Author: kevinrevell

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

Our Marrakech Express

~ kevinrevell ~ 4 Comments

Mrs E and me decided to go to Marrakech because it was somewhere we’d never been, somewhere completely different and because we ‘needed a break’. Funny expression that, when you think about it. Not many of our ancestors downed tools and nipped off to a different continent for a few days because they needed to think about something other than the daily grind, I’m pretty sure my parents never did and I’m absolutely sure their parents didn’t. But it seems to be all the rage for us lot.

And so we set off at 2am on Friday morning, leaving the smaller kids and the dog in the charge of the larger kid, who, rather worryingly at that time still hadn’t returned from a night out, but we tried to put this to the back of our minds because we ‘needed a break’. And things would be ok at home. They’re always pretty ok at home; when something does go wrong, like an exam, or someone’s ill, or we run out of dog food, we just go and get it fixed. And then, on the way to the airport, we get a message from #1 son and he’s home, and he’s sorry he was late but he had a great night out and we should have a great time away for a few days because he knows we need a break.

Stansted at 0400 on a Friday is a lot busier than we thought it would be. A frightening number of stag parties, all bright and breezy, waiting for a few days of outrage to fuel their lad stories for years to come. Most have matching T-shirts with an embarrassing picture of the groom-to-be on the front, and occasionally full instructions for the stag party on the back (all drinking to be done with left hand only, your beermat must be used at all times, fines will be issued without exception at the 8pm meeting) which suggests that whoever is organising the event may well have appeared in scout uniform at some earlier part of their lives.

Mrs E lives in fear of Ryanair flights with stag parties on board, after some very long journeys in the past, the lowlight of which was twenty grown men singing to their fellow Budapest-bound passenger, Beryl, to whom the captain had just wished a very happy 70th birthday. No doubt wanting to surprise Beryl, our friends eschewed the obvious choice of ‘Happy Birthday, Dear Beryl’, and went for the more modern ‘Beryl, Beryl, Beryl, Takes it up the ar**, takes it up the…’, and so on. More disappointing was that this was their full repertoire for a four hour flight.

Anyway, one of the advantages of travelling to a devout Muslim country is that you’re not really going to mix it with too many stag weekends, at least, not those organised with any Baden-Powell like precision. And we didn’t, really. We chatted and dozed and thought guilty thoughts about leaving the kids behind while we jetted off and enjoyed ourselves, which is exactly the sort of thing that you should think about on this sort of adventure.

And I read a great book by Anharanand Finn on Japanese running, and in it he talks about needing to travel to Japan by rail (with his wife and three small children) so that they could all get a sense of the size of the planet. My immediate thought on this was that he could have saved himself a lot of bother by just buying a globe and teaching his kids the difference between small and far away, but before I’d really thought this through we’d landed, and I realised that he was pretty spot on. Because you do all of this without thinking – you drop your bags off, show some people some documents, hop on a plane, and three hours later you’re on a different continent, with no sense of any transitional space, where it’s 42 degrees in the morning, where not only the language but the alphabet is different, where people are still sleeping eight to a room without power, water, or plumbing, and where over 99% of the population share a common religion.

And we have three days of beautiful scenery, people who are far too polite than they have cause to be, and ways of living that we just can’t get our heads around. We secretly hide ourselves away to eat or drink during the day, because it’s Ramadan, and then when we mention it, we’re told not to be so silly. And we ask about how the fasting works, and while we’re there it’s about halfway through the 30 days, and the temperature is in the 40s and you not only can’t have anything to eat but nothing at all to drink between 0500 and 2000. And, possibly because we’re gormless westerners we say things like ‘isn’t that really hard in this weather?’, and we’re told, no, because it’s the best month of the year, because it purifies the body, and because it celebrates their feelings. So we stand outside a mosque at prayer time one evening and there are thousands of people being called to prayer, and each one as they cross the road looks relaxed and serene and just incredibly happy.

On our last day we travel up to the Atlas mountains and we talk to the guide about different cultures, and how he’s able to manage, practically, to pray five times a day. And he asks how many times a day people pray in England. And I fumble around for an answer, which eventually turns up as an apologetic mumble, and if you were to believe some of the press at home, this is the point at which he’d be muttering about western infidels, but that doesn’t happen. A bit of confusion, and perhaps a bit of sympathy and that’s all.

And before we know it, it’s time to travel back, and we hop on the same plane back to Stansted. And in the seats in front is a family of six who, at 0900 in the morning, are ordering the Ryanair hot dog special, the cheese and ham paninis and the chocolate croissants, and across from us are a couple who are incessantly complaining about someone having taken ‘their’ luggage rack, while they take it in turns to take their e-cigarette into the toilets. Behind me, someone is tucking into fries and a hot chocolate. Someone else tells us that their hotel was ‘supposed to be five star, but fell a little short in some areas’. It’s a three hour flight, and we appear to have got back to Britain two hours early.

We needed a break, and we got one. We hardly talked about work, or the minute problems of our near-perfect lives. We parachuted into North Africa, spent some money that, in relative terms, had come fairly easy to us, and which may, or may not, help the development of a beautiful country full of fabulous people. At the moment, that doesn’t feel like a very fair swap.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I Give You…The Cramps!

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(For the gig review of The (wonderful) Cramps at UEA in 1986, come back another time)

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If you should find yourself travelling through Provence any time soon, as you saunter down South, below Avignon, taking in the cherry trees and the lavender, relaxing with a couple of bottles of rosé and dreaming of a sunny retirement, do take a detour to look up at Mont Ventoux. MV sticks out like a sore thumb in the rolling countryside, and, if there was any justice in the world, ought to be removed. In the unlikely event that you’re a creationist and you’re reading this blog, a possible explanation is that He created a beautiful countryside of rolling hills and gorgeous valleys and then had a complete moment of aberration, possibly allowing His wayward office boy to run some calculations while He was off working out marine food chains. Or something.

If you’re not familiar with MV I’ll give you a bit of a duffer’s guide. It stands at 1,912 metres above sea level, and dominates the landscape as the biggest peak in the area. You can pick it out quite easily, as, on the South side in particular, the top third of the mountain is like a Star Wars moonscape, a desolate area of rock and cliff, that seems to light up when it catches the sun. Unfortunately that’s not all that often, as MV also has its own microclimate, which involves a good deal of cloud cover, rain, occasional snow at any time of the year, and winds (hence the name) that can whip up to 180 mph. It is, in the most beautiful part of Europe, an ugly bully of a mountain, often closed down for access due to weather, and regularly the scene of ambulance rescues of innocent walkers and cyclists.

And, naturally enough, a point of pilgrimage for cyclists, who have seen the summit finish on the Tour de France and want to experience it for themselves. It has an iconic status amongst cycling fans, as it regularly features in the Tour, and can be a real turning point, as riders break down part way up, as the stupid gradient, the horrible weather, and some jerk running beside you in a devil’s outfit all take their miserable toll. Famously, the British cyclist Tommy Simpson collapsed and died on the mountain in 1967, and was later found to have had a stomach full of brandy and barbiturates, which I believe were very much the de facto energy gels of the time. There’s a memorial to him about 2km from the summit, where cyclists touchingly still leave water bottles, jerseys, and for all I know, bottles of Purple Hearts as little gestures to the then hero of British cycling.

And over the years, as cycling fans will know, there have been some epic battles getting up to the top of the mountain. Charly Gaul won here in 1959, Eddy Merckx cemented his reputation as the ‘Cannibal’ in 1970, and if you pitch up in late June you can try your hand for the Cannibal competition for multiple ascents (or, for the ladies, the fetchingly titled ‘Cannibalette’). In later years, battles were fought out in the heat and oppressive air between the really big names like Beloki, Virenque, Armstrong and Pantani. In 2000, after an astonishing fight to the top, Armstrong was alleged to have gifted the stage to Pantani, but vehemently denied doing so. So he probably did.

You get to the summit from one of three routes, which go from the villages of Malaucene, Bedoin and Sault. The most common route on the tour is from Bedoin, although it’s not really any easier or harder than the others – each is between 21 and 26km long, and goes between a 8% and a 12% incline. There are no flat bits to speak of, so effectively you have to constantly pedal unless you want to fall off, which towards the top feels like quite an attractive option. On the south side, the ski chalet at Chalet Reynard marks the start of the weird moonscape part, and here the winds throw can throw you about a bit. This wouldn’t be such a problem if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s a sheer wall of rock to one side of you, and a vertical drop, sometimes of a hundred metres, on the other. It’s a narrow road, and if you’re headed up, you need to keep hard to the right for fear of the cars, motorbikes and cycles going flat out on the way down. It takes you the best part of two hours to get to the top (unless you’re a pro – the time trial record is a jaw-dropping 55 minutes), and about 30 minutes to descend, and less than that if you don’t use your brakes. When we came here a couple of years ago, one of us clocked 50mph on the way down, particularly impressive in that he’d previously crashed, was on a rented bike, and had a young family at home.

Naturally enough, the challenge amongst cyclists is to do three ascents (and descents) in a day, thereby granting you membership of, and bragging rights for, the ‘Club de Cinglés’. I had to look up ‘Cinglés’ in the dictionary, and it means slash, sting, or whip, which seems about right. A few of us had come perilously close to achieving membership in 2013, citing a number of reasons for missing the target, including crashes, lack of preparation and severe emotional torpor. I had a reasonable excuse – I had to cycle the equivalent of the walk of shame back through Benoit after the second climb, nursing a bout of cramp that was so severe that I was physically unable to detach myself from the bike for several hours afterwards. So this time, the plan was a) to do the three ascents, and b) not get cramp.

To hit target a), I spent a ridiculous amount of time in the preceding months on static bikes. If you’re not familiar with these, imagine the boredom of running in a gym on a treadmill for an hour, then multiply the boredom factor by around 3. Anyway, the point was to get my body used to pedalling for long periods of time without any interruption. You have to keep your concentration going as well, otherwise your pulse drops and you just spin the pedals. Consequently a single 30 minute podcast can last you well over a week. To simulate multiple ascents, I used Mrs E’s big shopping trip to London one Saturday to do three one hour sessions back to back, emailing her attractive pictures during the course of the day of post-workout t-shirts. To her credit, she only used the word ‘twat’ on two of her replies.

Target b) was slightly more challenging, as I seem to manage to get cramp these days by almost any exercise, or sometimes from just going to bed, but, especially by long endurance stuff, so I put my faith in some serious intensive efforts, a disgusting looking pink electrolyte drink and by necking a load of magnesium tablets in the week before the ride.

Another blog, ‘Why grown men choose to cycle up mountains purely so that they can cycle down them again’ will be published in due course, but only after I find a way to write the conclusion. At the moment I’m afraid I just don’t have the mental capacity to answer the exam question. Anyway, that will describe the blow by blow up/down/up/down/up/down elements to the ride, and will culminate in the description of the final ascent, around the iconic hairpin to the summit, and into cloud cover so bad that I couldn’t even see where the altitude marker was. (It also made for the weirdest descent, whizzing down the hills to Malaucene at 25mph, with about 10m of visibility and the brakes just about keeping the rain off the rims. My teeth were clenched so hard together that my jaw still ached the next day.)

And, due to the intensive training regime, or a good slice of luck, the whole exercise from mile zero to mile 85 was conducted in a cramp free zone. Unfortunately, the entire route was 90 miles, and it was 5 miles from the end of the journey that I decided it was time to stop for a wee. I decided this a bit late on, halfway round a corner, and tried to stop in a hurry on the wet road. As a result, the back wheel locked and I skidded to a halt, just about getting my cleated shoe out of the pedal in the time it took to say ‘f*ck me I’ve got cramp in both calves’.

Just about managed to remove the bike from underneath me without any further damage, and stretched out a bit, then had to get over the road to a nearby tree.

You’ve probably observed, that, no matter how inelegant the average middle aged male cyclist looks when they’re on the bike, they look ten times more ridiculous off it, and I don’t think I’d have won any catwalk points for the mince across the tarmac in cleats (a sort of backward high heel), Lycra shorts, fingerless gloves, headscarf and ridiculous helmet, all done while trying to keep my calves from going into spasm. Having reached the side of the road without further damage, the challenge really began.

When I started cycling, years ago, a pair of shorts, ideally with a bit of padding in them, was all you really needed to keep, well, everything in order. These days, along with carbon frames, precision shifters and fully cleated shoes, comes the ‘bib-short’, previously only ever worn by professional teams. Oh, and John Curry. Nowadays, no middle aged cyclist would ever consider themselves fully dressed without first slipping into a pair of bib shorts, ideally in one size smaller than you’d have for, say, ballet tights. And, once in, they say, you never go back.

Which is all very well, until you need to go for a wee, although there is a technique, which I will now try to describe, sparing the blushes of our more sensitive readers. First, place your feet approximately shoulder length apart. Loosen your upper clothing as far as is possible. Check over both shoulders that there are no onlookers. With your left hand, and with your thumb pressed against your stomach, pull down the front of the bib, while bending forward slightly from the waist. While holding this position, use your right hand to do what your right hand would normally do in this situation.

On no account during this exercise, and particularly mid-flow, should you allow your legs to cramp up. Because, if this happens, it’s quite likely that you’ll catapult forward quite dramatically, and, the only thing you’ll be able to think of is the police evidence scene in ‘Withnail and I’.

And you’d better hope that there’s a tree in your way to break your fall as you catapult forwards with both hands, um, occupied. And you’d also better hope that you’re still wearing a helmet as you hit the tree. And you’d really hope that there’s a washing machine at the place you’re staying at. Because, if those things don’t happen, it would be quite embarrassing, wouldn’t it? Luckily, my luck was in.

I’d texted my friend G at the summit, and he kindly waited for me as I finally got back to the apartment we’d rented, near Malaucene. Managed to get off the bike without any further injury, and he offered to carry it up the steps for me.

“You go first”, I said.

I’d been out for about ten hours and was pretty familiar with the weather by now. Consequently I was anxious to remain downwind.

The Doctor Is In

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Like any other sane person living in the United Kingdom, I spend a reasonable amount of my time worried about the state of health in the country, and in particular the perilous condition of the National Health Service. I feel fairly well informed in this area by Mrs E, who qualified as a nurse over 25 years ago and has returned from almost every shift since with either a) a shake of the head in a ‘you couldn’t make it up’ style or b) a story about something so inspirational around life and death that makes you think that really, the rest of us are just playing bit parts to the Doctors and Nurses that really make the world go around.

So, it was with a genuine and non-sarky interest that I read of the government’s new initiative to get 5,000 new GPs on the NHS register. In fact, I went straight to the GMC website to check what sort of a difference this would make. If you’re of a similar mindset, head for http://www.gmc-uk.org/doctors/register/search_stats.asp and have a look for yourself. You’ll see that if Dave’s big plan is to announce 5,000 more GPs before the next election, then he doesn’t actually need to do anything more than for the last five years.  If, however, he wants to get 5,000 in the next (say) twelve months, then he’ll have his work cut out, particularly given the number of grads qualifying each year as doctors.

Fortunately, the Emu exists partly to right these political challenges, and using simple principles of supply and demand, proposes an innovative method of getting more doctors into GP practices. It seems to me that there are more than enough individuals wandering around, calling themselves Doctor, that we should just start asking them to step up to the mark and start to save the NHS.  Here is my starter for 10:

1. Dr Dre

Let’s face it, it’s time for the good doctor to leave his past of Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube endorsement and the production of ridiculously expensive headphones, and return to his previous occupation, which, as very few people know, was as a junior GP in a small surgery just outside Sheffield. Rap fans will know that Dr Dre’s son Curtis is now known as ‘Hood Surgeon’, so there’s a great opportunity for the two of them to work together as a family practice, possibly under the banner “Get Well or Die Tryin'”.

2. Dr Who

When I was growing up, our family went to the same doctor for about twenty years. Which was great for continuity and relationships, and Dr Who could offer the same sort of service, what with him being over 900 years old. There would be a problem with him regenerating every couple of years, but that would probably be ok as long as you didn’t get Peter Davison while pregnant. You’d worry about him slipping out of character and into ‘Young Mister ‘Erriot’, and delivering the new born with nothing more than a bar of carbolic soap and a winsome smile.

3. Doctor and the Medics

Looking at the pictures of Doctor and the Medics, it’s quite hard to believe how they’d work out at some of our quieter GP practices, but, on the other hand, how many Doctors will actually come fully equipped with a full set of medics to assist their procedure? In any case, they might be just the tonic for some of the more depressed goths that you find hanging around waiting rooms.

4. Doctor Spock

Not to be confused with Mr Spock (see 5. below), Doctor Spock managed to turn American baby and childcare on its head in the 1960’s by psychiatrist analysis of family behaviours. Something that might not be a bad idea to revisit, given some of the things that you see every day. He also wrote a book called ‘Why Babies Suck’, which might be of interest to the goths currently waiting to be see by Doctor & The Medics (who are, of course, running late again).

5. Doctor McCoy

I don’t know that much about Dr McCoy’s actual medical qualifications, although, on reflection, you never saw the actors in Star Trek with coughs or colds, so I reckon it was a pretty healthy place if you ignored the weekly alien predators. But the overriding reason you’d have Dr McCoy as your doctor would be so that he’d be around to lighten the mood during a family death. You’d ask him (say) if your grandfather was ill. “It’s worse than that, he’s dead, Jim”, he’d say. Even if your name wasn’t Jim, you’d ask him to say it again, and again, and you’d have skipped right to the acceptance part of the grieving process.

6. Doctor Zhivago

Let’s face it, if Omar Sharif was your GP, AND he was a poet, AND a left wing radical who’d been wronged by the system, AND you knew that all he ever wanted was to live a peaceful life thinking wistfully of the woman he loved….well, he could tell you anything really. Terminal illness, high prescription charges, permanent deformities, anything really, as long as there was a bit of soft balalaika going on in the background.

7. Dr Evil

Just along the corridor from Doctor Zhivago, with his soft eyes and gentle touch, is the slightly less popular office (inside a hollowed out volcano) of Doctor Evil. Fans of Austin Powers will remember that the bad Doctor went to Evil Medical School in Belgium, before graduating and embarking upon despicable plans to take over the world. He could at least be relied on to be fairly direct when delivering bad news, and , failing an immediate cure for your ills, could help you to be cryogenically frozen.

8. Dr Indiana Jones

By day, Dr Jones is a renowned lecturer on early history, with a penchant for tweed jackets and an apparent need to employ a butler. In his holidays, he likes to go exploring ancient civilisations and battling with Nazi throwbacks. None of this comes for free, so he’d be an ideal candidate to moonlight at a GP surgery of en evening. Much like Dr Zhivago, he could tell you most things while you melted in his eyes, but with the added bonus that you’d be talking to an expert lasso enthusiast at the same time.

9. Dr Hook

Most people will be surprised to hear that Dr Hook was qualified as a medical doctor, but his was nothing if not a life of contradiction, given that  he didn’t actually have a hook either. Which was just as well, given some of the delicate keyhole surgery he had to perform early in his career with the Medicine Show. Dr Hook was also known for his bedside manner and good nature with relatives, for example with Sylvia’s mother: “Please Mrs Avery, I just want to tell her goodbye…”

10. Doctor Seuss

Doctor Seuss is my outside candidate for greatest American author of all time, so I’m slightly biased, but I really think if every interaction was in the style of ‘The Cat In The Hat’ then even really bad news would be fun:

Would you, could you, step this way

Your blood results are back today

Not, alas the ideal answer

Son, you have pancreatic cancer

On the rare occasions that I visit a doctor, I’ve forgotten the diagnosis about 5 minutes after I leave the surgery. Maybe I need to go to a GP to check my memory loss, but I think it’s more that complex medical terminology and me have never really worked well together. But if Doctor Seuss told me the diagnosis, I’d never forget.

Given the challenges faced by the NHS, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we had some of these Doctors facing off to the Great British Public before too long. As one of the GBP, I’d be delighted.

Pregnant Paws

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Well, it’s been a busy week at Emu towers, and, for once, the focus has been away from the challenges of the unreasonableness of the two-legged population and onto the animal kingdom. The week started with Luna behaving…well, strangely. I mentioned the symptoms to a couple of friends, and without missing a beat, each one said : “Phantom pregnancy” I don’t know about you, but this was very much a new term for me, and it does strike me that I’m learning a whole new vocabulary since the dog came onto our lives. Only last week I found that the ugly yellow circles on our lawn were caused by something called ‘urine burn’. I’d never heard of urine burn before, although it sounds like something where a bit of cranberry juice and yoghurt wouldn’t go amiss, but apparently it’s all the rage where female dogs wee on lawns, and completely untreatable, unless you follow said dog about with a watering can every time they need a pee. Any way, onto the phantom pregnancy, which sounds like it might involve ectoplasm and Doris Stokes (or Dynamo, for our younger readers) but is a proper physical and mental condition experienced by dogs a few weeks after their first season. I found this out, as everyone else does these days, by logging on to the internet, via the pet insurance details to check cover (alas no), and established the following symptoms:

  • Behavioral changes.
  • Mothering activity, nesting, and self-nursing.
  • Restlessness.
  • Abdominal distention.
  • Enlargement of mammary glands.
  • Depression.
  • Loss of appetite (anorexia)

Which was a bit like when you look into a medical dictionary and finding that you have all the symptoms for cholera, or athlete’s foot, or glaucoma (or possibly all three). Because Luna, bless her, seemed to be showing most of these signs in spades. Which was all a bit weird (or wared, as they say in these parts), probably as we’re so used to her behaving in a certain way. So, for example, she’d take a couple of her toys around everywhere with her, making sure they were tucked under her when she was sleeping. She started ‘nesting’, unfortunately choosing to do so in our bed. Then she went off her food, then she started talking to us. Really.  Not barking, you understand, but the sort of talking that dogs do when they want to have an urgent chat. Of course, this led to quite a bit of localised hi-jinks, with lots of ‘What’s that Luna, there’s two small children trapped in an abandoned mine?’ or ‘What’s that Luna, you heard Mummy telling Daddy that #3 was adopted?’ Although the fun to be had from this faded a bit when she decided to have an urgent chat at 4 in the morning. Reading the list above, Mrs E was concerned that there might be a conversation she was missing about depression, anorexia or perhaps self-harming, so elected to sleep downstairs, a level of devotion that had been denied to any of her human children.

Fortunately help was at hand for the abdominal inflammation aspect of the illness, as Luna was booked into be spayed on Friday. Not for her the pitter patter of little Hungarian paws across the kitchen floor in the future, instead she’ll be resigned to a barren life ahead, wondering what might have been. Even 72 hours post-op there’s something of Miss Haversham about the way she looks at us. On the plus side, she was weighed at the vets after the op, and declared to be the perfect weight for a dog her age. #1 helpfully pointed out that her reproductive organs would have pushed her well over the ideal point, thereby yet again showing the sensitivity that the medical profession is expecting from him in the future.

All of which has resulted in a different dog at the end of the week to the one we started with. She’s still enjoying her phantom pregnancy symptoms, but is coming down from an anaesthetic which involved a healthy dose of methadone (yes, methadone). She’s shaved across her tummy and sporting a pretty impressive dressing which she’s trying to lick off, so to prevent this, Mrs E has taken to fitting her out in a pink running T-shirt. So, just to recap, we have a dog dressed up in a pink shirt, coming down from methadone, who thinks she’s pregnant, and possibly suffering from depression and anorexia. She’s restless but not allowed off the lead for a week. Yet again, we have a glimpse into what happens when teenage girls go wrong.

Postcards from The Edge

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A recent yard sale in Amsterdam has unearthed a number of artefacts from the formative years of one of Ireland’s proudest exports. And the finding of this fabulous trove has nothing to do with thinking of an excellent blog title first and then making some stuff up to fit….

 

12 Sep 1978

Dear Paul,

I think it’s a great idea to start a band. And I think you’d be a really good singer. I’m currently working on a guitar sound that will be an ideal foil for some really pompous lyrics, if you have any to spare.
I’m just worried about one thing at the moment – You said at rehearsal that you were going to change your name to Bono Vox. Call yourself the latin for ‘good voice’ might be seen as a little, er pretentious in these post-punk years?
Just saying.

Dave.

 

 

 

12 October 1978

Bono,

Thanks for getting back to me on the whole name thing. Actually, I’ve never been terribly keen on the whole ‘my name is Dave’ business either.
I’ve decided that I’m going to call myself something different too. I think it needs to be really edgy and abstract. Any ideas?

Dave

 

 

 

10 June 1981

Bono,

Thanks for the discussion earlier. Of course I don’t mind you insisting on communication in writing. You’ll be wanting to spare your voice for some of your more trademark wailing on the new album, I’m sure. I have to confess though that I’m a bit concerned about the latest on the stage show. I’m not sure that climbing the lighting rig and waving that big white flag really works after the first ten times?

I may be wrong, and I know you’re normally right.

The Edge (Please stop calling me Dave)

 

 

 

 

7 September 1984

Bono,

You know how you decided that you were going to become Bono instead of Bono Vox because it was less, and yet slightly more, pretentious. Well, I’ve been thinking about ‘The Edge’ And I’ve decided that the The in The Edge is the The that the world doesn’t need. Also, that was a sentence that had 7 The’s in – impressed? Anyway, people with The in their name are like The Undertaker or The Destroyer, like in WWF, so that doesn’t seem right to me to be like them. And one word names are cool and important, right? Like Gandhi. And Prince. And Liberace. And Jordan. So I’ve decided to drop the The. From now on you can just introduce me on stage as Edge, right. And don’t you give me any of that nonsense about my own state of self-importance. You started it.

The* Edge

* sorry, force of habit

 

 

 

 

 

15 January 1980

Bono,

I was working on my Airfix airplane kits at the weekend and had a bit of a disaster. Some superglue fell out of the fuselage of a Mitsubishi Zero as I was putting it together and it’s stuck all of the controls on my guitar pedals. I’ve tried freeing them up but no success. Really sorry, but I fear I’m going to be stuck with this guitar sound for at least the next eight albums.

Edge

 

 

 

 

 

 

26 November 1984

Dear Bono,

Hope you had a good time at the Band Aid shindig yesterday. I confess I was a little disappointed not to get an invite, especially as Big Country were there with their big hair and tartan shirts and huge guitar sound what I’m sure I started off. Anyway, about your line in the song. Really like the screaming approach to the line, it sounds like you really mean it. My only worry is, whether, as a practicing Christian, you should really be thanking God it’s them instead of you? I’ve a horrible feeling that this might come back to haunt you, although, as I always say, you know best.

Yours, Edge

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 June 1986

Bono,

I’ve been thinking for a while that I’m needing a bit of an image to go with my world-famous guitar sound. I was thinking about wearing a stupid hat for the rest of my life. Note this has absolutely nothing to do with male pattern baldness.

Thoughts?

Edge

 

 

 

 

 

1 January 1987

Dear Bono,

Happy New Year. I do think the new album will be a cracker, as Frank Carson would say (I know you’re not really a fan). One thing I’m a tiny bit concerned about. If we call it the Joshua Tree, isn’t there a danger that Larry will think that he’s being kicked out again? What if we called it the Joshua Four, do you think it would lose any impact?

Yours, Edge

 

Bradley Johnson’s left foot

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

At the start of the 2014/15 season, with an optimistic spring in my step, I went to a few of Norwich City’s home games. Managed to watch most of them with my head in my hands, as one unimpressive visiting side after another pitched up at Carrow Road and played a level of rubbish football that Norwich managed to underperformance against. I’m slightly embarrassed that some of my resultant grumpiness was directed at the new God in this part of the world, who if you’ve not heard, is Bradley Johnson. My main complaint at the start of the season was that he seemed a bit overweight and cumbersome.

“Nonsense”, said my friend G, who, annoyingly, along with my wife, all of my children and my boss, has an irritating habit of being right all the time, “he’s just a Unit”.

And, over the last few months, the Unit has turned into something fairly wonderful. If you ever want to endear yourself to people in Norwich, score a goal against Ipswich. Extra points if it means that you’ll swap places with Ipswich in the league as a result. And many, many more points if it’s a goal like this one:

I showed this clip to my eldest son last week. I wanted, as much as anything, to check my eyesight, because I’ve watched this goal many times now and I still can’t really see the ball from the point at which it’s kicked until it ends up pretty much breaking the net. Thankfully I’m not going blind, because he could hardly see it as well.
“Blimey”, he said, “imagine if that’d missed!”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, and he said that he thought it could well have decapitated a spectator, which is a bit extreme, but I understand what he meant.

And that got me to thinking…

I do think the game of football could do with a bit of a shake up, with the introduction of a few choice rules. As ever, the pride of East Anglia will lead the way, as follows:

1. If footballers like Bradley Johnston can hit the ball that hard, let’s give them the right sort of incentive. Firstly, remove the netting from the goal. Then, situate certain spectators immediately behind the goal. Immediate suggestions might be local political candidates, the cast of TOWIE, people who drop litter, and the person who stole my good running shorts from the changing room at work last year. Anyway, there’d be a double celebration every time a goal got fired in. We could extend this incentivisation to really make sure that players always hit the target (there are few things that football fans like less than someone earning £25k a week who manages to keep missing the goal). So I’d propose also strategically surrounding the goal with members of the strikers’ immediate families, and possibly a selection of pensioners, small children and, possibly, visitors from local hospices. Now, obviously there are a few logistical challenges to sort out here, and we’d have to remember to change ends with the spectators at half time, but that’s just detail to iron out.

2. Part of Norwich’s recent success is their reaction to a new manager arriving at the club. Not for us the big name signings, we maintain the ‘family club, family wages’ approach to manager recruitment around these parts. So we brought in Alex Neil, formerly of Hamilton Academicals. Some of our overseas readers may need to look them up. As will some of our local readers. And if you have that image of HA being a team of enthusiastic scholars who play the game in the Corinthian tradition, I’d respectfully suggest that you get yourself along to Hamilton town sometime. Anyway, there wasn’t a lot of information around about Alex Neil before he joined Norwich. Pretty much all that the papers were able to tell us was that he was much loved at HA, and that players and staff openly wept when he left, that he was a player-manager, and that he was so fair that he once fined himself after a match for poor discipline. I told my son about that.

“Player manager?”, he cried. “what on earth is a player manager?”

I explained, largely by replaying both words back to him. And realised that there haven’t really been any player-managers in the higher leagues for years.

“That’s brilliant”, he said “every team should have a player manager”

And so they should.

We should demand that at least one half of a game is played with a goalkeeper, a manager and nine other players taking the field. I’d very much like a sub-rule for managers to wear their normal managerial wear as they get involved, so a huge puffy jacket for Arsene Wenger, as he squares up to Alan Pardew, in his trademark smart suit. Meanwhile, Sam Allardice faces off to Tony Pulis in a head to head battle in the centre circle, possibly sponsored by TK Maxx:

Oh, the fun you could have.

3. Finally, it shouldn’t just be the blessed Delia who comes on to the pitch to rally the crowd at half time :

At least once a year, the Chair of all football clubs should be force fed alcohol and then encouraged to entertain the crowd in a manner of their choosing. Think of the fabulous opportunities – I would never choose to go to watch a Chelsea home game, but if Roman Abramovich was guaranteed to turn up at half time after half a bottle of Stolichnaya and sing his favourite out-takes from Fiddler on the Roof, I’d be there like a shot.

More ideas that need a bit of working up, but I don’t think they’re much more outlandish than issuing referees with magic paint. And it happened first in Norwich, so it’s bound to set the trend.

 

 

Reach Out (I won’t be there)

~ kevinrevell ~ 1 Comment

After a brief sojourn to talk about the joys of dog adolescence and men in tights, the Emu is back to what I think it does best.

That is, to get completely wound up about the minutia of life in a middle-class way that stops just short of calling in to the Today programme. Or writing to The Times. I’m not actually sure what I’m personally just short of, as I’d never entertain the idea of  doing either of those things, but I’m certainly just short of something. Or I might be at the end of a tether, but then getting to the end of your tether is presumably the bit just before you let go and fall off, and that’s not it. This is more like the bit just before you fold your arms, tip your head back and Tsk loudly, before you announce that the world has just gone to hell in a handbasket.

Which, in itself, is the bit that’s scarily close to buying the Daily Mail or reading UKIP pamphlets seriously, and, as we all know, that way madness lies.

Where was I?

Well, I was going to have a bit of a pop about some of the language that is beginning to, as they say, grind my gears. Every now and again, there seems to be a bit of a resurgence of the sort of language, particularly in business, that really doesn’t mean anything, but which everybody seems to embrace. Actually, the word embrace is a good example. When I started work, (which, according to my children was some time around 1863), the idea of ’embracing’ an idea would just sound…stupid. Embracing is something that a gentleman might do with his wife in an upstairs room with the lights off, thankyou very much, or possibly something you did with a tree a few years later if your name was Swampy. But not, no, and never ever conceptually in the workplace. Ridiculous. And yet sometimes I feel that I can’t move at work for people embracing ideas or concepts or challenges.

So, here are three pops I’d like to have about modern business language:

1. Reflecting

For example: ‘I’ve been reflecting on our last conversation’.

Have you? Or is this just a pretentious way of replacing the word ‘thinking’. Unfortunately reflection summons up self-reflection summons up self-help summons up hippie free thinking. Man.

It’s just twaddle. And it should stop.

2. The Journey

For example: ‘I’d like to tell you about my personal journey here today’ or ‘This project will be a fascinating journey for all involved’

Actually no. Your personal journey here today was, very possibly, a bus and a walk. And this project, even if it is completely fascinating, will remain…a project. Again, the problem is that it’s the wrong word because it’s too blimmin’ pretentious for its own good.

3. Reaching Out

For example: ‘I’ll reach out to Fred and see if he can help’, and ‘Fred, I’m keen to reach out to you for some input’.

Fred, and anyone else in their right mind, should put the phone down as soon as they heard the word reach. Or possibly evidence the other meaning of the word.

Reaching out should only ever be used in a business context when, six sheets to the wind on a works night out, you stumble into a Karaoke bar and pretend to be Levi Stubbs:

 

Note, this should never be attempted sober and, ideally, never mentioned by your colleagues subsequently. Unless you’re gainfully employed in an job that encourages matching white suits, close harmonies and natty dancing during meetings. (I simply can’t tell you how happy I would be to work in an office like that.)

Look, if we all work together we can rid ourselves of this nonsense. Next time someone uses one of these words, cough discreetly and ask if they wouldn’t mind, well, winding their neck in. And if we stop the rot now, none of us need ever look wistfully at the Daily Mail again.

A pair of embarrassing running shorts (part 2)

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

Well, gentle reader, sadly it’s tights weather yet again. For running, you understand. I’ve long since moved away from the old school style of running that insists on wearing shorts at all costs, and, if it gets really cold, just tells you to run a bit faster. I run a bit up in Newcastle, where I believe tights are considered a bit, well southern, and I’m sure some of the people that I bump into running round Town Moor  at -2C in a hailstorm think that wearing a shirt is a bit of an unnecessary luxury as well. But I’m afraid these days, not freezing my nuts off of an evening has become something of a priority.

The other deviation that I’ve made away from old school running has been a sad reliance on needing company on my runs. By company, I mean needing to be plugged in to music or a podcast or a radio, and I justify this based on the fact that I’ve been running pretty much every day now for about twenty years, and so I’ve kind of got bored with the wonders of nature and the beauty of foot mechanics and being alone with my thoughts. Friends of mine who are proper runners are very sniffy about this, and warble on about junk miles not really being worth anything, and that I’ll only ever run slowly if I don’t fully focus on the run itself, but, sometimes I’m past caring, and I just need to hear the latest from Dan Carlin, or No Such Thing As A Fish, or This American Life, and the whole experience turns into a bit more fun. And these days, I have the added joy of an iPhone that I can strap to my arm, which also allows me to, as they say, stay connected.

So, off I go last week, out of the office in Newcastle, and away for a brisk run across Town Moor, with 3x two miles hard to tick off on the training plan, and all is well with the world. And the ‘well with the world’ status lasted well into the changing room, where I realise that I’d left that clever little armstrap for my phone several hundred miles away. As I saw it, I had three options – leave the phone in the changing room and have a good run but with no entertainment; carry the phone in my hand and Not Look Like A Proper Runner; or tuck the phone into my tights. Naturally, and helped by the fact that these were compression tights, which I suspect may have featured in an early draft of 50 Shades of Grey, I squeezed the phone into the waistband and set off.

An easy mile one, and I’m moving at a nice pace, with my eyes on the first 2 mile effort on the moor. History Extra podcast is my choice of entertainment, this one featuring things you didn’t know about Hitler’s cocaine habit (really). Get to the moor, and all is well, except for the fact that I have to knock out a 2 mile effort in the dark. But knock it out I do, get my statutory 2 minutes rest, then go for effort #2. This time, things do not go quite so well. For some reason, my phone starts slipping. At first, it’s just a bit irritating, but after mile one of the two miles it starts working its way, well, downwards. Possibly lubricated by sweat, which is pretty unpleasant, and heading downward at a steady rate, which is even more unpleasant. About a half a mile to go, and I find myself effectively sitting on my phone while running. In order to halt further progress, I naturally alter my running style to what I like to call ‘1950’s PE teacher’ – head back, back straight, high knees, and all the time trying to complete the effort.

Statutory two minute rest while I try to decide what to do. Sadly, it never entered my head to carry the bloody thing, instead, I went for the extra tightness option of tucking my phone into my pants, with added security from the compression tights. You may well be ahead of me here. I got another mile and a half around the final effort before disaster struck. The phone didn’t travel so far south this time, but unfortunately it did adopt a more, ahem, central position. So I’m running along in the dark, trying to keep a 6:30 pace up, with a running style owing a bit too much to John Wayne after a long day in the saddle, just having heard that he had a bad case of rickets, but needing to get to the Last Chance Saloon before closing time. Anyway, just about managed the last half mile and I’m about 50 yards from the end when History Extra (now focussing specifically on the amphetamines in use by the Fuhrer during the siege of Stalingrad), is disrupted by an incoming call. Given that it might be important, or my wife (teehee), I elect to press the little button and gasp ‘hang on’ while I get to the stopping point. It’s my wife.

“I can’t hear you very well” she says “I don’t think the reception’s very good at your end”

If only she knew…

More fun in tights to follow on this Sunday’s long run. But first, a word about fashion. When setting off for a winter run, it’s more than likely you’ll wear tights (black), gloves (black) hat (black), and, if you’re not careful, your favourite long sleeved top (black). Black clothing is of course, very practical and, I understand from too many copies of Grazia, very slimming. But unfortunately you end up looking, at best, like the Milk Tray man. Or, potentially, Andy McNab, and neither of these things count as A Good Look. Unusually, I looked in the mirror before I left the house, and saw a complete idiot looking back, and so went for my second favourite  shirt, a charming, and quite frankly, gleaming, long sleeved white number.

Off I trotted,  thinking that I looked slightly less twit-like, and maybe bordering on the mildly athletic. On reflection, this might have been a bit optimistic, given that I’d carbo-loaded the previous night with two pints of Wherry, one of Amstel, and a double whisky.

A couple of miles into the run, and I found myself a) running off road and b) running very slowly. Got to a stile across a very muddy field, and thought I’d better pick the pace up a bit.  Did I mention it was very muddy? It was very, very muddy indeed, and as I tried to speed up, I was rather held back by my right foot getting completely stuck.

Or not. In fact, it was my right shoe that was stuck, and my right foot was released into thin air, leaving the shoe sinking into the mud. As I had a reasonable amount of momentum built up, I didn’t have a lot of time to think, but I tried to effect a Jonathan Edwards-type hop with my left foot, which, given the circumstances, was reasonably successful. Unfortunately one successful hop was not quite enough for any sort of recovery, and the momentum of the hop quickly turned into a trip, and the trip turned into a full-on face plant. I got up very slowly, and for some reason I don’t really understand, because my right foot was completely coated in mud, I hopped, on my left foot, back to my shoe. And, again, for reasons I can’t really explain, picked up my shoe, walked back to the stile, took off my right sock and, standing one legged tried to knock the mud off by banging it, Basil Fawlty style, against the gate.

Now, muddy foot encased in muddy sock inside a muddy shoe, I tried to prepare myself for the next part of the run. I had no idea what I looked like, but if my previously white shirt was anything to go by, my face would have looked like Brutus in the Green Mile, just after the moon pie episode:

And that’s when the dog walker came into view.

“That was really funny” he said, “I really enjoyed seeing that”.

I spent the next 15 miles trying to think of what I should have said back to him. I’m not sure whether I managed anything better than what I actually replied:

“Grrrr”

 

 

Privates on Parade

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

Revealing fact of the week – despite what we all learnt at school, dog years are not exactly one seventh of human years. Apparently they start off much less than that, then level off. So after six months, they’re about the equivalent of a ten year old child, and after a year, they’re about 15 years old, then reach full adulthood after a couple of years. So now you know.

And that ‘after a year’ thing, is important to this week’s update of bringing up Luna, because, as of the fifth of January, we were celebrating her first birthday. This in itself was quite a big deal, as Mrs E was anxious to make sure that Christmas was well out of the way before we got to Luna’s big day. Something about it being important that she didn’t get her presents muddled up. Seriously.

So, Luna was given her morning walk, some birthday tripe, and unwrapped a couple of presents from Mrs E. She’s got quite good at this unwrapping game, partly through significant amounts of practice (she had her own slot on the advent calendar) and unwraps her presents using both feet and her mouth. That’s Luna, not Mrs E, in case there’s any confusion there. Anyway, Luna got to unwrap her main present (seriously), and out of the wrapping paper emerged a large green rubber tube.

“Brilliant!” said junior emu #4, excited beyond his twelve years, “It’s a d**do!”.

which was a cue for one of his parents to give him a Very Disapproving Look, and for the other to muffle her laughter into her sleeve. At this point, #2, keen as ever to hone his own parenting skills, helpfully stepped in:

“Yep, he’s right – it looks exactly like a d**do”

At which point, a reasonably grown up family discussion takes place, at which we all agreed that a) we would not be using that word for the rest of the day and that b) henceforth Luna’s new toy would be called ‘The D’. Note that the grown up discussion was taking place separately to my wife, who still appeared to be cackling into her elbow.

So, anyway, Me and Mrs E went to work for the day, leaving Luna in the care of four doting boys. After a couple of hours, the first text arrived from Junior Emu #1, displaying a matter of fact communication approach that will stand him well in his chosen career in the medical profession:

“Luna’s had a bleed”

Which was kind of what we were expecting, as you’ll know if you read the last blog. This update was followed by an update from #3, who sees the whole dog ageing story slightly differently:

“Luna’s been bleeding. Finally a woman!”

Frantic calls made back home to agree that our fifth charge had indeed joined the boys in confirmed adolescence. Fortunately Mrs E, with the kindness of a doting mother, had arranged for old towels and wet wipes to be available at all times, and had drilled in the instructions for Luna’s arrival into womanhood with a military precision. And so it was that, with both of us still at work, Luna was taken out for her second walk of the day with a full escort of all four boys, who I imagine took charge of a paw-point each, a bit like the secret service running alongside a presidential limousine. They all returned home to deliver a further update from #1:

“Luna walk fine. Not jumped by any dogs at the lake.”

Since when, the dog walks have all been taken in ever more remote areas, or under the cover of darkness (not too difficult in Norfolk at this time of the year). And, instead of the cheery ‘good morning’, fellow dog walkers are asked immediately what sex their dog is, and if it’s a boy, whether he’s been ‘done’. And if it’s a ‘whole’ boy, my wife’s eyes narrow as she imagines a future suitor, and, more importantly, what the children will look like. I imagine something similar happened in the McGee household, when young Debbee brought Paul Daniels home for tea for the first time.

Meanwhile, Luna seems to be pretty relaxed about the whole process of ‘putting it about’. Mrs E returned from a walk today to describe Luna’s behaviour as ‘cocquettish’, which has made me both proud and ashamed at the same time. Apart from a slightly wider gait on her back legs, there’s really nothing different about the way that our dog actually looks, from three out of four angles. But when you look at her from the back, she’s not only looking for trouble, but she’s also broadcasting her enthusiasm for it at a level that I’ve not seen since that last embarrassing trip to Amsterdam, when (honestly) I took a wrong turn and found a completely different category of window dressing.

Having spent many years now perhaps overcompensating with other people, so that I always look ‘above the neck’,  and so I could never be accused of objectifying any woman or man, I now end up catching myself when eyeing up my own dog’s genitals. Consequently, I look at any dog who does the same with an air of disdain. Have they no manners? Mrs E takes a more practical approach, and tells me that she spent some time in the park yesterday standing with one leg behind Luna, effectively blocking the view for an enthusiastic black lab. “Nothing to see here”, she no doubt said, a bit like the fireman with the megaphone in front of the blazing firework factory.

Anyway, we have about another week of this to look forward to, at which point apparently our dog becomes as fertile as a rabbit on IVF being coached by Peter Stringfellow. By all accounts, enthusiastic dogs have been known to break down fences in order to get to, ahem, Luna’s back door.

So wish us luck. Or, if you’re in the market for a cute puppy in a few week’s time, wish that we don’t have the canine equivalent of Paul Daniels roaming our streets.

Father of the Bride

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

For twenty of the last twenty one years, there’s been a pretty strong male dominance at emu towers. When Mrs E first popped out her first son, all thoughts of bringing up a little curly haired angel girl got pushed to one side, and I imagined fatherly conversations, perhaps involving a pipe and a fireplace, as I helped the little tyke on his way to being a regular bloke, and potential drinking partner.

Over the following years, with Mrs E almost constantly ‘in foal’, a series of other small boys arrived into the family, culminating in in a 5:1 advantage for the XY chromosomes. Another time, I’ll tell you about the patience that Mrs E has displayed over the years when responding to people who tell her that she must have been so disappointed not to have had a girl. But while she was busy maintaining her self control with the assorted nomarks that were helpfully talking at her, I was (and continue to be) whooping for joy. Because when I imagine having a daughter, a worrisome chill comes over me. I know full well that I’d be one of those awful fathers who’d be appalling news for any spotty youth that appeared on my door wanting to take her out. And I’m no less certain of that having spent the last few years with a few spotty youths of my own, who have been appearing at similar doorsteps across this postcode region for some years now.

And I’m pretty sure that bringing up boys is easier anyway. A friend of mine has a similar ratio of 5:1 but in favour of girls, and half jokes about having had all his interior doors strengthened for slamming purposes. I’m pretty sure that the idea that menstrual cycles synchronise when women are in close proximity to one another is an urban myth, but my friend does seem to spend an awfully long time working away from home.

But, just as soon as I start thinking about getting settled into manly family things, waxing moustaches, playing billiards and having fatherly conservations while leaning on a convenient mantelpiece, along comes disruption into Emu Towers. First, the arrival of Mrs Gibbs the hamster, taking the ratio to 2:5. Then, the disappearance of #1 to seek his fortune in the grim North, taking us to 2:4. Then, the arrival of the dog, bringing us to 3:4. And with #3’s continued obsession with musical theatre dominating every one of his mincing ways, we’re now generally about evens.

And it’s the dog that has given me most insight into the horrors of having to bring up a girl. I was alerted to this a few months ago, while half listening to my wife. The half-listen bit was a bit unfortunate, as I can normally get away with not really listening, making the right noises at the right time and asking for a summary at the end. I know some people at work who have managed entire careers like this, and I’m sure plenty of marriages thrive on it, but every now and again you get caught out:

Mrs E : ramble ramble ramble, challenging kids, need to get some food in, worried about my mother, need to walk the dog etc etc…

Me : hmm, yes, hmm, probably, yes

Mrs E : …and I think she might be going through some sort of change, because she’s really excitable and her genitals are really engorged…

And unfortunately, that’s the bit I heard. And in a ‘please don’t let me screw about with my own marriage’ style, I had to rapidly track back to what on earth she might be talking about.

Me: sorry, are you talking about your mother?

Unfortunately (or, fortunately) not. Had to recover from that one fairly rapidly, and established that we were actually talking about the dog. And apparently, the dog, being almost a year old, is moving rapidly out of childhood and coming into her fully fledged adolescent years. Which is, apparently called a ‘season’. And, apparently, with the season comes all sorts of teenage behaviour, including spontaneous bleeding, moodiness and disobedience, and a general enthusiasm for ‘it’. Some or all of which may be recognisable to those of you who are dog owners. Or possibly parents to the XX set.

But it’s not familiar territory to me, by any stretch. I’m not used to the idea of waiting up for Luna to come back from a walk. I’m extremely worried that Mrs E might well be looking to invest in some dog nappies. And, most of all, I fear for her going after just any old dog in the park. I keep telling her that I want her first time to be special, but all I get for my troubles is an enthusiastic lick of the face, and I’m not sure that’s the answer I want. Mrs E is putting a bit more faith in the process of keeping Luna on the lead for four weeks, and giving any inquisitive suitor the cold shoulder, but I’m not so sure. After all, attractive young female teenagers who really want to have sex normally manage to get their way, don’t they? As for Mrs E’s fallback plan, words almost fail me. Apparently, for a mere £75, you can buy a canine ‘morning after pill’ which is almost 100% guaranteed successful. I mentioned this to #1 last night, and he said we might have to use it after a one-walk stand. Indeed.

So I’m sorry to all my friends who’ve had to go through this in the past, if I’ve not been entirely sympathetic. If this is the sort of worry we have with Luna, it must be almost as bad with a human daughter.

Having said which, I need to walk the dog. And I need to have a word with her first. She’s asking for trouble, going out looking like that.