Prince Charles and Mugabe

The officials at the Vatican apparently sat HRH Prince Charles a couple of seats away from President Mugabe at the Pope’s funeral the other day. The world leader everyone loves to hate (even the Catholic Archbishop from Zimbabwe was against Mugabe attending) gets to sit a few seats away from Charles. Then at some point in the ceremony everyone gets to shake hands and Mugabe sticks his hand out to Charles and Charles accepts it.. So on the eve of his wedding, Charles handed Mugabe a bit of a public relations bonus and left everyone in the UK thinking that Charles shouldn’t be allowed out alone. Not to worry, he had a lot on his mind, what with the wedding and all. The seating plan was probably laid out by someone in the Vatican who still bears a grudge from Henry the Eighth's days and wanted to lead Charlie into a trap.

All this fuss about the Pope

So the Pope has been laid to rest today. It was quite a world event, wasn’t it? It was the “must attend” event of the year for world leaders – everybody from Hamid Kharzai to Tony Blair to a pair of Bushes and even the ostracized Robert Mugabe, who cannot visit the rest of Europe but can visit the independent Vatican City – apparently they are not so discriminating.

I must say it was refreshing to see the Guardian today with a Polly Toynbee article titled “The Vatican is a force for cruelty and hypocrisy”. At least one voice standing up to point out that the Catholic Church and the Pope have a less than perfect score on many concerns of the present day from the Church’s strict reaffirmation of abstinence versus contraception with all its consequences in a poverty stricken and AIDS-ridden Africa, to a serious failure to fully recognize the sexual conduct issues against priests in the USA. Ms Toynbee compares those paying homage to John Paul to those paying respects to Lenin – another leader that placed extreme ideology before human life and happiness. While I am sure the Pope was a nice fellow, even an exceptionally nice fellow, there’s probably something worth considering in all this, but it is something that is lost in this love-fest for the Pope.

The demise of the Smith's Arms

Last night I went out for a drink in what has always been the closest local pub to my home – The Smith’s Arms. It’s a sad place these days, but it has managed to hold on while the number of pubs in the UK has dramatically fallen. It is now being run by Bob Jacques, someone of my own age who I have known since I was quite young.

But I fear that the Smith’s Arms is not long for this world. Last night when we went in, we were the first customers in the Lounge bar and they had to turn the lights on for us. There were only 3 or 4 people in the other side, the Public Bar (for those Americans who don’t appreciate the difference - many English pubs have two areas – a Public Bar that is pretty basic and is definitely the workingman’s domain and a Lounge Bar that is slightly more salubrious and a more comfortable environment). One thing that doesn’t help with the Smith's Arms' business is the fact that Bob consistently serves pints that are short of the full measure. All glasses are marked with a pint mark and the metered pumps seem to serve up just a little less than a pint. That can’t be a wise move for a business that relies on repeat business from the local community.

The good news about the pubs in Staveley is that one of them, The Speedwell Inn, has been taken over by someone who brews his own beer on the premises and he does a good job of it. His business, Townes Brewery, seems to be doing well and he consistently wins awards for his beer from CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) folks.

Public Transportation

In California, I do not travel on public transport. I ride the few miles to work in my car each morning and I ride back home in the evening. It’s my own little environment heated or air conditioned to a pleasant temperature, with NPR on the radio, a cup of coffee in the cup holder – all is well in my private little world. However, every time I come to England I get to travel on public transport - the London Underground, the train to Chesterfield - and every time I do this, I realize what I am missing in my cocooned little life in Sacramento. It is good for us to brush up against the throngs of humanity from time to time and Public Transport allows us to do this.

I am not sure how I would feel about this if I were a regular public transport commuter. I would probably have a longing to get away from the seething masses. I am certain I would be desperate to get away from that annoying, and in my view, impolite intrusion of mobile phone calls into our communal public life. We just do not that affront on our senses and we just do not need to be privy to so much information about the personal lives of our fellow passengers.

I wonder what will happen when we get cell phone usage permitted on airlines. Will we have cell free seating zones on the plane – if so where will they be at the back or at the front? An argument for noise canceling headphones, which I have and which isolates me even more from my fellow travelers.

United Kingdom Bound

I am writing this in San Francisco airport on the way to the UK to pick up my mum. San Francisco International Terminal is a great terminal, quite spacious, very quiet at least whenever I go through it.

The wireless access is great though its only 802.11b, but it would be nice if there was one service you could sign up for and it would work in all situations. Here it is T Mobile, a few weeks ago in Denver it was ATT, you end up signing up for so many different services. What we need is multiple systems that are just ubiquitous and why on earth don't we have 802.11g.

It will be a very short trip and I will be back on Sunday, along with my mum - 86 and still traveling internationally, how about that!

Music Lessons

I have been taking guitar lessons for almost 2 years now. Half an hour, every week with Doug Pauly, a fine musician and an all around good guy. It would be fine but the playing is not getting a lot better, I am not naturally gifted in this area and everything comes very, very slowly and goes away very, very quickly. If a song doesn’t get practiced for a while then it’s gone.

So I was thinking of throwing it all in, stopping the lessons and just staying with what I have got up to this point. But then I decided to give it another try. I think there is evidence that playing a musical instrument might help stave off the ravages of senile dementia. Its just like my mum doing crosswords, it keeps the mind active. So for the foreseeable future or until I become too absent minded to remember anything I will stick with it.

The first post at Blogger

I have been playing around with a Blog hosted by Blogsome, who I think are an Irish company or group. It works well, but the performance sometimes is not so good and their support forums are very weak. So I thought I would try the big guys on the block, Blogger - now owned by Google, as they will no doubt be around for some time to come and they seem to have a feature rich environment.

I wonder if I can migrate my previous content to Blogger - I will have to look into that.

"Dead Wrong" Intelligence

It seems to me like there was this huge news story this week when the committee established to look into intelligence failure around WMDs and the Iraq war published their findings and - lo and behold - they found that the intelligence on Iraq and WMDs was “dead wrong”. So shouldn’t there be some sort of apology made, doesn’t this mean that we went to war for the “dead wrong” reason. Instead George W. welcomed the findings saying it was time to revamp the intelligence system. People have died and a significant amount of money has been frittered away for the wrong reason and no one says a thing.

It has all got buried in the news by the Terry Schiavo case and now the death of the Pope. Shame on us!

American River 50 Miler

Saturday was the American River 50 mile run from Sacramento to Auburn. It was the run that I was training for before I got sick with my extended cold/flu thing. So I bailed on the run some time ago, I just could not get back into shape in time. However, I did get to pace my buddy Chuck over that last 10 miles of the run from Rattlesnake Bar up to the finish in Auburn. This is a beautiful trail to run, along the North Fork of the American River and at this time of year, in the Spring, the wildflowers were out in all there splendor. The magazine Runners World has a rave run in each edition of their magazine, and this bit of trail upstream from Rattlesnake Bar has to be a candidate, it is spectacular, particularly this time of year.

So Chuck and Diane and Leslie and all the gang were doing very well and still running by mile 39 when I met them. They didn’t slow down too much either in the section up to Auburn, except for that last, oh so cruel, 3 miles uphill to the top of the canyon. The designers of this race certainly had a sense of humor when they made a 50 mile run go uphill – wouldn’t it be quite hard enough if it went in the downhill direction?

It was kind of bittersweet to be out there running only the last part of a run that I had worked so hard for. I guess there will always be next year – but the conditions were just perfect this year! Anyway congratulations to all - Chuck, Diane, Leslie, Marie, Karyn B, Karen T.

Downfall

I went to see the film Downfall this week. It's the German film about the last days of Hitler. It has been receiving some criticism for presenting Hitler in a too human and sympathetic light. He is seen in casual settings with his secretary, or sitting surrounded by the Goebbel's children, or petting his Alsatian dog, etc. I guess there was a feeling that showing him this way might strengthen the cause of current day Nazi sympathisers. I don’t think so. While it does show him at times in normal almost familial settings, for the most of the time he is delusional marshalling non-existent armies to rescue him in Berlin and ranting about the failures of his Generals and the German People. There is a chilling scene where Frau Goebbels methodically poisons each of her 5 children just so they don’t grow up in a world without National Socialism.

Interestingly when you Google Hitler and Downfall you get a lot of stuff about this film and then you also get Hitler, My Part in his Downfall by Spike Milligan. A very funny book about Spike Milligan’s escapades in the Second World War which I bought when I was in my teens and which I still have on my bookshelf. Spike Milligan was one of the Goons, and in my view one of the funniest people in British Comedy (and you know we have a lot of funny people in British Comedy). I had forgotten that he died back in 2002. He is responsible for such lines as:

- Money can't buy friends, but it can get you a better class of enemy.
- Chopsticks are one of the reasons the Chinese never invented custard.
- Contraceptives should be used on every conceivable occasion.
- All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy