It’s all our own fault

Last year, some madman fretted that our children may be physically blighted or mentally scarred through the violent exchange of stringy conkers. This week a council is cordoning off a copse of malignant trees and their fruity ammunition. Last month, we had Mad Ken sound biting policy initiatives to license plate cycles and imprison non bell ringers. How much of this is feeding a slow news day and how much is rampant political posturing is hard to say. But it’s clearly silly and yet there is something a little darker emerging.

Firstly, however, anything like this should be wrapped in neon-signed handle with extreme care�? warning as it’s essentially the Daily Flail gone global. We’re always looking for politically correct gibberish to first ridicule and then shape as a stick to beat the hand wringing, lentil eaters who defend such nonsense. For every ˜Pear Tree Could Be a Killer” and Conkers “ the new Weapons Of Mass Destruction” screaming taglines are mitigating scenarios where badly supervised kids die in rivers and un-maintained tracks derail trains.

A sense of perspective should act as a prism to divine the lay lines of truth buried under the headline selling static. But there is no doubt that, as a society, we’re dealing with far more restrictive regulation reinforcing a culture of personal irresponsibility. No one is to blame, so everyone is to blame. It’s hard to see how this can work both ways, either we learn to take responsibility for our actions and those in our care, or we submit meekly to a state who feels they must do it for us, however crassly.

Less than a lifespan ago, kids of 19 and 20 were battling for their lives and the freedom of all civilisation over the skies of Southern Britain. Since those times, successive governments, of all colours, have stealthily eroded our ability to take our own chances and live or die by the consequences. If those young men had the attitude of a similar sample today, I wonder would they have risked anything to save everything.

It’s probably a specious argument, but whole generations will soon be lost to the power of individual choice if we aren’t allowed to walk the line between social responsibility and freedom of the non mandated option. We’re not sheep, there is more than one path to take, many sides to an argument, infinite outlets for expression. More baring of teeth and less toothless baa-ing would be an alternate approach.

Do you know how many Health and Safely officers there are in France? None, that’s right, if you want to dice with death under a swollen pear tree, c’est la vie. We could do much worse than adopt such a carefree attitude.

God, I’m turning into my Dad.

It™s all gone dark “ Part iii.

Titles galore vied for pride of place in the post line “ Electric Dreams, Flatline and the ante post favourite f**${45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2}&{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} E*${45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2}&£$£ which was just pipped at the line in a close race.

Southern Electric are mucking about with wet powestring outside the house and getting frisky with some new fangled electric cabling. Well not Southern Electric per se as they’ve subcontracted the work to EDF energy, who’ve been properly French and bribed some Catholics from the UK’s most western isle to do the actual work.

It’s not job creation though, the power here is hamster strength at best and when a new neighbour moves in, we greet them with candles and torches. Many times we’ve been plunged into unexpected darkness resulting in Ow! Who the fuck put that table there?” lunges for alternate light sources.

So at 9am this morning, some hard hatted fella pulled the big red switch, watched by three other blokes in this hi-viz quartet, and it all went dark. This choreography has continued through the day with the youngest sparky being dispatched up and down a line of telegraph poles like a amphetamine spiked squirrel, while his mates lounge at poles end smoking and pointing in a vaguely managerial fashion.

Pole 2 A man up a pole, today.

Continue reading “It™s all gone dark “ Part iii.”

Feel free to adjust your sets

The problem with democracy is that it’s bloody rubbish. But it’s better than everything else that has been tried. Churchill I think, a man with a quote for every occasion, verbosity to the point of pompousness and a the terrifying focus of the true alcoholic. I like to think of old Winny as a bit of a role model.

Anyway with two of my readers whinging over a Cameron-esque style over substance, and with the third reader (my Mum) being on holiday, democracy shall rule. But just this once, don’t get any ideas that tactics of abuse and flattery will in any way improve content, sentence formation or maddening randomism. They’re kind of hard wired in and anyway if we’re going to conduct a one-man, one-vote kind of egalitarianism, I am the Man and I’m having the Vote.

This is Misty. Get used to her, she’s going to be around for a while as even I have better things to do than poke around the dusty spaces of WordPress themes. See the hedgehog on the right? Hacked my own PHP code to get that in, I just hope someone is bloody grateful.

Right, if it’s ok with you, I’ll get back to rattling on with impotent angst, mendacious asides and curious homage’s to root vegetables.

UPDATE 2: Sidebar fixed in IE 6.0. May I just add what a useless sodding browser IE is and if it still doesn’t work, consider this the perfect trigger to upgrade to Firefox or something that does.

Did someone say cake?

There’s a worrying backpressure in my head as an ever increasing nonsense of articles serially stack up, impatiently waiting for their electronic passport to the blogsphere. A ruthless first in-first-out approach has so far served me well. But my blog-time-slice today has rejected a serious discourse on the heath and safety realities of pear trees, once a non maskable interrupt delivered this queue jumping injustice.

I completed a piece of work, so tedious it almost triggered a career change and retraining as a goat fimbler, under the strict and binding understanding that my reward would be a chocolate of sufficient calories to power a small army.

But the days of a deal being done on a firm manly handshake and look in the other fellows eye are lomg gone; I received instead an e-mail with this picture inside:

Picture2.jpgThe chocolate of complete deception

While it ticks all the boxes in terms of mixed with cow juice and a total absence of praline, it is somewhat let down by its’ electron only form. I’m sure you’ll agree that my grievance is well founded; rather than tucking into a vision of chocolately loveliness, I’m left with nothing more than an Inbox based facsimile. This episode of cruelty by a colleague, who I’d naively treated as a friend until this blatent instance of non delivery, has left me shocked and stunned

Also, even as an image it lacks something. Kind of stumpy and imprisoned in frilliness. Not really a boys chocolate which should be crafted in the shape of a motorbike, and of a similar scale.

You see, I told you it was important.

Anway to make the point, I’ve eaten the monitor. Kind of glassy with a hint of plastic but a robust capacitor and a stomach pump finish has almost made up for my intense disappointment.

I’ll not name and shame the scandalous individual but you know who you are DON’T YOU SARAH.

It’s all got dark. Part ii

Cold and Dark have stormed the seasons through unwanted planetary revolution. Rain and wind will inevitably follow and lock out the light for the next six months. Joy. A slicing headwind cut through the thin summer clothing defences this morning, so I arrived at the station shivery and little miserable.

Chiltern Railways responded by slipping in their Fall Timetable which grants them an extra hour or so in case there is a leaf on the line. More than one leaf, and the whole shebang gets cancelled for a couple of days.

Bad Karma is generally an ASBO threesome, so it was hardly a surprise that the two tiny pleasures of the train journey were cruelly denied me. It was only when firmly seated, with the pinging of the closing doors for company, did I realise my freshly poured but lamentably untested coffee and pristine newspaper were on the wrong side of the window.

Having indulged in a bit of comedy stretching, these carefully placed mandatory train companions were pitilessly abandoned as the early arriving train caught me grunting away at a tight hamstring. I waved them a sad goodbye as the train exited the station leaving me with fifty minutes of captivity and nothing to do with it. I filled the first five looking out of and pulling faces in the window. This dulled to the point of such tedium, that I was forced to do some work instead “ well at least write down in great detail a list of things I had little intention of doing.

And the most painful thing? Is it the prospect of a hundred slogging commutes through another testicle shrivelling winter? No? Then it must be the full horror of losing twelve hours a week to the travelling grind? Not that either, it’s the simple fact that there’s£1.65 I won’t be seeing again and I bet some bloody Daily Mail reader nicked my commuting stash for their cat litter.

Or maybe it’ll still be there, preserved by the honest citizens of Aylesbury Vale, lovingly wrapped in a waterproof box, with a tasteful note and a small box of chocolates, as befits a man of my status.

It’s the cat litter isn’t it?

It’s all gone dark – Part i.

The daily seat scrum, which passes for appropriate middle class train entry behaviour, spat me out next to a rather chubby bloke in a sharp suit. Nothing wrong with that, but an impartial analysis of the surprising juxtaposition of weak autumnal seven AM light and pitch black Oakley’s would decree a considered final satorial judgement of pretentious wanker”.

Still he was reading MacWorld or rather not reading in on account of his peril sensitive eyeware, which goes some way to explaining his peculiar behaviour. Accessorising eyeballs may be an old sell for the eighties red-braced marketeers but someone really should have a word.

Trinny and Sussanah, step away from those middle aged cacophonies of too much food and too little self esteem and perform some useful public works. Whip off your shades and shout it out Wearing Sunglasses Indoors in Fucking Moronic. Now stop it or it’ll be me decking you out in flares, wide lapels and chest wigs

Still what do I know about cool. While the preening cats were aping their New Romantic heroes and messing about with eyeliner, I was hunched over a teletype terminal acoustically coupled to the University computer.

All my friends had NHS glasses, centre partings and pen protectors. We’d been told the Geeks Would Inherit The Earth and by God, we believed it. That was the great trick with the eighties, if Martin Fry could get away with Gold Suits and the Human League with those haircuts, attainability became the new aspiration. To paraphrase Gordon Gecko Geek is Good” “ accepted we didn’t get many girls (ok then, none) and the word wasn’t ready for Socks AND sandals but you know we’re we just a little misunderstood. No, honestly.

Not a great deal has changed but even in the pits of deepest denial could I ever dream that Waiting for a Star to Fall�? by Five Star would ever warrant the default entry on my mobile phone. Not even in a post modern ironic kind of way. An entire branch of mathematics would have to be created with that deal with that level of wrongness.

And yet Sunglasses man let it belt out the first two stanzas before flicking his tasteless jukebox open with a pudgy wrist. Maybe the shades were an inspired choice, as this is the kind of free carriage theatre that receives critical acclaim on the 6:48. For the sake of his therapy bills, I hope he thought we were laughing WITH him.

Feeling Peaky.

I hope you’ve noted the seamless evolution of the medical title theme, started last Friday. It’s not all beer and skittles in here you know “ rather a more complex game of blogging chess where moves have to planned three posts ahead. It’s hardly classy to juxtapose grouting lyrics with a forthcoming anal probe reference. You would be rightly irked by such lazy linkage and on that tangential note, here are some words that should never be seen together.

Marketing Budget, Holiday Slideshow and, my personal Armageddon, Alcohol Shortage. Feel free to add you own while I suffix Weather Forecast to this list of unholy couplets. The finest computers which advertising revenue can buy, predicted firstly dry but cold conditions, then localised flooding before settling on dreary and prolonged showers. These meteorological charlatans have clearly shunned their electronic doomsayers in favour of a glance out of the window following an intense study of the tea leaves.

We had a fantastic ride in what are considered the lesser lights of the Peak District. A cheeky route plotted by Andy TrackLogs” Shelley “ a man who has spent three years hunched over a computer developing mapping and GPS software. It was with a little surprise and not some alarm, we noted his total lack of navigational aids other than Google maps. This Guerrilla niche double bluff marketing is clearly more subtle than I thought.

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Continue reading “Feeling Peaky.”

Proper ‘ills

Not medical complaints more vertical geography. A weekend in the Peak District awaits although God’s country, as ever, has rather more weather than us down here in the soft south. It’s also rather well regarded for it’s rockiness and since my rolliness has lately been on the painful side, I’ve installed Lithuanian Lesbian” as my riding style.

It’s unlikely anyone’ll notice much difference but in case they do, the offer of joining our host in a somewhat pervy long travel hardtail covern has been pooh-poohed in the strongest possible terms. It’s about time the Turner had an outing, you never know I might find someone who can ride it properly. Statistically, it’s unlikely to be me.

Before I go, my friend Jay (the story hunter of all things sexually deviant) has insisted I be his virtual mouthpiece and post this. He’s bigger than me so it seemed prudent to give him the opportunity to share this with my reader. I hope that doesn’t include my mum.

Before you open it, I should warn you of the non lunchable contents within. It’s an expose of Bejing’s Penis Emporium with references to knob of the day” and Todger health cures” I’m paraphrasing but I’m sure you get the drift.

Honestly, I’ve no idea where he finds this stuff. And more worrying the frequency in which he finds it. Maybe I’ll register I-want-my-knob-back and let him get on with it.

Do not adjust your sets.

This post modern electronic printing press on which my loquacious verbiage resides is really rather clever. Sadly, I’m not, so will be unable to take advantage of a myriad of options which seem to include “for world peace, click here”. However, downloading new ‘themes’ is within my technical remit hence the change.

I was perturbed that around a thousand themes were available. It’s a bad enough vanity stealing time from others to read your book without designing the cover as well. Anyway, I’d like to say a complex selection procedure was undertaken combining a conceptual seasonal theme fused with earthiness and a nod to the scarcity of planetary resources.

It wasn’t. I like blue.

Being a somewhat one trick pony around the gubbins of this site, I now have license to install about a theme a day until one speaks to me or someone else speaks to me in a “stop fucking about will you” kind of way. I hope I’m through my orange period when that happens.

I could kill for a cup of coffee.

I’ve always properly despised those selfish fools who fail to understand my medicinal need for coffee grants me non negotiable rights over their wishy wash request for a frothy beverage.

Out of my way, caffeine addict coming through¦..” I am want to shout on straightlining the sea of bodies between me and my morning fix. On difficult days, I desperately request an instant infusion directly from the Barista, so ignoring the more traditional cup and saucer convention.

It hasn’t always been this way; growing up in Yorkshire, coffee was the much maligned tipple of those reaching above themselves embodied by hostess trolley and inside toilets. But having migrated south for what feels like the remainder of my life, tea is served pointlessly weak with the bag having been merely wafted over the cup in some kind of bizarre London ritual. Is the spoon sanding up in the cup yet? No? Then put the sodding bag back in then you bloody metrosexual” was a fairly representative dialogue for the first couple of years.

They never did though, and after one exchange in which I was offered nine types of tea but not one of them being Tetley”, I gave up. And just as a rantable aside, what the fuck is breakfast tea? 240 bags in a big box covers all the major tea drinking events for about a month, surely? I’ll tell you what it is, it’s bloody niche marketing and global stupidity for which scorpion pits await.

So coffee it is then. On the plus side, the firm offers up two variants; the first costs a couple of quid but served frothy and hot from a proper machine. The second is a freebie concoction of hot water rafishly mixed with rat poison. The reason it is served up as a no cost option is not due to the magnanimousness of the firm, rather that you’d have to be a screaming mentalist to pay for it.

Therefore, a frisson of excitement shimmied through the entire floor when four straining blokes, in matching shirts and sweat, heaved a freezer sized replacement into place. It was delivered with a small boy whose sole responsibility was to explain the complex operation of the machine to a hundred IT veterans, most with decent degrees. Which of course would not include anything with studies in the title; media, modern, frog-baiting whatever. These are barely night school courses and I’ll be coming back to this very subject at some point.

Continue reading “I could kill for a cup of coffee.”