Wonders of Modern Technology

 

Of all the new wonders of the modern world, I find that some are a step too far or at least ones that I have as yet not seen a reason to take. The internet does have a lot of uses, and I use it as much as anybody both in business and in the pursuit of my sport, hobbies and pastimes. Email is another necessary evil for that I cannot manage without within our antiques transport business and privately. Then the dreaded Facebook, that also has good points and some extremely bad ones. It is the easiest way by far for you keep in touch with friends across the globe and has been the death of the long letters I used to write to friends who have moved to another country or continent; instead of writing 6-8 pages of news of births, deaths and marriages, one can now flip a few words or a photo openly, or in a private message and exchanges are made or can be made in a matter of moments. 

I have held a firm resistance to joining Twitter or Instagram just because it seems never ending and yet another way to waste precious time. Both my husband and I have given in most recently, to WhatsApp, having been pressured by several friends and so far I don’t have any complaints about it. 

And The Winner Is……The fast growing trend of the live streaming to cinemas from major theatre and opera houses. There have been two in the last week or so that I have galloped through the internet to get tickets for. The first being Turandot from Sydney last Thursday and last night a wonderful evening ‘Live’ from the Olivier Theatre in the National Theatre, London. For just a few pounds more than a regular cinema ticket, we sat and watched as the Olivier filled with theatregoers at the same time as our little local cinema filled up. During the pre performance time, there was an interesting interview with director Rufus Norris about this production before the complete performance of The Threepenny Opera that went out live to 2000 cinemas across the world…. 2000! 

This production starred Rory Kinnear as ‘Mack the Knife’ and he was superb in the part and seasoned actor that he is appeared not to slightest bit worried about performing to such a vast audience. Neither Stephen nor I had ever been to the show before which in itself is unbelievable since we are such huge musical and opera fans, that alone made the evening all the more enjoyable. We even have to admit to laughing at the sheer ‘front’ of the directorial theatricality of the many murders within the opera and although the cast do actually speak some of the story, it is still basically still an opera.

 

The twenty minute interval was used for more time with the Rufus Norris and also to talk about what other wonder treats are in store for people for cannot go trotting up to London every other week for these special treats; the time and costs involved cuts those possibilities well down since a night out in town costs and arm and a leg when you add up the train fare, West End tickets, dinner and a hotel. You say goodbye to a lot of money going out to a show.

 

 

Upcoming live broadcasts over this winter from the West End include, No Man’s Land with Ian Mckellen and Patrick Stewart, then Amadeus, Saint Joan with Gemma Arterton and Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler.

 

 

Then there are the repeats; which they call Encore’s, where something previously broadcast live is shown again as a recording and our own little cinema has Michael Bublé on tour and the Opera Norma from the Royal Opera House coming very soon. The one Stephen and I are looking forward to is Miss Saigon on October 16^th. Unlike the new experience of The Threepenny Opera, we have seen Miss Saigon in London at least three times and would not miss this tenth anniversary performance for only £13 for anything.

 

 

Praise be to the modern HD world.

 

 

 

Hero’s of the ITU World Triathlon Championships in Cozumel

With all the TV coverage and the snippets shown on all the news channels, Alistair Brownlee did do something very special that day that was indeed heroic when he abandoned his own excellent race prospects to help his brother Jonny. I think all sports fans around the globe have seen those remarkable few last moments of the ITU World Championships. I could not believe it as I watched and saw Jonny so clearly hitting that invisible wall, his head reeling, his eyes no longer focusing and his legs completely gone to jelly. Sportsmanship like that doesn’t happen that often and it was shocking and emotional in equal measure watching Alistair trying to support a near dead weight and keep his brothers legs moving up to that finish line, those last few metres must have seemed like miles.

 

The race commentators were immediately questioning if it was even allowed to almost carry an athlete to the finish. I bet that discussion goes on a while. Years ago in my second year in triathlon, Steve and I were called before the technical committee after a race in Swindon where I had caught up with Steve on a lapped run course. We had started in different waves but once we had contact we ran together for a while until one of us finished the run and the other went on to complete the course. There had been a complaint because I would win my age group and it was seen to be unfair that Steve was, so they said ‘Pacing’ me. They had checked the results and found that our run times were very close. Well they would be, they always were, we have always trained together and although Steve’s swim has always been better than mine and his bike nearly always better than mine our runs times however, even when we had gone off in different time wave starts were always very similar. That was Phillip Yarde as I recall, who gave us a bit of a dressing down and told us that Steve could not aid me to win my age group.  In the Nice race donkeys years ago Dr. Sarah Springman ran a few yards, near me along the promenade des Angles shouting the usual encouraging battle cry’s then dropped off after a few meters saying that she did not want to get me disqualified by running alongside. Yet in that same race a pair of twin French women did the entire race together, one having waited for the other in transition after the swim. When I mentioned that, since I had placed third behind them in my age group an official looked me straight in the eye and said, “But they are famous in France”. There always used to be a ‘no outside assistance’ rule but I guess if you are famous it is looked upon more kindly. I was invited on to the technical committee myself and went to a number of meetings which took a whole day of my life on each occasion before I decided that it was not for me. The rules have changed over the years and the elite of course have had different rules to age groupers. I won’t waffle on about the rules because my eyes start to glaze over.

 

 

 

The Brownlee brothers will probably take over from Julie Moss and her famous crawl to line in Hawaii  with their emotional finish. They changed the rules to make it illegal to crawl to the finish I think.

 

The race in Cozumel was as we have seen, very hot indeed, everybody among my friends on FB who went has said something along those lines. It was indeed the reason that I did not take the place that I had qualified for on the GBR team, being World Champion in my AG from Chicago, because I know that I am rubbish and a half when it is so hot. It seems like that was a good decision. There have been several occasions when I have suffered badly in the heat. In Pontevedra in north west Spain at the run lap turn around I had shouted for ice as I entered the stadium and they gave me a little poly bag full as I set off for the last lap. I put half a dozen cubes in my hat and one at a time in my mouth and managed to survive to the finish winning my age group after a disastrous bike ride where my gears got stuck and the route was up the mountain and down the mountain twice. Purely because of the heat, I have had a couple of rides back the finish in an ambulance in the past.

 

 

The following is another account of a Canadian athlete sacrificing his own good finish to help a woman on the GBR team who was in trouble because of the hot conditions. It is a message of thanks from the young woman’s father. 

 Samantha Rose here with hero 692 Britton of Canada.

When we met in the grandstand at the men's elite final yesterday, little did we know the pure theatre that would follow with the collapse of Jonathan Brownlee, so close to the finish line and the re-writing of the race script. Earlier in the day, my daughter Samantha had competed in the age-group championship 25-29 yrs. She had had the fastest swim and fastest cycle of any in her group and had a clear lead over the second competitor, her friend and fellow UK athlete Emma Deary, with just 400-500m to the finish line, when the heat took its toll - just as it would on Jonathan Brownlee a few hours later. At this point, a Canadian competitor named Britton, number 692, sacrificed his race time to assist Samantha. She was losing her orientation and having difficulty in standing unaided. Britton supported her and tried to walk her to the finish. When Deary appeared ahead of my daughter at the final roundabout, where I had been watching the race, I knew that something must have gone wrong with my daughter's race and walked down the course to find Britton helping Samantha. I offered to take over her care (I am a medical doctor myself - Samantha is a dentist doctor in the Royal Air force in the UK - as is evident from her running kit). Britton reluctantly lowered her to the ground to finish his race. At the time, we hardly had time to express our thanks to him. Samantha was cooled with water and ice, and shaded from the sun, and after 40-50 minutes, had regained her orientation and sufficient strength to stand unaided. After a few faltering steps along the kerb, she seemed to gain more confidence in her balance and, astonishingly, with 300m to go (and against my advice) she broke into a run and completed the race. That was more drama than I had expected from the race and my immeasurable relief to see Samantha recover was everything for me. For her, the hoped for triumph had disintegrated into disappointment, but we both remain extremely grateful to Mr Britton for sacrificing his race time to assist her. His remarkable selflessness and kindness to my daughter is something I will never forget and I would appreciate it if you would pass this email and photograph on to the Canadian Team Manager so that Mr Britton can receive a more formal expression of our thanks. Team Canada should be proud of this athlete and ambassador for Triathlon and sport in general. Thank you again for offering to pass my thanks on to Team Canada. With best wishes. John Rose

 

 

My husband Stephen with Julie Moss in Hawaii a few years ago. He got very emotional about meeting her.

 

The Strange Affair of the Changing of the Bed

 

 

We all have our funny little ideas, and one of mine is something that my mother in law always laughed at. Mind you she laughed at a whole lot of the things that that I do or rather I should say did. It is getting on for three years since she died after several short stays in hospital as her health went seriously downhill. She had a fair old innings though and was ninety four when she finally did pop her clogs and if she got her way, which she quite often did, she would have joined the great cocktail party in the sky where she will party away forever with never a hangover in sight. She did love a gathering, a few drinks and good company. I am sure that she will be alternating the eternal party, with holding court with all the newcomers at the great heavenly reception ball, all dolled up in a pretty dress, lots of slap on her face and her hair done immaculately and wearing lots of sparkly bling; she could catch up with the word on the street from every newcomer to cross the finish line at the Golden Gates, getting all the passwords right before Saint Peter would let them in.
 

 

Anyway back to one of the things she witnessed me doing that she found strange, if not down right stupid. My dear husband Stephen has to work away from home every now and then, sometimes doing a delivery to France, Germany or Italy and sometimes bringing a load of furniture back either for ourselves as stock or any number of other transporting jobs in our antiques and shipping world. Now the thing Mother found so laughable is that when I know the he will be returning home I always, always change the bedding so that he has a nice set of fresh bed linen to fall into on his home coming. I do not have any regular day when I change the bedding normally; my own mother always did laundry on a Monday and ironing on Tuesday, I wash and iron any day I please,  in fact with all out sports wear I do washing pretty much every day. On many an occasion I would explain the logic to the changing of bedding ritual to her but she always scoffed. When Steve has been away from home moving from hotel to hotel he is climbing into clean bedding every night, so to my mind, should he not have clean linen to come home to? 

 

Actually it was a little unkind to rib me so cruelly about it, because I did all the household laundry and bedding and clothing. When she was still with us (she lived with us for twenty four years, and right next door for another ten years before that), and I was always the washer woman. When it came to the ironing, I did all Steve’s shirts and trousers first and after that, I ironed all of mothers things, then the sheets and pillow cases and lastly my own clothes, so if anything was left un-ironed because I had run out if time, it would only be a shirt or two if mine that was left wrinkled in the cupboard. 
 

Stephen will be home fairy late tonight after being courier to an Australian client of ours who we have known for years and who was driven all over Europe by her dear husband when he was alive, so she prefers to have a driver and for preference Steve, who she knows well and who as a third or maybe even fourth generation antiques dealer is there to talk to about the goods being bought although the lady has firm ideas of her own it is nice to confer sometimes. She will be buying a 40’ container and Steve will have taken her to a handful of standard French Antiques fairs and other regular calls. There will be two trucks coming back full of French furniture. Steve and she left last Thursday and our other driver left on Saturday to meet for the last two fairs once the first truck was almost full. 

 

 

Whilst Steve is away I do my best the shed a few pounds in weight since it is nigh on impossible to diet with Steve around; just being in the same room as him is fattening.

They have been away for six days and I have taken off three pounds on a diet of mainly fruit, plus some eggs, salad and a few nuts. I gave the usual daily hit of chicken, salmon etc. a complete miss on this occasion. It was also a trial to see if I could cut right down on the amount of coffee I drink and I have done well with that only having two coffees per day. Yes, yes, it’s not so much the amount of coffee although that is an issue, as the creamer and honey that I lace it with that is the problem. I do need to lose some weight if I am to continue with my sport. With triathlon you can carry extra weight swimming and on the bike but being heavy when it comes to running is not a great idea, especially at my age; I need to make it easier for myself and not harder, which it is when carrying a spare tyre or two around the middle.

 

 

 

 

Steve is a wonderful cook and gets quite hurt if I don’t eat every scrap of the delicious meals he makes me. All fresh, he shops daily to make sure of that, lots of salad and perfectly times vegetables. That all sound pretty healthy doesn’t it? Not if you add ice cream for dessert though.

 

 

 

 

While the Cats Away

While the Cats Away
The Mice will Play
But a Lazy Day......
Not a Chance!

 

It was 6.55am when I woke up and flew out of bed, I’d overslept by half and hour…. Oh God I was going to be late for swimming. I rushed into the kitchen and put the kettle on, then on glancing at the calendar I saw that today was Sunday and not Monday. Today I had a little longer before leaving home for the Sunday run. I would be meeting my friend Birgit but not at the start of the run. She runs faster than I do and I start at 8.20 am and she would start at 8.30 am as was usual for our ‘Tortoise and Hare’ 10km run that we do most Sundays, meeting somewhere on the run depending of who is feeling on best form that day.

It was blissfully quite in the woods this morning, hardly a sole about after I had overtaken the two pairs of dog walkers at the start of my route. Being alone through the woods is sheer heaven. The only people I saw were a couple of mountain bikers and two separate horse and riders who passed the time of day; I mentioned that the wind was directly from the North this morning which is unusual and she replied that it probably meant winter was on its way. The sky was overcast and as I climbed toward the highest point there was a dark mist ahead and I couldn’t make up my mind if it was a foggy patch or very low cloud; I decided on the second idea. It was laying toward the South Downs Way and I hoped that it wouldn’t rain before I got back. Then not five minutes later I was the other side of the hill and running in sunshine where I saw a beautiful Red Kite just ahead of me and gliding quite low, the russet colour on the birds back glowing in the sun. We have had some very changeable days lately.

 

 

All the way, I had been looking behind me here and there to see if Birgit was catching he yet, but there was no sight of her at all and I was surprised to see her when I was nearly to the bottom of the gallops walking toward me. Once she spotted me she turned downhill the way we go to get back to our cars. Having been on a long trip away visiting her family in Germany and taking a break to show her Mother around Amsterdam visiting art galleries and museums galore, she seemed to have hit the wall and arrived later. We still went into Arundel to our favourite tea rooms and spent a pleasant half hour exchanging news. Poor Birgit was yawning fit to bust as we talked and I hoped that was because she was tired and not because I am a pain in the neck. I had brought my newest CD to lend her because I thought she would like to hear it since it is a new piece of music honouring the wonderful South Downs Way that we spend so much time running and walking on.

 

 

 

On my way home I called in the small local nursery just around the corner from my home and bought a big bag of potting compost and a two dozen winter pansies and promptly went home and planted out the pair of Art Deco style planters that we have placed in front of our newly repaired and painted front door and surround. Our cousin Sally and her husband gave Steve and I a little Bay tree for a present last year and I transplanted that into one of the new planters and a miniature fir tree that I have been growing in the back garden into the other. It is quite a transformation and the front of the house looks respectable once more.

 

I have started one of my mad embroidery projects and put a half a dozen threads into the pair of new jeans that I am giving a unique look to. The madness comes into the embroidery because I very often like to upgrade a plain denim or linen piece of clothing with a few stitches and I just choose a few colours and away I go. I think it is the needle that is magic because I don’t make any plan before I start; Stick the needle in and the stitches choose their own path!

 

 

 

After 45 minutes of that I noticed that the Grand Final of the ITU Triathlon Series women Elites race was on TV, so I downed my needle and threads and put the ironing board up and did battle with the ironing whilst watching the race. Well done Flora Duffy great race tactics kept Gwen Jorgenson from winning the race. Nobody can accuse me of laziness while the hubby is away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feeling pleased with a day well spent.

 

Hector: A Film Review

Hector : An independent British film written and directed by Jake Gavin

 

Being on my own last evening for the second night this week and not having my husband to consider because he is in France working, I was left with my own free choice in the, what to watch before going to bed debate. I selected a film offered on TV and chose it mainly because I saw that Peter Mullan was playing the lead character and I have never seen him turn in a duff performance, he is on my list of reliable trustworthy actors. He was amazing in, ‘The Top of the Lake’ and ‘The Fixer’ in recent years. I had heard nothing about this film. 

The film is about a homeless man, Hector McAdams who makes an annual journey from Glasgow where he and his chums have been sleeping under cardboard boxes, and sets off to London to stay in a Crisis shelter for homeless people in the festive season during the cold, difficult and miserable Christmas period as he had done countless times before so the story tells. This time, he has been to the hospital because of health problems and they send him to make an appointment for further tests and possibly surgery. Of course he does not have an address and is not used to hanging around in one spot all that long and again moves on. 

Wondering if his problems could be terminal, he thinks he should build in time on this the latest of his epic journey’s to get back in touch with his family and friends again; he has not seen them in about sixteen years I gathered and were less than welcoming when he turned up pointing out how cruel he had been to leave them and not let them know where he was of how he was, but had no concerns about why he had left and were just concerned that the possibility that he wanted to be taken in again which they were obviously not prepared to do, now they knew for sure that he was ‘Of no fixed abode’ as they say. 

The film certainly shows how resourceful one can become when survival is a daily battle. The demonstrations of a couple of his improvised cleaning up sessions were gems. He was shown as finding some people who were kind to him and he managed to pick up a few decent free meals in cafes and shelters, and some free hand outs of warm clothing. 

Peter Mullan is quietly breathtaking in his portrayal of this very resourceful man who is managing against strong odds to survive and still be a decent human being, no matter how coarsely he is treated by others. Keith Allen pops up now and again as his friend Jimbo, and the excellent Stephen Tompkinson and Gina Mckee as his deserted family. Sara Soleimani plays a woman whose own life is slipping past her whilst she cares for others. 

Hector makes his journey by endless hitchhiking and long distance walking more often than not in wet and freezing conditions. I’ve heard a lot of people tell me that the homelessness is a choice. Maybe that is true but there has to be a reason that you would make that choice and it’s not been made clear to me yet.  

Beggars 

People seem to ignore beggars on the whole

As they wander past the down town shops

A beggar by a doorway or propping up a wall

How few of us even look’s at them, or stops  

“Have you got any spare change please”,

They ask, holding a cup, a pot, a hat, in place

They can see you are loathed to touch them

That much is written all over your uppity face 
 

The argument against is always the same
They’ll only spend it on drugs or drink

Isn’t that what you say to yourself?

Isn’t that what you deep down think? 

What if, when it comes down to it, it’s true?

What if your whole fifty pence goes in a trice

With the rest he has gleaned that day

And spent on continued ruin against all advice 

Understanding this widely held attitude

Is totally beyond anything in my mind

Don’t tell me you’d choose to be this man

Beg in the street, a bottle in hand to find 

Nobody aims to live that sort of way

Once a life has turned so horribly sour

You don’t choose to smoke dog ends

Or pizza from a waste bin devour 

Is this really what you think is true

Or could it all be heavens simple test?

Help a man or woman get through one day

Are you so much better or he worse than the rest?

 

 

 

 

Turandot on Sydney Harbour.

Puccini’s Turandot on Sydney Harbour. 

This production of Turandot is about as spectacular as a promised spectacle could possibly be, performed on huge stage built out onto Sydney Harbour with the famous Sydney Opera House is the background. Having sat through this opera on my own I had to marvel at the wonderful set with the huge pagoda but found myself wondering why such a building apparently housing just one princess, a thoroughly nasty, evil yet beautiful piece of work, would have such a marvellous modern hydraulic system when the story (utter tosh that it is) is set in ancient china. The humongous fire breathing dragon did not float my boat and my guess is that I have a week’s detention as punishment coming for saying so. With a story line like this the audience must give themselves purely to the art of the display because it is hard to see why, if the Emperor was trying to trade his beautiful daughter Turandot played by the aptly named Dragana Radakovic, off to anybody of Royal blood, why HE, being to all powerful head honcho in those parts, would allow this slip of a thing to demand that any possible suitor must agree to being set three riddles and if they get it wrong…. Oh whoops there goes another head! Was the seed for the Mikado born here I ask because, a young slave girl wanders in with an old, blind, decrepit master and they just bump into a wandering Prince Calaf sung by Riccardo Massi who happens to be the old guys long lost son. Yes, that old chestnut. 

So by the interval I had decided not to try and make any sense of it but just to drink in the set the amazing costumes, wigs, huge cast and glorious voices. It was about as grand as grand opera gets but my head may be the next to roll because I still think that there is actually just the one show stopper aria, Nessun Dorma. There, I said it. 

The value of this tremendous presentation must make me sound a poor little peasant woman but I was glad that I had paid the senior citizen price of £13 in the Windmill Cinema in Littlehampton rather than been stripped of a couple of hundred at the opera house, though I must add that everybody should go to huge opera house at least once in a lifetime. Being myself a pretty much lifelong theatre goer following the blessings of ballet, opera and the dramatic arts. All in all I loved it, lapped it up, every moment, almost drowning in the sheer pleasure of the evening. Apparently, Turandot was banned for many years in China. As the director said in the short interval film of the making of the set that all myth is probably based loosely on something true.

 

 

Work Trip to France Preparations

 

 

The couple of days before Steve has to go away on a work trip are a total nightmare for me. He has had me jumping from job to job, which I hate, because it takes forever to get through work that way. It has been difficult to get other things that needed doing, done also, because no sooner do I get stuck into one thing, than he calls me to do something else. He is also like a bear with a sore head when there is so much to do before he can get away.

 

 

There has also been a degree of the ‘Where’s my’s’. I have packed his suitcase and asked repeatedly if he needs this or that item. The only thing that I have not been able to find are his lightweight green trousers. I have searched everywhere for them and the more they have not come to light the more he wants those particular pants. I have taken out all his trousers; he has fifty or more pairs, and sorted them into type and colour and put them back how he likes them, with the legs over the front of the hanger and the bum part at the back with the point of the crotch facing outwards in the wardrobe. This is a habit he adopted years ago when we moved a meticulously neat Hawaiian man out of his London home. Thankfully he has not taken this man’s other obsession and bought every article of clothing in beige and navy only; two of everything.  I have also sorted out my trouser section in my upstairs wardrobe cupboard in case they were put there by mistake (that would be my mistake of course) we also have work trouser and shirt cupboards downstairs I have taken every item out and put them back again neatly. No light green bags were found. They could still be behind the seat in any of three vehicles since work and decent clothes often go out together on a split kind of work day (Clean/dirty work) or he could have worn them to the pool on a Saturday for the club session, changed into shorts to coach and then gone home in the shorts. My money is on this last thought, he is not a man who comes home without his trousers as a rule. There is also a coffee and tea making bag to sort out as well as the wash bag, vitamins, tubes if this and that etc.

 

 

Worse still in this irritation is when he has asked me to come up to the office to do a few more jobs, I sit down at the computer and then he does not ask me to do anything so all I do is get to look out of the window at the neighbour’s garden over the road. I poke up with that for on average ten minutes and then I leave and go and do other things again. 

He always says that I will have such a peaceful time whilst he is away but that is never the case. It is NEVER the case. I already have instructions to go and do several jobs on different days. He will be on the phone with lists of jobs for me to do from afar. It does in fact make my life messier rather than the ‘Peaceful’ time he referred to.

 

Another game he has had me running around at this evening was a last minute question, “Have we got any Euro’s?” Thankfully that was an easy one because that is something that I operate a strict rule of always putting them in the same place once a trip is completed…. if there are any Euros’ left after a trip that is. This time there were, not a great deal but enough to sneak away for a few quiet coffee moments certainly.

 

 

My only satisfaction is that I have given him a shopping list for France which includes one chore of going into a make-up only shop that I like, called Sephora. He would not admit to his friends that he actually has a loyalty card for the shop, in his name! He is not the slightest bit embarrassed and always gets the girls to help him.