ski-ing with the very old

We had a great time but I feel all of my 78 years. Jim and family made us feel a bit younger, but I was surprised and disappointed that we didn't organise a race. I think Rosie would have beaten her grandmother. There was every sort of weather so every day was different including one when we stayed indoors all day for fog, rain and snow. We all fell, including Philippe who took Mike down with him. Fortunately no hurts so none of us could stop laughing.

january ski-ing @ 78

Dad and I had a great time. We went out every day bar one, when it was foggy and windy. The weather was different every day, which meant we had plenty of easy off piste, and practice sideslipping over ice, and we improved at both. But I ski slower and slower , and I was sorry Jim never organised a race because Rosie would have beaten me, which I hope would have pleased her.

Thailand travels

I've been off in Thailand for 3 weeks. You can still be a hippy even when you're over 50. In fact, you probably get more like a hippy the older you get. We'll be welcoming David to the club this year. I spent about 10 days in Bangkok, and the rest on a quiet little island called Ko Samet. Bangkok is very busy and pretty hot even in winter. Thats one of the main reasons I went of course, to top up my sun tan and get over those winter blues. I also go there to spend some time with my friends Jeremy and Sam. I first met Jeremy in London in 1994. Sam more recently. Jeremy retired from 9-5 life in his late 30s. I have always taken him as a role model. Sam is a very amusing relic from an imperial past. He

Sam and Jeremy

regards all foreigners, especially Germans, with suspicion, bur often overcomes this disadvantage and makes unusual friends. Here's a picture of them in Khao San Road. Khao San Road is a traveller's destination. It has hotels for about £5 a night and the people going in and out looked quite clean and satisifed. Sam (on the left) was making a reservation for a nephew who will be travelling out there in his gap year. Jeremy and I returned there one night. I ate a fried locust and we drank JD and cokes from buckets. It's a party street.

Ko Samet is a relatively unspoilt island, it’s a 2,000 Bhat taxi ride and 1,000 Bhat speed boat ride from Bangkok (1,000 Baht ~ £70). You can go by bus and ferry if you're alone or on a budget. The day we arrived I had forgotten about the mosquitoes. I sat drinking with Sam and guy called Dominic in the evening on the beach. My legs were bitten so badly that they felt like my mouth after a very hot curry.

We stay at Tubtim. The sandy beach is about 20-100m wide depending on time and tide. My cabin is a further 50m from the sea, among the trees. Tubtim has a restaurant / bar, shop, 50 tables on the beach for diners and about 50 1-6 person bungalows among the trees. The food is good and the staff are cheeky and charming. We sit around all day at our table under our tree eating, drinking, gossiping,

Ruth and Nat

with the occasional break for a swim, sun-bathing or walk. Sometimes we talk to other visitors. We met Thais, British, German, Norwegians, French, Belgians, Canadians and more. It is extremely relaxing. When we left I was quite sad.

Its a 10 hour flight out and a 13 hour flight back to Bangkok. Thats a long time. I did not suffer any jet lag mainly due to an excellent party at Ruth's on the Saturday I returned. She was late for it (not the first time!) but we managed to find shelter with her neighbour until she got home. Trevor, Nat boy and girl and others of their friends were there. It was great! Thanks Ruth.

Back in Berlin I have just about finished sorting out the post etc when I was struck down with flu, or something like it. Welcome back to Northern Europe! But at least its a democracy with a relateively free press. We hope. Having  spent a few delirious days in bed I think I'm back in action.

And finally: DONT FORGET GRANNY'S BIRTHDAY ON THE 24TH!!!!!

Ladycross School Song

I was down at Jacobs, and was in the loo by the pink bathroom, and saw this song on the wall, and it evoked memories from over forty years ago. Hopefully, it will bring back memories for some of my brothers. Sadly my skills don't include music notation, which is available on the back of the copy should anyone wish to play it. (Preferably on the adjacent piano rather than the loo!!!!)

Ladycross Laudes

Quam jucundum vocibus sonoris
Aedem Crucis resonare
Vurginis quae coeli sub praesidio
Omnem docet sapientiam

Fiat nobis haec salutis signum
Fiat lux aeternitatis
Nobis haec per cursum sit tutamen
Dum stet carina in portu incolumis
            Quam jucundum, etc.

Sicut omnes militant atheletae
Unus autem fert coronam;
Nostrum quisque in Artibus praesceptis
Victor laudari certet omnium
            Quam jucundum, etc.

Ergo, pueri, Pertonet per mundum
Christiani Vox Exempli
Ut in coelis vita perfruamer
Patris aeterna amplexi brachia
            Quam jucundum, etc.

Virginem precemur dolorosam
Filiumquetriumpantem
Ut, redemptos Morte, nos dignetur
Pater illuminare Spritu.
            Quam jucundum, etc.

Sweet it is to celebrate with praises
Ladycross, our Alma Mater,
Which protected of the Queen of Heaven,
Teaches us wisdom, human and divine.

May this cross of safety be the standard
This the torch of life eternal
This to guide our course with the certain beacon
Till harboured safe our ship in port shall rest

Ours the boys o’er other schools to triumph;
Ours to gain the power of prowess;
Life throughout in ever-present danger
Ours to exalt our Mother and He son
Ladycrucians let lives re-echo

With example’s pealing thunder;
So rest forever life enjoying
Safe in the embrace of God’s eternal arms

Pray we now our Mother of Queen and Sorrow,

Pray our Father that our souls are ransomed
Pray we now are souls once ransomed
Shine with the Paraclete’s resplendent light.

E.A.R.

Multitasking Granny

Hi Guys

Just to let you know that you have a multitasking Mum/Granny. She is doing the blog while making pancakes for lunch.

Dad/Grampa is worried that we won't get lunch, and wireless mouse will be served instead!!!!!

BENIGHTED GRANNY

Robert is helping me while I cook pancakes.

How Trevor nearly died

That'll be how Trevor the older nearly died and this is probably not the only occasion when he nearly died. I imagine that he came close to it several times when he drove round on that big motorbike. Anyway, this occurred when I was about 18, so Trevor must have been about 20 (1973 - ancient history!) and we had just learnt to hang-glide. The sport was in its infancy then. The machines we were flying had a glide angle at best of about 1 in 5 (you go 1m down for every 5m that you go forwards). The flying speed was about 18-28 mph. (As a comparison, proper gliders have glide angles better than 1 in 50, so a hang-glider flies like a brick). In order to stay airborne we looked for a steep hill with the wind blowing on to it at between 18 and 28 mph. If it was a bit stronger, you would just go backwards which could be quite dangerous. Well actually the whole thing was very dangerous, but also a huge thrill.

That summer we decided to go on a hang-gliding holiday and explore the hills of Devon and Cornwall. Trevor had a London black cab at the time, and he drove it down with the hang-gliders on the roof and me in the back like a lord. Soon we found some deserted cliffs on the North coast of Devon. The wind was blowing straight off the sea. We stood on the edge of the cliff, where the wind seemed fairly calm, and stuck our hands out over the edge. The wind was rushing up the face of the cliff and your hand was nearly blown away. It seemed ideal. We set up or hang-gliders in the relatively calm air at the top of the cliff. It fell on me to go first. This had its pros and cons. Pro: you have somebody to help you off; con: you’re the guinea pig. When you go over the edge the nose of the glider will get lifted first. You need to be very quick otherwise you risk doing a somersault.

Off I went and I immediately shot up like a rocket. I flew around for a bit while I half got over my adrenalin rush. Hang gliding is the most terrific rush. I was about to get another different sort of rush. It was very easy to fly and the view was magnificent. Then I had a look around for Trevor. I checked the top of the cliff and the flying zone around me. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I was beginning to think that he had flown away somewhere. I heard a faint cry through the howling wind. I still couldn’t see him. Then I saw him, with his hang-glider, pinned to the cliff face about 20 meters from the top. If the wind had suddenly dropped, he and his glider would have tumbled down the cliff to the rocks 200m below.

I knew I couldn’t land on the cliff top because of the wind rotor effect, so I flew down as quickly as I could and landed on the beach by the lapping waves. There I had a dilemma. Should I abandon my precious glider and help Trevor as quickly as possible or should I dismantle it a bit and move it to safety? I could see Trevor clearly and he seemed to be firmly stuck where he had crashed. So I very

quickly made my glider secure and ran up the beach. There was a building there with a few people in it and my arrival on the beach had caused a bit of a stir. They emerged from the building and I babbled fairly incoherently at them and pointed at Trevor, stuck on the cliff. Luckily they were level headed folk, they had a long rope and a few of them started to run up a small path to the top of the cliff. I returned to my glider and made it properly safe, then I followed the men up the cliff path and arrived at the top puffing and wheezing. The men had already got a two ropes down to Trevor. They pulled him up on one and the wrecked hang-glider on the other. By that time there was a helicopter buzzing rather uselessly above us and an ambulance and police arrived. Trevor was carted off to hospital and I cleared up his crumpled hang-glider. A couple of hours later I drove his taxi to the hospital (he never let me drive it before – hee hee), stopped to buy some whisky on the way and found him looking pretty chirpy and unscathed on a bed. We were allowed to leave the hospital in a couple of hours and we abandoned the holiday. Well, we only had one hang-glider so it was getting pointless.

I have described all this from my point of view. My understanding of Trevor’s take off and crash is that he didn’t go off the cliff fast or straight enough. This is understandable, he had nobody to help him and the hang-glider was being buffeted about by the gusty wind. As he took off one wing of the hang-glider got lifted more than the other and the glider went into an uncontrollable turn, while still moving forward. Very quickly it was going straight at the cliff and bang!

I still get guilty about my procrastination on the beach. I have discussed it with Trevor and he thinks I did the right thing. What a sport he is!

The first picture is a bit of a fake. It is of me about 20 years later flying a different hang-glider in a different country.

Granny's computer

Robert has shown the greatest amount of patience and got me this far. He goes back to London to-night so look-out all of you for cries of help. Love to you all Mum.

Mum and Dad are on the blog

Mum has just phoned me to ask how to post a message on the brothers' blog, since Rob has just set them ( I think Mum AND DAD!!) properly on the net. I successfully explained the process to Mum and she was very pleased.

Then she asked me to let everyone know that she is connected and that all messages must be CLEAN. I immediately told her that the first rule of the blog, created and laid down by the mighty George was that all messages must be clean in case G & G read them. So she said the second rule is that all messages must be spelt correctly, so I assured her that a very high standard of spelling, grammar and punctuation had so far been maintained.

Finally she asked me to inform the world that her new email address is grannyandgrampa@gmail.com

I hope I've got all of that right.

This weekend I have moved out of the bedsit on the ground floor, back into my refurb-ed office. The wind is howling outside and I am in shirtsleeves feeling perfectly normal. What a change!

i before e except after c

a few days with mum and dad

Mum and Dad came to stay in Somerset with us from Wednesday to Saturday last week. We invited them to stay in the local hotel since we are still camping on the ground floor while our first floor refurbishment continues. Mum was quite keen to join in the camping experience and sleep in the dormitory with the children but luckily Dad prevailed on her to stay in comfort at the Walnut Tree Hotel. They had just spent a great weekend at Jacobs with George and co.

They were both in great form and enjoyed fitting into our upside down lives for a few days. Mum came to watch Imo in a hockey match in which she was captain of the team. Now M&D are in Germany.

I am glad to say that our building work has definitely got some light showing at the end of the tunnel. The heating was switched on last week. Boiling hot water flows from taps when expected. Three rooms were carpeted yesterday and we will get the boys sleeping in their new rooms this Saturday. The third room to be carpeted was my office so I hope to move my desk and computer etc out of the 'bedsit' this weekend. We will be mightily relieved to start returning to normal.

Jacobs is still standing

Ruth, Trevor, Gavin, Alex and I went down to Jacobs on Saturday. It's still standing and Granny and Grandpa are as hale and hearty as ever. We got lost on the way there. Alex drove his Range Rover down and asked me if the M20 was the right way. I said yes without thinking and he took my advice, oops. So we had a scenic ride (two sat navs and 4 back seat drivers) and arrived for a late tea, closely followed by dry martinis. How Alex managed to drive so calmly I do not know.

On Sunday we did some serious walking and inspected the Vinehall Berlin wall. We took the famous path from the five turnings to the reservoir where you have to walk on the wrong side of the wall, because they built it on Grandpa's territory. Then you come to that impressive gate, you can see Trevor helping Gavin to climb over and Alex observing at a safe distance. Alex took the sensible way through.

From the Brandenburg Gate we found our way to the reservoir. Being winter, it is easy to walk through the woods. On the way back we followed a path, which I have rarely seen. It is now equipped with two magnificent wooden bridges provided by some East Sussex council quango. It peters out when you leave reservoir land, but (in winter) you are almost in sight of a camouflaged hut. Granny says that it belongs to the neighbours. We found a gas heater and an empty crate of Waitrose wine when we peeked  inside it.

Behind it you can almost see the fields tha take you straight back to Jacobs, except that there is an impassable hedge, so you have to walk along it to find a gap.

When we got back for a delicious lunch Ruth was awake! After lunch we went to inspect a tree that Grandpa is chopping up/down. Well actually, it's a huge branch off a tree. Ruth was able to walk by this time, and Trevor stayed behind reading Tintin and Asterix. Granny gave us the job of burying a (dead) chicken, which had been languishing in the bin shed. We gave it a ceremonious burial and sang a dirge. Gavin made a video which I don't have yet, so I cant't post it here, but its probably blasphemous or something so that's OK. You can see Gavin digging the grave and Alex looking on, no doubt figuring out a much better way to do it. Note his excellently suitable clothing.

There is another pet dog grave in on Alex's right (not in picture). It got a better cross than the chicken. Quite the graveyard.

Gödel's incompleteness theorem

Melvyn Bragg's program 'In Our Time' on Radio 4 (Thursday's 9am) is an endless source of fascination. Last week it was the story how ancient Greek manuscripts were translated into Arabic in the 900's and eventually came back to Europe 200 years later. Some of them were still used as medical texts 100 years ago. And today it was the turn of Gödel. He is more modern. A brilliant mathematician called David Hilbert and a whole team of brais were trying to prove that number theory (1+1=2 etc) was consistent. They were slaving away for 30 years when Gödel popped up and proved that they were wasting their time.

1) You cannot prove that there are no contradictions in number theory.

2) There are true statements about numbers that you can never prove are true.

Poor old Hilbert never published anything on the subject again. You can listen to the program here.

Gödel also discovered a rotating universe solution to Einstein's theory of general relativity where time travel is possible - let's hope the universe is rotating!

Comment
It all sounds very interesting, but I'm not sure I have a clue. But, mostly, I dislike Melvyn Bragg. Probaly put off then by the 1st 2 words!
Posted by: Paul | October 10, 2008 at 03:14 PM

Alice's wedding and photos

Hi everyone,

my feet have only just touched the ground after the wedding, the day was amazing and we went straight off on honeymoon the next day. I started law college the day after I got back from honeymoon in sri lanka (11 hours after I got back, actually), have also started a job with a law firm, and we are finally moving for definite on friday week.

I will be including some of the photographer's photos in everyone's thankyou letters, although you will have to wait a little while for those, as he is out of the country until friday.

In the mean time, he has posted a few of the pictures (although by no means all of them as he got through at least 3 memory cards on the day) on his website :

www.davidtett.com/Events [no longer exists, 2017]

For those of you who couldn't make it because of various plane, work, or broken-bone related incidents, bad luck, you missed a great party, but I hope to catch up with you soon

Love to all

Alice x

Noilly Prat spray gun

I have discovered a new bar 2 minutes walk from my house. It's called Cafe Einstein (there's a chain), it's stylish and a bit pricey by Berlin standards. A friend and I had a drink there and were told they have a fabulous cocktail bar upstairs. We had to try it and I ordered dry martinis. They were good. To top it off the barman has a Noilly Prat spray gun (pictured, and click on it to see the spray). You know that Grampa says that you should only wave the Noilly Prat bottle over the glass. Well I guess that a little spray of NP would be about the same.

COMPLAINTS:

1) Trevor, you have not blogged about the Tintin play in Oxford. It's never too late.

2) Nobody has blogged about Alice's wedding. Granny wrote me a lovely letter about it "nobody was drunk" I find that hard to believe... Photos please.
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Ruths party -- PICTURES

As some of you may know Ruth was the grand old age of 27 last 30th Aug. She had told me that the party started at 7pm. Trevor came for a drink and dinner in Vauxhall then he, Alex, Gavin, Alexander and I arrived at the party in Hackney at 8. Carolyn was already waiting outside the pub. It was locked and dark. A man with keys arrived after about 5 minutes and let us in. Ruth came about 30 minutes after that!!!

It got off to a slow start, but was busy and very good fun from about 9. Lots of Ruths lovely crazed friends were there. Kieran, Nick, Megan, Tim, Holly, Lizzie, Kemi … It ended at 3am and I got to sleep about 6am. I proceeded to Suffolk where David and Camilla cured my hangover with lovely dry martinis. See you all next Saturday!

Alice's Hen Do

Much fun was had at Alice's hen do on Saturday. We met on Tooting Bec common, under a very cold and grey sky, where we had the first half of the festivities - sports day.

This involved relay, egg and spoon, and three-legged races, a lot of drinking, some eating and a lot more cat-calling of joggers who looked very bemused by the 15 or so of us with our mismatch of dayglo and retro sports wear.

We were going to have a wheel-barrow race (my all-time favourite) but sadly it began to rain so we adjourned to a nearby pub, where we proceeded to confound a few more people.

In preperation for the evening section of the hen-do we went back to champion organisor Emily's flat where we ate more, drank even more and transformed ourselves into the most gorgeous bunch of 1950s prom queens ever.

And we looked absolutely fabulous. So fabulous that, when we got to the Clapham Grand, a pair of twins declared their love for Alice and tried to persuade her to run away with them. But she was having none of it!

chronic keelings

I tried to use the **MAKE A NEW POST ** prompt today using 8brothers as the member name which was a failure. So I tried Tom instead which also did not work. Then I reverted to the typepad website which i am using now and I hope it works.

We are expecting Jim and family to drop in for lunch tomorrow on their way back from Salcombe. I spoke to Jim this morning and discovered that he has broken his wrist badly and gashed his neck after falling off a ten foot wall. He was admittedly under the influence of valium which had been prescribed to relieve the pain of sciatica. Clearly being at the top of a ten foot wall was a bad plan but a friend of theirs had discovered that their boat had been washed away by the storms and thought they should try to retrieve it.

Imogen was due in hospital this week to have the first of a series of operations on her mouth to cut back her overgrown gums (general anaesthetic and overnight stay). Very annoyingly the op was cancelled the day before it was scheduled, but we hope to get her back to the hospital next Wednesday for the op. All rather tiresome.

Simon should have had his knee op by now. I hope that went well.

Has Trevor had his hip replaced? I think it was due for this week.

At the moment we are under siege from builders. We are in the process of having our first floor completely upgraded and refurbished. Also we will have a ground floor loo and shower fitted. So we have moved out of the back of the house and we are consolidating into the front rooms. We are aiming to get the ground floor cloakroom finished asap and then move everything downstairs for the front rooms and our bathroom to be re-done.

A few months of a very upside down house/life lie ahead of us. As Flora said, it will be like living in a bungalow.

love Tom
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Big sister trounces brother in mud wrestling row

After last year's stirling Keeling appearance at Secret Garden Party (Alice, Ryan, Jude, Lizzie, Ruth & Trevor) the George Keeling branch had to defend the family name alone this time.

But, as you may agree, we did our best in difficult circumstances and succeeded in making complete idiots of ourselves in true style.

For the record, Trev lost the mud wrestling (held in a purpose built pit) in a shamefully quick 15 second round. We were going to go for best of three but it was 5am, we were very tired and emotional, and Trevor realised he would be thrashed.

In other highlights, Trev lit a roaring fire under the piano players chair and tied a bemused couple to a pole (much to the amusement of the security guards - no really, they took pictures and laughed).

Ruth joined the suicide sports club (no bungee jumping or cliff skiing sadly) and took part in the world's first four-man wheelie bin downhill roll and the two-man piggy-back child's-tricycle hill dash which ended with synchronised diving into the stream. The tricycle was unhurt.
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How we nearly killed Tom

Having racked their brains how to amuse 6 pre/post pubescent public school teenagers, Granny and Grampa took us on a canal cruise on the Canal du Midi in the South of France. They had one boat, Barbar (Granny's mother) and Emma and Fanny (girl cousins) had another boat. The third and biggest boat was taken by Robert, Trevor, George, Simon, David and Tom. Tom was about 7. Jim and Paul were deemed too young and left in the care of nannies (or whatever) in London.

The scene is set. The boys boat was a pigsty. I remember cowering on my bunk to keep away from the mess in the galley. Granny sensibly refused to come on board. Trevor cunningly volunteered himself as boat cook so he didn't have to do any washing up, which was never done anyway. Canal cruises are quite boring. You proceed at a slow walking pace thrugh an endless vista of fields and trees. What could six boys do for fun? Water skiing seemed like a good idea. But there were no skis. The nexxt best thing was towing somebody behind the boat in the life saving ring. We tied a rope to it and elected Tom, as the youngest, to test it. We gathered at the back of the boat an Tom bravely jumped off in the life saving ring. I remember the rope unravelling on the water surface. Suddenly it became taut and Tom was dragged through the water with a terrific wake. His legs dragged back, the life ring tilted down and aqua planed underwater. Tom had disappeared. We could only see the taut rope disappearing into the water. Presumably he was being dragged along the bottom ot the canal.

Gulp. Gulp. Not a good look.

I dived into the water  to try to recover Tom from the bottom. The barge and Tom (still submerged) rapidly passed  me and I was left floundering. Luckily Simon had more sense. He calmly walked to the front of the barge and turned the engine off. Tom bobbed to the surface. Undamaged.
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Lizzie and friends come to Berlin

Lizzie with her fireman boyfriend James came to Berlin last weekend. They were accompanied by Kemi, Tricia, Sarah, Tarik and Greg. I met them in a restaurant in Friedrichshain near their hotel.  After that we went on to Tresor (http://www.tresorberlin.de/). Tresor has recently re-opened in a new location and Alexander and I wanted to test it. The location is fantastic. Serious industrial concrete. But its full of chavs, as Lizzie observed when we first went in. Still we had fun.

I saw them again on Sunday when they came over to Schoneberg where I live. They had done a pub crawl via the Bauhaus museum and the Reichstag. I found them in a the cheesy American cocktail bar slurping from a jug of Mohito. Then we all came back to my flat and had more drinks and a couple of rounds of racing demon. Sarah was an expert (apparently she has played at Jacobs.) James didn't get it.
Ruth commented
i wondered who that mysterious hunk was in lizzie's facebook pics! the infamous fireman.