Telephone Operator

Having been with the same mobile company for many years now, and actually having found them very reliable, I was quite chuffed to be offered an iPhone 4 for just 50 quid. However, being the luddite I am I absolutely have no need whatsoever for a smartphone. So I took a £25 reduction on my monthly tariff instead.

WINS. As those pesky yougsters might say.



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Forgotten Years

Whilst in the process of clearing out piles of old folders and plastic bags in a neglected room I've come across some ancient gems. Mostly of interest only to myself and immediate family, nonetheless I intend to share a few found items with the blogosphere.

This is (was?) my father cira 1972 - the face of Minster Fuels :

His name wasn't Roy, for some reason 'Les' was not considered the right name for a heating engineer. On the reverse is an advert for 3-piece suites, reduced from £60 to £42. You wouldn't get a bloody 3-piece SUIT for that price now, let alone furniture!

The following picture is definitely an indication of how things change ;

That's my mother and I, Christmas 1966. I am proudly clutching my new golliwog. Guess what, I grew up without becoming racist. Funny that.

Here's me in 1965 :

And here's me half an hour ago :

Which proves, if nothing else, that dogs like me even if humans don't. Also the hair's come full circle.

Finally (for now at least) a family picnic from 1964. At an aerodrome in Hampshire. We weren't fussy. (I say 'we', but as this was taken in the summer I was merely a collection of sexless cells with no identity at this time. Some say I still am.)

I suspect more of this nonsense will follow soon....



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The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round

...except when they don't.

So, I was walking the dog with a friend yesterday when we encountered a huge scaffolding lorry parked completely over the pavement on a single track lane leaving just enough room for cars to pass, but only just. We carefully passed it (by having to walk up the middle of the road) while being balefully watched by three dead-eyed hairy-arses carrying scaffolding poles and planks to and from the lorry.

One of the 'men' stacked a pile of planks against the side of the lorry, reducing the passing space even further. An average sized car would JUST be able to pass. That's when the bus arrived. We both stopped and turned to witness what happened next. The bus drew up behind the lorry but could go no further. The men stared at the bus. The bus flashed its lights. The men stared at the bus. The driver wound down the window, I couldn't hear what he said to the men but there was no reaction. The men stared at the bus.

Maybe I'm considered soft, but at this point I would have shouted something like "Oops, sorry mate!" and moved the planks to give the bus a fair chance of at least trying to get by. The men stared at the bus. I was fully expecting one of them to rip his shirt off and start bellowing and beating his chest.

Eventually, after several cars and a bike had pulled up behind the bus, turned round and buggered off again, the bus slowly squeezed past the lorry, destroying someone's hedge in the process. The men stared at the bus. Once it had gone they carried on loading their lorry in silence.

My friend and I looked at each other, our mouths open, stunned by this weird display of macho ignorance. It seems that it is considered a weakness by a certain portion of the population to demonstrate any glimmer of thoughtfulness or consideration towards others, or indeed to even acknowledge their existence. I shouldn't be surprised, I already knew that, but it's always stunning to actually see it in action and it confuses and saddens me every time.

My friend is a librarian. She doesn't expect to encounter any of those men again anytime soon.

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'These Frequencies are Changing...

...a soft acceleration, across the surface of the sea...' - I do like those lyrics, courtesy of John Foxx the ever-regenerating quiet man. Music and wordplay is so subjective, but right now they evoke a certain empathy within me as things around me do seem to be gently altering at the moment.

It's very possible that within the next few months I will have to initiate and deal with a major life change, new job, new house, new area to live in. It's something I've been toying with for several years now and things have shifted into a position which dictates that it's probably now or never. Strange how 20 years ago I'd have just got on with it, embracing the adventure and the change... and yet right now, even though the possible outcome will mean a vastly improved lifestyle in a place I really want to be, it's utterly terrifying! Thus prevarication has set in. Someone kick my arse please?

I had an amazing drunken day out with some very good friends yesterday, alternating between pubs and wobbly woodland walks, ending up at the finest drinking establishment in town for a nightcap. Reality-dodging can be fun!

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INTERMISSION

Big Blue Sun

Finally the weather has realised it's June, right at the end. Loverly.

Off to a barbeque this evening, it's all become terribly complicated ; the barbequee is a popular lady and the weather's scorching and word's got around - it could well be shoulder-to-shoulder with various hot-food-against-bare-skin and alcohol-fuelled-inapropriate-touching incidents conceivable.

Might be fun!

I won't hesitate to report any and all hilarious barbeque occurrences in my next split-yer-sides blog of hilarity...

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Partially Submerged

This little news item caught my bloodshot eye today :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-13830017

The human race seems to be getting stupider by the day. At least, humans who live in 'civilised society' are. I'm probably over-simplifying but my opinion is that this is a result of our endless quest to make life easy for ourselves. We surround ourselves with an abundance of machines designed to speed life up and cut out the annoying need to think too much.

We are divorcing ourselves from the natural world bit by bit. To digress slightly - I'm not that old but I spent my childhood in a house with no double glazing, loft insulation or central heating. Thus I am perfectly comfortable in lower temperatures - temperatures which younger friends seem to find incredibly disagreeable. If I switch the air conditioning on at work when it gets warm (or what I percieve to be warm anyway) it is generally met with a chorus of complaints until someone switches it off again. I feel that I am more 'hardened' to adverse conditions than the generation beneath me.

Likewise, as a youth I did a great deal of hiking and cycling - I know what to wear and what to expect out in the countryside (generally the unexpected).  If I were to see a danger sign concerning tidal waters I'd bloody well take notice of it, having been nearly stranded by the tide on a beach once while searching for wildlife amongst rocks aged about 12. (Me, not the rocks, I suspect they were a tad older) But many people now have little idea of just how vicious the 'real world' can be. We don't run the bloody planet, it is a vast, dangerous, unpredictable beast. Just because you're in a shiny new car and have spent your life in comfort and ease doesn't mean nature is going to give you a break.

I suppose it is a sign of natural selection at work. I pity all the emergency services now, someone gets a paper cut and they're dialling 999 'cos mummy always made it better for them and they still need to be mothered and smothered and blanketed. If I'd gone to my mum squealing about a cut or graze I'd have been told in no uncertain terms it was my own bloody fault and I should learn to be more careful - so I did. Let your kids hurt themselves, let them get cold and wet and muddy. LET THEM LEARN.

Ironically, with the advent of the internet we have greater access now to information than any generation before us ever. So what do we do? Spend hours playing games, farting about on Facebook and writing vacuous blogs. Heh.


Sadly, for all my experience, I still sometimes think that I too am invincible. Last weekend at a music festival I decided against wearing a hat on a sunny June day and burnt my entire scalp to buggery. Twat.



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Mr Self Destruct

It was a lovely sunny day, albeit a bit breezy, so I took a work break outside. A bloke I sometimes chat to from the business next door wandered over and we put the world to rights for a few minutes. Then we noticed a, shall we say somewhat portly, gentleman in his 50s across the road throwing rubbish into an industrial wheely-bin.

Suddenly he stopped, patted his pockets and peered over the top of the bin. He'd clearly accidentally discarded a personal item. Not very tall, he was only just head and shoulders over the lip of the bin. We watched him peering in until he located the item, then he began trying to reach for it. Standing on tiptoe it was obvious he still couldn't get at it with his short arms and round body. He walked away, towards a pile of old wooden pallets.

"He's not..." said my friend.
"He is!" I replied.
"No way will that take his weight." my friend commented as we watched, agog.

The man rested the pallet against the side of the bin, without propping it against anything. Then he tried to climb up it. He actually tried to climb up it. He really, actually did. That's the part which still confuses me - he was in his 50s and he still tried to climb up it.

He failed. First foot up, fine... second foot up and he crashed straight through the pallet as it simultaneously slid to the ground. He must have lacerated his shin, and he also bashed his stupid face against the side of the bin as he went down.

"I think I called that one." said my friend.
"I think you did." I replied. We probably should have high-fived at that point.

He picked up the remains of the pallet and tried to preserve his dignity by walking nonchalently away, limping slightly, unware that he'd been observed. He dropped the pallet, returned and started trying to scramble over the lip of the bin. While he was  balanced half-in the bin with his legs dangling in the air, the wind blew the lid closed on top of him. By this time we were both bent double, dribbling with mirth.

Now obviously getting quite angry, the man slammed the lid back open but carried on trying to reach his lost item. Just then a younger, taller man arrived and calmly reached inside, easily retrieving the lost object and handing it to him.

This display of shocking stupidity was clearly very funny, but also bloody scary. This was a man with at least 50 years of life experience under his belt and my colleague had spoken to him a few times and could attest to the fact that he seemed to be of sound mind. And yet, in a moment of crisis, he acted like an eight year old. Presumably, at the end of his working day he was going to get into a motor vehicle and drive down roads crowded with other vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists whilst using the same brain which had told him it would be ok to try and do something totally impossible.

And we see this sort of thing day in and day out. Just listening to travel reports on the radio every day it is quite clear to me that a confusingly large percentage of the adult population of the UK (and probably the world) should really never leave their homes and attempt to interact with anything at all, let alone large, metal, fast-moving vehicles.

I can only draw one conclusion from the above observations.

We're doomed. As a race we are poised to slowly self-destruct. And quite frankly, sometimes I think we bloody deserve it.


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Dancing Queen

Saturday night.... I eschewed the usual group get-together in a fairly quiet pub for a chat and instead allowed myself to be persuaded to go to a very loud place and dance... Well, I say 'dance'...

I've always had two, in fact THREE left feet and scuttle around the dance floor flapping my arms like someone having a major convulsion, but the worst thing is I never know what to do with my face. I kind of start off grinning stupidly, then try and relax my features, become really self-conscious and end up closing my eyes with a strange serene expression as though I'm in some kind of trance. Consequently I end up trampling on people.

I am not popular on the dance floor. I need L plates or some kind of sign which says 'Unco-ordinated Twat'.

Hmmm... maybe I'll get a tee shirt made.

I fell over too. In a crowd. No-one helped me up.

I really should stay at home sometimes...




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Life's Unexpected Delights #3

Tapping your fingernail against your teacup while listening to The Pink Panther Theme.


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