Unconnected Rambling

Feeling unwell (permanent mild hangover without the drinking, prob dehydration) and tired: going to the Proms every night and cycling all the way home after a quick drink in ICU takes it out of you, and watching an episode of Buffy every night when I finally reach home probably isn't that bright. Tuesday was a godawful load of old rubbish with the BBC Pops (aka the BBC Concert Orchestra) which I should have given a miss. Evening not improved by a very near-miss on the bike. I use the road inside Hyde Park (which includes a cycle lane) to go home from the Albert Hall to Hyde Park Corner (then Constitution Hill, the Mall and on through central London) as it's less busy than the parallel road outside the park. It's unlit of course, and for some reason cars -I suspect chauffeurs- occasionally park along it, in the cycle lane of course. Those cars that do use it at that time, mainly taxis, tend to race along it as they do with Constitution Hill and the Mall, so you still want to keep in as much as possible of course. Cycling along, lights on et al, move out to go past one of these... and at the last minute he cheerfully swung his door wiiiide open....

I didn't actually know I had good enough reactions and instinct to do that kind of emergency stop. Only real damage was caused by my fairly sturdy bike to his nice shiny Mercedes, as the taxi behind me just missed me and the bike. Lost yet another pair of sunglasses though, the case must have fallen out of my pocket.

Still, last night we had a pretty good Shostakovich Violin Concerto and Brahms 4 (Leila Josefowicz and the CBSO), and then a gorgeous late night Monteverdi & c. affair with John Eliot Gardener, Monteverdi Choir, and co. Not sure about Sir John's black silk shirt with lime green cuffs though.

Could do with a night off to be honest... but it's Mahler 4...

And We Invaded Iraq Because...

The Court of Appeal has granted permission to claim judicial review of the refusal by the Government to hold an independent inquiry into the circumstances which led to the invasion of Iraq. R (Gentle & Others) v. Prime Minister, Secretary of State for Defence, and Attorney General [2005] EWHC 3119 (Admin.)

This is far from the end of the road of course, this is neither the Public Inquiry itself nor even the substantive JR hearing, merely leave for there to be a JR hearing into why there wasn't an inquiry (a stage designed, in theory, to weed out cases with no legal merit), and the Court hinted the chances of success were slim. Still, could be fun, and they are clearly going to have to consider legality of the war. The substantive hearing of the Review application is going to the same chamber of the CA, rather than back to the High Court, which is rather curious. Means that appeal against the outcome of the review itself will be straight to the Lords.

The applicants are relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq.

Oh Great

So the storm hits now, just as I'm about to cycle to South Ken.