View through my window

Crisis and rubbish

2008-01-09T09:55:00.000Z

There are things that I am rubbish at. Difficult to believe, I know. Don't worry, this isn't going to be a post about being mental because (a) you're all fed up with that; and (b) I'm feeling ok today.

So, the answer is not: sleeping, relationships, parenting, thinking straight, and such.

The intros round.

Is the answer.

What do you mean, what?

Oh, ok, some further explanation may be required.

I am rubbish at that fun quiz thing when someone starts playing the intro to a well-known song and you have to shout out as soon as you know what it is. We did this at new year, my mates and I, and as usual I didn't get any.

I don't understand this. I listen to music a great deal, and I knew the songs that were played, but I just couldn't identify them from the opening bars. So I stood there and waited for someone else in my team to shout the answer and then shouted that out, more loudly. Like I always do. Why doesn't my brain work in such a way as to allow me to shout out the answer before anyone else, just once? I can only remember ever getting one once, in the pub quiz, and that was because I was older than everyone else on my team. (It was 'Ride On Time', by Black Box, since you asked, and that is very distinctive for anyone old enough to remember).

For the general amusement of everybody I did a fiendish quiz for new year. I reckoned if anyone got half the answers right they were doing well - and the winning team (which had the LOML and Mumbling Nige on it) got 22 out of 40 in the end so I was about right.

The teams that got less than ten were a bit bored though and now I'm worried that I set questions that were hard just so I could be all superior and knowledgable and not because it would be fun for everyone else. *sigh*.

See what you think, a few sample questions below:

1. On a clear day, what is the furthest you can see from the top of the Eiffel Tower?
2. What is the square root of one quarter?
3. Which sport uses a piece of equipment exactly 9 by 5 feet?
4. Into which ocean or sea does the river Nile flow?
5. The Queen Vic is on the corner of Albert Square and which other street?

I'll put the answers in the comments so have a think before clicking over, and then let me know if they are (a) too hard and I am an arrogant egomaniac; or (b) they are ok standard and I am just trying to help everyone have a good time.

Thanks.

HNY and all that

2008-01-01T16:41:00.000Z

What I said above.

I am currently at death's door from man flu, which I think you'll find is worse than ordinary flu. I have been revising my will, and making preparations for my funeral, as I am sure that if anyone can die of man flu, that one will be me.

Still, progress in the crisis household. All the family now have iPods, so there is no need to talk to each other any more at all, which is a plus. Smallest child sings along with Lily Allen at high volume, including the f-word ("Dad, it's a lyric"). I must remember to have a word with her about doing that in public. Customers in Caffe Nero don't expect angelic-looking 9 year old girls to sing "But you were fucking that girl next door, what'd you do that for?".

Even if it is in tune.

Grumpy (aka Child One) is now officially the first cyborg human. He is physically linked to the playstation or DS, umbilically, so that if you cut the cord he would be dead in minutes, flopping around like a haddock on the deck of a trawler. His eyes have evolved into little LCDs and his thumbs are now completely swivellable. He can tap his fingers faster than the eye can see. His arse is flat and wide, for balance while sitting.

Still, going skiing in a few days. He'll be able to learn to snowboard and that will be the end of that, we'll never see him. He's already got the long hair and the grungy clothes. Oh, and the girlfriend.

What's that all about? She's just like a female version of him. Lovely, but mad as a sack of fish. I'm quite scared by this. She was born the day after him, which they think means they were fated to be together. Bless.

2008 will be better, the LOML and I have promised each other.

Hope it's true for you too.

Sketches

2007-12-17T11:47:00.001Z

Thought I'd perhaps share some with you, since I was going on about it. These are from the summer hollibobs. They're in pencil so they haven't come out all that well on the scanner, but still.

I did these on the beach and in the cafe, quickly, before the subjects moved too much. I prefer doing them this way; not getting too involved with each one, just try and capture the moment and the movement and then on to the next one.

If wasn't who I have become ...

2007-12-17T11:02:00.000Z

... I'd live by myself in a city-centre flat
... I'd still ride a motorbike
... I'd get up at noon
... I'd go to bed at 4 am
... I'd be very untidy
... I'd need to grow up
... I'd have every playstation and xbox going
... I'd be a borderline alcoholic
... I'd play poker every day
... I'd earn money only when I needed some
... I'd not have any proper close friends

... I'd be emotionally shallow
... I'd be desperate for a partner but wouldn't admit it
... I'd be the oldest bloke in the club on Friday nights
... I'd dream about my own kids to cuddle and love me

... I'd be even mentaller (? spelling) than I am now

So: it's not all bad, life, is it?

You've only got four thousand weeks. Four thousand weeks is less than eighty years. I've had half mine already.

Two thousand weeks doesn't sound very long, does it?

Best get on with it. Especially if you don't believe in an afterlife, as I don't.

So I will:

... push to get properly fit
... push the limits when I am skiing, and not just dwell in the intermediate
... remember to thank my wife every day for saving me from myself
... not shout at the kids for stuff that doesn't matter
... stop talking about it and learn to kitesurf next summer
... be less bah-humbug about Christmas
... play the piano more
... take a sketchbook out with me more often, and draw a wider variety of subjects
... use all the methods I have been taught to manage my depression
... go to bed at a sensible time and stop sleeping in the day.

Good.

I can manage that.

Wish me luck.

Oh, and sorry for doing the resolutions thing before we've even got to Christmas.

Untitled no 1

2007-12-13T09:58:00.000Z

Mmmm.

Yo.

Still alive.

Dunno if anyone wanted to know that, but still, you do now.

Spent a bit of time rocking back and forward in the dark, and a bit of time asleep in the day.

Spent some time sitting looking out at the world like I am hiding in a room behind my face. Alcohol does this to me. I have largely given up drinking because of this: my eyes are one-way mirror set in a plaster face mask: from the outside, blank, relective. From the inside, I can be doing what I want and no-one can know. Sometimes I am crying, sometimes I am laughing at you. Sometimes, I am shouting as loud as I can, but only I can hear.

Spent quite a lot of time awake in the night.

Channel 201 is quite good. It shows Jackass repeats which is quite good if you're up at daft o'clock. You can watch people hurting themselves and not have to think about anything else for a bit.

I'm waiting to see the psychiatrist.

That isn't easy to write, you know. There is a social stigma to that. But I've done the GP thing, and the drugs don't work as well as (a) they used to; and (b) they should. Maybe the consultant has some extra, non-GP knowledge which can help.

So, how can I still be optimistic during all this. I am, though. I still think that everything will get better, I know it will, one day. I went to a managing depression support group thing at the hospital. That was a laugh. We had to do a questionnaire - have you felt unable to get out of bed, have you felt low on a scale of one to five in the last week, two weeks, month?

Ha, ha, hahahahahahahahaha, haaaaaaah.

Uh, yes?

I won. I was the most mad. Yay, me. However, I didn't tick the 'suicidal' or 'self-harm' boxes and never have done. There's that optimism again, see?

Quick joke.
"How many Freudian psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?"
"Two. One to change the lightbulb, and the other to hold the ~~penis~~ stepladder."

That cheered me up.

Sooooo, all the above being said, I'm actually ok. I know that sounds unlikely, but I am really.

I know I have a physical condition which should be treatable, and if not, I can manage.

You have to make the best of what you've got. I am colour blind, deaf in one ear, chronically depressive. I do not, as we speak, have cancer, or muscular dystrophy or whatever else. So, ok.

Go out and do your thing, make the most of every day. I'm trying, I really am.

Irreverant gossipy posts to follow.

Always ahead of the trends, me

2007-08-30T09:34:00.000+01:00

Just back from hollybobs, and judging by the Sunday style mags I am, yet again, ahead of the current retro fashion. No, not loon pants. Or cowboy boots - big this winter, apparently - and I just happen to have some. Nope, I am ahead of the current fash for camping.

It's all because of the festival explosion, y'see. I mean, the explosion in festivals. The number of festivals. That are out there. Now. Are we there? (Syntax error - I do intend to suggest some horrific Islamist terrorist event at a music gig. Sorry about that). I used to go to festivals in my youth, but that's a whole 'nother post.

Anyhoo. If you want to sleep at a festival, you camp. No alternative option, except, if you believe the aforementioned mags, for glamping, which is just a shit name for luxury camping. I don't do glamping, I do glaravanning. (Uh. This might need some work. Stylavanning? Retrochicavanning? Chicavanning. Whatever). I have a retro-chic 'van. By this, I do not mean a seventies caravan which is so fucking old that it looks retro, but a deliberate seventies style caravan which I have on purpose because the style is chic and funky and disco. (Although, you could argue, and with some justification, that these are one and the same thing. If you must).

In fact, it was made in 1980, and trust me, I am gutted about this. What is it about 1979 which is retro and laid back and disco and therefore cool, but 1980 is yuppie brick-phone headband legwarmery shit? So from now on, it is a seventies retro-chic van, and I am not going to allow the truth to get in the way of a style decision. Agreed? Good.

It's got a brown awning with tassels on, for fuck's sake. And gas lamps. What's not to love?

So the whole family Crisis have just been for nine nights on the Yorkshire moors, with mountain bikes and maps and stuff. I have a new mountain bike, remind me to tell you about it. The LOML lost a Birkenstock in a bog and we had to go wading in the freezing stinky gloop for it. But found it. I got a bit pissed in a succession of country pubs while looking for somewhere to get lunch after two o'clock ("While we're here, we might as well just have a beer they've got their own microbrewery look, we'll get some crisps to keep the kids happy, yes pint of Old Snatch Grabber two blackcurrant fruit shoots and half a lime and lemonade, please. What? What?"). Went from Pickering to Whitby on the chuffer train. Lost the kids for 40 minutes in Whitby. Panic? Me? Never. Went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to look at the Andy Goldsworthy stuff. Fabby.

So, you'll have guessed, I am now back at work, which is why I am writing this and not actually doing anything proper. No change there then.

Nice to be back though.

Wow. Hello!

2007-08-17T09:05:00.000+01:00

"Last updated on 23 February 2007".

Ooops.

Sorry.

Bin busy, y'see.

I have returned, obv., because I should be doing something else. In this case, finishing a drawing writing a specification taking the kids to the outlaws going into town for photocopying and the chemist and dog food changing the wheel on the caravan going to the bank printing and sending two reports to prospective clients phoning three existing clients and a contractor ... and so on. And this afternoon ... oh, I can procrastinate for Britain, me.

I'm also going on my jollies on Sunday. (I know, just as soon as he gets back, he buggers off again). So if you see a retro-chic early 80s caravan trundling Midlands -> Yorkshire give us a wave. Back ten days or so afters.

But rest assured, I'm still here and not at all dead. I'm very well, thanks for asking. Both our businesses (get us!) going well enough to pay t'bills, ta. Though sorting kids out on holidays is a chore.

I'm still being irrationally irritated by trivial stuff. Like, ladies, wearing leggings is a privilege not a right. Puh-lease. Just turn round and look at your arse in the mirror and have an honest think about it. If the material is so stretched that you can tell what colour your pants are through the holes in the weave, then walk away from the leggings.

Still, at least I don't have to sit on a train every day. Or clock in. Or do timesheets.

Right. I'll just get a coffee. Then I need a poo. And then I'll get some work done.

Definitely.

Nice to talk to you all again.

Fucking OneTel genius

2007-02-23T11:38:00.000Z

I have had no email since Tuesday. I am trying to run a business. This is not good.

I rang the number. Talked to a nice person in India. The email will be down for another 24 hours maybe.
Where is my MAC code that I requested 10 days ago and should take 3 working days to provide?
I'll need to transfer you.
Please do so with all alacrity.
[Jennifer Rush singing The Power of Love right through twice...]
Another nice person in India. I'll do that for you it'll take 3 working days.
No. It should have been done already. 10 days ago.
I'll have to put you on hold while I check.
[Mariah Carey warbling some shit, I was distracted and didn't catch which song, they all sound the fucking same anyway]
Yes sir, we've generated it and sent it!
Good.
It was sent to [the LOML's email address] twice!
But, uh, wait for it ... the email's down ... and you knew that, hmmm?
Oh. Oh yes. It is.
So....?
[Brightly] Is there anything else I can help you with today?
[sigh] No. Thank you. Just send the MAC code again as soon as you can, please.
Is there any particular reason why you are transferring away from OneTel to another provider?
[has to put phone down due to fit of hysterical giggles]

Fucktards

2007-02-22T12:09:00.000Z

Hired a floor sander today to, uh, sand the floor. In the new shop. Couldn't get the old carpet tiles up along the stud wall that the previous tenant built across the back of the shop, in order to make a storeroom. Assumed they were trapped by the new skirting boards.

Took off the skirting boards.

Discovered that he had built the stud wall on top of the carpet tiles.

Genius.

Update update update

2007-02-17T11:21:00.000Z

I am sitting typing on a keyboard which is balanced precariously on a pile of papers. I have a pile of rubber floor tile samples tottering at my elbow. I have a stack of insurance quotes on the floor next to my chair. I have a varied selection of usb leads snaking across the desk, in and out of the lots of piles of paper and three dirty coffee mugs and two cameras and one filofax and two tape measures and several stone samples and one glue stick and one pair of scissors and one hole punch and innumerable catalogues. I have another computer wedged against my knee because I have two, see, because I'm waiting for a new ISP provider to do a wireless home hub thing on the new one but I can't have one yet because the fuckers at OneTel still haven't send me my MAC code so I still have to do all my interweb stuff on the old one. So I have two keyboards and two mice and I keep using the wrong ones and I have to keep switching the blue screen connector back and forth. I cannot believe that I am still paying twenty five quid a month for half a meg of connection, just because I never got round to updating the broadband package more often.

So, busy. And then I have to switch across to the new Blogger before I can post anything. Famous last words: it seems to have gone ok so far. (*crouches down under desk, hands over ears, eyes screwed shut, waiting for incoming .... *).

Nothing.

Ok. We seem to be ok.

Coffee is, as usual, the answer. I anticipate gallons of it to come, as I design stuff for people during the day and paint a shop all evening, and think of things left to do all night.

Nothing if not fulfilling.

As promised

2007-02-02T10:23:00.000Z

Things:

Came back from the fabulous, beautiful here:

... and then the LOML (I'm blaming her) fell over and broke the new camera I took this on.

bought a new Dell, it's fabby (got 320gig of memory and dual core and dual DVD rewrite and flat screen and logitech fancy mouse and stuff)

... but haven't sorted out the modem install so having to use the old one for t'internet for the moment, until I

get a new faster broadband,

... but this means changing my email addresses, including the one on here, and being offline for a week.

and Stuff:

BIG news: the LOML and I are starting a new business. Might explain the paucity of posts now and in the future, huh.

Actually, it's more of an expansion of her current business. Rather than working privately, sort of from home, we're opening a shop in the village. It's only little, but it's ours. Now that I don't have the sads any more, all of a sudden I can actually work and help and everything. I was still working at eleven o'clock last night. Get me.

So, I will try and post from the middle of a big pile of accountants and banks and printers and flooring contractors and shopfitters and all - and my business as well, of course. Which is very busy too, thanks for asking.

But, laydeez an gennelmen, finally, I'm happy.

Back

2007-01-30T10:55:00.000Z

Safe. No broken bones. Unlike my mate Tall Nick who's still in hopital in France with a broken pelvis. And two cracked neck vertebrae. That would spoil your week, wouldn't it? Skied into a rock, apparently.

So. Busy. Back soon with more things and stuff.

Meet the guest blogger

2007-01-18T10:31:00.000Z

Uh, am I on? Pardon? Hullo?

Where? Oh. Hello. Nice to meet you all.

I'm the guest blogger.

My name's Malcolm. This is me:

I've lived with the man in a crisis for a long time. A long, long, time.

He named me Malcolm. Not the most becoming name in the world, I don't suppose. Especially as I was named by accident.

I suppose I should explain.

It was one of those conversations shouted from room to room, between the crisis man and his wife.

She: "Do you want another coffee?"

He:"Of course, when do I ever not?"

"What?"

"YES!"

"Which mug are you using?"

"The green one with ridges"

"What?"

"The GREEN one with RIDGES"

"The green what?"

"MUG WITH RIDGES"

She exited the kitchen and entered the living room at this point, and said: "Who's Muggeridges?"

He replied, while watching the telly:"Hunh? What's Malcolm Muggeridge got to do with anything?"

And so Malcolm I became, and remain.

He mentions this story to guests sometimes. They usually look at him funny.

Occasionally they ask: "So, have all your mugs got names?"

He replies: "Don't be stupid, they're just mugs."

Haiku prize time!

2007-01-18T10:25:00.000Z

Can't decide between Surly and I,TLV, so well done to both joint winners.

And a grateful highly commended to Jas and Lippy for their efforts; well done all!

Now I have the problem of awarding a virtual prize. If I was organized I would have thought of this already, but I'm not and I haven't.

*virtual hug and virtual air kiss while the audience applauds and I try and think of something*

Haiku New Year!

2007-01-11T10:25:00.000Z

I just very nearly wrote a post about how nobody loves me and nobody visits any more and even fewer bother to comment and and and. I called my readers 'poppet' and said they weren't pulling their weight because I was visiting them and they weren't visiting me, and how I was upset about it.

How crass would that have been? Whew, close one. Narrow shave for all of us. The hand, feeds, that, bite, never, you: all that.

Righto. As you were.

Isn't the weather shit today? I'm worried that my precious, cherished satellite dish is going to plunge off the upstairs wall, cos the pointing on the brickwork up there isn't all it might be. I must get round to fixing that one day. What would I do if that happened? I'd have to read a book, or even talk to people. Or play a game.

*shudder*

So anyway, to the topic in hand.

I realise that I've sort of forgotten to menshun New Yr. Do you really want to hear about it now? It seems so long ago, doesn't it? Not really very interested now, I expect?

So, in order to be as entertaining as possible, very brief highlights in the form of .... haiku!

Feel free to play along! Remember, strictly 5,7,5 syllables!

Here are my first efforts, and I reserve the right to do some more later.

Champagne blind tasting
Is a good game for New Year
Fourteen is too much.

Do karaoke!
Unless you really can't sing
Like me and Nigel.

Go up to your bed
Early if you aren't worried
We will laugh at you.

Make sure the children
Don't stay up long after twelve
It will all go tits.

I will give a virtual prize for the best effort in the comments! Go on, join in!

*Update! This is the second effort, once I realised that haiku is 5,7,5 not 5,9,5. Duh. But see how cleverly I have edited all my efforts to fit the correct pattern!*

Electronics

2007-01-10T13:09:00.000Z

I am drowning in electronic technology today. My office looks like an explosion in a spaghetti factory. If spaghetti were a bit thicker and black or grey or off-white. Oh, hang on, it is off-white. It doesn't have little digital black writing on it though, or stickers telling you how to wire a plug. Uh, metaphor too far? Thought so. Carry on.

As well as the PC, I have a new digickal camera plugged in. And a USB hub, a joystick for Child One, a printer/scanner/copier, a broadband modem, a screen, and a cordless keyboard. A phone/fax. A desklight. A fan heater for when it gets cold cos the heating is turned off during the day. And a new digickal palmcorder with which I will be recording myself skiing* in a Graham Bell off of Ski Sunday stylee. I dread sorting it all out because I am also thinking very seriously about upgrading the old PC upon which I am writing this. I am very short of memory - and in the PC too, it's my age (Ithangyoo). Are Dell any good? I seem to be able to get a very nice shiny bit of kit with more memory than I know what to do with and a flat monitor and all sorts of nice gubbins for not many pounds, shillings and pence.

It has now occurred to me that I must be very careful to remain strictly anonymous today: new electronic kit + going on holiday = burglars' paradise. But AHA! I mock your stupidity, Mr Burglar! Because I am taking it all with me! See how clever I am! Except the PC. But I haven't got the new one yet so AHA again! Well, I'm actually just taking the cameras, but even a stupid Mr Burglar wouldn't try and work out whom I am just for a USB hub and a joystick, shurely?

Actually, I think your average burglar would be too stupid to try and work out who I am by going through all the posts and adding up all the clues. I don't think anyone could do that. I may be wrong, and this is strictly not a challenge to try. Honest. Don't go working it out and putting it in the comments while I'm away. Please. That would be horrid of you.

I'll put the alarm on, anyway. And Next Door is a big chap and he knows I'm going away. I do the same for him when he goes.

Shit.

I'm going to worry now.

*I'm going skiing, did I mention?

Late Christmas

2007-01-05T12:50:00.000Z

What do you reckon to my chances of fooling all my family and friends into thinking that Christmas is actually a few days later next year?

So I can, urm, do all my shopping in the sales?

I didn't get all that much cool stuff for Christmas - the LOML got me some nice things, but the best of the rest was the shiny palmcorder that I bought for myself. I got money, that's always welcome, but maybe a bit unimaginative. Am I being ungrateful?

My brother wins the shittest Christmas present prize for the eleventy-twelveth year straight. To add to previous years' hand-painted brace of enamel mugs, a la narrowboat-gypsy-chic stylee, which can't be put in the dishwasher and burn the crap out of your hand if you actually put a hot drink in them; a plastic modular tool shelf out of a catalogue (probably Pikeys-R-Us, or Sad-Act-With-No-Life-Savings-Club 1978) which was a lump of grey and red plastic with odd shaped holes in it; a hardback book on Monster Trucks, aimed at an educationally subnormal fourteen year old, which I received in my thirties; we can now add a 'build-your-own-cardboard-puzzle-skyscraper-lamp'. Which is a vaguely jigsawy-construction square carboard box about two feet high with pictures of four different skyscrapers on the sides. With a lamp socket in the bottom (bulb not included). Which is just what a civilised, erudite, cultured, educated, professional* forty year old father of two** had put just right at the top of his list from Santa.

For fuck's sake. And I had to smile and say oh how lovely we'll have fun making that up and once it's finished it'll be so useful as well how thoughtful.

The LOML got a infinity reflecting tealight set. Which is four tealights in a stand with a wonky mirror so it looks like a line of tealights going on for ever. If you bend right down to look into it. I think it might be in the dustbin already.

So, all in all, I was delighted when the LOML announced that she was going with her chums to Next at half four in the morning. I was still in bed, with a coffee, when she got back and we had Chrstmas all over again. Five pairs of jeans (only two going back) three smart stripey shirts to be worn untucked in a slightly taller Richard Hammond stylee, pants, socks, tank top (which are apparently trendy again, had you heard?) jumper. Ace. Better than the day itself.

And then we had a morning without the kids taking a few bits back to Marks' and I managed to get a couple of fab jumpers in the surfy snowboardy shop sales. They're ace too. They'll be brilliant for wearing around the resort when we go skiing.

We're going skiing in a couple of weeks. Did I mention? I'm dead excited. I reserve the right to mention this again, by the way. Probably lots. And lots.

*This is of course all a matter of opinion. It's my opinion and I'm right. Shut up.
**This bit is a matter of fact, however. Unfortunately.

Is that it?

2007-01-03T10:15:00.000Z

Is it done and over? Christmas, I mean? And New Year, and all?

Do we just have to go back to work (in a new shirt) now?

Is that the only difference between before-Christmas and after-Christmas - a new shirt? With a red dot on the label?

Oh.

OK.

----------------------------------------------------------

In other news, I have discovered that Christmas is the time of sharp things. My Japanese carving knife, lovingly snicked and whished up and down the whetstone was as sharp as a razor. The tip of the mother in law's third finger found this out when it was lurking in the bottom the washing up. It was still bleeding on Boxing Day. The LOML's tongue was quite sharp at about that time.

But not as sharp as the little-icky-bit of turkey drumstick sinew* that somehow found its way through the entire stock-boiling-and-soup-cooking-and-liquidising process, right to its conclusion firmly impaled in the roof of my mouth. Ouchy.

*Seriously, what is that made out of? Surely they can make some sort of new super sharp but flexible material out of it, like Teflon or Kevlar or something? It's indestructible.

Dads, toilets; effects of.

2006-12-23T12:14:00.000Z

NOTE: apologies for the inevitably rather personal toilety nature of this. If you don't like poo, skip it.

Something Salvadore was saying made me think about my childhood and perhaps some reason why I used to be a bit weird.

The fact is this: my father, bless him, does not admit to going to the toilet. At all. He will not talk about it to anyone other than my mother. And if he is on the toilet, he will pretend he isn't.

I lost count of the number of times I would wander the house as a small child calling "Dad! Dad? Where are you?" I would call out right outside the toilet door, and he would remain stoically silent. Doing his own scatalogical version of "La la la I can't hear you". He is paranoid too about toilet noises. He will cough and harrumph and try and ensure that no-one is nearby before sneaking away to the loo. I inherited this to an extent. I mean, I wouldn't pretend not to be there, but in public I still didn't like making noises. I learned to time an, ah, noise perfectly with another toilet flushing, or the hand-dryer going. Which is a bit weird. But understandable, given the inheritance.

When I got together with the LOML she was my first live-together partner. Her family are absolutely the opposite. Whereas all bathroom and toilet doors in my house were resolutely locked as a matter of course, hers didn't even have locks. In our first flat, she would sit there with the door open, chatting to me while wiping her arse. At the time, I was shocked by this, but, being (a) English, (b) a chap and (c) trying hard to be a good boyfriend/flatmate, tried not to show it.

Being a self analytical sort of bloke, I hope, I recognised that when we had children hers was probably a more healthy way of approaching matters than the rigid repression of the issue that my family displayed. It took a while, but I got used to it, and my children now have the uninhibited approach of the LOML. Which I generally think is a Good Thing.

I still can't watch any of them wiping their arse though. That's disgusting.

Oh, just jumping from subject to subject again

2006-12-22T11:18:00.000Z

I got up feeling pretty good today.

That's probably one of the biggest turn off lines for the beginning of a blog entry, isn't it? It would usually be followed by " ... but then I went to class and jamelia is like she heard that brad has been saying things behind my back about how he likes britney better and he is just so fake and so i said so i care why? and she said you so do and i said i so do not but really i do because i think i love him he is just so gorgeous and now i dont know what to do ..."

Phew. Glad it's not a blog like that then.

Instead, it's the sort of blog that WHAM!, out of nowhere, suddenly asks: "whatever happened to powdered coffee?"

And come to that, gravy powder?

I can remember a time when instant coffee was powder. Then, some bright spark invented granules, and for a while you could buy both, except I think the granules were a teeny bit more expensive. And I've now realised that in the mainstream supermarkets* you can't buy powder any more, and I suspect that you haven't been able to for a long time.

The thing that I can't quite get: what is so much more appetising about a granule than a powder? I mean, I'm sure a granule is actually just powder in flocculated lumps - which means they've had to make the powder first, and then treat it to granule it up. Which makes it, logically, even more processed? (I suppose it could be the other way round: they used to grind up granules to make powder, but I don't think so).

Is it that coffee powder looks a bit, well, chemically? Nature doesn't make food in powders, I suppose, so granular food maybe looks a bit more appetising. And a slightly darker colour, less, well, shit-coloured. But you really wouldn't have thought that this was enough to do away with powder altogether, would you? I mean, you can't get curry granules (this is now my idea and you can't nick it and I may make my fortune in curry granules so there) or custard granules (ditto) or instant soup granules (ditto), can you?

Consumers are strange.

Aren't we?

In other news, the LOML voted for Mark Ramprakash on Strictly Come Dancing last week. I fear for her.

Talking of which, Matt Dawson is becoming a right meeja whore, isn't he? I mean, respect for the William Webb Ellis trophy and all that, but the insidious rise into the rarified heights of famous-for-being-famousness is noticeable. It started reasonably enough - Question of Sport is a solid, sensible sort of place for a successful rugby ex. One Jordan out of ten, say. Slightly weird move up to win Sleb Master Chef, mmm, maybe three Jordans, and then all of sudden prancing round in sparkly kecks and unfeasibly shiny shoes for Brucey and Vernon Kay's missus. A full eight Jordans out of ten. Any guesses on where he's going next? Jeez. I wish I had his bank balance, though, huh. He might be desperate for the money, I suppose. Maybe he's got a ferocious crack habit or a massive gambling debt with the Triads.**

Merry stuff to you and yours, anyhow. See you soon.

*I'm far too middly classy to go to Aldi or Lidl. I'm sure you understand.
**I said 'maybe'. This is therefore not an allegation of any sort, I don't think. So don't sue. Please.

School, Christmas, What?

2006-12-20T10:22:00.000Z

Child Two came home with a note in her lunchbag yesterday, informing us that they are having a Christmas-themed lunch today and could they bring in Christmas-themed food, please. You know, chipolatas (huh?), Christmas-tree shaped sandwiches, and so on.

Of course, we have the time to make fucking Christmas-tree shaped sandwiches. We have nothing at all better to do. But, fearing the approbrium of the teachers and the vilification from her classmates, out came the biscuit cutters (I refuse to call them 'cookie cutters', even if they are), and we now have a whole load of pieces of bread with star-shaped holes in them all over the breadboard. I'm not fucking eating them. So they'll be wasted on the dog. Thanks, school.

We* went as far as wrapping last-night's last remaining sausage in greaseproof paper, like a cracker, and sticking a purple Quality Street wrapper on it. No-one will fucking out-Christmas-themed-dinner-us.

The LOML put in some cherry tomatoes, and told Child Two that they were Rudolph's red noses. And then suggested that if she didn't want all of them, she should just pick at them. I haughtily informed her that it was far too early in the morning for that sort of humour and went to drink coffee in the bathroom.

*All right, the LOML. I watched helpfully, though.

More new me stuff

2006-12-18T11:39:00.000Z

Or, return to the old me stuff. Not sure which.

I have a new hairstyle*. This is, I'll agree, not world-shattering. But it is symptomatic of new good-feely me. You will note that I have not put 'haircut', but 'hairstyle'. I went to the new posh hair and beauty place in the village, and had a proper consultation with the FullOfHimself Hairdresser. Nice chap, but you know, uh, a bit, how can I put it, full of himself. Anyhoo, I've had long hair before (looooong hair, like a Pantene model, with boswelox, etc). But this was 20 years ago. I have had short hair (grade 1 short, like Grant and /or, indeed, Phil, Mitchell. Off that there EastEnders. Except all over my head, not just round the sides with just skin on top, like a bald person. Do not get the impression I am bald, because it would be very very incorrect. And I might get Upset. Because I like Not Being Bald).

Over the last few years I've had the standard Grade 2 up the back and sides and bit longer on top thing. With a bit of gel in. Which is just the same as just about every chap had. And the new me is bored of this. So, as I hadn't been for a cut for a while (too busy licking windows), the old hair had got a bit longer. I thought maybe it had potential.

So, the FullOfHimself Hairdresser messed round with it, and we had that slightly weird talking to each other in the mirror conversation: "what about a quiff?", (er, no), "big hair is in at the moment, surf style, you know, like undeconstructed", (ok), "you've got enough length here to do something with now, it's got potential", (thought so).

So, eighteen quid, a free latte, a smidgen of wax, and half an hour later, I have deconstructed choppy, sticky-uppy surf-style hair. I really like it. It makes me look younger. The kids like it, at least once I had drawn their attention to it, as of course they didn't notice at first. The LOML thinks she likes it, it's all just a bit new at the moment. Because of that and the new jumper I went and bought (it's got grey and brown horizontal stripes, and I went and bought it without spousal sartorial advice. This is a bit of a new me change too. And no, it doesn't make me look fat. Despite any actual physical appearance to the contrary. La la laaa I can't hear you. Denial is a river in Egypt).

What's next for the new me, I wonder? Don't know yet, but you'll be the first** people I share it with.

* I wrote 'haristle' first by mistake. An interesting typo. What would a haristle be? Long and detailed, like an epistle? Or short and attention-grabbing, like a whistle?

**Ahh, second. After the LOML. Uh, and my kids. And my mates, probably. But next after that, definitely. Absolutely.

Better? You decide. Aha.

2006-12-14T10:33:00.000Z

Good mornin'. Hullo.

Triumphantly, I return.

Not just to blogging, aha, but to normal life. Saved, in so many ways, by forty milligrammes a day of Citalopram. Huzzah, hooray [celebratory noises off].

Now, and I am sure you will agree, we soooo do not want this to turn into a mental-health bore blog; let's just take my ascent from, three weeks ago, sitting rocking in the foetal position in a darkened room like a full-blown window-licking mentalist, to my now utterly normal* rugby-playing, hard-working*, cheerful, energetic husband and father of two as read, shall we, and say no more about it?**

I have shit-loads, fuck-loads, of work to catch up on, and the LOML is also in her busiest time of year (she does stuff to do with Christmas, y'see), so do not expect torrents, floods, nay froths of posts in the coming days.

But I just wanted to say thanks, like, for the good wishes. Cheers, guys.

And vote for JonnyB here for a Weblog Award, largely for the huge amusement of the main opposition, a duuuuuuuull EU Referendum blog, giving it loads and loads about how important it was that 'little Norfolk blogs' aren't given awards because theirs is obviously so much more important and interesting (it isn't), while they were winning - and then all mention of the award strangely disappears completely when the JonnyB massive gets its juggernaut rolling and overtakes. I laughed a lot. A lot.

And, shit, while you're at it, why not vote for me here for an Insignificant Award. I nominated my-fucking-self, and why not. Assuming my nomination makes it out of the comments and onto the main page, of course. Fuck, vote for me anyway. Nominate me again. Whatever. See how confident and arrogant I have become? Insufferable, isn't it?

You'll be wanting the window-licker back sooner than you think.

*all right, this may not be entirely true
**this sentence may hold my new record for the greatest number of clauses.

Ok, life change time

2006-11-09T11:03:00.000Z

I have a post saved as draft, written recently, which says, in summary, I'm not blogging any more because I can't be bothered.

What this actually means is that I think I can't be bothered to do anything much. Because I am a profoundly lazy person.

This is profoundly mistaken.

I absolutely can be bothered. Inside, I'm trying with all my might - the usual swan analogy comes to mind. My little mental legs are paddling away like a paddling fast thing, but on the surface, serenity. No apparent effort. No apparent emotion. All is concealed, all is hidden. All is pretend.

So, finally, and I genuinely don't know why this has taken so long, I have recognised that this is not normal (though of course it is to me, I've been like this literally all my life that I can remember) and been to see the very nice doctor who I know a bit socially in the village, and told him everything. Honestly. About how I just want to stay in bed. And how I lie sometimes to my clients about how I'm going to be late because I've been so busy when what I've been really doing is watching telly. About the guilt and the anxiety. And so on. I filled a sheet of A4 with bullet points of problems, and made sure I mentioned them all.

And he said to me some words which I guess are going to go down as a turning point. He said "You have chronic, moderate and sometimes severe clinical depression. It sounds as if you have had it more or less constantly since you were a child. And I can make you better".

I'm finally, at forty years old, being assessed properly, and I will be taking some medication to do the serotonin inhibitor uptake suppression* thing, and once we have got the drug choice and dosage right he promises I will, finally, feel ok. I may end up talking to someone professional as well, and that will help me feel ok too.

So, with all this to look forward to, I am now over the fact that I am such a minor blogger that I wasn't invited to andre's party. Lots of other famous bloggers have been going on about it, and the comments pages are full of what a nice time they had. All written in witty, succinct style, obv. But now that I can see the light ahead, I can realise that my sulk about this the other day - yes, I really did - is utterly, utterly, ridiculous, and apologise to all concerned for even thinking about putting snotty comment on your pages. Sorry. And perhaps, when I'm better, I will have finally the energy and creativity to make this blog more famous. And I will invite you all to my party. And genuinely expect you to come.

*I think you'll find that this is the correct medical term. Shut up.

The one where my true character emerges

2006-11-03T13:06:00.000Z

I was chatting to someone in the pub the other day. They* will have to remain nameless, because I am going to be nasty about them. I hope they don't read this.

They said "We were at a dinner party and when the conversation lagged a bit someone said 'Can you name three famous Belgians?' and it was terribly funny because do you know nobody could I mean the best we could come up with was Hercule Poirot but he's fictional and anyway I'm sure he's French** and can you believe that a whole European country hasn't got a single famous person in it? I mean, can you? Mmm?"

I had choices here.

I could have lied completely, and given it the whole oh-how-terribly-amusing-no-now-you-come-to-think-of-it-I-can't-think-of-any-famous-Belgians-at-all-how-strange-anyway-do-you-want-another-g-and-t?

But that would have been lying, so I didn't do that. That's not in my character.

I could have gone down the oh-for-fuck's-sake-not-that-stupid-fucking-unintellectual-eighties-yuppie-game-you're-twenty-years-out-of-date-you-utter-fucktard.

But that would have been terribly rude, so I didn't do that. That's not in my character either.

What I did do:

"Mmmm. What about that bloke who kidnapped little girls and kept them in his cellar and abused them and left them to die and stuff? Marc Dutroux. He's famous. I've heard of him. Didn't he escape from a police station and the Minister of Justice had to resign? That's one.
"Oh, and what about Eddie Merckxx? Apart from having the hardest name in the world to spell, possibly, he was a famous cyclist. When I was a kid I had a racing bike endorsed with his name. That's two.
"I know a third, as well. Jan van Eyck. He was a painter. Fifteenth century I think. He was about the first to master painting in oils. Did lots of religious stuff. Of course, technically, he was Flemish and that was part of the Holy Roman Empire then but it's in Belgium now and that's what counts. What do you mean, no it doesn't? That's like saying that King Arthur wasn't English, assuming he existed at all. England certainly didn't then. Exist, I mean.
"Oh all right then, another. What about Jean-Marc Bosman, he of the football transfer test case? Belgian. Justine Henin-Ardenne, tennis top ten. Come to that, Kim Klijsters, ditto. Oooh, and Thierry Boutson, who was an F1 driver. And Jacky Ickx, come to that. Hieronymous Bosch. Though I suppose the Flemish pre-Belgian thing applies to him too. And to Peter Breughel. And Rubens. I can have Magritte though, he was twentieth century. Plastic Bertrand? Sang 'Ca Plane Pour Moi' in the seventies. Oooh, talking of music, guess what nationality Django Reinhardt was? Correct-a-mundo. Did I mention Jean-Claude van Damme? Didn't think so. Hmmm. I think that's about all I can think of at the moment. How many was that?"

That was smug and know-it-all in the extreme. And that was absolutely in my character.

*Note how I have cleverly concealed their gender by using the third person.
**Whoever said this is marginally better informed than my conversation partner, as M. Poirot, though fictional, is a fictional Belgian. You, dear reader, being a well-informed person, will already know this. Tintin is too.

If this is 'street' you can keep it

2006-10-30T10:28:00.000Z

The family Crisis went down to that there London over half term. I had some nuns to see, and the LOML has a cousin who lives in a nice, leafy, safeish, expensive bit and has spare rooms, so we thought we'd make a trip out of it and stay for a couple of nights.

Fuck me rigid with a cowprod.

What a nightmare.

I used to live in London - indeed, the LOML and I met at uni there. But now that we live in the sticks, it is a total culture shock to ge back. We went on the tube and smiled indulgently at Child One working out how many stops we had left and so on - a few years ago I would have tried to shush him, because it makes you look like a peasant to have children who thinks the tube is exciting. I've grown up now. Then we went to Tate Modern to do the slide thing, and queued up for a long time for tickets. Then we went to Leicester Square to try and get some show tickets, but anything that was worth seeing was going to be two hundred quid for the four of us, so we gave up on that. So, happily,we went to the Globe Theatre for a guided tour, which was fab and the kids enjoyed it. And I squashed down my conscience and we went for a coffee and cake in the Salvation Army headquarters and tried not to think about funding their ridiculous organisation (I'm sure they do loads of charitable caring stuff but as an atheist they do it for all the wrong reasons, but still. Nice coffee. Cheap, too. For London).

It was going back onto Leicester Sqare tube that I really started to think about the life choices we've made. Child Two was happily holding my hand, as she was a bit overwhelmed by all the people. Child One was doing the "I'll go first and work out the right way to go and you can follow me" thing. He's ten, and quite a lanky sod, with blond hair - so fortunately he's quite visible. He happily worked out the route - we have to change here to that line and so on - but hadn't got the hang of the station concourse. We had to call him back gently a couple of times - "It's this way mate, don't go through that barrier or you won't be able to get back" - "Oh. Okay Dad" - and we duly got where we were supposed to be going. But just comparing him to the other kids on the train and the streets, and he just didn't compare. He has a wide-eyed innocence, a belief that everyone is nice (until proven otherwise), doesn't watch his back, worry about getting lost, or notice any potential threat. All the local kids had hard faces, shifty, wary, knowing. There wasn't much difference in the way they were dressed, but they were totally in different worlds. I was trying to think of what it reminded me of, and it came to me that it was the bit in Oliver where Oliver is introduced to the Dodger and Fagin's gang. My boy just is Oliver: polite, innocent and, uh, blond.

Until a few years ago, I was a bit proud of the fact that I did the London thing, knew the places, did the look, didn't stand out or look out of place. I got to snigger at tourists, jostle past people dithering because they didn't know the right tunnel to go down, flash travel passes and not queue for tickets. It occurred to me, watching my unselfconscious, trusting little bloke making his way with quiet confidence through an unfamiliar world, that we had done the right thing after all. All of a sudden, I had a complete reversal: I was proud of not being local any more, having to buy a ticket, happy to point at the map on the carriage and count stops with them - and happy for them to be excited at the distant rumble of an approaching train, to tell us "it's coming, it's coming" and to jump up and down when the train came whooshing into the platform. Proud that this marked us out as from out of town. And uncool. And not 'street'.

My little girl, as she emerged blithely from being crushed by sour-faced commuters studiously ignoring each other on a District Line train, asked me: "Why is everyone in London so sad?".

"I don't know, sweetheart. Perhaps they all wish they could live in a village in the country like us."

I used to miss living there. Not any more. Not at all.

The one where I think I don't have time but really I do

2006-10-26T10:16:00.000+01:00

Oh God, I'm so crap at this. Blogging regularly, I mean. Always the same story, as soon as I get busy I stop doing this 'cos I just haven't got time.

This, of course, is bollocks.

I have plenty of time, what I don't have is the ability to stop procrastinating. I can only do one thing at a time - actually, sometimes I can only do one thing a day. I have a meeting this afternoon, for example. I have to do a bit of preparation for it, maybe an hour. The meeting will last perhaps two hours. So that's three hours work on that, leaving me another five or so to do the other stuff which I so need to do as it's getting urgent now. Like writing a complicated and expensive proposal for a bunch of nuns in North London (don't ask).

But all I can see is the entry in my filofax "15-30 Contract: walk through". Those three words* are big enough to cast a shadow over the whole rest of the day. I can't do anything else. I'm trying, dammit. But instead I'm on here, writing this. And reading other people's [punctuation]. And deleting filthy pornographic spam, usually about "faar*m girr1s" and their animals in, presumably, compromising positions. Who would be stupid enough to follow a link with that in? And getting cross with the nanny state again - though there's enough there for a whole library of posts. Apparently we're banning fireworks unless you're a professional now. Where's the fun in that? Getting drunk and aiming several hundred rockets from your hand over the back of suburban gardens is a student rite of passage that'll surely be missed. Harmless fun, with extra kudos if you can set four-doors-down's greenhouse alight. Happy days, never to be had by the next generation because we're fixated with trivial issues like property damage and horrific burn injuries. Duh.

Oh, and by the way, this is my hundredth post. Go, me.

*all right, three words and two numbers. What? Four numbers, then. And a hyphen. And a colon. Whatever. Stop splitting hairs.

Specialist

2006-10-06T10:05:00.000+01:00

Today's fave word is "Specialist".

I used to think I was a bit of a specialist. In several fields. I was quite proud of this. My kids would agree with this, no doubt, accompanied by smirks and sniggers, which until today I wouldn't have understood.

A specialist is, you see, someone who is special. Ok, you think, problem is? But no. Not special as in gifted, I'm afraid. Special as in special needs, as in would have gone in the past to a special school before they were integrated into the mainstream.*

As in: "the internet is the realm of nerds and specialists"; "only a specialist would think that"; and "I can't believe you did that, you're such a specialist".

I think this is funny.

Today's word is "specialist". I urge you to use it as often as possible.

*what a genius scheme that was. I didn't know any, because I went to a posh all boys school paid for by my parents, obv.**, but the kids I knew in the mainstream all had ways of making the special needs kids (so thoughtfully integrated into their classes) have some sort of duck fit. Which may or may not have involved poking them with a stick.

**thanks Anna.

Data

2006-10-05T11:01:00.000+01:00

... is a plural noun. One datum, two or more data.

Note to everyone in the world who ever writes anything at all ever: please note and observe the above.

You cannot say: "this data shows ..." (these data show)
You cannot say: "we have analysed the data and it indicates ..." (... they indicate).

I am absolutely clear on this, and very boring and droney-on on the subject. I harangue the TV (even the Beeb regularly gets it wrong) and my correctness and worthiness and sensibleness is always confirmed by my family. I can tell, you see, by the way they always react when I am right about something for the hundred and eleventy-fifth time. They always mutter "Jesus Christ, keep on, Dad, yes, Dad, you're right, whatever" and roll their eyes and look at each other and shake their heads slowly. See, I know I'm right when they do that.

Not being a perfect person, however (difficult as this may be to believe, I know) I had a bit of a problem with (something like) the following phrase in a book: " none of the data, when analysed, has showed ....". Has showed? I thought. Shouldn't that be have showed? I'm still not entirely sure, but I reckoned at first the book's probably right: 'none of the data' is singular. Surely nothing isn't plural? Unfortunately, this fails the CWC test for how to use 'data': substitute a plural phrase such as 'pieces of information'. Thus, the nonsense of 'this pieces of information shows'.Would you say, though, 'none of the pieces of information ... has showed'? Have showed, surely? I'm stumped. I don't know. My brain hurts.

Anyone?

( ....care? At all? Just me, then).

Things I like today

2006-10-04T10:02:00.000+01:00

1. St John's Wort. Marvleeous. It seems for the moment to be keeping me on the sane and narrow. No more blues!
2. Rugby training. Last night. Hard but fair. Good for the pent up frustration, flattening a fat bloke is (grammar? I seem to have segued into Yoda).
3. The World of Yaxlich. Very funny. Read the one from a couple of days ago when he's drunk at one in the morning. "Yaxlich relieves himself. Yaxlich goes to the bathroom. Yaxlish realises he is too late."
4. Some CDs I haven't played for ages but have found again. Like Eels. And Gorillaz.
5. The piano. Just generally. Haven't played it much lately, but I like that I could if I wanted to.
6. Watching re-runs of Lovejoy on ITV3 with my lunch. I always wanted to be Lovejoy. Hmmm. Ian McShane. Whatever happened to him? His career probably didn't go anywhere after that. A bit like Mark Hamill after Star Wars. It (Lovejoy, not Star Wars) had a young Irish actor called
James Nesbitt on it yesterday. Never saw him again, either, which is a shame because he was quite good.
7. Not caring about stuff. Loudly, often. Today's stuff I'm liking not caring about include David Beckham saying he's going to retire in two years (don't care), Coronation Street and come to that all soaps (don't care), David Hasselhof's new single's success, or not (don't care), celebrity size 00 nonsense (don't care - unless my daughter starts being influenced by it, in which case I do care, so does that mean I care now? Does potentially caring count? My list, my rules, so fuck it - not defining my terms (don't care)).
8. The Blogosphere.
9. Lists. Especially largely meaningless ones.
10. Not having to finish up on a nice round number - I can't think of anything else so I'll just stop at nine. What? Oh. Bugger.

Listening

2006-09-26T09:20:00.001+01:00

Wooo, why do I keep posting about depression? I haven't counted, but a quick flip down my previous posts shows that there's loads. Sorry about that. I wouldn't want you to think that I am obsessed with it - I'm feeling fine at the moment, anyway. Thanks for asking. It just seems like an interesting subject to blog about, at the time. With hindsight, this is probably not actually true, is it? A bit like golfers going on about the really good shot that found the really bad lie. Or, in poker parlance, nobody likes a bad beat story. Sorry. I'll try and shush about it.

I'm in a quandary regarding my radio listening at the moment.* I may have mentioned, just the once, that I'm forty now (why isn't that spelt fourty? Always annoyed me, that has. Still, we could be french and call ninety nine four twenties nineteen. That would be worse). I've got Radio 1 on at the moment. I am plainly not in the target demographic. I don't mind Chris Moyles, I suppose, though I've just listened to him reckoning the Nile is the longest river in South America. Brain the size of a planet. I find that annoying. Oh, and now they've said that Saturn's rings were discovered in 1979. I haven't googled it up but I'm fairly sure it was, uh, the odd century or four before that. For fuck's sake. I really hope I misheard that. Wasn't it a Mr G Gallilei in sixteen hundred and something?

Anyway, radio choice. I have a severe allergic reaction to local radio. It causes me a choking sensation, and feelings of nausea. Caused by me sticking my own fingers down my throat in desperation. I also have a nasty intolerance of adverts on commercial radio. It causes irrational spasmoidal muscle twitches, resulting in throwing heavy objects at the radio. So that's Virgin out. (Could have contrived a joke there about virgins, but you're too distinguished an audience).

Radio 2 is the obvious choice, I hear you cry. Well, maybe, but, duh, Steve Wright still doing exactly the same stuff as he was doing on Radio 1 in the eighties, and Ken more-effective-than-prozac Bruce. Puh-leeze.

I guess it's time to download some more albums onto iTunes. Or upload them. Oh, whatever you do when you go onto t'internet and find some nice songs that you like and buy them and the little blue line takes a couple of minutes to travel a few inches across the screen and then suddenly the song appears on your playlist and you can make a CD of your very very own with the burn to cd function. See, I'm internet literate, me. Then I can listen to my stuff not their stuff, which is nice.

*Challenge anyone to change the subject more suddenly than that.

Depressed, manic, what?

2006-09-20T14:34:00.000+01:00

WARNING: may contain the word CUNT.

May also be self-indulgent bollocks, however. The author will not be liable for readers kicking the crap out of their pc due to boiling over with anger at the self-indugent arse-wipery contained hereafter. So there.

I may have referred in the past to being a depressive sort of person, so it was with great interest that I watched Stephen Fry last evening exploring his and others' relationship with bipolarity. (I fear that I am in danger of breaking my self-imposed ten minute rule here. It is a serious thing, though).

Bit disappointed, actually. Not with Stephen, whom I like enormously and he made a very good programme. No, more with myself, as usual.

I can relate to all of the more minor incidents of depression recounted: one Robbie Williams, of whom you may have heard, described standing up in front of forty thousand people and saying 'I'm great, me', finishing the concert, going alone back to his hotel, and pulling the duvet over his head. I so do that. On a much smaller scale, obviously. And Stephen recounted that during his depressive periods, he just thinks that everyone dislikes him because he's such a cunt*, a complete wanker**. I do that, too. I still think sometimes that my mates are just putting up with me and all give a collective sigh of relief when I leave.

However, they then recounted the manic episodes of creativity, unbounded energy, no sense of responsibility, no fear of failure - and both said that they wouldn't want not to be bipolar because of this; it made it all worth while. They even credited these manic periods with creating them as successful slebs in their own field.

Twat.

No fair.

Typical me.

How come I only get the arse end of the deal, as usual? I heard myself asking.

I could look at this, if I was a paranoid person, as just another of life's kicks in the teeth that I seem to get more than my fair share of. And, yes, I know we all feel like that sometimes. But I found myself thinking: I actually want to be more ~~mad~~ ill than I am already. It's not fair. How come I don't get the fun bit, just the bad bit?

But then the other people on the documentary gave me a reality check, so to speak: a fat Tony Slattery chucking all his worldly goods into the Thames from a warehouse flat, holed up alone for three months; the ex-commander of the Royal Yacht who saw angels, and the devil, and then walked out of a psychiatric unit and stepped in front of a lorry, on purpose - did you see the damage still done to his legs? - and the poor woman, only a little older than me but who looked seventy, who just grinds to a halt in the supermarket, unable to motivate herself to move at all, and says she lives from minute to minute because she can't even consider further away than that. She once tried to kill herself by drilling into her head. Not funny.

So, I guess my bad bits aren't too bad, really. It is frustrating, don't get me wrong. I have the greatest difficulty motivating myself to do anything at all sometimes, and it was important for me to hear Stephen say that sometimes to get up from the sofa and go to the fridge is an effort almost too great to be attempted. I had sort of wondered if that was just me. So that's good to know. I find myself doing anything at all as escapism: this, tv, books, the paper, having a snooze, anything, to avoid thinking about what I should be doing, ie working; the trouble with that is I finish the paper, programme, whatever, and reality just comes crashing in again. Leaving me being down and feeling guilty that I haven't been working, earning money to feed the children, blah blah.

I went to the doctor about all this a while ago, and he said to get more exercise.

Ta for that.

Our Robbie said that he'd stopped drinking and drug-taking for 13 months and felt worse than ever. So he went and got some anti-depressants and suddenly felt fine for the first time in years: 'Soz about that, I'm ok now'.

Mmmmm. Now that really is interesting. I have always steered clear of this route. I am really worried about dependency and so on. I can't decide whether what I feel like is really a big enough problem: I muddle through. You wouldn't even know, to look at me. I seem normal enough, I guess. But I have felt like this - the mates thing, the motivation thing, low self esteem and all that - for pretty much all of my life that I can remember, sometimes more, sometimes less, but always there. I'm fairly sure that I'm not bipolar. I don't do the manic thing much (or maybe I do, what the fuck do I know? I'd need to be on the outside looking in to judge). I don't think I do. I'm also fairly sure that I am depressive. Not lock-self-in-garage-with-ignition-turned-on depressive. Ever. Honest: be reassured on that one. But I think that I really do have to do something about this one now. Crisis? What crisis? Ha. Maybe, this time.

So: pills, or no pills?

Assuming the doc agrees with me.

I'll let you know.

*His word, and I did warn you.
**Sorry, forgot to warn you about that one. I assume it's ok between mates.

Really quick is best

2006-09-18T11:15:00.000+01:00

I've decided this. Blogwise, I mean. I can think of lots of other things in which it wouldn't be true at all, not by a long chalk. Sex, for one. Unless you like it like that. I once had very quick sex on the steps of the Albert Memorial in that there London on a Saturday afternoon. There's (a) an interesting dinner party conversation and (b) a time when quick is definitely good. I was wearing a very long coat and she was wearing a very short skirt, in case you were wondering. This was Acceptable, as it was the eighties.

I'm digressing. And turning into one of them Sex Blogs which have been all over the media recently. Perhaps.

Quick Blogging is the way forward (keep up at the back). I've decided that unless I've got something serious to say, then 10 minutes is my limit. I got a bit fed up and like lots of others I thought about giving up (I understand that 3 months is average for Bloggers to keep it up*) because I'd run out of stuff to say - even the inestimably great Greavsie thought about giving up recently.

So, stream of consciousness, no editing, no constantly going back in and fiddling with something and republishing, and I'm going to be really strict: if I haven't finished after ten minutes I'll just

*fnar

Well hello ...

2006-09-15T15:56:00.000+01:00

... again. Finally.

I'm in a real fucking rush, typically, so just saying that I have obviously been a good boy and Blogger has deign ed to let me on again. See what a rsudh I'm in? I haven't even got time to correct those typos.

I didn't know my username, see, cos ever since I've been on here I just log onto the site and I'm still signed on from last time and I never needed to know it until I did need to cos I just got sent to the Blogger sign on page, and then I didn't. Know it, I mean. I tried everything I could think of. It kept telling me ways to sort out forgetting my password. I know my fucking password. It's only ever the same word, sometimes with a single digit number after it. I don't know my fucking username. The person(s) on blogger who are any variation of CrisisWhatCrisis must be totally fucked off with getting emails confirming their passwords. It was weeks and lots of emails until Blogger randomly sent me a reply saying 'this is the screen to change your password on'. And on top of it, big font, in grey, my username. It's one of my other pseudonyms, see, but with a hyphen in the middle. Why the cunting hell did I do that? I had no fucking chance what-so-bastard-ever of remembering that. I'm swearing a lot today. Sorry. Comes of being in a rush. And cross.

So, jus' so you know, I'm back. And while I was away I had loads of ideas of blogs. Did I write them down? Did I bollocks. So now I can't remember any of them and will have to think of some more. Which I will endeavour to do while out drinking this weekend. Reality is, after all, a delusion brought on by lack of alcohol.

Update: well, more a question really. While I've been away someone's stolen my nice white background, apparently. I've just noticed. It's all just grey and nothingness and dull. And the blog. (badoom tish). Is this just my antiquated machine fucking about for a sinister electronic silicon laugh, or does Blogger still hate me really, or has no-one else got that? Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that everyone isn't out to get you anyway.

Winging it

2006-08-09T11:23:00.000+01:00

I've had a bit of a tragedy. I've lost my list of Potential Subjects To Blog About. It should be just there, see? Next to my (enormous non flat screen) monitor. In the pile with compliment slips and new client enquiry forms and phone message pad similar shit that I need next to my pooter and phone. I've no idea how I can have lost it; it never moves more than six inches from its resting place.

So now not only do I have a bit of crisis (what crisis?) re what's the point of blogging generally but now I have to improvise for subject matter too.

Hmm.

I've just flicked back through my comments, looking for inspiration. For which thanks, obviously. However, I do kinda get the impression that some of you may actually be a bit worried about me. For goodness' sake don't. I am fine. I am optomistic, happy, content. I am also prone to depression but that's ok too, that's just me, I can cope with it.

I've been a bit knocked back lately in that my social life has had a big hole punched through it by someone leaving. I am far from the most important person in this situation but still, it's been weird and a bit disorientating not being able to do the usual on a Friday night any more.

But that's ok too. I am 40 and therefore officially Old Enough To Cope.

And just to prove it, here's my favourite joke of the moment:

An attractive young lady walks into a bar and asks for a double entendre. So the barman gives her one.

Thangyooandgoodnight. I'm here until Sunday.

Lazy fecker, or just confused?

2006-08-03T11:34:00.000+01:00

Well, uh, hello. I'm here again. After a looong while.

I've worked out my trouble. With the blog thing, I mean, not with life generally - a mere blog is far too short to sort out that. Not that I want to come across as all whiny and needy and a mentalist, mind. But we've all got life problems, hey.

My trouble is I can't decide what I want it to be. The blog. And because of that it doesn't have a proper identity, a theme; a house style if you will.

Sometimes I just want to rant, usually about tv ads or stupid people or any of the almost infinite number of other things that drive me into a forehead-slapping frenzy. But surly does it better.

Sometimes I want to do a pithy, observational thing with a diary emphasis; just talking about my family and work and writing clever bon mots. But Greavsie has that one all tied up. In nice short sentences.

So, I could do a more accurate diary, with Named Friends about whom we gradually discover more and more things in a witty way. But, bugger it, JonnyB does that better than I could manage. And I'm not renovating a house, either.

I could go on. My writing style is quite convoluted, usually, with long sentences and lots of talking to myself in subclauses (am I doing that here? Not sure); a bit like this really. But not as much as anna, who does it much more and much better and for much longer and much more often.

And, much as I like off the wall commentary, about politics and media and daily life and tintenet, I couldn't possibly compete with Harry or Ivan. Both of whom make me laugh out loud, sometimes.

And now I'm worried that all the other blogpeople I like are going to be offended because I haven't singled them out. Please accept my grovelling apologies, but I just can't be arsed to type a href one more fucking time. Except for that one. Obviously.

So. I need a Style All Of My Own. I just don't know what it should be.

So we're going one way or the other - I'm going to give up blogging altogether, or maybe I'll experiment for a bit to see what I come up with. And if it's shite then I'll give up altogether.

Don't hold your breath.

Get me

2006-07-12T11:04:00.000+01:00

Standing in the playground, awaiting the emergence of Child Two, I ruminate secretly from behind my sunglasses that most of the women whose children attend the village school are utter fucktards. It seems that by far the most important thing in their lives is choice of designer label bag/sunglasses/shoes/jeans. Hair products are discussed in ludicrous detail. Gym memberships are bandied about competitively, with the one who gets both free fluffy towels and a complimentary personal trainer begrudgingly declared the winner. All the others will be there by the end of next week.

They clog up the village street in their Chelsea tractors, none of which have been further off road than parking with two wheels on the pavement stopping prams getting through. Vanity displayed to the max; and the funny thing, which makes me smile to myself standing in the playground, is that I don't find any of them in the least attractive. BOBFOCs*, the lot of them. Give me one of the genuine farmers' wives any day - wellies, ordinary jeans, rugby shirt, old short wheelbase landrover with mud on it and a sheepdog in the back, with equally as good a figure as the gym-junkies** but born of lugging straw bales and sheep nuts and fencing wire up a hill; wonderful natural complexion, clear skin and real tan from being outside in the sun, not from smearing expensive chemical moisturising-with-a-hint-of from some bottle from an overdesigned aspirational neon lit boutique.

And, before she fries me alive, the LOML is of course firmly in the latter camp: fit, strong, clear-skinned, bright eyed.

I consider the need for healthy outdoor exercise to be a life essential - especially as I like my food and beer and wine just a bit too much. Last evening the kids and I went for a long dog walk. I have bought a book on improving my skiing technique. I am also training for the next rugby season. Accordingly, this morning I go for a long run. There are some excellent ancient woods near the village, and I regularly run to them. Trouble is, when I get there I'm approaching my limit, so I just go along the edge a bit and then turn for home. Today, though, I get myself organised and take everything I need on the school run, and then park up in the woods on the way home. A folded up bit of A4 printed off www.multimap.com showed all the footpaths with which I am not familiar, iPod on shuffle, new trainers specially for road and tracks (special grippy soles and gel inserts, wooo) and off I go. Wonderful. It's a bit like orienteering, which I used to do every weekend when I was a kid, and the old tricks come back gradually. I pick a route which hardly goes on tarmac roads for the whole way. Meadows and streams and narrow woodland paths and wide glades, thumb marking my place on the map so I can glance down and know where to go without having to stop, ready for the next turn, the next stile. Into the sun and back into the shade; over a plank bridge over the brook, through a paddock of ponies, down a tiny haymeadow full of wildflowers. I go up driveways saying 'Dead End' and 'No Access' because, armed with my map, I know there is a footpath across a field at the end. And I get back to the car after an hour and a quarter of almost solid running, tired but not too tired, and I have a towel and a cool bottle of water waiting. Get me, organised boy.

And I sit on the boot of the car and drink water and idly stretch my tired legs, in the dappled shade of a layby in a little lane in the woods, and I think of the years I lived in the city, of tube trains and night buses; and of the BOBFOCs running on treadmills like hamsters in a cage, examining in the floor to ceiling mirror their expensive streaky hairstyle unravelling, thinking about spending their commuting husbands' money on new shoes and wrinkle control moisturising skin gunk, and I wonder at the sense of it all. Sure, they have more money than me, but in the end, is that important? Their husbands are all forced to be at work by this time. I'm not. I can sit here in the peace and cool of the woods if I want.

I'm not claiming I've got all the answers, but there's a basic failure, I reckon, to understand that there really isn't a direct arithmetic relationship between money and happiness. There just isn't.

*Body Off Baywatch, Face Off Crimewatch
** I'm only looking a bit, for the sake of research for this blurb, dear, honest.

Cricket

2006-07-10T09:50:00.000+01:00

Mrs Tony Bloke is on the answerphone (and I'm going to resist the temptation regarding 'and then she jumped off' jokes); she is asking me to go and play cricket. As it's Tony Bloke's birthday.

A good time is had by all. Our team wins. For some incomprehensible reason to do with Mumbling Nige's shoulder, I am promoted from keeper to opening bowler, and he vice-versa. Considering I once bowled a 13 ball over in a league match, this is an ill-advised selection decision. Edited highlights: amongst a mixed bag which contains a beamer but amazingly no extras, I bowl to the Grey Poupon, a local lawyer, who edges, and Nige drops a piss easy catch and I bellow "NIGEL, YOU CUNT!" at far too great a volume and close a proximity to several small children, who are respectively fielding at mid on, fielding in the slips, and umpiring at square leg. I apologise, and then I get the Poupon in the ribs next ball, ha, that'll teach him to try and pull, and then, softened up, he chips one to cover point who can actually catch, and does so. Hoorah.

One of their lower order batsmen gets a Graham Poll like series of decisions, and only leaves the field when he is out for the third time. Hit wicket once, stumped once, stumped again. And even then he lingered. "Glad to see the ethics of the game being upheld", and "Wonderful to see such sporting spirit" we chorus sarcastically from the close field. It is pointed out that while he was occupying one end their scoring rate was zero, so no bad thing he stayed on really.

Beers are brought out, which comprimises the fielding somewhat - we discover it's difficult to stop a hard hit cover drive one-handed without spilling your pint.

They are all out for 108 (or about there, I forget).

I am batting six. I dither about wondering whether to wear my helmet: I'm not afraid being hit by their bowling, I am afraid, however, of hitting the ball into my own face. I decide to leave it.

We each bat until we are out or until we've faced two overs and are then retired. Just so everyone gets a go.

I am facing Grey Poupon, so hostilities resume. He bowls a sort of medium pace loopy 'Military Medium', but I know from previous encounters that he does bowl straight, so I have to take care. First ball, a bit short, a bit on leg, sitting up, pull, four. Woo. Second ball, sitting up on off stump, try and cut, miss it low, it misses the top of off by at least an inch. Third ball the same - except this is perhaps half an inch over. "Left it on length, knew it was missing. Free hit, really" I announce, tongue firmly in cheek. Hoots of derision.

It all becomes a bit of a blur after that. I remember wanting to play a nice high-elbow straight drive or cover drive off the front foot, but they keep bowling shortish and on leg, so a series of agricultural hoiks through square leg is all I get the chance to play. I do get one off leg-and-middle to go straighter: off the sweet spot but a fraction early so what ought to have been six goes too high and dies and ends up as a scampered two.

I am called in, 18 not out, with three fours. I am chuffed. My season average last time I played properly was one and a half.

I manage to cobble together appropriately sized pads and sundry equipment for Child One to go and have a bat, once we've already won. He's never played before; we have a quick practice and then he goes in, brave as anything, in front of everyone. He faces an over against Tony Bloke's middle son, same age. He tries his hardest to reach a series of wides, with good natural technique, and is finally undone by a straight one. Match over. I am proud of him.

The LOML has got herself a pint but not me. Child One and I go over for approval, congratulation. She has been gossiping with her mates, and was entirely unaware that either of us had batted or bowled at all. She apologises, but I can tell she doesn't mean it.

No, no, thank you

2006-07-07T09:29:00.000+01:00

To Sainsbury's, killing time while yet another child activity takes place.

In the entrance lobby: "Thank you for not smoking". On a sign. On the wall. No problem, I think, I wasn't going to anyway.

Later: "Thank you for not taking your trolley beyond this point". I don't know about you, but I don't feel the need to take my trolley out of the side of the carpark and down to the canal. My car's this way. Like, uh, no problem, but I really wasn't going to.

I wonder where this will lead. What else are we going to be thanked for not doing? Sainsbury's have surely missed a trick here. Thank you for not bellowing gynaecological obscenities at the Delicatessen staff. Thank you for not curling one down in the middle of the oils, vinegars, and sauces aisle. Thank you for not shooting the acne-raddled checkout freak in the face. I wasn't going to do any of these things, either. Well, probably not.

It's the same thinking as "have a nice day" and the execrable "missing you already" that you get subjected to in shops in the States. More evidence of the creeping Americanisation of Britain. When was the last time you heard a film called a film, not a movie? And it's 'disc' and 'programme', while we're at it. Short step to alooominum and diapers from there. I caught Child One talking about a Royal Navy Loootenant the other day. I made him repeat Lef! Lef! Lef! Lieutenant! for a day and a half non-stop. That'll learn him.

If we ever get to the point where this is so widespread that it becomes the norm I will be forced to emigrate to the nearest slightly left-leaning, temperate, English-speaking country that is not in North America. Which may actually be New Zealand, and therefore a bit of an also-ran in the interesting people stakes, but a clear odds-on favourite in the outdoor scenery handicap.

Chuck some more lamb on the barbie, Bruce.

Genius, or just wrong?

2006-06-15T09:50:00.000+01:00

The LOML and I went to to a wedding the other week. It was a posh one - fancy marquee on the croquet lawn at the mother's country pile, hot and cold running waitresses, wind quintet. The bride was my lovely little cousin, who has finally got together with one of her banking colleagues at the age of 32 or so. Didn't get the chance to talk to him really, because he was too busy doing the Gordon Gecko* on the dancefloor with a whole fucking wunch of his Porsche-driving banker mates. They had all tied the menu-securing ribbons around their heads, and were dancing in a tight circle in some bizarre hangover from a team-bonding exercise. I was snorting with mirth into my champagne with the subsequent attempts of wannabes among the guests also tying ribbons around their heads then shuffling self-consciously onto the dancefloor in a pathetic attempt to join the self-proclaimed a-list. They were utterly shunned, naturally. I thought about going for a dance with the ribbon hanging out of my bare arsehole, but the LOML made me desist. I settled for requesting A Town Called Malice and Going Underground and moshing into them instead. Hard. I do a good elbow to the kidneys when moshing and it was put to full use. The LOML moshed into them even harder, if anything. She's good like that.

Anyhoo, because we were faaaamily, we were invited back the day after for a tour of the gardens (which were lovely, incidentally) and a spot of luncheon (also lovely, natch). And then we wended our way home. And forgot about it.

This was nearly a month ago. The LOML casually asked the other night if I had sent a thank-you note.

Arse. Sod it. Sinking feeling in stomach.

These things are important in my family. Terribly big on good manners, my family. This is a faux-pas of fairly collosal proportions; we will now be considered the chav end of the family, bumpkin downsizing fuckwits, ostracised from the birthday party invite list at swanky cocktail hotels in London. We never go, but at least we are invited. Pass the ASBO.

I think for a minute, and come up with a Genius Solution. I select a Very Tasteful card from my multi-purpose box of cards, sensibly ensuring that there is a matching Tasteful Envelope the correct size. I then write a fulsome note of thanks in fountain pen, cleverly ensuring I use the phrase "many thanks for ... last weekend", cleverly leave it undated, and cleverly stick it in the envelope. Cleverly, I address the envelope in the same fountain pen.

Then, then, in ballpoint, I write on the back of the envelope "Mortified to find this still unposted in a pile of junkmail. Dreadfully sorry". And post the letter.

Genius**. Or just wrong***.

You decide.

*a bit like the Gay Gordons, but greedier.
**My opinion.
***the LOML's.

View through my window

2006-06-07T09:41:00.000+01:00

As it's the title of the blog, perhaps it's about time you all had a look at it. Here you are.

You can see my barbecue, my veggie patch, the greenhouse is poking into the left hand edge, and a load of shrubbery stuff that needs pruning, and the kids' blue slide. And nice fields and woods in the background. Oh, and the top of my biscuit box thing and my digickal stereo on the windowsill. Lovely, isn't it?

[note to self] Do not forget how lucky you are. Apply to all aspects of life. [/note to self]

Class

2006-05-23T15:39:00.000+01:00

When I was a kid, I was desperate to be common.

This seems like a ridiculously snobby thing to say, I agree.

But it struck me that all the fun things in the world were dismissed by my parents as "that's common". My parents, you will appreciate, were professional people and had (still have) ludicrous pretentions about being Upper Middle Class.

I wanted Angel Delight. Angel Delight is common, so I got junket. Which for the uninitiated is a kind of sloppy, watery yogurty shite. It doesn't have bits of pineapple in, which is what I wanted. It looks like sperm, frankly, and smells not dissimilar either. I'm not going to continue this comparison on the grounds that I might incriminate myself - for the record, I DO NOT KNOW what sperm tastes like.

I wanted strawberry jam on sliced white bread. Strawberry jam, unbelievably, is common, and so is sliced bread. I got homemade marmalade with big bits of bitter peel in, on floury bread from the baker's. At least it was white some of the time.

I was desperate for a Raleigh Commando, which was a bit like a forerunner of a BMX bike. But these were common. Despite the fact they could easily have afforded one, I got hand-down bikes from my cousins, including a girl's bike with no crossbar. Which was embarrassing down the park. I once went to meet a new girlfriend from her school on a bike that was so small that even with the seat post as high as it would go, my knees were still round my ears. That's what it felt like anyway. She was so embarrassed she finished with me not long after.

I wanted to live on an estate. This is irretrievably common. We had to live in the centre of town in a house built in 1700 odd which had no square rooms and creaky stairs and plumbing that didn't work and leaded windows that leaked, and always had mould or something falling to bits. Or both. More importantly, it didn't have mates playing football in the street outside. Going to see mates involved the complicated rigmarole of phoning up and asking their mum and setting a home time and making sure your homework was done first. Not just going out and playing outside the front, which was all I wanted.

I wanted friends round. But all my friends were common so I couldn't. All the ones that Mum wanted me to invite who weren't common were up their own arses, or went hunting on Daddy's horses, or were so inbred that their chins had entirely disappeared. And none of them liked me anyway. They probably thought I was common with ideas above my station. Come to think of it, my parents had fallen into this trap themselves, to the extent that during my entire childhood, I cannot remember a single person of their generation coming round who wasn't in some way related. They had (have) no friends whatsoever.

I wanted girlfriends in my room. Not to stay over, obviously, that wasn't going to be allowed. But this was common, no lady would allow herself upstairs alone*, so all my girlfriends had to sit in the lounge (sorry, living room, or even drawing room), drinking tea from the best china cups and saucers while my Mum asked embarrassingly direct questions about what their Dads did for a living.

Do you know what? All I wanted was to be normal, and like the other kids in my school. Not the one turning up with their books in a leather satchel. Or having roast pheasant sandwiches. Or having a pudding basin haircut. I know that my Mum and Dad just wanted what was best. But it wasn't.

*that's no lady, that's my girlfriend.

Umbrella

2006-05-17T16:28:00.000+01:00

I go to fetch Child One from school. This involves a five mile trog through the lanes to one of the local market towns, where I wait with all the other parents at the parking area in a park, waiting for the red-clad tide to sweep out of the distant gate and across the grass. It's a twice-daily chore that we share with another family from the village.

The weather is fine when I leave. Inevitably, by the time I get to the park, it's raining. Not disasterously hard, but persistantly and irritatingly. I lurk in the steaming-up car for as long as I can, until I catch sight in the mirror of the first red-jumpered child meeting a parent. I know I am safe until at least now, because neither Child One nor his mate are the keenest, most efficient children and will never be the first out.

Hunching my shoulders against the rain, I get out to go over to the field to meet the boys. (I find that hunching my shoulders against the rain is entirely ineffective, but I do it anyway. According to my observations, so does everyone else, and it doesn't work for them either. Something we could evolve out of doing, I think). And then, and then, I catch sight of it. Sitting in the boot of the car. A many-coloured, many-spendoured thing.

My umbrella.

A triumph of hue in red, blue, green and yellow fabric. An elegantly engineered steel-ribbed contraption which will, today, be the saving of both my hairstyle* and dignity.

I erect it proudly over my head. (Never thought I'd be able to say that without improbable boasting). And if you're waiting for the almost-inevitable 'and then it collapsed, soaking me with freezing rainwater and everyone laughed at me', then you're going to be disappointed. No, today, it performed precisely the function for which it was required.

The rain got harder, but I was invulnerable. It's a good-sized brolly, and even the occasional gust of wind didn't allow the rain to blow under too badly. There's something quite marvelous about standing in a heavy rainstorm in just a teeshirt and jeans, soundly protected by a trusty brolly. All of a sudden, I was transported back to teenage camping holidays, me and some good mates down in the south of France, me lying on my stomach in my sleeping bag in my own little ridge tent, CD on**, coffee brewing on the gas stove in the porch, door halfway unzipped, with the mother of all thunderstorms going on no more than eighteen inches from my face: a vertical curtain of water flooding off the flysheet but not getting in, not disturbing my own warm, dry little world. I might even have to use the word 'cosy'; not something I do lightly. That is a sense of security which you seldom find again: I'm safe, I'm warm, I'm protected, nothing can harm me, I am not going to be bored, I can look forward to enjoying a couple of mugs of French filter coffee and reading a trashy novel, and for once I haven't left the milk and sugar outside, so there is nothing to spoil this. I am on the threshold of manhood, I am coping in a foreign country by myself, I don't need anyone's help because I am OK. I bet we all wish we could get back to that, sometimes.

Child Two eventually arrived. He had a waterproof coat with him, but typically wasn't wearing it. Never mind, though, for my trusty brolly was big enough for both of us.

*don't go thinking that I have a dodgy haircut. I still have all my hair and despite my GOM status I do mess it up a bit with some gel in the mornings. It stings a bit when the rain gets it into your eyes.
**or, considering the distance back into my memory, more likely 'cassette on'.

Sorry, sorry, again

2006-05-16T15:46:00.000+01:00

Oh heck, all I seem to be doing on here lately is apologising for not being on here. Sorry, again. Can we take that as a generic sorry for the foreseeable future? For whenever else I get too busy or preoccupied or sick or drunk or on holiday* or whatever to keep up with this? I used to be so good, at the beginning; very nearly managed daily for a while there. I have a good excuse this time, you'll no doubt be delighted to realise. Two, actually.

Excuse one: this is a busy time of year for me, and I have several clients who want work doing the day before yesterday, and I need to make money to feed my children's horse.**

Excuse two, and the only downbeat part of this post: have had a personal crisis to do with my two closest friends. No-one died, and it's not between the LOML and I who are if anything now closer than ever, but there have been many tears and phone calls in the small hours, and no doubt it will continue for a good while yet. And that is all I am prepared to say.

I am, at the time of writing, 40 years and 14 days old. This was an interesting birthday, to say the least. At my party at the local v v posh country hotel, the whirlpool bath was accompanied by a four poster bed (no, duh, in two separate rooms - although I will concede that the alternative is strangely attractive) and later by the surprise of fourteen of my closest friends (poignant pause re excuse two above) turning up all dressed in black tie and evening gown (men in one, women in ... oh, you know what I mean) for a wonderful, drunken dinner in a private room. Games included asking me forty questions which I was required to answer (put these three in order of drunkenness: one: 'What is your greatest achievement?'; two: 'How old were you when you lost your virginity?'; three: 'Rimming or fisting?' Ok, finished? Pencils down. Answers: they are in chronological order, but anyone answering that knowing your friends it doesn't matter, it could be in any order gets bonus points. And I'm so not telling you the answers). Passing a playing card from mouth to mouth just by suction is always a good one, especially when Gilles the maitre d' is inveigled into joining in. I fear that several of my male friends used it as an excuse to snog their friends' partners. I wouldn't do that, of course.

Other highlights: how many creamy cocktails can you drink in a sitting (Mrs Marcus the worm farmer), trying to tell the difference between a £5 glass of port and a £35 one (me - I did try not to order the expensive one on grounds of good taste, but it was out of my hands, honest - and I got it wrong, too), the Ferrari track day they clubbed together to buy for me, and the full english that I was perfectly well enough to enjoy the next morning. Oh, and the amusement of not finding the instructions for the whirlpool bath until after we'd pressed all the buttons and twiddled all the controls, which resulted in the jets squirting so hard water went out the window. The place was saturated. The LOML and I, no doubt partly due to the complimentary decanter of sherry and bottle of pink champagne, were helpless with laughter. It was she, inevitably, who thought of jumping into the bath to cover the jets with water. She's clever like that. Fortunately, there was room for me too. And lots of complimentary Molton Brown smellies.

So, there you go, forty. Nothing more to report, yesterday's news is today's chip wrappers.

I am now officially a Grumpy Old Man. And considering that sort of subject is a prime inspiration for material for this sort of blog, perhaps no bad thing, huh.

*I don't think you can be too on holiday. I suspect that I'd like to try, however.
**I'm sure that this is where all my money is going. I seem to be haemorrhaging (spelling***) cash, generally, and it's as easy to blame something with the genus Equus as a small Homo, or two. Um. I may wish to rephrase that.
***I can spell gonorrhoea without looking in a dictionary, too. Unless you're American, in which case I can't.

Down and up

2006-05-04T17:04:00.000+01:00

I had a conversation with a client on the phone yesterday.
"I'm really sorry I haven't been back to you," I explained, "but the contractor who is going to quote to build the stuff has cried off our site meeting three times".
There is a slight silence at the other end, and a warning bell tinkles faintly in the distance. I plunge on.
"Still, we haven't forgotten you, har har har, and I'm just ringing to say we've arranged a meeting tomorrow at midday if that's ok with you."
She replies. Her tone is smug, her speech rapid, her speech waspish.
"I'm sorry but you're too late, we've given up waiting and we've arranged for someone else to do the work and they're starting on Monday."
Nur na nur na nur nur nur, she might as well have said after this. Her tone of voice said it for her.
"Oh, dear, right." I say. "Okay, I see. Well." I should just put the phone down on the condescending bitch. But my immediate reaction is oh no, I've fucked up and I should be apologising. This is the wrong reaction, with hindsight, I shouldn't be doing anything of the sort, but I'm like that and I didn't get a chance to think. "Right then. Oh dear. Well, I'm really sorry about that, like I say we had to cancel quite a few meetings, so, right, no hard feelings, I expect I might have done the same if I'd been you, really ... right. Best of luck with it then."
"Goodbye."
"Yes, um, bye."
Why the fuck did I say that? I wouldn't have done the same thing, no way. Just me accepting guilt wrongly again. It's only been a couple of weeks, for fuck's sake, it's not as if I've left them hanging in some sort of limbo. They were so nice when I met them. I hated the tone of her voice - she really enjoyed that. Bitch.

This sort of thing sets my mentalness off. It's only a small thing, should be water off a duck's back. But in my mental way I find myself staring into space a lot for the rest of the day, hearing the smug " ... we've given up waiting and we've arranged for someone else ..."; it's running through my head. After a while I can't do anything useful and just want to go and lie on the bed in a foetal position. I don't, of course, that would be ridiculous, but it's what I feel like doing.

I can be so mental, me.

And theeeeeen, something happens to lift me up again. Today, while voting for various worthies at the village hall, I am stopped by Morris Dancing Dave. He really does morris dance. What was that about trying everything once?* At the moment, he has the Village Job of raising the flags on Important Days on the top of the church tower. His knees are giving up a bit though now (too much morris dancing, no doubt, though how much is too much would be an interesting debate - feel free to contribute) and the stairs are incredibly narrow and twisty at the top and make his knees hurt, and he wondered if I'd like to do it instead.

Now, I have a slight quandary, as Dave is The Enemy in that he's one of the group who oppose anybody building anything anywhere in the village. BANANA - build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything, we call it. He wants it to become a sheltered retirement community for rich old people, obviously, and has recently successfully argued that the affordable housing association scheme should not go ahead. So, no place for young people to buy then. I take the opposite view. Still, he's a decent enough bloke despite this.

I have a further quandary in that I'm an atheist, and this is the church flag, but still, I reckon having a key to the belltower, and wandering down to the church of a Friday evening the day before Her Maj's official birthday, or Ascension day, or whatever, and climbing up the windy windy steps and sticking the flag on the rope and hauling it up, and then no doubt stopping for a swift half with an aquaintance or two in one or both of the pubs I have to walk back past on the way home, [breathe] would be a good thing. And it's Contributing. And it's a Privilege to be asked, I reckon. I must be getting Responsible, or something.

So I think that I will justify it by claiming to be representing the LOML when I'm doing it, cos she's a sidesman or whatever they're called, and goes to church. Come to think of it, I don't think Dave goes to church much either.

When really I'm doing it cos I reckon it'll be a laff.

*except incest and morris dancing. Wasn't that the quote? I'm sure someone will fill me in on whom it was. I can't be bothered to google it up.

And after the whimsy

2006-05-03T11:23:00.000+01:00

Bunch of nonsense yesterday. Was in a funny mood. Sorry. Comes of getting old. Thanks for allowing the self indulgence.

Today: snap, back to reality. Been to see a new client this morning, nice chap, completely unrealistic aspirations re budget. Arse. I had to tell him so, too. Unprofessional not to. Still, I might be able to cobble something together for him for cheap. So, not an ideal client.

Another client last week, tons of money (and I mean tons) but no sense of style. Or taste. Or practicality. (Can you have a sense of practicality? Well, if you can, he hasn't). His solution: keep throwing money at it until it sorts itself out. While this could be a lucrative thing for me, it doesn't sit easily with my conscience. So I'm working on him about methodology and iteration and so on, and with a bit of luck we might end up at the same place without all the trial by error.

Just read the above back, and I sound like a total arse. Office bullshit. "Methodology and iteration". What the fuck does that mean? What a twat. Trouble is, it's difficult to talk about work without giving away what I do - you know I'm a designer, cos I've said that before - but I'm reluctant to give away more than that cos you might be able to find me a stalk me and murder my children in a bizarre and perverse ritual. Or something.

Ok, so enough about work. Social life status: healthy. Barbeque at weekend at mates' house. Fun was had. Good one. It was Mr and Mrs Mumbling Nige's house, if you must know. Trouble is, the subject of this blog came up, and now they know they're called Mr and Mrs Mumbling Nige which is a bit rude of me since they are so nice and put on such a good time at the weekend. I had a cake and happy birthday sung and everything. Sorry, Nige.

I've got another social event before this birthday is finally put to bed. Posh black tie dinner with the LOML and some as yet unknown friends at the fancy French hotel locally. (Duh. I mean I don't know which of our friends yet. It's a surprise. You can't have friends you don't know. Except on here, I suppose. Do we know each other? Hey, I like to think so). Anyway - the hotel dinner. Is followed by staying over. In a room with a whirlpool bath. Not the friends*, just me and the LOML and a big bath. Mmmmm. Looking forward to that.

And then after that I won't be special any more. I shall be just another forty year old bloke living his life.

Crisis? What crisis? No crisis here.**

*Although you never know, I could be persuaded ... no. Leave it.

**And no, I'm not changing my blog name. We've become attached. We've bonded. I couldn't.

That's that, then

2006-05-02T09:42:00.000+01:00

There you go. The kids are at school, the LOML's gone to work. Normal sort of day really. Oh, and I'm forty. Did I mention?

The countdown's over. The worry might as well cease. Nothing can be done. Fatalism rules at Crisis Towers. "Ah, well, fuck it, never mind" is now the mood of the day. Carry on.

So, no more mithering and brooding; nothing any of us can do about it: first day of rest of. Life begins at. Other trite cliches too, possibly.

Let's raise a quiet, slightly rueful, but nonetheless content and optomistic glass to the world: remorselessly, unstoppably carrying on turning anyway. I'll pop the corks, you fetch the glasses.

"Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Crisis, happy birthday. To. Meeeeeee"

*much later: wanders off into the warm, velvet darkness, dinner suited, black tie undone round neck, half full bottle of cheap champagne in one hand, other hand in pocket, smiling and whistling quietly to himself along to the classic disco music you can hear over the shouting, singing and laughing of all his friends at the party. Nobody notices him leave except for the beautiful, bright eyed, dark haired girl who knows him better than anyone. She quietly raises a glass to the closed door, smiling, and lets him go. She knows she'll see him later.*

At last, it's come ....

2006-04-26T11:59:00.000+01:00

... my new sofa. Just in time for my birthday. Hoorah. You may remember we ordered it some time ago, and it has finally, finally, arrived. Here you go, have a look:

What do you reckon?

Actually, I don't really care what you reckon, especially if you don't reckon much of it. Because I like it, and that's what matters.

Note the gold wall, too, as promised. It looks a bit pink in daylight, but in the evening with the lights on they reflect off it nicely - it does have a metallic finish, honest, just you can't really tell in this photo - and it comes into its own, making a nice cosy warm glowing feeling - especially with the fire lit.

If you look especially hard, you can see (1) an invitation for my posh cousin's wedding, and (2) an empty yogurt pot (photograph sabotage by Child Two).

Talking of Child Two, she did the flag carring thing for her Beaver (snurk) pack at the St George's Day parade at the weekend. Despite my recent cynicism on the subject and my derision of religion* generally, I was as proud as can be of my little girl. She looked fabulous: smart, keen, attentive, pretty; and she did her job (carrying the flag around the streets at the front of her pack, and then ceremoniously into the church as a sort of honour brigade, and out again) calmly and sensibly and with pride. Child One, as a cub, paraded also with dignity and sense. He's been made a Seconder now (2nd in command of a group of six, called an, uh, Six) and is enjoying the responsibility I think.

However .... the real reason for my enjoyment of the occasion: it did mean that the LOML and I got to go and sit in a coffee shop drinking latte and eating muffins and reading the papers in peace for an hour and a half on a Sunday morning, which under normal circumstances would be absolutely unheard of.

Incidentally, under a 'what is the country coming to?' topic: Child One went to cubs this week and their activity was to play basketball at a local park. There were some teenage boys there, and a brief verbal altercation ensued, culminating in the middle-aged female leader, Akela, being told to "fuck off, bitch". In front of a whole troupe of eight to ten year olds in uniform. With no adult male present. Now, my boy has never lived anywhere other than a small village and is to say the least not very streetwise, so I expected this to upset him. That he remains remarkably phlegmatic about it is tribute to both the Akela's strength and determination (they stayed and played their basketball) and my boy's strength of character.

I wish I had been there to argue with. We'd have seen what they would have said to a full grown man instead, huh. And yes, I know this is both petty posturing and hypocritical I'm-bigger-than-you-ness, but it just makes me so fucking cross. How dare they expose my boy to that?

I may need to go and lie down on my new sofa to calm down.

*I may trademark this phrase so don't nick it. Or, do, and see if I care really.

Wine

2006-04-20T11:25:00.000+01:00

Or 'whine', possibly.

I like a glass of red in the evening sometimes. Nothing wrong with that, and I don't need to justify this to you, I am sure. I drink white, too, drier the better. I'm not really fussy. Don't like sweet wine much.

Trouble is, wine is quite expensive and I am quite skint most of the time. So, in a truly academic and middle classy sort of way, I researched what the best wine you could get for cheap was. God, how sensible. I should sew some leather patches onto my jacket elbows and get a job as a geography teacher.

Anyhoo, recommended as 'a very cheap wine which could hold its head up with a ten pound bottle' is a red called Cuvee de Richard. It's Vin du Pays de l'Aude, wherever the fuck that is.* You can get it at Majestic by the case for less than 3 quid a throw. Marv-leous.

The LOML was passing the other day and picked up a half case, cos we'd run out. So, six bottles of fruity, blackcurranty, soft red wine (look, I'm quoting off the label here, I don't make up that sort of shit) in the rack.

The LOML's out one evening, the kids are in bed, and I'm tempted. I open one up, pour it into one of my oversized glasses and settle back to watch something good on telly. Idyllic.

But all is not right. The wine doesn't taste proper. It's a bit fizzy. It's corked, fuck it: fermenting in the bottle. Disgusting.

I'll take that bloody well back, I fume, opening the next one instead. Only to pour it out and have it behave like cherryade. And the next, and the next. All six: fucked.

I am livid. Then disappointed, let down. Then depressed. Why does this always happen to me? Just when I'm having a good time: the very instant I dare to think that all is right with the world and relax and admit to myself, yes, I'm pretty much happy now, then something will instantly come along a fuck it up. Like when we were skiing on the LOML's birthday and we all had a lovely sunny birthday lunch on the terrace overlooking Mont Blanc and some free genepi liqueur from Henri the bar owner, and we were all laughing and happy and then got outside to find out someone had nicked Child One's skis. Just like that.

I mean, I know it's only wine. Nothing to get suicidal about. But, fuck it, I wanted it, I had every right to expect to have it, and now I couldn't. I had a couple of bottles of wife-beater instead, which was ok, but not the same.

So, this morning, a cheque arrives through the letterbox: paying the LOML for some wedding flowers that she did a couple of weekends ago. Fine. Better, though: it is accompanied by an unmistakable tissue wrapped shape. A large, litre-and-a-half tissue-wrapped shape. A magnum size and shape. They have champagne at weddings, I think to myself, and I am excited, my fingers trembling slightly as I peel away the purple paper.

It is Lambrini Original Slightly Sparkling Perry. Serve chilled. 7.5% alcohol.

I am utterly crestfallen. It isn't even wine, for fuck's sake. It isn't even cider. It's made out of pears, which is just wrong. And it's sweet.

The LOML says I shouldn't be ungrateful. They didn't have to give us anything. She's right, of course.

But, I mean, fuck.

*I've just looked on the bottle and the helpful little map says it's the south western coastal bit. I've been there: it's lovely. Just wish they could put a cork in a wine bottle properly.

Hi, back with more Things and Stuff

2006-04-18T14:08:00.000+01:00

... as Helen Chamberlain on Soccer AM says on Saturday mornings. You'd know that if you've got Sky. And you like football. And you don't work Saturday mornings.

And with apologies for the delay in posting. I've been reeeeeeally busy. Work, mostly. And boredom, a bit. Do those of you that write rather than just lurk sometimes lose inspiration to write anything? And then, because you haven't written anything for a while, you lose the momemtum, and it seems more like a big chore than a pleasure to write anything, so you don't bother? That, anyway. Anyway, I'm still really busy but I've got some stuff to tell you so I'm back for a bit.

Talking of the fragrant Helen, as I was a paragraph ago, it's widely known that she plays a bit of poker (she came second at the Poker Million, for instance, winning half a million dollars. Nice day out). I think I'm right in saying that she'd never been to a casino before playing - online only.

And me.

Never been to a casino in my life. And considering that The Birthday is a fortnight today (there, that makes it easy to work out), I was having an attack of four thousand weeks and thought bollocks, I shall just go. As much so I can say I have as for any other reason.

Now, I've been playing poker properly for maybe ten years now, online. And at occasional home games. But casinos have all sorts of rules and etiquette and tactics and generally ways to make a newbie look like an utter arse. And also take all his money. And send him home skint and dejected, a poorer but perhaps wiser young man. But bollocks, I thought, I've read enough poker blogs and watched enough poker on telly to know the major pitfalls, so I'm more worried that it's the quality of my poker that will let me down.

So, I made some phone calls, and decided which of my local casinos was holding the best tournament for me that evening. Don't worry, I'll go on as little as possible about technicalities of the game, promise. This is more of your colour piece. Atmosphere stuff, honest. So, I kiss a very dubious LOML goodbye and trundle along the motorway to the casino.

I walk in, nervous but trying not to show it. They're very friendly at the desk, and my passport's more than enough ID to get in. I go in.

I expected a lot of rooms, like on the films - you know, James Bond playing Baccarat in one room, roulette in another, elegant dining through the back, that sort of thing. No, wrong, this is just one big space. There's a bar at one end up a couple of steps with lots of screens showing PremPlus footie, roulette tables in the middle, all sorts of slot machines around the rest of the place, and a roped off area to the far end is the Card Room.

I go to the bar so that I can suss out what to do. I make a Beginner's Mistake in trying to pay for my coke - all soft drinks are free, my love. Sorry. No need to apologise, she smiles. She looks a bit like my mum. Ok. A quick look round, nobody noticed, I think. In fact, the place is pretty empty. There's a generous scattering of people around various slot machines - one with a video screen showing a virtual roulette wheel seems popular. There is some action at one of the tables at the far end - a roulette wheel, I think. I scan the room for a minute. There's a desk with a bored looking bloke at the far end outside the Card Room. That must be my man.

I wend my way over, and chat to him about tonight. He's got a cynical seen-it-all-before attitude that only a twenty year old who knows what he's doing can adopt in front of someone twice his age who doesn't. Still, I manage to enter tonight's tournament without making any mistakes: I mean, it's obvious that I've not been before by the questions I'm asking, but I don't make an arse of myself. There's an hour or so to wait.

I mooch around the rest of the casino for a while. There are a bunch of people playing roulette at one table. I haven't got a clue how this works, so I lean on the rail beside and watch. I work out that they go to a cashier's window adjacent and buy money chips: these are dark red. They then exchange these money chips for lots of chips at the table - each player has a different colour so you can tell who's won what.

Most of the players are Asian - Middle Eastern, for a guess, by origin, though as there are signs up everywhere saying you must only speak English it's difficult to tell. One guy in a beige suit in front of me is sticking stacks of ten orange chips all over the board - on corners, single numbers, half and half. He has a huge stack of chips in front of him, Every time he leans forward to bet, a folded wad of notes maybe a centimetre thick pokes out of the back pocket of his trousers. They're all twenties. The girl croupier has to use both hands and one arm to sweep the piles of losing chips into a hole in the table after each round. I wonder to myself if he is trying to launder drug money, then berate myself for racial stereotyping. He could be though. It's untraceable.

So, I watch a bit of football, I read the menu - the food looks ok - and after what seems like an age we are called to the tables. I am Table 6 seat 9. Each seat has a little square of printed paper with your name and a bar code, and a thousand chips: one yellow five hundred, three purply one hundreds, and eight green twenty fives. The table fills up. Now, all of a sudden, it really is like a film - this time by Guy Ritchie. There's a guy who looks Eastern European, but who's deaf and dumb; an aggressive middle aged black guy with a loud mouth; an old Jewish guy in a shabby suit and tiny half moon specs; a couple of Middle Eastern lads all hair gel and designer tee shirts, trainers, sunglasses and bling; a little old bald Chinese bloke; and a few white blokes like me -some old, some younger, dressed fairly conservatively for comfort not impact, with tidy hair.

A muffled announcement says something along the lines of shuffle up and deal, and the dealer effortlessly flicks the cards out. I am, at this point, and not to put too fine a point on it, shitting myself. Smell it? I was sitting in it. I find out that adrenalin is brown. Look, I tell myself, this just is an exercise in not looking an arse, first time. Anything better is a bonus.

One thing that I can do without showing myself up is look very cautiously at my cards, then fold. So I do that a lot. I manage to get my compulsory 'blind' bets in without having to be reminded by the dealer. Around me, madness. People are shouting and yelling. Hurling chips at each other. Slagging each other off. Criticising the dealer, loudly, to his face. Calling the floor manager over to resolve disputes. Shoving all their stack in, going broke and buying more chips, over and over. An especially loud yell from one of the other tables: someone has got incredibly lucky and the loser and his mates are all shouting and waving their arms in the air. I sit in the middle, folding, folding. The bloke on my right bets, loses, and shoves a purple hundred chip to me. I am confused for a microsecond, then realise he wants change. I shove him four greens. I don't think anyone noticed my hesitation.

I work out that the little square of paper with the bar code is for re-buying. If you get knocked out, skinted, you call the floor manager over, give him another twenty quid, and he aims a barcode reader at your barcode and casually flips you a pale blue one-thousand chip from his pocket. You then have to change this with other players in order to bet. You can do this as often as you like for the first hour and a half.

I put in the compulsory blind bet, and look at my cards - seven and eight of diamonds. Nobody raises, I can carry on for free. Next three cards - six, nine, ten. I have a straight: this is really good. I check, not betting but hoping someone later on will bet. They do - a white lad bets and the deaf guy raises. I call, nearly a third of my stack. Next card, can't be any help to them, I make a small bet. White guy folds, deaf guy calls. Final card, can't be any help. I have the nuts - the best possible hand. How to get the bloke to call? I make a small bet, someone says "Milk bet", and laughs. He's right, it was. I wink at him - but do I mean yes it was, or do I mean that's what I want you to think? He narrows his eyes at me, thinking. The deaf guy makes some more of the unintelligible mewling noises he's been making all night, and folds. Damn. I wanted the rest of his chips. Still, a win. I shove my cards to the dealer without showing - keep them guessing, don't let them know what I had.

It's getting close to the end of the hour and a half - soon, if you're out, you're out. I have three and a half thousand chips, about average. I'm playing tight - not risking my chips, not bluffing. The black guy rebuys for the fourth time - that's a hundred quid in all he's spent. He sticks it all in next hand with rubbish, and loses; walks off shouting the odds. Not going to spend any more. Shame. I reckon I can take someone that reckless to the cleaners. The little Chinese guy's got a big stack, no-one else has much more than me. One of the young Asian bling-boys has been up and down like a yo-yo.

I make a slightly loose call, in last position to act, with King-eight. The flop comes jack-eight-something. Nobody bets before me, I make a reasonable sized bet, trying to find out if anyone has a jack, and I'm called by an older white chap, avuncular, moustached. We check it down from there, no more bets. "Eight", I announce, flipping it over. I'm sure he doesn't have a jack but I'm not risking any more chips at this stage. I'm right. He folds without showing: more chips to me. "I reckon if I'd bet at it again you'd have folded up shop" he says, not unfriendly. He's right, but I'm not giving him free information. "Don't be ridiculous, second pair top kicker: I'd have raised you", I tell him. He nods, sagely, processing the information. I hope we meet again in the same situation - if I really was to raise him in that situation I'd really have a much better hand than that - and hopefully now he thinks I'm going to raise with nothing much. If he believes me. Angles, always angles. I'm really enjoying myself now. I know I'm better than most of these players, now, and I'm confident.

The end of the rebuy period. I have about four thousand chips - or eighty quid's worth, if you look at it like that. The big tv screen above the tables announces that there were 68 competitors and there have been 139 rebuys. So on average everyone here has spent sixty quid or so, rebuying twice. Not me: I've only spent twenty. Surely this is good for me. It also announces the prize structure: two thousand and twenty quid to the winner down to a hundred quid for tenth. I try not to think about it.

I go for a slash, get a coke. I want to get on, I don't need a twenty minute break. I can't get back soon enough.

I make some moves, win a bit, lose a bit, and soon after our table is broken: there are now only as many players on my table as there are empty spaces on the other tables. They do some complicated dealing out of the cards thing to decide who goes where, I don't really understand, but the dealer is saying clearly to everyone "Your new seat is table one, seat two; your new seat is table three, seat six" and so on, so I don't make an arse of myself. I am table one, seat seven.

I carry my stack of chips over to the new table. A whole new set of faces to learn, game styles to work out. I go back to folding, folding. The compulsory bets eat into my stack. Eventually I find jack, ten suited in late position and call. I'm getting a bit short: have to make a move sometime. The flop comes ten high, two of them clubs: I have top pair. A big fat black guy with a lugubrious expression bets, everyone folds to me, I am last to act. I take a look at his chip stack: he's not got much, mind you neither have I. I take a deep breath and announce "Raise the pot". There is a hiss of indrawn breath, everyone leans forward. The dealer does some quick adding up - he has just a few hundred more than me. That means I am all-in. I lose, I go home.

He looks at me with his hangdog expression. He reminds me of Droopy the cartoon dog. I rest my elbows on the table, put my chin in my hand and my fingers over my mouth, trying to hide my expression. My heart is hammering. I don't really want him to call. He asks me what I have. I ignore him, staring at the table in front of me. He asks me if I want a call. I ignore him again. Finally: "I call."

My heart pumps. Etiquette demands a quick card turn over - no 'slow-rolling'. I flip them. He flips king-jack of clubs: a flush draw, no pair. I am two to one favourite. A couple of the other players pat the table - respect. Good raise.

The dealer flips the next card, nothing to help him. Any club, any king, any jack on the last card, and I'm gone. Anything else, I win. My heart must be going two hundred to the minute. The last card seems to be in slow motion ... turning in the air ... it's red. My heart is in my mouth - it's the four of diamonds. I win. More pats on the table. I look nonchalant as I stack up a big pile, with lots of lovely pale blue thousand-chips in it. My opponent takes it with good grace and is knocked out soon after. Another one down. I am loving this, now.

A little guy in a rumpled suit on my left raises all in on my compulsory big bet. He doesn't have much left. Everyone folds round, I'm last to act. I look at him: he reminds me of someone but I can't put my finger on it. I look at my cards, king-jack of hearts. It isn't really that many chips for me to call.No brainer. "I call", and I flip them over. He raises his hands in the air in a very Jewish despairing way and I realise it's Judd Hirsch he reminds me of, very distinctly now that I've realised. Him out of Taxi and was Jeff Goldblum's dad in Independence Day. He flips three-four off suit, nothing comes, and he's gone. He pats me on the shoulder as he passes.

One of the old Chinese guys raises me. I have Ace-ten: a good hand. I call, then wonder if I should have raised. Too late. The dealer turns up three unhelpful cards, including a king. I check, the Chinese guy bets big. I think, trying to look inscrutable but really cursing myself for not either raising or betting when I had the chance - it looked weak, of course he was going to bet. I can't call, he might actually have the king he's pretending to have. I fold, flashing him the ace as I do so. I've seen others do this, it looks cool and gives out a good message: I will fold good cards if I think I'm losing. A mistake I won't make again: show any weakness and they will pounce.

The hour and a half has flown by, and another break comes. It's supposed to be twenty minutes, but seems a lot shorter - there's an announcement over the loudspeaker and then a final call, and the dealers are dealing to largely-empty tables. The dealers deal all the cards, and then immediately collect the cards from in front of the empty chairs. I sit down just in time. There are four of us seated, and the young white chap to my immediate right bets the pot. The compulsory bets have been getting larger and larger so this is quite a big bet. Other players bustle up, moaning about not hearing the final call. I look carefully at my cards, and find two kings. Second best starting hand in poker. Big thump from my heart. Keep a straight face, have a think. I could just call his bet, matching his chips. But then if an ace is dealt, and he bets, I am in trouble. No, best to try and take all the money now. Better to win a small pot than lose a big one. Deep breath. "All-in".

The hubbub around the table quietens. He curses under his breath. "I'm sure I've got the best hand" he offers, trying to get some indication from my expression whether he actually does. Obviously nothing was forthcoming from my face, so he flips his hand aggressively toward the dealer. I quietly push mine there too, face down: keep them guessing. I stack my chips and do a quick count: I have twenty-seven thousand odd. I don't realise until later that this is five hundred and forty quids' worth. You can't just cash 'em in though, you have to play until someone has all the chips in the room.

The table breaks again. We're down to two: the last twenty players. I am the last to sit down, as I have difficulty carrying all my chips across the room to the new table. It's the same guy on my right. He grumbles good naturedly as I sit down. Not you again. A couple of the others curse, too: they wanted me to go to the other table, I've too many chips for their liking. I make a few bets, steal the pot with nothing but a 'come hand' a few times. I get raised by a chap opposite. I give him the eyeball. "Leave me alone, you big stack bully," he joke-pleads. I smile and fold. "Just this once, as you asked so nicely". A laugh round the table.

Soon, the chap on my left is short stacked, and has had to make the compulsory bet. He hasn't much left. I am last to act. I only have king-four of spades, rubbish really, but in this position I can play it: I raise so he would have to go all in to call. He fidgets and mutters and sweats and grumbles. Eventually, he shoves his stack in and flips his cards. Damn. I wanted him to fold. Nearly, nearly. I pat the table, murmer "good call", and flip my king four. He has a pair of sixes, and they hold up. There is some muttered praise for both our plays - my bluff raise, his brave call. He says "God I nearly folded, God I nearly folded" over and over. I am down to twenty two thousand - still over double the average in the room.

We play on. The young chap on my right raises again. He has almost as much as me left. I look down, carefully, and find a pair of queens. No decision."I raise the pot".

He curses about deja vu. He thinks I'm bluffing - I got him to lay down a big hand before, when I had kings just after the break, and he thinks I'm trying to get him to do it again. He re-raises me, staring into my face as he does it. I hope he doesn't have kings or aces.

"I put you all in" I say, betting sufficient extra to get him to have to put all his chips in. We have the interest of the room again: two of the biggest stacks head to head.

"You're at it," he says, defiantly, sure I am bluffing.

"Cost you," I reply, smiling. This raises a snigger. I look round the table: this is a big old pot and everyone is paying attention.

He does the only thing he can do - with only a few thousand left, he calls, and flips over king-nine of hearts. I flip my queens to a ragged round of applause, and he starts to get a good ribbing from the rest of the table. It was a dreadful misread. He is way behind, odds-wise.

The dealer flips the first three cards, all low, no problems. He's standing up to leave, people are taking the piss. I'm shushing them, this isn't over yet. The turn card, the fourth out of five ... is the king of diamonds. A shout goes up, my head goes down. I've been punched in the stomach. I can't breathe for a second. One card to come: he has a pair of kings, I have a pair of queens. Only one of the two remaining queens can help me, and they are both reluctant to show their face: they don't come, the last card is small, and I have to shovel over twenty thousand chips to my right. He is getting a good-natured ribbing from around the table. I put up a good show, laughing it off, swearing good-naturedly, but inside I am gutted. I haven't made a mistake, I've just got unlucky. I suppose you could argue that the big stacks shouldn't run up against each other at that stage of the tournament, but he started it, and we were both pretty much committed.

It happens. I am praised for the way I am taking it. "Poker", I say, smiling ruefully, but knowing inside before that king turned up I was better than four to one favourite to win. If I'd shown him the kings earlier, maybe he would have folded, not thought I was bluffing this time. On such small decisions ...

I would have had nearly fifty thousand chips had I won that hand. As it was, rather than chip leader of the whole tournament I have about six thousand left, and they soon go, eaten up quickly by the compulsory bets. I cling on for a bit, going all in to stay alive, but in the end someone had to get enough of a hand to call, and my jack nine is beaten by ace queen. At five to two in the morning I am in the car park, on my way home ruminating on what might have been. Fourteenth out of sixty eight in the end. Missed the money by four spots.

Good first effort, no doubt. Could have been so much better.

Ah, well, a good lot of entertainment for twenty quid. I haven't had so much fun in years.

BEAVER!

2006-04-06T11:13:00.000+01:00

That got your attention, haha. I'm afraid that anyone coming here searching for anything slightly mucky will be gravely disappointed. I wish, instead, to talk about the Scout Movement. And that is nothing to do with the sort of Scout Movement which involves going camping and the inevitable shitting in the woods, as JonnyB covered that in highly amusing detail already today.

Whomever thought that 'Beavers' was an appropriate name for five to seven year olds in the Scouts was an idiot, obviously. Or a pervert. (But then, wasn't Baden-Powell a bit dodgy that way? You know, did a lot of manly naked swimming in lakes with twelve year old boys, hmmmmm?). Anyhoo, Child One was a Beaver before he was a Cub, and Child Two is still a Beaver before she's a Brownie. The Beaver troop (pack? whatever) is very very good, led by selfless, committed adult volunteers who genuinely care for the children and their entertainment. This week, they got to take their pets in - Child Two took in the Dog (Golden Retriever), as did six others, and there were also rabbits, ferrets, and hamsters. All looked after solely by six and seven year olds. How brave do you have to be as a leader to take that on?

This week, as she went in to the meeting, Child Two was taken aside by the leader and given a letter to read. It said:

Dear [Child Two]

You have been chosen by the Leader Team to carry the flag in the St George's Day Parade this year because you always give your best week by week, happily taking part in all the activities planned and we thank you for being such a good Beaver Scout.

We hope you would like to do this very special job for us.

Well done [Child Two].

Yours in scouting,

[the leaders].

I couldn't be more proud of her. I even welled up a bit when I read it.

Meanwhile, I took Child One to karate, and he paid attention, practiced, concentrated, did his test and passed was then awarded his red belt. He went up to the front and bowed to the instructor and shook his hand, and everybody clapped and everything. So I was really proud of him, too.

So we were wallowing in family pride last evening, a warm glow created by achieving children.

And pride comes before ... ?

I went into the kitchen for one minute, and they contrived to kick my large glass of red wine right across the brand new rug and up the brand new gold wall.

Fucking kids.

Out of the comfort zone

2006-04-04T09:08:00.000+01:00

Went stock car racing at the weekend. Not something I'd normally do. Or ever, in fact; not since I was a little kid anyway.

It was Mrs Flash Pete's idea - you know, get out of comfort zone, do something different. She planned it as a mystery trip but then told us where we were going anyway.

On top of a hill in Staffordshire there is a stock car track. The racing was quite interesting - high speed flat oval, with everything from stripped out beaten up Fiestas to stock rod things with modified bodywork and slick tyres and a lot more power than a normal Corrado, or 206, or whatever.

I have to say, though, that I was distracted from the racing by the audience. A lot of lovely people from the, uh, lower end of the income spectrum. Haircuts ranged from the standard grade one with artistic razor cuts to those obviously born in the Chinese year of the mullet. You can pierce and / or tattoo pretty much anywhere, apparently. I mean, I have a pierced ear that I never bother to wear an earring in, and a tattoo (the LOML has many and two, respectively), but these people took it to a whole new level.

Fashion was largely of the shellsuit variety. That's fine by me, don't think for a second I'm being smug and snobby here. I'm getting to the point.

Coats.

The coat very much of choice - and I mean at least one person in three, of the several hundred who were there - is a padded yellow fluorescent jacket. Some brand new and spotless, some ripped and covered in oil, some with logos, some without. Whole families: Dad, Mum, two preteen daughters, all dressed in yellow fluorescent coats. The covered stand looked like a car park assistants' convention gone bad.

What on earth is the thinking behind this? I guess that like all fashion, it's an inclusive thing. One of a gang. In the know. Acceptance. And in the face of, let's face it, looking stupid. Much like many fashions, in fact. Remember the Bay City Rollers fans' tartan scarf round the wrist thing? Et cetera, et cetera. Mmmm. Prosecution rests, M'lud.

I suppose it must have started by people trying to look like the marshals, you know, makes them feel important, part of the in-crowd, I-know-what-I'm-doing sort of feeling. But once everyone starts doing it, what's the fun? How do you get more inclusive than imitating a race marshall? How can you be even more aspirational than that?

I think I saw how. The shape of the future; the next fashion trend. There was a chap there - a man mind, not some kid - in the very next clothing trend. He was just watching, not participating in any way. I emphasize this - he was just sitting in the crowd. Eating burgers and drinking coke. And it was a bit big for him to be honest - the trousers were rolled up a bit to keep them out of the mud, and it was a bit baggy. But he had worn it, deliberately, by choice, knowing that people would see him in it, and assuming they would be impressed by him. Get me, he thought, look at me and be in awe of what I am.

A bright red, fully logo-ed, all in one set of official racing driver's overalls. Just to sit and watch in. Like we were going to go 'Oooh, look, there's one of the drivers: bet he's got a knackered Granada banger car, let's get his autograph, come on'.

Perhaps it was for a bet, eh. Shall we give him the benefit of the doubt? No? Oh, all right then.

What a twat.

Good, better, best

2006-03-31T15:42:00.000+01:00

The phone rings. It is the LOML. "Are you doing anything later?" she asks.

"I've got stuff to be getting on with," I reply, "but nothing that won't wait. Why?"

"I just wondered if you wanted to go our for lunch?"

Do I ever. This is just the sort of thing that I imagined we homeworkers would do regularly.

She arrives to pick me up. On the way, I look across from the manly driver's seat, and she is texting.

"Who are you texting?"

"Mr and Mrs Flash Pete. I wondered if they'd like to come too. He's working from home today."

This is officially now A Work Of Genius. I've actually worked hard this morning - advertising sorted, outstanding letters and emails sent, cheques into bank, all prepared for 2 new clients next week. It's an ordinary Friday lunchtime, and I'm going for lunch with my wife and mates.

Mrs Pete duly texts back - of course they can come: they will be there in a sufficient time for us to have a large starter to be getting on with and me a couple of pints of Old Speckled Hen, digest a bit, and then order mains when they arrive. This could Hardly Be Better.

A good time is had by all. "What's this in aid of?" asks Pete, when they get there.

"Nothing at all" we reply. "Just had some invoices paid, I suppose, is all." And isn't that the best reason of all?

Flash Pete regales us wittily with anecdotes from a recent stag do in Budapest. Mrs Pete keeps cutting him off talking about mundane things: like school, or the house, just before the punchline of each story. "Sorry, am I boring you?", says Pete. "If you don't want to hear about shooting AK47s in an abandoned factory/accommodating Hungarian lapdancers, you only need to say."

I giggle.

And now here I am writing this. Later this evening I'm going round to play Ghost Recon on Pete's XBox 360. The LOML will take Child One to karate, so I don't even need to worry about him.

If you're expecting a pithy sign off line, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed.

A good day today. About time.

2006-03-30T15:27:00.000+01:00

Getting a bit fed up with the adverts on the telly again. I know I've had a rant about this before (December the 8th, actually, I've just looked it up). Sorry to my colonial friends who won't have seen these.

Child One and I like ranting at the continuity. There's one for, I think, the Halifax about loans, cue woman doing up house: "I'm so glad to get rid of that hideous bath" as the offending avocado item is chucked in the skip. Then there's the pack shot of terms and conditions, and then the wrap with the contact details, behind which is another, different, shot of her throwing the bath away AGAIN.

Child One and I, in unison: "There goes the bath ... [pause] ... and there it goes again." The LOML gets quite irritated by us; can't see why.

AND there's the one of the Injury Lawyers For You. Cue Nice Lawyer in chair, attached to lie detector - at one point you see his fingers in some sort of metally detectory probey things, just so you know. The questioners fire questions at him:"Will I have to sign a credit agreement?", "How much of the compensation will I be able to keep?", and as he answers the old pen line on the graph paper stays resolutely flat, giving the indication that he's not lying. I understand that this is nothing like a real lie detector test, and I think they are getting confused with seismographs, but no matter. The end of the ad: they all shake hands, and the Nice Lawyer turns to leave, throwing a "Nice tie" comment over his shoulder to the questioner bloke. The little lie detector pen goes beserk, like a Richter scale 11 earthquake has just gone off. The bloke in the tie looks at his tie, upset, and the Nice Lawyer pulls a hidden phew-no-it-isn't-it's-a-crap-tie-and-aren't-I-clever face.

Spotted the problem? No? Uh, the Nice Lawyer isn't attached to the fucking machine any more. He's even shaken hands to prove it. He's leaving. How can the lie detector go off on one about the tie comment? More to the point: how can the ad people think we are stupid enough not to notice?

And, while I'm at it, people who make Vagicil for Intimate Feminine Irritation: using a foreign language ad of a woman going on about her itchy bits and dubbing an English voice over the top ISN'T FOOLING US EITHER. It looks stupid, and cheap, and patronising. I'm certainly not buying any, just because I hate your ad so much. Oh, and because I haven't got a vagina.

And, furthermore, can anyone come up with a more annoying three word phrase in English than 'Intimate Feminine Irritation'? (I feel a competition coming on). Do we mean itchy fanny? I think we do.

I notice that some tampons (or sanitary towels, I forget) come with an 'Intimate Feminine Wipe'. For fuck's sake, talk about beating about the bush (yes, yes, intentional, couldn't resist, no I'm not going to apologise): what a euphemism for a fucking wet wipe for period leakage that is. Just say fanny wipe. Please.

Oh, I've got another phrase that I would be happy never ever to hear again in my entire fucking life: "Come on, Tim".

Anyone do better?

EDIT: I've just seen the fanny wipe ad again, and it's worse than I thought: it's an 'intimate feminine towelette', apparently. That must be a small, cute, girly version of a towel, huh. For fuck's sake. Surely life is too short for intimate feminine towelettes.

Hi

2006-03-28T16:52:00.000+01:00

I'm back.

Not that I've actually been anywhere - still sat here, working: worrying, talking on the phone, emailing, drawing, colouring, graphicking, referencing, researching. Listening to the radio. And, uh, surfing the interweb. And playing a bit of poker*. And downloading MP3s.

Work has been a bit thin, to be honest. Not what you want to see when you're a self-employed person. I've spent too much on advertising in the wrong places, which I'm really cross about. Stupid of me. I'm sorting this out - I'm seeing someone tomorrow about advertising in the right places. I'm also swapping some of my design work for some website enhancement work from a client, I hope. That should help.

Everyone else seems to have buggered off as well. Is there some unwritten blog rule that I don't know about that says you can go away during the last week of March? Half my links sidebar aren't there. New York, Dubrovnik, somewhere else unspecified. Or moving house.

I'd like to move house. No, actually, I'd like to build a house and then move to it. (When I say 'build' I obviously mean 'have built by someone else while I stand around with my hands in my pockets wearing a clean hi-viz jacket and a shiny hard hat, and make the decisions. About what doorknobs to have. And stuff like that.').

Unfortunately the village is an absolute no-you-can't-build-a-house, green belt, conservation area, protected, forget it, no chance mate sort of area. Unless you happen to be our neighbours two doors down who have realised their garden is just wide enough to squeeze another house into the row, cos the road turns a little corner. This is 'infill' apparently, and is allowed. Jammy gits. And we really do want to stay in the village.

So, I'll ring Flyhalf Phil (qv) again and see if he's got any wrecks to renovate come in this week. I may even drive about a bit in the up-and-coming areas of the local towns, and see if I can spot anything. Frustrating thing is, a biggish house on the edge of the village came up last year. Needed a lot of work. It went to auction, and went way way waaaaay over my budget - not that I had a budget sorted out at that point. Some people who work in TV bought it. They've obviously got money because they aren't even living in it while they're doing it up.

There's another one at the bottom of the road coming up soon - absolute wreck, same old bloke had been living there for donkey's years. He died recently, bless him. The LOML and Child One managed to scab a quick look round cos she knows the family and they were clearing it out. He hadn't been upstairs in ten years, just lived in the one room downstairs. Beaten earth floor, rotting stairs, a lean-to with an old clotheswashing copper boiler thing. No kitchen, no nothing really. Full of ragged 1950's clothes and mould and damp. It will make an excellent, exciting project.

For someone else. Because it's a black and white beamed cottage with original features, it'll definitely go to auction. And sell for way over my league. Apart from anything else, it's too much work for me to take on - it'll need almost completely taking down and starting again. Bollocks. It's only 200 yards away. How irritating.

Patience, man. Something will come up. Plenty of time. At least I'm safe for the foreseeable future from the worst of all nightmares.

Having to go and get a job.

*I found $3-62 sitting in my account on a site I haven't played at for a long time; I've no idea why. I thought I'd see how far I can get with it. "The $3-62 Experiment", I thought I'd call it. Original. Anyhoo, current balance is $78-75. More than 20 times my start. Good, eh? I rock at poker, me.

You can't choose your family...

2006-03-23T10:45:00.000Z

" .... so anyway, dear, we'll be passing through on Wednesday afternoon and we thought it would be a lovely opportunity to drop in and see you and the little ones."

"Of course, Aunt, do drop in. Come for a cup of tea."

"We know you haven't got room to put us up ...[did I detect a faint disapproving tone?] ... and it's too far to get back to London so I think we'll book a hotel somewhere near you ..."

"In that case [grit teeth], come for dinner, do."

"How lovely of you. Yes, perhaps we will."

Bugger, I thought. The LOML's not going to like it.

"Sweeeeeeetheart....?"

"What have you done now?"

"Ummm. Mum's sister is, uh, passing on Wednesday ... they want to come and see the kids. I've, uh, invited them for dinner. "

"Pardon?"

"I've, uh, asked them to stay for something to eat. I couldn't avoid it really."

"Shit."

Mmmmmm. Mum's older, more critical, more I'm-right-and-you're-wrong, more patronising sister. And her vague, crass husband. Coming to visit the yokel branch of the family. I need reinforcements.

"Can you ask your Mum and Dad to come? Just to, like, spread the load?"

A phone call later: "Mum and Dad will come. But they say you owe them one."

Free posh dinner and I owe them one?

Aunt and Uncle duly arrived last evening, an hour late. No apology. They brought as a gift a large lump of Welsh lamb. Riiight. We managed the small talk, I smiled through being told how to look after my children, looked interested on how better to spend my leisure time, murmured vague agreement on being told I was too old to play rugby.

The LOML cooked a spectacular meal: baked ham in mustard, orange and Coca-cola. [Try it]. Potatoes, broad beans, orange sauce. Vague approval.

Properly briefed, the LOML's Mum and Dad started making yawny it's-time-we-were-going noises at about half eight. Goodbyes were said, coats fetched. Aunt and Uncle came back in. We stayed standing up, near the door, expectant.

They sat down again.

They didn't leave until quarter to eleven.

I have to be honest, here, as I said to myself I wouldn't make anything up on this blog. While all the above is technically true, I have changed the emphasis for comic effect. The evening was actually surprisingly quite pleasant, the conversation didn't really come to an awkward halt at any point and no-one bickered about anything, and my aunt didn't bring up any of my embarrassing teenage excesses in front of my in-laws. And she knows I like lamb. And I bet it was expensive.

Trapped

2006-03-22T10:05:00.000Z

Both kids are poorly ill and lying on the sofa watching crap cartoons and bickering and coughing. Both need regular Calpol and I need to keep setting my alarm to remember it. And drinks. I make them food but they don't eat it. I am constantly stopping in mid flow and changing DVDs, or sorting out arguments, or doling out never-mind hugs.

The LOML's had to go to work. I have work to do, but can't concentrate. I was up in the night with high-temperature children. I've taken my Berocca and had loads of strong coffee but it's not helping. I can't go out for a walk or a run because I've got to look after the kids. I can't even go into town to do my plan copying and a quick coffee and a mooch around the bookshop while I'm at it, like normal.

It's been like this for days.

I'm climbing the walls. I'm trapped.

Is this what madness feels like?

help.

Searchers

2006-03-20T19:50:00.000Z

I know it's a perennial blog subject, but I am unable to resist.

So, I hope whomever came to me via the Google search "porridge change colour of poo" found what they were looking for. Welcome, indeed. I hope finding me was worth wading through several hundred other entries first. I mean, I got bored after six hundred or so. But you persevered. Well done. I noticed, also, how many blogs appear above me on the list. Including four that I read regularly. I'm not saying whom. You will have to search yourselves; my lips are sealed.

And welcome, welcome, too, to the MSN searcher for "farm fucking Barbados". I hope your long search, too, was worthwhile. Come again, do.

Feel free to comment on your weirdest search result entry. I am sure I am not alone. I may even award a virtual prize for the best if I am caused to laugh out loud.

Money making scheme?

2006-03-20T16:14:00.000Z

Flash Pete and his missus come round for a curry. He brings his new Xbox 360 which creates a bit of marital disharmony on both sides, but that's another story.

Over lamb rogan josh, which my local curry house apparently makes with chicken (it was nice anyway), we discuss ruts. Or more properly Ruts, and being in them. It looks as if Pamplona will have to wait until next year for a whole host of domestic reasons, and I am consequently feeling a bit trapped and Ruttish.

My latest scheme, and something that I have been interested in for ever such a long time, is property development. I'm lucky to be quite capital rich but I'm cash poor; I've got property to borrow plenty against but have to add up the spare change to see whether I can snurk out to the pub.

Trouble is, the market has been wrong for a long, long time, and all the knackered old houses round me have been selling at auction for about the price that they can be expected to fetch once they are done up. If you're a buy-to-let landlord, this is stupid but not suicidal. You can make up the difference in the end. But if you're a buy-to-renovate-quickly-and-sell-at-a-profit developer, it's just suicidal.

So it's been on the backburner until market conditions change.

My mate Flyhalf Phil asked me as we were jogging across the pitch warming up for Saturday's game whether I was still in the market. Flyhalf Phil is an estate agent. Apparently, changes are afoot in this area. He sold a house to a bloke last week for 120 grand, needs ten spending, max, and will then be worth 160 grand. Mmmm, I said, seems to be too good to be true. I know, he said, it's cos builders who have bought to renovate are shipping the unrenovated houses back onto the market for anything they can get for them. They've overbought. And he has more similar.

Flyhalf Phil is a very useful contact. He's only young: just out of University. But I know his family and reckon he's trustworthy. And in this business, you desperately need a man on the inside. Go round the estate agents and explain in detail what sort of properties you're looking for and they nod and say yes a lot and then just send you a list of everything they've got every month, never mind that none of it is suitable. But a mate on the inside is a huge advantage: he can point you at the best ones before anyone else gets to see them. Quick deal, commission in back pocket, no time and money wasted with advertising and multiple viewings and suchlike.

Now, I bang on about how I love my job, and I do. So why, Flash Pete asked, do you want to do this? Stuck in a dank Edwardian terrace covered in dust and tiling grout and whatever. Good question. Made me think, did that. Couldn't put my finger on the answer straight away.

I've decided I do know the answer. It's cos I'm fickle. I need a new challenge every now and then or I stagnate, whether it's work or social or hobbies or whatever. I throw all my energies at it for a while and then move on to the next thing. Before blogging, it was online poker. Hardly bother to play any more now I do this. Hopefully, each house would be the same - get in, 16 weeks work, sell quickly for a sensible price - and find another new challenge.

I have time, I think. I'm ticking over nicely at my business, but I can find quite a few spare hours in the day, and evenings too. I'm not planning on doing heavy building work - I can do all the design work, obviously, and I can tile and paint and lay floor and project manage and labour and tidy gardens and make tea. Electrics and plumbing and RSJs and shit I will leave to my builder.

The LOML is cautious. She sees me on my SAD days, sitting around, tetchy, unwilling (= unable) to do anything constructive. She worries that the project would stagnate, and we would lose our profit in procrastination.

It might. But I ought to take the risk, I think.

I'll ring Phil.

Snob

2006-03-17T15:13:00.000Z

Many years ago, I was walking down the road with my mother. The chap walking in front was wearing a suit - not super smart, but ok. Perhaps he was a bank clerk or something.

He turned off. My mother waited for him to be out of earshot, then said "It doesn't matter how smart their suit is, does it - if someone walks with their toes pointing out like that they just look common, don't they?"

I laughed and laughed and laughed.

My mother all over.

Don't like to ask ...

2006-03-16T09:46:00.000Z

I asked Surly Gurl and she gave me one - but I only dared ask her cos she'd sent me a private email. I didn't even ask The Beep and he gave me one anyway.

I gave one to Surly myself early on. I gave one to Greavsie and JonnyB too, because they all make me laugh out loud. I did it without asking, hope that's ok. I'd love them to give me one back but I think I'm still new to this and they've been doing it for ages and they are Famous And Successful Bloggers and I don't know the etiquette and I'm far too shy to just email and ask. That would just be too forward. Jesus, they get 40 comments a day sometimes. I'm having a bit of a crisis of confidence-y type day.

I'm going to add to mine when I get the chance. I'll put the Beep up, defo. Only fair. And Just Jane and Universal Soldier cos they make me laugh and comment sometimes. And Jane tagged me. Not that anyone read my answers. Didn't think they would, it was too long. And Kyahgirl too, just I can't find her link at the moment cos she's moved*.

I've even got a couple of commenters who don't really have blogs of their own - well, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. DCI, and I, Like The View, your comments are very welcome and maybe in the future we can sort something out.

There are loads of others that I read too, all brilliant. I haven't got time to do the blue underlined thing to them all, but Petite Anglaise, Little Red Boat, My Boyfriend Is A Twat, Boob Pencil, After the Rat Race, Brom Man, Kitchen Witch, nf girl, Ivan The Terrible, Wyndham the Triffid and The Iceland Weather Report are all excellent. And just cos you're not on the list doesn't mean you're not a great blogger. I'd just be here all day.

So how do you do it?

You can't just ask.

That would be rude.

*Duh. Found it now. It's http://www.kyahgirl.com.

Little Voices

2006-03-15T11:17:00.000Z

I'm conscious that this has been a bit ranty and heavy going recently. While all this catharsis and close-quarters navel inspection is no doubt deeply good for me, it's time for some diary type stuff.

Went with the LOML and a whole bunch of mates up to the big Brummy smoke on Saturday night, to a comedy club, and it was ace. I laughed a lot, had a reasonable amount to drink, a few pints, but was ok on it. Didn't want a hangover Sunday, so listened to the Little Voice in my head which said "Probably enough warm lager now, CwhatC. If you get any drunker you're not going to enjoy yourself any more than you are now."

Not so a friend of mine. Nameless, she shall remain. She had a couple of drinks before we met up. When we got there her man was drinking Guinness, so she went for the white wine option, and bought a bottle. And drank it. And apparently bought another too, and was about halfway down that when we left the club, about half twelve, in high spirits.

On t'minibus on t'way home, her mood changed. The subject of money had somehow come up. You can safely be spared the details, but it was about family, and that's always the worst. She shouted at her man through gritted teeth - we were amazed just how loud you can be without opening your mouth. She went on and on and on, louder and louder, apparently oblivious of everyone else. He was super tolerant, though he must have been mortally embarrassed, and made the smart decision not to say "Come on love, you're drunk, we'll talk about it in the morning" because she certainly would have given it the old "I'm NOT drunk how DARE you you patronising BASTARD you're all the fucking SAME etc" and belaboured him vigourously about the cranium with her handbag. He just kept calmly refuting her points.

No-one knew where to look. No-one else was even remotely close to being that pissed. We didn't dare giggle because we all knew the "and what the fuck do YOU think you're laughing at?" option was open and available to her. I spent some of the time entertaining myself by fractionally dropping my eyelid in a micro-wink at Mrs Tony Bloke to try and make her laugh. Everyone else spent pretty much the whole journey minutely examining the ceiling of the bus. It was grey, and padded, by the way.

It took me maybe fifteen years of drinking - I was certainly more than thirty - to realise that there is a point during the evening at which you are at maximum entertainment capacity. The Little Voice was finally - finally - being heard. Drinking any more at this point is both a waste of money, will maybe make you ill and is potentially embarrassing. The great thing about the Little Voice is that it's a very slidy scale. For me, the absolute minimum Voice-intervention is about two pints for formal sort of times with important people who aren't drinking. Third pint, I might get just a little gobby, with only very slightly embarrassing results. The other end of the scale is the rubgy club players' dinner, where the round of four bottles of red wine every twenty minutes for a table of six is entirely reasonable. Oh, and a bottle of port. The Voice might intervene here to avoid death from alcohol poisoning, but only for that. It might call on its cousin, the you're-about-to-suffer-some-extreme-pain Voice, however. Or its bastard inbred step-brother, the this-is-going-to-be-really-fucking-expensive-if-it-goes-wrong Voice. This might have avoided the driving-naked-round-the-lanes incident, and the quad-bike-wheelies-up-the-village-street-four-up incident, and the British-bulldog*-in-the-graveyard incident.But that would have been dull, so we didn't listen. Should have, oh we so should have. But we didn't.

Who are the Voices? Where do they live? And why aren't they always there? Tell you what, if you knew that, you'd make an abso-fucking-lute fortune saving people from themselves.

I wonder if my mate's I-told-you-so Voice was to be heard on Sunday.

*for our American cousins: it's a bit like the NFL, but imagine everyone with a ball and only one tackler. Get tackled, join the tackling side for the run back across. There's lots of big gravestones in the churchyard.

Warning: self-indulgent

2006-03-14T20:16:00.000Z

I made a basic schoolboy error a while ago - it's in the archive, if you need to check for some reason - by moaning that no-one had tagged me for the four favourite things meme. I just fancied the questions. Silly. It was noted, out there in blogland. And now Just Jane has tagged me for a meme.

I feel like the dickhead in the town centre - you know the bloke, unemployed and a sad act but full of himself, who deliberately lurks around when the market researchers are wandering the precincts with fixed unamused smiles, laminated name badges, clipboards of unanswerable questions ("how do you rate the local authority sewerage provision? Are you (a) extremely satisfied; (b) very satisfied ..."). He waits and lurks and wanders back and forth until finally a fixed unamused smile sighs and approaches him: "Excuse me sir, can you spare five minutes ..." and then of course he marches off quickly throwing an "I'm far too busy, sorry" over his shoulder as he goes.

I feel a bit like that with the meme - I feel like saying "I know I've been tagged but I really don't do memes, sorry" (subtext: because I'm far too important) and then go off and ramble and wibble incoherently and ungrammatically about telly last night or something.

But I went and said I would do it, so I will. A warning, though: if you don't share my taste in music you'll probably get bored at some point. I don't mind, feel free to skip bits. I have done in the past when people crap on about life-changing music, because it's so personal to them and sooo important but to everyone else it's a track they haven't heard by a band they haven't heard of. Though I have to say that Jane's answers were good 'uns; certainly interesting enough for me to read the lot. 'Ride on time', Jane? Damn that takes me back. I once won a pub quiz by knowing it was by Black Box and that they were Italian.

So, enough dicking around:

1: Name a track from your early childhood. Mum and Dad only play classical, so about the first I can remember is Going To Barbados by Typically Tropical. Awful. Whoa! We're going to Barbados! Precursor to those shits with the Agadoo bollocks. Black Lace, that's them. Wankers. My big brother bought it on vinyl single.

2: Track you associate with your first love: Madonna's Like A Virgin. Cos she used to play it all the time, and did that dance with her arms over her head, wearing fishnet gloves. This was my first proper love, obviously, not the ones that I used to fall over in front of 'by mistake' playing kiss chase.

3: Track that reminds you of a holiday trip: could have put loads for this, but went in the end with I Predict A Riot by Kaiser Chiefs. Last summer, scorching hot, beer in hand, campsite, deck chair, kids in swimming pool, listening to the Ashes on the car radio with Marcus the Worm Farmer. We won the Test, and then Mrs Marcus brought out this as his birthday present. Danced about the field making an exhibition of ourselves.

4: Track I like but wouldn't want to be associated with in public: anything off James Blunt's album Back To Bedlam. Er, not You're Beautiful, that's been done to death, what's the most untrendy? Got to be Goodbye My Lover. It seems to be trendy to knock it at the moment (even in my comments box, Surly, ahem. I have seen Maiden about five times, though, does that make up?) but shit, I like it. I must like whiny male vocalists; I've got all of Coldplay's albums too.

5: Track that accompanied you when you were lovesick: Have You Ever Loved A Woman? by Derek and the Dominoes, which means of course that it's essentially Eric Clapton. I was madly in love with a girl that I was at sixth form college with, but she was going out with someone (not 'my very best friend' like the lyrics say; life didn't imitate art to that extent). I sat in my bedroom and played this on tape over and over and over until the tape stretched. They split up and I shagged her a few months later, of course. It wasn't as great as I'd imagined, and we parted after a few weeks. (Oh come on, grow up, I was 18 and randy. 18 year old boys are allowed to be insensitive bastards). She's slightly famous in the music industry now, as it happens.

6: Track you've probably listened to most often. I wanted this to be something desperately trendy, but it's almost certainly Comfortably Numb, by, of course, Pink Floyd. I was going through the teenage angst thing and it seemed to fit. I just had it on repeat for about three mothths. I still know all the words now.

7: Favourite instrumental: damn, that's hard. I've got rucks and rucks of guitar band CDs, but a pure instrumental? Tell you what, I'll nick Jane's idea of a TV theme: how about the theme to Jonathan Creek? It's that brilliant minor key thing based on a piece of music called Danse Macabre, which I must find out more about and buy.

8: Track which represents one of your favourite bands: La Grange by ZZTop. It was back in their grungy, dirty heydey before they got all polished with Legs and Sharp Dressed Man and such. It's got a really good driving guitar which my kids keep making me play over and over on the car CD. Oh, and it's about a brothel. It's on an old album called Tres Hombres (1973: I just checked) and I recommend it most highly. Not a duff track on it.

9: Track which represents yourself best. Mmmm. If I'm honest? It's Been A While by Staind. "It's been a while/Since I've gone and fucked things up/Just like I always do/But all that shit seems to disappear/ When I'm with you." Nuff said, really.

10: Track which reminds you of a special occasion:Going Underground by The Jam. The LOML's a massive fan, and I first noticed her dancing to this in herringbone mod suit in Ritzy's nightclub in Tottenham in 1988. I walked her home six miles across London and she wouldn't even invite me in for coffee. I walked another three miles home without my feet touching the ground. After you with that bucket.

11: Track you can relax to: Turn Me On by Norah Jones. It's the CD that gets put on late at night in the car. I stop at the services and get a take out latte, and put this on to cruise home down the motorway.

12: Track that stands for a really good time in your life: can't think of many, to be honest, which sounds terribly bleak. I don't have a track which I associate with our wedding, or the birth of either of our kids; I wonder why not? Don't know the answer to that. I'll go for a couple of years ago: self employment going well, enjoying my work for the first time in maybe 15 years, summertime with the office window to the garden open, and Joss Stone and Super Duper Love on the CD.

13: Track which is currently your favourite. This one needs to stand the test of time a bit - sometimes I really like a current song for a few weeks and then get annoyed with it. I'll go for K T Tunstall and Black Horse And The Cherry Tree. Love the album, often play it in the kitchen late at night while I'm doing the dishes after the LOML has gone to bed. Relaxing and uplifting at once.

14: Track to dedicate to your best friend: this is a bit girly. Reeeeally not sure. The LOML's my best friend; trite but true. I can't stand him, but the LOML likes him, so something by Jean Michel Jarre? Because she's my Oxygene? Bleugh. Didn't like doing that. *shivers and moves on*

15: Track you think that no-one but you likes: Johnny Cash and Hurt. I saw the vid for this on telly: it was all filmed in the closed down Johnny Cash Museum, with the man sitting among the dustsheets in his own epitaph singing how he hurt himself just to see if he still feels. It's a cover of Trent Reznor of the Nine Inch Nails's song. I think it's genius, but everyone I know can't see past the cun-ter-ee yee-haw thang, which it's so not. I went and found it and there's a whole album of it called American IV: The Man Comes Around and it includes stuff like Depeche Mode's Personal Jesus. Excellent, excellent, excellent.

16: Track you like especially for its lyrics: almost any of the above, for a short list. Plus loads of others. I've settled in the end for Lloyd Cole and the Commotions' Perfect Skin. Could quote the whole song, but "She's got cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin/and she's sexually enlightened by Cosmopolitan/and when she smiles my way my eyes go out in vain/for her perfect skin ... strikes me the moral of this song must be there never has been one" will do. Just perfect. Whatever happened to Lloyd Cole? I liked him.

17: Track you like, in neither English nor German: I'm not going to stoop to putting Nessun Dorma. Son Of A Preacher Man, by Aretha Franklin. That's definitely in American. And therefore so not in English. Two countries divided by a common language? What a voice, though, what a voice.

18: Track which best lets you release tension: odd one this. Susan's House by Eels. It was a minor hit in about 1996. I heard them on the radio doing it acoustically and fell in love with it - I can even remember where I heard the session. (In the car park at my old work, if you must know). It's just so quirky and has a real difference to it, and there's a message in there too. Gets you out of yourself. Good one.

19: Track you want played at your funeral: Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I just wish I had been, sometimes.

20: Track to nominate for "the best of all times" category. Easy: The Great Gig In The Sky, by Pink Floyd. I've loved it since I first heard it as a teenager. It has a soaring, orchestral quality to it, and then the vocal goes just a bit screamy shouty and just a bit out of control and it's all just a bit trippy. I last listened to this on the Shuffle while I was running across the middle of a massive flat stubble field under a massive flat grey sky, and it was nearly mind altering. Nearly. I slipped over, which brought me back down to earth, pun absolutely intentional.

Wow. There you go, then. Bit of an epic, so if you're still reading: gold star. Comment, criticise, empathise, take the piss if you will. Maybe, maybe, someone even agrees with me.

I've actually revealed more of myself than I thought I would doing that, which is good and pretty much the point, I suppose.

Oh, and I am just so going to take the tag cop-out and just tag anyone who fancies doing it. I'm still quite new to this and I'm not quite sure of all the etiquette yet. Have a go, it's cathartic. A bit.

Am I stupid?

2006-03-14T09:43:00.000Z

I'm doing the meme, Jane, honest. I may even post twice in one day by putting it up later. Mmmmm.

I listen to Radio 1 in the mornings. Don't know why, at my age, I suppose it's just force of habit really. Can't force myself to listen to Radio 2, that's for old .... for fuck's sake, get off the midlife crisis thing, will you? Can't even write a simple paragraph without going on and on and on about it. Jesus.

Anyhoo, as Greavsie would say, Chris Moyles this morning. I quite like the guy. I can also see how many people would find him astonishingly irritating. Still. He does a little quiz thing every week, among the people in the studio and a couple of callers on the phone.

This week's questions:

What kind of animal is a natterjack?
Which Ukrainian city gave its name to a chicken dish?
On a ship, facing forwards, is port to your left or your right?
Who was the youngest player to score for England in the twentieth century (football)?
Which are the three American states with only four letters in their names?

Now I know you know the answers. You are erudite, educated, knowledgable people. I won't patronise you by telling you the answers*.

While going through the answers, the breakfast crew (I think that's what you're supposed to call them), between them, variously thought that a natterjack was a bird or a frog, and that frogs and toads are the same thing so that counted, that Stroganoff is both a city and furthermore in Ukraine, the stern of a ship is the front, Wayne Rooney (I reckon he would have been about 13) was playing for England in the twentieth century, and were generally unable to name the all three states.

I sat in the car, listening, with a bemused air. I don't get cross about stuff like this any more. How did these people get onto national radio? Surely everyone around the country is shouting at the radio at the stupidity?

And then I thought, who is being stupid here? What is the point of this kind of team presenting on the radio, if not to be inclusive and welcoming? It's a lads' and ladettes' club in the morning. People tune in because they feel like the presenters are their mates. They feel they know about their private lives (they don't of course: tiny irrelevant details are dropped in carefully, but never anywhere near enough for someone to, say, find out where they live) and feel like they could all go for a drink together and have great time.

So how would it help having people on the team who, like me and I suspect you, would get 7 out of 7 every time on these sort of questions? It wouldn't. The inclusiveness would be lost. So, by definition, national BBC radio is deliberately dumbing down, despite their protestations to government and elsewhere that they are not. And I can therefore leave you with another question - should the BBC be chasing ratings or maintaining standards? Better minds than I can debate that one.

Conclusion? Nobody likes a smartarse.

Story of my life.

*oh all right, just in case there's one you don't know and it's annoying you: toad, Kiev, the left, Michael Owen, Ohio, Utah, Iowa.

Wonder.

2006-03-10T09:20:00.000Z

I caught that 'The Planets' thing on Beeb 3 the other night. I love all that. The one thing that I missed when I moved out of my parents' home all those years ago was the old man's New Scientist subscription.

The prog mentioned the latest estimates re the number of stars in the universe. Our galaxy contains a hundred billion stars. And there are maybe fifty billion galaxies. They said that this is as many stars as there are grains of sand on every beach on Earth.

Imagine, if you will, going down to your favourite beach - wherever it is in the world - digging a little hole in the sand with your hand, pulling your hand out, looking closely at your index finger, and choosing one particular grain of sand sticking to your finger. Pick a pretty-coloured or shiny one if you want. That's our sun. Life is here.

Now look at your hand, at all the other grains stuck there. And now look around, slowly, at the grains on your feet, on the beach beneath your feet, the wet ones down by the water, blowing around up by the car park, in the distance, close to, at the bottom of the kids' hole, under the crisp packet, washing about in the little waves, stuck to the dog turd.

Imagine how many beaches there are in whatever country you're in. Repeat. Imagine how many countries there are in the world. Cote d'Azur, Cote d'Ivoire, Corfu, Cork, Coromandel. Cornwall. Cook Islands. Repeat.

Now tell me we're the only life in the universe.

Nervous tissue

2006-03-08T17:00:00.000Z

Not, as you may have been hoping, about a piece of worried supersoft three-ply. Instead, about nervous tissue in my body.

Every day, I get a bit sicky and tired feeling in the morning. I look at the clock, and within a few minutes either way, it'll be eleven o'clock. You could set your watch by it, if you don't mind your watch being maybe ten minutes out either way. And having to contact me at about eleven o'clock in the morning whenever you want your watch setting.

It's a blood sugar thing. Breakfast has gone down, blood sugar has dropped, tiredy sicky feeling is how it manifests itself. That 's interesting in itself, really. Let's get this straight - my body communicates to brain that blood sugar has dropped. Hidden part of brain communicates to conscious part of brain that it feels sick and tired. Conscious part of brain rationalises this and dunks a couple of ginger nuts into another coffee with a sugar in, and in a minute or two all is fine again. If you were doing a time and motion study, I'm sure you would reckon there are too many links in this communication chain, but it works pretty well, no? I'm aware that there are all sorts of complex issues that I'm skirting to do with insulin and whathaveyou, but the basic system is the same.

Earlier every morning, at a somewhat more unpredictable time, I get a rush of mental energy. I can solve previously insoluble problems, I am inspired in an artistic designery way, I am enthused with optomism for all the things I am going to get done during the day ahead. Frustratingly, it only lasts a few minutes because after that time I need to go and have a dump. Sorry if that's a little graphic, but there you are. The few minutes before I get the ten-minute warning that I need to go for a shit are the most productive of the day. I can frequently be seen frantically drawing while hopping about, cheeks clenched, trying to finish tricky bits before I go to the loo. Trouble is, when I'm finished, the energy and enthusiasm are completely gone. I've forgotten the solutions, the jobs I was looking forward to seem like chores, inspiration disappears. It doesn't matter if I've been two minutes or read half a novel, the effect is the same.

A medical doctor friend of mine said that there is as much nervous tissue associated with your abdominal tract as there is in your brain. (Mind you, he also thinks that the anus is astonishingly clever and underrated because it's just a little hoop of muscle and yet it can tell the difference between liquid and solid. Hah. Not always, it fucking can't). So perhaps we should be treating our abdominal nervous tissue a little more kindly; giving it a better press, maybe. We do all sorts of things for our cranial brain tissue, why not the rest of it? Does omega-3 fish oil work for all your other neural connections, perhaps make your gut more efficient? Or your spinal cord? More importantly, how do I get the inspired-by-my-gut feeling to last?*

I was musing thus, and indeed had written most of the above in draft, when I came across this debate, at Greavsie's blog. I'd never heard of Berocca, but it sounds just what I need. I've already nearly fallen asleep in my chair this morning (not because I'm tired, just bored with what I was doing - which indeed is why I am doing this at the moment). Long-term readers will be aware that I'm a bit of a winter loony, and have problems motivating myself in the long dark days. SAD, perhaps. The doctor said maybe, but try getting more exercise in the daytime before we go down that route. Thanks for that.

So, Berocca it is. I know it's not an anti-depressant, but I'm sure if I can boost my energy with something other than caffeine I won't feel so unmotivated. It's the huge effort that I have to make some days just to get the necessary, bill-paying stuff done that makes me down, I reckon. If I had more energy I'd get more done and wouldn't feel down about it. It's a theory, anyway.

If I ever get my finger out and get the work I'm supposed to be doing as we speak finished, I'll have to go into town later to the repro shop. I can go to Boots at the same time. Or Holland and Barrett, perhaps. Maybe I can feed all of my nervous tissue with it, you never know.

I shall harness the power of my poo-brain. Yellow piss seems a small price to pay.

*anyone suggesting shoving things up my arse, or trying to hold onto a shit all day, will have their chat banned, or something.

Frustrated

2006-03-07T09:25:00.000Z

About everything, really.

While I was putting off doing work yesterday morning ("I'll just watch a bit of telly while I drink a coffee ....") I saw a programme hidden away in the minor Sky channels about thrill-seekers. It went on about the dopamine reflex blah blah and showed lots of film of people jumping off cliffs with nothing but some string and a large piece of fluorescent cloth to prevent them from dying (but they always wear crash helmets, don't they? What's the point? Not going to save you from shattering every other bone in your body when you hit the very hard ground at a hundred and forty miles an hour. Anyway.).

It got me thinking. I am, as you all ought to be aware by now (fucking well keep up at the back, why don't you?), approaching my fifth decade. In, by my calculations, 56 days, I will have my fortieth birthday. Note I did not say 'celebrate'.

I should have done all the stuff I dreamed of by now. I will be physically unable to do many of them in a few years. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to B.A.S.E. jump, I don't have that much of a dopamine receptor inhibition. (That sounded good didn't it? Almost medical. I think it's actually right, as well). I am toward that end of the spectrum, though: I do like a bit of an adrenalin sport, me. I've done a lot of rock climbing in my time, until arthritic fingers stopped me; when I'm on holiday, I enjoy finding high sea cliffs to jump off into the sea from; I ski and drive far too fucking fast to be safe. You can't play rugby every week, as a forward, if you're a wallflower.

But being nearly 40 isn't about have I done a bungee jump yet. Oh, all right, it is, but it isn't just about that. What about all my other life goals, though? The proper ones, the long-term ones. The ones that I thought I'd never possibly achieve, when I was living in a squat in a Hackney Wick tower block circa 1989, examining my navel, for day after day.

Lovely wife, check. Male progeny to continue family line, check. Female progeny to spoil rotten, check. Dream job, check. Own boss, check. Own house, check. Nice car, check.

Mmmmm. All check. So it's just stuff like 'learn to kite surf' that are missing after all. Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself. I mean, it's all very well having life goals of 'own a ski chalet in French Alps' but that conflicts with the life goal of 'do not be a slave to career, and always have time for the kids'. It's only money. You can't take it with you.

So, perhaps being 40 is all about bungee jumping. Work-type things are just the filling in between the adrenalin episodes, and if you happen to enjoy the filling in, so much the better. That's one way of looking at it, I suppose.

Thinking about it again, there are quite a few adrenaliny-type rushes that can be had at any age. I'm currently trying to organise going to Pamplona to run with the bulls this summer, as a late 40th present to myself. Everyone I talk to thinks that's nuts. (Except Flash Pete, who swears he's coming too. Hope he does, it won't be the same without him). Hey, though, ask yourself: the fucking great beast can do a hundred metres in 5 seconds and weighs a hundred and ten stone. And those horns are real, and sharp. And I am going to trap myself, with thousands of other people, in a narrow cobbled street, with several of them. Imagine, then, once the beasts have passed safely by, you turn to your mate, to anyone else in the street, eyes shining, shouting, screaming, death cheated, alive, more alive than ever. Imagine the adrenalin rush of that. Can't wait. And they do it every day for a week! And they do it first thing in the morning, so you can spend the rest of the day, and night, getting drunk!

Tell you what, I've decided that I can turn this whole thing on it's head. I shall triumphantly use this horrible event as an excuse to behave as childishly as possible. In a way only a real grown up can.

Meat

2006-03-06T16:39:00.000Z

Being all inspired and enthused about countryish things over the last few days, I delve into Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's 'Meat' book - half essay, half cookbook, and a dashed good read.

I come across a recipe for cassoulet, that great French sausagey beany casseroley thing, and suddenly remember that I have a kit somewhere. A kit, in this case, consists of vac-packed sausage and pork belly and a packet of haricot beans.

No time like the present, I think to myself, with a manly jaw-jut and a heartily inflated chest. I get out Pots and Pans. I read the first of the instructions: soak beans overnight in cold water. I put Pots and Pans away. No time like tomorrow morning, I think to myself, zeal untarnished.

Aaaaaanyway, after much pfaffing and jaw stroking, the dish is ready. It has a heady, some might even say farmyardy, odour. It looks roughly like the picture in the book.

The LOML takes one glance and wordlessly gets a pizza out of the freezer for herself and the kids.

Their loss, I decide. I am determined to remain Undaunted. I serve myself a big bowlful. The flavour is, ah, interestingly strong - the various sausage is so spicy and the pork bellies so unexpectedly salted that these are the primary flavours. The beany tomato-y oniony sauce is nice, though.

Later on that evening, the LOML reminds me that her parents brought the cassoulet kit back from Spain for me, and, adding up on her fingers as she goes, works out that this is more than a year ago. I remind myself that I am remaining Undaunted, and content myself that the meat was vac-packed so it must be all right, surely. The slight abdominal rumbling is (a) normal for me anyway, and (b) just a result of the high bean content.

I put all thoughts of the texture of the pork belly out of my mind. It was perhaps a little yielding. 'Clammy' is a word which is not a great distance away from inclusion in that set of words that could be used to describe it. It smelled ok, though, surely? Oh yes, I convince myself, nodding. It did. However, I then remind myself, I have had a cold sufficient to prevent me from smelling anything much for a month now. Enough! No more weakness! 'Undaunted', remember?

Much, much later, in the wee small hours of the morning, suddenly awaking from fitful slumber while propped up sitting on the toilet, yet again, I finally admit that perhaps mere Undauntedness is sometimes not enough.

All in all, you will appreciate how this may have something to do with the lack of posts over the last few days.

'The Good Life' is a bit obvious but I can't immediately think of a better title

2006-03-02T15:58:00.000Z

When I moved to the country it wasn't through any great need to get back to my roots and immerse my hands in mother soil. It was more a matter of moving to the village that the LOML was born and brought up in so we could be near her family and friends. I am a townie, a smallish-market-townie-in-a-fairly-rural-area, but a townie nonetheless.

When the LOML and I had our first house, in a town, I remember being amazed that she could grow french beans that you could actually eat up some canes by the shed. I mean, I knew that where beans came from was not Sainsbury's, but I imagined growing your own was strictly the preserve of arcane alchemy (if this isn't a tautology) known only to crusty old allotment holders. Passing on the secrets of their grandfathers, no doubt. So a germ of a kernel of a seed of an interest in things green gently sprouted.

I gradually became converted, dug a small veg patch, experimented, learned, prospered. In the current CwhatC garden there are four veg patches and a greenhouse. All organic, natch. I even entered the Village Show, and won some certificates (uh, 'best short carrots', 'best any other vegetable - 3 specimens', 3rd best 'onions - spring sown', yada yada).

The LOML's parents, you see, are 'of the land'. They grow stuff for a living - soft fruit, cut flowers, florists' foliage - on 12 acres on the edge of the village. They met at horticultural college actually.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall became a bit of a guru; except, obviously, as regards haircuts: I think I could teach him a thing or two there. I visit his River Cottage website regularly, and have seriously considered taking a trundly down the M5 to one of his events. I'd love to keep pigs and make my own ham and stuff. It looks a fabulous laugh and hey, I love ham. And bacon. And sausages.

And when you look a bit deeper, it's a bit of a moral journey as well. There was a programme on BBC telly a while back called (I think) 'The Real Food Show'. (Was it called that? Anyway*). It was the one which had a zoo-type format somewhat copied from Top Gear. The premise of the feature in question was that all meat-eaters should be able to kill the animal they were going to eat. Hugh F-W used to have a section on it: a step-by-step guide culminating in actually slaughtering and butchering and cooking and eating an animal yourself. I can't find it now, but his other food essays are very good. I like his meat manifesto particularly.

The presenter from the BBC went out to a farm and selected an animal (a beef bullock, if I recall) and watched it being killed, and butchered. He cried on camera, and I am not mocking him here. I think this is important. But he did it, and he ate the meat, and I reckon was a better person for the experience. It's something we all ought to be prepared to do: if not, you know the answer. Vegetarianism. A simple, moral, code to live by. I can, and have, slaughtered animals. How many of us who buy our meat shrink-wrapped in Tesco can say the same? Not many, not many at all. Most, I suspect, would blanch at the sight, sound and smell of a twitching, newly-dead animal being eviscerated for our ultimate culinary pleasure. And then throw up their 4-grain Cheerios all over their Hush Puppies.

But do not the animals who died so that we may eat deserve our respect? I respect them by buying ethically raised non-intensive meat from my local butcher. They have only lived so that I can eat them, but this in no way means that their lives need not be as contented as possible in the meantime. It makes you think; it damn well ought to make you think.

*breathe*

Sorry.

Did it again.

Started off all light-hearted and ended up screaming and shouting off an oversized soapbox, spittle running down my chin and no doubt into the audience's faces. Sorry. Have a tissue. Comes of being an opinionated sort of chap, you see. I get carried away. And there's no-one here to say "Hey, shush. Calm down a bit" until afterwards, when it's too late, usually.

So, anyway. Right. Um. I guess that the whole point of this is that the reason that Hugh F-W's programmes were so popular is because we all hanker for it, really. That Jimmy's Farm that's on again is in the same mould - actually, it was probably watching that last night that set me thinking about it all again in the first place. We're all hardwired, deep down, into producing our own food. Just some of us are further removed from it than others.

Tell you what, I'll let you know how this year's food production activities are going, occasionally, and then at least you can grow veg and fruit vicariously through me if you want to. I may even kill some animals and eat them and we can all grow as people through the experience - me physically, you morally.

Any requests?

*I've now found it on Sky. It's called Full On Food.

Huh?

2006-03-01T19:14:00.000Z

I like Davina McCall. I do. I think she's very natural in front of the camera, if a bit giggly, and even though I'm not the biggest fan of Big Brother, you can't deny (a) it's romped into the social consciousness and (b) it needs a presenter with natural shallowness, just like Davina (and I don't mean that in a derogatory way), otherwise it could be taking itself too seriously.

Not sure about her chat show, with it's imaginative title, yet.

Especially as she's just announced "And now one of the sassiest and classiest girl bands around, the Sugababes."

'Sugababes' and 'classy' are two words which it would surely take a labrythine feat of grammatical adroitness to fit correctly into the same sentence. Surely?

Timetable

2006-03-01T16:05:00.000Z

Sorry about yesterday. Just tooooo busy. Rude of me, I know. I'll try not to let it happen again.

Trouble is, I had quite a lot of work to do with long deadlines. Now, I'm not the kind of chap to get it all done straight away, me. Oh, no. That would be far too easy. No, instead I think to myself that it's ok, I've got three weeks to do this thing, and two weeks to do that one, and they shouldn't take more than a couple of days each, so I can do the little urgent half-hour stuff and browse the blogsphere and play poker and all of a sudden I'm completely out of time and panicking and it's all gone tits. Again.

You'd think I'd learn. But I never do.

So, just to ensure I don't miss out anything, today I make myself a Timetable. Lists of which phone calls and emails I have to make, in what order. A slot to pop out and visit a client locally. Time when I have to put the casserole on (new man me), and go back to it to check it.

It is a good Timetable. It says 'Run, and/or dig the garden, just before lunch (don't forget Shuffle. Or key)'. Then the time is just before lunch and I don't really fancy going for a run cos it's snowing, but the timetable says I must, so I do. Bit of a bully, the Timetable, maybe, I'm thinking.

So, I'm out running, running, across the fields and through the woods and the sun comes out and the birds are singing in the trees and there's a pleasant breeze and I'm feeling pretty fit and not too tired and I'm thinking maybe that the Timetable was right after all. Then I fall over.

Still, I think, picking myself up and wiping my hands on my shorts, that's hardly the Timetable's fault.

And then the Shuffle plays a blinder to see me home: Joss Stone's Super Duper Love lifts me through the woods, Pink Floyd's The Great Gig In The Sky comes on as I head out across the middle of the stubble field: all earth and sky and that soaring vocal; inspirational. And then I pull through the houses at the edge of the village and up the hill powered by The Kinks' Lola. (I may not be the world's most masculine man, but when I'm in bed I know what I am: I'm a man and so's Lola. Oh yes. If that doesn't give me enough extra puff to get up the hill without walking nothing will). Glad the Timetable reminded me to take it. And just as the song finishes I arrive and I have my key, because the Timetable said to.

So I'm thinking quite kindly of the Timetable as we speak. Next item, go and check the casserole again and maybe add water. That's what Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's book tells me to do, and that's good enough for me.

I've even started writing tomorrow's Timetable. I think this could be a runner.

Nothing here.

2006-02-28T11:48:00.000Z

Nothing to see here. Move along.

All idle chatter about sofas and libraries has been reprioritised down the to-do list, pending an urgent need to make money to pay for them. And by the second entry on the priority list: making sure that clients do not shout at me.

See you in quieter, less fiscally challenged times in the near future.

Library

2006-02-27T10:20:00.000Z

I have a Library at home.

Um.

This is possibly the biggest over-statement in history, to say nothing of it also being pretentious cock. I'll try again.

I have Porch at home, which has books in it.

That's better.

My porch is quite an elongated affair, and contains, by my count, 21 shelves each containing double and sometimes triple layers of books. Most of the bookshelves are Mr Ikea's finest 'Billy' range, some with as many as six shelves, all tastefully constructed in a white melamine finish, but this is not the point of the discourse. The books contained within same, ah yes, these, then.

I have read very nearly all of them at some point or another. I am afraid to say that very few of them are Literature. One shelf's worth, in fact, is all; I haven't read all of that shelf. The rest: paperback thrillers, science fiction, crime novels, fantasy. Some rock climbing guides and quite a few mountaineering prose texts. Various comedy novels - Tom Sharpe, Stephen Fry. Harry Potter. The Lord of the Rings. A large assortment of further miscellany.

The LOML tidied up the Library the other day. She bought new bookshelves, constructed them (she's a demon with a disposable allen key, the LOML), placed them in the Library, filled them neatly with the disordered piles of books therein. All is now ordered (look, all-stuff-is-now-on-shelves ordered, not Dewey-Decimal ordered. We're not that anal). I think it looks marvellous; civilised, erudite, dignified (as long as you don't look at the titles too closely: difficult to use these three adjectives in close conjunction to the complete works of Patricia Cornwell. Or Dick Francis. But still).

She wants to get rid of it.

She thinks that we should sell most of the books. I've read them, after all, she says. It's a waste of space. I try to explain that would be like selling a CD after listening to it once. She counters, not without skill, that I won't read many of them ever again. Aha, I say, maybe not, maybe not. But Child One will, if he carries on the way he is going. A veritable bookworm, that boy, I say.

This is my Most Convincing Argument, and I really hope she has no counter to it, because I have nowhere further to go, debate wise. I'll be reduced to petulance, tears, and I don't care what you say they're my books and I like them and you aren't allowed to sell them so there.

Fortunately, all I get is a you can keep it fucking tidy in there yourself in future then, and my cause, for the moment at least, is won.

My books are safe.

Government slave - a rant (part I, probably).

2006-02-24T09:07:00.000Z

Regular readers will be aware that I work for myself. This is my fourth year at it. Working for yourself has untold benefits; the only problem is you don't get benefits.

Uh, I could have put that better, couldn't I?

What I mean is, I now have all the little pleasures of being my own boss - such as working in the morning in my jarmies, which I do sometimes on a Saturday - but you don't get what society chooses to call 'benefits' such as sick pay, holiday pay, non-contributary pension and whathaveyou. 'Benefits' is right. Bear with me, I'll look it up ... a ... b ...b ... beluga, belvedere, bemoan ... bench ... Benedictine, benediction ... here we are, benefit n. 1. advantage, favour, profit, good 2. money paid by a government etc. to unemployed etc.

Damn right. Advantage, favour, money paid. That can be the only reason for a sane person to work for the government, the only reason.

Let's be clear on this. As a society we need a government, I think, definitely. As an entity it works, sort of. Stuff does get done, sort of. It's just when you get down to the micro-scale that it all goes tits. I went through various government places, and ended up working for the Environment Agency, a quango. There's another acronym for them now instead of quango but I can't remember it. It was an amalgamation of the National Rivers Authority, lots of people from each local government area, and a chunk from central government's Department of the Environment, as was.

On day one, everyone carried on doing their day job. For a while, people took the opportunity to switch about jobs a bit to do something more interesting. I was one of these, and ended up as a sort of pollution inspector (we had so many changes of job title that I won't bore you with them). It was a good job - one day I would be out chasing oil slicks down rivers, warning people who took water out downstream to stop, sticking absorbent booms and pads out; trying to find where it came from. The next I would be discussing landfill liner engineering with big waste companies. The next I would be doing covert video surveillance of flytipping skip companies, and taking them to court.

Varied, interesting, absorbing, satisfying.

And all the time, quietly, behind the scenes, others were working: the insidious little cost / benefit wonks, the health and safety nazis, the restructuring / efficiency weasels. And they whispered in the ears of the managers, largely decent men and women, promoted from the ranks. The weasels brought in management consultants, who talked about 'the regulation chimney' (I never understood what that was about, and once got a bollocking for playing 'buzzword bingo' too loudly with that phrase) and 'incentivising our stakeholders'.And the managers listened, and heard, and didn't really understand, but did it anyway.

The World's Most Complicated Time Recording system arrived, upon which we were required to account for every six minutes of our time - every tenth of an hour. And no, it didn't have codes for 'chatting at the coffee machine' or 'going for a shit'. Then, just as we were starting to get our heads round it, it was changed. And then again. And then it was computerised. Everyone just recorded all their time against the most-vaguely-described category (something to do with 'site regulation') because otherwise we would have spent all of our time recording our time and none of our time doing the stuff we were paid for. Missives came back from management saying we were spending too much time doing site regulation. All sorts of measures were introduced to address this. We laughed incredulously that someone was trying to draw serious conclusions from the data in the time recording system.

More and more stuff came through - databases of this, computer systems of that. You should have seen the incident response database: every time a little old lady rang to say there was a black bag in a layby or a film of oil on a pond, we'd have to fill in about nine full pages of database fields. NIRS, it was called. Fuck, I hated it. We spent more time recording what we'd done than going out to look at the damn thing.

I was becoming disillusioned. I had started out helping people, using my judgement, my initiative. I ended up as a pre-programmed android, with a pre-judged response to everything. Fly tipping > 6 bags + non-green waste + includes paint tins and / asbestos sheet + known suspect = prepare prosecution file. Other circumstances irrelevant. On the road verge while you're demolishing your shed? You were only putting it in there for a couple of days until you've got room for the skip you've ordered? Not my problem, mate, it's off your own land because the verge belongs to the highways authority. You were going to throw it out so it's waste. Ergo, it's waste on land. Fly-tipping, to you. Rules is rules. No you can't take it back into your garden, it's too late for that. You're not obliged to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Do you understand the caution?

For fuck's sake.

I had a problem with managers at this point. We had a manager who had come from the ivory towers of head office, and was keen as mustard on all this bollocks. He got given a pair of protective wellies and a hi-vis coat on his first day, and when he handed them back when he went back to his ivory tower to do policy they were still as clean as the day he was given them. 'Seagull manager', it's called: flies in, squawks loudly, shits on everything, flies off. Perfect. In that time he'd managed to give me a written warning. Largely for, uh, helping people (like the bloke knocking down his shed) without sticking to the procedure, and having four months' backlog of timesheets (my correct justification that they weren't worth the paper they were printed on is, of course, irrelevant. He made me do them anyway, both of us knowing full well that I was just making them up. But they got fed into the system and no doubt conclusions were drawn about them. Surely better to not feed made up information into the system? Don't argue with me, you've already got one written warning).

Suffice to say, I started looking around for something else to do. I managed to find a post-graduate diploma that was taught on Saturdays. I started my business at weekends and evenings. According to the Rules at work, I could request to go to part-time at any point. So I did, when my final coursework projects were looming. I had got enough private work while I was still studying to cover the loss of pay, anyway.

Delay followed delay. I finally got my part time arrangement about three months after I had completed my diploma. (I got a Distinction anyway, thanks for asking. I wasn't going to mention it).

Then, citing Setting An Example To The Country as a wholly spurious reason, the Paperless Office arrived. No longer are you allowed to keep paper files; all the current paper files disappeared for months to some warehouse where teams of temps with no (a) reason to do the job properly, and (b) brain in their heads scanned them into the database. Randomly, apparently. I never saw some of the most important stuff - you know the stuff: evidence that people's children were not actually given birth defects by a leaking landfill with illegal waste in it - ever again anyway. Difficult to go to the anti-landfill action group meeting after that, really. A bit embarrassing. Yes, I know how ill your daughter is. Yes, I'm sure I will see you in court, madam.

Letters addressed to you will be opened by admin staff, and scanned. You are then supposed to find them for yourself (remember you've got a response target time), resave them to the appropriate place, and then act on them. Assuming the admin staff put them in the right place so you even know you've got them, otherwise you'll suddenly come across a series of letters from someone getting crosser and crosser about a genuine problem until they are practically apopleptic because no-one is replying. They've tried to phone but it's just an 0800 number and they can't get through to the right person. Filed in the wrong place? Really? Oh, sorry about that.

I could go on. But for the purposes of this rant, suffice to say I just quit. On the spot. And no, I haven't looked back.

What is it with women and clothes?

2006-02-23T09:45:00.000Z

"Can I go shopping this evening?" The LOML looks at me expectantly from under her lashes. This evening is one of the kids' nights for cubs or gym or something.
"Of course.What for?"
"I need something for your cousin's wedding."
"Which is in, uh, May ... hadn't you better wait until the spring stuff's in the shops?"
"Oh no, its okay, all the spring stuff's in now."
"Right. Um. Of course you can, love. I'll just take Child One to the supermarket while Child Two's at her club, shall I?"
"He likes it. He calls it 'being Daddy's little helper'."

In the face of indomitable argument, I succumb.

Later, when I'm slobbed out knackered on the sofa, the shopping put away, both kids in bed, the LOML returns. She commences a mini fashion show.

"I bought this skirt, look, it wasn't at all what I was looking for but I thought it'd be really good, it was only forty quid, and I thought I'd wear this new wrap top with it with one of these new vests underneath, and my black shoes. What do you think?"

I make a Fatal Mistake. I fail to gush on about how wonderful it all is, largely because it's the middle of MacIntyre's Sting on telly, and they're about to do a surprise arrest on a bail dodger who thinks he's won a car.

"You don't like it. Right, I'll take it all back."
"Mmmmmf. What, sorry? No, no. I do like it, really I do. You look lovely."
"No, no, you're right, I'll take it back. It's not smart enough. All your cousin's doctor friends are all going to be wearing little designer spring dresses, aren't they. I'll find something else."

She goes on. I go on right back. I persuade her that it's fine, really, she'll look lovely. She finally agrees that the one top and skirt are suitable. The other top can go back, it's a bit old on her, and the vests need to be a different size. Compromise finally negotiated, we go to bed.

I'm just nodding off, when:

"You know, I think I will take that skirt back. I mean, it was forty quid. I'm sure I can do better. I'll go and have another look."

She promptly goes to sleep. I spend an interesting hour or two looking at the ceiling.

Never trust a car salesman

2006-02-21T11:48:00.000Z

I bought a car last year. Nice one - second hand, but nice enough. Prestigey-sort of badge. I took Flash Pete along because he actually enjoys buying cars; indeed, sometimes at weekends he goes and browses car places, with no real intention of buying anything. He knows about cars and about buying cars. He has lovely cars himself.

We test drove a couple of cars, and I was veering towards buying one, and Pete said it was ok, everything worked, it was reasonable value, but just felt a bit gutless to drive. The nice sales bloke said what can you expect, it's a big old car and a one point nine diesel engine.

I bought it.

I took it back for a service last week. The bloke rang and asked if it was a bit gutless lately. I said yes, actually, I thought maybe it was. Mmm, he said, thought so. The airflow meter that regulates the air/fuel mix has been progressively failing, and the power will have been dropping off as it goes to a default safe setting. He'd get the part and change it when the part gets delivered. Ok, I said.

I went back today, and they replaced it, and the car is now a absolute freaking rocket ship (for a one point nine diesel, anyway. These things are relative). Unbelievably quick. I am convinced that the airflow meter was already failing when I bought it a year ago: I'm sure it wasn't this fast then. I can, of course, prove this not at all. I know I can't, the sales bloke knows I can't. Still, he was nice, didn't charge me for the ten minutes or so his bloke took to fit it, made me a coffee while I waited, chatted amicably. We touched on how long I'd had the car, and how long these things take to fail, usually. We had that look at each other with a half-knowing-smile, I-know-what-you're-thinking moment.

I didn't mention it.

At least I get to play with my new sporty car now.

If only anyone tagged me ....

2006-02-20T11:42:00.000Z

*Adopts plaintive whine* Why'd nobody tag me to do a the 'four favourite things' meme that's been going round for ages? Huh?

I really really want to be able to do that offhand "I don't normally do memes but since you've tagged me and I suppose it saves doing a proper blog on a Monday" thing.

Still, Universal Soldier gave a general invitation to do it so perhaps I might if I get desperate.

The highlight of my weekend was a long-overdue excursion into the world of plumbing. I don't do plumbing. Or electrics. Woodwork, plastering, brickwork, painting (actually the LOML does the painting now I think about it), tiling (uh, actually, LOML again), shelf hanging, mending broken stuff, car stuff, bike stuff and whathaveyou, I do. Plumbing, not really. It was with some trepidation that I considered fixing the sink tap in the bathroom that's been dribbling for months. It had got to the stage that I am pretty much the only one who can turn the tap off hard enough to stop it dribbling. And then the kids can't turn it on again to wash their hands, so by now we're probably all walking brood farms for virulent masses of threadworms just waiting for the middle of the night to erupt in an unclean itchfest.

So, pathetic as it may be at my time of life, I didn't know how to change a tap washer. I mean, I know the theory: I know how a tap works, I think. I'd just never taken one to bits and changed the washer.

The LOML was chatting to Andy'n'Mandynextdoor on Saturday morning first thing, and he said he had a tap washer if I needed one. Ta, I said. I'm going to the shops today so I'll probably be ok, but ta anyway.

So quite why it was at five o'clock on Sunday that I was apologetically knocking on his door holding a split tap washer, I'm not sure. No, it hadn't taken me all weekend to take the tap apart, I'd waited until half past four to start, for some reason. I got the tap apart ok, but I couldn't get the old washer off without splitting it in half. So the tap's defo not working now, and I've not got the bit to fix it, and the water's turned off and Child Two cannot understand why she can't have blackcurrant right now. Great.

Fortunately, Andynextdoor has a washer, and it fits the tap and I am DIY hero again. Child Two gets her blackcurrant, and we can all wash our hands and thus stave off third world style parasite infestations.

I offer to buy Andy a pint when I see him as thanks for the washer. I know I am fairly safe doing this because he tends to go to the pub early, and me late. So with a bit of luck I should get away with it for nothing.

Lost count again. *Adds up on fingers*. Oooh-er, I think it's 69. Snarf snarf.

Back to the silly stuff ...

2006-02-17T11:46:00.000Z

Can't let it pass without comment: Madonna is an icon who has reinvented herself successfully many times to maintain her position at the top of the pop tree, so why has she decided, in her latest incarnation as seen at the Brits, that the best new look is the mutant older sister of Trisha Yates off Grange Hill?

Bad time

2006-02-17T11:13:00.000Z

Ok. Explanation for missing or bleak postings last few days.

I play rugby every Saturday, nothing fancy, just for the village team. More of a social thing than anything, chance to run round and get rid of some frustrations and have a few beers with your mates afterwards.

A chap that I play with collapsed on Saturday, on the pitch. He was preparing to throw the ball in at a line-out, and just went down. He was playing for the first team, away, and I for the seconds at home, so we didn't hear for a while after our game, and then the news came through in dribs and drabs. Not too serious, we thought at first. He'll be ok. Concussion, probably, it happens. Then came the news of teammates administering CPR, and the ambulance coming, and the paramedics shocking him several times.

I don't know him really well. He doesn't live in the village, he comes down from Birmingham to play. I've had many a pleasant chat to him in the bar, and we've played front row together quite a few times - he's moved across from hooker to prop, and I've come in at hooker - but no more than that. He's quite a private, intense kind of bloke; well respected, fiercely loyal, committed to his family, his work and his rugby. A very fit, hard, man: he drinks bottles of pils so he can keep in with the rounds in the pub but only drink half as much. No extra fat on him, even at forty-four. Never smoked.

It turns out that he has a history of heart disease in his family, and maybe his lifestyle was an attempt to stave this off. I don't know.

He's still unconscious in intensive care, breathing by himself, with difficulty, via a tracheotomy. The doctors have tried to bring him round but without success so far. They are worried that if they do manage to bring him round, the shock of what has happened may give him another heart attack. It doesn't look good, to be honest.

I have had a few days to get used to this now. It's tough, but you just have to realise that this happens to hundreds, thousands of people every week. In time, it'll happen to someone you know. The world carries on, and my life with it: lucky me, and you, and all of us. We feel sad, and are reminded deeply of our mortality, but gradually it fades and we carry on. We are playing again on Saturday.

I hope he makes it, I desperately hope so. I cannot imagine the anguish that his wife and young children are suffering. Unconsciously, I find I am trying to spend as much happy time with my wife and kids as I can. Perhaps that is the best legacy of something like this: we are reminded that our time is short: four thousand weeks is all you've got, and that we need to make the most of them.

Be kinder, more considerate, and more tolerant, for our lives are far too short for hate, indifference and injustice.

Old times

2006-02-16T10:25:00.000Z

Went back to my birthplace yesterday, to show the kids where Daddy grew up. My school looked small and sad, the swimming pool and the sports centre were both boarded up, all the shops had changed into charity outlets, someone was moving out of my old house, Child Two fell over and cut herself, Child One trod in dogshit.

Their abiding memory will be the play area by the river that wasn't even there when I was a kid. (The play area, not the river. I imagine the river's been there for a while).

They said they enjoyed it. I think they were just trying to be nice.

Look, I think it's 74 days. But I'm still not confident of my maths.

Life used to be so simple, before

2006-02-13T17:10:00.000Z

The telephone rings. It is Child Two.

"Daaaaad, I've been playing in the greenhouse at Granny and Grandad's and I took off my trousers so I could take off my tights so I didn't get them dirty, and I couldn't get my button undone, so I pulled and pulled and it came off and fell into the soil, and I buried it and found it again and I buried it again and now I can't find it because I can't remember which hole I put it in and Mum says would you bring up our little metal detector that the other Granny and Grandad gave us for Christmas to see if we can find it with that."

I did, but they couldn't.

First day of rest of bloglife

2006-02-13T11:55:00.000Z

Ok.

Now sober. Am also getting used to the fact that I have readers.

Strangely, knowing people are reading has given me a bit of writers' block. So I've had to have one of those having-a-stern-word-with-myself type moments. Get-a-grip. Stop-being-silly. Snap-out-of-it. Pull-your-finger-out. You know the kind of thing. So, continue ranting on about nothing in particular.

I was talking the other day about karma. For me, this is nothing more than a literary* device to make weak jokes about bad luck. I don't believe in karma, or anything else inexplicable really. But you have to wonder, do you not, about the fact that not only was I tied up working all day when all I wanted to do was come on here and go through all the comments, but then when I got back all the adsl cabling in the house was shot to buggery and the nice man couldn't come and fix it until Saturday so that was another day missed and and and.

Still, Andy, the nice telephone cabling chap has come and sorted out all the spaghetti, so, two birds with one stone and all that, not only is the computer now going to be more reliable (touch wood) but the LOML is happy because there are far fewer cables slithering around the skirting boards, and the telephone will be able to go comfortably on the coffee table in the New Living Room** without stretching the cables. Andy is a rare find, with whom I am delighted. He is conscientious, perfectionist, neat, tidy and punctual. He's going to come back and sort out the co-axial nightmare of relocating my telly eight feet across the room (qv this blog, previously).

So, have now soberly looked through the comments and in my replies may have pissed off the odd anonymous commenter. I got told off for it as well. I may have got Mr Anonymous mixed up with Ms Anonymous at some point. Ach well, whatever. Have a site of your own and then we'll see. But do keep commenting., anonymously or otherwise. I reserve the right to slag off anonymous commenters when I'm a bit pissed, though.

Quick diary type stuff, just for completeness: the work thing I went to was a get-together of my trade organisation in the Midlands. Vociferous, informative, networky thing. I came away (a) enthused with new ideas and energy to get out there and get the work and then do it efficiently and competently (stop laughing at the back. Pete, particularly. When you rang this morning already on the M25 I wasn't dressed, you know. You work too hard, I don't: I am right and you are wrong ;-). I have already had a meeting today; I've not just sat around doing this all morning); and (b) confident and satisfied that both my talent and my working practices are as good and robust as anyone's and better than most. Which is always good.

Worse news is that the crisismobile, respendent with no less than three new tyres (ulp; there goes the bank balance), also now has a split driveshaft gaiter. Oh well, it needs a service soon anyway. It's only money, eh.

Oh yes, I was supposed to be Enthused wasn't I? Keen to get on and do the work. Best go and do that then.

Lunch first? If you insist.

*Note to self: be very careful before in any way comparing this to literature.
**Not really New, more of your Rearranged, but it feels new to me.

now listen, I could go through my diary and work out how many, but I've gone and mentioned lunch now and my tummy's rumbling, so I'll work it out later. Tomorrow's later, isn't it?

Never rains but ..

2006-02-12T00:22:00.000Z

Just as I find out that I have readers, bless you all, I have to go out all day to a work thing. And then I get back, and the internet connection is down. And I try and mend it, but can't. It's all gone to bollocks and needs fixing by a professional. So I am still detached. Such is karma, perhaps.

So, a nice man called Andy has been round and replaced chunks of my ADSL cabling (is that what it's called? I'm such a Luddite). And now I'm back, finally.

Trouble is, it's gone midnight now and I'm more than a little drunk. So, now that I have the opportunity, finally, to talk to all you nice people who were out there all along, just I didn't know it, I'm far too incapacitated to make any sense.

I worry about my karma, I really do. Constantly receiving kicks in the teeth can't bode well for my afterlife. Hopefully, hopefully, some sense at some point tomorrow. Perhaps.

Total. And. Utter. Knob.

2006-02-08T21:17:00.000Z

*adopts poor imitation accent of wossname from Friends, the one that's not Joey or Ross*

'Oh. My. God.'

*stops accent as it's a pretty piss-poor effort, to be honest.

Everybody, everybody, I am so sorry. I have been a total, total arse.

Until this evening, can you believe it, I had no idea that anyone had ever bothered to comment on my blog. All of your best witty, scathing, kind, encouraging, welcoming, sarcastic comments were sitting in the 'awaiting verification' box, and I had no idea they were there.

Surly gurl, bless her bothered to send me an email on my recently-opened crisiswhatcrisis@telco4u.net address to point out I might have the settings wrong. Duh. Did I ever. Profound thanks (and I've sent you an email saying so again).

You can imagine that I was getting a bit worried that I couldn't, in fact, write for toffee. I mean, Flash Pete always laughed but he only ever seems to have time to read it at my house, so he doesn't leave comments -unless he's Mr Anonymous. I've been writing away for my own amusement, really, hoping that people were reading but just a bit shy. So, imagine a little further if you will my surprise and delight when I found no less than 52 comments awaiting my attention. I'll maybe try and go through the archive and reply wittily to the comments when I get a chance, even if it's a bit out of date now.

Wouldn't you just know it, tomorrow I'm out all day for the first time in ages so can't spend the time I want to on my new favourite place in the whole world (with the possible exception of my bed).

And just before we get too touchy-feely-weepy, the anonymous person that put '1 reedy voices in the wilderness isn't good grammar' can:
(a) tell me how to do the html so that it adjusts itself when there's only 1 comment; or (more likely)
(b) fuck right off.

So, thank you all for persevering and my apologies to you all for being such an IT-Luddite arse.

as many as there were this morning, it's not midnight yet.

Car trouble.

2006-02-08T09:41:00.000Z

Duh. I've got a puncture. Arse. I'm going to have to spend a proportion of my morning lying in the road getting wet and muddy changing it. Bollocks.

There's no getting away from it. It's one of those jobs that you have to just get on with. No point moaning.

Ok.

*Takes deep breath. Forces a smile*.

Could have been worse, I suppose. Let's look on the bright side:

It's not actually raining at the moment;

I recall thinking last night on the motorway that the tracking needed doing, so I guess it was already going down then. I'm glad it didn't decide to let go suddenly - a high-speed front wheel blow-out I can do without;

It'll probably only take half an hour or so;

There was a space in the parking area right outside the house so I've got a flat surface to put the jack on;

The tyre was on its tread wear limit so I needed a new one anyway;

The tracking does need checking so I can get that done when I go to the tyre place;

I wasn't going out this morning anyway, so I don't need to do it in a hurry, and / or phone clients to postpone appointments.

Ok. Good.

I'm almost looking forward to it now. See, everyone, how you can turn a complete pain in the arse into a not-too-bad-after-all-never-mind occasion with a bit of blessings-counting and positive thinking?

Note to self: must make sure the LOML reads, digests, and acts upon this strategy in future.

*Looks out window, and observes a family of pigs flying across a blue moon.*

81. I think.

Lurgy

2006-02-07T11:26:00.000Z

Child Two has the lurgy. It's gone round school so much that they have even sent a letter home about it, saying that, uh, there's a lurgy going round school. Year 3 have got twelve children off, I am told in breathless excitement. We haven't had so much drama in school since the portakabin lorry took the top out of the neighbour's tree delivering the new Year 5 classroom.

Child Two is normally a robust and optomistic little girl. To see her pale and tired and coughing herself sick is not a pleasant experience for any parent. We did all the damp towels on the radiator, cough medicine, Calpol-y things, but still she couldn't settle. Eventually, last night, we told her that she wouldn't have to go to school today: just to stop her worrying about it and in the hope that this would help her finally to get to sleep. It worked after a fashion, and she did sleep, more or less, for the rest of the night. She slept through the rest of us getting up this morning, so we left her, curled up warm under her soft duvet with her rabbit teddy, sucking her fingers (her own, not the rabbit's. Rabbits don't have fingers).

When she eventually awoke at about school time, she seemed quite resigned to be not going, and actually ate quite a lot of breakfast in bed for a poorly seven year old. Demanded biscuits, more juice and hot blackcurrent, in fact. Asked questions about what was on Nickleodeon and Pop at this time of day.

It's now coffee time *thump*, I'm trying to work *thump*, and she's *thump* doing gymnastics on my *thump* bed.

crisis will happen in one day less than yesterday, however many that was

Odd-shaped balls.

2006-02-06T09:39:00.000Z

I go to the rugby! 30-odd of us go to see mighty England trounce the hapless Wales! Sadly, not the 6 Nations dicking at Twickers, but the under 21s at Worcester's ground, Sixways. And the trouncing was more of your 21-18. Still, a win's a win.

No-nickname-yet Ed has organises a box to watch the game from - so much better than mixing with the proles in the stand. He has some business clients coming, so best to entertain them in the corporate-stylee to which they are no doubt accustomed. The rest of us are just freeloading.

Ed's clients ring to say sorry they're late, they have been lost, but the taxi driver is now confident that he knows where he is going and they'll be there in ten minutes. I happen to be standing beside him during this conversation.

'Fine, all right. We'll see you in ten minutes. The food's just here, so you'll be just in time. Bye.'

Ed then does a comedy double take; food, telephone, food, telephone ... 'Ohmyfuckinggod, they're Jewish. They're only fucking Jewish. Where's the catering manager? For fuck's sake.' And exit Ed, at a high rate of knots. We all look at the food. Sausages, in onion gravy. Pork ones, naturally.

The Typecast Landlord is along, with Mrs Typecast Landlord. They are not big rugby fans, indeed have never been to a game. Mrs TL asks for explanations. I oblige: it's a maul if the players are all still on their feet and the ball's not on the floor like now ... now it's a ruck, they've got to stay on their feet and not handle the ball now or it's a penalty.

Mumbling Nige and Tony Bloke guffaw loudly at this, and Nige reminds me that I should follow my own advice the next day while playing for the seconds. I do have a bit of a reputation for, ah, borderline legality at the ruck. I am saved by the arrival of the England sub, delighting in the name of Topsy Ojo. He takes a pass, gets tackled, and spills the ball. Someone observes that it's all gone Topsy turvy, and the conversation fortunately moves away from my deficiencies.

What with having the TL along, we don't really need the extended licensing laws legislation when we weave back into the Posh Pub at about closing time. He shuts the curtains onto the street, slips effortlessly behind the bar and time in the world outside ceases to have any meaning.

We lost fifty-odd to twelve the next day. I nearly scored but didn't. Our performance really was nothing to do with the fact that half the scrum was at the England match, at all.

And I got an (accidental) kick in the bollocks that I can still feel this morning.

Move on.

83 days, is it? I can't add up. About that, in there, anyway.

Grumpy and ranting

2006-02-03T11:52:00.000Z

I'm extremely grumpy this morning, largely because I've been losing at poker. I won't go on and on about poker, because that's very boring for anyone that doesn't play, but rest assured that I have been vastly, hugely unlucky over the last week or so. And before you say, I know everyone always says 'I was really unlucky' to cover bad play, but I have the records to prove it - getting all my money in when I'm 4:1 favourite, and losing to the 20% shot, time and again. I reckon I've lost 17 out of 21 times when the chances were in my favour, often heavily so. My bankroll has gone from healthy to nearly disappeared, and I'm grumpy.

Diary stuff isn't interesting: went to my meetings yesterday, they were fine, I've got loads of work I should be doing but can't motivate myself, whatever.

Best thing when feeling grumpy is to have a rant: watched that programme with the fragrant Kathy Sykes (Professor Kathy to you) examining alternative healing from a rigorously scientific viewpoint. This week, faith healing, spiritualism, that sort of thing.

She made a very convincing case for the efficacy of placebos. There is loads of experimental research into this, including a surgeon in the states who treats patients with chronically arthritic knees. Half his patients have a very believable fake operation, which includes being anaesthetised and opened up but nothing else, and the other half have the full standard procedure. Afterwards, he asks them all whether they think they were operated on or not - and all of them thought they were. Apparently just the expectation of some sort of treatment is enough for the brain to release dopamines or something, which in themselves do cause wellbeing and confidence. And they do genuinely feel better and in less pain.

One experiment which made me laugh was debunking a spiritual healer. An academic hired an actor to learn to mimic exactly the spiritual healer's actions and words, and then treat patients just as he did. You know, arranging crystals and laying on hands and such. And afterwards, the spiritual healer's patients reported slightly less improvement than the actor's. Hahahaha. And the clincher? Most of the actor's 'patients' couldn't believe that they hadn't been spiritually healed in some way, such was their perceived improvement, so they rationalised it ... and decided that the actor must have hereto undiscovered spiritual healing powers.

For fuck's sake.

Kathy, probably wisely, declined to comment.

OK. Feel a bit better now. [/soapbox ]. Move on.

oh yeah, nearly forgot. 87 days.

No time ...

2006-02-02T09:03:00.000Z

Going to see a new client this morning so no time for long post. Going to see old (read: both existing, and elderly) client this afternoon so no time for any post at all really. Two meetings to prepare for and all that. So should stop blogging, really. And prepare. For my meetings. Any time now would be good.

I'll just get a coffee first.

oh yeah, nearly forgot, 88 days to crisis and counting. I think. I can never work it out. I'll have to write down the numbers every day in my diary or something. Unless that's sad, is it? It's not even as if it's my first life crisis or anything, I already had the big give-up-you-job-and-do-something-else-altogether-for-a-living-one. This is just a number. Oh good, that's another 5 minutes nearer my meetings and I still haven't done anything. All right, I'm going now.

Spring fever

2006-02-01T09:27:00.000Z

The LOML has an unhealthily zealous light in her eye. I am trying to watch the telly; she is decorating. At half past ten at night. With the stepladder in the way of the William Hill Poker Tournament on Sky Sports.

'Why are you doing that now? Come and sit down.'

'Because I've got time now, and I enjoy it, and I don't want to watch poker.'

That's three reasons, none of which I have a refutation for. She's decided that the room doesn't bear comparison with a new sofa, and it will have to shape up. The fireplace wall (pic last week some time, can't be bothered to put up the link, look in the archive if you're bothered) is now gold. Not just dark yellow, but a weird sort of metallic goldy effect. I quite like it, actually. It needs another coat or two, but I can see the idea.

She gets these zealous moments occasionally. At Christmas it was the juicer: I'm sure I mentioned this at the time. We had juice 24/7. But then, inevitably, interest waned - I suspect largely because it's a bit of a git to clean. I still quite like the juicer. I used it this morning, primarily so I can say I have in this blog this morning. Nobody else has used it for about three weeks; it's just sitting next to the kettle. I wipe it, occasionally.

Still, at least the zealous episode this time is giving us a shiny newly-painted living room, ready for the new sofa / chair / footstool. Which is good. Even if in the process the current sofa has had to be moved so close to the telly that you get cross eyed and headachy watching the poker.

Same old same old

2006-01-30T10:17:00.000Z

"We trained hard, but it seemed that everytime we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization."

This was written by a chap called Petronius Arbiter in about 210BC. You can file it under "nothing new under the sun". This is precisely why I stopped being a government slave a few years ago. I couldn't stand the thought that even after twenty-two hundred years we still hadn't learned this basic lesson.

I take great pleasure from the fact that it's twenty-five past ten in the morning and no-one can tell me off for writing this instead of earning money.

----------------------------------------

Edit, 14 March 06: rather boringly, one of my favourite quotes appears actually to be not a genuine quote at all. According to this spoilsport there's no record of your man Arbiter having wrote it at all. It may be as old as the first war, but no more than that.

Arse. I still like it. If it wasn't genuine we'd have to make it up anyway, and that's good enough for me.

The furniture shop

2006-01-27T10:30:00.000Z

"Ok, Lee, we've finally made a decision. We'll have this corner unit sofa in this colour, and that chair and footstool in 'earth'".

"Brilliant, brilliant. I'll just get my calculator ..... what we can offer you now is a full home service for cleaning. Obviously, if you spill something on the leather you hope it will wipe off, but if it doesn't then we can come out and clean it or repair it for you, as many times as you like, for five years. All in, with the cleaning this comes to [a number considerably more than we were expecting]."

"How much is the cleaning service, sorry?"

"The total bill would be [the number I just told you]"

"Yes, Lee, but how much of that is the cleaning contract?"

"It's [a large but not extortionate amount of money]".

"It's a good service, and we don't want our furniture ruined by a stain ... mmm ... I can't quite get this to add up. How much is the cleaning, altogether, again?"

"It's [a large but not extortionate amount of money] for a unit like this".

"Yuh, you said that. That doesn't add up, though. So the chair must be extra?"

"The total for everything is [the big number again]".

*grits teeth* "Lee, straight answer please, how much is the cleaning contract for the chair, alone?

Pause.

"[A chunky sort of number]"

"And how much is the footstool, alone?"

Pause. Lee looks like he's about to give me the all-in number again, but catches the look in my eye just in time. Sighs.

"[An almost equally chunky sort of number]"

"Thank you. I'm tempted by the contract on the corner unit, but I think we can leave the chair and footstool. I don't mind so much if they get stained, because ..."

"Sorry. If you have the one you have to have the other, as we're already coming out to you, you see ..."

"Not really, no ..."

"We can only do one cleaning contract for one property, so it's all or nothing, really, you see, and everyone usually buys it, I think you'd be taking a big risk not to. The only thing you're not covered for is turmeric."

"I don't really see why I can't just have the corner unit covered by the contract, if I stain the chair I just won't call you ... hang on, did you just say turmeric?"

"Yes, turmeric, we can't get that out so you wouldn't be covered for that."

"Yes, but ..."

"So be careful with the curry, ha ha ha."

"Yes, but I still don't see ..."

"Everyone sits on their leather sofas and eats curry. Coffee, now, we can get that out, and if we can't we'll come and replace the entire panel."

"That's good, I probably will spill coffee at some point ..."

"That would be no problem, red wine too, can do that. The panels are saddle stitched: they stitch them once and then stitch them twice more onto a ribbon behind, it makes them really strong ..."

"But why can't you replace the panel for turmeric ...?"

" ... yes, as I was saying, if they do have to replace the whole panel it's a long job, would cost the earth otherwise, but we'll do it as often as you like for five years ..."

"... but ..."

"... so, just plump the cushions up every day so they don't sag and like I say wipe the whole piece of furniture over with a damp cloth, no cleaning fluid or anything, once a week ..."

My head is starting to hurt. Lee spots his opportunity and like a good salesman, leaps in.

"Put it this way, every person I've sold to this month has taken it up ... we have three people based at this store who do nothing else but go out and do repairs ... what they can do is replace the whole leather panel ... normally that would be three hours work plus materials, say three hundred quid ... the leather's got open pores ... stuff can soak into underlayer ... scrubbing removes surface colour ... blah ... green stuff we give you ... blah ... gets most things out, but if it doesn't ... fibre stuffing ... blah ... leaves a white ring, you see ... just wipe it over weekly ... blah ... use our green stuff for conditioning every six months ... blah ... lovely piece of furniture ruined but needn't be ..."

Glassy eyed, head spinning, I hand over my credit card.

Good / bad

2006-01-26T11:57:00.000Z

Today's GOOD thing: my new site meter reveals that you ARE out there and reading this. Good. Some of you even read more than one page, so you must have liked something about it. Welcome. Especially the foreign people; I hope you get the sense of humour, such as it is. I'll try and follow the links back when I get the chance, to see what's happening in your lives.

Today's BAD thing: illness not over, not by a long chalk. I've been up since 3:30 am with fiery itching pains all over my skin. And I've got a rash, in weird patches in places like on my ribs and on the back of my right hand.

Now, I hate it (in what I admit is an insensitive, irrational, bigoted way) when people go on and on and on about being a martyr to their bladder, or protracted food intolerance, or whatever. Just shush, will you, enough now. Not interested. Buuuut .... I think I may be sliding down the slippery slope into their world. I notice that even this blog has had quite a lot of 'I'm ill' posts on it. So, sorry about that. I won't whinge on any more; I'll keep taking the steroids and no more than a brief update in future.

So, today's no-illness-here subject. I have a Sofa Dilemma. We have a plethora of sofas. Mrs Tony Bloke took to calling our place Sofa World a while back. We've got rid of one now, but still have three. Here's what it looks like:

Now, I'll grant you that this looks like a shitty mess, and you'd be right, it is one. BTW, the cards on the mantel are for the LOML's birthday, not left over from Christmas. We've had the blue covered sofa since before we were married, when Pontius was still in flight school, so it's really due for replacement by now.

The plan is to turn this into a sleek contemporary living room by replacing the sofas with one of these:

thus creating an ambient conversation and telly watching area. We'll put the telly (currently out of shot) where the papery-shaded lamp is, in the right hand corner. Obviously I'll still have to tidy up the shit to get the look, and I don't think you get the bird on the sofa with it, but I'll check. Here's hoping, anyway. The bloke they can definitely (spelling, Pete) keep. I'll part-ex him for a footstool or something.

Perceptive readers who have managed to drag their eyes away from the herculean amounts of clutter in the first photo will have noticed a piano and the third sofa in the mirror. I think we should replace this sofa with an armchair and create a quiet, tranquil, piano-playing and Sunday-paper-reading space. The coffee table should just fit nicely against the wall.

What do you think?

Do not allow your opinion to be swayed by the fact that the leather sofa is half price this week only. Like I'm not. At all. Oh no.

crisis countdown: 96 days and counting

Allergic

2006-01-25T12:26:00.000Z

I've been to the doctor (advantages of living in small village, number oooh, high, lots, in there: you can see a doctor within 2 hours of phoning) and he says that I have a typical allergic reaction to something I have ingested. Ok so far. I have to take a powerful dose of steroids (6 tablets at a time) for 5 days, or all the skin in the itchy places will fall off. Less ok re this. He continues and mentions skin fissures, infection, hands like claws (it was like a fucking claw, as Frank so wisely said) and so on, and the ok-ness goes out of the situation altogether. Now I'm trying not to compulsively examine my palms and shins every few minutes for incipient flesh-falling-off-ness.

I also have to make a list of everything I have ingested over the 24 hours before the 'episode' (think this means eaten or drunk, better put down paint fumes etc just in case) so that when (note, not 'if') it happens again I can try and isolate to what I am allergic (grammar). I had no idea how hard this is before I tried it - just what did I put in the roast chicken gravy this time? Honey, mustard, Worcs sauce, soy sauce .... or was that last time? Give the remaining gravy a tentative sniff, but no real clues there. It tastes great, but that's not really a help, is it. Arse. Anyway, I've done my best, and it's in the 'medical' file in the filing cabinet, so if I can't find it later I can just look it up on here. Might as well us this blog for something more useful than satisfying the indulgent ramblings of my inner idiot. Whom, unfortunately, bears a remarkable resemblance to my outer idiot far too often for my liking.

Anyone know how to ignore your hands and face itching?

Not agaaaaaaiiiiin

2006-01-25T09:36:00.000Z

Guess fucking what? I'm ill again. Yet a fucking gain. I must have done something really bad in a past life to have karma like this. Not that I believe in karma.

Up half the night with bits swelling. Hands and feet started itching yesterday. During the night my hands swelled up interestingly - fingers like sausages - and they still itch constantly, and scratching makes it worse. Can't get my ring off, and it normally comes off quite easily. May have to cut it. Typing not easy, hence terse syntax. Now my face is swelling up a bit too, round the eyes.

I'm going to the doctor. Again.

Fuck.

crisis countdown 97 days, assuming I don't die first

'Friends' Reunited

2006-01-24T10:00:00.001Z

I had the strangest phone call the other day. It was a bloke from school, whom I hadn't heard from in, uh, *adds up on fingers* twenty-one years. He'd emailed me a while ago on the strength of my entry on Friends Reunited.

I'd got bored, you see, with all of the 'divorced, live in Commuter Town, Home Counties, work in IT in London' which was what every single one of my school contemporaries had put as their entry on the site. So, as is my wont, I had a bit of a rant. 'Hated school', I said, and 'couldn't you all just tell?'. I went on: 'Spent a couple of years after school being depressed and doing dead-end jobs, before finally going back to college and doing A-levels again and scraping into Uni.' It went on in a similar vein, and then cheered up as it went on to describe the LOML and how she saved my life, really, and how much I loved the kids and my job now.

All true. Was depressed, for a long time there. I was so messed up by the experience of single-sex public school and parents who had ridiculously high expectations that it was inevitable, I suppose. I don't have very many memories of my 19th and 20th years on the planet, the ones just after I left - not just not many happy memories, just not many memories. Blanked it out. Spent the time being drunk, riding big motorbikes in the dubious company of the local biking fraternity, most of whom were extremely unintelligent, very aggressive, xenophobic, misogynistic, poverty-stricken, smelly, and drug addicts. Introduce an immature, opinionated, fast-mouthed, left-leaning public schoolboy with a trust fund into this mix and it's an absolute wonder that I wasn't stabbed.

Aaaaaanyway, enough beating up on yourself already. (Do that bit in an American accent and you can forgive me the hideous syntax). I had this email from, ah, we'll call him Mike*. He said he liked the candour of my Friends Reunited entry; had found it interesting. I replied, and then so did he, and then about Christmas time he rang me. We had a nice chat, to be fair, despite the fact that I felt like I was at school again and talked too fast because I was nervous. Despite the upcoming age crisis, I still sometimes feel like I am still a kid trying to speak maturely to grown-ups, and that any minute someone's going to tousle my hair and say 'My, how you've grown'.

So, we'll meet up for a pint sometime. He's still in touch with any number of people from school, and my emails had created a lot of interest with them, and they would love me to go to the summer barbecue thing they have. Some of them I didn't leave on the best of terms with. So this could be interesting. He also told me that three of my friends from that time, two of whom were close enough that I'd kept in touch with them after school for a while, were dead. One unexpected collapse and two suicides. Great.

So I suppose I'll see what happens. We're all forty-odd now. The old prejudices must have washed away by now, surely. If not, I can just walk away again. I will do that without hesitation if there is any sign that the old problems haven't completely gone away.

I'll let you know.

*because his name's Michael.

crisis countdown: 98 days

Back

2006-01-23T10:03:00.000Z

I'm back. Huzzah. Welcome to Monday morning.

I've been skiing, did I mention?

It was a damn good holiday, to be fair. There's nothing quite like the entertainment of watching a seven-year-old in a bright yellow helmet hurtling down the middle of a piste in a full racing crouch, cutting right across the front of a group of slightly-overweight-and-a-bit-mannish middle-aged German women so that they all crash into each other and fall over. Shadenfreude.* That'll teach them to leave their towels all over the loungers by the pool so no-one else can sit on them. I know that this is a cliche of Stan Boardman-like dimensions, but it really is true. They really did. And the pool was indoors, with a plastic curtain to an outside bit, before anyone gets clever.

The whole Crisis family returned with no significant injuries. *breathes big sigh of relief*.

We had all the usual s-things. S-un, s-now, s-kiing, s-ledging, s-hocolate s-haud (this is phonetic and therefore counts, ok?). All except the other one, s-??**. We were too knackered.

I took some action video on the camera of me skiing down behind the LOML. It's all whooshy noises and lurching views of the sky, to be honest. But you can make out the LOML falling over, which is quite funny. You can hear me laughing quite loudly on the soundtrack. Especially as it was just about the only time she fell over all week, and I got it on film. I'd post it up here but you'd be able to identify me from it, so I can't. You'll just have to take my word for it.

Anyway, I've come back and calculated that I am now in the final stages of crisis-countdown. By my calculations, today is Crisis minus 99 days and counting. Though I reserve the right to randomly add or remove a day later if my maths is off, which it might be. Anyway, expect more reviews of what-might-have-been and other such maudlin talk as the countdown numbers decrease.

*This is probably mis-spelled. Never mind.

**You're expecting me to put 's-kating, what did you think I meant?' or something witty here. But no, I meant sex. We really were too knackered. Except for once.

crisis countdown: 99 days

2/10 More effort required. See me.

2006-01-12T09:17:00.000Z

I wish I could entertain everyone with the rollicking adventures of what I did yesterday. If only I'd been cursed by a gypsy like JonnyB the day before yesterday. Or had both a new antimacassar and a new fire grate on the same day like Greavsie. (You can see a couple of my oh-so-amusing bon mots in the comments pages on both of these).

Unfortunately, all I did yesterday was go and see a new client, who was nice but not worth any more of your attention, and pop to town to get some photocopying done and get the LOML a birthday present. I can't even tell you what it is because she'll read this at some point. It's nice though, she'll like it. AND I've got her something coming in the post, as well. She'll like that too.

Actually, I had to get her something nice because (a) last year I didn't get her anything on time, thinking that I'd get her something while we were skiing, but then I didn't. (I'm going skiing, did I mention? Etc., repeat until funny). So she got to wander about the resort on her birthday and buy herself a top. Not great. And (b) she bought me an iPod Shuffle for my birthday, at the behest of Mrs Flash Pete, who'd also bought him one. Which is an ace present, and I need to raise my game to compete.

I just put a paragraph in about having to get the first iPod replaced, but it was boring so I've cut it out again. Just thought you'd like to know.

Talking of JonnyB and Greavsie, I can't help noticing that there are an inordinate number of links on their pages (not to me, you'll notice, but never mind). They are dwarfed by my boyfriend is a twat who has a list as long as your arm, provided that your arm is about three screens long, which *stands up and contorts self into weird pose to try and compare length of arm to depth of screen* mine isn't. As long as your arm and half the other one, then. And all in tiny weeny font as well. She writes well, though. I've gone for the quality over quantity approach - people who make me laugh out loud only.

I'm sure if I did more research I could lengthen it a bit. Perhaps I'll do that today. I need to put more work into this blog. *sigh*

The LOML has just come in and said that Mrs Marcus the worm farmer was going to book skiing to the same resort as us next week, because there was a cheap deal. But she didn't, because they didn't have time to sort themselves out. Which is a shame, because I and the worm farmer would have made up half an offpiste guiding group, whereas by myself I am merely a quarter. *sigh again*

It's just doomed to be one of those nearly nearly days, isn't it?

Is anyone there?

2006-01-11T17:00:00.000Z

Feel free to leave a comment if you are.

Though I enjoy writing this, it's got a limited shelf life if nobody at all is reading it apart from me. I'd check, but I can't work out how to download a visit counter like all the really good bloggers do. I'll give it another go, perhaps.

French France beckons

2006-01-11T10:36:00.000Z

I'm going skiing next week, did I mention? I did? Sorry.

So if you're a burglar, now is the time to work out whom (grammar) I am and where I live. I'm afraid you'll be sadly disappointed once you got inside, though. And the alarm's going to be on. And the neighbours are on alert. And the neighbour's a big aggressive bugger. But apart from that, go for your life.

I phoned up France today, to leave a credit card deposit for the kids' ski lessons. I have been working myself up to this since yesterday afternoon, when an email came saying, uh, phone up and leave a credit card deposit. I worked in France for a bit in my gap years [errata (pl): for 'worked' read 'dossed about selling doughnuts on the beach'; for 'gap years' read 'years between failing A-levels and retaking them'] and developed a bit of conversational French as a matter of necessity. Are you reading, Mr Johnston? You who said 'Hopeless. You'll never be able to get by in France, boy' in about 1981? What a wanker you were. God, I'd forgotten all about you until this moment.

So anyway, I had a few useful phrases prepared. 'Good morning', 'You sent me an email yesterday' and 'I wish to leave a deposit for the ski lessons for my children for next week' and stuff like that. I'm pretty sure they were right. Deep breath. Rang the very long number beginning 0033.

'Bonjour, ecole du ski.'

'Bonjour. Erm, erm .... je desire ....parlez-vous ....parlez ....uh .... does anybody speak English?'

'Of course sir, my name is Pascale, how can I help?'

Arse. At least she sounded fit. I guess I'll let you know whether she is or not when I get back.

View through my window

Crisis and rubbish

HNY and all that

Sketches

If wasn't who I have become ...

Untitled no 1

Always ahead of the trends, me

Wow. Hello!

Fucking OneTel genius

Fucktards

Update update update

As promised

Back

Meet the guest blogger

Haiku prize time!

Haiku New Year!

Electronics

Late Christmas

Is that it?

Dads, toilets; effects of.

Oh, just jumping from subject to subject again

School, Christmas, What?

More new me stuff

Better? You decide. Aha.

Ok, life change time

The one where my true character emerges

If this is 'street' you can keep it

The one where I think I don't have time but really I do

Specialist

Data

Things I like today

Listening

Depressed, manic, what?

Really quick is best

Well hello ...

Winging it

Lazy fecker, or just confused?

Get me

Cricket

No, no, thank you

Genius, or just wrong?

View through my window

Class

Umbrella

Sorry, sorry, again

Down and up

And after the whimsy

That's that, then

At last, it's come ....

Wine

Hi, back with more Things and Stuff

BEAVER!

Out of the comfort zone

Good, better, best

Ads

Hi

You can't choose your family...

Trapped

Searchers

Money making scheme?

Snob

Don't like to ask ...

Little Voices

Warning: self-indulgent

Am I stupid?

Wonder.

Nervous tissue

Frustrated

Meat

'The Good Life' is a bit obvious but I can't immediately think of a better title

Huh?

Timetable

Nothing here.

Library

Government slave - a rant (part I, probably).

What is it with women and clothes?

Never trust a car salesman

If only anyone tagged me ....

Back to the silly stuff ...

Bad time