E’s And Fascism

On Wednesday I go into work on my bike which was quite cold, windy and drizzly but it was good to get out on the road. I had hoped to also make the gym at lunch but didn’t. That’s the problem of coming in so rarely, there’s a lot I could do while I’m here. 

At home, WFH is driving L mad. She’s aborted working downstairs because she just can't cope on her laptop but her old computer upstairs is like walking through mud. 

On Thursday we swap. L is in work and me at home. The Lad and I do the morning walk while MD waits for us in my office getting a bit of P&Q. Then we all settle down for a day’s work with the Lad on MD’s mat and MD not on it, obviously. 

On Saturday L parkruns at Wollaton then goes off to a talk about ‘How to stop fascism’ at the book festival. I have a dog show, so she has to attempt to stop fascism without me. She does ask me to watch the recording of it later to explain it all to her.

The Lad opens his show account with a run that isn’t horrific but still an E. I didn’t actually like the course so I was glad to get that one out of the way. Hopefully he’ll be better on our next one but he isn’t. Another two E’s follow. Not bad ones to be fair to him.

After my E’s and L’s fascism we could both do with a drink so we meet up in Nottingham at the new pub the ‘Whistle & Flute’ on Derby Road.

On Sunday we go over to visit by folks and MD sadly, with his wobbly legs, falls in the pond and gets covered in all the greenery that’s in it. 

(Sunday 29^th May)

Good Excuses

L is left frustrated at work where she’s waiting for her boss only for him to tell her he’d actually u-turned on his way to meet her because it looked like rain and his grass needed cutting. So he went back home to do that before it rained. 

If you ever want a good excuse for not going into work just ask L's boss. He does come up with some cracking excuses and he’s got plenty more like that one. Probably easier to get away with if you are the boss.

On Tuesday we take MD over to Derby vets to see a cardiologist although who we actually get to see is an assistant to the cardiologist and a student. This is all for a mere £300. They’re all very nice but we don’t actually learn anything because they won’t commit to any answers unless we put him through the tests which they already knew we didn’t want to put him through.

It was worth a go though and luckily the insurance is covering the bill. Petplan have been paying the bills impressively quickly. MD seems to have a good time there but not the Lad, who gets left home alone.

MD’s actually a lot better than he was but he’s not really got his legs back and has to be carried upstairs to bed now although he does seem to like that as well.

(Tuesday 24^th May)

Tom Robinson

The first task tonight is to find the Metronome which is a new 400 capacity venue on Huntingdon Street in Nottingham. I advertises that it is part of Nottingham Trent University's Creative Quarter Campus. Not that that obscure information helped in the slightest but I found it eventually. It’s a rather posh venue.

I’m here to see Tom Robinson celebrate his 70th birthday tour, two years late. Arriving just in time to catch the support act at 8pm I am surprised to find Tom already on stage. Had I got the timings wrong?

Apparently not. Tom is comparing the show but first plays two acoustic tracks ‘Winter Of 79’ and ‘Fifty’ aka ‘What If We Live To Be 50’ now upgraded to be ‘Eighty’ as obviously fifty is long gone. Then he gives an almost reverential introduction to tonight’s support, one he’d championed on his 6 Music show, Maddie Ashman. Who ably entertains us for another half an hour.

Then after a twenty minute interval Tom is back with his band and we’re into ‘Bully for You’.

His band are excellent. Adam Phillips is outstanding on guitar and capably backed by Lee Forsyth Griffiths, who gets to play his own track ‘Silence Is Death’ mid set.

The rest of the set includes plenty from the ‘Power In The Darkness’ album from 1978, plenty of Tom’s big hits and a cover of ‘Rikki Don't Lose That Number’ which he describes as done in a Roxy Music style that was a very minor hit for him in 1984. While ‘Martin’ is done totally a Capella and dedicated to those we lost over the last two years.  

Tom has always been a bit of a ranter about politics and the state of the country in general which given the current mess we’re in in the UK gives him plenty to rant about. Strikingly his protest songs from the 1970s remain unnervingly valid today. 

He updates some of his tracks for modern times, even the fairly recent (2015) ‘Mighty Sword Of Justice’ which now references party gate among other things and its caustic lyrics were not lost on the assembled audience. There’s non-political banter and plenty of fascinating stories too, which all add to a great evening.

He encores with ‘Only the Now’ a song which urges you to celebrate the present rather than the past or the future and then a stirring performance of ‘Power in the Darkness’ itself, a highly political song that he does wearing a Boris Johnson wig. Which maybe implies that perhaps we shouldn’t celebrate the present too much after all. 

Cultural Weekend

L is out on the razz in Derby on Monday and we’re all out on the razz at dog training on Tuesday. Well, the Lad's on the razz, a tunnel razz. MD and I have to put up with his razzing. I do take MD indoors with me this week where he’s quite chirpy and gets a good bark at the other dogs training. 

I’m in work on Tuesday, by bike. Which is pleasant enough, no wind as well as nice and sunny, although someone did try to spoil it by attempting to wipe me out at the Raynesway roundabout.

L is dog sitting, e.g. stuck in my office surrounded by dogs. So I’m worrying about her tea consumption but she says it’s fine. She’s going to the fridge for milk and MD is coming scrounging and gets a hot dog sausage every time. Which is all good. He’s eating and she’s getting tea.

Boris Johnson wouldn’t approve. In another attempt to get everyone back in the office he relates his experience of working from home as spending “an awful lot of time making another cup of coffee and then, you know, getting up, walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a small piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back to your laptop and then forgetting what it was you’re doing.”

This explains a lot if the Prime Minister, who famously works from home all the time, forgets so easily that he’s supposed to be running the country.

I head into the kitchen at work, make another cup of coffee and manage to get back to my desk without forgetting anything.

L and Daughter do another Six Pack Challenge run on Thursday with the Lad, this time at Bestwood. He’s becoming quite a trail runner. MD and I come along to spectate and for a short amble but MD ends up running off with them.

I have quite a cultural weekend courtesy of L and Derby Book Festival. On Sunday she takes me to see a talk by Julie Stonehouse about the book she’s written about her father John who famously attempted to fake his own death in 1974 but failed miserably and ended up in prison on fraud charges. Her book attempts to rescue his reputation and she herself is very forgiving of all his many misdemeanours She may have a point but the problem is she simply comes over as bitter and in denial.

Much more my sort of thing is what we go to on Friday. John Crace, the Guardian's parliamentary sketch writer, entertains us. I don’t often read his work purely because I’m not really into sketch writers but his humorous dissection of parliament goes down a storm tonight and thankfully there doesn’t seem to be any government supporters in the audience.

Afterwards we have a Friday night in Derby with a few beers in the Smithfield.

L is at the book festival again on Saturday after parkrunning at Forest Rec where the boys and I again spectate.

(Sunday 22^nd May)

Calm And Accepting

Monday is the start of another week of WFH while keeping an eye on our awkward dogs. Neither of which will lie on the mat I put down next to my computer. It seems farcical how they are both lying just off the edge of it. 

On Tuesday I go into work by bike, cycling for the first since in two weeks. So it was hard. L works from home to keep an eye on MD where she ends up marooned in my office with both dogs asleep at her feet and she daren't move in case she disturbs MD. So her tea intake is being severely restricted.

Tuesday’s Wordle is Gecko. Yet another word I didn’t know was a word.

I’m back working from home on Wednesday and trying even harder not to disturb our wonky dog because every time I do he gets up and wants to go outside where it’s lobbing it down. Once it stops lobbing we do manage a few rounds of the paw on the ball game which is quite promising for his health.

He shares my lunch of bread and cheese, which meant I had to share it with the Lad as well, but he’s still won’t have his own dog food or even a ginger biscuit at my Dad’s latr. On the upside, I’ll be getting very trim if I keep giving my lunch away.

On Friday evening we manage to leave the dogs and go out for a meal with friends at Nicco’s on Pride Park which is again very good.

We both Parkrun at Wollaton on Saturday, leaving both dogs at home.

We are hoping that now he can’t do Parkrun, the Lad might stop getting so wound up about running and if we practice running from home with him he might get used to it. Then maybe, just maybe, he might calm down.

L’s even bought him a new harness, one that isn’t tainted by Parkrun, so that she can run with him herself. Although she usually refuses to be in the same street as us when we I take him out because he gets so wound up.

She reckons she can learn to be calm and accepting, just as the Lad will learn to be calm and accepting. He looks at me blankly when I explain all this to him albeit with a calm and accepting look on his face.

So on Sunday the Lad gets to run with both us. With me in the morning from home and then with L and Daughter in the evening at Bramcote where they do another of the Six Pack Challenge routes. MD and I come along for an amble.

(Sunday 15^th May)

Sun Worshipper

MD does seem to be responding to his antibiotics even though he is still having fainting fits and nose bleeds. Although I knew he’d relapse if I went out and naturally he had a collapse into his water bowl when I was at my gig the other night.

We stop the painkillers as he doesn’t seem to be in any pain and these could possibly be causing the fainting. I speak to the vet on the phone and although supportive, he isn’t very helpful. He suggests we see a cardiologist but they’d need to knock him out to do a scan which we’re not keen on. They are going to send his records to one in Derby who will then contact us. I do feel we ought to try something.

He improves slowly throughout the week although he’s still far from right. He's barely eating his own food but still scrounges at the table for mine. He does though seem to like the puppy milk we have bought for him.

He’s very unsteady on his paws and tries to get up every time I move, so I have to make sure he’s asleep so that I can slope off to make a drink without him following me. Then on the other hand he’s making it out into the garden for some sunbathing. He’s always been a sun worshipper. 

I take him to dog training although I make him stay in car which he isn’t happy about. The car park at our new venue has been done with those really big gravel stones, the kind I always twist my ankle on, and they’re not easy for him to walk on in his delicate state. It's also comfier for him now in the car because we've done away with the dog box and he can lord it on just blankets on the back seat.

Another person hands in their notice at work. This time it’s the lad who had become a lass. This is one of the least surprising ones as we’ve not seen her at all since she became a she.

Our Wordle duel continues and on Thursday we both fail. I had actually considered the correct answer but I though Homer was a Simpsons character and not a real word so I tried Rover, Foyer, Lower and Poker instead.

On Friday I head over to Bingham to meet up with my friends from Uni for the first time in four years. We were already long overdue to meet before Covid showed up. Given the situation with MD I don’t stop over as I would normally and instead get the bus over. Naturally the first one doesn’t show up. 

It’s a pleasant night out and then I’m the only one on the bus home as most late night revellers are going in the opposite direction e.g. home from Nottingham.

Saturday is the end of football season and Derby are relegated. More due to the transfer embargo than the 21 points they had deducted for trying to buy success. Although nobody here really thought they were trying to buy success and we were just puzzled as to why they were buying so many overpriced overrated players. Seems they were supposed to get us up. Who knew. Despite the relegation, on the pitch it has been one of the best seasons in years.

With MD a little better and able to be left we have our much delayed joint birthday celebrations with a Chateaubriand and a Chateau Neuf du Pap at Miller and Carter.

 

 

On Sunday despite it being L’s birthday we have a boys’ day out to a dog show at Bilsthorpe. Where after not eating his own breakfast MD eats the leftovers from our meal out last night, one and a half fish fingers that L cooked for him and washed them all down with the dog milk but he won’t entertain any sausage or chicken that I’d also brought for him.

Then I buy some chips and curry sauce for lunch on the hope that he might have some of that as well. He did. In fact he would have probably eaten the lot if I’d let him then I had to give Lad some as well. Which didn’t leave much for me.

The Lad does thank me by doing a run with only 10 faults which is almost as good as a victory. 

(Sunday 8^th May)

Feeder

Feeder do have a habit of picking good supports and Tigress tonight are awesome. Perhaps it’s just my favourite three guitars plus drums and nothing else or maybe it’s a singer who to me seems part Courtney Love, part Lily Allen and part Lena Zavaroni. 

  

Feeder are back at Rock City for the first time in almost three years, yeah something happened, and with one of the best sets I've them do for some time. It was as if for once if they had stopped trying to please everyone and gone out primarily playing stuff to please themselves and just seeing how that went down.

Out of the set went several of their bigger hits that they've been playing nonstop for years. It was a set list that needed freshening up and they did that on this tour. That said they seemed to get less brave after the first night in Bexhill where favourites of oldies like me, Stereoworld and World Asleep, went out again after just one night.

 

One that has stayed is Radiation from Polythene which was amazing to hear again for the first time since 1998. The other belter is My Perfect Day, sadly neglected over the years and played far too infrequently.

Then there's Godzilla, a real outlier on Comfort In Sound and not a track I'm overfond of but it growls tonight.

It's a set with five from the new album Torpedo although it constantly reduced during the tour after starting at eight on night one. As the content from Torpedo reduced so did the overall length of the set, ending up a shortish set of 16 songs in Nottingham. There were three tracks from their previous album ‘Tallulah’ and four biggies - ‘Feeling A Moment’, ‘Just The Way I'm Feeling’, ‘Insomnia’ and ‘High’.

Then there's ‘Buck Rogers’ which I know Grant likes about as much as I do e.g. not very much, but his threats not to play it again don't come to fruition as he claims it’s to celebrate Echo Park’s 21st but hey there's always next time.... and he could always have hit us with ‘Oxygen’.

Overall though it’s a fantastic set particularly from ‘Fear of Flying’ (best track on ‘Tallulah’) and ‘When It All Breaks Down’ (best track on ‘Torpedo’) downwards and the last five tracks were just sublime - ‘Radiation’, ‘My Perfect Day’, ‘Insomnia’, ‘Godzilla’ and ‘High’. Three of which come from ‘Polythene’ on the occasion of it’s 25^th birthday.

I tell the man so when I meet him afterwards. Along with my mate and his partner, who won’t be happy if I don’t mention our first post lockdown meeting. 

Training Hard

L is training hard, revisiting the Trentside Trundle run, that was part of the Six Pack Challenge, with Daughter and booking a personal training session for Thursday. She’s also still doing her mad Tuesday morning gym classes which she lets slip are performed to the soundtrack to her misspent youth - Earth Wind & Wire, Jacksons, The Miracles, Heatwave, The Emotions, Tramps, ELO and Boney M. She imagines me shaking my head in pity. No comment. 

The Lad and I are in training too and I think we may have made some progress today with the weaves.

Wednesday is my birthday for which L has bought me a race entry for the Derby Ramathon as well as my keg of beer. I cycle to work and we have dog training later.

Unfortunately MD doesn’t seem to be very well although he still makes it to dog training. He was a bit spaced out in the morning and looked at his breakfast for a good while before finally eating it. Then our usual morning walk was a right plod and we had to curtail it.

He is still off it on Thursday which is his 14^th birthday. We notice he’s having nosebleeds and is now off his food but our walk was a little better than yesterday but we still didn’t quite manage our usual distance. Then he was straight out into the garden for his ball where he had a go at running for it but his heart wasn't really in it.

I go into work on Friday, giving L a lift as she heads to Derby City Council to flex her Power of Attorney. I’m in work because we have another leaving do although at lunchtime this time. There really will be no one left soon.

When L gets home MD doesn’t get out of his basket to greet her. He’s had another nosebleed and when eventually he gets up, he has a fall. I head home after my leaving do and we take him to vets, who don’t really have any answers but are concerned about his low heartrate and after doing a blood test, the possible sign of liver problems in his blood sample. We come home with some antibiotics and painkillers.

On Saturday he is worse still and having fainting fits every ten minutes or so. I sit on the grass with him at Forest Rec Parkrun while L and Daughter do the run. Last week he was doing the last 100 metres himself and only on Monday and Tuesday this week we did long evening walks down to the lake on Wollaton Park.

Now we’re in the situation where our vets close at lunchtime on a Saturday, which will be the last time they are open until after the Bank Holiday, and we are seriously considering taking him back there before they close where we’re sure the prognosis won’t be good.

We don’t though. We take him to see my parents, warning them it could be for the last time, and then he’s in the car when I take L and her Mum to visit her Dad.

Derby win away, now that it doesn’t matter, and for the first time in almost forever. In the evening we were supposed to be at Miller & Carter to celebrate my birthday but we cancel that to look after MD.

After a traumatic night with MD, we are pleasantly surprised that he seems much better on Sunday morning. He is up playing ball in the garden, eating and we can at least get his meds down him but he’s still having frequent fainting fits.

Once the Bank Holiday is over and we are back to work on Tuesday, the advantage of being able to work from home becomes clear as I can keep and eye of MD who settles down on a mat next to my computer.

(Monday 2nd May)