HOME.
Half term.
Yep, half term holiday again and I don’t know who feels most free, the pupils or the teachers. We have had a bit of a break without leaving the Island. Enjoyed a pleasant family lunch at daughter-in-law Pauline and son Neil’s new home last Sunday: they, with dog Lotte and cat Hobbes, are settling in nicely. Daughter Jac, Mike and Hannah came from Oxford for a few days. The weather has been kind and everybody seems to have enjoyed the break. It will be over far too soon.
Recklessly exciting, ain’t it?
Perhaps I should get the paints out.
In The Elusive Muse (Post 173) I made mention of a blank screen and the challenge it poses. Truth to tell it’s little different from a blank canvas to an art student or an interviewing committee to an interviewee; it all comes down to presenting the best possible image. Difference is, with the blank screen and canvas there is time to think, to adjust, to amend; with the interviewing committee there is not.
We have never been short of something to say in our house. Long silences, unless accompanied by immersion in a book or radio/television programme, are relatively unknown and indicate something amiss; there is a great deal of lively observation and trivial chatter. Away from home it’s another matter: I was always hopeless at interviews and am still painfully tongue-tied in any sizeable gathering of strangers. The only time I ever empathised with a politician was when an elderly committee chairman of my acquaintance told me: “I once found meself sittin’ next to Ted Heath at dinner. Y’know what? The fella had no social conversation whatsoever.”
“How strange,” I said, and thought: Good on him!
Thankfully, unless I fall foul of the law, I need never be interviewed again. I attend few social gatherings devoid of familiar faces, so small talk poses far less of a problem: I have done no painting for some years and the blank computer screen no longer bothers me: well, not this month, anyway.
Too peaceful? Yeah. Perhaps I should get the paints out.
A warning to others?
Chris Huhne has been required to resign from political office and John Terry is no longer captain of the English soccer team. Huhne is charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice (lying to the law over who was driving his speeding car) and Terry is accused of racial abuse (allegedly shouting “fucking black cunt” at an opposing player). Neither case has yet been proven and neither, to the best of my knowledge, resulted in physical injury to anyone. When it comes down to it, both cases were instigated by hurt feelings. It‘s another world.
Forgive my cynicism, but isn’t politics jam-packed with lying bastards and professional football with mouthy, overpaid, morons? It may appease the protagonists‘ unwell wishers and the omnipresent PC Brigade, but what purpose will be served by litigation? Will it act as a deterrent to others? I doubt it. Might temporarily drive some of them underground, that’s all.
Think leopards and spots, dear reader, think leopards and spots…
Two walked away.
As a result of the John Terry firing, manager Fabio Capello walked away from his England job ostensibly incensed at the FA for daring to act without consulting him. Coincidentally, on the same day the manager of Tottenham Hotspurs, Harry Redknapp, walked away from court a free man after being found not guilty of tax evasion.
Right now Mr. Redknapp is popular favourite to replace Mr. Capello in the top managerial post.
I asked our football affairs expert, the cat Shadow, what he thought: I call him “Our football affairs expert” ironically and feel quite comfortable with the description. It‘s only like some backroom boy on television being described as “Our meals-on-wheels expert” or “Our African tribal dance expert.” You doubt the former could boil an egg or ride a bike and you are downright certain the latter has been no closer to Africa than Whipsnade Zoo, but you expect and tolerate bullshit from television people.
“Ol’ Harry should have been made England boss years ago,” the cat Shadow opined with total conviction. “He could make a silk purse out of a sow‘s ear…and he’ll have to.”
“Yeah, but if he gets the job how long d‘you think he‘ll stick with it?” I said.
“Oh, at least until he’s seventy, providing they give him seven million quid a year plus another ten in an offshore bank account,” he said wickedly.
“You really are a cynical little bugger,” I said.
Departure of a stationary scooter.
Keith-next-door recently sold the scooter that graced his front garden for a considerable time. It failed its MOT and he was about to give it away when a scooter enthusiast snapped it up for a reasonable price. Keith-next-door and his partner, Heidi, were delighted. On the other paw, the cat Shadow was deeply disappointed. His scooter enthusiasm had seen him spending long, long sunny hours asleep on the warm, stationary, comfortable seat from which Keith-next-door never moved him.
Summer for him may never be the same again.
ABROAD.
The Middle East.
Sunshine apart, the Middle East is currently not the place to be. Syria is murderously boiling over and Egypt cannot so much as maintain peace at a soccer match. Right now it’s cold and miserable everywhere in the UK: but so far this year nobody has been killed by government shellfire or in an insane football riot.
Let’s count our blessings.
TELEVISION.
Mrs. Brown’s Boys. (BBC1)
The second series of this uniquely presented Irish comedy has now finished. If you liked the first series you will have liked it and if you didn’t like the first series you probably won’t have watched it; who gives a feck anyway?
We loved it.
Whitechapel. (ITV1)
Rupert Penry-Jones, Phil (“Shake me up, Judy”) Davis and Steve Pemberton make the best they can of what is still a somewhat disjointed premise.
Alex Polizzi: the fixer. (BBC2)
The people who need fixing are generally unfixable: the fixer, a business guru, dispenses simplistic advice. And this ghoul’s eye view of failing businesses conveniently fills another prime time hour with cheap-jack reality television. The popularity of reality remains inexplicable to me.
Body of Proof. (C5)
Is it my imagination or are we witnessing the demise of the male hero in television drama? Here we have Dana Delaney as Megan Hunt, a feisty (rude) female medico involved, in some CSI sort of way, in the crime solving business. Her boss, Dr. Kate Murphy (Jeri Ryan), is the first female Chief Medical Examiner in the history of Phlladelphia and a force to be reckoned with (overbearing). It seems that positive (aggressive) women are all the thing in America today. The words please and thank you do not exist.
Ah well.
Eternal Law. (ITV1)
Not even the excellent acting of a fine cast has been able to convince me that angels would return to earth as barristers. Christ knows what the writers were thinking about.
Call the Midwife. (BBC1)
This has got better and better. Jessica Raine heads a well chosen cast of British actresses in stories based on the late Jennifer Worth’s memoirs.
Any viewer who thinks Miranda Hart is just a light comedienne with a talent for falling down really should think again.
The Great British Countryside. (BBC1)
In this four part series Julia Bradbury and Hugh Dennis started off with Cornwall and made a decent enough job of it. Their next destination is Yorkshire. He is an adaptable entertainer and she has been presenting outdoor television programmes for all of five years. How the viewing figures for their HD screening of rocks and hedgerows will compare with those of Country file (also BBC1), which in the same week had Ellie Harrison and Matt Baker on the Isle of Wight, we’ll have to see. You can’t accuse the Beeb of originality, though, can you? These are identical twins.
READING.
Bill Bryson.
I finished The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid with the knowledge that the kid grew up and moved on and finally stopped eliminating people when he realized he couldn’t tell which of them buy books.
The Thunderbolt Kid had me in tears of laughter over the attempt made by Milton Milton’s father to dive off the improbably high diving board at Lake Ahquabi in Iowa, and near to tears of despair over the lethal inhumanity displayed worldwide by the manufacturers of nuclear weapons.
Bill Bryson (who lives in England) deserves all the accolades that have come his way.
I only say that to avoid being vaporized.
Ian Dillow.
In response to my piece about Ian last month I received an email, headed From one famous person to another, in which he thanked me for the plug but not for the blog and then proceeded to bring my laissez faire reporting up to date. For a start, he had almost forgotten that he was once the PRO for Wessex Regional Health Authority. Seems he left PR behind in the eighties and started on the managerial ladder. Somehow, regardless of experience, his responsibilities mounted. (He was once, for example, the Regional Personnel Officer.) Finally, in the last five years before he retired, he was one of six main board directors at Wessex. He was awarded an MBE in the 2000 Honours for services to health charities.
And, as if that wasn’t enough, he was a JP for 32 years (Chairman of North Hampshire Branch for six) and only parted company with the magistracy when he turned 70 last October.
He still, I gather, doesn't know what he wants to do for a living!
I have an awful feeling I may have been name-dropping after all.
Half term.
Yep, half term holiday again and I don’t know who feels most free, the pupils or the teachers. We have had a bit of a break without leaving the Island. Enjoyed a pleasant family lunch at daughter-in-law Pauline and son Neil’s new home last Sunday: they, with dog Lotte and cat Hobbes, are settling in nicely. Daughter Jac, Mike and Hannah came from Oxford for a few days. The weather has been kind and everybody seems to have enjoyed the break. It will be over far too soon.
Recklessly exciting, ain’t it?
Perhaps I should get the paints out.
In The Elusive Muse (Post 173) I made mention of a blank screen and the challenge it poses. Truth to tell it’s little different from a blank canvas to an art student or an interviewing committee to an interviewee; it all comes down to presenting the best possible image. Difference is, with the blank screen and canvas there is time to think, to adjust, to amend; with the interviewing committee there is not.
We have never been short of something to say in our house. Long silences, unless accompanied by immersion in a book or radio/television programme, are relatively unknown and indicate something amiss; there is a great deal of lively observation and trivial chatter. Away from home it’s another matter: I was always hopeless at interviews and am still painfully tongue-tied in any sizeable gathering of strangers. The only time I ever empathised with a politician was when an elderly committee chairman of my acquaintance told me: “I once found meself sittin’ next to Ted Heath at dinner. Y’know what? The fella had no social conversation whatsoever.”
“How strange,” I said, and thought: Good on him!
Thankfully, unless I fall foul of the law, I need never be interviewed again. I attend few social gatherings devoid of familiar faces, so small talk poses far less of a problem: I have done no painting for some years and the blank computer screen no longer bothers me: well, not this month, anyway.
Too peaceful? Yeah. Perhaps I should get the paints out.
A warning to others?
Chris Huhne has been required to resign from political office and John Terry is no longer captain of the English soccer team. Huhne is charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice (lying to the law over who was driving his speeding car) and Terry is accused of racial abuse (allegedly shouting “fucking black cunt” at an opposing player). Neither case has yet been proven and neither, to the best of my knowledge, resulted in physical injury to anyone. When it comes down to it, both cases were instigated by hurt feelings. It‘s another world.
Forgive my cynicism, but isn’t politics jam-packed with lying bastards and professional football with mouthy, overpaid, morons? It may appease the protagonists‘ unwell wishers and the omnipresent PC Brigade, but what purpose will be served by litigation? Will it act as a deterrent to others? I doubt it. Might temporarily drive some of them underground, that’s all.
Think leopards and spots, dear reader, think leopards and spots…
Two walked away.
As a result of the John Terry firing, manager Fabio Capello walked away from his England job ostensibly incensed at the FA for daring to act without consulting him. Coincidentally, on the same day the manager of Tottenham Hotspurs, Harry Redknapp, walked away from court a free man after being found not guilty of tax evasion.
Right now Mr. Redknapp is popular favourite to replace Mr. Capello in the top managerial post.
I asked our football affairs expert, the cat Shadow, what he thought: I call him “Our football affairs expert” ironically and feel quite comfortable with the description. It‘s only like some backroom boy on television being described as “Our meals-on-wheels expert” or “Our African tribal dance expert.” You doubt the former could boil an egg or ride a bike and you are downright certain the latter has been no closer to Africa than Whipsnade Zoo, but you expect and tolerate bullshit from television people.
“Ol’ Harry should have been made England boss years ago,” the cat Shadow opined with total conviction. “He could make a silk purse out of a sow‘s ear…and he’ll have to.”
“Yeah, but if he gets the job how long d‘you think he‘ll stick with it?” I said.
“Oh, at least until he’s seventy, providing they give him seven million quid a year plus another ten in an offshore bank account,” he said wickedly.
“You really are a cynical little bugger,” I said.
Departure of a stationary scooter.
Summer for him may never be the same again.
ABROAD.
The Middle East.
Sunshine apart, the Middle East is currently not the place to be. Syria is murderously boiling over and Egypt cannot so much as maintain peace at a soccer match. Right now it’s cold and miserable everywhere in the UK: but so far this year nobody has been killed by government shellfire or in an insane football riot.
Let’s count our blessings.
TELEVISION.
Mrs. Brown’s Boys. (BBC1)
The second series of this uniquely presented Irish comedy has now finished. If you liked the first series you will have liked it and if you didn’t like the first series you probably won’t have watched it; who gives a feck anyway?
We loved it.
Whitechapel. (ITV1)
Rupert Penry-Jones, Phil (“Shake me up, Judy”) Davis and Steve Pemberton make the best they can of what is still a somewhat disjointed premise.
Alex Polizzi: the fixer. (BBC2)
The people who need fixing are generally unfixable: the fixer, a business guru, dispenses simplistic advice. And this ghoul’s eye view of failing businesses conveniently fills another prime time hour with cheap-jack reality television. The popularity of reality remains inexplicable to me.
Body of Proof. (C5)
Is it my imagination or are we witnessing the demise of the male hero in television drama? Here we have Dana Delaney as Megan Hunt, a feisty (rude) female medico involved, in some CSI sort of way, in the crime solving business. Her boss, Dr. Kate Murphy (Jeri Ryan), is the first female Chief Medical Examiner in the history of Phlladelphia and a force to be reckoned with (overbearing). It seems that positive (aggressive) women are all the thing in America today. The words please and thank you do not exist.
Ah well.
Eternal Law. (ITV1)
Not even the excellent acting of a fine cast has been able to convince me that angels would return to earth as barristers. Christ knows what the writers were thinking about.
Call the Midwife. (BBC1)
This has got better and better. Jessica Raine heads a well chosen cast of British actresses in stories based on the late Jennifer Worth’s memoirs.
Any viewer who thinks Miranda Hart is just a light comedienne with a talent for falling down really should think again.
The Great British Countryside. (BBC1)
In this four part series Julia Bradbury and Hugh Dennis started off with Cornwall and made a decent enough job of it. Their next destination is Yorkshire. He is an adaptable entertainer and she has been presenting outdoor television programmes for all of five years. How the viewing figures for their HD screening of rocks and hedgerows will compare with those of Country file (also BBC1), which in the same week had Ellie Harrison and Matt Baker on the Isle of Wight, we’ll have to see. You can’t accuse the Beeb of originality, though, can you? These are identical twins.
READING.
Bill Bryson.
I finished The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid with the knowledge that the kid grew up and moved on and finally stopped eliminating people when he realized he couldn’t tell which of them buy books.
The Thunderbolt Kid had me in tears of laughter over the attempt made by Milton Milton’s father to dive off the improbably high diving board at Lake Ahquabi in Iowa, and near to tears of despair over the lethal inhumanity displayed worldwide by the manufacturers of nuclear weapons.
Bill Bryson (who lives in England) deserves all the accolades that have come his way.
I only say that to avoid being vaporized.
Ian Dillow.
In response to my piece about Ian last month I received an email, headed From one famous person to another, in which he thanked me for the plug but not for the blog and then proceeded to bring my laissez faire reporting up to date. For a start, he had almost forgotten that he was once the PRO for Wessex Regional Health Authority. Seems he left PR behind in the eighties and started on the managerial ladder. Somehow, regardless of experience, his responsibilities mounted. (He was once, for example, the Regional Personnel Officer.) Finally, in the last five years before he retired, he was one of six main board directors at Wessex. He was awarded an MBE in the 2000 Honours for services to health charities.
And, as if that wasn’t enough, he was a JP for 32 years (Chairman of North Hampshire Branch for six) and only parted company with the magistracy when he turned 70 last October.
He still, I gather, doesn't know what he wants to do for a living!
I have an awful feeling I may have been name-dropping after all.
