Notes on a Cornish holiday

We did a massive long cycle from Wadebridge to Padstow back to Wadebridge then to Bodmin and back to Wadebridge. More than 20 miles, some of it in the dark. That was glorious.

We found a small gallery in Padstow and got some complimentary champagne. We necked the stuff, gave the paintings a courtesy once-over and asked if there was anywhere else giving away free booze. The lady said no, but would we like to hear a very boring anecdote about macaroons. We said yes and immediately regretted it.

We went to a seal sanctuary. There were penguins there too. One of the penguins wasn't eating. I said it must be depressed. The handler corrected me saying he was off his food because he was breeding. I said breeding has the same effect on me. She did not laugh.

We went to Fifteen, the Jamie Oliver place, where I sidestepped an enormous amount of peer pressure to get the octopus, ordering instead the lamb ragu ('well done me' I thought later as I warily eyed the suckers on my friend's plate). We spent several minutes entertaining ourselves with filling out the restaurant feedback form, inviting all the attractive staff to join us in Newquay for the evening ('bring a bottle and a sense of loathing'). The light-hearted nature of our doodling was marred by the ill-advised use of the word 'queer', which we all came to regret bitterly.

The heaviest night out or B.N.O. (Big Night Out) was B.N.O. III, which was Sunday night. A night I will never remember, owing mostly to the rum punch (which we all came to regret). We made few friends and lost many braincells. We talked to everyone in the pub and they all grew to hate us, almost every conversation concluding in an angry exchange of expletives - choice quote: 'If you don't get it you can fuck off' (who this was and what we were talking about I will never know). The breadcrumbs in the bed were a clue to how we had finished off the evening. And indeed we had, quite sordidly, eaten an entire loaf of bread (which we all came to regret).

The planned surfing lesson kept being put back a day (Due to alcohol, laziness and the obscene over-prioritising of food consumption) and in the end Newquay went unsurfed completely.

I have to say the best bit for me was when I watched Corrie Omnibus on Sunday morning on a 52-inch telly. Peter Barlow fell off the wagon again and I felt a warm comfort in knowing that nothing ever really changes.

Painting

Swedish Telly

Memoirs # 13

Walsall Illuminations, an autumn in the nineteen-nineties.

My Dad sidles up to me and says in hushed tones: "Don't tell your mother but I've just cracked a tooth on that toffee apple".

Freddie Flintoff totally upstaged by adorable children in Morrison's advert

Here is the new Morrison's advert. A new Morrison's ad is always an event in my house and this one is no exception featuring as it does cricketing legend, Freddie Flintoff.

Freddie seems to be attempting to make inroads into a media career ever since he broke his body in the name of English sporting success but in his latest foray into the world of television he finds himself upstaged, out-acted and out-classed by a gaggle of adorable child actors.

Note particularly 'They bake them here, you know' girl and a star turn from 'Oh the quiche!' boy. I predict big things from 'Oh the quiche!' boy.

If only Freddie could go back to what he does best - drinking. When he stumbled off the step (at 1.05) and did that tie thing during the Ashes victory celebrations in 2005, I distinctly remember laughing for 10 solid minutes.

In light of all this here are a couple of television predictions/dreams:

'Freddie Flintoff's Lancastrian Pub Crawl' presented by Freddie Flintoff - what starts off as a low key BBC4 study of quiet northern watering holes takes a turn for the lairy when Freddie decides he wants to go to the Printworks and subsequently gets thrown out of Tiger Tiger.

'Oh the quiche!' starring 'Oh the quiche!' boy - A charming little sitcom in which a 4 year old boy repeatedly forgets to buy pastry foods. If they can get half of The Inbetweeners on board to reel in the knob-gag demographic then we're looking at a sure fire hit. I may as well get straight to drafting the treatment right now...

Radiohead announce nationwide Lidl tour dates

Radiohead have today announced dates for their forthcoming 'Lidl by Lidl' tour, with the band set to make appearances at every Lidl in England.

The tour, named after 'The King of Limbs' number (which apparently concerns a randy Thom Yorke "trying it on" with checkout girls), will commence on 15th May starting at Oxford's Lidl Superstore, the opening ceremony of which Yorke himself presided over last year.

"It'll be great to be back in Oxford, at the Lidl Superstore" the singer said today. "I've been a lifelong supporter of the chain. I mean, where else can you get a 2 kilo bag of beef mince for one pound? That's an offer you can't pass up - and I say that as a devout and militant vegetarian".

Johnny Greenwood was unavailable for comment, but it was clear from his body language that he was in reight mard about the whole thing.

Joe Rollino

Human endurance is a fascinating thing. One is often drawn to characters that prevail where others fall, who push life to the edge and whose lives occupy extreme territory. It can take different forms - there are those who can drink and drink and drink and still remain standing/alive.

Actor Richard Harris' capacity for drink was infamous and astounding. In 1997 he discovered he owned a Rolls Royce that had been housed in a New York garage since 1974, and such was his almost constant inebriation during the 70s he had no recollection of ever owning it (If this anecdote seems a little crowbarred in, it's because I love that story).

More honourably representing the nature of human endurance are characters like Joe Rollino. His innate ability was not with alcohol imbibing but weight lifting. He was cool in several ways but chief among them were the following:

- He was the self-proclaimed world's strongest man in the 1920's
- Time could not kill him, he only died after being hit by a van aged 104

Endurance is the wrong word for this man. He wasn't merely enduring living this long, he was showing off at it, still bending coins in his teeth at the age of 103. And unlike characters like Harris, Rollino never drank, smoked and or ate meat.

His whole story reads like an urban myth or a television movie, with a bizarre hotch potch of cameos throughout history - World War II heroics, bodyguard for Greta Garbo, bit part in On The Waterfront (left on the cutting room floor). More than anything he was clearly well loved and a local hero in Brooklyn.

And now for quite a gay looking photo:

It's that guys glasses that makes it gay and not Joe Rollino who is badass.

Arrested Development and The Godfather

I have a past history of comparing sitcoms to other things, or 'sitcomparison' as I now suddenly like to call it. So imagine my delight when I stumbled onto this nugget of sitcomparison gold, comparing the cult sitcom to the movie colossus. I had no idea of the similarities, but apparently it's as Ann as the nose on Plain's face.

Tune in next week when I'll be comparing 1970's British sitcoms to elements of Indian cuisine (or at the very least finding someone else on the internet who already has).

I've worked out why I hate everyone and everything

Reading one of the many enlightening articles on Cracked.com (6 Factors That Influence Who You Have Sex With), I came across an intriguing passage regarding hearing:

The brain is a really complex organ. But after decades of studying it, most psychologists and neurologists feel comfortable making a couple of generalizations -- namely, that the left side of your brain handles verbal information and is tuned in to positive emotions, while the right hemisphere concentrates on nonverbal stimuli and more negative emotions. They also know that information that goes in your left ear is handled by the right side of the brain.

Armed with this information, psychologists in Italy devised a study that tested how the different sides of your brain process information. What they found is that requests are 50 percent more successful when heard from the right side than the left. In the study, a woman approached people at a club and asked for a cigarette, leaning in to one side or another. Exactly double the number of people obliged her when she asked on their right. In a dating situation, not only could the chances of someone saying yes to a date hinge on who is standing where, but the emotional aspect could come into play as well. Sure, you might agree to go out with someone who talked in your left ear, but your first impression might be to associate him with more negative emotions.

Being deaf in my right ear my first impression of everyone is associated with negative emotions. I've never really thought about it too much before, but I'm now convinced that profound unilateral hearing loss has shaped my personality more than I had ever given it credit for. It's responsible for a whole host of winning attributes.

Maybe it's some really bad science and Ben Goldacre can tell me where I've gone wrong, but it's nice to find things to blame for all the bitterness and hatred, however fanciful it may be.