Snitches get riches

After last week's overcrowding fiasco, there is a new formal booking system for the Antelope's Monday night quiz.

The first reference to it on these spin drift pages is from May 14 2012, and I remember that the first time I ever went was after getting back from a Burnham on Sea mini rugby tournament that Ben played over the May Day bank holiday weekend which I guess suggests May 1st, 2012 was "summer the first time." (Correction: May 7 was the Bank Holiday in 2012.)

Tempus fugit. Jack's been hosting it all of that time, which is quite a stint.

Joker: Gentlemen! Let's broaden our minds. Lawrence?

I have taken to linking the headings of these posts to last year's entry so I can see that it is a year since we went to see Paapa in The Convert at the Young Vic. Next up with him is Pass Over in the Kiln Theatre on 4 March. I don't think I have ever been there before.

While we're on the subject of theatre, the NT Liver Cyrano is also booked for 20 February.

My reading strategy

I have finished reading To Bodies Gone: The Theatre of Peter Gill by Barney Norris af started reading The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt. When I have finished the latter book I will probably read another one.

There is an exchange from the play Certain Young Men quoted in To Bodies Gone that made me laugh out loud.

Christopher: She wants to send him away to school.
David: Where?
Christopher: That school for very gifted parents.

Twenty first century British education policy skewered with a one liner.



Nineteenth century British education policy skewered with a one liner.

Cwm On Down

Ben is flying off to Florida today visit his brother Rayburn and family for a fortnight.

When we met for lunch this week, he mentioned a mountain biking trail near London where he goes with mates. This reminded me that there are a lot of MTB facilities in South Wales, and to speculate that perhaps he could get a morning or afternoon in the next time we go down to Cardiff to see his grandparents.

There's a Mountain Bike Wales websitest http://www.mbwales.com. That suggests to me that the Cwmcarn centre will be our best bet. 10 minutes from the M4 and only 15 miles from mum and dad's house.

Facilities

For Cwmcarn Visitor Centre opening times please visit our website.

http://your.caerphilly.gov.uk/cwmcarnforest/visitor-information/visitor-information

To book the uplift service visit Cwmdown www.cwmdown.co.uk. Private Uplifts are not permitted on either of the trails.

Shop and bike hire are available from PS Cycles – www.pscycles.co.uk

There is a shop, café and bike wash, plus pay and display car parking facilities.

The sounding of "a clear alarm to many"

Torygraph

SIR – Armed Forces pilots are awarded different wings badges according to their service. If one switches uniform, for instance from the Royal Navy to the Royal Air Force, Queen’s Regulations are clear: he or she must wear the wings of the new uniform (I did precisely that). Princes Philip, Charles, Andrew and Edward followed this rule, as did King George VI.

When Princes William and Harry decided to wear their original wings (RAF and Army respectively) on their other uniforms while carrying out ceremonial duties, it sounded a clear alarm to many that they considered their personal preferences more important than tradition and the stipulations of Queen’s Regulations. It is disrespectful to the Royal Navy to wear the wings of the RAF (or Army Air Corps), and vice versa.

Justin Tooth

London W3 

Whatever would we do without the Telegraph's letters to the editor to remind us of our duty in these trying times? My attempted parody from 2005 is revealed as thin gruel compared to the real thing.

SIR – The last time I found myself in my local GP's waiting room I couldn't help but notice that the only person present who had taken the time and effort to shine his shoes was a distinguished looking gentleman with a pronounced military bearing, to wit my good self.

Brigadier Sir Bufton Tufton (retd.)

London SW19 and bar

Oscars: Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub.

Florence Pugh has got a best supporting actress nomination for Little Women. I first became aware of her when she played played Cordelia to Anthony Hopkins's Lear on the telly in 2018. (Tony Hopkins also has an Oscar nod this year.)

When John was up this weekend we watched "Fighting with my Family." She is in that as well as a wrestler called Paige.

Also in this year's Oscars, Scarlett Johansson has been nominated (alongside Pugh) in the best supporting actress category for her work in "Jojo Rabbit," as well as best actress for her role in "Marriage Story."

Johansson and Pugh will be sisters in the upcoming Black Widow movie. No disrespect, but how much Florence Pugh is enough?



I'm not entirely sure this couldn't be marketed as a Fighting with my Family follow up.

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1

Her name is Yoshimi
She's a black belt in karate
Working for the city
She has to discipline her body

Cause she knows that
It's demanding
To defeat those evil machines
I know she can beat them

Oh Yoshimi, they don't believe me
But you won't let those robots eat me
Yoshimi, they don't believe me
But you won't let those robots defeat me

We were beaten like a gong at last night's quiz. Not even the satisfaction of drinking for free on the £50 voucher we got for winning last week could wash out the bitter taste of losing to a team who got 44 out of a total of 45 available points.

As we were walking out however Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1 by the Flaming Lips came on the PA and all was right with the world.

I bet I haven't heard it for a decade and nobody else in my team seemed to have heard of it at all. God help us if there is a round of alternative rock questions next week.

I’d been given a red shirt from Lindsay Anderson

My brother John and I went along to see Peter Gill yesterday. John continued back to Wales on the M4 afterwards while I tubed it back home.

There is an interview with Brian Cox in the Guardian today that is gaining a certain amount of traction. You can see it on https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jan/13/successions-brian-cox-i-was-touched-up-by-princess-margaret.

Here's the money quote:

“I was at the Royal Court. I was doing a play with Alan Bates and it was my 23rd birthday and I’d been given a red shirt from Lindsay Anderson. I’d just washed my hair so I was sort of glistening, heh heh heh, and I walked in and was introduced to her. She put her fingers on my shirt, and said: ‘This is a lovely shirt.’ And she started to run her fingers down the inside of my shirt. And I went: Uh oh! What do you do when you’re being touched up by a royal?”

What do you do?

“It was so funny. James Bolam, he could see what was going on and started going ‘Ooooh’ out of the side of his mouth, which somehow said princess didn’t take in at all. She just kept saying: ‘You were so wonderfully hooded on stage. I wanted to know more about you …’ She was an extraordinay creature. I excused myself and said: ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ and it came to a natural end.”

That would have been in PG's tenure as a Royal Court assistant director unless I miss my guess.

rite of passage

Hudson-Odoi scores his first in the Premier League | Chelsea 3-0 Burnley | Premier League highlights

You can go straight to the goal at https://youtu.be/Pmej7cQMyTA?t=135.

One more item ticked off his to-do list.

May you live in interesting times

As the world goes to hell in a handbasket, there is something soothing about Wales Online.

Family miss easyJet flight after row over luggage, for example. All very trying I am sure but it is hardly Iran Says It Unintentionally Shot Down Ukrainian Airliner.

As for The first look out the windows of Cardiff's new tax office HMRC building in the city centre, for all my time in the meditation hall, I can still scarcely aspire to that level of zen equanimity.

Relax. Nothing is under control

Sussexful?

I see that neither https://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/duke-and-duchess-sussex nor https://www.royal.uk/The-Duke-of-Sussex has been updated in the light of https://sussexroyal.com/ which was created by Canada's https://madebyarticle.com/.

Fascinating eh?

When did it all start to go wrong?

I want you to play a game with me, Ray.

Ben and I went to see the latest Guy Ritchie at the Wimbledon Odeon. I thoroughly enjoyed though I can imagine how someone who didn't relish its winking through the fourth wall might find it something of a trial.

We went to Wahaca after; a tradition that is now over four years old. We must try and fit another one in before he flies off to Florida to see Rayburn.

Ordinary and Extraordinary Means

Frankie's mum passed over yesterday at St George's well into her 90s. Difficult as it is to acknowledge, it was time. There is a video of me dancing with her at a New Year Party a couple of years ago. I have only seen it through my fingers. Though I have heard it is available on social media, I forbid you to search for it.

As I seem to have started an obituaries page above, let me also pay tribute to Neil Innes (the Paul McCartney to Viv Stanshall's Lennon in the Bonzos) who passed away over the New Year.  Chris Howell and I once drove from Swansea to Bridgend to see him play. regard comes no higher.

Finally, here is a link to a Times piece on our office landlord who died in November.

Terry Buckland’s ability on the football pitch was spotted at a young age. In his early teens he had played for Queens Park Rangers, Wimbledon and Barnet, but in 1977, when he was 17, he was signed up to Wimbledon FC as a professional player. He juggled an onerous training timetable — four or five evenings a week and every weekend — with A-level study. It was early proof of a stamina that he would display throughout his life. Aged 18, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which required an operation. A year later his Wimbledon FC doctor noticed a breathlessness in him on the pitch and insisted it was checked out; a secondary tumour on his spine was found attached to his lungs. Buckland turned to chemotherapy and radiotherapy to blast the growth, but the harshness of the 1970s treatments for cancer had an effect on his heart that would thereafter plague him.

I had no idea.

Potential Labour Party Leaders

In May 1930, Oswald Mosley quit his ministerial position in the Labour Government. (He was succeeded in his post by future Prime Minister Clement Attlee.) Up until his resignation, some people thought of Moseley as a potential Labour leader. In 1932 he created the British Union of Fascists.

I  don't have a strong opinion on who should be the next Labour leader but I think that thuis proves that it is important to get the right one.

That said, Andy Tea in his days as a court correspondent saw Keir Starmer acting as a defence lawyer and describes him as very bright and impressive.