Losing The Dog

It’s been a week since we lost the dog and I can just about bring myself to write about it now.

It was the shock more than anything. Fidget was due in at the vet for a fairly routine op on his gums (he had an unerupted tooth). In the pre-op check-up the vet felt his stomach and said immediately ‘there’s something not right here’. Next thing, Fidget’s in theatre and the vet is asking us for permission to put him to sleep as he’s discovered an aggressive cancerous tumor attached to the dog’s intestines which can’t be removed... and that was that. Gone. He was only four years old.

Devastated.

Telling the children was very hard. I’ve never seen them so upset. Also, I can’t believe just how distraught I was. Fidget was my first dog and, whilst I’ve loved and lost other pets along the way, nothing has affected me in quite the same way as sharing life with a dog.

So whilst we, as a family, are still grieving... whilst we’re still seeing him out of the corners of our eyes... whilst we still hear him eating his dinner... we’re already putting plans together for a new dog to join our little pack sometime over the next couple of months.

I don’t mean to be maudlin or melodramatic. I just wanted to write this and thank those of you who sent kind messages via Twitter.

Europe Endless - My Data Date...

... or The Traveller's Fear of the Roaming Charge

If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that I spent the weekend flying out to Geneva and then on a road trip to Milan to see John Mellencamp before driving back to Geneva via France and the incredible Mont Blanc tunnel to catch my flight back to Manchester.

Nervous about my data use and as part of my regular travelling ultra-light policy I decided to take just one device with me... the iPhone.  It was a bit of a wrench leaving the BB, the Android, the laptop, the iPad and the Kindle... but boy doesn't that list sound insanely excessive anyway... no wonder my back hurts ;)

Required Listening Course for a Nine Year Old - work in progress

I've started compiling a course of classic albums for my son to listen to and critique (if he can be bothered)... got some help from my Twitter friends too - thanks!

There are still some gaping holes though... can you help me fill them. Start with David Ackles - American Gothic... or maybe Kylie...

Death From Above 2011 - Tern Attack

So, yesterday on our journey north we stopped off at Seahouses to catch a boat to the Farne Islands for a few hours. Our plan was to tour the inner and outer islands by boat, for some seal-spotting and bird-watching, before spending an hour on the small island of Inner Farne to take a look at some ground and cliff-nesting birds close up.

Turns out we we lucky to get out in a boat at all as nothing had been sailing for the previous few days due to adverse weather conditions. That said, the trip around the islands was fairly gruelling for the thirty-odd souls getting drenched in the open-topped Glad Tidings IV. At first, the bouncing up and down across the waves was fairly agreeable, but as we got further out into the North Sea it got steadily choppier and oddly draining... we all began to feel exhausted. Pretty soon, waves were crashing into the boat drenching us all. Fortunately we were protected by our waterproofs, many trippers were not!

Still, we saw plenty of seals popping up in the nearby waters as well as basking on the islands and rocks. We saw the famous lighthouse from which Grace Darling launched here famous rescue of nine survivors of a shipwreck in the 1840s. The pilot told us that she had been buried nearby opposite the Grace Darling Museum... she must have made special arrangements to be interred near her own shop.

So, whilst the boat trip was good, it seemed to go on forever and I confess we were wilting a little by the time we got to Inner Farne. As we disembarked, the welcoming party from the National Trust suggested that if we had hats, we should wear them. Looking at the crowd of seagulls, puffins and guillemots swirling across and around the island, we figured that there was a good chance that we might be leaving covered in bird muck sort of like a cross between Bill Oddie and the late Leigh Bowery.

As it turned out, the hat warning was to afford some protection against the ground-nesting Arctic Terns, many of whom were guarding their eggs only inches from the boardwalk which crosses the island. They're less than thrilled to see the occasional boat-load of twitchers and rise up against them on sight, attacking their heads with their already blood-red beaks.

Yes, they attacked us too. We were all subject to this strange aerial bombardment during our time on the island and, whilst it was quite exciting and midly exhilarating, it was also a bit scary... and painful... my son got pecked on the hand by a dive-bombing tern. Amazingly I caught the instant on camera... it's on my other camera, I'll add it in here later.

Still, we got some amazing pictures of puffins, cormorants, terns and eider ducks, many nurturing their young. What a great experience. The return boat trip was slightly shorter but only a little less wet, but enlivened by some great conversations with fellow passengers about birdwatching, football and rugby league.

Insomnia vs Top Of The Pops and @thewordmagazine Podcast

Insomnia occasionally strikes and, like most right-thinking types, the first thing I tend to do is lean over for my iPhone and look up the latest The Word magazine podcast.  Listening to this normally gets me in trouble for rocking the forest with suppressed laughter.

Anyway, at 3am I started the latest episode to find David Hepworth and Mark Ellen missing in action, replaced by imposters Janice Long, Andrew Harrison and Jude Rogers.  Naturally, I was wary, because everyone knows that change is bad, but I stuck with it only to find myself fully and maddeningly entertained until about 3:47:59am.

I obviously liked the opening musings about the Apple Chapel, but the best bit was when they rambled on to discuss the repeats of Top Of The Pops episodes being broadcast on BBC4 on Thursdays at 7.30pm in the same order that they were originally shown in 1976.  Y'know, 'the year punk broke' (take note Sonic Youth).

After listening to the podcast, now wide awake, I couldn't resist nipping over to BBC iPlayer to watch the episode they'd been talking about.  

Well, Brotherhood of Man, Paul Nicholas, Linda Lewis, the Beatles reissues and Sheer Elegance caught their ire, but oddly no mention of a woeful Pan's People appearance and a bizarre double-header of Frankie Valli surgically-separated from The Four Seasons.  No reference either to Noel Edmonds' slammingly insulting interviewette with a bewildered and somewhat Syd Barrattesque Eric Carmen. Anyway, don't let me spoil it... go and watch it.  Do.

I have to say that I was fairly nonplussed by the prospect of the 1976 reruns of TOTP until being nocturnally nudged in their direction, but I have to say they are absolutely addictive.  It will be fascinating to see just how punk makes its presence felt (or not) through the remaining episodes from that year.  

As for me, I leapt straight to the next episode on iPlayer which opens with Fox, who I'd forgotten, but now remember.  I strongly urge you to take a look at this performance, which opens another bizarre show (also check out Sailor later on).  

Now back to Fox...  well in Noosha Fox, we have a singer who absolutely dances to her own beat.  She is so in the wrong band.  She is as great as the rest of them are not.  Oh please watch it.  She exudes a sort of post-Roxy, pre-The Passions vibe whilst also managing to channel altered images of Clare Grogan, Alison Goldfrapp, Lene Lovich and Elizabeth Fraser from far and not so far into her own future.

She is let down spectacularly by her becardiganed band is so many ways, but check out the vocoder solo.  It brings to mind the opening scene from a quirky mid-season-filler episode of House MD, where an off-duty postman has to be intubated whilst delivering a bad harmony.

I am now proper addicted to the TOTP reruns and am about to head over to Sky+ to series-link it.  

According to Janice Long, they've got enough weekly shows to keep it running in order until 2040.