It was one of those uncomfortably hot nights. We're due to get more of them soon, and worse, as the midday temperatures are predicted to reach thirty degrees centigrade, which is the offically the point at which the British melt. Sleeping on nights like those is defined as the moments of weariness between rolling around in your own sweat. Instead, I sat bleary eyed and watched television, idlely flicking through channels in the vain hope of finding a programme that was even remotely interesting.
There was a time when music store assistants smiled when I entered their shop. That was back in the eighties of course, when money was easily had and quickly spent, and a time when we were more prosperous even if we didn't know or felt it so. Whereas once all I seemed to do was buy things, all I seem to do now is repair things, or rather pay someone else to.
Last night I got the call from the music store to tell me my latest repair job was ready for collection. That particular box of tricks
I live in a world that is increasingly surreal. I admit that. My horizons have shrunk enormously with the loss of transport and means to pay for it. That alone shouldn't be too significant because although I don't get out of the house much these days, I used to do so a great deal, thus I recall how it was to have a life.
Ahh, yes, those were the days! Pummelling peoples ears with a drum kit, flying aeroplanes, driving fast cars, and generally acting like every other young man with enough mon
Those lads have done a grand job painting the outside of the house. For me the best thing is that they've run out of Perry Como songs, but at least the paint looks fresh.
They did carefully lay out dayglo 'wet paint' tape everywhere to stop people getting paint all over their clothes, which sort of made the place look like a crime scene. And since it was necessary to leave the outer door open last night (to avoid the wet paint gluing the door and keeping me trapped inside) some wag decided t
The car roars across the desert. Fast paced action and immediate editing. A robot-like individual steps off his Harley Grav-bike and asks a tussle-haired young man standing fresh faced and breathless before him...
"Who are you?" (Always a good intoduction I think. Find out you the tussle haired kid is before he mugs you and sprays tags over your grav-bike)
"James Tiberius Kirk!" The young man responds with film actor defiance. No. Surely not. Star Trek has evolved toward the lowest possi
Hilary Clinton has made a fashionably late visit to our shores and naturally the press conference followed. It's becoming a bit of a soap opera. Is it just me, or are political speeches becoming a bit commonplace? To some extent that's partly because of modern media coverage. With so many channels and air-time to fill, it seems politicians are rising to the challenge of opportunity. I guess that's politics. If you want to get ahead in that business you need people to hear you.
The subject m
What a difference a layer of cloud makes in the first embers of daylight! Unlike Wednesday morning, today it was dark again when I made my way to work. It was bound to be one of those days. My boss made her usual cheerful appearance and said "I've got a little job for you."
Little jobs? Now that they've discovered stock they didn't know they had, they're dropping prices on almost everything and my boss informed me that my job was to write the new price on every tag. That meant checking throu
Every week I attend a work club. You remember the film Full Monty? yep, that's us, a disparate group of individuals all sat for an afternoon plugging away despondently at our job search and ready for any high jinks to pass the time of day.
The chap who runs the club has obviously gotten bored of the shy silence that normally pervades our sessions. No-one seems keen to talk to each other, although last week we had a competition to find the stupidest vacancies online. I managed to find a chin
It's monday. Again. Worse than that, it also happens to be Valentines Day, so it's a bit like Friday the 13th but without all that walking under ladders stuff. Tonight is the annual pilgrammage of single males into the pubs and clubs around town, hoping that some girl will catch their eye. It's all a lost cause of course, and I won't bother. What's the point? I'm not going to be able to get to the bar.
All right, I admit it, I was sent a valentine message by a certain lady of my aquaintance.
I dropped down to the library this morning... Whaddaya mean you thought I might?.... anyway, I turned up a little earlier than normal and although the foyer was open, the rest of the building was closed off with a folding door. The security guards religiously open this barrier three minutes after opening time, every day. This morning it seems even that task was too onerous. No guard was in sight.
Eventually a pair of librarirans bravely decided to open for business. They went into the small
Amongst the crop of job adverts I've had to trawl through this week is a remarkable chance to be Country Manager in Denmark. They want a new ruler who can increase their market share. So if you want to blitzkrieg Europe at the command of the Danish armed forces apply now.
Of course armed forces need fuel. I was interested to discover a vacancy for an oil company in Kyrgyzstan. Managing a pileline in some forgotten corner of the world doesn't strike me as an exciting opportunity, though it w
The guy in the music store has known me for many years. He's a nice chap, as far as it a shopkeeper can be. I guess I've spent a fair few quid buying instruments, drumsticks, strings, and several guitars in that period. He is of course, a businessman first, and kept a poker face as I manhandled my ailing keyboard through his doors.
Yes, another technological toy has bit the dust. My long suffering Yamaha keyboard, which must be nearly a quarter century old, a veteran that saw action on the f
The last twenty hours have been pretty much a treadmill of non-eventfull tedium. I hope you'll understand therefore if I delve into my stars for today in the hope that commercial journalism will reveal my future! If I have one, that is, I am unemployed in the midst of the worst recession since World War Two.
Unfortunately my daily horoscope merely tells me that my difficulties with technical details shouldn't stop me from pursuing my vision. That's an ethereal pep talk if ever I've heard one
There's been a trend in recent years toward 're-enactment' documentaries. It isn't enough to simply tell us what went on, and show us maps, film clips, music, sounds, and the odd talking head, but now you have to get people doing these things to see what it's like. My own feeling is that you're going to fail, because the only people who know what it's like are the ones who went through the experience for the cameras, and then we only see the edited highlights.
There was one where a bunch of
An early start this morning was required. I'd even had a phone call from a claims advisor to warn me that I had to get out of bed this morning. There was no problem waking up. Punch & Judy saw to that as they left for work, making my alarm clock pretty well redundant too.
As for today, a murky start, but the skies brightened, and ye gods did the temperature drop. Not actually as cold as it gets in Britain, not even frosty, but the effect was accentuated by the relatively mild if somewhat
Now I know I'm getting old. How do I know? Well sit down comfortably and I'll begin.
Exhibit A is a pretty ordinary computer printer, an cream coloured plastic box with a couple of slots and a mind of its own. Even when plugged in, it sits there resolutely doing nothing. Somewhere on the featureless surface of the box is a button that brings this reluctant technological wonder to life.
Somewhere...
I know there's a 'start' button on this thing...
For a moment, I nearly resorted
In my childhood there was an annual pilgrimage to Northumbria, where one side of my family originates from. Inevitably that meant a visit to Cullercotes and Whitley Bay. Any excuse to get down to the seaside. it's a very british obsession.
One year we stumbled across a puppet show performed in the traditional fashion by a couple of guys in a claustrophic box stood on the sand. Funny thing was, I found myself wrapped up in the antics of the puppet characters. He's behind you! Why doesn't he l
Hot... Too hot... Music being played in the park....
Oh stuff it. I can't be bothered to type anything out. Sunshine does this to the british. My genetic compulsion to laze immobile whilst being slowly cooked is too strong to resist. Bye for now. See ya tomorrow or something...
British weather is notorious. We have a long standing tradition of beginning conversations on that topic. Today will be no exception. Hurricane Bill (or what was left of it) certainly made an impression. It didn't rain throughout the week but we had some heavy showers and yet more amber triangles on our television screens every hour. Today is sunny and bright, a hazy vista of pale blue sky and silver edged cumulus on the horizon. It's also distinctly cold. Hang on, isn't this August? What happen
Another day, another dollar, and in order to earn my pittance, another early morning. It was dark outside when I strolled down the hil. On my left was the Old College site, looking a little forlorn behind its white painted plywood fence behind the impromptu hedge of brambles and discarded rubbish.
I always remain astounded by how quickly trees emerge from the seed. There's a small one that's growing just the other side of that white fence, only a year or two old. Birds have nested in it and
In case anyone doesn't know, Archie is dead and Stacey did it. I imagine by this time the whole world has heard about that. Another thing everyone has probably already heard is that I don't like soap operas. That surreal glitziness of working class Coronation Street, that farcical drama and tragedy of rural life in Yorkshire, that irredeemably dystopic world of Albert Square. Those claustrophobic virtual worlds might be wonderful to some people, but seriously, I really don't care what happens. W
The local paper said it all. In the arts pages our local music correspondent tells us that "There is no original music in Swindon for saturday night". So what's new?
Back in the days when I was working in local bands original music was as difficult to sell as today. In Swindon, it seemed as if no-one wanted to hear anything other than the same old chart hits they knew and loved. We had a cover-band called Locomotion (who are still going, I think) that cleaned up nicely from playing covers. T
It can't have escaped anyones attention that Toyota are having some problems with their cars. The issues with accelerator and brake pedals have sparked deep concerns especially after the tragic crash in the US of a car whose brakes failed on the approach to a road junction.
Before I go on about car production and road safety, I can't help noticing that the driver whose brakes failed simply prayed he'd drive through unharmed. Clearly God was on his lunchbreak that day, but that said, God help
A few years ago, a guy at work told me what the Polish were like to live with. He resided in a rented room, in a property shared with a number of Polish people. He told me of the attitude they were prone to, and the shenanigans they adopted if they didn't get their own way.
For my part, I took it with a pinch of salt. Perhaps my colleague was unlucky and his co-habitees were not the most genial sort of people to begin with. I didn't assume he was right about the behaviour of a nation.
No
There are people who think I do nothing but sit at home playing on my computer. Don't let them upset you Computer, they don't understand.. Ahem... Well, anyway from to time I drag myself away The great outdoors has an appeal for many of us and I'm no different, so occaisionally the urge to see over the next hill takes hold. I decided to get up early and hopefully catch some evocative sunrises or whatever. To my disappointment the weather was dull and cloudy as I left home at six in the morning.
