British weather is responsible for more conversations than hot dinners. Poems have been inspired by it. Well, I haven't exactly been that inspired over the last two days, now that our early spring sunshine has gone.
Two days ago the rot set in. There was a cold wind and the sky was claggy, humid, almost misty, and the sun was losing it's battle to burn this murk away. It was a quiet, reflective day. I wandered around Lawns (a park that was once the grounds of the local manor house) and peopl
The sunshine is glorious. It really is. Not a cloud to be seen and for a warm saturday surprisingly quiet in Swindon. You would think the place would be humming with people out to enjoy the day but apparently this isn't the case. I wonder why? Is it the recession? Has anyone got any money left after Gordon Browns Tax Police have slapped bills on everything that moves and almost everything that doesn't? Or is it the danger of collapsing walls at our plentiful building sites, following this weeks
Friday was a quiet unassuming sort of day. Not really suprising since the bulk of the population were either glued to their television sets or heading for the hills in a desperate attempt to avoid watching yet another wedding video. So we had a sort of hazy murky day that never quite made up its mind what it wanted to do about Britains latest extravanganza.
Ricky Is At It Again
I see Ricky gervais has been giving us all the benefit of his well paid opinion. I shouldn't really criticise
There are certainties in life. Day turns t night. Summer turns to winter. Bills arrive through the postbox. Nothing to watch on television. Luckily life isn't always that dull. Like yesterday. What a strange kind of evening.
To begin with the weather was fabulous. Another very warm day requiring liberal use of electric fans and cold drinks from the refridgerator. Despite this, the weathermen urged caution, because as the wise man knows, your typical briton has a memory span of three days and
I remember there was a hullabaloo some years back when some young man killed himself listening to suicide solution by Ozzy Osbourne. The tragedy is one thing, the association is perhaps a little strained because if you pay attention to the lyrics you discover the song is actually about alcohol abuse.
There was a publicised court case when Judas Priest were prosecuted over someones elses death, the idea being that the lyrics contained reversed messages. Ridiculous. Who bothers to listen to mu
For a few days now cheery weatherpersons have smiled and siad we're all going to get wet. Amber triangles are shown on the screen with Heavy Rain! in bold black lettering. Risk of local flooding. They might be right I suppose. It's just that so far we've only had one day of rain and that was drizzly. I must also confess, that as I write this, I can see the library window splattered with raindrops. I knew I should have brought my canoe with me.
The damp conditions now spreading across Swindon
On a normal working day, our local high street is busy. Two lanes of cars jostling for position between parked vehicles and the intermittent movement of buses. Pedestrians bringing the whole thing to a temporary halt on crossings, shoppers carrying heaps of plastic bags, queuing at ATM's, or simply standing around at bus stops for the next smoke belching leviathan to appear.
On a Sunday, the same street is empty. A few moslems walking to their local mosque but otherwise you wouldn't know the
No sooner had I asked where the wet weather was than it turns up on my doorstep. It's a dreary dull morning here in the rainforests of Darkest Wiltshire, though I should say it's stopped raining just this last few minutes ago.
It seems I chose the right day for my hike. Yesterday I stopped for a breather in a small out-of-the-way field to enjoy the sunshine and the little enclave of rural bliss that is Horse Meadow. Four horses quietly grazed elsewhere. White, bay, black, and a curiously uns
With a sigh I switched my computor off yesterday afternoon. Nothing to do with recalcitrant programs, impossibly tough game levels, or yet more analysis of the Tottenham Riots. It was the approach of the thunderstorm. In my experience, thunder and lightning invariably causes a blip in the electricity supply when it hits the pylons that criss-cross our local area, and that can spoil your whole day when your data vanishes into digital smoke.
So I retreated to my favourite seat with a good book
It had to happen. I've watched news reports and read the papers about how one company after another has raised energy prices enormously, and felt very smug that mine hadn't.
Until now....
Usually I get pamphlets from them telling me about various offers and schemes (which cost money of course) but this time I got the letter that said sorry, but you're going to have to pay more. They're raising my electricity and gas prices by a third. Ouch! But then the prices they pay are nearly 200% hi
I know the foreigners reading this will find it hard to believe, but by midday yesterday the rain stopped. No, really, it did. Taking advantage of the sudden spell of damp conditions, I decided to wander down to Mouldon Hill and see if the cew from the Swindon & Cricklade Railway had laid tracks as far as the park yet.
You might have realised by now that I don't get out much at nights. Fear not, I'm just setting the scene. There will be no further mention of matters relating to trains, r
At this time of year the weather can vary a lot here in the rainforests of Darkest Wiltshire. Today the morning began with chilly fog - it's lifting already as I speak - and yesterday we had bright sunshine which left me sweating despite the cool air. Taking a stroll around Coate Water I was struck by how Meditteranean the water was, a nice shade of blue, enlivened by silvery reflections off the ripples caused by the waterfowl on the water and the dog chasing them away from the bank. Usually the
Black holes are the stuff of sci-fi legend. Inescapable gravity carries with it a dread of inevitable disaster should that malignant object ensnare your vessel. Some stories talk about passing through a black hole to distant parts of the galaxy, though quite how you pass through an object that couldn't be physically denser is rarely explained. I found a more serious explanation of black holes in a science magazine the other day. Interestingly, scientists are trying to find ways of researching 'e
Another sunny day? Yes, it is. Another chance then to get out and about, doing stuff, meeting people, filling my day with endless blog anecdotes. So let's start as I mean to continue. First task is to extricate myself from bed.
Get out of bed? There was a time in my energetic youth when I thought nothing of leaping into clothes and bursting out into the big wide world before being crushed utterly by fate. Now I grimace and debate the relaive merits of warm comfortable beds and the bracing we
In what way can a man describe himself as free? I don't mean John Inman style availability (ugh), but rather that sense of freedom that allows you to pursue interests without harm or hindrance. There is the restraint of law, applied by the state to control our actions, which is identifiably a boundary for the lawful. Of course if you happen to be criminally minded then it's a challenge of sorts, but then you risk even more confinement.
Strictly speaking our laws defend our freedom, even thou
Once again Swindon has returned to it's natural state and raindrops are splattering against the library window. As it happens, the library is very quiet this morning. Partly I suspect because the loudies aren't interested in going there when it rains, but the mood is very subdued anyway. I can't see any reason for that, but it's fine with me.
Yesterday Punch & Judy were at their usual shenanigans. In fairness, they weren't as loud as they have been in the past, so it was an intrusive lev
Yesterday was signing on day. My fortnightly ritual has now changed from late in the afternoon to first thing in the morning, except that no-one seems entirely sure when. I approached the reception and handed them my booklet. The young man glanced at it and very helpfully told me to go away and come back in half an hour. Then he noticed some other detail on the page and looked confused.
"Wait here please."
Wait? At a dole queue? Thats novel....
Initiative of the Week
It seems our se
Ladies, Gentelemen, and Swindon Residents, I have gathered you here on the Blog Express to inform you that something terrible has happened. First, let us look at the clues.
Clue No1 - We've run out of August.
Clue No2 - All the librarians are telling us how much they enjoyed their summer holiday.
Clue No3 - An increasingly blustery wind.
Clue No4 - Weather forecasts predicting heavy rain on a regular basis.
Clue No5 - Slightly shorter days and less urge to get out of bed.
There are two ailments that are so beloved of the British working class. The first is flu, or rather a bad cold, which has to be responsible for more days off than anything else. The second is backache.
I know a lot of people pull 'sickies' with this excuse, but honestly putting your back out for real is astonishingly easy to do and excrutiatingly painful when it happens. What makes it worse is that no boss in the whole united kingdom will believe you if you report your suffering.
The fi
Part of my everyday routine is the search for suitable paid employment. Not everyone realises that of course. Many assume I'm a lazy layabout who wants to lay in bed all morning, lay in the sun all afternoon, and lay comatosed on a park bench all night.
Not for me. Lazing about is more or less as boring as owning a cheap japanese hatchback and spending my free time wearing a grey suit just for fun. To be honest searching for a job isn't really any more enjoyable. It's just that I know you'
A little while ago I bumped into a guy who was involved in battlefield re-enactment. There's a few of them around - this isn't the first time I've encountered re-enactors. Dressing up in historical costumes and pretending to fight? Isn;'t that a little sad? Well... That depends on your viewpoint.
Re-enactment is after all a practical study of how people conducted themselves in times gone by and for that matter they sometimes get heavily involved in historical research. In an era when the wr
Last week was a plethora of cancelled appointments. Yet another landed on my doorstep on Friday. In formal and impersonal style the date was set later, leaving me free to answer the call of duty at the museum. Well, that's volunteering for you.
Monday opening? The museum tried that before and gave up. Today however, a coachload of french students are to be transported across Britain to our sunny old Swindon, for a special open day all for themselves.
Forty seven bemnused french youths sa
A doctors appointment at some ungodly hour of the morning forced me out of bed long before my unemployed body was ready to face another day. After all the trouble of using iron discipline and sheer willpower to push the duvet aside and start my epic journey to the bathroom, not to mention a long walk across town in the dark, they were locked when I arrived. Brilliant...
Good Morning Swindon
As the sky first began to brighten a bright star, or more properly some planet or other, was low abov
Now it's official - Privacy is dead. Get used to it. I learned that from Russia Today yesterday. That comes as something of a suprise since after decades of Cold War fiction I had no idea Russia had any privacy at all. So this is a cheery hello to all those secret agents in Russia who are currently reading my blog. Hi guys.
Euro Wobbles
Finacial experts (is there such a thing?) are predicting the current economic woes of the eurozone will continue for decades. Given the shakey record of so
Heve you ever noticed how persitently the civil service agencies tell us how great their customer serrvice is? They hang posters on every wall, print colourful pamphlets, and assure us that everyone is equal and important to the world. The truth, as I've discovered, is that human beings fall well short of government guidelines. Not just the politicians, but those bureaucrats who work on their behalf.
I had a drubbing in public from Bovine Betty more than a year ago. I remember her deliberate
