Half birthday

I was recently informed by my son that we might not be able to watch the Cup Final on Saturday because we'll be celebrating my grandson's "half birthday". Apart from the warped sense of priorities here, I didn't know that half birthdays (or should it be half-birthdays?) are even a thing. No-one has ever mentioned my half birthday on 16th July.

Charlotte Pomeranz wrote a book "The Half-Birthday Party" in 1984, so it's not as if it's a new concept. Half-birthday can even be written into law: the US state of Idaho allows people to take out a learner driving licence at the age of 14½; that frankly seems odd. More odd, however, is Michigan which requires the youngster to be 14 years and 8 months for the licence; a two-thirds-birthday. In Maryland it's 15 years and nine months, a three-quarters birthday. I could go on. [please don't, Nigel, we get the point]

Do you want to know whose half-birthday it is today? No? Well I'm going to tell you anyway.

Oprah Winfrey

Tom Selleck

Thomas Paine

William McKinley

Anton Chekhov

Frederick Delius

Germaine Greer

Lewis Carroll wrote about "un-birthdays". Humpy Dumpty says he was given an un-birthday present by the White King and Queen in Through the Looking-Glass. Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) took the idea to heart: he would surprise friends with gifts on other, random days. As many of us do, although (in my case) not knowing we are celebrating un-birthdays.

As for me, belated half-birthday wishes will be gratefully received.

Electric bikes

The UK government is planning a subsidy for purchasing ebikes. "To encourage older people to get out on the road" (my quote marks, referencing a report in today's Times). They apparently cost upwards of £1,000. More from the paper: "GPs will be encouraged to prescribe cycling and patients will be able to hire bikes through surgeries".

Why is an ebike better than a bike? Cheaper, with the subsidy? No. Greener? No. Better for fitness? No. Safer for pedestrians? No. It's a scheme to provide toys for rich pensioners, in fact well off people of all ages, whizzing around, clogging up the roads for us poor car drivers. If you're into toy subsidies, why not Lego kits for the kids?

And has anyone asked the overworked GPs and their surgery staff? Who will have to hire staff to run the bike rental department. And need to use their (probably non-existent) capital to buy the bikes to rent them. Given the age profile of people I see at my surgery, I imagine the take up would be very close to zero. But, good news if you were given an ebike for Christmas and don't know what to do with it; you can sell it to the NHS!

Is it April Fool's Day? On the face of it this is the most bonkers idea from a government led by a PM addicted to throwing crazy ideas around to see which ones stick. Maybe this is what Cummings' "weirdos and misfits" have come up with.

In other news today - more accurately perhaps gossip or rumour (which of course is why I read the papers, since the real news is so dire) - the Premier League is thinking of using the Women's Premier League as a pilot for allowing limited spectators (that's just a few of them, not people of limited intelligence) into football stadiums. So there, it doesn't matter if female football fans get the virus and in any case not many people go to watch women playing soccer anyway. Are you mad, Premier League? Did you furlough your PR department?

Of course the Times could just be making it all up. But hey, it's more entertaining than watching Matt Hancock. Or getting stuck in Spain.

Oh I forgot, I said I wasn't going to be political or controversial in the blog. Sometimes I can't resist a dig.

Great minds

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

So said Eleanor Roosevelt. Although it's not clear that she actually did. I dunno, it's a bit like Einstein being credited with saying "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.". He didn't, and if you keep on saying it, that's insane.

He also didn't say:

“Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”

Or:

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

But it's a fun aphorism; great at parties.

Is misquoting famous people a modern phenomenon? Maybe twitterstorm, internatter, wikieverything? Well no. Eighteenth century French citizens were so hacked off with the French royal family that they attributed "let them eat cake" to Marie Antoinette. It had actually been said earlier by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Confessions. But never let the truth get in the way of a good story (I wonder who said that?) - Marie said it! Execute her! So they did. Rousseau got away with it.

We know who said "Brexit means Brexit" but how many times did Theresa May do so? Maybe nowadays with 24 hour rolling news it's not likely that misquotes would be allowed to get into everyday understanding, but Twitter is a great spreader of fake news. And we definitely know who said that. Or do we? 

In the 13th century BC, Rameses the Great spread lies and propaganda portraying the Battle of Kadesh as a stunning victory for the Egyptians; the battle was actually a stalemate. FAKE NEWS!

In the American colonies, Benjamin Franklin wrote fake news about murderous "scalping" Indians working with King George III in an effort to sway public opinion in favour of the American Revolution. FAKE NEWS!

Maybe, in 100 years, students will be writing essays on Jeremy Corbyn saying "Brexit means fake news".

Flagpole sitta

Flagpole Sitta is a song by an American band Harvey Danger. In all honesty, it's not a great song. And I'm not enamoured with their sound but I came across a quote from the song:

...if you're bored then you're boring

I've definitely been bored at times over the last four months - no pub, no coffee shop, no full English breakfast, no grandkids - and that's why I started blogging. So that I would be less bored. Am I therefore boring? I worry about that now, although there is certainly a case for saying that the lyrics of rock songs are often ridiculous (rather like opera, now I come to think of it) and shouldn't be taken seriously.

But I take everything I come across seriously so I thought I'd explore literature of various kinds to see what others had to say about boredom.

Before that, I should tell you - because you are fellow explorers and will insist on knowing - that Harvey Danger were an alternative rock band. I don't know what that means; their music sounds punkish to me but there are (younger) members of my family who would know better than I. Flagpole Sitta was used as the theme tune for a British sitcom called Peep Show. Never heard of that either. But, as with everything, you can check out this song on YouTube.

OK, that's out of the way, added to my knowledge of life, the universe and everything but almost certainly never to be revisited. Although one day it might be useful in a pub quiz.

[Ed: NIgel, so far you are demonstrating exactly Harvey's point]

The American novelist Zelda Fitzgerald gives us this:

“She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring.”

Which actually is not dissimilar to Harvey's line.

The comedian Louis C. K. tells us:

“I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored.”

OK C. K., I'm sorry I said it. Forgive.

Another American novelist Maria Semple has a rather worrying take on it:

“That's right,' she told the girls. 'You are bored. And I'm going to let you in on a little secret about life. You think it's boring now? Well, it only gets more boring."

Albert Camus is also in negative mode:

“The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits.”

But I'm going to finish on a positive note, from Susan Cain:

“...I also believe that introversion is my greatest strength. I have such a strong inner life that I’m never bored and only occasionally lonely. No matter what mayhem is happening around me, I know I can always turn inward.”

Ah now, that's definitely me. Always seeking the inner truths. And you, dear reader, if you've got this far in this ramble, you are definitely not boring.

Harvey, you're wrong.

New Zealand

For Christmas 2014, I was planning a visit to my son Simon and his family in Australia. I often liked to take a short stay stopover on the way to Australia and this time thought I'd go to New Zealand. Never been there before. So I did. And these are some of the pictures illustrating the trip (and bringing back memories for me).

I chose Auckland for a week's stay, for no other reason than that was where the flight went (Air New Zealand the best Premium Economy seating I have ever had, by the way). Skipping over the awful inconveniences of transiting San Francisco.

I took a trip to a Maori village at Whakarewarewa (try saying that quickly). With geothermal springs. Who knew New Zealand had sheep? 

 

A trip to the Waitangi Treaty Ground, where New Zealand's founding document was signed in 1840.

  

On to the Bay of Islands. Some whale hunting (that's hunting in the sense of looking for them, not...you know).

Oh look, there's a whale. Really. Look carefully. 👀 

And a haka to say welcome back.

Another day, to the Waitomo Glowworms Cave.

Sorry you can't see the glowworms! You try photographing them.

Ah the good old days of steam railways

Do you like trains? I do. My preferred mode of travel from St Austell to Whitstable is by very comfortable Great Western Railway train, pretty uncomfortable underground across London and moderately comfortable South Eastern Railway Javelin train from St Pancras to Whitstable. I'm not convinced that's a safe way to travel at the moment so I'll be spewing diesel on the motorways.

I've always loved railways and I though you might like to share these pictures of a trip I made to Delhi in July 2016. I had some Virgin air miles which needed using before they expired so I had a look at their schedules; where shall I go? Delhi? That sounds different; I'll go.

It was different. Noisy, crowded, dusty, hot, humid, uncomfortable. I loved it. Just browsing the streets and observing city life, learning (with some trial and error and close shadowing of locals) how to cross the road in the face of a million threatening vehicles of all kinds. Window shopping, stall shopping. Figuring out what and where to eat. The occasional retreat to Starbucks for air con, relaxation and more familiar coffee - and pastry.

On this day, I visited the 

In case you think I spent my whole  two weeks trainspotting, keep an eye on the blog for more of Delhi, Agra, Jaipur and more.