14 June 2014 (Saturday) - To Church

It sounds like some new people have moved in next door; I heard voices at 7am; then I went back to sleep for a bit. I finally got up shortlly after 9am and took "Furry Face ^TM" round the park where we played with his ball. He's still struggling to understand the concept of "fetch"; he either tries to eat the ball, or runs off chasing it until it stops bouncing at which point he looses interest and goes off sniffing after whatever else he can find.

On our walk today we attacked Bernie, played with Ralph, chased a squirrel up a tree, fought with another Patagonian Tripe-Hound, and scared a "duckie" who looked like he was "good with colours" and/or "baked a moist sponge".

This "duckie" was rather precious: every time Fudge (or any other dog) went near his dog (which looked somewhat like an effeminate feather duster) the "duckie" shrieked, picked his dog up and minced in circles until the offending pooches went away. I do hope this "delightful fellow" won't be a permanent fixture in the Viccie Park dog walking scene. There are enough "plums" there already; we don't need any more who feel that their pampered pooch should be the only dog allowed in the park.

I did have something of a sulk tooday; by rights we should have been camping this weekend. The second full weekend in June has traditionally been the first Teston kite festival of the year.

But for various reasons (which I have blogged to death in the past) June Teston doesn't happen any more; which is a shame.

Last night Jason gave me a cheque for the astro club; I thought I'd pay it into the bank so I drove to town. At the very last minute I remembered that I still had the roof box on the car. Woops. Haivng narrowly avoided smacking the box off of the car I went to a car park without height barriers which I could get into. I paid the money into the bank, I got a McBanana milk shake for lunch, and I got myself a sexy new hat too.

Whilst out and about I got petrol. For over two years I've been getting petrol in Canterbury as it's cheaper there than in Ashford. A new place has opened on Ashford's ring road doing the cheapest petrol for miles around. I coulnd't turn that down.

On to my sax lesson which went well. My intermittent squawkiness is due to my embrochure. Apparently. I'm not getting a consistent seal of my gob around my mouthpiece. Teacher's sax has a much flatter mouthpiece. She gave me a website of a place in Crowborough which does all sorts of saxohone bits and pieces. But nothing on their website is cheap. A new mouthpiece looks to cost more than my entire saxophone cost me in the first place. But Crowborough isn't *that* far away. I could go for a day out, if nothing else. Looking at the map it's not a million miles away from Telescope House; I might blag the asto club into a day trip.

"Daddies Little Angel ^TM" came to visit; she'd had a twenty-something week scan. Her and "Spudgun" (the baby's latest name) seem to be doing well. I played my sax at her until she said it sounded nice, then we drove her home.

And so to church. Enrique was being confirmed. The service was interesting; it was conducted by the Bishop's stunt double, the Bishop himself having recently croaked. His sermon was wonderful to hear. He started off with some serious sensible and reasonable propositions and slowly introduced aspects of religious uncertainty. So slowly and insiduously were they introduced that suddenly complete gibberish was being presented as plausible fact. Mind you I did have more than a passing snigger at the alter-boy who looked just like the TV detective Columbo.

However as easy as it wold be to ridicule the entire thing I found myself watching the priest and the lance-Bishop intently. No matter how nonsensical their propositions, from their expressions it was clear they fervently beleived in it.

Afterwards Maria had put on a buffet. Very tasty...

13 June 2013 (Friday) - Curry

After a reasonable night's sleep "Furry Face ^TM" allowed me most of my toast as I watched "Family Guy". And leaving the dishwasher doing its thing I set off to work. My piss boiled as I drove to work. I listened to the news. There is yet more conflict in the Middle East; Sunnies are fighting with Shites again. Part of me knows that thousands of innocents are caught up in someone else's battles. Part of me wonders if it wouldn't be best to just let them fight it out until they've all killed each other off.

Work was busy; sax practice went well. I came honme to find we'd had a copy of the Sun newspaper delivered. I'd heard about this on the telly at work; because of the football the publishers of the Sun paper had decided to give a copy to pretty much everyone in the UK. I wish they hadn't; it was rather jingoistic rubbish.

Apparently the citizens of Liverpool are up in arms at the audacity of the publishers of the Sun newspaper for daring to do this becuse of some indiscretion of the newspaper some twenty-odd years ago.

Why can't anyone make any effort to get on?

We then went into town for a birthday meal. A few beers, a curry, another beer, insults bandies, "woof"s shouted...

I woke un in front of the telly at 4.30am this morning and then went to bed...

12 June 2014 (Thursday) - Bridge

Being on a late start I took "Furry Face ^TM" round the park for a walk. As we made our way there we avoided a small child (several times) as she wobbled all over the path on her pedal bike. Whilst she did this her mother screamed abuse at her for daring to be wobbling about. I felt rather sorry for the littlun; after all as anyone who's ever cycled will know, cycling at walking pace is very difficult. You do need to go a bit faster to avoid wobbling and/or falling off. And every time this poor child tried to speed up, so her harpie mother started shrieking at her to slow down.

But harpies notwithstanding our walk went well; Fudge enjoyed playing fetch with his new rubber ball. I say "fetch" - when I throw the ball he runs after it and chews it until I catch up with him. What was once a nice ball now has some serious teeth marks in it.

And so off to work for the late shift. I've had this idea that when on a late shift I might lighten the morning by going on a minor geo-mission before work. It was a plan which certainly worked last week. Today I thought I might go on a little geocaching stroll round the village of Bridge. I had a wander of a couple of miles around some rather beautiful scenery. Not a bad way to spend a morning.

As I drove to Bridge there had been an article on the radio about the seventeenth century scientist Robert Boyle. What at first might sound rather dull was actually surprisingly interesting. It would have been better had they interviewed an expert without a speech impediment. Stammers do not make for good radio shows, especially when when when every third word word word is repeated three three three times during the interview interview interview.

As I drove from Bridge there was a program on the radio featuring the unsung heroes who are the wives of those in the diplomatic service. I listened to this with some fascination; but wondered if there was much truth in what they were saying. I shall have to find out from a reliable source. I will be seeing one such in a few weeks time.

My phone rang. The first fruit of my loin was free to take my garden waste to the tip. He seemed somewhat crestfallen to hear I was on the way to work. But I told him where the lawn clippings were, and said he didn't need me to supervise him taking them to the tip. He's got his instructions...

And as I walked from the distant car park towards work there were two unshaven simpletons having a heated conversation at a bus stop. One was shouting "you don't know what the trouble is" to which the other was replying "I'll tell you what the trouble is"; both were repeating their phrase like stuck records.

Personally I didn't know what the trouble was, and I would like to have known what the trouble was; but I didn't have the heart to ask...

11 June 2014 (Wednesday) - Kearsney Abbey

My dog woke me at 5.30am with a minor woofing fit. Something was worrying him; he seemed keen to get outside so I let him into the garden where he ran round the pond a few times before coming back to the house with something of a satisfied air about himself.

He then settled on my lap and slept whilst I watched "Family Guy" until it was time to go to work.

Today's news on the radio was a tad dull in comparison to yesterdays, which was as well for the volatility of my piss. The medical community are up in arms about statins. Those who make and sell the things have announced that they are the best thing since sliced bread. Those who deal with the nasty side-effects of those drugs aren't so sure. Are they wonder-drugs? I don't know, but I'm certainly not going to put up with the unwanted side effects of headaches, muscle pains, cramps, vomiting, dire rear, rashes and difficulty sleeping (!) just on some vague and unsubstantiated suggestion that I might or might not have heart problems ten years down the line.

Neither was I overly impressed with the news that whilst my gas and leccie bills are going through the roof, the wholesale prices of gas and electricity have fallen.

Since last year the power company is getting gas for nearly forty per cent less than they had been paying. Leccie is twenty per cent cheaper too. Or, to be more precise, it is twenty per cent cheaper to them. It's actually dearer for me.

The lunchtime sax practice went well. As always I set up at the end of the car park and make a noise on my saxophone. There are resurfacing works going on in the car park at the moment, and part of the car park is fenced off. As I was wrestling with a rather difficult B-flat a passing normal person started haranguing me. He wanted to walk through the car park (as part of a short cut to somewhere) and he wasn't impressed that his short cut had been fenced off. How long did I intend keeping my fence up? My protestations that i was a saxophonist and nor a car park resurfacer fell on deaf ears. Obviously the fence was my responsibility; why else would I be in a car park?

In the end I told him that I was on my lunch break; and perhaps he might pretend he hadn't seen me. He smiled and climbed through the fence. As I carried on "In Dulce Jubilo" I watched him being stopped by the genuine car park resurfacers who were taking none of his lip.

Once home we put the lead onto "Furry Face ^TM" and took him for a drive and then a walk. First of all we had something of a geo-mission. At the weekend I'd solved a geo-puzzle using the old "hot or cold" game in which you get told whether you are hot or cold in relation to how close you are to whatever it is you are trying to find. It's rather tricky on a web page, but a concerted effort with an Excel spreadsheet and a couple of hours of effort gave me the location. This evening I thought this might make a suitable geocache to be my three thousand five hundredth find. It did.

From here we went on to Kearsney Abey for a little wander. Fudge fell in the fiver whilst chasing ducks. I didn't laugh much...

10 July 2014 (Tuesday) - Too Little; Too Late

After an early brekkie spent watching "Family Guy" I set off to work for an early shift. As I started my drive the radio was playing the National Anthem in honour of Prince Philip's ninety-third birthday which I thought was a nice touch. And perhaps a sign of the times, maybe.

Is this a welcome resurgence in national pride or just symptomatic of the current trend of extremist jingoism?

The very next item on the radio featured the need for school governors to have training in what is expected from them in being a school governor following the scandal in Birmingham. Mind you, I blame the Government entirely. If a Government washes its hands of all responsibility of what goes on in schools, one can hardly be surprised when religious crackpots use schools as training grounds for their own personal versions of crackpot-religion-inspired lunacy. And then be even more surprised when the right-wing racists start getting ahead in the opinion polls.

I was rather worried about the subsequent announcement from the Education Secretary that all schools are now to promote "British Values". Don't get me wrong - I'm all for it in theory. However this is something which should have been done years ago. With many of our schools facing pupils for whom English is a second language, promoting "British Values" is going to be something of an uphill struggle for those faced with doing the promoting. "British Values" is going to appear to be stark nonsense to those who've been living in Britain all their lives without knowing anything of its language or culture. And the whole thing can only fuel the preconceptions and prejudices of the ever growing racist minority in Britain today.

Ten years down the line we might have a better society for this initiative, but for now it will be hard work for all concerned.

It's just rather frustrating that all this nastiness was predicted fifty years ago.

9 June 2014 (Monday) - Goodbye Rick

Over brekkie I watched the antics of Warwick Davies in "Life's Too Short". He was making a fool of himself in front of Sting and Cat Deeley today.

"Furry Face ^TM" slept through most of brekkie; he did come over when I waved the brush at him; he likes being combed. But, as is often the way on a Monday morning, he did seem to still be tired out from the Sunday walk.

To work; as I drove the news told that for the first time a computer has been built that passes the Turing Test. Basically in a Turing Test the person conducting the test sits in one room; a computer or another person in another, and the two communicate. For a computer to pass the Turing Test the first person must be unable to determine whether they are conversing with a person or with a machine.

On the one hand the development of artificial intelligence software that is indistinguishable from human behaviour is amazing. On the other hand I've met several people who wouldn't have sufficient wit to pass a Turing Test. Perhaps the standard has been lowered since Alan Turing developed the idea.

The pundits also announced that serious research is taking place in the field of improving the lifetime of the batteries in our mobile phones. It's no secret that our mobiles are amazing devices, but their ability and computing power has fast outstripped our ability to power the things. Apparently there is big money to be made for a battery which last longer.

Who would have thought it?

I once again stopped off in Morrisons to get some fruit for lunch. I was once again amazed at the rudeness of the staff who (yet again) were more interested in their petty gossiping than in dealing with the paying public.

Lunchtime sax practice went reasonably well. I have three new tunes to master. "Row, row, row your boat" is relatively straight-forward. "In dulci jubilo" is getting there, but the third tune (a nursery rhyme medley) leaves a little to be desired. I'm hoping that the sax mouthpiece cushioning I bought on the way home might help.

Once home I walked my dog round the park; we played our curious version of fetch in which I throw a ball and he eats it. With "er indoors ^TM" off bowling I spent a little while ironing shirts. Dull...

And in closing Rik Mayall died today. Bearing in mind he's been the funniest thing on the telly for the last twenty years he'll be sadly missed. Mind you I'm showing my age on this one; most of my younger colleagues had never heard of him...

8 June 2014 (June) - A Long Walk Round Linton

A day's heavy drinking usually makes for a reasonable night's sleep, and I woke this morning to find I didn't have hours to kill beffore the off. After a spot of brekkie we were soon on our way to collect Gordon Tracy. We didn't have to drive for long to get to today's walk, and soon we met up with Kim and Andy.

I shall have a little aside here - a little rant.... I often get told by all sorts of people that they would like to come on walks and strolls. Everyone is *very* welcome to come along, and it bothers me that I've missed letting people know about these walks when I am told "I would have loved to come along.." or "You never asked me...".

I usually organise walks as Facebook events for the simple reason that I find that this is the easiest way to organise such events. I invite anyone that I think might be interested (but generally don't invite geo-bods who've already done the geo-walk where we're going).

On today's Facebook event page there were five people who told me they couldn't come or had other plans. Five of us went out today. But the majority of people invited either didn't see the invite or didn't bother replying.... which was it..?

Anyway... today was a lovely day for a walk. Glorious sunshine, geo-fun, some wonderful views. We walked along and over a river. The dogs went in the river a few times. As we walked we saw a small frog, some deer, a few llamas, and a young couple having sex on a fence. I did laugh; especially when we saw her bum as she hurriedly pulled up her trousers before they ran away. The young fornicators were more easily spooked than the deer; which was surprising.

We met a couple resting by the side of the road who had a tandem. They sang the praises of the tandem. I wasn't impressed; it looked broken to me. We met some normal people with an ordnance survey map. They lambasted me for having the map on my phone rather than on paper as God intended.

They then asked me to use the sat-nav technology on my phone to show them where they were on their map.

After thirteen miles we were rather hot; finding the pub was rather good. We would probably have had a second round had the people in the garden (there were hundreds) been exerting any control over their feral children (there were thousands)

I took a few photos whilst we were out; we came home and I uploaded them. Unusually for a Sunday we weren't that late getting home. A rather good plate of lamb chops went down very well. The pudding not so; yesterday I'd bought some fresh cream cakes from the bakers. Despite having been kept in the fridge they were still rather stale thiss evening.

I then sent out over thirty invites for next weekend's geo-stroll. Let's see if anyone's taken any notice of my little rant...