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

 

 

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.

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.  

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

Shining On The Self-Righteous At Plas Piggy

Here on the island for the first inspection visit of the year. All is well, in fact it seems even better than that. In marked contrast to last week's covering of snow at Casa Piggy, Benllech is bathed in glorious winter sun and the Pig is feeling very good about himself having run for forty minutes this morning. By way of climatological proof I reproduce the rather crappy photograph taken from the front window showing the waters glistening on Red Wharf Bay and the Great Orme looming in the distance. I can't give you any documenatry proof of my run - you'll have to trust me on that one, but why would I lie?

It is on a day such as this that one glimpses the illusion of the runner's high. Actually that is unfair - the high really does exist, it is just that you feel it less frequently as age and lassitude restrict activity. On the basis that the public sharing of a new year resolution makes compliance more likely (because failure is so much the worse when suffered in the open) I will admit that I have the ambition to get back to running for an hour by June this year. My other resolutions are for me alone.

I will say this - running here in Benllech is even tougher than back in the environs of Casa Piggy (which is atop a hill) as the village climbs steeply out of the Bay. Today I ran/staggered half-way down to to Red Wharf Bay and back. I feel good.

Another reason to feel content - I have realised that itvX harbours Once Upon a Time in America in its listings. I'm too mean to pay for the ad-free version but I may watch it tonight and put up with the adverts. I haven't seen the movie for a decade or more but I remember it as Leone's masterpiece. Am I right? 

Cinema Paradiso

I have previously disclosed my misanthropic objection to attending cinemas. Modern home screen facilities are so good that there is little enough reason for me to mend my ways. But I accept that I ought to try. Anyway, enough of that and, via one of my characteristic diversions, I will tell you about two movies recently viewed.

But first that diversion. I am here on the island and sitting proud in the bookcase (note to self: we need a new bookcase) is my copy of Halliwell's Film Guide (2nd Edition), a present, I note from the inscription, from the Groupie on my twenty-third birthday. This was a long time ago. A very long time. I was musing (to myself, no one else listens) about the essay Leslie Halliwell appended to his edition titled The Decline and Fall of the Movie. Writing at the turn of the seventies into the eighties, Halliwell found himself dismayed at what he perceived as the film industry's collapse into self-indulgent meretriciousness. He had a point although his ambivalence about the early work of Martin Scorsese is a point of view from which I hasten to distance myself. Reading it again at this distance, I am pleased to be able to report that fine films are still being crafted. I'll give you a couple of examples (one of which pre-dates Halliwell's pessimistic essay) of good craftsmanship.

Young Winston (1972) tells (without being too hagiographic) the early life of Winston Churchill. It is engaging despite some  asides to camera (disguised as responses to an out-of-shot journo) that really don't work. Despite that it is, as Halliweel might have it, well crafted 62/100.

And now for something of a much higher order and a suitable riposte to Halliwell's pessimism - A picture that is concise, witty, amusing and provocative. And in case you protest - yes I know it's not intended to be accurate history. But it is clever (Stoppard and Norman wrote the script) and keeps you on your toes. We have, I suppose, to skate around the fact that it was produced by the odious Harvey Goldstein. 84/100.  

La Dolce Vita Cymraeg

Here on the Island with my soul mate. We have had a wonderful week - pottering, doing some minor works on Plas Piggy and taking in the scenery on some mildly taxing walks. Yesterday brought to mind how Ynys Mon keeps favouring us with good times.

There are some excellent beaches on the Island but in high season it perhaps makes sense to head for the less immediately prepossessing. One of our favourite walks takes us from the decommissioned nuclear power station at Wylfa along the Anglesey Coast Path to the village of Cemaes Bay. Cemaes is a hidden gem. It has free parking just off the High Street; it has proper old shops (there is even a picture framer to whom we took some recent purchases on Monday); it has a presentable and uncrowded beach. But yesterday's great discovery was the cafe operating out of a utilitarian stone shed on the beach car park (£4 - so you're better off walking down from the free parking). Caffi Bach does wood-fired pizzas. Absolutely excellent. The Groupie and the Pig shared a margherita and a generous portion of chips. We ate these on a beach-front bench - delicious and not a scavenging seagull in sight. Life is good.   

The State Of The Nation

What exactly is the point of Kemi Badenoch? No seriously, what has happened to right of centre politics - we seem to be left with a vast wasteland where once was important ground. Still we can at least take some comfort from the fact that the morally ungrounded Keir Starmer is turning out to be the best Conservative prime minister since that nice Tony Blair.

Enough of such gloom (well actually ther might be some more to come - sorry) because I am on one of my flying inspection visits to Plas Piggy. The sun is shining and the Great Orme smolders in a heat haze in the distance. The wretched flying vermin gulls are nesting on our roof again but that cannot take away the attractiveness of this place.

And last night I watched an interesting film, a Danish/Icelandic speculation on humanity and morality - Godland.  It follows the travails of a Danish pastor tasked with building a new church in the remoteness of South-East Iceland. It is a tale of endurance and obdurance. Three men die, as do two horses. The pastor is a pioneering photographer and the movie is shot in an almost square ratio with rounded corners that mimics his glass-plate photography. A serious film. A good film. Available on iPlayer. 78/100.

The VE Day celebrations last week were moving. I particularly enjoyed how much it all meant to my mother who remembered the sheer joy and relief of that end to war, celebrated in her case as a ten-year-old in Gloucester. That generation who lived through WWII have been the guiding influence on my generation and as we lose them we need to reflect on our own actions upon those growing-up behind us. Are we, the baby-boomers, as wise an influence as our own parents have been? Such thoughts can cast a pall over my day so I have risen from my desk and looked out once again over the sun-dappled sea. I may even have a third cup of damned fine coffee. Life's been good to me so far.

 

Odeon Ynys Mon

 I am on one of my solo sorties to the island. Yesterday was a fine day. I went to C.G. Ynys Mon and spent a fruitful (well hopefully) hour sharpening (it was very blunt) my short game. As if that was not enough I wasted my money backing Perceval Legallois in the Grand National and found time to watch two very different films.

Father Brown is a 1954 piece of British whimsy capped by a superb performance from Alec Guinness in the tile role. It puts the flimsy modern television version of the tales of the priest/sleuth to shame. Somehow films of this idiom are all the better for being in black and white. A wholly worthy piece of movie-making. 70/100. 

Hang 'Em High (1968) is an altogether different kettle of fish. In fact not a kettle of fish at all, rather a plate of spaghetti americano. Hard upon the success of Sergio Leone's three Clint Eastwood westerns, America reclaimed Eastwood as its own and made this paleish imitation of a spaghetti western. Eastwood speaks more than in his seminal role(s) and the sheer visceral quality of Leone's pictures is missing. Notwithstanding this daub of filmic polish, there is enough to get your teeth into and there is, if you look hard enough, a moral speculation trying to get out. Worth a watch. 64/100.

Days Of Wonder

I am here on the island, my ostensible reason being to see a roofer about the leaky chimney, but, in truth, mainly because I love it here. The only downside is that the Groupie has not been able to join me on this occasion. It has been a notable break.

For journeys up here I have abandoned the M6 even though it is potentially the quickest route - the expense of the M6 Toll cannot be justified and, besides, if you get held up on the motorway, you really do get held up. The shortest route is the old A5, also the most scenic. However I favour the A458/A55 - quickish (exactly three hours on Thursday) and scenicish. 

A very productive meeting with the roofer, RJE, on Friday. Like all the tradesmen on the island (in my experience) he is friendly, reasonable and charming. So far , so good then, but it was yesterday (Saturday) that turned into one of those days of wonder. Up early and drove to Anglesey Golf Club where I maintain country membership (ludicrously cheap compared to Birmingham) and I had bitten the bullet and entered a Stableford. Now playing with strangers can be daunting but not at The Anglesey. I was warmly greeted and paired with AJ, a Mancunian who served with the RAF at Valley and married a local girl and stayed here after he left the forces. The course was wet but eminently playable and there was a strong wind that made the back nine very challenging. We were round in three hours. The course won but I had a lovely time. If you see me, remind me to tell you about my birdie on the fourth. 

And as if that was not enough, as I drove back across Mon, Snowdonia (sorry, Eryri) glared at me, sun-kissed and snow lying on the northern slopes. Beautiful. 

I was back in plenty of time to open a bottle of Rioja (Gran Reserva naturally) and watch England subside to defeat to Ireland in the Six Nations. This much was predicatable and I won't bore you with another lecture on the problems besetting the grand old game in England. I then watched the recording of the Scotland v Italy match without knowing the result. Isn't Blair Kinghorn a good player!

Anchovies on brown toast for supper. 

You will notice that I have drawn a sensitive veil over the demolition of Wales by France on Friday evening. I find it best not to intrude on private grief. Mind you, DH the greenkeeper was kind enough to remember that I had been a player and elicited my opinion. I comforted him by saying that England would lose and that Wales have unearthed another quality player in their captain, Jac Morgan.

Slept like a baby. Days of wonder.

In The Bleak Midwinter

Actually by the OG measure of seasonality, it is not yet even winter - by my reckoning that comes on 1 December. Nonetheless we awoke here at Casa Piggy to a blanket of snow. Thus the Pig is not playing golf today. Just as well because he is not friends with his driver at present. 'Twas ever thus.

The Lower Grounds at Casa Piggy

 So anyway, you have all no doubt been wondering why Big Fat Pig has been silent after a flurry of posts during Groupie and Pig's brief holday at Plas Piggy. Sorry about that. Just to fill you in, the last day of our stay was spent walking from Wylfa Head to Cemaes, the walk including a stop-off for a pint at the turning point. Lovely. We than had a very good pub meal back in Benllech at the Breeze Hill, under new management, marked by a particularly fine example of that prize side, onion rings.

We watched three films during our holiday, nothing to get overly excited about but decent holiday fare. In ascending order of merit, we first have The Mirror Crack'd, a workmanlike Christie adaptation laden with stars but lacking in pizzazz. I have to be in a certain relaxed frame of mind for Agatha Christie on either film or television. I have no interest in identifying/guessing the culprit, but rather want the text to wash over me. 55/100.  

Next best is Blunt a television film from an age when the BBC could afford more ambitious projects.This retails (yet again) the Philby/Burgess/Maclean/Blunt spy scandal, concentrating in particular on the relationship between Burgess (played by an excellent Anthony Hopkins) and Blunt (the equally meritorious Ian Richardson). In particular Hopkins conveys a convincing picture of Burgess as hugely well-educated but prize shit. 61/100. 

Finally we have the 1974 film of Murder on the Orient Express. This is the one decorated by Albert Finney arrestingly hamming it up as Hercules Poirot, whilst surrounded by a cast of more restrained co-stars. Poirot is worthy of caricature so Finney just about gets away with it. The pace occasionally drops to the pedestrian but the period detail is consitently well-done. 68/100. 

And now the snow is melting. Back to November drabness. Soon be Christmas.

Yesterday I Have Mostly Been:

Worrying - about my stiff knee; about Trump's clear victory in the US election. Shame on the Democratic Party for finding no better candidate than Kamala Harris. But the sun is shining on the Great Orme as I write this and I will expend my energy on things I can control.

Walking - along the coast path at Trearddur Bay, probably the nicest village on Ynys Mon. I was, of course, with the Groupie, so life can hardly get better.

Eating - at the Sea Shanty in Trearddur Bay. Monster portions at bargain prices with swift, unobtrusive service. Washed down with a pint of Golden Gate IPA. Altogether most satisfactory.

Reading - The Mabinogion. Still.

Yesterday I Have Mostly Been:

Running slowly - before breakfast and ruing my stiff knee, the latest manifestation of my old age. To add to the knee, it's bloody hilly here at Plas Piggy.

Visiting Caernarfon - the castle may be a symbol of oppression but you have to say it's a rather magnificent symbol. Nice pint in the bar of The Black Boy and a bowl of chips shared with the Groupie.

Listening to - Gil Scott-Heron, Pieces of a Man. Nice.

Reading - The Mabinogion. In English translation, sorry about that.

Epic As An Adjective And Other Exercises In Writing

A weekend of sunshine on the island as the Pig enjoyed a brief break at Plas Piggy. Now as you know, the Pig is well down with the kids and he therefore wants to describe the weekend as epic.

Those of you who have been paying attention for the decade and a half that the Pig has been writing this guff, will know that another adjective is also pretty important - 'precious', as in the Precious Jag, the Precious Petrol Mower, and the Precious Bike. Well here's another entry to the Piggy Hall of Fame - the Precious Drain Rods. These got an ultimately epic outing on Friday evening. The enjoyment of using rods is in direct proportion to the scale of the blockage under attack. Unless you have done it, you cannot comprehend the adrenaline rush that comes at the point of rodded release of a major shitberg - though prose of the same quality as what this sentence is, gives you a pretty good idea. The Pig even made a trip to Screwfix in Llangefni to add a new tool to his set of Precious Rods. Behold the Bailey drop scraper.

 

Pretty exciting I'm sure you'd agree. But there was more and here you will see how clever the Pig is being with his vocabulary - because as he enjoyed an epic high tea of tinned hot dogs in appropriate finger rolls, he watched a film that can accurately be described as an epic - you see that's a noun! The film in question is not epic in its artistic attainment but is epic in scale and ambition. Nicholas and Alexandra may be a tad plodding at points but as a dramatic primer on the retreat of Mother Russia from the divine right of kings it seves very well. 68/100. 

And on the way home the Pig listened to Steely Dan. Epic.

The Mystery Of Faith

I woke early here on the island and came upon King of Kings showing on the BBC at a strange early hour. It is not a great film but the underlying biblical story is a fabulous one. I'm a sucker for the gospels.

Anyway it put me in the mood to attend mass at Our Lady of Lourdes RC church here in Benllech. And jolly good it was too. A congregation combining locals and manifest holidaymakers was treated to a measured and wry performance by a Scottish priest. All of which got me thinking about my own conflicted catholic agnosticism. It is the proclamation of faith that always gets me and the attendant ceremony over the offerings. I came away feeling still in a state of negotiation over my own faith but pleasantly uplifted. And yes I did take communion - a cynic might call that having my bread and eating it. I can live with it.  

The Cambrian Williams

This is a tale of Cambria and two Englishmen called William who have moved there. Both have appeared in these pages before - they are my brother WJR and my dear friend Big Willy Mac. Over the past two days I have enjoyed  a game of golf with each in turn. The weather has been kind but with a wind that made the game gratifyingly difficult. First up was a chastening defeat at WJR's hands at Welshpool Golf Club. I actually started competently but two lost balls on the ninth presaged a collapse in morale on an epic scale. This has happened before and, as night follows day, will happen again.

At the high point of Welshpool Golf Club

I urge anyone who has a feel for truly rugged golf to go to Welshpool, a James Braid course that improbably climbs up and down hills and is a test of imagination and stamina. There is not a single sand bunker on the course - it doesn't need them. A snip at less than thirty quid. Next time I'm going to play better.  

Golf as God intended - Harlech

From Welshpool I drove on to Ynys Mon and Plas Piggy. Slept like a log and then undertook the drive to Harlech where Big Willy (who has transplanted his life to Criccieth) is a member of the truly wondrous Royal St. David's Golf Club. This is golf on an epic scale. Amongst a plethora of great holes, perhaps best is the fiendish 15th that takes you up a narrow gully between the dunes. I played a little better than at Welshpool but could not better Big Willy's nous and local knowledge.

Feeling a little foot-sore today and will recuperate with an impertinent Argentinian red whilst watching the Open from Royal Troon. I've said it before - when I grow up I want to be me. 

Species Of Noir, The Curse Of Google, And The Dangers Of Taking Stairs Quickly

Last Tuesday morning I was feeling quite optimistic about my golf game. I was due for an early start with the Seniors Section at Royal Pype Hayes and I had it in mind that I had learned the lessons of my humbling at Ynys Mon the previous week. Yes, this was going to be a good round, two in fact because my ambitious plan was to play two games in a day. The Monday night rugby/cricket boys had switched to Tuesday on account of bank holiday. What I had left out of my tactical armoury was a plan for getting downstairs. Long story short, I came a right pearler and fucked my back up (medical terminology) good and proper. A week on and I am still feeling the pain of the splenetic trauma (idiomatic slang) and golf is definitely off the menu. So is any form of exerecise. Silly old bastard.

Whilst I have been laid-up I have been watching a lot of television and old films. Until now it has not even been comfortable to hold a book - I am strangely particular about the right conditions for reading. There has been a lot of the noirish but first the widescreen spectacular. The Robe was the first film exhibited in Cinemascope. I would like to see it in the cinema but a decent print on a largish modern television still gives some idea of the spectacle. Richard Burton allegedly hated his own performance in it (for which he received the first of his multiple failed Oscar nominations) but I thought he was rather good. 70/100.  

Not all of the classic noir tropes are deployed (no narration, no flashbacks for instance) but The Big Sleep is beyond doubt film noir. Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe spits out the crackling dialogue with huge presence and the atmosphere itself crackles when Lauren Bacall joins him on screen. It is not original to call this a great film but it is correct. And I do still love to wheel out the fact that Marlowe's creator was, like that other great writer P.G. Wodehouse, an Old Alleynian. On occasion you have to doff your cap to the English public school system. 90/100.

Many years ago (I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now) I compiled a list of my fifty favourite movies. That list would change a good bit if I undertook it again but I do recall that Orson Welles' Macbeth was on it then and, having revisited it, it would be today. In this I diverge from my learned doctoral supervisor. Yes, it is full of faults, not all of them down to the straitened financial circumstances in which it was produced, but it does manage to convey the visceral darkness that is at the heart of this, Shakespeare's tautest tragedy. Renaissance noir. 83/100. Mind you, if you really want to see Macbeth at its best on screen, take in Kurosawa's Throne of Blood.  

Next some Gotham Noir. I must declare an interest - I think Christian Bale is superb in pretty much anything he does. Thus I came to The Dark Knight Rises pre-disposed to enjoying it. It is perhaps the weakest of Christpher Nolan's Batman trilogy but we are talking about three very good movies here. 71/100. As I allocate that grade, I wonder if I am guilty of watching only good films these days. Old time is on our tracks boys and there may not be time to accommodate the mediocre. On which topic, I heard a voice I respect proposing 2001: A Space Odyssey as a great film. Should I give it yet another chance? The defect is probably mine.

I will finish with a film of the New Noir West, No Country for Old Men. But before I turn to that, a note of sadness. The film is adapted from the novel by Cormac McCarthy. I was introduced to McCarthy's fiction by the poet/academic Anthony Mellors. I googled Anthony to see where he might now be hanging his academic hat and/or practising his poetic art. It transpires that he died last year. We were very diffferent people but I regarded him as a good bloke - a designation he might have found amusing. 

Anyway, No Country for Old Men, a bleak tragedy of America's New West. It is testament to the brilliance of McCarthy and also that of the Coen Brothers who produced the film. Roger Ebert regarded their Fargo as a genuinely great movie and his conclusion that No Country is every bit as good is correct. 91/100.