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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City As Memory

So, yesterday, while I was here :

I recalled times when I had been here :

and it felt like the difference between :

and :



Goodbye Sarah Jane

Utterly devastated by the news that Elizabeth Sladen passed away today. My first crush as a pre-pubescent Sketchy.

I met her many years later at a Dr Who event at Longleat and as I bumbled some rubbish compliment at her she calmly looked me up and down, smiled warmly and said "Oh, you smell nice!"

And at the end of 'School Reunion', when David Tennant's Doctor hugged her and said "MY Sarah Jane" was I the only one who exclaimed "NO! MY Sarah Jane!"? I doubt it.

Goodbye Sarah Jane.

Life's Unexpected Delights #2

When the bastard Heron which has been stalking your garden pond for weeks is viciously mobbed by a huge flock of gulls. Heh.


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People Are Strange

I guess I've always considered myself 'normal'. But just what the fuck is normal? The same as everybody else? Average? Not tainted by madness? OK, I'm not a serial killer, I don't have sex with animals, I only have one head. But consider the following :

I always remember colours wrongly. If I see a green car, I'll remember it as red and vice versa. I often confuse blue with red also, so it's not a negative colour thing, it's some kind of memory wiring problem. Or does this happen to everyone else too?

I always have to open a packet of crisps/biscuits/sweets/condoms/anything the right way up. Even though it makes no difference whatsoever. It does to me.

If I come home from somewhere and put things down i.e. keys, wallet etc I have to put them all at right angles to each other.

When going to sleep I have to always lie on my left side. It really makes no difference, but I have to do it nonetheless.

When listening to an album I've not heard before I have to listen to a few seconds of each track first before I can play the whole thing from start to finish. This applied to vinyl albums long before CDs existed. CD intro scan was invented just for me.

I find it impossible to urinate if anyone else is in the room. I always head for the cubicle in a public place or hold it in. This has caused me some extremely uncomfortable nights out as it still holds true even if I am very drunk.

When I see a picture of a camel I have to run around in circles for 8 minutes precisely, weeping.

Ok, that last one is not true. But you get my drift. We're all a bit fucked up, yes? I could easily go on all night, but it's getting a bit confessional now. These are the things which make us individual and unique and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Apart from my issues with cottage cheese, obviously...



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