Commonplaces

Zoo Quest To The West Country

2012-01-28T17:28:00.008Z

We'd decided - finally! - to go on our first proper holiday, as opposed to the occasional day out and that week we spent in bed. We were a bit tentative as we're both picky sociopaths so we decided that we'd best move about a bit, just in case. So we did a lightning visit to the pointy bit at the bottom of the country. (Alas, too fleeting to give a shout to them nice Pat and Scarlet.) After a few nice days we pootled back home, taking a meandering track that would eventually get us back hereabouts...

There was a giant flea Market at Newton Poppleford. Imagine our dismay to find that they were, in fact, selling giant fleas.

The gents lavatory at Bridgewater had advertisements for Easter eggs, which is wrong on so very many levels

Egad!!! I am sure I bumped into Armand and Michaela Denis in the Book Barn at Hallatrow on the way over to Mummerset. They were filming the habits of two middle-aged ladies who were complaining that the Shell Guide to Gardening wasn't in the conchology section.

"I've never read a Jilly Cooper book, have you?"
"I don't know that I have."

Oh come now! You'd know if you had…

There were acres and acres of Thackery and Dickens and yards of Collins pocket literature. Meanwhile, as always, the collectors of detective fiction hang onto their spoils. And I really have to ask: were there really that many copies of John Halifax, Gentleman printed?

In Bath we met a chap by the river who invited us to his 53rd birthday. We were politely non-committal; as a rule we don't accept party invitation from people who are foaming at the mouth. Especially not when it's still only ten in the morning. It's a bit too much like being back at work.

Bank holiday television

2012-01-02T18:57:00.003Z

You can tell it's a bank holiday Monday by the state of the programmes they put on the telly, though God knows it gets more like a perpetual bank holiday every day:

There is, of course, no news .

On Channel Five a bunch of oddly-wrought blokes from places you've never heard of (including Dartford) are competing for the title of "The World's Strangest Man."

On Alibabble, Miss Marple forsakes St. Mary Mead to spend a weekend at Melchester to watch Roy of the Rovers pit his footballing skills against Billy the Fish.

Oh goodie. A special holiday showing of " Indiana Potter and
the Eggheads of Hollyoaks."

I'm looking forward to later tonight when Tess Daley and Nick Knowles present "Zoo Time" live from the Trocadero, Southport.

Shadows at midnight

2011-12-31T22:47:00.000Z

Merry New Year to all!!!!

And now, a fillum...

I don't know why Morrissey didn't do more Rudolf Friml covers

2011-12-25T19:34:00.003Z

A Chrimbo singalong...

Rather despite myself I like this. Partly because the tempo's fast enough for Maria Carey to sing properly and not do those ridiculous arpeggios. But mostly because it feels like a Phil Spector Wall Of Sound number.

And to keep up the tempo...

Many a slip

2011-12-18T21:02:00.002Z

As sure as eggs…

The onset of the first serious frost and light smattering of snow is guaranteed to be the signal for half the drivers down our way to park their cars on the pavement to give them their Sunday afternoon jet wash, ready for the Christmas hostilities.

The spirit of thingy

2011-12-04T11:56:00.003Z

We got worrying about what Morrisey does for Christmas.

We'd come to an inconclusive point in the debate about the gender of the Roadrunner (my argument that Wile E. Coyote was a metaphor for an America struggling to come to terms with it's sexuality depended on the Roadrunner's being a ladyboy). And The Small Object of Desire was determined that not only was Aled Jones not Pinocchio ("he's made out of wood: that's why he's got varnished rosy cheeks that don't move when he talks." "No. He's just Welsh.") but his name was on the list for the firing squad come the revolution.

That's when she started worrying about what Morrisey does for Christmas.

I tried to reassure her that it would be business as usual and he'd have tea with the chimps in the monkey house at Bristol Zoo, giving passers-by a running commentary with a selection of the unconvincing voices out of the corner of his mouth that used to delight us when he was on "Animal Magic."

"I expect he just goes round his mam's for a nut cutlet," she muttered.

Give us a blob

2011-11-20T21:51:00.005Z

The acting profession is a hard one. Spare a kind thought for Fireman Blob, one of British animation's fallen by the wayside.

You see, originally, it was Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Blob.

There they were, all kitted out and helmets freshly-polished when the nice men from Camberwick Green took themselves off to BBC Television Centre to sell the idea to children's telly. And all went well until... Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Blob.

"What the hell is that?" asked the Commissioning Editor.

"Fireman Blob," replied the animators.

"Get rid of that. It looks like you got that far and couldn't be arsed."

And so it came to pass: after a heated, but ultimately futile, discussion poor old Fireman Blob got his marching orders and was replaced by the felicitously-named Grub.

The rest is history. Embittered, Blob turned his back on the industry and went back to provincial repertory theatre, touring the West Country with Joan Littlewood's production of "No Sex, Please, We're British." When last seen, he was playing "unpleasant thing on the bathroom floor" in Robin Asquith's seminal "Confessions of a Sagger Maker's Bottom Knocker," a pale reflection of glories that might have been.

Such is the hardship behind the glamour of showbiz.

The delights of the hedgerow

2011-11-16T10:10:00.000Z

One of the treats of these late Autumn mornings is the sight of people out and about taking Rover and Fido, or Fang and Tyson, out for a constitutional. The doggies frolic hither and thither, all agog with the smells of the day while their owners follow behind collecting little lumps of dog shit in their little carrier bags. I'm told it makes for a cheeky little country wine.

Unoccupied

2011-11-13T20:14:00.002Z

Oh, it's all very well for Ed Millipede to decide to jump onto the Occupy Bits of Pavement to Piss Off the Daily Mail but I'd be more amenable to this attempt to co-opt the protests for political advantage had we heard or seen much of the outrage at the Labour party conference.

The speech I would have wanted to hear would have included something like this:

"There are those in the financial sector who say that the time for atonement is over. These are the people who said that the good times shall roll forever and whose mistakes are hurting ordinary people every day. Vulnerable people who find their care needs being ignored because of cuts. Children and families who find that their playgrounds and libraries are no more. Companies that can't find investment capital when they need it. Small businessmen who find their markets have vanished because their customers have shut up shop. These are the people who are being hurt and for them there is no easy taxpayer-funded return to Business As Usual.

"There are those in the financial sector who say that the time for atonement is over. I think of the bank clerks and the teachers, the nurses and the builders, the overworked and the unemployed and I say to those in the financial sector: no. I say to them: boys and girls, some humility is called for.

"You fucked the economy.

"You don't get to say when the time for atonement is over. Ask the people of Britain when they've stopped being hurt by your actions."

The intellectual rigour of the English sabbath

2011-11-07T00:44:00.002Z

The quiet English Sunday is an opportunity for sober reflection of the big issues of life and the prolonged digestion of the issues and outcomes of our current affairs media.

Today we have mulled over:

The merits — or not — of the lamb chop, roast potato and minty peas smoothie;

Queen Victoria's moustache cup; and

Cats' bottoms.

Birthday honours

2011-10-30T16:37:00.001Z

We are slightly out of sorts, we are, by the concept of Sir Bruce Forsyth. Nothing against the man, please understand me, but not an easy one for my household to get its head round. We are actively outraged by the idea of Sir Tom Jones and the cold grim reality that in five or six years' time it'll be Dame Lulu.

I've long argued that it's more than time that Nicholas Parsons got a knighthood. The Small Object of Desire objected on the grounds that Peter Shilton hadn't got one for "being lovely." Even she had to admit that he couldn't have one before Gordon Banks. We agreed to disagree, eventually, over the merits or not of Sir Nobby Stiles.

John Inman and Roy Barraclough should both be made Dames of the British Empire for their services to pantomime.

As should Jeremy Paxman.

Tramlines of the mind

2011-10-29T16:31:00.003+01:00

My dad used to work in Norbury's Printers in Old Trafford and although that, and all the other small factories that lined Elsinore Road, have been gone this past twenty years it still seems strange to see the place converted into a tram depot.

It's a changing world and I'm conscious that I'm slowing down. The first signs that the world was getting a bit fast for me came in the aftermath of the bomb in Manchester. All of a sudden, my lovely old city with the Lino a bit tatty round the edges was having facelifts and makeovers and whatnot. These days you can't move for designer doodads and footballers' danglies.

Then they decided to turn the Pomona Docks into a small Manhatten skyline of empty offices and renamed part of Salford MediaCityUK. Where once was the U.C.P. tripeworks now there are sharp young men tweeting in CamelCase.

It wasn't all better in Th'owd days, no of course it wasn't. But I could keep up with it all.

On hearing the first fieldfares of Autumn

2011-10-22T10:42:00.002+01:00

It's been a long week and I found myself waking up at twenty to ten. The Small Object of Desire was already awake, which was even more unusual.

"Hello you. Do you want me to make you a nice cup of tea?"

She said, snuggling up to me.

"Yes please," I replied.

"This is the bit where I usually go back to sleep, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes."

"It's good to be predictable."

An hour later, I'm fighting the urge to put the kettle on.

Stuff

2011-10-15T08:53:00.002+01:00

Apologies for going quiet again. Some time this weekend I'll get back to that post I'd half written before my mum took bad (she's fine, thanks, but still in hospital eating grapes). Between that, work and my natural capacity for insomnia The Small Ibject Of Desire had started enquiries with her veternary friends as to the appropriate dosage of horse tranquiliser.

Always some Helm there to remind me...

2011-09-22T21:04:00.004+01:00

A few people have been kind enough to ask about the folk left unchronicled in The Other Place. The good news is that there have been, as yet, no fatalities. Some people have, sadly, lost their jobs. Others have jumped before they are pushed. The story is dispiritingly common. The good news is that no libraries are to close in the old town, which begs more questions than is sensible or safe for me to ask here.

But for those of you who wanted, nay needed, to know, the people are much the same. God help them. Frog has his collection of disturbing children's pop-up books and there are stories that T.Aldous may have finished clearing out his garage. The Monkey's Arms is still Mecca on Friday afternoons. As is the rollmop herring counter in the horse meat shop.

And that old lady on the Milkbeck bus still drinks Old Spice.

A lapse

2011-09-20T20:25:00.003+01:00

The Small Object of Desire has a question.

"Did I really just hear you tell that cat that he'd like sardines because they taste like pilchards by sing better?"

Might have done.

Damson days

2011-09-10T15:41:00.001+01:00

The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness came along early this year. Near all that is palatable has been picked, the rest for the wasps and last-lingering butterflies.

The swifts left a couple of weeks ago. Unlike the swallows and martins, which make a performance of gathering together on the telegraph wires shouting: "we're off now, see you next year!" the swifts disappear like the dew in the morning. One day you realise you haven't seen them for a while and the wind's a little colder than it has been. It's all a little furtive and sad.

The onset of Autumn means that playtime is over and we get back to the illusion of everyday reality. Some of the early consequences of parts of that illusion have been keeping me away from the blogosphere this past few weeks. Apologies for neglecting you all yet again. Luckily, all the awful stuff is at work. Unluckily, it has a knack of following us home.

Ah well…

Summertime Seaside Spcial

2011-08-29T20:06:00.002+01:00

It's been the typical English August Bank Holiday Monday, so...

Amusement

2011-08-20T12:16:00.001+01:00

My favouritest game on the penny arcades was the one where you put 50p in the slot and you get five shiny 10p pieces.

I never won the big jackpot but I always managed to break even.

Among my souvenirs

2011-08-16T00:03:00.010+01:00

Some more post titles from the "Pending" file...

Nose-mottling excitement
Show them a real pas-de-bloody-deux!
The squeak of old clogs
Tangible benefits for stuff
An infinity of catterpillars
Concertinas at half mast
Backlighting my youthfulness
Isn't it disappointing when you stop noticing your plug-in?
He wrote as a Byzantine Neoplatonist
Her little fur brassiere caught on a glacier just to remember her by
Educating Marmalade
One dare not step back till the last pterodactyl is safely back home in it's nest
A mardy-faced gorilla
His punishment is to see the Dawn before the rest of the world
That five minutes in the bath when the football season isn't happening
It's barely Spring and salt and vinegar

Ah... would that it weren't, would that it weren't

2011-08-13T16:31:00.003+01:00

Sadly missed already. R.I.P. Robert Robinson

And an affectionate tweak of the whiskers:

Entropy

2011-08-12T15:04:00.000+01:00

Back in the Dark Ages, when I was a kid, the school nature table was arrayed with objects found, all grouped under the headings: " Alive," "Dead" and "Never Alive."

I may do the same with the contents of this fridge…

A la recherche de stuff perdu

2011-08-10T22:59:00.000+01:00

Anyway, I found the razor. It had somehow fallen to the back of the bookcase, behind the Giles annuals.

No more Colin Firth for a week

2011-08-09T17:20:00.000+01:00

We were watching telly the other day when The Small Object Of Desire said:

"Hasn't that Mick MacManus let himself go?"

It was Jenny Agguter.

Statesmen

2011-08-07T20:30:00.001+01:00

Pausing to take a photograph of the Duke of Wellington, a passing drunk congratulated me on my choice of subject.

Quiescence

2011-08-06T17:22:00.002+01:00

Apologies to all of you lately.

I've spent the past three months writing long and detailed business cases, project initiation documents, project plans, all that Prince2 stuff to get things off the road, for a bunch of big library projects that may yet never happen, given the nature of the beast.

Consequently, my creative writing juices are pretty much all burned out at the moment and all I'm fit for at the laptop is playing card games.

Keep well, all.

A nation of shopkeepers

2011-08-03T18:06:00.000+01:00

Strolled through T.J. Hughes at lunchtime. Very depressing, not much left except kitchenware, which probably says too much about the locals.

Show us yer plums!

2011-07-24T16:23:00.002+01:00

I'm almost wondering where Summer went: the Michaelmas daisies are in bloom and already swallows are congregating on telephone lines ready for the off.

My garden is a riot. Quite literally (I suspect foxes, though the goldfinches have a guilty look about themselves). The blackcurrants and boysenberries have performed nicely and the rowan groans with fruit. Yet again the cherry disappoints, which is entirely my fault, the tree's doing its best in the circumstances. My dad's trees have provided enough fruit for every beggar and his dog for miles around and I spent part of yesterday picking for the freezer. It still looks like nobody's bothered. The plums and damsons are the same: my brother's Victoria plum is absolutely weighed down with fruit that's starting to go coppery purple and my dad's damsons are also colouring up nicely. My garden's at a higher elevation (well, I'm just up the road) so mine are usually a week or two later. It's looking like the makings of a bumper crop, so we'll be giving the jam-making kit a bit of a pacing this year.

Bad news: no figs. I think the tree needs a lot of TLC after the past two winters.

Playing the averages

2011-07-23T19:03:00.004+01:00

I got quite cross the other day reading an article banging on about that old canard about the average public sector worker now being better off than the average private sector employee.

I get very impatient with averages. Especially when they are the mean figure for a whole host of variables that aren't self-explanatory.

The fact that the average public sector worker is better paid is scarcely surprising and owes nothing to the efficiencies of the market and the private sector's ability to keep down labour costs. It's simple, really; the public sector has been haemorrhaging low-paid jobs for the past three decades.

Most of the front-line workers; all the school caretakers and bin men and traffic wardens and street cleaners; the swimming pool attendants and men what paint the white lines down the road: they don't work for the council any more. The municipal departments that once employed them are replaced by two or three people whose job is to manage the contracts. Less than half of my colleagues at work are actually on the council payroll.

And so it will continue. With The Big Society, The Localism Bill and wholesale cuts in public sector budgets the logical end point is for each council to have outsourced all those services that have survived "we're all in it together" leaving just a chief executive and a handful of contract managers.

And the journalists will then complain that the average council employee is paid almost as much as a hack writer on a national daily.

All gas and phasers

2011-07-14T20:46:00.001+01:00

Every so often it really hits me that The Small Object Of Desire and myself are a pretty good fit. Like the other night...

It was the end of a very long day at work and we were both too tired to sleep or do anything other than loll around talking rubbish. Which is my default setting anyway.

"I was thinking about Derek Nimmo," she said.

Like you do.

"Except I got his name confused and kept thinking: 'Derek Nimoy'. And somehow I couldn't get the idea out of my head. Derek Nimmo as Mister Spock, with pointy ears and a dog collar. And Captain Kirk saying to him: 'What's our position Mister Spock?' and he'd say: 'Oh golly gosh.'"

I am utterly beguiled by this who idea. I can see it all now: Mervyn Johns as Captain Kirk, John Barron as a Klingon, Robertson Hare as Scotty...

The younger generation may be wondering what I am blathering on about again...

Playing to the audience

2011-07-13T18:31:00.000+01:00

It's all very well Alan Gibbons telling a library conference that "A library without a librarian is just a room." He doesn't have to work with some of the buggers, let alone try and deliver services despite them.

Family homes

2011-07-10T15:47:00.002+01:00

The Small Object Of Desire is settled into her new house and it's started to feel like a home (leastways, she's leaving her socks in the dining room). It's a nice Victorian terraced house; discussing it the other day we found we'd both come to the conclusion that it was like an old auntie. Much beloved and slightly disreputable in her way.

I asked what she thought of my house, which I've always seen as a barmy old uncle (perhaps projecting my own personality to the building). "Oh, it's a cheeky nephew," she said. "Its face is a bit dirty at times, but it's one of those nephews that you just have to love. You just roll yours eyes and think: 'bless'."

How nice.

Ladies, look away now

2011-07-08T12:26:00.003+01:00

The new workplace (oh yes) has room in the gents for more than just the one lavatory bowl and a sink and it's a reminder to me of the etiquette of Office Gents'.

There are those people who will occupy a cubicle, with the door open, as they stand and have a pee. This is because they are Scared Of Somebody Seeing My Willy. Which is bad news at busy lunchtimes for those of us Scared Of Somebody Seeing Our Bottom Because We're Having To Shit In The Urinal.

Detective rules

2011-07-02T10:03:00.002+01:00

"in all the detective stories I've read there is usually a good-looking and highly educated young officer who falls in love with a rich and beautiful girl and, after rescuing her every ten pages from a fate which is popularly supposed to be worse than death, marries her on page 366 and lives happily right up to the end cover."
— Edgar Wallace
"The House Of The Candles

Random acts of kindness

2011-06-26T21:56:00.002+01:00

I live near a big shopping mall. Walking over there involves taking a short cut through an industrial estate and then nipping through an underpass to get to the approach road.

Walking through the underpass this morning I noticed a brilliant grafitto. There, in bright lemon spray paint was:

" Hello! I hope you have a really lovely day!"

More most we pissed...

2011-06-23T16:37:00.001+01:00

Part the second of a very occasional series...

The parting of the gravy
It's not your birthday yeti
You can tell it's real, it's got plastic fingers
Sometimes the only solution to organisational failure is Dale Winton in a tutu
The funeral was a gay affair and everybody laughed
Thus do the wives of great men help save their husbands' modesty
Two shakes of a lamb's doo-dah
On hearing the first bunyip of Spring
Waggling their MBEs
The head of the herd was calling far, far away
I have a spontaneously-combusting log
A Corby Viking press
A bed full of pamphlet pokers
Bringing up "that clear thing"

Ties that don't bind

2011-06-20T00:36:00.002+01:00

I have a red-and-white tie. It is a rather fetching red-and-black tie and I like it very much. Unfortunately, it doesn't go with any of my shirts. It doesn't even go with black or white shirts...

Jumpers for goalposts

2011-06-11T18:48:00.001+01:00

Apparently, "Hurray For Santa Claus" isn't a good choice of bathroom serenade on a cold, wet June morning. Aside from that and the fight over the duvet and The Small Object Of Desire's too-strong protestations of innocence of the charge of lusting after Jeremy Clarkson (one of the subsidiary dangers of partnering a petrol head), Railway Cuttings' transition into sultry love nest is going remarkably smoothly. This is remarkable for two reasons: it's been more than a decade since I last shared any space with anybody at all (and quarter of a century since my last foray into co-habitant); and we're both natural curmudgeons of a high order.

There is, however, one dark shadow in this Elysian splendour. It is the matter of sex.

Luckily, we are both still capable in the arts of making love, with the aid of a walking frame and a box of safety matches. Unluckily, there is an issue about foreplay. Round these parts foreplay consists of a beery nudge after "Match of the Day" and the magic words: "How about it lass?" unfortunately, neither of us are beer drinkers (I don't drink at all, come to that) and we're not overly struck on "Match of the Day." We're both quite struck by how much Alan Hansen looks like Captain Scarlet but it's not enough to get the libido going.

We'd quite like the cry of: "Oh He'll, Mark Kermode's on the telly again! Switch it off!" to be the signal for romantic manoeuvres but we worry that this may be beyond the pale societally.

Ambition thwarted

2011-06-11T08:46:00.003+01:00

It's a shame "Britain's Got Talent" is on before the 9pm watershed. I reckon my impersonation of Jimmy Durante could have been a contender.

Because it's Sunday

2011-06-06T01:07:00.001+01:00

And because I've not gotten round to writing all that stuff I was supposed to be writing...

Sunday singalong

2011-05-29T20:53:00.002+01:00

There is a view in this household that Joan Jett should be commissioned to rehabilitate the whole of Gary Glitter's back catalogue, this giving us back the excuse for a lot of road journey singalongs.

Lessons unlearned

2011-05-29T16:43:00.002+01:00

You'd have thought I'd know better after the episode with the quilt, but oh no…

Much to my — and the blue tits' — dismay, I've temporarily put a clothes line up in the garden so that I can dry a bed cover which has been drip-draining into the bath for the past 20 hours after I had a fit of bank holiday domesticity.

For those of you struggling for pub quiz questions, it turns out that a quilted blanket can hold eighty litres of bathwater.

28 Days Later...

2011-05-22T22:43:00.002+01:00

The Small Object Of Desire And Moon Of My Delight woke up with a start.

"I've had a horrible dream," she said. "I dreamt that I was being set challenges. If I got the challenge right then a small disaster happened and only a few people died. If I got it wrong there was some sudden huge disaster and thousands of people died. And we were running round like mad trying to round up everyone we knew so that if anything else happened we'd know where they were and we could look after them and we wouldn't be having to keep going off to look for them.

"And you kept telling me off: we only had so much time to find everyone and if we didn't get back soon we might never get back so we might have to leave some people behind."

It's awful when work intrudes into real life.

Déjà vu

2011-05-16T16:11:00.002+01:00

I think I need to start writing a blog about my workplace, to get some of the stresses out of my system…

The uncallings-for of Summer

2011-05-12T20:20:00.000+01:00

There's no call for that, Summer days in Helminthdale or no Summer days in Helminthdale.

We spent ages trying to work out whether the elderly chap making his way to the bus station was wearing particularly disreputable Bermuda shorts or had forgotten his trousers.

One swallow doesn't make a relationship

2011-05-09T23:49:00.002+01:00

We've finally(!) had a drop of rain. OK, then, a torrential downpour, but it's the first we've had since the beginning of April. We've been lucky with the bank holiday weather and took advantage to loll around the garden awhile. Taking care to ignore the neglects of Winter, when I was a bit preoccupied.

The damson, cherries and pears have all flowered and the scent of the rowan has gone over from fishy stickiness to bletted wonder. By the looks of things we'll be well-stocked with blackcurrants and cherries and the first few figs are happily swelling up. The borders are chockablock with hardy geraniums and iris and the shrubs are thick with sparrows, goldfinches and dunnock. We also seem to be hosting nestboxes full of great and blue tits and a blackcap has taken ownership of the sycamore on the railway embankment.

So there I've been, sitting around on the patio, sipping tea and reading The Hotspur. Meanwhile, the Small Object of Desire and Moon of My Delight has been chopping up the firewood and the garden is full of birdsong.

Life is pretty good at the moment.

Bunting is compulsory

2011-04-28T16:58:00.000+01:00

Bunting and frolic abounds in the nation as Royal Wedding fever grips one half of the population and a virulent mood of "sod the wedding" grips the other. This is all too evident in Helminthdale Town Hall where many of the offices are ostentatiously undecorated by Union Flags while some mad enclaves are packed to the gunnels with Franklin Mint figurines of West Highland terriers with flags and roses in their mouths.

Street parties are compulsory, especially outside The Monkey's Arms where this is business as usual most nights from eight in the morning when the chemist's shop starts selling meths and Night Nurse. Lubianka Avenue will be hosting the gala parade featuring, inevitably, Year Six of St. Barrabas' Free School And Call-Me-Dave Academy, who will be providing a picturesque tableau float representing "The Rôle of the Cold Sore Through The Ages."

A good time shall be had by all. Especially me 'cos I'll be staying in bed well out of it.

Thursday singalong

2011-04-21T21:31:00.001+01:00

Some posts we missed

2011-04-13T13:08:00.000+01:00

Madame De Farge was asking about the whereabouts of the post titles I haven't used in the other blog. I may be using some of them for the secret history, but I thought I might share a few from the lucky bag once every so often. Here's a random selection.

Plagued by spider kittens
A flash of masculine idiocy
Just like Nelson did at the Battle of Waterloo
Could you give a loud whistle just in case anything cracks
If this works I'll be known as somebody with healing feet
In the line of duty I've had to put things up people's noses
Did he actually say: "Ahoy there!"?
On passing lilac urine
Prince Philip said: "Get your finger out!" and that cut us to the quick
The Jane From Hell's Kitchen
Kindly Omit Flowers

Things what grown-ups do

2011-04-11T08:55:00.005+01:00

An occasional series. Part one of the list:

Have a "who can do the dance from 'Tales Of The Unexpected'" competition when they should be getting ready for work.
Missing the traffic lights changing because they're having an eyebrow wiggling contest
Sulking after being accused of eating the last of the Tangfastics even though it's absolutely untrue and somebody else entirely ate them and passed on the blame.

All things have their season?

2011-04-07T14:01:00.000+01:00

The advice for story tellers was to start at the beginning and carry on until you get to the end and then finish. The more I read the last post in the other blog the more it feels like the last post in the other blog. It just feels right.

In many ways this is a good time to stop it. The story's become harder to tell, for reasons I've outlined before, and to be honest my heart's not in it any more. These are dangerous times, as usual, but whereas in the past the taking of the risks added a frisson to the game, these days it's just another layer of boredom on top of the same old same old...

I think that's the top and bottom of it: I'm bored shitless with it all. There are fresh new challenges, which look all too much like the same old challenges not even dressed up to disguise it a bit. And the deathless dramas are the same old deathless dramas we've repeated oh so very many times before. There may be a different number of people chasing a different number of chairs but when the music stops it's still the same old parlour game.

So I think I'll stop it there. I may change my mind but until I do I'll put those energies into making a better fist of keeping in contact with the blogosphere than I have been doing.

I'll still be posting to this blog; it serves a different purpose again.

A grand day out

2011-04-07T11:03:00.000+01:00

A day at the seaside. Liverpool's full of characters going to Aintree. It's a poor do when I fancy a Merseyrail driver, though to be fair, he's the spit image of Sophia Loren.

Nostradamus of the 'phone

2011-04-04T08:42:00.002+01:00

Fighting a losing battle with the predictive text on the 'phone.

Apologies to anyone startled by references to "nuts warmed gently in love oil."

Passing mists

2011-03-30T20:53:00.002+01:00

As I was changing into my clerical greys the small object of devotion eyed me coldly:

"There's 'loveable rumpled eccentric' and there's 'I've just walked away from a train crash.' You're not looking rumpled."

Web2.0wit

2011-03-25T17:53:00.000Z

You know how it is, dearie, any well-wisher would let you a morsel of Christopher Isherwood, Dryden and Beckett and de Beaudellaire, Muir and Norden and Robertson Hare; the rhythm, the timbre, the metre, the beat - it ends with some Herbert composing a tweet.

How are you, then, this fine morning?

2011-03-24T08:43:00.003Z

One of those mornings where the front garden is full of the smell of new pine fence panels and primroses. I have decided that I need to make the time to enjoy these things while they are available.

As we join the motorway the car in front of us is a pretend sports car: a four-door saloon with a drop top and pretensions. It's such a nice morning that we forgive the driver the coat hangers on the backs of the seats. If we ever get a sports car we'll have a Corby trouserpress in the back.

In memoriam

2011-03-21T18:08:00.002Z

Just a very brief, and sad, note to mourn the passing of two of the splendid people on my blogroll. Kaz and Gerald will both be greatly missed for their friendliness and wit.

Sympathies and best wishes to their friends and families.

Taking home the bacon

2011-03-13T20:58:00.002Z

My dad's got the habit of picking up a 5lb bag of bacon from the butcher's every Friday, whether they need it or not. Because it's a bargain. Weekends are spent farming rashers out to the rest of the family. He called on my brother...

"Do you want any bacon?"

"Yes please."

"How much do you want?"

"How many can I have?"

"How many do you want?"

"Can I have twenty-seven?"

"Can I talk to somebody sensible?"

The brother turned and shouted to the small girl niece.

"Come out here, your grand-dad wants to talk to you."

And breathe...

2011-03-12T14:10:00.002Z

A bad couple of weeks for catching up with things. Mostly job-related stuff: both I and the small object of desire and moon of my delight have been negotiating written submissions for our jobs (I'm sorted for now; she, alas, is still on tenterhooks). Add to that a few calendar commitments and Things That Cannot Be Avoided and I'm a bit time-poor and preoccupied at the moment.

Luckily, all my news so far is, touch wood, good. I hope I find you all in fine fettle.

Today's mystery picture

2011-02-26T22:14:00.005Z

So there I was, walking through the park when I noticed a couple of these things in the children's play area. I have no idea what they are. Essentially, they're a funnel on a stick a metre and a bit high (four foot in old money). Inside the funnel is five holes; I can't work out why or where they go. There are two of these; one at each end of the park but don't face each other: they're oriented 30° to each other.

Wotizzit?

Lazy Sunday afternoon

2011-02-20T14:01:00.003Z

Questions a gentleman must not answer on a Sunday morning:

"Do you think I need a new saddle?"

"Would those boots make my legs look short?"

"That would look better in pink, wouldn't it?"

Of all the gin joints...

2011-02-15T19:20:00.002Z

As if working late on the first St Val's day in ages where it mattered a hoot wasn't bad enough (the loved one was on late shift), Stockport Plaza had a special one-night-only screening of Casablanca.

I've spent the day trawling through the schedules of The Human Rights Act to see if I can claim compensation for this twist of fate.

Confused metrics

2011-02-10T17:46:00.002Z

I've mentioned before that mine is the last generation to be able to get its head around the concept of rods, poles or perches. The Small Object Of Desire And Moon Of My Delight tells me that hers is the confused generation:

"I know how long a metre or a mile is but I've no idea of yards or kilometres."

Still here, honestly

2011-02-06T22:43:00.002Z

Sorry, I've been neglectful. Stuff. You know how it is. And some other stuff. Yes, I'm surprised, too. I'll catch up this week. Meanwhile...

Cats don't like the rain

2011-01-30T19:42:00.002Z

I'm not going to write this post. Things are good. And I could worry for England.

Here's some music instead...

A child's garden full of intimations of mortality

2011-01-23T17:12:00.000Z

The small niece child is pondering the mysteries of life, death, God and what not and isn't any too impressed by the big feller's manner of getting things done.

"If everybody dies there'll be nobody left in the world. I don't know what He thinks he's doing..."

Hirsute

2011-01-22T09:19:00.001Z

You've got to feel sorry for King Kong...

A friend and I were talking the other day and it occurred to me that if King Kong went to a waxing salon for a back, sack and crack he'd look like he'd put a mohair suit on back-to-front.

There's always someone worse off than yourself...

In memoriam

2011-01-16T20:22:00.001Z

R.I.P. the sublimely beautiful Susannah York. Sigh...

And also to football legend Nat Lofthouse.

Susannah York had the nicer legs.

Now, where was I...?

2011-01-15T18:22:00.002Z

You know that New Year's resolution I made about making a better fist of keeping in touch with people...

One of my other New Year's resolutions is keeping me a bit occupied at the moment. In the mean time, let us reflect on interesting times...

Unforgettable

2010-12-31T22:50:00.002Z

The pianist Alan Clare was at a party when a guest approached him and asked if he'd play a request.

"Why yes," said Clare, "which song is it?"

"That's What You Are."

"That's What You Are? I don't know that one."

"Oh, you must do. It's been on the radio and everything."

"Well, can you sing a bit of it and I'll see if I can pick it up?"

This is the song...

Have a good New Year, all.

Taking stock

2010-12-26T13:51:00.001Z

A friend recently told me that she reckons that I engage with real life as little as I think I can get away with. Which is a devastatingly accurate assessment. Particularly as at the time I had just been caught doing something I shouldn't have and was temporising wildly with a view to bullshitting my way out of the corner I'd painted myself into*. I'm not awfully good at engaging with real life.

I think that I have been kidnapped and replaced by alien beings intent on spying on humankind. Having scared my workmates silly by being mellow and festive and stuff all Christmas Eve, I spent the day itself being avuncular at my family, topping it all by crying buckets at the ending to "How The Grinch Stole Christmas."

Which both lead me to the matter in hand.

Why am I writing any of this?

Some people blog because they're creative people wanting to work creatively and a blog is a good way of building a portfolio or practising their crafts or sharing and testing ideas. Some of the people in my blogroll are proper writers and poets, artists and authors and pretty damned good they are, too. Other people are instinctively chatty and sociable and use their blogs as just another social network, like the equivalent of having a chat with people while you're at the laundrette. And others are just exploring, wanting to know what this blogging business is and how it works.

I started blogging a few years back primarily to get a pile of lousy work-related stuff off my chest rather than continue to internalise it and do myself any further damage. Counsellors often suggest keeping a diary or journal of things that have hurt/annoyed or delighted because it helps to provide context and perspective and can also be a record of progress. I'm crap at keeping a diary but keeping a blog turned out to be within my powers, which is how the other blog came about. And that's mostly done the trick for me. This blog was always intended, in so far as I had any intentions at all, just to be a commonplace book where I put odds and ends, possibly for future use. That has changed over time - apologies to those of you who have been occasionally dismayed by the fruits of a combination of insomnia and a natural inclination to melancholia.

Which brings us, eventually, and about time too, to the matter in hand: "the blogging malaise."

I'm one of the people who's been complaining that blogging's been a bit of a struggle lately. And I've worked out why I'm struggling:

Time is a factor. As I've said elsewhere, there's only so often you can complain about a repetitive failure before the complaint becomes a repetitive failure in itself. Our train services are lamentable; icy pavements are slippery; some library managers couldn't run a bath - how often do these things need saying? Once, if at all. So the bar needs to be constantly reset.
I've lost my anonymity - I now have an audience. That's sounds a bit ungrateful; I don't mean it to be, I'm pathetically grateful that anyone bothers to pass by and have a read. It's just that there's a lot more freedom in scribbling on the wall of a virtual bus shelter for your own amusement. I'm more than happy to concede that freedom in return for the interplay and commentary.
And this is the one I've been hedging round: I really have lost my anonymity. Over the past year, both as Kevin and the bloke he masquerades as in real life, I've been taking down walls. I'll be honest: for me that's very scary indeed. I live with the constant fear of the Wizard of Oz moment where somebody pulls back the curtain and says: "oh look, it was only him all along." Hence all the flannel and walls and barriers and stuff. Well, some of you I'm friends with in real life; some of you are cyberbuddies with both of us; and some of you even know what address to use should a world-wide glut of dancing ladies need to be distributed to the poor. You'll have to forgive me for being nervous about that, it's in my nature. But I absolutely wouldn't change it, thanks for being friendly.

All of which change the dynamics of posting to my blogs. There are a series of self-limiting factors to be negotiated: topics I can't write about because however heavily-disguised the confidences, they're still identifiable if you have the context; comments or stories that could compromise desirable outcomes, that sort of thing. And I have to be a bit more careful about not frightening the horses unnecessarily because if I've learned nothing else over the years I've found that people in the blogging community worry about each other. None of which are insurmountable challenges.

So I'll be carrying on blogging in 2011 (online community starts gnashing teeth). I've no idea what I'll be withering on about, all I know is that it's going to be a year full of big changes and surprises whether I like them or not.

There are a few people I've lost contact with lately or who have left the blogosphere. In some cases it's because they've found new and exciting things (and people!) to do. For other people the causes are changes in circumstances and/or health. In any case, if you happen to be reading this make sure that you pick up one of those virtual sacks of best wishes in the corner over there.

In fact, there's a sack each for everyone, so don't go away empty handed. I'll try and make a better fist of keeping in contact with what everyone's doing and engaging with realities, including this virtual one. And you can nag me if I don't.

Has someone been putting something in my tea...?

*Well, you're wrong. But I'm not going to tell you what it was either. Serves you right for going straight for the smutty stuff.

An old bloke's memories of Christmas

2010-12-24T00:40:00.002Z

Christmas is that funny time of year when we choose for the usual "natural" order of the way of things to be seen through the distorting mirrors of sentiment and holly. When people who go out of their way to avoid each other all year get together in the spirit of goodwill to all men to compare scary jumpers. And others stress themselves to the nines to get a bit of turkey on the Christmas plate.

We are no different. Most of my family lives nearby so it's fairly convenient to get together and - importantly - to be able to drift off and do our own things for an hour or two rather than getting too santaclaustrophobic.

The day, inevitably, starts with the rituals of opening the presents. This is the bit I like. I'm seriously not fussed about getting any presents myself (which winds people up no end), I like the giving bit for the opportunity to feel a bit smug about myself. I drift over late enough to have missed my niece's opening most of her presents, which isn't a deliberate avoidance, just the difference in time clocks between a nocturnal old bloke and a tiny tot. My presents will have been deposited with my parents and they'll have spent Christmas Eve stacking everybody's presents neatly just where anybody can accidentally knock them over and get them mixed up again. It's a tradition, we don't spoil it. The next half hour is a confusion of pass the parcel, Danger UXB and the conveyor belt round of The Generation Game. My dad will have shaken all the parcels to see if they rattle: we don't do the piece of Lego in an Oxo tin any more and all bottles are wrapped up to be bottle shaped.

My brother will have taken temperance wine with the clergy of several parishes and will be spending the morning with his Beano Book.

Being children of The Empire, before they knocked it down and turned it into the brutalist seventies slums of Hulme, we wave our Union Jacks during the Royal Speech and say things like: "King George's stammer's got better" and "Does Queen Mary know he's wearing that?" while wondering what's on the other channel.

Christmas dinner coincides with the slice of monarchy. Despite my protestations that I'm happy enough with a chip butty and please, please don't stress yourself out so much, it's always a full turkey and trimmings. These days my dad's on cooking duties and he does a seriously good job of it, better than I'd manage. And he gets himself dead worried about the whole business. Mind you, if I tried juggling all that lot I'd be a sobbing wreck in the corner of the kitchen.

And then we relax.

Have a good Christmas, everybody. Look after you and yours.

Stuck

2010-12-20T22:12:00.000Z

Damn. I've broken me walking stick.

I'll *have* to buy that Malacca cane now!

Yuletide log

2010-12-18T22:04:00.002Z

My parents have caught my mood aright. This is the verse to the Purple Ronnie Xmas card they've sent me:

"I hate Xmas Compliments
I hate Festive Cheer
My Yuletide Log has melted
Into Yuletide Diarrhoea"

Styx

2010-12-16T21:29:00.001Z

Visiting friends for a meal and a fillum I felt I had to excuse the walking stick.

"Knees a bit dodgy," I explained.

"Probably sensible in this weather," they replied.

When did we get this old?

Experiments in sound

2010-12-12T21:42:00.002Z

I've been wondering why the volume on this laptop keeps slipping from my default setting of Very Quiet Indeed.

I turns out that there is an undocumented* volume control knob in a position to be moved by my loins. While one has to question the thinking behind the design, I have to be pathetically grateful to find that my loins are still capable of moving anything.

* I'm male and I work with computers and librarians. Of course I don't read the documentation!

One of those days...

2010-12-07T23:22:00.000Z

Grey Sunday

2010-12-05T15:04:00.002Z

Last night's rain has frozen on the pavements and odd patches of snow still litter the garden. It all looks a tad bleak. Even the blue tits and the robin are hunched up in their dufflecoats. Most of the goldfinches that usually adorn the garden have gone missing for the duration, though the duration of what quite escapes me. Winter has definitely come early: the Mahonia has all but finished flowering; most years it's at its peak at Christmas, providing a rich source of nectar and unseasonal insects for the tits and blackcaps. I'll have to put out sugared almonds.

The sensation within the family at the moment is my dad's pineapple. He decided he was going to do that thing where you grow new pineapple from the green bits at the top of a shop-bought one (mine's on the landing). The one he kept has grown apace, September's new spurt of leaves having pushed the plant off the back windowledge. He's now got it on the floor in the front bedroom, the better for us to marvel at the thing. For it is now flowering. A small pink pineapple on a stick, full of flower buds and wonder. We don't yet know what you need to fertilise the flowers and set fruit, it'll be interesting to see how it goes. I just hope it's not like a Bramley apple, needing two more plants of different varieties to set a crop.

Slush

2010-11-30T21:49:00.003Z

It's been snowing in Manchester. Not the deep and crisp and even sort of snow. Just that typically-English light dusting, just enough to make it treacherous underfoot. People walking down Deansgate like so many Lego men. That sort of snow.

A bunch of us were crossing Lloyd Street when a middle-aged pig on a bicycle heaved into us all, shouting: "Get out of the way you fucking morons!" Which was a bit much given that most of us were halfway across the road before he'd even got to the junction and turned right into the road. He was a bit taken aback by the pedestrians' volley of well-meaning advice, though most of it would have been anatomically impossible, even with the best-greased of bicycles.

Movember

2010-11-28T23:39:00.001Z

I'll be glad when I can take this moustache off at the end of the month. In some lights it makes me look as if I'm going prematurely grey.

New balls please

2010-11-24T21:44:00.002Z

The dress code for The Gabba press box this week states: "Shorts are okay but collared shorts must be worn and no thongs."

Heinous.

The swimwear section's the most eagerly-awaited part of Test Match Special.

Barren wastes

2010-11-21T22:20:00.002Z

Me and my muse appear to be having an estrangement at the moment. Which is unfortunate as I've got a ton and a half of stuff needing to be turned into deathless prose, most of which is, unfortunately, work-related. There are project outlines to sketch out; a couple of training plans; some presentations and a couple of articles, hopefully for publication. Which is all usually just fine, I can just jump in there and get it all done in next to no time, in between swearing at telephones and drawing rude things on people's newspapers. Except that I can't. Over the past few months the well has been running increasingly dry and I really don't know why. The ideas are still there and I can still come up with one or two sentences or phrases that will hang an argument on the bannister but actually writing them all up coherently is definitely a serious struggle lately. Given that I am, essentially, an ineffectual dreamer this is a bit of a blow. Being able to share a vision with people who have drive but less imagination is my sole defence against the charge of fecklessness. I have no easy answers. And I have a difficult relationship with reality in the first place. There's no actual antagonism, it's just that we share so few frames of reference we find it difficult to connect amiably. But I wouldn't like anyone to be cruel to it; I like to see it dressed up and looking its best for the occasion.

Must try harder.

Kamera Kapers

2010-11-17T19:51:00.001Z

Martha Raye in Hellzapoppin. Great fun.

Secret ingredients

2010-11-07T21:12:00.003Z

I've been tagged (agh!) by that Scarlet Blue. (I blame EmmaK.) The question is: what is my secret recipe for a perfect partner? Actually, the literal question is "what is my secret recipe for the perfect man" but self-praise is no recommendation. So I'll concentrate on a perfect woman...

She must be able to cope with being surrounded by books. Quite a lot of books. By any objective measure rather too many books, but she wouldn't say so.
She would need a love of old black and white movies. At the very least she would be delighted by a Pabst double bill or a season of RKO horror movies.
One of us needs to be able to drive. It isn't me.
She would need to be able to cope with the fact that for all the talk and blather I am, allegedly, one of the world's most uncommunicative men.
Freckles would be nice.
She would be able to remind and coax without my deciding I was being nagged.
I have views on the heptagon formed by a woman's nape, shoulder girdle and spine...
...and the jugular angle of a lady's jaw.
She would be a good cook but would allow me my moments in the kitchen.
And she would laugh easily at the daftest of things. We would giggle uproariously at the small ads in the paper.

There we go. Any of you who fancy having a go who haven't already been tagged, well consider yourself tagged.

Something for the weekend

2010-11-05T18:07:00.002Z

I like how Durex now has a range of condoms labelled "Extra Large," moulded for a really snug fit for The Insecure Gentleman.

Like you do

2010-11-04T21:35:00.002Z

I once had cause to throw a rose into the English Channel. You don't need to know why, it doesn't take a lot of scratching of my surface to uncover a rich seam of cloying Victorian sentimentality. Any sensible practical person would have gone out on a boat or ferry and dropped the rose off into the briny somewhere along the way as they leant against the railings. Being neither of these I decided it would be a good idea to take a walk along to the end of a very long breakwater. In a south-westerly gale. Half an hour later, what was left of the rose managed to land in the water and the job was done.

A lad should know his strengths. I have a facility for turning high melodrama into low farce.

Dabbling in the leafmould

2010-10-31T14:13:00.002Z

I haven't re-ignited my love affair with Autumn but I have, at least, recovered a fondness for it. To celebrate the realisation I started the day with crumpets laden with my sister's home-made rowan jelly. I supplied the rowan berries a couple of years ago; this year's crop is in my freezer ready for her. It's a good job that I got a couple of bags full when I did: on the Sunday the tree was ablaze with orange berries, with odd bits of green leaf poking out here and there when the wind blew, by the following Saturday there was nary a one to be seen. Half a dozen blackbirds scoffed the lot, in between chasing each other noisily round the branches. I also have the Himalayan rowan, Sorbus hupehensis, which the blackbirds generally leave alone and which are usually festooned with pearly white berries right up to the middle of January when the mistle thrushes finally cotton on to them. They'll find meagre pickings this year as the blackbirds have scoffed the lot already. Some or other wise old weather-beaten sage would read much into this. I just think the blackbirds had a good breeding season and raised a brood of greedy hooligans. For some reason all of them ignore the roadside hawthorn just down the road and every Spring we're treated to a red and white confection of haws and mayflowers.

Each morning is heralded by a cacophony of starlings, with the robin and the wren chucking in their two penn'orth to make sure we don't forget they're around. Between the motorway, the airport and things with feathers there's not a lot of hope for a quiet life round here.

In the garden long enough to fill the bird feeders, plant some more bulbs and set to digging out some of the brambles. If you live by a railway line brambles, rosebay and sycamores are a fact of life. Years of experience have taught me that a sturdy pair of gardening gloves covered by a thick pair of acid-proof latex gauntlets (my brother's in the chemical industry) give me a good enough grip on a bramble stem to be able to drag the plant out of the ground with my only getting two or three deep scratches. A similar arrangement works for weeding through the gooseberry bush.

A short interlude while I watch a mixed tit flock arrive in the garden. Coal tits are harbingers of winter round here. The pair in this flock are freshly-moulted and finely dark olive grey with pale pink bellies. There's only four or five long-tailed tits, which is a bit of a worry as there was a family flock of fifteen during the summer.

I should enjoy it while I can, I suppose.

Autumnal

2010-10-23T16:15:00.004+01:00

It was a hard week at work. Mind you, they're all feeling like hard weeks at work these days. I'm getting mard. Plans for an early night and a bit of kip were dashed by the party a few doors down. They'd put the dogs in the garden out of the way, so we had a whole evening's yapping from the dogs, understandably miffed that they were missing out on a good thing. The party spilled out into the garden just after 2am and the fight started in earnest just before four. How delightful.

Went round to my parents' for lunch. My dad's first try at shin beef and dumplings. The lad did good. My niece called round and, with all the impatience you'd expect of a five year-old, decided she was going to wear her Halloween ball outfit because it made her look like a princess. I suggested Princess Dracula. She gave me A Look.

"Do you know what your son just said to me?" she asked my dad. I know I'm in deep shit when I'm "your son" or "your brother."

And I'm not to call her Frankenstein's granny either.

Despite it being a fairly sombre sort of day I didn't much fancy getting out in the garden but the work needs doing. I spent a hour in the rain cutting back the clematides that festoon the old lilac tree, more for the sake of saying I've done something useful this weekend than very much else.

The phlox and pelargoniums are still game, despite the weather, and the back garden is awash with crocus and Sweet Williams. Much to my delight, I find that the cyclamen have seeded themselves into interesting new places under the currant bush at the bottom of the garden.

It's not so bad.

All muck and cobwebs

2010-10-17T20:17:00.001+01:00

"You'll have to watch out for yourself," said my mother. "It says here that homes across the country are going to be invaded by sex-crazed spiders."

I'm going to have to stop her reading newspapers.

Chiding

2010-10-16T18:42:00.002+01:00

Over the past few weeks I've noticed that the media and web pages I'm reading keep making slighting comments about Nick Clegg's conscience. I find this dismaying. This is, of course, more proof, as if needed, of the increasing delinquency and barbarism of the modern age.

We were always taught not to speak ill of the dead.

Waiting for the wardrobe

2010-10-11T21:04:00.003+01:00

The answer to the celebrity puzzle in today's paper was "Stan Boardman." Next week there'll be a quiz about Dan Leno.

The express train on my home line is once every half hour. My local stopping train is once an hour, five minutes after the previous express. Someone in their wisdom decided it would be a good idea to schedule a rail maintenance freight train in that five minute interval. We watched it chug past the station, all eight minutes' worth of it. Then we got on our train and waited ten minutes for the signals to clear for passage.

The picture's "The Disputed Toll" by Heywood Hardy.

Tripe

2010-10-07T21:44:00.002+01:00

There is much in this life that depresses me. The idea that any part of Salford could be re-named "MediaCityUK" provokes a long howl of despair.

They'll be making tripe trendy next.

Sir Jos Fosdyke would be spinning in his grave.

Consolation

2010-10-05T19:20:00.000+01:00

Well, at least Blackjacks still leave your tongue bluey-green.

Les parapluies de Manchester

2010-10-03T13:15:00.003+01:00

A random selection of music to do the washing up by threw this one up as the first song.

Don't forget your wellingtons.

Sunspots

2010-10-02T18:56:00.002+01:00

Much though I get on reasonably well with women on a general level once every so often I'm reminded that they're not like the rest of us. A case in point: freckles.

A chap will see freckles on a lady's face and think how attractive they are. They may even have to make an active effort to avoid the word "cute."

A lady looks in a mirror, sees freckles on her face and slaps on a couple of layers of warpaint to obliterate them from view to make herself look "more attractive."

Not like the rest of us.

Overcast

2010-09-29T15:25:00.003+01:00

Looking at the state of the living room - those piles of books here, that pile of DVDs there, the layer of dust on the mantlepiece (I only dusted it last month, I don't know where it all comes from) - I wonder, yet again, if this place couldn't do with the occasional bit of attention by one of those strange chaps with the lumps on the front. Not to do the cleaning and tidying, well not necessarily anyway, but to look disapprovingly or to need to sit down somewhere, that sort of thing. I know how it feels: there have been times in my life when I could have benefited from somebody saying: "you're not going out like that!" or "I think you're over-thinking that one," or, more usually, "you know that thing that you said you were going to do? Did you remember to do it?" Of course, this would need to be said in a gentle and loving way as I don't respond terrifically well to nagging. Mind you, I'm told I don't respond terrifically well to such requests made in a gentle and loving way, either, though I suspect the personal agenda of the source of that opinion.

Anyway, it's all looking a bit untidy at the moment.

Evidently I've gone through some sort of mild depressive episode over the past couple of months. Which is strange as I haven't felt depressed. Tired, yes, but then I have been over-flogging a couple of dead horses. Pissed-off, certainly, but if being pissed off was a key diagnostic for depression then most of the country outside the City of London would be under the doctor for it. And yet... There are things depressives do and I've been doing them. Such as fretting about official letters that won't go away when you put newspapers on top of them and then just turn out to be sales pitches for new gas boilers or new ways of paying your electricity bill by selling your children to utility companies. Or worrying about the local train services - ha! I might as well worry about the state of the customs depot on Krakatoa. And somewhere in one of those four piles of books on the sofa is the book I think I'm reading at the moment. Odd little things that you don't notice yourself until they're dug in as habits but which somebody else might quickly pick up on and challenge. Or not, as the case may be (I've had feedback on that one, too!)

I'll just have to be more careful. All the evidence suggests that we're going to be entering a Winter of dismay, I'll just have to take care not to bring too much of it home with me.

Note to self: buy some Harold Hare comics and a crate of cream soda.

Inkwell impery

2010-09-21T19:01:00.001+01:00

I'm hoping to start catching up with myself some time soon. Ish.

Damsons in distress

2010-09-18T16:54:00.003+01:00

The cold snap has arrived and I've wheeled out the slow cooker again. Chickpeas, carrots, leeks and walnuts: a stew on day one, a vegetable accompaniment to sausages on day two and soup on day three. Nothing special but at least comfortable.

I think I've taken the last of the fruit from the garden. I've put a big bag of rowanberries in the freezer for the family jelly maker (my sister). For the most part it's been a productive year. The pear and the fig disappointed (badly-timed frosts put off the bumble bees and chalcid wasps) and the damson has underperformed again (frost and exposed site; I'll have to sort something out over the winter). So I had enough damsons to be too many for everyday use and not enough to start jam-making with. I didn't want to waste them so I had a bit of a think. In the end I decided to make a sauce, a keeper for in the fridge.

A dozen or so damsons
Some vegetable oil
A small red onion
Two or three hot green chilis (Jalapeno or, if you're up for it, the hot sweet ones that you get in Asian markets)
A good-sized lemon
Cinnamon
White wine vinegar

Stone and quarter the damsons. Finely chop the onion. Coarsely chop the chilis. Gently stew them in the oil with about a third of a teaspoon of cinnamon until the damsons have broken down. The skins will start to colour the pan. When it becomes a violently rose pink it's ready for the next step. Grate in as much lemon rind as you fancy then add the juice of the lemon. Let it simmer for a few minutes until it's quite thick then pour it into a sterilised jar. Deglaze the pan with a splash of wine vinegar and top the jar up with it.

It's kept a week so far. Hot and tart, it's a nice add-on to a cheese toastie.

(I'd always wondered how a Turkish restaurant I know got such an interestingly-coloured chili paste.)

Mystery tour

2010-09-17T18:38:00.002+01:00

A felicitous mishearing on the train:

"We will shortly arrive at Lancaster. This train will then become the service to Bahrein and Morecambe."

Wonderland

2010-09-12T16:04:00.000+01:00

The small niece-child was telling me a phenomenally-animated version of Alice In Wonderland. We had the white rabbit and falling through a strange hole in the ground; then we had to eat some sweets to get through a very small door and we met queens both white and red. I was enthralled.

I still don't believe the Blues Brothers went to the Mad Hatter's tea party, though.