Craig Sawyers

Various of our cats over the years have had that sort of problem. Scary how quickly a cat loses condition when they start the puking thing. Since ours are outdoor cats, it is usually they have eaten something nasty.

Bitter Wheat starring John Malkovich was awesome. It was basically a parody of Harvey Weinstein. The name of Malkovich's character was Barney Stein, a fat movie mogul who comes to grief amid a sexual abuse scandal. If you get a chance to see Malkovich on stage, jump at it. He is a truly great stage actor. How on earth David Mammut got away with a script that even had a similar name in it is amazing.

Occasionally National Theatre tickets sell out for a production before we get the chance to buy tickets. So we do exactly the same and go to a movie theatre and watch a live production. I did not know that they also did that in the US. Last thing we saw at the National was last year - a superb production of MacBeth with Rory Kinnear and Ann-Marie Duff. Next London production we're going to see is on Saturday - a new David Mamut play called Bitter Wheat, with John Malkovich. The reviews have panned it, which means it is probably very good! We're very lucky where we live - we are within 90 minutes drive of Stratford on Avon (RSC), Chichester and 45 minutes by train to London. Spoiled for choice.

I thought I remembered that the Duomo had some significant claims to fame. It was under continuous construction from 1387 to 1965 - a period of 578 years with a total of 65 architects in sequence. It is truly huge, with a capacity of 40,000.

Oh wow. For some reason Blade Runner (so much better than Philip K Dick's book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep on which it was based) seems so damned recent - but it was 1982, when Hauer was 38 and Harrison Ford was 40. Such an iconic movie. I shall watch The Director's Cut tomorrow to honour Hauer's passing. Damn. 75 is too damned early to go. RIP Rutger. Odd fact - the director was Ridley Scott, who was born and brought up not far from where I was born and brought up in the North East of England. The heavy industrial landscape with flames belching from chemical and steel works lighting the night sky when he was a child found their way into the opening sequence of Blade Runner.

Hey Antonio - have a truly spectacular day!

Definitely to both - thanks! Have a great time out there. How hot is it where you are? It is bat shit crazy hot in the UK - 38C today (100F), and since it is usually cold and wet here we don't have aircon. So everyone is hot and cranky.

That is me totally physically trashed. In a moment of madness I decided to do a run I last did about 15 years ago - 15 miles of cross country with three chunky hills in it. I really haven't done anything like that for three years (when I did the Yorkshire 3 peaks) so I was working on base fitness from the gym, and physical memory of doing that sort of thing. I did 3h45m - and back in the day, when I was doing a lot more running and quite a bit younger I got it down to 2h30m. Anyway I'm not unhappy at age 63 that I can still cut the mustard to some extent. It was made a bit more tricky that it started at 75F and finished at 83F. And made even more tricky that copious and corrosive sweat gave me an heroic dose of runner's crotch. When Carole saw it she said "how on earth did you continue with that". Well basically I had to - I had to get back to the car! But last night I was walking around as if I'd just got off a horse. A lot better today, but I'm pretty physically tired. Definitely not looking for sympathy (as if! This is head-case!)! It's after all my own fault

Graham Nash in concert tonight in Oxford. Bloody awesome. His voice is still unchanged even though he is now 77! He even did some numbers that he wrote when he was with the Hollies in the early 60's. https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/an-intimate-evening-of-songs-and-stories-with-graham-nash/new-theatre-oxford/ Oddly enough we're going to precisely those places in a month. Our daughter and her husband are in Milan from Australia for a wedding, and we're meeting up with them for a few days, driving with them to Lake Garda.

That is making me feel very hungry!

Alternatively, extreme ironing

Wow. RIP Rip.

The most disturbing one by far is the orange thing smoking. Look at the table - a gun, a hypodermic, a hammer. And an automatic on the floor. I would not want to chill with that dude, music or no music!

Linkwitz Orion https://www.linkwitzlab.com/orion-photos.htm

Happy birthday!

Have a great cake day Birgir! Happy birthday

I had no idea that Lee Iacocca was (until a day or two ago) still alive. 94 is not a bad age, and he made a real difference during his tenure at Ford and Chrysler. RIP Lee Iacocca.

That is also true. The majority of the British public who voted for Brexit are older people. So younger people feel rather betrayed - and that was certainly a factor in our daughter heading off to Australia. And she likes the climate, and the chilled lifestyle, and massive amounts of superb and spectacular hiking, cycling and running. Once you get around the idea of spiders the size of dinner plates, killer snakes, box jellyfish, saltwater crocs, and mosquitos the size of wasps, that is.

My daughter lives in New South Wales. Looking at the countryside you can see one reason why.

Not sure how I missed this one! So a belated Happy Birthday!!

Well that was a totally awesome concert - The Eagles in Birmingham (the UK one). Two and a half hours with no break - basically their iconic Greatest Hits and Hotel California albums (which I bought back in the day and still have) and a whole load of other, quite advanced sonically, stuff from later albums. The line up was the only remaining and performing member Don Henley (71) and slightly later members Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmidt, both also 71. Singing Glenn Frey's vocals was his son Deacon Frey (26), who was superb, and much to Carole's delight - Vince Gill. And the guys had lost none of their vocal ability and high notes despite their advancing years. It was the nearest thing to a hifi concert I've been to - the sound quality was excellent. One hell of an evening. This was the set list: Take It Easy One of These Nights Take It to the Limit Tequila Sunrise Witchy Woman In the City (Joe Walsh song) I Can't Tell You Why New Kid in Town Peaceful Easy Feeling Love Will Keep Us Alive Lyin' Eyes Don't Let Our Love Start Slippin' Away (Vince Gill cover) Those Shoes Already Gone Walk Away (James Gang cover) Life's Been Good (Joe Walsh song) The Boys of Summer (Don Henley song) Heartache Tonight Funk #49 (James Gang cover) Life in the Fast Lane Hotel California Rocky Mountain Way (Joe Walsh song) Desperado Best of My Love

That is a totally insane tube! https://frank.pocnet.net/sheets/140/3/304TL.pdf .

Are those transmitter tubes in the Moth amps?

OK - so I'm from the North of England, so I don't have a problem with the dialect of the new presenters of Top Gear post Matt Leblanc. But what say you guys and gals in the US of A - can you understand what is going on? The accent is basically Lancashire.

Went to see Nicholas Nickleby at the Bristol Old Vic. This is a massive version of the Dickens novel for the stage. Part 1 started at 1:30pm, and Part 2 finished at 11pm. Total intervals were just over two hours. The amazing thing is that it was staged by recent graduates of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School - so very young professional actors. It was absolutely stunning, first off. And an titanic act of memory - it is 7 hours in total, and many of the main characters are on stage for much of that (Nicholas, Kate, Ralph). Ralph Nickelby in particular was impressive. The monstrous money focused manipulator is in his fifties - so it is a tough role for someone in their early 20's - but he carried it off perfectly. A great day out!