Result!

After one week of eating sensibly and walking around 6.5 miles in a brisk fashion, I have lost ten pounds. My “sensibly” includes making sure I have a banana in my Sultana Bran, loads of fruit when I’m peckish, nothing with my coffee and a decent dinner, followed by more fruit again mid-evening.

The ten pounds seems like a huge amount of weight, and it is, but is to be expected as I have cut out all crisps, biscuits and snacks other than fruit between meals. As mentioned previously, I downloaded Runkeeper to my iPhone which has motivated me to exercise more.

I already feel much better, even though I still weigh 266 lbs. The sugar swings have gone and I’ve noticed my concentration is much better. I will be walking further over the coming week (as long as it’s not raining – fair weather walker!) and hope to be hitting five mile walks three or four nights a week by next weekend. Might even take the hound!

 

iPod Selection

Rather than choosing a podcast for my walk this evening, I played through my Top 25 Most Played playlist. I’ve listed just my top five below:

1. Secret Garden – Bruce Springsteen

2. I Say A Little Prayer – Aretha Franklin

3. Trouble – Ray Lamontagne

4. Wild Children – Van Morrison

5. The Way It Is – Bruce Hornsby & The Range

OK, so I’m an old man. Anyone else brave enough to share theirs?

 

Endorphins

I tried Runkeeper (free version) for my iPhone this evening in an effort to get out into the fresh air and become a little healthier. I haven’t walked, for exercise purposes, in years. Starting off on my usual route tonight, I completed 1.44 miles in 24.17 minutes. Now, before you runners start laughing, this is just a beginning. Nine years ago, I was walking five or six miles before going to work every morning but working outside Bangor soon put the kibosh on that with having to leave for work earlier.

I was very pleased with the technology (with the usual level of amazement) but I noticed that my battery power was running down fairly quickly. The best feature for me was the instantaneous uploading of my trip to the Runkeeper website as soon as I had finished my walk. I was also very pleased with the accuracy of the trip map as it picked up when I had crossed roads etc It certainly will encourage me to better my time. I also Tweeted the trip from the computer.

Fully charged battery for tomorrow evening – onwards and upwards!

 

Neglect

I have watched, for perhaps a year now, the neglect of this beautiful old house on the Bangor to Belfast Road. To be fair, I have no idea why it has lain unattended and unloved for such a long period. It could be that the previous owner died intestate or, more likely, a developer has bought it and is allowing to fall into the realm of “beyond economic repair” for planning purposes. The missing roof tiles and the holes in some of the windows will hasten it’s demise, but it’s a real shame.

The house itself has elements of both the 1920s and 1930s but may have been built much later. It also reminds me in some way of US house design, especially with the overhanging porch and the depth of the roof. Its a real beauty and as I didn’t have a substantial win on the National Lottery this weekend, will continue to deteriorate. I’d love to have a close look round the property but someone has nailed a large official-looking KEEP OUT sign onto the wooden gate. As I’m a mainly law-abiding citizen, I fear that it won’t be possible.

For a bigger picure (for the lovely detail!) click here and click on “All Sizes”.

 

Creative Monopoly

This image (from thedoghousediaries.com) fits with my thoughts rather well today.

Firstly, and this is a regular thought of mine, why do I not have ideas like this one? I’m fairly clued in to what this picture is saying. I just wish I had the inclination and talent to think of it first!  Also, I can’t draw or doodle to save my life. I love clever people and things but I’m also very envious of their obvious talents.

Secondly, it reminded me that Monopoly, or the company that owns the brand, Hasbro, has released a Belfast version. I knew this was coming as we were having some delivered to sell this week. I was most curious to learn which properties in Belfast were to be assigned the Old Kent Rd and Whitechapel Road “brown” properties. The manufacturers took the safe option and selected Linenhall Library and Custom House Square for these – probably a wise move. I had visions of property owners in some unfortunate part of Belfast having a rant on Scene Around Six, or whatever they call it now.

I’ve had a look at the game. We’ve sold over one hundred since it’s release and have lots more. At £24.99, it’s a reasonable price, but for us exiled Belfast folk, would have been more interesting with real street names rather than specific buildings or locations. Good crack with a few glasses of wine though!

Revisited

During last Saturday’s Flickr Meet at the recently reopened Ulster Museum, I had the opportunity to check out some areas I missed first time round. I may have been a bit “previous” in my criticism of the amount and type of art versus the historical artifacts that “should” be in a museum, in my opinion. While showing my eight year old around, it seems I missed a few areas that would have given me a more positive impression. In fact, I’m not even confident that even following Saturday’s visit I’ve seen all there is to see.

These two pieces are particularly striking. I’m not normally into art per se, but I’d like to steal this teapot! And the Horus II sculpture below had me wondering if it was perhaps a more suitable piece to represent Belfast than that “Statue of Thanksgiving”, given it’s similarity to the prow of a ship.

Side-on though, it looks like the seat of my trousers. Maybe not a large copy of it then! I’ll shortly be back again to the museum to see what else I can discover…

Demon Dog

As soon as I learnt that James Ellroy, the self-proclaimed Demon Dog of American literature, was visiting Belfast’s Waterfront Hall, I bought my ticket. I have been a fan of Ellroy’s work since the 1980s. Ellroy’s visit to Belfast had been arranged, sponsored and promoted by No Alibis bookshop owner David Torrens in conjunction with Ellroy’s agent, Nat Sobel. David’s bookshop has been a fixture on Botanic Avenue, Belfast for many years and has been a mecca for discerning crime readers and myself for all of that time. I was lucky enough to win a further two tickets in a competition run by David on his website, so I was able to spread the Ellroy-love a little further! Yesterday morning I was walking up Botanic while out with some Flickr friends and called into the shop to collect the tickets. David was behind his counter as usual but introduced me to the rather tall American chap to my right – it was the Demon Dog himself! Very affable and down to earth, James made a immediate positive impression on me. One of my heroes shaking my hand; it made my day!

I have read all of his books with the exception of The Cold Six Thousand and his latest, Blood’s A Rover. My favourites have always been the LA Quartet made up of The Black Dahlia (1987), The Big Nowhere (1988), LA Confidential (1990), and White Jazz (1992). These books evoke 40s and 50s LA in spades. Think Chinatown and it’s sequel The Two Jakes, married to Curtis Hanson’s LA Confidential, only, inside your head with shades of Bogart and Bacall, and many, many others from the film noir genre. Now imagine that with all the Hollywood glamour removed and you’re almost there. Ellroy’s earlier books were good to great but he really hit his stride with the quartet. The Cold Six Thousand is where I stumbled and fell. Ellroy admitted with great candour last night that the book was over-long and the staccato style prose overdone. During his interview by local author, Stuart Neville, he told how he was going through a nervous breakdown at the time and that his marriage was “in the shitter”. I think I got around ninety pages in and gave up. The Cold Six Thousand was the middle book in a trilogy which started with American Tabloid and is completed by his new book, Blood’s A Rover, and from memory, I still don’t think I could get through it now, even though I bought Blood’s A Rover last night.

At 20:00, Ellroy strode on stage with Stuart Neville following a glowing introduction from David Torrens. He took to the podium with some zest and he stood legs apart, it appeared, so that he could speak into the microphone. He is known at times to start public appearances with:

Good evening peepers, prowlers, pederasts, panty-sniffers, punks and pimps. I’m James Ellroy, the demon dog, the foul owl with the death growl, the white knight of the far right, and the slick trick with the donkey dick. I’m the author of 16 books, masterpieces all; they precede all my future masterpieces. These books will leave you reamed, steamed and drycleaned, tie-dyed, swept to the side, true-blued, tattooed and bah fongooed. These are books for the whole fuckin’ family, if the name of your family is the Manson Family.

I think we got a version of that!

Reading for around twenty minutes, we were treated to three excerpts of his new book complete with loud and at times bordering on obscene words and gestures – electrifying! I know that when I read Blood’s A Rover, I’ll be reading it with *his* voice in my head. As a performer, I think he was excellent.

The interview segment was next. Stuart Neville did an admirable job in asking what were obviously prepared questions (he had his prompt cards in his hand!) but as an author and not a professional interviewer, I think he did fairly well. Stuart’s first novel The Twelve, or The Ghosts Of Belfast as it was called in the US, has received rave reviews. Guess what I’m buying on my next visit to No Alibis.

The interview was particularly enjoyable as we had a chance to hear some detail around how and why the books were written and the background to Ellroy’s relationships with Hollywood, his ex-wives, and his mother and father, amongst others. Also enlightening were the links between his own life and some of the male characters in his books as well as the powerful influence women have had on him and how he translates those experiences into his female characters.

James Ellroy’s politics are a paradox. This is clear when he venerates Booby Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Ronald Reagan almost in one breath and challenges his audience to see a conflict in this. I’m no expert in 20th century US politics and as Ellroy lived through it and uses it as the background for most of his work, I’ll defer to him. His take on Obama and the recent election in the US was funny to hear. McCain is a “psychopathic Mr Magoo” and Sarah Palin as ‘the worst possible running mate” brought laughter from the audience.

All in all, I had a fantastic night. I’m intent on rereading the LA Quartet, Blood’s A Rover and Stuart Neville’s The Twelve – Christmas List anyone?

Who I Remember

I’m not aware of any of my relatives who died while fighting directly in any of this or the last century’s conflicts, although I’m sure there are some. However, I have a tenuous connection with one soldier who died in the First World War. Charles Herbert Stone died, aged 29, on 27 March 1917. He is buried in Aix-Noulette Communal Cemetery along with at least 1189 other identified casualties.

His daughter Geraldine was three years old when he died and was ninety-two when she died in 2006. I know this because as a close friend of my wife, she left among other items, her father’s medals, his “death-penny”, a Sunday School bible he was awarded as a child and his flute, to my wife.

“Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn … at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.”

Twitter Analytics

Nothing official, but my own fairly unscientific analysis of the folk I follow on Twitter. 142 people, businesses and organisations current have my ear on Twitter. I have broken these down into some interesting groups:

69% of the people I follow on Twitter reside in Northern Ireland.

35% of the people I follow live in Belfast.

7% live within a few miles of my house here in Bangor.

23% of my followees live “elsewhere” in Northern Ireland.

I was surprised to learn that both the “US and the rest of the world” and “GB” residents both accounted for only 5.63% of the total with ROI having 6.34%

Only 33.8% are female and 53.5% are male, the rest being businesses or organisations. The females seem to use Twitter A LOT more than the males. Not sure what this says really

68.3% of my followees are younger than me (best guess) – not surprising at 47!

I have met face to face with 39.4% or 56.

I follow only one minor celeb (0.70%) and 3.5% of the people I follow have at least two Twitter IDs.

Lastly, 3 or 1.24% I knew before I joined Twitter.

In addition, when collating this information, I noted that quite a number of Twitterers haven’t tweeted in some months. One or two haven’t done so in 2009.

Well, *I* found it interesting!

 

Chasing The Jockey

I like a laugh. The first time I heard some of the following expressions, I laughed out loud. They’re a variation on the more common “I could eat a horse”. I’d like to share a little laughter. These are expressions describing “feeling hungry” and have come from a number of sources. I have credited the teller, where possible, in brackets:

“I could eat the fingers off a child’s foot”

“I could eat the hind leg of the Lamb of God”

“I could eat a horse and chase the jockey” (my father in law)

“I could eat a buttered donkey” (@michellegallen)

“I could chew the arse of a sow through a rope chair” (@michellegallen)

If you know any more in a similar vein, please let me know.