That Damn Lard

I'm looking forward to this evening, when I'll have a visitor from Dublin, my first since moving to Manchester. My visitor is one of my two oldest friends, the leader of a childhood trio that was -- frankly -- rather wild. At any given moment in our youth we were bound to be wandering around our neighbourhood's more remote spots, doing things we, frankly, shouldn't have been doing.

We each had our preordained role. My visitor was the oldest, and had a legion of older brothers to inspire him; as such he was the leader, and it was his job to come up with ideas. His deputy's job was to get enthusiastic about them so we would actually carry them out. Mine, invariably, was to get caught, since I was always prone to stitches, which made it hard to run far.

Getting caught was generally not a problem though, since unless I had been apprehended by an adult, our leader was always able to return and point out that he had numerous older brothers. Faced with the implications of this, my captor would almost always let me go.

One of the few exceptions to this rule was a thoroughly lovely fella, a near neighbour of mine, who was one of my childhood nemeses. This was almost entirely my fault, since I rather spoiled our friendships by once dropping a large chunk of cement on his head. It was an accident, but for some reason he took it personally. I still can't see why. He needed less than a dozen stitches...

My scarred nemesis took to hassling me constantly. He stopped, however, after once foolishly approaching me in the presence of my visiting friend, who was on foot, and holding a stick. This gave him a massive tactical advantage over my nemesis, who was on a bike. I'm sure you can imagine what happened.

One whizzed past on his bike, the other waited patiently; the cyclist whizzed past again, and my visitor turned slightly, but did nothing; the rider tried to whizz past yet again - and my guest thrust the stick between the spokes of the front whell. The poor bastard was hurled headlong over the handlebars. Quite a nasty gash he wound up with on his leg as I recall. Ah well. Kids, eh?


Many other anecdotes could follow, but I'd be here for weeks. Instead, one will do.

You may have heard this already... still, when's that ever stopped me before? In the mid-1980's Irish summers were phenomenally wet. I don't actually remember this, but I am assured that this was the case, and I certainly have very clear memories of glorious Septembers as we returned to school.

Well, on one particularly wet day, which itself followed several other insanely wet days, the three of us headed down to the local field. This is a field about two minutes' walk from my house, with several football pitches, some scrubby bushes at the edges, and back then, far too many marauding horses. Running through the field is a stream, or more accurately, an open storm drain.

It used to be possible to climb into the pipes from where the stream flowed, and indeed one gobshite once did so on a school sports day -- climbing through storm drains not being an approved activity so much as one engaged in by the dossers at the fringes -- but slipped and fell. When he emerged with tears running down his face he was covered in green slime. I think the rats may have scared him too. Ah well. But I digress.

Well, on this rainy day in, say, 1983, my guest decided that it would be good if we could dam the stream. Needless to say, we thought this was the best idea ever, so, well-armoured in raincoats and wellies, we began wading along the stream, hopping from rock to rock, gathering as many rocks as we could carry and piling them up.

We made a pretty impressive wall, which, of course, had no ability whatsoever to prevent any water from getting through. This was a problem, and my guest's oft-proclaimed and -- let's face it -- nonexistent knowledge of building wasn't helping us. My visitor's Dad, I should mention, was a builder. So, rather stuck for how to make our 'Dam' work, the three of us began scouring the stream and its banks in a determined quest to find something that would somehow enable the dam to actually function as a dam.

Amazingly, we found something. Something which astonishes me even to this day. Near where the pipes fed the stream, where the water was shallowest, was a giant slab of lard. It must have been a foot-and-a-half square. I had no idea that lard was available in anything larger than the little white bricks, which, as Eddie Izzard points out, tend to lie at the back of supermarket fridges, bearing the simple red legend 'LARD'.

What am I saying? That's projecting my later mystification. I had never even heard of lard then! All I knew, instinctively, that this strange white malleable slab was 'cow fat', and what's more, waterproof...

(And no, I have no idea how it got there. This happened. I'm not making it up.)

So, needless to say, we took the lard to the dam, and began to break it up into smaller bits, which we moulded and rubbed between our hands, before shoving it into the dam, plugging all the holes, cementing it over, and waterproofing the whole thing. And it worked. Okay, it wasn't very big, but it did succeed in forcing the stream to fill up behind it, driving the waterlevel up a good couple of feet. Somebody had to come and break it down a couple of days later. Deep down, all three of us consider that day one of our finest achievements.

Unfortunately, there were side effects. The most worrying was the fact that this slab of lard had been lying in a storm drain for ages, and smelled worse than usual. And we'd been playing with it. And it was waterproof.

So we stank. For days.

But it was worth it.

A Brutal Hero of a Selfish Century

With reference to my Churchill rant the other day, I found this article very interesting. It was in the G2 supplement of today's Guardian. When I say today, I technically mean yesterday, of course. This is because I blog at ridiculous times.

One very striking omission from the 100 Greatest Britons list was Saint Patrick, who was almost certainly a Romano-Celt from north Wales, southern Scotland, or the stretch of England's coast in between. Do you reckon he didn't get in because nobody thinks of him as British? Unlike Bono and the Duke of Wellington, say? In fact, I reckon that the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great would be a far more credible entrant than either of them. He was at least half-British, since his mother Helena is thought to have been from Britannia, while he himself was first hailed as Emperor by his troops at Eboracum - modern York - in 306. Could the first 'Christian' Emperor of Rome be a credible nominee for the list?

In other news, I watched a fascinating documentary earlier this evening, called Century of the Self. I think it was on BBC back in May, but a friend managed to track down a copy of it on video, and I watched the first part of it, 'Happiness Machines,' today. It was focussed on how Freud's American nephew, Edward Bernays, used (or abused?) his uncle's ideas in order to manipulate the masses. His ideas were applied in wartime to help get America behind the war effort in WWI, and at the Versailles conference afterwards: there was a highly amusing shot of the very aged Bernays in 1991 munching away and making strange slurping noises, declaring 'Democracy for all nations: that was our big slogan...'

His ideas were used in peacetime too, as he took Freud's ideas and showed big companies how people's unconscious desires could be manipulated so they could be persuaded to want and buy things that they didn't need. Impressively, he seems to have been almost single-handedly responsible for persuading women to take up smoking; he associated it with freedom, and in one spectacular coup had a team of 'suffragettes' light their 'torches of freedom'. Women apparently really only took up smoking after that stunt.

In politics too his ideas proved very useful. Calvin Coolidge and Franklin D. Roosevelt used his ideas to great effect, but in the long term it seems that it was Roosevelt's opponents in big business who really gained from Bernays' techniques... managing to link democracy with unfettered free-market capitalism in the modern mind. I'm not sure about this, but these two concepts seem to go hand in hand nowadays; could Bernays be responsible for this?

Local Affairs

So anyway. Talking of curries. Not that we were, but suppose that was the case.

I saw an amusing sign yesterday in a curry shop in Rusholme. It said Radio Ramadan, but had a big letter 'R' shared by both words. Passing by quickly, I thought it said 'Radio Amadán.' This amused me. Amadán is an Irish word that essentially means idiot or cretin. Radio Gobshite, basically. Look, it made me smile, anyway, right.

For those of you whose experience of Manchester has been limited, for whatever reason, Rusholme is south of the city centre, between Fallowfield and the University area. The stretch of Oxford Road in the heart of Rusholme is known outside Manchester as the 'Curry Mile'. Strangely, I haven't yet heard anybody here call it that. There are at least forty Indian Restaurants and Kebab shops along a short distance of road, along with several rather dodgy fried chicken joints - Hentuky Fried Chiken is probably my favourite. (That's how it's spelled. Really.) Not that I've eaten there, I just like the name. Other places have clearly opened attempted to be traditional English chippies and eventually cracked, now predominantly dealing in 'clay oven cuisine'. Not a fish in site. If anybody has any particular spots there they can recommend, stick it in the comments box, since I'll probably be going on Friday and have only been to two of the multitude...

The whole street is filled with tasteless neon lights. When I first saw it in September of last year I thought I would never get used to it. Amazingly, it only took about a week.

There's a fun poster up there at the minute, asking 'Can you MC?' and 'Can you sing in Hindi, Urdu, or Punjabi?' It's for Asian Starsearch. If only I could enter...

One of the oddest places there is an Internet Cafe and call centre, which also sells dodgy phones. Some people call it the 'Call Boots place,' after the badly spelled sign outside, but I've always favoured 'Taliban Central'. At the start of last year, when my University computer account wasn't working, I did all my mailing from there, since it was the cheapest place I could find. Funds were, as ever, in short supply. Their screen savers, get this, were pictures of Osama Bin Laden. And this was mid-September.

I don't mind telling you, I was a bit concerned.

Residential Madness

Anyway, so much for Rusholme. What about my ever so fascinating life? Well, I'm afraid I have a bad conscience. I'm a bad man. I've done bad things. I've been more than a little cruel to some of the girls here. Some people, it must be said, are natural targets, but even so... I'm a bad man.

We have three highly peculiar girls here, all of whom are absolutely barmy. Which is not to say that they're not nice, just that they're bonkers. Two Germans, and a French girl who hates children but wants to be a teacher. Don't ask. And lately I have been tapping wells of vitriol and venom that people here have never seen, and calmly skewering the girls at mealtimes. I haven't meant to, at least not systematically, but that's been the overall effect.

It started, I think, with their George Clooney Night. The girls got out three G.C. videos and put up posters for their big girlie night in the common room. The following morning they were all at breakfast and Sylvie, the French one, turned to Marlisa, asking in a rather pointed fashion, 'And where were you last night, Marlisa?' She was clearly expected to have been sitting in with the girls. I have no idea what she would have said, but my own rather sharp response, uttered while violently pronging a worryingly greasy hunk of bacon, was 'She was off having a life.' This was the beginning. For the next three days I played funny mind games with Anne, one of the Germans, dropping wordbombs into the conversation in order to puzzle and confuse her. Or just staring at her left ear. That's a classic. It gets everybody. Try it some time. As for Judith, whose surname is Mueller, she was taken to task one day for paying her hall fees with yoghurt rather than money - we'd all got mueller yoghurts for dessert. And she defended herself as though I was seriously convinced that she had done this. Bizarre. Another time she believed me when I told her how one of the lads in hall was a burglar... he leaves the building late at night with his cellar turned up, a scarf covering up to his mouth, a hat pulled down low, and a big bag on his back. It might as well be marked 'swag'.

Sylvie is deeply nuts. She goes bright red whenever I wink at her, so I do that a lot. However, my tormenting of her may have gone too far. She likes to stick signs on her door- fair enough. On weekends, she's had ones telling people to be quiet in the corridors after eight o'clock, since she needed to sleep because of teaching during the week. I'm sorry, Sylv. Get earplugs, or move out. People will keep it down later, but eight o'clock? Please. That's not her only sign. Her best one featured a list of locations where she could be found - a lump of blu-tak was stuck on the sheet, to be moved about as a marker. The locations were fairly comprehensive: 'In'; 'Out'; 'In here sick'; 'with Judith or Francesco'; 'you shouldn't care'; and my favorite, 'So out I'm not even in Manchester'. Well, faced with such a list, and such an opportunity, and indeed, such a freak, what could any right thinking citizen possibly do except shift the blu-tak on every possible occasion? Every time I passed by Sylvie's room, which was fairly frequent, I moved the marker. How could I have done otherwise? Ask yourselves whether you could have resisted such a temptation? And, I must point out, I was not the only such offender.

Well, this obviously annoyed Sylvie. Today, like Popeye, she clearly thought to herself 'I can't stands no more!'

A new notice joined the location sign. It read, more-or-less, as follows:

Dear Messer About,

It is my privilege to move my blu-tak on my sign to let my friends know where I am. If I find out who you are, you will need to run very fast and very far to avoid being caught.... I can't remember the next bit, but it ended with ... Yours, pissed off, Sylvie.

Well, there was only one thing for it. I took the blu-tak, broke it into three pieces to represent her fractured personality, placed one bit to indicate that she was in but sick, another to show that she was so out she wasn't even in Manchester, and a third beside her signature on the new notice.

This may have been a step too far.

She took both signs down, and stuck up a new one, which Shaw told me about, unaware of my mischief. I went to see it, and was deeply impressed. It reads as follows: Those who care will remember who lives here and will know where I am. Those who don't, well, F--- them! A direct quotation there. I've just been to check. Good though, eh? Do you like that wonderfully Gallic mixture of nonchalance and defiance?

Marlisa popped into my room while I was working this evening, and I began assembling a door notice of my own. In a particularly whacky font, it read more-or-less as follows:

'Ello. Je m'appelle Sylvie.

Je suis:

bonkers

Several sandwiches short of a picnic

demented

loopy

nuts

a fruitcake

so out of my mind that I'm not even in Manchester

a potential bunny-boiler

French

I decided against putting it on her door. I reckoned that might consititute harassment. Comedy harassment, but harassment nevertheless. Would there be anything wrong with putting it on my door though? Hmmm.

Perhaps Sylvie could let me use her blu-tak.

Jupiter's Darling Elephants

Tonight I found myself sitting more-or-less silently at a meeting, being uncharacteristically and inexplicably uncommunicative, before watching the rather peculiar Man United and Basle match. United letting a goal in after only 31 seconds! How weird was that? And then I talked to Marlisa and Eddie, listened to an old Ani DiFranco compilation I made at one point, and drank tea. And now I'm awake...

Last night, I should say, I watched Eddie Izzard's Definite Article with Jenny and Shaw; having previously only seen the skillfully edited Channel Four highlights of it before, I was suitably impressed with the full version. With the mice, and Rabbi Burns. The Hannibal sequence is an absolute masterpiece... admittedly, I'm biased on that one, since I did my master's on Hannibal's finest hour, but I think most people would agree. Echoes of Monty Python's 'Dead Parrot Sketch' in it, when the shopowner tells Hannibal 'Sorry, fresh out of skis...sold the last pair just a minute ago to...ur...someone....I've got some elephants!'

On which, there was a musical about Hannibal once, which amazes me. Jupiter's Darling, made by MGM in the mid-fifties at some point. Truly bizarre and wonderful. I think it was meant to have been a comedy; I certainly hope so, since few films have made me laugh so much ...Withnail and I, Ghostbusters when I was a child, Far and Away, Redneck Zombies... a few more. Yeah, anyway, the film is set in Italy in 216 BC, just after the Roman wipeout at Cannae. You may have heard me mention that skirmish at some point. Amytis, played by Esther Williams, is the wife or lover or something of Fabius Maximus, the Roman Emperor, if I recall correctly - rather anachronistic, but let it go. He's played by George Sanders. Amytis and Hannibal, unforgettably played by Howard Keel, fall in love, and Amytis tries to persuade him to cease his war with Rome.

The film is divine rubbish. Every scene with George Sanders is priceless ... basically imagine Shere Khan in a toga and you're most of the way there. For once, Esther Williams doesn't spend the whole film swimming about, which is a bit of a waste (bit of a waist! boom! boom!), though she does get to sing 'I have a Dream' and cavort about in a memorable underwater dance routine with a load of moving statues. I feel as though I've done violence to the English language by using the word 'routine' in that sentence. There's clearly nothing routine about dancing with moving statues. A possible exception might be Ireland in around 1984 or thereabouts... even then I don't think anybody danced with them. They just watched them cry. Or something. But I digress. Other fabulous bits include Hannibal singing 'I Never Trust a Woman,' and 'Hannibal's Victory March,' where Howard Keel sings: I'm so far from home / I've come to conquer Rome! and his men cheer him by singing Hannibal! Oh Hannibal! We are the men of Hannibal!

There's also a ludicrous subplot involving Hannibal's slave, who sings 'If This is Slavery (I don't want to be free)' and Amytis' handmaiden, who were in real life a husband-and-wife team. At one point she asks him in exasperation 'Haven't you any manners at all?' and he proudly replies 'No, I'm a barbarian!' Stirring stuff, eh? They have an incredible and indeed thoroughly absurd setpiece where they sing and dance along to 'The Life of an Elephant.' That's the other weird thing about the film. There were shitloads of elephants in it. Hannibal had thirty-seven to start with, and within a year all bar one were dead. Of course, that'd be pretty unspectacular, so this fim has ganseyloads of them. It's like that film in Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures that was advertised as featuring 'One Thousand Elephants!' In Jupiter's Darling the elephants dance. And some are painted pink.

I'm rambling, amn't I? I should go to bed, and at least try once more to sleep...

The Greatest Briton? Really?

I was about to do a big nostalgic piece today, but more important matters have come up.

Winston Churchill is apparently the greatest Briton ever. Hmmmm. I suppose this was inevitable. What with the Second World War being just about the only thing on the British history curriculum, most people seem to think that Britain's 'finest hour' was more-or-less Britain's only hour. How could there have been any other result? Unless the Di brigade had come out in force....

I must admit, I'm a little puzzled at John Lennon having done so well. A couple of years back, if i remember rightly -- and I haven't checked so don't just take my word for it -- Channel 4 and HMV organised a poll in which John Lennon was ranked as only the second most important musician of the millennium, a nose ahead of that little-known Austrian Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Well, it should be noted that the winner of the poll, the person regarded by most Britains who voted as the most influential musician since the year 1000 AD, was the illustrious Robbie Williams. Since Mr Williams is undoubtedly a Briton, surely he, and not Mr Lennon, should have pride of place among the nation's greatest children?

Incidentally, I see that said Mr Williams is to perform in Dublin's Phoenix Park early next August, to an estimated crowd of 120,000 people, and presumably a few deer. This will be the biggest gathering in Dublin since the visit of the Pope in 1979, of which I have hazy -- but I'm sad to say very real -- memories. More than a million people were in the Park that day, which is a bit weird, considering that there were only about five million on the whole island at the time, a million of whom weren't even nominally Catholics. Williams' response to hearing this was typically 'witty'. If I may cite the great man: "Great billing, eh? The Pope and me. But his last album wasn't up to much, John Paul Sings the Blues, I think it was."

It might have been funnier had similar jokes not been made by Irish people on at least four million other occasions over the last twenty-odd years.

The eminent Robbie also claimed he was "bigger than Bono," which is a useful link to bring me back to the main thrust of this blog.

Bono, Bob Geldof, and Arthur Wesley, later Wellesey, the first Duke of Wellington all made the top hundred Britons list, but thankfully didn't make the top ten. This is probably just as well, since none of them were actually British. Irishmen all, I have to say. At this point, I suspect, someone is ready to pipe up with that Wellington nonsense about being born in a stable not making one a horse. Fair enough, he probably has Jesus on his side on that one, but it's worth pointing out that not merely was Wellington born in Ireland, of an established Anglo-Irish family, but he also was married to one of the Longfords, spent many years as MP for Trim, a seat traditionally held by the Wesley family, and was even appointed Chief Secretary in 1807. The Peninsular War, Waterloo, and his stint as Prime Minister, during which he ushered in Catholic Emancipation, came later. Incidentally, he was one of only three non-Royals ever to get a state funeral in the United Kingdom, the others being William Gladstone and Winston Churchill.

Which by an admittedly circuitous route brings me back to the point. Why was Churchill picked? Ahead of Newton, or Brunel, or Elizabeth I, or Shakespeare, for Heaven's sake! What were people thinking?

The short answer is World War Two, where he was undoubtedly the right man for the job, once the UK was in that mess and hanging on my the skin of her teeth. The rest of his career though was basically a shambles, which makes it odd that people should revere him now. But then, see my opening comments about modern 'education'.

Look at the First World War: who bears the blame for the farce that was the Dardanelles campaign in general and Gallipoli in particular? Yep, good old Winnie.

And who was Secretary of State for War and the Air during the Irish War of Independence? Fancy that, Winnie again. Dear old W.C., if I may be so familiar, was opposed to the deployment of regular troops in Ireland to fight the IRA and instead favoured the RIC being backed up with irregular units - the Auxiliaries and the Black and Tans, who have such a fond place in Irish hearts.

He also was a big fan of the idea of chemical warfare, even after the miseries of the First World War: with reference to the Kurds and Iraqis in particular he commented "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes." Charming.

Let's also not forget that despite popular mythology, prior to the Second World War he was hardly a Lone Prophet in the Wilderness who predicted the rise and threat posed by the Nazis only to be ignored by the British establishment. Appeasement was a policy largely designed to buy time for the British and French to build up their armed forces so they could credibly challenge Germany. Everybody knew war was coming.

I also tend not to approve of his expectations that Ireland would be a willing vassal for Britain in the war, but that's a personal thing. And of course, there's Dresden. Perhaps 135,000 people killed -- probably rather less, but certainly an incredible number -- in the firestorm on the night of 13 February 1945. Arguably history's greatest single war crime, carried out by the 'good guys', when the war had basically been won.

In his favour, however, it must be said that he could on occasion come up with the odd decent put-down, and was, along with Adenauer and De Gaulle, an advocate of a United Europe... so I guess he wasn't all bad.

I have no idea who I would have picked as the greatest Briton... I'd be tempted to pick Newton, but if the English language is indeed the greatest British contribution to the world, as Melvyn Bragg argued in yesterday's Observer, then I guess it has to be a writer. Despite his cosmic canvas, Milton's too narrow, and Chaucer not so much British as English -- in many ways he invented what it is to be English, or at least immortalised it. It has to be Shakespeare then, really, doesn't it?

A cliche, perhaps, but only because it's true.

Evertonian Parallels

And, once again, another Manchester night ends not with a bang, but with a whimper....

It took ages to get to Liverpool, and my aunt was convinced that I wasn't coming; I had said I'd be there round lunchtime, and instead turned up at half four or so. On the Liverpool Underground to Maghull I sat opposite some young lad who appeared to be assembling the kind of football boots Tomas de Torquemada would have favoured. They consisted of a metal rack with spikes on, to which one would attach rubber studs so as to avoid killing people inadvertently. I presumed that this would somehow be fastened on to the 'shoe' part of the boot, and wondered how on earth people could play when armed (legged?) with such devices. My football knowledge is rather limited, I fear.

Needless to say, I was completely wrong. A couple of young ones came and sat next to me, and after gazing at the tortureshoes for no more than a minute, they asked what they were. Crampons, it turned out. The studs were just so he didn't maim people by accident when carrying them or putting them on; they'd be removed when he was clambering across ice or whatever. The girls were a bit on the chirpy side, and began chatting to me too, taking great delight in my accent. Which was odd, since I'd woken up with no voice at all today, so I sounded like a softly spoken Shane MacGowan.

Spent the evening in my aunt's once I finally got there. Weird to see my cousin John, who I hadn't seen since I was five - twenty-two years. Chatted to him, and my aunt, and my cousin Catherine, until the rest of the clan began to return from the match. The family are fanatical Evertonians, and needless to say* were happy with today's result. Results, in fact, since not only did Everton beat West Brom, but Liverpool and Arsenal both lost. Which means that Everton are now third in the Premiership, two points behind Liverpool and three behind Arsenal. And this despite having scored only three more goals than they've conceded. 1-0 results will do that for you. Some people are getting cocky about this pointing out that last time Everton were this high at this stage of the season was 1987, when they won, but to be honest, I think most Evertonians would be happy enough with a place in the top half of the table. Against that, that's how they would have felt a few weeks back. Expectations seem to be rising now.

How does this tally with my previous observation that my football knowledge is rather limited? Put simply, I'm about as devoted an Evertonian as I am devout a Catholic. I'm not exactly the most fanatical supporter of the club, but I would never dream of supporting another one, and I have followed its fortunes with interest (and increasing dismay until this season) since I was a child. And I've been to Goodison a few times. I'd like to go more often, but it never works out...

That's quite an apt parallel, really.

Good day for sport overall, with Ireland managing a sixth straight win in Rugby, beating Argentina 16-7 in Lansdowne Road. This is particularly encouraging, since Argentina have beaten us the last couple of times we've played. And of course, England destroyed South Africa, which was only fair, considering the disgusting and vicious way the South Africans played. That barge into Wilkinson was the sort of thing that could end a career.

Anyway, with David, Clare, and Tommy having arrived, we sat and chatted for a while, and then Clare was to head back to Manchester since her husband Tony and the kids were ahead of her, having gone on after the match. I scadged a lift, which was far better than spending another two-and-a-half hours cutting between buses and trains. She brought me out to the house first to see the clan. Lauren, the eldest girl, was delighted to see me, and asked straight away: 'Will you be staying over, Uncle Gregory?' I was sorry to say that I wasn't, since I was meant to be going out. Still, I'll see them soon enough, please God.

Clare drove me back, and I soon met up with Shaw, Jenny, Eve, and Eddie in the pub, being joined shortly afterwards by Sandra and Alex. Apathy had clearly set in over the day, though I'm not sure when, since the girls were probably on a high, having been at Old Trafford earlier (Shaw supports United despite being American, Jenny supports Newcastle despite being a Canadian who's lived in Oxford most of her life - odd, but so it goes); whatever had happened, plans to go dancing had been quietly shelved.

So when the bar shut, we came home. How exciting are we?

***

As an afterthought. Heinrich has mailed me a link to the following quiz: http://nationalgeographic.com/geo_survey/. It's a sample of twenty questions from that geography test that's been in the news lately, since it seems to indicates that only about three per cent of Americans can find their way home from school, church, the mall, the local gun shop, wherever. To be fair, it looks like most of the rest of the world is not much better, while Mexicans clearly never go outside their front doors.

My brother is apparently tempted to include some of those questions in the pub quiz he organises in Kansas City, where he lives. I think it's in McBrides pub, though I might be wrong. So if you'd care to fly in on the relevant day, you might have a head start in his quiz. I'm not surev that would justify the journey, but if you're doing nothing better....

* ('So why,' you ask with some justification, 'are you saying it?' To which I answer, 'Well, it is my site... if you have a problem with it, get your own.'

Do that anyway, in fact, and then we can compete to see who has the more mundane site. I'd recommend some good blogsites I like to you, but think I should check with their bloggers before sticking in any links.)

Sometimes a violation of rights is just a violation of rights

Right so. 131 drunk words... thanks to Nadia and the brother for 'hammered' and 'cabbaged' respectively. Off to Liverpool for the day shortly, but before I go, funny story from the Guardian, which I originally read in The Comics Journal:

It's oblique, but this brings to mind a story I once heard about Sigmund Freud when he was stuck in Vienna during the German annexation. After his house had been ransacked, he was offered the opportunity to leave the country with as much as he could carry, provided he signed a statement, thoughtfully prepared for him in advance, declaring that his rights had not been violated in any way. The father of psychoanalysis acquiesced, and added his own handwritten note: "I would recommend the Gestapo to anyone."

Nocturnal Clerihews

Insomnia sucks. I've been back in halls since about half eleven, having shown my face at a friend's birthday bash in town, and sleep, I am rather sorry to say, isn't remotely in the horizon. Neither is anything resembling work. Ah well. Spotted an amusing Clerihew earlier on. A Clerihew is a short and deeply unmetrical biographical (for want of a better word) poem, invented by E.C. Bentley and the great G.K. Chesterton when they were in school together. Examples include things like:

It was a weakness of Voltaire's

To forget to say his prayers,

And one which to his shame

He never overcame.

and:

Sir Christopher Wren

Went to dine with some men.

He said 'If anyone calls,

Tell them I'm designing St Pauls.'

I've probably misquoted that, since it's from memory. The one I saw today was a modern one, by a 'Buffy' fan, so Andrea, Holly, and Edel, enjoy:

The vampire slayer Buffy

Is a toughie.

Oh no, for heavens sake!

Another commercial break?

Okay, 'amusing' was too strong a word. A better option would have been 'mildly droll'. I'm tired now. One more attempt to sally into the arms of Morpheus, so....

Quenching Thirst the Masada Way

Glad to see the Drunken Thesaurus is getting a response. Between Ann Marie's 'nished as a pewt', Holly's 'pickled', Erin's 'two sheets to the wind', and my recollection of 'three sheets to the wind' we got up to 127. This morning at breakfast I was also offered the Glaswegian term 'shwallied' by James and Dave offered me the Cornish phrase 'he's got a bit of a lean on', which I like a lot. That brings us to 129, an impressive tally so far. Dave also offered 'bloggied' and 'frankled', but I think he was making them up... a steward's enquiry could be required.

James used to be in the army, and having mentioned the Glasgow word 'shwallied' he was reminded of some exercise years ago, when himself and a couple of other soldiers were climbing mountains somewhere in Cyprus, taking their water from camelbacks they were wearing. A 'camelback', in case you don't know, is a backpack which holds water. There's a tube from the pack which you clip on to a strap or something, so that you can suck the nozzle when you need a drink. At one point one of the soldiers, a Glaswegian, couldn't carry on, even though he had plenty of water, since he hadn't even the energy to suck it. Or as he put it, 'Ah have nae sook'.

Reminded me of my Masada experience. A couple of years ago I was in the Holy Land with Josh, a Canadian friend of mine (who I hope is reading this...), just a few weeks before the current intifada kicked off. While there we climbed Masada, the steep hill where in the first century AD the Jewish Zealots made their last stand against their Roman rulers and then committed mass suicide. Masada is very, very steep, and is at the Dead Sea, basically the hottest place in the world. As a result, whenever they get an urge to climb it, the Israeli army do so at about four in the morning, reckoning that it's too hot to do so at any other time. Josh and I, on the other hand, had a pretty tight schedule, and an even tighter budget. Having left Jordan the previous day and stayed overnight in Eilat, we stopped off at Masada on our way to Jerusalem. As a break. So we climbed Masada at noon.

This is not recommended behaviour. Kids, don't try this at home.

I drank a litre-and-a-half of water before even beginning the climb, and over the course of it managed to finish an entire Platypus ( A 'Platypus' is a cheapo camelback; mine carries a litre-and-a-half) and two bottles of water. All in all, I reckon I drank between five and five-and-a-half litres within an hour. And still I was wrecked at the top. I basically collapsed into the guardroom at the top of the Snake Path, and didn't move, as Josh dug out from his bag the horrible dried out pitta breads we'd bought the previous day and struggled to eat while on the bus from Eilat. They tasted fantastic. This is what exhaustion does to you. Two French girls who we'd passed on the way up eventually came in, with beetroot faces and just collapsed on the floor. We looked on with mild interest, and then concentrated on our food...

Once we'd energy to waste on words - I usually have, but this was an exception - I remarked that what would be ideal at that point was a Pepsi machine, just standing in the corner. We'd developed a great fondness for the drink a couple of days earlier, when we'd staggered out of Petra after a particularly gruelling day and made straight for a fast food van - nothing had ever tasted so refreshing...

Josh agreed, and then bizarreness began to set in. Maybe it was the heat. I don't know. Either way, we sketched out what we thought would be a brilliant marketing campaign for Pepsi.

Imagine.... A long shot of an Indiana Jones type archaeologist trekking all the way up Masada, finally arriving at one of the ancient world's most important sites. He reaches the top, and we get a close up on his face, filled with delight. He doesn't even pause to look around, but walks purposefully to... a Pepsi machine. He sticks in his coin, and out comes the can. Ice cold. Bejewelled with droplets of condensation. He picks it up, pulls back the lid, gulps it down, chucks the empty can in the bin, turns around, and sets off back down the hill. Who gives a shit about the ruins?

(Maybe he could keep the can as an artefact? Or maybe he wouldn't have change, and would have to go back empty-handed and deeply pissed off... who knows?)

You could use loads of similar sites. Hacking through the Cambodian jungles to get to Angkor would be good, as would anywhere in South America - Machu Picchu, which I can't spell, would be the obvious choice, but maybe Mayan ruins would be better. Opening shots could maybe feature him sitting in a seedy bar or market, talking to the locals in hushed tones about where 'It' is to be found, to be followed with the appropriate shot of the hero hacking through jungles, climbing mountains, whatever.... subtitles would add to the flavour as well....

Sadly, we lacked a Pepsi machine, and so had to go look at the ruins. Which were only mildly interesting. Cool to be there though.

Currying No Favours

Weird conversation on the bus yesterday. I was heading in towards University with my mate Marlisa, when a deeply strange conversation began on the seat behind us. I at first thought it was somebody telling his mate a story, with incredibly bad dialogue, while M thought it was some amateur drama thing.

I missed the opening of the conversation, and only noticed what was going on when when voices were raised.

'Shut up woman. Shut up woman. Shut up.'

'No. You shut up.'

'Shut up woman.'

'You shut up.'

'You can't take up both seats woman. You've only paid for one.'

'Shut up.'

'If you were a bloke I'd hit you.'

'Go on then. I'd like to see you try.'

'What would you do then? Would you call your pigs?'

The woman didn't reply, and the guy continued to berate her, calling her a pigshagger, which I found rather odd. At this point I still had no idea what they were fighting about, or what they looked like, but then the guy stood up and strode up the bus towards the driver. He was a fairly tall Indian, perhaps around thirty, with a black jacket, thick glasses, and hair which would be better described as a hairdon't than a hairdo. Think Sideshow Bob. I glanced over my shoulder to see his antagonist, a plump and bespectacled woman in her late sixties, at a guess, with short grey hair and a burberry scarf.

On reaching the driver's window the Indian guy announced 'Driver! There's a woman back here who's taking up two seats. She's only paid for one. She's taking up two seats!' The driver clearly didn't give a toss, especially since there were loads of free seats. Somebody offered yer man a seat but he declined, instead opting to go back and squeeze in next to the woman with whom he'd been squabbling.

Before he sat down he announced 'She says she doesn't like curry!' Somebody then leaned towards the woman and suggested 'Well, don't eat it, then.'

How weird was that? The woman was presumably some racist old bat, who on having an Indian sit next to her, felt a need to declare that she didn't like curry. Or perhaps I'm being too harsh. Perhaps she really had issues with curry, and told everybody she met of her problems... it just happened to be her bad luck that she chose an Indian as the person to whom she let off steam. Maybe she's been force-fed curry in her old folks home, and has been holding back for ages, but months or even years of curry hatred just erupted yesterday? Somehow, I think the first theory more likely, though.

Oxford Road bus drivers, while I'm at it, are a curious breed. Not a dangerous breed, mind. That term is generally reserved for wallabies in Rolf Harris songs. But I digress. Now and again you get the hyperactive, deleriously happy ones, who make announcements the whole way along the road, trying to brighten up people's lives, and usually just provoking irritation. There's actually a superior version of that breed back on my old bus route in Dublin, but again I digress. More often you get the Finglands drivers, who are brilliant. They lean out the windows smoking, give the fingers to other drivers and even the odd passenger, and have their mates come and hang out on the buses. One yesterday, I'm told, appeared to be stoned, and indeed the bus reeked of weed.

'Dat ist niet Amsterdam - This is Manchester' as the posters around Piccadilly Gardens used to say.

And to sign off with a crap joke:

Mein Hund hat keine Nase!

Wie riecht er?

Furchtbar!

PS - By the way, I see Ireland only managed a 0-0 draw with Greece last night. I have no idea how the match went, as I was at a long and rambling meeting, but presumably Frank's web site wcfan.com will soon have something to say about it.

An Exploratory Drunken Thesaurus

It troubles me that I cannot restrain myself when I start typing, and wind up with absurdly large blogs. Holly von Frankenstein, you've created a monster.

Thanks for the comments, people. Denise, could you perhaps mail me Tara's address, since the one I have no longer works? Deirdre, I shall gladly meet with you for a snifter of porter or two over the Christmas... it has been too long since we sat and consumed all oxygen for miles around with our incessant word-production. Edel, thank you for the Angel explanatory notes - Hol, Jenny, Shaw and others have all told me who's who, but it has strangely gone in one ear and out the other ever time. Somehow in print it seems far more real. Which is more real, the written or the spoken word? Must read Plato's 'Phaedrus' on this one.... hmmm. I also have no idea what URL and AIM mean, I'm afraid, though I know that whenever I post a comment on somebody else's site I put the address for this one, beginning with http:// in the URL box. Maybe Diarmait can enlighten us?

Speaking of which, Diarmait, I'm not entirely sure that the 100 Best Selling Singles list was the result of prepubescent taste and purchasing power. Years ago Bill Hicks was disgusted by the admittedly short-lived primacy of Debbie Gibson and Tiffany, and wondered how much babysitting money was floating around. But the list generally didn't reflect that sort of thing, at least not at the top. Take That had only one song, the Spice Girls had two, and Will, Gareth, and Hearsay all showed their faces, but an equally impressive showing was made by soppy ballads such as 'Everything I do...', 'Love is in the Air', 'I will always love you', and 'My Heart will go on' . Grannies bought that ridiculous 'Candle in the Wind '97' while everybody bought 'Do they know it's Christmas?'. I'm not sure who bought 'Mull of Kintyre'. Former Beatles fans, I guess. And mothers.

Anyway, here's a challenge for you. You know that thing whereby eskimos allegedly have four zillion words for snow, or something? Shaw tells me it's not true, but work with me here...

Well, a couple of years ago, while perpetuating national stereotypes in an admittedly troubling way, I wondered how many words or phrases Irish people used to indicate that somebody was drunk. Lots, I guessed. Maybe twenty or thirty. I've given this matter some thought, and having taken on board suggestions from English, Scottish, Canadian, and American friends, I've come up with a list of one hundred and twenty three terms of intoxication! I'm not sure what this says about me in particular or English speakers in general, but I think you'll agree that this is an impressive list. And I suspect there are many more. So, if you have any suggestions for possible additions to my 'Drunken Thesaurus' I'd like to hear them. Stick them in the comments box.

Here's my list, in pseudo-alphabetical order:

Arseholed, Ar meisce (an Irish phrase, but one I think worth including because Irish people will on occasion throw it into an English sentence), Armchaired, Annihilated, Blotto, Buckled, Blitzed, Blasted, Bluthered (primarily Scottish, I believe), Befuddled, Blathered, Bladdered, Boosy, Bollixed, Beery, Bombed, Binned, Binnered, Badgered, Cut, Drunk, Drunk as a lord, Drunk as a skunk (really just intensifications of 'drunk' but since you can't be 'pissed as a skunk' or 'tipsy as a lord' I reckoned they were worth including), Didn’t know your own name, Destroyed, Elevated, Elephants, Fluthered, Flower-potted (always puzzles me, that one), Fuddled, Fresh, Fou (Scottish again, apparently), Fucked, Flush (probably appropriate for me, considering that I go crimson whenever I drink), Flustered, Fuzzy, Fuckfaced, Full up to the gills, Foggy, Gee-eyed, Groggy, Gone, Half-cut (I'm not sure if this merits a separate inclusion, when 'cut' is already here, but 'half-cut' is more common), Happy, Inebriated, Intoxicated, In your cups, In the bag (American, I'm told), Jolly, Locked, Lashed, Langered, Langers, Mangled, Mashed, Monged, Mellow, Muddled, Muzzy, Mortalled, Not well, Not the best, Ossified (popular among forensic archaeologists...), Out of your face, Out of your head, Out of your tree, Oiled, Obfuscated, Obliterated, Off your head, Pissed, Pissed as a fart, Pissed as a newt (see comments for 'drunk as a skunk' above), Palatic, Paralytic, Plastered, Polluted, Parkbenched, Pixilated, Puddled, Plastic, Pie-faced, Pie-eyed, Rubbered, Ratarsed, Raddled, Rotten, Scuttered, Stocious, Shitfaced, Slaughtered, Sozzled, Squiffy, Screwed, Skulled, Scuttled, Skanky, Skankers, Steaming, Steamed, Stewed, Stewed to the gills, Tipsy, Tired and emotional ( a wonderful journalistic euphemism), Trousered, Tight, Trollied, Trashed, Tanked, Tankered, The worse for wear, Twisted, Tiddly, Under the influence, Under the weather, Unwell, Upside-down behind the telly, Wankered, Wellied, Well-oiled, Well on, Wasted, Zonked....

Halls Life

I'm beginning to develop a worrying addiction to backgammon. This is troubling, because I'm crap at it. (Is it good to be crap at craps, though? Does anyone ever play?) I've spent far too many hours of late playing backgammon on Yahoo! against the infinitely better Heinrich, who demolishes me on a regular basis. The games have little chat sections underneath, which we fill with our life crises and bad jokes. This is an attempt to virtually replicate, albeit sans Guinness, the many games we've had in Corrigan's pub in Rathmines, to the bemusement of the barstaff.

Standard jokes include punning on the word 'roll' and muttering in German, at which I'm atrocious, but which Heinrich has a certain facility in. Probably because he's at least theoretically German, though largely Hibernicised now. So early in the game I'll invariably roll badly, causing Heinrich to remark 'What a substandard roll.' I will concur, and then point out that I once had a remarkably substandrad roll in UCD shop. Ham and far too much coleslaw, invariably. Then a truly crap roll will follow, enabling me to point out that the worst roll I ever had was in the aptly named 911 sandwich and doughnut shop in UCD. I had food poisoning for a week and was a shadow of myself for the next month.

(An effective dieting technique that, by the way. Live on raw pork and rancid tuna, as the resulting food poisoning will ensure you lose the best part of a stone within a week.)

German jokes shall be considered another day. I don't know if blogger will let me do an umlaut here.

Lately I've been teaching my friend Eddie to play in real life. We've had four games, and I've lost all of them. Three tonight, in fact. I'm beginning to regret teaching him. Ah well. So it goes. Unfortunately as he left tonight, having thooughly destroyed my sense of backgammon-confidence, he declared that he'd enjoy coming back and whipping my ass. This troubled me. People keep making unfortunate comments in my room. Last Thursday Oliver, who lives across the corridor from me, came in at around half-twelve to ask did I want to grab lunch. He was, however, not ready to get lunch, as had yet to shower, having, it would appear, risen rather late. He was dressed accordingly, clad, or so it seemed, in but T-shirt and towel. His first words on entering my room had nothing to do with lunch, I'm sorry to say. No. Oliver, former child prodigy and chess champion, wearing nowt but T-shirt and towel, noticed the chess board and declared: 'Hi Greg - oh fantastic! I'll have to come here and whup your arse sometime!'

I don't mind telling you, I was a bit concerned. And before you ask, I'm abysmal at chess too.

Yeah, I live in a University Hall of Residence, and hence have oddly dressed visitors at odder hours. They come to my room generally with the aim of drinking tea. I do a lot of that, and indeed may be the only person in my wing of the hall who has a teapot. Strange gatherings happen at about eleven in the morning, a mere two hours, if we're feeling diligent, after breakfast, all centred upon my teapot. Which is cool, but strange. Having seven people drinking tea in your room at eleven in the day when they should be working is kind of peculiar. In a fun kind of way. Some people reckon I should just stick a sign on my door saying 'Common Room'.

Jenny, who is among the coolest of the myriad girls living upstairs, has a similarly social room, where people gather to hang out in the evening. Last night myself, Shaw, and Eddie sat there watching the latest episode of 'Angel' on the computer, and Eddie Izzard 'Live at the Ambassadors' on the video.

'Angel' is, I admit, something of a closed book to me; I tend to suffer from 'X-Files Syndrome', whereby I've historically only seen about a dozen episodes, but seen them a ganseyload of times. This happens with 'Buffy' too. I tend to like it, but never know when it's on and make no effort to find out. As a result I see both series completely out of sequence and am always deeply puzzled. I'm still not sure why the Giles-type character in 'Angel' no longer hangs out with the gang, where Angel's son came from, why Cordelia has lost her memory, who the green singing guy with the horns is, and who the other two are. Last time I saw it there were just Angel, Cordelia, and the guy who's like Giles and whose name I can never remember.

(Although 'Angel' has better music, I freely admit that 'Buffy' is a better show. Though I've always had mixed feelings about it, since the first episode I ever saw was one which my friend Andrea in Canada, a genuine fan, regards as one of the worst in the series. Viewing that gave me a somewhat jaundiced view of the show from the start. Weirdly, Holly thinks that one wasn't bad. Maybe I need to see it again.)

Eddie Izzard was cool, predictably enough. His comments on Jesus' inability to run in flip flops made me think of that fantastic statute of Jesus sprinting along which can be bought at a very reasonable price on the deeply bizarre catholicshopper.com. Go check it out. And his analysis of the advantages of Roman 'pokey-pokey' swords was completely on the button. The others asked me, and I had to admit that, yes, everything he said was true. My name is Greg and I'm an ancient military historian. Sad but true.

A London Reunion, with an unprecedented silencing

Spent yesterday afternoon and evening very pleasurably in London, meeting up with old friends, all of whom are getting on with their lives rather than studying forever. Ah well. So it goes.

We made what might be regarded as a tactical error by eating in a Chinese buffet in Chinatown, next to the Kowloon place that sells great pork buns (I've only ever had one, and that was about eight years ago, but it made an impression). Most of the food was okay, but the duck was frighteningly greasy, and contributed to problems late on...

(Don't worry, I'll explain.)

I have no idea what pub we went to off Covent Garden, but it was a good spot, selling decent beers - a priority where Paul's involved. Kind of quiet too - so much so that Helen's mate Hannah was asked to keep it down when she was just talking. At some point we Helen, Hannah, and I were talking about a friend of ours and someone she'd gone out with. Who, apparently, had had his knob pierced. As the girls discussed the mechanics of this all colour drained from my face - an achievement, since I normally flush whenever I drink - and my stomach began to churn, well-lubricated by duck grease. I honestly thought I was going to be ill. I found it rather weird, to be honest. Body piercing has always been something of a mystery to me, but while I can comprehend ears, noses, eyebrows, navels, even lips and nipples all being pierced, there really is a limit. I've read my Desmond Morris, and heard radio interviews where this has been discussed, but somehow I wasn't equipped to deal with the prospect of somebody who I have met having ...urg.

Sorry. Squeamish of me, I know. And thought it was only the prospect of having your eyes touched that freaked me out.

Anyway, I didn't puke. Eventually I made it back to that happening place called Slough, from where I headed back into London this morning, and then back to Manchester courtesy of Mr Branson , whose train was less than half an hour late. I think he deserves a round of applause.

Avuncular Television

And now, after my highly entertaining twenty-four-and-a-quarter hours in Cambridge in the company of the delightful Holly Spice, midwife of this site, I'm back in Slough, from where I will sally back to Manchester on Monday morning. The journey here was Hellish, but such is London transport.

Channel 4 provided entertainment this evening, which was generous of them, since they don't get any license money. Bless. Another one of those '100 Best' lists, this time consisting of the most bestselling singles in Britain over the last fifty years. Viewers couldn't vote, as it was purely based on sales. One good effect of this was that crap and inexplicably popular songs from the last five years didn't dominate. Unfortunately, this meant that crap and inexplicably popular songs from the last five decades all got their chance.

How did Boney M make it into the top ten twice? I mean, come on! And why, why, why did so many people but 'Candle in the Wind '97'? Nearly five million, for Heaven's sake. The list is already slipping away from me, but I seem to recall Band Aid at number two, with 'Relax', 'Mull of Kintyre', 'Bohemian Rhapsody', and 'Unchained Melody' being close behind. Aqua's 'Barbie Girl' was at fifteen, which shocked me...

(Where were The Police? The Rolling Stones? Abba? Madonna? U2? REM? I just found it hard to believe that none of those made it into the top 100 while 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon round the Old Oak Tree' and something by Ken Dodd did...)

The show was presented by a prize twat, a masked buffoon doing pointless and irrelevant impressions of such luminaries as Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Elton John, Mel B, and Craig David. I was astounded at how the performance of this talentless cretin was as lacking in humour as that of the Tory party is in spontaneity. Harsh, I know, but sadly very true.

Curiously, while the former Mr Dwight held pole position, as it were, and Miss B managed two spots with her former sidekicks, Ms Spears and Mr Jackson barely made the list at all. Britney predictably enough was represented by that wonderful German folk song 'Schlag mich Liebling, noch einmal', but Michael Jackson, amazingly was represented by.... 'Earthsong'! I mean, I barely remember that. I would have assumed 'Thriller' or 'Billie Jean' were automatically top of any sales chart. Who in God's name bought 'Earthsong'? Would anybody ever admit to that?

One of my nephews was watching the show with me, and livened up proceedings immensely whenever Art Garfunkle appeared on screen. Art Garfunkle is apparently turning into Bilbo Baggins. This troubles me. Go compare Ian Holm and Art Garfunkle sometime; I think you'll be as disturbed as me. Anyway, as soon as Art appeared, talking about 'Bright Eyes', I think, my nephew declared: 'It's Bilbo! Look, it's Bilbo!' (He evidently needed to repeat this on the offchance that I can't hear children shouting when they're sitting about a foot-and-a-half away from me.) I admitted that indeed, there was a passing similarity between Messrs Baggins and Garfunkle, and the nephew went silent for a moment, only to muse on whether or not he had used his magic ring to make his hair disappear. I kid you not.

Watching old videos with children can be an odd experience. A couple of years back I sat with both nephews, watching, I don't know, MTV or something. On came a song that Michael Jackson (yes, him again...) and Paul McCartney song did together in the early eighties. I think it's called 'The Girl is Mine'. After a moment or two one of the lads looked at me:

'Gregory? Who's that?'

'That? Oh, that's Paul McCartney.'

'Oh. And who's that?'

'That's Michael Jackson.'

An incredulous silence followed, as both lads looked at each other in disbelief. Finally, the older one looked at me, and said, obviously troubled:

'But I thought he was white...'

I don't mind telling you, I was a bit concerned.

Introducing...... Gregorian Rants!

(Cue dodgy theme tune)

It's twenty to two on a misty Cambridge morning, I'm slightly sober, and have nothing to do. That's not entirely true. Having had a rather entertaining dinner, involving a surreally disturbing canape made, I strongly suspect, from blue cheese, pesto, walnuts, and toast, I spent a couple of amusing hours in a cinema bar before being gently, but I must stress, rather firmly, evicted at an obscenely early hour. Cambridge University's authorities have clearly rigged a scam with the local publicans whereby the University guarantees custom and the publicans guarantee to have all their customers wrapped up nicely in bed by half eleven - at the latest- so that they can be fresh as a daisy when slaving away in the library the next morning.

So, anyway, that's why I'm here....