Dangers of an Idle Mind

Although by ten O’clock the late August sun was already high and warm in a spotless blue sky, the nights had been getting cooler; it wouldn’t be long until the harvest. I stopped the old tractor and killed the engine; silence washed into the vacuum left by the rusty motor’s noise. From the driver’s saddle I could look down across the shallow valley at our three large fields of corn. I found myself wondering again how the crop could wash and ripple across the fields even on perfectly still days like this. It can be mesmerizing and the ocean is only broken by the straight narrow strip of the road to St. Martenne. The highway may be a normal two lane road but at this point in the summer the corn crowds to its edges giving the impression of a narrow avenue. Looking to far end of the road I saw the blue convertible appear. Since the middle of July it had passed by every morning at this time. It is why I too, was here again. The car sped between our fields, parting the golden sea. The faw...

Spud and Moochy arrive Saturday for a visit. It reminded me of an unfinished blog piece from about six months ago. That was in the middle of the longest time we had ever gone without seeing each other. I found the piece and here it is: The four Rolls Royce engines on the Virgin Airbus A340 decrease in pitch and the plane noticeably slows. Beneath the wings the blue waters of Lake Michigan give way to the flat grid of the north suburbs; a buzz of excitement passes through the cabin as the aircraft banks right to start it’s loop into the airport. Two thousand feet below, on the back-step of a rented suburban family house, sits a solitary man enjoying the contrast between the warm early May sun on his face with the cool glass of the French doors on his back. He is strumming ‘Kingston Town’ on an old worn guitar. It is not unusual to find him there while the daily Virgin Airbus from London turns over St Charles and follows the broad line of Lake Street into O’Hare. By the time the airliner...

Moochy is clearly growing up to be a smart kid - I'd never tell him but he's smarter than i was at that age (his brother is no slouch either). I still have my moments too, those these days they're more often 'senior' moments. So with me and the Moochy's combined brain power you can be forgiven for thinking we never get caught looking really really stupid. Unless you had been in a certain computer games retailer last year. Me and Mooch were looking for a new game. We wanted a multiplayer game and preferably one that didn't just require fast fingers. We were looking at board and card games when we got to discussing poker. "You know it's funny," I said to the 14 year old, "you never see multi player poker games for the Playstation." Moochy looked puzzled too. "You're right, I wonder why?" he mused. We decided to ask The guy behind the counter seemed a little bemused at the question; his head tilted to one side, b...

On December 6th 2008 the BBC reported that Sunny von Bulow had passed away after 28 years in a coma. A lot of people, like me, were probably surprised to hear she was not already dead. Sunny von Bulow was of course the wife of Claus von Bulow who was first convicted and later cleared on appeal, of putting her in her coma. The appeal case is quite famously recounted in Alan Dershowitz’s 1986 book Reversal of Fortune or the subsequent film of the same name that had Glenn Close as Sunny and perennial baddy, Jeremy Irons, as Claus. I have always been intrigued by this case and the issues around it. In stark contrast to the cold atmosphere of the film Reversal of Fortune, the film High Society is a warm, jolly, song filled romp and also features in my top five films. Who can resist Sinatra and Louis Armstrong pretty much playing themselves? Add to that Crosby who, despite being in his 50s by then, playing a playboy protagonist in the marriage of beautiful Grace Kelly. Finally to cap it all ...

Same thing happened again today (right down to getting trounced at tennis by my wife) but this time I had a camera. The birds were quite far away but yo can clearly see the three smaller birds hassling the larger bird. <Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here> Bazza

I was playing tennis in the high spot of the day. The ground was being bleached by the sun. I was about to hit one of my slap-patters that passes for serve, when a huge shadow shimmered across the court. The shadow was accompanied by the unmistakable shrill echoing call of an eagle. I looked up and saw the huge wings as the bird found a thermal and started circling upwards. It’s not too unusual to see very large birds in our part of Connecticut . Huge Turkey Buzzards are very common. They are easy to distinguish from other birds by the V shape of their wings as the soar. But this was no Turkey Buzzard and that call was just so distinctive. As a boy from South London I did not think I would ever see a real eagle. Watching it circle upwards I slowly realized something strange was going on. A smaller bird, just a black silhouette against the blue sky but about the size of a Robin, was flying around the Eagle. As I watched the small bird flew underneath the eagle and bam! The bird flew st...

And this is two weeks later. <Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here> Bazza

On Saturday, just after Chelsea beat West Ham with a nice goal and a little bit of luck, me and my wife stood outside our house looking at the dark, bare branches of the bushes and trees. It was a warm day and we were about to clean out our garage for the first time in two years. As we stood looking at rocks we could hear a lot of excited bird song with many different voices calling, cooing and chirping. In the air the insects were starting to appear in numbers and there were even some big black bees loudly buzzing about. However, there were still no buds or leaves on the trees or bushes. How long, we wondered, until the summer green canopy shaded our house again. That was four days ago and this morning I looked out of the bedroom window to see the bushes and trees had started blooming seemingly overnight. It ain’t Washington DC with the Cherry blossoms, but it’s pretty impressive for four days. <Enter stunningly witty and clever tagline here> Bazza

We haven’t had a ‘silly Connecticut’ story in a while, and I can honestly say I have no idea why I didn’t write this up at the time. Our local sports team is the Bridgeport Bluefish , a non-affiliated, minor league baseball team. Their only real claim to fame is that their coach is a very renown former lefty pitcher whose deserved reputation was eclipsed by his eponymous surgery - one Tommy John . Anyway last summer, pre-teenage Spud and his oh-so-teenage brother were staying with us and so we decided an evening at the ballpark would be nice. Next to the ballpark is the Arena, a multi-purpose venue, and this particular evening the WWE was doing its sweaty man dance thing at the Arena while the Bluefish played the Lancaster Barnstormers. The car-park was more crowded than usual and as we pulled up to the orange vested lady at the gate she said: “Baseball or Arena?” “Baseball.” We said. “Three dollars” said the young lady. I don’t know if it was me, the boys or Christine who actually sa...

I awoke early, the sky was just turning grey and the thermometer was reading below freezing. By the time the tea had brewed there was a crimson line along horizon. I took my mug and headed down to the back door. I pulled on my old boots and took the red checkered jacket off the hook. The winter had been long and cold. Round here they mix sand with the road salt. A lot of sand. The floor of the garage crunched underfoot as I lifted the reluctant-to-open overhead door. It was lighter outside now and a few of the houses across the valley seemed to be stirring, a solitary chimney sent a blue smoke trail into the air. I grabbed the yard brush, its worn handle felt snug against the callouses on my hand. By the time I finished sweeping out the garage the sky was blue and the brass thermometer had inched past the freezing mark. I drained the tea mug, leant the broom against the door frame and listened. So quiet through the winter, the woods that lined the valley, were waking up. The calls o...

Some people exert that the word California means something along the lines of “place of milk & Honey.” I have just returned from a trip to Southern California and I ain’t so sure. The lifestyle does seem to be different to here in the Northeast or back in the Midwest. However, I’m not sure that life in Southern California is all that. The working life definitely seems not to be idyllic. I chatted with a bunch of locals during my stay and I found myself getting more and more surprised that anything is achieved in Southern California. This is mostly down to the compromises forced upon them by the traffic. The workday seems to go something like this: Get up early to avoid the traffic. Get stuck in traffic. Arrive at work and spend first hour moaning to co-workers about the traffic. Work for one hour. Go out to Starbucks. Work 30 minutes. Go to lunch early to avoid the queues. Come back to work, spend thirty minutes discussing lunch then thirty minutes discussing traffic at lunch. Do a...

I watched as the beautiful Green birds rose as one body from the end of the garden. Given that the fox conversation was still hanging over the breakfast table, I wasn’t about to start another fauna discussion. I excused myself and headed back upstairs. Once in the back bedroom I grabbed my camera phone and looked out into the garden for the second time that morning. Sure enough, in one of the trees that flank the garden were four green parrots. I snapped a bad picture (above) just to prove to myself that I wasn’t insane. Later, when everyone had gone out, I tried a little ‘twitching’ on the web. If parrots have established themselves in Surrey then surely it must be all over the news? Not exactly. I did, however, discover that the birds I had seen were Ring Neck Parakeets and one of the more colorful theories for how they come to be in the UK. Namely the assertion that the birds escaped from the film set of The African Queen while it was being filmed at Shepperton Studios in West Lond...

Seems foxes are really settling into the suburban lifestyle; even bringing into the well tempered gardens of Surrey the kind of behaviour that normally is reserved for behind the white patterned net curtains. Let me explain, just before Christmas I was in England, staying at my sister’s house in Surrey, I was very intrigued when one morning I opened the curtains and noticed a black object sat in the middle of her, otherwise blemish free, lawn. The object looked about eight inches long and a couple of inches across; it was a glossy wet from the morning dew. Over breakfast I mentioned the object to my bother-in-law. “It’s a fox.” he said. I peered out of the French windows at the black thing; prominent and obvious on the lawn. “No it’s not,” I said, “it looks like a kid’s training shoe.” “I know it’s a shoe,” said my brother-in-law, rolling his eyes at my sister as she entered the room and sat down, “The shoe was put there by the fox.” “What, a real fox?” I asked “Like Basil Brush or Fox...

It didn’t feel that cold. I mean it was clearly below freezing; my breath was misting and the walkway was glazed in uneven ice, but what I’m trying to say is it looked even colder than it felt. It was unusually quiet; I guess not many people had ventured out yet. The birch tree across the way had turned to glass and was drooping towards the pavement under its new weight; it’s every limb a tube of ice. Nearby a glass skirt of icicle fronds hung from the bumper of my car. My shoes slithered as I moved towards the car, the icy surface feeling like a tray of marbles beneath me. Mercifully, the car unlocked at the press of the key fob. Setting my feet as best I could I pulled on the driver's door, it opened with a loud crack. Inside the car it was darker than usual. The heavy icing gave the appearance of frosted glass making it feel like a surreal shower cubicle. I started the engine and waited for the car to start warming up. Sitting in the frosted cocoon just waiting was pretty dull. ...