Outsize Postcard

I always forget things about coming up here. When the sun sets on my first day, I'm always surprised when the light from the lighthouse over the water shines through the windows. When I wake up the first morning I always confuse the noise of the seals in the harbour with the sound of people theatrically gobbing up large quantities of phlegm, performing elaborate belches or suffering from other digestion orientated inconveniences. I forget the pace of life and how fucking tired you get doing nothing all day.

Then there's the people. I just walked up the street to get the paper. If the shop is empty - as it usually is - the young chap behind the counter is normally keen to impress upon you his take on the events of the day. Thus a discussion on conservative fiscal policy and a debate on the merits of a flat tax ensue. You don't buy a paper so much as you enter into a discussion about the events of the day. Further up the hill and round the corner is the bus shelter. The fact that there's only two buses a day did little to dissuade the local authority from constructing an elaborate shelter with glorious views out across the harbour and even has its own toilets.

In lieu of an actual bus service, the shelter has been appropriated by the self-styled 'College of Knowledge'; a collection of local alcoholics who spend the day pontificating on the troubles of the world and arguing about booze. Large, sparsely populated islands are great places to find high concentrations of alcoholics. People will tell you it's because of poor internal communications, low turnover, few employment opportunities etc. In this instance, I don't think the 12 distilleries can be helping, myself.

The shop at the top of the hill sells the things that the post office does not. I wouldn't be surprised if a friendly agreement between owners (or 'cartel' as the bullies from the EU would probably brand it) keeps this arrangement stable. Mars Bars are available in one, Snickers bars in the other. Walking back down the hill the other way, you can see Northern Ireland most days. The terrestrial TV service comes from Northern Ireland, as does the very intermittent cellular service. People will insist they're closer to Ireland than they are to the mainland. A look at a map disproves this, but the misconception is a popular one. Right on the top of the hill is an old cold war era sentry post. No one seems to remember what it's there for, though the consensus guess is that they used it to look out for Russian boats entering the Irish sea.

Back home, I had forgotten how much time dad spends cooking. Hours pass by. Today he has been cooking for good on two hours so far. Neighbours are coming round for dinner (in another two hours). We're having slow roast venison. So far this visit we've had an amazing roast chicken, gourmet welsh rarebit and a cheese and biscuit spread that defeated the three fat bastards who attempted to polish it off. A couple of visits ago Dad, Seamus and I went fishing. Dad and I then spent 4 hours preparing a fish pie. It's the type of cooking that's so exhausting that you're not hungry when you finish.

Yesterday we went to see a part of the island called 'The Oa' - a bit that sticks out of the south bit of land beyond the airport. It's beautiful down there. I walked down to the cliffs by myself - dad's knee was giving him a bit of grief - and the landscape just kind of unfolded around me. There were crags, ravines, sheer cliffs, stacks - landscape high drama. Grass on sheer rock is beautiful. I was watched with suspicion by a group of wild goats. It's a wonderful place to be, but it's also incredibly slow here. I'm coming home tomorrow and part of me regrets that I'm leaving so soon; but I know that if I stay much longer I'll start to grow irritable. Besides, it's time to rejoin the human race.

When not cooking or on expeditions, Dad and I sit and watch the TV or listen to the radio. Dad likes to talk about Arsenal, the 'shits' in the labour party, the 'bastards' in the conservative party and enjoys speculating as to how mad my mother has grown since she left him. I'd hate to give you the wrong impression - the latter line of conversation is always pursued with great affection. Dad's at that stage of life where there's always a new ailment to preoccupy him. This is my first visit since he acquired a machine to force air into his lungs at night. The result is that he's now sleeping properly, the most visible effect of which is that he now doesn't repeatedly pass out during the day. There's a local newspaper that dad occasionally writes a column for describing recent games played at the local chess club. He also seems to be the local IT expert, a development which is quite worrying bearing in mind his hard-earned reputation as an inveterate registry meddler.

Dad wanted to talk about the changes he has made to his will a couple of nights ago. I'm sure he has many good years left in him - he's only 60, after all - but it was a weird conversation to have and has put me in a very strange place. I've had involuntary flashes about what it would be like when he dies. How will it feel to have to come up here when he passes away? What will it be like when the phone rings with the news? Christ, it's morbid, I know. And of course it's totally counterproductive to think about it: if you're worried about losing something then the worst thing you can do is stress about losing it while it's till around. But, as I say, it's involuntary. All this talk of solicitors and decrees brings it to the front of your mind. It'll fade in time.

There are two other things weighing on my mind at the moment. One is the flight from Glasgow to Southampton, which will be in a plane maintained by the captain of my cricket team who is also an aircraft engineer. He sure can bat, but he's made one too many jokes about bits being left over after procedures recently for the ride to be an entirely comfortable one. The second is that two good friends are coming over for dinner on Tuesday night. They're lavish entertainers themselves, so the bar has been raised a bit and I'm getting a bit pathetically nervous-housewife about it. Yes, I know - daft. But it's another one of those things you can't fight. I'm thinking roast pork belly, but maybe I won't make it home because the plane will snap in half or something.

Cheery-bye.

Alzheimers Strikes

[ring ring]
[ring ring]
Dad: Hello?
Me: Hi Dad
Dad: What's all that noise in the background? Are you at a railway station?
Me: Er, I'm at the airport
Dad: Which airport?
Me: Glasgow airport
Dad: Oh that's a coincidence. You'll be there on Sunday when you come up to see me.
Me: Dad, I'm coming over today
Dad: What do you mean?
Me: I mean I'm coming over to Islay today. In twenty minutes, in fact. I'll be there in forty. I'm leaving on Sunday.
Dad: Nonsense! I wrote your schedule in my diary. I've got it right here. You definitely...definitely....said Sunday....

[rustle rustle]

Dad: Oh shit

__________


Villagers in the pub last night remarked they'd never seen him drive so fast as he set off for the hour long journey to the airport. Even more remarkably, he made it there before me. The flight itself was a bastard. You fly over to Islay from Glasgow in a thirty seater twin prop. The cloud was very low, the wind was high and the water next to the strip was as choppy as I'd ever seen it. As the plane touched down the pilot was fighting cross winds - travelling in one direction and facing in another is not a pleasant experience. Oh well. As they say: any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

"Hello, c*ckface"

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006440317,00.html

Fantastic!

Another reason to love the black boy

Order anything with a spirit in - whiskey on the rocks to a plain old G&T and the landlords stock response will be:

"Sooooo... is that a single? Or do you want a proper drink?"

Marvellous.

Something in the Water?

Some entirely unrelated, unconnected friends have had a run of bad luck recently. Only last week, one had his bike stolen and his contract job ended abruptly. Another is going through huge professional and personal schisms at work. One is suddenly spending most of his life drinking in his house and rejecting attempts to get him back on his feet. Variously, people are also going through relationship bumps, professional setbacks and despairing in the face of job hunting.

All this seems to have happened very recently. I'm unaffected, largely by virute of not having a job to lose, a relationship to end or, indeed, a bike to have nicked. I'm sure the bad karma in the air will find a way to make me suffer soon enough :)

Baileys Creme Brulee

God knows how this got into my head, but it did. So I decided to make one. Web opinion appears to be split on how to make it. One method involves leaving it to set in the fridge, t'other involves cooking it in the oven. I tried: three egg yokes, two tbs sugar, 150ml Baileys, 1/2 pint double cream and the fridge method. Flavour wise, it was good but there was too much baileys. Texture wise, it was a bit too liquidy. I'll try method B soon and report back.

Happily, the brulee part is simple. And an excellent excuse to get your kitchen blowtorch out.

Bass Lesson II

So we reconvened on Tuesday. I'd been quite diligent with my homework and learnt Golden Touch pretty thoroughly. I was having a look at the guy's website and found something else - Holiday by Green Day - which looked interesting but straightforward enough so spent some time on that as well. I didn't really practice my scales that much. Scales are boring, so it's difficult to get excited. Teacher was very happy with Golden Touch. I'd picked up some staccato from the recording which wasn't on the transcription, so kudos for me. Holiday's not quite there yet, but he was remarkably happy with how I'd worked out the fingering (no chuckling at the back) for one section - he said most people don't get it. This had two effects: 1) I was really chuffed with myself 2) I realised how long it had been since someone told me I'd done a good job with something. Starved of compliments! God my job sucked. Ok, so this week I'm going to finish Holiday and hopefully crack When The Sun Goes Down by the Arctic Monkeys. Teacher dude says it's a shame they sacked their bassist because he was the only one who could keep time. I nodded sagely, but hadn't noticed this, if we're being honest. He says When The Sun Goes Down has a "perfectly pitched angsty punkiness" about it. Which I hadn't noticed either. He may have been joking. The blisters Richard predicted (thanks chap! :) ) have yet to arrive, but my first finger does feel a bit tender. It's still a lot of fun, for sure.

Richard Hammond Critical

Shocked when I saw this. Seems like a really nice chap. Really hope he recovers.

Quiz Answers

Pub Quiz

Yes, I know. "How very dull" you're thinking. There are far more exciting things going on in the world. Some people are having babies. Others have bought new laptops. Jim and Angela, who came down to Winchester at the weekend with Jim's gran and spent some time with me in the refectory attached to the cathedral, are busy making wedding plans. However, in this world of turbulence and change; in this time of uncertainty and flux, the pub quiz stands alone as an institution of stability and constancy.

Last night I was in a team with Rob and Duncan. We came third of three teams. This prompted all kinds of recriminations.

Questions we got right:

1) What song contains the lyric: "See the west wind move like a lover so, upon the fields of barley"?
2) Which competitor was specially exempt from a sex test at the 1976 olympics? This is actually a really good question and you can deduce the answer. Clue: she's british.
3) Gordon wants Tony's job. Who was the last Chancellor of the exchequer to make Prime Minister?

Questions we got wrong:

5) In a recent survey, what did people find most irritating: Mobile phone ring tones, unsolicited sales calls or Carol Vorderman?
6) Who reigned first: Richard I, Edward I or Elizabeth I?
7) What do you mix with whiskey to make a canadian club?

Pisle of Shite

Only joking, I love the Isle of Wight. I'm off there tonight to see Mum and Fred. I think I've worked it out so that I can take the hovercraft. I've never been on one before so I'm getting geekily excited at the prospect. Only takes 15 minutes. 'Woooosh' as a certain new laptop owner would probably say.

Bumm Bumm Bumm Bu-Bumm

I had my first bass lesson on Tuesday. I went up the music shop a couple of weeks ago and asked them to recommend someone. The chap they put me onto - a guy called Alistair - is really nice. He seems a bit introvert in that kinda way musicians can be, occasionally stunted sentances and a bit of uncertainty at points but I think this is going to work.

Reading this, you may not know what a bass is. Bass guitars generally have four strings (as opposed to the usual six) and have longer necks. Their purpose in a band is generally to bridge rhythm and melody. Together, the drums and the bass in a band are known as the rhythm section. Famous bass lines include 'Come Together' by the Beatles, 'Money' by Pink Floyd and 'Under Pressure' by Queen. I decided to learn how to play because I think the instrument suits me better - my sense of rhythm's pretty good and I have a good memory for patterns - than lead guitar or rhytm guitar (where my fingers either fail me or I get bored quickly).

So the lesson was interesting. I found out about scales. I found out about changing the action on the guitar (which is still not something I reckon I'd be comfortable doing by myself) and we had a look at some bits of music. My homework is to learn "Golden Touch" byRazorlight. Given that most of his students are a decade younger than me and that transcribing new tunes takes Alistair a lot of time I reckon there's going to be a lot of this: me having to learn songs by bands I don't really like because they've got yoof appeal. Oh well. This is where my powerbook really comes into its own. Open garageband, add a bass track, plug in guitar, plug in headphones, open itunes, play song and play along. Brilliant. Next lesson Tuesday.

Macleod, King of Consumers

Ewan has bought himself a new laptop.

This just isn't fair.

I bought mine over 2 years ago. In that time, he's bought 3 computers (that I know about).

It's *so* unfair. I'm going to go and sulk somewhere.

Quiz Answers

In a comment

Pub Quiz

Didn't do too well last night - 19 out of 30.

Here are some questions we got right:

1) Name 4 of the 5 UK acts who have won the Eurovision Song Contest
2) Which song contains the lyrics "They won't leave in the night have no fear that they might desert me"
3) Who was hittler's favourite composer?
4) Alphabetically, which two US states come between Kentucky and Maryland?

And two we got wrong:

5) By what name do we know the winds that gather to the east of the rocky mountains?
6) Where do the french national rugby team play their home games?

Answers in a comment :)

Poke-ah Hungove-ah

In the end, Benny won. Because 6 of us were playing, that means he won £25. Not bad for a night's work. I went out third to last, which wasn't bad. I came back from the brink a couple of times, but rare flashes of brilliance were insufficient. Next time!

This morning I was woken up at 9am - about 6.5 hours after I went to bed - by some bastard fucking builders across the street using a big lorry with a noisy grabby crane thing on the end of it. I am feeling vaguely human but am definitely hungover. Evidence: earlier a macdonalds ad came on the TV and made me feel nauseous and currently I'm eating a breakfast of doritos.

When hungover and feeling nauseous, attempting to braise a 2kg gammon in 2 litres of coke for 2 hours is a challenge to both the gut and the brain. However, I have soldiered on.

The Feeling

Loving loving loving The Feeling's album. Yes it's saccharine sweet. Yes it's NME unfriendly and not very cool. But it's brilliant brilliant brilliant.

Go on! Go over to itunes right now and buy it :)

Liquor at the front, Poker in the back

Poker night tonight. Really looking foward to it. Potentially as many as 7 attendees. Texas Hold 'Em. £5 stakes. 2030 kickoff, our gaff.

Tomorrow, Hoyan and Luc are coming all the way down from London to see me. I have planned a picnic, which I think we'll have on St Catherine's hill, St Giles Hill or on the water meadows by the river. In the evening I've got a wicked gammon recipe to try. I bought a Nigella Lawson cook book a couple of weeks ago (don't get me started on the whole yummy mummy thing) and there's this really interesting thing in there about braised pork in a coca cola syrup. Sounds vile doesn't it? So I've decided to inflict in on some good friends. Yay me.

On the next page in the book was a recipe for some watermelon daiquiris. In tescos, when I was on the beer and dorito resupply run this afternoon, I spied some giant watermelons on special offer. Thinking "Must be providence" I bought two. You make the daiquiris by chopping the melon flesh into largish chunks, freezing them, then blending 10 of them with 100ml of bacardi, lime juice and a tablespoon of icing sugar. Sounds wicked. Can't wait to try them.

Picnics and pink cocktails. Hmmm. If Benny was doing this, I'd call him gay.

London

Hoyan's boyfriend, the helicopter pilot Dom, is currently back from Hawaii to see her and his mates. There's a back story there, but I can't be bothered to go into it. Anyway. Hoyan and I are actually very close - one of those relationships that sneeks up on you, I suppose. For a long time Hoyan was the girl who didn't say much, especially to me. Then we worked together for a bit and got to know each other better. We used to email each other quite a bit when I got back from australia and she was bored with her job. I would tell her about my latest professional crisis and in turn would listen to her despairing boyfriend stories. More recently, we don't catch up so frequently, but when we do it's in greater depth.

Anyway, I didn't really know Dom. He was part of the same social group but our paths never really crossed. So Hoyan said the three of us should have dinner. Then Luc was invited. Then Nick and Ainsley. Then a load of others. And so it came to pass that an intimate dinner of 13 convened on Monday night in Highgate. We went to Zizzi and I didn't eat much. It was great to catch up with everyone. I spoke to Dom for a while, he was really nice. Nick and Dan have had a falling out that I didn't know about. In fact, Dan has quit his job (working with Nick) and moved to Ireland for a while and didn't tell me. Nick's sister is playing a lapdancer on a TV show - something to do with Hollyoaks - which, quite uncharacteristically I didn't tease him about. I'm helping Hoyan with her CV (which is pretty decent, to be honest). Greg couldn't make it along but we spoke on the phone. Must catch up soon.

The pain is that it takes 4 hours of travelling there and back to go out for dinner for 4 hours. And then, when I was on the train back, I fell asleep and was woken up literally a minute before winchester by some 10 year old kid sat over the aisle from me with his dad. I was so grateful for not waking up in bournemouth. They'd just been to the dad's stag night. How cool is that?

Two hours door to door isn't bad actually. I've got it down pat. And because it happens so rarely I treat myself to a cab - £18 one way, but fuck, the tube properly gives me the fear. On the way back they must have run out of shit cars and sent me a black jaguar! Lovely leather seats. Christ knows what everyone was thinking when I waved them goodbye from that :)

Goodwood

At christmas, Jim bought Ewan and I tickets to Goodwood Revival. For those of you that don't know (and I didn't) this is a festival of old cars (pre 1960s, I think), bikes and planes for the purposes of racing, buying and selling and generally pretending it's the 1950s again. For this reason, many people go in period costume. Ewan and I went looking fairly smart (him much more so than me, for sure) and Jimbo went wearing a relatively vintage like suit and a hat. Jimbo has a hat fetish. We can't be sure why.

Anyway, it was all very enjoyable. The races were great fun to watch and the spitfire display was very impressive. I must say, I prefer more modern cars - Jim was well into his old, old tank-like bentleys whereas I was much more up for the smoother, more aggressive cars from the late 50s and early 60s. We had some excellent champagne and watched some kind of dancing - god knows what variety - with some jazzy type music. It was a pretty full day, had a great time. With the two of them, it always seems to be the case that we're only just catching up when it's time to go home.

A discussion on stag events occupied much of the afternoon. I'm pushing for vegas, baby.

Cricket

Now that I haven't played cricket in a while - what with festivals, rivers and fun with motorcars intervening - I discovered at practice last night that I'm scared of the ball. Every time one's bowled at me, I step back. When the ball gets close, my eyes start to close and my head starts to turn away. People who know much better than I do implore me to step into the ball, to keep a straight bat, to not worry. It just seems so impossible, fighting against a basic reaction. It's incredibly frustrating - I'm actually not as good as I used to be. Fuck! Game on Sunday though, so maybe I'll come good when I'm needed.

Down River, Up Hill

This probably deserves a longer blog but I'm playing catch up so, well, fuckit.

The weekend after V, Benny and I went canoeing with the Rob + Family + Family's significant others over in Gloucester. Well, we stayed in Gloucester and canoed on the Wye, down through Hay and out the other side. It was an awesome weekend - brilliant fun on the water, beautiful walks and stunning food. Rob and Ben shared a canoe - my analysis of this being that it was an unstable concentration of both mass (for Rob is not a wee lad) and lack of co-ordination. And it was so, because they went in the water twice.

My boatmate, Ursula was very accomodating of my lack of proficiency. She was also very understanding when I (repeatedly) steered her into the trees when I didn't know what I was doing at the beginning of the day - and at the end, come to think of it. During such events it became custom for this to happen:

Her (at front of boat): "We're heading for the trees [implied: again]"
Me (at back): "Er"
Her (trees getting closer, faster): "What should I do?"
Me: "Try rowing on this side. Oh Shit. That's not the right side"
Her: [Scream]

At this point, Ursula would typically push herself backwards off her seat so she was lying flat in the boat, limboing under whatever branches had threatened to skewer her head. Often, this was accompanied by the sound of various bits of vegetation showering into the boat as the bow struck the base of a riverside tree at a relatively high speed. On one occasion we scored a blackberry, but both of us were too polite to eat it.

Towards the end it got a bit tiring. Towards the finish (we were out for 6 or 7 hours, including an hour's stop for lunch at Hay) the river gets really shallow and for long stretches the boat would bottom out and stop. I'd usually get out and push which got a bit full after the fourth or fifth time.

We took a stroll up a huge hill in gloucester the next day - it's the one they roll the cheese down every year, and you have to see it to believe what fuckwits they are for doing so. Benny went down it on his arse - stupid boy - but then redeemed himself by finding a pokey shop which sold him kitkats for something ridiculous like 16p each as if profit margins were going out of style.

That evening we had a fantastic pork roast and I got merrily shitfaced. Rob and I then had a three or four hour argument about the national health service until about half two in the morning. A proper, table thumping, finger pointing argument which had to be broken up by Rob's eldest daughter. Essentially, I was trying to say that it should be privatised. That £96bn a year was a ludicrous budget. That when asked the question "How can we provide cost effective universal healthcare to a high standard?" the answer isn't necessarily "The third largest organisation in the world, duh!" (third only behind such paradigms of efficiency as the indian national rail company and the chinese army).

Rob's point was essentially that the market wouldn't do a good job of providing for people who really needed care - elderly people or, indeed, people who had a history of heart problems. Addled by several bottles of (very nice) booze I (probably fair to say 'we') blundered on into the night dogmatically. I was stuck for alternatives to the status quo, which probably made his job easier - but he certainly made his point with passion and conviction.

The next morning I was still a bit sore about him calling me small minded. And saying I couldn't do my job properly because I hadn't thought through the consequences of what I was saying. But now, on reflection, I'm glad neither of us backed down. It felt really good to be arguing about something important at length. I haven't done that, literally, in years. And Rob being Rob, there were no hard feelings - the discussion was more important than the personalities. He sent me a very nice email afterwards, actually. Nice chap. Lovely family. Great weekend.

Gash Be Gone

Back in July, you may remember, some c*nts (and I don't not use the word lightly) from ikea attempted to deliver a sofa, leaving me only with a dented, gashed wall. Today, for the stars are in alignment, Fred (who is my mum's boyfriend and former builder) came round to fix the damage.

Quite an interesting process to behold if you are as clueless when it comes to anything involving building, decorating etc. as I am. The wound was about a foot and a half long and 4 inches wide, inflicted on some plasterboard. I got some new plasterboard this morning. When Fred arrived, he cut a rectangle off the new plasterboard that would amply cover the hole. He then placed the new board over the hole in the wall and drew round it with a pencil. Then he chopped this section out with a stanley knife and a saw.

Behind the old board is the internal void, beyond which is (we presume) the exterior wall. The void is comprised of a vertical pattern of 2 rows of bricks, 2 feet of insulation, 2 rows of bricks etc. My gash (better make the fnar fnar jokes while I still can) was unfortunately over an insulated section; 'unfortunately' because the new board has to be braced against something and the bricks would have been ideal. However, Fred had brought some wood with him which we chopped to size and put in the gap between the insulation and the plasterboard. Then we dropped in the new rectangle of board into the rectangular hole, screwed it in (screwing through the board into the wood) and I felt a weight lift off me. The bit which you needed an expert for was over.

Now, only the fiddly stuff remains. We put a layer of plaster over the new board but it wasn't quite enough to bring it up to the level of the existing wall. So right now, mum and Fred have gone to do some fish selling up in Bordon and will return later, when the plaster's dry, to finish the job. Once that's done, I need to fill in some dents, sand it all down and paint it. Job's a good 'un, as they say. Phew.

Golden rule from this experience: If someone ever delivers anything large and bulky to your house ALWAYS leave them to it. If I hadn't helped them then they wouldn't have been able to blame me for the damage they caused. And because it's two of them vs. one of you, well..... I felt sooo angry at myself afterwards for being so naive.

Happy Christmas!

Yes, it's that time of year again. Prepare for an onslaught of booze (unless, like me, you enjoy more than your fair share year round) and good will.

Seriously.

Sainsburys are stocking mince pies. The Bishop, a local pub, is advertising its christmas menu. I really fucking despair.