Skiathos

At last, holiday. Day two today.
The last week before going on holiday is always really fraught. It seems that there is always a crisis of some sort which just adds to the stress of going away: getting last minute things done, packing, downloading films and podcasts. Sally gets everything else done: sorting out her Mum, tidying everything away, bringing Dom’s things back from his shared h0use. Last week we went to Wimbledon and picked stuff up from Pat’s flat in London ready for him coming home. Busier than ever.

Anyway, somehow, we get away without any alarms. When we get to the airport Sally remembers that we hadn’t left a key for Matt to get in with! Luckily, we only live ten minutes drive from the airport; I jumped in a taxi and went to leave a key. No problems.

Of course there’s the irritation and indignity of security (I always think that they’re closing the door after the horse has bolted). Quick coffee and then on the aeroplane. Three and a half hours later we’re there!
If you haven’t been to Skiathos then you won’t know that its a small Greek island, just off the coast of Evvia, which is itself a big Greek island just off the mainland. You can get a ferry and a bus from Evvia to Athens in a couple of hours, so that should give you some idea of the geography – or I could just give you a map, but intrepid nineteenth century explorers didn’t have maps (or the internet) and had to rely on the powers of description, so why should my life be any easier?
Just at this moment I feel very 1920’s sitting in the shade typing away at yet another opus – if I still drank I could believe myself Papa Hemingway knocking out his 250 word a day on a Caribbean island before going to hunt something, or Scott Fitzgerald writing bad screenplays on the beach at Santa Barbara.

Skiathos is a beautiful island. It has a permanent population of about 6,000 people and is only 15km at its widest point. It’s covered in cool pine forest. Its most famous person is a writer, Alexandros Papadiamantis – never heard of him? Well he’s got a museum and an airport named after him – which seems to put him on a par with John Lennon and JFK, except he wasn’t shot.

Where we are, in the “resort” of Koukounaries it can’t be more than a mile or so north to south. Koukounaries is on the south coast, and the beach we favour is on the north. I say “resort” because Koukounaries consists of one bus stop, two or three hotels, some holiday apartments, four restaurants, two little supermarkets, a car hire place and a beach.

We arrived without incident. The apartment is really nice and has air conditioning (which means I’m a little too cold most of the time I’m indoors). On the first evening, we bought a bit of food and sat at the pool and then went to dinner, watched a film (“Never Let Me Go”, from the book by Kazuo Ishiguro  - recommended) and slept 10 hours!

Yesterday, a walk through the pine forest to Elias Mandraki beach, 5 hours in the sun around lunch and a nap in the café, dinner  (ate too much) another movie (“Festen”, a danish film – the first film I’ve ever seen certified to be compliant with the principles of Dogme 95 – another highly recommended film!).
It seems, however careful you are, you can’t escape sunburn on the first day – this year it’s my left thigh and knee and a bit on the back of my left shoulder. Had  a lot worse: in the olden days sun cream started at factor 2 and went up to 8, maybe 12. Factor 2 must now be illegal, at least you don’t see it on sale anymore, and seems to start at 10 and go up to 60!
So a day in the shade for me and blogging today! So far, so good!

My Left Foot

Those of you expecting a deep and meaningful depiction of the triumph of an indomitable human spirit à la Christy Brown are about to be disappointed. The story of my left foot is quite different.

It started on the day after I had finished the paving. The paving had taken a few weekends and had interfered with my jogging. On Sunday, 8th May I was looking forward to a nice gentle 6 mile run.

The first part of this run takes me up a hill and it’s always like a call to get back to work. I start easily rolling along the first flat 200 yards, then it gets quite steep. Up goes breathing and heart rate and after a couple of hundred yards, I’m breathing heavily and my legs feel short of oxygen. But, as if by magic, but in reality by the wonders of the human body, when I get to the top of the hill, I feel great – breathing deeply and in a steady rhythm for the next five and a half miles. At least, that’s how it usually goes.

Half way up the hill, starting to feel good, my left foot lands on a stone and rolls over, with  a “ckwk”, and it hurt. Despite (or perhaps because of) the swearing a dog walking woman stopped to ask if I was alright.  Residual politeness made me say yes.

I hobbled home.

And sat with my foot up, with ice.

Later, Sally went to play tennis and my foot had swollen so much that I decided to go to the Minor Injuries Unit at Altrincham Hospital. One of the good things about this whole saga is that I’ve been reminded once again of the huge benefit to us all that is the National Health Service. I hobbled in, the nurse said, “You’ve broken your foot, go to X-ray”. The radiologist x-rayed it, I went back to the nurse who put me a tubi-grip on, and gave me some crutches (and instruction) and an appointment at the fracture clinic. All in half-an-hour.

When Sally came home she couldn’t believe that a)  foot was broken and b) I had been to the hospital in the short time that she had been away. See how stoical I am?

Anyway, the next day I could hardly move about at all – just felt really tired. The following day I went to York on two crutches, feeling a total fraud. Little old ladies stand up to give me their seat! People are kind and considerate! And, unexpected bonus, I find that I quite enjoy getting around slowly, being stoical and not wincing.

After a few days I progress to one crutch, and then, after a week to a stick. I tried the “House Method” (stick on same side as gammy leg) and the “Hospital Method” (stick on opposite side from gammy leg). “Hospital Method” easier, if less cool. Still, many enquiries about injury, and many opportunities to praise National Health Service and my own stoicism!

Weeks pass with daily improvement and gradually I dispense with the stick and the tubi-grip, and get back into normal shoes. Then, after about 5 weeks foot suddenly swells up again and feels worse. Back to the Tubi-grip.

Then, the last chapter now, I went back to the Fracture Clinic. After having an x-ray, the doctor told me that the bone hadn’t healed, and never would! What? Never? – No! Never! Cartilage will form (eventually) but I can’t run for at least 3 months, and then only gently. Bummer!

Oh, woe, woe and thrice woe! What a lot of  moaning and self-pity over a foot! Where’s my humanity, my sense of proportion, my maturity, my gratitude? Gone! Fallen down the crack in my fifth metatarsal!

Happily, normality is soon restored and gratitude returns. How could it not? I am wholly healthy with a gammy left foot; my body could be wholly palsied with only a working left foot!

So, Mike, what do you do for a living?

Does everyone have the same problem answering that question as I do? I always witter on about smartcards and eventually say something like, “You know Oyster, in London? I do the same sort of thing only in Yorkshire”. “Oh, that sounds…interesting. I must go and have a word with…”

What I actually do is easy to describe, and not remarkable or unique in any way – I’m trying to make as good a living as I can in the most interesting and fulfilling way possible given my particular attributes, personality and skills, the demands of the market place and the aspirations and needs of my family and me. In short, I do the best I can (as opposed to doing the best that can be done - you have to keep your expectations in check).

How do I do this living making? I get up early, put on a suit, get on a train and go to an office. In this office, I go to meetings, read email, write email, make and receive phone calls, try to communicate what has to be done, try and let people get on with it (no control freakery here – honest!), try to listen, try not to agree with just the last thing I heard, read and approve documents, occasionally make a decision, write documents, do plans, prepare presentations, give presentations, do financial plans and budgets, explain, cajole and argue, occasionally I lose my temper, sometimes we have a laugh, I get stressed and generally try to move things forward, if necessary through sheer bloody-mindedness, sometimes by just playing by the rules. “Moving things forward” usually means hiring someone, getting someone to agree to something, getting someone to understand something, understanding something myself, deciding what to do about something, getting something organised, forecasting something. Very occasionally, it means actually getting something done.

Sometimes I get on a train and go somewhere else (in the olden days I used to drive, but I’m too old for that now, and anyway if you’re on a train you can do all the things that you do in the office (more or less) – with the added pleasure of a nap! And you feel virtuous because you’re not wasting your time and you’re saving the planet all at once). In this somewhere else, I’ll generally do a sub-set of the things I do in the office. I especially like going somewhere else and giving presentations. There’s little I find remotely as stimulating and absorbing as my own “insights” and “thoughts” (“belated realisations” and “hobby-horses”?). Sometimes I get asked back!

Even if I were to say all that (which I don’t), I still wouldn’t feel I’m getting to the nub of the question. It’s missing the point – it doesn’t include the purpose of my job. It might be better if people asked, “what is the purpose of your employer that you achieve by your employment”", but only Mr Spock talks like that! It is, however, a question I can answer, “My employer wishes to design, build, roll-out and transition to operations an integrated, contactless smartcard ticketing scheme, including an interoperable stored travel purse, for the Region of Yorkshire and the Humber. My job is to make that dream come true.”

So there you are, I make dreams come true. Do  you still want to go and talk to someone else?

Paving–how to…

I am generally a stranger to the garden, but one recent sunny, Saturday afternoon I thought it might be nice to help Sally with a bit of weeding. One thing led to another and we started to talk about taking down the old shed that has been at the bottom of the garden since Adam was a lad. But what to put in its place?

“A patio”, Sally agreed.

“Good idea”, I decided, “somewhere to sit in the sunshine”.

See how my mind rushed immediately to thoughts of balmy days, lounging on the patio, cooled by lashings of ice-clinking lemon barley water?

Anyhow, within minutes, I was tearing down the shed (almost literally) with my bare hands. I was motivated by the sunshine and wanting the exercise (no run that day) and I was full of visions of laying the patio and saving money (particularly the money – have you any idea how much paving costs from a proper bloke?). How difficult could paving be, anyway?

The next morning, off to B&Q bright and early: paving slabs, sand, ballast, decorative stone chippings and a rubber mallet, plus some advice from one of the men working there. I could feel success coming on.

In the garden, I decided (with Sally’s “help”) that I would leave the concrete sleepers that had been supporting the shed in place, to provide a level base (error no. 1 (or no. 2, counting deciding to do it in the first place)). I tamped the ground, spread ballast and sand, got it level. I even thought to put in a brick edging to stop it all flowing all over the place under the pressure of the sun-loungers. By the time it got dark, I was ready to lay the paving. A good day’s work; I felt I had earned my dinner.

I should point out that the brick edging was poor and the concrete sleeper base, plus ballast, plus sand made the patio quite high off the ground. Also, I had realised I had only bought about half the required number of paving slabs and far from enough stone chippings. Over the next couple of days Sally obviously gave a good deal of thought to the progress I had made. No doubt she compared the quality my work with the quality she had previously experienced from a professional paving guy. Whatever, on the Tuesday evening, she sacked me! How embarrassing: weighed in the balance and found wanting by my own wife and fired! I was upset, but brave!

To add to the injury (I would say, “to add insult to the injury”, but I couldn’t have been more insulted), a day or two later, just as I was getting used to the idea of being sacked, and looking forward to getting back to doing what I liked (which is mainly messing about and stuff) she summarily re-instated me, giving me “one more chance”! The cheek of the woman!

So, up came the sleepers, the sand and the ballast, and I dug down. I unearthed stuff – broken paving slabs, posts, roots, bricks. I got the ground as flat as I could and whacked it down with a post I had dug up and checked it was level with a spirit level. I pulled up the edging and laid it again (flat and square this time) and carefully laid the paving (including the extra paving) – another couple of days work! Was it OK this time? It was better, but not right.

I took a radical step – I asked for advice and was told to lay the paving on a weak sand and cement mix. After deciphering this advice, I bought some sand and cement, and mixed them and laid the paving. Mixing cement is a very manly thing to do, don’t you think? And edged it with some nice stone chippings. Good? Yes! But…

…there was “just” a bit of additional stuff. So more digging, and removing bushes and replanting them, laying huge, incredibly heavy paving slabs (that had been hiding behind the shed), and moving rocks in the rock garden that had been uncovered, to make an area for storing bins. Oh, and there was a little ramp so that the bins could be wheeled up to their new storage area.

Then there was a bit more edging, more whacking and more stone chippings; and finally, the grouting between the paving slabs (and re-grouting in the old patio where it had come out) and some alpine shrubs and plants for the re-discovered rock garden. Finished at last!

So what do you think? The project cost about £200 and about 5 or 6 days labour. Funnily enough, I actually enjoyed it. I want to build a wall next…

Inheritance Tracks

I heard an interesting idea the other day - Inheritance Tracks. Which are what, you ask? The idea is that they are music tracks which have been handed down to you by a previous generation or tracks that you would like to hand on to the next. I'm not sure what other criteria there are (this was a 30 second slot on the radio), so I'm going to say that the tracks should be precious to you in some way, and they should not be dead obvious (no "Angels" by Robbie Williams; unless, of course you are Robbie Williams or his Mum, in which case I can see that it would be very precious indeed). I don't think there's a set number (unlike "Desert Island Discs").

When I was growing up in the late 60s and early 70s (I know, you'd think I was much younger than that), we didn't really take much notice of what previous generations had been listening to - we  didn't even take much notice of songs that were six months old! Maybe all younger generations are like that, I don't know - I've only been young once! So, there isn't much that I inherited from an older generation. My Mum liked Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett and the Beatles. I thought they were all rubbish.

The inheritance tracks I'd like to pass on are all old now, and there aren't many of them - in truth, I no longer really listen to music. I feel I could or should include something from all the artists I have loved, but there are so many: Leon Russell, Carole King, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Richard Thompson, Sam Cooke, Bob Dylan, Beethoven, Puccinni, Charlie Parker, Miles Davies, Chet Baker, Van Morrison, Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, Eric Clapton, Paul Weller and I could go on; choosing is really hard!

These are the first three that come to mind:

This first one (chronologically at least) would be "Handbags and Gladrags" sung by Chris Farlowe (see the Wikipedia entry for more details about the song's history). Probably I prefer the Rod Stewart version, but Chris Farlowe was first. I remember buying it with a record token I was given for Christmas when I was 11, which was the year I got my first record player, it was my first year at grammar school, and the year I had my appendix out. At the age of 11, I didn't really like it, but I thought it would be cool to like that sort of thing (a bit like, a couple of years later you were supposed to like Monty Python, even though it wasn't funny). I grew to love it (the song, not Monty Python, I just learned to be honest about that), and that sort of rough, R&B, soulful sound has remained a favourite of mine, and always speaks to my heart.

The next one is Elgar's Cello Concerto, and there can only be one version, Jacqueline du Pré's. And it's in my list simply because it's the most beautiful thing I have ever heard; it gives me goose-bumps every time I hear it.

I always like songs of love and loss; so I had to include the dreamy, breathy, soaring "When I'm Old and Wise", sung by Colin Blunstone on the Alan Parsons Album "Eye in the Sky". Definitely non-obvious and precious to me - I hope one day to be old and wise and to look back wistfully on the loves and friendships I've had.

And I bet there are others, but I don't know which I would like to pass on that the next generation hasn't already found! Maybe I'll add more as I think of them

AV and all that

I've decided to vote in favour of AV in the coming referendum; not because I am actually in favour of it, but because the "No" campaign talks such bollocks.

For example, they say that AV is like the third placed person in a race being given the prize - of course it's not like that at all. This "argument" is just an example of the type of sloppy thinking by analogy that I do my best to beat out of people. Analogies are fine to illustrate a point, lend weight to an argument and occasionally give insight into a complex subject. Unfortunately, lazy and cynical people use analogies in place of actual thought, and you can see how easy it is to end up talking nonsense.

Then the Noes say that it is unfair that some people get more than one vote. This is just either a deliberate misrepresentation of the facts or a total lack of understanding of how AV works. In truth it works as if every round of counting started again from scratch, but with the first preference votes of the least popular candidate being discarded and the second preference votes of their supporters being counted instead. The reality is that everyone gets the same number of votes - one for each round of voting.

But perhaps I'm doing the Noes a disservice in thinking that they are cynical and or deliberately misrepresenting the facts; the other "argument" against it that they use is that its too difficult to understand! True for themselves perhaps, but anyone who can understand the complexity of the voting for "X-Factor" or "Strictly Come Dancing" will surely have no trouble ranking the candidates in order of preference. Patronising so-and-sos.

My own objection to AV is based in my view that the purpose of voting is to choose a new government - that is, one that is constituted of new people - every 5 or 10 years. People get fat and lazy and start to believe in their own infallibility if they are in power too long. My fear is that under AV there may be a party (Lib Dems for example), who are permanently in power and become corrupted. Happily, I'm persuaded from reading a few articles on the Internet, that AV is no more proportional the FPTP and my be even more perverse! I feel oddly comforted...

Hello, World!

I wonder how many blogs there are that are called "Mike's Blog"? I should really have tried to be more creative. Perhaps a little less literal. Anyway, I'm here now.

Strange that I should take so long to get round to blogging. My first experience with the Internet was in 1992 - yes, 1992! There weren't even proper web-sites then; it was email, newsgroups and FTP sites. To sign up and use the Internet wasn't straight forward. Here's what I had to do.

First of all, the computer I had was an Amstrad PC clone, with a black and white screen (I think), limited graphics capability (like high lighting, reverse video, one font plus italics). It had 2 x 5.25in floppies and 512k of memory! I upgraded it with a 10MB (yes, MB) hard disk, which cost almost £100 (which would only work if the expansion bay were left open) and a 1440baud modem, which I think also cost about £100 (but I managed to get the company I was working for at the time to pay for that).

So I called Demon Internet (on the phone) and signed up to pay my £10 per month - I was customer number 64. Then I had to set the modem to dial up their server and down load the software (which I think include an TCP/SLIP stack or something similar, a news group reader, an email client and a few tools like FTP, Telnet, whois, ping etc.). Then I had to figure out how to install it all (not too difficult I recall, but I was a lot more technical back then), and then I was off.

Naturally, in those days the main fascination was in newsgroups (some were very rude indeed), looking through the library catalogues of universities, FTPing interesting stuff and pinging computers in Australia! I quickly realised that I could buy books from O'Reilly in California (so cool - I bought Ed Krol's The Whole Internet Guide, which mentioned in passing this new thing called the "World Wide Web" and predicted that it would be a big thing) and chat to people in Russia about them buying second hand computers from the company I worked for. There were lots of technical forums which were really interesting to me in my then job. I was instantly a fan! This will change everything, I told my wife. Yes, I saw the bandwagon coming, it stopped at my front door, I didn't get on and I watched it roll past and on over the hill!