?"

And a couple of days ago, Sarah was contemplating taking the boys to the cinema but was concerned that Adam was too tired. "I won't take you if you're going to fall asleep." Adam replied: "It's in the future Mummy. I don't know if I'm going to fall asleep!"

Who'd have thought it - my son pointing out the obvious.

I don't have a clue what's going on

2008-12-11T13:51:00.000-08:00

"You're not like most IT people I know." When my friend Kellie said this she'd only just met me and I didn't know whether it was meant as a compliment. To be on the safe side I took it as one and it turned out I was right. Her husband is also a non-conformist IT person; her perception apparently is slightly unkempt men in black t-shirts and jeans who rarely see sunlight and spend their non-working hours sitting at the home computer. Admittedly I do pass hours on Facebook and (occasionally) blogging but she was thinking more of online role-playing games, assembling machine code and hacking into the Russian nuclear arsenal.

Other people assume that because call myself a computer programmer I must be a techie. That's like mistaking a chauffeur for a mechanic. He doesn't need to know what's happening under the bonnet unless the car starts going wrong, or he finds the engine bay fascinating. I very definitely try to keep the bonnet shut.

Today I spent a bad deal more than three hours in a meeting about migrating application servers to a new dynamic services platform. (Your eyes are glazing over already. So were mine. But lunch was provided.) Around an hour in, discussion turned to TPMC benchmarks and performance slices, at which point one of my colleagues intervened. "I can see a problem here," he said. Me too: I didn't understand the subject at all. It turned out he did and had a valid concern, while I was just thinking about the Engie Benjy theme tune. "There's a problem here without a doubt/Let's look around and check it out." As you can tell, an hour of techie talk and my brain turns to mush.

If anyone can explain why there are five different versions of Windows 2003 Server, when logically one ought to be enough, or knows what a hypervisor is, please let me know. As to what will be "stored on VMFS SAN volume by VMware ESX server", your guess is as good as mine. The list of acronyms went on and on: RACI, iSCSI, DMZ, SATA. I'm sure someone out there understands all this stuff, but I wouldn't want to spend more than a few minutes alone with that person.

I don't build home networks or disassemble disk drives for fun. Nor have I memorised every IP address in the western world or read Computing Weekly. I just try to make things work a bit better for people in my office. So next time you have a problem with your PC/printer/MSWord/Excel/Outlook/modem/ISP/dongle/iPhone, improve your chances of getting a correct answer: walk straight past me and ask the nearest eight-year-old.

Let the train cause the strain - and the doctor not cure it

2008-12-05T06:32:00.000-08:00

My train home was 30 seconds early one day this week. Just thought I’d mention it. You have to be careful with punctuality-related vocabulary. “On time” doesn’t in fact mean “as per the time shown on the timetable”, it refers to any time within 10 minutes of that shown. Obvious really. The railways don’t make much sense at all, frankly. The trains are owned by venture capitalists and run by a hotch-potch of franchisees on track that’s maintained (or not) by a variety of private companies contracted to a publicly-owned replacement for a previous privatised government department – and all overseen by a toothless watchdog.

I’m not old enough to remember the heady days of BR properly: days out to London on the train in the 80s were impossibly exciting but I suspect that was due to the adventure rather than the quality of the rolling stock, some of which was orange. In the post-privatisation era Connex, who previously operated water pipes in France, proved inept and lost their franchise. I can’t even remember the name of the next company to take over Kent’s trains but they were almost as bad for quite a while. Then, just as they started to improve the service to Third World standards, they were booted out and SouthEastern Trains took over. With their shiny new rolling stock they’ve made inroads but still punctuality is a sticking point. And although they hide behind (or under) leaves on the line and the inadequacies of Network Rail, it seems to me the real problem is targets.

The government, or one of its quangoes, supplied the rail companies with detailed information about the arrival times of their services, told them they had to match the timetables, and allowed them to modify the timetables. You didn’t have to be a prophet to predict what would happen next. My regular trains to and from work used to be scheduled to arrive at 8.31 and 18.20 respectively, and were late (in the normal sense of the word) more often than not. Now four minutes has been added to each timetable and curiously enough, punctuality has improved. This is aided by the 10-minute leeway which allows the rail companies to boast 90+% of trains are “on time” and the government to bask in reflected glory. In the real world, our journeys are still as long as before. Sometimes longer: at the fringes of peak time and in the evenings, trains are frequently held at stations because they’ve arrived early but can’t leave until the new timetable allows. I’ve heard it said that fast trains from Margate to London take longer now than in 1947, where locomotives ran on smelly Welsh coal and the carriages were made from old packing cases. So much for progress. Give me a train that’s fast rather than punctual, please, if you can. But it won’t happen because the current situation is too cosy: shareholders get a dividend; the inherent deficiencies of the whole set-up are hidden; and fewer poor-performance fines have to be paid from taxpayer subsidies.

It’s not only rail passengers that suffer from crazy targets. Our doctor must see within 48 hours every patient who makes an appointment – it’s in his patient charter, or something. What it means in reality is that the receptionist takes bookings only 48 hours ahead and once the list is full, you have to ring back the following day. Genius or madness? The only beneficiaries are the consultants paid to find loopholes in these nanny-state regulations.

If I could draw up targets like this, I would oblige myself to attend work only once a week. Then I could turn up a whole twice and declare it a minor triumph which qualified me for a bonus.

Seeing as I can’t set my own performance targets, I will direct towards those in government who think these things are a great idea, an ancient Arab insult: May the leaves of a thousand trees delay your journey home. I fear it may fall on deaf ears as they sit in their limos.

2008-11-26T06:31:00.000-08:00

Here's a little riddle for you.

Three men named Andrew arrange to meet in a bar. They were all born in the same decade - which one?
For the answer, highlight the space below.
The 1970s

I thought about this last week whilst with two old friends who happen to share my name. We met at university and I hadn't seen one of them for 12 years; I once went on holiday with the other and stayed at his parents' house but despite being erstwhile housemates our paths hadn't crossed for three years. It was good to meet up but it brought back an old dilemma about naming. The erstwhile housemate was resolutely Andrew (perhaps because he'd been to public school) and I'd always been Andrew but because I didn't mind Andy, that's what I became at uni to differentiate between us in the house. Then I met my wife who had a brother called Andy and either although or because they weren't close she preferred to call me Andrew again. My nameplate at work says Andy because it fitted better (I was told) but everyone calls me Andrew (to my face). The third friend of the recent reunion, incidentally, was and still is Andy.

It seems future generations will not be faced with the dilemma. In 2007, Andrew was the 99th most popular boys' name for babies born in England and Wales - down from a heady 74th in 2003. Considering Tyler, Jayden and Oscar made the top 40, I'm frankly insulted. Then there are Logan, Mason and Riley in the 50s, Kian, Ellis, Harley, Bailey, Luca and Ashton between 68 and 76, and Morgan, Corey, Taylor and even Louie, all above my noble name. As for Kai (62) and Jay (96), they aren't names, they're letters.

Incidentally, I know there are Andrews out there who weren't born in the 1970s. It's just that there aren't enough that they would be friends with each other. As if to prove my point, in 1974 Andrew was the fourth most popular name for baby boys. It's the only year ending in 4 in which Andrew has made the top five.

The times they are a-changin'

2008-09-16T03:11:00.000-07:00

A change, it is said, is as good as a rest. The 5,000 tearful employees of Lehman Brothers who were turfed out onto the glossy streets of Canary Wharf yesterday probably didn't welcome the sudden change in their circumstances, but it's OK because they'll now have plenty of time to rest, whilst looking for new jobs in a chaotic market. London has always been a fast-moving city but at the moment it's helter-skelter.

I returned after a few days away to discover Cannon Street station swathed in scaffolding, the preparatory stage of a huge redevelopment project. As fast as companies are shedding staff from the Docklands, new office buildings are appearing in the City itself, most of them apparently destined to remain empty for the foreseeable future.

It's also a time of change for me personally. In late July, I and around 70 colleagues were hit by the bombshell that the project we were working on, was to be relocated to Houston, leaving us to guess what might come next. The contractors have been leaving and as of yesterday I'm officially in limbo, pending a decision on whose team I should join. I have been putting to good use the inverted commas in “working” from home. My team of nine, closely knit over a number of months, is being scattered to the winds.

Even managementspeak is changing. In a meeting yesterday I heard the phrase “in the hopper” (i.e. up for consideration) and “set the hares running” (get people excited without full knowledge of the facts) – and the latter was also used by a loud-phoning man on the train. No doubt there will soon be more job-loss euphemisms like “rolling off”.

I think a lot more change is around the corner. You could probably count on your fingers the people who understand the macroeconomic structure of modern Britain, but a growing number believe the whole financial system is rotten to the core and we are headed for a very nasty fall. There will be more high-profile casualties of the current meltdown, which is proving to be far more than a credit crunch. It's long been argued that socialism breaks down because people are greedy. Now we are being reminded that capitalism also breaks down because people are greedy. And that is one thing that definitely will not change.

A whole new ball game

2008-09-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

At the moment I'm too busy with paint, demolition, invoices and the like to think straight let alone write anything for the blog - although with the kitchen close to completion at last, an update will follow in due course. But as mentioned previously, I was in Houston recently and here's something I wrote in the dead of night but couldn't post because the hotel's internet connection was so feeble...

Baseball. Oft derided for its World Series which includes teams from precisely one continent, but a huge business. And finally after many years of longing I have seen a live game. The "many years of longing" part isn't true actually, and it wasn't much of a game either. The Houston Astros are one of the weakest teams in Major League Baseball and this definitely contributed to the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates looking like, well, World Series winners. It was 5-0 after five innings and when a three-run homer went "out of the ballpark" at the top of the seventh, that was the end of the contest. At least the Astros had the decency to score the last couple of points, but without the home run that would have sent the decorative train on its celebratory run along the top of the outfield. Final score 8-2 to the Pirates, who won 9-3 yesterday evening with seven runs in the ninth inning and who will almost certainly win again tomorrow afternoon.

So much for the game. Even aficionados - and I'm not convinced there were many at the game - didn't seem exactly gripped. But the attendance was almost 34000, which meant one Houstonian in every 70 was in Minute Maid Park on a Tuesday evening to watch two unremarkable teams (correction: one remarkably bad team and one merely moderate) play the second in a three-game miniseries. Our tickets cost $37 each and even in a foreign currency I can do the math. Someone somewhere is making a huge amount of money from baseball and I suspect it was the men singularly failing to hold the attention of the crowd. At any one time about 10 percent of those present were out of their seats fetching refreshments; no one cared that the beer hawkers in the gangways were blocking the view of the game; and there was far more excitement about the between-innings competitions (eg a Hannah Montana look-not-very-alike, trivia contests, which Hummer would win a cartoon race on the big screen) than anything that happened in or around the diamond. The infamous KissCam did catch a guy proposing to his girlfriend and she said yes although it was hard to imagine a less romantic setting.

And you know what? I actually enjoyed it. I wouldn't want to go to the baseball that often because I imagine it's always more of the same, but MMP with the roof open would be a great sight. And it's a family/social event that football in the UK could only aspire to: families with young children, teenagers on dates, middle-aged men, no segregation and the only police on duty were directing traffic. On top of that, the baseball players were among some of the least athletic sportsmen imaginable. And being a Gillingham fan, that sense of impending doom from the very start of the game made me feel right at home.

2008-08-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

I have a love-hate relationship with cycling. Today for example I took five minutes out from work to grab my first chocolate of the day and watch the men's team pursuit final from Beijing. Ed Clancy, Bradley Wiggins, Paul Manning and Geraint Thomas blew the Danes away in a world record time and reminded me how good it feels when everything is in perfect synchronicity, man and machine as one flowing irresistibly across the surface like a swelling tide. I wanted to be somewhere on a bike, anywhere.

Not that many hours later I was on a bike, Sarah's bike, on the hill up from the station. My bike is currently off the road, the consequence of a lazy "maintenance" schedule - that's an aspect of cycling I definitely hate. Sarah's is probably lovely on forest tracks but with a seat you could park a truck on, knobbly tires, no mudguards, bouncy forks and small wheels it's not exactly the perfect commuter. And then the skies unleashed their full fury. Within a couple of minutes I was wetter than when I stepped out of the shower just now - at least in the shower your clothes don't hold the water against your skin. August has had the heaviest rainfall for 100 years and most of it was in my shoes. Any part of me overlooked by the rain was covered by spray from the standing water. I was literally wet through, despite a waterproof jacket. I wanted to be somewhere not on a bike, anywhere.

And so, while Brad and company fly through the streets in all weathers striving for the extra split second that changes silver to gold, I will nibble (OK, gobble) my chocolate bar and marvel from afar.

A traveller's travails

2008-08-07T15:44:00.000-07:00

I don't much like travelling and just recently it seems travelling doesn't like me either. Three weeks ago I spent around 15 hours going to Houston. Two weeks ago I spent about 15 hours coming home again - the better part of the deal, I have to say. Three days later a reorganisation rendered the trip pointless.

On Sunday we spent around seven hours driving to Cornwall, with our niece in tow, for a sunny holiday. On Wednesday evening we spent around six hours driving back, after three days of almost uninterrupted rain. In Cornwall, anyway; we are told that here in Kent it was quite pleasant, even approaching balmy on Monday. Whilst Adam discovered the joys of a 25-foot drop slide at Dairyland near Newquay, twice, because it was one of the few indoor activities we could do (and the return visit was free), I can't honestly say it was 700 miles' petrol well spent. Sarah had already done over 400 miles collecting Emma from Stoke-on-Trent and our poor little car, accustomed to spending long evenings parked outside our house, didn't know what had hit it.

I should probably make clear it's the act of travelling that I don't like, rather than being in a different place. Indeed, often it's only the arriving in a different place that compensates for the journey. Put me on a train and I will fall asleep in minutes. Coaches are nearly as bad. And as a car passenger I will nod off for sure on the motorway. Fortunately I find it easier to stay awake when driving, although that's not an activity I particularly enjoy either. It's very much a means of getting from A to B and at the moment with fuel so expensive, the closer A and B are together and the closer my speed is to 55mph, the better. Flying (as a passenger at least) must be one of the most boring activities known to man. A couple of hours here and there is OK, but two meals, three films and still two hours till landing - it's a threat to sanity.

The return from Cornwall was brightened - literally - by the most incredible thunderstorm. Sheet lightning, forks appearing to go up, flashes between cloud layers, horizontal spears, this had the lot, across the full width of the visible sky all the way from Wiltshire to Kent. And where exactly was the storm? Right above our house.

We will be tootling off to Berkshire at the weekend, sans children, for a wedding. And whilst another 150 or so miles on the motorways of the south will be unwelcome, I still dare hope the event (and the overnight stay) will be more worthwhile than our recent trips.

The chips are down - at last

2008-07-31T13:30:00.000-07:00

Today was a momentous day: the felt and stone chips went on the roof. And in the evening water gushed down the kitchen wall, for the third time in about six weeks. Once again I found myself up on the roof attempting to improvise a solution; tools deployed have included bricks, blocks of wood, plastic sheeting, a broom and a length of guttering. In the roofers' defence, the latest waterfall wasn't their fault: the downpipe had been removed to give them a clear space and all the cloudburst collected by the main house roof soaked into the wall instead, until it ran out of the gap at the bottom where the ceiling would normally be. And of all the people who've worked on the extension so far, the roofers' is the job I really wouldn't want to do: hot tar, baking temperatures, no shade, heavy materials up and down ladders, a set of clothes ruined each day.

Today I was told that whatever estimate I had for the extension, I should add a third. Had the guy been looking at my pile of invoices? Part of the trouble is that the gerrybuilding of the house we bought wasn't limited to what we'd already identified. The flat roof had to be seen to be believed - although not if you have a weak heart. It was constructed using friction, levitation and crossed fingers. Not to mention two half-bricks holding up one entire corner of the house. I can only think the builder (who lives very nearby) was distracted by his horse bucking or his stetson falling off. Our neighbour looked rather alarmed when I told her why a large section of the roof was being reconstructed: he built hers too.

The house had about 400 miles of pipes, its own gas leak, sockets wired into the wrong circuits and one ring main that just needs to be ripped out - which fortunately it was going to be anyway as part of the planned works. All these are things we would rather not have to pay to put right - over two grand and counting - but are glad to have found now rather than later. It turns out one of today's roofers did the felt on the original extension back in 1989, although his work was ripped up by the previous owners. We hope his workmanship is better than the rest.

Although he hasn't been on site as much as we anticipated, Colin has worked extremely hard. We now have a roof with the correct number of joists that slopes the right way and supports the bay above. All the doors windows are in, if you overlook the one which needs to be refitted because I got the measurements wrong. The whizzy remote-controlled garage door is in. The plumber moved the boiler. Our new fridge-freezer arrived today and the old one has a new home, as do most of the kitchen units. A skip lorry did a wheelie this afternoon whilst taking away at least four tons of assorted debris. And the whole place still looks like a bombsite.

The happiness of the long-distance rider

2008-06-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

I am feeling very pleased with myself. With good reason, too. At the weekend I cycled 125 miles in aid of Demelza Hospice Care for Children, a local charity that does what it says on the tin. I can't even read their website without getting choked up and thinking “There but for the grace of God go I” and it was no decision at all to sign up and start pestering people for sponsorship. My bike had moved just once in the previous nine months: from the garage to the hallway in preparation for the building work. But Colin and I got some quick miles in and a week ahead of the event I was confident I could do the distance, spread over two days.

Then I saw the weather forecast. Saturday's route joined in a jagged line places I'd visited as a child (Eynsford, Yalding, Battle) or heard announced at the London termini (Swanley, Robertsbridge, Battle again), with a start point at Eltham. That was definitely an “it's a small world” moment: of all the places in south-east London, it happened to be literally just round the corner from the only people we know with an SE postcode. At 6.30am on Saturday, right on cue, it was heavy drizzle outside. At 10am in Eltham it was properly raining and we had to negotiate the busy high street. By 11am at Eynsford the sun was out for just about the only time in the day and we'd lost our first riders, two teenagers who were visibly ill-equipped for the challenge ahead. The remaining nine, plus guest leader Alan, who at the age of 70 holds two regional time-trial records and had to rein himself in, pressed on across the Weald of Kent. Another racer, Fast Mark, had planned the route and kept reassuring us that the next section would be downhill. After a while we stopped believing him: the laws of geology require that sooner or later you have to go up again, and experience supported them. Each regrouping stop became more welcome, each return to the bike more painful. But finally we crossed the boundary into East Sussex, skirting the tourist trap that is Battle to finish at the village of Magham Down, base for the Demelza hospice-at-home service. That was 69 miles and five of us rode three more miles to the Travelodge where we were to spend the night, while the others dived for the support vehicles and literally put their feet up.

For me probably the biggest highlight of the whole weekend – and there were plenty to choose from - was not on the bike at all. We went to the village of Coxbeech for a team dinner and as we arrived at the Merrie Harriers pub, the locals stood to applaud us. For that, I was even prepared to overlook the stupid spelling of the pub's name. The food was good, it was refreshing to be out in civvies and we finished early enough to get plenty of sleep ahead of what Fast Mark informed us would be a tough Sunday, not least because we had to go back up the one-mile 1:10 hill from earlier in the day. And he casually mentioned it was going to be wet and very windy.

It was with a certain amount of trepidation that I opened the curtains in the morning. But it wasn't raining and as we assembled at 8am for breakfast, the sun came out. By the time we got home I would be quite sunburned, again, and of all the problems I anticipated for the weekend that was not on the radar at all. Greg, who I'm told is only 13, had dropped out 20 miles short on Saturday but was back on his mountain bike for Sunday morning. The route was shorter but much hillier, with four big climbs. Fortunately the wind was behind us and by lunch at Staplehurst we were ahead of schedule with two major hills out of the way. One of our support drivers reckoned the lead group (including me) had covered the previous 13 miles in only half-an-hour, which seems unlikely but we were certainly cracking along with several descents at 30mph or more. Those of us who knew the route assured the “foreigners” that the last 10 or 12 miles would be a nice downhill cruise to the finish – and we meant it. But before that we had to climb Linton hill into Maidstone and find a way over the 200m North Downs. In between those two epic trials we rode in convoy through Maidstone town centre, trying to keep in close formation with the support vans. For just a few minutes we felt quite important. Our chosen route over the top was up the side of Blue Bell Hill, a route I've suffered a few times. But everyone rode all the way and it was all smiles at the top with the knowledge that the worst was over. We cruised to the finish an hour ahead of schedule.

In the carpark after the obligatory welcome ceremony, featuring beer, chocolate biscuits and the smell of stale sweat, I discovered that Tracey's bike had cost just £75. I had a quick ride on Fiona's and understood why the two of them had been in what the Tour de France calls the autobus for most of Saturday. But it was definitely chapeau, as the garlic munchers would say, to those two and Greg; I would have struggled to complete the distance on any of those bikes.
There were two problems with the finish on Sunday. One was that I felt great (apart from the sunburn) and wanted to keep riding. The other was that it seemed like something of an anti-climax to be back to normal routine after two days when every thought and action was focused towards the completion of a challenge. It probably didn't help that Sarah and the boys were very tired after a sleepless sleepover at Yvonne's. But collecting the sponsorship money and seeing the total soar (over £4500 at the time of writing) was restorative for the spirits.

What next? I'm planning a day trip to Battle, to take on those hills again. And Brighton in a day, albeit I might take the train home. More immediately, the 75-mile round trip to work which almost killed me before, looks within my compass. I have food for thought for the mooted Land's End to John O'Groats ride a couple of years from now. And if, as suggested by Fast Mark, there's another day ride later in the summer just for the sake of it, bring it on...

This post is dedicated to Colin, Fast Mark, Big Mark, Peter, Josh, Chris, Tracey, Fiona and Greg, without whom my weekend would have been considerably less than half as much fun.

Bricks, blocks and setbacks

2008-06-13T02:41:00.000-07:00

While we were away our extension was due to rise to roof level. Having seen how Colin’s own house build didn’t go entirely to plan, I wasn’t surprised to receive nightly updates indicating that progress was not as swift as intended. His star bricklayer couldn’t get time off his regular job, his helper broke a toe, Colin himself was injured by a delivery lorry whose driver mistook his leg for a bag of sand, and the weather didn’t cooperate. The result is that the walls are still a few man-days from completion. But we do have a man and some days. Should be fine then.

Daniel loves “Nolin” and is keen to help, despite a lack of suitable footwear. Last weekend he was carting half-bricks in a plastic wheelbarrow and yesterday he dug a hole with his Scoop digger. Unfortunately it was in the lawn. But it’s the thought that counts. And where the extension is concerned, there are plenty of thoughts.

Head, shoulders, knees and toes

2008-06-12T06:56:00.000-07:00

We returned from our Spanish holiday with a nursery rhyme of ailments – not that, being severely sunburned, I could do the actions for a few days. That’s the shoulders accounted for. Adam scraped a knee, probably slipping over because he insisted on wearing flip-flops on shiny tiled pavements. (His reason: his trainer socks were too dirty to wear. After he walked across gravel sans trainers.) Daniel’s head suffered from repeated contact with hard surfaces. Did you know there is no Spanish word for health and safety? I just made that up, but it’s not implausible. They expect each person to take responsibility for himself, which is commendable unless that person is two and utterly reckless. Fortunately Daniel refrained from falling into the harbour whilst trying to touch the fish.

The most serious injury, perhaps, was Adam getting his foot trapped in the door of the train en route to the airport. He had fellow passengers pulling the emergency alarm, trying to open the door and encouraging us to sue. We won't because there was no lasting damage, other than perhaps to my back after I’d had to manhandle two suitcases and Adam up the endless slopes to the departures area. And because it was no one's fault except our son's for dangling his feet idly. We wouldn’t have fancied trying to explain all that in Spanish; it’s fortunate that the Costa del Sol is largely anglophone.

That, of course, is one of the reasons we go to Fuengirola. Although ashamed of our feeble Spanish (Sarah’s is even worse than mine, despite her many years’ head start), we’re at ease and know what a holiday there will deliver. This time it included a few drops of rain but mostly it was sun, sea, swimming, siestas, meals out, late nights and vino tinto. Having Grandma and Great-Grandad for intermittent company was also a joy, one we know we shouldn’t take for granted.

I’d never noticed until trying to keep two children safe that Spanish pedestrian crossings are strange. The red man means “Cross now and you will get splatted”. The green man means “Cross now and you may get splatted.” A subtle but important difference. Its cause: Spanish drivers are expected to give way on crossings but don’t always bother. Otherwise, I have to say the urban road system is excellent. Refuse bins and vast carparks are underground, freeing the street scene for trees and bushes which in turn deter pedestrians' wandering into the traffic. It is mandatory for every Spanish car to be either dented or scratched; indeed the degree of damage may be a status symbol. The approach for finding a parking space seems to be: “That gap isn’t quite big enough. But it will be.” On previous visits I didn’t understand why Spaniards don’t mend their cars, any more than they clean off the dust. I now think they are too busy doing things that actually add quality to their lives. And I don’t blame them.

Your friendly film critic reports...

2008-05-26T02:53:00.000-07:00

The Russian Communist Party has complained about the new Indiana Jones film. Having seen it yesterday, I would assume that letters of protest are also in the post from archaeologists, academics, double agents and James Dean impersonators. Near the end there's a scene where Indy can't believe what he's seeing, shortly followed by an expression of utter relief that it's all over. I was right with him.

It's not that The Crystal Skull is a terrible film, it's actually quite an enjoyable way to pass a couple of hours. But if, as rumoured, it took 14 years to come up with a script that Ford and Spielberg were happy with, I dread to think what the first draft must have been like. George Lucas's pervasive and unique brand of pseudo-sci-fi mumbo-jumbo is off-putting and the central legend so obscure (made up?) that a huge amount of exposition follows. The result is a film of dramatically fluctuating pace.

The Crystal Skull just looks tired and rather humourless, although there's a nice touch with the hat just before the credits - which you might miss after spewing at the sickly-sweet Hollywood ending. Cate Blanchett's villain appears to have escaped from a spoof superhero movie, while the supposedly up-and-coming Shia LaBoeuf is plain annoying, John Hurt speaks only gibberish and Ray Winstone manages to sound even more Cockney than usual. Jim Broadbent is predictably good in his brief role as a plot device.

The film features probably the longest and fastest chase scene ever shot in the Amazon but you could drive a large truck through the holes in the continuity and logic. There's also the most predictable plot twist - sorry, make that two - I've seen for a while and a scene lifted straight from The Mummy. To quote Indy, the skull itself "couldn't be made with any known technology", which begs the question, how did the props man make it? And I don't think I'm giving away too much by revealing that as usual the entire set crumbles into dust at the end - rather like the franchise itself, perhaps.

The fifth and final instalment, "Indiana Jones and the Bathchair of Senility" (simplified US title: Indiana Jones Returns), is due for release in 2022. I hear it will feature either Heather Mills or Kerry Katona as Indy's long-lost daughter, and Vinnie Jones as a mute baddie who tries to prevent Indy returning his talking books to the library. I can't wait.

Chaos at last

2008-05-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

Work has finally started on our extension. Technically it started about four weeks ago when I called “the boys” round to help demolish the garage. Paul is about 17 stone of solid barminess with a unique approach to the task. He ripped down the trellis, karate-kicked a hole in the wall, headbutted a few bricks for the benefit of his audience, thumped the roof off its bolts… Emmanuel and I watched with astonishment, then joined in with everything except the headbutts.

The garage wasn’t exactly well built: many of the bricks could be lifted off and there were little piles of sand everywhere from what remained of the mortar. Paul also got to work on the lintel with an angle grinder, to my considerable envy. (I did get to rip down the fence posts though. Real man's work with a proper man's tool.) All best practice with regard to the handling of asbestos roof sheets was blatantly disregarded, by both us and the men at the household waste site when I came to dispose of it. We did have approximately 1000 bricks stacked around the perimeter of the house, before the builders dumped some in the soakaway and I donated more to Paul for his proposed man's shed. We also had a large heap of trellis in the middle of what used to be the lawn, until I converted it to a small heap of ash. My mate Michael came over with petrol but we didn't need it: the thing went up like a Jimmy Godden seaside park. (Topical Kent reference there.) Michael's next visit was to help take up the block paving. That's a devil of a job if, like me, you get two bad lots of advice on how to approach it - and really quite simple if a builder on a recce tells you the proper method. Even simpler if you come home from work to find that a kind South African with a shovel and a work ethic got there first.

The builders turned up on Tuesday and apart from digging a trench in the wrong place and not turning up on Thursday (it was raining too hard, apparently) they appear to be doing a good job.

And at the end of my long exercise trying to decide who to employ, it's Mr Brusque's men who are on site to do the groundworks only. My later dealings with him were very professional, unlike the others. Mr Vague, who didn't bring even a notebook for his visit, not surprisingly forgot to provide either a quote or our drawings back; Mr Thorough asked a lot of intelligent questions and gave us some fine ideas but we’d have had to sell the house to pay his quotation; Mr Non-committal couldn’t read the (admittedly faint) drawings and after I’d personally delivered a better version to his ramshackle office he eventually informed us he couldn’t take on any new work. In the midst of all this our friend Colin told us he could sort out the project from the brickwork onwards and so, despite some obvious risks, that's our chosen option. It is theoretically cheaper than employing a builder to do the whole lot but even at the end I don't think we will know for sure whether it was the right call. And as to when the end will be, your guess is as good as mine. Colin has the skills - he built his own house - but it did take rather longer than expected.

There has been good news (no problem arranging a flexible additional mortgage; opportunities to trim the budget; some additional finance taking shape; the party wall agreement signed; cunning schemes to avoid total loss of the kitchen for six weeks) and bad news (things we’d overlooked in the original budget; my study being smaller when I laid out bricks than I’d anticipated; no permission to increase the size without a new planning application; can’t drain the heating system without losing our hot water; the water main runs through the middle of the site). Perhaps the best news is that Daniel has decided he no longer needs nappies, which removes the need to have the downstairs shower room ready for toilet training during the summer holidays.

I have a hunch we are going to find the next three months or so quite stressful. Our holiday, which was also a nightmare to organise, may fall at just the wrong time in the process, so we’re here for all the messiest and most disruptive stages. At least I will get to take some photos. Keep watching this space…

2008-05-11T13:22:00.000-07:00

At the village school May Day fayre yesterday there were new signs on the bouncy castles, saying that parents must supervise their children at all times. Is this a legal requirement or just common sense?

I suspect it's a result of the court case last week in which Sam Harris, who was injured on a bouncy castle, sued the couple who'd hired it, and won £1m compensation. I'm not clear whether this is money that's needed for his care, or just a windfall. It will be covered by the defendants' house insurance, which is strange considering it didn't happen on their property. Good news for the defendants, bad news for those of us whose insurance premia will go up to cover it.

My mother-in-law knows the defendants and told us more about what happened. The Perry family hired the castle along with some other equipment for their triplets' birthday party. Because their garden wasn't big enough, they arranged the use of the field behind their home. Sam Harris happened to be playing in the field, with his father, and wanted to bounce. The Perrys said he couldn't, as he wasn't attending the party, but he went on the castle anyway. (He has Asperger's Syndrome which apparently means he doesn't always listen or understand instructions; the judge said this was irrelevant, curiously. Mrs Perry's back was turned; the judge decided this was relevant.) Another boy did a somersault and accidentally kicked Sam, as a result of which he sustained serious head injuries.

Mark Jerram, founder of the British Inflatable Hirers Alliance (BIHA) said the outcome of the case came as little surprise and reflected the blame culture of modern Britain.

Which brings me back to the signs. The judge rejected the Perrys' argument that Mr Harris should have supervised his son. So why are we now asked to do so? Sometimes the law (or its arbitraters) is a ass.

A victory for Not-Ken

2008-05-04T15:08:00.000-07:00

Although a contributor to London's economy - at least in the number of lunchtime omelettes I buy across the road from the office, if not in my work itself - I am not a resident and hence did not get a vote for mayor this week.

Nonetheless I am happy to go on the record as being happy that Boris Johnson won. The electorate weren't exactly spoilt for choice. There were only four candidates who got any publicity at all.
Sian Berry is a member of an extreme Green group.
Brian Paddick is a gay policeman and, er, who knows?
Boris is known for his gaffes and buffoonery, under which I suspect lie some views that are closer to the 19th than the 21st century.
Ken Livingstone is himself, which in many people's eyes is enough to make him unelectable.

This is the man who said he wouldn't serve more than one term, who said that no mayor should serve more than two terms - and then tried for a third. A man who welcomed all kinds of extremists (both political and religious). A man who took junketing and cronyism to a new level. A man who introduced bendy buses which may be statistically successful (if you overlook the spontaneous combustion of several in the early days) but have drivers boiling over as they block junctions and are a fare-dodger's delight into the bargain. A man who said he would never increase the congestion charge from £8 and then put it up to £25. A man who held a consultation about extending the congestion zone west and ignored the 80% majority opposition to implement the scheme anyway. A man who makes a big deal of travelling by public transport but appears to have invested nothing in the Tube, only buses.

The only way the Tories could have lost was to put forward a complete idiot of a candidate and even they couldn't find one bad enough to lose to Ken. Boris may well screw up the actual business of being mayor, although the way he's avoided hot water during the campaign suggests some wiser heads are playing a part in his operation these days. History may show him as something of a stalking horse but the crucial thing is, London has declared a victory for Someone Who is Not Ken.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye

2008-04-17T22:37:00.000-07:00

Working in IT, it's a fact of life that contractors come and contractors go. Often they leave behind barely a ripple on the pond of chaos that is project work, but this week the office has seemed strangely empty without one of my erstwhile colleagues.

Julian Frenchname was a little older than me, rather greyer and decidedly thinner on top. He was also very quiet. So quiet that few people got to know him. (I did ascertain he likes exposing his young children to extreme sports, waited weeks for granite worktops for his kitchen, became a data modeller by accident and wasn't entirely sure on the correct spelling of his surname.) So quiet in fact that when his bosses failed to sort him out with a new contract, instead of making a fuss he just went and looked for another job.

But behind the quiet exterior was a very capable worker, who from a standing start produced in only six months the finest (admittedly only) logical data model I've ever seen. More importantly, he had a crazy sense of humour - the kind produced I suspect by too many years of working on brain-bending analysis in dark corners. We had some off-the-wall discussions, of which probably the funniest (and last) was about how the data model could be presented using Thomas the Tank Engine fuzzy felt. Trust me, it was far better in real life than it sounds on paper.

I think I will miss him and am even prepared to forgive him for living in Milton Keynes.

Court comedy

2008-03-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

Last week, as well as being offline, I was also off sick. That left me with little better to do than follow the conclusion of the McCartney divorce case.

I couldn’t help noticing that not unlike the Diana inquest a few weeks previously, we had one of the participants hurling something in the High Court and then prattling on the steps to the assembled media. Last time it was that well-known bastion of truth (and world-class insulter) Mohamed Al-Fayed; this time it’s that well-known bastion of truth (and world-class water-thrower) Heather Mills.

I couldn’t help wishing it had been Sir Paul McCartney giving evidence at the inquest – as a bona fide modern-day saint he could probably tell the judge exactly what happened on the fateful night. That would have freed up the Egyptian Grocer to battle it out with Lady Mucca – and what a fight that would have been. Neither of them is clinging to reality by more than the edge of a fingernail but they could have sold tickets to cover the legal bill. The only trouble is, I (and I suspect the judge and the entire British population) would have wanted them both to lose – an outcome difficult to achieve in our legal system. And last time I checked, divorce settlements didn’t include banishment from the country, or failing that just the media. If they did, I suspect Mrs Mc would not have let it get that far.

The price of progress

2008-03-14T16:18:00.000-07:00

Being my father’s son, I am cursed with a fascination for construction and civil engineering projects. Recently this has taken the form of studying planning applications on the council website, a habit acquired whilst waiting for ours to appear. But I've also studied many projects from the train these past 12 years, as every available parcel of land between here and London gets swallowed up for development. Rochester Riverside, the Silwood Estate in Bermondsey, a high-rise near Millwall's old stadium, a huge shed near their new one, the More London sprawl blocking views of Tower Bridge, the ultra-trendy award-winning Palestra (which achieved the unlikely feat of being as ugly as the 60s office block demolished by JCB to make way) and the adjacent Travelodge, even the London Eye - all these have given me reason to stay awake.

I mention this because in the past couple of days the scaffolding has reached the very top of the Southwark Towers, rising 100m above London Bridge station. Like a racehorse with a broken leg, the building is being shrouded to hide its impending doom from hapless spectators. Yet despite my interest in such things, I am indisputably sad at this turn of events. Although the interior apparently needs an overhaul, the building is only 32 years old and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it. Indeed I would go so far as to say that with its three brown-brick wings and outhung glass panels it is quite elegant, especially in comparison to its neighbours. (The adjacent New London Bridge House is also up for demolition and will not be missed, but Guy’s Hospital is incontrivertibly ugly.) Its misfortune is to be situated on prime development land required for the 305m-high Shard of Glass.

Quite why we as a society should countenance the demolition of a usable, attractive, relatively recent building, to accommodate a £350m vanity project, is beyond me. We are supposed to be reducing our use of scarce resources, not producing thousands of tons of rubble and erecting another several thousand tons of steel and glass. And who is one of the leading advocates of this hugely wasteful project? Surely not the architect of "green initiatives" like the low emissions zone and £25 congestion charge? Yes, the one and only Ken Livingstone, London’s hypocrite-in-chief.

One way I can cheer myself up is to watch progress at the Kingswood Hotel in Gillingham, derelict for as long as I’ve been travelling past it, but now being renovated and converted for residential use. The structural engineers’ report recommended demolition but it appears that somewhere in the local area is someone who prefers making the most of what we have to building something bigger and brasher. A quiet work in Tyrant Ken’s ear wouldn’t go amiss.

Facebook - friend?

2008-02-26T22:22:00.000-08:00

If anyone out there feels bereft at the lack of updates to this blog over the past nine days, shame on you. But hey, an apology is also due. I realised I needed to do some stuff in the real world instead of prattling on here, and then my scheduled blogging time on Friday evening (not to mention a substantial part of Saturday morning) was spent trying to remove a ton of malware from the PC.

Now it may be coincidence but this nasty stuff appeared on the computer just after Sarah joined Facebook and started playing the various games and quizzes contained therein. I should mention I also signed up but have spent hardly any time on there at all. Even leaving aside the possibility that it was the source of our infection, I haven't honestly been that impressed with Facebook. There are some neat features but I don't really want a virtual flower bed, virtual drinks or to have my cyber werewolf served a bowl of pain by a Sinister Vampire attack. (Yes, that's something you really can do, if you for some reason want to.)

Perhaps more than that, the definition of friendship is being stretched. Here's a quote from another Facebook user: "How come I have 233 friends but only two birthday cards?" That's Mark, a "friend" of mine who I've seen probably twice in four years. Another friend (who I haven't seen for even longer but do at least e-mail regularly and phone once in a while, and whose identity I shall protect) remarked: "X added me as a friend but I strongly hesitate to contact him as he never ever replies." Facebook invites a policy of claiming as friends people who in the real world should be considered acquaintances at best. It seems to be a badge of honour to have as many Facebook friends as possible - that's the only reason I can think of for my being contacted by people who I used to bump into a dozen years ago and with the best will in the world am never likely to see again. Since when has friendship been a competition?

I'm wondering how you decide whether someone is a friend or not. Perhaps someone you would send a birthday card (see above). Well on Facebook you can see all your friends' birthdays and send a message, with no effort expended at all. Good or bad thing?

Disclaimer: I have fewer friends than Sarah both on Facebook and in real life - so you may judge I'm just bitter.

Andrew's money-saving tips #5: Don't buy birthday cards and presents for your friends, just sign up to Facebook.

Dem bones, dem bones, dem plaster bones

2008-02-18T12:56:00.000-08:00

We went to the Natural History Museum on Friday, en famille except for Daniel who doesn't do queuing. The date was carefully chosen to hit Adam's inset day (Baker day) prior to the one week break (half-term), so the place wouldn't be crowded. Unfortunately we failed to observe that not all education authorities operate the same calendar and the place was crowded with children on their week's holiday.

I've been to the Science Museum several times and love it because it has things with engines, but my fleeting visits to the adjoining building have totalled in the region of an hour of boredom. This may be due to me not having appreciated fine architecture at the age of nine. The museum building combines ecclesiastical touches with more than a hint of railway shed - and the occasional hospital corridor thrown in. Coincidentally one of my colleagues did a walking tour of the Crystal Palace park at the weekend and was told that the three great Kensington museums were funded by the unfathomable income from the Great Exhibition. I don't know if it's true: Wikipedia is silent on the subject.

Anyway, our reason for being there was the dinosaurs... Adam is obsessed. He's not the only one: the 15-minute queue stretched right around Dippy the diplodocus back in the main hall. Dare I say it though, the whole thing seemed a little dumbed-down. The most impressive exhibit, a genuine half-entombed carcass with a section of skin still in place, was right by the door and quickly passed by en route to the raised walkway leading towards the animatronic T Rex. (Which has a split in its neck, by the way.) Perusal of the exhibition in its entirety reveals that nearly all the skeletons on display are casts rather than real bones, that few enough bones have been found to render the reconstruction of dinosaurs little more than educated guesswork in many cases, and that indeed much dino-related palaentology is based on surmise and theory rather than evidence. That does not stop kids - and a fair few adults, judging from the success of Jurassic Park - being enchanted. Adam thinks dinosaurs are the best thing since long before sliced bread and knows far more about them than I ever wish even to have any interest in.

Fortunately we had time to see the stuffed animals, the sabre-tooth skeleton, the creepy-crawly room and the humungous (though disproportionate) model of the Blue Whale which is one of the museum's most famous pieces. Unfortunately we didn't have time to see Archie the giant squid or the geological collection, among other things. A return visit is in order.

I am impressed that such a vast collection of artifacts and knowledge should be entirely free to view. My only concern is that it is wasted on the majority of the British public. Then again, if they went as well, we would still be queuing.

Save lives: superheat the planet

2008-02-13T15:12:00.000-08:00

After our trip to sunny Margate, I found an article on that bastion of truth, the BBC website, stating that global warming could make us live longer (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7240463.stm). Bearing in mind how many people in the world have a life expectancy of less than 40, I think it's our duty to warm the globe as much as possible. With that in mind, and in the interests of stimulating the depressed British economy, I will tomorrow be spending money I don't have on a super-polluting 4x4, for the good of the world. Possibly.

I have in fact been rather reassured to find the past two mornings were freezing cold and foggy into the bargain, just like a proper winter. Not that we've had any proper snow (that persists for more than a couple of days) for about a decade. I'm sure it didn't used to be like that when I was a kid.

But there was a lovely jumpers-for-goalposts moment on my way home from work. I was passed by three lads on bikes, one of whom was towing a mate in a trailer made from the top half of a shopping trolley with pram wheels attached. I thought teenagers these days were far too busy putting on eye-liner, smashing up bus shelters and hanging around phone boxes with bottles of cheap cider, to be so creative. It fills me with hope that somewhere out there may be the next Brunel. Although I'd be willing to bet that Mr B didn't start by sticking wheels to something stolen from a supermarket.

I do love to be beside the seaside, in February

2008-02-12T14:45:00.000-08:00

Down to Margate
You can keep the Costa Brava and all that palaver...
Me I'd rather have me a day down Margate with all me family
- Chas & Dave, Down to Margate

Early February and it was decidedly temperate, not to mention sunny. That's global warming that is. We went to the beach. The sea level was rising in front of our very eyes. That's global warming that is. Just as well we contributed 75 miles' worth of petrol fumes to the atmosphere, to keep British winters warmer.

Margate, it must be said, has seen better days. Chas & Dave's tongue-in-cheek eulogy dates from 1990, by which point I suspect its heyday was already past. Since Sarah and I went there with friends on a couple of pre-marital social jaunts, the seafront cinema has closed, one of the arcades has been razed by fire and the once-proud amusement park (680,000 visitors as recently as 2003) is little more than a car park, despite the meritorious efforts of the Save Dreamland campaign (www.savedreamland.co.uk).

We parked at the base of a derelict car park straight out of the computer game Driver. Perhaps on Saturday night the Saxo drivers of Thanet filled it with screeching donuts, J-turns and tyre smoke. By the following afternoon they were contenting themselves with leaps from the prom into deep sand. Walking from the car park towards the seafront, we passed a parade of shops, all except one concealed by out-of-season shutters or out-of-hope hoardings. It all looked so forlorn and a contrast to the still bustling summer of 99.

But the thing is, the boys were happy. Adam befriended a girl called Tiffany, whose family was closely related to Vicky Pollard, whilst we tried not to be snobby. Daniel carried water back from the sea and poured it into the sand. Adam dug holes. I carved a boat in the sand for the boys to sit in. We ate snacks on the rug. The boys were, if not entirely oblivious, at least silent on the questionable cleanliness of the beach. Adam was distressed by the lack of profit (read, return) from a bag of 2p coins invested in a slot machine; hopefully a lesson well learned for him. We went to the chip shop - and Daniel dropped an entire portion on the floor for the gulls. Adam deposited half a cubic metre of sand from his wellies onto the car park when it was time to go home.

In short it was fabulous. But inexplicably empty. I can only think no one gives a second thought these days to a down-at-heel British resort when skiing or a pool-endowed package hotel is one short flight away. And therein lies the rub. It may be that only when the populace takes climate change seriously and resolves to fly less to the Costas, will the great British holiday - and places like Margate - find a new lease of life. And if they leave it just too late, the British climate will have turned Mediterranean as well.

The Wii small hours

2008-02-09T13:34:00.000-08:00

It has been almost three weeks since my last post, which is not intended to imply that nothing exciting has been happening in Wigmore. (It hasn't, I just wanted to defer the disappointment for a few extra seconds.) Wii have in fact been very busy, sometimes until way past the time Wii should have gone to bed.

Occasions when Sarah considers my time spent on the computer to have been profitable are, it must be said, few and far between, but a couple of weeks ago Wii benefited from some idle surfing on my part. Starting out to see what I could get for the shedload of Nectar points that our expensive groceries have generated, I followed a few links across cyberspace as you do, and found myself on the site of a well-known catalogue-based shopping emporium who happened to have taken delivery of some consoles, sans unwanted game bundles. And all of a sudden Wii were the prospective owners of a joint birthday present of which Sarah had given up hope - all it needed was a 15-mile round trip to collect it. Seeing as I had also booked our favourite restaurant fully a month ahead to avoid the usual problems with getting a table for around Valentine's Day, my delivery on a promise that I would find the console did not look like a fluke. Even though it was, entirely.

I had hoped by now that Adam would be an enthusiastic ice skater but reflection upon his debut turned into rejection of a reprise. Sarah and I had a near-miss with skating on a rare date night as well: Wednesday is disco evening and she didn't fancy reacquainting herself with dozens of whizzing blades in near darkness. I am though intending to have lessons and the possibility has also arisen of me learning the piano. That is always assuming we can afford it, or the instrument itself.

Which brings me onto the extension. I have now added Mr Vague, Mr Non-committal and Mr Thorough to the retinue of visitors, and ruled out Mr Chatty. A site visit last weekend confirmed that even if he included a bargepole in the quotation I should not request him to work on our house. A bright idea about financing and some clever design cheats have come to light along the way, but there's no denying it's frustrating to have such a long lead time. Wii're still waiting for three quotes, planning permission, building regs approval and a means to design the kitchen, none of which is guaranteed to fall into place. It could be that the work won't quite be finished before the summer holiday.

And on that cheerful note, I shall return to my pursuit of Pro status on some energetic electronic sport.

The Micawber Principle - right or wrong?

2008-01-23T22:19:00.000-08:00

Over the past few days I have been quite despondent about our finances. This was triggered largely by the arrival of the quote for our extension from Mr Chatty. It was impressively detailed and he'd clearly listened to my comments but the fact remained, the numbers were bigger than I'd hoped (and perhaps expected). Add in the likelihood of the kitchen fittings coming in at 50% over the finger-in-the-air figure I'd been basing my estimates on, and suddenly we have quite a shortfall in the financing that I thought would be simple to arrange. We don't really want to cut corners on something that's designed to give us an improved home for the next 15-20 years but on the latest figures there's a question about how we can afford the work without crippling ourselves for the next several years. The second quote from Mr Brusque arrived yesterday and didn't include the specific extras which he didn't give me the opportunity to discuss, but the like-for-like figure was even higher.

Even our day-to-day budgeting has taken a battering, not that it's anything new. December was inevitably a bad month for the budget and despite our best efforts to keep expenditure down, January has been little better. Payday was early last month meaning a longer stretch to the next one, and we've had two major birthdays (Daniel's and the mother-in-law's 60th) to fund.

It's not that, in Mr Micawber's terms, income exceeds expenditure; I earn a good salary and we can cover our bills over the course of the year. The problem is that the budget makes an allowance for savings, to permit us holidays and petty building projects such as £50k extensions, but these are always less than planned. Additional borrowing for the extension would stretch the basic outgoings still further and leave a smaller margin for error.

But does all this really govern the balance between happiness and misery, as Dickens's famous character claims? Some perspective comes from http://www.channel4.com/money/chat_vote_win/richometer/index.html according to which there are only 48m people in the world with a higher income than me. I could quibble about it being based on income, which could easily be exceeded, and with no allowance for differences in the cost of living. But I suspect that ranking based on equity in our house and our meagre savings would probably give a similar result. And so I have resolved that, with billions living hand-to-mouth across the globe and even millions in the UK struggling to keep their heads above a rising tide of government-sponsored debt, I will remain positive, find a way for us to afford the extension without living on bread and water and forgoing holidays, and be grateful for the many benefits my wealthy position offers me.

Growing old ungratefully

2008-01-22T12:01:00.000-08:00

I've heard it said that growing old is better than the alternative - and there is no argument from me on that point. But few things are guaranteed to make one feel old than seeing one's children pass another birthday. And so it was that hot on the heels of two of our good friends becoming parents to tiny twins last week, Daniel turned two and can no longer be classed as a baby. He is a bona fide toddler and knows it.

We had an open house to mark the occasion, with (at peak) 23 children and 13 adults present. Of those 23 children, 20 were aged six or under. Chaos isn't the word. Oh for weather that would have allowed us to use the garden - or, I suppose, a lawn that doesn't take days to drain after a millimetre of drizzle. We were confined to indoors. I mopped up eight spillages but all the food was eaten. My friend Kellie from work had made a sumptuous cake following the leitmotif Thomas the Tank Engine; he was on the tablecloth, napkins, wrapping paper, balloons, banners and cards. Daniel was so excited to blow out his candle and open his presents, it reminded me how quickly we lose that childlike enthusiasm and of course that made me feel older too.

Don't misunderstand me - it's great to see my children growing up, especially given the alternative. They're developing their own personality and learning about character, and they also idolise their dad. (Well Adam does; Daniel takes some convincing on Friday evening when he's barely seen me all week.) But I also know it will be over all too soon. One day I will be first to wake on a Saturday morning because the boys can't shift the duvet from their teenaged carcasses. Conversations will be become monosyllabic on their side instead of mine and I will take on the role previously held by my dad, berating them for staying out too late.

And then eventually we will probably become parents ourselves. Apparently that makes you feel young again. That's alright then.

An end and some beginnings

2008-01-14T22:10:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in my previous post, Friday was busy. I hadn't anticipated the entire weekend would barely offer time to pause for thought.

I went to Barrie's funeral on Friday. We decided not to go to the crematorium but were told it overflowed, people standing under umbrellas listening to the relay. Our old church was packed with a roll call of the past 30 years' members, including some people I hadn't seen since my early teens. Unexpectedly I got the chance to speak when Pastor Matthew opened the floor after the pre-planned tributes. Afterwards I felt something of an interloper compared to others who knew Barrie much better, but at least my hastily assembled thoughts added a different perspective. Each elegy covered a different aspect of this wonderful man's character and my comments seemed like a mere drop in the ocean; I mentioned he had a rare combination of love for people, wisdom and non-judgement, and that he "didn't consider himself more highly than he ought" but got on with what he felt mattered. On reflection, for all his amusing foibles and his lack of height, Barrie was a fine example of a man.

Sarah stayed behind to chat but I had to dash off - half a mile to our old road, which was the nearest parking place I could find - because I had builders coming to quote for the extension. And so a new beginning very quickly took shape. Mr Brusque was in and out as quickly as he could manage, taking a copy of the plans but avoiding discussion and questions and as a parting shot warning me to "keep my eyes open" when he saw Mr Chatty's van parked across the street. Mr Chatty took his time, noted details, offered advice on various topics and was generally more amenable. Whether he's a better builder remains to be seen; I need to do some more research. There were a couple of hints that builders consider our job to be quite small but it may not be as cheap as I'd hoped. I await the written quotes with interest...

On Saturday I took Adam ice skating for the first time and this too could be the start of something long-running. He fell over more times than the other 80 people put together - really! - but seemed to enjoy himself all the same and didn't become disheartened as I'd anticipated. We're considering enrolling him for some lessons; I may go too and Sarah has realised that if it's going to be a family endeavour - and there was a boy Daniel's age on the ice at the weekend - she will have to nail her courage to the sticking post also.

And finally, the finest start of all, our friends Paul and Kerry became parents to twins Robyn and Phoebe yesterday. It was all a bit sudden - only 12 hours previously I was in the cinema with Paul watching The Golden Compass, which neither of us enjoyed that much although I thought the female leads were great - but mum and babes are doing well.

And finally finally, Sarah is attempting to initiate another start. The typical conversation goes like this...
Sarah: I want a cat.
Andrew: We're not getting a cat.

Sometimes it's...
Sarah: I want a cat.
Andrew: I want to adopt.

Sometimes it's...
Sarah: I want a cat.
Andrew: Isn't it cold outside today?

As you can see, Sarah's reasoning is not particularly well developed and she has resorted to trying to enlist the boys' support for this idea. She thinks she will win the debate because I conceded last time and laughed at the Man Song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Y0I91rubg). The boys aren't convinced and I am adamant.

Work, work, work

2008-01-10T12:06:00.000-08:00

Just in case there are millions of people waiting with bated breath (or even bad breath) for the latest news on my life, I am happy to inform you that I'm back at work after the festive break. Not happy to be back at work, merely happy to inform you. That may seem a disservice to my colleagues, as I'm part of a brilliant team which functions on a constant supply of sweets and, for the New Year, a weekly Thursday jaunt. Today we played darts in a central London pub, although in fairness some of the darts did land in outer London. I had the great honour of being on the triumphant (read, less abysmal) team, and I also fluked a double-19 checkout, the only winning double of the day. (The other three games were all settled when we gave up and allowed checkout with a single. That's how inept we were.)

Also today, Sarah picked me up from the station after I hurt my knee walking up some stairs. The lift was good because it avoided heavy rain but the injury is bad because I'm supposed to be taking Adam ice-skating on Saturday. Sarah also almost crashed at one of the mini-roundabouts which blight the route home. This is worth mentioning because in the preceding two days I'd had three near misses on them, on my bike. One was down to a blind corner and me not allowing enough time for my new brakes to do their job, but two were drivers deciding they had right of way even though I was already on the roundabout. I fear it is only a matter of time before one of these morons knocks me off or I am provoked into damaging an encroaching vehicle. Yesterday I could have quite easily taken the old codger's wing mirror off as I caught up at the next lights but settled for sarcastically waving at him through the window.

It was a sad moment in the household this weekend just gone as we took down all the Christmas decorations. Well, not all, as some of them never made it up in the first place. The neon bell fell victim to my lack of a ladder (and my being too ill to go and borrow one) whilst we didn't have a means to attach the rope light to anything. With a smugness remarkable in a four-year-old, Adam suggested nailing it to the wall. Anyway, the departing tree left a large gap and the living room seemed empty. Seconds later I shifted my gaze about two feet to the pile of books, toys, boxes, cushions and CDs stuffed behind the armchair and suddenly the room didn't seem empty after all. In fact it's a miracle we found room for the tree in the first place.

Tomorrow all sorts of things are happening which I will write about, well, once they've happened.

Andrew's money-saving tips #4: Save money by not buying presents for long-distance friends; instead claim they must have been lost in the post.

Happy New Year

2008-01-01T22:06:00.001-08:00

A slightly belated Happy New Year to all my readers, if there are any, which I doubt.

The last few days have passed in a blur and the holiday is now over. I have proved myself a master of Wii Sports Golf - on the beginner level anyway - and also won at Monopoly, possibly for the first time in my life. There happened to be a few quid riding on it, against my wishes, although Sarah suspects it focussed my attention. In turn I pointed out the double standard that she will happily play a board game for money but opposes my intended entry into the world of matched betting on the basis that it's gambling.

We also went to a soft play, completing my personal set of three such venues in the area, and I ventured onto a drop slide for the first time in my life. In my early 30s this probably isn't something I should be proud of but the fact is I haven't had the opportunity since Flambards theme park nearly 20 years ago and on that occasion I was far too much of a coward. I don't like the free fall at the beginning but once on the slide it's exhilirating. Adam, far braver than me at either his age or 10 years older, went on it twice (sitting on my lap) before deciding he wasn't keen on the experience. Daniel showed no interest, mercifully. Instead he went off into the smaller maze and after a couple of minutes not being able to find him I was starting to become concerned. Eventually I found him in the only blindspot, sitting patiently by the other slide waiting for me to accompany him down. It was a sweet moment.

I also faced the dilemma of how much interaction with other children is acceptable in such an environment. There was a boy of about five who wanted to go on the drop slide but not alone. I didn't know him from Adam (well I did, but you know what I mean) and although I would have happily taken him on the slide, or picked him up if he'd fallen, or helped him around the maze, you never know how parents will react. As it turned out he was a late arrival to the same birthday party we were at but I erred on the side of caution and left him to his own devices. It struck me what a sad state of affairs that is.

Finally we had a New Year's Eve party, which went pretty well for the most part if you overlook the large amount of red wine consumed by a small number of people and the usual tensions introduced by the arrival of certain guests who shall remain nameless, plus a stranger to whom most present took a dislike. The greatest joy for me was going to collect the boys from their grandparents yesterday and seeing the beaming smiles at my arrival. I felt rather guilty that Daniel had declined to sleep in his normal docile manner but it was good to have them back.

Today I go back to work and will miss my family desperately.

Andrew's money-saving tips #3: Reduce your phone bill by getting your friends to ring you.

One of the in-between days

2007-12-28T12:38:00.000-08:00

28 December. The original plan was to go for a family walk today but then Sarah saw there was some weather outside and decided we should stay in. I took Adam for a brief fall off his new scooter, then just to prove it was skill rather than luck he fell off his bike twice as well. After that I agreed with my Domestic Manager that we were better off indoors.

The boys occupied themselves by playing with each other's Christmas presents and jumping up and down on me. The result is that both sides of my ribs are now injured and I've had to defer taking the washing machine to the tip yet again. I did replace the front brake blocks on my bike - please be sure to mention this to the coroner if my test ride down the hill tomorrow doesn't go quite according to plan.

Andrew's money-saving tips #2: To reduce your transport costs in these times of expensive petrol, make sure your friends always visit you.

27 December

2007-12-28T12:28:00.000-08:00

[I really must come up with some more imaginative titles for my posts.]

I'm quite subdued today, after hearing that a good friend of ours died of a heart attack yesterday, in his early 70s. We hadn't seen Barrie for quite a while but had an e-mail from him just before Christmas. He was extremely wise and one of the friendliest men we've ever had the honour of knowing. I'd forgotten until just now that he did the address at our wedding. As is usually the case on these occasions it all passed in a blur and I can't remember a word of what he said, but I will never forget how pleased he was that we'd asked him to do it in preference to others who in his modesty he considered were better qualified.

One little gem did make us laugh today though: on my parents' Christmas tree are two small felt stockings, made for me and bro, initialled A and D. My fortuitous lack of imagination in choosing names for my sons means they are now reused but their origins aren't forgotten. Sarah said they stood for Awesome and Dipstick, which I was quite happy to hear knowing which initial belonged to me - but Adam repeated the words as Autumn and Lipstick. David declined to declare whether he preferred to be a dipstick or a lipstick. I couldn't possibly comment.

Boxing Day

2007-12-28T12:19:00.000-08:00

Boxing Day. 26th December, named after the old English tradition of coming downstairs to find the living room crammed full of discarded packaging from the previous day.

I had made a head start by filling four of our lovely blue recycling sacks with wrapping paper and enough cardboard to build a small shanty town. That left only two carcasses and a quarter-gallon of assorted animal fats on top of the cooker, plus two boys who'd gone to bed too late and were now set for another busy day.

We went to our friends' house so that a) I could see Gills v Southend with a couple of mates b) the ladies could drink copious quantities of vino c) the children could break each other rather than their expensive new toys. All three were achieved and we even managed to squeeze in some Wii Sports. I must admit I wasn't that enthusiastic about buying a Wii - partly because Sarah had repeatedly whipped me at the brain-testing game when we borrowed one a few months back - but have now approved escalated efforts to get one for our joint birthday present.

The football, incidentally, was rubbish but two of our three tickets were comps and that took the edge off it. And I'm glad to report the Southend team coach delivered the ref home safely.

Christmas Day

2007-12-28T12:12:00.001-08:00

[Well as anyone reading this will see, I'm catching up a few days' worth at once, after drafting my thoughts and then doing all the boring stuff like finding out how to actually set up a blog.]

Christmas Day: to my surprise it was quite good this year. Unlike last year, Adam took the time to look at each present before ripping open the next, and even played with some of them. Daniel seemed genuinely excited at the occasion, followed Adam's example and the two of them were, frankly, angelic. One of them even ate Christmas dinner; well, two out of two would be too much to hope for.

Among Adam's stocking fillers was a magic money box that made coins disappear. I can think of another way to achieve the same effect: marriage. And another is Christmas itself. Despite attempts to impose a reasonable budget we have once again spent the GDP of a small African country in return for two tons of noisy, colourful plastic items; most of the EU's chocolate mountain; and the world's largest cow, which sacrificed itself to keep our freezer full. But to see the genuine delight on the boys' faces and to achieve eight family members in the same room with only one argument about the great moral and political questions of our time, made all the expense and general hassle worthwhile.

Hello and welcome

2007-12-28T12:01:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas Eve and apparently I don't have enough last-minute jobs to do, so I'm starting a blog. My limited grasp of hot fashions in cyberspace suggests this is a trendy thing to do, or at least it was when a certain Mr AH of Derby began his 11 months ago. Perhaps it quickly ceased to be trendy, as he hasn't posted since, an example I will in all likelihood follow.

Today I did some last-minute shopping and was reminded again that whilst working in London has many advantages, the frantic pace at which everything happens there also causes some problems. I just wanted to get from A to B in Hempstead Valley shops as quickly as possible, which was twice as quickly as anyone else because they live their lives at non-London pace. How frustrating it was... and what a banal start to my blog.

Andrew's money-saving tips #1: Instead of going for an expensive facial, stick your head in the dishwasher during the drying cycle.