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.
Such is the good weather we're getting this weekend that Yahoo is making a news item of it. That said, I look out of the window this morning and the sky is a plain white sheet of cloud. Perhaps Yahoo need to be a bit quicker off the mark with their journalism?
Grand National
We have a horse race in Britain called the Grand National. It's something of a national event these days. It was televised yesterday and some outsider won it, leaving bookies with huge losses. One complained that they'd
I have now finished my six months with New Deal, which means I get a new claims advisor, so at last I don't have to suffer that loathsome woman. She tried today to put a vacancy under my nose that I'd already discussed and decided was untenable. When I mentioned we'd already discussed that one, there was a flash of anger across her face. She very nearly went into another display of bovine outrage.
Another thing is that recently I applied for a job being handled by a recruitment agency. I rea
In the past I've always encountered a certain level of apathy from my various employers. Sometimes it's because they don't believe my initiatives will work, or perhaps prefer to give the credit to someone else. Sometimes it's because I've been pigeon-holed, pure and simple. Finally, after quarter of a century, I've pushed through one of the major obstacles to my progress in the workplace. They're going to train me to drive forklifts.
I have my claims advisor to thank for that. He certainly e
Only when you get up close to a Great Dane do you realise just how big those dogs are. There were two being coaxed along the alleyway across the yard last night. The pair of them just about filled the pathway. Nice horses, I quipped as I strolled past. At least these two dog owners won't get attacked by urban foxes.
The curious thing though is that the owners expected me to be scared stiff of them. Why? Both dogs were behaving themselves. After all, there was an occaision when I decided to p
Perhaps the shock of cold mornings has worn off now, or perhaps the day is genuinely milder, but today is bright, sunny, and bearably chilly. On my way the Job Centre to deliver my daily excuses I stopped in the park, watching the gathered waterfowl swim back and forth vainly waiting for a passer-by to stop and throw breadcrumbs. What? On a cold day like this?
I have to admit I remain bemused about how these birds don't freeze. After all, they live outdoors and swim in cold water. I suppose
Libraries are places that require a quiet atmosphere. Its very easy to be distracted and since the whole point of a library is to provide educational material, with too many distractions its difficult to educate yourself.
The day-care centre facilities are a case in point. Young children like to run about, throw tantrums, and generally cry for attention, not to mention inspire adults to hold impromptu singing lessons. I spent one hour on the library computer with somebodies child threatening
What a weekend. Hot sunny weather is something to be treasured. On my way through Town Gardens I just couldn't resist the temptation for a midday siesta, so I chose a wooden bench in a secluded spot and leant back. The sun was very hot. Even with my eyes closed I could see the light as a pale redness through my eyelids. Although the air wasn't actually warm, the gentle breeze felt like a welcome break.
My first interruption was a wood pidgeon making his moves on that classy female on the nex
The weatherman said it would rain early this morning but clear later. I won't ignore such advice and although the map looked encouraging with disappearing blue areas, this is rainy old Swindon after all. So when I got up I glanced between the curtains and behold, the rain has indeed stopped. Brill. Now I can go about my business safe and secure in the knowledge I won't get wet. By now you've probably guessed what's going to happen.
Congratulations, you guessed correctly. I was of course com
It might not suprise anyone but the snow showers never happened. Such is British weather. It was however very cold and I hear that we've been through one of the coldest winters of living memory, the average temperatures worse than the bitter and elongated winters of 1947/48 and 1961/62. Thankfully we didn't get that much snow. All I got was the sniffles.
It was however raining this morning. Not heavily, just a sort drizzly dampness that makes the pedestrianised street somewhat slippery, even
Okay. I admit it. It's raining. Having moaned about our weathermen predicting wet and windy days for weeks, it finally happened this morning. That said, it isn't the downpour we'd been promised (Don't you just know I'm going to regret writing that?). You could call it a damp squib.
Rumbles In The Night
I was kept marginally awake last night by the rumble of a large diesel engine somewhere in the vicinity of my home. That means either of two things. Firstly it might be that white lorry that
After the tumultuous ecvents of yesterday, how can tuesday morning be anything other than an anticlimax of mythic proportion? Such is the lack of anything extraordinary going on this world that the story of a dog giving birth to seventeen puppies is headline news. Perhaps that's desperation to find something other than freezing weather to talk about. Now there's a challenge!
It Happened This Morning
First of all today is the shortest day of the year. A part of me wishes that was the true st
How do I describe today? Believe it or not, I'm finding that difficult. Okay, it's Friday, so thank God for that (or not, depending on religious beliefs or recent events in your life), but that doesn't do justice to the sort of wishy-washy lazy don't know what I want to be kind of day.
I mean, it's cloudy, right? Soft focus grey blankets of cloud obscure the sky, but it isn't raining, and far from it, because I see the sun shining. How is that possible? How is this Friday able to destroy my
Back when I started music, you basically had a choice of instruments. Good, expensive ones, or cheap rubbish. Music keyboards especially conformed to this pattern. That was the era when electronics were really starting to make themselves felt. The rubber pads of a ZX Spectrum micro-computer for instance. Not for me. I paid three times as much for a Dragon 32 because it had a decent keyboard. Nonetheless, a cardboard and polystyrene package containing a Spectrum arrived at our house one morning.
Today I thought I'd upload a few pics taken from my back window. Vistas of weather and early evening sunshine. I like them.
I've Been Fired!
My job searching course has now changed. Instead of two sessions a week of two hours each, I now have to wade through a single four hour marathon of trawling through endless internet job sites looking for jobs within reach. Given the average attention span of a human being past his teenage years is a maximum of twenty minutes, I think you can understan
Whilst out and about I passed an old chap and his faithful hound. The good natured beastie promptly approached to greet me and received its obligatory pat on the head whilst it stood there wagging its tail in appreciation. His owner is obviously well used to his genial canine doing this and took the opportunity to speak to me.
"Chilly isn't it?" He said knowingly. Actually, he isn't wrong, there's a definite nip in the air and only the presence of the hazy sunshine made it at all comfortable
Yesterday channel is rather like Discovery, except they avpoid 'shark week' and instead show programs about Nazi's. Sometimes though you do get a decent documentary. I remember seeing one on the Flying Tigers in China that was something I didn't know much about (That's a group of american aviators in World War Two, not some rare breed of aerial carnivore, in case you wondered the Chinese were sniffing suspicious substances).
On the bright side, Yesterday is showing the Colditz series. I reme
I came back from the library yesterday morning having trawled throught the various job sites and discovering how evrywhere else in Britain has vacancies. Walking up the hill, I couldn't help notice an electricity company van parked beside our local transformer. Wait. Don't tell me. There's been another power cut...
It seems I was correct. Everything in the house, including the heating, the cooker, the fridge, the lights - all the usual electrical stuff that makes survival comfortable - was o
Last night I watched a program by a tv & film actor who plays hard-man roles and wanted to know the truth about the kind of men he portrays.
The gentleman he interviewed in that episode, now a reformed character, once 'taxed' drug dealers with intimidation and violence. The program was intended to shock law abiding people about the reality of the dangerous men we so rarely encounter. The strange thing is that I wasn't shocked at all. Even when the character showed the passionate depth of
I see a 41 year old ex-soldier at Sandhurst has had sex with a precocious 13 year old girl despite being warned by a female officer that the girl was dangerous. He's gotten off a harsh 14 year jail sentence because it turns out the youngster 'made all the running'.
Well maybe she did, but the bloke still went for it didn't he? It takes two after all. Sorry, but seducted or not, the man is old enough to know better. In a sense I do sympathise because I've encountered younger girls who fancy
Everything seemed a bit grey this morning. Our first foggy morning in ages. Now that I've signed on at the dole office and wanderd up to the library to see to my jobsearching, the sun has broken out again. Maybe that's not quite world breaking news. Can I do better?
Institute Is Falling Down
Our beloved Mechanics Institute, a sort of all-purpose community centre built by the Great Western Railway in 1854, is in danger of collapse. The cellars are flooded. The roof is on the point of caving
What? Sunshine? Surely not? There was I expecting another grey dull and bitterly cold day when out pops a clear blue sky. That said, the pavement is dangerously slipery in places where the sun doesn't melt the frost, but so far I haven't bowed to the inevitable and made an undignified close inspection of the paving slabs.
Suprisingly, given the clear skies, it wasn't as cold today either. I hardly needed gloves. Now if only I can manage to stay on my feet...
This'll Warm You Up
Although
Another day, another session at the library. You can tell which librarian is on duty by the amount of conversation going on. Today is the scottish lady, who happens to be very strict about noise. God help anyone who turns the computer sound up.
The young man in the next cublicle answered the raucous mobile phone ringtone. "Aw right mate?... Yeah... Chillin' out in da library... Yeah... No... Wicked game wuzzn'it?... Played it on da wheel, man, well cool... (laugh)"
That was it. Out of t
Winter is here. Okay, that statement might sound a tad obvious, but in Britain it means a good deal more. For the last few decades we've had gentle Autumn temperatures, and apart from strong winds for a few weeks, there's very little winter until after Christmas. This year we've had a sharp plunge in temperatures as cold winds from Europe sweep in from the east. For the last two days, grim warnings of snow have been made, which has pleased the doom-mongering weather people as it gives them a cha
"He's just a child" Sneered the woman who passed my home yesterday. A child? What an interesting comment. It does of course imply that I'm childish and thus disqualified from ordinary ecveryday respect, but I can't help feeling this is more than random verbal abuse.
Let me explain. This woman is looking down her nose at me for one reason and one reason only. It's got nothing to do with my behaviour as such - there are more than enough childish men around, just ask any woman, we never grow up
