A Welsh Born Icon

1st Mon

2009-07-03T11:10:00.006+01:00

The Bomber got his first mon grading at judo last night and is a pleased as punch.

I was shooting the breeze with Darren while Ben was getting changed, and asked him why there was a Brazilian flag on the wall of the dojo. He said that the club had some sort of relationship with a Brazilian Jiu-jitsu club and that he'd been training in BJJ himself that morning.

There's really a lot of cross discipline work going on. He told me that one of the seniors is boxing at the Roger Gracie Vie Academy as well as doing judo. That's the same place where Johnny - Ben's Kru - is the muay Thai instructor.

Round and round and round it goes.

Prodnose: Goodness me, there's a lot of testosterone in here today.

Myself: I guess so. Did I tell you that Adam is fighting in Thailand on Saturday?

Coo What a Scorcher!

2009-07-02T08:00:00.002+01:00

BBC: The Met Office has raised its heatwave alert level in parts of England, as hot and humid conditions look set to continue until Friday.

London and the South East are now on Level 3 of four, with temperatures set to reach at least 32C (89.6F)

Myself: Oh Fiona! This heat. I can't stand it any longer. This interminable heat is enough to drive a man out of his mind.

Fiona: Steady Charles- you're losing your grip.

Myself: I can't stand it any longer! I can't! (SHOUTS) I can't!

F/X: FACE SLAP

Myself: (SUDDENLY CALM) Thank you Fiona. I deserved that. Oh darling Fiona!

Betty Marsden: Oh darling Charles.

Myself: Oh darling darling Fiona

Betty Marsden: Oh darling darling darling Charles!

Myself: Holding you like this I feel something I don't quite understand.

Betty Marsden: I don't quite understand it either. And yet, I sense it, somehow.

Myself: I somehow sense it too.

Betty Marsden: I'm glad you sense it. It makes it better- for both of us somehow- knowing.

Myself: I know

Betty Marsden: I know you know

Myself: I know you know I know.

Betty Marsden: Yes. I know. Oh Charles- what's wrong?

Myself: Oh I don't know. It's just this damned heat. Oh Fiona, how I hate having to meet you furtively like this. Suppose someone were to find us out?

Betty Marsden: Who would ever think of looking for us here? In this damp, steamy hell. Charles - there's someone there - crouching behind that Palm Tree - see, there - that small, swarthy man in a loin cloth. Look he's coming over.

Myself: It's all right Fiona. I'll handle him. I speak his language you know. All right- what do you want you grinning devil?

Prodnose: (FOR IT IS HE) Governor's respects sir, but he says ladies aren't allowed in the Turkish Bath.

Spare the rod

2009-07-01T09:51:00.002+01:00

The Bomber claims to have become an accomplished angler in Florida, even cooking and consuming some of his catch after getting the bug down in Wales in 2006.

We were talking to a guy fishing on the Wandle on Sunday. All you have to do is buy a license from the Post Office and you're away.

That should be this weekend's project.

Argos will have to take the strain for tackle, as his last rod (I kid you not) "burned down".

Deep, deep, down

2009-06-30T10:22:00.004+01:00

Carrying on from yesterday, reading for background in Iran reminded me that I was finishing off The Smile of Murugan: A South Indian Journey as the bloody conflict in Sri Lanka was playing itself out.

That made me conceive of background to it in terms of the Tamil diaspora and the Chola dynasty; of a millennium or more, not decades.

"This one will run and run," as Fergus might have said.

(It also helped me to get some sort of handle on Rama and Hanuman turning up in the names of muay Thai techniques.)

Neda

2009-06-29T10:49:00.002+01:00

Four years on I am rereading "Reading Lolita in Tehran" to try and get some sort of fix on Iran.

It is, in light of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, almost unbearably poignant.

You could also try watching 'Persopolis'.

My advice for today is not to be a woman in Persia.

That's a cracker

2009-06-28T10:48:00.002+01:00

I can't remember where I got this tip, but a foolproof way to finish off your pork cracking is to remove the rind from the joint after cooking and stick it in the microwave for a couple of minutes.

It save all the aggravation of starting or finishing your roast a very high temperature.

The Power of Personal Metrics

2009-06-27T07:19:00.001+01:00

Using a flood of new tools and technologies, each of us now has the ability to easily collect granular information about our lives—what we eat, how much we sleep, when our mood changes.

I love all this stuff. To easily collect; to boldly go (sic.)

Boy George Michael Jackson Browne: End of an era

2009-06-26T00:03:00.000+01:00

Indian defence scientists are planning to put one of the world's hottest chilli powders into hand grenades.

They say the devices will be used to control rioters and in counter-insurgency operations.

Researchers say the idea is to replace explosives in small hand grenades with a certain variety of red chilli to immobilise people without killing them.

The chilli, known as Bhut Jolokia, is said to be 1,000 times hotter than commonly used kitchen chilli.

..........................

Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.

Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.

She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.

Roar with the social lion

2009-06-25T10:37:00.004+01:00

The Bomber is going to a birthday party after school today so he's not staying with me tonight.

Yesterday at the theatre the Profit Burglar shrewdly pointed out that this means I am free to go to the comedy at GJ's.

That'll be twice in three months if I make it.

What larks.

15% of the Seagull

2009-06-24T09:30:00.002+01:00

Join us for an evening of new comedy accompanied by a free glass of Pimm's on Wednesday the 24th of June at The Colour House.

That's where I'll be this evening at least. You should come too. It may be great, it may be lousy, but at least they are in there swinging. Theatre on the doorstep; use it or lose it.

There Goes Ryman Pieman

2009-06-23T01:00:00.002+01:00

Myself: Yesterday it was my birthday
I hung one more year on the line
I should be depressed
My life's a mess
But I'm having a good time.

Prodnose: So it was! A belated Happy Birthday amigo.

Myself: Maybe I'm laughing my way to disaster
Maybe my race has been run
Maybe I'm blind to the fate of mankind
But what can be done?

Prodnose: Repeat and fade?

Myself: Repeat and fade? Why not? A forbidding, fatalistic philosophy but not without consolation.

The entire company (repeating and fading): Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time

...........

The Ginger Geezer (unconvinced in spite of our protestations): Are you having a good time? I sure am. Do you like soul music?

Myself: No

Ginger Geezer: Well, do the trouser press, baby! One, two three!

Myself: Trouser press fever!
Prodnose: Whooh! Whooh!

Myself: Trouser press fever!
Prodnose: Whooh! Whooh!

Myself: Trouser press fever!
Prodnose: Whooh! Whooh!

Myself: Trouser press fever!
Prodnose: Whooh! Whooh!

Myself: Trouser press fever!
Prodnose: Whooh! Whooh!

Myself (normal service having been resumed): The programme you have been listening to is a one-act play in eight parts by G. G. Dunnett for eighteen albatrosses and reservoir. The part of Old Bill was played by a frying pan. The other part of Old Bill was played by Sir Rupert Carpet who found a pair of swimming trunks on his head and was surprised... fades out without repetition.....

Still here

2009-06-22T09:03:00.003+01:00

All right thinking people tip their caps to Whit Stillman.

Here's an interview with him about making the great 'Metropolitan' available free in the US on Hulu.

We can't get that in the UK, but we can get the movie on BBC IPlayer free for the rest of the week.

I imagine these developments are not unrelated.

Bring on his follow up, 'Barcelona':

Ted: Spanish girls tend to be really promiscuous.
Fred: You're such a prig.
Ted: No, I wasn't using "promiscuous" pejoratively. It's just a fact. They have completely different attitudes toward sex.
Fred: Well, I wasn't using "prig" pejoratively.

It was a gas

2009-06-21T22:13:00.000+01:00

I'm back from a successful London to Brighton Bike ride, including cresting the Ditchling Beacon without walking on the way up.

Didn't get to use my Ultraflatable2 though. Man they were pushing on an open door selling me that.

The Girl Can't Help It

2009-06-20T08:15:00.001+01:00

September 30 will be the fiftieth anniversady of Jayne Mansfield opening the Chiswick flyover.

Miss Mansfield was driven to the flyover from Borehamwood film studios, in Hertfordshire, by limousine and cut a red ribbon with gold-plated scissors to open the road.
The glamour of the M4 motorway, oh my brothers, and its many notable junctions.

Myself: Contrary to popular belief, junction 39 does exist. However, it consists of a single slip road completing the missing movement onto the westbound carriageway from the A48 at junction 38, thus there is no exit from the motorway at this junction.

Prodnose: You don't say?

A Good Sport

2009-06-19T09:57:00.003+01:00

Winston Gordon helped take the Bomber's judo class last night. He's an Olympian and the 2009 British Judo Open Champion in the 90kg class.

My eight year old is five weeks into his judo career. I think it's a great advert for the sport that an elite player like Gordon takes time out to to bring on kids like him.

Twit

2009-06-18T09:58:00.003+01:00

"The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had contacted the social networking service Twitter to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iranians who are disputing their election."

These are strange times. I wonder where the cards will fall.

Here is a contrary view.

All this and heaven too

2009-06-17T08:55:00.000+01:00

AbbeyFest is nearly upon us for another year, and we're sponsoring it again.

As ever you are all invited to come along and have a drink with us at the free jazz on Friday evenings see http://www.colourhousetheatre.co.uk/abbeyfest/jazzshows.asp

Myself: Recent encounters with structuralist and poststructuralist critical theory, linguistics, and cognitive sciences have brought the theory and analysis of music into the orbit of important developments in present-day intellectual history. Without seeking to impose an explicit redefinition of either theory or analysis, these performances will explore the limits of both while addressing decidability, ambiguity, metaphor, music as text, and music analysis as cognitive theory.

Prodnose: Nice.

The Quickening

2009-06-16T10:00:00.002+01:00

Highlander II in a nutshell:

Louise Marcus: Okay, now let me just see if I can get this straight. You come from another planet, and you're mortal there, but you're immortal here until you kill all the guys from there who have come here... and then you're mortal here... unless you go back there, or some more guys from there came here, in which case you become immortal here... again.

Conner MacLeod: Something like that.

Myself: Are we clear?

Prodnose: Crystal.

Disraeli Gears

2009-06-14T10:59:00.004+01:00

I took my bike in for a service on Saturday. I'd always intended to have it gone over before London/Brighton, but my hand was forced by difficulty moving down from 2 to 1 on my front cogs during my last training ride. This is important as there be hills 'twixt here and there.

It turns out that through indolence I have chain stretch which has been left untreated for long enough for my rear sprockets to be worn as well.

Replacing worn sprocket cassettes and chainrings after missing the chain replacement window is much more expensive than simply replacing a worn chain in the first place.

Likely bill approx £100.

how express and admirable

2009-06-14T09:30:00.002+01:00

Following on from yesterday's post, I found a picture of Ben from a year ago in my log.

I think that there is a story - involving a boy, his mother and a wise man - that may go some of the way to explaining why I train regularly.

"I can't get my little boy to stop eating sugar," complained the mother when granted an audience.

"Come back and see me in two weeks," replied the wise man.

Disappointed, the mother departed, but two weeks later, she dutifully returned with her son.

"Stop eating sugar," said the wise man to the little boy.

"Why did we have to wait two weeks for that?"

"Because," the wise man said, "I had to give up sugar myself."

Moving on

2009-06-13T09:01:00.003+01:00

I find that I have two snatched phone videos of the Bomber doing the same thing two years apart.

Uploaded April 2007:

Uploaded June 2009:

They sure grow up quickly.

P.S. The odd soundtracks are from YouTube's AudioSwap facility. Recommended tracks 1 and 2. Go figure.

More in Sorrow than Anger

2009-06-12T09:00:00.003+01:00

WASHINGTON (AP) — The violence that has surged for two years in Afghanistan reached a new high last week, and more difficulty lies ahead, the commander of U.S. troops in the Middle East said Thursday.
Gen. David Petraeus said the number of attacks in Afghanistan over the last week hit the highest level since the December 2001 fall of the Taliban.
That would be the Afghanistan where our deployment might be completed without a shot fired in anger according to John Reid all those years ago.

A Hot Verifying Dreamboat

2009-06-11T08:59:00.003+01:00

World record for most people dressed as Smurfs in Swansea.

The Welsh city was turned blue as a group of 2,510 people, the majority of whom were students from the local university, crammed into the Oceana nightclub to almost double the previous record.

My land, my alma mater, my goodness.

Face Facts

2009-06-10T09:54:00.005+01:00

With reluctance -and now that she has been revealed as the new smokey eyed, Mario Testino lensed, face of Burberry - I have decided to downgrade the whole Emma Watson thing you've got going on from pervy to dirty old man.

It's still disreputable, but no longer necessarily a matter for the police.

The Parable of the Talents

2009-06-09T09:49:00.004+01:00

Matthew 25:23

His master said to him, 'Well done, good and trustworthy servant! Since you have been trustworthy with a small amount, I will put you in charge of a large amount. Come and share your master's joy!'

In a nutshell, the reason why the MPs' expenses scandal is so devastating to our political system is that character is a key issue in public life for the simple reason that we have to trust our representatives to make important decisions on our behalf.

If you can't rely on these thumb-on-the scales merchants not to cheat on their out-of-pockets, you certainly can't rely on them to decide about the future of our nuclear deterrent or the National Health Service.

Neither can you trust them not to misuse personal data to smear, sully and taint anyone (me and you included) who happens to get in their way, with the same malicious and cavalier vulgarity with which they plot against and undermine each other.

ID cards anyone?