Author: kevinrevell

Blogging that is in imminent danger of disappearing into its own middle aged, middle class, middle England hole...

Brutal Youth*

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

When my Sister was 17, my Father, like the kind soul that he was and is, sat her in the car for her first driving lesson.

“Remember”, he said solemnly, “that when you get in a car and drive, you’re basically being put in charge of the most dangerous weapon you will ever control”.

We were keen to remind my sister of these wise words as, over the next couple of years, she emerged relatively unscathed from a number of scrapes and near misses involving cars, boyfriends, trees, whiplash and on one spectacular occasion, two Japanese exchange students. In fact, this last incident caused something of a diplomatic incident where we lived, and it took a good couple of months before the entente cordiale between the North and South ends of the village was re-established. I experience the concept of car as weapon a couple of years later, during my first attempt at hitch-hiking, which resulted in wedging a Mini directly underneath the front of a large lorry in Northumberland.

But all of these stories will have to wait, because this blog is about yesterday morning’s bike ride, and what it tells us about the way the world is turning.

So let me, as Lloyd Cole would say, introduce you to the rest of the crew. Four of us have been training together on Saturday mornings now for a few years. Apart from myself, we have:

1. the mysterious ex-government agent who, for obvious reasons, cannot be named. Let us call him Mr Bean, largely because we do.

2. Chuckle Brother #1, whose athletic ability at the front of the pack is normally limited slightly by a challenging bladder problem

3. Chuckle Brother #2, who combines cycling with gym work and generally lifting heavy objects for a living, which means he’s ideal for the front of the pack, so we can all shelter behind him.

More of CB#2 later, as our interesting tale does rather revolve around him.

So, off we pedal at a bracing speed, heading off towards the coast on the back roads. And worth mentioning at this point, that this was proper idyllic stuff. If you ever want to rattle around country roads in the style of Julian, Dick, George, Ann and Timmy, just get yourself to Norfolk and go off the beaten track. Just don’t go with Bean, CB#1 or CB#2, as they tend to travel a bit faster than the FF. Incidentally, what did they do with Timmy when they were on their bracing bike rides? Anyway, this is yet another meaningless tangent, so back to the bike ride, and about 40 miles in, when we were on the coast road, whizzing along towards Cromer.

This is a brilliant section of road, with views out to the sea, a bit of up and down, and a good surface; the roads can be a little narrow, but they’re open enough. Or so we thought…

On a fairly straight stretch, a couple of cars overtook us; there was nothing coming the other way, so that was fine, and I was surprised to see the second car slow down and drive alongside me. The driver, who was on his own, had the passenger window open, and was pointing and shouting at me. Sadly, years of playing pub-rock, travelling along in the wind, a noisy car and a rather attractive snood that I was wearing that morning rendered me pretty much deaf to what he was saying, but, for reasons best known to himself, he was not at one with the universe and apparently it was our fault. So I gave him what I thought was a special look, which is fairly close to that in the picture at the top of this blog.

CB#2 was rather less controlled in his reaction. Hearing what was going on behind him, he suggested very loudly and very directly that the driver might want to go…off. This provoked an interesting reaction from the driver, who pulled back a bit, made to overtake again, then steered directly towards CB#2. He pulled out of the collision at the last moment, just before CB#2 was forced off the road, and just avoided making contact.

Let’s just play that one again. A car overtakes a cyclist on a clear stretch of road. For some reason or another the driver is unhappy. An altercation occurs between two complete strangers, where neither can actually hear what the other is saying. Then the driver aims a half ton piece of metal, at speed, directly towards a cyclist who is travelling at some pace, held to the road by two narrow tyres and with no protection. Then drives off. It is, frankly, unbelievable. It’s one thing giving a driver possession of a dangerous weapon. It’s quite another when they decide to use it..as a weapon.

Fortunately, CB#2 had managed to retrieve his balance, and somehow stayed on his bike. At which point, rather ambitiously, he chased after the car, shouting in a style that was a lively mix of ‘half-time Delia’ with extreme Tourettes. The car put his brakes on, at which point we rather feared for the worst. There are certain people in my life who I’m very grateful to have as friends rather than enemies, and CB#2 is definitely one of them, and had he caught up with the car I think there’s a reasonable chance that he might have lifted it over the side of the road single-handedly. Pretty quickly, the driver changed his mind and drove off, and I think if I’d seen CB#2 bearing down on me through my rear view mirror like a rabid cage fighter on a bike, I might have done the same.

As regular readers may know, the Emu exists partly to making sweeping generalistic statements about the state of the world from the minutiae of everyday life. And, reflecting on this on the way home, I decided that if we bottled down one thing that is wrong with this country at the moment, it would not be the lack of trust in the establishment, the corrupt politicians, the failing infrastructure or a crumbling economy that seems increasingly based on moving around objects without any intrinsic value. I think it’s that we appear to be breeding generation after generation of irresponsible no-marks who have taken selfishness and a lack of consideration to a whole new level. I really, really, really, hope I’m wrong.

*A very very fine work indeed. And something of a find for the cover photo

Brass In Pocket

~ kevinrevell ~ 1 Comment

Sometimes I fear that this blog is just turning into a whole load of middle-aged, middle-England, middle-class whines at the state of the nation. So the next time I sit down with my laptop and rattle off a few choice thoughts, they will be either about a lifetime experience of pub-rock shenanigans, or possibly why the internet is set to fail us, by virtue of the idiots that seem to have claimed it for themselves. I would very happily take a vote on this, and choose the subject accordingly; just write to me at the usual address.

And speaking of voting, what a huge surprise that the country should have vented its spleen, in the first referendum for years, on what appears to have been a direct vendetta against Nick Clegg. Personally, I’m not ashamed to say that I voted No, which is the first time I’ve ever sided with a Tory policy in an election. Well, I say I voted No. Actually what happened was that my first choice was No, and my second one was Yes, tee hee.

I don’t think I have the energy to go into the missed opportunity that the AV referendum presented for some sort of democratic change in this country. But while I’m here, a couple of thoughts…

I don’t understand why we don’t have some sort of proper proportional representation in England (we manage to do so in Scotland, after all); although I do think we could manage a bit of fun into the bargain. My suggestion would be simply that the number of MP’s be cross checked after each election against the number of votes. For parties not adequately represented by constituency MP’s, a number of reserve MP’s without constituency would be added to parliament. If, on the other hand, a party was over-represented, those MP’s with the smallest majority would be publicly shot. I really think this would make people consider their commitment to politics. Incidentally, I wonder whether we could spice up our more boring athletic races in the same way. The 10,000 metres on the track, for example, is a tedious 25 laps around the track, with usually only the last couple raced at pace. Think how much more fun it would be if the last runner on each lap knew that he or she would be physically damaged for being last. I’m only thinking about an air rifle, although I’m aware that our enthusiasm for extreme sports would cause a bit more of a demand for something more dramatic eventually.

I digress, so on to this week’s blog. For one reason or another, a couple of weeks ago I had to withdraw a reasonably large amount of cash from my bank. So I called them in advance on the morning I needed the money. Three times. Each time the phone rang for several minutes, wasn’t answered, and I hung up. I was phoning largely to check to see if I needed any extra ID to take out five grand in cash, and, of course, to see if the branch was open. I decided to chance it anyway, and cycled down to the bank. To my surprise and pleasure, it was indeed open. So I went inside, where I was delighted to see three tellers, uniformly staring into space, and two other staff, presumably engaged in some sort of meet & greet (or possibly meet, greet and inappropriately sell) role. There were no other customers to be seen.

“Good morning”, I said to the first teller, because largely it was.

“I’d like to withdraw five thousand pounds please. Should I make the cheque out to cash?”

“Good morning”, the teller parried (and at this stage the morning was at its shiny best)

“You don’t need a chequebook for that…I can sort that out on your debit card.” She smiled, and I could hear small birds chirruping outside.

“But you can’t withdraw that amount of money without calling us first.” The small birds stopped their chirruping.

“But I did call you. No-one answered.”

“Well, we’ve been really busy this morning.” I looked around for signs of busy-ness, and saw none.

To my delight, just at that point the phone rang. And rang, and rang. And the four other members of staff in the branch ignored it. The phone, incidentally, was in the middle of the branch, on a table, under a poster extolling the virtue of the bank’s customer charter.

After a certain amount of backward and forwardness, we established that I could withdraw £4,995 without telling them in advance, but not £5,000. So I did. I was tempted to go outside and call the branch number to get the full amount, but was worried that my call wouldn’t be answered.

“Are you doing anything exciting with that money then?”, the Teller asked.

“Not really, just paying off my dealer”, I replied. Which was a joke, and not terribly well received.

And this week, I found myself at an event to discuss the future of digital banking. One of the key messages was around the maturity ‘tipping point’ for successful customer interfaces through internet and mobile devices. And one of the contentions was that this maturity could never be reached until digital transactions could have the same level of personal interaction as that delivered in branches. Well, for all the wrong reasons, it seems to me that the future is already here.

Things that make you go hmmm…

~ kevinrevell

As the crisis in the Middle East escalates, the instability of the world economy increases, and the revelation of just how many fault lines you can build a nuclear power station on becomes clear, in the UK, our obsession turns to…the Royal Wedding and the referendum on voting principles. These two headline staples are about to reach fever pitch, and I find myself fairly indifferent to them both.

The ‘wedding of the century’, which appears to be sending journos into palpitations on both sides of the Atlantic, is between two people that most of us have never met, who, for all I know, may be very charming and worthwhile individuals, but who appear to come across as chinless toffs with only a marginal connection by birth with the rest of their country. And at a time when we’re supposed to be riding out a serious recession (with Boy George Osborne at the controls, Gawd help us), do we really need to bring the country to a halt, buy a jobload of Chinese Union Jack bunting, and watch a procession of upper class twits parading around London in stupid clothes? Actually, we had most of that at last week’s London marathon.

Just how ironic is the concept that this event was going to be a toned down event to reflect the nation’s austerity? I’m particularly indignant about this, because my marriage to Mrs E, 21 years ago* was conducted for the princely sum of £27.50, plus the cost of her dress. To be fair, being the well bred lady that she is, she’s never revealed to me the cost of the dress, but given that she bought it from a second-hand shop in Norwich, it’s unlikely to compare with that of the People’s Princess. And, while I’m on the subject, neither did Mrs E attract my attention by parading along a catwalk at a posh university in a transparent dress. Far more romantically, we met one night in the infamous Jolly Butchers’ nightclub, when both of us were blind drunk and unable to focus or speak coherently, and after she’d spent two hours asleep on the toilet floor**. Class.

I’m not a fan of daytime drinking, but should you find yourself alone on Friday with a bottle of vodka and a TV set, I would recommend the following game. Just knock back one shot for each of the following:

– Hushed commentary with the words ‘his late mother’s ring’ in any sentence. All rather creepy, therefore worth a drink anyway

– Reference to Kate Middleton’s humble roots; extra shot for coal mining reference, but one shot deducted if the £30k annual school fees and millionaire father are mentioned in the same sentence

– Heartfelt commentary, being broadcast across 300 countries to a billion viewers, about how important it is that the royal couple are able to live away from the glare of publicity

– Broadcast of any street party north of the border

– Interview with slightly weird Royal enthusiast, who has been camped out for 48 hours on the Mall, saying that Kate looks ‘every inch the Princess’

Obviously, you can add or subtract your own key phrases to taste, not least to pace your drinking. There is a danger that if you follow this directly you’ll be smashed by about 1130; although this may be the only way to get through the rest of the day.

Personally, I’ll be spending Friday creating my own art installation. Inspired by Spencer Tunick, I’ll be employing 500 uniformed public schoolchildren to lay down on a playing field, spelling out the word ‘Austerity’ in 20 ft high letters.

Anyway, that’s my balanced view of the Royal Wedding. Don’t get me started on AV, however, I’m really cross about that one. More of which later.

*And never a cross word

** Mrs E is at pains to point out that her condition was due to an unfortunate incident with what I believe is called a ‘Tardis’

Two legs, two lungs, no brain

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

This all started when I hurt my knee last year, while running. This was a Very Big Deal to me; not being able to run makes me a far grumpier individual that normal. And for anyone that knows me, that really is a Very Big Deal.
Anyway, I went to a number of experts, had a suitably swanky MRI scan, where you have to stay perfectly still in a metal coffin whilst being subjected to Heart FM for 25 minutes (I think they do this as a sort of aural anaesthetic), and eventually got to see one of the country’s leading knee specialists, who was kind enough to see me a number of times at short notice. Which was nothing to do with him needing to pay for his daughter’s wedding.
Anyway, the day arrived where I was getting the full consultant treatment – diagnosis and treatment were promised in one session, so I arrived with a sense of nervousness and excitement.
I went into the office and closed the door; the consultant looked at me over his glasses, with what I think was a benevolent look.
“A lot of people get frightened when I say the word ‘Arthritis'”, he said. Probably not the most positive start to a diagnosis. On the other hand, not necessarily a surprise, or a disaster. After all, most people have some sort of arthritis; it’s what people get when their joints are getting worn. A bit of a blow to my plans for a new PB at marathon, but hey-ho.
Rattled back to Emu Towers, where Mrs E took the news remarkably stoically. “You’ll have to cut down on the running, and do more cross training,”, she constructively suggested.
I’m not sure what happened in the next couple of months. I kind of thought that it would be a good idea to push these knees a little bit more, maybe to prove that there was life in the old dog yet. So I got a place at the London Marathon. Then I started thinking about the Paris Marathon. Then I thought it would be a good wheeze to knock out a few miles between the two dates, in a ‘8 marathons in 8 days’ style.
Then I told Mrs Emu who, as a medical professional, has a delicate bedside manner that she was kind enough to put to one side in her reaction. And she’s barely contained her ire ever since.
So this blog is a rather pathetic attempt to apologise to her for a foolhardy exercise. But, as solutions to mid-life crises go, slightly better than the sports car/Lithuanian escort/crystal meth options that I might have chosen. Not that I pursued any of them, dear…
For all of you other kind souls with open and forgiving hearts, you can follow my new adventures between 9 and 17 April at www.paristolondonrun.co.uk – enjoy!

Mad dogs and slightly madder owners

~ kevinrevell ~ 2 Comments

A quick tale this morning about the joys of running in unknown areas.

A few years ago I used to work quite a bit up in Edinburgh, and I stayed out near the airport. Not the most salubrious part of the city, but very convenient if the most important thing about your visit was the return journey, which in those days it was. If you can get out that way, there’s a canal, which I believe runs from Edinburgh to Glasgow. Head right when you get to it, and you travel into the lowlands, out towards Falkirk. Turn left and you’re on the way to Edinburgh city.

If you’re a runner, canal towpaths are both fab and a challenge. By their nature they are flat, and tend to have a fairly forgiving surface. On the other hand, they’re pretty narrow, and if you want to avoid any obstacles, you’re faced with going up the embankment or into the water. This is particularly irksome when you go past fisherman. I’ve never really understood what drives a man to set up at some god awful hour next to the side of a canal to catch some over-polluted and inedible fish. A friend once told me that it was a great excuse to be alone and smoke a vast quantity of weed, but not sure from the people I see that they’re really the type, and surely you’d want to do this away from a large stretch of cold, deep, dark water? But whatever it is that drives them to this strange hobby, also encourages them to ‘own’ their particular stretch of water. Sometimes they do so with ridiculously overize poles, which stretch behind them and act as hurdles. The more subtle anglers set out guy ropes behind their canvas tents, which act as trip wires. Oh, and they never, ever say good morning.

Where was I?

Oh, yes, so I decided to do an hours run, 35 mins out, 25 mins back, and after about 3 miles, realised I was getting into an area I was going to be uncomfortable in. Canal towpaths can tell you a lot about the area as well – the graffiti, the quality of the litter, the disturbingly slippery discarded prophylactics on the ground… Anyway, incident free, I turned round at 35 minutes and started running back at as fast a pace as I could manage.

After about a mile, I saw them in the distance. Walking ahead of me, and taking up all of the path, was a family, out for a walk with their dog, which even from a distance, I could see was a lively collie, jumping up and down at the father of the group, who was teasing it with a stick. The father, the mother and the dog were walking a little way ahead of the son and daughter, who both looked to be about 6-8 years old.

How best to approach the overtaking manouvre? I didn’t want to shout out, as I thought I might scare them. In any case, what do you shout? I started getting a bit nervous at this point. I was quite keen that none of us should land in the water, and also that the dog didn’t get excited – I really didn’t want it chasing/biting me.

Manouvre number one was executed with considerable precision, and although I say it myself, some success. Silently I padded up behind them, a quick turn right to get past on the embankment side, and a quiet “Hi”, saw me through with neither child jumping into the water.

Manouvre number two was going to be more of a challenge. I had the lively dog to contend with, for a start, which was still jumping up and down trying to bite the stick that the man was teasing it with. Then there was the man himself. You know when you look at someone from behind, and that tells you enough that you don’t want them to turn around? I knew that if I startled him from behind, there was a fair chance he’d react, dog or no dog. Given that I didn’t have much time to consider options, I decided to go for broke, and just cut past, so that the first they’d see of me would be at their side, rather than behind. And at this point, the whole episode went into slow-mo.

First, I got level with them.

Then the dog noticed me.

The dog barked.

I looked , in as friendly a way as I could manage, at the man.

For some reason, my eyes dropped to the stick.

Then I realised it wasn’t a stick, after all. It was a revolver.

Understandably, my pace quickened somewhat. You see, the other thing that I forgot to mention about canal paths is that they tend to be fairly straight. This combined with no exit to left or right meant that I was running away from a slightly scary bloke with a gun, who I’d just startled, with about half a mile to the next bridge. And for all I knew, the gun was being aimed in my direction – and I didn’t even have the option of zigzagging. Oh, and the dog was now giving chase, fairly loudly, and pretty much at my heels.

I reckon I PB’d the half mile fairly easily, and about halfway there, the dog gave up, his barking mixed in with some very loud and imaginative cursing from the owner. I got to the bridge and ducked behind it to get my breath back. Tentatively, I put my head out to see what was happening, and was rewarded with the sight of the family reunited, and the man enthusiastically pistol-whipping the dog.

I continued my run on the road, safe in the knowledge that few of the motorists were likely to be armed or throwing violent dogs onto the pavement. I reflected that from my perspective, it was better that the man was more annoyed with his dog than me, although not sure that made me feel a whole lot better. It did, however, cement some preconceptions I’ve held for some time about dog owners.

So, if you’re going for a run this weekend, you watch out for the man with the dog and a stick…you never know what could happen.

Dog bites runner. Runner bites back.

~ kevinrevell ~ 2 Comments

If anything shows the worrying lack of depth in British distance running, then it would be the fact that our athletics headlines are dominated by the dog that had the audacity to bite Paula Radcliffe.

If you’ve missed this alarming news, check out http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/9350741.stm

For those of us who run, however, this is an important point for discussion, and ranks alongside global warming, future fiscal policy and the human condition. For when you are a runner, the dog is, at best, an unpredictable enemy, and at worst…well, do read on.

I have run for many miles for many years on Sunday mornings with my friend The Flying Postman, and might have mentioned this once or twice in this very blog. And I mention this now, because, unlike me, TFP is a dog lover. Not, I hasten to add, in some rather unpleasant sense that you might find in the Latvian outback, or indeed in Lincolnshire, but in the sense that he genuinely likes dogs. So, running along, with a po-faced dog-walker coming towards us, he’ll make a beeline for the dog, and do whatever dog-lovers do when they see an old chum slavering towards them. Sometimes, I have to stop, while he has a quick chat with the owner, while gently tickling them in the stomach. The dog, not the owner. TFP knows full well that this annoys me, yet still he continues, and I personally think this is a little malicious. So, I had a certain amount of enjoyment a few years back when, during a race, he tripped over a small dog that was snapping gaily around his ankles, sent him flying, and consequently hopping for the last 2 miles. But I digress.

Of course, it’s not the dogs I really object to, it’s the owners. I was out on a run the other day with Jr Emu #3, and we had to stop, while a heavily anoraked walker called his ‘playful’ dog to settle down. “Thanks”, I said, as we finally passed by unmauled.

“Why did you say thanks, Dad?”, said Felix

At which point I realised that I was thanking a total stranger for not letting their dog bite my child. Whilst I realise that this is all a bit downbeat and grumpy, it’s just that I can’t think of any other situation where you can be minding your own business, and some jerk allows a completely uncontrolled beast to come up against you and bite you or jump on top of you. Well, possibly outside a branch of Wetherspoons on a Friday night, but that’s not really the point, is it.

I could go on. So I will. Even worse than the gormless outdoor booted twits from planet Barbour are the enthusiastic dog owners who say helpful things like

“he’s only playing”

or

“don’t worry, he won’t bite”

Hard to believe that they have such a hard and fast contract of trust with an animal that appears to be completely ignoring them. I had a manky terrier bite me once when I was on a run, and the owner helpfully said:

“Well, he’s never done that before”

All of which brought me to something of a boil.

And I do think it’s time to bite back. If you’re a runner, here are some things you can do:

  • The next time you get chased by a dog, encourage it to follow you. Ideally off road. Aim to put a mile between the dog and the owner.
  • Run up to dog owners that have annoyed you, get right in their face, and shout as loudly as possible, something along the lines of DON’T WORRY I’M JUST OUT FOR A RUN AND I’M PROBABLY NOT GOING TO BITE YOU. If you can get one of your fellow runners to grab you by the neck at this point and say

“he’s only playing”,

just at the point that you start foaming at the mouth, so much the better

  • If all else fails, just pull your shorts down and relieve yourself in front of them. Fairs fair, and you can claim in court that you were simply marking your territory

Good luck with all that.

Next week, I’ll tell you my worst running & dog nightmare…

All I want for Christmas…is 10 minutes in a Garra Rufa bath

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

So I’m on a very cold run on Sunday morning with my friend, the flying postman. As regular readers of this column will know, it’s as well to keep to safe issues with TFP unless we’re planning a very long run, so, given that we’re only going to be out for an hour,  I ask him how the Christmas shopping is going.

“Brilliant”,  says TFP. “Got the last present last weekend – a voucher for a fish pedicure”

It had been a particularly cold morning, and I may have gone partially deaf, due to the wind whistling around us (is it just me, ordoes anybody else think the gulf stream might just have given up the ghost altogether?). So, not meaning to be rude, I asked for a repeat.

“A fish pedicure”, he repeated. “For K’s mum”.

“Does K’s mum keep fish then?”, I said, still very much operating in the dark.

“No, it’s a shop. In the mall. You go in, put your feet in a tank of water, and hundreds of small fish suck the bad bits off your feet”.

To be honest, I was still unconvinced that I’d not wondered into a strange parallel world, featuring mythical fantasy animals who do your every bidding, and controlled by the bloke on my right, who possibly needed to drop his class C intake down a notch. But, TFP continued his theme, with what he thought must be the convincing clincher:

“You know, it’s the same sort of fish that clean your feet when you’re on holiday”.

To be honest, no, we obviously go on different holidays. Anyway, I asked, quite politely, why anyone in their right mind would ever want to have such a treatment. After all, the only people that are going to go for it are going to have dead skin, a bit of infection, a little pus, some eczema and god knows what else. Surely it’s expecting a lot from the fish to clean each foot, process the horrors of each foot and not pass it on to the next client?

“Oh no”, said TFP, “you wash your feet first”.

Anyway, apparently it’s all true. I know this because I typed ‘fish pedicure’ into google when I got back, and it’s all the rage. Here’s a non-photoshopped proof:Apparently they’re Turkish Garra Rufa fish*. Very important, apparently that they’re Turkish , and I quote from the Dr Spafish website** “We only provide true breed Garra Rufa, not cheap imitation fish from the US or Far East”. Heaven forbid, although I can’t help wondering how they know, or indeed what would happen if you had your foot near a non-Turkish fish. I suppose we’ll find out some time soon in a small claims court.

It did all remind me a bit about the stories being mooted about around the iPad, as being a brilliant invention because it fills a gap in the market that people didn’t know existed before. Well, eat your heart out, Steve Jobs, because this one really didn’t exist.

 

* I’m not making this up

** Nor this

 

What’s that noise?

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

Obviously language develops. And no-one in their right mind wants to get in the way of progress. But it doesn’t stop you being annoyed. Not in a ‘Lynne Truss gets annoyed at market traders (or trader’s, tee hee)’ style. More in a stop making sense style. So, just for readers of the Emu, my top 10 list of irritating things that people say.

1. Any advance on 100%. Very popular with footballers, who are constantly ‘giving 110%’, then get into a battle over the course of a season where this is gradually increased to 150%. Of course, there is always the chance that the benchmark for your average footballer is about half of what they could achieve, so that their maximum capability was actually 200%. But I think it’s more likely to be crap use of language. Actually, the footballer angle doesn’t unduly worry me; it ends up being a Ron Manager-like pastiche. But I think the X-factor style ‘one million percent yes’ is really irritating.

2. The correct use of ‘well’. A particular annoyance at Emu Towers, where the small Emus are fully aware that calling anything ‘well good’ causes their doting father to turn from Bill Bixby to Lou Ferrigno almost instantly. Of course, this turns into good sport, particularly for #3:
“How are you this morning, Felix?”
“I’m well well, Dad”
And so on…

3. I’m not being <<insert code here>>, but…
I used to work with someone who would always start sentences with ‘I’m not being funny, but…’. And they never were.
Pop ‘racist’ into the sentence, and inevitably people think they can get away with the most outrageous slurs, because they’ve defended themselves accordingly. Astonishing.

4. The correct use of literally. I saw a TV show recently where someone said “My heart was literally in my mouth”. No it wasn’t, you daft twit. And more worryingly, #2 recently tried on some headphones that “literally made my head explode”. Just for that, he won’t be getting them for Christmas.

5. To be honest. Also a good one to start off a sentence. It sort of suggests that everything that doesn’t start off this way is a complete lie. Which it might be, for all I know.

6. For my sins. I don’t get this one at all. I got a phone call from someone at work once, who introduced himself with his name, promptly followed by’…for my sins’. As everyone’s favourite diminutive Scottish mackintosh clad popster would say…’it means nothing to me…’

7. …Aah Vienna. Meaningless song lyrics, used to minimal effect, in everyday language. Also see ‘Everything I do, I do for you’, and pretty much anything from the Bryan Adams back catalogue.

8. What’s that all about? Often used as a lazy end to a sentence, if you can’t really be arsed to give it due consideration. In my experience, very popular after a couple of pints by men sporting bad knitwear and worse haircuts.

9. OMG & LOL & ROTFL etc. Aside from the fact that a long time ago I used to be in a band called Laughing Out Loud and we soooo should have patented that name and made buckets of cash, it’s putting abbreviation in to irritate and show off most of the time. Honestly. FFS, how annoying.

10. Not a problem. Apparently this was quite the thing to say in the early 1990’s. I would like to suggest that anyone still using it in 2010 should probably be put in the stocks for not keeping up. In our local Co-op, there’s a sallow youth on the till who uses ‘Not a problem’ as a substitute for saying, well, anything else:
“Can I pay by card?”
“Not a problem”
“And some cashback?”
“Not a problem”
“£30 ok ?”
“Not a problem”
“Thanks”
“Not a problem”
“Bye then”
“Not a problem”

This is slightly irritating to me for two reasons. Firstly, I fear that he’s got so used to “Not a problem” being his stock response, that if his house was on fire, his car stolen, a plague of locusts came into the shop etc, then he’d be straight in with “Not a problem”. Secondly, I’m irritated that, a bit like ‘to be honest’ above, the implication is that there should be a problem in the first place. Which given the circs, means that I’m troubling him every time I go into the shop. Actually, put like that, I’m not overly bothered.

If you see any of these objectionable uses of our language on future pages of The Emu, feel free to pop round to my house and shoot me in the knee with a BB Gun. To be honest, I don’t think you will.

Stockholm Gala Days

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

Greetings from Stockholm, where Mr and Mrs Emu have been spending their annual few days away from the offspring, in an attempt to rekindle their sanity. And where better to hang out than Stockholm, home of the darker side of European cinema, where the nights start drawing in at about 2.30 pm, and where every time you venture outside, it’s like walking into a freezer. And apparently, we got out just in time; get here in December and you start getting down to a couple of hours of daylight and minus 20 degrees.

But, given that our cultural knowledge of Sweden up to this point had been largely driven by the works of Stieg Larsson, the Abba back catalogue, Bjorn Borg’s adventures with wooden racquets, the Bluewater branch of Ikea and those really cool 1960’s Volvos and Saabs, we set about the business of getting to know Stockholm as well we could. So, with no further ado, here are the top 7 things to know about Stockholm, presented to you by a very impressed visitor:

1. The Swedish parliament is represented by 17 different parties. That’s 17. Given the fuss that the UK has recently made about an effective coalition, how could it possibly work? Well, in a couple of ways. Firstly, it splits parliament down into sub groups responsible for policy and process – each group represents all parties. Secondly, when parliament sits, the decisions are made by individual vote. The members of parliament actually sit together in order of constituency rather than in their parties. This seems incredibly civilised to me.

2. There’s a sense of reserve about the place that manifests itself in how people engage with you. There’s no unfriendliness as such, although on the scale of judging a city entirely on the basis of how many people say hello to you on a run, it would rate alongside Barking. Or Thetford. But the idea that people aren’t jumping about trying to impress you all the time is all good in my book.

3. Because the Swedes have been busy being tolerant for so long, some of the approaches that you see in other countries seems woefully old fashioned. For example, the idea of a gay-friendly bar or district is, well, a bit 1960’s. Everybody seems to be switched on to a fairly enlightened approach to the environment, without necessarily being a hemp-toting hippy. Although, of course, these would be tolerated…

4. There seems to have been a problem with alcohol abuse in the Nordic countries for years. It’s not as super-expensive to buy a beer as it used to be, but that’s in the context of everyone being pricey. And that, in turn, is partly because VAT is running at a standard 25% But the issue with  alcohol was more a problem of abuse in the home, so the government decided to sell the stuff themselves, regulating the sales through their own chain of shops, that were only open until 3pm on weekdays. Rather worryingly, there are quite long queues outside the shops, but the recognition of alcohol as a drug that needs controlling is pretty neat. For a country with such a reputation for alcohol abuse, there’s no culture of drinking on the streets. A shame in a way as you could pretty much guarantee that your beer would always be cold.  

5. Like many European countries, Sweden’s language skills put ours to shame. And it’s not just knowing another language, it’s being super-fluent in it. Ask someone in Stockholm if they speak English, and they’ll say ‘of course’, rather than ‘a little’. I got lost while I was out running, and had to ask directions. I’d been running for about 40 minutes, and must have looked a right mess.
‘Can you tell me how to get to Skeppsholmen’, I asked a pedestrian.
‘Certainly’, he replied, ‘and will you be travelling by foot?’

6. Because of the extremes of the weather, there seems to be a natural affinity with nature, so people get out and about when they can; the centre of Stockholm is    littered with islands that have hardly any inhabitants that you can just wander, run or cycle around. And if you talk to someone about the weather, it’s like an audience with Michael Fish. except more fun.  

7. According to Mrs Emu, who knows about such things, the classic blonde Nordic look is down to a genetic deficiency that took the kerotene pigmentation out of the hair. And apparently, the Nordic men were quite taken with this, and bred little genetically deficient Scandinavians for generations afterwards, thereby leading to a long lineage reaching all the way to the wives of many Premiership footballers. Mrs Emu, I might add at this point, is a brunette. Anyway, apart from all of that, there’s a pretty healthy and vital look to lots of the people we met. We walked around quite a bit in central Stockholm and beyond, and really couldn’t find any obese people to point and laugh at. Similarly, there was a marked lack of chavvieness, although, given that almost everyone was wearing a black anorak, who knows what hellish fashion might have been beneath?

So, if it’s so fantastic,why don’t you just go and live there? Well, it’s bloody freezing, you have to pay four quid for a cup of coffee, and you’d have to watch a lot of  Ingmar Bergman films to fit in. But loads of stuff to learn, and I can’t recommend it highly enough for a visit. Just not in winter.  

Shock news – knee bone is indeed connected to the thigh bone

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

I’m acutely aware that it has become my habit to use this blog as a kind of substitute mother figure for complaining about all my aches and pains. Probably fair enough, as I’m also aware of my real mother’s rather direct view of such things – it goes along the lines of ‘If you stop running long distances, you’re less likely to injure yourself’. And fair enough, but not necessarily what you want to hear when a good proportion of your life revolves around those very distances.

For those of you who are runners, you’ll know what this means. After a couple of days of not running, you get a little, well, ansty. To the extent that, as 60’s pop favourites Peter & Gordon would have it, the birds sing out of tune. A couple more days of this, and your otherwise gregarious and kindly nature turns a little sour. This is a good time to get some advance apologising in to your family. After a couple of weeks, you start to notice that all the runners that you see out and about (and there are far more than there were a week ago…), have cheery smiles on their faces. They’re also running faster than you’re ever likely to manage on your return…should this ever happen. Another week and you feel more Wagner than Cher, as I believe you young people might say.

So, I’m pleased to announce that the Emu is back and running. And the journey back has been an interesting one, which I’ll try to summarise for you.

Running hasn’t been quite right since I did my back in during the summer, and I started to have a problem in my left knee a month later. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a ‘bit of a dull ache that you could run through’ sort of a problem, it was more of a ‘sudden collapse of the left leg leaving you like a dropped puppet’ sort of an affair. It was, as they say round these parts, ‘rarely waird’ as it also managed to come with shooting nerve pains and elephantine-like swellings.

Talking this interesting phenomena through a couple of days later, a friend recommended a masseur who could iron out all sorts of muscular and nerve problems. So a couple of days later I found myself, not for the first time in my life, semi naked on a bench with a perfect stranger with unknown qualifications moving my back about.

An interesting approach to first impressions as well, as Mrs Emu arrived just as we’d got going, after her 12 hour shift a-nursing. Introduced Mrs E, and Mr Masseur announced that he had no time in his life for western medicine. Mrs E mentioned that she’d had to deal with a 12″ blood clot that afternoon. Mr M said that the way to resolve such ailments was to take a little cayenne pepper. So, having isolated 50% of the potential customers in the house, he went on to address the second half. As he dug about in the nether regions of my back, he came across an astonishing discovery, and I heard him whisper faintly…’aha, it’s trapped’. Fearing I’d misjudged him, and that he really did know what he was doing, I asked what he’d found. A trapped nerve, causing all my referred problems? Sadly no. Apparently he’d identified some trapped energy. And it all went a little downhill from there. Towards the end of the session, he was moving some nerves around in my feet, using the faux-science that I believe is called reflexology. I asked why the right foot was so much more painful than the left. Apparently it’s because the right foot represents the past, and the left one the future. To give the man some credit, he did at least have the grace to look a little embarrassed. Anyhow, after about an hour, he prescribed some magnesium crystals.  I tried to bend my left leg and travelled at some speed towards the ceiling.

After a couple of weeks of rest, a visit to a knee specialist, an X-ray, an MRI scan, and a general sense of relief around having health insurance, I ended up on the bench of a fine physiotherapist who looked at my legs, tutted loudly about the muscle tone in my left thigh, and noted that my left leg was about half an inch longer than my right. ‘Funny’, I said, ‘I’d never noticed that’. ‘No’, he said. ‘It’s where you put your back out in August, and the pelvis hasn’t reset properly’. And so, with a bit of manipulation and a loud crack, my legs were restored to roughly the same length.  And so I get back to running.

What does this tell us about life, the world and everything?

Well, as John Lydon once notably said: ‘Never trust a hippy’.

And as the Emu says: ‘The kneebone’s connected to the thighbone…’