Kick for Touch

Still on a Peter Gill jag, I came across this page (on the website I discovered earlier this week) about the production of Kick for Touch at the National in 1983.

I saw it. In those days I caught a lot of productions on the South Bank as I used to commute on the train from Waterloo and would often pop in of an evening if I had nothing better to do then catch the train home after the show.

The picture of Jane Lapotaire and the kids on the right brought back some memories. As I recall she appears with them at the very last moment of the very last scene. Memory may play tricks but I can't remember the boy and girl appearing in the rest of the production at all.

On the way home, I recognised them (escorted by their Mum) as we all boarded the same train. When their mother spied an acquaintance, the friend, I and the rest of the carraige were subjected to a long lecture on her offspring's histrionic brilliance.

For all I know they may be giants of contemporary theatre by now, but twenty odd years ago it did seem like hilarious over-egging of the pudding to hear them praised to the skies for a five second, non-speaking, walk-on part.

Small Change?

I've followed Peter Gill's work as best I can ever since I moved to London (interest originally piqued by the fact that he's my father's cousin and has written several plays set in Cardiff).

Idly googling him last night to see if he has got up to anything accessible to me since last year's Voysey Inheritance, I came across the picture below at this website.

Graduates and stars of the Royal Court Theatre, 1969. Standing (left to right): David Cregan, playwright; Jack Shephard, actor; Sir Laurence Olivier; Anthony Page; John Osborne. Seated: Christopher Hampton, resident dramatist; Joan Plowright; Peter Gill, Jill Bennett, Victor Henry (Jimmy Porter in the revival of Look Back in Anger), Edward Bond. On Floor: Kenneth Haigh, the original Jimmy Porter.

There is a larger version of the photo here. For all my antipathy to Jimmy Porter (I can never understand why Cliff doesn't punch him in the bracket) that is gobsmacking company and certainly a long way from Splott. I always knew Gill was eminent, but I'm not sure I realised he was quite so precociously exalted.

Raw Tsars

I took my little boy to the Star Wars exhibition in County Hall yesterday. We both found it somewhat underwhelming frankly.

First off the bat, the signage made it difficult to find, which is discouraging, to say the least, in the pouring rain. And once we made it to the exhibition itself, a lot of the props on display were rather on the prosaic side.

"What exactly 's 'posed to be int'restin' 'bout this chair?" asked Ben about some throne or other. I silently agreed that it was less than fascinating, but didn't own up because the memory of the entry fee was still fresh.

---

We're blessed with a lot of parks and bike routes in my neck of the woods, so early in the evening I agreed that the new ninja bomber could cycle the two or three miles back to his mum's with me riding shotgun. It only seems like yesterday that he learned to ride at all.

Penney Drops

Now that I've finished with American Shaolin, I'm reading Steff Penney's The Tenderness of Wolves (as recommended by Dave) which won last year's Costa Book of the Year Award. I vaguely remember press coverage marveling at the time that:

On leaving university, Stef became agoraphobic and could barely travel. She has never been to Canada and researched The Tenderness of Wolves at The British Library. Now recovered, Stef lives in East London.

I imagine that, never mind Canada, she has never been to the 19th century either suffering from as she did from agoraphobia rather than Chrono-Displacement Disorder.

Chuck Norris

I've just discovered that - as well as uncovering my beloved Vin Diesel Facts - the internet also spews forth Chuck Norris Facts:

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

There is no evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard. There is only another fist.

When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down.

Chuck Norris is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.

Chuck Norris does not get frostbite. Chuck Norris bites frost.................

China in your hands

It turns out that Henan - home of the Shaolin Temple - is not the same place as Hunan home of the culinary tradition that produced my dinner last night.

Sorry for any confusion.

Hunan, All Too Hunan

Last August, when the profit burglar and I visited The Dragon Castle we dined Cantonese style, leaving Anhui, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Szechuan and Zhejiang on our to-do list of the "Eight Great Traditions" of Chinese cuisine.

This week, we visited Hunan in Pimlico; an establishment - like the Sappho Meze Bar - that does not have a menu. On arrival we were issued with spicy peanuts, pickled cucumber and the wine list, then Mr Peng the proprietor came over for a chat about our likes and dislikes and decided what we were going to have. Nothing as vulgar as money would be mentioned until we got the bill.

I remember that we started with soup from little wooden bamboo barrels but after that details escape me as we were served with dish after dish. It was all delicious. I particularly remember pig's ears and frog's legs but only because they were unexpected ingredients. Mr Peng - definitely the governor - paid close attention to our reactions to each dish, coming over occasionally to demand that we spooned more suace from the serving dish over our plates etc. I can see how that might irritate some, but I was more than happy playing aspirant to his adept. It is a long way from Matthew Polly "eating bitter" in Hunan's Shaolin monastery.

A great meal consisting of about twenty delicate courses and unencumbered by any rice or noodles. Six more Chinese styles to go.

Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations as we eat our way around the world in London.

Gordon Ramsay at Thermopylae

Thousands from the fxxking Persian Empire in, yes?

Take one Persian.

Sword.

Stab.

Guts.

On the floor.

Still steaming.

Done.

Next.

Basic knife skills, big man.

Keep it simple.

[Screams at random hoplite]: Simple, you fxxking simple minded fxxker!

The above was triggered by the juxtaposition of the new series of The F-Word and my idle wondering about when the DVD of 300 might be out. (There's no date but you can get Amazon to email you when it is available here.)

Gordon Ramsay, Noel Coward and a limerick. I could get into rewriting this stirring take in different styles:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an Achaemenid king in possession of a large empire must be in want of a war ............

Opened by the Western Spear

I finished reading American Shaolin last night, and I must say that I enjoyed it thoroughly. I won't review it here as I don't want to shoot my bolt before the "El Grupo" meeting at which we are to discuss it.

I've noticed this morning that Matther Polly the author has posted some videos of his time at the temple to YouTube here. These are well worth a look in light of the book.

There's also a video of Polly being interviewed on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

I had wondered what had happened to Ferguson after he wrote and starred in two movies (The Big Tease and Saving Grace) that I really liked, then I'll Be There which I missed even though it was set in Wales; seems he went to America to seek his fortune.

Next stop in my Shoalin research is to find a Hunan restaurant in London and see if I can't rustle up some baijiu.

Fratboy Slim

Post triathlon, I am done with jockdom for the time being , though I do have a full scale mid life crisis scheduled later this year around the Afan Forest Park Off Road Triathlon in August and the Swansea Bay 10K Race in September.

I need to get reacquainted with my inner geek, but I'm wary of too sharp a transition. Perhaps I could gently decelerate between the physical and cerebral via a fratboy interlude.

The Popdrive (hat tip Simon): a combo 1GB USB thumbdrive and beer bottle opener could be just the thing to ease me through this difficult rite of passage.

Hillz 'n Skillz

I, I wish I could swim
Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim,
Though nothing will drive them away
We could beat them, just for one day
We could be heroes, just for one day

I completed the Springfield triathlon this morning. It wasn't a spectacular performance but I ground it out fortified simultaneously by two convictions: first, that there was no chance in Hell that I wasn't going to complete it; second, that there was no chance in Hell that if I stopped to rest at all I would get going again.

Maturin, Llewellyn, and I cycled round the bike route and the run route on the days before the event. This sort of scouting is essential I think. I can scarcely imagine how disheartening it would be to come across an unexpected uphill section - for example - right at the end of the event in the run.

Now that I know I've got the wind to propel myself round a sprint triathlon course, I'm also pretty sure that I could improve my times, without necessarily getting fitter, by getting better at cycling and swimming.

That said, I was killing my speed this morning with plenty of braking while swooping down Box Hill in the pouring rain on slick tyres. I could have gone faster, but I couldn't help but wonder if triathletes get their numbers written on both arms and both legs by officials to help with reassembling bodies after accidents.

Thanks are also due to the Maturin family for looking after me so shplendidly over the weekend.

Communion

I quit triathlon camp in Bradford on Avon and went back to Cardiff for a few hours for my niece's first communion.

This piece (and especially the last two paragraphs) by Anne Enright from the London Review of Books resonates with a lot of the circumstances. Not my circumstances, the circumstances.

Poetry in Motion

I'm going to be riding the cycle route for the Springfield triathlon later today, so I'm taking my Garmin Forerunner to record it.

There's a blog on Garmin's Motion Based site that contains tips and tricks along the lines of:

We hear it quite frequently, "I've got this ultra marathon and I want to track it with my Forerunner 305. How do I go about making sure I capture all the data?"

I generally find that 8 to 10 hours of battery life is enough for one session, but then I'm not entering 100 mile races .... yet.

I also see that Garmin are sponsoring Tim Don, Great Britain's World Champion Triathlete.

Now he's using MotionBased for performance analysis, I can see (at tim.don.motionbased.com) how much faster he moves than me (at nickbrowne.motionbased.com).

Always nice to get a reality check of a Saturday morning.

The End

Earlier this week, I mentioned in passing to The Profit Burglar, that my six year old's chess was at the level where he knew all the pieces and their moves, but that I was finding it tricky working out a satisfactory way to play him or improve his game.

Paul suggested teaching him endgames. This seems to me to be an excellent idea, not least because as Benny will be learning checkmates in a simplified environment he will actually be winning the mini games we play which should be good for his motivation.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess/The_Endgame looks to be a good primer.

Escalope Milano

Wednesday European Championship games have provided quite a distraction from eat your way around the world in London lately so we decided to combine our vices last night and cross Italy off our list by dining at Al Forno before watching AC Milan entertain Manchester United.

I've always loved Al Forno's. It is noisy and crowded, but the pizzas are so big that you could order a large one, screw four legs into it and sit at that if the place was full.

It has also become a touchstone of authenticity for me since I saw them serving fish wrapped in foil once. I thought that was odd until I noticed the Corleones dining in exactly the same fashion at first communion party that kicks off "The Godfather Part 2". I still don't know what the thinking behind it is though.

The profit burglar and I both ordered Escalope Milano with spaghetti in honour of the game and washed it down with a bottle of house white.

As for the match itself, "what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence".

"But why is the club called AC Milan?", I hear you muse. "Surely it should be Associazione Calcio Milano." Attend:

The club was founded in 1899 by Alfred Edwards, a British expatriate. In honour of its origins, the club has retained the English spelling of its city's name, instead of changing it to the Italian Milano (though it was forced to do it during the fascist regime).

Clerihews

Sean Burke
Doesn't do any work,
But if badgered he
Claims to study theories of tragedy.

A clerihew I wrote in 1985 when I was knocking round in Edinburgh with the author of Deadwateras well as Authorship: From Plato to the Postmodern and The Death and Return of the Author: Criticism and Subjectivity in Barthes, Foucault and Derridapopped unbidden into my head this morning so I am sharing it with the world.

I get a name check in the preface to "Authorship". How cool is that?

Previously on the West Wing

President Andrew Jackson, in the main foyer of his White House, had a big block of cheese ........

We're getting towards the end of series 2 in More4's mammoth screening of the West Wing from the beginning.

Although I try to be home at 8pm on Sundays, I've missed the following episodes:

5. And It's Surely to Their Credit
6. The Lame Duck Congress
8. Shibboleth
9. Galileo
15. Ellie

Further, next Sunday being the eve of my attempt on The Spingfield Triathlon, episode 18 "17 People", looks to be vulnerable as well.

But hold. As I will be staying with Maturin, who is responsible for the the thing getting its hooks in me in the first place, redemption may be on hand from his DVD collection.

All together now:

I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I have you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important because we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing: while you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tight-Ass Club, in this building, when the President stands, nobody sits.

Signed by the hits

Looking for a soundtrack after stumbling down the stairs to meet the day this morning I came across "Signed by the Hits" on Freeview channel 18.

Music videos signed for the deaf! Why didn't I think of that?

I've seen not seen anything so inspired since the golden age of "Get Stuffed" and "Hollywood Minute" when ITV started its barrel-scrape fueled small-hours broadcasting years ago.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

Well, I woke up Sunday morning
With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad,
So I had one more for dessert.
Then I fumbled in my closet through my clothes
And found my cleanest dirty shirt.
Then I washed my face and combed my hair
And stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.

I'd smoked my mind the night before
With cigarettes and songs I'd been picking.
But I lit my first and watched a small kid
Playing with a can that he was kicking.
Then I walked across the street
And caught the Sunday smell of someone frying chicken.
And Lord, it took me back to something that I'd lost
Somewhere, somehow along the way.

On a Sunday morning sidewalk,
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
'Cause there's something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone.
And there's nothing short a' dying
That's half as lonesome as the sound
Of the sleeping city sidewalk
And Sunday morning coming down.

In the park I saw a daddy
With a laughing little girl that he was swinging.
And I stopped beside a Sunday school
And listened to the songs they were singing.
Then I headed down the street,
And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringing,
And it echoed through the canyon
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.

On a Sunday morning sidewalk,
I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
'Cause there's something in a Sunday
That makes a body feel alone.
And there's nothing short a' dying
That's half as lonesome as the sound
Of the sleeping city sidewalk
And Sunday morning coming down.

A long overdue nod to Kris Kristofferson. Inspired by imagining John, the People of the Barn, and the fall out from the first annual Cardigan.

Annus Mirabilis Revisited

After Larkin:

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather lost on me) -
I crawled then walked and I latterly ran,
I was only two you see.

Up to then there'd only been
A sort of gurgling,
A tendency to cling,
A stain that started inbetween
And spread to everything.

Yet even though my nappy stank:
Everyone smelled the same,
And every life became
A brilliant rattle piggy bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(And just in time for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP

A Swingin' Affair

Camera phones are wonderful things. I was there to capture the moment when the New Ninja Bomber first got the drop on swinging from pole to pole in the playground (the trick it seems is to grab the target with your legs while still holding on the rope) and wondered how hard it would be to upload it to You-Tube.

There's nothing to it.

Note that he gets a bit cocky and fails trying to swing back again.

He gashed his chin playing in the garden at a friends house yesterday, so we spent a couple of hours in A&E having the wound washed and sealed. (Thank you to Sam the triage nurse and Mary the doctor.)

I guess that a certain amount of time in casualty is par for the course for a growing chap.

Style and Conditioning

One bonus of pounding the road since the New Year to get ready for the Childline Challenge is that it's made me confident enough to try other things knowing that, though I may be no spring chicken, I'll probably have have enough in the tank at least to get through them without making too much of a twit of myself.

With that in mind - having played five a side and been mountain biking in the last couple of weeks - I went along to Muay Thai on Monday, and came out with renewed respect for my little one (picture left) who's been doing it since last August.

The meat and potatoes of the training comes after skipping, stretching and shadow boxing. You tape up your hands. Could anything feel more gladitorial? Then - working in pairs, the hitting begins.

First we have "conditioning". Conditioning consists of being battered about the forearms, shins, and latterly the midriff with a Thai pad.

After that, you work on combinations; punching, kicking, kneeing and elbowing pads held by your partner, then swapping gloves for pads and having the favour returned. This is amazingly tiring, and to my surprise, holding the pads to be hit is easily as taxing as doing the hitting yourself.

It goes without saying that two hours of Thai boxing builds up a tremendous thirst that I was happy to slake yards away in Venus as soon as we finished.

H-Dog an' tha Midstate Office Supply krew

Herbert Kornfeld writes about workplace issues for The Onion. He works as the Accounts Receivable Supervisor at Midstate Office Supply, the state's oldest wholesaler and retailer of office supplies and business machines.

Check it out, G's. Near two year gone, but now he back, an' the Stone-Col' Funkee-Fresh Mack Daddy Supastar Enforca will be crunchin' 'em an' balancin' 'em 2 tha grave. Word is bond.

It Wuz Always 'Bout Tha Numbahs

El Grupo

In the interests of historical accuracy, let it be known that "El Grupo" convened last Friday in the White Rose in Mumbles, and then dined at Lal Qila. The books enumerated here were exposed to our collective sensibility, and "This Thing of Darkness" judged the winner by acclamation.

Next time we shall be considering:

• Winter in Madrid as nominated by Rob
  
• The Tenderness of Wolves as nominated by Dave
  
• Slaughterhouse 5 as nominated by Chris
  
• American Shaolin as nominated by me
  

As ever, ordering via one of the links above will get me a piece of the action; I have also created a new tag "El Grupo" that I shall use in future and retrospectively to gather my musings on the books we consider.

Chainsuck

I completed the Childline Challenge on Sunday morning, but had a bit of a 'mare to be honest.

Chris (who was riding shotgun with me rather than competing) and I seem to have taken a wrong turn after the Memorial and I found that I had to dismount and carry my bike up a few steps to get back on the main path.

I jumped on the bike again and changed down gears drastically while pedalling hard, with the - probably inevitable - result that my chain came off the chainring and got jammed. I tried to untangle it for what seemed like an age, then gave up and started to push the cycle to the stage end at Sketty car park, only to be saved by a Knight of the Road who got off his own bike and showed me how I could fix mine. (I was pleased to be able to thank him after the race and have made a vow to learn some maintenance myself.)

All these troubles - I learned later that Chris had encountered the same problem - meant that by the time I got in the pool - stage 2 of the race - I was way behind the group with whom I had started. It took all the will power that I had to complete ten 50m lengths rather than a sneaky catch-up eight as no one was checking, but I gritted my teeth and did it properly.

Subsequently, I girded my loins and ran the 3 or 4 miles back to Knab's Rock to finish last among my peers.

Same time next year?

Mais naturellement.

Afan Argoed

The two Robs were generous enough to lend me an appropriate ride and take me mountain biking in Afan Argoed yesterday. What an ideal way to rest and relax before this morning's Childline Challenge!

I wore my Garmin for the adventure, so here - as I promised them - are the links to our route:

• motionbased record
• Google Maps
• Google Earth

I didn't wear the heart monitor, but I wish I had because I was scared witless by the precipitous drops inches from the edge of some of the single track descents and I 'd like to be able to prove what I imagine: that fear made my heart beat more furiously then, than effort made it pound on even the steepest climb.

Ceci n' est pas une pipe

I can't get to a computer today, so I am writing this post with pen and paper.

The History of Mr Polly

The latest meeting of "El Grupo" is not until later tonight but, as Dave and Chris have already nominated their choices for the commingling after that, I may as well shoot my load.

Inspired by this article in The Times, I nominate American Shaolin:

P. J. O'Rourke 'I loved AMERICAN SHAOLIN. Reading it was like being abducted by an alien - a brilliant, funny and hospitable alien'
Dan Rather 'Tells more about what's going on in China, has more insights into the real China, than anything in recent years'

I'm already interested in the Bodhidhama, the Indian monk who seems to have been pivotal to the development of Zen and the Shaolin temple. so I may learn some more about that from the book, but I'm also partial to travelogues with jokes.

Rather sportingly, according to his website, the book's author Matthew Polly is "happy to answer a few questions by email or schedule a 30-minute conference by speakerphone when you’re reading American Shaolin!" That might be fun.

Serendipitously, given the amount of time I spend at Jackapong, here he is on Muay Thai - my boy's hobby - in Slate earlier this month.

Pros and Cons

When I pump "Tristart Children" into Google, the number one hit is something I wrote the other day. A salutary reminder about the shaky nature of authority on the Internet, as I know lickety-spit about kids endurance events.

Google's also allowed me to discover however, that there is Cardiff Junior Triathlon Club, that runs a Tristart event in June, so I guess that - even though we live in London - my little fella could do that next year if he wants. Even though the club meets on Wednesday nights at UWIC Cyncoed, a matter of yards from where we were cycling on Monday, there is no way I was ever likely to have found that out without the search engine.

Pros and cons of Google, or just the nature of the beast?

I've started so I'll finish

With Friday's deadline looming, I've finally put The Unquiet Grave to bed.

The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and no other task is of any consequence

... asserteth Palinurus.

For my review, you must imagine my lips pursed in a fleeting moue, as my left eyebrow arches a quizzical but elegant millimetre.

As Sainte-Beuve would have it:

In most men there is a dead poet whom the man survives.

Oh really?

No, O'Reilly.

Reassuringly Expensive

I went to GJs last night for a debrief after driving back from Cardiff only to find that I was required to pony up £3.20 for a pint of Stella. Just a 10p rise I'll grant you, but it stuck in my throat after downing the same stuff at £2.55 a pint in Wales after football on Friday.

I've therefore transferred my affections to Venus where Stella may be had for £3.00. I realise the savings are paltry, but "you've got to be true to your code." (I am even seriously considering the £2.90 a throw offering in the bar at Frankie and Benny's.)

The other local dives rule themselves out as regular haunts by serving different brands of strong continental lager, whereas I request and require Stella:

The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfxxxer in the room, accept no substitutes.

I wonder how long it will be before I look back on the prices in this post as bargains from a Golden Age of cheap drinking. In fact that is why I recorded them for posterity.

They tried to make me go to rehab
I said no, no, no

Yes I've been black but when I come back
You'll know, know, know

I ain’t got the time
And if my daddy thinks I’m fine

Just try to make me go to rehab
I won’t go, go, go!

Learning by doing

I bowed to the entreaties of my six year old yesterday and let him wear my GPS watch for a bike ride. We put the watch on the table in the garden and waited for it to pick up the satellites, then I set the watch to give him an alert after 800m (the Tristart cycling mark) and off we went along Penylan road and into the park for a few laps.

He took that watch off after the alert was triggered; "it's sweating my wrist" but uploaded the data to the PC and then the motionbased website when we got back.

As we were watching his route play back on Google Maps' satellite view - though he was surprised that the satellite had not photographed the dog that chased him in the park - I was struck by just how much education he had probably got from half an hour's messing about:

• learning that location devices work out your position from satellites
• getting good idea of how far 800m is
• learning what uploading to the internet meant (he showed off the map to his cousins at his aunt's later)
• seeing examples of photographs from space of his grandparents' house and environs.

Mabinogion, I hardly knew you

We took the New Ninja Bomber and four of his cousins along to Cwmcarn Forest Drive for a lark and a barbecue yesterday.

I wish I knew something about Welsh mythology.

Knees Don't Lie

I played 5-a-side football last night for the first time in 24 years, my last outing coming when I was a graduate trainee at Fluor doing the EP1 course in Twickenham.

I turned out yesterday to fill a gap in my brother's team. He plays every fortnight at "Cardiff 5 A Side". This, the home of Boca Seniors and Real Madras, is situated in the kind of semi abandoned warehouse district to which it would be a worry to be driven by Tony Soprano.

We had the pitch for an hour and I scored two goals, one in the ninetieth second of the game and one with the clock reading thirty five minutes. In other words in the very earliest part of each half. This gives you a good idea of the pattern of my contribution.

My wind was quite good from all my endurance training, but the stops, starts, twists, and sprints played merry hell with my joints.

Great night though.

Lucky Day

Due to a combination of stupidity and incompetence, seasoned with "Friday 13th" voodoo, I am to blame for a write-off level mangling of the New Ninja Bomber's pushbike, and I've had to take him to Halfords today to get a new ride.

It is a startling indication of the rate at which children develop that he his now aboard a 21 gear, 12" frame, 24" wheel machine. It would have been unthinkable that he could tame such a beast six months ago when I got him his last one as a birthday present.

He asked me this morning when I got back from training if he could compete in a triathlon as well. Googling round today I have found that there are indeed such things as Children's Triathlons and that there is a Tristart category of race that you can enter in the year of your eighth birthday, which means he could do it next year.

A Tristart race seems to average out at around a 50m swim, followed by an 800m bike ride, and a 600m run so it is a least a possibility for 2008.

vin-dit

I got an email from Chris telling me that Kurt Vonnegut has passed on.

A quick search reveals that I've made four references to Vonnegut here on my blog over the last couple of years: one, two, three, four.

Also the first conversation Chris and I had that I can clearly recall was about Cat's Cradle and Bokonism when we should have been listening to a chemistry lecture in 1979.

The last paragraph of the book seems appropriate today:

If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.

Big Night

A branch of Frankie and Benny's has opened round the corner so the Big Apple was our destination for "eat your way around the world in London".

The profit burglar had New York chicken. Chicken is Noo Yawked it would seem, by topping a breast with bacon, smoked cheese and barbecue sauce.

I had spaghetti with meatballs as a sort of tribute to Primo blowing a gasket when asked for it in Big Night - "sometimes the spaghetti likes to be alone" - and of course Clemenza in the Godfather:

"Heh, come over here, kid, learn something. You never know, you might have to cook for 20 guys someday. You see, you start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic. Then you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it; ya make sure it doesn't stick. You get it to a boil; you shove in all your sausage and your meatballs; heh…? And a little bit o' wine. An' a little bit o' sugar, and that's my trick."

'Twas washed down with a Sangiovese Merlot blend.

Oderint dum metuant

Hold the front page! The Sun has exclusive details of David Beckham's latest tattoo this morning, and breathlessly confides:

The former England skipper now has the words of a Roman poem etched into his flesh above a picture of a guardian angel with wings, shrouded in flames.
And I can exclusively reveal the message means: “Let them hate as long as they fear.”

That would be Lucius Accius' invaluable "oderint dum metuant", a favourite saying of Caligula according to Suetonius who reported:

He generally prolonged the sufferings of his victims by causing them to be inflicted by slight and frequently repeated strokes; this being his well-known and constant order: "Strike so that he may feel himself die." Having punished one person for another, by mistaking his name, he said, "he deserved it quite as much." He had frequently in his mouth these words of the tragedian,

Oderint dum metuant.
I scorn their hatred, if they do but fear me.

He would often inveigh against all the senators without exception, as clients of Sejanus, and informers against his mother and brothers, producing the memorials which he had pretended to burn, and excusing the cruelty of Tiberius as necessary, since it was impossible to question the veracity of such a number of accusers. He continually reproached the whole equestrian order, as devoting themselves to nothing but acting on the stage, and fighting as gladiators. Being incensed at the people's applauding a party at the Circensian games in opposition to him, he exclaimed, "I wish the Roman people had but one neck."

Given the context, an odd commendation to have permanently inked on one's body I would have said.

In Excelsis Geo

The Merton Abbey page in Wikipedia has been updated by a bot which tagged it with a message saying:

This apparently location-related article appears to lack geographic
coordinates
You can help by adding them. Please don't be overly precise.

So I've pinpointed the location on Google Maps, and generated the Wikipedia code on World Wind, then updated the page.

The coordinates are rendered on the Wikipedia page as a link that takes you to this Wikimedia page which in turn plugs the location into all sorts of resources on the net.

There is definitely a lot of interesting stuff going on in the general area of geo-tagging.

It pays to increase your word power

I've discovered a remarkable new word.

Drapetomania was a psychiatric diagnosis proposed in 1851 by physician Samuel A. Cartwright, of the Louisiania Medical Association, to explain the tendency of black slaves to flee captivity.

It's easy to laugh, but I wonder how many contemporary syndromes will seem equally ridiculous to future generations.

It is often tempting to assume that something exists just because a name has been conjured up. This is a fallacy for which my limited vocabulary has no mot juste. Is there a phrase or word for it?

Aggregator

I fell off the wagon yesterday, my excuse being that it would have been churlish not to support the Replay Festival at GJs. Never mind, a new day dawns.

I've come up with a training related idea to give Yahoo Pipes a test run and built a quick pipe here.

It takes the RSS feed from Triathblog and filters out all the posts except mine, and combines it with my RSS feed from http://nickbrowne.motionbased.com/.

All very quick and easy. Graphical programming like this soon reveals its limitations but I've liked it ever since I tried Borland ObjectVision back in the nineties.

It is good to be able to gather training records together from different sources like this. I wish I could get at Virgin's Technogym records in a similar way.

It's all food for thought. I'm gradually coming over to Marc Canter's way of thinking vis-a-vis Digital Lifestyle Aggregators.

Point to Point, Point and Click

Maps.google.co.uk has been updated with the facility for us to create, save and annotate our own maps via an intuitive point and click interface.

I've had a quick go at the route for the Swansea Childline Challenge, you can see it here.

(Bear in mind when considering the inevitable inaccuracies that I haven't lived there for a quarter of a century.)

Madness? This is WATER!

The New Ninja Bomber has broken up from school for the Easter Holiday.

I taught him how to make water bombs from sheets of paper yesterday afternoon so that he could amuse himself. It was good to see him honing his motor skills and spatial awareness in their manufacture, and even better to launch the weapons from the gangway that runs between the first floor of The Apprentice Shop and The Coles Shop. We did go down, pick up and bin the remains, but I must admit that we have very indulgent neighbours in Abbey Mills as no one seemed to object. They were, if anything in fact, rather encouraging.

I've pinched an swf file from here to remind you how to construct these origami projectiles. Making a couple certainly bucked me up.

The Entertainer

I went to the Old Vic with Chris and Kim last night to see the 50th anniversary production of The Entertainer; references to Polish immigrants and trouble in the Middle East lent it a curiously contemporary feel.

The performances were universally excellent, but I'm still not entirely convinced by John Osborne. He had a great talent for dialogue, but I find the more declamatory portions of his plays can grate.

As a man, he seems to have been just as unpleasant as his creations Archie Rice and Jimmy Porter. That's not really an artistic judgement but it weighs heavily with me.

Good company and a good mojito fuelled night out though, Cubana - and its Happy Hour - being only yards from the theatre.

Replay

The Six Bells begat The Riverside; and The Riverside begat Baobab; and Baobab begat Blue.

I noticed on my way home from swimming last night that the troubled boozer at 222 Colliers Wood High Street has reopened yet again, this time as a "stylish new club/bar" called Blue. I popped in for a cheeky drink, but wasn't all that impressed. I hope the new management make a go of it, but on the evidence of last night the prognosis may not be good.

I did notice however that Blue has signed up as a venue for the REPLAY Festival that Surrey Strings are putting on over Easter to raise money for their instrument recycling charity.

But hey, enough of my yakkin'; whaddaya say? Let them explain:

Literature, my mistress

Channel hopping on digital radio over the weekend, I came across Kenneth Branagh reading a gem of a short story by Chekhov on Oneword. A little diligence with Project Gutenberg has revealed it as "Misery", you can read it here if you like. I'm familiar with a couple of the plays, but I've never read Chekhov's stories, so I need to add them to the enormous pile of things I intend to get around to.

Casting my mind back Chekovianly, I particularly remember Peter Hall's production of The Seagull at the Old Vic. That was ten years ago according to this Google-sourced snippet. It starred Felicity Kendall as Madame Arkadina. Reading her autobiography when I was in India, picking it up because I knew that she was raised there, I learned that her actor/manager father was dying during the play's run which for me added a sort of retrospective poignancy to her character's relationship with Konstantin. Dominic West of 300 and Voysey Inheritance fame played the son. Round and round and round it goes, and where it stops nobody knows.

Off the the Old Vic again tomorrow for "The Entertainer".

in vino veritas

I've had my traditional, morose drink in the pub at the bottom of the road today after dropping my six year old back at his mum's. As I've been dry for the last eleven days, and not felt the slightest desire for a sharpener, I can't help but wonder what light this sheds on my habits.

The Artful Dodger

By a strange coincidence, just ten days after I mentioned the Gordon Brown's decade old raid on the country's pension schemes, and hot on the heels of the former Cabinet Secretary's enumeration of his "Stalinist ruthlessness", documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that he was explicitly warned of the likely consequences.

Here's the coverage from The Telegraph, The Times, and The Guardian.

The BBC is downplaying it (there's a surprise) leading its coverage with, "the Treasury has dismissed as "abject nonsense" claims that Gordon Brown ignored warnings about his first Budget creating a £75bn gap in pension funds".

What an amazing coincidence that the Chancellor happened to be enhancing his image as a prime-minister-in-waiting by making an unannounced one-day visit to British troops in Afghanistan just as the documents he had desperately tried to suppress were released.

You can find the documents at issue here, if you want to make your own mind up.

The Memory Palace

The belt to the left was a new addition to the trophy cabinet when I took the boys to Muay Thai last night. It turns out that Woytek won the British Championship when he was fighting in Manchester the other weekend. This was exciting news for my six year old who had a lesson with the champ before Christmas.

I take "the boys" along to Thai boxing on Thursdays lately because two of my son's school friends have started as well. When I picked one of them up yesterday, I noticed a copy of "The Blind Man of Seville" on the kitchen table in his house, and said to his Mum that I had heard that it was a good book because Chris and Kim had recommended it to me in September 2005. When I brought his boy back after the class, the Dad gave me the paperback, saying that he had got it for free and was unlikely to read it himself.

Now I admit that these two stories (each an update of an earlier post) are not exactly earth shattering, but they do illustrate - in a small way - changes that I've noticed as a bye product of blogging every day, or perhaps more accurately thinking about my experiences in the context of writing every day.

I'm definitely remembering events and conversations a lot more clearly than I used to. Even if I haven't blogged them, my entry for the day they occurred can stir up the memories as an - often ironic - counterpoint.

Just looking at my archives for last April, I can see, for example, that:

• Dominic West had probably already wrapped 300 before I saw him The Voysey Inheritance; contrasting roles and styles indeed,
• the cherry blossom has bloomed a fortnight earlier in 2007 than 2006,
• and that this week's report that Police stations in Merton are the among the worst in London at answering the phone for non-emergency calls, shows that nothing has changed since scumbags poured paint over half the cars in our street.

GPS

Following my bike route on Google Earth yesterday, I was amazed to find that the data was accurate enough to show that I cycled out on one side of the road and back on the other.

That, and the importance of GPS evidence in the unfolding UK/Iran dispute, sent me to Wikipedia to ferret out more details of the Global Positioning System.

It is technically and historically fascinating stuff . Look at the section on Selective Availability for example. The paragraph that struck me the most however was:

The satellite constellation is managed by the United States Air Force 50th Space Wing. The cost of maintaining the system is approximately US$750 million per year, including the replacement of aging satellites, and research and development. Despite this fact, GPS is free for civilian use as a public good.

The ability to for ships, cars, emergencies and even joggers and cyclists precisely to identify their locations must be an enormous economic and social boon to the world.

Providing the underlying infrastructure free of charge is a noble deed, so I'd just like to say thank you very much to the USA.

Come Fly With Me

I've noticed that Motionbased.com automatically generates Google Earth tours based on data that I upload from my Garmin Forerunner 305.

So - if you've got the right software installed - this link will take you along last Sunday morning's cycle route; complete with detours.

This is truly astounding technology. There is definitely more to mashups than hype, and it's handy to have the blog as a scratchpad for them.

Small World Update

Here's the photo that the MOD released at this morning's briefing to prove that the 15 Royal Navy personnel seized by Iran were in Iraqi waters. I hope we get them back soon. It is strange to think that the Garmin device in the argument clinching picture probably uses the same chipset as my watch.

Humble Pie

The Commons Education Select Committee has issued a report on bullying in schools, about which - as it my wont - I found myself sneering over my porridge as I watched the coverage on the BBC's Breakfast show. I remember being particularly dismissive of the coinage "cyber-bullying".

Reading Scoble a little later though, I was horrified to read what Kathy Sierra has been subjected to:

As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I'm not. I'm at home, with the doors locked, terrified. For the last four weeks, I've been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that's not what pushed me over the edge. What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs...

No one should have to put up with that sort of thing. I feel unworthy for dismissing the phenomenon.

By conincidence I think, Libby Purves talks about the issues in The Times today:

The internet is not evil. We who use it daily — for everything from news and banking to cinema listings and tracing quotations from forgotten poets — quickly learn how to navigate around the piles of rubbish, the lurking fraudsters, the lies and malice and vapidity and perversion. It is a vast teeming city, and you can choose whether to frequent cathedrals, theatres and Parliament or just the brothels and public hangings.

But we should accept the same rules of morality and decorum that govern solid, daily life. If shouting “Go on, kill yourself” to a stranger is not acceptable in the street, it is not acceptable in a chat room. Similarly, we do not allow the pushing of unsolicited obscenities through letterboxes, and so should not tolerate the clogging-up of private, often heartfelt e-mail traffic with repeated shrieks of “Ejaculate like a porn star!”. If it is illegal to print malicious lies, equal sanctions should face those who put them online; if it is stupid to leave your credit cards in a café with the PIN on them, it is equally stupid to ignore computer security.

There aren't any easy answers.

Not with a bang ...

A proposed merger of Wimpey and Tayor Woodrow is all over the papers today.

How are the mighty fallen. When I was first at Wimpey, it was a near £2bn a year construction colossus built from nothing by Sir Godfrey Mitchell but they sold off everything but the housebuilding more than ten years ago.

I can't see that there's much more to the housebuilding business than managing the land bank. A far cry from "Sir God's" buccaneering heyday.

Best Laid Plans

I had great plans last summer for long distance cycle rides. These were rather undermined by my utter lack of any sense of direction, as revealed when I got hopelessly lost just cycling up and down the Wandle Trail to Croydon.

I decided to put the GPS watch on the case this morning. Here is the result of my meanderings. I got lost a couple of times but at least I can start to work out where.

The Giddy Social Whirl

I went to see 300 last night and enjoyed it tremendously. I can see how some people might object to the film's portrayal of Xerxes as inhabiting a court essentially indistinguishable from a Prince video circa "Gett Off", but - hey - it's entertainment, read Tom Holland's 'Persian Fire' or even go back to Herodotus if you want instruction.

Massive parochial Welsh props go out to Swansea's Vincent Regan for his portrayal of Leonidas' right hand man:

We reinforced those who started with their own self-discipline but we could not give discipline to anyone who didn’t already have it. In the end Vincent Regan shed 40 pounds in eight weeks, and took his deadlift from less than bodyweight (205) to more than double-bodyweight (355). He could pull 85% of 1RM blindfolded and recite Shakespeare in the midst of the toughest training session

...... reported the guy who trained the actors. I have no idea at all of what pulling 85% of 1RM blindfolded while reciting Shakespeare is, but it does sound cool.

As for today, I've been for a run, I'm off to Dulwich to see the Canaletto in England exhibition this afternoon, thence to the Duchess Theatre for "Underneath the Lintel", before closing off the evening at Andy and Ollie's party.

Henry Morton Stanley

Sir Henry Morton Stanley, also known as Bula Matari (Breaker of Rocks) in the Congo, born John Rowlands (January 28, 1841 – May 10, 1904), was a 19th-century Welsh-born journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and his search for David Livingstone upon finding whom he famously stated, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume".

Another Welsh Born Icon as I begin to label our collection.

Obviously a man of some internal resources, his accomplishments came in spite of an inauspicious start:

He was born in Denbigh, Denbighshire, Wales. His parents were not married, his father died when he was two years old and his mother, a butcher's daughter, refused to look after him, so he was brought up in a workhouse (now HM Stanley Hospital, St Asaph) until the age of 15.

Rock The Kasbah

Things have been quiet on the "Eat your way around the world in London" front lately, but last night we checked out the Moroccan food in Clapham's Kasbah, which is conveniently situated opposite the Picturehouse.

The Profit Burglar and I shared a huge "Kasbah Combination" mixed starter of sardines, prawns, humous, aubergine dip, salad etc., then I had a lamb tagine made with prunes and grilled almonds and served with couscous, while the Burglar had the lamb brochettes.

We washed it all down with a couple of bottles of Moroccan wine, Ksat Bahai 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon. A last hurrah as I am going to give up drinking for the next month in the run up to my triathlons.

(Now that Blogger supports labels, I am going to start gathering together the details of all our restaurnat visits here. It will probably take a while to fill up as I will have to go back through the posts and apply the label. I'll probably do the same thing with the Welsh Born Icons as well.)

Bold talk for a one-eyed fat man

Budget day in the UK has rolled round again. I shall treat it with an inflexible rigour of disdain. Back in a previous life, when I was a Corporate Development Executive, I used to have to spend half the night producing an analysis of each budget's implications for the board to read over their cornflakes the next morning; an exercise I came to see as a complete waste of time.

As for Gordon Brown - our putative leader - I've considered him a boorish cad ever since he turned up for dinner at the Lord Mayor's Dinner in 1997 dressed in a lounge suit rather than the traditional full soup and fish. Not that it will go down in the annals of infamy above his pilfering the pensions of countless honest hardworking men and women, but it is and was indicative of the petulant nature that has become more and more obvious over the last decade.

Ever since I learned he was blind in one eye, I mentally subtitle his every utterance "bold talk for a one-eyed fat man" in a petulant Ned Pepper gesture of my own.

SPARTARRGH

I'm very much looking forward to 300 opening in the UK this weekend.

Iranian TV is unimpressed however by the "shallow script" (you must follow this link and watch the review) of the "production by Zionists and a group of American extremists".

As an olive branch, and a nod to the 700 Thespians who also fought and died at Thermopylae, here's an idea of what Teddington's Noel Coward might have done with the story (even though I gather he might well have been perfectly happy with the spectacle of muscular men in leather underpants exerting themselves):

---

A balmy ancient evening on a balcony in Greece. An agitated KING LEONIDAS strides centre stage followed by his beautiful, but long suffering wife QUEEN GORGO.

LEONIDAS: I'm in such a rage.

GORGO: There's no need to be nasty.

LEONIDAS: Yes there is, every need. I've never in my life felt a greater urge to be nasty.

GORGO: And you've had some urges in your time, haven't you?

LEONIDAS: If you start bickering with me, Gorgo, I swear I'll throw you over the edge.

GORGO: Try it, that's all, just try it.

LEONIDAS: Ever since the first moment I was unlucky enough to set eyes on the Persian Ambassador, my life has been insupportable.

GORGO: Oh, do shut up, there's no sense in going on like that.

LEONIDAS: Nothing's any use. There's no escape, ever.

GORGO: Don't be melodramatic.

LEONIDAS [laconically]: I can see us all strolling down in the morning for an early start.

GORGO [weakly]: Lovely, oh lovely.

LEONIDAS: Glorious!

[They both laugh helplessly.]

GORGO: Will you eat first?

LEONIDAS: Terribly important, a good breakfast.

GORGO: Where will you dine?

LEONIDAS: Hades

GORGO: Very hot, Hades.

LEONIDAS: So they say. They say it’s hot.

GORGO: Hotter than the Hot Gates?

LEONIDAS [tenderly]: Hotter than the Hot Gates, my dearest darling.

Balls to the Wall

Gordon has warned me of the perils of overtraining, so I walked - rather than ran - south along the Wandle Trail yesterday to road test my new GPS training watch.

I can blog the data above because I uploaded the it into http://www.motionbased.com/.

If you follow the links and look at the data in detail you can see that I didn't start recording data until I was past Wandle Park because the system took that long to pick up the necessary satellite connections.

You can also see that I finished my walk outside GJ's. I subsequently entered GJ's and drank too much lager watching the Everton Arsenal game and then continued with baddiwad behaviour.

Hmmmm. I think Gordon understands that my foot to the floor, balls to the wall* attitude is what makes me eat like a pig and drink like a fish as well as train every day. Yesterday, while he was encouraging me to fuel myself more sensibly he did acknowledge that my biggest problem with moderation would be boredom.

Never mind. It is better to wear out than to rust.

Public Activities Link: http://nickbrowne.motionbased.com
Public Activities Feed: http://nickbrowne.motionbased.com/rss

* Also delighted to learn that balls to the wall, rather in the manner of kicking against the pricks is not a rudery at all:

Originally a military term for pushing maximum G-Forces in a jetfighter aircraft, as in pushing the ball of a throttle as high up as it will go (virtually touching the wall of the dashboard).

"Jump" for Joy

I took the New Ninja Bomber to the Peacock Theatre for the matinee performance of Jump yesterday afternoon, because I thought we would need a laugh before a rugby game in which a win by England would condemn Wales to a whitewashed, played 5 - won 0, wooden spoon.

The show is absolutely brilliant, if you only see one Korean martial art/gymnastic/slapstick/sitcom hybrid this year make sure this is the one.

General: What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

Even better, when we got home for the rugby we found that the men in red, failing to realise that they were merely cannon fodder, were busily putting England to the sword.

I've dropped my six year old back for Mothering Sunday today, but as for yesterday:

Just a perfect day
Problems all left alone
Weekenders on our own
It's such fun

Just a perfect day
You make me forget myself
I thought I was someone else
Someone good

You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow

Every part of the Thai is blessed with venom

March 17th is celebrated as "Boxer's Day" or "National Muay Thai Day" in Thailand. Here's the story it celebrates.

My six year old has been doing Thai boxing for a little over half a year now. This obviously gives me a certain amount of reassurance in the "beware of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, bear't that the opposed may beware of thee" department, but I'm really starting to buy into the Blimpsh idea of it being "character building" as well. He's out in the garden skipping rope at the moment, something he'd be unlikely to do if he didn't think of it as a martial past time.

Voytek, of "good heart" fame is off in Manchester today fighting for a championship, so best of luck to him.

In Motion

My Garmin Forerunner 305 has arrived, so I can track my speed, elevation, position and heartrate as I move my training out of doors. A USB interface, bundled software, and online workout analysis suggest that too much information will be available in the run up to April 22.

Up to now I've been working out indoors, and over the last six weeks or so, as I've been building up my stamina, I've whiled away much of the time I spent exercising watching music TV on LCD screens built into treadmills and stationary bikes.

This is what I've learned from all that gazing at the idiot box: Gwen Stefani, while possessed of a billowing wheat field of golden hair and an enviably toned post-partum abdomen, has the style of a six year old let loose in a fancy dress shop and no discernible musical talent whatsoever.

Not much of a cultural return on the investment of my time, I can only hope that it has been worth while physically.

Human Growth Hormome

Has any other reader noticed the remarkable resemblance between Sylvester Stallone, 2007's superannuated Easter Island head, and Rocky Balboa, 1976's fresh faced contender? I wonder if they are, by any chance related?

Actually, learning that Sly was up before the beak in Oz accused of importing Human Growth Hormone sent me scurrying to Wikipedia. Here's the skinny:

Prolonged GH excess thickens the bones of the jaw, fingers and toes. Resulting heaviness of the jaw and increased thickness of digits is referred to as acromegaly.

Accompanying problems can include pressure on nerves (e.g., carpal tunnel syndrome), muscle weakness, insulin resistance or even a rare form of type 2 diabetes, and reduced sexual function.

A comparison of the evolution of his features with the symptoms described above furnishes pretty scary circumstancial evidence. (Hint: Muscle weakness and reduced sexual function is not a small price to pay for a stonger jawline and thicker toes.)

Jintoprin, the product in question, sounds like something out of a Chiba City black clinic a la Neuromancer

A mad world my masters.

Joey Pyle

Had they met on the streets of London in their 1960s heyday, the result would undoubtedly have been violence at its most extreme.
But yesterday a small yet distinctive group of superannuated gangsters and their henchmen put bitter old rivalries behind them and came together to mark the passing of one of their own.
They were among more than 1,000 faces who attended the funeral beneath leaden skies of 69-year-old Joey Pyle, a man who uniquely ran with both the Krays and the Richardsons.

Perhaps because 1960s gangland London has become so mythologised, it seems almost surreal to me that this postscript occurred last week practically around the corner by Morden Park.

Coverage here, here and here.

You See, Ennui

According to Scientific American, Chronically Bored People Exhibit Higher Risk-Taking Behavior. Really? You don't say.

The Ginger Geezer - no slouch at risk laden bad behaviour - knew it too. From 1967's Gorilla album:

At the local dance, whilst posing by the door
A lady begged: "would I come on the floor?"
Above the band, my voice was heard,
Quite suddenly it had occured to me:
I'm Bored!

I'm bored with everything I touch and see
I'm bored with exposes of LSD
I'm bored with Frank Sinatra's new LP
And so I roared
I'm bored.

Drinking different coloured wines or beers
(Chug-a-lug-chug-a-lug)
Just quite frankly leaves me bored to (CHOIR: *tears for souvenirs*)
And quite apart from what one hears,
I've been like this for years and years
You see? Ennui.

I'm bored with Mother Nature or her son
I'm bored with everything that should be done
And so, I just poke out my big red tongue and [raspberry]
I'm bored.

I'm tired of art!
(Drawing board)
Sex is a drag!
(In a bawdy house, I daresay.)
Awk! Australians bore me!
(You mean the a-bore-iginals, don't you?)
I'm bored to death!
(Like mortar bored)

I am bored.

This is boredom you can afford,
from Cyril Bored.

I hate each Julie Andrews film they've made,
I'm just a nasty narrow-minded jade.
Don't think that I will smile at it,
I'm not a weak-willed hypocrite,
I'll say: I'm bored!

I'm bored with with-it men in spotty ties
Who hum (hmm-hmm-hmm-hmm) tiresome tunes like Eidelweiss
I'm bored, and when I hear it in a trice,
I shout, I'm bored!

The only thing that ever interests me...
Is ME! (Me! Meee! Me! Me!...)

Reality Check

I took the photo above as I set off on the last run of the last day. It seems very far from SW19.

I got in the habit in Austria of relaxing in the sauna back at the hotel after skiing before showering, changing and hitting the town.

One afternoon I saw two beady eyes peeping at me through the window and heard a familiar voice saying, "I'm not going in there with some strange bloke".

"It's not a man," said Karen to Cath, "it's only Nick".

I can see what she was getting at, but it is not really encouraging vis a vis the potent yet effortless Bond-era Connery musk I imagine myself to be pumping out.

Fitzroy

Fitzroy:
Southwesterly veering northwesterly 4 or 5, occasionally 6. Rough or very rough, decreasing moderate for a time. Occasional rain. moderate or good.

I finished "This Thing of Darkness" on the way back from Austria.

Tragedy being " a form of drama characterized by seriousness and dignity, and involving a great person whose downfall is brought about by either a character flaw or a conflict with some higher power such as the law, the gods, fate, or society", the book is the tragedy of Robert Fitzroy.

The organisation and exposition is efficient rather than self-consciously literary, which is no bad thing given the quantity and complexity of the material presented.

The only jarring note was the genocidal General Rosas' justification of his wars of extermination. I thought when I read it that it sounded like a neocon pastiche, and in the "Author's Postscript", Thompson owns up to"having taken the liberty of drawing almost exclusively on the words of Tony Blair and the various self-justifications he produced to defend his foreign policy adventures with George Bush in the Middle East and Central Asia".

Ho ho very satirical.

Wooden Spoon

I've arrived back in the UK only to find that Italy beat Wales by twenty three points to twenty while we were in the air between Salzburg and London.

This means that in this year's Six Nations championship we have lost all four of the games we've played to date, and are staring a whitewash in the face if we don't beat England in Cardiff next Saturday.

A precipitous decline indeed from the played five, won five heroics of the season before last.

Who watches the watchmen?

I need a GPS watch, for running and cycling. Brendan brought one skiing and it is deeply great. Maximum speed so far 47mph.

More Link Blogging

http://www.kitzsteinhorn.at/en/

Link Blogging

I am staying in http://www.fischerwirt.com/

Crash

Heard this crash and saw the smoke : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6419729.stm

Hello World

.... from http://www.zellamsee.at

Backfill

Day one, and Steve has already established his HQ for the week here, an empowering forum where objectification does not exist.

Gatnick

Off to Gatwick airport this morning.

Theses guys have finally gone down, and we are selling the stuff that they stole that can't be returned on behalf of the police on www.bumblebeeauctions.co.uk.

What a tawdry crime stealing from peoples' bags is.

Zell am See

I'm off skiing first thing tomorrow morning, for the first time since a trip to New England between the conception and birth of the New Ninja Bomber. Fingers crossed I'll keep the blog ticking over, but no promises.

Zell am See in Austria - a country I haven't visited before - is the destination, and I'm travelling mob-handed with the same crew that I used to rampage regularly with all those years ago.

I've found my boots, but the rest of my gear seems to have disappeared in the last couple of years' domestic upheaval, so it looks like TK Maxx will have to take the strain lunchtime.

Jack those Jills, shake your Playtex
Rock 3 stripes not the asics
A.D.I.D.A.S
Old school cos it's the best -yes
TK Maxx cost less - yes
Jackson looks a mess bless

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant

Happy Saint David's Day. Let's do it in the Big Apple next year.

Wales Week is a festival held each year in New York around the national holiday of Wales - St David's Day (March 1). The festival is a week-long celebration of the best of Wales: the Arts; culture; food and drink; poetry and literature; business; film; and music.

Well I never! It seems agreeably prosaic:

Sox Wales’s range of cashmere and luxury socks can be bought at Daffy’s in Manhattan.