For the last couple of days I've vibrated along to the rumble of heavy machinery trundling by on the street outside. Hot asphaltic steam rose from the shiny black road surface, and young workmen buried under layers of once fashionable clothing wandered here and there, earning their money by looking busy all day. This morning I glanced out to see what progress they've made when... Huh?
What a suprise! A brand new road, glistening darkly with brand new tarmac and light rain fall. Cars wafted
At some point, somehow, I must have upset my neighbour downstairs. I can tell what mood they're in generally by listening, given how much noise goes through the floorboards. Yep, he's slamming doors in the early morning. That means he's had hardly any sleep last night and wants me to wake up too. It's like living with a cantakerous alarm clock that speaks a foreign language.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard you. Oh good grief it's not even nine o'clock yet. Time to roll over, shut those eyes, and
There was a change in the air after my traumatic visit to the job centre. The library was way emptier than usual, clearly indicating most of the regulars had frozen to death overnight. I was almost pleased to see Mr Fidget arrive. He began his daily ritual of slapping pockets and searching bags before he even sat down, with a whiole morning of uninterrupted fidgeting to look forward too.
Even the Lady Who Hisses At Me was in a friendly mood. She is now officially the Lady Who Whispers Object
The sun was getting quite warm as I walked home yesterday afternoon. I wasn't in any particular hurry and made my way through Old Town. Yellow paintwork caught my attention. As an automatic reaction I glanced up like anyone else, and since bright paintwork is a rarity in the sombre decade we live in, it might not suprise you to learn the car was a Lamborghini Gallardo with its roof down.
The driver was looking straight at me behind his shades. Don't know why, he just was. Then of course he n
Before I dropped in on the library this morning, I strolled down to the newsagent to pick up a copy of the local paper. Not only that, I intend to pay for it too. Unlike many of the people who fill the stories in print this week.
There seems to be a lot of theft going on at the moment. Police are looking for one supermarket thief whose grainy security camera image looks worryingly like me on a rainy day, and caught some villains escaping from a raid on another outlet one night. The amazing
Today I made another visit to my local surgery. All part of keeping the Grim Reaper at arms length. Nothing much to report, just a routine visit, and despite not feeling completely fit as a fiddle, I'm not suffering in any real sense.
By coincidence I spotted a news article teling us fifty-somethings how to stay in the front line against the Grim Reaper. Sort of like a survival manual for grey haired old codgers. Who knows? Maybe there's a few tips I could use?
Tip number one. Keep Chec
Whether I like it or not, the festive season is behind me and so I must gird my loins and return to the quest for gainful employment. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only claimant actually looking for work. The day before the programme centre closed for christmas I was the only one there. Apart from two of the ladies, who apparently volunteered to man the desks while I was busy jobsearching. Luckily I'd forgotten my aftershave - I was outnumbered. But as it happens they made it known they were clo
What a morning - it's all go at the Caldrail residence. This morning, at the ungodly hour of half past eight, I was dragged from my bed by a knock on the door. Before me were two suspicious characters who cheerfully said "All right mate? We're just gonna paint the house..."
Well thats very kind of you. Just wait there will you?.... I'd not received a letter about this so I proceed to phone the letting agent who phoned the landlord who phoned the property maintenance firm who phoned the landl
Sunday is well named. It really is a nice day out there. This morning I couldn't resist taking a break down by the lake at Queens Park. With water levels so low, the gravel beach also exposes larger stones that make convenient seats. A flock of bemused pidgeons strut by in random directions, heads titling, trying to figure out what breed of bird I might be. Give it up guys. Your brain is too small.
The geese and swans never even stirred. They all remained curled up a few yards away. I gues
There was something different about the supermarket yesterday. The building was in the same place, still the same pastel yellow walls and off white polystyrene roof tiles. Still the same range of products more or less where they were the last time I was here. Even a few seasonal products in highly visible red packaging didn't explain my sense of foreboding.
Got it. Music. Hard to miss it really since it was being played somewhat loudly. Mind you, calling that cacophony 'music' is stretching
You know it's a funny thing. Women always say that middle aged men are weighed down with emotional baggage and you know what? We are.
The reason is partly biological. Us blokes go off the boil a little and get steadily lukewarm as we realise out fragile bodies aren't coping with the demands we desperately want them to. Instead, we have to claim we're getting steadily cooler but you just know you're not convincing anyone. It's getting harder to keep hold of the harem. The aggressive young ma
Yesterday I was browsing the net and just for a laugh did a search on my name (the real one, not my UNRV moniker). What's this? A facebook entry? Lets check it out....
Imposter! There's a guy in London pretending to be me! Here's a little clue if you ever get confused. He likes icelandic music, I don't. Thanks to social networking, he's more famous than I am. There is no justice!
Or Perhaps There Is...
Last night I starting reading a novel - a pleasure I rarely get time to indulge in th
I've had a bit of an argument with someone. There's an american chappie on another website, who claims to be a pilot of fixed and rotary winged aeroplanes over fourteen years, who's said a few things that to me seemed casually ignorant. I do actually have some sympathy for Americans, I know they get a lot of stick, but then sometimes they really do ask for it and a few times in the past I've encountered their brash arrogance - or at least the behaviour we Brits see as such. I think sometimes the
Sometimes the urge to wander gets the better of me. Sadly I didn't have enough time to travel far, so I took a stroll around Swindon's Front Garden, that strip of farmland between the town and the M4 motorway now fast disappearing under a new development.
I came across a road junction. As yet, it's unused, because it doesn't go anywhere. There's a couple of 'bus only' signs in front of an earth bank. They've built a brick bridge across the Wilts & Berks canal, and apart from the huge con
You'll have to excuse me. I'm in a bit of a hurry. Not only have I had a full day of doing this or seeing to that, not only a frantic effort to complete enough jobsearch activity to please the frigid hearts of my government paymasters, but I need to get home real quick because today is the End Of The World!
Again.
Hopefully I'll survive this one as I did the last. With the biggie End Of The World due in little over a years time one can only hope I'll survive the entire trilogy. As for t
A long time ago, I was asked a simple but searching question. Robin Harrison was the aspiring guitar hero of Red Jasper who tried to seek enlightment having listened to my own angry hard rock riffs. Not because he thought he might learn something meaningful from my own interpretation on what constituted music, but rather because he couldn't understand why I was so utterly entrenched in one particular style. Especially since I was a drummer and therefore had no legal reason to be playing a musica
America has successfully imported a great many things to British Isles. Cola, bubble gum, nylon tights, burgers, and sex. Of course I was too young for most of those as a child so there was only one american import I was allowed. You state-side people know it as G.I. Joe. We knew it as Action Man.
It was great. There was a huge selection of uniforms and accessories that transformed the plastic contortionist into everything from the basic Korean War recruit to a NASA astronaut. One of my frie
Nature is such a fascinating subject. You can't help but admire those colourful documentaries, even if they're carefully constructed and selective in what they show. It is supposed to be entertainment after all.
Still, the program about the South Pacific was of interst to me. It seems the 'Bird of paradise' has a habit of making a stage and attracting a mate by going into a song and dance routine. In effect, so do human beings. Birds have mating dances, we have nightclubs. In fact, the only
A quick glance through the news is always the same thing. Once again the plight of residents in Queensland, Australia, takes centrestage, but the the usual collection of political and financial wrangling makes life seem one long argument from start to finish. No wonder people turn to soap operas. What's the alternative? Learning that a female celebrity was sleeping with a different guy every night as one newspaper headline proclaimed this morning?
How much of our news is nothing more than e
Yesterday was warm. Very warm. We brits aren't used to that level of warmness. Even hardened package holidaymakers were breathing out heavily and wiping sweat from their brow as they dragged their kids from one place to another. I had no choice but to drag myself.
They do say that only mad dogs and englishmen go out in the mid day sun. Guilty. As I left the library after lunchtime to head for the shops, I crossed the triangular space where our centotaph stands. Standing in the shade of the
I got a phone call from a flustered computer technician on Friday. "Uhhh... We can't load your Windows.... Have you got a license code?"
Groan. Yes I do. Please wait. Off I went, found the necessary document, and told him the code over the phone. He was happy and informed me the computer would be ready that afternoon. I hung up and went about my daily business. That of course means guitar practice at the moment. A short while later the phone rang when I was in the middle of a hot screaming s
With all this wintery chaos going on you people out there must be suffering terribly. I feel it is my duty, and honour, to bring a little amusement to your otherwise frozen lives. So without further ado, at great risk to life and limb, I bring you todays blog entry...
Todays Blog Entry
The snow was falling most of saturday afternoon. Not heavily, but persistent. Worse still it was wet snow, creating a slippery surface on top of asphalt or compacted snow from the previous night. As I looked
The recent sunny weather has been very tempting, but long hikes in the countryside during hot weather can be a trial of endurance over and above lasting the distance. It isn't just sunburn of course. The heat can wear you down to the point where you get into an unhealthy state - and that's just England, never mind the tropics. Not being as young as I once was makes a difference - it really does.
Anyhow, today was cloudy. The weather reports had suggested our run of sunny days was coming to a
It happens today. it's inescapable. And it will cause suffering and hardship.
That's the message I've been seeing and hearing in our media. It's a womnder there's no-one wandering back and forth the local high street with a placard saying "The end is nigh". I am of course referring to the imminent assault upon british shores of another arctic blast.
It's now late morning and if I were honest, there's little sign of our impending doom. The sky is sombre with dark grey clouds under a ligh
Among the swathes of destruction wreaked by mother nature recently, America is not denied its fair share of it. That much I can see in the news, although in fairness what it must be like to suffer floods and tornado's is thankfully beyond my experience. I wonder if all this damage to peoples lives is making Americans seek a life elsewhere? I ask that question because of late I've noticed an increasing number of americans in Swindon.
For instance, there was the chap who glanced at me in a sor
