Pa's Tale

Well, I played quite well again on Thursday, but yesterday the tortoise started to slip down the pyramid, and it could be weeks before he climbs back up again. Never mind, at least I'm out there.

Not much going on. A Climate Camp has been set up on Blackheath. I have no idea what they do all day, but the cops have been warned off after their ridiculous thuggery last time. But I'm sure they wouldn't let me camp on the heath.

Another surprising thing is the alleged discovery of a vast oilfield in Uganda. A lot of people close to the president will be rubbing their hands and arranging Swiss bank accounts to receive the goodies. Wouldn't it be nice if the goodies could somehow be shared out. Fat chance.

Brown has just turned up in Afghanistan - wearing a collar and tie, the silly, silly man - and seems to be saying that we will send more soldiers there. Where will he get them from? What a shambles.

There is football on the box, and the Arse have scored at ManU. Nobody expected Burnley to do much at Chelsea, and 3-0 seems quite respectable. And Charlton have won again - 100% so far.

I have just gently cooked some wild salmon in butter and white wine, which I will eat with mayonnaise and a potato salad and a select Sauvignon blanc after the football.

A plastic water butt I had ordered was delivered last night, and I have installed it to replace the large 50 gallon oak beer cask, which is more decorative but leaks - not useful for a water butt. Sheets and towels were dancing on the clothes line. I must stop being so bloody busy. But there is pruning to do and stuff. Keep on keepin' on, as Bob sang.

In my rather English way, I had expected Burnley to lose to ManU - but they won, to the delight of 90% of the population. It has been mentioned that the entire population of Burnley would fit in Old Trafford. Then they beat Everton! Chelsea next.

And in the same manner I expected our cricketers to be hammered by the Aussies - and it didn't happen. The Ashes Tests provide a unique spectacle in sport. Five matches played over 25 days, and the whole thing can turn on just a handful of small events. And the fact that both teams are less than the best doesn't really matter. I enjoyed Strauss's remark that "When we were bad we were very bad, and when we were good we managed to be just good enough".

Now both sides have to endure no fewer than seven one-day games, purely in the interests of raising funds for the respective cricket boards. I'm sure the Aussies would rather go home now rather than face such an anti-climax.

On a much more important sporting matter, my golf form has returned and I have won three times in the past week or so. Now I worry that the tortoise of form is about to slide down the pyramid, leaving me to struggle for weeks until it finds the steps and starts to climb again.

Here's a bit of useless information: there are 142 golf courses within a 25km radius of London. So much golf, so little time.

My last guests have just left. I must say that the food was better than when I am home alone. And I have noted that it is easy to become a bit of a hermit - it takes a little while to get used to the presence of others in the house. But it is clearly good for me (from time to time, of course, not all the time).

Laundry and shopping now, then a return to dolce far' niente.

First things first. I played well again on Monday, then on Tuesday I beat the other twelve blokes to take the money yet again. So the tortoise is balancing on top of the pyramid ready to slide down, taking my form with it. I never spend my rare winnings because I know I'll have to give them back soon.

Very hot today, but I had to go out to meet a policeman. My old Xsara has been found by a DVLA detector van because it was untaxed. In Thamesmead, unsurprisingly. The police wanted me to claim it and pay £150 in various charges, and were baffled when I said I didn't want it. They took counsel, then said OK if I would sign a brief statement to that effect in an officer's notebook. We agreed to meet at the golf club, it being midway between us, and they will tell the council to take it away and scrap it.

Some villain has had 18 months' use of the motor and will no doubt be cross that he has lost it, just as I was.

Then I had to go to the supermarket because Brighton and Bristol have announced that they will be coming to stay for a couple of days. I don't really mind cooking for a dinner party on Friday evening because it's the only way I can do a gigot d'agneau avec gratin dauphinoise and a tarte tatin. Not very seasonal, but it's usually edible.

I suppose I ought to hoover up the dead flies upstairs and check that the bathroom is fit for purpose. Fortunately, my children aren't too fussy, having been properly brought up in a somewhat scruffy environment.

There will be cricket tomorrow, and the doomsayers (including me) are out in force. We have hired yet another South African, who is here, or so I am told, because he's not good enough to make a living playing cricket in RSA. I hope he sleeps well tonight. The Aussies will have fun with him and Bell tomorrow.

Burnley have to play Man U tonight. It seems that they will receive £60million for being in the Premier League, so that does cushion the blow of being relegated straight away. There I go, doomsaying again. Must stop it.

...it ain't. I have just realised that it is a pyramid, not a wheel, and a tortoise does the business. It wanders slowly along the base, then it finds a staircase, which it slowly climbs (during which time I am striving to get a good golf score), then it finally reaches the apex and pauses there for a moment. Then it falls down the other side, and has to start its journey all over again.

This past week, the tortoise has reached the top and I have had a decent week's golf. In fact, on Friday there were fourteen of us out and I won the money. Guess what happens tomorrow. Now, let that not be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm getting ready for my next golf trip. I have bought travel insurance and a parking place, though there are still four weeks to go. Christmas/New Year is a bit of a problem this year, as Solo's are only going to South Africa. It's a long way to go for golf, and I have already been to the places featured, so I won't bother. There is a singles trip to Thailand, but I'm a bit too old for that.

I have been getting the pre-migraine aura a bit lately. In fact, I took a pink pill (Migraleve, for the pharmaceutically-minded) on the first tee last Monday, and after a few holes of competent play my partner asked if he could have one too. But yesterday the aura was accompanied by a minor headache. I haven't had a proper migraine for decades and I don't want one ever again.

There is a chicken in the oven, with spuds. That means chicken salad, chicken curry and minestrone this week, though on different days, of course. Cheap, easy, and tasty. Better than lentils any day.

The dreaded football has started, and I am busy not looking at Liverpool's match at Tottering Hotspur. (I think they are losing.)

Some small progress with the garden clearup. It's a work in progress, gradual, so that I always have something to do if I feel the need.

So after my roast chicken I will watch some USPGA golf and go to bed early. Up at 6.30 tomorrow to check whether the tortoise has fallen off yet.

Is the speed of the passage of time supposed to accelerate as you get older? It is doing in my case.

We had a very agreeable golf match with Sheerness on Monday, and I actually played quite well (I mention that for my own information, because I have been having a horrible time on the golf course - playing-wise, I hasten to add, not socially). The captain ordered steak pie and lots of veg for lunch, in spite of the temperature. Most people would have preferred cold cuts and salad, but Eric is convinced that a big winter feed is what people want. OK, there weren't many leftovers, and I didn't need supper.

Speaking of food, my move to more interesting suppers hasn't been a success. I don't want couscous as a main ingredient. My first ever cooking of lentils didn't leave me panting for more. Dammit, I'm going to have a full English for supper tonight.

I played a little bit better on Tuesday, then I sent some money to the grandkids' little accounts. Is the market turning up? Who knows. But by the time they are 18 they could have a nice/a nothing (strike out whichever does not apply) nestegg. I won't be around to find out.

Wednesday was a day off. My three-monthly haircut was done. I think my Iraqi-Kurd barber has outside interests, but he only charges me £6 so I'm happy.

A lovely program on Sky Arts about Sun Records (Memphis 1956-ish). Sam Phillips had four main performers for a couple of years - Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. What a bunch! And they had a 50th anniversary reunion (unfortunately Elvis couldn't be there). One of my favourites was there, Sonny Burgess, the Arkansas Wild Man, still with his resonant voice, and they all played and sang as if it was yesterday. Great fun.

Then there was a bizarre football match - a friendly between Holland and England - three days before the Premiership season kicks off. What a mad idea. All this expensive talent who must have been told by their managers "Don't get injured!". What a pointless exercise. The Guardy's football writers tried today to discuss it as if it mattered, but that's what they get paid for.

The spammers have suddenly discovered my Tiscali email address, and the penis-lengthening offers are pouring in. The spams arrive to my Google number too, but there is an effective filter which sidelines them.

Oh, before I forget, I played quite well today. Made a fiver. Perhaps the Big Wheel of Form is turning upwards. We shall see. Tomorrow.

...but much encouraged by this morning's cricket. I wasn't even going to look, but I turned on to watch the last rites and was wonderfully entertained for more than an hour by England's lower orders (that's a batting term in cricket, by the way, not an upstairs/downstairs term) putting the Australian bowlers to the sword.

It's a pity that it was too hot to do much in the garden, though the laundry looked good on the clothes line. My shirts dried very nicely, but there is a slight hint that a touch of ironing is required. Not very likely though.

As I was writing out my menu for the coming week, I realised how bloody boring it was. So I went to a tiny paperback (60p at the time) of Nigel Slater's 30 Minute Suppers, to try to rejuvenate my affair with the kitchen. This week, I will be eating: pan-fried sole with parsley butter (last night), lamb's liver with a Madeira and red wine sauce (that was just now), a cous-cous provençale salad, and Italian sausages with lentilles de Puy. And I always have a Full English on Friday.

Can I keep it up? We'll see. There is a golf club lunch tomorrow as we host a match against the gentlemen of Sheerness, so a little light salad will be all for supper.

Uncle John called to tell me about his 70th birthday pressies to himself. He has got a dog, a Jack Russell, and a Bentley Continental (because he needs a comfortable car because of his bad back, and because he has always fancied one). If you ask isn't 6 litres rather over the top, he sensibly replies that he can't take it with him - the dosh, not the car - so he will spend it in any way that suits him. Makes you (me!) think. Not that I fancy a posh car.

He won't be able to go to the shops in Lyme Regis in it because there is no room for such a monster, so he has been looking at electric bicycles, the sort that you can sit on and go, and pedal a bit if the bike seems to need help. Ideal for me to go up the hill to the golf club in the mornings. Leave the clubs up there, and Bob's your uncle. Groceries ordered online. Don't really need a car. So I've had a look on the web. You never know.

I have just read a review of a book about silence. The reviewer's thought was about the difference between aloneness and loneliness. The freedom of solitude/ the freedom to do nothing/ the lack of obligation to do something. So I have ordered the book in case it might give me a clue.

... or as they say these days, "can't be arsed". I keep going into the garden to check on the pruning jobs that need to be done, snip a couple of shoots off, then retire indoors for a rest.

A couple of rounds of incompetent golf - I'm sure it is mental rather than physical, but I don't know what to do about it. I blame the hormone implant which was renewed last week.

I have been fiddling about with gas and electricity costs, and I am persuaded that the Thatcherite notion of competition lowering costs is a big fat failure. The whole energy scene is a cartel, and if there is a government body (Oftel, Ofgen, whatever), it is doing nothing to help the consumer. All the energy suppliers have different ways of calculating the amount they are going to take off you (standard charges per day or no charges, two tiers of charging or only one, and all the other mumbo-jumbo). I am so cross that I have knocked up a spreadsheet, on which I am entering the various companies' charges. I can find no significant bottom-line differences.

And I think that the so-called comparison websites are rubbish. They seem to apply charges so that their favourites (biggest bribers?) come out as best buys.

Yesterday was exhausting. We had organised a golf event, making up teams of four - two men and two women. It didn't start until 10am, and it became very hot and humid. The food wasn't going to appear until after four, so after a needful restorative pint I took the car home, had a shower, then took the 89 bus back up to the club. I was a bit knackered by this time, but a bottle of white and some interesting company made for an enjoyable meal. But then there was more grog, and the rain started to sluice down. It was the final pint that did for me, and a certain level of exhaustion at the end of a long day. Kind fellow-members gave me a lift me home, and I went to bed at once.

Imagine my surprise this morning when the alarm went off. I must have set it last night, so I wasn't too blotto, I was just very tired. I thought it was Saturday, but when I realised it was Friday I had to get up to test the notion that a round of golf is a good cure for a hangover. The key moment is on the first tee, when you bend down to tee up your ball. If you don't fall over, you'll be all right.

Then, after the game and the obligatory libation, I got into the car, turned the radio on and discovered that England were being slaughtered. I had to watch some of the ensuing carnage, but the weather forecast is set fair and doom is all around.

A quiet weekend coming up, as usual, with the occasional glance at the cricket in case the Aussies collapse. Which they won't.

And an early night.

... but nowt much else going on. The usual golf on Thursday and Friday, playing average. But the Test match is having some entertaining spells.

Saturday was a shamefully idle day. It rained at Edgbaston, and it rained here. I just let the day slip away. OK, I could have been doing useful stuff, but the idle bug has struck and I contirved to do nuffink.

Rick called from Stockholm airport on his way home from their Finland office. The kids are back from Mull this weekend, then they are off to their usual holiday in NW Spain. Brighton called on their way to Wales. They will be spending time with Bristol then going to the music festival whose name escapes me.

I am making some (reluctant) progress with the pruning. There are three or four years' worth to catch up on. So I tore myself away from the cricket and took a radio outside to listen to while I snipped. Then Flintoff and Prior started bashing the ball around so I had to go back indoors and watch. It's tea at the Test just now so I will keep on watching.

Supper is easy tonight, a simple chicken curry, so that's it. A "normal" week in prospect. I must take care not to overgolf myself. A likely story.