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.