All posts by A Scotsman in Suburbia

I am not a Grumpy Old Man I am a middle aged man who occasionally gets slightly hacked off with things. My politics are greenish and to the left of centre. I am married again, following being widowed. I own two bikes, one car, one campervan and half a cat. I love cycling (hence the bikes) and cycle sport especially road racing. During the winter I enjoy watching football (soccer if you are North American). I sometimes paint and enjoy cooking and eating.
Cycling, Tour de France 2013

Tour de France v100.00

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TDF100
Le Tour de France est ici mes amis. I shall try, and probably fail to give you my thoughts on it’s progress over the next three weeks. But to start with my predictions:
Yellow – Chris Froome (Sky).
Like Bradley Wiggins last year he has been the dominant stage racer this year. He has the same organisation behind him and the races best super-domestique / back-up plan in Richie Porte.   In order  to be a serious challenger Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Team Saxo-Tinkoff will have to up his game considerably from where he was at the Dauphiné three weeks ago. Ryder Hesjedal (Can) Garmin-Sharp and Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team could be possible contenders but it is difficult to know exactly where they are at. Hesjedal abandoned the Giro with a chest infection then crashed out of the Tour de Suisse, Evans hasn’t raced since the Giro where he finished third.

Update 01/07/2013

I’m not doing particularly well am I? the race has been on for three days and I still haven’t finished my predictions.

OK let’s do it:

Green: Peter Sagan – Mark Cavendish might be faster in a sprint, but Sagan can pick up points on any stage bar the high mountains

Polka Dots (Mountains) Pierre Rolland – mainly because he seems to be hoovering up points where ever he can at the moment and can collect points on the 1st and HC climbs as well. I just hope that  someone has a word with him about the polka-dot shorts, or better still the ASO bring in a rule banning matching shorts.

White: Andrew Talansky (USA) Garmin-Sharp – because I think that he is the best of the riders eligible. At the Criterium du Dauphine last month,, he got sick on the first stage, rode through it and recovered and matched Chris Froome on the final climb.

Songs I Love

Songs I Love: Townes Van Zandt – Pancho and Lefty

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The late Townes Van Zandt was one of the finest (arguably the finest) tellers of stories in song of the past few decades. Many of his songs such as “If I Needed You,” “To Live is to Fly,” “No Place to Fall” and “Tecumseh Valley” have become standards, recorded by artists like Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Gillian Welch and Allison Krauss, to name a few. Which makes it surprising to find that during his life he never had a hit single or album, and that he spent most of his career playing bars for enough money for a cheap motel and a drink. Actually if you read any biography of him you will find that he wasn’t the most reliable person in the world. Throughout his life he wrestled with addiction to drugs and alcohol, some people would argue that he embraced his addictions rather than fought them. So perhaps it isn’t so surprising.

Townes’ various addictions isn’t really what this post is about. I want to celebrate his talent as a singer and especially as a songwriter. The song “Pancho and Lefty” is probably his most famous song and arguably his best. It tells the story of the life and death of two Mexican bandits, actually it’s probably easier to let Townes explain the story

Just about every country singer worth listening to has covered the song.
Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson do a particularly fine version of the song as does Emmylou Harris. She may have been the first person to record the song, possibly even before Townes had got round to it.

Pancho and Lefty a song of death and betrayal in the Mexican sun. A song that I love.

Songs I Love

Songs I Love: Luke Kelly – On Raglan Road

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Having recently discovered YouTube* and spent/wasted quite a bit of time watching music videos. I have decided that it would be a good idea if I share some of my favourites with you and try to explain why exactly I like them.

The first song I want to introduce you to is Luke Kelly’s version of Raglan Road.

Luke Kelly was one of original members of the Irish group The Dubliners. He played the five-string banjo and sang in his distinctive voice.

The song came about when the poet Patrick Kavanagh who wrote the words heard Luke singing in a pub and asked him if he would like to put the words to music. They set the poem to the music of the traditional song “The Dawning of the Day” (Fáinne Geal an Lae) and one of the great Irish songs was born. That’s the background. So what is it that I love about the song?

It is a love song. It tells the story of a love affair that was probably doomed from the start through to its conclusion in four verses. It is a sad song, the love the writer had for the girl, either wasn’t expressed in terms she could relate to or wasn’t returned.

“That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay”

It is also a song that affirms the belief “That it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”

Of course there is also Luke Kelly’s marvelous liquid voice that makes you believe that this is exactly how it happened.

The full poem can be found here

Many other singers have recorded the song and I have included a couple of links to other versions that I like.

Sinead O’Connor

Mark Knopfler
I’m not quite so sure about this one but I’ve included it for contrast.
Rodger Daltry and the Chieftains

*Obviously I knew of the existence of YouTube but I had previously thought of it as a place to see piano playing cats instead of a source of real music.

Domestic (UK), Politics

Margaret Thatcher: let her rest in peace

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Any one who knows me and my politics will understand that I opposed almost everything that Margaret Thatcher stood for. In fact the only thing that I can think of that she did that I approved of was creating more comprehensive schools than any Education Secretary before or since. And helping get rid of the military government in Argentina.
However, this thought occurred to me while dodging the piles of dog poo on my walk to the station this morning: Would we have experienced the same levels of hatred and gut level loathing if a Michael Thatcher had been Prime Minister during the 1980’s?
We shouldn’t forget her, but let’s not waste our righteous anger on her when her successors are hell bent on destroying the foundations of the United Kingdom in a way that she would not have dared to, and without her electoral mandate.

International, Politics, Uncategorized

Imagine – a world without hate and bigotry

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The Anti-Defamation League is an American organisation that has fought hate and bigotry in all its forms for One Hundred years. They have produced this lovely inspiring video. It may take you a few seconds to realise what they have done here, well it took me a couple of seconds anyway. Some of the references are American, but most of them are universal. It is only eighty seconds long so watch it all the way through. It may well be the best eighty seconds of your week.

Uncategorized

Homeopathy – how it works

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Turns out that it doesn’t. Shame, I was hoping that sugar pills might improve my diabetes.


Via CoolHardLogic

Uncategorized

Canterbury vs The Tory Party

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The current dispute between The Archbishop of Canterbury and Iain Duncan-Smith is easily explained.

The Church, if it is doing its job properly, takes the side of the poor and dispossessed, the Conservative Party always takes the side of the rich and privileged.

Cooking, Food

How To Make Your Pancakes on Tuesday

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Fed up with the arm-aching tedium of beating your pancake batter? Get yourself one of these marvellous automated pancake making machines and your worries will be over.
(Courtesy of The Happy Egg Co.)

Domestic (UK), Politics

Political Clichés

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I am not fond of clichés, I am even less fond of political clichés and of all the clichés dredged up by our current generation of brain-dead politicians this one, tweeted to me by a local M.P., most likely to make me want to throw up.

PBtweet

We are not all families, some of us are single. We are not all hard-working, some people do the least they can get away with. Some people get paid quite a lot for doing nothing that benefits society at all. And, as Deborah Orr points out (among other things), a lot of people work very hard at things that do benefit society but won’t get any benefit from a tax cut because they don’t earn enough to pay tax.

I have decided on a new rule; No politician who invokes “Hard-working families” will get my vote.

This was his reply to me:
TweetPB

Which is sort of true, but didn’t exactly answer my question of how he is going to make sure that only *Hard-working families* are going to receive the tax cut.

Cooking, Food

Perfect fried eggs

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I used to think that i knew how to fry an egg. I mean every one knows how to fry an egg. For Pete’s sake a fried egg was just about the only thing that my dad could cook for himself. Then I read Felicity Cloake’s article in the Guardian. I decided to try her method last weekend and discovered that until now, I didn’t actually know how to fry an egg.
Here is how to do it.

1 fresh egg, at room temperature
1 tbsp butter
Salt and pepper

1. Crack the egg on to a saucer to make it easier to slide into the pan. Heat the butter in a heavy-based frying pan over a low heat, and find a slightly domed saucepan lid, ideally slightly smaller than the pan itself, so you can place it over the cooking eggs.

2. Once the butter has melted, but not begun to foam, swirl it around the pan to coat, then slide in the egg. If you’re cooking more than one, be careful not to crowd the pan.

3. Cover and leave for 3½ minutes, then check the white is cooked, lift out, season gently, and serve immediately
I served my eggs on a round of sourdough toast.
Try it, it does make a difference.