Parliamentary Pub of the Year: The Four Elms

The winner of the Parliamentary Pub of the Year is The Four Elms @TheFourElms #ParlipubOTY pic.twitter.com/91L5EZMmO9

— ParliPuboftheyear (@ParliPubOTY) January 15, 2019

I have never previously heard of the Parliamentary Pub of the Year, but the Four Elms where we sometimes take Dad on furlough from Belle Vue has won it, so congratulations.

A voice inside is channelling Alvy Singer from Annie Hall, "What's with all these awards? They're always giving out awards. Best Fascist Dictator: Adolf Hitler." but I am trying to quell it.

The Infinite Monkey Cage

John, my brother was up in London on business and stayed at mine last night. Over an evening's conversation, he recommended Radio 4's The Infinite Monkey Cage.

Witty, irreverent look at the world through scientists' eyes. With Brian Cox and Robin Ince is how it describes itself.

"Alexa, play the Infinite Monkey Cage podcast," seems to work for it.

Next Monday's episode will be The Origin of Numbers which ought to work for me as I am currently reading Turing's Vision: The Birth of Computer Science.

This weekend's achievements

IF YOU LIKED TOUGH MUDDER, YOU’LL LOVE THE LATEST OBSTACLE COURSE FOR ADULTS… NAVIGATING YOUR DEPRESSION

From the minds that brought you TOUGH MUDDER, the WARRIOR DASH, and SPARTAN RACE comes … NAVIGATING YOUR DEPRESSION — the latest in ultra-tough obstacle-course competitions for adults!

If you love an extreme challenge, then NAVIGATING YOUR DEPRESSION is the obstacle course for you. Forget what you’ve heard about those other races… participants in NAVIGATING YOUR DEPRESSION are given the ULTIMATE warrior’s task: just making it through a single goddamn day!

The second installment of our Manifesto Series is available for preorder. Orders will ship late January, 2019. Since the 2016 election, reading the news each day can send even the most placid...

Sound crazy?! It literally is!

But that’s not all: while trying to complete the course, our Serotonin Spartans will also have to deal with our world-famous obstacles! In Tough Mudder, those obstacles include the Mud Mile, Everest 2.0, and a barbed-wire crawl! In Spartan Race, you’ll face the sled drag, the seven-foot wall, and the Hercules Hoist! In NAVIGATING YOUR DEPRESSION, you’ll face our world-famous obstacles like PUT ON SOME PANTS.

The PUT ON SOME PANTS obstacle is a brutal test of will, so don’t worry: if you can’t manage to get into a real pair of jeans, you’ll be allowed to continue the race if you can at least put on a DIFFERENT pair of pants. Fresh sweats are at least… something! But that’s not all …

Once you’ve PUT ON SOME PANTS, there’s no time to relax! Hop the Unexplained Pain Partition, sprint up Restlessness Road, and you’ll run straight into your first WATER OBSTACLE! Specifically, the water is in a SHOWER, and the obstacle is you need to TAKE A SHOWER. As with all water obstacles, we have a crew standing by for emergencies, but also to shout encouragement, like, “Come on, man, it’s such a small thing, but it will make you feel like a new person. It’ll take five minutes. Please? For me?”

Skinflix

Netflix's Sex Education jocks and cheerleaders (raised in the Welsh valleys)

The high school campus is bathed in golden sunshine, the kids play American football on the lawns and varsity jackets are the cool uniform of choice.

Welcome to British school life according to Netflix.

Sex Education is a comic coming-of-age drama starring Gillian Anderson as a sex therapist and Asa Butterfield as her mortified teenage son. It is also an attempt by the US streaming giant to steal the BBC’s crown as the home of British-made entertainment.

The series was filmed in Penarth, South Wales, with a British cast and crew. But the first viewers of the show, which launched this weekend, were left baffled by the curious interpretation of the British education system.

Sex Education: a Welsh born icon. Well I never!

Bertrand Russell

Wikipedia

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life, Russell considered himself a liberal, a socialist and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had "never been any of these things, in any profound sense." Russell was born in Monmouthshire into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in the United Kingdom.

In the early 20th century, Russell led the British "revolt against idealism". He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, colleague G. E. Moore and protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians. With A. N. Whitehead he wrote Principia Mathematica, an attempt to create a logical basis for mathematics. His philosophical essay "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy". His work has had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science (see type theory and type system) and philosophy, especially the philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics.

Bertrand Russel: a Welsh born icon. Well I never!

Curiouser and Curiouser

🔴IF I WERE ODOI...🔵(Callum Hudson-Odoi Song Parody Bayern Munich Transfer)

282,501 views, only published yesterday.

The whole Callum saga gets more surreal by the day.

Kerela Literature Festival

Our new year starts with fireworks: a double-bill programme presenting the literature and culture of Cymru / Wales in Kerala and Maharashtra. We are delighted to have curated #GuestNationWales at the @KeralaLitFest with @walesliterature pic.twitter.com/nH3jAXbrCt

— LitAcrossFrontiers (@MakingLitTravel) January 4, 2019

I am a great lover of both Wales and Kerala, but the idea of Wales being the guest nation at the Kerala literature festival still sounds exotic and strange to me.

Come to think of it, Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things was set in Kerala. That won the Booker Prize in 1997. My God I am getting old.

Events, dear boy, events

I have snaffled up tickets for Andy Fairweather Low and The Low Riders at the Hideaway on March 16th.

Also I went along the London Palladium Panto on Sunday. Julian Clary makes me weep with laughter. I am not entirely sure why, but he do.

Callumity for Chelsea? (yet more wordplay)

BREAKING: Sky sources: @FCBayern table a fourth bid for Callum Hudson-Odoi, matching @ChelseaFC’s required asking price of £35m. #SSN pic.twitter.com/CURRlx125X

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) January 8, 2019

I make no apology for devoting so much space to the Callum saga. I wonder he will feature in the League Cup semi final away at Spurs tonight?

If and when he signs and gets the Bayern number 10 shirt i will probably tug on your sleeve again.

Not a dry eye in the house

Callumny (hiliarious play on words)

Here are Callum's highlights against Nottingham Forest yesterday.

See also Match of the Day discuss whether Chelsea's young star Callum Hudson-Odoi would be better off developing in the German Bundesliga after his impressive performance in the Blues' 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup.

This sort of thing no longer seems strange to me; just another day in the office.

artificial intelligence is entwined with state and corporate power

To save us from a Kafkaesque future, we must democratise AI - the talk I gave at the launch of the @AdaLovelaceInst is published in the @Guardian todayhttps://t.co/oFtvR0JOxw

— Stephen Cave (@stephenjcave) January 4, 2019

I think this is a great and important article. I won't quote from it or write a precis; take a few minutes and read the whole thing yourself

Happiness for Humans

I have been reading the book that the son and heir got me for Christmas. From page 170:

Was l like Colm at eighteen? Awkward, tongue-tied, badly in need of a haircut?

(A shower wouldn't kill him either, to be honest.)

Someone with many children, a former cabinet minister I seem to recall, wrote in his memoir that one is only ever as happy as one's least-happy child. It may have been the truest thing he ever said. Colm isn't unhappy exactly, but neither does he radiate the joy of youth. He is still, as he always was,a transparently decent person. He contains little malice or guile. I just want to shake him by the shoulders and shout, 'Come on, for fxxk's sake, Col, snap out of it!'

Whatever it may be.

Of course I learned a long time ago to keep my trap shut.

As William Nicholson had CS Lewis say in Shadowlands, 'We read to know we're not alone.'

Anturiaethau Alys yng Ngwlad Hud

Dad is waning again, though antibiotics (fingers crossed) should sort him out. Elsewhere in the circle of life, I am due a new niece Alys (Welsh for Alice) today.

Previously merely passive-aggressive, my new (stop-gap) phone has now escalated its relationship with me to abusive.

Type “God is” and let autocomplete define your theology.