My plan was to complete this writing over the last weekend of February reporting on an unusual seven days of activities and decisions. I also planned to begin an update of TV programmes recently viewed but the decision to buy, and read the authorised biography of Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell has changed my focus.
Saturday evening week I went to Rigoletto, the second time in less than three months. On December 16th I saw the Opera relayed from Convent Garden, a version which shocked some of the audience because of nudity. On Saturday the Opera, this time from the Metropolitan New York, was staged in Las Vegas at the time of the Rat Pack but the neon was always secondary to three outstanding performances from international specialists in singing this dramatic tragic opera about the power of a curse. While I am concentrating new activities and writings I will revise my previous piece on Rigoletto and write of the experiences of the week in more detail over the coming week.
On Wednesday evening I returned to Bolden again for a performance of Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky’s intense opera about missed opportunity and a lifetime of regret where the star performance was not one of the two lead leading characters but a third. I will write more fully about this experience in the same piece as Rigoletto.
On Saturday I was able to enjoy three rolls filled with pâté and olives before setting off and then a cherry fruited Ben and Jerry single ice cream at £2.60. On Wednesday I also had a filled rolls at tea and then purchased a £1.19 coffee from McDonalds. The food intake has been more balanced in previous weeks with salad on three days, with quiche, prawns and smoked mackerel, and rolls filled with pâté twice and with shredded cheese and Branston pickle on two and for main meals, a Pork Chop, a lamb steak both with fresh mixed veg, breaded fish with tinned tomatoes, beans and corn and the same veg with a fish cake underway this evening; there was also prepared sausage and mash and, deep fried sprats in batter and bread crumbs last Saturday as tomorrow as one of my indulgences together with two cheese toasties one evening after having the rolls at lunch. There has two small bananas with custard and a medium size tin of rice divided over two days with a cinnamon topping which reminds I need to get a refill. There have been several cuppa soups and in the mornings porridge several times and then fruit and nut cereal serial plus a small prepared all day breakfast, once.
It will be noted that I have continued to use some prepared meals containing the sausage. There has been a great political and media fuss over the past two weeks, over horse meat being found in process meat described as beef. With the price of beef high it is not surprising that that some businessmen will replace beef or include in the process the less expensive horse meat. This does not provide a problem to those consuming as horse meat is widely eaten on the continent and wider affield although it is not to the British taste. However the fuss is that as the evidence suggests illegal activity there is no way to establish the quality of meat and what else may have been included. The processing chain involved appears extraordinary raising further questions about the quality of the food. Supermarkets are under fire because of their demand for cheaper prices however one education authority admit tests reveal some of their meat has been contamination. Wetherpoons. the restaurant chain sends an mail announcing that it has made tests on 29 of its menu items which proved negative. Interestingly there are no news items about other food chain making similar announcements. The problem here is contamination by using the same processing machinery as used in relation to horsemeat. The tested samples indicate horseflesh DNA only. The subject appears to have been dropped but will occur again if more arrests are made and prosecutions. (After the weekend Ikea announced they had discovered horsemeat in their meatballs and the item had been withdrawn until further notice).
Parliament has also been in recess for half term. Apart from Prime Ministers Question Time there is nothing to engender excitement scheduled within either of the Houses next week apart from the Lords where there is a motion proposing that new Members should not be admitted until issues regarding the future of the House are settled and there will also be progress on the Succession Bill which propose that should the first child of the Duchess of Cambridge be female that this child would be next in line rather than any subsequent son. During the recess the Prime Minister has been in India attempting to force stronger commercial ties and during the visit attended a ceremony at Amritsar to mark the genocide of 300 Sikh civilians in 1919 by the British commanding officer at the jail on one of the holiest days of the year for the Sikhs. There was a short media debate over why Cameron had not apologised although he did refer to the condemnation made at the time by Winston Churchill.
Chris Hulne, a former member of the Coalition Government, and a one time candidate for the leadership of he Liberal Democrats has now pleaded guilty to persuading his wife to say she was driving the vehicle in which he had been caught speeding and would lose his licence as a consequence for a short period, something with happened a short time later. The matter only came to light after Hulne left his wife for another woman, he is yet to be sentenced, presumably being left until the by-election for his seat in Parliament has been held this coming Thursday. His wife took the story to Sunday Times who did warn that she could also face prosecution which has also happened. The jury at her trial failed to reach a verdict causing the judge to comment on their incompetence. There is to be a retrial. The issue appears to centre on whether her defence of marital duress is valid.
On the two days with only five to six hours of sleep after lying awake in bed I only manage the basic activity on Wii Fit and did not undertake. However I continue to make excellent use of the Sleep Apnoea Treatment machine and this morning after a week of 8 hours plus use increased my average to 7.8 hours having dropped from a consistent average of 7.7 to 7.6 and even 7.5 over one morning when I achieved under 7 hours of use. I have decided to note the hours each day to be able to reflect on changes in usage and consider the factor that may have been involved just as I have kept a detailed record of Wii Fir and Wii Sport. Have experience some longer periods of being awake when I need to rise but also some god sessions of four hours and one of five without waking and then may rise almost and two hours intervals, with the one or two less and one or two over. What is evident is that the ability to rise early and continue until late evening without feeling tired if I have enjoyed seven or eight hours of actual sleep. Five hours and I need a rest sometimes a doze during the day.
Using the Wii Fit weighing it is also evident that there is a difference of up to 5lbs between weighing in the morning and afternoon, a difference not so evident on bathrooms scales where the difference can be 3lbs. I am still hovering sixteen and a half with only once getting well below to believe I was going to make progress towards the stone barrier.
I have found a new activity to enjoy on Wii Fit extra which involved marching in time to a whistle while using both hands to try and catch falling objects in circles at the side. I have now managed to score over 400 around 7 times. You gain 5 points on perfect and 1 for Ok, 0 for a miss. The great breakthrough has come in the ski jump making several single jumps at over 100 metres the highest at 125 and breaking 200 four times. The art is to bend at the knees forward and hold position on the jump in such a way as to accelerate before take off and hold the straight position with moving. However I can still fluff the jump and fail to accelerate.
In the sports play I have taken to aborting if it looks as if I will lose my rating with some days making no progress. It is only in bowling that I have reach professional level with a rating of over 1000 for around a month, reaching over 1100 twice and then dropping down to just over 1000 before rising to the present high.
In golf I made excellent progress playing three holes gaining rating with a par score or less and perhaps an extra point or too with one over, My aim is to reach over 1000 before moving up to intermediate with a six holes game but if I continue to be stuck and I will start the six hole game anyway, One has only to aim straight on the putting green and speed posing the main problem. I have also reached a stone wall at baseball have moved into the 700 point plus rating. I have made a little progress at tennis also in the 700 rating, but have moved back from a three game set to one game at a time to gain the increased rating. When warming for tennis I had 33 return session gaining a silver medal increasing from the bronze gained from 19 returns. However making ten shots with play at the net is not easy.
After the show opera relay visit on Wednesday I went to Asda for milk and bought one of the smaller ring binders now on sale with a grey at 40p, black, blue and red glossy at 50P. I will get more when I returned to Bolden Saturday 23rd February 2013 for a special showing of the film which won the Best Film at British Film Academy awards Argo and is the bookies’ favourite for the Oscars although I would not be surprised if Les Miserables or Zero Black Thirty was also in the running. Another of the Oscar nominated best picture films is being shown on Monday evening Armour and I considered going to see if the BAFTA’s best actress award also becomes an Oscar I will stay up to watch the awards on Sunday night if I can and then do a piece on the ceremony as well as the films viewed over the week: The Dark Hour in 3D on Friday afternoon, Three Colours White, late one evening, an amusing satire on the world of contemporary art collectors, agents, galleries, artists and hangers on Boogie Woogie . I will also write of the Cruel Sea seen for the umpteenth time then another 3D Avengers Assemble. There is to be a radio dramatization of the Cruel Sea next week ( which I have listened to in two one episodes)
I have listened to more Radio Drama than usual. The highlight has not been more the Real George Orwell Programmes but eight of the ten one hour plays of the Charles Percy Snow’s series of books Strangers and Brothers of which I have eight and have ordered another, debating still to purchase the other two to add the already year long reading list as has been explained The most interesting have been the last two when Elliot as a senior civil servant, barrister and former Cambridge Don aligns himself with an ambitious Tory politician who chooses to give everything up for the love of a woman not his wife and fails in his efforts to stop Britain developing its own atomic and nuclear weapons.
I have listened to the two second episodes of 1984 in full having previously missed the opening part and considered what a powerful tale it is and how in effect events since have shown how accurate was his predictions with warnings ignored. I am still in the process of listening to the six 15 minute programmes on his essays and journalistic writings. I did listen to Jura the last in the dramatization about his life, the Road to 1984 and Melvin Bragg on the Spanish Civil War. I will finish writing about Homage to Catalonia which I am still rereading and will then read Animal Farm and 1984 next week before completing the writing on the series with a look back over his life when the biographies I have purchased arrive. I am have been much affect by what I have read unable to get to sleep two nights this week considering implications in relation to future writings. I previously mentioned that I used the opportunity of getting the C P Snow to also order three volumes missing from the Dance to the Music of Time series of Anthony Powell with Casanova’s Chinese restaurant and a Buyers Market having arrived together and with 8 episode TV series DVD also arriving. The surprise this morning was to get a huge 983 page second hand novel called The Kindly Ones by Antony Beevoir which I appear to have one click ordered by mistake. The is about the owner of a lace factory in France, a family man who was an SS intelligence officer in World War II and an assassin. The book complements The Winds of War which I will look forward to reading, however unintentional. I will have to find out if this is an extra purchase an replaces an intended one!
On Monday morning I attended a training session as an NHS Patient assessor, which involves assisting NHS Trust managers in making annual inspection visits to facilities with ten beds and with making a separate report with other patient assessors which is published. I have started to digest the information provided. I suspect the new system which replaces the former will need to be revised again in the light of the Report on the Mid Staffs Hospital where so many people died because of management failure to ensure the risk of secondary infections was kept at an acceptable level.
There has been some excellent sport on TV over the week with the highlight a great win by Newcastle United to reach the last sixteen and will play the first leg of their next game away on Thursday at 5 which means they will know what they have to do to win the tie when the visitors come to St James. I must place a bet on them winning the competition. On Thursday they won the game with the only goal of the two rounds, a penalty scored by Shoala Ameobi after the goal keeper brought down a player going no where. Papiss Cisse again missed chances, two although his two goal at St James were incorrectly adjudged offside by the linesman at home, with one several yards on side and the other more marginal but still a good goal according to the commentators and press present.
I break off after close on a two hour session of exercise and sport play on the Wii Fit board and console where I approached professional on three hole golf to match that on Bowling top take delivery of the Michael Shelden’s official biography of Eric Blair -George Orwell, in first 1991 edition hardback marking time to get myself ready early for trips to two supermarkets on way to Bolden Cinema for the fifth time in two weeks to see the winner of the best actress award in a film about bi polar disease. I need to do some sorting on the patio as some of daffs have reached the top of the mini glasshouse coverings.
After watching two performances by Warrington Wolves on the TV I missed their best while at the cinema last Saturday when they beat Hull away 24.10 after being led at the break. I am always unhappy when a side is billed by the commentators and likely to become runaway winner over the season, Every game becomes a Cuptie rival. Huddersfield are only one point behind with a game in hand.
I also watched part of England’s 22 -13 win over France to after maintain their Six nation ambitions after being Ireland away 12-6 and Scotland 38-8 in the opening game at Twickenham. The game of this competition was Italy beating France.
England has also played a three game one day 50 over series against New Zealand after the successful 20 20 2-1 competition and lost the first game, In the second game is was an electric batting innings by young Yorkshire man Root not out 79 finished the job 270 for 2. He hit 2 sixes and 7 fours. Cook made 79 and Trott 65. Anderson had managed to hold some of the New Zealanders taking two of the openers 19 for 2 and the tail to end with five for thirty four in just under 10 overs. However the team managed to reach 269 with Taylor, who has played for Durham scored 100.
In that crucial last game it was the bowlers who did amazing things given the postage stamp of the playing areas with Finn in devastating good form having master the problem that led him to keep breaking the wicket on his run up to end with 3 for 27 and Broad 2 for 38. Swann 2 Anderson and Woakes one each and the opposition was humiliated to 188. It was not quite the walk over it had first looked but root again, playing a much quieter game finished twenty eight not out to see another 2.1 series win with 186 for 5. Next a three match Test series.
Saturday evening week I went to Rigoletto, the second time in less than three months. On December 16th I saw the Opera relayed from Convent Garden, a version which shocked some of the audience because of nudity. On Saturday the Opera, this time from the Metropolitan New York, was staged in Las Vegas at the time of the Rat Pack but the neon was always secondary to three outstanding performances from international specialists in singing this dramatic tragic opera about the power of a curse. While I am concentrating new activities and writings I will revise my previous piece on Rigoletto and write of the experiences of the week in more detail over the coming week.
On Wednesday evening I returned to Bolden again for a performance of Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky’s intense opera about missed opportunity and a lifetime of regret where the star performance was not one of the two lead leading characters but a third. I will write more fully about this experience in the same piece as Rigoletto.
On Saturday I was able to enjoy three rolls filled with pâté and olives before setting off and then a cherry fruited Ben and Jerry single ice cream at £2.60. On Wednesday I also had a filled rolls at tea and then purchased a £1.19 coffee from McDonalds. The food intake has been more balanced in previous weeks with salad on three days, with quiche, prawns and smoked mackerel, and rolls filled with pâté twice and with shredded cheese and Branston pickle on two and for main meals, a Pork Chop, a lamb steak both with fresh mixed veg, breaded fish with tinned tomatoes, beans and corn and the same veg with a fish cake underway this evening; there was also prepared sausage and mash and, deep fried sprats in batter and bread crumbs last Saturday as tomorrow as one of my indulgences together with two cheese toasties one evening after having the rolls at lunch. There has two small bananas with custard and a medium size tin of rice divided over two days with a cinnamon topping which reminds I need to get a refill. There have been several cuppa soups and in the mornings porridge several times and then fruit and nut cereal serial plus a small prepared all day breakfast, once.
It will be noted that I have continued to use some prepared meals containing the sausage. There has been a great political and media fuss over the past two weeks, over horse meat being found in process meat described as beef. With the price of beef high it is not surprising that that some businessmen will replace beef or include in the process the less expensive horse meat. This does not provide a problem to those consuming as horse meat is widely eaten on the continent and wider affield although it is not to the British taste. However the fuss is that as the evidence suggests illegal activity there is no way to establish the quality of meat and what else may have been included. The processing chain involved appears extraordinary raising further questions about the quality of the food. Supermarkets are under fire because of their demand for cheaper prices however one education authority admit tests reveal some of their meat has been contamination. Wetherpoons. the restaurant chain sends an mail announcing that it has made tests on 29 of its menu items which proved negative. Interestingly there are no news items about other food chain making similar announcements. The problem here is contamination by using the same processing machinery as used in relation to horsemeat. The tested samples indicate horseflesh DNA only. The subject appears to have been dropped but will occur again if more arrests are made and prosecutions. (After the weekend Ikea announced they had discovered horsemeat in their meatballs and the item had been withdrawn until further notice).
Parliament has also been in recess for half term. Apart from Prime Ministers Question Time there is nothing to engender excitement scheduled within either of the Houses next week apart from the Lords where there is a motion proposing that new Members should not be admitted until issues regarding the future of the House are settled and there will also be progress on the Succession Bill which propose that should the first child of the Duchess of Cambridge be female that this child would be next in line rather than any subsequent son. During the recess the Prime Minister has been in India attempting to force stronger commercial ties and during the visit attended a ceremony at Amritsar to mark the genocide of 300 Sikh civilians in 1919 by the British commanding officer at the jail on one of the holiest days of the year for the Sikhs. There was a short media debate over why Cameron had not apologised although he did refer to the condemnation made at the time by Winston Churchill.
Chris Hulne, a former member of the Coalition Government, and a one time candidate for the leadership of he Liberal Democrats has now pleaded guilty to persuading his wife to say she was driving the vehicle in which he had been caught speeding and would lose his licence as a consequence for a short period, something with happened a short time later. The matter only came to light after Hulne left his wife for another woman, he is yet to be sentenced, presumably being left until the by-election for his seat in Parliament has been held this coming Thursday. His wife took the story to Sunday Times who did warn that she could also face prosecution which has also happened. The jury at her trial failed to reach a verdict causing the judge to comment on their incompetence. There is to be a retrial. The issue appears to centre on whether her defence of marital duress is valid.
On the two days with only five to six hours of sleep after lying awake in bed I only manage the basic activity on Wii Fit and did not undertake. However I continue to make excellent use of the Sleep Apnoea Treatment machine and this morning after a week of 8 hours plus use increased my average to 7.8 hours having dropped from a consistent average of 7.7 to 7.6 and even 7.5 over one morning when I achieved under 7 hours of use. I have decided to note the hours each day to be able to reflect on changes in usage and consider the factor that may have been involved just as I have kept a detailed record of Wii Fir and Wii Sport. Have experience some longer periods of being awake when I need to rise but also some god sessions of four hours and one of five without waking and then may rise almost and two hours intervals, with the one or two less and one or two over. What is evident is that the ability to rise early and continue until late evening without feeling tired if I have enjoyed seven or eight hours of actual sleep. Five hours and I need a rest sometimes a doze during the day.
Using the Wii Fit weighing it is also evident that there is a difference of up to 5lbs between weighing in the morning and afternoon, a difference not so evident on bathrooms scales where the difference can be 3lbs. I am still hovering sixteen and a half with only once getting well below to believe I was going to make progress towards the stone barrier.
I have found a new activity to enjoy on Wii Fit extra which involved marching in time to a whistle while using both hands to try and catch falling objects in circles at the side. I have now managed to score over 400 around 7 times. You gain 5 points on perfect and 1 for Ok, 0 for a miss. The great breakthrough has come in the ski jump making several single jumps at over 100 metres the highest at 125 and breaking 200 four times. The art is to bend at the knees forward and hold position on the jump in such a way as to accelerate before take off and hold the straight position with moving. However I can still fluff the jump and fail to accelerate.
In the sports play I have taken to aborting if it looks as if I will lose my rating with some days making no progress. It is only in bowling that I have reach professional level with a rating of over 1000 for around a month, reaching over 1100 twice and then dropping down to just over 1000 before rising to the present high.
In golf I made excellent progress playing three holes gaining rating with a par score or less and perhaps an extra point or too with one over, My aim is to reach over 1000 before moving up to intermediate with a six holes game but if I continue to be stuck and I will start the six hole game anyway, One has only to aim straight on the putting green and speed posing the main problem. I have also reached a stone wall at baseball have moved into the 700 point plus rating. I have made a little progress at tennis also in the 700 rating, but have moved back from a three game set to one game at a time to gain the increased rating. When warming for tennis I had 33 return session gaining a silver medal increasing from the bronze gained from 19 returns. However making ten shots with play at the net is not easy.
After the show opera relay visit on Wednesday I went to Asda for milk and bought one of the smaller ring binders now on sale with a grey at 40p, black, blue and red glossy at 50P. I will get more when I returned to Bolden Saturday 23rd February 2013 for a special showing of the film which won the Best Film at British Film Academy awards Argo and is the bookies’ favourite for the Oscars although I would not be surprised if Les Miserables or Zero Black Thirty was also in the running. Another of the Oscar nominated best picture films is being shown on Monday evening Armour and I considered going to see if the BAFTA’s best actress award also becomes an Oscar I will stay up to watch the awards on Sunday night if I can and then do a piece on the ceremony as well as the films viewed over the week: The Dark Hour in 3D on Friday afternoon, Three Colours White, late one evening, an amusing satire on the world of contemporary art collectors, agents, galleries, artists and hangers on Boogie Woogie . I will also write of the Cruel Sea seen for the umpteenth time then another 3D Avengers Assemble. There is to be a radio dramatization of the Cruel Sea next week ( which I have listened to in two one episodes)
I have listened to more Radio Drama than usual. The highlight has not been more the Real George Orwell Programmes but eight of the ten one hour plays of the Charles Percy Snow’s series of books Strangers and Brothers of which I have eight and have ordered another, debating still to purchase the other two to add the already year long reading list as has been explained The most interesting have been the last two when Elliot as a senior civil servant, barrister and former Cambridge Don aligns himself with an ambitious Tory politician who chooses to give everything up for the love of a woman not his wife and fails in his efforts to stop Britain developing its own atomic and nuclear weapons.
I have listened to the two second episodes of 1984 in full having previously missed the opening part and considered what a powerful tale it is and how in effect events since have shown how accurate was his predictions with warnings ignored. I am still in the process of listening to the six 15 minute programmes on his essays and journalistic writings. I did listen to Jura the last in the dramatization about his life, the Road to 1984 and Melvin Bragg on the Spanish Civil War. I will finish writing about Homage to Catalonia which I am still rereading and will then read Animal Farm and 1984 next week before completing the writing on the series with a look back over his life when the biographies I have purchased arrive. I am have been much affect by what I have read unable to get to sleep two nights this week considering implications in relation to future writings. I previously mentioned that I used the opportunity of getting the C P Snow to also order three volumes missing from the Dance to the Music of Time series of Anthony Powell with Casanova’s Chinese restaurant and a Buyers Market having arrived together and with 8 episode TV series DVD also arriving. The surprise this morning was to get a huge 983 page second hand novel called The Kindly Ones by Antony Beevoir which I appear to have one click ordered by mistake. The is about the owner of a lace factory in France, a family man who was an SS intelligence officer in World War II and an assassin. The book complements The Winds of War which I will look forward to reading, however unintentional. I will have to find out if this is an extra purchase an replaces an intended one!
On Monday morning I attended a training session as an NHS Patient assessor, which involves assisting NHS Trust managers in making annual inspection visits to facilities with ten beds and with making a separate report with other patient assessors which is published. I have started to digest the information provided. I suspect the new system which replaces the former will need to be revised again in the light of the Report on the Mid Staffs Hospital where so many people died because of management failure to ensure the risk of secondary infections was kept at an acceptable level.
There has been some excellent sport on TV over the week with the highlight a great win by Newcastle United to reach the last sixteen and will play the first leg of their next game away on Thursday at 5 which means they will know what they have to do to win the tie when the visitors come to St James. I must place a bet on them winning the competition. On Thursday they won the game with the only goal of the two rounds, a penalty scored by Shoala Ameobi after the goal keeper brought down a player going no where. Papiss Cisse again missed chances, two although his two goal at St James were incorrectly adjudged offside by the linesman at home, with one several yards on side and the other more marginal but still a good goal according to the commentators and press present.
I break off after close on a two hour session of exercise and sport play on the Wii Fit board and console where I approached professional on three hole golf to match that on Bowling top take delivery of the Michael Shelden’s official biography of Eric Blair -George Orwell, in first 1991 edition hardback marking time to get myself ready early for trips to two supermarkets on way to Bolden Cinema for the fifth time in two weeks to see the winner of the best actress award in a film about bi polar disease. I need to do some sorting on the patio as some of daffs have reached the top of the mini glasshouse coverings.
After watching two performances by Warrington Wolves on the TV I missed their best while at the cinema last Saturday when they beat Hull away 24.10 after being led at the break. I am always unhappy when a side is billed by the commentators and likely to become runaway winner over the season, Every game becomes a Cuptie rival. Huddersfield are only one point behind with a game in hand.
I also watched part of England’s 22 -13 win over France to after maintain their Six nation ambitions after being Ireland away 12-6 and Scotland 38-8 in the opening game at Twickenham. The game of this competition was Italy beating France.
England has also played a three game one day 50 over series against New Zealand after the successful 20 20 2-1 competition and lost the first game, In the second game is was an electric batting innings by young Yorkshire man Root not out 79 finished the job 270 for 2. He hit 2 sixes and 7 fours. Cook made 79 and Trott 65. Anderson had managed to hold some of the New Zealanders taking two of the openers 19 for 2 and the tail to end with five for thirty four in just under 10 overs. However the team managed to reach 269 with Taylor, who has played for Durham scored 100.
In that crucial last game it was the bowlers who did amazing things given the postage stamp of the playing areas with Finn in devastating good form having master the problem that led him to keep breaking the wicket on his run up to end with 3 for 27 and Broad 2 for 38. Swann 2 Anderson and Woakes one each and the opposition was humiliated to 188. It was not quite the walk over it had first looked but root again, playing a much quieter game finished twenty eight not out to see another 2.1 series win with 186 for 5. Next a three match Test series.
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