Monthly Archives: February 2010

What’s My Motivation for This?

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It’s the little things in life that really get up my nose.

People who step onto a train (or into a lift) before you are able to get off. Wouldn’t it be easier for me to get out first, thus creating room on the train? Never mind common courtesy! Then there are those others who, when you’re waiting for a lift having pressed the button and made it light up, come along in front of you and press that button very same button again- as if you hadn’t thought of doing that. “IT’S ALREADY LIT YOU CABBAGE !! I ALREADY PRESSED IT!!”

They are right up there with people who, while you’re stood holding a door open for them, say nothing and just saunter through. Not a thank you, kiss-your-arse, NOTHING. Or worse, they walk through the open door not even bothering to take their hands out of their pockets to take the door from you. Bastards.

Short people using umbrellas in public places. They are a danger to my eyesight. I’ll go blind soon enough, thank you very much, and don’t need any help from you attacking my retinas with your steely spikey spokey pokey brolly. Then again, I really despise those who take something from you, whether a cup of tea, a pencil or whatever and who not only don’t say thank you, they don’t even look at you by way of acknowledgment. Grrrrr…

While none of these annoyances, taken individually, would force you to unleash the forces of hell, imagine how you would feel if all of the above happened to you in the space of one morning?

Well , welcome to my world.

My bad morning had started early, (as early as last night, in fact) as I’d lost my glasses. This was the first time it’d happened to me in the six weeks since I’d been viewing the world in glorious HD. I was worried, and it irked me. I’d either left them at work, or in the pub, or on the train, or somewhere. Bugger. Still, I was so knackered last night, couldn’t be arsed to worry about them, so I decided to sleep on it.

I woke up this morning and immediately started to worry about them. Bugger. And Charlton had lost again.

With my spare pair of specs (£9.99 Foster Grants from Sainsburys) in my top pocket, I set off for work by my usual train. I don’t like my spare pair. Ok, so they’re approximately £337.21 cheaper than my lost pair, but they do look every bit of that. Ill-fitting, cheap-looking plastic frames and, in all honesty, I can’t see out of them. Dunno why I bothered really.

Having squinted my way through the morning’s reading matter, the train started to pull in to my stop. I made myself ready by the door, the train came to a halt and I pushed the button to open the door. I hadn’t even time to put my worst foot forward across the threshold when a 50-something, short, fat woman pushed her way through the doorway ARSE FIRST, while she closed and shook her umbrella dry. As she try to push her way in, I gave her the gentlest of knees in the sphincter. She stood bolt upright. “Oops, sorry!” I lied, as I squeezed through the rather small gap between her and the doorframe. I didn’t bother looking around to see the look on her face, I have a decent enough imagination on me. I stomped off to work.

In reception, the queue for the coffee bar was too long to worry about so I headed straight for the lift. One of the three lifts had been out of action for weeks so the wait for one of the other two can be irritatingly long. I pressed the button. Nothing happened for a while. Then it did. A youngish bloke holding a grande latte walked in front of me and pushed the button again. I assume he must have been able to hear me snorting behind him. Then he pressed it again, and then taptap…taptaptap, like he was sending morse code. Amazingly, after only seventeen presses of the button, the lift arrived. I said nothing, I just ticked.

Up to the second floor and as the doors opened a girl from the features desk made a feint to get in before I got out. I can only assume the black look on my face, resplendently framed in cheap plastic glasses, put her off. Only a nutcase would wear them, surely. She made a tactical retreat. “Thank you” I barked, forcing a smile.

Down the corridor I huffed, to the door at the end. I could hear footsteps behind me and as I reached for the door and I turned to see a young, suited bloke about ten yards away coming towards me. I pushed the door open, went though and then waited, holding the door for him to take. He walked straight through the gap, saying nothing, leeaving me holding the door as he walked past, like I was his sodding doorman.
“My pleasure” I called after him. He looked over his shoulder and smirked.
“Pig” I added.

I can’t tell you.

The next twelve minutes went relatively well. My mood was much improved by the discovery of my glasses, in their case on the desk where I had indeed left them the night before. Hurrah! All was again well in the world, so I went to buy a round of coffees. Returning to the office, I passed them around to the chaps, and all but one thanked me and offered me the cash. The last bloke, never took his eyes off his pc, just held out his hand for me to give him his cup. Having grabbed it from me, he slurped it and set it down on the desk, eyes still focussing on the screen.
“Oh, don’t mention it, Phil” I squarked.

He didn’t.

I walked over to my desk and booted the waste bin 8ft across the room. Another colleague sniggered, sensing my well-disguised exasperation.
“Well, Mike, if you didn’t wanna work with clowns, you shouldn’t have joined the circus”

And it was still only 10.30.

KimAd.

Wooly Bully

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Is anyone in the slightest bit surprised that, with the couple of years that Gordon Brown (texture like sun) has spent at No.10, he loses his rag every so often? Just look at the numpties who surround him: Miliband (twice) Ainsworth, Harperson, Darling, the Cheeky Girls: Ben and Peter. (I suspect they like a bit of the rough stuff, naughty boys!)
No wonder he rants and raves. I bet he can hardly believe what’s happened to him. But a bully? Nah, surely not. And even if he is, does it really, truly matter any more? I suspect not.

"Where there is fire, let us bring petrol"

"Where there is fire, let us bring petrol"

Chances are, come May 7th we’ll be waking up to our first day of many many long years of a Tory Government. I remember back in the dark days of 1979 going into school on the morning after the general election to come face-to-face with my labour-voting English master, slumped over his desk.
“So the Tories got in then, Sir” I said to him.
“Yes, Bealing” he sighed. “And we’ll never get rid them. It’ll take years for people to trust Labour again”.

He was nearly right. We did eventually get rid of Maggie, then Major, but it did take forever and a day. I fear we are in a similar situation now. A large proportion of the voting public have forgotten what a Tory Government is like. If this current opposition were any where near attractive or believable to the electorate we would be witnessing a landslide in May, a rout of Gordon’s rabble. As it is, the public seem to be reeling at the thought of handing power to Dave, Osborne and all those other chinless berks in blue.

Extraordinarily, some commentators are actually predicting a hung parliament! That this administration, useless, hapless and hopeless as it is, is STILL in with a shout in the election, only goes to show what a loathesome, incompetent bunch this current crop of Tories are. What does Gordon have to do to lose this vote? Considering he’s been blamed for floods, plagues, pestilence,global financial colapse, a corrupt parliament, a dishonest police force (I said nothing, honest) and now bullying within Downing Street, I think 7 points behind the Tories in the polls is a remarkable acheivement.

Personally, I can’t see anything past a Tory victory, as much as it hurts to admit it. However, just in case you, like me, quite fancy another 5 years of Gordo Gaffs, or even the fun of a hung parliament, why not click on this link, print out one of these posters and stick it up in the office/in your front window? At the very least it’ll keep Tory canvassers away from your door.

And if you don’t I’ll send round Peter to give you a damn good thrashing.

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Travel News

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So what are we to make of Andy Powell? The Welsh rugby international was arrested last weekend, drunk in charge of a golf buggy, celebrating his team’s extraordinary victory over the Jocks in Cardiff. No one is suggesting he was actually trying to drive the golf cart onto the M4 Motorway, he was just heading in that general direction. Certainly it seems Powell was unlikely to know where he actually was, after such a long and heartfelt celebration which had tired him a little. Tired as Lord he was .

“Boys”, as they say, “will be prats”. Is this a hanging offence? Probably not. Will he be dropped from the team? Maybe, maybe not. Is there precident for this sort of behaviour? Oh yes indeedy!

Playing for Italy against England that very weekend was a chap called Craig Gower, who used to play in and for Australia, him being an..er..Australian. Here’s a taste of his Wikipedia entry:

Controversy
Gower has been involved in a number of alcohol-related off-field incidents.
In 1999, Gower exposed himself to a female Irish tourist in a Coogee bar, blaming his behaviour on alcohol intoxication. He was dumped from the Kangaroos Squad and fined $2,500 by the NRL and a further $500 in court after pleading guilty to indecent exposure.
Gower was fired as Panthers captain in December 2005, after incidents at a charity golf event where he argued with several guests, groped the teenage daughter of former league player Wayne Pearce, chased Pearce’s son with a bottle before vomiting on him, streaked around the resort, wrecked a golf cart, held a butter knife to the throat of a Sydney radio personality and threw the knife at resort guests before being kicked out of the function by security.

Gower was handed a “final warning” by the National Rugby League and fined $100,000, with $90,000 to be paid to an NRL programme encouraging the responsible use of alcohol by league players and $10,000 to replace the destroyed golf cart.[9] Gower was “deeply unhappy” that the Penrith Panthers club did not defend his reputation, and at one stage threatened to “walk” from the club.[10]
Allegedly inebriated with alcohol in a bar at Kings Cross on 11 February 2007, Gower allegedly tried to kiss one man before biting him on the neck and sparking a brawl, and is accused of assaulting another man.[11][12] The Panthers club controversially reappointed Gower as captain in 2007, claiming the Peppermint Lounge incident was just a media “beat-up”.[13]

So, who knows, there may well be a happy outcome for Andy Powell ? His little spin in a buggy seems rather tame up against proper piss-heads such as Mr Gower. On that evidence he should be made Prince of Wales. No-one was hurt and all he did (allegedly) was to remove his trousers before driving off into the night. Who amongst us hasn’t done that? Leave the boy alone, I say.

I mean to say, it’s not even as if he went out one evening this week, got ridiculously pissed and fell down the stairs of the Paris Metro, cracking his head open and busting a couple of ribs. He’d have to be a proper sad old Welsh wino to do that.

That Sand Gets Everywhere

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I wonder what happens when one finally snuffs it? Where do you go? Upwards to meet Robert Powell ? Downstairs to shake hands with the fella with the fork? Neither? Maybe you just lay there to eventually become a future layer of sedimentary rock, or to ‘ave worms eat thee up’ and end up in some yet-to be packaged growbag at Homebase? To be honest I don’t think about it too much, merely hoping that when my time comes I shall be wearing clean underwear and be monumentally in debt to Nat West Bank (one scenario far more likely than the other.)

I’ll wager young King Tut would have had a pretty strong opinion of his fate in the afterlife. Even at the tender age of 19, Tutankhamun would have been convinced in his own mind that he, all his worldly belongings buried with him, (including 130 walking sticks), and any other poor sod unfortunate enough to locked in the tomb when they No-More-Nailed the doors shut would be off to a better place. A place where the water was cool, the wine rich, the women all beautiful, bi-curious virgins, and the lbw laws were in favour of the bowler. (It’s a little known fact that Tut bowled useful medium left arm in-duckers.)

Sadly for the young man, a peaceful everafter lasted only up until 1922 when his tomb was found and his body exhumed for modern scientists, historians and the like to gawp at and poke about. For nearly ninety years, the world has shared a fascination with Tutankhamun and his life story. Egytologymania became a word I just made up. When the exhibition of the treasures found in his tomb came to London in the early 1970s, we commemorated the event at school by painting and drawing pictures of the famous death mask. I vividly remember my painting looking like Liberace- more fairy than Pharaoh. This awkward memory returned to me today when I saw the photo of the reconstruction of Tut’s face, based on scientific scans of the boy king’s mummy. I didn’t even know they showed the Catherine Tate Show in Egypt.

Tate and Tut. How very dare you !

So anyway, I read that rigorous tests on his skellington (correct) and DNA have revealed that Tut was the product of a relationship between his dad and his auntie. From this inter-family naughtiness he inherited several genetic disorders, he had a club foot (hence the walking sticks) often suffered crippling illness, and was probably killed by a virutlent strain of malaria, and his nickname around the Giza was ‘The Lucky King’. Ok, I made that last bit up too. But what an undignified way to go for a once, presumably, proud and powerful man? I suppose it could have been worse for the poor sod: they could have discovered he was Welsh.

Nevertheless, it’s doubtless not how he envisaged eternity as he lay amid the secluded dunes, during one of those rather long Cairo summers (made worse with all those German tourists in town). There he would lay, a teenage boy, dreaming of all that fun just waiting for him with those lovely virgins, before he would hurriedly have to wipe himself off with a sheet of papyrus and button himself up, as he heard Auntie’s flip-flops coming round the corner.

Sadly for our man Tut, like anyone who has had to catch a train to Manchester, he’d have to wait for his fun on a virgin. In his life-after-death he would have to be content having pieces nicked off him and holes bored into him in the name of science, and suffer his dynasty being mimicked by 21st century comediennes and London-based Egyptian nutters. And The Bangles, of course.

What will the scientist of the future discover about my life if my body is dug up 2,000 years from now? That I was descended from a long line of scaffolders’ knee-wrenchers? That my Guinness count contained traces of blood? That my eyes failed me at an early age due to a life of looking at photos and chronic self-abuse (hence the 130 boxes of kleenex buried with me)? Will they be able to tell that I could never get the hang of badminton, or that my highest score in any form of cricket was 48? A cursary glance at my teeth and vital organs should reveal my love of a wee dram and a bacon buttie (there will still be traces between my teeth, no doubt), and the simplest rectal probe will demonstrate just how many curries 45 year-old men used to eat every week in the early years of the 21st century.

Will the British Museum stage an exhibition of the treasures discovered buried with me? My pith helmets? My fascinating collection of lime pickle jars? All the ointments? The Status Quo OBE Albums? I doubt it. And to be honest I hope they don’t. Leave me be, up there with the virgins and the vino and, like King Tut, a Sphinx’s inscrutable smile.


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And The Winner Isn’t (Original Screenplay)

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Scrolling through the list of nominees for this year’s Academy Awards it dawns on me just how few movies I’ve been to see over the past 12 months. I saw Up on a plane and Hurt Locker on DVD. Although a huge movie fan, I’ve always shied away from going to the cinema, preferring to wait til the DVD release. Yes, I’m fully aware that films were made to be watched on the big screen, but a trip to the flicks has always been a less than underwhelming experience for me.

Whatever The Drifters may think, Saturday Night at the Movies was a miserable, wasted night. I could never get comfortable, movie houses having a penchant for packing you in, in rows of seats with airliner leg-room. You couldn’t get a beer (well not in the UK anyway), which means 2 1/2 hours of your weekend wasted, and I always manage to sit in front of someone annoying bastard from one of the following categories:
1. He’s seen the movie before and would give his mates/girlfriend a commentary of the film, using helpful phrases like “oh, this is a good bit” or reciting the upcoming line 2 seconds before it was delivered.
2. He’s bought out the concessions stand in the foyer and would rustle and chomp his way through the whole movie, right in your ear hole.
3. Him and his missus are copulating throughout the film with the accompanying squeaks, giggles and groans being very off-putting. And it’s even worse if the couple happen to be sitting in front of you. A silhouetted head bobbing up and down in the row in front of me once made me miss every third frame of Schindler’s List
4. He laughs heartily at every single gag in the movie, as if he was the scriptwriter.
5. He’s pissed, so all of the above could apply.

And before you tell me that multiplexes now have huge sofas and bars with proper food and drinks served to you, it’s too late. The die has been cast, and anyway it’ll still be full of gits.

Ah! That's more like it

No, even for one with such tolerance for and love of my fellow man, I prefer to watch my films at home from the comfort, peace and quiet of my own sofa, where the only sound is the door of the fridge opening when the Incumbent opens another couple of beers.

It’ll be the first time in ten years that I won’t be participating in TIME magazine‘s Oscar Sweep, where we’d predict/guess who will win which category. But seeing as I’ve watched very few movies this year my chances of winning would be, at best, minimal. Although some of the awards they hand out are so obscure that it’s a complete lottery anyway (who makes notes on their favourite Writing from an Adapted Screenplay ? Certainly not that girl sitting in the row in front of me blowing her boyfriend)

So when the time comes I will be hoping that Hurt Locker romps home with the award for Best (Only)Nominated Picture Seen by Me This Year and UP walks away with Best Animated Feature shown by Oman Air Last November.

Obviously we’ll all be biting our nails, hoping Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen wins in the category of Sound Mixing.

Say it with Socks

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Whilst trying not to get carried away with the whole marketing con-fest of Valentines Day, the Incumbent and I did exchange gifts on the day, as token of our affection for each other. I bought her a pair of socks and she, in an obvious bid for another term in office, bought me a bottle of Lagavulin. Seemed like a fair swap to me. It’s my favourite brand of whisky, and she gets cold feet. And never underestimate the aphrodisiac properties of a good pair of thermal socks. Or is that overestimate?.

One thing I’ve leaned over the years: whatever I buy her for Christmas, Birthday or other occasions, she will always best me in the forking-out department. They do that to you, women. Clever bastards.

As chuffed as I was with a bottle of Scotland’s finest malt, I felt a bit deflated. What I really wanted was one of those chairs. You know the ones I mean. The Mogul Chairs. You must have seen them this weekend when watching the yawnathon that is the Vancouver Winter Olympics ? Competitors in the Freestyle Skiing event, get to the bottom of the hill and if they are in a medal position they get to sit in one of three huge comfy chairs and watch the rest of the field come in. If someone then comes in and posts a faster time, he or she then gets to rest his bum in the apposite seat, while the previous holder of that position either moves one seat down or buggers off into non-comfy-chair anonymity.

This is proving to be much more entertaining than the ‘sport’ itself. Just watch the devastated faces of those who were holding onto the bronze medal, only for someone to come in with a better time. “ I don’t wanna get up! I’ve just got settled”

I’m not sure if all the events at the Olympics have comfy chairs at the end of course. The luge organisers have surely got to come up with an alternative to their original idea of scaffolding poles, broken glass and razor wire at the bottom of the run. Someone could hurt themselves on that! But it’ll obviously be their own fault if they do.

Hold on for a moment… … … sorry… … … ahem … … excuse me … … it’s very hard to remain composed when I watch Jacques Rogge (a right Belgium Count) get his onion out of his handbag and mock-blub at that news conference the other day. Sweet baby Jesus, what is the world coming to. Alastair Campbell , Gordon Brown, now Jacques Rogge CRYING !!! Who’s next? Sepp Blatter? That really would be a full set of crying crooked Counts.

No Hammer, Just a House of Horrors

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In a rare moment of sobriety this weekend I decided to do a few jobs around the house. Nothing major, you understand, just a few little bits that needed doing. I’ve never been Mr.D.I.Y for several reasons : I’m crap at it; I’m a lazy little bastard; there’s something I wanna watch on telly; Dad will do it for me; I can pay a mate / local tradesman to do it for me. But times being as they are with the piggy-bank being empty, I need to forget my lack of enthusiasm for or skill with a screwdriver, drill or hammer, act like a man, get off my arse and do it.

I limbered up with a doorknob. That’s not something I’d admit to in public, but nevertheless it’s true. I’ve had to open my kitchen door with a teaspoon ever since the knob fell off a few weeks ago. The spoon makes a good jemmy, and doesn’t scratch the paint. I have gotten quite used to it. It even has it’s own little home on top of the heater beside the door and The Incumbent has pronounced it all to be ‘funny’ as opposed to it being a pain in the arse . But what with the imminent arrival of Mum , who will not see the funny side of it, and having invited some pals round next weekend for beer and curry, I knew I had to get my act together. Railway Cuttings is no mansion, no show-home, but it’s a slippery slope down to Trampsville when you have to open doors with cutlery. Next stop: J-cloths as reusable toilet paper. I don’t wanna go there again.

Two squirts of ‘No More Nails’ later and my two new knobs were affixed (one each side of the door, DO keep up!). What was dad thinking of, using screws and nails and things ? This is the future of DIY!. Yes, yes I realise they’ll last about ten days. I realise this stuff isn’t quite the miracle cure for sticking everything they tell us it is, but once the guests have left and my knob falls off I’m happy to go back to the spoon. (God this is thrilling stuff! Dick Francis ??? Pah!) Encouraged by my success, I moved on to repairing the curtains. This too seemed to go swimmingly, with the aid of another ‘labour-saving’ device, some iron-on adhesive tape ( a bit like Wonderweb- the batchelor’s friend). “End Curtain-Sticking Misery Now ” Why get out the needle and thread when there’s stuff like this on the market ? Back of the net!. (continued after this advert)

Wales Rugby T-shirt

As I knelt on the floor, ironing two halves of some purple curtains together I wondered if this was the sort of thing that other male icons such as Humphrey Bogart or David Niven would be doing on a Saturday afternoon ? Try as I could to convince myself they would, deep down I suspected not. They would be doing something far more mundane: A glass of scotch on the porch while shooting tigers, a quick fumble with the missus (or somebody else’s missus) on the polar-bear rug, then off to play poker all-night with the guys in some smokey bar, Claudia Cardinale draped around their shoulders, vodka martinis coming our of their ears. Hmmmm…………

I was deamily immersed in my thoughts, all the time making sure my seams were straight, when suddenly I was roused by the unmistakable of a wooden doorknob hitting a veneered floor : ‘Clunk’, followed by the unmistakable sound of an annoyed bloke. ‘Oh Bollocks !!. The Incumbent, bless her, did her best not to titter. I had to leave the ‘no more cotton’ activity on the floor and return to the ‘No More Nails’ scenario in the kitchen. I refused to be defeated by this fucking doorknob, even if I had to go down the path of ‘Some More Nails’.

A mere several hours passed and both jobs were finished. The curtains were back on their rods and, if you sit in just the right position (and ignore where the glue is already coming unstuck) they’re looking magnificent, if a little pissed in places (as oft am I). In the kitchen, the knobs are stuck securely to the door, as long as you don’t touch them. Apparently, the trick is to hold them in place for 35 minutes while the adhesive dries and hardens. I might as well have used my own faeces. Next time it’s hammer and nails time.

Tomorrow I’m fixing a heater to a wall in the hallway. Or maybe I’ll get my dad to do it.