As I draw ever closer to the day when recording my new album becomes a necessity, so the desire to be ready for it drives me on. I learned to play guitar in my early twenties though I have to confess I was never particularly talented or technically proficient - just good enough to embarass specialist players at my level - especially since I was a drummer by trade. Mostly I just embarassed myself.
Nonetheless it's been twenty years since I played guitar anything like seriously, so in order to
In some ways I'm lucky. I'm just old enough to remember seeing steam locomotives working mainline services on British Rail. Steam engines have this animistic quality which endures despite the nerdy image of those who like them. As for me, I've always had a soft spot for this powerful works of art that belch smoke and hiss and chuff... Well, you know what I mean. The distant sounds of whistles still draw my attention. I remember this forgotten world. All those sounds behind rows of trees, the exq
Today is not a good day. And the subject of my woe? That's an interestng question in itself. It ought to be about my car, the Eunos Cabriolet slowly disintegrating with a little help from a vandal or two. Reason being that it's gone. Vanished. Disappeared.
I mean, did someone ctually bother to steal it? You couldn't just drive it away. But gone it most certainly has, snatched away more or less from under my nose yesterday afternoon.I only realised it was gone late into the evening. I doubt i
Another blow to my individuality stares me in the face this morning. In my emails is a reply to a job application which says my attempt to persuade a certain job agency that I would like to be put forward for this particular role is now considered spam.
If that doesn't confirm what an obstacle to finding a job the employement agnecies are, what is? So many vacancies are now exclusively in the hands of these agencies who frankly worry more about their contracts than their customers. I hate ag
I've decided cars are female. They just are. most are frumps unfortunately. Some are reliable, others not. Some have interesting personalities, many simply don't talk to you or keep on nagging because you left the bootlid up.
Then there's cars like Ferrari. Curvaceous redheads with tight leather, vivacious, demanding. You just know she's going to be trouble but you can't help yourself.
I say this because going through some old papers I discovered my report from a racing school where I dr
A while ago I mentioned AM. he's that geriatric New Zealander who just won't keep quiet. Well, as a young man he was in the East African Rifles in Tanganyika - I assume he is actually telling the truth about that although it would suprise me if its all bluster, he does tend to.. - and regards himself as an expert on all things african.
This morning, as we waited for the library to open, he commented at length on his opnions of the regretable violence that has escalated in Kenya. His opnion w
Where to start? As one novelist once wrote, "at the start". Joining or forming rock bands as a teenager is something of an exercise in folly.
A chap I used to used to know at work would say it was all about acceptance, that by making yourself an entertainer, even at such a low level, you improve your popularity. He might be right. It would account for the endless stream of people who joined my bands only to wander away again when they found out they weren't going to be rock stars the day after
Manhood is a difficult quality to define, for no other reason than it means something different to everyone, and even then the definition can vary according to the situation you're in. In general, its defined by the various social groups by their own standards.
I remember my school days. The 'lads', the dominant members of our youthful community, would always inhabit the toilet so as to smoke cigarettes in seclusion away from the disapproving gaze of irate teachers. They regarded smoking as
That about wraps it up for the warmest October on record. Still humid, still sweaty, and a damp drizzly day. "That's a right ol' rain that is." Commented some old guy as I left the library this morning. He was right. It was like being sprayed by a fine hose. Clearly a gentleman with much experience in the ways of Wiltshire weather.
Yesterday was of course a good deal sunnier and I wandered around Croft Wood, taking in the solitude between dog walking shifts. It's never going to be as quiet a
And now on Channel UNRV, we go deep into the rainforest as Caldrail Attenborough presents Planet Alleyway...
(Cue theme music and titles)
Hello. I'm Caldrail Attenborough, and this is a typical back alleyway in the depths of the rainforests of Darkest Wiltshire. In the next hour we'll looking at the rich variety of wildlife that exists in this remote corner of England, and hopefully, we'll discover some of the more exotic and reclusive creatures that live in Planet Alleyway.
We enter
Back when I was very young, I remember a particularly vivid dream. I was wandering along a beach, in bright sunshine. My companion was a girl though I don't know what the relationship was supposed to be. Anyway, there was a rushing noise and the sea went out, like a low tide but much more dramatic and far reaching. It seemed as if the sea had vanished in the blink of an eye.
My companion, entranced and excited by this amazing sight, ran here and there, jumping in puddles of seawater among th
Maybe it was inevitable. Once again the internal dissent in Syria inspires a report that government forces are still cracking down on anyone they can find worth cracking. Sometimes you have to wonder how objective news reporting actually is because after watching film of tanks rolling down deserted streetsI kind of wonder if half these actions are designed to create news rather than achieve any worthwhile objective.
Another question that comes to mind is how long the west are ging to sit on
Some of you might have seen Thunderbirds, that wonderful 60's puppet series by Gerry Andersen. Every episode some daring engineering achievement goes horribly wrong, and our square jawed lads from a pacific island rush into action with their futuristic machinery to rescue everyone from the explosions guaranteed in the final moments. Well then. Sit back, switch the TV on, and watch as the Warehouse bring in our new office.
As forklifts go, this one is pretty big. It dwarfs the cabin resting o
In recent years Swindon has gotten into festivals. A couple of years ago we had a festival of Innovation, which I suspect was not entirely innovative, but since I never attended it I'll have to assume that Swindon was wowed by new and exciting stuff.
Last year we had the LEGO-fest. What? You missed it? Shame on you. The museum still has the Mario mosaic crafted lovingly in, yes, you guessed it, LEGO. Proof that Swindon is James May's natural enviroment.
Now looming on the horizon is the
Our local councillor, SP, is a man with a mission, and he's talking rubbish. Yes, I said rubbish. His five point plan on waste issues in our area is now posted through everybodies door - he means business. Well good luck SP. I know you mean well, but lets be honest, if you want to cure fly tipping what difference are adverts, thicker bags, and busibodies telling you to recycle a bottle going to do? Not a lot. Old mattresses, discarded clothes, and an endless supply of black plastic bags will sti
If you've wondered why I don't say much about fun things at work, its because work isn't fun right now. AD, the guy I've been trained to replace, has decided not to retire after all. Orders are small and right now I spend about ten minutes every morning labelling goods for transport. Job done. I know there are people who would give their right arm for a laid back existence like that, but isn't an inactive workplace the worst possible place to be stuck in? The clocks move backward, everyone else
Every year the English go one better than spending a weekend parked on a Bank Holiday motorway. They go on their summer hols. I always find it remarkable that the English generally regard the rest of the world as their playground.
The most popular playground for many years has been Spain. Now up until now I always thought this was because Spanish hotels were so unfinished that it didn't matter if drunken English tourists wrecked them. We English do like to remind other countries of our victo
Poor old badgers. They do seem to be getting in the neck right now, with a government authorised cull in progress. As it happens badgers have always had a difficult existence what with rural baiters and the like. A couple of years ago I headed out into the countryside for a hike and by the roadside was a dead badger impaled on a stick, clearly left for someone to see. I wonder who?
I must be honest, at the time that gory sight left me unmoved. Hard to understand why. Witnessing the natural w
Okay. I've managed to get myself back off the floor. Wiped the last tears from my face, and given a last chuckle or two. But why, you may ask?
A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I would fall off my chair laughing if I ever heard a boss moaning that he couldn't find the staff. When I checked the local paper for job vacancies an editorial piece headlined with "Skilled Workers Are Hard To Find".
No, they're not. You simply have to create them instead of fishing in a market that everyone
For some strange reason the museum sells plastic balls that play voices from Family Guy. Only one on the premises actually works. We know, because we conducted a quality test this morning. I guess you had to be there.
Missed Call
My mentor at the programme centre is getting a little anxious. She's keen to get me a job before I finish the course and the frequency of her emails has gone up an order of magnitude. What makes it worse is that she doesn't seem to understand I have no internet con
We don't own the Shed we work in. No, we rent it, at a stupid price, from NF the site manager. NF wants us out of the Shed so he could squeeze us in with all our pallets in the Hangar, and rent the Shed to someone else at an even stupider price. Which sort of backfired a little because we're shortly to move down the road to rent warehouse space from a professional company at a stupider price still.
Now I turn up for work one morning. I have to walk through the Hangar to reach the yard, but f
Many years ago I went off one weekend to visit a kit car show. It meant a long journey there and back the same day but I was young, enthusiastic, and totally nuts about cars, or indeed most things that moved courtesy of an internal combustion engine.
Needless to say the main hall was packed full of all sorts of DIY cars. Fun cars, serious cars, wierd cars, and a few that turned out to be infamous money pits. I wandered among replicas of ferrari's and lamborghini's that seemed almost as expe
Sooner or later they infiltrate your home. No matter how secure you believe your privacy to be, they find ways to intrude upon your premises. Even when you discover their presence, there's a good chance they will find a way to escape you, and worse still, no matter how hard you try to push them out, they will find a way back against all adversary.
Yes, the spider is at large in my home. I know he's up there, I've seen him, scurrying across the no-mans land of the carpet in a mad dash to find
I woke up this morning in a sort of tired downbeat mood. Sort of like that monday feeling but delayed by two days for extra suffering. Wednesdays in Swindon are always greyer than normal. Don't know why, they just are. It's traditional.
You see, the thirteen weeks of my placement are coming to an end. I hate to admit it but I've actually enjoyed being there. Well, maybe not quite all the time, just enough of it to bring a tear to my cheek as I look back and remember my time as J's disciple.
Earlier today I saw a young woman ambling from shop to shop, dressed in her chosen summer wear, totally at a loss to comprehend why it wasn't baking hot under a blue sky. It was as if rainfall was an alien experience to her. So either she's a seductress from another planet sent here to spawn a new super-race with us lowly earth-beings, or she's suffering the same limited memory span that most of us do. Yes, dear, sometimes it rains. Even in Swindon.
As it happens I think the rain is long ove
