Ramblings · of · a · self-made · pauper

It took me a long, long time to ‘get’ the Eurovision Song Contest. When I was a kid, it was something that was on telly once a year and that was it.

You go through phases with it, or at least I did; things may be different in these days of hundreds of digital TV channels, the intarwebs and digital radio. When I was a kid, there were two TV channels (three from 1969), computers were in films only and radio was the BBC. And I didn’t have a record player of my own until I was nearly twelve…

To begin with you’re just too young to care, if you’re even allowed to stay up while it’s on. Then comes the point when you endure it, because it’s on telly and it’s better than going to bed, this may evolve into a shortish period where you quite like it, or actively detest it according to taste, but that is rapidly replaced with indifference as the hormones of puberty take hold and anything that is vaguely mainstream is to be avoided like the plague. The next stage is simple habit; having avoided/detested the entire cheesy concept through your teens, you then become old enough to go to the pub, meet the opposite sex, set fires, that sort of thing. You just forget it’s on.

And one day, one Saturday in May, a few years down the line, you find yourself at home at a loose end. Your friends have all inconveniently gone away for the weekend to avoid you, have run out of internet, can’t be bothered to read and have nothing to do that calls to you so you switch the telly on and stare at it. You flick the channels and, because by definition, TV is rubbish, you keep coming back to the Eurovision Song Contest. You still ignore it, the first time, but when you happen upon the voting towards the end of the night, there is a reasonably strong possibility that you will stop and see what happens. Which country is going to snub its biggest rival? Which of the small East European countries will attempt to incur the wrath of the Bear by allocating fewer than 10 points to Russia. And will France even acknowledge the existence of the UK entry (though frankly, who would this year?).

And then you’re hooked.

With the advent of Twitter and FaceBook, where you can be as rude and/or hilarious as you like with your pithy comments, it just gets better.

The trick is, and this is the bit that takes the learning, Eurovision Song Contest is just a name. It’s not about the songs at all, not for us in the UK at least. It’s all about funny foreigners trying to show that they understand pop music when frankly, they don’t. It’s all about national rivalries but without the guns.

This year the Spanish state broadcaster has asked their entrant not to win, because Spain can’t afford to host the show in 2013. We could be in for a bumper year if a lot of the other shaky economies out there take a similar view.



Visually, 2011 was the year of the Gorgian hypno-muff, though that well-known European state, Azerbaijan somehow won the contest on buggins’ turn. I wonder what the most appalling visual of 2012 will be? Or the most appealing?¹

And remember, with everyone desperately trying to lose this year, vote for Greece. They need cheering up.

¹It’s probably too much to hope to see Jedward being taken out with a sniper rifle…

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This post is essentially a no content item to let you know that I now have a Eurovision-specific icon as above.

That is all.

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The foxes at home, probably the family that lives under the decking in jfs’s garden are getting bolder and are on the verge of crossing the boundary from ‘cute’ to ‘annoying’.

That is, I think it’s the foxes rather than the local cat population that are to blame.

I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of them for some months, but we hear them quite often at night. The back garden – particularly the part furthest from the house - has shown signs of digging, which is a rather more dogly activity than it is a cat one. The two large pots we have been trying (unsuccessfully) to grow sunflowers in have been pretty much excavated in their entirety and other, smaller pots are on their sides, with the plants still in them. On Monday, in our only and rather brief foray outside, we found a carrier bag down there that had clearly been looted from a bin and the contents strewn around the lower flower beds.

We also noted (on Sunday) that stuff had been disturbed (but not damaged) in the conservatory. The rug had been partially rolled back and items from the shelves been knocked to the floor, but not otherwise damaged. Excluding the rug, I have to admit that the displacement of items from shelves feels a rather more feline pass time, but after we had closed the outside door and locked it, I did notice the big male fox at the top of the steps on the patio looking wistfully in the direction of the conservatory door.

Anyway, we are used to the cats. They tend, when they venture in at all, to walk around, look at the place, exude dislike for the décor and leave. Ruffling carpets is not something they tend to do.

Come the summer proper, we shall have the doors open more often to keep a breeze blowing through the place. I hope that we are not going to have to get creative in keeping the foxes out.

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Oh, what a weekend it was.

Some of you will have read ellefurtle’s round up of the party, so I guess it is my turn, belatedly, to write my review thereof.

Firstly, I should like to thank everyone who came along to the Punch tavern on Saturday night; we had a great time and I hope that you did, too. We couldn’t afford to invite everyone we wanted to come and some those we did, sadly couldn’t make it, but by and large we got to see the people we wanted to see and will make arrangements to meet up with others as soon as possible.

I have not yet managed to upload the few photos I managed to take, but will do so soon. If you are really interested, you can find various pictures of the event linked on my FaceBook page, here: https://www.facebook.com/#!/bryan.lea/photos and https://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.10150770039160834.379105.712650833&type=1 These mainly are courtesy mrtonylee and Derby’s own Rock God, fen_wolfchile, but the atmospheric alien-looking ones are by jfs. When I have got my act sorted out, I shall catalogue them properly; I know that there are photos by many others, too.

I should particularly like to thank mrtonylee - Captain Haddock, and belle_fille1982 - Tin Tin, for their help and support. Particularly Tony, for acting as MC for the evening and undertaking to ensure in his capacity as internet chaplain, that we were ‘awesomely married’ on the night. Thanks, too to Alix, the younger Furtle for publicly welcoming me to the family; to Tanya, the quondam rinkyandmerlin for her speech, to colonel_maxim, my best man and provider of weaponry, and to the inimitable pax_draconis for objecting to the proceedings on the most spurious of grounds and dying so hammily in the subsequent duel, which was all arranged in advance with no foreknowledge on the part of the bride. Heheh.

I am sorry that I didn’t manage to talk at length to many people, but I think – I hope – I managed to exchange a few words with everybody.

Sunday didn’t really happen for us. We caught a taxi home at just after midnight in the company of jfs, pax_draconis, curlwomble and rebby. There followed a night cap and chat, before everyone dispersed. We piled into bed at somewhere around 4am.

Later in the morning we all met up again (those of us who had returned to Ilford) for brunch and then Furtle and I had to do some shopping. By mid afternoon we had sort of faded out, not really resurfacing until after 9pm. This meant that we had to turn down an invitation from our lovely next door neighbours for Sunday evening drinks. We shall have to arrange an alternative visit.

Monday was another lazy day, during which we did a little cooking to use up some spare cheese. It didn’t work; we still have a mountain of the stuff.

I should dearly like to post a photo of the plaque made for us by bytepilot, but the darling wife insists that it be publicly unveiled only once it is in situ at the Gin Palace and not before. Further incentive then, to ensure we arrange to meet those people who couldn’t make the party for reasons beyond their control.

In a move inspired¹ by the reception at pax_draconis’s and averylaterabbit’s wedding last November, we have dispensed with the traditional wedding cake at our party tomorrow and instead gone for a vast amount of cheese. Not the biggest we could have got, but substantial amounts nonetheless. Several wheels of cheese, of reducing size, one atop the other.

The option we went for after much hemming and hawing is called ‘Smeaton’s Tower’, named for the red-and-white lighthouse on Plymouth Hoe. Our choice was slightly smaller than the one pictured below and does not have the Cornish Brie base – the cheese in the picture is supposed to be able to feed between ninety and a hundred people. We are expecting about sixty, give or take.



The cheeses we have, from the bottom and working up, are:
The large red-waxed cheese at the base (second up on the photo) is a Grandma Singleton’s Lancashire (this comes in two halves which you simply place together). Made by Singleton’s Dairy in Preston for 4 generations now.
Next, a ‘white’ blue cheese: Harbourne Blue, the stunning goats’ milk blue from the blue cheese experts, Ticklemore Dairy. Then a nicely strong Godminster Cheddar comes next, followed by Somerset Camembert.
The smallest red cheese is Red Devil, a ‘Red Leicester’ flavoured with chilli and peppers, and right on the top is a tiny Gevrik goats’ cheese from Cornwall.
I stayed home to take delivery of this yesterday and it has dominated the fridge since it arrived. ellefurtle has been tasked today with obtaining industrial amounts of crackers to go with it…



¹I say, ‘inspired’. You may say, ‘shamelessly stolen from’.

http://www.thecheeseshed.com/

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I post this largely for the benefit of the man who likes pictures of dogs in hats, mr_h_r_hughes.

This is the best picture you will see today of a dog dressed as two pirates carrying a chest.

Probably.

So spring is back, or so it seems. Whether it is or not, I took it at face value this morning and left the house with my tatty old summer jacket. I really, really must buy a proper new jacket: I think I have mentioned before that my tweed one, which is in all other respects in good nick is not fit for duty on account of the bloody great hole around the right kidney level where the rucksack rubbed through it. Trying to replace a tweed (or indeed any) jacket for one of my generous beam is awkward. I shall make the effort properly at the end of June when I go back to Shrewsbury for a family wedding. There is a place there, a proper, old fashioned gentlemen’s outfitter that I know does tweed jackets in my size.

In the meantime I keep one beady eye staring balefully on the weather at all times and veering between coats that are too hot and jackets that are too cool, the curse of spring most years, but prolonged this time around.

I have a couple of chino jackets, one of which I must take to the dry cleaners, but if I dig those out, it will probably mean purchasing a couple of pairs of chino trousers, the several pairs I have are so baggy that even someone who is as careless of fashion as I, tends to embarrassment wearing them. And that was last year. Whilst I haven’t really been making much of an effort, I am marginally (very marginally) more svelte around the middle than this time last year, so they will billow all the more.

I am woefully unprepared for summer. It has taken me by surprise.

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It’s going to be horrendous, it really is.

The Olympics.

I have tried twisting my curmudgeonly instincts through a full 180 degrees on this issue, but I have to confess that I have only just managed it partway. Maybe 90 degrees, certainly no more. I have come to accept that there is a reasonable chance, given the skills of TV and radio professionals, that what most spectators will see will be, or at least seem to be a well executed event over three weeks or so, full of glitter and drama for those who care about these things. I may even watch a couple of the less tedious events.

I am looking forward to the Paralympics (we got tickets for those) and seeing the basketball, which is a scary sport when played by blokes in wheelchairs, and whatever the other thing we got tickets for is. I’ve forgotten. These two are interesting as much for the opportunity to see some of the facilities close up as they are for the actual sports, but here again, seeing something live is a far better experience than seeing it on telly, even if it takes the telly for you to understand what’s actually going on unless you are an aficionado.

For all that, it is going to be horrendous; horrendous and disruptive. The Underground was buggered again, this morning and that’s with what, 73 days to go as I type.

For months now, the Olympic organisers have been issuing pleas for people to stagger their commutes during the games, or take holiday, or work from home. Anything but follow the normal routine, because with all the additional bums on train seats, there will be no room for we mere mortals.

The Government has gone along with this, encouraging businesses to be flexible in anyway they can to reduce the strain on the aged infrastructure.

And now, the complaints have started.

Today’s headline in The Times is: Whitehall tells staff: stay home for summer. The story goes on to say that civil servants have been told that they can work from home for seven weeks during the Olympics “provoking incredulity from ministers, MPs and business leaders”.

Well no-one has told me not to come in for seven weeks. I am hoping to work from home for a few days here and there over the three week period of the Olympics, but the assumption is that things will be comparatively quiet during the Paralympics. Just to be clear, I am not a great fan of working from home, generally speaking. I like to have a clear divide between work and home life, but faced with a twice a day trip directly past the Olympic village (actually, through the middle of the bastard thing) I will, as far as possible, work from home. I am hoping that the IT lot here can hook me up so I can access the office servers over my broadband connection. With that comes access to all my files and office email and suddenly the possibility of sitting at my own desk for more than a limited time on a particular, specific and bone-numbingly tedious project become viable.

But all that barely matters, because big business doesn’t like it. They want all the perks the games will bring, including, no doubt, free tickets and champagne hospitality, but they don’t want to offer anything up to the poor saps that actually have to trail through this human river. I have been confidently told to expect my commute time to double for the duration. So that would be six hours a day then, on overcrowded and obsolescent facilities. And once that’s done, we must all work harder for less, just to get the country moving again.

I tell you, had I realised back in 2007-2008 how I was badly undermining the economy and bringing the country close top economic collapse, I should have stopped what I was doing immediately and tried to put it right.

Oh, hang on. That wasn’t me, was it? It wasn’t you, either, I think. Probably it was the chaps enjoying the free hospitality and executive box views of the most sought after events. I doubt even they could manage seven weeks of it. That is a bit too much to ask.

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All this economic turmoil is very worrying, particularly the situation in Greece and the rest of the Mediterranean economies (plus, potentially Ireland and possibly France).

I know a number of people who know about these things^TM and they worry that Greece is headed for a Euro exit that potentially leads to an EU exit, too. If Greece goes, there is little if anything to stop Italy, Spain and Portugal dropping out of the Eurozone shortly thereafter.

I can’t pretend to understand the economic niceties behind it all, but I must admit that curing vast levels of public debt by lending countries even more money, while their associated credit ratings are slashed all seems very suspicious. Without appreciating the maths behind it all, it just feels wrong.

If we add to that the fact that of all the members of the Eurozone, Greece is and always has been one of the most politically unstable, they are no stranger to the military coup –can we say ‘Colonels’ children? I think we can. It does seem rather bleak.

There was an article in yesterday’s Times that stated that in some circles, there had been speculation that while some quite drastic action might be needed within Greece to prevent capital leaving the country (faster than it already is), the Greek military might be deployed along the borders to prevent young Greeks escaping the country – without them, there can be no recovery, but there is no incentive for them to stay.



I fear the Greek military. Not as an international fighting force (though on a one to one basis, I would concede the right of a Greek soldier to order me about. A machine gun is still a machine gun, after all), but on the basis of their ceremonial uniforms. I mean mini skirts, tight leggings and pom poms plus automatic rifles and yet not in a good way. The Greeks have taken the teenage nerd dream and made it a thing to fear: goose stepping moustachioed cheerleaders with automatic rifles.

Just general stuff I think, for my first post of the week. Not that I have been too specific on many topics recently, with the possible exception of boring you all with gardening natter, but what can I say? There just aren’t the regular personalities on the morning commute, like those I could observe back in my Whetstone days.

First up is to record the fact that I have just introduced my out going (as in soon to be elsewhere, as opposed to gregarious, though he is that, too) Deputy Director to the verb, to Gove, meaning to stare with incomprehension, which cheered him immensely and sent him off considering the state of the British educational system with starry-eyed nostalgia.

It’s been a quiet weekend and all the more beneficial for that. Saturday did not go in anyway as expected. I logged on the World of Warcraft to do a few daily quests and both Furtle and I ended up on a Heroic Dungeon Raid with some of our guildies, in which we as a group finally prevailed after rather longer than you would expect. Suffice it to say that you know that you have been in the dungeon for too long when, on your umpteenth resurrection because it’s all gone horribly wrong, you find yourself having to fight your way past the respawned mobs that you killed right at the outset. Neither Furtle or I know why, but we are both absolutely rubbish in the damage stakes in WoW – this is particularly embarrassing for my main alt, which is a hunter, and therefore technically at least, a damage-dealer. There’s something wrong when you are doing half the damage being dished out by the team’s tank, but I can’t fathom out what I need to change and neither can Furtle. Some better kit would help, no doubt, but the stuff I have is, in theory at least, capable of packing a wallop. Oh, well: it took some time, but we managed in the end.

Sunday was up and going early for me on a Sunday. We had decided to go and see The Avengers, or as its title has transmogrified into for UK audiences, Marvel’s Avengers Assemble (presumably so that no one turns up expecting to see the further adventures of Steed and Mrs Peel – assuming anyone much under the age of 35 can even remember who they are). We decided to take in the matinee showing at 11.00am at the Vue in Westfield, Stratford. This is clearly the time to visit the place. It had only just opened and was, as yet not crowded beyond belief. It was also cool – as in temperature, not vibe (man), which was pleasant. I’m not sure that any other context of the word ‘cool’ could ever be applied to such a cathedral of rampant consumerism, as Westfield, at least without artery-endangering levels of irony.

I shan’t discuss the movie as there may still be those of you who fancy watching it and who haven’t been yet, I shall simply say that it is vastly enjoyable even if it doesn’t quite live up to the hype. It is also the first time in any screen portrayal, that you truly get the impression that Bruce Banner is a bona fide genius. There is a fair amount of humour, a lot of action, the relationships between the characters are nicely judged and there is even a moment of pathos. I’d be surprised if Joss wasn’t asked back for Avengers 2 (or Avengers Reassemble, in the UK, I guess).

When we got home, we ended up in the garden feet up, drinking cold booze and eating cheese toasties, whilst watching our community of Great and Blue Tits plus their fledglings eat their way through the fat balls and seeds we’d put out – at least until they were bullied by the resident squirrels. We may have a chaffinch too, but he or she was there and gone so quickly that we weren’t certain. Hopefully it will be back.

After such a busy day, I felt the need for a late afternoon nap and then we cooked up a very tasty roast dinner and settled down to watch an ancient BBC costume drama on DVD, co-starring Seen Bean (or Sean Born -you CAN’T have it both ways) in the unexpected role of a rakish cad of loose morals. Who’d a thunk it?

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