I’m very proud to announce that my brother-in-law Simon is a member of the country’s worst five-a-side football team.
Four Four Two: The worst five-a-side team in Britain.

I really love both Tennis and cycling – they both make good spectator sport on TV, but if people want to look at athleticism, this is an interesting stat….

Rafael Nadal, Wimbledon
7 Matches
in 18 hours and 32 minutes

Kim Kirchan, Yellow Jersey in the Tour do France
7 stages out of 21
in 28 hours 23 minutes

impressive stuff for us cyclists, but what’s important to remember is the knock-out style of the Tennis contests…. even so… it’d be a bit dull to watch just 16 cyclists battle it out for the final five days, like Wimbers.

Not much poetry here on Minnellium but a good few years ago I was listening to a “Poetry Please” special on Radio 4 and heard ‘I rely on you’ by Hovis Presley – a Lancashire poet of whom I knew literally nothing. From what I recall, the poem was read out by Roger McGough, and ever since then, somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d been intending to dig out the poem from somewhere or other, but never quite found it.

I’ve now found it, and it’s every bit as good as I remembered. Here’s the poem:

I rely on you
I rely on you
Like a Skoda needs suspension
Like the aged need a pension
Like a trampoline needs tension
Like a bungee jump needs aprehension
I rely on you

I rely on you
Like a camera needs a shutter
Like a golfer needs a putter
Like a gambler needs a flutter
Like a buttered scone involves butter
I rely on you

I rely on you
Like an acrobat needs ice cool nerve
Like a hairpin needs a drastic curve
Like an HGV needs endless DERV
Like an outside left needs a body swerve
I rely on you

I rely on you
Like a handyman needs pliers
Like an auctioneer needs buyers
Like a laundromat needs dryers
Like The Good Life needed Richard Briers

I rely on you
Like a water vole needs water
Like a brick outhouse needs mortar
Like a lemming to the slaughter
Ryan’s just Ryan – without his daughter
I rely on you

Try as I might to love poetry to music, I find the fusion difficult, and whilst things like LKJ seem to work well, this version of Hovis Presley I found on Youtube doesn’t work quite as well as it should do (for me!), but it’s nice, nevertheless, to see the lovely poet in action, before his untimely premature passing in 2005.
Hovis Presley – YouTube – I rely on you

John Hegley did a similar poem, of equal stature in my mind… with possibly a touch more irony that, although brilliant, seems to make it less sincere.

I need you like a novel needs a plot.
I need you like the greedy needs a lot.
I need you like a hovel needs a certain level of grottiness
to qualify.
I need you like acne cream needs spottiness.

Like a calendar needs a week.
Like a colander needs a leek.
Like people need to seek out what life on Mars is.
Like hospitals need vases.
I need you.

I need you like a zoo needs a giraffe.
I need you like a psycho needs a path.
I need you like King Arthur needed a table
that was for more than just for one.

I need you like a kiwi needs a fruit.
I need you like a wee wee needs a route out of the body.
I need you like Noddy needed little ears,
just for the contrast.
I need you like bone needs marrow.
I need you like straight needs narrow.
I need you like the broadest bean needs something else on the plate
before it can participate
in what you might describe as a decent meal.
I need you like a cappucino needs froth.
I need you like a candle needs a moth
if it’s going to burn its wings off.

We’re in the middle of a nasty “credit crunch” (or ‘depression, slump, etc as it used to be known), and whilst Gordon Brown admirably tries his best blame it on other nations*, just read things like this to be reassured that the Haygarths – or at least one of them – is doing their best to further he UK economy…

North Wyke scientist highlighted for contribution to UK economy

*Despite thinking flooding the economy with an extra £27 billion to bail out Northern Rock was a sound long-term policy

I had occasion to need a tub (tubular cycle tyre) mending the other week and, as usual, I sent it off to Peter Burgin who advertises in Cycling Weekly every fortnight (he can’t afford the ads weekly now. It was only after some painful Googling that I found his address on the net – on some forum or other – and only because I knew his name.

When I got the tub and info leaflets back – photocopied and handwritten ones advertising his services, I just realised how this fantastic, niche service – and as far as I’m aware, the only one of its kind in the UK – didn’t have any web presence at all. I happened to know also that Peter has been doing the same thing for 50 plus years, and I wasn’t about to swoop on this old gentleman and try and tout for some web design business… so a new, purely one-off approach was needed. I was feeling philanthropic, so spoke to Peter and built him a website (1.5 hrs work) and bought him a domain name (£4.00). All for free.

I’m so nice, aren’t I. Just watch it pile up there to the top of Google for all those important keywords… I hope he can handle the extra business.

View it here… Cycle Tubs / Cycling Tubular Tyre Repairs in the UK | Peter Burgin – and of course, get your tubular tyre repairs done there… unless you fancy two hours with glue, unpickers, mess, needles, thimbles, threads, and general hassle.

A proud girl

Originally uploaded by Dave Haygarth

Lily recently came home from school telling us that she’d won a competition and her picture was going to be on the cover of a magazine… well, she brought it home today and was very, very proud of her achievement!

The weekend just gone was the last of my really lovely long weekends since Elsie was born just before the May Bank Holiday. Rather than take a hyge chunk of paternity leave and putting unnecessary pressure on Reverse Delta, I thought it would be best to take off Mondays and Fridays for a few weekends whilst things bedded down at home and we got a routine established.

On reflection, and I’ll admit that it’s early days, things have been really quite relaxed and easy for us to adapt to. With a second born, there’s so much less adjustment because it’s more about resuming a familiar routine. Add to that that Elsie is a bit more of a sleeper and eater than her elder sister and it all makes for a very chilled existence.

The long weekends though have had a special value – working from home has meant that I can roughly keep abreast of my work without that ‘out of office’ panic. With Lily being at school it’s also meant that I get two days with Lily sandwiched by two days with Katie and Elsie. The unusually dry – I’ll say it again – unusually dry spell of weather that East Lancs has had has made the weekends generally outdoor affairs, be it gardening, or walking, or – just occasionally – some more strenuous activity.

On Sunday, Lily and I had a great trip up Knowle Hill – about a four mile round walk all in all from where we’d parked – to watch the annual fell race up there. It’s a hill I know reasonably well, but for some reason I’ve watched the race there twice and never yet taken part for one reason or another. My friend Matthew was taking part, something that gave Lily and I the excuse to head off for a couple fo hours togather watching the fell race (photos here) and exploring the new Scout Moor windfarm (photos here).

The down side was that this – and the rest of the weekend’s activities – were carried out without Elvis, who I took running on Thursday evening and brought back home with a two inch gaping wound in his belly – somehow. The vet sorted it, but he’s on an enforced rest now as a result.

It’s all happy times here… just keeps on getting happier.