Shining On The Self-Righteous At Plas Piggy

Here on the island for the first inspection visit of the year. All is well, in fact it seems even better than that. In marked contrast to last week's covering of snow at Casa Piggy, Benllech is bathed in glorious winter sun and the Pig is feeling very good about himself having run for forty minutes this morning. By way of climatological proof I reproduce the rather crappy photograph taken from the front window showing the waters glistening on Red Wharf Bay and the Great Orme looming in the distance. I can't give you any documenatry proof of my run - you'll have to trust me on that one, but why would I lie?

It is on a day such as this that one glimpses the illusion of the runner's high. Actually that is unfair - the high really does exist, it is just that you feel it less frequently as age and lassitude restrict activity. On the basis that the public sharing of a new year resolution makes compliance more likely (because failure is so much the worse when suffered in the open) I will admit that I have the ambition to get back to running for an hour by June this year. My other resolutions are for me alone.

I will say this - running here in Benllech is even tougher than back in the environs of Casa Piggy (which is atop a hill) as the village climbs steeply out of the Bay. Today I ran/staggered half-way down to to Red Wharf Bay and back. I feel good.

Another reason to feel content - I have realised that itvX harbours Once Upon a Time in America in its listings. I'm too mean to pay for the ad-free version but I may watch it tonight and put up with the adverts. I haven't seen the movie for a decade or more but I remember it as Leone's masterpiece. Am I right? 

Deep and Crisp And Even At Casa Piggy

I have started the new year with the usual slew of resolutions. More exercise, less eating, more reading, blah blah blah. Thus far I have been pretty good and I am even keeping a regular check on my blood pressure - this is going particularly well as it happens - the drugs seem to work. But plans for my third run of the week have been well and truly scotched by Storm Goretti (who thinks of these names?), as can be seen from the photograph of the drive at Casa Piggy taken by our staff photographer (aka the Groupie) yesterday evening.

I said last week that the film of Charlotte Gray is a bit of a dud. Instead you might look for Operation Mincemeat on iPlayer - a nice bit of staunch Britishness in the factual context of WWII. 63/100. 

I have now almost eaten my way through the remains of the Christmas chocolate (it would be impolite not to eat it all, resolutions or nay) and I shall next do some reading. I already have an ambitious literary project in mind for this year's Advent calendar but you will have to wait until 30 November to hear more! If that doesn't keep you reading, well what on earth will.  

Touching Wood

Plas Piggy and Casa Piggy both sit on hills - Casa at the very top of one, Plas three-quarters of the way up the route to the beach. This shared characteristic means that neither residence is in danger of flooding. Which is good. It also means that hills have to be tackled on any run, always assuming that I want to end up back where I started. Which I generally do. So the hills are a nuisance, though probably good for me.

I have regaled you with the comical seqence of injuries that I have inflicetd on myself. There was the bike calamity over a year ago and, now that I look back on it, I really did make a good job of hurting myself. The knee injury is pretty much (bit of residual stiffness apart) straightened out and, as previously announced, I am back running and cycling. All is going to plan. Touch wood.

When it comes to the distinction between jogging and running, the most useful rule of thumb I have encountered is that the boundary lies at twenty minutes of sustained physical effort. Certainly as old age pursues me around every corner, I am happy to accept this designation. Thus I was pleased last week when I shuffled past the twenty minute mark back at Casa Piggy. Today I am at Plas Piggy (boiler emergency) and i managed thirty minutes. I feel good. Touch wood.  

Yesterday I Have Mostly Been:

Running slowly - before breakfast and ruing my stiff knee, the latest manifestation of my old age. To add to the knee, it's bloody hilly here at Plas Piggy.

Visiting Caernarfon - the castle may be a symbol of oppression but you have to say it's a rather magnificent symbol. Nice pint in the bar of The Black Boy and a bowl of chips shared with the Groupie.

Listening to - Gil Scott-Heron, Pieces of a Man. Nice.

Reading - The Mabinogion. In English translation, sorry about that.

Back On The Mean Streets

You have to promise not to laugh. Last Sunday I was out on the precious bike, the vestiges of plantar fasciitis decreeing that running was out of the question. You really wouldn't credit it but I was attacked by a stationary car. That's my story anyway. Okay, I will admit some contributory negligence on my part. I had slipped a gear as I came to the top of an incline and I was being clever by unclippng and trying to persuade the chain back using my foot. I have done this before but this time it took longer than I had allowed for and that is when when the stationary car jumped out at me. I took a right old smack on the head (thanks goodness for the helmet) and drew blood (quite a bit of it actually) from leg, arm and left hand. I still bear the scars and my hand is too swollen for golf but all in all I got off lightly for this bit of self-inflicted stupidity. Most importantly the car and the bike were both fine.

Big Fat Pig Comes A Cropper

But it takes more than one act of crass stupidity to discourage the Pig. No I haven't been back out on the bike - The Groupie would not allow that. Give it time. No, I have started running again after a lengthy interval - a full three months to be precise. I have mastered the strapping-up of the offending foot and, touch wood, so far so good. Mind you I have thus far confined myself to two flat runs of 2.5k. And, do you know what, I feel all the better for it. I was even cheerfully greeted by one resident on my route who enquired why I had been absent for so long. That alleged canard, the Runner's High, turns out to have a basis in the truth. 

The Money Pit would not be anyone's idea of a great film but as fare for a Sunday afternoon it more than does the job. It relies on physical comedy rather than any degree of wit, scabrous or otherwise. 57/100. A nice alternative to watching the Olympics and having to put up with the ungrammatical inanity that passes for analysis in much of the BBC coverage - there are honourable exceptions of course but you do pine for the days of David Coleman and Ron Pickering. 

All of which is a welcome distraction from the seamier side of the news. In America, Trump manages to crawl lower and lower with his dog-whistle fascism. There is at least an ocean that separates us from that horror. But at home an opportunistic embodiment of race-hatred erupts into violence on our streets. Less than ten miles from where I safely type this, a hostel for asylum-seekers was attacked last night. Let me be clear, nothing, I repeat nothing justifies this immoral godlessness. Nothing. 

 

I've Got The Only Cure For Life, And The Cure For Life Is Joy

Not the first time I've purloined a masterful Clive James lyric (written for the music of Pete Atkin) and it won't be the last. Anyway, it came to mind as I mused my way out of the downer threatened by yesterday's speculations on asymmetric war. The cure for life is joy.

I have just watched (it's on iPlayer - seek it out) Listening Through the Lens : the Films of Christopher Nupen. It is no false modesty to say that I have a tin ear and zero musical talent but, rather as with wine, I have come to know what I like. The documentary about Nupen, himself a documentarist, reminded me that music is quite possibly the highest marker of human spirituality. As long as mankind is possessed of musicality there can be some hope.

Also there is running. My new shoes are working well and this morning I ran up the hill and back down into Benllech with the view out to Red Wharf Bay opening up before me. The cure for life is joy.  

Back On The Chain Gang

Which, by the way, is the title of my favourite Pretenders' song, not that this has anything to do with what I was going to say. No, what I want to talk about is Big Fat Pig's return to the streets of Four Oaks. Those new running shoes I told you about have passed their first test, indeed two tests. Two passages of my favoured route and no calf strain to complain of. In addition I have been out on the Precious Bike on each of the last two Sundays. Nothing gargantuan but plenty of middling climbs to make the thighs burn. What with my twice-weekly golf (I have joined the Senior Section at Royal Pype Hayes to add to the Monday outings with old rugby mates) I am feeling quite chipper about my physical condition. 

Here's something that bothers me - the England cricket team. They have revolutionised their approach to test cricket and quite properly hoovered-up some praise for their exciting approach. But these are the facts: by their hubris they gifted the Ashes to Australia and last week they lost catastrophically to India in a match they could quite plausibly have drawn. Since when has a defeat been a more desirable result than a draw? Unprofessional - and I don't care if they come charging out of the blocks this week and demolish India in the fourth test, my point still stands. It's sport, not professional wrestling. Making a classically gifted batsman like Joe Root look like a pissed-up pub player is no achievement at all. 

Usually at this time of year I would be girding my loins for the annual pilgrimage to the races at Cheltenham. Not this time. Never again I suspect. Too crowded, too corporate. This is a sadness but hardly a new phenomenon. It is precisely the same thing at Twickenham. God, never mind the running and cycling, this middle-aged-man-in lycra is knocking on the door of miserable old git country. Doesn't mean he's wrong though!

Reasons To Be Cheerful

It has been quite a while since I can recall being so consistently content. I am sure there will be dark dog days but I have to say that the medicine is working. All of which is a tad surprising when you consider what a mess the world seems to be in. You don't need me to tell you but, in no particular order, Trump continues to thrive, Starmer prevaricates, Sunak flounders, the Middle East wallows in warfare, environmentalists gleefully inform us that fun should be outlawed. I could go on - stick with the project long enough and I no doubt will. 

But despite all of this, Big Fat Pig has decided to be happy. And shall I tell you the main reason why? Well yes I shall. Family - mine is bloody wonderful. But beyond blood ties there is the wider family - my school, my friends, my university, the rugby club. As the world at large goes to hell in a handcart, all these continue merrily on their way. I don't know anyone who seriously doubts that the world picture is bleak, but I have nothing but love for all of those who determinedly plough on with selective optimism.

It's about time I inflict upon you some views on the evidence of the first couple of weeks of the Six Nations. Let's start with England. They scraped past Italy (actually that match was not as close as the final score suggested) and past a predictably fired-up Wales. The doom-mongers have not been slow to condemn what they have seen but I think there are some reasons for optimism. Borthwick is a cautious coach but his revamped coaching staff are trying to bed-in a new defensive scheme. I like this but would have to concede that it is pretty alarming when it goes wrong. I don't think the situation is aided when Borthwick persists with Elliot Daly on the wing. Yes, I know he's got a cannon left boot and pace, but he is and always has been a defensive liability. And, by the way, if I'd been refereeing the Italy match I'd have sent him off for that trip on his opposite number. Heinous offence and bloody dangerous.

Scotland are England's next opponents and I marginally favour the Scots, provided, of course, that it is the Scotland from the first half of their match against Wales who turn up and not the disjointed rabble who ceded the second half to a neophyte Welsh team. If, as one suspects he will do, Borthwick brings back Tuilagi, it will be worth the price of admission just to watch Tuilaga and the excellent Tuipulotu career into each other.

France. Wherefor France? They got manhandled by the brilliant Irish in their opening game and then were supine against Scotland. As for the disallowed Scotland try at the conclusion of the match - the video official bottled it, plain and simple. All of which was rather a pity for the on-field official, Nic Berry, who had, in all other respects, a fine game. This was in stark contrast to James Doleman who handled the England v Wales fixture. He was uniformly dreadful albeit in an impeccably unbiased manner.

What to say of Ireland, other than that they appear streets ahead of all others. As for Italy, please let them win a game, not that I would stake anything on it.

I've got a new pair of running shoes. Tomorrow I will risk the dodgy calf muscles and give them their first outing. Report to follow.    

The Trouble With Running Downhill

The trouble with running downhill is that, on the assumption that you are returning to your base, there is always a compensating uphill stretch. Back at Casa Piggy we are at the top of a hill so I always finish with an incline. Well we have decamped (Groupie and I) to drizzly (the forecast has it getting better as the week progresses) Cornwall, Padstow to be precise. And, what do you know, our accommodation (very nice) is at the top of the bloody great descent to the harbour. The think is that when you are on your hols and want to go running, you have to get down to the sea. There is no fun to be had in meandering around the sunlit uplands. Thus Big Fat Pig made his way down to the harbour this morning at his usual slow pace. That final push back up the hill was murderous and my thighs are protesting now. Do I feel righteous? Too bloody right. I view the whole process as generating an excuse to fill my face at every opportunity. It's my life, as Bon Jovi so rightly puts it.

Was Elizabeth Taylor the twentieth century's most attractive woman? Ava Gardner and Vivian Leigh might have something to say about that. And, yes, I do do know that the question itself betrays a shallowness on my part. It's my life. Anyway, the reason I raise the point is that I recently watched (for the umpteenth time) Cleopatra, a film that has long exercised a fascination for me, in fact ever since I read in my Christmas Guiness Book of Records about its status (long-since superseded) as the most costly movie ever made. As a spectacle it works. As serious art it does not. But who cares. Never mind Burton and Taylor, the best performance comes from Roddy McDowall as that mealiest-mouthed of mealy-mouthed pragmatists, Octavius. Best viewed at Christmas on the biggest screen you can find. 68/100. I eschew my usual  editorial practice and afford space for a larger edition of the film poster. 

In all seriousness, Taylor's physical allure raises a mildly interetsing academic point. Although the film owes nothing to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, the Taylor effect does have an effect on how a modern audience receives the play. The expectation of arresting looks (matching Shakespeare's poetry) is not a burden that Jacobean audiences would have to bear, the part of the matchless queen being played by a boy. I know, I know, I'm being all shallow again, But scratch back that shallow surface and there is a point that bears on reception theory. OK, I'll stop digging now. 

A Temporary Attack Of Reason

Not, I suspect, that any of you are overly concerned, I do apologise for not subjecting you to much of my mind-dump (what an inelegant but apposite term) of late. As the world spins more and more crazily on its ethical axis, The Overgraduate (aka Big Fat Pig) finds himself moved counter-intuitively towards a sane acceptance of the terms of his existence. This may disappoint a majority of the audience (such as it is) but I must say it is a comforting position in which to find oneself.

But why this hitherto uncharacteristic ease of mind, whose major symptom is to neglect the bile-filled pages of this blog? Well, that's what is strange. The things that really get the Pig's goat are still out there, bold and brazen as ever. A Conservative government stocked high with mediocrities. An Opposition led by a second-rate lawyer who saw no shame in riding shotgun on the Corbyn express. Donald Trump still holding court. The menace of inflation still stalking us, most people seemingly too young to remember just how destructive it can be. Crap weather (no, that was a joke). The filthy rich (and I mean by this, the genuinely filthy). Virtue-signalling as a substitute for public policy. All of these are still extant. And yet the Pig is content.

I have come to an acceptance that I cannot put these things right. I reserve the the right to rail against them again in the future but just for now I am sustained by a conviction that it is time to tend my own garden. I am hopefully approaching a watershed in my life - finally putting academic study aside in favour of a less burdensome (to this second-rate mind) but useful curiosity. That junction in my time-line is part of it, but more salient is a a quasi-beatific mood that has settled on me. My family are healthy and happy. I am proud of them. I am flattered by a long and happy marriage. The Precious Jag is running smoothly. The Precious Petrol-Mower cuts satisfyingly (tending my garden - see what I did there with my earlier metaphor?). I have been firmly stoic about a hamstring/glute injury which has kept me from running and have rediscovered the joys of riding the Precious Bike. My golf is stuck in a manageable decline that is more than compensated for by the company I keep on the golf course. 

So nothing very earth-shattering but, in sum, health-giving. All of this passed through my mind last week as we said earthly farewells to my brother-in-law. We were not close, indeed he had long-since escaped Birmningham to a new life in the unglamorous environs of Weston-Super- Mare. He was brought home for his funeral, organised with typical care and attention by the Groupie. He was only fifty-nine when he passed. Yet his funeral (and all its catholic fripperies) turned itself into a respectful but joyous celebration of his cheery life. He had, by quirk and misadventure (something to which he was prone) attached himself to a new family in Weston. They clearly loved him and the mystery of faith helped to salve the grief of all at a young death. I struggle on a daily basis with my religion but you do have to grant that a good funeral goes a long way.

As I wrote that last paragraph, the sun came out. So that is enough. I cannot always promise to be so cheerful but for now it is a nice feeling.         

At This Rate I'm Going To Have To Run Bloody Miles

I feel better about myself and the world when I am running regularly. Thanks to the wonders of my chiropractor and my expensive insoles, I am free of injury most of the time these days, barring, of course, the aches and pains that come from a combination of encroaching old age and decades of reckless endeavour on the rugby field. 

So, anyway, I am here in Anglesey to get some work done and I prefaced that work with a run this morning. And what did I think about while running - not Walter Bagehot (the work I referred to) and not the divine views of the coast. No, it was that bastard Donald Trump. He was arrested yesterday on what, I'm afraid (and you will remember that I am a lawyer), seem to me to be flimsy chrages. The charges come down to his having misdescribed the money he paid to the porn star he undoubtedly shagged as 'legal expenses'. He was at his egregious self-justifying best when he returned to his lair in Florida and lamented this 'witch hunt'. I hate to say this (because the man is the  biggest stain on mainstream politics in the Western world - and these things matter) but the Democrats may have ushered themselves closer to another own-goal. Trump is a shit of the first water. But Joe Biden is as ineffectual an opponent as one might care to imagine. And if they really want to nail Trump they need something better than this. 

Good news - after a slow start, I got some of that work done and tonight I think I'll watch a film. No wine though - it's a weekday and I'm being a good boy. This midweek abstinence does my body some good but not my wallet, since I am weighed down by my increasing dependence on good Barolo and Rioja for vinous pleasure. You can't take it with you. 

Another Day, Another Film

This blog is in danger of being taken over by my estimations of various films. Sorry about that but I do watch a fair number of movies and I find the political world so tawdry that it is difficult to comment upon it. Difficult, that is, in the pain it affords me to begin thinking about it. But there is, even in my limited world, rather more than films and politics. That is true - I realise this as I type it. So never mind that latest film (of which more anon) here is a scattergun smorgasbord of what is going on in the Pig's mind.

The Conservative Party has been in power too long and its parliamentary party is stuffed full of mediocrities who never seriously thought they were going to win a seat. I once had dealings with a relatively wise man who made the arresting defence of our first-past-the-post electoral system that it produced an inevitable swings and roundabouts effect and that the variety between successive governments acted to our benefit, certainly was more desirable than some sort of proportional representation induced perma-coalition. As I think of it now, the problem has been that we had a highly conservative (note the lower case c) Prime Minister in Blair and, after a brief interlude for the temperamentally unsuited Brown, we then got another smooth indifferentist in the lazy Cameron who might as well, as it turned out, have been wearing a Blair mask. Just to spice things up the Labour Party then followed the comically useless Ed Miliband with the barking mad and unelectable Jeremy Corbyn. All of which condemned us to a succession of useless Tories, prime amongst them the clever but venal Boris. We now have Rishi Sunak who, one has to admit, does give the impression of being a clever chap but who leads the aforesaid bunch of mediocrities. And then I look at bloody Keir Starmer and I despair. We should remember just how loyally Starmer served Corbyn. I've never done it before but I am tempted to spoil my ballot next time around. Or maybe I should transfer my voting domicile to Ynys Mon (where I pen this) so that at least I can be part of a meaningful contest between Plaid and Conservatives.

So that's politics out of the way. You will gather that I might best be described as pissed-off. And I haven't even touched on world politics. Another day. No, let's move on to drink, wine to be exact. We are pleased to announce that the winner of the OG wine variety of the year is, not for the first time, Barolo. This stuff is just bloody fantastic as we oenophiles put it. As with much else (and ironic for a man who has always described himself as having the palate of a stray dog) the Pig has saddled himself with expensive taste. Oh well you can't take it with you - how's that for a tax planning strategy.

I returned to my beloved rugby union in my last post so I won't dwell. Suffice to say that there is a learned treatise to be written (I might be just the man) on the Welsh Rugby Union (and for that matter the English as well) and restraint of trade. I can feel my inner Mr Angry welling up again.

Golf. What solace this game is to me notwithstanding my fluctuation from adequacy to incompetence. This fluctuation is not from day to day but from minute to minute. No matter, I have got myself a game at Royal St. David's on Friday with my mate Big Willy. I've loaded a box of new balls into the bag in anticipation.

So at last we come to that film. Effie Gray (2015, available on iPlayer) is a curate's egg of a film. Emma Thompson's screenplay is predictably learned and acute but seems to cut off just as the story threatens a crescendo. What we do have is a neat consideration of the doomed marriage between Gray and John Ruskin. Just as she frees herself of the wretched man and his awful parents, the movie closes without so much as a signal of the later and deserved connubial bliss that the real Effie found with John Everett Millais. Perhaps Thompson had her sights on an unlikely sequel. 63/100. 

Do you know what are nice? I'll tell you: Tunnock's Caramel Wafer Biscuits, thats' what. I'm going to have one now. I went for a run this morning so I've earned it. Goodbye.

 

A Fine Day

Just occasionally come days of wonder. Saturday was such a day. I ran for 5.5k and was thereby bathed in that ridiculous warmth of self-reighteousness that comes with even mild athletic endeavour. In the company of my favourite person we headed for Seahouses, a place which deserves the old-fashioned description of being jolly. We found a parking space and the pay and display ticket machine actually worked - often they don't for me. We then collected our tickets for the Billy Shiel's boat trip to the Farne Islands.

The sea betrayed a slight swell, enough to make the outward journey exciting, those sitting in the exposed areas getting a souvenir soaking from flying spray. Seals were observed as they basked on the rocks. At Inner Farne we disembarked (that makes it sound rather grand but work with me here) and spent an hour observing closely the nesting birds, most photogenically the puffins. This was not tamed nature, this was nature in the raw, right down to the feisty Arctic Terns who peck your head (wear a hat!) to remind you just whose domain this is. Brilliant. The return voyage (again there's me being rather grand) skirted the threatening rain. 

But that was not all. I have ventured the opinion before that Lewis's in Seahouses serves the world's best fish and chips. Saturday's gargantuan portion did nothing to disabuse me of this view, although, in the spirit of journalistic completeness, we should record that the Groupie was not so convinced and seemed to be favouring Bennlech's Golden Fry for the world title. No matter that slight controversy. Days of wonder.

Missing An Open Goal

I tuned into Prime Minister's Questions today in the vain hope of some parliamentary fireworks. Instead what I got was that prize drip Keir Starmer (who let us not forget served Corbyn so loyally) failing to hit the net from six inches out and with the goalkeeper nowhere in sight. Thus the loathsome Johnson survives to pass another political day indulging his trademark political nothingness. Forty-plus percent of his own parliamentary party have signified that they don't trust him/have confidence in him and yet he blunders on. The Conservative Party needs to relocate its vaunted ruthlessness and show this mendacious toad the door pretty bloody pronto. I am fed-up to the back teeth of the SNP being the most efficient Westminster party.

So what's a man to do as his country crumbles around him? Start running again, that's what. The Big Fat Pig has been nursing a sore Achilles since January but yesterday he thought 'sod it' and headed out of the door with the full lycra on and sporting the precious go-faster Oakleys. He shuffled and perspired for a virtuous thirty minutes and thirty-four of your English seconds. Today he is feeling the full muscular tenderness of the short distance runner but the virtuousness has not rubbed off. Pig redux.

I'll tell you who I had in the back of my cab - that Neville Chamberlain. I was reminded of this when watching Munich - the Edge of War the other day. It's adapted from Robert Harris's novel Munich, the title of the film presumably expanded to disambiguate it from Spielberg's dour but worthy movie of that name. In Edge of War, Chamberlain gets off rather more lightly than popular history has allowed. Harris likes playing with history. Jeremy Irons does a more than passable physical imitation of Chamberlain but makes this starchy Tory too avuncular by half. Not a bad film I suppose but it never quite overcomes the fact that we know how it is going to end. 62/100. 

And another reason to be cheerful - golf at Royal Pype Hayes on Monday evening with an ever-expanding band of AOE brothers (fourteen of us this week). Weather: fine (makes a bloody change after two consecutive soakings); golf: moderate but not unpromising; company: matchless; Guinness: lovely.

 

The Return From Injury Of The Big Fat Pig

September was pretty much a complete write-off so far as BFP's physical fitness was concerned. The injuries I sustained when falling so gracelessly while out running just before I set out for Woburn, most particularly the rib damage, took an age to heal and it is only this week that I have ventured back out onto the mean streets. I have managed three successive days, never tackling anything more than 5k, but being pleasantly surprised by the evidence of the stopwatch. At the Pig's advanced age it is not reasonable to expect to get faster but I am only getting slower by small increments. 

Another obstacle to the Pig has been a reminder of those far-away days before we all ran obsessed in the opposite direction to Covid. I've had a stinking cold - sore throat (lost my voice), feverishness and totally snotted-up. And no, it wasn't Covid - I had a test and everything. And if you want to fight against the after-effects of a cold, well I can thoroughly recommend a short run. Clears the pipes something wonderful. I'm back, large as life and twice as ugly.

Beware The Injured Pig

When last we spoke, Big Fat Pig was looking forward to his trip to the refined golfing environment that is Woburn. He was still looking forward to it when he went for a run on the day before his departure. He was still looking forward to it as he rounded a corner at the two-thirds mark of his 5k route. Then he stumbled. He inclined forward but hoped he might be able to rescue his balance. He was wrong and he still has the vivid recollection of that moment in time when he started assessing how least injuriously to land. In the end he favoured his left side and took particular care to avoid hitting his head on the dwarf wall. Outcome - bloodied left knee; bloodied left shoulder; bloodied left hand; grazed right hand. All of this he can live with, can even deal with the lack of dignity associated with these mishaps (a nice lady walking her dog enquired after the Pig's well-being) but the real damage has been to the Pig's ribs. Not to put too fine a point on it, they're bloody painful. The Pig forgot himself yesterday and allowed a sneeze. The effect is rather akin to how one imagines it might feel to be stabbed.

The Pig was not to be put-off his trip to Woburn. And he was right to soldier on. The healing powers of Ibuprofen and the quality of the company combined to make this another memorable trip. At the root of all the fun was the stellar hospitality of VB and MB. Alcohol should not be underestimated as an anaesthetic. WM and ViperJohn joined the Pig as guests.

I have written about Woburn before but I must say that, if anything, I was even more impressed this time. We played the Marquess on Thursday and the Duke's on Friday. I had, in particular, forgotten just how fabulous a course is the latter. This despite a mildly grumpy starter on the Duke's who gave me a very dodgy look as my sore ribs and I duffed two drives (I played a provisional) into the trees on the right. Out of his caustic sight I played tolerably well and ViperJohn and I wiped the floor with WM and MB. All a far cry from Royal Pype Hayes but linked by the joy of a game played in good company. I had to cry-off Pype Hayes on Monday as the ribs took their full revenge on my daring to play at Woburn. The picture is of the fourth hole on the Duke's - arguably the most stunning hole on the property.     

The Joy Of Rodding Drains

If you don't own a set of drain rods you really should get some. I do suppose in recommending this that you are a member of the drain owning democracy - and I apologise to those who are excluded by my supposition.

Now, of course, the situation that leads to the use of rods is not a pleasant one. Nor is it a fragrant one. However once you have got past the initial queasiness and have plunged your rods into the unsavoury mess and commenced the act of rodding you are on track to that magnificent sensation of a whirling evacuation of the blockage. You can then clean up after yourself in the happy knowledge that, unlike some wimps (aka the rodless), you have averted the need to call in a man to do the job for you.

Thus was it yesterday. We have two lengthy runs of drain and three drain covers. Both runs were rodded and all three covers lifted for an inspection. No need to call in outside assistance. 

So happy was I with my efforts that I followed that activity by going for a run. Some days the gods smile on us.

It's Beginning To Feel A Lot Like Christmas

No, not the winsome song. If you want winsome you'll have to tune in for tomorrow's advent calendar entry. 

Instead I'm taking time out from the calendar to let you know that I set yet another PB on my three mile run this morning. All this really proves is that I have not hitherto been pushing myself, but, what the Hell, it keeps me happy, particularly as, touch wood, the old leg muscles are bearing up. All of which semi-strenuous exercise puts me in a good mood, the more so as Christmas looms on the horizon. It will be different, because of the Covid restrictions, just Groupie, the Pig, DN1 and DN2. But, and I have a feeling I'm not alone in this, I sense a societal desire to make the best of this bad job and a consequent elevation in public goodwill. People are certainly nice when I plod past them on the mean streets of Four Oaks. Let's hope I'm right.

I've located one good thing about the virus - it acts as a fine distraction as Brexit reaches its wholly predictable conclusion, that is to say, repeated failure to achieve a free-trade deal with the EU. Even those old Jobs at the BBC are struggling to summon- up angst about this 'catastrophic' denouement. The public outside the bubble, don't give a toss. When dealing with a protectionist leviathan like the EU, we should not expect anything else. The whole thing is weighed down by its own preposterous arrogance. Plu ca change as we don't say over here. 

More good news - I've already got my bumper Christmas edition of the Radio Times. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

The Bright Side

It seems we got out of Wales not a moment too soon. Not satisfied with the various travel bans the administration has now gone the whole hog and mandated a full lock-down for a fortnight starting on Friday. At least you can't accuse them of muddle - everyone knows where they stand and they better bloody well stay there. I wouldn't want to be a legislator just now. Here's an admission - the Pig has lost his usual unbearable certainty on any given topic. Not quite true of course - there are some things on which I haven't lost my voice, Trump prime amongst them. Even when the alternative is the tedious Joe Biden, Trump simply has to go. It is tempting to venture this opinion on the grounds that the democracy is at stake. I may in fact have done so - no I'm pretty sure I must have done. I'm sorry - democracy is as democracy does, the least bad way of running things. No, what is at stake is that elusive construct, the rule of law. A victory for Sleepy Joe will not deliver us entirely safely from harm - he will have to escape the clutches of his own pudding-brained left - but he is our best chance. And for those who wonder why I get so exercised about America, I repeat that I love the stupid, irritating place, just as I love the stupid, irritating United Kingdom. There is (as often) a line in Kipling that would sum up why America must remove itself from its present self-absorbed, self-harming malaise, but its use would be misconstrued so I won't do that. Just get a grip folks. Please.

How a calf muscle should look

Enough of that- I promised you the bright side. The news you've been waiting for: today, fully five weeks and two days since he was so tragically lamed, Big Fat Pig went for a run this morning. Thirty minutes (that's about three miles at Piggy pace) and although he is now stiffening up, the Pig feels all the better for his efforts. Sod Covid, sod Trump, sod political posturing, he's back.

More good news - tomorrow the Pig takes his golf game to Cavendish Golf Club, which, as any fule kno, is the Pig's favourite golfing destination.

Do you know what, the corny Christmas film channels are already broadcasting, have been for a couple of weeks. It's daft but I have decided to be charmed by it. It speaks of unusual optimism in a time of doubt. I know it's all probably driven by dire marketing ploys and a hunger for advertising revenues, but I am rising above it and so announce an elongated season of goodwill to all (well not all of course - see above). I've even got a good scheme for this year's Overgraduate advent calendar. My lips are sealed. 

My charitable mood towards the commercialisers of the birth of Our Lord, may have something to do with the scent of turkey soup dominating the kitchen. The Groupie is working her way through the contents of our freezers and that has included a turkey carcass. Her turkey soup is most excellent.

The Siren Idiocy Of 'Make America Great Again' ... And Some Cheerier Stuff

The message is delivered knowingly by a dangerous man who cares for nothing other than his own crude ambition. If his blandishments have their desired effect then America (which we of course concede has on occasion been a great force for good) risks slipping idiotically into a politics of eternalism in which unpalatable truths are treated as invention and decency is sacrificially slaughtered.

The politics of eternity consumes the substance of the past, leaving only a boundless innocence that justifies everything. (Timothy Snyder)

Enough I hear you say. Ok - for now let us have some faith in the American electorate coming to its senses. 

What is the cheery stuff? Nothing startling or new but sometimes old nostrums bear repetition. After the second recent occurence of my calf injury I am back on the roads again, now wearing my very silly-looking calf warmers. Touch wood, so far so good and I am definitely feeling the benefit of the relatively large amount of running and cycling I did in the Summer. The nicest aspect of running the same route most days is that I see familiar faces - this morning was particularly gratifying as a succession of senior citizens (yes even more senior than the Pig himself) waved or spoke to me. As Blur nearly said, it gives me a sense of enormous well-being. Actually, come to think of it, that may even be precisely what Blur said. Answers on a post card etc.

Yesterday was the forty-ninth anniversary of my starting at School. I've said it often enough before but King Edward VI Aston School has been an overwhelming source of good in my life. As if to illustrate how some gifts just keep on giving I played fun and sociable golf yesterday evening with NJ, BH, JRS, CDL and RM, all of them part of the Aston community. Life's been good to me so far.