Black Sunday

I've been and gone and bought a set of black satin bedding for my bed.

I don't know what appals me the most: the decadence or the optimism.

Odd

I don't know why people need hallucinogenic drugs. I've just been channel-hopping and have bumped into a version of The Weakest Link where Roly Mo, Roland Rat and George and Zippy faced Anne Robinson and her twitch.

All that dumb plastic brought to life by the magic of television.

You can do your own punchline.

Designed for dwarf vampires

A trip to London today requires a journey via Virgin Trains, something I've gone out of my way to avoid of late. The services have improved by leaps and bounds as far as punctuality and reliability are concerned, being just quarter of an hour late. In this respect they're almost bearable. The major problem is, of course, the Pendolino Train. Much-hyped and much-loved by people who don't travel on it. A horrible, horrible, horrible train, even compared to the worst of the British Railways Board boneshakers.

What's so bad about it? Well, it's cramped and pokey and claustrophobic and shaky. Its internal design is that of a tube not much more than eight feet in diameter. All the lines within the carriage -- the seat tops; the curving luggage racks, the windows -- emphasise this shape. The windows themselves are small and low so that unless you're actually hunched up beside one you aren't going to get any natural light. The lighting is dim, the air hot and stuffy. All in all, the whole effect is like sitting in a Jetstream aircraft except that the seats are more uncomfortable and there's no hostess service. And it's a very turbulent ride!

Like all else in these trains the toilets are over-engineered to the point of unusability. These were all, like me, seasoned travellers and had emptied bowels and bladders prior to the journey to avoid having anything to do with the toilets. For those of you not in the know: the problem is the door. It takes a few pushes of buttons to get the door open and then the fun begins. How do you get the door to shut and stay shut for the duration of your visit? And don't be fooled by the messages that suggest that you have successfully secured the door: you may still get visitors. And the door may just fling itself open of its own accord anyway. If you must go, I suggest you carry along a modesty blanket and sing in a loud voice.

You will get frequent announcements about the Virgin Train Shop. The Virgin Train Shop experience is your friendly neighbourhood famine. So the most frequent announcement is: "There is no hot water and so hot drinks are not available." I've never been on a Virgin Train where hot drinks were available. You would think that nice Mister Branson could afford to buy them a few kettles. Almost as popular an announcement is: "The shop will be closing because of technical difficulties." Not like them nasty old British Rail buffet cars then.

Is there anything positive about the experience?

Well, the staff are professional in less-than-optimum circumstances.

And the trains do get you from the north of England to London in the same time it used to take in the 1970s.

So that's all right then.

Parallel lives

I became reconciled to the fact that I must have stumbled in from some parallel universe quite some time ago. I expect I'd been vibrating too much near mirrors or something. I'm now at the stage where the occasional differences between our universes surprise and delight.

In my world the Spice Girls are a group of passably attractive young women. In your world they're the scary auntie edition of the Beverley Sisters.

One for the sociologists

I wonder why so many of the bloggers who like Tom Lehrer live in Sheffield.

Just curious.

Intimations of mortality

I've always liked the idea of a full-blown New Orleans-style jazz funeral, with a full retinue of musicians marching in synchopated time, starting out with a selection of King Oliver numbers up to the last lap towards the cemetary, at which point the line parts to allow the undertaker to get to the front. Taking the lead in the parade, and doing the vocals, he would then lead the band in a final rendition of "Mood Indigo." I've always liked that idea.

But one must be practical. More realistically, I think I'll settle for a fifty-strong all-girl brass kazoo band playing "Zippady Doo Dah."

Puss in Boots

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6917113.stm

I reckon the cat's a serial killer.

On this side of the pond all we get is a succession of centenarian ladies boasting that they got their Queen's telegram on a diet of cigarettes and whisky. I don't know how they get on these days now they have to go outside for a smoke

Damp squib

I thought I'd go into Manchester to do some shopping: my dad's birthday's coming up so I thought I'd look for something a bit different. While I was there I thought I'd get a new raincoat as mine's getting a bit past its best. One or other of us is getting mildew and I rather hope it's the coat.

Do you know, you can't buy a raincoat in Manchester?

There were suits galore; blousons and reefer jackets aplenty. Every other store's packed with slackers' outfits and cloned Californian surfing gear. But not a raincoat in sight. I wasn't looking for anything particularly exotic, just a fawn raincoat, perhaps something nice in gaberdene. But nada.

"There's not much call for raincoats these days."

It's been pissing down for a month. This is what's wrong with the British retail industry.

I bet you can't move for surfers on the Medlock.

Perspective

I must be getting old.

I was watching a TV programme which included clips from Ibiza and Sping Break parties and all I could think of was all those millions of horseshoe crabs thrashing about on the beaches of Maine.

Romance

I don't know why but as I walked down the road it gave me a bit of a warm glow to see the lad from a few doors down giving his girlfriend a ride on his steamroller.

It isn't paranoia if they really are after you

I've a day off and I've made the mistake of subjecting myself to public transport. I thought I'd best get a bit of Xmas shopping done, so I went into Manchester and did a shop, which went OK. Getting home wasn't OK: I gave up on the bus towards home after waiting half an hour for our ten-minute service (by that time it was ten-past five and the crowd was pretty big) so I decided to get the tram to get the quarter-to train. What the trams didn't tell us was that there were signalling problems at GMex. Or at least they didn't tell us until we'd been sat between stops at Bridgewater Hall for ten minutes. We then had to wait another quarter of an hour to wait for our turn to go up the slope in emergency stop mode (this involved two emergency stops, not fun in a packed tram with no proper handholds!) All the larks. Let's hope I've had my quota for the week now.

Warning!

Whatever you do, don't let relatives read your blog. I've been given a "George Formby grill" for my birthday!

Twopenny blues

You've got to hand it to the New Model Royal Mail with their new e-stamps. Instead of going to the inconvience and expense of going out to the post office and buying a stamp and then sticking it on an envelope you can now go through the palaver of buying a stamp online with your credit card, print it out and then take the letter to the post office for posting because it's a non-standard size, only to find it's been closed and turned into a discount sock warehouse.

Of course, this is all part of the nonsense of pretending that public services are business units, a model that works so well on the railways. The government has its share of the blame. Nowadays, instead of being able to nip down to the post office to buy a new TV licence you've got to either log on online and pay by card or else send a cheque in the mail. In either case instead of having a done deal pdq you've got to wait for the new licence to arrive in the mail. Whenever that gets delivered these days.

In the Sherlock Holmes stories cries for help often came by post and he rushed to the rescue after consulting his Bradshaw's for the train times. Whiz for progress. The poor buggers would be dead, buried and subject to a Time Team dig by the time he got the note these days.

Thrust

We're often told that the male sex drive is at its peak at 18. We're not told that till our 19th birthday, mind. Usually by older relatives who sit back in their chairs, tap their pipes out on the cat and say: "it's all downhill from here on in tha knows."

Cobblers.

Having reviewed my relict powers I reckon I'm just as capable of thirty seconds' worth of ineffectually emabarassing fumbling about as I was quarter of a century ago.

Only in Yorkshire

One of my colleagues bought an elderly relative one of those George Foreman grills that let you eat entirely unhealthy cuts of meat smug in the knowledge that all the fat will drain down into a little plastic gutter on the front. A few days later he made the mistake of asking how he liked it:

"Reet champion, lad. I can have sausages for my tea and then I can have the mucky fat on bread for breakfast the next day."