It's a hard life....

... but somebody has to write a blog, sitting in the November sunshine with a great cup of latte on the terrace of a good hotel, watching the sun sparkling on incredibly blue sea, whilst thinking of her friends sitting freezing their butts off in the greyness of an autumn UK. Hehehehehe, I'm not REALLY rubbing it in, guys....

Yes, I've finally made it to Malta, and it's like I've never been away - although I was beginning to think I'd never get here when our plane was delayed at Heathrow. Ghastliness over, and once in the air, the Maltese pilot, true to form, put his foot down (probably ignoring all traffic control instructions) and got us to Malta in record time, only ten minutes later than the scheduled arrival. The joy at experiencing once more the wonders of Maltese roads and crazy driving was slightly tempered by not seeing the familiar converted RAF Nissen hut housing the 'Malta Rabbit Club' because it looks as if it's been pulled down. As I can remember this being there for as long as I've been coming to the island, it was a sad loss indeed....

All this having been said, it's so good to be here again. Now... to find where the Taffia are hanging out today to watch the Wales-South Africa match...

Winning and losing

Some of you will know one of the enduring passions in La Vie Angevin has been rugby... not just any old rugby, though - WELSH rugby. For this deeply unfeminine interest, you can blame my lunatic Welsh grandfather: my absolute first memory was sitting on his lap and being thrown around in a manner the child protection services would almost certainly find dangerous these days whilst Grancha screamed at the Welsh performance, good or bad, on TV. The potential for toddler-sick was not considered - The Child had to be initiated into Wales' one true religion, and, by Duw, he was not going to shirk his responsbility; not even the threats of my Nanna ( 'you'll scare The Child, mun') were going to hold him back. I, Childe Angevin, far from being scared, loved every minute - far, far more exciting than going on the playground swings, with the added opportunity for learning new and forbidden words when Grancha forgot himself from time to time. Which he always did, and which were always flagged up by the clucking coming from the kitchen when it happened, where Nanna was usually employed making the half-time tea, sandwiches and Viscount biscuits and avoiding the noise.

In my street, you didn't need the Radio Times to find out when Wales were playing - you could hear the old man howling bilingual imprecations, in his fine Welsh tenor, from several hundred yards away. Afterwards, under pretext of taking me (and the dog) for a walk in my buggy, there was the inevitable post-mortem in the local (known as 'Little Wales' to any English who encroached on our enclave) with the other geriatric would-be coaches, all of whom, of course, said the team was 'just right' and EXACTLY the one they would have picked if they had been in charge (if Wales had won) or called 'English sabotage' and demanded the head and vitals of the management (if they hadn't). I regret to say my taste for post-match pints probably stems from this too... inevitably The Child was bought off with quarter pints of India Ale and a pasty as part of the ritual.

Much to the disgust of my English father, Grancha's early indoctrination won out despite the lures of English culture all around me, and standing freezing my butt off in the pouring rain watching various Welsh teams at various grounds has been a pretty much constant feature of life ever since. So.. yesterday found me wrapped up like a mummy at the Madjeski Stadium in Reading, screaming imprecations at the Ospreys whilst they attempted to beat London Irish and get through to the semis of the EDF Anglo-Welsh cup. Possibly rather tactlessly, I was in the company of my Plastic Paddy mate, Joe, who was manfully doing his best not to shout TOO loudly for the Irish because I'm bigger than he is and can do better Chinese burns too...

Well, unfortunately, the Ospreys, despite my almost continual and very loud directions from the stands, lost. The bunch of women. However, they managed not to lose by too much, got themselves a bonus point as a result and thus made it through to the semis anyway on the back of their previous good performances. So... winners and losers as it says in the title. The Irish supporters were all happy because they'd got a good win, so there was much merriment in the bar afterwards (although sadly no pasties).. and indeed in the shuttle bus taking us all back to Reading Station (Who IS John, by the way?). How unlike the situation were very tipsy, mixed coaches of round-ball supporters being carried around... that, unfortunately would closely resemble Armageddon, I suspect. Another proof that rugby is miles better than the so-called sport of football, should any more be required.

Roll on March when the Aquatic Passat will be forced into service on the road to Coventry and the Ricoh Stadium: the Ospreys this time facing Gloucester. Now... if the boys manage to pull their collective fingers out this time AND the Cardiff Blues manage to overcome Northampton we are facing an all-Welsh EDF final in Twickenham, the cradle of what passes for rugby in England. I bet my Dad is spinning at the prospect, but Grancha and all your pals, whereever you are, save some India Ale for me and wait until I get there before discussing whether Little Shane is as good as Gerald Davies, please... A pasty or two wouldn't go amiss either.

Mad as a box of frogs...

... about something I heard on the BBC 6 o'clock News on Radio 4. Apparently Derby Police Force have paid for 100 seats for tonight's showing of the new James Bond movie (Quantum of Solace) so if they encounter any kids behaving badly whilst 'trick or treating' they can give the offender the opportunity to see the film for free, thus getting them off the streets and into the cinema. This is apparently called a 'diversionary activity'.

People who know me will probably shudder as they envisage the scenes in the Chateau Angevin kitchen whilst this report was going on. It's just as well the radio doesn't have a mike, such was the level of shouting I am pretty sure it would have shattered. What on EARTH is going on here? The message this gives children is 'Make enough trouble and see what pops out of the woodwork to bribe you to behave' - the sort of situation where kids can scare old people in their own homes under the pretext of trick-or-treating and be REWARDED for it makes my blood boil. Were I in charge, the OLD PEOPLE would be given the free cinema seats, not the little yobs intent on causing trouble.. oh no, THEY would be frogmarched down to the copshop post-haste, put in the slammer for the night and made to do homework. Trick or treat that you little pests. In fact, compare the lie-down-and-walk-all-over-us attitude of the Derby Police Force with the action of their Essex counterparts who have also co-incidentally been on Radio 4 today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/30/ukcrime.youthjustice

Now that is more like it. And stuff the civil rights mob - the thing these well-meaning but misguided people need to keep in mind is it is necessary to behave responsibly towards society before that society can realistically consider the individual's 'rights'. Rewarding pests teaches them only that prolonging their bad behaviour might get them even more rewards; scaring the pants off the little beasts might actually make them think twice about doing it again.

Citizens of Derby, should any of you be reading this, I hope you make a massive fuss about this. It is ultimately YOUR money being misused here.

A post with a bit of an international flavour

Today was set aside for doing yet more boring domestica: this has given my mind plenty of time to think, as making mutton stew, scrubbing the kitchen floor and tidying up Mini's mess in the front room are not exactly tasks designed to be mentally absorbing.

Firstly, regular readers of this blog, whoever you are, will be surprised as yet I haven't made a comment on the forthcoming US elections. This is not a mistake on my part, but just deep boredom with the whole process, I'm afraid. There is also a bit of me which thinks the sort of obsessive interest in ANOTHER COUNTRY'S elections is a bit peculiar - we don't pay this much attention to elections in, say, Italy, now, do we?; a brief mention on the international news round up is all one could realistically expect there. As many of you will know, I detest the slow, or indeed not-so-slow creep of US culture into this country and I regard the whole election process over there as more akin to a circus than a serious piece of political activity; moreover a circus which is being increasingly copied by our so-called leaders here.

However, today I had a long old think about the whole thing. I'm not American, so it matters little who I think is the best man for the job; however, I do think it is pretty obvious that Barack Obama is certainly the more statesmanlike of the two candidates. He is patently a thinking man, and one whom I believe would not hesitate to take advice if he was out of his knowledge-depth on a particular issue: something which has been sadly lacking in recent years and which I suspect would be deeply unpopular with, for example, the military. McCain is, in my opinion, far more of a hothead and we'd just have more of the same lunacy we've experienced already if he were elected. Furthermore, he's a much older man... and if anything happened to him the grisly spectacle of that creature Sarah Palin stepping into his shoes raises its ugly head. I'd sooner put Mini in charge of a nuclear arsenal than I would that woman, frankly. However, the Americans were stupid enough to elect Dubya twice so I wouldn't put anything past them.

All this having been said, a bit of me hopes Obama will NOT be elected. Mainly because I don't think he'd even get close to standing for his second term because some lunatic would undoubtedly assassinate him well before that time. Americans love shooting their leaders (the rest of us just dream about shooting their leaders), and, as the first 'black' President, Obama's time would almost certainly be numbered - there are just too many nutters of varying hues in the country who would feel perfectly OK with claiming 'God told me to' as an adequate defence. I understand he's already had death threats and has a souped-up bodyguard force... my advice would be 'Get out now, Mr Obama'. I don't want to see the TV coverage of his widow and small children at his funeral, frankly - the world has too few decent men already. So, if Mr Obama is elected - you heard my predictions regarding the probable outcome here first, boys and girls.

Staying with America, today, as everybody who has trogged down any High Street for the past month or so and had to push past the various tacky 'displays' of witches' hats and plastic spiders is aware, is Halloween. Now I make much of being an old moo, but I'm still a long long way away from getting my bus pass, so the Angevin childhood is not THAT long ago... and yet I cannot remember any of this hype and commercialism going on then. The most exciting thing anybody did was perhaps a bit of apple bobbing in the back garden with somebody's Mum supplying the towels to dry yourself off and the sausage, mash and beans afterwards. At school, you might make the obligatory mural display of witches, pumpkins and spiders with black pipecleaners and bits of orange crepe paper and Teacher might read a mild ghosty story (in my school the nuns always managed to get in the one of Little Johnny falling down the well because he was a Bad Boy and Baby Jesus beating off the evil witches to save him - but my school was far from normal). 'Trick and treating' was something you watched Yank kids do in films... even as late as when ET was 'THE film' the trick and treating scene was very much something 'foreign'. The whole 'modern' (ie. American) experience of Halloween to me is a 100% imported grotesque merry-go-round merely encouraging people to spend more money because 'the kids want it'. Tough luck kids, if any of you dare to come trick-or-treating up the Chateau Angevin drive - you will be told you are engaging in a form of begging our current society misguidedly sanctions, asked if you are American and if not, told to go away before I call the police and do you and your parents for trespass. If you ARE American, you will be asked more politely to go away and stop pestering me with your imported cultural activities. We don't get the local Jewish kids pestering us Gentiles for 'gelt' at Hanukkah; so you can follow their example, thank you.

Moving country now, there was a bit of fuss this week when the Czech Prime Minister, Mirek Topolánek, smacked a photographer who was trying to get some snaps of him. If it had been as simple as that, I would have fully approved of the photographer doing Topolánek for assault; but it WASN'T that cut and dried. Looking at the video of the event, http://www.javno.tv/en/index.php?id=10955f7094915168 , it seems pretty clear to me that here was a guy just taking his new-born son out for a walk in the pram when he was pounced on by a group of photographers and reporters behaving in a highly intrusive way. I have a lot of time for Czechs, having been to Prague and its environs a fair few times, they seem family-oriented sensible people, and I'm surprised there hasn't been more comment saying Topolánek was quite right in dishing out a bit of old-fashioned discipline to the annoying little scrote intruding on his privacy. It was quite clear the the guy was trying to take pictures of the baby and that's why I suspect Topolánek reacted. If somebody can't even take his baby out without being treated in this rude way I think it's quite sad. I'm afraid I probably would have lamped the pest too.

Lastly, I may have mentioned on here before one of my greatest pals, Tim, is off on a charity walk on Everest in November. I was therefore a bit worried to discover it's been snowing in Tibet since Sunday, which is earlier than usual, and so far over 2ft of snow has fallen, creating major chaos. Puts in perspective all the fuss we've had in the UK about a few flakes falling in October, doesn't it?? I'm not sure whether this will affect Tim's walk, so I'll keep you posted. I think he's bonkers, but if it's raising money for a good cause then I can sort of understand why he's doing it... as long as he doesn't expect me to treat him like Edmund Hilary when he comes back! He could, after all, have confined himself to the Original Mountain Marathon (which the media are STILL bleating about) mentioned in a previous blog-post so we could all have had a laugh at him ... perhaps I'll suggest he thinks about this next year?

Hahahaha

My sides are aching after watching two of my hens, both of whom haven't experienced winter before, trying to 'catch' snowflakes.

I think I'll stop paying my license fee, the BBC can't compete with comedy of this quality...

Getting around...

... is sometimes harder than you might think in the lovely UK. (btw this is also why I felt constrained to write about the Ross/Brand/Sachs debacle after being perforce unable to escape the news coverage on the subject yesterday)

Yesterday was my day for getting my hair cut and otherwise dealt with by the lovely Robert, my hairdresser of years and years, a good chum and probably one of the more outrageous gays in my acquaintance. I always look forward to my visits - an opportunity to catch up on the gossip and just take some time out from La Vie Angevin. The main hassle with visiting Robert, however, is that he lives in darkest Wimbledon; which is not just like popping down the road from the Gloucestershire fastness of Chateau Angevin: visits therefore take some organisation.

There was a problem yesterday - the person whom I'd arranged would look after Mini decided, at the eleventh hour, they couldn't. Not wanting to disappoint Robert and let him down, I decided to drop Mini on his grandmother (in Birmingham), hare it down the M6/M1 to Wimbledon and then hare it back up again to pick him up after a lovely time playing with Grandma. This is not as mad as it sounds - the old girl is always bleating on about how she doesn't see enough of the darling boy, so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone; do the familial thing, give her a whole afternoon of sprog's company, AND get what I needed to do done. The only fly in the ointment was my mobile isn't working at the moment (I MUST make that call to Orange!) so I'd be out of contact once I left Grandma's Cottage - but I thought that would probably be OK - let her have a taste of what I deal with 24/7 hehehe...

All started well - the M5 behaved itself and we arrived at Nanna's in good time, enough time for me to have a cup of tea and explain in detail the contents of Mini's food sack which I'd taken up so Nanna wasn't tempted to unleash the unspeakable rubbish she produces on Mini and then experience the latter's very verbose disgust when he's faced with grub he finds substandard. Job done, I blithely made my way down the M42 without a care in the world.. and that's when the trouble started. Not being completely familiar with the layout of the M42/M6 interchange I misjudged which lane I needed to be in to access the M6 South sliproad... and could't get into it courtesy of a complete pig of a van driver who spotted me indicating AND SPEEDED UP (complete with obscene gestures) to ensure I couldn't change lane in time. 'Never mind', I thought... 'I'll just take the M40 instead', not realising the M40 was closed owing to some chump spilling his lorry load of lard all over the road. Still blithely optimistic I thought 'Oh well, they are bound to have diversions in place, that'll be OK, I've got plenty of time...'

Silly me. I forgot this is the UK, not France, and the traffic authorities couldn't organise an orgy in a brothel. There was NO sensible plan in place and therefore I sat in a queue as soon as I got past the Oxford junction. And sat... And sat... At one point I hadn't moved for an hour and 20 minutes (and had indeed availed myself of the cups of tea one bloke was making in his caravan)... hence my extreme boredom with the news. As I didn't have my mobile, I couldn't ring anybody to update them either. Eventually getting off the M40 after THREE AND A HALF HOURS of sheer torture, and now despairing of having my much needed haircut, I fought my way through the chaos on the motorway side roads, through Henley and onto the M4, thinking I could at least give Robert his money so he wouldn't miss out financially. Two minutes before getting on the M4 I discover some muppet has broken down and there are delays from the very junction at which I would enter, for about 10 miles. Sigh.

The enforced thinking time as I then juddered my way down the M4 made me consider which way I'd go now. There are multiple ways of getting to Wimbledon from the M4, but as it was dark and the weather was foul I thought I would do the sensible thing and stay on the motorways and major roads as much as I could and zip round the M25 and up the A3. Oh, how I laughed when my radio informed me the M25 was 'horrendous' from the junction with the M4 to the junction past the A3 - but at least I found out BEFORE I got on the M25 this time, and consequently decided to 'do the South Circular thing'. Which wasn't too bad actually - just tedious.

Arriving at Robert's at 7pm - ie. over 7 hours after I left Birmingham - I found the old boy virtually in tears thinking I'd had a car accident or something, because he knows me well enough to know if I say I will be somewhere I WILL be there (admittedly usually running 5-10 minutes late, but you can't have everything- 5 hours is a bit of a record even for me, it has to be said). Whisking me in, he did the biz on my hair in record time (I wasn't expecting this, but he insisted) and swooped in delight on the jam and chutney I'd brought him. At least I'd achieved something, then.

I wasn't stupid enough, however, to think the gods had had enough of torturing me on the roads.. and I was right. Although not nearly as horrible as my M40/M4 experience earlier in the day, the M1 back to Brum was rather congested, the situation not helped by the wet snow trying to fall. Eventually getting back to Grandma's Cottage at about 11pm, to find Mini grumpy and still awake and Nanna virtually falling on my neck with relief that I was taking her small inquisitor away at long last, I had enough time to ingest some further caffeine before getting back on the M42/M5. Again suffering a bit from the wet snow, but at least Mini was asleep almost as soon as the car started, I was never so glad to see Chateau Angevin (and my bed) as I was at about 1.30 am. End of nightmare.

Now, there are some people who would say I was completely mad in the first place for thinking it was even reasonable to drive Gloucs-Brum-London-Brum-Gloucs just for a haircut, but they would be missing the point. Firstly, that Robert is a friend before he is my hairdresser and not only would he have been losing out financially if I just cancelled my apppointment, but also he'd be missing out on the chance to talk about a few of his current difficulties with me, which I know is valuable to him. It seemed to me driving around a lot was a small price to pay to give a friend something. Secondly, it gave me the opportunity to let Mini spend some real time with his grandmother - something which doesn't happen very often - thus making HIM realise I'm not as bad as he thinks I am sometimes and making HER realise when I get on the phone tearing my hair out about his behaviour I don't just whinge about nothing. Thirdly, relationships with mothers-in-law being what they are, I was more than aware I could not be accused for a good long time of being an evil daughter-in-law who limits contact time with the grandchild. So, it's a bit more than a haircut, really, isn't it?

And what has this experience taught ME?
1. Never, ever, assume the transport authorities have a functioning brain-cell.
2. Never, ever, take out reading material from the car in an effort to keep it tidy.
3. Never, ever, take prawns (even cut-price ones) to Grandma's to serve as Mini's snacks again, because it just reinforces the old bat's convictions regarding me being a complete lotus-eater who squanders money on luxury food. Explaining to her they are a good source of zinc, which hyperactive children are usually short of, is a waste of time.
4. Give more consideration to picking up the phone and just saying 'no' sometimes. Robert would probably have whinged about me cancelling my appointment, but I know he found it a bit embarrassing I would go to such lengths to avoid upsetting him.

Lastly
5. Always get the number plate of offensive van-drivers... whoever the little scrote was who stopped me getting on the M6 South, I hope he gets food poisoning...

For what it's worth...

...my comments on the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross/Andrew Sachs fiasco which is obliterating everything else on the news just now.

1. Andrews Sachs (and his agent) gave his number to the BBC knowing it was for a Brand/Ross broadcast. Even *I* know a combination of those two presenters is not going to produce a result of which Parky/Paxman would be proud: both Sachs and his agent should have therefore realised they were likely to be the subjects of the usual asinine-rubbish-passing-as-entertainment from those two. Call me cynical, but if Sachs lands a nice plum role after all this, I shall be very suspicious indeed of his 'I'm just an innocent 78 year old' act.
2. As has been endlessly repeated in the reporting on this subject, the offending item was pre-recorded. Who, exactly, are the editors on this show? - because THEY are the real offenders, not Brand and Ross who can't reasonably be expected to behave in anything other than the jejeune manner in which they normally do.
3. That strange creature, Sachs' granddaughter, is quite right in saying that anything which occurred between her and the equally peculiar Brand was a private matter and should therefore not be aired publically. Why, then, was SHE plastered all over the Sunday newspapers bleating about it and spilling more beans than Brand did in his mercifully short broadcast? Call me a suspicious old moo, but given the lady's vitriol, I suspect Brand dropped dear Georgina like a hot potato after their sordid little liaison and the said fragrant Georgina is now taking every opportunity to get her own back... compare her 'sack both of them' attitude with the more philosophical response of her grandfather. If she doesn't want to be embarrassed publically she shouldn't sleep so readily with public figures who have as few inhibitions as does Brand with regard to hanging out his dirty linen. Now Brand has resigned, and therefore Georgina's got the revenge she wanted, I hope we'll hear less sanctimonious nonsense from her.
4. I seem to recall that Brand said somewhere in this broadcast or in his subsequent comments on the same that you could virtually commit genocide in this country but you couldn't make fun of Manuel. Well, he was bang on the money, really wasn't he? We are in danger of turning into a caricature of ourselves on this one, guys.
5. Frankly, there are a lot more important and far-reaching things going on in the world just now than a couple of 'comics' going OTT on another entertainer. And yet even the Prime Minister has waded into this particular little row. Let's get some perspective, for goodness' sake.