I think Helen Mirren is a top actress and has been terrific over the years, whether it has been in a film or in a TV series. Congratulations to her for the Oscar she won, well deserved.

But, I don’t understand all the acclaim around the film itself. To me it seems based on conjecture and rumour around what the Queen / Blair and others were doing / saying / thinking at that time. The events that the film is built around can’t be denied, but the main spin of the film is on the lead characters and what went on behind the scenes…. so unfortunately the script can only be based on hearsay at the best. The trouble is people will see the film and take that as the reality.

Other than that, I just want to say I hate Monday.

The Mystic Wizards (of the White Moonflower) are a relatively unknown band from the eighties. They toured Oxfordshire mainly, and headlined at a vastly unattended festival in the ambient field at Charlbury in August 81.

The group never officially split, but haven’t been active for over 20 years now.

In the audio section there is a track called ‘The Vulture Song’, taken from the album ‘The Vulture has Landed’. I commend it to your ears.

Carrion aint’ no carry on, f’sure….

Currently listening to :

I can’t help it. I have always loved to do sport and to watch it.

And with watching sport you tend to end up supporting an athlete or a team. So, Saturday being the main day for sport can bring some sporting high’s and low’s.

First of all my football team, West Ham, who last season distinguished themeselves with good football, and making the FA Cup final, fell miserably at rivals Charlton 4-0. Which just about means we will be relegated from the top league.

Then, England were out hustled, then outplayed, and beaten convincingly by Ireland at rugby.

And I have stupidly given up alcohol for lent so I can’t even have a beer…… Grrrrrr.

A little while back Trish (wife) and I were talking to a friend in the village (P), who told us that her son (C, 17) had been trying to do some weights and had been complaining about a bad back. She tried to tell him that he was doing it wrong, and got the ‘what do you know’ kind of responses.

Now, as it happens, Trish, as part of her athletics coaching does a weighlifting session on a Wednesday evening. She doesn’t limit this to just track and field athletes, and takes along one of our neighbours sons who is a rugby player. So, C was invited to a session to see how to do it properly. Not that C has any real sporting interest, he just wants to develop a ‘beach body’ as he calls it.

Of course it started off with the ‘I can lift a few ton’s no problem’ posturing… until he was shown correct posture in order to develop the muscles properly, and found he couldn’t lift anywhere near what he thought.

P informed us that C could barely walk the morning after his first session, his muscles ached so much. Which she found highly amusing. Until the following week. On the way back from the second session Trish told C that he should be drinking plenty of milk. When he got in C drank all the milk available in the house. And I mean all. P had the hump that there was no milk for her morning tea the following morning. Trish has also told C about eating fruit… and C has taken this on board, and eats loads of fruit now.

P is amazed. For years P has been trying to get C to drink milk and eat fruit to no avail. But, Trish tells him that as part of getting the beach body he needs to do it, and he does. P is now looking to see if Trish can find a way of linking a tidy bedroom to helping C develop his muscles…..

It is amazing how children will not listen to their own parents….. but if somebody else tells them it must be true. 

Oh well, I am now off to Hull. Nearly 4 hours of driving in the rain. Groan. Still it’s better than being in the middle east for six weeks, so I am not going to complain.

Lent is that period before Easter, 6 and a half weeks, when a number of christians will attempt to abstein from something. I normally enter into this, being up for a bit of a challenge. I have done many different things over the years, giving up alcohol, or chocolate, or tea, and even meat one year.

This year I am going to give up alcohol, carbonated drinks, coffee, and any form of pudding or sweet or cake or chocolate. With one exception. My birthday falls in the middle of lent, and I don’t intend to penalise myself on that day. But apart from that it is going to be a long six plus weeks.

This evening I will enjoy a couple of drinks. Roll on Easter.

I have always thought Meryl Streep to be a fine actress. And I have always liked the name Meryl. However, I was still reluctant to watch this particular film. It didn’t appeal. But apparantly that was what we were going to watch on Saturday night, so we did.

I had felt the same way about Bridget Jones. I was a reluctant watcher, but thoroughly enjoyed it in the end. So, for a while I had hoped that the Devil wears Prada would turn out the same. Unfortunately it will stay on my ‘only watched once’ list. No substance. Not even saved by Meryl.

I have always been pretty good at swimming, and have done a number of swimathons over the years (5000m / 3 miles). As a result, Trish has always directed me to do the ‘teach the kids to swim’ thing. Nikki and Robbie learnt reasonably quickly and both are competent swimmers, both wanted to learn and were always keen to do better week on week. Robbie can do a 40 or 50 length session now with no trouble.

Teaching Ellie however was always more trying. She was always more interested in playing than swimming, and it seemed to take forwever to get her to do her first length. She learnt to swim under water quickly, and dive down and collect items off the bottom of the pool. But never showed any interest in doing more than 1 length.

Around November last year she started going to a trampolining class, which clashed with the time we went swimming, and so we haven’t been since. She loves trampolining and keeps going for hours. Ultimately she is absolutely shattered on a Saturday evening. However, today, there was no trampoline class. And so we decided to go swimming.

She swam 15 lengths of the pool this morning. I didn’t prompt her or push her into it, it was completely voluntary. In fact I stopped her at 15 as I felt she was getting weary, she had wanted to do 20. All of a sudden she has found strength and stamina that she didn’t have 3 months ago, which I can only put down to this trampolining and workout she does for it. I was stunned.

We got home and nobody believes us. They all think we are winding them up.

Nikki and Robbie are mooching about looking sullen and glum. The end of the half term holiday is near and it’s back to school on Monday… and various pieces of homework of coursework have appeared that need to be done. Robbie has a piece of English to hand in… and he hates asking me to check the grammar because I am such a fusspot.

Trish is out coaching. She is in a place called Sandy today coaching Bedfordshire High & Long jumpers. Tomorrow she is officiating at an event. Me…. well I am supposed to be learning lines.

Learning lines is always preferable to being given lines. For one schoolboy misdemeanour I was once told to write 4 sides of A4 on ‘life inside a ping pong ball’. This was a new twist as a punishment. Previously it would have been 4 sides of ‘I must not talk in class’ over and over. I set out a little world of life inside a ping pong ball, and I was extremely pleased with my effort. I gave the result to the teacher who promptly tore it up and threw it in the bin. Devastated. There ended my creative writing career.

However, getting back to the topic, learning lines is a real task. I have plenty to learn in the play I am in, and so have to persevere. I am about 90% there with Act 1, and 20% with Act 2. But I am getting frustrated with the 10% on Act 1…. little bits just won’t stick in the grey matter. It can’t be an age thing, I have seen plenty of old codgers on stage being word perfect. Perhaps it just gets harder as you get older. Perhaps I have too many things going on in my life to make room for all of the lines. I suppose pondering spoons doesn’t help.

Anyhow, the weekend is nearly here. Hoorah… may time slow down, and every moment be enjoyable.

Before returning from Hull yesteday evening I stopped off at an Asda supermarket to get some cash and a sandwich. Walking from the car to the store, the man in front of me dropped a spoon. Not a small tea spoon, in fact it looked like a soup spoon.

Now this struck me as very unusual, it just isn’t the sort of thing you carry around with you. Why would you be walking around with a spoon in your pocket. I suppose there may be any number of odd reasons or odd explanations.

Worse than this though, why am I even thinking about it. It has nothing to do with me, but it bothered me. Time to get a life.

The good news about my hectic schedule this week is that all of a sudden it is Thursday. Not long till the weekend.

Up at 5:45. Cup of tea and off to the gym. Good workout, in work by 8:45. Finish work at 5:45 and dash to the dentist get there at exactly 6:30, which was just as well as that was when I was supposed to be there. Out at 6:55 (clean bill of health, phew). Home 7:20. Quick tea. Pack my bag.

I am off to rehearsal for 8pm. I have to leave at 9:30pm, and drive to Hull. Should get there for 00:30. Into hotel, sleep, breakfast and be in office for a meeting at 9. Full itinery til 6pm, then drive home. I should get back about 9:30pm tomorrow…. I had better leave the valentine card and chocolates out before I go.

Phew.