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caldrail

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Blog Entries posted by caldrail

  1. caldrail
    Our brief dalliance with sunshine is over. Freezing fog obscures the land and makes my toes feel very uncomfortable. I notice the weather people are warning us of more wintery weather to come. Really? Who would have thought it?
     
    His Other Car Is...
    Another day on the farm. Huddled in a small office warmed only by a primitive electric heater, I meet up with a band of disparate doleseekers and prepare for another course, another day of learning how to be joyful happy droids earning taxes for the government to squander on ailing economies.
     
    I was lucky to find it. The map pointed to an alleyway a hundred yards down the road, and we were there for two hours waiting for waifs and strays to arrive. Not good, especially now the freeze is back and I have to say, if it wasn't for that electric heater, we would have re-enactmented Napoleons 1812 Retreat From Swindon. It was surreal. How can it feel hot and cold at the same time? Bizarre. Still, at least we only shivered intermittently. In between sniffles we actually got some paperwork done.
     
    The conversation got around to the matter of how much cars cost. It was generally agreed by all present that buying expensive cars is a silly idea when your young and newly qualified. Given that's a foregone conclusion that the car will be wrecked shortly afterward, a fact of life underwritten by stubborn insurance firms, surely a cheap old banger is more sensible. We were asked out of curiosity how expensive our cars were.
     
    "Which one?" Said one gentleman. "I have many cars."
     
    That raised a few eyebrows. Okay, what's the most expensive car you own?
     
    "
  2. caldrail
    She couldn't wait. With a mischievious smirk my mother asked if I'd heard about the latest government initiative for the unemployed. I hadn't, as it happened, but I understand that long term claimants are now going to be required to work four weeks on placement to qualify for benefits.
     
    Actually I'm not that bothered. I did thirteen weeks of that earlier this year, so it's just more of the same to me. The point though in this case is that my mother couldn't wait to push a pin into my little bubble. She relishes every chance for that.
     
    There are other weapons in her arsenal. Family successes are thrust in front of me too. This week a cousin was part of the line up in a photograph of the staff of a highly rated school in some newspaper or other. The idea being that I feel envious of how well other members of our family are doing while I'm clearly not.
     
    Every time I visit she mentions how tall I'm getting. That's nonsense of course. I'm the same height I was thirty years ago, but the point here is belief. She wants me to believe what she tells me. The moment I say "Yes, I am getting taller", she wins another victory, and she'll start suggesting all sorts of things safe in the knowledge I won't argue.
     
    So the siege of my self-esteem goes on. All part of her master plan to turn me into a Jesus creep. My mother has this mental image of what she wants me to be. She denies it, of course, but for the last thirty years she hasn't given up, believing blindly that one day my lack of success will make me realise that my spirituality is the cause of my misfortune, and that going to church on a sunday, wearing the clothes she prefers me to, having an accountant hairstyle, and all the other sundry requirements are going to make me successful.
     
    Rubbish. She's a manipulative old woman who thinks she knows better than everyone else. The christian idea that worshipping God turns you into a success is actually bending a Commandment to the point of catastrophic failure. After all, wasn't it Jesus who said "A rich man has no more chance of entering the Kingdom of Heaven than a camel has of passing through the eye of a needle"? Does faith reward the faithful with material success? That seems a very dubious concept, but then, that's been the christian message since the 1st century.
     
    In any case, I have other beliefs. I don;'t accept Jesus was anything other than a typical cult leader who got himself executed for undesirable activity. God is a human concept, not an absolute truth. Nor for that matter do I accept the existence of the retinue of supernatural entities invented by christians in times gone by.
     
    Fate is the sum of all decisions and natural forces. The breakdown of my career and personal affairs happened the moment I declared myself a spiritualist. That's not divine intervention. That's malice and spite.
     
    Pressure Is On
    The news of the government initaitive to make long term claimants worjk for their money isn't a new idea. That's been mooted around for a long time. Only now, when the country is in debt to desperate levels, has the will to enforce that idea emerged.
     
    That's only the tip of an iceberg. The mood in job centres has changed. Driven by a messianic need to uncover the workshy and dole cheat (not to mention earning brownie points at head office by doing so) the red tape involved in job searching has gone up a notch. Previously my job search booklet was enough, a simplistic table in which to scrawl a quick record of each step I've taken. Now I have to enter the same information again on a form designed to catch people out.
     
    It'll get worse. The dreary routine of searching, applying, and receiving rejection is bad enough but the pressure to prove that you are doing what you claim will get steadily worse as the most obvious cheats are unmasked and the temptation to find scapegoats increases.
     
    For now I shall have to grin and bear it. Sorry Jesus, but the castle gates are shut, the walls are stout, and I'm not in any danger of starving. Besides, I'm content with my spirtuality. I don't need yours.
  3. caldrail
    In Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, Marvin the paranoid android moans and groans about intelligent doors, about how smug they are at completing their task of opening for their human masters. Well, he would groan even more at the doors to a local shopping mall. There's a three second delay between their sensors detecting your presence and deciding whether or not to allow you entry. Small boys pretending to be aeroplanes bounce off them in confusion. Adults trying to slip by get whacked as the door decides to close anyway. Sometimes the doors just stay there inert whilst you look an idiot in front of them.
     
    Doors? Don't talk to me about doors....
     
    Meanwhile, Back At The Brewery...
    The local newspaper dispkay the headline - Royals Visit Brewery.
     
    What an image. Her Majesty stumbling toward the limousine, crown askew, saying "What delightful brew... One is (hic).. quite light-headed.."
     
    Then again, perhaps after generations of governmental experience dating back to the Dark Ages, perhaps the Royals really can organise a booze-up in a brewery? Labour party please take notes...
     
    The Listening Party?
    Talking of the Labour Party, our Prime Minister appears to have had enough of the media reporting gleefully on fuel protests and has slapped a gagging order on them. It seems Gordon Brown has gotten fed up of listening already.
     
    Caldrails Guide To Political Polls
    Labour Party -
    Conservative Party -
    Liberal Democrats -
    Everyone Else -
  4. caldrail

    The Soul Of Motion

    By caldrail,

    Switch on the television today and chances are a car advert will appear. Not sure why they're so frequent all of a sudden but it might have something to do with the daft names they give cars these days. Go? Ka? Cee'd? What's all that about? Now I see one for the Vauxhall Adam. What next? The Nissan Nigel? Toyota Terence? The Ford Fred? God forbid someone should build a car called Eve. That will bring new meaning to a warning sign for "road humps".
     
    I can't help thinking that the use of 'fun' names is to try and compensate for a boring motorised shopping trolley. That would be bad enought, but the adverts themselves are just so daft Watching a vehicle swerve through an urban landscape to avoid getting splashed wiith paint by jealous buildings is an interesting piece of media, just not an interesting car to feature. Watching a high diver slip majestically through the space left by open doors of a suspended vehicle is clever, but when would you actually park a vehicle on its side twenty feet above a swimming pool? Truth is, it's the visual theme or the music soundtrack that's more interesting than the hybrid eco-buggy they want you to buy. Good album that. Must log onto iTunes and download it.
     
    Adverts can be pretentious too. "Soul of motion"? What's that? A mystical force created by all moving things that surrounds us, binds the universe together? I have this image in my head of car designers sat at their workstations with the blast shield down, stretching out with their feelings to try and create a car that Han Solo will say is a match for a good blaster. I seriously don't believe that the adverts are right when they descrivbe a car as "breaking with convention". Not only do they look exactly like everyone elses, they probably are the same vehicle to all intents and purposes. Face it, a truly unconventional car wouldn;t sell.
     
    Car names used to be classy, or at least, better than the monosyllabic versions we get now. Even if the cars themselves were heaps of junk built in between tea breaks and strikes by union activists in the midlands of darkest Britain, the names were in a different league. Forget this idiotic obsession with trying to make customers believe their cars are in any way interesting. What we need are bold exciting names like Ferrari Fury, or Lamborghini Lacerator, names that inspire the designer to put a bit of life into their project. As it happens Audi has saved civilisation as we know it by showing their R8 with the engine cover removed on a rolling road. A quick acceleration through the gears then coming to a standstill, engine burbling menacingly, interspersed with some vicarious snorts and growls, exuding testerone and to my mind one of the best car adverts ever.
     
    Building Site Update
    Still fascinated by the Old College site visible from my back window. So are many other passers by, who stop at the wire fence to oggle the wierd and wonderful machinery used to excavate a massive canyon in the side of Swindon hill. It just keeps getting deeper. At the far end the channel is now so deep that even from my high vantage point, the diggers are almost lost inside. Before long it'll get so feep that the site will generate its own climate. There'll be hairy sub-human mutant tribes descended from long lost construction workers, dragging peoples cars into the depths at night to worship the starnge God of automobile mass production. Maybe they'll find archaeological evidence of my stolen Eunos Cabriolet?
     
    The Bicycle Cometh
    The road junction at the bottom of the hill can get quite entertaining. The traffic lights sometimes get out of sync and you can always tell when that happens because suddenly every vehicle in sight draws to an undignified halt with a crecendo of horn blasts. So noisy in fact that motorists are forced to communicate with sign language.
     
    Coming round the bend at the other end from me was a black BMW, accelerating quickly and risking angry gestures from frustrated motorists. I've noticed for a ong time that BMW drivers are often quite arrogant and self absorbed. He just couldn't resist a couple of hundred yards of empty road ahead of him.
     
    This was one of those strange moments when time seems to slow almost to a halt. Even at that distance, even with his tinted windscreen, we locked eyes on each other. We knew each others mind. He wanted to tear past me enjoying his germanic performance. I wanted to cross the road at a pedestrian crossing. He looked at me. I looked at him. He gunned the accelerator, I pressed the fateful button. He gritted his teeth in a determined dash to beat the lights. I waited patiently with a smug grin. His car slithered to a halt before a red light with a flattened nose visible on the glass. I walked across the road unflustered and victorious. Bow down before the might of civilisation, BMW driver.
     
    But what's going to happen after the government have invested gazillions of pounds promoting bicycles instead of keeping roofs over the heads of unemployed people? Truth of the matter is cyclists have a rule book all of their own, and it isn't very thick. They routinely ignore pedestrian crossings or bye laws prohibiting cycling on the pavement. Just the other morning a youngster performed a wheelie whilst managing to avoid the pedestrians. He aimed his bike in my direction. I looked at him with raised eyebrows He brazenly defied sanity by continuing his wheelie. I got out of the way.
     
    So there you have it. The bicycle is more powerful than the BMW. Or me.
  5. caldrail

    The Stage Is Set

    By caldrail,

    Another day, another job vacancy. That seems to be the ritual I've been forced to observe. Every day they swivel the monitor so I can read the multicoloured gobbledegook that lists the latest jobs available. It makes depressing reading. So many of them simply mention that the job conforms to the National Minimum Wage, or that the wages are 'competitive'. I've even seen executive vacancies that would earn a business high-flyer a huge sum of
  6. caldrail

    The Stage Was Set...

    By caldrail,

    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 that matter, a stage set for a play...
     
    Ode To A Cardboard Box
    (From A Midsummers Night Stacking by William Shakespeare)
     
    Act I, Scene VI - Stackio wanders the specially marked walkways of the darkened stockroom
     
    Stackio - Lo! What is this before me, obstructing a path of yellow chevrons? It is a box, forlorn and trampled, emptied of content and left to decompose in such thoughtless fashion that my heart is driven to despair at the arrogance of a busy stockroom.
     
    Managera - Stackio! Stackio! Wherefore art thou, Stackio?
     
    Stackio - Upon the indicated walkway shall you find me, beautiful Managera. Shall I compare thee to a brand new carton? You, whose fashion and cleanliness is worthy of the scratching of backs? Or shall I reflect upon the mortality of our stockroom, where beige conformity one day gives surrender to inevitable decay like a plucked rose? (To Box) Oh what wondrous tales of travel you could relate if you had but a voice with which to speak it. You, who have once taken your place in an iron container bound for distant shores, filled with the bounty from shops of sweat, now ripped and torn, forgotten and despised, your printed numbers bereft of meaning, no longer read by servants of this modest stockroom in a faraway land.
     
    Managera - Fair Stackio, thy sorrow for the passing of this box is well meant, and my admiration for your gentle soul knows no comparison, but if thy doesn't shift thy idle seat in immediate haste, such wrath shall I wreak upon you that this very box will know how lucky it was to be discarded thus.
     
    Stackio - I shall at once remove this trodden carcass and to the baler take it, where the naughty Jackal resides and compacts our fallen cartons in such temper foul, that as knowing as Managera may be, his language would sour the sweetest cup of tea at his struggles with dark machinery. But know that this box was dear to my heart in its short existence, its numbers checked and contents counted with loving care and accuracy. So saddened is my heart. Alas, poor box, I knew it well.
     
    Oh Yeah... Today Is...
    Sigh. Oh all right then, it happens to be that day when everyone likes wearing green while pretending to enjoy a certain brand of beer. Well I'm sorry, but you can waste time with your leprechauns when your chores are done...
     
  7. caldrail

    The Strangest Things

    By caldrail,

    People do say the stupidest things sometimes. I should know.
     
    "I wish someone would take him away" Muttered one self important lady as I minded my own business with a library book. Her friend obligingly tittered at the supposedly witty request. Carry me away? Sorry dear. Health and safety. Wouldn't want anyone to hurt their back.
     
    As it happens her attempt to socially exclude me sort of failed. It's called not giving a hoot, lady, although normally I use a stronger rude word. Quite why I'd want to be her friend perplexes me. Why would I want to titter obligingly every time she made a wish? Go away you silly woman... Oh dear... I think I might have inadvertantly excluded her socially... Oh well. At least this book is interesting.
     
    That's not the only example. One of neighbours has the strange habit of shouting "Learn to play first!" each and every time I start playing a guitar. Each and every time. What is she, an android? Programmed to heckle me to simulate live performance? Can you imagine what having sex with her is like? Might need a foot pump.
     
    Talking about women you wouldn't want sex with, another neighbour last night attempted to sing Silent Night in polish. I blame Simon Cowell. Now everybody thinks they can sing.
     
    Green Men
    For some reason my last blog post vanished into outer space. Unlike NASA, I didn't spend millions of dollars on it, so I'll just have to repeat the exercise, safe in the knowledge that it won't affect my dole payments or finances.
     
    Over the weekend a new mission to Mars has blasted literally a ton of expensive scientific equipment toward our neighbouring planet on a quest to discover if life ever happened there at all. Since humanity appears to measure the existence of life by the extent of nighclubs and other social venues that open late, it looks as if the empty red deserts of Mars rather rule out that possibility.
     
    It's been asked on television why we're so obsessed with Mars, and even worse, finding anything alive on it. Ever since Schiparelli thought he could see canals on the martian surface, we've been inventing inhabitants that basicially conform to one or other of two ideas. Firstly, that the martians are living on a dying world and must expand to ours, an enterprise usually confounded by square jawed hollywood heroes, a few screams from their female love interests, and the occaisional assistance of the common cold. Seconfdly, that the martians are dead and gone, leaving behind mysterious machines and ruins to present our heroes with puzzles and terrors. It seems deserts resonate in the human psyche with ideas of failure, abandonment, sterility, and psychological emptiness. Or more likely, that deserts are really boring places to spend an evening.
     
    So I guess our obsession is borne from a desire to find somewhere new to dance the night away. But why are martians always depicted as little green men? I mean, if no-ones actually met a martian UFO driver, how would we know? Funnily enough, the same problem also occurs with those supernatural folk that frightened our medieval ancestors witless. Those little folk were often green too.
     
    By now the conspiracy theorists are no doubt claiming that aliens have been visiting Earth at least since the middle ages based on what I've just said, but why the heck would an intelligent interplanetary civilisation want to visit the middle ages for anyway? There wasn't a decent nightclub at all back then.
  8. caldrail
    The sun had got his hat on, hip hip hip hooray. It isn't that everythings going my way (I wish) but rather that Spring is making an appearance. The weather has that cool post-winter sunshine thats such a breath of fresh air in Britain. It affects the mood. You wake up, spot the brightness through the curtains, and just know its going to be a good day.
     
    Even a black cat senses the mood. Walking down to my parents place for a sunday dinner it strolled across the road unconcerned about the black Porsche Kayman bearing down on it. Not that the cat needed to worry. The unhurried pace of the porsche driver slowed to a crawl as he patiently let the cat wander across the road unruffled.
     
    So I won't let the sniffles get me down. I've noticed a cold getting the better of me over the last couple of days. Typical Britain. You suffer freezing cold temperatures, snow, ice, and ignorant neighbours, and finally when the sun comes out so do the germs.
     
    Don't care. Today is a good day.
     
    Question of the Week
    My parents were looking out the back. They enjoy watching the comings and goings of wildlife in the garden. My father commented on the sign of dampness on the paving stones and asked "Has it been raining?"
     
    Pardon? Take a look outside. The sunshine is glorious. If you've had rainfall here, it's the only place in southern England that has. No, the culprit are the birds, small bluetits and goldfinches and starlings and such, taking advantage of the pond and bathing themselves. Even they sense the mood of the early Spring sunshine.
     
    Or more likely, have they noticed next doors cat is sunning himself rather than hiding in the nearby bush?
  9. caldrail
    tt was inevitable really. I know Britain has a reputation for being a damp country and my home town a reputation for being rainy among the British, but eventually the winds turn northward and bring hot weather from the south. Which is why, as I go about my business in the town centre, all of a sudden there are crowds of bellies and shorts ambling around like wot you do in warm weather. It's as if a switch goes on in the British mentality that urges them to wear those holiday clothes one more time before life goes back to dreary damp ordinariness.
     
    More Foxenders
    Sadly, I have to confirm the death of Frodo. There he was, laying inert by the roadside as I got a lift home from a colleague. Not to worry. Young foxes are everywhere. Far more than I saw last year. I saw one grab hold of a discarded lager can and run off with a foxy grin. I dunno.... The youth of today....
     
    Strange Dreams
    Last night I had one of these strange episodic dreams. I was a detective in an American style undercover cop drama, albeit one in the lunatic dreamworld. The villain was a London style gangster who was suitably paranoid and psychopathic, who was ready to eliminate any minion who did not answer the phone after three rings. The crime had something to do with piles of documents. In the light of day, wide awake, and with the dream already fading in the memory, I cannot understand at all what the idea was or how any profit was made. No matter. The crime boss wanted me to do this task, the cops wanted me to do this task undercover, and I wanted to stay alive, a task made all the harder by the female chief detective who insisted on being in charge and wore her clothes in a style that amounted to pornography, almost like an open challenge to any male stupid enough to notice.
     
    Funny thing was, having gone through the ambling drama once, I went through the dream again, albeit with some differing details. Only with the same villain and the same plot. So it was just like those television thrillers after all.
     
    Promotion of the Week
    My job is strictly speaking a temporary post, albeit 'ongoing' work. However, to get the position as semi-permanent I had to prove myself, working hard, being on time, show willingness to undertake the most menial and pointless tasks. Just lately one of the regulars has been off on holiday (How does he afford that?) and his replacement, of the rare female warehouse worker variety, has been made semi-permanent after one week. Okay. I can deal with that.
  10. caldrail
    There's a strange phenomenon that takes place when Swindon gets bad press. You suddenly find hordes of people who say "We like it."
     
    Swindon has tried ceaselessly to reinvent itself ever since the railworks closed. Out with the old, in with the new, oops we made mistake, look at our brand new plan. In fairness, the pace of beautification is increasing. The victorian pidgeon nets are vanishing, plans to reintroduce the canals throughn the town center are in place, and architects impressions of wide pedestrian areas between tall glass buildings regularly put on display.
     
    It's not all plans and ideas though. There's an italianate influence in the new architecture. You can't help feeling that the town planners took a holiday in Tuscany and discovered the outside world really was prettier.
     
    The biggest problem with Swindon though is exactly what it always was - the people who live there. Another cannabis farm was uncovered by police in a house half a mile from mine just the other day. Graffiti Mice are breeding and leaving lots of territory markers on any available surface. Supermarkets are now refusing to deliver in some parts of Swindon in the evenings. On the way to the libraray today I passed a group of four men arguing about who the girlfriend belonged to, and it wasn't calm polite exchange. Motorbikes blast along any straight road with engines howling, often with front wheels in the air, regardless of situation. Kids gather on streets and everyone, including number ten buses, have to go around them.
     
    The alleyway behind my home has become so filled with discarded windows, piano's, bottles, exercise machines, childrens toys, cardboard, sofa's, and the occaisional mattress that someone has now decided that throwing their rubbish into my front yard is a good idea. This is what I mean about our local population. They seem to want this urban degradation around them as it's their natural habitat.
     
    I guess they would say "If you don't like it, go somewhere else". That attitude, above all else, is why Swindon will never be beautiful.
     
    Speeding Fine of the Week
    A granny has just been fined for speeding on her moped which has a maximum speed of 8mph. That's the trouble with speed camera's, they've left the police without anything to do.
  11. caldrail
    It doesn't take a lot to cause traffic chaos. Many years ago I was heading home through Wootton Bassett when I encountered a driver having difficulties getting his car up the steep hill that enters the town from the southwest side. Being a genreous sort, I stopped to help. Pushing a vehicle uphill, especially one with an unwilling engine and a large female occupant who refused to step out of the vehicle, wasn't easy and no-one else volunteered to help. Within minutes traffic was backing up in both directions, traffic wardens were closing in to find what the trouble was and inflict terrible financial maulings to anyone guilty of the slightest infraction of the Highway Code. So I helped the guy reverse the car by gravity as close to the side of the road as possible and left the area sharpish. My work here is done.
     
    But it isn't always my own fault. The other day I was walking home by the Old College site. Roadworks have spread across the junction in front of it, diggers ripping out more and more mud, flourescent yellow droids with working class accents yelling incoherently at each other. Unfortunately this has restricted the the road a good deal.
     
    In one direction, a large low-loader lorry and trailer was trying to negotiate the turn into the building site, blocking the only remaining lane. In the other direction, another lorry driver decided to use the temporary access road as a short cut to the site, depite the "Give Way" and "Left Turn" signs, blatantly pulling across the wrong way in a one-way system, and blocking traffic behind him. And so chaos was brought to Swindon.
     
    I didn't do it.
     
    Data Protection Of The Week
    Right now I attend a support centre to assist my job-searching. Internet access, personal assistance, and free stationery. Very useful. The only downside is the constant form filling and register signing that I have to put with. Every session I need to fill out a report form detailing my activities for the day. it must be completed fully and correctly or my benefits are in question. Like being in the army except no-one shouts at you.
     
    Anyhow I did my duty for the day and dotted every eye and crossed every tee. The manageress who runs the office spotted me droppin g my form on the assigned administrators desk and immediately turned it over. "It's okay" I ventured helpfully, "I'm not ashamed of it". Sadly she lacks a certain sense of humour and merely replied "Oh it's the data protection act". I see. I post my job search details on a government website as ordered, email those details to any administrator who requests it, my bank details and statements to a national office dedicated to catching dole cheats, and to some extent, reveal my activities to the world via this blog. But no-one, repeat no-one, is allowed to see that report form.
     
    You have been warned.
  12. caldrail
    Living where I do one has to expect a certain amount of late night noise. It is after all a main route for people going from Old Town pubs on the hill to the town centre and the myriad theme bars that compete for business, never mind the nightclubs at the extremities of both areas. Last night was, however, exceptional. A veritable parade of late night revellers strolled, ambled, and fell over outside my home, in a series of favourite sing-alongs and comedy routines. I'm sure our civic authorities would prefer that festivities were more culturally based and officially sponsored, but last night the Swindon Midnight Carnival was in full swing.
     
    Business As Usual
    One of my neighbours has taken to playing their stereo at some volume just lately. The problem is that for some reason the sound travels directly into my bedroom and it isn't a welcome feature of living here. Yesterday I kind of lost my temper over it. I dragged a speaker cab into the hallway, plugged in a rythmn machine, and pressed play. A suitably loud (and distorted) soundtrack echoed away to my hearts content. it worked too. The neighbour went quiet after fifteen minutes of mind-numbing 4/4 beat. That is, of course, until they'd realised I'd stopped. Business as usual.
     
    Our Turn Next
    The problem with our special relationship with America is that eventually everything gets imported to us. Coca-Cola, burger bars, hurricanes, guns, sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. Sadly it now appears that the oil slick from Louisiana is also coming our way. With petrol being the price it is, and the usual south-western prediliction for scavenging off beaches and ship wrecks, one wonders if the more opportunistic members of the british public won't be down on the beach with jerry cans. Okay, it's crude oil, not nice perfect petrol, but since when did a small problem like that stop the british scrounger? They might even help the clean up too.
  13. caldrail
    So much for drizzle. We had a right downpour yesterday afternoon. The weather is the same today, a grey day with a sense of dampness in the air. Certainly there's some great piles of darker cloud in the vicinity threatening to make my day wetter than planned, so my trip to the supermarket is starting to look risky. Hey, that's life in the wilds of Darkest Wiltshire.
     
    I find the habits of Swindoners a little odd when confronted with changes in weather. We seem to be a few days behind, continuing to wear clothes more suited for sunny days and then adopting more rain-worthy apparel when the sun returns, no doubt having realised at last that occaisionally we might get wet. Umbrellas appear in sudden tides of fashion for a day or two. Those in hoodies get soaked by rain or sweat either way, because they do so love their anonymity. As for me I just get soaked because I didn't bother looking at the weather report.
     
    A Tale Of Two Burgers
    Thursday night and my rations have not contained the hunger I feel. I could save money and indulge in another dry sandwich.... No, I can't face another slab of foam rubber and yeast. This does mean spending some money of course, but there's only so much bread and water you can consume before you realise you've become a prisoner of your finances. So off I trot, to the takeaway across the road.
     
    The turkish lads are, as always, all smiles. They do love a good customer. Anyhow I ordered my cheeseburger and with his usual display of turkish service, he asked me if I wanted cheese with that. Yes. Yes I do. I like cheese on my cheeseburgers. This isn't the first time he's done this and I suspect it won't be the last. With a smiling apology he handed me my seriously unhealthy but seductive snack and away I went happy as larry. Yum... Good burger this...
     
    Friday night and I face the same problem. Only this time my bread is twenty four hours drier. Another burger? Okay, just this once. I resolved to buy the bottom bargain basment model, the one with a slab of processed cow and other stuff in a toasted bun. No sauce, salad, or cheese. This evening I will take my burger straight. I am not afraid.
     
    The turkish lad flipped the processed cow over on his hotplate and asked me if I wanted anything on my burger. No. No I don't. Just an ordinary burger in an ordinary bun for a low low price special offer. Somehow he didn't really understand what the problem was in piling food into a small carton with a shovel, but there you go. I paid my cash, and waited for the meal to finsih its chemical reaction and become halfway edible.
     
    He was distracted by more customers arriving. A jolly bunch, made sociable by copious alcholic drinks and luckily they managed to save one of their merry group from altering his nose on the floor. So I was served by another turkish lad. They all look the same. They really do. Is there a cloning facility in Istanbul? Even the chap who serves kebabs down the hill, a young turk, claims there are too many turks. But I digress. The youngster started assembling my meal and he too looked confused by the stark bareness of merely a burger in a bun.
     
    "You want something on this?" He pleaded with me desperately to improve the culinary appeal and creative artistry of my intended snack. "Salad? Cheese?"
     
    Oh go on then. Put some stupid cheese on it. He beamed with delight and handed me my cheeseburger, obtained legally at a 20p discount. I strolled home, negotiated the drunks and drivers, and set about polishing off my meal. Yum...Great burger this...
  14. caldrail

    The Weed Gardens

    By caldrail,

    Yesterday, in a decision that only an englishman could make, I went out in the midday sun and visited Lydiard Park. The local council make a big deal of the work they've done there which was supposed to restore the grounds of Lydiard Manor to it's former magnificence.
     
    I've got many photographs of Lydiard as it was. Secluded bayous, wooded paths, a warm natural patina. There used to be a waterside platform where you could look out across a small lake and view cranes resting on a dead tree in the centre of the water. It all had a picturesque quality to it, something very ideal and to be honest a place where you could marvel at the beauty of nature in a very subtle way. It was, by accident, as close to principles of a japanese garden as you could get. Tranquil.
     
    Not any more. The woodland has been cut back, the bayous swept away to recreate the old lake, everything opened up to the sun in an attempt to make the place more attractive to lots of people who really don't appreciate natural beauty much, and I suspect, attempted by people who don't much appreciate it either. It now looks exactly what it is. A weed infested demolition site. The lake is cold and artificial (not to mention stagnant), the gravel paths bare and garish, the woodland peripheral and unwanted. You might best describe Lydiard Park as a bird with it's plumage well and truly plucked.
     
    There was a time you could visit Lydiard and return refreshed from experiencing the natural warmth. Now you either play ball games or get bored by it. After all the money they spent on tearing the place apart, you'd think there was something to show for it. Oh yes. I forgot. I see they've just installed a fountain in the lake. Well that makes all the difference doesn't it?
     
    Weedy Swindon
    The decay and wanton vandalism of Lydiard Park isn't unique in Swindon. Around the borough are areas where buildings are lying abandoned or demolished. The same pale gravelly landscape and its weedy foliage are well established. There's a house under construction near where I live which still has brick and breeze block walls two foot high. The weeds have grown faster. The Old College site looks ever more dilapidated every day, more broken windows, more weeds sprouting under the vandalised wooden fence around it. For a town that's been promoting regeneration and beautification, it all looks like a lot of hot air and incompetence. Oh yeah. Weeds too.
  15. caldrail

    The Winning Formula

    By caldrail,

    My hatred of football is no secret. It's one thing to have a bit of fun kicking a ball around, quite another paying an unhealthy ticket price to enter a screaming contest while a bunch of fashion dummies demonstrate the latest must-have sports wear. Later you'll enter a screaming contest with your kids who demand those fashions to emulate their sporting heroes.
     
    It's all just marketing now, isn't it? People seem to worry more about what haircut these people have than the actual score. In the good old days it was all about skill. You had to have a talent for playing. After all, haircuts were pretty standard in those days and teams only changed their colours every century. Sadly my own talent for football was brutally swept aside by a games teacher who marked me as a failure because I wasn't in the school team, as if I was in any danger of being asked.
     
    No, that's not correct, the rot set in earlier. I blame my junior school teacher. In Physical Education classes he would have two lads choose their mates alternately and eventually they'd grimace and decide which of the loser brigade was the lesser evil. Coming fifth to a bunch of overweight kids isn't fun. Then again he said I would never make a carpenter but I came top in my woodwork class two years later. Fat lot he knew. I remember bumping into him in a shop and telling him of my triumphal recognition of handicraft skills. Why didn't he believe me?
     
    You see, the problem was that I was a clever kid. Clever kids do spelling, maths, homework, and zits. Not football. Being clever is only going to make you popular when your ability to spell certain long words lets the class out five seconds early, and since the average young footballer has that sort of attention span, my tip for any up-and-coming clever kid is enjoy it while it lasts.
     
    Now I discover that I could have spared myself the loss of self-esteem by applying some physics to the problem of how to be a good football player. Of course what I actually did was draw some feeble cartoon series in the back of my exercise book, thus I never found out that a scientific equation exists to predict the flight of a football. Factor in the force applied by the foot... The amount of spin.... And there you go. Perfect goals, every time.
     
    Well there you go. Scientific proof that football really is as monumentally dull as I always believed it to be. So if you'll excuse me, I have a shelf to mend. So far they haven't invented a mathematical formula for that.
     
    Television of the Week
    This accolade does not go to last nights Great TV Mistakes, a two hour catalogue of minor continuity errors that only a sad loner with a digital recording device and lots of time that could be better spent on Dungeons & Dragons could possibly notice. Never have I been so bored. And that was the first five minutes. Just imagine sitting through the whole show.
     
    No, I agree, that was a callous irresponsible thing to suggest. I have a sneaking suspicion the television channel does that on purpose so you watch the football on that other sports channel, which of course you have to pay for.
  16. caldrail
    Yet another day of unadulterated sunshine. I suppose it's politically correct to thank the internal combustion engine for this, but since car sales are struggling right now, I can't help wondering if I was right all along. That the weather isn't as affected by the motor car as the eco-concious and vote hungry politicians would have us believe.
     
    This bright weather seems to be moderating driver behaviour too. Fewer drivers are accelerating madly down the local roads in a mad attempt to practice drag racing at Santa Pod, but instead are observing the traffic lights anbd slowing down calmly and orderly. What is going on here?
     
    It must be the relaxing mood the weather is generating. British drivers are not known for being mild, though in fairness they're hardly the worst in the world. Some drivers are a little too relaxed however. On a two lane road just around the corner from the library, a hatchback slowly leaves the left lane to take the right exit, causing a momentary auditory assault from the driver they just cut across. Both cars sit there a moment. One driver furious and gesticulating, the other bewildered and outraged he was being treated in this manner. Pistols or swords, gentlemen?
     
    Both vehicles move away, both drivers seething. Come on guys, everyone else is having a great time. Chill out. Then again, when the sun goes down and the younger element take the streets, the driving will be right back where it was. Doppler shifted thuds louder than the harsh engine tone as they speed by, punctuatued by an occaisional pfishhhhh! from the turbocharger. Motorbikes simulating the noise of a Grand Prix pit lane. More rarely, a loud electronic woooh! from a police car siren to warn someone or other that they're being watched.
     
    It's hard to escape from that noise. With the weather so warm I have no recourse but to open the windows. The people across the road still don't draw their curtains of course and every so often I glimpse another exciting episode of their personal lives. Oooh look they're having sex again. In this heat? The woman knows I can see her and clearly gets annoyed that she's making a public display of her night time activity. One wonders why she doesn't close the blinds and keep it private. Or why no-one ever complains about her activities.
     
    How To Have Fun Whilst Drunk
    The Aussies are well known for their macho lifestyles and attitudes, but now they shoot each other for fun. Two drunken australians shot each in the buttocks with air rifles in a drunken spree. They thought it would be fun to see if it hurt. Maybe I need to stay off the Fosters for a while.
     
    FLY!
    I remember a canadian cartoon aired on television decades ago. It described the attempts through history of Mankinds attempt to achieve flight. Cavemen, medieval monks - all would ascend a high place and then get kicked off with the command "FLY!". And of course it all ended in dismal failure. But eventually Man learns to fly. We see a holiday maker walking through an airport terminal, out toward his aeroplane, ascending the steps, and then being kicked off the end with a yelled order "FLY!". It was funny, really.
     
    There's an annual event in Britain where people build their own flying devices and attempt to fly by jumping of a pier, ending up dunked in the sea regardless of effort or ingenuity. Now the Ukranians are doing the same in Kiev, falling into the canal one after the other. Scientists reckon we have 4% neanderthal genese in our blood. I reckon we have 96% Lemming.
  17. caldrail

    There Are Always Changes

    By caldrail,

    How things change. Years ago, in more affluent times, I could drive into town and quickly find a parking space while I popped down to the shops. Pay for a spot in the council car park? I think not.
     
    The situation changed with the resident parking schemes. Fed up with visitors like me clogging up the streets - though in fairness it was the long stay parking of commuters from outside the town who were the worst offenders - Swindon was divided up into zones and if you didn't pay the fee, you got the ticket for parking there.
     
    That was all very well, but what happened shortly after was that council officials sought out every possible non-taxable parking spot and daubed double yellow lines on it, which made it a breach of the law to park there.
     
    Now I see that some local councillors are pressing to create new parking spaces in town. At the moment they're fussing over details of the scheme. Expiry dates, days, times, places, all are being minutely examined for the least possible obstruction to the daily lives of the residents concerned, which I find a bit odd because obstruction to parking is the whole point of the scheme.
     
    Now I Know
    I now have proof that wishful thinking can work. The old Mecca bingo hall, previously a cinema, had been abandoned for some time. Passing the premises on a daily basis I often thought it was a waste of a good theatre. If only someone would turn it into a music venue. A proper dedicated music venue, something that Swindon lacks, despite regular big names appearing at the Wyvern Theatre or the Oasis Sports Hall.
     
    To my suprise, someone has done exactly that. Now called Meca, it's going to open as a 2000 seat venue for music. We are most pleased, entrepenours, continue with your decorating.
     
    One of the other changes in Swindon that's been mooted over the years is a pedestrian crossing on Kingshill. Most of you won't know it, but it's the western exit from Old Town and quite a steep road, especially at the top.
     
    Back when I was a schoolkid and took the bus home to Rodbourne, it was a popular form of entertainment for those kids riding bicycles to race the bus down the hill. Time after time one of the 'bad lads' would earn cheers from the top deck as he nervously swept past the bus peddling frantically in the face of commonsense.
     
    One day, we had Animal driving the bus. Now he was cut from a different cloth to most bus drivers. I think he was a frustrated racing driver. At any rate, spotting the youth on a bike preparing for mad dash past the vehicle as it ponderously and noisily wound it's way down the hill, his competitive spirit kicked in. He was not going to beaten. So Animal gunned the throttle and the double decker bus careered down the hill with an astonished bike rider in it's wake.
     
    Hardly a safe thing to do, was it? Well, that was back in the seventies, when such malarkey was common if not officially approved. So now, in our current post-nanny state, we have residents pressing for a crossing along the road, making it safe for children and old people to avoid being mown down by the contestants in the 2010 Double Decker Bus Grand Prix (which of course doesn't happen any more, following the introduction of speed cameras and a nrew hard line attitude from policeman about motoring offences).
     
    I know it's all safer and better for everyone, but in a funny way, I miss the freedom we once had.
  18. caldrail
    The sun was getting quite warm as I walked home yesterday afternoon. I wasn't in any particular hurry and made my way through Old Town. Yellow paintwork caught my attention. As an automatic reaction I glanced up like anyone else, and since bright paintwork is a rarity in the sombre decade we live in, it might not suprise you to learn the car was a Lamborghini Gallardo with its roof down.
     
    The driver was looking straight at me behind his shades. Don't know why, he just was. Then of course he noticed that I'd spotted the Lambo, and predictably he floored the accelerator, shooting off down the high street in a mad desperate bid to look superior. The engine noise was a disappointment. Sure, it sounded raucous and loud, like you'd expect, but somehow it had no class to it. He roared off sounding exactly like a souped up hatchback, and if I were brutally honest, behaving like one too.
     
    Now I've enjoyed an accelerator pedal or two in my time, so perhaps I can't claim moral superiority, but then, I press the accelerator for the sheer joy of it. He pressed it to announce he was the alpha male. By lucky coincidence his sudden burst of speed meant he was somewhere else a lot faster. Bye.
     
    Neighbours of the Week
    Around three o'clock this morning I became dimly aware that things were a little noisier than you'd expect. My neighbours, having returned from a nightclub and clearly wanting to carry on dancing the night away, pumped up the volume with their mates. Reggae bass lines resonated through the brick wall. I might be wrong, but I think its those idiots who spread snow on the path after I cleared it recently.
     
    Worse still, they had disconnected their doorbell. The police, naturally, weren't interested. So far, neither are the local council who deal with noise issues. We'll see.
     
  19. caldrail
    How long has it been since I last wandered around Lawns? Come to think of it, it's been a while, so a couple of days ago I did indeed wander around. Nice days do things like that to me.
     
    Regular readers will know the name 'Lawns' because I've complained often enough about our parks department, who seem determined to remove anything green in them. I've never seen trees looking so scared.
     
    Eventually I passed what used to be the grounds of the local manor house. The Goddard family packed their bags and left before the Second World War, and after being used by American soldiers, it was abandoned until the ruin was demolished in 1958. There's nothing left of the old house. I've seen pictures of it in the museum, a fine old house that looked remarkably modest for a stately home with forty rooms.
     
    Hang on... What's that over there?... I know where the old house used to be, adjacent to the Holy Rood Church, and with my curiosity aroused I discover that the parks department have actually done something interesting with this particular piece of green space. They've actually marked out the foundations with paving slabs so you can see the layout of the place. Brilliant. Keep it up guys.
     
    More Urban Foxes?
    Nope. Last night was deathly quiet. That settled your hash you mangy monster, and we didn't even need any dynamite.
     
    Meanwhile, Back At The Library
    Occaisionally I grumble about someone sat in the next cubicle. Today is no different.
     
    sniff
     
    As you can see, the young asian lad is suffering from sniffles which in the quiet atmosphere of a library constitutes...
     
    sniff
     
    ... Incredibly annoying distraction. Worse still...
     
    sniff
     
    ... He insists on...
     
    sniff
     
    ... Ruffling his bag of....
     
    sniff
     
    ... Sweeties. Honestly, if that lad doesn't....
     
    sniff
     
    ... blow his nose I swear I'm going to....
     
    sniff
     
     
    Taunt of the Week
    Huh?... What was that? Did I hear a youth hurling an insult as he strolled arrogantly past my home? Oh go away you silly little boy. I've got urban foxes to deal with and believe me, those things know how to get attention. Or my latest library nemsis, trying his best to ignore my baleful stares and whispered curses? Face it kid. You're a complete amateur.
  20. caldrail
    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 expensive as the real thing. Salesmen waited in the shadows ready to pounce on unsuspecting members of the public, and I too escaped from one before he ripped my wallet open. He certainly tried hard enough.
     
    Out on the track the owners of these cars roared by in a succession of hamfisted cornering. Deep growling V8's of Shelby cobra replicas, the grand prix shriek of motorcycle engined Caterham clones, and sooner or later, the screetch of tortured tires as the newbie driver got it completely wrong.
     
    Nonetheless I made a huge error of judgement. I was holding an open can of Pepsi. Now the problem wasn't an issue of credibility or manhood, but a target for the local wasps. Here in Swindon wasps are generally shy and retiring. In the vicinity of that race circuit they were evil malicious carnivores hell bent on intimidating any stupid human being they came across.
     
    It wouldn't go away. I moved here, moved there, swiped haplessly at the agile little monster. It just hovered there, staring into my face, trying to mug me of the precious source of sugar. Finally I gave up. Go on, have it. I threw the can in the bin and consider myself lucky to have escaped with my life.
     
    Buzzing About
    Without doubt reicarnation is a real facet of existence on Earth. I know this because She Who Objects To My Internet Use is definitely a reincarnated wasp. She is exactly the same, always buzzing here and there and always glancing over my shoulder hoping to glimpse just one flesh coloured pixel on the computer monitor, always annoying me with her presence. I wish she'd realise that I have no interest in pornography. If she's that interested, why doesn't she browse for some and point energetically at the computer screen? It'll keep her happy.
     
    To be honest I preferred her when she hid in the toilet.
     
    One More Time
    Talking about not going away, learning that Putin just got himself re-elected does not suprise me at all. Interestingly the anarchy of the post-declaration has subsided and Moscow is very quiet today so I gather. Maybe people have made a complaint and now resign themselves to more Adventures Of Putin? I have no idea if the election was actually fair and free, or whether the rumours of tricks and thuggery we normally expect of corrupt african nations have any basis in truth, but the man is back. Maybe he just wants a can of Pepsi?
  21. caldrail

    They Read My Mind

    By caldrail,

    Mankind is a clever species. These days we can talk to someone on the other side of the globe. We can, in theory, arrive at any point of the worlds surface within 48 hours comfortably. Some human beings have been to the dark and crushing depths of the oceans. Others have skipped across the dusty surface of the moon. With all these wondrous inventions and achievements, why is it we cannot design doors that work?
     
    My love/hate relationship with doors is nothing new. Time and again I've pulled instead of pushed, pushed instead of pulled, and on at least two occaisions pulled the darn thing off its hinges by accident. But automatic doors are even worse. I truly believe that autiomatic doors are designed to frustrate the general public. So when it's time to leave the library and go home, what happens? The door sulks. It just stays immobile. No... Hang on... yes, it is moving, ever so slowly. With my recent post about the nature of time, I start to wonder if I haven't encountered a space-time anomaly. Where's Captain Picard when you need him? He never had trouble with doors. And if he did, he had only to ask his engineers to sort it.
     
    Wait... Wait... A gap slowly forms and I try to exit by stepping sideways through it. You might think I was tempting fate. You are correct. The door suddenly stuck solid and I bumped into it looking like the helpless victim of mechanical gremlins that I am. This is one door, above all others, that deserves to be pulled off its hinges.
     
    But the security guard is watching me struggle with the door. I wonder if he knows what I'm thinking? How did he know I was going to collide with the only architectural feature in the building with a bad attitude? No, that's it, I'm going to make a complaint. Sorry, Librarian, but that door is rubbish. I want it fixed.
     
    "Oh. I see. If you have a complaint Sir, please fill in this form" She said.
     
    Okeedokee. I'll just sit here and...
     
    "Sorry Sir, but that seat is for new library members."
     
    Needless to say, there weren't any. Perhaps she can tell the future?
     
    More Proof Of Psychic Powers?
    Now here's a strange thing. Walking along the front of the old college site I pass a number of bushes growing between the delapidated brick wall and the white-painted plywood fence put up behind it to keep out beggars and druggies. With all the good weather, you can imagine how well these bushes and young trees have grown over the last two years. One small branch in particular is so virile that that it droops under its own weight and makes an annoying obstruction on the footpath. No, that's it, the next time I pass it, that branch is being broken off.
     
    Too late. Someone has sensed my annoyance and done it for me. Earlier today. How about that? All I have to do is think about things and it happens. Now let's see if I can negotiate that door safely by the power of my mind...
  22. caldrail
    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 an attempt at hooking an older man, something I've avoided like the plague both to remain free of legal entanglements, eighteen year child support payments, and if I were honest, headaches. Nonetheless this man is guilty. I'm sorry, he just is. And the judge thought so too, leaving him with a suspended sentence for his lack of restraint.
     
    I'm definitely not envious.
     
    Naughty Scanners
    With a resurgence in aircraft hijacking and bombing it isn't suprising that efforts are being made to deal with the very real threat to health and sfety in the skies. The American response is understandable if none too original, as they decide to put more people on board airliners with guns. Great. I might be paying hundreds of pounds to sit in a transatlantic shooting alley at some point. The British response is to take on board new technology that allows discreet searching with strange space ray scanners.
     
    All very X-files and James Bond, but at least there;'s a practical point. Unfortunately the scanners are so good that you're left in no doubt about the subject being scanned, and someone has brought up the issue that these scanners infringe laws concerning sex and privacy. Can I accept the risk of people scrutinising my physical form, possibly recording images for posting on the internet for the world worlds entertainment? I'd have to say it's a lot less risky than running the gauntlet of religious zealots intent on bagging seven hundred virgins in the afterlife by blowing me up.
     
    Mind you, since the terrorists manhood gets blown up in the process, methinks maybe his seven hundred virgins aren't going to be too impressed. So I'm not envious on this point, either.
     
    Cultural Dress
    Walking home through Swindons own moslem ghetto I notice a variety of cultural influences. For the most part, these people are vaguely westernised if somewhat distinctive. The Turkish community in particular all seem identical and I cabn't help wondering if it's one humungous family owning the street.
     
    That said, I passed a pair of moslem girls in traditional garb that left only the eyes visible. Now, if they choose to follow that tradition as opposed to their menfolk demanding it, then I have no issue over it. But it all seems so.. What's the word?... Penal. Anyway the two girls seemed none to concerned at their reclusive lifestyle and jabbered away at each other in typical westernised gossip mode.
     
    No, I'm still not envious. And that, it seems, is the point of hiding women in body socks. I am left curious though... Are these women seductive sirens of supernatural beauty? Or just too embarrasing to be seen in public? Oh hang, I mustn't criticise. I might be blown up in someone's quest to obtain post anhiliation sex.
     
    She's Back Again
    That irritating irish woman is in the library again. She likes to have conversations, which isn't a crime, but she also likes to talk very loudly.
    For her a discussioin is something to savoured with a loudhailer. Imagine an upper class irish accent spoken very slowly at full volume? It just sets your teeth on edge.
     
    Just In Case
    Now you might be wondering if complete normality has return ed to Swindon. Nope, it's still cold, though today we're blessed with another sunny day. Last year when we had a snow fall we got glassy layer of ice across the town for our trouble, but this year it just hasn't happened, a result of the continued cold temperatures and lack of a thaw. But don't breath again, for the siberian weather isn't finished yet. Apparently there's another belt of snow preparing to mount an aerial invasion of the southern counties. So it looks like Yorkshire will just have to tolerate not being the toughest hardest hit county in Britain right now. Sorry about that.
  23. caldrail

    They're Coming!

    By caldrail,

    There was a time, before the BBC discovered computerised special effects, that we used to see those fifties 'B' movies. You know the ones? A terrible threat to mankind emerges from its hiding place and lays waste to the nearest big city before mankind finds a way to destroy it. Good wholesome family viewing. All these films followed a familiar pattern. Whether the threat came from space aliens, nuclear radiation, meteorites, or chemicals, it all started with an innocent small town slowly becoming aware of a lurking menace.
     
    When the threat is realised, the good reverend clutches his bible to his chest, and advances toward the monster safe in the knowledge that a leather bound book is all he needs to protect himself from the terrible fate that inevitably gets him anyway. Then the army turn up and fire everything they've got. It turns out of course that bullets and shells bounce off the creature but the army fights to the last scream of agony. High Command, realising that London and Paris are also being stomped and eaten, decide to drop a nuclear bomb, which does no more than daze the monster for five seconds before it remorselessly continues doing what the writer intended it to.
     
    The end is always a suprise. At the very last moment we discover the monster was vulnerable to something very ordinary and we see the closing credits as the choir sings in the background, announcing that the world is safe until the next feature release.
     
    A few days ago, two policemen turned from our street into the alleyway and were never seen again. Hmmm... Strange.... Well I thought no more of it until I bought yesterdays newspaper intent on finding a job advert. Lo and behold, pest exterminators are warning of a new danger in Swindon. Our cute, loveable local sewer rat has mutated into a big nasty indestructible Giant Super-Rat. No, really, they mean it. The monster rodents are unaffected by poison and traps are the only answer. So serious is the threat that BBC Radio One is holding their Big Weekend at Lydiard Park to lure them out, and the government are recalling troops from Iraq.
     
    Mark my words - There will be loads of screaming women before this is over...
     
    They've Arrived!
    It was past midnight when I heard the lorry out the back of the house. We don't usually get a lot of traffic in the back streets at that hour. The odd mobile night club with a fat exhaust or a sprinting motorbike usually. Out of curiosity I opened the back window and observed a large lorry backing up the road to a property further up the hill. Deliveries? At this hour? The driver saw me leaning out the window (his eyesight is pretty good), and hurled an incoherent reminder for me to mind my own business. Suit yourself mate. I was going to warn you about the Giant Super-Rats prowling the area, but....
     
     
  24. caldrail

    Things in the Sky

    By caldrail,

    There's been a lot of UFO stories lately. The british army has been reporting all over the place. A story in this mornings paper is about one guy who dialled the emergency number, describing a strange light. The police patiently asked where the light was and came came to the conclusion it was the moon.
     
    Funny thing is, we all see strange strange objects in the sky sometimes. Thousands of anti-aircraft rounds were fired at Venus in World War 2 for instance. The girlfriend of our band manager once told me of an object taking off and rocketing into the sky one night, and she's a very rational person indeed. Have I seen a UFO? Need you ask?...
     
    I was sat beside my bedroom window one winter morning. The sky was clear, the air quality good. My attention was drawn to a flashing light in the sky. It was travelling at some height over the house in a direction against the normal flow of airway traffic that you usually see over Swindon. The flashing light was quite strong, brighter than you'd expect, and it dawned on me that an airliner couldn't possibly have a beacon that powerful in daylight. As the object went over the house, you could clearly see a polyhedral shape turning over end to end. Thats why it flashes! The objects flat sides were reflecting sunlight as it revolved. I wondered if ripples in the windows glass was distorting the shape, but it certainly didn't look like it.
     
    What did I see? I haven't an idea at all. It certainly didn't look like an aeroplane. In all honesty I doubt it was a spaceship full of space aliens being taken to see our leader, but what else could possibly match that description? An unidentified flying object.
     
    The Vulcan Is Back!
    The Avro Vulcan is a relic from the Cold War, one of britains fleet of V-Bombers, designed to carry nuclear weapons into the heart of Russia on one way bombing strikes. Eventually it did see action during the Falkland War, depositing explosive devices on the runway of Port Stanley Airport at astonishing distances from their bases. Most vulcans have been scrapped, but there's one or two in museums here and there.
     
    I remember seeing a vulcan at a Great Warbirds display at Wroughton airfield many years ago. I was struck by the sight of a large jet bomber showing extraordinary agility at low level, and most of all, the sheer noise and drama as it pulled skyward suddenly and vanished into the clouds with a crescendo of car alarms going off everywhere. The ground literally shook. That was some finale.
     
    I hear one of the remaining vulcans has finally been cleared for public flying display at a cost of around
  25. caldrail

    Things Not Right

    By caldrail,

    Last night I saw the glare of a waning moon coming through the back window. A bright moon is always an invite to stare into the night sky but to be honest I was disappointed. Although the sky was clear, the moon wasn't really penetrating the darkness and it still felt like nighttime. You may well say it was bound to be, but a couple of nights before the moon had been nearly full, lighting the streets, yards, and alleys at the back of my home like a pale version of the sun, light grey clouds drifting past and the whole scene so close to daylight that you could have wandered around the countryside in that semi-twilight with no difficulty at all.
     
    As it happens, yesterday was one where the cold got a lot colder during the course of the day. By nightfall, as I trode across the road for a kebab, I nearly froze. The weather people say we might get snow showers this afternoon. Looking out the back window right now there's a sombre display of medium grey flat clouds against a whiter background. Hang on though... There's a northerly wind today, and looking in that direction? Yep. A band of creamy flat-bottomed cumulus coming our way.
     
    Rap on the Cobbles
    I see Snoop Dog wants his ban lifted so he can come to Britain and do a cameo role in one our soap operas, Coronation Street. My first reaction was one of horror. As if the tale of working class people in a midlands street wasn't banal and surreal enough already, now a rap star wants to tuck into an indian takeaway and chill in the Rovers Return. If only Julie Goodyear was still acting the part of Bet Lynch. She'd be putting on her most expensive dress and leopard skin accessories. Eh chuck, she's puttin' the poor singer in his place like nowt else.
     
    Letter of the Week
    Recently I mentioned getting an unexpected P45 in the post and getting slightly furious with the government agencies over it. I'm pleased to say the matter is resolved. I've just received another letter telling me to expect a P45 in the post and not to worry about it.
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