Pass the roasties......

The weekend was dominated by the Chiswick based ' Bedford Park festival'. Now in its 40th year, the festival raises cash for the maintenance and restoration of several churches and other sites in and around the Bedford Park suburb. The suburb is mainly comprised of Norman Shaw built houses and is pretty expensive to live in even by Chis standards.

The festival was opened by Mary Nightingale on Saturday, but we wandered along on Sunday. when we arrived, a children's talent show was under way, and I have to say I blame the parents. Many of the little Nicola, Tristan and Chloe's who performed, did their best, but should have confined their singing to their bedrooms, where, armed with a hairbrush mike and a radio 1 backing track they could bang out their repertoire to their hearts content.

Fair play though to Brenda Edwards, ex of the X-Factor who was one of the judges, she took the stage for half an hour to inspire the little wannabes.

After wandering round the fair, we finally arrived at the tombola stall. Interesting prizes this year. 40 top Chis restaurants (and a few not so top) had been coerced into donating a meal for two as prizes. We had a couple of tickets, but no cigar I am afraid.

Mores the pity as I like a good lunch, particularly on a Sunday. Nothing beats the good company, good wine and large portions of roast food, in an atmosphere filled with the gentle hubbub associated with a room full of people enjoying themselves. You know the lunch is going well when the waiting staff ask you if you would mind moving to the bar while they set up for the evening!

We are a bit stuffed in Chis now as our standard venue, Southey's, closed down a year or so ago. John and Sally are off around the world a few times as they enjoy their well earned retirement. It was the venue for my 50th and did us proud.

The 'better' restaurants in Chis, namely Le Trompette, Sam's and High Road House have tried to fill the void, but nothing really has hit the spot yet. There are many more eateries to try so I am confident one will eventually score big. In the meantime the local hotel restaurant has introduced its own Sunday lunch, and as the hotel hosted big burly rugger players, I would anticipate the portions to be substantial. I feel a trip coming on.

Rockin' all over the world

I played golf on Thursday. Nothing unusual about that you say, and generally you would be right.

I arranged to meet my old mate from work, Rog, as we had a bit of business to conduct. Rog took the Kings shilling from IBM some time ago, lucky bugger, and it is rare these days to catch him in the UK. Catch him I did though, and as we approached the 1st tee at Wyke Green golf club, a member known to Rog, came up, said hello and joined us for a friendly three ball.

Now I had never met Kevin Hurry before, or even seen him much around the club, but it turned out that in the late 80's, early 90's he was a top DJ. So I have googled him. Seems he shared gigs with Paul Oakenfold, who I had heard of, and was part of D.O.P and a big player in Guerilla records. He had to stop DJing on doctors advice, so Rog told me, and now works with his dads business hanging silk wallpaper. A very specialised job by all accounts.

I am no stranger to playing with music celebs, as I had the pleasure of playing with Andrew Ridgley, yes, of Wham fame, in St Enedoc some years ago. I recall how passionate he was about this golf, to the extent that after slicing two consecutive drives into a cow field at the 14th, he proceeded to snap his £200 driver over his knee.

When we ordered him a club sandwich in the bar afterwards and asked him if he wanted it cut in half, he nearly saw the funny side of it.

As an aside, the Ladies section of my golf club is referred to as Dyke Green by other clubs in the area. I can't begin to think why.

Calling a spade a spade

I notice that Big Brother has removed a contestant for using a racist word in conversation with another member of the house.

I have no reason to judge the decision to remove her, but it does raise this whole area of political correctness once again.

I am reminded of Mike Newell, the Luton football manager, indicating the use of a female linesman was , quote, "tokenism - for the politically-correct idiots, we have a problem in this country with political correctness and bringing women into the game is not the way to improve refereeing and officialdom.

In this case had he referred to the situation as positive discrimination, rather than political correctness, he may well have found more support for his tirade.

With regard to language, however, I feel we old 'uns are discriminated against, as many of the words we traditionally used , have been deemed as potentially offensive or been given alternative meanings.......nobody ever sits on a poof anymore, and 'gay day' now represents a festival for the pink pound brigade. I remember getting a serious ticking off from the RFU for referring to the Bank of England rugby team, which was largely populated with South Africans, as Kaffirs. In my day Kaffirs was the term used in the City to refer to Krugerrands, so I thought it quite apt. Apparently the word is now banned in South Africa as it is highly offensive.

It is also interesting that youngsters are regularly inventing new language which is often community or age group specific and is considered part of the natural evolution of communication. The flowery language of the 50's and 60's is now consigned to Wikipedia and other such language repositories.

Plus ca change

Ten more, just ten more.....

I was enchanted by the iridescence of the lichen clinging to the stone built walls on the way into Liverpool, Lime Street yesterday afternoon, on the stretch between the terminus and Edge Hill. The way the ferns battled for a foothold and the slimy green moss-like plants spread endlessly over the rocks was a true example of how nature strives to reclaim anything man made, at the slightest opportunity.

Passing through Edge Hill always brings a smile to my lips. The term 'Edge Hill' in Scouseland is usually a reference to 'coitus interruptus' given it is the stop before the end. I suspect most towns or cities have a similar expression.

They also say that the Liver bird statues atop the Liver building on the pierhead, flap their wings when a virgin passes. I always ensure the girls and I pass a different way to avoid any embarrassment on their or my part!!!

They are in Spain at the moment, on a family holiday, affectionately entitled 'The Clampetts on Tour'. They are at a family oriented all inclusive resort and given my wife Maxines mum and dad, brother and sister, two children and nephews are there, she finds herself daughter, mother, sister and auntie all at the same time. I doubt Elly May had that problem, The Beverly Hillbillies were probably all those things all the time as well as being husband and wife!!. She went sleep walking last night and locked herself out of her room....a likely story!!

My mate Ray found himself sleep texting at the weekend, but that's a story for another day.

....and its good night from him

I am reminded of a sketch by the Two Ronnies, when i saw them live at the palladium in the '70s. it was based on the 6 O'Clock news on a day when nothing happened.......Ronnie Barker as only he could, put the right inflection on the delivery when saying 'the worlds oldest man, Cecil Braithwaite' pause 'is still alive'. You had to be there!

Well today seems a bit like that as far as I am concerned. The only thing of interest was a press cutting i received from the Estate Agent, showing my house as listed in the London Evening Standard. They must be getting a bit frustrated with me at the moment, as usually they expect to sell houses almost as soon as they get to market. They then accept the commission fee and do diddly squat for the money.

I am a great believer of the theory that if the property sells on day 1, its too cheap, and one can always drop the price, but it's difficult to put the price up. So far my agents have printed and photocopied the brochures, then they had to print the glossy version, then put the ad in the local Chiswick paper and now the Standard.

We are still getting viewings so I am happy to sit and wait at the moment until the right offer comes along. For those who know the street, the bigger houses on the other side of the road have started to go for over £1m. Time will tell what mine will end up doing.

Show me the way to go home

I used to think I was a long way from London when I drove past a Morrisons supermarket, although with their takeover of Safeway and the consequent rebranding of the stores, that is no longer the case.

Today I know I am up early when I follow a night bus along Chiswick High Road!! I have volunteered for some client supervision at 05:30 in Hoddesdon in North London, so an early start is required. Trouble is Hoddesdon is one of those pleasant market towns which isn't any more, and there is nowhere open within miles, so caffeine levels are running on empty.

More's the pity as I could do with a boost after the experience of Wembley stadium last night.

First the good news. Door to door it took me 35 minutes to get there, Brazil played some attractive football, the Brazilian women were in good form, and yes, the stadium itself is impressive. It is huge. Bigger than Twickenham, bigger than Croke Park and seems about the same size as Stade Francais, with which is shares a similar shape and feel.

Now the less than good news....Steve McLaren clearly watched a different game to me when he said on the radio this morning that England played as a team and it was a good performance. The side lacked pace and creativity, assets which the Brazil team showed in spades. Smith and Owen were ineffectual, and I hate to say it but Beckham looked a class above. Robinson is awful when handling crosses (or not) and his kicking was poor. Lampard is a waste of space.

The thing, however, which, got my cousin reaching for double Rhodiola, was the journey home. The stadium emptied pretty well but the queues for the various railway stations was painful. There appeared to be no extra trains, there did not seem to be any new developments at the stations which allowed for extra platforms, or indeed wider platforms, and the journey home took nearly two hours. Having taken six years to construct, would it have been too much to ask of Transport for London to have improved the support infrastructure? With Red Ken in charge it is probably asking too much....agggh I feel another rant Blog coming on.....Luckily when I did get back, Morans Hotel bar was still buzzing so I was able to have a couple of glasses of ale before retiring.

I was right about the lager, as there did not seem to be any bitter taps in the bars, and I also observed that footie fans seem to be more follicley challenged that their rugger counterparts. It does, however, seem to be out of choice.

Would I go again? Well to see Argyle or the Spurs definitely. Otherwise if there is no corporate hospitality or helicopter transfer available, I will probably give it a miss.

"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!!!