Weekender

We get up at lunchtime then I head to the paper shop with Doggo before meeting L and MD on the park. L then cooks up a full English while I breathe some life into the ailing computer.

I tried to get on the track this evening but apparently there isn’t a session this week as some paracycling is on. Whether this is watchable or not I’m not sure as nothing has been advertised. I have, at least, provisionally booked for next Sunday.

Instead we head over to Derby to Quad where they have Denial showing a week ahead of Broadway.

Denial is based on a 1996 legal case between Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz), an American professor of Holocaust Studies, and the historian David Irving (Timothy Spall). Irving sues Lipstadt over her book ‘Denying the Holocaust’ in which she accuses Irving of being a Holocaust denier and falsifier of history.

The trial is held in Irving’s native England where the burden of proof is with the accused not the accuser. Basically she has to prove that the Holocaust happened. Easy right. Not so.

Lipstadt, a runner and a dog lover (so you have to like her), engages a top legal team to fight her case. This actually means that she doesn't in the end have to prove anything as her legal team totally take over. So she can pretty much get back to her running and dog walking for the next few years as the process rolls along.

In fact solicitor Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott) and barrister Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson) treat her more like a naughty child than the one accused. They quarrel about how to approach the case with Lipstadt wanting to take the stand herself and bring in Holocaust survivors to testify while Julius prefers to simply present the facts. So off they go to try to find proof of the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Denial must have been a tricky film to make when you consider the topic, the potential for emotional bias and the fact the majority of the viewers either knew or could accurately guess the outcome of the trial. Which does not leave much scope to build meaningful tension but overall I think overall they did a decent job.

In court, Irving, serving as his own lawyer, has an answer for everything but not usually a very convincing one. So things progress as you would expect and hope until Mr Justice Gray (Alex Jennings) throws the defence team slightly off balance when he asks whether Irving might not actually be lying as they claim, if he genuinely believed the Holocaust didn’t happen. It is the one moment of ‘almost tension’.

Denial is easy to watch, informative but perhaps just lacking that vital dramatic spark that would have made it great.

Afterwards we drop into the pub formerly known as The Chequers in Stapleford which is now called the Old Rock but is normally a no go area due to its seemingly constant karaoke. They are now serving four real ales and are promoting this fact with a Real Ale Weekender. All their ales are local ones apart from their regular beer which is Doom Bar. Nought out of ten for imagination there then. 

I do have a decent pint of Scribblers but it’s nothing I can’t get elsewhere. They are going to find it very hard to compete with the constantly impressive range across the road at the Horse and Jockey but good luck to them. I will pop in again sometime.

(Sunday 5^th February)

Almost Romantic

I’m having trouble turning over in bed this morning, thanks to the re-broken/bruised ribs. Not good. Luckily I have no race this weekend. Things aren’t so bad once I'm upright just as long as I don’t cough, sneeze or laugh and keep breathing to a minimum. Other than that they're fine.

Later L picks me up from work and we head north. I’ve found some fool of a B&B owner who will take us and the boys in Blackpool. Which is roughly where we have two dog shows and a run this weekend. It’s a quaint little place, almost romantic, if we hadn't brought the dogs. A weekend without them would be nice but I’d look a bit daft at the dog shows.

Well, we try to head north. We join the M6 at Stoke and then queue from there all the way to Blackpool. Curse the good weather. 4 hours is a new personal worst.

When we finally get there and Blackpool is horrendous. Full of people. Families, drunks, Scots, the lot. We wander round looking for somewhere to buy fish and chips, there's plenty of those and then somewhere nice to eat them, there's none of them. The seafront would be a nice location if it’s wasn’t fully booked and there wasn’t a massive traffic jam, known as the illuminations traffic blocking the way to it.

There’s absolutely no chance of finding a bar that sells anything you’d want to drink or in fact one that isn’t offering karaoke. We head back to the hotel and enjoy some wine from the bar there, sitting on the front veranda. Quite pleasant actually. Then some more contraband wine in the room, as alcohol is not allowed in the rooms.

(Friday 30th September)

There’s Always Tomorrow

It’s a much busier day today at our show, twice as many entrants. It’s mad in fact and much hotter than yesterday. It’s also not going so well competing wise. In complete contrast to his barn storming performance yesterday, MD looks like a rank beginner this morning, either that or he’s eaten too much celebration sausage.

Things aren’t much better with Doggo. I negotiate the first eight obstacles of a very tricky course with him only to be told by the judge that the timing has failed and we’ll have to start all over again. Typical. Second time around I tie myself in a knot and fall over jump number five, eliminating us. Bugger. There were only eight clears on that course, so we’d have got rosette for sure, had I got us round.

It’s still Doggo’s day though, on a day of hard courses, which do suit him, I make him do four runs when I’d only intended to do two with him but it pays off with a 10th place towards the end of the day.

MD meanwhile amasses 55 faults over his four runs and never less than 10 in each one, despite some positive starts to some of the courses. There’s always tomorrow.

In the evening, we’re at a 30th birthday party. Yes we're hanging out with relative youngsters. As it’s a colleague from work there’s a good turnout from the office and we pretty much avoid talking shop. There’s beer too, even if it has come all the way from St. Austell and a half decent buffet. There’s also karaoke, which ensures most people are crammed into one end of the room, the other end to the karaoke, or outside. Still a pleasant evening though.

(Saturday 30th July)