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…

As I have said before on more than one occasion, I have spent a lot of the last  20 years or so setting up/designing/maintaining and being involved in a series of online projects themed around my boarding school and the young gentlemen, such as myself, who went there. A labour of love it may have been but a labour it was nonetheless. I don’t regret any of it but as some of you reading this may know, setting up things for others to use or enjoy online can be an empty business.

Inspiration & The Reality Gap

Pondering...

Firstly, you can’t do it quickly. You many have a brilliant idea, one you may visualize with crystal clarity in your head but if you ask any sort of creative person – say an author (ahem) – they will all agree that at this stage, you project is approximately 2% complete. This is often completely at odds with your own perceptions but I would have to throw my hat into the ring and agree with them. Many is the time I have been sitting at work or driving home in the car, when an absolute corker of an idea has filled my head, just above the nose. At this point, shamefully, my gas pedal hits the floor and speedbumps become a thing of skant concern. By the time I reach the end of my gravel driveway, bound up the front steps and allow my manservant to welcome me into the foyer of the family pile, the fire of inspiration is still burning fiercely. Hives removes my coat, the cat drops my slippers at my feet and I power up the PC. The harsh white glow of the screen then slaps some sense into me and most of the enthusiasm  fades like…well, like a sentence without an end.

For a lot of the time, that’s exactly what happens. During the year long gap in which I didn’t blog, that happened about 3 times a week. Now and again, it still happens. You just have to live with it. Now that the blog is up and running again, all I have to do is type and as you will have hopefully have seen, I manage it much more often. Thanks to Evernote, I don’t tend to drive home like a lunatic anymore either. If anyone ever solves the problems or fat fingers and a small touch screem, it will indeed be a perfect world.

If it ever becomes possible to forget that GTA Vice City and it’s tempting streets exist, then that will also be of great help to me.

I’ve drifted again haven’t I?

Well, what I am trying to say is that the first hurdle to creating online wonderment is that its a f**k of a lot of work, even to do it slightly well. To do it very well, you have to be 9 people or 1 genius.  I fit into neither camp. I take my time, get frustrated, Google a lot and copy other people. Don’t look so shocked. I suspect I am not alone.

The one hurdle I sometimes find it hardest to get over, is that some things are beyond me. This usually presents itself when I have spent an afternoon looking for inspiration. Common places for this are…actually going to stay secret, suffice to say there are sights and technical achievements to boggle the mind. Now, I can use Photoshop but its a huge oil-burning pig of a program. The manual for version 5 (the last one I read) might as well have been written in Latin. What the online help file for Photoshop CS5 must be like, I can only imagine. I usually use Fireworks to create my graphics, but even that is largely a closed book to me. I  do what I can and mostly what I need to do. It’s partly why I have never done this sort of thing professionally. I couldn’t stand the idea of being asked to do something I didn’t know how to do. Also, I use about 10% of Dreamweaver when coding HTML. I suspect I am not alone in this either.

Finally, you have to keep it alive. I know this to my cost and you ignore this key ingredient in your online project at your peril. It’s hard to be specific about anything other than my own stuff, but take this blog entry for example; once posted and I have Tweeted a notice of it’s newness to about 100 followers and put it on my Facebook page for 400 friends to see, I will get about 20 hits. Tomorrow, when people get to work, I’ll get about the same amount again. This week, I might make 100 hits. This is unique visitors and doesn’t include return visits. If I make no post next week, I might get another 10 hits and after that, maybe 5 a week until I post again. I can promise you one thing. No one is looking to advertise on my site. Unless you have invented iPlayer or iTunes (I think I see a pattern), a lot of people are not going to give a monkeys about what you have done. You could be really, really lucky like me and have a target audience, some of you whom like what you have done but mostly, you will be ignored. It’s a tough lesson, but all the hit counters and spinning visitor globes will not bring people to your site in droves.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. I once mentioned Gillian Anderson, Clint Eastwood and Pamela Anderson in a blog post (as a test) and got almost 300 hits in a week. This sort of experiment is frowned upon and the Google bots will soon find you out, so don’t try it (unless you are blogging about famous celebrities of the 80s or course). Quite what would happen if I mention Justin Bieber, Dancing On Ice, Lindsey Lohan or Red Nose Day,  I can only imagine. Oops.

The one thing I find hard to babble on about is…well, babbling on. You have to be able to write a bit; I can – write a bit that is – but I don’t do it very well, not on paper or screen at least. Most of us know what to say but either because we haven’t done very much of it since the age of 15 or perhaps because we never could in the first place, we can’t put into words. This is not a huge worry but it’s something you should be aware of. Most of your readers’ brains will work out what you want to say and very few will feel the need to tell you where you have gone wrong. In any case, you will be understood.

So, after struggle, torment, plagerism, manual reading, googing, relaxing, typing, patience, calmness, panic, frustration, desperation, defining your own creative limitation and often going for walk to clear you head, you are done.

Shouting At The World

There's only one really...

In a word, don’t bother. I pondered for a while before writing this paragraph and while the first sentence seems a little harsh, it rings true. Perhaps it didn’t 15 years ago when there were dozens of search engines, all eager for your content. Now there is just Google and to a lesser extent, Bing. Google is really the only one that matters and it’s bots will eventually index your online world and show it to the world. Well, they will show it to the world if they enter the right search terms. If they don’t, you webby work might as well be in a bin bag in the shed. Again, harsh but true.

But remember, you have friends – both Facebook and real, tell them and tell everyone on Twitter. That process alone will grab the attention of those who know and love you and who are eager to click a link whilst slurping the Kenco.

Of course, as I said before, I am lucky. My stuff was and is for a largely captive, ready made audience of old school friends. They are brilliant, receptive and sometimes embarrassingly grateful. I feel guilty sometimes because I get frustrated when they don’t use my site exactly the way I intended or because I wish they would contribute more but a swift kick up my own backside soon rids me of this. This swift kick is usually in the form of someone I haven’t spoken to in 20 years suddenly popping up or like this week when a well respected author of online content and the printed page finds the time to join my new forum and enters into a short correspondence.

So, don’t bother shouting. Do it because you want to and because a few other people might like to see what you do. Don’t worry if you don’t work on it for a while and don’t worry that your audience is getting frustrated or thinking less of you for not spending your Sunday afternoon banging away at your PC keyboard. They will still love you when you do come back, no matter how long that is. Go for a walk, go to Vice City or go and sit on someone else’s sofa watching X-Factor, eating chocolate muffins and trying to convince them they will be a great mother.

The more you do, the more you will have to think about and write about and the more likely you will be able to spend an hour typing 1600 words about yourself to no one in particular.

A bit like I have just done.

The inevitable consquences of money in the bank and a visit to one of the best bookshops on the planet. I'll explain all at the end.

Sunday

Yes, I know, I’m here again on a Sunday. I know it’s a shock but dammit, I am buzzed. Not in a grumbly, prickly sort of way like last week when I pointlessly perpetuated the “whose phone is best” argument. Sorry about that. I don’t know why I vent on here as I know I get noticably less hits, less likes and less comments when I do so. I don’t even feel any better for it. I’ll try and remember not to do it again but the chances of noone ever pissing me off again are slim to none and my memory being what it is, I will probably forget ever typing this. How critics and commentators ever sleep at night when all they do nothing more than sour the atmos is beyond me.

None of which pointless blab serves any purpose other than to fill the world with more words, sour or otherwise.

So, I am buzzed. It might be caffeine, after all I have had 3 quite large black coffees today in two separate purveyors of such things, only one of which still calls them “black coffees”. The Americano virus spreads with little sign of abatement, despite my vigorous and intensive campaign of tutting and mild, silent sarcasm. I sometimes wonder why I bother, I really do.

By now, you might be asking yourself why I was out on a Sunday morning and you would be deserving of an answer. I was here (see below).

Plymouth Barbican

‘Twas a cold and brisk Sunday morning in Plymouth and after being in bed, eating breakfast in bed and eating breakfast in bed with someone else there are few places it’s better on to be on such a morning than Plymouth’s Historical Barbican. As is the current fashion in the world of “outside” if was f**king cold, if not colder but where would the world be without risk and adventure? As with most cities, there is some sort of unofficial competition between on-street parking machines and coffee shops to see who can charge the most for something of only little value and Plymouth is no exception. I don’t quite understand why you can only buy two hours parking from on-street parking meters on The Barbican. Considering the fact that its the most “touristy” of all the places in Plymouth, I find it strange that after two hours, the council would like you to pack up your trash and move on. It’s quite possible to spend more time than that in visiting only a few of the shops and galleries. Luckily, there are a few places, most of which are well off the tourist trail where you can park for up to 3 hours. Anything over that counts as all day and costs enough to ensure that you never darken Plymouth’s doorstep ever again.

Hey look, I wasted a paragraph on parking. Well done, Neil.

Coffee time in The Strand Tearooms

Coffee In The Tearooms

In wonderful moment of coicidence, synchronicity or simultaneousness, my phone chirped to tell me that good chum, Scott Grenney had sent me an Email. Not that amazing unless you know that I was standing outside his front door (The Admiral McBride pub) when it happened. It didn’t quite happen like that, as I didn’t check who it was from until I sat down in The Strand Tearooms about 5 minutes later, but I thought it worthy of mention.

I like it in The Strand. It’s the sort of establishment in which Captain Mainwaring and Wilson are shown drinking their morning Coffee in most episodes of Dad’s Army. Quite why the place isn’t permanently full of American tourists is very strange, situated as it is only 100 feet from The Mayflower Steps. Actually, when you consider that the steps themselves are rarely surrounded by more than two people, it’s not that surprising. Someone once told me that the place where The Mayflower dropped anchor in the states is always packed with sightseers and yet, the place where it left from isn’t. I could be very cynical about this by suggesting a sign or two at our end might help matters, but that would suggest a sense of reason seemingly absent from the general area. Indeed, the only person to have grasped the financial realities of the situation sells Ice Cream at prices high enough to give you a nosebleed, should you foolishly enquire.

After coffee, it was time to hit the shops.

The Barbican contains some of the finest collectible and book shops there are. I confidently attest to this fact, despite the fact that I haven’t been to any similar establishments anywhere else but you only have to waste five hours looking at the stuff in them to believe it with all of your heart. We all love to grumble when staff ignore us in shops but in places like these, it’s a neccesity. After years of watching people move amongst the shelves so slowly it’s hard to perceive their forward motion, it would be a foolhardy old bod who shot their conversational load too early. The first suprise on entering is they usually say “hello”. The first time I experienced this, I was briefly under the illusion that they had some of novelty door chime, activated automatically on my entrance. But no…it was the old guy behind the counter. Despite a mountainous pile of what appeared to be “stock” awaiting pricing, he was reading his Sunday Independant newspaper in a wooden chair/cushion combination probably made by someone who knew Sir Walter Raleigh personally.

My favourite shop is run by an oldish couple. Sometimes you get the bloke but today, it was the turn of “the missus”.

“Hello”, she chirped as I opened the door.

“Good Morning”…

“Oh is it?”, she replied and then glancing at her watch (that wasn’t there) and then staring at the wall clock (that was),”Afternoon, just…”

“Yes, just.” (I laughed).

“Yes.”, (she laughed).

We both laughed.

“Do you need any help?”

“No thankyou”, I’ll come and get you if I do.

Silence.

Oh god, that sounded a bit rude.

“We have three floors”, she said, obviously not offended by my previous abruptness.

“Oh good”, I said, in completely pointless and unneccesary reply.

Three floors. That’s one more than last time. Oh god, I’m going to be in here until the Royal Wedding.

Unlike new bookshops (which now smell of burnt coffee beans and sound like Enya), old bookshops smell of history and sound like dust. They are like the biggest cupboard in your house, full of books you never knew you had, arranged in a way that would suggest you didn’t put them there and even if you did, you have never tidied them up. Everything you pick up has been touched, read by someone else and then put back on a shelf for a while. Actually, I always like to think that the books that end up in old bookshops never actually lived on shelves. People who read books seldom get around to putting them neatly on shelves. If they did, then the 1000′s of books I looked at today would look more like they do in Waterstones. Instead, they look like they have been used, left open with the spine bent, forgotten about and then finished months after they were first bought.

Another thing I like about old books is their naivity. As much as I love an old Conan Doyle, I have an almost perverse affection for old non-fiction. Before Christmas, I bought a 1968 tourist’s guide to Cyprus because it contained photos of places I remember from living there in the late 70s. Whilst reading it, you can’t help but be aware of things that hadn’t happened yet or the things the author didn’t know. Perhaps it’s a difficult concept to get across but there is an undeniable charm in reading books written before most of the crap currently scarring the world currently had come to pass.

After almost an hour, I had a small pile of books. Once more, my long searched-for original Bradshaw’s Railway Guide had eluded me in the most depressing way possible. There were TWO copies of something with a very similar sounding name and similar looking cover on a high shelf. After a dangerous and wobbly moment on a chair with too many wheels, my spirits sunk. The old dear was possibly more disappointed me than me as the space taken up by both books was so vast, she could have stashed away most of the new stuff on her counter.

No matter however. We all need windmills to tip at and I may be lucky next time.

So what did I buy? Well, the Conan Doyle fan in me got a Sherlock Holmes Commentary by D. Martin Dakin. To most people and even to some Conan Doyle fans, it may be the driest read in the world but to deerstalker & pipe nuts like me, his factual analysis of each story (dates, people, places, train routes etc) is a bit of a treasure. Who cares what anyone else thinks anyway? Well me actually, just not as much as I used to.

I also picked up a couple of dog-eared, 1980s Star Trek fan-fiction anthologies. Not that notable perhaps, save for one thing – they used to be mine. For reasons which now baffle me, towards the end of the 80s, I sold a load of books to a shop in town for a ridiculously small amount of money. Every now and again, I spot one in a shop and buy it for about 20 times what I sold it for. It bothers me not and I rest happy in the knowledge that I supported local commerce and warmed the heart of a trekkie for 20 years or so. Time has not been kind to them and they were certainly shinier and less creasey when I handed them over all those years ago.

Gotta love that 1970's artwork

So that was my Sunday. Half of it spent bookworming and the other half spent writing about it. Life is a blast.

Or, maybe it’s just the caffeine.

LL&P folks.

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?

Good, If Blurry Friends

Preamble

Good evening. As an unusually festive and icy wind blows around the turrets of Argue Towers, the blush of shame reddens my cheek as I realise it’s been ages since I last filled your monitor with legibly arranged letters. No excuse this time. I suppose I just ran out of weekend last week and although I often intend to knock out a few hundred words in the morning before work, I seldom succeed. So, a week late is the remainder of my Rememberance Weekend Reminiscences.

Saturday

When we last left young Neil and his chums, he was drifting off to sleep (or at least trying to) whilst the European Trade Deficit drove past below his window. He was mildly pissed, a little cold and much uncomfortable on something that was once sold as a bed….

They say it’s perfectly normal to start the day with a horn but the cacaphonic violence that reached up to room 405 at 5.15am would have woken the dead, dressed it, shown it a good time and sent it home to a surprised and terrified family. A few seconds later, I was completely awake and again surprised that I ever fell asleep in the first place. Had I not known better, you could have easily convinced me that I had fallen asleep on the pavement outside.

I will now stop mentioning the noise of the traffic.

I dozed, rolled about, gave up and an hour later, I strode into the cold fright of the bathroom.  Like most hotels, the complicated genius that most of us refer to as a plug has been replaced by a metal plunger arrangement that baffles understanding, particularly after a restless night. The walls are covered in notices asking you to save the environment by “putting your towels in the bath” and “tuck the shower curtain in the bath”.

To be on the safe side, I just put everything in the bath.

Shaved, showered, medicated and dressed, I joined Sean in the dining room for our full English breakfast. “Choose from the following items” it said on the menu. We chose all of the items and were presented with all 5 items. One of each. It was possibly the most unimpressive breakfast I had ever encountered. I was sad, Sean was sad and even the food itself looked pretty ashamed. “£9.95 to non-residents” it said boldly on the front of the menu. Really? Has that idea ever been tried out?

Perhaps I am being mean. The staff at The County are effortlessly nice and the place clings to the seafront with an uncertain future. Will it have to close next year? The year after? For a while it looked like it would close 3 years ago when the modernisation of the seafront first looked like becoming reality. It’s still there though and for one weekend a year it is still full. Will I stay there next year? A definate “maybe not”.

So not a brilliant night and not a brilliant breakfast.

Oh for god’s sake Neil, cheer up.

I am happy. Honestly, I am happy. I have travelled 248 miles and spent a few hundred quid. I must be happy.

So what else happens on the Saturday of Old Boys Weekend?

Well first, thing Sean and I went for a walk in Dover. I can’t remember why. We definately had a reason but as I have again waited too long to recount the weekend, I have forgotten. A belt, that’s it. Sean wanted a belt and I wanted another poppy.

Yes! The poppy. Every year, next to the town hall. Some very nice old soldiers sell poppies and will hammer a little balsa wood cross into the grass, clustered with other crosses and arranged in regiments. I have never seen this take place in other cities but then again, I don’t travel much. It is strangely moving and I have always taken the time to thank them for the effort they make.

The pitches from the comparative warmth of the clubhouse.

At 12.30 we all head for Dover RFC to watch some rugby games. Dover RFC put up two teams (an under 30 XV and an over 30 XV) and DYRMS Old Boys put up two teams to play them. It’s all great fun and Dover RFC put a tremendous effort into looking after us. I hate to bring up the cold again but it’s hard to relate the events of this game without it becoming neccessary. It’s nobody’s fault, it’s just bloody, bloody cold. There is a great big bar and all I want is some bovril and a balaclava. The England international had an unfortunate effect on the numbers attending, even to the extent that some turned up, saw it wasn’t on in the clubhouse and headed back to Dover to find somewhere showing it. Poor show boys!

Not for the first time was I assaulted by greetings from groups of people I couldn’t remember. I always feel terrible when this happens, after all, I am the self-appointed flag bearer for my year (Class of 86) and about 5 years either way, so I should be a little more prepared and able to put names to faces. Sadly,  I rarely succeed and none of the generally accepted tactics for remembering names works all that often. This year, the Class of 90 did well, particularly the crowd that Sean and I still refer to as “our lot”, namely the guys who were in Wolseley 3rd form in our final year and those who also had the dubious pleasure of our company at mealtimes. I could be wrong but I think all but 3 made it. Well done chaps.

I am not the biggest rugby fan in the world and have no idea of the final result of either match. Sean and I stayed until about 5pm and made our quiet way back to the hotel. After an abortive visit to the busiest KFC on the planet, we blessed Dover’s finest chippery with our custom and smuggled steaming packages past reception and into our rooms. As many have since pointed out, it’s not against the rules to eat fish and chips in your room and I can only conclude that a visit years ago to a Dover B&B must have instilled that idea in our heads. A feeling of wrong-doing and danger does improve the appetite however.

The Flotilla - 7.30pm

We headed over to The Flotilla at about 7.30, only to find it a little quiet. This fact probably won’t surprise anyone born after 1980 and who is now use to meeting up just after 10pm for drinkies but it struck us a little odd. There we stood, freezing cold ale in our hands and unfashionable middle-aged denim on our hips, wondering when the hell £1 for a go on a slot machine became the norm. They didn’t even have the decency to dim the lights, highlighting our shame to any young family wandering past the window on the way home from M&S.

Luckily for us and shortly before I was forced to order a cheese ploughmans and ask for a quiet table for two, others dribbled in. The place soon filled up and the next 5 hours or so were filled with drinking, laughing, Kareoke of astonishingly variable quality and generally good times. I think I caved in at around midnight whilst others lasted a little longer. For the first time in many visits, I was a bit drunk and managed to fall asleep with the telly on a few hours later.

Sunday

The weather this year was wet and the chances of the parade going ahead were slim from the start. Some years you get lucky and crisp, bright sunlight shines down. This year, it drizzled from the early hours and only stopped briefly at about 9.30am. Poppies in our lapels and umbrella’s over our heads, we wanted it to be dry and at exactly the same time 400 Dukies wanted the exact opposite. I  well remember the joy at a parade being cancelled due to rain and I would like them all to know that we all understand. It’s just that we had come such a long way.

Marlborough House, 2010. Temporary and a bit scary...

After being depressed by the sad sight of a burnt-out Marlborough House on the way in, we decided to check out the temporary replacement building on the grass next to Haig House. I am not sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t the white monstrosity that we saw. To be fair, more than one person promised that the inside was great. I can’t confirm this, Marlbrough being a girls boarding house and even the good intentions of a blogger are probably not enough to secure me entry. Even if they were, a camera would probably not be appropriate. Sorry folks. It’s white, a bit like a portacabin and exactly the same shape as the other boarding houses. No, really. What it is like inside, you will just have to imagine.

Best guess wins a school scarf.

The 6th Form Block

Just round the corner and behind Haig House is the new 6th form block. From speaking to folks in the know, I understand that only the lower 6th are in there at the moment, boys on one floor and girls on the other. It all looks a bit Ikea to be honest and have no idea what it means to the school.

Biggest surprise of the weekend was Simon Whitton and Matt Colgate turning up in the Nye Hall. It was great to see them but frustrating as we only had about half an hour with them before we had to start our journey back.

..and so we did. Chris, Sean and I bid farewell to everyone and in no time at all, we were on the A2 and heading back to Sean’s place. I think Chris and I both slept most of the way back to Oxford, waking occasionally to all laugh at something we all remembered. A nice quiet end to it all really.

We stopped briefly at Sean’s for a chicken baguette and a coffee, but were soon back in my car and Devon-bound. The trip back was quieter but still full of conversation and laughs. I know Chris was a little worried at my level of tiredness and as we swerved into the M4 services, I kind of saw what he meant. Still, we were safely home in fairly good time.

So, how to sum it all up. You can’t really read the above without picking up a slightly lower level of enthusiasm on my part this year and you wouldn’t be wrong if you did. It was a bit of let down, despite being full of wonderful moments. Time spent with old friends is never wasted and if it was in a pub 10 miles from where I live, I would be one happy bunny. Perhaps I am at fault for building it all up and expected more than there is? Next year is the 25th anniversary of my leaving the place and I am going to make a concerted effort to get as many back as possible. If it looks like not happening then maybe this year has been my last visit for a while. Sad, but maybe it’s time for a rest.

*My apologies for the poor quality of the photography.  I keep forgetting how badly my phone performs in poor light.

Room 405, The County Hotel, Dover, Kent

Offline

After a tragically enforced absence of almost a week, I am back, back back! Well, back online anyway. This blog entry would have appeared  earlier in the week had I not understood the exact nature of my home’s internal telephone wiring. After an indignant semi-rant directed solely at some poor sod in Bangalore, I was transferred to someone closer to home and after an indignant semi-rant directed at some poor sod with an incredibly strong scottish accent, it slowly dawned on me that I was an idiot. 12 minutes later, my internet was back and almost 4 times faster than it had been for most of the past 8 years. Anyway, here I am.

Old Boys Weekend – Part One: Friday

I won’t bore you with the exact nature and details of my school’s traditions again, except to say that Old Boys Weekend is our annual reunion and is always held on Rememberance Weekend. My school was and still is a military boarding school and there has always been a Sunday parade, very similar to the one held at The Cenotaph in London on the same morning. I go to the one in Dover and the Queen goes to the one in London. It’s an arrangement that has suited us both for many years.

The weekend begins with a longish drive to Bicester in Oxfordshire, where my best school chum Sean lives and from where he then drives us the rest of the way to Dover. It’s a long old day and is what used to be known as “a frig of a long way”. In reality, thanks to wide, largely empty roads it isn’t and Plymouth to Dover could now probably be done in about 6 hours. This is a far cry from when I was a young nipper and being driven back to Dover after the school holidays, 20 years ago. This journey seemed to involve us getting up at dawn and at least 5 stops. There were mixed emotions as we finally neared journey’s end and the school clocktower appeared on the horizon, none of us  in any hurry to get to school but all of us wanting to get out of the bloody car.

A Frig Of A Long Way, Plymouth is A, Sean's house B and Dover C

This year’s trip was different as I was not alone. Chris Mapp (Class of 96) lives in Tavistock and only 30 or so miles away from me. As is typical in these situations, we have seen neither hide nor hair of each other since last Old Boys Weekend. He was excellent company and so absorbing was our conversation that I drove slightly more slowly and took almost an extra hour to get to Sean’s. Chris left the school about 10 years after me and so we didn’t actually attend at the same time. Nevertheless, I found events at the school after I left to be as fascinating as those what took place while we were there. We stopped for breakfast at a Costa Coffee on the M4. I’d love to tell you where but I honestly can’t remember. It was an unremarkable, characterless shack, staffed by people who obviously could have done with us not bothering them. So typical is this of such places, it only bothers me now in hindsight. At the time, like most of you, I just put up with it. They talk to each other while serving you, mumble grumpily in you general direction and then expect you to understand the fact that you order in one place and pick your coffee up in another. This is so clearly for their benefit that I wonder why we put up with it. A general tone of “give us your money and bugger off out of the way” seems to pervade the place. Quite why a latte has to cost so much is a discussion that I fear would take up too much or you generously given internet time.

This was also the first year with Sat Nav, a fact that almost made up for my slow driving. Under it’s guidance, we stayed on the M4 longer and looking at the route now, I wonder at the cross-country ramble I engaged in for the past 8 years. It’s a shame really, I shall miss those landmarks, particularly those I repeatedly passed (in both directions) on the same trip in the early years. Sean’s new house was easily found and I experienced something genuinely weird when I got out of the car. It was a strange feeling of Deja Vu. Ridiculous really, as I had never been here before. True, I have driven up the road many a time (Sean didn’t move far) but I hadn’t actually stopped here and looked around. I soon realised that I was experiencing Google Streetview Deja Vu. Yes, it’s true. When Sean gave me his new address, I checked it out and wandered around in Streetview. I recognised the houses opposite and had even wandered around the general area trying to get a good look at Sean’s new place. As I said…..weird.

After a quick visit to the loo, we were soon back on the M4 and on our way to Dover. I am (almost) ashamed to admit that Sean did the driving whilst Chris and I buggered about on Facebook. I could disguise that fact with flowery verbage but we spent two hours behaving like teenagers on a school trip. If you have the time, check out our Facebook newsfeeds for 12th November and all is there to see. During the few brief periods when I couldn’t think of anything funny to write on there, I watched my GPS trace fly along the map on my phone. Don’t think bad of me, I am not a good passenger. I was amused beyond the level appropriate to one of my somber age by the names of roads in the middle of nowhere. As I watched the little blue arrow on the phone fly down the M4, roads would scroll into view with the most individual names (I wish I could remember them now) despite the fact that this small, empty road stretched to the horizon in both directions.

At around 5ish, we hit Dover. It’s hard to be honest about Dover in 2010 without seeming harsh. I’ll try but I probably won’t succeed. In it’s defence, almost 3 solid days of pouring rain added a tinge of Bladerunner to the whole mood. We have stayed at The County Hotel for the last 5 or 6 years, opting for a cut-price rate for bed and breakfast, a bar open for guests into the early hours and general feeling of familiarity. Whether we stay there again is difficult to say. As you can see from the photo at the start of this blog, the rooms aren’t bad. The noise, however, is terrible. Every year, I walk into the room and think the same thing. “The bloody maid has left to balcony door open again” and every year i open the curtains to find she hasn’t.

Traffic Outside The Hotel. Imagine noise.

The traffic is deafening and thanks to the proximity of the port, is almost 24 hour long. I tried to record it on my phone but the mic was overwhelmed.

I actually recorded 4 audio diaries over the weekend. There are almost 50 minutes of me droning into a tiny microphone, sounding like Leonard Cohen after some particularly distressing news. I had a mad idea of making them available as mp3 files on line but I fear I come across as a little grumpy and a lot introspective. Entertaining it isn’t and listening back to it an hour ago, I realised that taking out all the “ums” and “ahhhs” would reduce it in length to about 12 minutes. I’ll see what I can edit down to anyway.

First order of business on arriving at The Hotel is to head into Dover and buy some food and drink. I picked my dark alley and moved as slowly as my cowardly pride would allow but fast enough to make me feel safe. The Bladerunner effect was further enhanced by a huge TV screen in Market Square. Nobody was watching it but everyone had to listen to the deafening blurb hailing the impending Olympics (622 days to go!). Nobody looked and nobody cared but there it was. What it’s like to live in any of the buildings nearby is anyone’s guess. I am sure it get’s switched off at some point but Sunday mornings must be a joy.

I stocked up on a few essentials and a few non-essentials in M&S, bought an evening paper in WH Smith’s and headed back. It was raining harder now and my woolen coat had started to feel heavy. My umbrella stayed dry in the hotel room (see photo at the top) for reasons that now escape me. It was probably something to do with looking cool. Dover still has that effect on me. Somewhere along the route back to The County, poppy no. 8 fell from my lapel and down a rain clogged drain. I was wet, cold and now dishonouring the war dead. Party on.

I returned to the room, unpacked my vittles and set about the sodden coat with the hair dryer. I briefly considered inserting it into the trouser press like a hellish woolen panini but pondered the damage that could be caused by such an ancient device and thought better of it. Still, the hair dryer fun killed an hour.

In a huge departure from normal, Sean and I headed to The Light Of India. Yes, we had a curry on Friday night instead of on Saturday. The solicitous staff welcomed us into their empty restaurant  and I was soon tucking into the traditional Meat Thali. I say traditional, but once a year hardly makes me a regular. Sean pointed this out to the waiting/manager when he came over and asked us if we were enjoying our food. “Oh yes”,  I said, “I always have this”. He managed to display confusion at not recognising me, happiness at my fondness for his food and disappointment at the truth all in the space of about 30 seconds. Worth the tip alone.

We were just starting to eat when Alex Clowser (Class of 85) sent me a text from his luxuriously appointed room at the Premier Lodge, just along the seafront. 10 minutes later, he jloined us in The Light of India and his coat was scarcely off when he was bullied (there is no other word for it) into also having a Meat Thali. It was interesting sales technique that involved pointing at all the food on my table and implying that injury would be done to his person if he did not have the same. All this was done with tremendous good humour and the sort of fixed smile only found plastered the faces of curry house waiters and managers the world over.

Bloated and, to be honest, ready for bed, I recieved a text from Chris asking where we where. 10 minutes later we were in the basement bar of Blakes of Dover, a place previously unknown to us. Ben Hanson, his girlfriend Katie, Chris and a older, friendly looking bloke were already there and about 4 drinks ahead of us. The older bloke said hello and feigned offence that I had no idea who he was. It was Stuart Dimmock (Class of 80), someone who had popped up on Facebook and whose Facebook photo was actually a poppy. I think I can be forgiven for not recognising him. The fact that he left the year before I started at the school didn’t help either. Still, Dukies we all are and all that…

We never did quite catch up on the drinking front but at about 10 O’clock, one of the older folks in the corner, who we had presumed were just regulars, suddenely held aloft a mobile phone and shouted “who wants to speak to Pete Sampson?”. Pete Sampson, school master of many years and housemaster to me and Sean for 4 years was on the other end of the phone, in a state of alcholic relaxation and only a short distance away in The White Lion pub. As one we headed in his direction and as just me, I headed back to The Hotel. I had reached my limit and after 248 miles and 15 hours awake, it was time to sleep. On reflection, it’s a shame. I assumed I would get to see Pete at the Old Boys V Dover RFC rugby match on Saturday afternoon and it didn’t seem to matter. As it happened, the England rugby match kept him away on Saturday. Considering the kindness he has shown me in recent years, I wish I had gone.

After a drunken and rambling 24 minute audio diary,  I showered and climbed into bed. Despite wafer-thin pillows, the unsettling experience of sheets and blankets, deafening traffic and a thumping head, I drifted off to sleep.

Day Two: Saturday…

Soon.

Dr House & Mr Polymathic Genius Personified

Beating Myself Up A Bit

My reasons for choosing the above photograph are manyfold. Chiefly, it’s brilliant and that should be enough, but less obvious to you, dear reader, as you pass a few minutes of paid employment (go on, don’t fib), is the fact that both parties in the photo had a profound effect on me this week. I apologise for the fact that my explanation train stopped at every station but hopefully I will be forgiven by end of the page.

I don’t know what I was thinking really. It was an idiotic and an ill-thought-through act. I am in the middle of emptying my head of thoughts onto the printed page and I decided to pass the working day listening to someone far, far better at it than I will ever be. Sometime tomorrow, I will finish listening to the first two volumes of Stephen Fry’s autobiography. For just over 20 hours, the author himself will have talked into my ears and I can only hope that not too much of it has rubbed off on me. He does have the decency to apologise for his over-zealous verbosity in the introduction to the first volume, excusing it with a love of talking and using language. There are indeed a few too many times where he does depart descriptive text to thrash about in stormy waters of internal dialogue, and in several places, this goes for several pages. If only he weren’t such a joy and an education to listen to.

So what of the other chap?

Several weeks before, I decided to finally tackle Jerome K. Jerome’s classic “Three Men In A Boat”, coincidentally read by Mr Fry’s erstwhile colleage, Hugh Laurie. It’s not an easy listen, due to it’s age, but I was well into it before my forehead hit the desk. Mr Laurie’s reading is full of charm and humour. It put me mind of a restrained Bertie Wooster, if that helps. I have had the printed version for years but never got past page 4. I did, however, have to consult it to find that this particular piece that greets you half way down page 52.

The quaint back streets of Kingston, where they came down to the water’s edge, looked quite picturesque in the flashing sunlight, the glinting river with its drifting barges, the wooded towpath, the trim-kept villas on the other side, Harris, in a red and orange blazer, grunting away at the sculls, the distant glimpses of the grey old palace of the Tudors, all made a sunny picture, so bright but calm, so full of life, and yet so peaceful, that, early in the day though it was, I felt myself being dreamily lulled off into a musing fit.

Apart from an amazing (and typical of the time) use of the comma, it flows like water and left me curiously depressed for the rest of the evening. There in black and white was the difference between someone writing something and a writer. Can I do that?

So, I have metaphorically stuck a finger in each ear and can be heard going “la la la” for most of the day.

Not really.

The truth is that I write a lot but I’m not actually very good at it. I tend to write as I speak and thanks to spell check, grammar check and the good sense to read things about 9 times before I click “publish”, I mostly get away with it. Listening to or reading the works of great authors may serve to inspire me, but I fear its been too many years since a semi-satisfied English teacher threw back an exercise book, annotated to hell in red biro. My favourite was Ronnie Robertson. He used to always draw a little doodle next to his mark and once favoured me with a small gravestone bearing the words “RIP Good Taste” when I had treated him to a depressing and graphic tale of automotive disaster. Our brief for prep the previous night had actually been to tell a sad tale. Multiple death and dismemberment was obviously taking it a little too far.

I suppose you are still searching for a point.

Sorry. I listened to two gifted people and it made me worry about my own ability. It’s a bit late now.

Fireworks

Bobblehats - Hyphenated?

I am not a big one for fireworks. Owning cats does that for you. Sam, sadly gone these past few years, hated them and hid under my desk whenever someone let one off within range of his tiny ears. Actually, this year hasn’t been bad. I have many times previously blogged about “arseholes with explosives season” and I am tempted to believe that my yearly diatribe has actually had some effect. Either that or it’s all the rain we have been having.

In any case, I drove home in the foggy drizzle on Friday night and witnessed some truly beautiful sights. The fireworks, shrouded in mist, gently lit the whole sky up and for once I think I might have smiled. I tried taking a few photos but I captured nothing except my rear-view mirror and someone in a bobble-hat.

Dover

Lest We Forget

My next blog will hopefully be written in Dover, next weekend. I am going back for my yearly school reunion, to see old friends, stand on cold rugby pitches, drink a bit, spend a lot and on Sunday, do what a lot other people will do. I won’t write it up until I get back, so expect my blog around Tuesday time.

Fin.

The Bleak Midwinter

Sliding, Scraping & Staying Home

It’s a funny thing, winter. Certainly in Plymouth it is anyway. It happens about once every five years and just like it did last January, it completely screws things up for a week or so. The snow falls unexpectedly to a depth of about an inch and no-one knows what the hell to do. You switch on local TV news to see kids sliding down the merest hint of a hill on a dustbin lid, a poor driver trying and failing to drive his car up an icy incline and worst of all, a local reporter has been driven to the middle of nowhere to show us the scarf he got for Christmas and to indicate with a sweep of his arm what chaos awaits you outside.

Commuter Chaos!

Important-looking officials impart the most pointless instruction in the world “stay at home unless your journey is absolutely necessary” and everyone ignores them for fear of having no milk in their tea, no fag in their mouth and possibly the kids at home all day. Seriously, how would you classify a journey as “not absolutely necessary”? Certainly, no employer is going to let you off a days work because someone on the radio told you stay at home. What usually happens is that you chip your car out of the frost and drive gingerly away. You sit forward enough for your nose to touch the windscreen and you grip the steering wheel in the hope that the harder you do so, the more grip the tyres are going to have on the road. It doesn’t help of course. You are almost certain to start sliding sideways the moment you touch the brakes and if there’s one thing worse than a high speed accident, its an incredibly slow one that you can do nothing about. Nevertheless, your employer still expects you get there and its once you are there that your problems really begin. If it has stopped actually snowing by the time you get to work, it will start again not long after you arrive. You and your employer will then do little work anyway and instead stare at the window and the slow-falling flakes of chaos. You will be hoping to be sent home soon and they are hoping that it will stop and that they won’t have to send you home soon, whilst simultaneously hoping they CAN send you home thus enabling them to go home as well. Ahh, the stress of management…

At some point, you are allowed home and more horror awaits. Annoying people in 4X4 monstrosities seize the moment to smug you to death. Most of the year we scorn their selfish choice of oil burning machine, but for today at least they can be comfortable and safe. Their unnecessary blight on the ecological landscape still bruises the planet for 350 days of the year but for now they can be warmed by their own superiority and our palpable jealousy. If you look closely, they have probably given a lift to a few non-drivers and saved them from slipping and sliding their way home in the bitter cold. They will no doubt find time to stare at you as they drive away, their judgemental, bobble-hatted gaze futher burning into your angered heart.

By now, you may be wondering why I am talking about this on Halloween. Well, it was a bit frosty on Monday morning and I was caught unawares. The car warmed up eventually and the windows cleared, thanks mostly to the drippy remnants of last year’s de-icer and the edge of my bank card. On the way home, I bought two cans of de-icer and once home, I topped up the anti-freeze.

The next day, the temperature soared by about 5 degrees and nothing but warm morning drizzle has greeted me since.

You are welcome. I like to think of the first moments of Winter panic as a kind of public service.

TV

Upside-down Eyes!!

A recent phenomenon is the autumn TV surge. In recent years, SKY has started showing US TV series only a few days after they broadcast in the States. Due to my hours of work (evenings), I have to SKY+ all of these programs and watch them later. For some reason, I end up saving these for the weekends and starting on Saturday night, I have to methodically watch each of the 11 programmes. I make it sound like torture, when it is actually the opposite, but there is something about seeing all those recorded programmes lined up that fills me with dread. It happens every week and then, around May, the series all finish and there’s nothing on. I could quite easily leave all these programmes and watch them at anytime. The SKY+ box kindly stacks them all up in little folders but I MUST watch them and watch them NOW.

I haven’t even mentioned the programmes that actually go out live on Saturday night, namely Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor. I usually watch these on Monday morning and fast-forward through them – especially Cher and her upside-down eyes, funny mouth and hugely annoying leg twitch.

Radio

I have no desire to return to the angry young blogger that I became in the first part of the year but I must allow myself a little bit of release now and again. All this week and for a lot of the preceeding few months, the broadcasters on Radio 2 have been endlessly plugging this year’s “Electric Proms”.

Electric Proms

Quite what separates this annual event from every other live performance they broadcast, I am not quite sure, but this hasn’t stopped them elevating it to the status of an indisputable religious miracle. This is annoying enough but not the whole story. What really gets my goat is the way they talk about it like we could all go if we wanted to. Let me explain. Only 7 million of of us live in London. Let’s be generous and say that maybe 10 million people live close enough to go without too much inconvenience. The remaining 50 million are a bit stuck, even if they wanted to go. This doesn’t seem to stop our favourite radio station pretending that this wonderous event is for all of us. They do the same with productions in the West End. Its “our theatre” and “the nation’s theatre”. No it isn’t. Shut up. It’s for people who live in London and not for those who live 100s of miles away.

As a side gripe, it also seems that it is for BBC staff too. A quick glance at Twitter or a quick listen to the station’s output the next day made it clear that an event so exclusive that tickets were given away in a telephone lottery, was attended by any DJ who wanted to go and quite a few hangers on as well. Not good at all.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am still proud of the BBC. I listen to Radio 2 and Radio 4 every single day and they are both wonderful. I just wish they would stop talking about Neil Diamond, Robert Plant (all hail) and Elton John like they represent the second coming. They are good musicians, all very good at their “jobs” but that’s about it. Get a grip people.

School

I didn’t have much to blog about this week regarding school or writing. It did occur to me that, in two weeks time, I will be back in Dover for Old Boys Weekend and it’s the first such visit that has taken place during a blogging phase. I can’t let this pass without doing something appropriate so I am going to do some sort of blog from there. I am not sure exactly what to do but I’ll think of something. I do have a dictaphone and I do know people who like to talk a lot so that might be one directon to go in. My travelling companions probably just swallowed something hard and jagged but I promise they are safe.

I am going to take some more photos certainly and I have compiled a list of things to check up on. I have been writing about things that took place 30 years ago and 400 miles away for ages. It will be cool to actually check the memories out.

L8r