Much ado about nothing

I am off the Rose Theatre in Kingston on Friday; definitely on something of a theatre jag lately.

Time Flies

It was the last rugby game of the year for Ben and the Old Ruts colts today.

They lost to Cobham in the final if the Quins Cup.

He narrowly missed out on a try and it was a good achievement to get as far as they did.

Next year will be his tenth year at the Club and his last before senior rugby.

Friday Evening Events

It turns out that we were at the Deli Boutique n St John's Hlll last night.

As a rule they close at 6pm, but once a month on a Friday night, they pay tribute to a region of France, with a two course menu with wine.

One for the diary.

carte du jour

Lobster Menu

Friday 27th April

Menu @ 25

Fresh Goat Cheese, Smoked Salmon & Cucumber Salsa on Toast

Complementary Starter

Grilled whole Lobster with Deli Boutique sauce,

Roasted potatoes.

French Cheese Selection Platter (£ 5)

Fresh Raspberry Tart with Vanilla Whipped Cream (£ 5)

Wine List

Sauvignon gris, (Family Wine, Loire Valley Vineyard) White. £21.90/£ 5.50 (175ml)

Classic Ventoux, Provence, Red £21.90/£5.50 (175ml)

Orca, Ventoux, Provence, Red £ 26.90

Pey blanc”, Provence, Rosé. £27.90/£6.50 (175ml)

Sparkling Wine (Family Wine, Loire Valley Vineyard) £ 26.90/ £ 6.50 (175 ml)

This evening's bill of fare does look nice. If only I could claim to have the slightest idea where on earth we are supposed to turn up to consume it.

Da Capo al Fine

I drove past the aftermath of this last Friday, early in the morning on my way to pick Ben up to take him to the dentist. He would have walked past it the night before when he got the tube back after curling.

Repeat to fade.

Four teens have been jailed for a total of 85 years for the murder of Mahamed Hassan in April 2017

Met

Kishon Allen, 19 (28.10.98) of Mount Road, Mitcham was sentenced to 21 and a half years after being found guilty of murder and violent disorder.

I used to see Kishon all the time at rugby and athletics (Icons passim). Is this the world we created?

Quiz

I am off to see this in the Noel Coward Theatre next Wednesday.

in a bind

People seem never to tire of telling me that the word yoga, is from the Sanskrit word yuj means to yoke or bind.

Then again, there is a also school of thought that speculates that the etymology of religion lies with the Latin word religare, which means “to tie, to bind.”

Nothing new under the sun.

Judging a Book by Its Recovery

To what extent is inspiration entangled with intoxication? When it comes to writing and alcohol, it's comforting to think it's always better to be sober. But is it?... more »

As good a way as any to sum up the day.

An Antidote to Chaos

As I was half asleep on the back seat of the minibus on the way home from curling I heard Ben telling Jonnie that he was reading Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.

I wasn't aware that he read or, indeed, had any internal life at all, never mind quaffing "the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now" (New York Times).

Last December (Icons passim), I blogged that a Jordan Peterson lecture seemed to be about "the Bomber and his mates" which is pretty much means Ben and Jonnie.

"You know, just simple lines intertwining," as Nigel Tufnell has said.

England's only dedicated Ice Curling Rink near Tunbridge Wells in Kent

Yesterday was the hottest April day for nearly 70 years, with the mercury soaring to 29.1C (84F) in St James' Park in London, so naturally - in the evening - we went curling near Tunbridge Wells.

It can't be explained in terms of cause and effect.

Turn on HTTPS for your blog

I just turned on Https for nickbrowne.coraider.com as explained in https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/6284029

I was amazed google could offer it on a domain it didn't own.

Maybe that  is why it isn't working.

Update:
It is now.

Greatest UK boxer of all time?

Jeff Mayweather asks some of the guys inside the Mayweather Boxing Club who they think the greatest boxer to ever come out of the UK was

Lots of love here, from people in the know, for Joe Calzaghe - whose signed glove sits near me in the office as I type.

When they built you, brother, they broke the mold

John came back with me from Cardiff on Sunday as he had to attend a course at the Chancery Lane office on Monday and Tuesday. He is going straight back on the train from Paddington after it finishes this afternoon.

It's been fun.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord

When I am back in Cardiff I take mum and dad to six o'clock at St Joseph's. The Archbishop was there this weekend. Mass these days though, as Vincent Vega would say, "it's just...it's just, there it's a little different."

Here is Dave Holmes in Esquire, on being thrown off the beat by little changes.

I can still recite the Nicene Creed from memory: “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen ..."

It’s a declaration of the Catholic faith, and if you are a kid in church with his parents, it’s a signal that the Sign of Peace— the seventh-inning stretch of the Catholic Mass—is moments away. Your freedom is imminent.

My father had a special cadence during the Creed, especially in those final few lines, each one building on the last, like he was ticking items off a to-do list. Upspeak, before we had a word for it:

We believe in one Catholic and apostolic church?

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins?

We look for the resurrection of the dead?

And from that peak, he would descend:

N’ the life of the world to come Amen.

It got on my nerves when I was a teenager and everything your parents do gets on your nerves. Once I moved away and was only going to Mass with my folks a couple of times a year, I’d lean in a little bit so I wouldn’t miss it. It was like a good old song, and his version was my favorite.

Now he’s gone, and the Creed has all sorts of new words in it. Now you’re supposed to bow your head at certain points; There’s choreography. Pope Benedict changed it more than a decade ago, and I’m always a step behind. “And with your spirit” catches me off guard every time. All us other twice-a-year Catholics can identify each other when we all say: “And also with y…oh.”

I hear you brother.

AND WHY THE HELL DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF? PART II

I've been in Cardiff since Friday and I'm due to eat with Ben and John in Corleone tonight.

This means that heroic measures will be required to get through my weekly organic fruit and veg box before the next one arrives.

It seems to me that Romy Gill's red lentil dhal with wild garlic will  inevitably form part of this mopping up exercise.

What have I become?

AND WHY THE HELL DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF?

I finally managed yesterday, at the umpteenth time of asking, to climb out of my pit and get to the 6;30 am class at Wimbledon Hot Yoga. I have pretty much got 6:30 on Thursday dialled in as I go with Kevin from round the corner and I know he will be outside my door at six prompt.

If I manage to get along to Elite Fitness at 10 o'clock this morning, that will be three in a row. Could Thursday, Friday, Saturday be the new paradigm?

McSweeney's

I’M A WOMAN ON VACATION DOING YOGA AND WHY THE HELL DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF?

LAUREN TOUSIGNANT

It’s 6 AM on the third day of my vacation in this Instagram-perfect corner of Southeast Asia but instead of sleeping peacefully I have stretched myself into I don’t even know what shape and I am miserable.

All I wanted for this much-needed trip was to lie on a beach and then take a boat to another beach where I would lie out some more and drink 300 Pina Coladas and then take another boat to another beach and eat and eat and eat and lie out again. But after seeing so many dumb stock images of beaming women doing the pigeon pose in the middle of lush mountains or secluded beaches, I convinced myself that, “Yes, that could be me,” and booked this fxxking sunrise yoga class.

Read on ............

So the last shall be first

Back in 2012 we  watched Annie Last, Debs' niece, in the London Olympics (see Icons passim).

Yesterday England won their first ever Commonwealth Games medals in women's mountain biking as favourite Annie Last took gold ahead of team-mate Evie Richards on the Gold Coast.

Hoorah! Someone other than Callum or Paapa to write about plus Last/First wordplay aplenty.

Sign of the Times

The New York Times:

After ‘Hamlet’ and ‘King Lear,’ Where Else Can Paapa Essiedu Go?

LONDON — No one from the Royal Shakespeare Company was sure if Paapa Essiedu would have time for an interview recently. He was busy rehearsing the title role in “Hamlet” while also preparing for “King Lear,” in which he is playing Edmund alongside Antony Sher.

Both productions were about to travel to the United States: “King Lear” runs through April 29 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and “Hamlet” arrives at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on May 2. But eventually Mr. Essiedu was able to find a time to talk, between the cool-down from one play and the warm-up for the other. He wasn’t being difficult; this was just how it was.

Daily Mail:

Chelsea U18s 4-0 (7-0 agg) Birmingham City U18s: Jody Morris' side reach seventh successive FA Youth Cup final after comfortable win

• Chelsea's youth side were 3-0 up from the first leg away from home last week
• Callum Hudson-Odoi scored two goals either side of Charlie Brown's strike

Writing here feels like keeping a scrapbook about these two lately

Rumspringa

More footage of  Ben and Ray.

It is a pity they are in Florida rather than Pennsylvania.

Given the Abraham Lincoln face furniture Ben is sporting he could have pulled on a frock coat and gone undercover with the Amish completely undetected.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa

Thinking out loud

We won the quiz at the Antelope in Tooting last night, which means we will have a £50 bar tab for next Monday. My brother John will be up for that.

Ben doesn't land in Heathrow on the way back from Florida until Saturday morning which means he will be too jet lagged to play rugby on Sunday morning.

That, in turn, means that I can drive back from Cardiff later than usual and I can give John a lift up to town. If the weather is OK though, I think we should try and get to SW19 in time to catch The Steve Whalley Band on the bandstand and promoted by the Apprentice at 3pm.



Thence to Corleone for dinner (Ben will come) which is open from noon until 10pm on Sundays.

Tender Loving Scare

Anyone who tells you that the TLS protocol upgrade is not causing any problems with e-commerce behind the scenes is fibbing.

Thanks for listening.

Ryan Reeves

I think that over the last year or so I have learned more from Ryan Reeves' YouTube channel than almost anything else.

Start with the Early and Medieval Church History playlist.

It is s bit more rigorous than our scripture lessons in St Illtyd's with Brother Luke.

apt to be very sporting and unpredictable

I watched the Cardiff Wolves game in the Standard last night. City lost 1-0 after squandering two penalties in extra time. Not a dry eye in the house.

I'm off to Kempton Park this afternoon if you have got any tips.

Sky Sports think Callum may get his first Chelsea start against West Ham on Sunday. If that happens I will be in the Standard again at half past four.

Let me stand next to your fire

It is pretty much exactly three years (Icons passim) since John and I met Shauna. Amazing to think that her TV series starts at half past seven next Monday on BBC One Wales. More information than you need, but I will have to catch up with it on the iPlayer after the Antelope quiz.

Lana De Ray (geddit?)

Ben with his niece in Florida

Late on parade

I am late with my slice of life today as I left at the crack of dawn to visit Warwickshire Police and then Nottinghamshire Police. I am going to need to make this trip reasonably regularly now.

I couldn't help but notice Stratford Upon Avon is in Warwickshire. Perhaps I could combine business with a visit there some time in the future, given my current Shakespeare jag and the fact I've never been.

Another piece of the jigsaw

We ain't got no history

Trailing 3-1 and badly in need of offensive firepower against Tottenham on Sunday, in the 88th minute Antonio Conte brought on... 17 year-old Callum Hudson-Odoi.

Conte confirmed to Sky Italia that Pedro picked up an injury in Friday's training session, hence his absence yesterday. I'm also told Hudson-Odoi was included on the bench despite a minor heel problem #cfc

— Liam Twomey (@liam_twomey) April 2, 2018

As this gets more commonplace, we need to keep reminding ourselves how remarkable it is.

500

Eight years and seven months since the first time, I did my 500th yoga class yesterday.

Moby Dick - Rehearsed

Kevin G's parents were among the party at yesterday's Hamlet matinee. Over a spot of lunch before the event, Kev's dad told us he had seen Orson Welles on stage in Moby Dick in the 50s.

"Was he playing the whale?" I deadpanned.

No such luck we were told. Welles was Ahab. Kenneth Williams was in it as well, and it was performed with little in the way of props on a bare stage. "They mimed harpooning the whale in the orchestra pit."

At this stage, quite frankly I was beginning to suspect that Godding pere had lost the plot.

Not at all. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby_Dick%E2%80%94Rehearsed.

The original cast included Welles, Christopher Lee, Kenneth Williams, Joan Plowright, Patrick McGoohan, Gordon Jackson, Peter Sallis! Let's just savour that.

An ingenious idea is employed to accommodate the sweep of this classic story on the stage. A Shakespearean company puts down their rehearsal sides of Lear and curiously take up those of a new play entitled Moby Dick.

King Lear! As our own tragedians are off to do it in New York. "The wheel is come full circle, I am here."