Shuffling Off

I love to dance.

Just like my swimming I am self taught. As a result my style can best be referred to as freeform and entirely individual. Or so I thought.

The fact that I am a trained percussionist means I tend to be tuned into the beat and the way I throw my shapes reflects the accents, and the rise and fall of the baseline. One other characteristic of my dancing is that I need, or at least use, a lot of room! I am not one of the kids from Fame, but I do have fun.

Over the past few years I have developed a sort of bouncy and foot fussy jig - a little like the sort seen in Riverdance, yet not so disciplined, to a far funkier beat, and my upper body is anything but still.

While grooving way at a London club on Saturday night an Aussie guy approached me and asked me if I was a fellow countryman of his. "No" I replied "why do you ask?"

He responded "Well, you are doing a mean Melbourne Shuffle there".

I had no idea what he meant and I have only just managed to find out.

Sure enough, the fancy footwork I thought was my own turns out to be a major dance craze in the House and Dance clubs of Southern Australia.

Suddenly I am trendy - but in the wrong hemisphere. If only I could work out a way of getting the craze started over here, I could be at the forefront of something!

????? For President

Only 13 days to go till the US elections, and it is clear from the ongoing opinion polls and commentary that the winner is still far from certain.

Of course it is only registered citizens of the USA who get to vote, and we must assume that their decision will be honoured this time!

Meanwhile, the rest of us have no offical input to who will be the most powerful man in the world from November. However, you can have your vote counted in an international poll being organised to show how the rest of the world voted.

If none of the formal candidates take your fancy, how about this devilish alternative.

Midsomer Filming Update

Judging by my visitor statistics quite a large number of people visit this site to find things relating to Midsomer Murders. This because I used to live in a village where quite a bit of filming was done, and the fact that I blogged about the time I was a background artist (extra!) in two episodes.

This popular detective drama, which is filmed in my old stomping ground, has been running again on ITV in the UK and I have had great fun playing spot the location. Often they use the village of Long Crendon, and I am beginning to think it is being overused as I was amazed to see the entrance of Long Crendon Hall being used as the exterior of a spiritualist church in "Things that Go Bump in the Night" when it had already been used as a completely different location in "Garden of Death".

It is always interesting to recognise the places in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire and then smile as two scenes, supposedly in the same village, are sometimes not even in the same county. The most recent episode - Dead in the Water - was a case in point with the rowing taking place in Henley On Thames, and the foiled jewellery shop heist up the road being filmed in Thame.

I was driving back from the dentist yesterday when I saw the tell-tale "Bentley" signs and, as I was not in a particular hurry, I followed them to the tiny hamlet of Owlswick. I bet Joan Street will be down there with her camera as soon as she reads this - won't you Joan?!

Hollinghurst Wins Booker 2004

The announcement has just been made that Alan Hollinghurst's novel has won the Man Booker Prize 2004.

The novel, The Line of Beauty, is filled with lines of beauty. Here is a small selection:

Of an old college friend:

"It was a mystery to him that fat old Polly, who was rutted with acne scars and completely lacking in ordinary kindness, had such a conspicuous success with men. In college he had brought off a number of almost impossible seductions, from kitchen boys to the solemnly hetero Captain of Boats. Nothing that lasted, but startling triumphs of will, opportunism and technique, even so."

On a hung-over hero going to friends for lunch:

"Nick had decided in the taxi that he would stick to water, but when Bertrand came in saying, 'Now drinks!' he at once saw the point of a bloody Mary."

On young East European pianist who performs some Chopin:

"Here came the opening again, the admonitory rumble, the reckless, accurate leap. She had clearly been ferociously schooled, she was like those implacable little gymnasts who sprang out from behind the Iron Curtain, curling and vaulting along the keyboard."

I am glad to have been introduced to Hollinghurst as an author through this competition. I will now seek to read his three previous novels, starting with the critically admired The Swimming Pool Library.

I will also take the opportunity to read some Henry James, a writer often quoted by Nick Guest, the protagonist of The Line of Beauty.

All the same, I do feel a pang of disappointment on behalf of David Mitchell who, for the second time, has had a fabulous book beaten by a worthy winner.

End of the Booker

Around about now, the judging panel for the Man Booker Prize 2004 will be meeting in a hotel room somewhere in London to decide which English language novel published the last 12 months will be the winner.

As is my custom, I have been attempting to read the ensure shortlist in the period between its announcement and tonight's announcement. Sadly I have failed in this endeavour, having read only three of the six shortlist novels.

I am still convinced that David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" will be the winner, but I also think that Allan Hollinghurst's "The Line of Beauty" is worthy of the prize.

I have written about Cloud Atlas before. The Line of Beauty is a modern (1980s) homage to the Brideshead Revisited with the central character, Nick Guest, being a middle class, middle income boy inserted in the world of the rich and powerful through his friendship with people he met while studying at Oxford. Reading it made me nostalgic for that period of my life. It was the decade of the "can do" young achievers and for the first time people of my age (twenties)were breaking the mould and doing things of which their parents would not have dreamed - many of my friends made fortunes in the city during this time. Meanwhile, I was watching from the sidelines working as a Civil Servant. Reading Hollinghurst's novel has convinced me that, in the wider scope of things, I was probably in the best place!

The other novel I read from the shortlist was Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor. It is a tale of a family disintegrating in post-apartheid South Africa. Despite its worthy subject matter, and twisting tale, I felt it was just a story and the opportunity was missed to really explore the ideas underneath.

Both Mitchell and Hollinghurst have both been shortlisted before and so for either of them to win would be a great outcome in my opinion. Of course what could happen is that one of the other three books (that I have not read) will be declared the winner. While I will be a little disappointed, it will at least mean that there is another cracking novel out there for me to read.

I am still rooting for Mitchell though, so check back later and see if I am right.

Live Fiesta Webcams

One of the most fascinating things about the internet, is the ability to be connected to parts of the world which are very distant. By this I don't mean just the ability to send or recieve emails - although useful that may be. I mean the ability to actually get a live view of what is happening several thousand miles away.

Live views can be obtained over some of the more feature rich Instant Messaging systems such as Microsoft's MSN or Yahoo's Y!. Visitors to this site will have seen the live picture which displays in the header.

This afternoon (UK time), thanks to the efforts of Sean and his engineering team at KOBTV in Albuquerque, I was able to watch live through two cameras as the balloons of the International Balloon Fiesta drifted across the city skyline.

They tell me that live broadcast shows of the fiesta will be webcast on Saturday and Sunday 06:30 to 08:30 MDT.

For those who cannot see this live stream, there is also a snapshot webcam on the ballon launch field which is updated every 5 minutes or so. Too slow in my opinion but its better than nothing.

Enchanted Ceiling

I posted about this a few days ago and now I have submitted some of my own pictures.

Even though I have never gone out with the intention of photographing the sky, whilst sifting through my photo gallery I did find that I have captured quite a few images of beautiful skies.

I think this is a collaborative project to which I will make quite a few more contributions. Visitors will be able to access my submissions by clicking on the Enchanted Ceiling logo under Projects in the left hand column.

Crushing News

I used to think the concept of having a safety deposit box at a bank was incredibly glamorous. British films in the 60s were forever showing people wearing diamonds and furs being admitted to the vaults of a Roman style London Bank where they would fiddle with keys before removing a long box from the wall. They were then left alone in a room while they extracted from the box their valuables which might be anything from the lost Royal Diadem of Bhaktapur to a set of forged passports and a revolver.

A great example of this genre of film, shown recently on BBC1, was Peter Hall's crime comedy Perfect Friday. The film had a complex plot, not helped by the fact that reels 3 and 4 of a 5 reel movie seemed to have been reversed! It involved the theft of £3m cash from a London bank using a combination of disguises and mis-direction.

Following the story in today's news that a bank in Hong Kong managed to send 83 security deposit boxes full of valuables to a scrap yard, where they were destroyed, has put me off the idea of placing my valuables in the safe keeping of a bank. But it did make me wonder whether or not the "crushing" of the boxes was in fact a cover up for a most spectacular crime.

Animal Magical Day

I just realised that as well as being the the feast day of St Frances of Assisi, it is also, quite appropriately, World Animal Day.

All over the world people are being nicer than normal to every living thing that isn't a plant.

You can join in too in the comfort of your own home.

If you have a pet, be nice to it and give it is special treat today. Rescue that spider from the bath, put sugar down for the ants or just leave those sheets for one more day before changing them and give the bed bugs more to feast on.

Out of Place

There are times of the day, week, month, and year which are associated with certain feelings.

On a daily basis there is something magical about 5:30pm, the time after which a virtuous feeling of still being hard at work can occur. Most people are familiar with the Friday evening feeling, and the Monday morning feeling needs no explanation.

For me, Sunday evenings - anytime from 6pm onwards - bring on an sense of getting ready for the week ahead. In winter these feelings are emphasised as the type of television entertainment on a Sunday evening is little different from my school-days 20+ years ago when we would gather in the living room as a family around a pot of tea, sandwiches and cake to watch light comedy or drama for the hard of thinking.

The end of the month brings a flush of riches as the salaried are in receipt of their monthly stipend.

There are times of the year too when custom dictates a modification of human behaviour. Halloween, Easter, Christmas and New Year spring readily to mind for me. In other faiths and cultures there are many equivalents.

Then there are times of year when the light, temperature and other environmental factors harmonise to a particular setting and trigger a change in our outlook and emotions. Long warm evenings in the summer are to be fully enjoyed with al fresco drinks and food. The onset of the dark, cold, wet nights cause a slowdown in the metabolism. This particular example has been diagnosed as the medical condition SAD.

For me the first week of October brings on a special set of feelings and yearnings. The brittle light and mellow mists which often occur prompt a yearning for Mexican food, frozen margaritas and the feel of the hot desert sun on my skin. This is a learned response as I spent many years in succession attending the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta which is taking place right now in the middle of New Mexico, USA.

This year the feeling of "missing out on something" is particularly strong as many of my friends have gone to the event. Sadly for me work commitments and the need to save for another international ballooning expedition, have taken priority. (More news on this soon).

I shall be looking with longing at the webcams and photos being posted to the Fiesta Website, and also looking forward to hearing travellers tales when my friends return.

Drawn a Blank

As stated I purchased a Lottery ticket today in the hope that, in a continuation of my uncharacteristic lucky streak, I would pick a winner and be ordering my executive jet and making an offer on a Caribbean island by the end of the week.

It was a senseless temptation of fate. Not one single number on my ticket matched those on the balls selected in tonight's draw.

Nads to it! Back to work on Monday.