Category: People

Joining The Norwich International Brigade

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I genuinely don’t like travelling on aeroplanes, and I really hate going from Norwich Airport. Most people I speak to feel the same…so let’s start with a stab at a top 5 peeves:

1. Norwich Airport charges £5 a pop…to use the airport. That’s in order to go through security into the departure lounge. Does any other airport do this? Actually yes, the massive commercial enterprises that are Knock, Waterford and Newquay airports. Now, only a cynic would say that these charges are simply there to attract ‘cheap’ flights.

2. Every time, and I mean every time, I go through security I get searched. Not quite as dramatically as last year in Schipol airport where I was, quite frankly, cupped, but still an early morning frisking I’d rather not have. And, while I’m on the subject, if I’m going to carry anything metallic onto a plane that’s a security risk, am I really going to put it through a metal detector?

3. I don’t use the car park, so I don’t really have a beef there, but don’t you think it’s a bit odd that airports are built on the outskirts of cities, yet the cost of parking is more than most inner city car parks? How does that get justified, other than because it can happen? And how does that make it right? And if you book a taxi, they have to wait outside the airport for you to call them, as they only get 5 minutes inside before they start getting stung as well.

4. The fact you can’t make your way into departures without going through the Eastern European style gift shop. Which is unmanned. And whilst well stocked with exorbitantly priced travel sweets and hilarious ‘bluffer’s guides’ books, does nothing for me about my life, as Morrissey might not say.

5. Cup of tea – £1.80. The fact you have to make it yourself – priceless.

But that’s far too easy, no? What would be harder/more fun would be a list of things to like about Norwich Airport?

1. Looking at the perspex box where confiscated items go to die. I enjoy this at any airport, and particularly enjoyed the box at Dublin earlier this year where there was a 5 foot long firework displayed. Again, hard to believe that anyone thought this would really work as hand luggage, but nowt so queer as folk and all that. Speaking of which, last summer, I noticed at Norwich, just before the weekly flight to Malaga, two confiscated tins of salmon. Which makes you wonder a) what sort of person considers tinned salmon as essential hand luggage and b) what sort of threat was actually posed to security…

2. Watching people shell out £5 for the airport development fee for the first time – hilarious!

3. There’s a ratio of around 1 staff per passenger. You may be ignored, but it’s not a bad ratio should you want a chat. As long as it’s not about the airport development fee. They don’t like talking about that.

4. There’s pretty much always somewhere to sit. The development fee has shelled out for a rather large lounge compared to the size of planes that go in and out of Norwich.

5. Norwich International. Words that go together like Polanski and childcare. The whole point of Norwich is that it is desperately non-international, so it’s all delightfully ironic to see the airport trying to be a hub of inter-continental travel, whilst all around is so incredibly domestic. More of this another time, but just be happy for now, that you can be in the car park of NIA and still not be able to see the terminal behind the smoking hut.

Felix – We continue to hold our breath

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Famously, on one of Richard Branson’s school reports, one of his teachers predicted that he would be a millionaire or end up in prison. Rather neatly, of course, he managed to achieve both. My prediction for Emu#3 is that he will end up as a national treasure (probably more Michael Crawford than Thora Hird), or as a dancer in a cage or on a pole at one of Soho’s seedier clubs. Probably not both though.

I am partly drawn to this conclusion by his latest reverse achievement, where he arrived home clutching his certificate that said that he’d taken part in a cycling safety scheme. This is what gentle readers of a certain age would call a cycling proficiency test, and in my day, upon passing, you got a little red triangular badge when you passed, that you could wear next to your Tufty badge, and henceforth, you pretty much had the freedom of the roads.

All good, though, on further questioning, we realised that a certificate saying he’d taken part wasn’t quite on a par with a certificate to say he’d passed. Indeed, he’d rather dramatically failed, which, as far as I’m aware, is only one notch up from failing at ‘Show and Tell’. Turning the certificate over, it appeared he’d spent the entire test cycling on the wrong side of the road.

‘Sorry Dad’ he said. ‘It’s just that I had a lot on my mind at the time’.

Still, he has a certificate. And it’s on his wall. We keep swapping it around to annoy him.

I’m Waking Up To Us

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One of the many, many perks of my job is the opportunity to travel at unearthly hours of the day through and to some interesting places, and whilst doing so, sharing my personal space with a diverse collection of fellow travellers. Or as, I like to call it, getting the 6am train to London.

This prevents me with a bit of a challenge personally, as I can no longer justify an early night. This has something to do with wanting to eke out every second of the day, and partly because I’m quite keen on remaining married. Mrs Emu has firm views on bed-time. She requires at least 2 hours of child free time in the evening, whether it’s spent slumped in front of the TV or, as we like to still call it in our house, becoming elegantly wasted.

And of course, the problem with this is that the children, insist on getting bigger and staying up later. Already this year we have had to extend both the house and our fridge capability, and now it’s the sleeping habits. Emu#1, for example, is now on a curfew of 11pm, which, assuming he has any vague idea of time (you really need to meet him), means that by Mrs E’s rules we shouldn’t be hitting the hay till around 1am. All of which means that with a 5am start, the train journey is a grand opportunity to catch up on a few missed z’s.

And this has some splendid side-benefits. Starting my journey in Norwich, which is not particularly lively at that time of the morning*, means that I can pretty much guarantee a seat. As the train gets busier, as we rattle towards Diss, Ipswich, Stowmarket and Colchester, the seats fill up, by which time I’ve settled back and very possibly have a small stream of dribble coming out of the side of my mouth. And the nice thing is that I wake up in Liverpool Street, genuinely surprised at who I’m waking up next to. I like to think of it as being a bit like a student, but without the constant threats of herpes and poetic regrets.

Most of the time it’s a fairly ordinary awakening; usually another bloke in a suit, putting away his killer suduko for the morning**, but there have been two remarkable highpoints in the last few months:

Highpoint one was the tall, and frankly, rather attractive, woman in her twenties, who woke me up by tapping me on the shoulder and whispering very gently in my ear:

“It’s time for us to get off”

Well, I very never, as you might say.

And the second highpoint was the bloke I woke up to a few minutes before getting to Liverpool Street. Although the train was packed, I still appeared to have plenty of elbow room, and even allowed myself a little stretch. All was clear when he stood up to get his jacket – his right arm was missing.

So, in the rather unlikely event that either of these two are reading this, please feel free to sit next to me again – you were lovely to wake up to last time and I’m sure you’ll be again. As for me, I’m thinking of playing a little game next time. I’ll wake up, not open my eyes, yawn, say ‘Morning Darling’ really loudly, then turn to see who I’m next to. Why don’t you try doing the same? After all, what’s the worst that could happen?

*Norwich last ‘got lively’ in 1985, when NCFC got to the Milk Cup final. People still talk of it in hushed tones, as the day when the city rather let itself go.

**Why? Why? Why?

The King Is Dead (again)

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Michael Jackson – A Nation Mourns and the jokes keep rolling in…

Probably a bit late to be writing anything about the decline and fall of everybody’s favourite moonwalker, but in previous weeks I’d run out of time, and in any case, it’s easy to say things you regret if you haven’t really thought them through.

Take the death of Elvis, for example. If you held any sort of connection to the punk scene in 1976, or even if you were mildly rebellious in your own special, angst-fuelled way, Elvis’s demise was an absolute gift. The doyen of your parents’ generation, who still played Las Vegas in a ridiculous glittery catsuit, died eating a huge cheeseburger. On the toilet. So, in death, there was a natural follow on from the joke that was his life, and this gave you all the permission and ammunition that you needed in order to poke fun at the tragic quiffy tears that ensued. In fact, Elvis, and his death, remind a fairly standard and standing joke to anyone on my generation for at least a decade. Then, with a fairly embarrassed sense of maturity, we played his back catalogue and realised that here was someone who really did change the world by…well, just being, really.

So, just as we split Elvis into 56 & Sun & Sam Phillips, morphing into post-GI film singer into Vegas Karate kid into overweight pastiche, we can probably plot a similar course for M Jackson, although I would probably claim that there was rather less to his rise, and a bit more to his decline.

Jackson’s entry into the public consciousness was as the lead singer/lead vehicle for the Jackson 5 in the early 1970’s. It’s easy to forget that they broke new ground in accessibility to a fusion of soul, gospel and pop music, and that, despite, or because of Jackson Sr’s approach, they worked as hard as any professional outfit. And Michael was 7 at the time. Just think of any 7 year old child that you know and ask yourself if they could knock out 100 gigs a year, if they could ever be that musically mature, and if they could make the hairs on the back of your neck by singing ‘Who’s Lovin’ You’.

The thing is, I’m not sure that Michael Jackson, in my head, ever managed to build on that fantastic period at Tamla Motown; and era that gave us ABC, Mama’s Pearl, Going Back to Indiana, Rockin’ Robin; songs that didn’t really mean that much (and why should that ever matter in pop music), but that just sounded pretty cool. Some might say that he reached his zenith during his 20’s and 30’s, on the back of Thriller, and Bad, but, let’s face it, that was Michael Jackson in the hands of the genius that is Quincy Jones, rather than anything more creative, or mature.

The third era of Jackson trying to find some purpose while apparently going slightly mad in a fury of flashguns and celebrity splurges, was, frankly embarrassing. And I think it is that lack of maturity, in fact that pretty regressive approach to growing up that was irritating and annoying.

And given that the third era is the one that has sold and continues to sell papers, it would be easy to focus on that alone. But, learning from EA Presley’s rollercoaster of public affection in life and in death, we should be wary of being too dismissive. The Michael Jackson that I thought was fantastic had disappeared by 1980 (and if you don’t believe it, just listen to the Jackson 5 back catalogue, back to back with the Thriller fillers). But just because his equivalent of the Vegas years were tasteless, suspect and embarrassing doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t continue to celebrate the good stuff.

The Dame, part 2

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To my delight (and a certain amount of surprise), I’ve had lots of feedback to the last blog about the deer and the mis-translation.

Given that until now, I thought I was only really writing this for the questionable benefit of my wife and regular reader Mr S Bean (really), the heat is now on to come up with something vaguely interesting for future episodes. In the meantime, you might be interested to know about part two of the dead deer saga…

After the initial debacle, cycle rides and runs past the ex-Bambi’s mother became a little more challenging. Nothing like 30+° weather and a rural environment to bring out a little accelerated decomposition. On day one, the boys told me, there were a few maggots (by the way, you might want to stop eating before you read this). By day two, there was a pretty unpleasant smell from about 20 yards away. By day three, this had extended to about 50 yards, and unfortunately on day four, we all had to cycle past ex-BM on the way back from a day out. We held our breath from about 100 yards out, and pedalled furiously. Jr Emu #1 was first past the scene of the crime, and looked to his right at the key moment. We all sailed past without looking, intent on getting past without having to breath in, except for #4, who is the inquisitive sort.

Having exhaled and breathed in some relatively un-putrid air moments later, #1 impatiently broke the news:

“She’s had her head cut off!”

#4 confirmed this, and thanked us all profusely for the nightmares that he expected as a result of his first and last view of ex-BM.

Now, this begs a number of mystery questions, and as you can imagine, conspiracy theories currently abound in the family Emu. My personal theory is that someone wanted to get the whole beast home, but only had a hacksaw and a bicycle. Mrs Emu is convinced that somewhere nearby, there’s a sitting room with a new hunting trophy above the fireplace.

In any case, by the next day, someone had thought to cover the carcass with lime. The smell had gone, but the mystery remained…

That was nothing like a dame….

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We’re in France, and staying, as ever, in the middle of nowhere, with limited vocabulary and all sorts of potential hazards to remind us that this is the way to have eventful holidays. No sitting by the pool for us, no siree. Normally when we get here, the grass has reached around the height of a small child, and we regularly lose one as a result for the first couple of days.

Anyway, being the fit family, and having an even fitter family staying with us, no small commotion from this morning as six or seven of us came in from runs and bike rides, with news that there was an injured deer, hit by a car, on the road that runs near to the bottom of the house. There’s another blog to be written about the deer hereabout, and how they are an inspiration for us all to give up running and drive tractors, but that will have to wait for now. In the mean time, there is a deer with a broken neck on the side of the road. Breathing, and looking every inch just like Bambi’s mother.

We didn’t think the gendarmes would be particularly interested in the accident, so decided that the best next step would be to tell Yaside, who runs the Tabac in the nearby village. So off we rushed, with mission in our minds and a french dictionary by our sides.

‘What’s the french for deer?’, said Mrs Emu

So I looked it up – ‘Chevreux’, I said, ‘or Daim, if it’s a female’. Which it was.

Rushed into the Tabac to break the bad news. Now, what we were trying to say was that there was a deer with its neck broken, about 3km down the road, and we weren’t sure what to do. We should have twigged that the questions about whether there were any witnesses or police on the scene weren’t the sort of enquiries that normal French folk make about a dying deer.

Unfortunately, given that Daim looks and sounds a bit like Dame, what Mrs Emu had actually said was that there was a woman 3km up the road with a broken neck, but still breathing. And that if Yaside got a move on he might be able to have it for his dinner.

All of which is a bit embarrassing. I really think we’re fitting in here.

There goes the neighbourhood

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By the way, do let me know if I sound like some twit from the Daily Mail. Actually, I might start prefacing all of my sentences like that.

It all started many years ago, when I first moved to Norwich. One of the things that really irritated me was the advert for a garage in the local paper. It had the logo, all the cars underneath, and what I believe is called a strapline at the bottom of the page, that said “Cars Are People”. And every time I saw it, I wanted to scream. Not because it was ‘not good use of the English language” (see point about DM above), but because it was just so…patronising. What I thought (and have continued to think when confronted with this sort of slogan) is that the people that put such nonsense in front of us are trying to prove that new use of the language is groundbreaking, just because it’s nonsense.

You might remember in the 90’s that there was briefly a fashion for sweatshirts that had faux slogans on – these in my experience were often worn by Japanese tourists in order to look more like Americans. They’d have words like ‘Authentic’, ‘Original’, ‘Denimware’, ‘State’ , and so on, but because they were arranged in a fairly random order, they were, well, just words. As that particularly annoying member of the Von Trapp family once put it…’But It Doesn’t Mean Anything’. So I spent a fair amount of time being annoyed about that.

Which brings us to 2009, and the Adidas campaign that says ‘Impossible Is Nothing’. Well, that’s wrong really, isn’t it. I don’t even know what the clever people are trying to say any more.

Of Dykes and Bikes

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A long long time ago*, I cycled from Land’s End to John O’Groats, which I attempted to do using just two Michelin road maps (England and Scotland). Consequently, given the scale of the maps, I remember spending about four days on the A1 as it seemed like the shortest way between two points, and much of that time diving onto the hard shoulder in an effort to avoid being dragged into the undercarriage of passing trucks.

The reason I mention this is because, I fear, that if I wanted to cycle the end to end again today, I reckon I’d possibly still plan to use the A1. Whereas, having just spent two and a half days cycling in Holland, it’s pretty clear that there’s a very different way of doing things. Hard to know where to start, so here’s a list.

1. We went from Hook of Holland to Den Helder on the first day – to save you looking at the map, this is about 100 miles up the west coast of the country. Then from Den Helder, across the Afsluisdijk dam and down to Stavoren, across the ferry to Enkhuizen, and down to Amsterdam. Then on Day 3, across country to the Hook again. In total, we pedalled around 250 miles, in which I reckon we shared the road with cars for about 5 miles.

2. The network of cycle lanes connecting the towns and cities in Holland is simply astonishing. It splits into two: the LF routes, a network of 6,000 km which have been built specifically for cyclists and walkers, and the cycle lanes in every city and town that mean that you can travel between points either parallel to the road network or with interconnecting paths that take a shorter route. Compare that to the UK, where on the one hand the fine efforts of SusTrans have got us to a fairly disconnected system of paths, and where cycling in towns and cities is even more of a joke. When I cycle with my kids into the city, two of them go on the road in front of me, and the other two cycle on the pavement. I can’t imagine that it’s anything but annoying to pedestrians, car drivers and other cyclists, and, frankly it’s not much fun for me or them either. And did I mention that the cycle network in Holland goes through really really pleasant countryside, that if you have to get across a bit of water in the way that you just hop on a (free) ferry, that everyone, from racers to kids on dutch bikes, to families to senior citizen outings uses the network, and that cars are obliged to give way at junctions?

3. And that unfailingly, if you appear lost, a cyclist will stop next to you, and point you in the right direction. In perfect English. On day one, after about 70 miles, a weather-beaten cyclist of around 50 gave us directions to Den Helder. We’d been going about 5 miles when he came past us to tell us we’d taken a wrong turning, turned us round, led us back to the right turning, did about another 5 miles with us to make sure we got on the right route (a perfectly tarmaced road about 5 metres wide) before he turned round and went home. Can you imagine that happening where you live?

4. So, what’s stopping us in the UK going anywhere near this? After all, the man who considers himself our next leader is pushing himself as a keen cyclist, as is the mayor of London. So, we’re in for a pedalling-friendly decade as we put in place a series of cycling networks to encourage us all to pedal rather than float around in cars, aren’t we? Well no, not really. The government and opposition contributions to the debate have been pretty poor, frankly, and have been partly along the lines of ‘infrastructural constraints’. This means that no-one can see a way to satisfy car and bike user…so they don’t. Our obsession with the car means that, while they’re still the main form of transport, they’ll still dominate the debate, and in the meantime the car users who don’t ride bikes (I get the impression there aren’t too many of these in Holland) will continue to run the cyclists off the road.

If you need to see a different way of doing things for yourself, get over to Holland and go for a ride. It’s absolutely phenomenal. Meantime, there are some pressure groups, and www.goskyride.com andwww.sustrans.co.uk might be good places to start to shake up our rather pathetic approach to transport issues.

* (and I can still remember how the music used to make me cry…)

Britain’s Got (nae) Talent

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Well, I suppose there are some pretty easy targets here, but having been drawn into the festival of morbid entertainment that is BGT, why not point out the bleedin’ obvious:

1. Talent definition – I saw the BGT final and struggled to see any talent at all. To me, the true definition of talent includes a degree of originality. That’s why people pay a fortune to see their heroes rather than cheaper (and often more ‘accurate’ covers bands. So to see Susan Boyle mimic note for note ‘I dream a dream’ just didn’t do it for me.

2. And, while I’m about it, what is all of this obsession with ‘SuBo’? Here’s a couple of rather obvious comments:

– Amanda Holden’s much published ‘mouth open in astonishment at the wonder of Susan Boyle’s voice’ says more about AH than words can say. Yes, it’s possible to hold a tune without having well defined cheekbones.

– Anyone who saw Susan Boyle interviewed on TV by the duo midget laugh fest that is Ant and Dec and DIDN’T think ‘there’s someone who’s going to have some problems living in the public eye’ was, frankly, deluded

– And I could go on…

3. And don’t start me on Stavros Flatley. How does that fit the definition of talent, exactly?

4. And finally, a word for our judges:

– Simon Cowell’s response to the 11 year old who was filmed breaking down in tears was astonishing. Why do we need to see a child in this state? Well, the cynic might say so that SC can rise above the rules and say something like ‘come hell or high water, we’ll find time for you to sing that song again’. Which she did. So, tell me – why exactly did you have to show, on a pre-recorded show, the tears in the first place?

– Amanda Holden – who appeared, on final night, to have been styled by the director of a 50’s porn film, can only hope that her comments can aspire to being banal in future. Because they’re some way short of this at the moment.

– Piers Morgan – Judging the common hoi-polloi and refusing to take advantage for my own means? With my reputation?

Next week – why Alan Sugar doesn’t really matter.

Police And Thieves

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Further to my previous posting about Morrissey, I should mention that we went into the theatre fairly skipping along, our hearts pounding with excitable enthusiasm and with huge grins on our faces. No way, in other words, to approach a concert by Morrissey. Fortunately, just before our hero took the stage, I received a text from Jr Emu #1. Apparently, Jr Emu #2 had just come home v upset as his bike had been stolen. This put me & Mrs E into a combination of angst and sulking; ideal for a Morrissey concert, but not too good for Jake, who we had to ‘have words with’ the following day.

So, we reported the matter to the police. I have to say, I’m slightly sceptical of the good work of our glorious boys in blue. I think this goes back to the time I was pulled over and breathalysed by a particularly officious twit who must have been all of 16 years old. Anyway, putting my suspicions firmly behind me, I decided to maximise the value from my tax payments. This is what happened.

  1. I reported the bike stolen through the Crime Reporting phone line, where I gave a good deal of personal information and loads of detail about the bike. In return, I was given a Very Important Crime Report Number. I was asked if I needed help from Victim Support (no), and if I needed a community police officer to visit to convince Jake of the value of locking his bike (see ‘have words with’ above),
  2. Then I got a letter, citing the Very Important Crime Report Number, and telling me it was under investigation.
  3. Then I got a letter containing an ultra-violet marker, to security mark the bikes in the house yet to be stolen.
  4. Then I got a letter, saying that, as there was not enough evidence and no suspect, the case would be closed, and the Very Important Crime Report Number was hereby revoked.

The astonishing thing is that only 4 days passed from step 1 to 4. Which is great for efficient processing, but not that smart if all you wanted was your local wandering officer to keep an eye out for a dumped BMX bike. Which is all I really wanted.

Anyway, this story has a fairly happy ending. Around stage 2, son #1 phoned round his mates and asked them to keep an eye out for the bike. Just as the letter in stage 4 had landed, two of them found the bike and brought it round, much to son #2’s relief. So maybe there’s a future in the police for these lads. As long as they’re good at writing letters as well.