With thanks and apologies to Long-Suffering-Reader-Of-The-Blog-Paul.
Long-suffering readers of the blog will know I’m a huge fan of nineties British indie music. So, I was thrilled when a hot, skinny boy who looks good in an Adidas tracksuit came onto the stage this week.
PORK PIES
(Dominic Cummings ft. Blur)
For some reason, I was thinking the other day that I’ve “only” ever been to France once.
And I was thinking, maybe I should try to fix that while I still can.
[My whimsy’s just about been extinguished, tbh. Find the last of it in the Apoplexy Tiny Letter] Continue reading Tour de France
Hi there! Sorry to miss you last week – Mrs Stroke Bloke and I had just spent the weekend in Skye. I’ve been particularly keen to get there since I read Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse during my creative writing degree.
That linked recording of The Skye Boat Song is bonkers. The production, for a start. Then there’s the incredible whistling of Roger Whitaker – you’ve never heard anything like it. Take that, Otis Redding. And I’ve not even mentioned that someone thought it would be a good idea to get Des O’Connor in to sing it?!
[You’ll need a palate cleanser after that. Why not try the Apoplexy Newsletter?]
Continue reading The Old Man of Storr
Tiny Letter readers will know that Mrs Stroke Bloke and I visited Cairnpapple Hill in central Scotland last weekend. It was an enlightening trip, in light of last week’s post on ’80s movies. Like Withnail and Marwood, we came across a bull in a field. And turning to an obvious omission pointed out by Atletico Marcelo in the comments, Cairnpapple was the site of a little henge.
Continue reading Cairnpapple Hill
A day after the result of the #EUref came in, Mrs Stroke Bloke and I hopped on a train to London. Like the narrator of this wee ditty:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy8d1bQYvmM
“Smoke lingers ’round your fingers / Train, heave on to Euston…”
(Smiths sceptics might find the above performance surprisingly muscular)
It was, y’see, an opportunity to check out an exclave of the soon-to-be nation of #Scotlond. By this time, Scotland’s First Minister had already reached out to the Mayor of London to discuss how their remain-voting areas could ameliorate the impact of Brexit. Continue reading London
Some years ago, Mrs Stroke Bloke and I noticed that – not much like J. Alfred Prufrock – our relationship could be measured out in international soccer tournaments.
Back in the summer of 2010, I was introducing my new American girlfriend to a Scottish pal in a Brooklyn bar as we watched (was it?) the USA v England in South Africa.
And as well as being beautiful and funny, she already understands the offside rule!
But as Scotland fail, yet again, to qualify for a major tournament at France 2016, how do I find a team to give me a rooting interest? Read on…
[Join the conversation at the Apoplexy Tiny Letter here.]
Continue reading Stroke Bloke at Euro 2016
I’ve been trying to tell myself that it’s too early for an #EURef post. But even now, still two-and-a-half weeks out, the media coverage is suffocating. It’s hard to focus on anything else. Europe touches so much that goes on in the blog.
Last week, Mrs Stroke Bloke and I had just returned from our trip to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. One thing that really caught our eyes – other than the crazy number of Deloreans on the ferry from Cairnryan to Belfast – was the ease of crossing the border.
[Enjoy apoplectic.me? Get close and personal with the Apoplexy Tiny Letter here.]
Continue reading Vote Man Returns!
After My Name is Joe, Pts. 1 & 2, I realised that the conclusions to which I was coming about memory – and more importantly, group memory – were so grindingly prosaic that only prose fiction could do them justice.
But that, as they say, is another story about a young woman’s travels on the continent for another time.
Fortunately, last week we headed off to Ireland where I could think about both that and other stuff.
While Mrs Stroke Bloke was sitting an accountancy conversion exam in Belfast, I headed off to the Ulster Museum to see an exhibition of winners and short-listed entries for the 2015 BP Portrait Awards. Continue reading Portrait
Mrs Stroke Bloke and I spent this past weekend in the Highlands. More precisely, we were visiting family in Strontian, on the banks of Loch Sunart. One of my cousins asked if I would be writing about our trip in the blog this week. And since she took me to see David Bowie’s Sound and Vision tour stop in Ingliston in 1990, I could hardly say “No.”
Stroke Bloke and The Fabulous Beth spent Thursday and Friday nights
in Düsseldorf, Germany…
…and our little break means a pause in considering how countries relate a vision of themselves through anthems (1, 2). ‘Cos that’s a big subject, as illustrated by The Prof’s awesome comment to last week’s post.
As we dashed headlong through Düsseldorf, I was instead reminded of #strokier posts. And, indeed, a tweet tweeted from my bed at The Hospital for Joint Diseases during my in-house rehabilitation:
Goal for end of the year. Jogging in Prospect Park.
— Ricky Brown (@ricky_ballboy) November 15, 2012