6N 26.3

Saturday was a funny old day. I seem to have a lot of those - I think I often fall victim to my own contrarianism and also to my bipolarity. In fact the latter was accentuated last weekend because I was in Anglesey and had forgotten to take my anti-psychotics with me. Keep taking the pills Pig, they work for you.

Anyway, Saturday. I awoke early after a fitful night (that's another benefit of Olanzapine, it helps you sleep) and was determined to go out for a decent run, during which I was going to undertake the mental composition of a blog entry excoriating England Under 20s loss to Ireland on Friday night. I even had a title - 'Brainless Behemoths'. Those of you who have been with me on this journey will recall that this is not a new theme. In the end I abandoned the task as my running (up towards Storws Wen Golf Club, for those of you know the local geography) became more and more a painful exercise. At twenty-five minutes I turned back from my route and headed home to Plas Piggy. But stubborn old Pig then willed himself to take control and I embarked on a series of deviations from the straight route home. I reckoned that if I could count my steps to twelve hundred on these deviations I would add enough time to get me to an hour. I did it - bloody knackered but I did it. And I felt a good deal more sanguine about the previous evening's rugby. So mood was now up.

Then England played Ireland in the Six Nations. Mood down again. What a calamity. I counted twenty handling errors from England and lost count of the missed tackles. Outplayed, outthought, outmuscled. Garbage. At moments like these I am relieved that I am at least Irish by marriage. In my defence of this shameless abandonment (I'll be back) of my homeland, I can point out that both of my daugters have Irish passports. 

Wales v Scotland cheered me up. I would have preferred it if Wales had clung on to win but it was an estimable game to watch as a neutral. Mood back up again. Sunday, back home to Casa Piggy to take in the ultimately comfortable French Victory over Italy. But let us get this straight - Italy are no mugs and if England play again as they did on Saturday, they will lose to Italy. I might actually have a bet on that - it makes the game more bearable to watch.  

Pig's last game of golf

Good night's sleep last night and I am due back on the (soggy) golf course early tomorrow with the Seniors at Royal Pype Hayes - I have had a few weeks off to get over the effects of a very poor slog in the mud last time. These things should never become a matter of arduous habit. Keep taking the pills. 

You Can Checkout Any Time You Want But You Can Never Leave

As with the Hotel California, as seemingly with Brexit, so also with mental illness I'm afraid. Great Big Baby Pig has a weakness and although he has been pretty well for a while now, the dreaded gremlins have been back this week, provoked by events that though vexing should really not have appeared insuperable. Better today. So this is a public thankyou (yet again) to the Pig's rock, the Groupie. The Pig's manic depression has made him particularly mindful of the daily horror that those without such trenchant support must endure. Mental illness is real people. As I say, better now, nothing to see here, move along please. 

Of Films, Flat Track Bullies, Imbeciles And Other Annoyances

I think this has been the longest I have gone between posts on this blog. Do you know what, I just haven't been in the mood. A torpor has settled over the Big Fat Pig and he projects a general dissatisfaction with the way the world is comporting itself. Can you blame him? Brexit, bloody Brexit, Trump, bloody Trump, The weather, the bloody weather.

For heaven's sake man, pull yourself together; catch yourself on (as they say in the brilliant Derry Girls, and as they also say in the Irish family into which I married); more prosaically get a bloody grip: etcetera, etcetara [please insert exhortation of your choice].

Because when you actually remove the the self-indulgent dark glasses through which you view the world, there is still plenty of stuff to lift the heart. Mind you, none of it comes from the political scene where we have the gruesome spectacle of a Tory leadership contest in which most seem reluctantly to concede that Boris Johnson is the least bad option. All of this in a galaxy where no one has yet landed a death blow on the relic that is Jeremy Corbyn. You couldn't make this stuff up.

The Pig has endured watching Trump being entertained (royally and well) by the apparatus of the British state. Trump spent his time on the journey over thumping out tweets aimed at that political pygmy Sadiq Khan. What a ridiculous man (Trump not Khan, but then when you mention it ...). The Pig has come to the troubling realisation that Trump has done some politically good things (principally being the first man willing to get into a staring match with an immoral China) but that anything good is dwarfed by his lowering of the tone of public life to a previously unimaginable level. Were I an American (and I can think of plenty worse things to be) I would hold my nose and vote for a mediocrity like Joe Biden - this a man who was found out plagiarising no less an icon than the Welsh windbag himself, Neil Kinnock. I mean, Neil bloody Kinnock - seriously?

But what about those films I hear you ask. Two good films have cheered the Pig recently - you might call them comfort viewing. The Full Monty is not quite a great film but it has a very good run at it. It exudes humanity and dignity, which is pretty good going for a film about unemployed blokes getting their kit off for money. 8.5/10.

The second revisited favourite is, like The Full Monty, a movie that proves that short can be sweet - neither is over ninety minutes. Stand by Me is based on a short story by the copiously talented Stephen King. That source material makes for a beautiful film, locus for the directorial extraction of compelling performances from its juvenile leads. This is a work of art. 9/10.

All of which above writing has cheered the Pig up. Now, I promised you flat track bullies. I am just a little concerned by the hyping to clear favouritism of England's cricketers in the World Cup. They may go on to win but can we just remember that we have yet to meet any of the other likely three semi-finalists and, in amongst the glory have lost to a quixotic (this is a polite way of putting it) Pakistan. The old grouch in me feels a tumble from on high coming our way. I'm only saying.

2nd at Sedbergh - where's Pete gone?

As I swing into cheerfulness (it's good this bipolar lark) I will record a public thanks to BH, the organising force behind last week's QMT (it's a long story) golf tour to Appleby. Bad golf was played, good beer (and a little bad actually) was drunk and there was high drama with debutant tourist PJC conspiring to fall into the river at only the second hole of the tour from such a height that he broke his hip. Decidedly not funny, but definitely the stuff of legend. The local emergency services did him proud - rather reassuring in these austere times. The Pig's golf was modest and the weather was challenging. A great trip. Best beer, Timothy Taylor Landlord on the last night.

So now I feel a lot more cheerful - the power of the written word, even my own.

Advent 15

This one is as much about a time as a place. The time was 2006 and I felt myself, immodestly, at my professional peak. We holidayed in Denmark, spending a week by the coast and a few days in Copenhagen. Loved Copenhagen but it was the coastal resort of Smidstrup that I most marked.

We rented a house in the pine forests that lie behind the beach. I would wake early, leaving the Groupie to sleep (this was before my now permanent state of semi-sedation) and would run on the forest tracks before swimming in the sea and then returning to brew myself coffee. As I drank my coffee I would read management texts and plan mentally for my role as Managing Partner. As I say, the peak of my powers. Sadly I did not foresee my legal career crashing about my ears. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

As for Denmark, a decidedly civilised place

Big Fat Pig Redux (Continued)

The Pig is feeling saddle-sore after taking the newly serviced Precious Bike for a spin this lunchtime. Managed just over an hour with a few hills thrown in for good measure.

if ever a bloke deserved a drink

On cycling, read the account of Chris Froome's heroic effort on stage 19 of the Giro - Giro Stage 19 . You may recall that I included Froome in my list of greatest sportsmen last Christmas and I stand by that classification (indeed the Giro victory endorses it) despite the loud accusations that he is a drug cheat. I don't buy that. Too much to lose. Perhaps I am guilty of wishful thinking but I find Froome's brand of unshowy courage and determination a perfect tonic in a world where some would have us believe that image is everything.

Meanwhile, chapeau to various American sportsmen who have declined to visit the Trump White House. Normally I would regard this sort of virtue signalling as tiresome but when directed at Trump I will make an exception.

All in all feeling a little more chipper then. Still not firing on all cylinders but the Pig hereby announces that he won't let the bastards get him down and that he is setting the satnav for Wellville. See you there.   

Things Ain't What They Used To be

It's me, I am still here but I haven't been in the mood for blogging. I've been lacking in inspiration, alternating between high and low moods, with my family and friends the cause of the highs and the perfidy of mankind the harbinger of the lows. Neither of these factors is new and, you might very well observe, this state of affairs has never stopped me droning on at you in the past.

So what's different? This question has been gnawing away at me and I have had to conclude that what has drained away my will to write, has been the lack of any reliable prescription to cure the ills of the world. You know me - usually I think I know the answers (well some of them) but just now I feel defeated. Defeated by Trump perhaps. I no longer wake with the vague hope that overnight America will have found a sense of decency and taken steps to remove this wretched man. I am resigned to his awfulness. Will democracy ride to the rescue? I just have this horrible feeling it will not, that America is to remain calamitously divided and damnable. We should not be surprised by any of this - the almost equally loathsome Bill Clinton has this week averred that, given his time again, he would handle the Lewinsky Affair exactly as he did when in office. The man, like Trump, is a cad.

Pop Will Eat Itself - quite possibly the greatest rock band name of all time. My old mate Adam Dolgins wrote a whole book on that very subject by the way (band names that is). You will (if you read me regularly) have heard me use this delicious phrase (PWEI) before. It's one of my favourites and I think I most often use it in the context of the parlous state of that loveliest of games, cricket. Because here's the skinny, Cricket is not so much eating itself as devouring itself like a deranged self-harming tiger. T20 - here's another skinny: it's not fucking cricket. With this one I am pissing into a strong prevailing wind but that doesn't mean I'm not right. I look at my collection of Wisden almanacs and wonder how long it will be before there is no first class cricket to contain within those yellow dust jackets. A nice aside, Pop Will Eat Itself (the band) issued a track Reclaim the Game, though their context was the game of football. At least we don't have anyone force-feeding us abbreviated football. Not yet anyway.

On my recent journeys on public transport in Porto and Bilbao, I was struck by the unaffectedly polite cheeriness of the commuters and the cleanliness of the trains. Taking a train in England is so often a dispiriting experience. Does it have to be this way? I don't think it's the infrastructure so much as the people. Or maybe the infrastructure has deteriorated so much that we find a retreat into oafishness our only coping mechanism.

You see what I mean - I've become a right misery guts. Let me then introduce a moment of good cheer. I'm going to buy myself a new lawnmower, petrol and self-propelled of course. The current precious mower has done twenty years of loyal service and I want to retire it before it gives up the ghost altogether. I like petrol mowers. I like a tidy lawn.

Another reason to be cheerful, I ran four and a bit miles this morning. Slowly but continuously. I have a vague notion that I'd like to do a 10k in the autumn. Should be manageable, even for these old bones. Big Fat Pig redux.

You know what, just typing this blog has cheered me up. A problem shared etc. Thanks for listening.    

Keeping My Hand In

If you go all the way back to my very first blog entry, you will find the words of the very eminent and admirable Ian Marchant, the man who set me off down this route. His first rule bears repetition - 'Writers Write'. So this is me, a little damaged by recent events, keeping my hand in. I've been a bit poorly in the head again but it now seems to be under control - thanks, despite all its fallibility, to the NHS, but thanks most of all to the love of a good woman.

But enough of such things. I'm still deciding how to make sense of the whole Trump thing - possibly the best view is that it is western society's postmodern joke upon itself. Who's laughing?

On the subject of bad jokes I could be found last week in The Erdington Players' revival of the stage version of Are You Being Served? If you don't know the original it is pointless me trying to describe its mutiple political improprieties to you, but do go on YouTube and you'll see what I mean. My health meant I enjoyed the process of the production less than the norm but I avoided any pratfall or obvious memory loss and I'm glad I did it. The comic mechanisms are actually quite clever but there is an air of inappropriateness to doing pussy jokes in a church hall. All part of life's rich thingy? Or am I getting priggish?

a film

Two films to report on: one of which will be familiar to regular readers. But before I get to that, what are we to make of Kingsman? This has its tongue lodged very firmly in its cheek as it pastiches Bond et al. The violence had, I suppose, a comic point to it. The language was unnecessarily rich (and yes that is me saying that) but in the end I was suitably diverted by it all. 6/10. But not even vaguely a patch on Hoop Dreams, which can be found hidden away on Netflix. If you have never seen this gargantuan documentary about American high school basketball, please track it down. It is one of the best dozen films ever made. 9.5/10. 

a truly great film

Exit October Pursued By A Black Dog

Sometimes and despite our considered views, things are for the best. I find myself finishing October back on my old full diet of medication after another swallow dive off the cliff of normality. C'est la vie.

All of which has meant an awful lot of sleeping for the past week and not a lot else. I'll get there eventually.

I have however managed to catch up on some films I'd recorded so watch out folks, it's opinion time. First up is Went the Day Well, a top-draw, understated piece of British wartime propaganda. These are films made by and about that generation (largely no longer with us) who would have made the German yoke intolerable. They put us to shame. 7/10.

Next up, Return of the Jedi. I've had this one on the stocks for months but after seeing the excellent Force Awakens at the cinema at Christmas, I have been put off watching it. Well, I was right and I was wrong. Right because it lacks the power and darkness of the two earlier films. Wrong because it is by a distance superior to the twaddle of the first two prequels. And much as I appreciate the young Carrie Fisher in a metal bikini, I'm not really sure it advances the story. 6.5/10.

Finally, what I regard as a rather beautiful little film - Stand by Me. It captures the very daftness and important depth of boyhood friendships. As good a tribute to the work of the departed River Phoenix as exists 7/10.

Manic Depression

I saw my doctor this morning. He's rather marvellous and has a clever manner by which he tries to keep me on the straight and narrow, which in my case broadly means keeping me medicated, though not up to the eyeballs.

I came off my dual medication back in December (that is to say off both uppers and downers) and was even so presumptuous as to trumpet the fact. Big mistake. I fell rather spectacularly off the mental health wagon in mid March. I won't bore you with the sordid details but suffice to say it was ugly and scared the shit out of the person closest to me. So now I'm back on the drugs (just the Olanzapine - my anti-psychotic of choice - no anti-depressants this time) and the better for it. Fingers crossed.

spare us a thought - we're not making it up

As it happens next week is Mental Health Awareness Week but Radio 2 has been marking that fact this week and so it was that I caught a rather beautiful little segment of the Jeremy Vine Show as I drove home from university today. It is available to listen to at Vine Show for the next month and if you skate around the less than learned debates about what Churchill would make of the EU, and whether first-class travel on trains should be banned (seriously), you should catch the sensitive little interview with a bipolar sufferer called Steve who was sectioned only a few weeks ago. Vine, as a good journalist should, had mastered his topic and Steve was both brave and disarmingly honest about how the condition can utterly fuck with your mind. I hope Steve will get it under control and that he comes to appreciate what Olanzapine can do for you, even if it does make you fat. God bless you Steve, wherever you are.