Oh what a day, Oh what a day,What a most incredible day!

Everything is happening in a most incredible way!



First of all these fellas (that's Her Majesty's Government to you and me) lose all our personal and financial data on a misplaced disc. That's the banking and personal details of 25 million of us with children in the UK.

Thanks.

Then this.



England get dicked by Croatia and fail to qualify for Euro 2008.

Apalling.

A really shitty day to be an Englishman.

A blog is born

Joy! A new blog is born. OK, it's been about since June but I have only just been informed of it's existence.
You can see the author (with the late Kitten whom she adored and in turn was adored right back) in th picture above.

Tales of LA and fine eatin!

תודה ישראל

But there's also this...

...when it's not misty and damp or dark it can be alarmingly crisp and bright and sunny!

Norfolk Gothic

The weather is damp and misty.
Misty all day long.
Dark alot of the time too.
Very, very dark.
"Dark at breakfast, dark at tea".

Book learning #38

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain.

I did enjoy this book. I did.

I just felt that I would have enjoyed it much more five years ago.

It was one of the books on my parent's shelves, a book amongst many that I had wanted to read for a few years. Each time he appeared on TV doing his food/travel thing I thought to myself "Oh, I should read his book, the one about not eating fish on a Monday" . But I never did.
And I enjoyed it. I mean, I thoroughly enjoyed the first half , the early years, the crazy shit. Then he became more proficient, more clean and tidy, and slightly dull. I fell away towards then end. There are only so many well run and successful restaurant kitchens I can be bothered to read about.

Stig of the dump.

I was at the dump on Sunday emptying half a tree into the 'bits of tree' bin.

A bloke I'd never seen before made some dump type comment to which I replied "Yes, my wife does all the gardening and I have to clear it up".

His response?

"At least you've got a wife" and then he started sniffing.

That was awkward.

Also, alot of the kids I went to school with, the kids with 'issues', they have ended up as police officers.

The almost floods

It's like living in Holland. Well, in some ways but not in so many others. The whole 'living below sea level' thing is a distinct similarity.
This can get slightly awkward when the perfect storm of tides/winds/heavy rain/swell etc threaten the fragile coast.
Luckily the threatened catastrophe was avoided this morning as the winds weren't quite as bad, the tides not quite as high, the rain eased a bit and the swell was, well, just different.
Fortunately the coast was saved the worst effects.

And us?
We live 30 miles away on a hill.
Phew.

This is not a football blog

Norwich 1 Watford 3



Captain Canary I can understand, every team needs a mascot. I will tolerate you.
Splat the cat? I loathe you. I see no point in your existence. Especially when you come on the pitch at half time, we're 0-2 down and you start poncing about with the Captain looking like you're having fun. I don't care how much they are paying you. It's wrong.



The Silver fox watches Watford warm up for a second half against a tired and effete City.
He's been doing this for years



The groundstaff sort out the divots at half time.
I have some questions. Questions I have had in mind for about 25 years.

How much do they get paid?
What do they do for the rest of the week? Do they look after the pitches at Colney and turn up at Carra Rud?
How do you get that job?

My journey home.

I was placing my phone on the dashboard after calling Frau Random Doubt to see if we needed any potatoes or some such menial domestic errand and the damn thing went click.

This is the result.

The road between work and hometown on a Friday afternoon.

And before I get all the road safety calls I was using a hands free headset thingy and was within the speed limit/sobre/obeying the two second rule etc etc....

ADRIFT!

Adrift at the bottom of the Championship and 2-0 down against Ipswich.

Bollocks.

NB: Never blog at half time. It's a silly thing to do. I'm glad this time it worked in my favour as City clawed a 2-2 draw. We are currently a little less adrift than we were before.

Free spuds for life!

After months of patient waiting the Silver Fox finally has his allotment!

Here he is weeding the plot on the edge of Hometown.

This should mean that we will soon be treated to homegrown organic vegetables fresh from the soil.

In order to create the best possible growing environment we will need to remove the stones that litter the soil. I recommend employing the walking grandchildren to spend an hour or so picking stones and placing them into buckets. Of course knowing the particular grandchildren they would probably unionise themselves and demand something called 'an honest wage'.

Huh.

Overheard on our sofa

Me "I miss jews and I want a pizza"
FRD: "Where are the Puerto Ricans?"

Happy Halloween

Blog pics

I was curiously looking at possible new images for the blog icon. These two came into contention but only for a moment.

enjoy.


Mondale as almost Rock star.



Oohhh! 1984.

Books.

This may sound a bit odd so please bear with me.

It's actually great to be living fairly close to my parents. They adore the wee hen and he gurgles and chuckles right back at them. It's one of the reasons we moved back, so that they could know him as he grows up.

There is a side effect.

It's a benefical one.

The bookshelves at B****s Towers are loaded.

They are loaded with all those books that you thought you should have read, all those books that you might have read, all those books that you sort of thought you should have read or might have read and a few in between. Don't even get me started on The Silver Fox's study which is crammed with sporting volumes from over five decades, everything from how to tune your racing dinghy to photostudies of the 1966 World Cup Finals. In the next room and downstairs there are all the great classics (Austen, Bronte, Dickens, Tolstoy etc) as well as lots and lots of more modern fiction and biography. It's a wonderfully random selection and from time to time it's a place where a passion for books can be indulged, especially as I am currently banned from bookshops (it's a single income thing, we need to tighten our belts a bit and my book habit was costly).

Gretna 0 Inverness Caledonian Thistle 4

One of the most utterly forgettable things about English life?
The media reporting of Scottish football.

Why?

Who cares?

(and I'm not drunk)

This made me smile

From time to time words crop up in an order that touches one's emotions, moves one, makes one cry or laugh. This wee nugget is from a recent post of Weasel's

"But life is not a Greek tragedy (unless you are a Greek person with perpetual bad luck. Then life is a Greek tragedy tinged with irony)."

That's it.

I love the way words, poetic or prose can delight, amuse or move. Mere snippets of poems, novels or songs can enchant and motivate.

More to follow I'm sure.

A lovely stroll.

This afternoon Frau Random Doubt and the wee Hen and I went for a thoroughly charming stroll through the Norfolk countryside. We walked around a man made 'Broad'. Well I reckon it was man made. It certainly felt man made (lovely stroller friendly paths, designated wildlife and picnic areas, signposts etc) The FRD suggested the inevitable truth, surely all broads are man made?

Dammit she's right. Again.

Please enjoy a couple of pictures from our stroll. The first is of a Heron. Upon approaching this bird we had a lengthy debate about wether it was a real Heron or a decoy.



Then the bugger flew away which rather defeated my argument in favour of the plastic decoy theory.



The second picture is of a church across the water. This rather says it all. Church, countryside, broad. And all within 20 minutes drive from our house.

Hometown

Most observant readers of this blog will know where I live, many observant readers of this blog will know me in person. Not a problem although I have have always felt that some small ammount of anonymity will be a most agreeable thing. Therefore I have decided to refer to my new abode as 'Hometown'.
That's pronounced 'Hometown' but spelt 'Yhumeneuyhamtumdedumhayyergortaloightborham'. In order to spare you, my faithful reader, the emabarrassment of attempting to read the correct spelling everytime I refer to this charming South Norfolk Market town I'll stick to 'Hometown' from now on.

World Series

I really miss the World Series.
The October Classic.
OK, I only spent 5 years in the USA and was a Mets fan (as I still am goddammit)
But I need some October excitement.
That just doesn't happen in European sport.
Following on the internet just isn't the same.

nb: After a spot of drunk blogging I realise that come May the football season will be electric. When in Rome.

The Guardian

I suppose I no longer really need to link to The Guardian anymore as I can just nip down the shop and pick up a copy.

I used to wonder about Hometown's relationship with this left leaning daily newspaper. Were there no copies to be had because the few leftists in town got up earlier than I did and swiped them all or were there no copies because there were no leftists in town to buy it so the newsagents didn't bother to order any?

It's no longer a problem as all newsagents now stock it but some still eye you suspiciously if you buy a copy, like you might be somebody who reads.

Book learning #37

In Churchill's shadow by David Cannadine.

This was a delight of a book. A delight made no less by the fact that it was a thoughful gift from a friend but also because it was a really good take on a very well worn historical path. What was Winston Churchill's relationship with Britain? What's the relevance of his achievements?

Cannadine doesn't particularly delve into the great man's life and works and a casual fan of the V sign and cigar may become disorienated and confused, no rambling speeches here, no ash dust from the Blitz and evocations of the supernatural English spirit. No, Cannadine selects a series of contempories of Churchill and assesses their impact upon British life and in a mild way, their relationship with Churchill. From Stanley Baldwin, to Ian Fleming and many in between , including Noel Coward, Neville Chamberlain and The National Trust.

I read this book over the course of five months having misplaced it during our move to the UK. I was delighted to pull it from the carnage of our move and finish it off last week.

In true Churchill style I wrote this review whilst nursing a bottle of 2006 Malbec (Come on, it's half term)

Thank you Mr former Vice President.

And by that I mean Nobel winner Mr Al Gore. After all, he invented the internet (oh lord I'm shaking, it's so good to be out of the early 1990's hellhole that was NO INTERNET CONNECTION).

WE ARE BACK!

We can look for a replacement fireplace online, no need to trapse around shops with a baby.

We can check the weather rather than rely on BBC weather reports which inform us daily "Today will be a lot like yesterday".

We can look at blogs and blog and fantasize about vacations and things that we would like to buy online and then not buy them but just investigate cheap flights anyway.

Oh goodness and so much more!!

Watch this space,

MONDALE IS BACK!!!!!

Hey, here's a picture of a quiet backstreet in my hometown.

Kitten. 1991?-2007

Kitten 'went upstate' last week. She had developed cancer and that was that.
Our deepest thanks go to the Park slope flying circus who took her in during her final weeks and cared for her, she was a plucky lady.
(I'd like to point out that despite regular visits to the vet she was never diagnosed with anything whilst in our care. The she was taken to a real vet who discovered her condition.)

Kitten , formerly known as Lucy el diablo Miaow was allegedly discovered wandering on the beach at Montauk in the early 1990's. Will Smith's chef took her into care and brought her back to New York where she lived in a variety of circumstances including East Village bohemia and pre gentrified Carroll Gardens. It was with tremendous wrenching that we decided that she could not make the journey with us to Blighty. She would have loved it here but we inhabit a neighborhood of large, well established and distinctly territorial cats, it would have been difficult for her to reap the real benefits of country life.

Kitten had many friends and will be missed greatly.

Book learning 36

A bit of a blur by Alex James.

I think I read this in August. I've been so busy/tired lately and have completely fallen off my 'one book at a time' monogomy trip.
As far as I recall this was a fun read full of tales of rock n' roll hedonism and then redemption in the arms of a true love and an organic farm. hey everybody needs a dream right?

Yeah, light and engaging with lots of sex, drugs and booze.

Hello again.

I've noticed that it's been a horribly long time since I last posted. I will get over that and soon begin posting again and writing posts about matters other than lack of postings.

Things are moving..

..but oh so bloody slowly.
This blog will return to full operational status as of OCTOBER 21st 2007.
That's when our broadband should be set up at home.
We've signed up with a rival phone compny and, well, it's just taking a while.

Still alive

and still waiting for the North Korean phone network to set up my landline.

501st post

Blood and sand! I had such high and mighty ideas about how to celebrate my 500th post. Then i went and missed it!
So here it is, my 501st post.
Not much to report, still waiting for phone connection, paint to dry, electrician, builder,gasman to call, oh and entire wordly posessions to be delivered!
But hey, the sun shines and the beer is warm.

More eastern tales

Our days are long and full of toil, our boat has docked with all our worldly goods aboard, now we wait for it to get port clearance and delivery.
Some good news (well, its all pretty good)our almost neighbour/my sister's old chum is away on holiday for a couple of weeks. We will be lounging in her slightly marvellous home until our place is sorted, it's half a block away!
More soon,stay lucky.

News from the east.

Right, I'll be quick.

No flooding here, we live on a hill surrounded by sheep. A fair bit of rain, lots of wind but mostly sheep.

The house is coming along, slowly. No consrtruction/restoration project ever ran smooth, under budget or quickly.

Most English people are completely and quite brilliantly mental. Or may be it's just Norfolk. Yes, I think it's just Norfolk.

The wee Hen is doing fine and loves the sheep.

Sheep are really noisy, especially at night. We spent the first few nights going upstairs because we thought Hen had woken up, it was just a sheep coughing.

The weather is 70 f and windy and sunny. Then it rains a bit then the sun comes out again. Repeat until dusk.

I've never drunk so much tea.

We are all feeling refreshed and busy and very happy, but we do miss our American chums.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow we fly to England.
Forever.

Book learning #35

The Cold War. A new history by John Lewis Gaddis.

A zippingly concise little history of the Cold War. Written for students in college who were born after the fall of the Berlin Wall. For the rest of us a swift journey through the old post war world.

I loved the concise nature of it, learned more about the role and impact of the Middle East and the nature of Soviet politics.
A good intelligent summer read.

A few of the things that stood out.

Nikita Krushchev was obsessed with American culture and kept trying to have summits in the USA.

Jimmy Carter increased the ammount of nuclear weapons.

Ronald Reagan decreased the ammount of nuclear weapons.

The first George Bush was really pretty pointless

Going, going, gone!

Our apt as was...


Then the movers came...


Then the movers left!

It's not all Newsday and traffic

We are in exile on long Island. It's definitely a guilded cage. A very, very guilded cage.
Just spent a few days on fire island where we were able to relax and observe the fabulous lifeguards doing their fabulous things. Frau Random Doubt said "They're perfect, it's just like our very own private 'Baywatch!"






this picture was taken by paper bag who wanted to perve and letch over al the young male flesh. We thought that she was taking a picture of us and Henry.

Backyard blogging

Just discovered that this corner of Long Island suburbia is a wireless hotspot!
There may be some blogging after all.

July

I'm taking the month off.
The reason is very simple. We are of no fixed abode until early August, limited internet access and therefore limited blogging rights.
Apologies in advance, oh loyal reader.

Farewell to the best damn neighborhood in the world.

This week we move out of our little corner of Brooklyn.
It's been five fantastic years!


Mazolla bakery. The best bakery cum bus stop in the world. For five years I stood beneath your awning in the wind and rain watching cops buy donuts. I loved your ham and cheese croissant, that probably contributed to my waist creeping up to 38 inches.


Our cross street for the last five years, Henry and Sackett.


The distinctly odd 'Vermont Grocery' across the street. If anything sang out 'Mob front' it was you. Adieu.


The Italian gentleman's club across the street. I danced like a drunken fool on the sidewalk outside the night Norwich won the league in 2004. One of your elderly members accosted me and became a friend through footy. Your members are deadly serious about satnding about with cigars and gesticulating.


No more alternate side parking!


Sadly, no more Nino's pizza. Your delivery boys have seen far more of my life than I would like to admit. Your pepperoni with green peppers and olives is an utter joy.

I had it a moment ago.

Ah, the old UK paper drivers licence. For those of us born after entry into the EEC but before the Falklands War, raised on a diet of Weetabix and 'Rainbow' this crumpled document was all we needed to gain our freedom, that and a cooperative parent willing to lend us the family Vauxhall Chevette.
And of course I'd lost it!
This would have proved seriously inconvienient. No car hire from the airport. Insurance hassles.
Then I found it!
Yeah.

The last few days

I've just got through the last few days of my five years stint at what is now my 'old' school.
It's never easy leaving a place and this was no exception, in fact at times it was quite difficult.
The following are random thoughts and observations in no particular order of significance.

#1 Everyone has been so nice, are they pleased to see me off?

#2 There seems to be a strange band of coworkers who seem to react to things so strongly? "Oh Mondale, we'll miss you, this place will never be the same".... hey, you can never step into the same river twice but come on, I spoke to you four times in five years, you don't even know my first name, snap out if it.

#3 I have made some dear, dear friends at this school. I will certainly miss them, but I will be a visiting from time to time. Funnily enough I barely saw most of them today, just the way it goes.

#4 Mactechwitch threw a delightful afternoon thing in her gorgeous backyard on Monday night. The weather was warm and calm, the loveliest people attended and we drank, ate and gossiped. It was the highlight of my send off, we did miss a few but glasses were raised in their absence. Thank you Mactech.

#5 Please don't come and visit us in England. Lunches in London by appointment, yes. Weeklong sailing trips on the Norfolk Broads, no. There are exceptions to this rule, you know who you are.

#6 I missed Listmaker this week as he was at a conference. In a funny kind of way I'm sort of glad. He and I have some time arranged before I depart which will be tremendous fun. It sort of distinguishes him from the end of the year school stuff, a bit like Chris Patten after the 1992 election. I like that.

#7 I don't think I bought a meal or a drink all week (alright already, I know it's only Wednesday!) I did enjoy the social breakfasts and lunches in burger joints and diners. Thank you to those responsible.

#8 I do apologise for leaving quietly at the end of the whole school lunch today. I had to get across a crowded gym and was not feeling good about the departure. I decided to do the 'Aboriginie bugger off' (just walk away in a straight line and don't look back). I did make a point of giving Thelma a massive hug, In my own way I was hugging the school goodbye. Then I just split.

#9 Funnily enough as I was escaping I got caught by the very last person I would have wished to get caught and cornered by. I mumbled something about 'having to go' and she made a promise to visit in the fall (see #5) she then started telling me something about cellphones.

#10 I'll never ride the B71 bus again.

I'm listening to...

... early Billy Bragg.

DUMBO

Didn't I say that Spring in New York would be freakin gorgeous?
It's doing all it can to make us stay

Cor bloody 'ell

It's Saturday night, The wee fella has been playing up all afternoon.
The missus has gone out with her brothers and I'm wearing my new football boots around the place to wear them in a bit.
I just found an open bottle of Chardonnay in the back of the fridge.
There's a nice new couple living upstairs.
This is turing into an episode of Spaced, with me as Marsha.

Probably my final sentimental wankfest entry.

There are two books that I would probably need if I were to be stuck on a desert Island. One is Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby, The other is the Collected Poems of Primo Levi.

As my last offical day of school is about to begin I want to share with you one of my favourite Levi poems. Please indulge me.

Unfinished Business

Sir, starting next month,
Please accept my resignation
And, if necessary, find a replacement for me.
I leave alot of uncompleted work,
Either from laziness or practical problems.
I should have said something to someone,
But no longer know what or to whom. I have forgotten.
I should have given something away, too:
A word of wisdom, a gift, a kiss.
I've put it off from one day to the next. Forgive me.
I'll take care of it in the short time that's left.
I have, I fear, neglected important clients.
I should have visited
Faraway cities, islands, deserted lands;
You'll have to cross them off the program
Or entrust them to my successor's care.
I should have planted trees and haven't done it,
Built myself a house,
Perhaps not beautiful but conforming to a plan.
Above all, dear sir, I had in mind
A marvellous book that would have
Revealed innumerable secrets,
Alleviated pain and fear,
Dissolved doubts, given to many people
The boon of tears and laughter.
You'll find the outline in my drawer,
In back, with the unfinished business.
I haven't had time to see it through. Too bad.
It would have been a fundamental work.

Primo Levi.

Final days of the Nixon White House

I'm moving on to a new job, a new country (well, OK technically not a completely new country but it seems different everytime I go back and Gordon will be running the place by the time we arrive)and a new home (as above but it needs a lick of paint and the interior decor will consist of something more inviting than empty bottles and ashtrays).

Which of course leads me to reflect upon the leaving of this place.

The end of any school year is a time for reflection, indeed it should be or would be were but there any time for such luxury. We are all so frantically trying to get rid of the children, tear down wall displays, get the right stuff home and not send the wrong stuff home that it's normally August before we get a chance to think about the year gone by.
This year is no different.

I suspect that towards the end of next week it will hit me a bit. But by then I'll probably be so busy getting the move going that well, you get the idea.

Job.

No, not the fellow from the old testament (although moving across the Atlantic would try his patience I'm sure) I mean the paying money for services rendered variety.

I just got one!

Still teaching, but teaching my all time favourite age group, not a thousand miles from where we'll be living (although let's just say that my five years of having a 12 minute commute are certainly over. There's something distinctly karmic about that).

A telephone interview this morning and yeah! Stable Employment beckons.

Today I shook hands with a 101 year old man.

It had been a busy day spent trying to find kitten a loving home. I went to the barbers for a trim. There was the usual banter and one of the bantees was an old guy talking about Canada.

Barber. "But Mac, you need a passport to visit Canada now, they changed the law."

Really old man. "I don't need a passport, I'm 101. I got a letter from the President."

I shook his hand, "I never met anyone 101 years old".

"You have now kid".

For the record he was a spiffily dressed gentleman who is chauffered about by his 94 year old wife. The barber told me and I saw them myself.

Tenants super.

A lot of us renters bitch about our landlords and often it's completely justified.
Well I'd like to turn that all around and applaud my UK tenant.
He lived in my house for the last five years, paid on the nail each month and apart from a small hole in the roof and a broken shower, caused no problems at all.

And this, this my friends, is the best bit.

Mr Tenant left things as he found them. by this I mean that my old bike 'The Lady' was discovered by my sister (who very kindly took the picture of the interior of my shed) hanging in EXACTLY the same place where I left it OVER FIVE YEARS AGO!!
If you look you can also see the blue plastic box of bike bits what I will attempt to use to restore it with!
I have a project!!!! the restoration of 'The Lady'!!

OHMYGAWDWE"REREALLYMOVING..

Another subtle view of our future home.
Looking towards the living room.
No cats.
Thanks to my sister for the pictures.

Talking of babies....

Some of you get to have sex and have a baby, For the rest of us...
there's this
I'm not normally so open and personal on this blog but hey, There are countless couples with male fertility issues.
I certainly think it's time us men with laughable sperm counts stood together.

Jeremy does a great job of talking up the issues and even raises a smile through a highly stressful experience. You can follow his exploits via the link at the bottom.

And if anyone is in any doubt about the value of it all, just ask my boy.

It's a baby!

Shit the bed!
The weasels of Maine have had a baby!!!

New Weaselkind

All our love and onesies in a northernly 9 hour drive direction!

Final Days

One of the best students ever (a Fourth Grader who used to be a Third Grader who used to sweat a lot) just came up to me and said.

" These are your final days".

"But FGWUTBATGWUTSAL, These are YOUR final days too".

He grinned.

Running scared, leaving on a jetplane.

On Saturday I spent some time and money mailing a box to England. Inside the box was an assortment of old clothes for fixing up the house, heavier clothes for the cooler climate and running gear.
I hate running outside in the heat and humidity of the New York Summer and seeing how I'll be ending my job, moving, homeless,visiting family and sitting on the beach for the next few weeks there doesn't seem to be too much opportunity for the old stretch. So the shoes and PE gear have gone east. Running career to be resumed in cooler, more rural climes.

Book Learning # 34

Warriors. Portraits from the battlefield By Max Hastings.

I was unable to find a picture of the title to my liking so I've included a picture of a younger Mr Hastings, probably from his Falklands War "I counted them all out and I counted them all in" days. Except that that quote belongs to TV journalist Brian Hanrahan.
I was browsing the Community Bookstore on 7th Avenue looking for a suitable birthday gift for Neice Flighty-Bat (books are so easy to mail and encourage intellectual stimulation in the tween generation). Of course I ended up with nothing for the neice but found this slight gem for myself.

And a slight gem it was. A dozen or more vignettes concerning different warriors from a range of conflicts over the last two hundred years. The brave, the stubborn, the foolish and the lucky. Oh, the dead also feature.

The compact chapter style suits my life right now, will probably suit my life for the next twenty years. It seems that Hastings is one of those authors I return to every couple of years, just when I thought I wouldn't read a military history.

On a selfish note it's also heartening to see that though my pace has slowed my enjoyment of reading has not diminished.
Now I just need to get my running shoes back on.

Queer Lodgings

Behold our future backyard complete with mystery ginger cat.

Party time!

It's that time of year again!
listmaker and I (and some other foolhardy teacher types) are throwing a party for our classes this evening.
This year it will involve us invoking the spirit of Harry Truman by nuking Japan (no, that's wrong). We'll be wearing delightful Hawian shirts to amuse and entertain.

I told you I had it in
me.