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
There's only word for it - gutted. Miss T has decided that our friendly department store isn't for her and she's arranged to get work experience at another one. So it looks like I won't be flirted with for the time being. Funny how you only miss these little interactions when they vanish. Never mind. I'm sure she'll make up for lost time at our next session together.
You see, that's how to survive the dreary tedium of joblessness.... Get a blonde to flirt with you. Works for me.
Ousted
The plot was always very simple. Something arrives on planet Earth, discovered in a remote spot, and once recovered from the shock of such a crash landing the alien presence begins to take over the world, slowly at first, then in a tumultuous wave of conquest once they realise how puny earthlings are. Mankind tries everything and resorts to atomic bombs, but to no avail, and the remorseless aliens keep marching onward. That is, until some simple thing defeats them in the last five minutes of the
One of the great bugbears of life is getting old. When you're young, you tend to sneer and roll your eyes, for the experience of age is something beyond you. Well, my hair began to go grey when I was a teenager so that never really made any impact on me. It all seemed normal and part of everyday life. I never got self-concious about it at all, even after enduring endless jibes about hair colour products for men.
It seems however that I've recently attracted an unfortunate medical condition I
Sunrise, sunset, Sunday, Monday.... Yes, Swindon has reverted to ordinary greyness. There's a sort of comfortable familiarity about layers of dismal cloud drifting across the town and never letting it be one thing or another.
It's been a suprisingly quiet start to the year. I only heard the first police siren wailing past my home on saturday night. Even Punch & Judy, fresh back from annoying someone else on their christmas holiday, have been quiet and mindful of the fact that thanks to t
I was in the library foyer this morning, waiting for the ritual opening of the doors. The novel I'm reading is one of those action-horror things, set in 50's Egypt. It's a very readable tale as it happens, but so odd. Did anyone back in the fifties run marathons in their middle age to keep fit? Sounds like a very modern habit.
The interplay is a bit cliched to my mind. The ubiquitous and ineviatable sultry woman (and eventual love interest, even if she does claim to be too busy - at least th
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
With all the rain and weather warnings currently afflcicting everyday life in Britain, it was a pleasant suprise to see a blue sky out the window this morning. Of course this isn't summer and a clear sky means chilly weather. My breath was easily visible. Not to worry, the sun will warm things up in due course.
Days like this sometimes have something extra. There's a splendid view of the Moon this morning, a splotchy ball of of putty grey that you normally associate with the night-time. It's
As so often happens, a young asian lad sat at the next library computer began chattering on his mobile phone in a montone barrage of meaningless syllables. He just didn't draw breath. He didn't notice my cold disapproving stare. Coughs did not attract his attention. So eventually a 'Hey!' roused him from his hypnotic mantra. He nodded, and after another minute or so of constant chat, finally hung up the call. At last!
He came back five minutes later and started his phone call all over again.
I used to see urban foxes from my back window on a regular basis. More often than that, I would hear their yelps and screeches in the dead of night. It's been a while since that noise has pierced the stillness of Old Town's quiet hour. Had pest controllers reduced their numbers? It seemed as if the only interruption to my slumber was going to be inept car thieves from now on.
Last night a vivid sunset appeared through my back window. I went off to get the camera, opened the window, and took
Today I thought I would stretch my legs south of the motorway, something I haven't done in ages, and having realised how short of breath I was getting striding up the hill where I live, I could do with the exercise.
It's been a dull, claggy morning, just on the point of starting to rain but not quite getting there. It's also that uncomfortable temperature. Too cold for lightweight clothes, to sweaty for something warm. I hate that. Luckily my sweatshirt was the perfect compromise.
To my
Yesterday was a complete suprise. Not that Monday happened you understand, I learned long ago that Mondays are inevitable and crop up on a regular basis. Face it, most Mondays are a terrible experience. Weather turns for the worse automatically as thousands leave their front doors for the start of the working week. No, the suprise yesterday was how nice a Monday this was.
The sunshine had a lot to do with it. Unlike a blistering hot summer day, there was a cool, refreshing air to it. As mond
Oh great. A miserable start to the day with a typical grey rainy day. Better still, the Job Centre have decided to put me on yet another course to fill my increasingly busy schedule, and guess what? Someone forgot I was already on a course elsewhere. Now I must attend two courses this week and if I fail to attend "it may affect your benefits".
As it happens I met a guy from Eritrea of all places. He came here to earn a living and avoid the troubles in his home country. It's been two years si
TV personalities often describe Swindon as dull and rainy. Well, nothing has happened in the last two days and today... Yes... It's raining.
So I'm sat in the library typing this out desperately trying to think of something meaningful to write.
Life, The Universe, And Everything
You can tell I'm bored, right? In todays blog I address the most fundamental question of about everything. Douglas Adams attempted this and got the answer of 42. Can I do better?
Lets start at the beginnin
Yesterday there were three women in my life. Now before you mock or pour scorn on that innocent statement, sex was not involved... Now before you click onto another webpage is bored disillusionment and contempt at my failure to have wild passionate sex at every possible opportunity and boast about it afterward, I would like to point out that it is possible to have a warm, fulfilling, rewarding, platonic relationship with the opposite sex. It's just a little less expensive and genuinely less exci
You know, I'm starting to wonder about that Chaos Theory I mentioned yesterday. On the way home from the shops I wandered down the alleyway at the back of the house. The sprouting foliage has become quite thick now the College is an abandoned site. Where once you could drive a car along the rough gravel surface, now there's only a narrow path between the grass, brambles, horsetails, and overhanging trees. A solitary butterfly, in shades of brown, went about it's erratic business.
Later that
When it comes to job interviews, you can tell a lot about the company from the information and advice they give you. Or not. It's been a while since I smelled a rat but something about this woman who phoned me a couple of days ago made me wonder. I quickly realised she was from an agency, though she din't tell me that, nor did she give any information about the job I'd originally enquired about. Not a good sign.
"Do you have transport?" She asked.... No.
"Have you got a bike?".... No.
My regular readers might remember that I made an attempt to become Mayor of Swindon. It was of course folly, a dream doomed to be broken, and as it turned out the local borough ignored my desperate plea for attention completely.
So I decided to take revenge. If I can't achieve social status and civic responsibility by the democratic process, then I'll fall back on that aspect of British civilisation that has sustained the British Empire for centuries. I am of course talking about the class s
Life in the stockroom continued at its usual pace, a sort of disinterested shuffle urged on by the increasing frustration of managerial staff for whom laclk of enthusiasm is an alien concept. Then, without warning, the main lights in the stockroom went out. Only the individual aisle lights remained, casting an orange mood upon the darkness of our haunted store. It was like being inside one of the computer games where you wander around mazes shooting things before they rip you asunder. Or for tha
We all have a new regime to cope with. For most people, the change in government from Gordon Browns grand money giveaway to the scrooge brothers of the coalition hasn't really impacted on them yet. For us dole seekers the changes are already apparent. They might get a lot worse yet, but already we share knowing glances at each other and expect trouble ahead.
For many in the general public that's no cause for sympathy. Many will see us as worthless parasites. Many of us are exactly that. Feck
I've decided to document a campaign of Total War: Rome. For those who were born yesterday, it's a computer game that came out in 2004, and quite a good one as far as games go. Not every day of course, I have better things to do than to play imaginary battles, though in fairness I've done quite a lot of that in one way or another over the years.
The year is 270BC, and I play the Scipii, a powerful and ambitious Roman faction in the great struggle for dominance to come. They come in a fetchin
Music is an interesting phenomenon, apart from modern metronomic high volume siege weaponry. I speak with some experience having been a professional drummer during my mispent youth - I wasn't known for being quiet. However, as a drummer I recognise the need for 'music', something to listen to, something to evoke a mood, whereas a lot of music today reveles around the concept of physical punishment as bass frequencies pound you like punches from Mike Tyson.
That's all very well if you like th
As a rule ladders have never caused me a great deal of hassle. Traditionally I have much more of a problem with doors, which always seem to open in some other way than appears intuitively obvious. As I mentioned in yesterdays entry, there was one time when the ladder fought back.
Back in the days when I first turned professional as a drummer, I needed to supplement my non-existent income from record royalties, and running light shows for my a friend of mine, the quiet and ever-optimistic FR
Job searching doesn't get any easier. Now that Honda have cut back on production, they've started seconding their employees to local firms which means potential jobs won't get offered to the public. Jobs for the boys in other words. Now if full-time jobs are filled before I find them, I'm left with only the possibility of part-time work.
The other problem I face is that agencies aren't keen on putting me forward. If I apply for part time jobs I get asked why. Because a lot of shirkers have b
Browsing through the local paper this morning I came across an interview with Master Shortie, Swindons very own rap star.
Who? Never heard of him. I suspect no-one older than eighteen has either. The interview was of course unintentionally hilarious. I'm sure his music career is taking off and I wish him well, but since he made such an effort to say exactly lthe same things every other rap artist in the business does, you could hardly claim he was being original.
He also proclaimed that
