And Before You Let The Sun In, Mind It Wipes Its Shoes

Under Milk Wood, a dazzling piece of, well actually that begs the question - what is it? Written as a radio play, it should of course be listened to but it also reads beautifully as an affectionate and amusing prose poem. It is a masterwork.

The book as appreciating asset? I picked up my copy of Under Milk Wood for 50p in a second hand bookshop and I have only just noticed that its cover price in 1972 was a mere 40p. Mind you the intervening inflation rather ruins this tale and explains why I am not an economist.  

Some Do Not

Some Do Not ... is the first of the tetralogy known by the collective title Parade's End. It is an arresting though difficult read, at times brutally modernist. In my current reading blitz I enjoyed it but you really have to concentrate as you read this one. Maybe it's just me but there are some books to which you can get away with not giving your full commitment - this is not one of them.

The author is the magnificently named English novelist Ford Madox Ford - though even that nomenclature conceals a story - he changed his surname from the germanic Hueffer in the wake of the Great War. The shadow of that conflict leers over the text even though the trenches are not described. Instead we have an obliquely described and poignant love story woven in and around a world undergoing seismic change. A beautifully crafted novel.

Bloody Hell That Was Hard Work

Dave's go-faster shoes

I have taken the exercise allowance in lockdown as less permission and more mandate. I do two shorter runs (thirty minutes) each week and one long (by the Pig's standards) which I attempt to lengthen by five minutes each week. I got up to sixty-five minutes this week. I also get out on the Precious Bike once a week and I am adding time on each occasion. Today was bike day and you know how it is, sometimes it is just bloody hard work. I can't attribute today's difficulty to any particular reason but by the time I had come up Hill Village Road for the second time (at the culmination of my Little Hay/Shenstone/Four Oaks loop) I was totally knackered and (could it be a defect in my posture on the machine?) my arms and shoulders were begging for mercy. One hour forty-six minutes. I know it's not that impressive but it is making me feel better in mind and body. I've even invested in some new running shoes - Asics GT2000/8 again - I'm a creature of habit. My magic insoles (all the way from California at ruinous expense) have been transferred from the old pair.

I've just re-read that paragraph and realised that it is bald confession of breaching the one hour exercise dictum. In my defence I stress I am scrpulous in my social distancing and I never spit! As I type, Boris is on the television telling us all how the lockdown will continue. I think he will cut me a bit of slack. Blow me, he just did. 

Now for a word about a film we enjoyed. Well a couple of words - silly and enjoyable - that's three words I know but you will forgive me the conjunctive. The Bourne Ultimatum continues the Bourne saga into its third iteration. There is immorality at the top of the CIA (when is there not?) and it is down to Jason Bourne to stop it. But who is Jason Bourne? The film rockets along in its silliness but it is beautifully realised. 73/100.  

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker

I have been trawling internet reviews of the final part of the ultimate Star Wars trilogy and my views seem to be at variance with most reviewers - as was also the case with The Last Jedi, although it took two viewings for me to appreciate fully that film.

The high-water mark of the nine films is generally held to have been back in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. I would not disagree with that, but I do thnk that The Rise of Skywalker comes closer than any other offering to matching that movie. Yes, there are a lot of loose ends to be tied up and there is something a bit Voldemort about the resurrection of Papatine but those loose ends do not get in the way of the picture. All in all to be recommended. 85/100.

The Brummie Paris-Roubaix

My admiration is boundless for the riders who thunder over the setts of the Paris-Roubaix. This morning Big Fat Pig did his own down-scaled version of the classic. This involves steering the Precious Bike over the pock-marked roads of Shenstone and Four Oaks for an hour and forty-one minutes. I can tell you, you feel every one of the bumps. The roads are in a shocking state. And the run from Shenstone back to Mere Green is an unexpected killer - a succcession of false flats lulling our overweight hero into a misplaced sense of comfort. I did that stretch twice today and by the end of the second I was out on my legs. Mind you the Pig would have to admit to feeling a tad self-righteous after his ordeal. He also ran for an hour (yes without stoppping) on Thursday. Wonder Pig.

Pig and the Groupie enjoyed (without being bowled over) Tolkien last night. It is a biopic of the young author's formative years at King Edward's School in Birmingham and during the Great War. It carries no imprimatur from the Tolkien estate so perhaps needs to be accomapanied by a liberal dose of salt but I thought it considered and mildy affecting. 69/100.

The Groupie has tolerated my watching of all four parts of Jesus of Nazareth downloaded over Easter. I'm a sucker for the scriptures and there are good performances from Robert Powell and Ian McShane in particular. Spoiler alert - he dies in the end you know.

The good thing about getting quite a lot of exercise is that you can fool yourself (the Pig does) that over-eating is not merely permissible but compulsory. This is of course self-deluding bollocks. Tonight it will be chicken and chorizo jambalaya. The Groupie is far too good to the Pig.

The Church Of Stripeology

Alright I know 'stripeology' isn't a real word but it does nicely get at my affection for the results I can achieve with my precious petrol mower.

I'm no gardener but we had the garden designed and built a few years ago and the brief was that it should be very much low maintenance. Suzanne at Malkin Design did us proud. Some effort is of course needed to keep it presentable but I have to admit that we're pleased with the results. And of course my favourite bit is mowing the lawn. Photographic evidence attached.

Bloody hell I've only just turned sixty and here I am blogging about my sodding garden. In the background I am listening to Barbra Streisand. Time to man up and put on some Guns N' Roses. Welcome to my jungle.

The Seventh Age Of Man - Day 1

The Boy Shakespeare knew a thing or two.

                                  Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

And so the Pig has embarked on his seventh decade. It is only a number but I must confess that this one has given me more pause for thought than any previous landmark. I am tempted to feel old. Is that a bad thing? Rage, rage against the dying of the light, as another poet of note put it.

If only more clients had cause to be that grateful

Sans teeth? Quite good on that score - despite close on forty years of rugby I have lost only one tooth. Sans eyes - well I am wearing my cheap reading glasses to write this but otherwise my laser-enhanced eyesight still does me proud. Sans taste - aye there's the rub. Nothing particularly wrong on that score, apart from the uneducated palate that has accompanied me all my life. I still fight against this handicap and as if to prove that there is life in the old dog yet, my last two nights' drinking ought to satisfy any oenophile who has strayed onto this site. On Sunday I blew the dust off a present from a grateful client from my former life, indeed a client at the heart of the best work I ever did. Dom Perignon Cuvee 1992. Yum yum; a delicate mousse, and a nutty smoothness.

Then last night for my birthday tea I had steak, chips and onion rings - my request. My other culinary favourite had arrived at lunchtime - my Mum's quiche delivered to the doorstep. Spoilt brat. Anyway, to accompany my steak (beautifully cooked by the Groupie) I opened the penultimate bottle of the La Serra Barolo 2001 from the cellar (alright, I admit it's a cupboard). The Groupie had got me four bottles of this divine stuff for my fiftieth birthday, having first encountered it at the Fat Duck. Yum, yum, yum. The odds are against the final bottle lasting to my seventieth. 

So after this a day of lethargy, I have resolved not to mope. I have been blessed to enjoy six previous ten year childhoods (the Bard got that bit wrong) so I am going to make the most of this one. Sans everything? Not bloody likely mate. Not yet.