Slush

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

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

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

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

Martha Raye in Hellzapoppin. Great fun.

Secret ingredients

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...

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. One of us needs to be able to drive. It isn't me.
4. 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.
5. Freckles would be nice.
6. She would be able to remind and coax without my deciding I was being nagged.
7. I have views on the heptagon formed by a woman's nape, shoulder girdle and spine...
8. ...and the jugular angle of a lady's jaw.
9. She would be a good cook but would allow me my moments in the kitchen.
10. 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

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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