Voilà la vidéo des Natural Games de Millau.

http://www.kewego.fr/video/iLyROoafM1nG.html

la dernière partie (min 15) parle slack et du highline avec en prime une petite interview de votre serviteur.

Enjoy

De retour des Natural Games de Millau, la transition avec mon écran d’ordinateur est rude. Alors que je pensais retrouver la fraîcheur d’un climat alsacien (par définition humide aussi) je cuis sous les combles de mon bureau en ressassant les images de quatre jours de slack et de highline. Ce week-end en Aveyron a été comme tout les rendez-vous signés Slack.fr, un condensé de bons moments et de rencontres folles. 

Pour l’occasion, trois highlines ont été tendues sur le Cirque des Vases dans les Gorges de la Jonte. Une petite de 10m, une “moyenne” de 45m et une longue de 60m. Pour l’occasion, Michi et toute l’équipe on tendue la highline la plus longue jamais tendue. Mais un tel tel monstre n’allait pas sans les autres monstre pour lui marcher dessus. Pour l’heure, Damien a réunit le gratin mondial du slack et du highline, à savoir Andy Lewis, Michi Aschaber, Damian Cooksey, Libby Sauter, Hugo Langel, Reinhart Kleindl  ainsi que toute notre petite équipe frenchies. On a eu la joie de rencontrer aussi un team de slackeurs Belge qui ont démontré pas la sangle qu’ils n’étaient pas complètement manchots.  Du coup, la motivation était à son comble et si certain n’avait pas l’air déprouver de grosses difficultés à survoler les highlines, d’autre se sont acharnés sur la 45m avec plus ou moins de conviction. Un gros big up à Ju qui a fini pas la passer pour fièrement la nommer l’Inespérée.

Beaucoup de rencontres donc durant ces quatre jours de folies. La communauté s’agrandit d’année en année avec à chaque fois de nouvelles personnes toujours plus passionnantes et pleines de ressources. C’est une des facette qui donne au slackline cette convivialité et ce goût de reviens-y. Aujourd’hui en France, au USA, au Brésil,en Norvège, en Autriche ou en Allemagne, chacun se concentre sur sa sangle, méditant  ou cherchant un tricks. Et demain, on se retrouvera de nouveau pour tout mettre en commun et faire avancer la discipline. It’s all about balance, comme dirait l’autre…

[BPSDB]More of Louise Mclean’s ‘Facts’ about Homeopathy , this time on homeopathic practitioners.

In Fact 40 she tells us the subjects homeopaths study in training. Interesting she is so open with this infomation. Quackademic institutes are usually very reluctant to discuss course materials with those outside the club. David Colquhoun had to resort to the Freedom of Information Act to get hold of teaching materials for university homeopathy courses. When he did it turned out they were teaching about miasms – in the twenty-first century.

Fact 41 seems to be about the clientel rather than practitioners as she describes how patients seek out homeopathy because conventional treatment has not benefitted them or it poses too great a risk of side effects. Homeopaths like to bang on about side effects – presumably to distract from the fact that evidence based medicine (EBM) has real effects and usually cures. What is worse though, is that this constant denigration of EBM can have a nocebo effect, that is, actually cause bad effects. New Scientist recently had an article on this opposite of placebo, pointing out that if patients believe they are going to suffer ill-effects of a medicine, then they sometimes do – even if they have been given just a sugar-pill.

In Fact 42 she tells us that there are thousands, if not millions, of case notes that demonstrate the effectiveness of homeopathic treatments. Apart from the fact that the plural of anecdote is not data, she does not tell us what sort of ailments have been treated. They could easily be self-limiting illnesses such as colds or influenza, where the patient would normally get better without treatment of any kind.

In Fact 43 she tells us that homeopaths charge on average £50 per hour whereas specialist doctors can charge over £200. First off, David Cameron is not yet Prime Minister so you can still get EBM for free on the NHS. Secondly, if you do go to a private doctor that £200 gets you someone whose knowledge – if not up to date – is at least late twentieth century rather than late eighteenth. Furthermore, that doctor is scrutinised by an effective professional body and cannot make grand unsubstantiated claims. Unlike people like Jeremy Sherr who claim to be able to cure AIDS . His professional body, the Society of Homeopaths (SoH), refused to do anything about this. In fact, they are more concerned with silencing critics.

Homeopathic practitioners are at best deluded and are notoriously afraid of debate.

When I had the great good fortune to be at Lampeter university, back in the olden days when it was still crap, and therefore rather good, there was this chap whose name was Edmund Simons. It still is his name, as Facebook will testify.  He was rather mad in a deranged genius sort of way.  He liked dressing up, a lot.  I don’t mean in a dirndl skirts and sweetheart neckline type way.  I mean in a: ‘This morning Matthew, I’m going to be a bishop.’ type way.  Sometimes he was a cavalier, sometimes he was a round head, sometimes he would lend his costumes out to other people, people who would then go from being rather ordinary to miraculously wandering about dressed as Franco Prussian dictators and the like.  As I recall he was rather good at prancing about.  In fact if I had to encapsulate what he was like at that time I would have said: ‘A man dressed as a bishop, prancing about, giggling a lot.’

I feel that this is still the case as his facebook picture is of him dressed as what can only be described as a malevolent Bugsy Malone.  I have no idea what he does for a living now, but if he turned out to be the shopkeeper in Mr. Benn it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

So, why am I writing about him today?  Because his actions have yet again swirled the layers of memory that are part of my Lampeter past.  He has set up an association on Facebook which is called ‘Crap Lampeter Bands Project.’  The title is self-explanatory.

I mentioned some of these bands in previous blogs.  There were, for a small university, quite a lot of bands, most of which were spectacularly crap.  Spectacularly crap in the same way that the university itself was spectacularly crap, in a grand, overblow, fin de siecle way that you just couldn’t help loving and being attracted to.  You might pretend that it is was only in an ironic, post modern type way, but it wasn’t really.  You loved them in the same way you loved Take A Break magazine or disco glitter balls, because they revelled in their crapness and allowed you to dress up like a freak, dance like a loon and remember what it was like to be five and think that dressing in sparkly wellingtons, a Violet Elizabeth party frock and a snorkel parka were where it was at and that was where you were.  So, all good then…

I think there were so many bands, because as I mentioned before, it was a teeny, tiny university.  It may even at that time have been able to lay claim to being the smallest, crappest, university in the British Isles.  There was absolutely nothing to do there. Nothing at all, unless you like rambling and eating mouldy sandwiches from a genuine 1950’s coffee bar which still sold coffee in those weird glass cups and saucers.  You genuinely did have to make your own entertainment.  There were very few bands who would travel all the way to deepest, darkest Lampeter to play gigs.  Consequently lots of crap bands were created so that we could have gigs to go to.

There were real bands of course.  Some bands are so desperate they’ll do anything to get changed in the Arts Hall toilet and entertain several hundred drunken teenagers.  I remember Kirsty McColl came once.  I really wanted to see her.  I was away that weekend getting my mother to do my laundry.  Arse! Jools Holland came once.  I had a ticket for that one, but ended up vomiting my guts up sitting outside the student union in a welter of purple rice (risotto and pernod and black do not go together) and missing it.  Arse.  I also missed The Levellers and The Shamen.  I now no longer regret missing The Levellers, though at the time I was fairly annoyed.  I do regret not seeing the Shamen.  Apparently they blew the speakers and you could hear them as far away as Cwman (the next village.  Oh how we lived!).  Nice one!

Two real gigs I do remember seeing were Doctor and The Medics, who turned out to be just up Lampeter’s street.  They dressed up for a start.  They also, I recall, offered free kittens to take away.  I like that in a band.  It makes a change from signed posters and a t-shirt.  The other gig was by a band called The Ukranians, who used to be half of the Wedding Present.  It was insane.  They did in fact play Ukranian folk music, but very loud and in a rock ‘n’ roll kind of way.  I ended up taking my shoes off to dance, because it’s very difficult to try and do Russian style dancing in boots.  I finished the evening with splinters in the soles of my feet and ripping my tights to shreds.  My other vivid memory of the evening was of a preternaturally tall chap called Matt Lievers, who used to play the saxaphone and look like the pied piper on crack, wearing a giant cossack style fur hat, which made him about four foot taller than normal.  I swear that man got taller every day.  By the time we left he was so tall a strong wind would have snapped him in two like a stick.  I think he was studying archaeology.  I expect being so tall was a benefit, because it means that he could dig really deep holes but still see over the top.  It’s a profession in which tallness is a boon.

So, back to the home made bands.  One of the fascinating things about this particular project for me is that there is a photo album.  I have spent most of this morning when I should have been washing toothpaste out of sinks and picking up stray Bob the Builder accoutrements, having nostalgic flashbacks in an LSD type way.  What was particularly weird was spotting my friend Alice Roberts in the background of one of the photos, drink in hand, looking very chuffed with herself.  It was lovely to see her again, particularly looking so drunk and festive.  Alice died in 2002, so it’s nice that she’s got a bit of posthumous fame, even if it’s only in my house.

There are no photos of me.  If you will recall, our gang was rather crap, and nobody wanted to be in it except us.  We were not very photogenic and I hate having my photo taken at the best of times, so it was never going to happen.  I did go out with the keyboard player of the Blend Band for a while, David Cheetham his name is/was.  He looked like Aubrey Beardsley, always wore sensible blue jumpers and danced like a gyrating pencil (his description, not mine).  He never dressed up in silly clothes, but by the sheer fact of being sensible in a sea of frocks, horns and mitres, he always managed to look quite weird without even trying.  He liked Dave Brubeck and eating boiled eggs in bed, which was one of the anti social things which meant our love was doomed to fade.  I could just about cope with Dave Brubeck.  I couldn’t hack the egg thing.

He was a funny one.  He had a totally mad side to him which meant that he could happily spend a whole evening crouched round a kitchen table trying to bring a burned peanut back to life, or playing: ‘Rude French Lithographs of the Nineteenth Century,’ which was a particular favourite.  There was also a game about shellfish in which you had to guess the name of the shellfish the person was thinking of.  The answer, as I recall, was always the same, but you had to guess anyway.  Then there was his serious side.  He was a proper scholar, a theologian who was rather brilliant and whose specialisation was eschatology, or the study of what happens to you after death.  He worked hard to balance the two out.  I coped well with the Rude French Lithograph part of him, couldn’t really deal with the conservative voting eschatologist side of him.  Mea culpa.  I’m just not an eschatalogical kinda gal, and I’d rather cut my own head off with a spoon than vote conservative.  He married the girl who comforted him after we fell out, and is still blissfully married to her and busy being head of comparative religions at Birmingham University.  I don’t think he likes French Lithographs any more.

Edmund is calling for old Lampeterites to clamber about in the loft and dig out recordings of crap Lampeter bands, which they can then send to him so that he can get someone else to digitally remaster them and stick them on a CD, presumably to sell them to people like me.  People who are now middle aged and encumbered with children and want to remember more vividly what it was like to listen to a man who looked like Jesus and a man dressed as the devil in a frock singing about Lemons in Buckets and the delights of Newcastle Emlyn.

I’m in two minds.  I used to have a tape of The Blend Band and some posters of their gigs.  I think they’re long gone now.  I do vividly remember the song Verucca, which was a particular favourite of ours, strong on narrative, and with a rousing chorus, and who could forget the classic Lampeter to Llandovery (hmmm! Everyone probably)?  I think I might quite like to hear them again.  I’ve always had a soft spot for Graham Priddle who used to front the terrifying band The Rockin’ Thundas, ever since he tried to assassinate some very annoying chap at the Student Union Annual General Meeting one year.  I remember Dim Disgo Heno with the now stratospherically famous Andy Lewis and Dennis The Menace bejumpered Nick Bradshaw, all round chirpy ents guy, being quite reasonable on the ears.  I’d quite cheerfully pay money never to have to listen to Reeperbahn or Prey again.  It’s a dilemma.

The thing is, those things are in the past for a reason.  They were great at the time and brilliant for nostalgia purposes, but will they be like many things from my past that I have revisited and found lacking? Will they be as crap as Chorlton and the Wheelies, as insubstantially flimsy as the shit sets on Blakes Seven and as dodgy as that pair of Victorian bloomers I used to wear with a lumberjack shirt and Doc Martens in 1990?  The answer to that is going to be a grim; ‘Oh yes!’ I feel.  Nevertheless, rather like a scabby knee you can’t help picking at, even though you know you shouldn’t, I’m probably going to end up succumbing in the end.  What price nostalgia?  About a fiver hopefully…

Staying at home and looking after your children is sometimes cooler than going out to work (note I don’t classify staying at home with kids as not working, due to the fact that working in M15 is probably less stressful than staying at home with kids) because if, like me, you spend a lot of time staring at your children in wide eyed amazement, you get to chart their progress.  We have already established that I am, like Bill Oddie in his post Goodie days, one of the world’s watchers.  Luckily, with children there is always something to watch.  Unfortunately this is usually followed by something to do, but beggars can’t be choosers, and as I said to a friend of mine recently, I did volunteer.  This was, of course before I realized how much pooh was involved.

By progress I don’t mean their growth and weight as per the ever tedious trips to the health visitor.  I gave up going to the health visitor after Tilly.  I know they’re putting on weight because I have to keep going to the shop to buy new clothes.  I don’t need seven years in medical school for that thanks (as my ex-husband once said when I was bleeding through yet another miscarriage and he pointed out that I was losing a lot of blood, which he could see due to the large amounts of blood about my person: ‘Thanks for that. I can see you’ve had some medical training.’ It made me laugh.  The doctor didn’t get it).  Yes, I realize that if it’s anything more complicated than nappy rash and a chart to see whether being a new mother is quite depressing (It’s a big piece of paper with the words ‘TICK YES’ on in red pen) I will have to make another appointment to see a doctor, thanks.  Thanks for making me wait for forty five minutes in a waiting room full of squalling babies for that.  Hopefully I’ll be able to return the favour one day when you really need to know something about chocolate cornflake squares. Now fuck off and leave me alone so I can see if you’re in the right percentile for pies.

Right, so proper progress is what we’re talking about here.  The cool stuff.  Things like the fact that this week Oscar has developed some great new vocabulary including words like:

• Beetle (usually followed by the words, ‘Beetle! BEETLE! BEEEETTTLLLEEE!)
• Big (enthusiastically with much flinging of hands. Big things are good things)
• Jenkin (means gently, but sounds so much better when squawked at top volume while you’re trying to do something he doesn’t like)
• Blankin (blanket. He likes ending words with ‘kin’. Not sure who he gets this from.  Possibly a hidden Albanian gene pool)
• Chick -un
• Bogey
• Fart

Excellent! Tick and a smiley face, particularly for those horrible bodily function words that all children should know as soon as possible to cement their place in the midget tribe.  Nobody is going to topple him from his pledge to be the rudest baby in nursery, and given his sister’s comments about ‘nards’ earlier today I feel that the title is safe in the middleweight league as well.  He already knows; pooh, wee, willy, bum and bugger as well as boobs, which he says in a Benny Hill type way, complete with grimace.  He is a star pupil!  As I commented in a previous blog.  Already a rude baby.  Although he can also say: please, thank you, ta, you’re welcome and sorry, when pushed.  Usually never when he should though, it has to be said.  He is what may be known as a polarity responder.  He gets that from me, bless him.

Sentences this week include:

1. ‘I’ve got it!’
2. ‘Put it on’
3. ‘Din nah ready now’
4. ‘beebies on telly.’
5. ‘Haysho under bed’

Not sure about the last two, quite pleased about the first three.

As well as these superb linguistic leaps he has also taken strides in terms of likes and dislikes particularly in the fashion stakes.  So far he likes:

• Headbands, particularly Matilda’s green glittery one, although he will wear the black velvet one at a push if Matilda has hidden the green glittery one.  The black velvet one needs lots of adjustments as it is quite springy and prone to boinging off his head, which is not ideal. It nearly blinded him several times this afternoon, but one must suffer for fashion.
• Hats.  I have already documented his obsession with Tallulah’s lilac sun hat, which he likes to smuggle up to bed with him whenever possible.  He was running around the garden centre in a very fetching beige pie maker style hat today and was most upset when I wouldn’t pay twenty five pounds for him to discard it cruelly as a huge fashion faux pas in the car on the way home.  He also likes to try wrenching the hats off of similar sized toddlers who are slow on the uptake.  This is a fantastic game.  He likes to try and wear his hats and his headbands together.  It is causing a lot of frustration and angst and he has not yet worked out that less is more in the world of couture.
• Shoes. He has a pair of brown shoes.  They are very sensible. We are not keen.  Today we visited the shoe shop and purchased a pair of blue leather sandals. He loves them so much he ripped them out of the bag when we got home and demanded that we put his shoes on immediately.  He keeps sitting and looking at them, and wandering around muttering about his ‘shoes’.  He also likes to wear Jason’s sandals if at all possible, although usually only one because two would be fatal.
• Wellingtons.  I have separated these from the world of common or garden shoes, as they are a special category. It is my experience that all children have a love affair with the Wellington boot at some stage of their development.  It is more important than the Lacanian mirror phase or Freud’s separation anxiety. It marks the watershed between baby and infant with places to go.  Oscar’s Wellingtons are a little roomy and come up over his knees, which make him walk rather like a small fascist, but as that is essentially what he is, and it slows him down enough so that I can catch up with him, I am not unduly bothered.  Tilly had red Wellingtons with rainbows on that she picked herself from John Lewis, Tallulah had pink sparkly ones from Adams, and Oscar has gone for navy with a football theme from Peacocks.  He is a very happy boy when he is allowed to stamp about in his wellertons as Tallulah used to call them.  As with Jason’s sandal, he prefers one, but will make do with both if pushed.
• Bags.  As he has two elder sisters it is almost inevitable that he would develop a passion for handbags.  The girls have very kindly given him one from their copious stash.  I note that they have chosen a rather masculine grey felt one with utility style pockets.  All is well in the world of the man bag until you look inside and the lilac silk lining gives it away.  Today he found my Charlie and Lola rucksack and has worn it solidly for four hours.  He only took it off when I refused to put him in his high chair wearing it.  I fear that is the end for me and Charlie and Lola.  This is much the same tragic tale as Tilly and my Miffy rucksack.  I don’t mind too much sacrificing Charlie and Lola, but if he goes near my Ghost bag he’s a dead boy.

So, there we have it.  A headband wearing, hat loving, Wellington clad boy about town with his Charlie and Lola man bag and navy sandals.  One who can quite clearly to tell you to bugger off while he’s eating his dinner and who is not afraid of his feminine side.  I am happy that he is learning to express his individuality.  My brother wore a frock, a brown anorak and wellingtons for three years of his life and I think his ability to love kittens is thanks to that.  I think men get the thin end of the wedge when it comes to fashion and Oscar is obviously going to set things right in his own inimitable way.

I feel that this is all very fine when one is in the tender years of youth, but as the years go on he may need some style counselling for which I am going to enlist the services of my excellent friend and all round sharply turned out fashion guru Andy Lewis, who has just spent £125 on dry cleaning and knows the meaning of style.  I’m sure he won’t mind dropping a few sartorial hints here and there.  I certainly won’t be asking the health visitor that’s for sure.

All this progress, along with his already legendary addiction to books (nursery mentioned it in his report!!), his ability to colour things in like a ninja and his preternatural hearing when it comes to anyone opening a crisp packet within three hundred yards of him makes me think that despite the fact that I am probably one of the most unsuitable women in the world ever to don the mantle of motherhood, I’m not doing too bad a job after all.

Even if I am hampering his development, surely this is a good thing? I don’t want him to be any more developed. He’s only nineteen months old for God’s sake.  I remember Jamie telling me when Tilly was little that he didn’t want her to watch television because he was afraid it would turn her into a drivelling moron.  I upped her watching quota because I was desperate for something to slow her down so that I could have a cup of tea in peace.  Despite all the research to the contrary, I don’t think it made a blind bit of difference, except that she now has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Pokemon related trivia and can sing all the CBeebies theme tune songs word perfect.

I don’t know where to start really.  I’ve actually been quite legitimately busy for the last two days.  Usually I just sit round on my arse pretending to be busy and making up stuff to write about so that I can feel like I’ve been tremendously industrious, when in fact I have mostly, as my children so succinctly put it: ‘been living in la la land’.  Now I have real things to write about I am slightly nervous.

I did make a list though didn’t I? That might be a good place to start.  Let’s take it from the top:

Boiled Eggs:

Ah, yes! This all came about because the children are very keen on eating boiled eggs and soldiers for tea.  Whenever I ask them what they want for tea, which I try not to do very often because the results invariably begin and end with the words ‘chicken’ and ‘nuggets’ in close proximity to each other, the second result is usually boiled eggs with soldiers.

The weird thing is that they don’t actually like the boiled egg bit very much.  Neither of the girls will eat the yolk at all, so they eat egg white with toast, which seems highly unsatisfactory to me, but they like it.  I think they enjoy the ritual more than anything else.  In fact they enjoy hitting their eggs so much that I actually bought them egg cups of their own after they took a socking chunk out of one of my pale blue Nigella ones and made me cry.

The thing that gets me when they have boiled eggs is the fact that they’re so useless at it.  They are totally clueless about the etiquette of eating boiled eggs.  Now, I don’t seem to recall having any difficulty at all with eating what was known in our house as ‘dippy eggs and soldiers’, dippy because you dipped your soldiers in them, not because they made you mental (thanks Edwina).  It was all very straightforward, and we just got on with it.  You hit the top of your egg with your teaspoon a few times, sliced the top off with the edge of your spoon, removed a little shell and whacked your soldier in it. Bob was your Humpty and all was well with the world.

My kids can’t do that.  The first time they had them I patiently demonstrated upon an egg in a Delia like, domestic and highly practical way.  I asked them if they knew what they were doing, they assured me they did and then they beat the shit out of their eggs, using their spoons like some Ninja weaponry and ending up with what was effectively scrambled egg with bits of shell in it, sore arms and nothing to show in terms of edible produce.  Since then I have demonstrated the art many times, including the enjoyable denouement where you trick your amazed and gullible relatives by turning the egg shell upside down in the egg cup and inviting them to hit a ‘new’ egg, knowing full well that their spoon is going to plummet into nothingness and you will be Loki, the god of hilarious egg type pranks.

They love this idea, just as they love the idea of boiled eggs in general.  Can they achieve it? No, they can’t.  I remain utterly perplexed.  I sat there watching them on Monday night thinking: ‘Have I bred a generation of idiots who will go on to breed even more idiotic people?’  I got quite depressed.  Then I decided to blame the schools and have laid the blame squarely at the feet of the educational experts and their ’dumbing down’ strategies. I felt a lot better after that and treated myself to a biscuit.

It may also explain other failures on their part to grasp the simple childhood concepts that we all used to sail through with aplomb in the nineteen seventies and which now leave my children gaping like stranded fish.  These include:

• The operation of a spud gun
• Catapults
• Parachutes for dolls, furniture, stupid pets and members of your immediate family
• The ‘hilarious’ nature of the Carry On film genre: ‘But mummy, I don’t understand why that man is dressed as a nurse? Why is it funny that he’s wearing socks in his bra? Why is that man pinching his bottom? Mummy? Mummy? Why have you turned over?’
• The concept that if you do evil things quietly you’re much more likely to get away with stuff.
• The failure to grasp the simple concept of a practical joke, i.e. that you don’t tell the person you’re about to practice it on all about it beforehand.

So, boiled eggs.  Back to the drawing board.

Darth Vader:

Jason, as you may know, apart from being keen on being The World Poker Champion, would also like to be an evil genius.  His evil genius role model has always been Darth Vader.  On Sunday night the kids came out of the shower and for some reason decided to line up on the landing like nine pins in order to dry themselves.  Oscar was facing a painting we have of Darth Vader leading his troops into battle with the Death Star looming in the background (Clearly not one of mine), and getting terribly excited.  I started dirging away at the Imperial Death March for him, and the girls joined in.  At this point he was so excited that he started leaping up and down and doing his own version which involves him shouting ‘DAAAAAAHHHHH   DAAAAAAHHHHHHH  DAAAAAAHHHHH’ very loudly and off key for several moments and then making lovely sucky inny outy type noises for the Darth Vader breathing noises.  Jason was near to tears with pride and joy when he heard him.  His son is finally coming into his true inheritance and will indeed one day be the Dark Lord of a vast empire stretching over billions of galaxies.  The only thing that could possibly make him happier was if he combined that with being the natural heir to Jeremy Clarkson.  It was an emotional moment for us all…

Mowing The Lawn:

Whilst I was getting the kids ready for bed on Sunday night Jason decided that he had to mow the lawn.  We didn’t get back from my mum’s until seven, but there was no denying him his right to mow, and off he set with the Flymo and the strimmer, looking pissed off and self important all at the same time (it’s a skill).  He sweated and huffed his way about for about an hour and came in, ruddy and knackered and needing a stiff sit down and several cups of tea. 

I asked him why he didn’t leave it for me to do one day in the week when Oscar is at nursery, but apparently it turns out that he holds my mowing prowess in low esteem.  I have been informed that I am, and I quote ‘rubbish’ at mowing the lawn.  I am extremely hurt by this criticism of my mowing ability.  It is one of the few household jobs I actually like doing. I love the smell of the grass and the mindlessly repetitive nature of the job.  I particularly like it because it’s quite dangerous which means that the children can’t help me, and they have to stay indoors, pressing their small noses up against the French windows and looking wistfully at me with some kind of power tool.  It’s very peaceful because with all that racket from the mower you can’t hear them howling to be let out.

Anyway, there I was thinking I was quite good, when it turns out that I am crap.  Apparently, according to my venerable husband, Alan Titchmarsh’s right hand man, I don’t take my mowing seriously enough, which leads me to produce shoddy workmanship. 

I know this because we had to have an hour long, in depth discussion after his throwaway remark about me being rubbish, to establish just how rubbish I was and how come he’d never said it before.  We never got to the how come he’d never said it before, because when the words ’shoddy workmanship’ passed his lips I flounced out in a huff and went to make a cup of tea.  I am deeply, deeply hurt by his accusation, and one weekend when he’s out pretending to be an elf and sharpening his plastic sword I’m going to mow that bloody lawn like it’s never been mowed before. It will be a revenge mowing and it will win prizes on Gardener’s Question Time when I send in a picture.  So there…

Saj’s Fashion Call:

Saj complained that my summary of her and her activities makes her seem shallow and that I must do something to rectify this immediately.  I cannot vouch with hand on heart that Saj is kind to old ladies and animals, although she is very sweet to my three, delightful children.  She did however do me proud at the weekend.  When I was taking time out from worrying about what I was going to say to The Modfather, I spent the rest of the time worrying about what I was going to wear.  Saj suggested that I hot footed it down to Primark and take advantage of their splendid offer of skinny jeans for six quid.  She said that it’s what all the rock chicks are wearing this year.  Consequently I did that very thing and wore them yesterday night. 

I wore them with my 1920’s vintage top that my Gran gave me and I did look very rock chick indeed.  I spoiled it a bit because I wanted a little bag to put my purse and phone in.  I looked at all the rock chickette offerings and didn’t like any of them.  In the end I plumped for a Charlie and Lola rucksack from Boots for a tenner.  It has a picture of Lola on the front and the legend: ‘I will not ever never eat a tomato.’ I love it.  The kids think I am the coolest.  The rock contingent weren’t impressed.  I was though when I realised I could get my sandals into it.  I wore my four inch patent dominatrix heels, and then when it came to the mosh pit, I whipped them off, stuck my comfy sandals on and grooved the night away.  I bet Kate Moss does that too when there aren’t many cameras around.

Silly man on a mobile:

Ah! Yes! Right in the middle of the gig yesterday, may even have been during a very noisy rendition of Eton Rifles (I was telling this to my dad and he thought I said Elton Trifles. Excellent!), a guy got his mobile phone out, presumably to try and take a picture of Mr. Weller (and in actuality to take a picture of the backs of several hundred people’s heads), but when he got it out of his pocket it rang.  He put it to his ear and just kept screaming: ‘Hello! Hello! I can’t hear you! Hello!’ at the top of his lungs.  It never occured to him to actually move to somewhere quieter, or to hang up the call.  He was clearly a bit mental and just came across like Dom Joly with his oversized mobile in the Quiet Zone of the Dome.  Awesome.  I laughed so much I nearly missed the next song.

Old Mods who never die

Last night’s crowd were a very mixed bunch, clearly, because I was there for a start.  There were the youth of today, but there were also people who were obviously die hard Wellerites who had been there from the get go.  The odd thing was that many of them had resolutely refused to move with the times in terms of fashion and were firmly sticking, clinging and unpleasantly adhering to their Mod roots for better or worse.  Often worse, it has to be said. 

A Weller haircut only suits those with preternaturally thin faces really (and whether they even suit those is a matter of hot debate amongst some of my friends), but they really don’t do anything for someone carrying a few stone more than is wise and who has decided to grace the whole thing by wearing a casually tied silk scarf round their neck, just to highlight the head and shoulder area.  It’s hard to describe the effect, but there was one man who looked like a hamster hiding in a pashmina.  It wasn’t really the effect he was going for, at least one would hope not.

Famous people who aren’t famous but look like they should be:

Last night at the gig Paul and Jackie managed to spot a few local celebrities in the crowd.  They kept saying things like: ‘Oh look! It’s x who does y! How exciting.’  This made me realise that my encyclopaedic knowledge of O.K. magazine is clearly not going to stand me in good stead in these situations, because I had absolutely no idea who they were talking about.  Mainly, it has to be said because many of these people were of the sporting fraternity.  It was however, quite disappointing not to be spotting stars (apart from Andy that is, and as he was who I was there to see anyway that one was rather like shooting fish in a barrel). 

I decided to while away the time before the gig proper spotting people who I thought might be famous.  There were quite a few people who really looked like they should be famous, or at least know people who might be famous.  I pointed these out eagerly to Paul and Jackie who just looked at me with blank faces and clearly thought I was bonkers.  I however, am very excited that I have created a sub category of social strata, people who look like they should be famous.  It’s these people they should get to audition for Big Brother.  If they already look the part it can’t be that hard to arse about in a hot tub and play dares in front of a load of hidden cameras.  Hurry people.  Real fame awaits you.  I might start my own casting agency.

The World of Men’s Tailoring:

All the time I was worrying about what to say to Mr. Weller about, I had no problems with Andy at all.  We got talking about the world of men’s tailoring.  It is something he is quite knowledgeable about.  I love good tailoring.  I drool over pictures of Ozwald Boateng suits.  Obviously I can’t afford one, and I’m a girl, so that’s a bit of a bummer.  I have tried in the past to influence both my ex-husband and my now husband into the glamorous world of tailoring.  They weren’t keen.  Jason in particular is a man who loves his nylon shorts.  Nothing will part him from those shorts.  And, as I said to Andy, it is a sign of my deep and abiding love for the man that I endure those shorts, because ‘endure’, is exactly the right word to describe how I feel about them. 

Andy on the other hand is an afficionado of tailoring and spent several happy minutes telling us about how he gets his clothes made by Gieves and Hawkes and William Hunt.  He even has proper trunks for his clothes, one of which has a stand for his iron, so he can press all the creases into his trousers properly before going on stage.  He did, it has to be said, look very dapper last night, and because he is a bass player, and therefore can lounge about moodily on stage whilst making plangent guitar style noises, he doesn’t have to get quite as hot and sweaty as everyone else when they’re feverishly leaping around wielding their axes etc. 

I bet he’s really glad he never took up a career as a drummer.  High fashion tailoring and drumming just don’t pair up together at all neatly.  There would be tears before bedtime when a twenty minute drum solo ruined the lining of his best jacket.  It just wouldn’t do.

This conversation has inspired me, and I have decided that when I am insanely rich I am going to go and see Ozwald and plead with him to make me a suit, or even a fleet of suits.  I don’t want to go through a sex change or anything.  I could be the next Bianca Jagger, as long as the children promise not to wipe ketchup on my cuffs.  I’d have to be so insanely rich someone would press them for me, as I don’t care how exciting the world of suiting is, I am not, not ever, never doing my own ironing.  There are limits.

Pete Paphides Being quite important but eternally scruffy

Another thing Andy and I were talking about last night was Lampeter, the university where we met.  It was quite a coincidence that he met up with me last night, because also at the gig was a guy called Pete Paphides, who also went to Lampeter.  I explained to Paul and Jackie that Pete was a shortish, squattish, eternally scruffy bloke with huge shambolic hair and frightening black Uncle Fester sweaters who loped around uni at the same time as us.  I never knew him to speak to, but with only a thousand students, you do tend to know who everyone is, what they like for dinner etc, because word gets around fast.

After we left uni, Andy went on to become famous and so did Pete.  Pete used to work as a journalist for Time Out, as I found out when we lived in London and used to subscribe to the magazine.  One day I was bimbling around flicking through the covers and came across an article about Pete going swimming in Hampstead ponds complete with photographs.  It was easy to recognise him.  He was the only man going swimming in Hampstead ponds dressed as Uncle Fester.

Anyway, Andy informed me that Pete no longer works for Time Out, but is in fact The Times Music Critic.  This is quite an important job, and he was there last night, doing that very job and interviewing Mr. W as we spoke.  This was one of the reasons why poor Paul and Jackie didn’t get to meet him, so I hope it was a good interview.  Apparently he still dresses like Uncle Fester.  I looked him up on The Times website today and it is unclear what he was wearing beneath the chin line, but I would like to bet it was an overlarge, ravelly black jumper.  His hair was still the same, and his hair always matched his jumper, so it’s got to be true.

So! Two people I went to university with are now ‘famous’ or at the very least ’successful’ in their chosen field.  Even the Scourge of Christendom has an uber powered job in marketing and he is a Scourge (albeit a hugely gifted and talented one.  For an ex-hairdresser he got the highest first in the history of the University and it’s been going since 1822).  What? What? What? am I doing with my life? Lampeter is clearly, despite all appearances to the contrary (i.e. the fact that they would take you if you only had your Brownie, ‘Safety in the Home’ badge) a hot bed of creative talent.  I really need to pull my finger out now and write that bloody novel.

I’ll do it after ‘The F Word’ and a nice, relaxing cup of tea…

It’s ten to midnight and I’ve just got in from the Paul Weller gig I blogged about last week.

I am knackered, I have a pounding headache, a stiff neck and weirdly painful thighs (I was in the mosh pit.  Jigging, not moshing, but nevertheless).  I am also stone deaf with a weird ringing sound in my ears.  I am in touch with my inner pensioner and realising just how old I actually am and just how unfit I am.  Those middle aged rock chick groupies must have some stamina.

I want a cup of tea, a bun and a lie down in a darkened room for about a week.

So – The big question? What did I say to his Wellerness?  Nothing is the answer to that.

Andy, most blessed of Lewis got us on the guest list a blinder but there was no backstage afterwards as they are packing up to go and sound check for Jools Holland’s show tomorrow morning in London and have seven tons of equipment etc to move before dawn.  He came out and saw us, and very kindly for Paul and Jackie who were quite, quite sad, got a ticket of theirs signed for them.  This is a big deal for them because they’ve never had a squignature before, and a big deal for Andy because it’s a bit weird to ask your employer for his signature without coming across as a bit of a twit.  So, he is a super shiny hero fifteen times over for doing that thing.

It was lovely, lovely, lovely to see him.  He was exceedingly kind and said that I haven’t changed much apart from the fact that I’ve toned down my eyeshadow (this is a good thing).  I love him.  He is a good and kind man and if he wasn’t married and I wasn’t married and he wasn’t on stage every night while I stayed at home knitting plectrums I’d marry him myself for that kind remark.

Anyway, I was not really too sad not to have met Mr. Weller (although I was sad for Paul and Jackie). I went to see me mate, and seeing Mr. W was a bit of a bonus.  It also relieved my anxiety about slapping him heartily about the shoulders and saying: ‘What about that Nicks game?’ in a deep, booming voice, or whatever other form of insanity I might have come up with due to extreme nervousness in the presence of someone more famous than me (i.e. almost anyone you care to mention).

The gig was actually very, very good.  I’m not a huge Paul Weller fan.  I liked the Jam and have one of his later solo albums, but that’s about it.  He is however, and I say this most sincerely, because you know me by now and I don’t pull my punches about having a good old criticise, bloody good live and it was an excellent set.  I particularly enjoyed the acoustic bit in the middle which was really, really spectacular and quite beautiful in places.  Andy played the cello for bits of it, and he played an absolute blinder.

It was so good I was going to wave my Birkenstock at him, but I restrained myself at the last moment.

So.  That’s it.  A mini report so that I don’t forget to write a maxi report tomorrow:

Here are the things I need to write about tomorrow:

• boiled eggs
• Darth vader
• Mowing the Lawn
• Saj’s fashion call
• Silly man on a mobile
• Old mods who never die
• Famous people who aren’t famous but who look like they should be
• The world of men’s tailoring
• Pete Paphides being quite important but eternally scruffy

There.  Now I just have to cunningly fill in the details later.  Huzzah!

I have fulfilled a lifelong ambition and am feeling very chuffed with myself.  I have actually turned into Jim’ll Fix It, but without the jangly jewellry and the gold tracksuits, which is probably for the best. In fact I look remarkably like me still, but me jumping about excitedly shouting: ‘I’ve turned into Jim’ll Fix It!’ while people give me weird looks.  I think I should be allowed to get excited about it though.  It’s not like these things happen every day, and it’s not like it’s going to last.  I am but a fleeting shadow of a Jim’ll as my brother used to call him.

So, let me tell you all about it.  Because that way I have to sit down instead of bounding round the room like a hyperactive kangaroo.  I hope you’re sitting comfortably because you know I’m never going to go straight down the narrative path.  As ever we will be following the twists and turns of my remarkably long winded brain.

When I was at university I used to be friends with a guy called Andy Lewis.  He was in his final year while I was in my first year.  He was a mod.  He was the moddest of mods.  He wasn’t one of those scruffy clothes wearing mods.  He was one of those sharp suited man about town mods with pin sharp creases in his trousers and shoes you could skewer a winkle on.  He used to DJ at our uni discos.  This may sound a bit lame, but we were at Lampeter Uni.  It had less than a thousand students.  About a thousand residents in the town, eleven pubs and that was about it.  There was no nightlife unless, as in Victorian times, we made it ourselves.  Consequently the Student Union hall was ‘the’ place to see and be seen, and discos were a big event. 

Andy would dj and when he wasn’t dj’ing he would dance very impressively (he was extremely good at twirling as I seem to recall).  Everyone knew him because a) he was the only Mod on campus, b) he ran the student mag and c) he was a very memorable dancer.  I believe he may have had something to do with a pirate radio station called Radio Daffodil as well.  I can’t be sure about that because naturally it was all swathed in secrecy, apart from the bits where you could hear everyone else in the room (it was done from people’s bedrooms, flats etc) having a chat, putting the kettle on and saying things like: ‘Clyde, do you want a hob nob?’

I believe he was also involved in various of our extremely bizarre campus bands as well.  The ones which spring to mind were Dim Disgo Heno (which is Welsh for ‘no disco tonight’.  All our posters had to be bilingual, so everyone knew a lot of what we called ‘poster Welsh’.  This was one of those phrases in the ‘Poster Welsh’ guidebook), The Blend Band (who were huge amongst us thousand! And had a very fantastic song called Hey Verruca!),  The Rockin’ Thunda’s, who were large and scary and looked like portly versions of Rik Mayall in The Young Ones and once did a gig for ’The Merthyr Tydfill Earthquake Disaster Fund,’ and Edmund Estefan and The Mydroilin Sound Machine.  These were probably the oddest of the bunch, consisting of a man called Edmund Simons who dressed as a bishop and a man called Robert Mighall who was known as The Scourge of All Christendom and who wore green and gold dresses with devil horns.  They had some interesting songs including: ‘lemon in a bucket’, and ‘hooked on hymns’ which was a kind of rave medley which I believe included Kum By Yah as you’ve never heard it before.  I believe that Robert is now some mover and shaker in the world of high level marketing, which amuses me greatly.  Edmund, I’m not sure about, but I suspect he’s now somewhere terrorising people in much the same lines as the Professors on History Today. (You know that blob of spit? Yes, I am aware of that item. Well, That’s your best swimming pool that is.  As I was saying about the peasant revolt of 1415…)

I used to write for the magazine, and help collate it (we had a photo copier and a lot of staplers.  It was heady stuff.  Apparently that’s how they still put together The Sunday Times) and also deliver it.  At the end of the year when he handed over the reins of power to someone else he very kindly thanked me by name for being a good and helpful girl, and I nearly wept.  It was very exciting, me being a lowly first year, albeit and unknown to many other people, also in the deadly Banana Bunch, and a member of the Jelly Baby Terrorist squad.  These were other things we used to do to keep ourselves busy when times were hard.  The banana bunch was basically me and five friends who used to write threatening messages on pieces of soft fruit and leave them outside people’s doors.  We also doctored the film soc poster for ‘A Clockwork Orange’, which was quite a coup.  The jelly baby thing was us torturing poor defenceless jelly babies in a variety of evil ways and then leaving their corpses outside people’s doors.  My particular favourite was the staged hanging with the elastic band and a drawing pin.  Mostly we did weird stuff and left it lying around for other people to find.

Anyway, then Andy graduated and went off to become famous, popping back to Lampeter every now and again to remind himself why he had left, presumably.  We didn’t keep in touch and I had no idea what he was doing.  Then quite recently I was listening to a favourite CD of mine, which is a collection of random Sixties lounge music from a DJ night that used to be big in London called Blow Up.  This cd, Blow up A Go Go has been in my collection for years.  I love it dearly and so do the kids.  So we were dancing away to Bert’s Apple Crumble, which is a very cool song, and when it finished I had to have a sit down, because I am old.  The kids kept on jiving and I read the sleeve notes.  This is the first time I’ve read the sleeve notes ever, because I am just not one of those High Fidelity type Nick Hornbyesque listy people when it comes to music.  I was reading away and suddenly read the name Andy Lewis.  Then I thought: ‘Hmmmm! This is the kind of music ‘my’ (if you will forgive the ownership) Andy Lewis liked.  I wonder if it be he?’ 

It was, dear reader, a lightbulb moment.  Anyway, it was he and I annoyed him on Facebook and he annoyed me back and we resumed our friendship and all was lovely.  He is very famous.  He hangs out with Paul Weller and Blur as was, and makes records and goes to London Fashion Week.  He’s still a mod and he’s still groovy.  I expect he still dances around very well, although I have no proof, and I expect like me that every now and again he has to have a little sit down, unlike the days of yesteryear.  I am not very famous, except for being a bit eccentric in Glenfield.  He is very nice, so this doesn’t seem to matter too much at all.  Hooray for us.

Anyway (bear with me.  We’re nearly there now).  Last week when my friend Paul came round to have tea and cakes he mentioned to me that he is going to see Paul Weller in concert on Monday and he is very, very excited because Paul Weller is his absolute god and idol and has been super shiny for Paul since he was but a wee tadpole.  I said: ‘Ohhh! My friend Andy knows him and sometimes plays in his band.’  Paul looked at me in that way kids look at you at school when you say stuff like: ‘Yeah! And, so, like. Well, because my dad is bigger than yours and he has a better car!’ as if to say: ‘Yeah! Right!’ and then he said something along the lines of how cool it would be to be acknowledged by Mr. Weller in his role as Musical God of the Western Universe, clearly thinking that this was never, ever going to happen because I was just showing off to my friend to make myself seem cool and important so that he wouldn’t beat me up and steal all my toys.

So, I e-mailed Andy and asked him if he could possibly get Paul Weller to say: ‘Hello Mum!’ to my Paul, because he would probably wee his pants with excitement and all would be well, and all manner of things would be well.  I also said that I would understand if he thought I was being a cheeky monkey, bein’ as how we haven’t seen each other since about 1994, and the best that I can offer in return is not to tell him how hard it is to stop small boys sliding over their potential wedding tackle and getting slide burn, which might ruin the idea of ever being wedded in the first place.  It’s not even a case of ‘fair exchange is no robbery’ really is it?

Anyway, Andy is an absolute star and lovely person because not only has he offered for Paul and his wife Jackie to go back stage and meet Mr. Weller after the gig, but I am allowed to go too, and I didn’t even have a front stage pass!  When I rang Paul he was so excited I thought he was going to burst my ear drum off, leaving only a shattered stump.  Apparently Jackie had to be escorted to the sofa for a lie down and they have now been worrying about what to wear since yesterday afternoon.  Paul is already planning on buying a new t-shirt it’s that serious!  My experience of gigs is that they have always been hot, sweaty and the less you wear whilst still clinging to your dignity, the better.

Anyway, Paul and Jackie are currently carving me a throne and will be carrying me through the streets of Melton Mowbray, throwing cake and jewels at me and singing hymns in my praise. It seems a bit unfair given that it was Andy who did all the work, but I have mailed him and offered him the use of the throne, although I will probably eat the cake myself.  I was talking to my cousin Tom about all this.  He said that I am truly Jim’ll. I said I wasn’t really, for the abovementioned reason.  He pointed out that Jim’ll didn’t do any of the actual work either.  He just lounged about in his big red chair, dispensing largesse when other people actually did all the work, so I am really really like Jim’ll.  I have to concur.  It feels quite good.  I must make oversized badges on strings for Paul, Mr. Weller and Jackie and probably Andy as well.  I’ll get the kids to do it at the weekend.  Thank god I put tin foil in the Ocado order.

Now I am worrying.  Paul (my Paul, not Mr. Weller) is also worrying because he doesn’t know what he’s going to say to Mr. Weller.  I too have no idea.  I’m rather hoping that I will merely get to say: ‘Hello Mr. Weller (tugging forelock and looking ‘umble), great gig, before scurrying on back to see Andy and talk about random shite like washing your John Smedley jumpers in spring water and whether he’s thinking of doing a cover of ‘Hooked on Hymns’ on his next album.  Andy is used to me talking shite.  I’m famous for it in my own little world.  Paul Weller isn’t used to me talking shite, and when I get nervous I talk even more shite than normal.  I will probably blurt out something about velour snails or regale him with the vendetta of the Doo Bobs and the lost frisbee of doom, and the poor man will shrivel up, screaming for help as I am escorted from the premises by two burly minders, both called Dave.

A friend of mine once had the great honour to sit in the box of fame at a Red Hot Chilli Peppers gig.  He was very excited about this.  He was even more excited when it turned out that he was sitting next to Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin, who was his all time Rock God Hero Extraordinaire.  He was telling me all about this with great enthusiasm and much waving of hands (presumably to indicate how tall and wide Mr. Page was.  I always think he would be quite short and a bit stumpy, although he’s clearly got very long arms and tenacious finger control).  So I said to him: ‘Great Jon.  And what did you say to Jimmy?’ At which point he looked very shame faced and quite a bit shuffly and said something in a muffled voice which I couldn’t quite hear properly.  I asked him to say it again and he looked at me and said quietly: ‘I said, ‘Hello Jimmy!’  at which point I went quiet myself and said: ‘Oh! Was that it?’ and he said, even more quietly: ‘Yes!’ and confessed that it had all gotten too much for him and he was so overwhelmed he simply didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything at all.  We vowed never to speak of it again.  You see, it pays to be prepared in these circumstances.

I don’t know anything much about music.  I know what I like, but half the time I can’t remember what it’s called, so I can’t even say: ‘Wow, I thought that bit where you played the spoons was tremendous’ in case it was in fact a harpsichord, or it was the worst bit of the show or something.  It’s all a bit Rabbit in the Headlights.  In fact the only thing I can really think that I would want to talk to Paul Weller about seriously is the fact that he went through a stage of wearing John Craven type jumpers for a while, and I was worried.  I was worried about whether he had in fact pinched them off of John, where I could picture John naked and shivering in a little ditch, soldiering on bravely with Countryfile while Weller scarpered with his knitwear. 

I can understand why one would want to go for comfy knitwear after years of being renowned as being one of the sharpest dressed men in the world of pop, but still, it’s a bit of a shock really.  I would imagine doing a couple of hours gig under blazing spotlights in a heavy knit jumper with reindeer frolicking on the front would get a bit sweaty as well.  Perhaps that’s how he manages to remain so lithe and trim.  No Slimming World for him.  None of these aquanautic silver suits where you leap about in them for hours and sweat all your fat off.  Nope, it’s three choruses of ‘Changing Man’, two encores of ‘Going Underground’ and some frenzied guitar playing in the hot lights with a thirty toggle jumper on and bob is your very slim uncle.

So, questions for Paul Weller on a postcard please.  Something to make me sound intelligent, but not too pushy and not like the totally abstract ditzhead that I really am.

My Paul sent me an e-mail to say thank you.  It’s very sweet and he’s worked all the titles of Paul Weller songs into it.  It must have taken him bloody ages.  It’s never likely to get published in an anthology, so he has given me permission to publish it here so that you can be privy to the sweat of his brow (he probably wrote it wearing a jumper) and his very real obsession with the man himself:

What can I say – you’re an “English Rose”. Whenever you find yourself in as “Strange Town” or a “Wild Wood” look for the man in a “Peacock Suit” for he will guide you out and back to “Suzie’s Room”. You will find this on “Friday Street” near the church with the “Porcelain Gods” outside. Remember now that you are “In the City” “In the Crowd”, but don’t be “Frightened” as “Time Passes” you will be at the “Foot of the Mountain” or somewhere in the “Country”.

Walking “Amongst Butterflies” can be enchanting, did you know they have “Wings of Speed”, the bees love a “Sunflower” and the birds flock here for a “Long Hot Summer”. As you stroll along you may see “The Woodcutters Son”, a bit strange really, a bit of a “Changing Man” you may say. He will lead to the river – Careful of the “Broken Stones” and the “Savages”. Stay with him though and he will find “The Holy Man” for you, there high “Above the Clouds” he will lead you “Into Tomorrow”

No more “Private Hell” and “As You lean Into the Night” remember “You’re the Best Thing”.

 Yes.  He is bonkers, but he’s a lovely man and he wouldn’t do anyone any harm!

The New York Times reports that  “drug maker Merck drafted dozens of research studies for a best-selling drug, then lined up prestigious doctors to put their names on the reports before publication, according to an article to be published Wednesday in a leading medical journal.”

And it was only lawyers that brought this to light NOT the researchers, writers of the article, or medical profession. Medical and drug company apologists Ben Goldacre, pharmacologist David Colquhoun, Andy Lewis and drug company representatives on the gimpyblog continually attack health alternatives like homeopathy. They defend conventional medicine as self regulating and with only a few minor problems. In fact, they are working hard to prevent you from having the right to alternative medical care.

Their attack on your right to alternative medical care only increases and protects the lucrative position of drug companies. Unfortunately, in order to consolidate their position and the drug companys’ domain they spread internet rumors and theories without ANY PROOF that homeopathy is as they describe it, “dangerous” and “evil”. They also use many nasty words to describe homeopaths and homeopathic teachers.

Homeopathy is safe and effective for both chronic and acute problems. Homeopaths are individuals who have dedicated their lives to helping sick people through alternative means than what is available in the conventional medical profession. Homeopathic remedies are individualized to people and have no side effects. They are effective, safe and can even cure many serious diseases without the side effects that one saw in Vioxx and many other drugs. Millions of people have and continue to use homeopathic remedies and see homeopathic practitioners.

The New York Times article continues:

The article, based on documents unearthed in lawsuits over the pain drug Vioxx, provides a rare, detailed look in the industry practice of ghostwriting medical research studies that are then published in academic journals.

The article cited one draft of a Vioxx research study that was still in want of a big-name researcher, identifying the lead writer only as “External author?”

Vioxx was a best-selling drug before Merck took it off the market in 2004 over evidence linking it to heart attacks. Last fall, the company agreed to a $4.85 billion settlement to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits filed by former Vioxx patients or their families.

Like Bold Sir Robin in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, web hosts Netcetera have bravely turned their tails and fled. On 23 January I described how a ludicrous quack, the self-styled “Professor Doctor” Joseph Chikelue Obi attempted to silence legitimate criticism of him on Quackometer.

The invertebrates who run Netcetera have allowed him to succeed. All Andy Lewis of Quackometer did was to draw together press articles, ie information already in the public domain, about Obi to build a picture of the kind of man he is. You can still read the post here.

Dr Lewis contacted Obi’s representatives asking what in the post Obi considered to be defamatory. No reply was received. When it became obvious that Obi had nothing to say, Dr Lewis contacted Netcetera and said that as it was plain that Obi could not substantiate his ridiculous claims, the post was going back up.

This morning, Netcetera responded:-

“Thanks for your comments. We do not wish to be in a position where we could be taken to court, and incur the loss of time and expense that would involve. Consequently Netcetera have decided to suspend the Quackometer website, with reference to our Acceptable Usage Policy…

This policy is subject to change without alternate notice … Netcetera will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision… [emphasis mine - JQH] 

1.1 Netcetera reserves the right to suspend or cancel a customer’s access to any or all services provided by Netcetera, where Netcetera decides the account has been inappropriately used. Netcetera reserves the right to refuse service and/or access to its servers to anyone…”

Netcetera suspended the entire website, not just the post Obi whinged  about, at noon today. Andy Lewis has thirty days to find an alternative host, otherwise all his work will be lost. His comment was:-

“They have not said how my usage was unacceptable except that they are being inconvenienced by a deranged quack”

It would appear that Netcetera are saying that they can change the rules at whim and only they are allowed a say as to whether these fluctuating rules have been broken or not. It is instructive to compare their bullying censorship of Andy Lewis with their cringing, craven capitulation to Obi’s blustering threats.

All I can say is – apart from I hope Quackometer is rehosted soon – is that if anyone reading this is planning a blog or a website, don’t use Netcetera as your host – they don’t deserve to have anyone’s business. They don’t deserve to be in business.

Once again a quack is using legal threats to silence criticism. Read about it here. And once again the invertebrates running Netcetera have caved in.

Fortnately, the post has been reproduced elsewhere on the net. Here, for example.

One wonders what sort of legal team Mr. Obi has appointed. I have never before seen the phrase “to the tune of” used in a legal context. . Netcetera’s legal eagles cannot be much better, else they would have pointed out that they would only liable for the claim of £1,000,000 per day if it could be proved that the Quackometer’s criticism was (a) inaccurate and (b) had actually resulted in such losses to Mr. Obi’s “Royal College of Alternative Medicine”. Does he really expect anyone to believe he earns that much? I wonder what figure he puts on his tax returns?

Furthermore, the claim for “punitive” damages is even more ludicrous. These would only be awarded by a judge if Netcetera ignored a previous court ruling on the matter.

Obi shows the typical woo love of grandiose titles. Apart from styling himself “Professor Dr” Obi, the title of his college would appear to give the intention that it has royal support – plausible given Karl Battenburg’s ignorant witterings on sCAM – but the fact that it is based in Dublin is a dead give-away since Ireland has not been part of the UK since 1922 and has been a Republic since 1949. Obi is unaware of this and refers to Ireland as a British Commonwealth Protectorate!

Like many other dodgy health practitioners, Obi cannot distinguish between disagreement and defamation. He assumes that criticism of him is illegal – reminds me of Sue Young and the Society of Homeopaths.

The existance of people like Obi and his ridiculous “Royal College” is yet another demonstration that self-regulation of “Complementary and Alternative Medicine” is a non-starter. How could self-regulation deal with the likes of Mr. Obi? We have already seen that the Society of Homeopaths is unwilling or unable to regulate its own members. If CAM is to be allowed to continue, it must be under the supervision of a statutary body with statutary powers.

If you visit http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/whats-new/press-releases.aspx you will find the text of a letter they have sent to the Guardian in resonse to Ben Goldacre’s column ‘Threats – the homeopathic panacea’. The column can be found at www.badscience.net and presumably on the Guardian’s website as well. The Society is trying to spin its way out of the issues raised by Dr Goldacre. Andy Kirk (Chair, Society of Homeopaths) wrote:-

The Society of Homeopaths took the content of the BBC Newsnight programme very seriously and responded via press statements and media interviews promising action if it were required.

The SoH’s Melanie Oxley was interviewed on the programme. She did her best to dodge the questions put to her by the interviewer and started  burbling about homeopathic provings. The press release they put out subsequently failed to address the issues raised in the programme. See for yourself at http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/whats-new/past-press-releases/ scroll down to the July 2006 entry. Andy Kirk continues:-

We contacted the programme makers directly to ask for their evidence that any Society members had given dangerous or misleading advice to members of the public. They were unable to provide a single example.

Simon Singh, of Sense About Science, alleged that three of the homeopaths caught on film giving potentially lethal advice were members of SoH and that one was a Fellow! If these people were falsely claiming membership then one would have expected the SoH to take  out an injunction against them to stop them making false claims of membership. Such claims, combined with their dangerous advice, would surely lower the reputation of the Society and the SoH is very protective of its reputation. I am not aware of any such action ever being taken. If their claims of Society membership were true, then the Newsnight footage provided the evidence the Society claims to need. Kirk continues:-

…we reissued our Guidelines on advice for the prevention of malaria and sent a copy to every member within a day of the programme being aired.

I cannot find these guidelines on the public part of their website. They may be behind their members only paywall. As to their attemped censorship of Andy Lewis:-

“The Society instructed lawyers to write to the Internet Service Provider of Dr. Lewis’ website because the content of his site was not merely critical but defamatory of The Society, with the effect that its reputation could have been lowered. Dr Lewis, in his article, stated as fact highly offensive comments about The Society…”

Two things: the article can be read at http://homeopathiccomplaints.wordpress.com/ amongst many other places. Judge for yourself whether it is offensive or merely emphatic. Furthermore, Andy Lewis emailed the SoH to find out which of his assertions were a problem (read the email at http://www.badscience.net ). He received no reply.

 ”The very crude abuse posted on various websites and e-mailed to The Society since our action suggests that these bloggers/authors are not people who are interested in a real debate on the basis of either science or the public good but who simply want to attack homeopathy for the very sake of it.”

Here Kirk attempts to use the comments made by bloggers after the legal action as justification for taking the legal action. There’s doubtless a posh latin term for this particular logical fallacy but it’s better known as putting the cart before the horse.

“During the course of the [House of LordsSelect Committee on Science & Technology's Inquiry into CAM], the Society was cited as a model of best practice in voluntary self regulation…”

Cited by who? The implication of this paragraph is that it was the Select Committee that so cited them but I cannot find this citation in any record of the proceedings. In any event, given their record on investigating complaints, what is the worst practice like if this lot are the best? In his final paragraph, Kirk writes of the SoH’s “culture of research”.What research would that be? The ludicrous “provings” I descibed in “A Beginners Guide to Homeopathy” or perhaps they mean this: http://www.surveymethods.com/EndUser.aspx?C3E78B91C3859F98 ? A “survey” which has only one allowed answer. That is one way of getting 100% support! Just like a North Korean election.

It would appear that Ben Goldacre’s criticisms of the Society of Homeopaths (read them at www.badscience.net/?p=553#more-553 ) have stung, judging by the letter they have sent to The Guardian. (read it at http://www.homeopathy-soh.org/whats-new/press-releases.aspx ).

They are claiming that they took the Newsnight/Sense About Science malaria sting very seriously and promised to take action if required. They claim that the programme makers were unable to provide a single example of a Society member giving potentially lethal advice. As I recall, Simon Singh alleged that three of the homeopaths caught claiming their nostrums could prevent malaria were members of the Society and one was a Fellow. If these individuals were telling the truth then clearly the Programme makers did provide the evidence the Society required.

It is possible, of course, that these homeopaths were lying about their membership/Fellowship of the Society. In which case, surely the Society should have been concerned with these false claims linked with dangerous advice? Surely these individuals were lowering the reputation of the Society? Surely the Society would have sent in the lawyers, insisting that these individuals cease their false claims of Society membership? To the best of my knowledge, the SoH took no action whatsoever.

Now consider the action they took against Dr Andy Lewis (lecanardnoir). They claim that his Quackometer website is not merely critical of the Society but defamatory, with the effect that the Society’s reputation could have been lowered. They ignored his email asking what they objected to and sent in the lawyers.

Given that they took no action against individuals whose claims of Society membership, linked with the dangerous advice they were giving, must have lowered the Society’s reputation but did send in the lawyers against a blogger who criticised them, I can only stand by my original conclusion that the purpose of the Society is purely to silence criticism of homeopathy and homeopathists.