Jury service continued; sick bunny

Non-stop excitement of being a juror continues. Following on from the last post: duly returned to court on Thursday, where we sat for two hours doing nothing before being sent home again. Returned for 10.30am on Friday, where the c. 20 of us were again led into the courtroom, and another 12 were chosen. Somewhat to my surprise – though the process is of course random – my name was called again. We went through the whole swearing-in malarkey again, followed again by judge’s talking to, before, most excitingly, things actually got going. The around 3 hours in total that we were in court on Friday were taken up with the prosecution lawyer giving us a quick crash course for dummies in the general topic of the trial, and then presenting a wad of evidence, which was a good deal more interesting than the general topic had led me to expect. I can, of course, say no more – but it’s probably safe to say that getting away with criminal activity must have been made a good deal more difficult with the advent of mobile phones, cell site technology and automatic number plate recognition.

We were asked to return for 1.45pm on Monday, which 11 out of the 12 of us did – most annoyingly, one juror failed to turn up or to respond to the court’s calls, with the result that the rest of us sat in the jurors’ lounge for two hours before being sent home. She did show up on Tuesday morning – I think the rest of us were hoping that she’d been given a good talking-to, which she may have been, though she appeared not noticeably chastened – though I can’t say I’ve actually heard her utter a word as yet so perhaps she’s taking refuge in silence. I probably shouldn’t mention her name, but her first name is Amber. Probably says it all – amazed she could even find the court building.

After Monday’s time-wasting we had a full (well, four and a half hour) day in the courtroom yesterday listening to five witnesses give their evidence and then be questioned by the defence. Really quite exciting, almost like on the telly – though none of the lawyers has yet leapt up and shouted ‘Objection!’. Also sat through the reading out of 50 pages of interview between the police and one of the defendants. Returned to court this morning where we watched some more CCTV footage and listened to a long statement from HMRC. Back tomorrow morning to hear another witness, I believe.

We've now been warned that the case could continue until some time during the week 4-8 March, so somewhat over the standard two weeks. The OU will only pay me for the first two weeks so now have to find out how to claim the loss of earnings allowance from the courts service.

Managing to use some of my spare time this last couple of weeks to crack on with typing up Mum's letters to Gran from Indonesia from 1978 to 1980. Current one opens with 'You must have been quite worried to hear of the volcano erupting'.

When I came out of the court on Friday afternoon there was a woman outside in the street having a good old eff and blind - a be-wigged and gowned barrister (her defence, presumably) was pleading with her to stop ranting in case a juror came out and heard her. Subsequently realised on perusing last week’s free rag that she was the wife in this case. Certainly she looked a hard-bitten piece of goods. The case sounds pretty tawdry but I was faintly amused at her choice of weaponry – a guitar and a tub of cocoa butter not perhaps being the most obvious things to assault your husband with. There were press outside the court all day on Friday so maybe she was shouting at them.

Had dinner at the Thai Corner on Saturday night to celebrate Claire’s birthday. I had a red curry with beef, which was enjoyable though on seeing the griddled seafood platter Ali had I wished I’d ordered that.

Breakfasted with Ray this morning at Julia’s Meadow. The lovely Mr Julia’s Meadow has a new, larger coffee cup in his repertoire. The coffee continues excellent.

It appears, sadly, that Lola may be ill. Ruth has been concerned for a couple of months about her slight weight loss and a seeming shift in the dominance relations ‘twixt the two bunnies – up until recently Lola has always been dominant (as is apparently the norm among rabbits) but lately this seems to have slipped a bit as she has been seen grooming Harley (previously hardly ever happened) and allowing him access to her cardboard box in the living room which is generally strictly her domain. Lola has also been pulling out the fur on her leg and stomach, and as she has now developed quite a bald patch we took her to the vet again on Friday. The vet didn’t seem to have any definite ideas but did take some blood, which we then had tested at some expense. It appears that her lymphocyte levels are high, which is likely to indicate cancer. We’ve been offered an ultrasound, which would confirm the diagnosis, but as that costs £200 we’re not sure whether we’ll go ahead with this, as the prognosis is unlikely to be good whatever action is taken. Have decided to monitor for the moment – currently she is still eating and seems reasonably alert and not withdrawn, but if that changes then more decisive action may be in order.

Harley does not appear to be responding with much compassion and has taken to aggressively chasing and mounting Lola. Have threatened to pair him with a Jack Russell if anything happens to Lola, but even that thought doesn’t appear to be subduing him. He has also put on quite a bit of weight, in direct contrast to Lola's weight loss. Here he is skulking in the bedroom today looking like a little fat squirrel.

Jury-related rant; religion in the legal process; surreal photos

Reported to Reading Crown Court at 9:00 am on Monday for my stint of jury service. Sat in the jurors’ lounge with about 60 other members of the public, being shown a DVD on ‘Your Role as a Juror’, followed by various other announcements about how to claim expenses etc. We also all had to fill out a form relating to a ‘long case’ starting this week, which could potentially run into a third week – supposedly the form was to weed out people who couldn’t commit to the third week, but actually it offered minimal get-out, being restricted to questions such as ‘Are you expecting to be admitted to hospital as an inpatient within the next three weeks’, etc.

After that, sat around for a few hours before my name was called along with around 20 others. We trooped out to the jury reception desk to be told we were being released for the day, but to return for 1.45pm on Tuesday. Duly did so, where our names were read out again and we were told we’d been assigned to the long case mentioned above. We were taken upstairs by the court clerk and asked to read through a list of names connected with the case and to say if we knew any of them – no one did (or at least no one was saying) so we were led into the courtroom, where we stood huddled nervously in a group and the court clerk shuffled cards with our names on, before reading out 12 names from the pack to step into the jury box. Mine turned up as one of the 12 – seem to be getting lucky with being randomly selected for things; shall expect a EuroMillions win quite soon. Those not selected trooped out, while the hallowed 12 were sworn in (more on that below) and then lectured by the judge about not discussing the case with friends and family, not looking it up on Google etc. Judge then announced that we would break for the day and reconvene for 11am on Wednesday. So we all trooped out again. Impressions so far of the legal process are that it works quite slowly.

In the event, when we returned for 11am today, there turned out to be a delay due to two of the selected jurors having filed notes with the judge that they could not commit to a third week of jury service. When we were eventually re-seated in the courtroom, the judge announced that given the stated circumstances he could not compel the two in question to serve, with the result that the whole jury would have to be disbanded and a new jury selected. Slightly incredulously, we left and filed back downstairs, several of us (me included) muttering tetchily. Sat in the jurors’ lounge for another hour or so, until a new list was read out to form a revised ‘jury in waiting’ for the long case. Hadn’t expected mine to be on it this time, but it was, along with most of those selected the previous time. Then told that again, we were being released for today, but to return for 1.30pm tomorrow. At this rate it’ll go into a fourth week, never mind a third.

Obviously I am not party to the intricacies of the legal process, but several of us were at a loss to understand why they could not have simply selected two replacements from the larger group of c. 20 that had been selected the previous day. Had assumed that was the point of it. How little I know.

Still may not actually end up serving on the case in question, as we won’t know until we go into the courtroom tomorrow which 12 of us will be selected to enter the jury box. Hey ho. Trying to adopt relaxed, philosophical attitude, but with limited success currently. Emailed boss with an update and a few comments on the frustratingness of the process; received cheery reply commiserating but noting that this week's DLHE audit had gone well, which failed to cheer me up as much as it perhaps should have done.

One thing that gave me pause, and that underlines the need for my continued support of the National Secular Society, was the way in which it is evidently still the default expectation that jurors will take an oath on the Bible. The twelve places in the jury box are each laid out with Bibles and a laminated copy of the accompanying oath. You have the right to choose to 'affirm', rather than to take an oath, but you have to tell the jury officer of your choice beforehand, and the court clerk then hands you a special card when it's your turn, along with saying to the judge 'This juror has chosen to affirm' (nothing is said re those who take the oath). True to my humanist principles, I did choose to affirm, as did two others (both young Asians), but the decision makes you stand out, whereas I briefly reflected that perhaps it should be those choosing to clutch a holy book in their sweaty palm who should stand out. Or, better, for a court of law to be entirely free of holy books, and for them to be confined to places of worship and bedside tables. Rant no. 2 over ...

On a less contentious note, Ruth and I met Ray and his friend Dave yesterday for a pleasant breakfast at the Alto Lounge. Ray and Dave had been to Celtic Manor for a couple of days' golf, along with a few others, but evidently the whole thing had been pretty rain-sodden - indeed Ray and Dave had evidently bailed on Sunday's golf and spent the afternoon in the hotel spa instead. Took these two decidedly peculiar pictures - the camera on my phone evidently decided to have a funny moment. They almost look quite artistic.

Tablets; vinyl; Hammer

We begin with the joyous news that bedroom 3 has now been plastered. As it’s now almost four years since the destruction work began, its gradual recovery is almost bringing a tear to my eye. Tasks remaining: painting; getting a blind for the window; replacing the light fitting with something new and cheap; replacing the carpet, again with something new and cheap. Ruth has been starting off her garden leave from HCT by sanding down the woodwork in the room with a cunning little electric sander that she purchased in Homebase the other weekend.

Another Information Office meal out on the 24th, this time at Strada in the Hub. The snow and ice seemed to have put some people off, as we turned out to be a group of half a dozen core enthusiasts. Had a pasta dish with chilli and some sort of sausage.

Put my day at the house with the plasterer on the 25th to good use by purchasing a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, which I briefly attempted to justify as some sort of necessity, but it is in fact simply a delightful expensive toy. After checking availability at John Lewis and PC World, who were both sold out, I gave up and ordered one from Amazon, for next day delivery. It duly arrived, before 1pm as agreed, the following day. Pondered whether one of the reasons for the demise of the high street could be that Amazon kicks the pants off it.

Took my car for a long-overdue clean (inside and out) the other Sunday. Was once again duped by the head man at Nisi into paying extra for the £20 ‘gold service’, but I felt guilty at the level of griminess. He did indeed look slightly hacked off by the time I returned 25 minutes later to pay and collect the car. Given that the car will soon get dirty again given a) necessity of parking under tree at MK flat and b) impending visit to parents’, I took two pictures of it parked outside the house.

Made it to Alison’s house in Spencers Wood last Thursday to discuss Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Alison had amassed some very organised thoughts about the book and had actually made some notes, unusually for our group which prefers to express itself in disorganised random outbursts amid slurping of cakes and wine. I hadn’t been greatly taken with the book – perhaps because of not setting much store by the idea of a comforting afterlife awaiting me – but several of the others appeared to have enjoyed it, except Helen, who, bless her, hates most things.

Drove down to my parents’ house on Friday morning after a brief congratulate/commiserate with Ruth on now being (hopefully temporarily) a woman of leisure. Arrived in time for lunch and spent some time in the afternoon with Dad on some family tree software from www.ancestry.co.uk, trying to figure out the best way to print out a chart of the Irish relatives, as Dad is hoping to get some of them to fill in some gaps. Also spent some time with Mum going through a large pile of vinyl that she had routed out of the sideboard. We listened to bits of a few records, including an old single of ‘This Here’ by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, a first for me but evidently something Mum used to listen to. Here’s a recording on YouTube. Put all of the records on slightly nervously, not having manipulated a turntable in some years – the sound quality was pretty good though, despite a bit of crackling, which just gave them a nice air of authenticity.

We took advantage of some nice weather on Saturday by going for a walk near Cwmyoy, including scaling the Twyn y Gaer hillfort – summit cairn in pic above. Dad pointed out the ‘Cwmyoy slip’ – an old land-slip that resulted in the top part of a hill separating itself and coming to rest some way further down the hill. I had visions of it hurtling dramatically down the hillside burying innocent villagers, but Dad noted that it wouldn’t have moved quite that quickly. Local tradition, apparently, has it that it was caused by a terrible earthquake during Christ's crucifixion. After the walk we called in to the Queen’s Head Inn hoping to get lunch, but discovered that they weren’t serving any on account of the rugby – indeed, they were just switching the match on as we drained our drinks and left. We got lunch instead at The Crown at Longtown, who didn’t have the rugby on.

In the evenings we watched two more films from the substantial Hammer box set that my parents got for Christmas: on night 1, The Witches with Joan Fontaine – OK but I think I dozed off at crucial moments towards the end. On night 2 The Plague of the Zombies – much livelier and actually not bad. Mum emailed me on Monday to say that they had made it a triple on Sunday night with Prehistoric Women, which had apparently been as bad as the title suggested. I think I remember reading on the insert that they had made it in order to re-use the sets and costumes from One Million Years B.C.

Minor piece of drama on the drive back to Milton Keynes on Sunday when I pulled into Cherwell Valley service station intending to get a cup of tea and became aware of smoke billowing from under my car’s bonnet. Parked really quite quickly and turned the engine off; was then not quite sure whether one is supposed to open the bonnet, but had vague (and doubtless over-dramatic) concerns about having face burnt off by a sheet of flame, so called the AA instead. Evidently they had had an operative already in the car park, as an AA man and van appeared at my elbow practically as I was hanging up the phone. Turned out the cap had come off the oil reservoir with the result that pretty much the whole of the engine and the inside of the bonnet was coated in smoking oil. He wiped this off while chatting amiably about Radio 4 and audio books. I had topped up the oil in the week but couldn’t quite believe I had been absent-minded enough to leave the cap off, but the man reckoned that it must have been loose and popped off during the journey. He observed that he’d attended plenty of people who’d done much stupider things to their cars, which I think was supposed to offer me a nugget of comfort.

Birthday; civic duty; snow

A brief summary of post-Christmas activity:

Ruth and I went up to London on 2 January for a walk along the Regent’s Canal from Little Venice. Started with a bite at the Waterside Café then walked for I suppose a couple of miles along canal bank of varying degrees of attractiveness, before arriving at Camden Lock and taking a brief look around the market and surrounding streets. Quite rapidly realised that the whole shebang holds considerably less appeal for me now than it did when I frequented it occasionally in my early 20s. Perhaps some things are best left to the young. We had a quick drink in the World’s End, looking, I think, world-weary, then made our way home.

Celebrated Ruth’s 40th birthday on 3 January by heading to Hungerford to meet several of her relatives for lunch at The Bear. After a limited yet quite stressful liaison with the hotel beforehand over Prosecco and fairy cakes, have decided that I am not cut out to be an events organiser. I got to sit next to Ruth’s mother’s delightful cousin Mary, who is always good value, so that was a plus. The picture is of Gail and Ruth and their teenage cousin Norman, who manfully sat through what must have been a tedious occasion full of much older people – I applaud him for not getting out his mobile half an hour in and starting to text friends, but he’s obviously too well-bred for that. I had booked us in to stay at the Bear overnight, as a birthday present, which was lovely, especially as I got to wallow in a bath while Ruth fiddled with the dodgy TV reception. Despite having had a large lunch we forced ourselves to have dinner in the bar, which was probably a bit unnecessary.

Had another birthday meal on 5 January, this time with friends at the Forbury Hotel’s Cerise restaurant. Expensive, but all agreed food v.g., which compensated. Afterwards, all of us except Claire went on for a nightcap at what is now a wine bar called Valentino’s on Valpy Street (it was previously the restaurant ‘Chronicles’ where we in fact had dinner for my 40th in 2008).

Kicked off a New Year notion of making more effort to make some money out of old stuff by selling a pair of shoes via the OU Noticeboard. The shoes are the kind of style I like but as I don’t really do heels over about an inch, I’d bought them and never worn them. After an absurd series of exchanges with a postroom operative called Vince, who tried persistently to haggle me down on the price (only discovered quite late in our exchanges that he wanted the shoes for his wife; prior to that I’d been adopting an open-minded ‘takes all sorts’ attitude), I eventually sold them to a lovely woman called Jenny, who seemed dead chuffed with them. So a rewarding outcome. Next up is a pair of mirrors – might give eBay a go. Still convinced that it’s going to be the ‘Diana funeral’ issue of OK! lurking in the attic that’s going to make my fortune.

HESA seminar in London on 15 January: went up to town blitheringly early to meet Ruth at Café Central on Old Street for a pre-work emergency summit. Then walked from Old Street to the venue near St James’s Park tube, for my exercise for the day. Judith and I made our way back to Euston after the seminar to barely manage to cram onto a train to MK, which was packed due to earlier cancellations and then moved at a snail’s pace as it had inserted a few extra stops at villages along the way, presumably in deference to the earlier cancellations. Was reminded once again of how I wouldn’t fancy a lengthy daily commute.

Vaguely excited to return home at the weekend recently to open a brown envelope from Her Majesty’s Courts Service and be greeted by the words ‘Jury Summons’. In case there should be any doubt as to what the communication is about, these words appear in a thumping great pink font (see below), followed by the exciting news that you’ve been selected at random from the electoral register to perform an important civic duty. Your employer is obliged to give you the time off to perform jury duty, though they’re not required by law to pay you for it – thankfully, the lovely OU does, at least for the first 10 days. Agreed with boss that deferring it would only mean having to do it at a busier time of year, so as things stand, I shall be reporting to Reading Crown Court on 11 February. Hoa in the office, who did jury service last year, says it involved a lot of hanging about.

On scanning the OU’s ‘Public Commitments Guidance’ I also noted that, should I be elevated to the peerage during my employment, I won’t be required to resign my position with the University. What a relief.

Though I have had a Twitter account for a while, I haven’t up until now ventured onto it much, probably largely through fear of getting hooked. However, the frustration this week of trying to contact T-Mobile, my current mobile broadband provider, to ask some questions about their Fair Usage Allowance (the precise details of which seem to be, one suspects deliberately, shrouded in mystery) led me to send a tweet to their @TMobileUKhelp service (this following an unrewarding phone call to their premium rate phone number, which consisted of being subjected to deafening ‘hold’ music for around 3 minutes before someone in their second line support eventually answered, whereupon my phone credit promptly ran out). As I write it’s five days since my initial tweet; have since followed up with two others. My tweets are threatening to become a squawk.

Snow on Friday led to my, perhaps over-cautiously, opting to stay in MK for the weekend, though the further snowfall on Sunday seemed to validate that decision. Took the bus into CMK on Saturday morning and had a bit of a wander about, including making what may I guess have been my last ever visit to HMV. Bought two DVDs for a tenner (the BBC Pride & Prejudice, plus the more recent Keira Knightley film, as Ray nicked our joint copy of the latter and now won’t be parted from it). Here’s the receipt, just to record the event. Amazing to think how much time when younger I spent browsing around HMV and the Virgin Megastore, though much less in recent years. All hail the cornucopia of online wondrousness that is Amazon – while, obviously, giving it a token slap on the wrist for obliterating high-street media retailers. The latter won’t stop me shopping there though. Pic is of the concrete cows, looking snowy.

Spent pretty much the rest of the weekend holed up in the flat with Series 2 of Sherlock, recently lifted from Ruth’s DVD collection after she succeeded in getting me hooked on it. Repeated viewings definitely assisting with grasping the somewhat convoluted plots. According to this Telegraph piece, the nature of the Holmes/Watson relationship has been the subject of speculation since long before the current BBC version. The piece also quotes the two actors from the BBC version denying that there’s any funny business going on between their characters, though it’s not clear how this sits with Martin Freeman’s earlier comment about Sherlock being the gayest story in the history of television.

After a snowy early morning walk on Monday, making good use of my invaluable snow spikes, I arrived on campus at 08:45 to find the North Spur car park completely empty. A bit funny, I thought. On reaching my office and discovering that the entire corridor was deserted, I became suspicious and checked the staff intranet, to see the message below:

Hadn’t occurred to me to check in with this before leaving home, but I shall be wiser on any future snowy days. All of my colleagues had seemingly either had the presence of mind to check the intranet before leaving home, or had come in earlier and already buggered off. Actually I discovered on Tuesday that quite a few of them are signed up to the OU’s ‘emergency text alert’ service, which notifies staff should campus be closed/be annihilated during the night by nuclear holocaust, etc. I was dimly aware of it but had never got around to signing up. Have done so now, though s*d’s law there probably won’t be another campus closure now.

Christmas; Pomeranians; Twilight musings

Have made the disquieting discovery that the nosey neighbour we have been referring to as Norman for the last four years may in fact be called Kevin Price. The Thames Water contractor who called round a couple of weeks ago noted that the inspection had been prompted by the resident of number 43, one Kevin Price, reporting damp problems at his property. The man we know as Norman lives at number 43, so either we’ve been getting his name wrong, or he has a live-in male housemate. The latter seems improbable so I assume it’s the former. Racking my brains now to try and remember why we thought his name was Norman in the first place.

The Information Office Christmas lunch was held again this year at The Carrington Arms at Moulsoe, a village to the east of Milton Keynes. Information Office Christmas lunches are a sedate affair, with much fizzy pop and going back to work again after a couple of hours, unlike our Progress South Central Christmas lunches where Fay would allow us to get through several bottles of wine and then blow off the afternoon to go shopping. The perks of a small team, perhaps. Ruth’s team at HCT appeared to have the right idea, going out mid-afternoon for a Christmas pizza and descending later into karaoke. She texted me the following morning to say that she hadn’t made it into work and that one member of the group appeared to have gone completely AWOL.

Took Lola to the vets first thing on 22 December, as she appears to have lost some weight over the past couple of months, though seems otherwise well. The vet couldn’t come up with much by way of possible explanation, though did flirt with the idea that being a rescue animal, Lola might have been older than we thought at the time we adopted her, and consequently could now be making it into the older bunny territory and getting a bit sore and arthritic – Steve at Reading Rabbit Rescue seemed sceptical about this idea when we put it to him later in the day. The vet did identify evidence of an over-groomed patch on one of Lola’s legs and suggested that she might have had a sore knee (or whatever the bunny equivalent of a knee is). Lola has been duly dosed with an anti-inflammatory for the past week, but we’ll have to see if it makes any difference. Ruth has also got her some alternative food, at Steve’s suggestion, which she appears to be enjoying.

Met Claire on the evening of the 22nd for a drink in the ex-Hobgoblin (now The Alehouse), where I met a bearded friend of hers whose name I’ve forgotten, but who appeared to have amassed an impressive number of degrees, most recently an LLB with the OU. We talked briefly about the impressiveness of people who do OU degrees while working at actual jobs. Claire appeared to have fallen out with Prezzo, her usual preferred dinner spot, so we ended up having a pleasant dinner at Strada instead.

Left Reading early on Sunday 23rd and managed, unbelievably, to arrive at Mrs Millard’s house in Cheddar in good time, thanks to there being much less traffic than I expected. No evidence of the village being flooded, though apparently Mrs M had been woken a month or so earlier in the middle of the night by the police, telling villagers that they should prepare to evacuate as a nearby river was threatening to burst its banks. In company with her neighbours she decided not to evacuate, and evidently nothing much happened.

Proceeded from Cheddar to Newport to have lunch at Dave and Hazel’s house, in company with Mum, Dad and Hannah, and Hazel’s sister Paula. Had a delicious lunch consisting of a chicken dish prepared by Dave, followed by choice of damson crumble prepared by Mum or some excellently chewy chocolate brownies prepared by Hannah, so a real family effort. Ruth, Hannah and I went into Hay on the morning of Christmas Eve to pick up some outstanding bits and pieces and to have a mooch around in rather damp weather. On the way back we met Mum and Dad for a drink at the newly revamped Bridge Inn in Michaelchurch – the pub has had a chequered history over the past 10 years or so but seems to have been recently taken over by some people who are doing their best to make a go of it.

On Christmas Day we ate a pleasantly moist turkey and in the evening watched the Hammer film The Reptile, not one I'd seen before but part of a Hammer mega-box set Mum and Dad had got for Christmas. It wasn't bad, as these things go, and nice that the 'wife' character (Jennifer Daniel) has a bit of backbone. On Boxing Day Mum, Ruth and I went for an extremely wet walk from Llanfoist along the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, before returning to Michaelchurch for another drink at The Bridge. On the way back to Reading on the 27th we stopped off at Mrs Spence's house in Lambourn for a ham and bubble and squeak lunch. Mrs S's dog Bertie appears to have gained some weight, but apparently he's recently been neutered.

Ruth went creative with Christmas gift tags this year, including this one for me of a Pomeranian, following my outbreak of hysteria over the winner of the Toy Group at Crufts 2012. Pomeranian Belliver Unexpected Dream (‘Dreamer’) has his moments in the spotlight from about the 31 sec point onwards in this YouTube video. On the Pom’s final walkabout, the male commentator abandons dignified commentary and descends into: “It is a ball of fluff, isn’t it? I mean, they’re just so cute”. The judging is at about 42 secs. Look at it go after its win is announced. (The Pom in the gift tag picture, Carripom Zachariah, apparently won Pomeranian of the year 2012 in Scotland.)

Among my Christmas presents this year was this book on the architectural practice Aldington, Craig and Collinge, part of the ‘Twentieth Century Architects’ series. ACC designed some interesting houses and public buildings in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, including the Anderton House in Devon which is one of the buildings now available for upmarket holiday rentals via the Landmark Trust.  For some reason I’d been thinking that ACC also designed the housing development at Old Groveway that I’m currently renting in, but I had remembered this wrongly as this was, according to this entry in Iqbal Aalam’s excellent Flickr photostream, designed by the firm of Phippen, Randall & Parkes. Iqbal has a set on these architects here. Parkes’ obituary from 2008 is of interest and notes that he was responsible for Britain’s first sheltered housing scheme. PRP evidently still exists as a firm and is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2013.

Aldington, Craig and Collinge did do some work in Milton Keynes though, the attractive development near the canal at Woolstone pictured here.

Called in at Ray's on New Year's Eve to deliver him a couple of presents, this bottle of whisky from Dave and a book about canals from Mum, both of which were well received. He is off to Tenerife tomorrow for ten days in the sun.

Some disparaging comments about the Twilight series made at our ex-Progress South Central lunch a week or so ago reminded me of this excellent article a year or so ago in Times Higher Education, in the context of the low status afforded to books and films that are perceived to have a largely female fan base. Though I would hazard a guess that neither of the commentators at our recent lunch had actually read the book (am always amazed at how this doesn’t deter some people from expressing strongly-voiced opinions), my all-female book group, ranging in age from 30 to 60, read Twilight a year or so ago as our monthly book, and almost all enjoyed it (from what I recall the only dissenting voice was Helen’s, who was annoyed not on account of its ‘trivial’ femaleness but on account of the perceived licence taken with traditional vampire canon, evidently a topic of some importance to her).

It’s interesting, though the THE article does not discuss this, that a book’s being aimed at children does not per se afford it a low status, provided that the target audience includes boys. The Harry Potter books are the best current example – adults can fawn over these without embarrassment, but as an adult it’s not really possible to admit to liking the Twilight series without some qualification and/or justifying yourself in some way. Less embarrassing to be caught reading a children’s book, provided a boy might like it too, than to be caught reading a book solely aimed at girls and women. A point to reflect on.

On the subject of Harry Potter: I read Philosopher’s Stone, and quite enjoyed it, but have never felt drawn to read any of the subsequent books. Have seen the first two films, but none beyond that, though Ray assures me they improve – certainly in the first one, of the core trio only Rupert Grint does anything resembling acting. So far I’ve only read the first in the Twilight series, but I may well read the others. Steering clear of the films though after having seen the first one – Stewart is quite good but R-Pattz doesn’t do it for me as Edward, but possibly I’m the wrong age. Perhaps when reading the book, one has more licence to imagine someone really not far from your own age …

Hobbit; unnecessary SFX; first Christmas lunch

Passed this decorated tree in Kents Hill Park last Friday. Cute.

Met Ray in town on Saturday to go and see The Hobbit. Evidently, Part 1 of 3. We had both been surprised and somewhat sceptical beforehand about its being a trilogy, but in the event, really enjoyed it. Rather than being a film of The Hobbit, it’s really Prequel to The Lord of the Rings, Part 1, featuring the events of The Hobbit. Having said that, it’s ace – though it almost certainly does help if you’re a die-hard fan of the franchise (having once watched all three extended edition DVDs back to back in a nine-hour gorge-athon, we can probably count ourselves as two such). The trilogy-ness is discussed in this Guardian article. It is, as one of the critics quoted therein notes, a purist’s delight.

The H was also the first movie I’d seen in 3D. Ray, being more of an old hand at 3D, thought it didn’t work too well. Certainly I didn’t think it added anything, and ideally I’d prefer not to have to sit through a film wearing a pair of special glasses. I was also disconcerted by something hard to place concerning the speed of panning across landscapes and action in some of the shots (created effect similar to being driven too fast over a humpback bridge), and the way the background was out of focus – spent the early part of the movie rubbing my eyes and attempting to clean my 3D glasses. Possibly this could have been due to the high frame rate referred to in the article above, not that I really know what that means.

Ruth and I went over to Ray’s boat in the evening for a casual lasagne dinner and chinwag. Returned the following morning to collect my car and to drive Ray to Marparts in Caversham to buy a new length of exhaust pipe, the exhaust having fallen off his van the previous Friday. I gather that it has since been expertly welded back on by his mate Darren and is now almost good as new.

Took a day’s leave on Monday to meet ex-Progress South Central people for Christmas lunch. This year, we had decided on having it at the eatery on the London Road campus, formerly The Cotton Club but now, following a refurb, called Eat & Drink London Road. Went not expecting much as the food used to be OK at best, but we were pleasantly surprised at the decent quality of the lunch – turkey was dry and uninteresting, as is often its wont, but the rest was pretty good, and there was much exclaiming over the positively al dente sprouts.

Returned to MK later on Monday afternoon, though not before getting my key to the internal garage door stuck fast in the lock – after trying for about 10 minutes to get it out with no luck, had to just leave it and go. Had to advise Ruth that she would have to access the garage, if she needed to, via the back gate and the main garage door – this forgetting that the key to the padlock on the back gate was locked inside the garage. In the event, she evidently had to climb over the back gate, something which I gather caused a certain amount of difficulty, though she appeared to have treated it with more humour than I think I would have done. Fortunately, there were apparently no onlookers.

Winchester; subway intrigue; women's football

Have been forgetting to take a photograph of our new floating shelves in bedroom 2. Although they do enhance the room and look quite good from this sort of angle, they are best not viewed sideways on. Additionally, we ran again into problems with drilling into powdery mortar and not being able to get a good purchase for the fixings, hence the minimal decoration. There’s got to be a way around this, other than resorting to Loctite.


Took a train trip to Winchester on Saturday to visit the Christmas market. Ruth went to college in Winchester (when the now-university was still King Alfred’s College) so has an affection for it; additionally we spent a lovely pre-Christmas day and night there five years ago. The train journey down was enlivened by some Reading fans getting in voice for an away game at Southampton, but luckily we were able to get off after 40 minutes and make our way into the city which was, I guess not surprisingly, heaving with bodies. We managed to snaffle an outside table at Maison Blanc where we had tea and a snack, and then meandered over to the cathedral close to join the queue to go into the Christmas market. Queue luckily moved fairly quickly, but we were obliged to shuffle round the stalls at a snail’s pace due to the mass of humanity. I restricted my purchases to two small tree decorations; I don’t think Ruth bought anything at the market but did buy a dress in Hobbs on the way there.

After having our fill of the market, we briefly considered looking round the cathedral until we discovered it’s now charging £6.50 entrance fee (subsequently mentioned this to Mum, who was suitably appalled), so went for a walk instead to use up the remaining daylight, after which we crammed into the William Walker for a couple of drinks before proceeding to the Old Vine, where Ruth had booked a table for an early dinner. We spent a night at the Old Vine on the 2007 trip mentioned above – lovely room and food and a great position overlooking the cathedral.

Quite excited to learn from the latest issue of Reading Station News (a publication introduced to keep passengers up-to-date vis-à-vis ‘the exciting changes ahead’ as Reading’s railway interchange and station undergoes a major refurb) that a formerly closed subway is to be temporarily re-opened while the footbridge linking the north entrance multi-storey car park with the station is removed early in the new year, pending the opening of a splendid new passenger bridge a bit further along. Most of the network of subway under the station, which pre-dates the 80s-built footbridge by many years, has been out of use for some time – the official reason is probably security concerns, but actually it’s hard to see a good reason. I remember in my young day being intrigued while walking through the subway under Station Road and coming up by Thames Tower (a route that’s been closed for some years) to see a passageway mysteriously stretching off to the right, that I never went down – I think it must have been the passage that linked the railway station with the long-disused bus station, as I believe there is one, though I don’t remember ever using it. I’m sure I remember reading a while ago in one of the pages on the Reading Forum that there are supposed to be a whole network of subways below the level of the station and Station Road. Don’t know whether that’s true or not, but an intriguing thought. Anyway, apparently the aforementioned stretch leading from the Caversham side is to be “completely refurbished and re-lit”. How cute. I must remember to take a trip down it.


Some old photos of the station here. In case I don’t get another photo of the current footbridge before it’s demolished, here’s a picture of Ruth in it.

We had a visit from Dave, Hazel and Nia on Sunday morning, en route to a lunch date in Newbury and also, extremely thriftily, to collect some eBay-purchased sanitaryware from an address in Tilehurst. Nia ate some of my shortbread and got a bit of a stroke of Harley's head. In the afternoon we walked up to St Andrew's Hall on Albert Road for Caversham Artists' Christmas Gala, though we didn't spend long there - after the market the previous day I'd really had my fill of decorative glassware, watercolours etc. Caversham does seem to have a thriving community of artists, seemingly largely ladies - or, as I prefer to put it, Ladies Who Don't Have to Work.

Once back from the gala, we decorated one of my small Christmas trees, over a glass of sherry - a surprising whim but one I felt I should indulge.

Recently read Marie-Claire Carlyle’s How to Become a Money Magnet, in one of my sporadic forays into self-help books. An OK read; the usual combination of the odd helpful thought/tip nestled among layers of anodyne padding. I was most amused by Marie-Claire’s credentials as given in the ‘About the Author’ section at the beginning of the book: not only is she a DipLCH and FSSA, but is also an accredited Space Clearer. And she has taught cosmic ordering.

We had a card through the door a week or so ago from Thames Water headed ‘You may have a leak – call this number’, or something similarly potentially alarming. Ruth duly stayed in on Monday morning for visit from TW contractor, who confirmed that the leak is not on our property - good news, though the bad news is that as five houses apparently share the same external stopcock, we could be liable for the not inconsiderable leak which is likely to be at number 45, a tenanted property occupied (we think) by Latvians in possession of an extremely smelly gas barbecue. Apparently number 43 is having damp issues, though according to the TW man, the owner of number 45 is reluctant to engage with the problem, so not sure what's going to happen there. We've decided to keep quiet unless/until we're actually presented with a bill.

Have been occupying myself during the week in Milton Keynes by watching a number of the fascinating OU TV programmes that are available on DVD from the OU library. Last week an interesting programme on Queen Victoria’s early life; this week was the turn of ‘Women’s football’, part of the ‘Nation on film’ series. Partly about women’s football, partly focusing on early cinematography, the film focused on Dick, Kerr’s Eleven, a women’s football team comprised initially of factory workers from Preston who formed a team to play matches to raise money for injured WWI soldiers. By all accounts they were amazingly successful and really drew crowds – the record seems to have been a crowd of 53,000 at Goodison Park for a match on Boxing Day 1920, apparently much larger than anything the women’s game draws today. In 1921, women’s football teams were banned by the FA from using FA grounds, a ban which was not lifted until the 1970s and seems to have done considerable damage to the women’s game. The argument put forward in the documentary seems to be that the women were victims of their own success: the women’s game was rapidly expanding at the time, Dick Kerr’s team had raised £50,000 for charity (about 1.5 million in today’s money) at the time of the ban and regularly drew large crowds, drawing potential cost and support away from the FA and the men’s game. Whatever the reason, it does seem a bit mean.

Amazingly beautiful frost this morning - made myself late stopping to take pictures.