Brennig Jones (and friends)

Yes I’m tired. Yes we trogged in to Oxford and went to the ‘battle of the bands’ competition called The Next Big Thing at the O2. Yes it was yet another very late night followed (inevitably) by another very early morning.

But that’s not the reason for this general feeling of disconnection that I have today.

It’s the result of the competition that has put me in this mood.

I guess we’ll talk about yesterday evening and the bands and their performances and the result in this weekend’s podcast so I’m not going to go in to it in detail here.

Except to say that I do feel out of sorts.

Mind you, as I’m operating on about four hours’ of sleep, if the worst thing I’m going to feel today is a sense of disconnect and being out of sorts, then all things considered, that’s not too bad.

But I did have a few harsh words with an incredibly senior member of the Mickey Mouse Metropolitan Police Service earlier. I may have called him ‘a civilian’.

This is frustrating and infuriating in equal measures and I really don’t know why it has happened.

While I was having a cup of tea with one of my saner colleagues in Pret this afternoon, all my brain was doing was serving up images of Big Brother; the C4 television series.

What the fuck?

Have I been receiving subliminal advertising from Endemol via some concealed medium or other, and am I now performing my programmed task by talking about it?

This evening on the way home I had to restrain myself from googling ‘Alexandra De Gale’ (one of the most odious specimens of humanity to crawl from underneath a slimy, damp stone to take her place – momentarily – in the public spotlight that is provided by Big Brother, before being outed as a thoroughly reprehensible piece of pond-life and swiftly vanishing in to deserved obscurity once more), just to find out what line of criminality she’s up to these days.

Individual characters aside, I am perplexed that I find Big Brother so fascinating; it is a little like The Apprentice in that respect.

Both programmes have given us hours of entertainment; we have laughed (quite a lot) and gasped (even more) at the massive egos and even larger gaps of knowledge that many of the contestants have displayed. We have been jaw-droppingly amazed at how separated from reality the competing individuals are.

Who can fail to be amused by the 9ct solid gold words of Helen (from BB 2)? Her ‘I like blinking, I do’ is a quote that will continue to amuse for many years to come.

Yes, there is an element of voyeurism; watching a group of people with little (if anything) in common as they struggle to bond, form allegiances and eventually, become tribal is disquietly compelling.

There is also the slightly sadistic thrill of watching personalities develop, catch the eye of the media and then inevitably, once the self-induced veneer has evaporated under the 24/7 glare of the lights and cameras and the dreadful truth (like the aforementioned Ms De Gale), vanish. Some quicker than others.

Endemol say the programme is a social experiment, I’m not too sure.

The only thing I am sure about is that I find myself looking at the calendar and wondering how much longer I have to wait for the next series.

I see that the front page of the BBC News website is currently carrying, as its number one item, a big scare story on Swine Flu.

Ho hum.

I’m still waiting for the Avian Flu/Bird Flu pandemic to come sweeping over from China.

And from before that, we had shock-horror tales of Necrotising Fasciitis fed to us on a daily basis.

Before that millions – millions – of us were going to die from vCJD.

And before that it was, umm, help me out here. Was it Asian Flu or did that come even further back? Or was it… Oh, I just don’t know.

But how come, when the government is in deep, deep shit, there’s another scare to keep us off balance; another bad news story crops up to stop us (our media) from asking the sharp-eyed, keen-minded questions that we (our media) should be asking?

How come – when our government spends trillions of £’s of our money propping up a failed banking system because that’s where our government’s buddies live, work and play – how come we are the ones who have to foot the bill through increased taxes for the next 20 years?

How come no-one has made the obvious statement to the government: You want to save public money? Stop propping up the failing banks. Stop having wars in foreign countries. Stop buying the next generation of Trident missiles. Stop all spending on nuclear weapons.

Because doing just one of these things would allow the government to continue propping up their buddies in the banks. Doing all of these things would reduce the public tax burden to a minute percentage of the current levels.

And stop promoting these ridiculous scare stories.

But remind me, why, precisely, are we propping up these failed banks again?

I’m sitting on the couch in the house in Oxfordshire looking at photographs taken and listening to audio recorded while we were in Spain last week.

The photographs are brilliant; taken on the beach in Roquettas de Mar just after we’d been zooming around the Go Kart track.  So we’re a little hyper.

There’s this one:

Daughter on the beach

And there’s this one:

Daughter and Soph paddling

And there’s this one:

Daughter

On the audio front, I’ve accidentally captured Daughter telling us the disturbing tale of Marta del Castillo.

Marta disappeared from Sevilla in January. After questioning by police Marta’s boyfriend – Miguel – confessed to her murder, saying that he had hit Marta with an ashtray and then, with the help of two of his friends, Javier and Samuel, had thrown her body into the Guadalquivir river.

However, in a second statement Miguel said that they had not thrown her into the river but into a rubbish container near the flat where she was allegedly killed.

A few weeks later Miguel made a different statement and claimed that it was his brother Javier who had killed Marta – and had done so by strangulation.

Daughter is positive she saw Marta on the beach a few weeks ago.

However, spooky tales of disappearance and murder aside, we had a brilliant time in Spain. And it was nice to catch up on cuddles, hugs, giggles and hiccups. Daughter hiccups because I make her laugh so much.

Yesterday – Saturday – was fun.

I spent most of the day judging at a Hunter Trial at Ascott-under-Wychwood.

This meant sitting in a car with Becky, watching horses and their riders having tremendous fun as they rode around Mr & Mrs Badger’s lovely cross-country course at Crown Farm.

We may have gossiped, Becky and I.

In the late afternoon I rode Vin. The feed changes and supplement additives seem to be doing their job – his headshaking has improved – but the condition hasn’t got to the point where we can go and compete.

Sadly this means that we’re not going to Sunday’s planned Dressage competition run by the Isis dressage group.

Yesterday evening Soph and I recorded episode 61 of This Reality Podcast. Some – just some! – of the random things we covered (apart from the excellent music, natch) include:

* An impromptu review of the film Twiglet Twilight (meh!)
* Being excited about going to see inLight at the Oxford 02 on Wednesday
* Some of the things we got up to in Liverpool last weekend
* This week’s trip to Spain (Go Karting aces, Rustic apartment in La Alpujarra, Chris Stewart – author of Driving Over Lemons – played drums in Genesis before Phil Collins arrived, a smart hotel where we had the pool to ourselves)
* Why my Twitter-buddy Dan Black can’t use HYPNTZ as his next single – because a dead rapper says so! What would Notorious B.I.G say if he was still alive?
* Facebook etiquette, what’s all the poking about?
* A Swiss person sacked for Facebooking while off work sick
* Stupid people trying to buy a car
* Stupid people trying to con stupid car sellers
* Canada promotes the landlocked province of Alberta with a picture of a beach in Northumberland
* Having a thing for Captain Janeway of Star Trek Voyager (and the improbably proportioned, impressively-breasted Seven)

That was Saturday.

So today, instead of the planned dressage competition, we’re going to a small local horse show in a village called Tackley, just north of Kidlington.

We’re not going to ‘do’ anything particular; Vin, Soph and I will turn up, bumble round, perhaps do some uncompetitive things, eat some food and then go home again.

I think Vin deserves a treat and a morning out could be just the ticket.

(for now, at least)

We are back in the land of the very peculiar people. I say this because I am still getting many phone calls a day for the car we sold almost two weeks ago.

Someone rang at 02.30 the other morning. What the fuck goes on in the head of a person that makes the act of calling a total stranger up at 02.30 to ask after a car for sale, an acceptable act?

Anyway.

We have many things to talk about but for now it’s time for a little rest and relaxation.

Daughter, by the way, is totally excellent. She’s also one mean Go Kart driver (even though she’d never done it before!).

So we’re back from Liverpool.

Soph (bless her), has unpacked, shoved a load of washing on and is upstairs splashing around in the shower.

I have caught up on emails, blogs, spoken with Daughter, done some eBanking and booked and paid for our flights to Spain on Wednesday. And booked and paid for the car hire too.

We have a punishingly early check-in which, coupled with travel time to Gatwick, I’m really not looking forward to!

I’m also slightly nervous about the fact that I’ve delegated to Daughter the sorting out of accommodation.

I don’t want to stay in the local hotel because the owner wears a pointy hat, rides a broomstick and (as an added bonus) is the meanest most malicious gossip in the history of the Known World.

Leaving this task to Daughter means that it’s entirely possible Soph and I might be bunking down with Daughter’s pony up on the Finca.

We are in Liverpool. Our very nice hotel is on the waterfront next to the Liver Building.

Last night, as we walked around the docks, desperately trying to digest a most excellent dinner, we couldn’t help wonder precisely what the Liver Birds on top of the Liver Building are intended to be, so we researched them, when we got back to the hotel.

Eagles – in 1207AD – but after a bit of mucking about and jiggery-pokery in the 17th Century, they became transformed in to Cormorants.

Well, when I say ‘they’ I don’t mean the two on top of the Liver Building, because they haven’t been there that long, natch. No, I mean the birds that were on the original Seal of Liverpool. In 1207AD.

So there you are, a momentary deviation where this blog swerves once again from the shallow end of the pool of life, to a place of a little more depth and substance.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Have I mentioned that we’re going to Spain on Wednesday?