Friday, July 3, 2009

Bloody Good Match, Though

I wonder if I'm the only person in the country who's happy that Andy Roddick beat Andy Murray earlier today. Nothing against Murray - he's a fine player, seems a nice chap, and his grandparents are old friends of my parents. But I've always liked Roddick. He plays exciting tennis, seems a nice guy, and (unlike Murray) hasn't got many chances at Wimbledon left. I'll be slightly surprised if Murray doesn't win Wimbledon at some point; Roddick wins it this year or he probably won't.

I don't see either of them beating Federer, but that's another matter entirely. If Murray had made the final, I suspect I'd have supported him. Again, nothing against Rog, but he has won it a time or two already...

The counter-argument - that I should support Murray because he's British - makes no sense to me. Almost seems a little creepy. The lines between patriotism, nationalism, and xenophobia have always seemed a bit too blurred for my liking, and being an Englishman living in Scotland probably doesn't help. Some sports are naturally group events, and accidents of geography seem a reasonably legitimate way of defining teams. But tennis is an individual sport. Surely personality, playing style, or being the plucky underdog should have some bearing on who to support? Turning it into a national flag-waving event just seems wrong somehow.

Posted by graham @ 09:20 pm

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Short and Sweet

It's been ages since I posted anything. Not for lack of things to write about, but due to lack of time given dog shows, Tara's birthday(*), gardening, bbqs, mother-in-law's birthday, Zak getting injured (and recovering), Tara being ill (and recovering), collar making, friends visiting, visiting friends, and the unending war to delay the inevitable victory of entropy(**).

I was therefore surprised to find I have nothing booked for this weekend. Did I forget to note down an engagement? Or is there really nothing happening? In which case, would anyone like to meet up for an impromptu pub night/party/whatever on Saturday?

(*) - Tara's now four, and in a fortnight Cisco will be fourteen. Where does the time go?

(**) - If anyone knows of a decent roofer who can repair/add flashing where needed to stop leaks, I'd be very grateful for an introduction...

Posted by graham @ 08:28 pm

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Champion

Tara went lure coursing again today, winning the deerhound final by half a length.

This wasn't the closest of Tara's races - she won her first by a nose, according to the judge. I wasn't in a position to see, so had no idea who won'd until we asked. By the way, the natty red collar Tara's wearing is so that people can tell the dogs apart. One grey hairy running at 40 looks much like another, so they wear wide wool snoods in red or white. In a three dog race, the third dog goes naked, as in the final.

There was a certain amount of joshing about a crossbred beating all the pedigree deerhounds present, but all in fun. They seem to really like our monster, and I kept being told how great it was that she'd taken to coursing so well. I'm so proud of her, and Tara loved every minute of it, of course.

Zak stayed at home - his leg isn't up to walking up the hill, never mind racing. He didn't seem too upset at being left behind. Alfie was with us, but slept through all the excitement.

Posted by graham @ 08:54 pm

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Mr Clumsy Strikes Again

Zak was running around in the woods at Beecraigs this morning. At some point he collided with something. We've no idea what, and he didn't even yelp. When he came back to us, I noticed a bit of blood on his wrist, which Claire checked and declared it to be "not too bad". We popped Zak on the lead and took him home, by which point the skin had started to split. One trip to the vet, a general, and several stitches later, and Zak is sporting a natty camoflage bandage, a sore head, and wobbly legs. He's currently sleeping on our bed.

Tara's been very cute about the whole thing. I took Zak to the vet, and when I returned without him, she was quite distressed. I gave her some pork strips to distract her, while Claire and I went shopping. We came back via the vet, collecting Zak. When we got home, Tara didn't want to see us, rushing straight over to Zak, and licking his muzzle affectionately. People are always asking if the dogs get on okay. Oh, yes.

Posted by graham @ 04:44 pm

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Do As I Say...

You can tell how seriously they're taking the European elections around here by the near complete lack of bits of card tied to lamp posts. I noticed one for the first time today, brightly printed on plastic-coated, completely-unrecyclable, non-degradable board. It was for the Green party...

To be fair, maybe they could reuse it for the General election.

Posted by graham @ 07:34 pm

Monday, June 1, 2009

A Great Lesson

When I was a child - maybe eight or nine - one of our tasks at school was to keep a record of news. Each weekday we had to write about what we'd done the previous evening, illustrated by a crude drawing. After a few weeks of this, the teacher had one of the girls read out her entry for the previous day, a colourful description of three or four activities. This, we were told, was what we should all be aiming for, because the teacher was fed up with reading "Last night I had dinner, watched telly, and went to bed." Watching TV was dull, we learnt, and admitting to it got you shouted at.

I suppose the teacher's hope was that this would encourage us to spend our evenings doing something more interesting, just so we would have exciting tales for our news the next day. But I was an English kid in a Scottish school, and did well in exams too, so I didn't have too many friends, and on a rainy Tuesday evening telly sounds a good passtime. So I did what any other sensible child would do, and made everything up. My news reports were better received, and I wasn't the only child doing this. Indeed, sometimes we collaborated. I remember Jonathan (a kid I otherwise recall nothing about) and I spending about three weeks describing the progress we were making on the remote controlled airplane we were designing and building. He was in charge of steering, I did the propulsion. We didn't trust the other kids, so they too were assured of the project's reality. Eventually the risk became too great, and we reported our improbable creation's maiden flight, which ended in the craft crashing into the Knapps Loch, where it sank without a trace.

Such unbelievable stories passed without comment. I'm not sure what I learnt from all this, nor why I mention it now.

***

These days, my life is far too busy without inventing new bits for it. The past weekend was spent in the pub, at the beach, at the dog show (Alfie got 3rd in "Golden Oldie", largely 'cos Claire ended up carrying him round the ring when walking proved too much for him), and picnicing in Holyrood Park. I'm now a fine shade of red, and looking forward to cooler weather.

Tonight would normally be roleplaying night, except at the moment I'm burned out as a GM. I've been finding it harder each week to psych myself up to run the game, and should the game not happen (always a risk when players have lives) the loss has upset me more than it should. So I'm taking a break till I can get my head together. We've still got friends coming round, but for social rather than gaming reasons. I should probably post this before they arrive.

Posted by graham @ 06:02 pm

Saturday, May 30, 2009

A Virtual Post

Increasingly, my friendships are virtual. I live far enough from even my local friends that I won't bump into them while shopping or walking the dogs. A trip to the pub is a large enough expedition that there's no option of popping in for a quick drink on the off chance that someone interesting happens to be there. (There are closer pubs, but not that friends frequent...) So those I keep in touch with are those who invite me to their parties, but mainly those who blog and those who email me. It's why I keep this blog - I'm well aware that for most of you, these little ramblings are your only contact with me. Heaven knows what view this gives of me. Hopefully more Gaiman than Adams...

The upside of a largely virtual relationship with the world is that it leaves me better prepared for friends moving away. (And it's no coincidence that as I type Sarah is on a one-way train to Bristol.) The shift from largely virtual to completely virtual is small, and requires little more effort on my part to sustain the friendship. New friendships, with little or no real-world basis, are also readily pursued in the virtual world, needing little more than enthusiasm and a common interest or two to blossom into something just as real as those forged down the pub.

The biggest problem with virtual friendships are that the tools are largely crap. Email remains the king of person to person, blogs a means for talking to the world. Livejournal, blogspot, et al provide the tools for easy blogging, but reading blogs needs specialist software if you're going to follow more than a small number. (Livejournal's "friends page" is awful - the single biggest reason for people falling out with blogging. Getting a proper feed reader is essential.) Facebook's recent change has made it completely unusable by me. I only visit there to play Mousehunt these days, and anyone trying to use Facebook to contact me or invite me to things is likely to find I don't notice. Twitter's insane character limit means that no one is using it to say anything interesting - I've signed off.

In short, if you want to keep in touch with me, read this blog, email me, or write on your own blog - I'll read it, even if I don't comment. Or, you know, invite me to the pub. That'll work too...

Posted by graham @ 12:35 pm

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