where art collides philosoperontap

June 12, 2013

The crisp sandwich

Filed under: ideas — Tags: , , — Trefor Davies @ 9:04 pm

Up there in the gastronomic stratosphere where reside the world’s finest culinary concoctions lies the humble crisp sandwich. Much has been written of this delicacy and a great deal is to be found on the subject through the services of Google. I offer to you the simplest of instructions.

Some of the basics of this recipe are identical to other sandwich recipes to be found on Philosopherontap. Fresh crusty white bread sliced not too thinly and then spread with soft butter. The two slices should be laid butter side up on a large plate. An entire packet of cheese and onion crisps is then emptied onto one of the slices ensuring that any bits that fall off are retrieved and carefully stacked on top of the others.

The brand of crisp is important. Supermarket own brands don’t cut it. It has to be Walkers or Smiths. Interestingly enough the more expensive, premium crisp such as Pipers doesn’t really do the job either. We are looking for the right combination of taste and crunchiness here. Pipers crisps are too thick for the perfect crisp sandwich.

Once the rogue crisps have been carefully stacked the second slice of bread is placed on top butter side down (obv). At this stage you will find that some crisps do escape around the sides, probably in fragment form. It is perfectly acceptable to hoover these up and eat them without bread.

You may now eat the crisp sandwich taking care to hold it over the plate because no crisp sandwich put together by human hand is ever going to be totally crisp tight. Leave the excess crisps to fall to the plate and consume the whole sandwich. Note you should not cut the sandwich in half as you might with cheese prawn or ham. It needs to be eaten as one large slab.

The crisp sandwich is often accompanied by a glass of cold milk, semi skimmed or full fat to your own taste. Under no circumstance should skimmed milk be used. Skimmed milk is not only an affront to the senses of the crisp gourmet but its total lack of body is not well suited to washing down the crisps.

When the last corner of bread has been consumed you should now run your finger over the plate to mop up any loose crisp crumbs, licking your finger clean at appropriate intervals. You may then place the plate in the dishwasher or, if you are poor, wash it in the sink. Paper plates should not be used to eat crisp sandwiches.

And that dear reader is the crisp sandwich. I have no illustrations to support this text because on this occasion I am trying to lose weight and crisp sandwiches are off the menu.

As a footnote it should be mentioned that flavours other than cheese and onion may be used according to individual taste. Beef flavoured crisps offer almost the same experience but ready salted should probably be avoided.

3rd Law 41 – good weather for a funeral

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: , — Trefor Davies @ 6:32 pm

I see raindrops streaking the window. It has clearly just started to spit (ting). I’m wondering if this is the start of a heavier shower. Oops yes. It’s just come on. The reason I was a wondering is because my car is parked at the farthest point from the office it can get and today I am without a coat. Coatless. Naked but for a polo shirt that will do nothing to prevent me getting wet. Soaked even.

My spectacles have no protection. It matters not. A TNT lorry leaves the car park and a DPD van (Global Express Parcels) moves in. It’s the end of a working day. I’m thinking of heading east. I live in the east. Not the far east or the middle east. Just 15 miles east.

The raindrops are heavier now and are racing each other down the window. Something to do I suppose, watch the racing raindrops. People are leaving the office. They are off home. Workers of the world. I’m one of them but I’m still here for the moment being mesmerised by the raindrops and debating with myself whether to make a run for it.

I quite like the rain. I like the noise it makes when it lands on a roof. I don’t particularly like floods though I do like the sensation I get when I jump into a pool of water. As long as it’s not too cold. That would represent a shock to the system. Brr. I don’t mind the cold as long as I am wrapped up warmly. Obv not in a pool of water. I like the cold when winter sets in and I am forced to sit by the warm fire snoozing. I occasionally wake to shove another log on and then drift off again.

Of course it is only safe to do this if you have a fireguard. Especially when using wood. Wood has a mind of its own.  Crackles and spits though you can minimise this by using decently seasoned stuff.

Back to the rain before I totally move off the subject the farmers hereabouts will be glad of it. We have had quite a dry spell of late. Oo arr. I follow quite a few farmers on twitter. You follow one and one farmer leads to another as they say in the grain and potato store that is Lincolnshire. They also grow peas. I once rode on a pea harvester. Terrific. Peas are my fave vegetable and I came away with tow carrier bags full. Gave one to the mums at the Joanne Haylock School of Dance where my daughter had classes. They divvied the peas up amongst themselves. I kept the other bagfull.

I suspect all the peas are gone now though it is worth asking the question, especially as one of our freezers looks as if it is about to pack in. We have food farmed out to freezers up and down the road. Well one freezer over the road anyway. I think we’ve had that freezer for twenty years or more so it doesn’t owe us anything and we spotted the red light in time. It needs defrosting every year and bizzarely we do it in the middle of winter when it is sub zero outside. We stick all the food in a plastic bin in the back garden and hack away at the ice in the freezer in the garage.

If we get a new freezer that will be one job that won’t need doing next winter. Hooray. It used to get to the point where we had to strap the door shut with one of those straps you use to tie things down on a roof rack, such was the amount of ice in the freezer. The passing of that freezer will not be lamented. No wake. No gathering round the table in the dining room eating cheese and pickeld onions on a cocktail stick whilst drinking the free beer and reminiscing about what a good life old Walter had. A good innings. He didn’t owe life anything or words to that effect. Ya knowworramean.

I never really knew Walter. I just went along for the beer and cheese. And the crisps and sausage rolls of course. I’d quite like a crisp sandwich but I don’t think it’s the done thing at someone’s wake. You can never really tell what flavour the crisps are either – usually plain or salt and vinegar. A crisp sandwich needs to be made with cheese and onion crisps, or beef and it’s no good using the French bread that they usually put out on the buffet table. Needs to be sliced white or a nice fresh white sandwich loaf. Not really good for you anyway though that would never have worried Walter if I know the old boy. Oo what am I saying. I didn’t really know him. He was a passing acquaintance.  A friend of a friend who I occasionally saw in the street shuffling in the other direction in his overcoat and flat cap.

The nice thing about living in Lincoln is that you can just nip up to the Bailgate and see loads of people you know on the way. Not always but often. That sounds like someone’s catchphrase. A cheeky chappie who served his apprenticeship in variety and in the northern clubs before making it to the bright lights of London and getting top billing at the Palladium.

I liked his movies. Used to be on BBC2 on a Sunday afternoon when I woz a kid. Made a change from Lucille Ball. Most of you won’t have heard of Lucille Ball. Yes you, the growing number of people below a certain age. That age changes all the time. Goes up. The only way is up, baaaby.

I’m getting confused. Confused of Lincoln. Walks off in a random direction as if lost.

3rd Law Part 40 here

3rd Law Part 42 here

June 11, 2013

3rd Law Part 40 – death by falling piano

Filed under: 3rd law — Trefor Davies @ 6:59 pm

There’s a trombone in my ear. Not literally. I’d either have to have a huge ear or it would be bruised from the slider on the trombone bashing it every time it slid in and out, or out and in, #yaknowworramean. Sometimes it’s a trumpet in my ear. There’s no way I can tell which it’s going to be because I’m in another room. It’s a lot more trumpet than trombone because that’s just the way it is. In our house. Might be different elsewhere. Maybe an euphonium/flute combo or piano/comb and paper. Having a piano in my ear is a totally different prospect again. Terminal quite possibly.

Piano on my foot is far more likely. Still pretty painful but given the choice I’d have a piano on my foot rather than in my ear any day of the week. Any road up “Do you know the piano’s on my foot.” “No. You hum it and I’ll join in”. The old ones are the best aren’t they? Perhaps not always but we like to think so.

Given the choice I’ve always said that the way I want to leave this mortal coil, shuffle off as they say, is death by piano. I have some pretty specific caveats. The piano must be jettisoned from a hot air balloon desperately trying to gain height. I would be stood directly under said balloon and therefore under the falling piano, accounting also for windage which wouldn’t amount to much considering the likely weight of the piano. If the wind was strong enough to move the piano then they wouldn’t be stupid enough to try and take off in the first place. It could of course be the case that a sudden storm hit the area and caught everyone by surprise. Unlikely though. The weather forecast is pretty good these days.

That doesn’t mean to say that whoever was in the balloon was not stupid. I mean who ever heard of someone loading a piano into a hot air balloon in the first place. Asking for trouble. It’s no wonder they found themselves in the position of having to chuck it overboard.

Would be quite interesting to do it as an experiment. Stick a camera on top of the piano to record the fall. One with a transmitter in case the whole camera was smashed to smithereens upon contact with the ground. It would also make a great clanging sound as it hit the deck. The piano that is not the camera. I doubt that you would be able to hear the noise of the camera amongst all that piano clang. The last chord! You’d have to make sure the piano didn’t land on water or over a bog where all you would hear would be a kind of sucking ploppy noise. Not the desired effect at all.

Anyway I’m not going to do it. Tempting fate. Live long and stay happy. Avoid standing under hot air balloons bearing pianos.  That would effectively be the same as saying your balloon is the bearer of bad tidings which is an equally strange concept. Normally bad news travels fast but not in a hot air balloon. It is unlikely that you would use a hot air balloon to carry bad news. I suppose if you were stuck on a desert island and the only transport you had was a hot air balloon you’d have to use it. No choice really. If you tried to swim the sharks would get you or you would tire and drown. Not a nice death. I’d certainly opt for the death by piano option if it was still on the table, or in the balloon.

If the winds were as strong as they sound as if they might be for you to have to jettison the piano that would of course mean that the news would be travelling a lot faster than the normal sedate pace of a hot air balloon, drifting pleasantly across the Masai Mara Game Reserve. Wonderful views though. You can see the vast herds of migrating wildebeest. One of the natural wonders of the world, apparently. Saw it on some nature programme once. I don’t think I’m imagining it. The thing is if the purpose of your journey was to bear bad news you probably don’t want the distraction of watching wildebeest, or elephants or any other of the “big five”.

I once went to a game reserve in South Africa. We all sat in trucks with a cool box full of beer on each row of seats. It was a rugby tour so cool boxes with beer were the natural order of the day. The game reserve wasn’t a huge one but interesting enough. The different predatory animals were kept in separate pens otherwise they would have had to keep replenishing the stocks of antelop, gazelle and whatnot. Whantnot isn’t a type of animal btw. It was meant to denote etcetera etcetera etcetera. I was being kinda lazy just like I was when I replaced “by the way” with btw. Woteva.

Anyway there we were in this game reserve ooing and aahing at the big five and the medium sized everything else when one of the wheels of the truck started to wobble and proceed to nearly fall off. At this point we were in a lion enclosure. All perfectly safe apparently, provided we stayed in the truck drinking beer. Hmm. The driver radioed for a backup and we sat tight. Drinking beer. We did at one point have to get out of the truck. That’s a consequence of drinking beer. You need to find occasional relief. So we all got out and had a team photo. After the relief bit.

Then we got back in the truck and waited for the replacement to arrive which it duly did. As you may have guessed I lived to tell the tale. As I said my fate lies under that piano and not the horrible death by the gnawing of a lion’s jaws. That would not be nice at all. I seem to be going through a morbid patch at the moment don’t I? Sorry but I can’t help it. I don’t know why. I could shell out a fortune for some shrink to make some stuff up about how I must have been influenced by something in my childhood but no way jose am I going to do that. If you think I would do that you clearly don’t know me. I’d expect to get it free on the National Health. Marvellous institution. Won’t have a word said against it even though you now have to pay to park in the visitors car park at the Lincoln County Hospital. It’s a small price to pay…

3rd Law Part 39 here

3rd Law Part 41 here

June 10, 2013

Nobody will miss me

Filed under: poetry — Tags: — Jim @ 11:16 am

XI can’t got home,
And I can’t stay here;
I have nowhere to hide…
My heart beats faster,
Each day lived in fear.
When the hit-man calls,
You won’t learn what I’ve done.
When the drone strike hits,
Nobody will miss me.

I spilled your secrets,
Put at risk your defence;
The valiant protectors of state,
Don’t like it up ’em;
At great expense,
They will get me;
With a bullet, a toxin,
A false charge or a blast;
I can’t hide.

Though I thought I could,
I can’t lay low;
The worst, worst option:
A nonentity erased.
Nobody will know,
So I’ll tell you myself.
The whole world can’t guard me,
But my guardians may witness,
How they destroy me.

June 9, 2013

Mr Blue Sky

Filed under: fusion,the art gallery — Tags: , — Trefor Davies @ 7:54 pm

I had to upload this photo as a contrast with the shot from the summit of Snowdon last weekend. It was, as may be seen, taken in London under clear blue skies. It is a fairly rare sight in the UK. It wouldn’t have been possible last year, partly because it was taken with a Samsung Galaxy S4 which has the capability of using the forward and rear facing cameras simultaneously. I only got that phone a couple of weeks ago. I normally reserve this type of comment for trefor.net.

Philosopherontap is all about where art collides. trefor.net is about fusion of tech. Well now you are seeing art colliding with technology.

3rd Law Part 39 – musical detritus

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: , — Trefor Davies @ 7:37 pm

The table is littered with musical detritus.  A mute, a folder of music and a trumpet case that presumably contains a trumpet because I can’t see it on its stand. There are also two trumpet mouthpieces and, for what it’s worth, a vuvuzela. I must have bought the latter in a rush of blood sometime because it makes an infernal noise. I nearly forgot there is also an orange pbone which is a plastic trombone.

The pbone is quite a fun instrument. It plays just like a trombone.  Not that I can play it, or the trumpet. They aren’t mine. The guitars are mine. One in its case and the other on the stand next to the sax which is also not mine.

We do have a reasonably musical family although my efforts are somewhat pathetic compared to what some of the kids can do. My sister Sue is also a very good musician. Violinist. It comes from a misspent youth playing away at her violin in her bedroom. When I were a lad I learned to play the guitar instead of revising for my exams. The Beatles mostly though I can also play The House of The Rising Sun and one or two others. I’m terrible for remembering chords though I can usually play ok if I have the music in front of me.

It’s a slight regret that I can’t just pick up an instrument and sit in on someone’s jazz jamming session. In the pub maybe. I have a reasonable voice though I sometimes think I’m tone deaf. It annoys me that I can’t just listen to something and tell what the chord or note is. How we all manage to live through our disabilities. We have to although I’m not so sure that not having a very good musical ear ranks as a disability. Not like only having one leg or being blind.

Those of us who are not one legged or blind (other disabilities are available) are very grateful for the fact mind you. The Paralympics in London in 2012 changed all our perceptions in respect of people with physical disabilities. We should use the example of the paralympians as an incentive to look after our own bodies. I’ve had a dodgy foot for the last two weeks which has been hard enough, or at least a nuisance. It’s getting better now which is a relief for everyone concerned. ie me!

Note I didn’t say blessed relief there. Didn’t feel like it. I’m not in to blessings and stuff like that anyway. Smacks too much of a priest laying hands on me. I can sort it out meself thanks of at least I can call the AA. I’m a member. I get my membership as part of my bank account which is quite handy. I get a load of other benefits as well. Travel insurance for example. Used to get free entry to airport lounges but that has finished. I don’t think I flew anywhere in all the years that lounge entry was part of the deal. It doesn’t come free of course. I pay for it but presumably I must think it’s worth it. Never really checked.

I’m not particularly financially minded. Money isn’t a motive although obv we all need money to live on. I seem to spend all of mine. Never been able to save a bean. I’m not really into material goods. I prefer to spend my money on improving the quality of live. A better bottle of wine for example. Nice bread, a decent steak. You know the sort of thing.

I like my steaks rare. Just so’s you know.

3rd Law Part 38 here

3rd Law Part 40 here

3rd Law Part 38 – tennis balls and chocolate coloured paint

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: , , , , , — Trefor Davies @ 12:28 pm

The sun is doing its level best to peek through the clouds. Struggling mind you. I have a warm cup of tea in my hand which helps to warm one hand up but we all know what happens to warm cups of tea where the 3rd Law is concerned. It will be cold very soon. I might make another.

I do have to pop out this afternoon to buy the milk that I forgot to buy when I popped out this morning to buy milk. Came back with lots of good stuff for tea but no milk. Also I want to buy a job lot of cheap tennis balls. We have been playing cricket in the back garden and have lost every single ball in the house. Used to have loads of them. We still have real cricket balls but there is no way we are going to use them in the back garden. Recipe for disaster.

I did buy the kids 5 real cricket balls. Very handy for when we go to the nets. We lost one within 5 minutes of using them. Didn’t fancy looking in amongst the nettles when we were only wearing shorts. We quite like going down the nets. I throw a few balls down. No bowling. I’m rubbish at bowling. Throwing from close range is far more accurate and a test for the batsman. Then after a sensible amount of time we go and sit in front of the clubhouse and watch the game in the middle. It’s good when we win though tbh it almost doesn’t matter. The good bit is just sitting there taking in the relatively slow pace of the game. V relaxing.

There are occasions when someone brings sandwiches around together with other left overs from the players’ tea. We have been known to fill up on the sandwiches, pork pies and cakes before heading home for our own meal. I used to take the kids to the ground in the winter. Both rugby and cricket were played there so there was all year round sport.

The deal with the kids was that they could have anything they liked, within reason, provided I was allowed to have a few undisturbed beers with my pals. It’s an ideal place for the kids to run wild with lots of other kids there and no doubt one or two more responsible parents keeping an eye on them. Chocolate was off the menu but crisps, peanuts and fizzy drinks were allowed. The problem with this arrangement was that they never had much of an appetite when they got home and their mother would wonder why they didn’t each much of their evening meal. It’s all part of growing up!

When I used to play rugby the combination of 80 minutes of effort on the pitch together with a few sherberts usually resulted in me falling asleep on the settee after we had finished our meal. There were a few knock on effects of this. First of all we soon stopped asking people around for dinner on Saturday nights and in turn stopped being asked. This is because I would always fall asleep. It was probably embarrassing for Anne but there was nothing that could be done about it other than not play rugby. It would be perfectly ok if dinner was with someone else who played rugby because both males would fall asleep. It wasn’t just me. It is standard practice in the rugby fraternity.

There was one occasion where I was about to nod off and Anne insisted that I helped her chose the paint colour for the front room before I did so. I argued that the reason that I didn’t contribute to  these decisions was because Anne always ignored my suggestions and ended up choosing what she had originally wanted in the first place. Ergo no point in me thinking about it. I was ok with this situation. I didn’t really care how the house was decorated anyway.

On this occasion she persevered and I chose a yukky chocolatey brown, just to make a point. “That’s fine, we’ll have that” she said. At this point I admonished her as I had just chosen the most horrible colour I could find. Turns out it wasn’t chocolatey brown but terracotta which apparently was all the rage at that time. Hmm. I turned over and went to sleep.

The following weekend I got home from the match, ate dinner and, you know by now, went to sleep. I woke up a couple of hours later to find that Anne had gone and painted the front room whilst I slept. The verdict? A horrible chocolatey brown. It didn’t look good but fortunately the next day when the paint had dried it looked ok. Men huh?! Women Huh?!

It would be reasonable to think that after my rugby playing days were over the falling asleep on the settee by 8pm became a thing of the past. Unfortunately instead of playing rugby I would go and watch it. This had the side effect of me being in the bar by half time and therefore starting on the beer much earlier than had been the case. Although I didn’t have the same on pitch exertion to tire me out its replacement with several additional beers ended up with the same result.

Nowadays if we are off out on a Saturday night early doors beers need to be avoided. You know it makes sense.

Back to the present there is a boy mowing the lawn for a quid which apparently includes laying out the cricket square. I need to pop out to get some tennis balls. Ciao baby.

3rd Law Part 37 here

3rd Law Part 39 here

3rd Law Part 37 – 18th birthday parties and signs of age

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: , , , — Trefor Davies @ 8:27 am

There’s a metal sign in our garden. It’s black and heart shaped and has the number 18 painted on it. It’s a hangover from our daughter’s 18th birthday party. Not hangover in a bad way you understand, as if we had drunk too much. It was put there on the day of the party and there it has stayed. When I look at the sign it makes me smileJ

She’s away at university now and still comes home during the holidays, unlike her older brother who only comes back when his mother cracks the whip. I don’t mind. I’m sure I used to spend a lot of my time away during the holidays. I once persuaded mam and dad to fund an extra week’s hall fees so that I could “do some work”. I spent the whole week in the pub and it was only on the Sunday night that I decided to knuckle down and actually do something. Ten minutes after I had sat down at the desk there was a knock at the door and there were mam and dad. “Surprise! We didn’t think we’d actually find you working”. As a treat we headed off to the Black Bull in Beaumaris for a slap up steak dinner. It was many years before I told them the truth.

I graduated in 1983. 30 years later our firstborn is about to do the same. His time at University has been productive. Not too much work though probably significantly more than I did. Having said that I did an engineering degree which had 27 hours of timetabled work in the second year. That’s a full time job.

I lived a two minute downhill sprint from the engineering department. I had everything timed to perfection. Get up at the last possible minute, swift breakfast then a sprint down the hill. I used to  have the same thing for lunch every day. Breaded lamb cutlet and chips from the chippy on the High Street. Why change a winning recipe?

When I finished my degree I didn’t particularly want a job though I did apply for an engineering position at the Beeb.  I went for a look around the local BBC studio and the guy there told me every single question that I would be asked at interview. It took several months for the offer of an interview to come through by which time I had forgotten everything. Ah well. The roll of the dice.

If you’re gonna gamble make sure you use your own dice. Words of wisdom. Must have been some really streetwise geezer who thought that one up. Probably a mobster or similar though I imagine a mobster would just point his tommy gun at you and tell you to hand over your wallet. There’s a lot to be said for electronic money. You can’t hand it over though someone could hack your account. Be careful not to disclose your passwords to anyone. Even your mam. She wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway. At least my mam wouldn’t.

It’s my dad who spends the time on the computer. They were fairly advanced in signing up for a broadband line when they retired. Now dad is on Skype and Facebook though I doubt he ever uses it. I signed him up for both. He has the iPad apps and could sit there chatting to his grandchildren. It will take time but he’ll get there. After all he is only 79. My grandmother was 89 when she died so in theory he should do better.

Imagine a 79 year old’s school report. Must do better. Shouldn’t have left his homework on the bus. Number 79 from Carmarthen to Llanelli via Cross Hands. Might not have been a number 79 though there is a finite probability that it was. When dad were a lad they used to go on a charabanc every year to Aberystwyth for miner’s fortnight. The miners would be in the pub from very early on departure day. Things haven’t changed. Two weekends ago I went to Twickenham on a stag weekend. The beers were opened at 7.45am. It was a steady day of it. Nobody got drunk. We’re too old for that sort of thing now.

I did see something on Facebook this morning. BBC Lincolnshire asking what were the signs of age that fans had seen. For me it was having to have varifocal lenses in my specs. Cost a fortune, partly because my prescription is so strong I have to pay extra to get the thinner lenses. Otherwise I’d be wearing jamjar bottoms. At the barbers this morning, Antonio’s on Burton Road, I noted the fact that once my specs were off I was in Antonio’s hands. Couldn’t see a thing. There’s a trust relationship a punter has with his barber (or hairdresser, hairdresser is fine, not my cup of tea but who am I to comment). We even started talking about where I was going on my holidays! Wtf?

That isn’t a blokey thing to talk about. Problem is I don’t want to talk about football. I doubt that Antonio reads the same stuff as me though I’ve never asked him. I know that in his youth he was a singer in a band in Lincoln. Not bad. It only came out because when I was waiting one day I heard him discuss it with another customer.

There are two barber’s chairs at Antonio’s. Him and a sidekick whose name I have never gleaned. Antonio is fast. The sidekick is slow. You want Antonio. He can’t pay the sidekick that much I’m sure. None of my business. I like a number two back and sides with a trim on top. Zzz, zzz, snip, snip and done.

These days I shave in the shower and I’ve noticed that the sideburns on the left side of my face grow longer than on the right. This is because I shave right handed. I don’t actually have sideburns but by the time it comes to the next haircut I very much have a left side sideburn. No worries. It’ll be trendy one day.

Some of my clothes are so old they will soon be back in fashion as well. When I was a kid I desperately wanted a pair of parallels. I think my mam relented in the end. Probably as they were going out of fashion.

3rd Law Part 36 here

3rd Law PArt 38 here

June 7, 2013

3rd Law Part 36 cold hands and tiddlywinks

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: , , , — Trefor Davies @ 6:59 pm

Typing with cold hands is a lot slower going and one is prone to make mistakes. Have you ever noticed? I specifically mention this because my hands are at present cold. It’s been a sunny day but there is an edge to it, especially since next door’s sycamore tree is casting a substantial shade over the conservatory.

The weekend est arrivee as they say in Paris, and Perpignan. Tools have been downed and I’m in for a bit of relaxing third law, some mental escapism. Is all escapism mental anyway? I suspect there is strong mental element to it. We all like to dream. I’m a dreamer. Why not?

Although life is wonderful sometimes the real world needs hiding from. You only have to look at the news. Ever noticed that the news is normally mostly bad news? Who needs it? Just switch off that damn telly will you?

I’m sat in the kitchen because cooker is on and it is giving off heat. The hands are slowly warming up. I’ve donned a pair of socks. On my feet not my hands. If I put socks on my hands I probably wouldn’t be able to type at all, let alone slowly. Counterproductive. Socks on hands.

Mind you there are occasions when socks on hands are lifesavers. In Antartica for example. If you went to Antartica and forgot to take your gloves you wouldn’t last long. In that scenario it would be very useful to wear a pair of socks on your hands. A few pairs even, depending on how thick the socks were. Make sure you still have a pair or two for your feet though because taking your socks off your feet to warm up your hands would mean your feet get cold which is no good either.

If you haven’t got enough spare pairs of socks and can’t borrow any from anyone else then the only sensible recourse is to turn around and head for home. As quickly as your sock encrusted feet will carry you. And make sure you don’t touch any bare metal with your bare hands. Bad news.

There I go again. Talking about bad news. Move on Tref baby. Move on. I only used Antartica as an example, like I said. An extreme one. It could have been any other cold place, like Farenheit’s shed or wherever it was he discovered that you could go colder than zero degrees centigrade. Must have come as a big surprise to find out that you could get colder than nought degrees. Bet he chuckled to himself and said “hey hey hey, wait until I tell the boys about this”.

The boys in question, and I can’t say I’m absolutely certain about this, would have been his fellow scientists at the local science club. They meet at the local church hall on every third Thursday of the month unless it is a Bank Holiday.  Quite interesting, the stuff they talk about. How to turn corned beef into gold. The difference between green flux and pink flux, whatever they are. And don’t ask me why I said corned beef. It just came out that way. Lead would have been more believable although lead is a fairly expensive metal itself. Not as expensive as gold mind you which is ridiculously expensive.

Gold has also caused lots of problems. Wars and small scale armed robberies. When I say small scale I do not seek to minimise the impact of the armed robbery itself. It can’t be very nice to be subjected to an armed robbery. “Hands up or I’ll shoot” or “hands up and you are mincemeat” or words to that effect. I’d stick my hands up pdq. Innit?

It isn’t just gold that robbers so armed robberies for. Sometimes it’s cash, I assume or broccoli. You’d want to be a pretty desperate armed robber to commit such a heinous crime for the sake of a crown of broccoli. Desperate or totally thick which isn’t out of the question. I imagine most armed robbers end up getting caught. They got all the great train robbers in the end didn’t they? I dunno.

I’ve never considered doing an armed robbery myself. I was well brought up. I know the difference between right and wrong. Make love not war. Man. My parents didn’t specifically put it like that but they’d probably agree with me.

Cut to a flashback from Tref’s childhood

Little Tref: “Dad is it ok if I take my cowboy gun down to the post office and do an armed robbery. I need some money for sweets”.

Dad: “No son. Armed robbery isn’t right. People would be frightened for their lives and someone would be deprived of their money”.

Little Tref: “Oh really? Ok then dad, I won’t”.

End of flashback

I do remember having a cowboy outfit when I was a kid. I had a pistol and a holster. Think I might have had a rifle too.  I remember once having my photograph taken by a parent and putting some dust in the barrel of the gun so that it looked like smoke coming out. Disappointingly it wasn’t visible in the photo. We lived in a council owned house with a tennis court out the back. I don’t think the net was there anymore.  I would have been too small to play tennis anyway. Probably wouldn’t have been able to see over the net. Happy days.

Now I have problems, worries, things that keep me awake at night. Actually I don’t particularly. That isn’t to say I don’t wake up in the middle of the night sometimes. Often due to the consumption of beer the previous evening. When I do wake up I sometimes pick up the phone and watch the Twitter stream.  Because most of the people I follow on Twitter are in the UK there isn’t very much action there in the middle of the night.

When I started out on Twitter I followed a load of Americans. It didn’t take me long to realise that this was a mistake. I’ve nothing against Americans but culturally their tweets were different to mine. Talk about going to the mall or grade school or who the Pirates are playing today. Don’t ask me who the Pirates are or what sport they are playing. I just made the name up though there could well be a team called the Pirates. Sounds as if they should come from Pittsburgh or Pensylvania. Not Penang though because that’s not in America. It’s in Malaysia. I know my geography. Unlike the pool attendant who I chatted with at a hotel in San Jose once. He asked me where I was from and I told him “The UK”. “Is that near London” he said. Hey!

I spend quite a few evening unfollowing those Americans. There isn’t a block unfollow tool on Twitter. Took me ages. Worth it in the end though. I still follow some Americans. Have to have someone to keep me entertained during those middle of the night sleepless vigils.

When you wake up too early and then nod off again that’s the best bit of sleep I find. It’s a real result. V refreshing. The dreams you have during that time are the best. Not that I can ever remember them.

I wrote a poem once about surfing the internet when my eyes were closed. There were screens on the inside of my eyelids. Cool or what? I once woke up with my eyes closed. I remember saying to myself “hey I’m awake but my eyes are closed”. Cool huh. Anne would never have found out though in actual fact she was probably asleep herself even though she is a light sleeper. It’s a totally useless fact anyway. Never going to appear in a pub quiz. And I don’t like pub quizzes. They are full of questions about football and TV soaps and other subjects I absolutely know nothing about.

The one quiz question answer that sticks in my mind is “Also sprach Zarathustra”. Not sure if I got the spelling right there. Actually I’m not even sure I know what the question is. Something to do with music but no idea who or what. Just sounded like a handy answer to me. Far more interesting that “Eastenders” or “Manchester United”.

I have to tell you that I have only watched Eastenders once or twice ever. And then probably not the whole programme. How people can waste their time on rubbish I will never know. Far better to spend it writing sections of the 3rd Law. Far more useful. I’ve watched Manchester United a few times. On the telly. Not that I am a Man U fan or even a football fan. It’s just that when you are a sportsman you watch sport, whatever that sport is. Even tiddly winks. Though I don’t think they televise tiddlywinks. Maybe I should suggest it to Skysports.

Actually no. It needs to be a free to air channel. I don’t pay for my TV, apart from the TV License. I certainly wouldn’t pay to watch tiddly winks. I just said that for effect. I can see you all now. “TIDDLY WINKS TF?!!!”

Hey. It takes all sorts.

3rd Law Part 35 here

3rd Law Part 37 here

Written by hand

Filed under: poetry — Tags: — Jim @ 9:31 am

XSend me a letter written by hand;
Ink won’t betray,
Or misunderstand.

In a land where they watch:-
Watch what you send;
And send what you watch:-
To see what you like.

Watch what you like,
To guess what you think…

Think what you read is their concern;
Concerned what you think, or what you might learn.

What you buy,
What you eat;
How you vote,
Who you meet…

What you spend,
What you earn;
So machines can learn.

Your fate laid out in trillions of dots;
Incomplete logic could cost you your job.

No credit,
No loans;
No access,
No-flying…

Remember this,
As the ink is drying.

June 5, 2013

3rd Law Part 35 – the evolution of crystal

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: — Trefor Davies @ 9:02 pm

Crystal

A random word found in a “word” document used to check its spelling

Chrystal

An alternative spelling of crystal

I’m not sure whether the two spellings have different meanings. By rights they should have. What’s the point of being able to spell the same thing in more than one way?  I suppose we could be seeing evolution happen in the language right before our eyes. If so which version is the evolved version?

I don’t really care. I’ve set off down a line of discussion to which I have no attachment. It attracts me not. That’s a new kind of flower. An evolution from the “forget me not” which is also one of the standard knots that boy scouts learn to tie when they first enter the movement. Not really but I thought it sounded good.

My kids were in the scouts. It’s a great organisation. I used to go along to the annual group camp. At the beginning a beaver has to have a parent/guardian in tow to take responsibility for him or her. Then as the kids moved up into cubs and could go on camp unaccompanied the dads were still allowed to go along. This was great fun because an unattached dad did not have to take part in any activities and was put in a separate area of the campsite away from the others which meant we could sit  around all day drinking beer if we so chose.

Beer seems to be a common thread in all this 3rd Law stuff. Ah well. Life is short. Ya gotta do stuff. Ya know the 3rd Law does have some deeply philosophical aspects. I’m not sure I understand much of it but perhaps all will be revealed in the process of writing the book. I could have said “during the book writing process”. Would have been a more succinct way of putting it.

The whole book thing is also about researching a subject. Laws of tinternet don’t just get discovered overnight. They are often the result of painstaking research over years, much of which is spent in a laboratory on a scientific campus. That isn’t true when it comes to the 3rd Law which was a bit of an Eureka moment. However to fully understand such a law takes time. In a sense that is a contradiction to what the 3rd Law is all about but that is one of the great things about it. Its natural beauty. On the one hand the 3rd Law steals your time but on the other hand you need time to understand it. Wonderful.

Another thing that could do with clarification is whether the 3rd Law is a scientific/engineering type of law or whether it is a philosophical law. I’m inclined to go for the former, being a technologist but the whole Philosopherontap side of me says it must fundamentally be a philosophy, or at least represent a philosophy. I don’t even know whether philosophies have laws or whether a philosophy is a law in itself. Gosh, interesting.

One thing that surprises me is that I don’t lie awake at night wondering about the First and Second Laws of the Internet which as you know, at the time of writing, have not yet been discovered. You might ask yourself why the 3rd Law was not called the First Law. The truth is I don’t know. I just don’t know. I can’t explain it. It makes the whole subject even more mysterious and intriguing.

I wonder who invented the word intrigue. It is a good word. Better than crystal (or chrystal – you chose) I think though it is unfair of me to make comparisons. It’s the old apples and pears argument. Like for like. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth though you might be at a disadvantage if you had no teeth. Or at an advantage maybe. The preference for particular words is very subjective or, for those struggling with the difference between subjectivity and objectivity, highly personal. That’s what I think anyway.

I quite like the fact that you can play with words. Also I’ve just noticed that I’ve spilled some natural yoghurt down the front of my jumper. I often do that sort of thing. There’s any number of ties I’ve ruined because of it. It’s one of the reasons I don’t wear ties. That and because I’m a reb. I have also, I regretfully must admit, ruined a fair few good shirts by spilling curry down them. Curry stains are a nightmare to get rid of. As bad as red wine if not worse. At least with red wine there are actions you can take in real time to minimise the damage like covering the stain with salt or pouring white wine onto it. I’m not a big fan of the latter. Why waste more good wine when you have already wasted some of the red.

I realise that neither wine is guaranteed to have been good but I am assuming that for the most part any person or persons intelligent enough to read this book will know their wines. I prefer red to white myself but it’s horses for courses. Innit? In all fairness to you you could be simply experimenting with wine for the first time though this I doubt very much (wink wink). There is also the scenario that you don’t want to pay the rip off prices they charge for wines in restaurants and in any case it almost doesn’t matter what sort of wine it is if you are eating curry. You should be on lager with curry anyway.

Curry is a particular fave of mine though I wouldn’t want it all the time. You have to ring the changes. Have a bit of variety in your life. Try a light chicken salad with some fresh lettuce and tomatoes from the garden. You should consider a French dressing or maybe just a simple balsamic vinegar and olive oil mix.

You really do get what you pay for with balsamic vinegar btw. There’s a lot of rubbish out there. Investing in some good stuff will be worthwhile. It’s the same for a lot of things I suppose though nothing particularly springs to mind. Nothing jumps out of the page at me, grabs my tie, pulls me towards it and says to my face “use me as an example”. Couldn’t anyway because as you already know I don’t wear ties.

That isn’t to say I don’t wear bow ties. I quite like bow ties. Distinctive. I’ve got a few and none of them have any curry, gravy or red wine stains on them for obvious reasons. You will need to work that one out for yourself. This is not kindergarten, or nursery school as it is more likely to be called here in Lincoln (Lincolnshire). Grabbing my bow tie would be a lot harder. You would probably find yourself scrabbling around trying to get a grip. There is also a fair probability that the tie would just undo itself and come away in your hands. That wouldn’t provide the assertive effect you were after in trying to grab the tie in the first place. You would look a bit stupid and maybe even find yourself backing away a bit sheepishly, letting the tie drop to the floor before turning and fleeing as fast as your pathetic feet can carry you. Loser.

Getting quite the aggressive one there aren’t I? Well sometimes things just snap inside. You say to yourself “that’s it, enough is enough, I can’t take any more of this drivel.” Yea well that is simply just how it is. Like it or lump it.

3rd Law Part 34 here

3rd Law Part 36 here

June 4, 2013

3rd Law Part 34 – the mountain and the artificial leg

Filed under: 3rd law — Trefor Davies @ 11:50 am

When I was around 11 years old I climbed Snowdon. I recall it to be a significant effort. Are we nearly there yet? I remember we stopped at the Halfway House and drank “real lemonade” which at the time was something special, a rarity. I climbed it again whilst a student, up the Crib Goch route. We passed a plaque dedicated to the memory of someone who had fallen from a certain point and plunged to his death. I went with Gwyn Roberts on that occasion, a fellow engineering student who nowadays is a team leader for the Snowdon Mountain Rescue.

Later after I had finished my three years of study I went climbing with another pal, Rhys. We caught the bus from Caernarfon to Llanberis. The plan was to spend a week walking and camping in Snowdonia. Arriving on Sunday afternoon we camped in a field opposite the Vaynol Arms and spent the night getting totally plastered in the pub. The next morning we woke up with hangovers and the weather had changed. It was chucking it down.  The tent was soaking and we had little inclination to do much. However we were here to walk so we packed up the kit and set off up the miners track to the summit of Snowdon with a view to deciding where to end up for the night when we got to the top. When we got there we wimped out, walked down the railway line to Llanberis, caught the bus to Bangor and spent the rest of the week drinking in the Globe.

I may have been up the mountain one other time but I’m not sure. The last attempt was with Mossy and Jeremy during one of our boys winter trips to Llanberis to stay at the  Victoria Hotel. They used to do 3 nights bed, breakfast and evening meal for £87.50 provided you stayed before the end of March. An unbelievable deal. We would put together a party of golfers and spend Thursday to Sunday enjoying the pleasures of the area. Some golf was played though not that much.

It was a great deal and I remember on our first visit we stayed in the hotel bar singing until the wee small hours. When I was checking out the next day there was some old chap in front of me asking to see the manager and demanding a refund because of the noise from the bar. A bit rich I thought considering he had only paid £29 a night.

One of those trips instead of playing golf, Jeremy, Mossy and I decided to ascend Everest Snowdon. It might as well have been Everest. We parked at the car park in Pen y Pass and set off. Unfortunately by the time we got to the really challenging steep bit the snow and ice made further progress impossible. Being sensible mountaineers we cut our losses and returned to the safety of the hotel. We were satisfied enough. We had photos of us in the snow kitted up with all the right gear.

So this weekend Anne and I returned to Llanberis and another assault on Snowdon. However seeing as thirty years had passed since my last successful attempt and not wanting to be too knackered for the 50th birthday party that was our reason for being in the area I booked the train several weeks before arriving. The plan was to train it up and walk down.

This was to some extent an admission of defeat. An acceptance that the body was no longer as hard as it once was. Obviously this is not a permanent situation. What once was hard will be hard again. However on this occasion there was insufficient time, and perhaps willpower to undertake the full hardening process so common sense prevailed and the tickets were booked.

As it happens the train turned out to the only serious option as I had sprained my foot the previous weekend whilst in London for the Premiership Rugby final. Intensive therapy (ie a bit of deep heat) during the week brought the foot to a condition where walking was possible though in an ideal world I’d have given it a bit more recovery time.

We were in Llanberis for friend Stephanie’s 50th birthday celebrations. 35 of us crammed into a bunk house. This in itself gave me cause for an eyebrow raise 😉 I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but I am a terrible snorer. Over the years Anne has worked out a strategy to cope because I only snore when I’m lying on my back so when the need arises she just pushes me on to my side and hey presto, snoring stops.

Unfortunately in a room with 8 bunks and 7 other blokes you don’t really know, the simple push over to the side is not going to be practical. That first night I snored for Wales. The others had tried to wake me up but not a hope. In the morning two of the bunk beds were empty, their occupants having decamped to the living room.

In fact I only woke up because at 6.25am someone’s alarm went off. They had lost their phone the previous evening but now found it deep inside the tubular steel frame of the bunk bed. It had fallen down inside and any attempts to call it to find it had been fruitless because there is no mobile phone signal inside a tubular steel pipe.

artificial legAt 6.25 therefore the main walking party arose and shortly afterwards set off for Snowdon leaving me with Pete Sherlock’s artificial leg to bring up on the train. Pete had two artificial legs. One was suitable for an ascent and the other for a descent. I was to take the “descent” limb up in my rucksack and do a swap at the summit.

The artificial leg sticking deliberately out of my rucksack attracted a few curious glances and eventually someone did ask for an explanation which they duly received.

It took an hour for the train to get to the top and we found that the walkers, fair play to them, had already arrived. The summit was covered in cloud which unfortunately meant that there was no view. The temperature was also substantially lower than it had been below cloud level and we had to wrap up.

Pete decided that it made more sense to train it down and took my seat, not booked for the return leg (no pun intended) when the time came to go.

The walk down took me ages, having as I said injured my foot on the rugby weekend. We passed literally hundreds of people on their way up. As mountain climbs go it is almost the equivalent of a motorway. There were plenty of people either clearly not going to make it to the top due to complete exhaustion or who were totally inadequately prepared for what lay ahead. The woman in a pair of espadrilles for example or the two very pleasant girls who were on their way up in shoulderless tops.

I was also passed by an old bloke running up the mountain who a short time later came past me again on his way down. It put me to shame. At one point I saw a domestic row unfurl before me in real time. The wife sat down and decided she could go no further. The two daughters stood around waiting whilst the husband had a go at her and in a tantrum turned around and headed back down.

It was disappointing to see the occasional bit of litter on the way down. Plastic bottle tops, bits of paper. I imagine that this was down to the sheer volume of people rather than the lack of care for the mountainside. With so many people it is going to be inevitable that things got dropped unnoticed, or by small children.

It was a tough bone jarring five and a half miles down the hill. Llyn Padarn, a long time visible in the distance, gradually grew larger. As I approached the foothills the landscape changed. There were trees, albeit stunted, and a few houses started to appear. Finally I made it to the tarmac surface of the road and down into Llanberis and basecamp. I just had time for a quick shower before the second day of celebrations began.

Two days later my lower body is still stiff. I’d like to think I will one day make it to the top again without the artificial assistance of the train. We shall see. I doubt it will ever involve carrying an artificial leg though.

3rd Law Part 33 here

3rd Law Part 35 here

May 30, 2013

3rd Law Part 33 – the age of steam

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: , — Trefor Davies @ 8:18 pm

The age of steam. The romantic age of steam. We all wear the same rose tinted spectacles when we think of it. In fact the trains were slow and not necessarily comfortable. Today’s high speed trains are far more luxurious and get you there more quickly. The exception here being the toilets – the toilets don’t seem to have changed since Stevenson’s day. Notwithstanding this I prefer to put on those pink hippyish specs, probably heart shaped, and gaze wistfully back at the steam train. The one that went choo choo and chuff chuff chuff. More chuffs than choos is the correct format I assure you.

Various combination of kids and I have occasionally taken a trip on a steam train. Once we went to Scarborough on The Union of South Africa, the last commercial steam passenger train to leave Kings Cross Station. We weren’t on that trip. That was in the sixties I think, nineteen sixties. We were on a trip from Lincoln to Scarborough, except we weren’t. Turns out the line to Lincoln can’t handle the weight of the engine so we had to join the train at Doncaster, itself a station full of railway history. Apparently, I’m not sure what that history is but that isn’t part of the remit.

It’s a good job we weren’t on the train all the way from London because it does take ages. The trip to Scarborough stopping for water & fuel at York where we had to get off and walk around a little reminded me of the movie The Railway Children. One of my faves, together with Mary Poppins. As we were steaming chuffing and choo chooing through the countryside children would run to watch. Everyone would wave and we happily waved back, knowing that was our responsibility as the favoured ones.

I can’t remember what we did in Scarborough. A photo opportunity with the engine, fish and chips and an ice cream probably and then we turned around and headed back towards Doncaster.

Now what you need to know about this train is that it had only been given the go ahead to travel at 70 miles an hour. The Union of South Africa is a Nigel Gresley A4 Pacific. These were the ultimate in steam trains with a through tender that allowed a relief driver and fireman to pass through the tender to take over a shift at the front without having to stop the train. They were built for speed and The Mallard, which holds the world speed record for a steam train at 126mph is of exactly the same design as the Union of South Africa.

Considering this 70 mph seems a bit tame. However the Mallard had been towing far fewer coaches and was a new engine at the time, or at least only five months old. We were never going to make it close to the speed record so 70mph seemed fine.

During the trip it became noticeable how many hard core steam enthusiasts (ok nerds) there were on board. These were the people who had either brought periscopes or plastic face masks with them. These were needed because if you stuck your head out of the window you were showered in ashes and steam. You could therefore tell the nerd because he, they were almost exclusively male although they may well have had a female in tow, would have a blackened face with white bits where the face mask had covered the eyes.

As I was remarking, discretely, upon this to my lad one of the panda faces walked hurriedly through the train spreading the message, 75 miles an hour, 75 miles an hour! Clearly the driver had thrown caution to the wind and ignored the 70 mph imposed limit. We didn’t care. We felt great. We had been part of it and to hell with authority. Rebels all.

The train pulled into Doncaster as it was getting dark and the locomotive was unhitched to be replaced with a diesel. After all I’m sure the London bound passengers would be glad to make it home before midnight.

Shortly after that trip I bought a Hornby 00 Limited Edition Union of South Africa that to this days lies in its box in the attic waiting for some attention.

The carriages on the train really did remind me of the British Rail buffet serving curled up sandwiches. We settled for drinks and kit kats having, as you know, fuelled up in Scarborough.

I’m sure most of still very much think wistfully of the age of steam even though by now most of us will not have been around at the time. It’s a bit like when you hear the Lancaster Bomber or Spitfire fly overhead as we tend to do living in Lincoln. When you hear the magnificent roar of the engine you run outside and if you are luck catch a glimpse before the plane vanishes over the rooftops or trees.

The accursed trees, though I don’t really mean that. I quite like trees, especially oaks and other deciduous natives. I almost said decidedly native then but I didn’t so that’s ok. Innit? We have sycamore trees peering down into our garden which are a real nuisance come autumn as all their leaves seem to fall into our side of the hedge and not next door where they belong. Also in the spring we get little sycamore plants shooting up everywhere. Until that is they are cruelly killed off in their infancy by the indiscriminate scything blades of the lawn mower. I can hear it now, laughing cruelly as it cuts off the heads of the seedlings, nyahahahahahahahaaaaaaa.

Sycamore is not as good for burning on a log fire as is oak and doesn’t attract as much wildlife so frankly in my book the sycamore doesn’t have that much going for it.

3rd Law Part 32 here

3rd Law Part 34 here

The 5th of May

Filed under: poems — Tags: — Jim @ 6:25 pm

XOn the 5th of May I didn’t wake up,

My eyes stayed shut and my kidneys packed up;

My lungs didn’t breathe and my bowels didn’t grind,

My ears heard nothing, and nor did my mind!

 

The broken fence, the creaky gate,

General repairs would have to wait;

I wasn’t about to paint the shed,

I couldn’t buy paint – because I was dead!

 

I’d slipped away, and I never knew;

Nobody told me my time was due!

The things I had planned mattered no more,

And Daisy slept with the angels, cos I didn’t snore!

May 27, 2013

3rd Law Part 32 – posh hotels and coal mines

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: , , , — Trefor Davies @ 10:17 am

I’ve stayed in a few nice hotels around the world in my time. There was one I stayed at in Taipei where every room was actually a suite and you could take two interconnecting suites if you needed more space for the family. I can’t remember what it was called now. It had a pool on the roof.

I got there late one night after my flight had been delayed and my luggage failed to make the onward connection from somewhere, Hong Kong maybe. No problem, I thought. It’ll have turned up by the morning. In the meantime I got to my room to find that all it had was a sitting room area and a dining area with a bowl of fruit on the table. Bit odd I thought, never having stayed in a suite before and not really even realising that this is what this room was.

Further exploration revealed that the bedroom was off a changing room that also led to a marble bathroom. I had a choice of one of those posh power showers in its own marble wet enclosure or a separate marble bath. I also had a complete set of toiletries including shaving kit and toothbrush, and a nice bathrobe. Perfect, I didn’t need anything else that night.

I had a bath and a shower and chilled out in the robe. It wasn’t until the next morning that I found the second toilet! Two toilets in a hotel room! It’s never happened since though I have stayed in a few nice gaffs. The great thing about nice hotels is that they usually have nice bars and you can often meet interesting people. Doing it on corporate expenses also allows you to look as if you are loaded on someone else’s dollar.

There was one year where we had the corporate managerial get together at Disneyland Paris. At the time we had three kids including a baby. I drove the family over from the UK and we all crammed into a room with two small double beds. The plan was for the baby to sleep in the pushchair. Whilst I worked the gang would go around the theme park and meet up later. I couldn’t spend all my time with them because after all I was there for the corporate team building. The first night I got in from the bar at about two o’clock in the morning only to find that the baby wasn’t sleeping in the pushchair after all. He was in my space in the bed! It wasn’t a particularly comfortable trip sleep wise but we weren’t complaining as we didn’t normally get to go abroad on our family holidays.

Having a business I own, or at least partly own puts a totally different perspective on things. Working for a corporate I used to stay at the best hotels I could get away with. There was usually a company travel policy but there were always exceptions that meant you could stay somewhere better – the conference hotel for example.

Working for a smaller business means I think a lot more about where to stay. I look for value for money rather than style and image. This doesn’t mean I always stay in poor quality hotels, though it sometimes does mean that. It just means I look for the best deal for the company.

All the travel I used to do did mean I got to accumulate lots of air miles and hotel points. We once used up 360,000 airmiles for four flights to California and spent three weeks travelling around staying at places loaned to us by friends I had made on my travels.

All the travel stopped when we set up business in the UK but I still had a wodge of hotel points that stayed active but never got used. Then last year we decided to go and see the Paul Merton Show in London and took the opportunity to use the points to book a night at the five star Intercontinental Park Lane. I also used Eastcoast train points to procure two first class return tickets to London.

The funny thing was that train was packed (that isn’t the funny bit). It was packed with members of the Unison trade union. They were all on their way to a huge rally in Hyde Park to demonstrate against government job cuts. It just felt odd to know that we were heading to the same place to stay in ostentatious style looking out onto the same park at which they were congregating to protest.

“Let them eat cake” I shouted, ducked and ran off. I didn’t really but it did feel strange.

We had a good time. Went out with friends Graham and Carole to a South Indian Restaurant before going on to the show and finished off at the Phoenix Artist Club. The Phoenix is a class joint in Soho where members of the theatrical profession (and me) go to let our hair down after a long day entertaining.

I had my Christmas bash there last year and we went through 53 bottles of champagne. Quality. I’m beginning to sound like a celebrity jet setter here aint I? I’m not really. Give me a quiet night in with beans and toast and a bit of bacon with a glass of milk any day.

I prefer my bacon fried. It tastes a lot better than when grilled. Trouble with frying is that these days they put so much rubbish into bacon that it often part steams as a result of all that rubbish eeking out into the pan. I refer you to this post on how to cook the perfect bacon sandwich for a guide on the subject.

When my dad was a kid they used to keep a pig in a sty at the bottom of the garden. The pig would eat up all the scraps and leftovers and then at some point it would get slaughtered by a visiting butcher. That all stopped when they introduced the law about all such slaughtering needing to be done in abatoirs.

The meat from the pig would largely be kept for my grandfather who as a miner needed a good supply of protein. My day said that my grandfather was in perfect physical condition from the waist up but that his legs and knees were shot hue to having to work underground on his knees in confined spaces.

My grandfather died “of the dust” when dad was still young. In his last days he would ask the family to open the windows of the cottage to let some air in but the windows would already be open. In those days you seldom saw an old miner. When they died the whole community would turn out to mourn. Dad says there were hundreds at his own dad’s funeral. It left a lasting impression.

It also left dad a lifelong socialist although he didn’t particularly mourn the pit closures and the passing of the coal trade in the UK. It wasn’t a nice job. Dad has a story about a disaster at the Blaenhirwaun pit where my grandfather worked. It was over the road from our house and its shaft was sunk by John Lewis, my great grandfather on my grandmother’s side.

Whilst the disaster was ongoing the whole community turned out to help and sandwiches were provided to all involved to keep them going. The rule was corned beef for everyone unless you had been working underground in which case you could have ham. Dad was dishing out the sandwiches. At one stage some “officials” from the coal board came along, went straight to the front of the queue and demanded ham sandwiches. Dad sent them to the back and told them they could only have corned beef. Hehe. I quite like ham sandwiches myself with nice crusty white bread and butter.

The cottage is still in the family. My anti Mair owns it though it doesn’t get used much nowadays. When we were kids it was our main holiday destination. I would go over the road for walks around the by then disused pit. Not really a very safe thing to do. I’d help Rachel Mary next door pick bits of coal off the tips or slag heaps. RM had to pay for her coal unlike my gran who as a miner’s widow had hers free of charge.

Summer holidays down there would always be pretty similar. Playing cricket in the back garden with dad. Days out on the bus in Llanelli or Swansea. Maybe a walk to the park in Cross Hands. Simple times. Uncomplicated. Not like the electronic fuelled lifestyle of today. We still need to work out how to get the balance right these days. Mind you I am quite possibly looking back through rose tinted spectacles. If I dig deep enough I can also recall the intense boredom of summer holidays or Sunday afternoons spent looking out at the rain with nothing on the box and another game of Monopoly in prospect.

3rd Law Part 31 here

3rd Law Part 33 here

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