A Very Important Discovery

As William and I were returning from Liverpool to Munich, we were cordially invited to stay at my mate Dave's place in London on the way.

I wasn't quite sure how long it would take and what time in the evening we would arrive, etc. so Dave decided to wait till we got there and do a fry up - sausages, beefburgers, bacon and general sort of breakfasty stuff.

As it turned out, this was just as well, since at around 4.30 pm, just after the M5 leaves the M6 there was sound from the back of Buzzy (my bus) as if we were suddenly dragging along 25 sets of aluminium pots and pans behind us. I was kind of hoping that it was being caused by "someone else's" car but after we had been flashed by various motorists and waved at by people passing in the right-hand lane and who pointed to the back of the bus and mouthed "e-x-h-a-u-s-t!", we pulled over to find the exhaust pipe dangling precariously from Buzzy's underside.

So we did all the usual things; phoned the AA, waited as 1000s of cars and huge trucks whooshed past us and SMSed everyone who might wish to know about our predicament. The AA guy who finally came after 2 hours didn't seem that keen on doing too much and he said, " you should be all roit, moite (this was Birmingham) ... I'll droive along a few miles with you and if it's ok you can just drive on and have it fixed when you get home.

So we drove a few miles and it was ok, so he buggered off and we drove on to London.

By this time I was feeling pretty keen on a drink ...I mean, a DRINK ... but when we got to Dave's he was well into cooking his fry up and I have always thought that the only drink that goes with breakfast type food is tea.

Now, we had seen a TV prog in Liverpool in which some patronising bloke who has a restaurant and knows about wine drives around France with another bloke, who seems to be very "one-of-the-lads" and tries to show him what wine goes with what food and gets extremely frustrated by his companion's plebby "I'd-rather-have-a-pint" attitude. However, during the episode we saw, PlebMan has some sort of epiphany and starts to appreciate the philosophy of certain wines going with certain foods. This culminated in the two of them cooking spam and beans on a camp fire for a very smart (and extremely disappointed looking) French wine expert madame who had got all dressed up expecting to go to some flash restaurant.
PlebMan, however, succeeded, thanks to PatronisingGit's training, in choosing a wine which brought out the best of his spam fritters and Heinz beans.

"Codswallop", I had said to William.

Anyhow, there we were in London, snaffling sausages and so on, with Daddies brown sauce - and Dave poured out a Merlot. I tried it and ... gaw blimey, if it didn't just go perfectly!

This, though, is A Very Important Discovery as I finally now know after all these years what wine to drink with breakfast!

Wake Up and Smell the Carpets

You know that feeling when you do something you have done 1000s of times in a place you have been to 1000s of times and something is not quite right but you just can't put your finger on it?

You do?

Good.

I went to the Nag's Head in Thornton, where I have been 1000s of times stretching back to when it was a real, uncomfortable spit'n'sawdust country pub and through various transmigrations of its soul to the present fully-carpeted, flatscreen-barnacled food&family pub, and went up to the bar to order a pint which I have done 1000s of times.

I took my pint over to a table and sat down on the round stool. The table looked...different... but why?

I raised my glass and quaffed my first two-fingers of beer and as I sighed that beer-lovers sigh, I looked across the pub. The light looked... different... but WHY?

I set down my glass with a puzzled frown on my face. I breathed in through my nose, a deep breath to help my ponderings... and I SMELT THE CARPET!

Never before have I smelt a carpet in a pub - never, ever.

Table/light/smell... what the...?

Some punters got up and went outside in a huddle. Soon I could see smoke rising; cigarette smoke...

The table - no stinky ashtray, the light - not grey and foggy, the smell - not hundred year-old ciggy smoke...

The BAN, the smoking ban in pubs in England which came in on 01.07.07... oh yes... oh YES!!

OH YES!!!!!!!

Two-Thirds Round the Sun, a Review

Winston Churchill, who had his fair share of financial catastrophes, might have put it thus: 2007 is a year up with which I would rather not have put and the back of which I will be more than glad to see.

So far, this has been a year of wrangling with the tax authorities, gritting teeth to get through all the work there has been, subsequently waiting for yonks for customers to pay, battling with the council in England about my mother's house, worrying about it all through long, dark sleepless nights and generally living a life of attrition.

Strangely, paradoxically (and thankfully), nearly everyone around me has been having a pretty good time and so I have been able to take breaks from my own woes and bask vicariously in their joys, excitements and achievements.

Thank you, Altruistic Gene!

Happy Birthday, Nick!

Ah... once again it's that time of the year when my eldest gets a year elder and makes me feel elderly!

Pictures and stuff when I get broadbanded over here... should be on Tuesday.

Happy Birthday, Williamo!

My youngest is 12!!!

Hard to believe I am still only 21...

Moaning Old Git Territory

I know that going on about prices of things is moaning old git territory but …

Back in the days (late seventies) when I used to go drinking regularly with my dad in the lunchtime session at the Sefton Arms, he would often moan about the price of a pint – which was, say, around 36p. He harked back dreamily to the days in the 1920s when he used to get a pint of Bass for 4d (4d is four old pennies – just a bit less than 2p in the decimal system).

I used to alleviate this potential moaning old git moaning by thinking that he was talking about a period of 50 or 60 years in which the price of a pint had gone up from 2p to 36p whereas I could already talk about the price going up from 13p in 1973 when I first worked as a barman to the present 6 years later. 2p to 13p in 50 years and 13p to 36p in just 6 years - I could have been a moaning young git!

The regulars used to moan about the 36p then, and there was one barmaid who would always shout over, “you lot would still be drinking your pints even if it went up to 50p!” which would always cause a lot of disgruntled umming and ahing and speedy quaffing of pints just in case this price rise was really imminent.

If you know where to go in Liverpool you can now get a pint for around 2 quid but normally it’s up nearer three and more.

Anyway, my moan started off as not really a moan at all; it was more an oh-well-that’s-not-so-bad following an initial shock at seeing the diesel prices at the motorway service stations while tootling up to Liverpool last week.

“99.9p for diesel…bloody hell!!!” came the internal exclamation in my brain as I was tootling along talking to myself.

Tootle, tootle …

“Mind you,” the internal dialogue continued, “I suppose when you think about it, it’s not so bad”

Tootle, tootle …

“Let’s think … around about the time of the first oil crisis in the seventies …”

Tootle, tootle …

“… petrol was 34p. Then overnight it went up to 64p …”

Tootle …

“… and now, 35 years later it’s 99p …”

Tootle …

“I suppose that’s ok…”

Tootle, tootle …

“34p! Bloody hell… those were the days”

Tootle …

“34p a gallon …”

Tootle …

“34 … p … a… gallon …”

Toot …

“A GALLON!!!”

A gallon? Yes, a gallon … about FOUR litres! Yes, FOUR litres!

So that is an increase from 34p for four litres to 99p for one litre … which is … ah, something to moan about anyway.

Actually, I may soon be applying for permanent residence in the Moaning Old Git Territories.

Mean Designer Genes

I'm quite happy with the thought that "I" have been put together by a load of selfish genes bombing around pursuing their biological business but it seems to me that some of these selfsame selfish genes are beginning to reveal what could be interpreted as a nasty streak.

Maybe it's to do with passing the 50 mark but one little group of genes has activated itself with the intention of giving me a strange protuberant stomach. Being something of a fitness-challenged, beer-swilling git I have always had a tendency to put on a few extra lbs and ozes (for any of you who are sadly unfamiliar with the grand old British avoirdupois system of weights, that is something like the boring kilos and grammes) around the midriff - and everywhere else come to think of it - but this particular sticky-out tum is different. For one thing it's firm, taut like an inflated football; in fact it's the nearest thing I have ever had to a six-pack even though it looks more like a one-barrel. It pokes out to the front almost enough for me to be able to rest my pint on it.

Anyhow, TM tells me that this is the worst kind of fat belly you can have - something to do with fat under the muscle and strain on the heart and all that - so I am going to have to fight the fight, splat the fat and retard the lard.

This does not mean, by the way that this blog will now turn into one of those tedious "Day: 603 of my Boredom Diet - lost 1 and a half ounces - rewarded myself with an extra lettuce leaf...later went and made myself throw up" type blogs. I am going under cover with my struggle so for you lot it's a question of weight and see.

Another little treat my mean genes have had in store for me is hair loss. I have always had an abundance of hair on my bonce. In the old days whenever I went to the hairdresser's there would usually be enough hair on the floor after they had finished with me to supply half the monks in Europe with linings for their shirts, but now the hairs are coming out by themselves. My dad, who went bald in his twenties, always said he first realised he was losing his hair when he felt the raindrops splashing on his head - well, I too have now felt this fateful splish-splash of the rain on my cranium.

So where is this dozy Intelligent Designer - so beloved by many in the States - when you need him/her/it? Surely a clever bugger like him/her/it could tweak things a little so that instead of weight gain you get weight loss and instead of hair loss you get hair gain.

Maybe even he/she/it is afraid to contravene the mean designer genes.

Any Dream Analysts Out There...

...so, after moaning about not sleeping, I am now going to moan about dreaming. If I finally do get to sleep, I have all sorts of weird dreams... for example on Tuesday: a fat black rat is running across the floor, I swipe at it with my right hand and it buries its teeth into my index finger, I manage to get it off by vigorous shaking of the hand but it leaves a bloody hole in my finger.

Come on, Freudians, Jungians, Oldians ... what d'ye reckon?

His Master's Voice

From time to time a thought occurs to me which makes me think, "wow, that's amazing!" but then leaves me not quite able to work out what exactly is amazing about it.

This has happened again!

I was listening to the first three chapters of PAME!, which I have recorded with the intention of putting the whole thing online as a listen-to-able tale, and I started thinking about how people always get a surprise when they hear their own voices. Over the years I have got used to hearing my own voice played back to me but I still remember thinking - just like everyone else does - "that can't my voice, it's horrible!!" the first time I heard it.

Anyway, this led me on to consider recording in general and that's when this amazing-but-don't-quite-know-why thought occurred to me. Edison was the first person to record sound in... erm... 1877 (thanks, Google) on his newly invented Phonograph. Before that there had not been any way for any one to hear their own voices!

We've been able to see ourselves - at least reflections of ourselves - since the beginning of humanity; in pools of still water, in polished metals and silvered glass - but to hear our own voices - that has only been possible since 1877. Three million years minus the last 130 not able to record any sounds, music, voices...

"Wow!" I thought, "Amazing!"

And then I thought, "but what exactly is it that's amazing?"

Anyway, for bloggy purposes I will hide behind an adapted form of the avant garde poet or artist's defence, "it can mean whatever you want it to mean!"

So, "the amazement is whatever you wish to be amazed by!"

That should do it.

Sleep...

I have problems with it; three main problems ...

The first is going to it,

the second is staying in it ,

and the third - which, incidently, I am dealing with now - is emerging from it.

Of the three, the worst is the first.

This image of "the going to sleep process" occurred to me last night. Somewhere near the bed there is a continuously moving cable, like in a mine underground, and this cable travels off towards Sleepy Oblivion and all you have to do when you lie down is hang your consciousness onto it and - whoosh - off you go into dreamy slumber.

I can be as tired as you want: droopy-eyed tired; nodding-off-and-waking-with-a-start tired; weary-achy-limbs-of-lead tired, but the moment I get into bed I wake up and I thrash about in vain looking for that cable to hook my consciousness onto.

The only way is to read - read a book until I start to dream a sentence or two at which point I normally drop the book because I am dropping off. Then, if I am lucky and my timing is dead on, I can lie down without emerging too far from this incipient nod-offiness and hook my consciousness onto the cable... and ... zzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

That's if I'm lucky; if not it takes another 15/20 minutes of further reading till I can try again.

Last night it was the third attempt I think ... but then having read what I had read and then having proceeded to integrate what I had read into a dream...and then let the dream take some nasty, nasty turns and make some nasty, nasty developments ... I woke myself up!

Finally, it took till about 5 to get all drowsy again and that was an hour or so before the alarm WOKE ME ... and left me with problem 3 ... emerging.

Now, 2 coffees later, I only feel bleary-eyed and brain-dead - so it seemed the perfect time to blog!