Dave Kean

I missed Saturdays win over Chicago, but it sounded like a fun game with Montero scoring the winner in injury time.

This was a huge game for both sides, and not because of Freddie’s return, but because of the points on the table and the two sides battling out for the final playoff places.

This is the combined MLS table, if the season were to finish today Seattle would be in as 4^th seed in the west and would get a first round game against the fading LA Galaxy. Recent form shows LA are not nearly as fearsome as they were in July when they took Seattle apart at the HDC.

However this only shows part of the story and can be safely ignored for now as there are a lot of teams with games in hand (GIH) over Seattle. If these teams win out (impossible I know as they play each other, but it’s worst case we are looking at here) the picture for the Sounders is a little less cut and dried.

Today Seattle has 32 points and Chicago has 24 points, at first glance a healthy lead for Seattle. However Chicago have played three games less than Seattle. This means 9 points to Chicago if they win those games.

That would move Chicago to 33 points, one ahead of Seattle and drop Seattle to 9^th in the second combined table that assumes teams win those games in hand (GIH). This pushes Seattle out of the play-offs by one point.

To give the short version of events, the game in Chicago on September 26^th has become a very important game. Win there and Seattle controls their own destiny into the post season. Loose and the road to the play offs requires the Sounder Nation to concern ourselves with other peoples results.

Spa is one of my favourite tracks, and along with Monza it’s certainly one of my favourite Grand Prix. Spa always throws up the unexpected, it’s a long track, has elevation changes, a couple of places that separate the men from the boys, and to be charitable we’ll call the weather “changeable”.

It’s very much a driver’s track, Eau Rouge is a classic and a well set up car can take it flat, it’s just up to the driver if it will actually happen. The TV does not show how steep the road into and out of the corner is, even in a road car the compression at the bottom is substantial, and in an F1 car at 180 it must be huge.

Eau Rouge before warm-up

I’ve thrashed a rental car around the circuit many years ago; it’s really an incredible place. At that time part of it was still a regular road for most of the year. The transition from full-time race track tarmac to part-time track/road was startling and not easy. That challenge has gone, but plenty still remain.

Every race I’ve been to at Spa the weather was always the centre of conversation, and this weekend was no different, practices were run in both the wet and the dry. Race day promised showers, and the forecasters were right.

The front of the grid was the usual mix of Ferraris, McLarens and Red Bulls. I missed morning practice, but the time sheets saw the same cars at the top. The question was could Red Bull make the best of their equipment, while not expected to be as dominant here as they were at the last two races at Hockenhem and the Hungaroring where they were the class of the field. Today Weber was on pole and Vettel third.

McLaren have been at their strongest on the fast circuits, and Spa today and Monza in a couple of weeks are the fastest two tracks of the year. The team certainly seemed confident and expected to do well and pick some points over these races.

The one thing TV will never be able to convey is the noise of 26 Grand Prix cars running together on the start grid and flat out on the opening lap. If you have heard it and it did not move you, I’ve no idea what to say. You can feel it in your chest; it’s an incredible thing to be exposed too.

At Spa I think the best place to a spectator is after La Source on the run down to Eau Rouge. You see the cars at their slowest and at about their fastest. The acceleration of an F1 car out of the hairpin is breathtaking and the speed carried through the fast corner at the bottom of the hill is astounding.

On-off showers marked the morning and after lunch it dried up for the start. Mark Weber missed his start; Lewis Hamilton came out of La Source on the first lap in front. Jenson Button was trying to make it a McLaren 1-2, but Vettel slammed the door hard. Weber came through fighting with Robert Kubica for 4^th.

After a couple of laps the rain started, never that hard. But for a 650 horsepower car on slicks it does not need to be much to cause problems. This was always a race where the team had a huge role to play on race day, making calls about the incoming weather, when to change rubber and actually performing the pit stops.

Alonso changed early, surprisingly into full wets. Cars were certainly struggling to get the power down out of the hairpin and a couple used all the run off available when they messed up their braking points.

As the track dried it was Hamilton comfortably ahead of Kubica and Weber, who were in a great battle and had opened up a little gap to Vettel trying to get around Button for fourth. A battle that was soon over when Vettel messed up his braking into Bus Stop and took out Jenson Button. Vettel was able to carry on, but lost a lot of time.

The rain came out again and most cars dived into the pits. Hamilton stayed out another lap and importantly Weber emerged from the pits ahead of Kubica. This time the rain was heavier and lasted until the end.

Heikki Kovalainen

Felipe Massa span his Ferrari into the wall after Radilion and brought out the safety car for three laps. The order stayed the same for the last few laps, Hamilton from Weber, from Kubica.

Hamilton and Weber had great days while the other three contenders for the drivers’ title either finished outside the points (Vettel) or failed to finish (Button and Massa). Once again Red Bull have not lived up to the promise of qualifying. Vettel made a huge error under braking and took out Button. Weber had pole and did not get the start right. There is still something not quite right with Red Bull, if they had cut out the errors they would be running away with both the drivers and manufacturers championships, but that’s not happening.

Monza in two weeks, I wont be there unfortunately, but I will go to more GPs. I’d forgotten how good race day could be, thanks to the boys in Silver for the invite.

I got into London late last night, still jetlagged as heck after a couple of days on the continent and not at my best, but very much looking forward to a busy couple of days to catch up with some friends and have some fun with my family. Today I got to do something I’ve not done in about 15 years and enjoy a full day of cricket at the storied Lord’s ground in London with dad. That it turned out to be a very compelling day of cricket really was a bonus.

Lords, Day 2 of the Fourth test against Pakistan

It’s a long time since dad’s been to a cricket game, he taught me to appreciate the game and as much fun as the 20/20 and limited overs versions are there is nothing like a test match series. The way the game twists and turns over the five days makes it such a unique sporting experience.

I remember sitting down with dad in ’80 (I think) watching England from Australia over Christmas at the end of the year. I don’t recall the score, but England probably got absolutely hammered. He spent days explaining and sharing the game with me. Two years later when England was hosting Australia, a series that is now known as “Botham’s Ashes”, I sat and watched a significant part of the series with dad. I can’t claim to have watched the whole of the famous Edgebaston test, but I did understand the significance of what was going on when we were watching it.

The Ian Botham and Bob Willis England come back against the Australians at Edgebaston is well recorded, but looking back, sitting with dad and understanding the significance of that innings and the game makes it even more special. Up untill then England had been outclassed by what history has shown to be a very good Australian side, but somehow they came back and won the game that turned the series around.

This illustrates one of the things that makes sport so special for many. It brings people together in a shared cause. While we celebrate the individual and team performances, it’s who we share those special moments with that make it so important. That many years later these performances remind us of some very special shared memories.

Cricket is the one sport that dad is willing to give England his support in. Elsewhere it’s as it should be, support Scotland first and whoever England is playing second. When it comes to cricket it’s very much England, this might have something to do with Scotland hardly impressive recent cricket history, but none the less it’s notable enough to mention.

Dad talked about growing up in Greenock and regularly watching Greenock Cricket Club, one of Scotlands more successful and important club teams. It’s not a hugely popular game in Scotland, and Greenock CC has a beautiful little ground and attracted some high profile cricketers to take part in it’s games.

A little background on today, it was the final Test in a four-game series between England and Pakistan, England were leading the serried 2-1 but got absolutely spanked at the last game at the Oval.

England needed not to loose to secure the series win over Pakistan. Friday was the second day and England were in deep, deep trouble, which makes the events of the day so surprising and one of those moments one watches sports for.

England started the day on 13/1 with most of the first day having been lost to rain. We arrived about an hour into play, dad is not as sprightly as he was, but wanted to go and we took it rather slowly this morning getting to the St Johns Wood.

We stopped at the bar to grab a sandwich and first pint of the day before heading to our seats. The TV in the Long Bar said England were on 47/5, a mid order batting collapse that was impressive as it was quick, even by England’s lofty standards.

The last three batsmen, the heart of England’s order, had contributed the grand total of zero runs. Dad commented about this being a day we should see a lot of wickets fall, and that England were going to have to work themselves out of this one to have a chance of winning.

Jonathon Trott and Mark Prior were at the crease when we got to our seats, Trott was on 31 and Prior was on 10. It looked like a lively wicket as both batsmen had moments of living dangerously; Prior especially did not look comfortable and was out shortly after lunch for 22. Graham Swann continued the trend and added nothing to the scoreboard. This made the score 102/7 and it was looking good for Pakistan.

Trott slowly put together a half century and Stuart Broad now partnered him in the middle. Broad played some very questionable strokes, but got away with it.

Trott against Aamir

The scoreboard slowly advanced and the England pair started to look a little more comfortable and certainly had a little luck on their side. The wicket seemed to calm down as the day warmed up and the frustration of not finishing England off clearly showed as the Pakistani bowlers sent down the occasional bouncer.

Trott looked comfortable out there, he played some good defensive cricket and punished the poor bowling and mistakes when they came his way.

Stuart Broad rode his luck and had his finest batting performance of his long test career, but as good as Broad was he was overshadowed by the determined and very controlled strokeplay of Jonathon Trott.

Today we saw some great cricket with both the bat and ball. The 18 year old Pakistani bowler Aamer took 6 of the seven England wickets that fell for 73 runs.

At 102/7 before the tea interval England looked out of it. It seemed only a matter of time before some very impressive bowling dispatched the rest tail end of the order. At the same time the England bowlers must have been looking forward to a chance to bowl on this wicket, they needed a decent run total to give them a chance, and they did not have that.

Trott made his century not long after tea, he had been at the crease for almost five hours at this point building what turned out to be a great innings. He ended the day with a magnificent 149 not out, it’s one of the best test innings I’ve certainly ever seen and showed exactly what makes test cricket so fascinating.

Stuart Broad ended the day on 112 not out, he survived some good bowling on what looked like an interesting wicket. He certainly had some luck on his side with a couple of calls that went his way and batting errors that he got away with, but it was once again a very impressive innings when it was most needed.

The seventh wicket stand put on 244 runs by the end of play giving England a total of 346/7. A total that should be enough to ensure the game is not lost and the series against Pakistan won. However this is England, and I’ve seen them snatch defeat from the jaws of victory from better positions than this in the past.

This was a great day of cricket that had everything that makes test cricket so special. There were two centuries scored, that together should be a series securing partnership from England. In the field there was an 18-year-old bowler in only his sixth game for his country taking six wickets with some very tight bowling.

All this shared with dad in the wonderful atmosphere of a series deciding test match, at the most storied and traditional home of the game. Sport, of any kind, really does not get much better than this.

His Tonyness announced this week that he had donated the advance and royalties of his memoirs to the Royal British Legion. The money is to help fund a new center to help the rehabilitation of injured service men and women. Unquestionably this is a very important and worthwhile cause.

However Tony Blair must be wondering what the hell he has to do to get some good press out of this. Up front it’s about $8 million, and potentially substantially more. When his donation was announced the London Times ran a headline “”Guilty” Blair gives £5m book cash to troops”. While the Times has never actually endorsed Blair or Labour outright (the paper gave no endorsement in ’97 and a conditional backing of the Tories in 2001) and has been a vocal critic of Blair over the year, the “Guilty” part of the headline seemed to sum up the mood rather well.

Over the following days the deal was questioned – would they get the full advance (yes)? Film rights? Yes. Foreign sales? Yes. What if the book did not sell? No refund to Blair. Would it be named after Blair? No. And finally would Blair take the tax relief on the donation? No, the legion would get the benefits.

So the deal was real, the money was guaranteed and still there were headlines claiming this was blood money and Blair was just clearing his conscience with it.

Unquestionably the British are a land of cynics and Blair is a global figure with a global reputation to protect. In the US there was a “huh, really?” response to the rather hostile reaction by the British papers. The Washington Post did not understand what it called the “withering response” the announcement was greeted with in the UK.

It’s simple, Blair led the country to war on a false premise, and the country has not forgotten that.

His legacy as a Prime Minister was tied so closely to Iraq and it being seen, in hindsight as a justifiable war.

The so-called “Blair Doctrine” described what a “just war” looked like. In short he felt that using preemptive action to prevent humanitarian disasters, such as genocide was the right way forward, and there is much to commend that idea. It advocated intervention for the right reasons and motives rather than for military ambitions.

In a speech in 1999 Blair proposed that five questions that should be asked:

1. Are we sure of our case?
2. Have we exhausted all diplomatic options?
3. Are there military operations we can sensibly and prudently undertake?
4. Are we prepared for the long term?
5. Do we have national interests involved?

Where the answer to all five questions is “yes” then there is a strong case for intervention.

The British generally see three conflicts in the last eleven years that this test has been applied to by the Labour government

Kosovo – probably the strongest argument for the Blair doctrine. Ethnic cleansing was halted, the Serbs removed and leaders tried for war crimes. While not totally stable today, it’s been left in better condition than in 1999. Not perfect, but it’s arguable it meets the case for intervention.

Afghanistan – The humanitarian side was a secondary consideration to the defensive war that justified regime change after 9/11. So far so good. The Taliban was routed, but al-Qaida was not eliminated. With a few exceptions the west has largely walked away. One thing the Afghanis and al-Qaida have is patience, they know the west will get tired and move away eventually. The way the British, Ottomans and Soviet Union have in the past.

Iraq – Tony Blair’s legacy in the eyes of many British people.

In 2004 Tony said of Iraq under Saddam – “Containment will not work… The terrorists have no intention of being contained. Emphatically I am not saying that every situation leads to military action. But we surely have a right to prevent the threat materialising; and we surely have a responsibility to act when a nation’s people are subjected to a regime such as Saddam’s.”

This speech represents a huge shift from the five questions that he used to lay out the Blair Doctrine. In this speech he gave sanction for the removal, by force of a dictator such as Saddam Hussein. This was a war fought based on poor intelligence and designed to stop potential future terrorist attacks. The link to the humanitarian principle is remote at best.

Blair lost a great deal of his credibility in Britain during the final years of his time in Downing Street. First by going to war with Iraq despite it not fitting his own doctrine, despite the intelligence saying that WMDs were present being questionable at best. And secondly refusing to apologize for what he did.

Since leaving office he has had no issue with using his profile and name to amass a significant personal fortune though business interests, meetings and speeches. This donation to the British Legion is seen by many as an attempt to improve his legacy with the British electorate.

The question is was this really a cynical attempt to wipe the slate clean, or is he honestly trying to makes amends? As someone who voted Labour in ’97 and ’01 I hope it’s the latter.

Finally, to answer the earlier question about what Blair has to do to catch a break from the British electorate. Saying you were wrong to start this war would be a good place to start.

Every now and again I need to be reminded about why I love the Pacific Northwest. This was the view from the main lounge in SeaTac on Tuesday afternoon, rather ironically as I was leaving…

SeaTac with the Olympics on the horizon

If you don’t recognize it, it’s a quote from Planet of the Apes. It’s kinds relevant and the Charlton Heston original is a great movie.

I’ve mentioned that we need to be ready to face anything, and that my money was on a Zombie Apocalypse, but this week I’ve been reconsidering what the source may be when it all goes pear shaped (however, I do recommend Max Brooks  “World War Z” to help you prepare).

I think we’ve been ignoring the animal kingdom, with a little hindsight I think we’ve had plenty of notice that something is afoot (“When Animals Attack” and the entire Planet of the Apes series). We saw these as entertainment and almost totally ignored the warnings they contain. It all changed this week, I think we may have seen the animal kingdoms William Wallace make his presence known (and the real one, not the Mel Gibson version).

This week in Spain a bull jumped into the crowd during a bull fight. Considering these people went there to see a bull tormented it’s difficult to have much sympathy when the bull decided to join them in the expensive seats. The bull gored a couple of people and gave a few others a bit of a kicking before he was brought under control.

Was this the first step towards us living on “Planet of the Bulls”?

While Hemmingway famously felt that Bull Fighting was one of a handful of real sports, many people disagree today. Even Spain is split about the future of Bull Fighting, it’s a rather bloody spectacle that I don’t see the appeal of and some provinces, most notably Catalonia, have banned it. This movement seems o be gaining momentum, the traditionalists talk of history, while a majority see unnecessary suffering.

Friday night out was easy, Black Happy were playing at The Crocodile (great music venue in Bell Town formally known as The Crocodile Café). I’ve heard of Black Happy, not sure I’ve ever seen them before; they were to be the next “big thing” band out of Seattle in the mid 90’s and just never made it.

They were playing the Croc over the weekend and friends were telling me this would be good. So Friday night I went with a couple of friends and saw one of the best shows I’ve seen at a local bar in a long time. Seattle and the Northwest has a very rich music scene and a modern history that stands with any city in the country and I understand Black Happy were something of a contemporary of Sound Garden, just with a bigger sound.

Last night they showed it, the Croc was sold out and they played a great set, really fun band that looked like they were having fun. Think heavy metal with horns, a unique sound and a great concert.

Had a little poke around iTunes and brought the Black Happy album Peghead. A little rough around the edges, not as heavy the more polished band I saw last night, but worth the purchase.

Saturday brought forth a huge number of options. Hempfest had a concert going on, Lady Gaga was playing the Tacoma Dome and Ida Glass was talking at Benaroya Hall.

Hempfest is not really my scene. I got offered a Lady Gaga ticket yesterday, but I really don’t want to be around screaming pre-teens right now and I’m not sure I can stand for two hours on my rough knee. As talented as she is, and despite the potential people watching being almost as good as Vegas, I decided to pass on a big night at the T-dome.

That left Ira Glass, and it turned out to be a good choice. For those not in the know Ida Glass is the host of the long running This American Life radio show. Each week the hour-long show is broadcast on NPR and explores a particular theme. The content varies from the provocative though to the rather humourous. Current events are occasionally explored and a lot of the time a very personal first person narrative is the format.

Ira Glass talks to a full Benaroya Hall

The content is always well done, interesting and thought provoking. Over the last couple of months I’ve got into the This American Life Podcast, very entertaining and the top download on iTunes for good reason. This had the potential to be a rather interesting evening and certainly quite the change of pace from the previous night.

Benaoya hall was sold out tonight, Ida e was introduced by Dan Savage. Dan’s three proudest moments – licking doorknobs, Santorium and being a regular contributor to This American Life. If you want to know more about the first two Google them, it’s worth it.

Ira Glass spoke for eloquently for almost two hours and took time to show his skill in making balloon animals…

He talked about how the stories come to their attention; the programs are structure and how the themes come about.

The highlight for me was the stories. He shared the background behind a few of his favorite stories. The common theme was that they were personal, involved very few people and had something of a resolution at the end.

He shared the breakdown of what he feels makes a story compelling. A religious service, the bible, my racing stores along with radio stories about vending machines on an aircraft carrier or software end user agreements are all structured in the same way. Action, action, action followed by a pause for thought or reflection. Then repeat until you close with a good line.

When put out there it’s remarkably simple and effective. I get this was probably understood by everyone that’s studied English in any depth. I’ve not formally studied English language since leaving school at 16 (I think my writing and certainly my limitations with language make that clear) and one of the reasons I started doing this was to improve my writing, lets see if this helps.

I got a call to let me know I missed out last night, apparently the Lady Gaga concert was rather good. I’m still happy with my decision.

Saturday morning I played tennis for the first time in many, many months. It was fun, I stopped hard and pushed off my right leg a couple of times. It hurt, but not too bad.

Sunday my right knee locked solid, could not bend it with out a lot of pain. Yesterday was a little better, I could drive (appreciated owning an automatic like never before) and hobble around at work. At the walk-in doctor they gave me some good pain killers and told me to make an appointment with my doctor.

At work this got me an inside-the-gate parking pass for a few days, so something good came out of it.

Went out last night and things were a little better. No shooting pain, but I could not put too much weight on it, getting up from a seat was painful and again driving an auto was appreciated.

Today was appointment day, they did an MRI this afternoon and found a bone fragment that’s made a small tear in my cartilage. Awesome, not a surprise as there was clearly something wrong. I’m happy we know what’s wrong, now it’s time to get it fixed.

Who else has a bald kneecap?

Thirty minutes later my knee is propped up on a pile of towels and it’s been shaved in preparation for going in and getting the fragment before it does any more damage. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a hairless kneecap; it feels rather strange in the gentlest breeze.

A friend told me it needs a smiley face on my bald kneecap… Perhaps it will take my mind off the pain.

The title makes me sound like an old fart. There are times I’m a member of the order of old fartdom, but not today.

There were many albums that were influential to my musical growth. The Marillion album “Misplaced Childhood” and Floyds classic (a word not used lightly here) Dark side of the Moon are very close to the top of the list. I owned both on vinyl (and my parents got rid of them a few years ago) and both were incredibly important. I’ve owned Dark Side of the moon on Vinyl, cassette tape, CD and now the remastered digital download.

A quick aside, one of the things I miss about the passing of vinyl was the artwork, as interesting as the “digital booklets” that iTunes provides with some of their downloads, it does not touch the 12 inch Album cover of my formative music years.

Don’t get me wrong the advent of the CD and digital music was very welcome, we got to hear music as it was recorded, not through the buzzing and clicking that a needle running in a groove added to the proceedings.

But, I do miss the quality of artwork that was possible with a 12 inch by 12-inch (or 12 by 24 if it was a double or gatefold album) cover.

Lets take one of the recordings I mentioned earlier: Misplaced Childhood. The cover had themes (jigsaw pieces, jester, magpie, roses and so on) that were carried were from the previous Marillion albums. The detail and quality of the artwork were standard for the time.

Some bands were alleged to have spent more money on a high concept album cover than that recording itself, and I don’t have trouble believing that for a second. The cover was an important part of the experience. It was a marketing tool; it was an artistic statement and set the scene for what was about to be put on the record player. There was a lot of very poor music around in the early 80’s and I brought some of it purely on the quality of the cover.

There was something even cooler than great cover art – picture discs. Vinyl, typically a 12-inch (album sized) single, with the cover art being the disc that the music is stamped into. I had a copy of Aces High by Iron Maiden with a close up of Eddie (Iron Maidens rather abused, but ultimately still alive and kicking, mascot) flying a Spitfire on it. Very cool, and once again a copy in perfect condition was disposed of by my parents. I won’t mention what it’s going for on EBay today, I may start to cry.

I’ve spent enough time sidetracked by album artwork, as important a subject as that is…

I get that with the invention of individual song downloads the idea of putting the CD or album on, starting with the first track and ending with the last track seems rather strange to many. I understand that today the idea of listening to an entire album in track order is so last century, but I miss what it means.

The two albums I mentioned at the beginning, along with many others (everything by Pink Floyd for example) were concept albums and written to be played in this way. The play order was designed to flow from song to song and tell the story.

We talked about this today at work, when I buy from iTunes; I still typically buy the whole album. It’s rare that I just buy one or two tracks and call it done; the intern on the other hand can’t remember what the last full album he brought was.

Then it dawned on me, for many people the entire idea of an album no longer exists; let alone the even higher notion of a “concept album”.

The only actually real live CD’s I’ve brought in a long time are those not available on iTunes for whatever licensing or financial reason. AC/DC, Kid Rock and most importantly The Beatles are about the only bands I’ve brought on CD rather than downloading recently.

Just to prove a point I played Pink Floyds “The Wall” in the office this afternoon. It’s 30 years old, but it resonates as strongly as ever. The albums protagonist (Mr. Floyd) has an increasingly strained relationship with the father and this carries on until his father death. He is tormented by his dependence upon his mother, moves to a new town, moves back and is treated badly by his teachers. Each one of these events causes him to erect a wall between himself and the rest of the world (yeah, I get there may be some inexact parallels, but it hit home), hence the title.

It’s the same with Marillions “Misplaced Childhood”. The story arc concerns the lead singers failings as a partner and his subsequent fall into alcohol and drugs. The arc of the album is not positive, but like The Wall, when listened to in its entirety it is more than the sum of its parts.

The concept album is not dead, but iTunes and file sharing has done it considerable damage. The obvious artist that has released a couple of concept albums is Green Day, both “American Idiot” and “21^st Century Breakdown” are keeping the idea alive.

I did a little Googling, and not only is the very of purchasing the whole album so 20^th century, but the idea of buying something physical is not too far behind it.  Over the last few years CD sales have dropped from a high of about 660 million in 2005 to about half of that in 2009 and probably less than 300 million in 2010. Since 2002 the sales of individual tracks went from essentially zero to almost 1.2 billion in 2009, and this format is still showing double-digit growth. Apple and iTunes had it right.

Growing up birthdays were never a particularly big deal in the Kean household, it’s just how it was. Anniversaries of pretty much any kind tended to be discrete affairs. A card, a couple of small presents and that was typically it. There would be a small birthday party as I was growing up, but I think my parents discretely stopped kids birthday parties altogether as early as was reasonable. Certainly before I hit my teens the idea of a birthday party after that was just never put out there, it’s just how it was.

My Aunts, Joan and Janice along with Mum (L-R)

I remember a birthday party at my uncles for Granddads 65th, but even that was sold as a retirement party rather than a birthday celebration.

The biggest get together and celebrations were always about family. The biggie was always Christmas, we’d all gather at Granddads, eat our fill, drink, open presents, make pass-the-parcel into a full-contact sport and give up watching the Bond film because there was too much going on.

Other big get togethers were New Year and every summer there would be a Sunday or two where we’d all get together, barbeque, mum and at least one of her sisters would get falling over drunk and dad would have to help her into the back of the car.

Granddad at the BBQ in the summer.

As I think about these times the one constant in them is that I picture my parents being about the same age I am now, in their 40’s. Dad was in his early 30’s when he became a father, older than many in his generation and almost 10 years older them mum when I was born.

A friend of mine thinks my father was rather dashing as a younger man, broad shouldered, fit and dark haired. She also said he sounds “like Sean Connery, only sexier”; his Scottish accent has been tempered by living south of the border for the last 50 years.

There were a few years when I was first living in the US where I could not afford to travel back to London and see my parents as often as I’d have liked. While I’d talk to them a couple of times a week on the phone, it was always startling to see them suddenly age a year or 18 months when they would come to meet me at Heathrow.

Dad’s hair would be a little thinner with more grey. Mum would be slightly shorter than I remember, less stable on her feet and get tired a little sooner. Why it was always a surprise I’m not sure, but it was.

As I said in my mind dad is about the same age I am now and I’d be met at Heathrow by this man who looked about 20 years older with grey hair and now a bit of a stoop. Even now I visit 3 or 4 times a year it takes me by surprise every time.

If he tried to lift me up onto his shoulders as he used to when I was 6 it would probably kill him now. Heck even at his fittest, joints would have been put out at the very least had he tried to shift today’s bulk.

It’s the same with mum, I always imagine her as she was 20 years ago. Which considering how she was last time I saw her is for the better.

Even though we are both middle aged one of the last conversations I had with mum was how I was the sensible one and gave them little worry as a teenager (I saved that for my 20’s and onwards), while Stephen was the younger one and always doing something that they were worried about (and he calmed down somewhat about the same time I started to push my personal envelope).

Part of it is that when I’d visit my parents (OK, it was Mum) treated both of us like we were still in our early teens, a little nagging about rather unimportant stuff, worried about where we were going that evening, not to go out with wet hair as we’d catch a cold and so on. I think in some respect this reverting back to type gave my brother and I permission and freedom to act the age we were being treated. Which would have been about 10 and 12.

Quite a few years ago mum gave me an album of photos of me growing up, my parents growing up, family outings, weddings and so on, with my grandparents featuring rather strongly in it. As cool as an X-box, bike or remote controlled dalek is, its’ the best present I’ve ever been given.

In this picture dad is about the same age as I am now. I’ll leave you to work out who the rather handsome young man sitting on his knee is.