Demonic angels

One of the websites I read quite regularly is the journal of writer Neil Gaiman. The first work I read of his was 'Good Omens', co-authored with the inestimable Terry Pratchett. Loved that book. I was therefore rather amused, as Neil clearly was himself, to read on his website that a reader had written to him asking for advice on how to get his girlfriend back after she had broken up with him because he was reading 'Good Omens' in bed. Neil deals with it humorously as you would expect and much more patiently than I would. I think the answer is simply, why?
You need to go down to his entry for June the 11th, I don't know how to link directly to that post on his site.

Devout Christians can be odd people and they can be amazingly wonderful people, I think there should be sub-classes. More of that later.

Last night we watched a film that I had rented before we went to the UK, and in my case loitered there a while. The film was 'Everything is illuminated' starring Elijah Wood, and friends, this is one of those treasures you discover once in a while. I have to say I think what appealed to me about it was the 'Ukraine during the War' theme, because I had realised when reading a book by a Canadian author that Anne lent me not so long ago, that I had very little understanding of the Russian part in the war.
I can remember having a Russian reading phase many years ago, as one does I think I digested the complete works of Tolstoy, Solzhenitsin and Dostoyevsky all in one go and having the utter and absolute knowledge that Russians had more soul then any other nation that ever walked the planet.
Only later, well, say earlier on this year, did I realise how little I in fact knew about Russia. I still thought of it as the Soviet Union, which in its turn I thought of as Russia. But now that the USSR no longer exists as such, I keep getting taken by surprise. So...the Ukraine...mmm....Belarus....ah, that seems to translate as 'White Russia' from the German name... and so the process of recognition and familiarisation begins.

The main not-Elijah Wood character in 'Everything is Illuminated' speaks like Borat and substitutes appropriate but yet incorrect words in his English. His grandfather continually refers to Elijah's character as simply 'The Jew' until Elijah says,
'I'm not a moron you know, I can work out what that word means,'

It is a wonderful film on so many levels, not the least of which is that it makes us think of how much we have that we take for granted. There is the most brilliant scene in a hotel where Elijah's character tries to explain that he doesn't eat meat, a concept they simply can't grasp.
'Not even steak?'
'No,'
'Not even chicken?'
'No,'
'Surely sausages..?'
'No.'
'What is wrong with him?' asks the grandfather,
'What is wrong with him?' asks the cook.
'Can he have just a potato?' asks his guide
'Potato only comes with the meat' says the cook.

Ah...you'll have to trust me, the delivery is wonderful.

So back to those devout Christians for a moment before I return to the Nature Park to rehearse for my acting debut as Darwin the Drone - a short-lived career since the school programmes finish this week.

Yesterday Simmi and I were horrified at this article. Orthodox Christians heckled and assaulted other human beings. Talk about giving the side a bad name.
I know I do this same thing from time to time, but if Jesus had just suddenly appeared at this rally, the Jesus we know from the New Testament, would he be going,
'Come on lads, let's give this lot a good kicking,' ? See, I'm thinking not, unless I've misread the whole thing. I think he's going to say, 'Hey lads, we're all human beings, all they're wanting is to love who they want, which was kinda what I was trying to say anyway, so let's all go for a beer shall we? Oh, hang on, make that a goblet of wine, and if we've only got water, I can deal.'

Licences

There's this funny old thing in Britain called a TV licence. Now the TV licence, if memory serves me correct, and every so often it does, costs about £8 a month over ten months and it is used to fund that great British institution the BBC, affectionately known as Auntie Beeb or just Auntie.

No-one wants the BBC to have to be ruled by sponsorship money or to take in advertising like an old washerwoman taking in dirty laundry, and by no-one I do of course mean me. This would compromise the integrity of the BBC.

But the existence of a licence outside of the main taxation system means that there is a whole industry whose job is to seek out defaulters, travel the streets in little vans with high-tech detecting equipment on the top, giving out extraordinarily large fines for anyone found to be watching TV who is not on their database as having bought a licence. And there are adverts for this too, although more 'information' than advertising, showing luckless residents hiding in backstreets doing evil.

And this spin-off industry, we are told, is now in overdrive as the country grinds to a halt during World Cup matches. Companies who do not normally have television sets on the premises and who therefore have no licence, have incurred the wrath of the detector vans - like daleks or cylons these must have independent existence. They have installed TV sets so that their employes can watch the footie during working hours.

Now it seems to me that the main offence here isn't the watching of the football without a licence, but surely...isn't it....having your workforce stop work to watch? Isn't this what people are supposed to do in their own time?

We are always being told how many hours are lost to British industry due to backpain or period pain or flu or the common cold. Will we be seeing a bill for hours lost to World Cup watching? Ah probably not, I imagine it comes with a get out of gaol free card.

But still, before I pondered that I was going to suggest that maybe the whole TV licence thing had had its day. Perhaps the BBC should just be funded by general taxation, save all the money spent on chasing down little old ladies who have forgotten to renew. Auntie is a national treasure, she should be cherished, why Blue Peter alone is worth an extra penny on income tax, even if you never watch it. I'm joking, but it does seem that the TV licence is past its sell-by date. Many people nowadays pay for cable or satellite every month, and do so quite happily, I know I did, especially when the line rental for your telephone line was thrown in for free. But on top of that you still have to pay for a TV licence.

Perhaps the detector vans could be put to a new and improved use. Does anyone know if the dog licence still exists?

Eleven

"Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;
It is the centre hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes that make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there." Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching.

It is an interesting thought that the space or lack of matter makes a thing useful. When I re-read Eleven from the Tao Te Ching, it put me in mind of Celtic thought. Oh what a surprise, most things that provoke thought in me lead me at some point to Celtic thinking.

Lao Tsu opens with that visual of a spoked wheel, and the Celtic notion of time is not linear but circular. The wheel is most certainly time, perhaps reality, with the spokes the framework that holds our lives together, but the space in between and the hole at the centre of the hub the unfilled moments that we get to fill up, to define our own existence. The wheel keeps turning and it seems as though as the wheel turns it empties and we get more space to fill, ever able to correct our mistakes.... or repeat them. The space between seconds, the secret, private space that we fill with our deepest thoughts; the air between the raindrops - could we experience that emptiness by stopping time with our minds? The flick, flick, flick of the movie frames slowed down to almost nothing so that we can look at each frame seperately and wonder.

The empty vessel, isn't it this that makes most sound? Maybe, if we see ourselves as the empty vessels, rather than the time that is given to us. The new page to be filled, the new day to contemplate. The stretch of shore before us. That which we can fill with wine or water or a new concoction of herbs, fruits and spices. What is our life? What shall we fill that vessel with?

The windows and doors in a house make it livable, let in light, allow us to experience the world outside from the safety of our comfort zone. We can see out and the world can come in.

The moon waxes and wanes, the earth circles, albeit somewhat eliptically, the sun. And we humans act to make sense of our world, but inside our own heads the only reality we have plays out. Inside our heads we construct notions of other people, places, truth, belief. Do people resemble our perceptions of them? Are their perceptions of self the same as ours of them?

Does the cycle stop when we do ? Is the world simply a multi-dimensional creation of our imagining ?

If you fill a vessel with stones you can then fill the gaps in the stones with sand and then the air in the sand with water. The vessel can hold so much more than we realise.
And so can our minds.

"Breathe through the heats of our desire Thy coolness and Thy balm,
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire, speak through the earthquake, wind and fire,
Oh still, small voice of calm, oh still, small voice of calm." Dunno who wrote that, we used to sing it at school in assembly. It's a reminder to stop the world and just listen, to the small voice of calm, to the calm, to the space, to the emptiness.

123

...and, I'm back in the room. A long but uneventful flight, Got sei Dank, although the staff at Heathrow did seem to be being unusually anal about pre-boarding security. Way more third degree about leaving the country than I had coming back in.

The in-flight films at first glance seemed rather uninspiring, 'King Kong', 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'Rumour has it', a film with Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner, but as it turned out, I had never actually seen Sleepless and it was moderately enjoyable and the Jennifer Aniston one was a gem. I find her to be such an amazingly good actor, and this was a good vehicle for her to show her skills. Considering it was a) a romantic comedy and b) had Kevin Costner in it, honestly, it was a well made film with a lot going for it, not least of all two fabulous grandes dames Shirley MacLaine and Kathy Bates.

I was very relieved to get away from the current heatwave in Britain, arriving late afternoon in Vancouver it was pleasantly sunny without being uncomfortably hot.

Anyway, I've had a good night's sleep, thanks to the great god Nytol and I will be back in the saddle (and make of that what you will) later on today.

Prodigal

9am. Me - Laurence stayed out all night
Ben- I'll call him
Me - I already did, his phone goes straight to voicemail.

9.15 Me - Do you think my hair's looking very Princess Di today?
Alex-Don't get into any cars with foreign-looking men then
Both-So, no cabs.

9.30 Ben- That was the Hemel Hempstead police. They say Laurence is in custody, he'll
be back by the end of the day. They won't say what he's done because he's an adult.

10.00 Me - One day travelcard please.
BR guy - Ten pounds please
Voice in head - Chip and Pin is so cool

10.30 Bouncy lady - Oh!
Me - ?
BL - I thought Eurostar went in the other direction
Me - We're virtually at Waterloo, there's nowhere for it to go from there
BL - Just...I thought Paris was in that direction (points towards Scotland)
Me - Hmm.. Maidstone's that way (points towards Maidstone).

10.50 Voice in head - New Primal Scream album, nice....lot of transport police around today.....wonder how Lars is doing......
Announcer - The next station is 'Cherring Cross'
ViH - Hmmmm, they used to say 'Chairing cross' ...still, even the Queen's accent has changed.....damn, didn't mean to come up on the side of the....ooh, Dorothy Perkins, oh nice...I swear they're designing just for me this season....I wonder why that woman's head doesn't get hot with that scarf wrapped all the way around like that.....

11.20 Me - Would it be ok for me to take a picture inside the store?
Assistant - Er, why?
Me - Because I'd like to show my friend that his film has an actual slot in Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street.
Assistant - Sure, go ahead, here, let me move these....

11.40 T-Shirt guy - Looking for anything in particular?
Me - Thin Lizzy.
TSG - Tin Lizzy? What kind of music d'they play?
Me - er .... rock....quite an old band
TSG - Don't think we have them...
Me - Ah! Here, Thin Lizzy
TSG - Oh yes...ok...hmmm...of course....

12.00 Guy on Street - Can I tell you about Addadiction.org.uk?
Me - Are you trying to sell me something?
GoS - We're raising awareness
Me - OK
GoS - And money
Me - Ah, is there paperwork involved, only I'm not a UK resident.

12.15 Me - Large Cappucino please
Me - (Phone) Oh, hi, how come you're there?
X - Got the message about Laurence, came back from work
Me - So is he back yet?
X - Nope

13.18 Me - Hi, weren't you here two weeks ago?
Irene - yes, I can't believe I'm getting my immigration documents today, it's four years since I applied.
Me - wow, four years?! (wiping sweat continuously from brow beneath beating sun outside of Canadian High Commission).

14.05 Quebecois - Please take a seat and check that everything's there, then fill in the refund form and bring it back to me. And congratulations.
Me - Thank you.

14.20 ViH - Wish I'd seen that...and that...and that....jeez, could you GO any slower...ooh lovely, flower scented breeze...erk, the London Underground smells better than me.....

14.45 Me - Alex, I'm on the train, I should be back by half three. Is Lars back yet?
Alex - nope, no word.

17.00 X - (phone)So my son is still being questioned? Can I see him if I go there? Can you give me the duty solicitor's phone number? Will you be able to tell me when he is released?
X - Data Protection Act, can't get anything out of them because he's an adult, won't tell me what he's done, whether he's been charged, nothing.

17.30 X - That was the duty officer at Hemel Hempstead nick, they say we can go and get him.

19.00 Duty Officer - He was released half an hour ago. We told him you were coming to get him. I'm afraid I can't tell you whether he had anyone with him. No, our records show he had no money.

20.30 X - I don't know what else we can do, we've walked all round this town, we've been into the worst dives, no-one's seen him. He's not answering his phone. We can drive around for a bit but then we'll have to go back. At least the traffic won't be quite as horrendous now it's a bit later.

21.15 Laurence - (Phone) It's me mum, I'm home.

Laurence was in a car with another boy who had no driving licence and was too young to drive. Laurence knew this. We don't know the status of the car. The kid crashed into a traffic light and then took off. The police gave chase and the car was finally apprehended somewhere on the M25. Both were taken to Hemel Hempstead police station. Laurence had banged his head being hauled out of the car and had to be taken to the hospital but then spent the night in the cells. He was not charged. The other boy appears in court next week. The Data Protection Act effectively gagged the police on all counts and left us knowing nothing all day because our son refused to use his one phone call. He avoided us and was brought back to Woking by the parent of the underage driver.

Dawn til Dusk

If I manage to post today (Wednesday) it'll be a miracle. I haven't had internet access until gone 22.30 and then blogger was down.

I was up at 6.30 this morning, just like the old days, and standing outside Austen and Sue's house by 7.15. I was feeling all enthusiastic about the morning light and said to Austen that there is a special quality to the light at that time.
'Sure, if you want to put a positive spin on it,' he said. Yep, different story when you have to get up that early every day.

I had decided to go into school to see my former students in their last German lesson. Actually there was a bit of a misunderstanding because I thought it was their exam. I had loads of hugs. Very spontaneous, just wonderful to be welcomed so warmly by so many pupils and ex-colleagues. I have to admit that one of my favourites was from Josh (he of the pink bewigged Archangel Gabriel) who ran up to me and flung his arms round me,
'Have you been keeping up with Desperate Housewives?' he asked. I love that kid.

It was great to see my German girls again, and be able to wish them well in their exam tomorrow. We sprinkled imaginary pixie dust for good luck. It'll work. I saw Lorin, which made me feel guilty as all hell about being so paranoid about collecting my passport tomorrow. Lorin is still in the position of being allowed to stay in the country for two years and then not knowing whether her family will be sent back or not. She didn't have a passport when she arrived and certainly can't expect a British one anytime soon. She just kept hugging me and saying 'I've missed you so much.'

The head of ICT made me go into his room to show me proudly that he still had the Canadian flag I'd given him up in the room.

Gerry, British eccentric extraordinaire, was wearing a tie with a clock on it and living his life backwards or something. Each day until his retirement represented a year in teaching. He explained all this to me in '1973' and then I saw him later and he looked at his watch and he said it was just coming up to Christmas 1974.

I walked back to Austen and Sue's, a goodly trot of about three and a half miles. At one point I was following a young woman in a motorised wheelchair with two England flags on the back. Now THAT was cool. Nice one.

Alex and I went to get Fish and Chips for Sue, Holly and the two of us. There seemed to be some kind of freak mushy pea crisis in the chippie but eventually the lad serving got out a new catering can of...the exact same peas you buy in the supermarket. In fact, the ones that say 'chip shop mushy peas' on them.

Sue had received a card from my friend Julian. On the front was a cartoon of the scene from Dicken's 'oliver Twist' where the boy asks for more and the person giving out the food says, 'More!'. On this card though, the food server is saying, 'More coriander!' and underneath the caption reads, 'Jamie Oliver Twist'.

It was hard, very hard, saying goodbye to Austen, Sue, Holly and Eddie. Alex and I snook out while Holly was having her nap. My eyes were leaking somewhat.

Arriving in Surrey, I was a bit put out to discover there was an internet crisis which had been going on for two days without anyone phoning the isp. I phoned the isp. They claimed not to be able to fix it without sending an 'engineer' round, and that couldn't happen until Saturday morning. Strangely, everyone I spoke to had an Indian accent. Used to be they all had Welsh accents. I wandered around the house trying to find an open network, when suddenly, the one here came back on. Astonishing.

Anyway, I'm pleased to be able to get something online. It has been a long, full emotional day, as will tomorrow be.
I apologise for not answering individual e-mails and comments or phoning people or for taking your phone recharger. I'm knackered and I'll try and sort some of it tomorrow.

666

Even the media have run out of news. Tony's been on holiday in Italy, but he's back holding the reins again. There was a breaking news item earlier today that a presenter on the children's programme 'Blue Peter' was leaving. Such a legend was he that I'd never heard of him.

There was of course the important news that footballer Wayne Rooney is taking part in training. Good, good, keep it up boy. And the rest seems similar, Tony backs police, yup, way to go, Iran having a happy five minutes, excellent, Iraq releasing some prisoners, but not the ones that have actually been involved in any illegal activities, good show.

I read a blog as a link from a newsblog that suggested that the 17 terrorist suspects captured in Ontario were victims of an RCMP sting - which kind of suggests they had run out of things to do, were it not an exceedingly ridiculous claim in the first place.

The only really good story of the day is that of two women who married in Canada and who are trying to gain recognition in the British family courts for that marriage. And BLOODY good for them. I agree with everything they say and it is just mind-numbingly stupid to be discriminating against people in law on the basis of sexuality. I can't even begin to get my head round it. I have so many friends who are gay and what the fuck is the difference between any of them or me? Nothing, absolutely nothing that is of any consequence. It's almost like being in the days when Emmeline Pankhurst was fighting for the simple right of half the population to vote. But at least these two women are up for the fight and good on them.

Still, ya know, what with the date and all I was kind of expecting something creepy to happen, somewhere. Something other than a re-release of the Omen.

Grey cloud

A sunny day in Pompey, but some unpleasant news from the school I used to teach at. One of the kids I used to teach and who is in Austen's form, had an accident during the half term and is now in a coma that has been induced by the hospital. The kid is a bit of a bad lad, bright but naughty. He was on the roof of a local primary school and fell through the skylight.

When these things happen at school it always appals, you'd think you'd raise your eyebrows and tut something about how they were asking for it, but the truth is, you don't want bad things to happen to them you just want them to behave properly and not ruin everyone else's education.

Last year, a lad who had been excluded from the school had a fatal accident misusing a forklift truck. He had been a nightmare at school but he had a lot of friends and the whole thing was a huge shock for everyone.

So, it seems that tomorrow is 06/06/06, or put another way, 6/6/6. This works both in American notation and the rest of the world notation, a numeric palindrome. One of Sue and Austen's friends has a strong chance of giving birth tomorrow, bets are on as to whether they will call the child Damian. I'm guessing not.

I'm surprised that the England football team didn't time their arrival in Germany to coincide with 666. Much to the irritation of some of the locals, they arrived today. If you look at the article you'll notice that they've trained David Beckham to wave. Hopefully he won't speak on TV, because then, even if England win, we will be humiliated as a nation. As though it weren't bad enough that in the world of football, 'England' and 'Germany' have become adjectives, why I even used it as such myself.

Football, the lowest common denominator. Which reminds me, early reports of today's maths paper were that it 'wasn't too bad'. Time will give the lie or truth to that.

Swallows and Amazons

If you could go to Sainsburys online and order a perfect evening, this evening would have been it.
The day had been warm and sunny again, I sat out on the lawn with my son Laurence, watching the swallows wheeling around the sky. Well, I was watching the swallows, he was asking me awkward questions about people's sex lives in the style of Ali-G.

By evening there was just the right amount of cloud cover to make you feel as though you were snuggled in one huge duvet, warm and cosy. I cooked dinner for Laurence and Ben and we ate out on the patio. At some point there were a few sprinkles of rain but not enough to make us run inside, in fact it made it more perfect.

Laurence adjourned to the pub before pudding, so Ben and I ate that alone before he had to return to his last minute cramming, GCSEs start in earnest tomorrow morning, teenagers across the country will be grappling with mind-numbing maths.

Another warmth is surprisingly the build up to the World Cup. Wherever you look now, there are little strings of flags - across shop fronts, across the street and of course, on people's cars. Before I left Surrey I noticed a white van which had a red cross painted on its bonnet as well as little flags flying like the feathers in Asterix's helmet from the sides of it. No, not that helmet, good grief, this is a family blog. Oh, ok, well it's mine, so it's family when I feel like it, but I wouldn't be that rude, even after an afternoon with Lars.

And Amazons? Well, Simmi sent me this link a couple of days ago, and it just seemed so right to me. You can't have Batwoman having a weakness, as men can be. I see Batwoman as a more Shane from the L-Word type of lesbian, doing her own thing the way she wants, although their description seems to suggest more of a Bette from the L-Word type of character. However, it sits well. Good on ya DC Comics. I hope she bloody well flies in and kicks George W. where it hurts, although where there's no sense there's no feeling, I am just too horrified by his proposed constitutional ammendment about gay marriage to even start on that one, so I won't, I'll leave that for now.

All too much for an Amazon to swallow really. No not that kind of swallow, gaagh, I already told you, this is a ....oh well, never mind, time for bed said Zebedee.

Skies

Weird. Kevin is crossing the Atlantic right now - without me. Nothing unusual about that, a common occurrence over the years, but now that I live there it seems strange, like I am abandoned here in this beloved land.

The skies are still blue, the day has been hot, the lobster classes have all been out there frying their delicate flesh in the radiant heat. Those who prefer their children and their own skins to last longer cover up with hats and sunscreen and layers of cotton.

England's football team have amused themselves on the pitch by beating Jamaica 6-nil in a friendly match and Ben's assorted crew have all been round watching the match, loudly.

Yesterday evening, Austen and Sue created a going away feast for us, everything wonderful that we both love to eat was on the menu in course after course accompanied by Champagne and Cava and finally the ice wine we brought with us. So strange that I'm still here after the going away feast, but I do have one or two things still to do.

An astonishing text from my sister told me that her husband is coming home, as though he'd been away at sea. She said it's what she wants, and so I'm pleased for her, but the children are not at all happy. I'm pleased for all of us really, he was part of the family and it was odd to think that we'd never see him again, but that too will be strange, for just a while. I hope my niece and nephew can find a way to take him back too.

Gardens

British gardens and Canadian gardens are both beautiful, but both different. I'd hypothesise that it is because we have older houses in Britain and thus older gardens, and that is most certainly true, but even our newer gardens are different. Another obvious difference is the plants, some the same, many different.

A garden is nonetheless a thing to be desired. Old, new, perfectly laid out, overgrown, it is your private space where you can lie on your back and look up at the sky. Where your tortoise can hide whilst you set off your fireworks. Where you can read your book in the summer and go and sulk in the winter. There's nothing like looking out on your garden with a sprinkling of snow in the winter and there's nothing like being surrounded by greenery and soft scents in the summer.

Today was a garden day. The sky was an absolute azure as I lay on my back in Austen and Sue's garden. A bird in one of the trees picked through some of its old fluffy feathers, wriggled itself into a more comfortable position and ignored me.

Tomorrow Kevin goes back without me. I should have been going back, but have to stay another week, *fingers crossed*.

Short, but sweet, like Okanagan ice wine.

Liquorice

You might say that we've already done the Finns. There was the whole Conan O'Brien visit as a result of his looking just like the President of Finland and his alleged winning of the election for her. Dontcha just love gerunds, I might get a subjunctive in before the end too.

Then there's Nokia. Well, I haven't actually posted anything about Nokia, but I'm pretty sure they're a Finnish success story. So, when you play that drunken game where someone asks you what the Swiss have ever given the world and you can't struggle past Carl Jung, William Tell, chocolate and cuckoo clocks only you do it for the Finns, I've got a third one for the pot.

This afternoon I was loitering with intent outside my dentist's, not really, just that the office is in the precinct, and I came across a new shop called Julian Graves. Now had you asked me I'd have said that Julian Graves was a writer, named three titles of books he'd written and the year in which he was nominated for the Booker prize. However I'd have been blagging.
In Palmerston precinct, Julian Graves is a health food shop. Something drew me in. Oh yes, I know what it was, the Chinese walnuts I had bought in Waitrose were not up to snuff, and certainly not as good as the Californian ones we get in BC. I found liquorice, very good liquorice, the BEST liquorice.

Back in the mists of time, you could get Black Jacks for a penny, or maybe it was 4 for a penny. They were sweet and gummed your jaws together and tasted of liquorish. Then there were the liquorish laces, red and black, also a penny I think. And in the sherbet fountains you got a good strong straw of liquorice that you could dip or suck the sherbet through until it became silted up.
My dad loved Pontefract cakes, little round coins of liquorice, less sweet than we kids were used to, but yummy, and the better because they were daddy's.

The Finnish liquorice I found this afternoon has no added sugar, it has a lovely flavour and texture. Panda brand, not you might think a native bear of Finland, but hey, who knows, who knew that their President would look the spit of Conan O'Brien? Thanks Finns, mighty fine confectionary.

On a completely unrelated note, and yet as rare as Pandas in Finland, Austen reported that he had found a Coldpay track that had a tune and was quite good. We listened. I think you need a lot of good will to find tune or value in it, but I admire that he keeps trying to find something, anything they have done that isn't as bland as ... well, frankly, Coldplay.

And finally, I totally agree that both modern private dentistry and veterinary surgery are licences to print money, but get this one. One of Sue's cousins makes her living practising acupuncture on animals and babies. I can't really get my head round this. I can imagine desperate parents trying any thing in a last ditch attempt to cure a sick child, but what in the name of St. Julian of Clary is the excuse for sticking needles into your pooch or hamster? I guess it's God's way of telling you you have too much money and not enough sense.

I'd never wish I were in that situation but should it happen, I'd most likely feed my ailing pet some Panda brand liquorice and avoid Coldplay, and the main reason I'd do that is.... I just HAD to get my subjunctive in - not an easy thing in the English language.

Wine, dentists, tower

Sounds like the 'tennis, elbow, foot' game doesn't it, where you have to ping-pong a linked word back from the previous one.

The picture of the Spinnaker tower is slightly fuzzy I know, but it was the best one we took from the Gosport ferry whose engines were just not going to allow a still night time picture. Oh well.
I've mentioned both the Spinnaker tower and the Gosport ferry before, I know, but the tower is now fully operational, well, almost fully, apparently the outside lift doesn't work. That and the fact that it costs 3 pound 50 for a Stella were bits of info we gleaned from the cabbie, some bits of info can only be got from cabbies, google doesn't know everything.
As we watched, the tower changed from blue to green to pink to orange to red. Fabulous, and when we were in our hovel room in Bayswater, oops, hotel room, we found a leaflet for it.

We were returning from a visit to our friends' Karen and Steve. We had been discussing dentists because, well, basically because we're British and it is a topic that occupies many Brits. You may remember I had to visit my own dentist, the softly spoken Gabriel in January. For the exact same reason, Karen had to visit her own this afternoon. Both of us had had a crown come adrift, although Karen's was a temporary one, mine was the permanent Monty and had come out whilst I had been eating a turtle. In Britain we are being trained, weaned maybe, away from the National Health dentistry service and towards private practice. But this is a tough weaning. How do we find a private dentist, what questions do we ask? Karen tells me that only now that there are so few NHS dentists left, is there going to be an ombudsman for private dentists. We Brits do like our Ombudsmen, we like to know there's somewhere we can complain, somewhere to stamp our feet and that if enough of us do it, something will change.

We had some very good South African wine at Karen and Steve's. For years my son Austen has laboured to get me to drink wine other than just French and his toils have been rewarded, I do indeed now drink wines from many parts of the world. We got on to discussing wine boxes and how the French have trained us to the wine box. Steve said he remembered having good wine from wine boxes in Australia in the early 80's, when the rest of the world was not quite as familiar with Aussie wine as we are now. Kevin felt that Canadians were having a hard time accepting the wine box.

Wine, dentists, the tower, how I repeat myself with all my Brit obsessions, all this and I was able to hang washing out today, bliss, ah bliss.

Big Brother

I don't get this, I've never got this - yeah, I know that doesn't quite work in a grammar sense. Alex's boyfriend Matt's cousin Grace is in it. She's a minger. Alex tells me that she's the second prettiest one in the house, but well, she IS a minger. To me this is a completely incomprehensible phenomenon. How typical of British people to watch people in their houses via some kind of webcam(s). Alex knows the names of these people, they are real people and yet they're not. They are a parody of real people, doing things that parody what real people do. There's a Canadian who appears to be wearing a Thunderbirds outfit, Alex refers to him as the Canadian sexual terrorist. He doesn't sound Canadian though and he knows English words that Canadians have to ask the meaning of. Kevin asked me only the other day what a 'pinny' was and this guy just used the word.
There are rules to the show, strange, made up rules, I suppose that the rules of life are strange and made up. I just DON'T GET IT.

Meanwhile, in other news, Vodafone, the phone company that I myself use, have lost a record 14.9 billion pounds this year. That's American billions, know to the French and Germans as 'milliards', also in old English as the same. How the hell is that possible ? Well it seems by not pursuing their elected task of supplying mobile phones and mobile phone paraphernalia, but by less successful diversification. It's all so scary. Despite losing an unbelievable amount of money, the company have done well this year. Eventually there won't be countries, just ubercompanies, like in sci-fi. 14.9 billion pounds would be irrelevant to a country, and it doesn't seem to mean too much to Vodafone. Four hundred jobs will be lost. Probably just housekeeping.

The other big news today is of course the EU deciding that it doesn't have to comply with the US demand for information on passengers travelling to their country. An interesting one this. Frankly, it seems to be a meaningless decision and a waste of the European taxpayers' money. The bottom line as I read it is two-fold. Some new guidelines are going to have to be agreed between the EU and the US about protection of passengers' information, on the other hand, it matters not a whit, since the US simply won't allow people into their country until they have provided whatever info they require. That's basically part of having sovereignty. I can see this turning into another lumber dispute fiasco, marginally more absorbing than Big Brother, which in its turn is marginally more absorbing than watching grass grow. Actually, scratch that, watching grass grow can be quite meditative.

Bank Holiday

Ahhhh...the great British Bank Holiday when Brits all go en masse to the shopping centres and DIY stores. Well, not all, because Scotland are more in line with Canada and had a day off for Queen Victoria's birthday last week.

We didn't go to a DIY shop but .... we had a little plumbing accident this morning. The hot water pipes sprung a leak and Austen had to call in a plumber, yep, at Bank Holiday rates. In fairness, the man did ask if we could wait until tomorrow when it would be cheaper, but no, Austen was adamant that we needed to use water in the house today. It could certainly have been worse, it could have happened yesterday when we were getting ready for the Christening, or worse still, when Sue was here on her own with the kids.

By the time the plumber arrived, Kevin had at least discovered the problem, so time was saved on diagnosis.

There is a waterfront development not far from here called Gunwharf Quays and we decided to go and look around the shops there, as did everyone else in the South East of England. The place was heaving. We were welcomed by heavy, tribal drumbeat, a group of dancers were proceeding along the waterfront, sounded more interesting than it turned out to be.

Gunwharf, even more than anywhere else in the city, is a meeting of the different elements in Pompey. There are the chavs, oh my goodness yes, but there are also the hoorays, most evident in Ralph Lauren. Now, the two fragrances I use are Ralph Lauren, but their clothing does not please me. In other clothes shops, the stock seems to change frequently, in Ralph Lauren, I swear the things they sell are the same year in, year out. Bit like their clientele.

In the central square some sea cadets were performing a hornpipe, not sure why, but it seems that some yacht race was leaving Portsmouth around now.

Although I have whined about restaurant and bar service in BC being too intrusive, I generally find shop staff to be polite there. In Boots in Gunwharf, one cashier was standing at the till moaning about the shop,
'I hate it here, I've had enough of bloody Boots, I don't want to be here...' yep, got that love.

We moseyed back, and needed to buy a few items at one of the small supermarkets. Co-op didn't have any Camembert, so I volunteered to go back to Tesco. There was a long, winding queue to pay. After my self-inflicted embarrassment of the previous day, I was interested in the loud soliloquy of one young woman in the line. It went on in a continuous stream with no break for breath.
'AND, she's got this bloke and he come down wiv this car, no MOT, no licence, they goes off to Wales, never told no-one, me, I'm loik am I bovvered? But she proper stitched moi uncle up, but yeah, she wuz well aht of awduh, got one contrac phone, never paid the bills, but she loik, was livin at my uncle's 'owse so then, right, she gets anover and loik, she never paid the bill neiver and then loik, the bailiffs was rahnd and they was loik, taking the telly and chairs an stuff unless moi uncle can come up wiv seven hundrid pahnds an 'e sez, oi ain't got that kinda money, anyway, the next thing...'
Damn, seemd like the queue moved too quickly, it was like a live soap opera. You can't make that stuff up. Oh hang on, yes, they do, and they get paid big bucks for it. That woman, I guess that was her life, lived large and shouted for all the world to hear in Tesco.

Ringtones.

Yup, silly me. I took son number two's phone because I was getting fed up with his horrid ringtones, put it in my bag, told him it was safe in my bag and I'd give it back later.
Then I forgot and went to the Co-op and I'm looking at the tomatoes when my bag suddenly starts screaming at me in an East End accent,
'Oi! Soppy Bollocks! Answer your fucking phone! I'm in your pocket, ring, ring, ring, oi! I said I'm in your fucking pocket !'
Supermarket floor refused point blank to open up and swallow me, I tried to wrap my entire body round my bag, because of COURSE I couldn't actually find the bloody thing. It finally stopped.
Thirty seconds later, South Park's Cartman starts yelling at me. I tried to look unpeturbed, but, I was peturbed.

I have a new flight back to Canada booked, Friday the 9th of June, cost me big bucks, and is all completely dependent on getting my passport back the previous day.

Today, the weather smiled at us for Edward's Christening. The service went well, Father Lewis gives a good sermon, interspersed with witticisms, and there is much incense and bell-ringing that goes on throughout the service. Austen and Sue's church is Anglo-Catholic, so much of it is familiar to me, but not all. It's a lovely church building though, hidden from the main road, heck, hidden even from the side road.

Over the past two days, I have spent a lot of time with my sister, but I haven't had a chance to talk to her. I got a chance to have a long conversation with my friend Julian on Saturday evening, but the price of that was that he had to stand in the kitchen with me and do a ton of drying up.
I can see us only managing to do a fraction of what we had intended while over here.

Cool stuff

A cool day in Portsmouth, cool in many senses, but not wet enough. It seems that this part of the country hasn't had enough rain, there are water restrictions in parts of Surrey and Sussex and Gatwick airport cannot be cleaned properly.

Yesterday we bought food. We bought more food. In the afternoon I went round the corner to the co-op (supermarket) to buy wine. As I stepped out of Austen and Sue's little street I ran into someone I used to work with. Hugs, kisses, swapping of news. Proceeded to the shop. A man rushed up and tried to sell me BT services.
'Ah, I live in Vancouver, Canada,' I said, and usually this is enough, but in this case not.
'Oh, I used to live in Kitsilano,' he said, 'paid $350 a month rent...' and thus it went on for a goodly twenty minutes whilst potential customers came, passed by and escaped.
When I stepped outside the shop I was immediately starstruck. To many people David Wells would fly below the radar, but to me, star that he is of one of my very favourite TV shows, 'Most Haunted', I did just gaze.

Co-incidences over, we went to Simmi and Eilie's for the evening. There were many old friends, some new ones, always the way at their house. We had the most fantastic evening. The picture above is of our friend Chris, who has been nominated for a teaching award and he deserves it too.

A bloke who Chris works with was telling us about his time in Toronto, and so the conversation, or our bit of it, wandered to North America in general, then Simmi remembered a Christmas in Portsmouth when the Canadian fleet was in port. Yes, both Kevin and I asked whether it was the whole ship. The good people of Portsmouth were asked if they would 'adopt' a Canadian sailor over the Christmas period and Simmi's family were only too pleased to do so. The able seaman, or whatever the Canadian equivalent is, brought presents for the family and he turned up every day over the season to spend time with them. To me, that was just a very Pompey thing to happen.

We left at around two, by which time Kevin was a bit the worse for wear, but like the true Canadian that he is, he was up in time to go to the butcher's with Austen and the kids this morning.

Today, Holly is wearing full West Ham football strip with her surname printed across the back. Yep, it's all about the football here right now - like it ever isn't. In Debenhams there were babygros with 'Come on England' on them, edible tanga briefs and posing pouches, oh and also bras with the English flag picked out in sweeties. Retailers are going to bloody well make their money before England is out.

Still...who knew that last year they'd win the ashes, and although the country is never prepared for the unusual weather conditions associated with autumn, winter and summer, I have absolutely no doubt that there are retail contingency plans for an English win. I hope the health service is prepared too.

Happy Birthday Alex

The next couple of days are going to be spent catering. It is my daughter Alex's birthday today, although this is a four day event. She is back with boyfriend Matt, from whom she split just before my previous visit, and they went up to London to stay last night. Today her friends go up to meet her and go to the restaurant they always go to near where Austen and Sue used to live in Stratford, East London. Tomorrow they are all coming here - Kevin is preparing food for that and Alex's godfather whom I haven't seen for several years now will be arriving, then Sunday we have a swap, friends back to Surrey, boyfriend back to Pompey, and brothers arriving at some point. This is really Edward's day, since it is his Christening, but also an extension of the birthday...er....season. In amongst all that we get some r & r since we are going to Simmi and Eilie's tonight.

So, the next few days will contain lots of friends and family that I haven't seen - at best since last visit, at worst, for some time, so I'm pretty excited about all of that and not giving a single moment's thought to the Canadian High Commission holding my passport ransom. Not one, nothing, haven't thought about it at all. Wonder how Macca's doing....must buy chick peas....wonder how the German exam went...not...thinking...about...passport...at....all.....

Tubes

Haven't had an opportunity to post for a couple of days. When we were at
the hotel in Edinburgh we found a free hot spot in the lobby, so if I
prepared the blog in advance, I could post it quickly. The hotel in
Bayswater was pretty downmarket in comparison to what we had in
Scotland, and cost way more and the internet access available there
seemed like a scam.

I had forgotten that when we were at the Glenkinchie distillery there was a lovely woman in the shop who was very enthusiastic about Canada and was going to be travelling there in ten days time. 'I just love Canada,' she said wistfully, 'I feel like I'm going back in time.' Erk. Well, she was going to Prince Edward Island, but worryingly she had been to Toronto last time.

The flight from Edinburgh to Heathrow was again delayed due to 'air
traffic restrictions', seemed like they didn't like the weather and
certainly take-off and landing were pretty turbulent. On the flight we
could have bought a single ticket for the 'Heathrow Express' for 14.25,
a saving of 25 pence on the regular price. I have no idea whether this
was a bus or a train, but the Picadilly line of the tube ends at
Heathrow, so we just bought a one day travel card for 6.50 each. We had
hoped to go to the London Dungeon, but they closed at 18.00, so we
scoped out the Canadian High Commission instead.

We had confused the hotel receptionist by asking if she had an A-Z. To my mind, asking this question of anyone who works anywhere in London is like asking someone
if they have a dictionary, but oh well, eventually with assistance from
the manager one appeared from underneath the desk and we worked out that the
the High Commission was in a street off New Bond street and parallel to
Oxford Street. We didn't even have to work out the street numbering, it
was just the one with the Canadian flag. A quick aside, the English flag
isn't displayed very much in England except in times of high football
activity, er, kinda like now. The Canadian flag flies everywhere in
Canada.

It had started to rain hard. I am not a good companion in the rain,
because I am fairly oblivious to it, Kevin not so much, he was feeling
decidely squelchy. We had been tramping around for some time trying to
find a particular pub I took him to the first time he was over. For the
life of me I couldn't find it, so when I then said I would find an
Italian restaurant I'd been to before and where the food was good, I can
see why he might have felt a little anxious that I was never going to
agree to us getting out of the rain, but luck was on our side and there
was still, as before, some poor bloke standing on the corner of the
street where it was located, with a sign pointing the way.

Coming back on the tube there were three lads wearing T-shirts with a Circle line map printed on them, but slightly re-arranged so that it looked like a beer bottle. They were doing a circle line pub crawl, well-bevvied and amenable. There was something about students pleasantly drunk and on a tube pub crawl that felt very comforting and home-like.

This morning, I had an experience I never, ever want to repeat. There
was a tiny lift that took us up and down to and from our room. When we
went down for breakfast, two more people got in on the floor below us,
then a small fat man insisted on getting in on the second or first
floor. The lift was a two person lift. When we got to the ground floor
the doors wouldn't open. OK, so two person lift, five people in it. Not
going anywhere, doors wouldn't open. Ho-ly shit. This is what the word
clammy was invented for. I could feel myself go completely cold and I
started sweating, immediate panic. And I must have been in that position
for all of 30 seconds before one of the other women said, 'Oh, I think
it's still moving.' It was. It stopped in the basement, presumably its
default when overloaded. It took me two hours top stop shaking
completely.

The newspapers, tabloids and the Daily Mail are all obsessed with the McCartney break-up. It seems to be on the front of everything all the time at the moment, speculation about how much Heather Mills will get. There seems to have been a landmark ruling about divorce recently but I just can't be arsed to find out what it's about, although reading the headline on someone else's newspaper it seemed to have something to do with compensating women for loss in their careers when they spend time looking after children, which seems fine and dandy to me, but like I said, I should probably read something in more detail.

We spent the morning shopping in Oxford Street, poor Kevin was made to
walk around Marks and Sparks in its entirety. Then we made our way back
to the Canadian High Commission. We were the second ones in line, but
the first people were really nice and we passed the time talking to
them. I think of this as very British. Accompanying relatives weren't
allowed in, but Kevin was given permission because he is Canadian. Guess
that would have been stupid otherwise, a Canadian not allowed into the
Canadian High Commission. So now, the Canadian High Commission have my
passport and I can't go anywhere. Believe it or not, after this
morning's little escapade, I don't feel trapped. (That may change when
Kevin goes back to Canada without me).

More creepiness

How I envy Gail who is getting to spend her holiday in Scotland this
summer. When we went to the Glenkinchie distillery this morning, we had
to drive out of Edinburgh, and how breathtakingly beautiful the
countryside is here. The tour of the distillery was excellent. We learned even more
about the process of whisky making, building on last year's tour of the
Midleton distillery in Ireland, but it made us want to go out and travel
around Scotland.

This afternoon we went up to the castle, although we
didn't do a tour because we didn't really have enough time, but the
castle is equally breathtaking, it looks as though it is hewn into a
cliff of rock, just amazing. We went to the whisky heritage centre next
to the castle. Personally I felt that once you had made it up the steep
hill to the castle, a lone piper should have been waiting and
distributing a wee dram to every hardy tourist. God bless that piper.

Then back down into the city centre, to the Mercat cross, the 'Heart of
Edinburgh' for another tour of the vaults. This time it was just the
vaults for an hour. There are high electro-magnetic fields in the
Edinburgh Vaults under the South Bridge, and there has been a lot of
research done down there by actual scientists to show this, the big
question is, what causes it? I felt cold and as though the gravity were
heavier in there and slightly nauseous. I have felt this way in old
churches before, but then churches in Britain can very often be seen to
be built along ley lines, so again, difficult to say whether the
electro-magnetic fields are some natural phenemonon or whether they
build up as a result of human history or residual energies. It is a very
compulsive place and I would love to spend a night in there.

The small bit of Scotland that we have seen has been just so impressive.
We have been treated exceptionally well. The food has been great and
cheaper than in the south. The place feels cared for, old and looked
after. There is a real committment to green issues up here, even more I
feel than in the sunny south. There are 91 million casks of whisky
in Scotland, you can even live in one if you like. And two percent of
all whisky distilled is 'for the angels', so I'm guessing Scotland is
well watched over.