Don't Talk To Me About Railways

June starts wet and on Sunday I dodge the showers on the park while L dodges them on the back lawn with the mower. It has set in totally by the time we play tennis at 1pm but we go ahead anyway. It is fairly treacherous. Afterwards we head over to visit L’s Dad in hospital and then stop for Sunday lunch on the way back at the Nurseryman.

Monday brings the latest bout of A52 roadworks. The access road to Pride Park from Nottingham is closed for 13 weeks and the Derby bound exit is shut for a mammoth 13 months. With Ascot Drive closed as well, I opt for the bike. It’s a good decision although even cycling to work wasn’t pleasant as Chaddesden was basically a car park.

On Tuesday I risk the bus which isn’t too bad as closing the Pride Park exit actually makes it easier getting through to Pentagon Island.

The main reason I’m on the bus is I have a night out planned with my friends from school. I meet one of them in the Alexandra, where we shelter from yet more rain, before meeting the other at the Cosy Club. Which is a novel variation for us but sadly almost everything foodwise is off, so they must have been expecting me. We got something half decent in the end.

Wednesday, I’m back on the bike which is windy but dry. L and Daughter run in the evening while I go dog training for the second time this week after already having done so on Monday.

On Thursday I finally risk the car and survive to tell the tale. The journey does take longer but it’s not excessive. Getting to Sainsbury’s at lunch time however is another matter entirely but, on the upside, when I do get there there’s hardly anyone one there and there’s loads of reduced stuff. I guess these roads works aren’t doing much for their trade.

My tennis is off because my opponent has gone for a wet and windy weekend in Wales, which sounds romantic. Although I can't imagine him doing romantic. L’s tennis is on as usual.

After work on Friday, I meet L at Quad as she gets me to a Derby Book Festival event and at my recommendation she joins me in going to a talk by Simon Jenkins. Jenkins is a Guardian columnist who has in the past been editor of both the Evening Standard and The Times. 

He writes an awful lot of sense about current affairs and politics in general but in particularly about Brexit. As he released a book called 'A Short History of Europe' in October last year I was obviously expecting a talk along those lines but no. Jenkins is introduced as apparently being sick of talking about Europe and he is going to do a talk on another of his books 'Britain's Hundred Best Railway Stations' which he released in 2017 instead. Oh. Somewhat disappointed is an understatement.

Jenkins is a bit of a railways fan, who has served on the boards of both British Rail and London Transport, and it is interesting but seriously?

(Friday 7^th June)

A Pleasant Morning For A Puncture

This week sees the return of Monday night dog training which the Lad thoroughly enjoys and he also does rather well. The quiet open field on a Monday suits him better than the busy indoor arena we usually train in where it’s far too easy to get overexcited. Which is something he specialises in.

I cycle on Tuesday and get a puncture but it was actually quite nice... I can’t remember the last time I’ve repaired a puncture when it hasn’t been either dark, raining, cold or a combination of all three. It was a very pleasant morning to have a puncture and I even had it close to a layby, on Coventry Lane, with a bin to dispose of my old tube. Perfect really.

L says that only I could put a positive spin on a puncture.

 

I go to a presentation in Derby about renovating the Assembly Rooms because finally, after it being closed for five years, they are going to reopen. While I was there I got interviewed by the Derby Telegraph and got my photo in the local paper along with a quote of what I said which was basically ‘stop ****ing around and get it open’.

Wednesday is the second leg of the Play Off Semi Final with Leeds. I’m not too bothered about winning, all I ask is that I get my money’s worth if I’m paying Sky to watch it. That I certainly get.

Derby win 4-2 on the night, 4-3 on aggregate, becoming the first side ever to overturn a first-leg home defeat to make it to the Play-Off Final. While Leeds became the first side in a decade to lead the league at Christmas without going up. As I said, got my money’s worth.

After the game Frank Lampard’s bar bill goes viral after he ‘got a round in’ after the game. With 65 Grey Goose on the bill, among other things, they weren’t buying any old rubbish.

I have a Derby County themed night the following evening too as I take my Dad to an event called ‘90 Minutes With The Champions’ at Quad. The Champions here are the team that won the Division 2 title in 1969 and they manage to round up five of the team from that era, some of whom have better memories than others. Well it was 50 years ago.

Daughter comes over to dog sit. She runs to our house and then goes out on a dog job with the Lad. As L left for her tennis, MD was waiting, quivering in anticipation (or trepidation) because it was his turn next.

Daughter then stays over as the girls are doing the Sunrise City 5k in morning. These runs are now at 5:25am, five minutes earlier than before which is something to do with the tram timetable I believe.

I meet up with L after work, she has been visiting her Dad, and she suggests a post-work pint in the Exeter. It’s very shallow of me to be swayed by such an offer but there you go.  

(Friday 17^th May)

Books Books Books

I was nearly in quiz team for a book quiz today but now it’s not happening. L says she couldn’t raise a team or perhaps she just didn’t fancy carrying a passenger like me...

Instead she hits the Book Festival at Quad with a vengeance, seeing Roy Hattersley at 2pm and then Lionel Shriver at 7pm. I drive her over for the latter and then take boys on Darley Park before meeting her afterwards in Exeter. 

(Sunday 3^rd June)

May Involve Cake

I do the dogs this morning which means they get a walk rather than a ball session. So Doggo certainly enjoyed it but I’m not so sure about MD. What’s life without balls, poor lamb.

L has an 8.30am physio appointment in Hyson Green on the NHS because the private stuff is bankrupting us. Sadly this turns out to be a disappointment as it ends up being just an assessment to see if she needs physio which obviously she does! Hopes were not high anyway as the last NHS physio she had was ‘hands free’, so a bit crap, but to get crap pre-physio assessment is beyond crap. She now has an appointment for 5^th May, so another three week delay.

No squash tonight, instead we are meeting some friends for coffee at Quad in Derby. I make sure I’m there early this time as last time they ran off before I got there. I do try to not take these things personally. I have been warned that it may involve cake.

It’s only a brief social occasion and I could have played squash later but sadly anything after 8pm is too late for my opponent. This is probably why he always wins, its at that sort of time I start to come alive. 

(Thursday 13^th April)

No Man's Land

L makes me late. Well, in combination with the ridiculous Saturday service on the buses she makes me late. I naively thought the 8.15 bus would benefit from the light traffic and just about get me to work on time but I was so wrong. It was late, was packed and the traffic was fairly busy. They don't make it easy to work over this no man's land period.

Daughter returns to Manchester but she is considering moving back to Nottingham in March when her lease ends if a good job doesn’t drop in Manchester. That could reduce the number of Fridays in the week. I’ll have to find her a granny flat, either that or a love nest to take my fancy woman to.

L sends me her New Year Resolutions which makes an interesting list although a few are repeat offenders from previous years. I tend not to make any resolutions in the hope that life continues to treat me as well as it has been doing.

Tonight I do my third Watt Bike session in a row. Tonight its 20k before I go to meet L at Quad where she is having coffee with some friends. I had hope to get there before they left but I just miss them as they go home to their dog.

We delay going home to ours and have a few drinks in the Derby Tap (aka the Royal Standard) instead.

(Friday 30^th December)

Redundant

L: 'OMG that was such a good swim!'

Me: 'That’s because you didn’t have four other people in your lane!'

Me: 'OMG it was such a good bike!'

L: 'I'm surprised you remembered how!'

We love a bit of banter.

Later it’s dog training.

MD (rough translation): 'OMG that was such a FUN training session!'

Me: 'I'm surprised you remembered how!'

L meanwhile is off to see the author Alison Weir at Quad which means it’s an evening of tea, cake and books. 

‘What more can a girl want?’ she says. Ah, I'm redundant.

(Wednesday 8^th June)

Playing Short

L stays in bed rather than parkruns but then runs off to double Pilates. I take the boys for an amble on the park, they seem shocked. No balls are involved. Mid-walk, Daughter rings, she is about to seal the deal on her own flat.

Derby have an early 12.30 kick off and lose again.

We have a late late Full English and then head over to Derby to Quad to catch one of the Oscars contenders that we have missed ahead of tomorrow’s ceremony.

We pop in the Silk Mill for a pint before and the Old Bell afterwards. They now have the old front room of the Old Bell reopened. It’s a nice refit and they have kept the same layout as from when I was 18. I even point out to L where we used to sit! Not that we came very often, it wasn’t actually anything special in the 1980’s.

The Big Short is based on real people and true events surrounding the financial crisis of 2007/8. It is based on the book by financial journalist Michael Lewis.

It is about collateralised debt obligations, sub-prime mortgages, credit default swaps, bundling... Warning some of the financial jargon may go well over your head.

Not to worry, the producers have assumed that the audience will be blissfully ignorant of such matters and have enlisted the likes of Margot Robbie (in the bath) and a celebrity chef to help explain things in some of the frequent off the wall moments in the film. 

The film itself focuses on four fringe Wall Street players starting with the eccentric financial analyst Michael Burry (Christian Bale). Burry saw what nobody else wanted to see, that the housing market was based on an increasing number of dodgy loans to people who should never have been considered in the first place. He saw it as inevitable that the market was going to collapse but of course no one believed him.

Burry had complete autonomy of the investment fund he controlled and so he created a commodity for his clients betting against these mortgages. When he went to the banks to explain what he wanted to do they simply laughed at him and willingly sold him all the ‘insurance’ he wanted. 

Word of Burry's madness quickly spread and trader Jarred Bennett (Ryan Gosling) gets in on the act. He sells the idea to a group led by a cynical and depressed banker called Mark Baum (Steve Carell). Baum is the boss of a fund under the umbrella of Morgan Stanley, now he is betting against the hand that feeds him.

Finally, there's Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock), a couple of rookies trying to break into the finance industry. They team up with disaffected former banker Brad Rickert (Brad Pitt) to bet against the investments. 

What they all ultimately find is that the investment houses ignore the coming crisis and in fact attempt to hide it because they were all making too much money to want it to stop. The film goes on to suggest that the corruption didn’t stop there and extended to the agencies who oversee the markets and possibly beyond.

The film succeeds in making a story about the financial crisis entertaining and that’s no mean feat. Although it could be viewed as a partner piece to 2011's Margin Call which achieved the same feat and is also well worth seeing.

The Big Short is a smart, clever film with some great acting performances. It could even be the best of this year and is well worthy of its Oscar nominations.

(Saturday 27^th February)