La Belle France & A New Non-Fiction release

I’ve been away, for a few days. We took two disparate holidays in one: 7 days in the remotest of remote cottages in Brittany followed by a sop for the children; 3 days at a Eurocamp.

The day of the interchange didn’t really work. From being friends with no-one except Mr Vin de Pays de l’Aude and Mr Minervois for a week we had to suddenly be part of what appeared, at first sight, to be Blackpool a la France. The 7 hour (when it should have been 5) journey didn’t help much, it has to be said.

Eurocamp got better: in a matter of hours high season became low season and a *lot* of people went home, leaving us with a fantastic site and precious little badly mangled vowels.

Cross blog promotion: I read the new canon from ‘Sunday Times Bestseller’ Stephen Foster while away. I wrote a few hundred words for the book that didn’t really work- having read, rather than looked at (part time stay at home day, even more part time blogger, even more than that part time proofreader), the text it seems obvious why, so I’ll add them here (and maybe to Amazon) as a precis of the book.

These PHWs know nothing. There are those of us who have been honing the art of Pulis hating since the early 1990s.
Dateline Bournemouth, 1992. The Redknapp era of glory, cup upsets and promotion has come to an end. Harry’s had his head turned by the prospect of stealing his best friend’s job. His suggestion as successor: Anthony Pulis. Overnight, we went from exciting wing play to dour midfield battles. One by one anyone with any talent was sold and replaced by a workmanlike drone. Crowds dwindled, revenue dropped, watching Bournemouth ceased to be fun. The day before the 1994/95 season started the board, in their wisdom, sacked Pulis. Things had got so bad that having a collection of players with no experience whatsoever pick the side was preferable to anymore of the dross Pulis was serving up. As a mark of respect to their former boss’ ideas and tactics, the team started the season with the following set of results: LLLLLLL.
I kept an eye on his subsequent career, with an ever growing incredulity that he continued to find gainful employment as a football manager. In some instances he was even head-hunted! This incredulity came to a high-water point last year when, somehow, he led Stoke to the Premiership. At last he would get the national humiliation he richly deserved. Stoke would be relegated before Christmas. This, as your author has spent a whole book describing, did not turn out to be the case. Indeed, far from revelling in Pulis’ humiliation, my opinion of him swayed and I began to revel in his new found success.
Provincial teams have been promoted and survived before and I’ve managed to maintain a distinct lack of interest in their achievements. What was different with Stoke (author’s note: we are not provincial) and their unique brand of Pulisball was the element of reductionism that was introduced to achieve their success. In utilising Delap’s throws they managed to distil football to its sheer essence. The aim of the game is to score goals, how this is achieved is of little import. For all the artistry of your Liverpools or your Arsenals, a 1-0 win is a 1-0 win. If the tiny brushstrokes of Wenger suggest Monet then the clarity and straight lines of Pulisball suggest Mondrian. Going further, if we are to argue that Pulis has taken the functional and turned it into art, then maybe his Stoke team can be compared to Duchamps’ Urinal (a crude, yet valid analogy: after all, most supporters of Stoke’s opponents last season would have expected to, to use the vernacular, ‘piss all over them’.) This, however, is not what impressed me most about Pulis. No, my own Damascene conversion came about not in his success on the pitch, but his success in the minds of the players.
Many managers have tried their own Route One variant, few have had success. At Bournemouth in the past two years we have had two. Kevin Bond (narrower of the pitch & hump it long merchant) and when he failed, Jimmy Quinn (hump it even longer and hope more merchant). Last season Bournemouth started the campaign with a 17 point deduction and were odds on favourites for relegation. We were playing for survival, not for plaudits. But even the fear of relegation to the Conference and almost certain loss of livelihoods for the players could not get them to buy in to the manager’s philosophy. Following Quinn’s sacking on New Year’s Eve and the installation of (another) ex-player Eddie Howe, who wanted to at least try and play football, results picked up and the fear of relegation receded. Even Big Phil Scolari, who knows what he’s doing, couldn’t get the likes of Terry & Lampard to ‘get’ his ideas. Clearly then, to unite 20 odd players into believing one-hundred-and-ten percent in what you are trying to do, when what you are trying to do is so evidently against what these 20 odd players would prefer to have been doing (these guys would have been in the playground during Beckham’s pomp, do you think they were running around pretending to be Robbie Savage?), is to have a touch of genius about you. It is this which finally swayed my opinion of Pulis. He is Pete Waterman to his squad of Rick Astleys, Simon Cowell to his Gareth Gates. Without him, they are nothing. He is a modern day Svengali.

Lawrence Weiner

We were down in Cornwall, these past couple of days, and decided to go to the Newlyn Art Gallery to see the work of the above named artist, as he is, apparently, one of the leading figures of post-war conceptual art. His manifesto is this:

—1. The artist may construct the piece.
—2. The piece may be fabricated.
—3. The piece need not be built.
—Each being equal and consistent with the intent of the artist the decision as to condition rests with the receiver upon the occasion of receivership.

Which, to my tiny mind, seems to be taking the concept of conceptual to it’s illogical conclusion. He wants to elevate the idea above the execution. Obviously, this falls deeply into the ‘that’s bollocks, anyone could have thought of that’ category. And it is bollocks, but it is also, clearly, genius.

Part of the exhibition was a series of instructions by Lawrence Weiner and his contempories. The idea being that your common or garden man in the street would act on these instructions and the art would be the result. I like to think of myself as fairly broadminded when it comes to art but this, i found, was a step further than i was prepared to accept.

It was a fantastic building though.

post midnight mercy shopping

something, teeth almost certainly, is upsetting the boy. we are, of course, out of bonjela and gripe water (the old ‘knees up and cry’ routine suggests a touch of wind too) so it’s jump in the car and scoot on down to the local 24 hour supermarket for supplies.

remarkably, given the hour, and the fact i don’t live in a bustling metropolis, it’s very busy. 5 mins of queuing once i have a basket full of goodies is just daft. even more daft is the man in front of me, in his 60s, has nothing but a packet of raw beetroot. at 12.30 in the morning his pressing need for red root vegetables had clearly got the better of him.

there was a touch of the surreal about the whole experience. especially as i barely saw another car in the 15 miles from here to there. and back.

Three cheers for Dr Beeching

Ok, I may have to travel over 16 miles to get to my nearest train station thanks to the good Doctor’s work in the 60s, but if it wasn’t for him  my house wouldn’t exist (set as it is where the sidings to where the local station on the Salisbury & Dorset Junc. line was) and we wouldn’t have quite so many fantastic walks around here.

One such walk is the Castleman Trailway, originally a trainline from Southampton to Dorchester, so called because of the way it meandered to take in previously unserved towns.

A section of the old line from Ringwood down to Upton is walkable, we often park just outside of Ringwood and walk in on it, taking in the views of the River Avon and the church spire. The only thing that spoils the walk is the noise from the A31 which runs alongside it.

Today, the sun was shining and I decided to take Tom for a walk in the other direction, from Ashley Twinning to Ashley Heath. It’s the first time I’ve walked that way and it was really nice. You don’t get the view of the river, but as it isn’t so close to the main road, you don’t get the noise either. It’s a gentle 1.5 mile stroll through views of gorse bushes, pine trees and grazing meadows with nothing but birdsong and squirrels for company. Apart from a succession of pensioners on mountain bikes, all of whom said ‘hello’.

There’s virtually nothing of the railway left, just two perpendicular gravel paths. On the way in to Ringwood there are still a few sleepers visible, but on the walk I took today there was a small concrete step by the side of the path and a pre-fabbed hut, in a state of poor repair.

Now the weather’s getting better I think I’ll try and walk the whole 17 miles (in easy small chunks) and see what I can see. The map at the top of this blog shows all the other old lines, some of which can be walked. The section of line our house is on is a less well maintained path and tricky with a buggy but can still be done. Maybe if I time it all right, I might meet the delightful Julia Bradbury.

five into three won’t go

So daughter#1 will have to share with Tom, once he finally starts sleeping through the night. Boy/boy would be preferable, but son#1 turns 13 next month and it’s really not fair to subject Tom to that! S#1 is more bedroomly active than D#1: dvds, later nights, intense study of the norwegian leather industry, that sort of thing.

So there’s been a necessity to get some new bedroom furniture for the kids, and think about moving them about. Issue #1 – S#1 has blue room, D#1 has pink room. To swop over requires re-decoration, at least of one of the rooms. We picked up a bargain Ikea bed on ebay, which lead to a most exciting road-trip to the outskirts of Swindon on Monday (note to self: check seller’s whereabouts *before* bidding) – Taking advantage of a day off to look after D#1 while Tom is in nursery, I’ve just finished putting it together, it looks great, but it doesn’t really fit where I’ve put it – that said, it’s too bloody big to turn round (and oh, have I tried), so it’ll have to do. Of course, once we swop the kids to their respective new rooms it’ll have to come apart again. Gah!

Issue #2 is the return leg of the French exchange  in June. How much do we get sorted before then and how much do we leave? For some god-forsaken reason we are putting up two girls. It’s all changed since I did French exchange – one English kid, one French kid, they stay at each other’s houses. Now it’s they have to go in pairs and you don’t necessarily get the kid you stayed with before. At least it’s only for 3 days.

Eventually of course, we’ll get the garage turned into a kitchen and turn the kitchen into a bedroom. And then five will go into four perfectly.

Look at the size of that thing!

We got the car seat and ended up doing a total tour of Dorset in the process. I shunned Shaftebury on the way home in favour of the Cerne Abbas Giant. You can’t beat seeing a gigantic chalk wanger if you ask me, it’s even better than a hill. Beneath the giant were lots and lots of baby lambs frolicking about in the meadow, so I guess he’s doing his job properly.

After taking in the beauty of a 30ft phallus I decided to further engage the 12 year old inside of me and snigger my way home along the River Piddle and the towns of Piddletrenthide and Piddlehinton.

Road Trip

No music bugs today due to Tom’s eyes, so we’re off to Sherborne to buy a 2nd hand car seat. We’ve had our jabs and i’ve prepared Tom for a gene pool the size of a bath, webbed hands and women with Adam’s apples.

West and North Dorset is a whole different world, I had to drop #1 son to a friend’s house in Sixpenny Handley on Saturday. We stopped to ask directions and while the road we were looking for was unknown, the profferance of his surname led to directions so exact it’d put a sat-nav to shame.

We might stop in Shaftesbury on the way back to see the Hovis Hill, I shall hum Dvorak while doing so.

A trip to the doctor

Tom woke up with an eye the size of Greenland this morning, all stuck together with a green gunk that i’m thinking of marketing as a new superglue. It’s left him with the sort of look that would make him a shoe-in to play Ernst Blofeld when they re-cast Bond films with babies.

After redialling the doctors for 15 (fifteen) minutes, I finally got through and was allocated a spot with a nurse practitioner. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a doctor down there, maybe there aren’t any.

Initial thoughts of conjunctivitis were confirmed, although the precise sort of conjunctivitis is still under debate – most likely it’s hay-fever related – his little tear-ducts can’t cope with the pollen and ’stuff’ in the air reckoned the nurse, here have some eye drops, 4 times a day, come back on Friday if it’s no better.

Now, have you ever tried to give a baby eye-drops? On your own? You need a hand for the bottle, a hand to hold him still and a hand to open his eye. That’s three hands: one more than is usual, even for rural Dorsetshire. It was interesting to say the least, he didn’t seem to mind though. We’ll see what he’s like next time, when he knows what he’s in for.

No music bugs tomorrow though. It was going to be Easter Bunny week too. Bah.

We’ll see what he’s like next time edit: Not happy.

And the time after that: Wouldn’t open his eyes. He’s a bit smart.

five albums you can listen to from start to finish

this week’s work-distraction on facebook is ‘five things….’ – you know the thing, someone fills one in, then you fill it in, then someone else fills it in….

anyway.. the topic that came up was ‘five albums you can listen to from start to finish’ and i thought ‘i’ll have some of that’… except… when it came to thinking about it i was stumped. i got as far as the last maximo park album and, currently, the new super furrys and after that i was ‘…..’

you think of the classics from yesteryear that you still listen to, but even those have got ’skip’ firmly over track 4, or 5. the stone roses debut for example, my favourite album of all time and even that i have to skip over ‘don’t stop’ – tedious overblown nonsense.. orbital’s snivilisation? the mental track before ‘are we here?’ can’t be doing with it, it makes me cross

it gets worse the further along the timeline you go – band gets quite good, band gets ‘caught’ by the internet, band releases single, band releases album WAY before they’ve got enough material – you end up with 3 or 4 decent efforts and the rest is filler.

the invention of mp3 shuffles doesn’t help either – i have 1500 tunes on my phone, album after album of material, yet i’ll put it on shuffle and have a 3 day long disco.

all this might be about to change though thanks to spotify – there’s a whole world of music i’ve either forgotten about or ‘never got round to listening’ – load it up, click on an album and away you go. maybe in the thousands of songs i’ve never heard there’ll be a decent set of consecutive tunes i can get along with.

Where are the wottingers?

On the ninky nonk of course, you silly pontipines.

In the night garden: Cheaper than acid with easier comedowns.