West Side Story

I'm disappointed not to be getting to see West Side Story at the Dubai Opera house this week. Not just because, with it being the new Dubai Opera House, it's bound to be quite professional (they had that Peaceful Sunday chap - Placido Domingo - there on opening night). But mainly because it's always been a music score that I've been fascinated by, ever since my Grandad bought this album for my Nan one Christmas in the mid 1980s:


Particular highlights are the swing-jazz of "Cool", and the fantastically over the top "America".  And if you have the time, the documentary about how the album was put together (including world-renowned operatic star Jose Carreras being given a very public dressing down for not being able to keep pace with "Something's Coming") is a fascinating accompaniment also:

1:02:27

... was my official time for this year's Standard Chartered Dubai 10km run. I was a little disappointed, since the new health purge that I have so far adhered to since the beginning of the year is continuing. And yet of all of the years I have run this race, this was my slowest time, and the first time that I have failed to finish in under an hour.

Perhaps it was just the hot day. Perhaps it was because I'm a year older/slower. Perhaps it was because I wasn't wearing a stopwatch, so as to be able to track my time (and adjust my pace) as I went. Oh well. I got round, and without stopping.

And then, as before, I did the 4km family run an hour later too. Jack was off like a rocket, of course, but the rest of us more or less stayed together, and made it to the finish line in a slightly less punishing 28 mins 20 secs.

What followed thereafter was arguably the hardest part. A further 2-3km walk to the restaurant we had booked for lunch. Due to various road closures in the area, there was no 'as the crow flies' route to be taken to reach Cafe Rouge. But our walk did cause us to pass a few of the marathon tail-enders, in the face of whom my own pain was suddenly put into perspective. Struggling to finish the last few hundred yards, 6 hours into their marathon experience, and with the police reopening roads all around them, it did appear like the perfect storm of bad karma.

Still, I was able to put my feet up once we got home, and later watch the still bewildering spectacle that was the inauguration of Donald Trump as US President. A testament to the craziness that was 2016. Somewhere in the world, there are people even crazier than those who run marathons...

New Year, New Nibbles

Emma and Rhys's Christmas present this year, was a guinea pig.

"Nibbles" has now taken up refuge in our hallway, in a cage that is larger than we had thought it would be, from which wood shavings and hay are liberally tossed on a daily basis. Presumably to make room for the plentiful quantities of droppings that this small creature is surprisingly able to produce day and night. The kids love playing with her, but cleaning out the cage less so. Nonetheless, she has quickly become a cherished member of our family - even to Michele, who has always taken a firm 'anti-pet' stance. She is definitely thawing, and so I'm left slightly more optimistic about the possibility of a dog.... one day, perhaps.

The passage of time

I was listening today to Episode 126 of the Chicane 'Sun:Sets' podcast that appears weekly on my iPhone. For 60 minutes, it is a great escape from work or whatever, and it has really got me back into dance music in recent months.

I say 'back', because I know I really enjoyed my year at Nottingham Law School, when I really got into DJ-ing, and the dance music scene. This reminds me of those days.

I say also 'recent months', because Nick 'Chicane' Bracegirdle, who presents the show, mentioned in passing during this episode how the show (which was originally broadcast only monthly) had been going since 2013. So that's at least 3, possibly nearly 4 years ago then...

Whilst separately listening to another podcast over the Christmas period, Michael Palin was a guest, and happened to recollect (in the context of the deteriorating mental health due to dementia of his friend, and fellow Python, Terry Jones) the Monty Python farewell shows held recently (or so I had thought) at the O2 in London. Until he mentioned that these were 2.5 years ago. Immediately I checked and, although I never went to these shows, they were indeed in the summer of 2014. I remember listening to some podcasts at the time, building the promotion. But... seriously? 2.5 years ago???!

Time passes so fast these days. Both of the previous events happened / started whilst I was looking for podcasts, as a 'new thing', to listen to on the way to work. And here I still am, doing that very same thing, in the same way, recalling inconsequential events from years ago as though they were (surely?) mere months ago?

Time needs to slow down. Mum mentioned, over Christmas, that 27 December marked the 28th anniversary of the day her Dad, and my Grandad died. I was 14 when that happened in 1989. Meaning he's been gone twice as long as I knew him (and, given that no-one really 'knows' anyone for the first few years of one's life, arguably even longer). That doesn't seem possible. It sounds trite, but I still miss him and think of him (as with all my grandparents) often. I find it gives me comfort, even though I know that I am too often, too guilty of wallowing in nostalgia. The past, however, is fixed, immovable, set in stone. Reliable. The future (and even the present) is, by comparison, quite the opposite.

Some see the fact that the future is not written as an opportunity. I regard it with fear and anxious discomfort. This is what I need to fix.

New Year, (another) New Start

In an attempt to kick myself forward into a new phase of life - away from law perhaps, away from Dubai perhaps, into something creative (like writing) perhaps - I've made a number of attempts to revisit, restart, refresh, reboot and rekindle my blog life. Fairly swiftly the spark blew out. So let's see how far the needlessly artificial prompt of a new year might lead me...

New Year's Day is always a 50/50 day I find. It marks the day when you feel you should be doing something new, or something different. An opportunity (as if you need one foisted on you by the calendar) to make precisely what this first post of the year is... a fresh start.

But it's also the day that marks the end of the Christmas period. As a kid, I remember it being the final day for which the Radio Times listed films that might be worth watching. Because tomorrow, things would be back to normal. And within any small number of days thereafter, it's back to school, or back to work.

This year, 2 January is the day we all went back to both. The alarm sounded at 6.25am, in a way that felt like this was how it was going to be for the rest of time. Weeks and weeks ahead, of early starts, and all festive spirit swiftly blown away into the fog of the cold desert morning. Depressing.

So I've made a plan. A gimmick maybe, but in the event that the blogging dries up (again) just as quickly as it started, I'm going to try to do something else productive or new each day. So yesterday, on the first day back, and because I saw it in the paper so soon after learning from a friend about the wonder that apparently is Joe Wicks 'The Body Coach' (perhaps destined to be this year's latest fitness fad-lad), I tried out a 10 minute HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) workout. 30 seconds on, followed by 30 seconds off, of 5 different exercises (running on the spot, squats, press ups, mountain climbing on the floor, and reverse lunges), all repeated twice. Damn near killed me.

Today's new thing - getting on top of admin. So I chased up the Bank on mortgage rates, chased up our savings plan funds release, finally managed to procure the long-overdue Building Completion Certificate for our house extension (for which I builder had wanted to charge us AED 5,000).

Am feeling pleased with today's accomplishments.

Even if, at work, the work is dead. I need to get moving with an 'exit plan'. Whatever that looks like.

And, as a consequence of the HIIT, I'm stiff as a board. Might wait until tomorrow before I do it again. That's another day.

Is anyone even listening?

The cursor is blinking at me, from the top left-hand corner of a blank page, as I force myself (once again) to blow the dust off my long-standing, but equally long since ignored blog.

I didn't want writing here to become a chore, but the ever expanding gaps in time between posts gnaws at my mind regularly, but without salvation. I feel caught between an aspiration and deep-rooted desire to really make a go of blogging, and yet always a feeling of the task being too large to ever really engage with it properly.

What is it that I feel I want or need to say?

My canvas is broad, and potentially limitless. And yet I feel devoid of ideas, and intimidated by the task, for precisely that reason. I feel like a blogging dilettante. Keen to speak about something, anything.. just to get the words down. But without having necessarily the time to structure, to plan, to craft those thoughts so that what I write might be the best that it can be.

I suspect that I suffer from a degree of OCD and a self-imposed need to be something of a perfectionist here. I suspect I fail in that regard. But that's not what blogging is supposed to be about. It is, undeniably, a means of contributing to an ever expanding discourse, discoverable by anyone who knows what to look for, or who may stumble across me this little corner of the internet. But does what I have to say matter to anyone or anything....? I don't know.

If I continue to build it, will they come?

Court between a Shock, and a Hard Race

Over the weekend the seemingly sudden death was announced of Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court. Though I am not so immersed in American Politics as to be able to recall the specifics of his traditionally very conservative, but very eloquent rulings in historic Supreme Court decisions, I do recall seeing him and the full Supreme Court in action on a visit once to Washington DC. Remembering his name (because it seemed like a mis-spelled 'Antony') and those of his colleagues on the Supreme Court was also an easy way to pick up an additional point or two in A-Level Politics essay questions. Not something that I can say for any of the members of the British Supreme Court, however.

However, I find myself once again fascinated by the machinations of what happens next in the efforts to replace Scalia during what is already a fraught Presidential election year. The current President Obama has the first play now, by naming a nominee who must first clear the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, and then receive majority approval by the Senate (which the Republicans currently control). 

The Republicans would prefer to delay any Obama nominee for fear of a new, and potentially youthful liberal taking root on the Court for many years to come. In the immediate near term, such a candidate would shift the balance of the Court from 5-4 Conservative to 5-4 Liberal. 

Obama could, of course, throw a staunch liberal into the mix as a candidate likely doomed to failure, if only to demonstrate the lengths Republicans will go to delay an appointment which, really, should not still be unresolved one year from now when the next President takes office. Republican delays would need to be many, and extensive, to see this issue out for that long. But aren't the Republicans already jeopardising their own election chances with the internal back-biting and civil war that is so apparent in the TV debates? At least one of their number has admitted as such. Any attempt to play the long game on the Supreme Court choice could potentially convince swing voters to go the other way.

However, this Article in the Huffington Post cuts to the chase in terms of what the next appointment could mean in real terms. In particular, the author says that the successful Senate confirmation of an Obama appointed liberal candidate to the Court to replace Scalia at this stage:

"could have profound consequences. It would likely mean a crucial fifth vote to protect the Voting Rights Act and abortion rights. It could also mean the court would be more supportive of efforts to regulate campaign contributions, greenhouse gas emissions and gun ownership. A fifth liberal vote could also result in more scrutiny of the death penalty."

All of which surely points, in the wake of ever regular gun-related homicide stories, ever-escalating election campaign finances, and the never-settled issue of abortion in America, to interesting times ahead. With a further 3 Associate Justices approaching or already into their ninth decade, the party whose candidate becomes the next President will likely have the opportunity to either redress any shift in the Court that Obama is successfully able to see through now, or otherwise further enhance the liberal tendencies of the Court for decades to come.