Adam-On-Sea (and saddle + sidekick)

The Meany of Frank

2011-05-20T14:09:00.003Z

In the book Owen Meany the tiny and mysterious protagonist makes the narrator endlessly practice flinging him skywards to dunk a basketball.

At the end of the book, when the same, now effortless action is speedily employed to dispose of a ticking bomb seconds before it kills people in an airport, the reader suddenly realise what the odd Owen Meany is on the earth to do – and that he's known it all along, one way or the other.

When Frank killed His first baby rabbit in friston Forrest yesterday, in front of three of us on bikes, I had a similar realisation.

I tussled with emotion.

He runs at his fastest when he's chasing rabbits and squirrels. And I love to watch him run. So I've never dissuaded him, for the good it would have done.

But although I knew it was a possibility, he's never caught anything before. And I sort of assumed he wouldn't do anything with it if he did, more than a nuzzle a bit.

But he picked it up and shook it like he's been doing with that toy rope in the garden for months. Exactly like that. Exactly like Owen. It was practice. Shook it dead.

As we peddled on, after I'd made him drop his prize and tried not to be angry, happy or too much of anything with him, there was silence. The death of anything is not nice to witness, and a young rabbit with all its innocence and cuteness, I've realised, is a loss a soul feels sharply. It's not at all nice.

The fox might have got that rabbit, I said to Adam.

Or another dog, said Adam.

Frank looked for the next.

Frank taking the lead on first bike ride with him.

2011-04-30T09:03:00.001Z

Eye or IQ test?

2011-04-28T08:35:00.000Z

Frank's taken to chasing things which aren't rabbits or squirrels, on the off chance. It's an interesting development.

Does it mean he's obsessed, blind or dumb?, we wonder as he belts off towards a small dog (or sometimes distant large dog) - avoiding the inconvenient truth, as is our parental privilege.

Real rabbits, identifies correctly (often with our proactive assistance), our whippet chases at startling speed, blind to the world, ears back, long neck horizontal and wide smile. It's majestic. But rare.

And on occasions when he actually realises a dog approaches Frank does not belt. He advances with prances or runs away.
If I'm jogging he more often loops around bigger hounds I pass. He's an undeniable whimp or a docile playmate. Not an obsessive, fearless hunter.

With this latest development however, mid sprint realisation inevitably dawns and he slows to a prance or, much more hilariously, scampers full circle and whizzes back past us for cover.

Retreat!!!!
Fuck me Dad. Did you see that rabbit turn into a Great Dane?!

You left the loo door open so it's not my fault

2011-03-30T09:47:00.000Z

Curry

2011-03-06T11:12:00.000Z

Nothing good comes of going running with the runs.

Jog of shame

2011-03-02T18:38:00.001Z

It got too much for Frank at about three miles. He yanked me towards home, and did not relent.

He pulls often. I'd like to say he's improving at walking to heal, but it would be a lie.

Today he was pulling as his master, clad head to ankle in tight, middle-aged-man's black lycra, 'jogged'.

Jogging, for me, is a matter of precision judgement. If I pace myself extremely carefully I'll last up to an hour. But it's an equilibrium. One over exuberant fraction of distance and the implications are often devastating within the context of my own personal war with the road.

Frank's intervention was proving costly.
He was making me work harder, both by running faster and pulling him back to stop him making me run faster.

Earlier as I'd attempted a hamstring stretch Frank licked my face, unaware of the approach of this new, unappealing version of going for a walk.

'Why are you wearing that?,' he pondered rather obviously via tilted head.
'You look stupid. Really.
'I know Jess says you don't. But you do.
'At least you're in the house.'

I should have known not to take him with me them and there.

'Aghhhh, Stranger, STRANGER! I don't know who this person holding my lead is... aggggggh!!!'

Rugby colours

2011-03-01T20:54:00.000Z

Beachlife

2011-03-01T19:18:00.000Z

Bone appetite

2011-03-01T19:17:00.000Z

Parklife

2011-03-01T19:16:00.000Z

Parklife

2011-02-24T08:27:00.000Z

Obedience king

2011-02-19T22:16:00.000Z

A man looked at me today as though I was a good person.

This is somewhat against the run of things.

I should say; a good dog-owning person, rather than a good actual person.

Nonetheless, I wasn’t sure what was happening.

Frank was to thank. No really.

You see there was a child, on the prom.

And he wanted to say hello, like he does with all people of a height where assessment indicates a free face lick is in the offing.

I didn’t see this parent’s horror as he pranced up, but I’ve seen many others.

For once though, voice and gesture firm, he responded to me. Correctly.

And the man, who in my mind is telling friends as we speak, looked up as we walked past, me between him, child and dog, and smiled.

Said thanks.

Thinks I can do that when I want.

Har har.

To meat or not to eat

2010-12-29T21:04:00.000Z

Frank and I now walk to work and back every day.
This is a good thing.

I feel fitter, and Frank chases more squirrels.
I compensate by eating and drinking more. Frank compensates by eating less.

We're still struggling to find food he likes which is not food we like; namely hot, tender, preferably marinated, meat. And to this end I continue to initiate discussions with other whippet owners in the park.

To our horror we discovered that Lupin's otherwise charmingly down to earth owners make her a batch of steamed vegetables to accompany daily menus of the meat we like, mostly steak.

It's no bother, said one.
One batch lasts a few days.

The expense? I fought not to exclaim. Jess is better at hiding her emotions and simply laughed as if she were being told a farcical fib.

I'm not buying frank real meat, he can eat elbows and feathers like the others. Or he'll go hungry. He's a dog, and he must learn. When he's hungry, he'll eat. All of which I said or thought or repeated.

He heard all of it. And ate nothing for 24 hours.
I panicked, as he knew I would, and bought a chicken.

Dear Santa

2010-12-24T14:38:00.000Z

The Day Frank Went Bonkers

2010-12-15T14:55:00.002Z

I'm fuming.
Usually, where the dog is concerned it's delight, love or laughter.
Today it's fury.

I have no evidence. It could have been Murphy, Nancy or Sid. But really, I know it was Frank.

As I toiled this afternoon, upstairs in the office, down in the kitchen Frank knocked over a plant pot, threw the clump of soil around several rooms, then laid into the carpet and then, more violently, the newly exposed underlay.

Finally, and not until the soil and underlay were everywhere, he pissed on the lot. And Murphy's bed.

Mischief complete inside, when I angrily evicted both hounds into the garden (to begin clean up) I looked back a moment later to see Frank disappearing into the neighbour's yard, after scaling the wall and tiptoeing along a thin rear fence.

Please can I have my dog back?
Your ball?
No, my dog.

I smacked him on the nose. More than once.
Dad claims this is ultimately a necessary evil with dogs who step out of line.
It felt horrible.
Frank sulked. For a split second.

Parklife

2010-12-15T09:03:00.000Z

Separated at birth

2010-12-14T20:46:00.001Z

Dobby

Frank

Wash day

2010-12-12T14:03:00.002Z

There is little as soul-enhancingly comical in our lives presently than the dismayed sight of Frank post shower.

Jess and Frank

2010-12-12T13:57:00.001Z

What the hell is this stuff?

2010-12-12T12:58:00.005Z

The temperature plummets outside, the wind whips up and the air grows whiter. It's wild. No weather for Whippets.

What the hell is this?

With Nell on the Downs

Rabbit puzzle

2010-12-11T17:06:00.004Z

Last night Frank had a dream.
He crept into our bed, put his head against mine, and shared it with me while we both slept.

I saw him standing in a field of wild baby rabbits.
His coffee cake icing colours were complemented by pastel greens, grays and blues and we dreamt in soft focus.

He pranced deliriously, then ran and hundreds of bunnies scattered like a zip opening.
He stopped to look at me for a moment, both of us smiling.

To my knowledge he's never seen a rabbit. But I think he instinctively knows, like Shane Warne did when he was first flung a cricket ball.
Ah, I've been waiting for you. This is why I was made, I just know it.

Earlier in the week a part of the rabbit puzzle slotted into place when he discovered squirrels in Gildredge Park.

Initially there was confusion. Initially there is always confusion.

But where as cat encounters have variously ended in cuts to Frank's hard to miss nose, squirrels presented him with an entirely different instinctual conundrum.

I don't think I want to play with it, Frank pondered, head tilted in curiosity at the creature.
I don't want to sniff it's bottom.
I don't even want to frolic.

But I am suddenly quite hungry..?

It was written across Frank's expressive exterior about as enigmatically as graffiti.

Fuck me, I want to sodding kill it.
He looked at me for a split second, and we both knew there was nothing to be done.

He ran at the pea-brained rodent as fast as he'd ever run at anything, faster even than his favourite Frisbee Jess cack-handedly lobbed over a park-adjoining garden wall last week.

Squirrels can give a nasty nip, I'm told; and aren't prone to letting go either.
But there was little fear of success on Franks side, even when the squirrel put in the species' signature pause into its otherwise rapid departure, just to keep things interesting.

For all Frank's speed he is yet to learn anticipation, even to the extent where the lolloping Murphy (pictured), can corner him in the garden with ease. And the animal dropped its shoulder a couple of times, altered course and was up a tree for some just-out-of-reach taunting, lickerty split.

I'm just going to hang around by this tree for a bit, Dad.
No reason. You go on.

Maybe he thinks rabbits will be easier to catch.

Dogs in burberry blankets

2010-11-08T23:01:00.002Z

Amongst the things I didn't know about Whippets before inviting one in for 15 years was that they get cold, because they're skinny and wimpy. They actually need clothes.

This news arrived to an audience of regret and disbelief on my part and profound joy on the part of Jess who'd been desperate to Google Brightly Coloured Wooly Whippet Warmers since it had dropped below 10.

If you know Jess, and I'm sorry if you don't, you will know that written into her DNA, next to the strand which says breathe often, is one which says there is no such thing as too much colour.

(...Our sofa is aubergine. The cushions which litter it are variously pink, hot pink, orange and pink, brown and pink, red and pink, purple and pink, off pink and pink and yellow. They feature motifs from the abstract to cup cakes, Chiwawas, floral union jacks, owls and flowers. A lot of flowers. Amongst the other items visible from where I sit are a pink flower pot with a yellow chilli plant in it; a pink and orange clock; pinky purple flowers with LEDs inside them draped over the telly; a headless, legless paper mache mannequin which has been covered in multi-coloured, multi-patterned tissue paper; a purple throw; two benches, painstakingly hand-covered by Jess in thousands of stamps; a light blue, spotty table cloth; a black board wall with a pink clock on it, endless plastic flowers in shades of pink; bright green, orange and pink candle lanterns and, another, multi-coloured, clock made from solid square blocks, each its own bright tone.

Frank and I are always the dullest things in the room, by a long way.

It works, in the inexplicable way the universe is both chaotic and uniform.

It is madness and beauty in one.

I am not involved in its creation or maintenance and it is far better for it.)

When Frank walked in for the first time, eight weeks of age, he looked rightly startled.

And at six months, those same eyes, still struggling to adjust, looked at me this week, saying, Adam, stop her from adding that to our basket. Please. It's pink.

Actually, I want to choose, he continued.
Neither of you two are up to it.

Everything Jess owns is pink, and I've no idea what your shit looks like because it's not allowed out of the loft. I can only imagine it must be worse.

Not pink, I said, speaking up for the dog.

And not burberry.

And god, not whatever that is. Not that.

What do you mean we'll have to have the wax jacket with the wooly inside then? There must be other options.

Whippet Warmers-r-us (or similar), in its own way, was polarising the English class system before our eyes. This winter our dog, it seemed, was to present as posh, chavvy or pink, or remain naked and quivering at the Wreck.

You chose the only breed that has to be dressed up like a doll, Jess thought, as I moaned.

I'm fucked, Frank muttered.

Even Rossco will laugh at me, and he looks like a sheep on the outside.

Heal fail (like he always does)

2010-11-01T22:59:00.003Z

What happens when it gets dark?

This is a question we are asking ourselves with the sudden arrival of Daylight Saving, for the first time.

Oh, damn, the seasons. We just didn’t really think about that in May.

The park is out of bounds, unless you’re one of the neighbourhood’s 12-year-old smokers, so where do all the dogs go?

No time like the present to revisit that Walking To Heal failure of a couple of months ago.

Right boy, we’re going for a walk on the lead, I said tonight, aware of doubt in my voice.

It’s like the usual walk, but without the good bit in the middle. Not so much as a chuckle.

Heal. Heal. Heal. Heal, heal, heal, heal, heal-heal-healhealHeal. Frank, HEAL. Heal. Heal. Frankie…heeeeal. Heal? HEAL! FRANK, STOP pulling you little sod. Frank. FRANK!

By the corner at the end of our road we were making somewhat artificial progress.

Through no fault of his own (rather a considerable reduction in lead length), Frank is walking closely and looking up at his master, eyes bulging.

End of the next terrace and I’ve given up.

Frank, heal. Heal. Hea… please? Oh, common. Frankie?

Look, I say bending down and waving a treat in front of his not insubstantial nose in the way the obedience trainer had shown us during our first and only visit. Treat.

He responds.

I guide him around to the start position (on my left) and he hovers just above sit, hoping I’ll not notice. No, Frankie, sit!

Have you any idea how cold this pavement is?, he projects, before momentarily touching the ground with his bum, snatching the treat from my fingers and standing bolt upright again, looking crossly along the street.

Ok, heal now boy, I say, taking a step. He’s off, yanking at the lead.

Cumon you old git, it’s freezing and my arse is cold.

Frank, come here; heal, heal. Treat?

Another one?

I’ll get piles.

Ok.

I leave the treat in front of his nose and begin to try and walk, stooped, along the road. Discomfort and boredom overwhelms me.

Frank jumps at my ascending hand, before giving up himself and continuing his pursuit of the thing just ahead of us.

Occasionally, as we continue, he walks alongside me for a few paces by accident and I immediately reward this with a completely unmerited treat and accompanying enthusiasm. I’m not sitting down again, he says.

Poo chase

2010-10-30T10:56:00.004Z

Today Frank belted in from the garden, as part of a game he had devised, carrying poo between the toes of one paw. He grinned widely.

How long will it take them, he pondered, bouncing off the new sofa and me in a tour of his territory... how long, how long, how long?

About half an hour.

I can smell poo love, can you? I asked Jess.

Not really. What's that on your collar?

Um, you've got poo on your collar.

So began a nasal comb of the entire ground floor, in search of the remnants.

Apart from me, and a smear on the throw, the rest of the poo had been left in quantities big enough to smell but not see.

Frank followed me around, licking my ear. Warmer, warmer, hot, hot, really hot, cold, he whispered. This is more fun than I hoped.

There are bastards on the Downs at dusk

2010-10-18T17:59:00.003Z

They won't hurt, said the horrible woman.

One of them ate Frank, while the other watched.

He spat him out because a six-month-old whippet isn't even big enough to count as a meaningful snack to Great Danes. Or because Frank had farted. Or because he was choking on Frank's body warmer.

It definitely wasn't because of me or the distant, largely disinterested owners.

I panicked and bellowed at them. Control your dogs please, they are eating mine.

Don't worry, they won't hurt you.

It occurred to me they may not even be able to see Frank from where they were. It was dusk, and the speaker had her back to me.

It's not me I'm worried about, I said, semi accurately.

Frank remained pinned to the ground, whimpering, contemplating his short life.

Later, as we hid over the other side of a hill, our hear rates decreasing, Frank wined at the silhouettes of two sharp corner roadsigns in the distance, which looked to both of us like the same Great Danes, after eating their own heads.

I inspected his injuries. A nick to the ear, all told. But can one really measure the psycological scars? Mine or his.

Although it was dark we went to the wreck in search of friendly hounds and confidence.

I told the first owner, whose name I do not know so we will have to call him Oscar, of our ordeal.

Beware of the bastards on the Downs with unruly dogs, he growled, through the night. I've stopped taking my Japanese Fighting Dog up there, altogether.

Lick it better

2010-10-16T09:43:00.003Z

I just took a scab off under my jeans. Filth exited my mouth.

Frank wondered in, looked at me, walked up to my knee and started to lick a wound he couldn't see.

He's been licking his bum, Jess said, too late.

Food chase

2010-10-10T09:23:00.003Z

Frank's been off his food.

Not off food, just off his.

William's is delicious.

And William, who must be wondering when this invader is going to stop growing, no longer puts up any resistance to the theft.

Frank knows he's not supposed to do it - but the animal in him, which admittedly might be a substantial part, can't help it. He sprints through the house, conscious we're soon to be tailing him, and dives into the bowel, mouth open, saliva at the ready.

William is not stupid, he can hear the approach. The speed of paw on floorboard, it's distinctive sound, is enough on its own. He leaves it until the last possible moment, and then springs back, exactly like a cat shitting itself.

The race begins. I'm usually no more than five seconds behind him, but Frank's speed eating is world-class now.

We rely on the speed of sound.

The deepest sound I can muster (I'm informed a deep voice is essential - and although I do not possess one, if I try really hard I can approximate manliness), is my first offering. 'NOOOOOOOOOO, FRAAAAANK!,' I instruct.

I may as well be saying, 'Dear boy, did you see XFactor last night?'

So I stamp - which comes more naturally, thanks to an appropriate weight.

I've seen Jess go through the same routine. I can say with certainty that we look and sound stupid and it has no affect.

The jaw movement is frenetic and primal by the time of arrival.

Bowl bounces around off his massive nose as he attempts to get into those hard to reach places.

He's prized away, chucked onto the floor, and as he struts off (past his own, brimming, bowl of dog food), arse in our face, continues to ignore threat and instruction.

'I've no idea what you're talking about, and it almost certainly wasn't me who did it.'

Crating havoc

2010-09-29T21:43:00.005Z

Frank's agility has never been in doubt.

Today, for example, he was found by the neighbour walking along her wall, cat like, the wrong side of our fence, as well as numerous other barriers.

I'd gone to work with him left locked in doors.

Gill gathered her cats up for fear they might eat him, and plonked him back on the right side of the boundary.

Later Dad arrived to feed and walk Frank, and he was back on the sofa, chuckling.

This evening Gill came over to tell us - otherwise we would never have known.

Later the puppy trainer informed us we were heading for trouble.

A combination of letting Frank sleep in our room and sit on the sofa, followed by shutting him in the kitchen for a couple of hours, is not, apparently, reconcilable.

Back to square one with the crate training, she said, not even trying to cover her voice.

Fuck off, Frank said, almost loud enough to hear.

I'll move out first. Gill's place is a possibility.

Wrong end friend

2010-09-12T15:25:00.006Z

Today a Chiwawa humped Frank's head in the park.

He looked up at us through the randy midget's legs.

His expression needed no interpretation. It was the end of a long day.

Earlier I found him in he kitchen amongst blood and broken clay.

Finally, I thought, the shocking and unexpected proof.

On Monday morning, inexplicably, the kitchen tap had been on when I came downstairs. I'd been cross with the cat all week.

It turns out it was Frank all along.

Today, in an attempt to lay claim to the stunt, he'd jumped onto the work-surface, knocked his bowel onto the floor and somehow cut his hind leg open in the process.

A small flap of skin, but the amount of blood indicated much worse. For a moment I thought the cat may have bought it, and was considering how I could help Frank with an alibi.

Franks following attempts to escape the kitchen were illustrated with red smears and splatters on Kitchen and back door as well as the window behind the sink.

While he was being head humped, the Chiwawa's owner said she's known an Italian Greyhound once, which could jump as high as her.

'They are very springy,' she warned.

If only we'd known a little earlier.

You set this up, Frank was clearly thinking as he looked at us laughing. This is my punishment.

Rain pain

2010-09-06T20:06:00.004Z

It's raining.

Frank is not a wet weather dog and this suits me. I am not a wet weather owner.

It is September though. Our first Autumn with the dog. Damp, cold and dark are on the cards for a while. So what's the plan?, since outside is unappealing to all of us in here.

Things are OK as long as you're frank.

There are cushions to fray, a cat to torment, this stupid chewy rawhide thing dad bought back from the last costly trip to Pet's Pantry which turns into mush and looks like a decomposed, muddy and publicly discarded item of once sanitary purpose, to drag all over the new sofa. The wood floor isn't bad for skidding across on claws either.. leaves tracks like a Scalextric.

I'll wee inside too if you don't mind.

If it could stop raining that would be great.

The fall

2010-09-03T21:45:00.005Z

We have a cat, called William.

I wouldn't have chosen him, or any other cat. But he came with the girl, and it's almost the only thing I wasn't keen on.

I've tried to oust him. In my way.

But cats only like people who don't like them - they relate to default distain - so he's all over me at any stationery moment.

Frank thinks William is a dog. Just like he thinks I am a dog and even Jess; who anyone can see is actually a rather exceptional human being.

But he can't get why he doesn't play.

Frank tries every day, in his way.

He crouches, growls his practice growl and then belps, which is like barking only much more like a girly yelp. William is not down with this.

But, to his credit, he's not one to back down.

I was here first. She chose me before you, or you, he projects, firing me a glance of hateful adoration. I will not be intimidated. And where's my supper?, it's close on four.

Frank is ill equipped for this, or any, level of emotional warfare. Belps turn to wines. Often accompanied by a paw over the snout gesture, and eventually, ruefully, Frank fakes interest in the nearby floor and sniffs his retreat. William watches, tuts silently and plods away.

Today the aforementioned self assurance kept Frank all up in Williams grill.

You do know I did battle with a Toy Poodle down the wreck, don't you Willy? I almost won too.

So, yuknow, what YOU gonna do about it th....

Shit. Will. That's my nose, that is. Cheap shot, it's sodding massive. Aw, frig, blood and everything.

Daaaaaaaad!!

Frank's for a fall

2010-09-03T16:04:00.008Z

But sir, I don't think you understand, said the man with his foot on my chest and Frank in his arms.
He is without doubt the most beautiful hound I've ever seen. You must submit.
Oh my, his cappuccino colours.
See how his tilted head woos.
Dear, shall we take him now?

This is getting ridiculous.
I'm alternating walking routes, looking for quiet paths, mutt-less cuts where normal dog owners fear to flounder. But escape, there is none.

Another corner another cooer. Each more heartfelt, impassioned than the last. He's so beautiful. I must have him and not any other.

And how does this affect Frank?
Whippets are sensitive, and you must be careful not to impart your own emotional baggage on them, for fear it shall be reflected back; so goes the threat of the expert.
Frank offers no argument to the contrary, as his tiny, nose-dominated head swells with self assurance for all to see.

He's due a fall, that one.
You can see it in the eyes of the dogs we meet as their masters fall to their pathetic knees.

--

Out on the bike last night. First time in a while. It was rather good.

Death threats on the Downs

2010-08-24T21:20:00.005Z

Today the wind nearly blew Frank off it as we strode along one of the many paths over Wilmington's tallest chalk dead body outline.

He was all cautious on the way up. But with already scented path guiding us back, plus perhaps the promise of a packet of something naughty at the Ox, he got all self assured. Maybe the steep decline helped, but he kept on trotting ahead, back legs faster than front.

And then, all of a bluster, whoosh, and sideways he went, over the lip of the path and down the grass slop a little.

He can tell when I'm laughing at him... plenty of practice I guess.

Just like wind tells us when he's happy, or relaxed. Or awake.

He looked back and spoke loudly to himself. Sod off. If you weren't so fat you'd be down that hill and they'd need some more chalk.

He's getting heavier, but not much.

We've found some food he likes, so at least he's eating a bit now. At least the vet hasn't got in touch with social services like she planned after our last visit.

You shouldn't be able to see its ribs, or this back bone which is sticking out, or these hind leg bits. Feed him a bit. And maybe let him walk on his own some, she finished, as Jess gathered him up to leave.

But he's loved too much. Sometimes we forget about the food.

Back in the Ox Frank farted appreciation for some cheese and onion crisps. People bent down to stroke him, glancing up at us wondering if we couldn't just have held it in. He never gets the blame.

So, yeah, maybe I did laugh a little.

Frank the first

2010-08-21T16:04:00.003Z

We first met frank when he was four weeks.

He looked like this.

When we look back now we think it's hilarious.

Leading question

2010-08-19T20:10:00.002Z

Under no circumstances should Frank be allowed off the lead, ever.

If a puppy has ever more repeatedly been told it's loved, I will eat our Cath Kidston dog basket.

And we mean it. He will just have to stay close to us, lead length, forever.

Sorry and all that, lad.

Only his mate Rossco is, already.

So maybe I'll try it today, I thought.

Fuck it.

Shit me, Frank thought.

Er, hang on a minute. Where are you going and why doesn't my neck hurt? Wait up.

That's sheep shit, that is. I'm going to eat it. There, see?, I've eaten it.

No neck pain. Odd.

I'm gonna trot now. I'm trotting. I'm bounding. I'm bloody bounding. I'm going to turn it on on, here I go. Here I go. I'm only bloody running. Earrrrs, back!

What's that? A whistle. That'll be Dad, that will. Better turn around. Better go back. Back, back, I'm coming!, might just bend down here a sec for a bit more dung, and there, I'm back. Watcha!

He does seem pleased.

Must be the poo eating.

I'll do that more then.

Petiquette and losing the sofa

2010-08-16T21:16:00.008Z

Frank the whippet arrived a month ago.

He moved in with Jess and I suddenly. One day he wasn't there, the next he was.

The next, a line I am pretty sure I'm pinching from another Whippet owner Terry Darlington, he had my slippers on.

Right now he's sleeping in the best spot on the sofa with my girl. There's no getting on there.

I’ve also noted a whiff of routine about the development, so I decided to start blogging again.

Things I've learned since Frank arrived:

1, I'm not ready to have children

2, Petiquette isn't in any of the books I've read.

What do you say while your dog is sniffing another's arse, to the other person holding a lead? In particular, since the dogs decide the length of the encounter, how do you end the conversation swiftly and cleanly, at literally any moment?

'Bye' seems too short, too flippant given the intimacy you've both witnessed; in a way, shared.

So far, 'Have a good day,' is all I've got.

It's not enough. I'm not pretending it is.

Also, Frank is pretty.

There's no point denying it.

Eventually he'll look scrawny and lopsided like all whippets, but right now, at 12 weeks, he's a delightfully subtle light browny grey colour with white markings on his legs and bum. He's got blue eyes and tilts his head at all the right moments. So people tell him, relentlessly, in the park, before he sniffs their dog or them. And, I'm sorry, but I've got in the habit of saying 'Thank you.'

I know this can't be right. It sounds wrong as I say it - which is probably a sign.

But what's the alternative?

'But you're too kind, sir. For your dog is the infinitely more beautiful.. My what a looker.' (?)

Anyway, today I also started reading a book about looking after your dog, perhaps belatedly.

Skipping the chapters on choosing your breed and pet, which we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed about, I’m on to ‘the first few weeks’.

I’m, er, dog-earing the pages Jess should read too. Which is a lot.

Tonight I’m going to put him to bed the way I should have done since we had him. That is to say, not carry him across the room and poke him through the crate door before rapidly shutting it, pulling down the cover and running out of the room before he starts yowling.

Odd how I thought this could be the right way.

But tonight Frank will be ‘led to the crate with a toy or treat, and settled down quietly with stroking…’ etc until he doses off.

Cesar Millan makes it sound so simple.

OUTING: Dating agent

2009-05-31T12:59:00.004Z

You'll do for our mate, you will.
How old are you? That's a good age.
What do you do? Oh, that's alright.
Are you single?
Do you have kids?
You'll do for our mate. Don't you think so Lil?
She'd like you.
How old are you?
You might do for me.
Our friend will like you.
What do you do again?
Can I have your number? I'll give it to our friend.
She'd like you.
How old are you?

CYCLING: Bug's strife

2009-05-31T12:52:00.002Z

Cyclists eat more than their fair share of bugs. It goes without saying.

Two lbs an average pedestrian's year according to Catherine.

A failed operation to persuade my face to breathe through nose and not mouth has left me even more susceptible.

I would say I eat two or three insects a saddled week.

But beware... turning to look at Downland views can worsen matters.

You may not know but they’re a lot harder to get out of one’s ear hole, ill equipped as we are to gag or cough through them.

And, to make matters worse, I discovered this week, whereas the struggles of swallowed bug manifest at worse in a throaty tickle and the icky thought of what you’ve done, in the ear you experience winged animal panic at high volume.

CYCLING: Sets for the soul

2009-04-30T21:02:00.010Z

The sun was waiting for us at seven fifteen as it seems to do in April, positioned precicely between two Downland bushes.

We turned behind The Downs Golf Club's par five second, puffing, and there, see?, millions and millions of miles away, but in the exact same place it had been yesterday and the day before, at the exact same time.
How does it do that?

Good evening, it said.
We agreed and said thank you.

It had been busy laying out a feast too; stretching, as the valley did, to East Dean and northwards to Jevington, cast in gold.

And weirdly, we noted, no queue.
Are there honestly better things to be doing with your life? Are there two sun sets going on in Hampden Park?

--

Have people forgotten
What a sunset can do
For the soul which is suffering
As ours tend to

Cycling: Sod's sodden law

2009-04-11T18:36:00.002Z

Oh how it's rained.

CYCLING: Six sunny days say spring

2009-04-07T21:12:00.002Z

The sunset is back the right side of clocking off and all of a sudden, in the space of a week and no more, this corner of southern England is awoken.

Amongst watch and phone adjustments and the very occasional sale at work, three bikers are jubilant – to us at least, more than anyone else has cause to be.

The sun may be here, but we’re the ones who’ve earned it.

Months of greyness, slippery track, leaves and roots, frozen fingers in districts of peaks and the ever-present threat of frosty half an hour in the back garden with the hose and one’s bike, are gone. Gone in the kind of way which makes you unsure they were ever here.

But here they were. They fought us body and soul. They lost. And now, and in this week of elemental surrender, it is sweetest. The spoils are all ours.

We’re fit, we’re strong, we’re giddy.

Dan’s full of cold, but that aside, it’s perfect.

As our comrade recovers Neil and I have peddled over the Downs from Old Town – up the tarmac escarpment like it wasn’t there – and around our 45-minute loop in ten minutes less than last summer – five of the last seven evenings.

Just then, between those paragraphs, we did it again, for the sixth.

The sixth sunset over East Dean, Friston and Jevington. The SIXTH in six days. Literally, beat that? Ha.

I sit here sweating delight, sweating glee. I’m sweating the prospect of the months ahead.

Cycling: Lewes/Alfriston loop (part II)

2009-03-05T22:17:00.004Z

Continued...

Later the ground fell. Our wheels went too but Alfirston caught us with its familiar frown.

It handed us each a pasty, sent us around the corner and told us not to come out until it was time to leave, we were making the place look untidy.

It's a village so focused on being beautiful it's forgotten to have fun - forgotten what life is surely about. There are cold shoulders on every corner, behind endless counters and bars.

The pasties were unimaginably good though. Guilt free buttery pastry and red meat. Reason enough to take up biking. We washed them down with Oreos from the same magical, time-locked shop (personed by sour face youngster) and slipped out of our side street and away, being sure not to disturb the po-faced people inside their diamond encrusted homes.

Refuelled we all sped up to the top of the Old Coach Road and began the flatter ride home. Poor Phil was suffering equally with bum and lung.

Every incline, even slight, is so hard, he confessed.
I feel I'm holding you up.

Suddenly aware how far we'd come we congratulated and comforted and directed to the pub at Firle.
My man, you should be proud... go and drink away the good, as is tradition, we both said in less poetic phrase.

He went with it agreeing to do his best to conform.

We did pick up the pace for a mile, but then road became path, stile and ploughed field. It appeared the makers of the Old Coach Road to Lewes may have stopped off at the same pub as Phil and never started again.

But a friendly car washer put us right and soon, after a ploughed field which would have red carded us a week earlier, we were in Beddingham.

It's back over the downs or the main road towards Newhaven mate, I said to Dan, who sees A roads as I see passenger aeroplanes.
Taking our chances with the freight we held our breath for a mile or so and survived to tell Phil how little he'd missed.

Cycling: Lewes/Alfriston loop

2009-03-02T20:53:00.004Z

Sorry Phil.

I'm almost dead here and you two don't seem to be even breathing hard.
There is little as sweet sounding to the cyclist's ear, as a yard stick to your own fitness, than a hyperventalating mate.

It's your first time for an age fella... and you're bike weighs a ton...
Was my glee detectable?

I'm not terribly fit.
I still have to sub off every minute and a half during tougher hockey games.
But Phil kindly showed, as we tickled the foot of the Downs near Lewes, that hard winter work pays off.

As it happens, up top, there was more than a suggestion winter was fading.
The trudgery of a week or so ago seemed no more. Perhaps not just temporarrily either. There was a permenance to the ground's firmness and it made for riding unriveled in months.

For two at least the ups were painless and the downs delirious.

What's that paraglider doing standing on a post?, asked Dan as hobbiests all over the Beacon struggled with the calm.
It's hardly going to make any diff...
We watched as, balance lost, he tumbled off and was saved from a bump by the gentlest of breezes. He was up. And I laughed at the timing.

Behind the glider was a view worth putting the effort in for.

Prodominant greenscale mixed with mist on the Wield in the middle distance. We could see the Old Coach Road, our route home, but soon, before its parallel main road replacement of a centuary later, the curtain came down.

Continued...

CYCLING: Beacon to Butt on chock and nut

2009-02-24T22:57:00.002Z

Sorry for the absense.
It’s not like there hasn’t been guilt.

Since last time there are some new things in my life... things which may or may not be to blame.
1. Twitter.
2. Twice the work

I’ve been biking. Not as much, but enough to keep the legs strong enough for a 20-miler from Glynde back to the Bourne a week past.

I got up the hill to Firle Beacon in sixth. This’ll mean nothing to anyone, but I like saying it.

Then, accompanied with endless Downland views towards southern sea and distant city to the north, we went very slowly down until Littlington.

Some of it was so thick with gluey mud it was like peddling up. But most was windless and wondrous.
We snuck into West Dean to avoid Friston’s muddy tracks and popped out the other side before it awoke.

Genius, I said to myself, as we stumbled fortuitously upon the gentle fire road to the top of a meadow above Jevington. And Genius I said to Dave as we remembered he had one more Snickers bar to power three of us up the last hill...

But the back path up Butt’s Brow’s butt beat us all... and would have done even if my bike wasn’t stuck on the middle rung. We were spent and rolled into Old Town and onto respective beds almost without stopping to get off.

Obama has it easy

2009-01-20T21:54:00.003Z

My word, I've a lot on.
I went to the Peak District; you may have noticed.
I'll get it down soon. I took notes.

I have memories preserved in ice.

Bike Club Challenge has stalled too under the weight of New Year publishing stress.
But I am determined to get back on the trail.

Obama became President today.
The ceremony cost £1.2m.
And 32,000 soldiers guarded proceedings.
2m watched, the live eyes of 83% of Americans who are happy about it.

He's got to sort out Gaza, Iran, the economy of the entire world and not getting himself shot.

And I thought I was busy.

CYCLING: Poshing it up in the Peaks

2009-01-05T22:18:00.005Z

Dan's blagged two posh hotels for the coming Peak District trek - the first Bike Club tour and no less.

It's just as well because the forecast for the rest of this week is sub zero.
No cold hostels for us. Not that we know fear, you understand. We are adventurers. And if we're not, we're quite, quite stupid - which, if it isn't the same is similar enough for most people not to notice.

In any case, here's to the power of the good name Time Out and Dan's cheek.

Even on the south coast the first weekend of 09 was determined to make itself notable by a heat shortage. A 20 miler at minus two gave us a reassuring insight... Well, we made it at least.

We'll breeze past the not-being-able-to-stand-for-the-rest-of-the-day issue. We'll stroll on by the ten-miles-less-than-the-shortest-of-next-weekend's-rides niggle.
We'll assume it won't rain. Prey for similarly still conditions... atop some of England's proudest lumps.

Adventure is nothing without challenge.
What's a middlands mountain bike holiday in January?

(Apologies for two lazy Peak headlines)

CYCLING: Festive unfitness Peaks at the wrong time

2009-01-02T15:42:00.006Z

The Pennines are a week away and I've let myself go rather.
I'm filled with excitement and fear... and turkey and cheese.
And wine. Mostly wine.

But at least the four-day trip will be a kick start to the New Year.
Three January days in the saddle cycling up some of our country's most challenging hills. That's a resolution in itself.

You'll freeze, said Jane.
You're joking, said Dad.
Can't fucking wait, said Dan.
My thoughts lie somewhere in between the three... but I'm gripping Dan's enthusiasm with both gloved hands as if hurtling down Friston's steepest slope on an icy morning... with one eye shut.

On New Year's eve, by way of preparation, we got up at seven and went for a cloudy dawn ride over the Downs, to Butt's Brow and back along some fabulous single track. A small loop I was doing with both eyes shut in the summer.
It hurt - a lot.

Conditions were perfect; the patchy frost hardening the turf to cheat winter out of the year's last muddy morning. Even the irksome tree roots called a truce and let us through.
I wish my physical condition had allowed me to appreciate it more fully.

The last three days have been beautiful up here, said my friend.
It's a shame today is so dull.
I thought, you've been up here for three days in a row?!
Only one of us may return from the Pennines.

--

Bike Club news:

Two new members: Dave and Phil.
Two new bikes: Bought from the tip for two pounds each... with the aim of fixing up and reselling. May be highly optimistic but will give us something to work on, I figured.
One new frame: Also from the tip - cost £6... reason, not sure. Impulse?
See link left for news on Trike to Bike challenge... the Trike has arrived and will also be preened at tonight's meeting for first challenge resell.

CYCLING: Bike Club - the first rule? (hic!)

2008-12-15T18:41:00.014Z

Great news.
The local authority seems to have cross party support for putting cycle paths on the prom.
Finer detail is sketchy. And war has broken out in the local newspaper's letters page.
But it signals an attitude shift which could be very important to the future of the area where I live, I'll predict.

People might even think the town is a friendly, welcoming place.

And at the very least, parked cars blindly backing out into a petrified family of peddlers, forced onto the seafront road (the clear and present danger) may soon be a thing of a murky and distant past.

Thus ends the news.

--

Possibly more important:
Bike Club was this weekend officially born.

(Suggestions for the first rule of Bike Club are welcome.)

Its three members learned they are stupid enough to cycle in truly horrendous conditions if there is the promise of ale or wine at the other end.
This they know because it happened twice in three days which makes chance a less likely culprit.

Friday - newly official Bike Club night.
I learned you can download most bike maintenance information via the web - even while really quite drunk.
And Daniel learned not to put his finger between the cog and the derailleur if I am nearby and really quite drunk.

We then sat and Neil told us often how he'd just doubled his money on ebay with the Scott he was gleefully cleaning and preening for collection.

I put my bike on the new stand, forgot why and then Neil lifted it out because I was drunk and knocking things over.

We ate snaks (sausages, olives and chocolate brownies so plentiful we couldn't possibly hope to work them off if we spent the whole month on the saddle) and took the piss out of each other a lot.
It was absolutely fucking great.

Sunday, Bike Club outing day
Friston wanted us elsewhere almost as much as the weather and my hockey tired thighs.
But we are now officially paid up adventurers and must earn the respect we crave as such.
Proudly we ploughed up and down boggy tracks where gravity was no help in either direction - finding pleasure in small pockets and pain in prominence.

Squeaks reminded me about the oil I'd forgotten to apply on Friday night.

We bitched light heartedly - assuring ourselves often how easy this would be come the summer thanks to our dedication.

Neil, atop the wife's ill-equipped machine, fell at the third attempt. Upset we both missed it he re-enacted the event on a muddy track with surprising vigour and quite a thud.

Meanwhile Dan looked like he could go all day.
I felt the opposite - tried not to want to go home, but was delirious when we got there.
Don't tell the others... I may get kicked out.

The first rule of Bike Club: Drink less before and more after?

CYCLING: Tinkering and tyrants continued

2008-12-07T15:24:00.006Z

We've brought a bike stand.
To save money and be more self contained during future trips three of us decided it's time, at the tender age of thirtysomething, to get some bike knowledge. We all chipped in.

I drank wine and got in Neil's light as he tinkered on Friday evening.
He fixed his gears and breaks and I can't say I know why.

I ate Chinese food and drank port as he used his new knowledge and a few You Tube how to videos to adjust my gears too. They're smooth as a James Bond pick up line now. It's a mystery.

I learned that as long as Neil comes on future trips I will be fine.

--

continued...

New to us sections of Friston forest opened out in front of Dan and I, each promising adventure and challenges unknown.

Once you're fit enough this is the unique freedom to mountain bike cyclist.
The day's destiny is unhindered by logic or habit or hill. If you reach a dead end you turn around. If you don't, you keep going, wide-eyed - riding at your limit.

The next path could bring jumps, glorious tree-weaving single track, frightening downhill or wide open leafy paths where speed has no master. Or it could be a boggy disaster like the one we took.

Ten painful minutes later I was pulling a gloopy mixture of mud and leaves from between the back wheel and frame. It had glued the wheel fast. My feet were in deep puddles.

Friston was in no mood for the fun we had planned it seemed.

I caught Dan up and we left her behind, headed across the angry road into a field towards the Cuckmere cleaning our tyres on reliable medow grass.
We have a right to roam, Dan said.
Fence. Barbed Wire. Another field. Another fence. Bugger this. Back across the road to our mistress.
She was more welcoming this time, and as the path dropped towards Exceat our wheels picked up speed enough to fan leafs in their hundreds into a rusty confetti.
We yelped.
We whooped.
There was no danger - no need for concentration. It's at times like this that you must make the sounds of gleeful boyhood. It's part of the reason you're here. So we did.

Forest drained we weaved further along into a fabulous path, more narrow and dusted with inviting obstacles which we hopped over or zipped around. The bare trees seemed to step aside graciously. Our hosts also welcomed in all the afternoon's half-light to see us happily through their home.
We caught our breath and thanked them with smiles.

Soon we were in the valley, splashing through more puddles. West Dean offered us the admiration of a small boy and an aggressive hill, but soon we bumped out onto the Road to Littlington where a pacey ale in the Pub's garden spurred us up and over the rut of the Downs and into Wilmington for our meeting with the Clobbys.

CYCLING: Tartan tyrants of Wilmington

2008-12-01T23:15:00.004Z

You should try pushing the thing…, puffed David Dimbleby who was propelling a kart up the muddy Folkington track we were sliding down.
…It’s harder for the person at the back.

Peter Sissons. Did you see? Did you SEE? I whispered excitedly.
See who? I was too busy looking at the kid in the go-kart, said Daniel.
That looked like fun.

The track was a mistake.
If I was a cynical man I would blame the old couple dressed prematurely for Christmas day in all over green and red tartan and tweed.
They had seemed nice.
If they were senior members of the anti cycle lobby – Clobbys for future reference –, as we later suspected, they hid it well.
When we asked for a way from Wilmington to Wannock without risking our necks on the neighboring main road they’d hardly paused before suggesting we peddled back up the hill and hang a left.
There’s a track along to Folkington, then go down the lane, take a right and then there’s another across to the back of Polegate, they instructed.
They even smiled.
Mind you, it’s completely unwalkable, let along peddleable, they said to themselves with a wicked grin - but not until we were well on out of earshot.

The thing about riding in the mud is that when the time comes it’s too boggy to ride, walking conditions are a thing of the even more distant past. Then you have to push the bike too.
They knew this, we agreed, up to our ankles.

Earlier we’d left cold Old Town and peddled a little too enthusiastically onto the Downs on the Seaford road.
Luckily, made lonesome by the weather, she welcomed us with a backdraft as we neared the top and saved our legs a little for the hack ahead.

Daniel was gleeful atop his shining new silver steed.
I was jealous and failing to hide it.

We’d planned a vague loop through East Dean, along the top edge of Friston Forest, along to Littlington. Pint, Chips, around to the Long Man at Wilmington and, well, home the safest way we could find.
We shot along the side of golf holes against the tide of drives and onto a valley cut which whizzed us between fields of shivering sheep to East Dean. Cars suddenly buzzed over our conversation and we turned off to take a back path up the steep side of a village made ghostly by Sunday and season.

Out we popped puffing plumes of hot lung air. And across the tarmac stream of growling metal once more. Kind walkers, Clobby Resistance Fighters, held the gate open for us and then our smiles of thanks widened as we saw what waited.

Continued…

Chase the couscous

2008-11-11T09:02:00.001Z

If there is anything more irritating than dropping uncooked couscous on the floor I am yet to discover it.

CYCLING: Highwaymen and hijackers with hounds

2008-11-10T21:38:00.021Z

Bottom of Firle Beacon

I should go up onto the ridge from here, said a dog walker to Dan.
The wind is south westerly and blowing a goodun up on top, you'll find it easier this way...

What terrible advice, we decided, and went the other.

Our starting point, Alfriston, oozes snobbery, and we figured later (peddling with the wind at our backs along the ridge), the dog walker had been out to get us.
Her malice was aimed at making us un take up cycling, we thought. Get off the paths... embrace dog walking and very bad advice giving instead.

Dan has to write about the South Downs... so, whatever the weather, we agreed in a warm Counting House pub on Friday, to head out two mornings' later to cycle a stretch of the South Down's Way.
Whatever the weather?, Dan said.
Fair outlooks are for the weak, we are MEN, I replied, standing up to shut the door some smoker had left open.
My word, that breeze has a nip.

The Old Coach Road to Lewes from Alfriston, with it's chalky, horse-worn shingle and lengthy sections of exposed, almost desolate track, conjures up visions in the mind-wandering cyclist nothing short of musket wielding highwaymen. You can feel yourself tracing the steps of children's TV-informed history.
Dan was on the same thread, and we discussed whether today's coastal muggers and thieves, becapped and driven by blind addiction, will be remembered with similar romance.

He took pictures for the piece and as we paused we wondered at the misty morning squall hugging our route, and the bursts of cold sunlight keeping it at bay. Green became its own rainbow and as the wind blew heavy clouds, their shadows changed everything before our eyes.

It's Firle, I tell you. It is. This is the road. We have to go up there.

The French cycle a lot, as we know.
The English less so.
I decided (and then thought I'd test the theory on Neil) that this was because we built roads straight up hills, lazily, and our neighbours chose the steady meandering route, making the pursuit more accessible and popular.
Neil looked doubtful.
I have no idea if there's an ounce of anything other than horse shit in this, but if the road to Firle Beacon is to be used as a measure I may have a defence.

At the top and the wind blew us so bitterly in the direction of our car the sweat instantly turned us to shivers.
The ridge along this stretch of South Downs offers very little. Unless you like a view. For those tiny few it is a baron paradise, with unobscured sights of distant silver sea and Weald in 360 degree widescreen, surround sound, supervision. It's almost too much.

Dan, who has been away for a while, did not try to hide his feelings.
They were expressed with untamed exclamation.

Two disobedient, cow-curious dogs, a brief and mutually unsatisfactory bike exchange and reunion, the easiest hills we've ever cycled up (thanks to the south westerly) and a hilariously steep track back down into Alfriston (where, break-locked, we skidded helplessly and in borderline hysterics to the bottom), and we found ourselves in the pub with an hour to spare for the Harvey's and cheese and onion crisps.

The dog walker looked surprised to see us.

Eddie

2008-11-03T15:37:00.001Z

While I was in a coma my wife divorced me and took the money for the jump, said Eddie Kidd… I think.
He’s not in a good way these days – wheelchair bound and punch drunk.
His eyes still shine like motorbike lights though, I can confirm.

I live in a council house in Seaford, I’ve lost all my money.
How about an interview?, I said.
How much?, he said.
We don’t usually pa…
Buy me lunch, he said, smiling through a stare.
And a glass of wine.

Deal, I said.

Dare devil Daryl

2008-10-29T22:56:00.010Z

Eddie Kid, he's a handsome fella, said Daryl, the only fishmonger I've ever truly loved... known, even.
He eats in my cafe on a Friday, comes in with his girl and carer. They live in Seaford.
One reads off the menu while Eddie sits in his wheelchair.

People stop to ask, Are you Eddie Kidd, all the time. People recognise him. He's a bit fucked. But he's still a great looking bloke. I'm not gay, but he sure is still a looker. His eyes dazzle.

We're moving along to the bigger unit at the end of the Enterprise Centre, Daryl, whose eyes really do dazzle, updated me.
It's got space for sofas where we can give people olives and tables big enough for paella dishes.
What's the point of paella without the dishes landing on your table?
We'll have a platter counter too, where folks can pick and mix oysters and prawns and all that stuff.
It'll be grand, but we're quite scared. We've gone from that little counter, and two dishes a day, to that.

It's daring. Eddie would approve, I should have said.

CYCLING: The upside down sun season

2008-10-27T22:08:00.009Z

Friston was a carpet of yellow leaves, the colour of over ripe Bartlett pears.
Where a few weeks ago they'd kept the light out now they lay bright on the forest floor, transforming the dreary autumn afternoon.
It was as if, to spite the clouds, the sun had decided to come from the other direction.

This fallen flora both dazzled and destabilized us as we free wheeled along what was possibly a cycle track - reliable mud path completely covered with greasy day-glow camouflage.
It was treacherous and we Wuuwd often as we wobbled.
Worse, some hungry reptilian ridge-back tree roots were hiding amongst it all, joined by stumps, rocks and other gang members, all anticipating a rare winter biker supper.

Further on the heavens opened in annoyance with the upside down sun and we sought shelter from the fire roads in parts of the forest yet to lose their canopy.

I think I'll have a little sit down, said Neil, who was on his bike for the first time since the birth of two children (his).
That last climb has taken it out of me. I might puke.

We repeated the loop, skipping the worst of the leafy luge form first time round.
Instead a great piece of downhill footpath I'd yet ridden. We picked up so much speed the milky tea-coloured water fairly drenched our undercarriages, some grimy cha flicking into our eyes too.

I was not prepared for this and got stung once or twice.
Neil lacked not just glasses and lungs, but shoes, trousers, lid, gloves and, if there is anything else, that as well.
He slowed to see why I'd halted and as I found a tiny piece of unmuddy cloth to wipe the corner of my eye, he put a foot down, slid on his inappropriate footwear, and heaped on the floor, laughing his happy arse off.

We wanted more, more, more but our wrinkled skin said it was time to return to adulthood.

Destination mare

2008-10-24T21:09:00.016Z

Maybe I shouldn't have laughed at Laura's misfortune. But today was a day of direction underachievement all around.

Drunken public transport 'freestyling', as Anna called it, saw her hopelessly lost in late night London. She was eventually, via a distressed Bristol-locked boyfriend and the Met Police, recovered. But the tale of her boozy misadventure (a wrong train and an impressive THREE progressively more wrong busses) was good enough for Anna to wake me into a ferocious hangover at an upsetting eight am.

My sister was animated and we laughed hard and long.

In Tonbridge High Street at five thirty one, my hands clamped together in heartfelt prayer and my eyes pleading with the unwavering and unimpressed (but well fed) manageress of Carphone Warehouse, the tables had turned.

I’d run between two open phone shops which didn’t sell what I needed – and now I’m at the one that does and it’s JUST shut? NO.

I’m cashing up, we’re closed, she gestured.

I showed her my lifeless phone, mouthed ‘CHAR-GER’ and continued to beg... For nothing.

I turned around and in dejection put my hands on my hips. I waited for a few seconds, hoping she’d thaw and let me in, before walking off to find a phonebox, my last hope, without a clue how I would use it to solve the problem.

Earlier I left Anna snoozing on her sofa in good time to reach Chris - a dear friend, over from his home in Hong Kong for a rare visit.

I caught the train to Clapham and back past Balham to Hayward’s Heath to collect the car. I punched the postcode into the sat nav and picked the top of the two displayed options.

Off we go. Lots of time. Good planning Adam.

I’m going to be early so I text Chris – he says it’s fine and they’re looking forward to seeing me. Then the phone beeps to warn me it’s going to run out of battery soon. Shit, no charger. No problem, I’m on my way – I know where I’m going and I don’t really need it.

I get to the place as directed...

This isn’t right, I think. Plainly not right.

I check the sat nav and realise it’s actually at the nearest place it could find to the postcode. I turn to the phone. Phew, it’s alive. Chris has text me the road name and number too. In it goes, and up pops a new destination which appears to be a match – 15 minutes away. Phone off to save battery – error. I’ll be a bit late, but not by a lot.

I arrive in Tonbridge nearly half an hour later thanks to some Friday rush hour traffic and begin to engage seriously with the doubts that have been in my head for the last bit of the journey.

This isn’t right. It’s a council estate. Tom, Chris’ brother, is well off.
(Later I’ll realise Hopgarden Road isn’t in the same place as Hopgarden Lane...)
I’ll check the phone. On... On?... Cummon. ON!
Nothing.

Late, lost and phone alone.

Back in Tonbridge the first phone box was occupied by a foreign woman early into a broken discussion over a bill.

The second box was empty. Bitter about its unpopularity it swallowed a pound in paltry exchange for letting me know Dad’s was empty but the answer phone was on.
I drove home... to plug my mobile in and call Chris and explain why I wasn’t there.

After the fruitless Tonbridge High St plus phonebox foray I’m spent. Tired, seriously hung over, miles and miles from home, unpopular and unable to apologise to anyone for at least another hour... I give up and re-enter the rush hour traffic, homeward bound.
A fucking mare.

Fire and water

2008-10-22T17:38:00.005Z

The sun dipped so low tonight it set clouds alight over the downs. There was fire in the sky and it blinded those heading west.

Earlier, driving through Battle, after a largely pointless trip to Hastings, it had cast a sepia shroud over the landscape - turned the whole thing into a photograph which must have been developed in the late 70s.

Car sun visors were pushed down and postures straightened to narrow the field of view to only a few feet of road. Shadows stretched back the full distances between vehicles while the autumn rays exposed grubby windows.
As we passed Powder Mill Hotel the car at the distant front of our partially sighted procession could take no more shame and sprayed herself. Unruly sparks of fine sunlit water flew silently up and onto the next car which was forced to do the same.
Further along it reached me and we joined in, pleased not to be overlooked. The car behind did too but after that I do not know. Maybe it goes on still.

James Yuill accompanied it all loudly on my stereo only though, and just I saw everything happen in perfect time.

CYCLING: Sun chasing

2008-10-08T22:03:00.006Z

In Old Town any autumn sun is obscured mid afternoon, much earlier than the rest of our region. The Downs imposes this regime with a shadow, like a curfew.
But dictators must be stood up to.
Challenge his vastness and you'll peddle out onto the golf course into a sunset over the Seven Sisters with which it's best not to tax yourself for comparison.

I kept my coat on all the way for the first time since spring - and peddled quite hard.
Despite longer than a week off the saddle and two poor run outs with the stick the legs didn't let me down.

A pretty girl with a tiny dog, a cyclist obeying hill passing etiquette (exactly) where the OAP's of a week back had not, a quick breather - a moment for wide-eyed admiration - before rocketing down into Willingdon and pounding the Drive back to the start, just as car headlights began to blink on.

A sunny ride thieved from dusk's grip. Grand.

Adam & Raisa

2008-10-05T11:31:00.008Z

Picture: Raisa Bergman, By Adam Monaghan.

Adam and Raisa are emigrating, heartlessly.
We're going to Finland to live in a forest, said Adam with a glint.
I don't know the language, I haven't got a job - here, have some of my photos which I'm not taking and while you're all over let us take you out for dinner.
You can see they felt guilty for leaving us.

While we ate, and before the 14-strong crowd knew we were not paying, we talked about ourselves and our lives, in our sections of the long table. It was nice to be out.
Then, in the pub, all wealthier than we'd expected, the talk was of our soon-to-be-far-away friends, prompted by gesture and generosity.

I think we all thought: Wow, that was nice. What a thing to do. Adam giving his art away, the pair of them taking us to a restaurant. They must like us. I like them. Oh, my!, they're going - these people I like.

Later I talked to Adam.
Adam doesn't drink often, but he should, he's a wonderful, beaming, drunk. We sipped ale and talked about his plans for the first book of his photos and how he feels detached from parenthood and commitment.
Raisa knows, he said. She gets irritable if she's near kids for long, so it suits us. Who knows what will happen? And that's fine by me.

Later still I talked to Raisa.
I don't know if she drinks often, but she's an glorious and emotional drunk.
You're lazy Adam, we haven't seen you a lot and now we're going. But I forgive you. I wish my friends in Finland didn't all have bloody kids, she said. They don't go out now, they're all boring. I wish I was staying here.

She didn't mean it. But we surely did.

Head East and towards dawn, friends.
Where the sun rises you will welcome be.
And we will cherish your thoughts for us with memories and vivid images.
Until you again we do see.

Fix me

2008-10-02T21:41:00.004Z

Dan was mortified.
It wasn't his fault either. But all night he asked me how my leg was.
I wanted to say, Fine fella... I managed, Sore and bruised. I could have said, Fucked, my friend.
Here I sit, a glass of wonderful whisky to my side (the last from what turned out to be an annoyingly small bottle), ice pack trapped against my swelling shin muscles by smelly socks, thinking, frankly, that Saturday's game would be in recoverable reach if I was not fucking 33.
Oh ice, work your magic. Substitute on and score a goal against youth.
I mean. I know our relationship has been sparse. You've waited, of course, I know, for me to accept many an silent offer of gentle revival from sores which I saw fitter to lazily decline. I know I only come knocking in desperation. But, cummon. I think this may finally be the start of a something meaningful.. I'm a man. I take time to see the grass isn't greener although it always appears so. I've grown. I can see your worth, despite your frosty exterior. Mend me.

Mend me quickly.

CYCLING: Jitter bugs and bells

2008-09-29T22:51:00.008Z

Af’noon, said the brightly-dressed old man at the arrow of an OAP peloton, zipping by.
I couldn’t reply – I could barely breath.
‘Noon…‘Noon…Af’noon, said the others apart from the two ladies at the back who were engulfed in bumpy, chalk-track chat; jitter-chat.
How rude, I said to Sam.
I mean, we’re killing ourselves cycling up this hill and they’re free-wheeling down… and WE had to move over.
Sam was forced off her bike while they charged past us – I can only guess oblivious of their rule-breaking. I pushed up through the long Downland grass, gob open, partly in amazement, mostly in pant.

The last day, surely, of what might be called summer and we are not being let down – not at least by good old Downs.
The wind is on its tea break and, thanks to a low autumn sun, haze grains the landscape's yellows and greens into a dreamy blur; so beautiful.

We take a track down a limb to East Dean, where a massive car races out of a massive house and releases a massive amount of Co2 into our path, angrily.
Garrrrhhhh, WHAT do you think you’re doing in the countryside?, it snarles through a grill the size of a double barbecue.
We go the other way and join Paul at the Bells.
Two of the girls nearby where we sit are reward enough, but we eat too.
And then bye to Paul and off and along and down into Polegate.
And bye to Sam and Nearly home, just the up hill bit to go, but I’m feeling strong and a little buzzy from that half of Harvey’s… so I’ll fly up it… and oh, arse, puncture.
Broken glass on a Sunday in Hampden Park?, I hear you say… imagine!
But it’s true.

Three re-pumps and ten times more effort than was really wanted later and I collapse dripping on the sofa and watch the sunlight slowly disappear from the lounge window. I wonder when you’ll be back and on such form?

Lucky fish

2008-09-26T18:22:00.008Z

I bought a lottery ticket today - the first for 10 years.
There's a chance, perhaps quite slight, that I could win £100m.

They can't have a roll over so the money has to go tonight, said Kate.
If no one wins it'll be shared out.

She touched a nerve.
The whole office brought tickets and discussed briefly what we would do with the winnings over a fish lunch from Taylor's.
Then our own thoughts (silent pleas for relief from individual moneymares) took over and the conversation bled into worried silence.

Dave and Kate bought pork scratchings from the pick and mix to take our minds off it, and we walked back to work.

I've purchased a raffle ticket to win a house with its own lake and hut for fishing, said Dave as we wandered.
It was £25. The house is worth £1m. I'll take half for a quick sale if I win.

1 in 40,000 chance we worked out as we made our way up The Goffs, where the cash could be exchanged for several broad townhouses.

Better than the lottery, we agreed.
But still, not great.

Bankers should be left to rot in their own financial sewage, Paul said as we ate rare burgers in the Dolphin later. He was animated. I was out of my depth and getting board of endless money speak.

The gloom is everywhere. Stifling.
I'm waiting for it to swallow the business while preying it might turn instead to a glorious Arctic dawn.

If I win £100m we may just survive.

Up-dte

2008-09-26T16:14:00.005Z

She was nice and I feel guilty.

I am young and you are old, but I don't mind, she said.
Nice men are rare.
Can we meet soon, I think it went well, don't you?

Behind the irritating short-text was a nervous and attractive young woman - 23. But she'd been through a bit, and was wiser than non parents would expect.

I am nearly 24. Do you like children? I would want more. Eventually.

How sweet.
Now when she texts it doesn't annoy me.

We'll meet again and see.

Blnd Dte

2008-09-24T17:30:00.003Z

The texts haven't been great.
I've made badly received, borderline bizarre, jokes which seem hilarious until the second after I've pressed send.
Meantime she's been practising infuriating short-text, which, unlike precious shorthand, doesn't need learning and serves no purpose other than to make oneself seem young and lazy.

Because of this I remain (irritatingly - especially to myself) judgemental and pessimistic.

We gave up texting very quickly.
We haven't met; there doesn't seem any point in trying further until we have - until there is or isn't cause to.
The Blind date is in one and a half hours.
In the Lamb. I have Nick to blame.

Nick said She's pretty and has big boobs. Oh, and a daughter. And she's really nice and she doesn't know anything about you, oh but the wife did say you were handsome or something in a text the other day. Good luck. Har Har.

I'll let you know.

Autumn's grudge

2008-09-22T20:20:00.006Z

The nights are suddenly darker and the breeze is whipping up leafy tornadoes about the pedestrian's feet. The seasons are in flux.
It's a nice time of year, but it does rather fill you with loss too. Not for the heat, clearly, after this summer. But for the light.
Evening rides have to be rushed if you want to head off the roads, as is the sane cyclist's desire.
And even then you'll be battling the workaholic wind, which is making its autumnal killing from overtime.
The bike stands wanting, sometimes panting. Groomed and prepped. Losing patience - while I wait for a window.

Elements aside, Dan and I plan an October excursion, a mini bike trek - which will be a first real opportunity to test out my associated writing. Excitement is growing in me with the idea. Only laziness, money and responsibility is stopping it becoming quite epic.
But, at least some adventure awaits.

Hockey began with a cup drubbing of Horsham.
I felt annoyingly unfit in the flash heat of summer's last breath, but we were considerably less unfit than the opposition.
Three goals in the first thirty five minutes turned to 12 by the end as our off-season training hinted at some reward.
Horsham were a good bunch. No animosity in the thrashing - which isn't easy when combined with sunshine and vocal support for the winning side from home fans.
I netted four; two good, one tap in, one theft which upset its betrothed Dave, rather.
We overcame the affair's bitterness after several late evening ales at the Dolphin... where the landlord owns a Whippet.

I said sorry for pinching his goal.
He said I was quicker and he was more upset with not being, and he knows he should lighten up. I said I know it's hard. We got over our differences as good friends do and Dave and I have learned to slowly.

Once we argued and I didn't speak to him for a year. He started it, I turned it into something ugly and bitter.

Eventually I learned not to hold grudges (one of life's little-known yet valuable lessons), but not, sadly, for another 15 years.
With Dave I'd have enjoyed at least one more year's friendship if I'd known.

Amber

2008-09-18T21:45:00.006Z

Whiskey. Or, Whisky.
I do hate the stuff.
Recently someone paid me in it for some work and I thanked them without meaning it.
On the label it said things like 'years old' and 'malt' and '18' and 'single' and a other words only Highlanders can or want to pronounce.
It made me think of all the things I like which could have been brought with the money it probably cost.
Anyway.
I'm a single man.
I run out of things.
Usually food, sometimes alcohol.
And on one such desperate occasion, tonight, I opened the bottle.
I'd also run out of things to put with it and I was needy, so I challenged it head on.

I'll tell you what, someone could make some money out of this stuff.

Silver medal

2008-09-15T16:53:00.004Z

I've kept a tab open on my browser all week...
http://oo22.com/fb/alright.html

I'll scoff superiorly at the superstitious and religious alike, meanwhile I can find comfort in well arranged pixels. Such daftness.

As it turns out the hollowness of this hypnotic source of solace was exposed as the scam it is when John called first thing to say the job belonged to someone else.

Everything was not, after all, alright.

I'd beaten Fraser and Rupert and Gary and one other whose name escapes me... but not, it seems, the next day's solitary candidate. I'd come second... and as such was sentenced to wait all week for the bad news... just in case superman turned it down.

The tab remains open, top left, as I fumble to give its promise meaning in a new context.

Fantasies of the financial and professional must be forgotten, reality faced, new hope - a more humble future - salvaged from the selfconciousness of failure and its ugly truths.

I sound miserable because I am.
But it will pass.

CYCLING: Autumn sun

2008-09-14T20:10:00.007Z

If ever you think, as one is prone to, that there really is no point in going out tonight because the Downs will not give you what you need, you are wrong.

CYCLING: Pump chump

2008-09-13T10:08:00.003Z

I went to buy some bike oil.
A father and son came into the shop, the young boy pushing his bike.
The father asked to borrow a pump for his lad's bike.
The owner refused.
I didn't buy anything there.

Dave

2008-09-11T07:45:00.004Z

A young contributor to the magazine died last weekend, I've just found out.
He fell.

David illustrated for us. He had a unique and confident style, full of character.
I never met him, which I regret.
His Facebook page has become a unsentimental but touching condolence book full of comments from friends. And another from Mum and Dad.
I thanked him for his drawings.

You can see, in his 'feed' where he made changes to his profile in the days before he died. A digital record of a life about to end. A trace, still, of a boy just mortal.

Waiting sickness

2008-09-09T17:08:00.003Z

I got out, said Fraser.
Wire journalists die early. They all do. They retire and die a couple of years later. I know two who I will name for you now. There you go.
Fraser was hugely charismatic and would have been my choice if I was on the panel.
But he didn't want a full time job.

Gary was big and Welsh and probably played rugby on Sundays before singing.
He was aloof, but lightened up.
He was well prepared.
He was older.
I think it went well he said.
You've been in there and awful long time we said.
I talk a lot.

I'm being made redundant from the Telegraph in eleven days said Rupert who was extremely nice and extremely softly spoken.
I've worked at the Argus too but I hated it. I shouldn't have left the Telegraph the first time. They have antlers on the wall in the Telegraph office, do you know?

I was last into the interview.
I was too nervous and I've been thinking of all the things I should have said since.
I should have practised more.
If I get it it will be because they know me.
I know I can do it. And I know I'm amongst the best options for them. I just don't think I deserved it on the day. And the longer the wait the more I am convinced of it.

If I got it it would change my life.
I can't stand the wait.
I can't write and I can't think.
I feel sick.

Shadows and showers

2008-09-03T21:16:00.005Z

I haven't been on the bike for a week or more.
The breaks are iffy and the weather is more so.
The wind howls and the rain crash lands and it feels like Autumn is a month early.
We played hockey last night on a pitch with terrible flood lights.
Wind and rain and near darkness - it was eerie.
Other players; faceless shapes. The ball irrelevant to me and my useless twilight eyesight.
Younger ghosts swept past with something like a ball on the end of something like a stick.
And that one there looked a bit like Danny.
But now he's just a blob again - a puff of shadow racing fearless into the gloom.
I'm shattered Steve, get me off will you?
These shadows... I'm chasing them, and they probably don't have the thing either.
Ooo, there it is. Pass it, pass it, YES!
Sa-CORE!
All right, I did see that one.
Now can I come off?

Why does sweat smell more now I'm 33?
Oh age.

Desire, I want not.
But, truly, what else have I got?
Eyes which can't see. Bodily pungency.
And shins which hurt quite a lot.

bleep test

2008-08-30T11:14:00.004Z

Up to 13.3 on the test Thursday. Previously 12.4 was best...
14 is the target... pre season.
Feeling inspired.
And tired.

Death of a boy

2008-08-27T16:51:00.003Z

A boy died in Hastings.
He was beaten and killed because of his colour and heritage.
His life ended brutally by English men. I am so ashamed.
The pain of his parents can have no comparison.
Far away and helpless - their lad murdered in pointless, blind, foreign hate.
The sadness of this is sickly and still soaking in.
It makes you ask big questions of society and humanity.
And it makes you realise answers are not enough.

CYCLING: Friston Forest

2008-08-26T17:04:00.010Z

Roots jutted up like reptilian back bones, those of underground creatures which had heard the commotion and surfaced to try and upend a few cyclists for supper.
Catch one on a camber and you were done for.
Put your foot down and they would have it off at the ankle.

But we zipped passed with luck our friend and skill our scrawny servant. And down we sped.

Then there were stumps, where rats of unusual size had gnawed down trees and masked what was left in mud and leaves to make it impossible to see and deathly to collide with.
And our front wheels wobbled through with dexterity while back wheels popped as each caught their points under our weight. But they did not puncture.

We saw some reptiles who had come up on the flat - how silly.
So we rode hard at them and used their bodies to launch ourselves high. Lift the front, jump as the back hits and fly. I'm a boy again. I'm a boy.

Mid air and helpless we realised the forest's trick - our landing also mined with more roots and stumps - shaped like sinister faces it seemed - although it was over in a flash as we peddled on once more victorious.

Then splash, then yuck, then swooping turns so fast and true perhaps nothing could stop you. Then scrape and Weww, as a peddle caught a passing tree. Then steady there fella, you don't bounce like you used to. Then bravado again as single track widened and the mud drained and the camber was left behind with the hungry creatures and there is only you and the wind and the woosh of it all.

A clearing. A skid and survivors' smiles all around.
Scratches and stings bring not pain, but memory and pride, and a feeling I can only think is to be alive.

James the giant

2008-08-26T15:13:00.004Z

I ran chest first into James’ head.
James has a normal head but it’s on top of a large body and it was all leaning towards me at the time. The body and head came off better and he got the ball too.
A mean man would have enjoyed the experience. A satisfactory tackle and completely fair upending of the opponent; a legal winding. Good stuff. Stuff you.
He isn’t, so I can’t complain; which is annoying because I’d like to.
It feels as if someone is sitting on my ribs with no plans to move. I hope they don’t snore.

The pain. Oh my.
You should have seen this guy.
He was massive you know, a brute.
And he stopped me shoot, to boot.
Left me dented where I lie.
(Then helped me up).

Committed

2008-08-26T15:13:00.003Z

You don’t realise it until it happens but sooner or later, if you want to be heard on matters that interest you, you really will have to join a committee.

It will go something like this:

Initially the formality will strike you dumb and scared.
You will wonder what is happening and more importantly why it is happening so slowly.
Soon you will like it, because when you speak everyone listens.. mainly.
Then you will start to talk more and realise why things move slowly.
A little further along and you’ll be completely at the system’s mercy… promising involuntarily to fulfil more tasks than one could complete, even if bereft of friends, family, job or pets. This will mean you have more to say at the meetings. This means people will shut up and listen to you for longer.
This will feel unbelievable good. Better than life or sex by a very long way.

(The rest happens over around 50 years.)
Then you will become secretary. The hapless slave to the Chairman.
Then you will become chairman. The all powerful dictator.
Then you will become treasurer. The more all powerful banker.
Then you will become president. The responsibiltyless figurehead who does not go to meetings but has been doing it so long he/she (mostly he) expects anyone he meets to shut up and listen to him when he’s talking. You will be hated.
Then you will die.

Tonight I joined a new one without any idea I was doing it.
I have no idea how to escape.
I promised to help.
I’m in a lot of trouble.

Harry the Stick

2008-08-26T15:13:00.001Z

Ben and Becky, after their first disagreement over timekeeping with the lad, had a boy called Harry who will be a Houdini with a hockey stick… mark my words.
A few days later Britain beat Pakistan at the same sport in the Olympics. It’s fate I tell you.
They then lost to Holland… but only by one.
All the same, and his future sporting career aside, the boy has a glint no less mischievous than you’d expect from two such fine and life-loving parents.
And, my word, I’m an uncle.

Harry would not hurry.
Harry said to wait.
Fun and adventure was out there
He suspected
‘Mum, wait up, don’t dilate.’
‘I’m having my moment.
‘My time on the way.
‘That second just before
‘When you can’t want for more
‘And all that’s good and for sure still awaits.’

Team

2008-08-26T15:12:00.005Z

Pass.
Pass the fucking ball, pass.
Pass it you twat. Pass.
I’m here.
I’ve run really hard.
Pass.
Now.
Pass it you retard.
Fuck you then.

You scored.
Well done.
You scored.
The glory is all yours.
The team, over here, that’s us.
We don’t care.
But you scored.
Well done.
You scored.

Paw mum

2008-08-26T15:12:00.003Z

There is nothing like earning a view.

It’s something you know as a cyclist or walker, or runner or someone whose car broke down half way up but carried on anyway. It’s repayment for your efforts.
Drive up and you think, Blimey, that is lovely, isn’t it.
Walk up and you think, Blimey, that was worth it, that’s all mine.

Mum and I went and earned a view the other day.

I couldn’t have children, but the Lord blessed me with four Grayhounds said the wild-eyed, round faced lady in pink, on our way back down.
They’re not Whippets then, I said.
Don’t be afraid, it’s only barking because it’s blind and can’t see you. They’re such lovely dogs. Thank the Lord.
What can you say to that?
Have a nice walk.

You shouldn’t get a Whippet because you’re too busy and it’s cruel and you’re probably like your father, and they’re a lot of responsibility for a long time you know and you might be one of those owners who lets their dog jump up because they think everyone likes dogs and I don’t at all, that’s the thing that really annoys me about dogs and owners, and what if the girl of your dreams doesn’t like dogs.

That’s karma I said as we laughed after turning a corner to find three more Greyhounds and a terrier which jumped on mum and put paw marks on her new M&S.
Are they Whippets?
DON’T DO THAT YOU NAUGHTY DOG no, Whippets are smaller.

There were a lot of big Whippets about.

Go home song

2008-08-26T15:12:00.001Z

Be gone, instructs the song.
What a wrong song
It says gentleman please, that’s time
It says, sir, how did you get in?.. for you it was time in 1999
Your clubbing days are over
You’ve had a hefty innings
(Please don’t come back, we’ve told the doormen)
A man of your age – it really isn’t fitting.

Sea we saw

2008-08-26T15:10:00.001Z

Tonight the sea had an audience and it was keen to show off.

We arrived and were lost for comparisons at its hues and beauty.
When it’s like this one must stare. One mustn’t blink. One really shouldn’t move in case it gets stage fright.
If you break your gaze you will look back and it will be gone.
So I didn’t.
No camera could have recorded this.. least of all the one on my phone. But I took a picture or two all the same.

In return skaters silently slalommed the elderly who were let down by faulty reactions in expressing their crossness. The dusk swallowed them quickly anyhow, so it did not matter.

The bongos of Latin students made our stony shore their home and were accompanied by spontaneous song. Passing English people wrestled in their heads and asked themselves why they would never join in.

The big brass band taught the bongos a lesson and the English people were pleased of the distraction. Then the fireworks banged before we clapped and liked being English again.

And we all turned to see if the sea appreciated the efforts but its curtain had long since come down.

Name and defame

2008-08-26T15:09:00.003Z

Found by Caroline… cracker
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7522952.stm

CYCLING: Up the Butt

2008-08-26T15:09:00.001Z

You make a deal with Butts Brow on the way to it from Jevington.
You wave a white flag, so it can see you coming from a distance - taking the long steady climb up its thigh.
Or you creep along its valley and peddle in pain up its crack, for the element of surprise.
But sometimes it feels you coming and farts wind to make the climb up nigh on impossible.
Then you have to walk which it likes because it tickles.

Fish

2008-08-26T15:08:00.002Z

Go to the man selling fish in the Enterprise Centre.
He cooks one dish a day and if you offer him five pounds he’ll probably give you some.
If you’re lucky the shop won’t be busy and you can enjoy his company too - for which he does not charge.
But you probably won’t be.
Today he wasn’t selling fish lunches. And it was still busy.

Bring the noise - letter to the paper

2008-08-26T15:08:00.001Z

LETTER TO THE PAPER:
There was a letter in the Herald recently – complaining about the Counting House’s three-day July music festival. It wanted, seemingly, an end to ‘noise’. It wanted the government to crack down. It wanted peace. It wanted quite. In short it wanted, like a headteacher at exam time… SILENCE! This is not a letter about this particular event – smashing though it was for so many reasons – it’s about something else.
Society is diseased not by noise, but by busybodies thinking they have the right to stop it. They don’t.
They have rights, like we all do, to a reasonable amount of night-time peace and quiet. They have robust rights.
If only they knew how tough this country and this town’s licensing regulations are.
Noise of some sort; expression; fun, is very nearly mummified in red tape.
I can promise you that.
The very letter of the law, and perhaps some which aren’t actually there, are applied in Eastbourne to those pushing for bespoke or new events.
Put very simply and not too loudly, to legitimately perform, to stage, to celebrate and to have fun with other people – even just for two and a half days – requires religious dedication and still often fails.
Police, Fire, Health and Safety, Licensing… the cotton wool of our culture can be turned to glue at the whim of some senior (or well connected) soul should they see fit, quicker than the flick of an amp switch.

No. You, my friend, are protected.
What is far less protected is the right of expression, the right of dance, the right of song and the right of mutual enjoyment of these things…
It’s hindered every inch of the way, statutorily vilified and victimised – lumped clumsily into the same convenient group as antisocial behaviour and probably graffiti – although not, interestingly, as church bells, fireworks and fighter-jet engines.
However, to many, joining friends to watch an artist perform their noise is life affirming – and is a right which we must fight to protect if our culture is not to become diluted and unattached from its people.
Life is already restricted. Money is stupidly tight.
What can we do? There is only so much time for fornication. Sometimes you need to forget, to laugh and to clap your hands together involuntarily – sometimes you need to see someone perform, or do it yourself, to remind you of this unique human quality. Sometimes a little noise is a very good thing

Moj travel facts

2008-08-26T15:07:00.003Z

Jo said Tunisia is a cheap and nice place to visit as long as you don’t mind fat naked English women and unruly kids.

Game up

2008-08-26T15:07:00.001Z

As is often the case, the only person who knows if he cheated is him.
We suspected. Susie thought she saw it but can’t be sure. And since we all wanted it to be true it might have been harder not to see it.
Like the testosterone-pumped Sargent of a front line battalion he led the charge.
Face strained with determination and, or at least he thought, the tremendous expectations of others - his team, his company. And it was close.
Just a few runs and an over in which to get.
So perhaps he did move the wicket.
Perhaps he did unfairly run me out.
And perhaps I definitely did momentarily act almost exactly like a prat.
But we lost. And really, painfully, he was better.

Biz and wind

2008-08-26T15:06:00.001Z

Today I helped those distressed by business and its unrelenting pressures.
There’s a lot of it about - like wind, clouds, foreign students and the spaces where bank products used to be.
I liked it because I can relate.
I liked it because I was able to help.
I forgot about my own for a while.
So they helped me too.

CYCLING: The giant who lives next door

2008-08-26T15:02:00.001Z

The horrid hill outside my house resists cyclists grumpily.
When it’s had a bad week it crossly rolls wind down its incline like barrels.
It’s especially put out by riders on a Sunday around dinner time, when it prefers not to be bothered. Perhaps it’s trying to nap.
But I beat it :)

Bar man's misery

2008-08-26T14:59:00.001Z

‘How are you?!’ I said, quite cheerfully.
‘Shit,’ said the tender of an empty bar.
His ex girlfriend had cleaned out his bank account.
There was no hiding his misery.
It dripped into our drinks and some of it stuck to the rim of my cocktail.
Some of it had walked upstairs and played havoc with the atmosphere near our table.
We left it behind and laughed to wash it away.
But it was in our system and later is made us argue.

We won’t go back there.