Lessons from Sport: How to cheer for Fulham

“Few of us have chosen our clubs, they have simply been presented to us; and so as they slip from Second Division to the Third, or sell their best players, or buy players who you know can’t play, or bash the ball the seven hundreth time towards a nine foot centre-forward, we simply curse, go home, worry for a fortnight and then come back to suffer all over again.”

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby

Craven CottageStill 30 degrees. 7:30pm on 13th September. We squeezed along row F looking for our wooden seats, careful not to knock over a pint. The air was pungent with the smell of sweat and tensions were rising.

Fulham vs Burton Albion.

This is the second football game I have been to in all my 15 years living in the UK. Continue reading Lessons from Sport: How to cheer for Fulham

Paris when it sizzles at 38 deg C

“Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrels carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in one realisation, Guillotine.”

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

pantheon parisWe walked slowly, our eyes fixed on the domed roof. The headphone-thingy talked about symmetry, symbolism, liberté, égalité, fraternity. Léon Foucault’s pendulum swung back and forth beside us where it has almost always been since 1851. Christ looked on from his mosaic-ed position on the eastern wall, down at La Convention Nationale sculpture, as if blessing French nationalism … Continue reading Paris when it sizzles at 38 deg C

Norway: Nyama, the King, the big boulder … and the VOH

“Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains?”

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

10km return climb to Kjeragbolten Sitting on my bottom, edging my foot onto the boulder and trying hard not to look down at the 3200ft abyss below, I had one of those out of body experiences.

On the one hand, a more sensible Nyama looked on from a safe distance wondering almost out loud whether anyone had ever fallen to their death on this spot. She also seriously doubted whether in fact the Nyama on the rock really did have it in her to stand on the Kjeragbolten. Continue reading Norway: Nyama, the King, the big boulder … and the VOH

Salem and Boston: American cultural saturation, witches and baseball

“We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!”

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Salem, Massachusetts

Bewitched in SalemIn summary, Arthur Miller’s play is a classic parable of mass hysteria drawing a frightening parallel between the Salem witch-hunt of 1692 and the McCarthyism Cold War fears of 1950s America.

Set in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts, the townspeople are stirred into madness by superstition, paranoia and hatred, culminating in the wrongful sentencing to death of 20 people for the crime of witchcraft. Continue reading Salem and Boston: American cultural saturation, witches and baseball

New York City, you had me at “Hello”

Statue of Liberty“… Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome...

… “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!””

Emma Lazarus (written in 1883 & later affixed in bronze to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty) Continue reading New York City, you had me at “Hello”

An evening with the 60’s glamour set, now octogenarians and not a bit less interesting!

“I got completely lost — it’s real difficult, isn’t it? Everything’s got the word ‘Kensington’ in it — Kensington Park Road, Kensington Gardens, Kensington bloody Park Gardens…”

Notting Hill script by Richard Curtis

On Saturday Hubby and I went to an 80th birthday party – the third of a series of parties for our most glamorous friend MMM. MMM is a woman of many stories: “That reminds me about the time I met Nixon – before he became president, mind… Then, he was more interested in mini-skirted girls and Champagne than in politics. But he never took advantage!” she explained in her Southern drawl.

We’ve heard the Nixon story a number of times and we never get tired of it. But it’s really the storyteller who captivates me – the accent, the intonation, the minuscule details remembered and the absolute delight on the face of the storyteller. Continue reading An evening with the 60’s glamour set, now octogenarians and not a bit less interesting!

Primaries, Brexit, Mayoral elections, #Zumamustfall: Do we get the leaders we deserve?

“”No!” was the word that awakened us, “No!” being shouted in a man’s loud voice from every house on the block. It can’t be. No. Not for president of the United States.”

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

Mayoral Elections 5th MayA tutorial for my British College of Journalism course considers the writing of columnists and bloggers:

“… the columnist or blogger presents their interpretation of what is happening in society. Ideally, readers will return each week to find out what the writer has to say. Some writers do their best to polarise their audience, with half strongly agreeing with what they say, and half vehemently disagreeing. They might do this by making controversial statements which spark outrage and debate. Continue reading Primaries, Brexit, Mayoral elections, #Zumamustfall: Do we get the leaders we deserve?

IOW: Hovercraft, Intrigue in Cowes and miles of shipwreck coastline

Ratty, the rat from Wind in the Willow’s: “There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham

alternate endings
Not my pink-nail-polished finger.

Do you remember the ‘Choose your own adventure’ books? The protagonist is “you”, and you are given choices that lead to alternate outcomes. You’d get to a certain page which said something like, “If you want to investigate the noise in the attic turn to pg85. If you decide to put earplugs in your ears and hide your head under the covers, turn to pg76.”

Not great literature, but as a recovering control-freak, I understand the temptation to try and be the mistress of my own destination/life/story. Continue reading IOW: Hovercraft, Intrigue in Cowes and miles of shipwreck coastline

Be your own Activities Director

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkein

spring hanging basketI had to have a photograph taken a couple of weeks ago for our company website. I’m usually the one behind the camera so this was a little daunting. Hubby did the deed because he has a fairly good eye, doesn’t mind my requests for lots of retakes and responds well to being given specific instructions. Though he took a good picture, the woman I saw staring back at me in high definition seemed considerably older than how I felt or how imagine myself to look.

Frankly, it was a bit spooky! So I made myself a cup of tea and contemplated my life. Continue reading Be your own Activities Director

Time travel and being a tourist in my own city

“I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air — or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.”

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
(the first of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries)

A study in ScarletIf any of you are avid readers you’ll know the feeling of being in the middle of a few novels at once, of having a pile of unread books next to your bed and a bookshelf/kindle full of #mustreads that taunt and tempt.

A couple of birthdays ago Hubby gave me the novel, A study in Scarlet. Having recently finished Stephen King’s On Writing, I rescued this little red book from the shelf last week.

It’s a small volume of the who-dun-it-crime-scene-forensic-investigation persuasion. It is set at no. 221B Baker Street, London, in the year 1887. Continue reading Time travel and being a tourist in my own city