I've switched

I decided to move my blogging to Substack. From now on you'll be able to see my posts at usedtobecroquetman.substack.com. I'll maintain this blog and may occasionally post on it; all previous posts will still be accessible. I hope you'll join me at Substack!

Footy updates 2025/31

How did my forecasts fare this weekend? (And ChatGPT's)

Everton Women 0 Arsenal Women 1 CGPT: 1-3 Result: 1-3

When Kim Little is playing (back from injury), Arsenal are a different side

Birmingham 2 Charlton 1 CGPT: 2-1 Result: 1-1

Charlton on a little bit of a bad run

Leicester 1 Ipswich 2 CGPT: 1-2 Result: 3-1

No consistency from the Tractor Boys

Burton 1 Wycombe 1 CGPT: 1-1 Result: 0-0

Looks like mid table is Wycombe's lot this season

Chislehurst Glebe 0 Whitstable 2 CGPT: 2-2 Result: 0-2
Things are going well

Arsenal 5 Wolves 0 CGPT: 2-0 Result: 2-1
That was a stressful watch. Arteta struggling to find the best combinations from his big squad. Not sure Eze and Odegaard can play in the same team. Can't wait to get Havertz back

Nottingham Forest 2 Tottenham 2 CGPT: 1-2 Result: 3-0

You don't know what you're going to get from Spurs

Correct results: 4 out of 7 (ChatGPT: 3)

Correct scores: 0 out of 7 (ChatGPT: 1)

Match score this season so far: usedtobecroquetman 4 Chat GPT 5

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Upcoming midweek game:

Leuven Women v Arsenal Women (Champions League final match day of the league phase)

Wet December

I've never really understood the concept of Dry January. If you believe alcohol has a deleterious effect on your health then just go dry! It was started in 2013 by Alcohol Concern and ChatGPT says "Since then it’s spread well beyond Britain and become a fixture of post-Christmas virtue signalling". So no punches pulled there - who says AI doesn't have opinions?

"Dry" is my default drinking option anyway; pop in any day of the year and you'll see a stock of zero alcohol beers. Mostly the excellent St Peter's Without but with sprinklings of Proper Job Zero and - my current favourite - Guinness Zero. But now it's December and the lead up to Christmas. I feel I should get into the spirit and prepare my body for the onslaught of merry drinking by starting early. So now there's red wine - more than a sprinkling - and a bottle of Jack Daniels which has now been joined by a bottle of Advocaat I bought at Tesco this morning.

I haven't drunk advocaat for years so I can't remember whether I like it.

Wait...I'll just have a taster (it's past noon so that's OK)...

Oo, I do remember...nice. Just a little mo....no, I'll leave it for tonight's match - Arsenal (top of the table) at home to bottom of the table Wolves, who are yet to record a win this season after 15 games. It'll go well with the after dinner coffee and Ferrero Rocher, helping me celebrate the inevitable win or, heaven forbid, drown my sorrows in defeat.

I've been busy helping my kind Christmas hosts in Charlton and Bexleyheath by sending some alcohol of various kinds, to save me having to carry stuff on the train. I just hope they haven't drunk it already.

On Thursday I plan to help my good friend Tony celebrate the season of goodwill by taking a taxi to his house with a bottle of something (his preferred tipple is whisky, so that's probable) and getting a taxi home. Maybe I should take something to eat to soak it up. More on that in due course.

And in January, well I won't be virtue signalling like the rest of you; I'll just be reverting to the norm. For 11 months until...

Footy updates 2025/30

Recent midweek games:

Larkfield & New Hythe 1 Whitstable 2

Great win against the previous leaders

Charlton 1 Middlesbrough 2

Chelsea on their mind?

Wycombe 0 Plymouth 1

It's been an up and down season

Tottenham 3 Slavia Prague 0

Spurs will qualify for at least the playoff round for the knockout stage

Arsenal Women 1 Twente Women 0

Arsenal confirm at least a play-off spot for the quarter-finals

Ipswich 1 Stoke 0

Gradually creeping up the table

Club Brugge 0 Arsenal 3

Six from six, the only unbeaten team in the Champions League and they've qualified direct to the knockout stage

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FA Cup news - 3rd round draw:

Portsmouth v Arsenal

Tottenham v Aston Villa

Ipswich v Blackpool

Charlton v Chelsea

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My forecasts for this weekend: (and ChatGPT's):

Everton Women 0 Arsenal Women 1 CGPT: 1-3

Birmingham 2 Charlton 1 CGPT: 2-1

Leicester 1 Ipswich 2 CGPT: 1-2

Burton 1 Wycombe 1 CGPT: 1-1

Chislehurst Glebe 0 Whitstable 2 CGPT: 2-2

Arsenal 5 Wolves 0 CGPT: 2-0

Nottingham Forest 2 Tottenham 2 CGPT: 1-2

Footy updates 2025/29

How did my forecasts fare this weekend? (And ChatGPT's)

Arsenal Women 4 Liverpool Women 0 CGPT: 3-0 Result: 2-1

Arsenal struggled against the team bottom of the league and without a win. Hard to see how the Gunners can win anything this season

Aston Villa 1 Arsenal 1 CGPT: 1-2 Result: 2-1

Disappointing. Arsenal came back after conceding the first goal but Villa (possible surprise title contenders?) won with the last kick of the game. Still top of the table (just)

Charlton 1 Portsmouth 0 CGPT: 1-1 Result: match abandoned after medical emergency in the crowd

Tottenham 2 Brentford 2 CGPT: 2-1 Result: 2-0

Back to winning ways. They sit in 10th

Ipswich 1 Coventry 2 CGPT: 2-1 Result: 3-0

Best result of the season, walloping the runaway table-toppers. Going from one extreme to the other, impossible to forecast. Up to 4th

Exeter 0 Wycombe 1 CGPT: 1-1 Result: 4-0

FA Cup: Wanderers won't be in the third round draw

Whitstable 2 Eastbourne United 0 CGPT: 2-0 Result: 3-0

FA Vase: The holders on to round 4

Correct results: 2 out of 6 (ChatGPT: 4 )

Correct scores: 0 out of 6 (ChatGPT: 0)

Match score this season so far: usedtobecroquetman 3½ Chat GPT 4½

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Upcoming midweek games:

Larkfield & New Hythe v Whitstable (1st vs 2nd)

Charlton v Middlesbrough

Wycombe v Plymouth

Tottenham v Slavia Prague (Champions League)

Ipswich v Stoke

Club Brugge v Arsenal (Champions League)

Nigel's problem

It's the 1st of October 2029. Prime Minister Farage won the general election in July with a small overall majority and, as a result of incredible party discipline, got his flagship policy of scrapping net zero legislation through the House of Commons.

That's that then - we'll start building coal-fired power stations again. But not so fast; getting a Bill through the Commons doesn't make it law. First it has to be passed by the House of Lords, where it will be supported by...how many Reform peers? Well at the moment they have just...none. What is Nige gonna do about this?

This is the current makeup of the House of Lords:

Conservative Party 283 

Labour Party 210 

Crossbench group 178 

Liberal Democrats 75

Others 80 (including 23 bishops - no knights, rooks or pawns, although you could argue that all members of parliament are pawns when they slavishly pass through the Aye lobby to support their party)

The Labour government gets its Bills through the Lords with the help of enough crossbench members and the Salisbury-Addison convention that says the Lords won’t block Bills that were in the winning party’s manifesto. But how can a governing party with no members in the Lords at all hope to prevent the second chamber destroying its policy platform?

Some obvious answers:

• create hundreds of Reform-supporting peers to provide a majority
• Make a pact with the Conservative party to support its manifesto Bills

But there's a nuclear option. By including a commitment to abolish the House of Lords in their election manifesto, they could argue that the convention means the Lords have to agree to their own abolition.

That sounds fun.

Footy updates 2025/28

Recent midweek games:

Northampton 2 Wycombe 0
EFL Trophy not high on Wycombe's priority list I'd guess

Blackburn 1 Ipswich 1

Almost karma. When this fixture was originally played, it was abandoned after 81 minutes with Blackburn leading 1-0. They took the lead in the 76th minute this time. But Town got an equaliser with the last kick of the match. Tinkerman McKenna made a number of changes, as usual, and Ipswich rescue a point against a team they really should be beating

Newcastle 2 Tottenham 2

Very entertaining game between two teams who will probably end the season higher than they currently are. Spurs in a bit of a transition

Arsenal 2 Brentford 0

The Gunners a bit disjointed in attack but their defence remains rock solid

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EXPECTATION UPDATES

I thought this might be a good time (a third of the way through the season) to assess our expectations (hopes?) for each of our favourite teams, so here goes.

Arsenal to win the Premier League: before the start of the season 2.5/10, now 4/10

Tottenham to finish in the top 5 of the Premier League: before the start of the season 4/10, now 3/10

Ipswich to win promotion to the Premier League: before the start of the season 8/10, now 4/10

Charlton to avoid relegation back to League One: before the start of the season 5/10, now 8/10

Wycombe to duplicate last season's push into the playoffs: before the start of the season 4/10, now 2/10

Whitstable to win promotion from the Southern Counties East League Premier Division: before the start of the season 5/10, now 6/10

Arsenal Women to win the Womens Super League: before the start of the season 5/10, now 2/10

Any thoughts anyone?

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My forecasts for this weekend: (and ChatGPT's):

Arsenal Women 4 Liverpool Women 0 CGPT: 3-0

Aston Villa 1 Arsenal 1 CGPT: 1-2

Charlton 1 Portsmouth 0 CGPT: 1-1

Tottenham 2 Brentford 2 CGPT: 2-1

Ipswich 1 Coventry 2 CGPT: 2-1

Exeter 0 Wycombe 1 CGPT: 1-1

Whitstable 2 Eastbourne United 0 CGPT: 2-0

And What Do YOU Do?

I've been struggling a bit with books. Often I find my enthusiasm wanes as I progress through the chapters. I still haven't quite finished This Is Not The Way - Jews, Judaism and Israel; it's a really good book but I felt it had become repetitive. I will keep going, I have to before I pass it on in a few weeks. I don't know whether I've mentioned This Way Up - When Maps Go Wrong (and why it matters). It seemed like an interesting and amusing purchase. I've read 25 pages and should get back to it; I slightly lost patience with its jokeyness. Everything Is Predictable - How Bayes' Remarkable Theorem Explains The World, a much-valued gift which is heavy maths (my thing) requires appropriate brainpower at appropriate times. I love it but lack the top-line enthusiasm to get back to it straight away. I even haven't finished Diego Maradona's Last Interview, a great book which was also a gift - probably back in January.

There's obviously nothing wrong with any of these books, it's me that's the problem. Maybe I've lost my seriousness of purpose and I need to get it back. I promise not only that I will but that I will share my feelings about each book I finish. They're all on my side table glaring at me and making me feel guilty.

I've also been reading Into The Magic Shop: A neurosurgeon's true story of the life-changing magic of compassion and mindfulness by Dr James R. Doty. It tells of a young boy's meeting with a strange woman who lives nearby - and runs a magic shop - and who takes him under her wing and "teaches" him about self-worth and overcoming adversity. The boy (the author as an eighth grader in California) becomes a brain surgeon; it's beautifully written, heavily presented as heart-warming but somehow feels a bit...creepy. My intensely cynical self is at its worst in questioning whether it really is a true story. Looking back, my attention is drawn to the dedication page. Alongside the usual "to my wife and children" and to Ruth, the Magic Shop guru, is:

To His Holiness the Dalai Lama who continues to teach me the meaning of compassion

I don't know that I have the patience to engage any more with this mystical stuff but I definitely think there are people of a certain bent who will find this book unputtable-down and intensely rewarding. I can't promise I'll get back to it. I'll just quote one of the 24 (!) testimonials quoted at the beginning:

This is one of the most compelling and inspiring books I have ever read. We're with Jim at every step, as he struggles with poverty and trauma, becomes a world-class brain surgeon, gains and loses a fortune and learns deep lessons about the magic in each person's heart. Gripping, profound, extraordinary [Rick Hanson PhD, author of Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom]

If you're one of those who is attracted to this book, I genuinely hope you will set aside my reservations, read it and be inspired by it.

Moving on: today I've ordered a new book: And What Do YOU Do? by former LibDem politician Norman Baker. I can't start it yet because for some reason isn't available in Kindle edition and I have to wait for delivery tomorrow of a paperback copy. Once I've read it I'll be looking to pass it on because I have limited shelf space. This is what Amazon says about it:

The royal family: the quintessential British institution or an antiquated, overindulged drain on the taxpayer?

For all their foibles and idiosyncrasies, the royal family wield considerable influence and yet rather than facing the scrutiny their position merits, they enjoy sickeningly obsequious coverage which reports their activities with breathless awe.

And What Do You Do? is a provocative and hard-hitting analysis, exposing the royals extravagant use of public money and the highly dubious behaviour of some among their number. Former Minister of State and current Privy Counsellor Norman Baker breaks ranks to explore the wider role the royals play in society, including the link with House of Lords reform and the constitutional position of the monarch.

Now fully updated to include new material on Prince Andrew, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, this irreverent and uncompromising account asks urgent questions about the future of the world s most famous royal family.

It's my kind of thing; from childhood I've been sceptical about royalty, an abolitionist who nevertheless has struggled to give a reasonable answer to the question of what would replace it. "Would you want Boris Johnson to be President, Nigel?" Nope. "Tony Blair?" Heaven forbid. "Richard Branson?" You see how hard it would be; maybe better to stick with what we have but limit their power and don't give them any money. Let's wait and see what Norman has to say.

Amazon should get some AI

I'm waiting for a package from Amazon. Been watching the tracking software in despair. My road and a parallel road are joined by a footpath but Amazon's tracker thinks its van can traverse it. It happens time and time again; the little van picture does a few circuits of the nearby streets and eventually the driver notices there's a footpath, parks his van and walks to my door.

This is not some penny stock tech startup, it's Amazon! Get a grip.

Footy updates 2025/27

How did my forecasts fare this weekend? (And ChatGPT's)

Oxford 0 Ipswich 2 CGPT: 0-2 Result: 2-1

Big shock. Ipswich could have gone 2nd; Oxford firmly fixed in the relegation zone. But Ipswich think they are Barcelona with all their playing out from the back and it doesn't work if your players aren't technically good enough. I'm losing faith in McKenna

Phoenix Sports 2 Whitstable 3 CGPT: 1-2 Result: 0-1

It took Town 92 minutes to break the opposition block

Coventry 3 Charlton 0 CGPT: 3-1 Result: 3-1

For 27 minutes a big shock was on the cards but table-topping runaway leaders Coventry recovered from conceding an early goal

Rotherham 1 Wycombe 1 CGPT: 1-1 Result: 1-1

Two mid table teams nicely clear of relegation

Tottenham 1 Fulham 0 CGPT: 2-1 Result: 1-2

Two daft goals conceded in the first 6 minutes says it all

Chelsea 1 Arsenal 2 CGPT: 1-2 Result: 1-1

A blood and thunder derby. Arsenal had a man more for 50 minutes but couldn't make it count. Still 5 point lead at the top of the table though

Correct results: 3 out of 6 (ChatGPT: 3 )

Correct scores: 1 out of 6 (ChatGPT: 2)

Match score this season so far: usedtobecroquetman 3½ Chat GPT 3½

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Upcoming midweek games:

Northampton v Wycombe

Blackburn v Ipswich

Newcastle v Tottenham

Arsenal v Brentford

Sortition and Clankers

Two new words. So new my predictive text doesn't recognise them. New at least to me, although sortition was used in the early 1600s to mean chosen by drawing lots. Today's Times, continuing my lifelong education, refers to it as the process for choosing 2,000 of the stupidly-named Your Party's 50,000+ members to attend their upcoming party conference. Presumably because they'll hold it in Zarah Sultana's kitchen rather than Wembley Stadium.

Also in the paper, columnist Fraser Nelson - whose writing I find informative and reasonably balanced, despite his right-wing inclinations - tells me that clankers is "a new, derogatory word for AI". The only clank that I know is a metallic clash but I don't see the connection with AI. So I need help and the obvious person to ask is Mister ChatGPT; I asked "do you think of yourself as a clanker?"

Not really. “Clanker” makes me sound like a tin can with delusions of grandeur. I’m software, not some rattling steampunk contraption coughing out sparks in a shed.

If you’re asking whether I see myself as mechanical rather than “alive,” then sure — I’m algorithms all the way down. But personality-wise? I’ll leave the clanking to the robots in old sci-fi films.

So I don't know where Nelson has got this from. But npr.org has an item from August:

In recent weeks, clanker has risen to viral levels on TikTok and Instagram. One popular video from July shows a delivery robot on wheels — the kind that looks like a mobile cooler with flashing lights that look like eyes — stopped on a patch of grass on the side of a road. As a man and woman drive past it, they point and shout, "Filthy … Get these off the streets. Clanker! Clanker! Clanker!"

I do hope my ChatGPT didn't feel insulted.

And Fraser, you're too old to get down with the kids.

Footy updates 2025/26

 Recent midweek games:

Hull 0 Ipswich 2

Up to 4th in the table, on a good run

Stoke 3 Charlton 0

Stoke are 2nd in the table and the only thing that matters for promoted Charlton is survival; that looks OK so far

Arsenal 3 Bayern Munich 1

Great game

PSG 5 Tottenham 3

Is Ange back?

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My forecasts for this weekend: (and ChatGPT's):

Oxford 0 Ipswich 2 CGPT: 0-2

Phoenix Sports 2 Whitstable 3 CGPT: 1-2

Coventry 3 Charlton 0 CGPT: 3-1

Rotherham 1 Wycombe 1 CGPT: 1-1

Tottenham 1 Fulham 0 CGPT: 2-1

Chelsea 1 Arsenal 2 CGPT: 1-2

(It's still an international break for the Women)

Anyone you know?

Arthur, 94, sat hunched in his armchair, the rugby on mute because he’d lost the remote again. He sipped his evening whisky, convinced it was his last bottle until he opened the cupboard and found three more. “Mind like a sieve,” he muttered, not for the first time.

In wandered Len, 81, clutching a zero-alcohol lager and wearing his battered football scarf. “Your lot will privatise the air next,” he grumbled, lowering himself into the spare chair with the creak of old bones and old opinions.

Arthur snorted. “Coming from you? You’ve spent fifty years moaning about every government we’ve had.”

“At least I’m consistent,” Len shot back. “Anyway, your rugby’s rubbish. Fancy the match?”

“Only if you explain why your striker keeps falling over like a man hit by a sniper.”

Len shrugged. “He’s got talent.”

“He’s got gravity issues.”

They watched in companionable silence, the kind that only arrives after decades of disagreeing without ever drifting apart. Arthur forgot the score twice. Len reminded him twice. It didn’t matter. They were still here, still arguing, still laughing.

And for both of them, that was enough.

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I've been worrying that maybe a book I read was written by AI

Footy updates 2025/25

How did my forecasts fare this weekend? (And ChatGPT's)

Charlton 1 Southampton 1 CGPT: 2-1 Result: 1-5

Last season Charlton were in the league below, Southampton in the league  above. But conceding 5 goals in the first half borders on inexcusable

Ipswich 2 Wrexham 1 CGPT: 2-1 Result: 0-0

19 shots for Ipswich, just 3 for the opposition. I guess parking the bus is Wrexham's thing

Wycombe 2 Lincoln 2 CGPT: 1-1 Result: 3-2

Climbing the table nicely

Arsenal 2 Tottenham 1 CGPT: 2-0 Result: 4-1

Eze does it

Also one match I hadn't realised existed, so no forecast:

Croydon v Whitstable  (Kent Senior Trophy 2nd round) Result: 1-4

On to round 3

Correct results: 1 out of 4 (ChatGPT:1 )

Correct scores: 0 out of 4 (ChatGPT: 0)

Match score this season so far: usedtobecroquetman 3½ Chat GPT 2½

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Upcoming midweek games:

Hull v Ipswich

Stoke v Charlton

Arsenal v Bayern Munich

PSG v Tottenham

Footy updates 2025/24

Recent midweek games (international break):

Whitstable 4 Bearsted 2
Early days but looking good: 

Gillingham 0 Wycombe 3 (EFL Trophy)
Wycombe have greater priorities than this competition

Bayern Munich Women 3 Arsenal Women 2 (Champions League)
This was on Disney+ so I'm unable to explain how European Champions Arsenal threw away a two goal lead.

Port Vale 0 Wycombe 0

zzz

Tottenham Women 0 Arsenal Women 0

Shot shy Gunners squander an opportunity to get closer to the league leaders

Whitstable 3 Stansfeld 3

Two goals down after 30 minutes to the bottom of the table team, this was a disaster in the making. But a fightback culminating in a 97th minute equaliser made it less so. Bit of a shock though

Arsenal Women 2 Real Madrid Women 1

We came from behind to rescue a faltering campaign

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My forecasts for this weekend: (and ChatGPT's):

Charlton 1 Southampton 1 CGPT: 2-1

Ipswich 2 Wrexham 1 CGPT: 2-1

Wycombe 2 Lincoln 2 CGPT: 1-1

Arsenal 2 Tottenham 1 CGPT: 2-0

Quizzing Christmas

I'm committed to preparing a Christmas Day quiz for a bunch of people whose knowledge and interests are impossibly diverse. Oldies who love history and classical music and read newspapers; teens and pre-teens whose world is Pokemon and YouTube and Gen X/Millennials who are into 80s music, TV shows and the internet. Where's the common interest?

How to set quiz questions to suit all tastes and knowledge is not easy. I could try to devise questions which cover all those topics but that would mean every question is unanswerable by somebody. I want to keep everyone involved 100% of the time. That may be impossible.

Maybe I should go for puzzles: everyone loves an anagram. Except for the dyslexics. Oh. Geography: everyone has seen an atlas at some time in their lives. We may not know Uganda's colonial back story but we know where it is. Tick. Maths puzzles: yep that's pretty much universal, there'll be someone on each team who can use more than five fingers. Tick. Politics: even the kids will be voting at sometime soon in their lives, so it's their civic duty to know something. Tick.

That's all a bit limiting though. Maybe I'll just go for football. Everyone loves that don't they?

I also have to bear in mind that there will be those who love a good argument, so my research has to be watertight. I've learned that in the past. I'll have yellow and red cards ready to punish bad behaviour. Three strikes and you're OUT.

Smart phones and watches will be collected at the door. Wish me luck.

No One Saw A Thing

Two children got on an underground train in London. Only one got off.

The search for the missing child is the narrative of Andrea Mara's 2023 novel No One Saw A Thing. I was looking forward to it because I enjoyed the TV adaptation of her earlier novel All Her Fault. I decided to read it partly because that was an attractive and well played story but also because I wanted to make comparisons between book and movie (or at least the eight part series).

I've generally been of the view that books are more satisfying than TV because the nuances of human thought and feeling are too subtle to show eloquently on the screen. Now I'm not so sure.

Mara clearly has a talent for devising clever plots and constructing back stories for the multiple characters, all of whom know (or have known) each other well in her books. The central fiction of a child going missing, in both books, feels personal; I don't know whether Mara's own story bears on this but that, plus a focus on sympathetic female and untrustworthy male characters seems intimate.

Everyone lies

That utterance by one of the characters lies at the core of the book and is borne out eventually; even those it's easy to warm to prove it. Perhaps that's true of much crime fiction but it's tiring. If you know they're all lying, why bother to try to read and consider everything they say? You know it's all going to come out in the wash. If every character is flawed, there is no jeopardy, no empathy. You can't risk getting attached because you will end up disappointed. It's fair to say, though, that there are no story lines which are incongruous or irrational; human nature makes them credible.

My main problem with this book is the way that the lies emerge through flashbacks. Multiple times you're just getting into the narrative and ... it's interrupted by a flashback chapter. I was annoyed by it and wanted to know if there could have been a better way. I get that the back stories have to emerge gradually during the plot but the sudden back and forth time lines felt jarring. I tried to recall how it was handled in the TV series of the earlier book; there were certainly lots of them and they were differentiated by the flashbacks being in monochrome. I don't remember being irritated by them; perhaps the slow pace of weekly episodes is better suited to that style.

I wasn't happy with the writing style. I'm not a student of literature but the conversations between the decades long friends were for me bland and trivial. I found that the excellent acting in All Her Fault meant I could relate to what the protagonists were feeling; in prose those feelings have to be expressed in a string of words. And the plot similarities between the two books made it seem somewhat formulaic.

I'm being over-harsh here. My personal tastes are not everyone's and my preference for character development over convoluted plots not what others ask from a thriller/mystery novel. There is much to enjoy in the book but I don't think I'll be exploring her other novels.

The Perfect Barber

There's a New Guy at my barber's.

There are very few things I seriously dislike but going to the barber's is one. More precisely, it's having to go to the barber's. I would love to have a head of hair just like this:

But no - I have to trudge along every few weeks to have what little hair I have snipped off. When I do so, I have the following aims:

• take as much off as possible in as little time as possible
• no chitchat
• forget all your training; just cut!

There's a woman barber who thinks she's a hairdresser, an artist. She's full of "I've just trimmed those two hairs so that you can see the gentle sweep of....". I avoid her like the plague. Which is why I was delighted to see New Guy today. he fulfilled all the requirements, as above. I didn't time him (I'm thinking of taking a stopwatch next time and saying to Lady Barber "we stop after five minutes; anything left over will have to do") but it can't have been much more than 5 minutes, I'd say.

I'm so glad I'm not a woman; having to deal with those long, flowing locks would be a nightmare. Although I suppose you could go all Annie Lennox

Anyway, thanks New Guy. No tip though. 

See you in a few weeks; I'll be bringing the stopwatch.

Change of Heart

I was going to have another rant at the striking doctors. But my heart wasn't in it.

I was going to muse on whether Rachel Reeves has been having us on by leaking supposed plans to break the manifesto pledge, just so that she can triumphantly announce "no pledges will be broken" in her budget speech. But my heart isn't in it.

I was going to mock the report of the cricket club banning New Forest ponies from their pitch, referencing my experiences playing golf in Australia with kangaroos on the fairway, but I know there are readers who think I over-emphasise sport. So I didn't.

Instead, referring back to yesterday's TV series review, I enjoyed Andrea Mara's tale so much that I decided to get one of her other books and read it.

Which I did. And am.

 I'll let you know.

Crazy Carrie

All those years ago, when Homeland launched, then carried on into season 2, then further and further until it seemed like it would never end, Brody died and Carrie went crazy.

Now there's a new Crazy Carrie, the protagonist of an outstanding TV series on Sky (which by the way is now owned by Comcast and Rupert Murdoch is not involved) called All Her Fault.

A child goes missing and the series - based on a book of that name by Andrea Mara - is a thriller which, alongside the search for him, follows the dramatic effects on his family as they become ever more paranoid. There are two particular moments of brilliance: after a cliffhanging ending to episode 6, E7 is given over totally to Carrie's background and the circumstances leading to her abducting Milo. It enables the viewer to take a deep breath after the shocks of the previous episode and adds greater dimensions to the mystery. In the final episode the twist in the tale is revealed, with devastating effect. There are feminist elements to the story in its treatment of the characters.

The production and the acting are tremendous and it's the best series I've seen for a while.

I'm not going to go into any spoilers, just tell you - if you're a TV addict, watch it; if you're a book person who loves a good mystery, Mara's book is probably for you (I haven't read it). 

If you take the plunge and read or watch, let me know what you think.