Are Brilliant ... Mark XXVIII

When you've been going through a lean patch (inspiration-wise in my case) what you can do is re-release some of your old hits, jazzed-up a bit. Seems to have worked for Taylor Swift, with whom I have never before been compared, not even by Chortley Chuckles.

Definitely not the Overgraduate

So returns the Are Brilliant thread, itself (as you may well have spotted) a limp regurgitation of a catchphrase from The Fast Show, Now there's a nice irony because The Fast Show is/was brilliant.

Definitely not Chortley Chuckles

Are brilliant ...

Beverley and East Riding Golf Club. Blasted moorland, cows wandering around, sunshine and a strong wind. This is how golf should be.

Howley Hall Golf Club. A Mackenzie course. parkland but with space to breathe and a second hole played to a green hidden behind an old wall. This, contrarily, is also how golf should be. Howley Hall and Beverley in combination cost us less than sixty quid. It's not grim up North.

The Rugby League Magic Weekend. The culmination of our Northern adventure. £41 for seven matches. Great sport. Good food. Even better company. The OG trinity was accompanied by TW, AO, BH, JS and TS. Brilliant.

Hill Dickinson

The Hill Dickinson Stadium where the aforesaid rugby took place. A model for new stadia on the just-less-than-gargantuan scale. How can a firm of solicitors afford the naming rights on the place? It wasn't like that in my day. 

Quiche. Heatwaves demand this.

 

Wagner/Polanski/Allen

The weather has been bloody boiling - successive days in the 30s and no respite on the horizon. OG/BFP/CC has been away from his desk and since his desk is at the top of Casa Piggy where the heat gathers, this gives a partial excuse for abandoning his/their public correspondence. Sorry about that - you must be in a state of grave yearning. I could bring the laptop downstairs and work there but this desk is my favourite prop. Pathetic isn't it because as that master of mischief (Lord of Misrule as GL so ably referred to him in his eulogy) Ian Marchant kept reminding me, the first thing that a writer must do (even a crap one like me) is bloody well write. So here comes something dredged up from my lousy memory.

Big Fat Lazy Pig in the sun

Those of you who have been paying attention (believe it or not I encountered one such last week) will know that Overgradutae/Big Fat Pig/Chortley Chuckles together constitute this writer's unholy trinity. Some of you knowing my less than modest grip on life might have prepared yourselves for the OG to compare himself to the three cancelled artists listed in the title of this piece. Well, stand down, even CC isn't that self-involved. No, what brought this infamous trio to mind was reflecting on watching Hannah and her Sisters again (see this blog 27 June). I can offer no answer to the old conundrum of whether we must tie an artist's oeuvre to his/her morals and censor our enjoyment of them. I will say only this: I love driving my precious Jag with Wagner blaring on the stereo; Chinatown is possibly the greatest colour attempt at film noir; Woody Allen is indisputably very funny. I am weak.   

Powerful Dialogue

The Groupie and the Pig are making their way through The West Wing for the umpteenth time. It seems strange to be back in a time when pagers were still a thing and mobile phones were not so powerful, but the basic brilliance of the show still stands. It may be my advanced age and my carefully nurtured cynicism but I occasionally get weary at the perfectly formed liberal diatribes that pass for dialogue, but just when one wonders if Aaron Sorkin is not perhaps the genius one had thought him, he reels you back into the game (the thinking game I think we should call it) by puncturing the self-righteousness of the major characters. If you want to know what I mean then check out episodes 1 and 2 of Series 3. Toby and Josh are in full and seemingly unchecked arrogant spate until a minor character (Doug, a political consultant) finally cracks and lacerates them with a dose of angry realpolitik. Well done Doug and, of course, well done Aaron. A serious show about serious matters. A great game to play is to watch The West Wing and then to switch to CNN to witness the evil, witless drivel that emanates from the Trump White House (and, I'm afraid to say, from the bulk of the compromised GOP) - if it wasn't so important it would be funny.

Whilst I'm on the topic of television, we've found another show that we like. It rather more than tips its hat to the tropes of film noir and it is, of course, no secret that Big Fat Pig loves a good film noir. The show is Sugar. We're only a couple of episodes in but it all looks very promising.

Moving on - from television to film. The cancellation of Woody Allen is a topic on which I don't have strong opinions beyond the vague unease that, no matter the state of the criminal law, there are some things you don't do when in loco parentis. But Allen remains one of my favourite film-makers, one who deserves the over-applied label of 'auteur'. We watched Hannah and her Sisters last night. An excellent movie with superb dialogue (better than Sorkin). 86/100.

       

The Pig Is Falling Apart ... But Not As Quickly As He Had Feared

I was at Plas Piggy over the weekend, doing some thinking and writing. Nothing very creative, just some stuff (technical term) for the King Edward VI Foundation. As ever the island proved a starter for my writing muscles. God, I love that place. Just to make things better, the flying vermin seagulls aren't yet bouncing around on the roof. I know they are nesting (apparently they are monogamous and return to the same nest for up to twenty years) but the chicks and noise haven't started yet. Small mercies.

Which is not what I am going to tell you about. No, my latest little melodrama commenced as I drove the precious Bigster back to Casa Piggy on Sunday - an enjoyable journey listening to Leonard Cohen on Spotify. The only thing that discomforted good old Chortley Chuckles was a growing awareness of a large floater in the left eye - a sort of spider's web hampering my vision. It didn't take long on the old interweb thing to diagnose myself as having a detached retina. Thus was Chortley (Knuckles was left at home) subject to a mild panic. So he joined the queue at the Birmingham Eye Hospital at 8.30 yesterday morning. It opens at 9.00. I was thirteenth in the queue. All was efficient and everyone (except two over-lively children) was on their best behaviour. I was triaged (I assume that's s verb) swiftly and then saw first a nurse and then a doctor within two hours. All thorough, all reassuring. When it works like this the NHS really is a thing of wonder.

PVD

Upshot? Chortley the manic depressive now has another diagnosis to drag around with him - Posterior Vitreous Detachment (PVD). This is much less serious than a detached retina although the symptoms are similar. Basically the jelly behind the eye has detached itself from the back of the eye. Apparently my brain will adapt and learn to live with it although this may take a few months. Phew. Just another signifier of getting old.

They had put some drops in my eyes for the examination by the doctor and warned that my vision would be blurred for several hours. They weren't kidding. I'd had the good sense not to drive (train and taxi in) but it was only when I exited the hospital that I realised I couldn't read my phone well enough to order an Uber. Thus Chortley embarked on one of his tragicomic routines. He phoned the Groupie but she (as Chortley should have remembered) was working and also waiting in for the carpet fitter (Groupie's office - it looks great). No matter, Chortley Chuckles was feeling quite chipper (he had been more scared of the possible diagnosis than he had admitted to himself) and so decided to get a bus into Town and then to get a train. He started towards where he thought the hospital entrance/exit could be found. He got this wrong and was soon in a building site. He turned his blurry eyes back to the hospital and then a blinding (see what I did there - puntastic) idea came to the boy Chuckles. From the dissolute past of rugby Saturday nights, the Chuckles memory dredged up the phone number of that saviour of many a weekend - Star Cars of Erdington. They got him home.  

Phew What A Scorcher!

BFP was quite clever when he arrived at the golf club this morning, at least he thought he was. He parked in the lee of a tree because even at 7.45 it was what we meteorologists call bloody hot. The resultant shade would keep the precious Bigster as cool as might be possible. Not if the sun goes the opposite way to that you had imagined. So when BFP came off the course at midday, feeling not a little sweaty and knackered (the Pig always carries his bag - it's point of principle), he opened the boot and was greeted by a wall of captured heat. When he clambered into the driver's seat his legs and back burned. The Pig is a fool.

What of the golf? Well, acceptable since you ask. Not stellar but acceptable. Let's leave it at that and move on.

That bloody hotness. Record-breaking apparently - the old records for May heat dating from 1944. Does this prove anthropogenic global-warning or is it just an outlier? The Pig doesn't know. Probably he should. He drives a hybrid but would not seriously consider going fully electric until the refuelling infrastructure is up to scratch. But which, comes first, the chicken or the egg?

And here's another thing that's bothering me. If the Pig fleeced his employer of £400k, one thing that is certain is that the Groupie would notice pretty quickly, particularly if both Pig and Groupie had the same employer. So what's wrong with Nicola Sturgeon. All this proves is that, as we have known all along, the Groupie is a lot sharper than La Sturgeon. 

    

Weird World

It's a bloody good job that I inhabit the same skin as Chortley Chuckles and am ensconced in marital bliss with the Groupie. The great triumvirate (that's OG, BFP and CC in case you haven't been paying attention) finds itself wound up in the paradox of modern living, wherein the good things are very good and the bad are frankly dreadful. As we (the triumvirate - for today I am all three at once) sit here typing we are listening to Maddy Prior's heavenly voice. This is a good thing. On the wall are various movie posters and an Aston Old Edwardians club shield. These are good things. Fresh in Pig's memory is yesterday's golf when he actually played quite well. This is a good thing. Rather than play again this morning (my shoes are letting in water and there was a drizzly fug) the Pig went for a gentle run in the rain and felt the better for it. This is a good thing. The OG then took to his keyboard and ordered a new pair of golf shoes (rather an overdue purchase), a new golf bag (zip bust on the old one), and some golf balls (didn't lose any yesterday but supplies are looking a tad thin). Such retail therapy is a good thing.

So we feel quite well. A state of mind that makes me feel a little guilty because the world outside Casa Piggy is going to hell in a handcart. The Labour Party seems intent on self-evisceration as a quite unlovely cast of characters hovers over the near-carcass of the mass of inadequacy that is Keir Starmer, each member betraying a revolting ambition and a lack of political morals. The Conservative Party, well what can we say about them? You're right - nothing. They are a quivering mass of nothingness. Lurking in the shadows is the curious beast of Reform - an inchoate sub-moral sliminess. The Greens? If you're going to tell me that Zac Polanski is a potential PM, well, sorry, you need your bumps feeling. Anarcho-syndicalism anyone? 

The triumviarate is bipolar - does that mean there's six of us? It's getting crowded in here. 

Eating Out And Coming Down

That well known trinity of OG, BFP, and CC has returned to leafy Sutton Coldfield after what can only be described as a magnificent week on Mon with the Groupie. None of us (meaning Overgraduate, Big Fat Pig and Chortley Chuckles) can recall being happier. We had a great time. Back home and there is a slight sensation of let-down but we did have a very fine Chinese take-away on the evening of our return and that helps - indeed there is still enough left for my supper tonight.

Conwy Marina

We ate out twice last week and both were noteworthy, cementing the conclusion that pub food is these days really very good. After our visit to Bodnant we called in at Conwy Marina and had a meal at The Mulberry, which sits at the edge of the marina. I was slow to twig that the pub name is on account of the D-Day Mulberry Harbours being developed and tested at Conwy. My meal was by way of a nautical pun, the 'Big Buoy' burger - it had a portion of most burgerish things within and even BFP was satisfied.   

The Breeze Hill

Our last night was even better. We wandered up the hill from Plas Piggy to our local, the Breeze Hill. A good test of any pub kitchen is whether they can handle a request for a steak done medium-rare. The Breeze Hill can. The Pig was very satisfied. and the side-order of onion rings was epic. The Pig is a connoisseur when it comes to onion rings and these were large in number and quality. Decent beer as well.