Seating dilemma

When travelling by train I like to sit facing the direction of travel. In fact I’d go as far as stating that I almost insist on sitting in the direction of travel. Now this isn’t a mild case of OCD, rather just a preference as to being able to see where I’m going as I gaze out of the window. As well as a deep subconscious thought that should there be a train crash I stand a slightly better chance of not being decapitated.

Travelling from Oxford to Bournemouth once a week presents an interesting dilemma, now that I am making that journey by train rather than car. (It takes only about ten minutes longer by train and I get a lot of work done on both journeys – I seem to have gotten sensible in my middle age). The train departs from Oxford and heads towards Reading, after which it goes in the opposite direction back to Bournemouth. So, if you sit facing the direction of travel from Oxford, then from Reading to Bournemouth you end up sitting the wrong way.

Now I could move seats at Reading, but that would be silly, especially as the train is usually pretty full from Oxford and even fuller from Reading. So, as I board the train I try and find a forward facing seat and accept the fact that for the first 30 minutes I’ll be sitting facing the wrong way – no matter how much it annoys me.

Schizophrenic Voices?

Last weekend I headed up to Manchester very early, stopping to fill the car up with fuel at my local petrol station. It was just past 7.15am and I was the only person on the forecourt.

As I was stood there filling the car, I swore that I could hear voices in my mind. I even turned round at one point to see who was there, only to find nobody there at all. I went back to filling the car, watching in horror as the total went up alarmingly, whilst the litres dawdled slowly upwards. Again, I could hear voices behind me, chatting away. At this point I has started to get a little concerned. Had I not actually woken up, but was dreaming instead? Had I crossed into some sort of twilight zone? Was I on the verge of some kind of breakdown? I then realised that the garage had inadvertently left their tannoy on and I was hearing a conversation that the two staff members were having inside the garage.

I wandered in to pay and pointed out that their tannoy was on. We had a laugh that they were only talking about mundane garage chatter, rather then their conquests in the pub last night or something equally embarrassing

Chinese Olympic Propaganda

I have found the entire Olympic torch relay to be distasteful if I am honest, even more so when I read that the Olympic committee had gone so far as advising against such a tour, yet the Chinese had still gone ahead with it.

The Chinese / Tibetian issue will always be controversial and the Olympics being held in China give protesters an ideal window to make their feelings known. When you take this along with the terrible human rights record that China has, it does make them a very polarised choice for hosting the games this year.

However what has really annoyed me this morning is this – Torch reaches Everest peak.

Now, I consider myself privileged in that I have met and talked to a couple of people who have climbed Everest in the past five years. I went to a talk at the Royal Geographic Society a couple of years ago to hear one expedition talk about their experiences along with the issues they’d had whilst attempting to summit. Their honest stories about, despite being exceptionally fit and experienced mountaineers, struggling to put one foot in front of the other at such high altitude, having ice encrusted onto their oxygen mask and when climbing without supplementary oxygen being barely able to make a step every thirty seconds, really made me sit back in awe of their achievements.

So, it goes without saying that the video on the above link, which shows people almost speed walking up a mountain slope, with no oxygen masks or tanks, no ice picks to support themselves and generally looking clement weather (considering the area), is clearly a fake.

According to a couple of the climbing websites that I occasionally use, some Chinese did summit this week, but there is no way that the video they have released is genuine. There is no perspective to where they are whatsoever. As for lighting a torch on the summit, well please. Don’t even get me started on why nobody is out of breath.

It is a pity that some countries won’t boycott the Olympics as a protest against the actions of China in general, I doubt that people won’t not watch coverage on the TV and that after the fact, China will be able to declare everything they have done as being a great success and nothing will change with regards to how they treat their citizens.

Buena Vista Social Club

The Buena Vista Social Club is not so much of a band, but rather a celebration of famous Cuban musicians and the music that they play. They were essentially discovered by the American guitarist Ry Cooder in the mid 1990’s and brought to the attention of the world with the album of the same name, Buena Vista Social Club.

Over the years since I have owned that album; some of the noted members of the original incarnation have passed away, including Company Sequndo, Ruben Gonzalez and Ibrahim Ferrer. Despite these deaths, the ensemble continues to tour to this day and last night they played at the Hammersmith Apollo.

They were incredible, simply incredible.

My parents had been to see them play last week in Manchester and after my dad spent ages enthusing over their performance to me down the phone, I managed to get a ticket for the show last night. I really enjoy going to the Hammersmith Apollo, I’ve never seen a bad gig there – the atmosphere is always good.

There was a real mix of people there last night, not the usual gig going crowd for Ryan Adams, Sheryl Crow or the Dandy Warhols, but a cross section of Spanish, Latin Americans, young and old. After a quick set by the support act to get everyone going, the main event started at about 7.45pm.

As the band walked onto stage, the blind double bass player was helped to his instrument and then they started. Two hours flew by as they went from song to song. All the chit chat between the songs was in Spanish and atmosphere was electric. It was as if they were having their own private party to which the crowd was invited. As band members played a solo piece, they hugged and congratulated each other as they finished as the crowd cheered and hollered.

Once they had finished, they came back out for an encore for about ten minutes and then they were done, with huge applause for every one of the thirteen people, with the loudest for the oldest and original members still playing.

I took some very amateurish video -

They still have some dates left on their tour and I heartedly recommend going to see them if you can, you will not regret it – and you’ll be seeing some living legends doing what they do best.