Badminton, Big Toes and Bikes.

Last weekend the Woods family decamped to Center Parcs at Elveden Forest. We go most years and have done so since the late 1990’s. We like the familiarity of the place; we know where everything is, how it all works and we enjoy the various activities. Granted it isn’t cheap; however much you have paid, you only get your accommodation and use of the Sub-Tropical Swimming Paradise for your money. Everything else, from playing badminton or tennis; from archery to golf; from photography courses to cupcake making, costs extra. The price you pay includes no food either, so you cater for yourselves or you go to the restaurants (or, as most people do, a little of both).

A typical villa at Center Parcs

Some years ago the quality dipped; old fashioned villas, poor service and some cleanliness issues together with an inflexible pricing policy and difficulty booking activities before arrival put us off. Fortunately, Center Parcs got their act together on all of these issues. A more flexible pricing policy (we booked our stay during a "sale" period) meant that we had an Executive Lodge only a 5 minute walk from the Village Square for a very reasonable price. The villa was very well equipped (en suites to both bedrooms) with a modern kitchenette, television and DVD player and comfy furniture. Activities can now all be booked on-line before arrival and the park is clean and well maintained, and the service is generally good.

While the weather last weekend was cooler and duller than it has been of late, it was still warm enough and crucially, dry, so there was no chance of the weather spoiling our break. Don't believe the hype, despite often being described as “the holiday the weather can’t spoil,” a holiday at Center Parcs is just as susceptible to the weather as anywhere else as a lot of the activities are outdoors and no one enjoys a ten minute walk in the pouring rain to go for a meal!  Center Parcs covers about 400 acres,  some of the villas are a whole lot more than ten minutes walk from the Village Square, which is where the restaurants are and where the swimming and a whole lot of other activities take place, hence a lot of visitors bring or rent bikes. In fact, this year, for the first time ever we took our own as we have recently acquired a Brompton folding bike. The bike was ridden mostly by Val, although Sarah and Rebecca had brief goes. I however, refrained (more of which in a moment).

Val, with bike, near one of Center Parc's lakes.

At one point I thought that I might be refraining from the whole holiday, as the day before we departed I accidentally kicked a concrete step so hard that I thought that I had broken my toe. Actually, for all I know I did break it, since a couple of years ago I broke a small bone in my hand and when I had it x-rayed, was told that I had broken my hand before, something of which I was completely unaware. So anyway, my toe had turned an interesting shade of purple and was extremely uncomfortable, causing me to walk with a limp-cum-hobble sort of gait, grimacing every now and then and generally grumbling about the discomfort. Despite this I managed to play badminton and tennis, albeit from a more static position than normal. I decided that swimming, where I have a habit of stubbing my toe anyway, was probably unwise, so I stayed away from the pool (sorry, Sub-Tropical Swimming Paradise) and the rapids.

The source of some discomfort.

To return to the bike, even had my toe been in full working order, I would not have been riding. There is a popular belief that once we have learned to ride a bike, we never lose that ability. We even have a saying especially for it; “It’s just like riding a bike,” we say to suggest that a skill, any skill, once acquired, is never lost; that even after the passage of a number of years we can pick up an activity again and, with the minimum of effort, be as proficient as ever. I can honestly say that this is not the case; well, not for me anyway.

The Brompton.

On one of our early visits to Center Parcs, and having booked a villa that was a decent distance from the Village Square, we hired bikes. Now I hadn’t ridden since I was about ten years old, but I had little doubt that even after the passage of more than three decades, I would have little difficulty in picking it up again. I know that I am not renowned for my boundless optimism, but come on, how hard could it be?  When I had learned to ride as a child it had not been long before the stabilisers (training wheels) were off and I was whizzing about all over the place. As it turned out, learning to ride again was hard; very hard.

Rather than attempt to ride the bike from the Cycle Centre, I decided to push it a modest distance so that I didn’t have an audience when I took my first, undoubtedly very wobbly, first ride in over a quarter of a century. I got on, fully anticipating a false start or two, and tried to pedal. I didn’t so much wobble as topple, hopping along the path in an ungainly and inelegant manner. I tried again: more hopping ensued, but very little pedalling. It was then that it dawned on me that cycling has four key elements: pedalling, steering, braking and balancing, and this last one, balancing, is most easily achieved while actually moving. Almost at the same time it occurred to me that I could either pedal, or brake, or steer, but could not do all three, or even two of them, simultaneously. This meant that moving and by extension, balancing, was completely out of the question.

The remainder of that holiday was spent with my bike chained up outside the villa while everyone else rode and I walked everywhere, with the occasional attempt made, more in hope than expectation, to ride. I have never since bothered to hire a bike, even when the rest of the family have.

So now we have a Brompton folding bike, bought second hand through the internet and which my wife has encouraged me to try to ride. After two or three abortive attempts, I have concluded that “It’s just like riding a bike” is literally not true as far as I am concerned. I may have another go one day, so if you see a middle aged, balding man, hopping along astride a folding bike; cursing, swearing and sweating profusely, that may well be me.

From Bognor Regis to Bandos

In recent years I have been fortunate enough to be able to holiday in such glamorous, exotic and far-flung places as Tobago, Hawaii and the Maldives. I have been on cruises to Hawaii, Scandinavia and Mediterranean Europe: my work has taken me to Hong Kong (and, more prosaically, Scotland).  Rewind back as recently as the late 1980’s however, and a day-trip to France apart, I had never been abroad and I wasn’t alone in that. Whereas in 2010, fifty five million Britons went abroad (thirty six million of them travelled abroad on holiday), in 1980 it was just seventeen million and back in 1961/62 a meagre three million. [1]

Bandos in The Maldives

In the days when I was one of the majority who didn’t travel overseas, I would usually holiday on the South Coast with my parents, either at a holiday camp or guest house. The holiday camps had their spartan chalets, fixed meal sittings, their corny entertainment and forced jollity; the guest houses had shared bathrooms and the same fixed meal sittings, but tended to lack entertainment or jollity of any kind. Guest houses required their visitors to vacate the premises shortly after breakfast and not to return until tea-time. The vagaries of the British summer meant that a holiday staying at a guest house would necessitate many a day spent dodging the rain in cafes, cinemas or gaudy amusement arcades. Glamorous and exotic these holidays were not; the fact that they were not far-flung and therefore the travelling was not too onerous was one of the few points in their favour.

Guesthouses in Blackpool

If I didn’t visit anywhere exotic or glamorous in person, I did so by proxy however, and my guide was Alan Whicker, who sadly died aged 87[2] on 12^th July this year. Whicker was immediately identifiable; the thick rimmed glasses, the moustache, the somewhat mannered delivery and his attire (suit and tie, or on less formal occasions, the blazer) that made him an easy target for parody and impersonation. Who can forget the peerless Monty Python sketch, “Whicker Island”, a parody that asked “The whole problem of Whicker Island is here in a nutshell. There are just too many Whickers.”? Whicker spoofed the parody with his retort, that there were too many millionaires to interview and too few Alan Whickers!

Whicker’s genius was his ability to bring the lifestyles of the rich and famous and the colourful locations they inhabited, into our living rooms; the living rooms of the ordinary man, in a way that did not patronise an audience who were, by and large never likely to visit these locations or meet these mega-rich and famous interviewees. By doing so he educated us, entertained us and ultimately, enriched us.  In an era when the BBC’s remit was to “inform, educate and entertain,” Whicker achieved all three with an effortless grace that is beyond the powers of many presenters today.

Today we may watch any number of documentaries in which T-shirt and shorts clad presenters, presumably with the “edgy” approach so beloved of documentary makers these days, visit faraway settings; they scuba dive, abseil or climb mountains, interact with the locals but ultimately fail to engage us in the same way that Alan Whicker did. Admittedly Whicker worked in a different time; a time when Bali or Hawaii or Hong Kong were beyond the reach or budget of most of us, but whereas now we may watch a travel documentary and know that the destination is within our reach, his programmes were so much more aspirational.

The instantly recognisable Alan Whicker in his natural habitat, the equally recognisable Hong Kong.

Whicker’s programmes went beyond the travelogue however. He interviewed the great and the good (and the not so good), among them Joan Collins, Peter Sellers, the Sultan of Brunei and the Haitian president Papa Doc Duvalier. There was a hard, journalistic edge to his programmes that made them more than merely entertainment and which many of today’s travel documentaries lack. Whicker noted that, when interviewing Papa Doc, he asked the dictator questions that no Haitian would dare do. The dictator, far from taking offense (or worse), apparently joked with him.

While we now may still not necessarily have the opportunity to meet the famous or rich, we are much more likely to have the chance to visit the sort of places that Whicker presented from. The world has shrunk, thanks to affordable air travel and package holidays, but we owe a lasting debt of gratitude to a man who brought these places into our homes, who made us curious about these places and gave us the urge to travel to them and to savour them.

There have been times, for instance when sitting on the terrace of a Maldivian hotel sipping a cold drink, I have thought of Alan Whicker. The next time I have the opportunity to do so in such a location, I will raise a glass of something cold, bubbly and expensive in toast to the man who beyond all others, was king of the travel documentary, the man who made us aspire to holidays beyond the dubious delights of a guest-house on the South Coast!

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[1] Source: Office for National Statistics.

[2] Some sources are of the opinion that Whicker “lost” a few years from his age and was in fact 91 when he died.

"I'm on the phone!"

A story emerged last week about a woman who was refused service in her local Sainsbury’s supermarket because she was talking on her mobile phone, (see here for the full story). In a nutshell, Jo Clarke, 26, was at the Sainsbury’s branch in Crayford, south-east London, when she was ordered to hang up before she would be served. According to Ms Clarke, it was implied by the unnamed Sainsbury’s employee that it was company policy not to serve customers who were on their phones. Sainsbury’s later said that they had no such policy, apologised to Ms Clarke and offered her some vouchers. Following an outbreak of outrage on Twitter, Facebook and the like, Sainsbury’s have decided not to discipline the unnamed assistant, although presumably have not rescinded their voucher offer to Ms Clarke.

As with all stories like this that make the newspapers, it probably isn’t quite as simple as it first appears. It is not in dispute that Ms Clarke was talking on her mobile; it is not in dispute that the cashier asked her to end her call before she would be served. It is not in dispute that Sainsbury’s do not have a policy of refusing service to customers who are using their phones. What we do not appear to know however, is the tone of the exchange between the Sainsbury’s employee and Ms Clarke.  Was the cashier rude? Was Ms Clarke condescending towards the cashier? We don’t know and in some ways it doesn’t matter, because the bigger truth that comes out of the story, if we didn’t already know it, is that mobile phones have become so all pervasive in our lives that many people are completely addicted to them, and their use of them in certain situations provokes quite strong reactions in other people.

Telephone etiquette is interesting and there are lots of different opinions on the matter. One of my bugbears, and this applies to all phones, not just mobile phones, comes when I am dealing face to face with someone and their phone rings. Inevitably they will answer their phone, leaving me to stew while they attend to the person on the other end of the phone. If the matter that the call is about is more important, then perhaps this is acceptable, otherwise it is queue jumping and in my view, plain rude of them to deal with the caller at my expense. Oddly, if were they on the phone and I tried to interrupt them, I’d likely get short shrift and they would continue with their call. A phone call, it seems, is always more important than a face-to-face conversation.

"Look, I've got a phone! Must shout to make myself heard!"

Debrett’s have a section on mobile phone etiquette on their website: It may be a little quaint in places and blindingly obvious in others, but it is worth a read. Particularly apposite to the matter which prompted me to write this, it says “Don't carry on mobile phone calls while transacting other business - in banks, shops, on buses and so on. It is insulting not to give people who are serving you your full attention.”

I suppose that in many ways I sympathise with the Sainsbury’s employee in Ms Clarke’s case, although they perhaps were a bit officious in refusing service until the call was ended, because unless the phone call was really important, there was no reason why it could not be ended or at least interrupted, while the transaction at the till took place. It is discourteous to the cashier and other shoppers patiently waiting to be served, to continue the call and likely delay matters. As an example, I was recently in the queue in the Post Office and in front of me was a young woman who was on the phone. She continued her conversation when she got to the counter (she was posting a parcel). The counter clerk took the parcel, affixed the stamp and charged the customer, who then asked, “Is that guaranteed delivery tomorrow?” “No,” replied the counter clerk, “you didn’t ask for that.” “Well, I want it delivered tomorrow,” the customer responded. So the original transaction was cancelled and a new one conducted, inconveniencing the counter clerk and holding up the other customers and all because the young lady’s telephone conversation was apparently more important than giving the face to face transaction her full attention.

A lot has been written about people using their phones on trains and a lot of the conversations I used to have no option but to listen to when I was a commuter were pretty inconsequential, but obviously people have every right to talk to other people on their phone when they are on the train, but I admit that I found it annoying, because I could not seem to tune them out. Two people sitting opposite me and chatting away I could ignore and concentrate on reading my book; somehow, however I could not seem to ignore the person on the phone. OK, it is more my problem than theirs, but it perhaps explains why I do not like talking on the phone when I am on a bus or a train; I just want to get the conversation out of the way because I feel that it will be aggravating other passengers who have to hear it, which means I can come across as a trifle brusque. (If you ever phone me and I appear a little terse, then I’m probably on public transport and feeling a little self-conscious).   

Another thing that riles me is people playing music through the speaker on their phones. Have you noticed that it is never music you yourself would listen to? Why do they have to play it so loud? And why can’t these people use headphones?

I suppose that I should not be too sanctimonious on the matter as I am something of a fidget with my own mobile. When I worked and had a company BlackBerry, I would check it frequently and with both it and my personal mobile I suffer the phantom call/text/email syndrome whereby I am frequently sure it has rung or bleeped and have to check it only to find that there was no incoming message or call.

While there is no doubt that mobile phones are now integral to most people’s lives and, for many people essential, we all probably know one or two people who don’t have them and don’t we consider them eccentric?  

The last working phone box in England continues to do a roaring trade.

Life was simpler before mobile phones, but those of us of certain age will remember searching for a public telephone in an emergency, how we would be stranded on a broken down train unable to let friends or family know we were safe but delayed and we wouldn’t want to return to those days, but perhaps we all ought to remember that mobile phones should be a means to an end; they should not end up ruling our lives and their convenience to us should not be an inconvenience to others.

My Intolerance

Between 1% and 2% of the British population suffer from a food allergy: estimates suggest that up to 20% have, or believe that they have, a food intolerance. Symptoms of allergies tend to appear within minutes of consuming a particular food; they can be provoked by even very small amounts of the particular foodstuff and in extreme cases may be life threatening. They can, however be easily diagnosed by testing. Intolerances on the other hand tend to be slow to appear and very rarely life threatening. Larger portions are required to cause a reaction and I can vouch for the fact that intolerances are much more difficult to diagnose than allergies. 

The symptoms of allergies and intolerances are different too.  Allergies can provoke itchy sensations in the mouth, throat and ears; urticaria (hives, or nettle rash) or angrioedema (swellings to face, lips, and tongue among other sites). In extreme cases, allergies may cause anaphylaxis, which can be fatal if not treated immediately. Intolerances, on the other hand more usually cause symptoms like stomach cramps, eczema, fatigue and diarrhoea.[1]

A problem with both allergies and intolerances may be diagnosis, unless the allergy is severe and medical treatment is required; in my experience a fairly routine allergy or intolerance will not be taken particularly seriously by your doctor, who may merely suggest that you to keep a food diary and then eliminate the problem food from your diet. Private testing is expensive and can be fairly generalised in terms of identifying the specific cause of an allergy.

At about the age of seven, I could not have eaten this.

I have twice suffered food allergies. Once, when I was very young, I developed an allergy to fish and then, when I was in my twenties, became allergic to chicken and other poultry. The chicken allergy was mysterious and difficult to identify at first. It began one summer and was exhibited by the appearance of wheals (raised areas of skin), usually around my rib-cage, which were hot, red and incredibly itchy. At first I thought this might be a reaction to insect bites, but after a while different symptoms appeared. These included swollen fingers and hands: on one occasion my wrist swelled up so alarmingly that it threatened to engulf my wristwatch.

It was only when, one Christmas and after a purely coincidental period of abstinence from eating poultry during which I had not suffered any of the symptoms, I suffered a reaction and concluded that poultry was the cause of my allergy. It was therefore fairly easy to control the problem by simply not eating chicken or turkey. Generally this was easy to achieve, although I did suffer a severe swelling of my upper lip one time after eating what was allegedly a beef paste sandwich. Close inspection of the list of ingredients revealed that the beef paste contained “other meats” of which one was presumably chicken, hence the reaction I suffered. This does beg the question of whether we always know what goes into our foods, a topic I touched on in a previous blog (“Little Bags of Mystery”).

In my twenties, this would have caused me real problems.

Like the fish allergy I had suffered as a child, the poultry allergy eventually went of its own accord, which I discovered when I accidentally picked up a chicken and bacon sandwich in Marks & Spencer. I only noticed this when I got back to work and as it was raining, could not be bothered to go back and change the sandwich, so I ate it anyway. There was no adverse reaction; the allergy had gone.

Nowadays I seem to have developed an intolerance; it may be a gluten intolerance, it may be a wheat intolerance (it may be something else entirely), because as we know, food intolerances are quite difficult to diagnose. I am not convinced that my intolerance is to wheat; I can eat normal pasta quite happily, but some shop bought sauces, which usually contain wheat flour can sometimes, but not always, cause a reaction.

 What I do know is that when I suffer a reaction I will wake up in the early hours of the morning (oddly, normally at 1.30 a.m.  give or take a few minutes),  feeling at first uncomfortable and usually with a metallic taste in my mouth, this is followed by painful stomach cramps and sweats, then diarrhoea. Fortunately this episode usually passes quite quickly, although it can be very painful; this week, for instance, I had a particularly violent reaction, I think it was to a shop bought cooking sauce, to the point where I near as damn it passed out.

On other occasions the symptoms are less obvious, and not physical:  I have been told, and have sometimes noticed myself, mood changes and irritability that may occur, usually if I have eaten bread.

There are now many more people with wheat or gluten intolerance, or people who suffer from the more debilitating and more serious celiac disease and I cannot help feeling that modern bread making methods may be to blame. Because I can sometimes eat bread, or other foods containing wheat or gluten without any problem it may be that some of bread’s other ingredients, ingredients we are not even aware of, may be to blame or it may be the baking process itself that is responsible.

In 1961, the Chorleywood bread process was developed by the British Baking Industries Research Association. This intense, mechanical working of the dough reduced the fermentation period and time taken to produce the loaf. Instances of yeast and gluten intolerances have undoubtedly increased in the years since 1961; it is difficult to believe that this is a coincidence. In addition there are ingredients in modern bread that legislation does not require listing on packaging. These include amylase, which can cause asthma, and calcium propionate, which may be responsible for some cases of eczema and some behavioural problems in children.

Is this making us ill?

It is frustrating for me that I cannot pin down the exact cause of my food intolerance; it makes it quite difficult to decide whether or not I should avoid certain foods and I am sure there are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK who suffer similarly. Whether the 20% figure is accurate or not, there certainly seem to be more people suffering food allergies and intolerances these days. If you are one of them, or indeed if a member of your family is, I sympathise.

If you are interested in learning more about gluten intolerance, I recommend the following article, my reading which was the reason for this week’s blog: The Whole GLUTEN Story-With The Science.

http://bodytypenutrition.co.uk/blog/the-whole-gluten-story-with-the-science/

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[1] See http://www.allergyuk.org/home/home for detailed information on allergies and intolerances, and their causes and symptoms.