Bicester, Bike Show, and Ikea

Spent four days up near Stratford. Went to Bicester village for some clothes shopping. A coat from Reiss, some shoes from Prada, a tshirt from Paul Smith, and a scarf for Jo from Vivien Westward. Then Bike show on the Thursday. A new helmet from Davida. Ikea on Friday for a white sideboard. The. Home on the Saturday. We were both very very tired!    

Good Saturday on the boat and then Sisters of Mercy concert

An excellent day The boat with Joanne. Simon and Rachel also on their boat Then the Sisters gig with Joanne and Eleanor 

 

Alain Robbe-Grillet - The Voyeur

A Nouveau Roman telling the storey of a watch salesman on an island and the possible murder of a young girl.

Nina Simone - Ne me quitte pa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rJ_sgv645o

simply amazing

Martin Amis - House of Meetings

An excellent read. A storey covering decades between two brothers, and surviving the Gulag and love.

A hard read that reminds me of reading the Gulag Archipelago and Day in the Life

Simone de Beauvoir - The Mandarins

An epic novel of French post war politics, society and love.



“The day had been spent in the expectation of these hours, and now they were crumbling away, becoming, in their turn, another period of expectancy...It was a journey without end, leading to an indefinite future, eternally shifting just as she was reaching the present.” 

What an exhausting weekend... but we've been a sailing

Saturday was going about with Simon and Rachel. We went to the antiques barn NE of Norwich and then to Wymondham, for lunch, the second hand place and the motorbike shop.

Sunday we took Luger to the boat. We got petrol on the way and at the yard, removed the outboard. Then filled up 'Northstream' with petrol and vitals. Then off for a drive up and down the river for a few hours. It was mild and the river and Ranworth broad were like a millpond. What a beautiful day!

Boat inspection today

19th October

Boat hill inspection today. Passed ok. Now paid balance of £7,000

Down to Coach and Horses this evening with Clive and Kate

We're buying a boat!!!

Bought a boat!!!

On our anniversary on Sunday just gone

A nice day

Bumped into Wendy on the way home. Who was my first proper girlfriend. A really nice but short chat. I had a train to catch.

And just received an email from Alex, Siray's chap, to advise he's got a job at NNUH. After I'd sent his CV and a recommendation.

Excellent day all round 

The Mandarins - Simone de Beauvoir

This life is her only chance; there'll be no other truth but the one she'll have known, no other world but the one she'll have believed in

Grandad's funeral

All four of us went to Grandad's funeral today in Reading.

Nan looked so frail, old and small.

Very large turn out of the family.

My Grandfather

Grandad died a week last Sunday. Around 6:00pm. It's a strange time. I feel most for my Dad, him losing his own father. Nan will soldier on. But Dad will find it hard I think.

Tomorrow he'll be cremated. We'll all be there.

I'm sad

Gary Numan - last Friday

Forgot to post again

Saw Gary Numan at the UEA last Friday with Jo and Eleanor. Simon and Rachel were also there.

At the weekend I put the dining chairs on eBay, and we bought two old chairs from Looses.

London day 2

In London with Jo, Simon and Rachel. Went to Spitalfields, Brick lane, and Angel. Jo got hat, picture and scarf. I got new jacket from Reiss

Then sleep, Byron burger and pub

Friday - goodbye to folks and hello to London

Heck, as busy few days...

Mum and Dad went back yesterday. Visited Potter Heigham and Wroxham, around Norwich as well. So a few nice lunches and dinners. Dad really not holding up well, so asked for him to push for tests.

Back to work just for today. Then off to London later this afternoon, for a couple of days...

Great Yarmouth and a Pokemon

Regent Rd with m & d and El

Breakfast at riverside 

Docs with El

Charizard hunt across Norwich

Norfolk heritage day

My parents, Joanne and Eleanor tour Colegate. Octagon house, Non-conformist church, City Clun, and the Bishop's gardens.

Discussed father's health with Mum: he looked bloody awful!

Nick Cave

Went to see the Nick Cave film last night at cinema city. Pizza and murderers with Simon and Rachel first, then we all went to the pics

Train and bike to work

Started train and bike yesterday. It's been 12 years since I used to do it

Nice evening in town

Grosvenor fish bar, then birdcage, then brewdog. A lovely evening just Jo and me

King David and Achilles

Reading up on the connections between David, Jonathan and Goliath (Samuel I)

And Achilles, Patroclus and Hector

Same narrative about besties and 1-2-1 battle

Sophocles - Ajax

He falls on his sword. All a bit gloomy, apart from him going nuts and slaughtering all the cows and goats

A nice weekend just gone

I forgot to mention that Saturday Jo and I went into Norwich for breakfast at the copper kettle. Then a mooch about and met Sazz and Razz at the Playhouse for a cuppa. Then down to Magdalen and a look into the the usual secondhand shops. Then home and out to buy shorts... and a tele.

Sunday was an early workout (over did it!), then a food shop, followed by a lovely barbecue at Sazz & Razz again. With their daughters, a friend called Kathy and her daughter, and Rachel's brother Steve.

A lovely weekend

Ben Coates - Why the Dutch are Different

a mixture between travelogue, history and social commentary. A bit tedious for a while. but picks up later on with discussion around immigration, religious tolerance, welfare, and social attitudes.

The return home to Britain was touching

Robert Graves - Goodbye to all that

Most of the book is in the trenches. A beautifully banal way of describing the carnage and hell. A utterly superb read.

Trench stinks of shallow buried dead
Where Tom stands at the periscope,
Tired out. After nine months he’s shed
All fear, all faith, all hate, all hope.

Plata - Euthyphro

The so-called ‘Euthyphro dilemma’ was to become of increasing importance in theology and philosophy, especially as the great monotheistic religions –Judaism, Christianity and Islam –developed over the next millennium. In these faiths, the plethora of gods of Greek and other pantheistic religions gave way to a single omnipotent Creator. This Creator was the source of goodness and value in the world. But, as the German philosopher Leibniz asked at the beginning of the eighteenth century, if it is the case that whatever God thinks, wants or does is good by definition, then ‘what cause could one have to praise him for what he does if in doing something quite different he would have done equally well?’ 5 If, on the other hand, God recognizes what is good and promotes it because of its inherent goodness, then goodness must exist independently of God. It might now make sense to revere God’s goodness but God is no longer the source of that goodness, nor do we need to look to God to discover that which is good.

Another busy week comes to an end

It's Sunday the 31st July. Tomorrow is August; well over half way through the year.

Eleanor fell off her bike on Monday, so not a good start. One bad knee, a hurt wrist and shoulder. I think Wednesday evening was at the Red Lion with Sue and Alan. Eleanor took Chloe to the Playhouse theatre to see 'return to Forbidden Planet'. Thursday evening was to Pat and Thorton's, as it was Sue, Alan, and Chloe returning to Stratford on the Friday.

Other than that, a busy week at work for the four of us. The gym a couple of times, and not too much else.

Took Luger over Mousehold this morning. So he was happy

Big family meal

A top day yesterday.

Lunch with Sue/Alan, Simon/Rachel, Jo, Chloe, and me, at the Garnett thingy in Norwich

Evening meal at 'Delia's' with Pat/Thornton, Sue/Alan, Malcolm/Christine, Jo, Eleanor, Noah, Chloe, and me

David Storey - This Sporting Life

The storey of interwar rugby in a rough northern town.

Excellent stuff

Home again

A long hot journey. England turns out just as hot as Italy, so buffered really.

Nice to be home with the kids (adults)

Pompeii - Mary Beard

Raining today, so finished my book

Sorrento today

Bit cooler today, so a walk about Sorrento with ice cream was quite bearable

Paestum yesterday and Naples today

Roasting hot again. Naples is chaos and amazing

Pompeii and Paestum

Pompeii yesterday. The heat was intense, but the place was superb. Paestum tomorrow; I hope it lives up to my dreams.

Aeschylus- The Persians

Xerxes gets his but kicked at Salimas and on land. Hobbles home via Maacedonia and the rest. 

Darius is summound from Hades and laments the downfall of Persia.

Aeschylus- Seven against Thebes

Listening to on holiday in Sorrento 

The two sons of Oedipus fight it out for Thebes. Etewhatsit wins the first six gates for the home team. Both die by each other's hands

This leads on to Euripides and Antigone

Luton airport

Four o'clock in the morning and still we get no sleep

Saturday 25th June

Well here we are on a wet Saturday afternoon...

It's been a pretty good few weeks. Eleanor is the best she's been for over three years. Going to the Gym with Noah, and then a little later with me as well, has been excellent for all of us.

Both Eleanor and Noah seem much happier and confident at the moment. I'm feeling much better too. Joanne and me are out and about a lot more since moving here, and work is better too.

So all in all, things are on the up. It's been a long time coming, so lets make the best of things and make it last as long as we can.

I suppose the biggest unknown is the Brexit vote. no-one seems to know what it'll mean, if it'll really happen, who will lead it, how long it'll take, and all that. Plenty of trepidation everywhere...

Brexit day

Waking up to find we've voted to leave.

The Country holds its breath to see what it'll mean...

Euripides - Orestes

Proper Deus ex Machina!

Eleanor at the gym

I met Eleanor at the gym last night. We went upstairs to the big men area. Eleanor, who had previously max'ed at 15kg's, went on he Smith machine. Went all the way up to 40kd's.

Then to the bench press and 20kg's

She was so happy. And so was I!

Quiz and London

We won last night at the Red Lion

In London today for a Microsoft presentation. Interesting but dull. Now have migraine.

Noah and I hit the gym

Yay, Noah shows me the ropes at the gym

An excellent evening!

Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

This original is followed by the play, that was so close to this.

A very good read

Watch each for us

Both Joanne and myself splashed out on Iwatches today.

yippeeeeeeeee

Gym joined

Signed up with the 24/7 gym yesterday.

I'm really feeling well now, in body and head, so finally got myself signed up to exercise again

Saturday stroll through town

Zak's American diner last night

Hotdog, burger, curly and sweet potato fries, and American beer

Adam ant

One year and one day ago...

We moved out of Wymondham!!!!

UEA library today

It felt very different after around ten years. Much fewer desktop PCs, with everyone on their own laptops. Loads of bright young things working away and hardly any had books with them... All online learners I guess

Birthday meal for Eleanor at the Shirki Japanese Restaurant

get photos

Euripides - Medea

Doom and gloom

Medea (Ancient Greek: Μήδεια, Mēdeia) is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BCE. The plot centers on the actions of Medea, a former princess of the "barbarian" kingdom of Colchis, and the wife of Jason; she finds her position in the Greek world threatened as Jason leaves her for a Greek princess of Corinth. Medea takes vengeance on Jason by killing Jason's new wife as well as her own children with him, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life.

Eurovision last night

Us four with Simon and Rachel, drink and nibbles

Ukraine steal the show and beat the Russkies

A view from the bridge - Arthur Miller

At the cinema with Eleanor 

Euripides- The Trojan Women

Very good and tragic 

A tale of the four women of Troy, including Hecuba and Cassandra 

London and Juliette Lewis

An excellent day yesterday with Joanne, Simon and Rachel in London

Down to the 'Heaven' nightclub to watch Juliette Lewis and the Licks

Edward Fitzgerald- Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

12th century prose

Superb

David Guterson- Snow falling on Cedars

Court and flashback 'thriller'. Or just mundane.
Set on island in USA with Japanese immigrants, just after WW2

Algernon Blackwood- The Willows

Ohhhh spooky 

Victorian horror... Mmm 

Sunday Roast at the Red Lion

Nice lunch with Jo, Eleanor, Noah, Granda and Grandad

Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood

Superb read!

Japanese cooking

New (old) bookcase

Ta daaa

Ali Smith - How to be Both

Excellent book, beautifully written and esoteric

Pat Barker - The Ghost Road

The last of the trilogy. 1995 Booker Prize winner, and yes, deservedly so

Coffee with Simon and Rachel, and purchase of Anne Boylen

Coffee (or Green Tea) with Simon and Rachel

Purchase of a mannequin now called Anne

Nice drive and map

Jo and I drove top-down to Acle and back

Also finished putting the map up

Then tea at P&Ts

Bought (or ordered) olive tree today

Hail Caesar - at the pics

Routine light comedy

George Clooney and Cohen brothers

Interesting bits of heigal, Marx and Webber 

Down in Fareham

Joanne and me with folks, wed evening to Sat evening. Southampton art gallery, gunwharf and Gosport tomorrow.

Out on the bike in the sun

Out on the bike

Tea and cake in Wymondham 

Dropped in to see Simon and Rachel

A very nice day

Tchiykovski- Sleeping Beauty

Jo and I to the Theatre Royal last Thursday evening

Hmmm

Jo enjoyed it very much

Kazoo with the family

Guess the tune...

Red Lion for quiz night

Excellent evening with Jo, Kate, and Clive.

Eleanor and her team won!

Double DMs

His 'n' hers DMs today.

The Hangmen

Neil Morrissey live feed to the cinema.

With Joanne and Eleanor 

Noah and Nellie

Noah still very low with flu

Nellie still very up with life

Deadpool

With Joanne, Simon, and Rachel

Eleanor

Eleanor came home from work last night, the most lucid, bright, and quick, that I've seen her in three years. Happy me.

Assassin - Cinema City

Watched with Eleanor last night

Haven't got a scooby, but beautiful cinematography 

Y B Yeats - The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity. 

Surely some revelation is at hand; 

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep 

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Die Antwoord - Ten$ion

Hmmm. Found some new music.
South African Urban Rap Grunge stuff - rather nice

E M Forster - A Room with a View

“We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harm - yes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.” 

Blade Runner soliloquy- I heard it on the radio yesterday. - 'Tears in Rain'

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears...in...rain. Time to die.

Virginia Woolf - The Waves

The folds of the curtain became still, statuesque; the paperweight on the table hardened; the threads on the curtain sparkled; everything became definite, external, a scene in which I had no part. I rose, therefore; I left him.


It is strange how the dead leap out on us at street corners, or in dreams.

“And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man's, like Percival's, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!” 

Soon, too, a maid came in with a note, and as she turned to answer it and I felt my own curiosity to know what she was writing and to whom, I saw the first leaf fall on his grave. I saw us push beyond this moment, and leave it behind us for ever. And then sitting side by side on the sofa we remembered inevitably what had been said by others; "the lily of the day is fairer far in May"; we compared Percival to a lily--Percival whom I wanted to lose his hair, to shock the authorities, to grow old with me; he was already covered with lilies.

Seeing the first dawn you wouldn't see

James Joyce- a portrait of the artist as a young man

The clouds were drifting above him silently and silently the seatangle was drifting below him; and the grey warm air was still: and a new wild life was singing in his veins.

He was alone. He was unheeded, happy and near to the wild heart of life. He was along and young and wilful and wild hearted, alone amid a waste of wild air and brackish waters  and the sea harvest of shells and tangle and veiled grey sunlight and gayclad light clad figures of children and girls and voices childish and girlish in the air. (p143)

He felt above him the vast indifferent dome and the calm processes of the heavenly bodies: and the earth beneath him, the earth that had borne him and then him to her breast. (p144)

Neil MacGregor - Germany: memories of a nation

A walk of wonderment through the churning ferment of Germany's evolution. Its growth as a centre of intelligence and tolerance, to its fall into the abyss. Fantastic!


Kollwitz and Barlach

J M Coetzee - The Life and Times of Michael K

Tragic tale of a man who tries to take his month home on the veld

Now starting on James Joyce's Portrait of an Artist... Just holding back until i attempt the brick that is Ulysses!

Wyndham Lewis - Tarr

A complex satire

Chairy

I came here as a matter of fact to be alone. I want to see only fresh people: that is being alone, isn't it? People become too real. After a time we give them our illusions, then they are too real. - Tarr