Travel: France 3-7/7/09 part 2: Peopleville

Despite being surrounded by the massed forces of Nature, we were able to relax quite a bit. The weather for the most part was great. Perhaps a bit too sunny for the paler man, but paler people learn early not to complain about these things when less pale people are around.

Evenings were spent playing scrabble and drinking Pineau, a local brandy / grape juice concoction that's very tasty. Daytimes were spent walking, helping my parents turn their partly dilapidated farm into somewhere even more habitable, feeding the sheep, and visiting several of the local supermarkets.

Lidls are everywhere now, like a misspelt rash, but I'm still very fond of L'Eclerc. Mainly because it has great stationery. I only go crazy about three things: obscure music, terrible movies and stationery. We're not so different, you and I.

You have to be careful shopping in France. French has so many words that we (English speakers) have stolen and misappropriated that danger lurks on every sign. Supposing you are after "lady things" for "that time of the month" (aka "judgement week"). Then, you need a "tampon hygiénique." Don't get a "tampon encreur" (ink pad), it will only make things worse. And certainly don't get a "tampon à récurer" (scouring pad).

Most of the work we were doing for my parents involved shifting rocks and tiles from a mound of earth into a trench. It was actually enjoyable because we don't do manual labour like this at all, normally. If we were doing the same thing for money; or under the supervision of an armed guard, we'd absolutely hate it. But doing it voluntarily to help out family is actually fun and rewarding in a way far superior to receiving a pile of money or not being shot in the head. The novelty value helps a great deal, as well.

It wasn't all shopping, hard graft and keeping out of the way of civilisation. We were also managing to get out and experience some local culture (assuming you don't count the supermarkets as local culture). We ate out in several local villages and we even got to witness a wedding entourage, French style. The custom these days seems to be for the wedding convoy to drive through as many villages as possible, making lots and lots of noise (shouting, honking horns, etc). It looks quite fun, and if you don't annoy the world on your wedding day, then the next chance is usually your funeral. So I say, go for it.

We also visited a classic car rally in a place called Champagne Mouton (or "Fizzy Wine Sheep Meat"). Here a large spread of old cars, tractors and caravans were parked up for the delight of the general public. It was fascinating to see the development of the tractor. It's a real evolution, starting from a simple wheeled frame with each year seeing new and improved features. It's quite a shock for those people who believe that God delivered the tractor fully formed. Tractor Creationists were boycotting the day calling it heresy.

Cars being far less functional in design, vary drastically from age to age. The evolutionary process here throws up a lot of freaks: vehicles with a real odd way to do things or strange shape. Such as cars shaped like boats, cars with all-wooden steering wheels and triple horns. As I was still camera crazy, I think every car at the rally had at least 2 pictures taken of it.

Not that we needed to go out to keep me entertained. I rarely need anything more than a French map to amuse me. I can sit for hours and read place names. For example, some places around Bordeaux: Macau, Les Bons, Enfants, Salle Boeuf, Loupes. You could name most characters and places in a sci fi movie from a small portion of a French map: Creón, Villenave, Quinsac, Dardenac, Camiac, Bourg.

The first section of the trip ended on a low note when I drove Catherine back to Bordeaux and she flew back to Amsterdam. She had to get back to work and earn the family crust whilst I had to sit in the shade and commune with nature.

Travel: France 3-7/7/09 part 1: It's Nature Town

My parents' French abode is a densely populated area. In terms of wildlife, at least. People, however, are pretty scarce. But non-people creatures teem. Frogs, bats, sunflowers, sheep, bees, birds, corn, lizards, flies, butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers, slugs, snails, nettles. All flourish along with many others that are much better hidden.

And at night, things don't calm down. In fact, it gets relatively noisier. The frogs all get together and practice their close-harmony croaking; crickets chirp en masse; bats dart around like drugged-up crazy things; and occasionally an odd light emanates from a pile of rocks where a glow worm is glowing to the beat. Yep, nature likes to party.




The bees were especially interesting, for a couple of days a friendly throng of interesting-looking specimens came by to gather nectar from poor unsuspecting flowers. They were not the sorts of bees I was used to and indeed were relatively new to the area, I heard. I spent ages trying to photograph them. I think I took 250 pictures of bees alone, most of which ended up being blurry, some semi-clear and one or two really good. I felt like a real wildlife photographer. Had I lived in a ditch for three days and covered myself in the local mud to blend in, rather than just grabbing the camera and walking over to the flower patch, I might have felt even more like one.

Because we had a new camera and are not so used to being surrounded by such an abundance of nature, I did go a little camera crazy. As well as 250 pictures of bees, there were about 300 pictures of sunflowers. It was the time of year where they stop being shy little heads and open up to be glorious flowers. I also took about a million pictures of everything else. I have 10 pictures of piles of logs, but I justify this as being very much part of French rural life. (Honestly, the local council allocates you a supply of logs.)



Even the house was not devoid of creatures. A loir (aka a Fat, Edible, Bug-Eyed, Squirrel-Tailed, Laid-Back Dormouse) was living in the roof judging by the nocturnal scurrying. And on the ceiling, the scariest centipede ever would hang out from time to time, occasionally taking time to drop into the sink and scare people. It was somehow alien in its design and would have made a perfect adversary in something from 1954. "It! The Thing from There!" I thought it was cute and as there seemed to be more than one, there was probably a happy little family up there. However, I also suspect that given a chance they would suck our brains out and take over the world. But you can't blame a creature for having ambition.

Travel: France 2/7/09: An Indifferent Pastis

There are two languages on board the newly combined KLM - Air France flights from the Netherlands to France. Dutch and English. Dutch and English. No French. You'd think planes going to and from a country would include the language of that country; especially when that country is notorious for its people often not wanting to speak other languages. It seemed very strange. Especially as the Dutch generally have such a great grasp of English and are happy to show off their linguistic skills. It would have made more sense for the languages used to have been French and English.

However, in my experience, English is not as poorly spoken in France as we are lead to believe. And we are lead to believe this by the French themselves. Whist working on an international helpdesk, on several occasions I have explained, in a mixture of my poor French and English, to someone who was demanding a French speaker that they can either wait a while to be called back by one or try to explain their problem in English. They would quite often proceed to explain how they would try to make themselves understood in what was actually very good English. It seems to reinforce the maxim that if at first a foreigner does not understand you, talk louder until they give in and admit they do speak English.

We flew to Bordeaux which turns out to be a mini hub in terms of French air traffic and we had slightly convoluted travel plans. We had a long wait for a hire car due to demand being high and people on hand to help being low. Our car turned out to have an oil-light that had a preference for glowing brightly despite the car having more oil than a Saudi desert.


It was invigorating to be back on French roads. The French drive like all existence is merde and it is better to go out with a sudden collision on a hairpin bend than to fade away in some forgotten bar over an indifferent pastis. However, they sit in bars like all existence is merde and it is better to fade away agonising over an anguished pastis than to take to the road in search of instant release.

To be doubly sure of getting to where we were going, I not only had my parents' directions but some that Google had given us. Like its other sought-after equations, Google's direction algorithm is a complete mystery. Even when presented with the results, it's almost impossible to work out how it got there. It gets you from A to B, but it seems that C, D, and E have optimised their towns or paid to somehow appear on the route. Given my parents have driven this way a few times and for part of the year live in this area, we decided to trust them over some Californian computer cluster. The day will come when we trust Californian computer clusters more than our parents. But most of us are not there yet.

We arrived at my parents' holiday farm in time to feed garbage to the recently shorn sheep. They love left-over vegetable peelings, banana skins and yesterday's bread. When every other thing you eat is grass, you'd be the same way too.

Non-Party

I was very much intrigued by Nigel Farage, a member of the isolationist UKIP party, on Have I Got News for You this week. Judging by the jokes that were being made about BBC having to appear fair and unbiased, that seemed to be the reason he was there. Although he does belong to a party that was designed to have jokes made about it. For the most part he played along with the digs at him, grinning clownishly, looking very much like Joe E Brown, the comedian who played Osgood Fielding III in Some Like It Hot.

In fact he seemed quite affable except for one random outburst against illegal immigrants and a clip of his bizarre rant against Belgian MEP Herman Van Rompuy. In the latter he decries Van Rompuy because nobody knows who he is (presumable Mr Farage would have preferred Britney Spears to have spoken). He also regurgitates the xenophobic, school-yard stereotype that Belgium is boring and ignorable. An odd view for someone who stood at the Bromley & Chislehurst by-election.

The other interesting thing about him is he gets a little irritated that people pronounce his name incorrectly. Apparently it's not "Bucket" it's "Farage." Pronounced like the French, rhyming with the posh way of saying garage. It's not clear if he has French ancestry, although the name may have originated in the Middle East. I can however imagine Farage's ancestors at the French revolution shouting out "c'est pas la faute de l'aristocratie! C'est la faute des immegrants illégale!"

How will it all end? I can see Mr Farage escaping Europe back to Britain in a small boat with a mysterious woman who reveals she cannot become his (third) wife because she doesn't have the relevant papers to be in the UK. He shrugs, carries on piloting the boat, and utters the famous words, "Nobody's perfect."

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Travel: UK, Christmas 2008

Christmas is a time for family, buying stuff and remembering the world's most famous magical Jew. Many of us cram onto planes, spend hours queuing in shops and feel very lucky not to have to spend the holidays giving birth to babies, surrounded by animals because we'd forgotten that the Holiday Inn Beth Lehem is always booked up this time of year.

A few days before the famous day itself, we crept early out of our flat, leaving our feline family to fly to see my human one. My parents live near Brighton, the British Florida. The main difference is, of course, that the British sun retired a long time ago to the American Florida.

With a few days before Christmas, we used our time wisely: We shopped amidst the crowds and pockets of hopeful carol singers; pretty much the way early Christians did, although there was less tinsel in those days.

We did much of our shopping in the nearby town of Lewis. Lewis is a pretty, historic town populated by people who only read first editions of ancient books. This is based on the fact that there are two small shops selling new books, two small second hand bookstores and about a dozen antique bookstores. All of the rest of the shops are charity shops which is a well-recorded phenomenon in the UK.

The main shopping area was filled with seasonal busking, often done by kids who of the age when they really ought to be out hanging round bus shelters. Most notable being one young guy playing carols mournfully on a clarinet. I enjoyed it because, for me, it summed up the pathos of the season and was a nice break from the otherwise relentless good cheer.

We also used our time to grab some kultcha. Cath is a fan of Mark Rothko who was having a retrospective at the Tate Modern (formerly Battersea Power Station). For those of you know don't know, Rothko is famous for his huge works such as Black Square on Red Background; Red Square on Black Background and Black Square on Black Background.

The pieces are not only impressive in their size, but also in the work that went into them. It may seem like a simple shape painted on top of a painted canvas, but it took a surprising amount of planning and experimentation. Even the often rough edges of the shapes are very deliberately and specifically so. And they do have an impact when you see them in the flesh that a tiny little reproduction in a book or on a computer screen doesn't convey. It is however a very homageable style, and I have tried my own emulations. One of my efforts now hangs in a millionaire's villa in Southern France.

Christmas period itself was the usual mix of too much traditional British Christmas foods (minced pies, Christmas cake, sausages wrapped in bacon), traditional British Christmas television (James Bond, Morecombe and Wise. Wallace wrapped in Grommit) and the local village's annual Boxing Day pram race.

A couple of days after the festivities, it was time to return home. Our flight back was delayed a little. They tried to hide this for a while by not telling us, but sooner or later the cat was let out of the bag.

As usual the flights to Amsterdam are serviced by Sterile Island, a block of gates separated from the main terminus by a bridge into which is piped bird noises and new age music. As I have said before, standing on the conveyer belts in this bridge, with this calming audioscape coming at you and arriving at a half-empty, cold, remote, sterile place increasingly makes me think of a Soylent Green-style old folk reprocessing plant. It explains why 90% of the time, airline meals are "chicken." Old people taste of chicken. If you get "beef" or "lamb," you've got a Mediterranean labourer.

I wrote in my notes that we got upgraded to Club. This was so many flights ago and so short a flight, I don't recall it. And it wasn't as exciting as the time I got upgraded temporarily because I was allocated a seat where the stewardesses sleep. Actually that was more disappointing than exciting, and a different story.

For once the plane landed close to the terminal instead of in Utrecht, where it normally seems to land; there was no queue at immigration; so that meant the last possible delay to getting home was, yes of course, waiting for Schiphol's computer system to stop contemplating the meaning of life and deliver our luggage. Anyway, Merry Magical Jew Day!

21/9/08: Travel – London Day 4

On checking out of our plush hotel, we couldn't help notice a big advertising board extolling "A Great deal for a great room." And we thought, yes it was a great room... and it was expensive. We assume they meant "a great deal" as in a deal that was great, but advertisers should beware of phrases that have two meanings.

We popped over to Baker Street, famous for being the home of musician turned detective Gerry Rafferty and his sidekick, Doctor Egan, who both lived together in Shylock Homes, an apartment block owned by a former money-lender. I think that's right. Anyway, I do know his nemesis was a man named Arthur Mori.

We were here to meet up with one of Cath's cousins, her husband and their kids for a very pleasant lunch in a nice neck of London.

However, before long it was time to head back. And time became more pressing when at Victoria we not only had problems trying to get the ticket machine to sell us a ticket, but we had to run to the express service just in time to watch it leave. So we ran back and jumped on a slow service. Once we did get to our destination, we found that the signs from the station to the airport were just plain confusing. I believe we British think travelling is sinful and only bad sorts and foreigners do it, so we do anything to make it impossible for them to get anywhere. Eventually we found the line to check in for our flight, but we were only in it 20 seconds before we were called out as our plane was hoping to leave soon.

Flights to Amsterdam from Gatwick generally leave from The Island. The Island is a small outcrop of gates joined by a high bridge, tall enough to clear big planes. The whole trip along the tunnel is accompanied by bird song and new age music. I think it's supposed to be calming, but I have a problem with the whole concept that natural noises need to have a soundtrack put behind them. If it was supposed to be like that, Nature would produce its own muzak. But it doesn't. The long conveyer belts and this supposedly restful soundtrack, reminds me of some science fiction film where old people are shunted off along extensive corridors to some place of final rest. Usually to be turned into food.

Obviously, one more snag is due, to make the quota, and that came in the form of the state-of-the-art Schiphol baggage system getting all confused and not being able to deliver our luggage for quite a while. Another clear example of people waiting for these time-saving computers to sort themselves out. But eventually, after their mini strike, the computers spat our bags out and we dragged them home to feed our surprisingly indifferent cats.

20/9/08: Travel – London Day 3

I met some of the wedding guests for breakfast at a greasy spoon [café] for a delicious, artery-closing, British breakfast. Sausages, egg, fried bread and a delicate rocket salad. Oh, hang on, there was no salad.

After breakfast, Cath and I wandered over London Bridge to Borough Market. Borough Market used to be a wholesale fruit and vegetable market. It has since been restyled and upmarketed (if that's a word) as a tourist attraction and popular lunch spot. We picked up some tasty-looking flapjacks and brownies before lunching at Prêt-A-Manger. I'd missed Prêt-A-Manger, but this time it was disappointing, especially after the previous day's Eat. (How can jalapeno chicken be disappointing? I don't know. it has everything: bread, chicken and jalapeno.) I know I should be finding more interesting places, but I've missed these chains. I even missed Benjy's, which has long since gone.

After wandering by Tottenham Court Road and checking out old haunts such as The Actors' Centre, where I used to perform improv before being thrown out by Zaphod Beeblebrox, we slipped back to the hotel for coffee and flapjacks.

(I kid you not, Zaphod Beeblebrox himself threw us out. Or at least the guy who used to play him. I think he thought we were taking the Mickey when we played two-headed expert.)

For dinner, we shipped down to Parsons Green to a promising-looking Indian place that was very good indeed. The condiments alone were worthy of many medals.

Before we ate we had a chance and find more of those curiosities London has lurking about. Such as a luxury boutique for dogs and cats as well as our future robot overlords having a night out.

However, the rigours of travel had taken their toll. Despite pleas to favour parties with our presence (it's grand to feel popular), it was actually bed that lured us anywhere.

19/9/08: Travel – London Day 2

Because it was one of those classy hotels with foreign staff, we got a free newspaper. I don't remember which one, but as I remember being in a good mood, it was certainly not the Daily Malice.

I must have been in a good mood as we went shopping. And to prove that even the Gods were smiling down on us that day, as we shopped, we encountered a small camp where some young, attractive things thrust Wii controllers in our hands and commanded that we play a few games of Wii Sports. Not only that, but, if our fumbling yielded the high score of the day, we would win a Wii of our own. And because Odin was very pleased with the shelves he'd made that day, we did get high scores. However, this was quite early morning, long before lunching kids came by and no doubt trampled all over our high scores. Tsk, kids today. Trashing their elders and betters' computer game scores. When I was a young'un... oh, yeah, I used to do the same.

We had lunch at "Eat," one of those mid-market sandwich chains. The mildly pretentious order of a name made me yearn for a bar called "Drink!" an escort service called "Girls!" and an Irish Brothel called, "Feck!"

Eat's wares were very good and reminded me how great the competition is for sandwiches in London. People don't think of the sandwich as a typical London food, but sandwich places probably outnumber all other types of eatery. I have no statistics to back up this claim, but this is a blog not an encyclopaedia. If you do demand information to back up what I say, I'll have you know all relevant data is available in the only source I know and trust, More's Uncyclopaedia.

The area of our hotel is one where Japanese restaurants are locked in some kind of monumental battle. Each restaurant tries to out-psych the other by having a name that sounds most like a martial art. Nobu, Roka, Umu, Zuma. Actually, that makes no sense as, given my ignorance, most Japanese words sound like a martial art. Sushi. Teriyaki. Sake. Any one of these would beat me in a fight. I can see the proponents standing before me taking poses and naming them. "Raw Fish Roll." "Soy Sauce Cow." "Liquid Alcohol Rice."

The reason we were in London this weekend was for a wedding. Friends and former flatmates of mine were tying the knot after years of living in and around sin (and before that, East Acton).

Many, many moons ago, myself and a young trekkie called Norm joined forces with a couple of lasses who we'd met through improv and moved in together. It is the stuff that makes sitcoms. It also makes dramas. And occasionally horror stories. This was something of all three made into a musical and directed by Richard Curtis and David Lynch. Well, amidst the clutter and fallings in and out, romance bloomed for two of the household. And I don't mean myself and Crash Bandicoot, although me and that guy... we shared some times.

The wedding, like all good weddings, was a chance to meet up with people you hadn't seen for millennia. In fact many of people at the wedding I knew, it was almost like wedding in my own family.

Mitsubishi. Sanyo. Honda. "Off-Road Bike." "Wide-Screen, Surround-Sound Display." "Four-Door Family Hatchback."

I'd met Norm through a guy called Dave who ran something not unlike facebook, but way before that. This was before the web. Possibly even before the internet. As I recall it, messages were carried by young street urchins for a shilling a packet. Well, Dave started one of the longest-running internet communities on a thing called Mono. It was one of the first places I let stuff I'd written leak out. The fact that the crazy people there liked it helped me form the belief I'm not bad at it and kept me from being the greatest IT consultant the world has ever seen.

Back at the wedding, there was great food, cake, antipodean balloon artists, many, many old friends and a band that played covers. (Although they played them a lot more faithfully than I like my covers. To me covers, should be ironic or played in a completely different style to the original. But then, I'm wrong on quite a few things.) Cath and I hung out with those who refused to leave until the band had to pack up and the inflatable dingos started deflating.

Sayonara. "One Hand Wave."

18/9/08: Travel – London Day 1

Bam! Gom!

No, we didn't start the trip by fighting Batman; we started it on a train. The train happened to go past a couple of companies that amused me. These were "Bam!" and "Gom!" Or to give them their full names: "BAM Utiliteitsbouw Regio Noordwest" and "Gom Specialistische Reiniging." I believe if you take the other route to the airport, you pass "Shazamm Internet Solutions" and "Kapowww Kippenboerderij."

Having recently been to the US, I was very familiar with how it felt to be in the slow foreigners' line. This time, however, it was Catherine's turn to take this line whilst I took the quick one where some youngster pretends to not even look at your passport and wave you through.

Once through, however, I joined a combined line of confused foreigners and grumpy Brits to be sold train tickets by a very weary Italian. This was before we got our bags. Basically, there's a little kiosk that gives all the appearance of being convenient, but is then purposefully understaffed and decorated with confusing signs. The modern British railway system is no longer about getting U (designating you) from A to B; it's about getting ₤ from U to B (designating board members and shareholders). The more confused you are, the more money you throw at them.

Lunch was had with friends and family in a pub somewhere not too far from the airport. Somehow they were out of burgers and steak pies, which is pretty much everything in a pub like that.

After this, we were dropped off at the airport where we had to once again negotiate the confusing fare structure that privatisation has unnecessarily imposed on us poor train-travelling folk. There are three different tickets to get to London because there are three different carriers. (This is ignoring the class structure that doubles the number of tickets.) Train companies wish they were airlines and have real trouble accepting they are not.

Our hotel was grand and prestigious. It sat in a cul-de-sac just around the corner from New Scotland Yard. It was run by Italians which meant the staff were handsome and stylishly dressed. Plus they had those accents where you couldn't completely be sure they weren't asking you to go to bed with them. It's always safer in these circumstances to assume they're not.

New Scotland Yard no longer looks like what it does in all those old cop series. Especially because it's hard to find an angle from where you can clearly see that rotating sign thing with all the security barricades. It makes it look like the Sweeney was set in simpler times.

After checking in, we made our way to the headquarters of Clarion where an old flatmate was working keeping Noddy in check. For those of you who didn't know, Noddy is back. Again. Noddy first disappeared in the 1980s. Nobody quite knows where but when he came back Mr Golly and all the other Gollies had disappeared. Nobody talks about this sinister aspect of Noddy's history. In fact it seems to be heralded as a good thing.

I finally got to see The London Paper which has come and gone during my time away from London. It was a free competitor to Metro and The Evening Standard but somehow far more downmarket than either. Yes, than either. It's gone now, and from what I saw, won't be missed.

As we came back to the hotel, the girl behind the desk bid us goodnight.

I turned quickly to Catherine, "Do you think she means..."

"No," she said.

Travel 6/9/08: France: Le Bugue pt 5

Our final day. We got up late and checked out, forswearing breakfast in the hotel to grab tea, coffee and croissants at a café in the historic town of Lalinde. The coffee they served restored my faith in that great drink after a few days of our hotel's urn-brewed mud. The café was a curious mix of old men and loud urban music. We guessed the old men were there for the great coffee and not because they enjoy run-of-the-mill r'n'b played too loud.

We stopped at an Intermarché to stock up on some of the local goodies we'd discovered this trip. Mostly walnut related.

Dordogne airport leads a double life, I imagine. During most of the week, it is a quiet little flying club for enthusiasts, playboys and would-be terrorists. But two days a week, the airport becomes bedlam as half a dozen planes from budget airlines land, refuel, repassenger and take off again. Ironically, the time in the air is probably the least stressful for the cabin crew of these flights.

it is a tiny and chaotic airport with a management style that seems to be of the "manage by panic" variety. Several new airports use this method. Procedures and order are deemed too expensive and instead the staff react to everything second by second.

We arrived, checked in and tarried in the departure "lounge" for 20 minutes before the powers-that-be told us to urgently hurry to the gate. There only seemed to be one gate, and this is shared several other flights. So that the playboys, hobbyists and terrorists don't get disrupted too much - and so that they only hire staff for as small a period as possible - all the flights arrive and leave at about the same time. Sure, they would spread the flights out a bit and make it more relaxing for everybody, but airports don't make money from relaxing and money can be especially tight when dealing with bargain-basement airlines who cut costs at every single level.

Having been hurried to the gate, we had to wait some more because the panic wasn't justified as the plane hadn't even landed yet. In fact, we watched it land.

Dordogne airport is like a miniaturised version of a holiday town. For most of the week, it's a sleepy little place, a collection of sheds and a runway. But once a week, 5 groups of British budget tourists (as well as a couple of Beneluxian) fly into town and skew the local economy. Temporary customs officers, security officers and so forth are hired or sequestered for a small few hours. And then suddenly it's a sleepy little flying club again.

Of course it's not luxurious. You are herded from one room to another and when the plane lands you are herded onto that. But if you fly for the cost it takes to transport a cow, you can't complain that you are treated like cattle. Actually, cattle get better treatment as it is required by law that they feed them.

Plus, crammed into an animal pen for an hour I could take; but forced into a cramped chair and made to listen to screaming kids for an hour, is entirely another matter. For some reason our flight was the perfect one for families with babies. Everyone seemed to have with them a screaming, little brat as if it was the latest fashion accessory. And the louder your brat screamed, the hipper you were. (I think it's called something like "baby bling" or "bawling".)

It lead me to invent my latest device for improved air travel. The Sound-Proof Baby Capsule™. You know those headphones that eliminate outside noise so you only hear silence? Well, my idea is like that only in reverse and contained in a bubble. The ankle-biter sits (or stands) inside said capsule where he can scream, shout, yell, cackle, burble, call, bawl and drool to his little heart's content; but the sound is eliminated so we can't hear it. The capsule can be clear so that the parents can see their kid and the kid can see them. And I guess there should be some optional air-inlet apparatus because babies don't understand that their screaming uses up more oxygen than just shutting up. Anyway, this invention is patent pending, plus we need to do some health and safety tests – I mean, people could trip over them.

Cats on Drugs

Today we had a few peaceful hours without mammals under foot. Basically our kids spend the better part of the day at a kittie rave. A full-on drug festival. An acid mouse party. It's the only thing that explains how they were dozy, red-eyed and barely able to walk when we collected them. And what's more, we paid for the drugs.

Tenzin took something that knocked her out completely, but Borneo, with his singular appetites and dodgy ticker, had to have a completely different cocktail of drugs. Main ingredient in the mix was Ketamine, known on the street as "mean green", "K", "Ket" and "Special K". It's a horse anaesthetic. Well, actually it's lots of things, but it's also a horse anaesthetic. And a recreational drug.

It was quite a party just to get their teeth cleaned. Maybe next time I get my teeth cleaned, I'm going to wink at the dentist and hope I get the same treatment. If not, I'm going to the vet.

Top 5 Cat drug songs
1. Pussy in the Sky with Diamonds – The Beatles
2. Sorted for E's and Catnip – Pulp
3. Smoke Two Joints – Bobcat Marley
4. Ebeneezer Puss – The Shamen
5. Sweet Leaf – Black Tabby

Feel free to add ones I've missed.

FAQ: I won't do what you tell me.

Am currently thoroughly amused by the BBC row about Rage Against the Machine singing their song live on the radio. Source: Guardian.

Without irony, they told the band not to say the "Fuck you" part of their famous refrain, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" Even if this is all you know about the band, that this is one of their lines, what do you think the band are going to do? They almost have no choice. To drop any part of the line seems to undermine its whole sentiment, and so really they either sing the whole fucking thing or they dump the it and cover The Carpenters.

Not that I wouldn't pay to hear Rage Against The Machine lay into a carpenters song. I always felt On Top of the World was a song about the injustice of a hierarchical religious structure that puts a single being above all others.

The reason people are talking about Rage Against The Machine again (not that they should have stopped, but they did) is because there is a campaign to make them number one for Christmas in the UK instead of some bland garbage oozed out by X-factor. (I haven't heard the song, but I stand by the words "bland," "garbage" and "oozed.") It's a way of saying "Fuck You" to Simon Cowell, which is to be applauded however it's done. There is also another movement afoot the have the Christmas number one be Tim Minchin's beautiful and sentimental (although self-justifyingly so) White Wine in the Sun.

My only fear is that those drones that really like X-factor will see these campaigns and be even more determined to buy the X-factor ooze and so make even more money for Simon Cowell and cause Joe McElderry's drug-addled death to happen all the sooner. And even if RATM (Rage Against The Machine) does make it to number one, we all know they probably won't be on the Christmas TOTP (Terror Over The Profanities), although we can be pretty sure we'll hear the X-factor single whether it tops or flops.

A Doctor by any Other Name

There comes a point in every British man's lifetime when he has to explain Dr Who to his American girlfriend. How do you explain the tale of an odd man who hangs out in a phone box, keeps getting younger and has been scaring kids since 1963? How do you describe the succession of eccentric, obsessive adversaries? What sense can be made of the fact his infinitely-large spaceship is actually the size and shape of a police telephone box? How do bring up that you used to be terrified of the combination of Daleks (squidgy blobs in armoured wheelchairs with broken megaphone voices) and the start of the closing theme tune (which felt like all of space was falling on you)?

I did tell her that after every couple of series, the doctor regenerates himself (i.e. is replaced by a younger, less eccentric actor) which has happened about ten times now. "Wow," she exclaimed. "So by now he must have covered most ethnicities and both genders." Cath has a lot to learn about television.

Food for String Programme

As many of you know, Professor Gray and I live with two creatures of the genus Felis catus. The functions of these creatures are to act as a crude alarm clock, to cover everything in the house with a thin layer of hair and for scientific observation.

Cath and I both have very different disciplines. I am in charge of noting the negative characteristics of the subjects: such as, the frequency and irritation of pitch of their whining; their tendency to believe they are ankle bracelets; and their inability to learn practical lessons from many of their escapades. Professor Gray is in charge of exaggerating their learning and cognitive skills.

Even before our chubby little subjects went on their diets, the overriding concern in their lives was food. Whilst this is true of many animals who, in the wild, don't know where their next meal is coming from, for animals that have never known the wild, rarely go out and are fed pretty damn regularly, this should not be a worry. Yet, Borneo (the male subject) spends his entire waking life whining that he doesn't have food in his bowl. Obviously he does have food in his bowl quite frequently, but it's only ever there for a few seconds before he wolfs it down. This brief period does at least afford the briefest gap in his whining. Borneo has an eating problem.

One of other joys in a cat's life is the stalking, wrestling and torturing of such prey as twine, thread and lengths of string. This of course is also related to food. In the wild, these bits of string would be mice, birds and adorable, little baby rabbits with big eyes and a delightful curiosity. But even cats know that the nutritional value of a bit of string is somewhat below wood shavings and hair (although Borneo does eat a lot of the latter). However the process is so closely linked with the getting of food, even for a cat that has never caught anything bigger than a moth in is life, that once the string has been caught, very often Borneo will drag it down to the kitchen and drop it in his bowl. Because all he knows about food is that this is where it appears.

Professor Gray has hypothesised that this shows rudimentary understanding of currency. Which I guess could be true. But it's more likely he's either treating this as a gift (more able cats often give their owners gifts of disembowelled mice or the badly-chewed heads of adorable, little baby rabbits with big eyes and a delightful curiosity); or that he is using some rudimentary logic along the lines of:

things caught = food;
food lives in bowl;
therefore anything put in the bowl will become food.
(Reductio ad felinus)

It's possible that some dropping of caught string in the bowl has been seemingly rewarded with real food, which may have reinforced this behaviour.

However with true scientific rigour, we do need to prove or disprove the currency theory. Therefore I am creating a whole system of different-length strings that equate to different amounts of food, along with an exchange rate (linked to stock market prices) between the string and other currencies (little squashy balls, catnip mice and shoe laces). So the cat will be paid unemployment benefit of three balls a week and an obesity allowance of one catnip mouse, plus whatever string he's able to hunt, as long as it's under the string-hunting quota of 15 pieces of string a week. Once he's got the hang of this, we'll starting introducing hunting levies and taxation, plus we may have to investigate possible unemployment benefit fraud as hunting could be considered an occupation. Once he has mastered these complications, it's time to make him CEO (or perhaps Main Executive Operating Worker) of his own corporation and see how long it lasts. Although the problem I foresee is that his first role as CEO will almost certainly be to reward himself a huge food bonus.

Who said cats were stupid? Oh, yeah, I did.

Travel 5/9/08: France: Le Bugue pt 4

The usual breakfast maid must have been off today as the coffee was very weak indeed. Or they were expecting British people.

Apres le breakfast, we walked to the end of the hotel grounds and hopped over a disused gate onto a quiet country road. At the end of that, we recalculated and realised the forest we were heading for was further than anticipated, so decided to head up a narrow wooded path. But this soon began showing signs saying, "Private Property," or the French equivalent, and something about dogs. The signs were hand-written, which is always more ominous. After all, people who can afford fancy signs almost certainly have them there to keep you away from their nice stuff. Signs daubed on rough offcuts of wood seem to say, "please don't tempt me."

There was thick woodland all around us, but we found no paths in. The only one we did find ended in a small flat area of overgrown grass that was circled by bags on sticks. All very Projet De La Sorcière Blair.

We headed back along the country road. It took us to the outskirts of the village. At one point, we stopped off at one of those French cemeteries filled with concrete houses and ornate family tombs. In France, the dead often have better homes than many of the living.

One of the great finds this trip was cabécou, a goat cheese that Catherine does very well with. She has problems with cow's milk and sometimes even milks from other dairy creatures. She's not tried aphid milk. Once we found the main part of the village, we hunted around for places to buy this cheese in order to bring it back home and feast on it for the limited period it would keep.

As well as an inordinate number of hairdressers, the town has a vast collection of immobiliers, or estate agents, or (if you are American) real estate agents. I like the suggestion in "immobiliers" that they actually try to stop you moving.

Back at the hotel, our room was being cleaned so we sat and ate chocolate, watching the stream and admiring the bamboo forest. We were somewhat surprised to see a bamboo forest in Europe. Our conclusion was that the owner misses the colonial days of Vietnam or is harbouring a strange and terrible beast from South East Asia. (Perhaps a Malaysian vampire, a Myanma mummy or a Kung Pao Panda.)

After taking showers (pictures withheld) we wandered back into town. We made some young lass's day by spending a small fortune on French glamour in her cute little boutique and in return she told us her aspirations and long-distance relations. We then wandered and settled down by the riverside to paint and write. The sun was out, as it had been most of the day, and the scene was very conducive to artistic pursuits.

However, as we walked back, the rain started to do its thing. I also realised I was a little sunburnt. I burn very easily. My skin has the sunscreen factor of tissue paper. It is made almost exclusively of photolopustre cells that go instantly from bright off-white to a scary shade of lobster.

For dinner we ate at a place we'd seen earlier whose name I don't seem to have written down. However, I noted what we consumed because it was sumptuous: duck gizzards, filet mignon, cabécou, caramel d'Espelette (which I believe were something like caramelised hash browns). For dessert we had pear in wine and a great fruit and sorbet.

One of the key local fruits is the walnut. They use it to make cakes, oil and a great liqueur that we managed to have before pretty much every meal. If it had been available, we'd have had it at breakfast as well.

Wandering back past the Irish bar, we became fully aware of its lack of Irish credentials. The bar was open weekdays and nights, except Friday when it was only open during the day. Saywhatnow? An Irish bar that's not open Friday nights? Are they teetotallers? Is it a kosher thing? We were perplexed.

We walked back through the grounds of our hotel. One old stable had been converted into a games room and inside stood a fine table tennis table (where one could play table tennis tennis). The building was locked, although I'm sure we could have got the key. The trouble is it was so eerily dark and quiet in and around the almost certainly haunted stable, that we decided not to play. Instead we went skinny dipping at the old abandoned quarry. (That last bit wasn't true: we actually simply went to bed at the top of the old, old house.)

Travel 4/9/08: France: Le Bugue pt 3

Today there were actually people at breakfast. It rather spoiled the feeling that we had the hotel to ourselves. But we didn't take it out on them. We just said "Bonjour" politely. There was an older French couple and a younger one with a baby that expressed a general dissatisfaction with everything. It seemed a bit too early in life to be disillusioned. Give it a chance, baby. It even disapproved of the Brahms.

After breakfast, we drove to Campagne, a cute, little village with a church and castle and very little else. Then we went to have a look at the castle and village perched on the hill at Castelnaud, but the streets were filled with the staggering, undead hoardes of Vaykatiun, so we drove on. We passed by the PREHISTO Parc, which is something like an outdoor Cro Magnon Madame Tussauds (or Madam Ugg). We didn't stop, figuring it would be full of the modern world's Neanderthals, children. Instead we paid a wee visit to Sarlat, a medieval tourist town to buy shoes and bad chocolatines (or pains aux chocolates).

A very common thing on the menu in this area is Foie Gras. The word "Foie Gras" is derived from people trying to say "Fat Goose" with a mouth stuffed full of food. Foie Gras as you may know is the somewhat controversial liver of an overfed goose.

Après la, went we to Lascaux. This was somewhere well known to Cath, who has studied some art. It's the site of some of the best-known cave paintings (or peintures des caverns (I should really stop guessing at French translations)). The name didn't ring much of a bell to me, but the pictures were familiar. Cath was genuinely excited as she never thought she'd get to see them. Not that she actually ever did, because the originals started to decay some time ago and so the whole cave was recreated as accurately as possible in another cave next door. It's incredibly realistic, recreated using the old methods and materials. They had to keep reminding us this wasn't the real thing.



Since the discovery of the original cave in 1940, and the opening to the public in 1963, a little community of Lascaux cave-related exhibitions have sprung up. As well as the original cave (now closed to non-scientific humans), there is the recreation (Lascaux II), an interesting exhibit about how it was all done with possible interpretations of meanings and purposes of the pictures (Lascaux Révélé (a word which is clearly suffering from "acute overload")) and Le Thot. The latter we didn't make it to, but is the now-obligatory Madam Ugg-style museum with animatronic early humans doing all those things that people in that area would have done 17,000 years ago. Hunting, cooking, making animal-skin clothes, painting, and discussing the essential pointlessness of existence in between bouts of lovemaking. (They were still French after all.)

We drove back below La Maison Forte de Reignac. Basically it's a huge house hewn out of the side of a cliff. We didn't have time to go in, so drove under. But we suspected the most impressive thing about this was the view of it from the outside. Although apparently it is also impressive inside.

On our way home, we passed des châteaux, several fat goose farms, and drove through the pretty, pre-history-filled village Eyzies which seems to be hiding beneath an outcrop of rock.

We ate at the Restaurant next to the hotel. It was more expensive but not as good as the meal night before. My hard-to-read notes seem to say we had asparagus, foie gras and toad. I know what you’re thinking. "Asparagus, yuck."