Where's James?

He was last heard of some time ago, publishing wry and highly amusing commentary on the fantasy football.

Now, he's gone weirdly quiet. His brother has called him a few times recently, occasionally and somewhat fiscally irresponsibly from his mobile, and he's seemed a bit preoccupied.

Now we're all wondering if he's just feeling mildly underappreciated for his bon mots and epithets, or whether the work/menagerie has begun to drown him...

JVL1 xxxxx

PS I tried to text you from Hong Kong, to say "This is ace, done Chunking Mansions, cocktails at the Peninsula, Peak Tram, Ocean Park, Star Ferry, Sheung Wang, Foreign Correspondent's Club, Macau (The Venetian... f*ck me!), Western Market, teh Park Lane in Gloucester Road, Chrissie's compact and bijoux flat, Rat Alley, and a bit more. What a funky place! "....

but I don't think it went.

Get in touch, dude!
x

Out and about in Gravesend

So - what did we do this weekend? Went out on our home-made bikes for the first time this year - lovely! But did we go to admire the view, breath in the fresh air, pick flowers and generally relax? Did we 'eck as like! We went pony poo collecting. Yes, you read that right... Pony Poo Collecting. Armed with rubber gloves, bucket and strong plastic sacks, we... well, actually Mariano, scooped up the freshest poo... and some old stuff, 'cause it attracts worms which are great for the soil. They are wonderful little compost makers, which help mix the poo with the soil naturally - so we look forward to truly organic produce later this year. I confined myself to identifying the best poo piles (I know how to have a good time.....) and making friends with a couple of the donators of our bounty. Actually, although this sounds disgusting, or "GROSS" as one of the nosey kids who wanted to know what we were doing called it [city dwellers... what do they know?], horses are completely vegetarian, and these ponies roam fairly free to pick and choose what they eat. There is very little odour - honest. Anyone for salad?

More photos here!

Snippets from Beautiful Downtown Gravesend

Patricia: Now working three days a week in the City for a St James's Place Partner (Jeremy, who constantly tells me how much he appreciates what I do - how good is THAT!) - loving it. No pressure - yet! Got my own desk, rather than parking where I can (great), am surrounded by lovely peeps, and really feeling that I belong, instead of just passing through. Have just completed an inspirational two day PA Masterclass (Time Management, Personal Development, Best Practice) came away refreshed and enthused, having made a bunch of friends all keen to keep in contact and exchange ideas. This gives me time to continue with my French language course and have time for friends, family, garden, house... and me!!

Am also starting to get my head around the Romanian language - determined to be able to converse with Mariano's family. Have kind of spoken with his mother, sister and neices, but a lot gets lost in Mariano's bold attempts to translate. There is an ongoing saga of his ex-wife wanting to make his life a misery, even though she has re-married. We are awaiting the outcome of a Court case she started some time ago to extract more money for their daughter, Patricia, who will be at university for at least another five years. Could all have been dealt with in a much more civilised manner, but she has expressed to wish to see him in prison. Patricia wavers between loving and hating him - there will be things to say to both of them in the fullness of time.

Mariano: Apart from the strain of the above situation, is happy. Enjoys his work and colleagues... and me! Unfortunately was diagnosed with high blood pressure and cholesterol, but steadfastly refuses to takes the prescribed medication. Is determined to right things with diet and excercise. We have bought a blood pressure machine, and (with advice from a lovely Chinese doctor) have converted to a totally vegetarian diet. Loads of salad, vegetables, nuts, pulses, honey, soya milk and yoghurt... and garlic! Mariano makes a truly scrumptious humous (chick peas, a touch of sunflower oil, lemon juice, cider vinegar and masses of garlic), and my variations of veggie stews (more garlic, onions, tomatoes, courgette, peppers, spinach and anything else to hand, oregano, bay leaves, basil, whole black peppers) are going down a treat. Seeds going in as I speak for tomatoes, peppers, chillies, string and french beans, cucumbers, lettuce, radishes, beetroot, spring onions, countless herbs... and anything else we can find space for. All very satisfying... and the good news is that M's BP has come down dramatically. Hooray!

Car (Rojalita): Thank goodness for the RAC - I became a familiar sight in laybys on the A2! Most recent calamity was the clutch going (£280-odd quid) - but now all fixed and she is a little darling. Has opened up our life no end. We still have our old Ford Escort (Rojalina) - it is not as impossible as we thought to get her back on the road... as and when pennies allow.

More to tell, but have taken up quite enough time and space for now. Hope all is well with everyone. Loads of love all round xxxx. Am about to attempt to post some promised photos.

Quake!

Well, that was weird.

Last night at 5 minutes to 1... Bobby and Louis are sound asleep in their beds, and Sam and Chantelle likewise, and I'm enduring another night of insomnia. I'm thoroughly enjoying my fourth episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip of the evening, doing some damage to the box set I bought, when all of a sudden, the bed starts to shake.

In a split second, I run through the options. Perhaps both the upstairs and downstairs flats have coincidentally installed several washing machines each during the day, and by further uncanny chance, switched them all on together on the highest spin setting.

Or aliens are landing.

Or I'm having an attack of some kind.

Then I realise that the tops of the wardrobes are swaying noticeably, and vibrations are shaking the whole flat. I can hear the fabric and structure of the entire block creaking, and I feel a mild anxiety. Obviously the building's not falling down, that would just be silly, but for fraction of a second I'm really annoyed about how poxy unlucky it would be if it was falling down on one of the nights that the boys are staying in it.

By now the shaking's been about 5 or seconds, and I'm really confused. I wonder about aliens again, then feel a bit silly.

Slowly the vibrations subside and in maybe 12 or 15 seconds it's all over. I'm really baffled about what's happened, and go to the boys room to make sure they're not awake and worried, but they're still soundo, and I peer out their bedroom window to look at the river, the Dome, and Canary Wharf, all of which are still there, rather reassuringly. I give them both a kiss, to say well done for their unwitting coolness under pressure. Then another one, as the fleeting image of a big pile of rubble shoots into and out of my head.

Vaguely disconcerted, I lie awake till two then drop off. I should've turned the radio on really, as all would have become clear. Precisely the same thing had gone on at BBC London's studio's in Marylebone High St, rather to the presenter's consternation ...(http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2008/02/27/earthquake_feature.shtml)

So, not aliens then. And not just a Californian phenomenon either...

OK - really fed up now.

Just spent half an hour pasting something (I thought) about life in Beautiful Downtown Gravesend... and it isn't there! Message came up saying something like
"Your contribution has been successful"... but no sign of it. Buggar!!

Hi Ryan!

I did try to log on to your live "Thing" I happened to be in the right place, at the right time, but technology got the better of me. I do hope it all went well. You have an amazing face... I hope it, and you, get the recognition you both deserve.

I am Ryan Stiles

I've made it to the improv masterclass, which means that I perform in front of an audience every Friday for the next three months. The good news: You can watch it LIVE on the theatre webcam! The bad news: it starts at 8:00 PM here, which is 4:00 AM for you. But if you find yourself awake then, by all means log on and watch me be brilliant.

The fake treat

My first YouTube posting! It's Lucy, our Jack Russell Terrier, pretending to be disciplined while we pretend to give her a treat. It's a very dysfunctional relationship.

Also in this video is Lucah, a 150-pound English mastiff that we dogsat while his owners, our friends Paul and Akiko, were getting married in Japan dressed as characters from Memoirs of a Geisha.

I figured it out after writing this...

Right, I came here fully intending to put together a post about my ski-trip with Sam, Chantelle and Marie, and my recent gig in Blackheath with Chris and Richard Holland, Phil Veacock and with a mystery tenor sax player that none of us knew who looked like a total geek. He in fact looked much more like Harry Potter than Sam did when he was 11, in the full Potter regalia, but who then proceeded to take the whole place by storm with his mad Minnie the Moocher singing and his Johnny Rotten style pogo-ing as he solo'ed.

I would have posted an mp3 or two, and some photos of the boy Samuel in his stripey snow gear, of which he is so proud.

I was also going to post the link to Lil's blog, in case people are interested. And I was going to see if there was any way of sorting out the fact that the columns on the far left of the home page seem to have a bit missing where it's spilled over the edge of the page.

But I couldn't find anywhere that said "create new post" or the like, even though I'm vaguely computer-literate. What chance do the less tech-minded parts of the family stand?? How do we do it? Am I being dim? [It would appear so, numbnuts. - A later more awake version of Jon]


Anyway, last Friday was a truly brilliant day. I finally closed a bit of business in the morning, having been unable to close so much as a door so far this year, then went and saw Cirque du Soleil at teh Albert Hall in teh afternoon.

Danny Baker had said on his show that this one wasn't so hot - "Cirque du So-So", he called it, so I wasn't expecting as much as the previous times I've seen them. But they were ace. Even though when you've seen loads and loads of small Chinese people vaulting through the air risking life adn limb, half an hour later you find you want some more.

So Dan's review was frankly tosh. And then we belted from Kensington Gore straight to the Valley, where the match of the season took place against the hated Palace, adn we gave them a sound shoeing, with the atmosphere probably better than I've ever heard it, right from the very first minute.

2-0 to the proper Londoners (everyone knows Palace aren't really from London, it's Croydon really. Any SE postcode above 18 is frankly an imposter). The excellence of the display temporarily allowed us all to forget the fact that we've just sold our best player. He was too fat to be a proper footballer really.

So that would kind of have been my post. Wish I knew how to do it properly.

[And now, I do, so I should do some of the things I said I would, I suppose...]

Correction!!!

I think I got that a tad wrong... Marcus will be 6 next month - I think he has to be 7 to join the Beavers, but I am sure will make his presence felt whenever possible before that. Bless!

An Addition to 17.02.08

I should mention that Louis led the party most of the way, shooting off with great enthusiasm, with Marcus in hot pursuit as fast as his little legs would carry him! Marcus can join the Cubs next year when he is six, when he can join the Beavers. I don't fully understand the hierarchy, but all looks like good, clean, healthy, educational fun - takes me back to my days as a Brownie. No James - I wasn't a chocolate cake (though was probably quite sweet). Brownies are the girl equivalent of Cubs... don't ask me why!

A lovely weekend with Jon and the two youngest Van Leers

We have just had the most perfect weekend, weatherwise - England at her beautiful best! Jon invited me to join him, Louis and Marcus to see Charlton play... ummm... Somebodyorother - couldn't actually get a ticket for me, but somehow blagged me in. Very satisfying to see the stadium packed full. Charlton were 2 up at half time, so we celebrated with a pint... during which Somebodyorother scored two goals. 2 all sounded OK to me, but apparently that was not good. We commiserated afterwards with hot dogs all round, and a few more pints. Took a taxi back to Jon's, and drowned our sorrows with a tasty roast and red wine.

I stayed over, and we went off today (Sunday) to Christmas Tree Farm in Keston, where Louis' cub pack were visiting the Pets' section - saw and fed sheep, goats (one of which demonstrated giving birth before our very eyes- fascinating!), ponies, cows, lamas, various posh chickens, geese, rabbits, guineapigs, hamsters, pigs (with whom a big white rabbit had set up home) - all very lovely. After consuming an open air lunch in the sunshine, we trooped off, clutching maps, on an hour-long country walk to Keston Ponds, where Archaela produced hot dogs and hot drinks on a gas stove. Louis will have earned another Badge - we earned thanks for our assistance. Photos to follow.

Poll my finger

I'm a registered Democrat. Lord knows I don't agree with everything they do and say, but if you want to vote at all in this country, you have to register. And when you register, you have to choose a party affiliation, even if that's "independent." One of the benefits of registering with a party (actually, the only benefit) is that you get to vote for that party's presidential candidate in the Presidential Primary Election. This is happening next week on the 5th, on what is hilariously known as "Super Tuesday."

California is considered "Clinton country," and Obama's not really doing much campaigning here. I'd probably have gone for John Edwards, but he dropped out yesterday. I must admit to sharing the belief of many people, which is that electing a Bush, then a Clinton, then a Bush, then a Clinton seems unhealthy for the country. A change of air might be good, but people are concerned about Obama's lack of experience. On the other hand, "experience in Washington" often means that you're a hack beltway insider. Anyway, I'm open to bribes if any of you want to sway me.

In other news, I believe a certain girl turned 17 today ...

Hello, family.

This is my (possibly hairbrained) attempt to bring us all closer together. Of course, you already are closer together, being on the same continent and all, so this is possibly just for my own benefit. But anyway, I really am interested in what you're all doing, I'm just a bit rubbish in the email department sometimes, and I feel that emails are pretty unrewarding and ineffective when it comes to keeping in touch.

But I have some blogging experience, and I've found that it's a great way for people to interact because there are varying levels of interactivity. You can post stuff if you want. Or you can just comment on other people's posts. Or you can simply bookmark the site and silently lurk in the background, like some sort of Gollum. Then of course, there's ignoring it altogether, which you're free to do. But what the hell, let's give it a shot. I'll get the ball rolling by saying ...

Jon bought me Jools Holland's autobiography for my birthday! It arrived just after New Year's, and he says that my Christmas gift will arrive around May. Thanks, fella! It'll have to wait to be read though, since I'm still reading the excellent Alan Bennett book dad and Pete bought me for Christmas last year (yes, I am a pretty slow reader, but it's really thick, and I've also read a Kerouac and a Nabokov in between. So it's not like I'm slacking off.)

There you are. The inaugural post. If you need help posting, there's some handy links on the left, or you can just send me the information and/or pictures, and I'll post it for you. And if you have any links you want included in the "Family Links" section (or, indeed, removed from it) feel free to let me know by email. Hope to hear from you soon!