Note to self - clean drains more frequently!

I'd never do anything as self-obsessed as reading over my past blog entries, but if I did, I suspect I should conclude that what this blog lacks is focus (and decent spelling, and grammar, and any kind of structured approach to what is laughably mangled english).

Others have blogs about things, even if it's only themselves. Somebody blogging about their garden, whether it be what they have in the propagation chamber at the moment or a war journal about the epic struggle they wage against moles (which, amazingly, are even gripping on days when nothing happens - 'July 14th, no sign of moles, worrying.' 'July 18th, still no moles, concern growing'. 'July 30th, no moles. Worry has blossomed into full blown psychosis. Have stopped going to work, have stopped washing and have started to pee into containers and store it in attic'.) So blogging on a changing subject always offers something new, or new seeming, as talking about the same thing in a variety of ways always seems much more interesting than talking about a variety of things in the same way.

I was going to make food the subject of today's blog entry. Or more precisely, food porn.

The M&S ads running before Christmas, culminating in a shot of a bottle of cava opening, the cork flying and a slow motion avalanche of froth spurting from the neck of the bottle might just as well have finished by panning back to reveal a topless woman being caught full in the face with the flying white fluid but smiling throughout like the trooper she is. This wasn't just a food ad, this was food porn. They should only have been allowed to show that ad after the watershed.

I was going to do a full on food porn ad for the great British breakfast.

In these stale sprout days between Christmas and New Year, with the rest of the world busy either fighting over the last jumper in the Next sale or slumped in front of a telly, clinically dead, I jump astride my bike and peddle like the out-of condition, fat f**k that I am to the supermarket in the nearby village.

The village is on a hill and so getting there takes about forty minutes. I arrive in a sweating heap and have to make myself decent before being allowed to squeeze vegetables. The ride back is basically an exercise in taking my feet off the peddles and going 'wheeeeeeeeeeee' for ten minutes, all downhill.

This morning, experementing with a new route (Rule number 3 - never vary the route), I managed to get something like lost. Okay, it was exactly like lost in the sense that I did not know where I was but not quite like lost in that I could easily back track (sacrificing lots of pride) and I still knew generally where I was.

I just headed uphill. When you're a cyclist, your destination is ALWAYS uphill and so it proved to be. It was quite exciting, I even had to carry my bike past a dead tree at one point, crossing the downs. My one concern was that I might be straying a bit near the nearby prison. I was worried not for myself (I'm not so pretty that a lag on the run would interrupt his escape to drag me into a bush and bum me senseless) but for my bike, which would provide the ideal means of escape, both off and on road, for any Lance Armstrong fan who had gone over the wall.

Finally I found civilisation and purchased all that a man needs for a decent late breakfast - paper, bacon, sausage, eggs, tomato, black pudding and (god forgive me) oven chips. (I sill have a thing about having several pints of oil heated to scalding point in the house...I think it's something to do with too much Dungeons and Dragons and being on the wrong end of a cauldron of the kitchen's best during a siege).

So I stuffed it all in a bag and headed home, toying with the idea of blogging about something at last. Not myself, not moles, but food.

The Food Blog. I'd finally be able to take one of my passions - banging on about food - and combine it with another - banging on about food A LOT. Heading the column, a gratutiously sexy shot of the full english, with baked beans and a slice of white buttered bread, the fat glistening in the artful lighting.

I started to get into this. It displaced the other thoughts I usually file under 'oh shit what am I going to blog about...must write something or it will appear I have no life...oh shit..I have no life!'

Mind you, as I shot past the bookies there was one image that I now can't get out of my head and which I thought epitomised the 'back to normal' nature of the sprout days. On the welcome mat of the bookies, just inside the glass door, a fearsome dog of no particular breed and no obvious owner was industriously licking at its nethers. This, I thought, was a great ad for the lifestyle embodied in certain places, such as the pub or bookies. The tag line should have been - 'Class!'. This, I am sure, is why so many people gamble on line. Having said that, it had its own particular charm, and I've seen people behave worse.

Scrunching to a halt on the gravel at home, I spied a large puddle where a small puddle had been yesterday. It hasn't rained for weeks. Oh shit.

So a grand breakfast became a hasty lunch and then it was time to start peering in drains. No obvious problem except a shed load of leaf litter blocking one of my drains. That, I can assure you, was a thrill to dig out.

Then off to the megaDIY store, as my trusty provider of nails, screws and advice in the village was bloody well closed. The big orange and white fleecer had loads of staff on today, its just that none of them were on the tills. What there were at the tills were people, lots of them, and, as you can imagine, they were all f**king fed up with having to f**king be in a DIY store in the first place. I mean, who wants to be in a DIY store at this time of year buying turps, when you can be eating all the left over mince pies and rooting through the papers in the after eights box to see if any still have chocolates in.

Got my drain cleaner. Dissolves hair and, more importantly, fat, on contact apparently. Have decanted entire bloody bottle down drain in hope it will do the trick as am hoping that problem is simply fatty deposits of Christmas dinner rather than anything frost related.

Cycling to DIY shop a lot less fun than recreational cycling to get sausage supplies. Am hoping that if there is a blockage it was just leaf mulch, now removed, rather than ghost of a million sausages, most of which consumed in last week. Naturally, when faced with chemical that dissolves fat, treated with exceptional care, as in my case it would have to go through skin first.

What computers were invented for

The magic of Christmas met the wonder of technology this Christmas. Was visiting friends with teenage children, who, being teenagers, could finally get friends' web-cam working. Within minutes they had left the adults and were back chatting with their friends on-line and with added pictures.

When I was a lad, the apex of communication was shouting or, failing that, two soup tins (empty) and a length of string. Today, children are in constant contact with one another by text, e mail, IMS and, for all those traditionalists out there, semaphore. Where do they find the time to actually do anything worth talking about?

Friends parents told me of delights of instant messaging with web cams, especially in other people's houses. The youth in question, currently 'chatting' in the next room had, a couple of days previously, been likewise engaged at his grandmother's house, chatting to his teenage girlfriend who, under the influence of one Bicardi Breezer too many, flashed her boobs at our hero.

Of course, Grandma had chosen just that moment to appear behind the boys shoulder to ask if he wanted a cup of tea.

Lad defuses situation by explaining that he's not looking at porn and manfully tries to spin positive story from having an exhibitionist drunkard for a girlfriend. Looks back to monitor to see that girl has been replaced by angry older brother of girl, asking what the hell was going on and what a pervert like him was doing telling his baby sister to take her top off. Once again our hero, sweating like a malaria sufferer uring the great quinine drought of '98, explains that it all sort of happened quickly and that if the enraged older brother will scroll back up the chat, he will see the response to 'shall I take my top off?' was 'Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!'.

So, festive peace was restored.

Wondering if there was to be any flesh on show tonight I wandered into the room with the PC and the youth in qustion. When I appeared at his shoulder, his hands flew to the >ctrl< key and two of the three windows that were active closed down. It would appear that the lad in question has learned a lesson from this...always keep two hands on the keyboard.

It's deep, crisp and even. It's also bloody cold.

It's that time of the year again. the fallow period between Christmas and New Year. Most of the country is still sitting at home, trying to see the television over the top of their sprout-swollen stomachs. Other poor souls are working.

I well recall the time I 'worked' between Christmas and New Year. It's an interesting time to be in an office as there are no senior management around, delegating, as they have, the chores to the lowly...hence my presence. I spend the entire time pottering and watching 'Lawrence of Arabia' on the PC monitor, as some kind soul in the IT department had decided to pipe in Channel 4 onto one of the PC TV stations, usually reserved for News 24 and so on. Excellent film, even when watched in a four inch square window.

I've never worked the period again, it would be sure to be a disappointment.

Being out and about is good fun. Got the bike out and went shopping, nearly killing self in process. Legs still don't feel right.

It's cold. I mean really cold. the sort of cold only England can do properly, the sort that was so useful to Victorian novelists for killing off orphans or other minor characters. Jack Frost is very active, scribing fern patterns on double glazing and shed windows alike and snow is still to be seen in areas of shadow.

It's a time for running down the batteries on the Christmas toys and finally getting the good booze out now that the in-laws have gone home. Vegetables have started to make a reappearance in my diet, replacing the five festive food groups of chocolate, peanuts, booze, satsumas and bacon sarnies. I am confident that fruit will make a reappearance in early 2006.

'Tis the season...

First informal drinkies of the season last night. I can report that I have absolute f**ker behind the eyes. Two extra strength paracetamol ('sending in 2 para'), a bag of cheesy puffs and lots of water appears to have shifted it but I fear that at this time of the year a hangover, like solar radiation, is always there in the background.

Need a proper hangover scale. There are examples on the interweb but, unlike the great scales - Beaufort or Richeter, they only seem to go up to six:

http://www.rupissed.com/hangoverintensity.html
http://www.users.bigpond.com/deanlk/hangover.htm

Armatures. Anyone who's experienced the many varieties and moods of hangover will know that one needs at last 12 levels.

1 Eerily chipper. Slightly jaded. Secretly pleased at self's ability to recover.
2 Know you've been drinking. Small of alcohol makes self nauseous.
3 Nothing a greasy bacon sarnie won't sort out.
4 Paracetamol required.
5 Paracetamol required NOW! Am willing to ask colleagues if they have any on them.
6 Will attend to headache as soon as nausea subsides.
7 Vomiting.
8 Really vomiting.
9 A fucker behind the eyes and in trouble because can't keep paracetamol down.
10 End up sleeping within reach of toilet. Wonder at how cool porcelain feels against fevered brow
11 Deal now made with God that if he lets you live you will never ever drink again. Do not fancy drink for two days following.
12 Can't eat, can't drink, can't move.

Christmas spirits

The BBC continues the broadcast of its excellent 'ghost story for Christmas' strand with repeats of the 1970s adaptations of the works of Victorian horror story writer M R James.

Shown late at night, these have effectively struck home to a point where, to paraphrase the great Charlie Brooker - 'at one point I was sure that I would s**t myself in terror, probably passing a substance hitherto unknown to science - raw fear'.

Watching 'a warning to the curious' last night and I knew exactly whet he meant. The problem was not so much the subject or the great programme itself, but rather that it is set on the North Norfolk coast, where I go on holiday! I've walked on the beach the ghost stalks, wandered in the wood where the ghost stoves in the head of the victim and ridden on the steam train that the ghost boards. The whole area is bloody eerie enough in the first place, without adding an extra layer of terror.

How could one fail to be charmed?

In a world that seems sometimes brittle and often quite horrible. Where one has no choice but to put up with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and where the entertainments on offer and that which is supposed to cheer us appears contrived, it's right to cherish those moments that offer a genuine feeling of well-being.*

Such a moment happened the other day. On a trip to the Fens, where carrots are crunched, turnips roam wild and wicker men scare the bejezzus out of tourists.

Turning down a road in Ely, a bloke in what can only be described as an anorak stood before me, palm raised and motioning 'stop'.

In London this can mean only one thing, lock the doors and floor the acceleration peddle.

In the Fens, things are different. On went the brakes, on went the hazards.

And across the road, ushered by the man in the anorak, trooped a dozen ducks, making their way from the river to the cathedral grounds, herded by their duck lollipop man.

This is the world I feel I belong to. Where people stop for ducks and where ducks are ushered across the street safely.

Naturally, my second thought was to jump out, push one in a sack and fatten him up for Christmas, but there's nowt wrong with that either really.

* This feeling of well-being can be artificially created with two pints of bitter or a Frank Capra movie, but it's not the same.

The Season opens

Halls decked? Check! Medicine cabined filled with paracetamol? Check! Engage Christmas party season and go, go, go!

Office drinkies today at lunchtime and, in deference to season of goodwill to all, jettisoned usual practice of only having a light, supping ale at lunchtime and decided instead to go for specially brewed darker, stringer, winter ale.

This proved an excellent idea as, finishing my pint in the time it took others to take an inch out of the top of theirs, I had enough alcohol inside me to cushion any embarrassment.

Season is now officially open. Task is not to go without a drink between now and Christmas Day. Will spend weekend carefully stocking cellar with selection of light, breakfast wines. Christmas also excellent time of year as can drink port without having to disguise self as retired Colonel from the Light Dragoons.

The f**king gym...

…again!

An exercise in perversion this morning - swap changing rooms day! Maintenance (which, as we know = a bloke in trainers with a screwdriver and a whistle that could cut teak) means that the ladies and the gents swap changing rooms for the day.

Oh, the soaring sense of expectation as I walked to the door of the ladies changing room. What would be beyond the normally heavily defended door? Not, I trust, the basic wood, metal and smell of socks that is the chaps changing rooms (and long may it continue that way - we at the gym could teach those soft poofs the Spartans a thing or two about living rough - why I've even stopped using quite so much fabric conditioner on my towel), but rather some perfumed garden, a cross between a spa and a turn of the century cathouse.

As expected - crushing disappointment, it's just like the bloke's changing rooms - except for two differences. One - there are stools in front of the mirrors and area with hair-driers, which you don't get in the gents - surely another case of ladies doing something sitting down while men do it standing up. Secondly - there are signs directing you to the pool, and to the lobby…which you've just walked through! No signs in the men's locker room. Men, as we know, never need directions.

The only other difference of note…doors on the shower cubicles. What the hell is going on there? Frosted glass doors! The men's cubicles are exposed, all the better to keep n eye on your stuff and keep out a wary eye for willy watchers. Why would women have a door? Have these people not seen Psycho? Surely there's not one horror film, not one, where the slashing stalker wanders into a bathroom where there's no shower curtain or door - it's basic self-preservation, to avoid nutters who stalk in bathrooms, have nothing against which they can throw an eerie silhouette.

Finally - was first in pool this morning! Got to break the water. Excellent.

Pool and Pond and Utexasann

The one thing I told myself I wouldn't do when I started this blog was to talk about blogging. That sort of self regarding bollocks is like using the Hubble telescope to look up your own bottom (Uranus?).

But as I'm shutting down - here's an observation on the only blogger who left a comment and so the only blogger who's own blog I read - some girl from the States who has now shut down her own blog (for reasons I home are healthy, like she's decided to work on her tan or learn to ski or something rather than blog).

The interesting thing was that the majority of her posts fingered her as some sort of stereotypical neo-con Christian southerner and the majority of her posts were about longing to be on a beach instead of at a desk, something I think everyone (except those with a morbid fear of sand) can associate with.

There was, however, one post of interest - about sitting at a desk late at night and getting no answer when she called her mom or her boyfriend. She then went into this fantasy about strippers.

The thing is, of course, that unless her mom is actually stripping for her boyfriend or vice versa, she's got nothing to worry about. What was interesting was that she tied up in a paragraph both existentialist angst and the notion that everyone gets a little creeped out at night on their own. While I expect the latter from everyone in the world, the former was surprising coming from somebody who, on the face of it, you'd peg as a Christian and move on.

Here was interest and here was insight into somebody and that, I guess, is when blogging is at its best, presenting a point of view that's interesting and makes you think for a moment.

Naturally, I didn't leave a comment myself as 'you appear about as emotionally stable as a balloon in a hurricane' could, you know, be taken as a criticism rather than a compliment.

Retirement

Apparently this was the year of the blog. The year that blogging really took off I mean, rather than it being the year of the Blog in the Chinese calendar. I read that lots of people start blogs, but few maintain them.

Having hit 'next blog' a few times, I can see why. Most people, myself included, post nothing but the most inconsequential twaddle. It's like taking a trip through their brains and just listening in to random thoughts. Or like f**kwit FM.

There are, of course, blogs of merit out there, people who are logging their interesting pursuits, hobbies or jobs, or with something interesting to say.

But the majority appears to be just filling the screen with text. Or worse, poems. I mean, Jesus, if you can't think of anything to say, don't whatever you do just make some shit up and rhyme it ending in 'sunset'.

So, because the world does not need my thoughts on gyms, trains or litter, this blog is coming down. Then I'm going to take the one good idea I had, the podcast ghost walk, and divert energy into actually developing it. It is, I feel, a much more productive way to waste time.

Magic? It's all in the mind. Or the pants.

Now it transpires that thinking something calamitous is going to be caused by your physical action - or lack of physical action - is common. Probably universal. I read in John Peel's autobiography that he occasionally thought on his evening constitutional that if he did not reach the top of a nearby 'hill' in or under a certain amount of steps, something bad would happen.

This resulted in his harmless indulgence of a petty neuroses and, no doubt, happiness - acquired on these occasions by simply striding. If all of life's worries were that readily solvable. Middle East peace? Just touch your ears three times whenever you see a full moon. Sorted.

What is odd though is that nobody seems to consider that they may cause the happening of something fortuitous by their actions. Good fortune, as far as I am aware, is totemic, stored in a rabbit's foot (odd, considering that the rabbit can't have been that lucky in the first place), a horseshoe (horses must be the luckiest animals on earth, so how come Shergar was kidnapped?) or, more usually, pants.

When it comes to pants and socks, you can see luck vanish in the rear-view mirror and you're straight into 'magical properties'. Blokes firmly believe that the wearing of a particular pant, sock or whatever can spur their team to victory or send them home with a beautiful woman. Amazing that a few square inches of cotton can overcome, say, crap defensive play or halitosis. Magic they remain though, to those who believe. Sod Narnia, a bloke with lucky pants, socks and hat..now that's an enchanted wardrobe.