Lucy

The weekend just past signalled the beginning of my diamond birthday celebrations. Well if the Queen can have a couple of birthday's why not I?

Twenty of us attended the England v France rugby at Twickenham in a lads and dads day out. A couple of the attendees I had known since we were ten and at school together, and a few were people I had been introduced to, by them, over the years. One chap was an old friend from my working days and several I had met while playing rugby for Twickenham RFC. Indeed one of those used to chase the same girls as me when we were in our early thirties!! All together they were an eclectic group who got on famously.

The match kicked off at 5pm on the Saturday which is not our favourite time to attend, but on this occasion it did give us a chance to visit a local Richmond restaurant, Rock and Rose, for some pre-match tucker , and very good it was too. So with suitable ballast on board, we boarded the bus and sang our way to the ground as we have done for more years than I can remember.

One of my old school friends, Stu, and I have been attending games at Twickenham since early in 1972. We first saw John Dawes Welsh side play. We stood on the old West terrace watching as they beat us comfortably. The only thing that made it bearable was the fact we were in the company of a young Welsh girl from Plymouth,  with whom I had plans later.  Sadly even that went pear shaped as she had already arranged to meet a lad who was a session musician and singer, elsewhere on the manor.

Some years later when I moved from Croydon to Kingston and started playing for Twickenham RFC, it transpired she married said musician, and he was playing second row at the same Club. We are all still good friends. The subsequent forty years following England around Europe have continued to illustrate just how small the World is, made even smaller by the rugby playing community.

I have played in a few World Golden Oldies rugby festivals over time, and should I do so again, I will be able to wear red shorts. This will mean I can only be caught and held, and not tackled. When I reach 65 I would then be able to wear gold shorts, cannot be touched or tackled and can subsequently run for 15 metres unopposed. That might be worth a go!!!

The celebrations continue in a few days with a family Sunday lunch, after which, like the Queen, I will start to tour some of our colonies. I think I will start with Scotland!!

4077 M*A*S*H

I am not a great social networking user. Facebook and Twitter don't really add to my day to day routine. The only one I do register with is LinkedIn. The main reason for this is to keep abreast of any changes people may make to their e-mail contacts, or other aspects of their life I may be interested in.

Today I have just been doing a bit of tweaking to my profile, and have added a link which will hopefully allow people to see the film which inspired the IBM living legend comments.

It's called 'Doggin Around' from 1994,  and stars Elliott Gould as a beaten up American jazz pianist who comes back to England to do the Northern club circuit. The support cast is a who's who of British character actors and it is a good view if you get the time.

Elliott Gould utters the immortal words which inspired my by-line, when asked by a young lady whether he was one of those American musical old timers, to which he replied, " Where I come from mam, we like to call them living legend"

I had cause to use it face-to face in IBM when a female colleague similarly enquired of me in a derogatory tone. I was in the company of my business director when the exchange occurred and he too adopted the retort,  particularly when summing up individuals careers  at retirement parties.

It ranks up there with the wonderful line from the film, 'The Likely Lads' which charted the holiday adventures of Bob and Terry one particularly wet week in Scarborough. "Eh",  said Terry, "lets go to Boots, there's always women in Boots"

Lord Lucan next?

It is interesting that the race horse, Shergar, who was a Derby winner and up there with the best, was kidnapped  in Ireland 30 years ago this month. It was alleged that the IRA performed the deed hoping for a large ransom. It never materialised and Shergar was lost forever, with her ultimate demise often open to conjecture, but never ratified.

That is until this week. Clearly we have not just started to find horse meat in our pies, pasties and lasagne. This practise must have been going on for years, maybe even pre-dating the disappearance of the racehorse. Horses which die, albeit family pets, competing horses or recreational animals,  have always been assumed to end up in France, where a bit of cheval has always gone down well.

I have been to Paris many times and ordered steak. I am sure they have seen 'les rosbifs' coming and plonked a couple of prime horse burgers in front of us. It always tastes fine and the only side effect seems to be the need for a nosebag every now and then!

Let's just hope we don't move to the Soylent Green scenario in which case we will never find Lord Lucan!

Gardeners World

The frustration alluded to in my last post seems to be slowly easing away. I have just spend a pleasant couple of hours in the garden clearing the debris, and the Helleborus look a picture now with the flowers well in view. Sadly the three new ones I planted did not survive the snow and slugs so I will need to deploy a new strategy next Autumn. The bin, as expected, is nearly full and I still have one more patch to clear. That can wait until tomorrow.

I am deploying the 'stop when it hurts' philosophy towards my knee, having got the all clear from the consultant's registrar last week. I have now had two sessions in the gym on the static bike and the weight machines, so the gardening today went well for as long as I wanted it to. Next week I will start to do some treadmill work and hit a few golf balls. I am looking to restart competitive golf on 2nd March all being well

I have just booked a couple of weeks in Torquay, or is that Turkey?, for some warm weather training, although I think it's only low 70's there when we go.....OK for golf but not so bright for sunning oneself.

I was in London for the rugger last weekend, but will not be travelling to Dublin today, as would normally be the case, as the anti-social kick-off time, 3pm on a Sunday, is just not spectator friendly. With England on a relatively long unbeaten run (two games)  I think it could be a cracker.

Other than that activities seem to be gearing up nicely towards the big six o in a couple of weeks. More on that as the time approaches.