Category: People

My ever changing moods…

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment


I thought you might like to share what a Saturday evening feels like in the Emu household, now that Mrs E & I have abandoned our attempts to out-debauch Amy Winehouse and Joey Ramone. We just don’t have the appetite for it any more, you see, and have far more fun anticipating through parted fingers the future drink fuelled disasters expected of the Jr Emus.

Anyway, this is how last Saturday went.

After a fairly testing bike ride in the early morning (elated mood) and clearing out the garage (concern at being middle aged mood), followed by nipping into the city to get #2 a new mobile phone (how can all this technology be sold in such a complex style mood), I reached that period of quiet reflection that can only be reached in our house by two plates of curry and a bowl of ice cream. The concern at this stage of course, is that what with all the mood changing and calories spent and consumed, it was only a short step to a light sleep on the sofa. But this was Saturday night, and standards have to be maintained, and in our house Saturday standards include staying up as late as humanly possible.

So, a brisk walk was in order, and where better to stroll along to the Co-op (nee Somerfields, nee Gateway etc), a store that despite a number of rebrands, has still managed to maintain a level of soviet-style misery in all its employees. But my heart and mood was in a happy place, for it was Saturday night, there was beer to be bought, and I was greeted on the way by the sight of two men, in full chef’s whites, off duty from the local curry house, enjoying an impromptu game of badminton in the car park. Mood up again, in an ‘all is right with the world’ sort of style.

Managed to maintain this state of mind despite the general gurning and grunting that greets you when you try to buy anything from our Co-op, and fair skipped home, for what awaited the family Emu when I got back was the gala final of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. To watch BGT, I think you have to be one of two things – a moron of the first order, or an opportunist with a good stock of ‘Pointing & Laughing’ chances. In a desperate attempt to avoid being labelled a moron, I went for three big P&L opportunities:

1. Jayney Cutler to be this year’s essential car crash viewing.

Well, reader, she certainly didn’t disappoint. Starting off in the wrong key, and at least a beat behind the bemused orchestra, she proceeded to kick the living daylights out of ‘Non, je ne regrette rien’, which, incidentally she’d translated into her native Glaswegian. Given this was the final, our parade of judges were magnanimous in their gentle criticism. ‘Well Jayney’, they chirrupped, ‘you were a little behind the beat, but you made it up like a real trooper’. Jayney simply stared into the middle distance, cackling quietly away, not realising that her dream of being the new Susan Boyle (except without the voice, the rapier wit or, err, the looks) was over.

2. Piers Morgan to set new records in levels of condescension.

Again, happily achieved without really breaking sweat. To Spelbound : ‘Y’know, what you’ve achieved says to me that no matter how hard this show might be criticised, it’s capable of unearthing the most amazing and unique hidden talent that Britain has to offer, and we really should applaud it’ (discernible pause) ‘…and I understand you’re also preparing for the world championships’. Not a hint of irony. Wonderful.

3. Simon Cowell to prove himself a git of the highest order.

Ok, he’s an easy target, but as regular readers of this blog will know, that’s never been a reason to hold back. In my head, SC managed to plough new lows in taste and talent as he announced his new single, a version of Tears for Fears’ ‘Shout’, featuring the woefully underexposed and talented James Corden and Dizzee Rascal. Introducing the song as something that ‘he’d been waiting to do something with for some time’, SC set our pulses racing in eager anticipation that he might have done vaguely interesting. Not for him a glib opportunity to turn the nation’s world cup fever into a ridiculously childish terrace rant, surely…

Well, by now, you’ve probably heard the result of his creative input. Honestly, it’s the work of genius to include lines like ‘Let’s get physical’, ‘Pull your socks up’ and (I kid you not) ‘Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’. All along to a driving ‘terrace’ beat that will no doubt have us singing along in the stands for years to come. No, really.

All of which left me in the worst mood of the day by far. I’m sure I’ll get over it, as long as I never, ever, ever have to listen to that song again.

Grammar, we love you

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment


Just a very short note in case you are interested in the ways of internet linkage. I was looking on the BBC website just now (if the link is still there, it’s http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8597399.stm), and, also if it’s still there, you may see the link in the bottom rhs of the page.

It reads:

Times Online Lonmin shares take tumble as problem child furnace is shut – 8 hrs ago

Disappointingly, the grammar changes as you go to the link:

Lonmin shares take tumble as ‘problem child’ furnace is shut

All of which is a bit of a shame. Those of us with problem children might not ever want to put them in a furnace, but every now and again it might be nice to use as a threat.

Falling on a bruise

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Sadly, another day in which I feel old before my time. As my dear children will often remind me, I am old, at least by their standards, but this morning at around 0800, on the Newmarket Road leading into Norwich, I had my first ‘senior’ moment. For it was there and then, dear reader, that I suffered a fall.

Suffering a fall is the sort of thing that I’d associated previously with shopping trolleys on wheels, thermal bootees, and for some reason, Thora Hird. And I do have the excuse that I was travelling at least at some pace, but even so, a fall it certainly was.

Being a bloke, I do feel it necessary to drag out both the extreme pain and the ignomy of the experience in some detail. I was running to work along my normal route, not really going either fast or slow, and listening to Danny Baker tearing up the podcast charts, when I, well, just lost my footing. On what appeared to be (and I did check) a perfectly reasonable piece of pavement. At this point I stumbled, and cracked my knee very hard onto the pavement. Which hurt. Then I bounced along the pavement, before I bashed down simultaneously on my left shoulder and elbow. Which really hurt. Then, one more bounce, before I came to rest with my head perilously close to the gutter, having broken my fall with both palms. Which really really hurt.

For those of you familar with this part of the world, you’ll realise that at that time, on that road, there’s lots of traffic, moving pretty slowly. And I must have sailed past about 5 cars travelling in the opposite direction before I finally stopped moving. At which point a succession of very slow moving cars will have seen a bloke in shorts, lying down on the pavement next to them, bleeding. For my part, I think I lay there for a couple of minutes, not through any other reasons than thinking that I’d broken my arm, and not having the first idea of what to do. And, as it happens, whether I’d still make it for my 0830 meeting.

And, nothing would please me more to report to you that the traffic stopped, and I finally came to, wrapped up in a tartan blanket from the back of a car, while perfect strangers administered basic first aid, sweet tea, and kind words of comfort.

But, this being fact, no such thing happened. Every single car drove straight by, although a couple of cars did steer slightly to the right as they did. I suspect that this was to protect their tyres rather than my body though. As it happens, a couple of guys walking into the city ran over, checked me out and lifted me up. Having thanked them, and deciding that nothing was broken, I continued both my run, and, indeed, my general disillussionment with my fellow man.

Chewing gum for the ears

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This is a blog which starts off with me in the shower, so readers of a nervous disposition may wish to look away now.

Jr Emu #1 bought me a radio for my Christmas present; one that I can listen to when I’m out of the shower in the mornings. Given that I take a morning shower in the basement of the office after running into work, however, this creates an issue. My radio stations of choice for the morning are Radio 4 (light political grillings – just the thing to kick off the morning meetings) or Radio 5 (relatively inane banter that might inform the odd conversation during the day on football). And unfortunately, even though the great British Broadcasting institution reaches all around the world, it is unable to penetrate the lower ground floor in the NR4 postcode area.

Unless, it seems, it is masquerading as BBC Radio Norfolk, which has signal like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t quite understand this, as I thought that all BBC channels would be transmitted from the same masts at the same strength, but the truth is there to be heard in glorious mono, every morning at 8am.

So, to get to the point, I am compelled to listen to Radio Norfolk in the morning. Now, me and Radio Norfolk actually go back quite a long way.

In my youth, I worked at Radio Norfolk for what was probably all of about 4 weeks. I had a very brief stint as an assistant to an assistant, and very briefly reached the position of bona fide assistant when the teatime show presenter went on holiday, thus allowing his assistant to stop being an assistant, and thereby needing his own assistant.

The best fun on local radio was devising phone-in competitions, and at Radio Norfolk we had the added challenge of having no audience with any enthusiasm for phoning in. Or possibly no audience with any enthusiasm. Or possibly no audience.

Which left us pretty much to our own devices, and this meant getting our friends to phone up in a style that I like to think was ripped off wholesale by shock-jocks a few years later. So, for example, we would announce the ‘talented pets competition’. “Phone us with your talented pets, and we’ll let the county know”, we’d call out. “If you can’t get through right away, keep trying, as the phones are really hot here at Radio Norfolk”, we’d cry, looking out into the control room, where the work experience girl was looking intently at a phone that was steadfastly refusing to ring. At which point, we’d call in our special weapon, which for the sake of this blog, we’ll call Mike Todd, on account of that being his name.

Mike would appear on the phone (we had to dial him, which always left the work experience girl a bit more miserable), and he’d pretend to be a caller with an interesting pet. Initially this was a yodelling dog, which was basically his flatmate making howling noises while MIke played the piano. Then it was a tap dancing tortoise, introduced by a nervous schoolboy, who’d discovered this talent while a) his Dad was out, and b) he’d let the tortoise stand on the hotplate. And so on. We did get a few genuine callers, which left us a bit flustered, but we soldiered on. I don’t think anybody from Radio Norfolk noticed anything was unusual – largely you were alright, even on primetime, as long as you didn’t use up any of the ‘needletime’ budget.

This may have changed now, but certainly in those days, the royalties you had to play on records, calculated by ‘needletime’, could make or break the budget of the show. So you did one of three things. 1. Talk about absolutely anything for as long as possible. 2. Play music from unsigned bands. 3. Play music from ‘pre-paid’ albums (Now that’s what I call… etc). Fortunately, we managed to fill hours and hours with 1 & 2 and seldom resorted to 3.

But the best bit about Radio Norfolk was the institutional parochialism that filled the place in a pleasant, practical fashion. The best example of this was the traffic report. Growing up near London, I was familiar with Capital Radio’s ‘Eye in the Sky’, swooping down on the North Circular and giving up to the minute reports at all hours of the day. Things in Norfolk were slightly different. Firstly, the only road that anyone was bothered about was the A11. It got people into Norfolk, and it got people out. Secondly, the budget didn’t really run to helicopter surveillance. So, very practically, one of the editorial staff would phone up her Dad every morning. Her Dad lived on the side of the A11, just outside Wymondham. So, after the normal father/daughter greetings were complete, he’d put the phone down, go to the front door, look to the right and to the left, then report back accordingly.

So, although I would never listen to Radio Norfolk if I had any real choice, if I do have to then it’s always a bit nostalgically. Certainly I listen to the webcam driven traffic reports with some disappointment, as I’d just really like to know that the A11 is clear at Wymondham. And I listened with abject horror on Friday, when the phone in was ‘what do you look for in a chicken’. Just asking for trouble, quite frankly.

And imagine my surprise when I came across this on the BBC Norwich City website tonight.

You need to look at the last item under ‘local news’.

And if you can’t read this, it says “Farmer reunited with lost fowl”. I suppose when you see real life imitating stereotypes, we may as well enjoy it.

Menus with pictures…a good thing!

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment


Things to avoid on holiday in Barcelona:

1. If your wife is scared of heights, and yet willing to confront her fears on a wobbly cable car several hundred feet above Barcelona harbour, really think carefully about the ‘bargain’ return ticket.

2. If travelling to Montjuic, the steep hills overlooking the city to the east, be sure to read the guidebooks in advance. They will tell you where to get an escalator to the top of the hills, and avoid you having to climb 1 in 4 slopes on your hands and knees.

3. If ordering from a Tapas menu, don’t feel that you have to be adventurous. For example, if you see ‘Sepia’ on the menu, and work out that it’s Cuttlefish, then don’t assume that because Cuttlefish have ‘fish’ in their name, that they look or taste anything like a fish. However, do make sure that when what appears to be a grilled alien lifeform is delivered to your table, make appreciative noises and get stuck in. However, you may find that the ink sac that gives Cuttlefish its Sepia reference is quite easy to burst. Watch out if this happens, as the ink can go quite a long way in a crowded restaurant.

For future reference, this is what a Cuttlefish looks like:

and here’s someone who obviously ate at the same restaurant as us:

4. Remember the golden rules around your fellow humans in European/ Mediterranean cities:

4.1 Whilst the image of loveliness that typifies our notion of people living in Milan, Rome, Barcelona, Madrid etc, is of beautiful olive skin, flawless bone structure, elegant dress sense and shiny hair, the grim reality is that a large percentage of the population look like Wayne and Waynetta Slob dressed entirely from Millets c1976, and with skin applied with an artex trowel

4.2 In any given crowd, on the metro or in restaurants, the majority of people wearing black clothes will be local. ‘Colourful’ clothing tends to be brought to you by Americans and Northern Europeans, most noticeably the British. As if you needed any more signs as to who they were.

5. Meanwhile, back in the restaurant, try not to improvise your order. So if you see a delightful fruit salad being delivered to a table nearby, and then think you see it on the menu for a mere 1 euro, don’t be surprised if you get into a bizarre discussion where the waiter lists all the fruit he has available, you keep answering ‘Si’, and he starts getting slightly cross. In case you’d not guessed, one euro buys you one piece of fruit. Still the conversation will stay with me for some time to come:

‘Plaintain?’

‘Si’

‘Mandarin’

‘Si’

‘Naranja’

‘Si’…and so on

Anyway, had a lovely time. Not as glad to be back as I’d like…

What’s the matter here?

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Here’s the story of my worries of the week.

Saturday – watched a performance from Norwich City vs Southampton that was best described as turgid. Not helped by sitting next to the Southampton fans, who alternated their singing between ‘Top of the league, – You’re having a laugh’, ‘Small town near Ipswich, you’re just a small town near Ipswich’ and, as the home supporters started leaving at 2-0 down, ‘Home to your sister, you’re going home to your sister’. My main worries were around the value of forking out £56 to take two of the boys to a game of such embarrassing disappointment, and the huge wage bill that Norwich City pay to players who, largely, didn’t seem to be able to do their job properly.

Sunday – worried about Jr Emu #2 having a crap 14th birthday as he’d been throwing up all night and looked pretty miserable all day. Then I worried about the results of a long run, where I’d struggled to hit the time I wanted, and had a slight twinge in my right calf caused by my pesky compression sock, which then developed into not being able to put any weight on it (my leg, not the sock) for the rest of the day. So I worried about getting old, not being able to run marathons again, and generally being crap at what I wanted to do.

Monday – worried about work. Came home and worried that I wasn’t being a terribly good parent.

Tuesday – worried about dreadful customer service from Apple, a company I’d previously thought very highly of, and who now are pretty low on my list of favourite businesses. Pretty weird that Apple don’t even have a complaints process, and even weirder that they find it acceptable to charge £73 to fix an iPod that was still under warranty.

Wednesday – worried about work in the morning and afternoon. In the evening, worried about whether the new band was going to be tight enough to be gig-worthy, whether the songs were strong enough, whether the lyrics made sense, and whether I was getting a bit too old for this rock and roll lark.

Thursday – ran into work, listening to a podcast of ‘The Interview’ from BBC World Service. This was an interview with Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda. We all know about the appalling genocide in Rwanda, and Kagame is the man who has been tasked with rebuilding the country following that dreadful history. You can hear the podcast at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004t5p8, and I thoroughly recommend that you do.

Whatever you might think about Kagame, his thoughts on class division and the work in having to rebuild communities where a devastated family might have to live next door to the perpetrators of the genocide and be encouraged to co-exist, are, frankly, mind-blowing.

So, largely, I decided that my worries were pretty small beer in the scheme of things. In fact, should I ever descend in this blog to the sort of whinging that doesn’t stand up to real world reality, please do remind me that I don’t even know I’m born.

Naming the baby

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Recently on Radio 5, I was intrigued to hear a piece on the decline of Bookmaker profits, on which they had a real live Bookmaker, introduced as the head of Paddy Power betting shops. And his name was…Paddy Power.

I never thought for a moment that there was a real Paddy Power. And what a fantastic name for a bookie. Almost as if Mr & Mrs Power sr had thought, when the little fella emerged – ‘Let’s give him a name that will mark him out as a really memorable man, one who could perhaps run a whole series of branch and online betting shop emporiums…let us call him…Paddy Power’.

And so it was so.

So that did rather get me to thinking about really good names that were given at birth, with a real insight to their future roles. Here are a few examples:

Vlad the Impaler (well known Impaler)

Johnny Guitar Watson (Guitarist, obviously)

Clarence Gatemouth Brown (Harmonica player)

Fatty Arbuckle (also see Fats Domino and Guitar Slim)

Freddie Parrot Face Davis (err)

Ivan the Terrible (Could have pursued a number of careers, including Karaoke singer, waiter at Little Chef..)

And my particular favourite….

Princess Michael of Kent

In the unlikely event that you wish to add to this list, please do let me know

My name is Kelly

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Well, a very happy NY to you, and what better opportunity to share with you my fave picture from 2008:

And here’s an accompanying competition…I think there are two main (male) reactions to this picture, so why not think of all your male friends, and divide them up accordingly:

A. This photograph typifies everything that is wrong about western society in the 21st century, by cheapening women and their purpose in life with a literally indelible stamp. 50 years on from the progress made by post-war radical feminism, it just seems like we’re no further forward in any real emancipation in sexual politics.

B. How come I never seem to meet girls like Kelly ?

A v happy 2010 to y’all.

Taxi for Emu!

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Probably shouldn’t be doing this on Christmas eve; there’s presents to wrap, drink to be drunk and still a couple of children to tell off, but I would very much like to share my favourite local news article from the last few weeks.

Topical, full of seasonal cheer, and a fine metaphor for the year ahead.

Enjoy!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/8428206.stm

What I did on my holidays (that I regret)

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Five things:

1. Moving a very very very heavy stone bench up a hill, to get a better view.

2. In a very alpha-male way, keeping the resultant pain in my back quiet from Mrs Emu. Who is, by profession, a nurse. Specialising in pain management. And who had earlier advised that it was a stupid idea to try to lift said bench.

3. Trying to go for a run, to get the stiffness out of my back, a day later.

4. Not being able to sleep, getting up at 3.30 am, and making the mistake of looking at the Blackberry.

5. Discovering the source of our rodent problem in the kitchen at 3.35 am, and not being able to chase the little blighter, on account of my back not working.

All in all, not the best week to stop smoking.

However, am pleased to report that we now have a lovely and delightfully situated bench, upon which weary travellers can rest their chronic back problems. And we have tracked down the mouse to his/her hiding place in the cupboard with all the newspapers, where he/she had fashioned a splendid nest of supermarket receipts inside a shoe box. It only took 6 of us to catch him/her and encourage him/her into a cardboard box and away from the house. Whereupon Mrs E commented that it was by far the biggest mouse that she’d ever seen. Almost, in fact, the size of a r**.

The holiday continues…