The cannibals' song

For some reason, the lyrics (or at least the refrain) of a song popped into my head this morning.  They're from a comedy review written by John Albery, and performed at Univ in about 1970.  I don't remember much of the plot (if any) although I recall there was a dialog involving the word "bison" mistaken for "basin".  Another joke went something like this:

• (british explorer type) I see you recieved a parcel this morning.
• (cannibal) Yeah, mon.
• (british explorer type) Supplies?
• (cannibal) No, we been expectin' it for weeks.
  

The refrain of the Cannibals' song goes something like this:

• For breakfast, dinner and tea and lunch;
• We like to eat bodies, crunch, crunch, crunch;
• Munch, munch, munch,
• Slurp, slurp, slurp,
• Yummy yummy yummy yummy,
• Burp! Burp! Burp!

It's odd how the memory works.  But then I got to thinking.  Is any of this stuff written down anywhere?  I haven't been able to find it on the web.

While I was thinking about such things, I was reminded that I have forgotten the text of the grace which we scholars had to "perform" for a whole week, and reputedly the longest grace of any Oxford or Cambridge college.  Payment: one pint of beer for each reading of the grace.  I wonder if that is still the tradition.  Time to find out.

An unexpected Christmas visitor

We had a jolly and populous family Christmas: 18 humans and 7 dogs!  The humans all got along and the dogs mostly did too.

Our unexpected visitor arrived as it was getting dark.  No, it wasn't the ghost of Christmas past, present or future.  It was dog number 8!  While we were playing pass the package (we call it pass the parcel in England), cousin Scott went out with their minpin Napoleon.  Along came a somewhat bedraggled large dog with leash attached.  A quick check of her tags revealed that she was called Belle and lived on Bedford Street, about a mile and a quarter from here.  Apparently, a neighbor had been walking her while her family was away from home for the day.  Belle had been spooked by something and bolted.  She looked somewhat like a Staffordshire terrier and was very friendly and well-behaved.  An hour or two later, dog and family were happily reunited.

In parenthesis, I might add that Belle's mom is someone I hadn't met before but had corresponded with by email (re: this blog).  It's a small world as they say and our favorite corner of it is right here in Carlisle!

Yeah, is it a Chihuahua?

The best five words you can possibly hear when you report a missing dog to the police, according to Kim in her Facebook posting (see title).  Assuming that it's a Chihuahua that you've lost of course.

Looking understandably contrite now (who am I trying to kid?), here Miley is safe at home again after the Carlisle police and animal control officer did a wonderful job in recovering her.  It all started when Kim was out walking the dogs and some snow-shoers came by.  Apparently, they spooked her and off she went.  She eventually made her way back to the parking area but without running into Kim.  I arrived from my interrupted shopping trip possibly minutes after they gathered her up.  So we spent the rest of the daylight (about an hour and a half) scouring the woods and calling/whistling for her.  As you can imagine, we were pretty depressed by the time darkness fell.  That's when Kim called the police.

Lessons learned:

• don't let foster dogs off the leash unless they have a tag with our phone number;
• if a dog gets lost, go back to where you started (home, parking area, whatever) and wait for the dog to find you;

It doesn't matter too much whether it's a long-established pet family member or a foster dog we've had for a week, a runaway is always a traumatic situation.

As William Gilbert put it (the Duchess in Gondoliers):

• When I merely
•   From him parted,
• We were nearly
•   Broken-hearted,
• When in sequel
•   Reunited,
• We were equal
• -Ly delighted.
  

Many thanks to our wonderful police and animal control officer!

Everybody must get "Stoned"

My bridge partner, Len, and I have now won our direction in two successive weeks at the Newton-Wellesley bridge club, this time with a 68% game, good enough for 1st overall.  So I'm having a quiet celebration with a Stone's IPA.  Stone's is one of my favorite beers, even though it's brewed in Southern California where you wouldn't exactly expect to find good beer.  But San Diego is the home to the Stone brewery which also brews one of my other favorites: the aptly-named Arrogant Bastard.  You might find a visit to the web site amusing.

Had I been able to attend the recent NABC (bridge championship) in San Diego, you can be sure that I would have found time for a brewery tour.  Who knows, it might even have improved my bridge.

I mention all this because I've recently realized that beer has been woefully unrepresented in this blog heretofore.  So let me jump right in and give you my top ten beers (not necessarily in this order):

1. Smuttynose IPA (Smuttynose Brewing Co, Portsmouth, NH)
2. Stone IPA (Stone Brewing Co, San Diego, CA)
3. Wachusett IPA (Wachusett Brewing Co, Westiminster, MA)
4. Ipswich IPA (Mercury Brewing Co, Ipswich, MA)
5. Arrogant Bastard (Stone Brewing Co, San Diego, CA)
6. Harpoon IPA (Harpoon Brewery, Boston, MA)
7. Copper Ale (Otter Creek, VT)
8. Martinsbrau (Carlisle, MA) -- no this isn't actually a commercial brewery
9. Fuller's ESB (Fuller's Brewery, Chiswick, England)
10. Guinness Stout (Guiness, Dublin, Ireland, celebrating their 250th anniversary).

You might be surprised, knowing me, how few English beers are on this list.  That's because they don't travel well and of course most draft beers are better than most bottled beers (which are in turn better than most canned beers).  But the main reason is that the heyday of British beer is well and truly over.

When I was growing up, and either thinking about pubs or sneaking into them underage, probably 80% of pubs were "tied" houses.  They sold beer only from one brewery.  The beer came regularly, and it was always fresh!  Then came the era of "free" houses.  No, the beer wasn't free to buy.  But the licensee could buy beer from more than one brewery.  This coincided more or less with the era of carbonated alcohol (typified by such as Double Diamond).  CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) emerged and fortunately, the tide of such beer-drinkers anathema was stemmed.  But in recent years, all things American have visited the homeland.  In particular, the obsession with choice.  The result is that half of the beer the typical pub sells has gone off!  And the sad part is that they don't seem to notice!

When I first came to these shores 30 years ago, it was like stepping into a beer desert.  It was impossible to find good beer anywhere.  Now, good local beer abounds.  And, although I have to wash my mouth out with soap and water, it's actually better than the stuff they try to sell you in England!

Smiling Miley

Miley, our current foster dog, is making really good progress here at Camp Carlisle.  When we picked her up she was literally sick as a dog on the way here.  She hates being in the car and caused quite a mess that day.  She was also having frequent "accidents" at home.  The trouble was we didn't know how old she was because while normally we know everything about these foster dogs before we pick them up, this time we knew next to nothing.  She behaved like a puppy but we really didn't know if she was.

Well, all that has changed :) She is just a puppy (9 months) and she's learning really fast.  She's much better in the car now – she's been on many short trips and is getting much more comfortable.  We've got her on to a good puppy-type bathroom schedule too and she's really doing well.  No more accidents.

She's a really sweet dog how just loves to be loved.  In tail-wagging she rivals even Puga!

Meanwhile, we're getting to that season of the year (i.e. snow) where the other dog-walkers in the woods hereabouts seem to think that it's perfectly OK to let their dogs do their business on the trail and not pick it up!  I suppose they think that the snow will somehow deal with it.  Note to such dog-walkers: it doesn't.   I'll leave my other pet rant re: trails until a future blog.

Aimez-vous Puccini?

What is it about Puccini that sets him apart from other opera composers?  First, we might observe that, like Newton, he stood on the shoulders of giants, in particular those of Verdi.  Certainly, Puccini had a wonderful gift for melody and his mastery of orchestration is unsurpassed.  He also had a highly developed sense of poetry, holding his librettists to very exacting standards, and he had a tremendous feeling for drama.  But I think there's more.

It's often been said that Puccini loved his heroines.  That is certainly true.  But I'm going to argue that it's his love for all his characters that really makes him unique.  The first and perhaps most obvious example is Scarpia.  Evil he may be, but at the same time, we are drawn to his character likes moths to a flame.  Why?  Because Puccini loved him too. Why else would he bare his soul to us in the dramatic conclusion to act one of Tosca? And what is more obvious than the initial contrast between Liu and Turandot and the love that almost instantly flows from the suicide Liu to her nemesis Turandot.

However, I think it's in Il Trittico where this love of characters shines the brightest.  I was fortunate to see the production at the Met last Saturday and the three operas have been in my head ever since.  In Gianni Schicchi, his only comic opera, it's not surprising to find that he loves all of the characters.  However naughty we know them all to be, the music wraps them all in loving affection, especially Lauretta's famous O mio Babbino Caro.  Even the flawed doctor (from the school of Bologna) and lawyer are treated with gentleness and kindness.

In Suor Angelica, Puccini gives singing parts to no less than ten of the nuns, not including Angelica herself and the Abbess.  He wouldn't do that if if he didn't love his characters so much.  Instead he could have had just a few parts to cover all of the back story.  The music of course is exquisite and how can we not all love the pure and oppressed Angelica and want to share in her salvation?

But I contend that it is Il Tabarro that demonstrates this love Puccini had for his creations most forcefully.  In this opera, there are only six parts, apart from the ballad-seller and other ambient characters.  But the music for each character is crafted with extra loving care -- in direct contrast to the awfulness of the situation that they find themselves in.  Indeed, the participants in this rather gritty example of verismo are suffering life rather than enjoying it.  They make the best, or worst, of their situation without any hope of an improvement in the squalor.  These are the kinds of protagonists that Bob Dylan describes in Only a pawn in their game.

But Puccini's music lifts them right out of their hopelessness, none more so perhaps than la Frugola (the rummager, or ferret), with her dream of a little retirement house with their cat at her feet.  The style of this aria is not lyrical, nor dramatic.  It is in fact more like a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song.  But its upbeat jollity and the high call of the oboe help transform it from the mundane to the sublime.

No character is more poignantly set, however, than Michele, who in the scene with Giorgetta (before all hell breaks loose and he murders Luigi), sings some of the loveliest music ever written for an operatic bass.

Yet, the crowning glory of this opera is the duet sung by the ill-fated Giorgetta and Luigi about their roots in the Paris suburb of Belleville.  How could Puccini takes such pedestrian, banal thoughts and elevate them to one of the most glorious duets in the whole of opera?  Simply because he loved his characters.  Not only his heroines but their lovers too, and their friends and hangers-on too.

Not only did Puccini endow all his characters with love, but it is love that is the foundation on which all of his operas are built.

Forty words for snow

It's "well known" that Eskimos have many words for snow.  I seem to recall the number forty but, apparently, the New York Times quoted "one hundred" in a 1984 editorial.  Note that I'm not using the word Inuit because the original context used the word Eskimo and of course that helps generalize the whole notion of snow-words.  In reality, of course, they don't have an unreasonable number of words.  See the Wikipedia entry Eskimo Words for Snow.

I needed a word for the kind of snow that fell overnight.  To describe it, it's like one of Santa's elves just opened a huge packing box and all of the little white styrofoam bits fell out over Carlisle.  You know the type: they're tiny and impossible to pick up because static electricity is so strong compared with our feeble fingers.  The thickness of the layer that fell is essentially one "nugget", that's to say about a millimeter or so.

Pictured with a background of little white snow nuggets, is our latest foster dog, Miley.  She's a sweet little Chihuahua mix (excuse the quality: I had to use my cellphone).  We don't know how old she is but she behaves somewhat like a puppy.  She weighs about 12 pounds.  She was adopted but then returned because she was "too much of a lap dog".  Duh!

While we're on the subject of atmospheric phenomena, what are we to make of Copenhagen?  The world leaders have arrived and of course we, the United States, are as always the bad guys.  We are never going to take responsibility for our overuse of the world's resources and our unequal contribution to global warming.  We are entrenching our position as the world's climate pariah and it is not going to help with our national security one little bit.  Unless we can actually help fix the climate crisis by technology, the rest of the world is going to hate us even more than they do now.  That won't be fun.

Yet, the global warming detractors (I won't dignify them with the term skeptics) are as determined as ever to obfuscate the real situation.  Just look at the email hoopla that they kept up their collective sleeves for ten months before springing it on the world just before the climate talks.

Il Trittico

Kim and I celebrated my birthday in style with a trip to New York (and a stopover in Connecticut), staying with our friends Rob and Melissa.  The highlight was The Met performance of Puccini's Trittico, which I know so well from recordings but had never seen live.  It went way beyond my expectations.  From the moment that the curtain went up on the incredibly realistic barge on the Seine, the production was inspired and flawless.  Patricia Racette was in all three operas, as Giorgetta, Angelica and Lauretta, but her performance as the eponymous Suor Angelica was without equal in my experience.  Not just her voice, which is truly magnificent, but her acting was nothing short of amazing.  For more on this opera, see my later blog entry Aimez-vous Puccini.

After the opera we went to our first Hannukah dinner at Melissa's sister.  The food was absolutely delicious.

We also spent a little time in and around Bristol, Connecticut, staying at a very nice B&B: Chimney Crest.  We visited the nation's oldest, and New England's largest, bridge club: the Hartford Bridge Club.  It's a very interesting area around there, with the Providence, Hartford and Fishkill railroad literally winding its way through town and two museums: one for carousels, one for clocks and watches.  Bristol is also the home of ESPN of course.

Meanwhile, in news from Peru, Miranda has managed to get her image into the LAN airline magazine in (see above where she is facing us at the nearest table of Rafael's). Now we know how she spends her time there.  Just kidding :)

Winter has arrived

Looking out of the window always at our snowy yard is always pleasant.  The couple of inches that fell on Saturday are still with us, even on the tree branches.  The photo shown is actually from a couple of years ago.  Unfortunately, I'm currently unable to upload photos from my digital camera so I can't get today's image.

The temperature went significantly below freezing point for the first time this winter too.  But it's still very pleasant to be out walking the dogs.

On Sunday, we met up with Cooper (now Spenser) and his new family.  What a nice dog he is!  We were quite envious.  But he's really happy and apparently just loves his new black lab brothers, Phineas and Boodle.  In that menagerie, he's the little guy (if you don't count the cats).

This morning Kim and I went in to Westford to get our flu shots.  What a lovely morning to be out driving through Carlisle!  We came back past the cranberry bogs and through the state park, mainly to avoid the town center traffic jam (yes, we do get them at rush hour) and it was just beautiful.  We are so lucky to live in such a nice place!

News isn't all bad

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the news is generally bad news.  No news is good news, as they say.  But recently two recent items of good news have actually come to fruition this last week or so.

First, the long-awaited beer and wine department of Fern's has tastefully and appropriately transformed Carlisle from a "dry" town into a wet one.  I had a chance to check out their offerings today on my way back from the transfer station.  Excellent.

And second, WCRB, the formerly great commercial classical radio station, but which went in to a long decline with their servings of the musical equivalent of pap, has been bought by WCRB.  There are now no commercials, other than the usual public radio station type, and it appears that they have moved up at least to muesli or granola in their programming.

Meanwhile, the weather is still crazy.  It's 69F (20.5C) currently and probably will get quite a bit warmer before it's done.  The birds are still hopelessly confused.  It is rather pleasant though.

And while I'm on the subject of global warming, this year's crop of pine cones has got to be seen to be believed!  I thought the acorns were crazy.  But the pine cones are much more impressive in terms of overall volume.

The return of the phoebes

Normally, I would be delighted to witness the return of the phoebes to our back yard.  There's one sitting on our deck as I write this.

But this is November, dammit!  Next week will be Thanksgiving.  What chance of survival does our little phoebe have now?  It seems reasonably clear that she (I think it's a she) has been lured back by this ridiculously warm weather.  When it does turn cold, our little phoebe will be thousands of miles from a nice cozy place.

And it's not just the phoebes.  The wrens, woodpeckers, all kinds of birds are hopelessly confused.

We really have screwed this planet up, haven't we?

Decisions, decisions

What a great game! Will was here to watch the Sunday evening match-up: Patriots versus the unbeaten colts in Indianapolis. The old Brady-Moss magic was back. The Patriots were playing really well: stellar performances from the two stars, with Welker, Faulk and the rest of the offense on a tear, while the defense was seemingly able to shut the Colts down. Or so it was until the fourth quarter. For much of the game, the Pats led by 10 or 17 points. It could have been more but for an end-zone interception and a goal line fumble. The Colts got two friendly defensive-pass-interference decisions from the officials, the second one of these was just mind-boggling. The Patriots were able, with good justification, to go into the "prevent defense" during the last half of the fourth quarter with an 13 point lead. Will and I have always joked that the prevent defense usually prevents the winning side from winning, but last night it seemed appropriate. Injuries had reduced the defensive front seven to a situation where there were no backups and they certainly were tired. However, once the lead was down to 6, it was time to just play good football again. But His Hoodiness (aka Bill Belichik) treated us to a new concept in football: the prevent offense. With fourth-and-two at your own 38 yard line, what does coaching 101 tell you to do? Punt! The punt unit were on the field. But, OMG, they ran off and we're going for it. What relief when Kevin Faulk caught the ball for a first down (game more or less over)! But no, the officials have ruled that he didn't have control of the ball until the defenders had pushed him back over the ten yard line. The rest was inevitable. The most disappointing, nay, tragic loss since Super Bowl XLII.

I shouldn't be quite so hard on Belichik. I am a huge fan of his and am amazed how he always makes really good decisions. Maybe he had a headache, or his contact lenses had fallen out. Whatever the reason, this one is going to be discussed for weeks!

Go Pats!

Marylou

This week we and and a vast hinterland of music lovers around the world were deeply saddened by the loss of Marylou Speaker Churchill. We knew her primarily as Mark's wife, but the rest of the musical world knew Mark as Marylou's husband! Aside from her enormous talent as a violin performer and teacher, she had an incredible grace and a very warm personality. But don't take my word for it – there has been a huge outpouring of thoughts, anecdotes, love and affection on the Facebook page: Friends of Marylou Speaker Churchill. Another source of information about her life is of course the obituary in the Globe.

Our thoughts are very much with Mark, Emma and Julia, who I think are now 14 years old – a time when a mother will be very much missed!

I have many fond memories of Marylou playing with SPM either as soloist, "ripieno" violinist, or just plain audience member. One was the incident of the trousers. You'll have to ask me about that one. Another was her very genuine warmth when playing the Dvorak concerto and having to deal with me as bassoonist! Another (not directly SPM-related) is her being there at our wedding when we asked Mark if he would officiate. My recollection is that it was the "girls", by which I think he meant all three, that persuaded him to do it. Marylou could justifiably have stayed at home – it was so nice of her to come. That was typical of her.

Basking in Indian Summer

After a cold snap early in October, we've been enjoying unseasonably warm weather here in the city in the woods. On November 1st we drove up to Pisgah State Park in New Hampshire for a guided nature tour by a local professor, Tom Wessels. The walk was extremely interesting - we learned some things about trees that were completely new to me. For example, trees of different species (nay, families, even orders) can root-graft each other to stay alive. He also pointed out that the ratio of biomass between underground and above-ground can be something like 4:5 for a typical forest and considerably greater than 1 for an "old growth" forest.

However, today is probably the last of our warm days, at least for now.

Meanwhile, TiVo can be very frustrating. Can't live with it, can't live without it. When I first heard about it, around ten years ago, I thought what a great idea! When I first bought one, about 8 years ago I thought what a great idea, but what a terrible user interface. The user interface is still terrible, almost unchanged since then. Don't they have programmers?

Last weekend's SPM concerts were really wonderful: a Gabrieli Sonata
"Pian e forte", the Strauss Vier Letzte Lieder with the most marvellous soprano, Sara Jakubiak, and the Mendelssohn 3rd (Scottish) symphony, his last and probably best. The Strauss songs especially are just incredible. What a treat to be able to play this kind of music! Here's a very favorable review from John Zeugner.

Meanwhile, Marylou is receiving tons of messages in the Facebook group Friends of Marylou Speaker Churchill. She's very much in our thoughts.

Ups and downs at Harvard University

A couple of interesting items concerning Harvard University have emerged in the last week or so. In Saturday's Boston Globe, a headline proclaims "Harvard admits to $1.8b gaffe in cash holdings." Has the world gone completely mad? Or just the people at the Globe and Harvard. How can losing $1.8b be considered a gaffe? Note that this wasn't money they lost from their vast endowment. This was money in the current account, that's to say money they use to run the University day-to-day.

And, on a happier note, Harvard Prof. Jack Szostak shared the Nobel prize for Medicine this year. A Boston Globe article gives a brief description of his work and mentions how his colleagues helped him celebrate.

I went back to Matt Ridley's excellent book Genome and found the section that discusses telomeres – the ends of chromosomes – and likens them to aglets on shoe laces. [As I type this, my computer shows its ignorance by not recognizing the word "aglets", but I'm sure you won't need it explained to you]. Apparently, there is a flaw in the mechanism that copies DNA. It always skips the first (and maybe the last) gene of a chromosome. Too many reproductions will fray the ends (to continue the shoe-lace analogy) and problems will occur. This is where telomerase (the subject of the Nobel Prize) comes to the rescue. It repairs the frayed ends and all is well. Evolution has provided us with multiple copies of the base sequence TTAGGG so that we can also stand copying DNA even when the repair operation doesn't apply (i.e. in some or all of the somatic cell divisions, as opposed to the germ-line cell division where the repair is absolutely necessary). Incidentally, all animals have the same telomere sequence, but plants have an extra "T". We have to go a very long way back to find ancestors with different telomeric sequences.

The reason all this is so important is that sometimes telomerase gets switched on for somatic cells that shouldn't have it. This means that they can keep on dividing without any problems. While this sounds at first like a good thing, it isn't of course – it's called cancer.

Well, that's my garbled take on all this but it is interesting. For more detail, see Telomere.

Happy Birthday, M

My mother's birthday today and we had a nice chat by phone this afternoon. Will had the day off today and so came over – so he got to talk to Granny too. After dinner he and I went to see the new Michael Moore movie: Capitalism. We thought it was excellent, especially putting up crime scene tape around the NYSE and trying to make a citizens' arrest of bank executives.

After not playing all that well at bridge yesterday with Kim, I had a good game with Len, beating out Sheila and Lew (always an accomplishment) at the club today. Daytime bridge is a little different though – there are a lot more gifts being handed out than in the evening games that I usually play in.

The weather is turning a little cold – light frosts in the mornings lately – and it's feeling a lot more like winter is just around the corner. The leaves are still looking good though.

Finally, a comment on The House on the Strand, which I'm re-reading (or rather re-hearing) at present, with Michael Maloney as the reader, who is excellent. It is so good. The writing is almost like poetry –the words just flow so well. And the story, written in the first person as a man, is so personal and vivid that you just can't put it down (or switch it off). Apparently, Daphne du Maurier was an Ac/Dc type and felt that the male side of her persona was the creative force behind the writing. I can understand that totally.

Darwin and newts

We had planned to take an easy hike to round out our summer during the foliage season in New Hampshire's largest state park, viz. Pisgah State Park. It's 20 square miles and parts of it are truly a wilderness. They do allow ATVs in certain areas in summer, and snowmobiles throughout in winter, but it really is a magical place. We found two beautiful lakes: Lily Pond and North Round Pond. After we left the main trail, we never saw another soul, human that is.
What we did see were a couple of newts (not together). One was kind of greenish on top and yellowish underneath (or maybe the other way around) and about 3" long. The other was the same length but reddish. According to my sources, and assuming that I'm reading it correctly, the former was an adult Eastern newt, while the latter was an eft, the stage between larva and adult.

Meanwhile, I have finally released version 2 of my Darwin project: a Java framework for evolutionary computation. That feels good!

Rafting on the Amazon

I always knew that Miranda was capable of doing just about anything -- and probably would do it whatever we said. But I never really expected to hear that she would be going rafting on the Amazon in Peru! Having completed two days of the race, I hear she's still alive and well. That's good news indeed.

She's in Peru on a Fogarty Scholarship for the academic year 09-10 and will therefore be graduating from Vet school in '11 instead of '10. She definitely seems to be having fun there in Peru. So far, she hasn't done a lot of real work, I gather, but she's still trying to get her project organized. Things operate slowly down there, I guess. Mañana.

I'm not quite sure how wide the river is at Iquitos but having watched Michael Palin's travel program Full Circle, I'd guess it's about a mile across. It doesn't seem like an ideal place to go rafting -- especially on a raft you built yourself just the previous day -- but there are plenty of crazies who come from all over the world to do it!

Fall - on steroids

At this time of year, we're accustomed to nice fluffy light things falling down around us -- leaves! But this year, we are in constant danger (when outside) of nasty hard things falling down on us -- acorns! I've never seen so many acorns. I've been discussing it this week with Kim. This morning, the Boston Globe ran a story about the acorn glut.

Still, the weather is actually delightful! This morning we went to Great Brook State Park with the three dogs and the map from last week's orienteering event. We did some trails that I hadn't really known about before last week and we never met a soul on those trails. It was wonderful. Cooper (and Puga) had a wonderful time romping about. We discovered that, in addition to new people (women especially), Cooper is apprehensive about horses and bikes. The corn stalks as not quite as high as an elephant's eye, but it's getting up there.

We found that Cooper loves ice cream too (no big surprise there). Cindy ate a huge amount of it too. Kim also found out this morning at the vet/groomers where Cooper was getting his nails clipped that we aren't the only ones that think he's a super handsome nice dog! Apparently, there's a friend of one of the groomers who's looking for a dog. We'll have to see what happens.

Incidentally, I'm sitting here with five dogs (the muppets are here while K & K are at a concert) and all is quiet. It's great that they all get along!

Up, down and roundabout

What a day! By 10am we'd been up in a balloon and picked apples at the local orchard. I then went out orienteering while the others went for a walk in the woods. After all that, I was feeling my age and needing a nap!

We – Joan, Kara, Kim and I – arrived at Minuteman field (Stow, MA) at 6:15 for a date with Rudy and the rest of Dragonfire Balloon. We arrived, in the dawn's early light, a few minutes earlier than the vans and crew. Although we knew in advance that there would be two balloons, we were a bit surprised to find that, for four passengers, there were two pilots and seven crew! Once we saw all the work and preparations that had to be performed however, we could see that all were necessary.
Here we see the critical operation whereby the air in the balloon is heated, without the benefit of being above the burner. In a while, everything was ready and it was time to board and fasten our seatbelts, except of course there are no seats and definitely no seatbelts!

Our pilot was Mark and theirs was Rudy (obscured by the pylon). Then, without me even realizing it (I was busy photographing the other balloon) we were up! Pretty soon we were at almost 750' (about 650' above ground) which was our maximum altitude and tripping along at 8.5 mph. At that point, it was really magical – floating over ponds, marshes, woods with two Great Blue Herons below. Soon we were chatting with joggers on the ground. Then we were in West Acton and soon over Route 2. As we were coming in to land, I saw a goshawk flying up into a tree. Mark brought us down towards a baseball field next to a school, but just as we were coming down to about 50', the wind died and we began to hover over the school buses. But the chase crew was right there and soon we were down in the parking area having experienced the gentlest possible landing. The flight was 4.4 miles and took 61 minutes to complete.

We had a fantastic time –I'd love to do it again! Joan, who was the "instigator" of the trip had it on her "bucket list", but now she'd like to go again, as would we all.

It isn't an inexpensive pastime, however, so a many of the enthusiasts earn flights by crewing for paying customers. Maybe we could try that!

Finally, once the balloon was packed up and loaded in the van (maybe 20 minutes), we headed back to the airfield for our champagne and snack. Rudy and the whole team were really great. We'd definitely recommend them!

On the way home, we went to our local orchard to get some Macouns.

Finally, I went orienteering at Carlisle State Park where, surprisingly, I've never orienteered. I decided to do the difficult course and it certainly was hard – I'm not as good at finding the controls as I used to be of course (you need practice). But I had a great time and completed it.

Now, all together now: Up Up and Away...

Dog days and orchestra

This (Friday) afternoon, we went to pick up our latest foster dog, Cooper. He's half Shetland Sheepdog ("Sheltie") and half... well we don't know but he looks a bit German Shepherdish to me. In any case, he (yes our first ever male dog) is the sweetest and best behaved dog imaginable. He's not really house-trained yet so we're keeping fingers crossed!

He came up from Tennessee starting out last Monday and after the two day journey and two day quarantine he was ready to be picked up today.

Meanwhile, Wednesday was our first orchestra rehearsal of the season. The program for the first concert of the year. We'll be playing Mendelssohn's 3rd (Scottish) Symphony and Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs. I don't really know the latter piece well, but I already love it after a few hearings of the CD that I just got. It's going to be a great concert!

(Sun morning)...

Well, Cooper has been a super dog -- no problems whatsoever. More on him soon, I expect. But for now, we're off for our balloon ride!

Good times, blights and crashes

We've been having a good time lately. After last weekend's hike, we've been feeling good. The weather was nice all week (until Saturday) and the nicest time of year is here.

Some of you will be pleased to note that I now have a bridge blog where I will now be putting any detailed accounts of bridge games, hands, etc.

When Saturday turned so dismal we decided to play bridge. Normally we would go all the way to Westwood (about 35-40 mins) because they have a very competitive game. But this weekend there was a sectional in Rhode Island (drawing the better players) so we decided to try Dean's "Good Timers" game at the Bridge Spot in Woburn (only 20-25 mins). We had a good time. Dean runs a very nice game there. We didn't suffer any terrible fixes (the bridge equivalent of a "bad beat") and we received a handsome number of gifts. That's the thing about playing in games where most of the players are new to the game. There are a lot more fixes and a lot more gifts. You have to hope that the latter outweigh the former.

Our first year of growing vegetables appears to have been a failure. Not an abject failure, because we have been receiving our "share" of wonderful fresh organically grown vegetables. But the squashes that Charlie planted do not seem to be doing anything. Surely we should be seeing them by now? And all the tomatoes got the blight. Apparently, the early wet weather this summer has precipitated the worst tomato/potato blight in years in these parts. So yesterday (Shh.. don't tell anyone how late we were) I pulled up all of the tomato plants and put them into garbage bags.

But just as you think everything is going well, life throws you a curve ball. My server down in New York which has been hosting PartnershipDesk for the last three years has crashed quite badly. Both the power supply and the motherboard were fried it seems. Since I don't believe in coincidences, I would imagine that the power supply failed and in turn zapped the motherboard. There's still a perfectly good processor, two mirrored hard drives (of which I now have one) and the memory to salvage if it comes to that. Meanwhile, I have to get the site up and running again!

The Instant Matchpoint Game

The finals are in progress in São Paulo (third set of six). USA 2 is battling Italy in the Bermuda Bowl, but currently with a fair lead - oops - Italy surged ahead in the second set and it is they who have the lead. In the Venice cup, the Chinese women are comfortably leading USA. In the Seniors, Poland has a commanding lead over England.

Kim and I took the opportunity of a free Wednesday evening to play in the Instant Matchpoint Game at the Winchester club. In turn that enabled us to eat at one of our favorite places, Punjab in Arlington center. The food was good as always. But, OMG, the traffic was bad. We were both 30 minutes late for our date!

The way the IMP game works (not to be confused with International matchpoints) is that each board has a set score (out of 100) for each of the probable, and many of the not-so-probable, outcomes. This allows you to see immediately how your result was. Supposedly, the matchpoints are based on about a thousand results from the table at some unknown previous event. But they were certainly bizarre. Given that the setter, Larry Cohen in this case, has significant discretion to "correct" odd happenings from previous plays, you'd expect, or at least hope, that the absolute par on a board would score somewhere around 50, unless it's a very lucky layout or requires double-dummy play or defense. But very often the par score was far from 50. A case in point: on board 25, par is NS -600 (E/W can make 3NT or 5C) for which the unlucky N/S pair would receive 23. Our score was -100 yet, for that, we got only 63! What would have to happen for us to get a really good score?

On the whole, we didn't play particularly well and ended up fractionally below average. Nevertheless, we received 1.28 masterpoints! A strange world, indeed.

Blog about a movie about a blog (and a book)

We just returned from the very entertaining movie Julie and Julia about Julie Powell who wrote a blog for a year on making the 524 recipes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Indeed the blog continues and recently she commented on whether or not Julia Child was irritated by her blog. Meryl Streep was, as always, incredible. There's no one to compare with her.

The timing was excellent as we have just recently returned from France. French cuisine is indeed fantastic but I believe not because it is so very particular and hard to get right -- but because it uses simple ingredients and doesn't try to "improve" natural flavors, as tends to be the obsession over here. But what do I know? I'm from England -- the home of wonderful, if different, food too.

Speaking (or writing) about good food reminds me of our dinner, shared with good friends, on Friday in Nashua at the Villa Banca in Nashua during the break between bridge sessions. It was my second visit in as many days and the food - cucina Italiana - was really excellent. Definitely a place worth many returns.

Mt. Bigelow

What a fantastic hike! We planned (and trained) for this all year and it exceeded all expectations. Joining us on this hike were Kara and, of course, Clover (near foreground) and Jigsaw (Kara's lap) (two 8 pound Maltipoos), Larry and Cheryl with Juniper (a 10-yr-old Bichon Frisse - on right of photo) and of course our own Puga (16 pound mutt) and Cindy (19 pound Cairn Terrier) -- both too busy to be in photo.

Avery peak of Mt. Bigelow (in Maine) is officially 4088' but my GPS consistently put it at 4104'. The total length of our hike was 10.6 miles, which took us about 10h 30m (including about 75-90 minutes on the top of the mountain). The elevation gain was 2835'. At one point, the trail goes up very steeply indeed -- 995' in 0.72 miles -- but it was very well laid out with many easy rock steps in places. Nevertheless, it took a fair bit of puff to get up there!

The peak (one of two separate peaks at the top of Mt. Bigelow) was named after Myron Avery, a lawyer and advocate (and first completer) of the 2000-mile Appalachian Trail (since then it has been extended to 2175 miles). Appropriately, Mt. Bigelow is the first point on the AT whence hikers can (on a good day) clearly see their destination, Mt. Katahdin (a further 180 miles). Three "thru-hikers" came through while we ate our lunch: "Blackstone" from Northern VA, and two brothers from Florida. The former had started in April and was planning to finish in ten days time. We wish them well.

The weather (and visibility) were perfect. Mt. Katahdin was indeed visible (though a bit hazy) and the views of Flagstaff lake (the result of damming the Dead River -- see photo below) were spectacular. We never saw a black fly and only saw one or two mosquitoes when we were well down and almost back to the car. The temperature was around 43F when we set out and was probably in the high 60s or low 70s while on the summit. There was only a light breeze and the sun more than made up for any heat lost thereby.


While I'm on the subject, let me do what I can for the reputation of Benedict Arnold. Most school text books pretty much concentrate on the fact of his treason without giving much of the background, and indeed without honoring his earlier successes. One of the major actions he commanded was the (eastern) expeditionary force to capture Quebec in 1775. He led his small contingent of 1100 men up the Kennebec river, thence up the Dead river (passing at the foot of Mt. Bigelow, therefore) into Quebec. He reached Quebec before the western force arrived (using the supposedly easier route up Lake Champlain) and they joined forces. Despite their audaciousness and their excellent wilderness skills, their quest was ultimately unsuccessful. Major Bigelow was one of Arnold's four division commanders in this action and was the first known to ascend the mountain (for reconnaissance purposes).

Nashua Regional and Bermuda Bowl

Yesterday I played with Len in the open Swiss at the Nashua Regional with teammates Kathy and Saul (not a regular partnership). Because of the new flighting by average masterpoints, we ended up being in flight B which was just as well since we didn't distinguish ourselves brilliantly, ending up 8= in B. There were 52 teams altogether and we were tied for 20th overall (but flight A "paid" only 19 places). Surprisingly, we didn't bid and make any slams. We got to the six level twice, pushing a bit too much perhaps, but both times the slam failed. Other than that we didn't have any major problems. For the uninitiated, a "Swiss" is run by matching teams with the same current total victory points (each of the eight matches that a team plays has 20 victory points available to be shared between the two opponents).

Today, Kim is playing in the open pairs with Donna. At the break they were lying 2nd so I'm hoping that the Chicken Parm at dinner at the Villa Banca has helped push them into first place. We had dinner with our friends Rob, Melissa, Steve and Dave from NY/NJ.

Meanwhile, Adam and Doug and the rest of USA 1 in Sao Paulo are not doing too well. They're lying 17th (of 22) teams. But USA 2 looks well placed (5th currently) to qualify for the 8-team playoffs.

The Messenger

February 4th is a special day to be born, apparently. Kim was born on that day and so too was my niece, Mia. They both have such sunny dispositions. Something to do with Groundhog day being two days earlier perhaps. My maternal grandfather was also born that day -- by all accounts another cheerful soul. Other famous people born that day include Charles Lindbergh and Rosa Parks.

Mia is seven and is a wonderfully happy, sophisticated and intelligent young lady. When we were in France, the houses that we were living in were separated by about 400' and if there was a message to be delivered, Mia would literally run down the street and up the dozen or so stone steps. Never did she tire of this.

We took as a gift the European edition of Ticket to Ride, a board game involving developing railroad routes, a little bit similar to Monopoly. Having won her only two monopoly games, she was ready to try TTR. Naturally she won. "This is such a great game," she exclaimed, "I'm going to throw Monopoly out". We suggested she might want to keep Monopoly regardless. Next day, she failed to win TTR and of course now, Monopoly was back "in". But she really puts everything into these games, and all other activities. She draws well and thus keeps herself busy for hours on end.

We knew that Mia would enjoy seeing around the Château d'Ussé, which supposedly inspired the story of Sleeping Beauty (La Belle au bois dormant). Here she is peeking in the dining room window.

Fall

September already and fall is definitely in the air. It was 50F (10C) this morning. Orchestra rehearsals start soon and it looks like a great program this year. Football season is also about to start and now we hear that Tedy Bruschi has retired. It's the end of an era. We sure are going to miss him!

"Bill" (no, not Belicheck) blew down our lovely apple tree while we were away and so that will have to be cleared up. The deer are going to be disappointed. The tomatoes are coming along well though. I'm not so sure about Charlie's squashes though.

I was at Wilson farms the other day. Why is it that when people get in there, they lose all consciousness of what's going on around them? They just stop in the middle of the aisle without a care in the world for other shoppers. I suppose it's the sight of all that wonderful looking food. Perhaps we are more like dogs than we think. When food is a possibility, even just one chance in a hundred, our dogs cannot concentrate on anything else.

The Fall regional (bridge) starts tomorrow in Nashua. But we are going to miss most of it this year. But that's OK - working and getting outdoors are much better for us. Meanwhile, the Bermuda Bowl (the biennial world bridge championships) is continuing in São Paulo. This year, one of the pairs on USA I is known to us somewhat: Doug Doub and Adam Wildavsky. I'm a Facebook friend of Adam so am getting updates on his feelings. The team is not doing well. After two days, they are lying in 17th place of 21. We're really hoping that they can get themselves going. We can watch their play live on BBO which is fun, but doesn't help to get things done!

Next blog: The messenger

GR3: Loire, Chambord, pas de sangliers

One of the best things we did in France was to walk part of the Grand Randonnée Troisième, or GR3 for short. France has an extensive network of through routes (the GRs) and local loops (the GRPs - Grand Randonnée de Pays), all designed for the walker who needs to eat and sleep in relative civilization.

Using our guide Walks in the Loire Valley, we chose several candidate hikes in the 11-14 km range. We wanted to walk along the Loire, and perhaps visit a castle and/or a vineyard. The catch was that we had to park the car somewhere, find a taxi to take us to our starting point and then walk back to the car. We opted for an 11 km route from Muides-sur-Loire (starting on the bridge - see picture) to the Château de Chambord, including several kilometres along the left bank of the Loire, and an equal distance in the forest of Chambord where we hoped to see sanglier (wild boar) and deer. Of course, in the event we saw neither.

Although we didn't get to see a proper vignoble, we did pass by a field (if that's the correct term) of vines with nice juicy looking red grapes.

Before our next GR outing, we will be sure to get an up-to-date guide to the trail -- ours was 19 years old and the trail has been moved around some private property (the bourgeousie doesn't like people walking on their hard-earned land).

We had planned to get a nice lunch somewhere (the guide helpfully shows villages with restaurants). The village we aimed for, St. Dyé, had two restaurants. One was closed, however. The other was Le Manoir de Bel Air, a 1.5 km detour and one of those really fancy French places where lunch takes three hours or so. After sitting down with a cool Kronenbourg 1664 and finding that the least expensive menu cost considerably more than any of the dinner menus we'd seen and was likely to take several hours, we decided to go to the boulangerie and get quiche instead. But our waitress, unfazed by our hiking clothes and backpack, suggested very pleasantly that we should have dessert! Did we hear that right? A French waiter making a helpful suggestion? We did order the desserts and they were absolutely formidables! The Manoir really went up in our estimation.

By the time we got to Chambord - the view shown at the top - the crowds had thinned considerably and we had a great visit. Our first stop was the (reputedly) DaVinci-designed double-helix main staircase (the only other that I know personally is at the Oxford University Engineering Lab). One of the remarkable, if not shocking, facts we learned was that the two Kings most associated with this overgrown hunting lodge, François I and Louis XIV, counted the number of days they actually lived at Chambord in the tens! No wonder there was a revolution!

All in all, a really fantastic day. We will definitely want to do something like that again.

La Brenne: birds and railways

I well remember my brother Paul returning from France around 1967 and saying he'd discovered this wonderful place called La Brenne. He, especially, and I visited it many times in the next few years. Since then, La Brenne has been discovered by a few other people and is now protected as a Parc natural régional. It's a rather interesting type of wetland habitat - it is dotted with many lakes (known as étangs) which are basically large fish ponds. Yes, the area thrives on pisciculture!

Last week we saw many of the birds we expect: great crested grebe, little grebe, grey heron, night heron, wigeon, pochard, coot, kingfisher, whiskered tern, black tern, kestrel, buzzard... We also saw an osprey which is unusual there. But what has changed is the abundance of birds and, perhaps even more so, the abundance of butterflies. Basically, the area has suffered significant population declines, even though to all appearances the landscape hasn't changed at all! Perhaps someone is researching the issue.

Recently, I seem to have had a date with narrow gauge railroads of the two-foot variety. I've visited three in Maine in recent months (and will visit the route of another very soon) and of course the Billerica and Bedford railroad was the first such railroad in the U.S. Now, I've added another, albeit slightly wider, narrow-gauge railway.

Starting from Le Blanc, which delimits the area in the southwest, and extending all the way to Argent in the Sologne (a similar area somewhat to the north) was a metre-gauge railway called the Chemin de fer du Blanc-Argent. This remained intact only for about 50 years. The southern section of the line, from Le Blanc to Buzançais passed through La Brenne but is now almost impossible to detect. Nevertheless, I attempted to map the route here earlier this year.

Part of the line, from Argy to Luçay-le-Mâle is operated as the Train Touristique du Bas Berry. My mother, niece and I took its rather crowded "autorail" last week on a short section of the line starting from Écueillé. We all had fun. Another part of the line, from Luçay-le-Mâle to Salbris is still operated with regular service by TER.

While I certainly find these narrow gauge railways fascinating, and I recognize that they are much less expensive to build and maintain, I still lament the fact that Brunel and the Great Western Railway in England were unable to persuade people of the speed/safety benefits of the broad gauge (approximately 7').

Next blog: GR3

Travel trials: tropical storms, quiche and owls

As mentioned before, we decided to cut short our French sojourn by a day to avoid an encounter with tropical storm Danny. Although Saturday's flight arrived more or less on time (though with driving rain and cloud cover at about 50') the decision worked out well in that we were able to Tivo the funeral of our Senator Ted Kennedy and had more time to get back on to EDT before Monday morning. We did very much regret missing our second night at the Château de Jonvilliers, however.

Our hosts there, Richard and Virginie were very welcoming and have done a lot of work modernizing the inside of the old house. And the cooking was superb. Never have we enjoyed quiche so much (three different types). Their location, in a small village not far from the forest of Rambouillet, is in a small oasis of woodland among hundreds of hectares of open fields. We went for a short walk after dinner and were treated to a wonderful chorus of awakening tawny owls that continued for about an hour, with short reprises during the night. I imagine that the high concentration of owls in their daytime roost is a consequence of this particular habitat situation.

Our return home journey from Jonvilliers went almost without a hitch. There were two hitches actually. The first came just after I had observed that there had been no traffic problems. We reached the Charles de Gaulle exit on the A1 about 2h 30m before our flight time. It then took about an hour to reach the checkin counter! Do they have that traffic jam every day?

Our second problem came after we landed. While awaiting the new style "green card", I had been obliged to get an official stamp in my passport to the effect that I really am a resident alien (I had applied for the new card back in early April). Said stamp was only partially accepted at the immigration desk. I had to wait over an hour to get it confirmed by the passport control office.

Isn't it strange how you often learn things about a person only when they're dead? There were lots of (good) things I learned about Ted Kennedy from watching the funeral. I particularly enjoyed hearing Susan Graham sing Schubert's Ave Maria.

Next blog: La Brenne

Le Bridge

Having done our homework on French bidding, cards, language, etc. we were keen to play bridge in France. There were were several bridge clubs within an hour's drive from my brother's village, but the largest one, and the one with the best schedule was in Châteauroux. The people at the club were friendly, particularly one lady who had lived in the US and was therefore easy to talk to (in English). We were a little taken aback by their announcement that we would have to play under pseudonyms since we didn't have FFB licenses. In the end we did end up seeing our names in print although, as expected, the official results on the web show us as "Joueur inconnu" gaining 105 points.

Despite the strange cards (1, R, D, and V, etc.) and little things like South (me) having to do the scoring (more complicated than it sounds since we had to enter such things as the opening lead, not to mention the fact that 4C is four hearts, while four clubs is 4T), we managed 56% and second in our direction (the best place to be when guests in a strange club). We might have won if we had stopped after 8 rounds but we got a little tired -- and our luck ran out somewhat -- in the last round. All of our explanations of bids and so on were conducted in French and there were never any problems. Bidding boxes, albeit strange ones, were used so that bidding was never an issue.

I would like to have shown a hand from the session (27 boards, by the way) that illustrated perhaps a brilliant play based on mistaking jacks for kings (like the Rueful Rabbit does in the Victor Mollo stories) but there was nothing like that.

The standard of play was about what you'd expect in a club game away from the big city. A few good players but mainly people looking for a relaxing way to spend the afternoon. There was a degree more seriousness perhaps than we are used to. All in all a very enjoyable afternoon and we would heartily recommend it.

Next blog: Travel Trials

La Belle France

France really is a wonderful country. They do so many things well there: food, roads, railways, and many more. Even the beer is better than I remembered. And - best of all - their mosquito population all seems to be en vacances up at Kezar lake, in Maine.

Kim and I just returned from eleven days in the department of Indre, in the region Centre, visiting with my mother, brother, sister-in-law and niece Mia. Mia is seven and a real joy. More on her in a future post. Their village has a marvellous medieval feudal layout with the castle on the top of the hill and the serfs' houses spread out between château and river. The weather was wonderful, starting just a little too hot (mid 90s/30s) but becoming very comfortable in the following days.

We went with a list of activities and we managed all of them with the exception of visiting a vineyard. Oh dear -- next time. We played bridge (see Le Bridge), we attended a service at a Benedictine Abbey to hear the plain song (Gregorian chant), we visited two castles, walked some of the GR3 (one of France's wonderful Grand Randonnee routes), rode a narrow gauge railroad (see future blog), had some great food (and some that was not-so-great), did some bird-watching with Paul in La Brenne (where we first went 40 years ago!) and just hung out.

We finished up at a fantastic bed-and-breakfast (Château de Jonvilliers) near Chartres, but unfortunately tropical storm Danny threatened a problematic return today and so we flew home yesterday instead, thus missing our second night at the chateau and our visit to Chartres itself.

So what's so great about their roads? Apart from excellent paving of the meanest, narrowest country roads, their signage is really excellent (contrast with Massachusetts for example). Their speed limits are clearly marked and are reasonable (contrast with the U.S. in general). Their trains are probably the best and fastest in the world (Japan notwithstanding).

There are a few things which aren't so wonderful. There's apparently a law which prevents them from having English language options for telephone messages or web sites (well, if it's not a law, it's a moral imperative). Their menus are works of art in the obfuscatory sense. Would you expect Salade à la Maison not to have a sprig of greenery but instead be a plate of nameless fleshy objects, for example? But these are minor irritations.

Next blog: Le Bridge

Introduction

After years of resistance, I've decided to join the world of the bloggers. After all, I and many others enjoy the blogs of my daughter Miranda. So it's reasonable that Dad should get to write also.

The topics in this blog will be varied, I expect, and hopefully brief. If the brevity doesn't directly inspire its soulmate wit, at least I'll try to make each one interesting. Where appropriate, I will add a link if there is a site better suited to discourse on a topic than this.

No doubt some of these contributions will be in the form of a rant. It's unreasonable to expect my wife Kim to be the only one who has to suffer such diatribes, so perhaps I can share my thoughts with a wider audience.

However, most of these blogs will contain positive commentary. Likely subjects will include travel, dogs, railroads, beer, birds, music, history, Boston and of course bridge. No doubt I'll be consulting my son Will on occasion for opinions too, especially when it comes to history, sports, etc.

As for the title, you may recognize it as an allusion to William Cobbett's Rural Rides. It's a fun alliteration that has some suggestion of our home's bucolic setting.

Next blog: La Belle France.

Happy reading,

Robin