where art collides

Sweet Home Lincoln

Joe picked me up from the station at 5.15 and we went for a swift un at the Morning Star en route. Traffic continues to be terrible downtown with all the road closures in place for the revamping of the bus station.

The eurostar was also late in to St Pancras having been held for fifteen minutes inside the channel tunnel. Not the best places to hold a train. The upshot was that instead of a three hour layover in Kings Cross I was there for forty five minutes. On the Eurostar I’d had red wine with my meal and had a couple of pale ales on the train north to keep going.

Had chicken rogan josh for tea and basically snoozed on the settee for the rest of the evening before having an early night.

It’s now Saturday morning. I’ve started my new book – “John Wesley and the Church of England”. Promises to be an interesting read. It requires undisturbed reading time in order to give it the appropriate amount of attention.

Now waiting for Phil the roofer to turn up to finish off a few bits and bobs before heading down to Coops’ to pick up Anne’s car.

Proper cooked breakfast this morning. Breakfasts when travelling and staying in hotels are rarely as good as you get at home. My plans for the day have been somewhat altered by Anne. I had thought we were off to the Usher Gallery and the Collection for the day but that apparently is next weekend. Gives me time to relax and do a few bits and bobs. I’m cooking a steak and ale pie for tomorrow’s lunch so will need to get the ingreds for that. After lunch Joe is heading back to Newcastle and the start of year two.

He still has a couple of gigs to get through today – West End Tap at 4 and the Tap and Spile later on. He’s put a band together especially for this.

more as it happens…

…

Four hundred odd quid to get Anne’s car through its MoT. It’s a Citroen C4 and actually quite a nifty little motor. Only prob is we can’t insure the kids on it so it will have to go before John turns 17. The Micra is becoming a beast to drive and I don’t think it is worth keeping it beyond the insurance year which is end of October or simlar.

The filling for the steak and ale pie is simmering away on gas mark 1. I’ll give it 6 hours or so today to get a very tasty and tender pie.

…

Feeling very relaxed

Just had a black bomber cheese in a Waitrose flute baguette with some home made plum chutney washed down with a glass of cow juice. Interesting how families develop their own slang for things. I suspect it is mostly me rather than our family. It’s a bit like I chose the playful pet name gorgeosity for Anne. I never call her that but it is sometimes used where a leg pull is appropriate.

Radio 4 is on the wireless is on in the kitchen and I can hear some music emanating from somewhere else in the house. The garage perhaps. Joe is doing some soldering. He is mending a cable that I think may be required for this afternoon’s set at the West End Tap.

I don’t think I’m going to do any more jobs today. Sunday is the day for jobs. I’ve read my book a bit and now looking for some inspiration. I will have to stay out of sight a little as Anne may have other ideas on the jobs front.

Debating whether to wear one of my linen jackets for going to the West End Tap. It’s a lovely day.

Missed Eurostar!!

What a morning. Pleasant leisurely breakfast (bacon roll with HP) with Dave Cargill at the Hilton and then a taxi to the train station. I was doing my usually piece to camera in front of the departures board when a soldier with gun came up and asked to look at my picture. He thought I’d been videoing him. He went away happy and of course almost certainly appreciative of my vid:)

Eventually found the train – not easy because they only give you the final destination and not the interim ones. Had to ask at the information desk. Sat on the 09.54 on platform 2 I then realised that I should have caught a train an hour earlier. Doh. I was only going to have 14 minutes to make my Eurostar and check in closes 30 mins before departure. Fail. Had to call Eurostar and change my ticket at a price that was marginally less than buying a new one.

So now I’m sat in an empty departure lounge in Brussels with a two hour wait until my train. It’s too early to start on the beer so I have a bottle of water and a laptop.

On the plus side I’ve just been called by the Jury Service people and told that my services were no longer required as they had too many people lined up for the two weeks I was down for. Gave me the option of still turning up on the 3rd, deferring it to another time or being taken off the list completely. I opted for the latter. The letter I originally had said there was no way to escape but obviously this isn’t entirely the case. Result.

Now sat here feeling I should be buying something. A drink or something to eat. There isn’t anything there I want other than the bottle of water I bought when I got here. I had a good breakfast and will also have a meal on the train, albeit not really being up to much.

A mum and two kids have just sat down at the next table in the Coffee Club Caff. She is speaking a very dulcet French to them which sounds very nice. The kids are speaking both French and English in appropriate accents. Tres impressif.

The wifi in this caff is totally naff btw. I’ve used it to upload the two vids below as they will have been biggish files but am going to have to switch back to using my phone as a 4G hotspot.

The great thing about this Eurostar trip is that I will have connectivity all the way, having purchaysed a 500MB data bundle from EE for £3. great stuff.

Wearing my headphones again btw. There is a bloke behind my seat whose conversation is really annoying so it’s a way of shutting him out.

…

Two out of three of us around this table with headphones on. The other guy is reading a novel. tend not to read novels myself. It’s called the fifth gospel. Doesn’t sound like my kind of thing. I’m ignoring him anyway. Listening to Life in the Fast Lane. The annoying bloke is still talking…

Antwerp – moules frites at Elfde Gebod

Very impressed with Antwerp. Got to the hotel at 2ish and went for a stroll. There’s a big trail cycling world cup on at the weekend so a lot of the open space in the centre of the city is being turned into a course. Dinner was moules frites at Elfde Gebod.

…

Breakfast with Dave Cargill and after a short stroll around the middle of Antwerp am now sat in a meeting room at the Hilton. There is a good crown here although the ac needs turning down a little – it’s a bit on the warm side.

The attendees at this meeting are mostly from Benelux. What is impressive is that the language is English. The impressive bit comes from the fact that hey can all conduct business in English, a language that isn’t their own. Not the fact that English is the language. Interesting to hear them speak in American English. The word router is pronounced in the American way. Row 1 ter not rooter.

…

Long but good day. Finished with me giving a bit of a talk on UK expansion. Now back in room chillin before going down to dinner.

1 row as in argument not boating

here I come

Sat in total silence, coach 8 seat 45, 08.55 Eurostar St Pancras to Paris. I’m wearing my Bose headphones again. They continue to impress. The beautiful thing about them is the fact that I can still hear the tannoy announcements but very little else. I have switched on the Radio 4 Today programme.

I’m in a Standard Premier seat. It’s basically a first class seat but without the champagne service. Sokay. Sgoodenough. The journey time to Brussels is 2 hours 17 minutes after which I switch to a train to Antwerp which I think is around half an hour.

Lovely night last night after the ITSPA meeting. Hannah and Tom joined us in the Flying Horse in Wilson Street and Jolyon Parsons came with us for a curry in SoHo. v nice it was. Afterwards Tom headed back to the beeb to get his bike and ride home and the Hansk, Jolyon and I went to The Phoenix Artist Club for a couple. Uber back to the Hilton Euston and a crash out. Lift in the hotel was broken!

…

Underground and there is no signal so I’ve temporarily transferred typing to “Notes” for safety. It’s a while since I was on the Eurostar. Hannah’s 21st in Paris. That was a great weekend. She had a crowd of Lincoln pals over and I bought everyone dinner at Au Bon Coin on the Saturday night.

A fair old engineering project this Eurostar line. Long tunnel through London. It would be interesting to plot its route. We have emerged into daylight at 09.04 so that’s approximately 8 or 9 minutes underground.

Just passed a fine looking stone church surrounded by post WW2 mass produced semi detached houses. Didn’t seem right. Now pulling in to Ebbsfleet. Looking at things to do in this neighbourhood I note that the Hot Rod Diner is a mere 17 minutes walk away in Northfleet. Alas I have to move on.

This Eurostar train is a very smooth ride fair play to it. Much better than the ones I catch from Lincoln to Laandan. Expect to disappear shortly so will post this and catch up later.

…

Antwerp trip pics here. Walked from station to hotel. Only 20 mins or so and very pleasant through the main shopping street. Wide pedestrianised road but lots of bicycles. Very noticeable buskers but without amplification. Far more civilised than the UK where they blare their music out using amplifiers. I never give to such buskers but I did give to the first accordionist – see vid below. It’s shorts weather here so was a bit hot by the time I got to the hotel. Nice Hilton in the Old Town. Going to nip out for a skeet.

dinner with Tom and Hannah tonight

London bound again. It was foretold. No rain but pleasantly cooler autumnal conditions. I’ve taken my C2C raincoat just in case.

Sausage sandwich with a glass of milk for breakfast. I need to get back into training but it will be pretty pointless this next two weeks as there is so much going on. After that the fortnight’s enforced jury service should kick start the process. Until Madrid…

Bumped into Anna, landlady of the Strugglers, on the platform. She’s off to London for a day trip. It’s nice to go every now and again. It’s a young person’s place. Great if you are young and single, and have money. Not sure that most young persons have money. They must get by somehow. I did it for a year. Dinner with Tom and Hannah tonight, after the ITSPA council meeting.

Just passed a field of shorn sheep. Fwiw. The fields changed noticeably whilst I was away in August. They were just turning yellow and now are mostly brown since the harvest came in. Some have even been ploughed up and resown for the next crop. Dosed up with chemicals no doubt.

This morning I changed the footer on philosopherontap.com from Copyright 2009 – 2013 to 2016. Not a big deal really but you never know:) trefor.net probably needs some similar attention but I’m not sure I can really be bothered.

One of the things I love about Autumn is the set of new things to look forward to. Especially the build up to Christmas which has over the years developed a few fixed dates in the calendar: trefbash, our Christmas market Party and the Morning Star carol night. Trefbash is changing format this year and will be lonapbash. This is partly so that some of my pals in the networking industry who can’t normally make it stand a chance by making it a justifiable business event. Also I have had 6 terrific trefbashes and I feel it is worth getting out at the top.

The 10.54 from Newark is running late. Eta 11.05. Not too bad I suppose. I have an hour and a half spare at the other end anyway. Arrived at 11.00. Driver put his foot down probs.

Quite a full train. I’ve had to sit in my allocated seat which I rarely do. They always allocate seats in coach M and I normally go and sit in L which is usually emptier. Not today. Wossgoinon?

Footnote

I use a plug in called Yoast for SEO optimisation in WordPress sites. For trefor.net posts I typically follow its SEO rules. At least I have for the last couple of years. It doesn’t seem appropriate for philosopherontap. This is partly because I no longer care. Is it important to me whether lots of people are attracted to the site? I don’t look to see how many visitors it gets and those that do visit rarely leave comments.

This is for me an interesting dilemma. Part of me wants anything I write to be read and hopefully appreciated. I guess in that respect the more people that see my stuff the better. The counter to this is that good art doesn’t necessarily need to be seen by lots of people for it to be good. Also if it really is any good then surely it will be seen because people will share it.

There is a scenario where nobody understands what I am saying anyway. This is OK. I’m thinking of upping the ante on the creative stuff. Only because I like doing it. Look out for a Facebook Event in October. More anon…

of the season

Bit of a lie in this morning as I ended up with Nige in the Lincoln TapHouse and Kitchen having had dinner there with John. Got back from IoM at 7.15, changed and went straight there. Was nice as we had a drink with Joe after he had finished work and also potentially found a new tenant for one of the rentals to replace the ones who leave at the end of the month.

Still lovely weather – sat outside having a cup of tea after breakfast. Noticed a spider’s web in the raspberry patch and went over to see if I could photograph it. When I got to the raspberry patch I discovered loads of ripe ones waiting to be picked. See featured image. Normally we eat them as they ripen so they rarely make it as far as the kitchen.

Today is John’s last cricket match of the season. They are playing Carholme down at the West Common Should be a good afternoon for it. I’m dropping him off at 1pm but will head back down later to watch. Later we are having a bbq. Pork loin fillet marinaded in a sticky bbq sauce.

btw sounds a bit dramatic doesn’t it “The last game of cricket”. Hence the h3 heading “of the season”. Were it the last game of cricket ever I imagine the TV cameras would be there. Probably a huge uproar. A demo even. You can’t stop people playing cricket. Can you???

…

45 minute round trip to Carholme Road. Lincoln University student intake day. The roads are rammed.

I’m okay though, just late

I can think of better things to do than sit for 90 minutes on the tarmac in seat 20D on Ezy855 non stop direct from the IoM to London Gatwick North Terminal. We missed an apparently overly optimistic departure slot due to a delayed inbound aircraft.

There are a number of factors that are helping make the delay bearabale:

1. I have my new Bose headphones. I can’t hear anything other than my Spotify Playlist.
2. I haven’t had any beer and thus remain reasonably alert without tiring from a discontinuity of intake. I am driving when I get to Newark.
3. I have a flexible train ticket –  a decision borne out of long experience.
4. 20D is an aisle seat.
5. I have a book to read – The Age of Reform 1815 –  1870 by Sir Llewellyn Woodward (OXFORD HISTORY OF ENGLAND). This is 631 pages plus maps, bibliography, index etc and is very heavy going. However I like this kind of stuff.

That’s it. There are no other positives. Being cocooned in lyrics Bose environment I’ve not chatted to my neighbours who are in any case engrossed on their copies of the Sun newspaper and some sort of TV guide.

I have no Internet connectivity and this post is being written by right thumb and left forefinger on my s7 edge using the WordPress for Android app.

I am ok. I feel as if some yoga would be appropriate. Enforced downtime and relaxation. However I don’t know any yoga positions and I’m not sure the other passengers would appreciate me taking up aisle space.they have swapped btw. She now has the sun and he is checking out what’s on. That word search will keep her busy.

Philosopherontap was down last night. Problem at the host apaz. Back up now as you can see.

They have opened the bar onboard the plane. A gonna be a while before they get to row 20 and the captain has announced that we will start taxiing in 15 mins. That’s at 2pm.for a 2.15 takeoff. I’m thinking can of San pellegrino limonata with maybe some pringles . We shall see. Don’t really want anything.

Went to the loo. For something to do more than anything.

…

Now in the air. I’ve had enough of the book for now. More a reference book really. Something to dip into when you need to know something specific. Written in 1961,  the year of my birth. The book is written in a very heavy academic style that feels born of the social constraints of those times. Very correct and serious. Fortunately I have my tunes and the expectation of  trolley that is getting closer by the minute 🙂

…

Have to say the bose headphones have been a revelation. I have no hesitation in recommending them. Joe has a pair of professional in ear phones moulded to the shape of his ear. Don’t think I want inears again after the bose experience. Joe needs them to protect from loud drumming sounds on stage.

We are preparing to land. Finally. God knows what time I’ll get home now. John will probably have sorted himself out food wise and Joe will be at work.

This is a full flight. Bloke next to me said they were oversold by 20 and were offering nights in a hotel. They are going on a Mediterranean cruise that starts from Southampton tomorrow so not much use to them. Me neither.

We have landed.

14.10 train to St P then 17.17 arr Newark 18.45.

Up early and down to see Fenella Beach and the breakwater. Went in the car but only because I don’t have any warm clothing and this is the Isle of Man we are talking about. Swung by Shoprite to purchase some Manx dry cure streaky bacon, chestnut mushrooms and crusty rolls for the purpose of breaking the fast.

Feeling good this morning. This isn’t necessarily the same story for Ann and Sue who stayed up on the wine until 2.30am. Couldn’t do it myself but there again I am the older sibling:)

It was a good funeral yesterday. John Chester was a very popular guy and the crem was full to overflowing. Back to Peel Golf Club afterwards and left there at around 5pm swinging by the Whitehouse pub en route home. Dad and I walked down Rheast Lane and came across the plaque featured in the image below – Philip Christian Clothworker. I googled him and he was the benefactor who funded the foundation of the Peel clothworkers school. Inneresting.

Now at Ronaldsway International with Ann waiting for our delayed EZY852 to Gatwick. Featured image is peeps queuing for an earlier also delayed flight to Liverpool. Young couple sat opposite on way to Canada for their honeymoon. Sweet. He is an Everton fan, fwiw. Liverpool beat Chelsea 2 1 away last night, again fwiw.

funky shirt r us

Life is really about funky shirts. I’m up, breakfasted on bacon sandwich, packed and ready to rock and roll down to London. Dress code is shorts, custom made funky shirt and deck shoes together with jacket as unfortunately I am going to a funeral tomorrow. I have other clothes to change into but that will wait until tomorrow. The jacket wouldn’t have gone in my Osprey laptop bag.

The rest of the family is out of the house apart from Joe who was working last night and goodness only knows what time he got in. I’ll be driving to Newark this morning and parking the car there. There are lots more train options from Newark than from Lincoln. This is especially the case when I return on Saturday.

As yesterday today is a slightly misty start but the forecast is hot hot hot. Wow. We just aren’t used to this us Brits Irish. Dunno if I told you but a copy of mam’s birth certificate arrived yesterday from Ireland. Just mine and mam and dad’s wedding certificate need now for me to be able to progress with my application for an Irish Passport. I will also be registering all four kids as Irish citizens of foreign birth. You never know when it will come in handy especially when it comes to avoiding having to have a visa for European travel, getting in the right queue for passport control etc.

Joe is now up and about, upstairs at least. I’ve been informed of his unavailability to provide a lift via Facebook. Fair enough. He is off to Newcastle himself today. Taking some of his stuff back in advance for the new term. Anne has gone to her saxophone lesson and I am left wondering which keys to take.

…

Bloke sat across the aisle with a humongous watch. Not sure I understand. Looks like a salesman. Another guy just walked off and dropped some papers on the floor marked CONFIDENTIAL. Picked them up, put them on his table and headed into the next coach. Can’t be bothered to go over for a read. I’m on a video conference call anyway:) The Macbook is telling me there is low bandwidth but by and large the video is coming through ok. Impressive considering there is only 2Mbps symmetrical between the whole train.

Wearing my Bose headphones for the first time in anger. The people on the conf call told me they could hear stuff in the background on the train that I was unaware of because of the headphones. Good eh? Dipped out in the interest of a smooth meeting. Was one rearranged from yesterday and I wasn’t really available this morning.

Hope you like the featured image. It’s me wearing my Bose phones on the train. The funky pattern goes well with my (handmade) shirt, I think. It should come as no surprise to you to learn that I have the domain name hawaiianshirt.co. Not done anything with it but you never know…

If you have a funky shirt shot you’d like to share do get in touch:)