A Long Time Gone

Once again, I return to your screens. Yes, it’s been five weeks since I last wrote and five weeks since more of you read & liked what I wrote than ever before. You would think this level of unsolicited testimonial would have dragged me back sooner. Normally, it would, but these past few weeks have been filled with nothing but hell, torment, financial stress, jury service and, after a gap of about 9 years, overtime.

Come with me, if you will, as I share my April 2011 with you.

Let’s get the worst out of the way first.

How Stupid Do You Think We Are?

As I told you all last time, I don’t often resort to anger in my blogs. It doesn’t really make for an entertaining read and I usually walk away from the keyboard angrier than when I sat down. Nonetheless, when you are sitting in front of your TV and see an advert from those nice people at Kelloggs proclaiming that our long wait is over and we can now get our hungry mits on mini Shredded Wheat with jam in the middle, you do wonder where it will all end. Many years ago, I ate a Pop Tart and such was the sugar and chemical rush, I believed myself a member of Kool and the Gang for over an hour. Only the intervention of a close relative stopped me from actually “Getting Down On It” in a place where neighbours could see.

People my age don’t need so much sugar and kids probably don’t either. My dad didn’t even approve of Sugar Puffs. Mini Shredded Wheats with Jam in would probably drive him to complete distraction. He never really got over the fact that you could buy bread sauce in a packet.

Next time I am shovelling  un-sugared Bran Flakes in to my diabetic, overweight body, I will think of those doing the same with jam filled nonsense and thank god that I have an angry fire in my soul that pointlessly rallies against this sort of thing in a blog that about 20 people read. Most of me will  be jealous as hell but just to be on the safe side, I think I’ll stick to my fibre and roughage for now.

Service

Those of you have undertaken Jury Service will appreciate how vague I have to be in describing my three days of civil responsibility. To be honest, it was a bit of a bore and not at all like you see on that universal standard for us all, Television. The first Monday dawned. I rose, completely overdressed and after a bowl of jam filled mini Shredded Wheat, I stuffed almost of all the required paperwork into my coat pocket. There would be more than adequate financial compensation for my trouble, but this would not extend to paying for parking in a busy city all day. A bus it was then. The bus stop is only 5 minutes from my front door, so with about 20 minutes to spare and a growing sense of terror at the unexpected fortnight ahead, I set off.  4 minutes later and I found myself standing at a bus stop with several people who, on a good day, aspire to be the dregs of society. I say “standing with”, but I was actually standing far enough away to give the impression that I might just be looking for my lost pocket watch in the gutter. The game was up of course when the bus arrived, but by then they were trying to shepherd their horrible offspring onto the bus and had no time for the smart bloke who looked shocked at the fact that 20p wouldn’t get you into town these days.

The 48C

Where I got on the bus is fairly near the start of the route, so it was just me and my bus stop companions for a few stops. Gradually, the bus filled with more of them and finally, about half a mile from town, I was forced to share my seat with someone who, until now, I have struggled to share Plymouth with. Their concept of “half the seat” needed some examination, as did their standards of both personal hygiene and inhibition. “Get away from me you greasy-haired witch”, screamed the voice in my head but better sense prevailed and I busied myself with staring out of the window and trying to ignore the toothless hag’s reflection, gormlessly doing the same.

You could say that I am picking on an easy target and falling back on that age-old British habit of pointing fingers at those who are slightly different. You would probably be true but I do wonder why the people I point at seem to be showing off about it. Part of me begs them to stop talking their nonsense or, better still, stop talking completely.  When will they understand that we don’t care about their conversation and actually find it quite annoying to have to listen. Before you all let me know, I do realise that they won’t.

By the time we reached town, the bus was full, loud, hot and stupid. There were 4 O Levels on that bus and they were all mine.

I exited on Royal Parade, far too quickly than politeness would suggest and only slowed down to walking pace about 50 yards down the pavement.

I don’t like buses.

In common with most ex-pupils of my school, I am ridiculously early for everything but,   thanks to non-nonsensical bus timetables, it would be at least 10 minutes before I was ridiculously early. I could actually see the court building, so I had no fear of being late. Only a coffee could fill the void. Now, some of you may work in a big city and will appreciate the temptations that surround you. In addition to refunding my bus fare, I was to be paid £5.71 subsistence allowance per day. It wasn’t even 9am and I had already spent £2.50 on a small latte and a paper. This was going to be an expensive fortnight.

With 10 minutes to spare, I found myself and several others outside the side entrance to the court building. After establishing that we were all there for the same reason, much very British small talk took place and time passed very nicely. 9.20am came and went, but nobody had let us in. With the world-weariness of someone who had done the same thing very other Monday, a young man leaned out of the window and told us in no uncertain terms that we should be at THE OTHER side entrance. Sure enough there was another one and after a thorough security check, we found ourselves in the Jury reception room with about 40 other upstanding members of the community. I had left the most important documents at home but it didn’t seem to matter. What did bother me was how many people had a big pile of books and/or a laptop. It never occurred to me that such things would be allowed. On re-reading the leaflet, the instructions could be so interpreted but not by me unfortunately. After a quick introductory video and a talk by the chief usher, we waited to be called. With only a small pile of old magazines and a muted TV showing Sky News, the time crawled by. Seriously. I had read 3 copies of Private Eye, had a good stare at everyone else, written their life stories in my head, thought of at least 12 things to blog about (soon forgotten) and even had a quiet doze, only to look at the clock and see I had only been in there 35 minutes. If there is one thing sure to make time drag, it’s the idea that someone will need you at any moment. Finally, at about noon, 20 good people were taken away and not long after, all but 12 returned. They were told to come back tomorrow and we were told not to come in tomorrow and just to call in at 6pm to enquire about Wednesday.

At 6pm on Tuesday night, the answer phone message told us to come in on Wednesday. At about 10am on Wednesday, we went down to the court and I was selected to the jury.

Lunchtime

We broke for lunch at about 12.50 and after using almost all of my subsistence allowance on a sandwich and a coffee, I went outside to sit with the good people of Plymouth. Unfortunately, I was to be disappointed as the good people were all somewhere else. The courtyard outside The Civic Centre was bathed in sunlight (unlike in the photo) and full of people. I finished my sandwich and coffee in about 5 minutes and then wondered to myself what I would do for the next hour or so.

Then I smelt a pasty. Then I saw the bakery on Royal Parade. Then I went and bought one. Along with a diet coke and a donut, I had now spent almost £8.00 that I couldn’t claim back. This was going to be an expensive fortnight.

I ate the second course of my lunch on a bench overlooking the pond you can see in the photo. I was on the bench in the bottom right hand corner. For reasons best known to himself, a bloke was playing (I am sure that’s not the right word) with a remote controlled tug boat in the pond and nudging an un-powered model oil tanker around. It was fascinating to watch and very impressive.

42 minutes to go…

I went for a walk up to The Hoe and by the time I got back to the court, I only had to 17 minutes to spare. I think Plymouth city centre is in some sort of time warp.

Court business sped past and we were released at about 5pm.

That was it. The end of my Jury service. Part of me was a bit sad but, financially, I was probably better off getting back to work the next day and returning to the normal swing of things. I could have not been so lucky and ended up with a case that dragged on for weeks, I suppose, but I had seen enough of civil responsibility in 2011.

Kerbing My Enthusiasm

Regular readers will be more than familiar with my Rover 214. Sunday last, things took a turn for the worse. It seemed so simple. Take mum to breakfast at Royal William Yard and then tidy up the garden, do some ironing, tidy out my bedroom cupboards and generally do Sunday things.

An Unrelated Photo

On the way to Royal William Yard, I drove into a traffic island. Over a week later, I have no idea why or how it happened. Perhaps something caught my eye. It doesn’t really matter any more because it happened. The impact wasn’t that terrible – just a hard thud as the driver side wheel hit, followed by another as the back wheel hit in roughly the same place. The car bounced quite high but I wasn’t hurt and neither was mum. We scraped to a halt a bit further up the road. On first inspection, it looked like I had two burst tyres and nothing much more. The RAC arrived and he seemed to agree. He took both wheels off and we drove in his van to Kwikfit, a short distance away. We jumped the queue, as only an RAC man can, and £132 poorer, we drove back to the car. After both wheels were re-attached, it was quite obvious that the bottom of the car was completely f**ked. I could moan at the RAC bloke but the truth is, I should have spotted it too.

To cut an already long story short, on the advice of my local garage, I scrapped the car the next day and got £90 for it. The keen mathematicians amongst you will already be writing in red and you’d be right. To be honest, I have been using that red pen since I bought the car in July 2007. Tax, insurance and petrol aside, I have spent about £2000 repairing it and I would certainly have gone throwing similar amounts at it had this not happened.

After a week of taxis, buses, dodgy car dealers and endless on-line searching, I now have a Vauxhall Vectra. It seems fine but time will tell. The Rover cost me about the same and lasted 4 years. Hopefully, this one will do the same and cost a little less. In the meantime, I have to get used to new controls, a new seat and a car that feels like it weighs twice as much as the last one. Oh yeah, and it’s a 1.6 so the tax is bloody expensive too.

In a fitting, and appropriate smack with the 2011 reality hammer, I was none-too-pleased to be charged £25 by Halifax Car Insurance for changing the car on my insurance policy. This growing trend of charging “admin” fees is getting to be a real pain. It’s not the first time in recent years this has happened. They would no doubt blame the current economic climate but I would suggest that in the current economic climate, they should be grateful for the £330 I chuck their way each year. In amongst that exorbitant fee, I assumed there was already a considerable amount of “admin” fee.

Total, Complete Bastards

Over month ago, I was having a good day. It was a Friday, it was sunny and I was off to spend the morning with a good chum. She was on the way back the doctors when I arrived and I thought it would be a good idea to park outside her house and then walk to meet her just up the road. As it was hot, I threw my coat in the back of the car, tucked my wallet into my left trouser pocket and my phone into the right one. At some point in the next 10 minutes, my phone fell out of the pocket. Whether this was on the pavement or during my quick visit to the corner shop, I don’t know. For all I know, someone could have nicked it from my pocket in the shop.

Over the next hour, I retraced my steps time and time again. I went into the shop and asked and I even took everything out of the car. Nothing. The phone was gone. As it was locked, anyone finding it would have no idea who I was, but part of me hoped they would hand it into the shop or the police.

Work time came and thanks to Google Latitude, I was able to ask one of my four closest colleagues where my phone’s GPS indicated it was. For those of you who don’t know what Google Latitude is, it allows me to let chosen people see where I am on a Google Map. It sounds intrusive and stalkey but actually its just a bit geeky and harmless. In this case, I hoped it to be bloody useful. Curiously, my friend Tiger’s phone showed it to be about 2 miles away and after a quick refresh of the data, it showed up in Victoria Park, about 2 miles further on. After a moments consideration, it was obvious that the bastard who had picked it up had just driven past where I work.

I could have gone to Victoria Park but even if there was only one person there, I am not the sort of person to accuse a stranger.

It was all moot by now as I had informed Vodafone of it’s theft and by the time we went upstairs to being the working day, my HTC Legend was a useless brick and of no use to anyone, bastard or not. Could they have cracked my password in the hour or so I looked for it? I doubt it. The SD Card was encrypted too. At most, I lost a few photos and about a year’s worth of text messages (I hate to delete).

Unfortunately, the month that followed was anything but smooth sailing.

The Police were fine. They freely admitted there was little they could do and that it was unlikely that I would get my phone back. Depressing, but at least they were honest. They supplied me with the required crime reference number and even asked if I had been traumatised by the event. I was a little, but I doubt any offered counselling would have helped much. I suspect I would have had to pay for it anyway.

The phone was insured by those nice people at Barclays. It doesn’t cost me anything as it’s included in my account fee. As the same £16 a month also covers my RAC membership (9 call-outs this year and counting) I have nothing to grumble about. Vodafone sent me a new SIMM immediately and all seemed to be well. Unfortunately, Vodafone haven’t responded to a single one of the many emails I have sent them in the last month. Not one. The call centre is a little better but, as always, the language barrier complicates things terribly. The SIMM card came in an envelope addressed to me but the despatch note mentioned some bloke in Bristol. “Thanks Ok”, said the call centre chappie, “all SIMM cards are blank. We can activate it to your number when you have your new phone.” Naively, I took this at face value. After four requests that Vodafone supply a written proof of purchase on letter-headed paper, nothing was forthcoming. Finally, and in desperation, I convinced Barclays to accept the one and only email Vodafone had sent me as proof. 1 day later, I had a nice new Blackberry Torch 9800.  Once again, in the spirit of the current economic climate, I had to pay an “excess fee” of £25. Excess of what? God knows.

Following another call to Vodafone to activate the SIMM, the phone stopped working. Just after buying the new car, my first trip took me to The Vodafone Shop in town and 3 minutes later, it was all fixed. A new car and a new phone inside an hour. It only took a month.

Being without a phone AND a car at the same time was a bit like I imagine life in 1950′s Cuba. You wander about, completely unable to contact the outside world. Quite why this feeling is so terrible, I still haven’t worked out, but it is. Before the car was

Cuba, 1950

wrecked, I used to drive home terrified – what if I break down? I even had to resort to reading a book at break time in work and walking around as everyone else had either popped out for a fag or was hunched over their little 3″ display checking out Facebook or Twitter. I felt left out and I felt like everyone was talking about cool things behind my back. How the hell did this happen? What turned me into some sort of paranoid nut-job wandering around the earth, fearing everyone and everything around me like a Russian dissident?

Looking for a second hand car is complicated ever-so-slightly too by not having access to the Internet on the move and not being able to ring the number of anything you find on-line. The realisation that you are in the middle of an nondescript housing estate with no way of contacting anyone you know and/or love or need is scary as hell. Also, things are a REALLY long way away. Bus Stops, shops and eateries that you speed by in the motor are REALLY, REALLY far away when you have to walk.

Tech-up luddites. I have seen life in 2011 without a car and a mobile phone. It ain’t pretty. It ain’t even life. Pathetic it might be, but progress doesn’t wait for you and the longer you stay away, the worse it seems. If you haven’t done anything about it by now, it may actually be too late. I have a revolver you can borrow and I know where there are some woods.

So how was your April?

259 miles, all on my own...

Moral Panic

I’ve always wanted to do a blog post with that title. I have done many of which that is the underlying theme but I’ve never been so bold as to bitch slap you in the face with it. Until now. Oh dear, I sound mad now don’t I? I don’t mean to. I am just a little excited. My new forum is filling with users far faster than I could have ever hoped for and they are even posting stuff and reading other stuff and oh…it’s just so exiting.

As you may have guessed, this is one of those posts where I just start typing and then stop when I’m finished. I didn’t quietly talk into Evernote on my phone and mumble a suggestion to myself, neither did I scribble myself a post-it. In truth, I stole the idea from someone’s post on my forum. So what am I going to share with you this week? Well, the original post came into being following a story of 2011 moral panic. A parent was relating the dangers of allowing her 11 year old child to cross the road and go to a nearby shop and a torrent of phone-in loonies called in to offer their support and nod in that way readers of tabloids do every time the word “immigrant” is mentioned in their favourite rag. They bellowed and shrieked their hideous bile for the benefit of those who didn’t realise there was a hooded pervert hiding behind every tree or post box.

On hearing this outburst, my fellow forum members and I, as one, made the same sound. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to portray this sound precisely in print, but I’ll have a go.

“nuhhh?”

Not even close but it’ll have to do.

Along with a few hundred others, I went to a boarding school. The point of a boarding school is that you eat, sleep and play there as well as theoretically study your pants off. You only go home during school holidays. Now, because it was a military boarding school and one of your parents was most likely in the army, there was a good chance that your familial home was a fair distance away. For my first year at the school (September 1979 – July 1980), my family lived in Cyprus. They then moved back to England and over the next 6 years, lived in 4 different places; the closest of which was Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. The furthest was Plymouth in Devon. The school was in Dover in Kent and at the start of school holidays, you are probably imagining we all joined hands and walked down to the railway station, several teachers at the head of the crocodile and several at the back. Once there, they saw us on to the train and waved us a cheery goodbye from the platform.

Not even close.

School Civilian Dress

Me in School Civilian Dress circa 1980.

The following is absolutely true and it probably still is true of a great many young ladies and gentlemen. The only difference between me in 1979 and the young pupils of today is that everytime I left the school gates, I had to wear “civilian dress”. Don’t let the name fool you.

Look at the photo on the left. That is me in 1980 and that is “civilian dress” I am wearing. It differed from normal, everyday school dress in that you wore a white shirt instead of grey or blue and the blazer had shiny metal buttons instead of black plastic ones. In those days of violent skinheaded thugoids, we might as well have had a target painted on our backs and a big red light on our heads. These days (actually from about half way through my time at school), this requirement to dress like Lord Snooty was sensibly abandoned.

Quite severe restrictions still existed on what we could actually wear though. It was the early 80′s but words like “sandals”, “flannel trousers” and “cravats” still appeared in the dress code. The wise (not to say brave) Dukie either pushed these restrictions to the limit or in many cases, completely ignored them but for many, they had to do. In any case, our rather severe haircuts and generally smart attire was not the greatest of camouflage to the unemployed and agressive youth of Dover and Folkestone. I seem to remember the term “smart” being bandied about but not even my greatest fan could use that term to describe my appearance in the photo on the left. Despite being issued only a year earlier, the blazer is already two sizes too small. A smart mess but a mess nonetheless.

End Of Term

End of term was here. Our suitcases packed and ready. The lucky ones had parents who lived near enough or who had enough time of work to collect them by car. This was more than convenient, it was a godsend. The hapless Dukie’s parent would even carry their cumbersome suitcase from bedside locker to the waiting family car and all was well. With a cough of lead-filled exhaust, they were off. Their holiday had already started.

Not for me though and not for a great many others. For us, the day had scarcely begun.

The trips back to Cyprus (and back to England after) are stories in themselves. I was “escorted” for both of them but only by boys a few years older than myself. Maybe I’ll bang on about those some other time. In the meantime, here is generally what happened at other times, when my travels were combined to the shores of England.

Most, if not all “ends of term” were on a Friday. In your first 3 years at the school, this meant finishing lessons at 4pm and making your own way to Dover. Sometimes, a minibus would be provided but usually we got the bus. Sometimes we even walked. Train tickets were handed out the night before (paid for by the taxpayer I am almost ashamed to admit) and parents usually sent a tenner (for expenses). Don’t feel pity though, a tenner in 1979 is equivalent to about £40 now.

DYRMS CCF

From the 4th form onwards, Friday afternoons meant CCF. CCF, or Combined Cadet Force was when we played soldiers for an afternoon. It could go one of two ways. Either you were really lucky and spent it in a classroom “learning” or watching a film made in 1965, instructing you on the best method to extinguish a burning jet aircraft with a bucket of sand (true, believe it or not) or you could be pushed to the limits of exhaustion running through the mud on Dover cliffs. Whichever side of the fence you fell on, you either finished at 4pm with plenty of time or you finished at 4pm, barely a breath left in you and covered in 3 different sorts of cow shit.

So there we were. If we were under the age of 14, we’d be there in on the platform of Dover Priory station in our smart, thug-baiting,shiny-buttoned blazer and slacks and if were older, we’d be there in very, very smart casual dress trying to stand a little way away from the kids in shiny blazers.

It was by now, gone 5pm and in the Winter term, almost certainly dark and cold. At this point, some of us had several hundred miles to travel and nearly all of us had still to cross London.

Impressed yet?

For reasons that escape me, we had not even safety in numbers. Yes, there were 450 of us at the school but I never remember there being more than a hundred or so on the platform. By the time we boarded the train and spread out, the sparsity of Dukies was even more pronounced. Before the train had even left, the braver, not to say, more stupid Dukies changed out of their shiny blazers and donned their own casual dress in the toilet. This was a little soon as there were a lot of older Dukies on the train who would almost certainly give you a good kicking if they caught you. Still, they obviously wanted to show off their new trainers or “pull a bird” or something. I didn’t try this tactic until well into my 3rd form when I was travelling alone, mid term to meet my parents in London on the occasion of my dad being awarded his Military Cross after the Falklands War in 1982. Despite it being a Sunday and the middle of a term, I still managed to find myself sitting half a carriage away from a teacher. Luckily he wasn’t a bad sort and he never let on.

The journey to London from Dover took about an hour and a half. It seemed like twice that on the way home and half that on the way back to school, seemingly proving the “watched kettle never boils” principle. On arriving at Waterloo East, we stepped down from the train and a hundred Dukies vanished into the crowds. All of a sudden you were a lone 12 year old, dressed like someone with money and carrying a heavy suitcase. It was about 6pm.

Next came the trip across London.

If you were lucky, you lived in area served by Waterloo Main station and you just walked through a subway. If you were unlucky, you had to travel to one of the other Main London stations – Charing Cross, Paddington or Marylebone. Now, here’s one admission that does me no credit 30 years after the event. The tenner posted to you “for expenses” by a worried parent was intended for a taxi across London. This taxi would cost you about £5. The Underground would cost you about 40p and leave you enough to a buy something of which your parents wouldn’t approve at a nearby shop. So, we went on The Underground. It was hot, tiring, scary and stupid but we all did it. I still have two cassettes that I bought at railway stations in London with money that my parents intended for a taxi fare. I still haven’t owned up.

The Long Corridors..

On our own, we dragged our cases down endless tiled corridors and down ancient escalators into the bowels of London. People stared at us and some talked to us. I am sure they weren’t all filled with good intentions but I managed every trip across the metropolis unscathed. It wasn’t that we were brave, it was just that we had to get home and that was the way it was done. I remember being shouted at by buskers because they assumed we were loaded. Once, a member of the underground staff called me “Lord Snotty” just because I asked him a question. The London Underground is not a place for outsiders. It isn’t now and it wasn’t 30 years ago. To those who use it every day, its a smelly annoyance but they glide through it on autopilot. To those who use it two or three times a year, it is the 8th level of Dante’s hell. Everyone knows where they are going and it’s the exact opposite way to you. They know exactly what ticket to get and how much it is or they have an Oyster card and they just wave that at every machine in confident annoyance. This is so common these days, that staff are often completely unused to selling tickets or answering questions.

Despite the odds though, I made my way across London safely on every occasion. Each time, I emerged into the cold, dark London air onto the platform of the mainline station. A quick glance up at the display board would reveal the details of my onward bound train. If I was lucky, I had a little time to spare. If I was unlucky, I had no time to spare and I had to run. If was really, really unlucky, I had over an hour to spare. They don’t like you to sit on railway stations unless you are buying food or eating food you just bought. I have no idea why this is. You can wander round the few shops, buy a newspaper, buy a coffee and then wonder what the hell to do for the remaining 40 minutes. The answer is usually “sit on your case and try not to look muggable”.

Eventually, they let you on the train. It being a Friday evening, the train is not empty and on nearly every trip onwards from London, I sat on my case by the doors. Sometimes I stayed sitting there for up to 3 hours, not getting a seat until I was almost home. As Jimmy Saville was fond of telling us at the time, it was truly “the age of the train”.

Once the train arrived at my home station, I jumped in a taxi and desperately tried to stay awake for the short trip home. A knock on the door, a kiss from a parent and my school holidays had begun. I had been up since 6.30am, it was now after 9pm and I had travelled over 200 miles. Mostly on my own.

The details of such trips changed each time. The names of the stations changed, the length of the journey changed and sometimes, my mode of transport even changed. For a few trips, I travelled on National Express Busses. However, the crossing London portion of the trip was pretty constant. I was actually pretty lucky on my trips home as I know many of my contemporaries had a far rougher time of it, sometimes by their own hand. The trip home was always coloured by the fact that you were going home and it would have taken a lot to dampen the mood. The reverse trip back after the holidays was a different matter. For me, the key to a perfect trip back to school was to save as much money as possible. At the time I was given £10 for a trip back, I was making a house account of £70 last me 13 weeks. The more I saved by avoiding taxis, the more money I had left to spend on those first few weeks of term.

Some Things That Happened To Me Travelling Home From School

I was 14 or 15 and waiting on Marylebone station for a train. I was stood next to Burger King, minding my own business and trying really hard to look confident and at ease with the world. A tall (I am 5 feet 4 inches in height, so most people look tall) girl came up to me and asked if I had 10p. It was an odd amount to ask for, especially as this was 1984 and not the mid 40′s but as with most people, embarrassment overrides good sense and I plunged my hand into a pocket full of change and gave it to her. Unfortunately, I realised that the young lady was in fact a bit of what we used to call “a tramp”. Her blackened teeth and wild hair was only now apparent. She smelled like you wouldn’t believe and now that my foolish hand had noisily revealed the heavy contents of my pocket, she moved in for the kill.

“You got some more for me?”

“No”

“I’ll make you happy for some.”

Oh god. Suddenly, I had no idea what to do. The sudden realisation that I was about as street-wise as Catweazle was no help at all. As she slid towards me (I now realised she was also a bit pissed), the back door of the Burger King opened and an old Jamaican guy came out with a bag of rubbish. This freaked out the cackling hag and she walked away and I fled in the opposite direction, 10p poorer and a bit wiser.

On another occasion, I got lost looking for Victoria bus station. My money-saving self was walking in circles. I wandered around for over an hour and got to the bus station with 4 minutes to spare. I had been chased by a mad old women who was shouting “Nazi! Nazi! at me” and two dogs who actually crossed the road to attack me. On a separate trip (back to school), I was determined to go to the Virgin Megastore. I am not even sure where it was. I certainly didn’t know then and wandered around the populace for almost two hours. When I got there, I spent £2.99 on a Paul Young cassette that I saw in Woolworths, in Dover a week later for £2.49. Idiot.

Once, when I was still very young, a bloke stole my suitcase and I only got it back because he dropped it after a Policeman saw him. The copper then told me off for not taking better care of my things. He took my name and promised to telephone my parents and give them hell for allowing me to travel on my own. If he ever rang them, they never said anything.

The Up Side

Sometimes, if you had company, it was wonderful. To be honest, I had company a lot of the time and you got to talk to people you saw every day at school but never got around to knowing. In those, pre-iPod days (actually pre Walkman for the first few trips), talking was important on a long train ride.  Reading was out for me as looking down during any form of motion (fnarr fnarr) still gives me an immediate migraine. A few times, I even spoke with other passengers.

On the occasions I travelled home with friends, the journey flew by. My favourite trip was with Sean Veasey, Simon Mansfield & Steve Blood. They were heading for Bicester in Oxfordshire but I was getting off about an hour early at Beaconsfield. Steve had his big radio cassette player on the seat next to him and the trip took almost the same time as it took for Heaven 17′s “The Luxury Gap” to play. A powercut meant that the carriage was dark the whole way. It wasn’t particularly loud and no-one seemed to mind. A few commented on “the new piped music” but I don’t think we were too much of a pain.

I could end with “how times have changed” but I don’t think similar trips would be any more dangerous today. That’s not to say they were totally safe when we did them, more that you just have to get on with life and not worry about everyone and everything.

Those who know me could say “well, you don’t have kids” but I am not listening. La la la la la…

Twitter

Sometimes, the torment in which I writhe in an effort to get round to writing words here would astonish you. I do everything short of losing sleep, I really do. This guilt is very counterproductive and actually makes me feel worse. Then, all of a sudden I find myself sipping a strong, black Americano in the comfort of a Plymouth eatery. Mild boredom has set in between coffee arrival and food arrival, and as is my usual habit, I tap the screen of my awful HTC Legend (more on that later) and see what the world is up to. If you’ve been outside at any moment in the last 3 years, you may have noticed other people doing this. I used a bus recently and whilst my life dribbled away “waiting” for it to arrive, 8 out of the 9 people at the bus stop were tapping away on their phone. It’s not unusual and despite what some would have you believe, it does not represent the end of the world, any more than colour television did when it arrived.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

“Oh christ, another bloody tweeterer…”

I wasn’t sure I had heard it properly at first, but even before I could look up properly…

“Why don’t they just f**king talk to somebody real?”

In a perfect world, I would let rip with an incisive reposte that would leave the intolerant nutsack quivering in their Reeboks. Alas, a whole day later, I still haven’t thought of anything suitable (although I am starting to think “f**k off nutsack” has a certain ring to it) and in any case, he was a bigger than me and had he given chase, would probably have caught up with me in good time. Even allowing for the fact that his knuckles dragging on the ground would give me a sporting chance of reaching the Rover 214, my key fob is unreliable at best and I think it was Oscar Wilde who said, “it is better to shut the f**k up than to bleed to death on the bonnet of your car with the last syllable of a cutting witticism on your lips.”

So, with my cheeks blushing in self-rightious anger, I ignored him. I wasn’t even on Twitter and was in fact trying to get the generously offered Free Wi-Fi to work. Had I achieved this, I would indeed have gone on Twitter but until Free Wi-Fi becomes even semi-usuable in this great land of ours, I am slightly hesitant to waste too much of my mobile data allowance.

Anyone wondering where I am going with this?

Well…Twitter. I love Twitter. I know loads of people who love Twitter as well. If you don’t like Twitter, shut the hell up and leave us alone. I completely fail to see how someone tapping their phone in virtual silence is any sort of inconvenience, annoyance or threat to you. There is more sense, intelligence, wit, empathy, tolerance and inight expressed online than you will ever know or experience.

Let’s analyse the specific comments of the dribbling, imbecile who had the good fortune to sit near me yesterday morning.”

“Why don’t they just f**king talk to somebody real?”

Twitter, my bird of choice.

This concept has always bothered me a little. If someone is not in the room with you, are they somehow not real? As I have said, the problem they seem to have with you, is that they are not talking to them. Really? Why would I talk to them? They don’t even believe that themselves, so what is the real problem? Is it really just that something is going on they don’t understand? Perhaps. Is it because they consider it impoliite? Hardly. A few minutes later, his companion’s own phone rang and she answered it and spoke at the sort of volume that would suggest she didn’t give a flying hoot about anyone else nearby.

In the end, I gave up. I could say that I wasn’t bothered about what he thought, but the paragraphs above would suggest otherwise. It did bother me but only in the way that most intolerance does. Those who know me will know that I am an not-uncritical evangelist for The Internet and the technology that surrounds it. I have long held that the best way to combat such intolerance is to ignore it and wait for it to disappear. This sometimes takes ages but it does happen. Forty years ago, people complained that colour television was too distracting and heralded the end of civilised society, when it was nothing more than a natural progression. I am not saying that everyone should shape up and start Twittering, Facebooking or Beebooing, just that they should do what every educated person should do about the world around them. Stay informed and decide for yourself, don’t just decide because The Daily Mail says you should.

In a detail that sounds almost perfect, said imbecile had in fact been reading The Daily Mail and it lay next to his plate, clumsily folded and ragged as only a free paper can be after 20 people have flicked through it. After they left, I took it and mainly because it was the only paper nearby, I began to read. It was only slightly more acidic and vile than when my last barber shop haircut had forced me to attempt a similarly ill-advised read. I only managed to get some way through a slightly cruel and amazingly ill-informed piece about Jonathan Ross and his “weird” family before my food arrived. I located the online version this morning before writing this and read it in it’s entirety. Please feel free to do so too.

Click here to read it.

I am assuming that the Ross family had nothing to do with the piece but I do hope it finds a permanent home on their fridge door.

Amongst the “evidence” of the family weirdness are the following…

1. Ross installed internet connections in every room of the house.

I think this is called Wi-Fi and I have a similarly elaborate setup in my own house, as I believe does about 54% of UK homes. The article makes more sport of their lavish expenditure, including (believe it or not!) a “home” cinema. Big deal. If we all could, we all would. The same applies to remote-controlled toilet seats. Go on..admit it…

2. The Ross family communicates via Twitter.

The clear implication here is that they don’t communicate in any other way. They don’t say it but it’s blindingly obvious that we are suppose to infer it. The simple fact is that they all use Twitter and follow each other on Twitter. This is far more astonishing in a positive sense than those who don’t Tweet will know. I know of one family who do this and it’s nothing sort of charming. An example is given where one his daughter asks her dad to bring her a glass of water via Twitter rather than go down an get it herself. I think this is what is known as “funny” and nothing else. I have followed Mr & Mrs Ross on Twitter from the beginning and their communications show nothing more than a happy bunch of people who have committed the cardinal public sin of being happy, loving each other and staying married for an awfully long time.

Incidentally, I regularly tweet with people at work who are only sat a few feet from me. This almost always makes them smile, as do their replies. I occasionally look out of the window to see if the sky has fallen in or if the moon has turned to blood. So far, nothing to worry about.

Oh and before I forget, Twitter has a website but it is not A website. I just wanted to clear that up.

Android & Apple

My Phone - I hate it.

I am kind of hoping that the mighty Google spider doesn’t index this next bit and that hordes of nerdly open-source enthusiasts don’t fill my comment box in the same way the Doctor Who crowd did a few months back, when I dared to express an opinion.

Anyway, I have an HTC Legend and I hate it. I hate it because I hate Android. There, I said it.

“Why don’t you have an iPhone then?”, I hear 3 of you cry.

“Because I can’t afford one”.

This simple statement also answers the questions “why don’t you have an iPad”, “why don’t you have a Porsche” and many other similar enquiries.

Cost is pretty much it. I love my iPod and I would love an iPhone and an iPad but they are too expensive for me.

My HTC is my first monthly contract phone and it costs me £21 a month. Last time I checked, an iPhone would cost me about £60. So there we are. I could handle criticism of an iPhone on the basis of cost but on little other. They are beautiful and iPads are even more so. They just are.

I am not completely blind to the iPhone problems either. The “leather case” problem earlier in the lift of the iPhone 4 was laughable but it’s easily solved by doing something that every sensible person does anyway.

I love the argument “I would never buy an iPhone” or “I have never touched an iPhone”. An interesting perspective, if nothing else. Incidentally, I realise that my iPod is not an iPhone but it’s pretty close and I have used an iPhone. I know of what I speak – a little anyway.

My HTC phone crashes a lot. It gradually slows down until the only solution is to switch if off and on again. Memory is a constant concern and I find it amazing that so many people recommend a “task killer” to kill apps that haven’t closed properly.  These work a lot of the time but it would be nice if they weren’t needed in the first place. It’s not even that I play with a lot of features on my phone. On a daily basis, I check my Email, use Facebook & Twitter and look at a few websites in break time. Not exactly a heavy user but such activity regularly brings my phone to it’s knees. Not good at all. I have never had trouble getting a signal but sometimes the button just locks up. This happens both at the beginning and end of the call, often leaving you to wonder whether you have hung up at all.

The same apps are infinitely better on the iPhone/iPod than they are on Android. Facebook and Twitter are prime examples. The printed word hardly does this argument justice but there is really no competition. The official Twitter app on Android is so awful that most people don’t use it – me included. Incidentally, I would love to uninstall the Android Facebook app but you can’t. Uninstallation of apps actually requires a third-party app to be anything like usable. Guess what you do on the iPhone? You press the icon for a few seconds, tap the x in the top left corner and it’s gone. Better still, do it on iTunes when you get home.

Android itself. It’s open source and anyone can write an app and start selling it, unlike that evil overlord Apple who must approve every app before it’s allowed to be sold. Thank god they do. Have you seen the crap in the Android App Market? The Apple App Store is not perfect but jesus christ. Incidentally, some of the most popular apps in the Android store are complete launcher replacements. Hardly a ringing endorsement. If you want copyright-infringing sound boards, there’s only one place to go. Incidentally, there is a growing feeling online that the sheer number of different Android phones and configurations thereof will significantly hamper app development.

So I have an HTC but I hate it. In 8 months, I will upgrade and hopefully have an iPhone and this burning anger inside me will subside.

Libraries

That's not me, I'd never get up there.

The imminent plans to close many local libraries is a tragic reflection of the times in which we live. Either that or it’s something that was bound to happen sooner or later. When did you last go to the library? I can’t remember exactly but it must be something like 20 years or in other words, something like the time the Internet arrived in my house.  I took my mum to one on a semi-regular basis a few years ago but then she got hooked on audiobooks and that was that. This Christmas, she got a Kindle and I fear she has borrowed her last book.

I am not naive enought to suggest that the Internet has removed any need for libraries, just that it has removed it for a huge chunk of society. I suspect in a few years time, a Kindle or something similar will cost about £20, most books will be cheaply downloadable and we will look back wondering what all the fuss was about, much the same way that most people remember the board game, the fax machine, common decency, respect for elders and cartoons before the news in the evening.

Literature hasn’t died, knowledge hasn’t died and I am pretty sure Amazon would attest to the fact that books haven’t died. If you can listen to Stephen Fry read Harry Potter, one of his own books or actually anything at all out loud and still say that books are dead then you are a dullard.

The end of a lot of libraries can be sad and yet still be inevitable at the same time. I just think that, although inevitable, it’s just not time yet.

That's what Christmas means to me...

All that fuss and nothing’s changed.

How’s that for a depressing start to 2011? Sorry, I don’t really mean it that way, it’s just that once more there was a huge build-up and in the space of a few weeks, we are back to the way were. Poorer, fatter, possessing a lot more socks than is decent for one individual and wondering just how long its going to take to use all that Lynx.

Eating Pringles and watching old Only Fools & Horses Christmas specials. Sorry Mariah, but that’s what Xmas means to me.

Sorry, I’ll stop this now before a trio of overused Xmas cliche ghosts visit me in the night.

Of course, this year it was all about the snow, the ice and the slipping. In a moment of light premonition, I blogged about the snow a few weeks before it all arrived, never imagining for a moment that it would hit us all so hard. In Plymouth, we were quite lucky and for the first 10 days or so, we were a lone strip of tropical greenness on the weather maps. It just rained a bit really and once more we all thought the lovely Gulf Stream would keep us out of trouble. Unfortunately, it was not to be. I can’t remember the exact day it happened but down it came, not in huge amounts but enough to cover everything and enough to make sure ice would stay around for a few weeks. I think it only actually snowed three times but it might as well have kept coming down. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but if we had all just shovelled it away from our paths and parking spaces on those three occasions, we would probably have been ok. Alas, that sort of thing doesn’t happen in reality. What does happen, amazingly, is that some folks still insist on clearing their windscreen with warm water. Whilst this is probably better for the environment that the litres of de-icer I personally employ, it does create selfish sheets of black ice on the road a little while after these cretins depart. It’s a level of stupidity hard to imagine. It’s almost up there with the idiots who drove around with 5 inches of snow on their car roof, only to have it slide off onto the car behind them at the first set of traffic lights.

Brilliant idea.

I just wanted the roads to stay drivable until Christmas Eve, at which point I would pull up the drawbridge until January 10th. It mostly did but the few weeks of icy hell were not without incident. Only once did it look like I wouldn’t be able to get to work but by 2pm, the road was just about navigable. It was slippery as hell of course but only for the first few hundred yards. Once you made it onto the main road, it was ok.

It doesn’t sound too bad does it? Unfortunately, the black ice and snow didn’t leave our home streets at all and some people had it far worse than me. Maybe those who lived closer to main roads or in town need to swap with us next year. The small slope into my close was as dangerous as any in Devon and twice it forced me to park half a mile from my front door. Private car parks were unusable and everyone had to resort to parking on the street which meant that by 10.15pm when I got home, I had to hunt for safe place to park up, often in places that were far from safe.

As I have often said, I used to like snow and then I learned to drive. Until you have felt the wheels on your own car lose traction and experienced your big heavy box of metal glide slowly out of your control, you don’t know what you are talking about. It all seems like a bit of fun when it’s not your car (or person) involved.

At this point, I am wondering just who I am writing this for. We pretty much all had a white Christmas this year and I know you probably all experienced something similar.

Still, I have typed it all now.

Christmas itself didn’t disappoint. As is traditional these days, it was first heralded in early September in most of the shops. Sure, we complain and laugh at this absurdity but as soon as they start selling the crap, we all start buying it. I am not actually sure why we moan so much. If we all went out and bought a few bits a pieces every week, by the time December came round, we wouldn’t all be trying to buy presents, cards and decorations out of one paycheck.  My mother does this and bathes in a almost intolerable smugness once her last present is wrapped just after bonfire night. I start every year intending to do the same sort of thing, but I can give you very good odds on my not managing it once again.

Happy Christmas!

One of the newest, and possibly most annoying aspect to the moden Christmas is the the (vaguley) solicited Christmas email from someone whose online services you have availed yourself of at some point. I say “at some point” to be generous. To be honest, I swear that some of these people have never benefited from my custom or interest. Whether I had or not doesn’t really justify the email, but still they come. I had several this year, mostly from “services” I had used – web site counters, online bookmarking services etc – and all the email did was to remind me to unsubscribe successfully from their services. I can’t help but think they dropped a bollock somewhere there.

“Happy Christmas from Statcounter.com”. Really? Can a web service actually want to wish me a Happy Christmas? I doubt the staff give a fig about me, so I doubt it’s from them. Pointless, humourless, ingenuine marketing. There’s enough email crap in the world chaps. Facebook takes care of that nicely thank you.

At least the bottle of wine and card from the Indian Takeaway meant something. Joyeux Noel Sanjeeb!

The Slimming World regime went out of the window on Christmas Eve and only came back into force yesterday. According to my scales, 4lbs seems to be the result. Not too bad but it does mean I go back to group on Thursday weighing only 1lb less than I did when I joined a year ago. Brilliant. 1lb lighter and about £250 poorer. It could be worse though. If I didn’t go, I would be a lot heavier. I have proved I can go a lot lighter, but the celebratory fallout from such success always pushes me back up. Yes, I know it makes no sense but it’s the truth. I have another medical in about 3 months. I just need to lost a stone by then. Onwards and upwards.

So, Xmas 2011. To sum up. Pringles, log cake, Top Gear, Upstairs Downstairs, Eric & Ernie, True Blood, Supernatural, Twilight Blu Ray Boxset, not enough visiting, too much insomnia and 4lbs. That just about takes care of it. Oh and one more thing. WD Live TV. A thing of beauty.

Until later, word fans, when I shall beguile you with my 2010 top 10′s. If I don’t do it, who will?

The Most Expensive Car In The World

Marooned

..and so I dribble to the end of one of the most full, stressfull, penniless and dismal months of my short young life. With no irony whatsover (considering the medium on which you are reading this), I won’t bore you with the minute details. A lot of you with whom I speak on regular basis will know about most of it. The maroon metal monstrosity pictured above played it’s part in no small measure. So far this year, I must have spent the best part of £1000 on it, despite only paying £595 about 3 years ago. The world is full of people willing to dish out advice when this happens but the answer is never so simple as most believe. “Get rid of it!” they yell. But you can’t “get rid” of a car that is broken can you? Who will take it? So, you fix it and then you don’t need to “get rid of it” at all. In fact, the thing you have just fixed is one more thing on it that is less likely to go wrong again. I use this dubious logic to convince myself that after this year’s repairs – the thermostat, clutch, exhaust and alternator will not go wrong again for ages. I know…I know…

Anyway, it’s booked in tomorrow at the garage next to work (I know…I know) that I have often spoken about. Yes, I always feel stupid in there but you have to understand that it’s very convenient and thanks to my kind friends, I won’t have to spend £25 on taxis. By this time tomorrow, I will be able to stop disconnecting the battery every time I park up at home, at work and anywhere else where I am going to be more than about 10 minutes. It’s amazing what you can put up with sometimes isn’t it? If it does have one downside, it’s that I  have to wait around at work so that all my colleagues have driven off before I lift the bonnet to fiddle with the battery. They are all really kind but you do get a bit fed up of “are you ok?” or “do you need a hand?”. It’s my fault really. I shouldn’t know so many nice people.

I shouldn’t knock it too much though. As is always the case in the middle of diversity like this, I have learnt so much. I can now disable and re-enable the immobiliser with consumate ease. I know where the fuse for the horn is, I know how to change the battery, I know how to tell if the battery is charged just by looking at it and I even finally got round to putting new batteries in my key fobs.

But you are right. I should get rid of it. But look at it..it’s 13 years old and it’s still so shiny. It still has new car smell. Still!

So one final thank you to the RAC men who have helped me these past few weeks. Most of you were friendly, kind and helpful. One of you wasn’t but in his defence, it was very early, very cold and I did jibber like an idiot in an effort to pretend I knew the first thing about motor vehicles. To say I have got my money’s worth out of an annual RAC membership this year would be something of an understatement.

So that’s what’s been happening. It is certainly the only part of it entertaining enough or amusing to post here.

Progress

Long time pals will have been watching this blog on an almost daily basis for signs that it is going to be a going concern anytime soon. Well, I have now finished putting the last seven years of blog posts in and like most such jobs, it was a drag. This is mostly my fault as I re-read most of them before putting them in. Some I left out as a result of sheer tediousness or irrelevance. Some of them were too short to bother and after reading and disregarding the third of forth such dribble, I remembered that my first blog template was a skinny, single-columned affair where such tiny snippets would have filled half a page. Most of them would barely fill a Tweet these days.

Some of the entries reflected how much has changed since in the last 5 years. I had few friends at work who read my blog and it was very much a school friends blog. This is by no means a bad thing but nowadays, many of my work friends read this and would be a bit bored and/or mystefied by talk of things boarding school. I did (unwisely) bitch about work on occasion too. Why I thought this was appropriate is a bit of a mystery.

There is no mention of my dad passing away although there is of his funeral a week later. Likewise, there is little mention of my being diagnosed of Diabetes but there is of my memorable visit to a medical “workshop” a few weeks later. On reflection, I probably didn’t feel like blogging about dad at the time. I suppose the same could be said of my medical bombshell too.

So I guess I am “back” now.  My next blog post will be the first concerning the writing of my book. If you didn’t know I was doing such a thing then you will no doubt be fascinated by what I have to share with you over the coming weeks. If you did know, then once again I promise that I will actually get on with it.

I thought I’d better explain what I am doing at the moment. I found a backup of all of my blog going back to 2004 and have decided to import most of it into here. This is a good thing, mainly because I thought that most of this was gone forever (even the best backup policy doesn’t always work). This is the reason the blog appears to be filling up backwards. I am reading each entry before it is (re)posted just in case it’s not suitable for a modern audience. This could be for any or all of the following reasons.

1. In the days when I first blogged, only my school friends read my blog and I occasionally moaned about work. Reading these entries makes me sound a little churlish and I regret it.

2. Some of it is just dull. Really dull.

3. Some of it is really short. I don’t know what I was thinking posting 1 paragraph. It wasn’t interesting and hardly worth a visit.

I have not edited them in hindsight. What I thought at the time remains unchanged.

I have also made a good start on the book nonsense and can’t wait to tell you all about it. My mum also found something in an antique fair at the weekend which is something of a good omen. I’ll share that too.

..and so goodbye to youth. Birthday number 40 came and went with an amazing day at work. I know to many of you that will be an oxymoron but it really was pretty cool. Some folks even made a special trip into work on their day off to give me a card and an envelope full of glitter than still blows around the smoking area at work. Lost of tiny little 40s sticking to everyone’s backsides as they huddle for a fag on the picnic benches. Family wise, I had gratefully spent the present my sister had given me weeks ago and mum got me two things that squarely hit the present nail on the head. Firstly a model Starship Enterprise. Yes, go ahead laugh. Unfortunately for you, it is a) cool b) identical to one I had as a boy and don’t have anymore. Long-time readers, aware of my love of all things trek will assume my abode is awash with models of starships and tie-fighters but you would be wrong. This is the first model I have ever had. So cool is it, however, that I fear it won’t be the last. Secondly, a fascinating little book all about the 70s TV Series “The Survivors”. 40 years and 5 days old. The geek still lives.

And then on Thursday, a sad little tale of a happy little life came to an end. It’s amazing to think I was only 24 when little Sam came into my life. We ‘rescued’ him from what at the time we thought to be a perfectly respectable pet shop. In the years since, it became a matter of record that the owner of this establishment cut some corners in his noble quest for a few quid. The mighty “Scrabble” had just left us after a life of sleeping, eating and more sleeping and there was a gap in the Argue menagerie. So, off we trotted to the shop. Within minutes a small black and white animal was in the cat box and well on the way to the life of an Argue. Sam was born on a farm and like many such cats, grew to the size of a small panther in under a year. His feet in particular could have flattened many a small bird with ease had the very idea been anywhere in his soft and friendly head. You see, fortunately for the rodent and bird population of Hooe (and later Badgers Wood), he didn’t have an unpleasant bone in his entire body. He could occasionally be selfish when sharing the bed with his adopted sibling Alice but I am pretty sure any such acts of aggression were just an attempt to goad her into playing. He was still doing this last week at the age of 16. He never stopped being a kitten. He never stopped doing a lot of things. He met me from work every night. Sitting in the road under the street light, he knew the noise of my car and sound of the footsteps down from the car park. Before he became ill, he would spend many an hour sat in the turning bay (he is in fact captured in the aerial photography on Google Earth and Microsoft Live Search) watching the world go by. Sadly, as we live in a cul-de-sac, he didn’t see much. About 6 months ago, he developed a snuffle which we found out a week ago was actually the result of cancer spreading to his chest. It wasn’t until a lump on his foot caused a visit to the vet that it was confirmed.

So he is gone – having one last kip. He was my little friend for 16 years. He sat on my lap watching Dr Who, slept on my bed whilst I typed thousands of words at this PC and he hid under my chair on Bonfire night. His scratchy meow sounded like thousands of different words in my head in that way only people who love their animals will understand and I miss him terribly.

Fin

At last! A day without the need to hunt for decent title. I am not sure what happened to last Sunday’s post, it was obviously not meant to be. I was off work until the Wednesday giving me plenty of time to make up for it but other things got in the way.

Tavistock.

It’s a lovely place, Tavistock. About 15 miles from here, just on the edge of Dartmoor. It’s small town architecture and winding streets are a stark contrast to the violent, depressing, chav-infested sprawl that stands not more than a burning tyre’s throw from my gaff. I am a frequent buyer of spices, pulses and other such diabetic friendly/Slimming World friendly commestibles from either the indoor market or a great little shop on the high street.

Unusually, I was there on Monday this week. Normally, the Rover is berthed in the riverside car park by 9am on Saturday, long before the hordes arrive and in plenty of time to park within easy walking distance of the ticket machine. It’s not the walk to the machine I object to, just the walk to AND from the car. Do you lock the car and walk to the machine or do you risk it and keep one eye on the car while you are gone? Why does it seem so stupid and pointless to walk to a machine, very often in the same direction of your ultimate destination, then walk back to the car, then walk….

…but I digress. It’s Monday and its about 2.40pm. Off work and ferrying Mum and her sister (my auntie) to Tavistock Cottage Hospital so that a consultant can have a poke and a prod at a troubling wound on Mum’s thumb. Her most recent visit to the GP had scared the bejesus out of her and me by suggesting it might be something awful, so I dropped them off and parked up, fully intending to wander into the town, buy some cooking stuff, a newspaper, perhaps a cuppa and then go and pick them up when signalled on the mobile to do so.

Having parked up (see paragraph 2), I wandered into the town, bought some vanilla pods, some sugar-free, 90% cocoa solids chocolate and a newspaper. Then I had a cuppa and read the paper. Then I went back to the car and read my paper some more until the 90p, 1 hour ticked ran out. Exiting the car-park, I drove to a place approximately, 100 yards from the hospital and parked. Yes, parked free of charge. I could hardly believe it, in a space by the side of a road. No double-yellow lines, no single-yellow lines, no “resident’s parking only” sign – nothing. By now it was almost 4pm, but as it was a hospital appointment I was quite prepared for the possibility that she might still be waiting to go in. So I read my paper some more and listened to some more Dale Winton on the radio. 4.15pm and my window-steaming slumber was rudely awoken by my amusing, if alarming, ringtone – the phone ring noise from “24″. Reality dawned and having ascertained that she “would start walking down the hill” (why do they do that?), I duly collected the two smiling and strangely similar ladies.

It turns out all is well and the poorly is just a deep infection, easily vanquished by some strong antibiotics.

The mood driving away from the hospital was much improved on when we arrived, The Dixie Chicks are on the Ipod and sugar-free Sherbet Lemons (everyone suffers for my condition) flow like wine. At the bottom of the hill, I click the indicator on “right” only to be asked “What are you doing?”. It turns out that the only thing that had kept them going whilst sitting in the tiny, sterile waiting room was the thought of Omellette and Chips in a cafe and a walk round the shops.

So once more, there I was parked in the riverside car park in the same berth. I walked to the ticket machine, bought another 90p ticket, walked back to the car, walked to the high street, went into some shops….well, you get the idea.

By now, however, it is gone 4.30pm and in that wonderful, customer-focused way, everyone and everywhere is shutting. Only in this fair land could an establishment, whose sole purpose is to feed people, close just prior to the point in the day when people are getting a bit peckish. We are on the verge of giving up when the smell of roasted coffee pulls us into a side street and we sit down, just the three of us alone at a corner table in a very homely, tea-shop-style establishment. The walls are adorned with blackboards featuring every sort of food the tired shopper could imagine, but then the waitress comes over…

“We are just serving drinks and things from the patisserie at the moment”.

I swear to god, there were 4 members of staff wandering about in that place. It was just before 5pm and they weren’t serving any food. Up and down the land, kitchen tables were groaning under the weight of fish fingers, beans and chips but Kenco and a donut was the best we could hope for. For all I know, they started serving hot food just as everyone began taking after-dinner walks to aid digestion, just in time perhaps to catch that all important “full-up”trade.

Only in England folks.

So, the ladies both had a cream tea and a cappacino and I had a small Earl Gray.

Time Of The Month.

It’s a wonderful time of the month at the moment. Traffic-shaping technology has once more temporarily reduced by broadband speed to that of a milk float. Not a new milk float mind you, one long overdue for a service. I just have to put up with this until a random point either a few days or weeks from now when it the download speed shoots skyward and normality is resumed. This is all part of a “fair use policy” that I unintentionally agreed to many years ago when I neglected to read a lengthy Email with a jeweller’s eyepiece.

I noticed the words “fair use policy” on a mobile phone advert the other day. This provider was offering “unlimited texts” all of the time for £30 a month or something similar but the words “fair use policy” briefly appeared at the bottom. Now, I am no lawyer (like Tony Hancock, I never really bothered) but this kind of thing really gets my goat. I am on an “unlimited” tarriff with my broadband but I notice (now that I finally decided to read the terms and conditions) that “in order to guarantee an acceptable level of service to all customers” my broadband speed “will be reduced after periods of excessive traffic”. This is mysteriously murky and non-specific but no doubt perfectly in keeping with the huge wad of cash I chuck in their direction once a month. I also pay line-rental on telephone line I don’t use just so I can have ADSL.

“Get cable” I hear you cry. Well I would, but for at least two reasons…

1. Virgin won’t run a cable to my house as it would have to run through 4 gardens to get to my little corner.

2. Two words – 13 months of an 18 month contract left.

I notice that Virgin are now offering 32Mb speeds. Whoopie-flipping-do. If this post doesn’t go live until Monday afternoon, at least you will now know why.

Work.

It is Monday tomorrow and my Excel project has come to an end. Tomorrow I am back to the day job and at least 5 days of solid data-entry keying awaits. On the positive side, I will finally catch up on all that music and all those audiobooks I have kept on standby since July 8th last year. Further blogs will no doubt reveal more.

Tap, tap, tap, tap…]]>

We Don’t Need That Bigger Boat Anymore.

On Monday 10th February, Roy Scheider, the star of the best film in the world ever (don’t bother to argue, it just is), passed away. Despite the fact that Jaws has given me a life-long fear of deep water and oversized man-eating sharks, I still watch it about four times a year. I watched it again on Tuesday and although the rubber shark still looks rubbish, it doesn’t detract from the perfection of the film one bit. I read the book long after I first saw the film but barely managed to make it to the end. I gather from a few people online that the book was a great read until the film came along. Once Scheider, Dreyfus, Shaw and Spielberg brought it to life, the written page was forever spoiled. The film didn’t change the book much really. A few plot points were removed (Brody’s wife and Hooper having a relationship) and the ending was changed – out went a drowning shark and in came an exploding shark (“Smile You Son Of A Bitch…”) and that was that.

Roy Scheider’s role in Jaws is that of the audience. He is the everyman, worried and frustrated by Quint, out-classed by Hooper’s intelligence and experience and completely out of his depth on a small boat. We see everything through him and we see him grow over 2 hours.

One of his last professional engagements was to provide the narration for an epic, fan-made documentary about his most famous role. It’s called http://www.sharkisstillworking.com and I for one can’t wait until you can buy it.

Yoofs

I had the good fortune to encounter a few of those drunken youths the media are so fond of the other night. I stopped at a local convenience shop with a friend because we both had the need to pay four times as much as normal for a few household essentials. Most such places now go once step better by having a cash machine on the premises, allowing you to pay £1.85 to take £10 out of your bank account to pay over the odds for own-brand, low quality imitations of quality consumables. Anyhoo, there we was waiting to pay when the automatic doors slid open when what can only be described as a white hooded tosser stumbled in and shouted a mobile number and the poor, hapless chavette behind the till.

“Oh, f**k off Brad”

Pissed, he took no notice and a dribble of expletives and sub-standard grammar spilled from his lips. What made it worse was that he was no older than 13 or 14. He wasn’t just cider-tipsy, he was full blown drunk as were the six or seven other wastes of space hovering just outside the shop.

We paid and slipped back to the car. They paid us little notice, unlike the poor woman still working in the shop and presumably still listening to his nonsense. It’s a sad reminder of the times we live in and the state of youth society. Did we do stuff like that at that age? No. We had Mr Tidmarsh’s German prep to do and by god we did it.

Dull Work Weeks Ahead & Family Slimming World

It’s all change and a period of dullness ahead for me. Hayley is off to Florida for 3 weeks next week and Julie is having her long awaited knee operation on Wednesday. She will be off work for a few weeks and not very mobile and excited for quite a while after that. So, lonely lunches, drives to work and coffee breaks for a while. Also, it will just be me and sis at Slimming World for a while. Jo is doing amazingly well. After a month, she got her 1 Stone award this week and was Slimmer Of The Week for the second week running.

I just lost another half pound this week. Not very impressive I feel but at least it’s still going in the right direction. After 6 weeks, I still haven’t gained or stayed the same. Even at this rate, I will hit target before Summer, so I must’nt grumble.

A title chosen for no other reason than to put a little known part of Plymouth into Google. If that’s how you found this blog…hello!!

But that’s enough self-regarding nonsense for now.

Another week has gone by and a few things happened.

Another week spent working with Excel 2003. A whole week. Well, if you take out lunches, coffee breaks, aimless chats with people, trips to the loo, going home early and checking your Email. If you take whatever’s left, then that’s how long I spent with Excel this week.

The strike happened on Thursday and thanks to me coming in a little earlier, nothing of note happened. I know a few people went through the usual nonsense and had to justify their democratic choice to others.

I did a huge heap of gravel laying. Back breaking…again. This time the bottoms of my legs were paralysed the morning after.

Today, Aunty Mo and Cousin Paul came over for lunch. After which we went through Warleigh Woods (again) but at least this time I remembered my camera.