Taking A Rest From What Passes As Labour

It is fast approaching crunch time for my academic efforts. I have therefore been spending an unhealthy amount of time with my non-contemporaneous contemporaries, Messrs Shakespeare and Bagehot. After a decade (very much on and off) of being intimidated by the inadequacy of my word-count, I now find myself six thousand words over the top and I don't want to let any of my precious prose go. I'll get over it.

Having at last delivered a full draft of the thesis on Sunday (with all those offending extra words) I played golf with the lads yesterday evening and had my best round for  a year or so. Which was nice. I'm not geting carried away though - I was dependent on an outrageous slice of good fortune on my nemesis hole, the 13th at Royal Pype Hayes. I think that hole owed me mind. 

I have (undeservedly but hell, it's my life) granted myself a day away from Shakespeare and Bagehot today. Now such self-rewarding largesse can often be counter-productive as it induces a depressive tendency to guilt. But, lo, today has been fine, more than fine in fact. I went for a run this morning and both troublesome heels were in co-operative mood. Which was nice. Then this afternoon I watched a great film. More of that anon. But first my review of a lesser picture but one I nonetheless recommend.

Do you get what I mean when I say a film is a nice weekend film? Of course you do. Well, Dream Horse is just such a film. Yes, it is a tad soppy but it is based on a true story that rather defies belief. You don't have to have an interest in horse racing to enjoy it but bringing sucha predilection to the party will not do any harm. Its cast of familiar British support actors are joined by two rather grander stars, Toni Colette and Damian Lewis, who both do creditable Welsh accents. This does not masquerade as anything it is not - it is good old-fashioned entertainment. 60/100.

And now for something completely different. Nashville is not a film to be taken lightly. Insofar as it has a plot, it rambles all over the place. Characters weave in and out of shot and conversations intrude with, overlay and generally fragment each other. This is viewed by some as Robert Altman's masterpiece, by others as self-indulgent tosh. I love Altman. This is his masterpiece. 89/90. 

A Job Well Done

The Commonwealth Games end today. ICW's daughter H will be in the closing ceremony - she is apparently a Peaky Blinder. I must take the advice of my near neighbour AK and start binge-watching this drama - Peaky Blinders, not the Games.

As for the Games, well I have never harboured any shame about being a Brummie but I am not sure that I have ever been more proud of my hometown than over the week and a half of the Games. We have done a bosting job. For my part I went (as already reported here) to a session of the rugby and last week I went to five sessions of the athletics. What a treat. I was accompanied by a different person on each visit to the Alexander Stadium: my brother WJR on the first day; my mother; DN1; JRS; and finally the Groupie. A good time was had by all. Personal favourites for me were the hammer throw and the decathlon pole vault - not world class performances but spirited and athletes enjoying the roars of a full crowd. Grandpa would have loved it. I've bought the tee shirt - wearing it now as it happens.

The Games Come To Brum Just As Football Comes Home

I was up early on Friday in the company of ICW. We were making the small hop to Coventry for the opening session of the Commonwealth Games Rugby Sevens. I analysed the organisation at the venue with the expert (take that with a large dose of salt) eye of a 2012 Games Maker. There were teething problems at the venue (the excellent Coventry Stadium) and clearing security took too long, such that despite our early arrival at the venue we missed the first couple of matches. No matter, the volunteers started to find their collective voice and the general atmosphere of bonhomie went undisturbed. I can pay it no better compliment than to say that it put me in mind of London 2012.

The rugby was good. Sevens (never a discipline that suited a mud-plugger such as the Pig) requires deftness, vision, and buckets-full of speed. Unfortunately the English men seemed clumsy, tunnel-visioned, and slow as they got dismantled by Samoa. Oh well. 

ICW was on a Games marathon of his own on Friday. Having spent the morning with me, he was up and in spectating mode once again for the evening session at the swimming. He jovially reports that it was an excellent night, bar having to hear the all-conquering Australian anthem seven times. Oh well.

The Games were just up the road in Sutton Park for three days as the site of the various triathlons. The locals were out in force and rewarded by a lot of English gold medals. For today I am here at my desk but playing golf later with the Monday Night at PH lads. Tomorrow I have the first of five days at the athletics, accompanied on this first day by WJR. This will bring back memories of all the athletics we were privileged to see live as youngsters in the company of our grandfather, W. Harry Hayward, a Vice President of the Amateur Athletic Association. He would have loved all of this on his doorstep. Oh well. 

Football's Coming Home. That excellent sentiment has become rather stale since it was given musical life by Skinner and Baddiel back in 1996. Well yesterday it at last made some sense as the England Women won the European Championship at a packed Wembley. That Germany were the beaten finalists seems somehow fitting. And it is nice to see that we can stage a major final without it being hijacked by a rogue tribe of coked-up piss-head savages.

Cerrtainly all of this uplifting sport serves as a welcome distraction from the unlovely spectacle of the Conservative Party tearing itself apart to find a successor to the awful Johnson. I cannot slide a fag-paper between the two candidates in terms of their lack of loveliness. Thankfully I don't have a vote. Never have I felt quite so divorced from my political instincts. Apathy Rules UK? Oh well.