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Caution! Genius at Work. Not.

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

Who, or what, you might ask, is rattling the cage of the Emu this week? In a week that saw yet more high profile senior church resignations, an indignant Alex Ferguson nearing physical combustion, and, apparently, our beloved monarch actually exploding at both ends, where would you best start?

Actually, I’m tempted to fill you in on a perspective on all the above. Firstly, I really think we need to stop this indignation that our senior public figures are anything but tarnished and corrupt menaces to society. We may as well face up to the fact that anyone holding down any position of authority in the last 30 years who hasnt been found out yet has just done an ok job of hiding their indiscretions. That way we’ll save a lot of future energy. We need to come to terms with the fact that lots and lots of people don’t necessarily enter the church, politics or show business with purely altruistic intentions.  There’s a trust thing there that we’ll return to another time.
Sir Alex complaining about referees not being fair is a bit like Alanis Morisette writing a song about being ironic, and calling it ‘Ironic’, without actually including any examples of irony in the lyrics. In other words, really ironic. Anyway, the sight of SAF pushing his way past one of his assistants in his hurry to get down to swear at the fourth official will stay with me for some time as a great example of quality people management at work.
As for Her Maj, I was intrigued at the way in which she was discussed on the radio. I was first alerted to her plight by Radio 5, where Alan Green gravely informed us of her condition at the start of the Arsenal/Spurs game, and reassured the nation that, should there be any change to her condition, that he would interrupt the match commentary to keep us informed. The next morning I tuned in to Radio 5 again, to hear the news team ask an expert what the Queen might be experiencing at the moment if the bout of gastro-enteritis was particularly debilitating. Honestly, I reckon I could be one of these experts if they want a straight answer on that one, although I’m not sure I would have quite spoilt so many breakfasts as the real expert they interviewed. The last word on this goes to the Emu family’s real medical expert, Mrs E, who, on hearing the news, expressed horror that HRH had been hanging around with the sort of people that carry such bugs.

So, we could cover all that this week, and we won’t. Instead, we are here to  explore the murky world of mobile phone engineering.

This started a couple of weeks ago, when #2, who bought an iPhone from the proceeds of his paper round three years ago, announced that it had gone, well, a bit HRH. So, off he went to the Apple store, to get it checked in for a repair. And back he came a short time later, noting that you aren’t allowed to go into such a shop and get a device repaired. You need to book an appointment, with (and we will return to this word later) a Genius.

So he booked an appointment. And went for his appointment. And the Genius told him that his phone was broken.* So he asked about getting it repaired and was told that a standard repair would cost £130, or as we might otherwise term it, about the price of a second hand 3 series iPhone.

We had the usual family conflab and agreed that we should probably go with this solution. So later that day, we trooped off to the Apple store to get a replacement…

Slightly Grumpy Customer : “Hi, my son came in earlier, and you told him that he’d have to pay to get his phone repaired out of warranty. So can we go ahead with doing that please?”
Apple non-Genius person: “Yes, ok, but I’ll need to get a Genius to talk to you about this. Can I book you in for an appointment?”
SGC: “No, we’ve gone through that, we just need to get the phone repaired. Can you get someone to help please?”
AnGp: “Well, it will be difficult, as you do need to have an appointment, but I’ll see if I can get Ed. He’s a Genius.”

AnGp returns, with Ed. Ed, disappointingly, seemed to have few of the trappings of Genius about him, unless you count being middle aged, slightly overweight and with stary eyes, in which case most of the blokes in my local pub should be up for Nobel prizes very soon.
Ed: “Yes, we can offer you our repair service on this phone. It’ll cost £130, and we can give you the replacement unit straight away if we have one in stock*”
SGC: “So, you’re not offering to repair it, you’re replacing it”
Ed: “Yes”
SGC: “With a new unit?”
Ed: “Well, these are termed ‘replacement units'”.
SGC: “So, they’re refurbished then?”
Ed: “Oh, we don’t use that term”
SGC: “OK, but they’re built from parts of other phones that have been returned?”
Ed: “Yes, so when you trade your phone in, it’ll be recycled as well in the same way”
SGC: “So, it’ll be refurbished?”
Ed: “Yes, I suppose so”
SGC “And then sold to someone for £130 as a replacement unit?”
And so we went on, examining the new model that Apple seem to have built for income upon income. I would bet money that all that was wrong with my son’s phone was a software error that a proper hard boot would fix, or possibly the replacement of a minor technical component. The sort of thing that you might sort out if you were in the repair business, for example.
SGC: “So, what’s the guarantee on this then?”
Ed: “It’s 90 days”
SGC: “Surely it should be a year?”
Ed: “Well, no, because its a replacement unit”
SGC: “And if it goes wrong on day 91, I have to pay you another £130?”
Ed: “Well, yes, but that won’t happen – these things hardly ever go wrong”
I ran out of energy some time after this, and gave in. I did ask Ed to look at my iPod, and he was good enough to ask the AnGp to book me an appointment for the following weekend, which is the soonest a Genius would be able to look at it*. In the meantime I asked if it would be the same story with the iPod, which had a dodgy on/off switch.
Ed: “Oh no, it’ll be much cheaper, let’s have a look in the catalogue* – it’s £75”

Which, for a two year old device that cost £120 and needs someone to look at a switch, also seems a little steep.

So, what do we conclude from this diatribe?

Well, for a start, there’s a new model in town for making money from kit that looks fantastic but only seems to be designed to last two years. To Apple’s credit, they tend to talk about being ‘beautifully designed’, but I’d quite like the stuff to be beautifully engineered as well. This is my industry, so, as the wonderful Claire Skinner says in ‘Life is Sweet’, allow me to know. The component parts are generally cheap to manufacture, and, if engineered properly, easy to replace.
Secondly, this economic model that supports Apple’s hilariously titled ‘repair service’, must be getting the Apple finance team super excited. I’ve met a number of finance teams in my life, and never seen them in a state even approaching super excitement. But I would imagine in Cupertino California, there are regular examples of team members achieving a shuddering climax over their final quarter spreadsheets.

Finally, I really really do have a problem with that G word. At a time when we appear to be dragging language through a very thorny hedge, you kind of expect some of the precious words in our lives to be, we’ll, precious and protected. And genius is one of those words. Genius should be reserved for Einstein,  Newton, Turing, and, if you only take into account his first six albums, Elvis Costello. I’m sorry Ed, but it really isn’t the right word for you.

* note, it really doesn’t take a Genius to do this.

The revolution starts here!

~ kevinrevell ~ 2 Comments

When you get to my advanced years, your perspectives change a little bit, and you find yourself justifying actions and possessions that you’d never imagine in your youth. The way that this works in our household is usually with a conversation with Mrs E that ends with the line: “Well, there are worse ways that I could be having a mid-life crisis”. Mrs E tolerates this with a mixture of disdain and abuse, and then usually matches my crisis with one of her own, and in this way we’ve progressed merrily along in the last few years with both of us getting our own way. As a result I’ve done some stupid running and cycling events, unveiled a ridiculously outsized new shed and bought a couple of bicycles and some ill advised tweed trousers, often on the specific excuse that I’ve not been having an affair with a Lithuanian pole dancer. Which, just to clear things up, I haven’t. I really wouldn’t know what to do. And I don’t speak Lithuanian. (Tell me when I start protesting too much.)

Anyway, we’ll concentrate on Mrs E’s particular way of dealing with her MLC another time, possibly in a ‘how many handbags is too many?’ special. This week, we’re talking about bicycles.

By the standards of some, my MLC has been poorly matched by any real excess. Some of my middle aged friends have garages full of expensive hand built machines that are often too precious to ride. I, on the other hand, have limited myself to three bikes, which admittedly is two more than I can actually ride at once, but still not enough to arouse much suspicion on the pole dancer front.

Bicycle number one is the one I ride when out with my other Lycra clad chums, all in the belief that we could all have been something in British cycling, had the beer and years not got to us. Off we go on a Saturday morning, to incur the wrath of fellow road users, beating ourselves up for a couple of hours and managing to travel along at about 10mph slower than the average Tour de France peloton. B#1 was bought with the intent of satisfying a long held dream of owning an Italian bike, and everything on it is Italian, thereby giving it the style advantage, even when the bloke on it is barely able to move his legs at the end of a long stint in the saddle. No matter how many time a cyclist protests, we’re all poseurs at heart, and the pose I’m going for here is pretty much 100% Fausto Coppi, probably the coolest Italian ever to ride a bike. Unfortunately the grim reality is that I’m cutting a figure a bit more like Placido Domingo, but, like all MLC events, it’s all about escapism, innit?

And so on to bicycle number two, a single speed cut down number that is incredibly light and consequently really quite dangerous, especially on a fixed wheel. Mrs E gave this to me for my birthday a few years back, I went out for a ride on it and scared myself witless immediately. You know that feeling you get when you lose control of a car temporarily, perhaps when you hit a patch of ice? Well, it’s like that, pretty much all the time on that bike, and, as a result, kind of fun in its own way.

And finally, bicycle number three. I’ve owned this for about three years, but it’s much older than I am, and frankly, in far better condition. I bought it from an old boy in a local village who was having a clearout and was selling his Uncle’s trusty bicycle. If you’re interested, it is a 1946 BSA Regency with integrated dynamo hub, rod brakes, and (get this) colour coordinated cabling and saddle. Mrs E calls it the Monstrosity, and claims that it puts about 20 years on me. She may be right, as I find it incredibly important to wear what you might call appropriate clothing, while I’m riding it. I fear she may be right, as so often the retro gentleman look that I’m going for blends into that of a country estate twat, but I guess these are just the crosses we fashion victims have to bear.

And it was on this bike a couple of weeks ago that I found myself whizzing along to the office, with nary a care in the world. Cycling up to the lights, I stopped, and found myself next to another cyclist, riding a reasonably knackered old 3 speed. He was, I reckon, in his early twenties.

“Wow”, he said, “really like the bike.”
“Thank you”, I said, trying to blend friendliness with the imperious of the village policeman. (Riding this bike makes you feel like a 1950’s policeman anyway, as you survey the world around you. The dynamo lights even give out an eerie yellow glow on the front, which I find strangely satisfying.)
“Yes”, said he, “it’s got a real retro look, is it very old?”
“Fairly old”, I replied
“So, from the 1990’s?”, my new friend asked.

Had the lights not changed at that point, I might have managed to give him some sort of response. To me, something really old is something that is older than me, and I have a horrible feeling that that might have been his classification as well. It’s unlikely that I’ll ever find out, but suffice to say that the rest of the journey to work took place with me feeling completely ancient. 

But I still really, really like my bike:

 

Image

The Last Word

~ kevinrevell ~ 2 Comments

I knocked up a blog a couple of months ago on the pain that is email traffic these days, and I was reminded about this when I emerged from a two hour meeting yesterday, to find 92 emails waiting for me that hadn’t been there when I left. That’s right, 92. Now admittedly some of those were diary invites and the like, but it was after our work filters had taken out all of the Viagra and instant Nigerian fortune offers, so there needed to be a little bit of attention paid to each one. Actually, the thrill of spam has been out of my life for some time now, what with more efficient filters we have these days. I’ve no idea whether the stuff that gets caught and filtered is the same as it was a few years back, it may have moved on into more exciting scams, and I feel a bit like I might be missing out.

Anyhow, I started thinking about ’email etiquette’ and the sort of stuff we see but don’t notice any more. And here are my 5 tips that you, yes you, gentle reader, can follow in order to make people like me like you even more than I do today:

1. Sort out your footer.

I have a contact from work whose footer has three different fonts (including a very large signature), around 10 lines of company information, details of his ‘meet me’ number (whatever that is) and a delightful company strapping that decrees the virtue of simplicity. Oh, if only there were corporate awards for business irony. Anyway, I regularly received a two line email from him, where the words on the two lines are completely missed in this mish mash of nonsense. Even worse, he has his settings so that the footer gets sent every time he replies to a chain, which means I can sometimes see this nonsense ten times a day. It does rather, well, twist my melon, man.

2. Stop saying thank you.

I know that people get obsessive about clearing out their inboxes. It only struck me recently that mostly this just shifts the problem, and partly this is because people need closure on their emails, so they end up saying helpful things like ‘thanks’ on their replies, just so they can delete them from their inboxes. And I do like people to say thanks, really. I just think as a one line email it’s just shorthand for saying ‘please leave my inbox’.

3. Don’t copy the world, because some twit will press reply all.

And we all know why people copy in the world, don’t we…it’s so that no one can turn around and say that they weren’t told. But it’s lazy in the first place, and it’s even lazier to just reply to all out of habit.

4. Listen to what you sound like.

I was watching ‘Silent Witness’ with my wife the other night and we had a drinking game where every time there was a conversation that could never actually happen in real life, we lost. Or won, depending if you own the local off-licence. Try it yourself, next time you’re stuck with for an opportunity to get comatose with your partner. Anyway, emails get me a bit like that. People just don’t communicate with each other in real life like they do in emails. I get seriously fed up with people being aggressive and rude when they write a note. I also get a bit teed off when they can’t spell properly, but I fear that might be just too much radio 4. In any case, if it’s not rude, it’s lazy. And if you’re being lazy when you communicate with me, I’m going to be a tad less excited about getting your message, no?

5. Don’t give me that faux green agenda.

Please, please, please take off your ‘be kind to the environment and don’t print this email’ footers. I think I last printed an email in 1983, but even if that wasn’t the case, do you really think that being patronised with an automated footnote is really going to sway me? Oh, and if you really really think it’s a bright idea to tell me not to use a printer, how about not giving me a little symbol of a green tree? That’ll cost more money to print, you know. If you really must put some sort of a slogan on there, then make it say something about you.  Of course, that could be the problem. Oh, and while I’m about it, what does ‘Sent from my iPad’ really add to the great weight of human knowledge?

So, I’m off now, to knock out a few more of these pesky emails.

All The Best,

Kevin

Grumpy bloke

Please be good to the environment. Take regular exercise, eat well, wake up early, be good to your dogs, and teach your children to pray. Also don’t read emails like this if you can’t be bothered to get to the en

Marching to a different Toon (part two)

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

Having experienced some interesting bovine-related challenges on my last runs in Newcastle (see previous warblings), I decided to take myself off along the river for a longish run.

I’d run a few times along the Tyne river walk but never for that far, and I wasn’t especially keen on going out and back on the same route. This is partly due to a quite reasonable fear that if I bump into some trouble with dog owners, children on mopeds, glue sniffing hoodies or canvassing members of the coalition*,  that when they see me on the way back, they might give me more grief. You kind of get that as a runner, and while I can still just about pull off the ‘whydon’tyoukeepyourbloodydogundercontrol’ line while accelerating away, there will come a time when I can’t do that any more, and I’m going to have to become a lot more tolerant, or perhaps pick fights with people with older dogs.

Anyway, I digress slightly, what I wanted was a long run that didn’t repeat itself, and there looked like there was a bit of an opportunity on the map. About 7 miles east of central Newcastle is the Tyne Tunnel, and, on the map at least, this looks like just the sort of turnaround point that would work for a longish run. Apparently, the Tyne tunnel was built in 1951, and was constructed by putting lots of concrete tubes together, dropping them into the river, then pumping all of the water out. And they make all that fuss about the channel tunnel. People that I spoke to drove through it on a daily basis, but looked at me a bit funny when I asked about going through it as a pedestrian. Actually, I don’t mind that ‘look at me a bit funny’ aspect to those conversations. It reminds me of my first ten years of living in Norfolk. Anyhow, there is a pedestrian aspect to the tunnel, and, for that matter, a cycle tunnel as well. Possibly things were a bit different, priority wise in 1951,  or possibly there was just a lot of post war concrete tubing knocking around, but there was definitely a tunnel to be run through.

So, off I set, and by the time I got to 8 miles was getting a little tired, remembering that I’d told no one here I was going, hadn’t had anything to eat or drink all day and had no ID. You know all those lectures you give your kids? Anyway, at that point, I got to all the signs for the tunnel. And made my way along some steps to the entry point, which looked a bit like a 50’s ferry terminal. Inside, was the steepest wooden escalator that I’ve ever seen:

tynetunnel-stairs

 

And a big sign in front of it saying it was out of order and to use the lift. It’s worth saying at this point that there wasn’t a soul to be seen around the place. The escalator seemed to descent into a gloomy distance. The lift, when I found it, turned out to be one of those two-person steel goods lifts, and, as the doors shut and I pressed the down button, I realised I had absolutely no idea of what I was going to see when the doors opened.

Very slowly, the lift went down. Very noisily, it stopped and the doors opened. And what they opened up to was this:

The whole tunnel looks like this. Because it goes down, along, and up, you can’t really see the end of it, but you’re super conscious of it being a long way. And there’s still nobody about. So I started running, and, as it happened, got quite a good pace going. This was largely because I was scared out of my skin. After about 3 minutes of this, I got to see the end, where there was a replica 1950’s escalator (also broken) and a lift. Because it was so echo-ey, I was getting a bit confused about my footsteps – there was no-one to be seen, but it began to sound like there were another set of steps following me. I ran as hard as I possibly could to the lift, at which point I trod on a loose paving slab, which made a sound like a rifle going off. This caused me to swear more loudly and more vociforously than the last time I heard Michael Goves assure the nation that state education was safe in his hands. Looked up, and saw the CCTV camera. God, I bet they have a laugh looking at people hitting that paving slab at their office parties. Anyway, got to the lift, pressed the button, waited for ages, couldn’t get the doors shut, still thinking I could hear footsteps, finally the door shut, but the lift didn’t move for ages, then when it did, realised that I had no idea of what I’d see when the door did open.

Fortunately, what I saw was a replica of the previous entry point. Pretty gloomy, but no one about, and no obvious demons on my trail. All I had to do now was to keep the river on my right and follow the path, right?

Unfortunately, the footpath on the other side of the river is a bit less used and tended, so I ended up in bits of Jarrow and Hebburn that probably don’t make it onto the tourist maps. And by now it was dark, and starting to rain, and I’d run for about 90 minutes and I was absolutely knackered.

Just as I was feeling really sorry for myself, I saw a couple of figures on the path ahead. And as I saw them, they stopped on the path. They seemed to have turned to face the river, so that I couldn’t see their faces, and I began to get worried; they looked to be in their late teens, hoods up, and for all I knew, waiting to get their kicks by beating the crap out of unsuspecting runners. So, as I got closer to them, I tried to speed up, so they wouldn’t have a chance to knock me over. Unfortunately, this change of pace resulted in an attack of cramp in both calves, which had exactly the opposite effect, and I ended up approaching them in a series of two footed hops. Which, in retrospect, might have looked a bit odd. I made a mental note that in future I’d try to not approach potential hoodlums while making simpering noises like a small animal with its mouth gaffa taped up, and executing a series of very small bunny hops.

And that’s when something quite fantastic happened. I’d been so bound up in my own worries, that I hadn’t heard the noise coming across the river. As I got closer to it, I could hear absolutely pure musical notes washing towards us from the other side of the Tyne. And as I stopped, alongside the two lads that I’d just gently hopped past, I could hear it really clearly.

Whoever decided to rehearse the colliery brass band in the car park on that side of the river that night was a bloody genius. I don’t think I’ve ever heard music delivered in such a fantastic way, washing across the river and without any interruption, so you could pick out all the instrumentation but still have that mass of space around it to make it feel like such a big noise. So the three of us stood there for a bit and listened. After a while, the band stopped, and we went off in different directions, me to go on a very slow end to my run, they to probably not ever contemplate mugging passers by, and possibly to spend their evening volunteering at the local orphanage.

A long time ago, when HiFi was all the rage, people who sold quadrophonic systems used to say that the experience of listening was like sitting right in the middle of an orchestra. That always struck me as a fairly noisy and conspicuous way to listen. Far more preferable, in my humble opinion, is listening to music on a cold night, being played across a big dark river, next to two complete strangers, who have been good enough not to point out that you’re fifty years old, wearing shorts on a winter evening, sweating like a pig, and having disturbed their listening pleasure by bunny hopping past them and repeatedly making a “nyguuuugh” noise. Never mind your iPod playlists and earbuds, if you want to go for a run and listen to music, rock up to Hebburn on a wet Tuesday night and hope the band is rehearsing again.

* note, I am only truly fearful of one of these groups

Marching to a different Toon (part one)

~ kevinrevell ~ 3 Comments

For reasons that needn’t concern us here, I’m spending a fair amount of my time in Newcastle. Newcastle has lots and lots going for it, but unfortunately for me, none of that lots and lots include it being particularly close to home, nor boasting a particularly tropical climate.

But, as our favourite cross dressing soul star would say, ‘wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home’. Or as the even more wonderful John Cooper-Clark would say, ‘wherever I lay my hat, that’s my hat’. Anyway, that’s where I am, hat wise, during the week. As I make a point of never, ever wearing a hat, as my family and friends make hilarious jibes about getting back onto the sunshine coach as soon as I put anything on my head, we’ll substitute running kit for hat. So, wherever I lay my running kit, that’s my running kit. Ok so far? Let me know if I go off on a tangent at any point, won’t you?

So I find myself running on some interesting new routes which, as many of them are taken on at night, can be, in their own way, pretty challenging. When im in Newcastle, I stay in a hotel next to St James Park. (By the way, if you want to really wind a taxi driver up in Newcastle, ask them to take you to the Sports Direct Arena. Hilarious. If you want to do the same in Edinburgh, ask your taxi driver how the tram construction is going, and whether it’s been value for money. Sit back, and the miles just fly by…) Anyway, next to St James Park is a proper park. And next to that is an absolutely massive park. And on that park are…cattle. In the middle of the city. Apparently you can track the seasons in Newcastle by when the cattle are allowed to graze on this common land. And, more excitingly, you are allowed to graze cattle if you’re a Freeman of the city. Really. Now I don’t know who is currently a Freeman of the city, but I do like to think that each year, there’s a back room of a pub somewhere, with Newcastle’s finest arguing the toss over grazing rights. Sting and Cheryl Cole are at a table deciding whether to put salt licks up this year. Eric Burdon and Alan Shearer are having a robust discussion about artificial insemination. Jimmy Nail barges in out of the cold…’it’s Freisian out there’, he quips…hilarity ensues… Honestly, the sitcom’s pretty much writing itself.

Anyway, the top and bottom of all of this is that where you run, at night, there are cows. All quite big cows, for that. A fully grown cow is, after all, well, the size of a cow. The paths through the park are quite well lit, but sometimes there’s a street light out and you have to be quite wary. I found myself shouting ‘COW’ to a fellow runner last night as she was coming towards me, I didn’t even think about it and it was supposed to be a warning, and I really, really hope it was taken as such.

Consequently, the gates in and out of the park, have to be, well, cow-proof. And I found this to my cost a few weeks back when doing an effort session through the park. I was running the last of four one-mile efforts, and in that sort of eyeballs out state that makes you think you’re Mo Farah on his last Olympic lap, whereas in fact you probably look more like Big Mo Harris ambling out of the Queen Vic on a Friday night. Anyway, at about 800 metres, I noticed another runner in front of me. This isn’t always good news when you do efforts, as you run the danger of running past someone who doesn’t want to be run past, if you see what I mean. And, to my horror, I realised that, if we both kept at this sort of pace, that we’d hit an upcoming gate at about the same time. And this was an effort, you know. Efforts have to be completed. The last one needs to be the same pace as the first. These are the rules of running.

To my surprise, the runner in front, having heard the panting of Big Mo Harris behind him, looked around and immediately sped up. And got to the gate first. And grabbed the gate and held it open. Honestly, I couldn’t have been happier. Here was a fellow sportsman, realising what I was trying to do, making my effort session work for me. In a tiny moment, we were bonding as runners. I did my best to smile as I swept past, and thanked him as much as my lactic-filled body would allow.

Unfortunately, at least one of us had misjudged my pace, and just as I passed my New Best Friend, he let go of the gate. I mentioned before that these gates are designed to stop cattle from wandering out onto the road, and in order to do so, they have springs in them that are best described as industrial. So there wasn’t much time between ‘let go of the gate’ and ‘get out of the way of the gate’. Consequently, as I burst into my final 400 metres of the night, the stupidly heavy gate smashed against my arm like a steam hammer. I wasn’t really sure what to do at this point. I honestly thought I’d broken my arm, but it wasn’t really something I wanted to complain about. My NBF, after all, had just done me a favour, so I decided to try to ignore it, and keep our relationship on a positive footing. And, to my delight, about a minute’s run away were some trees and bushes.

With tears welling in my eyes, I finished the effort, turned right and stopped. The noise that came out of me at that point was something along the lines of “nggggghhhhhhhhhhuuuuhhhh”. I hoped that it was at a low enough volume for my partner in athletics not to worry too much.

I mentioned this tale to a running friend who suggested that there might have been something vindictive in a runner letting a gate spring back, along the lines of ‘that’s what you get when you try to overtake me’, but I’d like to think it was a genuine mistake. But if you’re running at night in Newcastle and someone holds a gate open for you, you might want to speed up just in case.

Hurry up Harry!

~ kevinrevell ~ 1 Comment

Hurry up Harry!

As you may have noticed, the Emu has been on something of a summer, not to mention an autumn break. Not one that’s been particularly intended, but it’s kind of happened that every waking hour has been spent doing stuff other than recording my innermost thoughts in order for one or two people to chance over my workings and tut loudly*.

And many, many of those waking hours have been spent at work. And many of those many, many hours have been spent on one or other end of an email chain.

I have vague recollections of what life was like before email, although I’m not entirely sure whether I remember that clearly how we ever got on with communicating at work. I do remember going to meet people and having conversations, then going home and having a break, but that may be just an old man’s memory playing tricks. I definitely went to a presentation in the late 1980’s, where an enthusiastic user of email stood up to say that if email and the telephone had been invented at the same time then the phone would never have taken off, as it was so intrusive to our waking lives. So we do seem to have come full circle on that one. 

Coincidentally, my falling out of love with email, and the security tagging device that is the Blackberry, came around about the same time that I stopped going to the pub. And I stopped going to the pub, partly because the sorts of people who were going to the pub were beginning to irritate me. And this in itself was slightly ironic, because I find myself living in a virtual email pub, with a number of behaviours that are stopping me from enjoying a quiet beer.

For a start, it’s much, much too loud. I’m getting hundreds of conversations a day to listen to, and I can’t decide whether to join in on any of them.

Theres a bloke in one corner who, for reasons best known to himself, is behaving in an aggressive shouty fashion, and irritating anyone within earshot. He’s normally perfectly reasonable, but once he gets inside the pub…

There’s another bloke with a really really loud voice, who seems to think that everybody in the place will need to know about his every waking thought. He likes to address 20-30 people at a time, to save time. He’s got a number of mates who like to add their own opinions (and these often appear to be just for the sake of form) to the same 20-30 people. Even if these initial discussions are interesting, then the subsequent ones are really hard to follow.

Every now and again, someone comes up to me in the pub and says that they’ve been pointed towards me by someone who knows I’ll be interested in them. They weren’t, and I’m not.

Unfortunately, my own special brand of OCD means that I can’t leave the pub until all of these discussions have been had and closed. And if I stop at the bar for half an hour to have a drink, I turn round and they’re all there again, like some unpleasant Greek Hydra. (As opposed to a pleasant Hydra, but you know what I mean.)

Every now and again I nip down to Zuckermans bar or Jack Dorsey’s place, as they’re supposed to be trendier than my local, but I just find that people speak more quicky, more loudly, to more people, and I can’t really get a proper discussion going.

Anyway, I do need a drink. Don’t be there when I turn around. If you need to contact me, write me a letter.

 

*yes, I mean you

 

On The Settee With Debbie McGee

~ kevinrevell ~ 3 Comments

Latest in the longish list entitled ‘well, I never saw that one coming’, is the exciting news that lanky centre forward and part time womaniser Peter Crouch is to star in a show called ‘On The Couch With Peter Crouch‘. It’s been commissioned by Sky, surprisingly enough, and is set to put the genial freak of nature in front of a number of celebs, to examine ‘what makes them tick’. Our presenter has been justified on the excellent criteria of ‘having a good command of the English language’, although you and I both know that the whole premis really just revolves around being able to produce a few interviews underneath such a cracking series title. So, not to be outdone by our “free-scoring” journeyman giant, the Emu has trawled the depths of his celebrity knowledge to bring you some equally valid programmes. And if any of these get commissioned, remember where you saw them first:

1. Celebrity Furs, with Olly Murs

In which everybody’s favourite grinning warbler tips his comedy trilby to the endangered fur and leather collections of his (ahem) fellow celebrities. In episode one, Paris Hilton explains why she likes to improve her appearance by draping a number of side-stitched chinchillas over her shoulders, then goes on to justify her existence generally. In the Celebrity Furs Challenge, Olly tasks Paris with composing a full sentence without either reference to herself, or the words, ‘like’, ‘totally’ and ‘whatever’.

2. Princess Eugenie’s Olives and Blinis.

In which Princess E shows that there really is life under the fascinator by tracing the cocktail party snack from its humble beginnings in Manhattan, through the halcyon years of the Ritz Cracker and right up to today’s Bruschetta with grilled butterfly wings. The nation’s favourite 97th in line to the throne freeloader will be hoping that the commission will prove that she does, at least, know about what she knows.

3. Crown Green Bowls with Beyonce Knowles.

The producers have clearly taken a gamble here, assuming that Mrs -Z will become plain old Ms Knowles again before the pilot airs. But it’s as nothing compared to the risk in showing the encounter between the pop diva and bowls legend David Bryant. The chemistry between the two, following a misunderstanding where David invites Beyonce to have a suck on his favourite cherry rough shag, leaves a thousand options for future episodes.

4. Makin’ Merry, with Terry & Ferry.

Basically, a documentary of a drinking competition between enthusiastic racist John Terry and 70’s heartthrob and international playboy Bryan Ferry. Expect plenty of fireworks as the evening progresses, as they discuss the best way to park their Bentleys, how best to treat the ladies, and exactly why Bryan spent the first four Roxy Music albums sounding like he had a packet of jelly inside his mouth.

5. Celebrity Stalking with Andrea Dworkin.

Although Ms Dworkin is currently exercising her feminist doctrine in another life, her spirit lives on in a series where her followers travel the length and breadth of the country intruding on the lives of pornographers and misogynists wherever they can find them. In episode one, Peter Stringfellow is ambushed wearing nothing but a pair of speedos and a smile. Hilarity ensues as he makes the mistake of trying to charm his way out of the situation by offering his attackers a chance to work in his new nightclub venture, just outside Luton.

6. Fifty shades of Andy Grey.

Fresh from his exile on TalkSport, Andy is finally able to talk about the many facets of his personality that have taken him through his multiple marriages and affairs, whilst barely pausing to address the capability of women to understand the offside rule. In the pilot episode, expect to see log shots of Andy staring wistfully across a Scottish loch, wondering, perhaps, on his life’s meandering journey, before high tailing it back to the smoke for a lively jabber with Alan Brazil about whether there will ever again be a proper hard man centre back in domestic first flight football.

7. Dennis And Rolf Play Tennis And Golf.

Much like the pro-celebrity programming so beloved of 1970’s TV schedules, this series invites celebrities along to share a round of golf, a set of tennis, and an anecdote or two with our hosts, Dennis Skinner MP, and Rolf Harris. Although at first an unlikely pairing, Australia’s favourite wobble board enthusiast and the Beast of Bolsover relax into their roles quickly, and soon start trading gags like they’re lifetime pals. Episode one features Jimmy Tarbuck and Jonathan Ross. Of course.

8. A Nail Gun, A Pallet, And Our Old Friend Timmy Mallet.

Sponsored by B&Q, this delightful and inspiring series shows that there’s much more to Timmy Mallet than some ill-advised sweaters and ridiculous glasses. Using recyclable materials and his hitherto unacknowledged expertise in DIY, Timmy aims to furnish an entire three bedroom bungalow over the course of six 30 minute shows. In episode one, Timmy fashions a futon out of a pallet, and a colourful bedspread out of some old knitwear.

9. The Osbornes.

Modelled closely on “The Osbournes”, an everyday story of over privileged brats being cared for by a father completely out of touch with the modern  world, this series focuses in on the world of George Osborne, and, in contrast, features some over privileged brats being cared for by a father completely out of touch with the modern world. The pilot episode shows “Boy” George blowing a sizeable chunk of his trust fund on an ill-advised investment based on shorting shares in Greggs the Bakers.

10. Extreme Fishing with Robson Green.

Sorry, obviously that one’s completely ridiculous.

Driving me round the bend

~ kevinrevell ~ 1 Comment

“Well, how was London ?”

Like many other marathon runners, the end of April for me was spent staring at my feet or the middle distance trying to answer this question without being completely boring or self-obsessed.  In any case, the answer for me this year was:

“Bloody awful, thanks for asking”

Given that’s been pretty much the same response for the last 3-4 years, after every marathon I’ve run, I decided to try something radical. That’s right, I read a book about how to be a better runner. There’s lots of these books out, and mugs like me buy them all the time, in the mistaken belief that by tweaking our training, taking a different attitude to races, running with a different posture, eating wholegrain goat yoghurt etc that we’ll remain injury free, enjoy our running, and probably show a clean pair of heels to those pesky Kenyans.

Anyway, this particular mug bought a book called “Run Less, Run Faster”. I was particularly attracted by the first part of the title, as I’ve recently fallen out of love with running, and am keen for us to be reunited as soon as possible. What RL, RF says is this: Stop running so much, do three really good intense sessions a week and spend another 2-3 sessions cross training. Quite how such a message justifies 300 pages of dense text and £8:99 of my cash is anyone’s guess, but I guess that’s just the crazy, mixed up world that we all live in these days.

So, for the last couple of weeks, that’s what my training has been, and, dear reader, I do feel my affection for running generally chumming up a bit. Although I think this is partly due to the significant boredom levels associated  with the cross training options. Because once you’ve put yourself through 45 minutes of stationary cycling or rowing machine efforts, then you really know how boring exercise can be.

And so it was with a spring in my step that I started my effort session last Tuesday night, and I fair skipped along to start my:

<1 mile warm up + 4x 800m efforts @ 2:54 off 1min timed recovery + 2 mile cool down>

Now, if you’re a runner, you probably live in justified fear of the 800m effort. It’s just about short enough to be flat out, and just about long enough to leave you coughing blood in the last 200 metres. But, it’s a really good effort session distance for endurance runners, and there’s even a neat little marathon predictor called Yasso 800’s (named after the exceptionally coolly named running coach, Bart Yasso) that says you should do 6 x 800m efforts with  limited recoveries as an indicator of marathon pace a few weeks ahead of your race – your average in minutes and seconds will be the likely time you’re capable of in hours and minutes for the marathon. Neat, huh?

So off I set, and warmed up by running to a nearby cinder track, a hidden gem about a mile from where I live. It’s at the edge of a park which itself borders on to a bit  of Norwich which, well, hasn’t exactly made its way on to any postcards you’d buy from the tourist board. However, there was sun in the sky, a marked lack of rain, and all was right with the world.

First 800. Had the track to myself, being a firm believer in Yasso 800’s, I took the 2:54 target seriously, got round ok, and absolutely on pace.

As I was walking up to start the second effort, I was joined on the running track by two men in shell-suits carrying golf clubs, a very noisy child, and two even noisier dogs. Stepping on to the infield, they started practising their golf shots*. Fortunately, they weren’t very good at golf, so they weren’t hitting the ball that far, but when they did connect, it was difficult to know if they were going to slice or hook, so running in a circle around them was slightly precarious. In addition, the noisy child decided to exercise the dogs, who in turn decided to exercise themselves in my general direction. All of which gave cause for quite a lot of “Oi, f***ing come back here”  from the two men, who would catch up with the dogs eventually and punish them in the way in which only people who shouldn’t have dogs seem to know how. So, second 800m just shaded under 3:00, on account of ducking imaginary “F***in’ Fore” shouts and general distraction.

Third effort was all well until the second bend, when I noticed two more men and possibly the biggest dog I’ve ever seen, up on the bank next to the track. My eyesight’s a bit dodgy these days, and I genuinely thought it was a small horse to start with. Anyway, it, and its minders came down the bank, attached to each other by a chain that you’d normally use to secure a large motorbike. Across the back straight, and onto the infield. The small child stopped screaming. Both of the casual golfers stopped swearing and studied their trainers. And the two previously very lively dogs sauntered over to the back straight, as if to make it clear that their job descriptions did not include the word ‘protection’. Naturally, this modern day reenactment of a spaghetti western slowed me down, as time stood still around me for a moment. As a result – 2:59.

Ans so to the fourth 800m effort. Just as I walked up to the start point, I was joined on the track by an assortment of different sized adults in more shell suits, two toddlers, and a very small quad bike.

“That looks easier than this”, I said, striking up the sort of easy banter that inevitably marks me out as a complete twit, and by which I meant at riding on a quad bike around  a running track would be easier than running.

“Well, we can’t get it f***ing going on the f***ing grass”, came back the equally cheery response, slightly mis-interpreting me.

They started the quad bike up, and it made a noise like a drag racer. The recalcitrant dogs pricked up their ears, and on the back straight suddenly made themselves heard again (the dog/horse creature by this stage had moved on, possibly into some sort of Ripley’s Believe it or Not travelling fair). I had a bit of a head start on the first circuit, as the first pilot was the wrong side of obese, and had a toddler on his lap, all of which pretty much hid the quad bike underneath. As I passed them, the dogs looked a bit puzzled and not sure what to make of things. Frankly, I couldn’t blame them – they’d just pitched up for a little light golf and owner punishment action, a new type of scary animal scares them half to death, then some idiot in a running vest comes sweating past, followed by Mr Creosote and Jr Creosote, making a noise like their worst nightmare and with no visible means of support.

The Creosote family had developed some momentum by about 300m, and were steadily gaining on me as I passed half way. Time for a quick Le Mans style change of driver, and the race was truly on. For the new driver was the skinniest member of the family and anxious to impress with his driving skills, throwing doughnuts on the first corner, and in turn convincing the dogs that this was A Thing They Must Chase. So they did, and at 600 metres, the positions were 1) me 2) quad bike 3) Alsatian cross 4) Bulldog, all travelling at well over 10mph. I’m pleased to say that these were the finishing positions as well, or at least they would have been if the two dogs hadn’t been chased in turn by their owners, so instead of attacking the final bend, had carried straight on down the hill towards the ring road. Selfishly, that didn’t concern me, as I checked my time for the effort – the thrill and fear of the chase had resulted in a pleasing 2:49.

I suspect you will struggle to see such an exciting last lap at London 2012 in the 800m, or, frankly, in any other event, and more’s the pity, in my opinion. I would love to see the introduction of lively dogs and/or mini quadbikes in lanes 7 and 8 for some of the heats, at least.

My training plan takes me back to the track next Tuesday. If there’s enough interest, I will hold a badly organised and frustrating lottery to deliver to you some tickets at vastly inflated prices, although I couldn’t guarantee that you’ll get to see exactly the event you want to see when you want to see it or indeed be able to sit near any members of your own family.

But you’ll be able to say you were there.

 

*the men, obviously

Of Mice and Men

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

I’m embarrassed to say that I have something of a fear of mice. This, I think I inherit from my Father, who, fairly early on in their relationship was found by my Mother in the kitchen, standing on a table with his trousers tucked into his socks. He’d just seen a mouse on the floor, although this of course could have been a bizarre cover up for being a Freemason.

I got tapped up to join the masons once. Or at least, I think that’s what happened. I was invited out for a evening of beer and snooker by three of my senior work colleagues. I was rubbish at snooker and I’m not very good at being drunk, and I think I may have misread some of the questions I was being asked. So, if  one of my colleagues said ‘Tell me why family and diligent work is important to you’, I may have misheard it as ‘Tell me why democratic socialism is the only way forward for this country’. Anyway, I didn’t get invited back for another cosy chat, although it puzzled me why certain people managed to get on so well in the company, and it was only after several years that another ex-colleague suggested to me that they might have been ‘looking after each other’ in their own special way.

I don’t ever feel I was missing out on that much, although for years the traditions of the Freemasons have interested me, not least for the way I which they’ve  influenced our behaviour and language. If you say someone is a four-square fellow, for example, it means that they’re the sort of person who will pass the initiation ceremony of running to all four corners of the Freemasonry hall before acceptance. I shall make it my business to call more people four-square fellows I future, and I’d respectfully encourage you to do the same.

Anyway, we’re here in France, and in round three of our thrilling ‘Come
Dine With Me’ challenge, in which the junior Emus are tasked with creating a menu and providing an evening’s entertainment in the vain hope that their parents can get to read their books in peace. As far as that hope has been concerned, it’s been an unqualified disaster, as we’ve been roped in to do the heavy lifting, and indeed the vast majority of the light lifting. And so it was that last night’s lentil and peanut surprise (surprisingly good, thanks for asking), bubbled away happily in a very very heavy dish in our calor gas oven, while Felix put the final touches to his entertainment for the night ahead, which was a free form rap about a rabid cat (surprisingly entertaining, thanks for asking).

The great moment arrived, and I was tasked with removing said dish from the oven. This was a more precarious task than you might imagine. Our oven is about 50 years old, and wouldn’t last terribly long under any Health and Safety inspection. Health wise, it has c50 years worth of hurried meals baked into its very being. Safety wise, it is very probably the most dangerous item we own*, threatening to cough out an explosion from its oven, hob or connecting and slightly perished gas tubes at any moment. And so it is always approached with a degree of caution. And that caution is increased when a very heavy dish, full of bubbling nutrition is eased out against the rusting sides of the oven. Mid way through this delicate exercise, the mouse appeared from underneath the cooker. Looking rather disturbingly well fed, and without any discernible fear, he appeared to be eyeing up my right foot. We both froze in a moment of time, and I remembered the story of my Dad on the table. I continued to delicately wrench the dish from the cooker while my dear wife shouted at the mouse to get lost. Without spilling a drop, the meal moved from kitchen to table (not always an easy exercise, as the blog ‘Mrs Emu Gets Custardy’ will testify).

I had conquered my fears and spent the evening feeling around 2 feet taller as a result. Just don’t ask me to own one as a pet.

*The cooker now takes first place in the most dangerous list,from a previous rating of 3rd. Felix’s window has now been replaced with slightly stronger glass, and, after re-enacting the scarier moments of ‘Speed’  at 75mph with a broken throttle cable, the Mini has finally gone to a better place.

I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass

~ kevinrevell ~ Leave a comment

It’s Mother’s Day in the Emu household. Not normally a great cause of celebration, as Mrs Emu, forever a martyr to the cause, is as normal running around trying to fit a thousand weekend chores into the brief gaps between going for a run, writing reports, driving kids about etc. So the jr Emus are tasked largely with not trying to make her day any harder than normal, rather than starting from the base of breakfast in bed, rose petals on the duvet, and on demand peppermint foot rubs. And this, they largely do until mid afternoon, when the normal calm of the household is broken by the bloodcurdling (and frankly rather high-pitched) screaming from #3, upstairs. Mrs E and I immediately come to the same conclusion, ie that #1 has taken a break from his A level revision to sit on #3’s head. Again. So I’m despatched upstairs, in a role that I like to think bridges a gap between Kofi Anan and Dirty Harry. To my surprise, #1 is on the landing, not looking at all like a cheeky bully, but more like a very worried brother. And #3 is in the bathroom, running his hand under the cold water tap, and trying to stem the bleeding.

I say ‘trying to stem’, because it’s a fairly futile task. As we will later discover, he’s managed to cut through an artery in his hand, and we’re getting a live demonstration of just how powerful a pumping heart is – at a rate of about 100 beats a minute, his hand sprays claret all over the bathroom at an alarming velocity. It’s like stumbling into the set of The Omen, or possible the scene in the police station in ‘Withnail & I’.

Very, very, very fortunately, the love of my life is also an experienced nurse, and pretty rapid at getting up stairs – taking control of the situation she manages to stem the horror movie flow and bark out a series of commands that get the three of us out of the door in record time and pointing in the direction of A&E.

As the alpha male in the family, I immediately take on the role of ambulance driver. It’s only a couple of miles to the hospital, and I feel justified in driving like a, well, like I’m at the wheel of a minicab. Fortunately my wife is good enough to break away from her nursing duties in the back seat to kindly point out the flaws in my driving style, and indeed, the likelihood that we are all going to die if I don’t slow down. I forgot to mention that I’m also slightly hampered in my high speed journey by not being able to see terribly well. I’ve had to wear glasses for driving for about 5 years, and they’ve have been broken for about four. And that morning, despite the last superglue repair, one of the arms had finally come off. Thus I was actually having to balance the glasses on one ear and my nose, an interesting challenge when approaching a roundabout at speed, for example. The whole journey, brief though it was, was conducted with a driver looking like he was in the middle of a minor stroke, while his passengers alternately were crying with pain and shouting out instructions on how to drive. Anyway, we got there.

And during the journey and in the hospital, where incidentally, we enjoyed the kind of fabulous NHS care that frankly, I’m going to miss post ‘reform’*, we managed to piece together what had happened…

We live on a fairly busy street, and #3’s bedroom faces out to the road. So he can sit at the window and watch the world go by. And that afternoon, a girl from his class was walking past. He is at pains to point out that there is no love interest involved here, but I think we’re all impressed that he was banging on his window so enthusiastically to attract her attention that he managed to punch right through it up to his lower arm. Given that his punching ability has been a cause of some mirth in the house for a number of years, perhaps it was the power of passion that took over, a bit like those stories of mothers who lift up the back of trucks to free their trapped children.

Anyway, he’s ok now. He’s milking the inability to write, play the piano, wash up and cut up his food, but no real harm done, and it’s nice in a way that he’s got an excuse not to do these things, as normally he just skives off anyway.

And you’ll want to know what happened to the girl. Well, she walked off. Completely oblivious to the bloodfest that she’d caused a few feet above her, and the pathetic sight of #3’s arm flopping about in her general direction, out of the broken window. Girls, huh? You can work really hard to get their attention, and then they just wander off. Still, might be the first, doubt it’ll be the last. 

* I’m serious. #3 was seen immediately, triaged really quickly, given pain relief, X-rayed and stitched efficiently by considerate staff who seemed to really care for the health of our child. I would dearly have loved a chat with Andrew Lansley that afternoon.