a nose for a story

Somewhere Dr Strabismus (whom God preserve) of Utrecht is nodding with approval:

US biologist discovers new species up his nose after research trip to Africa

Nasal surprise led to discovery of new method of spreading disease from chimps to humans

Tony Goldberg, a US professor of pathobiological science, recently returned from an Africa research trip only to discover that a potentially new species of tick had come back with him hidden up his nose.

"When you first realize you have a tick up your nose, it takes a lot of willpower not to claw your face off," said Goldberg, a professor at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. "But my sense of being grossed out was balanced by my scientific curiosity."

Goldberg only noticed the insect three days after his return to the US and removed the insect using a pair of forceps, a mirror and a torch. He then sent it off to have its DNA sequenced and compared it with the archives in the U.S. National Tick Collection at Georgia Southern University (home to the largest tick collection in the world). He found no match.

“Either it’s a species of tick that is known but has never been sequenced, or it’s a new species of tick,” said Goldberg to Science Daily..

Even more remarkably, the discovery helped Goldberg fashion a new theory in his area of study: the spread of disease in primates, and how these disease evolve and cross over to humans.

After finding and removing the tick Goldberg contacted Richard Wrangham, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University, to find out more about his experience.
Wrangham directed him to a series of high resolution photos of baby chimpanzees. 20 per cent of these showed the young chimps with ticks up their nose – a phenomenon that had not been remarked upon before.
These ticks, from the genus Amblyomma (the same genus to which the tick up Goldberg’s nose belonged) are known disease-carriers, with the nose being their favourite haunt. Chimpanzees are frequent social groomers, removing parasites from each other’s fur as a bonding ritual, but they seldom check noses.

Goldberg’s discovery that these ticks also attempted to leap over to human nostrils was an insight into what he describes as “an underappreciated, indirect, and somewhat weird way in which people and chimps share pathogens.”

And although Goldberg has been studying the chimpanzees of Kibale National Park in Uganda for years, he’s not surprised to have not identified the ticks before.

“It’s not really practical or safe to pick ticks out of chimps’ noses,” said Goldberg. “The chimps of Kibale are very well habituated to humans, but they would still object vigorously.”

While we are are on the subject of noses and vigour, these days tufts of hair grow so rapidly out of my nostrils and ears that I have thinking of bringing a trimmer into the office for a lunchtime defoliation to catch  anything that has appeared since breakfast.

Have you had anything to drink?

Yes

Water carry on

Cat's Eye

Cardiff

It seems that:

Cardiff is the best city for young people to live in, due to a combination of job opportunities, high wages and low cost of living, according a new poll.

I'm like 'whatever.... interesting...... not! Young people are so over, Grandpa Simpson speaks for me:

I am disgusted with the way old people are depicted on television. We are not all vibrant, fun-loving sex maniacs. Many of us are bitter, resentful individuals.

Up comes Zafo
I'm like, "yo, Zafo, what's up?...
He's like, 'nothing...
I'm like, 'that's cool...

David Bowie's top 100 must-read books

After spending five months at the V&A in London, the wildly successful David Bowie Is retrospective has moved to Toronto, and the widely read Dame has revealed his top hundred books. They follow and I have marked the ones I remember reading as well in italics. I am a bit bemused by the inclusion of Tom Stoppard's Coast of Utopia as it is a triplet of plays that I saw in the National.

Who would have guessed that both of us would have worked through Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels? Nowt so strange as folk.

• The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby (2008)
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (2007)
• The Coast of Utopia (trilogy), Tom Stoppard (2007)
• Teenage: The Creation of Youth 1875-1945, Jon Savage (2007)
• Fingersmith, Sarah Waters (2002)
• The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens (2001)
• Mr Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder, Lawrence Weschler (1997)
• A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1890-1924, Orlando Figes (1997)
• The Insult, Rupert Thomson (1996)
• Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon (1995)
• The Bird Artist, Howard Norman (1994)
• Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir, Anatole Broyard (1993)
• Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective, Arthur C Danto (1992)
• Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, Camille Paglia (1990)
• David Bomberg, Richard Cork (1988)
• Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom, Peter Guralnick (1986)
• The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin (1986)
• Hawksmoor, Peter Ackroyd (1985)
• Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music, Gerri Hirshey (1984)
• Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter (1984)
• Money, Martin Amis (1984)
• White Noise, Don DeLillo (1984)
• Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes (1984)
• The Life and Times of Little Richard, Charles White (1984)
• A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn (1980)
• A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole (1980)
• Interviews with Francis Bacon, David Sylvester (1980)
• Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler (1980)
• Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess (1980)
• Raw, a "graphix magazine" (1980-91)
• Viz, magazine (1979 –)
• The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels (1979)
• Metropolitan Life, Fran Lebowitz (1978)
• In Between the Sheets, Ian McEwan (1978)
• Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, ed Malcolm Cowley (1977)
• The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes (1976)
• Tales of Beatnik Glory, Ed Saunders (1975)
• Mystery Train, Greil Marcus (1975)
• Selected Poems, Frank O'Hara (1974)
• Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s, Otto Friedrich (1972)
• In Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes Towards the Re-definition of Culture, George Steiner (1971)
• Octobriana and the Russian Underground, Peter Sadecky (1971)
• The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll, Charlie Gillett(1970)
• The Quest for Christa T, Christa Wolf (1968)
• Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock, Nik Cohn (1968)
• The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov (1967)
• Journey into the Whirlwind, Eugenia Ginzburg (1967)
• Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jr (1966)
• In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (1965)
• City of Night, John Rechy (1965)
• Herzog, Saul Bellow (1964)
• Puckoon, Spike Milligan (1963)
• The American Way of Death, Jessica Mitford (1963)
• The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea, Yukio Mishima (1963)
• The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin (1963)
• A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess (1962)
• Inside the Whale and Other Essays, George Orwell (1962)
• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark (1961)
• Private Eye, magazine (1961 –)
• On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious, Douglas Harding (1961)
• Silence: Lectures and Writing, John Cage (1961)
• Strange People, Frank Edwards (1961)
• The Divided Self, RD Laing (1960)
• All the Emperor's Horses, David Kidd (1960)
• Billy Liar, Keith Waterhouse (1959)
• The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa (1958)
• On the Road, Jack Kerouac (1957)
• The Hidden Persuaders, Vance Packard (1957)
• Room at the Top, John Braine (1957)
• A Grave for a Dolphin, Alberto Denti di Pirajno (1956)
• The Outsider, Colin Wilson (1956)
• Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
• Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell (1949)
• The Street, Ann Petry (1946)
• Black Boy, Richard Wright (1945)

Profundity and Insight

Writing in the Torygraph after Arsenal beat Swansea on the weekend, Jeremy Wilson shared the following telepathic intuition of Arsene Wenger's state of mind:

It will also not have escaped Wenger’s notice that the gap to City and United has been respectively extended to five and eight points. He was conscious even before the 5.30pm kick-off that the past two Premier League champions had just been beaten.

Wenger, Wilson calculates, in his fourth decade as a manager is now sufficiently cute to be able to look at the results of rival teams and calculate their impact on rankings in the table. Who could ever have guessed something so bleedin' obvious.

What revelations can we expect ahead of the Napoli game? That they are from Italy perhaps?

The thrill of it all

A new working week today. A new month tomorrow. The insane glamour that is my life.

Lord Rogers calls for Las Ramblas in ... Wimbledon

Sod all having happened with the Colliers Wood boulevard (see Icons passim) over the last twenty months I take SW19's Ramblas with several pinchos of salt.

Coffee in the Wood

Ben and I will be along later.

Photo of the year

Read the story. It is humbling.

Why Fart Egg?

BBC Wales

People in Varteg in Torfaen fear they will be open to ridicule if proposals to use the Welsh language name 'Y Farteg' are adopted.

Many road signs in Wales show place names in both Welsh and English, and Torfaen council is consulting on which forms should be used on signs and maps.

The Welsh Language Commissioner supports the use of Y Farteg.
Torfaen councillor Giles Davies said: "You can just imagine people taking photos and putting them on Facebook."

Mr Davies said there was strong opposition from villagers, who have collected a protest petition with 150 names so far.

The commissioner has told Torfaen council that Y Farteg is the name backed by the standard reference work, A Gazetteer of Welsh Place Names, and its recommendation should not be changed "without good reason".

For phonetic reasons the Welsh language 'f' is sometimes anglicised to the English 'v', something which has apparently happened to Varteg over many years.

If Y Farteg was adopted it would not replace Varteg, and both names would be shown on local signs.

But Mr Davies said: "Varteg is actually a Welsh name so we can't understand why people want to change it.BBC Wales

Shades of Johnny Fartypants, "there's always a commotion going on in his underwear."

Stranger than

It used to be that I would finished reading a book and lend it to someone so I could bend their ear about it.

No such luck with the kindle, so when I got to the end of Sounds Like London: 100 Years of Black Music in the Capital on the it yesterday I logged on to Amazon to buy a physical copy for Frankie so I could bore her to death about it. "This title will be released on August 7, 2014" was the notice on the paperback page and I can't seem to find a hardback. That is nearly a year away. It will be 101 Years of Black Music in the Capital by then, Surely an ebook can't be released twelve whole months before the paper edition.

Looking through my wishlist for something to tackle next, I picked up Miss Shirley Bassey. It only covers the first thirty years of her life and, as she is pretty much a contemporary of my parents, I thought it would interesting to read about her upbringing in Cardiff.

Kindle price 98p. Strange days indeed for the book industry.

Hide my lunch and call me hungry

Julian has released a track with David McAlmont on vocals. Gosh. Didn't see that one coming. This may well send me back to the second McAlmont and Butler album, a favoute I haven't listened to in a while.

Kill-sin Pimple

Under the influence of the Puritans, the practice arose of baptising children with scriptural or pious phrases annexed to their last name. Hence there are church records of such names as Preserved Fish, Thankful Thorpe, Repentance Water, Kill-sin Pimple, and Humiliation Hinde. Conversely, other surnames of the period offer unflinchingly pithy descriptions of the condition of the bearer, including Blackinthemouth, Blubber, Mad, Measle, Peckcheese, and Hatechrist.

Many such examples would have begun as nicknames, a significant category in the origin of surnames. Gyldenbollockes was a popular name on the streets of medieval England, centuries before David Beckham ...

Once I had read the Spectacularlyboring's review of What's in a Surname?: A Journey from Abercrombie to Zwicker, adding it to my Amazon Wishlist with the no-brainer work of but a moment.

The ravelled sleeve of care

I had a nap this afternoon. I never sleep in they day. I guess yesterday's exertions at Delta Force took more out of a body in its sixth decade than I thought.

Prodnose: They must have thought you were some far-out old man humping it over that course. I did it when I was 19 and it damn near wasted me.

Late on parade

Just back from paint balling.

Not a dry Thai in the house

This tear jerking advert is a remarkable piece of work. Take a look at the irritated shrug by the little girl about 28 seconds in; a detail of genius in my humble o.

What rhymes with hug me?

It would seem that Robin Thicke really didn't get down and dirty with the due diligence on his Blurred Lines lyrics.

Adense on HTTPS

Google: Today, we're happy to announce that AdSense publishers can begin monetizing their HTTPS pages. Many websites, like e-commerce sites and social networking sites, use the HTTPS protocol to protect their users' sensitive data. If you have a HTTPS website you’ll be pleased with how easy it is to monetize using AdSense.

Myself: I don't even know what this is! This sort of thing ain't my bag, baby.

Prodnose: One book, "Adense on HTTPS And Me: This Sort of Thing Is My Bag Baby", by Nick Browne.

It's all very British

We went to the quiz at the Antelope last night as reigning champions with our handsome £50 prize available at the bar and in exactly the same position (winners and fifty quid to the good) at the Gorringe Park from the night before.

It all started well, we were winning at the interval, but then it seemed to fall apart as we ended up third with no prize at all; rank amateurs. I am bemused as we played the music round as on a stringed instrument and that is two points per question (artist and track).

Could it all have gone wrong in the film round? Dark forces may be at work but mustn't grumble, wouldn't want to cause a scene, people worse off than me, only if its no trouble, oh um fine thanks, keep your chin up, worse things happen at sea, make the best of it  ..... 

New week; new motto

We believe in: rough consensus and running code.

Wise words from David D. Clark

Non Standard

Yesterday I watched Non Stanford being crowned 2013 world triathlon champion after winning the Grand Final in Hyde Park. She did this in a season in which she broke her arm and won Saturday's race despite being handed a 15 second time penalty after failing to put her wetsuit in the box. (Does that sound as petty to you as it does to me?)

We have a new Welsh Born Icon. (Best of luck to Yorkshire's Brownlees today.)

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes

Why did police chiefs keep quiet about arrest of their chief executive?
Civilian employee was accused of stealing a desk diary from Whitehall office
Tom Flaherty accused of stealing diary of Acpo president Sir Hugh Orde
54-year-old civilian employee remains suspended on 112,000-a-year pay
Case shines a rare light on the divisions and infighting within Acpo

This is all very intriguing. I still address the invoices I send them to Tom Flaherty and they still get paid, touch wood.

3am: bike rack fixed by group on night out

A group of revellers in a Lincolnshire town were caught by CCTV cameras as they fixed a bike rack on a night out.

The five men had been outside a takeaway in Boston when they noticed a damaged metal bike rack.

Footage shows the group spending almost 13 minutes straightening the metal hook at 03:00 BST.

Boston Borough Council said it was surprised by their actions and called it "public spirited".

The metal rack had been damaged when a car reversed into it. It had been left unrepaired for several weeks.

Watch the video here. It does my heart good. What does my heart less good is the Daily Mail's grudging and entirely predictable "Thugs vandalising a town centre? No, these drunken men on their way home from a night out at 3am are FIXING a damaged bike rack". At a glance - thugs, vandals, drunks. What a rag it is.

Bündchen trend

In which Gisele covers the Kinks and makes a surprisingly decent fist of it. Who knew and what next? Ray Davies on the catwalk perhaps.

When only Pelham Grenville will do

It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.

Genius.

Alcohol is a misunderstood vitamin.

To Do List

In the war on distraction, a new long-term study of disrupted attention, multitasking, and aging shows dramatic results in improving working memory for older participants through use of an online game.

If only I could get around to reading it.

Your original game face

I used to love rugby, but it's turned into a gimmicky, boring sport played by gym-swollen meatheads

Is Jack Rivlin speaking truth to power in the article at the end of the link above? Discuss.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, the Seattle Seahawks believe their kinder, gentler philosophy is the future of football.

"IT'S DIFFERENT HERE," Pete Carroll says. "Have you noticed?" It's hard not to. At 9 a.m. on the first Sunday of training camp in Renton, Wash., high-performance sports psychologist Mike Gervais, dressed in a navy Seahawks hoodie and white baseball cap and flashing more enthusiasm than is rational at this hour, welcomes players into a meeting room at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center. This place used to be the site of a coal tar refinery; now it's the happiest, greenest campsite in the history of the NFL. Gervais is about to lead a meditation session and, as he always does, instructs the players to hit record on their phone voice-recorder apps and to close their eyes. Then he starts guiding them: "Quiet your minds," "Focus your attention inwardly" and "Visualize success."

One of them is both the same.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

If it was up to me we'd be doing the Richmond to Windsor bike ride again today (see Icons passim).

Failing that, if the Bomber was interested in my advice he would be taking part in the South London Athletics Super 8 League meet at Tooting Bec track as it is the last competition of the season and his last chance at under 13s. Athletics goes up to two year band so next season he will be at U15 level,

But no, the rugby season has started again and that takes precedence over cycling and athletics as far as himself is concerned.

You pays your money and takes your choice.

Cheese and Chips

Now all I want you to remember is that we are ambassadors of Wales. We’ve got a certain prestige to live up to, decorum at all times...  Now, of course, if we get waylaid by any of the banditry, well it’s one, all in. But generally speaking boys, keep it cool, right. … Now some of us are going to fall by the wayside ......

Newport - the gateway to Wales. Celebrated in the cult YouTube hit Newport State of Mind, the birthplace of Goldie Lookin Chain and home to LRS Security who look after many of the city centre's bars and clubs.

It's Friday

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity

Condé Nast’s Vanity Fair was founded in 1913 with the goal of recording “truthfully and entertainingly the progress of American life.” Since then, the title has featured the highest-quality journalism, photography, and commentary on all aspects of culture. On our 100th birthday, see the highlights of our history in slide shows, films, essays, articles, and full issues.

I've read Vanity Fair - on and off - for years now. It is a slippery beast. Articles are either brilliant or vacuous with nothing much in between, but that should mean that their own selection of the highlights of a century's work of publication should be more wheat than chaff.

Promoting Jah by Unicycle

When I was a kid, I was bemused by a rash of fly posters around Cardiff bearing the legend "Promoting Jah by Unicyle" which featured a spliff wielding rasta on a one wheeled bike.

Thirty five years later I have worked out that it was Peter Tosh's 1978 Bush Doctor Tour gig at  Sophia Gardens that was being promoted.

I have no idea why these things stay with me. The riddle of the  "Down with the Fascist Shah of Iran" stencil that infected bus stops overnight at around the same time remains unsolved.

Answers on a postcard.

One wheel on my wagon,
And I’m still rolling along
Them Cherokees after me
I’m all in flames, at the reins
But I’m singing a happy song
I’m singing a higgity, haggity hoggety, high
Pioneers, they never say die
Right around that turn there’s a hidden cave
And we can watch those Cherokees
Go galloping by

A rose in the desert

Vogue February 2010

Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young, and very chic--the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies. Her style is not the couture-and-bling dazzle of Middle Eastern power but a deliberate lack of adornment. She's a rare combination: a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement. Paris Match calls her "the element of light in a country full of shadow zones." She is the first lady of Syria.

Syria is known as the safest country in the Middle East, possibly because, as the State Department's Web site says, "the Syrian government conducts intense physical and electronic surveillance of both Syrian citizens and foreign visitors." It's a secular country where women earn as much as men and the Muslim veil is forbidden in universities, a place without bombings, unrest, or kidnappings ........

Author Joan Juliet Buck has now acknowledged this puff piece to be something of a faux pas. You can read her mea cupla here. It is, if anything, even more ridiculous than the original article. "Syria. The name itself sounded sinister, like syringe, or hiss" she recalls of her doubts.

It's the Zoolander sequel we've been waiting for, and it's a documentary.

Myself: Medic! Jeez, you gotta help me get this wound bound up somehow .....

Prodnose: Gauze may sound more like a hospital bandage than high fashion, but the essence of sheer is that it should be sculpted, not droopy

Once they get their hooks into you, you're a dead pigeon

I had to go to the quiz at the Gorringe Park last night as we had won a voucher for a bottle of wine at the same event last week. This time we won, so we have to go back next week as we've got a £50 bar tab. I have to go to the Antelope tonight because we got a £50 bar tab for winning that last week as well.



While we are on the subject of pubs, and after yesterday's musing, it was interesting to see that the Royal Standard was packed on Sunday afternoon while punters were scarcer at the more aspirational Provenance and Chs. Holden. for (all together now):

........ there is still a place for the traditional crap boozer, those dusty cocoons of cushioned velvet stained with the detritus of a thousand ‘cheers’, those sacred retreats where wobbly pints are passed over split packets of salty pig parts, those refuges from the sanitized outside world that unite people, not in how smart and clean but how utterly shit they are.

In Defence Of The Crap British Pub

In an old school pub, one lit by the grubby glow of gambling machines, where the air turns blue and the beer spills unselfconsciously, there is a sense of unpredictability, a freedom to act that touch more wildly, a coiled sense that things could go good or bad.

A man needs more than just organic food and comfortable cushions on a night out. He needs adventure. These old dives, closing down at a rate of 26 a week, still provide them, as they have done for centuries.

It’s something we’ll miss if we wish it away too hastily in our relentless pursuit of locally sourced organic roasts and continental beers.

So rather than sneer at the shit British pub, find yours, pull up a stool and enjoy a pork pie. Just don’t order the wine.

Due to my mistaken apprehension that the Bomber's rugby season stated today rather than next week I find myself at an unexpected loose end. A boozer with the footie on calls methinks.

A Question of Sport

On the morning of his first match for Wales at Cardiff Arms Park, Cliff Morgan caught a double-decker bus outside his terrace home in the Rhondda Valley.

‘It was packed,’ he said, chuckling at the notion of any latter-day international footballer enduring such a prosaic mode of public transport. ‘So packed that I stood all the way to Cardiff.’

Des O’Brien, one of the Irish back row planning to ambush his 20-year-old Cardiff team-mate, had sent him a telegram the day before: ‘Congratulations Cliff, bach. Is your life insured?’

Cliff Morgan (7 April 1930 – 29 August 2013); a Welsh Born Icon.

How we live now

As I learned last year, if you put down your smart phone you can actually get a three dimensional panoramic view of the heavens and the earth with your eyes and store it in your mind for future reminiscence; better than a photograph.

The Sultan

Relaxing over an Empire Stout at the Sultan last night, I noted that its Annual September Fest is on between 21 and 22 September.

22 guest ales from around the country, 2 or 3 traditional ciders plus a full range of Hop Back beers available.
Barbecue both days plus a beer garden.
Cases of Entire Stout and Summer Lightning only £26.
36 pint polypins from £57 and 18 pint minipins from £30
Special Hop Back seasonal brews each week,

I'm not sure if I will be around but I should try and make it.

Whatever happened?

Paul Roberts:  Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky?
Myself:  He got an ice pick that made his ears burn

Paul Roberts: Whatever happened to dear old Lenny, the great Elmyra, and Sancho Panza?
Myself  Pass*

Paul Roberts: Whatever happened to all the heroes?
Myself: All the Shakespearoes? They watched their Rome burn

Paul Roberts, who was the lead singer of The Stranglers between 1990 and 2006, is your host for the Tuesday night pub quiz in the 'Nonce. This fact cheers me so mightily that I am hugging myself in my mind.

---

* Lenny Bruce, Elmyr de Hory, and, for it is he, Sancho Panza. You are Lobby Lud and I claim my five pounds

Hi, I'm Dr Strabismus and I'm a bucolic

It’s nearly 11am, the cricket is about to start, the radio is on and the milkman has just arrived with milk for the weekend.

In the distance the sun is warming up the Sussex Downs; this is the countryside, this is England. If Andrew Murray and Cliff Richard rode past my window on a tandem and waving it wouldn’t be a surprise.

But back to milk and how wearable technology is producing better milk on our doorsteps. Eight million people in the UK now sport wearable technology, but animals wear it as well.

One such technology is something called MooMonitor, a necklace worn by cows that monitors cows’ health and fertility. Its owners describe it as ‘dairy SatNav’ and say that the MooMonitor’s technology is replicated in rockets and torpedoes.

There's a farm called Misery, but of that we'll have none
Because we know of one
That's always lots of fun (Ha ha!)
And this one's name is Jollity; believe me, folks, it's great
For everything sings out to us as we go through the gate

My Cup Runneth Over

Yesterday Cardiff City beat Manchester "The Richest Club in the World" City 3-2 in the Premiership taking them from bottom to a very handy eleventh place.

The day before at the Herne Hill Harriers Open, the Bomber won the U13 boys javelin (in a week in which he hadn't trained for the event at all) by throwing six and a half metres further than he managed last time out.

I got an email from his coach later saying that would put him well within the top fifty in the UK for this season.

I wonder what he could do with a bit of application? Still it is best to let him find his own way. The last thing I want to do is nag any of the joy out of it for him.

99 problems but the rich ain't one

Top 50 First World Problems

•It's boiling hot outside but freezing in the air-conditioned office
•My personal trainer took the week off so I have to workout alone
•My wallet won't close because there's too much money in it
•I bought a dishwasher and now spend longer packing and unpacking it than I did washing up
•My Brie is too hard
•No semi-skimmed milk in the supermarket, just full fat
•Earphones getting tangled up in your bag
•Chipped nail varnish
•Warm Pimms
•The cleaner taking a day off
•Trying to keep electricals out of the sun while sunbathing
•Watch / jewellery causing unsightly tan lines
•Spotting someone wearing the same outfit as you
•Squeaky new shoes which hurt while breaking them in
•Snagging designer clothing
•Over / under brewed tea
•Remote control batteries running out
•A disappointing air freshener
•The wind blowing your summer dress or skirt up
•Stepping on something wet while wearing socks
•Hair sticking to lipstick or lip balm in the slightest breeze
•Updating your mobile phone and losing all your contacts
•Sitting on your designer sunglasses
•Getting a fishbone stuck in your throat
•Two Weetabix not fitting in a round bowl properly, resulting in one becoming soggy and the other dry
•Having to watch movies on a phone because the tablet battery died
•Wanting another car, but not having room on the driveway
•Wanting to take your laptop outside but the wire doesn't reach far enough
•The living room isn't big enough for a coffee table and recliner sofas
•Getting suntan lotion in your eyes while reading outdoors in the sunshine
•Getting popcorn in your teeth
•Forgetting your phone charger
•Cold leather car seats in the winter
•Car won't play MP3s
•The football match being on Sky and not terrestrial TV
•The hairdresser moving house
•Having to go to the Post Office to collect a parcel
•Being out when a parcel gets delivered
•Supermarket checkout staff scanning faster than you can pack
•Sky+ recordings clashing
•Having a restaurant table indoors on a sunny day
•Nail polish clashing with lipstick
•Batteries going in the Sky remote
•The cash machine giving you a £50 note
•The shop not stocking a coke bottle with your name on
•Heel getting stuck in the decking of a boat/yacht
•Living somewhere too posh for a cheap corner shop
•Having the last edition of the iPhone
•The sun glare on your iPad / phone tablet
•A neighbour using the same Laura Ashley wallpaper

Oh, my Friends, be warned by me

Strange to remark I didn't manage to leap from my bed at the break of dawn and make it to yoga.

Rum punch and the blues are to blame. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Oh, and by the way:

A footballer in an FA Cup preliminary round match was shown the red card for pulling down his shorts in front of the referee.

AFC Croydon Athletic midfielder Louis Blake was brought on for his club debut in the second half of his club's game against Colliers Wood and was called up by the referee for wearing underwear that clashed with his kit.

The ref then demanded that the player be sent off the field to find a replacement pair.

Blake, 21, returned to the pitch without any underwear on.

On the referee's request that he "prove" he had changed his shorts, the young player complied and pulled on his shorts "to show him there was nothing there", only to be sent off for flashing the ref.

"I was gobsmacked, I was shocked and I was angry. I just pulled my shorts forward a bit to show him there was nothing there and he gave me a red," said Blake.

"How else am I meant to prove I’ve got nothing on down there?

"All I wanted to do was make a good impression on my debut and now I’m probably going to have to miss three games."

When the going gets weird the weird turn pro.

Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners.

What with the crash and roar of Nathan Cleverly losing his world title last weekend, I initially missed the fact that Londoner Darren Baker had climbed back up from the canvas to win the IBF Middleweight world title.in Atlantic City on Saturday.

I'd read about him before in the build up to the fight astounded to find that, due to a hip problem he was training with yoga and swimming and did no road work at all.

I was too hung over to go to Bikram at 8am last Saturday, though I did swim later in the day and caught up with my yoga practice on Sunday. I mustn't let that happen again tomorrow after tonight's blues at the Mills.

As to the meditation side of things, Scott Raab could have been channeling me when he wrote:

I've been aware for a long time that my default version of mindfulness — relentless hypervigilance spiked liberally with dread — isn't the optimal recipe for living a balanced life. A dash of OCD, a touch of bipolar disorder, a sprinkling of sociopathy, a heavy dusting of addiction: Mix constantly and serve piping hot. Feeds exactly one raging asshole.

Pimientos de Padrón

I got some Padrón peppers in my vegetable box this week and remembered John telling me about eating them when he went to Spain with Juan years ago.

The intriguing peculiarity of Padrón peppers is the Russian Roulette effect. Most of them are mild, but about one in ten is super hot. Because it is impossible to distinguish the hot pepper from the milder pods, eating a portion of Padrón peppers is like taking your life in your hands. There's a Spanish saying: "Pimiento de Padrón, pequeño pero matón", which translates roughly as "Padrón Pepper, a teeny-weeny thug".

I'm hoping for something similar if 24 Pesos serve up old-school meat and potatoes blues on the Abbeyfest bandstand tomorrow might, some of the jazz has been a touch bland over the last six weeks or so if  may venture to opine.

Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle

The great Elmore Leonard has died aged 87. In the bizarre way of the world I first learned of this masterly American crime and Western writer from Dennis Healey's autobiography (also a good book as it happens).

I pass on Leonard's 10 rules of writing below as a public service.

These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.

1. Never open a book with weather.

If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

2. Avoid prologues.

They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's ''Sweet Thursday,'' but it's O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: ''I like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy's thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That's nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don't have to read it. I don't want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.''

3. Never use a verb other than ''said'' to carry dialogue.

The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with ''she asseverated,'' and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb ''said'' . . .

. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances ''full of rape and adverbs.''

5. Keep your exclamation points under control.

You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

6. Never use the words ''suddenly'' or ''all hell broke loose.''

This rule doesn't require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use ''suddenly'' tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won't be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories ''Close Range.''

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway's ''Hills Like White Elephants'' what do the ''American and the girl with him'' look like? ''She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.'' That's the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.

Unless you're Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you're good at it, you don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to say.)

If I write in scenes and always from the point of view of a particular character -- the one whose view best brings the scene to life -- I'm able to concentrate on the voices of the characters telling you who they are and how they feel about what they see and what's going on, and I'm nowhere in sight.

What Steinbeck did in ''Sweet Thursday'' was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. ''Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts'' is one, ''Lousy Wednesday'' another. The third chapter is titled ''Hooptedoodle 1'' and the 38th chapter ''Hooptedoodle 2'' as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: ''Here's where you'll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won't get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.''

''Sweet Thursday'' came out in 1954, when I was just beginning to be published, and I've never forgotten that prologue.

Did I read the hooptedoodle chapters? Every word.

It's Dr Strabismus's world, we just live in it

Exhibit A

When Dmitry Argarkov was sent a letter offering him a credit card, he found the rates not to his liking.

But he didn't throw the contract away or shred it. Instead, the 42-year-old from Voronezh, Russia, scanned it into his computer, altered the terms and sent it back to Tinkoff Credit Systems.

Mr Argarkov's version of the contract contained a 0pc interest rate, no fees and no credit limit. Every time the bank failed to comply with the rules, he would fine them 3m rubles (£58,716). If Tinkoff tried to cancel the contract, it would have to pay him 6m rubles.

Tinkoff apparently failed to read the amendments, signed the contract and sent Mr Argakov a credit card.

"The Bank confirmed its agreement to the client's terms and sent him a credit card and a copy of the approved application form," his lawyer Dmitry Mikhalevich told Kommersant. "The opened credit line was unlimited. He could afford to buy an island somewhere in Malaysia, and the bank would have to pay for it by law."

Exhibit B

A council has defended spending £12,000 for a hologram "virtual receptionist" to greet visitors, saying it is cheaper than employing a person to do the job.

The “virtual assistant”, which has been named Shanice, will appear to sit behind a desk and greet visitors, but is actually projected onto a see-through screen.

Brent council, which is believed to be the first to use the technology, says that having a virtual employee will save £17,000 compared to a human receptionist, adding that Shanice can also be reprogrammed.....Shanice will direct visitors at the £90million civic centre wanting to register a birth or death, apply for a marriage licence or arriving for their big day, or attending to apply for citizenship.

The council boasts that “unlike a real receptionist, she's also got a 'touch screen' function”, meaning people can key in the reason for visit and receive a tailor made presentation.

However, Alison Hopkins, budget and finance spokeswoman for the opposition Lib Dems, told the Evening Standard: "There have been complaints about signage in Brent’s new civic centre but this is a startlingly expensive way of solving the problem.

A Sporting Curate's Egg

As Saturday bled into Sunday this weekend, the bottom three sides in the Premiership were Arsenal, Swansea and Cardiff, and Nathan Cleverly had lost his WBO world light heavy weight title over just four rounds in Cardiff.

Hugh sending me a text telling me that Colliers Wood walloped Croydon six nil in the FA Cup didn't really take the edge off the pain.

On the right hand side of the ledger, I got an email from Herne Hill Harriers yesterday:

Its been a great summer for the club with our boys winning the Ebbisham League and our U13/15 boys and girls teams winning our Youth Development League Division so that next year will be amongst the elite top six clubs in the South of England. We were also nominated as Athletics Weekly’s club of the month for July.

So hats off to the Bomber who contributed points to these achievements over 200m, in the 4x100m relay, and with the javelin.

How do you sleep?

I had thought that nothing could ever surpass Opium Jukebox's Bhangra Sex Pistols covers in my affections, but the Rockabye Baby! lullaby rendtions of prince are number one with a bullet, thanks Frankie.

I was working part time in a five-and-dime
My boss was Mr. McGee
He told me several times that he didn't like my kind
Cause I was a bit too leisurely

http://www.rockabyebabymusic.com/media/blfa_files/9692/02_Raspberry_Beret.mp3

Decisions

I am tempted to subscribe to Box Nation today so I can watch the Cleverly Kovalev fight from Cardiff later tonight. The trouble is that I'm out thiis evening. Will I have the willpower to come back home from the pub for twenty past ten? Here's the whole card. There's no way I'll get back for Enzo Maccarinelli at 8:30 that's for sure.

As I have to sign up for a month, it would mean that I'll also get Mayweather v Alvarez on September 14. Dunno, The jury's still out.

Clairy Browne and the Bangin' Rackettes

It is an inflexible rule of mine to approve of surnamesakes (if that is a neologism I have enriched the language) and thus present for your listening pleasure (drum roll) Clairy Browne and the Bangin' Rackettes.

On Love Letter (lead single from the new album) our Clairy deploys as many backing singers as chords which is as it should be. "Three chords, six strings, twelve bars, that swings" to quote myself.

Clairy: The opening line of Love Letter grabs you by the balls. It is about a filthy frustration, it is saying – I want you, I want you to do bad things to me, I don’t care if you don’t want me, I have nothing to lose, for good or for bad or for worse or for better. It is an electric song to sing because the tension boils just beneath the surface and then breaks out into vocal moments that are so full of yearning and desire, so raw, that you just can’t help but stand to attention.

Myself: Crikey!

Prism of Light

Katie Leone is playing the last Friday Jazz Evening of Abbeyfest tomorrow.

Strictly these jazz evenings should be called occasional originals interspersed with early to mid 70s Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye covers ("Talking Book" thru "Songs in the Key of Life" and "What's Going On?" thru "Got to Give it Up" respectively) evenings but they are none the worse for that.

Come along. I will but you a sarsaparilla..... (sings) I used to go out to parties and hang around, 'cause I was too nervous to really get down.

LOUDNESS IN THE NOVEL

Some novels feel louder than others, yet reading is typically a silent process. From this paradox arises this exploration of a text’s ability to be loud or quiet (and thereby exhibit dynamic variation). As a starting point, we will attempt to quantify textual loudness by studying the words that tend to occur within loud dialogue – dialogue that is cried, exclaimed, shouted, roared, or screamed. When, for instance, in Alice in Wonderland we encounter the sentence, ‘“Are their heads off?” shouted the Queen’, we will focus on the words and punctuation inside the quotations (“Are,” “their,” “heads,” “off,” and the question mark) as typical of the semantics of loudness. The project will make use of the Literary Lab’s corpus of 19th century English novels to generate a large sample of loud dialogue and vehement exclamations in order to ask questions such as: Does loud dialogue have its own unique lexicon? What does this lexicon say about loudness and English culture, and how does it change over time? Does it occur most densely within dialogue, or narration – or dramatic scripts? As these questions demonstrate, literary loudness naturally taps into issues of literary form, affect, and historical change.

What ever did we do before the Stanford Literary Lab and their wonderful projects?

The fastest gun in the South

An armed police officer who had sex with a married woman while on duty kept his job after arguing that he could still reach his gun because it was attached to his trousers around his ankles.

Pc Shaun Jenkins, 36, met the woman while he was on patrol and took her to his house, where they had intercourse as his colleague waited outside for 40 minutes in their car.The officer was originally allowed to keep his job, but was sacked for misconduct after the husband of the woman complained.

Gwent Police said his misconduct was made worse by him leaving his loaded pistol on a table during the encounter.

However, Pc Jenkins appealed successfully, saying the disciplinary procedure had been mishandled. An appeals panel also upheld his claim that he was always in reach of the pistol because it was in his holster, attached to his trousers.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission yesterday upheld his reinstatement, although it expressed surprise at the panel’s decision.

Pc Jenkins, who has been decorated for bravery three times, was taken off firearms duty but remains a neighbourhood policeman in South Wales. An IPCC spokesman said no further action could be taken against him because the disciplinary action had been mishandled.

Tom Davies, the head of the IPCC in Wales, said he was bemused by some of the appeal panel’s findings. “The finding that the gun was never out of Pc Jenkins’ direct and immediate control because it was in a holster, attached to his trousers, which were attached to him, albeit around his ankles, is surprising."

Anyone who read this story this morning without laughing must have a heart of stone. Another noble entry in the annals of the nonpareil Police in Wales, for all human life is here.

Hush, the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot cocklewomen and the tidy wives. Young girls lie bedded soft or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux, bridesmaided by glowworms down the aisles of the organplaying wood. The boys are dreaming wicked or of the bucking ranches of the night and the jollyrodgered sea. And the anthracite statues of the horses sleep in the fields, and the cows in the byres, and the dogs in the wetnosed yards; and the cats nap in the slant corners or lope sly, streaking and needling, on the one cloud of the roofs.

El Pitbul

The Bluebirds last night completed the record £9.5m capture of Chilean international Gary Medel as Malky Mackay made his most mouth-watering signing yet.

Medel will be the hard man of the Cardiff midfield as they embark on their debut Premier League season, with English officials sure to be having a few sleepless nights over the coming months.

The 26-year-old was sent off four times last season alone.

One video shows Medel sent from the field during a Copa del Rey match against Atletico Madrid that resulted in the new Bluebird remonstrating with stricken victim Diego Costa before being forcibly removed from the field by team-mates.

As he is departing the pitch, Medel launches a violent kick at a plastic chair located at pitchside, sending the temporary seating flying towards two police officers watching from the sidelines.

In a separate incident, Medel was sent off for slapping new Swansea City recruit Jose Canas during a match with Real Betis - a rivalry that is sure to add extra spice to the forthcoming South Wales derbies in November and February next year.

Gary Medel was born to become a folk hero at Cardiff City.

Are you experienced?

The Dr Who Experience: I wouldn't have gone without kids but it was pretty good.

Flowrider

You now add my name, along with Alex and the Bomber, along with Tony Hawk, Sean Silveira and Nick Nguyen to the list of keen and expert Flowriders thanks to Cardiff International White Water.

Frank Sinatra Has a Cold

To celebrate eight decades of publication Esquire magazine had promised to bring us it's eighty greatest ever stories in ten volumes of eight pieces each (Icons passim). The effort seems to have fizzled out, temporarily I hope, after three though.

To slake my thirst I have dug into the archives to discover that on the magazine's 70th anniversary Gay Talese's 1966 Frank Sinatra Has a Cold was declared the best piece they ever published and that five years later they anointed the seven best ever up to that time.

Thus http://www.esquire.com/features/page-75/greatest-stories will have to take the strain until the Esquire Eighty project kicks into gear again, even though I have already read three of them in the 2013 vintage collection.

(Interesting to see Harlan Ellison (Icons passim) turn up in a cameo in the Sinatra story.)

The last post

We are sorry to tell you that your Virgin Active Cardiff Health & Racquet club will be closing on 23 August 2013 at 2pm.
Our nearest clubs are Bridgend, Cwmbran, Weston Super Mare, Glamorgan or Bristol.

Alternatively, please use our club finder to find your nearest club to you.
If you require any further assistance, please contact us.

I will have to find a plan B next time I'm in Wales it seems. Perhaps the WRU cryotherapy chamber?

Attention on the beach and promenade

We are going back to Wales for a spell later this morning. Cardiff Bay Beach. Who knew?

functional strength

This is not helping with my motivation to get to the gym today.

Who?

So Malcolm Tucker is the new Dr Who.  If they can only get him to write and read the opening crawl for the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII as well my life will be complete.

RideLondon

RideLondon came along Worple Road and then up Wimbledon Hill Road today.

It was pretty humbling to watch the professionals on Wimbledon Hill. I've cycled it once or twice but try to avoid it and we even got a cab up it the other week rather than walk up to the village.

Maybe if I weighed 140 pounds ......

Gangs of Tooting Broadway

One for the film round in Monday's quiz at the Antelope perhaps. Maybe I'll watch it online. It is a long way from Wolfie Smith, that's for sure.

It is strange to think of Elizabeth Henstridge essentially going straight from this geezer movie (filmed up the road, innit bruv) to Avengers spin-off Agents of Shield in the USA (swear down).

the chorus of the satyrs

Myself: The metaphysical comfort - with which, I am suggesting even now, every true tragedy leaves us -that life is at the bottom of things, despite all the changes of appearances, indestructibly powerful and pleasurable - this comfort appears in incarnate clarity in the chorus of the satyrs, a chorus of natural beings who live ineradicably, as it were, behind all civilization and remain eternally the same, despite the changes of generations and of the history of nations.

Prodnose: Eh?

Myself: It's Nietzsche (Icons passim), from The Birth of Tragedy. Polly Gibbons and Samara are on the bill at Abbeyfest tonight and according to the WBI time machine they both played here in 2005 as well, so my mind naturally turned to eternal recurrence.

Prodnose: Naturally, and no doubt will do again and again numberless times.

Myself: Ho ho very satirical.

Naval gazing

James and Andy turned up at the 'Nonce last night, and yes we did celebrate Black Tot Day with rum chasers on rounds.

I am so hung over this morning I seem to be hallucinating a Hong Kong action movie finale in which  Michelle Yeoh, Cynthia Rothrock, and Danny Baker (5 seconds in) battle hordes of evil henchmen.

Black Tot Day

Today marks the 43rd anniversary of ‘Black Tot Day’, when a 300-year-old Royal Naval tradition came to an end.

For over three centuries, until 1970, all Royal Navy vessels would ring out their ship's bells just before noon every day. The famous call, 'Up Spirits' would go out, calling sailors to report to deck and receive their daily 70ml ‘tot’, or shot, of rum.

But as the bells chimed on July 31 1970, 43 years ago today, British sailors were issued with their final rum ration and the popular ‘tot’ tradition was no more. 

...... the Royal Navy sailors boarded their ship's decks to take their last ‘tot’ of rum, many wearing black armbands in tribute. ‘Black Tot Day’ was born and each year, on this day, the history of the British Navy is celebrated.

A rum for me in the Provenance tonight then I think, thought strictly I suppose it should be taken at lunchtime.

Money Saving Expert

I have had a head's up that our auction system is likely to feature on moneysavingexpert,com's  weekly email later today. Time to spin up some extra capacity.

Martin Lewis also has his tuppence worth on the payday loan debate in the Telegraph today: "Wonga and other 6,000pc APR loans are the crack-cocaine of the money-lending world."

Teep the wink

'The chief enemy of creativity is good taste.' Only God Forgives opens in the Blighty this weekend. The trailer I out up before (Icons passim) has stopped working so here is the UK version.

A serious statement

I have made many serious statements - I just can't remember any of them. I guess they mustn't have been very important.
Oliver Reed

Happy birthday John, I've got your present but I didn't post it. You will have to wait until next time I am back over the Severn Bridge to get your grubby paws on it.

Phoneshop

I iz well badmanz coz I like dis innit bruv!

Finally thanks to Phoneshop I can understand what de yoot (Bradley) be sayin' each uvver as I overhear them in the changing rooms in Virgin Active.

Hat tip, the Bomber. Should he really be watching this though?

Give me excess of it

Brendan Reilly is playing Abbeyfest tonight. Having performed at 4 previous AbbeyFests with the RB Funkestra, his 5th appearance will be his first under his own name. He hasn't been denying himself starchy foods since last time I saw him if the video above is anything to go by.

In a restaurant holdin' hands by candlelight. While I'm touchin' you, wanting you with all my might

is probably delivered with such sincerity because he's visualizing a cheese burger.

O, be some other name!

A shout out to my home girl Elizabeth Linder bigging us up and sharing the love on the BBC. Word is bond.

So the name is George. Vanity Fair had a list of alternative candidates:

1. Dodi.

2. Joffrey.

3. Spencer.

4. Gandalf.

5. Dumbledore.

6. Hawking.

7. Turing.

8. Dench.

9. Magic Mike.

10. Fagin.

11. Eeyore.

12. Pippin.

13. Patriarchy.

14. Cromwell.

15. Wilde.

16. Rotten.

17. Ringo.

18. Keef.

19. Mr. Miniver.

20. Lord High Executioner.

21. Lord Haw Haw.

22. Sir Duke.

23. Kim Philby.

24. Brideshead.

25. Shagwell.

26. Disraeli.

27. Elton.

28. Filofax.

29. Brooklyn.

30. Spice Boy.

31. Goldfinger.

32. Babyshambles.

33. Braveheart.

34. Salman.

35. Carlos Danger.

36. Paddy.

37. Dov.

38. Miss Thing.

39. McVitie.

40. Elizaboy I.

Now give us the baby, say Welsh

THE Welsh have demanded the royal baby be given to them so the initiation can begin.

The dark and mountainous principality, which believes it is ruled by the baby’s grandfather, has dispatched a team of tiny warrior monks to collect the child from Kensington.

The monks will take the prince to the Hall of Dragons on the tip of the Gower Peninsula. There he will be placed in the arms The Great Gryffd, who will school him in the mystic ways.

The process, known as ‘The Rite of Caradog’, will take seven years after which the child will be returned to his parents, filled with ancient wisdom and resentment.

Owain Glynwyryn, of the Council of Elders, said: “We will teach him how to fight, not with his fists but with his mind. And also with a bottle.

“We will tell him tales of heroes and victories until we have washed every drop of Englishness from his true Welsh heart.

“And if that doesn’t work we’ll just hold him upside down.”

After the monks collect the baby they will ride at full gallop for the Welsh border where the infant’s loyal subjects will line the road, holding burning torches to light the way to the Hall of Dragons.

Glynwyryn added: “Release him unto us, for it is his destiny.”

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “Absolutely not.”

Hat tip, Kim

Royal baby announcement

The Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4.24pm on 22 July. Follow the Clarence House Twitter account for the latest updates.

The text above is from the home page of www.royal.gov.uk this morning. We launched the Monarchy on Twitter in July 2009 (Icons passim). I remember the odd eyebrow was raised then. Now it's just business as usual.

(Speaking of business as usual, normal service was resumed at the Antelope quiz last night as we won again.)

Nice and easel does it

The news will come on an easel. It's custom for news of royal births and deaths to be attached to the railings of Buckingham Palace. In this case, it will be displayed on an ornate easel in the forecourt of the palace. The Queen, senior members of the royal family, and the Middleton family - if they are not at the hospital - will be told about the birth first. Then a royal aide will hurry from the hospital to the palace under police escort with a bulletin. The foolscap-sized note, bearing the Buckingham Palace letterhead and signed by key medical staff, will be the nation's first chance to find out if it is a boy or a girl. After the note is displayed, an announcement will be posted on Twitter and Facebook, and the media will be informed.

What a strange country we live in.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

Yesterday went so well I have walked the gym this morning in case I am still over the limit.

The only change to the plan was that brunched at the Provenance rather than Rick's and very good it was too.

I'll be off to Paddington to see my brother off on the train to Wales. The Mad Bishop & Bear may well have a role to play in that ceremony.

Going uphill rabidly

Here at least is the the plan for today. Who knows how it will pan out?

1. Virgin Active: BYOB (Bring Your Own Brother)
2. Rick's: a stomach lining brunch and perhaps a sneaky Bloody Mary
3. HMVCurzon: the main feature
4. The Hand in Hand: head in hands
5. The Crooked Billet billet-doux
6. The Fox and Grapes "Beulah, peel me a grape"
7. The Rose and Crown Moses supposes
8. The Firestables Fires tables?
9. The Brewery Tap If you think I'm having a Nero's coffee, think again.
10 The Dog and Fox according to the small print we can have two in here, one in honour of Finch's
11 Standard Cabs Mother, I can never come home again, 'cause I seem to have left an important part of my brain somewhere ....

Death of an institution

I've been putting the final touches to the plan for tomorrow's trip to see The World's End movie, followed by the Ollie Reed pub crawl.

A change of cinema venue to the HMVCurzon for the 13:50 showing has been agreed. It is in Wimbledon like the Odeon but has a bar and allows, nay encourages, you to take drink into the auditorium.

Of the eight Wimbledon Village pubs in the classic crawl, two have closed.

Finch's is no more, but it is now part of the Dog and Fox, so - in Catholic theology at least - it still counts.

The Brewery Tap has gone the way of all flesh as well. It is now, God's bodkin, a Caffè Nero. John Sweeney paid tribute to its passing in the November 2011 edition of the Oldie in a style that should inspire us to live up to it tomorrow,

The Brewery Tap in Wimbledon Village wasn't much to look at, easily missed from the other side of the street from the better known, blowsier Dog and Fox, where Oliver Reed used to dip his moustache into his beer when not wrestling in the nude. The Tap was a king of home from home to the Village's non-hedge-fund-set, the people who might not want to have a Ferrari, decadent iconoclasm though that might be. Over the years the Tap had been patronised, if that's the wrong word, then sorry - by the likes of (the late) silver-tongued lawyer Geoege Carman, cricketer Bob Willlis, indie garage pop singer JameT and comic Paul Merton.

Landlord John Grover was - is - a miserable sod. ...... read on......

Prodnose: A toast to absent friends?
Myself: Absent friends!

The Friends of Emily Ratajkowski

James and I were sniggering over the unrated video to Blurred Lines in the pub earlier in the week. He truly is the Bernard Bresslaw to my Sid James. I was previously unaware of it but managed to track it down from the snatches of lyrics he could remember and conjured it up over wi-fi on the iPhone. (I had bought the single on iTunes, but mainly so I could lecture the Bomber on how it is an inferior rip off of Marvin Gaye's Got to Give It Up, Pt1.)

I can't show you the promo in question here in case it frightens the horses, but - purely in the interests of science and accuracy - I have been researching its star Emily Ratajkowski ever since I got in on Tuesday night and I can share a version cooked up by Radio Shack to promote the Buy BEATS Pill Wireless Portable Speaker.

Spookily I bought a Pill last week myself. Perhaps fate is trying to tell me something?

passing the batton

Here's Imaani, who was on at Abbeyfest last Friday, introducing Kevin Leo, who is on this Friday.

Prodnose: I love it when a plan comes together.
Myself: I love it when a piano comes together.

Winners

In the UK Development League athletics meetings two athletes compete from each club in each event in "A" and "B" strings. Looking through Saturday's results I was astounded to find out that the Bomber had won the U13 "B" Javelin and by a handy margin too.

I don't know if not realising this (I include both of us here as I was watching) is a sign of insouciant cool or, more likely, stupidity but I was happy to find out.

Also, it seems that Herne Hill Harriers did enough to win the Southern Premiere 2 division in this last meet of the season so next year they will be in Lower Age Group (U13 and U15) Southern Premiere 1 which is the top league of the ten in the South of England.

Good stuff.

Apocalypse postponed

Stacker Pentecost: Today, at the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen not only to believe in ourselves, but in each other. Today we face the monsters that are at our door, today we are canceling the apocalypse!

One of the advantages of having a twelve year old at your disposal is that you can go and see movies featuring characters with names like Stacker Pentecost that are about Giant Friggin' Robots Fighting Monsters. And so it came to pass that we took in Pacific Rim at the Odeon yesterday.

I also noticed, for the first time, that there is a bar menu in the cinema, so it looks like the pub crawl after The World's End next Saturday will kick off in situ.

The apocalypse is not cancelled after all, it is merely postponed for a week.

Seconds

The Bomber was competing for Herne Hill Harriers in the UK Youth Development League yesterday. (Narrowly beaten to 2nd in the 200m thanks for asking. Nursing a leg injury not that we're making excuses you understand.)

The clubs in the Southern Region Premier 2 league are Herne Hill Harriers, Southampton A.C., Croydon Harriers, Team Dorset, and Winchester & District A.C.

While we were there an announcement came over the PA that Crydon Harriers' James Dasaolu had run a 9.91 second 100 metres medal contention at at the Sainsbury's British Championships in Birmingham.

His time, shattering his previous best of 10.03, elevates him from 22nd to fourth in this year’s world 100m rankings behind Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell and Justin Gatlin and, astonishingly, ahead of Bolt, whose best time this season is 9.94.

Extremely cool don't you think that he's from one of the clubs we were competing against? Very different from the gulf between the elite and the rest in many sports.

I don't know the the fianl YDL result yet, but barring accidents we will have done enough to win the league and HHH will be in Southern Region Premiere 1 next season which is the top division in this part of the world.

Ouch!

Why is Gavin Henson trending? *innocent face*

Bringing home the bacon

Nothing is easier or more satisfying than making your own bacon.

Now I have made my own gravlax (Icons passim), bacon seems a logical next step. I've got the necessary herbs  growing in the garden you'll be pleased to know.

It may not all be plain sailing however:

You will now have your own “green” bacon. Don’t worry if a white mould appears; it’s harmless, just rub it off.

doesn't exactly set my mouth watering..

Blame it on my youth

I got an email from Amazon yesterday which said, "you may have noticed that CD albums purchased from Amazon since you became a customer have been added to your Cloud Player library." (I hadn't noticed by the way.)

I tried it out on the web as well as in the iPhone and iPad app versions.

On iOS the Cloud Player lets you play your iTunes purchases as well, which is all rather splendid.

Gathering all my music together is a great thing in principle, but the trouble with my jazz vocal standards itch is that alphabetical order does tend to raise questions like "how many versions of Blame it on my youth does one person need?" Yes I am talking to you Victoria Tolstoy, Kurt Elling, Jamie Cullum., Keith Jarrett etc. etc.

If I expected love when first we kissed
Blame it on my youth
If only just for you I did exist
Blame it on my youth
I believed in everything
Like a child at three
You meant more than everything
All the world to me
If you were on my mind all night and day
Blame it on my youth
If I forgot to eat and sleep and pray
Blame it on my youth
If I cried a little bit
When first I learned the truth
Don't blame it on my heart
Blame it on my youth
If you were on my mind all night and day-ay
Blame it on my youth
If I forgot to eat and sleep and pray
Blame it on my youth
If I cried a little bit
When first I learned the truth
Don't blame it on my heart
Blame it on my youth

Sniff.... I'm only crying because I'm happy. If you need me I will be in the cupboard under the stairs with boxes (one of each) of Milk Tray and Kleenex.

AbbeyFest this Friday

A terrific singer in the Soul/R&B tradition Imaani’s cv is long and impressive. She first came to prominence as the UK’s 1998 entrant to the Eurovision Song contest (one of the better choices!) where she was runner up and went on to produce a highly successful single that charted around the World. She then moved on to work with Dub Cospiracy (with whom she again charted). Her worldwide tours, television, live and recorded output includes work with the likes of Gloria Gaynor, Carleen Anderson, Michael Bolton, Lulu and Beverley Knight. Most recently she completed her 5th World tour as lead singer with the iconic band “Incognito” with whom she has had a long association. A powerful and charismatic vocalist this is a rare chance to hear this enormously experienced and highly regarded singer perform at the Club. “the magnificent vocals of Imaani, who weaves her magic over a backdrop of funk guitar and old-school synths” DJ Times; “Imaani’'s beautiful vocals are the standout element” JazzproJect

So now you know. See you there.

Unfortunately my face was my fortune.

When we bowled up at the CASS Business School last week, Tariq - who cannot bring himself to throw anything away it seems - produced the mug shot booklet issued for, and of, the Feb '86 Executive MBA intake. Yours truly's page is above. Alert as ever, like a tiger waiting to pounce.

Getting on Famously

Radio silence was observed over the weekend as I was away camping. This post is geo-coded with the location so you can see where we were through the miracle of modern science.

I couldn't get even a peep out of the 3G on the iPAD, but I did manage to catch the second half of the famous Lions win at the Apple Tree in Haslemere, and we were home for the final set of Murray's famous Wimbledon win.

Narcissus, with one pustule

I went to the private Parkside hospital in Wimbledon earlier this week to have a skin tag removed from my right lower eyelid. It's a procedure that is not available on the NHS and I rub my eyes in bewilderment at the vicissitudes of my life so often that this acrochordon (who he? ed) was becoming a significant nuisance.

Thus the old physiog is now a couple of millimetres closer to perfection, and I - oh the Hollywood glamour of it all - have my own plastic surgeon.

Try not to be offended if I decide I don't like your face and refer you to him after I have had a few drinkees of a Saturday night.

STRABISMUS shouldst be living at this hour

Sky has developed technology to transfer adverts from train windows directly and silently into commuters' heads.

Passengers leaning their head against the window will "hear" adverts "coming from inside the user's head", urging them to download the Sky Go app.

The proposal involves using bone conduction technology, which is used in hearing aids, headphones and Google's Glass headset, to pass sound to the inner ear via vibrations through the skull.

STRABISMUS shouldst be living at this hour:
Utrecht hath need of he (whom God preserve)

Welles Fargo is not far enough

Waiter: Roast pork?

Welles: Oh, my God. On a hot day, roast pork? I can’t eat pork. My diet. But I’ll order it, just to smell pork. Bassanio says to Shylock: ‘If it pleases you to dine with us.’ And Shylock says: ‘Yes, to smell pork; to eat of the habitation which your prophet the Nazarite conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following, but I will not eat with you, drink with you, or pray with you.’

HJ: Isn’t there something about the devil taking the shape of a pig in the Bible? Or did Shakespeare invent that?

Welles: No, Jesus put a whole group of devils into the Gadarene swine. Shakespeare was just trying to give Shylock a reason for not eating with them.

HJ: I would like the grilled chicken.

Waiter: Okay.

Yaaaaas. Life may not be perfect, but at least we never had to break bread with Orson Welles.

Jim Kelly

Han: We are all ready to win, just as we are born knowing only life. It is defeat that you must learn to prepare for.
Williams: I don't waste my time with it. When it comes, I won't even notice.
Han: Oh? How so?
Williams: I'll be too busy looking gooood.

RIP Jim Kelly. I am very far from clear what that dialogue from Enter the Dragon is actually intended to convey, but I still dig it. Your man was seriously cooool.

It won't mean much to you, but I remember that my school friends and I all tried to get into see his X certificate movie sensation in the Plaza on North Road in Cardiff. That would have been 1973, making us twelve years old. Unsurprisingly we were refused admission, so we went and watched The Day of the Jackal in the Monico instead.

I can conjure it up quite clearly. The the manager confiscated our catapults before he would let us in, locked them in his office, and - fair play - gave them back to us afterwards.

Halcyon days of yore. The catapult: "An elegant weapon for a more civilized age."

David Foster Wallace

In honour of Wimbledon, here is Federer as Religious Experience, the fabled article on Roger Federer by David Foster Wallace, that I have never quite managed to dig up before.