Work trips and substance abuse

My colleagues Tuckett, Stupot and myself are holed up in a Hilton somewhere near Warwick for a few days, for the biennial BSHAA Congress. The hotel is fairly average, and has designed their showers for people of average height. I found a letter on my bed on Thursday evening apologising that the bed linen had not been ironed. It looked fairly ironed to me, at least compared to my bed linen at home. Although all my other washable items are pristinely ironed these days. My washing machine has, sadly, spun its last 30 degree eco wash, and I have been seen traipsing down to my mother’s on a bi-weekly basis, clutching a bin bag of dirty washing. It reminds me of being a student, except that I never did that when I was a student, since home was several hundred miles away. So it reminds of me other peoples’ student experiences, really.

Once cleaned chez maman, I collect the clothes in neat colour-coordinated piles from her house. My clothes have never had it so good. I was tempted to phone John Lewis and ask them to postpone the delivery of the new machine, as this arrangement seems to be working quite well for me. However, I needn’t have bothered, as the washing machine delivery man threw up his hands (and quite possibly gasped “Oh, my!”) at the sight of my old machine, it still being plugged and plumbed, and declared that he couldn’t possibly unplug or unplumb it, in case he flooded my flat, or broke a fingernail. I would have expected someone au fait with washing machines to be able to safely eliminate the flood risk before unplugging an old machine, however, as it stands I am quite happy. The new washing machine is proving an attractive feature in my spare room, it having a largish surface on which to dump things, and mum is still doing my washing.

She hasn’t complained, yet, but then she hasn’t had anything particularly flavoursome to wash yet, since I haven’t been doing any exercise of late. CIA has been avoiding playing me at squash recently, possibly afraid of how hard I will be able to hit the ball with all my new-found weight behind the shot. I am developing a bit of a paunch you see. It is most distressing, and work trips don’t help matters much. Having resolved to put Friday’s large cooked breakfast, twin-dessert lunch, and sumptuous Thai evening meal behind me – despite all evidence of them still being very much in front of me, hanging over my belt in fact – I was enjoying my cereal this morning with milk so anaemic is must have been skimmed, looking forward to some toast. But then Tuckett rather cruelly thwarted my plans my mentioning how nice the sausages were, and indeed they were very nice, I could remember how nice they were from the day before, and in the face of this relentless taunting from my colleague I’m afraid I caved in and headed off to the cooked breakfast counter. Tuckett himself was cutting down in the breakfast department, having decided to forgo the toast this morning, which only left him with bacon, sausages, eggs, baked beans, mushrooms, hash browns, and possibly one or two other items that were buried under all that lot. An ascetic chap, is our Tuckett.

Friday night, after the aforementioned Thai meal in Leamington Spa, we retired back to the hotel bar for a nightcap, and an early-ish night. I found time to watch a DVD which chronicled the making of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album. Absolutely compelling viewing. Since my recent discovery of the joy of sitting down and deliberately listening to music, brought about by my ‘new’ turntable and amp, Rumours has rarely been off the deck. It’s one of my favourite records, and hearing the full story of the circumstances and atmosphere in which it was recorded only adds to its allure. For those of you who don’t know the background, Fleetwood Mac at the time consisted of five members: Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham. Mick Fleetwood’s wife was having an affair and he was understandably cut up about this. But his problems paled beside the others – Christine & John McVie’s marriage was breaking up – she was having an affair with the band’s lighting director, and Buckingham and Nicks were also a couple in the middle of splitting up. Christine McVie, Buckingham and Nicks were the main songwriters in the band, and so unavoidably most of the songs on the album were written quite directly about themselves and the other members of the band. And they were all quite heavily on drugs, which was de rigeur for the music industry at the time – even more then than now. What came out was a stunning album, which is still great over 30 years on.

What is it about creative genius that is so stimulated by raw pain and substance abuse? Almost makes me wish I had smoked a few joints when I was splitting with my girlfriends over the years. Who knows what would have come out when I sat down at the piano?

I said “almost”. Relax, mum.

The Ides of March

My dad died peacefully last Saturday in Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary. My mum, sister and I were all there with him at the end, which was comforting for us, and hopefully for him. Two weeks prior to this, Dad had come out of his coma, which brought us both elation and despair. We had envisaged him slipping away quietly without regaining consciousness, and hoped that this is how things would play out. But Dad was made of sterner stuff than we had given him credit for, and regained consciousness to the point where he could hear and understand us, but was unable to speak or communicate, aside from a few breathed words. That he showed little sign of frustration at what amounted to two weeks of captivity was testament to his inner peace. I do believe that God ministered to him and was a great comfort during this time.

So we found ourselves bidding goodbye to the now familiar surroundings of Ward 202, and the nurses that worked there and did such a great job of making his last days as comfortable and peaceful as possible. I lost another £4 to the machine in the car park, and drove off into a world without Dad.

It will be an emptier place without him, even though Dad and I rarely talked at length. Despite being a preacher in the second half of his life, he was a quiet man who kept his opinions, for the most part, to himself. During my final three years at high school, he picked me up from town every day and drove me the six mile journey home. Frequently not much was said, and both of us were content with this arrangement. Since his retirement, and my parents’ subsequent move here to Edinburgh, opportunities for talking with him have been almost limitless, but rarely taken. I wish now, of course, that I had spent more time with him. But chatting never came naturally to either of us, and that’s just how it was. I did spend enough time with him over the course of my life to appreciate his reserves of dignity and grace, his wisdom and dry Irish humour. Over the last few weeks, too, I was able to spend a fair bit of time in his company, reading and praying, sometimes just talking about my day at work. I continued to assail him at times with my piano-playing via my iPod as he was unable to tell me to stop.

Last Saturday being 15 March, he now shares the date of his passing with Julius Caesar, which might just please him. He was never an emperor, but no-one looked more regal with a paper crown from a Christmas cracker.

The funeral director came to call on Monday, and we found ourselves leafing through brochures of flower arrangements, which included some corking Pearly Gates motifs. We passed these by, and settled for something altogether more discreet, since Dad wasn’t big on ostentation.

Monday also meant a visit to the cemetery to choose a plot for his grave. I had a fleeting vision of Dad somewhere upstairs shouting “PICK THAT ONE! PICK THAT ONE!” but in reality he was probably rolling his eyes at us humming and hawing over the decision. We settled on a quiet corner, very close to the nearby Church of Scotland, but when they came to dig the grave the soil proved dodgy. Dad would have been delighted to discover that the Presbyterian church had been built on suspect ground. So we had to move his resting place to a more central location.

Sadly, therefore, it’s not quite a corner any more, but there’s now part of a foreign field that is forever Ireland.

Northern Ireland, obviously.

Leap Year’s Day + 1

It’s not every year you get a chance to blog on 29 February, so it seemed a shame to miss the opportunity.

However, I did. So here I am, on 1 March instead. The 29th passed off peacefully, with no proposals needing deflected. Nasty Jen had hatched a proposal scheme which involved the payment of a large fine should the poor unfortunate have the temerity to reject her offer. The amount was reputed to be in the region of £10,000. Frankly, as escapes from captivity go, it seemed cheap. I haven’t heard yet if anyone was significantly lighter in pocket this morning.

Jones will be dismayed to discover that my turntable count has risen to two this week. I had been becoming more aware of the limitations of mp3s, having discovered that when played at higher volumes, the distortion is irritatingly noticeable. So when an old friend’s dad called to say he was jettisoning his Rega Planar 3, I resolved to dust off my vinyl collection, and begin enjoying analogue music again. Having already in my possession a Planar 2, bought second hand years ago from some guy in Albion Road, the arrival of a second deck might finally herald the birth of my DJ career. Or perhaps not.

The turntable, I was informed, needed a new stylus. No problem, I thought. Until I really did think. Where on earth do you buy a needle for your record player these days? I searched online, but only succeeded in bewildering myself with the types of stylus that were available, having no idea if they were suitable for the cartridge. And then the Admin Supremo’s Apprentice stepped in. His dad, he explained, used to “mess around with” turntables. So, on the recommendation of the Admin Supremo’s Apprentice’s dad, I found myself descending into a basement emporium on Leith Walk, a room lined with speakers, valve amplifiers, turntables, and even, gosh, the odd CD player. Four days later I had my P3 back in residence and was listening to the unadulterated purity of analogue sound – no jitter, no quantisation errors.

Digital sound has its uses. iPods rule when convenience takes precedence over sound quality. I have been putting some of my dad’s favourite old tunes onto my iPod the last few days, and playing them to him. He’s been in a coma for over a week now, since suffering a brainstem stroke following a fall, and I have no idea if he hears the music or not. But I hope he does, and it brings him some comfort. Alison and Maggie were scrambled from London within hours of the accident, and Maggie’s presence has been a joy in a difficult week. I have been fine-tuning my role as the mischief-making uncle, winding her up to levels of excitement at all the wrong times. Just before bed-time is ideal for chasing tennis balls down the hallway, I find.

My dad has had a difficult few years lately – having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease just over ten years ago. It has played havoc with his mobility, sleeping, stomach, speech, his dignity, and more. At times his frustration has been obvious, but mostly he has remained gracious and a model of Christian love.

On one occasion we were on holiday at Rossnowlagh in Donegal. I was about 7 years old, and made some dismissive comment about dad’s age (he would have been 57 at the time) and his running ability. Whereupon he pointed to a nearby sand dune and offered to race me. I remember being stunned at how such an old man, in my eyes, could outpace me so easily. Twenty-six years on, I was staring at his feet one evening while I was visiting him in a nursing home, where he was staying while mum was in London. They were swollen and misshapen through heart valve malfunction. I recalled the Rossnowlagh race, and silently grieved over his loss of mobility. Age takes its toll on everybody, but Parkinson’s steals so much more.

I have often cried out my frustration to God that Dad has had to go through this. Never more so than recently, as he lies in a hospital bed, awaiting the end. Why? I know not.

But though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?

Modern Life is Rubbish, Part II

Finally retrieved my skis from the Haxtonmeister a few evenings ago. They had been languishing in his garage for several weeks since his our return from France, awaiting pickup. Filipideedoodaa’s snowboard and boots were also there, so I threw them in the back and dropped them off to her on the way home.

Driving past Domino’s Pizza I suddenly got hungry, and one U-turn later I was scanning the menu. Domino’s are an American firm, and Americans, as we all know, are big on customer service. I reminded myself of this as I stood and waited for someone to acknowledge my presence, busy as they were providing excellent customer service to whoever was on the telephone. Eventually someone looked up, and, startled by the actual bodily presence of a customer, raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“Err, can I have a pizza please?”

Whereupon they were graciously helpful and took my order for a pizza and a bottle of Coke immediately. Only one pizza, as Flip, appearing to have confused her religions somewhat, has taken on a kind of Reverse Ramadan for Lent. No food after 8pm.

So approximately 15 minutes later, the duration of which I had spent standing up in the exceedingly cramped waiting area, watching other unfortunates trying to place orders with similar results, I heard the magic words “Pizza for Quinn” resonating from the ‘kitchen’ area, as a white box slid into view along the metal-heated-rack thing which delivers pizzas into the world.

Sadly, no-one else seemed keen to celebrate the birth of my pizza, and it sat there, forlornly, for easily five minutes or so, before a nice-looking girl came along to answer the telephone at the counter. I waited politely until she had finished her call, and then enquired if I might have my pizza please. Off she went to look for it.

It’s right there, I can see it.

A few minutes later she found it on the rack and presented it to me with a big smile.

“And the Coke, please.”

Top customer service, these Americans.

But back to automated toilets. After writing the last post I was reminded of some toilets in the US, which flushed automatically as you stood up after… you know. This amused me somewhat, as I felt it was a little premature, not having given one time to, err, wipe. So, after wiping, one had to sit down and stand up again, or at least wave one’s limbs around in front of the invisible sensor in order to set off the “time-and-effort-saving” automatic flush.

Brilliant.

Finally, hats off to Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter, for putting the Premier League clubs back in their box, after they had expressed a desire to take their “product” around the world by playing a league game in various destinations around the globe. What a bunch of good eggs they are, the Premier League chairmen. “Good for everyone in the game” they say, except perhaps for the local clubs in the cities/countries they would be playing in, their own fans, the environment, and perhaps other English clubs. No doubt the £5m each club stood to earn from the exercise was secondary in their thoughts to advancing the cause of football…

Is it not distressing that football is quite openly referred to as a “product” these days?

Maybe it’s just me…

London, unexpectedly

Sitting on the train at King’s Cross, waiting to depart for Edinburgh and the snowy north. Four Geordies have commandeered the table directly ahead, but they seem of a well-behaved generation, and are tucking into panini rather than bottles of Newcastle Brown.

I found myself in London courtesy of my boss being a bit under the weather and unable to travel to a product launch he was booked on. So I took his place, and his room in the Tower Bridge Hilton, which was, I have to say, very well appointed. Modern but comfy furniture, a huge bed, and trendy lighting. Perhaps the only downside was the disabled access shower, which flooded the bathroom very effectively. I have previous with these showers – it is a mercy Wiseman wasn’t sharing my room and distributing his follicles all over the bathroom floor.

The sink was outfitted with some sort of chrome designer tap, which had a joystick on the top controlling water pressure and temperature. However, the water pressure seemed fairly oblivious to my joystick-wiggling, if you’ll pardon the expression, and remained resolutely medium. Not a problem, and in fact, something of a bonus, as the tap was so close to the edge of the (beautifully contoured) basin as to make it tricky to wash one’s hands without flooding the immediate vicinity. A high pressure tap could have been a disaster. Another example of style winning over substance, as it so often does in our modern venti-triple-shot-skinny-latte society. I read a comforting article on the BBC News website recently which announced that a recent survey had decreed that the coffee offered by the large chains (Starbucks, Costa, Caffe Nero) was of low quality and seriously overpriced. Comforting because it made me realise I wasn’t alone in my assessment of their coffee and prices. Coffee is a matter of taste, of course, but that doesn’t mean that people who like Starbucks coffee aren’t completely misguided.

But back to taps. In the same hotel, the public toilets were kitted out with equally trendy automated taps, which were even more useless. I acquired some liquid soap from the ultra chic dispenser on the wall, and then placed my hands under the tap. Nothing happened. The sensor which detected your uncleansed hands was, altitude-wise, just underneath the output of the tap. Which was high above the rim of the basin. So I raised my hands a bit, and lo, the water flowed, onto my hands and all over the polished inter-sink surface (what exactly does one call the worktop-like area around the sinks in a public loo?). Lowering my hands into the basin, in an attempt to prevent this haemorrhaging of water, abruptly stopped the water flow. Genius.

Modern life is like this. Full of fancy gadgets which look very nice, and purport to make your life easier (saving you the hassle of turning a tap on and off, for example), but don’t always actually do the job their manual predecessors did so well (providing water for you to wash your hands with, for example). Full of coffees in Label-embossed cups which make you feel like you’re at one with the hip iPod-wearing generation because you’re not drinking coffee, you’re drinking a skinny-venti-mocha-frappucino. But actually you’re drinking a bucket of frothy milk with a tiny drop of coffee in the bottom. (With apologies to David from London)

The automatic lights in my car are a bit better. Initially I was a bit disconcerted by them (You think I don’t know when to turn my own headlights on, huh?), and sometimes during heavy rain they don’t switch on. One of my pet targets for verbal abuse is the driver of an oncoming car who hasn’t switched on their lights in heavy rain or low visibility. I now fire the same volley of abuse at my automatic lights, who in fairness take it all on the chin and don’t answer back. They still don’t switch on, however.

(Yes, I could switch the auto function off completely and operate them manually, but… whisper it, I do like the way they switch themselves on when you enter a tunnel and the like. And yes, I have retained enough manual control of my life to override the automatic function when the rain is heavy enough to reduce visibility.)

Snow has been coming down heavily in the north of England this weekend, according to the news. I have now travelled through what I thought was the affected area, and haven’t seen any snow, although it’s kind of dark out there. Perhaps the train’s automatic headlights haven’t come on. The Alps have been receiving snow of late, which bodes well for my second skiing extravagance of the season, in March. The Admin Supremo, DC and an old flatmate Tom are joining me for some snow action underneath Il Cervino, which is how the Italians refer to the Matterhorn. Filipideedooda is unable to come with us due to carelessly allowing part of her foot to break off while boarding in Val d’Isère. She found out it was broken after deciding to have it x-rayed once she’d been reassured by the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary that it “definitely wasn’t broken and an x-ray wasn’t necessary”. It’s a shame she won’t make it, although she might have had a tough week coping with four lads.

It’s now February, and I’ve turned the page on the calendar to discover that I have only two things lined up in February: on 10 Feb I am buying a laptop and mobile phone for Nasty Jen, and on 22 Feb I am sending money to Hazel. Curious, don’t remember writing those reminders in…

The return from Val d’Isère

“Everything hurts,” moaned Wiseman early one morning. “Perhaps we should take up colouring-in, or something.”

We, the walking wounded, hobbled and limped back into Edinburgh yesterday after a 5 hour delay in Chambéry.

Ladies and gentlemen, a message for those flying to Edinburgh on flight BA1961. Unfortunately your aircraft has landed at Lyon.

[D’oh]

Please expect a delay to your flight.

No kidding.

Lynne managed to use the time wisely, lying down in the medical room after refusing to go to hospital with 3 firemen in their fire engine. When will she get another chance like that? Perhaps she’d had her fill of men in uniform for a while, after being attended to on the slopes by men in red and yellow ski suits.

Myself, DC and Kirsty had skied over a crest yesterday afternoon to discover Lynne sprawled unconscious on the snow. She came to after a couple of minutes and before long was being stretchered down into Val d’Isere. It was all very exciting, albeit slightly worrying, and I daresay she would rather not repeat the experience.

Filipideedoodaa had her own adventures the day before, cartwheeling down a red run and injuring her ankle badly enough to rule her out of skiing/boarding for the rest of the holiday.

Aside from that, we sustained a few twisted knees and one or two bruises. Val’s twisted knee was much worse than mine, but I complained more. Wiseman is currently walking like John Wayne, and now that we’re back I have been perfecting my dual limp (both legs hurt so I can’t favour one over the other). With four physiotherapists on the trip, sympathy and compassion were in desperately short supply, so there was no point in looking for any before now.

Managed to conquer my T-bar demons, on Thursday. Neither run was without incident, however. When on a T-bar with someone they should ideally be of a similar height. The first time up was with Mandy, who only avoids being officially registered as a dwarf by a couple of inches. I am over six feet. We began with the bar at a comfortable height for her, and finished at the top with her skis barely touching the snow. On the second run I was sharing the bar with the Haxtonmeister, who is of a more similar stature (although somewhat more rounded), but somehow managed to cause him to wipe out at the top regardless.

Much hilarity has been had overall. Siobhan’s name proved too tricky for her French ski instructor, who insisted on calling her “Cheval” (translation = “horse”) throughout the week. Our instructor, on the other hand, spent several minutes calling out “leeean, LEEEAN” to us as we were cruising down the piste during a lesson. We were doing a leaning exercise at the time, so we duly tried to lean even more. We were virtually falling over before we realised that he was trying to get Lynne’s attention.

The same instructor, who demonstrated an admirable ability to not only smoke on a wind-blasted chairlift but actually roll his own, was exhorting us to “caress the snow” and “embrace the gravity”. He explained that we needed to be more “fairy-like”. I felt the need to point out that behaving like a fairy was not a good thing for a British bloke to be doing.

The pranking shenanigans continued through the week – when Wiseman and I arrived back in the chalet on Monday night after posting the last blog entry, we discovered our room had been divested of its beds. I asked Mark if they had been put out on the balcony.

“Nope, I’ve checked.”

Turns out he had stuck his head out briefly (“it was cold”) and decided they weren’t there. We then proceeded to search the entire chalet, or at least the bits we could access, before returning to find them … on the balcony.

On another day Ken went to relieve himself, and lifted the toilet seat, which promptly exploded. Jen’s bed started laughing when she lay down on it, her famous red coat went missing for days, and several people’s toothbrushes also disappeared. The latter thief remains unidentified despite Ken training his video camera on the bathroom door to try to catch the culprit.

Mental Mo and Nasty Jen organised a ceilidh on the final night, attendance at which was more or less compulsory. Mysteriously, Ken found it took him several hours to pack for the journey home, despite having a rucksack only marginally larger than Jen’s handbag. Even the chalet staff – Osh, Tom and Liam – were invited. One really can’t blame them for running away and hiding downstairs for the entire evening.

The presence of most of these reprobates made the airport wait that bit more enjoyable, and when we finally got on the flight, Broon fell asleep, which allowed me to steal her meal. You snooze, you lose.

And so, a great holiday is over. I will miss so much about it over the next few days. Like the early morning routine with Wiseman.

“Mark, are you awake?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good Morning.”

“Morning.”

The formalities completed, I pulled the duvet over my head for extra sound insulation, in preparation for The Clearing of the Nasal Passages.

Actually, I might not miss that. But I will miss the skiing. Not going to be taking up colouring-in just yet, bruises or not…

Val d’Isère, Day Two

And to think we were concerned that there might not be any snow this early in January. It’s been snowing almost non-stop since we got here. The Haxtonmeister had to dig his car out yesterday morning, and employ his snow chains for the first time.

Consequently the skiing conditions have been tricky, with low visibility and great piles of powder on the pistes. As a result, everyone had a less than ideal first couple of runs yesterday. Blue skies are forecast for tomorrow, with the snow to return on Wednesday and Thursday.

The chalet is absolutely outstanding, and the food matches it. Each room is ensuite. I am sharing a twin room with Wiseman. The gap between the beds is not what it could be, and the beds themselves are fairly narrow. I woke up this morning and engaged Wiseman in an early chat.

“There was some encroachment last night, mate.”

“Whit?”

“YOUR ARM WAS ON MY BED.”

He just shrugged, obviously underestimating the distress it caused me. Such are the joys of sharing rooms with insensitive people.

I went to have a bath this evening after skiing. Took one look at the bathtub and popped my head back round the door to satisfy myself that there was any hair left on Wiseman at all. Quelle surprise, there was. I spent 20 minutes cleaning the bathtub out. Wiseman declared that I was making a bit of a meal of it.

“That’s what I do, Mark.”

“You do it very well.”

“I’ve practised.”

James popped in to our room sporting a mohican.

“Ooh, it stinks in this room,” he announced.

Actually it had been smelling fine until James arrived and dropped one. We exited the room to find some clean air, and found Nasty Jen lurking in the corridor. Fortunately I had a small bag of snow in my hand, and thereupon commenced a small snow fight, which was fairly evenly matched, until James entered the fray. James, being five years old, knows no boundaries. She nearly lost her trousers, poor girl.

The pranks proper have begun. Broon, whose birthday it was yesterday, opened her wardrobe to the strains of Cliff Richard singing “Congratulations, and celebrations…” They (Broon and Jen) worked out how to turn it off disappointingly quickly. (One imagines that it was Broon who figured it out).

As for the skiing, Wiseman has been finding himself “becoming one with the mountain” fairly frequently. As for me, I found myself becoming one with a random skier on the slope who was surprised to see me skiing up the slope straight towards him. We embraced briefly and then collapsed in each other’s arms. Disappointingly, it was a bloke.

I also had a disaster today while attempting to get onto a chairlift. I skied into the correct position in the middle of a group of three, and then, well, carried on skiing really, right off the front of where you’re supposed to stop. Overbalanced to the right in front of Filipideedoodaa, who completely failed to haul me back into the correct position, and instead kicked me so hard that her ski came off and she collapsed in a heap. The liftie, showing a remarkable amount of restraint, refused to give her a good telling off for her actions, and simply helped her retrieve her ski. Very gracious, these French.

Both the Haxtonmeister and Mental Mo have acquired new ski jackets and trousers, which means that this year they won’t be wearing their all-in-one romper suits on the slopes. This is most disappointing, and the photos will be all the less entertaining as a result.

Finally, quote of the day.. from James to his mum as she shepherded him back from the slopes:

“Ah… it’s good to be alive.”

Did I mention he was five years old…?

The Second of January

The Second of January is a really great holiday, celebrated, as far as I know, only in Scotland. After a late night at New Year, New Year’s Day is a write-off, and the Second arrives like a welcome tonic. How does the rest of the world cope going back to work on 2 Jan? I hope I never have to find out.

This year, I ventured hesitantly towards the sales at Ocean Terminal straight after New Year. After some fortification in the shape of lunch, Wiseman and I perused a couple of shops (literally a couple. One each). I found some very nice jumpers at £13.50 in Fat Face, which I considered long and hard over, before a cursory glance at the label made up my mind.

I wandered back outside to where Wiseman was waiting.

“Couple of really nice merino wool jumpers, mate.”

“Oh?”

“Didn’t get them.”

“No?”

“Hand wash only.”

“Ah.” Wiseman nodded knowingly. “Single use only, then. Either that or you’ll have to get married.”

“Yeah. And that would end up costing me a lot more than £13.50…”

Coffee and my Granny

I’m fed up drinking tea. I finally cracked yesterday morning, while I was in town getting my ski boots attended to. I needed some breakfast, and having still 40 minutes of Edinburgh George St rip-off parking still paid for, decided to go across the street to Cento Tre rather than my usual West End haunt. Regardless of where I ended up, the prospect of having a cup of tea with my breakfast was really too dismal to contemplate. I miss coffee so much, having given it up for the sake of my stomach over a year ago.

Tea is so… featureless. So insipid compared to coffee. At least at breakfast. Tea has its place, but it’s not beside a croissant on a breakfast table. And you can’t get a decent cup of tea in town anyway.

So I marched across the street, full of resolve and determination, with The Guardian clutched under my arm. My sister had texted me earlier this morning.

Get guardian today page 83 of magazine.x

Just like that. No capitalisation. No punctuation to speak of.

I’m not usually a Guardian reader, in fact I don’t normally read newspapers at all. When I do buy one, it’s the Telegraph, which is more an indication of my crossword preferences, rather than any political leanings. The Guardian crossword, on the odd occasion that I’ve attempted it, has remained defiantly inscrutable.

I looked up page 83 of the magazine to find the Food section. And did a sharp double-take. It’s not every day you open a national broadsheet’s magazine to find your granny featured in the text. The writer was a chef friend of my sister’s, who was promoting one of his recipes which combined potatoes and pasta. Our granny was name-checked as someone who, being Irish, was unable to eat a meal without potatoes. I’m not entirely sure that gran would have approved of Mr Ottolenghi’s potato lasagne. Might have been a bit new-fangled for her. And despite being born in Co Donegal, she might even have disputed the ‘Irish’ tag, as someone who deliberately chose British citizenship over Irish after the Partition in 1921…! But I daresay she would have held her hands up and acknowledged that no meal is complete without some potatoes.

I sat back with my black coffee and almond croissant and reflected on what our granny would think of my lifestyle today. I can still see her shaking her fist at me, usually when she was baby-sitting us and I wouldn’t shut up and go to sleep. When she wasn’t shaking her fist she was often waving her walking stick in a vaguely threatening manner. When I wasn’t playing golf with it, that is. It was a very nice blackthorn walking stick, and its shape bore a strong resemblance to a driver, at least to me. I have no idea what she would make of me driving into town yesterday when I could have walked, having my ski boots adjusted in preparation for a ski holiday in the French Alps next month, and settling down to a continental breakfast in an Italian eatery while reading the Guardian. And no porridge or potatoes to be seen anywhere.

How times have changed.

Oh, and the coffee? It was AMAZING.

Cricket, and in particular, how it is scored

For 12 squared, and anyone else who is confused. And cares.

There are currently two basic game formats in cricket, which are scored slightly differently. In any format of cricket, the team that scores the most runs wins.

However, in first-class and Test match cricket, in order to win the game, a team has to not only score more runs than the opposition, but also has to get all of the other team out. Twice, as each team bats for two innings each. If neither team bowls the other out twice within the allocated time for the game (usually 3 or 4 days for first-class, and 5 days for Tests), then the game is a draw, regardless of how far behind one of the teams may be in terms of number of runs scored.

Thus Test cricket (and 1st class) places a higher importance on bowling, and taking wickets (getting people out), than the shorter forms of the game.

Test matches are played between countries who have a cricket team of a high enough standard to compete. And Bangladesh. But hopefully they’ll get better as time goes on.

First-class matches are played in countries where the game is played professionally, like England, Australia, Pakistan, India, South Africa, West Indies etc. Usually between county or state sides.

Club cricket, relying as it does on keen amateur players, who commonly need to go to work during the week and would find it tricky to explain to their employer why they didn’t turn up for work 3 or 4 days out of every week in the summer, tends to use the shorter forms of the game – 50 over and Twenty20.

50 over cricket is played over the course of one day. (One over is six deliveries bowled by one bowler). One team bats until they are all out, or they have batted for 50 overs. Then the other team bats for 50 overs, or until they are all out, or until they have scored more runs than the team batting first, whichever is the sooner.

Twenty20 is the same, but played over 20 overs (each) instead of 50. Being shorter, it can be played in an evening as it only takes 2-3 hours.

Clubs all over the world have been playing 20 over cricket for decades, but a few years ago it was a launched officially in England and played by county sides with professional players. It was (and still is) a big hit with crowds, and its popularity has spread to other countries. Recently the first international Twenty20 tournament was played in South Africa. India won it. Cricket is virtually a religion in India, with 50 over cricket being most popular, but the expectation is that Twenty20 will now take over as the most popular format since India’s win.

Cricket fans in England, and possibly Australia, still prefer the Test match format. We’re purists, y’see.

Finally for now, an example of a cricket score is 112/6. The first number (112 in this case) denotes how many runs the team has scored, the second the number of wickets (the number of outs, in baseball parlance). Since in the longer forms of the game each team can bat twice, a score might read England 454 & 189/6, Sri Lanka 421. In this case England are 189/6 in their second innings, having scored 454 in their first innings. Sri Lanka scored 421 in their first innings and are still to bat their second innings.

There we are, a brief overview, leaving out some background detail for the sake of clarity, such as the pitch/weather factors. If anyone wishes to correct anything, or add to what is here, please be my guest…