Brennig Jones (and friends)

How was your weekend?

You’ve either had an active or an inactive weekend?

Or maybe you’ve had a weekend where bouts of activity were mixed with high-intensity periods of manic stuff?

The latter combination describes my weekend, but I’m sitting here feeling totally wasted.

Saturday was a washout, the rain hammered in; at least we remembered to change the clocks before we went to bed (though Gargoyle brings his own perspective on the time change here).

I planned to do an early podcast but when I picked up mail before breakfast there were three soundfiles from Citronella and I wanted to use two of them straight away.

Except I needed to manipulate them and that took a while and a fair bit of fiddling.

But I’m so appreciative of them – and towards Citronella for her contribution – that if I say thank you one more time I’ll start to sound way too gushy.

But I think they worked, don’t you?

I was talking to a guy in Swindon – Nick – about the podcast during the week, he asked how it was scripted.

He looked amused when I said that it isn’t scripted at all!

Still, later than I’d planned the podcast went out – it was on iTunes within 15 minutes, how excellent is that?

In the early evening I had to perform surgery on the laptop – and we’re talking a serious level of command-line surgery.

I guess the laptop replacement gets a little closer every day.

Anyway…

Sunday morning – this morning – we drove in to Worcester for a very late breakfast and made a stunning discovery.

Cawardine’s.

They do an all-day vegetarian breakfast – which is good enough, right?

Right.

But what if, while you’re sitting there eating your all-day vegetarian breakfast and sipping your hot chocolate…

What if they put out the best soundtrack?

What if they put out the soundtrack to your life while you’re eating (and reading the Sunday morning newspapers)?

Wouldn’t that be brilliant?

And so, my friends, it happened just like that.

And it was truly brilliant!

Good food, good writing to read and a kick-arse soundtrack.

Afterwards we wandered through Worcester and when we’d had our fill of the place we drove slowly drove back home.

This afternoon I went to the yard.

Stone me, the yard – normally the quietest place ever – was buzzing with people.

But it was all good; gossiping, tea-drinking and general chat was had.

The big yard news is that Trish (the spritely 72-year-old) has decided to get back in to the saddle – competitively – and take up jumping again.

I’m full of admiration for her.

We might go cross country schooling next weekend.

Vin got schooled in the arena.

I’m a little concerned that he seems to have started throwing his head up; nothing’s changed in his diet, he’s 100% sound and very happy.

The only thing is it was a very bright day today – and I seem to remember he threw his head around a little last summer.

Anyway, we pressed on and he worked himself through it – which is excellent – but I think I’ll call the vet tomorrow to sound them out about reactions to bright sunlight.

In case you’re wondering we didn’t get to Stafford Horse Trials – it was cancelled as the ground was waterlogged.

Outside of all these goings-on, we’ve watched two films this weekend, eaten very well, cuddled lots and generally made each other laugh more than I could even begin to tell you about.

And I’ve had an idea for a short-ish novel; it’s gritty and I’m not sure there’s a ready readership for it.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll put together the usual two synopses and float them around to canvass potential readers views.

I’ve started listening to music for next week’s podcast too but, on that front…

I’ve had a very nice ‘thank you’ email from Michelle Parish, for playing her track Every Song on the Radio.

Flattering, but unnecessary; it’s a very gorgeous piece of work.

And now it’s 23.10 – way past my bedtime, but I don’t want to go.

I’m sitting on the couch, Soph’s beside me and I feel so…

Comfortable.

I hope your weekend was as excellent as mine has been.

B.

Episode 5 (31 minutes running time). This week we have a lovely contribution from an overseas correspondent who tells us of a number of things – including she had sex during an earthquake! And I get her nationality wrong for which I apologise. Do you need any further evidence that this podcast is unscripted?

Like its predecessors, Episode 5 comes from a rural portion of Worcestershire, England – where today the weather is blowing the rain in horizontally and blowing the bins over.

Anyway, the running order:

Music:
Much foot-tapping from Alamance and The Why in Y

Michelle Parish (Every Song on the Radio). I love this, even if it does sound a little like something I’ve heard before. Richard Marx maybe? But this is still lovely. If you liked this track you can visit Michelle Parish’s MySpace website here.

Played out with JTX and (I’m gonna) Party Like a Rockstar.

Podcast admin:
All music played in this episode of This Reality comes courtesy of the Podsafe Music Network.

If you’d like to send in any contribution or views you can email the podcast: thisreality@brennigjones.com (killer anti-spam software requiring once-only validation!).

B.

Not the brilliant track by Faithless, no.

The disturbed (broken? fractured? unattainable?) sleep pattern.

And not me – not me last night anyway.

Last night I was as unconscious as if I’d been hit on the head by the big unconscious stick wielded by the unconscious fairy from the town of unconsciousness in the land of unconscious, oh yes.

No, last night it was Paula (not that I was with her, I just know) and Jon (though he may have been just getting in from one his raucous parties rather than being unable to get to sleep).

And me, occasionally – I’ll concede the point.

And other folk I don’t know the names of.

So…

Should we set up a club?

We could have the 21st Century equivalent of an electronic version of a secret masonic-style handshake to let other club members know we’re up and pottering (‘putering?) around our respective homes.

What do you think?

I hope you two (and everyone else who had a bad night) got off to sleep ok.

My wake-up thought this morning was Mutant Ninja Turtle.

Just the one.

WTF?

B.

Chocolate.

Why, when I am unwell with, ahem, a stomach complaint, am I filled with a craving for chocolate (which, contrary to anything Soph might say, I am usually not).

B.

Why is it that when one invariably wakes from slumber in the bed of sickness, the first thing one wants to do is ring the office and have discussions about things?

Sadly I don’t think I’ll be schooling this evening, though I might teeter down the yard to shove some sliced apple down Vin’s throat.

Still not looking for sympathy.

Now then, what time’s Jeremy Kyle on?

B.

Colonic irrigation.

WTF?

Someone sticks a hosepipe up your bum and for that you pay them money?

There’s people out there would pay money to do that.

And no, I’m not just writing on this subject because I am in the bed of sickness.

I’ve just woken with the words ‘colonic irrigation’ writ large across my consciousness.

And no, I don’t need sympathy. It’s not man-flu, it’s, erm, stomach-related.

Hmmm…

Perhaps that’s why…

B.

After all the show jumping we’ve done lately, I chose to give Vin a hefty dose of flatwork schooling on Wednesday evening.

How brilliant it is to be able to school in total daylight – to leave the floodlights off!

The bulk of the work concentrated on walk-canter and canter-walk transitions, this being an exercise that Jo’s particularly keen on; it teaches Vin a number of things but as importantly it builds on his confidence and balance.

I got home that night feeling brilliant, elated; he genuinely tries, he loves trying.

We have a very busy month lined up for April; two cross country schooling sessions with Alan Noble, two show jumping sessions with Mandy, a dressage competition (P10 and P12 at Allenshill) and a flatwork lesson with Jo.

In early May I’m planning on hiring a local venue (probably Allenshill’s show jumping arena and get Mandy there to work on our ringcraft.

Vin’s first BE looks like it might be June – all being well!

B.

14-year-old Brendan Harris attacked, kicked and killed Sophie Lancaster in a park in Lancashire; he was drunk at the time.

He was joined in his crime by 15-year-old Ryan Herbert who was also drunk at the time.

The degree of injury they inflicted on the poor girl they killed was so severe, that the first-call ambulance staff were unable to tell her gender from her facial features.

They kicked her head, repeatedly, as if it were a football.

The judge has said both boys are likely to get life imprisonment when he sets their tariff.

However the punishments shouldn’t stop there.

Two sets of parents have neglected their children; allowed them to drink, allowed them to be out of control, failed to bring them up with any sense of moral value and completely and utterly failed to teach them right from wrong.

Two sets of parents are culpable – accessories to murder.

They should now face imprisonment too.

It’s the only way neglectful parenting might be addressed.

B.

The  news that Ofcom has approved the use of mobile telephones on aeroplanes fills me with dread.

In the UK we laugh when comedians (cf Dom Joly’s joke character) heaves an unbearably loud, improbably large mobile telephone earwards and shouts “I’m on the train!”

But how would we laugh when (trapped in a crowded, claustrophobia-inducing  narrow metal cylinder that’s travelling at over 30,000 feet at a speed of greater than 400mph with several hundred other poor folk) we hear the dreaded Crazy Frog (or similar) ring tone followed by: “Yeah? No, we’re over France or Spain or sumwhere I fink. Yeah, got burned. Well pissed too.”?

I suspect we wouldn’t laugh at all.

Please Ofcom, reverse this awful decision!

Source.

When Desiderius Erasmus (1466 – 1536) wrote “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King” [Adagia (III, IV, 96)] his simple statement that set out to describe how knowledge…

Oh bollocks.

I can’t continue with this.

I am troubled my friends, deeply, deeply troubled.

I have this inner yearning to lift my game to a higher philosophical level, a desire to discuss and debate the finer points of human nature and define our drivers and sub-drivers through the reasoned, application of thought process – and have my thoughts laid open to probing peer review.

And yet.

The thing that troubles me takes command.

It grabs hold of the reins of my mind and points it at a much lower plain, instead of the higher place I want to occupy this evening.

The desire to obey my troubled mind wins…

I was driving through Swindon this evening when I passed a pink car that was parked on the side of the road.

Would you know what I meant if I said it was a very girly shade of pink?

Think ‘Malibu Barbie’ and you’re on the right lines.

And inside the rear window were two – matching pink – cushions.

With pink tassels.

Written across the rear of the car (in professional sign-writing) in a much darker shade of… pink… were the words:

Posh Girls Parties!
A Visiting Beauty Therapist for Birthday Parties for Girls Aged 6-16.

Bloody hell.

How wrong is this?

Six-year-olds?

They’re bloody children for crying out loud!

At best they’ll be turned in to hooped-earing-wearing chavs.

At worst they’ll be sexualised.

At six years of age????

I hunted around on the internet for some kind of validation and the only information I could find that related to the (I hesitate to use the word ‘service’) concept is this one.

And this, my friends, is why I’m troubled – on two levels.

The person running this business says:

“Of course I won’t be doing full facials on the little ones,”
and
“This is really to show the youngsters how to look after their skin and to take care of their nails.
and
“The older ones will get the benefit of learning how to put on make up or doing their eyebrows and I will be there for the facials, manicures and pedicures.”

Level 1:

There’s no definition of what is meant by ‘little ones’.

I would put it to you (on both a philosophical and moral level) that children as young as six are too young for ‘beauty therapy’.

And so are children of seven.

And so are children of eight.

And so are children of nine.

I could go on, but for me the line gets drawn at 13 with the onset of the teenage years.

So tell me…

Am I suffering from a massive over-reaction?

Or is the fact that we (in this country) seem to see the sexualisation of children  as acceptable whilst, at the same time, we produce more under-aged pregnancies (and the highest level of pre-teen pregnancies) than any other European country in some way related?
B.