Between Treatments

I had near adjacent appointments this morning - one for my back, one for my brain. So it was that in the interlude between chiropractor and psychiatric nurse I sat in Yates's and fed my caffeine addiction. I had no money with me so had to pay £1.30 by card which felt more than faintly silly. I sat down near to a woman who seemed to be at the point of polishing off a bottle of white on her own. What time had she started? My coffee (an acceptable brew and by modern standards inexpensive) was served in a lipstick smudged cup. I wondered who had last used it, said nothing and drank left handed from the unmarked side. As I drank, a bevy of young mothers arrived, their offspring in tow and they settled down for drinks and snacks as the children clamoured for colouring books and crayons proffered by the staff. I read a Spectator article about facing up to death. I left to walk to my psychiatric engagement and reflected that mornings like this are what make you a poet. Hopefully.

I'll tell you who's good. That Daniel Craig as James Bond that's who. I'm not really a Bond fan but I've seen most of them and I reckon Skyfall is the best of the lot. A very post-modern and emotionally vulnerable Bond. I love that bit when he crashes through the wrecked roof of a bus, picks himself up and resumes the chase, but only after stopping to shoot his cuffs. Class.

The Overgraduate is about to embark on an open air Bardathon. Tonight it is Chester where he and Mrs Overgraduate are being generously hosted at A Midsummer Night's Dream by Weightmans Solicitors. On Saturday I will tackle solo (everyone else thinks I'm mad or sad) all three parts of Henry VI at the Globe. Honestly, I'm like a child on Christmas Eve.

The Confederacy Of Cyclists

I know I've told you before but just to remind kind readers that I have a bike, a Cannondale CAAD 8 to be exact, of which I am inordinately proud. One can pay ten times (and the rest) what I paid for a bike but this will do for me and as with most sad middle-aged cyclists I rather fancy that the combination of cycle and lycra knock years off me. But there is more - what really knocks years off a bloke is a pair of Oakley sunglasses - full mirrored proof that you have more money than sense. Here are mine, Tour de France 2013 special editions with interchangeable lenses. Been running in them three times and two outings on the Cannondale and as yet they have not made me measurably faster but that can only be because I'm getting used to them. What they have done is made me want to get out and exercise. I know, pathetic isn't it.

I had a nice, moderately strenuous, bike ride yesterday which was lifted by what happened when I got a puncture only six minutes in. As I inverted the bike to change the tube an elderly but lean man crossed the road to ask if I needed any help, he had tools in his garage just round the corner. No I was fine thank you. Transpired he was still a keen rider himself and we chatted amiably as I worked on the wheel, discovering some mutual acquaintances - it's a small world (but I wouldn't want to wallpaper it). Then we were joined by a slightly younger man (number one was in his seventies, the second his sixties) and his dog. Another cyclist though currently recuperating from an Achilles injury sustained in five-a-side football - "You'd think I'd know better at my fucking age" as he succinctly put it. My two new friends did what cyclists always do and politely admired my bike, "Three cogs of nine, twenty-seven gears, bloody hell. Puts my old Sturmey Archer in its place." Once up and running again I bade them a cheery farewell and left them in each other's good company. Sometimes it is good to be alive.

And today it is good to be a British/Irish rugby fan. the Lions gave Australia a bit of a towelling this morning - 41-16 - thus winning the series. Leigh Halfpenny attracted much deserved praise for his nerveless display but for me the man of the match was Alex Corbisiero who helped render the Aussie scrummage inoperable and did countless good things in the loose. Mention also for Romain Poite, the world's best referee of the scrum.

While I've got you, just to confirm that I completed the set two nights ago when I watched Revenge of the Sith. Far, far better than episodes I and II but not up there with The Empire Strikes Back. Dialogue still creaks but there is a nicely bleak message underlying it all in the scrolled type of the introduction - "There were heroes on both sides."

Glutton For Punishment

Sucker that I am I sat through Attack of the Clones last night. It is not without merit and the underlying saga has a certain cheesy charm to it, but boy does it go on and boy is the dialogue ropey. Will I watch Episode III? Of course I will - I'm a completist.

Cinematic Thoughts

Hang 'Em High is Hollywood's response to the spaghetti western - borrowing some of the stylistic tics of Sergio Leone and repatriating the scion of spaghetti, Clint Eastwood. Despite this unpromising derivation this is not altogether a poor film. Eastwood is magnetic as ever and the spaghetti ingredients receive a coy leavening of  truth, justice and the American way. I like Eastwood. He can rescue moderate films.

For many afficianados the most depressing words in the language are 'me's a Jar Jar Binks.' I was reminded of this tonight when rather against my better judgement I viewed The Phantom Menace. Actually it is not as bad as my memory had thought. Mind you it's not very good either. Even more off-putting than the Binks banality is Ewan Mcgregor's accurate but annoyingly affected adoption of his best Alec Guiness voice. Ok it's clever and makes theoretical sense but, I'm sorry it just drew yet more attention to the wooden George Lucas dialogue.

Sport, Sport, Sport

Several and different reminders of just why I love sport.

Thursday afternoon at Royal Ascot and an hour and a half which ranged over and above melodrama. First a winner for  the widow of the recently deceased Henry Cecil. Story book stuff. And the next race - nothing less than a Gold Cup victory for a horse owned by the onlooking reigning monarch. And in the next race, the winner's enclosure invaded by a joyful Irish syndicate quite clearly and deservedly set for a night on the lash. You simply couldn't have scripted it.

Thursday night and the NBA finals went to a deciding game seven, won frenetically by Miami Heat. A long way from Royal Ascot but every bit as compelling, even if contested by a freak-show of millionaire giants.

This morning a first test between the Lions and Australia, with the Lions hanging on to win 23-21 and the Wallabies missing two late and eminently kickable penalties to win the match. The melodrama only abetted by enigmatic (that's polite for crap) refereeeing. Great fun.

To paraphrase the unloveable but undeniably brilliant Sir Alex Ferguson - sport, bloody hell.

Move Over The Boss, We Have A New Winner

It was the summer of '81 when Ian and I saw Bruce Springsteen at the NEC. Bloody brilliant and until a fortnight ago unbettered. But now we have a new answer to the best gig question (can someone my age realistically use a word like 'gig'?) and that answer is - Muse as seen at the impressive Etihad Stadium in Manchester. An incidental bonus to attendance at this extravaganza and having missed it so much at Cheltenhanm this year was the availability and the good-as-you-rememberedness of the foot long hot dog. With onions.

On the Saturday after the aMusement (you see what I did there?) there was an afternoon at another English institution - the one day international, England v Australia at Edgbaston. A comfortable England victory and a comfortably enjoyable day's drinking. In passing a word of praise for the ICC Champions Trophy of which this game was part - a concise and therefore arresting tournament without either the interminable pissing-about of your modern World Cup or the monstrous vulgarity of Twenty20. Not a patch on test cricket mind.

In golf the US Open is this week being played at The Merion Golf Club in Philadelphia, sister club of the estimable Merion Cricket Club whereat the Boy Roberts batted in the nets in 1981 as the guest of Professor Alan Lawley of Drexel University. It's a long story.

Rugby Union. Yesterday afternoon I watched a valiant Scotland lose to South Africa and the commentary made me realise that there are plenty of things worse than that annoying tit Stuart Barnes. Barnes may be infuriating but he is at least not tiresomely biased which was the unabashed modus operandi of the Springbok commentators. Embarrassing.

Paddling Benllech Bay 5 June 2013

Quiet North-Easterly
Whips genteel waves
I remove my shoes
Sand brack-scours my feet
Young lovers depart for canoodling
Or whatever it is they do
I have the water to myself
On Monday I was sick
Tuesday part cured
Today part sick
Tomorrow well I hope
After my water cure
Junior beach engineers
Dig out a stay of execution
From a proud father
Dreaming of a seaside pint
Their excavation diverts
Attention from the still
Smouldering barbecue of
An entented couple
Bare feet protruding
Shadow cast through water
I have the sea to myself