get your teeth into this

The Rutlish Raiders U15s beat the Hemel Stags 50-20 on Saturday. That was an important win, as it boosts us up to second in the table.

This Saturday we have got the Sussex Merlins at home. Win that and we are guaranteed a place in the play-offs, and the following week's game away at the North Herts Crusaders should be a show down that decides who comes second and who comes third.

Ben can't make that last game unfortunately as he has an inviolable dental appointment to get new braces fitted on his teeth. On a Saturday rather than a school day! It is almost as if someone thinks that health and education is more important that rugby.

U15 - West league table
			P	W	L	D	PF	PA	DIFF	PTS
1		Elmbridge Eagles	8	7	0	1	370	94	276	15
2		Rutlish Raiders	8	4	4	0	234	214	20	8
3		North Herts Crusaders	8	4	4	0	158	233	-75	8
4		Sussex Merlins	8	3	5	0	180	179	1	6
5		Richmond Warriors	8	3	4	1	170	252	-82	3
6		Hemel Stags	8	2	6	0	136	276	-140	0

Everyone may be ordinary, but they're not normal

Back in Wales over the weekend, during a seemingly endless family discussion in the back garden over what name my new nephew should have, I heard my brother John mutter, "I have named the child Caleb, in accordance with your wishes" under his breath.

I recognised it as a quote from chapter 9 "Major Major Major Major" of Catch 22 (read it here, it is hilarious), and I was struck yet again by how remarkably similar our tastes and references are despite a nine year age difference which means that I had gone to university before he was ten. How may people would say it? How many people would pick up on it?

The novel relates that Maj. Major was named "Major Major Major" by his father, as a joke – passing up such lesser possibilities such as "Drum Major, Minor Major, Sergeant Major, or C Sharp Major" and that addition of the rank of Major was the result of "an IBM machine with a sense of humor almost as keen as his father's". Extremely apt in the context of a debate stretching over weeks on what name tag to pin on a blameless child.

Other book news: I finished reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World by Haruki Murakami yesterday and started on The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee.

To my surprise Mukherjee's book kicks off with a quote from Murakami's IQ84, and now I have noticed that Mukherjee is appearing at a 5x15 event in London tonight. The universe seems to be leading me by the nose. I don't know where, but I will come along for the ride.

A Twist of Lemmon

As I was driving down to Cardiff on Friday I was listening to The Curtain Up Show on Resonance FM. Chris Lemmon, son of the legendary Jack Lemmon, was on it talking about the one man show he has written about his father and is currently performing in London. It sounded fascinating, I must try and go.

The radio show is at https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/the-curtain-up-show-3rd-june-2016/

Tickets are avaialable from the St James Theatre - https://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/studio/a-twist-of-lemmon/

A man entire

I listened to David Nott, probably the world’s most experienced war surgeon, on Desert Island Discs as I drove back from Cardiff to London today.

During the past 20 years, he has taken unpaid leave from his NHS work to provide medical assistance all around the world. The list of places he has visited reads like a summary of troubled conflict zones in the 21st century – Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Darfur, Haiti, Gaza and Syria all feature.

He was born in Carmarthen. His father, who was half Indian and half Burmese, was an orthopaedic surgeon and his Welsh moth was a nurse.

What an admirable and inspirational man, I am happy to claim him as a Welsh Born Icon.

Listen to the show here.

Chaz Royal's Burlesque Ball

I am back in Cardiff, and pleased to see that there is Burlesque on just down the road in the Globe tonight. I wonder if I can persuade Mum and Dad to take it in.

Less whimsically, I see that Robben Ford is there on Wednesday 13 July. A member of the L.A. Express who has collaborated with Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison, Larry Carlton and Kiss among others, he was named one of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of the 20th Century" by Musician magazine, and is particularly cherished by me as I had a teach yourself blues guitar cassette tape based course by him back in the day. If you ever see me busking the blues, he is the man to blame.

I can't see me getting to Cardiff on a school night, but he is playing in London on the Monday of that week as well.

Clusterfunk

The dashboard instrument cluster on my Ford Focus seems to have given up the ghost this morning. The speedometer and the rev counter are stuck at zero, while the temperature and fuel gauges are both steady in the middle of their ranges, and the LCD mileometer is completely blank.

I need to drive down to Cardiff after work; tiresome doesn't begin to cover it. I will just have to fill up with petrol, download a speedometer app for my mobile phone, and put myself in the lap of the gods.

Ditto on the way back, Sunday.

Saturday 11 June, 2016

INTERNATIONAL RUGBY
New Zealand v Wales 08:35
Australia v England 11:00
South Africa v Ireland 16:00

LONDON RUGBY LEAGUE U15 West
Rutlish Raiders v Sussex Merlins 11:00

UEFA EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP - GROUP B
Wales v Slovakia 17:00
England v Russia 20:00

Some schedule eh? My brother John is coming up to London to watch the first New Zealand test. If, as planned, we do that in the Charles Holden and feel honour bound to cross the landlord's palm with silver before the sun is over the yardarm, the day could well acquire a momentum of its own, what with so much going on in the run up to Wales' Slovakia game at five. With any luck though, getting out in the fresh air at eleven to see the U15s at Lavender Park will save us from a twelve hour bender.

“You better take care of me Lord, if you don't you're gonna have me on your hands.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

It was acceptable in the 80s

Tickets available from www.letsrocklondon.com; chances of Ben fancying  coming along - 0%.

Fairy tales can come true

• AFC Wimbledon beat Plymouth Argyle 2-0 to win League One promotion
• Club celebrated their sixth promotion 14 years to the day they were formed

And I was there to see it.

Pick up Styx

Yesterday I unblocked the overflowing external drain that is fed by the kitchen sink, washing machine and dishwasher. It was completely backed up with disgusting solid gunk that smelled like death and seemed to be make up of compacted soap powder, fat and other debris.

On reflection however, I enjoyed the time I spent breaking it up and pulling it out with my arm plunged into this Stygian hell up to my elbow more than I enjoyed the second half of the game we attended at Twickenham yesterday; England 27 - 13 Wales.

I'm off to see Wimbledon AFC at Wembley this afternoon. I know Ivor Heller from "around" and had a chat with him on Saturday when I picked up the tickets. Who will play him in the upcoming AFC movie do we think - Tom Hiddleston, Aidan Turner, Idris Elba, or Damian Lewis?

New Zealand's squad for the Wales tour

Forwards: Dane Coles (Wellington, 36 Tests), Codie Taylor (Canterbury, four Tests), Nathan Harris (Bay of Plenty, two Tests), Wyatt Crockett (Canterbury, 45 Tests), Charlie Faumuina (Auckland, 33 Tests), Owen Franks (Canterbury, 78 Tests), Joe Moody (Canterbury, 11 Tests), Ofa Tu’ungafasi (Auckland, new cap), Brodie Retallick (Hawke’s Bay, 47 Tests), Luke Romano (Canterbury, 22 Tests), Patrick Tuipulotu (Auckland, seven Tests), Samuel Whitelock (Canterbury, 73 Tests), Sam Cane (Bay of Plenty, 31 Tests), Elliot Dixon (Southland, new cap), Jerome Kaino (Auckland, 67 Tests), Kieran Read, captain (Canterbury, 84 Tests), Ardie Savea (Wellington, new cap), Liam Squire (Tasman, new cap).

Backs: Tawera Kerr–Barlow (Waikato, 20 Tests), Aaron Smith (Manawatu, 47 Tests), Beauden Barrett (Taranaki, 36 Tests), Aaron Cruden (Manawatu, 37 Tests), Lima Sopoaga (Southland, one Test), Ryan Crotty (Canterbury, 15 Tests), Malakai Fekitoa (Auckland, 13 Tests), Charlie Ngatai (Taranaki, one Test, Seta Tamanivalu (Taranaki, new cap), Israel Dagg (Hawke’s Bay, 49 Tests), Damian McKenzie (Waikato, new cap), Waisake Naholo (Taranaki, three Tests), Julian Savea (Wellington, 41 Tests), Ben Smith (Otago, 48 Tests)

Who's this Damian McKenzie then? Never heard of him.



Bollocks. Looking on the bright side, maybe he won't get in the team.

a league of their own

There is no rugby league game for the Raiders today, as it is a Bank Holiday weekend.

After that we are home to the Stags on June 4th, home to the Merlins on June 11, and away to the Crusaders on June 18.

June 18th is the last U15 West league game. It turns out that there is an East league as well.  On June 25 and July 2 we will play the team who finish in the same position as us in that league; two games one home and one away.

After that, if we come third or higher in the West league (and we are third at the moment) we get into the play offs.

09 Jul 16 Round One A - 2nd West v 3rd East
09 Jul 16 Round One B – 2nd East v 3rd West

16 Jul 16 Semi-Final 1st West v Winner of Round 1-B
16 Jul 16 Semi-Final 1st East v Winner Round 1-A

23 Jul 16 London RL Youth Junior Grand Finals at London Broncos RLFC, Ealing

All clear?

The Invicta Panthers, who put the Raiders out of the Cup in Ben's first ever rugby league game (Icons passim) are currently sitting on top of the East table.

top-notch ducket hustlers

The plan for England v Wales this weekend is to meet Ben at Wimbledon Station on Sunday to get the 1:34 train to Twickenham.

After the game we will walk along to the While Hart while the crowd disperses and see who is about. Folk who haven't seen Ben since he came skiing with us when he was in primary school are in for a shock.

After that we will get the train back from Whitton to Charing Cross (it runs at 28 and 57 minutes past the hour), thence Balham where we will get the Northern Line to Colliers Wood.

I tried to buy tickets for Wimbledon AFC's Monday play off at Wembley earlier, but it is too late to get them online. Luckily they are available until Sunday  from a pop-up shop in Centre Court, so I can pick some up there on my way to Twickenham. (Northern Line to London Bridge then the Jubilee Line to Wembley Park would seem to be my best bet to get to the football.)

WALES TEAM TO PLAY ENGLAND

Liam Williams (Scarlets), George North (Northampton Saints), Scott Williams (Scarlets), Jamie Roberts (Harlequins), Hallam Amos (Dragons), Dan Biggar (Ospreys), Rhys Webb (Ospreys), Rob Evans (Scarlets), Scott Baldwin (Ospreys), Samson Lee (Scarlets), Jake Ball (Scarlets), Alun Wyn Jones (Ospreys), Ross Moriarty (Gloucester), Dan Lydiate (Capt - Ospreys), Taulupe Faletau (Newport Gwent Dragons).

Replacements: Kristian Dacey (Cardiff Blues), Gethin Jenkins (Cardiff Blues), Rhodri Jones (Scarlets), Josh Turnbull (Cardiff Blues), James King (Ospreys), Lloyd Williams (Cardiff Blues), Rhys Priestland (Bath Rugby), Gareth Anscombe (Cardiff Blues).

ENGLAND TEAM

Starting XV: Mike Brown; Anthony Watson, Jonathan Joseph, Luther Burrell, Marland Yarde; George Ford, Ben Youngs; Matt Mullan, Dylan Hartley, Dan Cole; Joe Launchbury, Courtney Lawes; Teimana Harrison, James Haskell, Jack Clifford.

Reps: Tommy Taylor, Ellis Genge, Paul Hill, Dave Attwood, Matt Kvesic, Danny Care, Ollie Devoto, Elliot Daly.

a problem I didn't know I had

Before hot yoga kicked off at half past six this morning, Shona (dominatrix du jour while Marta is on a retreat in Thailand) apologised on behalf of Sara who had thought that perhaps she had pumped too much lemon grass into the atmosphere.

Nursing, as I was, a "gentleman's head" after a barbecue at Andy and Ollie's last night and pondering the miracle it was that I had made it to Elm Grove at all I shattered my customary mauna and told her - with all the dignity that I could gather prone on my back clad in nothing but my pants -  that the precise make up of the morning's incense was among the least of my problems.

The Rawlinson motto "Omnes Blotto."

Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang

A gerund is a verb form which functions as a noun; in English ending in -ing (e.g. asking in do you mind my asking you?).

Some genius creative for the IN campaign (ING campaign?) has decided that G is omitted if one is down with da yoot. How is you votin.co.uk on June 23rd?

This campaign is ridiculous. Do the people behind think that kids are morons who can't understand arguments as opposed to slogans?

Notes

1. I am open to the notion that we may be dealing with present participles here rather than gerunds. The words not being in sentences it is difficult to be precise. Let's take these stand alone words as nouns.

2. This is the first time I have embedded a Facebook video. The secret sauce for that is at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/embedded-video-player

Spice Up Your Life

“My experience is that we live in a material world. Also, it’s inside and out, it’s the polarity of both, aesthetics is the shop window, ultimately, if there’s nothing in that shop, it has no longevity, do you know what I mean?”

Speaking for myself I don't know what you mean Ginger Spice, but my world is a jollier place for reading interviews with you again.

Preacher

The highly-anticipated new TV series Preacher will debut exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in the UK it has been announced.

Arriving on 23rd May 2016 (today), with subsequent episodes launching on Mondays from 6th June 2016 (one day after they air in the US on AMC), the series is produced by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg (This Is The End, Superbad, Bad Neighbours) and showrunner Sam Catlin (Breaking Bad). It is based on Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s comic book of the same name.

Religion, satire, ultraviolence, possession, angel-demon copulation, rednecks, Heaven, Hell, saints, killers, and the Saint of Killers - what's not to like?

Behind a Painted Smile

Scarcely two months on from raising the issue (Icons passim) I think I may have got to the bottom of finding a fitted sheet that will be snug with my mattress.

It turns out it is a 140cm x 200cm Euro/IKEA Size double; bigger than a UK double but smaller than a UK King size. How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? Amazon Prime can take the strain: IKEA DVALA - Fitted sheet, white - 140x200 cm.

For completeness, the bed in Ben's room is a UK small double (120 x 190 cm).

Prodnose: God knows there has been some competition here lately, but that is almost certainly the most boring thing you have ever shared.

Myself: I am not sure. I was only saying to Brad, Angelina, George and Amal the other day that people only see the impossible glamour that is the surface of our lives. Sometimes I think it is good to let a little light in and allow the public to appreciate the hard work that goes on behind the scenes keeping the show on the road.

Angelina (about the new curtains): If you don't like them we can take them back.

Brad: All right, I don't like them.

Angelina: [pause] You'll get used to them.

Player of another year

Ben won the Old Ruts U15 League 1 Player of the Year award at the club last night. This year, like last year when Welsey won it, it was decided a vote among the squad, not by the coaches. It is a great honour for him to be picked out by his peers like that.

I don't have a picture as I remembered that when he won it four years ago (Icons passim) I was so busy fooling around with the camera on my phone that I didn't really concentrate on savouring the moment.

I'll be back in a minute

Join us on Sat 28th May as we launch the @WimbledonBrew #food & #drink #market alongside some great local purveyors pic.twitter.com/cliFbTc9oH

— Wimbledon Brewery (@WimbledonBrew) May 19, 2016

The Wimbledon Brewery is just around the corner from Lavender Park where the Rutlish Raiders rugby league teams play their home games of a Saturday. Disloyal as it sounds, I could be persuaded to play hooky - at least for the first half - for a food and drink market.

'Tubbs' Tattsyrup: Are you... local?

I went down the Standard last night to watch Liverpool in the Europa Cup final (of which the less said the better) only to find myself enthralled instead by the screens showing AFC Wimbledon edge past Accrington in extra-time.

AFC Wimbledon are one win away from reaching the third tier of English football following an extra-time victory over Accrington in the League Two play-offs.

Having been two goals down on the night and 22 minutes from defeat, substitute Adebayo Akinfenwa’s header forced extra time before Lyle Taylor’s 104th-minute finish sealed a 3-2 aggregate triumph and booked a Wembley final date with Plymouth.

Success over the Pilgrims would ensure Wimbledon, who formed as a phoenix club 14 years ago in response to MK Dons’ controversial relocation, will spend next season alongside Karl Robinson’s side for the first time in their history.

Confirmation of their Wembley trip came slightly later than planned, due to a floodlight failure at the Crown Ground, but the final whistle was greeted by a pitch invasion when it eventually arrived at 10.30pm.

Phew, my heart was in my mouth. I am tempted to go to Wembley myself.

Several million points out of ten for style

I got a group email from Carole yesterday. She's trying to organise a reunion for the 30th anniversary of us starting our MBA. That is handy as I have only recently sobered up after the 20th anniversary reunion.

I hit "reply all" saying I was all in favour of it and got the greatest automatic response in the history of the world from Ruth.

I am currently cycling the Silk Road and will return to my desk in October 2016. If you require immediate assistance, please contact Frank Neale on xxx@xx.com. I will have periodic access to email and will respond when I am able. Thank you.

Her "periodic access to email" is obviously working as we heard from her personally later:

Aw, I'll have to survive long enough for the 40th. I'm currently cycling the Silk Road. In China now heading towards Istanbul. Eta October.

I am now singing Style by Prince from the Emancipation album in tribute. You should too.

Well I never!

Great performance from Ben Browne in the Intermediate Boys Javelin to come second #Athletics

— Rutlish PE & Sport (@PeRutlish) May 16, 2016

I was checking something out for the Wimbledon Bookfest on Twitter yesterday when I came across the tweet from the Bomber's school above. I wish I was clearer about what competition it was in, it must have been something significant I suppose.

While we are on the subject of himself, you can go directly to his rugby league try from Saturday's game at https://youtu.be/AGo4--bMSRY?t=23m10s without having to sit through all that boring filler footage of the opposition scoring.

#DAW2016

Rutland Weekend Television

I am just back from Cardiff, but the miracle of Interweb YouTubery means I can watch the Raiders being beaten by the Elmbridge Eagles yesterday ..... and thank you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you're at it, why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?

Pre match entertainment

I am back in Cardiff this weekend at Mum and Dad's, so I'm off the grid and today's post was queued yesterday.

Saracens vs Racing 92 - the European Champions Cup final - kicks off at quarter to five (BST) this afternoon at the Grand Stade de Lyon, France. The match will be broadcast live on BT Sport Europe, with the show starting at 3.45pm (BST).

Gareth has reminded me what a great try Pablo scored against Saracens ARFC last week, so I present it below as home grown pre-match entertainment. Slow motion and a soundtrack? You're spoiling us, Mr Ambassador!

Old Ruts Kenya is up and running

.... and the nominations are ...

BMI celebrated the songwriters and publishers behind the year’s most-performed pop songs at the 64th Annual BMI Pop Awards last night at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California.

Global superstar Taylor Swift was presented with the first-ever Taylor Swift Award.

The bookies probably weren't taking bets on who would get it.

Alvy Singer: What's with all these awards? They're always giving out awards. Best Fascist Dictator: Adolf Hitler.

I'll drink to that

I saw the Richard Alston Dance Company in Wimbledon Theatre last night. It was a triple bill with a break after each so I could have two interval G&T's instead of the customary one; very civilised.

Afterwards, I still had time to watch the second half of West Ham versus Manchester United as the kick off was delayed by three quarters of an hour after Irons fans attacked the Red Devils' bus; less civilised.

one and a half minutes

The Saracens recorded their games at the sevens at Worthing at Sunday and sent us a link. I share a ninety second clip above in which Ben scores a try, tackles the guy who catches the restart and then - after half time when the camera is off - catches their restart and runs through the entire team to put the ball down under the posts.

How you like them apples?

‘5 weeks, 25 days, 175 hours’

Chisenhale Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in the UK and a new commission by Berlin-based artist, Maria Eichhorn. Highly responsive to context, Eichhorn’s work operates within the logic of institutional structures, enacting changes through precise and visually minimal gestures. Her ambitious, large-scale projects often take on the mechanics of legal, social and financial processes, making permanent interventions that evolve over time.

Following a site visit to Chisenhale in July 2015, which included a discussion with Chisenhale staff exploring their working lives, Eichhorn has produced a two part work examining contemporary labour conditions. The exhibition will begin with a one-day symposium on Saturday 23 April, addressing ideas raised by the project. The symposium will feature lectures by Isabell Lorey and Stewart Martin and will be chaired by Andrea Phillips. The afternoon will be devoted to a discussion with the audience, in which Eichhorn will also participate.

At Eichhorn’s request, the gallery’s staff will then withdraw their labour for the remaining five weeks of the exhibition. None of Chisenhale’s employees will work during this period and the gallery and office will be closed, implementing leisure and ‘free time’ in the place of work. At the heart of the project is a belief in the importance of questioning work – of asking why, within our current political context, work is synonymous with production, and if, in fact, work can also consist of doing nothing. Eichhorn’s conceptual gesture is an implicit critique of institutional production and broader neo-liberal patterns of consumption, but it is also an artwork that deals with ideas of displacement of the artist’s labour and of the artwork as work.

That's right, a gallery in east London has just opened an exhibition that's permanently closed.

Old Ruts

Opportunities to admire fifteen year old sons are - as a rule - few and far between.

The Rutlish Raiders U15 rugby league team beat the North Herts Crusaders 52-16 yesterday.

Today, in their Union 7s guise they were beaten finalists at Worthing with an injury ravaged squad of 9 playing against teams rolling squads of 12. How they won five on the bounce before going to the well one last time to find it dry is beyond me.

Admiration earned, Ben et al.

Everybody has to fight to be free

David Cameron announces concessions on child refugees

PM climbs down, saying he will not stand in way of amendment for UK to take in unaccompanied children already in Europe

Very pleased to hear it (Icons passim).

Cast your bread upon the waters. A number of children saved by the Kindertransports in 1938 went on to become prominent figures in public life, with no fewer than four becoming Nobel Prize winners: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindertransport#Notable_people_saved

running in the family

The Bomber has got a new cousin. That's eight nephews and nieces I have now. He is in intensive care, but we hope he'll be out later today.

#SaveOurNHS

The evil of two lessers

I voted for Sadiq Khan as Mayor of London on the way in to work this morning.

I'm not terribly engaged one way or the other, but I thought that the "Uncle Tom" footage that "emerged" yesterday or the day before in the Mail and the Telegraph was so plainly orchestrated dirty tricks from his opponents that I wanted to register a protest.

Rutlish Raiders

Rugby League Notes to myself:

Today - Training resumes at 7pm to 8ish at Mostyn Gardens (corner of Mostyn Road and Martin Way - parking and entrance on Mostyn Road).

Upcoming fixtures
Saturday 7th - Home v North Herts Crusaders (Lavender Park). Time and details to follow. (This might be a bit of an ask if the Bomber has a Union 7s competitions all day on Sunday as well.)
Saturday 14th - Away v Elmbidge Eagles away in Claygate.
Saturday 21st - Home v Richmond Warriors.
Saturday 28th - No fixture (Half Term starts)
Saturday 4th June - Home v Hemel Stags (end of Half Term)

See also http://www.londonrugbyleague.co.uk/club/14143

Holidays

I am signed up for skiing next winter and really need to get the US road trip back on the front burner. Here is some inspiration from Cerys M, via Hang Fire.

not of an age but for all time

You can see the only surviving example of William Shakespeare's handwriting on the British Library website. It is a scene added to a short play - The Book of Sir Thomas More - in which he calls for the humane treatment of asylum seekers. Still relevant; "He was not of an age but for all time!"

It is a gripping speech delivered to an aggressive mob, who are baying for so-called ‘strangers’ to be banished:

You’ll put down strangers,
Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses,
And lead the majesty of law in lyam
To slip him like a hound; alas, alas, say now the King,
As he is clement if th’offender mourn,
Should so much come too short of your great trespass
As but to banish you: whither would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbour? Go you to France or Flanders,
To any German province, Spain or Portugal,
Nay, anywhere that not adheres to England,
Why, you must needs be strangers, would you be pleas’d
To find a nation of such barbarous temper
That breaking out in hideous violence
Would not afford you an abode on earth.
Whet their detested knives against your throats,
Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
Owed not nor made not you, not that the elements
Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
But charter’d unto them? What would you think
To be us’d thus? This is the strangers’ case
And this your mountainish inhumanity.

The Triple Tipple

I am off to the twentieth Triple Tipple today.

It was first run in response to the tragic death of a Whitton girl, Nadine Cribb, who was felled by cancer at the age of 16. I lived in Whitton then. I remember celebrating with her, crafty under age boozer that she and her friends were, after an all clear that turned out to be a false dawn.

Every year since this event has been raising money for Cancer Research. It is now approaching the £100,000 mark.

The Triple Tipple is a three-legged (two people whose legs are taped together to form a three-legged beast) pub crawl around four pubs in Whitton; the Admiral Nelson, the Duke of Cambridge, the White Hart and the Prince Albert.

It doesn't make sense. Strictly it is a quadruple tipple. There is nowhere I would rather be.

Judgement Day

Last year we were at Judgement Day in the national stadium, with the Ruts (Icons passim). Dan Fish is starting for the Blues at full back in this year's game after a few matches on the right wing. I will be watching it on BBC2 Wales in a couple of hours, even though I am in London, courtesy of my patented iPlayer hack.

Cardiff's back row consists of three opensides and the Osprey's three blindsides. Possibly players could be better distributed round the regions in support of the national team's interests.

Collapse of stout party

I bowled up at the Merton Apprentice last night after work. It would be rude not to really as it is in the same building as the office.

They had two different dark beers on tap, and I am all about stouts and porters.

I had a pint each of Franciscan Well Shandon Stout from Cork in Ireland which is probably going to be a regular offering and a guest beer, Rocky Head Porter.

Finally, for completeness, I had a bottle of Belleville Snout Stout.

Snout Stout is made with bacon, while Rocky Head Porter is vegan. All boxes ticked between the two of them.

Questions

1. I missed Avengers: Age of Ultron when it came out. Do I need to catch up on it before I see Captain America: Civil War which opens this weekend?

2. Is this really something a man in his sixth decade should be pondering?

Things that shouldn't exist: a continuing series

Smarttress with Lover Detection System is a revolutionary mattress composed of 24 intelligent sensors capable of capturing the “suspicious” bed movement. In this way if you are not at home, Smarttress will send an alert to your mobile when the mattress is being used. Order now at: www.smarttress.com

I am no expert but it seems to me that even thinking about installing a high-tech mattress to monitor what is going on in your bed when you aren't there might just conceivably be a symptom of Paranoid Personality Disorder. Imagine the possibility for misunderstandings (and indeed feelings of inadequacy engendered if thrust impact and frequency are part of the telemetry passed on to an app on your phone) when the kids decide to play trampoline on it.

Dr. Strabismus (whom God preserve) of Utrecht: First of all, there is something in the mind and spirit of an inventor which is understood only by that person, that drives him to create, to make something new that is serviceable to mankind. Perhaps, it is something of the artist merged with the mechanic along with a curiosity and desire to make things better and easier. And, there must also be the desire to be acknowledged as a creator.

Ariel Dorfman: Those who have never suffered the iniquities of exile cannot possibly understand the significance, the gravitas, of a mattress.

Dr. Strabismus (whom God preserve) of Utrecht: Spoken like a true Chilean-American novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist, my friend.

Kindertransport

After reading his book, The Lightless Sky (Icons passim), I went to the Odeon last night to see Gulwali Passarlay (who arrived in Britain as a 12-year-old child following a harrowing, unaccompanied journey across Europe from Afghanistan) interviewed.

The audience was a little too us-and-them smug for my taste to be honest, but it was strange indeed to be seeing him on the same night as MPs voted by 294 votes to 276 to reject a plan for Britain to accept 3,000 unaccompanied Syrian child refugees who had travelled to Europe. I'm a little surprised none of the specialists in the Odeon mentioned that it was happening, the amendment to the Government’s Immigration Bill having been proposed by Labour’s Lord Dubs, who himself arrived in Britain as a child refugee fleeing the Holocaust in the 1930s.

Before the debate, Dubs told the Guardian: 'My message to Conservative MPs is that in 1938-39, Britain took 10,000 child refugees from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. We were in the lead then and we could take an important step now. The least we can do is say this is a small number and they should be welcome here.'

He escaped because of the Kindertransport (German for "children's transport") an organised rescue effort that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Free City of Danzig. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools and farms. Often they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust. Read about it in Wikipedia. It is humbling.

.... stays on tour

You get back home from rugby tour, strip off all the clothes you've been wearing for days and put them - including your jacket - straight in the washing machine. Then you take a shower, put a dressing gown on, fix yourself some simple fayre (a cheese sandwich along with a bowl of tomato soup) and turn on the TV. What comes on to soothe and restore after your weekend's exertions?

Drinking to Oblivion

Louis Theroux spends time at King's College Hospital in London - a specialist liver centre - where he immerses himself in the lives of patients in the grips of alcohol addiction and the medical staff trying to make them better.

Most people associate addictions with illegal substances, but it's alcohol which is the most common addiction in the UK.

Many of us drink- sometimes more than we ought to, but the patients Louis meets at King's are drinking far more than normal, sometimes to the point of self-destruction. Louis explores the effects this is having on the patients' lives and the consequences for their loved ones when drinking loses the social aspect and becomes a potentially fatal compulsion.

It's hard to know why people become addicted to alcohol and why it is impossible for some to stop drinking, even when it is killing them. To outsiders it may seem like an easy decision but it is nowhere near that simple. Louis spends time with patients and their families as they struggle to find a way out of their addiction to alcohol before it's too late.

Just what you need. Forty six harrowing seconds anyone? Here you go.

What happens on tour .......

The heroes of the hour, some little time ago

Here are Ben and Jonnie one Christmas - perhaps even their first - in primary school. They are fifteen  years old now; six feet two and six feet three respectively.

In the last game of our end of season tour today, we beat Bradford-on-Avon 14-12 thanks to a spectacular last gasp try from Ben and Jonnie's coolly slotted conversion.

Memories don't really come much better than this.

I got my bangin’ beach bod from an evil sea witch and so can you!

I am away on tour in Bath with the Ruts U15s eating and drinking like it is going out of style, but once I am back I am going to commit to get down to twelve stone dead by my birthday on June 22. Herewith the public commitment.

There will be no formal diet or exercise programme. I will simply do up my belt one notch tighter and let awareness and will power do the rest. What can possibly go wrong?

MADELEINE TREBENSKI

How did I get this fabulous beach body just in time for swimsuit season? I discovered a powerful fitness secret passed down from ancient European sailors. In other words, I made a bargain with a half human, half cephalopod, nightmare of the deep. That’s right, I got my bangin’ summer body from an evil sea witch and so can you!

You might be wondering how a body resembling that of a demigod could come from something so morally repugnant. The answer is simple: black magic. The malice fueled powers of an authentic sea witch are full of vital antioxidants that cleanse the body of pollutants while simultaneously polluting your very soul. You don’t need to fast. You don’t need to do a juice cleanse. All you need is a hefty dose of pure evil!

Now, make no mistake, this is not some fad diet. This is a lifestyle change — one that violates the laws of nature. So, to do this properly, you must fully commit to getting a genuine, verified sea witch. Don’t try to cut corners by visiting your local swamp or mountain witch. They simply aren’t powerful enough, and you’ll only regret it when you wake up to find your muscles morphing back into venomous snakes in the middle of the night.

Once you’ve located a fully certified sea hag, don’t be surprised if she tries to lure you onto a bed of sharp rocks. This is a standard greeting, so be polite and play along. You’ll want to give her an offering as soon as possible to prevent her from sucking you into a deadly whirlpool. You’ll know you have her full attention when you can no longer hear the deafening wails of drowned sailors. I enticed my wicked lady of the ocean with a pound of putrefied fish guts in a basket woven from my own hair, but you can use whatever you have on hand.

Once you’ve made your profane bargain, she will most likely cast you back to shore on the waves of a great squall. But fear not, your new beach body will be as indestructible as the island of trash-plastic gathering strength in the far reaches of the ocean. That is, as long as you never leave the beach; should you attempt to do so, you will immediately dissolve into sea foam. But, everyone knows that all good fitness plans require some sacrifice. At least you won’t have to give up gluten or dairy!

life is just a party, and parties weren't meant to last

Prince is dead at 57. Let me think.

I saw Prince at Earls Court. I seem to remember that Tony Eyers was there with me, before his wife died. I've lost contact with him now.

I saw Prince at Wembley Stadium with my brother John, Chalice - with whom I was involved, no idea what she is doing now - and her friend and flatmate whose name I have forgotten.

I saw Prince at Wembley Arena with Jane, the mother of my child.

I had tickets for Prince when he played 21 days at the O2 but I gave them to Mark as I had to do something (I forget what) with my child.

I would have gone to Prince's London "Piano and a Microphone" shows, but he cancelled them

This is what sentimentality looks like the morning after.

Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning

I've finished reading No Way Home: A Cuban Dancer's Story by Carlos Acosta and I am about to engage with Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World.

I've written before (Icons passim) about how much Murakami reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut. Here's another example:

One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo’s fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl.

Tell you the truth, she’s not that good-looking. She doesn’t stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn’t young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a “girl,” properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She’s the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there’s a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.

Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl - one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you’re drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I’ll catch myself staring at the girl at the next table to mine because I like the shape of her nose.

But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can’t recall the shape of hers - or even if she had one. All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It’s weird.

“Yesterday on the street I passed the 100% girl,” I tell someone.

“Yeah?” he says. “Good-looking?”

“Not really.”

“Your favorite type, then?”

“I don’t know. I can’t seem to remember anything about her - the shape of her eyes or the size of her breasts.”

“Strange.”

“Yeah. Strange.”

“So anyhow,” he says, already bored, “what did you do? Talk to her? Follow her?”

“Nah. Just passed her on the street.”

She’s walking east to west, and I west to east. It’s a really nice April morning.
Wish I could talk to her. Half an hour would be plenty: just ask her about herself, tell her about myself, and - what I’d really like to do - explain to her the complexities of fate that have led to our passing each other on a side street in Harajuku on a beautiful April morning in 1981. This was something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets, like an antique clock build when peace filled the world.

After talking, we’d have lunch somewhere, maybe see a Woody Allen movie, stop by a hotel bar for cocktails. With any kind of luck, we might end up in bed.

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.

Now the distance between us has narrowed to fifteen yards.

How can I approach her? What should I say?

“Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a little conversation?”

Ridiculous. I’d sound like an insurance salesman.

“Pardon me, but would you happen to know if there is an all-night cleaners in the neighborhood?”

No, this is just as ridiculous. I’m not carrying any laundry, for one thing. Who’s going to buy a line like that?

Maybe the simple truth would do. “Good morning. You are the 100% perfect girl for me.”

No, she wouldn’t believe it. Or even if she did, she might not want to talk to me. Sorry, she could say, I might be the 100% perfect girl for you, but you’re not the 100% boy for me. It could happen. And if I found myself in that situation, I’d probably go to pieces. I’d never recover from the shock. I’m thirty-two, and that’s what growing older is all about.

We pass in front of a flower shop. A small, warm air mass touches my skin. The asphalt is damp, and I catch the scent of roses. I can’t bring myself to speak to her. She wears a white sweater, and in her right hand she holds a crisp white envelope lacking only a stamp. So: She’s written somebody a letter, maybe spent the whole night writing, to judge from the sleepy look in her eyes. The envelope could contain every secret she’s ever had.

I take a few more strides and turn: She’s lost in the crowd.

Now, of course, I know exactly what I should have said to her. It would have been a long speech, though, far too long for me to have delivered it properly. The ideas I come up with are never very practical.

Oh, well. It would have started “Once upon a time” and ended “A sad story, don’t you think?”

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.

One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.

“This is amazing,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you’re the 100% perfect girl for me.”

“And you,” she said to him, “are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I’d pictured you in every detail. It’s like a dream.”

They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It’s a miracle, a cosmic miracle.

As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one’s dreams to come true so easily?

And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, “Let’s test ourselves - just once. If we really are each other’s 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we’ll marry then and there. What do you think?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is exactly what we should do.”

And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.

The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other’s 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.

One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season’s terrible inluenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence’s piggy bank.

They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.

Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty.

One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, but along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in their chest. And they knew:

She is the 100% perfect girl for me.

He is the 100% perfect boy for me.

But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fouteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.

A sad story, don’t you think?

Yes, that’s it, that is what I should have said to her.

All or Nothing

I was out last night at ALL OR NOTHING - The 'Mod' Musical:"a trans-generational musical experience celebrating the unique sound of the iconic Mod band, THE SMALL FACES. Including an arsenal of brilliant hits like 'Whatcha Gonna Do About It', 'All Or Nothing', 'Tin Soldier', 'Lazy Sunday', 'Here Comes The Nice' and 'Itchycoo Park'."

We went - I suppose it is as good a reason as any - because the girlfriend of a guy in a rival team at the Antelope's pub quiz was in it. A darn fine Dusty Springfield she turned out to be as well. In a parallel development Mark Newham who performed (acted, sang, and played guitar) as Steve Marriott also works a lot with Sleeping Trees (Icons passim).

I obviously enjoyed it, as I bought a souvenir fridge magnet; a personal litmus test.

Its playing in the Vaults Theatre until 21 May. The Vaults is a multidsiciplinary arts space buried deep in the tunnels underneath Waterloo station and I am too cool for school.

I know where you live

I've been looking at the extraordinary detail of the location data Google keeps on me courtesy of the Android phone I have been running since my iPhone gave up the ghost.

You find your own personal Stasi file by logging on to your Google account and going to https://www.google.co.uk/maps/timeline.

Last Tuesday's timeline, for example, shows me going to work, picking up Ben from school in the afternoon and taking him to the dentist with complete details of routes.

That evening a few of us went to a quiz in the Sultan. On the way back I was persuaded to take an unconvincing "short cut." Notwithstanding the moral authority of Kevin, Frankie, Ollie and Andy, Google confirms I walked 0.5 miles to get the pub but 0.7 miles back after I left at thirty eight minutes past ten.

My route was best, but I am not sure how much of a consolation this is compared to the shock of what Google records of my meanderings.

Google: Merely an automatic system. Ancient computers ranged in the long caves deep in the bowels of the planet tick away the dark millennia. I think they take the occasional pot-shot to relieve the monotony. I am a great fan of science you know.

Myself: Good god! That’s a pretty unpleasant way to behave isn’t it?

Google: Is it? I’m sorry, I’m a bit out of touch. You must come with me, great things are afoot, you must come now or you will be late.

Myself: Late? What for?

Google: What is your name human?

Myself: Browne. Nick Browne.

Google: Late, as in, the late Brownenickbrowne. It’s a sort of threat you see. Never been very good at them myself, but I’m told they can be terrible effective.

More matter with less art

Paul Flynn MP says, "on Thursday last, 14th April, the Commons was treated to the best speech made in this Parliament.

"An unrivalled authoritative source as a soldier and a politician, Adam Holloway revealed the truth on the shared conspiracy that led 634 UK soldiers to the deaths and left 2,000 others to survive, maimed in mind or body."

The three paragraphs below are the meat in the sandwich as far as I am concerned.

From what I have seen on the ground since I became an MP in 2005—in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and last week in Syria with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden—I believe that the full panoply of the Government machine has become dysfunctional in four overlapping parts. First, we have suffered from having a narrowly focused class of professional politicians who understand politics, not leadership, and who have almost no understanding of the complexities or realities on the ground. Secondly, we have ambitious civil servants who know that careers advance by staying close to what the rest of the group think. Thirdly, we have military officers with a civil service mindset who have also learned that the right answer is “we can do it” rather than “we can’t do it without…”. Finally, we have experts who are ignored or marginalised.

No experts were present at President Bush’s Prairie Chapel ranch when Prime Minister Blair agreed to support a US-led invasion of Iraq. Of course, Prime Minister Blair was determined to uphold the US-UK alliance, but he does not seem to have made even the slightest attempt to stop his friend President Bush from driving us drunk into Iraq. Back home, we needed to find reasons to go into Iraq, and we created the infamous dossier in a sort of late-night essay crisis. So late into ​the night did they work in Downing Street that they managed to read the bit from the top-secret, single-source report about missiles but failed to read the “analyst’s comment” section of the CX. They failed to see the comment that there was no way in which the missiles referred to could still be in the hands of Saddam Hussein.

Most of the public, as well as many people in Parliament, were in good faith convinced by the Prime Minister. Later, we convinced ourselves that we were in Afghanistan to “fight them over there” so that we did not have to “fight them over here”. Several years ago, after I had given a presentation to an immensely senior person in a previous Government, he asked me, “Adam, are you really saying that the Taliban are not a threat to the UK?” That revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between the Taliban and al-Qaeda; it almost beggared belief. That difference between a local xenophobic tribal traditional movement and a death cult was not, and is still not, understood.

I recommend you read the whole thing at http://paulflynnmp.typepad.com/my_weblog/2016/04/best-speech-in-this-parliament-ignored-by-media.html.

I must try and pay attention to this Holloway fella, bearing in mind I blogged my bafflement over afghanistan only eight days ago (Icons passim).

Update: http://www.cps.org.uk/publications/reports/in-blood-stepp-d-in-so-far-towards-realism-in-afghanistan/ might be a good place to start.

I saw the sun rise as a man.

The universe started singing Summer the First Time by Bobby Goldsboro when people were getting outside my burritos and pickle backs yesterday. That has got to be a good thing right?

After the barbecue we went to see The Strums in the Charles Holden. This was the pitch:

To help me raise funds ahead of running the London Marathon for Guy's Cancer Centre Appeal, The Strums featuring my Dad (and Procol Harum guitarist) Geoff Whitehorn will be going a special gig at The Charles Holden, opposite Colliers Wood underground station on the Northern Line. Would love you all to come along and party with us. Free entry - just donate whatever you can on the night #StrumsDoCollywood

All in all a good day. Though the Rutlish Raiders got beaten in Ben's first Rugby League game.

The waves are risin' and risin'

The final full line up for Madness at Clapham Common is now confirmed. It includes - to my delight - The Hot 8 Brass Band, the N'Orleans outfit whose cover of Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing was such an ornament of ths excellent soundtrack album for the movie Chef.


I'm very much looking forward to Lee "Scratch" Perry as well

I'll give it five

I weighed twelve stone and five pounds this morning. That is the lightest I have been since I started exercising and stepping on the scales regularly. I reckon (Icons passim) that I was about fifteen stone in 2005.

I've not been on a diet. I lost a bit of weight in my dry January, a few pounds since, and the Holy Grail of twelve stone dead looks achievable now. I know that the Body Mass Index is pretty much discredited, but at 168 pounds I would be inside its arbitrary guidelines.

I have to prepare a shed load of burritos before the barbecue tomorrow, and my quality assurance standards will mean that I test a lot of the ingredients by eating them before I even turn up. The following weekend I am away with the U15s on a rugby tour; no chance of a green kale juice and an early night there.

Come May though I could well knuckle down and boil off the last five pounds that lie between me and the nirvana in which everything in my life becomes perfect because my waist is slightly narrower.

Kimchi Bokkeumbap Pork Burrito, Anyone?

The Bomber has got his first Rugby League game this Saturday as Rutlish Raiders head up off to Maidstone to meet the Invicta Panthers in the cup.

Unfortunately this has put a spanner in the works of my prep for Andy and Ollie's barbecue that afternoon. I have promised (threatened?) them that I will provide burritos (like last year) to eat and pickle backs (Icons passim) to drink, and there's not going to be much time between getting back from the game and heading off to the party.

I picked up all the makings lunch time as I'm going to have to do my pulled pork overnight tonight in the slow cooker, rather than in the smoker on Friday night. Maybe I'll pump up the smoked paprika in the dry rub to get the flavour I'm after.

I have also come up with the idea frying up what is left of the kimchi my brother gave me (passim) with the rice that is going in the burritos and reserving its fermented juice for the brine shots in the pickle backs. I may well give the latter a test this evening as it might be a bit intense for the sensitive palates of Valley Gardens and in need of mellowing.

The Man Who Never Made Good 1914

BFI:

A bungling bumpkin tries his hand at a series of jobs in this slapstick silent comedy - only to prove how useless he is at all of them. After being unceremoniously ejected from a bus (reason unknown; the beginning of the film is missing), our hapless hero becomes (among other things) a waiter, a soldier and a sandwich-board man. His true calling, as it turns out, is altogether less dignified...

You can watch it at the BFI website at http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-the-man-who-never-made-good-1914/.

The reason the scene with the lead character as a sandwich board man was filmed just round the corner at Wandle Bank in Collier's Wood (a street sign is visible in the background).

The hours I could waste searching for locations on the (Google map integrated) Britain On Film at http://player.bfi.org.uk/britain-on-film/.

Everyone has a story that matters

Having read the book, I think I will go along to the Odeon and see Gulwarly Passarlay Monday week. Book tickets here.

I am also quite intrigued by the Adobe Voice software used to create the "story" above.

Bronze Medal Position

According to the Surrey Rugby website, Guildford beat Warlingham 22-0* yesterday scoring three tries. That isn't enough for a bonus point so they can't overtake our Old Ruts U15s who finish third in League one in their first season in the top flight.

It is a huge achievement, especially when you consider our last league game against London Irish. We had so many injuries I had no idea - apart from Wesley at hooker and Jonah at outside half - who would be playing in any position when the teams ran out.

*It may even be that the score is not definitive if Warlingham haven't posted their tally yet, in which case we are even more comfortable.

My Afghan triptych

I have finished reading The Lightless Sky: My Journey to Safety as a Child Refugee.

'To risk my life had to mean something. Otherwise what was it all for?' Gulwali Passarlay was sent away from Afghanistan at the age of twelve, after his father was killed in a gun battle with the US Army. Smuggled into Iran, Gulwali began a twelvemonth odyssey across Europe, spending time in prisons, suffering hunger, making a terrifying journey across the Mediterranean in a tiny boat, and enduring a desolate month in the camp at Calais. Somehow he survived, and made it to Britain, no longer an innocent child but still a young boy alone. In Britain he was fostered, sent to a good school, won a place at a top university, and was chosen to carry the Olympic torch in 2012. Gulwali wants to tell his story - to bring to life the plight of the thousands of men, women and children who are making this perilous journey every day. One boy's experience is the central story of our times. This memoir celebrates the triumph of courage and determination over adversity.

Before that I read Dead Men Risen: The Welsh Guards and the Defining Story of Britain's War in Afghanistan.

This is the gripping story of the men of the Welsh Guards and their bloody battle for survival in Afghanistan in 2009. Underequipped and overstretched, they found themselves in the most intense fighting the British had experienced in a generation. They were led into battle by Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, a passionate believer in the justness of the war who was deeply dismayed by the way it was being resourced and conducted. Thorneloe was killed by an IED during Operation Panther's Claw, the biggest operation mounted by the British in Helmand.

Dead Men Risen draws on secret documents written by Thorneloe, which raise questions from beyond the grave that will unnerve politicians and generals alike. The Welsh Guards also lost Major Sean Birchall, commanding officer of IX Company, and Lieutenant Mark Evison, a platoon commander whose candid personal diary was unnervingly prophetic. Not since the Second World War had a single British battalion lost officers at the three key levels of leadership.

Harnden transports the reader into the heart of a conflict in which a soldier has to be prepared to kill and die, to ward off paralysing fear and watch comrades perish in agony. Given unprecedented access to the Welsh Guards, Harnden conducted hundreds of interviews in Afghanistan, England and Wales. He weaves the experiences of the guardsmen and the loved ones they left behind into a seamless and unsparing narrative that sits alongside a piercing analysis of the political and military strategy. No other book about modern warfare succeeds on so many levels.

In 2014 I read The Places In Between.

Rory Stewart's moving account of his walk across Afghanistan in January 2002 was immediately hailed as a classic. Caught between hostile nations, warring factions and competing ideologies, at the time Afghanistan was in turmoil following the US invasion. Travelling entirely on foot and following the inaccessible mountainous route once taken by the Mogul Emperor, Babur the Great, Stewart was nearly defeated by the extreme, hostile conditions. Only with the help of an unexpected companion and the generosity of the people he met on the way did he survive to report back with unique insight on a region closed to the world by twenty-four years of war.

After all this reading and concerning the problem of Afghanistan I am (to paraphrase F. E. Smith) "none the wiser, just better informed." This is a very depressing conclusion.

a blot on the escutcheon

The Archbishop of Canterbury has discovered he is the illegitimate son of Sir Winston Churchill’s last private secretary after taking a DNA test to prove his paternity, The Telegraph can disclose.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby had until now believed his father to be Gavin Welby, a whisky salesman and son of a Jewish immigrant, who was married briefly to his mother, Jane.

But the Telegraph pieced together evidence that suggested Archbishop Welby’s father was actually the late Sir Anthony Montague Browne, who served Churchill in Downing Street and during his retirement.

Sir Anthony Montague Browne! What a proud surname we share.

King Henry II: He's read books, you know, it's amazing. He's drunk and wenched his way through London but he's thinking all the time.

Myself: Right sentiment, wrong Archbishop of Canterbury. Roister Doister is my name, a lusty brute I am the same.

He reassembles, I dissemble

Forget about mindfulness and calm abiding, I (and many others sporting both an X and Y chromosome I imagine) have been greatly soothed and comforted this week by three episodes of James May's The Reassembler on BBC 4.

It breaks down like this; an amiable middle aged man in a shed puts objects back together from their constituent parts, while drinking tea and nattering. Imagine the excitement in the meeting in which they pitched the idea to the channel.

Slow TV became an unlikely hit in Norway in 2009 with a seven-hour film about a train journey, followed by a 12-hour knitting marathon and the live broadcast of a five-day boat trip which had thousands of people lining the route and was watched by more than half of the Norwegian population.

Reassembler III, in which a Japanese 80s Stratocaster gets the treatment spoke to me particularly directly. My electric axe is an Asian Fender knock-off as well. I remember the first time a string broke on it. Having no clue how to put another one on it, I laid the guitar on its back and started taking it apart from the front, only to discover (half an hour and numerous pieces later) that you restring a Strat by removing a plate on the rear and pushing a replacement through. No James May I.

Hmm......

Love and friendship

A new Whit Stillman movie (Icons passim) is on the horizon. That is good news indeed. It is being distributed by Amazon Studios. I wonder if that means that the series he pitched to them may still be on the back burner.

Love and Friendship is based on Jane Austen's epistolary novel Lady Susan. I am sure the Old Ruts U15s will be fascinated to hear about that on the tour to Bath later this month. The hostel they are staying in is only 5 minutes from the Jane Austen centre there.

Then again, perhaps not.

Kurt Vonnegut Soft Toy

28 cm tall.

Not suitable for children under 3.

I didn't actually realise I needed one of these until this morning.

Korean Food Made Simple

My brother John - being related to me, and thus barking mad - is now making his own kimchi; Korean fermented cabbage, and left an enormous jar of it at mum and dad's this weekend for me to pick up. When I cracked the lid open I could hear it fizzing as the bacteria went about their work. I am a little bit afraid of Kimchi.

Last night, however, I put my fears aside and summoned up spicy beef and kimchi stew from the interwebs. Some ingredients seem exotic but you can get Yutaka Black Roasted Sesame Seeds in Sainsburys and I had mirin (a sweet rice wine) delivered from Amazon.

Good eating; prepare the beef in a slow cooker and then add the kimchi and let it integrate while you boil your rice.

See also Judy Joo on the Food Channel, and The Korean Republic of New Malden. Almost all the UK’s 10,000 Korean residents live less than five miles away from where I am sitting as I write this.

Joe Jammer

I went along to see Joe Jammer at the Half Moon in Putney last night. Kevin and Frankie gave me a lift. They were on the guest list as they know his missus. Six degrees of separation in action. What a great show it was.

Also, when I first moved to London in the 80s, I lived next door to the Half Moon in a flat whose bacchanalian household comprised me, John, Rod and Nick S. There's no blue plaque bar a virtual one in my sentimental heart. The stories I could tell but won't .......

I Dream of Wires

I'm back in London in time to pick the Bomber up from training.

Point of order Mr Chairman; if you are ever in my mum and dad's house trying to sort out a problem with the lights, the fusebox for the conservatory is in the garage not under the stairs with everything else.

This will save you from lying on concrete in the dark for about half an hour trying to figure out which 5 amp fuse will isolate the circuit.

At least the garage unit has circuit breakers. The main box has old school hand threaded wire fuses. They really ought to upgrade to a new consumer unit. Arranging that would be a pain the backside though. Perhaps I ought to think about replacing the wire fuses with MCBs (like this) next time I am back.

paradoxical

Prodnose: Quantum mechanics predicts that information is immortal, while general relativity says that black holes must destroy information forever. This paradox, first discovered by Stephen Hawking forty years ago, has pestered physicists for decades. But if black holes contain cold, condensed gravitons, then they may function like a supercomputer that actually preserves information.

Myself: Smoke some with your dog, no stress, no seeds, no stems, no sticks! Some of that real sticky icky icky, ooh wee!

Prodnose: You're back in Cardiff for another Groundhog Day weekend again. I assume.

Myself: Darn tooting, and information is being destroyed forever.

Ronnie Corbett RIP

“French wine growers fear that this year's vintage may be entirely spoiled due to the grape treaders' sit-in.”

“A cement mixer collided with a prison van on the Kingston by-pass. Motorists are asked to be on the look-out for 16 hardened criminals.”

“We will be talking to an out of work contortionist who says he can no longer make ends meet.”

“All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my right hand.”

“This is a message for seven honeymoon couples in a hotel in Peebles: Breakfast was served three days ago.”

“It was revealed in a government survey published today that the Prime Minister is doing the work of two men, Laurel and Hardy.”

“There was a fire at the main Inland Revenue office in London today, but it was put out before any serious good was done.”

“West Mercia police announced tonight that they wish to interview a man wearing high heels and frilly knickers, but the Chief Constable said they must wear their normal uniforms.”

“We'll be talking to a car designer who's crossed a Toyota with Quasimodo and come up with the Hatchback of Notre Dame.”

“We've just heard that in the English Channel, a ship carrying red paint has collided with a ship carrying purple paint. It is believed that both crews have been marooned.”