Fleapit revisited:Together.

Lockdown was a new experience to almost everybody. But that is not to say it was the same experience for everybody. Some people were locked down in large houses with large gardens and surrounded by loving family members. Others, like me, were locked down alone in a flat with no garden and nobody around (except those on the end of the phone or on Zoom). But the people who had it worse, in my view, were those who were forced to stay in properties with people, partners, they no longer loved.

Some of those relationships would have been abusive and cruel. Others would have simply been unhappy or discontent and director Stephen Daldry's Together (BBC2/iPlayer), perhaps wisely, focused on an imagined example of the latter rather than the former. The couple involved, simply listed as 'he' (James McAvoy) and 'she' (Sharon Horgan), lived in a nice middle class house with well stocked cupboards and fridge with their ten year old son (Artie Logan) who, we learn, refuses to eat anything except aubergine katsu curry.

Despite their comfortable lives, all is not rosy. He's a Tory (but one who voted for Tony Blair) who loves Rishi Sunak, a wealthy self-made man who boasts about his E-Class Benz, slags off 'virtue signalling' and people who eat chicken nuggets, thinks everything is about profit, and doesn't agree with "most refugees" on "principal".

She's a borderline socialist, a Corbynista even, who works for a charity helping those very refugees. She's rarely seen not in cardigan and/or dungarees and her mum, we discover, had links to the Angry Brigade and used to read little Artie Das Kapital in his cot. Both Horgan and McAvoy are, of course, as brilliant in their roles as they always are.

Starting on 24th March last year, to the strains of Supertramp's Breakfast in America and those now all too familiar apocalyptic news bulletins, writer Dennis Kelly sketches out their journey over one year of on/off lockdown. How they reevaluate both their relationship and their lives. Much wine is drunk, much beer is drunk, and much tea is drunk. They eat meals, they moan about WhatsApp, Instagram, and Twitter (but remain addicted, of course), and they bicker almost endlessly.

But, beneath that, there is still some residual fondness between them and even, grudgingly articulated, some mutual respect. After a fashion, there is even a resumption of their presumably long abandoned sex life. Even if both parties agree that the love making has become "purely contractual", enjoyably functional.

When Together began, I felt the constant breaking of the fourth wall would be a problem for me. That it would be too knowing, too arch, and too pleased with itself. But as the drama developed I barely noticed it. It just became an effective method of telling their story and, in fact, was what it made it work.

I'd also, incorrectly, imagined Together to be a comedy (perhaps because of Horgan's appearance) but although there were a few laugh out loud lines (she to he:- "you've got the same level of charm as diarrhoea - in a pint glass", a story about his surprise birthday treat for her - mushroom picking in the "New Fucking Forest") they served more as accurate observations on life during a pandemic, or in a parlous relationship, when humour becomes a vital tool for helping us negotiate our way through it.

It wasn't the only well turned observation. We see them stockpile toilet roll, we see that well stocked fridge covered with Artie's drawings of rainbows and "THANK YOU NHS" slogans, and we see them decorate the Christmas tree for what, like most of us last year, would have been a pared down and lonelier than normal festive season.

We also hear them complain about the scandalous lack of PPE in care homes and that time when the official advice was to not wear masks. Together pulls no punches when it comes to illustrating some of the most upsetting episodes of the pandemic. We hear stories of people given fifteen minutes to say goodbye to a loved one, people watching their parents die on FaceTime via a mobile phone propped up on a chair next to a hospital bed, and people dying completely alone.

As In The Bleak Midwinter is movingly sung, via Zoom, during the bleakest of midwinters, Together does not hold back when it comes to naming those who are directly to blame for not mitigating the worst of the Covid pandemic in the UK. One incisive, and impassioned, speech from Horgan's character makes it very clear that the one week delay in lockdown (when Boris Johnson was still boasting of shaking everyone's hand having, it is believed, refused to read any of his briefing notes on the virus) cost the country approximately twenty thousand extra deaths.

A lethal repeat of this mistake towards the end of 2020 probably resulted in tens of thousands more. There is righteous and correct anger at our government's, the government of Boris Johnson that many in my family actually voted for, fatal negligence and it is spelt out very clearly that many of the victims of the pandemic didn't so much die as they were killed by an uncaring government.

The UK still has the seventh highest death toll on the entire planet (behind the US, Brazil, India, Mexico, Peru, and Russia) and the government that ensured that death toll was so high are still in power. While I came away from Together hoping that 'he' and 'she' would resolve their differences (or split up amicably for the sake of Artie), I also came away from it feeling that the differences between right thinking, and caring, people and the current British administration can only be resolved by that government's removal from power. It probably won't happen and further tragedies will be played out on the British public. Elsewhere in the world, they'll wonder why we do it to ourselves. The relationship between McAvoy and Horgan's characters may have been sour but it was not abusive. The relationship between the British government and the British people, sadly, is.

Sisters of Mercy:This Way Up S2.

Aisling Bea's second series of the wonderful This Way Up begins, roughly, where the first one left off but it ends, necessarily, in a world of approaching lockdown, people in masks, and television news readers reading stories about coronavirus. 

To some, this imposition of reality may seem a step too far but This Way Up always feels a very real, and very heartfelt, show. Set against an instantly recognisable London backdrop of rainy streets, number 27 buses, William Hill bookies, beeping car horns, Subways, Desert Island Discs on taxi radios, and faceless steel and glass office blocks (sometimes even easily identifiable locations come in to view:St Pancras International, King's Road, and, even, without being exploitative, the Grenfell Tower), the characters, too, feel utterly believable.

In all their hopes, dreams, desires, faults, silliness, and anxieties. Aine (Bea herself) has finally got round to dating widower Richard (Tobias Menzies), the daughter of her language pupil Etienne (Dorian Grover), and it's all going well. They get on well, they make each other laugh, and they clearly fancy the pants off each other. But Richard has one small problem. His penis. His grieving penis. His soft grieving penis.

Although he's more than able to compensate in other ways, Aine wants him to feel the same pleasure as she gets from him. But is a sexy dance routine to Peaches 'Fuck the Pain Away' really the answer? Aine's teaching career, too, is going well and her colleague James (Ekow Quartey) is even offering her in on a new business venture.

Aine's sister, Shona (Sharon Horgan), is doing okay on both the personal and the business front. Or at least it seems so on the surface. She's moved out to the sticks to a massive, architecturally impressive, house with a huge garden and, best of all, heated floors with her partner Vish (Aasif Mandvi) and their marriage is looming. 

Shona is looking forward to marrying Vish but she can't quite shake the affair she had with her business partner Charlotte (Indira Varma) out of her head - and Charlotte most definitely can't. Claiming she'd "rather be set fire to in a bin" than attend the ceremony. While Vish is away in New York for work, Shona sits around her big empty house fantasising about Charlotte - and biscuits.

These scenes of realistically portrayed listlessness are juxtaposed with several genuinely moving moments. An unexpected hug from Etienne for Aine as he leaves for France, a tearful taxi ride home after overhearing a heartbreaking conversation, and a late night biscuit delivery. Which is not a euphemism. More than anything, a shock phone call from the rehab centre that is acted out as subtly as it is powerfully.

But it's not without laughs either. Eileen (Sorcha Cusak), as before, gets more than her fair share. She talks about wearing a tricolour sari to Shona and Vish's wedding and boasts that she has "survived a war - the Vietnam war". Some of the jokes could make milder mannered viewers blush. At one point a bout of enthusiastic cunnilingus is described as "panic eating a melting ice cream".

It is to Bea and her cast's credit that she mixes these silly jokes in with a genuinely touching drama in which you can't help but care what happens to the lead characters. More than funny one liners, there are amusing scenes of Aine consisting on a diet of lettuce, waffles, wine, and gin and Ricky Grover makes a winning reappearance as Tom, Aine's friend from rehab, too.

Credit should also be given to Kadiff Kirwan as Aine's flatmate Bradley, Ambreen Razia as Bradley's girlfriend Emma, Sophie Stone as Julie, Shona's secretary, and Oengus MacNamara (Pat) and Lorraine Ashbourne as Marcia. But mostly it goes to Horgan and, of course, Bea. We see the two sisters take saunas and play bodhrans and discuss the concept of men using vaginas like "warm, wet, garages to store their unhappiness".

The bond between them is so tight that when there is breach, or perceived breach of trust, between them it is one of This Way Up's most affecting moments. It's perhaps only topped by Aine's emotional speech in a pub toilet that jumps seamlessly from bathos to pathos in one sentence and loses absolutely nothing in doing so. In fact, that speech and that scene was, for me, emblematic of the whole series which manages to look at mental health and anxiety in a kind and thoughtful way but didn't forget to make some jokes along the way. Because, in my experience, that is how life is lived. Magnificent.

Kakistocracy XX:It's Coming Home, It's Coming Home.

It's coming home. Sadly, for a brilliant young England football team, though - what's coming home is not football. What's coming home (to roost) is the division intentionally sought by the kakistocracy of Boris Johnson and his cabinet of crooks, cronies, and incompetents.

It's coming home in the form of racist chanting, violent altercations, and the booing of the national anthems of friendly rival nations. It's coming home in reports of Danish and Italian fans at Wembley being threatened, spat at, and abused. It's coming home in reports of Lando Norris, the F1 driver, being mugged at the stadium, and it's coming home in reports of disabled fans being terrified during a match that should have been one of the best days of our life.

Most of all, it's coming home in the racist abuse that three young black players - Marcus Rashford (23), Jadon Sancho (21), and Bukayo Saka (19) - received after missing their penalties against Italy in Sunday night's Euro 2020 final. 

Though the undercurrent of violence has long been there on the terraces and in the stadiums, and most definitely in the realms of social media where it is amplified, it has never been juiced so intentionally as it has by this current administration. Tyrone Mings - the England and Aston Villa defender used words far more eloquent than any managed by any opposition politician to reply to Priti Patel's tweet about the racism and violence witnessed on Sunday night both online and in real life.

PATEL:I am disgusted that England players who have given so much for our country this summer have been subject to vile racist abuse on social media.

MINGS;You don't get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as 'Gesture Politics' & then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we're campaigning against, happens.

Good words, Tyrone. Patel was craven before the tournament when she not only refused to condemn fans for booing a simple five second long anti-racist action but tacitly endorsed it. She was, of course, both trying to open up yet another front in the ongoing culture war and to appease her boss, the shameless opportunist liar Boris Johnson who has a long and detailed record of saying racist things and courting the racist vote.

Equally articulate and powerful as Mings, were the words of former Man Utd and England defender Gary Neville following the defeat of Denmark in the semi-final last Wednesday. He was, ostensibly, talking about Gareth Southgate:-

NEVILLE:The standard of leaders in this country the past couple of years has been poor. Looking at that man (Southgate), he's everything a leader should be. Respectful, humble, he tells the truth".

It is, of course, everything that Boris Johnson is not. Of course, the tunes of Johnson and Patel changed as the tournament went on and England not only played well enough to lose the final by the tighest of margins but won over previously sceptical fans with not just their football but with their open, friendly, and kind personalities and their unity as a team. Spearheaded by the thoroughly decent Gareth Southgate.

That's the trouble with constantly starting culture wars. Innocent people get caught in the crossfire. Populist politicians stoke up ancient hostilities as it polls well for them in the short term. In the long term, it tends to end badly and one can only hope Johnson and Patel siding with racists and against anti-racists will, soon enough, end the same way for them as that did for Donald Trump.

Outside of the arse lickers in his cabinet, Johnson is losing even more popularity within his own party. The cuts to foreign aid he has announced, ostensibly to help pay off the furlough scheme and to help with the pandemic recovery but in reality another sop to the racists who support his party, have been opposed by every single ex-prime minister alive.

Not just Labour ones like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown but Tories like John Major, David Cameron, and Theresa May. At the same time, surely even the most loyal Johnson toady must cringe when they witness Boris Johnson pathetically try to pretend he sacked Matt Hancock long after it became obvious that Hancock's position was completely untenable and he chose to fall on his own (pork) sword.

As Johnson supporters become more embittered about these public embarrassments, they become more defensive and angrier - and lie even more. But will that help then? The English football team have shown that togetherness and unity are still prized values for a large majority of people in this country and I sense, with trepidation, a changing of the mood towards Johnson and the rabble he surrounds himself with.

After the Chesham and Amersham by-election defeat last month, the Tories failed to take (as even many in the Labour party expected - and a fair few even hoped) Batley and Spen in another by-election a fortnight ago. Labour's Kim Leadbeater, the sister of the murdered former MP for that seat Jo Cox, beat the Tory hopeful Ryan Stephenson by just over three hundred votes - which was tight.

It doesn't tell the whole story. George Galloway, laughably representing something called the Workers Party, picked up an impressive, and disturbing, 21.9% of the vote. George Galloway is the very definition of a useful idiot. He did all he could to try and get a Tory elected (and in Scotland, he is on record as having voted Tory) while pretending to represent true Labour values. He has disingenuously, and homophobically, spread a lie that teachers teaching children about diversity (some kids have a mum and dad, some have two mums, some have two dads, some have one of each, and some have neither) is somehow the same as teaching children how to have anal sex with each other.

Galloway is a homophobic scumbag, a close associate of Nigel Farage who he campaigned for Brexit with it, and a true enemy of left leaning, progressive politics. He went on to suggest that Kim Leadbeater, a Batley resident - unlike himself, was part of a 'London elite'. Friend of the murderous dictator Bashar al-Assad, Galloway is a vile, loathsome, individual who has no interest in either the Labour movement or improving the lives of the people of Batley & Spen or, indeed, anywhere else. He is a vain self-promoter who sows hate wherever he goes, he sucks up to power (witness his behaviour around Saddam Hussein and his recent meeting with Steve Bannon) and punches down to those less fortunate than him. He is like Trump and Johnson, a populist, but only less successful. His closest analogue is actually Nigel Farage (who, according to Owen Jones - no Starmer man - is an associate of Tory voting Galloway, they certainly campaigned for Brexit together). A man who can't win himself but can certainly ruin things for others and delights in making things worse. The sooner he crawls back under the rock he came from the better.

This is the problem with trying to fight against this contemptuous and cruel Tory party. There are people like Galloway aligned with them and there are a few idiots on the left who are hoodwinked by Galloway. One such person, a former associate we'll call Kev, has been abusing several friends on social media this week and it's got to the point where he's almost saying it's more Tory to vote Labour than it is to vote Tory. Kev's been like that for decades, he basically hasn't grown up, but it's got so nasty people are defriending him now - including life long friends.

Life's too short to suffer abuse. I block now as well as defriend. Especially people who ONLY offer abuse like Kev. Instead I speak to people who are kind and actually ask me about my life as well as tell me about theirs. People who seem to actually care about me rather than people who only pop their heads out from behind a parapet to call me a Tory (something you'd like to think TWENTY of these blogs would disprove) or a cunt. Since I last wrote that's included my parents, Adam, Simon, and Michelle and Evie. Evie took time out to introduce me personally to her new kitten, Tigger, and I can't wait to meet her in real life in just over a week's time.

I've been doing other things, too, to keep my spirits up and have, mostly, been succeeding. I went to Pizza Express in Notting Hill after attending a Margaret Calvert exhibition at the Design Museum, I visited the British Library to see a show about the fight for women's rights, I ran a TADS walk in Canvey Island that I really enjoyed, and me, Shep, and Pam (as well as Kathy for most of the walk) finally completed the lockdown interrupted Capital Ring walk. Ending up with a curry in Greenwich.

I enjoyed the football tournament more than I had expected to as well. I watched England v Germany in The Lucas Arms near Kings Cross with Ian, Miriam, Mike, Kathy, and Damon (although a large section of the pub crowd decided to sing the jingoistic and unpleasant Ten German Bombers song which ruined the atmosphere), I watched the second half of the Ukraine quarter-final in Benfleet (after the Canvey Island) walk with Shep, Pam, and Adam, I watched the semi against Denmark on my own in the nearby old man pub The Brockley Jack, and for the final I joined Ian, Miriam, Vicki, Chris D, Ian F, Collette, Matt, Nat, and Damon in The Priory Tavern in Kilburn.

It was a good night (and even though I stayed off the Jaegerbombs unlike some I could mention) I felt a bit sore the next day. Some of that was down to the booze, some of it was down to the cruel nature of the defeat, but some of it was down to an utter despondency that England (and it is England not the UK here - the Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish fans don't act like this) still has so many violent and racist meat heads both 'supporting' (can you honestly call that 'support'?) the team and supporting the government.

I don't want to live in the England, or the United Kingdom, these people or this government represent. One of racist abuse, smashed up and boarded up city centres, foreign aid cuts, lying Crime Ministers, and Home Secretaries that encourage racist abuse of some of the best footballers, and most charitable people, in the country

I want to live in a country where people sign petitions in their hundreds of thousands to remove racists from social media platforms, where people gather to restore Marcus Rashford murals, where football players speak up on behalf of those less fortunate than them, and where kindness wins out over cruelty every time. A country where a helping hand, and not an iron fist, is offered to those less fortunate than ourselves. A fair and free country.

I'm really happy that I live in that latter country while at the same time being terribly sad that I also live in that first one too.  It's gonna take more than some kind words and a hug from Gareth Southgate to change that - as Bukayo Saka knows only too well.

The Capital Ring:Parts XIII, XIV & XV:Stoke Newington to Woolwich (Here)

"I was dressed for success but success it never comes" - Here, Pavement.

 

When choosing the final Pavement song title for the final Capital Ring walk (three entire legs of it from Stoke Newington to Woolwich where it all began back in January last year) I couldn't make my mind up so I simply chose a favourite song. One whose sentiment, in fact, was inauthentic when considering that success in completing the Capital Ring, to go with the London LOOP, had been achieved. 

It had taken a lot longer than we had planned but then we hadn't factored in a global pandemic or two very long lockdowns in which we'd not be able to meet, let alone eat curry and visit pubs. But, we did it. We finally did it. Even if Saturday's walk did see me notch up a 2021 record of 40,690 steps (Pam managed 45,583 but her legs are shorter than mine).

I didn't even feel too knackered at the end so despite my advancing years, expanding waistline, and terrible diet the walking must be doing some good. I'd set off early on Saturday, we were due to meet at 10am, and taken the Overground from Honor Oak Park to Canonbury before walking up to The New River Cafe on the edge of Clissold Park in Stoke Newington to be served a not very photogenic plate of cheese on toast, a can of Coke, and a cup of tea from a lady in a pink Minnie Mouse sweatshirt who had clearly got out of bed the wrong side.

A pink Minnie Mouse sweatshirt is, of course, what you wear when you're in a bad mood. The cheese on toast tasted better than it looked (just) and both Shep and Pam seemed happy with their breakfasts. When Kathy joined us we were ready to get moving and headed along Stoke Newington Church Street, past a plaque for Edgar Allan Poe and several pleasant looking eateries and bars, before dipping into Abney Park Cemetery. A location that had been a feature of my Magnificent Seven trilogy of walks but one worth revisiting.

Almost immediately we were greeted by the tomb of William Booth (1829-1912), the founder of the Salvation Army, and his wife Christine as well as many other minor Booths and Salvation Army luminaries. A short walk took us to a derelict chapel and many more spectacular ornate tombs until we left the cemetery and arrived in the London Borough of Hackney.

We admired the retro font of EGG STORES and the Bosnian charity shop as well as the plane trees that flanked Cazenove Road and stopped, briefly, to take in the Stamford Hill Masjid-e-Quba. A mosque named after the first one built by the Prophet Mohammed that has been converted from several Victorian terrace houses.

A short residential stretch took us into the pretty Springfield Park, with views across the Lea Valley to Walthamstow, and from there we picked up the Lee Navigation (the river Lee, or Lea, being another former location of one of my London by Foot walks - read about it here).

We crossed Horseshoe Bridge into the London Borough of Waltham Forest and we observed many boats carrying the legend STOP THE BOAT CULL (referring, apparently, to plans to lower the number of boats on the Lea so that posh rowers can enjoy the water instead). To our right the water, to our left an expanse of picturesque marshes.

Under a viaduct which serves the trains heading to Stansted Aiport and past the bubble of the Lee Valley Ice Centre, we soon reach the Princess of Wales pub on Lea Bridge Road. I'd visited once before, some years ago, with my friend Chris and his dog Floyd and found it to be a most agreeable hostelry but we were running so early it hadn't even opened yet!

We saw a small hen party rowing a canoe down the river and, after some graffiti that almost spelt out the name of one of our walking groups, TADS (TADZ), we reached the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Pam and I had been on a guided tour of the area some years ago but this time our priority was to join the young and beautful people (one in a golden kimono, another lady in (though nearly out of) a quite eye catching dress.

We pulled up to a riverside bar and had a drink each. It was lovely sitting there and taking in the atmosphere and we were sorely tempted to have another but we knew we had some serious miles to cover yet so we soon moved on. Even if Shep joked that he'd like to sit there for another thirty-six hours and watch the final of the Euros there!

The Lea splits up into multiple rivers here and regularly rejoins itself. It's tricky to get a grip on. We passed the entrance of the Hertford Union Canal (which once featured on a TADS walk) which is also known as Duckett's Cut after the promoter, Sir George Duckett, who got it completed in 1830.

We passed Old Ford where a teenage Pam once fell in the river. She had better luck than Queen Maud, the wife of Henry I, who was 'unceremoniously' ducked into the river here back in the early 12c. We also got a look at the Northern Outfall Sewage Embankment (NOSE, above) which runs for nearly six miles from Hackney to Beckton and is said to contain Britain's biggest sewage flow. Nice.

Soon we left the Lea and tried to pick up the Greenway. I say tried because Crossrail work here is so extensive we had to take several lengthy diversions and, at times, nearly lost the path completely.

We passed some Snoozeboxes, light industrial units you can use for an afternoon nap. Kathy, quite correctly I feel, renamed them Fuckboxes. We saw a couple going in one. I guess it can get tiring walking along a canal and sometimes you just need a lie down in an industrial unit with no windows.

Soon it all went a bit tits up. At least for a bit. We skirted the edge of the Abbey Mills Pumping Station (described as looking like an oriental palace, the Grade II listed building was opened in 1868 as part of Sir Joseph Bazalgette's immense scheme for ridding London of its sewage) and then got a bit lost looking for West Ham station.

We corrected ourselves and eventually found ourselves on the long, straight, and mostly uneventful Greenway walk. More popular with cyclists than with walkers we followed it for some miles and then overshot our turning. With time now against us we conceived an alternative route of roughly the same length and passed down, eventually, to Cyprus DLR station.

Here, after we'd checked out phones for nearby pubs and train times, Kathy left us and Shep, Pam, and I continued to the edge of the vast Royal Albert Dock where the impressive new buildings of the Docklands Campus of the University of East London look across to the jets of City Airport. When the site first opened in 1999 it was the first new campus built in London for over five decades.

The Royal Albert Dock is over a mile long and has an Olympic standard rowing course (so why are they so concerned about using the Lea?) on which are staged regular regattas. We dipped under Sir Steve Redgrave Bridge (an apt name all things considered) and found ourselves outside Galyon's bar. 

Well, it would be rude not to, now we're nearly done, have a drink or even two. Galyon's was a pleasant spot to sit outside as Ashleigh Barty beat Karolina Pliskova in the Wimbledon ladies final on the screen. We talked shit and we smiled in safe knowledge we had broken the back of this walk.

Or had we? As soon as we came out of Galyon's, and we weren't that refreshed, we did a roughly half mile loop that brought us back to exactly where we'd started. Avoiding the temptation to give up and go in for another pint we crossed over Redgrave's bridge and down into Fishguard Way (making some rude jokes about what part of the human anatomy Grimsby Grove could be a euphemism for).

This took us a to a quaint residential street and that took us, finally, back to the Thames. We admired the pigeons and we admired the views and we debated if we should take the free ferry back across to Woolwich or the foot tunnel. The foot tunnel, of course, won.

Back in Woolwich, we replicated the photo at the start (now end) of the walk taken all those months ago and repaired to Dial Arch for one last beer before struggling to find an Indian eaterie in Woolwich. The two the Internet directed us to proved to be a Wetherspoons pub (no) and a chicken joint (again, no).

As with the LOOP, the final leg of the Ring presented us with disappointing food options so, as with the LOOP, we jumped on a train. This time to Hullaballo in Greenwich where I had dall makhani, naan bread, pulao rice and a couple of Cobras.

Then we all headed home. We'd done it. All seventy-eight miles (and no doubt many more) of the Capital Ring. It wasn't as long as the LOOP but it was just as much fun and the next project, probably, will be walking the length of the Thames. For Shep, for the second time. Thanks to Pam and Shep for joining me on this adventure (and Pam for all the photos I've used) and thanks to our guests along the way. Kathy, Clare, Ian, and Mike. From Woolwich to Woolwich in just under eighteen months. Sounds like a lot of work to end up in exactly the same place. But it wasn't. It was a lot of fun.