Friday 29 January 2010

Well there were a few balls on the line today! No, not the Federer / Tsonga match - but the Blair trial on telly! I watched most of it. I have to be honest and say as a clearly very informed a bright young surf school owner with his finger directly on the pulse of world affairs (ie what do I know!), pretty much everything Tony Blair said seemed reasonable to me - or am I just very naive?

There were a few things missing - I'd have liked to have seen more discussion and acknowledgement and sorrow from Blair about the number of people dead, killed, tortured etc; it's a solemn subject. Perhaps that will come later? The figure of 100,000 who have died was mentioned in passing, which I guess is less than the mentioned figure of a million people killed in the Iraq / Iran war - i.e. maybe less than the amount of people that would have died if Saddam had been left in power? Was the war the lesser of two evils?

For my part I did support the invasion at the time. But on different grounds to WMD. On the simplistic grounds that if a bad man somewhere on the planet is killing and persecuting 100,000's of people and we have the means to do something to stop it, then we should, shouldn't we? Or do we bury our heads in the sand and pretend it isn't happening? Of course on that reasoning there are plenty of other places we should be taking a good look at! And where do you begin and when does it end? I don't profess to have any answers. But history tells us that somewhere with oil will normally get a look in!

(Sorry if you expected a surf report! But these things are important even to us down here on the beach. Oh okay, if you really want to know, it's blowing a hoolie, the surf is very big, it's raining and it's cold! Wished you hadn't checked in?!)

So my summary of the days events. Blair returned well, kept the ball firmly up the other end, made very few unforced errors, and left the arena probably thinking that it could have been a much tougher encounter. Which is a pretty similar day to Federer's.

Onto other matters - over the last couple of days we've been visiting the accountants for the end of year thingys. Accountants live in a different world to mine but I believe that our chosen fellow has a sense of humour - he sports Allsorts cuff links! A sure sign! All signed, sealed and sent off today - yes Mr Taxman you have ripped out our very sole once again. Please spend it wisely and please not a penny more to all those stupid Quangos!The Lesbians can stick up for themselves!

Five sleeps 'til Bali! It was 100 degrees there today - I might slap some sunscreen on right now, just to get in the mood!

It's all uphill

Did a 100 miler on the bike yesterday - there's lots of hills in Devon and Cornwall! And they all go up! Around every corner there's a nice little surprise - or that's what it feels like. Perhaps I'll have to go the other way around next time!

How good is Murray? Brilliant! Hope he wins on Sunday. Very exciting.

Kitesurfers and Windsurfers all frothing for a good day at Daymer Bay.

Fin had his birthday on Wednesday - he's seven. Where does the time go?


Monday 25 January 2010

Cadbury Concern

If you've ever eaten a bar of Hershey's, you'll understand why all chocolate lovers across the land will be bitterly disappointed if Cadbury's sold to Kraft. Americans do not understand chocolate. Their's tastes rubbish. And here's what I never get - when you go into a supermarket in America, you expect the chocolate department to be massive, much like the Americans themselves! And the bars to be supersized. But they're not. It's really weird. You'd think that after a supersized mega burger, they'd want a choccy snack just to take away the taste! But no. I guess they're just not into it, like us Europeans.

Cadbury's make fantastic chocolate. Long may it stay that way. Long live the mini egg is what I say - although I have my doubts whether the mini egg is in fact made to the original recipe of a few years back? Not quite as morish as they used to be. But this takes me back to the Lindt Bunny - you see that Lindt Bunny just cannot be beaten. Hm, food for thought.

Sun!

What a wonderful weekend! Fin had his birthday party on Saturday - a joint affair with his mate Ben, who has his on the same week. We took a crew down to Mount Hawke for some skateboarding and scooting. That was fun and injury free - always a bonus.

And then on Sunday, I cycled to Tavistock. Janey and boys drove up and we headed off on a bike ride across the Moor. I'd heard of this ride from Princetown that heads down to Burrator Reservoir. You go around the Dam and then return using a track across Dartmoor. Two hours I thought was all we needed. Four hours later we rolled back into the car park! It was dark and cold! But spirits were high. I wish I'd taken my camera - it was spectacular, an amazing route. We'd given Fin his birthday present early - (a new bike) - so that he could use it for the ride. He was stoked.

Halfway around we stopped to ask two middle aged cyclists the way. They pointed us in the right direction, but questioned our ability to make it before night fall. To be fair it was a close call, the moonlight providing us with enough light to make out the track for the last couple of miles. We saw the couple again in the pub - they said they'd been keeping an eye out for us! A great adventure. The boys slept all the way home - we put Fin straight to bed, he didn't wake up until this morning!