It might only be my third day (and my second full day), but an overcast sky, no sun and a wind which promises a storm of some kind later today persuade me to make an entry here. Also I now know that although only one follower is officially registered, I do, in fact, have two (take a bow, Barry, and thanks for the email and the link to Mark Sparrow’s blog).
After drinking rather too much at the Michael Wharton book launch, I reined myself in for the reception which followed Keith Waterhouse’s funeral and was rather modest in my intake, which meant I was able to have a good night’s rest before getting up at 3.10 on Friday morning, to be driven to Victoria station by my very obliging brother (hardly any public transport at that time of the morning and I’m buggered if I’m going to pay £12 for a taxi ride of less than two miles.
Got to Gatwick for 4.45, just in time to witness the utter dismay of an American family who arrived at the airport, only to realise they should have gone to Heathrow instead. The plane left on time at 6.25 and just over two hours later we touched down in Ibiza, two hours being the ideal flying time and a damn sight better than the 13 hours I spent flying to Hong Kong several years ago.
The one principle I have on this holiday is: don’t rush anything and make no plans whatsoever. Yesterday, my first full day here was spent lying next to the pool reading a very good book I found in the hotel ‘library’. It is A People’s History Of The United States by Howard Zinn. The rest of the books, about 70 of them, are garbage, or at least nothing which would interest me: Danielle Steele, Maeve Binchy, Maeve Steele and Danielle Binchy. How on earth Zinn’s substantial work found its way here I really do not know, but I'm glad it did.
I also stripped to my swimming trunks for a spot of sunbathing, reminding myself not to overdo it, and, of course as these things always go, overdid it. The sun anywhere south of Bournemouth is very deceptive, so I am now burnt all over my torso and from halfway down my thighs to my feet, although only on the front as I didn’t turn over. So today’s overcast conditions are rather welcome. Went to bed early at about 8pm, fell asleep, only to be woken by a call on my mobile from my brother asking ‘what I was doing now’. Sleeping, I told him, and then couldn’t get off for another four hours.
Today I have spent the past few hours reading outside, but it is getting extraordinarily windy. This afternoon it is into Cala Llonga to find one of the bars which show Sky Sports to watch Manchester United beat the crap out of Manchester City.
The hotel is very nice and although the food is inclined to satisfy the unadventurous tastes of the mainly lower middle-class guests (that’s gratuitously snobbish. So what are you? Ed) there are sufficient Spanish and other Continental dishes to satisfy me. The average age is 60, so I fit in well, although I am having trouble reconciling myself to no longer even being middle-aged.
Generally, the ethos is determinedly the 2000s version of Kiss Me Quick as far as the Brits are concerned. There has so far been no nobbly knees contest, but yesterday there was a ‘quiz by the pool’ which I didn’t take part in because, as I suspected, the questions were all about TV programmes and characters from the various soaps, of which I, to me eternal credit, know absolutely nothing.
But it is just what I was looking for: somewhere, very clean, quiet with mild weather, where I can bloody chill out, sleep and read. I do not yet feel relaxed - I wouldn’t be blogging her if I were in that state - but it is early days yet.
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Monday, 14 September 2009
PS Michael Wharton
For the record, I knew Michael in the last 20-odd years of his life (he was a friend of my father's) and he was most definitely not a racist or anti-semitic. What he most definitely was was a guy who disliked cant and bullshit and that, unsurprisingly, did not win him many friends. It is often fashionable to describe him as 'right-wing', but that, too, is rather far off the mark.
Oddly enough, his life-long dislike and suspicion of television now makes rather more sense to rather more people than it ever did before. He was extremely well-read and very good company. It is true that many readers of his column were hang 'em and flog 'em types, but Michael didn't share their views. He once told me that he was forever getting letters from readers who had obviously read far more into his writings than was there and thanking him for expressing a view he had not once expressed.
His was distinguished in his intellectual rigour, which was the basis of his dislike of cant and hypocrisy. He dislike modish, fashionable thought which had no basis and value except that it was what smart people were thinking this year. His dislike of phrases such as 'the international community', which he thought was meaningless, partly came down to a man growing older and being less able and prepared to accept change (from which I, who is 60 in November, am also increasingly suffering). But as far as I am concerned he was - is - spot on in highlighting the double-think of much modern life.
I am expanding this entry because I feel what I wrote above did not really do Michael justice. And I must also record that his column was always very, very funny. Ironically, in person, although he could be funny, he was, when I knew him in the last 20 years of his life, more reserved and forthcoming, and would add a comment only when he felt a comment was necessary. In this, which is a characteristic I value and enjoy in others, he was very different from many hacks who insist, at your peril, of being the life and soul of the party. Another phrase for such types is 'pain in the arse'.
Oddly enough, his life-long dislike and suspicion of television now makes rather more sense to rather more people than it ever did before. He was extremely well-read and very good company. It is true that many readers of his column were hang 'em and flog 'em types, but Michael didn't share their views. He once told me that he was forever getting letters from readers who had obviously read far more into his writings than was there and thanking him for expressing a view he had not once expressed.
His was distinguished in his intellectual rigour, which was the basis of his dislike of cant and hypocrisy. He dislike modish, fashionable thought which had no basis and value except that it was what smart people were thinking this year. His dislike of phrases such as 'the international community', which he thought was meaningless, partly came down to a man growing older and being less able and prepared to accept change (from which I, who is 60 in November, am also increasingly suffering). But as far as I am concerned he was - is - spot on in highlighting the double-think of much modern life.
I am expanding this entry because I feel what I wrote above did not really do Michael justice. And I must also record that his column was always very, very funny. Ironically, in person, although he could be funny, he was, when I knew him in the last 20 years of his life, more reserved and forthcoming, and would add a comment only when he felt a comment was necessary. In this, which is a characteristic I value and enjoy in others, he was very different from many hacks who insist, at your peril, of being the life and soul of the party. Another phrase for such types is 'pain in the arse'.
Coming up: TWO weeks in Ibiza PLUS a piss-up and a funeral (and then another piss-up
Well, it's almost here: my holiday.
This Friday, after today's double shift, tomorrow's double shift and Wednesday's single shift, I fly out from Gatwick bound for Ibiza. And no, not one of the fleshpots of San Antonio and Ibiza Town where young folk blast their brains out on ecastasy, coke and booze, but the rather more genteel Cala Llonga in a hotel which apparently doesn't accept any guest under the age of 80 and where I have been accepted (not being under 80) on the strict understanding that I will keep very quiet indeed. Two weeks of what I hope is quiet bliss in the sunshine. My one problem is whether, after my heart attack of three years ago I can allow myself a cigar of five. Remains to be seen.
The run-up to my departure is also quite interesting. On Wednesday night it is off to the Savile Club in Mayfair where a magazine called Slightly Soiled is holding a reception to celebrate re-publishing Michael 'Peter Simple' Wharton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wharton) two volumes of autobiography. Ends at 8.30 so I won't be a piss-up, but it should nevertheless be interesting. Then at noon the following day it is off to Mortlake Crematorium for Keith Waterhouse's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Waterhouse) funeral to which I have been invited.
The only way I can explain that is that of all the subs her at the features desk of the Mail, I was the only one who regularly used to liaise with Stella, his ex-wife, who has been caring for him in the last four years of his life.
After the funeral there is a wake at 'The White Hart' (don't know which one of the several thousand White Harts there are in Britain - one in London, probably) at which several of the great and good will be lifting their arms and, according to John Mcentee, several more of the great and good, folk with whom Keith or Stella didn't get on, will not be lifting their arms. If there is anything to report, I shall duly record it here, but I think being an unknown among all those who get bylines (we subs don't) I shall keep a low profile.
As for the holiday, roll it on! I stress that I shall be off for two weeks because these past 15 years I have only taken a week off abroad and it is never enough. Just when you are beginning to relax, it's time to come home.
This Friday, after today's double shift, tomorrow's double shift and Wednesday's single shift, I fly out from Gatwick bound for Ibiza. And no, not one of the fleshpots of San Antonio and Ibiza Town where young folk blast their brains out on ecastasy, coke and booze, but the rather more genteel Cala Llonga in a hotel which apparently doesn't accept any guest under the age of 80 and where I have been accepted (not being under 80) on the strict understanding that I will keep very quiet indeed. Two weeks of what I hope is quiet bliss in the sunshine. My one problem is whether, after my heart attack of three years ago I can allow myself a cigar of five. Remains to be seen.
The run-up to my departure is also quite interesting. On Wednesday night it is off to the Savile Club in Mayfair where a magazine called Slightly Soiled is holding a reception to celebrate re-publishing Michael 'Peter Simple' Wharton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Wharton) two volumes of autobiography. Ends at 8.30 so I won't be a piss-up, but it should nevertheless be interesting. Then at noon the following day it is off to Mortlake Crematorium for Keith Waterhouse's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Waterhouse) funeral to which I have been invited.
The only way I can explain that is that of all the subs her at the features desk of the Mail, I was the only one who regularly used to liaise with Stella, his ex-wife, who has been caring for him in the last four years of his life.
After the funeral there is a wake at 'The White Hart' (don't know which one of the several thousand White Harts there are in Britain - one in London, probably) at which several of the great and good will be lifting their arms and, according to John Mcentee, several more of the great and good, folk with whom Keith or Stella didn't get on, will not be lifting their arms. If there is anything to report, I shall duly record it here, but I think being an unknown among all those who get bylines (we subs don't) I shall keep a low profile.
As for the holiday, roll it on! I stress that I shall be off for two weeks because these past 15 years I have only taken a week off abroad and it is never enough. Just when you are beginning to relax, it's time to come home.
Saturday, 22 August 2009
A short series of films which might amuse the discerning idiot. (Do they exist?)
Last February, I was in Plymouth with my daughter and two of her friends. They - 12 and 13-year-olds - were on a shopping trip and tentatively assaying the whacky world of cosmetics and fashion, so I made myself scarce.
Wandering around, I was struck by the number of shops which were closing so on my mobile phone I took a number of photos. Later I strung them together, dug out a relevant cliche (one buried in the FDR quote towards the end of the film) and set it to an appropriate piece of music, Easy St Louis Toodle-oo by Duke Ellington and performed by Steely Dan.
Unfortunately, their version is still in copyright and YouTube (to which I had uploaded it) wouldn't let me use it. So I choose another piece of music instead, but the film lost all impact.
Then I realised I also had the original Duke Ellington version on iTunes, so I have reworked the film with that version (if anything better than the Steely Dan, which incidentally rather disappoints me in that Fagen and Becker copy the original almost note for note in that rather anal way they have made their own).
Here it is.
By comparison the compromise, the version with Debussy, is tame and anondyne.
I find it quite interesting how the sound can utterly change the character of the piece. The first (although I might be wrong of course, and we all love the smell of our own farts) is cynical, resigned, almost aggressive, wherease the second, anodyne version, is sentimental and conventional. Yet the images are identical.
If you like it, you might also like Thelonius Watches Paint Dry
and Significance (Or An Evening With Rob)
which is, however, nine minutes long so have a little patience.
Finally, one of my favourites (which speaks for itself):
Wandering around, I was struck by the number of shops which were closing so on my mobile phone I took a number of photos. Later I strung them together, dug out a relevant cliche (one buried in the FDR quote towards the end of the film) and set it to an appropriate piece of music, Easy St Louis Toodle-oo by Duke Ellington and performed by Steely Dan.
Unfortunately, their version is still in copyright and YouTube (to which I had uploaded it) wouldn't let me use it. So I choose another piece of music instead, but the film lost all impact.
Then I realised I also had the original Duke Ellington version on iTunes, so I have reworked the film with that version (if anything better than the Steely Dan, which incidentally rather disappoints me in that Fagen and Becker copy the original almost note for note in that rather anal way they have made their own).
Here it is.
By comparison the compromise, the version with Debussy, is tame and anondyne.
I find it quite interesting how the sound can utterly change the character of the piece. The first (although I might be wrong of course, and we all love the smell of our own farts) is cynical, resigned, almost aggressive, wherease the second, anodyne version, is sentimental and conventional. Yet the images are identical.
If you like it, you might also like Thelonius Watches Paint Dry
and Significance (Or An Evening With Rob)
which is, however, nine minutes long so have a little patience.
Finally, one of my favourites (which speaks for itself):
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Taking a break from work — boy is it hard.
Every week, I drive up to London from home in North Cornwall or drive to Exeter and take the train to London, work for four days, then come home again. Then I get three days at home. Sounds a reasonable routine except that I rarely if ever take a holiday and as a result, I get more and more knackered. Well, I am taking a week off work, so from last Thursday I have officially been on holiday. And boy is it difficult.
The trouble is that none of use can simply switch off. Over these past few days, I have found that whenever I lie on my bed to read or go and sit in the garden just to enjoy listening to the birds and smelling the fresh air, within minutes, I feel I should get up and do something. But I don't have to do anything. So I calm myself down, explain to myself that I am now on holiday and that doing nothing is the whole point of it all, until barely two, three minutes later the urge returns: do something.
Most of you will be familiar with this, and most of you will know, as I do, that day by day, as we relax more, that urge to engage in activity for the sake of it, generally a symptom of how unrelaxed we are, diminishes, so that after a week we can begin to relax properly. However, by then I shall be due back at work.
Solution? I am taking another two weeks off work at the end of September. And I shall not stay at home.
The trouble is that none of use can simply switch off. Over these past few days, I have found that whenever I lie on my bed to read or go and sit in the garden just to enjoy listening to the birds and smelling the fresh air, within minutes, I feel I should get up and do something. But I don't have to do anything. So I calm myself down, explain to myself that I am now on holiday and that doing nothing is the whole point of it all, until barely two, three minutes later the urge returns: do something.
Most of you will be familiar with this, and most of you will know, as I do, that day by day, as we relax more, that urge to engage in activity for the sake of it, generally a symptom of how unrelaxed we are, diminishes, so that after a week we can begin to relax properly. However, by then I shall be due back at work.
Solution? I am taking another two weeks off work at the end of September. And I shall not stay at home.
Thursday, 11 June 2009
What should this picture be called? Suggestions, please, on a postcard to the usual address
In another context, I mentioned to someone that I wrote this blog, and I realised I have been neglecting it, so I thought I might pay it a little more attention (blogs get lonely). The trouble is that for one reason or another, I haven't really got the times to balls on about nothing for the next 20 minutes - tasks in hand include having to have a bath in a few minutes, radio programme I want to listen to, cup of tea waiting to be made - just how busy can chap be?
So to kept you all sweet (all?) here is a piccy to be getting on with. I like it 1) because shadows are cast and 2) I always find pictures of gates and doors evocative.
Pretentious? Moi?
Here it is.
So to kept you all sweet (all?) here is a piccy to be getting on with. I like it 1) because shadows are cast and 2) I always find pictures of gates and doors evocative.
Pretentious? Moi?
Here it is.
Thursday, 28 May 2009
The Curse of The New
Is it my age or is it the fact that for the past 35 years I have worked in an industry in which cynicism it the norm. I don't know. I am keenly aware that as we grow older — as we all grow older — we become less and less amenable to change of any kind and rather dislike any alteration in the fabric of life which makes it less like what we have been accustomed to for the past 30/40 years.
Take TV. Like all youngsters, I watched a lot of TV. But in those days in Britain we had just two channels to choose from, BBC and ITV (of which BBC was regarded as the upmarket, responsible channel and ITV — known as 'commercial television — was regarded as downmarket and slightly irresponsible. Then, in 1964, along came BBC2 (a day late, as it happens, but that is another story). BBC2 was going to be Auntie's cultural flagship, with loads of 'serious' plays, classical music and intellectual discussion. It fulfilled this role admirably for many years and until 1982 when Channel 4 was launched we only had three channels.
The point I am making is that less TV was available but I watched far more, although I shall not make the usual mistake of claiming that every last minute broadcast was head and shoulders about what is on offer today. It wasn't. We had dross in those days, too, although I'm sure someone somewhere is fully prepared to argue that it was dross of a far higher quality than we are served up with today. Now there seem to be thousands and thousands of TV channels and I watch next to nothing. I have no interest in all the so-called 'reality' shows, or in the talent shows, and some of the programme ideas strike as downright loopy: coming up next week is a series detailing what happens when the lower deck staff start running their supermarket. Can't wait, I really can't. Or ten fat people decide to lose weight. and we are invited to join them 'on their journey' the share the success and failure, the laughter and the tears. I could sit here and try to come up with the most ridiculous idea imaginable, only to discover it was screened last Thursday on some channel or other to almost universal acclaim.
The fault, I'm sure, us most certainly mine.
Then there is the vacuous nonsense everyone keeps coming out with. Was there always such double-speak. Probably, buy I am only beginning to notice it now because I have entered the grumpy years. (And incidentally, one TV show which was a runaway success of these past few years was called 'Grumpy Old Men' and, yes, consisted of loads of elderly celebs sounding off about what ticked them off.)
One of my favourite pieces of spoken garbage, of which a lot is official, was the Labour Government's claim a few years ago that one of its targets in education was to ensure that 'every pupil, irrespective of background, is above average in its achievements'. If that doesn't immediately strike you as being complete bollocks, think about it. Hint: consider what the notion of 'average' is.
Every new venture is proudly announced as being 'innovative', 'exciting', 'groundbreaking' and 'a bold departure' which 'redefines' whatever activity it is being launched as. All I can see is that many people have been paid very good money simply to 'redefine' bollocks.
You get the drift. Yet who is at fault here? Am I being to much of a curmudgeonly stick in the mud to join in the spirit? I like to think not, but then I would, wouldn't I?
I once saw a small ball being marketed as being especially useful as a toy because it 'help to encourage and develop eye-hand co-ordination'. Well, goodness me. What vast strides forward are being made in toy technology. Oh, and toys must these days be 'educational'. That youngsters might actually simply enjoy them for themselves is irrelevant. I feel I ought to go an lie down for an hour or two.
Take TV. Like all youngsters, I watched a lot of TV. But in those days in Britain we had just two channels to choose from, BBC and ITV (of which BBC was regarded as the upmarket, responsible channel and ITV — known as 'commercial television — was regarded as downmarket and slightly irresponsible. Then, in 1964, along came BBC2 (a day late, as it happens, but that is another story). BBC2 was going to be Auntie's cultural flagship, with loads of 'serious' plays, classical music and intellectual discussion. It fulfilled this role admirably for many years and until 1982 when Channel 4 was launched we only had three channels.
The point I am making is that less TV was available but I watched far more, although I shall not make the usual mistake of claiming that every last minute broadcast was head and shoulders about what is on offer today. It wasn't. We had dross in those days, too, although I'm sure someone somewhere is fully prepared to argue that it was dross of a far higher quality than we are served up with today. Now there seem to be thousands and thousands of TV channels and I watch next to nothing. I have no interest in all the so-called 'reality' shows, or in the talent shows, and some of the programme ideas strike as downright loopy: coming up next week is a series detailing what happens when the lower deck staff start running their supermarket. Can't wait, I really can't. Or ten fat people decide to lose weight. and we are invited to join them 'on their journey' the share the success and failure, the laughter and the tears. I could sit here and try to come up with the most ridiculous idea imaginable, only to discover it was screened last Thursday on some channel or other to almost universal acclaim.
The fault, I'm sure, us most certainly mine.
Then there is the vacuous nonsense everyone keeps coming out with. Was there always such double-speak. Probably, buy I am only beginning to notice it now because I have entered the grumpy years. (And incidentally, one TV show which was a runaway success of these past few years was called 'Grumpy Old Men' and, yes, consisted of loads of elderly celebs sounding off about what ticked them off.)
One of my favourite pieces of spoken garbage, of which a lot is official, was the Labour Government's claim a few years ago that one of its targets in education was to ensure that 'every pupil, irrespective of background, is above average in its achievements'. If that doesn't immediately strike you as being complete bollocks, think about it. Hint: consider what the notion of 'average' is.
Every new venture is proudly announced as being 'innovative', 'exciting', 'groundbreaking' and 'a bold departure' which 'redefines' whatever activity it is being launched as. All I can see is that many people have been paid very good money simply to 'redefine' bollocks.
You get the drift. Yet who is at fault here? Am I being to much of a curmudgeonly stick in the mud to join in the spirit? I like to think not, but then I would, wouldn't I?
I once saw a small ball being marketed as being especially useful as a toy because it 'help to encourage and develop eye-hand co-ordination'. Well, goodness me. What vast strides forward are being made in toy technology. Oh, and toys must these days be 'educational'. That youngsters might actually simply enjoy them for themselves is irrelevant. I feel I ought to go an lie down for an hour or two.
Monday, 25 May 2009
Dreaming of losing my teeth — very unwelcome I'm a-Freud
I had an odd dream last night: all my teeth started falling out one by one. A girl at work said it was a sex dream, a dream expressing the fear that you are no longer sexually attractive. Perhaps. I must admit that I haven't consciously considered whether or not I am still sexually attractive. We're all a little vain, but I don't think about myself and my looks very often at all.
I do know that at my age jumping into bed with a woman without just a little time - a little flirting time - would be something close to a disaster. I haven't had sex in almost ten years, and although I know quite a few of the tunes, I would need a little time to tune up.
The other trouble is that, for example, the women I fancy at work are all at least 20 years younger than me, and not in a million years would they consider me as a potential sexual partner. There is one writer, a raddled old piece who most certainly looks older than she is because she looks about 90 but cannot yet be 90, who for a few days kept making cow eyes at me when she first joined, but that rapidly ended when she realised that in her I simply was not interested. I shan't give you her name, but she spent, or better, misspent a large number of years in the 70s and 80s as a showbiz correspondent out in California and looks as though she crammed about 100 years worth of partying into 20 years. She has not aged well.
Anyway, as I was saying the sweeties I am interested in (and I am sure it has never occurred to them that I might be) wouldn't look at me in a million years. Hence, I should imagine, my dream about losing my teeth.
I do know that at my age jumping into bed with a woman without just a little time - a little flirting time - would be something close to a disaster. I haven't had sex in almost ten years, and although I know quite a few of the tunes, I would need a little time to tune up.
The other trouble is that, for example, the women I fancy at work are all at least 20 years younger than me, and not in a million years would they consider me as a potential sexual partner. There is one writer, a raddled old piece who most certainly looks older than she is because she looks about 90 but cannot yet be 90, who for a few days kept making cow eyes at me when she first joined, but that rapidly ended when she realised that in her I simply was not interested. I shan't give you her name, but she spent, or better, misspent a large number of years in the 70s and 80s as a showbiz correspondent out in California and looks as though she crammed about 100 years worth of partying into 20 years. She has not aged well.
Anyway, as I was saying the sweeties I am interested in (and I am sure it has never occurred to them that I might be) wouldn't look at me in a million years. Hence, I should imagine, my dream about losing my teeth.
Friday, 8 May 2009
On holidays and looking forward to time off
Holiday plans might well be taking shape, thank God, because I need a break. First off, I have sold the travel desk on a piece about going on a cruise on a freight ship. I knew they used to do them, but was surprised by how many freight lines still do them. Anyone curious should google and research.
As a rule, freight vessels which do take a passengers take about 12. Voyages tend to be long rather than short - I've even come across some 63-day long voyages. Accommodation is said to be quite good as is the food. Of course, the vessel is primarily a freight vessel so entertainment will be the books you bring with you and the conversations you might have with fellow passengers.
Rather than try to blag a freebie from individual freight lines, I have been in touch with a company in London which organises cruises, and they have already been back with several suggestions. The slight problem in my case is that I couldn't take too much time off work, so the cruise I take would have to be short. So far they are going to find out from a French company which, among other routes, sails weekly to Martinique. The voyage takes 11, so I should imagine that will be there and back. Then there is a Swedish company which does a round trip from England to Ireland to Scotland to Sweden, then back. And another company which does it's business in the Med. See what turns up.
Then there is my cousin's wedding blessing ceremony in August here in St Breward (I was a witness at his wedding in Hong Kong back in January), which will be followed by another party in his home village in Bordeaux, to which I am also invited.
Finally, in my ongoing campaign to get my younger brother to take a break, he and I are most likely to be off to Istanbul in September to stay with our sister whose husband was posted there last year.
Thinking about it all and the paid time off I can take, I suspect that however much I should like to go, I shall not be able to make the wedding knees-up in Bordeaux in August. Shame. For one things it would cost far too much to go there.
On a final note, my giving up the booze for a while to try to lose a little weight while I am still able to is coming along quite nicely, except I wouldn't mind having the occasional glass of wine. But I have told myself it won't be until the end of June, so I must stick to it.
As a rule, freight vessels which do take a passengers take about 12. Voyages tend to be long rather than short - I've even come across some 63-day long voyages. Accommodation is said to be quite good as is the food. Of course, the vessel is primarily a freight vessel so entertainment will be the books you bring with you and the conversations you might have with fellow passengers.
Rather than try to blag a freebie from individual freight lines, I have been in touch with a company in London which organises cruises, and they have already been back with several suggestions. The slight problem in my case is that I couldn't take too much time off work, so the cruise I take would have to be short. So far they are going to find out from a French company which, among other routes, sails weekly to Martinique. The voyage takes 11, so I should imagine that will be there and back. Then there is a Swedish company which does a round trip from England to Ireland to Scotland to Sweden, then back. And another company which does it's business in the Med. See what turns up.
Then there is my cousin's wedding blessing ceremony in August here in St Breward (I was a witness at his wedding in Hong Kong back in January), which will be followed by another party in his home village in Bordeaux, to which I am also invited.
Finally, in my ongoing campaign to get my younger brother to take a break, he and I are most likely to be off to Istanbul in September to stay with our sister whose husband was posted there last year.
Thinking about it all and the paid time off I can take, I suspect that however much I should like to go, I shall not be able to make the wedding knees-up in Bordeaux in August. Shame. For one things it would cost far too much to go there.
On a final note, my giving up the booze for a while to try to lose a little weight while I am still able to is coming along quite nicely, except I wouldn't mind having the occasional glass of wine. But I have told myself it won't be until the end of June, so I must stick to it.
Friday, 1 May 2009
There's one born every minute
Got home last Wednesday and took to my bed these past two days with a cold. Trouble is that what with the general panic about 'swine flu' and the vast number of cases so far around the world, a staggering 207, I believe, my wife is convinced that I have caught the virus and has more or less quarantined me. There is no persuading her that I haven't got 'swine flu' (the quote marks are intended to convey irony), but I should like to take this opportunity to point out to a gullible world that every year around the world 500,000 people die of ordinary, human flu. So let's keep things a little in perspective, shall we? Furthermore, 'pandemic' does NOT mean that it is twice as worrying or anything of that kind, merely that it is popping up everywhere, in the sense that stupidity of 'pandemic'.
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