Revolutionary Rants

I am back on my desktop computer, BigWig, on our sitting room desk. Very nice, much as I enjoy using the laptop Mac, Gromit, it is good to have my own large screen and humming silver box of tricks back. He made way for Alex’s computer, Papious, over Christmas and with our busy weekends has not regained its position until now.

Well, Stags - like Havent - did not pull off a glorious FA Cup magic victory. The best bit was when some Mansfield Town footballs got kicked over the empty stand and brought the game to a stop for a while. Arsenal won, at least, so that’s something, but I think I would have sacrifised the Gunners for a bit of magic yesterday.

Today we are off to Waters Meet for a walk. It is up near Lynmouth, so a little drive but we are now planning to start walking a good bit more over the weekends. I came to the decision yesterday to definitly get a dog, but - although my heart longs for one - not to get a Labrador again. I think such a big dog would be frazzled from being left alone whilst I work in the afternoons. I will get, I think, a Jack Russell terrier (which was first bred in the village here, so it is very fitting, really). I can give them a big long walk in the morning when I am home, and more over the weekend of course, and then in the evening when we get home as well. We think it would be better to have another Lab if we have kids, because then one of us will be home to look after and educate our little people anyway. So, the search begins for our new friend…

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More later, but for now I have but one thing to say:

Come on you Stags!!!

Oh, hang on, and the article I mentioned before can be seen over here…

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I have now reached my quarter century, I am 25. The annual change of my ‘About Me’ page. It feels a bit frightening to be 25, mainly because it is a ‘part-of-a-century’ birthday and because every year you sort of think “I should have written a novel/traveled the world/released an album/done something by now”. Not much point crying over spilled opportunities though, is there?

On Thursday we headed off up the motorway to London. It was a pretty quick drive, around three and a half hours driving and two stops (one for coffee, one because we’d run out of windscreen water). We stayed at Park Royal Travelodge, which was fine. Clean and tidy, with a car park. Chicken and I got on the tube straight away and had an evening drink and meal in the city centre. The next morning we were off to see the First Emperor exhibition at the British Musuem, we headed off quite early as it was a 35-40 minute tube journey in to Russell Square. Once there, we had a coffee and saw the Egyptian stuff at the Brit Museum to get us in the mood for the next day. Then we went in to see the warriors. The exhibition was, sadly, very badly set-up and there were lots of people with head-phone tours standing for f**king ages in front of everything you wanted to see. The warriors themselves were out in the open, stood altogether at the end of the cabinets and here we did actually get to stand close by a marvel. They were amazing. I am glad to have seen them but I think the whole exhibition could have been done so much better and the head-phone brigade should have been shooed on by the useless staff - why were we all given such time regimented tickets if they meant nowt?

Mum then went off to meet Noreen, her cousin, and we had another coffee, went for lunch at the National Film Theatre, went to the Tate Modern, the National Portrait Gallery and had a cup of tea at Patisserie Valerie on Old Compton Street.

The next day was my birthday, which was odd, being away from home and having no cards or presents! Still, we had a nice King Tut exhibition instead. Only half of the tube was closed for repairs… The Piccadilly line was running so we got from there to Russell Square again before taking the 188 bus to the dome. We now know Deptford and Greeenwich pretty well, as the bust took well over an hour to delivery us to the dome. When we got there the place was hideous, like a great big dirty wedding marquee with shitty restaurants in it. The exhibition itself was, once again, rather badly organised, with people who were supposed to be going in over an hour after us getting in on our time slot. However, the boxes were all stood centrally meaning you could see a lot of the items close up. There was only half an exbitions worth of Tut relics, but it was all amazing to see.

A fter another stressful journey back to Park Royal we headed out of London and went to Newbury, where we spent the night. Yesterday we met Alex in Bristol and had lunch before getting home. As usual it is good to go away but great to get home. London itself is rather full of wankers, it must be said. I have also managed to pull a muscle in my back right out with a wet towel on my head and a soft bed combo, not good.

I forgot to mention, but just after Christmas we had a rather powerful thunder/lightening incident with the Hooda star, which is a big metal star on the hill above the village. At around 6.30am there was the loudest thunder clap I have ever heard (and I’ve been to Nice during thunder season) at precisely the same time as a massive flash of lightening. This hit the star direct on and not only did it cause us personally £300 (the electric came down the phone line and blew various comps), but it has blown the whole house of the family who have the star attached to their house and cause lots of other damage to other houses. Now we hear that they are palnning to bring it back! Nice though the star is, I think it is a bit worrying that that could happen again…

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Well, the Chicken Out campaign seems to be going well, with Axminster selling something like 60% free range chickens in the Chicken Out week there. The supermarket chains are, apparently, bracing themselves for a free range back-lash, although the usual battery chickens are still selling well, also. The counter on this page has annoyed a couple of readers, but, frankly, I don’t really care. I hope its incessant pinging will stay in your heads when you buy your chickens for dinner! Nto that I wish to impress my views on anyone of course…

It is an interesting paradox, though, about people who can afford such meat (like us, we can fork out the extra £2.50-£3.00 for a free-range hen and afford, also, to go to the local market for our meat) and those who feel tempted by the cheapo stuff because their budgets are tight. Are all radical political (or otherwise) movements doomed to be lead by the middle-classes because they - like Lenin - can afford to sit around, think and plan revolutions? Are the so-called ‘working classes’ (I am not sure they exist as such anymore, but that’s another post in itself) to busy existing to give a f**k? Is this the greatest capitalistic fail-safe ever created?? I think I will return to this on my new column, which I am starting in a week or two, and more of which later…

Not much going on here at the moment. Off to London for my birthday next weekend, to see King Tut and the terracotta warriors, which is exciting. It being that time of year, our thoughts have turned to holidays and we have booked our annual trip to Paris. We also plan another trip to North Yorkshire to see Chicken’s Aunt, Castle Howard and return to Whitby. We are hoping to get in another “city break” maybe to Italy, Amsterdam or Barcelona (where I can walk la Rumblas but without real intent) and a visit to nearby Cornwall, where Mr C has yet to go.

It is windy here but not as rainy as we expected it to be. Yesterday - after I got back from work - we went for a nice walk, borrowing my brother’s dog, up local Dennington hill. Alex is heading off to Bristol tomorrow and we plan to be mostly lazy today.

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After the comfy delights of Cranford on a Sunday evening the Beeb has now given us it’s latest period drama (as per usual by Andrew Davies) Sense and Sensibility. I enjoyed the Emma Thompson film and of course Davies is most infamous for his 1995 adaption of Pride and Prejudice so this is inevitably going to be compared - so I’ll just carry on and compare it, too…

So far this version looks very sumptuous, with real Devon scenes and stately homes. Charity Wakefield, with the obligatory perfect curled hair (which, by the way, does not really happen) and eyes like a dog from The Tinderbox is a pleasantly obsessive Marianne, intense but slightly lighter than the Winslett version. Dominic Cooper, formally Dakin in The History Boys, fails to have the depth of a good Willoughby; he seems just a little bit sleazy without the shallowness and sense of hidden character that one feels Willoughby should have. David Morrissy is not Alan Rickman and comes across as a bit pompous…

However, it is Hattie Morahan who really misses the mark as Elinor. She has so much emotion written all over her face constantly that she could hardly be said to be repressing her feelings as Elinor does in the book. She occasionally heads off to caves in order to sigh a few times, but quite why she needs to when she moons around ofter Edward more than Marianne does after Willoughby and when she isn’t mooning she’s talking about Edward all the time. OK, so Dan Stevens is a very easy on the eye Edward Ferrars, but the role is so small and undemanding that it really only matters that he is the Davies piece of male mea, busily axing things in the pouring rain.

I short, it is watchable, pleasant enough Sunday evening telly, but is does not have the passion either of the earlier film or even of the sedate Cranford.

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Just wanted to say, if you haven’t already, get yourself over to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s new site Chicken Out and sign up for his brilliant campaign to get chickens out of the evil conditions that many are kept in for food purposes and out to a free range life!

This is one of the main reason I do not eat meat, because of the conditions that the animals are kept in before death, and battery farming is one of the worst of all the culprits on this so I support it completely. After all, if you want to eat meat it should be a happy, free animal (preferably locally sourced as well…) before it goes in your belly.

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Well, the new year is underway in a “real” sense (Chicken has returned to work, I will be back to my “normal” hours next week, the snack foods of Christmas are running out and Muller yogurts are filling our fridge). My cold continues, reinforced despite the herbs and vitamins I am stuffing down each morning, but we live in hope of avoiding the evil sounding tummy bug that is going all around the country.

We haven’t have any snow here in Devon, but it has been freezing, with the biting wind that has also been all over the nation of late. Today there is a sort of mist of cold hanging over the village.

On more exciting news, the first caucus has been called in the States, Iowa. What is even more exciting though (well, if you’re a politics geek, such as myself) is that Hillary Clinton came third. Obama won, then Edwards, then Hillary. Interesting… Very interesting. Those in the know seem to be saying this morning that Edwards won’t last it out and it will still be a Obama/Clinton two-horse fight, but either way it looks to be the most interesting American election for yonks. Plus, anything must be better than the current President, mustn’t it?

Anyhoo, time for a coffee with Mum.

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A happy 2008 to you all. We had a nice party last night, and saw midnight in in the square of our village in a giant version of Auld Lang Sine (not sure that’s spelled right…)

No resolutions for the new year here, other than to remain happy. But, I do hope to do a few things this year: return to Paris (and go to Versailles), continue working, get a dog.

Well, lets hope the new year brings us all what we hope for

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