Radio 2 and cricket

Heard a new song from Duke Special on Radio 2 this morning, as I was wending my way westwards towards the coast and another visit to Northern Ireland. The Admin Supremo expects me to derail the peace process while I’m there, having been thwarted by hitherto unknown goodwill and peaceful intentions on my previous visit, but nothing could be further from the truth.

I started receiving emails advertising Duke Special’s forthcoming gigs some years ago. Didn’t come across as spam, but had no idea who Duke Special was/were, and so I binned the emails and requested my name be taken off the mailing list. Which it was, so it can’t have been spam. Now, having heard the song on the radio, it sounds uncommonly like Peter Wilson, who I emailed via Friends Reunited some time ago after spotting his name in the inlay notes of a CD I was listening to. Which maybe explains how I ended up on his mailing list. Peter Wilson used to go to my school, Down High, which is why I was interested in the first place. So Mr Wilson joins Ash in the select group of people who have left my school and had a song played on the radio. Although, strictly speaking, I think Ash achieved that feat before leaving school, the upstarts. Perhaps Broon, another DHS ex-pupil, may yet make it a hat-trick. It would be a shame if her skills on the slide trombone were not exposed to a wider audience than just Bellevue Chapel.

Potentially even more exciting (I know, I know) is that I heard Jo Mango on Radio 2 last night. Apparently Stuart Maconie had highlighted a song of hers earlier in the week, and we heard another snippet of it last night. I heard her perform the same song live, in a barn somewhere between Perth and Dundee, a year or two ago. In fact, you could say I actually played on the same bill as Jo Mango, although it would be stretching the truth a little.

But enough of my brushes with A-list celebrities for the time being. Back to cricket. Two weeks ago, I noted with some relief that the Australian government had decided to bite the bullet and ban their cricketers from touring Zimbabwe, which they were due to do this year.

A note of explanation. The ICC, who mismanage cricket on a global scale, have a Future Tours programme, which all Test and ODI-playing countries are obliged to subscribe to. This commits them to playing against all the other major cricketing countries home and away within 6 years. Failure to fulfil this obligation would incur a heavy fine for the guilty cricket board, possibly along with a ban, which would bring even heavier financial losses. Accordingly, countries that have been contemplating a refusal to play in Zimbabwe on account of Robert Mugabe’s regime, e.g. England, have decided to tour anyway because they can’t afford to be banned from world cricket. The ICC have copped some flak for their stance, it being widely believed in some parts of the cricket world that they (the ICC) should suspend Zimbabwe from playing international cricket until the situation in the country improves. The ICC refuse to do this, claiming that they don’t get involved in politics, only cricket. The only way a country’s cricket board can legitimately not tour without incurring a fine is if the government actually BANS the cricket team from going.

Cue the Aussie government’s announcement. Compare this with the British government’s approach: when England were faced with the same quandary a few years ago, the government refused to have anything to do with it, saying it was a matter for the cricketers. The ECB, conscious of the financial implications, hummed and hawed for a bit, then prevaricated, chewed things over and weighed them up, before finally giving in and going ahead with the tour. Money is money, after all.

“I don’t think it’s fair to leave a foreign policy decision of this magnitude on the shoulders of young sportsmen,” the Australian PM John Howard was quoted as saying. “It’s much better, in the end, for the government to take the rap.” Must be good to live in a country where the politicians talk in straight lines. Unlike the UK, which moreover sanctimoniously outlaws Australia’s tourism advertising slogan “So where the bloody hell are you?” but has no issue with French Connection’s grubby marketing. One wonders idly if Australia taking money out of the UK economy, and French Connection putting it in, might have anything to do with it.

A prime minister that says it like it is, and loves cricket too. Now there’s a thing. Midway through his re-election campaign in 2004, Howard was asked how things were progressing. “It’s like having built a very solid Hayden-Langer partnership,” he replied. “We’ve made a good start.”

Brilliant. Perhaps Gordon Brown will someday describe a stinging reply in the House as a “Pietersen slap through midwicket.” Or a wide-of-the-mark question as a “Harmison”…

Well, it’s about time for me to return to the P&O Express car deck and drive off into the homeland. The smell of a ferry’s car deck evokes so many memories of childhood holidays to Scotland and beyond (England, occasionally). Not so much a whiff of nostalgia, as an intense petrol vapour-fuelled sensory experience. The whiff of nostalgia has come instead from an unexpected source. A girl has just started playing a recorder in the passenger lounge. A RECORDER. Three notes in, I am reminded of what an irritating noise they make. Don’t think she’s in line for a record deal.

Unless, of course, she goes to my old school…

Chocolate Digestives and Grammatical Pedantry

It’s a bad thing when you run out of chocolate digestives. This happened to us at work this week, but mercifully, Adi, our Admin Supremo, was on hand to dash across to Somerfield and save the day. He even got back with the goods before my tea got cold. This is top notch admin work, in my view. Our previous incumbents in the Admin Supremo position, notably Dish and Broon/Annie-Anne, would have been hard pushed to match this performance, tending to be more adept at scoffing the biscuits than supplying them. Dish, going by her comment on the last post, also appears to have developed the skill of playing ultimate frisbee with her buttocks, which strikes me as no mean feat. Can you throw as well as catch, Dish?

Anyway. Last week I accepted Colin Eye’s invitation to join him in a viewing of Spiderman 3. I accepted, somewhat against my better judgement, having been bored witless by Spidermans 1 and 2. But my alternative last Saturday was to spend a hand-wringing evening in the bar, examining another Holy Cross 2nd XI defeat (2 out of 2) and pondering how we might learn to catch a cricket ball (4 catches taken out of 20+ chances). Even for someone with my fondness for melancholy AND cricket, it seemed like an overly-depressing combination, so I opted for the cinema. I might have caught up on some sleep while I was there, had it not been so loud. The action sequences were fun, and I liked it when Spidey went to the dark side for a bit. I can even take the ridiculously far-fetched goings on, but what I just can’t abide is the mind-numbing tedium in between. If I wanted to watch somebody clumsily blundering their way through a relationship… well, let’s just say I don’t need any pointers on how to do that…

Speaking of mind-numbing tedium, I was reading a work-related newsletter recently, when a wonderful error caught my eye:

“For those currently waiting for NHS hearing aids we agree there needs to be a sustainable low weight solution…”

I’m presuming that they meant low wait, rather than casting aspersions on the lack of dieting success of the entire NHS audiology waiting list.

One of my co-pedants in the Apostrophe Protection Society, who refers to himself as the Comely Bank Branch, delights in observing mistakes like this in everyday life. He then texts them to me for my amusement. Consider the following messages I received in the last few months:

‘Birthdays’ at the east end of Princes St is closing down. One is encouraged to hurray while stocks last.

The Bristol City branch of Currys.digital is advertising the lunch of the Sony Playstation 3 on 23 March. Apparently stocks are limited.

I myself have noted that without leaving Queensferry St in Edinburgh, it is possible to unwinde with a drink at Halo after a day’s work, and then move on to sample the pre-threatre menu at Petit Paris. Before Christmas I also saw a Feastive Menu on offer in Burntisland, Fife. Perhaps my favourite of recent times was a warning sign in a hotel room which encouraged the occupant to advise Reception on their arrival “if you are disabled or hard of hearing which would effect your exit in the event of a fire”. I wasn’t aware that having a hearing loss enabled you to leave buildings, but then again, what do I know about such things.

So, Colin has now been mentioned in my last two blog entries, and as a fairly regular commenter should really be given a character page. As should Broon, really. However, the Blog Character Cabinet is pretty full. I think perhaps a couple of evictions are in order. I haven’t received any abuse from Friendy in a while – he must be on a shoogly hook. I like to keep these things democratic. Anyone care to vote someone off? Anonymous comments, for once, welcome 😉

Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday

In the course of my work, I find myself travelling to see customers from time to time. Sometimes this is because they are old and infirm and unable to travel themselves, and sometimes it’s because they simply never drive into Edinburgh these days, dear. One has some sympathy for those not wishing to drive in Edinburgh these days, given that its streets are liable to be blocked off, made one-way, or simply disappear in a puff of smoke at a moment’s notice. Perhaps tomorrow’s election will finally confine our Labour council to the inadequate recycling facility of history. But somehow I doubt it.

Today I have travelled slightly further than usual to see a customer, and find myself in the land of my birth, dear old Norn Iron. On departing the plane at an unseemly hour this morning, I was momentarily tempted to pay homage by kissing the tarmac, but I refrained from doing so. You just don’t know where that tarmac’s been.

After negotiating a lengthy rush-hour traffic jam and some more roadworks, I find myself in The Original Roast Coffee Co. on The Lisburn Road. As a momentary aside, is it purely a Northern Irish thing to preface almost all the country’s roads with ‘The’? Nobody lives on Malone Road in Belfast, they live on The Malone Road. And don’t you forget it. Anyhow. My original plan was to breakfast at Ruby Tuesday’s, a little further along the Lisburn Road. However, shaking that ass along said Road in my hired Megane, trying to spot Ruby Tuesday’s, having not done sufficient research on t’internet last night, was proving frustrating for the local drivers queued up behind me. I daresay they thought that my mother was in town, such was the plodding pace of the procession. And so I stopped somewhere near the first place I saw, which is here. And a fine place it is too, as any place that has free wireless internet and serves pancakes with bacon and maple syrup for breakfast must surely be. Now, technically, since I have been up since 4am, and had some toast at the airport, this is Second Breakfast, but they didn’t have a Second Breakfast menu, and so I kept very quiet and tried to look malnourished, in the hope that I would qualify for something from the Breakfast menu.

This is the second place I have found recently which provides free wireless internet without even hinting at, never mind advertising the fact. I find the clandestine nature of using the internet thus only enhances the experience, as it gives me the impression that I’ve stumbled across a great secret that nobody else knows about. Especially when someone comes in and has to pay for an internet code at the counter so they can use one of the terminals across from me. Victory to the laptop user.

Later today I will meet up with an old schoolfriend for lunch, last seen five years ago. As it happens, on Friday evening I am reuniting with an old university friend, last seen 11 years ago. He was a regular squash adversary of mine, and since then I haven’t managed to play squash much, never mind regularly. However, in a curious and mostly uninteresting twist of fate, I played a fairly competitive late-night game (of squash) against Colin Eye (currently saving up for a deposit to put down on a Blog Character page) on Monday night. That is to say, I was competitive in the first game, after which he stepped up a few gears and demolished me. Following that up with a very competitive late-night game of football last night, all this after the first cricket outing of the season on Saturday, and it’s no great surprise that all of my muscles, but most especially my buttocks, ache. Makes ‘getting purchase’ a painful experience.

I leave you with the news that a blogging rulebook currently being touted as a Good Idea, contains the suggestion that anonymous comments should not be allowed. Something that some of you, dear valued readers, and most especially my dear valued shy commenters, might like to ponder… 🙂

Healthy eating at Easter

Went to give blood on Good Friday, a little apprehensively since I’ve had a cold recently, and am still coughing from time to time. The nurses at the Blood Donor Centre in Edinburgh take a fairly relaxed approach to your suitability to donate blood. About as relaxed as an SAS admissions officer. If you’ve so much as recently walked past someone who sneezed, they’re liable to shake their head sadly and ask you to come back next time. Woebetide you if the person who sneezed as you walked past might have once had sex with someone in Africa. Then you’re for the high jump. You can see why I was apprehensive. Not only have I coughed recently, but I know a man with a Kenyan wife. So when I mentioned that my plane home from Australia in January had stopped off at BANGKOK… the eyebrows were raised sharply and she disappeared to ascertain my fate. I glanced nervously upwards, half expecting a hermetically-sealed container to drop from the ceiling and insulate me from society until I was safe.

I protested that I hadn’t left the airport in Bangkok, and had purchased nothing more than a book while I was there, but all to no avail. Apparently the plane even touching Thai tarmac knocks blood donation on the head for 12 months. Malaria hotspot, it would seem. So that’s that. Still, I came away with some mini-eggs courtesy of the Blood Donor Centre.

Easter Monday brought an expedition to St Andrews, after breakfast at the incomparable Indigo Yard. Kenny D, Broon, and Jen all made the trip, among others less infamous to the readers of this blog. We were all careful to suck on sweets as we went over the Forth Bridge, after Jen’s public assertion that her ears pop when she goes North.

The sun shone, the wind blew, and we had fun. The sun shone so much that Jen went slightly pink and declared herself to have sunstroke. The wind blew so much during our time on the beach that we all experienced exfoliation by sand-blasting, and are still finding sand in various bodily crevices. Actually, I can only speak for my own crevices. A long and satisfying game of beach cricket was marked by the usual events: dropped catches aplenty and Kenny D muttering darkly about the uneven surface every time he got bowled.

Dining in Zizzi’s that evening, I took a moment to read the advisory notice on my glass bottle of Coke. It advised me that 330ml of Coca Cola, ie one glass bottle or a can, contains 39.5% of an adult’s RDA of sugar. I pondered this for a moment, considering how I’d started the day with a breakfast soaked in maple syrup, and reckoned that with the syrup and Coke alone I must have been close to sugar saturation for the day. I looked up to see three year old Lewis polishing off the last of his own bottle of Coke, and breathed deeply. What percentage of a child’s sugar RDA, I wondered…

My sister and her partner were up over the Easter break, which meant I finally got the chance to meet my 11-week old niece. We got on reasonably well, I feel. She seemed to tolerate me when I kept moving, as if this held promise that I would soon hand her over to someone more competent. Childcare, at that age, seemed refreshingly logical and uncomplicated to my bachelor eyes. If she was crying, she was either hungry (hand her to my sister), or tired (hand her to my sister), or had a loaded nappy (hand her to anyone in sight. Except perhaps, my dad). If she wasn’t crying, carry her around for a bit for bonding purposes until she started crying.

On Saturday at our church’s music practice, two of the band, by necessity, brought their young kids along. Surveying the carnage in the church at the end of the practice, and the fraught look on the faces of the parents in question, I was reminded that childcare doesn’t stay logical or uncomplicated for long.

The weather was glorious in Galashiels today, which is where my job took me. Sitting outside at lunchtime, drinking my way through 60% of my sugar RDA, I looked up to see a bus with a question plastered over its side: “SALT. Is your food full of it?”

I checked the bottle. 0.0g salt.

Phew. Still eating healthily.

Melancholy and chicken kebabs

Melancholy. What a word. I was discussing its beauty with Judith, a lurker on this blog, this morning. So beautifully… poised, it whispers sweetly of the warm darkness you find deep within a slough of despond. I have recently discovered some new melancholy music (it’s new to me, folks, ok?) in Quasi and Ray LaMontagne. The latter’s album ‘Till the sun turns black’, as if that wasn’t mournful genius enough by itself, includes songs with lines such as:

“I never learned to count my blessings
I choose instead to dwell in my disasters”

Gorgeous. Then there’s Quasi.

“Life is full life is grey:
At its best it’s just OK.
But I’m happy to report
Life is also short.”

Came across Quasi on Cully’s iPod. Cully is a maverick musician/artist who works as an arts staff worker for UCCF. Cully’s iPod is an unplumbed depth of exotic-sounding bands like the Violent Femmes. Exotic, and unheard of, to a boy with a sheltered Church of Ireland upbringing. Anyway, Cully does a good line in quirky songs himself, and played a great set at a gig a few Wednesdays ago. The gig was held in order to raise funds for UCCF’s CU Leaders Training weekend (CULT, as we like to call it) which took place last weekend. I was doing sound at both the fundraising gig and the weekend itself, which is how I came to be in charge of Cully’s iPod. So now you know.

After that gig, I dropped sound kit off at various locations, including my church (where I set the alarm off at about 11.45pm – apologies to any local residents who may be reading), and then stopped off for a chicken kebab, having gone to the gig straight from work and therefore being reasonably peckish at this point. On exiting the kebab emporium at about 12.15am, I weighed up my options. The thing about kebabs is, they leave a bit of a pong (on your clothes, breath, and in the room where you’ve eaten them), often only really noticeable the morning after. So I did the sensible thing and headed down to my mum’s. Mum, of course, was awake. With me in the kitchen and her tucked up in bed, she insisted on holding an inter-room conversation.

– “Did you have a good night?”
– “What?”

– “Did you have a good night?”
– “Yes.”

– “Are you having your supper?”
– “What?”

– “Are you having your supper?”
– “Yes.”

– “Would you not rather eat in the living room?”

Now that is a superfluous and irrelevant question to be asking at 12.25am. No. I feel bad enough for stinking out your kitchen never mind your living room.

– “No, I’m fine here, thanks.”

One Saturday, not long after this, I popped into my mum’s for lunch. No mention was made of the foul-smelling kitchen. Parents can be so forgiving at times. Just as well, really.

Over lunch we discussed funeral plans, cremations and choice of songs for same. Dad fixed his gaze on somewhere unspecifically distant.

– “I would like ‘Crown Him with many Crowns’, and ‘the Irish one’.

– “Whiskey in the Jar?” I volunteered tentatively, but I think he meant ‘Be thou my vision’.

In other sad news, Wiseman has got a girlfriend. What’s more, another friend, Jamie, has just got engaged. I began to wonder if I’m the only sensible/stubborn one left.

Then I remembered DC, and smiled. A cursory glance at him and I feel reassured that I won’t be alone on the singles shelf for some time yet.

On ski-lifts and snowboarders

In an idle moment today, I found myself wistfully remembering the ski-lifts at Méribel. I love sliding up a mountain on a chairlift. It’s so quiet and peaceful, at least it is when you’re not sitting beside a Haxton, and you can just drink in the beauty and wonder of the snow-covered mountains. The ascent of a mountain on a chairlift being a somewhat longer and more controlled experience than the descent, it also gives you time to ruminate and cogitate on (and possibly even discuss, should you be blessed with suitably-erudite liftmates) some of life’s mysteries. I would warrant that Hutchison could compose an entire Monologue on the way up the Golf chairlift from Méribel Village, it being longer and slower than most. On one journey I engaged DC in a discussion on the significance of the Transfiguration, although we didn’t get very far. My memory isn’t infallible, but I suspect Tim might have interrupted with a comment about his hair or other matters relating to his personal grooming.

Tim, you see, is a snowboarder. Snowboarders are very concerned with their personal image and ‘looking cool’. That is why they use snowboards rather than skis. Being a close relative of the skateboard, the snowboard entitles them to ooze attitude and appear hip and laid back. In reality it entitles them to spend a lot of the time laid back on their butt. Sometimes this is after a fall. Falls by snowboarders are always attributed to [choose your own expletive here] skiers, or moguls created by skiers, or bad snow conditions (caused by skiers scraping all the good snow off). In addition, boarders, being strapped onto their board, can only look in one direction, and so tend to swing blindly out into the path of skiers hurtling downhill behind them.

*&!%£* skiers.

However, all of these on-piste skiing offences pale into comparison with what a boarder has to put up with in getting back up the mountain. Ski-lifts, you see, were designed with skiers in mind, as no-one had the foresight to design a lift which perfectly suited someone with a large plank of wood strapped to their feet. *&!%£* ski-lift designers. Chairlifts are bearable for our mono-planked friends, but button lifts and T-bars are horrible. They must twist themselves into all sorts of contortions in order to be hauled back up the hill safely by either of these contraptions. I know a thing or two about twisting oneself into contortions on a T-bar myself, and I’m a skier.

Once off the lift, boarders spend a bit more time on their butt, sometimes because they’ve crashed into a *&!%£* skier coming off the lift, but mainly because they need to strap their board back on. Five minutes later they’re strapped in and ready to ooze cool on their way down the mountain. But more about those T-bar contortions, and less about oozing cool. Three years ago, in Switzerland, I encountered my first T-bar, and not a lot of cool was oozed.

 

For those of you unfamiliar with these monsters, study the pic on the left. Try and pretend there’s some snow in the picture. The idea is that you and a skiing mate catch one of these as it swings round the bottom terminal, and get the branches of the ‘T’ behind your butts. The thing then hauls you up the mountain. Unfortunately, on this, my first attempt at using a T-bar, I had to go solo, as there was an odd number of us skiers in our group. This proved hilariously disastrous. Having a skier (ie me) on only one side of the ‘T’ meant that the thing was forever pulling itself out from behind you. From behind me, in fact. After a number of false starts, I finally got moving, only for the whole lift to grind to a halt after a few hundred yards. Looking back, I saw that my friend Esther, whose own trials and tribulations on ski-lifts should be available in paperback before long, was having similar troubles, despite having a partner on the lift. So the lift operator had stopped the lift and was giving her some instruction. This gave me some time to think – not always a good thing. I realised that my solo T-bar trip up the mountain (and it was quite a long one) would be significantly easier if I straddled the T-bar, thus putting an even weight distribution on either side of the central pulling-bit. Doing this manoeuvre while the lift was in motion would have been impossible, but now that it was stopped for a bit, I put my plan in action. Soon the lift started up again and I headed off, now in relative comfort.

As I got nearer the top, the flaw in my plan, in a cruel, belated kind of way, made itself apparent. Extricating myself from the T-bar, while in motion, was going to be a problem. I realised I needed to twist it until the ‘T’ was vertical and then pass it through my legs without doing myself a serious and humiliating injury. Unfortunately the top of the lift arrived rather suddenly – I crested a rise to see a short flat area for ‘disembarkation’. It was here, and in full view of Tim and some other boarding friends, that I picked up the most unwelcome speed, tried in an ungainly fashion to carry out the ‘Quinny Manoeuvre’ while still holding onto my ski poles, failed to twist the T-bar far enough, crashed to the ground losing a ski in the process, and got dragged along towards a precipice before something finally went right (I do believe my heavenly Father intervened at this point) – the T-bar somehow detaching itself from my clumsy embrace and springing skywards. Only then did the lift operator see fit to stop the lift, seeing as how I was causing an obstruction to other users’ ‘disembarkation’. As was my lost ski, a few yards further back. Inconceivably, Tim and his mates found all this highly entertaining.

*&!%£* snowboarders.

The Day of Reckoning

I promised Jen (and her associates) that there would be a day of reckoning. And there was. Very early on Friday morning, Jen, thinking she’d heard a cat miaowing at the end of her bed, sat bolt upright in bed and clutched her covers to her. She had heard a cat. Earlier in the evening I had sneaked my Airport Express and a small set of portable speakers into her room. At shortly after 1.30am I sent the miaowing cat, and just as she was on the verge of waking up the Haxtonmeister to come and do something about it, I followed it up with a sheep baaing and a cow mooing. At this point, two rooms away, I was also clutching my duvet – to my face to prevent myself losing it. In Room 4 meantime, all attempts to remain quiet had been thrown to the wind. Just before the farmyard arrived in her room, Jen, having lain down to sleep and felt things were not quite right, had discovered DC’s copy of the Times spread carefully underneath her bedsheet like some sort of incontinence sheet for the cognoscenti. Added to the sudden disappearance of four of us earlier in the evening, and subsequent very sudden reappearance outside the front door as she came through it, I think the poor girl was beginning to think we had it in for her. Which we did, obviously.

Friday was the perfect last day. Thursday’s heavy snow and poor visibility had given way to bright blue skies, sunshine and groomed pistes. It was a glorious way to end the week. Phyllida, Tim, Colin and I headed over to Val Thorens, where Mr Haxton left us to return to collect young James, and the three of us skied down to Les Meniuères for lunch. Mandy should have been with us, but had been somewhat thwarted by a lack of ski pass, having taken it out of her ski jacket the night before, for reasons still unclear. So after a couple of blue runs, we headed up to the top of Mont de la Chambre, where Mandy was to meet us.

On the second of these blue runs, Tim and I crested a rise at speed, only to discover a French Ski School for kiddies winding its way gently across the slope. Tim veered left and carved safely through the line of kids, whereas I held my line down the right hand side of the piste, thinking I would straight-line it just inside the piste marker. However, the kiddies’ ski instructor, bless ‘im, decided to ski right out to the edge of the piste before making a turn. I had only time for one thought. Children. They’re the future, and the only future we’ve got. So I veered right and flew headlong, Superman-like, into the powder off the piste. I trust the little tykes appreciated the sacrifices I made – my dignity, and the chance to beat Tim and Phyllida to the bottom.

This was not my only Superman impression of the week. On Wednesday, after I had negotiated almost an entire day without falling (save for one unmentionable incident when Haxton clipped my skis and sent me shooting down a red run on my back), I skied down a short section of green run (yep, green = easy), attempted to stop beside the rest of the crew, managed to plant my skis into some snow and fly over the front of them. Sadly this proved too much excitement for my poor camera to withstand, and I subsequently discovered it in 2 distinct pieces in my pocket. To compound its misery, I had left my pocket unzipped and it was covered in snow. A sad and damp end for a hitherto useful and trusty friend. Remembering to zip one’s pockets up before descending a slope is imperative. With my brand new ski jacket, this was not straightforward. It has pockets all over the place, perfectly-sized for all of life’s skiing necessities – ski pass, mobile phone, sunglasses, Twix.

Having managed to convince Mandy via 2-way radio on the way up the chairlift that she’d come up the wrong mountain, we arrived at the summit just in time to stop her skiing off to find us. Oh, how we laughed.

Skiing back towards Méribel, we collected the senior Haxtons and DC halfway down the mountain, and had a great final run back. Mandy led me astray into a section of off piste so deep that my poles kept disappearing from view.

There was just time to dump Kirsty headfirst into a snowdrift one last time, stop off for one last £4 Coke, and then we headed back to the chalet.

So, it’s goodbye to Méribel. Tim and James, who got along famously, will have to hold off their hair-spiking discussions for a bit. I think Tim appreciated having someone else to talk to with a similar perspective on the world. Both of them see things from a little, um, lower than most of us.

On Wednesday evening we all went out for dinner to a suitably-overpriced local eatery. James found the dining experience much more fun from outside, where he went at regular intervals to knock on the window and wave at us. His mum Morag, fresh from finishing her book ‘Politically Correct Parenting in the 21st Century’, slapped the window with her napkin and called out loudly “Oh, away back to the orphanage!”. The folk at the tables near us weren’t sure exactly what to make of this.

Now back in Edinburgh, and I’m finding it colder here than I did on my return from Australia last month. Work that one out. It could be something to do with being dog-tired. Fell asleep for the entire second half of Scotland v Wales this afternoon. Missing Méribel and all the laughs already. Hope you enjoyed the posts from DC and myself, and the photos (click on ‘Other photos’ on the RHS).

Hope to hear from you all soon…

The jacket, the prank and the wardrobe


(A modern day morality tale)

[apologies for the delay in posting this, and also more photos… wasn’t easy getting access to wifi in Méribel. This one from DC again]

The pranks in Meribel continue unabated, and to rebound on their perpetrator with uncanny regularity. Wednesday was our hosts’ day off, and so we had to repair to a local restaurant. It seemed that during our meal the French version of Pickfords (le Pickfords) had paid us a visit. Somehow, the wardrobes in the guys’ bedrooms had managed to turn themselves around, so that the doors were facing the wall, rendering their use somewhat difficult.

There were the usual denials and protestations of innocence. However, the track record of the occupants of the chalet meant that identification of the guilty party(ies) did not require us to call out the local gendarmes.

Shortly later, Nasty Jen decided it was time to go out and hit the local nitespots, as I believe the word is currently (mis)spelt. Jen was hopeful of bumping into her ski instructor, who apparently was not only French, but also “hot”. As looking trendy is of prime importance in Meribel, the pink jacket was obviously the item of attire of choice. Jen was most distressed to be unable to find said jacket. However, it was suggested to her that turning one of the wardrobes back round and opening the door might yield up the jacket, which had managed to find its way there during an unguarded moment.

We attempted to explain to Jen the concept of putting right the wrongs that one had perpetrated, but it fell on deaf ears.

Jen looked forlorn and protested that lack of strength would preclude her from executing this operation. And her partners in crime seemed reluctant to pitch in again in the furniture shifting operation. One moving of wardrobes was obviously all that had been included in the original agreement.

So Jen had to hit Meribel in her white ski jacket. She returned later in the evening bemoaning the fact that, on arriving on the dance floor, she had “lit up” as she put it when the disco lights did their stuff and illuminated the white ski jacket. Apparently this was not the desired look and had reduced her standing in the coolness stakes. Perhaps it was just as well that she didn’t bump into her ski instructor.

Such embarrassment on the fashion front could have been wholly avoided had the original crime been put right, but Jen chose not to. A lesson, for us all I feel.

Today, we had planned the mother of all ski expeditions to take us to Val Thorens, the highest ski location in Europe. However, the blizzard conditions which developed during the morning meant that this was likely to be as successful as one of Jen’s pranks. So we opted for skiing and intermittent snow shenanigans.

This yielded several highlights. While waiting to get on a chairlift, Mandy decided it would be a good idea to try to rugby tackle Andrew. Her first attempt nearly resulted in taking out an unsuspecting skier, who did not find this amusing. To digress briefly, it seems that we are the only people in the village who actually have a laugh while skiing. We are obviously not taking it seriously enough.

Mandy’s second attempt was no more successful. Despite being on skis, Andrew was able to sidestep Mandy’s dive in a manner of which David Campese would have approved. This resulted in Mandy’s going headfirst into the snow, much to everyone’s amusement. It also meant that Andrew had the unusual experience of having women throwing themselves at his feet. Any port in a storm, as he has been known to say.

At the end of the day, there was a mass snowball fight. This is possibly not the most accurate term, as the main conflict involved the girls trying to shove snow in the guys’ faces. This mismatch again rebounded on the ladies, and saw most of them being subjected to snow down the back of their necks. There are several incriminating photographs of this, which Andrew may well post on the blog at some point.

The final say goes to Morag eliciting the “s” word from Andrew, that word being “sorry”. Andrew was convinced that he could reduce the number of lifts we would have had to take on the planned mammoth ski trip. After much deliberation and calculation, Andrew had to concede that he was wrong and Morag had been right. This was the source of much amusement for Morag and deep contrition for Andrew. If Jen had shown a similar level of contrition the evening before then Meribel’s discos might have been able to experience the full glory of the pink jacket.

Méribel, Day 3


Three days on the slopes, and the minor injuries count is rising. And that’s just in the chalet, where Tim and myself have been the targets of an orchestrated campaign of intimidation and abuse. It began with the relatively harmless removal of the lightbulb from my bedside lamp on the second evening, and is now threatening to escalate into full scale inter-room guerilla warfare. On discovering my missing lightbulb, I immediately suspected foul play from Room 4, which accommodates Nasty Jen and Broon. I was correct, although it transpires that Jen, on discovering a non-functional lamp in her room, and not completely familiar with the inner technical workings of a bedside lamp, swapped the whole thing for mine rather than simply stealing my bulb. And given that I, on discovering my own newly non-functional lamp, immediately stole her lightbulb (which was in fact mine, of course), she was mightily perplexed that evening when her light still didn’t work.

Anyway, as I say, hostilities have escalated with last night’s disappearance of my duvet from its cover, and tonight’s sewing up of one of my t-shirt sleeves. The blame for all of these atrocities can be laid fairly and squarely at the door of Room 4. However, this very evening, having brushed past a rather static and ineffective sentry at the top of the stairs, I entered my room to discover a newly enlisted member of the enemy forces leaving our ensuite with a rather culpable look on her face and a box of clingfilm badly concealed behind her back. One could be forgiven for expecting a more mature approach from one of the, erm, more senior members of the party. Particularly when they are married to one of our church elders.

It would be fair to say that retribution is on the cards, will be effective, and will continue until the culprits are thoroughly chastised, it all ends in tears or it puts someone’s eye out. That’s the way these things inevitably go.

Although, as more details have come to light, it’s conceivable that more fun could be had by foregoing revenge and allowing them to continue the pranks. To compound the disappointment of the failed clingfilm episode, in a bad case of mistaken-pyjama-identity, Jen’s bumbling accomplices managed to stitch up her longjohns rather than my t-shirt. Quite how they mixed up the two articles remains a mystery but still a source of amusement.

As for the skiing, that’s all going well, with the exception of the Sunday morning, which nearly did end in tears. Your correspondent’s skiing skills were found to be wanting in the areas of stopping and turning, and staying upright. I discovered that sliding into the back of someone’s knees at high speed sends them up in the air in quite a spectacular fashion. I’m very glad Phyllida wears a helmet.

Since then, things have improved somewhat, and skiing-related injuries, at least for me, have been confined to a few muscle strains in the upper arms, and one somewhere in the left buttock. Poor Jody has not fared so well, with some sort of arm injury, and DC’s shins have a bruised and battered aspect. Perhaps that’s why he felt the need to depart for the slopes wearing my ski boots this morning, or perhaps he’s joined in the thieving of my possessions.

This morning began, at 5am, with Tim announcing that he hadn’t been able to get much sleep, and thought he had pee under his bed. I remarked that if there was pee under his bed then it surely was his, as I had restricted my peeing to the bathroom, as per the normal convention. It then became clear that he meant ‘pea’ rather than ‘pee’, which, if he was unable to sleep, confirms his status as a princess.

Tonight we undertook an excursion to the local ice rink to watch ice hockey. It was a junior game between Norway and Austria. One of the features of ice hockey, as I’m sure you’re aware, is the habit of playing little jingles whenever there’s a slight break in the action. Presumably this was designed to accommodate the short attention span of your average N American sports fan. Anyway, the tune aired when a goal was scored tonight was Gary Glitter’s “Rock n roll pt 1”. The locals, and any other tourists that had wandered in, were a little bemused to hear a section of the crowd singing “Nasty Je-n, Oh!, Nasty Jen…” at these times. How many people have had their names chanted in a small-time ice hockey stadium?

Finally Wiseman. Despite not being able to make the trip, he has been in our thoughts, not to mention our bags, on our tables, on the slopes, and in our daily slideshows regardless. See the photo page for illumination.

Well, it’s late, even Haxton has clearly fallen asleep, as the strains of his tenor snores are filtering through from next door. Time to rest some of those aching muscles and dream up some revenge plans…

These boots aren’t made for walking

Ok folks, here it is, DC’s debut 🙂


It’s the second full day of Meribel 2007 and again the sun has split the skies and temperatures have reached an unseasonable level of warmth. Our ski instructor this morning told us that it was a whole lot more difficult for tall people to successfully complete a parallel turn, due to our higher centre of gravity. This was quite reassuring, as thus far I had assumed my difficulties were down to incompetence. However, it seems that small people have come up with something else at which it pays to be shorter in stature (other examples being buying clothes and travelling on aeroplanes). Perhaps it’s their revenge for basketball.

Trying to go anywhere in ski boots, unless you also have skis attached, is somewhat difficult. Even with the skis attached success is not guaranteed. A number of us have discovered this to our cost. Andrew’s friend Tim decided to take us down part of a black run, which then led into reds and blues. He had built up to this in his thought for the day this morning. His main point seemed to be that choosing to attempt a black run rather than a blue was akin to Israel crossing the Jordan, whereas to make the reverse choice was on a par with Jonah fleeing from the Lord when called to preach to Nineveh. With these words of encouragement ringing in our ears, we duly embarked on the black run. Now on the basis that what happens on holiday stays on holiday, names will be omitted to protect reputations. But suffice it to say that one member of the party took a most spectacular tumble, went down on their back with one leg in the air and came to a halt about 20 yards further down the mountain. This provoked shrieks of laughter from Mandy and the aforementioned Tim. How to react to another’s misfortune will presumably be covered in a thought for the day later in the week.

Mention must be made of our superb hosts, Paul & Emily. Each evening they have provided us with a magnificent 3 course dinner, and then they return 12 hours later to provide further nourishment to sustain us for a day on the slopes. Judging by the quantity provided, they must think that we haven’t seen food for weeks. And they obviously don’t realise that we actually spend half the day in cafes engaged in further eating, drinking and general frivolity. Rather than working on our thighs and calves for the past couple of months, we should have spent the time developing our jaws and digestive systems. They have certainly been required to gird their loins and earn their crust over the past 3 days, and I get the feeling this has just been the warm up.

For anyone who is actually interested in the skiing conditions the snow has been pretty good, although getting a bit slushy further down and the usual ice later in the afternoon. There is some snow forecast for overnight into tomorrow, and this will be most welcome, as it will give us something softer to fall into. I sustained a bit of a bruise on the old right hip on the last run of the day, falling on to some none too receptive ice. It’s at times like these that one’s lack of adequate padding in these regions is most noticeable. Perhaps that’s the real reason why Paul & Emily have been feeding us so well all week.

It’s time to turn in, so I will conclude my first entry as guest blogger. The DVD of “War of the worlds” is playing and this seems to have had the effect of dispersing everyone to their beds or another part of the chalet. As far as I can make out, it’s about Tom Cruise battling to save civilisation (or at least the US version) from invading aliens. My gut reaction is that he will succeed but I don’t have the stamina or inclination to find out. Tomorrow is another day on the slopes, and I really need all my energy and concentration for that. So I bid you good night, in whatever part of the world you might be reading.

DC