where art collides philosoperontap

August 8, 2013

3rd Law Part 58 – the writer of the script

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: , — Trefor Davies @ 8:55 am

The TV is on in the other room. I have moved. I am getting used to it in moderation but there is very definitely a limit and my boredom threshold is low. Ya gotta do stuff. I’ve noticed that my language has been evolving. I can write good grammar perfectly well, ish but nowadays I tend to write as I talk. I’m not sure there is anything wrong with that. Some media will demand appropriate application of the language but I think as long as you are getting your message across, how you do it is up to you.

If everyone understands what you are saying then surely that is fine. Of course if I am writing in English and you can only understand Swahili then that is a different issue. Chances are you are not reading this if you only understand Swahili.

I’ve just googled “Swahili” and the first page comes up with “useful Swahili words”. No mention of a website in Swahili. Then I changed the search term to “Swahili language websites”. The only one on the front page was Voice of America http://www.voaswahili.com/ which presumably is the good ole US of A’s contribution to world knowledge. The other sites are all offshoots of the BBC and miscellaneous educational institutes.

There seems to me to be a fair chance that if Swahili is indeed your language you are not using the wild wild web at all. You are probably more concerned with real life wild creatures such ones to be found in the African bush. For example an enraged hippopotamus is a very dangerous animal and is to be avoided at all costs. Other dangerous animals are available but I particularly like the concept of enraged hippopotami. Note the slick change from singular to plural. Both are good words and deserved to be used.

A hippo is often portrayed as a fun creature, in children’s cartoons for example. However this really annoys wild hippos who consider themselves to be hard as nails. You wouldn’t want a hippo to roll over and sit on top of you I’m telling you. Might be interesting to try sticking a saddle on top of one and seeing if there were any takers for a rodeo ride. Ride em hippopotamus boy. Unlikely. Interesting how the imagination wanders though innit?

When you think of hippos you usually, in your mind’s eye, also have the vision of the intrepid African explorer heading up river in a canoe powered by some hefty natives wearing only loincloths, thank goodness. Either that or a small steamboat captained by Humphrey Bogart who is constantly mopping his sweaty brow with a red handkerchief whilst the missionary he is taking up river gazes out at the wildlife wondering whether he has made a mistake in accepting the job. The missionary’s daughter is of course gorgeous. Her mother died of some ague the moment they set foot on this vast continent and the father had to bring her up on his own. He was very strict but well meaning. You know the plot.

I think I should be a film script writer. I’d spend much of my time in villas surrounded by palm beaches with the noise of the waves constantly in the background. Waking up early every day I’d rattle off a scene or two before running down to the beach and plunging into the sea for an invigorating swim. Lunch would be followed by a snooze in the hammock. In the shade of course. The heat of the day can be unbearable. Later I’d mosey into the village to chat to the local store owners and maybe catch a cold drink on the veranda of Joe’s Bar looking out over the bay. As the lights came on it would be time to wander home and change for dinner. There are plenty of dinner options. I quite like the fish restaurant in the harbour. Only uses stuff caught that morning. Good that.

It’s the same story day in day out with the occasional visit from the producer anxious to see how the script is coming along. It’s ok. I’m a pro. The script is always finished on time. Every now and again I fill in with a book. There is never a time when I am not being productive. It’s easy when all you need to do is fit in two or three hours in the day to capture what goes on in your brain.

Of course all of this is going on in my brain because it isn’t going on in real life. That’s ok. We all have our dreams. Some scripts would be written from a cottage overlooking some craggy Atlantic coastline. The pattern of life would adjust to the locale but largely be the same. It’s a wonderful life innit?

The kids are all home for a visit. They gradually come downstairs in the morning and the writing comes to an end. It takes until around 10.30 for them all to be up and compos mentis. No point planning anything before then. The TV is switched on again and I immediately switch it off. There is no need.

We assemble between 10.30 and 11 before setting off to a beach somewhere. The ultimate objective is the café at the end of the prom. It’s under the white painted lighthouse and near to where all the boats are pulled up. The seagulls are always a problem but we keep going there because we like the place. Days are filled with gentle strolls, stops for ice creams and teas and followed by cold beers sat at the tables outside the pub looking out onto the harbour. We get fat.

This is not perceived to be a problem because of the austerity of our lives once we return to normality. Early morning exercise routine, healthy breakfast etc.

I am usually happy for the summer to fade into autumn. That particular change in the seasons is gentle. Also I wouldn’t want to live somewhere that was hot all the time. Us Brits aren’t built for it. Well I’m not anyway. I do like being able to swan around in shorts all day though. Innit?

3rd Law Part 57 here

3rd Law Part 59 here

August 7, 2013

3rd Law Part 57 – early morning in Peel

Filed under: 3rd law,Isle of Man — Tags: — Trefor Davies @ 6:58 am

The sea is calm. Occasional waves run feebly up the beach. A fishing boat ambles across my field of view and I can see the mountains of Mourne, shadowy forms in the far distance. The herring gulls congregate loudly and there is a slight chill on the early morning breeze. Peel Castle remains a solid defence against the neerdowell.

6.30 am and the world is at peace. I wish I could paint. The rocks change colour as they rise out of the sea. Seaweed studded pastel brown crowned with a darker blacker band that fades upwards with streaks of mineral white that is gradually obscured by a topping of greenery. The real crown is the castle that sits around the top of the island.

The sun bursts through behind me as I look out to the west. The boat has moved out of my field of view though I can still see its wake and I now notice the buoys that mark the lobster pots on the sea bed.

Yesterday I saw a boat offload a big haul of crabs. Five half ton bags and fifteen crates. Good money at the market though the fisherman declined to enlighten me as to how much. He must have known.

I come here year after year. The early morning is the best time. The family still sleeps. The place isn’t totally deserted. Dog walkers and resolute joggers move on by. How many sailors are asleep in the yachts that fill the marina?

This year the “Dreamcatcher of Menai” is nowhere to be seen. Maybe it’s gone off on a cruise. That’s what you do with yachts. There is no point keeping them in the harbour all year round. Their whole purpose is world travel. How big the world is up to you. If I had such a boat I think I’d want at least to make some medium sized journeys. I don’t feel driven to brave the transatlantic run but certainly a jaunt to the Mediterranean calling in at suitably picturesque fishing ports en route.

Harbourside restaurants are a must. Maybe even the occasional industrial dock with a characterful bar known only to the locals and the visitors that arrive from the sea.

A shiver of relaxation runs down my back. This is a very peaceful scene. A dog barks but at first I can’t see it. Now it appears with its owner on the broken shell beach and trots up the slipway. An engine fires up out of sight behind me and fades away.

Behind the beach and beyond the castle is the breakwater with its white lighthouse. Nearer, on the right, the harbourmaster’s office guards the entrance to the harbour. There is no movement there now as the tide is out. A fisherman casts his line at the very end of the breakwater. That must be his yellow van. The scene on the breakwater is very different to the beach. There is evidence of humanity. The side door of the kiosk is open and the shutter slightly raised. It is about to open up for business.

A pickup truck joins me. In the bay four boats are tied up to buys. Waiting for the tide so that they can enter the harbour. I’ve noticed the environment here is different to the mainland. Outboard motors are left affixed to boats and fishing rods are in full view. Nobody is going to steal them.

The bay is full of ducks accompanied by the snouts of the two or three seals that live here. I don’t know what it is about this summer that brings so many ducks. This is not normal. Usually it’s herring gulls.

From the top of the breakwater I look for basking sharks. There are none. In all my years of coming I’ve only ever seen one but I look every time. Ever the optimist. They are out there somewhere. The volume of the gulls has increased. Maybe it’s time to get up and get looking for food. Maybe a threat has appeared. I can’t see but they are moving this way. The breakwater can be a risky place to be with so many gulls in the air. There is a fair percentage chance of being hit by droppings.

A small red car with a sit on top canoe turns up. Bloke clad in a short wetsuit gets out. Disappears around the back of the kiosk and then leaves again.

The gulls settle on the roof of the lifeboat station, a sturdy red stone building in the lee of the castle. It’s great fun to watch the lifeboat being launched. Adds to the mix of the summer holiday. I’ve never seen one being launched in anger, as it were.

The whole scene is getting lighter. I’ve been here for fifty minutes now. Nearly time to get back and make the tea. I think I’ve sussed the increased gull presence. A fishing boat arrived ten minutes or so ago. They think there may be pickings. I don’t think so. I think it’s just getting ready to go out. The RLNI flag flutters in the breeze. There is more activity now.

Life on board the yachts must be fairly calm. They are bound by the tides. At the moment there is nothing for them to do but just wait. Stick the kettle on and brew up.

A walker arrives. Time for me to go.

3rd Law Part 56 here

3rd Law Part 58 here

August 5, 2013

3rd Law Part 56 – cricket

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: — Trefor Davies @ 12:34 pm

We need 34 runs to avoid the follow on. To the uninitiated this may seem a strange state of affairs. How can a game in which we appear to be suffering a real hammering at the hands of the opposition, be so riveting. No attempt is made here to explain the rules of cricket. Nor to explain the finess of the game. It is assumed that the reader is at once educated and sophisticated. Test match cricket is the ultimate combination of cerebral and physical sport. At once a team game and an individual contest.

26 now required, to avoid the follow on. Runs are coming off the bat together with the occasional bye. Every ball is an event. We are playing the old enemy. Australia. We won the first two tests and only need to draw this one to retain the Ashes. The draw is the thing. Although Australia won the toss and put on a big score in the first innings and we have struggled to match their score if we avoid the follow on the Australians will have to bat again. You will of course know that this means that the clock will tick down and when the clock ticks down time will be against the Australians. We will still need to put in a good performance in the second innings but the first objective will have been achieved.

As I write I can report that the follow on has indeed been avoided. A knowledgeable crowd shows its appreciation and our thoughts move on to how much we can narrow the gap.

In the early stage of our first innings the target score of 527 might have sounded a tall order but it’s all about the psychology of the game. With a positive approach we could have a score of a thousand runs in mind. That would have totally destroyed the Australians making what was their very good first innings score seem pathetic. It didn’t happen but the game is still alive. With two days left the fat lady isn’t even warming up yet. She may not even be in the country.

Fat ladies get around you know. Wherever their services are required. They work on a per event rate plus expenses. They also do charity gigs on a pro bono basis though as you might imagine their appearance at these events don’t come with nearly the same levels of excitement as in big events such as Ashes cricket matches.

I refer to fat ladies in the plural though I am not 100% confident that there is more than one of them. Circumstantial evidence supports the existence of more than one. When you think about it if there are two big sporting events taking place simultaneously how could she be there at the finish of them both? It would be too risky. I guess a pre-recorded video could work and would allow a single fat lady to earn royalties over and above her performance fees.

Fat ladies don’t just sing at the end of sporting events. Charity gala fundraisers spring to mind. Operas maybe. Probably. Not that I am trying to stereotype female opera singers. Oh no. The cricket continues. A couple more wickets have gone but we are still hanging on in there. 173 runs behind. A win for England is unlikely but a draw would be highly satisfactory considering the poor start to our first innings. A draw would ensure that we maintain the psychological advantage. The high ground.

As I write this section of the Third Law it does occur to me that what I am doing is counter to the principles of the Law. The cricket, happening as it does over five days, enforces a leisurely approach. I don’t know how many words I could put down in five days. I’m not going to find out because family life does not allow for five days sat in front of the TV or wireless just taking in the cricket and occasionally concocting the occasional sentence or two. In between balls, or overs, or during the adverts.

Some adverts are actually quite funny and worth watching. Others make me thing “I’ll make a specific point of not buying that product”. Shows how important it is to get yer advertising right. I can’t vouch for the smoothness of flow of writing done under test match cricket conditions. There’s not as much focus as when you’re sat in a room with no distractions.

Our first innings is now over. We trail by 159. The game is on. The pace is reassuringly slow. There is a scenario whereby I will have fallen asleep for a number of overs and woken up to find that very little has happened other than a few runs may have been scored, added to the Australian total.

Lunch is about to be served. This is good because we are coinciding our own lunch with the cricket. I am happy that lunch is just about due. Lunch is a very civilised meal if taken seriously. Family lunch around the table is especially good. The only slight problem when sitting a family around at table for lunch is that people keep asking for items to be passed down the table. The butter is a particular problem but not exclusively so. I don’t believe it is practicable to have more than one butter out. Two bowls of crisps are acceptable. Maybe even two salt and peppers though I must say I don’t use the salt and pepper much these days.

Two water jugs are definitely very useful if you have them. One should always make sure there are enough glasses out on the table for everyone before sitting down. There is nothing more annoying than having to get up to go to the kitchen again after you thought you had settled into position at the trough. I’m sure that Mrs Beeton would have something to say about this. Probably even have a checklist which is a bit over the top in my view. She may well also have had a maid in attendance to sort it all out.

Lunch over, the assembled masses drift off. Those at the ground, back to their seats. Those relying on the TV for their coverage, back to the lounge. If you are using the wireless for your coverage then you may move out into the garden where a deckchair may await, under an umbrella perhaps.

As it happens it isn’t umbrella weather today. Actually that’s not true. Practically everyone at the ground will have one with them because rain is forecast. One is unlikely to sit out in one’s garden under an umbrella if it is raining. More likely to move onto the settee and drift off listening to some dulcet coverage.

You may not have gathered from any of my particular commentary that this particular bit of the Third Law began on one day, the fourth day of the test match, and is now continuing on the fifth or final day. The Australians declared overnight having had the end of their innings curtailed by bad light and rain stop play.

The wickets have been falling. Cook and Trott, for what it’s worth and for historical accuracy. Before play began this morning I moseyed into town to get a haircut. Unfortunately the barbers was shut so I continued down the street and found myself in a second hand book shop whereupon I purchased “The Authorised History of MI5” and “Peel Two”, a short history of Peel. This is one of three volumes and I am pretty sure that I already have one of the books from a previous visit. Unfortunately I can’t remember which one but I’m thinking the third so I should be ok. Fingers crossed eh?

The cricket continues. They never mention pigeons on the television commentary. Nor double decker busses. I guess they think you assume that it being an audio-visual medium you can see said items for yourself. I don’t think it does any harm to mention them. Adds to the atmosphere. Enriches it. I’m not sure that chocolate cakes get mentioned either. Pigeons, busses and chocolate cakes are particularly popular items on the radio.

The chocolate cakes in particular are occupational hazards of being a radio cricket commentator, or should that be cricket commentator for radio? It matters not. Many cakes are sent in to the commentary box, largely I’m sure in the hope of getting a mention. However one shouldn’t overlook the possibility that the bakers of the cake, or at least the senders, are eager to continue the tradition. It isn’t just the cakes. There is lunch, tea and the dinners that they all seem to have in the evenings. Curries and Italian meals seem to be popular choices amongst the commentating classes.

This I can understand. I like em meself. A good mixed balti or a lasagne does the job after a day watching cricket. Lager with the curry or red wine with the pasta. Yup.

The score is slowly starting to tick over. However Pietersen has just been given out. The review showed no evidence that he had hit it. Except perhaps a slight noise on the snickometer. Hmm. That’s cricket Jim.

Our lunch is over and we are waiting for the cricket to restart, recommence, rebegin. Yaknowworramean. There is too much going on around here. Hoover, kids, TV, others talking. I’m outahere.

3rd Law Part 55 here

3rd Law Part 57 here

 

August 4, 2013

3rd Law Part 55 – the boat

Filed under: 3rd law — Trefor Davies @ 8:46 am

The boat. The first class lounge. The whispered conversation. Much rustling of biscuit packets, complimentary. We haven’t left the quayside yet. The lounge is almost full. That isn’t meant to happen. First class is supposed to be prohibitively expensive. The domain of the international jet set elite. Though one does have to ask oneself why someone who probably has their own private jet would want to cross to the Isle of Man on the boat. There is a good airport on the island and they welcome private jets. It’s a good source of income. The landing fees. I don’t know how much the landing fees are. I have never asked. If you can afford your own jet you don’t bother with such trivia.

I’ve never flown in a private jet meself though I did once go up in the jump seat of an RAF Jetstream. It was being flown by my next door neighbour at the time. He was leaving to go back to his unit at RAF Brize Norton having spent a couple of years leading the multi-engine training unit at RAF Cranwell. It wasn’t normal to take a civilian up but he got permission off the base commander (or whatever the top guy’s title was) on the strength of my being a VIP member of the Executive of the Parliamentary Space Committee. Not sure I’ve ever mentioned that to you before.

It was a terrific committee to be part of. It is very important for Members of Parliament to maintain their knowledge of specialist subjects such as the space race and the Parliamentary Space Committee was there to ensure that this knowledge was kept totally up to date. It did this by arranging educational visits to events such as the Farnborough Air Show. On one occasion, together with the French parliamentary equivalent we were guests of the Duke of Kent in his pavilion looking out at the air display. It was position A. Where the Harrier jump jets used to perform a bow. The lunch was most enjoyable and we spent the afternoon sat outside on the terrace drinking champagne. When the time came to go a fleet of Jaguar cars swept us to the luxury coach that would take us back to Westminster. All except me because having squeezed the last MP into the last car there was no more room.

No problemo said a flunky. The royal flag was promptly whipped off the front of the Duke of Kent’s Bentley and I was chauffeured back to the coach in regal style. It was knocking on a bit, the old Bentley but I didn’t mind at all J

I also did the Paris Air Show in the equivalent style but the best trip of all was the European Grand Tour we did one summer. We gathered at Heathrow Airport early one morning and flew to Toulouse to meet the Board of Directors of Matra Espace, the French satellite manufacturer. The high bay tour was very interesting and it was followed by an extremely enjoyable lunch (fillet steak) in the Executive restaurant.

In the afternoon we met the Board of Directors of CNES, the French National Space Agency who treated us to a tour of their mission control centre. All very interesting though it was hard to stay awake after the lunch. That evening we were joined for dinner (lobster) by both boards of directors in yet another champagne blow out. All good stuff.

The next day was equally hard going. We flew to Paris to meet with the Board of Eutelsat. The board room was like something out of a movie set with lots of comfortable leather chairs and, being on or near to the top floor of Tour Montparnasse. Tour Montparnasse is famous for being a building totally out of place in Paris. It is nearly as tall as the Eiffel Tower and stands out like a sore thumb being the only building of its type in the area. This is because the French realised that it was a mistake to spoil the view with such skyscrapers and after it was finished promptly banned any others from being built.

For us it was a treat to sit there looking across at the top of the Eiffel Tower. This we did both in the meeting and afterwards at lunch in a private dining room at the top of the building. Yes there was the usual champagne etc.

Later in a departure from our habit of flying everywhere we caught the Eurostar train to Brussels. I remember that the air conditioning had broken down in our carriage and the only means of keeping cool was to buy up the entire stock of lager from the drinks trolley, which I did.

The evening in Brussels was a belter, both from it being a great night out and the temperature. Being a practical lad I wore shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and sandals. The MPs, who wanted to avoid giving anyone the notion that they were having a good time all wore suits and ties and sweated buckets. We had moules frites and Belgian beer and a good time was had by all.

The next morning it all started again with a meeting with the European Commission DG13 followed by lunch (champagne/steak/lobster/totally lost track by now) before flying back to Heathrow to attend a reception with Astronaut Buzz Aldrin to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the moon landings.

This may all sound like the high life but it is very difficult for MPs to avoid the entertainment in the course of these essential educational trips. We should regard their lifestyle with compassion. I recall meeting the chairman of the committee Sir Michael Marshall around a year or so after he had retired. He was a shadow of his former self. The parliamentary lifestyle involved so much eating and drinking that it piled the weight on. Returning to the normal life of the retiree, gardening and sitting in wind shelters on the promenade at Eastbourne brought his girth and collar size down to a more acceptable level.

It’s quite a handy by product of losing weight. Finding that you fit into clothes long since consigned to the back of the wardrobe. That’s assuming you haven’t chucked them. One holds on to these things in the eternally optimistic hope that yes, one day the waistline will start to shrink.

The same thing is true of gym membership. I was a gold member of LA Fitness. Gold got me in to every LA Fit club in the country except for three posh ones in London, as I recall. It didn’t matter, I never used one of them except the one down the road from the office in Newark and that got to be only about once every three months. I held on to that membership for years in the belief that once I stopped that would be totally it. The abandonment of any hope of ever getting fit again. Common sense and the need to save sixty quid a month or whatever it was (the filthy rich never ask) eventually prevailed and my commercial relationship with the club was terminated.

Sounds terminal doesn’t it. It is meant to. If you listen carefully you can year the accompanying loud banging of fist on table for effect. Turn up the volume. Smell the coffee. Buy the tshirt. My friend went to the Isle of Man and all I got was a lousy tshirt. Ungrateful wretch. Some people would give their eye teeth for a tshirt from the Isle of Man. Mind you if that is the case they are probably already walking around with no eye teeth left because they will previously already have traded them for tshirts. There’s no telling some people what’s good for them. You can lead a horse to water…

A question springs to mind. If you lead the horse to water one assumes that you aren’t actually riding the horse but walking next to it, holding on to the halter. The question that sprang to mind is “when at the water do you need to be dismounted when the horse starts to drink”. You have to assume that the horse will actually have a drink. The point is whether the physical act of the horse bending down to lap up the water will result in you sliding off the back of the horse. For the purpose of this mental exercise one has to assume that you are unable to prevent the falling off by digging your heels into the stirrups or holding on to the pommel of the saddle.

By using the word pommel we are revealing that the horse actually belongs to a cowboy. Picture the scene. It’s been a hot and dusty day on the trail. A couple of cowpokes come into view. The river is a blessed relief against the backdrop of sandstone outcrops and lone cacti. The men dismount and rinse their tired faces in the cool waters. The horses bend down next to the men and take their fill.

Sitting on a rock above the river bank the men decide this is a good spot to camp for the night. The scene fades to a couple of hours later. The boys are sat around a fire drinking black cawfee and shooting the breeze. In the distance a coyote howls. It can be seen silhouetted against the moon.

There is a rustling in the bushes but it is only a deer coming to the water for a drink. Soon the men tire and turn in for the night. Tomorrow is another day on the trail. We never find out where they are headed because, dear reader, we have clicked on a link and move on from the wild west using the power of the wild wild web.

The boat is beginning to rock. The sea isn’t obviously swellier, if I can invent a suitable word, but the boat is rocking.

3rd Law Part 54 here

3rd Law Part 56 here

3rd Law 54 – The Woodpigeon

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: — Trefor Davies @ 8:42 am

The woodpigeon is the heartbeat of the early morning in our back garden. We’d prefer it were something else as these big birds are noisy and unattractive. I guess they have just as much right to exist as any other and I’m not sure I know what I’d replace them with. We also have blackbirds and robins all the year round and the occasional summer visitor – chaffinches and blue birds spring to mind. Are they just migrants? I only seem to see them in the summer anyway.

There seems to be a natural continuity in our back garden. I can almost imagine a time lapse video over years which would show pretty much the same things happening year after year. The leaves on the sycamore trees emerge and then they fall off. They are swept off the lawn. Flowers come and go. Large items of garden “furniture” come and go. At present I’m talking about the trampoline which appeared as if by magic one Christmas morning, stayed for around ten years and then went.

There is also a wooden playhouse that I can envisage leaving after being there longer than ten years. It is no longer used as a playhouse. We keep the garden furniture in there but in my mind’s eye I can see a hot tub in that spot. Not yet because hot tubs are expensive and in our case it would also be quite high risk because of the battering that end of the garden takes from the kids playing football. Also whilst I quite like the idea of a hot tub I’m not sure how much use it would really get. It’s a bit like the idea of having a snooker table in your house. Great idea but when you get one you hardly ever use it.

Not that we have a snooker table in the house mind you. Well not a full size one anyway. We have a small one that I had as a kid and brought back from home on the roof rack one year. The trouble is the rubber side cushions have lost their bounce so whilst I used to have great matches with my dad it isn’t quite the same anymore. We do have a pool table, on the landing. That does get used. We also have a rowing machine in the converted garage down stairs (obv) which gets used but perhaps not as much as it should do.

Thinking about it we have a lot of sporting paraphernalia around. In the garden there is a basketball net and a football goal. All good quality stuff. The utility room is home to four sets of golf clubs, a softball bat, lots of cricket gear, tennis, badminton, kayaking/wetsuits/buoyancy aids/helmets etc, my rugby boots that I rescued from being sold on eBay by Anne and some of our camping kit.

The utility room also houses my stock of home-made marmalade and spicy plum chutney a la Delia Smith. That chutney is absolutely the best pickle you could ever taste. There is no shop bought chutney that compares. I will need to make a new batch this autumn. The marmalade is also  top drawer. The only problem with the marmalade is that I made a huge batch, stored it mostly in large kilner jars and then found out that we don’t really use that much marmalade. I like a bit on my toast but you don’t put that much on your toast and I don’t really have toast all that often. It’s not that I don’t like toast. I do. In fact I like it so much I can eat lots of it, which is where the problem lies.

Weetabix and a banana is apparently far better for the waistline. That and a bit of exercise which is supposedly where the rowing machine comes in. It does occasionally but I prefer a bit of a swim. Innit!

It would be quite interesting to do a time lapse sound recording of the back garden as well, looping back a little. The repeated sounds would largely be as similar as the time lapse video. Noise of the wind in the trees and hedges, traffic from the main road out the front, kids playing (and plant  pots smashing as the football hits them), accursed woodpigeons, and me playing the guitar.

Our garden is fairly private but there is nothing the neighbours can do to hide from the sound of me singing and playing the guitar. Because it is private this sometimes happens at top volume. It is an acoustic guitar and therefore has limited scope for environmental damage but my voice can get very loud. Hey…

We probably all think we can sing. Usually it’s ok when there is nobody else around.

3rd Law Part 53 here

3rd Law Part 55 here

July 21, 2013

3rd Law Part 53 – discombobulate and punctuationless

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: , — Trefor Davies @ 1:31 pm

It’s that finished the jobslist and it’s still not lunchtime yet feeling. Pretty good I’d say. The conservatory doors are open and the cricket is on the wireless. What more can a man ask for? This evening we are having a barbecue. It gets better all the time.  I lit the barbecue last night just for myself. Cooked three sausages. Didn’t use any charcoal. Just burnt some wood and cooked on the embers which seemed much hotter than had it been charcoal. Might not risk that this evening. The family likes certainty though I can’t say that there is ever certainty where charcoal is concerned.

We did have an Australian gas barbecue. It eventually rotted away and I’ve not got round to buying another, mostly because they are horrendously expensive. They also take a bit of assembling. Wots that all about? You don’t want to have to mess about assembling a barbecue. When we moved in to this house I nipped out and bought one. Opening the box I found about 200 nuts and bolts. There was no time to assemble it so I popped back to Tesco for some disposable ones. Disposable barbecues are never as good as the real mcoy.

I quite fancy a Weber. Guaranteed for 25 years apparently. That would probably see me through to the end of my barbecuing career. One wonders how many sausages would have been cooked in that time. It is possible to work it out – average number of bangers per bbq x number of bbqs a year. It will be different for everyone so you need to work out your own total. If you like.

Actually I’d like to think I will still be barbecuing in another 25 years. It will be something to look forward to – the next trip to buy another barbecue. Long wait. There will be other fun things to do in the meantime. Whist drives, bingo evenings etc etc. Never been to a bingo evening though it’s never too late to start. Used to go to the village whist drive when I lived in Waunfawr in North Wales. Long time ago now. Before the internet was discovered.

I say discovered but in reality it was invented. It’s not as if it was always there and one day someone came across it. “I claim this internet in the name of Queen Elizabeth The Second.” That’s the Head of State not the cruise liner. I can’t imagine anyone claiming something in the name of a ship unless we are talking about a berth which we aren’t. It would be a big berth for the QE2. Probably more than one gangplank too. Can you imagine 2,000 passengers all making their way gingerly down a plank onto the quayside. I’m not even sure the QE2 is still afloat, or sailing. These liners tend to end their days as floating hotels somewhere.

I stayed on the Queen Mary in Longbeach a couple of times. Quite dated rooms compared to a normal hotel but full of character. The ship has a great bar call the Observation Deck Bar. It’s a 20’s art deco job at the back of the ship. Top quality. The first time I was there they had a female trio singing Andres Sisters type songs. They did a terrific rendition of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”. From Company B. The bugle boy that is not the singers.

The second time I stayed there was when Anne was pregnant. She flew out to meet me at the end of a business trip. On the way home I gave her my business class seat and I sat in coach. The rub was that being pregnant she could not avail herself of any of the free booze they dish out at the front of the plane. I on the other hand had kicked into my long haul flight survival mode. After early consumption of beer I fell asleep for the rest of the flight. Anne periodically came back to visit me during the flight but on each occasion I was dead to the world.  The sleep of the just. Ish.

Yesterday we got rid of our trampoline. You might ask yourselves where is the connection with trampolines and sleeping on planes? Well there isn’t. It came totally out of left field. It’s just like the kid in Anne’s class when she taught in London who one day announced to the world that his “daddy has a caravan”. Okaay.

There is nothing to say that when putting the third law into practice you can’t just flit from one unrelated website to another. This morning I bounced between sites with cut priced champagne offers and those selling Weber barbecues. There is a connection though not necessarily immediately obvious. You can drink champagne whilst cooking a barbecue.

In this case I’m after some serious quantities of champagne to service the guests at our Silver Wedding Anniversary bash in August. Problem is that whilst there are some good offers around I haven’t necessarily tried any of the champagnes concerned. One might consider it worth buying a single bottle to try but Anne doesn’t like champagne so I’d have to drink the whole bottle myself. Unless I invited someone round which I could.

I’m still mulling it over. I may let you know what I decide or I may not. Ve shall see. I quite like a decent bottle of Australian Shiraz but we aren’t talking about red. We’re on champagne although tbh I’m getting bored with the subject.

Bored bored bored bored bored. No comma. Quick fire. Punctuationless. New word for you. Doesn’t roll particularly well off the tongue but whoever said a new word had to be an easy one to say. When they invented discombobulate no consideration was given to ease of use. I imagine that these days when people invent new words they have focus groups and teams of marketing types that evaluate their effectiveness. They might also need to check the availability of the domain name. If the domain name already exists it can’t be a new word though that word doesn’t necessarily have a meaning.

I just checked discombobulate.com btw and the domain name is for sale. Bought by some loser sometime who thought they could make a bit of cash from the word. Problem is no one knows what it means except for my son Tom who used to learn difficult words from the Oxford English Dictionary and slip them into conversations with his teachers knowing full well that the chances were that the teach would have no idea what he was saying.

I prefer the word discombobulate to punctuationless.

3rd Law Part 52 here

3rd Law Part 54 here

July 20, 2013

Lincoln A2Z – C19 Hykeham Sailing Club

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , , — Trefor Davies @ 12:44 pm

A life on the ocean wave.

Land Ho

Riding along on the crest of a wave

Splice the mainbrace

Shiver me timbers

In search of the North West Passage

The sun is over the yardarm

Bermuda triangle

Doldrums

Narwhal

The white hot sun beat down on the water, its glare blinding the weekenders that had turned out for a sail. There was not a breath of air and the sails on the small boats struggled to fill, the occasional lifeless flap offering little grounds for optimism.

They sat at the edge of the water waiting. Occasionally someone would get a cold drink out of the picnic bag. It wasn’t a bad way to spend the afternoon. Although there was no sailing it was too hot to do anything else and dangling your legs in the water was a good way of cooling off.

As the heat of the day died away the barbecue lit itself and the beers came out.

July 7, 2013

Db5 Pelham Bridge

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , — Trefor Davies @ 10:13 am

You can bet yer booties that Pelham Bridge made a massive difference to traffic flow in down town Lincoln. It’s bad enough these days with the railway crossings that we have but without Pelham Bridge there would be even more.

Pelham Bridge was opened by the Queen in June 1958. It was chucking it down – typical British Summer weather. In those days it would have been horse and cart, or maybe the Model T Ford. Had cars even been invented? I dunno.

Anyway Pelham Bridge was built to provide a useful viewing point for train spotters wanting to watch the steam trains at Lincoln Central Station. Trainspotting was a perfectly acceptable hobby in those days and was something to be encouraged. Nowadays trains all look the same and have no romance. Anyone interested in trainspotting needs their head examining. Probably other parts of the body too.

In 1958 Pelham Bridge was the first of a series of planned constructions designed to alleviate the traffic in Lincoln. The others are still waiting to happen though we do now have the bridge at the far end of the Brayford which is very handy. It was built for people to have a good viewing point for looking down at the boats and to make it easier to get to the Hub pub on the other side of the water.

There isn’t much attractive about Pelham Bridge. It’s a bit of a concrete jobbie and can get very windswept when you walk over it which doesn’t happen very often. I’ve seen people do it though. On their way home from Sincil Bank maybe. I’d be inclined to cross using the pedestrian bridge nearer the Railway Station. It’s more direct.

I wonder how many bridges the Queen has opened since then. Loads. She specialises in that kind of stuff. Means she can reuse her speech. Just changes the word bridge to school, hospital or other civil engineering project.

Sometimes she delegates smaller openings to Phil the Greek but when she did Pelham she was still fresh on the throne and was doing most of them herself. I wonder if she remembers doing Pelham Bridge. It was a long time ago now. It was opened in 1958 and it was raining.

K13 Sir Francis Hill Primary School named after Lincoln historian

Filed under: A 2 Z — Tags: , , — Trefor Davies @ 9:36 am

When you drive south along Tritton Road and you get to the Chieftain Way trading estate there is a school on your left. It’s one of those things you notice but don’t give any though to.

Well you should. Not specifically because of the school but because that school is named after one of Lincoln’s most famous historians, Sir Francis Hill.

Wikipedia tells us that Sir James William Francis Hill CBE (1899–1980) was a British solicitor and leading historian of Lincoln and Lincolnshire. He was the third Chancellor of the University of Nottingham. He also served as a Councillor, Alderman and Mayor of Lincoln.

I am somewhat saddened that there is very little information about him on tinterweb. There will I’m sure be something archived in Lincoln but he predated the internet. Sir Francis wrote three books on the history of Medieval, Georgian and Victorian Lincoln which if you like that sort of thing, which I do, are definitely worth a read. Worth buying even I’d say.

I refer to him very formally as Sir Francis but I did find a reference to him on google books where he was called Frank Hill and discussing the fact that he started writing the Medieval book in the 1920s which is interesting. I assume that his friends called him Frank. I don’t imagine his wife calling him Sir Francis do you?

I’m going to stick with Sir Francis out of deference.

As far as the rest of K13 goes there isn’t much to say. It touches a couple of trading estates and part of Tritton Road runs through it as I have already said…

3rd Law Part 52 – bird reading for beginners

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: , — Trefor Davies @ 8:41 am

The best is yet to come. That’s the only motto to live with. On a different subject just installed a new app on my phone. Motion detector. I have the phone pointing at the bird feeder resplendent with new bird seed. The feeder that is not the phone. For some reason the birds didn’t like the old stuff I put out for them. Bought it from a farm shop. This stuff is National Trust “certified”. They’re bound to like it. It’s a trusted brand, the National Trust, as the name implies.

I did consider leaving a note out for the birds asking if they had any mates that might like the old stuff but didn’t bother in the end. After all birds might be able to say “pretty polly” but I’m darned sure they can’t read. I mean whoever heard of a bird learning to read? Huh 🙂

For a bird, learning to fly and how to find food is far more useful. The concept of a bird landing on your shoulder and asking if you minded if he read your paper whilst you were reading it is pretty outlandish. If nothing else it could lead to awkward situations. If the bird is a slower reader than you you could find yourself waiting impatiently for it to finish a page whilst you wanted to turn to page 8 to finish off the article. There is also the scenario where the bird could plop on your shoulder whilst sat there. It’s what birds do. You can’t blame the bird. You only have yourself to blame for letting him perch there in the first place.

Also think of the extreme psychological damage you could do to a bird if you accidentally opened the cookery section while he was sat there. Doesn’t bear thinking about. Picture the scene. Bird sat there, happily browsing through the Sunday paper with you and you turn the page. It is summer and barbecues are all the rage. The recipe for the day is spit roasted blackbird. The blackbird on your shoulder does a double take, flaps his wings in agitation and poos on your head whilst taking off.

You don’t want that do you. Now I realise that barbecued blackbird recipes don’t appear on a regular basis in the food section of the Sunday paper but it could have been some other bird and the bird sharing your paper wasn’t necessarily a blackbird. Could have been a chicken or a grouse. You need to slot your own brand of bird into the story. Whatever frequents your deck or patio or patch of lawn small.

If you only have a small lawn you shouldn’t feel bad about this. After all it will be far easier to maintain and it’s unlikely that you would need to invest in a ride on lawnmower. Even though you might secretly hanker after one. If you had a lawn big enough for a ride on lawnmower then you would probably also have a gardener to drive it which would not be what you had in mind at all.

Personally I am totally cool with the idea of having a gardener. Gardens are for sitting in sipping a cool drink, or for playing footy with the kids, or both. Not at the same time of course unless you had a lid and a straw for the cool drink and were only playing in goal. The kids would also have to be happy with the fact that you weren’t trying that hard, concentrating mainly on the cool drink. Make sure you wear a suitable hat remember. If it’s nice enough to be out sipping a cool drink there will be sun involved.

I need to tell you that whilst sat here typing not a single bird has approached that feeder. I wonder if they can see me and are a bit suspicious. They needn’t be. I have no intention of putting them on the barbecue. We already have some filleted chicken breasts for that together with some Levi Roots Reggae Reggae Sauce of which we all approve.

Plenty of bumble bees this year I note. I like that. Far preferable to wasps and they don’t seem to come into the house which is even better. Tonight we will be putting some wood on the barbecue and turning it into a firepit. It’s going to be the perfect evening for it. Rare.

I have a penchant for drinking good brandy around the firepit. I have a nice bottle of Carlos 1 I brought back from Barcelona the other week but will probably not broach it. I’m being a good boy at the moment. I prefer Spanish brandy to French. Seems to have a mellower taste to it. A bit more woody or smoky perhaps. The only difference, I assume is the grapes.

We have a plentiful supply of wood to stick on the fire. The wood has the side benefit of scaring away the mozzies which I am particularly attractive to.

While I think of it I reckon the birds have got out of the habit of visiting our bird feeder because of my previous selection of nuts. It may take some time to regain their loyalty. Happens with birds. I read that somewhere. No I think it was here 🙂

The fat balls are very popular and they seem to go like a shot. It isn’t just the birds that go for them. It’s squirrels too. Unfortunately I can’t be selective. Come one come all. “The egalitarian method of feeding wildlife” by Trefor Davies. A best seller in the Eastgate School rankings for Wildlife Literature as chosen by Class R. Class R incidentally, have yet to learn to read. This allows them to identify with birds and is why they have a world famous register of bird feeding books. Or not…

3rd Law Part 51 here

3rd Law Part 53 here

3rd Law Part 51 – metropolish

Filed under: 3rd law — Trefor Davies @ 6:28 am

Metropolish – quite a large town – almost a big city. The language continues to evolve. Whether that word gets adopted remains to be seen. I am happy with the concept that the written word does not have to conform. It can take its own shape as long as it is conveying what the writer meant to say. What the reader is meant to understand by that word.

The word metropolish does in one sense continue to conform with certain aspects of the English language and that is in its ambiguity. This morning I tweeted that I was just having a row. Someone came back thinking what I meant was I was having an argument. No no no:) I was on the rowing machine going a steady ten minutes on the flat. It’s a good time of day for it, early morning.

Well to metropolish could also mean to buff up the metro, make it gleam, shine, almost as if you can see your face in it. If this was the meaning then people would come from all over the world to see the polished metro. It would be the subject of documentaries. Such would be its popularity and fame that Japanese film crews would clash with American trying to bag camera positions. The BBC, unable to afford the filming rights would make documentaries about the filming of documentaries and David Attenborough would be brought in to comment about the human aspect of life polishing the metro.

I’m not quite sure why they chose David Attenborough because he normally does nature programmes. Perhaps he was under contract to film a certain number of documentaries and being of advancing years was not always able to fly to the Antartic to film penguins in winter.

We have now established that these documentaries are filmed in winter. Don’t ask why. Perhaps it gets too hot on the polished metro in summer, or it is too hot to polish and the polish melts. Disaster. You can imagine that when this happened for the first time the staff returned the tins of polish to the company stores complaining that it no longer had the consistency they needed for the perfect shine. Too runny and metropolish is no good, but you knew that.

They did experiment with spray polish but it was never quite the same and one of the funny things about those that practice the art of metropolishing is that they are quite old fashioned in their own way. They don’t like change. They are very proud of their jobs and when he (or nowadays she though the guild of metropolishers held off allowing female members for longer than any other trade body apart from the Honourable Guild Of Male Strip Tease Artists) completes his 7 year apprenticeship a newly qualified metropolisher considers himself to be in a job for life. It is only recently that the last pre-war metropolisher died, at his post. Metropolishers never retire. There is always that one last bit of polishing they need to finish off.

The fact that a metropolishing apprenticeship still lasts seven hears has raised some eyebrows amongst the political interfering class. How, they argue, can a job that only involves the application of copious amount of elbow grease take seven years to learn whilst being paid peanuts? I use peanuts as a turn of phrase here. They don’t actually get paid in peanuts. That phrase is used to represent a low value that is indeterminate, although I’ve never checked to see whether there is an actual definition for peanuts as pay.

I digress. The Grand Masters of the metropolishing world dismiss these arguments with a simple retort. They had to do it so they don’t see why anyone else should get more money. Or larger nuts! Activists, and there have been some over the years though they seem to disappear, wander off down a tunnel never to be heard of again, have occasionally stuck their heads through the entrance to the metro and suggested that if the pay was made in coconuts then at least these would have some resale value. If nothing else the apprentices could take their coconuts home and their mothers could use the flesh in the preparation of aromatic, coconut based curries.

Enlightened Renumeration Panels (for the Guild prides itself on conducting its business in a totally transparent manner) have considered these suggestions but have always reject them as impractical because of the altogether higher cost base of a coconut economy, not the least being transportation costs. Peanuts can be economically conveyed in sacks of manageable size. They can even be shelled/processed at their country of origin and shipped in plain, salted or roasted form packaged and ready to dish out.

The pre-processing of coconuts leads to accusations of tampering and contamination and precludes any sales outside of culinary markets. To fairgrounds for example. Don’t be shy, give it a try doesn’t work when the coconut on said shy has been replaced by a tin of coconut milk or a packet of the desiccated stuff.

There is no sign that the metropolishing profession is about to change any time soon. Jobs are handed down to family members and it is a very difficult trade for outsiders to break in to. Metropolishing families are very insular. The trade secrets are kept within their close knit circles. It is even rare for young metropolishers to marry outside of their immediate family. The resultant inbreeding which might explain why a practitioner is happy to spend a life elbow deep in polish. The average metropolisher is a simple soul.

There are no known cases of a metropolisher having been to university. Let it remain thus. They will not thank you for interfering. Get on with your own life.

3rd Law Part 50 here

3rd Law Part 52 here

July 6, 2013

3rd Law Part 50 – tomorrow is another day

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: , — Trefor Davies @ 4:13 pm

The garden is mostly in shade which believe it or not is ideal for such a warm day. I can hear the occasional loud jet fly in or out of RAF Waddington. The airshow is in full swing. It is a perfect day for it though people will need to make sure they wear a hat and drink plenty of fluids. I’m beginning to sound like my mum now.

You have to hand it to the RAF they certainly know how to manage big events. A visit to the airshow gives you confidence that a full scale go to war effort would similarly be handled.

This, as I have mentioned, is a perfect summer’s day. It’s a chill in the shade not doing very much kind of day. That does sound a little contradictory doesn’t it – the contrast of the perfect, ie warm, summer’s day compared with a chill.

I came back from watching the Lions comprehensively beat the Wallabies at Ajax’s house. Most of the folk there were in full drinking swing. Party atmosphere. The barbecue was going and the sausages already cooked for the final whistle. A great day for it but not for me. I am heading to Boston tonight to hear Joe in a concert. It’s the 4th gig I’ll have seen him play inside a week. In fact this one is a repeat of last Sunday’s concert in Lincoln so I could have legitimately have dipped out of tonight’s do were it not for the fact that as a parent I have a responsibility to see that the lad gets home safe and sound. Leaving him to hitchhike back from Boston late at night doesn’t sound consistent with that level of responsibility.

At the tender age of 51 I still can’t get my brain around the responsibility thing. Being just a big kid it sits strangely on my shoulders. The funny thing is that when I listen to myself talking work type things I hear a person with a lot of experience who has seen it all before.

The time will come when I stand again at the side of the road with a sign saying St Tropez as I did after my first year at Bangor University. It got me there. I didn’t stay long as it was a very expensive part of the world and my budget didn’t extend to the drinks prices they charged. I’m not sure you see people hitchhiking anymore. I might try it sometime for old time sake. Just to show the younger generation how it’s done. I’m sure that students used to have hitch hiking competitions in those days. See who could get the furthest in one weekend. They all expect to hop in a taxi nowadays.

I have to be careful here. Don’t want to sound like some old fart, nosir. Given the choice between a sleeping bag under a hedge and a nice hotel it’s a nobrainer. In fact given the choice between hitch hiking and a first class train carriage that too is a nobrainer. Bob.

I’m even getting a little fussier about my hotels these days. I need comfort. Ideally a pool though I won’t necessarily use it. A nice bar is a definite plus especially if it has sweeping views.

The planes continue to take off from Waddington. The noise competes with the birds twittering happily in our hedge. Different kinds of birds. Steel and feathers. One after worms and the other firing missiles. Predatory both, I guess. There is something vaguely sinister about the plane type of bird when you think of it in those terms. The feathered variety perches comfortably on its nest and the metal monster sits at the end of the runway waiting to hurtle skywards. To kill. Or be killed. Winged fate.

Let us all enjoy our day in the sun. Or the shade. As you like it.

We do have a hammock that has not had an outing this year yet. I think this is the weekend for it. We will also normally have arranged a camping trip by now. I fear that I may not get a night under canvas this year though I do have the Annual Group Scout Camp as a backup assuming I don’t have to go to the mother in law’s 80th birthday on the Friday night. Ve shall see Meestar Bond.

Like tinterweb the aeroplane represents technological progress. I suppose. I think I’m getting into another of those sombre moods. It’s funny how moods can change just like that. Don’t worry. I’ve already pulled myself out of it. That’s what I call real mental strength. Confidence in my own ability. Comfortable in my skin. Except I could do with losing a bit more weight. Still I kept off the beers this morning and will be glad of it later when I enjoy the concert.

The enjoyment will be greatly helped by the fact that I heard all the pieces last week. You always enjoy listening to music that you already know innit. The finale was the Henry Wood medley that they sing at the Last Night of the Proms. Very enjoyable even if it doesn’t sit well with my non jingoistic Welsh upbringing. I guess you have to put politics aside when it comes to art.

Not that politics and art don’t mix. The art of the Russian Revolution for example is very striking and interesting to look at in its political context. I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate on this point 🙂

The one thing we don’t have that is quite useful for five days a year is a swimming pool in the back garden. I’d quite like one and would be in it now if we had one. My writing would suffer but that is just the price us writers have to pay for wanting a swimming pool. If that makes sense. It’s a law of diminishing returns. Become a hugely successful writer and earn lots of money so that you can afford to buy a pool. Stop writing because you spend all your time in the swimming pool. You can replace swimming pool with other distractions. Holidays in the Caribbean, Skiing in the Swiss Alps, a cruise around the Galapagos Islands. That kind of thing.

A cruise around the Galapagos Islands is never something I’ve seriously considered. I do quite like the idea of a month or so in de Caribbean man. Rum cocktails, hammock between two palm trees in what little shade there is at midday. Charter a yatch. One of those old fashioned schooner types that you anchor off a white sandy bay and jump into the water to do some snorkelling. Little fish swim around you. Taking a spear you catch enough for supper that night. Row ashore and light a fire on the beach where you cook the fish on sticks.

Back to the villa before it gets too late or maybe a night at sea in the cabin of the boat. The waves gently rock you to sleep and tomorrow is another day…

3rd Law Part 49 here

3rd Law Part 51 here

Lincoln A2Z G8 – Fossdyke

Filed under: A 2 Z — Trefor Davies @ 8:39 am

When the weather is fine you’ll be spending your time just messing about on the river. As the song goes. The Fossdyke isn’t an actual river but hey. Who cares. It is water and if it is a sunny day it is nice to mess about on it.

Most of don’t have that luxury of course for to mess about on the water you have to have a boat. Still like the idea though. I wonder if there is a rush on boats when the weather is fine in the same was as when it snows the shops soon sell out of sledges (bit of poetry for you there).

I suspect not because you can get a sledge for a few quid but a boat is going to cost you quite a bit more, depending on how big you want it to be. The choice of boat size is very important because if you have a lot of people wanting to come on board and the boat isn’t big enough then it could sink.

I realise that this is a very obvious piece of advice but to stray off the path of political correctness for now fleeting moment there are some people out there who need instructions like this to be written in very large font and shoved in front of their face. I’d even go one step further and ask them to sign that they have red and understood the instructions. You’d need a lot of space for the signatures because there would be a lot of them.

Anyway I digress. Boat size, as I say, is important. Especially when the weather is fine because all your friends and neighbours will just happen to call round and slip into the conversation the fact that it’s a lovely day to be out on the water isn’t it? They expect to be invited. That is why you should buy a bigger boat than you think you need. Unless you aren’t particularly sociable or don’t like your neighbours in which case you could just tell them to stuff it.

You do get a lot of boats pootling along the Fossdyke. A walk along the bank, just past the golf course can be very pleasant. Don’t be shy, give it a try.

3rd Law Part 49 – patterns in the grass

Filed under: 3rd law — Trefor Davies @ 8:04 am

It’s uplifiting. The conservatory doors are wide open. The birds are singing away happily knowing that they have a beautiful sunny day ahead. The lawn needs a bit of a cut but there is no rush. I was going to cut down the undergrowth at the bottom of the garden but I think I’ll leave it until tomorrow. Manyana. I’ve got some lively musing streaming over the wireless interweb. Radio Oxford fwiw.

I realise  I should be tuned in to Radio Lincolnshire and news of the Waddington Air Show but an offspring is reading the traffic and travel news in Oxford so I am being a dutiful parent. I’ve been to the Air Show a couple of times and it is a fantastic day out. Long queues very long queues on the roads though so if you’re thinking of going you need to get there very early. Waddington is probably three miles from our house and the cars back up on the road outside us. You have been warned.

I don’t know why we don’t go to the Air Show more often, considering it is such a good day out. The only times we have been are when one or two of the kids has been playing with the school band in one of the hangars. This is the best way to do it as we get a free family ticket and a car pass so that we can park right next to the hangar and not have to join the unwashed masses in the public car park. This also makes it easy to nip back to pick up the picnic.

Although there have been wet weekends for the Air Show on balance the weather has usually been great. On one of our visits one of the kids forgot to bring a hat and I had to share mine. The concept of hat sharing is quite novel I think. Probably not original though. Hey you can’t live your life doing completely new things all the time. Most of it has already been done before – taking a shower, making the toast, cutting the grass. You get my drift.

You’d never get anything done if it all had to be new and original. Spend all your time doing nothing trying to think of something new. I suppose you could cut the grass in a different way. Make interesting patterns with the lawnmower that gradually disappear as more of the grass gets cut. That would be a valid “new thing” because each pattern would be different even if the concept might not itself be new. You can’t spend all your time cutting the grass in a new way though because once cut the grass would need to be left a week or so to grow back to a cuttable length again. You could cut if very slowly but I don’t think it would fly. You are going to have to think of other things.

Paining a big landscape watercolour could be one way of doing it. Unfortunately I’m not a very good artist. Also I don’t have any watercolour paints and in any case this is just a mental exercise. You don’t actually have to do any of the things being discussed here although I’m not stopping you. You should let me know what happens. Take a pic of the grass half way through the mow for example and send it to me on Twitter. Simple to do and a highly effective way of sharing. I might even retweet it if I thought it was good enough to share. You could find that everyone on the planet ends up seeing your picture of the pattern in your lawn. Not that everyone is online yet but I’m sure someone would print off a copy and post it somewhere public so that everyone else could see.

The only drawback with that level of publicity is that you would find your house besieged by the press all wanting to take “exclusive” pictures of your lawn. You would spend all your time doing interviews and never have enough time to cut the grass. If you charged a fee for the interview you might be able to afford to hire a gardener to cut the grass for you but that would somehow defeat the object of the exercise. I imagine, and this is pure hypothesis you understand, people would even hire airplanes to fly over your back garden for photographs of your lawn. Google would redo its satellite shot of your house to incorporate the pattern on the lawn. How cool is that. Pre-pattern images of your lawn would begin to sell at a premium although that would not last long because we all know how easy it is to copy images on tinterweb.

This whole sad line of reasoning is of course built on the premise that there is actually a pattern to be viewed so you’d better make sure you don’t finish cutting all the lawn like  I originally suggested and leave  a pattern. Think how disappointed everyone would be if there wasn’t one after all the fuss. You would start getting adverse comments on Facebook and Twitter. People can be very cruel you know. It may all stem from jealousy and their own pathetic inadequacy but that is real life.

The alternative is not to stick your head above the parapet. Don’t do anything original. Nobody will then notice you and you can go to your grave in soon to be forgotten ignominy. You may get a few people along at the funeral. The odd passer-by and a priest, if you are that way inclined, paid to do a job of work.

“Shed not a tear for this departed brother for he was not different.” You may now cry if you think that person is you.

3rd Law Part 48 here

3rd Law Part 50 here

July 3, 2013

3rd Law Part 48 – pee haitch ee double yew

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: , , , — Trefor Davies @ 9:04 pm

Pee haitch ee double yew. That’s what ah say. Just been watching our Andy at Wimbledon. E went two sets down but recovered to win three two. It went to seven five in the final set. Close man. C lose. Phew.

Don’t know why I’m talking like that. Andy is Scottish although as is ever the case the English media says he is British, which of course he is too. At least until the Scots vote for independence, dig a big trench the other side of Hadrian’s Wall and float off into the sunset.

I know I know Scotland isn’t exactly going to float off. It’s mostly made of granite. Faaar too heavy, man. Waaay too heavy. There I go again. It just slipped out. Funny innit? Funny strange not funny haha. Innit. I like the word innit.  It lets me slip into a pseudo colloquial yoof tongue, if I may put it like that dear boy. Or girl. It’s almost certainly the BBC equivalent of colloquial yoof, if there is such a thing.

I know this because I once went to visit my Uncle Mick in South London. His instructions included details of which tube to get off at and then which bus to catch. It was on the bus that I discovered the true London yoof accent. I can’t call it Cockney because it bore no relation to the chirpy Cockney Pearly King type of accent which threw in the odd frog and toad and gawd blimey guvnor bless ya.

I couldn’t even begin to describe the London yoof accent to which I was witness. This is partly because in reality I am quite a sheltered individual. Although my travels have taken me to a big chunk of the world these have been in the splendid and luxurious isolation of posh hotels and trendy bars with taxis to ferry me between the two. I rarely encountered the yoof although I do once remember taking the sun outside a hotel in Los Angeles and a guy sauntered by and asked me for money. People don’t know how to cope with such situations. I declined the request (it was not an offer as such). He moved on and I retreated to the safety of the hotel lobby.

I saw a similar scene in Barcelona last weekend. An old peasant woman came into the carriage proffering two packets of paper tissues which she was trying to sell. I call her an old peasant woman so that you can try to picture her in your mind’s eye. She had a walking stick and grey hair and looked totally forlorn. She might not have been an actual peasant but she certainly looked the part.

Everyone in the carriage studiously ignored her. I didn’t know the form. Was she part of an armed gang that ripped you off once you got your wallet out to slip her a few coins for the tissues? Were the tissues nicked in the first place? Fortunately she studiously ignored me. I looked the typical tourist – shorts sandals tee shirt and tattered straw hat. Maybe she only tried to sell to locals. We were all uncomfortable with the situation.

I’m not saying that a tattered straw hat is typical of the tourist because I don’t think it is. Most tourists pride themselves on wearing more standard headgear such as baseball hats that say “I love Barcelona” or “Hard Rock Café”. Obv the Barcelona bit is because we were in Barcelona. It would be different in Blackpool, Bognor and Biarritz, to name but a few “B”s.

The old peasant woman got off the carriage at the next stop and a short while later a cheery bloke got on with a karaoke machine on some sort of hand trolley. He switched on the machine and proceeded to sing a song. He was busking. I felt instantly comfortable with this guy and gave him forty cents. Having forked out I then felt comfortable in taking photographs of him. I don’t think anyone else gave him any money but he got more than did the old peasant woman.

Off he went and I soon arrived at my stop. I never saw him again. Bit melodramatic eh? Thought I’d chuck it in. I never see most people again. I matters not. Who cares? Some people I want to see again. A few mates, my family etc I’m feeling some kind of mood change in the air here. The violins are about to kick in. There is some dramatic music in the offing. Maybe a few crashed piano chords.

I pause for reflection. The music dances lightly in the background, not intruding. I can hear it  but it doesn’t get in the way of my thoughts. Sometimes I think I can also hear waves crashing against the beach. They keep coming. Slowly the sound of the waves gets louder and with it the orchestra builds up to a crescendo. The final notes crash into place and gradually drift away leaving me exhausted. My head is slumped forward and my arms hang limply by my side.

Slowly I come to. I look up, catch my bearings and walk offstage left (that’s right as you see it). The audience, for one moment held captive by my performance, springs to life and reacts with thunderous applause. I do not return to the stage. By this time I have left through the stage door and hailed a taxi to take me to the airport. Changing quickly in the back of the cab I cleverly alter my appearance and disappear.

Here is consternation back at the theatre and the audience gradually dissipates to the bars around the square where they spend the rest of the evening talking about the ending of the show and thinking how strange it all is. The next morning my disappearance is in all the press. A global search is set in place but they never find me.

I am in a remote cottage just beyond the line of the surf where few people go and where the locals do not talk to people they do not recognise. I am the once exception. They take me in as one of their own, referring to me as “the bloke in the cottage beyond the surf”.  I spend my time meditating and working on my book.

Each morning I swim in the sea and am completely happy with my life. One day a ship appears on the horizon and anchors in the bay.  A rowing boat comes away from the ship and heads towards the beach. Captain Cook wades ashore the last few feet and brings me some trinkets as tokens of his peace and goodwill. He also claims the beach in the name of the king at which point I have to tell him he is a few hundred years late.

Finding it difficult to hide his disappointment he turns around and tells his crew they must be off. “There be no rich pickings he me lads”. That night in the local pub I tell the villagers about my encounter. They look horrified at each other and ask me never to mention the incident again. There is something dark going on in this village. However I don’t like that kind of story so I’m going to move on to talk about the annual festival of St Eugenie that is held on the village green every August. Another time…

3rd Law Part 47 here

3rd Law Part 49 here

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress