Pa's Tale

...it's time for bed.

But not before I resign from rugby. I was introduced to the game in 1945, when I went to grammar school, and I found it hard as I wasn't (never have been) a natural games player. Nevertheless, I have been an enthusiastic player and watcher of the game ever since.

No longer. The current fashion for kicking the ball high in the air to be caught by another bloke who kicks it high in the air is plain daft. And the virtual abolition of the rolling maul under the new rules, which allow the maul to be brought down, removes one of the better aspects of the game.

And the biff bang wallop, with 18 stone centres, makes it more and more like American Football. Which we don't need.

The administration is stupid too. The idea of making Wales play on a Friday evening in Paris was disgusting. Welsh supporters would have had to take a day off work, then spend the night in Paris, an idea which was probably encouraged by the Paris tourist industry. The cost would have been ridiculously high. If it had been Sky, I would have understood the commercial motive, but it was the gruesome BBC who were doing the show.

I am disgusted by the BBCs so-called ethic, as well as their bland assumption of superiority. But I am pleased to discover that, along with blind people, I shall never again have to pay for a licence.

England went to Dublin today, and got close to winning. The difference may have been due to the stupid (look, I'm not for a moment suggesting that prop forwards are anything other than perfect gentlemen) Phil Vickery, who refuses to observe the rules at the critical moment when the ref is next to him. He must be sent to the knacker's yard. And as for Danny Care - he should be prescribed some tablets.

On Friday, after our morning round, we took the amber nectar on the golf club terrace in shirt sleeves, the sun was so warm. I'm still not playing well (it's the medication, you understand), but I parred four of the five Par 3 holes. It might mean nothing to the public at large, but it pleased me, which is what matters.

I have just read about two English blokes who had a drink or two in Les Deux Alpes, took a short-cut back to their lodgings at 2am and fell off a cliff. It reminded me of an occasion when we and the Wilsons, with Danny as babysitter, had rented a primitive ex-farmhouse above Lech, in Austria.
The cable car to Oberlech ran until one in the morning, so we thought it a grand idea to ski down to the town for dinner. Naturally, we had too much wine, and when we finally went up the mountain by cable car to go home, the mountain traverse through deep new snow was quite adventurous. But at least we made it down to the house.

When I say "primitive", I mean that the loo was at the end of a long corridor, where you dumped into the collecting area far below. The cost of a long poo session was a frostbitten bum. No time wasted there.

Perhaps I should not have bought it, but the new electronic scale shows me getting heavier by the day. And, though not measured, I'm getting feebler. Side effects of the Zoladex implant. I shall seek advice about the implications of stopping the adjuvant hormone treatment. I'm not concerned about length of life, I'm concerned about quality of life.

Here's a pic of Ma's tree, just to show that Spring is here.

I went to see my Iraqi Kurd barber. His English is a bit limited, and he doesn't understand "just a trim". But when he had finished the virtual tonsure he smiled and said "Makes you look younger". Of course, the more he takes off, the longer it will be before I go again.

The ridiculous illiterate phishing messages come thick and fast to my Outlook Express inbox. A recent one said "We implore you to confirm your identity..." but I felt unable to help. I don't get phishes to my Google mailbox. Does that mean that Microsoft is less good at stopping the stuff?

There has been some football on the box lately. Inter were pretty feeble against Man U, who failed to score; the hyper-hyped Real Madrid were dismal at home to Liverpool and duly lost.

There is a Test match on at present from Barbados and I was able to stay awake for the first session. There is an entity called "The England and Wales Cricket Board" which might be run by the same comedians who thought that Stanford was the answer to their prayers. Anyroad, this august body is charged with finding a coach for the England team. I was most impressed to learn today that they have asked a City executive search company (yes, they used to recruit merchant bankers) to find someone. I read today that the company in question will look for a coach who "should have a skillset that can be respected by all the stakeholders". There is more, but it too fatuous to repeat in civilised company.

Now here's a big moment: for the first time this year I drove up to the golf club this morning without even side lights on, and the temperature reached double figures! Getting there.

I won't have a nap, unless the cricket sends me off to the Land of Nod. Bangers and mash for supper tonight. A bit more golf and football on the box, a spot of golf tomorrow, then lots of 6 Nations rugby over the weekend. Idle? Qui, moi?

... Spring is in the air. The first decisive move was cutting the grass on Saturday, and it looks nice. Snowdrops have spread, Ma's tree is in flower, and I have started the big prune. I think that one of the big old climbing roses, New Dawn, has pegged out. There are other casualties down the garden too, but I don't think I mind too much.

Another sign of progress is that my hitherto self-cleaning car, which I have had for a year now, went through its first car wash. Looks like new!

Sport on the box was not very entertaining this weekend, but there are some tasty European Cup games this week. I can watch football better when the Italians and Spanish sides are involved.

Young Tom had another birthday. Not so young any more. Rick called from Alsace, where they have gone to ski for a fraction of the cost of the Trois Vallées. Lots of snow, but as he says, it's like skiing in the Jura. We used to go up to the Col de la Faucille for a Saturday morning's undemanding sliding about, back home for lunch, then a trip to the supermarket. It seems that you get lots of food on a full-board régime there.

Some music notes. Bruce's new album sounds exactly as you would expect Bruce to sound. Different words, same sounds. But whisper it - he will be 60 next year. And he is doing Glastonbury.

I was attracted by a track I downloaded (excuse me if I sound cool or, as they used to say, with it) by a Finnish jazz group called Five Corners. They claim to be recalling the grand days of 50s and 60s jazz. Sounds more like Las Vegas to me.

But the big surprise for me was a double CD of Saint Etienne. I'd never heard of them before, nor of Sarah Cracknell, who can't half sing. Very smart stuff which I am sure is familiar to disco-goers of a while ago. We used to see St Etienne football team on the box all the time when they were the best side in France, but I would never have named my band after them.

I've never seen Kate Winslet on the screen, but she must be quite good at her job to keep getting Oscars.

It was very dark and drizzly this morning, but there were 16 of us out there. I can't hit the ball worth a damn. I hope that it's a mental rather than a physical thing. Or do I mean the other way round? But I shall keep going out there, because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

Can I recommend a BBC thing - www.bbc.co.uk/oddnews - makes me chuckle.

Four mornings on the golf course from Monday to Thursday, and we took post-game drinks on the terrace for the first time this year.

Wednesday was a bit busy. After golf, home for lunch and a shower, then off to London Town to meet the rest of the Fab Four. A few pints in a comfortable pub close to Charing Cross, then as planned (by me) I left the others to misbehave or not as they saw fit and went to get the train home.

The station concourse was heaving, and the train times were out of joint. Some sad person had chosen the rush hour to go on to the line at London Bridge, causing the power to be turned off and the trains to be totally mucked up. You have to wonder what drives people to do this thing. Had he just lost his job? Did anyone care? London is not a very nice place for troubled people, of whom there are many.

Various CDs that I had ordered from Amazon arrived on Thursday, so I have put them on iPod. No time to listen to any of them yet because Chris and Denise were due on their way back from Antarctica, and I had planned a nice dinner. I have only just discovered that if you put the flight number into Google you get a progress report. As it happened, Argentinian Airways were running well late from Madrid, but the website keeps you informed right up to the moment of landing.

So we all got up late this morning. They have set off back to Yorkshire and I am eyeing the back grass. I shall cut it, either right now, or later, or perhaps tomorrow, but cut it I shall.

The cricketers didn't do very well. Strauss said that he couldn't enforce the follow-on because his bowlers were knackered, so England batted again at an unacceptably slow rate, then declared too late to get the Windies out. Not an auspicious start for Strauss.

Must get on. Lunch to have, grass to cut, laundry to finish. It's tough, but I shall force myself. If I feel like it.

Another square-eyed weekend. England were better, but they can't beat both Wales AND Jonathon Kaplan, a referee whose body language makes it clear that he really doesn't like English rugby teams.

I did nothing on Sunday, apart from watch a bit of cricket. Looking round the garden was a bit depressing, because yet more shrubs seem to have died. And the undergrowth has been allowed to get rampant. I will have to hire some help, because I am too lazy/clapped out to take the job on. I have a bloke in mind, so we'll see.

A woman broke her record-length finger nails in a car crash. The longest was 89cm (or damn near a yard). What I want to know is: how did she wipe her bum?

And Debbie Harry is 64 this year!

A new problem presented today. A fine spring morning on the golf course, a spot of the amber nectar, a bite of lunch, cricket on the box, and some planting out of violas and pansies. There isn't going to be enough time! We are threatened with temperatures into double figures this week. So much golf to be played and so much to be done house-and-garden-wise. Drinks in Town on Wednesday, the Wilsons return from Antarctica on Thursday. I'm not going to be able to squeeze a nap in.

And I have to start my fancy veggie supper prep now. It's all go round here.

For 150 years, the three great offices of state after the Prime Minister were the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Foreign Minister, and the Home Secretary. And what are we stuck with now? A Home Secretary who fiddles her expenses, declaring the room she rents from her sister as her main residence and claiming £24,000 expenses for her real family home. She says it's not illegal. Well, it should be, and even if it isn't, it's immoral. And she is so scared of the Daily Mail that she refutes scientific advice about cannabis and Ecstasy. This is the person who is supposed to oversee the behaviour of the populace at large. What a fool. And what a classic example of "New Labour".

We have a Transport Minister called Lord Adonis. He has just arranged for hundreds of new trains to be provided by Japan. I wonder what are his qualifications a) to be called "Lord" and b) to make decisions about trains.

"Top" civil servants get some nice bribes. A bloke called Bender had 52 outings at someone else's expense, and his official job is Permanent Secretary at the Department for Business and Regulatory Reform. He's obviously somebody you would want to impress if you were a business type. And the same goes for lots of others. I don't see why these outings are not classed either as bribes or as attempted bribes. Say what you like about HM Revenue and Customs, they don't allow such trips.

And this bloke Crosby ran before he was nobbled. I hope that the whistleblower has documentary evidence of what he claims. Of course, the Treasury knew nothing about it. Did they? Brown, with his insistence that everything was somebody else's fault, looks ever shoddier.

I liked the phrase offered by a Guardian letter-writer about Labour's technique of "policy-based evidence-making".

But it's politicians, innit. Even Saint Barack has had some nasty shocks already, what with his chosen helpers having to quit because they have made mistakes with their taxes. I don't know about you, but I would have asked them if there was anything I needed to know before I offered them the job. But he's a political novice.

Phew. Let's get on to sport. First the good news. A dozen of us went out in the freezing dawn yesterday (there was lovely sunshine most of the time) and I took the money. First time for ages.

I watched the Spain v England game, duly admired the skill of the Spaniards, and went to bed at half-time. Today, we all turned up at the golf club only to find that the course was closed because of yet more snow and rain in the night. So I stumped off to the garden centre to get some stuff to plant out this weekend (it is supposed to be milder, ho,ho).

Then it was time for the Test Match in Antigua. Guess what - the sand-based outfield wasn't fit for the bowlers to operate on, which they discovered after ten balls. Play suspended for the day. But at least England didn't lose it (the match, I mean). Browsing on Sky, I came across a hilarious motorbike event on the beaches and dunes of Le Touquet. Literally hundreds of bikes churning flat out through the sand in some kind of endurance race. That was good for ten minutes.

Oh, and the Aussies were saved by the rain in their ODI series against the Kiwis. (Just thought I'd mention it in case anybody is interested.)

I hadn't realised that Abe Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day, but I was pleased to find out. Something to store away in my ragbag of useless information.

England will be ritually humiliated by Wales tomorrow, but at least I won't have to watch the cricketers at the same time.

Frosty morning, but the golf course was open - and only five turned up for the early start. There are wet patches, some still frozen, but we had 40mm of rain recently. I was so chuffed to get out there that I parred the first three holes (and two of them should have been birdies). The usual rubbish followed, but at least I was out there. There was warm sunshine too, though the rain came in later.

Excitement over. A few bits and pieces now. In desperation yesterday I visited youTube, where I saw a video of Coldplay doing their song yet again. They only have one dirge, and they recycle it time and time again. And the punters keep buying it.

Then I watched some of Brazil v Italy, a friendly match played at the Emirates where 60,000 people had turned up. London is full of Brazilians and Italians. A couple of classic Brazilian goals. The second involved two or three sharp passes, then the ball got to Robinho who had several defenders near him. He then shuffled his feet in a hypnotic way and the defenders moved away. So he banged it in. I have always wondered why Italian defenders always look 40. It's partly because lots of them are. They didn't much like being given the run-around by Brazil and got a bit peevish towards the end.

While on football, don't we all feel a bit sorry for Scolari. Fired from his Chelsea job with only £7.5 million to ease the pain.

There was a bit of fun in Parliament today, when various zillionaire bankers were required to tell a Select Committee how they thought they had done. Said bankers had been carefully coached by PR experts, and were word perfect in their explanations. One admitted that his bank's share price had dropped by 90% but it was still better than what some other bankers had managed. As for bonuses, they had to pay them to stop key staff from going elsewhere. To where, exactly, was not spelled out.

And I can now eat all the eggs I like, after being advised ten years ago to eat no more than one a week. Frankly, I'll eat and drink what the fuck I want. And so would you if you were in my shoes.

I suppose I should go and watch our gallant footballers now. I hope they play well, because the cricket and rugby chaps have to perform again this weekend, and we all know what that means.

...what to do with myself (dud dud dum). Dusty sang it (and the song was by Burt Bacharach, a fact I wouldn't have discovered if I had been normally busy). It's Day 10 without a game, and although the snow has gone down here in the soft sahf-east the weathermen are threatening some more.

So I have had to watch other people playing games. I received a rather rapid email from Australia after our gallant cricketers had done their little best in Jamaica. (At least they scored more than they did in Sydney in 1887.) I had, you see, rashly made a comment about the Aussies losing two ODIs in a row to the rugby playing Kiwis.

People will remember that when a similar thing happened on a previous visit to the West Indies, England picked the same team and immediately won in Barbados for the first time in 60 years. The Empire can sometimes Strike Back. Can't it?

That old familiar feeling came over me on Saturday. England were playing rugby like absolute noddies against Italy on BBC, while the cricket thumping was showing on Sky. One could toggle between the two events so as not to miss any of the fun. £83 for a Twickers ticket! Get the ball and kick it in the air, then repeat ad nauseam. The French and Welsh and Irish will destroy them.

Then Ireland played France. It was as if they were playing a different sport. Both sides ran and passed and tackled and gave us a great all-action game. The England squad plus assorted coaches should be locked in a room and made to watch that game ten times, with the constant message going into their ears "This is what is supposed to happen on a rugby pitch".

There was some football featuring yet another non-performance by Arsenal. One of their many French blokes got sent off not for brutality but for being a complete bloody idiot. I think Wenger should retire. Then I was fortunate to be watching when Giggs scored his superb goal for Man U.

It seems that many ships are on the high seas loaded with salt for the roads of Britain including 40,000 tons from Spain. I wonder where they'll put it.

I have paid my car tax - £210! and did some online shopping for stuff I don't need. I beat the chess computer this morning by using unorthodox methods - it can't resist accepting a sacrifice at the level I have got it on. And I may have to go into the loft to start chucking stuff out. Otherwise I'll just sit on my backside and wait for Spring.

We missed the Small Faces back in the 60s because of our emigration, but I am catching up. Amazing creativity. Their early stuff was totally unpolished but endlessly inventive.

I've done the sudoku, so now I'll try to finish the crossword. And I must go to the postbox with a birthday card for Julia, who will be 14 on Saturday.

I refuse to comment on the snow, which is the enemy of golf (for obvious reasons), and therefore my enemy.

Denise and Chris arrived on Wednesday afternoon, and I did a coq au vin as threatened. It was not a perfect version, but edible, and a fair amount of grog was consumed, a most unusual occurrence when we have got together over the past 50-odd years. Then more of the craic yesterday morning and they went off to bother the penguins in Antarctica. It seems that they will spend several days on a Russian cruise ship, going ashore by Zodiac sometimes to camp on the ice. No, I asked already. They don't seem to know why.

A nothing day for me here today. I fiddled about with some golf statistics. I read the paper. I did a "hard" sudoku - the Guardian ones on Friday are really hard - and the cricket has been on from Jamaica since 3 o'clock. But I didn't summon up the drive to go up into the loft to start chucking stuff out. It is on my list, of course it is!

There are at least three decent suppers in the fridge - leftovers just waiting to be warmed up. And that takes away my normal 5pm "go into kitchen and start work" routine, which leaves me filling in time.

My order of Small Faces stuff came today, so I have put it on to iPod. Not many people will know about these guys, but I will have a listen instead of cooking.

Rugby tomorrow, and the snow is very slowly melting. It has to go by Monday, though I suspect that there will be troublesome patches left to hide our balls. We may have to paint our balls yellow and red to make them more visible.

Din-dins now. Au'voir.

And I shan't discuss weather ever again (for a while) because I know nothing.

So the white stuff came down, then more, then more. And London stopped. And of course it will take ages to clear off the golf course, so I am banged up indoors and trying to think of hobbies. I will not take up knitting, and I can't whip up any enthusiasm for painting, even though I still have all the gear. The chess computer takes the piss, even though I have got it on a low level.

The good news, of course, is that the government is going to open some memory clinics so that batty old farts like me can have their dementia diagnosed early. No thanks. The utter futility of keeping us going is an inexcusable waste of resources. When you gotta go, you gotta go. It's bloody obvious.

Speaking of batty, it seems that the Vatican has yet another silly old man in the chair. Unexcommunicating weirdos puts him in the same class as them.

So what to do, when it's cold and snowy outside. I can fiddle with the golf statistics for my group, that's what. I am preparing a decision which I think will cause a small flutter, but I am reasonably confident that there will be no mass opposition, if only because nobody else wants to take the handicap job on. My rudimentary legal training of 53 years ago still comes in handy sometimes.

Denise and Chris are booked in for tomorrow night. They are on their way to Antarctica. I offered to hire some penguins so they could get the experience right here, but no. They have to fly to Buenos Aires and then on. Carbon footprint? Qui, moi?

The main roads seem clear after the initial shock of a bit of snow. Helen was recalling getting up with a foot of snow on the ground and riding her velo to school; and she had to walk in to work yesterday morning because there were no buses and her big bike was not a safe option. Ah! les anglais!

I'm going to do a full-on coq au vin tomorrow, so I'll take my Full English tonight. Like now. Nighty night. I know it's boring, but I'll try to stick a pic on.