Despatches from Caledonia

A Year of Spiky Introspection

2011-12-31T14:50:00.000Z

Having come off Fluoxetine which was keeping me functional, if subdued, in mid-2010, after five years, 2011 has been a vivid year of intense highs and lows.
I am bitterly disillusioned with my job, which fails to engage me on any level. I actively dislike an improbably large number of the people with whom it brings me into contact. I’m in the wrong profession for my sensibilities and it is far too late to do anything about it.
My political awakening has accelerated. I joined the committee of the Edinburgh branch of my party, and worked on the campaigns for the Scottish Parliament election in May and the City Centre council by-election in August. Much of politics seems to involve running just to stand still, but I am fascinated to continue discovering what I believe in and what I think is worth fighting for. I remain inspired by the Green activists I work alongside.
Helen and I moved house in August, to a detached bungalow a mile further from the city centre than before. It better suits our needs, but I miss the community we left, and sense it won’t feel like home for a while. I took the opportunity to divest myself of a significant number of possessions, and am continuing to thin out my belongings. I feel lighter and more agile as a result.
Shortly before we moved, our cat Poppy died from renal failure. I cried every day for six weeks afterwards. The new house feels very empty and quiet at times.
Having started the year with an injured Achilles’ tendon, I followed a prescribed path of rehabilitation, and by the end of the year had run the Liverpool and Edinburgh half marathons, and the Edinburgh and Liverpool marathons. I’ve now run five full marathons, having never before run two in the same year. I ran Liverpool faster than I’ve ever run a marathon before, after a demanding training regime, which saw me out of bed before six, six mornings a week. There were a few more tears as I crossed the line.
I'm quite proud of my running, and also quite proud of my progress as a self-taught pianist. This year I passed my Grade Two and Three exams, and even bought a piano for our new home.
2011 was my seventh year without alcohol. Watching others dispassionately, I am ever more surprised at the damage it wreaks on individuals and groups.
Abuse of alcohol is one of the reasons I made 2011 the last year that I would go to watch tribute bands performing my favourite music. Contempt for the occasion from audiences mean that celebration has turned to desecration. Enough.
I still follow live music, though, and was lucky enough to be in the audience for Roger Waters’ performance of “The Wall” this year when he was joined by David Gilmour and Nick Mason, reuniting all the surviving members of Pink Floyd.
Like Pink himself, I am subject to funny turns, and without Fluoxetine, I had felt my underlying depression start to reassert itself, and have been referred for very helpful psychiatric counselling, which I continue to follow. I’ve also dipped a toe into meditation, thanks to the Edinburgh Sri Chinmoy Centre.
If there’s a theme to 2011, it’s been introspection. I’ve looked inward and audited my own assets. I feel less reliant than before on external possessions and approval.

Awakened

2011-07-31T00:52:00.002Z

I can't sleep. This is annoying because I've been physically toiling all day, and have to be up at a healthy time tomorrow to run fourteen miles before breakfast. I can't sleep because my mind is a turmoil of anxieties, provoked, but not necessarily related to the fact that we're moving house in a day.

I really didn't want to move, not because this house is perfect, but because it's been fewer than eight years since we moved in, and we have no specific reason to move on. I've never electively moved before. Neither of us has undergone a change in circumstances, but we're still moving. I've taken a fortnight off work, cashed in my investments and given up my life savings to make this possible.

It's costing me a lot, so I have attempted to list the tangible benefits to me.

Happy spouse (she gets French windows, a patio, and off-road parking)
Faster, optical, broadband
Bathroom on same floor as bedroom, thus dispensing with mid-night climbs
A garage in which to keep my bicycle, as opposed to cluttering the hallway
An ergonomic kitchen diner
The move has prompted the purchase of a super-king size bed with allegedly intelligent mattress which may assist with uninterrupted sleep
On the rare occasions I drive (usually collecting spouse from evening engagements, or somewhat ironically, when delivering election materials for the Green Party) the off-road parking will, I suppose make this less unpleasant
Life in a bungalow will entail far less shouting from floor to floor
Detached living will grant privacy to epic arguments and piano practice alike
I have significantly edited my possessions

It's the final point that I'm actually happiest about. I've at last had a perfect opportunity to practice the minimalist leanings I've been developing. Getting rid of clutter, and possessions that I served rather than vice versa has felt like defrosting a freezer. Great parasitic chunks have been cleaved off letting circulation and efficiency build. I'm being ruthless and it feels fantastic.

It doesn't matter what I paid for something, how long I've had it, or what it meant to me in the past. The important criterion is whether I need it now. Here are some of the highlights.

Three terrestrial VCRs
Every VHS cassette in the house
Every vinyl LP we owned, including some signed to me
The turntable I had stored in the loft because one day I was going to digitise the LPs I couldn't find on CD
Music and TV cuttings dating from 1978
Magazine back issues
Superseded computer equipment, routers, and broadband modems
Textbooks
Magazines, including those with articles in which I wrote

When we move in, I'm going to carry on. I want my home to be a living, changing place, not a stagnant library, so I'm going to give away hundreds of books. Then, when I've made certain they're all safely ripped to multiple hard drives, I'm going to give away hundreds of CDs as well. Nothing, nothing, is going to be put up in the loft for the rainy day I might need it. That day never comes.

If only I could declutter my mind of lingering old anxieties just as ruthlessly and rewardingly, then I might be able to sleep.

My Playground of Yesterday

2010-11-22T08:20:00.001Z

I've just spent the weekend visiting my Mum in Liverpool. She still lives in the house in which I grew up, surrounded by much of the furniture, decorations, and books that were there in the nineteen-seventies. Normally when I see her, it's a flying visit, one of many over the course of seeing my small family and Helen's large family in the North West of England, but this time I was unaccompanied and there for two days.
We don't run out of things to say to one another, although there are contemplative silences when we talk. There's no background of music, radio, or worse, television, so the silence this weekend was only broken by our thoughtful exchanges, and my return to my mother's piano.
It still stands against the rear wall of the front room, as it has throughout my life. When I was ten, this was where I would labour with grudging piano practice, waiting for it to be time to watch Doctor Who. In my teens, it was where I would experiment with polyphony and songwriting, my budget synthesizer having fallen short in both regards.
But this year, I returned to the piano able to play four short pieces and a multitude of scales and exercises, having, 33 years after my last lesson, finally sat my first Associated Boards exam. It's a hundred years old, my mother having acquired it second hand as a girl in Belfast. What must her memories of it be like?
My sister called round on Sunday bringing her three daughters, all of whom she has produced in the last seven years. They're delightful, but very lively. The effect on my nerves was such that after they'd gone, I announced to my mum that I was going out for a late-afternoon stroll. I left the house and headed down towards the Mersey, walking the route for the first time in at least two decades. I was soon overcome by a sense of geographical nostalgia, reacquainting myself with pavements, verges, and buildings that I had forgotten I had forgotten. I started trying to remember what I would see before rounding each turn, to see whether it would tally, but it was hard. I grew resentful of new buildings, more so when I could not recall what had been there before.
As I reached the river promenade, I turned south briefly, past the scene of an epic childhood bicycle accident, and towards the church around which much of my pre-teen youth activity revolved. The scout hut where I spent three eager years as a cub was still there, along with the adjoining church hall I had nearly forgotten.
These places are the landscape of my dreams, topographies I have visited nocturnally for years without really associating them with their real counterparts. As the late afternoon gave way to dusk, the experience acquired a wistful tristesse, and I felt compelled to walk on to my first two schools. Both Infants and Juniors still stood, and apart from a prevalence of security barriers and comic sans signage, looked exactly as they had in the seventies. I circumnavigated both as best I could, and welled up inside.
Not, you must understand, because I had been a happy pupil. Rather, it was because I had been carrying around memories of these places for so many years, and to see them again laid out in three dimensional bricks and mortar was overwhelming.
Returning to somewhere you knew as an adult could never be like this. The adult mind does not create vivid abiding memories in the way a child's does.
I walked home (home! well, towards what was once home, and in a way I used to resent, but now don't, still is) past what used to be a recreation ground and is now a posh housing estate.
I am amused to be able to say at last, "Eeh, I remember when it were all fields round here".

In defence of the licence fee

2010-10-19T20:44:00.004Z

I had cause to reply to a correspondent today who complained that, unlike satellite subscriptions, the television license was compulsory.

You only have to pay the license fee if you operate a television receiver. So it's not compulsory.

You have the choice to either pay the license fee, or to watch a television receiver operated by someone else, or in premises already covered by a license, or even not watch broadcast television at all.

I sense I may be wasting my time in this discussion, because I passionately believe that there should be publicly funded broadcasting in the UK, and that it should be funded by means-related non-government taxation. The license fee is a close enough approximation to do the job - it's paid for by the breadwinner in a household that can afford the luxury of a television set, so that household dependents do not have to contribute.

I don't have any sympathy at all with the argument that individuals who claim not to use public broadcasting should be exempt from contributing to its upkeep. I seldom listen to Radio 1, 2 or 3, or watch BBC3, for example, but I understand that they are worthwhile and unique endeavours and I'm happy to help fund them. It's rather like as the NHS - I don't pay for the provision of its services (many of which I hope I'll never use) as an insurance policy, but because it's the civilised, decent thing to do.

I observe that the BBC makes the UK more thoughtful, and better informed. It can do this because it follows a mandate that isn't driven by sponsors and advertisers. It isn't funded by business or by government, so it can be uniquely independent and impartial.

If the BBC had to resort to the same kind of funding as independent broadcasters, then it would lose most of what makes it so valuable.

Run Like Hell

2010-10-04T20:27:00.004Z

I’ve now been running competitively for six years. 2010 has been a good one. This year, I’ve completed my third marathon, run in five other events, and achieved my best times in many of them.

However, I’m not going to crow about success, or how following training plans, and taking personal training sessions has got me fitter and faster. (“Yada yada yada”, as the Eighth Doctor would say). I want to record how I felt yesterday, so I can look back on it next year and learn from my mistakes.

My favourite length of training run is about sixteen miles. I can comfortably run it in well under three hours, and it’s just short of the twenty milers that precede marathons, and themselves take some recovery from. So, when the inaugural Scottish Kilomathon was announced, I thought “that’s the race for me, daddio”. A Kilomathon, by the way is a race of 26.2 kilometres - just as a marathon is 26.2 miles. I mention this because I’ve had estimates from my exasperated intimates varying from “a kilometre” to “a thousand miles”. It’s actually somewhere in between.

So, just five weeks after a vigorous Glasgow Half Marathon, I found myself on the bus out of town towards Edinburgh airport at 0630 on a Sunday morning. Not because I was flying anywhere (see later) but because the race started and finished at the Royal Highland Showground and Exhibition Centre. This is a strange place, which hosts garden shows and the Royal Highland Show (cattle and jam, whisky and crafts, shearing and mountain rescue demonstrations) every summer. Its sole justification for existence, so far as I can determine, is that Genesis played there in 1982.

Getting off the bus, a single-digit band of runners including myself walked along the barely signposted perimeter road to the showground. It was unlike any running event I had arrived at before, because it was still dark, there was hardly anyone there, least of all dressed as a steward, and there wasn’t a personality shouting well-meaning nonsense over a barrage of predictably up-beat pop records. It felt more like arriving at a UFO landing site than anything else. (And we all know that’s like, right?).

Eventually, there were some announcements, and having used a portakabin’s facilities for the necessary morning ablutions, I emerged into a hesitant dawn. There still seemed to be distressingly few people there. I executed my rehearsed change, swapping my rucsac for a Camelpak hydration system, and stowing my belongings in the tiny baggage tent. Following two occasions in training this year when my headphone lead had gone crackly and intermittent in one ear, I’d brought an unopened new pair with me, but as the ones I was using were fine (and I checked them to be sure) I left the new ones in my bag. We’ll be revisiting this decision later.

At 0745 we were summoned to our starting pens, and I learned that there were 2500 runners taking part, although possibly not all in the same race. Earlier this year I had run 13.1 miles in 01:39, so when entering this race had done my sums and put 02:00 for my expected time to cover 16 or so. We’ll also be revisiting this decision later. To my surprise on the day, I saw my forecast had put me in the elite field - the front pen, right behind the start line and the car with the big digital clock and the police escort. How exciting! I didn’t feel like an elite runner. I’d been harbouring a bit of a fever, and hadn’t completely recovered from the Half Marathon. It was very odd. It seemed a million miles from the big civic runs I normally do starting in the centre of Glasgow or Edinburgh. I could have just walked back a few pens to be with the runners who thought they’d manage it in a 02:15 or even 02:30, but for some reason, mesmerized by the empty road ahead perhaps, stayed where I was. This is yet another of the many decisions we’ll be revisiting later.

We were off. I hit “Start” on my iPhone’s running application, stowed it in my armband, and a playlist of live material by Rush (subtle suggestion, there) spewed forth. It was amazing. I’d never crossed the line so soon after the gun. Off we raced, like greyhounds. Or in my case, an older greyhound, with a particularly inept training and management team. The others were ripping ahead of me, and those behind overtaking. I’d done some warming-up but not enough, it seemed. Before I knew it, we’d covered the first kilometre, and my phone app told me I’d done it in 04:36. I was going way too fast. There was no way I could keep this up, and I tried to slow down. But it was harder than it sounds. I was being overtaken relentlessly, and the instinct to race was hard to fight. I was really paying the price for not moving back a few pens, and feeling pretty rough, too. My fever was still apparent, and I hadn’t been doing as much of my training at this time the morning as I used to. And there were 25 kilometres of this to go.

The course was meandering up and down hill far more than I’d been expecting, and the terrain underfoot took in both kind tarmac and treacherous loose chippings. My joints were already aching. Now, there’s always a tiny little bit of wee in me when I start running, no matter how late I leave my last micturation. Sometimes it just goes away, but today it needed to come out, so I pulled over and let it, discretely sheltered by a bridge below the waist. I also took one of the many 400mg Ibuprofen tablets I would need over the next two hours. As I set off again, refreshed and refocussed, a steward asked me if I was alright. Did I look that troubled? I’m only 44. I run marathons. Honestly.

I normally wear black, and it was at this point that I began to suspect that my outfit for the day, red hydration pack, red running top, and red lycra stretch shorts had been a mistake. I looked like a tomato. A cooking tomato, if I’m honest. And looking down at the unmistakable stain at my groin, a cooking tomato that had been at the bottom of the fridge for too long. There had still been a bit of wee in me, even after the pit-stop. But now it was on me. Well I don’t do this to look cool, now do I?

I pounded along. The other runners flew like gazelles past me, but I just pounded. It felt as though the pavement should be cracking underneath me, as though I were the Incredible Hulk experimenting with a new colour for Autumn. I had toyed with the idea of replacing my running shoes a couple of weeks earlier, my present brace of pairs having seen me though the year’s previous five races and accompanying training, but for some reason thought they would be good for one more race. They weren’t. I have to take the removable insole out of them anyway to fit my prescription orthotics, which sacrifices some shock absorption, but this pair were bereft of any remaining bounce. It was like running in plimsolls.

The Forth Road Bridge finally hove into view, and I seemed to have found a comfortable speed. It was going to be OK. I’d get through it. After all, I had Rush, the most dependable of hard rock motivators to keep me going. The titles said it all - Presto, Fly By Night, In The Mood, Working Man. It would power me on.

Just as I hit the bridge, my left earphone started crackling and became intermittent, and no amount of jiggling would bring it back. At this point I emitted a very coarse yet cathartic term I acquired from a Shane Meadows production recently, and which rhymes with “Front Books”. Only seventeen more kilometres to go, and with not mono, but half-stereo, which is far worse. Only listening to The Beatles like this (“You two on the left, you two on the right!” “OK, George!”) could have offered lower fidelity.

The bridge was the centerpiece of the course, and affords a magnificent view of the Firth of Forth, the coastlines of West Lothian and Fife, and of course Brunel’s magnificent iron rail bridge running alongside. It’s also made of very hard metal and concrete and has no springiness to it whatsoever. My shins were suffering, and I wan’t halfway round yet. I was still being overtaken, pitilessly. Not just by elite athletes, but by couples chatting, a man taking a picture of the bridge on his phone as he ran, another man making a hands-free call, and a tall Caribbean man who seemed to be floating along in slow motion with no discernible effort whatsoever.

Round and back we went, passing the half-way point. Suckling my hydration pack, snaffling energy gels, and necking Ibuprofen like a hungover junior doctor, halfway back across the bridge, I finally, after 13 kilometres overtook another runner.

We wound through the main street of South Queensferry, familiar territory for me, as I used to work at the electronics factory. The cobbles and flagstones were vicious on my inflamed knees and ankles. Once through it was time for the only hill I’d been anticipating, Hawes Brae (pronounced “Whores Bray”, and I’d have been joining in with them). It wasn’t anything like as tough an incline as I’d been expecting, but I wasn’t alone in walking for about a minute. I was now actively seeking out other lame ducks to run with so I wouldn’t stick out so much. It worked at school.

On and through Dalmeny and then Kirkliston, where the runners were tactfully funneled by stewards and police away from paramedics attending a competitor who’d fallen. You see this a lot, especially in summer races where the heat gets to people. But, as I passed, I unmistakably saw the paramedics administering CPR to the man. They only do that when your heart’s stopped, I thought. It was chilling. But we were all in the middle of a race and we all carried on with what we were there to do.

I’ve run three marathons, and this, at only sixty percent of the distance, was starting to feel like one. Not in terms of exhaustion, but that my joints weren’t working and I was in continual pain. Every time a foot landed a millimetre off true I let out an involuntary moan. The stewards and spectators were fantastically encouraging and I smiled back whenever I could.

I’d never been about to do this in 02:00 and as the pain grew, I wan’t going to get 02:15 either, but 02:30 had to be within my grasp. I was doing the sums and listening to my running app, but the 25 km marker didn’t seem to want to appear before me. It was going to take a bit of a spurt. But then, the one pleasant surprise of the day appeared in the form of the 26 km marker. I’d missed 25 km completely. Insanely, I still gave the last 200 metres a kick, threw back my head laughing, both at the absurdity of what I do to relax, and the impending joy of not doing it for a while, and went for it.

I crossed the line like an attention seeking oaf, imitating the aircraft landing next door, with my arms outstretched, veering in in an S-pattern, two hours and twenty-five minutes after I’d set off.

It was horrible ordeal. I really didn’t enjoy any of it. I was in pain all the way through, was serially humiliated, and saw a man who’d just died. But I’m still glad I did it, because I’ve learned the following.

If you’re going to run in the morning, train in the morning
Base your expectations on how you feel today, not your best ever performance
The Edinburgh Half and Full Marathons are very flat compared to out of town races and your times won’t necessarily scale to them
If you have been over-optimistic in your forecast, you are not required to set off with those who have not. Run alongside people you can meaningfully compete with.
If you’re not sure whether you need new shoes, then you definitely do need new shoes
If you take new replacement headphones to a race but run with your old ones, you are blaspheming against the god of irony and he will smite you down

Oh, yes.

Don’t dress as an incontinent tomato.

Free-Fall

2010-06-24T21:35:00.003Z

I'm forty four now. Thirty years ago, I'd been to a Doctor Who convention, a Genesis concert, and trekked up a few hills. I'd unmistakably become the person I am today. I still do all these things. Where will I be another thirty years? If I'm still alive, I'll be seventy-four. If I'm very lucky, I'll still have most of my sight and hearing, and some of my mobility. Anything after that will be a bonus. Fortunately, I enjoy sitting in a chair with a book, talking or otherwise, increasingly one I've love in the past. If I avoid dementia, I'll be OK. I have no children on whom to become dependent. No heirlooms over which to fret. No nest egg awaiting maturity.
I'm thinking about this now, because with each year seeming to pass faster than the one before, I am objectively accelerating towards my dotage. It will be upon me before I know it, as every anniversary seems to be. The remainder of my useful life is going to pass by in a fraction of the perceived time that the preceding decades have.
What am I going to do with the second act before the curtain finally falls? Keep Buggering On. I don't have any great unfulfilled ambitions because I'm living all of them already. I share a living, growing, evolving marriage with Helen. I have a career which I mainly like, when it's not crushing me with anxiety. I'm kind to myself and the miraculous planet I was born on.
The thing that makes this realization, that I've now had most of my memorable experience bearable, is that it comes hand in hand with the maturity to cope with it. I think. Rather than striving and pining, I manage by making the best of what is beyond my control. I'm in free-fall and enjoying the view, even though I'm falling faster and faster, ironically never achieving terminal velocity.

Eating Snails

2010-05-28T16:02:00.000Z

[ This post is 18 months old - I composed it offline and have just found it. Better late than never. You may disagree. ]

As a year ago, we've come on a short break away from Edinburgh, this time to Cumbria. We're staying just outside Kirkoswald in a big old hall that's been converted into modern apartments. It's very posh.

Last night we went to see in the new year with a swanky meal at a nearby Gastropub. The dining room was above the pub, and as we were called up after our complimentary glasses of champagne (two for Helen, none for me, then) it dawned on us that we were the only sober people dining that night by a very long margin. The other diners, all of whom were middle-aged or elderly, and in large family groups, were full of seasonal spirit, and laughing continually at the appearance of the party balloons. As there poppers went off, I flinched repeatedly, like a shell-shocked infantryman.

Still, the food was great. It occurred to me that the term “Gastropub” might be derived, not prom “Gastronomic” as I had thought, but in fact, from “Gastropod”, as the second course was snails. We'd never tried these before, and I'd been anxious for a couple of days that I wouldn't be able to leave a clean plate, but the old rule of vegetarian coooking (“drown it in garlic and it will taste delicious”) applied here. They weren't rubbery or bursty like wine gums as I'd expected, but more like the fatty end of a beef steak or mushrooms in a vol-au-vent. Yum. Helen wimped out and went for a cleansing sorbet instead.

We had planned to see in the new year at the pub, but downstairs was full of noisy locals, and it wouldn't have felt like a continuation of the evening. I tried to turn Helen's car outside, but couldn't, and started to tack the car back the way it had been facing so I could try again further up the lane. Some local lads decided to help me out, telling me where I had room, and moving some obstacles, so I felt obliged to go back to my original plan. My movements seemed to baffle the lads, who started knocking on Helen's passenger window. I became increasingly besieged and roared off (in several senses), cursing my lack of social ease.

Anyway, I had taken Helen out in her car, eaten snails, and managed not to kill anyone, so I felt that was a fair end to the year.

We saw in 2009 quietly at the apartment, marvelling at how awful the TV coverage was. The were some really big fireworks just outside our window, which we applauded like operagoers. Then to bed.

A Most Unpleasant Journey

2010-02-23T12:39:00.000Z

Last Sunday evening, following a weekend in the North West of England, Helen and I were travelling by train from Manchester Piccadilly to Edinburgh. I had deliberately booked a direct service, and reserved us two facing window seats. I was looking forward to finishing Martin Amis' The Pregnant Widow and also Daniel Blythe's X Marks The Box, while Helen did some school work on her laptop. Our reserved seats were in coach A.
The platform was crowded when the train arrived, with three coaches labelled D, E and F. We boarded coach D, and I observed that the reservation cards in the seats were marked for coach A. I concluded that the the reservations were valid, but that the external labels were wrong, possibly due to replacement rolling stock. I left Helen to mind our bags while I went down to see if our reserved seats, 31 and 35 were there.
I found them, without reservation cards, and furthermore occupied. I phoned Helen to ask her to join me, and she made her way with the bags through the crowded carriage.
I explained to the men in our seats that they were reserved and asked if we could sit in them. The more senior of them responded that they were not reserved as there were no reservation cards. I countered that I had documentary proof and showed him our reservations. They got up with poor grace, angrily swearing in our faces and calling us troublemakers. One of them faced me squarely, and making sure not to raise my voice, or swear, I asked him not to talk to me in that way. After we sat down, he tried to continue talking to me, but I firmly told him to leave me alone and that I would not be talking to him.
Helen and I were now seated in our window seats, a four-seater table between us, and another table over the aisle. There appeared to be two men with Lancashire accents, who I think were the ones who had been in our seats, and a group of younger men with Scots accents, who were more vocal. All were drinking alcohol, and as well as occupying the the remaining six seats, one or more were standing in the aisle.
Apart from exchanging mute glances of reassurance with Helen, I kept my eyes buried in my book, not daring to further inflame any of the men. One of the Lancashire men was sitting next to Helen, and I did not know who was sitting next to me. My heart was racing and I was full of adrenaline. I couldn't actually read, of course.
All the men were loudly exchanging coarse banter, crowding round a top-shelf Sunday tabloid and making vulgar comments about the contents. On top of this, there was a steady stream of comments about myself. When the subject of fellatio was mentioned, it was suggested that I would oblige with any male passenger. My earlier words, both when asserting my position with the other passengers and speaking on the phone to Helen were repeated. I felt humiliated, emasculated, and above all scared. We were to be on this train for three hours, and the men were not going to get any less drunk.
Despite their deafening stream of obscenities, threatening manner, and the distorted playing of music from a portable device, they were not challenged. It seemed the other passengers were all as intimidated as we were. After about forty minutes the portable devices was augmented with a set of powered speakers, pointedly placed at the edge of the table over the aisle from us. At this point another passenger did stand up and advised that the volume was so loud she could not hear here own headphones over it, but the men ignored her.
At this point, Helen and I made eye contact, and leaned if for a quick conference - we would pick up our bags and leave. We did this, with only a mocking offer of assistance helping us on our way into the next carriage.
We advised the conductor that we had been bullied out of our seats and what the position was in coach D. She committed to intervene and find us seats in coach E. As she went of to do this, I found my hands were shaking and my chest still palpitating.
The conductor came back and explained that if we elected, she could radio ahead and have British Transport Police meet the offenders at Edinburgh, and that whatever happened, she would lodge a report. Over the remainder of the journey we wavered several times between pursuing this or moving on. By the time we had decided to pursue it, it was too late to summon the police. I felt afraid of having to identify the miscreants to the police, or worse, face then in court.
At the time, I felt violated, impotent, and above all, scared. I'm calmer now - this was, after all, not the actions of religious extremists, cynical thieves, or anyone pursuing a vendetta against us. It was simple idiocy. If you put more than one imbecile in the same place, their oafishness is multiplied. If you fill an otherwise dumb individual with alcohol, he still has nothing to say, but says it loudly to anyone who will or will not listen all the same. If you allow sporting fixtures to decant fired-up male-only groups of low intelligence males on to the public transport infrastructure simultaneously, you are letting the rest of your public down. If it had just been me, I could have just applied what I've absorbed from outcome-based cognitive therapy, and rationally concluded that the only lasting negative outcome is that I didn't get to read my books, and had a fragmented and haunted night's sleep afterwards.
But it wasn't just me. My wife was there. I promised Helen's grandfather on the day I married her that I would look after her. I'm not sure I did this to the best of my ability. I'm over this for me, but not for her. She assures me she doesn't think any less of me as a result of my action or inaction, but perhaps I do. In an effort to seek some closure for her, I have reported the incident to the police, and we will be giving statements later this week.
I feel upset having just written about this. But it's been thought-provoking. It shines a light on my own nature - I don't seek vengeance, or even justice, because I don't think there's really such a thing as justice, or even human rights, other than as an ideal. I'm merely disappointed that there are such utterly unimpressive groups of men in existence, even if only fleetingly. And the one thing that does make just a small part of me want to utterly wipe out these crude sub-artisan hooligans is my love for Helen. So that's probably all quite healthy.
I did feel about 20% more right-wing immediately afterwards, but this has subsided. So I no longer feel we should have a futile land war, to which these animals could be despatched to meet their fate at a latter-day Somme. Ask me again when I'm 50.

Five Years

2010-01-12T08:59:00.005Z

On January 8, I reached a significant milestone - I had been sober for five years. I don't believe in hiding one's lamp under a bushel, indeed, I think it's positively better to broadcast this. Not just to invite a round of welcome back-slapping, but more importantly to offer a tangible example to anyone I know who's in the same unhappy situation as I was when I regularly abused alcohol.

I want to declare that stopping drinking doesn't turn you into a recluse, a bore, or a holier-than-thou do-gooder. You don't have to join AA, take special medication, or wait until your marriage is in tatters and your career compromised, either. I still fraternise with drinkers, serve wine with meals, and take delight in recounting anecdotes of distant revelry.

The moment of clarity for me arrived on the morning of 8 January 2005, when I unequivocally realised that, on every level, I would be happier if I no longer drank. I kept this to myself at first, telling beloved spouse that I was just having a January lay-off. A few weeks later, when she'd got used to that, I admitted I'd stopped for good. Prior to this, the longest I had ever gone without drink was a week at a time during 1997 when I was on-call overnight for work, and a three month attempt to stop in 1991, which had foundered when I idiotically fell into the trap of thinking that if I could stop for a few months, I could start again, but drinking in what I told myself was moderation.

I only ever missed drinking on one regular occasion for a few weeks - at 6:15 on Saturday evenings, when I would customarily fix the first gin and tonic of the day while starting to cook dinner and listening to Loose Ends, declaring that the achieving part of the weekend was officially over.

Yes, I'm happier. No, I've never regretted it. And maybe I wish I'd done it sooner, although then I wouldn't be me, and maybe I wouldn't have made priceless friendships, come to Edinburgh, or met Helen. The Doctor (not that one) tells me that my liver isn't sautéed, so it wasn't too late in a purely physiological sense.

Psychologically, there have been a few wobbles. Drinking to excess, day in, day out, really does stunt your maturity, and I've only really entered adulthood in some senses in the last five years. I don't sulk any more, for example. I believe that one of the things which drew me to alcohol, beyond it's vampiric self-sustaining nature, was that it helped mask underlying conditions such as depression, and obsessiveness. But it's better to get these uncovered and work on them, work with them, in the latter case, than just paper over them while they fester and grow untreated.

If there's a most characteristic tangible benefit to stopping drinking, it's that you start to dig deeper and solve problems at root level instead of becoming oblivious to their symptoms. At work and home, I now actively relish being given a mess to sort out. That's got to be better than the old way.

Revolving Doors

2009-05-29T22:46:00.000Z

I'll look back at this weekend as the eye of the storm of change that has defined 2009. I found out a few weeks ago that a significant restructuring at the company I've worked at for the past seven months meant my job was unlikely to exist in a few months time, and that I should expect to be made redundant. In contrast with last year's shake-up, I was advised by management that the outlook was acute, and that I should start making other arrangements as soon as possible. As a social formality, I updated my LinkedIn status to say that my job was at risk and I'd be interested in Unix positions in central Scotland.

Within days, a colleague from my preceding employer got in touch to ask if I'd consider a return, and a few days later, I'd formalised this with the company. Helen advised prudence regarding this company, who she perceives as having taken more out of me than vice versa in the past. This was good counsel, and led me to make sure that I continued to set up a meeting with another potential employer, and also negotiated the best conditions possible with the frontrunner.

Plan B crumbled, following an interview that reminded me far more than it should of The Apprentice, and I've agreed a quick exit with the current firm, so I'll be rejoining my old company on Tuesday. I'm mostly positive about this, because my present position was a bit of a compromise; the money hasn't been what I'd hoped for, and the role has been almost overfamilar. However, I've enjoyed the routine, and my colleagues have been fine fellows to a man. I will miss them, and especially my line manager, who has elevated being a good bloke to a vocation. I'll even miss the commute, because 45 minutes twice a day of private time with a book, an iPod and a thermos of coffee, while the West Lothian and Lanarkshire countryside speeds past, constitutes a series of miniature holidays.

The old firm are recruiting to staff a project which will involve spending much of each week away from home, in England. I have mixed feelings about this, as does Helen, but I'll try and make the most of it. I hope that being away will enforce some work/life hygiene and I'll be able to avoid working from home at all. Again, time spent travelling, and staying away from home, is good for catching up on culture and media. I shall, like Ghandi, be the change I want to see, and do all my travelling by train.

My last day at this job is next Monday. The day before, I will be attempting my second marathon. Two weeks ago, I really thought I wouldn't be competing this year, as a flu-like illness had demolished my training schedule, which was already badly deformed. However, infused with post-illness energy last weekend, I went out and proved I could run 24 miles, so I'm on for the race on Sunday.

This week has been an atypical one, then, of deliberate low effort. As well as starting nothing new at work, I've been deliberatively not running, as recommended, to recover from the training run, and mainly eating low-fibre carbohydrates, also as recommended. I think I could keep this up indefinitely.

Felix Edina Non Ambulatorum (sic)

2009-05-11T20:56:00.002Z

The strangest week in recent memory culminated in a Sunday that I can't let pass without recording. I was on call for work, and Helen had a lot of preparation for school to do, so we hadn't made any firm plans. Time has a habit of draining away under such circumstances, so I'd guiltily drawn up a list of aims. After a couple of hours' displacement, I siezed the day, and announced to Helen that we were going to find Poppy.
Our lovely fifteen-year-old black cat has a tendency to wander off across the local back gardens, taking hospitality wherever she can, and every few months, we have to go and reclaim her from the lady whose garden backs on to ours. The garden she goes through has recently been surrounded by tall trellises for plants to climb. And cats. My pet theory, as it were, was that she'd climbed over, but didn't fancy climbing back. Round we traipsed, to learn that she had been there, but that she seemed to have a sore leg and wasn't there any more. Containing our worry, we went home and looked for her in adjacent gardens.
Helen eventually spotted her on an intervening patio, motionless, but thankfully, breathing. I called on my Scouse powers of, er, cat burglary, and trespassed over to retrieve her. We got her inside and it became apparent that she couldn't put weight on one of her back legs. Helen called the weekend emergency vet, who disappointingly didn't appear by helicopter.
We incarcerated the patient in her travel podule and drove her over to the practice. Possibly a dislocated hip, said the reassuringly competent and personable vet. She'd need an x-ray, and sedation beforehand, because asking a cat to stay still in the requesite pose is so hard that all the similes about things being hard to control already refer to cats, and therefore can't even be used as similes in this situation. We bid au revoir to Poppy and adieu to a significant chunk of a week's pay, and went home to wait for the news.
The worst case, we'd been told, was that she'd lose the leg. Her sister in Trafford gets by perfectly well with just the three, so this wasn't as shocking as it might have been. The call came, and Helen went to collect her. The good news was that it was just an inflamed hip joint, caused by a jolt which had aggravated some arthritic bone growth (she's a very old lady now). However, she'd have to be housed for a week or so in a run where she could move around freely, but not jump or climb at all, or the anti-inflammatory medication wouldn't be able to to any good.
An abortive prototyope based on clothes-airers and old sheets soon gave way to a kind of indoor fallout shelter made by pushing the dining table against the wall and blocking the other three sides with the sofa and framed prints. The mark two was refined by using just the glass from one of the prints so she got some light. In went her blanket, food and water bowls, and litter tray. It feels rotten to coop her up in there, and I just wish I could explain why and how it's for her own good.
Helen brought back the X-ray plates from the vet, which as well as showing that she's in good shape otherwise, indicate that she swallowed a mouse whole fairly recently – you can see its little skeleton inside hers. This is another reason she's been feeling a bit tender. And possibly, diving for the mouse was what set her hip off.
It's like having a feral great-grandmother living with you.

Round Two!

2009-05-08T18:43:00.001Z

Where were we? God, I'm sorry, this form has been doubly usurped, first by Facebook, and now by Twitter. I rather regretted not diarising last year when doing interesting things, such as being made redundant and then finding a job just as the Credit Crunch bit. Luckily for me, it looks as though fate is giving me a second chance.

I'm having an interesting week. On Tuesday, I heard, out of the blue, via Friends Reunited from a very old friend, whose lifestyle means he's very prone to fall out of contact for long periods. The last I'd heard from him was nearly five years ago, when he acknowledged the invitation to our wedding. We've emailled a few times this week, and his tone seems to mirror my own euphoria.

The following day, there was a rush invitation to an all-hands briefing. We're quite sensibly merging our IT function with that in another sector of the parent group. There will inevitably be redundacies. Since my skills aren't specific to our business, I'm right in the firing line. I won't find out for another six weeks, which should at least regulate the runaway rate at which this year has been elapsing. It feels more shocking than last year. I'd had more of a instinctive feeling ahead of the announcement then, prompted by the feeling that being paid to be on the bench was too good to be true. But after informally being briefed that this employer was a safe harbour in which to weather the recession, this feels like a bit of a betrayal. I am angry at the way the job losses have been communicated. The first manager to address us yesterday hedged and dissembled, using the word “impact” until it gradually emerged that he meanyt redundancies. The last manager of the day actually tried to put a positive spin on events – the high level equivalent of David Brent's “I've got some good news and some bad news”.

There was some laudable stoicism among my peers, but this turn has upset me more than I could have forseen. I was very snippy at home that evening, and a mess of autovocalising insecurity the following morning. I'm really not optimistic about my chances, and preparing for the worst. The good side is that I'd welcome a couple of months garden leave, and that it may be time to look for a more high profile role than the one I have now. I'm 43 now, and my “port in a storm” job perhaps doesn't exploit as much of my experience as it could. I would miss Glasgow, though. I like the work/home hygeine the commute enforces.

Thankfully, I had an appointment in London on Thursday, doing some freelance Doctor Who work, which took my mind off more maudlin matters. It was blissful to spend four hours formalising my childhood memories on my netbook on the way down, deliver them to my client in the afternoon, and see some more old friends in the evening. By coincidence, it was the first Thursday of the month, which is when Doctor Who fans in the London area informally gather at The Fitzroy Tavern in Bloomsbury. I started going to this occasionally in 1984, and regularly from 1990 to 1996. It was highly evocative to be sitting in the same alcoves that held so many memories from my twenties, with, as it happened, many of the same people.

At eleven o'clock, I made my farewells and strolled up Tottenham Court Road to Euston to catch the sleeper train to Edinburgh. The Caledonian Sleeper service is one of the great secret treasures of Britain. If booked well enough in advance, it's far cheaper than a London hotel room. Departing at around 11:40, it delivers you to the other end by 07:00 in a frame of mind far calmer than if you'd been a polluting bastard and flown. Furthermore, it delivers you to the heart of the city you're visiting, so you don't have to disembark and spend another hour travelling in. I've been at London meetings by 08:00. The question I'm always asked concerns sharing a berth (that's the little sleeping compartments, containing an upper and lower bunk, confusingly also called berths). “Isn't it a bit, you know, intimate?” Not really. I book the lower berth, get there 20 minutes early, stow my belongings, and change into loose-fitting clothes. There's no point trying to sleep straight away, as you have to let your subconcious noise-reduction system sample and absorb the clanks and rattles of the train, so it's a good chance to read a bit, or listen to headphones. There's a shaver socket above the sink, so you can charge all your thirsty devices. I'd planned to watch The Prisoner last night, but felt drowsy after a couple of chapters, and nodded straight off. The berths have individual lights, so you can read without disturbing your neighbour. I have found said neighbours to be either mute or timid, and beyond exchanging a quick “Evening” or “Cheerio, then” seldom keen to share their insights. Invariably, on arrival at the far end, one of the sharers will depart immediately, leaving the other to wash, shave, and otherwise spruce himself up for the day's business. They don't kick you off the train until you've consumed the continental breakfast they've brought you in bed.

Having left it too late to book to Glasgow (where I work), I had booked to Edinburgh, and parambulated across the Waverly concourse to catch the commuter shuttle. I am now at a table for four which is fully-occupied and feeling my privacy far more compromised than I did with my mystery companion last night. I feel ready for work. Isn't that ironic?

The New Routine

2009-02-22T23:26:00.001Z

I moved to a new employer last year and now commute every weekday from Edinburgh to Glasgow. The trains are frequent, punctual, and well-maintained, but I would have expected little else at the fare, which is £2800 for a year's seaon ticket.
I have found that if I leave the house at six fifteen, I can get an hour on the gym, and still be at my desk for nine, which isn't too shabby. I get an hour and a half each day to read, listen to music, podcasts, or audio drama, of even watch TV of cinema on a variety of sub one-kilo portable devices, which I look upon as a gift. It makes me all the more dismayed to see how many of my fellow commuters occupy themselves day in day out with the insubstantial and environmentally unhelpful free newspapers that are dropped on Britains transport network each day like doodlebugs.

Operation Delve

2008-09-02T06:13:00.001Z

Having greeted my wife on her return from her grandmother's, I retreated to the smallest room to attend to some pressing business. "Dave?", she soon called. "A bad thing has happened". It transpired that while changing buses on the way home, she had, in the course of discarding her used rail tickets, inadvertently thrown away, with her used ticket, her unused tickets for the following weekend's trip to Manchester. Could I, at nine on this rapidly darkening Sunday evening, cycle to the bus stop in question (just in front of LIDL and the 24-hour garage) and retrieve the tickets from the bin?

Wordlessly, I donned my helmet and set out, having first rooted around for my bike lights, unused since April. "You are absolutely sure that you threw them in the bin and that they're not anywhere else?" I checked, and even though the reply was defiantly affirmative, I still jammed my bluetooth headset on, ready to field any call to indicate they had been found.

On arriving at the bus stop, I found that the bin was of formidable cast-iron construction, with the pillar-box opening at the top of its metre of height. I couldn't even see into it, let alone see any evidence of rail tickets. I 'toothed mission control to confirm this was indeed the target. If only, I thought, I had a mirror - then, I could hold it in the slot at an angle and look down at the bin contents. Exhibiting, though I say so myself, near-genius, I turned on the camera and spotlight on my mobile phone and held it over the rim of the slot so I could look in at the display. There was something that looked like a train ticket nestling atop a carrier bag. Putting fears of septicemia to one side, I knelt down, fed my arm through the slot up to the shoulder, and at full stretch, managed to grab the ticket. Hooray!

It was Helen's return portion from her journey that day.

Further phonecam surveillance indicated what might have been the crucial vouchers, but try as I might, I couldn't reach them. I had taken out the carrier bag by this stage, and the spectacle of a 42-year old man, bicycle leaning against the railings, wearing a helmet and headset, waving a mobile phone into a litter bin, and hooking out carrier bags, was beginning to attract bemused attention. It looked like a kind of Mission Impossible on it's uppers scenario, Jim Phelps, The Wilderness Years, if you like. I felt the urge to explain to the passengers waiting at the bus stop. "It's my wife. She accidentally threw away the wrong train ticket". They nodded sympathetically, but inside I could tell they were thinking "Aye, right. He's got a wife. Course he has".

I resolved to go and get the tools for the job, and returned to the operations hub to stock up my mission pack with a long-handled dustpan and brush, a wire coathanger, some blu-tack, and extendable metal tape measure, and an air duster. That should do it. Jim Phelps was banished. Now I was MacGuyver. I pedaled back off into the September evening. There would be a new queue of onlooking bus passengers, potentially more aggressive than sympathetic by now. Just round the corner, my headset trilled. "I've found it!" said mission control, going on to elaborate "I'd thrown it in the recycling".

I executed a U-turn and returned to base, standing down the alert to amber. I had expected many things from married life, but scrabbling in bins was not one of them.

"That usually comes later", mused Agent Owen, pouring himself a generous Earl Grey, contemplating a future, with eyes that had already seen too much. Far too much.

Everything's Coming Up Roses

2008-06-19T13:11:00.002Z

Something dreadful must be waiting around the next corner, because I haven't felt this fulfilled in living memory. Here are three highlights.

I painted our front room. That may not sound like much, but we live in a 19th century colony house with high ceilings, ornate woodwork, and unforgiving access. I hadn't actually done any decorating for about a decade, so it was invigourating to dig out my rollers and brushes and also quite challenging to engage a specialist paint vendor to try and get a match for the work we had done last year. I seem to have found an equilibrium between prissy and slapdash, and am very pleased with the results. I shall do more later this year.

I ran a marathon. This had been hanging over me for the best part of a year. Fundamentally, it's just a matter of believing you can do it, and then training lots. The longest few training runs weren't much fun, if I'm honest, but I enjoyed myself on the day, and made a small fortune for charity. Everyone I know has been suitably impressed with me, except for the population of Sunderland, who seem to all be former elite athletes. This was my first, but not my last.

I interviewed Colin Baker. I had previously interviewed Doctor Who number six on stage in 1999, on a day when he may not have been in the best humour, and I misjudged the occasion, causing a car crash interview that people still talk about. I was doing a lot of stage interviews at an event in Gloucester last weekend, and agreed to cover Colin again. I came clean to him beforehand, and whether he remembered me or not, he was gracious and forthcoming, and even elicited a specific round of applause for me at the conclusion. A ghost was very much laid to rest.

So that's good. I have new glasses, a new tooth, some new clothes, and will soon have some new orthotic insoles as well. Everything in and around me is being unpacked, cleaned, and put away again tidily. It's all ship-shape. As I say, something appalling is bound to befall me, but I though I should stick a flag in the calendar on this day that it hasn't yet.

Ordinary Man Updates Dull Blog

2008-03-31T15:39:00.001Z

Crikey, it's been ages. I must confess that being able to update my Facebook status even as I perform the most fundamental of ablutions means that I feel less compelled to diarize properly whenever I want to tell the world how I'm feeling. But there's more to communication than "Dave Owen clearly had a good breakfast" or "Dave Owen latterly eschews Blogger".

It's not just Facebook that has been eating my time. Work has been fairly demanding of late, not just office hours, but planned work outside office hours, and unplanned work as a result of the planned work. So I skipped sleeping last Monday night, for example, and spent the last weekend either working, enjoying high culture with Helen, or running a half-marathon. I still feel I'm nothing like as stretched as the average parent or project manager, though.

My stamina seems to be returning. I had fallen back into a bad espresso habit, with consequent energy crashes, fed with more espresso or sugary food. My weight tipped over 100kg, and when I lost the ability to run for about a month following an ankle injury, I took the opportunity to cut out coffee completely, and diligently watch what I'm eating. I'm down to 92kg now and intent on dropping to 80kg if I can. I've enjoyed the feeling of hunger, and the self-satisfaction that comes from seeing it out instead of feeding it. Habits like the snack on arriving home from work are biting the dust. I'm no longer bloated and windy, and sweat far less when exercising. I think that coffee, like alcohol, is a mood-altering quick-fix drug that I am powerless over, so I've decided that I've had my last cup.

As a result, I can keep going longer, and got through last-week's all-nighter with few after-effects. With a slower metabolism, I seem to be able to exercise sooner after eating, although I still need to eat afterwards.

I'm looking forward to lots of holidays. We're going to Kirby Steven with some of Helen's family for Easter, taking a week at a caravan late in April, and taking Eurostar to Avignon in August. Lots of walking and reading to come, I hope. I'm going to see Asia in Glasgow tonight, as well. It's a sign of my age that 50% of the band have had heart surgery since I last saw them, and I'm looking forward to reading Martin Amis' latest essay collection on the way there and back almost as much as the gig itself.

I think I'm more content now than for some time. Work is satisfying, and in the rest of my time, I seem to be building sustainable good habits. I've got into cleaning my bike, rather than letting the chain and gears crunch towards annual replacement. I'm cooking simpler, healthier meals. I'm varying my exercise regime. I seem to be enjoying engaging with problems rather than avoiding or postponing them.

So, it's all looking pretty good. "Dave Owen is enjoying life", as I'd say on Facebook.

Punishing With Spontaneity

2008-01-20T17:43:00.000Z

At 3 pm on Friday, I learned that the work planned for Friday evening and Saturday daytime had been postponed, and that I would not be starting work until 4 pm on Saturday "Hooray" i thought - "that gives me most of Saturday to iron, watch Doctor Who, get my hair cut, alphabetize (checking the spelling of that, I see it's IZE rather than ISE, which is apt and thus memorable, at least) the contents of the kitchen, and stroke my compulsions in any other way that took my fancy. Helen had other plans, which is why by noon, we were speeding towards the Trossachs to visit Queen Elizabeth Forest Park (above). This was possible thanks to the City Car Club, which enables non-petrolheads such as ourselves to hire cars for a couple of hours, to be picked up and returned at unmanned locations within walking distance of home.

It was all arse-about-face, I thought, sucking in the greenery, air, space, and calm before an eight-hour shift at the command prompt. I stand corrected: I started work in a much improved frame of mind. Hooray for the City Car Club.

Pounding Scotland by the Angle

2008-01-13T20:59:00.001Z

I ran the Great Winter Run (5k, around Holyrood Park, remember) on Saturday in what appeared to be under 25 minutes, thanks to a very focused training regime (running uphill steeply for 25 minutes every other day) and an inspirational medley of Genesis MP3s that reflected the course and its challenges. That's the hard one out of the way - on now to the 10k, half marathon, and marathon that will occupy my legs until Summer. They're longer, but crucially, flatter. The races, that is, not my legs.

The picture above is me the following day, taking it more gently above the Water of Leith near home. Note my massive thighs. If my torso looks equally massive, that's just because I'm wearing four layers of clothing, and not, I stress, because I eat too much.

Nuptials Revisited

2008-01-06T16:54:00.001Z

Perambulating through the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh this afternoon, we stopped to admire the Redwood Grove, where we were married in 2004. No regrets, I hope Helen is thinking here.

Adieu, mon beau sapin

2008-01-05T13:34:00.001Z

Unsettling confrontations

2008-01-05T01:26:00.000Z

On Wednesday, this happened:

"When old people come up to your table in a bar, cafe, or restaurant, and ask "Is anyone sitting here" of the empty seats next to you, so you reply "No", imagining they want to take the seats away, but they sit down right next to you, utterly cramping either your solitude or your intimate conversation, and making you feel so angry with yourself for minding that you don't even bother with a dessert or a coffee, and get out, letting them enjoy what you had naively believed to be your own table before the advent of geriatric collectivism."

Yesterday, I had my disconcerting run-in with authority.

This morning, while walking across the park opposite the house, I was greeted by a man walking a dog, and casually returned his "Morning". He seemed to want to carry on talking, and I had to signal that I was wearing earphones under my snow hat and take them out.

"Have you see the television this morning?" he asked.

This worried me. The last time I was asked this question was at 07:00 MST on Tuesday September 11 2001 in a car part in Colorado Springs. It did not bode well. It was something that must be seen rather then just known. What had befallen whom? Was it related to the snow covering the city?

"No", I confessed.

"The Portuguese", he began. This was bad. This sounded more like a Falklands invasion than a 9/11. What had happened? Fishing dispute turned nasty? Annexation of Spanish or North African territories? He continued "Have said that they think it was Gerry and Kate who killed their daughter".

Gerry? Kate? Much as my heart goes out to the poor McCanns, I do not think of them in first-name terms. Nor does the latest twist in their unending ordeal give me pause to accost strangers before daybreak in public parks. I honestly didn't know how to respond, and mechanically busked that I'd "have a look when I got to work".

I thought the man was a bit strange. Maybe he'd lost a grandchild or even a child when he was younger, and had locked on to the McCann case as link between the news and his own experiences. Did that explain his familiar reference to the parents?

I did not risk taking any photos today. Here is a shot from our New Year break of the woods near Grantown-on-Spey. Note the complete absence of any outgoing individuals with challenging etiquettes or unwieldy social protocols.

Snow and Security

2008-01-03T18:43:00.000Z

I have decided to post a picture as often as I can, and took my camera to work today. Having cycled, wearing shorts, and carrying nothing less modest, it cruelly started snowing in the morning. I decided that a shot of my bike covered in snow would be the perfect summary of this first day back at work, and ventured into the car park to take oneat lunch time. The snow was a bit camera shy in my shot, so I started taking some others of snowfall against the building. After a minute, a security guard came out and very directly asked whether I had permission to take photographs. Much apologizing, both to him, and the site security director followed, and I contritely agreed to delete the shots of the building, which is, I suppose a fairly high-security site. I would have had to have been a completely rubbish criminal to actually have though I was doing something clandestine, though.

So, today's picture is of my bike at a secret location where you can't see it snowing. Are you happy for goading me into blogging more often, Peter Anghelides?

Happy New Year

2008-01-02T20:24:00.000Z

A week in the NW of England followed by a couple of nights up in Grantown on Spey made for a very replenishing Christmas and New Year.

The final leg of our journey to the latter was made by steam train:

Serial Television

2007-10-20T08:47:00.000Z

As I may have mentioned, I'm watching the entire run of Doctor Who in sequence, having started early in 2006 when the first three adventures were released on DVD. Earlier travellers down this path have followed strict guidelines, such as "one episode a day; no more, no fewer" and "no other episodes outof sequence". I've not imposed any such constraints - sometimes I'm too busy, and sometimes I've needed to jump forward to research something. But in recent weeks, I have been usually managing an episode a day, sometimes more.

This can be quite wearing. I listen to the commentary tracks seperately after I've watched the episodes. Although a year may have passed for Barry Letts and Katy Manning in between recording their commentaries, I experienced three of them in a matter of days. Hearing Katy aver for the third time that James Acheson won an oscar for "The Littlest Emperor" (sic) is a specialist form of entertainment.

I've just entered an enchanted passage. Not only are the stories I'm watching from my own golden age, when I was eight years old, but they're very well represented on DVD. From Robot part one to Genesis of the Daleks part six, there are sixteen consecutive episodes on DVD. To enhance the serial feeling, I've tried to break up my viewing sessions, so that I don't watch a whole story in one sitting, but if I finish a story, I do watch the start of the next one. This seems particularly appropriate to Tom Baker's first run, in which the individual stories were closely linked and depended on their sequence.

Last night I watched The Ark In Space part four, and The Sontaran Experiment part one, went away, and then came back and watched part two, and then Genesis of the Daleks part one. I haven't enjoyed nostlagia so much in ages. The remastered and restored episodes looked wonderful, my appreciation of the small but perfectly formed Sontaran Experiment was reinforced, and I was reminded of how my love for Doctor Who deepened at the time of original transmission.

It really doesn't get much better than this.

Practical Time Travel

2007-09-29T14:40:00.000Z

This week, I've been reaping one of the tangible benefits of my job - regular, pertinent training courses. Specifically, I've been attending a five-day hands-on course on one of technologies we deploy for our clients. In Reading.

I lived in Reading from January 1989 until October 1996, having moved there six months after graduating, as I worked in nearby Bracknell, and Reading was the nearest thing to a city in commuting distance. Having spent a damaging four months in shared accomodation, it was imperative to find a place of my own again, so I moved into a bedsit on the edge of the town centre. It was tiny, but I stuck it out for 18 months until decamping to a larger basement studio flat and then a year after that into a boxy starter home on a new development a few miles out.

At 22 when I moved there, to 30 when I left, I underwent quite a few formative experiences in the town. Edinburgh, where I fled to in 1996 seemed a total contrast - you never saw tourists in Reading, for example. Since 1996, I'd been through Reading precisely twice, never for more than an hour. In 1998, I drove through the town to buy a newspaper en route from Cornwall to Heathrow, and last year briefly drove by each of my three former addresses. That last encounter proced deeply unsettling - each looked exactly as I left it, but all traces I'd ever lived there had been obliterated, as if I'd never been there.

So this year, I returned for more than a hour for the first time in eleven years. Walking from the station to my hotel on Sunday night, the town centre appeared to have been remade: tarmac roads were replaced with redbrick pedestrianised areas, replete with faux-gas lamps and hanging baskets. Coffee shops proliferated. It seemed actually nice.

The following day, I went for a run after work. I had a vague notion of heading towards Prospect Park where I had run during a transitory flirtation with health and fitness in 1991. I stuck a live Marillion concert on my MP3 player and jogged through the centre and out along the Tilehurst Road as Splintering Heart (1991!) accompanied me. I passed Russell Street and Western Elms Avenue, where I had spent 1989 to 1991, and carried on through the park. The physical layout was the same, and road names were firing off long-dormant dendrites, but everything seemed to have been renovated and renewed. New, largely sympathetic developments had replaced eyesores I had long forgotten. Bus stops had digital displays showing when the services were due. It felt as though I had been delivered overnight into the future.

These changes would have seemed imperceptible if I had stayed in the town or even visited regularly, but experienced at once rather than cumulatively, they really were the closest thing to time travel I am ever like to undertake.

I was feeling fit and energised so I decided to press on from the park to Tilehurst. I was uplifted, feeling a sense of closure and reconciliation. I'd spent 8 years in this place, and it was an inescapable part of me that I'd been denying for the next 11. Everying you do, everything that happens to you, good, or bad, is formative. I think it was as I was running through Tilehurst that I emotionally accepted that the years I'd spent here weren't in any way wasted.

Tilehurst hadn't been renewed as much as the places en route. There was an utterly incongruous BT installation dumped on the fringe of the estate I lived on, and I thought for one moment that my house had been demolished. At the age of 41, jogging around the Potteries development, I found more footpaths and woods than I had known in the five years I lived there, when I was an impatient cynic who drove everywhere, apart from when falling back on Shank's pony to get to the pub by the quickest route possible.

Night was falling, but Marillion helped keep my spirits up, as I headed back down the hill into Reading. I felt reconnected, more whole, as if I had traversed a huge distance and found myself at the other end.

I'm reading Space by Stephen Baxter at the moment, in which space travellers return to Earth aged only a few years, but decades into their futures due to the relativistic effects of their voyages. This week, I can sympathise with these accidental time travellers more than I would have been able at any other time.

Glasgow Ordeal I - The Genesis Convention

2007-08-28T12:29:00.000Z

I attended my fourth Genesis convention this weekend. Genesis conventions aren't like Doctor Who conventions, much. You might get the occasional early drummer, or solo project musician hanging around to sign albums or draw the raffle, and there'll be a token pretence of video programming and a quiz, but they're really more like indoor music festivals, with no real passion being evoked or displayed until the tribute bands take to the stage in the evening.

Despite a ticket that boasted "doors at noon" or something, I showed up late afternoon on Saturday, to the Renfrew Ferry, a floating nightclub on the Clyde that hosts gigs, and sells beer. And chips. I had ample time to say hello to a couple of friends and also make evil eyes at people who have annoyed me in the past by behaving like arseholes at gigs, or abusing the English language on their execrable vanity websites.

I'd gone early to make sure I didn't miss Doug Melbourne and Tony Patterson who used to hold the keyboard and vocals spots in the UK's first Genesis tribute, Regenesis, who I first saw in 1994. Their current party piece is to perform a half hour of Peter Gabriel solo material and they did so very well, announcing a CD they'd just realeased of slightly more plugged in versions, which I picked up after emptying my turn ups of small change.

Then I read Christopher Brookmyre's "A Tale Etched In Blood and Hard Black Pencil", for about an hour, until the first band proper of the evening, G2 came on. I've only ever seen them at conventions, this being the third time, and they've been consistently good, focussing on sounding like late-seventies Genesis, which featured Phil Collins singing songs Peter Gabriel had originally performed. The choice of material, delivery, and techincal presentation were all excellent, and my mood survived the realisation that there was quite a low turn out (the venue was emptier than when Genesis tribute bands had played individually) leaving a large Golden Circle in front of the stage, where the organisers and their mates could do their thing.

"Their thing" entails intense periods of connection with the performers, alternating with wandering off to get more beer, talking loudly about how much you love the music you're interrupting, and standing with your arms around the person next to you. When memorable stanzas are sung from the stage, you turn to the person next to you and hold you arms out, palms upwards while mouthing the words as if to ritually endorse their eternal veracity.

G2 were tremendous. I actually found myself musing that if this were the only band I saw this weekend, I'd be quite satisfied. Which was just as well really.

Next up were Face Value, whose niche is the post-1978 three-man Genesis' repertoire. They have the most technically demanding job on the Genesis trinute circuit, as the music is dependent on electronics, and they rely on sequenced parts, having only one guitar player. Their front man does a Stars In Their Eyes-perfect Phil Collins, and on a good night, I've heard they're very slick. Unfortunately, I've never seen them on a good night. The first time, in 2002, they were plagued with terrible sound. Oh, and with not having rehearsed enough. "Tonight Tonight Tonight" made the Tay Bridge disaster look like leaves on the line, the first time I saw them. The second time, they attempted to deliver "No Son Of Mine" despite their drummer's click track being inaudible to him, so that the snares were just as deadly as to the song as any are to wild game. I had to take my leave of the room as "Land of Confusion" threatened to live up to its name, and returned as "Throwing It All Away" did exactly what it said on the tin, thanks to a sequenced bass part that didn't.

Third time lucky, I thought. They were bound to have it nailed by now. So it was a pity that they were taking an excruciating time to set up, and a final revised estimate of their time on stage was given as 10:30. I would have to leave at 11:00 for my last train back from Glasgow to Edinburgh, but I hung around just to hear their first half hour, or at least extract some gratuitous pleasure from any recurrence of their convention curse.

At 10:40, the "American Beauty" soundtrack that Genesis have been using this year as walk-on music started up, and I began to hope that they'd kick off with this years opening medley, which I was sure they could do justice to. Sure enough, the drummer counted in at the right tempo for "Behind the Lines" to cue the trademark wall of sound, at which point there was an undignified "phut" and all the power to the stage blew. I quietly doubled up in laughter. No one else seemed to. They hadn't let me down - a third convention appearance and a third technical disaster. After watching cable-wallahs scurry for five minutes, as the band drifted off stage, I made my excuses and left.

Arriving later, the following day, having enjoyed Doug and Tony's CD, and electing to be the one person present not wearing a Genesis T-shirt, I was in time to watch some of the real Genesis's recent concerts on video. This gave me the opportunity to earwig on two punters making friends nearby. The telling exchange was "What album did you lose interest at?". I love this. Younger bands fans ask each other how early they discovered the music, but with Genesis, the sign of respect is how early you judged their output to have declined beyond worth. They went on to concur that the tribute bands were giving the real thing a run for their money. Later events that day would, I feel, contradict this.

I'd been looking forward to seeing The Carpet Crawlers open the evening, and was quite happy to expect to miss much of the headliners In The Cage, because I'd never seen the former, and unfortunately had seen the latter. To describe In The Cage as patchy would be generous. It's an acceptable description of mobile phone coverage in the Outer Hebrides, but not of the heat shield on a reententering space shuttle. Or indeed of a band who've been going for eight years now and really ought to be much better. Worse, G2 had bagged the headline slot.

On they came, with the first of many songs that G2 had played 24 hours before, and furthermore played far better. After a false start, the opening chords of "Watcher of the Skies" rasped out from the genuine antique Mellotron (Why? WHY?), and singer Trevor ambled on in a shabby Peter Gabriel costume and half-arsed greasepaint, before singing with a voice he hadn't warmed up, which inflections that indicate he can listen and sing, but not necessarily at the same time. Everything about In The Cage is rough about the edges. The individual musicians know their parts most of the time, but not all, with their neophyte Mike Rutherford being the worst offender. Their instruments bolt from their control too often, as guitar parts die off where they should sing, and the pantechnicon-filling vintage keyboard rig reedily struggles to be heard when newer sample racks and a week or so's programming would nail it. The mix is arbitrary, with emphasis placed on counterpoints and harmonies, overpowering root notes and melodies. They limped through a set which blatently repeated over half of G2's from Saturday. It was like seeing a tribute band's own tribute band, a ropey analogue second-generation copy.

And the singer was wearing odd socks.

I must admit, that despite being smug to the point of insult about the quality of my life improving now I'm off the sauce, seeing In The Cage is one of those experiences that was far far better when full of cider. They are in every sense a pub band, embodying the "That's nearly there. It'll do - they'll all be pissed" approach to quality. Has no one had the courage to tell them to prepare more?

Announcements from the stage about the arrival time of G2 were optimistic, and as I realised I wasn't even going to see their opening number, so I blew away home. I was glad I'd gone to support the event, but I really wished I could have seen G2 again.

If I was still a boozer, and had been staying overnight in Glasgow, it would have been a great weekend. As someone who's now definitely there for just the music, and who likes an early night with a cup of cocoa and a good book, it was a bit of a trial.

Of Cows and Cathedrals

2007-08-09T16:03:00.000Z

There was a time when I would attempt to take an entire week off work to take in as much of the Edinburgh Festival fringe as possible. It was hard: comedy stops being so funny when you're panicking about being too drunk, not drunk enough, whether you'll need the loo before the end of the show. So, aside from a few evening comedy shows on school nights, we attempted to pack in as much as possible into a sunny Wednesday, yesterday. We had a pre-booked rendezvous with king of the fringe Stewart Lee that evening, and an empty canvas beforehand. A bit of perusing, browsing and booking filled in the day with four other appointments, and we were off.

First, to the Edinburgh University's Bedlam Theatre to see Shakespeare Bingo: A Comedy of Errors. It was an abridged version of reputedly the Bard's worst play, with tea, cake and bingo cards handed out to the audience. You crossed off each square as a staple of Shakespearean comedy came up, the first to shout "Bingo!" receiving an unspecified prize. It was full of witty, anachronistic asides, and very enjoyable. Oh, yes, and the genders were reversed, so the predominantly male dramatis personae, were portrayed by lovely young women. Bingo, indeed.
As if that weren't enough, we were adjacent to a hugely fat man on the front row. We were in velvet-covered tip-up seating, and just after the play finished, his seat could support his mass no more, and he noisily fell to the floor as it collapsed. He wasn't the most entertaining audience member though: they were a family of three from the midlands, Mum, Dad and pre-teen son, all proudly bedecked in Spamalot T-shirts and baseball caps, and boasting Adrian Chiles accents. I have never seen a less affected or cool group of people, and salute their ability to enjoy themselves, which they did, noisily, thanking the front of house staff. Bostin.

A gorgeous walk through the sunshine past the back of the castle took us to St Mary's Cathedral for a free lunchtime concert by Guy Newbury (Piano) and Danae Eleni Pallikaropoulos (Soprano). Out of the sun, in the stone cool of the cathedral, their mixed programme of classical and romantic pieces, plus an ambitious modern suite by the pianist was a fantastic contrast to the bustle of the streets. Terrific.

Time for a quick lunch at another fringe venue, and on to the Assembly Rooms, for some theatre, a one-man adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's book Private Peaceful, a first person account of being an under-age volunteer in the Great War. Alexander Campbell gave I think the very best stage acting performance I have ever seen, delivering his intense addresses straight into my eyes. It was an unsentimental but moving picture of the injustice of war, and is, as Morpurgo's pedigree hints, actually suitable for children.

A quick stroll up the mound, now, for some street theatre, specifically a New Zealand circus performer called James, who held a big crowd with all the usual stunts you would expect from a man who can juggle burning clubs atop a 20 foot unicycle. Great stuff. This is where all the day-trippers from Glasgow seemed to congregate. It would enforce the worst kind of social prejudices were I to observe that many watching appeared to be wearing white sportswear, Burberry headgear, ostentatious sovereign signet rings, and facial scars, while consuming off-license alcohol and smoking. Street theatre is now the only part of the fringe where smoking is legal, booze is cheap, and entertainment is free. Long may it reign.

Back to the Assembly for another one-man play, American Mark Soper in his own play, An Age of Angels, which concerns an incident at a high school in LA, depicted through the independent testimony of ten different participants. I thought it was great, despite the first two personae being extreme and challenging (a tall man in his fifties playing a prepubescent schoolgirl is all a bit Anthony Perkins), so I was disappointed at the handful of walkouts. He deserved to be heard.

Next stop, the Udderbelly (a vast purple inflatable cow). We chose (stupidly) to take the bus and were accosted at the stop by an elderly gent who looked like he may have been a retired Lance Corporal, and had seen better days. He had certainly seen the bottom of a few tumblers of whisky, and since quite early in the day, I surmised from his bearing. His bearing down upon me, as it happened. He was very chatty, and with Hackney Carriage diplomacy swung his barely coherent conversation to the sticky topic of immigration in under a minute. Our intense relief as our bus hove into view was tempered by the discovery that it was Lance Corporal Johnny Walker's bus as well. Guessing the stairs would prove a bridge too far, we took the upper deck, and passed the journey listening to him lambaste all and sundry. Terrifyingly, he disembarked at our stop, yelling a few final insults at the driver, and we scuttled to the venue.

It was now seven in the evening, and the comedy crowd here was a completely different beast to the meek theatregoers we had shared the day with. Beer monsters, London Types, pretty girls, and a smattering of people, whom I assumed were dressed in deliberate tribute to Nick Frost in Spaced, Nick Burns in Nathan Barley, or Noel Fielding in real life, with their DJ headphones, unnecessary shades, and retro sports bags slung diagonally over their lanky frames. Or maybe they were just all phenomenal twats. A quick drink, and into the cow for an hour of Stewart Lee, who has refined his act to perfection. There is no waste or slack in this most confident of performers, who is deservedly loved.

Outside afterwards, who should I see, but the Lance-Corporal, inquiring of a Pretty Girl whether she had been to see anything. "Stewart Lee", she mumbled back, and I would have died on the spot a happy man if he'd responded "That Heathen!" but he just staggered off leaving her to relate the encounter to her boyfriend.

An annoying fake Italian meal later (table in a draught, tiny portions, Madonna playing, framed 10X8s of Sinatra, De Niro, and Pacino, and untippable service) we were on our way home. I'd hoped that the Lance Corporal or the beaming brummies might be on the bus, but they weren't. I cuddled up next to Helen with a promising read (Mother Tongue by Jon Helmer), looking forward to yoga the following morning.

Another day as close to perfect as I can imagine.

The Phantom Ponytail - A Call For Commonsense

2007-08-07T12:54:00.000Z

There are some image choices which cause my usual all-inclusive liberalism to crumble. Goths, for example, always make me snigger. Moustaches, on anyone other than a publican or cattle handler inspire my suspicion. Above all, men with ponytails earn reflexive contempt. I encounter them regularly in my counterculture life - both Unix administrators and sci-fi bookshop staff celebrate the ability to appear Sikh-like in their abomination of the barber's blade, yet affected enough to want to shackle their manes, as though they were trunks of fibre-optical cabling.

In the work environment, ponytails are found in the same sartorial forest of Keep Clear signs as comedy socks, novelty ties, and other borderline adherences to dress code (clue: when your empoyer asks you to wear a shirt and tie to work, he probably didn't mean a black shirt, or a bow tie, even if you're a professional conjurer).

Ponytails betray a lack of work/leisure hygiene: they belong to monomaniacal weekend hippies, who want you to ask them about themselves over the coffee machine.

I have today identified a still more risible phenomenon: The phantom ponytail, or hair stump.

This belongs to a male office worker who has been patiently growing his hair in the belief he will soon look exactly like Robert Plant, and as soon as it is possible, gathers it at the back in a borrowed scrunchie, or more likely an elastic band. There is so little hair that rather than hanging down around the nape of the neck, the resulting stump protrudes horizontally, diametrically opposite the wearer's nose. No barbering has been involved, and so there are loose ends flying out all over the place.

Although now appearing to have recently had a while-you-wait facelift, the owner now believes he looks like a woodsman, or some kind of fantasy knight.

Ponder this: In all the male models sporting archetypcal men's hairstyles from the Tony Curtis to the latest David Beckham you have ever seen in a stylist's window, have you ever seen one sporting a ponytail? No. It's the look that money can't buy and which has therefore been forced underground, where desperate men actually perform this misguided procedure upon themselves, often botching it with hideous consequences.

August Headlines

2007-08-07T09:39:00.000Z

I'm still alive: thanks for all your concern. No, really. It's the thought that counts.

Work: Still on lengthy project at major client in Edinburgh. Late nights and weekend working temporarily in abeyance.

Home: Harmony reigns, as school summer holidays mean Miss is more relazed than in recent memory. Halls and stairways recently painted and recarpeted. Thus, no foreign holiday this summer.

Travel: Numerous long weekends in caravans on both coasts. We're finding these very relaxing indeed.

Gigs: Gabriel and Genesis both sublime. Latter felt more like a lap of honour than a resumption of business as usual. A dignified encore.

Writing: Heaved a sigh of relief as final Doctor Who television reviews and latest short story were submitted. The reviews seem to have been receieved well both by publishers and readers, and my services have been retained into the new administration.

Health and fitness: Took my first full week of work and succumbed to a heavy cold in early August. I feel wonderful afterwards and am now training towards the Glasgow half marathon early next month. Three pronged approach - speed, gradient, and impact.

Fringe: Kicked off on Sunday night with Janey Godley. She is astonishing. Lee, Herring, Nichol and Hegley to come. At the book festival Germaine Greer and Jon Ronson will provide some intellectual fibre.

Books: I've resolved to read at least one work of fiction (novel or collection) each week. I've been enjoying Rupert Thomson, Christopher Brookmyre, Robert Goddard, Colin Bateman, and Justin Richards (who he?) recently.

Music: The usual suspects. Need I enumerate? Obviously not.

Family: Enjoyed civilized visits to parents, sister and family, and civilized visits from numerous in-laws. I have a new niece on the way. Parenthood is quite awesome to contemplate. Avuncular duties are, sometimes quite literally, a walk in the park.

Fantastic Place

2007-06-14T19:56:00.000Z

I'm too busy to write anything here very regularly, but tonight I'm at work, having been asked to be present during an IT upgrade, in case anything goes wrong and my system access privileges are needed to fix it. I think this shows a slight failure of nerve on someone else's part, and I was even required to create a pretext to be involved, because there's no specific reason for me to be here.

It's at least a chance to spend some quality time with my new toy, a Creative Zen V Plus 8GB digital music player. It's the first one I've had with a proper screen, so I now take great pride in tagging my mp3 files so they declare themselves nicely. The killer feature on this model are the bookmarks, which means I can pause during 2 hour concerts or Saturday Plays and come back later, without agonising searching to resume.

Last week, I went to see Marillion. I think this must have been something like the 25th time I'd seen them. The previous time was the first I'd seen them sober, and I'd turned up late just to avoid being with a bunch of beery blokes while waiting. I actually missed the first half of the opening number. Standing at the back near the bar, I was horribly distracted by drinkers, talkers, and texters. So, this time, I decided to get there early, queue outside, and try and make it to the front. I'd never done this before, for any artist.

I arrived in Glasgow at about six, in good time for the doors at seven thirty. I killed a bit of time by walking the length of Sauchiehall Street, and drank in the incredible urban intersection that is Charing Cross, an amazing place where you can see the M8 slicing through the heart of Glasgow, and an office building above and over the slip road, where a bridge or lights would normally be. I also walked around a few of the backstreets in the evening sun, listening to Marillion on my wonder-phone. With its steep hills, it reminded me of Vancouver.

Joining the queue of a couple of dozen people outside the venue, the ABC, I was struck by how young some of them were and how not exclusively male, as well. It was a good atmosphere, and several members of the band, and the people who work for them were greeted cordially but not harrassed by the fans. The doors opened promptly, and as bags were searched, I thought I had better volunteer my penknife. I received a raffle ticket in return. There didn't seem to be a proper cloakroom though, and as soon as I made it up into the main ballroom, I headed across the floor, to a point just in front of the centre of the stage, with only one person in front of me. Turning round, I saw there was in fact a cloakroom and deposited my bag and jacket. I did keep my phone and earphones though - with 90 minutes until Marillion appeared, I wanted to stay occupied mentally, and listened to my recordings of Radio 4's Loose Ends and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. I believe this makes me the most middle class person to have ever gone to a rock gig. The people around me were familiar from the queue outside, and appeared in some cases to have been following the band around the country for years. They reminded me, in fact, of the Albert Hall's keen promenaders, but without black tie.

I unplugged for the support act, Ainsley Henderson, a young Scottish singer-songwriter and his diverse band, who went down a storm, and commented on how receptive and polite the Marillion audience was. Great stuff. Plugs back in.

Watching the crew switch over was diverting. Having watched an excessively long, detailed, and idosycrantic documentary about these guys a year or so before, I recognised a lot of them, and also knew what they were doing, down to the function of every last cross of gaffer tape on the stage. At nine o'clock, synthesiser-wallah held down one key on Mark Kelly's ivories before scuttling off, as the racks behind, looking as if they'd be more at home in a data centre, started to deliver the sequenced introduction to Splintering Heart.

The gig was great. In 28 years of live music, I've never stood so near a rock band in full flight before. I picked up on loads on non-verbal interplay between the band, and noticed small looks of disapproval or anxiety on the few occasions when beery twats in the audience threatened to disrupt things. We had a lovely communal vibe down at the front, and I found myself exchanging smiles with total strangers whenever there was cause to. A couple of scary blokes with comically dyed hair and yards of tattoos pushed forward to take photos, and, as soon a security had seen them off, we collectively gathered closer to stop it happening again.

Here are some pictures taken from more or less where I was:

Marillion Glasgow

During the last song, King, in which singer Steve Hogarth plays the role of public icon, complete with pink guitar and tongue-in-cheek rock god poses, he dived to the front of the stage to land on his knees at the very edge, only to overshoot and fall into the pit between us and the band. It happened literally under my nose, and I couldn't quite believe it. In this order, pink guitar-wallah scuttled forward to retrieve the instrument, security helped Steve up, and he climbed back on to the stage, shaken. In-ear monitor-wallah, who's a bit more flamboyant, walked erect as he came to plug Steve's radio back into his plugs. He was shaken, but finished the song. During King, a woman about my age had pushed her way to the front near me, and as the band walked off, she vaulted the barrier and tried to get to Steve. Security grabbed her, but before she could be led off, Steve gave her the kiss she was after.

At the end of Neverland, the first encore, Steve silently acknowledged someone in the balcony. I later read that this was none other than Fish, the band's previous singer, who Steve succeeded 18 years ago. It was an acrimonious departure, so as fans, I think we see occasions like this as akin to divorced parents making an effort at family events. Fish had been in the news a few days earlier, with his imminent marriage being called off, so maybe he was taking the chance to see some old friends and remind himself of his blessings.

They didn't leave the stage until 11, and my last train was at half past but I managed to recover my posessions and get to the station in good time. It was sparsely, but exclusively occupied by Marillion fans. All couples.

I had a fantastic evening. Front row for me, from now on. With the smoking ban, and being so far from the bar, and so near the PA, most of my gripes about standing, licensed gigs just didn't apply. It's Peter Gabriel in Hyde Park in about ten days, so I'll see how close I can get then.

Rest and Recuperation Recently Required

2007-05-26T14:21:00.000Z

I'm so indecisive at the moment that I just spent a minute staring at the Title: field of this post trying to come up with one.

The frenzy of the past year has all caught up with me and I'm feeling exhausted and lethargic. My concentration is shot, and I take pleasure in little other than sleeping and watching television, which absorbs me now like it never has before. This is what it must be like to be old.

So, I'm taking it easy, as much as I can, anyway, and relying on all the processes and aides-memoir I seems to spend my active time generating. I bought Helen an iPod for our anniversary, and in a fit of jealous pique, my Creative Zen has comitted suicide. Waiting for its replacement to arrive seems to be a good opportunity to give the gym a rest, or at least confine myself to swimming and yoga.

I'd been needing about 12 shots of espresso a day, which is not really a sustainable way to live (unless you also do lots of cocaine as well, obviously) so I've cut that out completely. I'm in my fourth day off the bean today, and I haven't had any of the headaches I'd been expecting and my piss has stopped smelling like the bins at Starbucks.

I new something was going wrong on my most recent competitive run, the 10K Bupa Great Edinburgh Run the other weekend, when I had to actually stop and walk for a bit. I didn't feel ashamed or embarrassed, but more shocked that my legs had just given up. I think it was a mixture of lack of sleep and steady hydration the day before, together with perhaps easing off training a day or two too early so that my calves were stiff and knotted. Plenty of approaches to try before the next one in September.

I'm looking forward to getting better. Specifically to getting my energy and concentration back so I can spend an hour reading in bed each night, cook a new recipe each week, and even iron standing up, which is proving a challenge now.

The optimism of a long weekend

2007-05-05T08:59:00.000Z

A weekend of space to breathe - four days of catching up and consolidating. I took Friday off to try and make inroads on a piece of writing I have to deliver at the end of the month. Eventually, after hours of uninspired hard work I gave up and tidied my study. I think that there are few pleasures in life greater than getting up in the morning the day after you've tidied up and taking a few minutes to enjoy the clear surfaces, alphabetised books and right angles you've imposed. So, a good start to today, even if I have 4000 words to get through. I must work on integrating writing into other things I do. I still do it the way I did when I was a gonzo batchelor, sat in front of the computer with all other demands on my time subjugated to The Deadline and just a bottle of vodka for comfort. I sank about 8 pints of coffee yesterday, which may have been just as couterproductive.

The post arrived this morning. For me, two issues of Doctor Who Adventures, complete with inflatable mosnters, sticker book, poster, and Doctor Who pencil and notepad. For Helen, the electricity bill. Someone in this household is more overtly keeping his inner child alive.

There are leaks coming from the school in Switzerland where Genesis are rehearsing for their reunion tour. If they play some of the songs they've been practising when they come to Twickenham in July, I shall have tears in my eyes. What a time this is for my eternal fifteen-year-old self, Doctor Who back on TV, Genesis back on the road, and I've even got some exams to take soon, to obtain professional certification as a boring tit who works in IT. The man who came to fix the shower yesterday asked what I did and instantly regretted it when I started telling him. The power to bore domestic appliance engineers - what a gift. He left so quickly he didn't even ask to see the warranty.

Despite my electoral opposition on Thursday, it seems the SNP has gained control of the Scottish parliament. I have a wooly fear that this will endanger the union between Scotland and the rest of Britain, and am not sure how I feel about having to learn Gaelic in order to understand the Scottish-only radio, television and newspapers that will supplant the British ones, to surrender my British passport, and become a first generation immigrant in this fledgling nation. On the other hand, it may just be that there won't be any Scottish seats at Westminster, and the Scottish parliament will actually assume some significance. Until someone tells me, I'm not going to start shouting. That's been the problems with referenda so far - voters assume the choice is what they most fear, and vote accordingly. At least it will all be spoken about publically, and I'm sure nothing will happen overnight.

A Closing Credit!

2007-04-18T18:36:00.000Z

I feel quite euphoric. I recently learned that a documentary feature on the latest Doctor Who DVD (Survival - BBCDVD1834 - April) had incorporated a piece I wrote for Doctor Who Magazine in 1997. That was called 27 Up and combined research on how the series might have continued after 1989 with some fanciful extrapolation. The DVD documentary has been produced by my friend Richard, but he brilliantly kept my involvement as a surprise, and the first I found about it was an interview with him in the latest issue of the magazine.

I love seeing my name in print. I would be lying if I said it wasn't one of the best things about dabbling in journalism and fiction. But I've never expected to see it on telly, least of all typeset and composited into the actual closing credits of Doctor Who! Brilliant!

The Prime of My Life

2007-04-07T10:46:00.000Z

I entered my forty-second year today. I feel less anxious than last Saturday, when I had a half marathon and a critique of the new series of Doctor Who's debut to deliver the following day. Both went well, in one hour forty-nine minutes and one thousand words respectively. On the left you can see me coming in to the finish past the Royal Yacht Brittania at Leith, streaking past Max Clifford, it would appear.

I've just read Iain Bank's latest novel and, although it's a return to a well-established winning formula, did remind me why I love his work so much. I have an impossible pile of reading to choose from and am glad I no longer review books regularly. It's great to dabble and sample.

It's a bright sunny easter weekend here in Edinburgh. I'm attached to a weekend-long project at one of our clients so I keep being summoned to interventions and course-corrections meetings. I've already put in a week's worth commuting in the course of two days, but I'm inspired by the professionalism of my fellow contributors.

I'm so busy! I haven't even listenened to the new Marillion album yet. That's a telling pair of statements.

March this weekend, run next weekend

2007-03-24T08:09:00.000Z

I've never seen Brendon Burns live other than brief clips on Edinburgh festival television reviews, but he endeared himself to me this week in an interview in Metro that I picked up on the bus:

You’ve toured all around the world. Where are the worst audiences?
Liverpool. All comedians hate working Liverpool because Liverpudlians think yelling out ‘eff off’ makes them funnier than you. They’re unfunny people who think they’re funny. They’re so obvious and banal. Even Scouse comics think that Liverpudlian audiences are parochial and rubbish. Ricky Tomlinson goes on stage at the Liverpool comedy festival, says ‘What’s the point of having a comedy festival in Liverpool? Everyone’s a comedian’ and the place goes nuts. No one else feels that way about them. No one else thinks they’re funny.

I always found Liverpudlians en masse very cynical and punishing towards anyone venturing above the parapet, so I have a lot of sympathy for Burns' observation. It's a sweeping generalisation, or course. Some Liverpudlians are lovely. Like me.

In other news, I shall be running my second half marathon next weekend. I think I'm better prepared this time, although I'm really going to have to resist the temptation to hare off at the start because I'm doing better at endurance than speed this year. My biggest fear, genuinely, is that I'll have inappropriate and annoying music repeating in my head as I run, like Joe Simpson's viral infestation of Boney M's Brown Girl In The Ring towards the conclusion of the events of Touching The Void.

The next couple of months are looking very busy. The project I'm working on has a financial cut-off at the end of May so we have to deliver lots of wins by then, which will mean weekend working. Doctor Who returns to BBC1 next Saturday, which means that if I'm going to maintain any kind of discipline at all, my reviews of each episode for Doctor Who Magazine will have to be complete by the following Monday morning. And the other writing engagement I put out for at last year's North-East England Doctor Who convention is going to happen, so I have a short story to deliver by the end of May.

I am reminded of this sublime observation by Fry and Laurie, in their "Spies" characters. I'm probably paraphrasing (or, to paraphrase that, "lazily misquoting").

MERCHISON: It never rains, but it pours.
CONTROL: Sometimes it rains and it pours!

Boh!

What happened to February? Eh?

2007-03-01T23:25:00.000Z

Father, its has been six weeks since my last confession.

For the last three weeks, I've been back on site at our client in the centre of Edinburgh. I'm engaged on a long server software upgrade programme which involves lots of small projects, and I'm finding the change to shorter-term, closely-scrutinised work very stimulating. After the alternating lethargy and panic of being solely charged with inventing something, this is a great improvement, and my morale is on the rise.

I'm now focussing on the Edinburgh Forthside Half Marathon five weeks from now. After the pain of last year's Glasgow event, I'm making sure I'm well-prepared, and for the last couple of Saturdays, I've managed to run outdoors for two hours continuously. This is more or less the length of a live concert by one of my favourite prog rock bands, so I can listen to a lovingly remastered live recording as I thud along the canal path, and the combined experience is about as much fun as you can have by yourself. I love having the Union Canal towpath just at the end the road, and being able to progressively push how far along it I can run each time. I think I made it to the outskirts of Ratho yesterday:

That makes it about seven miles each way, so I should be good for the race.

I made a modest return to Doctor Who Magazine this month, as the latest TV critic. I'm pleased to be part of the magazine again now that the series is on air, and to be covering the TV series itself. I'm still following my path through the original TV series, and the weekend's ironing will find me in 1971, but I shall have to suspend this personal archaeology while I watch and rewatch the new series and try and produce some insights.

I am developing a cold. It's in beta-test at the moment, and should be ready for public launch any day now. I actually want to go to work tomorrow, but fear I may manage a gallant appearance at a morning meeting before vacating my desk for the comfort of a hot bath and an afternoon of menthol inhalation. So no running for me this weekend. Arse.

Swearing, Sweating and Sharing

2007-01-15T13:04:00.000Z

I've had a very satisfactory weekend. I'd needed to get something off my chest at work, and managed to do it on Friday, so the anxiety that had dogged me for the previous week was finally banished. That set things up very well.

On Friday night, we watched the French documentary Etre et Avoir about a junior school teacher and his charges. It took a while for me to assimilate the style of the film, but it did win me over. I resolve to watch more foreign language cinema - there's something very dignified about having all the dialogue presented as subtitles - it makes you take it in syntactically as well as semantically. We followed that up with another sort of French documentary, Tourette de France. I felt a twinge of recognition with the film's subjects, who I learned often have OCD as well as Tourettes. My occasional moaning or talking to myself when stressed, are somewhere on the same continuum at Tourettes, I'm sure. In particular, I identified with John Davidson when he let out a compulsive "Whizzzzzz!" on a tour of a cathedral.

Saturday brought the Edinburgh Great Winter Run, and thankfully a respite from the storms that have been lashing the city of late. It felt like swimming in the Serpentine on New Year's Day - the city coming out to blow off the cobwebs and start the new year. The middle involved running up a volcano into a silent-movie oncoming wind, and I was more tempted to walk than on any previous run. I let thoughts of my next appointment with tarmac hang over me, which drove morale down still further, but once over the worst, romped back in a respectable time. It was barely long enough to get warmed up, I'm telling myself.

Having thus earned some relaxation, I spent the afternoon on the sofa in my dressing gown eating Turkish Delight and watching 16 Years of Alcohol, Richard Jobson's beautifully-made, if utterly demoralising film memoir. It was all filmed on Edinburgh's Southside where I used to live, and even included a few views of where I'd been running that morning.

To celebrate Helen's birthday, we went out to dinner at Merchants. I'd been once before, about eight years ago, on a deserted week night, but it was warm in every way for Helen and me. Despite sitting opposite each other for out evening meal at least three hundred times a year, we still find new things to talk about when we go out. A great day.

Sunday was quieter. I've been replacing all my old cassette concert bootlegs with downloaded CD versions but one or two performances have been elusive in this format ,so I've resorted to capturing, tidying up, and mastering my own CDs of them. This is a significant investment of effort, and I'd hate to lose the results, so I decided to share out my latest (Yes live in Sacramento in 1988) via the Bittorrent filesharing system. I'd never contributed anything like this previously, so after gingerly following the relevant FAQ, I was thrilled to see other users taking the files and passing them on in turn. By the end of the day, there were 70 other sharers who had joined in. This was doubly rewarding because I felt like I'd contributed something back to the community, and also, because there were now 70 safety copies of my fragile CDRs spread all over the world. This is addictive. I will try and contribute some video as well, of programmes I've rescued from VHS tapes.

Blair's Noxious Emission

2007-01-09T09:37:00.000Z

At this stage in his premiership, Blair can afford to set an example without alienating potential supporters who want social justic, but not at the price of easy access to their second home in the Algarve. It would have cost him nothing to do the right thing. It has cost us all a great deal, that he hasn't. I'd be very angry if I hadn't already deserted Labour for the Greens at the last election.

High and Dry: Two Years On

2007-01-08T10:54:00.000Z

It is exactly two years to the day since I stopped drinking alcohol. We shall celebrate tonight with the ginger cake I baked at the weekend. I am quietly proud.

After the holiday period's sniffles, aches and pains, I feel my strength returning. I will be circumnavigating Edinburgh's dormant volcano in the Great Winter Run on Saturday. Can't wait.

Bubbling Lumps of Hate

2007-01-05T10:06:00.000Z

Dear Sir

I was recently taken by the similarity between BNP leader, Nick Griffin, and the Emperor of the Daleks.

Both are glassy-eyed ranting right-wing monsters with delusions of grandeur, intent on recycling the marginalised of society into a coordinated, homogeneous force to sieze victory for racial purity.

Could they perhaps be related?

Emperor

Griffin

Yours,

ENA B TORCHWOOD
Edinburgh

Primer

2006-12-28T10:58:00.000Z

I have discovered the most wonderful film.

Primer is a low-key mentally-challenging thriller about two young engineers who accidentally discover a very mundane form of short-term time travel and hesitantly explore the implications. It was made for the price of a used car in five weeks, and avoids melodrama entirely. The film I've seen that it has most in common with is Memento. By contrast, this year's Deja Vu, for example, takes a hundredth of the intellectual exploration of Primer, and presents it as grand opera.

I'm excited because I don't get it all yet, and will need several more viewings before I think I do. I'm also thrilled because this is the first time I've discovered a film through on-line word of mouth discussion, researched it through this diligent Wikipedia entry, and then and only then decided to rent it. I watched last night after everyone had gone to bed.

Well, I think I did.

YouTube Link: Animate! (A Digital Man)

2006-12-21T19:53:00.000Z

I love this guy's drumming, and I'm sympathetic to his prose and lyrics too. But whoever animated this loves him more. This is amazing. And all the more so for being set on Lake Ontario, where our honeymoon began.

By the way, the Rush track he's playing, YYZ (the call sign of Toronto Pearson airport) is pronounced "Why why Zed" - Canadians don't employ the American "Zee".

Dead Man's Shoes

2006-12-05T10:13:00.000Z

The phone rang persistently during dinner on Sunday, then my mobile. We have a tacit rule not to answer while we are eating, so afterwards, as Helen cleared away, I checked my messages. A text from a very old friend asked me very firmly to contact him that evening. It already sounded bad, so I called him immediately. He asked if I was at home and sitting down, and I knew at once that someone close to us both was either dead or in serious trouble.

Craig, who I've known since 1983, had been found dead in his home that day. The cause of death is as yet unknown, pending an autopsy. He was 42.

The worst of it is that he was between partners, living alone, and may have lain undiscovered for six days. It's the saddest kind of end I can imagine.

He's been in my thoughts ever since. My tear ducts seem to have healed up when I stopped drinking, so my main reaction has been a kind of extreme anxiety: I just start to hyperventilate and fret, and I couldn't settle down with Helen on Sunday night and just sat alone until I fell asleep in a chair before going to bed.

We'd had a fair few spats: he was gloriously melodramatic, and in 1994 when he was shunted from Doctor Who Magazine, so the editor could parachute me in in his place, I called him at home to express my regret at the circumstances. He gave me his unequivocal support and was subsequently very helpful whenever I called on him. Nevertheless, he revelled in his misfortune, and on recognising my voice on the phone that night, immediately made me squirm with the greeting "How does it feel to be wearing dead man's shoes?"

The last time I saw him was either this or last summer, when I spent most of an evening talking to him outside a pub full of Doctor Who fans. He was still relentlessly full of his own woes, but seemed more optimistic than in the past, and more concerned with an old mutual friend of similar vintage who he felt had let him down. My advice would have been "drop him", but that didn't seem to even be an option to Craig. He was every inch a people person.

I wonder, if he'd known he was only going to make it this far, whether he'd have been a bit more carefree. Instead, he had that crippling combination of maudlin introspection and grand hedonism. That he kept going, picking himself up, and carrying on, despite this, is a testament to a bullish inner energy, without which, he'd have been lost far earlier.

It's hard to be at work this week surrounded by people to whom this would mean nothing. It's not really the kind of experience you volunteer when colleagues ask how your weekend went. I understand the social need for funerals and memorials now more than ever before.

Tetris Moments

2006-11-20T12:13:00.000Z

I had to explain to Helen what I meant by the term "Tetris Moments", so I thought I'd try and define it here as well.

The 1980s computer game Tetris involves the player controlling a stream of falling pieces, each made from a random configuration four 4 regularly-connected squares, so that when they land in a constrained silo of previously-fallen pieces, they pack as densely as possible. When densely packed, so that there are contiguous rows of squares from one wall of the silo to the other, that row vanishes, so that there is more vertical room for falling pieces.

If the player is careless, he will leave rows of squares with gaps in, which will not disappear and he will find the messy pile of incomplete rows growing upwards until he does not have time to rotate new falling pieces. He will quickly see the silo overflow and the game end.

I find Tetris psychologically rewarding because it is a fight against chaos, which rewards best practices, and appeals to my compulsive nature. It garnishes this worthy appeal with the spice of recklessness: specifically, it may be possible to allow rows of squares to build up with missing squares directly above one another, creating a long thin vertical space. When this is exactly four rows tall, and is the only space in those rows, the best possible piece to randomly appear next is one with plugs this gap perfectly. By rotating and positioning so that it then does just that, it makes those four rows all vanish at once, and furthermore, takes itself with them, leaving no detritus whatsoever. It is the single most efficient gambit, and combines the potential-to-actual benefit-redemption of a rugby conversion with an undeniable similarity to sexual penetration.

So what is a Tetris Moment? I think it's when you've been biding your time, laying the groundwork, and just hoping that the right opportunity will come along, and it does, by surprise: a combination of good planning and good luck leading to the best possible outcome.

This weekend seemed full of them. I planned to go to the barber's late so that he wouldn't be busy, and as I walked in the only other customer in the shop was paying and leaving. It wouldn't have been a Tetris Moment if I hadn't deliberately left it late, or the shop had been empty, or I'd had to wait at all. I set up my new compost bin just as Helen was repotting some plants, giving me a source of starter compost and dead shrubs to get going with. Best of all, I finally got round to filling in the missing episodes in my collection of Time Gentlemen Please recordings, by capturing the episode and a half needed from VHS, authoring the DVD volumes I was now able to, and then contemplating the complete set on my shelf.

I've been wandering what other people call Tetris Moments or what I would have before the advent of the game (I think I first encountered it on a Sun workstation in early 1989). It's come to me: Game, set and match.

Transcending Convention

2006-11-16T13:41:00.000Z

I made a collossal error at work today, akin to amputating the wrong limb of a patient, so I am being quietly left alone while the powers that be determine whether they are feeling merely annoyed, or also inconvenienced. If the latter I may be starting my Christmas holidays a few weeks early, but just in case, I think I'd better look busy: hence this entry, which at least generates some audible keystrokes.

L-R Graeme Harper, Eric Saward, Philip Hinchcliffe, (Cassandra), myself

Last weekend, I went to Dimensions 2006, my first Doctor Who convention in three years, and my first ever sober. That even includes my debut in 1979, when surreptitious halves of cider
enlivened my thirteen-year-old diet. Was there really any doubt whatsoever that I would become anything other than a problem drinker? The last one I went to in 2003 really shows where those sips of cider led to - bumming cigs all weekend, wondering around with a piss-stained crotch while hugging alarmed actresses, passing out in the lobby, losing my jacket, wallet, and camera, and classiest of all, renting breakfast for half an hour before returning it to the hotel via the U-bend. AA say you have to hit rock bottom before starting recovery, and that weekend still burns in my memory as almost too painful to recall.

So, it was with some caution that I arrived at the Swallow Hotel, Stockton, a couple of hours' train ride from Edinburgh last Friday night. I took my time freshening up in my room and didn't hit the lounge until around ten. I was greeted by some old pals, some of whom I've known socially, and others who I've worked with. Four and a half hours later, I was still up gossipping.

In my last few years of con going, I felt I was starting to haunt them rather than participiate - I'd linger in my hotel room, drink alone all day, and not really get involved with any of the programmed events. This weekend, I was still alone for some of the time, but quite electively - I'd decided to carve up the homogeneous days of guest interview panels and lounging with quick stints in the hotel's mini-gym and quicker interventions with my laptop, which spent the eekend batch processing radio dramas. If that sounds a bit tragic, do consider that it's a way of ensuring y to-do list gets ticked even when I lose a valuable weekend at home. No, actually, it does sound ncredibly tragic.

I was a bit tense on Saturday, because a few days earlier I'd had my offer of conducting on-stage guest interviews taken up, and been scheduled to talk to Philip Hinchcliffe, Graeme Harper, and Eric Saward on stage on the Sunday morning. Despite keeping a notepad with me all day, I'd come up with no more than a handful of ideas. The on-stage cabaret on Saturday night took my mind off it, starting with Butlins-style entertainment and becoming gradually more subverted to the theme of the weekend until climaxing with Toby Hadoake's Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf, a show which resonated even more with me than Will Smith's Misplaced Childhood at last year's Fringe. A quick introduction handshake with Hinchcliffe and Harper and I was off to bed.

I woke early and practiced some asanas as the sun rose over the Tees, and then (me, not the sun) bumped into Hinchcliffe waiting for the lift. He had produced my favourite Doctor Who stories, when I was exactly the right age to appreciate them, and is now a youthful educated sixty-something. I wasn't quite dumbstruck, but his lack of any kind of frothy bonhomie froze my attempts to make small talk. Panic began to grow, and I beat it down.

Into the green room, where the event staff were being warm and efficient, and made me, a mere guest interviewer feel appreciated and special. Harper came in and, sensing my slight anxiety, helped me feel at home. I'd spent an evening in a hotel bar with him 21 years earlier and I knew he'd be fine, and he was. Finally Saward arrived, even cooler than Hinchcliffe, yet almost amused at what was going on around him. We were escorted to the stage, where I was introduced, walked on through the TARDIS doors (to a round of applause! Oh yes!) and introduced my guests. I'd worked out an opening question and primed them all beforehand, and we were still covering it 20 minutes in, the first time I checked my watch. I felt like Tony Banks after the second song of Genesis' first concert without Peter Gabriel - of course it was going to be alright - how could it not have ever been alright?

I was very pleased with the way it went. I matched Hinchcliffe and Saward's educated tones, moved discussion on with supplemtary questions, and passed the ball between the three of them until they were doing it themselves. I threw it open to the floor fifteem minutes before we closed, and mostly got sharp questions apart from the one I'd been expecting from the convention's pet eccentric, and another from an elderly lady from nearby who'd misapprehended both Hinchcliffe's role (former, not present producer) and agenda (Doctor Who's audience should include adults, not comprise them). I interceded and all was well. In the green room later, Hinchcliffe enthusiastically praised my questions, and in so doing, made my weekend. Wonderful man.

I breathed out. Then I noticed Paul McGann in the room. Eek. At least his sudden appearance wasn't as startling as that earlier of Will Thorp, who essentially played the devil in Doctor Who this year.

The rest of the day involved watching my pals from Big Finish take questions on stage, and a few more of the interview panels, the highlight being Paul McGann and his immediate predecessor Sylvester McCoy on stage together reminiscing about how they had exchanged the keys to the TARDIS ten years ago. And, if I'm honest, enjoying all the costumes being paraded around the lobby, for a variety of reasons, some more noble than others.

Unlike three years previously, I came away feeling optimistic and fulfilled. I'd seen my mates, met some heroes, laughed out loud a lot, stoked my desire for recognition and approval, and tentatively renewed relations with a couple of publishers with a view to maybe, just maybe, getting back into print in the next year or two. I'd finally met face to face a friend I made on-line over ten years ago, completely by surprise. Best of all was spending a weekend with a very old friend, who doesn't drink, and had, I think, almost written me off as a hopeless case. He seemed impressed and relieved by my continuing recovery. That alone made it worthwhile.

Back to normal this weekend, for two days of domestic fun, including setting up our new compost bin, and the new James Bond film. I wonder which I will enjoy most. No, really.

Pigs on the Wave

2006-11-01T11:03:00.000Z

Earlier this year, my friend Davy opined that the cover of the latest Muse album as "the most Pink Floyd thing" he's ever seen.

One of the new BBC One continuity films seems to be similarly inspired, echoing both the procine mascot of the band and the projection disk they performed beneath.

Going For The Ten

2006-10-12T15:09:00.000Z

I've been too busy to write anything since the weekend, as work has been keeping me occupied. However, I can't let next weekend arrive without recording that I went to see Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman's opening night at the Edinburgh Playhouse on Saturday, which was unexpectedly delightful, as I've previously found them individually disappointing and not even essential to Yes, who've managed to make good albums without both of them. They bring out the best in one another - Anderson inspires Wakeman, and Wakeman polishes and improves Anderson. Loosely based on Anderson's naive solo arrangements of Yes tunes from his solo tour, the renditions benefitted from Wakeman's brilliance as an arranger and accompanist. They were genuinely relaxed in each other's company. I can continue waiting for Yes to grit their teeth and enter a studio again if their sub-groups in the mean time can be this entertaining.

The following morning, I ran the Hopetoun House 10K in a personal best time of 48 minutes and 39 seconds. It was unlike any city run I've done, feeling at times like a public school cross country. There was absolutely no public transport provision to the start (Thank you, Brian Souter, you franchise-squatting, homophobic waste of carrier bags), so I had to take my bike on the train to Dalmeny and cycle through South Queenferry to get there. Which, apart from adding to the number of things which could have gone wrong, was actually very pleasant.

The lessons learned from Glasgow paid dividends - I had trained outdoors and smeared my loins with nappy-rash cream, so I was feeling fine afterwards and the next day. I'd also been training for hills on the treadmill, and there were plenty of those on the day. I'm very pleased with the way it went. There were a couple of memorable moments - I ran through a bed of nettles and gained an annoying itch as a result that I tried to use as a motivator - and the water station halfway were handing out plastic cups rather than bottles. It is far harder to drink from a cup than a bottle while running up a grassy hill, and I regurgitated most of what I took down.

I'm still very tired, and looking forward to next week, when we're going on holiday. I shall have to make sure I can blog from my wonder-phone before we go.

Caption Competition #1

2006-10-06T22:49:00.000Z

Barely a flicker crossed Mr Quill's face as Mrs Harris removed her prosthesis

The Young Davros

2006-10-06T18:48:00.000Z

Although this month's wonderful audio play about the evil creator of the Daleks describes his childhood, it depicts him looking somewhat older on the sleeve (left).

My own variation (right) seems to reflect more contemporary concepts of nascent immorality.

Martin Amis in Edinburgh

2006-10-05T10:32:00.000Z

Last night I went to see Martin Amis speak at the Queen's Hall, a stone's throw from my previous address. The audience were older than I had expected, perhaps indicating that the young Amis' novels in the seventies caught on with people of his father's generation. A few minutes before the event, Edinburgh's, indeed possibly the UK's, best known crime writer, Ian Rankin took his seat two rows in front of me, and just as I was contemplating this, Dylan Moran, perhaps best know as fictional TV bookseller Bernard Black passed my seat. This was becoming an archetypal
evening.

Amis himself was hindered on stage by the interlocutive presence of Alan Taylor of The Herald, who fawned over Amis and interposed himself between him and his audience's questions. I could and have done a better job in similar circumstances.

After reading from his new novella, the author parried questions and non-sequiteurs with dry aplomb and rose in my estimation - he does seem to revel interaction with ordinary people, most of the floor questions being polite and deferential, if at times intimidated by their subject's sheer intellect. I could have played Mart Bingo had I wished, yelling "House" after he had broached Christopher Hitchens, reviews of his recent work, smoking, Stalin, and nuclear arsenals.

It had been a worthwhile evening, which has rejuvenated my appreciation of an author I've admired for twenty years now.

Stirring The Porridge

2006-10-02T14:53:00.000Z

There's nothing like a slight change of routine to send we Aspergic types into fits of discord. I like to think I've transcended that stage, and begun to relish perturbations to my schedule. Take this morning. My bike was at the shop being repaired, in itself no more than a minor inconvenience. I also overslept by about 45 minutes. This combination, as the project manager in me would say, negatively impacted the cost/benefit profile of the "gym before work" proposition. As I was contemplating my options, a lens fell out of my glasses, and was nearly taken away as a plaything by the cat, at which point the old me would have decided the gods were toying with me, and sulked theatrically.

However, the new, go with the flow, surf life's ups and downs, turn a problem into an opportunity me took a look out of the window, saw it wasn't actually raining, and went for a run along the Union Canal towpath instead. It felt wonderful. I managed a steady pace, remembering to myself that the outdoor work is to acclimatise my joints, not break speed records, enjoyed the autumn sunrise reflecting in the canal, and revelled in the view from the viaduct as I headed west towards Wester Hailes. I listened to my next two chronological episodes of Doctor Who, The Web of Fear 6, and Fury From The Deep 1, and returned home in time to shower change and breakfast before going out. An experience like that sets you up for whatever the day can throw at you.

I noticed at the weekend that The Web of Fear contains characters called Arnold and Lane, which indicates that there was more than one type of London Underground preoccupying the writers in 1968.

I went to the Doctor's on the way to work, and was relieved to hear his view that my upset stomach is probably due to too much high-fibre cereal. Whatever next? Eyestrain from reading The Guardian? Stubbed toes from wearing sandals? I'm quite relieved that his suspicion matches mine, specifically because it legitimises my new desire to eat porridge for breakfast whenever I can.

My Mum made us porridge for breakfast when I was little, and round our way it was served with whole milk (to cool it down) and Tate and Lyle's golden syrup (to give us diabetes). My grown up version is made with skimmed milk, and in an effort to keep my glucose levels down, not much else. At the weekend, I made a serendipitous discovery. I had more natural yoghurt in the fridge than I knew what to do with, so I dolloped some on my porridge and topped it with a little honey. Nectar! The sweet and sour contrast turned this utilitarian slop into the food of the gods. I shall continue to experiment, with stewed apple, sliced fruit, and anything else that isn't too fibrous. The only question remaining is whether I can exercise on a stomach full of it, as I suspect that the gym would be less tolerant of my somehow heating porridge on the premises (How, anyway? A discreet camping stove?) than they have been of my inoffensive tupperware box of muesli. I will therefore have to digest this unexpected feast before leaving the house.

Man with cold complains about things

2006-09-29T10:44:00.000Z

It's been a bitty week (although not in the oepidal sense), and I am glad that Friday evening is approaching. I'd be still gladder if I knew whether I was working this weekend or not. I took Monday off in lieu of time worked, and felt happier on a Sunday than I had in recent memory. I visited a new client on Wednesday and was tense and worried beforehand, but they weren't at all fierce and I hope to see more of them. All this change has stirred up my schedule and I feel quite tired as a result.

There's just over a walk before the Hopetoun House 10k which should be, almost literally, a walk in the park compared to the Glasgow Half. I passed through Glasgow on Wednesday, and the topology of the city now has a different feel to me after the ordeal. I've had a cold, from which I'm mainly recovered, so I should be fine for the race, and can comfortably cover 10k in 54 minutes in training. I'll aim for 50 on the day.

Anyway: An emerging problem with the .com economy is that were are at the mercy of the couriers we choose to deliver our purchases to us. I've spurned economy couriers because they're unapologetically useless, in favour of Parcel Force, but they now seem to be heading the same way. They won't leave large parcels at your local post office, failed to redeliver to my home address on Monday after I waited in all day, and after promising to redeliver to work on Wednesday, left the box with my neighbour instead. Oh, the irritation! This is probably another reason I'm feeling so tired.

Anyway, in about five hours I shall be heading home, and as Helen is going to the pictures with a mate, will comfort myself with a week's ironing and a reconstruction of The Enemy of the World. Bliss.

Chicken Feng Shui

2006-09-22T18:08:00.000Z

Yogic Stealth Commuting

2006-09-21T13:52:00.000Z

I was visiting a client site today that's a good way outside town, and took the bus. It's a special bus, that takes slightly different routes at the far end, denoted by different alphabetic suffixes to the route number. I had forgotten which suffix I needed, but reasoned that the informative signage at the stop would enlighten me.

Alas, the timetable and map had slipped behind another route's details in the display at the stop, obscuring the critical details of which variant I needed. The perspex covering had been cracked, possibly causing the slippage, or maybe due to another bewildered traveller trying to get through at and slide the details back into view. When I tried this option, they wouldn't budge, leaving me looking like a nutter to the other passengers.

I decided to board whichever bus had a destination beyond where I was going, as shown on the still just visible route map. It seemed there was one every five minutes, so it was bound to turn up. That's what I thought. The first one to come was a 44C, which sped past without stopping. I worried that it might have been the one I wanted, but reassured myself that it probably wasn't. What I could see of the map seemed to support this theory. Each 44C was followed by more 44s, and very occasionally a 44B, heading to a non-candidate destination. It must be the 44A, or even 44D I needed, I reasoned.

After an hour, neither of these rumoured services had appeared, so I asked the driver of teh next 44C which bus I needed to get to my destination. "It's the 44C" he responded, matter-of-factly. "This bus, then", I added, to which he nodded. This was about the fifth 44C to have passed since I had been waiting. I boarded and sat down.

I did feel a bit of a twat at the time for not having pestered fellow passengers, or the driver of any bus with a 4 in its number to have passed, for the service details, but on reflection, I'm quite happy with what happened.

It shows that I like waiting at bus stops, listening to MP3 files, and watching the world go by. I am content, patient, and at peace.

This, it seems, is exactly the kind of outcome you can expect if you attempt to go to work straight after a yoga class.

Escapement Escapism

2006-09-20T15:52:00.000Z

As a bizarrely mild Autumn falls on Edinburgh, I find myself in a mainly comforting routine. Helen and I have had the house to ourselves for a few weeks now, and the only things keeping us apart are the amount of work she brings home, and the unsocial hours I am working, despite being embarrassingly unoccupied during the working day.

I've managed to keep the momentum going after the half marathon, and apply the lessons learned, such as training outdoors (well, once), and not wearing garments liable to chafe. I feel happy to wake up and go and run each morning, accompanied by some terrific audio drama. In order to keep my hand, and more pertinently, my feet, in, I've entered the Edinburgh Great Winter run, a swift 5km around Arthur's Seat in January, and having failed to get into the Linlinthgow 10k this weekend, have entered a more local event, the Hopetoun House 10k, not for from where I used to work in South Queensferry. Training's going well - I can comfortably do 5k at 12 km/h and 10k and 10 km/h and will try and reach a level that combines these before the day. My right knee is telling me I need to fix my orthotic insole - it seems that even the book-leather thick covering that slid off a few weeks ago is critical to my equilibrium.

There was a very comforting coincidence this week - the two audios I'm listening to in a sandwich are Doctor Who's The Evil of the Daleks (the latest in my chronological attempt to experience all of 1960s Doctor Who in 2006) and the latest Sapphire and Steel, The Surest Poison. Completely by accident, both concern the present day and the past being linked by antique artefacts, and arcane methods of time travel. Vintage clocks play a part in both, and I was wonderfully reminded of the days of my youth spent repeatedly absorbing Liverpool Museum. I love city museums because they harbour an eclectic, anachronistic mix of exhibits, and wandering between the Egypian, Roman, natural history, or industrial revolution galleries evoked the same sense of wonder as Sapphire and Steel's exploration of fractured times, or Doctor Who's jackdaw meanderings. Best of all the top floor at Liverpool held the planetarium, literally and metaphorically the apex of the visit for me, and the horological collection. The city's maritime past made timekeeping specially significant, and I revelled in such specifc terms such as 'escapement', as well as the presence of more running timepieces gathered together than I had ever seen before. I always left with the horizons of my imagination broadened in both space and time.

It's been busy for a Wednesday

2006-09-13T20:54:00.000Z

The bike shed at the site where I'm working at the moment, at night

Work is keeping me reasonably busy at the moment, which has raised my spirits no end. I’m doing weekend days and odd evening shifts (doesn’t this entry sound like one of Travis Bickle’s monologues so far?), but I like the odd little extra moments that gives me, like this morning at home, when I had the chance to catch up on bits and pieces. I also stayed true to my promise and did some running outdoors, along the Union Canal (that’s a local stretch of water, not a posh term for “front bottom”), the banks of which were verdant and lovely, without any significant trauma. My next outdoor race will not be such as shock to my joints as the last.

Now Reading: Ghost Rider – Travels On The Healing Road by Neil Peart
Now Watching: Doctor Who – The Moonbase
Now Playing: 21^st Century Schzoid Band – Live In New York

Riding without Stabilisers

2006-09-07T14:58:00.000Z

An interesting consequence of desisting from hammering your body with alcohol, is that you become far more attuned to the effect of other, less potent, drugs on your system. In this category, I'd include caffeine and sugar, both of which I've felt the need to control. Although I'd thought of alcohol as a narcotic, I now realise that for me, it was a stimulant. Need a bit of dutch courage? Have a drink! Need to clean the kitchen? Have a drink! Need to stay up until I've finished this piece of work for publication? Have a drink! The simple carbohydrate content of booze is such that it gives a quick shot of energy, raising the blood's glucose levels. In the short term, this can propel one to effort, and in the long term all this glucose gets laid down as fat - hence the beer belly.

In the months after I stopped, I found I was getting an unignorable craving for sweet food in the evening, and nipping out to get a chocolate bar. I think my body was expecting a glucose boost each night. This also explained why when I'd taken 2 hours to prepare a meal, swigging all the while, I never felt like finishing it - the booze had topped up my blood sugar level, reducing my hunger. Of course, I didn't knock back the booze all in one go, unlike a chocolate bar, or a bag of Margiotta's frankly irrestistable yogurt-coated peanuts. (Yoghurt? Aye, right - yoghurt-flavoured fudge more like). So perhaps the way to keep my glucose on a even keel is to nibble fruit and nuts throughout the evening, just as I used to sip at a drink all night, never feeling full, but never feeling hungry, either.

And then there's coffee. If carbohydrate food feels like booze, then coffee feels more like cigarettes. Some people need one first thing in the morning, some after a meal. Some don't touch it for months, and just have one as a treat now and then. I was in the last camp (ha!) when I dried out, but found on a week long residential course, where complementary fresh-ground coffee was on hand between every classroom session, that I began putting it away in pints. I think I'd been avoiding it, because one of biggest fears of life after alcohol was difficulty sleeping, thinking that the restless nights I'd always experienced after a rare dry day would be the norm. In fact, they were a withdrawal symptom which I recovered from very rapidly. I learned I could drink coffee in the evening and still be asleep within minutes of going to bed. It seemed to give me that jolt to help finish doing something in the evening that a strong cocktail had done before.

I learned quite soon that the cumulative effects of too much coffee are extremely uncomfortable: you feel exhasted, yet restless. The only way to stay awake was to have more. All my bodily fluids smelled of coffee. I was more than a little hard to live with. Oh dear. Coffee had taken the place on my back of alcohol. It took some withdrawal, too - take it way too suddenly, and I'd be lethargic and get severe headaches. I stayed off for months, and stuck to Earl Grey or herbal tea.

During my leg injury in Spring 2005, I'd read a piece in Men's Health that advocated targeted used of coffee as a pre-exercise stimulant. Drink coffee before you work out, and at no other time, they said. The day I decided that the way to get out of my post-injury stiffness was to exercise through it, I remembered the piece, and downed a large espresso (and some Ibuprofen!) before heading to the gym. It worked: I was energised and started a path of training that I'm still on. I've tried having more than one coffee a day, but find that going beyond this limit means I get addicted again, and into the state of needing coffee to stay alert.

The one day a week I don't have an espresso (because caffeine and yoga don't really mix), I find I am drowsy and lethargic by 11am. That serves as a regular reminder that it really is a drug, which I'm using to motivate myself into getting out of bed in the morning, and to enhance my performance at the gym.

I'm think I'm slowly coming round to the Buddhist stance regarding stimulants, but I won't throw away our cafetiere just yet.

Glasgow, the Hard Way

2006-09-03T15:23:00.000Z

I am forty years old, have not consumed alcohol for over six hundred days, and this morning, completed the Glasgow Half Marathon (Just over 13 miles, or 21 km) in 1:51:52, within a hair's breadth of my target time 1:50:00. In so doing, I have raised over £300 for the Prince's Trust, and also exerted myself physically more than ever before in my entire life, having previously only run 12.2 km outdoors and 16 km indoors. I am very proud, but in considerable pain!

The photo to the left is me on Glasgow Green, at around 12 noon today, a few minutes after finishing. I am still full of endorphins there, as you can see.

It all began at 06:45 when my alarm formalised my body's decision that it was time to get up. The day immediately felt somewhere between an exam and a holiday: now at such close quarters to the event that only the details were visible, thankfully occluding the scope of whole enterprise. Shower, porridge, orange juice, coffee and kit on and I was ready to go by about 07:20. Despite the fairly heavy drizzle, I had decided to go light and not risk taking a rucksack and fleece without having anywhere to park it at Queen Street station. The full inventory ran: Upper-arm pouch containing mobile phone, Visa card, bus pass, and folding money, and back pocket containing folded space blanket and hands-free headset for mobile. That was it - no keys, glasses, or fleece. It was a bit dreich outside though, so I donned a bin liner to keep me dry on the way to the station.

An inauspicious start saw me drenching my breathable trainers in a puddle and finding there were no buses from our local stop that would get me to the station in time. A quick warm-up jog to the next route ensured I arrived in good time. At Haymarket station there were a handful of runners, all nerves and fingers-and-thumbs, queueing for the ticket machine. I was glad to see that bin-liner chic was the order of the day.

No reading matter was required for the journey, as the wonder phone incorporates an MP3 player, today hosting a BBC Radio 4 afternoon play which kept my mind off things nicely, by the time we pulled into Glasgow Queen Street, the train was carrying a good quorum of runners. The incipient drizzle reached had followed me to Glasgow, so I hung back in the station, stretching and sipping water until 09:45, when impatience got the better of me, and I headed out to the start at George Square.

The runners were divided into three muster groups, depending, I think, on our declared finish time on applying to run. I was in the middle group, and found a spot roughly, I thought, in the middle of it. I had that no-turning-back feeling that astronauts might have when the capsule door is shut, and was relishing heading off. Or so I though: I must have been giving off waves of anxiety, because a really chatty and likeable guy next to me offered some infectiously hyped-up encouragement, and I was relieved to hear that this was his first half marathon as well. The wheelchair competitors went first, a few minutes before ten, and then on the hour, the group before us went to a raucous send off and the Stones' Start Me Up over the PA. A couple of minutes later, we were off, and as I passed the start line, kicked off the digital stopwatch on my wrist. On a podium to our right, the Lord Provost of Glasgow, some other dignitaries, and rather wonderfully, Sir James Savile, OBE, waved us off.

It was as expected at first; a packed field with much darting for position. Ahead of me the Scottish Sikhs, wearing colourful turbans and holding the Saltire aloft made a visible pack marker to pace myself against. Heading towards the Clyde, we soon found ourselves among motorway viaducts and soon passed the 1 km marker. Only 20 more to go. Then, the 1 mile marker. only 12 more to go. But I wasn't feeling good. Unlike previous races, I was being overtaken constantly. This made me worry and try to overtake more myself, and I knew I was going too fast but couldn't slacken off. My ankles and shins were giving me a lot of pain, and I was concerned I couldn't put up with it for the best part of another two hours. I immediately rued not having done more of my training outdoors, where I'd have acclimatised to the percussive effect of tarmac compared to treadmills. Hang on - more of my training outdoors? In fact, I'd stayed in the gym for all my training. Dummy. I was paying the price now.

Checking my stopwatch, I was killing each kilo in a little over five minutes, so the speed was good. But as well as the sore legs, my breathing wasn't settling down. I kept falling into ragged, just-started-swimming-in-cold-water breaths which were working against my running cadence. I kept trying to impose long deep yoga breaths but they wouldn't stick. How on earth was I going to cover the course?

After about four or five miles, we turned into parkland, which was a little hillier. I'm actually better on hills than flats, and fewer people were overtaking me. I finally realised I'd settled into a sustainable cadence, accompanied by deep frequent nasal breathing that I could keep up. My mood began to lighten at last.

The spectator encouragement hadn't been that stirring up until now, but it seemed the further we went, the more people were prepared to help us along. As we passed through Pollok, I found that families walking in the park were stopping to clap us along, and my smiles of appreciation were beginning to be reciprocated. This brightened my mood considerably, as did passing the 7 mile mark, over half way, when my stopwatch read about 55 minutes. That was the feedback, I needed - I was well on target for my revised goal of 2:00, and might even get near my original objective of 01:50.

I took advantage of the frequent water stations, overcoming my innate austerity and discarding half-drunk bottles when I knew I'd had my fill for the time being. Considering how much water I'd taken on board, and what a wet cold day it was, I was relieved not to have to stop and relieve myself like many of the other men running. This meant I never stopped running and left the spell unbroken all the way round.

At 10 miles, I knew I was going beyond my previous longest run, but felt buoyed by some banter around me that I'd even managed to join in with, about the last three miles being easy. I knew they'd be tough though, and really suck to the bottom of my fuel tank. This wasn't helped by the absence of an 11 mile marker - until I'd realised it wasn't there or I'd missed it, the eleventh mile seemed to be taking an eternity. The last couple of miles were agonising: we entered the parkland where we would be finishing and took a circumlocutious route around it. It was just like those false summits that hill walkers and mountaineers are seduced by. Checking my stopwatch, I realised that there was a slim chance I'd manage it in 01:50, and gave it all I had. I was by now emitting involuntary moans of pain every time I let my breathing rhythm slip, and I felt oddly disconnected from the cheering crowd lining the final run past the 13 mile mark, as I was nearing exhaustion and they were all there to see other individuals finish, anyway.

One hour, fifty-one minutes, and fifty-two seconds after I had crossed the start line at George Square, I went over the finish at Glasgow Green, wheezing "I've done it, I've done it". I'd expected what followed to be anticlimactic, and sure enough we were herded a bit perfunctorily though the surrender of our timing chips, and the collection of out goody bags of medals, t-shirts and promotional freebies. I phoned Helen, took a picture of myself, and after negociating some unhelpful signage which necessitated actually crossing the running field (!) to get out of the park, walked, head held high, back to Queen Street station, where the paper, a mocha, and a train home awaited me. I do pity the lady sitting next to me, as I smelt like a dosser.

On returning home, Helen expressed the same sentiment, and while showering I noticed how dreafully chafed my thighs and underarms had become. I advised her to vacate the room while I applied the germolene unless she wanted to learn some new compound expletives. I surprised even myself with my inventiveness.

I have learned a few lessons today:

You can travel light to these things
Grease your moving parts, even if they didn't need it in training
Train outdoors. You bloody idiot!
I want to do more half marathons
I may not belong to Glasgow, but for a couple of hours today, Glasgow belonged to me. It's a great city, with a heart like Belfast's and the scale like Vancouver's.

The Eve of the War

2006-09-02T16:49:00.000Z

I'm delighted to have reached my sponsorship target. But that really was the easy part. I'm a bag of nerves this evening, and even a theraputic hour or so's ironing couldn't do the trick. I'm not really worried about being able to run the 13 miles so much as getting to the start on time; the earliest train to Glasgow doesn't even get there until nine, leaving me dependent on the left luggage service at the station being open, as I'll have no time to take my belongings to the changing area at the other end of the run before the off. If it isn't actually raining in Edinburgh when I leave, I might travel light, which would be far less hassle.

Intellectually, I should know that I'll have done it by this time tomorrow, but I can't make that emotional leap. I've been laying off training for the last couple of days, which has worked wonders in the past, but my ankles are sore, and I've had a mild headache for a day or so, too.

I'm sure it will all look different in the morning. We're going out to a birthday party tonight, which should keep my mind off it.

Cult Figures

2006-08-31T20:45:00.000Z

Dear Sir

I was recently struck by the similarities between radio producer Karl Pilkington, and record producer, Ian Levine. Both hail from the North-West of England, and have acquired a cult following for their unusual and forthright perspectives on matters which interest them, resulting in them becoming celebrated in ways they might not have originally hoped.

Could they perhaps be related?


Pilkington	Levine

Yours Faithfully,

ENA B. MONDAS, Edinburgh

Bending Over Backwards To Help Myself

2006-08-31T13:51:00.000Z

For eight months, I've been dipping my toes into Hatha Yoga. This was first suggested to me well over a year ago, after I'd strained my left foot, and had been walking on crutches for a few days. At my GP's suggestion, I went to the university's sports injuries clinic, where a podiatrist evaluated my gait, and prescribed my orthotic insoles. These provide support for my horribly overpronated feet, and enable me to walk and exercise without overloading my joints. She also suggested I try yoga, which I'd been considering in the background, the same way I consider building a rockery, or trying sushi. A few nervous months later, I screwed up my courage and turned up to a local yoga class.

We gather at 6:45 in the morning, once a week, for an hour, and our instructor guides us through a selections of exercises, and postures, or asanas. Hatha yoga is specifically, the practice of asanas, rather than some of the other paths of yoga, which focus on philosophy, diet, or meditation. My initial experiences were relief, that newcomers were welcomed without fuss, and excitement, that these stretches and poses could leave me feeling so relaxed and invigourated. This was soon tempered with a self-conciousness that I wasn't quite so adept or spry as the rest of the predominantly female group.

Nevertheless, I've persevered, having passed through ambition, and learned to focus on what I'm capable of in the present, and find yoga an essential part of my routine. I have my own mat at home, and make moments to run through a sequence of asanas appropriate to my mood, energy, and needs. It works very well, for example, on a resteless Sunday night while I'm distracted by worries about the week ahead. I've found I can remain in what would previously been uncomfortable positions for far longer than before, a perfect example being squatting down while tidying the attic. My aches and pains are in retreat, and I do genuinely feel far younger than before.I take particular delight in the headstand, or Sirsasana, known as the king of postures. I just couldn't do it at first, and now I can rest on my crown for over a minute, without a supporting wall in sight.

Two Legs Good, Three Sides Live

2006-08-30T16:02:00.000Z

My toes are very sore.

I've been doing some late training for the half marathon, and managed 5km in 26 minutes this morning. This means lengthening my gait, and so stretching parts of me that don't normally get stretched. I've also been stretching my wallet, investing a fair sum in a special running top that wicks off moisture (which is what we sophisticated athletes call sweat) and an upper-arm phone pouch that looks like a sphygmomanometer cuff. This morning it was carrying my MP3 player, which was in turn carrying disc two of Genesis' Three Sides Live. Live albums are great to exercise to: the sound of an audience responding to an old favourite played with a
confidence and vigour that might be absent from the studio shakedown is powerfully motivating. Today's In The Cage medley never sounded better.

Apart from the training, it's all back to normal at Owen Towers. We are a two-person household once more, Helen is out at school during the day, and my furlough from active engagement has ended, as I was called back up to the Regal Bond of Scotia's city centre premises this Tuesday. It will be, I sense, a short sharp engagement, with some unsocial hours, but it should all be over by the end of September. The great thing about being an external consultant is that you don't carry the messy baggage of previous engagements with you, and get all the benefits of starting anew each time, although as many of the faces are familiar, it was good to be warmly received by former clients. My professional self esteem is cautiously rising.

PS: The Claud Butler was there again, in exactly the same state, yesterday. I can therefore never mention where the gym is in this blog in case the owner sues me when it is inevitably stolen.

More Money Than Sense

2006-08-28T14:50:00.000Z

In younger days I was occasionally accused of having more money than sense. Considering how bereft of sense I was, this seemed to be more of a compliment than anything else, and it's a state I've aspired to since. I rarely reflect on it, but today saw a textbook example.

Spotted at the cycle stands at a local amenity this morning at 10:00. It's a nearly-new Claud Butler Odyssey (£249.99 to you, John) that the owner has left leaning against a stand. That's "leaning against" rather than "tethered to", since the steel rope bike lock has been used only to secure the front wheel to the frame. It could be in the back of a van in 10 seconds. The front and rear lights were also left mounted. I suspect that the owner has not owned this for very long, and that his previous form of transport was a Porsche with central locking and lights that can't be easily removed. I was pleasantly surprised to see it was still there when I returned two hours later.

Good luck to this trusting man! And what a nice neighbourhood I live in, after all!

Ten Miles High

2006-08-28T11:22:00.000Z

As I type, I sit in the gym's cybercafe, eating bananas and feeling quietly smug, having just run 16km in around 1 hour and 35 minutes. That was the longest I've ever run, and if I can keep that average speed up, I should manage the half marathon (21km) in 2 hours and 4 minutes. So my goal will be to beat 2 hours, which I'm confident that with the pace-setters around me on the day, I should be able to achieve.

Who would have ever thought I would become the kind of person who uses terms like "goal" or "achieve", let alone in my free time?

I'm off home for some pasta, before I faint.

Cycling The Path of Righteousness

2006-08-23T11:13:00.000Z

What The Highway Code Says About Cycle Paths

My bicycle, on my path, yesterday

There's a section of road I cycle along on my journey to and from work each day. It used to be a traffic bottleneck, and this has been mitigated by the building of a guided busway alongside it. There is also an off-road path for cyclists and pedestrians, by the side of the road I'd normally take on the way home. I usually stay on the road itself though, because I can pass junctions using roundabouts rather than having to wait at light-controlled cycle/pedestrian crossings.

I read this piece in the Guardian this morning by a cyclist who generally avoids cycle lanes, which prompted me to idly wonder whether there's any mandate that cyclists must use on-road cycle lanes or off-road cycle paths where they are provided.

By an astonishing coincidence, 20 minutes later, as I was riding along the said road, I encountered a taxi driver, who slowed down to attract my attention and then repeatedly gestured that I should get off the highway and use the cycle path. He seemed particularly vexed that I was sharing his road, despite having ample space to overtake me, which he eventually did, allowing me to wave him a cheery farewell, just to indicate that I had heard his counsel even if I was was not going to heed it.

Curiosity piqued, I checked today, and according to the Highway Code, there is absolutely no imperative for cyclists to vacate the road when there is a cycle track available, so I will continue to cycle on road wherever it expedites my journey. And furthermore, thus educated, take to task any self-righteous hack who presumes to impose his inaccurate beliefs on me while we're both trying to use the road safely. So there. Hmph.

In other news, I ran 14km at the gym today, thereby going where this man had never gone before. I'm forced to revise my hope that I'll finish the half marathon in 1'50" up to a round two hours. I shall try and run 16km (a psychologically satsifying, if physiologically less so, 10 miles) before the big day though, probably next Monday, and just concentrate on speed and gradient the rest of the time.

I'm sure I'll finish, but I'm going to feel every step of the last five miles.

Edinburgh In August : A Resident's Perspective

2006-08-21T14:28:00.000Z

The Observer | Review | Can I have my city back now?

This piece echoes my own views 100%. I'd add that Maggie O'Farrell's trisection of Edinburghers into aethiests, evangelists, and refugees maps closely with the triptych of Scots-born residents, white settlers in their early years, and invisible people I have never ever encountered.

I used to be a five-show a day, take a fortnight off work, festival evangelist, who worked with native Scots who would at most go to see one show each year and say they'd done the Fringe.

This year, I've been a bit more middle-aged about it, probably taking in a dozen shows over the month. I think it's less of an all or nothing proposition when you live and work away from the melee.

Nocturnal Curry and Arboreal Cybermen

2006-08-20T21:04:00.000Z

I gave brother-in-law Joe a hand loading all his belongings into the car he'd hired to take them all back to London on Saturday. Like me, his worldy goods feature lots of books, PC hardware, and one or two items of clothing. About half way though the process of decanting all this through the front door, down the path and into the car, it occured to me that to any uninformed onlooking neighbour, it would appears as though these were my possessions, that Helen must have turfed me out, and that Joe was my temporary refuge.

The place seems very empty without him, but the spare room was swiftly filled by Lesley, who Helen's known since university. She's unbelievably energetic, and despite having come up from Essex that morning, we still went out and took in two Fringe shows, including the superb Janey Godley's Blog. See it if you can - she speaks with more authenticity than anyone else I've heard this year. On then, to the unbelievably crowded Spiegeltent for a quick catch up with some friends, and then on for a merely average meal at Kurry Bar. We didn't leave until midnight, which is pretty late for me these days.

The girls went off to see some more art exhibitions today, leaving me with a rare treat - a Sunday to myself, which I filled with gym, swim, iron and tidy up, punctuated by about a gallon of Earl Grey. I feel fantastic - it's all been a bit of a whirl recently, and a day to potter is just what I needed.

While checking the cover of the video for The Tenth Planet, which I'm currently enjoying, I saw to my baffled amusement that this story, set at the South Pole, has been illustrated with a landscape of trees, and even, if I'm not mistaken, a few birds as well. See for yourself:
I've also been listening to the narrated version of the story, which prompted me to also listen to David Banks' Origins of the Cybermen CD again. I'd forgotten that while taking Occam's Razor to the disparate hints given in the televised adventures, he'd also been playing Velikovsky, accompanied by some incidentals that sound like what happens when you mix up your MIDI channels and play a drum part using a flugelhorn patch. It's the product of a slightly obsessive genius, and fortunately Banks sounds like a cult leader rather than a train spotter, so the effect is rather powerful.

My Global Footprint

2006-08-19T14:38:00.000Z

Red Squirrels

2006-08-18T15:50:00.000Z

I captured these chaps in the wildlife hide at Wallington stately home in July. There had been some other people in the hide for about 45 minutes before we arrived, and they hadn't seen a thing but as soon as they left, the squirrels came out to play.

Late Spring Cleaning

2006-08-18T10:47:00.000Z

The old blog (and it is quite an old one by now) was looking a bit antedeluvian compared to some of its competitors, so I've had a bit of a spring clean. I'm pleased with the results - it seems to have addressed all the niggles I've had with it.

Half-marathon training is going well : with just over two weeks to go, I'm up to 11km on the treadmill at a realistic speed and gradient. I'll be stretching ths out over the next week up to about 15km, and the focussing on speed and gradient in the week before the run itself. Sponsors have been few but generous. With an end of month payday between now and the race, I'm sure I'll hit the target. Just to make sure I do, please click on the link to the right. Thanks.

I'm very pleased with my new phone's camera. Above left is Poppy, looking a bit frayed in silhouette, but still deeply loveable. Below is a panorama, taken at Castle Kennedy Gardens on holiday, using the built-in panorama feature, where you take three shots from left to right and for the last two, it overlays the edge of the previous image on the display so you can line them up. You can see how the lighting changed over the three component shots here. WAKE UP!
Brother-in-law Joe takes his leave of us this weekend, after six extremely stress-free months. We will miss him. In the short term he is being supplanted by August's traditional slew of English visitors, who remember their expat chums once a year. More Festival Fringing will surely ensue. It's been a mainly spontaneous pot pourri of shows this year and all the better for it. I've most enjoyed Talk Radio, Count Arthur Strong, and The Lori Watson Three so far.

My sequential trawl through Doctor Who from the word go has reached The Tenth Planet, which I am saving for a ironing binge this weekend. I've been very impressed in the past few weeks with Peter Purves' performance, John Wiles' vision, and again, as in World's End, the impact of the story returning to a recognisable London in The War Machines, which I hadn't watched for nine years, and seems a completely different series to, say The Chase. And, it must be said, a far better one.

Now reading: The Vesuvius Club - Mark Gatiss
Itching to read next: Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs - Irvine Welsh
Now listening to: The Icicle Works - The Icicle Works; Transverse City - Warren Zevon; Anorak In The UK - Marillion
Now Watching: Cracker - The Big Crunch

It's a slow Friday, so expect an essay and some pictures this afternoon. Later, dudes.

Hot For Teacher

2006-08-17T11:21:00.000Z

My Mrs became a teacher yesterday. She'd already completed the course, picked up the diploma and started at her school, but yesteday, the kids came back from their holidays and she was up in front of the class she'll be teaching for the next year.

I feel really proud of her. Watching her doing her marking last night was quite beautiful. Changing career in mid-life is a bold step, and training to be a teacher in one year flat is hard work, and very challenging at the sharp end.

My euphoria is nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that we are now a dual-income household once more. Oh no. What kind of niggard do you take me for?

You Know Who's Got It All?

2006-08-09T13:45:00.000Z

Today’s challenge is to write the most smug, self-satisfied blog entry possible. Here goes.

For me, things generally look tickety-boo at 6:30 in the morning. Specifically, this morning. My alarm sounds at 5:45, at which I either get up or enjoy a 15 minute lie-in. It’s far easier to get out of bed when one has laid the groundwork the night before, so typically my bike panniers will already have been packed and my gym clothes laid out. I turbo charge myself with a strong espresso before heading out, and at this time of year, while I’m drinking it, look out of the window into our garden where a bush I have yet to identify is providing a canopy of lilac blossom.

A quick farewell to spouse later, and I’m on my way, gym gear augmented by bike helmet and fluorescent vest. Pausing only to clip on my panniers and put out the blue recycling box, I pedal past our local park, and the world is mine; well, mine and that of a select few bakery staff and postmen.

It was precisely as I was cycling past the park today that I started counting my blessings: I’ve been sober for nineteen months, have a heroine for a wife, and perfect health for a forty-year-old. I’m on good terms with my family and friends, have a home that feels like one, and am beginning to be able to look in the mirror and say “There is a decent enough bloke".

Clearly something terrible is about to befall me.

Blessings thus audited, I proceeded to the gym, past an old friend I hadn’t seen for over a year, and set to burning a thousand calories while enjoying some audio drama. How convenient to be able to exercise my mind and body at the same time. By 8:00 each day, I vacate the gym istelf, shower, and eat a somewhat stereotypical breakfast (muesli and The Guardian), before pushing off from the health club to work and arriving around 9:00.

And I do that most weekdays: in many ways it’s the best part of the day. The satisfaction of waking up to find my bags already packed, the tranquillity of the garden, the feeling of owning the neighbourhood as I pedal through it, and the exchange of nods and smiles with people I pass. By the time I get to work, I’ve already achieved something worthwhile.

And, you know – with a little application, you could do that too. Bless you, reader.

Holiday Season

2006-07-20T15:05:00.000Z

I can confidently announce that we're going on holiday for a week, safe in the knowledge that any would-be housebreakers would have to contend with the combined resistance of our cat and lodger while we're away. We're off to Dumfries for some wholesome fun with a hire car in a self-catering cottage, packing our walking boots, board games, and lots of good books. Bliss.

Things that have kept me too busy to annotate this thing recently include a funeral, and wedding, a graduation ceremony, and a royal garden party. It's been relatively balmy in Edinburgh for the past few weeks, so we've taken to eating our evening meal in the back garden. I've even contemplating doing the ironing out there, although that might appear a bit affected and eccentric.

I managed to get hold of a recording of my first ever Rush concert from 1983 this week. I remembered the setlist, and audience acknowledgements, but forgot some of the clever segues they did. I do love them, still.

I've just treated myself to a new phone. The previous one, which I was sold by a cold-call from Vodafone, crucially wothout having seen, has a membrane keyboard like the oily one the guys at Kwik-Fit tap, which inhibits my SMS eloquence somewhat, and a display that can only be seen with time-lapse exposures. It had really been annoying me, so I've actually changed manufacturer for the first time. It was very instructive to see how differently the staff in the shop sold to me (sober appearance, tie, wedding ring) compared to the young people who made up much of the clientele. I welcomed not be addressed as "mate", certainly.

Currently reading "The Selfish Gene", "Doctor Who Graphic Novel: Dragon's Claw", and listening to "One Live Badger" by Badger and "Trans Canada Highway" by Boards of Canada.

I might take lots of pictures on my new phone on holiday and post them here. If it's really bad.

Domestic Digitisation Discussion: Dull

2006-06-22T11:31:00.000Z

There's more than one kind of digital switchover. We all know about the one a few years from now when people throughout the land become bewildered that the telly in the spare room doesn't seem to work any more, or that the video can't record BBC3 when they're watching More4 at the same time.

The digital switchover that occupies me more than this is more personal. I still have a number of music cassettes, vinyl LPs, and VHS video cassettes. I am keen to be shot of these, because unlike their replacements, they deteriorate on each playback, can be copied no faster than they take to play, and incur a quality loss every time they're copied. Ugh.

I have a toolkit of strategies:

The David Mellor Paradox. Music lover and Tory philanderer once announced that he owned a titanic volume of CDs. Some wag did his sums and realised that Mellor would be unlikely to be able to listen to them all again in his lifetime. So, I initially assessed my analogue AV collection with the blunt question "Am I ever going to watch or listen to this thing again?". The answer might be "No" because it was gret the first time, but the return on a repeat would be so diminuitive as to make it pointless. It might be "No" because, for example even though I intend to watch "Brazil" several more times before I die, I will be unlikely to do so on 4:3 VHS. And I can always rent it from Screenselect. About half my AV collection made its way to friends, charity shops, or landfill after the ruthless application of this criterion.
Stimulate the economy. If I can buy a CD of a vinyl album, or a DVD of a video tape, then I will. Most of the stuff I like is deeply unfashionable, and available through Amazon resellers.
Ethical juggling. We're in a morally grey area here, but it's quite a dark grey and becomes more so under honest scrutiny. If I've already paid to own something on VHS or vinyl, why not just download via Bittorent a replacement that I can burn to DVD or CD, and recycle the original? Well, because I'm denying revenue to the people who reissued the material on DVD or CD and made the file sharing possible. But I still do it.
Fan power. This is better. I have a significant collection of live recordings of my favourite bands on cassette. Most if these recordings have been remastered for CD and made available as losslessly compressed archives over file sharing systems. I am acquiring quite a few recordings I never had on cassette in the first place, but apart from that it gets me nearer the goal of a less cluttered life.

Anyway, I've been at all this for about a year now, and it's going pretty well. This weekend I will take the plunge and actually chuck out live casssettes I've replaced. 90% of the vinyl has already gone.

MP3 Secrets of the Well-Off and Tedious

2006-06-16T15:07:00.000Z

After a day of stomach cramps and cold symptoms on Tuesday, I seem to have recovered. I hope to get some gardening done this weekend. There's been a very welcome flurry of garden pride among our neighbours, and due to the tessellated nature of our plot, there are many Joneses to keep up with.

While I'm trowelling and pruning, I'll be listening to my generic MP3 player. As I work my way through the wonderful output of Big Finish Productions, rather than listening to serials serially, I like to interleave them. For example, an episode of Doctor Who, followed by an episode of Sapphire and Steel, followed by an episode of The Tomorrow People. This would be a real fag to click between manually, as well as being quite dangerous if attempted while exercising or cycling, so I rename the tracks of the serials so that they play in a round-robin fashion. This itself, can be a bit of a fag, so last night I knocked up a quite Perl program to do it automatically. I just type "interleave DoctorWho SapphireandSteel TomorrowPeople" and it interleaves them faster than a Vegas croupier, into a combined folder called "Sandwhich". Although why a Vegas croupier should have any particular aptitude for renaming MP3 files is a mystery to me.

My current Sandwich is Doctor Who: Real Time, Sapphire and Steel: All Fall Down, and The Tomorrow People: A Plague of Dreams.

While I'm culturally enumerating, I'll also add that my attempt to watch every Hartnell episode has reached "The Death of Doctor Who", I'd reading "The Feast of the Drowned", and Boards of Canada's new EP is getting a daily play.

There, I feel better having unburdened myself of all those secrets. Have a good weekend.

More Boasting About Running

2006-06-12T09:19:00.000Z

What's hot, smelly, and runny? The Edinburgh Marathon in June! DYSWIDT?

I participated in my first marathon on Sunday. Not, you understand, the Full Monty, having only only previously competed to 10km. No, this was the Relay Marathon, whereby five us us, affiliated, more or less, with my employer covered the 26.2 miles between us. I took the lion's share, the intial 12.4km (7.7 miles) from the Marathon start in Princes Street to Victoria Park in Leith. Charitable rounding means I can say, I've now run a couple of Quarter Marathons (my previous 10km runs) and a Third Marathon (the relay).

After the Great Edinburgh Run last month I was a bit more crippled than I'd been expecting, so in the interim I concentrated on strengthening my quadriceps and hamstrings with various instruments of torture at the gym, as well as confining my training to indoor work on the treadmill. Purists may scoff, but the hammering my leg joints take from outdoor training (see the blog for my first 10k), just isn't worth it, and the treadmill is just as good at building up my muscles and cardiovascular system, especially as I keep it set to punitive gradients, so that on the day of a race, whenever I'm not actually going uphill, I get a bonus.

The challenges on the day were:

Congestion. I took the first leg of the relay, and we set off just 5 minutes after the main marathon, so the field was packed. I always start modestly quite near the back, but even so, it was harder work than normal to find a path through the other runners. I got my usual confidence boost from gradually overtaking throughout the race.
The sun. At 8 o'clock, shamelessly performing some recently-adopted hatha yoga asanas in Princes Street gardens, there was a light cloud cover that made the sun, which had already been up for 4 hours passable. About 40 minutes later, the clouds cleared, and I felt the sun's rays starting to scorch into my thinning hairline. It was the hottest run I've ever done - there's no way I'd have gone out to train in that temperature.

Nevertheless, there are some highlights I'll always remember:

Turning the corner from Princes Street into Lothian Road, rising gently up towards Tollcross, and seeing the road completely full of runners.
The beautiful quiet as we crossed the Meadows.
Arriving in Leith, to warm applause from the onlookers.
Overtaking a man in a Rhino suit and seeing from his number that he was doing the full marathon.
Realising that Edinburgh is far more beautiful in the morning than late at night.
Beating my forecast time by three minutes: I came in at 1:02 instead of 1:05. Which means I ran this at an average of 12kph, actually faster than the 11.76kph in which I did the shorter Great Edinburgh Run in easier conditions!

Afterwards, I had my first Mocha in over a month, in fact a Mocha Bianca (made with nutritionally worthless white chocolate), and waffles with maple syrup and ice cream. This all with a clear conscience, too, because after a run, wisdom has it that dumping a load of refined glucose into your blood stream prevents your body from devouring your muscles.

Two women in my life made it all easier - Susan from work, our team captain, who coped with all the logistics, and Helen from home, my wife who was there to give me a rousing send off and a nourishing round of applause as I came in. She is fab.

24 hours later, the quad and hamstring exercises seem to have paid off, because I can walk without wincing, with the only real injury being light sunburn, and I made it down to the gym for a swim before work this morning.

So, I've done two Quarter Marathons, a (nearly) Third Marathon, and the next challenge is a Half Marathon, specifically, the Glasgow Half Marathon in September. This will take a bit more training. You can see where this is going. As I peeled off from the full marathon runners into Victoria Park yesterday, I was awed with respect for them as they carried on to do what we'd just done a further two and bit times, with the sun rising higher, along with the temperature. I'm determined to follow them sooner or later.

Having a Lodger

2006-06-09T13:08:00.000Z

For the past few months, we have had a lodger, my wife's brother. He's exactly the same age as me, and does exactly the same sort of work - IT prostitution for large financial clients. In fact, at the moment, the same large financial client. Opportunities at home were a bit sparse, so he took up a contract with Regal Bond of Scotia, and I had my arm twisted in the now familiar spouse-lock into inviting him into our home while he's working up here in Scotland.

I was a bit put out by the idea at first. After three years, I had only just acclimatised to sharing a home with another person, and even then, with regular fairly lively negociation about, say, where to store cooking matches, or what the optimum settings on the washing machine are. But I'm very fond of brother-in-law. Like father-in-law, he seemed to accept me as the bloke in Helen's life overnight, and we have a very matter-of-fact, almost mute fraternity.

The main sacrifice was our spare bedroom, or as I'd come to think of it "drying room, and meditative retreat", which is now a terrifying batchelor pad, strewn with programming manuals and technological wonders, entwined with USB cables. Because the great thing about brother-in-law is that rather than spending his evenings on the sofa, changing the channels on my bloody telly, eating strange food and farting, he retreats to his hermitage and gets all his entertainment by WLAN and broadband. So on the day he arrived, I gave him a spare set of keys, and took his wireless MAC addresses, and off he went. It's as simple as that.

Better yet, he eats what's put in front of him (to eat, obviously, not absolutely everything), offers to make cups of tea every hour, and dresses so radically differently from me that our washing never gets mixed up. Furthermore, because he eats what we eat, when we eat it, it's no harder to cook for three than for two, and we have the bonus of a third party to enliven mealtimes.

Are there any drawbacks? Well, the Waltons/Boswells style roundtable of the day's events over dinner seems to take a lot longer, and my own slot is cut down to one third of a mealtime, so I have less opportunity to talk about myself. And I can't wonder around the house naked and scratching my dangly bits at all hours of the night. Helen does not espcially see the latter as a drawback. Or the former, if I'm honest.

I think I could cope with this indefinitely. At this rate, we'll be starting a commune soon.

Look! It's Still Moving! Quick!

2006-06-05T11:15:00.000Z

I'm having a quiet day today, so I thought I'd update this. It appears to have been some time since I blogged, since which everyone I know has taken up the form. I can't claim any influence. Just in case it's another 18 months since I get round to posting, here are the headlines

I no longer drink alcohol: my last drink was on January 8 2005
Helen and I have been married for two years
I still work as an IT consultant in Edinburgh, almost exclusively for a large financial group

I visited my family this weekend, and my father was enquiring about my pastimes. He seemed oddly unnerved that all I do is work and house-husbanding. I haven't done anything creative at a keyboard (either with letters or with notes) for about 18 months. I am far more a creature of routine and habit than ever before. If there's a guiding principle, it's "Do fewer things, better". I'm succeeding at the first part of this admirably.

If I manage to maintain this blog, then future topics might include:

Coffee
Yoga
Life laundering
Memoirs by broadcasters
Ethical living 1: Liberation from petrol
Ethical living 2: Why you don't need to fly
Having a lodger
On reaching 40
Radio 4 in the 21st Century

You can't bloody wait, can you? Eh?

The Last Post (For A While)

2004-04-09T12:56:00.000Z

I have plenty to report: My silence in recent weeks has been due to the kind of portentous change that bloggers like Robert Fripp report in infuriatingly vague terms. Anyway, having been with my present employer for five and a half years, I've been feeling increasingly unable to contribute or feel satisfaction from my work. It seems to lack meaning. I'm a bit depressed. A headhunter came to me with another position with another firm, and having undergone a mutually satisfactory interview, I will be joining them on April 26th. The work will be harder, and I will be far more visible and accountable. And, yes, that is a good thing. I need a shake-up.

I was 38 on Wednesday. Still am. Went to see Fish at the Liquid Rooms. After feeling vaguely unsettled that I wasn't in a bistro with my fiance, I got into the swing of things. I suspect the front of house sound man was wishing he were somewhere else as well.

Today sees the publication of my first professional work of fiction, a Doctor Who short story about the early CND Aldermaston Marches. My contributos copies of Short Trips: Past Tense arrived today. By an astonishing coincidence, a few hundred miles south of here, a revived march is starting as I type.

I'm glad to be leaving my current employer, because I have neglected my relationship with my job and need to move on. I'm also glad to be about to cut down my weekly bike mileage because 90 a week is giving me sore legs and making me too tired to use the gym as much as I'd like. I suspect I may be about to revert to being a bus-travelling gym user.

Plans for the weekend are unclear. I think Helen wants to go away to some remote island. As it's Easter, I'm not sure this is a good idea. Also, I have plenty to do at home.

Five weeks until the wedding.

Six Non-Sequiteurs in Search of a Theme

2004-03-22T15:01:00.000Z

Tonight will be my first meeting with other Doctor Who fans since the announcement that Christopher Eccleston is to take the lead in the new TV series. I shall have a pint for each if his predecessors.

Spent five hours on Sunday clearing the banks of the Union Canal at Wester Hailes. We had the neighbours round for drinks in the evening, during which time the phone rang at least six times. Crazy!

Started watching The Opposite of Sex on Saturday, but it was dull, so we watched an old Jonathan Creek instead. I think I have created quite a fan in Helen.

Clocks go forward this weekend. That means G and Ts in the garden before dinner. Best Man is coming to case the joint at the weekend, too.

Quite sick of work.

Gym Boasting and Edinburgh Studies

2004-03-17T09:59:00.000Z

Since Friday 27 February I have cycled the nine miles to and nine miles from work every single working day, often detouring to visit the gym or the shops. I haven't been drenched with rain once. This morning I was up at 0600, went to the gym to do my workout (getting on to the disturbing stuff now, involving rope splits and balancing on big balls like something from The Prisoner) had a quick swim and cycled to work. By 0900 I had already listened to four episodes of Doctor Who.

Here are some pictures from a fortnight ago, the day Helen and I set up our wedding gift list.

Street-level selling

Edinburgh's Shangri-La

Princes Street, showing Scott Monument at dusk

A Day Out In Glasgow

2004-03-16T11:17:00.000Z

It's been ages. Sorry. So I'll be quick. No pictures, then. Soon.

I wrote this month's Star Letter in Viz. Yes, be impressed.

We had a great Saturday. Went to Paisley to choose wedding rings from a young jeweller who Helen selected. Then up to Pollok to see the Burrell Collection's Turner seascapes exhibitition and go around Pollok House itself, and then up to the Glasgow Science Centre on the South bank of the Clyde opposite the SECC for much fun with magets and spinning circles. Then to Hillhead for a few drinks in Brel and dinner at a nearby Italian before taking the train back to Edinburgh.

It was a nice day, like being on holiday, which reminded me that we need to get out of the house more often and we tend to rattle around bouncing off each other in there as there are always chores to do.

I have a new routine at the gym which perplxingly includes 10 minute on an exercise bike. I already cycle 90 miles a week at least so this seems a little spurious. I came dangerously close to making a complete arse of myself on one of those 53cm exercise balls.

I highly recommend upgradestore.co.uk, who rescued me from a corrupt BIOS in record time. You order online, send them your corrupt EPROM and details of your motherboard and they send you a reflashed BIOS. Excellent.

2004-02-27T13:36:00.000Z

I feel really on top of things at the moment. That's probably because Helen is keeping all the intricacies of the wedding preparations secret from me. I just have to get the gift list sorted out and I'll be happy. Discussions have ranged from "Why don't we just ask them to give us money?" to "Well, we could insist they make a donation to charity instead. I will not be happy until I have a large wide-screen television.

My bus pass expired yesterday, which made today officially the first day of spring. So last night I checked by tyre pressures, packed my panniers, and got my bike ready for the first ride out to work at Queensferry. I got up early and the ride went well, in cold but sunny conditions, and I was almost whistling with smug satisfaction as I arrived at my desk. Three hours later, it was snowing.

I've just kearned the songs that Yes are considering playing on their tour this Summer. If they play a fraction of them I will be very happy. There are some I haven't heard them play for 24 years, some I've never heard them play, and some that clearly involved a lot of bargaining between the musicians, as they'll each be playing on material that they had no original input into. I think they've started to acknowledge that the band is bigger than all of them. Bravo!

Upcoming gigs this year include Fish, Steve Howe, Marillion, Yes, Peter Gabriel, and Rush. It's as though the last two decades never happened! That would make me someone who was waiting to have his first legal pint in a little over a month.

I'm looking forward to this weekend with Helen. For all her considerable faults (too numerous to list here without exceeding the blog server's capacity, as you can imagine) she is a deeply wonderful person, and I am all adrift when I am not with her as I was last weekend. So I shall revel in cooking us a meal tonight, choosing wedding presents over the weekend, and going to hear her sing with her choir on Sunday night.

2004-02-21T19:32:00.000Z

Helen is away again. There is more on telly tonight that I like than I deserev - Casualty, Jonathan Creek, Top Ten Sitcoms - Porridge, It'll Be Alright on the Night, and Ross Noble - Unrealtime. Praise be to Sky+

I had a haircut today. [Added 27/4] And a skinful by the look of things.

2004-02-13T11:35:00.000Z

I feel fantastic. I think it must have been all the endorphin-promoting chillies in last night's chilli con carne (healthy, mind - made with low fat turkey mince). I watched a documentary about Tetris on BBC4 while eating it, that was so boring I fell asleep. It was far more about the intellectual ownership of the game than the addictive qualities it has. I have a Tetris brain - I love stacking things neatly, killing two birds with one stone, and fighting the tide of Things To Do. The house was far tidier when I went to bed last night than when I got home, which felt like a win. After the housework I rewarded myself with an hour of Marillion on DVD. This is the first time I have sat down alone in front of the telly this year.

I read the first couple of chapters of Hugh Walters' Passage To Pluto in bed. I loved his books as a boy. They're naively optimistic tales of an international space programmme, and specifically four young astronauts who explore the solar system. I stumbled on Walters by accident in the library when my Mum was directing me to Jules Verne, alphabetically adjacent to Walters. I think Pluto was the first one I read. Knowing the way my mind worked, I probably assumed that as Pluto was the furthest planet, it would be the most exciting book.

Slept blissfully, save for a horrific nightmare. My fiction editor had rejected my latest pitch (which I'm sure he's going to do in a week or so, anyway). Worse, there had been a heavy rainstorm at home, and water was leaking through my attic study's sloped ceiling on to my desk and computers. The wallpaper developed bumps, one of which opened, due to the wet, and disgorged a swarm of wet and angry wasps. I realised the other bumps were also full of wasps. I don't know what was more traumatising; the inevitability of being stung, or the possible loss of data.

This weekend, we'll finally send the wedding invitations out, and I'll be choosing a suit. Quite appropriate for Valentine's Day.

2004-02-12T16:19:00.000Z

A biblically long day. Up at 5:15 to get in early. Some hot IT action today, which gave me some good experience for next time I'm on call. Quite exciting, really. I still want to be a carpenter or an electrician. When I expressed the wish to do a more honest job last night, Helen observed that it would bring me into contact with the public and I wouldn't like that. She has a point. It's quite safe in here with the other geeks and weirdos.

I would have knocked off by now but I'm in an excruciatingly unengaging telephone conference now. I will be so happy to leave and read Eats, Shoots and Leaves on the train home and then go for a swim.

Tonight's project, I have decided, will be to tidy and clean the freezer. There may be a lot of ice I have to use up in a hurry as a result. It would be a shame to let it go to waste. And I am a Friend of Gordon's, after all.

I started feeling very sorry for myself during an Olympian ironing session last night. I normally love ironing but I was watching an episode of The Prisoner (A, B & C) which was not as thrilling as others have been. I'm feeling really tired a lot of the time.

2004-02-11T15:52:00.000Z

Bit into a Polo mint on Sunday and lost a large chunk of tooth.

Went to dentist yesterday and lost a large chunk of next month's salary.

I've been having an amusing few exchanges with internet nutters. One of them described the Radio Times as "hersute" (sic). If he really means hirsute, then it must be an oddly-bound edition in his TV region.

I feel utterly misanthropic. I hope a good sesh down the gym tonight will mellow me. The 6 Gin and Tonics and Large Curry I'm planned later ought to help, too.

2004-02-09T15:25:00.000Z

We had a very mixed weekend. Friday night was relaxing, involving having dinner cooked for me and then watching some television that was actually on that night. The Sky+ box is transforming life at home. I suspect we both had slight hangovers on Saturday. I kept postponing a trip to the gym until I decided not to go at all. I did, however, fill two enormous black polythene bin liners with audio cassettes which are now destined for landfill. I do like being cruel to be kind like this. There are now only two boxes of cassettes. One contained my 147 barely-distinguishable live versions of Roundabout and the other contains actual albums. They will become CDs somehow. For the live recordings, I'd be happy if they went to a good home. I may revisit them however and do something quite surgical and bold. For example, the mono recording of a 1996 John Wetton concert I made and have subsequently never listened to fulfils perfectly Dawna Walters' criteria for lobbing out. Once I've done the music, it's books next.

I had a bitty and unfulfilling afternoon, during which Helen spurned me on mavour of the content of the latest issue of "Weddings and Pastel Colours, Lace and Soft Focus, Nuptia, Your Special Day, and Weddings" magazine. I attempted (and failed) to fix my laser printer, which will become landfill. Resorting to my Inkjet, I had to replace the cartridge. It menstruated indelible blue ink all over my hands (and foot), and I look like an apprentice octopus-wrangler as a result. Yes, I said menstruated. I have seen the pantie-liner commercials and know that it's just an odourless-looking light blue liquid. I don't know why women make such a fuss over it. Tsk.

I went to see Forgotten Sons, a Marillion tribute act in the evening, while Helen stayed in and watched a film on antique VHS she had rented from a retro place round the corner. Satirical observers may be able to say we were both enjoying superceded forms of entertainment. The Sons (as I shall now call them), were excellent and played a fair approximation of the Marillion sets that kept be ebtertained in the eighties. However, as there were three men and a dog in attendance, I can only conclude that there was a genuine Marillion/Fish reunion concert somewhere else in Edinburgh that night. It's the only possible explanation. I spoke to the singer - imagine David Brent in Harlequin pants - after the show and apologised on behalf of Edinburgh. That's technically the Lord Provost's job, but I thought I was up to it. Drink had been taken.

On Sunday, we went for a walk in the Borders, near Abbey St Bathans. The wind-chill factor was intense. In fact as Hurree Jamset Ram Singh would have said, the intensefulness was terrific. About half way though the walk, I stopped being a grumpy neglected old git and began to regale my lovely wife-to-be with anecdotes from my youth. We shopped at Sainsbury's on the way home and partook of the cafeteria's delightful Thai Vegetable Soup. Damn fine.

Approximately five months after moving in to our house, we finally put our pictures up this weekend. It makes me feel much better.

2004-01-29T12:26:00.000Z

Sorry I've been quiet - I've just spent a week on-call for work. This involved keeping a mobile with me 24X7 and being able to log in and fix any problems within an hour of it ringing. That means no cinema or theatre, no restaurants or parties, and no booze for a week. But the money comes in handy. I came off call at 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon and celebrated with 20 lengths of the health club pool, and a reacquantance with gin, wine and vodka. My head fairly nipped this morning, I can tell you. We went to see Lost In Translation. This made me want to visit Tokyo. I identified more with Bill Murray's character Bob Harris (no, not that Bob Harris) tremendously, and told Helen she now knew all she would ever need to know about men.

Wedding plans continue apace. We've booked the honeymoon, and ordered the dress. Next come the invitations. It's agony. Not only do I look at my list and think "Is this all I've got to show for nearly 38 years on this planet?" but the compromises and fiddles are soul-sapping. I'm looking forward to it, though. Just as well, I suppose.

Helen is out tonight and tomorrow night, so I might get some life laundering done. Tonight I am planning to audit my recent DVD recordings and cook a pork vindaloo. These are exclusively male activities, you'll agree. I have to come up with a short story outline, too. It's not coming easily a second time. Colin and Alex are coming for dinner on Saturday, so I'll get to cook that goose I ordered for Christmas. To my delight, the latest Doctor Who audio seems to be utter bilge. And I'm told I'm far more entertaining when I'm being savage.

This is the Caledonian Brewery, near our house, with the Edinburgh-Glasgow railway line in the foreground

2004-01-16T14:36:00.000Z

It's been a busy week. Highlights include being elbowed on a bus by a stranger getting off, and called a "fucking cunt". When I asked incredulously, "What's your problem?", the stranger replied "You, you English radge". I have no idea what I had done to provoke her. I was left surrounded by Scottish people on the bus, and feeling full of pent-up emotions. My initial hope, that the next person she addresses in this manner turns out to be an 18-stone psychopathic rapist, has calmed down. I must admit that when I got to the gym, which is where I was heading, I was able to put a lot more energy into my routine. I manged 100 Abdominal sit-ups for example, and pressed all my weights in one go instead of pausing.

I did several things for the first time ever yesterday. One was walking down much of Gorgie Road, which has so much more to offer the pedestrian than the cyclist or bus passenger. It was very atmospheric at dusk. I was reminded of West Kensington, bizarrely. Another new thing was buying meat from a butcher's shop. They were very friendly and I find butcher's meat far less suspicious than supermarket stuff. I cooked pork chops in an apple and mustard cream sauce, together with potatoes lyonnaise and spiced red cabbage. Fantastic.

Sky were supposed to come and install Sky+ today. But my explicit request that the job would need a Heights Team had gone unheeded, and they sent three men who were very pleasant but suffered from vertigo. The native Americans are coming on Monday, though, which is a relief. Nevertheless, Sky is an example of just how badly you can run a monopoly and get away with it.

George Bush with British astronaut Michael Foale, current commander of the International Space Statiom, speaking live from the ISS before Bush's announcement.

I'm on a bit of a high about two announcements this week. George Wanker Bush has redeemed himself slightly by announcing a space exploration roadmap that means that with a bit of luck I'll see a permanent moonbase and a human on Mars in my lifetime. Anyone who thinks this is an inappropriate use of resources will presumably not mind their descendents being wiped out by a passing asteroid, nuclear exchange, or global pandemic, when there is no human colony anywhere else in the universe. There is a distinct possibility that Earth is the only place where there is any kind of life, and we must preseve it. Our DNA is more important than our individual lives. If children in Africa stave because aid money is being spent on learning to live off Earth, then so be it. It is ultimately short-sighted not to make provision for the future.

I'll step off my soap box now.

The other announcment was that with the discovery of Day of Armageddon, there are now only 108 missing episodes of Doctor Who. And it's a belter of an episode, too. Can't wait to see it.

2004-01-12T07:44:00.000Z

If I see another American inappropriately put quotation marks around a word in an email, I'll fucking "scream"!!!!!!!!!!!!

2004-01-11T11:55:00.000Z

We started the evening with some drinks at the Malmasion hotel in Leith, and then on to Restaurant Martin Wishart, where I spent even more than I had on Helen's birthday at Jacob's Ladder in Dublin last year. The ambience was sophisticated but incredibly friendly and the young staff made us feel completely relaxed. The complimentary pre-starter appetiser comprised a thimble of potato and leek soup, a Chinese soup spoon of salt cod in a chilli sauce and an amazing sort of wire candlestick, holding a Gefilte fish ball and a tiny pastry cornet of black pudding. It served as a taste-bud soundcheck and we were ready to go for the main course. Helen having opted to go for fish followed by fish, and me going for game followed by meat, choosing wine was going to be tricky, so we asked the wine waiter for assistance, The young Frenchman recommended two burgundies, so we opted for the Gevrey Chambertin, at a mere £52. It was worth it. On then to the meal. I had a game tarlet followed, by a nouvelle cuisine beef stew. We opted for cheese, and there was a cheese waiter who toured us round the board, and offered samples before we made our selection. It was the best visit to a restuarant I have ever had, and next time I have a spare £150 rattling around in my pockets, I'll be there like a shot.

Having consumed vodka, sparkling chardonnay, Glenlivet single malt whisky (Mmm - bourbon casked, lovely and treacly), 80 Shilling beer, gin and tonic, and Burgundy in the course of one evening, I have a fairly throbbing head this morning. I was therefore a little unsympathetic to Poppy, when she came in to the bedroom and lay on my pillow licking her private parts noisily this morning. (And the cat was no better! DYSWIDT? Aah!) Also, I have a sore throat, a persistent cold, and an eye infection that makes me look like Doctor Evil.

I don't care. It was all worth it for the best meal out ever. Only a year to Helen's next birthday.

2004-01-10T17:26:00.000Z

I feel refreshed and reinvigourated after the Christmas break and glad to be back at work - the return to routine has been good for my mind and my digestion. My resolutions have been off to a good start - muesli for breakfast and nothing more than soup and sald for lunch. Nary a crisp or chip has crossed my lips. I have been eating the several pounds of milk chocolates received for Christmas though.

Thursday marked a nadir in my time management career. I arrived at work late for what I though was my 7:00 start time. I checked the calendar and found I wasn't supposed to be working early that day. However I was supposed to have been on 24 hour standby from the day before. And I'd taken the Bat-phone in to be repaired that day instead. All was not lost. I still had the SIM card, inserted it into my own phone and 'fessed up to the Boss, who took it all in his stride. And German Colleague was happy to fill my shoes today, when I'd promised to go hill walking with Helen.

We went to the Pentlands above Bonaly, five minutes drive from our house. An unchallenging, if windy walk, marked by seeing some soldiers camped in the woods. Here are the snaps -

Tonight we're going out to Leith to sample a restaurant that comes with good write-ups. It's Helen's birthday tomorrow. On Thursday it will be just four months until she is my wife!

2004-01-06T20:05:00.000Z

There is a noticeboard at the gym. It lists "Achievers of the Month". I am one of four this month. Chew on that!

2004-01-05T13:56:00.000Z

The Christmas break ended dramatically. We went to see the film Touching The Void on Friday night, which engaged me completely. There is a good interview with the director here. It is the story of two climbers in the Andes, who run in to trouble in adverse conditions. When one breaks his leg, the other has a difficult choice. And it's all true.

The following day we went for a walk, at Traquair in the borders, up to the summit of Minch Moor. It was very snowy indeed, and we both disappeared up to our thighs at some points. But it was well worth it for the summit and the forested hills on the way down. It was extraordinarily slippery, with snow frozed into ice and we both nearly fell over several times. Wouldn't it be ironic, we though, if one of us broke his leg, like the man in the film.

We became over confident on the way back down and turned into forest too early. Helen pointed out that we couldn't possibly be on the path we should have been. There were no landmarks and we were about to lose daylight in an hour. We had a good look at the OS map and compass and took a gamble - heading into the forest itself on a cycle path, in an attampt to get to where we should have been. The path meandered, and it was very dark under cover of trees, but we eventually emerged at a crossroads we couldn't remember being at before. Another small gamble about which path to take later, the path started to look like the route map again. We just made it to the car before darkness.

2004-01-02T15:57:00.000Z

One of the least-well deployed terms in the English language is "I would have thought". I don't know whether it's specifically a Scots thing but the two best examples of its abuse have arisen there.

When I went to see Genesis on their last ever tour at the SECC in Glasgow, they took to the stage and embarked upon No Son Of Mine. Of course they did - it followed their rule to always kick off with a banker from the previous album. Yet the man behind me said to his companion "I would have though they would have opened with Dance On A Volcano". This tickles me for two reasons. Firstly, he didn't say "I thought they would have opened with Dance On A Volcano" - he said "would have thought". Why? He didn;t actually think this. So under what hypothetical circumstances would he have thought this. Why was he so keen to distance himself linguistically from this never-actually-held belief?

Another one was when I mentioned to a real world work colleage that I wrote for Doctor Who Magazine. "I wouldn't have though there was that much to write about", he helpfully responded. Why?

My response is as follows

I have little interest in what you think now

I have still less interest in what you used to think, but no longer do, having been corrected by reality (The strains of No Son of Mine or the continued existence of Doctor Who Magazine, for example)

I have even less interest in beliefs you not only no longer hold, but in fact never have held. Such beliefs are virtually infinite in number and are of no significance whatsoever

So, if you ever feel tempted to inappropriately deploy "I would have thought" in front on me, be cautious, because you may very well find yourself saying "I would have thought you weren't going to punch me then".

Anyway, here are some railings earlier today.

2004-01-01T19:04:00.000Z

Hogmanay was cancelled last night. It was the only time I have ventured on to the streets at New Year, despite having been in Edinburgh at that time of year for the last eleven years. I finally decided to brave it this year but it was cancelled. All my fault.
Here's the full story

2004-01-01T19:00:00.000Z

On December 30th, we went to Dunbar for a walk. It's one of a series of seaside towns that line the East coast of Scotland, South of Edinburgh. In the Old Days, people from Edinburgh would actually go on holiday to Dunbar or North Berwick, but now it's only the two of us. We often go for walks, taken from books of walks. Often these are writtem by a man called Jarrold. His powerful imagination means that the routes have no relation whatsoever to the terrain. Possibly, this is because they were all written in 1956. But our latest book was fine. At first the weather was fair, but later it snowed.

2003-12-28T21:25:00.000Z

I am typing these words at Helen's parents' house in Manchester. It's been a dramatic few days. Helen was confined to bed with the Dreaded Lurgy on Christmas Eve and her Christmas Dinner was the first meal she had partaken for nearly two days. The day itself went well, although two concertns have been hovering over me for the whole period: What has happened to Beagle 2? and Will I succumb to The Dreaded Lurgy? No news is good news on both fronts, I'm glad to report. Helen's sister was married yesterday. I feared The Dreaded Lurgy had attacked in the morning, but it was merely big day nerves. I saw an Old Friend for Drinks this aftrnoon in Manchester. He has had an absolutely dreadful year, and I am inspired by his resiliance and am determined to take a few more risks in my life next year.

We're back off up to Edinburgh tomorrow, dropping off the Grandparents in Sunderland on the way. I'm only half looking forward to it, because it seems to be dark in Edinburgh all the time. Rather like Unthank in Lanark.

2003-12-23T13:38:00.000Z

Helen is returning home in a matter of minutes. I immediately feel an odd kinship with Gary from Men Behaving Badly. I went to the weekly pub gathering of the Edinburgh Doctor Who group last night. It was an evening of great kinship and cameraderie and we decamped en masse to another hostelry when our niggardly hosts threw us out. I only lasted another pint there.

I feel I have achieved quite a lot in the last few days - presents are wrapped, ironing is ironed and I feel that our house is withstanding the Second Law of Thermodynamics rather well. Better than I am, anyway. I still haven't returned to the gym since my last documented visit. I will brave this tomorrow. Maybe.

Helen has now received well over a hundred Christmas cards. I have received five. What does that say?