Brennig Jones (and friends)

Surprisingly, this evening I have found the time to restring/retune my faithful SG. Unsurprisingly, it still sounds as though it is being played by a tone-deaf, rhythmically-challenged, geriatric, arthritic left-handed camel. From Gravesend. Actually, I’m not that surprised. Just disappointed that I continue to sound like Bonnie and Clyde. Instead of Bonnie Raitt. Still, you want to see it?

Looking better than I make it sound

Tonight has been ‘a boy’s night in’. Apart from restringing the SG – and getting very tempted to get my acoustic out for a tune-up – I have had a film-fest. The Bourne Identity. What an awesome film. There are cinematographic sequences in The Bourne Identity that could have been shot by Luc Besson. That’s high praise. I view Luc Besson as one of the finest producers of high-speed action sequences we’ve ever been blessed with. But what I love about The Bourne Identity is the attention to detail. There are flashes of authentic spook tradecraft, and it’s a pleasure to see such things being used correctly.

Saturday afternoon I’m going to a rehearsal studio to shoot film. If you’re in the OX area and you’d like to join me, let me know – I could use another photographer! I aim to be there for an hour from 1pm, and will be photographing and videoing just about non-stop. Ideally I’d like to come away with 150 shots as well as video footage, so another lense on the job would be more than welcome. I’m looking for a mix of aspects; close-ups, ultra-close-ups, groupwork, action portraits. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t done it before, just come along and snap away.

Professor Steven Hawking and Professor Leonard Mlodinow will, no doubt, both be criticised for their lack of religious understanding, once the precise detail behind their published thinking – that God did not create the universe – has sunk in. It takes a man of extraordinary moral backbone to make this declaration, but for two such eminent scientists to haul themselves in to the God-botherers’ firing line is stunning. We know that the Roman Catholic branch of this superstition have gone as far as to employ scientists, to enable greater understanding of academic study. But the other branches of this flat-earth organisation that studiously refuse to believe empirical evidence will continue to shove their ostrich-like heads in the sand. Which makes me wonder why so many people follow these irrational beliefs?

Journalism and accounting seem not to mix at The Daily Mail, which is a significant problem for Mail journalists, as they often like to examine, in the minutest detail, public finance mistakes – and expose those mistakes to general and widespread derision. Just imagine the glee that the Mail would exhibit as it jumped all over a story where the finances were under-budgeted by 30%. Oh, wait… Someone needs to remind the Mail journalists how many days there are in a week.

click for the big picture

Unfortunately, no-brainers aren’t the exclusive domain of the Daily Mail. I pulled this one off the BBC News website. The clipping shows a photograph of possibly the most hated former British Prime Minister since Sir Robert Walpole took up the title, 289 years ago. As if it were some kind of herculean feat, the BBC asks the question: ‘How do you sum up a life story in two words?’, next to Mr Blair’s photograph.  Oh, in his case, that’s really easy, ‘War Criminal’.

This man is a vagina, but in colloquial terms (click for the big picture)

Restaurant review: The Rose Revived, Newbridge, Witney, OX29 7QD

The in-laws came down from Worcestershire today, so we toddled down to the Rose Revived for lunch.

The Rose Revived is a country pub/restaurant with accommodation. Part of the Old English Inns chain, the pub is located about halfway between Witney and Abingdon, on the banks of the river Thames.

The location is an idyllic spot for a visit; surrounded by rural countryside on the northern bank of the gently-flowing river, this must be a lovely place to sit and sip and take in the scenery on a warm evening.

But we were there, on Bank Holiday Monday, for lunch.

Our table was booked for 1.15pm and we walked in at… 1.15pm.

There were long queues at the left- and right-hand bar, but we chose wisely and were served drinks quicker than the folk in the other line.

Unfortunately, as we ordered our drinks, we were told that there was a waiting time of one hour for main-course meals.

Gulp!

I’m not sure we really considered walking out. We had, after all, booked to eat at the Rose Revived; it wasn’t as if we were opportunist drop-in punters, we wanted to be there.

By 1.25pm we had ordered (2x Lamb Shank, 1x well done Sirloin Steak, 1x Cumberland Sausage and Mash and 1x Peppered Mushroom suet pudding and mashed potato) and sat back to sip our drinks and while away an hour with conversation.

Sadly, 2.25pm came and went.

So did 3pm.

One hour and 40 minutes after ordering, our meal arrived.

At this point it’s worth noting a couple of points

• Many customers around us were loudly complaining about the amount of time it was taking to have food delivered
• Some customers negotiated a refund of their meal costs, and walked out
• The serving staff were doing their best to deal with people who become increasingly unhappy, and they were managing very well in the face of adversity

When it eventually arrived, four out of the five diners were more than happy with their food. Unfortunately, the ‘well done’ Sirloin Steak was far from being ‘well done’, as you can plainly see:

The diner who had ordered the steak declined to return the dish, in view of the hour and 40 minutes it had taken to have his meal delivered in the first place. Begrudgingly and grumblingly he put up with it.

The other four diners in our party had no such problems; plates were quickly cleared of main courses and side-orders.

There were no issues with our desserts; they were ordered, very quickly delivered and, almost as quickly dispatched.

It has to be said that the quality of all desserts and four out of five of the main courses was exemplary.

But one main course was clearly unsatisfactory, and it was not returned because of the extraordinary length of time it took to be delivered in the first place.

There is something fundamentally wrong with a kitchen when the waiting time for a main course is almost an hour and three-quarters from the time of ordering.

The Rose Revived is in a lovely spot, it’s a pleasing, well-tended, clean and comfortable venue; the serving-staff are pleasant and work hard under difficult circumstances.

But the management of the Inn need to ask themselves this one, simple question: at what point does it become acceptable to keep customers waiting over 1-1/2 hours for their main course?

Based on today’s experience, despite the gorgeous location and despite the cheerful, helpful serving staff, I am unable to advise anyone to visit the Rose Revived for a meal. In fact, based on one hour and forty minutes waiting time and a steak that was distinctly under-cooked, I can only advise people to give the Rose Revived a miss.

Yesterday, while I was driving back to the yard from Highclere Horse Trials, I had one of those ‘I’m going to fall asleep any minute now’ moments. I think it was the combination of not enough sleep last week and being out all day at Highclere. So I took a breather and tried to snap out of it but the tiredness only receded, it didn’t vanish. I diverted home, deciding that I was too tired to ride. I haven’t seen enough of the horses this week, it wasn’t an easy choice, but it was the sensible one.

Neighbours can be weird things. Last night ours were setting off fireworks – very loud ‘whooshing’ rockets. They sounded like teenagers – the neighbours, not the rockets. I’m beginning to wonder if the house is occupied by a bunch of students. I’ve tried to work out what they could be up to, setting off rockets, but can’t come up with any sensible answers. Apart from the fact that they’re selfish twats who don’t care about disturbing the peace and quiet that other people might be enjoying.

Daughter sent me an email yesterday afternoon; she asked if any schools near where I live specialise in drama and acting. She’s always been keen on following acting as a career. Evidently the schools in Spain don’t tick the right boxes any longer and she is now setting her sights further afield. I feel sorry for the rest of the world.

Daughter

Sophie’s laptop is throwing out WiFi connectivity drops. Yesterday evening I planned that I would go to Maplin to pick up a new PCI WiFi card on Sunday afternoon, and then go up to the yard to ride. And then we went to bed and eventually slept.

Insomnia landed at 1.20am. My throat was incredibly dry and I felt dehydrated; I’d love to know what I was up to for the first five hours of sleep. I went downstairs, drank two pints of water, did a little internetting for a couple of hours and went back to bed.

Waking at 9.15am feels just a little bit… sinful. 9.15 is so late to be waking up! I made us breakfast in bed, then I showered, shaved, teethed and then… went back to bed. We read, we did stuff, we fell asleep and I woke up at 2pm. So much for my going in to Maplin and riding plans! I tottered downstairs and started on some overdue webdesign and email stuff. About an hour later those same pesky neighbours started letting off fireworks again – another clutch of loudly ‘whooshing’ rockets. I hate people, sometimes. Soph tottered downstairs and we agreed that people are generally thoughtless twunts, and if they really needed to let off rockets they should do so in the privacy of their own home. And then I realised I was hungry, so second breakfast was had.

Beans on toast x4 and a cheese & onion roll

During the early morning awakenings I had an idea for a video promo for the podcast. I’ve started jotting down the ideas in a kind of ‘shooting script’ sort of way.  There are six scenes to be filmed, here are the first five:

1. Shot of inside of empty pub
2. Shot of inside of empty restaurant
3. Shot of inside of empty library
4. Shot of inside of empty car park
5. Shot of inside of empty church

Ideally, I wanted a shot of an empty street scene for shot 5, but I’m not sure that’s achievable.

Advertising people talk shit. There was just an advert on the television that included the words, ‘Timotei searches the world for precious natural ingredients…’ – which, presumably, extends to ‘Timotei are going to rape the planet for, rip these precious natural ingredients out of their natural environment and cram these precious natural ingredients in to their distinctly average hair products’.  Because why else would Timotei include precisely that wordage in their advert? Really, is there any other conclusion to be reached? So here’s a message: Hey people, don’t buy Timotei products, they’re environmental rapists. Or perhaps no-one actually listens to the distinctly mediocre advertising wordage that is rammed down our televisions these days. Except me, obv. But if no-one listens, why are Timotei paying their advertising agency squillions of $s?

Eventing is one of those sports that just looks easy. But not only is there more to it than one might think, there is a kind of social camaraderie to the sport. I toddled down the A34 to Highclere Castle today to watch Owen compete Hayley’s horse Twiglet, and Sam compete on Mobile (pron: Mo-billy). And to do other things as well that may have included food. *cough*

But I remembered my cameras this time. And, what’s more, I also remembered to use them!

So here’s my day at Highclere Horse Trials in pictures. But first, the most important meal of the entire morning…

Start the day the right way

At Highclere I quickly found the crew:

Mobile and his helper, Kath

Barbara. Whose name isn't really Barbara. It's a long story

Sam, Mobile's owner/rider

Owen, Twiglet and his owner, Hayley

Hayley seems to be scratching her bum here

While the equestrians toddled up to the dressage, I went to explore the main arena which, at Highclere, includes a number of strange and wonderful attractions not previously seen at a Horse Trials, including…

Never seen these at a Horse Trials before!

They look like fun!

Can't help wondering how the horses are supposed to climb that

Would love to see a horse on this, too!

A little light refreshment, part-way around

Perhaps a cold drink?

And something hot to eat?

More choices?

An old mate, last seen 15 years ago!

Charlie the Coffee Man, making my cheese & tomato toasties

A proud mum

I didn’t realise that Daily Mail staff had to pay a massive premium on their television licence fee just, presumably, for being Daily Mail employees:

click the image for the big picture

Serves them right, really.

Journalists, WTF? I know the house style of the The Sun is best summed up as ‘aim for the worst of all that is bad in society and then lower your sights 45 degrees further”, but what, exactly, does this headline in today’s copy of the Sun convey to readers?

Doesn’t it convey ‘gay slayer or foreign spy, meh, they’re all the same’? And what is the divine intervention that The Sun journalist has, to enable him (or her) to *know* that either a foreign spy (not a British spy!) *or* a ‘gay slayer’ (what is one of those, anyway?) did this awful thing? Don’t you just love the British tabloid press and the standards they evidently have? Don’t have, I mean.

Listening to music is one of life’s great enjoyments. I spend huge amounts of my time in a world filled with pleasant sounds. The continually-falling price of personal mp3 players and mobile phones with the same capability, coupled with a decent pair of earbuds, have given all of us the opportunity to have a private, portable place of pure phonic pleasure. (yeah, sorry about that alliterative whimsy there) But when I was in London the other day, there were two teenagers on the tube, listening to music on their mobile phones. Without headphones. Let me use different words. A pair of teenagers, sitting and chatting together, were listening to different tracks of music *aloud* on their mobile phones. Did I mention they were chatting over their music? Hey kids, here’s a message for you:

Planning a magazine cover can’t be an easy job. There must be so many different factors to consider…

There has been a significant amount of traffic and chatter about Mary Bale and her alleged feline-binning proclivities. I can’t help wondering what a person with similar tendencies would do if they came across little Koda…

I’ll tell you one thing, I’d rather be in the company of Koda anyday, than having to sit on the tube in the presence of two teenagers, shouting their conversation over the loudspeakered tinny din of two portions of noise pollution.

Today I went to London. Just to see if it was real. I took a HUGE bag of Sandwich Spread sandwiches. Unfortunately the sandwiches were mostly gone by the time I got there. How did that happen? I wish I knew. Really. But it seems to happen almost every time I take home-made sandwiches with me. Bizarre. Anyway. It was an enjoyable trip; I do like the broadband WiFi on the journey.

Starbucks have taken the process of buying coffee, ripped the heart and soul out of the experience, burned the mortal remains until there is almost nothing left, liquidised the ashes in to a smoothie, fed the drink to a 23-year-old, lame, partially-sighted mule and then shot the mule. Twice. This afternoon I went in to a branch of Starbucks. The length of the queue should have put me off, but no, I stood in line with all the other lemons. As I slowly shuffled forwards, like a cold-war Babushka gradually taking root in a queue for half a loaf of mouldy bread in a Moscow bakers, I could hear the rat-a-tat interrogation of the guy behind the counter. All I wanted was a coffee. With every passing second, my desire to be *there*, in that queue, surrounded by tourists waiting for the inevitable ‘grande non-fat ice white mocha no whip rikki-tikki-tavi fellatio cunnilingus MOT-fail welding heinz 57 with extra giraffe and a side helping of kangaroo and brick catfood‘ interrogation at the cash till; my need to be *there* just unwrapped like the peel off an apple, and dropped away until all I had left was the word ‘coffee’. I turned and walked out.

Twitter is currently enduring my one-word-a-thon #twitterporn. I feel a bit sorry for it.

Chocolate is about to be taken, and accompanied by a mug of hot tea. Oh yes!

‘Children will always be children’, the television advert for the French dairy product said a few minutes ago. Do we need to write in, pointing out that children will not always be children? They will, in fact, grow up at some stage in their lives.

Speaking of growing up, I had an interview for a new contract on Thursday; there were two candidates. This evening I got the result. I am, apparently, just a little over-qualified. Hmmm…

Today the television has been on non-stop. With the sound off. Don’t ask me why, but it’s one of life’s little weirdnesses that I write better (and quicker) with the television on, but with the sound off. I compensate for the sound-offness by listening to music. I know! How weird? My brain has the temerity to produce better writing with the TV on but sound off, and needs to compensate by having the stereo on! Go figure. Three sets of reviews and a draft shooting script for the sitcom. Woo, go me. I have to big myself up, I’m a little bit put out at being denied a job because I am ‘just a little over-qualified’.

Soph’s gone kick-boxing with the lovely-but-slightly-loopy Gemma, this evening. It’s nice that they hang around together. I’m slightly fearful for the rest of us when two mentalists gather in such close proximity, though. I hope the world won’t spontaneously implode under the pressure of a hitherto uncatalogued physical pressure which will, in the future, be called ‘dark mentalism’.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know that I put out an update today that said I’m thinking of writing a TwitterPorn story. The idea is fairly simple, in a way it’s a kind of performance art: I’ll put out a single-word, once an hour, with the hashtag #pornstory. The words won’t make sentences, per se, but they will enable the reader to construct his/her own story around them. See what I’m doing? Getting the reader to introduce their own imagination as a component? Oh. Not impressed? I thought it was an interesting exercise in *reader* creativity. What do you reckon?

Yesterday, during an emergency visit to Tesco for milk (what the hell is it that we do with milk? Seriously! We go through gallons of the stuff), I *cough* accidentally picked up a jar of Sandwich Spread. Is there anyone else addicted to this wonder of the food world?

Apparently the television station Virgin 1 has been rebranded to ‘Channel One’. Such a shame that the on-air branding in the corner of the screen still says ‘Virgin 1′.

Allister and I are potentially recording the first of the ‘Unsigned World’ shows for UKHDRadio tomorrow morning. Scary stuff! Exciting, but scary.

What are you doing? You never call, you never write, you’re a constant worry to your poor old mother father sister brother friend…

Thanks (entirely, I am sure) to the outside-but-internal assistance of Daniel, our broadband problems seem to have gone away. If it wasn’t for his help, I feel we would never have penetrated BT down to the technical level necessary to investigate and fix the issue. As of this morning we have a massive 6.9 Mbs. Thanks Daniel.

So now I need to find something else to moan talk about.

I could moan talk about a chronic piece of insomnia that hit me in the early hours of yesterday morning, but what would be the point of that?

Besides, I was productive whilst I was awake; I wrote an album review which even now, in the light of Monday morning, doesn’t look too shabby.

I also had the urge to get out my acoustic guitar and have another go at killing Radiohead’s ‘Karma Police’ to death, but I didn’t think Sophie would appreciate the 3.30am musical session. So I resisted.

Gemma came around in the afternoon, which was nice; we drove in to Huffkins in Witney, drank Latte and ate lunch.

Those who listen to our podcast will know Gemma as our occasional co-presenter, the slightly dippy mentalist, ‘Pigeon Girl’.

While Gem took a few hours to buy some loo roll, Soph and I went to see Knight and Day which was, you know, OK. If you leave your brain at home.

Afterwards, when all three of us were walking back to the car, Gemma told us how she passed the time; reading, mostly. And being annoyed by people. She’s so much like Sophie and me in a number of ways…

When we got back home a small garden spider scuttled over the doorstep. Gemma shrieked, ‘Is that a scorpion?’

I was put on immediate ‘Spider/scorpion Repatriation Duty’ and eventually corralled the wee timorous beastie underneath the dining-table, before shoving the poor little creature out in to the garden.

Poor bugger, it probably only came in to use the bog. Or steal some of Gemma’s freshly-acquired loo roll.

You know how people get their eyes lasered to improve their sight? Well I’m thinking of getting my brain lasered, because as sure as eggs is eggshaped there’s something not quite right in my head, because I keep having random but in-depth thoughts like…

We know that university places in the UK have been restricted on a gradually diminishing curve – and that this year there has been a greater restriction on university places than that curve could have predicted.

We also know that there’s been a significant increase in the number of school-pupils who have attained the highest possible marks in their ‘A-levels’ on an almost corresponding, increasing curve.

But what is the source of the secret intelligence briefing that seems to have been beamed directly in to the heads of the 40,000 pupils, who are amongst the 48,500 who failed to get a university place; the 40,000 pupils who have declared that they are backing away from education for (and I quote one such former pupil in Saturday’s Guardian) ‘a bit of an enforced gap year’?

Seriously?

I was having a conversation with such a student a few days ago. I know her very well, she’s not dim by any stretch of the imagination; obviously disappointed at not getting anything on her preference list, and having no luck with clearing, she has decided on taking a last-minute gap year. She’s convinced she’ll get ‘in’ next year.

Oh. Not dim, but lacking a degree of foresight! Logic tells me that next year it will be significantly more difficult to find university places.

I wonder about these 40,000 students who are, if the reports are correct, opting for an unplanned gap year.

Do these people imagine that this year’s difficulty will just go away, in some Scooby-Doo, wavy-line kind of way, in just twelve months? Have they not considered the all-too-likely possibility that if they couldn’t get the places they wanted when competing against this year’s crop of school-leavers, then the competition for places next year, when the exit grades are likely to reach yet another ‘all time high’, is likely to be incrementally more severe?

Certainly, all my reading on this so far, would seem to indicate that none, or almost none, of these unplanned ‘gap-yearers’ have considered the massive scope of the probable log-jam likely to occur next year. Almost none of them seem to be considering what they might do now, to mitigate against an even more competitive placement environment, which, in twelve months time, will be struggling to copy with even more ‘A-Level’ passes of even higher standards.

I’m not having a winge about students, as such. I’m just taking in to account the mass of scholastic, academic and economic evidence that is in the public domain, looking at the cycles that have established themselves over the last ten years, adding just a smidge of common sense and extending that to the next twelve months.

Really, I don’t see an improvement. The admission models of the UK’s established universities – not just those in the Russell Group – are based on certain constants, with marginal allowance for key variables.

The problem is that within the last five years almost every factor in the admission model has become a variable. Variable funding, variable research grants, variable application numbers, variable ‘A-level’ results, etc, ad nauseam.

One of my clients is NERC, and their funding has been cut back significantly. this has a direct effect on universities, because NERC is the funding clearing centre for environmental science.

Within the last six months, identically restricted situations have come to exist in BBSRC, EPSRC and ESRC.

It seems logical that without an increased funding variable at the other end of the student pipeline, the amount of traffic (students) that goes in to the pipeline has to be harshly culled.

I suggested, to the disappointed student, that she opted for a 12-month course at a nearby college, ideally studying a subject with an identifiable relationship to her degree choice. Or failing that, I suggested, spent the year on an arts/media course – to throw herself in to a new subject.

She met both suggestions with indifference; the choices, in her head, are her chosen subject at her chosen universities or a gap year.

I hope that, in twelve months time, she won’t be bitterly disappointed. But the evidence tells me that she’ll be one of, potentially, 80,000 candidates who will be surplus to requirements.

Sad.