Men Behaving Badly

The Question Mark Trophy (it's a long story) Tour has been and gone and much poor golf was played at Chesterfield Golf Club and much even poorer golf was played at Grasmoor on the way home.

Despite the usual worrisome warnings about handicap certificates and dress codes Chesterfield proved a winning venue. A nice course in top condition and excellent sandwiches at lunchtime. I played despite the multiple injuries sustained in a drunken fall in the wee small hours, a matter over which we will now draw a veil. As for my golf, once I had my hangover under control I played some passable (though most certainly not victorious) holes. More to the point I did so in the company of men who take neither themselves nor the game over-seriously. I got pissed all over again on the second night but this time the only injury I sustained  was a burnt tongue as I attacked too quickly an otherwise excellent late night pizza. These then are the perils of middle-age for the shamelessly unrepentant baby boomers.

All this and good sandwiches too

All of which was a welcome distraction from the absolutely grisly news of the past few days - an airliner obliterated in the skies over Eastern Ukraine (Flight MH17 and Israel testing to the point of destruction the definition of a 'proportionate response' - Gaza Death Toll. So don't tell me I shouldn't drink so much at my age. Sometimes it helps to forget. 

The Unbearable Heaviness Of Being

45 sit-ups, 15 minutes rowing, more dumbbell work. Feeling recovered already from the dire mood at work and off to Chesterfield (via Uttoxeter races) for AOE golf tour tomorrow. Sod work.

I have yet again cracked golf in my own mind so cue the inevitable disappointment when I hit the course on Thursday morning. I don't care.

A Marvellously Daft Game

Saturday morning so no diet today. Watched the entire morning session of the first test match between  England and India. England had been lamentable yesterday and resumed nine wickets down and behind the eight ball. So I told myself I would watch until the last wicket fell. This did not happen until ten minutes after lunch, by which time Root and Anderson had compiled a world record last wicket stand of 198. Cricket, a marvellously daft game.

Talking of daft games I've been enjoying the Scottish Open golf from Royal Aberdeen. Seaside golf is unbeatable and the spectacle has stirred a hankering to get to the links. The closest I can get is to visit the website of my old favourite Dunstanburgh Castle Golf Club. Dunstanburgh Golf

Fifteen minutes on the cross-trainer yesterday and another brief pounding of the dumbbells. Feeling in moderately canny fettle. Sun is shining, barbecue tonight. Back of the net.  

The Big Fat Pig Exercise Regime

This being the exercise plan that accompanies the patented BFP cereal/bananas/red wine diet. That being the diet you only do during the week by the way.

Today: two bananas, one bowl of cereal, no wine, forty sit-ups, twelve minutes of rowing, a session on the dumbbells. It's half nine in the evening, not even dark yet and I'm ready for my bed.

Massive plaudits to everyone involved in bringing the Tour de France's Grand Depart to these shores. Absolutely mega and I wish I'd been there.  

Inclement Weather

Action shot live from Benllech

I'm bloody starving - two bowls of cornflakes and a banana thus far. To take my mind off the hunger I have been reunited with my old mate Senor Rioja.

I played nine holes of golf in teeming rain and high winds earlier today at Baron Hill - it's a testing little course and I am still feeling my way into how to play it but it is nice to have a course I can call home. The club defines seniors as beginning at 55 so next year I can perhaps get a little non-strenuous competition. I'll have to resurrect an official handicap from the wreckage of my game (Heaven knows I can't play to the last one I had) but we'll leave that torture for another time.

All in all I'm feeling rather chipper today. I've had a week away from work which definitely helps and I had a great (if bibulous) time in London. And last night I slayed  one of my own ridiculous demons - I emptied my email inbox. So when all is said and done I deserve my glass of the old vino.

The World Cup quarter final between Germany and France is on in the background as I type this. Thus far I have managed not to watch a single match all the way through. I have said it before and, in defiance of the rule against self-corroboration, I'll say it again, football is the best game to watch as a partisan. However my own social engagements and England's mediocrity have meant that opportunities for partisanship were initially limited and latterly non-existent. Now, who does an Englishman choose between the French and the Germans? Beats me.

One thing the World Cup has brought to prominence in my mind is the incident of the plainly bonkers Luis Suarez biting an opponent. First up let's discount the offender's insistence that it was an accident. Was it bollocks. But what it does make me wonder is why is the biting so much worse than the leg-breaking tackle? Suarez has been banned from all football for four months and the instinctive reaction is that this is deserved. But how does this compare to the punishment meted to psychopathic tacklers? I haven't got the answer to this one but it is interesting how this behaviour is so uniquely reviled. Mind you I repeat, plainly bonkers.  

That London (Continued)

Back from that London, in fact now on one of my Anglesey jaunts. I ate so bloody much in London that I have had to have a severe word with myself and consider adopting extreme measures to get my waistline back under control. The answer is in a diet of breakfast cereal, bananas and alcohol. What can possibly go wrong?

On the subject of alcohol, a quick word of praise for the Lowlander Beerhouse in Covent Garden - loads of fun beers and good no-nonsense food - the fish finger sandwich is wonderful to behold. Try their own Wit Beer. I did. Twice over lunch.

OG liked it

Theatre review. In advance of seeing it I had my fears about Handbagged, fearing a republican/Guardianista style piece of Thatcher bashing. Not the case - the play aims its barbs at all sorts of targets, not least that bloody woman, but it does it even-handedly and to good comic effect.It gets a 'worth seeing' from the Overgraduate.