As I sit at our dining table, staring out of a rain-spattered window, listening to the wind whistling at forty-plus miles an hour and the television blasting out historical cricket matches watched by my indolent son, I am struggling to recognise the pleasure of Half Term. A suggestion to go Ten Pin bowling has been met with derision by the fourteen year old sloth. Earlier, he briefly ventured up to the Golf Club but was beaten back by the stormy conditions. “Wanna go to a movie”. “Nah, nothing I want to see”. “How about cards?”. “No, done that”. “Are you just going to sit there all afternoon doing nothing?” “Yes”.

But wait, a development even as I write. “I’m going to the astro to play hockey, despite the atrocious weather, I need to get out”. Eureka! I will now feel so guilty that I will probably have to go and join him. Meanwhile, daughter Tiggy has a friend over for the afternoon and a “sleepover” tonight. Somehow just the word fills me with gloom and despondency, knowing the battles that lie ahead to get them to go to bed, to go to sleep, to stay asleep and to wake up early so that our guest can be returned to her working Mother by 0815. I fancy there’s a lot to be said for youthful parenthood and hence youthful grandparenthood. I might try that next time round. Sadly, it seems the slate is wiped clean when we depart this mortal coil and all that useful intelligence is unavailable for the next visit. I have gradually come to think that reincarnation makes more sense than most other religious/scientific theories. Despite a lack of brain transportation from one episode to the next, I would like to think that there is a gradual progression. If I started out as an amoeba, progressed to snail, rabbit, golden eagle and chimpanzee, before attaining Homo Sapiens status, then hopefully I will not now regress. Presumably there is a greater purpose, whereby we subconsciously apply previous lessons learnt to our current brief tenure, which is gradually deepening our soul’s knowledge and understanding. Alternatively it could all be complete baloney. I am just hoping the next visit doesn’t start in China……or North Korea.

I am stuck painfully on the horns of a dilemma. My grass, which has had so much loving care and attention over the past two years, is now of a length that if transplanted onto Oliver’s head would require an instant visit to the barbers if the fearsome wrath of school discipline wasn’t to descend upon him. The problem is that the ground and grass is so wet that if I launch the mighty John Deere, with it’s heavy roller, it will merely turn the Wimbledonesque turf into an arena suitable for mud wrestling. What to do? With an outlook of continued violent weather it is a problem with no imminent resolution. Still at least the house isn’t flooded. Yet.

It’s Half Term, which means two footloose and fancy-free teenagers to be entertained, enlivened, cajoled, bullied, and chased, not to mention enriched. Playing Cheat with daughter Tiggy and a schoolfriend this afternoon, I was thrilled to win comfortably; twice. My delight was not because I won, but because my daughter was pathologically incapable of either cheating or lying. Hopefully she will continue to be rubbish at that particular card game.

A less pleasing aspect of the day was visiting friends and watching their three children, aged between 7 and 12, being totally familiar with domestic chores, walking the dogs in the pouring rain and generally helping their Mother. Less pleasing, because the Tutt children fall significantly short in such areas. Where oh where have we gone wrong?

A more satisfying occurrence was the successful completion of a task that has been outstanding for at least twenty years and probably rather more. One of my few remaining family heirlooms is an attractive and quite old gateleg table that served as our dining table throughout my youth. As a family we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner around it, something that happens all too rarely nowadays sadly. At some point in the mists of my memory a curved end-piece of one flap broke off. It was a clean break and was just the original glue giving way, so in theory it should have been easy to repair. Despite having a reasonably comprehensive toolkit, I don’t (well, didn’t) possess any clamps, which I considered an essential accomplice for successful completion of the repair. The poor, unloved table has been a folded sideshow for many years, so repairing it hasn’t been a priority and coming from the school of “never do today what you can put off until tomorrow”, it has remained damaged goods; until now. Having fairly recently assigned it to a more prominent position in the centre of our Sitting Room it has gradually regained its former status as a table at which to eat. Finally, your correspondent has been forced to act. With advice from my best man, Peter Cook, (a renowned woodworker, DIY expert and farmer) and a new set of wood clamps from Robert Dyas the much delayed repair was attempted. The key question was “what glue to use”. Lee Venables (Master of Barley Sugar, my favourite cafe and a cunning antique trader) strongly recommended Gorilla Glue as being the “Trade’s” favourite. Peter Cook, with considerable hands-on experience, confirmed that Gorilla Wood Glue was the Rolls Royce of adhesives. After another trip to Robert Dyas (having first plumped, in my ignorance, for Araldite) I was now fully equipped to attempt the tricky operation. Unlike Araldite, Gorilla Wood Glue is quite runny, so a few large drops ended up on the unprotected carpet. This oversight was rapidly corrected with prompt assistance from Tiggy and a wet cloth and the incredibly simple rectification was completed most satisfactorily in about two minutes. The glue is solid in thirty minutes, but the clamps remained in place overnight, with full adhesion achieved in twenty four hours. The dear old gateleg is finally restored to its former glory and with a generous application of Lord Sheraton Caretaker Wood Balsam (a blend of pure beeswax, cold pressed linseed oil and pine turpentine, also supplied by the excellent Robert Dyas) it once again has a most pleasing sheen.

The forty seven garden jobs, that have been outstanding for many weeks, now beckon. However, the entrails of Storm Dennis, in conjunction with the Overture to the next meteorological plague upon our houses, mean they will have to wait, until these aching bones can delay the inevitable no longer.

 

It’s Valentine’s Day. Right, that’s got that out of the way.

As a would-be inventor, who’s failed to actually invent anything, it never ceases to amaze me how often clever people come up with clever ideas to resolve problems that you didn’t know existed in the first place. It’s an old golfing joke that frequently the last thing you do before going out to tee-off is nip to the gents, where you are greeted with the slogan Armitage Shanks. As a golfing disaster that all hope to avoid (shanking), you fondly hope that Armitage will keep the affliction to himself. It’s one of those words that golfers avoid like the plague, in the way that actors will never mention Macbeth, when they are performing it. All of that is a rather convoluted way of congratulating Armitage (I presume) on a very simple solution to the problem of splash back. (Which I did know was a problem!). Since I was a wee lad (excuse the pun), urinals, despite coming in many shapes and sizes, have universally presented the challenge of keeping one’s wee safely contained within the porcelain and not spattering the cords. In between purchasing wood clamps to repair an old family heirloom and meeting Mrs T’s demands for more cream, I took advantage of the public facilities in the shiny new Beacon Centre where the incredibly simple addition of a centre vertical ridge deflects the descending liquid to the side and not straight back at you. How on earth did it take so long to come up with that!

I remember another brilliantly simple idea from my youth, when we would often stand around at buffet style parties with plate in one hand, fork in the other and a glass of wine perched precariously somewhere in between. A plastic clip-on glass holder attached to the plate resolved the problem. Presumably somebody made a killing….long before the days of Dragons’ Den. Talking of which, Mrs T has just purchased some plastic bottle holders that she’d seen in The Den. They have brackets that you glue onto bathroom tiles and then attach the racks that tidy up all those bottles of soap, shampoo and super-natural coconut conditioner that litter the bath; very simple but remarkably effective. It’s taken until 2020 to devise and so much better than those irritating bits of metal that hang off the shower and inevitably end up being thrown away as more annoying than useful.

Now that I have more time to myself, it surely is only a matter of time before my first successful invention catches the eye of a Dragon and produces that passive income after which all entrepreneurs yearn……

Meanwhile, I look forward to a weekend of hockey umpiring in howling gales and torrential rain as Dennis the Menace wreaks its transatlantic vengeance for the second week running. Why on earth did I volunteer…..?

My senses are in turmoil, scattered in rotting piles of confusion. Outside, the gang mowers are giving College Field its first haircut of the new year and yet more surprisingly, the hand mowers are already preparing the square for cricket. This despite a howling gale, bitter enough to make Whitbread jealous and the smoking entrails of Storm Ciara threatening to unload yet more unwanted and violent precipitation. If nature is so confused what hope have I?

Did you know that roughly 8,000 people die from flu every year in Britain? That’s over four times as many as die in road traffic accidents; the recent average is about 1,770 deaths in these islands. Compare that with Libya, which boasts the worst rate in the world at 73.4 per 100,000 people. In Britain, that would amount to 48,444 (roughly) people killed per annum. Anyway, the point is, flu is a major killer, especially for the elderly and infirm. As yet then, Coronavirus (sorry I haven’t cracked the new name yet) is a mere drop in the oggin. It’s amazing though, what publicity can do. Here in Eastbourne I suspect people are feeling particularly vulnerable because of the outbreaks in nearby Brighton and Worthing. How much easier life would be if we knew nothing. Instead of curling up into balls of stressed scarediness, waiting for the fickle finger of fate to point at us, we would just get on with our peaceful lives, blissfully ignorant of the dangers until struck down by the virulent enemy. With luck, we would then enjoy a day or three in bed being pampered by our loved ones (I can but dream) before bouncing back full of energy and bonhomie ready to face the next issue we are totally unaware of. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that we should not just ban all social media, but all news media, full stop. They say ignorance is bliss.

A very venerable friend of mine in South Africa, spends a significant part of each day avidly scouring every inch of newsprint and then rails against all the injustices, corruption, crime and other foul things that papers find important to report. His doctor is convinced that it would be so much better for him if he just went out and played golf (at which he is still extremely good in his eighties), chewed the cud with his buddies at the bar, read novels about Ancient Greece and watched endless editions of Pointless. Fretting about the terrible state of the World is not going to make his last few years on earth any happier, in fact quite the reverse.

As I write, I am listening to a wonderful concert with Kiri Te Kanawa and Jeremy Irons performing the classic songs from My Fair Lady which perhaps accounts for my flights of fancy and total absence of reality.

 

Early blossom decorates spartan trees, grass grows faster than Jack’s beanstalk and there is enough light at 5pm to face Joel Garner on a lively wicket. Ok, I concede I never faced Joel Garner on any sort of wicket but hopefully you get my point. The days are lengthening and nature is being suckered into believing that winter has thrown all its spears. The scene is set for Spring to step forward and offer its golden beauty for inspection. HA! Alas poor Nature I know it well. Lurking around the corner, hell, fire and brimstone are preparing to unleash their venom; not on an unsuspecting public though, because ever since the Met Office failed to warn of the impending hurricane in 1987, that devastated great swathes of the southern counties, they have been over-cautious in forewarning of any likely trouble, for days in advance. We should, apparently, be battening down the hatches on Saturday night for a fearsome assault upon our sensibilities with eighty mph winds and torrential rain that will demand a re-branding of Sunday. Whilst we will no doubt experience something slightly uncomfortable for awhile, it will be totally unsurprising if the storm isn’t somewhat disappointing in its intensity. The combination of our modern blame culture and “Elf and Safety” require that we “listen out for forecasts”, as if that’s going to make a blind bit of difference. For the most part our noble meteorologists struggle to report what’s already happened, never mind what’s coming up in three days time.

A significant amount of print and air-time has been expended today on whether the Nation should fly the Union Flag to celebrate Prince Andrew’s 60th birthday. I am a royalist. I am the proud owner of two commissioning warrants, signed personally by Elizabeth R, having sworn allegiance to the crown on two separate occasions, once when joining the Royal Air Force and seven years later when I transferred to the Army Air Corps. I have commentated on many royal and state occasions for the BBC. I am a traditionalist. I have met and talked to The Duke of York on a number of occasions on golf courses around the world. But bluntly, I couldn’t give a damn about him or his wretched birthday. He has let the “Firm” down badly and frankly has become an irrelevance. So many more issues of substance and import furrow our brows. I suspect the vast majority of folk in Britain really couldn’t give a damn about him, other than to know that he is facing the music for past indiscretions.

The weather may well have an impact on England’s Six Nations match against Scotland at Murrayfield tomorrow afternoon. The Princess Royal, Andrew’s older sister, has been Patron of the Scottish RFU for thirty years. If anyone deserves a flag to be flown it is surely her. She is undoubtedly her Mother’s daughter. Hopefully, she will witness a Scottish side humbled by a rampaging England, intent on avenging the past two years of ignominy inflicted by the tartan warriors. I am not overwhelmed with confidence though, after a Parisian performance worthy of shopkeepers.

As the grim sogginess of January gives way to the grim sogginess of February I can report with some satisfaction that I am now a “creative practitioner”. This is thanks to Arts Council England who feel that “artist” is a bit too high-falutin and by re-designating them it will make its work more inclusive for everybody, everywhere. I concede that my creative abilities are limited when it comes to art, so it’s perhaps presumptuous to describe myself as an artist.  This new designation allows me to bathe with the great unwashed in a turbulent sea of mediocrity, unfettered by any pretence of talent.

I am, however, quite chuffed with my chainsaw skills. Having watched a large dog fox wander across our back lawn this morning and then jump through a hole where a wall used to be, I quickly realised there was an urgent need for some fairly major repair work if Callie (the whippet) wasn’t to venture off into pastures new, which, if on the scent of the afore-mentioned Reynard, might be quite a long way off. The wall has finally succumbed to gravity because a number of not insignificant limbs of a neighbour’s tree had penetrated the stonework, thereby rendering its render somewhat less cohesive. The chainsaw was therefore necessary to remove said limbs, with the assistance of son Oliver ,who was supposed to pull on a rope so that the offending bough came down in the right place. Once I had managed, with some difficulty, to manoeuvre it back onto our side of the wall I was able to contemplate the ancient and highly skilled art (creative practice?) of dry stone walling. After a few, admittedly rather feeble attempts, I resorted to another skill learned first as an army officer and more recently as a landowner (of a very small patch), namely wire fencing. Once again our walled garden has a secure perimeter in which much-loved pets can safely gambol.

Whilst this artisan labour was most satisfying, the highlight of the day was going to be watching England start their 6 Nations campaign with a great and glorious victory in the Stade de France in Paris. Sadly, it was England who have accepted the reclassification of creative practitioners, whilst France displayed all the artistic genius for which they have long been renowned. It was Matisse and Monet versus Damien Hirst and Banksy. We, and as I am English I feel justified in displaying such partiality, were pathetic. For all his beguiling pre-match drivel, Eddie Jones was out-thought and out-played. It’s so sad that the England captain’s dad, Andy Farrell, having coached Ireland to greatness, has now hopped across the channel to show France how to do it. He played rugby league for Gt Britain so how come he’s now in Europe! Hopefully he will be detained at the channel border and refused entry back into the UK.

As for the Arts Council……what absolute poppycock. Are Van Gogh and Picasso, Rembrandt, Turner and Constable now all going to be downgraded to “creative practitioners”? Yet another example of thinking outside the box, when the thinkers should be firmly locked up inside one; with bars.

 

 

Today’s the day the teddy bears leave the picnic. Well ok, the EU has never been a picnic, but Boris must be a direct descendant of Paddington. Even with a vastly reduced news staff, the BBC is inevitably full of the B word. Don’t know about you, but it’s all feeling a bit of a damp squib after the years of wrangling. Maybe it will be more exciting at the end of the year?

I met a really interesting lady yesterday. Our respective children were attending Eastbourne College to audition for Drama and Music Scholarships and we ended up going to Barley Sugar (my favourite coffee emporium) for a lengthy chat over a flat white. Early in the conversation it transpired she is a Conductor; not one that shouts “any more fares please”, but the kind that stands on a podium and waves frantically at a bunch of talented people making weird looking instruments produce pleasing sounds. Her speciality is turning large groups of soloists into a cohesive vocal ensemble, which she now does to a very high level. I am always instantly impressed with anyone who can make beautiful music, as I have spent so much of my life trying and failing miserably. Emma (that is her name) has a Masters from Cambridge in some high-powered psychology type thing, so she also specialises in helping (often very senior) people understand their inner selves; at least I think that’s what she said. In the course of a broad discussion about everything from school bus transportation to local cheeses, we alighted upon the subject of evil gameboys and their ilk. She explained that when teenagers get lost in the unreal world of gaming they become the masters, they are in charge and make all the decisions. Hence, when they come off and return to reality they are still wired as rulers of all they survey. This was a light bulb moment. It fits Master Oliver’s moods to a tee and probably explains why his behaviour can be quite disruptive at school. Not just his come to that. In the surreal world of gaming we have unleashed a monster. The genie is out of the bottle and is going to be very hard to put back. It totally explains his sense of “right” and “entitlement”, that has confused and irritated me for so long. Thank you, Emma. (You forgot to give me the remedy prescription!)

We have to wait until 14th February to know whether our little darlings have found scholastic favour with the examining thespians here. Will a Valentine’s Card pop through the letterbox with a heart-shaped thumbs up or will they all be summoned to the stage and dismissed, Ant and Dec style, until only the top three remain? It will be so disappointing if it’s just an email saying “we’re sorry to inform you that your daughter, who performed most impressively, has not been granted a scholarship to Eastbourne College, but we wish her all the best in the future”.

At least it’ll be a cut and dried decision. We don’t have to negotiate with Jean Claude Juncker or Michel Barnier. It bothers me it’s the Year of the Rat.

As Flanders and Swan might have said, “I’m absolutely delirious about” my new juicer. Regular readers of JaJa99 may recall that I am on a health kick of drinking celery juice every morning, but was struggling to find a sensibly priced machine to take the hard work out of juicing stick-loads of the greeny/white stuff. After Alison gave up researching it and gave me free licence to source my own, I returned to the expert “UK Juicers” website on the basis that it was something I am going to use every day, so sturdiness and quality are important. Inevitably they don’t come cheap. I was intrigued to learn from the extremely helpful lady at UK Juicers that celery juicing has become so popular in recent months, they had written a special article devoted to the subject, with recommendations as to whether “vertical centrifugal” or “horizontal masticating” was the best. I cannot claim to be an expert on the subject, but now rather better informed than I was, I am the proud possessor of a very sturdy (and not inexpensive) Omega horizontal masticator (making sure spell-check hasn’t interfered) that only takes up a relatively small area of our small area of worktops. Mrs Tutt hasn’t complained at all. I did, however, make a strategic error. Whilst putting the masterpiece of masticators together I stupidly left the invoice out. The Head of the Household came in at that moment and with unerring accuracy her eyes alighted upon the aforementioned document. “HOW MUCH?!!” she sayeth. Going into full apology mode I explained that it was an ex-demo model and was actually a real bargain. The raised eyebrows and mocking look suggested I wasn’t really hitting home.

However, marital ire aside, the OHM is a great success. Juicing each evening is now a real pleasure and even such fun that 12 year old daughter is keen to do it. The further good news is that it really does seem to be having a most beneficial effect on her acne. “The Medical Medium” , Anthony William, is the man who claims responsibility for spreading the celery gospel, should you be interested in delving further into the subject.

Seaweed also has health benefits as you probably know. I’ve just heard a report on The World at One on BBC Radio 4, recounting how a remote Hebridean island has discovered that its multitudinous sheep flourish on seaside grazing. The protein rich weed apparently creates a tasty, rather more “gamey” meat, that even QEII has latched onto. Perhaps more importantly, it creates considerably less methane gas having passed through the ruminants, which are responsible for about 15% of Britain’s total output of the nasty stuff. Now that has to be good news.

I fear you may be too young to remember Michael Flanders and Donald Swan, who were a brilliant musical/comedic double act of my youth. One of their songs has stuck in my ever more colander-like brain. “I’m absolutely delirious about my new eye-level cooker………. this means that without my having to bend down…… the hot fat can spit straight into my eyes!” Timing is, of course, everything and it’s rather better heard than read.

They say it’s good to learn something new every day. I just have. It’s all thanks to The Pedants Revolt. No sign of Watt Tyler here, merely an irritated author, Sir Philip Pullman, who, according to The Times, is calling on all literate people to boycott the new Brexit 50 pence piece because it is missing an Oxford comma. The wording on the coin is “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations 31 January 2020.

It’s interesting that he should get so picky about the missing comma. Surely strictly speaking there should be a full stop after nations? Also, if January is written in full, I was always taught that it should be “31st”. It could be 31 Jan 2020 or 31st January 2020, but not as proposed. However, clearly I am far from literate because I have never heard of the “Oxford comma” until now. My ( I thought very excellent English teachers at school) all said that you should never put a comma before “and”. However, having consulted Google, I think I understand the purpose of the Donnish comma. If you have a list of things that are unconnected, by preceding the final “and” with a “,”, you make it clear that they are all single items. So, in the case of our new Brexit currency, it depends on the intended meaning. If we are wishing all nations “peace” as a single thought, followed by “prosperity” as an equally individual item and “friendship”  in the same vein, you would write it “Peace, prosperity, and friendship with all nations”. However, if you are lumping “prosperity and friendship” into one thought, there is no need for the Oxford comma. Right, that’s cleared that up then……..

I suppose there is also an argument that says capitals throughout would be more effective, in the manner of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité”. Perhaps the Royal Mint thinks that would be too reminiscent of the Revolting French though and we certainly wouldn’t want that. Personally I suspect Sir Philip is overdoing the intellectual arrogance just a tad in his call for a boycott. Perhaps he has got a book to sell?

As one final thought, isn’t the wording rather banal anyway? I suppose it reflects the politically correct world we live in. How about a montage of Queen Boudica, Francis Drake, QE’s I and II, Victoria, Wellington and Churchill with a large V sign and the letters FTLOY. I leave it to your imagination to decode that one! Or perhaps that famous trio of balls signifying a pawnbrokers….?

 

I have just had a most uncomfortable vision of the future. Having had a painfully swollen and tender foot for a week or so, the swelling moved up my leg, so that Friday night produced rather more waking hours than sleeping. Reluctantly, I pulled out of my hockey umpiring duties on Saturday morning, packed a bag of food and light entertainment in the form of cards, reading material and crosswords and headed for the A&E Department of Eastbourne District General Hospital. It is an establishment that I have visited a couple of times for X-rays, so I knew that it doesn’t win any accolades for architectural merit, or indeed for high levels of care and maintenance. I also fully expected that I would be detained at the NHS’s pleasure for some considerable time. Unfortunately, my low expectations were overwhelmed on all fronts. A TV screen, in what used to be Casualty, informed its reluctant audience that the “current waiting time is 7 hours”. That exceeded why worst fears, not least of which because the room was tatty, unloved and, dare I say it, unclean. How could they possibly keep a place like this free of the dreaded superbugs that haunt so many places of sickness and healing? Fingers crossed that my immune system is still in good shape despite whatever is happening to my leg. I suspect that I ended up jumping the queue somewhat as they feared I might have a blood clot, which could be potentially life threatening. Having spent much of the weekend there, undergoing ultrascans, chest X-rays, urine tests, numerous blood tests and much prodding and poking I emerged into the welcome daylight with an apparently clean bill of health…..and a bloody painful leg. I fear more tests, drugs and hypotheses lurk on the horizon.

But the “uncomfortable vision of the future” refers to the unutterably depressing prospect of joining the trolleyed ranks, of sighing, groaning, muttering, tube besmirched geriatrics; the poor souls for whom the good days have gone and only misery remains. If that sounds overly dramatic, please go and see for yourself. That said, I have nothing but praise for the staff of all descriptions who seemed to be doing a marvellous job in pretty trying circumstances.

Well that turned out to be rather more macabre than I had intended! If that sounds odd, it’s because almost invariably when I start writing a blog I have no idea where I am going, I just let my fingers roam across the keyboard.

I didn’t actually see any rats availing themselves of free healthcare, but I bet there are plenty there. As you probably know, China has just celebrated the new Year of the Rat. According to Chinese Zodiac folklore, Ratties are reputed to be frugal savers. They might need to be. The last Year of The Rat was 2008, which, you may recall, was an indifferent year for banks….amongst others. There are those naysayers who would have you believe that a potentially even more catastrophic financial crisis is overdue. Rats could end up with a seriously bad name.

It’s strange how many of those lovable little critters in The Wind in The Willows have ended up as terms of abuse, or negative comments; “you rat”, “you little toad”, “there’s a mole in the organisation”, “don’t badger me”.

As a final thought, is it too far-fetched to think that a Global pandemic could trigger a Global financial crisis, with China at the epicentre? I felt so positive about 2020!