Propaganda; cocktail bar inadequacy; job applications

Went up to London on the 7th to the Propaganda: Power and Persuasion exhibition at the British Library. Interesting, though very crowded – as it closed yesterday, the day would have been one of its final Saturdays. Ruth bought a book and I bought a postcard of Chairman Mao striding across hilltops to stir up revolution among the masses. We had tea afterwards in the first floor café behind the King’s Library Tower.

Afterwards we walked down via Bloomsbury to Soho, where we paid a visit to Prowler and bought a few DVDs. Ruth did ponder what our ability to go into Prowler and emerge armed only with documentaries says about us (as it’s not the first time) and also appeared to be having a fit of conscience as to whether the presence of women – particularly in the ‘back room’ – might be a tad unsettling for any older chaps in there. Possibly, I suppose – we did venture briefly into the back room, which stocks DVDs of a somewhat more explicit variety, but from the glut of flesh on display on the covers it was impossible to make a choice as to which might have the most artistic merit, so we passed on those. Aside from the couple of documentaries we left with, I picked up a copy of the Canadian family comedy Breakfast with Scot, which is an enjoyable piece of fluff, if only because the two male leads are excessively easy on the eye.

Finished our afternoon with a visit to the cocktail bar opposite Comptons, whose name I’ve forgotten – Ruth dutifully had a cocktail, at vast expense, but I decided I was more in the mood for a cold beer, and was surprised at having to trail right down to the bottom of the menu, to where it said, in small print, something along the lines of: ‘Beers (generic) - £3.95’. As we were surrounded on all sides by men drinking cocktails, Ruth pointed out that this section might as well have been headed ‘For the lesbians’, and chided me for fulfilling stereotypes. As I don’t consider I make a point of fulfilling these, I stand by my decision – though my Peroni was inadequately chilled, quite possibly deliberately.

Had two men round on the Sunday to give us quotes for two new windows for the rear extension, one a salesman-type from Anglian, and the other a straighter-talking chap from local(ish) company Academy. We suspect the local chap is going to be cheaper, but are waiting to see.

Spent all day last Saturday preparing a job application, which may or may not come to anything, and had dinner with Ruth at the River Spice in the evening. On Sunday we went to John Lewis for new hand towels, as we're a bit short partly because Ruth elected to bury Lola in one of mine, and Ruth bought a new bedside lamp. She carted this home while I went to visit the Polish Catholic church on Watlington Street, which was open for visitors as part of the Heritage Open Days weekend. Spent about 20 minutes there before going a short way down the road to the Lyndhurst, where I spent a couple of hours with Claire discussing a job she wants to go for.

Walking home I spotted this 'For Sale' sign outside HMP Reading, presumably a member of the public's comment on the prison's impending closure, announced earlier this month.

B-movie; scaffolding; job hunt

Ruth and I amused ourselves at the weekend by watching a videotaped copy of the 1950s movie From Hell It Came, which one of the family taped off the TV at my parents' place some years back. I had thought Hannah had appropriated the tape, but Mum and Dad turned it up while clearing out their attics. Couldn't resist the opportunity for a second viewing as it is quite ridiculous.

Had booked Monday morning as leave so went for an early walk, part of my half-arsed attempt at an exercise routine, then met Ray at Julia's Meadow for breakfast. Here's a photo I took of officially the best coffee in Reading, while waiting for Ray to turn up. He had just returned from another 'camping' weekend in Woolacombe with Emma, following the partial conversion of the back of his van into a rough-and-ready camper. Am still deriving considerable amusement from this, though I detect faint affront on Ray's side.

Arrived back at Old Groveway mid-morning to discover a man on the back patio erecting scaffolding. Somewhat surprised, we had a brief conversation before I firmly drew all the curtains (floor-to-ceiling windows on both floors can have their down sides). I arrived at work to an email from my landlord, timed, suspiciously, only about 15 minutes earlier, apologising for the scaffolding and claiming that he hadn't known in advance that it was going to be necessary. As I had heard the scaffolder on the phone to him shortly before leaving, I suspected that the conversation had included something along the lines of "your tenant don't look too happy, mate". The purpose of the scaffolding is to replace the fascia just above the living room window, as part of this appears to have rotted. I had assumed that this task could have been achieved with a long ladder rather than scaffolding, but evidently not. The original wooden fascia is apparently being replaced with a length of uPVC, which is probably understandable but a bit of a shame, as this development must have originally had an attractive coherent look when viewed from the rear. Some of the properties have retained their wooden windows, but several, including mine, have had theirs replaced with white uPVC. It's a travesty. Obviously, when I win EuroMillions, I'll buy the whole development and restore it to its original glory (assuming I win enough to make the necessary outlay mere small change).

Job-hunting now on a weekly basis, both at selected institutions and at www.jobs.ac.uk. Seen a few possibilities, though annoyingly, several of them have been at institutions in East Anglia, as jobs.ac.uk conflates this into its ‘South East England’ category which is, obviously, entirely wrong. Interesting job titles noted during today’s search included Slaughterman (at the University of Bristol – unsure what department) and Heavy Duty Cleaner, which sounds, if anything, even less pleasant.

RIP Lola; final visit to Annedd Bach; assorted news items

Our bunny Lola, the lop with the adorably soft fluffy coat, is sadly no more. She was off her food for a couple of days last week before Ruth took her to the vets on Thursday and received various meds to dose her with. We took her back on Friday, where both the vet and Ruth noted that she seemed brighter. Ruth refused a blood sample or to have her admitted, on the grounds that both would cause her considerable stress for probably little gain, but we did agree to her being taken behind the scenes to have a small bag of fluids inserted just under her skin, apparently, so we were assured, a common enough procedure when an animal needs re-hydrating. After this, and after waiting some time for some additional antibiotic medication to be dispensed, we took her home, where she immediately seemed ill and floppy. Ruth phoned the vets, to be told that the fluid bag can have this effect, and indeed can also often slip out of position (thanks for warning us beforehand). Lola managed to hop into the living room and took up her favourite position under the coffee table; Ruth phoned Reading Rabbit Rescue to update them on boarding plans for the weekend, but Lola died during the phone call. Heart attack? Perhaps. I spoke myself to the lovely Sandra later that evening to finalise arrangements, and she observed that that was the first time she’d been present at a death ‘on air’. Ruth buried Lola in the garden, quite near the green cone. The sedum planted on top of Jake has done amazingly well, so perhaps a suitable plant will have to be chosen for the spot.

Drove down on Saturday for what will have been my final visit to Annedd Bach, my parents’ home since 1996, as contracts were exchanged this morning on the sale and on purchase of their new property in Abergavenny. We went for a poke around Abergavenny on the Sunday, including lunch at the Hen & Chickens on Flannel Street, which I rather like but the others seemed less than enthused by the admittedly somewhat discordant live music going on in the pub car park. True to tradition, we managed to have a final barbecue on Sunday night. Here’s Dad next to some smoke, and a shot of my parents in their porch. I did the interminably dull three-hour drive back to Milton Keynes on Monday morning, while Mum and Dad dropped Ruth at Newport station on their way to see Dave.

Have lived the dream this month with a couple of dinners at Wetherspoons, the first at The Back of Beyond in Reading with Claire, chosen partly because it sells real ale and partly because it’s the only town centre venue with a river terrace. It’s also marginally less frequented by seedy drunks than Reading’s other two branches of JDW, The Monks’ Retreat and The Hope Tap. We had in fact intended to have a drink or two and then repair across the road to the Warwick, which now does Thai, but after a couple of beers I get a shameful urge to slum it with chips, so we ended up staying at BoBs for the rest of the evening. Followed this up in MK last week with Curry Club at the large JDW on Midsummer Boulevard (doesn’t appear to have a name attached) with Matt, Rebecca, Guy and Susan from work. Wetherspoons was offset with a civilised posh dinner with Ruth at the London Street Brasserie on 17 August. I hadn’t been to LSB for quite a while but the food is still very nice and it’s evidently found its niche, quite possibly partly as a ‘somewhere to take your parents’ venue for students.

Recent local Reading news includes the news that the campaigners for restoration of the King’s Meadow Baths, a Victorian lido next to the Thames near Reading Bridge, have finally abandoned their fight. While I think it will be sad if the building is demolished, trying to get it restored as an outdoor swimming pool always seemed to be a hopeless endeavour – and I’ve seen comments in the paper from older residents of the town pointing out that dwindling use of the baths was part of what led to their closure in the first place (they’ve been closed since the mid-1970s). Evidently the council had given the King’s Meadow Campaign a set period of time to raise the (presumably considerable) funding necessary to preserve and restore the building, but it doesn’t look from the recent news article as though they managed to raise even a fraction of what this must have been. Having said that, RBC’s seemingly different treatment of the Central Club, raised by several commenters on the above article, does seem a bit unfair. Better use of the money IMHO would be to restore the (when I last used it, extremely dilapidated) 1970s Central Pool on Battle Street, an excellent indoor municipal swimming facility of a type unlikely to be built again. That’s pretty unlikely though, due to a) the fact that I think the land is earmarked for part of the Chatham Place project; b) current collective national hatred of anything built in the 1960s or 1970s – no way the poor Central is going to attract a campaign group. I quite like the Council’s plan for a footbridge over the river between the two bridges though, and the restoration of the poor little pavilion in Christchurch Meadows as a café, so hopefully those will go ahead.

Snipped this from the frequently telling ‘Most Popular’ section on the homepage of BBC News on 22 August – Bradley Manning’s decision to become Chelsea Manning occupies the top spot, but close behind it in second place was the news that Carlisle Castle has been recreated by a team of volunteers armed with custard creams. And it’s not as though this last week has been a slow news week. Misuse of terror laws and gross infringement of civil liberties, anyone?

A couple of amusing items recently from the OU noticeboard. Re the first: one hopes the poor chap did find his falsies, as I understand they aren’t cheap. Re the second: flippin’ nutcase.

Wednesday 7 August 2013

Highlights of the past few blog-free months:

Electrical work in house
Had a second batch of electrical work done in the house recently, this time by local sparky Chris Catt of Compass Electrical, whom we located via Round and About. This included having some additional sockets installed in the living room, necessary since Ruth’s re-locating of the TV; spotlights installed in the kitchen and hallway, and a pendant light installed in the dining room. The latter was an affordable design from John Lewis that I had liked and that, in the surroundings of a brightly lit shop floor, had appeared to emit an acceptable amount of light – however, once installed, it doesn’t light the room anything like as much as I had hoped. Possibly a teensy flaw in the design, or possibly I should have bought more than one. The type of light it provides would be quite suitable for late-night poker games, but we don’t host many of those.

Trip to Bristol, May
Took myself down to Bristol for a couple of nights in May for reasons that seemed well-defined at the time, involving awareness of needing to look for next job move and a desire to do some sensible research this time on places I might actually not mind relocating to, assuming I can’t turn up something within daily commuting distance of Reading. Booked myself into the Premier Inn (naturally) at Filton, this being the one with the cheapest deal on – on arrival I could see why as it’s in dispiriting surroundings in a low-budget retail park. Spent the Thursday afternoon and the Friday variously walking and bussing around, and visited Hannah in the studio flat she is currently occupying in Buchanans Wharf.   

Arts Trail follow-up, Sunday 19 May
Took a walk around Caversham Heights to get heart moving etc and visited one final property on the Caversham Arts Trail, this one in Ridge Hall Close where we viewed Glenda Hemken’s slightly odd paintings. There’s some detail here on the Reading Forum about Ridge Hall, the house that was apparently demolished around 1970 to make way for the new houses. No pics, though, which is a shame. Could go to the library’s local history section and look for one, but probably won't get around to it.  

Visit from Mum
Visit from Mum at the end of May. On the first afternoon we went up to Whiteknights partly to purchase kimchi from the Korean shop and partly to visit the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, as I’d never visited it while a student and thought it might provide a focus for an afternoon. It’s housed within Reading’s Classics department (not sure how it still manages to have one of these) and I had always assumed that it consisted of a classroom containing a few half-heartedly arranged urns, but it’s actually a bit more impressive than this – indeed, a proper little museum.On the Saturday we went up to Kensal Green Cemetery for a nose around, starting with the Sean Smith photography exhibition in the Dissenters’ Chapel. Initially this appeared to be locked up but a young man eventually let us in, seeming a bit surprised at the exhibition – titled ‘On the Margins’ – actually having any visitors. We were the only other people there, though as the photographs were largely of bloody corpses/war zones/disaffected people on sink estates, it perhaps wasn’t going to have mainstream appeal. The cemetery itself has an impressive collection of enormous tombs and a long list of ‘notable burials’, though we kept to a stroll along the main thoroughfare rather than hunting for specific graves. Dad apparently has a relative buried in the Catholic cemetery at the north-western end but we didn’t venture in there, as Mum decided it was something for the two of them to do at a later date.

In readiness for the weekend I had been out to Argos to purchase a new airbed, as the quite expensive ‘Aerobed’ I purchased a few years ago disappointingly seems to have sprung a bit of a leak. Ended up purchasing a double-height black monster that took forever to inflate. Here’s Mum looking slightly intimidated by it.

Random recent films watched

Frankenweenie
Ruth’s choice from LoveFilm. Sparky lives, Sparky dies, Sparky lives. FFS.  

No Sex Please, We’re British
Embarrassingly, my choice. Just felt I should expand my knowledge of old-fashioned humorous British cinematic romps. Made in 1973, it was the film of a long-running stage show; I’ve no idea how the film compared to the stage version. The lead role of chief cashier Brian Runnicles was originally played by Michael Crawford in the stage show, and later, apparently, by David Jason (and probably others). The film version stars Ronnie Corbett (Crawford apparently turned it down). The films is moderately tedious but an OK way to pass an hour or so, and Ian Ogilvy and Susan Penhaligon are both easy on the eye as the young assistant bank manager and his new bride. The level of shock and outrage apparently surrounding a few dirty postcards (and subsequently books) is hard to fathom today – indeed, surely this was a bit anachronistic even for the 1970s? Perhaps not; it’s not as though I can remember. The stage show played in the West End for sixteen years, so somebody must have liked it.  

Berberian Sound Studio
Ruth’s choice again, but more interesting than F. Weenie. Terribly sad bit about the chiffchaffs though.

Star Trek
JJ Abrams’ 2009 version; watched to fill in the gap after having seen Into Darkness recently. Definitely V.G. – and it’s a nice touch that the featured romantic relationship is between Uhura and Spock. Indeed, I don’t think Kirk gets a snog throughout the entire film. Hurrah for parallel universes.  

Week at Annedd Bach in June
Spent a few days at my parents’ house in June, house-sitting while they had a short break away on the Sussex coast. As Annedd Bach is now on the market (in fact now SSTC at time of writing), I was keen to make time for a few days’ visit. Spent a quiet first couple of days as Ruth wasn’t able to join me until the Thursday evening; occupied myself in going out for a bike ride on my new irritating bike (see next section) which developed a flat tyre on Day 2, and going through some financial bumf I had taken with me. Mum’s page or so of written notes/instructions included the somewhat disconcerting “If Emrys dies, put him in a binbag in the freezer”. Luckily he contrived to remain alive for the duration of my visit. My parents returned on the Friday and we went over to Dave and Hazel’s for a few hours on the Saturday for Dad to assist Dave doing things with plasterboard. Mum and I took Nia for a stroll around the nearby park, which was quite pleasant, though Nia slept pretty much the whole time.

New bike irritations
Partly encouraged by Ray, who remains disturbingly obsessed with cycling in addition to enquiring regularly after my obesity levels (a greater frankness has crept into our relationship since separating), I recently purchased an additional bicycle to keep at the house, with a view to being able to cycle on weekend mornings as well as during the week. Went for the Raleigh Alana Hybrid bike from Halfords, as a relatively cheap utilitarian-looking little number. Duly collected it from Halfords in Milton Keynes and managed after a good deal of struggling to get it into my car for transport back to Reading; it is lighter than my other bike but I’m guessing no adult-sized bike is particularly amenable to being stuffed into the back of a Ford Fiesta. Took it out for one ride at my parents’ house the following week (see previous) after which it developed a flat tyre. Assured by Mum that no one she knows mends their own punctures any more, I took it in to A W Cycles on the Henley Road, a local specialist bike shop within wheeling distance of the house (and where, moreover, Orlando Bloom was spotted a couple of years ago). I took it in to be greeted with “That’s been built wrong” from the none-too-cheery bloke manning the workshop reception, and left it with assurances that they’d fix everything else wrong with it in addition to mending the flat. Despite having been assured on the phone that it would be a half day job, I eventually got it back several days later, with its problems supposedly fixed but with the saddle altered to the wrong height and with one set of brakes touching the wheel. Should probably have just taken it straight back and asked them to fix it, but was insufficiently assertive to do this, with the result that it’s been languishing in the garage for the best part of a month.

As of this Monday, it is possibly now fixed, as Ray came round for coffee and a bacon sandwich on Monday morning and tinkered with it a bit. I now have to try it out again next weekend, when it will probably develop yet another problem.  

Continuing abuse of Teddy by Ruth’s bear Fred
Another narrow escape for Teddy on 10 June when I found him stuffed into the bedroom fireplace along with paper and matches. He was, obviously, snatched clear once I obtained this photographic evidence.  

Harley operation
Took Harley to the vet about a month ago as Ruth was concerned re an apparent fall-off in his appetite. We were quickly informed that the problem was his teeth, which apparently had grown back again to monstrous proportions and were ulcerating the inside of his mouth, necessitating another operation for rasping, following the one he had a couple of years ago. They were able to do this the same day and we returned late afternoon to collect him, to be barraged by gush from one of the nurses re what a cute little thing he is, and a mild lecture from the operating vet regarding the state his teeth had got into. Ruth is still mad about this and at Harley for playing up the pathetic little bunny angle with the veterinary staff. True to form, not long after the operation he was back to his usual self, and Ruth abandoned giving him his medication after a few days when he slashed her across the stomach leaving a scar that looks like a somewhat hamfisted appendix removal. He seems fine. Evidently we will be having to get his teeth checked more regularly in future though.

New TV
My old Beko TV is now no more, having eventually deteriorated to a point where it was necessary to switch it on around 30 minutes before wanting to actually watch it, as it would start out each time by just showing you a blank screen with a line across it, for an increasingly long period. Setting up the new Samsung Smart TV took some time, as we had elected not to pay John Lewis to do this for us (though we did pay them to take away the Beko) and had failed to realise the necessity for an HDMI cable, then once we’d obtained one of these, realised that our Virgin Media box didn’t have anywhere to plug it in to, so Ruth had to obtain a more up-to-date model from Virgin Media, an arrangement that seems to have resulted in us signing up for another year’s contract. The new TV is dead nice though and in theory does all sorts of clever things including allowing you to access the internet, not that either of us has worked out how to do that yet. Here’s a farewell picture of me with the Beko.  


Redemption of Bedroom 3
Bedroom 3 is now carpeted, with pretty much the cheapest carpet CarpetRight do. And it has a new wooden blind. My reaction is best summed up by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir here.  

Oxford interview, 23 July
Went to Oxford on 23 July for an (as it turned out unsuccessful) interview for a Planning Officer post in the University of Oxford’s University Administration and Services. Around 20 minutes before the interview, as I was setting out to walk to the venue from the cafe where I'd been lurking, the heavens opened in a freak downpour that actually seemed to manage to turn the streets into lakes within a matter of minutes. There was no time to take shelter without being late for the interview, so I was forced to turn up looking like a drowned rat, spend 40 minutes sitting in an open-plan office working through a series of tests, and then a further c. 40 minutes being interviewed, while trying to rise above concern for appearance. I was asked more than once whether I needed to go and dry off, but as it was more than could be remedied with a couple of paper towels, I didn’t bother. Emerged from the interview into, perversely, bright sunlight. Went for a croque monsieur at Patisserie Valerie and then wandered through a bit of the Ashmolean seeking tranquillity among the Buddhist and Hindu artefacts.

Stately home-ing
Ruth came up to MK for the last weekend in July; although part of the weekend was spent in seeking out a printing service to print out some PQQ documents she needed to read urgently for Monday morning (thank you, Staples), we also managed a little trip out on the Saturday to Wrest Park, an English Heritage property in Bedfordshire. I'd never heard of the place, perhaps unsurprising as it's only been open to visitors since 2006, but Ruth happened upon it while having a quick Google for local gardens. After a bit of a detour thanks to a re-routing of the A421 post-production of my road atlas, we arrived and spent I guess a couple of hours wandering around, before becoming almost overcome by the heat and having to retreat for a cup of tea.

Wrest's grounds feature a Mithraic Altar, which I was mildly intrigued by - not a genuine antiquity though, it was built in the 18th century. It's logged on www.waymarking.com.  

Wine man
Had a visit on Saturday evening from a man I shall call only ‘John C’, a local wine-making enthusiast who came round a year or so ago to pick the grapes from the grapevine in the garden after Ruth made contact with him via the Reading ‘Freegle’ network. He had promised us a bottle or so of the product once it had reached a state for drinking, and duly turned up with three bottles of red wine, which we may term ‘Chateau 49’, along with two large and unsolicited bottles of his plum wine, and a couple of taster bottles. We sampled both kinds; I thought both pretty rough though the red improved with a bit of sugar to take the edge off. I think we’ve agreed to let it rest for a few more months; perhaps a treat for Christmas.

We had got the impression re John C of a bit of an eccentric, as one email Ruth sent him to try and arrange a date for the bottle handover received this reply in tabular form detailing the arrangements in his diary so far for May through to July:

We were mildly intrigued at someone who would share their diary with a relative stranger, as well as at the busy time John C appeared to have planned with Alan, Per and Stephen. Takes all sorts.

Month's worth of blurb

Delay in updating partly slackness and partly PC issues. Although the new 3MobileWiFi is so far working perfectly on my new Galaxy Tab, trying to get it to work on my 8-year-old Mesh desktop PC has been proving a bit of a struggle, even once I’d retrieved my wireless network adapter from the attic. Have been forced temporarily to return to my T-Mobile dongle, whose performance has briefly rallied since I removed and then re-inserted the SIM card earlier today.

Slightly suspicious re the health of the Mesh as for the last few months it has started to make grinding noises on booting up, which according to this piece is not a good sign. I’ve never yet had a hard disk fail on me so am probably overdue for this. It is also frequently failing to recognise its CD drives and USB ports: not sure whether this is a sign of hard disk failure, but I’m attributing it to some sort of PC version of short-term memory loss, especially as it has started gleefully announcing ‘Found new hardware!’ whenever I insert something into a USB slot, even if it’s had the same thing inserted into that slot every day for the last year.

Had a weekend in Milton Keynes on 20-21 April for reasons that escape me now, but quite nice. Went into CMK on the Saturday morning and located the Yong Yu shop in MK’s now distinctly empty-looking Food Centre. From what I gather, Sainsburys were previously there, but have now decamped to a bright new store in the Hub. Waitrose were still there on the day I visited, but they have now moved to a new shop in Oakgrove, outside the shopping centre. So the whole place is now looking rather sad. I think Iceland are still there, but they’re hardly likely to raise the spirits of a place. Anyway, Yong Yu’s stock Chongga Cut Cabbage Kimchi; I bought two bags from the bored-looking woman manning the shop.

Another beautiful sunny day on Sunday so marched myself out for a walk. Keen for a change from the usual routes, I parked in the Peace Pagoda Car Park off the V10 and walked past the pagoda down to North Willen Lake, and did a circuit. Lots of cyclists/joggers/power walkers out and about. Didn’t quite seem cute duckling season yet, unfortunately, I guess because of the extended winter this year.

Started the Sunday by sending Hannah a text to wish her a happy 40th birthday (40? Crivens. I can just about remember her being born – or at least, I can remember Dave and me being summoned into Mum and Dad’s bedroom early in the morning where Dad informed us that we had a new little sister. I hope we displayed a sufficient degree of enthusiasm, but I can’t now remember what our reaction was. Also not sure why Dad was in bed at this point, but I assume he must have just got off the bedroom telephone extension. Good to know fathers got their rest in those days.)

Cute story recently in the MK Citizen (left) about a new addition to the concrete cow family, which apparently appeared suddenly only to disappear a few days later. This sort of thing adds a welcome subversiveness to modern life.

On the topic of amusing snippets from the papers: was charmed to read about this giant yellow duck that appears to have been on a world tour since 2007 to promote peace. There's a video here of it arriving in Hong Kong harbour on 2 May. I was a bit cast down to then read this a few days later. Is this a comment on the success of its peace mission?

Hosted Book Group at the house on Thursday 25th – I thought, somewhat chaotically, but the group appeared not to mind. We discussed Fay Weldon’s Big Women and, as generally with books of this era, looked to our oldest member Ali as an authority. Ali (60) is a big Weldon fan and, for those of us inclined to wonder why so much ‘strident’ feminism was necessary, related a real-life story from her days at university in the early 1970s when a lecturer, after commenting on her good marks, proceeded to then enquire as to whom she was sleeping with to have got them.

Loosely relevant to some of the events in 'Big Women': recently read this (long) piece by Susan Faludi about the radical feminist Shulamith Firestone, who died last year. What caught my eye, aside from Faludi's detailing of the destructive infighting within the feminist (and probably any) movement, was how her funeral seems to have been turned into a bit of a feminist revival meeting, a la Zoe's in the book. Another, more amusing, snippet from this 2009 interview with Fay Weldon: her second husband apparently left her for his astrological therapist who had told him that the couple's astrological signs were incompatible. That's certainly setting a lot of store by astrology.

Ruth and I went to the Reading Contemporary Art Fair on Saturday 27th, which we have done every year since its inception in 2010 - this year we made the decision that the Friday evening 'exclusive preview' complete with exclusive glass of warm white wine isn’t really worth it, so paid to go on the Saturday instead. Ruth acquired another piece of artwork, this time a giclée (apparently) print, which is now residing on the master bedroom chimney breast (see above).

Went down to my parents’ house on the May Bank Holiday weekend for a belated family Sunday lunch for Hannah’s recent birthday. On the Saturday afternoon I decided to attempt making cream horns, a teatime treat I have only read about in oldish children’s books – Ruth gave me some moulds as a Christmas stocking gift so I thought they had better be put to use. A fiddly business, in spite of the fact that I’d bought ready-made puff pastry as I couldn’t face trying to make it myself. The pastry cases ended up not being entirely watertight, but they tasted pretty good.

On the Sunday we were joined by Dave, Hazel and Nia for a roast lamb lunch followed by a birthday carrot cake. Spent a chunk of the warm weather on the Monday driving back to Reading, but then did manage to sit out on the patio for a while in the afternoon/early evening.

Ruth and I had an afternoon at the cinema on 11 May to see Star Trek Into Darkness - our motivation for seeing it was pretty much simply to ogle Benedict Cumberbatch, but actually the film itself was pretty good - the Kirk-Spock relationship is well portrayed and Simon Pegg's Scotty has a larger role than we'd expected. Ray has offered to lend us the DVD of the 2009 movie, which he has apparently seen four times, but hasn't got around to this yet. We had dinner afterwards at the newish Côte brasserie on the Oracle, part of a recent clutch of slightly more upmarket restaurants that have appeared on the Oracle's Riverside (presumably in an attempt to raise the tone).

On the Sunday we again visited a few venues on the Caversham Arts Trail, starting with several exhibitors at 4 Hemdean Rise (lovely house and walled front garden) - these included textile artist Lou Jessop and willow-weaver Su Macpherson. Something in the combination of exhibits and exhibitors started Ruth off on a rant about a perceived type of middle-aged woman who has the time and presumably income to devote herself to appliqué-ing hand-stitched felt female genitalia onto fertility-themed artworks - I think the rant began something along the lines of "They sit there with their long grey hair and their Mooncuppy lifestyles ...". We proceeded while ranting to painter Mary Phelan's home on St Peter's Avenue, where we ate some cake. The final venue we visited was on Kidmore Road and included Debbie Page's lovely Moon Jars, which I may well buy one of - though I may have said the same thing after last year's trail.

Other news: the saga of this 1930s bus shelter on Henley Road in Caversham continues. It's still there at the moment.

Theatre; Newport; restored hearing

Bit of culture on 2nd April by going to see Peter Morgan’s play The Audience at the Gielgud Theatre, with Helen Mirren and assorted others. Most annoyingly, my continuing hearing loss (at the time) interfered with the play rather more than I had been expecting – not sure why I’d been imagining that it wouldn’t, but having paid £60 for a ticket to what was apparently a rapidly-sold out production, I was unwilling not to go. Although Ruth is more of a politics/history fiend than I am, I enjoyed what I could hear of it, especially the scenes between HM and Harold Wilson. The tall and distinctive-looking Haydn Gwynne seemed slightly odd casting to play Mrs Thatcher, but who knows what these things are based on.

Pre-play we went for an early dinner at Brown’s on St Martin’s Lane, an establishment obviously well set up for pre-theatre suppers. Ruth’s faith in Brown’s had been shaken by apparently mediocre food and service in the branch that opened on Reading’s Oracle a year or so ago, but this latest visit evidently served to restore it: the gammon and mash she had was apparently excellent and my crab and prawn linguine I had was one of the nicest seafood pastas I’ve had.

Booked the day off on the 5th for a general mosey down in the Newport direction, though ended up having a rather less cultural and constructive day than I’d originally intended. Started off early and took the AA Route Planner’s advice on the most direct route to Bristol, via the A420 from the Botley Interchange down to Swindon. Made my way to Cribbs Causeway and breakfasted at Carluccio’s, followed by a couple of hours mooching around the shops. Then drove across to Newport where I had managed to book my first £29 Premier Inn room (a reminder once again that I am quite easily pleased) at the branch near junction 24 of the M4. In fact, ‘near’ is almost an understatement, as the hotel couldn’t be any closer to the motorway without actually being on it, but that didn’t bother me overly as I hadn’t booked it for the views. Had meant to go out in the afternoon after check-in but the lure of a leisurely bubble bath and free (well, free initially anyway) wi-fi caused me to become shamefully overcome with laziness.

Rose early on the Saturday determined to actually do something, and parked near my brother’s house on Chepstow Road and walked into the centre of Newport intent on breakfast and sightseeing. Looked out the Java Coffee House on Charles Street, which I’d noted online somewhere while looking up places to go in the area – coffee wasn’t perfect but was at least of a decent strength. Extremely friendly staff who asked what I was doing in the area, regaled me with the latest developments and controversies affecting Newport town centre, and suggested various things I could do, though many of them involved leaving Newport - the Roman extravaganza at Caerleon seemed a popular recommendation. In the end I walked up from the cafe a short though quite steep distance to St Woolos Cathedral, as somewhere Mum had mentioned, and had a mooch around - quite peaceful, probably because I was the only person there.

There's been a church on the site since around the fifth century, when one Gwynllyw built a wattle and daub structure there. NB although the blurb has it that 'Woolos' is a corruption of Gwynllyw, it sounds less a corruption than an abandonment of attempts to pronounce it ("Gwynllffx ... Gwyncchhh ... sod it, Woolos").

After exhausting the cathedral's charms I made my way back down into the town and had a quick mosey around the museum, before heading out to the riverbank and taking a walk down what looked like quite a new riverside walkway, in the direction of the Transporter Bridge, which appears to be the city's most advertised attraction. I didn't make it quite as far as the bridge, as it's a fair way out of the town, but reached a point where I could take some rather underwhelming photos of it. It's an intriguing structure though seems a faff of a way to cross a river. The gondola appears to have a little turret on it, which is kinda cute. It was actually moving across when I viewed it, but isn't really visible on any of my photos - better photo on the Wikipedia page above.

Post-sightseeing I made my way back to Dave's house to join various of our and Hazel's families for Nia's first birthday party. Mum had gone positively wild with the Betty Crocker and had produced two large cakes, one chocolate, one carrot, plus a batch of caramel fairy cakes. Met Hannah's new beau Henry, who seems like a nice chap. Received advice from Mum's cousin Jonathan on ear syringing (apparently he has been having his done regularly since he was about 12) and from Uncle Ian on whether my next career move should possibly be getting into the online ancestry data business. Food for thought I guess.

Had ears syringed on Tuesday 9th, after returning to the Red House Surgery once the two-week olive oil sentence was up to demand some form of more concerted action. A rather less gentle and pleasant procedure than I had been expecting – for some reason had been imagining a soothing influx of warm water, whereas the actual procedure is more akin to a jet wash – but certainly it immediately restored my hearing. Returned to the office where I was almost deafened by the fan on Victoria’s PC.

Went for a Friday night dinner with Ruth at Quattro last Friday - I have been resisting Quattro for a while as the food isn't really good enough to justify what's always around a £45 bill (though doubtless it would help if we guzzled less wine). It is, however, a local Italian, though it doesn't quite fit my romantic desire for an old-fashioned neighbourhood Italian with naff decor and candles stuffed into straw-wrapped Chianti bottles.

Walked up to Whiteknights on Sunday afternoon to one of the Harris Garden Open Days - not sure Ruth had been banking on the circa 1 hour walk up there, but I managed to insist that I needed the exercise. We compensated on arrival by going for immediate tea and cake from the Red Cross ladies before actually looking at any plant life. The gardens still had something of an emerging from winter look about them, but we got to see inside the walled garden - which had much the same look, but the old walls are quite atmospheric. Never been in there before as it always seemed to be shut the times I went into the gardens as a staff member. When boredom struck Ruth got the bus home to have her hair cut (amazingly, Karin turned up this time) while I walked down to Cemetery Junction to visit Claire and spent a couple of hours drinking more tea. Noted on the way that Bridges Hall appears to be being demolished; also noted that this handsome house on Hamilton Road is still for sale - despite being labelled on Rightmove as a 'Premium Listing', it's actually been for sale for some time. Hamilton Road contains some sizeable Victorian properties but is on the whole rather less primped and preened than roads of similar properties in Caversham Heights - it's probably the student element and the proximity to C. Junction. Still, if it comes down by a few more bob, I'll buy it.

Out in Bletchley; Skirrid; technomarvels

First off, must note that Ruth recently purchased this weird bookcase from John Lewis, one of those cunning pieces of book storage that makes it look as though your books are floating in mid-air. Not a look I’ve ever regarded as essential for my books, but Ruth enjoys these sorts of thing. The resulting appearance does seem to have taken her aback a little. More of a man bookcase??

Another work night (well, early part of the evening) out recently, this time at the Rose of India in Bletchley, apparently Hoa’s favourite MK curry house. My initial impressions of Bletchley as an abjectly dispiriting place haven’t been significantly altered by the few subsequent occasions I’ve visited it, and not on this one either. Matt had suggested the Enigma Tavern for a pre-dinner drink, a modern and none-too-salubrious looking establishment close to the bus station (the pub's website is a good deal smarter than the pub itself). I turned up there at around 6.45pm to discover him sitting vaguely nervously in a corner of the pub, well away from the only other clientele who were a cluster of locals standing around the bar. Apparently I’d just missed the “family from hell” – two drunkenly antagonistic parents who had just been shepherded off home by their circa eight-year-old daughter. We had a couple of drinks and then made our way with some difficulty (due to lack of adequate directions, rather than drunkenness) to the restaurant, where we joined six or so others from the office. Very nice food – I had a lamb dish, whose name I’ve forgotten, and a stuffed paratha – have got very into the latter. The restaurant is nothing much to look at from the outside and is in a pretty down-at-heel area, so just goes to show that’s not an indicator of the quality of the food. Well, perhaps sometimes it might be.

Worked through the Great British class calculator on the BBC website today to discover I’m apparently ‘Technical middle class’. A bit younger than the supposed average. Obviously I resent the suggestion that I faff around on Twitter of an evening rather than listening to French horn concertos.

The Skirrid (the hill, not the inn)

Spent a couple of days over the first half of the Bank Holiday weekend visiting my parents. Mum and Dad’s house was surrounded by a moderate amount of snow, though there wasn’t much in evidence until we were within a few miles of their house – they are evidently inhabiting some sort of microclimate. We lazed around for most of Friday, though Mum and Dad did go out for a brief stroll in the afternoon. Am afflicted by something of an energy dearth recently which I attribute to the low iron reserves with which I have recently been diagnosed, and am now munching a daily diet of iron supplements in order to correct. On the Saturday we went for a stroll around the nearby village of Llanvihangel Crucorney, largely to have a bit of a snoop from the outside at a house for sale there, and then more of a snoop at most of the other houses in the village, followed by a bit of a circular walk ending up back at the Skirrid Inn, where we had lunch.

The Skirrid Inn

The Skirrid is, apparently, reputed to be haunted – indeed, next to the table where we sat was a framed certificate from the South Gloucestershire Paranormal Investigation Team, certifying that the inn had successfully been investigated for the presence of paranormal activity and/or the presence of spirits. Disappointingly, it didn’t state whether any had actually been found. I’ve a feeling the Skirrid was featured on TV recently in one of those paranormal programmes that I don’t of course watch but happened on to accidentally while searching for the news. The TV crew appeared to be skulking about in the attics, so perhaps they’re the really haunted bit.

On the Saturday night we watched another out of Mum and Dad’s Hammer box set, this time One Million Years B.C. A clever choice given my continuing and increasingly irritating hearing loss, given that it’s the first film I’ve ever seen that contains no dialogue, merely ninety minutes of grunting noises and assorted posing and writhing. On the way back on Sunday we stopped off at Ruth's aunt's house for lunch, and to exclaim over the amount of weight her dog Bertie appears to have gained. Pet-themed talk continued when we collected the rabbits from Reading Rabbit Rescue and had a long chat with Sandra about Lola's health and Harley's recent boorish mounting behaviour.

Had originally planned to meet Ray for an energetic canal walk or similar on the Monday, but in the end that didn't come off, due to my reduced energy levels and his surprising new enthusiasm for technology - on turning up at the flat mid-morning he pulled out a brand new Galaxy S III and 7" Galaxy Tab 2, both in a fetching shade of red, and asked if we could go somewhere with wi-fi so that he could get set up. We duly whiled away an hour or so in John Lewis in CMK, before going on to the 3 Store so that he could sign up for a new MiFi deal - joking aside, the latter seems bloody marvellous, so much so that I've signed up for a similar deal myself. Back at the flat he managed to get online with it and watch an entire episode of Dr Who on iPlayer. What luxury. If this works out I shall consign T-Mobile and their sodding Fair Usage Allowance¹ to history.

Later on we watched three episodes of the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice, which I acquired on DVD recently in HMV's closing down sale and hadn't watched for a good while. It's very enjoyable viewing, though in my opinion the 2005 Joe Wright film is better cast, and I'm slightly hampered by never having fancied Colin Firth.

Put out an OU Noticeboard plea recently for information on Korean food stockists in Milton Keynes, in the hope of finding a local kimchi supply. Was somewhat surprised at the level of response and now have several recommendations, one of which, Hoo Hing, I followed up the other Sunday: enormous and freezing cold warehouse on an industrial estate - I spent quite a while wandering around looking for the refrigerated stuff, before realising that the whole shop was the refrigerator. Queued to pay for my goods behind three women dressed in coats and woolly hats - speculated that they'd put them on to come into the shop.

¹ T-Mobile's Fair Usage Policy allows you to stream approximately 30 seconds of video before telling you That's Quite Enough and to go and do something more constructive instead. I never was fond of the Why Don't You Gang.