Sir Dan of C - Sometimes a Blog

Socially Distanced Swimming

2020-10-21T07:16:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I took my youngest daughter swimming for the first time since March. She’s a bright and loving child but quite nervous and lacks the confidence of her older sister. As such, swimming has been something of an uphill struggle and though she made progress over eighteen months of lessons, these gains naturally fell victim to the lockdown earlier this year. I had received a brief notification from the swimming school several weeks ago that “social distancing measures” had been put in place and so was somewhat equipped for a different experience, but nothing could have prepared me for what was about to happen.

Allow me to briefly outline how this routine played out prior to lessons being cancelled in March. We would arrive at the car park, I’d walk my daughter over to the building, sign in at reception, walk to the changing rooms, take her back down and onto the poolside. I’d then wait in the crowded corridor outside and watch her swim through the glass along with the other parents. Thirty minutes later I’d collect her from the poolside, take her back to the changing rooms then finally out to the car and home. All rather simple and normal wouldn’t you say?

On Saturday we arrived outside the building and there were only four other parents there, all of whom were wearing masks and shuffling about uneasily in the spacious sunlit playground. The receptionist opened the door and called the children in. I was informed that I could not go in with my daughter so she went into the corridor and was asked to leave her socks and shoes on the side. Here, she began to struggle and so started to call to me through the glass windows, beginning an infuriating game of lip-reading with me mouthing instructions. Eventually, I asked the receptionist if I could go in and help her.

“No, you’re not allowed to,” came the reply.

At length she managed to get herself sorted and disappeared off to the pool.

“Please go and wait in the car,” the receptionist told us parents. “Come back at five to three.”

With something of a lump in my throat (I’m afraid I’m unable to adequately describe these sorts of emotions to non-parents) I trudged back and sat in my car, wondering if she would be okay, if she would manage to get herself changed properly, how much her swimming ability had deteriorated since March, if she would be manage jumping in and so on.

At five minutes to three I went back to the playground and discovered that miraculously the threat of the virus lingering in the corridor had disappeared in the twenty-five minutes that I had sat in the car, because I was promptly invited in to fetch her. However, this required me to wear a mask (I don’t own one so had to use a running snood pulled up over my mouth which in itself tends to elicit a great deal of disapproval), plastic overshoes and lashings of hand sanitizer.

My daughter was on the poolside at the far end and it’s a wonder I didn’t slip and fall into the pool with my feet transformed into giant blue bars of soap. She had been made to sit on a designated circle, despite the fact that there were only three other children in the entire pool. I then had precisely one minute to get her onesie on, which might sound a lot, but when you are dealing with a child who is not especially well-coordinated (this garment having to be prised on over a wet swimming costume on a humid poolside because they are not allowed to actually take clothes off) it is no mean feat.

It was only when I finally succeeded and began to lead back down the poolside to the exit that I was struck by the atmosphere. A swimming pool is usually very loud with children shouting and splashing about and the noise reverberating across tiled surfaces and echoing back across the surface of the water. Here, there was nothing. It was still and silent, and incredibly eerie. I turned to look back at the pool itself and there were six swimming instructors, all wearing their black t-shirts and each with a plastic face shield, even whilst in the water.

In the corridor outside I endured a similarly frenetic exercise, having to put her socks and shoes back on with wet feet, a race against time in which I made a furious mental note to bring her in sandals the next week whilst all the while the receptionist muttered at me for taking too much time. Only when we left the building were the next group of children allowed in – another four bemused children about to enter this utterly inexplicable dystopian process.

Leaving aside the sheer economics of the situation, that there were more instructors than children and therefore it would only be a matter of time before the swimming school goes bust, I still cannot fathom what took place. That over the course of a five month break those who run the school came to the conclusion that these measures were necessary; that this would be a suitable environment in which to teach young children; and moreover that their actions would put parents at ease. On the contrary, for it is abundantly clear that many have either taken their children elsewhere or just given up on swimming entirely.

By their very nature children are resilient, of that I have no doubt, and yet I cannot accept for a moment that these bizarre measures will not have some sort of longer term impact on young ones. After all, imagine being six years old and having swimming lessons return after an absence of half a year only to be taught by someone wearing a protective face shield whilst your dad is banished from sight. If this is the “new normal” then forget it, it stinks. It is a psychological nightmare that I’m afraid is playing out throughout the entire country, the effects of which will be with us for an entire generation.

“Castle Woodstock" – Lego Medieval Castle MOC

2019-03-26T04:27:00.000-07:00

Last year I completed my second effort at a Lego Castle MOC and no sooner had I posted the pictures online I began picking away at its many imperfections. Yes it was big and impressive but in trying to make the thing tick the many boxes on my list I had essentially ensured that it didn’t really do anything REALLY well.

Firstly, the overall engineering was flawed. The base was a single set of plates which were never stable enough with the weight of either of the section and then the hinge connecting the two parts in the rock was insufficient to keep the two parts together. Every time I took it from the shelf it broke apart and I ended up removing the hinge and simply pushing the two sections together. Then there was the overall style. On the one hand it looked like it wanted to be a medieval concentric castle from the front with its gatehouse but then there wasn’t enough room for the adjoining walls which mean it ended up a weird hybrid of a part keep, part Scottish tower house with all sorts of contradictory elements poking out! This in a sense was partly deliberate in order to satisfy my interest in different types of architecture, but in the end just watered down the overall effect. I think the triumph of the castle was the interior with the stable block, courtroom and chapel being really nice additions – though ultimately the exterior dimensions were compromised in order to fit all those bits in.

So with that in mind I ended up dismantling the entire thing and going back to the drawing board with a new Lego Castle MOC. I realized that I needed a far larger set of dimensions and in order to achieve this I would build the new castle in three separate parts, focusing initially on the dimensions for these to ensure that I could store them on my shelves separately but that they would piece together to form something that had enough scope to breathe a little more. I then set to work on the base sections and came up with the idea for using a “Lego brick sandwich” which essentially involves using a series of large plates with 2-berth bricks joining them together and then another layer of plates on top. This creates a nice solid base upon which the build can commence – the edges of these sections were then laced with Technic hole bricks to allow them to be connected together using pins (I also used these on the exterior so that future sections could easily be added at a later date). So let’s look at the three sections of Woodstock Castle in turn.

Woodstock Castle Gatehouse and Moat

The gatehouse itself is very similar to my previous Lego build. Having decided I wanted to stock with the medieval theme it made little sense to change a winning formula so I used the same style, but reduced the height for a number a reasons (combination of storage height on my shelves plus trying to create a better balance with the rest of the castle). The main difference in the new build is that I allowed for a proper moat and section of landscape at the forefront to give it a sense of setting and context. The greenery takes the form of a flowery meadow (it SUCKED up flower heads and green plates in the process!) with a winding cobbled path leading to the drawbridge. The moat itself has a blue plate base with clear tiles and round plates on top to give the impression of a babbling stream – this was pinched as an idea from countless browsing through images of Lego water features and I’ll come back to this shortly when discussing the waterfall.

The gatehouse itself is very similar to my previous Lego build. Having decided I wanted to stock with the medieval theme it made little sense to change a winning formula so I used the same style, but reduced the height for a number a reasons (combination of storage height on my shelves plus trying to create a better balance with the rest of the castle). The main difference in the new build is that I allowed for a proper moat and section of landscape at the forefront to give it a sense of setting and context. The greenery takes the form of a flowery meadow (it SUCKED up flower heads and green plates in the process!) with a winding cobbled path leading to the drawbridge. The moat itself has a blue plate base with clear tiles and round plates on top to give the impression of a babbling stream – this was pinched as an idea from countless browsing through images of Lego water features and I’ll come back to this shortly when discussing the waterfall.

The rear of the gatehouse is very simple as I wanted it to simply fix onto the town square without any fuss so the only feature is an overhanging blue and brown wooden room in the Tudor style which combines nicely with the other jetty-style timber-framed buildings.

Woodstock Castle Side Section and Waterfall

The side section was the first to be completed in its entirety and was also the most fun to build. I was keen to develop the rocky outcrop style on my previous build, but take this to the next level and this combined with the idea for a waterfall that would flow down into the moat. The key to this was planning – everything was about levels and I had to repeatedly disassemble bits to ensure that I could go back to the other two sections and ensure that the whole thing would work from every angle. Once the tiers were established, it was a case of building up the rock using sloped sections until the base of the rear tower was completed and the brickwork that joined the rock was all in place. The waterfall used a combination of the same clear tiles and clear round plates that the moat is built from, with the added extra of some 1x1 clear slopes to form the actually “fall.” I’m quite pleased with the finished effect!

On the interior there is the clock tower, barrel stores then some steps to the rear tower in which I have once again employed a scribe inside the Lego Library with a chapel above. One feature of this new Lego castle MOC is that I have closed some of the rooms off as it was more or less impossible to open these up without a significant compromise tot eh build quality. That said, both the top of the black sloping clock tower and the top section of the rear tower are both removable to ensure it slid into my shelf! This involved adding flat tiles to the level at which space dictated I could build and then constructing the remaining parts with a protrusion so that they would slot in securely once the section was removed from the shelf.

Woodstock Castle Main Section and Town Square

And so to the largest section. This in theory should have been the easiest because two sides essentially comprised of a town square (i.e. low-level, no building work required). However, in practice there were a few things that made this the toughest section. Firstly, I started to run out of bricks (thanks Bricklink for being there during times of crisis!). Secondly, the differential between the gatehouse and the entrance to the great hall was such that the levels really had to be manipulated to avoid a single step or unconvincing drop. Thirdly, I discovered that building the timber-framed overhangs was quite difficult whilst maintain the exterior stonework of the walls.

On numerous occasions I had to take bits apart and work things backwards to try and accommodate the slope and the roofline which culminated in reaching the tricky final tower and great hall. The final effect was worthwhile however and I added the finishing touch of the jester entertaining the crowds in the square, overlooked by the Lego Edward of Woodstock (not sure if Edward the Black Prince has been depicted as a Lego minifigure before) and lion soldier standing guard on the steps flanked by two burning torches and an array of shields featuring various coat-of-arms.

I also managed to get hold of an owl and a rat to add a dash of nature to proceedings (though the blacksmith doesn’t seem too happy about that).

So that’s Castle Woodstock, my Lego Medieval castle MOC for 2019, featuring Edward of Woostock and a garrison of soldiers and medieval marketplace. I think I’m generally happier with this one - and if you like it you can buy it! It's currently available on eBay here: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333145425001?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Peppa Pig and (the elusive) Signor Stag

2019-02-03T05:33:00.000-08:00

My children enjoy Peppa Pig and so do I. It is an easy cartoon to watch, there are enough episodes to ensure the same story is not repeated (all parents will vouch for this) and most importantly it seems to have (so far) escaped the tedious tendency for children’s programs to become politically-correct virtue-signaling exercises. If the television must be on and if it must be a children's program, then one can do much worse than Peppa Pig.

By consequence they posses a number of Peppa Pig toys and games, including a variation on the “Guess Who” game in which two players have to choose a character and then be the first to guess the identity of their opponent’s choice by asking a series of questions designed to eliminate the various options. Whenever I have played this game with my daughters I almost always go for one of the less obvious characters – so rather than Peppa, George or Daddy Pig this means Mr Bull or Mr Rhino or, on occasions, Signor Stag.

Here he is on the Guess Who Game:

Now, we know that Mr Bull is a binman who appears in the odd episode here and there, sometimes making a general racket early in the morning and waking everyone up, sometimes doing some construction work. We also know that Mr Rhino works for him. But Signor Stag? Who is he? There is literally no sign of him anywhere and the more times we have played the game the greater our curiosity becomes.

Emilia always claimed that she had seen Signor Stag during an early episode, but we took that with a pinch of salt because series one was unavailable on Netflix at the time and she couldn’t expand on what he was actually doing or any other detail. All of a sudden last week, however, after months of fruitless searching, she came running out of the playroom, shouting with joy and triumph that she had found him.

“Come and look, I’ve found Signor Stag!!!!”

Naturally I raced in and watched what I hoped would be a long and rewarding section of storyline to finally feature this mysterious character. What I saw however, was a clip of several seconds in which Signor Stag (a slightly hapless Italian with a spivy moustache) loans a car to Peppa Pig’s family. He only had a couple of lines, struggling to comprehend the family's request to hire a car (which is odd given that he runs a car hire shop - what else would they be requesting?), uttering “auto” and then “broom broom, peep peep,” before disappearing. We replayed it several times – Emilia found the whole thing (mainly his accent and odd demeanor) highly amusing.

Signor Stag's only known television appearance:

Well, at least we’ve seen him. Once. Briefly.

The weird thing is that he doesn’t appear to be listed on any of the character lists for Peppa Pig, nor on any comprehensive Google searches, nor anywhere. And yet he does appear in an episode and he is a character in the Guess Who game. So why is Signor Stag so elusive?

Naturally, Emilia has sent an email to the Peppa Pig website asking for more information on him and for him to appear in another episode. We are nothing if not persistent, so we shall see…

Lego Castle MOC 2018

2018-06-15T04:23:00.001-07:00

I’m pleased to say that after eighteen months of on-off work (and following me tearing down the first effort) I have finally completed the Lego Castle MOC (my own creation). As I mentioned a few months back, this hobby was kick-started by a Christmas present a couple of years ago that quickly sucked me into the fantastic world of Bricklink where the challenge of purchasing a high volume of grey bricks to resemble stonework is made a lot easier – in fact, the idea of being able to construct something on this level back in the 1980s when I first started building Lego is almost unthinkable. So, before I simper on any further, here’s the finished product in all its MOC-glory:

Aside from being able to order specific Lego bricks, the other advantage of building a Lego Castle MOC in 2018 is the wider presence of the internet and its labyrinth of forums, articles, blogs and fanzines, all offering up thoughts and advice on the subject of bespoke Lego-builds. The natural challenge when it comes to medieval buildings is that of creating the effect of vast sections of stonework that resemble what actual medieval castles look like, without falling into the trap of simply creating a boring “big grey wall.” This was the main flaw in my first attempt at building a Lego MOC and, having disassembled the entire structure, I spent some time looking in super-detail at how a wall could be constructed in a more realistic way. There were a few pointers on this that I can share here to anyone looking for tips and hints.

The first thing is to think of the shape of the towers. Walls are, by their very nature, straight – at least if you are building them using Lego they are as you have no choice! But towers can be square or angular and it is this that will allow the walls a certain level of character above and beyond the “classic castle” modular style of the 80's and 90's Lego sets. As such, I chose to use 2x1 corner pieces (modified bricks) on my four towers, which meant that the intersections genuinely looked like curtain walls linking the towers together as opposed to a single flow of bricks set at angles. The second thing is the choice of bricks used throughout the design itself. In my first build I simply used a shedload of 2x4 and 2x2 standard bricks which are firstly too large when compared with the overall size of the castle (and especially the minifigs that stand alongside them) and secondly are just too boring when used exclusively – even if you alternate the colours! This time, I found that by identifying half-a-dozen different types of brick, all of a varying nature, before beginning construction, by the time they were layered together the walls took on an interesting, rustic and more realistic appearance. To put this to the test, it is worth visiting a real-life medieval castle (i.e. one built in Norman or Plantagenet times) or at least researching one via a book or Google images. The stonework is often irregularly sized, with different shades either blending together or contrasting completely at intervals. Both the walls and towers are rarely “flat” in the literal sense of the word; sections protrude or become recessed almost arbitrarily (though almost certainly for specific reasons of defence or structural support) with decorative features flanking the windows and doors and overhanging brickwork towards the highest points of the building where the ramparts or turrets become crenelated. In many cases, these sections feature murder holes beneath the level of the floor and the battlements themselves and even these are often presented in an irregular or decorative way. All things considered, a standard bricklay effect from solid bricks isn’t going to cut it!

With this in mind I selected a number of bricks to use in the wall and tower sections, as follows. In the “standard” range, there were 1x1, 1x2 and 1x4 standard light blue-grey bricks, together with a “plate effect” whereby I would build up the equivalent of the 1x4 with three rows of plates but with a couple of darker grey plates to look like a “thinner” set of brickwork. Then there were modified bricks, including a 1x2 masonry piece (my favourite but more expensive), a “log” style 1x2 brick, a “grille” style 1x2 and then a technic brick with axle hole (for the impression of a spy hole or decorative feature). The final touch was the use of a 1x2 tile stuck onto a 1x2 modified brick with studs to look like a protruding block of stone. When clustered together, these completely break up the line of sight and create a really interesting section of stonework that, at least in the somewhat limited world of Lego bricks and MOCs, resembles the real thing!

For the windows, most are of the arrow-slit variety, which require a clever technique that I cannot lay claim to of arranging single 1x1 studded bricks facing each other and attaching single sloped pieces back in, meaning that the external gap looks like a religious cross type of arrow slit, with the inside having a wider view, which is exactly how castle windows of this variety were built so that the crossbowmen could load whilst protected and get a far wider view of the enemy without the full exposure being present on the external wall.

This Lego MOC Castle is a hybrid of a keep and a more meandering collection of tiles, mainly because I didn’t have the space to create a full-on Edwardian monster of the concentric-wall variety! Therefore, I was unable to really expand sections of curtain walling, though I did ensure that a couple of my towers were styled in a slightly different way. The two rear towers have Tudor-style balcony-window sections protruding from them to give the impression of a later addition, perhaps from the Renaissance period where comfort and style overtook stonework in terms of priority. The one tower has a French-style sloping roof (probably the costliest section to purchase as those black slopes are a nightmare to get hold of these days!) and the second tower is the tallest with a set of murder holes creating an overhang in the style of Raglan Castle and Warwick Castle (both of which can be seen surviving today).

So that’s a bit on the exterior of the castle – what about the inside? I decided that each section had to be accessible and look realistic so made the entire thing break apart into two parts so that it could be opened up like a doll’s house. Initially this had a hinged piece but after a while the whole thing became so heavier with the sheer weight of the bricks that it made more sense to get rid of the hinge and just have a couple of hole/cylinder snaps to clip it together and pull it apart which became far easier to manage and more practical to work on either part at any one time. The first floor is the bit within the rocky base and it basically a dungeon / prison / store section. Then comes the first floor, on which the gatehouse sits. On entering the castle, there is a main hall with a stable block on the right and an armoury (with a blacksmith) on the left.

On the rear section there is a kitchen for the soldiers and a staircase up from the dungeons with a spiral staircase block on the left hand side. Here I have a confession to make! In real castles, spiral staircases rose deliberately from left to right because almost everyone was right-handed, which meant that their sword/weapon carrying hand would be closest to the central pillar as they made their way up the stairs, giving a huge advantage to a defender coming down the stairs, whose sword hand would be free in the spacious section of the staircase (whilst holding the central pillar) to hack down on the attacker. Here, however, it was almost impossible within the constraints of the space I had in the collection of baseplates to start the entrance to the spiral staircase against the exterior wall and have enough brickwork to cover the stairs and create a structurally-sound wall (those spiral staircase sections look very cool but they are a buggar to set up and keep stable!). So the result is a staircase that favours left-handed knights and soldiers, which I like to think gives it a more unique quality!

On the next level is the great hall, which on the right hand side includes the throne room for the king and queen with an ornate backdrop complete with decorative clock (a purchase from a Lego seller in the Netherlands!) and a display of shields. The housing to the portcullis breaks up the flow to the far end of the hall, above which a minstrel’s gallery sits, looking down onto the tiled floor below. To the rear of the castle is a chapel with two stained glass windows, created by using transparent pieces set horizontally, next to which there is an Elizabethan-styled studded room that gives the impression once again of a later evolution where comfort began to overtake military might when it came to prioritization of building work and decoration. Above this is a balcony linking the staircase to a library of books where a scribe stands reading his scrolls (this was a cool idea I “borrowed” from a Lego ideas book that my daughter has in her room!). Finally, on the top deck there are the front two towers which are bridged by the gatehouse ramparts and small wooden steps and to the rear the main tower and sloped roof. I decided to “close” the natural gap between the two sections by creating a very shallow house-styled black roof which is split at the top using single slopes to avoid the four towers colliding clumsily in the design. On reflection I think it was the best choice…

A final word then on the two biggest challenges of this build – namely the minifigs and the rocks! The advantage of building an MOC in 2018 is that there are more minifigs than ever before, but this is equally a problem because most of the decent “medieval” ranges have since been discontinued and so fetch quite high prices. After shopping around I managed to get hold of a small garrison of Lion Soldiers and a champion knight, as well as a squire, blacksmith, king and queen, jester (my favourite), skeleton and war dwarf. Okay, the dwarf is rather more fantasy than historical but what the hell, it makes things interesting!

When it came to the rocky base, I actually left most of this to last, having used some of my older 2x4 bricks to build the basement level, deciding to add the rock effect afterwards. This was fine, but I didn’t realise what a tough job it would be to create the genuine effect of an irregular rocky outcrop! Of course, using the darker grey bricks helped, but it took quite a few goes to build up the layered sloped (and inverted sloped) flow of rocks and especially when it came to bridging the corner sections – I can only recommend using as many joining plates and different styles of modified slopes as possible and being patient enough to build and dismantle a few times in order to get the right knack of hos this should look. It’s not easy but in the end I’m reasonably happy with how it turned out – I never thought I’d be able to build what looks like part of a mountain out of Lego!

Knee Arthroscopy – Part Two The Operation

2018-03-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

Leaving aside dental work, the last time I had had any form of surgery was as a teenager and the last thing on my mind back then was to avoid being ill beforehand. However, it is an unavoidable hazard of living in my house that between the months of October and March there is a continual cycle of colds, illness, infection, viruses and flu that bounces from child to child and very often to an adult in between. Not wishing to have my knee surgery postponed and therefore have my recovery eat into the spring and summer, I therefore spent the first three weeks of January cramming oranges and Berocca down my neck, washing and dressing my two children at arm’s length and scrubbing my hands so vigorously that anybody witnessing my day to day behaviour would be forgiven for thinking that I had an extreme form of OCD. As such, I just about achieved my aim, though around three days before the operation, I developed a sore throat, which meant that there was a chance of cancellation due to the fact that as a registered asthmatic there was an unnecessary risk posed by my having a general anaesthetic. With this in mind, even as I was shown to my room in the hospital, there were no guarantees that everything would proceed as planned. Once I had been examined by the nurse, the physio, the consultant and even asked what post op meal Id like (courtesy of BUPA) the anaesthetist finally came into assess me.
“No problem,” he replied briskly, “we’ll give you a spinal block instead. As it’s knee surgery that will shut off the pain and there will be no risk to your breathing as we won’t have to proceed with the general anaesthetic.”
“Great, that makes me feel more relieved,” my wife said. “Right, I’m going to get back so I can pick the girls up from school. See you later.”

Leaving me to contemplate the idea of being fully awake and conscious in an operating theatre whilst my knee was sliced open, she disappeared. I didn’t have long to ruminate on this course of events because within a few more minute a couple of people arrived to escort me downstairs to the theatre. The process was that firstly I required a cannula to be inserted into the back of my hand and this is where the fun really began. As I sat there on the side of the operating couch I realised that not only was I incredibly hungry, having fasted since eight that morning, but also dehydrated - typically I neck water copiously throughout the day but in this case had not had anything to drink for three hours. To say I was light headed would be an understatement, but as I felt the nurse start to fiddle with my veins I remembered how squeamish anything like that makes me feel and knew it spelt trouble.
“Fuck,” I remember thinking quite clearly as the needle went in.
“What are your children up to today?” the anaesthetist asked, trying desperately to distract me from the sharp instrument being crudely jabbed into my hand right below my eyes.
“Er, at school,” I replied absently, not really able to engage.
“Now just try and relax your hand sir,” the nurse said, indicating that his first attempt had been unsuccessful. I tried my best to relax my hand, something that is more or less impossible when another fat needle is about to be forced into the same vein that has just rejected its first attempt. My head started to spin as I looked at the clock and realised that I had nothing in the tank.
“Sorry I feeling a bit light headed,” I murmured, hoping that they would take this as code for “I’m likely to pass out.” They didn’t cotton on.
“Please try and relax,” I heard him say as the needle went in for the third time and I felt the same grim sensation of veins and pain. I could tell from the smattering of blood over the wires below that his clumsy efforts were failing spectacularly.
“I didn’t sign up for any of this,” I thought as I blacked out completely.
Shortly later, I came to, realising that I had an oxygen mask on my face and I was now lying down.
“Wow, it’s over,” I thought. “They’ve done the operation. Great!”
A horrible stabbing pain, this time in the back of my right hand told me otherwise. I had simply passed out briefly and a different nurse had just successfully managed to get the cannula into my other hand whilst I lay there.
“Urgh,” I murmured.
“Are you okay?” Someone asked.
“Yes fine,” I lied. “Sorry about that.”

Having had to be revived simply from having the IV fitted, I sheepishly got back up and was then made to lean forwards so that they could get a shot to my lower back. I then realised that I hadn’t told them about the ruptured disks in the L4/5 region of my spine and the fact that they were asking me to get into what was precisely the worst position for my condition. However, I was too light headed and frankly traumatised to put together any form of protest.
“Argh!” I groaned as another needle was ploughed into the base of my spine. Ignoring the derisive noises that the staff were clearly making at my lamentable efforts at coping with what I had assumed to be a relatively routine sequence of preparation, I lay down, wondering what fresh horrors lay in wait. It was not lost on me that I had yet to enter the theatre itself and was already in a world of trauma and discomfort, made all the worse by the fact that I could hear every word of their conversations with words such as needles and knives being loosely thrown around as if I were actually asleep.
After a couple of minutes, the anaesthetist started spraying water on my legs to ascertain whether the injection had completely numbed the feeling yet.
“There?” he asked, squirting at my thighs as if they were a hanging basket in July. “And there?”
“No – but I could feel something down there,” I added, alarmed at the speed by which he seemed to want to get me off his desk. “Let’s just make sure, shall we?”
“All good to go,” he announced briskly, ignoring my frantic efforts at slowing things down, clearly with more of a eye on their theatre schedule for the rest of the afternoon. The doors burst open and I was wheeled in beneath the bright lights, entering a chamber that quite frankly I had not really expected to see. As far as I am concerned, the operating theatre is a place for specialists dressing in green gowns and blue masks, something that we the public only get to see if we have an interest in medical documentaries (I really don’t have any interest in them, finding it quite repulsive to see people being sliced open and their organs played around with like Mr Potato Head).
“Right,” said my consultant, who had suddenly appeared. “Would you like me to turn one of the monitors around so you can watch the procedure?”
I withstood the temptation to respond with, “No, I would rather staple my arse cheeks together with one of your surgical devices,” I simply fixed him with a stare that was sufficient for him to realise that my level of medical curiosity was in the negative scale.
“We’ll put a screen up so you can’t see what’s happening,” came a voice.
“Great,” I muttered. “My wife would be interested in seeing it. Not for me though.”
Much to my distress, there was a sharp pain as the first incision was made, before something was administered into the cannula which was likely to have been valium or something similar. For the first time since I had arrived at the hospital, I relaxed, drifting almost space like into a state of nothingness whilst they worked away at my knee.

The next thing I knew, I had been wheeled out of the room into the corroder outside, where a woman in a mask began to tell me all about her children.
“Could I have some water please?” I begged feebly, feeling like I had just been revived in the Sahara desert. She fetched me some water and a straw to drink it from, whilst continuing to explain how much they stressed her out. Of all the topics that could have been used to try and distract and relax me, children would not have been anywhere near the top of my list I reflected, before they finally took me back up to my room.
With my iphone for company and a large jug of water, I was left to recover and start to make sense of what had just happened. It was then that I realised the extent of the spinal block: as I lay there, the entire of my bottom half from my waist down was in complete paralysis. It felt like a solid block of rubber.
Panicking, I tried to lift the tips of my toes, something I was only just able to manage using my hips as a lever. I started to pinch my thighs, only to find them unresponsive – complete dead-weights without any feeling. As I did so, my right hand flashed with pain and I realised the cannula was still stuck in and had knocked against the sheets. My left hand was also sore where the three unsuccessful attempts had bruised the vein. All in all I felt a complete wreck.

After an hour of lying there, my sandwiches were brought in and I was checked by the nurse, who informed me that I wouldn’t be allowed to leave until I had walked upright and been to the toilet. By this stage, I was able to move my feet up and down, though the feeling was still completely gone from my knees up to my waist.
“It will wear off from your toes first and work its way back up,” the nurse said, as I frantically began to Google how long spinal blocks take to wear off.

At seven in the evening, I asked to sit on the side of my bed to try and get some blood flowing back to my legs, though was warned not to try walking by myself by the nurse. Stupidly I then attempted to stand and immediately found myself wobbling alarmingly before grabbing hold of the bed rails and vowing not to try that again in a hurry. Thirty minutes later my wife arrived and with the feeling starting to sour down my legs I made a successful effort at walking to the bathroom, where I sat down on the toilet and then realising that I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to go. Usually having a wee is something of an automatic process, but in this case all the equipment required to execute this essential activity from the bladder down was still in a state of complete paralysis, being right in the immediate zone of the injection and therefore being the final part to wear off. In desperation I turned the tap on and closed my eyes, willing nature to take its course, which after a minute or two it did.
Having ticked the two requirements off and not wishing to have to spend a night in a hospital bed, I asked my wife to call the nurse and I was given my painkillers and to my blessed relief had the cannula plucked out of my hand, the brief sting being replaced by a feeling of utter bliss.

And then, supported by a walking stick and armed with a bag of paraphernalia, including surgical stockings, rehab advice, dressings and painkillers, I went home.

Knee Arthroscopy – Part One The Background

2018-03-19T01:20:00.001-07:00

Was it years of playing cricket, rugby and football that did it? Probably a contributing factor. How about the few years working on building sites and lugging things around that were far too heavy for my frame? Definitely a cause. And more recently, the extensive landscaping clearance on my house, filling multiple builder’s skips with stone and rubble, having dug out countless tree roots and levelled the back garden.? Certainly the final straw.

I have always been injury prone and it is only in recent years that I have tried to get exclusively to the core of these issues in an attempt to do as much as possible to extend my shelf life as an active being and understand the problem. Since my early twenties my back had been playing up and then at the age of 28 I finally had an MBR scan which showed two discs bulging in the L5 section of my spine. Sporadic acupuncture did little to solve the issue and in desperation I sought the help of a chiropractor who happened to practice just down the road from my house. His positive mindset immediately helped and I was able after several weeks to start exercise again, slowly building up to running and lifting weights and understanding the muscles I needed to work on to strengthen my core (whilst actively avoiding the things that tended to exacerbate the issue). My right knee was another long-term casualty, having always been slightly more susceptible to twinges, strains and aches. During my acupuncture sessions I was briefly diagnosed with plantar fasciitis which was apparently caused by my right leg being ever so slightly shorter than my left, meaning that I was advised to wear (very uncomfortable) heel inserts to try and bring the legs straight. The problem was that my posture was not correct at the time of measurement so the inserts did not properly help, but it did point to a possible cause for my knee pain, especially when considering that as a outside half / centre I used to boot a rugby ball fairly hard and also almost exclusively used my right foot when playing five a side football or training at University. Indeed in recent years when I have been messing about with a rugby ball I have forced myself to kick with my left leg and have noticed how technically correct I am and how gently I strike the ball when power is taken out the equation.

It was the summer of 2015 that I really felt my right knee start to click badly following the gruelling landscaping work on my back garden and then the following year it would continue to cause me issues when kneeling down with the girls in the playroom, especially if I had been running long distances. Last year I entered myself in the Wolf Run in Warwickshire, a 10km cross country run across rugged farmland with a heap of obstacles thrown in and a swim across a lake. Halfway through my calf started to ache, which told me that once again my knee had started to give way forcing my other muscles to compensate. When mentioning this to my chiropractor he advised me to get it seen to as I have private medical cover and if the root cause was identified and fixed it might help to prevent other issues from arising.

The insurance company accepted my request and I was put onto a consultant who assessed me, reviewed my back story and suggested an MRI scan. This in itself triggered a lengthy process as the first scan had been arranged by my GP and the NHS promptly messed it up, losing the scan results and wasting around two months in the process. I eventually had a second scan at the Priory in Birmingham and waited for the results. Finally I went back to the consultant who stated that it had showed an enlarged plica – a membrane that is part of the fat pad of the knee, a redundant piece of our anatomy that for some reason is enlarged some people and causes friction in the knee, especially around the edges. His suggestion was keyhole surgery to get a camera in for a better look and a possible “tidy up” of the knee in the process.

So once the admin part had been dealt with, I was given a date of the 26th January 2018 for a knee arthroscopy. It was to be a day case treated at the West Midlands hospital, providing of course that I remained fit and free from illness in the meantime…

Medieval Lego Castle MOC

2018-01-22T10:07:00.000-08:00

For Christmas a couple of years ago, Alison bought me a box of a Lego in an inspired spell of present-giving. Despite it containing bricks of all colours I started to build a castle and then in a moment of MOC-inspiration realized that I could purchase a load of grey bricks from a website for the purpose. A year later, as I neared the completion of the castle I decided that whilst it was okay for a first attempt, I could do a whole lot better and so I spent a whole evening dismantling the entire thing, filling five empty tins of chocolates with bricks. I have spent the past year building a brand new medieval castle, this time going for a far higher level of detail and intricacy, resulting in something I am far happier with.

I have not yet completed this new Lego MOC, but as around two thirds of it is in place I thought it worth adding some pictures in - and so here you are, the results are a work in progress).

The main gatehouse... (rock detail only partially complete at the base)

The blacksmith & armoury...

Stable quarters...

Court jester in the minstrels gallery...

The throne room...

Top of the tower...

The soldier's quarters...

The library... (still under construction)

The chapel...

England international rugby tickets at Twickenham – selling the game to the fans

2017-07-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

I have been following rugby since around the age of nine, when I started playing at school, confused by the laws, the mud, the rain, the ball and everything else. At the same time, England became quite good and were winning matches under their new captain, Will Carling. A few months later they competed for the Five Nations trophy but unfortunately lost to Scotland in a now-infamous game at Murryfield. No matter – I was captivated and wanted to become a centre like Carling or his more flamboyant partner in midfield, Jeremy Guscott. Sadly, I was quite short and stocky at the time and was subsequently picked as a hooker in the scrum during practice games. I liked running, passing and kicking, but I wasn’t interested in having my face bashed in during rucks and besides which, my throwing into a line out was awful. Fortunately, my positional aspirations coincided with a growth in height and athleticism, so I was moved into the backline. A year later I started playing for Worcester at weekends and England once again had the chance to go for a Grand Slam, which they duly won, before going onto reaching the final of the home World Cup, losing to Australia. Another Gram Slam came the following year and, despite my playing time reducing as I gave more time to cricket than rugby, I had become a dedicated follower and supporter of both the national team and the game in general.

In 1995 England lost out to New Zealand in the World Cup in a game in which Jonah Lomu single-handedly ran over their backline, scoring a hatful of tries in the process. It marked something of an end of an era as a number of their core players such as Brian Moore, Rob Andrew, Carling himself and Dean Richards all retired within a short space of time and the side’s performance slipped as a rebuilding process took place. Around this period, my interest in sport began to wane as the general fortunes of all the teams / participants I followed plummeted. The England cricket team slipped from mediocrity to obscurity. The England football team did likewise. Tottenham Hotspur sold all their decent players and seem to play every season out for survival. The 1996 Olympic Games featured only one single gold medal for team GB. Motorsport became dominated by a single German. Tennis became dominated by a very dull, hairy American. Domestic football became dominated by Manchester United. International Cricket became dominated by Australia. Snooker became dominated by Stephen Hendry. Over a period of several years I simply lost an inspiration to play or follow sport in general.

At the end of the decade I started a degree course at Plymouth University and in the mix of the usual fresher activity I had a couple of rugby sessions and started playing some football. Around this time the England rugby team became very good again and by the time I graduated they had won a Grand Slam, beaten the Southern Hemisphere teams home and away and were favourites for the 2003 World Cup. I was in Australia for most of the duration of that event and then watched the final on television whilst travelling in New Zealand as Jonny Wilkinson dropped the goal that won the trophy. As a point of digression, the England cricket team also began to improve (finally winning back the Ashes after a long wait in 2005) and at that point I started playing cricket again in the Birmingham League, keen to make the most of competitive sport in the knowledge that my long list of injuries would not allow me to go on forever. This cycle of sporting success triggering my own motivation persisted through to 2012 where upon the fantastic achievements of Team GB in the London Games, followed by the coverage of the Paralympics drove me to start running again and winning back a modicum of fitness, even if the days of me flinging a rugby ball around or hitting sixes had disappeared. Earlier this year, I competed in the Wolf Run and now as I reach the end of my thirties I can still regard myself as being reasonably fit and, more importantly, I am as passionate for sport as ever.

The reason for this brief “rugby focused” retrospect on my sporting journey is the theme of broadening the game’s appeal and spreading the interest in the game, not only to different sections of society but also to the next generations, who will hopefully continue to support the national team with enthusiasm and produce a talent pool of players in the process. Speaking for myself, an interest in sport cannot be manufactured or taught, it has to be ignited organically. By this I don’t mean a pre-game advert, a YouTube video or a well-written introduction by a presenter; I mean a great game, passage of play or piece of individual brilliance. It might include a stocky lad from a small northern town watching Flintoff take wickets and wanting to join his local cricket club. It might be a tall black boy watching Maro Itoje take on the All Blacks with a man of the match performance and decide he wants to be a lock forward. It could be school children packed together in the front row at the Principality Stadium watching Elliot Daly go over in the corner in the dying minutes for an England victory and realizing that this is the sport for them. When I began watching cricket and rugby, almost all the games were on the BBC, with the exception of summer tours which were (I seem to recall) not televised in those days. Then of course in the nineties Sky TV took over, firstly with the cricket winter tours, then the Lions tours, then the autumn internationals, then the summer tours, then the domestic cricket competitions, then the domestic rugby league games, then the summer cricket series, then everything. It was only the Six Nations and rugby world cups left on terrestrial tv. More recently, domestic rugby has moved to BT and there is talk of some cricket coming back to the BBC, whilst the advent of on demand TV apps means that some highlights can at least be seen throughout the season without having to justify £50 or more a month for the privilege.

But there is only so much we can take from sport on the television. To really experience the event, it is still something to actually go to a game, to enter the stadium, to relish the atmosphere, to witness those individuals in the flesh, taking on the best in the world. Cricket is a relatively accessible sport to watch live; for county or franchise matches are either poorly attended (in some cases) or either scheduled with such frequency that tickets are relatively accessible. Moreover, although Test Matches are still popular, there are seldom sold out for all five days, which means that with some diligence tickets can be sourced and a great day out can be had. Rugby too, at a domestic level, is easily accessible as prices are reasonable and most clubs will have spare capacity (the likes of Saracens, Sale and Wasps often have excess capacity within their stadia, whilst even the more traditional town and city clubs such as Leicester and Bath will have some games where tickets can be obtained in advance). Where this all falls down, however, is at international level.

Want to go and watch England play at Twickenham? Good luck. Be my guest – have a go at getting hold of tickets. There are broadly speaking three batches of games that occur at Twickenham over the course of the season; the Autumn Internationals, the Six Nations and perhaps one or two end of season non-cap Barbarian games or pre-tour games. You might, if you are incredibly lucky, be able to source the occasional ticket for the Autumn games on an online ticket distribution network at an inflated price (try over £200 each) and the same for the end of season games, though it must be noted that in the latter, many players are no available due to club commitments, Lions tours or simply selection policy. For the Six Nations, however – the competition that really counts and captures people’s imagination – tickets are like gold dust.

If you visit the official England Rugby website, you will discover that there are three ways in which tickets can be purchased. The first is to pay for a debenture, for which you will receive at least one ticket a year for a decade at a cost of over eight thousand pounds. A bit steep? Sure. So the second option is to become a member of a local club, as they receive an allocation of tickets to international matches. However, this in itself is not straightforward, as not all clubs either count or receive a reasonable allocation. Moreover, as an adult, what if you don’t actually play the game? Would you pay to join a local club simply to secure tickets? This is unlikely to work as an approach because local clubs will probably charge over a hundred pounds for full-season membership and then tend to favour a “team ethos” so it would be frowned upon for someone to literally hand over some money just on the off-chance of securing a set of England tickets. It is likely in that instance that priority would be given to players, or at least those with a degree of involvement in day-to-day activities – which is perfectly fair, though does exclude those people who simply want an avenue to watch and support their national team. The third option is to become a member of the “England Rugby Club” – essentially a paid-for, season-long membership that costs £35 and means that you will receive notifications of tickets for the Autumn Internationals and potentially get placed in a ballot to get tickets for the home Six Nations matches. This is the option I have recently taken in a desperate attempt to secure tickets to an International (and I dare say the only realistic option for most people).

The difficulty of course is that this still represents a reasonable outlay of funds without guaranteeing a ticket and is a bureaucratic barrier that will mean most non-club affiliated fans will probably give up after the initial attempt, perhaps hoping that they can buy a last minute ticket or perhaps get lucky with a friend who “has one going.” It is on such a note that my real irritation begins to kick in because Twickenham have recently announced that they will be reducing the 82,000 capacity in order to make way for more corporate facilities – in other words companies who buy tickets to dish them out for sales teams to use as part of account management and winning new business. The people who end up with these typically get to watch the match in a nice warm executive box without having to queue for beer or to use the toilets, with a perfect view of the game and in all likelihood no genuine interest in the game whatsoever. In the course of my professional career over the past decade I have often heard people talking about having attended a match in such circumstances, only to add with an air of ambivalence that “rugby is a bit boring.” And yet our RFU feels that this is the way to prioritise the ticket allocation within the stadium plan…

Presently, the England rugby team are experiencing the most sustained period of success since winning the World Cup, with back-to-back Six Nations trophies, a Grand Slam and a record winning streak to boast of. Moreover, they had a high representation of Lions players and have also demonstrated a wide pool of youth talent with many new players having enjoyed success on the Argentinean tour. Everything bodes well for a successful run up to the World Cup and even beyond (the main point of failure in 2003 was the inability to plan beyond that point with many retirees). The architect of this success has clearly been Eddie Jones, who has brought back some of the key missing components within the English game, including investing in youth, backing talent and focusing on aggression and ability over what could be regarded as “niceness” (a Stuart Lancaster focal point was “culture”, whatever that might mean). This doggedness is ultimately what brings success in a sport as abrasive as rugby and complements all the things that we love about the game; the intensity, the skills, the fitness, the battle and the attitude of focusing on the conflict on the pitch and the camaraderie off it.

What then of the impact of this winning spell on the wider appeal of the game? Are we going to see an influx of new fans and players? Will we see the baton being handed down to the next generation? Unfortunately, given the picture I have painted this seems unlikely. I have recently watched all three Lions tests in the pub and, whilst the experience was fantastic, there were not many kids in attendance as a packed-out boozer is not really the sort of environment that young children are welcome in at 8am in the morning. Of course, many would have watched the Six Nations games on BBC or ITV, however, how many new fans would have been able to convince their parents to secure Twickenham tickets for them? The home of rugby is famous for its west car park in which debenture holders bring lavish picnics to feast upon before the matches start, and yet this level of exclusivity is exactly the sort of thing that infuriates so many people. It’s fine for the RFU to offer great packages to those able to afford nearly ten grand to secure high end tickets, but there has to be an understanding that they need to open up at the other end of the scale if the game is to be sustained and opened up to a wider audience. If I think of the mongrel spirit which Eddie Jones has so successfully installed and which has taken this England team to a new level, how might we secure this within the next generation of players if the only ones able to attend games and feel a connection with the international team are those from middle-class backgrounds? When I watch other international teams, I often note the players who offer something different from their English counterparts and in many cases this is less about their position or application but more about their natural credentials. Take Ireland for example: in the main England are probably on balance a slightly better side with a greater array of playing styles at their disposal, but the one thing that Ireland have is a collection of very rugged, physically abrasive “farmer-type” forwards who dominate collisions and win ball simply as a consequence of their physiques and attitude (I referral to players such as Tadhg Furlong and Sean O’Brien). Imagine, therefore, if more kids from some of the rougher areas of London, Bristol, Manchester and Newcastle were able to attend a thrilling Six Nations game at Twickenham and were suitably motivated to take up the sport instead of going down a more unsavory route and ended up being the heroes of tomorrow. In fact, we don’t have to rely on imagination – take the current examples of Ellis Genge at Leicester and more so Kyle Sinckler at Harlequins. Both have come through the ranks of local clubs despite unconventional jounryes compared with most professionals and both have had to overcome huge issues with aggression and behavior in order to hone their discipline and secure professional contracts. In both cases, they are physically dominating, aggressive and committed young men with masses of potential or perhaps several years ago would not have been afforded a chance. The question is, how many more such kids could be out there, were the RFU to prop open the door for the game to widen its appeal and break down the financial barriers to becoming an England rugby fan in the truest sense?

Why not have a couple of games a year at an alternative stadium in Manchester, Birmingham or even Newcastle in order to widen the catchment area? Why not create youth packages in which free tickets would be given out for England A fixtures, with a ballot for those in attendance to follow up with a full International ticket if they get hooked on their first game? Why not reduce the number of corporate boxes and actually increase the capacity? It’s not as if the RFU need the money after all. In recent weeks there has understandably been a lot of focus on the All Blacks and how a country as small as New Zealand (by population at least) can have produced such sustainable success in their national side. One of the many reasons for this is because it is the principle of ambition for every youngster in New Zealand to become an All Black. Everything from the moment they start playing sport at school, all the way through to adulthood is geared towards giving individuals the chance to play for the black jersey. Whilst there are a plethora of factors in this (some of which having nothing to do with stadia and ticket affordability or accessibility), I can’t help but wonder what we would achieve as a rugby playing nation were we to employ such as attitude to the game of rugby. A starting point would be making it easier to get kids to watch their national side. In 1995 in the run up to the 1995 World Cup, Will Carling famously referred to the RFU as “57 old farts,” and was promptly sacked. Although the game very swiftly turned professional following that altercation I suspect his appraisal still stands.

In any case, I’ll keep you posted as to whether I can get hold of some tickets this season…

The Spring Wolf Run – Wild Running Reviewed…

2017-04-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

Last year I decided to give myself some of a purpose for keeping fit and in physical shape and booked myself in for the first Wolf Run of the year. For those unaware of what the Wolf Run is, it is one of the most popular of a growing number of mud and obstacle races that have been launched in recent years. Taking place four times a year to correspond with the seasons, it features a 10km run across rough farm terrain (hill climbs, wooded areas, ditches and such like) , interspersed with a variety of assault-style obstacles such as flooded crawl tunnels, cargo nets and slides. Some of these verge towards the intensity of a fun run (less distance, easy obstacles), whilst some like “Tough Guy” are fully brutal and geared towards those in the military and fitness professionals. From what I could tell, the Wolf Run was reasonably brutal without being ridiculous and more importantly seemed to be well-run and not too far away to travel.

(Looks like fun?)

Between November and March I put some effort into training, though I struggle with too much running as I have a dodgy right knee which gets worse with repeated high impact activity (I try and run on the local park instead of the pavement). As such, my fitness improved and I felt ready to tackle the course. Then in March I was struck down with a particularly grim cold virus that immediately put a stop to my training. Not only was I subjected to the usual sore throat, high temperature, blocked nose, etc, but my asthma flared up with a vengeance. Fortunately this is a rare occurrence and 99% of the time my inhalers remain stashed away in a draw, but when I suffer from particularly bad cases of colds and flu I really struggle with my breathing and as such am fully reliant upon them. Initially I tried to shrug it off as something that would go within a few days but as the month progressed I failed to shrug it off (try getting a decent nights sleep and relaxation with my two children – utterly impossible) and I started to come to the conclusion that my participation in the Wolf Run was utterly doomed.

Then about 5 days beforehand my asthma lessened and I started to feel a little better, which at least allowed me a couple of light sessions before D day arrived. I made the decision that on the Friday before the run I wouldn’t do any exercise in order to reduce the chance of injuring myself and as a consequence I went to bed restless and began to toss and turn, resulting in the inevitable insomnia to which I have suffered since Em and Liv have been on the scene; any time I feel like I have the combined need and opportunity to sleep I immediately start having panic attacks and lie awake for hours on end. Finally at around 1.30am I drifted off, only to wake at 5.30am when one of the girls stirred. I knew then that there was no chance of going back to sleep and therefore I would have to go to battle on 4 hours sleep; hardly an ideal preparation time for a significant physical challenge.

The Spring and Autumn Wolf Run events are held at a farm near to Leamington Spa, which on a Saturday morning is less than an hour from Kingswinford and the directions are well sign-posted on the surrounding roads. We pulled into the car park and it became clear just how well organized the event was as there were food bars, tents, toilets and merchandising stalls, giving the impression of a major festival. (with over four thousand people competing on each of the days, it could be argued that’s exactly what it is). For those competing, all that is required is to hand in a consent form in the admin tent to the queue with the first letter of your surname and then to complete the medical form on the back of your number, which then needs to be pinned to your chest. Once that’s done it is simply a case of waiting for the off, warming up and taking in some of the atmosphere. Fortunately I had managed to persuade Alison to come along with me (leaving the two trouble-makers at home with their grandparents!) so I at least had someone to talk to and we spent the time looking at the start and end of the course with some of the mud pits and climb nets indicting the challenge ahead. The most interesting thing was to watch the other runners as they started to gather as the array of different people competing was quite vast. Alison put them into four buckets; group one being ex-military and professional fitness gurus; group two being those who like to keep fit but don’t do it for a living (my category); group three being those doing it for a laugh and to get drunk afterwards and group four being people out of shape for whom it will be a massive challenge, but they won’t let a lack of fitness get them down (“aw bless” she cruelly dubbed them!). There were a lot of rugby players competing and most were in small groups, making me wonder if I would find it harder doing it alone.

The start times begin at 10am and go through to 3pm with batches of 250 runners being set off at 15 minute intervals. Fortunately I was in the first batch which meant that I didn’t have too much time to wait around in anticipation. With ten minutes to go, we were called over to the start line where a couple of Radio One types started barking instruction at us and putting us through a warm up routine (“I’m fucked already mate” came one muttered response alongside me as we jogged around in a circle and then started crawling). One guy whose birthday it was ended up being called to the middle of the circle and had to do a set of burpees. Just what you need beforehand…

(So much cold water)

As soon as the countdown finished, everyone started running, with many taking the opportunity to dash to the front. Not having undertaken the Wolf Run before, I muscled past twenty or so slower runners then settled comfortably into a position somewhere in the first third, allowing enough space in which to check my footing and anticipate sudden movements in and around me. Within the first two hundred metres there was a sequence of tyres that required scrambling over, before another running stretch then a further set of hurdles. At this point, people began to space out, with the seriously fit still tearing off in the distance and the unfit plodders gasping for breath at the back. I found myself in a group with some rugby players who were running as a team and it was at that point that we hit the first real challenge, a set of tunnels submerged with mud that we had to scramble through on our elbows, thistles and brambles tearing at our hands as the smell of agricultural dung filled our lungs (“this is quite literally shit” came the anguished cry to my right). This early shock helped me immeasurably; I had nobody to communicate with and therefore no temptation to complain and as such the surrounding whinging came across as pathetic and unnecessary. As far as I was concerned it was wasted energy and the sooner I left them behind the better. As we scrambled to our feet, I fastened my pace and left them behind, overtaking another group as the ground began to incline and we began on a steep hill climb. Once again, hearing those around me struggling with the rough ground and steep inclination spurred me on and I sprinted the final section to the top of the hill where a tall climbing board awaited us. With every obstacle I had a sense of nervous anticipation as there is always the chance that it could prove especially difficult or end in injury, but fortunately I have reasonably upper body strength and don’t weight a huge amount (80kg) so any climbing hurdle was fairly straightforward for me and actually proved some respite from the running. Back down the hill we went, and then through a small wooded area and through some small mud pits before coming up to the first lake section. Here, the water came to waist height and we simply had to wade slowly through the cold water at a diagonal to the far side and again the whinging of those around me helped to spur me on (“Wish I hadn’t gone out last night” was one that I was tempted to retort with “try having four hours sleep mate”).

(Shiiiit!)

With the first section complete, I found that I settled into something of a pace and probably only ended up overtaking another twenty or so runners for the remainder of the course. At this stage, my recollection of the exact order of obstacles blurs slightly as tiredness started to set in after the first 3km and it was a case of “head down” and just get on with it. There were more mud pits – these ones surprisingly deep – then some blue tunnels made of plastic that were very tight and slippery and therefore hard to travel through quickly. I remember suffering from claustrophobia as a child but here there was no room for hesitation so I simply ensured I remained in space and chose to tackle tunnels and climbs without anyone crowding me ahead or behind. By far the hardest of these was a set of tunnels that required us to get on all fours and crawl down into the earth under a huge log – 5 of the 6 holes were submerged in water so I naturally chose the one I could see. Underneath there was a dark 10 metre scramble over rocks and mud to the end when I realized to my horror that the opposite end was completely submerged and therefore no getting away without my fair share of pain. Taking a complete plunge under the mud I managed to get under and back through fairly quickly, but I could imagine quite a few people panicking at that one throughout the day.

(Brutal)

There then followed what seemed like the longest straight run, but that was largely because it was up hill and through a dense wooded area in which we had to take special care not to lose our footing and turn an ankle, or be bashed in the face by a branch or brambles. At certain points there was no option but to slow down to a gentle jog in order to carefully avoid the hazards underfoot and I really started to feel my knee tighten and therefore my right calf take the extra burden. After what seemed like an age we reached the halfway point in which there was a water refreshment stand, before another hill climb and then some hay bale scrambles and more tyres. Soon after came the bit that had daunted most people prior to the start – the lake crossing. The organizers had made it clear that you had to be a strong swimmer to attempt this and an alternative route had been prepared to the right but naturally I found myself headed straight for the water, coming to the conclusion that it would be a hollow victory if I completed the thing by ducking out of the central challenge. I slid into the water and after a couple of steps the bed disappeared from beneath my feet and the air completely left my lungs as the cold water rose to my neck. Initially I attempted a front crawl but on realizing how much effort that would take, I resorted to a gentler breast stroke (awful for bad knees) and fixed my gaze on the far bank (probably around 80 metres in the distance). Again, huge credit to the organizers as there were a number of canoeists scattered around the lake to ensure help was on hand for anyone struggling (and there were a few). It would be easy to panic with so many flailing bodies around but by maintaining a steady pace and keeping a consistent stroke I eventually managed to reach the far bank, helping another guy to get up the steep mud. It felt like my lungs had completely collapsed and I realized then that I had clearly not fully recovered from my virus as I just couldn’t catch my breath and the mental effort required to start running again was vast.

Somehow I managed to coax my legs back into a reasonable pace and after a couple of minutes the cold at least left my body and the worst of the water evaporated. I recall little of the next phase, except that quite a few of the marshals (all of whom provided excellent encouragement as we slogged our way through the course) kept shouting that there wasn’t long to go and every so often another mud pit was flanked by camera signs indicating that we would be snapped in our anguish. At this point (I’m sure it was at this point) there suddenly loomed a ditch jump which for me proved to be one of the hardest things as my right knee was really starting to go and I was nervous about having to launch myself a great distance as I couldn’t be confident about landing correctly, especially with the ground being so uneven. As it happened I made a real hash of it, slowing down beforehand and almost partially descending the ditch before taking the lap and really feeling in on impact (“Should have jumped earlier mate” came a helpful shout as I ran off). The final major obstacle was one that most people had actually been looking forward to but again it was one I really struggled with; the water slide. As I climbed to the top, there were only a couple of others ahead of me so didn’t have long to wait, but as I did so a marshal suggested I took a run up and dive over the top. Having played a bit of rugby when I was younger I knew that this was easier said than done as if you don’t really know the terrain you can end up injuring yourself quite badly. It would appear that there isn’t a great deal of protection underneath the pink plastic of the slide and its fair to say that the entire of my groin area took a massive pounding as I rocketed down to the bottom (“put your arms out like superman” came the shouts). As per the ditch jump, I couldn’t help but feel like my efforts had been underwhelming, but I made it down and there was only another couple of kilometers to go. Head down and keep going.

(You gotta just keep going)

The final few sections were hard; the ground underfoot was rutted and hard (think of a barren farmers field in summer), there were some further mud pits which really disrupted the rhythm of my running, plus a couple more climbing sections. Eventually, I caught sight of the first section with more batches of runners setting off which indicated that we were nearing the end of the course. I say “we” – actually by this stage I was on my own with a huge gap in front and behind me. As the inflatable finishing line loomed up there were some further ditches, followed by a couple of cargo nets (the photographer behind at the top of one), followed by another tunnel scramble and then the final mud pit which a number of people took a photo-finish plunge into but I simply slide down and waded through – partly because I had made ground on one guy in front and felt there was a slight chance of catching him and partly because I didn’t have any energy for aesthetic finishes. The strangest part of that was that there was a genuine crowd who had gathered to watch and having spent the entire event in a world of my own, to see a huge screen and hundreds of people around was slightly bizarre!

(The final plunge)

Alison was there as I finished and she brought me a bottle of water once I had the obligatory finishing photo and taken my goodie bag. The lack of sleep had caught up with me, as well as the lack of hydration (I usually drink a lot of water but hadn’t done so that day in case of a lack of toilet availability – as it turned out this wasn’t a problem). I was told I had completed it in 1 hour and 16 minutes, which considering the average is between 1 hour 30 and 2 hours was pretty good. The fastest time recorded that weekend was something like 52 or 53 minutes so in light of my unsatisfactory preparation was pretty good. Once again, huge credit to the Wolf Run organizers as there is free water for runners and also hoses to get the worst of the mud off. I quickly changed in the car park into clean warmer clothes and we took a walk to get some food (the hot pork rolls were awesome) and watch others finishing. It was only when midday arrived and there were still people from my group finishing that I realized how well I had performed and what I was capable despite the hurdles and it did make me wonder what I could have achieved had I have been 100% beforehand. Then again, some of those finishing in quick times were seriously fit.

(I'm done)

The goodie bag you get contains a protein bar, water and a wrist band, along with a really nice Wolf Run t-shirt, so there is a sense of having competed once it’s over. I’ve got to give huge credit to the way it was organized and also to Alison who encouraged me to set up a Just Giving page on which I managed to raise over £200 for Cancer Research. The punchline was that I could barely walk for two days, my right knee was all over the place and as I write this two weeks later I am still trying to shake off a terrible cold that reappeared within days of the race. Not only that but my asthma has also flared up again and I’ve really felt like an aging wreck. Was it worth it? Yes – it was hard yet invigorating and with the exception of a couple of the tunnels and the lake crossing was genuinely a lot of fun. Highly recommended, though I’ll give it a couple of months before deciding on whether to re-enter next year!

Winning Run Over: What Next for Eddie Jones’ England Rugby Team?

2017-03-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

England lost to Ireland at the weekend and in doing so suffered the familiar experience of being awarded the Six Nations Championship having lost a game in an opposition’s stadium with the Grand Slam having eluded them. This has happened twice before in Dublin; in 2001 and 2011, yet there was the consolation this time around that this tempered disappointment comes off the back of a previous Grand Slam, not to mention 18 match winning run that has seen them rise to the number two side in the world, beating Australia, Argentina and South Africa along the way.

It was a turgid game on Saturday, the rain and wind making for a tight spectacle and in that environment a fired-up Ireland side with a point to prove were always going to cause problems. It should not be forgotten that they themselves have beaten both New Zealand and South Africa in the past 12 months and have a number of incredibly physical and effective players, especially in their pack. When it comes to an intense rush defence, solid set piece and effective kicking game, they are probably the best around at executing in such conditions. As it was, it was a game too far for England, who looked shaky, error-strewn and lacking in physicality and precision, especially in the set piece and breakdown. 13-9 was a reflection of how they managed to remain within a score of Ireland, but in truth Ireland were just much better on the day.

So what next for England? There is a natural break in International rugby whilst the domestic and European season reaches its climax, during which Warren Gatland will select his Lions tour party to New Zealand. Many expect that this will contain a high number of Englishmen, which will give them exposure to a Lions experience as well as taking on the best team in the world (England haven’t played New Zealand for several years now owing to the bizarre and erroneous fixture planning and unless the RFU manage otherwise, this might not happen until the end of 2018). While the Lions are in New Zealand, Eddie Jones will take an England squad down to Argentina for a couple of tests and the success of that series is probably the main outcome that will prosper as a consequence of the weekend’s loss in Dublin. By that I don’t necessarily mean the probability of England winning those matches, more so the likelihood that Eddie Jones will use the tour to experiment with some newer players in certain positions, perhaps freed from the “burden” of having to continue the winning run.

This being the case, the extent to which this experimentation may occur will depend in part on which players make the Lions tour in the first place and here Jones might not be dealt any favours by the balance of the touring part in areas that England are expected to contribute. If we look at the team from front to back, there is a definite strength in the tight five (especially the second row) as well as the 10/12/13 axis and wing positions. Players such as Cole, Itoje, Launchberry, Ford, Farell, Watson and Daly are highly likely to feature in the party, but their absence will be taken in Argentina by players already on the fringes or playing a part role in a typical match day 23. An area such as the back row, which is at times fragile and certainly not deep in terms of international standard talent is unlikely to provide many Lions with the exception of Billy Vunipola and possibly at a stretch James Haskell. Therefore, Jones needs to decide whether he is going learn anything from taking Wood, Harrisson and Williams to Argentina or whether it is time to look at some younger alternatives. If not in the summer then when?

Certainly among these I would finally expect Sam Underhill to feature, now that he has moved to an English club and is therefore eligible for selection. He is still young and developing, but has all the necessary attributes to suggest that he could become a genuine 7, combining great defence with an ability to jackal and link player with the backs. It is not clear if the highly promising Sam Jones at Wasps will have recovered from a broken leg sustained in the autumn training camps, but if so then he would also be a candidate to feature. Will Evans at Leicester is another vying for the openside slot, though he is still very young and not always present in the match day squad at Tigers, so it remains to be seen if Jones will be prepared to select him. Aside from these younger prospects, there is the continued question of whether Matt Kvesic will ever get another chance to show England what he can do at 7 (with a summer move to Exeter perhaps galvanising his chances) plus the presence of Mark Wilson at Newcastle Falcons who would offer an alternative option at blindside.

Away from the backrow, England’s options at 1 and 2 are vast and deep and even if Marler, Vunipola, Hartley and George are selected by the Lions, the likes of Mullan, Genge, Taylor and Cowan-Dickie are on hand to offer superb, skilful and aggressive options at loose head and hooker respectively. At tight head, the options do not run so deep with Dan Cole likely to make the Lions squad, once we get past the highly-promising Kyle Sinckler there are almost no options available, at least none with any experience to note. One hopes that some of Bath’s talented front row will return from injury to add some substance. In the second row, assuming that Launchbury and Itoje will tour (there is a chance that Lawes could join them), Kruis might return from injury to make the Argentina trip (he is in my opinion our best second rower) which would then make room for players such as Atwood to return. To complete the pack, Nathan Hughes might be joined by Ben Morgan who still has much to offer internationally at 8.

In the backs, most positions are strong, especially on the wings, and the likes of Henry Slade and Ben Teo are likely to benefit from the Lions taking away some of England’s first choice players. However, two positions of weakness that do need addressing are scrum half and fullback. Here, England have perhaps turned an ill-advised blind eye to nurturing talent over past seasons, with Care never being considered a first choice starter and Ben Young continuing to lurch alarmingly between world-beater in one game and inaccurate, cumbersome distributer in another. Surely this is a case for Dan Robson at Wasps and Ben Spencer at Saracens getting some game time in the summer. At full back, Mike Brown continues to divide opinion, yet even his biggest critics must accept that he is at least solid and dependable with a great boot. Where he is found lacking is in his distribution, but the puzzling thing about the Jones era thus far is that, aside from a brief cameo from Alex Goode in the autumn, no other fullbacks have been tried, meaning that England are just an injury or loss of form away from having an open wound in what is a crucial position. One would assume that either Daly or Watson will eventually be tried in the role, but if one or both find themselves on the Lions tour then there could be a slot made for Alex Lozowski this summer.

Selection is perhaps the biggest challenge and responsibility that an international coach has, but England would be unwise to think that this is the be-all and end-all for this development of this team. One thing that has been evident from this Six Nations is that England do not have as much dominance and precision in their pack when two or three first choice players are missing and this needs to be addressed to ensure that this platform is always laid, especially against the best in the world. The interchange between 9 and 10 also needs work, both strategically (see Ireland’s tried and tested game plan) and practically (see Young’s abject performance against France). Moreover, the ability of England to compete consistently at the breakdown against a world class back row and / or a ferocious defence has to be a target in the next twelve months as this team continues to develop.

What sporting events do you wish you could have attended in person?

2016-08-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

Having enjoyed the Olympics (I tend to prefer it when Team GB actually perform well as per the last few Games verses say Atlanta when our medal haul was pathetic), I have naturally reflected on what the atmosphere must have been like and I get the sense that it paled a little when compared with London four years ago. The 2012 Games were packed out with huge demand for ticket ballots in almost all events – even the dull ones like Dressage. Given that at the time Em was not yet two years old, the idea of being able to attend was almost impossible in practice which meant that I didn’t bother; however, there were two things that did make me feel a little jealous of those who did. Firstly the cycling in the velodrome – the atmosphere was amazing and we won so much that it must have been the place to be. The second was the main stadium during “Super Saturday” with three GB gold’s coming in quick succession. It got me thinking, if I could go back and attend any sporting event during my lifetime, which ones would I choose and why?

Here goes...

Football... FA Cup Semi Final – Spurs vs Arsenal 1991 Wembley Stadium
This was very much a match of two differing perspectives in the run up to kick off. For Arsenal and the media, it was another inevitable step towards their expected double (the league was theirs and the rumours were that they had already been fitted for their cup final suits). For Spurs, the club was facing bankruptcy and likely to have to sell off their star players. The biggest of these, Paul Gascoigne, had single handedly taken them to the semi-final, but had suffered several injuries and was still recovering from a hernia operation that had been rushed through after the quarter final. Not only was he unfit, but he was requiring sedatives to get him to sleep the night before a match and was faced with the prospect of an £8.5m transfer to Lazio.

The decision to move the game to Wembley for the first time in the FA Cup Final’s history was not a popular one with the players or fans, but given the high level of demand for such a high profile derby match, it was deemed inevitable by the FA and ensured that over 80,000 people would attend, whilst millions more would watch on live television to see if Gazza would actually even make the team.

It was fortunate for Spurs and Gascoigne that the only man to have really managed his talents was at the helm. Knowing that his star player was capable of only 30 minutes high-intensity football, Terry Venables packed the midfield and ensured that he had enough ball-players on the bench to retain possession should the gamble come off. What he would not have anticipated was the contribution in return. After 5 minutes, Spurs won a free kick just over 30 yards from goal and with a helpful word in the ear from Lineker (“Just smash it”), David Seaman was beaten in his left hand corner by the greatest free kick ever taken at Wembley. Several minutes later, another sweeping move orchestrated by Gazza resulted in Lineker putting Spurs 2-0 up. Although he barely made it to half time, before being replaced by Nayim, his work was done and Spurs would progress to the final as 3-1 winners.

Football... FA Cup Semi Final – Spurs vs Arsenal 1991 Wembley Stadium None of the tragedy of injury, ill-discipline and destruction to come could have been contemplated by anyone who witnessed Gazza in that match and as a spurs fan who has since lost interest in football, I look back to that game and recall thinking that everything would always work out just fine. It rarely does in sport.

Cricket...5th Ashes Test – England vs Australia 2005 The Oval

In what has to be the greatest test series in modern history, it all came down to the wire in South London on Monday 12th September 2005. Having battled back in the game on day four, with a 2-1 lead England simply had to bat out the final day in order to force a draw and reclaim the Ashes after eighteen miserable years of Australian domination. If the Aussies had managed to sneak a win, then even a drawn series would mean the Ashes would remain with the touring side.

England started solidly on 34-1, but the inevitable batting frailty soon emerged and with the Aussie bowlers going all out to attack, England lost a succession of wickets in the first session, with Flintoff being caught and bowled by Warne on the stroke of lunch to leave them 127-5 and facing a likely defeat. One man who had miraculously managed to remain was Kevin Pietersen who had been dropped by Warne at slip and survived a torrid spell to remain not out. With two sessions remaining, Ricky Ponting ordered his bowlers to launch an all-out assault on the remaining English batsmen, convinced that he could force the remaining wickets and have his batsmen chase down a small total. Shaun Tate and Brett Lee dually responded and, reaching speeds of 95mph they decided that if Pietersen was going to try and hit Warne out of the attack, they would try and kill him instead of taking his wicket. What ensued was the most exhilarating session of cricket I can recall: on one hand everything was at stake and it felt like the whole summer was going to come crashing down in a disappointing mess, and on the other we knew we were watching an remarkable and quite unique contest. Pietersen responded by outrageously hooking Brett Lee repeatedly off his nose into the stands in front of the gas holders on his way to a magnificent maiden test hundred and by the time England had been bowled out for 335, the game was beyond Australia.

The final roar that greeted the two umpires finally removing the bails and signifying the game’s end and the series victory would have been worth the admission alone.

Boxing...WBC Heavyweight Title Fight, Frank Bruno vs Oliver McCall 1995, Wembley Stadium

I have always been a fair-weather boxing fan so I cannot claim to have watched the majority of the great fights (not least because of the amount that Sky have charged over the past twenty years!). However, for sheer partisan joy of seeing your man finally make it over the line, this one surely makes it as a contender in the list.

Bruno had already had three failed shots at the title – twice in the 1980s (I recall his defeat at the hands of Tyson in his prime whilst at first school) and then again to Lennox Lewis whilst Tyson was languishing in jail. However, an unexpected opportunity arose in 1994 when Oliver McCall upset the odds and knocked out Lewis at Wembley Arena. He then defended his title against Larry Holmes and came back to the UK to defend it against Bruno. I stayed up to watch the bout and remember feeling apprehensive when nobody gave Bruno a chance – by all accounts McCall was a loose-canon who used to openly weep as he made his way to the ring, “visualising the victory ahead.” Of course, when he emerged with tears in his eyes the narrative was written that Bruno would yet again fail to win the title.

However, knowing that with his massive physique a knockout victory was his only chance, Bruno threw everything at the man they called The Atomic Bull and despite McCall managing to stay on his feet, the points were all his up to the final couple of round. At that point, McCall suddenly sprang into life, realising that the points were gone and he would have to knock Bruno out to win the bout. Even watching it on the TV I could feel the road of the crowd as they willed big Frank to stay put and take the hammering and when the final bell sounded the outpouring of emotion was huge and a tearful Bruno was able to address the post fight interview having finally been made champion.

It wouldn’t last; in order to secure the McCall fight, Bruno had contractually agreed to defend it against Tyson who promptly came out of jail and knocked him out on his way to the Evander Holyfield bouts. But no matter, a title, is a title and at least Bruno would not fall into the Jimmy White Bucket.

Rugby...2nd Test British & Irish Lions vs South Africa, 1997, Durban

I was tempted to put the 2003 World Cup Final down here, but as I was in Australia for most of the duration of that tournament and was able to watch the final in New Zealand, I almost feel like I should make the most of this hypothetical opportunity and choose another match from the annuls of rugby history...

Just because of the number of times I have watched the Lions DVDs and especially the 1997 vintage, I think this one has to be up there. I don’t care much for a trip to South Africa, but it must have been an incredible moment to have witnessed the second test of 1997. For context, the Lions were written off before the series began, with the Springboks having won the World Cup two years previously and having a monstrous pack of forwards who basically steamrollered opposition teams for fun (let alone touring sides hastily assembled from scratch). What they hadn’t bargained for was Jim Telfer coming in with his fire and brimstone team talks and the appointment of the abrasive Martin Johnson as captain. As such, the Lions surprised the Boks in the first test with Matt Dawson scoring the crucial try, catching their opponents unaware.

By the time the second test came around, the whole of South Africa were baying for blood and the Lions had to respond. I recall reading that Johnson and Lawrence Dallaglio gave each other a “look” after five minutes which acknowledged the ferocity with which the Boks had come out; for many it would be the most brutal game of rugby of the decade. Miraculously, the Lions managed to stay in contention, thanks in part to their opponent’s inability to kick their goals, but also the herculean defending from Richard Hill, Dallaglio and centre Scott Gibbs, who even managed to flatten the 21 stone prop Os du Randt. With scores level, it seemed inevitable that South African brutality would ultimately prevail, only for Jeremy Guscott to casually ping over the winning drop goal and clinch the series victory. I can almost smell the celebratory beer and barbeques every time I watch the highlights...

The Lions are not supposed to win; the odds are stacked against them and so it remains a miracle that the tour even exists in the modern era. We have to savour these experiences whilst they last...

Tennis...Wimbledon Final – Roger Federer vs Rafael Nadal, 2008

I should point out that I can’t really stand Wimbledon. I find it full of conceited arseholes who think it’s the centre of the universe, I hate Pimms (it tastes like fizzy Benolin), I don’t want to pay twenty quid for some manky strawberries and squirty cream whilst listening to lame schoolgirls cheering on a Scotsman who doesn’t even like England (“Andy, Andy, ra ra ra”). There’s also the horror of Sue Barker’s simpering grin and Cliff Richard’s sporadic rain-gap entertainment. The whole thing is a fortnight of misery wrapped up in a clichéd towel of despair. And then you throw in the fact that I don’t really like that style of tennis – serve, volley, serve, volley. The novelty of repeatedly thumping aces wears off after about two games and quite frankly I would far rather watch the French Open in which rallies are allowed to actually develop and the players are not going to be escorted off the premises for wearing their normal clothes.

The main reason I can’t stand it, however, is that in the modern age at least it has always favoured the dominance of the wooden, characterless robots to dominate. Those players for whom a big booming serve, a predilection to race to the net or drop onto their favoured forehand is their default setting always tend to reign supreme, as the conditions are stacked in favour of an orthodox fast, tight game. Ever since I can recall, the likes of Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and Pete Sampras have consistently dominated, even when unable to win other major tournaments or execute other techniques. They don’t even need any personality – just keep their default game in check and Bob’s your uncle, two weeks later they get to fall to their knees whilst the engraver adds their name once more to the trophy.

Roger Federer had a better all round game than those players and was certainly a more talented and natural athlete, but let’s be honest, he was a bit of a wooden character and it did get a little dull seeing him win year after year. Which is why when Nadal began to challenge him it suddenly got interesting; a man who didn’t quite have the flowing serve but who had an awesome return game and who injected huge personality into his game; eeking out every point and never accepting defeat until the game had gone. When they met in the 2008 final, few gave Nadal a chance, having lost the previous two finals, but an upset looked likely when he went two sets up after a rain-delayed start. The second rain delay allowed Federer to regroup and win the third and forth sets to tie to match and one assumed that he would go onto win a sixth title. Just before eight in the evening another rain delay took hold and they finally came back ontot he court as the light began to fade. In near-darkness, Nadal threw his entire body into defending a barrage of break points (Federer converted only one of 13 break points on Nadal’s serve) and after nearly five hours of grueling tennis the Spaniard finally made it through.

I would have braved the huffling masses just to hear Federer whinge that it was too dark. Same for both of you Rog!

Athletics...1988 Olympics Mens 100m Final Seoul

Given that I have already chosen a couple of events from the London 2012 Games, I can afford to be rather more swashbuckling with my choice here, which is why I am going to return to the late eighties for this one...

As a child, I recall being mesmerised by the concept of speed. Who was the fastest man in the world? Was he faster than a car? That sort of thing. Seoul 1988 were the first Games I remember (I had one of the official brochures with their mascot in a storyline – don’t know what happened to that!) and the only thing I was bothered about aside from Daley Thompson was the chance to see a new world record. The line up for the final (now dubbed the dirtiest in history) was pretty amazing with both Carl Lewis and Linford Christie poised to take on Ben Johnson, who promptly blew them away, smashing the record which previously had evolved only in micro-increments over the previous hundred years. Perhaps if he had not raised his hand at the point of victory, it would have been even faster. Perhaps, if he had not been drugged up on Stanozolo, his bulging eyes wouldn’t have been grown yellow and he might have finished outside of the medals.

Still, it wouldn’t have been quite so spectacular. After all, it pushed the field to new heights – Carl Lewis finished second but broke the world record and was subsequently handed gold. Calvin Smith was the first man to break ten seconds and finish third. And of course, none of the spectators knew at the time that Johnson would be disqualified as that happened two days later. It must have been awesome to watch.

Snooker... World Championship Semi Final Alex Higgins vs Jimmy White, 1982 The Crucible

Snooker is another sport that I have gradually fallen away from as the character have drifted away (I blame Stephen Hendry for that). I also blame Stephen Hendry for Jimmy White never having won the World Championship, which is why I would struggle to put one of those disappointments in this list. Of course, I could have gone for the 1985 pot black final with Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor, but that again would belie the fact that I actually had little time for either of them. The two most colourful men to play the game in the 1980’s were brought together in 1982, where they contested a semi-final that would prove to be a pivotal and telling moment in their careers. For the twenty-year old Jimmy White it was the one he should have won and perhaps would have beaten Ray Reardon in the final (who know what further triumphs). For Alex Higgins, it would be a swansong as his personal life and career would nosedive soon after.

The match was of high quality throughout and by the end of the third session it was tied at 11-11, only for the younger White to move into a 15-13 lead in the final session. Higgins managed to pull the next frame back to 15-14 but then White pulled into a 59 point lead in frame 30 and most people watching assumed he was all but booked a place in what would be his first Crucible final. When he missed the next pot, Higgins took to the table to perform what could be described as either the greatest break of all time or perhaps the worst, depending on whether the measurement is that of success or technical proficiency. The reds were scattered along the cushion and the task was made even harder as Higgins made little effort to position himself on the next colour. As such, every shot became almost a shot-to-nothing (had he have pulled it off in separate single pots the lack of colours would have reduced the points to requiring snookers. Somehow, whether by accident, design or genius, Alex Higgins managed to clear the table with a break of 69 and level the match at 15-15, taking the final frame and with it a place in the final.

As with many of these events, the joy would have been in the ignorance of not knowing what would come to pass. The thrill would have been watching two snooker players in full flow without caring who came out on top.

Lego Through The Ages

2016-01-03T12:04:00.000-08:00

The end of another Christmas. Another year over, a new one just begun, as someone once sung. Despite both children being really quite ill, I am now contemplating the end of the holiday with a sense of dark despondency and depression which means it must have been good in spite of the health issues. One thing is for sure - it was a hell of a lot better than last year, though that wasn't hard.

As I sit here in the lounge, trying desperately not to allow the bleak mood to be further soured by the sudden absence of lights and decorations, I can at least reflect on quite an interesting array of presents - the sacks were full and frequent this year. Emilia has a remarkably traditional dolls house that I managed to construct earlier in December - complete with replacement parts. Olivia has a new set of toys for the playroom and they will both be in receipt of a new swing for the garden in a few weeks time. Alison has clothes, trainers, chocolates and money to spend, whilst I have some new kit for my guitar, an adults colouring book and my first present of Lego for well over twenty years.

Lego, it must be said, has qualities that transcend time, space, generations, moods, themes and purpose. When I was five, I had knights and castles. When I was eight it was pirates and space. When I was ten it was an entire city with harbour and fire station (not to mention custom built chair lift and ski slope). The gap that then ensued was a mere chapter of dormancy because I only had to walk casually down one of aisles of Toys R Us during a quiet weekend at university and within minutes I had treated myself to a small jousting set. Several years later, I was bought a Star Wars model by a work colleague for one of the first Christmases at Welconstruct. Several more years later I found myself on an agile developers course (a theoretical approach to an efficient way of planning and managing web development for the uninitiated) and we arrived in a very expensive Belgium hotel to a room full of Lego; apparently the best resource for learning the ropes. At that stage I believe Emilia was two years old - probably a little too young to appreciate the brick, but around fifteen months ago whilst on holiday in Wales we bought her a small set - Lego friends, specifically designed for girls. Now aged five she has around half-a-dozen sets and genuinely enjoys playing with them.

I've never been in the habit of trying to impose my interests on my daughters and am more than satisfied in helping Em with the harder sets without trying to convince her that she needs a full scale replica of Minus Tirith in her room. However, those around me and especially my wife have decided (almost certainly wisely) that I need Lego in my life. It took a mere five minutes of playing with my new set of bricks and a cursory glance at the Christmas edition of "Inside Lego" for me to decide that I need to embrace Lego once more. I'm going to create a super castle. It might take me months, but it's fun and I love it.

Pictures to follow in due course.

Public School – A Harrowing View...

2015-08-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

I recall watching the excellent Lindsey Anderson film “If...” and thinking that aside from being surreal, whimsical and hugely engaging, it was based on a pretty absurd premise: that public school was an outdated anachronism, the structure and leadership of which was responsible for the widespread dysfunction of society. However, over the past few years, I have started to revise that option and the recent discovery of many of my school reports have led me to thinking that perhaps he was right.

It certainly seems to be the case that these institutions are very often badly led, based on a misplaced Corinthian ideal that gives leeway to bullying, intimidation and bad leadership, setting the tone for individuals to end up feeling repressed, inadequate and ensuing a complete lack of attention to the individual.

There were a great many cases where a small group of highly popular individuals in each year, who were athletic and skilful enough to represent the year rugby, football and cricket teams and bright enough to perform reasonably well (or better) across a range of subjects, were basically given free range to dictate proceedings. They became house captains, prefects, were treated with greater freedom by masters and were generally “farmed” in order to boost their ego. One could presumably assume that they were essentially being mentored to walk into a job in banking, finance or law and dictate their terms, disappearing up their own arseholes in the process.

For those who didn’t fall into this select category, there were other buckets...the pure academics – not great at sports and probably quite introverted... the pure sportsmen (invert the previous)... the outgoing populists...the geeks... etc...

I can honestly say that I didn’t belong to any of these categories. At best I had one foot in some of these camps, but would straddle and often slip from acceptance in each case. Academically I excelled in subjects that I was interested in (History, English), produced average-to-good work in subjects that were either of acceptable interest or that I saw the point in (Maths, Geography) and then failed miserably in areas that bored me or I saw no point in (Science, Languages). This was a constant puzzle to the teachers, but then I would point to a complete lack of effort on their part in making these subjects interesting and bringing them to life. One would expect this at a fee paying school, yet instead they treated their topics as if we were still in the days of straw boaters and forty lashes of the cane. Sporting –wise, I was talented at cricket and played rugby to a modest-ish level, but was fairly poor at football and hated athletics. This again was jarring when it came to placing me neatly into a social circle; typically if you were good at sports, you were good at sports – end of. I loved Lord of the Rings, but didn’t want to spend my free time visiting Games Workshop. I liked a joke but tended to avoid anything that would lead to detention. I loved rock and heavy metal music but didn’t want to sit in a corner drawing logos all over my bag. And so on.

Whichever way you look at it, I was an awkward customer. Always have been – probably always will be. If you try and pigeon hole me, I’ll kick and scream and will invariably become even more eclectic and miscellaneous in my approach to life than ever. If my wife struggles at times to understand this, then my teachers and peers had no chance.

Anyway, I digress. Let’s bring to life these dated institutions by examining some of my old school reports as they delivery some scary insights into the mindset of a public school teacher stuck in the ancient ways of fusty, poor quality communication...

Are you really concerned that I live in a world of my own? Because it's a better world than one in which grey-haired cane thrashers bark orders out and thrive off disparaging comments...

That's more like it. Always enjoyed writing a story :)

Okay Mr Sarcastic, I thought that was the point of engaging in a subject? Call me a method actor if it suits...

No. I really couldn't. See above views on the matter.

Don't know how to take this one. It could be a review of any English batsman of the past twenty years...

What ifs... How about what if my science teachers made some sort of effort to explain why chemistry is of any value in the big wide world?

Imagine this sort of comment now? Unbelievable approach to written feedback. What's YOUR problem Mr Waller? (That's right, I'm naming and SHAMING the Latin department). Never going to use it, never going to use it...

Oh fuck you!!!

Anyway, you get the idea. And I cant really complain - it made me get on with things for myself. Self-taught, my own judge, self-driven, etc. It was a serious of hard lessons and yet I can honestly say that few of these teachers really did much for my development.

Might share a few more of these soon :)

Abandon Ship - I CANT find Peter White #findpeterwhite

2015-08-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

So, after several weeks without anything in the way of an update, I can conclude that if you are searching for someone with a common name, for whom you lost contact with over twenty years ago, well before the advent of the internet, with no real clues to go on then social media will NOT assist you in your quest to find that person!

Having tried the local schools, they were not able to help and pointed me to Worcestershire County Council. They in turn were unable to provide details due to data protection and therefore pointed me to Redditch Borough Council as the electoral roll might point to his whereabouts. Sadly they have declined to respond and that’s where I left off. Even if they had, I would imagine that the latest roll would be the only visible source and if he moved from the area some time ago, then that would draw a blank.

Remaining options? Appoint a private investigator or draw the experiment to a close. Given that I’m no stalker and this was an exploratory exercise, it’s the latter. Still, never mind!

He lived at Evesham Road, Astwood Bank #findpeterwhite

2015-07-05T07:55:00.000-07:00

So here are a few further details... Peter White lived on Evesham Road in Astwood Bank for much of the 1980s and I believe the 1990s. The number was somewhere over the thousands (I think). And I’ve been told that the house was up for sale around 10 years ago, which suggests that his parents have since moved away some time ago.

Not much to go on. #findpeterwhite

People living in Astwood Bank in the late 1980s and early 1990s #FindPeterWhite

2015-07-04T06:23:00.000-07:00

Moving on from the impossible task of describing someone who I can’t remember that clearly, the next step in this impossible task is to try and find some points of reference to try and spread this message and assist with my quest to track down Mr White.

Whilst he may very well have left the country years ago or be living as a goat in Mongolia, I have to assume to an extent that he might still be living somewhere within the known (and contactable universe). And I can only start with what I know. So then, are you of a similar age? Do you recall this child? Did you live in Astwood Bank at the time? Did you go to Bradley Green nursery? Did you got to Morton Stanley Park in Redditch to play?

Morton Stanley Park! That’s another thing I recall...

Peter White. Astwood Bank, Redditch. #FindPeterWhite

2015-07-02T06:22:00.000-07:00

So it would be worth taking a little time to establish the facts – or at least those that I can recall. If Peter happens to stumble across this blog (highly unlikely by accident I know) then I can at least document enough of a profile to allow him to identify himself and hopefully say hello. Or contact the police and report me as a stalker.

Oh god no – please let’s just nip that one in the bud right now. I really am not the internet equivalent of that obsessed fan in I’m Alan Partridge. I’m not going to lock anyone in a cellar and get their face tattooed on my chest. This is purely an exercise and it is not necessarily designed to rekindle a childhood friendship. You can’t even stalk someone who you don’t know and can’t locate...

Anyway, here goes. He must have been born the same year as me – 1980 (so 34 or 35 as of today). From an early age he lived in Astwood Bank near Redditch – initially attending the nursery I previously mentioned in Bradley Green and then on to other schools in the Redditch / Astwood Bank area. He had a younger brother called David and lived in a house with a weird indoor passageway leading round the outside of his house (if that even makes sense). He had (I think) short brown hair, was probably of medium height and now I’m running out of things to say.

He liked all the things I listed in the last post.

I seem to recall his parents were ramblers. But I can’t remember their names.

Ramblers as in walkers, not talkers.

His house also had a lounge. And a kitchen with bar stools... god this is going to be difficult.

Look, just spread the word okay?

My Social Media Challenge: #FindPeterWhite

2015-06-30T06:19:00.000-07:00

When I was three (or at least I presume I was three – maybe I was four, but almost certainly not two) I started going to a nursery at Bradley Green in Worcestershire. I don’t think it exists anymore. There I met Peter White, who became my best friend. Although when we both left nursery at five he went to a different school to me and lived a reasonable distance away, we remained friends for many years, corresponding by letter during term time and then spending the holidays at each other’s houses. Our interests were mutual – He-man, Thunder Cats, Star Wars, Cross Bows & Catapults, Centurions (who even remembers them?) and such like. We would make costumes, write scripts and generally invent and inhabit a parallel universe in which 1980s cartoon themes would be rolled into one mass of geeky fun. And then all of a sudden it ended. I can’t quite recall when, but it must have been around the early 1990s – probably at the age of 11 or 12 or so. I have a flaky memory of the last time I stayed at his house but I don’t really recall I parting of the waves – I think it was just a case of no further action being taken and other distractions happening. And then before you know it, five years have passed, then ten, then... it’s just a memory.

Occasionally I have given this some thought (not that much in fairness) and fleetingly considered if it would be interesting to get back in touch, only to fall prey to immediate distraction. After all, how the hell do I even get in touch with someone for whom I have no address, no telephone number, no email address (email wasn’t even invented then) and to whom I have not spoken to in nearly 25 years? Thats a pretty tough assignment. Google his name? Find him on Facebook? Along with the other 1000 Peter White’s? Consider also that I can’t even recall with precision what he looks like. I can vaguely recall his appearance as a ten year old, but he is now in his thirties – he could have a beard like Gandalf or have had a sex change and look like Beyonce – it’s anyone’s guess. (I'm not actually suggesting that his has incidentally).

But enough of the defeatism. Curiosity killed the cat and I hate cats, so let’s be curious. In the spirit of re-discovery, I am going to set it as my goal to explore whether social media can help me with this quest. I don’t know where I will start, how I am going to do this, whether this is purley a monumental waste of time, or even if there was a deep underlying reason that I have since forgotten about as to why we failed to keep in touch. Hang all of that – let’s try and locate this person!

Starting now – it trends. #FindPeterWhite

Back from Hiatus (Part Two): The Power of Social

2015-06-28T06:17:00.000-07:00

So, taking this from where I left off on my last post, I found myself sat in the back of a taxi, having finished the Heavier Than Heaven biography on the way back from a recent meeting in London. The sun was shining, I felt a little melancholy (actually I felt completely depressed by the last few chapters, but that was tempered slightly by the prospect of arriving back home) and my mind wandered back to the early 90’s and then to the differences in following artists then and now. Back then, you had a small selection of music magazines, most of which were relatively mainstream, with the exception of Kerrang (which itself was still a rock and metal publication at that time) and if you were fortunate to have Satellite/MTV then you’d get access to a few videos plus Headbangers Ball (which would need to be recorded on VHS late at night). Other than that it was fanzines, gigs and word of mouth. Now it’s easy – doesn’t matter how obscure the band, you’ll get information on forums, social media and probably snippets on YouTube. Moreover, audio will be available through file sharing, online mail order, Amazon and a million other avenues. Easy peasy. In one sense it means we’re all more connected, yet in another we’re more distant. I feel I have access to anything I want right now, but equally unless you are into the latest trends then you’ll never feel a part of whatever movement is going on. In the case of music that’s because the last decent trend fizzled out in 1994 when Kurt Cobain died, several other grunge bands broke up or fell victim to drugs and the remainder either sold out or became crap. Nu Metal almost instantly became crap after a couple of promising albums and since then there have been no new genres that can genuinely point to being original. That’s isn’t to say there hasn’t been great music – far from it – it’s just that the internet has transformed consumption of music to something akin to a lunch menu vs a sequential movement. It’s probably better that way, but ultimately something has been lost in the process...

I digress. The point is that things change and the world is a different place. I like to rediscover the past in all forms, but it can become a morose activity at times. Anyway, the point I was leading to was that my reading of those books and the opening up of those memories got me thinking about lost contacts – people I’ve forgotten about, things that stopped happening, that sort of thing. And how that probably wouldn’t have happened had social media been around twenty years ago because those ties would have retained at least a digital fingerprint – a traceable link ready to be resurfaced at a convenient time. Of course, the gap cannot be plugged – once things are lost and you only have limited recollection (or no recollection) of them, that’s that. Which got me thinking – I wonder exactly HOW powerful social media is? I wonder if it really could be put to the test for a particular challenge that I have in mind...?

Back from Hiatus (Part One): Heavier Than Heaven

2015-06-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

I’ve been away for some time, not that you have probably noticed because this blog has no doubt grown weeds around it and had a couple of windows smashed in by local kids so you just moved on. Anyway, there are plenty of reasons for my hiatus and I could spend time talking about some of the distracting challenges that I had last summer, or the fact that I’ve moved house this year... or even the shocking events that took over everything over Christmas.

I won’t though. At least not right now – there’s plenty of time for that later. I wanted to come back in with a few thoughts that I had recently when reading a couple of books. At this point I should just mention that I have a habit for picking things up after the event at a time to suit. There are countless films I watch when I can be bothered, which might not necessarily be when they come out or even within the first couple of years. Same with books and music and TV shows. Often this is down to circumstances (like I can’t get to the cinema – a big issue in recent times) but it can also be down to apathy – I’ve rarely been sucked in by the Zeitgeist but it does haunt me once it’s been discarded by everyone else. Anyway, in this instance, I picked up a couple of books that I didn’t bother with a decade or so ago when they were released – the first being The Journals of Kurt Cobain and the second being the Heavier Than Heaven biography.

I suppose I was motivated to do this by the prospect of watching a couple of the up-and-coming / soon-to-be-released Nirvana biopic/film docs and the Journals book is one of those things you can flick through casually, providing you are willing to suspend the idea that it does seem a little intrusive. Heavier Than Heaven on the other hand is an all-consuming piece that really takes something to digest...a little like Baldrick’s poem is starts out bleak, becomes depressing in the middle and the less said about the end the better. Owing to the fact that the end is a known and inevitable outcome it really takes it out of the reader, but then anyone who is a fan of Nirvana’s music will have read it or will want to read it. I had avoided both because the problem with that band is that they became so “owned” by the media and fans alike that it was difficult to maintain a personal connection with their music when the whole world was putting them on a pedestal – and this was even true in the late 90’s and throughout the 2000’s when these sorts of releases were published and various anniversaries were reached. Anyhow, the partial misery of reading of Kurt Cobain’s chronic heroin abuse and a spiral into complete and utter hopelessness and depression has been tempered by the re-discovery of his music, which on the rare occasions that it happens is a great joy: you get the music presented as new once more with the fact that you own the back catalogue and are familiar with the story. It’s partly nostalgic but also a pleasant haunting – like an encyclopedia in which eras can be cherry-picked, blended and dipped into without the all-encompassing chains that come when living through the time itself.

This probably sounds a little too whimsical and essentially I could surmise by simply stating that iTunes is great, but there is a convoluted point, which is that this has provided me with a one hand a retrospect and on the other a chance to compare eras: the early 1990's as a fan of music, film and art vs the present day. Hold that thought...

Images Of Water That Chill Me To The Bone...

2015-02-11T09:54:00.000-08:00

So there is a common theme that you will notice. Here's a bunch of iconic imagery that has always made me fearful and presented a sense of dread...

First up (and this isn't the best view because it's the one with the dumping stack that really does it for me, but you at least get the idea) we have Blackhall Colliery as featured in Get Carter. The bleak, black sight of the dumping conveyor against the grey north-east skyline and the cold iron expanse of sea...

Up next, we have possibly the image that chills me the most - which is ridiculous when you think what it is - the Thames TV icon from the 70's and 80's that used to rise up from the base of the TV screen when certain programs were about to start. The idea of a sudden apocalyptic flooding of London in which only the iconic buildings were still above sea level and I was poised to fall into the murky depths was the stuff of nightmares. For some reason it seemed that there had been an oil spill in and around the Docklands (again my mind is far too active)...

So we're now approaching full horror mode. Though a Bond film from an era when Bond films were partially comedy films owing to Roger Moore, this model of the Atlantis sea station rising from the sea gave me the fear. And when Bond jetted out on that ski-thing towards it and the camera panned in on it's horrible spider-like legs standing as an ominous monolith against the vastness of the ocean I felt terror. Sheer terror...

Fourth on the list is a more universal image, taken straight from a book I constantly used to read on one of the biggest discoveries of the twentieth century - Ballard's Titanic project in the 1980's. It was the portrait of the final moments of the Titanic's sinking that I maintained fixation on - once more the sheer sight of such an enormous object sat against the even more infinite canvass of black sky and frozen black ocean before disappearing into the two mile oblivion beneath. Horror of horrors...

Finally (and this is a new one) - I used to have a morbid fear that led to nightmares stemming from pictures of sea lions in a zoo pool in a long-since lost Ladybird book. This image below is the nearest equivalent of this - the independence of sea-life, a huge creature lurking beneath he water, itself dwarfed by the mass of water in its endless void...

Notice the common theme? Water. Ocean. Sea. Huge objects that are themselves lost against the water. They terrify me.

Queens of the Stone Age 21st November 2013 – National Indoor Arena, Birmingham

2014-08-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

And so to the present - almost. Queens of the Stone Age touring on the back of their Like Clockwork album in Birmingham. Can’t recall who opened for them but Im not even sure we bothered with them.

Josh Homme was ill and openly stated that he didn’t feel great, but that didn’t stop what was a really energetic show with a real cross-section of material on offer. They kicked off with “You Think I Aint Worth a Dollar...” and did everything you would expect. In fact, to hell with it, here’s their full setlist:

You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, but I Feel Like a Millionaire
No One Knows
The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret
My God Is the Sun
Monsters in the Parasol
I Sat by the Ocean
…Like Clockwork
In the Fade
If I Had a Tail
Kalopsia
Little Sister
Fairweather Friends
Smooth Sailing
Make It Wit Chu
I Appear Missing
Sick, Sick, Sick
Go With the Flow
The Vampyre of Time and Memory
Feel Good Hit of the Summer
A Song for the Dead

Have to confess that we ducked out of the encore to beat the traffic which is probably a really bad habit best avoided for the future, but it was pre-Christmas in Birmingham and sometimes it sucks being stuck in traffic. Anyway, despite missing the last couple of songs, it was a great gig and I recall him waxing lyrical on the local area for its contribution to rock and metal. Which was nice.

9 out of 10

Ian Anderson 30th April 2012 – Symphony Hall, Birmingham

2014-08-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

I didn't realise it at the time, but Ian Anderson is pretty much Jethro Tull now. He has since stated that the band no longer exists as it was and that he is recording and performing in his own right with the legacy of material at his disposal.

This was a gig in support of his recording of the follow up the Thick as a Brick album (TAAB2) and my initial disappointment that it was not the full band was immediately tempered by the way that they approached this. He had the vision to understand his vocal limitations and therefore brought in an additional vocalists to support his efforts – in addition, his band really went for the theatrical look and it gave me the impression of how it would have been to see Tull back in the heyday of the mid-1970s when they were releasing an album a year and playing at Maddison Square Gardens. I also enjoyed the concept of a two-part gig where everyone gets a break in the middle.

What his next project will be, I can only guess but perhaps he could put together a touring band to cover each of the great albums in their entirety? Just a thought...

7.5 out of 10

Ravi Shankar 16th June 2011 – Symphony Hall, Birmingham

2014-08-24T07:40:00.000-07:00

This was the first concert after Em was before the following September and as I recall we were going through a tough phase with little sleep and lots of stress. So it was ideal really to drive to the relaxed environment of the Symphony Hall, where a ninety-year old came onto stage at around 7.30pm to play for an hour or so meaning I was back in bed before 10pm. That probably sounds sad and tragic but in reality it was a kind way of re-acclimatising me back into the real world where people can actually go out and enjoy themselves.

As per the first time, he was fantastic and his playing really took the audience to new places in terms of the sound and the composition. It was with sadness that I learned of his death eighteen months later, but what a musician and what a great legacy he has left from his extraordinary life.

7.5 out of 10

Joe Bonamassa 31st May 2010 – National Indoor Arena, Birmingham

2014-08-22T07:39:00.000-07:00

Joe Bonamassa is a great example of a great guitarist who could ideally do with being in someone else’s band. A bit like Eric Clapton I guess. I have a copy of his “Ballad of John Henry” album but if I’m honest I find it a bit “Radio Two.” It’s okay but nothing special. Whereas to see him live, it is clear he has a massive talken for both blues electric guitar and acoustic – perhaps he just needs to be with better songwriters to translate that to record.

Live he was very impressive – playing his best known songs with a high level of improvisation and lots of off-the-cuff solos and jams. Well worth seeing live in a stadium/large arena environment, perhaps just not so much so when it comes to buying his records.

8 out of 10