Lola !

A few pictures of Lola from her first few months with us.  Here she is at 8 weeks on 29 December, her second day with us, still holding onto a rag that carried the smells of her mother and brothers and sisters.  She weighed in at 6.1kg...A week later, 9 weeks and 7kg, her ears still very floppy, but that character starting to develop in her face...

...but still very much a baby.  Yawning and then..

falling asleep on the kitchen floor.

9 1/2 weeks, 8kg now, and starting to get interested in the cats

11 1/2 weeks, and 11kg, all that growing can make you very sleepy.

13 1/2 weeks, off the lead in the fields on top of Withycombe Hill, 13kg now and starting to look more like a young dog than a puppy from time to time.

The same day, on Minehead beach, starting to practice her "wolf" look!

A few weeks later, 16 weeks old and out on the hills again. 18kgs now and growing very fast indeed.

At 20 weeks, Lola is 21kg and starting to look like a young adult, with a very mature look in her eyes as she surveys the mess she's made of the front garden.

Still practising the "wolf" look, and it's getting convincing now.  At 22 weeks and 24kg, it's starting to be a struggle to lift her in and out of the car.

Amazing how a five-month old puppy can look like a fully grown dog - but she's still got a lot of growing to do to catch up with those paws. 23 weeks and 24.6kg, slowing down a little...

...and enjoying her morning walk up on the hills.

Two weeks into a new life.

A slightly different place to be at eight in the morning than sitting in front of a couple of screens in the city...

This is a rather nicer way to start a Monday morning, up on top of the hills with the dog, enjoying the April sunshine.

It's two weeks now since my last day in the office, two weeks so far to get used to not being compelled to be somewhere at a certain time.  To not have to shave, not have to put on a suit, not have to do anything because I'm being paid to do it.  Freedom.

So far, it feels pretty good to me.  The last couple of days, lots of physical work to do, shifting a ton (literally) of floor tiles, cutting a 100ft, ten foot high privet hedge, turning a huge mess of pyrocantha, bay laurel, jasmine and cotoneaster into shredded pulp.  My hands are burning from all the thorns, my back is aching from moving the tiles, my legs are bruised from pressing against the step-ladder, but it feels really good all the same.

Maybe I'll tire of it in another thirty years or so...

A life of wheels

gI was 16, it was 1976, so I had to have a sixteener special... I washed up all summer in a hotel to pay it off.  A 1974 Honda SS50 previously owned by one of my brother's friends, two years old and already a little the worse for wear.  I paid £120 for it, and the price included a re-bore and new piston, because its previous owner had not been kind to it.  To be honest, neither was I.  By the time I turned 17, I sold it for £15 to a friend who had just turned 16.  It was advertised as being capable of doing 50mph.  I don't think I ever got it above 40mph, and the only way of doing that was to saw off half the length of the throttle side in the carburettor - which apparently increased the horsepower from the standard 2.5 up to 4.5(ish...).  And when I turned 17, I bought...

1966 Honda CB160

...a Honda CB160 from another friend, for £140 this time.  This friend was training to be a bike mechanic, and he'd looked after it.  I didn't look after it too much, and one day the big end seized up on the way home.  I stripped it down on the kitchen table (much to the delight of my mum) and somehow managed to tip half a can of sump oil over the Rayburn and the dog in the process... In the end I got it back together again and it actually started.  But then I turned 18 and my parents bought me some car lessons for my birthday and that was that.  I passed my test within two months of my birthday, after five lessons, and I saved up my pennies until I could buy my first car.  In the end, it was this...

Vauxhall Viva HA

...my first ever car - a 1965 Vauxhall Viva HA 1100cc.  £120 to buy from some bloke in Ilton, and £85 for the first year's insurance. It suffered a bit in my hands too.  A bottle of milk judiciously spilt on the carpet one day meant that it always had a certain aroma about it.  One day on the M5 motorway, coming back from London and caning it at about 75mph, the head gasket blew.  A lovely green emulsion of oil and water greeted me when I lifted the bonnet.  After several days of it sitting outside the house with the bonnet up, my brother and I succeeded in getting it to run again, but it made some interesting noises when it did, and so I thought something else might be more reliable, so I bought...

1970 Vauxhall Victor 2000

...a 1970 Vauxhall Victor 2000 estate.  £350 when I bought it in 1979.  And it looked pretty good the evening I went to look it over in a housing estate in Taunton.  Unfortunately, one week later and the rust started to show through the cheap filler that the previous owner had used to hide its sins.  Within six months there were holes in both front wings, and a dent in the rear wing where I caught it on a no-waiting sign as I hastily exited a non-parking space.  The engine was willing enough though, and apart from a new prop-shaft CV joint, which went "BANG" at 80mph coming home one night, it behaved itself relatively well for a couple of years.  Still, it finished up on the scrap heap in 1981, and with the proceeds I bought two bath towels.  Having had enough of cars for the moment, and feeling the pinch a bit, I decided to buy myself a bike again, and for some unknown reason, probably just because it was there, I plumped for one like this...

1975 Honda CB250

 A 1975 Honda CB250.  It went pretty well, which was good, because four nights a week I had to do a 70-mile round trip to Romford and back from my home near Hertford to meet up with the band I was playing in at the time.  One night, a fuse blew half-way home, so I took a bit of the silver foil from a cigarette packet and replaced it with that. Clever I thought.

A few nights later, as I paddled the bike down the narrow path from the back of the house to the road, I turned the key and flames started coming out from under the petrol tank - which I don't need to explain further was situated between my legs.  I turned the ignition off, but that didn't help because by then the wiring had fused together, and the fuse didn't - well, I now know that silver foil does not make effective fuses.  I have never paddled a bike so fast in my life.  I got it out to the street, ran across to the other side with it and dumped it in the verge, where the fire promptly went out.  After several weeks of messing around with new cables and connectors and the like, I finally got it going again, but I didn't last too long as a biker after that.  I witnessed the most horrendous car accident happen just in front of me on a dual carriageway at 2am one morning, and feeling rather exposed on two wheels, I decided that I was probably safer in a car.  And so I splashed out again...

1975 Ford Consul 2.0L

 on a 1974-ish Ford Consul 2.0L, which drank petrol like there was no tomorrow and cost me £300 from another friend.  I rather liked that car, took it to London and then to Scotland with me - it was big and bouncy but comfortable, and I felt a lot more like me in it.  Unfortunately after about seven months its MOT was due, which it failed with flying colours, the sills and half of the chassis were rotted with rust, so it had to say hello to the crusher.  So I needed another car, and fast, and my Mum and Dad helped me out.  I found one of these...

1965 Humber Sceptre

 ...1965 Humber Sceptre sitting in the back of a car dealer's showroom in Minehead.  It was built like a tank - no danger of rust with this baby, it had overdrive to reduce the petrol bills and a leather sports interior.  We paid £400 for it - it was already 17 years old, but as it turned out it was quite an investment.  Except, it seemed to have an affinity for punctures.  I had six punctures in as many months in Edinburgh, and it also seemed to act as a magnet for traffic wardens - I had ten parking tickets before I knew it and I decided that it had to go.  I told my Mum I thought I'd better sell it, and she said why didn't I swap it for her Vauxhall Viva?  Well, seeing as they had bought the Humber for me in the first place, I thought "why not?" and promptly did the trade...

1973 Vauxhall Viva HC

Well, that worked out well for my Mum, because a little while later, someone paid her £1000 for the Humber.  But the little Viva... well.  It wouldn't start without an awful lot of cajoling, the electrics were clearly shot, and it leaked like a paper tent in a monsoon.  I had to drive it to the scrapyard before long, but I needed a car to get to my work and my gigs.  I found ...

1972 Austin 1800 Automatic

...an Austin 1800 somewhere in Edinburgh.  I should have left it there.  What a revolting car.  Most things worked on it, in fact almost everything, except the alternator.  And being an automatic, you couldn't bump-start it.  The battery went flat about once every couple of days.  I carried jump-leads with me so that I could beg a bit of juice from any sympathetic passing motorist, but in the end I gave up.  It was time for a new car, and this time, it was just that, a New Car.

1984 Fiat Uno 55 Comfort

Having worked in a Fiat garage for a few months before I found my first job in investment for an Edinburgh stockbroker, I went down to see them, and drove away in a brand-new 1984 Fiat Uno.  It had an engine like a knitting machine, but it still cost £4,300 retail.  My old friends at the garage took pity on me and let me have it for £3,800.  Suddenly, I was living in a different world, it started first time every time, It did exactly what you told it to do.  One night it went 110mph (downhill with a tail-wind), or the speedo said it did anyway.  It was my first Italian car, but even the electrics worked.  But after a year (end of warranty!) it developed an annoying leak, and started to smell rather musty inside.  And one sunny day, when it wasn't smelling too bad, I happened to see a car on a forecourt of a garage in Musselborough, just next to Edinburgh, and I fell in love...

1983 Alfa Romeo 1.5 Green Cloverleaf Sprint

It was my second Italian car, but this time it was really Italian. An Alfa-Sud 1.5 Green Cloverleaf Sprint.  With its growling little boxer engine and it's bright green carpets, not to mention its stunning good looks (for 1985) I was hooked.  It was 18 months old, and the price was £4,450, down from £8,500 new.  The garage offered me £3,300 for the Uno on a trade-in - I was even more impressed.  I absolutely loved driving it, even though the handbrake was a bit iffy to say the least, and I would have kept it for ever, if I hadn't somehow managed to do a one-and-a-half pirouette in it on a wet road in October 1987, just before the hurricane, and united the passenger door handle with the gear-stick when a car came round the corner I was approaching and hit it firmly in the midriff.  My one and only write-off. I was heartbroken until the insurance company paid me £3,500 and I managed to pay off the loan.  Still, despite a rather nasty whiplash, I had decided that Alfas were for me, so I bought another one, a few years older, for £300 with the change from the finance company.

1979 Alfa Romeo Giulietta 2.0

Bad move.  A 2-litre Giulietta.  It was quick, quicker than the Alfa-Sud, and it handled pretty well, but it had the "rust-bucket" tendancies of the older Alfas, and the electrics were pretty woeful.  It made me miss the ferry to the Isle of Man when I moved there.  The bottom radiator hose decided to perish on the M6 and I think I gave it about ten gallons of water during the last 50 miles to Heysham.  When I got there, the ferry had closed its doors and was about to leave without me.  A brief 36-hour sojourn in the Lake District until the next boat.  It couldn't last long.

1980 Nissan Datsun 280ZX

It didn't.  Having developed a penchant for discovering things at the back of car showrooms with the Humber, I found another classic gem.  This time a Datsun 280ZX for which I paid £4,400 - on credit of course.  With its removeable glass roof panels and T-bar, and its low profile Denovo tyres, its three acres of bonnet and the passing pedestrian comments of "Daddy, is that a Porsche?" I rather enjoyed this one.  It drank petrol very fast - 22mpg if I as lucky, but it was great fun to drive, including over the mountain stretch of the TT course at 110mph on one Mad Sunday.  I had a lot of fun in it, until the day came when I qualified for my first company car, and I went back to nearly-new motors again.

1990 Vauxhall Astra 2.0 GTE Cabriolet

The first was an Astra 2.0 GTE cabriolet, complete with electric roof. It enjoyed itself in a little tour of France and Switerland one summer, with a tent in the boot.  And then I followed it with another Vauxhall...

1992 Vauxhall Cavalier GSi 16v 4X4

...a Cavalier GSi 16v 4x4.  I had wanted to buy a Sierra Cosworth, but the insurance company wouldn't have it, so I bought the next best thing.  It clung to the road like a limpet, even when there was snow all over the mountain,  But it had its troubles too.  The clutch failed in Lynmouth - a picturesque Devon village with one-in-four hills on either side.  And then one day, for no reason, it decided not to start.  I turned the key a few times, just to make sure, and thought "what's that strange noise...?" It was the sixteen valves being bent by the pistons - the timing belt had gone, and after only 30,000 miles.  A lengthy repair which cost my employer £2,800. And then the three years were up and it was time to change.  I bought...

1992 Jaguar XJ40 3.2 Sport

...a monster.  An XJ40 3.2 Sport.  I think I paid £17,000 for it, but then it wasn't my money so I'm not sure.  Apart from its appetite for petrol, and two tyres, it didn't cost a penny more than an annual service for the next three years, and it went like a rocket ship for such a heavy car.  My mum, when she came to stay, was a bit embarrassed going to the shops in it, she thought it felt rather too grand.  But after a couple of years, I got promoted, and I got to change it, and as I was turning 40, I bought a mid-life crisis car - another Alfa Romeo.

Alfa Romeo GTV 2.0 Twin-Spark

This time a GTV 2.0 Twin Spark.  This one was everything the other Alfas nearly were. It went like a dream, it sounded incredibly tuneful, it stuck to the road like a go-kart and the electrics were faultless.  Even the handbrake worked.  One or two passengers objected to the "sporty" (read extremely hard) ride - one smacked his head on the roof after a particularly vicious bump in the road.  But with no speed limits on much of the Isle of Man at the time, I could legally do a ton on the way home from work. Fun, fun, fun. Until... another cam-belt disaster.  Another £2,500 bill for my employer.  And then for some reason company cars disappeared.

1999 Mercedes V Class 2.8

From the sublime to the ridiculous.  A £16,000 second-hand silver shed on wheels, a Mercedes V280.  Heavy, slowish, and very, very thirsty.  Lots of space though, when my daughter was little there was even room for a porta-loo behind the third row of seats.  It was good for picnics, and for towing a caravan, possibly for watching TV if you were a passenger, but not a lot else.  After moving to France two years later, I brought it back to the UK and sold it to a guy who wanted to convert it to cope with his electric wheelchair. He gave me £5,500 for it. 

2001 Fiat Bravo 1.9 JTD

And then, I bought a little Fiat Bravo 1.9 JTD something like this that was later christened Titine.  It was quick, very economical and pretty reliable.  I paid €5,400 for it to a garage in Cognac.  It was an ex-hire car, and it was in really good condition, albeit with 100,000km on the clock.  I bought it in 2004, and in 2012 when we left France, we gave it away with 230,000km under its belt - it was still going strong, although the lights had a habit of switching off at unexpected moments until you fiddled with the ignition key, and the horn never worked.  But it would do 185kph on an abandoned (hopefully) autoroute and still give you 45mpg.

2007 Audi A4 Avant 1.9 TDI

And then we moved to England, and I went looking on the internet for an Audi A3 to replace Titine, and in the end i couldn't find the one I wanted, and I persuaded myself that a little more space in the back would be a good idea, and I bought an Audi A4 1.9TDi from an Irish lady in Purley.  She told me she had only owned it for six months, as she was in the UK temporarily, and she'd bought it from the first owner, who was another lady, but one who sold things for a living, and she'd clocked up 114,000 miles in five years.  So the price was based on the mileage, rather than the condition - £5,400.  I bought it with my fingers crossed, and could then firmly uncross them when the Audi garage in Taunton told me there was nothing wrong with it, everything was in really good order.  And now, just 20,000 miles on and after three years, and some new rear suspension - probably due to my habit of using it as a pick-up truck for the building work we've been doing, it's rolling fine, and clocking 54mpg.  And this time, given that it's my look-out, I've had the cambelt changed before it could wreak havoc on the valves.

Cars are not what they used to be, thank God.  I think this one will probably do another ten years or so, if I look after it...

Do I really want to do this?

In my mid-30s, it became apparent to me that I ought to start doing some proper exercise.  I'd just quit smoking (how many times is that...?) and put on a bit of weight (10kgs, if I'm honest) and I figured that if I didn't do something about it I would turn into one of those couch potatoes whose only possibility to lose those kilograms was to not have the energy to go to the kitchen to find something to eat.

So I joined a health club.  It was called Renaissance, which seemed fitting, and on joining I received a white, eponymously monogrammed, towelling bathrobe.  I bought myself a few things to wear in the gym and threw myself into a routine that sent me off there three lunchtimes a week.  Over the next few months, I sweated on a rowing machine, on a stepper, and on the bikes.  I descended to the weights room when there was nobody else there to witness the ridiculously low weights on which I started out, I eyed the treadmills with a mixture of apprehension and anticipation for the day when I would feel comfortable getting onto one and passing twenty minutes or more running.  I had never been able to run any distance - to the point where one morning in the past I distinctly remembered waking after a dream in which I was running a few miles and thinking "wow, if only that was real".

One of my work colleagues had suggested that I might start to think about a half-marathon that was happening in a few months.  So one day I decided to try out the treadmill.  I started by walking five minutes and then jogging one, then walking four and jogging two, then half and half, until eventually I could jog for six minutes at about 10kph.  And that meant I could jog a kilometre.  After that, I raised it to ten, fifteen and then, twenty minutes.  It didn't take that long to get there, maybe three weeks or so, and once I could do that, I let myself loose on the roads around my house.  To start with, I got a lift up to the top of the moors, and then followed a three-mile path downhill back home.  Then I tried doing the same distance on the flat.  The next village to mine was three miles away, and it wasn't too long before I could get there in half an hour, and walk back.  A few weeks later, I could do seven miles, starting and finishing at my house, and taking in a few hills on the way.  Success!

And then, I stopped.  Someone I knew, the same age as me, dropped dead of a brain haemorrhage.  It occured to me that I was maybe pushing myself too hard.  I had become accustomed to running seven miles, but for a half-marathon I needed to run thirteen.  I didn't really like running, and I started to wonder whether the exercise was actually making me fitter, or whether it was just making me less aware the pain of exerting myself.  The question nagged at me.  Probably a bit of both, I decided in the end, but having started to feel some discomfort in my shins, I resolved to give up the running and to use my bike instead.  I also stopped running on the treadmills at the gym, and opted for the cross-trainer.  No impact on my bones and joints, and some serious calorie-burning.  After a few months, I could burn 900 calories in half an hour.  A mile from my house, there was a road that climbed 1000 feet in less than a mile.  Parts of it were a one in three gradient.  My record was getting to the top on my bike only stopping once, but by the time I got there my pulse was doing about 170, and that was probably too much. I was, by then, pushing 40.

I generally started work around 8.30, and as the gym opened at 7. I found that I could get up at 6, get to the gym when it opened at 7, do 45 minutes of hard graft on the cv machines, a quick turn in the steam room, a jacuzzi at 8, some toast and marmalade at 8.15 and in the office at my usual time.  I slid into a routine of doing that three times a week, and two lunchtimes spent doing weights.  Sometimes I went to the gym twice in the same day.  The endorphins were oozing around my body - it was as addictive as eating chillies or, dare I say it, smoking.  For the first time in my life I was really fit, and I loved the feeling of being alive and aware, and I loved looking at myself in the mirror in the changing rooms and seeing the difference I had made to myself.  It went on like that for a few years.

And then, big change.  I moved to London to work, and the only gyms I could find were so busy that you couldn't count on getting on the machine that you wanted, or even on there being a space in the changing room to hang your clothes.  And instead of the changing room smelling of the eucalyptus from the steam room, it smelt of sweat and unclean bodies.  I gave up.

In the twelve years or so that have passed since then, despite a fair bit of relaxed cycling, my shoulders have grown narrower, my thighs and calves are no longer rock hard, my resting pulse has gone up from 45 to nearer 60.  I'm also 55 years old, and I weigh a few kgs less than I did back then.  I walk a fair bit, mostly in London, but my bike hasn't come out of the garage for about a year now.  I feel a crossroads coming.  Am I going to start again, when I have the time (which won't be too long now) or am I going to grow old gracefully and contentrate on the cerebral and the artistic, rather than the corporeal?

Truth is, there's nothing I like more than the feeling of being out on my bike, meandering along some country lane, with the countryside around me.  It makes me feel like I'm a part of me, rather than being someone who looks on and criticises.  This week, a colleague of mine told me that after a week in the US, and then three days of having to take aeroplanes to more local meetings around the UK, he had to go out and ride a few hours on his bike to get his composure and equilibrium back.  Something in me empathised with him - maybe the bug is still there.

Maybe I'll start tomorrow, but for the moment, I'm too comfortable sitting in this chair and letting the world go by.

Work until you drop...

I love this picture because our house is nestling right there in the middle of it.

Today we learned that a government initiative is under way to try to help more unemployed over-50s back into work.  The Minister for Employment, Esther McVey, is quoted as saying it could "add £50bn to the economy".

Oh whoopee.

Now I fully understand that there are some unfortunate people of my advanced age who are unemployed and are actively looking for work, but I would take issue with the figures quoted in the BBC article that there are 1.2 million over-50s who would like to work "given the right opportunity".  For example, what exactly does that mean - "given the right opportunity"?

As a 54-year old, my thoughts are quite regularly (and in my view, quite rightly) focused on retirement.  And not at my current state pension age of 66, but preferably long before that particular watershed arrives.  Once retired, I am looking forward to spending my time doing the things that I want to do, rather than those that someone else wants me to do.  Now in those circumstances, if "the right opportunity" presented itself - i.e. one which did not detract from my feeling that my time is my own; one where I could do something I love doing, but make some money from it all the same, then would I like to do it?  Well, I don't know the answer to that at this moment, but even on that basis you would probably be able to class me among that aforementioned 1.2 million.

So is the idea behind this new initiative actually to make people happier, or is it to get them to carry on shouldering their corner of the national grindstone when they don't really need or want to and make some more money for the glorious economy?

Being a trifle cynical (who, me...?) I fear that the real answer is the latter.

During an all-too-brief (and voluntary) eight months out of the employment market ten years ago, I soon came to learn that the real currency of life is not money, but time.  For some people, granted, time is a burden, and to those people, I sincerely wish you all the best in finding gainful employment so as to fill up your days and allow you to have the least possible time to spend relying on your own diversions and devices.

I am rather in the other camp.  I have lots of projects that I would like to devote my time to, none of which involve clocking on and clocking off.  I remember from that eight month break that one of the best feelings in the world, when you are concentrating on something that really takes your imagination, is that you can go to bed and relax in the knowledge that tomorrow is another day, exactly like the one you have just lived, and nothing will stop you taking up the thread in the morning (or the afternoon if you prefer) and carrying on.  After 37 years of employment and the need to be somewhere far away from home doing something at a specific time most of the days in the week, that memory still lingers as a rare pleasure and one that I don't want anything (or anyone) to spoil for me when I get the chance to reacquaint myself with it.

One last statistic from the story today: A quarter of women and one in six men who reach state pension age have not worked since they were 55.

Fine, but that doesn't mean that they came under the heading of "unemployed" does it?  Surely that number includes all the people who voluntarily retire earlier than at the state pension age?

In the end, maybe this story just comes down to electioneering and trying to win over the vote of the disenfranchised over 50s who really do want to get back to work?  And of course, to get that extra £50 billion pounds out of an ailing economy...

Where did February go...?

Help!  There seems to have been a crime - February 2014 was stolen by aliens!  It's gone, it's March already, and from what I can make out, my achievements in the month of February total absolutely nothing.

Ah well, we can't all make a difference to the world all the time.  Sometimes just being here is enough - isn't it?  Or am I clutching at straws here?  Yes, probably.

So today, 1st March, we went to Wolverhampton, to look at some six-week-old Nebelung kittens.  It was a long way to go - three and a half hours there, three and a half hours back.  And in six or seven weeks, we'll be making the same trip again, this time with a small animal cage in the back of the car, and an air of anticipation, because we'll be going to collect two little grey kittens, one male and one female, thirteen or fourteen weeks,  just neutered, and ready to join our small feline menagerie at Vexford House.

Can't wait...

Did I ever say I love cats?

Ah the weekend...

There's something really good about getting up from my desk at 5.30 or 6.00 on a Thursday evening, slinging my bag over one shoulder, and people saying "have a good weekend" as I walk past them on the way for the door.  I've come to accept it as normal now, although a three day week would be even better :)

This profligate waste of working time began back in 2004, when I realised that I couldn't hide away doing nothing on the west coast of France for ever, I needed to earn some cash.  But starting from nothing, and from a distance, it seemed that a three day week was pretty arduous.  So I settled for that, working on a contract basis, and about half of that time from home, and that was on the whole a pretty relaxed way of earning our crusts.

The problem was that it was difficult to be properly integrated into the team on a three days a week basis particularly after I took the plunge after two years of contracting and became an employee once more.  So I ramped it up to four days - and given we were then living in Bordeaux, that meant that I had Monday morning and Friday afternoon for travelling back and forwards, and my four days went from Monday lunchtime to Friday lunchtime and morphed into five days.  But now, living here in Somerset, my four days in London are decidedly Monday morning to Thursday afternoon, and that suits me pretty well.

I don't know what I'd do with only two days at the weekend.  I know that's what most people have, and I also know I'm really lucky to be able to do this, but I find there's still not enough time to get things done even with three days at home every week.  That said, I reckon I'm working in the office for 42 hours a week during those four days, and a few hours outside of that too, so it's not really what you would call part-time.  The big advantage is that it gives you the option to say "no" on your day off.

It's a bit difficult balancing that four day week.  When I worked full-time I often had to work at weekends.  So just because I get paid 4/5 of a full pay-check, it doesn't mean that four days is it.  One has to be flexible in this situation - it's not as if I'm getting paid peanuts on an hourly rate.

But despite the conflicts and complications which come up sometimes in terms of time, it's great to walk out on Thursday evening and to know that it's my choice whether I work tomorrow or not...

La Sauce Divine (Port and Peppercorn Sauce)

So after the "criminal sauce" added a few weeks back, here is an altogether more welcoming sauce that goes perfectly with a good steak and pasta:

for two:

1 organic beef stock cube
1/2 organic mushroom stock cube
250ml boiling water
2 cloves organic garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp ground mixed peppercorns
15g organic butter
1 tsp grain mustard
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
2tbsp port
1 rounded tsp cornflour in a little water

Heat the butter over a medium heat in a small saucepan with the chopped garlic and the ground peppercorns.  Mix the stock cubes with the boiling water in a jug and add to the saucepan, tgoether with the worcestershire sauce, mustard and port and stir well.  While the liquid comes back to the boil, mix the cornflour in a cup in a little water.  Once the sauce boils, take it off the heat and add the cornflour and water mix a teaspoon at a time, stirring well each time.  Then return the saucepan to the heat and stir gently until it boils again.  Reduce the heat and simmer for two minutes before serving.

Keeping us entertained

We don't own a television.

We did have one when we lived in La Rochelle, so up until 2007.  But 99% of the time, it was used for watching films that we borrowed on VHS or DVD from the mediatheque.  Watching TV was never a big part of our day.

 

According to BARB (the Broadcasters Audience Research Board) there are 27.4 million households in the UK and 26.5 million of them (97%) have at least one television.  The average household now has 1.8 televisions, down from 2.0 ten years ago.  But they also have many more computers, which are capable of showing TV programmes and replays.

When people think of entertainment, the first stop is generally the TV.  In fact, over the last few years, viewing times have been increasing, and the average person in the UK now watches just over four hours of television a day.  I'll say that again, four hours a day.

If you imagine the average person's day - if there is such a thing - then that person gets up in the morning after, let's say eight hours of either sleep or the bit that goes at either end of sleep - having a drink before going to bed, washing, teeth cleaning, reading a book in bed, all that stuff.

On an average weekday, our average person spends half an hour getting to work and half an hour getting home again, and they work eight hours, including their lunchbreak.  So they are away from the house for nine hours.  You can see what I'm getting at here.  So add those nine hours to the eight, you get seventeen, what's left is what might be described as disposable time - that which isn't spent working or sleeping or doing the bits at either end of those - about seven hours.  So more than half of that disposable time goes on watching television.

OK, so people may be doing something else while they're watching television, eating for instance.   Apparently 68% of the UK eats their evening meal in front of the television - no wonder there's not much family conversation any more.  But it's pretty likely that they're not doing anything important or creative whilst they're watching.  So the primary thing that they are doing is watching television.

Having started this with that statement that we don't have a television, I guess I am here in this topic as an observer and a commentator, rather than a practitioner.  However, I do spend on average  three nights a week in a hotel in London, and from time to time, I put the television on.  It's mostly for background, a bit of noise for company, or the breakfast time news to wake me up in the morning.  Sometimes a football match, if there's one on, or a documentary.  But what gets classified as "entertainment", never.  There is nothing which is more likely to make me reach for the remote control than a full-blown TV entertainment programme.

I may be in a very small minority in the UK as someone who has never watched the X Factor, Britain's got Talent or Strictly Come Dancing.  I have noticed from the BBC website that sometimes there are references to these shows in the news, but I can't imagine it is that critical to anyone and that is as far as my consciousness of them goes.   I have difficulty in imagining myself sitting through one of them - particularly the dancing one.  And whilst I used to like talent shows, having been a musician for almost all of my life, the modern version is far too blinkered.  

The only people who get on them are wannabe singers, who sing other peoples' songs.  That format doesn't really hold any interest for me I have to say.  And the absolute pits for me was that thing a few years back - Stars in their Eyes - thankfully I was never compelled to sit through one of those.

That said, I do like a comedy show from time to time, particularly original or intelligent comedy. I guess that's classed as entertainment, but it does have some value over and above the "shows" and reality programmes which have become so rife.  It seems that TV these days is broadly a wall to wall mix of talent shows, cooking programmes, swearing, reality shows where nothing happens, soaps and celebrity life stories.  Throw in some cheap compilations (police camera stuff or funny home videos) some property and makeover shows and that's most of the week filled up.  Oh God and those daytime shows where they bring on couples in the middle of a divorce so that they can shout at each other for some voyeuristic interest.  

I guess the reason that all this stuff is in the schedules is that it is popular.  Television schedules are subjected to a huge amount of scrutiny and analysis, at any rate, because they provide a medium for advertising.  And advertising is, after all, what it's all about.  We are being entertained so that we can be slipped an advertising message once we are under the influence and relaxed.

The way I look at it is that I can have four hours more in my day than many other people, because I don't plonk myself down in front of the telly and allow myself to be entertained most nights of the week.

But that is clearly not the case for 97% of the people in the UK.

Sideways drift - into the book "In search of the miraculous", PD. Ouspensky's account of his time spent with George Gurdjieff during the early part of the 20th Century.  Gurdjieff believed and taught that the vast majority of people live their life in a state of waking sleep, they fulfil the role of machines.  The cycle of entertain - advertise - entertain - advertise is resonant of that waking sleep to me.  Go to work - earn money - come home - watch TV - get the message - go and buy the product - go to work - earn money etc...

So have my views on this changed over the years?  Of course - in the beginnning, I was a good audience just like most of the rest of the UK.  I watched TV until I had square eyes, as the saying went.  But I could never bring myself to watch the entertainment part even then - the big brassy Saturday night shows...  Thankfully, reality TV hadn't caught on then - television was still expensive to make and those appearing were generally well-known.  I remember when it didn't start until 4.30pm and went off the air at 11.30pm - I guess the idea was that it left people to get on with their lives during the day.  

When Channel 4 came along, and choice suddenly expanded into some more "alternative" programmes, I was all for it.  But the commercialisation of TV since during the 90s and 00s (OK, I know most of TV is commercial, it's aimed at selling us stuff), the celebritisation (if that's a word) of it, the growth of the wannabe and wannahave generation have switched me off entirely.   The idea that everyone who has ever had a bit-part in Eastenders is a "star" and the celebrity culture of people who become famous for being famous has left me feeling disenfranchised by television.  Bring back the Old Grey Whistle Test, BlackAdder, Monty Python and The World at War and I'll rejoin the fanclub.  Until then, I am resigned to the fact that what passes for entertanment these days is Not My Cup of Tea. 

Criminal Sauce

I have been trying to find a good name for this sauce for a long time. As I happened upon it one evening in France, it has always had a French name - la sauce d'enfer (the sauce from hell) la sauce assassin (not necessary to translate that one).  But now we're here in England, I guess it needs an English name.  After a brief discussion this evening, it seems that "criminal sauce" fits the bill.  So what's in it, you ask?

Well, chillies, pretty obviously.  Five of those little hot ones, chopped into very small pieces.  I wear a latex glove for that part of the operation, because at some point later in the evening, sod's law says I am going to rub my eye for some reason or other.  Even if you've washed your hands quite methodically two or three times since the chilli-chopping, you'll still notice the effect.  And yes, peeing is eye-watering too...  One tomato, half an onion, a clove of garlic, all chopped as small as you can without shredding your fingers.   Salt, black pepper, a bit of oregano, balsamic vinegar, worcestershire sauce, tomato purée, a little water and some toasted sesame oil.  It's not cooked, but it helps to leave it to one side for an hour or two before you eat it, so as to let the flavours mingle.  The more oil you put in, the less the chilli gets to you, so of you want it really hot, just one teaspoon of oil does it.

I've always been a fan of chillies.  The capsaicin they contain has some good health qualities in my book, but not only that, it also makes you feel good due to the endorphin production. 

I made this sauce this evening to go with a vegetarian chilli, rice and a creme fraiche / cucumber / lemon juice cooler.  And now I'm sitting here with that pleasant sensation that only a good dose of chilli brings.  Or is it that empty third bottle of Beck's that did it...?