Five good things about where I live

This may be of specialised interest.

Reading regularly figures in top fifty lists of crap towns in Britain, and I can’t argue with that, not having visited, let alone lived in, most of the others.  I don’t want to go into the details of what constitutes a crap town (although I could, believe me), but I’ve been spending some time recently thinking about relocating, so here’s the case for the defence [*generalised: a couple of more personal items in the footnote]:

The Inner Distribution Road.  This bisects the town with an amalgam of  seventies concrete brutalism and upgraded ancient routes – sometimes briefly disappearing entirely – in order to, well, distribute inner traffic, I suppose.  The flyover by what’s now the Oracle was, I’m told, left uncompleted for a long time, earning it the nickname ‘The Ski Jump’.  This road has a unique feature: the sliproads are dual purpose, serving both for joining and for leaving the IDR.  Try and map that onto a motorway junction and you may get a feel for how this has contributed to Reading’s special style of driving.

Brickwork.  The old houses are built with local bricks (once made, confusingly, by the London Brick Company) in distinct shades of red and grey arranged in patterns, up the side of a wall, which to an amateur eye are random but in fact must conform to arcane rules, which have been known to hold up planning applications for years.  Anything that can achieve that, whilst also being beautiful, has to be kept and cherished.

Smelly Alley.  Union Street, to give it its official but never-used name.  it’s definitely an alley, not wide enough for two prams to pass, as I observed the other day on my way to Frost’s, the fishmongers, from which Smelly Alley gets its name.  I’d searched them to make sure they still existed – they certainly do, have a look.  I said “I’m making a bouillabaisse”, and walked out ten minutes later with monkfish, cod cheeks, giant prawns, mussels and clams.  When we’d eaten it, B and I had a conversation about localism.  “It’ll come around, eventually,” she thought.  If you agree, please seek out and buy from wonderful shops like Frost’s.

The Prom.  This is the gateway to the best walks in Reading, which are beside the Thames.  Turn left from the car park (still free, though the cash-strapped council are targeting that) and you’ll follow the wide river, full of canoes and cruisers and swans, past posh palaces on the other side, with their pergolas and turrets, and jetties, some possibly with green lights at the end.  Turn right and you’ll enter a confusing world of gasworks, confluences, brick bridge arches (constructed in the Reading style), and low-rise hitech offices on the widening horizon.  And a couple of good old run down riverfront pubs.

The Oxford Road.  (The ‘The’ is essential if you want Read-Cred.)  This is just down from where I live.  At my last count there were seventeen hairdressers/beauty parlours/tattoo joints.  I haven’t counted the halal butchers yet, nor the thriving charity shops or the community centres.  Willis and Shorts, the newsagents where I buy my paper, is a community centre.  There’s another one just across the road, jointly run by the council and the police.  What were we saying about localism? 

* Reading also contains at least two of my favourite bloggers (although one of them has, temporarily I hope, given up), and a lot of my good friends.

Influential Albums #2

James Taylor: James Taylor (SAPCOR 3) 1968

1968 was a bad year, for music as well as so many other things.  The Beatles themselves had imploded into self-indulgence; Cream had split, and their brave experiment had spawned the horrors of Blind Faith and Blue Cheer; Pink Floyd were denying the existence of their burned-out genius progenitor, Syd, and churning out ‘Saucer Full of Secrets’, the first trickle of decades of gunge; Dylan had disappeared, like he does.  I was consoling myself with Coltrane and the Beach Boys.

I was bogged down in Italy, bereft and desperate for fresh music, when two albums somehow made their way to me from the Beatles’ adventurous new Apple label, like scented breezes from an unknown place.  One was Jackie Lomax’s ‘Is This What You Want?’  This was the other.

‘James Taylor’ was the best-sounding album yet to be produced outside America.  (The Yanks were streets ahead of the Brits technically, as even George Martin admitted.)  This was quite an achievement given that Peter Asher had hardly any production experience, and James was, let’s say, unreliable in every respect except songwriting and musicianship.  Asher has called it ‘over-produced’, but that’s hindsight.  At the time, it was just ‘produced’ – full use of the new eight-tracks, proper stereo balance, good deployment of equalisation …  Those were refreshing techniques to someone like me who was spending half his free time crammed inside his headphones, analysing. 

So that’s the first way it was influential on me: it was an early step on my route to becoming a career analyst.  The other was making me realise that I was never going to be a great guitarist.

But influential in the broader spectrum?  I think so, again in two ways.  Most importantly, it presaged a direction that would dominate the early seventies.  Previously, there’d been folk, there’d been rock, there’d been singers who wrote songs.  This was, I’d say, the very first instance of the folk-rock singer-songwriter. 

More trivially, the title of track 6 was reused by George Harrison as the first line of track 2 of ‘Abbey Road’ (as he later acknowledged); and the album contains the first ever recorded occurrence of the phrase ‘The Dark Side of the Moon.’

The album’s not on Spotify, but is available in iTunes.  (It’s the one with him lounging on the cover wearing braces.)  I recommend the very last bonus track, a solo demo of ‘Carolina In My Mind’, which will show you what I mean about being a great guitarist.

Of delicious sticks and birds

I recently showed you my collection of walking sticks, both of them, remember?  Well, I've just taken delivery of a third:

 

 

This isn't the first time Crosta e Mollica, purveyors of fine grissini, have delighted me with their imaginative breadstick designs.

You don’t have to work here to be mad…

… although it probably helps, if ‘here’ refers to the American Psychiatric Association, which has just announced [DSM-5] a whole new raft of mental illnesses, including over-eating sometimes, saying ‘no’ to your parents whilst being a child, liking sex too much (possibly whilst being a teenager), finding it hard to throw Stuff away, and having a strop over and above your assigned quota.

I exaggerate for comic effect (EXFCE syndrome, probably), but the serious point is that all these conditions are supposedly mainly rooted in biology (genes, diet and so forth) and correctible by pharmaceutical means, rather than environmentally rooted and correctible by listening and talking.  Of course, the truth is, and always has been, a mix of the two.  Nature vs nurture, ho hum.  The debate rages, apparently.

Anyway, extensive research within my own imagination has uncovered some as yet undiagnosed mental disorders:

OMM: Only Money Matters.  The belief that owning increasing volumes of the means of exchange trumps every other measure of well-being.  A secondary complication is PPDM, Poor People Don’t Matter.  The condition may well be hereditary.

MOAG: Must Own A Gun.  The concept that the only way to modify another’s behaviour is to kill them.  Prevalent in the Americas, but on the increase everywhere.  Either environmental or not, depending on whether you take ‘2001, A Space Odyssey’ to be literal truth.

BLAT: Big Lies Are Truth.  Not new, but resurfacing in subtle, genetically or statistically modified forms.

ADS: Austerity Deficit Syndrome.  The capability to persist in self-destructive activity because not to do so would be even more self-destructive.  Actually, that one’s quite sane, isn’t it?  So that means George Osborne is sane?  Oh, I see my case collapsing …

No known medication exists for any of these (believe me, they’ve tried them all), but a simple behavioural remedy is available, commonly known as a vote.

Caravan continued

I’m keeping it.  Last September I was seriously considering giving it up, after twelve years, and went so far as to semi-seriously offer it for sale, in a blog post.  The response was politely quiet, about which I’m now pleased.

I created the patio ten or so years ago, having spent a year observing how others were making theirs.   Over several weeks, deliveries would arrive from Travis Perkins, cement mixers would churn day and evening, waves of frustration and anxiety about levels would waft down the hill, and later over a glass Dave or Alwyn would  wonder why they’d bothered to start this.  I held my whisht and decided to do it in three days flat, applying third world construction techniques.  Levelling (Joseph'll do that once I peg it out); sand (borrow a wheelbarrow); lay the slabs on top.  Completed on 14^th July, my birthday, and half the population of the site rocked up clutching bottles to celebrate.  I expected it to last three years, then I’d just do it again.

It’s lasted ten, but when I went down to open up the other Tuesday, my heart sank.  Apart from the moss and the weeds and the general dilapidation (redundant water barrels, an old portapotty, rotting beach chairs, plastic bodyboards), there was the huge mistaken plant [Agave Americanus, I suspect] which had grown to six feet and was threatening to undermine the van as well as blocking out the view.  (I’d meant to take photos of this monster, but now I’m glad I didn’t.)

Joseph came round to say hello and collect the rent.  I happened to mention that I’d be down again at the weekend, with a friend.  He nodded and smiled.  “So are you happy, then?”

We arrived early afternoon on Saturday.  I walked round to the door, and shouted.  “He’s done it!”  B required elucidation.  “What?” she incisively enquired.   “Bloody hell, he’s done it!” I clarified.  Joseph had eradicated the vile plant and scrubbed the whole place clean.  The steps down towards the gulch (more of which another time) were visible and treadable.  We could see the view through the still bare trees across the sea to Monkstone Point.  (I’d always thought of those trees as a view-spoiler, until B pointed out that they are a view.  Black nervous systems against green, turquoise and more black.)

Joseph is a hero. “I thought I’d tidy it up for you, like,” he said, possibly with a wink, when I thanked him.

 

News From 2020

It’s hard to credit that, back in 2013, scarcely anyone managed to predict what now looks like the inexorable course of events which led to our current interesting times.  As an early adapter of Googapple’s ‘iToldUso’ app, I’m sending this summary back to an obscure blog.

In 2014, the Scots voted narrowly to secede from the hitherto United Kingdom, and to apply for new-country membership of the European Union, which was rapidly granted by a filing clerk in Brussels with too much time and an antique rubber stamp on his hands.  A mischievous condition was that they had either to join the Euro or create their own currency.  Naturally, the new Scottish government under President Ferguson chose the latter, and the Scottish Poond was born.  In a far-reaching compromise, it was agreed that it would be tied at parity to the Pound.

There was much debate as to the name for the remainder of the old United Kingdom.  ‘The United’ was rejected as divisive, especially given the Scottish president’s background, and an acronym from ‘Kingdom, England, Wales, And Northern iReland’ was deemed provocative.  Eventually, after a joint campaign by the Sun, the Mirror and the Telegraph, it was decided simply to call it ‘England’.

It all went quiet then, until in 2017 the Lawson government led England to victory in the referendum to leave the EU.  (Cameron having been forced to resign after his abject failure to renegotiate the shape of bananas and policemen’s helmets.)  The details are not yet clear, or even emerging, but it seems that the Poond has to stay tied to the Pound, which in turn may be tied to the Dollar, or maybe the Rouble.  Or the Renminbi.  Or something.  Meanwhile the Euro might, subject to a Europe-wide referendum, be split into two – the Neuro and the Seuro – leaving the European Central Bank isolated on the periphery. 

We shall see.  The planned referenda on Welsh, Cornish and East Anglian independence could prove to be influential.  Interesting times.  Unfortunately I have just been informed that the pilot of the iToldUso app has been cancelled due to lack of interest.

Not (*&^%$£(&

Just as an antidote to Zig's rant:

I finally got round to booking in some maintenance.  First stop, British Gas.

Three rings, short recorded message about gas leaks, two options, press 1, prove I'm me, then: "I need to book my annual service."  Quick availability check.  "This afternoon?"  "Yes please."  Turned up at 2 o'clock.

Second stop, ADT Security, alarm checkup.  Similar dialogue.  Choice of four dates, elected for Friday afternoon.  I'm confident they'll be here, probably for lunch.

I'm forming a theory that recession is good for us.

Not much to report, really

I haven’t been blogging a lot recently, because things have been haywire, in both good and bad ways.  The bad bits, to apply a bit of perspective, are mostly to do with technology.  Why do inanimate chunks of expensive metals and plastic alter their behaviour without being told to?  Microsoft and Toshiba, I’m looking at you.  And Vodafone.  And BMW.

I daren’t even venture in the direction of the waste zones of news and politics and economics and all that, I’m not ready to kill myself or anyone else.

I can’t tell you about the good haywires either, because … well, just because.  I’ll come clean eventually (maybe).  Meanwhile, here’s a smidgeon of good cheer.

Oh, for avid longterm followers (both of you), the Caravan Is Open.

Cup of sugar, anyone?

Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

I (mis)tweeted this the other night, partly in reaction to a disturbing article from 2005 by Jon Ronson about a man who killed himself because of his burden of computer-induced borrowing.*   Z responded “No point in coming to you for a cup of sugar, then”, so let’s get that out of the way first – I would be mortally offended if you were to turn up next day with a repayment.  I would weigh the sugar on the scales to make the point, and would check that the cup (if it was mine) wasn’t chipped.  (As you know full well!)

However, to get back to Shakespearean financial analysis.  Polonius was a sanctimonious old meddler who probably deserved all he got in his arras, and as father-to-son stuff his advice to Laertes might have been well-placed (and I’m aware that the whole speech is a comic piss-take): but Will requires us, whether he meant so or not, to generalise his wisdom, so we have to wonder whether it’s possible for everyone to be neither.

Of course, it is.  All we need to do is shut down the entire structure of human commerce.  And abolish money as a side-effect.  The notion of a world in which no borrowing or lending of money ever takes place is worth thinking about.  I was going to expand on this thought, until I realised I’d be missing my own point.

So.  My ninety-year-old friend K. insisted on paying her share of every taxi fare for every single Jersey journey, on the spot, because “I’ve never been in debt in my life and I’m not starting now.”   I tried to convey that she could just accept it as a gift, but she wasn’t having any. 

I said ‘human commerce’, which is ambiguous.  Can we measure out our human commerce solely in spoons of money, or should we be thinking in un-repaid cups of sugar and their real worth too?

* I highly recommend ‘Lost at Sea – The Jon Ronson Mysteries’ to anyone who wants to be simultaneously enraged and tickled pink by some of the absurdities of modern life.

No point coming to you for a cup of sugar, thenNo point coming to you for a cup of sugar, then

More Island Notes

As it’s a slow blog day, a bit more on the Jersey trip, mostly about the hotel.

It’s called the Ommaroo, located on the coast road from St Helier to Gorey – just go up round the hairpins past Fort Regent, drop back down and it’s on the left, can’t miss it; though the car park is a bit harder to find, as I discovered three times. 

It can’t be on the right, because that’s the sea, or what passes for it here – a rather scruffy curve of beach with some anonymous industrial constructs to the far south.  Before these, you see an elliptical area, ringed by a  rather brutalist concrete wall, which fills with water at high tide.  There’s a rather charming blue and white art deco pier running out beside it.  Apparently this was (and possibly might still be) a swimming pool.  During the Occupation, it was the only location on the island at which German soldiers (officers mostly, one would guess), because they weren’t in uniform, could consort freely with local girls.  Afterwards, they might repair to the Ommaroo for entertainment.  None of the Jersey natives I speak to are able to confirm or deny this legend.

The inside of the hotel is multi-levelled.  Although there are notionally three (or possibly four, hard to say) floors, each of these contains many mini-floors, so that if you’re entering from, say, the car park (as we did, naturally), you will ascend and descend four flights of two or more steps before you reach the reception area.  The charming Polish receptionist will then cart your cases halfway back the way you came until he sends you off  in another direction (through the coffee lounge) whilst he hauls them up some stairs “because the lift isn’t strong enough.”  (Lord knows why – I’ve shown you the lift’s rules.)   The lift is just inside the door from the car park.

K. manages, with my guidance, not to fall up or down any of those steps (although she does succeed next day in tripping over the baby gate at the top of her grand-daughter’s stairs, whilst trying to evade their labradoodle, but that’s another story*.)

At breakfast next morning, the waiters present K. with a surprise – a birthday cake, which has been delivered by some relatives.  She’s overwhelmed, of course, and the waiters aren’t even slightly perturbed by finding that there aren’t any candles to light.  Some other guests (who turn out to share her surname) come over and sing Happy Birthday.

Later, I ask John the taxi, who’s from the Midlands but has lived here for thirty-five years, knows everything there is to know about the place, and doesn’t like it, why it’s called the Ommaroo.  “Nobody knows,” he says.

I believe him.

I think it's one of the most delightful hotels I've ever stayed in.  I have Somerset Maugham visions.

 

*By the way, anyone want to buy a labradoodle puppy sometime next autumn?

Five notes from a small island

1.      Jersey roads are carefully designed such that all right turns from side roads onto mains are blind.  The solution is to edge forward, gently or aggressively according to how local you are, until someone gives way.  The driver who gives way will invariably have ‘H’, for ‘Hire car’, on their number plate.  I suspect this is an island sport.

2.      The Jersey Bug.  The hospital has closed for all but A&E admissions.  It strikes without warning, literally – one person had to exit from a high-powered meeting, again literally on the trot – and then wipes you out for twenty four hours.  This happened to almost everyone I had contact with, from Friday evening through to Monday morning.  The worst thing is that none of the doctors seem to be able to guess at the incubation period.  So I’m possibly still in with a chance.

3.      The toilet in the General’s house doesn’t have a lock.  We are instructed to sing loudly to advise our presence, K’s song being ‘The White Cliffs of Dover.’  Hence a new bit of local near-rhyming slang: “Just off for a white cliffs …”

4.      Here’s the notice in the hotel lift, which amused me.  I could have rounded up some candidates …

 

5.      What was 5?  Oh yes, it was K’s 90^th.  Despite some important guests being unable to make it due to (2.), she bounced back from the disappointment, feisty old tough Yorkshire pudding that she is, and had a great evening.  One thing that moved me was that people sent huge bouquets even though they knew she wouldn’t be able to ship them back home, just to show their affection.  (K, of course, moaned about ‘waste of money’, hiding her obvious delight; the General has arranged for surrogate bouquets to be delivered to Reading.)

Watch

I wanted to post something before I set off on my travels tomorrow, and struggled with selecting the most important of my scatterbrained thoughts, so instead chose the least consequential. 

[Oh if you insist – I’m off to Jersey again, on a two-engined aeroplane (both with propellers, I think), for my – and I’ve thought this one through – sisterinlawsmotherinlaws 90^th birthday party.  Saturday night, at the best venue on the island.  I’ll let you know how it goes].

Oh yes, the watch.  It’s at least twenty years old.  Cost £300ish when bought.  A couple of weeks ago it stopped.  Just like that.  I assumed it needed a battery (although normally they warn you by double-clicking the second hand) so I took it into the shop and they sent it away for assessment.  Turns out it needs a full service, at a cost of about £250.  I asked them what it would cost to replace it, at today’s prices.  About £1,600. 

It’s being repaired.  I love it, it’s an old friend.  It’s not that often that sentiment and attachment coincide with financial interest.

 

Rest in War

Lennon opined that Elvis died when he joined the army in 1958; I’d put it slightly later than that (it was when Blue Hawaii came out), but I agree in principle, and I mourned.  Thatcher, though, indisputably died when she was mortally savaged by a dead sheep in 1990, and yes, I rejoiced. Celebrating or abhorring her career was appropriate then; it’s a bit late now.  So I don’t feel any emotions in either direction now: ‘87 Year Old Woman Dies’ isn’t really a big headline.*   

Some will argue that this is a suitable moment to evaluate her legacy.  Indeed, whole forests of newsprint and terabytes of server space have been doing just that, with one theme emerging – the Lady was for fighting.  So I offer my post title as a respectful epitaph.

By way of evidence, I submit a couple of observations, with suitably martial keywords, regarding Wednesday’s State-lite** funeral:

·         Heartlessness: 800 members of various branches of the armed forces active in the Falklands war are to provide the guard of honour, but I don’t recall reading that similar honours are to be paid to the surviving families of the 255 British servicemen and women who died in that conflict.

·         Confrontation, or Conformance, take your pick: anyone who behaves in a (non-violent) manner ‘likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress’ along the processional route risks arrest under the Public Order Act.  

 

* Even if you add ‘at the Ritz.’

** It’s not a full State occasion, apparently, because that would involve revealing how it’s being paid for, not to mention invoking democratic processes in sanctioning it.

An Awfully Big Number

If I read his comments correctly, my brother was commiserating with me for my misjudged hubristic choice of not one but two BMWs (consecutive not concurrent), as against a VW, Peugot or Daiwoo.  The following anecdote will I’m sure further boost his self-esteem.  Bear with me, this could take some time.

The car, a BMW 335i coupé, was only a few days old when I went the wrong way down a hill in Bradwell, Derbyshire, and heard a crunch ahead of me.  The bend was too tight and there was an invisible raised kerb.  As is my wont, I took it on board, made sure it was still driveable and carried on back home to Reading.  My usual approach to such situations can be summed up as a simultaneous ‘oh shit’ and ‘oh well’.

Over the next few years, the beemer’s front bumper acquired a few more scratches and scrapes, until about eighteen months ago I decided it was becoming embarrassing and took it in to the garage.  I was directed to the Body Shop, where I discovered that they didn’t use Tea Tree Blackhead Exfoliating Wash but instead simply scraped the skin off and repainted it, at a cost of £450.  I made my excuses and left.

So, one day last week, I’m parking up at Waitrose when I accidentally pull six inches too far over what proves to be my second, fatal, high kerb nemesis.  I have no choice but to reverse off, knowing what’s coming.  Sure enough, a familiar crunch sound.  The man parking two slots along shakes his head.  “That’s why I always reverse in.”  But then I wouldn’t be able to get the trolley to the boot; and what’s a kerb doing there anyway? and several other thoughts flash across my mind, before I splutter “Why do they make the kerbs so high?”  He shakes his head again.  “They’ll just say BMW make the cars too low.”

So it’s back to the Body Shop.  It’s the same man as eighteen months ago.  “You again?” he doesn’t say, though I can hear him think it.  We take a look.  By now I’m getting used to people shaking their heads at my car.  “The bumper has to be replaced.”  He doesn’t say ‘this time’.  He doesn’t need to say how cheap it’s going to be.  As we walk away, the £ meter ticking up by the step, he does a double take.  “Oh dear.  It’s cracked the wing too.”

So here’s the awfully big number, which will make my brother glad he chose a VW.

£1,637.64, plus VAT.  I really like the .64. 

It went in this morning, and will be ready Tuesday.  I have a nice little Citroen loan car, which I shall hammer the guts out of over the next few days.  And I had a polite call at lunchtime, advising me that they’d found a wee dent in a door sill and a scratch somewhere else, and would I like them to fix those too, for another £500.01? 

Fridge Soup.ugh

Do not under any circumstances be tempted to combine an onion, two cloves of garlic, a yellow pepper, some purple sprouting broccoli, three sticks of celery, half a tin of left-over plum tomatoes and a pint of turkey stock from Christmas, in the hope of getting a free lunch.  The result is disgusting.

Sibling Rivalry

Milimajor is crossing the Atlantic because he can a) no longer bear the scoffs and scorn of his erstwhile so-called colleagues in the so-called Labour party; b) no longer bear the carefully disguised pitying over-the-shoulder eye contact from Miliminor; or c) has been offered a seriously better paid job doing something useful, read the subtle tweets from godfather Tone, and thought ‘fuck all that, I’m outa here.  And I wasn’t really that into football anyway.’ 

As a fellow victim of sibling rivalry, I feel for him.  Tell me about it.  My brother has, throughout his life, outplayed me in almost every aspect of attainment.  I hardly know where to start, but the motorbike will do.  At seventeen, I mooted the idea of getting one, like my mates, and was forcibly made to wash my mouth out with two-stroke and write a hundred times ‘I must not think about motorbikes’.  Five years later, guess who’s whizzing around Bournemouth on some kind of Norton.  Or maybe it was a Vincent Black Shadow.  Doesn’t matter.  I’ve got over it.

Let’s go back further.  I was expected, at the age of ten, to look after him whilst my parents were swanning around doing work and stuff and my sister was trying to become a teenager.  Did he ever do the same for me?  Did he hell.  Even when I dropped him on his head in a train game involving dining room chairs, he showed no gratitude.  He just got up, bleeding from his eyebrow, and howled.  I was gutted, I remember: at least, I thought, you could have thumped me, shown some recognition.  But no, it was all about him.  And he must have been at least four, you’d expect some maturity, wouldn’t you?

And don’t start me on technology.  He was configuring wireless networks when I was still stringing coax cables across the pull-down kitchen clothes dryer.  He had the country’s first Pioneer 100-CD multi-changer just after I’d moved on from 78s, and the day after I got one, he gently, without a smidgeon of smugness, told me about this new gadget called MP3.  And don’t start me on the Fiesta XR2 – how heartless is it to upgrade to a Peugot 309 GT something-or-other the day after, on his advice, I’d bought one of those?  (Or my employers had, to be exact.)

And now – and now! – he’s moving house!!  Just like that: a mere eighteen months in the process, start to finish.  I’ve been trying to achieve this for at least three years, and haven’t got past the stage of ‘who’ll empty the attic for me?’, never mind ‘ where might I move to?’ or even ‘why would I want to?’ or ‘where’s the vertical equivalent of this sofa?’  And the little tinker just ups and does it!

Clearly, I’m going to have to rethink this relationship.  Right, done that: I still play better guitar than him.  Oh, but he plays better mouth organ than me. 

Just to round the week off –

- a few political quotes:

“Who knows what these regimes will look like in ten, twenty years time?” – D. Cameron.  That would be the United States, Russia, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea.  Oh, and the United Kingdom.

“We are welcoming entrepreneurs and wealth creators and the jobs they bring with them.” – G. Osborne.  Welcome, immigrant Russian oligarchs.  Bring your own minimum wage slaves.

“Of course I can’t live on £53 a week, and no-one should ask anybody to do so.” – IDS.  Erm, I may have made that one up.

“Not before time!”

Well, how very rude!  Luckily, I wasn’t there when a passing neighbour made this remark to house-painter John up his ladder.  I’m pretty sure I know who she was though, in which case I know there’d have been an accompanying sideways smile and she’d have paused for a little chat.  Plus, she was dead right.

I’ve been trying to get the outside of this house decorated for two years now.  Actually, ‘decorated’ is over-ambitious; I didn’t want décor –  pastel stucco, Laura Ashley front door, Cotswold stone-cladding –  I just wanted the crumbling sills and rusting Crittall casements salvaged, given a bit of TLC and painted: white.  Easy, you’d think, especially in these hard times.  Over the course of 2012, I was given some acceptable quotes, and reasonable quality assurances, all of which I was happy to accept – until I asked the fatal question: “So, when can you do it?”  Hums and hahs and head-scratchings would ensue.  I’d play a key escalation card: “This year?”  “Oh yes, almost certainly this year.”  “Almost?”  More scratching.  Often a mobile would ring about now:  a ploy, I decided.  Notebooks would be consulted.  “We’ll have a look at the schedule and get in touch.”

As the wintery summer wore into the bleak winter and then the heartlessly withheld promise of spring, I forgot about it.  A diary note for mid-April: ‘Decorators.’  My sigh wasn’t written on the page, but it might as well have been.

 

One Sunday morning three or so weeks ago, I was seeing a friend off when I was hailed from a ladder across the Close.  I’d noticed him on and off over some time, painting, repairing, tearing down overgrowth in the garden of the empty house.  He climbed down.

“D’ye wanname ta tek a lookit?  I ken see it needs a wee bi’ o’ TLC.”

I agreed with what I thought he’d said.  He took a look around, poked his screwdriver into one of the kitchen windowsills, a large chunk of which fell to the ground.

“Aye, bit nesh, that’ll need a remake.”  He shook his head.  “At least two tins of Tupac.  I’ll get that.  And a gallon Weathershield.  And the undercoat.”  Another headshake.  “Ye’re lookin’ at one-fifty.”  I thought silence was the best approach at this stage.  “An’ then there’s the labour.”  He broke out the huge grin I would get to expect over the coming times, and uttered a number I thought I must have misheard, until he repeated it and then, looking around again, revised it upwards by £200 “because ye never know till ye gei underneath,” and offered his hand.

I shook it, then asked the question.

“Ah well, I haftae finish up here, then I’m on a holday tae the Gambia wi’ me daughter in April … so I’ll need some spendin’ cash fe that … so – nex’ week?”

 

He completed the job on Good Friday, whilst I was away.  When I got back I noticed he’d painted the gates.  He came round this morning for his money, and explained.

“I was hangin’ about fa Robbie to finish, and I dinna like doin’ nothing.  And I thought I cannae leave it like that, not wi’ that black paint in the can.”  The grin came.  “Nae extra.”

John, who’s 67, says he can’t bear not working, and will go anywhere.  I have his number.

Very good year?

From yesterday's Observer, page 21:

'[Robert Owen] married Caroline Dale in 1799 and had seven children.  In the same year, he bought the New Lanark cotton mill ...'

Those Industrial Revolution philanthropists sure knew about hard work.

100 Things Not To Do Before You Die

(Or do again.) 

(Inspired by my sister's nut loaf recipe.)

The first twenty five:

1.      Make a nut loaf.

2.      Make a nut roast.

3.      Cook nuts in anything other than a stirfry, and then only under very precise circumstances dictated by Kenneth Lo.

4.      Drink Drambuie by the schooner.

5.      Eat tripe.

6.      Eat reduced oysters.

7.      Drink Mateus Rosé by the pint.

8.      Lose the car.

9.      Dream about losing the car.

10.  Drown your sorrows.

11.  Buy any more technology on spec.

12.  Put dead technology in the attic.

13.  Fall asleep during ‘The One Show’.

14.  Stay awake during ‘The One Show’.

15.  Try to grow parsley from seed.

16.  Poke a crumbly cork through the neck into the bottle.

17.  Go to North Africa for a relaxing holiday.

18.  See Naples (except from the sea).

19.  Fail to watch paint dry.

20.  Try to beat the T-reg BMW off the lights.

21.  Drink too much for celebration.

22.  Neglect your strengths.

23.  Walk away from situations without resolving them.

24.  Accidentally eat a whole packet of salted cashew nuts whilst not watching ‘The One Show’.

25.  Vote UKIP.

 

 

 

Visible Means of Support

On the Antiques Roadshow, someone had a collection of walking sticks.  They all seemed to be quite valuable, so I dashed out to the hall to check the two I have.  I’m fairly sure they are both worthless in money, but they’ve made me wonder, as seems to happen quite often recently about things, where they came from and what they might really be worth, in history.

 

The one on the right, I suspect, belonged to my maternal grandfather, Esmond Lloyd Rae.  I remember quite a lot about him, but mostly dating from his latter days when he was stroke- and bedridden, blind, and I had to kiss his stubbly cheek goodnight in his smelly room.  In earlier years he was a jolly music-loving toper who grew raspberries and kept chickens; and he played the violin well, I was often told.  I don’t think I ever heard him play, although can one ever be sure about that kind of thing? – when was the first time you ever heard the sound of a violin? 

That walking stick, with its cool black ebony finish and the firmly functional no-nonsense knob at the top, looks to me exactly like the kind of accessory a proud Yorkshireman called Esmond would brandish on a youthful promenade in Wakefield.  So that’s the imaginary story I’m assigning to that one.

 

The one on the left intrigues me more.  The handle is carved ivory, and looks as though it’s been well-caressed.  (The carvings round the top are quite worn.)   More importantly, although you can’t see it in the photo, the ferrule bears the inscription ‘F G L’.  Knowing what I do of my family history, the ‘F’ must stand for Frank, and the ‘L’ for Large; but what about the ‘G’?  It could only be George, couldn’t it?  But there isn’t a Frank George Large in the family tree my sister compiled, which took that side back to at least 1840. 

And off goes my imagination again.  I want to see Frank George, in the early 19^th century, switching this walking stick around, sauntering along the towpath at Lechlade, just for show.  And I want to know what he was thinking about.

I never will, obviously, so I’ll have to make it up.  Meanwhile, I’ve just recently spotted someone else’s collection of shooting sticks … 

Five questions

Because my concentration levels on anything other than top-of-the-range matters seem to be more depleted than the country’s gas reserves at the moment, no brain reserves left for deeper analysis.  So:

1.      How come Cyprus needs bailing out?  It’s only little.

2.      What’s a ‘reader’, and how come I’ve never wanted one?

3.      How come my local news tells me about snowdrifts in Arran?

4.      Why doesn’t San Marino need bailing out, then?

5.      Why did the man in the VW Polo nearly kill us both this morning in order to get in front of me on the single-lane section of the A4 in order to turn left at the roundabout?

Just join the Club, silly!

“You can’t have one law for members of a club and another for non-members,” a senior executive of a newspaper group is quoted as saying, in connection with the proposed new press regulatory regime, whereby publications that decline to be regulated will be subject, in some instances, to harsher conditions than those who join.  (I simplify, of course.)

Funny, I thought the whole point of joining a club was to gain some benefit.  What else is a Tesco Clubcard for?  (From the holder’s point of view, of course – I’m sure Tesco’s get something out of it too.)  And I wouldn’t expect to be able to just swan into Boodles and help myself to the port without having joined.  But then journalists do tend, like Humpty Dumpty, to use words to suit their own purposes, don’t they?

It rather reminds me of an elderly relative of mine who regularly complains about being referred to some website, because “I’m not on the bloody internet!”  The suggestion that this could easily be remedied simply by joining up is met with no more than a shake of the head.

goblldyeokoeb, or something

Please rearrange these letters into a meaningful sentence or phrase, or word - or letter even:

'Adaptive behavior is a type of behavior that is used to adjust to another type of behavior or situation. This is often characterized by a kind of behavior that allows an individual to change an unconstructive or disruptive behavior to something more constructive. These behaviors are most often social or personal behaviors. For example a constant repetitive action could be re-focused on something that creates or builds something. In other words the behavior can be adapted to something else.
Maladaptive behavior is a type of behavior that is often used to reduce one's anxiety, but the result is dysfunctional and non-productive. For example, avoiding situations because you have unrealistic fears may initially reduce your anxiety, but it is non-productive in alleviating the actual problem in the long term. Maladaptivity is frequently used as an indicator of abnormality or mental dysfunction, since its assessment is relatively free from subjectivity. However, many behaviors considered moral can be apparently maladaptive, such as dissent or abstinence'

OK, I'll do it for you:

"GET OVER IT, GET ON WITH IT!"

Fun with Plugholes

Today, nothing original or inspired, because I’m far too occupied with other things for creative thought.  So just a few quotes from the packaging of my brand-new bottle of Plughole Unblocker:

·         New power formula even more effective at dissolving hair and sludge.

·         Causes severe skin burns and eye damage.

·         Do not breathe fumes.

·         Wear protective eyewear, clothing and gloves.

·         If swallowed, rinse mouth.  Do NOT induce vomiting.

·         If in eyes, rinse continuously with water for several minutes.  Immediately call a POISON CENTRE or doctor.

·         Follow us on Facebook for exciting news and competitions.

·         Plugholes need love too.  

Alert!

I visited a website just now which activated something called, I think, “Anti-Virus Professional”, informed me that various files were corrupted, I had 39 viruses, and invited me to buy their product for a large number of dollars.  Oh yes, and I received warnings that I needed to update Adobe Flash (even though I know I don’t).  And was warned about trojans.

I tried to run BT NetProtect (McAfee) and couldn’t.  I was told to restart my virus protection software!

I shut down the computer and restarted it, and all seems to be well.  McAfee scan gives all clear.

Just thought I’d pass this on.  Looks like a scam to me!

Crossword Poetry, anyone?

Here are some words from today’s Guardian Quick:

 Tale; antiquary; toff; itchy feet; florid; huff; still life; jute; sloppy joe; zephyr; florid; huff; urge; plight; domino; signet; bullfight; Zurich; bête noire; charm; lope …

 Come on, I know you’re out there …  Start with the tale of a florid antiquary with itchy feet who lopes off to Zurich in a huff ...

Getting Glassed?

Interesting debate about Google’s new product, which will enable us to upload a personal Ego Log (ha!) to Big Brother in exchange for glassfuls of digital Soma (to mix my dystopias).

The worry is that, whereas it’s easy to tell when a smartphone is in use, and hence to evolve a set of behavioural etiquette, no such constraints apply to the Glass.  True, the pilot version is voice activated, but they’ll soon get round that – I bet 2.0 will let you start filming or whatever by rolling your eyes and blinking in a particular way (customisable of course).  Thus you’ll be constantly on the watch, in any social situation, for odd facial tics that might suggest that from now on whatever you do or say will end up on YouTube, and maybe at GCHQ (I exaggerate slightly), and deciding whether to retaliate by going Glass-to-Glass, start acting out of character, or walk away.  In any case, it looks like a conversation killer at the least – and I haven’t even mentioned dancing.

I haven’t seen anything about power supply or battery life yet, but in theory there’s a simple solution: a red light on the front.  This works for many domestic appliances*, and would put the device back into the same place as the phone and the camera.  It would also spoil the fun, though.  In fact it could end up being divisive, with a sub-culture (Glass Class?) of addicts huddled in modern-day equivalents of opium dens, out-glassing each other while the rest of us get on with real life.  Who knows.

One tip though: don’t use it in central Glasgow on a Friday night.  Unless you want to get glassed for real.

 

*Although on my iron, perversely, the red light goes out when it’s hot.

Number four from yesterday

“Do you have glis glis yet?” I was asked.  “You know, the ones Baron Rothschild brought over?”

“Keep talking,” I replied.  “This is bound to start meaning something eventually.”

When I got home I did some research.  It’s not in Chambers, even under its common name of ‘edible dormouse’, but the internet is less reticent.  These largeish rodents (by dormouse standards) were indeed brought over from Europe by the then Baron Rothschild, in 1902, and installed in his bestiary at Tring Park.  Naturally, they escaped (or were released if you believe the Daily Mail) and since then have apparently been devastating house prices across a 200 square mile of the Home Counties.   Well, you don’t want things that go bump in the night in your attic, do you?  Or that have developed the noteworthy skill of being able to gnaw through electric cables without being electrocuted.

They do have some endearing features though.  Their name, for a start.  ‘Glis glis’ must be one of the few cases of the scientific name being prefeered in the vernacular to the common one.  ‘Edible dormouse’ somehow isn’t very appealing – although they were indeed eaten in large numbers by the ancient Romans, and still are in Slovenia.  Also, they can make a noise like a lawnmower; it doesn’t say what sort, but I’m guessing not a Flymo or a sit-on diesel-engined one.  And best of all, they like to climb up window panes and then slide back down.  Aw!

If you find one, you’re not allowed to kill or release it – they’re a protected species!  You have to call your environmental health agency, who will come and take it away.  God knows what they do with it: hand it over to the present Baron Rothschild, presumably.  Or have it for supper.   

Five minus Two

1.       I had occasion to be browsing a local paper in South Buckingham yesterday, and came across this headline on page 5: ‘Mystery Aardvark Found Dead’.  Mr Python lives!

2.      Some research has uncovered a totally forgotten track by my old band, Dave Anthony’s Moods, called ‘So Nice’.  It’s weird and, well, weird.  More later, maybe.

3.      The best joke in the Billy Elliot musical [SPOILER, but can’t resist it]: Billy receives his reply from the dancing school and reads the envelope, frowning.  “William Elliot is queer?”  His dad snatches it and reads.  “ESQUIRE!!”

4.      Will be about some strange wee beasties, and

5.      There isn’t a 5. 

 

 

What I saw in London yesterday

Well, the main thing was, of course, ‘Billy Elliot – The Musical’, of which more later.  The visit was a Christmas present from my dear relatives L and A.  Last year, seasoned readers may recall, they took me to ‘War Horse’, so my expectations weren’t high, because that show takes some beating.  I’d seen the Billy film, years ago, and cordially disliked it for its simplicity and near-mawkishness; and the music is by Sir Elton, of whom I can’t admit to being the world’s greatest admirer (or even in the top million).

Bessie, the heiress of last year’s satnav Florence, did a better job than her mother.  We were told less often not to turn prematurely off the M4, and she guided us flawlessly through the labyrinths of Knightsbridge (the only Tube station, incidentally, to contain nine consonants in a single word) and Chelsea to Victoria Coach Station.  Entering the car park, I was delighted by the message on the screen of one of the ticket dispensers: “Sorry, This Machine Is Sleeping.”  Also by the platoon of life-sized cut-out construction workers in visibility jackets and hardhats, who guided us across the roads, bearing arrowed placards saying things like “Please wait until you see the green man”, to the Victoria Palace Theatre.

I hadn’t been there before, which isn’t surprising as I’ve only been to about eight West End theatres in my life.  It’s well worth a look, a flamboyant Edwardian excess complete with red velvet and gilded frontages to the dress circle and royal box.  My only criticism is that Edwardian audiences were obviously expected to have narrower bums than us.  (Not a problem for me, but I did observe a few arriving patrons and wondering how exactly they were going to take their seats.)

Anyway, the curtain rose (or rather, didn’t quite: go see), and I was gripped.  I’m not a theatre critic, so let me just say that nearly three hours have never seemed so short.  Here’s my four word review (one of which is a direct quote from the script):  IT IS F*CKING BRILLIANT!