20 September 2010 (Monday) - Up North...

I must admit to a wry smile as I drove to work today. Just as I turned on the windscreen wipers so that I could see through the rain, the weather forecaster apologised that it would be dry in the south again, and that it might be a little while before we again see any rain. It must be wonderful to be a professional weather forecaster; they can just spout any old rubbish they so desire. Nobody ever expects their predictions to bear even the remotest resemblance to reality. I would love that in my line of work. I could greet the deceased patient’s grieving relatives with “Oh, it wasn’t wind, it was cancer. Oh silly me!” and we could all have a good laugh about my incompetence.

Did you know that civil service meteorologists get paid more than NHS biomedical scientists?

Meanwhile north of the border, our kilted cousins are exploiting a loophole in the law which will enable them to continue making their distinctive traditional attire from its original source. Or will enable them to carry on making frankly stupid tourist trap gimmicks from an endangered species; depending on your viewpoint. Apparently whilst it’s illegal for most people to hunt seals, it’s quite permissible for native Eskimos to clout seals over the heads. And then flog the carcasses to the sporran industry. I can’t help but wonder how many people actually do wear the kilt in this day and age.

Tartan knickers are still de rigueur though, or so Prince Philip would have us believe…

19 September 2010 (Sunday) - A Very Busy Day...

Last week the Rear Admiral suggested an early morning fishing session at some point. It seemed sensible to me that he stayed over after Martin’s birthday party and we’d go fishing the next morning. When the alarm went at 5.30am I did feel a bit rough, and it was somewhat discouraging to see it was still dark outside, but going back to bed would be defeatist. By the time I’d got up and had a bit of brekky, I was warming to the idea. I had a minor shock whilst getting the fishing gear out of the shed – there was quite an epic splashing coming from the garden pond. But because it was still dark, I had no idea what was going on. By the time I’d found a torch and gone to investigate, whatever the commotion was had died down, and the fish all seemed rather peaceful, if not asleep. I can’t help but wonder what all the fuss was about.

I went into the house to find our house guest had woken and we loaded the car and set off to the pond. We were fishing by 6.45am, and as the morning wore on and the sun came out so the day got colder. And colder. With no fish biting and temperatures falling we very soon lost enthusiasm for the idea, and were in the Gorge having breakfast by nine o’clock.

Home, and after a spate of staring at Man vs Food and Fairly Odd Parents on the telly we set off to Lidl. I love Lidl – pikey central, but with one or two bargains on the groceries to be had. And then we went for a walk. First of all I took ‘er indoors ^TM to see the fishing pond. I’m not sure how she managed it, but she’d not seen the pond so far. Whilst walking across the field I saw something that made my heart sink. Not one but two herons were flying low across the water. I shouted at the things and scared them away temporarily, but they continued circling the pond. I’ve been saying to anyone who will listen that the fishing there isn’t what it once was, and has noticeably tailed off over the last few months. This could well be the reason – herons can empty a pond of small fish. And then start killing the big ones. I’ve since spoken with pond management and we’re looking into plastic herons.

Back to the car, and we drove on to Orlestone woods for a walk. A really pleasant place to be, and on a dead log we saw six lizards. Six! I counted them. The lizards let us get to within a yard of them before the larger ones ran away. The little ones stayed put so we could photograph them, and as it became clear we weren’t going to hurt them, the bigger ones came back. Once home and having put the photo on the computer and zoomed in, we saw that where I thought there were six lizards there were actually nine. I didn’t see three of the smaller ones!! And then home, listening to strange noises emerging from the car. I’m fairly sure I’ve detected a new strange sound which happens when accelerating. Having said that’ it’s a rather quiet sound, and normally I have a CD or the radio on, so it’s possibly a “standard car noise”. Let’s hope so. What with boilers and other cars going west, I really can’t afford any more expense.

Once home I tidied the garden. I mowed the lawn yesterday and left the grass cuttings. Today I raked them up – they did make the place look untidy. And then “My Boy ^TM ” appeared and started whinging. He’d been playing silly beggars with his mates and had managed to fall from a height onto his shoulder. So I chucked him in the car and drove him up to the hospital for a quick once-over. We arrived to find the place heaving with he Great Unwashed, but we were in and out in less than an hour. He’s just sprained and bruised himself, and the doctor’s given him a list of painkillers he should take for a few days. He took a few and went to bed. I can’t criticize - I slept in front of the telly for most of the remainder of the day. Today had turned out to be surprisingly busy…

Meanwhile it’s National Talk Like A Pirate Day. You landlubbers should be a-talking like them scurvy sea dogs. Arr! And they be a-having fun events up & down the country, they be, and raising loads of doubloons for charidee……

And that’s where I take off the pirate hat and go home.

What constitutes a charity? There’s several definitions, but I suppose we all know what it’s about. A “Charitable Institution” is one that does various good deeds and works. But there’s more to it than that. It’s not enough just to generally be a do-gooder. The charity needs money too – donated by the public. And that’s where “International Talk Like a Pirate Day” falls over. In the UK they’ve nominated the Marie Curie nurses as the charity. Now I’m in no way knocking the Marie Curie Cancer Care people, but…. Yes, I am knocking them. What they do, financed by public donation, is what the district nurses used to do years ago, financed by the National Health Service. Until one government or another realised that it was daft spending government tax money on something that charity will provide.

It’s the same with schools. How many “bleeding heart” letters home do parents get about fundraising events? To raise funds for essentials such as books? If you go to the seaside you get beggars pleading with you to finance the lifeboats. If you’re unwell, there are volunteers giving up their time to help run and finance hospitals.

If anyone is feeling public spirited, there are thousands of good causes that need cash. The Cat’s Protection League and the Little Dog Rescue are quite hard up. Guide Dogs receive no public income at all. There’s the John Aspinal foundation, Sight Savers, Action Aid, Oxfam….. In order to be named a “charity”, the cause should be entirely self financing. We do ourselves no favours by subsidising that which we are already paying for in our various taxes. Don’t go to the school’s barn dance or the hospital’s quiz night. You’ve already paid for those in your income tax and community charges. By continuing to give, you merely encourage the local and national governments (of whatever political parties) to carry on wasting money on the unnecessary rubbish that we read about it the papers.

And instead you might give your money where it’s needed. I know of several groups that could do with a bung……

Do any of my loyal readers feel that rant sounded familiar? It is based on what I blogged three years ago. In the intervening time I’ve seen nothing to make me change my opinion…

18 September 2010 (Saturday) - A Birthday Party

I was just thinking about going to kip last night when the phone rang. ‘er indoors ^TM  had been out at a mucky undercrackers party and on the way home her trusty vehicle gave up the ghost. Eventually (at 1am!) she was towed home, with the alternator belt missing. Which was a nuisance. To be honest the thing hasn’t sounded right for a while. Regular readers will realise that up until a week ago I had cash in reserve for such disasters. Oh well. Having a new alternator belt will just have to be her Xmas pressie this year. I just hope she didn’t spend too much last night on mucky undercrackers.

In the week (with help from the Rear Admiral) I took the top box off of my car. It would have been easier all round to have left it on, I suppose. I’ve heard that taking the box off improves fuel consumption. But a colleague regularly drives from her house fifty yards down the road to Dublin. She’s done exactly the same journey with and without her top box, and she says it takes exactly the same amount of fuel. But with the box off, I can now get under the barrier at the council tip. Much as the place can be “R-tard central” at times, my dustbin of garden waste was full. So full that I had to empty it before I could generate any more garden waste at all. The tip opened at 8am, so I was there for opening time, only to find that I was about thirtieth in line to get in to the place. And who should I meet at the tip but a fellow Blogger. I had one bin of garden waste to shift: he had a car full. I spent five minutes helping him shift his rubbish. Well, his car was blocking me in. It was either help him or beep my hooter at him. Either option suited me…

I then went to work for a dull morning. Which was probably for the best. Saturday mornings are either non-stop dead busy, or are just plain dull. I know which I prefer. Home via the garage to collect ‘er indoors ^TM who had arranged to have the fragments of her car delivered there for fixing. Once home with an empty compost bin I mowed the lawn. It was a tad long – I’d not mowed it for at least a month. Following a quick jaunt to the fishing tackle shop for some bait I put the telly on and fell asleep whilst watching “Tron”. A waste of the afternoon, really.

And then the clans gathered and we set off to the Queen’s Head in Kingsnorth where we’d planned a surprise 40^th birthday party. All surprise parties are somewhat dependent of the guest of honour actually turning up, and during the week things had looked somewhat dodgy on that score. But eventually he was tricked into going to the pub, and a good time was had by all. There’s no denying that as the evening wore on things did get decidedly vague. Did we really play “musical chairs” to Sparks…?

17 September 2010 (Friday) - Would You Believe It?

I overheard a conversation today in which a particularly thick looking young lady was asking what all the fuss was in the news. Who was this “pope bloke”? What does he do? When informed that the Holy Father is the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church, the dumbo thought for a few minutes before dismissing Catholicism out of hand. She didn’t agree with it because she was a Christian (!)

I went back to listening to the radio; there were one of two thickos there as well:

People who find they have fertility problems can get treatment from the National Health Service, or from licensed clinics. Sperm donors at such centres are health screened, and their samples are deep frozen for six months after donation to ensure that the donors don’t go down with various transmissible viruses in the meantime. On the other hand you can buy a random bottle of jizz off of the Internet and hope for the best.  

Equally ridiculous was a war story. During the Suez crisis a squadron of bombers took off to bomb somewhere or other. (Suez, I would imagine). Or that is most of the squadron took off. One of them didn’t because the pilot, Flying Officer Derek Kenyon made a mistake and rather than pressing the “take off” button, he pressed the “retract undercarriage” button. Air crew staff found Derek crying and cheerfully asked him if he’d pressed the wrong button. After all, it’s not supposed to be possible to retract the undercarriage until the plane is in the air. Having twatted the bomber beyond economical repair, Derek was court martial-ed and went to prison, suspected of cowardice in the face of the enemy.

 Sometimes I despair about the world we live in.

16 September 2010 (Thursday) - Drains and Calendars

I was just settling down for a bit of a snooze last night when “My Boy ^TM ” started complaining about the smell in the garden. On lifting the manhole cover we found that the drains had backed up and so we had a literal case of “getting our own back”. I phoned the water people who told me that they’d send for a nice man with some rods, and that he’d be with me soon. They phoned back at 10.30pm and apologized for phoning so late. Why apologize – surely they realised I’d be sitting up waiting? They told me that the nice man with the rods was in Deal and would be with me as soon as possible. He arrived half an hour later which was rather impressive, as anyone who knows the roads round south Kent would agree.

The nice man lifted up the manhole cover, saw some dreadnoughts and concurred with my diagnosis that there was a blockage. So the nice man got some rods and had a good old heave and strain, but to no avail. Next door must have heard the commotion and came out to assure us that his drains were fine. He lifted his manhole cover to prove it, and then changed his tune somewhat. On seeing his drains were also backed up he did a complete about-face and announced that his drains haven’t been right for the last three weeks.

By now the nice man’s sidekick (Baz) had arrived. Without wishing to appear in any way racist, I couldn’t imagine anyone less likely to be called Baz. Perhaps there are lots of people of Ghurkha extraction called “Baz”; it’s just that I’ve never met them. Baz was left rodding whilst the nice man went off on a mission to wake up all our other neighbours. He then noisily set about a manhole cover with a hammer and chisel, which went down well with all concerned seeing as it was now past 11pm. Having hammered to his satisfaction he then announced he had the wrong manhole cover. He went back to our back garden, collected Baz, and the two of them went around banging on people’s front doors again. Half an hour later they came back and announced that they had failed, but that it would be a P1 job for Paul in the morning. Before they went they made the observation that the water level in the drain had subsided enough for us to use the toilet a couple of times. Thank the lord for small mercies. So I went to bed at 1am with one weight off my mind, wondering how Paul would fare in the morning.

Needless to say I didn’t sleep well; finally dropping off a few minutes before “My Boy ^TM” quietly got up for work. I tried to get back off to sleep, but failed. I got up and checked the drains – still blocked. The nice man who came last night said that Paul would be here at 8.30am. He wasn’t here by 9.30am, so I phoned the water people to confirm that they were still sending Paul. They said he was on the way. I asked if they could perhaps chivvy Paul along a little. They said they’d try, and they assured me all would be done in time for me to leave for work. Paul rolled up at 9.45am, and seemed somewhat fed up. I got the distinct impression that they sent him out to clear up the messes made by everyone else. He got out his map of the drains which showed two manhole covers in next door’s garden. A shame that his map didn’t coincide with reality – there’s only one. So he went next door to have a look, and then announced the manhole he wanted was fifty yards away. And he went on to say that it would be a two man job and he’d need to send for backup. I left him to it, and after a few minutes I realised that things were quiet. Too quiet. He’d gone. He came back at 10.40am and said that he’d sent for his sidekick. However his sidekick wasn’t as speedy as Baz, and wouldn’t be here for an hour or so. In the meantime he planned to do another job in Canterbury Road. I again explained I had to go to work, and (not knowing what else to do) left him a spare key to sort himself out.

One of the fruits of my loin phoned me a few hours later to ask if the man bad been and gone yet. Totally leaving aside the question of which man (said fruit had the choice of the nice man with the rods, Baz, Paul or the unnamed sidekick) I said I didn’t know, and said the way to find out was to look inside the manhole cover. I heard a clattering through the phone, an exclamation about the smell of it all, and then an admonishment that I had been negligent in my parental duties in that I had never taught my offspring what a blocked drain looked like. I asked for a description of what could be seen under the manhole cover, and on hearing the description lacked any mention of floating turds I have made the assumption that the thing is now fixed. Thank heavens for small mercies.

In between all of this I played around with the blog settings; specifically the “Dates for the Diary” settings. Rather than having a written list which I would update as and when I remembered I’ve replaced it with a Google Calendar. If any of my loyal readers don’t like the look of the thing and prefer it how it was, clicking the “Agenda” tab at the top right gives that view. Clicking on any event gives as many details about the event as I’ve got, and it also gives you the option to add it to your own Google Calendar. If you’ve not got a Google Calendar of your own, I’d recommend getting one. They are free, and once you’ve got an event on there, you can customise the thing to email you reminders so that you don’t forget it. Or if you want, you can send me an email address and I’ll have the software remind you. Since I had a few minutes whilst I was waiting for Paul, I’ve added as many bonfire parades as I can, and also put in some beer festivals and kite festivals for next year. Have a look, loyal reader, and let me know what dates and events I've missed off... 

15 September 2010 (Wednesday) - All The Lonely People..

I read something in the news this morning which made me sit up and take notice. A woman in Devon died two weeks ago. That’s not remarkable in itself; I suspect it happens all the time. What was unusual (to me) was the fact that her funeral is being organised by the local council because it transpires that she was utterly alone in this world. No friends or family whatsoever. And as I read on through the article I got rather angry. This woman was a wartime hero. Now leaving aside the indifference of an ungrateful nation, what annoyed me is the fact that the Royal British Legion are planning a huge turnout at the funeral because she was a wartime hero. I can’t help but feel that maybe they should have befriended her while she was alive.

Perhaps this has bothered me more than it should: being a naturally gregarious kind of guy I worry about the lonely. I can remember feeling very awkward at a funeral some years ago. The chap who had been the secretary of the snake club had died. When several hundred of us turned up for his funeral we had to wait for a funeral already in progress to finish. There were only four people at that funeral. I’ll never forget their faces as they watched us come into the chapel. What had been deserted for their beloved’s funeral was standing room only for ours.

When my mother in law used to run a bed and breakfast, she would occasionally have guests drop dead. I remember her telling me that a couple of times she attended funerals of croaked customers. At those funerals she would be accompanied by one or two other residents of her B&B, but that would be all. These people would be way past retirement age, but still utterly alone.

As a child there was the tale of a beloved grandmother going missing from the Sussex village of Winchelsea. When the local river was dragged they didn’t find her body, but they found the bodies of two men who still remain unidentified.

All the lonely people….

And so to NeverWinter where I generated quite a few more ungrieved dead, and then to work where I generated quite a lot more stuff for my other blog. This other blog’s not doing bad for all that it’s less than two weeks old. And then home. Eventually.

I forgot that yesterday (with help from the Rear Admiral) I took the top box off of my car, and so this evening I spent a panicked few minutes looking for a silver top box in a car par devoid of any top boxes whatsoever.

14 September 2010 (Tuesday) - Radio, Reviews, Tattoos

I had a wonderful day at work, in a room on my own. I had the radio on (via the Internet). I love Radio Four. There was an interview with girl who had been held captive by a madman for eight years. There was a feature on the problem of increasing promiscuity in the older generation - they catch manky knob-rot and other such diseases, but because of their age and sensibilities they are loathe to get antibiotics for it.

We were warned to check our compost bins for grass snakes. In many parts of the country these unfortunate reptiles are in decline, but by setting up a compost bin we can give them somewhere to live and breed.

There was the tale of the accidental contamination of a batch of beer in 1900 which led to the poisoning of thousands of people (many of whom croaked) in the Manchester area.

There was an amazing program about the problems that authors face when they feel they want to kill off their own fictional creations. Apparently Conan Doyle had terrible problems getting his publisher to allow him to do for Sherlock Holmes. It transpired that Christie wanted to put the kibosh on Poirot for years before finally doing so. And more recently the author Colin Dexter got rather a lot of abuse for killing off his character of Inspector Morse.

And following the media furore about a schoolchild being expected to walk twenty yards to a bus stop, there was an article about how children get to school. In 1971 80% of seven to nine year olds got themselves to school. By 1990 that figure was down to 9%. The fruits of my loin both walked to school. As did I. Kids of today…!

Mind you, the radio wasn’t all good. There was some frankly dire drivel about “Ma Vlast” (some classical music dirge) which was composed by someone going by the moniker of Bedrich Smetana. Apparently this racket has become an integral part of Czech culture. All I can say is that I hope it don’t catch on over here (!) And having that dull article being followed by “The Archers” was just adding insult to injury.

And then the news made me think. For some time I’ve been a roving reporter for a couple of pub reviewing websites – “Beer in the Evening” and “Pubs Galore”. It’s something I’ve enjoyed doing and in my (nearly) two hundred reviews I’ve attempted to be honest. If a pub is good, I’ll say so. Similarly if a pub is awful, I’ll say so. Over the years I’ve read other peoples reviews which are clearly not so impartial. Many are singing the praises of a pub which can only be described as “mediocre” at best. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to spot a landlord who is bigging up his own pub. There are also reviews which are utterly slating pubs which frankly don’t deserve the criticism. When you also consider the rate at which pubs change hands these days, reviews of pubs aren’t always the most reliable things you’ll find on line anyway.

Pubs aren’t the only things reviewed on the Internet. Hotels and restaurants also get reviews: impartial and biased. One of the leading hotel review websites is facing legal action following allegations of it’s running defamatory reviews. I’ve been expecting this for some time. I wonder how much longer “Beer in the Evening” and “Pubs Galore” have got left?

And then on with the tattooing. It’s only two weeks since  “My Boy ^TM ” started his new hobby. He’s the first to admit he’s still got a lot to learn, but I’m pleased with his efforts so far. Even if doing me is like “tattooing a womble” (!) I quite like what he’s done to my arm, and the angel he did on “Daddies Little Angel ^TM ” is quite impressive…