Birmingham; local blurb

Got this flyer through the door a few weeks ago, from a young couple interested in buying a house in our area. I’m sure Antony and Emma are perfectly lovely, but we were turned off by all the socially acceptable boxes they’d managed to tick: professional couple, check, reference to starting a family, check, deposit in place and mortgage ready to go, eh? We binned the flyer with an uncharitable ‘sod you, you smug gits’. However, it’s obviously good to know that the house might be in demand.

Retracing steps back a few weeks … Mum and I met up for a city break in Birmingham from 8 to 10 June – our fifth, having now done Glasgow, Manchester, Cardiff and Chester. Pictures here. The decision to go to Birmingham was because Mum was keen to see the Staffordshire Hoard, the treasure trove of Anglo-Saxon gold found in a field near Lichfield in 2009, some of which is on display at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. We had decided to stick with Premier Inns and went over a Sunday and a Monday night when hotel bills are cheaper. We met at Birmingham New Street and walked from the station via the new Mailbox development (still on my quite old A-Z as the Royal Mail Sorting Office) to the Canal Side PI, where we left bags and lunched on some nice fishcakes at Red Peppers Grill and Cantina. After lunch we went for a walk, starting with a visit to the new Library of Birmingham in Centenary Square. Not entirely sure what I think of the exterior view, but it’s certainly eye-catching, vaguely reminiscent of a giant dolly mixture, or perhaps a colourful cottage loaf. The interior is jolly nice and Mum was reassured to see that it does contain books, among all the computers, relaxation pods etc. The finest features, I thought, were the two garden terraces, which are a lovely idea and I was particularly taken with the beautiful planting of green fennel, which was very effective.

But but but … I personally think it’s a bit of a tragedy that this has meant that the old (1970s) Birmingham Central Library is now scheduled for demolition. It’s perhaps inevitable given the current vicious backlash against Brutalist architecture (and that term doesn’t help), but depressing all the same. I never got the chance to go inside it, but it’s a striking building with an interesting central atrium. English Heritage have apparently twice tried to get it listed, but been unsuccessful both times, apparently due to lobbying from Birmingham City Council, who have now managed to get it a Certificate of Immunity from Listing, meaning that it can’t be protected from demolition until 2016. They must be so proud of themselves. And the poor architect – architects put all this effort into designing something they think is beautiful, just for it to get destroyed, in a way that doesn’t happen to painters and sculptors. The architect of the Central Library, Roger Madin, is now dead, though it sounds from the Wikipedia entry as though a fair amount of his output has already been flattened.

Brief departure on the subject of demolition of brutalist architecture: I noted from a video posted recently on Facebook by the University of Reading Alumni that Sibly Hall, formerly one of Reading’s halls of residence, has been demolished. I lived in Sibly briefly during my final year at Reading – only for about a term, I think, as I went off the whole hall living thing and, from memory, even more briefly moved in to my parents’ attic room in Hungerford.  I was never particularly enamoured of Sibly as a building and don’t think it was particularly architecturally interesting, but still think it was a bit tasteless of Reading alumni to post a video of its demolition, as many students must have enjoyed living there. Perhaps inevitably, the redevelopment of the site seems to be causing some controversy.

Returning to Birmingham. After visiting the new library, we wandered through Chamberlain and Victoria Squares; the latter houses several pieces of modern sculpture, including Antony Gormley’s Iron: Man which when we visited had fencing right up against it around some work being carried out. Also, this creature (left) with the most enormous buttocks. Didn’t take a picture of Dhruva Mistry’s The River, which forms the centrepiece of the square, but it is quite nice. We had dinner on the first evening at the Water's Edge branch of the Handmade Burger Company.

On Monday morning we had a not-bad breakfast at the PI, after a few problems with the Costa coffee machine had been overcome, and then walked from the hotel to Cambrian Wharf, which claims to mark the beginning of the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal. We walked down past the Farmer’s Bridge flight of locks (apparently unusual in having only a single lock gate) and a bit further along past some flats, before heading up into the Jewellery Quarter. We had a fairly brief walk through the Jewellery Quarter before heading back down via St Paul’s Square to a branch of the Urban Coffee Company, where we stopped for a drink. Then paid a brief visit to the cathedral and walked past the Bullring out to the junction of Hurst Street and Inge Street to see the Back to Backs. I hadn’t checked their opening hours in advance and Monday is the one day of the week they’re closed, which was a bit tiresome after the trek out there. Another time perhaps.

In the afternoon we went to BMAG to view the Staffordshire Hoard, though I fitted in a peruse round a few other galleries including the Buddha Gallery, which houses the Sultanganj Buddha, apparently the largest known complete Indian bronze sculpture, and the interesting 'Birmingham, its people, its history' galleries. Apparently a new public gallery for a permanent display of the Hoard is due to open this autumn. We had tea in BMAG's capacious but distinctly lacklustre café - apparently it’s just about to undergo a refurb. Dinner that evening at Strada followed by breakfast the next morning at Carluccio's, before travelling back. I could get used to the constant eating out.

Birmingham is a bit of an architectural mishmash of a city – but perhaps more interesting for that – and large swathes of it appeared to be being dug up when we visited. Its network of canals is probably one of its most striking features and one it appears to be rather gradually making the most of. I had visited a few times before, two brief trips with Ray, during one of which we went on a boat trip around then-derelict stretches of canal – v. interesting – and once for a conference with Progress South Central.


Another classic top story this week on BBC News' 'Most Popular' slot this week, right. Here's the detail.

Local news to finish: 1) Escaped llamas and alpacas in Whitchurch; 2) the apparent planned demolition of Didcot Power Station - seems rather a shame in a way, as it is part of the local landscape. Surely everything's ripe for conversion into luxury apartments these days, even cooling towers? 3) initial success in the latest bid for lottery funding to preserve Reading Abbey. The ruins have been closed for five years, which does seem a shame.

Willow; moths; inept photography; RIP Emrys

Willow, far from being less destructive than Lexie, is borderline worse, certainly as regards the furniture – she is so far less offended by shoes than Lexie was. Given access to the living room she will jump up onto the chairs at every opportunity and start munching. She is, though, also the friendliest rabbit we have yet encountered, pushing her head up into our hands to be stroked and jumping up onto the sofa and climbing all over our laps (albeit often while also trying to nibble clothing and the picnic blanket that currently covers Ruth’s mauled sofa). Feebly, we are so taken with her on this account that there is no question of returning her to the rescue centre, so we will just have to try to take whatever action possible to protect the furniture.

Ruth had a sort out and prune of her wardrobe the other week, which inspired me to have a sort through mine, though I lack her discipline and am still keeping a number of items of clothing that don’t currently fit me, in the optimistic hope that they might once I’ve shed that couple of stone that I’m going to lose any day now. I did though put a number of things on the charity/rag pile, including this pair of size 12 white jeans that I have owned for over 20 years, but which have only fitted me for probably about 3 of them altogether – they have always been my benchmark for whether I was at my (in my eyes) ideal weight, but I was persuaded that it was ridiculous to keep them.

Took a couple of more or less unworn skirts back to MK with me to advertise on the OU noticeboard, and have successfully sold both of them; one of them a frumpy Country Casuals just-below-the-knee number that I still didn’t feel quite old enough to wear (though actually the woman I sold it to was quite a bit younger), the other a short cream number from Zara, which was quite ludicrously marked XL but is a 12 at the largest – Zara is one of those shops best not shopped in if you’re over this size. I don’t think it quite fitted me in the shop so Christ knows why I bought it. Sold that one yesterday morning to a bubbly woman named Jenny who seemed delighted with it.

Managed to miss spotting Ed Miliband at the OU the other week, though Victoria did return to the office excitedly after getting her morning latte saying she’d seen him. I did though do my bit by pointing out that the intranet people had spelled his name wrong in the original piece. Well, it’s not hard to get these things right.

Moth-related emails from both of my parents over the last month, the one from Mum about the oak processionary moth, which has apparently been causing a kerfuffle in the Thames Valley area. Some aerial spraying of local woodland has been taking place, though this has apparently been condemned by wildlife groups – indeed, it’s hard to see how that sort of action wouldn’t kill other things besides the moth. A more recent BBC Berkshire article seems to claim that it has been responsible for a decline in blue tit numbers by depriving them of an important food source. B*stards. Received a photo from Dad a few days later of a pair of mating poplar hawk moths. They are indeed striking in appearance, but I have been vaguely squeamish about moths since the offputtingly large ones that we used to see in Indonesia years ago, though I don’t know what type those were. Perhaps these beauties?

Ruth and I went a few weeks ago to view the proposed redevelopment plans for Caversham’s precinct (officially known as St Martin’s Centre, according to the article, though I’ve never heard it referred to as such). The plans look very nice on the whole, though it seems to me a shame that it would apparently necessitate the removal of the mature trees that currently occupy the paved area between Costa and House of Cards (they are cunningly referred to in the Reading Post article linked above as ‘the existing non-native trees’ – aha, drum up support for their removal by making them sound like foreigners). Fully supportive of the proposed extension to Waitrose though – and relieved that there appear to be no plans to move the supermarket out of Caversham to a larger site, as is often the way these days – and the proposed revamp of the car park couldn’t hurt. After viewing the plans we went for dinner at Casa Roma, the latest in a line of restaurants to occupy the space on Caversham Road opposite TGI Fridays. Although it was a large brightly lit space and not very atmospheric – though the garishly kitsch artworks are endearing in a way – we were impressed with the food – we both ordered seafood dishes which came with a generous amount of actual seafood, not always the case – and with the staff.

Ray visited me during the last week in May while I was staying at the Buckingham Travelodge, and we went for dinner at Prego, an Italian restaurant on Buckingham’s High Street and rather the sort of place I wish we had in Caversham. Ray has managed to acquire a Land Rover Discovery from his friend Darren at the marina, which I was a bit stunned by although he appears mightily pleased with it.

Finally managed to overcome previous problems in trying to take out a new phone contract, and am now enjoying my new Galaxy S4. The whole ‘life companion’ bit is pretty corny, but its 13-megapixel camera does appear to take great pictures – better than those from my actual camera, a few-years-old Sony Cyber-shot with a piffling 8.1 megapixels. However, working out how to use it isn’t immediately straightforward, and the Dual Shot facility – which I couldn’t work out how to get out of at one point – seems irritatingly pointless. This is a facility which superimposes your own face in a postage-stamp-type frame over the main photo, as per this one, which I took accidentally in Mum's kitchen while trying to switch the wretched facility off. Am in agreement with this review, which describes it as “hilariously daft”.


The process of getting the new camera led to some more chat sessions with Vodafone, which are always fun.

While staying with Mum and Dad a few weeks ago Mum and I went to explore the lovely Gliffaes Tree Walk at the four-star Gliffaes Country House Hotel - the house is a bit of a monstrosity but the setting is beautiful. Could fancy the idea of a short break there, if the rooms weren't £200+ a night. Would have been a beautiful spot to take a few pictures, especially as the rhododendrons were just finishing, but I couldn’t get the phone’s camera to work – managed to unintentionally shoot a short video of Mum’s foot before getting it stuck again on the Dual Shot facility (evidence right).

Briefly cheered last Friday by thought of solution to housing crisis, but it was short-lived. My colleague Lizzie appeared at my office door asking if I’d seen the ad on the intranet for an apartment sublet in Woburn Sands, at a seemingly extremely reasonable £450 a month. I did duly express interest and drove over at lunchtime to meet the tenant, a swarthy German postdoc called Andy, and view the flat. Flat very nice, though my suspicions were slightly aroused by the sound of the parking arrangements, and the fact that both Andy and the owner of the flat would still want to sleep there for some of the time. I met the owner on campus that same afternoon, a young chap called Sam working on contract as a web developer. Very pleasant and laid-back, but I inferred quickly that Andy was in fact his lodger not his tenant (amazed at the number of people who don’t seem to know the difference) and that Sam, albeit claiming to spend most of his time with his girlfriend in France, evidently does spend a certain amount of time at the flat. Decided I wasn’t after a flat-share with a twenty-something, so bowed out, after having interrupted a fair portion of my Friday looking into it. TIRESOME.

Received news from Dad this morning that their now-elderly ginger cat Emrys has died. Mum got Emrys from the RSPCA sometime around 1999-2000, as I have this photo (left) in my collection labelled ‘Milly and Emrys 2000’. I believe he was thought to be possibly a couple of years old at the time of adoption, and had apparently been found wandering loose around Hereford. Emrys had, it has to be said, a somewhat spiky edge to his personality and was never a cat with whom one could let one’s guard down. Having said that, in later years he appeared to have become (slightly) more placid and enjoyed sitting on Mum’s or Dad’s laps – and indeed, often in their spot on the sofas while one or other of them sat on the floor. Also posting what must be one of the last photos of him, taken about a month ago lying on his mat.

Rabbit exchange; further Travelodgery; retreat

Change of rabbits. Ruth and I made the sad decision that Lexie was a bit too much of a handful for us, given that we have limited time to spend in an intensive pet training regime and were unsure whether she would benefit anyway, so returned her to Reading Rabbit Rescue on the Saturday of the Easter weekend. Sandra was nice enough to make sympathetic noises and to assure us that pets are meant to enhance your life and Ruth had to be happy with her choice. Here’s a parting shot of Lexie with my Ugg boots – she expressed a violent dislike of all my shoes during the time she was with us.

Some discussion ensued about a possible alternative choice to try with Harley, and Sandra’s front runner was either Willow, a dwarf lop close to Harley’s age or Cherry, the long-term resident whom we viewed before at the time Ruth chose Lexie. Partly influenced by a desire to give Cherry a home, we decided to give her a go – however, Sandra later emailed us to say, somewhat cryptically, that they’d quickly realized Cherry wasn’t the right companion for Harley. It later turned out that the allegedly timid Cherry’s favoured technique during bonding attempts is to ignore the male for the first 15 minutes while pretending to eat hay, then viciously attack him. We inferred that she has done the same thing on a number of previous occasions, though Sandra wasn’t too explicit about that. Ruth and I theorized that she may be quite happy at RRR and it could be a deliberate strategy she’s developed in order to ensure that no one adopts her.

After Harley’s swift removal from Cherry’s proximity, S&S tried him with Willow. The first update noted that he was quite wary of her and there’d been quite a bit of chasing – indeed, we were sent this photo of Harley taking refuge under a box. However, we gathered that things had gone acceptably well, and we collected both Willow and Harley on the following Saturday, after Ruth had spent a day converting our cupboard under the stairs into a new bunny residence. Mightily pleased to have a dining room free of the unattractive cage and litter tray. Ruth is not enjoying cleaning out the cupboard with its awkwardly sloping ceiling, but no doubt she’ll adjust to the stooping involved. Willow appears a friendly bunny and we are quite taken with her so far, though not sure of Harley's opinion. She is very fond of the outdoors, probably because her previous owner apparently kept her loose in the garden.

Tried out a new Travelodge the week before last, this time the Old Stratford branch on a junction with the A5 north-west of Milton Keynes. Back there this week. Small place but like the Central has undergone a recent refurb to Travelodge’s ‘new look’, so pleasantly new-smelling with a great bed. Old Stratford seems to be a long line of houses either side of Towcester Road, with a couple of pubs and a convenience store. The long straight walk from Old Stratford into the more attractive Stony Stratford forms part of the Roman road Watling Street.

Although the page on Travelodge's website shows a Little Chef next door to the Travelodge, it's now next door to a ‘Buddies USA Diner’, according to Judith a local Northamptonshire mini-chain of restaurants. Mildly annoyed by it as although it boasts a breakfast menu, it advertises its opening time as 10am, which to my mind isn’t much use to anyone for breakfast. As is the way of the modern world I took to Twitter to query this:

and received the following response:

Well, yes, I suppose you could open at 4pm and serve bacon and eggs, but I personally wouldn’t count that as opening for breakfast.

It wasn't a major issue as I am set up to prepare coffee and muesli in my room, providing there's somewhere nearby to buy a pint of milk, but it's just the principle of flaunting a breakfast menu in people's faces.

While I've had a Twitter account for a while, I've only made sporadic active use of it, partly because I haven't yet decided quite how I want to use it, and haven't expended the necessary energy to find out How It All Really Works. On a related note, I also have a LinkedIn profile which I more or less keep up to date, although I’m not a particularly active user of it. I enjoy the mild amusement value of occasionally receiving endorsements for various skills from people who hardly know me - this week, an endorsement for ‘Management’ and ‘Program Management’ (neither of which I consider myself to have any particular experience in) from a chap who used to work in the IT Unit at the OU, with whom I exchanged the occasional email although we never actually met. Quite bizarre. He’s good-looking, though, so I may stay connected for that reason alone.

On a cultural note: killed some time a few weeks ago by visting Old Thornborough Bridge, just off the A421 between Buckingham and Milton Keynes. The bridge dates from 1400 AD and is (according to the information board in the car park) the sole surviving medieval bridge in Bucks. The old bridge, a scheduled monument, no longer carries traffic; the current bridge carrying the A421 was built in 1974.

Day in Hungerford a couple of Sundays ago to meet Ruth's aunt for lunch. I roped Ruth into a pre-lunch walk across the Common and a little way along the back road to Kintbury, past the gates of the former Hungerford Park. I had had a vague idea that years ago we used to walk up the driveway between these gates, but on this occasion I couldn’t see any indication that it was a public footpath, so we walked a bit further on and took the footpath leading south through Foxley Covert, coming out on the little road that used to pass Inglewood Health Hydro, though I don’t think that exists any more. There are some pictures here of the former house at Hungerford Park. We met Ruth's aunt for lunch at The Bear, our second visit since the takeover by Old English Inns; although the snacky soup-type lunch we had on Ruth's birthday had been fine, the roasts we ordered on this occasion were distinctly disappointing, and certainly bore a very poor comparison to the divine roast beef lunch I had there a few years ago. I did email them afterwards finding fault with various specifics, and may leave a review in due course on TripAdvisor. However, Mrs Spence seemed to enjoy her lunch, and the glass of Chardonnay I had with it was very palatable.

Attended a one-day retreat last Saturday at the Global Retreat Centre at Nuneham Park. Have been on their mailing list for a while but not until now got around to attending any events. The Global Retreat Centre is run by the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, a seemingly international organisation with centres in a number of countries. My reasons for going were a) I fancied a day of a bit of uplifting tranquillity with a bit of meditation thrown in; b) it was free; c) I was curious for a bit of a poke around the house and grounds. The house was built in the mid-eighteenth century as the home of the Harcourt family, who sold it to Oxford University in the 1950s. I gathered that the Global Retreat Centre was set up in about 1993.

The day was attended by around 60 of us and consisted of a morning session entitled ‘Knowing the Self’, led by a sixty-something chap called Matthew who apparently used to be a run-of-the-mill working man with wife, etc, before throwing it all in 20-odd years ago to become a volunteer at the Global Retreat Centre. Good in places, though too much talk and flipcharts for my taste and not enough meditation practice, even though the session was subtitled ‘Exploring and Developing the Art of Meditation’. Additionally, while there were some helpful ideas, there was a lot of stuff about the soul towards the end of the session, including some rather wacky stuff seeming to imply that your soul can potentially remember things from before you were born. Hmm. The afternoon session was titled ‘Spirituality in Daily Life’, but substantially consisted of getting the audience to recap the main points from the morning session. It was free, I suppose. Plus points: it was a lovely setting and a relaxing atmosphere; we got a free hour-long tour of the house after lunch and a chance to walk about the grounds. One woman I spoke to had apparently been for a residential retreat there, which I may consider at some point. I also met a Milton Keynes-based Mindfulness Teacher, who gave me her card.

Mildly curious as to how the Global Retreat Centre apparently manages to charge no fees for any of its courses. I’m not one to ponder such things at length, but Ruth did query how an organisation promoting a spiritual, unmaterialistic approach to life can afford the rent on an Oxfordshire country estate and an Oxford city centre shop unit. Something to do with karma perhaps. In fairness, although there was a box marked ‘Contributions’ in the reception area, with envelopes and gift aid forms, this was not referred to by any of the staff or speakers during the day, nor were we put under any pressure to contribute. I must confess I didn’t, though I did spend about £20 in the shop on a DVD and some incense.

A couple of notes on the route:

• The first section of the A4074 north of Caversham towards Oxford is a notorious accident blackspot, cheerily referred to in the local press as the ’13 Bends of Death’. Having said that I only saw a couple of people indulging in idiotic overtaking.  
• The village of Nuneham Courtenay presents a odd aspect, with rows of almost identical cottages ranked each side of the A4074. The explanation, apparently, is that in the 18th century the first Earl Harcourt had the village moved in its entirety from its original position closer to Nuneham House, and arranged either side of the main road to Oxford, apparently so that he could convert the site of the village to ornamental parkland. Seems a bit high-handed.

In an concerted attempt to take more exercise and get endorphins flowing, etc, I have been swimming at Bletchley Leisure Centre once a week for the last month, and for the last couple of weeks have been propelling myself out on the bike at weekends. Have done the same route each time so far, along the Henley Road to Playhatch, up (painfully up) to Dunsden, then wending back past All Saints Church to join Kiln Road back into Caversham. Have to say I do feel good afterwards, albeit slightly achey.

Sadly, the lovely Tash and her piano-playing partner have moved out of number 47, apparently to a smaller place on a quieter street. Very civilised to have the sound of a piano emanating from next door, even if it was the sound of someone having a lesson and struggling with a two-octave scale. They’re (I think) the third lot of tenants since Nicky returned to South Africa., I guess more will be moving in soon. Obviously we hope they’re quiet, childfree, fond of classical music and/or jazz, don’t have a car and are fond of looking after people’s pet rabbits. I live in hope.

Tree surgery; clutch; comedy snippets

Have been wrangling for some time over what to do with the conifer in the garden that has been growing with splendid enthusiasm into next door’s garden. At the time Ray planted it looked like a brown, awkwardly-shaped overgrown twig, and I recall joking that it looked dead. Ray maintained that it was still alive and needless to say he turned out to be right; it has since then grown into a healthy-looking, shapely green specimen - but, as it was planted close to the boundary with number 51, a big part of the healthy-looking green portion had started growing into their garden and was starting to look in danger of twining itself around their children's trampoline. Ruth toyed with the idea of chopping it down, but I was too sentimental to allow this so we ended up doing an amateur piece of tree surgery, with her lopping off the portion that was growing into next door, while to prevent it falling into next door I tugged on a piece of twine tied around its trunk. We can be hired for larger jobs.

Since the New Year our cheery if slightly too laid-back electrician Chris has completed another few bits of work in the house, including a bizarrely-positioned shaver socket (at an informal debrief, Ruth and I agreed that we really should have decided beforehand where it was going to go. Bet the people featured in Living Etc never make that sort of mistake) and, most noticeably, an enormous red pendant lamp that Ruth bought from Heal's, to replace the more modest white pendant lamp that I had installed last year, but which didn't give out enough light. The new lamp certainly gives out more, albeit red, light - what with the red walls, not sure how this might look to the people who back on to our house.

Chris also disconnected the socket set into the kitchen chimney breast, in preparation for probable removal of the chimney breast at some point to create more space in the kitchen - though given our record so far with house refurbishment, it could be a while before that happens. A man from Aqua-King came to service our boiler on 11 April and asked cheerily (or possibly slightly mockingly) after the progress of bedroom 3. Ruth has concluded that our favoured tradesmen now know us too well and that we must move.

Sudden problems changing gear a couple of weeks ago resulted in having to fork out just short of £400 for a new clutch. I had been hoping that all that was needed was a top up with a bit of gearbox oil, but no such luck apparently. I am inclined to trust Anglos as they have on a couple of occasions investigated potential problems that turned out to be false alarms and not charged me for the labour, so didn't dispute their diagnosis. When I went to collect the car, Shelley, one half of the duo that owns the garage, announced "That was broken!". I know, I replied, the mechanic phoned me earlier. No, literally broken, she advised me; apparently the clutch plate had a crack all down it and had actually broken apart in the mechanic's hands when he removed it. A necessary repair then. Now pondering whether I change gear particularly roughly.

Travelodge living during the weeks continues. Had a cold a couple of weeks back and didn't fancy cold food - an exciting combo of cheese and oatcakes – for my dinner, so perused Waitrose for ‘just add water’ snacks. Picked up an Ainsley Harriott version of Cup-a-Soup (acceptable) and two products by itsu, a noodle pot (wouldn’t do it again) and a pack of miso soups (haven’t tried yet). This week I was moderately organised and managed to make some dinners (stir-fried tofu and noodles) in advance which I boxed up and am storing in the office fridge. Have to eat them cold, but it's an improvement on oatcakes.

Flicking through a ‘Toys R Us’ catalogue/supplement that arrived with the local free paper a couple of weekends ago, I was struck – in addition to being struck by the nauseating pinkness that still identifies the ‘toys for little girls’ pages – by the scatological nature of some of the toys on offer these days. As Exhibit A, Baby Born’s ‘Interactive Potty’ – when you sit the doll on the potty and press the button, you get to hear ‘funny tinkling sounds or her passing gas’. Excellent. As Exhibit B, ‘Barbie Potty Pets’, featuring Barbie armed with poop-a-scoop and cat litter tray. I suppose the second could be regarded as vaguely educational in the sense of familiarising kids with the requirements of real life pets. Not sure about the first; that may just be gross.

Spent most of the Easter weekend at Mum and Dad's. Went for a pleasant solitary walk on the Saturday afternoon while Ruth did some weekend work for her current contract. The rest of the family came on the Sunday for a roast lamb lunch followed later by a Betty Crocker carrot cake and a batch of chocolate brownies, to celebrate Hannah's birthday on the Monday. Here she is blowing out a couple of candles, intently watched by Nia and Bertie.

Continuing the intermittent theme of absurd job titles: the OU is currently advertising for a Scrum Master. I am aware that Scrum is a project management framework, but this still sounds ridiculous. My friend Helen, who works in software testing, was part of a team a while back that had Scrum imposed on them, and it all sounded a bit of a nightmare. Essentially it seemed to involve everyone having to have a bash at everyone else's jobs. Wikipedia has a detailed entry on Scrum, currently including this charmingly incomprehensible paragraph:

Ruth and I paid our by now annual visit to the Reading Contemporary Art Fair on Sunday morning - unusually, she didn't buy anything, but I fell for a pair of Alce Harfield paintings that had been reduced in price and are the perfect shape for our stairwell. I already have one of her paintings, so it's perhaps a bit excessive, but I think that's all our wall space used up anyway. Among the artists displaying their work, possibly the weirdest display was Myung Nam An's porcelain eyes (postcard right).

Made the mistake of standing too long by one display of animal sculptures made with a slightly sentimental back-of-Sunday-supplement look and had one of the maker's leaflets thrust into my hand. Scoffed later at this insert which offers to create a lasting memory of your pet from its ashes.


Victoria has recently discovered a character listed on the OU staff list under the name ‘Warrior-Princess Meridian’. We pondered that we haven’t seen anyone around campus who looks as though they’re called that (imagining someone in a flowing cloak with perhaps a sword and spurs - but she’s probably a grey-haired lady in sensible trousers and a rucksack; there are quite a number of these at the OU). Assume that she must have changed her name via deed poll, unless she's the child of Wiccan priestess parents or similar.

RIP Expedit; theatre; glazing

Again backtracking a bit … spent Ruth’s birthday on 3 January firstly driving over to Aldbourne to visit Ruth’s Granny Box and to take her a gift of a battery-powered Mini Aquarium, which Ruth was forced to snatch away from Granny’s eager hands as it turned out to have the wrong sort of batteries. We had lunch in the Bear at Hungerford, recently taken over by Old English Inns – the bar area is pretty much the same, though it has been enlarged at the expense of the dead posh ladies’ toilets; there are, obviously, new ladies’ toilets sited elsewhere, but we agreed they’re not quite as posh as they were before. After this we attempted to go for a walk I’d identified around the Savernake Forest, but couldn’t find the recommended starting point, so after several false starts parked just inside the main gates off the A4 and walked a way down the Grand Avenue. We didn’t have a map with us – strange move on my part, as I am usually well equipped with maps – so were forced to retrace steps. In the evening we went for a birthday dinner at Myalacarte – I can’t now remember what we ate, but it was very nice.

Heavy winds brought down the last of the big Cedar of Lebanon trees on the OU’s campus in February, which was a bit sad. Estates published this bulletin on the intranet, a bit late so I suspect they’d been contacted by a few distraught members of staff. It was one of a pair, the other of which blew over some time last year. Not sure whether they’d just reached the end of their lives, though a colleague did speculate that they’d been victims of replacing buildings which had created a gap/wind tunnel in a critical place.

Met Helen at Tate Modern on 22 February for a long overdue catch-up. In addition to changing jobs since we last met, Helen has become engaged to a chap she met eight months ago at a speed-dating event. The exhibits on offer in the galleries we looked in included this Richard Serra piece ‘Trip Hammer’ in a gallery themed ‘Energy and Process’. My introduction to Richard Serra was on a visit to Tate (Britain, as it is now) with Mum many years ago when we encountered two vast blocks in the main entrance hall which we assumed were plinths waiting to have new artworks displayed on them. In fact they themselves turned out to be the display, another Serra artwork. We later saw another exhibition of his work at the Serpentine Gallery, consisting of rooms with some walls painted black and some white.

Ah, Expedit. Felt a pang of sadness at IKEA discontinuing its iconic Expedit range. Apparently I was in good company: this piece, titled ‘Ikea has killed off Expedit, leaving me sad, angry and confused’ was swiftly followed by this piece, titled ‘The people who mourn for discontinued Ikea lines’. Feeling the need to stock up, I sneaked a visit to IKEA on 26 February and purchased two white 2x2 Expedit units, along with a few of the storage boxes to go in them. Behind me in the queue was a man also purchasing two of the 2x2 units – I thought I might have seen him brush a tear from the corner of his eye, but can’t be sure. My 4x4 Expedit unit is now residing in the dining room of the house, although Ruth doesn’t think it goes – but she is, of course, wrong.

Went for tea with Claire on 2 March and what was intended to be a walk along the Thames – the original plan of a walk to Sonning had had to be abandoned due to continuing extreme sogginess of terrain, but we managed a brief walk once she had lent me Chris’ wellingtons. The walk was curtailed by the unfortunate discovery that Claire’s sister’s boyfriend Martin’s boat, a ramshackle Dutch barge named Mad Meg which is moored by the Horseshoe Bridge at Kennet Mouth, appeared to have been boarded and robbed. Claire had evidently been keeping an informal eye on it while Martin was on a six-week work trip to New Zealand, but it had evidently been tampered with shortly before as apparently Claire had already reported it to the police. We had to spend quite a while standing by the boat while Claire first called Martin’s friend Dave, who turned up to look it over, and then phoned the police to update the crime report. Dave’s theory was that others were attempting to take possession of it, and pointed the finger at the resident of a boat moored on the opposite bank, who is evidently known to the local boating community. While sympathetic, I thought it unfortunate that the boat was moored in such a vulnerable position and is sufficiently dilapidated as to look abandoned. Hopefully it can be done up a bit at some point in the future.

Went with Liz on 5 March to hear the Ben Westlake Trio perform at one of the OU’s free lunchtime chamber music concerts in St Michael’s Church, the deconsecrated church on the Walton Hall campus. The three young chaps, two studying at the Royal Academy of Music and one at the Royal Northern College of Music, played a three-part programme beginning, to my delight, with Mozart’s ‘Kegelstatt’ Trio, which I’ve loved since studying it as part of my O-level Music course. They followed that with Schumann’s ‘Märchenerzählungen’ and then four of Max Bruch’s ‘Eight Pieces’. I had no familiarity with either of the latter; indeed this entry on Max Bruch notes that he is not primarily known for chamber music but that his "Eight Pieces for Clarinet, Viola and Piano" are occasionally heard as it’s a relatively rare combination of instruments. A pleasant one though. The young pianist, Tyler Hay, also gave stirring performances of a couple of short Chopin pieces.

Theatre trip on 7 March to see Blithe Spirit at the Gielgud – Ruth booked the tickets a while back as she is a big Angela Lansbury fan and wanted the chance to see the old girl return to the London stage. She was indeed entertaining, though I’m probably in agreement with this review. A large part of the audience were evidently there solely to see AL, and laughed and cheered loudly at practically her every utterance – including a request to pass the cucumber sandwiches, which I wasn’t sure was intended to be particularly funny – which became irritating after a while, given that there were other actors on stage. Couldn’t quite decide what I thought of the play – it was good, particularly Janie Dee as Ruth, though some of the humour was lost on me and I couldn’t decide what to make of the ending. It was my first exposure to Noel Coward, though, so possibly I just wasn't sure what it was all about. We had another lovely pre-theatre dinner at Browns on St Martin's Lane.

Made a mid-March visit to Mum and Dad and admired their new kitchen. We went for a walk along the Usk on the Saturday followed by a nice lunch at the Grofield Inn in Abergavenny. In the evening Dad lit the chimenea they inherited with the house and we sat outside for a while, though it did get a little chilly. Lovely sunset though.


Anglian have finally carried out the work we agreed with them a few months back, replacing the three single-glazed windows at the rear of the house with double-glazed units, and replacing the dining room window with a fully glazed French door. Here are 'before and after' pictures of the window in the toilet, with new extractor fan squeezed in top left, the only spot the electrician could find to put it.

The French door had been the subject of some dispute between Ruth and me for a while, with me quite liking the idea but not thinking that it constituted essential works, given strapped finances, and also wary of the impact it would have on the furnishing options for the dining room, which are already quite limited given the presence of doors in three corners (now four). Also was vaguely overcome by sentiment for the old dining room window, given that it was part of the Victorian house – though actually only the surround and the sill; the original sash window was long gone before I moved in.

The job was slightly plagued by misfortune - during the fitting of the windows, one of the fitters injured himself and later had to go to hospital, resulting in the door fitting being rescheduled for a few days later; on said day, Ruth had a call to say the van had broken down and they couldn’t come; Ruth then started a new contract in the interim and wasn’t able to be at home, so it had to be rearranged for a few weeks’ later to give me time to arrange to be at home. I duly arranged to be at home on Monday and Tuesday last week; had a call around 10:00am on Monday to say that one of the fitters had called in sick and they weren’t going to be able to come. Wasn’t best pleased as I’d taken a day’s leave, though in fairness the hapless woman on the phone was very apologetic. After a bit of arranging and some alternately threatening and emotional-sounding noises on my part, they agreed to send out a two-man team the following day who would definitely, we were assured, be able to complete the job in one day. Indeed they did, quite impressively.

Met up with Ray for supper at the Global Café on Tuesday last week (day of the French door fitting) as he had got a whim while in Reading with Emma recently to go there again. Don't often go these days as Ruth isn't a fan of the food, so a rare treat. Ray finished up with what was billed as an 'Ethiopian coffee', which certainly arrived in an attractive pot with two little cups, but smelled and tasted disappointingly like Nescafe.

Given recent lack of success at the job-getting game, was cheered a couple of Fridays ago to receive this (above right). Well, who wouldn't be. I did indeed have a paper published in RPCE in 2012, though the tone of the email suggested more that the author was about to either offer to be my wife or to deposit their life savings in my bank account.