"Our house!"
For a while now I've been hearing that phrase. Usually I hear it from young males in the street outside. I must admit I thought it was just kids being silly with some kind of catch-phrase. On one occaision however a shiny black car pulled over to the side the road as I wandered on my way to a local supermarket. It was driven by a youngster, which was unusual in itself. How many eighteen year-olds in Britain can afford any car insurance whatsoever? Kids drive bangers or their par
Yesterday I was strolling home from a visit to a supermarket a few miles away from where I live. Its an old country road that was swallowed by a huge redevelopment of the farmland around west swindon back in the 70's. In fact, for cars its a dead end, because much of the road is now a deddicated bus route.
Imagine my suprise when a car drove past gently. The driver had come down the road, seen the NO EXIT sign to the adjacent main road (the slip road is for buses only!) and proceeded to driv
A visit from the Health & Safety Executive set the tone of todays activity in the stockrrom. Everything had to be stacked safely. Which meant I had to restack everything. So once again unto the boxes dear friends, and those who were not stacking shall hold their manhood cheap, as Shakespeare himself might have put it.
KS popped into view during my tedious reassembly of random piles of distorted cartons and said "I've been told to give you a hand. Do the same as you."
Okeedokee. If yo
Britain was never intended to be this warm. Could someone do something about that please? Or does that mean I have to pay more tax?
My Big Mistake Of The Week
I made a huge mistake. I admit it. Sometimes it happens. There it was on the television schedules - Doctor Who Live.
pardon? My curisosity was aroused. I don't paricularly care for the childish and hyped up modern Doctor Who (it's just Harry Potter with a sonic screwdriver instead of a wand, a tardis rather than a Nimbus 2000) and
So far astronomers have found seven thousand asteroids orbiting close to Earth, of which nine hundred are at least one kilometre in diameter. That's like a mountain floating around up there at tens of thousands of miles an hour. Some of you are probably predicting this is going to be a paragraph or two about the frightening hazards whizzing silently over our heads. Correct. It is.
The worrying thing - and the television documentary deliberately portrayed it in a manner designed to raise hair
The good news for all you people out there earning a living is that finally you're getting your own way. I'm shortly to be placed on a 'More Intensive Regime' concerning my endless quest for gainful employment. Basically that means I have to turn up every day at the Job Centre and explain why I'm not out there looking for work, which of course I would be if I wasn't too busy explaining my presence to my claims advisor.
The thing is, I'm also supposed to be attending a Support Centre every da
You can't have a museum without exhibits. Every so often we find new ones. Or should that be old ones? Anyway, our boss came across some stuff being thrown away at Portsmouth and couldn't resist an ancient computer. You should see it. Straight out of a 70's Doctor Who episode.
It turns out our new exhibit is a bog standard Bloodhound missile control box, or in civilian guise, a nuclear reactor control box. I'm not joking. Some power stations are still using these things to this day. Our boss
Just now I saw a headline that a drag queen has been sentenced for sending a hoax bomb threat to a warehouse I used to work at. Quite right, but it did amuse me. Some years back the warehouse manager, DG, left her briefcase in the foyer and as an unattended suspicious package, the premises were evacuated and the army bomb disposal called in.
Well, she eventually got the boot. She also presided over another large operation that went bust later. I knew I was right about her. Am I allowed to be
As I sat down to type this entry, I was distracted by the sound of rain against the window. A heavy downpour from a grey sky. Yet earlier this morning it was such a fine morning. Chilly, for sure, but you'd expect that with open skies at this time of year and it was a noticeably colder night before.
Almost as soon as it arrived the squall subsides, leaving only overflowing gutters to drip water in long thin streams. In a whie it might be safe to go outdoors again.
During the sunshine thi
They say that in Britain you're never more than six feet from a rat. Experts of course brush that aside as old wives tales, but clearly they haven't discovered Swindon. I often come across one straying into sight along footpaths and although they prefer to shy away from me, shy they aren't. One or twice I've nearly trodden on the little monster.
I say this because I'm seriously starting to wonder if I'm sharing my home with a furry squatter. So far there's no confirmed sighting of a rodent i
During my high octane, non-stop, action packed lifestyle as an unemployed job seeker, I occaisionally get a few moments to myself in which to relax. Yesterday was one of those, so in an uncharacteristic bout of feet-up laziness, I sat back and switched on the television. Hey, they've added some channels sonce I last watched telly. So I discovered this music channel showing all the hits from the eighties. Wow. This is so nostalgic. Phil Collins still had hair. Adam Ant still had warpaint on his f
I was watching one of those cop programs last night. The usual sort of thing, car chases across america with exciting heavy metal music and a breathless commentary. There was one that stood out. It started as they all did, with a suspect making a break for it and piling down the highway without regard to safety. At one point he swerves to avoid an obstacle, and at over a hundred miles an hour, very nearly loses it completely. Thing is though, what I notice with all these chases is that the suspe
Ok. The blog's been running for a while, stories are getting thin on the ground, characters a bit familiar and tired, and its slowly metamorphising into Last of the Summer Wine. Time then to... Come with me now - and let me take on a journey through Time and Swindon, to the Land of the Mighty Supermarket...
Why is it, whenever I go there, that every old person seems to drift in front of me and block my progress in the search for provisions? You turn left, you turn right, you give up and use
A few nights ago I took a moment to take in the view overlooking the valley below my home. In Roman times it was verdant countryside with a farmyard at the bottom of the hill. Even in victorian times it was a green belt between the old market town on the hill and the new industrial village built for Brunel's new railway. Now it's urban sprawl, with an abandoned college building dominating the view.
I'm used to seeing movement in the back yard and the alleys leading from it. People use the ar
Times may be a'changin', but Swindon carries on going its own way. Or is it? Just recently I notied our local HMV store has re-opened after falling victim to the terrible economic Black Death that stalked the towns and cities of England not so long ago. Not only that, but just the other afternoon I spotted the first white metal frames at the Old College site. As if I could miss them. They tower above the surroundings and make the assurances of the developers that the buildings wouldn't be any hi
This morning I popped into Lydiard Park. What a difference! After a five million pound restoration job the park is looking manicured and tidy.
But.... Its also lost that rustic charm. I was young when I first starting going to Lydiard - it was a country park a few miles out of town back then. Now its on the edge of Swindon, a public open space, and the old untouched woodland has gone, undergrowth cleared, replaced by wide grassy meadows amongst the trees. The old lake has been cleaned up bu
"I don't want her!" Insisted the young man to his paranoid girlfriend last night. To be honest, the sordid details of peoples love lives don't interest me overly. I'll leave that sort of thing to the people who watch soap operas. That said, it was impossible to ignore. He was a typical specimen of british youth. Thin, gangly, shaven haired, spitting out his words in a descending tone. She was was quieter, insecure, prodding him for a reaction and definitely achieving her objective. Had this conv
Another little gripe about libraries... Well, I seem to spend a lot of time in them these days. Sometimes I stroll across town to the local library at a sports centre. Today, as I log on, its become an impromptu day care centre. There's a whole tribe of infants all sat around singing nursery ryhmnes. Maybe its my age, but I feel an urge to morph into AM, and shout "WILL YOU LOT SHUT UP! I'm trying to type my emails."
Oh no, not another nursery rhymne. Twinkle twinkle little star... Now they'
Sooner or later they infiltrate your home. No matter how secure you believe your privacy to be, they find ways to intrude upon your premises. Even when you discover their presence, there's a good chance they will find a way to escape you, and worse still, no matter how hard you try to push them out, they will find a way back against all adversary.
Yes, the spider is at large in my home. I know he's up there, I've seen him, scurrying across the no-mans land of the carpet in a mad dash to find
You know what? After being accused of leading a fantasy life, I have to speak out. Sorry, but it's real. I really am here. And just to prove how lame my life can be, I wish to describe the highlights of yesterday...
1 - A woman asks me for assistance. That was unexpected. The reason was of course Microsoft Excel, the cause of more lost hair and failed interviews than anything else known to mankind. Don't get me wrong, my excel skills are best described as 'Almost', yet I still know more abou
I don't usually like to sound sexist, but I've decided that after many years experience, women bosses are useless.
Why?
First is DG. She rose to power on the basis of impressing the male managers with her knowledge and expertise of our database workstations. Actually I don't think she knew that much - she was just better than most of making a big thing of it. Anyhow, she became the warehouse manager. All very smart and efficient, but she never left her office. The whole warehouse got to
Yes its mid-July, and the rainy season is upon us. It seems global climate change has given us a monsoon in summer. Here in Rushey Platt there's great concern about where all this rainwater is going to go. The Swindon area isn't too badly off where flooding is concerned, seeing as its built on a hill. Given last years floods and the media attention it received, people are obviously worried.
Funny thing is, I had a dream last night on this subject. Nothing apocalyptic I'm afraid, so I can't w
A couple of years ago, I watched a tv news report about some idiot in New York who kept wild animals in his apartment. Amongst the exotic beasts was a full grown tiger. Hard to believe, but there it was, on screen.
A policeman was lowered on ropes down the outside of the block to administer a tranquilizer dart through the window. Understandably, police were reluctant to enter the apartment with a live carnivorous cat in a hungry mood. The big cat charged at the window and scared the policema
Another day, another jobsearch. My claims advisor doesn't like me doing anything other than seeking gainful employment and is trying to force me to waste more of my time looking for jobs I applied for last week, but you see, all work and no play makes Caldrail a dull applicant. So my claims adviosor can... well... off.
As I write this I'm entertained by the efforts of a young man to woo the pretty young blonde sat next to him. He started quite well - she liked the attention - but he hasn't g
The French said No. The Dutch said No. Having rendered further progress on the Treaty of Lisbon illegal, the power brokers behind it then asked the Irish. The Irish said No. So the power brokers behind it are now telling us we must find a way around the obstacle.
Pardon?
Whats the point of a vote if its going to be ignored if the sponsors don't like it? The people of three countries have stated their wish to halt further european integration under the terms given.
It hasn't gone unn
