Well that's a start

Callum Hudson-Odoi, take a bow. pic.twitter.com/FBUDse5EYe

— JR (@JRcentre) August 8, 2020

Callum started for Chelsea yesterday for the first time in a whille and was unlucky to have this screamer disallowed.

15 Must-Have Items for an Edgy, Rocker-Chic Wardrobe

1. Fights. Blood was spilled at the Mills last night. I was unsurprised as I had noticed the perpetrators snorting that which they shouldn't in the gents earlier. I tipped the wink to John the guvnor who tipped the wink to security in turn, who came down on it pretty quickly when things got real.

2. Refugees. It rumoured that the council are putting a lot of asylum seekers up. A lot of people seem anxious about this. I am sanguine. They have to stay somewhere.

No doubt items 3 through 15 of my Must-Have Items for an Edgy, Rocker-Chic Wardrobe will follow, but fights and refugees is a good start.

Roath Castle

 

We ended up here last night after the Claude closed. 

It was was built around 1780, and the castellations were added in the 1830s.

A stone's throw from Albany Road; I had no idea it existed until yesterday.

Today's visits

11:00 Mum at Ty Enfys

14:00 Dad at Belle Vue (John came too)

16:00 Sean Burke at his house at the end of Ty Gwyn Avenue

18:00 Slavoj Zizek online

20:00 Kevin Taylor at the Claude

What the L was that?

Ben passed his driving test this morning. it had been long delayed specifically by COVID-19, but also by one-thing=and=another in general.

His instructor being in the long ago pre-lockdown rear mirror, we hired a car from https://dtcuk.co/driving_car_hire/morden/ and he also had a two hour lesson with the same crew before the test. He doesn't think he could have done it without them so I am happy to share the love.

First-order logic

I need a mask.
I can buy a mask in a shop.
I can't go into a shop unless I have a mask.

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

You're a beautuf intelligent womaaan,,,

No one will understand this post but me and my brother John. "We'll always have New Orleans."

Do you like good music? That sweet soul music.

The latest version of BBC Radio's Soul Music (may its tribe increase!) is about Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive."

We learn that in 1978, when she recorded the song,  Gaynor was, in fact, wearing a medical brace following emergency surgery on her back after an accident that could have left her paralysed for life. “I’d been on stage and fallen backwards over a monitor and ended up in hospital."

This is totally amazing to me. Phil played bass on a tour with her in the 80s. As a rule he stands to the left of the drummer so he can lock in to the tempo from the high hat, On this occasion though he gradually found himself (and not in a weird way) drifting away from his station and taking the time from her shaking her booty.

This was after 1978 surgery to remove a ruptured disc and fuse two of the vertebrae in her lower spine, but before she went under the knife again in 1997 to correct the spinal stenosis caused by the initial operation. Two more procedures followed in 2018.

What a woman.

Shaolin Soccer

Perhaps subconsciously triggered by today's FA Cup final, a memory of Callum coming around to my house and watching Shaolin Soccer on DVD with Ben years ago when they were still in primary school.

I think it explains a lot about his style.

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@cmpulisic 🤝🔥

A post shared by Callum Hudson-Odoi (@calteck10) on Jul 30, 2020 at 10:30am PDT

One door closes and another opens

I can't spend my whole life reading highbrowne stuff like "Chivalry and Empire: The Colonial Argument of the Princess Micomicona Episode in Don Quijote Part I." Sometimes I need to blow the froth off a cold one and settle down in front of a Netflix comic book adaptation.

I've finished Warrior Nun and season two of The Umbrella Academy is due to be released at eight this morning.

Diamond

It is mum and dad's 60th wedding anniversary today.

Simple Simon

My claim to fame is that Simple Simon - https://t.co/tmmknr3BtH - was about me. Not many people can claim that the amazing #PeterGreen played on a song about them.

— Simon Brunning (@brunns) July 25, 2020

Very cool indeed Simon. Very cool.

Beer Pong

The Hendries have an all-weather table tennis set up in the garden and Ben introduced us all to beer pong (a game Rayburn taught him in the States) over the weekend.

Beer pong, also known as Beirut, is a drinking game in which players throw a ping pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer on the other end. The game typically consists of opposing teams of two or more players per side with 6 or 10 cups set up in a triangle formation on each side.[1] Each team then takes turns attempting to throw ping pong balls into the opponent's cups. If a ball lands in a cup (known as a 'make'), the contents of that cup are consumed by the other team and the cup is removed from the table. The first team to eliminate all of the opponent's cups is the winner.

At last, the sport I was born to play.

Harry Houdini's Hat

Harry Houdini started his career touring with carnivals and circuses. At Coney Island in 1893, he met a fellow performer, Wilhelmina Beatrice "Bess" Rahner. When they married in 1894, she joined his  act, which became known as "The Houdinis". For the rest of Houdini's performing career, Bess worked as his stage assistant.

They were famously devoted, but I am sure I have read or heard somewhere that on the odd, inevitable occasion when they did have a row, he would would be ejected from their caravan and start walking around the fairground. After each lap he would throw his hat in through the window. If Bess threw it back out, he was still in trouble so he would set off again. If she didn't he was forgiven and allowed back in again.

I think this was wonderfully psychologically astute; as tempers cooled the flying hat would gradually become funny, charming and whimsical.