does it need any explanation?
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Four, going on 40
I often mention my dog, Logan.
A better tempered dog you would be hard pressed to find. He loves the children* and cats (taste delicious) and all visitors, especially the delivery guys who often have dog treats in their pockets. As a guard dog he'd be rubbish, unless of course the burglar was allergic to dog hair and our house is full of that (if I'd known how much retrievers shed I'd have had a poodle.)
Logan is four, five this August. So in dog years that makes him 28, almost 35. Well past the delinquent teenager stage - you'd have thought. But no. This last week has seen atrocious behaviour from him and I'm not amused.
It started last Tuesday when he went AWOL for over an hour in the woods after getting into the cemetary on the trail of some delectable scent.
Wednesday he again snook into the cemetary through a different spot - fortunately we noticed straight away and were able to round up the rogue before he vanished into some grave to reappear licking his chops.
This week he's woken me in the middle of the night three times, so that he can go out and pee/poo. I wouldn't mind*** but I always send him into the garden before lights out. Wretch.
Two days ago walking with Rebecca and Oscar (Logan's best friend) both dogs were so...immature, I renamed them both 'Dumb and Dumber'****. They were disappearing, eating anything and everything indiscriminately, peeing on each other, and then Logan got hold of a small plastic container (maybe 1 inch square) that had probably had take out ketchup or garlic butter in it. When we realised what he'd got we knew he could't keep it. It took the two of us to prise open his jaws and extract the plastic container.
Today I had a coffee and cake date with Rebecca and Princie. We put the three dogs in Rebecca's dog-proof garden. Two minutes later Logan was outside the front door, having escaped from the garden. We put him back twice before giving up and leaving him to lie on his own in the porch. Rebecca has now got to try and find out where Logan's hidden the matter transporter because that garden is dog-proof.
I joked to my friends that Logan's behaviour this last week had been like that of a delinquent teenager, but that he's too old (in dog years) for it to be classed as juvenile high spirits. Princie had the answer. She declared he was going through a mid life crisis!
That's all I need, a dog that thinks he needs a motorbike.
* but couldn't eat a whole one** as Simon would add.
** although actually he'd give it a damn good go.
*** that's a bare faced lie, I do mind, I hate having my sleep disturbed.
**** another film title.
A better tempered dog you would be hard pressed to find. He loves the children* and cats (taste delicious) and all visitors, especially the delivery guys who often have dog treats in their pockets. As a guard dog he'd be rubbish, unless of course the burglar was allergic to dog hair and our house is full of that (if I'd known how much retrievers shed I'd have had a poodle.)
Logan is four, five this August. So in dog years that makes him 28, almost 35. Well past the delinquent teenager stage - you'd have thought. But no. This last week has seen atrocious behaviour from him and I'm not amused.
It started last Tuesday when he went AWOL for over an hour in the woods after getting into the cemetary on the trail of some delectable scent.
Wednesday he again snook into the cemetary through a different spot - fortunately we noticed straight away and were able to round up the rogue before he vanished into some grave to reappear licking his chops.
This week he's woken me in the middle of the night three times, so that he can go out and pee/poo. I wouldn't mind*** but I always send him into the garden before lights out. Wretch.
Two days ago walking with Rebecca and Oscar (Logan's best friend) both dogs were so...immature, I renamed them both 'Dumb and Dumber'****. They were disappearing, eating anything and everything indiscriminately, peeing on each other, and then Logan got hold of a small plastic container (maybe 1 inch square) that had probably had take out ketchup or garlic butter in it. When we realised what he'd got we knew he could't keep it. It took the two of us to prise open his jaws and extract the plastic container.
Today I had a coffee and cake date with Rebecca and Princie. We put the three dogs in Rebecca's dog-proof garden. Two minutes later Logan was outside the front door, having escaped from the garden. We put him back twice before giving up and leaving him to lie on his own in the porch. Rebecca has now got to try and find out where Logan's hidden the matter transporter because that garden is dog-proof.
I joked to my friends that Logan's behaviour this last week had been like that of a delinquent teenager, but that he's too old (in dog years) for it to be classed as juvenile high spirits. Princie had the answer. She declared he was going through a mid life crisis!
That's all I need, a dog that thinks he needs a motorbike.
* but couldn't eat a whole one** as Simon would add.
** although actually he'd give it a damn good go.
*** that's a bare faced lie, I do mind, I hate having my sleep disturbed.
**** another film title.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
O brother, where art thou?*
My little brother Ed (who also blogs - but somewhat sporadically) works in oil. Or to be specific, in mud. I've learnt over the years that 'mud' doesn't necessarily mean the stuff that is tracked through my house on a regular basis by the children and the dog, but rather the chemical mix that is pumped down into bore holes to lubricate the drill and keep everything turning**.
My little brother seems to have developed a taste for living on the edge (goodness only knows where he got that from, no-one else from the Walford clan seems to have this suicidal gene. But then such a gene would be recessive and wipe itself out quite quickly don't you think? A lemming gene.)
Roller blading too tame? Try it 'off road'. Snorkelling a little dull? Take up SCUBA. Running a marathon not hard enough? Go Ironman distance. And of course this gets reflected in his profession - or rather the location where he chooses to work. He started with oil rigs, but clearly that was too tame. Went to the oil fields in Indonesia, in 1998, and the fall of Suharto. There followed a period of calm while he was in Aberdeen (where possibly the most dangerous thing is the deep fried Mars Bar - or is that only Glasgow?) Although he did discover a love of FAST motorbikes at this time (I think he left it that late in life so that mom couldn't stop him doing it, especially as he was about as far away from parental control as he could get whilst still living in the same country.)
For the last couple of years Ed has been in Libya, Tripoli to be precise.
This last week has been...tense.
The last 24 hours have been hell.
Over the weekend it became obvious that the Libyans were going to grasp their chance of freedom and fight for their lives. No-one really thought the action would spread to Tripoli, Gaddafi's stronghold, where the majority of the workers are employed either by the government or in oil. Ed and I had several conversations over the weekend, him playing it down while I read to him whatever information I could find on the internet. The one that finally got him a little twitchy was Sunday night when I read someone reporting that 1000's of people were marching on Tripoli, and they weren't going in support of Gaddafi.
On Monday the plan was to evacuate the expats from Ed's company via scheduled flights on the Tuesday, seeing as the Libyan government had finally decided to relax their rule that required exit visas***. Like I said, that was the plan. Monday evening they all (20-30 people) congregated together for safety at the boss's house, ready to run to the airport first thing on Tuesday.
Yesterday (Tuesday) was hell. Having had numerous emails from Ed over the weekend and throughout Monday, on Tuesday I got one, and I guess I was lucky to get that. It said simply:
airport total chaos
* also a film starring another of my favourite leading men (maybe I should make this week film week?) George Clooney.
** I'm quite sure that if I have got any of this wrong my little brother will eventually correct me.
*** I cannot ever imagine feeling the need to travel to a country where not only do you need to grovel to get in, but you have to grovel to get out too.
Word for the day; dictator - der Diktator.
My little brother seems to have developed a taste for living on the edge (goodness only knows where he got that from, no-one else from the Walford clan seems to have this suicidal gene. But then such a gene would be recessive and wipe itself out quite quickly don't you think? A lemming gene.)
Roller blading too tame? Try it 'off road'. Snorkelling a little dull? Take up SCUBA. Running a marathon not hard enough? Go Ironman distance. And of course this gets reflected in his profession - or rather the location where he chooses to work. He started with oil rigs, but clearly that was too tame. Went to the oil fields in Indonesia, in 1998, and the fall of Suharto. There followed a period of calm while he was in Aberdeen (where possibly the most dangerous thing is the deep fried Mars Bar - or is that only Glasgow?) Although he did discover a love of FAST motorbikes at this time (I think he left it that late in life so that mom couldn't stop him doing it, especially as he was about as far away from parental control as he could get whilst still living in the same country.)
For the last couple of years Ed has been in Libya, Tripoli to be precise.
This last week has been...tense.
The last 24 hours have been hell.
Over the weekend it became obvious that the Libyans were going to grasp their chance of freedom and fight for their lives. No-one really thought the action would spread to Tripoli, Gaddafi's stronghold, where the majority of the workers are employed either by the government or in oil. Ed and I had several conversations over the weekend, him playing it down while I read to him whatever information I could find on the internet. The one that finally got him a little twitchy was Sunday night when I read someone reporting that 1000's of people were marching on Tripoli, and they weren't going in support of Gaddafi.
On Monday the plan was to evacuate the expats from Ed's company via scheduled flights on the Tuesday, seeing as the Libyan government had finally decided to relax their rule that required exit visas***. Like I said, that was the plan. Monday evening they all (20-30 people) congregated together for safety at the boss's house, ready to run to the airport first thing on Tuesday.
Yesterday (Tuesday) was hell. Having had numerous emails from Ed over the weekend and throughout Monday, on Tuesday I got one, and I guess I was lucky to get that. It said simply:
airport total chaos
we are getting an sos charter flight to keep our group together.
don't know where to.
more later
And yesterday that was all we knew.
The flights they'd been supposed to catch were cancelled. Airspace over Tripoli was closed. And Gaddafi went on TV and ranted to the world about how 'he would never leave and would die a martyr'.
Yeah. Yesterday was a stressful day, and I'm sure it was even worse for those in Libya.
My routine over the last four, five, six days has been the same. The moment I'm up and in the kitchen I check first email - anything from Ed? Then a triathlon website he's been using to get information out - anything from Ed? Then the BBC site - what's the latest in Libya? Then onto Al Jazeera which has a live blog updating constantly - what's the latest in Libya? Then onto the Guardian's live updating blog page...Yesterday I stopped checking the Twitter updates as they were getting too scary and to be honest, I can do scary in my own imagination, I really don't need to give it further ammunition.
Just after 8am today my mobile rang - my brother. He was brief, saying merely that they were 'back at the airport' (which makes me want to know where they had been) that they were in a safer place (didn't like the use of the word 'safer' - kind of implies that previously they'd been somewhere 'not safe') and trying to get on a flight to Malta. He'd let me know when anything changed.
Then at lunchtime I got an email from Ed. They were all in the business lounge of the airport (this isn't as grand as it sounds, Tripoli 'international' airport is a hole, the business lounge sounds as though it's merely the equivalent of a normal departure lounge in the civilised world) waiting on a flight to Malta.
And that's it.
I think my little brother is still in Tripoli, waiting for a flight out, while I sit at home (as my parents do at their home) waiting for good news.
I hope after this he's had his fill of excitement, and maybe, just maybe he'll get a job somewhere nice, preferably somewhere warm and pretty where we might actually want to go and visit!
Stay safe Ed!
Update: 1852 Wednesday evening Ed rang - from the safety of Malta! Phew.
And yesterday that was all we knew.
The flights they'd been supposed to catch were cancelled. Airspace over Tripoli was closed. And Gaddafi went on TV and ranted to the world about how 'he would never leave and would die a martyr'.
Yeah. Yesterday was a stressful day, and I'm sure it was even worse for those in Libya.
My routine over the last four, five, six days has been the same. The moment I'm up and in the kitchen I check first email - anything from Ed? Then a triathlon website he's been using to get information out - anything from Ed? Then the BBC site - what's the latest in Libya? Then onto Al Jazeera which has a live blog updating constantly - what's the latest in Libya? Then onto the Guardian's live updating blog page...Yesterday I stopped checking the Twitter updates as they were getting too scary and to be honest, I can do scary in my own imagination, I really don't need to give it further ammunition.
Just after 8am today my mobile rang - my brother. He was brief, saying merely that they were 'back at the airport' (which makes me want to know where they had been) that they were in a safer place (didn't like the use of the word 'safer' - kind of implies that previously they'd been somewhere 'not safe') and trying to get on a flight to Malta. He'd let me know when anything changed.
Then at lunchtime I got an email from Ed. They were all in the business lounge of the airport (this isn't as grand as it sounds, Tripoli 'international' airport is a hole, the business lounge sounds as though it's merely the equivalent of a normal departure lounge in the civilised world) waiting on a flight to Malta.
And that's it.
I think my little brother is still in Tripoli, waiting for a flight out, while I sit at home (as my parents do at their home) waiting for good news.
I hope after this he's had his fill of excitement, and maybe, just maybe he'll get a job somewhere nice, preferably somewhere warm and pretty where we might actually want to go and visit!
Stay safe Ed!
Update: 1852 Wednesday evening Ed rang - from the safety of Malta! Phew.
* also a film starring another of my favourite leading men (maybe I should make this week film week?) George Clooney.
** I'm quite sure that if I have got any of this wrong my little brother will eventually correct me.
*** I cannot ever imagine feeling the need to travel to a country where not only do you need to grovel to get in, but you have to grovel to get out too.
Word for the day; dictator - der Diktator.
Monday, February 21, 2011
For the love of Colin
Yesterday I went to the cinema.
Wow, you're thinking, so what?
But this is Germany and this is the modern world where most films today are shown on one of eight + screens in a huge multiplex where buckets of popcorn are seemingly as obligatory as the litres of coke and the 20 minutes of ads prior to the main feature.
Yesrerday however, was different. The film was "The King's Speech" and the cinema was the "Casablanca" in Bochum (just a 30 minute* drive from us) which is an independant local cinema like back in the good old days when there were only three screens and the biggest always had THE film of the moment showing and the other two had something far quirkier. This cinema even had a projectionist - I know because I saw him, winding the film onto the spool thingummy as we went to find a seat. Mark Kermode would approve of this cinema. What's more, the film was in English with German subtitles. Heaven. This rarely happens here, the Germans dub, everything it seems, and I just can't bare to watch an actor whose voice I know, acting his heart out with someone else's voice laid over the top.
"The King's Speech" is an amazing film, all about the problems the Duke of York (as he was at the beginning of the film) had with his speech, he had a dreadful stammer that previously would not have been a huge problem within the Royal Family, but due to the discovery of radio and its impact on the world, a person in such a powerful position could not be viewed as being 'weak'. The film catalogues the meeting of Prince Albert and Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist whose unorthodox methods and lack of formal professional training ensured the future King's retinue disapproved.
Colin Firth has been a popular actor since starring as Mr Darcy in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (way back in 1995) and is regarded by many (myself included) as a bit of a heart throb - possibly due to the 'wet shirt' incident in P&P** but also quite probably due to his self depreciating manner, swoon.
Last year we had high hopes for him winning an Oscar for his performance in "A Single Man", which was such an unbelievably stylish film (thanks to Tom Ford of Gucci fame for directing) but he lost out to Jeff Bridges. This year is surely Colin's year, he acts the stammerer with such perfection that you truly believe he isn't going to be able to speak the words he is required to.
A great film, although what the locals in the audience thought of the scene where the news broadcast of the Kings coronation is shown to the young princesses and then the second item is a clip of Hitler egging on his troops, one princess says to her father, "what's he saying daddy?" "I don't know." answers the King, "but he says it rather well."
We howled with laughter, but refrained from goose stepping out of the cinema.
Excuse me, I'm off to watch back to back episodes of P&P, now where's that corset?
* on a Sunday, in perfect weather - i.e. no scary rain or snow (not scary for me - the locals have an irrational fear of getting their cars wet &/or dirty).
** sorry, I forgot myself for a moment there...just wiping the dribble off the keyboard...
Word of the day; das Kino - the cinema
Wow, you're thinking, so what?
But this is Germany and this is the modern world where most films today are shown on one of eight + screens in a huge multiplex where buckets of popcorn are seemingly as obligatory as the litres of coke and the 20 minutes of ads prior to the main feature.
Yesrerday however, was different. The film was "The King's Speech" and the cinema was the "Casablanca" in Bochum (just a 30 minute* drive from us) which is an independant local cinema like back in the good old days when there were only three screens and the biggest always had THE film of the moment showing and the other two had something far quirkier. This cinema even had a projectionist - I know because I saw him, winding the film onto the spool thingummy as we went to find a seat. Mark Kermode would approve of this cinema. What's more, the film was in English with German subtitles. Heaven. This rarely happens here, the Germans dub, everything it seems, and I just can't bare to watch an actor whose voice I know, acting his heart out with someone else's voice laid over the top.
"The King's Speech" is an amazing film, all about the problems the Duke of York (as he was at the beginning of the film) had with his speech, he had a dreadful stammer that previously would not have been a huge problem within the Royal Family, but due to the discovery of radio and its impact on the world, a person in such a powerful position could not be viewed as being 'weak'. The film catalogues the meeting of Prince Albert and Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist whose unorthodox methods and lack of formal professional training ensured the future King's retinue disapproved.
Colin Firth has been a popular actor since starring as Mr Darcy in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (way back in 1995) and is regarded by many (myself included) as a bit of a heart throb - possibly due to the 'wet shirt' incident in P&P** but also quite probably due to his self depreciating manner, swoon.
Last year we had high hopes for him winning an Oscar for his performance in "A Single Man", which was such an unbelievably stylish film (thanks to Tom Ford of Gucci fame for directing) but he lost out to Jeff Bridges. This year is surely Colin's year, he acts the stammerer with such perfection that you truly believe he isn't going to be able to speak the words he is required to.
A great film, although what the locals in the audience thought of the scene where the news broadcast of the Kings coronation is shown to the young princesses and then the second item is a clip of Hitler egging on his troops, one princess says to her father, "what's he saying daddy?" "I don't know." answers the King, "but he says it rather well."
We howled with laughter, but refrained from goose stepping out of the cinema.
Excuse me, I'm off to watch back to back episodes of P&P, now where's that corset?
* on a Sunday, in perfect weather - i.e. no scary rain or snow (not scary for me - the locals have an irrational fear of getting their cars wet &/or dirty).
** sorry, I forgot myself for a moment there...just wiping the dribble off the keyboard...
Word of the day; das Kino - the cinema
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