Dave 'Dodgy' Jones (1954-2025)

 I heard the news yesterday that my great friend and social activist Dave Jones passed away recently. I can't say that I will miss him, as I have already had that experience while he has been shut away in a dementia care home in Teddington West London for close to 15 years. I visited on occassions when other reasons took me down South, but as is always the case, his memory of me or SWMBO diminished to nothing very quickly. One has no idea if the visits do register as certainly the exchanges indicate they do not, but I was advised to keep going as long as I was able, to keep the care home on their toes, and in case there was some cranial activity I was stimulating.

Dave was a long standing member of the Tuesday club, a group who convened at 9pm in The Prince Blucher in Twickenham, and pretended we had all been rugby training and needed a recovery pint or three. Clearly in our fourties, our rugby training days were long behind us, but the social couple of hours were always rich in stories and memories.

There were memories for SWMBO and I as well. We would often meet him in Paris when England were playing, although his allegiance was always to Wales!! We stayed in his apartment in Amsterdam and in Rome when his work with Cellnet took him away for months at a time, but most memorable, we were with him in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympic Games as he was liaison officer for Helen Rollenson of TV fame, and we were working in the Georgia Dome. Dave sorted accomodation and had a good knowledge of  Buckhead and its bars and restaurants and we had a real blast for two weeks. 

The World was always a livelier place with 'Dodgy' around, and I felt priveliged to call him my friend. May you finally be free .

Fields of Green

 Today the BBC web-site had interviews with Danny Care (England) and Sam Warburton (Wales) in which they ranked the Six Nations stadia. Their order was:

1.  Cardiff
2. Twickenham
3. Murrayfield
4. Paris
5. Dublin and
   
6. Rome

That is fascinating and from a players point of view they see little of the 'weekend experience' where we have often commented that the game is often the low point of the celebrations. My choice would be this:

1. Dublin
2. Rome
3. Twickenham
4. Paris
5. Murrayfield
6. Cardiff

Almost a reverse order. Interesting.

Marty Collins ( 1940-2020)

SWMBO lost her lovely father, Marty, on Thursday. He went with his family around him after degrading quite rapidly over the last few weeks.
Marty was a gentle giant. When I first met him he had long finished in the Liverpool docks, but it was there that his personality was formed. He was a hard worker and a hard player, part of a diminishing generation who lived life to the full and if you did not live life on the edge you were wasting space
.
The various dock boards across the Country were great rivals. They would hold weekend sporting events in a type of mini-Olympics. Marty would compete in the swimming and in open boat, skiff type rowing and regardless of who won, a vast amount of alcohol would be consumed.  They could be in Leith, Tilbury or Portsmouth, but everybody would clock in on time  the Monday such was the work life balance of the day!!

He was also a first aider and they too would travel away to London for 'conferences'. It was a very full and active social enviromment.

He taught his four children how to swim and was an instructor to many others, and he welcomed me into his family like another son. It was quite early in our friendship that I found out why they called him ' three gulps' Marty and we had to work out a shift pattern to keep up with his drinking in the pub!

He worked in Saudi Arabia after leaving Liverpool docks, as many of his colleagues did, and that allowed him and Winnie to buy a house in Formby village. They also enjoyed time together in Paris as a half way house due to the restrictions on him returning to England for tax reasons.

Apart from Win and his family, Liverpool FC was his first love. He was a long term season ticket holder and can still be seen behind the goal in old footage from the Sixties. He is there in his big joe90 glasses with a cigarette in his mouth. It has been his wish for 30 years to see Liverpool once more atop the football pyramid, and while he was in Istanbul and at other European finals nights, it was the Championship he craved for. It is with a tinge of sadness, therefore that he was not able to follow the final few games live, nor will he see the parade as and when it is scheduled.

He will leave a huge hole in the lives of those that knew him and he will be sadly missed. RIP Marty, you will never walk alone.

2d back on the bottle

What a strange weekend just gone. It always seems to be not quite right when the rugby international matches are played on a Sunday, but we embrace the home games anyway. Paris is a dead loss as the whole City seems to shut down on Sundays and as the rugby federation are only tenants in the Stade Francais, they get to play at the ridiculous times the landlords dictate. Rome is a bit better so we have been known to go over there for a Sunday game, but the other venues, forget it. That said we don't go to Cardiff these days fullstop!!

So Twickenham weekend was shifted a day, and numbers were down considerably. Just two of us for the Saturday night pre-match drinks and five for the game itself. I was amazed to read how positiive the reports of the England performance were. Ireland were dreadful  and like Scotland before, they exectuted schoolboy errors to gift England a substancial lead. So in my mind England have played three games and discounting the two pieces of magic from Jonny May late in the game against France, England have created nothing through thier own imagination or ingenuilty. I can't help thinking that The All Blacks would have put 50 points on both sides easily.

Tuilangi disappeared after about 30 minutes, Farrell has no imagination or flair and both scrum halves are on borrowed time. I fear the Welsh will find us out.

The apres match was a very good craic and I have returned home in one piece, but recieved an interesting e-mail from one of our S-Club members who has just had 6 weeks in Australia and New Zealand. He and his wife have decided to instigate a self imposed 3 week isolation period as they have been near to countries which are part of the Corona virus outbreak. This means he will not be with us for the Wales game for fear of being a carrier. It's a very noble gesture and gets them out of baby sitting duty for a while, so we might try that one ourselves.

So we are now long on wales tickets and hotel rooms, somethoing which has never been heard of before.

OAP

Wow, March has just flown by. It started with an almost significant birthday as I reached the ripe old age of 65. I only celebrate when the year ends in zero, but I was coerced into a family do, as much because the grandkids like to blow out the candles.

So, we all sat down in The Refreshment Rooms for a Sunday lunch as luckily my birthday fell on a Sunday. We all had a good time, everybody enjoyed themselves and I am a year older. Tim came up for a few days from London sans children so we were able to have a few drinks as well which was good.

I applied for my pension to the DWP as you are asked to, but nothing has arrived, so I had to call them. They told me some applications had gone missing at about the time I applied. Lucky I rang really as they clearly have no check and balance for these sort of eventualities. The pension is paid in arrears, so I should get it as expected in a day or two.

March has also provided a couple of Six Nations rugby games. We travelled to Paris to see England fail to beat France, and we were at Twickenham for the anti-climatic end game against Ireland. In both cases the matches were the low point of the weekend . We stayed at The Farmers Club in Covent Garden as way of a change for the Ireland game and it was good to escape Twickenham after the match and enjoy a few drinks elsewhere.

Unfortunately we had two Chinese meals, which, coupled with the birthday celebration and a trip to Paris has stalled my weight loss campaign...couple of pounds added on this month!!

The beginning of the golf season has also stalled due to the bad weather, so my scramble to get six qualifying cards into the Virgin Atlantic golf competition and win a goodie bad, has been delayed somewhat.
Hopefully I can get it all done by Monday. There is a trip to Vegas as the prize for the best golfers this season so I must use the golf lesson presents I got wisely!!

Easter has now come and gone. It was a quiet one this year, with a bit of gardening and jovial evenings out to crown a pretty good month.

I have embraced Twitter now so you can follow me here if you want to, although at the moment its not too interesting!!
Just click on the Twitter follow button top right and after that I don't know what happens!!

Boom town rats....

Our Six Nations journey ended on Sunday as England defeated a gallant French side to win the Grand Slam. It was a strange weekend given the game kicked-off at 21:00, and Paris was much quieter than usual as many locals stayed at home not wanting to risk any potential terrorist activity. Little did we know what was to come.

The satisfying thing from the Six Nations perspective was that France at last showed some of their old guile and skill. Given that Wales and Ireland cannot possibly be as bad again next season it should be a very competitive competition. Whether Connor O'Shea can breath life into Italy though remains to be seen.

Hopefully the organisers will see there is no merit Friday night matches or ridiculously timed Saturday or Sunday evening games, and the fans needs may be taken into consideration.

Returning home to the news of the Brussels attacks was not a total surprise. Talk in the French press after the arrest of a key suspect on Friday indicated he was in possession of a contact list, and I suspect one of his lieutenants probably brought forward the attacks for fear of his operatives being arrested before more atrocities could be executed.

We live in difficult times but the French are to be congratulated with their Saturday night organisation. May it continue into the Summer when they host Euro 2016.

Woka woka

We are just packing to move on to San Francisco this morning. We did Penn and Teller, and they were a bit old school. The show was not as slick as they appear on TV, but they had some clever tricks and interspersed the act with their usual humour.
Yesterday we took a helicopter to the Grand Canyon and were surprised when we landed near the bottom for a champagne picnic. I will post some pictures when I find a fast WiFi connection. Our pay as you go is working well but is painfully slow.

I last visited the Canyon with Dodgy after our West coast rugby tour in the late nineties and we drove to the South rim via the Hoover dam. That view gave a better aspect of the size of it all, but being in the gorge showed the power of the water and the scale of the Colorado river compared to the depth of the gorge.

We had a good scoff in the evening, watched the Bellagio water show and caught the Mirage volcanic eruption on the way back.

Only down side was the roulette table bet minimum which was $15 so managed to keep our losses to $30. With the minimum bet it just meant we didn't play too long..... probably no bad thing!

Our newest grandchild arrived Monday just as we were taxiing at Heathrow, so more about her once she has a name, poor thing.

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!

Talking 'bout my Generation

I saw a trailer for a new film last night. Its call 'The Bucket List' and features two old guys working out what they still had to do in life before they popped their clogs. It got me wondering.

I had a list when I was at school identifying bands I wanted to see, and sporting events to go to, and much of that list was successfully ticked off. I got to see The Stones, The Who, Simon and Garfunkel and Led Zep, and went to an England International at Wembley, and the League Cup Final, under whatever guise it was called then.

I never saw Cream, although I have seen the sum of its parts separately since they disbanded, and I have not been to an FA Cup Final as I vowed only to go when Spurs or Argyle actually made it there.

So if I started a new list, what would I put on it?

Well the Cup Final would be a carry over, although I have seen Argyle win at Wembley in the playoffs some years ago, Spurs getting there is a bit out of my hands though, so it would be sensible to include events over which i have some control.

I decided to start learning the piano when I was 40, with a view to being able to go into a pub, lift the lid on the beer stained Joanna and bash out a tune before I was 50. I missed that deadline big time, but am still persevering. I will be able to do it one day.

All golfers want to shoot a score lower than their age, on current form I would need to live into my eighties to do that. It could happen though, check this interesting article out about age expectancy.

Holidays have started to be linked with the bucket list. I want to cruise to Alaska while there is still ice up there, and visit the Indian sub-continent, probably to watch some cricket. Seeing Aussie play in Aus would be good too, although whether they would better the Windies in St Lucia for atmosphere, I am not sure.

I have done an Olympics, and seen the All Blacks in Auckland and attended a Rugby World Cup or two. The kids are all reasonable settled so there is not anything I particularly need to do for them over and above the usual parental bit. It would be good, though, to see a grandchild play or perform on a major stage or sporting arena, something else over which I have no control though.

Culturally, I have done the last night of the Proms a couple of times, but never been to a ballet or opera, Paris or Rome seem good venues to do that in. I have stared in wonder at the Grand Canyon and taken the tram to the top of the Peak in Hong Kong.

So it looks like I need to spend some time getting my top ten together, and then hope I don't find a bucket where a footie should be, in the foreseeable future!

'It was on the line, chalk flew up'.......well actually no it didn't........

I started this blog to record my effort at selling my house, so I guess an update is due. Its still on the market, the price has dropped to reflect the slowdown in the number of viewings, and I am resigned to being its proud owner now into 2008. Whether I do any more work on it is something my work profile will influence, and early signs are that I will be fairly busy between now and Christmas so likely not.

I keep dropping hints at work about being offered a separation package, but the management team just grin inanely, say nice try, and farm me out somewhere else to ply my trade. The share price went up to $119 recently and is now back to about $112, but while the firm is doing OK I can't see any brown envelopes being distributed.

That will, therefore, put my professional sports watcher role on hold as well. Just imagine being in Moscow, Paris and Sao Paulo last week, well perhaps not eh!

F1 is not something I would stay in to watch usually but I was gripped by the drama yesterday, and as Maclaren blew it, so went \Lewis Hamiltons chances of winner the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. I suspect he will get the young sportsman award, and if Ricky Hatton wins in Las Vegas, the major award will be his. Padriag Harrington is from Southern Ireland so I am not sure he qualifies for the top prize, he may have to settle for the International award.

Team of the year is the hardest one to call, have we still got a synchronised swimming team? Talking of which, if one synchronised swimmer drowns, do they all have to?

"I think you've had enough old son......."

I am off to Wembley tonight for the England v Brazil game, and this, together with some incidents over the weekend, got me thinking about why football followers seem to be so much more aggressive than those of other sports.

At the family barbecue I referred to, there were a mixture of young people. Some from Liverpool had gone to school with Kieran at St Mary's, a Christian Brothers school, some who had gone to Merchant Taylors, next door . Others where at Uni (or Poly ;-)) in Liverpool and had come from other parts of the country, and some were work colleagues of Kieran from the Wirral and around. They all mixed extremely well, and people commented on how well mannered they were.

One poor girl had had a hell of a few weeks with boyfriend problems, and she got absolutely trashed. Rather than leave her to fall about the furnishings and smash the ornaments, two of her flat mates took her home, put her to bed and returned later to the party.

Sometime after that one of the St Mary's lads got some abuse from another of the boys there, and the St Mary's lads closed ranks and suggested to one of the rogues friends that it was time he helped him home, which he did. This passed off unnoticed by most people at the party.

It reminded me of my own experiences as an 'old fart' who regularly attends rugby internationals at Twickenham, in Dublin and in Paris. There are usually six of us, and we do like a drink. It is fair to say though, that in the 25 years we have been acting the fool, we have at worst made bus travel between Twickenham and Richmond noisy, and the ride out of Dublin on the Dart a joyous singing occasion. Any activity likely to provoke violence, either physical or verbal, is quickly stamped on by the group, and the offender parked in a corner and told to behave.

Why then is it not the case at football matches that there is not this same self policing? The tribal nature of the supporters seems to add an 'edge' to the whole atmosphere. It can't be associated purely with the Public school, grammar school, secondary school differential outlined yesterday, as many of the perpetrators are from good stock?

Personally I blame the lager, as we all know London Pride has no alcohol in it!!!