The Pensiveness Of The Long-Distance Runner

My recent aims with my running have been to attempt an improved time on my measured short course one weekend and to add duration the next. I have had a few setbacks, just the usual crap, calf strains etc, but the past three weeks have been good. On the faster runs I am not so daft as to think that the sixty-six year old Pig can run as fast as his younger self but I am measuring up to the post sixty-five records I keep. As for the longer runs, you might recall my target to get back up to an hour on the road by late Spring. I managed that and then the injuries came along. So now I am working my way back up. Today's target was fifty-five minutes. I find this the most difficult target because it feels like you are wimping out on going for an hour. Anyway I managed it and touched that elusive feeling - the runner's high.

I have to distract myself when I am running. If I do not do so, I become mired in the sheer monotony of what I am doing. I gave myself a number of things to think about today - early on I cultivated a hatred for the dog that went for me without any admonition or apology from his owner. C*** - and that's just the dog. Better thoughts soon intervened. I had a brief conversation with one of the elderly householders on  my route. He always makes an effort to greet me. This is nice. I envisaged a perfect fairway wood shot that I am hoping to deploy in my next game of golf. This is nice. And then I turned to thinking how I was going to create for you, dear reader, a perfect summation of all that Trump has been up to in the past few weeks. I failed. Venal and mendacious, he is a scar on the face of humankind. This is not nice. So I finished my run by humming Joe Walsh to myself - life's been good to me so far.     

A Modest Proposal

Today I channel my very own inner Jonathan Swift. Before we start, a dim thought; would Swift have been a blogger? Of course he would.

Anyway, this latest idea of mine has been thoroughly road-tested. It went through a meticulously assembled focus group, specifically the group of ex-rugby-players seated around a table at Royal Pype Hayes Golf Club yesterday evening after our weekly thrash. 

Today's guest editor

Important background. Casa Piggy (where the groupie and the Pig live) is, modesty must not prevent me admitting, in a fairly salubrious area. It is larger than your average homestead though not, I would venture, obscenely so. It is nice. We are lucky. We are on the edge of the countryside - the point where green belt and suburbia collide - at least for now. If you go to the top of our road and turn right you will pass some right old gin palaces before you descend into agricultural land. On the road that passes the fields there is an unmetalled lay-by. In that lay-by some unspeakable low-life has abandoned a fridge. This is a frequent occurrence. Fly-tipping. We are only ten minutes away from one of the City of Birmingham's excellent public tips. Take it there you unforgivable wanker. The saddest part of all of this is that it is now so commonplace that it almost passes notice.

So here is my modest proposal. A select few in society (chosen by me - we could start with the seven of us sat around that table yesterday) would be issued with firearms and single bullets. We would be authorised to shoot and kill any perpetrators of fly-tipping, pour encourager les autres. After each summary execution we would report the locus of the event and the City would clear up the fridge and also the body. A new bullet would be issued.

I am no more serious than was Swift with his own modest proposal but, bloody hell, this stuff can make you mad. By sheer coincidence I today read the revised Terms of Use of blogger.com - this includes the prohibition of revelling in or encouraging violence. I take the readers of this blog to be people of inestimable discernment (as any fule kno) but just in case I have missed in my aim - this is a joke , and like all the best jokes it reveals a serious point. And it does make a nice change from me banging on about Trump.    

Played quite well yesterday in case you're interested and this morning I went for a run down the lane towards the fridge. I'm feeling jolly chipper - now where's that gun?    

Things I Hold Dear

From an early age I have been a sports obsessive - player and spectator. I still play golf (frustratingly badly and I'm afraid there is no false modesty at play in this) and I still run and cycle for fitness. However late middle-age (I suppose I ought to admit that it is really early old-age) affords more room for spectating. I ought to add that I also still enjoy reading good sports journalism and books. All of which brings me to some recent realisations that the land I eventually leave behind (I'm in no hurry) risks being very different from the one I inherited from my forebears.

Association football is the great and beautiful beast that threatens to swallow the sporting landscape whole. We have the continuing saga of Manchester City and their legion of uber-expensive lawyers trying to wriggle off the hook of the dubious Financial Fair Play Regulations. Regardless, the beast lurches on breathing fire and burning cash. 

Cricket may just about me my favourite game to watch and I think it spawns the very best writing on sport. One of my most cherished possessions is the 1960 Wisden, given to me on my fiftieth  birthday by two dearest friends - 1960 was the year of my birth. It records first-class cricket in the age before the birth of one-day cricket. It records a civilisation gone with the wind. And yes I know that things had to change but something seen on television today brought home to me that test cricket, that magnificent yet frustrating animal, is dying on its feet. Today is the first day of the South Africa v Australia test at Durban. There is hardly a soul in the ground. Sad, sad, sad. I fear a world peopled by 'franchise players' trailing their coffins around the shrinking world at the behest of television and playing nothing more spiritually sustaining than glorified pub cricket. 

My greatest love as a player was rugby union. The game has been savaged by professionalism. the fifteen man code, at its monied levels, has become a twenty-three men per side cauldron of collision. Meanwhile the amateur game is tragically diminished. I can foresee a not too distant future where the amateur game hardly exists. This pains me but I have no solution to offer. The world is becoming a lesser place.

And all of this in the week when the greatest nation on the modern Earth (it just about still is despite Trumpian privations) announces that it will stream the execution of a murderer for public consumption. That atrocity does, I suppose, put my sporting woes in context.    

There Ought To Be Rules About This Sort Of Stuff

I know it's silly but I do wrestle with my mind's meanderings on what constitutes a great film. For today I will say that as a minimum qualification it must be a first-class piece of work, that is to say that it must score at least seventy out of one hundred on the OG ratings - yes this is all about me - why else write a blog? That much is simple but lots of very good films qualify by this route, films that I would not call great. My current prejudice is to demand re-watchability as an additional signifier of greatness.

What got me thinking about this (it may be pathetic but it's better than worrying myself to death about that cultural vandal Trump) was watching Winchester 73 the other day. Anthony Mann is overshadowed by John Ford in the pantheon of Western directors (or dare we call them auteurs) but the five such films that he made with James Stewart are important. Winchester 73 is concise, taut and brilliant - film noir meets the Western. 86/100.

By that grading I am suggesting that Winchester 73 is, by some comfortable distance, a first-class piece of film-making. Rewatchable? Decidedly. 

All of which brings me to the title of this post. I am suggesting that aggrieved Hollywood stars might assert that there ought to be a limit on how many truly great films any one actor can be in. Stewart is in four I can reel off: The Philadelphia Story; It's a Wonderful Life; Winchester 73; The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. And yes I know I am wilfully striking out the four he made with Hitchcock, the Hitch not being quite my cup of tea.

Winchester 73 - great film.

A Funny Old Week

It may not always be apparent but I'm a sensitive soul, a fact that made what happened on Wednesday all the harder to take. No names, no pack-drill, but I found myself roundly attacked and, this being the bit that really hurts, my morals and my intellect were questioned. As I say, I'm a sensitive soul and such things wound me. That is putting it mildly - by Wednesday evening I was feeling as low as I have been for a long time. But it transpires that it really is darkest before the dawn.

The Groupie was, as ever, marvellous and I permitted myself a couple of glasses of the good weekend red as a solace. Even so I was not exactly full of the joys of Spring as I made an early start on Thursday to play for Pype Hayes Seniors against Marston Lakes Golf Club. After four hours of better-ball match play the Pig and his partner (IC - much better golfer than the Pig) emerged triumphant by 2 and 1. The result does not matter, it was the company of nice people that lifted me. No side, no agendas, just civilised fun. Thank you to IC and to the two Johns who opposed us.

Golf as therapy. Yesterday got even better. I played again yesterday morning - this time a quarter-final knockout against our estimable captain and fellow left-hander, PS. Poor old P had to give me a generous batch of shots and I eventually prevailed on the 18th after a career six-iron set up a clinching par on that final green. We had played a ding-dong match but were round in a shade under three hours in autumnal sunshine. Life is good. As the Groupie so wisely reminded me on Wednesday evening - don't let the bastards get you down. 

I'm Sorry Dave

'I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that'. Plenty of keyboard warriors will have got there before me I know, but those words spoken by the supercomputer HAL 9000 in 2001: a Space Odyssey do now look brilliantly prescient. 2001 is a film I've spent plenty of time slagging-off in the past but it is, whether this weary writer likes it or not, the lodestone to which all sci-fi movies are compared. The HAL quotation is getting plenty of air-time at the moment as the eager beavers of Silicon Valley suddenly come to the realisation that shoving genies back into bottles is bloody hard work. There we have the dilemma of Artificial Intelligence in a nutshell. But don't worry, that prize tosser Donald Trump says that the AI scare is a 'hoax'. So that's ok then.

On my favourite (well nearly) subject of Trump, what follows is Stephen Greenblatt's estimation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus. Who does this remind you of:

Here we are dealing instead with an overgrown child's narcissism, insecurity, cruelty and folly, all unchecked by any adult's supervision and restraint. The adult who should have helped the child achieve maturity has either been completely missing, or if present at all, has reinforced the child's worst qualities.

There is a difference. Coriolanus, I would argue, has redeeming features, not least stupendous martial valour. No bone spurs. Coriolanus is killed by his erstwhile allies - last night Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders shared a platform to advocate for curbs on AI. To jump to another realm of the Bard - misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. 

On a brighter note, I ran four miles this morning. So when the end of the world is nigh, at least I can run away from it.

   

I'm Back

A good few weeks have passed since I last loaded my prejudices upon you - thank you for your patience and, for that matter, for ever reading this drivel. It helps keep me sane.

The cause of my absence was the health of the materfamilias. She is much better, thanks for asking, but has now taken up permanent residence at Casa Piggy. The big move was last weekend which led to some comical bad driving of the hire van by your correspondent the Pig. Van and contents(with the exception of one lamp shade) survived unscathed. We are all now settling into the new normal. Part of that normal will hopefully be some decent regular exercise for the Pig. I did attempt one run in August but contrived to agitate my delicate right calf muscle after only seven minutes of exertion. I was a good boy and only sulked for a day or so. Getting old is a right sod.

Pig at the wheel

Well, today I struck out again on the mean streets of Four Oaks and managed a gentle 5k. I feel well and unreasonably virtuous. A particular pleasure was being greeted cheerfully by one of the residents of Dunton Close who was kind enough to say that he was glad I was well and that he had noticed my absence. People can be really nice - I sometimes forget that.

Pig out for a run

    

Musings On Romcoms

The Groupie and the Pig have been apart for much of the last month - this for reasons connected to the health of the Pig's materfamilias (pleased to report she's much better thank you). Anyway, last weekend the Pig's estimable brother (I only have the one) was on Mum-watch, so the Groupie and I watched Notting Hill. I've said this before but I rate this film as better than two of Richard Curtis's more trumpeted offerings, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Love Actually. Notting Hill is wry, as amusing as it is implausible (the charm easily defeats the implausibility) and sent this punter off to his bed in a right good mood. You have to admit as well that Hugh Grant very efficiently cornered the market for foppish charm. 70/100.

Pig On Tour

Well, not so much a tour as a two venue vacation. The Groupie has taken a richly-deserved week off work and we started by staying with Daughter Number One (and her husband CL) in Wanstead, which as any fule kno is in the north of That London. DN1 and spouse have a house there which can accommodate visiting parents notwithstanding that they also have two cats who, for reasons too complicated to relate, have to be kept apart. Long and short of it - we had a cracking time. Two world-class galleries attended and much dining-out undertaken. First up was Tate Britain. The Pig has to confess that despite being at university in That London he never made it as far as the Tate. Big mistake. It's excellent. Highlights: 1) Hockney's A Bigger Splash; 2) the Turner Bequest - loads of the Pig's favourite artist, most notably Snow Storm, a picture apparently panned by contemporary critics but, to the Pig's untutored eye, an undeniable masterpiece. Picture appended along with photographic evidence of the Pig admiring the Hockney.

Pig and Splash

The other gallery was the National Portrait Gallery - this one being within easier walking distance of KCL and therefore a familiar haunt of the Pig when he couldn't face afternoon lectures. We also took a diversion into Foyles bookshop, another place where I used to loiter when I should really have been studying. Lazy Pig. 

We ate out three times and all venues were more than passable but one stood out as excellent - The Port House on the Strand. A fabulous Iberian atmosphere and delicious tapas. Two bottle of cava and a glass of port each to round things off. I should explain that DN1 and CL were with us so the consumption of two bottles is excusable. The Pig recommends this to all fellow pigs out there - the Port House 

From That London to Ynys Mon for the rest of the week. Two excellent walks, firstly from Amlwch Port towards Point Lynas and, this afternoon, along Traeth llydan to Rhosneigr. Stunning. Putting modesty aside, the Pig should say that the walk was made all the more enjoyable by having been for a run prior to breakfast. Pig Glorioso.

Rhosneigr hoving into view

 

 

An Illustrated Definition of Sociopathy

 Antisocial personality disorder, sometimes called sociopathy, is a mental health condition in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others. People with antisocial personality disorder tend to purposely make others angry or upset and manipulate or treat others harshly or with cruel indifference. They lack remorse or do not regret their behaviour.

Commander-in Cheat

His mate

Californians Forgiven

BFP/OG/CC is/are rather vulgar, a fact that makes it odd that he should have dismissed Californian wines from his high estimation. I apologise to the winemakers of that arresting state for I have just finished my first bottle of Lodi's Three Finger Jack Old Vine Zinfandel. Delicious and subtler than reputation generally expects of California. I discovered it on the tasting table at Majestic. Excellent with blue cheese, richly alcoholic and a viable alternative to a bottle of port. Having said all of this, you should remember that BFP (dis)credits himself with having the palate of a stray dog. I leave you to try it for yourself.  

Are Brilliant ... Mark XXIX

Hello, Chortley Chuckles here. As the latest arrival into the schizophrenic world of The Overgraduate, I am delighted to curate this the latest contribution to the thread that recognises brilliance. And all of this comes on top of a rather brilliant day I had on Friday. My only regret is that it was a solitary day as I am in Ynys Mon on my own, as is my wont when the Open Championship is to be watched. Many moons ago, before we were fortunate enough to own Plas Piggy, I used to sequester myself away in Bert's (he was my father-in-law) house and watch the whole day of the BBC coverage. These days, commercial imperatives have asserted themselves and the coverage is to be found on Sky. Oh well. And one does have to admit that the Sky coverage is technically adroit even if my old curmudgeonly self finds fault with some of the commentators. Can someone please explain to Nick Dougherty the difference between definite and indefinite articles - his usage is affected and annoying to us pedants. I also find Wayne Riley's sad need to be loved rather pitiful - you find yourself wanting to put an arm around his shoulder and tell him he's doing just fine.

Anyway, are brilliant.

Sir Garfield Sobers, who died this week. It is tempting to amend the designation and say that he was brilliant, but no, that would be wrong. Sobers' all-round brilliance is a thing for the ages. By a distance the greatest all-rounder ever to have graced cricket. This opinion brooks no argument. My first ever visit to Edgbaston was when Dad took us to see him play for Notts against Warwickshire. I later learned that my dear friend ICW was also there that day, taken by his own father for the exact same reason.

David Hockney, another recent death. Also is brilliant. There are quite a few documentaries doing the rounds on streaming services - he comes across as engaging and, most importantly, hugely gifted. In later life he became mildly obsessed by painting large canvases. Chortley Chuckles has a liking for such things - this may be because Chortley is rather vulgar. Hey ho.

The Open Championship, particularly the first two days. Love it.

Related to the above - links golf. There is nothing quite like it, particularly in the parched conditions of a hot summer as we are currently enjoying/enduring. A large part of that brilliant day I had on Friday was spent on the practice ground at Clwb Golff Ynys Mon. So wrapped up in my practice was I that I decided against actually playing the course and instead went into the bar and was gratified to find that I had thirty quid of credit on my membership card. Guinness and scratchings. Brilliant, all of it.

Ynys Mon itself. I thought this for the umpteenth time as I drove back from the golf club, taking a circuitous route around the top of the island. We are blessed.

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.

Introducing A New Persona

You will know me as the Overgraduate (OG) or possibly as Big Fat Pig (BFP) but today I want to introduce you to another of my split personalities. Chortley Chuckles has emerged from my subconscious and will now take his place in these ramblings. He was beckoned to the front of my mind when the Groupie amiably commented that she liked the way I laugh at my own jokes - a sort of chortle cum chuckle. Thus was Chortley Chuckles brought to life. He is a down-at-heel entertainer. He entertains all ages but his act for children also comprises his unseen but faithful dog Knuckles. Thus he has a theme song, its precise tune known only to OG, BFP, and to Chortley himself - the refrain runs 'Chortley Chuckles with his prize dog Knuckles'. This line is by way of an oblique tribute to the briliance of Clive James' haunting chorus, 'I have the only cure for life, and the cure for life is joy, I'm the crying man that everyone calls laughing boy'. 

Chortley Chuckles and his prize dog Knuckles

If you encounter Chortley Chuckles (CC) please be gentle with him - as with many clowns there is a serious man hidden beneath.

Living La Vida Loca

I read a translation of the phrase I have used as today's heading and I note that la vida loca is exemplified by spontaneous debauchery. Well, I am neither young enough nor energetic enough for such behaviour but I haven't entirely given up hope so I'll stick with it as way of laying down click-bait.

Actually what I wanted to convey is that I am having a splendid time with my soul mate. The Groupie had been working ridiculously hard on a big commercial transaction that threatened (as these things do) to get totally out of control. She eventually stewarded it over the line and, I am pleased to relate, she has been properly rewarded. Upshot - we are in our beloved Ynys Mon for a week of rest and recuperation - For her that is - I have been doing the better part of bugger all as usual, which is surprisingly wearying.

On Monday we walked at Treborth, the botanical gardens of the University of Bangor - an underestimated attraction. Yesterday was even better. We were at Bodnant Garden. We have been there countless times before but this time we hit a sweet spot. The famed laburnum arch is not quite in full flower but the rhododenrons are in their pomp. Superb. So superb that I am attaching pictures, taken, of course, on the Groupie's superior phone.

Today we walked at Porth Lynas - rugged and magnificent, rather as BFP appears on the appended selfie. The Groupie, naturally, just looks magnificent. Immodesty compels me to mention that I had earlier been for a run round to Red Wharf Bay.

I have revived myself from the earlier walk with a cup of damned fine coffee and next on the agenda will be a stroll down to Benllech beach, just to emphasise to ourselves how bloody lucky we are. Cymru am bloody byth.

Sartre A Parfois Tort

'L'enfer. c'est les autres'. This is one of my favoured borrowed maxims and that fact goes some way to illuminating my misanthropy. It came back to me as I took the train to Brum last Saturday with the Groupie and Daughter Number Two. Deftly avoiding the puddle of puke on the exit stairway from the platform did nothing to divert me from my usual snobbish reaction to the late Saturday denizens of our city centre. DN2 is particularly scathing about my attitude on these occasions so I kept my counsel and treated only myself to my shafts of Wildean wit about modern life. The news is this - DN2 has a point - of course she does.

Why this Damascene conversion on the part of the Pig? To a small degree I have to acknowledge that I was a young tearaway myself (in a deeply ironic manner you have to understand) and have been an elderly disgrace at times. But no, the major balm to my disaffection on Saturday was the event that took us to town that night. We saw To Kill a Mockingbird at the Hippodrome. Brilliant. This was the Aaron Sorkin adaptation - wordy (as is Sorkin's way) but quite brilliant. Deeply humane, deeply moving. The production is still on tour for another couple of months and it will be well worth a journey to see it. The acting is excellent, the writing is clever enough to wring humour out of the tale's inherent tragedy, and, oh, just as an aside, the staging is jaw-droppingly clever. The full house erupted into proper cheers at the conclusion - quelqeufois l'enfer ce n'est pas les autres. We were united by an uplifting production - it is proper to get out and remind ourselves how plain bloody clever human endeavour can be and how generous can be the reception for that endeavour.       

Apologies For Absence

I have been away from this blog for a few weeks. I apologise. The world has been in a catastrophic mess. It still is. It has not really seemed that I can add anything to the commentary on Trump's war in Iran. By calling it Trump's war I am probably doing a disservice to Netanyahu. Hey ho. I will say only this: this war has been prosecuted on a vainglorious whim boosted by a misunderstood Zionist zeal; the Americans have not come even close to articulating a proper reason for their attack; Iran is a crazed theocracy but the way to deal with it is not Operation Epic Fury.

Enough of such things. Reasons to be cheerful, one, two, three. Last week BH, MS and RW were kind enough to let me join the Appleby Renegade Tour, a golfing trip of sheer fun. The history would bore you, suffice to say that Appleby was the venue for the early QMT golf tours - I have blogged about that before and, as I always say, it's a long story so I won't weary you with it.

Immodestly I have to relate that the Pig won the golf. Not through any great competence but by sheer obduracy. Enough of that. The courses. First up was Bentham, comprised of nine old holes and nine newer. I'm glad to say you could not really see the join. The Pig got the tour off to an inauspicious start by blasting two out of bounds from the first tee - thereafter a degree of sanity and good fortune came to his rescue.      

A god meal and a few pints were followed by a goodish night's sleep (I'm not as good as I used to be with an unfamiliar bed) and we even went for a walk around Appleby on the second morning before our afternoon outing at Appleby Golf Club. I had played Appleby twice before and thought it adequate. I was wrong - this is a fine golf course on wild moorland. We played through a blessedly short but biblical storm and under high winds. I should also record that the Pig produced an improbable clearance break of twenty-two to clinch a frame on the clubhouse snooker table. Great moments in sport.

More food. More beer. Another truncated night's sleep and then an early start on the journey home. We broke the journey at Breadsall Priory which is where QMT Tour is to be held in June. Very much a hotel/resort set-up with two courses. We played the Priory course. A perfectly decent lay-out but very hilly. Not remotely as memorable as Appleby but a good end to the trip. I slept well back at home and woke as stiff as a board. I was till sore on Sunday morning but dragged myself out for a thirty minute run and that made me feel much better. You're not getting any younger Pig but rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The Evil That Men Do - And An Uplifting Coda

Harriet is a biopic about Harriet Tubman, an enslaved woman who fled to freedom and became a ferocious activist in the liberation of many others. It is a tale of heroism and of human bondage. It is decorated by two stellar performances - Cynthia Erivo in the title role and Joe Alwyn as an adamantine slave-owner.

The film does nothing flashy or overtly clever - it lays the true story before us and if this sort of thing doesn't make you ponder man's propensity for evil, then you have a heart of stone. Find it on iPlayer. 70/100.   

6N 23.5

Here's a thing - Sean Edwards' much-vaunted France defence shipped ninety-six points in their last two matches of the Six Nations, fifty away to Scotland and then forty-six to the previously impotent England attack. That France still won the championship and, of course, the match against England says much for their searing pace and almost as much for England's imbecile indiscipline. Leaving aside my frustration (this puts it mildly) at the brain-dead behaviour of England's finest, we do have to concede that the two matches (Scotland v France, and France v England) did serve up proof that rugby union can still be thrilling even when it falls into the hands of the mirthless pragmatists. Mind you I could do without advertisements popping up in the middle of play - ITV, stop it please.

Here's another thing - England won only one match. The stirring effort in Paris should not disguise this.  

6N 23.4

On 23 February I blogged about England's brain-dead capitulation to Ireland. I said that I might have a potentially consolatory bet on Italy to beat England. I did. They did. I'm still angry though. Italy are a decent side but I thought the sheer emotion of what they were doing (they had never previously beaten England) actually hampered them - England were so predictably shite that Italy did not have to be anywhere near their best to win. I've said enough.

Let's concentrate on a match that revived the love for the game. Scotland 50 France 40. Rugby - bloody hell. As far from England's constipated box-kickathon as one might imagine. And remember this is a Scotland team who also lost to Italy. I told you Italy were good. 

Pride Comes Before A Fall

Big Fat Pig is nothing if not an entertainer. Yesterday he slopped around the golf course in the mud and the puddles - for once it wasn't raining but we are going to need a very prolonged dry spell to get Royal Pype Hayes back into shape. Now the Pig's game has been in pretty shabby order for the past couple of years. Much of this is down to age and an inherent lack of talent but I do also have the excuses born of my own clumsiness. First I fell down the stairs and damaged my back. Next up was the infamous bike crash when I cycled into the back of a stationary Merc and wrecked my knee. Finally I somehow ricked my foot so that I could hardly walk. These misfortunes meant no running and no cycling for a lengthy spell but I persisted with the golf and got progressively (quickly in truth) worse at it. Only recently do I detect some green shoots of recovery. This may not be totally unrelated to an encouraging amount of running and the resultant mental wellbeing.

So here's the story. By my low standards, I started yesterday's round well. By the time we reached the ninth tee I was playing comfortably under my handicap and feeling rather good about it all - the ball was under control and the company was excellent - GB and JW thank you. Hole 9 at PH is stroke index 18, that is to say it is the easiest hole on the course. The Pig had the honour after a deft up-and-down for par on the 8th. All was well in Pig World. No need for any heroics so the driver stayed in the bag and Pig aimed to lay-up with a calm 2 utility. It is at this point that Pig's recollection becomes blurred. The tee shot travelled all of a yard and nestled in front of the tee mat. No matter, Pig would take his medicine and lay the second shot short of the ditch at the front of the green. From there he would make a five. The problem was that Pig then pulled his second shot miles right (the Pig is left-handed) onto the roof of the greenkeepers' hut, off which it bounced back but settled down three yards out-of bounds. Sharp intake of breath. Repeat. The next swipe took the ball even further out-of bounds. By the time the Pig had effected that sensible lay-up he had already played seven. There was more playing indignity to come, but we will park that for a moment. You see the first ball out-of-bounds was findable, perched on a muddy mound. The Pig retrieved it nonchalantly having scrambled the mound still with his golf bag slung across his shoulders (the Pig always carries). This is where it gets worse because the Pig then slithered down the other side of the bank and landed on his back. Have you ever tried to rise from a prone position with a golf bag pinioned on your back? The Pig has to tell you it's bloody difficult. So difficult that if there is a nearby bed of nettles, one might roll into them. This the Pig promptly did. One might go so far as to say that the Pig looked not unremotely like a bit of a fool. Brushing the dirt off his back and legs and trying to get some undergrowth from out of his belt-line, the Pig returned to the ball in play - I would remind you it had taken him seven strokes to get that far. Never mind, down in two more and the indignity of a ten is avoided. Pig therefore, took a deep breath, swung slowly and ... deposited the ball into the ditch. By the time he finished he had used a dozen strokes. You ought to get some sort of award for such persistence.

As I say, pride comes before a fall. For the record, I played neatly for the rest of the round.   

6N 26.3

Saturday was a funny old day. I seem to have a lot of those - I think I often fall victim to my own contrarianism and also to my bipolarity. In fact the latter was accentuated last weekend because I was in Anglesey and had forgotten to take my anti-psychotics with me. Keep taking the pills Pig, they work for you.

Anyway, Saturday. I awoke early after a fitful night (that's another benefit of Olanzapine, it helps you sleep) and was determined to go out for a decent run, during which I was going to undertake the mental composition of a blog entry excoriating England Under 20s loss to Ireland on Friday night. I even had a title - 'Brainless Behemoths'. Those of you who have been with me on this journey will recall that this is not a new theme. In the end I abandoned the task as my running (up towards Storws Wen Golf Club, for those of you know the local geography) became more and more a painful exercise. At twenty-five minutes I turned back from my route and headed home to Plas Piggy. But stubborn old Pig then willed himself to take control and I embarked on a series of deviations from the straight route home. I reckoned that if I could count my steps to twelve hundred on these deviations I would add enough time to get me to an hour. I did it - bloody knackered but I did it. And I felt a good deal more sanguine about the previous evening's rugby. So mood was now up.

Then England played Ireland in the Six Nations. Mood down again. What a calamity. I counted twenty handling errors from England and lost count of the missed tackles. Outplayed, outthought, outmuscled. Garbage. At moments like these I am relieved that I am at least Irish by marriage. In my defence of this shameless abandonment (I'll be back) of my homeland, I can point out that both of my daugters have Irish passports. 

Wales v Scotland cheered me up. I would have preferred it if Wales had clung on to win but it was an estimable game to watch as a neutral. Mood back up again. Sunday, back home to Casa Piggy to take in the ultimately comfortable French Victory over Italy. But let us get this straight - Italy are no mugs and if England play again as they did on Saturday, they will lose to Italy. I might actually have a bet on that - it makes the game more bearable to watch.  

Pig's last game of golf

Good night's sleep last night and I am due back on the (soggy) golf course early tomorrow with the Seniors at Royal Pype Hayes - I have had a few weeks off to get over the effects of a very poor slog in the mud last time. These things should never become a matter of arduous habit. Keep taking the pills. 

6N 26.1 & 2

I used to have a routine for Five/Six Nations rugby matches. I would usually be playing at my own low level (to take a week off would have been an act of sacrilege) so I would set the video recorder to tape the England game. Now that of itself was a considerable act - there was none of this single-button-programming, much less catch-up services on which you could rely. But the next consideration was this - I don't like to watch sporting events when the result is known to me. So I would play my game (please bear in mind that pitches were far muddier in those days) and then retrieve my car keys from a secret location, clamber into my car and drive home to a hot bath, all without being fore-warned of the result. Then I could enjoy the match at leisure.

I mention this because it serves to remind me just how much magic adhered to the old championship. It felt somehow attached to the amateur game I loved so much. Those days are gone and I have no wish to sound like one of the much maligned old farts who used to run the game. Yes the opportunities to play the game for a living are nice for a tiny minority but the 'product' (as one must so odiously term it) is dangerously lacking in romance. One has only to look at the crumbling edifice of that once enviable structure, Welsh rugby, to know that something is wrong. All of which, in a counter-intuitive manner (certainly for an English patriot like the Pig), makes the result of the Calcutta Cup match last Saturday rather grand. The much (and deservedly so after the Italy defeat) Scots simply ploughed the shell-shocked English into the Murrayfield turf. Galling for the English, yes, but, in the final analysis, rather splendid and redolent of an earlier age.

Don't worry lads, it's only a game

But now let's get to the problems of the England team. Maro Itoje -a titan but one who is coming off a draining Lions Tour as captain and a draining personal tragedy (the loss of his mother). Should we be surprised that he looks drained? Sam Underhill - an old-fashioned sort of a player. He had a bad game - that just doesn't happen. He deserves another chance. I would pair him at flanker with Henry Pollock. Let's address the elephant in the room - Pollock gives every impression of being a bit of a gobshite - but he's our gobshite and just at the moment the force seems to be with him. The centres are a conundrum. There is no disgrace in being outplayed by Jones and Tuipolotu, a pair who rather inconveniently (for the English) overcame their previous torpor with a relish. Don't worry lads, it's only a game - as Ray Prosser used to say, 'Well what the f*** do we have points for?' Big Fat Pig will watch with renewed interest as the defeated England and the (for once) deflated Irish meet this weekend.

France? brilliant.  

You Are The Athlete First And The Rugby Player Second

I think it might have been that other great solicitor/rugby coach, Alan Jones, who coined this phrase. On the other hand it might have been someone else - either way it stuck with me. Let's unpack it and then consider it in the context of last night's England U20 v Wales U20 age-group international.

Athleticism - I think we can take it as read that to function at the top of rugby these days you need to be fit and strong. Yes there are differing types of athleticism (just as shot-putters differ from pole-vaulters) but you have to have some fitness. But being a rugby player, a true footballer to use the old parlance, well that is a mater of mental acuity. I have known some very fit people who were poor footballers and some superb footballers who cared not a jot about physical conditioning. These latter types cannot function at high levels. Not these days at least.

Last night's match was played in appalling conditions - pouring rain and a muddy (by the standards of modern curating) pitch. England won19-16 having been 0-16 down at half-time. England were manifestly the better athletes, you could tell this by the way that these gargantuan young men filled their shirts. The Welsh team equally manifestly contained the better footballers, most particularly Carwyn Leggat-Jones, who looks to be the latest fly-half to be mined from Max Boyce's legendary seam of No. 10s. 

For forty minutes England played a pre-planned game utterly unsuited to the conditions. It was brain-dead rugby. Wales feasted on the English stupidity, most particularly when England gifted them a try. One can only speculate what was said to the England team at half-time, but whatever it was, the result was a direct and forceful display from superior athletes. Had mental acuity been allied to athleticism, the margin would have been much greater. The problem is that sometimes you just can't teach these things - as the great Gary Street once remarked (to a passing opposition back-row) after a particularly notable clearance kick: 'You can't teach that - it's genetic'. As with so much else, Gary had a point, even if his insolence did place his No 8 (your correspondent) at risk of a smack from the aggrieved flanker. I can forgive Gary everything. Genius.  

A Personal Boast

It was only on 17 January that I shared with you my resolution to get back to being able to run for an hour non-stop by the end of May. This was based on adding five minutes to my longest runs each month. It was not exactly an earth-shattering ambition but I would point out that by the time we get to the end of May I will be sixty-six and in grateful receipt of my state pension. I own an old body hampered by a rugby player's accumulation of physical afflictions. Wouldn't change that last fact for the world.

Anyway, what I am building up to saying is that the Pig is back in Benllech and set forth this morning in high winds and pissing-down rain and rather surprised himself by running for one hour and sixteen seconds. To say that I am pleased with this outcome is an understatement. Just thought I would share this with you.

While I exult in this minor achievement, the world lurches from one undignified crisis to another. Will Keir Starmer survive as PM as what I presume someone will shortly dub Mandygate unfolds? It is very tempting not to give a shit but there's a country to be run. Any volunteers? Oh, by the way, I've just done a cursory Google search and 'Mandygate' has been doing the rounds for days. So much for my political antenna. 

Even I Am At A Loss For Words (Well Almost)

Anybody with half an ounce of perception has been able to tell for in excess of two decades that Peter Mandelson is very talented. But it has been equally obvious for all that time that the the man is a preening, vainglorious shit who thinks himself above the confines of what passes for common decency, Why could our Prime Minister not tell this? He could have asked me, or indeed anyone at the court of public opinion. I despair.

Keir Starmer has managed the near-impossible by his ineptitude in the appointment of our most important ambassador - he has made Kemi Badenoch look competent at PMQ's. I despair. And don't get me started on Ed Davey or that sinister yob Nigel Farage. We deserve better, much better.

An Enviable Fiction; A Damning Fact

 

That Stench Coming Off Your Screen - It's The Foul Smell Of Conscienceless Vaulting Ambition

 

 

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

The Search For The Good Nazi

I have been watching my way for the umpteenth time through the magisterial World at War (as an aside this reminds me that such compelling yet educational television just would not get made these days) and I am most intrigued by the contributions of that seismic fraud Albert Speer - a high-ranking Nazi who escaped from the Nuremberg trials with his life. It was the enigma of Speer that was brought to mind by recent cinematic encounters with interpretations of two other prominent National Socialists.

The Desert Fox is carried by James Mason's charismatic portrayal of Erwin Rommel, presented to us as an honourable and brilliant military man who came to see that Hitler was leading Germany over a cliff. When one considers that the film was made in the shadow of the War (1951) this is a balanced and generous work. 70/100. 

Nuremberg (2025) has an expert turn from Russell Crowe as the charming but malignant narcissist Hermann Goring. This is top grade acting. Rami Malek's efforts as the psychiatrist who endeavours to know Goring have attracted contrasting reviews (The Guardian is particularly hard on him) but I think he keeps just on the right side of manic. Juristically speaking the Nuremberg trials pose interesting questions for any sentient lawyer, particularly one like me who has always opposed judicial killing in the domestic setting. I still don't know where I stand on war crimes trials and I am grateful that I am not compelled to articulate one way or the other. Another worthy film. 70/100. Watch out as well for a fine subsidiary performance from Leo Woodall.