Brennig Jones (and friends)

So I went to the gym this morning.

Yes, I know. Me. Gym. Totally alien concept, right?

Anyway, I signed up on Thursday, had my induction yesterday and went today.

And I even walked there and everything. I’d like to say it’s five miles away from home, but I’d be lying…but it’s a good 15 minute walk or so.

So I walked home after about half and hour (I need to work up to it…that Stepper thing nearly killed me), and popped into Sainsbury’s on the way. For milk.

Came out with the milk. Some carrots. Tomatoes. Bags of sweets (for the cinema). And a dozen doughnuts that accosted me as I walked in and demanded that I buy them as they were only £1. How could I refuse?

But as I continued to walk home I thought – what the hell are Bren and I going to do with a dozen doughnuts? Bren doesn’t even like them that much, and I’ve just burned all of 25 calories at the gym, so I don’t bloody want them, do I?

So I texted my gym-buddy about the absurdity of it all, and told her I might take them to the DIY shop on the way home, and the staff can have them.

I was half-joking, but found myself doing just that.

I wandered around the shop, looking for someone who worked there, because I didn’t want to queue at the till and look mental in front of Saturday DIYers (who, lets be honest, are all mental anyway).

And found a lady at a desk and said ‘this might be a bit of a strange thing…’

She said she has lots of random questions, so I asked if she was aware of Random Acts of Kindness.

And I told her about the £1 doughnuts. And asked if she had any use for them.

And she did.

Aren’t I lovely?

I didn’t hang around for applause or anything. I quickly exited the shop, so as not to appear any more weird than I already must have seemed.

Except, I tried to get out through the ‘No Exit’ doors.

Luckily, I don’t think anyone noticed…

But it made me smile thinking how nice I had been to some random people who I don’t know.

Allowing them to clog their arteries up like that, in order to save my own. Bless me.

This is just going to be a run through the randomness of the day

Saturday has been a really weird day. There was a definite atmos between the two of us for most of it, probably because I shouted at Soph last night when she did something that caused much tea to be spilled in to my laptop keyboard.

But it was an accident and I know that and I just (over) reacted and I know that too. But it happened last night and there was a residual atmos today and I’m still sorry that it happened and I’ve been beating myself up about it for much of the day.

But the atmos seems to have just about gone now which is Very Very Good. But it does go to show how long the repercussions from a relatively minor event can hang around, doesn’t it?

Anyway more Saturday stuff. I rode this afternoon and Vin was Absolutely Bloody Brilliant.

This afternoon we went in to Oxford to sort Soph out with a new mobile phone and contract. Then we had a quick bite to eat in a cafe in one of the side streets.

Then we went to the cinema to see The International which was a bit sort of ‘Meh’ but it’s worth seeing the film just for the shoot-’em-up scene in the Guggenheim.

But before the film started an Italian chica came and sat beside me and and (I really don’t think I’m exaggerating here!) started chatting me up. And so it continued, all the way through the film. I could have pulled!

Afterwards, while we were waiting for the bus back to the park and ride, there was a gang of girls – about 13 years old – who insisted on blocking the pavement while they sang at us; Jerusalem, Amazing Grace, Theme to Titanic (My Love Will Go On?), Manamana and Help! Oh yes, every single song a classic.

This gang of girls were in the company of two adults who made absolutely no attempt at all to control the little fuckers or even ask them to bring their noise down to a mere earsplitting level from the totally deafening level they were stuck on.

Parental responsibility (even if it was in loco parentis) completely failing once again. But by the time the bus arrived and we got on I think Soph and I were joined in our absolute loathing of ‘people’ by just about everyone else in the bus queue.

Having returned to the nest I seem to have disposed of most of a bag of chocolate sweets things, we’ve watched the concluding episode of Season Three of The West Wing and now we’re going to watch a thing we recorded in the week.

Tomorrow Soph’s out with a couple of her girlfriends and I’m out with a couple of mine.

I am having a day off. This is so excellent I can barely describe the, erm, excellence.

Let me explain:

I woke up at 07.40, had a shower, shave, brushed teeth, tottered downstairs, made a cup of tea and then… went back to bed!

About two hours later I got up again, had another shower again (fnar!), tottered downstairs (again) and enjoyed another cup of tea and many rounds of toast.

It’s not even 10.30, how excellent is this?

I’ll be recording podcast episode #53 this afternoon, going out for a coffee, meeting a colleague of Soph’s and then going up to the yard to play with young Vin.

I love days off!

I am on the way home. It is 21.17, I’ll be home about 22.40. I’ve been up since 04.45. That, my friend, is a loooong day.

So I’m tired. And hungry. And hungry. And tired. And a little bit grumpy but that might be related to the tiredness. And the grumpiness.

[inserts random question: I'm going to record podcast episode 53 tomorrow afternoon. So what's the worst job you've ever had? It could be a part-time or school holiday job. Comment here or email thisrealitypodcast@gmail.com with your answer]

The journey is going v.quickly but not quickly enough; I just want to be home.

Listening to a recording of Edith Murray interview Duffy at The Brits, it sounds like a mentally defective person talking to a mentally defective person. How on earth do these people manage to survive the rigours of day-to-day life in the 21st century? I’m asking because surely they’re not allowed out by themselves? I find that idea far too frightening.

Did Edith Murray go to the Fearne Cotton school of brain training? I’m not expecting a discourse on Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics or even a synoptical statement on disambiguation… I would just like to hear a Q/A session between two people who might sound as if their combined IQ was marginally higher than 42.

Am I asking too much?

You’ll know that I love good writing. My blogroll/links/Bloglines selections are testament to my favourite sources of writing, but many of those folk over there are ‘friends’ as well as sources of writing that interests me.

This morning I discovered (discovered as in Magellan or Marco Polo. Sorry. That’s a line from last night’s West Wing) a source of erudition and literary readability that puts my own occasionally (some unkind folk might user the word ‘mainly’) incomprehensible meanderings in to the shaded place where they firmly belong.

Martin Weller writes knowingly on why Technorati is dead in the water, whereas all I can say is ‘Technorati is broken’.

Martin Weller also exposes the flaws in Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report, while all I could do was read it and think ‘the guy who wrote this is a right twat who doesn’t get it’.

But best of all, Martin Weller looks at Tony Blair’s decision to take this country in to a war with Iraq and not only exposes a chink of Blair’s psychological flaws, he also closes with a very telling question.

So there it is, a new addition to my bloglines account. Gah, I hate clever people like what he is, The Ed Techie.

the first time I wrote that subject line the second ‘featuring’ came out as ‘fetish’. How bizarre!

So, how’s it going? What’s new? Did you get to the surgery? Did the doc look at that nasty rash? And how is it now?

Eeew! Don’t show me!

Anyway, on with the point of this. Or one of the points.

I’m beginning to think that I spend so many hours each day with my iPod that it’s actually becoming part of my psyche.

The last few days it has served up lots of soulful Peter Gabriel, mellow Kate Bush (I used to have the king of crushes on her) and classic Aretha.

But, switching it on this morning, my eardrums nearly fell out with the head-splittingly LOUD ‘Boys, Grab Your Guns’ by the toe-tappingly awesome My American Heart.

Speaking of music, which we were, der, I killed a band to death in a review this morning and I don’t feel good about it. I mean the review was perfectly justified and the tone and wordage softened the blow, but the underlying message ‘get a time machine and go back 25 years and maybe you stand a chance, but here in the 21st Century you’re as relevant as a Dinosaur’s left testicle to the record-buying/downloading public because the audience you’re aiming for are on their way home from the country club in the Lexus and people like that don’t buy cool sounds anymore’.

Yeah, the underlying message was right on the money.

Anyway, I’m here with some cheering-the-band-killer-to-death-up news.

Due to some complete freak of technical nature caused, I understand, by a temporal shift in the flux capacitor in the interwebs, those nice people over at Britbloggers have accidentally made this blog their current featured blog.

Wouldja believe it?

No, me neither officer. But it’s true.

And if you’ve got a blog and you’re a Brit and you’re not signed up to Britbloggers yet, then how come? Apart from being a fairly harmless bunch of people (mostly) they do lots of stuff together like they have bring and buy sales and raffles and demos and lectures and poker nights and strippers and everything.

Really!

So maybe you should just get in there anyway, right?

Just go here: http://britbloggers.ning.com/

But before you do… I’d put something on that rash if I were you.

Yes, it’s competition time here in the house of the special people.

And because I’m so musically inclined and Soph’s so literary inclined I’m going to offer as a prize, a copy of my book (Crossing The Line) and a CD of my favourite tracks off of my iPod (all tracks podsafe or offered with permission of the artists).

So how about it? Are ya feeling lucky punk? You are?

Well which one of us said these things?

1. I have too many eyes
2. When they fall over they’re thawed
3. I had a cup of tea earlier on that had been reheated in the microwave so many times it was radioactive
4. And what did we do? We wound up looking like a monkey fucking a football out there
5. Your cock is quite a lot thicker than my vibrator. it can’t do sums or anything
6. I’m going to have a poo. I’m going to have a poo at Paul’s house because Paul has a Glade air freshener and my poo really stinks
7. Well, when a mummy and daddy love each other very much they go to bed and have special cuddles. And then daddy fucks mummy and cums in her cunt

Rules:

• To enter: leave a comment here!
• Closing date: Saturday 14th March 13.00 GMT
• In the event of a tie, the adjucicator’s adjudicator’s (thanks Jonners!) word is final

Two hours of cross-country schooling got us somewhere, it was such a shame that the first 20 minutes were so bloody frustrating.

Working Vin on the flat he showed just how much of a twat he can be. Bronking, bucking, rearing, going backwards, sideways and generally being a total twat.

By the time we were ready to go for the first fence Vin was covered in sweat, as if he’d already jumped the entire track several times and finished it off with a gallop up the two-mile all-weather track.

Unfortunately Vin must have left his brain back in his stable; we approached the first fence at a fair old canter – right up until one stride out from the fence, which was when he put all four of his feet in to the earth and firmly refused. Bastard.

It took 20 minutes and a variety of fences before the penny dropped. You could almost see the thought flickering alive in his head: Oh! Over them!

From that moment the problem was the opposite, trying to hold him back, needing to stop him from flashing over them at racing speed.

At the end of two hours of (not continuous, plenty of breaks in between) schooling, we had it right.

Trakehners, Coffins, Ditch-Pallisades, Steps (big!), Drops (more big)… yep, we did them all.

What I think today has taught me is that Vin’s confidence is so borderline that he needs to be given a very positive ride whilst, simultaneously, being slowed to a more regular, less racing-paced speed. Speed, in his head, is King.

Not in my head though.

So all in all it was a very poor start and a very successful finish – once the penny had dropped. Or he’d got his confidence.

There was a faller elsewhere on the course. Twice. The same rider both times. The first time she hit the deck Vin and I acted as a mobile barrier and put ourselves between the cantering loose horse and the open gateway. The second time the gate was closed and the loose horse cantered up to its lorry and, recognising sanctuary, skidded to a halt beside the ramp.

Tomorrow Vin and I are going cross-country schooling.

Given his recent behavioural switch from all-round good (equine) guy to tanking at coloured poles at a speed that feels not too far removed from Mach 2.1, the thought of sitting on a 16.2hh Thoroughbred ex-racehorse as it eyes up a field full of 3’3” fences which, let’s face it, aren’t going to fall over if we get it wrong and hit any of them, well… the thought is bowel-loopingly frightening.

But I have a cunning plan.

A cunning plan to deal with Vin’s ‘arguing every step of the way’ mindset; a cunning plan to get me through tomorrow’s cross-country training in one piece (and alive!).

My cunning plan is to take a short rein, work Vin in to a balanced, rhythmic canter, adopt a forward seat and sit very very quietly (which is my natural riding style anyway) and just let him get on with it.

If he gets too close to a fence and hits it or if he takes off too far away from a fence and he has to go on a long stride and (inevitably!) scares the living daylights out of himself, he’s just going to have to sort himself out.

Hurtling up to and over cross country fences is no place to try and sort out an equine’s manners! He’s just going to have to learn his lessons the hard way tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

Today I love:

* Soph (natch)
* Browser history
* Nice people (esp the lovely woman in the ordering department at soundslive.co.uk)
* Daughter
* Costa
* Sunshine
* Amy

Today I hate:

* Tuna (natch)
* Oriental tourists
* Oriental tourists who sit next to me and eat tuna
* The offspring of Oriental tourists who sit next to me and eat tuna and who have breath that *stinks* of garlic
* Construction work that closes the pavement and forces me to share the middle of the road with traffic
* Jacqui Smith
* Tessa Jowell
 

That’s a nicely balanced list. On the strength of that I feel ready for some lunch.