The Old Country

Off to Ireland tonight for the bank holiday weekend, and even though we're staying with my parents in their new-build home, you have to pack as if you're off camping -  oilskins, sou'westers and a primus.  

They live in the west of the country, not far from the Atlantic coast, and weather there is famously volatile and violent, like Mad Frankie Frazier.  Even getting from the house to the car requires a change of shoes and distress flares when it's pissing down.  You don't know rain until you've spent a weekend in lockdown with two pensioners in a bungalow in rural Ireland.

It doesn't help that there's nothing to do when you can't leave the house.  Irish radio doesn't matters any either.  It's so bad and bleak, it's resembles one of Samuel Beckett's less accessible and least successful stage pieces.

Where have you been all my life?

Well, hello there.  Sorry, I've been a bit slack for the last six months or so, but I had a tumble from (one of) my bike(s) and felt disinclined to jot whilst recuperating.  Still, I've mostly cupered now, a little impressive scar tissue notwithstanding, so here goes nuttin'.  Again.

Without wishing to sound like a broken gramophone record, I'm still in the midst of the middle-aged ennui doldrums.  Still in the same lacklustre job and still in the same house.  The house is part of the problem actually.  It's lovely and in a lovely street in a lovely area.  It's perfect for our needs, comfy and well-appointed.  So, we won't be moving again - well, not for a while anyways.  And this has thrown my life, or rather what's left of it, into sharp relief.  I can't continue to plough on like this until they cart me off in the back of a private ambulance and start liquidising my meals.  I need adventure - spiritual, sexual, intellectual and actual.

But where to find it?  For years I thought the classified ads in Private Eye might provide the answer, but never had the nerve to answer any.  I assumed, probably rightly actually, that you had to have been to Oxford and come down without a degree to do so without looking like an upstart.

Illness

I have a cold - a heavy one - aching joints, weakness, the tremors, you name it.  So I'm going to bugger off home, clamber into something comfortable, like a coma, and forget today ever happened.  The only obstacle to overcome before I can realise this dream is the ride home.  It's a foul day in London Town - really miserable.

Dubbin - must buy dubbin.

Hold that thought

I'll have to be brief today; I've been snowed under and I've got ton(nes) to do when I get home too so I can't hang about.

What have I learned today?  Apart from some vba code that came in useful earlier, not much if I'm honest.  Still, at least the sun shone on my ignorance.  That sounds like a euphemism, doesn't it?  It isn't.

Adiós.

I'm in love

Well, well...the missus and I popped to the Olympic Velodrome in London last evening for the first day of a new six-day cycling event.  I booked this out of curiosity more than anything, and because it was my birthday on Saturday, so I thought it made a nice bookend for the festivities.

I'm not much of a lad for track cycling really, despite having ridden the boards myself occasionally.  I do watch it, but I'm primarily a road cyclist have always looked upon the track as the road's boss-eyed, simpleton sister.  That all changed last night.

I hadn't had any great hope for the evening, but the tickets weren't that expensive, so even if it were shite, I reasoned, we could bail out after an hour or so and go to the pub.  However, it was riveting - absolutely compelling.  From start to finish, I could not drag my eyes from the spectacle.  I had to force myself to answer the call of nature at one point, but other than that, I stayed glued to my seat.

It's usually the case that televised sport is better than the same event in the flesh.  Football, rugby, cricket, road cycling - all of them are better served by television than by the empirical evidence of one's eyes.  Not so track cycling - it's so much better when you're there.  It's easier to follow; you also get the impression of the very real speed and danger inherent in the disciplines.  I was hooked by the end of the show, no question.  I'm now furiously trying to organise a trip to the continent to see one of the older, more-established six-days.  The two on the shortlist thus far are Berlin and Copenhagen.  We'll have to see how the flights work out etc.  Over there, six-days are basically a wafer-thin excuse for a piss-up - a nightclub with a bike race in the middle of it.  And it's as much fun as that sounds.

Boeuf Dei

It my birthday tomorrow!  I hate being the age I am (currently 46).  It doesn't sit at all well with yours truly.  And it's not because I'm vain or nuttin'.  Nor did I particularly like being young.  I like the material creature comforts that early middle age brings.  I own my own home; I have plenty of disposable income; I travel a lot.  But it's the way that one's generation slowly starts to become marginalised that I can't stand.  The cultural spotlight simply ebbs away.  The process is imperceptible until its dour work is done.  And I'm a late-starter; I was happy to bide my time as a young'un.  As a result, I'm fizzing with enthusiasm and ideas, just at the moment when my voice is starting to fall on deaf ears.  That's what I object to.

However, all that notwithstanding, I can't help but be a little excited by the event.  Firstly or course there will be presents.  The missus and I are popping out to our favourite restaurant tomorrow night to celebrate.  And, unusually for me, money will start burning a hole in my pocket and I'll feel compelled to splash out on some material frippery or other.  I'm minded to buy some musical equipment - a home studio for recording perhaps?  Yes, that would be nice.

Once more unto the top, once more

I'm dipping my multi-faceted hobby toe back into musical waters this evening.  Last weekend, my best friend and I reprised our musical venture of recording interesting covers of rock and pop classics.  To make them interesting, we transpose them to other musical genres - The Model by Kraftwerk in a ragamuffin stylee for example.  That one works remarkably well, by-the-way.

I was around at his last Saturday, ostensibly for a haircut - not off him, off his missus, who's a fully-qualified stylist and coiffeuse.  I wouldn't let him cut my hair.  Do I look stupid?  What's that?  No, apart from the hair?  Oh, yes, very good.  Anyway, we took the opportunity to record a version of Ace Of Spades that we've been working on for...oh about five years.  It was fun recording it, and as it had been percolating for so long, we both had strong opinions about how it should sound, which always helps.  The whole endeavour really rekindled my enthusiasm.

As luck would have it, the wife's out tonight, carousing with former colleagues, so I've planned a night in front of the computer with my guitar, bass and mandolin.  To maximise studio time, I'm not even going to cook.  It's straight home via the local Spar, whip up a cold supper and hunker down.  I can't wait.

It's rare that one is able to cause one's younger self some green-eyed envy, but this is one of those situations.  I have a good computer, several good guitars, a good bass, a wonderful mandolin, a comfortable and rangy home in which to work and plenty of expensive Belgian beer to help the creative juices flow.

Ahh, be still my beating heart.