A Free Man In Preston

New Hawks Of The Great Interior

2011-12-15T18:30:00.000Z

Charlotte, Bill Surname's loyal PA, stands stock still in the doorway, her helpless face frozen with the anguish of horrors past and humiliations yet to come, like a beginner sado-masochist who's only gone and forgotten the safety word.

Poor Charlotte – it's a difficult time for her, what with the triple dip recession that just comes around and around and never stops, worldwide economic collapse, irreversible global warming if we don't sort it out by teatime, and now this: Bill Surname, the only man she has ever loved – if only he knew it! – says if we don't get the turkeys out by Friday then we're all for the chop. Christmas will have to be cancelled which hasn't happened since, well, ever.

She's been there all morning. We're going to decorate her with tinsel and Christmas tree lights if she's not moved by tomorrow.

Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, bounces into the office, all legs and teeth and Saturday night hair on a cold, wet Thursday. She's taking her friend Becky out to lunch later to celebrate.

“Never mind Higgs Boson. Has anybody seen Mike?” she asks.

I look at my watch.

“It's 10.30,” I say.

“Oh right. Course it is. Well, when he gets back from his wank, can you tell him he's needed upstairs on the helpdesk. Neil's on fire again.”

Neil, our former team leader, has taken up smoking.

He started on electric cigarettes, just because he enjoyed the camaraderie of the smokers' shelter, the 'outsiders all together outside in the rain' thing.

He's been with us on Earth since his so called mates abandoned him at Charnock Richard after a sightseeing holiday. He'd only gone in for a pee and to look at the crisps and when he came out the Flying Saucer was gone. He maintains it was an oversight, which we're less sure about, but it explains this longing to belong, I guess.

Anyway, the electric fags proved to be a gateway drug for the real thing, and now he smokes thirty a day. It doesn't agree with his Martian constitution, and Mike, who was raised repairing fruit machines, seems better qualified than most to come to his rescue each time he catches alight.

Late afternoon now. It's dark by four, but on days like this when the rain clouds hang over you like, say, a hangover, it feels like the day's over before it began. Hey Sunshine, I haven't seen you in a long time.

“Keith?” asks Stella. “Are you wearing your lucky pants today?”

“I'm always wearing my lucky pants.”

“Eeeww. I think there's your problem.”

She and Tabs laugh. Tabs is huge now, ready to drop any moment, you'd think. She sits on a beanbag in Stella's office, Stella sat close behind, plaiting her hair and rubbing her back. “Not long now, beautiful baby girl, not long now.”

These past few weeks Tabs looks like someone has paid her a slightly saucy compliment and she can't stop herself from blushing.

Outside, Rex the Security Guard busies himself with leaf clearing and the milking and drainage issues, but he's not been himself since Geraldine the Company X goat passed. We're going to Secret Santa him a new one. Hope that goes ok.

A sparrowhawk circles above. A flock of, I don't know – sparrows, tits? - trembles in the tree tops beyond the Sunken Heart Rose Gardens.

Creepy Keith from Accounts looks on, captivated.

“How's Becky?” asks Tabs.

“Oh, you know, she's just... beautiful. So beautiful.”

“That's nice,” says Tabs.

“I'm so lucky, Tabs. Both my beautiful girls,” sighs Stella. “Both beautiful and both knocked up.”

“Life and death everywhere you look,” says Keith, and the girls glower back at him.

“What? What have I said now?”

“Word of advice,” says Charlotte, suddenly thawing. She'd been stood silently for so long we'd forgotten she was there. She brushes bits of mince pie off her sleeves. “Think before you speak, Keith. Think before you speak. And then don't speak.”

Get Through This

2011-06-20T19:00:00.006Z

Summer’s here and the grass is high. So are the nettles and foxgloves and the oxeye daisies with their smiley upturned faces – the car park embankment is brim full of them, bending in the breeze as one, like a shoal of fish at a rave - and so too are the help desk staff who are off their faces on Red Bull and Youth, horny as hell, hyper with carnal urges, stupid with the breeding imperative, with love or its closest equivalent.

Preston skies are sullen and low, listless as goths, going nowhere, doing nothing.
The theme of this morning’s team meeting with Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, was of reaching for the stars, following your dreams, never taking no for an answer – “Tenacity, Tim! Tenacity!” - but by lunchtime she was slumped in her chair, maudlin, messy, furtively slipping a little something in her coffee to take the edge off. A half bottle every couple of days, not that I’m counting; brandy usually, sometimes vodka. She keeps one in her shoulder bag and an emergency bottle in her desk drawer, hidden beneath the paper cups and baby magazines. I wasn’t snooping. She asked me to look one time when she couldn’t find her phone. It turned out she was talking to me on it.

I go up to the roof for some air, to look for my mojo, to just get away from it for a bit.

“Ever killed a man, Tom?” asks Bill Surname, CEO.
“Not so far as I know.”
“Ever wanted to?” and before I can say “It’s Tim. It’s not important,” he has thrust his rifle into my hands and is going through the naming of the parts. Lee Enfield No. 1, Mark III, ten round magazine, bolt action, sliding ramp rear sights, fixed post front.
“See that Vauxhall? Racing green. See it, Tom? I’ll give you fifty quid if you can take out its headlights. A tenner for the windscreen.”
“Isn’t that Robertson’s car?”
“He’s on his final warning. Best salesman in the North West my arse. He’s inside the building so it’s quite safe. Now remember - safety catch, then gently squeeze the trigger. Don’t lunge at it. Gently does it, Tom.”
I look around the car park. There are several shot up company cars. Vehicular carnage everywhere.
“Wasn’t there an ambulance here earlier?” I ask.
“That was Jones and Jones. Shouldn’t have been at it during office hours. Entirely unforeseeable and I told Charlotte not to blame herself. Bloody good shot, Charlotte. Wish I’d known that years ago.”
“And they’re ok?”
“They’ll be tweezing glass out of their backsides from now until Easter.” He laughs. “Never did me any harm. Shouldn’t have bloody been there in core hours.”
I take aim, pull the trigger as carefully as I can, gently, gently and hit the car four down from Robertson’s. There’s a tinkle of windscreen, followed by the dull clang of personalised number plate on tarmac. Bill Surname is delighted, reaches down to where I’ve fallen over and hands me a twenty pound note.
“Did I hit it?” I yell, deafened.
“You tried!” he yells back. He takes the rifle, adjusts the sights and gives the doomed Vectra both barrels, so to speak.

“Hey Tabs, look at this one,” says Stella. “It’s got sports wheels, an iPod charger, 3G and GPS so you always know how far to the next changing station.”
“And twin G&T holders,” replies Tabs. “They’ve thought of everything.”
“G&T?”
“Duh? Gin and tonic?”
“Oh. Yeah. Right,” says Stella. “God, it’s amazing isn’t it, Tabs?”
“Sure is. Eight hundred quid of amazing.”
“No, I mean, you know – the ‘having a baby’ thing. I can’t believe it. I’m so happy.”
“Yeah,” Tabs sighs. “I know you are.”
Outside my window Rex the Security Guard is forking over a clump of ragwort. Geraldine, the Company X goat, nibbles contentedly on his gooseberries, which they say are almost ready now. Somewhere a radio crackles and Murray is worrying Centre Court. The clock tick tock ticks. A distant water cooler glugs.

“You’re going to be a great mum, you know?”
“Ha! I’ll get back to you on that.”
“No, but you are. Seriously you are.”
“Aww, thanks mate. We’ll see.”
“And what about Terry? Is he excited?”
“Yeah, course he is,” says Tabs. “He doesn’t show it here much, but at home, you know... Yeah, he’s been a complete star. He’s well excited.”
The going home bell rings and the building shakes with the low rumble of young executives pissing off.
“I’m completely made up for you Tabs, God’s honest truth, yeah? But I’m so frightened. I want to reach out and help her and I don’t know how.”
“Hey, baby girl. You’ve been a star too. Becky couldn’t wish for a better friend.”
“I feel useless, Tabs. She wanted it so badly. She was so happy.”
“It sucks, Stella. It totally sucks. But you’ll get through this. And when you’re both ready, well, you know, there’s nothing to stop you trying again. Me and Terry were starting to think it’d never happen and now look at us, shopping for buggies and painting the spare room. Look at me, Stella love, look at me. You’ll both get through this. You will. Listen to me. You will both get through this.”

Away In A Manger

2010-12-15T20:11:00.004Z

We had a lovely, long Autumn, the yellows and oranges and reds magnificent, as if taken from a paint manufacturer's colour chart, and the leaves seemed to cling to their branches like they would never let go, but when Winter came it did so rudely and abruptly, like someone dropping a sack of logs on your foot and feeling no need to apologise or explain.
Only Rex the Security Guard was unsurprised to see snow in November. He'd smelled it in the air the week before, brought in the last of the spuds and the purple sprouting brocolli, oiled his tools and was sitting pretty on a fresh delivery of grit before anyone else had an inkling.

Charlotte, Bill Surname CEO's loyal PA, is back now from her extended sojourn in the Company X Decompression Home.
The trouble started when she was up some ladders draping England flags on the datacentre walls at the start of the World Cup and Neil, my former team leader, passed by rehearsing for his audition with the Company X Vuvuzela Orchestra.
The orchestra never really took off, which can't be said for poor Charlotte, who thought she was being visited upon by a swarm of angry bees and tried to make good her escape by jumping off the ladders and crashing into the rhodedendrons, only narrowly missing, unlike England.
Doc. Stethoscope, the Company X general practioner, ordered her to take two months off for her arms to reset and a further six years to settle down from her anxiety, which he said was lethally high, the kind of stress levels you only normally see in fighter pilots and public sector workers. Charlotte managed to negotiate that down to six months and the ripple of applause that went round the office on Monday when she screamed incoherently into the crackly bing bong public address system for the first time since June was truly heart warming.
We'd been scraping along on email without her.

Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, is having a bad build up to Christmas.
“Oh my God, Tabs. This job at Debenhams has got my friend Becky really broody,” she confided this afternoon over sort of lattes and cake type things from the wonky vending machine.
“It's only until Christmas, isn't it?” replied Tabs sympathetically.
“YES!” Stella snapped back. “WORKING AS AN ELF IN SANTA'S GROTTO IS USUALLY ONLY UP UNTIL FUCKING CHRISTMAS!”
“Right,” said Tabs. “Of course it is. Sorry, I wasn't really thinking.”
“She's surrounded by bloody kids every day and IT'S SET SOMETHING OFF. I don't know what to do, Tabs.”
The office fell silent, but for occasional slurping. The clock tick tock ticked. Terry and Mike were both out on jobs. Outside my window, Rex and Charlotte were setting up the Company X Christmas Crib in the carpark.

“Do you know what she said the other day, Tabs? She said if she'd known she was going to be out of work all this time she could have used it to have a baby.”
“I see. And she's never... You've never talked about...”
“She's never said anything about babies. Now it's babies all the time. Babies babies babies. She comes in late from the grotto every night after a hard day's elfing and all she wants to do is tell me about the babies they've had in that day.”
“But that's just work talk. She used to talk about, I don't know, savings accounts or whatever when she came in, didn't she? Now she talks about that day's kids. It doesn't mean...”
“It's killing me, Tabs. What if she decides... What if she doesn't want to be my, you know, friend any more? What if she wants to go off and have bloody babies and there's nothing I can do to stop her?”
Stella burst into tears, huge gulping sobs, and I could just see Tabs put a comforting arm around her and shushing her gently.
“There, there. Sshh Stella, it'll be alright. Sshh now, or you'll upset Tim.”
“What am I going to do if it's not alright, Tabs? WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?”

Mary and Joseph and a bunch of shepherds and kings and donkeys took their places in the manger, the happy couple stage left, the wise guys to the right, and there in the centre of all things, the object of their attention, the reason for their being there, the tiny Christ child lay, the little baby Jesus, sucking his thumb sagely, thinking his profound and Godly thoughts, backlit with a 100 watt bulb, covered in straw and saw dust and a crisp packet the wind had left.
Away in the distance, lines of cars shuffled slowly along the bypass like a holy procession.
Preston shimmered in a blessed neon glow, while high up in the dead black sky a single star, brighter than all the car headlights combined, brighter than all the dazzling lights of Tesco Express and Poundstretcher and Greggs and HMV and Wilkinsons and Debenhams, blazed it's brilliant, lonesome trajectory across the heavens at a million trillion miles per second, always going nowhere and always coming back.

Live! In Concert!

2010-10-02T15:15:00.002Z

Fans of the whole Idiot Johnson phenomenon (ie. me singing with a guitar or piano but never both at the same time) may be mildly interested to know that I have a gig coming up.
A gig!

It will be on Saturday October 16th at the Yorkshire House, Lancaster.
It's a cracking venue – previous superstars to have graced it's stage include Rachel Unthank And The Winterset and that bloke out of I Am Kloot – so you'll appreciate I'm quite excited by this.
Other acts on that evening will be Ottersgear, The Low Countries and someone I don't know called Sam who plays the banjo. The running order has yet to be confirmed. I expect I'll be playing for 30 minutes or so, maybe 32.
Admission price will be £3, I think, and the fun will probably start at 8.30-ish or thereabouts.

It'll be pay on the door and the place holds about 100 people. Whether that many show up is very doubtful but at the same time if you are thinking of coming along – and I'd genuinely love it if you would– you might want to bear that in mind.
If you're in the vicinity and can make it along, do come and say hello. Yorkshire House gigs are always good entertainment and I'll be glad of all the support you can muster. There's a car park just across the road too.

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Rocket

2010-08-09T19:21:00.007Z

A steady morning, not too much work and not too little. The minutes tick tock ticked away, quiet and contentedly as a timebomb.

Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, was in her office remodelling her eyebrows with the help of some app she's got on her iPhone, and Tabs was taking a break from carrying armfuls of photocopying up and down the corridor when we heard the bad tempered hobble of Creepy Keith from Accounts approaching.
"Watch out Tabs, here comes Casanova," said Stella. "He'll have your knickers off faster than you can say Marks and Sparks."
Keith grunted into the office.

"Hi Keith," said Stella. "Take a seat."
"Very funny. I've got your panini."
"How did you get on at the doctors?"
"She said if it hasn't come back out by Friday they'll have to operate."
"So if somebody rang you now, Keith," asked Tabs, nibbling thoughtfully at a sort of cake thing from the vending machine called Blueberry Supposedly, "would we actually hear it?"
"No," interupted Stella. "He put it on vibrate. That was the point."
"You can probably get an app for that," said Tabs.
"I told her to keep the change," said Keith, slamming the panini onto Stella's desk and hobbling out again in a painful direction.
"What's got into him?" wondered Tabs. Nobody felt the need or desire to answer.

The lady at the gate with the dreamy soft white baps has branched out into paninis.
Stella, who froths into a lather at the very idea of anything entrepreneurial, is wildly enthusiastic.
"That woman is doing more to advance the metropolitanisation of Preston than..." she said, wiping rocket and molten Garstang Blue from her chin, "...well, everyone else put together. Ouch, that's hot! She'll be selling cocktails next. It'll be just like Mad Men and I CANNOT WAIT."

Everybody here has gone panini crazy. It's the new sudoku, but delicious and tasty.
Everybody except Mike that is, who has taken to bringing in his own fishfinger sandwiches in an act of defiant contrariness.
"It's just a nose cut off spiteface thing," Stella tells him, but he mumbles and stares at his screen like he can't hear her, which in fairness he can't as he's always listening to happy hardcore at full volume on his headphones.

Later on, after the going home bell had rung and the carpark had all but drained empty, and she was waiting for her lift and me for my train, Stella said, "Actually Tim, I'll let you into a secret: my friend Becky makes the world's best fishfinger sandwiches. They're amazing."
"Oh," I said.
"Promise you won't tell Mike?" she asked.
"My lips are watertight."
She folded away her laptop and stared dreamily towards the datacentre where Rex the Security Guard was urinating on his hostas.
"No word of a lie, Tim," she sighed, "there's no better feeling in the world than when I've got my friend Becky's fingers slipping around inside me."
"Any luck with the jobhunting?" I asked, but when I looked up she was already halfway across the car park, skipping towards the gate where her good and true friend Becky was waiting in neutral to transport her away from all this.
I packed my banana back into it's special compartment and headed off for the station.
_______________________________________________

People who enjoyed this blogpost may also enjoy - ahem, pauses for breath - my CD, available now on iTunes and from Idiot Johnson Direct. Thank you.

Girl On A Train

2010-07-30T07:14:00.008Z

It's finally here!
Only thirty odd years in the making but my first ever CD – or should I say “debut release?” - is finally up for sale. And I can honestly say I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out.

There were 500 of the blighters piled up in my Attic Studio Complex at one point. I've got it down to 471 now, following some purchases by friends and lovely people on Twitter. I've also given a few away as freebies.

I've always enjoyed the idea of music as a cottage industry and it's exciting to think I've now got one of my own. But it's also a bit troubling. At what point does “ridiculous and expensive vanity project” become a “bold putting-your-money-where-your-mouth-is statement of artistic intent”?
On the one hand I'm not too worried, because it sounds pretty much how I wanted it to and the feedback so far has been generally more than favourable.
But all the same... in the wee small hours, the sound of 471 unsold CDs taunting and whispering “You bloody fool! You should have kept hold of your money! Or spent it on cheese or something worthwhile” isn't something I'd wish on anyone.

Here's the embarrassing sales pitch bit: I need to shift 200 to break even. Then and only then might I allow myself to make another one, which I'd love to. I've some way to go. So in the spirit of artistic patronage, I'm not so much inviting you to purchase or download one of my CDs, but begging you. Even if you've no interest in music at all, it would be the compassionate thing to do. Please have mercy on me, for I am singer/songwriting buffoon who doesn't deserve your pity or money but is asking for it anyway, especially your money. Your soul will rest more easily tonight, etc.

There are five songs – Girl On A Train; She Is Gone; Oh Come On Beautiful; Happiness; and A Free Man In Preston (hmm, that name sounds familiar) - and they're available as downloads across all the “iTunes territories”.
As an aside, Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader squeals with delight whenever I say “all the iTunes territories.” Just saying.
They cost 79p in the UK, 99 cents in the US, likewise in Canada, 99 cents in the Eurozone, $1.79 in New Zealand and so on.
Check your local iTunes store for further prices. You'll need to search for “Idiot Johnson”.
Here's what it looks like at the UK store.

Alternatively – and how exciting is this? - you can buy the physical CD for £4 plus postage and packing (rather attractively packaged in a jewel case with some nice photos taken by yours truly) and get a free download while you're waiting for it to be delivered, straight from Idiot Johnson Direct.
The additional benefits of taking the Idiot Johnson Direct route are
1) that you'll get a handwritten letter of pathetically grovelling gratitude from me personally, and I will be your bitch for all eternity
2) you'll be helping to reduce the mountain of CDs in my room
3) I get to keep more of the money myself, rather than Apple taking a generous slice of your cash. Which would be appreciated.
Click here to purchase a CD directly from me. Thank you.

As if your appetite couldn't be any more whetted, here are a couple of videos that the outrageously talented Lucy Pepper has made.
Sorry for the more than slightly spammy nature of this post, but I trust you'll understand that knees must, etc. Just think of 471 CDs whispering unkind remarks in my ear while I'm trying to sleep. Thank you in anticipation of your amazing generosity. And tell your friends. It means all the world to me, so cheers.

Pop Musik

2010-05-16T15:20:00.000Z

The Friday morning meeting – basically a post-mortem for that week’s dead Service Level Agreements – was drawing to a close and everybody’s mind was turning to the lady at the gate with the dreamy soft white baps whose Tandoori Parsnips have become quite the talking point recently, when Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a leader said, “So before we finish, Tim has got a very exciting announcement to make.”

“Have I?” I asked.
“Yes. Remember what you told me last night? About your thing?”
“Oh Jesus.”

Everybody stopped tidying their papers and stared at me. An entire career of trying to be invisible felled with one swift blow. Even Ivan the Terribly Thorough, who is normally in and out faster than you can say “Oh look, my bin’s been emptied,” stopped in his tracks and leaned inquisitively against the doorframe.

“Tim’s got a CD coming out and is going to be on Britain’s Got Talent,” Stella beamed. “Isn’t that brilliant?”
There was a minor commotion, a low level drawing of breath. Somebody rubbed their eyes like you would if you were in a cartoon and you’d just seen a pig in a bikini flying around handing out fifty pound notes.
“Tim is going to be the Preston Susan Boyle!” Stella babbled. “I can’t wait!”

“That’s only half right,” I said. “Yes, there’s going to be a CD. But I’m not going on the telly. It’s not really a Britain’s Got Talent kind of thing.”
“How do you know that?” said Stella. “You said you’ve never even watched it. Why do you always have to put yourself down?”
“I just don’t think, well…”
“You don’t think anybody’s going to actually like your CD,” said Mike.
“Exactly,” I said. “Thank you Mike. It’s going to be available on iTunes and Amazon and stuff, and I sort of think it’s fairly, you know, almost quite good, but I don’t think Simon Wots-his-name will come beating a path to my door.”
“Cowell,” said Tabs, her arms loaded with photocopying.
“There’s no need to be rude,” said Stella.

Later on, after the going home bell had rung and everyone had cleared off, Stella asked when this CD of mine was coming out.
“Not for a few weeks yet,” I said. “It’s at the manufacturers now. Then it needs distributing and all that stuff.”
“Sounds like you need a manager. My friend Becky could do it if she’s not found a new job by then.”
“No luck yet then?” I said.
“Not yet. She’ll be fine though. I know she will. People will always need bankers.”
“Good.”

Outside my window, Rex the Security Guard was putting his tomatoes away after having them out all day for hardening off. I made a mental note to do the same. Geraldine the Company X goat nibbled devotedly on his turn ups. A couple of help desk staff slinked sleepily out of the potting shed in a post-coital haze to make way for his grow bags. Away in the distance, the hopeful city of Preston shimmered in the Spring sunshine. All looked golden, all looked good.

“You will let me know when I can buy one of these CDs, won’t you Tim?” said Stella. “Because I know what you’re like. You’ll keep it to yourself and the moment will pass. I want to help you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s very sweet. Letting you know when and how you can buy my CD is the least I can do for you after all this time,” but when I looked up she was already up and out of the building, halfway across the car park in fact, skipping joyfully like a child, to the gate where her good and true friend Becky was waiting with her engine running and her top off.

I put away my Hob Nobs and made my way to the station.

Figure 8

2010-02-15T22:17:00.003Z

A White Christmas, then an even whiter January – the whole country become a skating rink, everybody waddling like penguins and realising “Oh, so that’s why they walk like that” – and now Valentine’s Day has been and gone and there’s still no sign of a let up. Daffodils? Not-bloody-likely-dils.

“Did you get a Valentine’s card from Advantage?” crows Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader.
“Nope,” replies Creepy Keith from Accounts.
“Aww, that’s a shame, Keith. She stole your heart, then she stole your telly and most of your furniture.”
“She didn’t steal them. She asked if she could have them and I said yes.”
“Same difference.”
“Her need was greater than mine,” says Keith.
“There’s a lot you don’t understand about women’s needs, Keith.”

Outside my window, Rex the Security Guard is sawing fallen branches from the beech copse then wheel barrowing them to the wood shed. A cheeky little robin perches on his chainsaw. Geraldine the Company X goat gambols playfully behind him, her dainty footprints in the snow resembling one of those illustrations you’d use for learning to dance, the Tango or maybe the Cha-cha-cha, if you were a quadruped.

The crackly bing bong public address system fizzles and pops into life and all work stops while Charlotte, Bill Surname’s loyal PA, lectures us on the energy crisis, on the importance of closing windows, of opening doors only when strictly necessary. Persons wishing to exit the building should only do so in groups of three or more, likewise re-entry, and especially at the rear.
Poor Charlotte – it’s a difficult time for her, what with the never ending recession and the death of all hope, and now this: Bill Surname CEO, the only man she has ever loved - if only he knew it! – says he wants to see a 10% reduction in heating bills or she’ll be in hot water.
“It’s the lobster pot for you Charlotte, splish splosh,” and clinging to his every utterance as if they were lifebelts and her life was a frozen lake that she’d just fallen through, frantic, gasping for breath, she believes him, poor stick.

Later on, after the going home bell has rung and everybody else has scarpered, Stella asks if we ever did come to a decision over the central heating question.
Keith had said he has his central heating on all day, even when he’s out. He said it’s more efficient to maintain a constant temperature than repeat an intensive cycle of heating and cooling, heating and cooling.
Everyone disagreed. No, no, no, the heating goes off before bedtime and only comes on in the day at weekends. That’s bollocks, Keith.
Debate raged for, oh, a good twenty minutes, until Keith played the “That’s What Hitler Would Say” card, as he always does, bringing the discussion to an abrupt end.

“Wouldn’t it be weird though, Tim? If Keith was right about something?” asks Stella, as she puts away her laptop and gathers her stuff.
“About having your heating on all the time?” I reply. “I don’t know. It seems unlikely.”
“He’s talking rubbish. When I stay at my friend Becky’s we have it off all night, and we’re always toasty.”
As if on cue, Stella’s phone bleeps and she puts on her coat and scarf. “That’ll be her now.”
“Probability would say he can’t go on being wrong forever,” I suggest, but by now she’s outside, figure skating across the car park in the dusk, lighter than air, joyful as a child, to where her true and good friend Becky is waiting in the car, engine ticking over, idling.

There’s a new moon in the sky and it looks like a smile.

Mistletoe and Wine

2009-12-14T21:51:00.006Z

“Tabs darling?” asks Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader.
“Yes, Stella babe?” replies Tabs.
“Can I ask you something, Tabs darling?”
“Course you can, Stella babe. What is it?”
“I was wondering… I’ve noticed, Tabs darling, that whenever you’re walking around the office, you’re always on your phone. Who are you talking to all that time, babe?”
“Oh. Well let’s see. Sometimes I’m on the phone to Terry, Stella babe. He’s my fiance and I love him loads mostly.”
“Aww, that’s nice. Did you hear that Terry?” Stella calls across the office. “She says she loves you loads mostly. What do you think of that?”
“Yeah. That’s great, that,” he mumbles without looking up from his electronics catalogue. It arrived fresh this morning, so it’s been micro-components all the way with Terry today.

“And who else do you speak to, Tabs darling?”
“Oh, you know. Sometimes my Mum. And my Dad as well. That sort of thing.”
“But you can’t be on the phone to them all the time, can you? Not all the time?”
“Well, Stella babe, it’s… It’s embarrassing. And a bit sad, actually. I don’t…” says Tabs.
“Tabs darling, what is it?”

They're both wearing elf costumes and Stella is platting Tabs’ hair. Bill Surname CEO has enlisted them for some Company X charity thing. Bill Surname himself is going to be Santa, after the fiasco last year with Neil, my former team leader. Stella examines her work, undoes it again, allows Tabs’ Rapunzelesque hair to tumble to her shoulders and down her back, then brushes once more. Girl smells and Christmas smells, hairspray and perfume, mulled wine and mince pies waft around the office. A heady concoction. All is quiet save for the hissing of hair straighteners.

“The truth, Stella babe, is most of the time I’m not talking to anyone. I’m just pretending. See, I said it was sad.”
“Oh baby, shush. No sad.” Stella begins platting again. “Not today. Not ever.” It looks like they're weaving a rope, as if they’re hatching an escape over the filing cabinets and out through the first floor window.
“I pretend so people think I can’t hear what they say about me,” Tabs says. “I hate it. I really hate it, Stella, you know? They think I’m on the phone and can’t hear them talking about my boobs.”
“Oh, Tabs darling,” Stella whispers. “Is that what this is about? Oh baby. You’ve got lovely tits. You have.”
“Do you really think so?” sniffs Tabs. “Not just saying that?”
“Honestly babe. Absolutely. If you weren’t with Motherboard Monthly over there, and you know, obviously, my friend Becky and everything, I’d totally be, like, yeah. When we were at high school I always hoped… Oh, I’m sorry. You’ve heard this all before. Sorry, babe, I'll stop.”
“That’s okay.”
“No, but I am sorry. I must really freak you out sometimes,” says Stella.
“Do I look freaked out?”
“No. No more than usual anyway. But honestly, Tabs darling, baby girl, don’t you ever let anybody get you down. Ever. Do you hear me? You’ve got beautiful tits.”
“Aww, thanks mate,” sniffs Tabs. Her voice breaks into a little laugh. “And so have you.”

An easy calm settles on the office. The clock ticks. A distant photocopier hums its lonesome song. Watercoolers glug while my colleague Terry tap tap taps at his keyboard, dreaming of Zigabits and graphics cards. The afternoon trickles along like leaky non-volatile RAM.

“Hey Tim,” Stella calls across the room, eventually breaking the tranquility. “Who’s got the nicest tits? Me or Tabs?”

I panic and reach for my headset, pretending not to have heard her, pretend to be on a conference call to Japan or somewhere, no, the States, it would still be morning in the States, knocking over my yoghurt in the process, rhubarb and ginger glooping into my lap in pornographic slow motion – this isn't just any rhubarb and ginger yoghurt, this is Marks and Spencer Rhubarb and Ginger Yoghurt, drizzled suggestively into the trousers of a half-witted systems administrator.

Outside my window the world is heavy with winter. I can see LEDs twinkling through the datacentre window and the reflection of Christmas tree lights down in reception.
Rex the Security Guard and Charlotte, Bill Surname's loyal PA, are putting the finishing touches to the Company X minibus, all done out like Santa's sleigh.
Poor Charlotte, it's been a difficult time for her, what with one disastrous bloody catastrophe after another, the bungling incompetence, the sheer blind panic of the year gone by, the night terrors, the sleeplessness, and now this: Bill Surname, the only man she has ever loved – if only he knew it! - says there must be laughter and joy in every children's ward and hospice tonight or she'll be for the fish tank, splish-splosh, and she's so utterly, completely drained, she doesn't know how she finds the strength to go on from one day to the next. She thinks that if she starts crying she might never stop.

The going home bell rings. I wipe down my crotch, switch off my PC and pop my head round the door to wish Santa's elves good luck.
Tabs is brushing Stella’s hair now. When they see me they stand to attention, sticking out their chests in a comical, exaggerated fashion, their four bosoms primed and pointed at me through their T-shirts like nuclear warheads. “Well, Tim?” they giggle. “Well?”
I reply that I’m very well thanks, just a little wistful occasionally with the inevitable this and that, but only now and then, nothing worth stressing over and nothing I haven’t come through before, better than it was, and I thank them for asking. I’m basically good, better than good in fact. Then I wish them luck, ask them to pass Santa my best regards and head out in the wrong direction to look for my train.

The Blooming Heather

2009-06-16T20:53:00.001Z

Oh the summertime is coming and the trees are sweetly blooming, and the wild mountain thyme grows around the blooming heather, and the blooming crackly bing bong public address system fizz pops into life, you hear Charlotte, Bill Surname CEO’s loyal PA, clearing her pipes, and we’re on the air in Three… Two… One... and you wake from your reveries, wipe the dribble from your chin – Will ye go, Lassie, go? - and we’re back.

The theme of this morning’s announcement is Family.
“Bill Surname has asked me to inform you that we are living in 2.0 times,” she reads. “Internet 2.0: it's here, right now, in Preston 2.0, 2009 2.0. The Information Age is pouring down in buckets and we must all huddle together beneath the Company X umbrella and try to make the best of it.”

While we listen, Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, humming contentedly, arranges pies on a gingham tablecloth spread over Mike’s desk, who is away this week for corrective treatment.

“Customer loyalty is vitally bloody important, Charlotte,” reads Charlotte. “And to this end we introduce the One Big Family Project. From today, customers must no longer be called customers, but will instead be called Family. Common employees and directors alike are to be considered Family. Rex the Security Guard, the lady at the gate with the dreamy soft white baps, the nameless gentleman who removes stains from the upholstery in our sales-team's cars: all One Big Family.”

“These pies are Apple,” whispers Stella. “I made them. Now my friend Becky made these ones, which are Blackberry. And these in the middle, we’re not sure what they are, Tim, so for now we’re calling them Nokia.”

“A steering committee is investigating the creation of a Company X Twitter account, which will be in place by Spring 2010,” Charlotte continues. “And a Company X blog could be implemented as soon as Christmas after next. So on behalf of myself, Bill Surname, and the board of directors, we urge you to embrace clients old and new into the Company X Family, share ideas and innovations, communicate freely, and engage regularly in every kind of intercourse. Podcasts may follow. Bing bong.”

Poor Charlotte – it's a difficult time for her, what with the complete annihilation of all that is decent and good in the world: moral collapse in the Houses of Parliament; Swine Flu destined to kill more or less everyone; the International Banking System revealed to be little other than a shabby, grasping band of toffs whose greed is exceeded only by their stupidity - “Mummy, Mummy! They won’t let me have my pension!” “Well you broke the bank, Freddie. What did you expect?” - and now this...

“Oh cruel irony, why do you torment me so?”
Bill Surname, the only man she has ever loved, if only he knew it, expects her to cultivate an atmosphere of mutually matey kinship among Company X stakeholders, “Or,” he says, “it’s the stock pot for you, Charlotte, Tiddly Pom.”
“Oh my handsome Bill Surname CEO, why were you and I never Family?” she cries in the pitiless night. “Why did we never wed?”

But what can poor Charlotte do?
She decides that if Family is the goal, then Baking is the road map. With the help of the Company X sisterhood (Stella and Tabs, take a bow), she knocks up a triumphant flashmob of pies, puddings and baked goods to accompany the launch of the One Big Family Project.

“What do you think, Tim?” asks Stella, later on, after the going home bell has rung and everybody has cleared off.
“Social media will never take off,” I say. “Blogging? What a load of garbage.”
“No, I mean the pies. I think this is one of mine. Rhubarb and apricot, possibly?”
“There’s too many pies and too many fingers in them,” I grumble. “Twitter, I ask you? Who cares?”
Stella sighs.
“My friend Becky says I can stick my finger in hers whenever I like.” A dreamy expression falls upon her as she proudly surveys the empty dishes around the office. “We were at it all night.”

Her phone bleeps and she gathers up her things.
“Seemed to go down very well, though,” I say.
“Tim, that’s what my friend Becky is all about,” and before I can say anything else, Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, is outside, skipping across the car park in the blazing afternoon heat, out towards the gate, where her good and true friend Becky is waiting with her engine running and her top off, soaking up the rays, the hopeful city of Preston shimmering behind them like a Hollywood backdrop in the golden Lancashire haze, dripping with sunshine, bursting with wholesome outdoorsy goodness, and we’ll all go together, to pick wild mountain thyme all around the blooming heather, will ye go, Lassie, go?

Valerie

2009-04-22T12:59:00.003Z

The tall, elegant spire of St. Walburge’s RC perches on the Preston skyline like an upturned drawing pin placed on a teacher’s chair.
It’s as if the whole town is in on the joke, cheekily waiting for God to blow grandly into the room, take his seat and receive an unpleasant surprise. We are a jovial people.
Road works spring up like molehills here, there and everywhere, choking the daily migration. Wherever you’re going, you’d be quicker walking and besides, it’s so beautiful out there – make the most of it because you know this can’t last forever.
The chewing gum aromas of sugar and diesel fumes fill the air, as girls parade up and down Fishergate in their summer skins and gangs of swarthy boys congregate on corners, showing their appreciation. Everything speaks of the fun fair.
Outside my window, closer still, cotton candy swatches of blossom, pink and white, cherry and apple, rim the car park. Rex the Security Guard plants sweet peas and nasturtiums by the data centre trellis, while Geraldine the Company X goat basks on the croquet lawn in the unexpected sunshine. Twenty degrees yesterday. Warmer still today, they’re saying.

Terry and Mike are scrutinising the Championship table.
“I’ll bet you a pound to a pinch of shit North End don’t make the play-offs,” says Terry.
Mike grunts.
“Every fucking season,” says Terry. “We get within a midge’s dick of promotion, then piss it away last minute.”
Mike stares at his monitor, cool as AC. “Best odds you’ll get anywhere,” he grumbles. He’s an expert at this. Eventually Terry wavers, peels a twenty pound note from his wallet and places his wager.
“You’re killing me, Mike,” he mutters as he walks back to his desk, resentful of his own weakness. “Fucking killing me.”

In her room, Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, is in a meeting with Creepy Keith from Accounts.
“So let me check I’ve understood this correctly,” she asks.
“Shoot,” he replies.
“A bouncer broke your arm?”
“Correctomondeo.”
“A bouncer at a Women Only disco?”
“That’s right,” Keith confirms. “I said, ‘Let me in Bitch, I’m a feminist.’ And that’s when she broke it.”
“And this was because you'd seen Advantage going in?” asks Stella. There's no hint of glee in her inflection, absolutely none. Oh alright, just a large one.
“I said ‘I’ve read more Virginia Woolf than you’ve had hotpot suppers. And I'm guessing you've had a few.’” He wheezes for a moment. “The pain was indescribable.”

I can hear Stella Facebooking away at her keyboard for a minute or so, and then she asks, “But I thought it was all back on between you and Advantage?”
“So did I. It was on again, then off again, then the last I knew we were on again,” he answers. “Went to IKEA on Friday, so we must have been.”
“Tea candles?”
“Clip frames. Anyway, she said she was out on Saturday with her friend Valerie, and I happened to see them, didn't I? So I wanted to talk to her.”
“Valerie, did you say? Chunky lass? Green hair? Walks with a limp?”
“You know her?” asks Keith.
“Valerie Average? Bloody hell, Keith! Everybody knows Big Value Valerie!” The Facebooking starts again in earnest. “My friend Becky will ROFL her arse off when she hears this! Advantage and Valerie Average! Classic!”

At lunchtime I forget that the lady at the gate with the dreamy soft white baps is on holiday, so I just carry on walking, down to the wildflower meadows which are drying out a little now, and along the Ribble for a while, avoiding the cow pats and the humping help desk operatives as best I can, then back through town, the sunshine warm on my face, past the business parks and shopping centres, the tyre exchanges and discount carpet warehouses, the heaving car parks and office blocks, the queues of traffic going nowhere, radios blasting, engines overheating, as if that was what I'd intended to do all along. I'm bloody starving when I get back so I have a Magnum instead.

Comedienne

2009-04-21T18:19:00.002Z

I met Georgina a few weeks ago, the author of the wonderful Wondering Heights.
It’s part of my ongoing project to meet all bloggers. Now that everybody Twitters instead of blogging you might have thought this was an easy task, but I’m discovering that I’ve still some way to go before I can consign it to the Done basket.

I was in Swindon all week doing work stuff, so being in the London area we arranged to meet one evening in the foyer of Embankment Station and afterwards she took me to The Chortle Awards in the fancy pants West End.
Georgina is a producer off the telly, reading comedy scripts as a full time occupation, which, if not the best job in the world, is right up there with cheese, beer and chocolate tasting. The job seems to consist of going to lots of meetings and banging your head against walls.

The Chortle Awards celebrate up and coming stand-up comedians.
I was hoping for a late nomination in the “What The Hell Am I Doing Here?” category, but there’s always next time.
I’m not very clued up on comedy so had no idea who most people were – who is the Next Big Thing; who was the previous Next Big Thing; who will remain for their rest of their days hoping to be the Next Big Thing – but it was fascinating to be a fly on the wall. And while I’m not one for being starstruck – the opportunity rarely arises – I’ll admit I was mildly thrilled to be standing behind a bloody big sofa supporting the VIP comedy arses of Arthur Smith, Tony Hawks (no, not the skateboarder) and Nicholas Parsons, while Frank Skinner issued gongs a few feet away. Nicholas Parsons!!!
I will always remain super-grateful that I didn’t approach Nicholas Parsons and tell him, like, you know, I really love your work and have nothing to say that could possibly be of interest to you, avoiding repetition, hesitation or deviation. And I could have done, because he was as near to me as you are to your computer. Nicholas Parsons! It would have demeaned both of us.

It was lovely finally meeting Georgina who is really nice and very funny and well fit. She introduced me to her friends Charlotte Hudson and Leila Hacket, who write together as Two Left Hands.
“So what do you do?” asked Leila.
“Oh, nothing funny,” I replied. “I work in IT. In Preston.”
“Right. So how do you know Georgina?”
“We’re friends on the internet. This is the first time we’ve met.”
“Okay.”
“But it’s not a date or anything. It’s not like that,” I said, immediately regretting not saying I was from an escort agency, standing in at short notice for the guy she’d actually chosen.
Two raised left eyebrows. “So if it’s not a date… ?”
“Well, I don’t know if you already knew, but, erm, Georgina is a blogger.”
They didn’t.
“She’s really good. We’re both bloggers. That’s how we know each other.”
I’ve never found a way of telling someone that I blog without it sounding, well, foolish. It would have been easier if I’d lied and said we met on the Star Trek Fan Fiction forums, specialising in the Filth and Smut sub-genre.

Oddness continued when I recognised another blogger in the crowd from her flickr photos.
“Excuse me. I don’t want to weird you out but aren’t you the blogger known as Undivine Comedy?”
She was and we three bloggers had a nice little chat in the Nerd Corner. Again, it was lovely to meet her after reading her for years. I think I may have weirded her out a little bit actually, but she recovered quickly. You have to think on your feet in showbusiness.

I’m off to meet yet another blogger this evening. Yay.
She is top Preston author Jenn Ashworth whose novel A Kind Of Intimacy is shortlisted as one of Waterstones’ Twelve To Watch Out For This Year.

Jenn is hosting the inaugural Word Soup meeting, a big bash for Preston’s heaving writerly community. We’ve already met online of course, and she recently e-interviewed me on the Preston Writing Network blog. You can find that interview here.

You can also find me mooching about on Twitter, if that’s your bag.
It’s a nice little place where I post half-witticisms for my own amusement, which I later intend to work up into fully fledged near-humour for these here pages, once enough time has been allowed for readers to have forgotten them from the first time round.

http://twitter.com/idiotjohnson

For All We Know

2009-03-11T23:46:00.003Z

Crocuses and snow drops, purple and cream and yellow, great hissing clouds of them, bubbling up to the surface like acne and Spring is in the air, announcing itself with a nip at your ankles and a poke in the ribs - you can taste it, you can smell it, you can practically scoop it up in your ungloved fingers and roll it around your coat pocket as you go about your business.
A brand new baby season seeping up through the perforated soil, like mist rising off the Ribble in the great morning rush, gasping for attention, snatching for breath, sleepless with undreamed dreams of warm skin and soft towels.

Dinner time at Company X and help desk operatives spill across the grounds like seed scattering from a paper cup, pillowy girls bursting out of their blouses and greedy boys, all mouths and hands, on every bench and in every bush in the hazel copse, bedazzled with urges and surges beyond imagining or control.
They do it on sycamore stumps, they do it on their hands and knees, they return to their workstations – 'Barry from Bolton Bathmats rang about a purchase order number; he said not to call back' – filthy as pig farmers, drenched in their fecund lustings. The entire third floor needs fumigating.

Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, spends the day punctuating our attempts at work with excerpts from some book – Crossing the Credit Crunch: Deception Got Us Into This Mess, Denial Will Get Us Out.
“The trouble with you, Tim,” she says, shaking it at me, “is you’re Trapped in a Negative Confidence Bag.”
“Mind if I open a window then?” I reply. “I can hardly breathe.”
“Seriously. If you can’t be part of the problem then you’re part of the solution,” she says, but she lost me at “Trapped.”
Later, outside the datacentre, I catch up with Rex the Security Guard. I think I’m suffering from pre-season potato anxiety.

My granddad on my mother’s side was a keen gardener and he loved to sing.
During the war he’d been in the Entertainments Corps, fighting Hitler at the Steinway Victory Vertical, and we were the best of pals, me and Pop. “Inseparable,” Mum says.
Many was the boozy afternoon we’d spend in the piano bar of the Crown and Cushion, but he died when I was three and I don’t remember a single thing about him. Not a dickie bird.
Now here I am in my middle years, fond of an audience and suddenly keen to raise my own beans, and the connection has only just struck me – Am I trying to impress the old boy? Carrying on a torch? – but this is no time for whiney psychobabble, it never is, because Rex is telling me “So long as chits are green and stubby, not thin and white, then tubers are fine, Tom. Plant any day now, shoots upward.” I thank him for the chit chat.

Tonight, at barbershop rehearsal in the tin rifle range, we sing,
“For all we know we may never meet again / Before you go make this moment sweet again,”
and the meaning seems plain: the boy can’t wait to get his rocks off but she’s not having it. Otherwise he wouldn’t keep going on.
“Love me tonight!” he implores with false urgency. “Tomorrow may never come for all we know!”
Good for her, I say, for not putting out. And him? It might improve his chances if he was less obvious.

Daffodils line the route home, waving and cheering as I pass regally by, botanic name Narcissus of course, named for the man who liked the look of himself so much he slipped and fell, drowning in his own reflection.
I wonder how my worms are getting on. They’re the new chickens, you know. You don’t want to feed them too much before they’ve had time to get friendly and multiply: vegetable peelings, coffee grounds, egg shells to balance the pH. They have five hearts each and are able to regulate their own population as necessary, according to the book they came with.

Wow!

2009-02-22T20:50:00.002Z

The 'Life After Bingo' gig at the Gregson was very enjoyable.
The evening kicked off with a couple of squares (rounds? frames?) of bingo, which was highly entertaining, and then names were pulled out of an envelope to determine the running order. I was drawn last, or 'top of the bill' as we say in the music industry.

First up was Jess Thomas, with her big voice and nice guitar technique. Really good.
Second was Jo Gillot with her tiny hands. Different guitar style – very fast and intricate, ditto her voice – and again, she was really good. And get this for an update from the future... she'll be interviewed and will play on Steve Lamcq's Radio Two programme in a couple of weeks. Excitement ahoy.
Third was a young lad called Kish, and – darn, wouldn't you know it? - he's a terrific guitar player too. He put on a wonderfully woozy, atmospheric set, although I hope he loses the John Martyn 'too drunk to care' vocal stylings sooner rather than later, and finds his own voice. But it was a great, solid performance. He's about fifteen or sixteen or something, the talented little freak.
And finally there was me, Idiot Johnson. Oh come on, it's show business - you've got to make a bit of an effort, no?

I played and sang a few bum notes, of course, but on the whole I was quite pleased with my little set.
I was especially relieved that a horrible cough (mine) called a truce for the thirty minutes I was on stage. It must have been the adrenaline taking effect, because it certainly wasn't the one-bottle-a-day-Buttercup-Original-Syrup habit I've recently acquired.
I sang some of my own stuff, and I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For on kalimba, and finished with a low key piano version of Born To Run, which raised a few eyebrows, hopefully in a good way.

I believe somebody recorded the whole shebang, although I've not heard it yet if they did.
Everyone tends to be hyper-critical on hearing themselves played back – or at least, it's to be hoped they are – so I'm ready to concede that I was actually shit. At the time, though, I was buzzing and happy.

Girlfriend's new yoga friend S came along to watch, never having heard me sing before, and she didn't fall off her chair in hysterics or anything. I call that encouraging.
And of course, all I want now is to do it again.

Black Cherry

2009-02-17T22:26:00.002Z

Neil, my former team leader, came round this morning shaking a bucket.
He said he was collecting for Guide Dogs For The Selectively Deaf but we pretended not to hear him.

He stood there jiggling for a good ten minutes, maybe twenty, looking dumb and hopeful, as if he'd arranged to meet somebody on a blind date - “Meet me at ten in the sys admins' office. I'll be rattling a bucket of loose change. Wear something foxy” - before Terry, quizzical and sucking a cheap ballpoint, was the first to crack.

“Hey Neil,” he said, “Any good at crosswords?”
“Furious? Livid?”
“No, I mean newspaper crosswords.”
“Yes. I've heard of those.”
“OK then. Good.” Terry cleared his throat. “Overburdened postman?”
“How many letters?”
“Fucking hundreds.”
“Yes, but how many letters?”
“Fucking hundreds. It's a joke.”
“Oh, absolutely. A joke. That's very good.” He gave his bucket a little jangle. “But you're going to have to tell me. How many letters?”
“You've still a long way to go,” said Terry. “Somewhere between eight and nine hundred, if you must know.”
“I see. That's still quite some way, isn't it?” He stared long and hard into his bucket, then walked to the door. “I can't stop but ping me, would you, when they're all counted? The letters?”
“As soon as I hear anything.”
“Excellent.”

“That's pretty good, that,” I said to Terry, as soon as Neil had left the room. “'As soon as I hear anything.'”
Terry looked at me blankly.
“As soon as I hear anything? Guide Dogs For The Selectively Deaf?”
Silence.
“Forget I even mentioned it,” I said, and poured a yogurt into my lap. Black cherry.

Train

2009-02-06T20:06:00.002Z

As my train approaches the platform, an identical train departs in the opposite direction.
For a brief moment, it's as if there's a huge mirror at the point where they intersect, but which image is the reflection and which is the train itself?

Or maybe what we have here is one elongating train, regenerating itself from the centre, a real-life CGI effect right under our running noses.
A second later and the supertrain is uncoupled, unstretched, on it's separate ways.
Is this what they mean when they say universes expand from the inside out?
We arrive, we depart, we come undone.

Yellow

2009-01-30T23:34:00.003Z

In the bleak midwinter frosty wind made moan, but not half as much as my stomach, which refuses to STFU.
“I'm famished,” it whinges. “Let’s eat.”
“Have you got worms? You’ve only just had breakfast,” I reply.
“Ooh! Ooh! There's still some of Creepy Keith from Account's old mince pies in the stationery cupboard!”
“You've got to be kidding.”

It’s been a dowdy old month. We gained Barack Obama but lost Tony Hart and John Martyn.
With every new day economic forecasters predict it’s going to be worse than what they said yesterday.
Bankers, bemused as they are baffled at how they’ve brought the world to its knees, help themselves to huge bonuses, because that is all they know. Then they're baffled by the outcry.
They’re striking at the refineries, the dole queue is lengthening with every news cycle, down and down and down we go into the murky depths of woe, nothing to be done but brushing twice daily and hoping that the crops don’t fail, and this morning we received the news that Creepy Keith from Accounts has broken up with Advantage, his lady friend from the Runcorn and Widnes area.

“Aww, that’s a shame,” said Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, when the story broke. “You liked her, didn’t you?”
“I liked her arse,” Keith replied.
“How about a sort of cake thing from the machine?” groaned my stomach. “What do you say we have early elevenses?”
“It was by mutual agreement,” sighed Keith. “Ours was a brief but passionate affair. We banged like fireworks in the night sky.” Stella sighed too. “It was an amazing journey for both us, but in our hearts we knew it had run its course by Charnock Richard.”
“Bollocks. You got dumped, didn’t you?”
“Get lost,” he answered. “I dumped her if you must know. It was costing me a fortune in petrol.”
“I knew it!” she laughed. “I knew you’d be too tight to sustain a middle distance relationship.”
“So anyway. Why don’t you and me give it another try, Stella? How about it? I’m footloose and disease free.”
“Let me think about that for a few minutes, Keith,” she said. “Time’s up. No freaking chance.”
“Oh come on. You’re not doing anything,” he pleaded. “Let me take you out tonight and I’ll show you what I’ve learned.”

At that moment my stomach made a rumble of Richter scale magnitude. The entire building shook. Car alarms hollered in the car park. From my desk, whole sheets of paper fluttered to the floor. Stella and Keith fell silent. They stood in the doorway staring at me.
“Oops,” I said sheepishly. “Must be feeling a bit peckish.”
“Here,” said Keith. He delved deep into his manbag and threw me a banana.

Keith’s banana felt soft and warm in my hands. I carefully peeled away the browning spotty skin then, with some trepidation, put the squishy flesh in my mouth. I wanted to eat it, I really did, but it tasted rank and I couldn’t go through with it.
“Nothing personal, Keith,” I gagged, “but that’s disgusting. Sorry.”
“What is it with bananas?” he fumed. “That was good and hard when I left the house. By the time I've come to work it’s soft as shit.”
“My friend Becky gives me one every morning,” said Stella, seeing her chance. She rifled through her handbag and pulled out a long, curved purple thing. “See if this is more to your taste, Tim.”

She handed me the strange plastic object and I undid the clasp, and there inside the casing was a perfect yellow banana. I devoured it slowly, savouring every bite. Stella looked delighted, Keith less so. Uneasy silence filled the room, all but for the sound of my joyful masticating.

“So do we have a date tonight or not?” he asked when I eventually finished. He picked up the purple case and examined it with a look of contempt.
“Not,” she answered calmly. “I would say definitely not.”
“I don’t know why I bother, Stella,” he shouted. “Same bloody difference at the end of the day,” and with that he stormed out of the room, slamming the banana case on my desk next to where his flaccid fruit lay.

“Duh, Captain Obvious. The difference is…” Stella yelled down the corridor after him. “…The difference is that my friend Becky’s never goes soft before I’ve come.”

I poured some coffee style drink down my shirt, threw the uneaten banana in my wastebasket, then set about picking up all the sheets of paper that had fallen to the floor, re-arranging them into the correct order. It took up most of the rest of the day, but didn’t really take my mind off it.

Live! In Concert!

2009-01-18T13:30:00.002Z

If you're in the Lancaster area on the evening of Satuday February 21st and specifically don't want to hear me performing half an hour's worth of original songs and maybe a couple of 'interesting interpretations' of more well known tunes, then I feel obliged to recommend that you keep well away from the Olive Room on the top floor of the Gregson Community Arts Centre, 33 Moorgate, Moor Lane, Lancaster, LA1 3PY.
A little bit of support, however, from a nice person such as yourself would be, you know, genuinely appreciated if you can, like, make it.

I believe there'll be three other turns as well as me. Further details will probably appear here if and when the organisers ever get round to it.

Don't say you weren't warned.

Sign O' The Times

2009-01-04T22:33:00.003Z

I received a new wallet for Christmas because the old one had burst at the seams.
Either it was my enormous personal wealth what done for it – unlikely - or it was the vast accumulation of bits of paper I've been carrying with me everywhere for the last decade which took it beyond bulging point.
Old shopping lists, dentist appointment cards, half used books of stamps, notes and observations on the human condition which now make no sense to me and probably never did, set lists for concerts I've never performed, gift ideas, all manner of autobiographical detritus in scrap paper form, forgotten but not gone, and all of it covered in fluff.

This morning I had a bit of a clear out and transferred all items worth keeping from the old wallet to the new one.
This included a To Do list which I must have written sometime in May or early June. Twenty one tasks in total, just four of them crossed out and accomplished.
It's a touch cringeworthy, reading as it does like a mid-year version of a New Year's resolution list, not to say potentially embarrassing should it fall into enemy hands.
Any glimmer of ambition that's committed to writing, no matter how small or modest, is going to look a bit daft in the cold light of day. Especially if read out in a silly voice. It's the British disease. Anyway, I've appraised the situation and reckon I can tick five more items off the list. That's not too bad, no?

'This shouldn't take long' tasks:
Arrange phone line for upstairs room – done.
Make DVD shelves – done.
Make and send out party invites -Yay! Done! Party been and gone. Boo!
Clean and oil bikes,etc. – yeah well, it was a wet summer, we didn't actually get out on our bikes, so, erm, I'll do that when it warms up a bit.
Remove stains from hall floor tiles – erm, well... Er, it's a job that requires care and attention and strong chemicals, you don't want to be hasty. I'll do it when, erm, it's a bit warmer, honest.

Others tasks are more long term, and shall we say, Artsy Fartsy. Stop sniggering at the back:
Get into HDR photography – not yet, but keep meaning to. Hmm.
Do more recording – done, but only a bit, and not well enough yet. That said, I did have a tune played on local radio last week - three times! - so you know, that's progress of sorts.
Do more performing – again, have done a little bit. My thumb piano version of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For is still discussed in polite circles. Have really enjoyed it but can't help thinking I should be doing more and better.
Get to grips with the garden – nope, not at all, really, other than mowing the lawn. I've been thinking a lot recently about rhubarb and potatoes and runner beans – if the magazine racks and bookshelves of WHSmiths are anything to go by, who hasn't? 'What Carrot Variety Weekly' indeed. It's a sign of the times. I'm determined to board that bandwagon though, yes sir. “Have potting shed, will be smug about fruit 'n' veg.” That's our battle cry.
Make book and CD shelves out of old shed – I'm getting round to it, honestly. Nothing goes to waste, etc.
Take piano lessons – onto it. I'm going to make some calls tomorrow, honest.

And so it goes. The one which reads “Join Athletics Club??” I'm putting down to youthful exuberance. Honestly, what was I thinking?
So to conclude this report, I guess the main thing to say is that nine months into our “Let's Try Living in Lancaster” experiment, last year's biggest undertaking by some way, bigger even than "Learn To Eat With Chopsticks" (still a miserable failure on my account), me and Girlfriend are both liking it a lot.
I won't presume to speak for her, but as for me, I feel much better in myself, thank you Nurse. It's still just like being on your holidays and I feel very positive and encouraged, somehow, just by being here, which may sound daft, but there you go. I never promised not to sound daft.
Here are some recent snaps.

Christmas Lights in Dalton Square.
Lancaster Canal, Frozen, With Bridges and That.
Lancaster at Dusk from Williamson Park.
Castle Hill.
View of Aldcliffe Road and Canal, From Train Leaving For Preston.
Weird Garden Centre Christmas Lights, Viewed From Speeding Train.
Frost in Fairfield Orchard.
Sunlight on Frozen Allotments.
Ducks on Frozen Canal, With Walkers and Pleasant Lighting.
Snow On Distant Mountains, From Williamson Park. You Could Almost Mistake Lancaster For, I Dunno, Vancouver Sometimes.

Too Hot To Handle

2008-11-28T22:53:00.005Z

“Do we define ourselves by our failures or by our successes?” asked Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, in this morning’s team meeting. “Let’s start with you, Tim.”
This, presumably, in the fallout of the Fleetwood Fudge Festival fiasco.
“Hold on there,” I replied. “You can’t expect me to remember all my failures,” intending it as a joke, which was a failure in itself.
She wrote something in her notebook, looking rather pleased with herself, and allowed a weighty silence to dangle in the room.
“But to answer your question, erm…” and I was about to launch into some spiel - about how it’s better to try and fail than not try at all; that failure is as valid a learning experience as success; some waffle along the lines that everything fails until it eventually succeeds, and there’s no shame in that; that you can define yourself however you want to, so long as you’re not a miserable git about it – but Creepy Keith from Accounts gloated into the room and stole the spotlight.

He was preening because he’s taking Advantage, his lady friend from the Runcorn and Widnes area, to the Accounts department Christmas bash at Chicken, a new restaurant in town where everything is made from chicken – everything - right down to the cutlery and tablecloths. The waiting staff have to wear skimpy chicken costumes, and anybody who objects is ridiculed for being a chicken, so they’ve really covered all the angles.
“Who organised that?” Stella asked indignantly.
“I did,” he smirked. “Advantage can’t wait to meet everybody.”
“Yes. And I don’t suppose you can wait to show her off,” snapped Stella. “That's so unfair. Fuck you, Keith.”
And with that the meeting was brought to an abrupt close. One minute she's up, real happy up, and the next she's at the bottom of a deep, dark hole. That's how it is with her sometimes. We were sent back to our desks without so much as a bourbon. That's bourbon the biscuit, obviously.

Nobody at Company X has ever managed to pull off a departmental Christmas night out before. Any night out, for that matter. They said it could never be done, that there simply isn’t the enthusiasm for social activities. And now freaking Keith has managed to persuade the other freaking deadbeats from freaking Accounts to go out for a freaking meal. She was freaking livid.
She spent half an hour in emergency crisis talks with her friend Becky, which seemed to pick her up somewhat, then spent the rest of the day trying to find some eatery that wasn’t fully booked for Christmas. Preferably it would be Chicken, and more crucially, it would be before Keith’s night out. We were all going out whether we liked it or not.

“Oh well,” I consoled Stella, after the going home bell had rung and everybody had cleared off home. Only a few cars remained dotted around the car park. “You failed but at least you had a good try.”
“I could have killed Keith this morning. He does it just to hurt me.”
Silence.
I'd spent all afternoon trying to work out what had happened there. We stared out of her window at the tail lights going nowhere on the bypass, flickering like Christmas tree decorations.
“Chicken would have been no good for me anyway,” I said eventually.
“Oh I absolutely love chicken, Tim,” she said. Her face brightened a little. “My friend Becky’s Chicken Breasts En Papillote are to die for.”
“But I take your point about Keith,” I said. “What he said you'd said was just not true.”
“She rubs olive oil into her breasts then likes to waft them around under my nose. She knows it drives me wild.”
“I hate people putting words in my mouth.”
“Becky says I can put them in my mouth anytime I like. Well, actually she makes me wait.” She sighed a dreamy sigh. “They're too hot to handle when she first gets them out.”

I wasn't sure if now was the time to say something.
I hesitated.
Her phone bleeped.
I wanted to say something like, “You know, if you still want a team night out, January's a good month. Everybody needs cheering up in January. And maybe, well... I don't know, but maybe you'd like to ask your friend Becky along. Meet the team and that. Maybe she'd like to come out too,” but when I turned around Stella wasn't there. I squinted into the moonless gloom and saw her shadowy outline skipping across the car park, skipping like a child, towards the gate where her lift was waiting, her lift waiting patiently in the enveloping darkness to carry her home.

The Visitors

2008-11-21T18:39:00.003Z

There was more rioting on the help desk today, sparked this time by a difference of opinion on the Strictly Come Dancing crisis. One minute they were discussing sequined jackets and the finer points of the Cha-cha-cha, and the next they were laying into each other with table legs and setting fire to the carpet. Such a volatile bunch.
It’s as if the contributors of The Guardian’s Comment Is Free pages had stepped out of the virtual world and been transported madder than ever to the first floor here at Company X, with plenty to get off their chests and a rigid determination to make their opinions known.

Consequently Neil, our former team leader, joined us downstairs for the weekly conference call with Preston Paper Bags, who are currently undergoing a period of climactic change. It may well be an exciting time to be in paper bags but the call was dull as darts for the rest of us, so we passed the time playing our favourite game on the Instant Message thingy.

The game is called “Guess the age of the adult,” and although we already know each other’s ages – except Neil’s - it’s fun to play because of the torment it causes him. He simply refuses to tell us how old he is.
“O cmon Neil Y not? 37? 52?”
“Yeh y r u bein so secretive? 29? 60? Olda dan dat?”
“I don’t want to play. Leave me alone!” he blurted out loud, causing no small amount of consternation among the executives at Preston Paper Bags on the other end of the line. “You never know who might be listening!”

Of course, the reason he’s reluctant to reveal his age is that it would uncover the truth that he is in fact an alien from outer space. Mike and Terry reckon even at a conservative estimate, calculated on the proximity of our nearest potentially life supporting galaxy, Neil must be hundreds if not thousands of years old. Little wonder he’s keeping mum.

“You know all of our ages,” I typed, incapable of finding it in myself to use txt speek. “What’s the worst that could possibly happen? Other than being taken to a secure location and probed by government scientists?”

The latest hypothesis regarding Neil and his origins is this:
He was on a coach trip - or flying saucer trip to be more precise - with some of his alien pals, visiting a few of our popular tourist attractions: Houses of Parliament, Stratford-upon-Avon, Bolton’s Middlebrook Retail Park, and so on. The flying saucer pulled into Charnock Richard Services on the M6 so that the driver could take his mandatory half hour toilet break, and while Neil was stretching his legs and browsing through the cheap CDs, everybody else sneaked back onto the ship and pissed off without him. You could hear them laughing from here to Alpha Orionis.

It could certainly explain the abandonment anxiety – Neil’s grim insistence that somebody always join him whenever he visits the gents – not to say the Pavlovian terror that accompanies anybody entering the room with a Costa Coffee or shrink wrapped tuna and sweetcorn baguette.
In some respects it would take a very hard heart not to sympathise.

The Sound Of Silence

2008-11-11T23:14:00.003Z

You can always rely on some chump to trample all over the two minute silence on Armistice Day.

Charlotte, Bill Surname's loyal PA, had announced the start of the silence with a deep voiced and sombre Bing Bong, and everybody downed keyboards and looked into their laps.
Outside my window a bugle called and Bill Surname's retired army chums stood statuesque on the parade ground, stolid in their flapping trousers. All around Company X no phones rang, no mouses clicked, no sound sounded at all but the dull tick tock of the clock. You could have heard a pen drop.

Neil, my former team leader, blundered into the office and announced, with all the accomplished pride of the newly toilet trained, that Ken Dodd got arrested last night.
Nobody lifted their heads, nobody moved.
“I said, 'I see Ken Dodd got arrested last night.”
Still nobody stirred.
“Giving me the old silent treatment, huh? I knew I shouldn't have stolen those ginger nuts.”
Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader scowled and gestured wordlessly to shut the fuck up, we're paying our respects here, but in Neil's defense it was the same look she gives him on an almost daily basis, so how was he to know that this time was any different? Presumably they don't observe two minute silences on his home planet.

“I say 'Ken Dodd got arrested last night,'” explained Neil. “And you're supposed to reply 'Did he?' Come on guys, we practiced this yesterday.”
Stella scowled again, nodding her head and mouthing “Not now,” and then she scowled at the rest of us, like it was our fault.

We've been trying to teach Neil to tell jokes and have started him off on the basics.
“Hey Neil, my dog's got no nose.”
“Well, if you find it, Tim,” he replied, “pack it in ice and get to the vet's pronto. You'd be amazed what they can do nowadays.”

“Knock, knock.”
“Is that you, Mike? Come on in. I'm looking at porn on the computer.”

He's enthusiastic enough but his timing leaves something to be desired.
“Hey guys,” he tried again. “Did you see on the news that Ken Dodd got arrested last night?”
“Did he, Neil? That's interesting,” he replied to himself.
“No. Doddy!”
“Doddy? But Neil, who's Doddy?”
“You know, Neil. Ken Dodd. Doddy!”
“Oh right. I get it. What did you say he was arrested for?”
“Don't know, Neil. Didn't say.”
“Didn't he?”
“No. Doddy!”

Poor Charlotte must have become distracted – it's a difficult time for her , what with... oh, I'm sure you get the picture – because we waited and waited for the closing Bing Bong to chime but it never arrived.
Everybody looked at their watches and fidgeted impatiently in their seats, waving their mugs at each other and scribbling “Fancy a brew?” on the office whiteboard, and at four minutes somebody giggled, and Stella shusshed them, and some else shusshed her back, and on five minutes, Terry threw a crumpled piece of paper which hit Neil on the nose, and when he read what Terry had written it silenced him too.

“Ken Dodd's dad's dog's dead? Oh, that's a shame. Why didn't somebody say?”
“Sshhh! Didn't we?”
“Doddy's dad's dog. Dead." He sighed. "What happened?”
“Nose fell off,” whispered Terry.
“That would explain Doddy getting arrested then. Must have been an awful shock.”
“Ssshh!!!”

Eventually the special Armistice Silence petered out and became boring old regular Everyday Silence, and people switched their phones back on and Mike stood up to fart then drifted off to the vending machine, and I dripped yogurt down my shirt while outside my window, Bill Surname's retired army chums folded away their flags and wiped their eyes and headed back to their encampment to drink hot toddies and tell stories of unbelievable courage, to remember the fallen and the sacrifices made, and life carried on as it always has and always seems to have a knack of carrying on doing, all by itself.

Hey Look Me Over

2008-10-30T23:31:00.002Z

A smattering of frost all over Geraldine the Company X goat, the first of the season, and it was lunchtime before she’d completely thawed.

I spent the morning grappling with a vague printer configuration and a particularly difficult coffee style drink while outside my window, Rex the security guard swept leaves, red and golden and bronze in the muted sunshine, maple and ash and beech, all along Isolation Hospital Lane.
This is where Company X employees – help desk staff mainly, owing to their lifestyle choices – are sent to recuperate from scarlet fever or leprosy or genital warts or whatever is ailing them. The welcome sign above the door – Bill Surname CEO’s style all over it - urges new patients to “take a long hard look at themselves” and to use this time away to “dwell upon the consequences of their actions, before somebody else does,” but I’d surprised if anybody ever has.

The crackly bing bong public address system fizzed into life and Charlotte, Bill Surname’s loyal PA, hawked up a grolly before reading his latest pronouncement.
“Following the complete failure of capitalism as a viable economic model, Bill Surname has asked me to inform you that Company X will no longer be supplying employees with gel grip pens. Until further notice we will only stock cheap scabby biros. He has also asked that all staff use the stairs. Thank you and bing bong.”

Poor Charlotte – it’s a difficult time for her, what with global recession and the banks pissing away everybody’s savings and the terrifying, omniscient specter that is Robert Peston laughing with glee as he leads us all into the abyss, and now this: Bill Surname, the only man she has ever loved, if only he knew it, says if we don’t look smart quick sharp then we’ll all be in the soup, “and that means you, Charlotte. Erm, Siobhan. No, I was right first time - it’s Sharleen, isn’t it?”

I imagine her drizzling the midnight oil in her kitchen laboratory, green skinned under blinking fluorescent lights, with a bottle of good red in one hand and a Bunsen burner in the other: Charlotte the Alchemist, searching deep in her soul for a way to turn attention into affection. “If only I wasn’t so invisible, that would surely be a start.”

Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, is tackling the economic downturn head on through the medium of interpretative dance.
She “Ohmmms!” and she “Aaaghs!” and has taken to wearing brightly coloured leotards around the office in an effort to scare the negativity away.
“What economics boils down to is belief and promises – that’s all there is, my friend Becky says.”
“The only thing middle England is good for is paying the bills,” grumbled Creepy Keith from Accounts, who can’t even make an omelette without breaking a few promises. ”Gordon Brown doesn’t want you to enjoy anything.”
“The lady at the gate with the dreamy soft white baps is selling fireworks now as well,” Stella said, standing on one leg. “Now there’s a girl with self-belief. She’d only got one left when I went for my leek and potato.”
“Banger?” asked Keith.
“I wish. What do you think, Tim?”
”I think you can say what you like about Charlotte,” I answered, “but she stocks a mean stationery cupboard. This is going to hit her badly.”

Tonight in the rifle range at barbershop practice we will sing “I'm down and out today and you may say that I'm a flop,” with full gestures, and there’ll be an icy bite in the air, and grit on the road, and if last time is anything to go by, just a little tetchiness on the risers, coming mainly from me I confess.
While trying to remember the words and tune and dance routine, I think about belief and promises and coughing up to the bearer on demand, and the relative worth of commitment, up and down, down and up; corrections and fluctuations and the poor sods over at the isolation hospital; things which get better before they get worse; things which get worse before they get better.

Feeder

2008-10-07T21:52:00.002Z

Pet food conspiracy theorists used to witter on about Whiskas containing heroin.
It’s always seemed terrifically unlikely to me. I’ve no idea how much a scoop of heroin costs – is that the correct terminology? - but I’d guess that a tin of Whiskas is far cheaper, so how come you never see eight out of ten junkies slumped face down in a saucer of Tuna in Jelly?

I’ve been thinking about this because of the way our local sparrow community goes positively mental when we put their peanuts out. They’re eating us out of house and home.
At first it was a delight to see so many of them gathered around the feeder. How munificent I am! How very popular!
It's kind of thrilling to look out of the window each morning and see so many creatures enjoying the benefit of your goodness; the ornithological equivalent of opening your Inbox and finding yourself inundated with half a dozen Facebook friend requests.

We’ve put nuts out for the birds before now, but just lately consumption has shot through the roof. The little sods are getting through a full feeder's worth every five days. It used to be three or four times that, at least.
I’ve given the matter considerable thought and can only conclude that they've started coating peanuts in crack cocaine. It's the only explanation that makes any kind of sense.

We've created a ghetto in our own back garden. You should see the state of my pyjamas after I've been on a refilling mission, especially when the feeder's been empty for any amount of time. Angry little buggers. Those conspiracy theorists need to be careful what they wish for.

Kimono My House

2008-09-18T19:06:00.002Z

Today we finally got to the bottom of the performance issues at Chorley Trousers.
It turns out Mike has been secretly using their production database server for his own private purposes. While they’ve been busy manufacturing hard wearing, deep pocketed trouserware for the Banking Sector, Mike’s little program has been number crunching the horses.
“He’s got the runners and riders here for every race card since the Queen Mother was a lad,” said Terry.
“Good for him,” replied Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader. “It’s about time one of you lot showed a little enterprise.”

Suspicions were aroused when the ladies in the factory were trying to print out a despatch note, and instead of reading “100 pinstripe, padded gusset ; Wreckless Investments, Canary Wharf, London,” the note simply stated “Kimono My House, Pontefract 2.30. Likes it soft.”

He’d have got away with it too if Neil, my former team leader, hadn’t screwed up the time on the server, effectively turning night into day and vice versa.
Not originally from this planet, Neil frequently has difficulties with our 24 hour Earth clock, and we’ve become used to his cock ups with hilarious consequences in this area: the time he scheduled a load of automated telemarketing machines to wake people up at four in the morning with a cheery “Congratulations! You’ve just won a dream fortnight in Pennsylvania!”; the unfortunate incident we don’t talk about with the Air Traffic Control software.

Mike’s script is designed to perform its processor-intensive calculations between three and five in the morning, when nobody would be any the wiser and no harm be done. Not in the afternoon, when the workforce of Chorley Trousers should have been loading up the distribution vans, but were instead grinding to a standstill and drumming their fingers in frustration.

“No wonder he can afford to go on holiday to them Thingy Islands for a month,” said Terry, with more than a hint of jealousy. “What are they called?”
“Balearics,” said Ivan the Terribly Thorough, popping up out of nowhere with a bucket of soapy water and a stiff brush.
“No, it’s true. Bastard’s gone for a whole sodding month,” Terry replied and Stella, who’d spent the previous hour on the phone with William Hill, nodded sagely to confirm this to be so.

Good Day Song

2008-09-17T22:05:00.003Z

I wish you'd stay, I wish you'd go.
I wish you'd have told me, I wish I didn't know.
I forgot to remember, but I remember what I forgot,
Sometimes I am, but other times I'm not.

But if you like me being around that's why I'm nowhere to be found,
I don't want to let you down,
I don't want to ruin your good day.

I want to stay, I want to leave.
I wish I was drowning in your love, I wish I could breathe.
I wish you'd let me, I wish you'd make me stop,
Sometimes I am, but other times I'm not.

I want to be the one you want to hug and kiss,
I want you so badly that's why I act like this.

Oh I'm so funny, oh I'm so sad,
I am the best and worst friend that I ever had.
Some days are great and some days aren't so hot,
Sometimes I am, but other times I'm not.

Ballad of Big Nothing

2008-09-11T20:37:00.003Z

Creepy Keith from Accounts is in love.

“What’s the worst sound in the world?” he asked Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, as they power-breakfasted on vitamin tablets and herbal water in her office.
“Well, I’ll tell you. It’s the sound of other peoples’ regret and I don’t want to hear any of yours, thank you very much.”

Stella flicked absent mindedly through her magazine, pausing to gargle at regular intervals.
“You had your chance,” he continued. “I gave you every opportunity and you blew it. Now I’ve met someone and you’re just going to have to get used to it.”
“Are you sitting on my marker pen?” she asked.
“What did I just say?” he tssked. “I said ‘No whingeing.’ I knew you’d be like this.”
“I had it here a minute ago. Are you sure you’re not sitting on it?”
“Moan bloody moan. There’s a very special little lady in Runcorn and Widnes getting the full benefit of the Keith from Accounts Loving Experience, and you just can’t stand that, can you?”
“So which is it? Runcorn or Widnes? By the way, you’ve got red ink all over your trousers. That's one less missing pen mystery to worry about.”
“Tedious,” said Keith.
“So how did you meet her?”
“Tediously tedious,” he said. “Listen, I can tell you’re disappointed. Why wouldn’t you be? I understand that. But get over it already. Other peoples' regret is so tedious.”

Their conversation, if you could call it that, fell quiet when the crackly bing bong public address system fizzed into life and Charlotte, Bill Surname CEO’s loyal PA, could be heard clearing her pipes.

“Following yesterday’s historic turn on in both France and Switzerland of the large hard-on collector,” she squeaked, her panic stricken voice popping like a geiger counter, “Bill Surname is pleased to announce that we’re all still here. You are reminded, however, that Company X remains in a state of High Alert Code Beige, and you must report any black holes to reception immediately, however insignificant they may seem. Yesterday's shoe inspection will take place at the normal time tomorrow an hour earlier than usual. Thank you. Bing bong.”

Poor Charlotte – it’s a difficult time for her, what with the crunchy credit, and house prices at their lowest since the Napoleonic era, and the resumption of the Cold War, Russian tanks rolling into neighbouring countries like it's 1968, and now this: those petulant Swiss clockmakers, driven to madness with their calibrations and corrections and the futile micro-management of seconds, minutes and hours, fed up to the back teeth with the thankless benchmarking of our very existence, have decided to switch their efforts to putting an end to it all.
Goodbye Sun and Moon, goodbye oceans and stars, goodbye to Time Itself, we’re all going down the great cosmic plughole, going to hell on a pushbike, mind you don’t get a puncture. One tiny miscalculation and – zap! - everything there ever has been reduced to nothing whatsoever. Goodbye to Preston and Company X, goodbye to Bill Surname, the only man she has ever loved, if only he knew it, goodbye cruel world, goodbye to love’s young dream.

“You could have had it all, you know,” Creepy Keith told Stella. “And what have you got now? Diddley squilch.”
“It’s been fun, Keith,” she replied, putting away her tablets and polishing off the water, “but I’ve some important calls to make. So if you wouldn’t mind pissing off and closing the door on your way out.”

“You won't need me to tell you,” he said as he rose to his feet and sniffed the red liquid soaking through the seat of his trousers, “that Advantage and I enjoy a rich and rewarding lifestyle. I'll say no more on the subject, other than that we don't need a 27km tunnel under the mountains to get our particles accelerating. You know what I'm saying? Regret, Stella, regret: most tedious emotion in the world. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to attend to my arse which is bleeding profusely again.”

The Continental

2008-08-19T22:03:00.001Z

The Ribble doesn't intersect Preston in the way that, say, the Thames does London.

Instead the river gently spoons itself around the city, nuzzling up good and close but never actually penetrating the centre.
The Ribble begins life near – get this - Ribblehead, across the Yorkshire border, then meanders prettily for seventy miles or so before pitching up in Preston, as brown as it is wide, fast and deep and kind of stately. From here it straightens out – the spoon handle, as it were - for the final dash to Lytham where it meets the Irish Sea.
Thousands travel into Preston everyday, to work or to study, or perhaps to just hang around making nuisances of themselves, and they probably never set eyes on the Ribble from one year to the next.

Far be it from me to tell anybody what to do, but what they should do is this: head on down to Broadgate – it's great, mate – and when they reach the bottom of South Meadow Lane, where the railway crosses the river and opposite the entrance to Avenham Park, they should pop into The Continental for a swift one or five. It's a lovely, lovely spot.

Nobody has done more to guarantee the prosperity of the local building trade than Ruth and Jeremy, new owners of Preston's best loved public house. Renovation work has been going on since anybody can remember – truly this is the Jarndyce and Jarndyce of pub restorations – but the doors finally re-opened on Sunday.
I've been following progress for some time via their blog, and also by good old fashioned lurking around the place like some weird builders' groupie while out on my lunchtime constitutionals.

Today I decide to go introduce myself, congratulate them on their efforts and treat myself to something English and hoppy – hell of a morning, you don't want to know, but all in all I think I've deserved it – but when I get there, a sign on the door says they'll be open at five, sorry for the inconvenience. A small crowd hangs around outside wearing high visibility tabards. I'm not sure if they're slacking tradesmen or disappointed non-drinkers like myself.

I keep walking like I'd been heading for the park all along. I've not eaten and I'm hungry and it's clammy.
Joggers scoot along the side of the river, an elderly couple pick blackberries, and I remember that my knees hurt but still haven't figured out why.

Then I think about the East European lorry driver who'd stopped me earlier to ask for directions to a place I'd never heard of, he showed me the name written down on a Post It note and I'd still never heard of it, sorry, but you could try over towards the docks where the business parks are, somebody there is bound to know, and I think about the beautiful young woman who waited for him in his cabin, a strikingly beautiful young woman, it makes you wonder sometimes, the livings we make, the lives we all lead.

Who's Going To Drive You Home Tonight?

2008-07-25T20:04:00.004Z

I felt Death’s icy grip on my shoulder as he whispered in my ear, “Tom, do you ever get the feeling that life is passing you by?”

A mean spirited question at the best of times, which this wasn’t.
I was trying to multi-task - updating my New Guitar Savings Fund spreadsheet; investigating a user’s access problem; ListeningAgain to Fags, Mags and Bags; spooning yoghurt into my lap - so really wasn't in the mood for the ghoulish thug's headfuckery.
“No thanks,” I said, picking out waxy bits from my earbud before re-inserting. “I don’t want to join your sponsored skydive. You've got previous.”

He gave me a look then skulked away to bother Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, who in turn spent the rest of the day agonising over the question.
“Is life passing me by? No. Now fuck off,” she replied, over and again, but only after he'd already left the room, half an hour earlier, his evil work done.

She left a message on her friend Becky's voicemail - “Of course I'm not scared. I'm not scared of anything any more” - then another and another, each more panic stricken than the last. It was like watching a dog with its head stuck under a cupboard door. “Come on Becky, pick up! Where are you? Pick up!”

Some find relief from their demons by beating seven shades out of a drum kit or leaving their diaries where they know people will find them. Some keep the devil at bay by staying up all night baking double choc muffins and calling radio phone-ins.
You might find comfort in the bottle or you might hurl yourself out of aeroplanes, but Stella's preferred stress control technique is to give her treadmill a good pounding while yelling along to motivational speeches on her iPod.

“Speak to your customers in a language they understand,” she bellowed. “He who fails to prepare prepares to get going when the going gets richer, the poor get poorer, success begets success, always eat the best banana first. Tra la la, I'm not scared, I'm not scared! Pick up Becky, I'm not scared. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three creepy hippies, four! Look out! Look after the pennies but who's going to look out for me? Who's going to drive me home tonight?”

But it was no good. By afternoon she was curled on the floor, a gibbering wreck, a pitiful excuse for a modern executive. Strewn all around her were self-help books and she sucked on one - “Who's Sorry Now? How To Keep One Step Ahead In Times Of Blame” - the way a baby sucks on the corner of a soft blanket.
Even Ivan the Terribly Thorough with his cheery bon mots and extraordinary bin emptying capabilities couldn't snap her out of it.
“Skydiving is merely proof of the lengths people will go to not to die a coward,” he said.
“Thanks Ivan, but I'm not like everybody else,” she replied, practically sobbing. “I'm not even like me.”

The going home bell rang, Becky finally returned the frantic messages – she'd been training all day in a bank vault, hence the lack of mobile reception – and the world was once more the right side up.
“My friend Becky has forbidden me from doing Death's skydive, Tim,” Stella smiled, relief palpable on her face.

Outside my window Rex the security guard was digging up new potatoes and planting the third, maybe fourth crop of the season. Geraldine the Company X goat cooled her hooves in the Sunken Heart Rose Garden fountain.

“She said 'Well really Stella! Can you honestly see yourself strapped into a parachute? Don't talk so daft!'”
All along the bypass cars honked and buffeted their cargo homewards, while further in the distance the propitious city of Preston glistened in the afternoon sunshine like an explosion in a boob glitter factory.

“My friend Becky says I'm not to go strapping anything on without her direct involvement,” she sighed.
I packed away my briefcase and was about to make my excuses - “I'd love to chat but I have a train to catch, remember?” - but when I looked in her direction she was already half way across the car park, half way to the gates where her friend Becky was waiting to pick her up and take her away from all this.

Sentimental Journey

2008-07-22T22:47:00.004Z

A sentimental journey, and a slow one too, boarding at Lancaster, then calling at Carnforth –
“You’ve been a long way away.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for coming back to me.”
“Yeah yeah. Now just bloody leave it, will you?”
- Wennington, Bentham, Clapham, lovely lovely Giggleswick, Long Preston, Hellifield, Gargrave, pausing twenty minutes while an engineer with a hammer whacked a buckled rail back into shape, then Skipton, Grim Keighley, Bingley, Shipley, before alighting at Leeds.

The dales were heart breakingly beautiful as ever, even more so viewed from a rickety old train carriage, station after dozing station, sultry in the afternoon heat, the sidings a best in show of fox gloves and dog daisies. We rattled past chicken shacks and chimney stacks and billboards for sex toy shops.

In the shiny metropolis we dumped our bags at the hotel, then dawdled round the centre, dropping by for EnormoPizza by the piazza, sunshine blasting through plate glass windows as if from a ray-gun, and background music rudely shoving its way into the foreground. I confess I was a bit grouchy what with the heat and the noise and poor sock selection.
At one end of the restaurant a dozen or more blinged up ladies (Football Managers’ Wives? Thrusting Entrepreneurs?) were enjoying a boozy afternoon, all preposterous handbags and glitzy outfits, raucous and confident, a Beryl Cook or Lucy Pepper made flesh.
Think Sex In The City, but with women who can put away their dinners. Maybe, we wondered, this is how they spend every afternoon.

In the evening we strolled up to the University to watch The National – brooding with bruised tenderness and turbulent passion, much like myself, of course – and they were terrific, ditto.

Morning found us drifting round the shops, but we’re not really the kind of shoppers the developers had in mind, so the experience was kind of wasted on us. It was as if you'd parachuted Anne Atkins into Blackpool Pleasure Beach, slipped her a tenner and told her to go have fun, we'll meet you later in McDonalds.
I mean – shopping? Why on earth do people bother? Having said that, there was a pleasingly odd sort of Japanese Ikea equivalent where I bought a shirt meant for a man more slender, and Girlfriend spent a happy few hours rubbing stationery, but that was about it.

We lunched by the river to the gentle sound of estate agents sobbing and wondering whether they’d ever sell a chic riverside apartment ever again.
Office workers ate sandwiches under a sign that urged “Go throw yourself into the sea,” and we observed the shattered remains of Leonard Cohen’s guitar gently floating downstream but sadly not the man himself.

Then we caught the train and did it the other way round. It was just like being on your holidays.

Map

2008-07-13T13:39:00.006Z

Born on a Wednesday in a month of afternoons, at the end of a summer that was over too soon.
Oh these are the facts – fold them away, keep them safe in your pocket.
Here is a map - should you lose your way it will guide you home.

Slept with girls! Slept with a boy (twice)! Fell in love.
Made a home out of pure white light.
And there was music everywhere, laughter hanging in the air.
Made some good friends. Never attempted a beard.

You are here, you are here. Stay close to the ones you hold most dear.

Oh What A Night

2008-06-30T18:18:00.009Z

I’ve still got marks on my neck from carrying Leanne on my shoulders while she sang 99 Red Balloons. They’re my battle scars and I’ll be sentimental about them if I want to be.

Our housewarming bash went well, I think.
Friends from various incarnations of our lives and four corners of the north traversed psychological and administrative borders in order to drink on our sofa and drop crumbs. Many hadn’t previously met, some we’d not seen for, like, yonks. There seemed to be a pretty decent mingle rate.
Looby and top dadblogger Crinklybee represented the internetosphere with aplomb, working their magik and bringing joy to all, and were last seen stumbling into the darkness at 2.00am with cans of John Smiths in their pockets to see them right for the long walk home.

Girlfriend’s playlist, seven hours of handcrafted perfection, went round more than once, possibly even twice. At some point in the evening most people either danced or enjoyed themselves - we’ll know for certain when the Customer Satisfaction questionnaires start to come back - and it was observed that Charlie is very funny.

Nothing got broken, nobody cried, all the beer got drunk. But on the plus side, we’ve got much more vodka than we started off with, so a Vodka Night surely beckons.
The biggest hit of the evening though, the brightest stars by some margin, were my Chocolate Coated Strawberries. If you want people to think you’re a culinary genius, this is how you do it:

A Free Man In Preston’s Chocolate Coated Strawberries
(Preparation time: all day)

1. Melt lots of plain chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water or beer.
2. Dip loads of strawberries into the chocolate, then place on grease proof paper for the chocolate to harden again.
3. If you can be bothered and there’s enough space, place in fridge for a while.
4. Go and have a bath to wash off excess chocolate. You look ridiculous.
5. Serve. Feel terrifically clever as your guests ignore all the other food and go straight for the chocolate strawberries, making “Oooh!” noises, and “These are lovely. How did you make them? Gosh, aren’t you clever / incredibly attractive / can I sit on your shoulders for a while / etc.”

Bits and Pieces

2008-06-25T21:50:00.009Z

This and that, miscellaneous.

1. A May wedding. We processioned round a lake and into the woods, then gathered in a clearing by a well. It was a traditional neo-pagan handfasting job, with a neo-pagan priest and everything, a real proper wedding. The sun shone and there were children dressed as faeries and it was very jolly.
I wish I'd been Official Photographer because they didn't have one and it was a missed opportunity. We also thought the ceremony itself could have been improved by being more, well, scary. Yeah yeah, it was a lovely wedding and all that, but as a piece of theatre it could have been so much more. A pagan ceremony in the woods with candles and a circle of salt and not one child traumatised? I think someone needs to try a bit harder.
Instead, everyone had a good time and it was a very happy day. The bride and groom wore green curtain fabric.

2. A picnic by the beach after work. There's a nice spot a few miles up the road where Girlfriend used to go for family days out when she was a kid and I like listening to her talking about all that stuff.
Here's a picture of a simple man enjoying the simple pleasures of being a bit rubbish at rock balancing.

3. Quite a bit of singing: barbershop and I've also found a good open mic night to inflict my unique talents upon. Research has shown that every third person in Lancaster carries a musical instrument about their person. It's not so bad provided we don't all play at the same time. And the other two in three don't try to read you their poetry.

4. Kate and Rich Manchizzle's baby viewing open day. A very enjoyable afternoon and young Molly is quite a honey despite considerable incontinence issues. K&R were in fine spirits and spent the whole time with daft grins on their faces. Babies are the new telly if all that mindless gawping is anything to go by. Kate's frittata was memorable too.

5. Lots of gigs: Eels, Twilight Sad, Elbow, Jens Lekman, Wildbirds and Peacedrums (beat-tastic), Iron and Wine, Fleet Foxes (they're hairy, they harmonise, they're fantastic), Richard Herring, Goldfrapp (looks like someone forgot their trousers again). All excellent and we're barely a quarter of the way through the year.

6. We're having a little housewarming thingy. On Sunday it was so wild and windy we drove back to the beach (see 2) and brainstormed playlists. Girlfriend has got it down to about seven hours worth now. We've decided that we're not allowed to veto each other's choices, but James Taylor? Supertramp? For a party?

So Far So Good

2008-06-04T18:26:00.002Z

“Diversification is essential for survival in today’s rapidly changing marketplace,” Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, told me this morning, apropos of nothing in particular. I’d only gone in for a hole punch.
“Too right,” I agreed. “Just look at the lady at the gate with the dreamy soft white baps.”
“Oh absolutely,” she sighed. “Just look at her.”
“No, I mean look at the way she’s expanded her product range,” I said. “She saw a gap and now she has us all eating out of her hand.”
“Oh, eating out of her hand...”

The lady who sells sandwiches and cakes outside the entrance has added Soups of the World to her portfolio and it’s been an instant hit. So much so that long queues form instantly upon her arrival and she’s usually sold out and cleared off again by midday.
“You’ve to be in there like a shot to have any chance with her Perugian minestrone,” said Stella.
“It’s a rum do,” I said, “when it’s eleven o’clock in the morning and your Moroccan carrot’s been and gone and all you’ve left to look forward to is home time.”

“Kapusniak,” said Ivan the Terribly Thorough, who was running a feather duster along Stella’s slats at the time. Sometimes he just seems to spring up from out of nowhere.
“Bless you,” I said, and offered him one of my antihistamines. “I always keep a few handy in my briefcase, because, well, you never know do you?”

Touch wood, I’ve not needed any so far this year. I hate queueing for anything.

Old St. Louis

2008-05-22T23:10:00.004Z

A soft breeze brushes through the rhubarb groves.

Now is the evening of the day and heady perfumes waft prettily in the falling sky, primrose, clematis, chlamydia, while shadows stretch like sleeping dogs across the croquet lawn.
Rex the security guard oils his clippers as Geraldine the Company X goat nibbles daintily at his turn ups.

A perfect evening in early summer.
Away in the distance, Preston hums with the bustle of traffic and trains and drum and bass, but here by the Sunken Heart Rose Gardens all is serenity.
A flickering glow spills beneath the doors of the rifle range, and if you’d just shut the fuck up for a minute you’d hear Bill Surname CEO’s retired army chums and myself rehearsing our competition piece.

“Old St. Louis, you and I, sitting on the levee watching time roll by.
Mammy sings to baby a soft sweet lullaby.”

Soon it will be the Barbershop Off, an annual singing event between a handful of local companies. Last time round we were under-rehearsed and over-stressed, and with hindsight it’s little wonder that Mellor Mops wiped the floor with us.
This year rehearsals have been a lot more relaxed and, hey, we’re sounding pretty tight. The basses strong and forward, leads nimble and well supported, the tenors light as a bird and the baritones almost in tune. Good unit sound.

“Steamboats with cotton and sugar cane, banjos strumming away,” we sing, vaguely gay hand movements kept to a minimum. “Gaslights winking down a sleepy lane will show you a glimpse of yesterday.”

Before the break Sergeant Bispham reads the notices, mostly updates on who is having what operation this week.
“Lance Corporal Samlesbury has been in touch. Doctor says he’s permanently lost all hearing in one ear.”
“Put ‘im in baritones,” comes the reply. “’E’ll be ‘rate.”
“And the young couple who watched us last week – they want to book us for their wedding. December 2009.”
Raucous laughter among the ranks. “Did they not take a look at us? We’ll half of us be dead by then!”

Then it’s back to those lovely, lovely harmonies –
“St. Louis woman, you know I’ll be true. No shiny new city’s gonna take me from you”
- and the western skies drain to inky blue black while joggers stop in their tracks to stare through our window, and I’m so proud to be a part of this, so glad that I stuck it out, as the music floats on the breeze through the rhubarb groves by the Sunken Heart Rose Gardens on this sweet, perfect evening in the summertime in Preston, Lancashire, England, and I’m glad that I did, I’m glad that I did.

In Rainbows

2008-04-30T22:29:00.001Z

When Death enters a room most people at the very least sit up and take notice - “Uh oh, who's he come for this time?” - but we are Systems Administrators and we don't take no shit from no one.
We've got his browser history on tape and keep copies of his more, let's say, scurrilous emails for a rainy day, which is everyday, just in case. It's a perk of the job.

He's been giving her a load of grief lately – something and nothing over a lost bid in the life assurance sector - but Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, brushes him off with a nonchalant “I know who you drink with, and I know what you say about them behind their backs, so don't push me” shrug and he's on his sorry way.
“Pay no mind. He's just jealous,” she told me this morning, which is every morning. “I'm like one of Creepy Keith's flapjacks. You can't keep me down.”

She's been buzzing all day, high on her first appearance in Ignore, the Company X magazine. She's featured in an article about the Oddshore Resourcing webinar she was recently involved with.
Oddshoring is where a company outsources business processes to inappropriate and unsympathetic third parties. Next time you speak to a customer care representative and you're left with the distinct impression that they don't actually care at all – and why should they? You share no common purpose with this person, apart from not wanting to be stuck on the phone with them - then that's oddshoring.

“Look at this, Tim,” she beamed. In a sidebar below her picture was Stella's message to the business community:

FY2008 has been a fantastic year for tactical initiatives and Company X has made unprecedented strides in the field of key strategic unresponsiveness, benefiting stakeholders locally and globally alike looking forward.
Oddshoring is integral to this process and we will aggressively momentumise into FY2009 and beyond looking forward.
Company X is rigorously realigning the way we do business in existing verticals and future horizontals, transforming transformation by bringing real cost savings to customers, increasing satisfaction and upmarginalising all across the industry.
We are young and accelerating and passionate about help desks and will not be hindered in our ambitious growth objectives looking forward and beyond in FY2009.

“Wow,” I said. “That's really something.”
“I'm tickled pink, Tim. I'm finally making some headway. For myself and for this team. I'm doing this for all of us.”
In Stella's book, good PR is the highest state of grace and nothing beats column inches. Recognition of her indubitable talents within the company has been a long time coming.
“So what do you think? Am I on my way or what?” but before I could answer she was on the phone to her friend Becky to pass on the good news - all “OMG!” this and “Crazy bitch!” that – so I headed back to my desk to contemplate Death and modest victories with a small piece of fruit.

Outside my window a hard rain was falling.
Rain and cherry blossom and the greening fields. Rain and Rex the Security Guard, welly deep in cowshit, rounding up the Gloucestershires for milking.

Rain and beside the sopping datacentre a sea of daffodils bobbing like a thousand happy suns, and beyond that, spray on the bypass, the lorries and cars with their vapour trail tails, then further still, beyond the power pylons and car showrooms, the spire of St. Walburga's shrouded in rain, the hopeful of Preston enclouded, this city of workers, the busy bees and the drowsy bees, the boozy bees and cheesy beers and the messy beards and dozy birds, the big mouthed reps and dreaming consultants, the newspaper sellers and kitchen roof playwrights, the know it alls and done it alls, the mid-morning drinkers and occasional thinkers, the queen bees and could have beens.

Rain and the merciless help desk girls with their tight skirts and skimpy blouses.
Rain and those poor helpless help desk boys with their spinning heads and bewildersome desires -
“I've done some shagging in that car park,” says a veteran of the scene.
“Have you? Who? How?”
“Wife weren't pleased when she found out.”
“Wasn't she? Where? When?”
“Ex-wife, I should say.”
- all of nature bursting and budding, jumping like springy lambs, gagging for a warm new world of sunshine.

“Pay no mind to Death. This is a new dawn, Tim,” said Stella when she finally came off the phone, which was today, Wednesday again, and I probably said something like yes, and that I was pleased for her, genuinely, looking forward.

Hairspray

2008-04-16T21:18:00.003Z

Handbags in the car park this morning as an ejaculate of salesmen argued the toss over the last remaining space.
My money was on a skinny guy with white hair sculpted into a jaunty quiff.
“He looks like Tintin,” said Neil.
“Tintin is ginger, isn't he?” replied Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader.
“No,” said Neil. “He's Belgian.”

We were gathered together in Stella's office on the solemn occasion of my annual appraisal, she in the role of appraiser and Neil – who I'm convinced is a befuddled tourist from a distant planet, lost as a suitcase at Terminal 5 – in the guise of impartial referee.
“It's such a cliché to say all managers are incompetent buffoons,” I said. “Present company excepted of course. But it's so true.”

Neil was spraying his head with some kind of dark icky substance.
“There!” he said when he'd finished, paraphrasing from the blurb on the canister. “Now nobody need ever know that I've gone bald!”

I pitched a few examples to back up my argument, instances where I'd fulfilled my duties with typical quiet determination, blah blah, only to see someone else receive all the plaudits.
“Managers are always taken in by heroic gestures,” I said. “This is because they're constantly looking out for eye-catching stories to put in their monthly reports. To them, somebody driving all night to deliver a solution to a customer just ahead of a deadline will always make better copy than the guy who diligently grafted for weeks to produce that solution.”

Stella typed something into her Blackberry then popped it into her bag.
“You'd imagine bosses got where they are because of their ability to make good decisions,” I continued. “But that's not the case, is it? They don't listen and I don't believe they'd be capable of understanding even if they did.”
“Tim, I'm going to stop you there,” said Stella sternly. Her eye contact was unflinching. “Now answer me this.”
“Go on.”
“Does my hair look better up or down?” She gathered it up in one hand, revealing an unusual tattoo on the nape of her neck - “Up?” - then let it fall around her shoulders - “Or down?”

I ummed to fill the silence for a while, then said “I can't believe I never knew Company X has it's own train station. Did you know that?”

A hundred yards beyond the clearing in the beech copse where Bill Surname's retired army chums make base camp, the platform is densely covered in seventeen varieties of Deadly Bramble – and sure, you have to change at Preston, then Southport, then Preston again, so it's hardly on the mainline or anything – but still, a proper station with a ticket office and broken phone boxes and a booth selling coffee and matches.

“Down,” I said, so she tied up her hair with a scrunchy and excused herself before heading off to Mr. Overdone's – house motto: “You'll never know you had it in you” - to meet her friend Becky for lunch.
“Not you,” I said to Neil, my former team leader, who clambered back to his feet, straightened his cravat, then wandered off to stores to try and buy a map of Earth.

Trainspotting

2008-04-07T22:03:00.003Z

7:59 On Time
I double check the contents of my briefcase. Apple. Banana. Little orangey thing. I want to look the part so consider buying The Times en route to the station but there's no time. I put on my bowler hat and lock the front door behind us.
Goodness knows I've had ample opportunity to learn about railway etiquette but nothing really prepares you for your first commute. It's a crisp, cold morning and I'm glad I brought my gloves.
Girlfriend leads the way to the ticket office and stands close by in case I embarrass myself. Her expression says “I'll show you what to do this once, and then you're on your own Mister.”
She has lent me her timetable. I grip it tightly in my hand like it was a winning lottery ticket. This is her thing and it feels like I'm infringing on it.

On the platform a young man is reading a bible. He doesn't look crazy, but then they're the ones you have to watch out for in between looking out for those who actually do look crazy.
The atmosphere is civilised and calm, but when the train arrives I'm separated from Girlfriend in the rush. I suspect she may be glad of this. She was very quick off her marks now I think of it.
I find a seat next to a girl who spends the journey applying and re-applying her makeup. Overcoming the urge to explain how this is a little landmark for me, or tell her that she looked fine the first time round, I earphone up and hug my briefcase close to my chest.

The countryside is a whizzy blur: motorway and hills to the left of us, snow on some of the tops; canal and cows to the right. We're there in next to no time.

Seventh Tree - Goldfrapp

Optimistic

2008-03-31T16:15:00.003Z

I got a bit carried away with my tidying spree and what wasn't thrown out ended up in boxes in the back of a van, and now we live in Lancaster.

We've moved into a lovely old stone house, bright and solid and satisfyingly sturdy looking, just as well since it faces into the prevalent wind.

The road is narrow and I imagine in years gone by there may have been washing lines draped between houses and their opposite numbers, rag and bone men, grubby urchins kicking cabbages and spreading diphtheria, bunting on special occasions, street parties for the coronation, that sort of thing. I'm looking forward to swatting up on local history.

The garden is pretty much a blank canvas so in due course I'll be setting about it with a rusty spade and some compost, but in the meantime I'm waiting in for the flat pack man to deliver us into book shelves and wardrobes.

I'm still getting used to where everything lives: it's taking a little time to bed down kitchen cupboard-wise, so for example the breakfast cereal may not necessarily be where it was yesterday and discovering where potatoes live is a job in itself. Everything is taking a while to find its own level, jostling for position like it at the start of a Grand Prix. Even the fridge announces its pleasure.

Downstairs there's a wood burning stove which makes a boy feel manly to the power of ten, and upstairs I have a lovely new Attic Studio Complex to fantasise about being creative in.
There are whole new vistas to feast my eyes upon. To my right I see rooftops and chimney pots and trees and tidy streets and houses on hills, behind me is a huge derelict looking warehouse and beyond that the river and – most excitingly of all – I have only the sketchiest idea of where I am.
I know that if I'm quiet at any moment I may hear a train go by, and on match days I can hear football fans singing. If I'm feeling daring I might leave the house without a map. To a twerp like myself it's all wonderfully romantic and I'm hoping it stays that way.

Today is Girl On A Train's first day on her new route to work, which I'm hoping to read about when she gets in. I've already got the tea ready, albeit without all the required ingredients on account of not being able to find them, and I'm more or less on top of things, which is such a nice feeling.
Right now I'm off to audit pants and socks, reorganise my trousers and count my blessings, assuming I can discover which box they're in.

Paper and Glue

2008-03-26T19:22:00.002Z

My Mum is a compulsive hoarder.

If she has a new carpet, or fridge, or any other household item you could care to mention, the old one always ends up in the attic. Her house is top heavy with packaging from kettles ancient and modern, long forgotten sofas, broken radio cassette players she hopes might one day resurrect themselves and spring back into active service.
She thinks she's being wise - “I've thrown away so many things only to regret it later” – but all I see is slavery.
She's allowed herself to become not the owner of all this stuff, but owned by it.

There are one or two gems amid the junk though.
My favourite is a box of Christmas tree lights that my Dad would patiently nurse back to life every December. I can see him now – tumbler of Glenfiddich in one hand, voltmeter in the other – chuckling as he read the instruction he'd written years before inside the lid. It's a time capsule to himself.

USE 40WATT/250V MAINS BULB IN LAMP HOLDER TO MAKE TOTAL VOLTS MATCH UP! DON'T ARGUE! JUST DO IT! (IT WORKS!!)
OTHERWISE LITTLE BULBS BLOW!

He would have been one hundred this year.

I'm worried that I've inherited the hoarding gene.
I spent the weekend attempting to practise what I preach, clearing out cupboards of objects I no longer have a use for.
Every now and then Girlfriend would poke her head round the door and tell me how brave I was, what good progress I was making, but the truth is that I was operating at a snail's pace.

Among the things I threw out: an almost full box of Ilford black and white photographic paper, 10 x 8, 100 sheets; ditto Kodak colour paper; a load of perfectly good darkroom equipment – enlarger, safelight, thermometer, measuring jug, tongues and so on; wedding album accessories from a previous career that never took off.
They'd sat ignored in cupboards for several light years and the digital toys that usurped them are a million times better, but it still felt shocking to chuck it all away.
Even worse, what are you supposed to do with old pre-digital cameras? Surely they're not destined for the bin bag too?

What next? Two hundredweight of Q magazines. Unread in years and less lovable than I remembered. I've decided to mark them, then leave them lying around in train station waiting rooms, just to see if any fly back home again. It's not like there's a global shortage of reading matter.

Speaking of which, how about my wince inducingly bad teenage diaries? Excruciating to glance through now, I can't believe the passing of time will do them any favours. And yet, and yet...
Could I bin them? Should I? Does their continued existence add to the sum of human happiness? They don't add to mine. Would I miss them? Nope.

It's madness to allow yourself to be governed by the tyranny of stuff, so it's a no brainer, but on the other hand I don't want to be rash.
Surely teenage diaries - no matter how irritating - are more than just stuff, in the same way that my Dad's Christmas lights memo is more than just stuff. It's just a scrap of cardboard but it's more precious than gold.

I already know where this is going. I'll take my Mum's lead. Stick the bloody diaries in a box in an attic and one day it can be someone else's business. Job done.
The curse of the hoarding gene will outlive the lot of us.

Bleach

2008-03-10T23:01:00.008Z

Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, told us to fold our index and middle fingers toward the palms of our left hands.
“Then place your right thumb under your left nostril to block it up,” she said.
“Do we fucking have to?” asked Mike. “I've got stuff to be getting on with.”
“Inhale with your right nostril and count to four,” she said. “Then gently pinch your right nostril with your left index finger and count to sixteen.”
“Bollocks.”

We think Mike has given up wanking for lent. He's been skipping his usual 10:30 and 3:30 rest breaks for a month now and the tension is getting to all of us.
If it's true, I suggest everybody carries an umbrella on Easter Sunday - when it blows, that thing's going to go off big style. In the meantime his belligerence-o-meter is ratcheting unprecedented highs, so Stella is trying to keep us calm with desk yoga.
“Release your thumb and exhale through your left nostril. Gently does it, guys.”

Mike spent “all fucking weekend” on server moves for Fat Bastards' Pizza Shack, who are moving to new offices in Bamber Bridge. The work consisted of piling loads of IT equipment into a van, tying it down to stop it rolling about, dropping it off at the new place, returning to the old premises, then repeating over and over. Load it up, tie it down, drive, bring it off again, and so on, and so on, “ad fucking nauseum.”
Today he just wanted to chill but Stella made him do yoga instead.

“Now inhale through your left and count to ten,” said Stella. “Hold it, then breathe out through your right.”
“Sorry please,” asked Ivan the Terribly Thorough. “Again. Where should I be breathing?”
Ivan often sits in during our team meetings. This morning, I'd asked if he'd mind leaving his bucket of bleach outside the office as it was making me sneeze. He obviously didn't hear me because the bucket stayed put by the door until Creepy Keith from Accounts charged into the room and knocked it flying.

“I've had the worst weekend in the history of weekends,” Keith complained. Mike looked like he could swing for him.
“BFH,” said Stella. Everybody sneezed.
“Shut the fuck up, Keith," said Mike. "We're trying to do yoga here.” I handed out kitchen towels.
Stella, determined to see her lesson through to the end, gritted her teeth to centre herself, then explained how this exercise balances the brain’s serotonin, the chemical that regulates happiness.
Keith grumbled that he'd been on a disastrous date on Saturday and hadn't experienced happiness in donkey's years.
“I bet it wasn't much fun for the donkey either,” said Ivan. “I'm with Stella on this. Boo fucking hoo.”

At this point Keith pushed Ivan, who landed in Mike's lap, sending toast in many directions at once.
“Air is pushed to the bottom of the lungs,” shouted Stella, “releasing harmful toxins when you breathe out.”
Mike caught Keith with a left hook, splitting his bottom lip.
Keith yelped as blood spurted down his shirt, and was about to strike back when he slipped in the pool of bleach and hit the ground with a heavy thud. He sat there for a few moments, incandescent with rage while everybody either smirked or sneezed or both, before storming out of the room, hollering about his delicate skin and expensive suit, and how somebody was going to pay for this.
“Man up, why don't you?” Ivan called after him, and Stella said, “You will feel relaxed after this exercise, particularly in the shoulder area.”
All over the floor soggy pieces of bleached toast lay scattered, some splattered with blood. Mugs lay resting where they had fallen.
“You may even experience a heightened feeling of perception,” said Stella who, perceiving there to be no further business, called the meeting to a close.

This evening, after the going home bell had rung and everyone had scarpered, I discussed recent events with Stella while she prepared her next session.
“Mike got all that kit to Fat Bastards' new gaff then,” I said.
“If you feel people’s negativity clinging to you, simply wipe it away,” she replied.
“Seems odd to think about him actually doing some work for a change.”
“Use energetic sweeping motions with your hands as if dusting yourself down.”
She swung her arms in wide, wild circles.
“As you wipe, tell yourself: ‘I am removing all traces of...'” and her arms sped up, as if she was a helicopter about to take off.

This went on for two or three minutes. It was like she'd fallen into some eighties style yuppie witch doctor trance.
Oh crap, what if she's having a seizure?
I was about to call for help when she eventually slumped into her chair and was suddenly super calm, beatific.

“He made a bloody big fuss about it though, didn't he?” I said. “I mean, it was only a few trips in a van.”
“Too right, Tim,” she agreed, her voice softened now, completely relaxed. “My friend Becky is always asking me to tie her up and bring her off ,” she sighed, “and you never hear me complaining.”
“Didn't Ivan do a great job tidying up in here?” I said. “Just smell it! Mmm, now that's alpine fresh.”

Outside my window the car park was almost empty.
Rex the Security Guard was on his rounds, tending to some storm battered daffodils. Geraldine the Company X goat followed close behind, chewing on his extension lead.
I checked that Stella was going to be okay – Blackberry? Check. Bottle of Evian? Check – then made my excuses and headed for home.

The Book Lovers

2008-02-28T23:35:00.003Z

I've been blogslapped by diminutive wannabe French chick Petite Anglaise.
I've always considered the solipsistic business of memes and blahblahs to reek of bullying - “You will join in the fun, motherfucker” - and now I'm experiencing it at first hand.
She's since written to apologise and say I don't have to if I don't want to. Yeah right, I know a threat when I see one. Reading between the lines, the message is loud and clear: until I get this post out of the way, I am her bitch.

So, with cheerful voice - I've been tasked with finding the nearest book and typing out sentences six, seven and eight from page 123.

This is what we have been reduced to. Hugh blows the yucca pollen off his blackened shrimp while I push back the sleeves of my borrowed sport coat and search the meat tower for my promised potatoes.
“There they are, right there.”

It's from Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, which I like a lot. It's one of those books where someone always mentions in the reviews “I laughed so much they made me get off the bus,” or something. I recommend it highly.

Now the bit where I attempt blogslapping three others:
Philosophical brainbox Geoff at 40three.
Wildean wit and occasional grump of this parish, Backroads
New favourite blogger, lovely Georgina at Wondering Heights.

Ip, dip, you're it. But obviously, you don't have to if you don't want to.

Murmur

2008-02-20T23:21:00.003Z

Charlotte, Bill Surname CEO's loyal PA, scoots round the building in the throes of a mid-week crisis.
“Oh my goodness, oh my kittens and bedsocks! Wednesday already and what have I done with my life?”
She buzzes like a dying wasp on your windowsill, frantic, desperate. You don't know whether to ignore her or do the decent thing, so you go fetch yourself a coffee style drink and sort of cake thing, hoping she'll have fizzled out by the time you get back.

Poor Charlotte - it's a difficult time for her, what with the FTSE dropping out of the sky and runs on the banks, panic on the streets of Carlisle, Dublin, Dundee, Humberside, the air thick with the possibility of negative equity and now this: this royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, this biscuit nation awash with ruffians, immigrants and ne'er do wells. Fear stalks the land and we're sinking into the marshes.

In the day she flaps like a parrot on whizz, a squawking blur of stress in a pashmina shawl, clicking manically at a stopwatch, customers fleeing as if from an exploding volcano. She beats them back into the building with her clipboard, the consequences of doing nothing too drastic to contemplate.
Sea levels rising, icecaps melting, to procrastinate is to die.
The woman is a picture of abandonment anxiety, and she's out of control.

At night she self-medicates with Brasso, polishing Bill Surname's money long into the wee small hours.
A labour of love, a life measured out in farthings and guineas, the pounds, shillings and pence of unrequited longing.
Charlotte, we do whatever we must to keep ourselves sane but those sacks of coins sound like prisoners' chains. You've turned into a living ghost.

It wasn't always so.
Once she was wild and carefree and love flowed freely and the living was good, or maybe that was just something on the telly she fell asleep in front of.
She gets so confused these days. I was beautiful and I had choices. A woman with a good figure and a winning smile will always have options.
I'll wash the dishes tomorrow sometime; I'll just finish off this wine. Her eyes roll back into her head and she's gone again.
The dead light of the TV screen scatters like crumbs across her living room carpet.

The lights are all out at Valium Heights. Only the dying embers of the fire keep darkness at bay.
Crumpled Telegraph at his feet, glass of port by his side, Bill Surname's leather armchair squeaks and farts as he dozes restlessly in the library.
“Should have sold in 2000. Bloody fool.”
He dreams of sausages and secret passages behind oak panelled walls, of hidden treasure and missing homework and caned backsides.
“Won't get another offer like that now. Greedy bugger.”

Once there was a girl. What was her name? Christine? Collette? A womanly woman, would have moved Heaven and Earth for you, Old Boy. But you turned her down. Thought you could take your pick.

Rain lashes at the window and something spooks the horses. Away in her enclosure, Geraldine the Company X goat bleats cheerlessly.
“You'll be working 'til you drop, Billy Boy. You've been a bloody fool all your life.”

Beyond that, the datacentre: tape silos clunk and whirl, robots spring to life, backups run, contracts are fulfilled, money is made. Somebody somewhere in the world is waking up, logging on, running a report. A little less memory for the rest of us.

Bill Surname mumbles darkly, shifts in his chair. The last of the ashes burns out.
“Didn't know whether to ignore her or do the decent thing,” he murmurs. “Silly sod. Won't get another offer like that now.”

Your Cover's Blown

2008-02-19T23:27:00.004Z

The postman delivers my Penguin!!!

Last year I signed a contract with quite famous book publisher Penguin. The arrangement was that in return for letting them use one of my witty comments in one of their books, I would receive a free copy.
The book is Petite Anglaise (Hard Cover) by one Catherine Sanderson.
I'm up to chapter three already and haven't spotted any spelling mistakes yet, which I think is excellent, especially for a first edition. I always knew the girl could write.
Unfortunately the book has a daft girly jacket, which will make it difficult for me to read during my lunch hour without arousing suspicion among colleagues that I read girl's books.
If only they'd consulted me this embarrassing oversight could have been avoided. I'm going to swap it for a book jacket with a picture of a car being blown up, or maybe of a man checking his levels in a manly fashion, perhaps while smoking a pipe.
Despite this obvious flaw I hope it sells truckloads and wish her nothing but well in her exciting new career, etc.

On Sunday me and Girlfriend walked up a hill.
Parlick is good for those out of practice, because of the favourable effort to reward ratio: it's steep but you're at the top in less than half an hour, and the views are something else. It's fell walking for the impatient. On a clear day you can see where you've come from.
On the way up we were overtaken by a chap with a large pack on his back. I chatted to him briefly about thermals but could tell I was holding him back. Here he is flying back down again.
It was so beautiful and peaceful up there; I'd almost forgotten what it's like.

Driving home from work last night the sunset over Granny's Bay was possibly the most spectacular I've ever seen.
Of course I didn't have a camera with me.
It inspired me to return there tonight and I spent a good while trying to capture the car lights swooshing round the corner, the point where the little bay suddenly opens up and reveals itself to you. This is my favourite spot around here and I'm quite pleased with this snap.

The Queen Is Dead

2008-02-11T00:41:00.000Z

“So can you tell me about your hair?” asks Lisa, who will be my stylist this evening.
She is running her fingers through my luscious flowing locks, prodding my head here, patting it there, checking for texture and unusual bumps.
She wears the expression of the professionally concerned, as if she were a vet presented with a sick piglet. I expect her to ask “And when did you first notice there was a problem?”

“Well,” I say, suddenly aware of my lack of fluency in salon-speak. “It's quite long. I think it needs, erm, shortening.”
I wave my hand in the general direction of the northern hemisphere of my head. “Sort of here, and maybe here too,” I suggest cluelessly. “But I quite like my floppy fringe. Leave that long-ish, if possible. Please.”
My floppy fringe keeps me boyish looking and cute. It is far and away my best feature.

“Don't worry,” she solemnly reassures me. “This is what we're going to do.”
Then she describes how and why she plans to take some of the weight off, and thin it out a bit, and trim around my ears (rather than through them, which is comforting) and fluff and feather and tussle and generally liven things up a bit. I feel like a 1960s living room about to be redecorated.

I think about Dad, who would have run a mile before entering an establishment like this. He'd have been scared stiff.
Never one for parting with money on something he could literally take a good stab at himself, for him the expression 'pudding bowl haircut' meant precisely that. I was eleven years old before I entered my first gentleman's hairdressers', which is how long it took to save up the pocket money.
The archetypal English amateur enthusiast, inventing nuclear fission in his garden shed purely as a cheapskate alternative to buying a microwave, Dad's frugalness even extended to performing his own dentistry.
Lisa orders another cappucino and leads me away to be shampooed.

I would have been twenty two, shy and alone in an unfamiliar town, when I first had my hair professionally washed.
It needed cutting so I stepped into the nearest hairdressers' I found and washing was part of the package. I hated it.
It felt seedy and wrong, as if I'd violated the girl's space and she'd violated mine. An unwelcome incursion into my comfort zone. It felt like one small step away from paying for sexual favours.

Now I'm older and more self-assured, and I'm neither disgusted nor excited by the thought of a stranger washing my hair.
Which isn't to say that I don't quite like it, because I do. It's relaxing. And the remote controlled chair that massages your back, as if there was a dwarf running up and down inside the padding, is relaxing and kind of fun too.
I've merely stopped over-processing the political implications.

I began coming here about a year ago, mainly because I was curious to see for myself the difference between a £5 haircut and a £35 one. It's a bit like when you try your first expensive bottle of wine, to see if there really can be a justification in that Bloody Hell! How Much??? price hike.
And do you know what? I think you can notice the difference. For one thing, young women try to cop off with you at Air gigs, which is worth thirty five quid of anybody's money.

“When did you last have it cut?” asks Lisa and I can't remember. Five months? Six? I've let it grow quite long this time, again out of curiosity.

On a good morning, if I've managed to apply the unguents correctly, I look ravishing. Stallionesque. Handsome beyond belief. Ladies and gentlemen of all persuasions - quite frankly you would. I'm the stuff of your wildest dreams.
By the time I reach the office, its already starting to unravel. These wet and windy winter mornings aren't kind to one of such coiffeured excellence. I'm dishevelled and not in a good way.
By lunchtime I'm a sociopath. My boyishly floppy fringe has become a greasy, menacing seventies style side parting. In huge tabloid font it screams the words Serial Killer. Don't let this man into your homes, your schools, your neighbourhoods. Call the police and do not approach.
I am more Fred West than George Best, the stuff of your parents' nightmares, and this is what Lisa is here to fix, although I don't put it to her in so many words.

She snips and I sip my coffee and we burble contentedly about holiday plans and our respective employers and traffic congestion in and out of Preston.
This is what I've learned from my year in thirty five quid haircuts: I've had male stylists and female stylists, and none of them ever give you what you ask for. They just do what they were going to do anyway. I've come to the conclusion that they are simply projecting onto you the hairstyles they wish their boyfriends had.

I look into the mirror and it's all gone. My boyishness, my devilish charm, my rakish fringe all vanished, gone somewhere nice on it's holidays, won't be back for a good few weeks at least. Floor sweepings.

Lisa asks how I like it and I say “Great thanks,” hand her my credit card and she books me in for another appointment three months from now.

Bright Lights, Big City

2008-02-02T22:48:00.000Z

We don't go in for socialising at Company X so I get my 'works night out' kicks by going out with Girlfriend's lot. That's fine because they're now my friends too so it doesn't feel awkward or anything.
They went bowling after work last night, a group taking in the whole office rather than just my circle of pals. Girlfriend had opted out, and I didn't fancy going on my own and having people wonder who the hell was this unaccompanied stranger gatecrashing their bowling fun.
Juggling Protege was in a similar boat, so we arranged to have our own non-works night out and let people join us if they wanted, and it worked pretty well. JP and Charlie met me in favoured Preston pub, and we went for pizza and caught up.

JP has discovered the joys of nighttime photography, especially liking the bit where car headlights appear as long ribbons of light, so we've agreed to have a tripod night in Liverpool sometime.
Charlie was her usual perky self. She said they did darkroom theory at college but not practice, which is missing the point slightly.
I was brought up the hard way, spending gazillions of hours dodging and burning and producing test strips, playing Russian roulette with dermatitis in blacked out rooms. I said I didn't think she'd missed much.

Back in favoured pub we were joined by the others, giddy with post-bowling excitement. Leanne, Fairly Famous Actor and Gareth had had their picture taken in an automatic pencil style portrait booth. It wasn't exactly flattering. “Scarf? That's not a scarf. That's one of my chins.”

Leanne lamented how going to work isn't fun like it used to be. She and Harriet are going to San Diego later this year. “I never knew going out with someone could be so easy,” she said.
Canoeing Instructor is dietting and looking well on it.
I finally met the much discussed Mrs. Gareth of Gareth and Mrs. Gareth fame. She was more mumsy than I'd imagined, less flighty. From this sighting, I got the impression he was her little boy.

On the last train home FFA – like myself, a little under the influence by now – told me how hard it can be getting anything theatrical off the ground in Blackpool. He admitted that, to a greater or lesser extent, the amateur dramatics thing is about hoping to meet women. Which is fair enough. He said he was off to a meeting the next day for some new venture a friend is launching. He's keeping optimistic.

Pleasant Valley Sunday

2008-01-28T22:12:00.000Z

We Sunday eveninged at a secret location in ruralest central Lancs.

Joella and M were mini-breaking in a cottage not much larger than a Volvo, and in exchange for hints and tips on fun things to do in the Forest of Bowland in the cold and rain, we were fed and taken to the pub. I think we got a pretty good deal.
The pub was close enough to make it hardly worth putting shoes on for the walk, and me and Girlfriend drank much more than was sensible for a school night.
After that we listened to music, talked gibberish and drank some more. It was all terrifically agreeable.

We slept in bunk beds which, what with all the swaying inside the room, put me in mind of the Hull to Zeebrugge ferry.
And we were woken by someone next door with the world's loudest vacuum cleaner, who I assume had been hankering for hours to do some cleaning and at seven o'clock decided they'd put it off long enough.
The drive into work took absolutely ages – note to self: don't go and live at a secret location in ruralest central Lancs, unless I want a five hour daily commute – and all day everything has tasted of raspberry sambuca.

I'm afraid I had to wikipedia a list of American States to find the one which didn't contain any of the letters in “George W Bush,” Joella's pub question.
There's only so many times you can say “Ooh! I think it's Hawaii... Oh. Maybe not,” before you start getting on your own nerves.

Running Up That Hill

2008-01-26T23:05:00.000Z

I'm a sucker for any view taking in rooftops and church spires. Me and Girlfriend have been wandering around Lancaster a lot lately, and this strikes me as a particularly fine scene.

It was taken outside Lancaster Castle, which according to the HM Prison Service website has an operational capacity of 243, is not presently accepting Life Sentence prisoners and has some restrictions on long term prisoners.
The website fails to mention that there are several great pubs in the immediate vicinity and that the town has a thriving cultural life.

I have a mental image of residents digging their way under those chunky medieval walls to sup a few pints in the John O'Gaunt, maybe catching a band at the Yorkshire House, or perhaps something theatrical and worthy at the Dukes, before returning to their cells unnoticed in time for lights out. Being on the West Coast Main Line, the town also enjoys excellent transport links, so maybe a day out shopping in, say, Liverpool or even London wouldn't be out of the question.

I spotted this in Waterstones, which was uplifting in its own peculiar way. Still going for full price too, fair play to the boy.

King Of Comedy

2008-01-24T20:55:00.000Z

I was talking to Terry this afternoon about the Hollywood scriptwriters' strike crisis.
Soon the shortage of imported telly will be having calamitous effects on the British TV schedules and, thus also herewith, Terry's entire way of life. The ramifications are enormous and he's getting jittery.

Neil, my former team leader, who had popped into our office to return some Post It notes he'd borrowed last year - “These are useless to me now. Some idiot's written all over them” - stopped dead in his tracks.
“When the scriptwriters are on their picket lines,” he mused, “does that mean they all walk round carrying placards with nothing written on them?”

“That's pretty funny,” I said, scribbling it down. “I'll try and remember that. Pass it off as one of my own.”
“What's funny?” he asked.
“The striking writers,” I said, as patiently as I could muster. “With their placards.”
He stared at me blankly. So did Terry, who added “One of your own what?”
“Nothing written on them?” I said. “That's quite, you know...” My voice trailed off. “...Funny. Unlikely as that sounds now.”

Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, marched into the office reading aloud from a magazine.
“Do I create a buzz whenever I walk into a room?” she asked.
We weren't sure if it was rhetorical, but then she repeated herself, in that stroppy headmistress tone she uses when she thinks we're being thick. “Come on guys, it's a simple question.”
She rolled up the magazine and clouted Neil on the back of the head with the walking stick she was holding in her other hand.
“Ouch!” he whimpered. “What was that for?”
“It's from when I broke my leg,” she replied. “I don't need it anymore so it's going back to the shop.”
He looked pitiful and stumbled out into the corridor rubbing his head. “I can hear a buzzing now, if that's what you mean,” he mumbled.

The truth of the matter is, yes, I think she probably does create something akin to a buzz, but I'm not going to admit as such to her.
You can just sense when she's in a room, you really can. It's not an aura in the mystic hippy sense, more of an inaudible whining like what only dogs can hear, except that you can hear it too.
She's like a smoke alarm that needs it's battery changing. She bleeps incessantly until you do something about it.

Stella wasn't going to let it drop so I put my phone on speaker mode and listened intently to the dialling tone for a few seconds.
“Nope,” I said. “No buzzing here, Boss.”
Silence, obviously.
Mike returned from his 3:30 wank, took one look at me and said “Are you on fucking drugs?”
“Okay,” I conceded. “Not as good my placard joke, but it might just get a laugh in New Zealand.”

“If those Hollywood scriptwriters were here now,” said Terry, thumbing through his Maplin catalogue, “they'd all be shitting themselves.”
Then everybody went back to work and I poured an apple and rhubarb yoghurt down my cardigan. Nothing, as they say, goes to waste.

The Blood Donor

2008-01-18T22:40:00.000Z

I've become convinced that Neil, my former team leader, is not of this planet but am yet to come up with concrete proof.
Everything about him - his mannerisms, the things he says, the way he goes about his business – indicates that he's busking it. You're a fake Neil, and I'm on your case.

It's a bit like when you're at a posh meal and you're not sure which cutlery to use, so you wait for someone else to make the first move then copy what they do.
Only Neil, being a good deal dimmer than your average alien life form, always manages to get his wires crossed, mistakes the white noise for the signal and the signal for the white noise, tries to eat his soup with a fish knife, wears his napkin like it was a party hat, follows women into the Ladies to “freshen up his makeup and generally bitch,” and remains oblivious to the commotion he leaves in his wake.

Ages ago he held a door open for me as we passed in the corridor. My mind was elsewhere at the time, nothing new there I suppose, and instead of saying thank you – “Kew” in it's shortened form – or “Ta”, the word that left my mouth was a combination of the two: “Car.” Ever since he thinks that Car is the word to use when thanking me. Nobody else, of course, just me. I tried putting him straight but got nowhere and life's too short so I've let it pass.
There are worse fates in the world than being incorrectly thanked by a manager from outer space.

Today was Blood Donor day here at Company X and I thought this would be my big chance to unmask him. I've been priming him all week.
“Are you going to give blood on Friday, Neil?”
“Erm, what's that?”
“It's where you donate some of your blood to someone else who needs it more than you.”
“No, I mean what's blood?”
“Oh. It's this red liquid, or fluorescent green in your case, hopefully, that carries oxygen and stuff around your body. It's great.”
“Car Tim, but I think I'll take a rain check on that.”
“Oh come on,” I said. “It's the easiest karma you'll ever get. You get an hour off work to have a lie down, and at the same time you're giving a wonderful gift to, you know, your fellow man and that.”
He shifted uneasily in his high chair. “Nobody needs my blood more than I do. Car Tim, but no car.”
“Neil,” I persisted. “When else are you going to be restrained flat on your back by a woman in a nurse's outfit? For free? You'd like that, wouldn't you? I know I do.”

By Thursday I could tell he was wavering on this last point.
Something about the thought of all those pipes and tubes must have rekindled memories of his travels in the mothership, and the promise of buxom Earth Matrons in stiffly starched uniforms proved more than he could resist.

This morning we walked together down to the Company X cricket pavilion where the blood donor people had set up their equipment.
Neil, who learned everything he knows about the National Health Service from watching old Carry On films, was giddy with excitement. I think he was expecting to be forcefully manhandled by Barbara Windsor.
I, meanwhile, was anticipating camera crews and maybe a speaking part on the six o'clock news:
“This is a great day for the good people of Preston who can once more sleep soundly knowing this alien lunatic is safely under lock and key. I only did what anyone else would have done in similar circumstances. It was the least I could do.”

As it transpired, I was turned away on the flimsy grounds that “I have a chesty cough, sore throat, cold sore or am coming down with a cold.”
I explained that having a chesty cough is just my natural state these days and that, honestly, I was fine, but they were having none of it.
Seeing me being rejected, Neil lost his nerve completely and claimed not only to have the mother of all man flus, but also declared he was on antibiotics, had received complicated dental work in the last seven days, and had had his ears, nose, face and Prince Albert pierced in the last six months.
“Is that going to be a problem, Nurse?” he innocently enquired.
What probably clinched it was his belief that he was pregnant or had had a baby in the last nine months.
“Well, which?” asked the nurse.
“Both?” he wondered uncertainly.

I was livid.
“It obviously wasn't meant to be,” he sighed as we headed back in the pouring rain. “But car anyway for thinking of me, Tim.”
I put up my hood and pretended not to have heard him. Investigations are ongoing.

Creep

2008-01-15T23:40:00.000Z

Tuesday night, live at the Conservative Club: me attempting Creep on the ukulele. This is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you, etc.

Jump

2008-01-02T00:27:00.000Z

Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, teetered into the office under a pile of new motivational management books for her reference library.
“Why Can't You Be More Like Me? Excellence In Unconvincing Times.”
“False Hope: A Guide To Staying Positive In The Face Of Conclusive Evidence To The Contrary.”
“Weed and Feed: Systematic Demoralisation In The Corporate Gardenplace.”

“Happy New Year,” she trilled. “Back to old clothes and porridge.”
“Porridge what?” asked Terry.
“It's just something my nan used to say. 'Back to old clothes and porridge.' You know. Now that Christmas is over?”
He gave her his best 'I haven't got a clue what you're talking about' look.
“It's a figure of speech,” she explained. “You don't take it literally.”

“Porridge has a low glycaemic index,” I said. “Energy food. Don't knock porridge. Stabilise your blood glucose levels and you can stabilise your moods.”
“This is Ralph Lauren,” said Stella. “Brand new, obviously.”
“And it does wonders for your....” I hesitated. “Well. I'm going to stop the Porridge Marketing Board thing before I go too far. Can't have you thinking I'm mad or anything.”
“No, you're absolutely right Tim,” said Stella, which is unusual. “All through the holidays my friend Becky saw to it that I got my oats every morning and I've never felt better. Brilliant, in fact.”
“That'll be the B vitamins,” I said. “And the zinc and iron. I'm really going to stop now.”

In an instant, Creepy Keith from Accounts galloped downstairs and was all over Stella like norovirus jumping aboard a new host.
He launched into his terrible Christmas, his falling out with Jeanette from the Introductions Agency, his being caught speeding, family troubles, the downturn in the housing market, the chavs down the road that darken his day, cold callers, the government, taxes, the untraceable phone calls in the middle of the night enquiring after his services as a male escort, the whole degrading experience that is simply existing. A classic text in victimhood. He hates everything and everyone, and everybody hates him back, and the only joy in his life is telling Stella about it.

“I'm telling you Babe,” he screamed, “they're trying to steal my identity, and when I find out who they are I'm going to break their legs.”
“Two questions,” she replied. “Who in their right mind would want to be you? And when you find your identity thief, how will you know they're not you and you're not them?”
“Oh shut up.”
“You'd have to break your own legs as well, to rule out the possibility that they were right and you were wrong.”
He stormed off at this point.
“I had a wonderful Christmas, thank you for asking,” she shouted after him. “I could break your legs for you now, if you like.”

I caught Stella's eye and mimed enjoying a wholesome bowl of porridge. I blew on my pretend spoon then swallowed a mouthful of hot tasty goodness.
“What the fuck are you doing, Tim?” she asked.
“Looks like a certain creepy accountant could you use something to stabilise his moods, don't you think?” I said. “Mmm, not too hot and not too cold. Just right.”
Silence.
“You're pretending to have no idea what I'm talking about, aren't you?”
More silence.
Outside my window Rex the security guard was dismantling the Christmas tree and packing away the lights. The sky darkened and the rain fell harder.
I wandered down to the wonky vending machine for a coffee style drink and when I returned we carried on like nothing had happened.

With My Little Ukulele In My Hand

2007-12-30T14:35:00.000Z

Oh the weather outside is frightful and it's made all the doors in the house swell up and jam in their frames.
The other day I had to take half the back door off it's hinges - it's one of those stable doors; looks like it should have someone called Dobbin looking out from it, chomping on a carrot - and spent a couple of hours planing it down and generally bringing it all back into alignment. Man's work.
It opens and closes like a dream now, which means of course that next time we have a dry summer it's going to be terribly draughty.

I'm on my second chesty cough of December. It seems these last three weeks of coldlessness were just a temporary respite. Oh, it was lovely not snivveling or snuffling – I should have made more of it while it lasted.
Considering how I consume enough vitamins and vegetable matter to run a small family car for a month, this seems extremely unfair. I'm going to write somebody a stiff letter of complaint just as soon as I can summon the energy.

It's wrong to have favourites, but the Christmas gift I've been pawing more than any other is the ukulele which Girlfriend kindly bought me. I've already learned most of the essential chord fingerings, and if it's a ukulele version of The Rolling Stones' Wild Horses you're after, or perhaps Radiohead's Creep, then I'm your man.
And it's small enough to play in bed while Girlfriend's asleep and I've got the insomnias, so that's a bonus.

And the most inspired present I bought Girlfriend? Quite possibly the bottle of vodka to which I added two red chili peppers, thus creating – hey! - chili vodka.
Goes down very well mixed with a measure of Cointreau, which is easier to drink than it is to spell. I'm off to buy some ginger beer now and then I'm going to make her a mule. That'll teach her.
Chin chin, down the hatch, and so forth.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

2007-12-19T23:24:00.000Z

My mince pie arrives!!!

Company X isn't having a Christmas do this year, but instead we've each been given a mince pie.
They were sent in the post – a nice personal touch - in green jiffy bags with an accompanying card signed by Charlotte, Bill Surname's loyal PA.
“Bill Surname wishes you good luck for the festive period. Don't forget to come back on the 27th, Charlotte.”
I'm a contrary sort of fellow so brought mine into the office with me. I decree today take a pie back to work day.

The datacentre is blank, windowless, free from Christmas cheer in all its varied manifestations. Not a soul stirs and neither do many of the servers, which is a worry.
I was hoping for a winding down kind of week, but you can't always get what you want.
Hours drip slowly by under glaring fluorescent lights. You'd never know whether it was day or night as you wait for filesystems to go fsck themselves, find their feet, put themselves back in the frame.

Outside the cold takes your breath away. Everyone has gone home. Only Geraldine the Company X goat remains in her pen, blinking at you accusingly. What? What are you staring at, Goat Eyes?
You treat yourself to a coffee style drink from the wonky vending machine, skim over a newspaper you wouldn't normally read and eat the bashed about mince pie – a little dry you feel, but well seasoned - before making your way back to the server room.
Sometimes it feels like your loyalty is a given. Crumbs all over your cardigan.

Merry Christmas Everybody

2007-12-13T18:51:00.000Z

A hard frost and an early start.
I'd quite forgotten how beautiful motorway sunrises can be, the romance of being faraway before breakfast, the radio for company and Stay Hot For Ages Coffee for warmth. Six lanes of traffic, some of them moving.
I played counting how many aeroplanes I could see at the same time – nine! - wondering where their occupants were off to in such a perfect sky. Their vapour trails looked like scraps of wool wiggling across the great blue yonder; glowworms; giant kisses scrawled in silver ink by a child or a drunk.
By the time I reached The Faulty Sprocket Works I was toasty enough to eat and bursting for a wee.

I had a satisfying day solutioning miscellaneous problems, all the ladies in the office thinking I was terrific – Put that mistletoe away Ms. Purchasing! I hardly know you, etc. - and was back in Preston with time to spare. I put in a full load at the Company X launderette before barbershop practice.
Neil, my former team leader, folding away a T-shirt that read “Tell your Dad to stop texting me,” explained how I need to chuff my potatoes until they're almost falling apart. I tried telling him I already do but he was having none of it. After that it was all stuffing talk. I told him I didn't, but again, little odds. The fug was steamy.

Under a twinkling corrugated iron roof, the atmosphere in the rifle range is congenial tonight - “Here we are as in old-en days, happy gold-en days of yore. Faith-ful friends who are dear to us gath-er near to us___ once more (once more)” - and I've volunteered to do a turn at next week's Christmas bash.
Merry Christmas Everybody anybody?

Up On The Roof

2007-11-22T21:26:00.000Z

Coughs and sneezes spread diseases, and when Company X blows its nose it practically lifts the roof off.
Everybody's got something or is coming down with it. I've had mine for a fortnight and just can't shake it off, so at lunchtime I went up to the roof in the hope of a bit of peace and quiet from all the germy spluttering.

“You there!” called Bill Surname CEO, waving his hanky in my direction. “What do you know about telescopes?”
I walked over to his plinth.
“Regular one in for service. They loaned me this. Doesn't bloody work.”
I removed the lens cap from his courtesy telescope and suggested he try it now.
“Capital! I can see for miles!” He seemed surprised by this.
“Name?” he asked.
“Tim,” I replied. “Unix team.”
“How long have you been at Company X, Tom?”
“Twelve years.”
“Excellent! And how are your settling in? Finding your way around alright?”
“Very well thank you,” I said. “Everybody has been very kind.”
“Good good!”

Bill Surname CEO surveyed his kingdom. Swooshing great rolls of rainclouds skudded across the gun metal skyline. Away in the distance, the spire of St. Walburge's slipped in and out of consciousness. Further away to the south, the Winter Hill transmitter shuddered and swayed in the wind. All of Granadaland huddled in the workaday gloaming.
Down in the lower pasture, Rex the security guard rounded up the dairy herd for milking time, and in the Sunken Heart Rose Gardens a group of first year helpdeskers congregated furtively before making their way to the potting shed to play spunky biscuit.

“I say, Tom,” he said. “See those cars approaching the car park? A fiver says Death makes it to the parking space first.”
“Alright, you're on,” I said and we looked on as Death (Mitsubishi Arse Pump) and Creepy Keith from Accounts (Audi Razorblade) battled it out for the only available spot.
It ended, as per usual, with a screech of brakes and the tinkling of brakelights, and Charlotte, Bill Surname's loyal PA, rushing out with a bucket of Junior Dettol and a mop. Keith was beside himself with rage.

Poor Charlotte - it's a difficult time for her, what with the turkey order in chaos, and half the country's banking details left lying around on a park bench for tramps to fight over and sell to the highest bidder, and now this: Steve McClaren.

I motioned to reach for my wallet, wondering whether Bill Surname would wave it away with an extravagant “Put it away, Tom, I don't need your money! Buy your mother some flowers instead!”
None was forthcoming.

Nighthawks

2007-11-18T22:14:00.000Z

The party was pretty good.

I caught up with folks I've not seen in a while, Charlie and Leanne and Canoeing Instructor and Fairly Famous Actor, and there was drinking and a bit of dancing and balloons, so it was good fun. Somebody brought along the only Abba compilation in the world that doesn't have a decent track on it, which was strange.
This snapshot is the closest I've ever come to capturing that whole 'Henri Cartier-Bresson Decisive Moment' thing which photography buffs twitter on about. I like it a lot and the subject is generous enough to allow me to post it here, which I really appreciate. So cheers Shorty, x.

Today we met Joella in Favoured Pub, which was pleasant as always. It's the kind of place where, once you've settled down, it's very difficult to tear yourself away and not have just one more pint. She reckons we would have enjoyed the Patti Smith gig. Hmmm.

Continuing today's arts theme, there's a shop near us with an old fashioned curved window, and it always reminds me of Hopper's Nighthawks.
It's wasted as a soft furnishings store. In the background is a neon lit Italian restaurant, and I've always meant to get round to taking a few snaps to see how the comparison holds up.
So this is my rain soaked 'on the way home from an afternoon in the pub' cover version of Nighthawks.

“Sure is quiet tonight, Bobby Jo. Too quiet. Etc.”

Someone To Watch Over Me

2007-11-17T23:55:00.000Z

There are half a dozen or so kids on the train, in their early teens, slightly frazzled and sugared out from a day at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. They chat happily, joshing amongst themselves, joking about this and that. They are unsupervised by adults and perfectly well behaved.

Two slightly older kids settle into the seats in front of us, maybe sixteen years old, a boyfriend and girlfriend.
She is pretty, sports long eyelashes almost certainly assisted by some product of the beauty industry, and has clear, glowing skin. She wears a pristine white beanie hat.
He's not one of those 'pretty boy' boyfriends that a certain type of teenage girl seems to be drawn towards – presumably because they're so like themselves. But that said, he is also wearing a beanie.
They sit in a companionable silence, relaxed in their own company. They're studying some photos of the pair of them strapped into harnesses, laughing as they clutch each other's arms. The pictures are on a single A4 sheet, arranged in a T-shape, in such a way that you can create a photo-cube with them, and were taken on one of the rides - Infusion, I think. After a while the girl carefully places the A4 sheet back in its envelope, puts it in her bag, and gives her boyfriend a little kiss on the cheek. Then I notice that they are signing.

The teenage couple are deaf. And because I don't often come across deaf people, I'm now fascinated.
When the ticket collector comes along, it's the girl who does the talking, in barely a whisper. The ticket collector takes a moment to twig that she's speaking with a deaf person, but when she does is patient and sympathetic, and shows her the display on the ticket machine to try to help explain the transaction.

As the train pulls into Preston the couple sit up, eagerly looking for a sign with the name of the station. They're clearly unfamiliar with where we are - not fretful or panicky or anything, but simply concerned not to muck up their journey. It's Saturday evening. You don't won't to miss your stop, or hop on the wrong train and find yourself late at night in, say, Glasgow or Plymouth, when you promised your parents you'd be back in Chorley by teatime. It's easily done.
We leave the train and climb the steps to the footbridge, and I look over my shoulder to see the two of them standing on the platform, speaking with the conductor again, just trying to clarify where exactly they are and where they need be to get to where they're going.

I'm trying hard here not to sentimentalise or patronise – Hold The Front Page! Deaf Teenagers Perfectly Capable Of Looking After Themselves Shock! - but I found this little tableaux terrifically moving.
It's that old 'Two drifters off to see the world' thing. Two people plucking up their courage and saying “Sure, we can do this,” then heading out into a bewildering world – not to say an occasionally hostile one. I felt like I was watching a story unfold, and wanted to turn the page to read what happened next, to see how the plot would develop. It was genuinely humbling.

And – but of course! – you take a scene like this and internalise it to inspect what it says about yourself.
When I was sixteen and utterly hopeless, I would have dearly loved to have somebody sweet and companionable to walk the world with, someone to look out for and in turn be looked out for by. Who wouldn't? It would have transformed me, and God knows I was ready for transformation.
So I guess what we're discussing here is envy and regret. And that's never pretty, is it? Move along people, there's nothing to see. No, really.

I try – not very clearly or succinctly – to explain all this to Girlfriend as she tugs my arm, and we head up the steps, over the footbridge and out into the rain to look for the party.
“That couple in front of us,” I say. “Did you notice they were deaf?”
“Yeah,” she says.
“Yeah. Me too.”

Footloose

2007-11-14T21:52:00.000Z

Tabs waltzed into our office with an armful of photocopying and was immediately knocked flying by Creepy Keith from Accounts who was heading in the opposite direction at some velocity. She let out a screech. He didn't even notice.

“Forget libido,” he bellowed into his mobile, somewhere by the wonky vending machine by now, judging from the distinctive echo. “Right now, Jeannette, I'd be amazed if you could find me someone with a pulse. What yelping? Oh, she's just the girl who does the admin. Yeah, not bad but already spoken for. Now listen, no more bloody zombies, OK?”

I kneeled down to help Tabs pick up her papers and she said “Hey good looking,” which surprised me for a second, until I realised she was speaking to my colleague and her fiance Terry, who was by her side in a flash, re-alphabeticising the fallen reports. I carried on anyway.
“Yo ass sho iz lookin' damnfine, Be-itch,” he complimented her, taking her hand and helping her to her feet when they were finished.
“Who yo callin' be-itch, Dawg?” she replied and slapped him on the cheek.
Then she gave him a peck on the other cheek and they simultaneously sighed “Fresh!” and smiled at each other.
“What the fuck???” I said, more out loud than I'd intended, which was not out loud at all, but if they heard me they ignored it.
I returned to my sudoku and noticed that the box which was either five or seven had to be a seven. There was a three bottom left, which meant there was already a five on that row. Sudoku is so now.

“That guy makes my skin scrawl,” Tabs complained to Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, moments later.
“Who? Tim? I think he means well.”
“No, the other one. Keith.”
“Oh Keith,” replied Stella. “There's one thing I'll say for Keith. He's not afraid of rejection. Some guys, you tell them no, and they withdraw into their shells and spend the rest of their lives beating themselves up over it. One push back and they're done for. You see some bloke you knew at school pole dancing in The Reflex, and you walk over and say Hi and they just shrivel up like you poured weed killer over them in 1991 and they never managed to grow back again.”
Tabs reached over to Stella and pulled a feather out of her hair. “Anyone in particular?”

“I'm through with men shrivelling up on me, Tabs. It was sixteen years ago. 'So I wouldn't go to the pictures with you? Should've asked someone else.' You'd have seen Dances With Wolves with Ten Hands Thompson, wouldn't you?”
“It was Kevin Costner, actually,” called Terry, ever the funny guy.
“Hmm. Ten Hands Thompson. Tough call.” Tabs produced another feather, then another. “Not even if I was dead. Dead and gagging for it.”
“Not Keith though. I've turned him down twice today already and I know he'll be back tomorrow. I kind of like that. Rejection just washes over him. He saw his ex-wife last week. Every couple of years she tells him to come over and they hire a judge and stand outside court in their best clothes, and the judge re-declares their divorce proceedings. She likes to remind herself how lucky she is, Keith says.”
“Awww, that's so sweet,” said Tabs. “Duck down?”
“Don't ask,” replied Stella. “My friend Becky asked if I fancied a quick bite at lunchtime, and I said so long as it was a quickie. Ended up in a pillow fight.”
“Oh, they do get everywhere, them feathers. Don't they, Terry love?”

The rest of the puzzle solved itself from that point on. Sometimes all you need is a little break and to look at a problem with fresh eyes. The eight, then the nine, then the two over there, there, and there, and you're laughing.
I shouted out “Sudoku!” the same way as you'd exclaim “Snap!” or “Bingo!” or “House!” or whatever. I appreciate that nobody else in the entire world shouts “Sudoku!” when they've completed one, but I do. It's my own little private joke to myself.

Yes, Yes, Yes, It's My Autumn Almangac

2007-11-09T19:23:00.000Z

I recently took off to Aira Force, Ullswater, to spend some quality time with my tripod and a neutral density filter:
This is one of a river looking moody and magnificent.
Here is one of the same river, this time looking blurry and wet.
OK, so here's another picture of blurry water.
Can you tell I quite like these river pictures?

Closer to home, here is the latest in the developing garden story:
All the leaves are brown.
Bamboo gets twisty.
I can't remember what this red stuff is called, but it looks Christmassy.
Thoughts of a dying sunflower.

More news as it happens. Carry on.

You Make It Easy

2007-11-02T18:02:00.000Z

“What time is it?” asked Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, during this morning's predictive blame storm.
This is a meeting where you decide who to blame for a project which hasn't gone wrong yet, but you know is about to.
We met her question with a surly silence.
“Come on guys,” she said. “I've got Mars bars.”
“Ten o'clock?” I offered tentatively.
“Too literal,” she snapped.
“Beer o'clock?” suggested Mike.
“What Mike said,” said Terry. “It's always beer o'clock somewhere.”
“Well done Terry, you're closest,” said Stella, and threw him a Mars bar.

The correct answer is “Now.” Well, duh.
“Worldsourcing is the new market force in town,” she said, absentmindedly shuffling her Rubik's Cube. “It wouldn't be inconceivable for a successful IT company like ours to be staffed entirely by low cost workers in, say, China, or India, or the Outer Hebrides. Or all of the above. Customers expect us to reduce our costs or they'll look elsewhere. Bill Surname says everyone else is going to do it even if we don't.”
“Low cost wokkers in the case of China,” contributed Terry.
“In tomorrow's 'Always On' twenty four hour Company X,” continued Stella, her flow uninterruptible, unlike our electricity supply, “the only workable answer will be 'Now'. From this moment on, the time is always now. Get used to it.”

Terry yawned. Stella put down the now solved Cube on her desk with a triumphant whack. Mike let out a silent one.
After a brief pause to consider our prospects, we pressed on with the meeting. We agreed unanimously that the cause of Project Binbag's untimely demise will be Pestilence, in the comms room, with a badly specified network switch, then were despatched back to our workstations with a Mars bar each to enjoy how and when we pleased.

Later on, after the going home bell had rung and everyone had legged it, I told Stella about my eighties.
“There were two types of kid at our school: those who'd worked out how to do a Rubik's Cube, and the rest of us.”
“That was my friend Becky on the phone,” replied Stella. “She wanted to know if she gets a Mars bar too. Cheeky cow.”
“The brainy kids used to pull theirs to bits and smear vaseline all over their parts to quicken their times.”
“I said, “Why don't you come round tonight? And if I decide you're good enough, I'll give you one.””
“The rest of us had to buy the book,” I said ruefully. “That's how I learned. It's not the same though, is it?”

“She still owes me for fixing her PC last Friday. Graphics card had come loose from the motherboard. I had to get the case off and everything.”
“I bet Mike and Terry smeared vaseline on their parts. Spods.”
“She keeps it in her little box room, under a tiny little desk. And you know that I'm no techie, Tim. So I'm scrambling around for ages on the floor trying to get the case off.”
“I don't mean to sound grumpy, but that's my entire career in a nutshell,” I said.
“So there I am, squeezed under her little desk, fumbling around, and I realise I'm stuck with my head wedged between her legs.”
“Sometimes I feel so, you know, thick next to Mike and Terry. They're naturals. I'm not.”
“And Becky says “I really appreciate you doing this for me Stella, but you've been down there twenty minutes and it's just not happening, is it?”
“That's exactly what I'm saying, Stella,” I said. “Some days you just need a small victory, some piddling consolation to keep your spirits up.”
“And I'm determined that I can do this, but my friend Becky's saying, “Don't worry about it. We can come back to it later. Let's go downstairs for a bit, yeah?””

“Am I being grumpy?” I asked. “Is it so bad to admit that, you know, sometimes things can get on top of you?”
“So I said, “You're a genius Becky! It was staring me in the face. So we take the PC and my toolset downstairs.”
“That's what I'm saving my Mars bar for. As an incentive for when, I dunno, I decode all my DNA or something.”
“And, of course, we have it off on her dining room table in next to no time.”
“It'd be nice to think, just occasionally, that I'm good at what I do. Fucking worldsourcing.”

Outside her window, Rex the security guard was raking leaves in the descending darkness. He gathered them into a bin bag harnessed to Geraldine's back. There was a smell of woodsmoke and rotting apples.
Creepy Keith from Accounts swaggered out to his new Audi Razorblade. At lunchtime he'd tried to persuade Stella to join him for a spin and she said, “Keith, that's not a car – that's a symptom. You need help.”

“ I'm being grumpy, aren't I?” I said. “Just ignore me.”
“Oh Tim, I wish you'd been there to see it. I felt so proud. A few quick screws and job done.”
“Yes. I'm being grumpy. I'm going to stop now.”
“Back of the net,” she said. “Everybody happy.”
“Super.”

Cry Me A River

2007-10-10T23:17:00.000Z

The Great Manchester Blog Off 2007 had already started when we arrived.

We ordered pizza and found a table near the back, where we struggled to hear the readings above the sound of a young couple at the next table. They were enjoying what some newspapers call “Full Sex.”

Actually they were doing no such thing: they were just talking in hushed voices. But in the rarefied atmosphere of an otherwise silent bar, full to bursting with the region's finest blogging talent, The North West's Most Introverted, the young couple might as well have been engaged in seriously vigorous humping for all the difference it made.

There were eighty or so in the room, and if I'd known there was going to be that many I'd have put a clean shirt on.
Day Of Moustaches man gave a reading (which I missed most of due to the Shagathon), followed by Airport Diaries man, and then the gongs were dished out:

Best Personal Blog: Single Mother on the Verge
Best New Blog: Rent Girl
Best Arts and Culture Blog: Mancubist
Best Political Blog: Politaholic
Best Writing on a Blog (the one I was up for): Day of Moustaches

Then there was an interval to allow disappointed nominees to flounce off in pointed fashions, and then I gave a reading, which I think went OK. I read the post where Stella says “Boobs and teeth” a lot: it got a few laughs, which obviously wasn't nearly enough for my liking, but I was grateful for them all the same.

Published Author Elizabeth Baines read the final episode of her citizen novelist piece What Would You Do? and there was a reading and interview with Published Author Caroline Smailes, whose Amazon reviews for In Search Of Adam are positively interstellar.

Girlfriend chatted about music a lot with The Indie Credential Two (all of Blur circa. The Great Escape were wankers except Graham; Michael Stipe is a bit stinky), and I chatted mostly with Crinkly and his friend, although I did speak with Chris Mancubist (I'm very envious of his job) and the Airport Diarist (I now know what he did at the airport. Blimey!) and Kate, of course, who ran the whole shebang.

Banging tunes were provided by Yer Mam and Black Country Grammar, and then by what I presume was the Matt and Phreds House Band, who were good but WAY TOO LOUD, and who played Cry Me A River far too jauntily for my tastes. But then again, you know what I'm like.

Underneath The Stars

2007-10-05T20:52:00.000Z

Even in Salford with a cold, Kate Rusby has the voice of an angel.

We saw her tonight at The Lowry and I like just about everything about her – the sound of her voice and her choice of material and musicians; the way she stands slightly awkwardly, unsure what to do with her hands when not holding a guitar; the way she habitually carries a shoulder bag on stage with her, then carries it off with her for the interval, then brings it back on after the interval, carries it off at the end of the performance, brings it back on again for the encore, yet never once uses it for anything. I like the way she calls out hello to her nephews during the show, and the way she connects with her audience. I like her frequent use of the word 'lovely'.
I could go on. Even the way she tunes the 1st and 6th string of her guitar down to a D is just exquisite. Try it.

I suspect I may be smitten.
If music is a comfort blanket – as if there could be any doubt – then Kate Rusby's is a freshly aired king size duvet. Snuggle up to this.

You Can Sleep While I Drive

2007-09-20T23:38:00.000Z

To Lancaster and LAWM, a music night put on by a generous spirited promoter in a room above a pub.
We met Looby there and a couple of his friends, A and M, and it was very good.

It was a 'find a patch of floor that's not too sticky and sit on it' sort of event, a kind of lo-fi Crufts with less poodles and no Clare Balding. To raise the stakes, someone (ie. emphatically not me) kicked over my drink so I asked the girl behind the bar if I could borrow a mop. She looked at me as if I'd asked her to go and find the nearest 24 hour Tesco then buy one out of her own wages. When she returned from downstairs, mop in hand, she refused to let me do my own mopping, shooting me with a withering glance that said “Yeah, like I'm going to let a man who can't keep his own glass upright loose with the pub mop.” I felt like I was putting the men's movement back twenty years.

The bands weren't anyone I'd heard of before.
There was a German girl called Golden Disko Ship, presumably not from birth, who wore a tin foil blouson and made an enjoyably raucous din with the aid of a guitar, a MacBook, and a dancing electric kitten whose eyes lit up in time with the racket.
Next up was Pacific Ocean Fire, who look and sound like they're from Texas but are actually from Leicester. They were pretty good in spite of, or perhaps even because of that.
After that it was the turn of The Lovely Eggs: two grown adults who performed with the willful petulance of over-indulged ten year olds, and oddly enough sported the same pudding bowl haircuts that my dad created for me when I was that age. They quickly drove a large section of the audience to the downstairs bar – us included – until their set was over and it was safe to return.
The main act was Josh T. Pearson, who is a curious egg indeed. Like Johnny Cash undergoing primal scream therapy, he was the hairiest singer I've ever seen and wore a cowboy hat and extremely tight trousers, which could explain a lot. His style was to build layer upon layer of acoustic guitar reverb until it was virtually unlistenable and then wail “Jesus, why do you hate me?” and suchlike as a kind of tormented icing on the Cake Of Angst.
At one point I scribbled a note and showed it to Girlfriend which read “He sings like a man having his leg sawn off.” I enjoyed it enormously but not enough to buy a CD afterwards.

We both enjoyed meeting A & M too, so much so that I offered the latter a lift home to save her ordering a taxi, batting away her Thanks, but it's quite a way actuallys with nonchalent Don't be dafts, and her But it's in the opposite direction of where you're goings with gallant It's no problem at alls.
And of course I didn't mind, though to her credit it was every bit as far as she'd said, only doubled, which I'd forgotten to take into consideration, on account of it being utterly in the wrong direction.

Still. You can't beat rural North Lancashire at ridiculous o'clock on a school night, driving along in a considerably more reliable motorcar with the jukebox on, the stars shining brightly in the black, black sky like beacons to guide you home, and your true love by your side, alternately gently snoozing and singing along to some of the drippiest 70's schmaltz known to man, and not dribbling in the slightest.

We Will Become Silhouettes

2007-09-15T21:29:00.000Z

For the purposes of wringing every last drop out of my birthday, Girlfriend, the older boy and myself hopped onto a train and went to our favoured pub to drink woolly beer.
There we were met by Fairly Famous Actor - still reeling from the previous night's beer festival - then Canoeing Instructor and Charlie, and in the fullness of time, Leanne and her new squeeze Harriet who most of us were meeting for the first time.
We had a very pleasant boozy time, then went to the nearby favoured cafe.
Girlfriend managed to drop a massive dollop of meringue onto my manbag – she says the resulting stain looks like bird poo; I'd say that it looks like an elephant has ejaculated on it, but I'm not that coarse - and I called Canoeing Instructor a slag.
Of course I wouldn't have said it if I didn't know she'd take it in the spirit in which it was intended. She's luvverley. All the same – note to self: take it easy when calling girls slags. It's a bit strong. Especially when they're not.
Anyway, she's in training for a marathon and I'm going to do the half marathon that's on at the same time, and when the time is right I'm going to be her training buddy and kick her up the bum and tell her to go faster, etc. like in the films. We will be comedy jogging silhouettes like Syd Little and Eddie Large with our sweatbands and sagging trackie bottoms along Lytham Green, frightening the dog walkers and their owners.

Then we caught the train back to our house and ate celery and crisps with salad cream and played What The Fuck, and it was all very agreeable.
I never knew that Charlie had a Nazi grandparent. You'd never guess to look at her. How come that's never come up before?
Harriet fitted in very well, I thought. She's nice and said interesting stuff and is funny and didn't seem to mind the penetrating interrogation with which I subject all new visitors to the house. I'm told she had a good time, so that's alright. It makes me really happy to see Leanne looking so happy and loved up, which I realise sounds soft but there it is and you can like it or lump it. She'd better take good care of Leanne or I'll write a nasty country song about her.

At the end of the evening Leanne's sister Bob turned up in a minibus to drive everybody home, but stopped by for a coffee first.
I've met her once before but never realised how funny she is – very funny indeed. She had us all ROFL. I like the story of when they went on holiday together and they stayed in some rubbish hotel and Leanne set fire to her legs. Or something.
Heaven knows I think the world of Leanne but it has to be said her sister is much funnier. Next time I throw a soiree I might ask Bob along instead and Leanne can just turn up at the end to take everyone home. I'm sure it wouldn't rile her at all.

Glittering Prize

2007-09-13T23:14:00.000Z

Here in my Attic Studio Complex, I keep a postcard by my desk of The Rochdale Canal.
There are four photos on the picture side, of the canal as it passes youths in hoodies in Hebden Bridge, Warland, Littleborough and Mytholmroyd, and it occupies pride of place on the magnetic noticeboard since it was the prize for winning Best Personal Blog at the Manchester Blog Awards last year.

I'm feeling very proud, and not just a little bit smug, because this blog has been nominated in this year's Awards as well, in the “Best Writing On A Bog” category. This is tremendously gratifying.
I'll be up against Airport Diaries, which I have a great deal of time for, and Day Of Moustaches and Community Fair, which are both new to me.

As well as Airport Diaries, I'll be rooting for Mancubist in the Most Useful Blog category, and Crinklybee in the 3.30 from Chepstow.
A comprehensive Who and What is listed here.

Last time there was a rather odd little ceremony sandwiched into the interval of a fairly, erm, dismal poetry reading at Urbis. This was followed by a trip to a smelly old man's pub, where some of us were grilled for Radio 5 on a low flame, and it was a good night.
This year, a glittering gala evening has been organised for Wednesday October 10th, at Matt and Phred's Jazz Club on Tib Street.

There'll be readings and stuff and it sounds like fun. Everybody is welcome.
I'm disappointed that ~~I won't be able to make it due to a prior engagement with some progressive folk rockers from Portland, Oregon~~ The Decemberists have cancelled their tour at the last minute, but am pleased, no really, that I'll be able to attend the Blog Awards instead.

Hurry Home

2007-09-11T20:42:00.000Z

The crackly bing bong PA system fizzed and popped into life, and we gathered round the office loudspeaker like fishermen tuned in for the shipping forecast.
Bill Surname CEO - bon viveur, raconteur, a high living bratwurst of a man woven entirely from Harris Tweed - buffeted us through sales figures and disappearing margins, the newly appointeds and soon to be departeds, stories from the boardroom, news from the war, tales of sorrow and woe.

Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader - alpha kitten with a non-permanent dry marker pen – earnestly whiteboarded keyphrases while I settled down with a coffee style drink and sort of cake thing from the vending machine and thought about brie.
Upsize. Narrowcast. Onshoring. Data harvesting.
Terry and Mike, giddy as teenagers at their first Star Trek convention, shared ear buds and tittered to this week's Linux Humour podcast on Mike's laptop, thus missing all of the Billcast, which was more of the same old same old anyway: we must tighten our belts blah; ongoing process of service improvement blah; everybody and everything is to be audited, vaccinated and catalogued accordingly blah.
No stone shall be left uncategorised and we are to assist Charlotte, his loyal PA, in all of her endeavours, no matter how dimwitted they may seem to the casual observer.

Poor Charlotte - it's a difficult time for her, what with the markets in free fall and backstreet mortgage lenders pillaging and burning through every village and town, merciless in their hot hatchbacks and cheap suits, ubiquitous as pre-teen alcoholics, and now this: Mad Bluetooth Disease stalks the land, on every news bulletin and every front page – it's just one marauding invasion after another – and Bill Surname CEO, the only man she's ever loved, if only he knew it, says every PDA and phone, every mobile device in the company, must be disinfected and asset tagged by Wednesday week or we'll all be for the chop, tiddly-om-pom-pom, and her head will be first on the cheese board.

Oh my Lord, my goodness, my sweet darling Bill Surname, whatever are we to do? The crop is ruined and our enemies are advancing, our dreams are all in tatters and now who will look after the babies we never had, who will read them stories and tuck them in, what will we do, what shall we tell them? Who will iron their uniforms now, and who will pack their lunches? Where will it all end?
Oh my dear sweet child, don't cry, Daddy will be home soon, home soon, hush now my darling baby and dry your eyes, please don't cry, Daddy will soon be home.

Tea For The Tillerman

2007-09-09T23:49:00.000Z

Drove home just a tiny bit hungover – is that legal? - and slobbed about the house all afternoon feeling tired, then went over to Kate and Rich's for tea.

Actually when she'd voicemailed, the invitation had been to come over for “dinner,” but that sounds so grown up it makes me giggle like a girl just to think of it, so I prefer to think of it as “going round for our tea.”

Funny how the lexicon of meal times varies from person to person.
In his diaries, Alan Bennett frequently mentions going to someone or other's house for supper, which to me suggests that he changes into his pyjamas and dressing gown before leaving the house, then has a cup of warm milk and a couple of chocolate biscuits with his friends, before returning home once Match Of The Day has finished, all snuggly and warm and ready for bedtime. Don't forget to brush your teeth, Alan! Have you really? Well brush them again, you've had hobnobs since then.
I don't think I'm mature enough to go to somebody's house for dinner just yet.

Anyway, it was a very enjoyable evening and we had a lovely tea, thank you, to mark Kate's birthday later this week. There are so many birthdays in early September, it makes you wonder what all our parents were up to during those long rainy Easter bank holiday weekends.
Her friends H and M were there who, like Kate, are in the newspaper game. Ooh, the stories they told that can't be repeated for anti-libel reasons... let's just say there are some celebrity gardeners who should spend a bit more time with their spellcheckers instead.
And I'm shocked and stunned at revelations of institutionalised racism at the NME. I was practically suckled on that rag. Say it ain't so, Joe.

There was lots of talks of journalists who can't write to save their lives, and grotesque lecherous proprietors who just love leering at female employee's breasts – who'd have guessed that? - and afterwards me and Girlfriend both confessed to thinking how very strange it was to be eating at a table on a Sunday night with people who work for the national papers. How did that come to be?
When I was a kid I used to help my friend Liam with his newspaper round after school. That's as close as I got, and even then, he never once paid me. I guess I just liked hanging out with him.

B was there too, full of fascinating stories of international oak tree trading. She was really interesting.
I hadn't realised until now that we have a new variant on the “If a tree falls down in a deserted forest, does it make a sound?” quandary. The new one goes “If there's a thriving market in transporting trees around the world, does it have a positive or negative effect on carbon emissions?” Hmmm. They're sold by girth, apparently.

The bit I think Girlfriend liked best was when Rich had a rant about housing, and the absolute bloody disgrace it was when the right to buy council houses was introduced, but the proceeds weren't then put back into building new houses. It's not enough that he supports Leeds, speaks with a Yorkshire accent and can rustle up an excellent fajita buffet, he's also passionate and authoritative on a subject v. close to Girlfriend's heart. I think she may have a soft spot.

So a very lovely evening, with lots of laughs and talk about music and general interesting stuff. I really enjoyed it, and the whole 'meeting new people' thing was very effortless and easy and just, you know, dead nice. Thanks Kate.

Seven Nation Army

2007-09-08T21:55:00.000Z

We shuffled round York checking out chocolate shops and bookstores, and witnessed a really scary procession of morris dancers, then in a rare moment of spontaneity, went to Leeds to watch the mighty LUFC win their fifth successive league match, taking their points tally for the season to a very impressive zero.

In the evening we caught up with my friend Steve – my own friend! - who had organised a piss up in a brewery to celebrate his fortieth. It was great. There was a really good disco and we jumped about like loonies. Very sweet to see him dancing with his Mum to Seven Nation Army, I think it was.
Because the brewery closed quite early, we progressed on to some Heavy Metal theme bar – Dire Straits was playing as we entered – then later still we ended up back at his house.

He's such a good lad and it was funny looking at the various photos his sister had put around the brewery illustrating the many ages of Steve.
To a social misfit like myself it's maddening as maddening can be to see how many friends he has – how does he do that? There are hundreds of us, thousands even; we could form our own country - and the cult-like affection he inspires in everybody, but more power to his elbow, I guess, begrudgingly. It was an honour to have been invited.

So a boozy night and a really fun one. Had a very good time.

Handsome Devil

2007-09-07T20:32:00.000Z

Forty one and still beautiful. If only I knew how I do it I'd bottle it and make good my fortune.

We took the afternoon off work and put the Suzuki Migraine through its paces on the lovely A59. The sun shone and the engine purred as we fair whizzed through the Dales, past fields of hay bales and the North European Gas Pipeline, and all was green and golden.

Girlfriend had booked us into a B&B in York, an attractive place with lots of glass and wooden cladding, which looked like it might well have arrived that very morning from Stockholm in kit form.
We checked into our room and she presented me with a Green and Blacks variety pack and a half bottle of something cold and fizzy, so we sat out in the garden looking at the frogs and the goldfish, and it was very pleasant.

Later on we had a birthday meal in a quiet little place down one of those ambling cobbled streets that York does terrifically well – those Roman town planners really knew their shit - while a young lad picked away classically on a guitar.
Then we looked for somewhere to pursue our new hobby - consuming cocktails; I'd never have seen that coming five years ago - but the place we'd been recommended was way too noisy so we settled instead for a few in the world's oldest pub, like, ever.

Youth And Beauty Brigade

2007-09-05T20:38:00.000Z

My poor old Toyota Nosebleed reached the point where the only humane thing left for it was to lead it into a field and put a gun to its head.

It was a long time coming.
The main beam flicked itself on each time I stopped right indicating.
The brake disks suffered chronic arthritis, and made a point of broadcasting the fact to everybody within a mile radius.
Assorted dashboard lights twinkled randomly off and on for their own demented amusement – you're out of petrol; you've loads of petrol; you've left the handbrake on; just kidding! Fasten your seatbelt! The boot's not shut properly! Ejector seat countdown initiated! This model doesn't have an ejector seat! Oh yes it does! - like Christmas tree lights gone mad. It was a merciful end.

After the dullest week of my life spent studying the form on Autobore.co.uk, today I've taken the plunge and bought me one of them little Suzuki Migraines.
It's not the sexiest thing on four wheels but it's nippy enough for my sedate requirements, and at least it doesn't sound like a donkey with toothache.
On the downside, it's in LOOK AT ME!!! lime green, not my colour of choice, but I'd had as much as I could take of Autobore and that's the price you pay for getting your life back.

This evening I donned my leatherette driving gloves and with a roguish twirl of my moustache took Girlfriend for a spin through the Blackpool Illuminations – the greatest test of any car's willingness to serve; the Nosebleed would have refused at the first jump – and it came though with no faults. It's an evocative ride, the cheerfully gaudy lights offsetting the “Bloody hell! How did it get dark so early?” gloominess of the “But it's only just September” evening.

Best of all, it's the first car I've owned with a CD player.
I dusted off my California compilation CDs – the opening guitar figure of Don't Fear The Reaper sounds fantastic wherever you are, da da da der, der der, da da da danggGG – momentarily swapping the muted blue grey of the Irish Sea for the vivid electroshock of the Pacific Ocean, and pretended I was back on Highway One, the California sun pouring down my face, the wind in my parts.

Squint and you could easily take Cleveleys to be Santa Cruz.
Close your eyes and I'll kiss you.

You Keep Me Hanging On

2007-09-03T07:18:00.000Z

Mike and Terry have spent the whole day bothering Tabs on reception every five minutes, asking if their parcel has arrived yet.

Last week, they ordered a shipment of gadgets from one of those sites that sell electronic gifts for men to treat themselves to since nobody else will.
They don't even like music, so what they plan to do with a USB MP3 to Vinyl Converter is anybody's guess.

Now they're firmly ensconsed in the "Has it come yet?" phase of the transaction, tracking its lack of progress on the courier's website, taking it in turns to stand guard by the window on the lookout for delivery vans, and generally getting on everybody's nerves.
They waited and waited all day and it never came.

Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, was still in her office well after the hometime bell had rang.
She was waiting for her friend Becky to call to be picked up from work, so they could go to their shibari class together.
She was idly flicking through a magazine, pausing at an article entitled "Ten Hot New Sex Tips For When He's Horny And Just Won't Leave You Alone For Pity's Sake."

"I have some sympathy," I said.
"Huh?" she mumbled, not really listening.
"I'm still waiting for my goggles to arrive. I ordered them weeks ago. I'm starting to wonder if I haven't been ripped off by a bogus goggle company."
"Right," she mumbled again.
"I guess the more you hang aound waiting for the postman, the less likely it is he'll show up."
"Watched pots and all that."
"They're prescription ones," I said.

Her phone rang and she immediately perked up.
"Hi!" she answered, a big smile lighting up her face. "Yeah, I'm on my way now. See you soon."
She stuffed the magazine into her bag and grabbed her car keys.

"You know, Tim," she said, her voice faraway and dreamy, more to herself than me, probably, "there are some days when my friend Becky only has to so much as look at me in a certain way and it makes me come straightaway."
"They're so I don't keep bumping into things when I'm swimming," I said, but by now she was already down the corridor and out of here.
"Other people mainly, but sometimes flotation aids, or even just the sides of the pool."

It can get kind of embarrassing when your feet keep getting caught up in the handrails.

I'll Be Seeing You

2007-08-30T21:52:00.000Z

“Boobs and teeth. Boobs and teeth. Boobs and teeth.”

Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, had a big meeting at eleven – highly important small and medium sized business men and women were winched in from all over the Ribble Valley, movers and shakers, hotshot deal makers, the cream of the cream of central Lancashire's power broker set – so she needed to be on top of her game.
She spent the preceding hours pacing nervously around her office, waiting to be summoned, checking her hair on her webcam and smoothing out the folds in her blouse, all the while repeating her mantra over and over - “Boobs and teeth. Boobs and teeth. Boobs and teeth” - psyching herself up into a state of near impossible executive preparedness.

Creepy Keith from Accounts hung around outside her door, pining like an abandoned mongrel chained to the wall outside Sainsburys, perplexed as ever by her continuing rejections.
“I'm everything you ever dreamed of,” he said, and she replied “Too little, too late,” gave him a pat on the head, then wandered off to fill her trolley.

There's a drowsy end of summer atmosphere lingering in the air. The sunflowers have been and gone, the sweet peas too, and with all this rain, the nasturtiums never really got off the ground.
An ominous feeling of dread swills around the pit of my stomach, like when the school holidays are all but over and a new term beckons, and I have to remind myself that I don't actually go to school any more, nor do I need to fret over incomplete homework, and if I want to dress up in a school uniform then that's my own free choice, but still this mood lingers.

Now Pietersen is coming in from the Stretford End and England are looking solid in the field – seventeen for one, thirty one for two, thirty three for three – and the afternoon passes hazily through a faint radio crackle, like molten jam being pressed through a sieve, and he delivers a short one to Tendulkar who top edges it and is caught by Flintoff in deep square leg, but the signal is weak and listless, which infuriates the hell out of Mike who complains he can only get the cricket on Long Wave, when Stella breezes back from her meeting, pumped up on adrenaline and conference room power buffet, and says “If you want cricket, buy yourself one of them DAB radios. My friend Becky gave me one in June and I've been getting it down the allotments all summer,” and outside my window Rex the security guard is bashing his sunflowers against the datacentre wall and gathering his seed in a polythene bag, while away in the distance, beyond the twinkling dual carriageway and the rinky dink toy town car showrooms, Preston, city of lovers and undeterred optimists, glistens sweet and inviting in the lovely late summer sunshine, like strawberry jam in the birthday cake of life.

Tonight at barbershop practice down in the rifle range, we will sing -
“I'll be seeing you in every lovely summer's day, in everything that's light and gay, I'll always think of you that way...” -
and there will be heated exchanges on the nature of Constitutions and matters of principal, accusations of sharp practice, but I will not be distracted by points of order -
“... I'll find you in the morning sun and when the night is new, I'll be looking at the moon but I'll be seeing you, only you” -
and I hereby pledge to do my solemn best to stay the course, steady my aim and hold true, because Autumn is lurking in the shadows, dark and menacing like the unwanted attentions of a grimy accountant, and this time I'll be ready for it.

Doctor! Doctor!

2007-08-25T19:16:00.000Z

In our continuing Summer series of going to the pub with people off the internet, today we met Jonathan Crinklybee, his sister 'woor Abby', her fella John, Oscar and The People's Looby.

Topics discussed:
1) Why oh why do people go on about Jules et Jim being a great film? Anyone with eyes in their head knows it's preposterous drivel.
2) Mills and Boon. Crinkly used to work in a library and told us that Mills and Boon books are colour coded for degrees of smuttiness. When you see an old lady heading straight for the red ones, it means she's a dirty hag. I might need to investigate this for myself.
3) Star Wars. None of us have seen any of them.

In Doctorate of Blogging news, Abby has finally finished writing it.
I suggested that blogging is no longer quite the bleeding edge phenomenon it was, say, last Tuesday.
She agreed, but as the professors marking it are all aged ninety and above - they've only just discovered that colour television exists - time does not seem to be of the essence in Academia quite the way it is here at the coalface. She starts her new lecturing job soon.

Oscar didn't have a lot to say for himself. He spent the entire afternoon, well, just smiling and filling his nappies, while John proved himself enviably proficient at changing them. Abby and John write the excellent Bonkworld site, which is not about what you think it is. Well, honestly. Grow up.

Looby was still Looby, wearing a polyester shirt the likes of which was last seen on The Likely Lads. It looked like one loose spark and he'd have been up in flames in no time. He's moved on from the world of high finance now to working in a florists.
Crinkly is enjoying his new job too, though he's not sure what he's doing. We talked about flanges, Levenshulme and Mexico shirts.

This was rounded off by de rigeur coffee and cake, then we went for a stroll along the prom and took snaps on the jetty.
Another pleasant blog related afternoon then. Nobody cried, nobody peed themselves. Oh wait. They did.

Baggy Trousers

2007-08-04T15:04:00.000Z

Wedding Photography Day went well, I think.
It rained throughout, of course, but there were some good indoor locations, so it wasn't the nightmare that it might have been.
It's absolutely ages - fifteen years? - since I photographed a wedding as a 'professional'.
I used to take 48 pictures – four rolls - then would pick out the best twenty to put in an album; today I took 440 pictures. I shouldn't have too much trouble making a decent album's worth out of that.

It's funny, but I felt more pressure today doing this as a gift for one of Girlfriend's colleagues than I ever did trying to make my way as a professional.
If I'd screwed up back then (which never actually happened, but the possibility that I might haunted me constantly) then at least I'd merely be that idiot who mucked up their wedding photos and they'd never hear of me again.
This was different because it would be a much more public failure, in the full gaze of people I know and like. From this moment on it could forever be “Oh here's Tim. What a shame. He really messed up C&P's wedding photos.”
Anyway, there was no mess up - it went alright, I think. Girlfriend did a fine job of making sure I didn't miss anything or anyone off the list, everything went to plan and everybody had a really nice day. It was all, as they say, good.

Minor cock up on the vegetarian catering front – the caterers couldn't count to four – so my dinner consisted of a small mountain of whatever they had left, which I thought was funny, and not really a problem as I was way too hyper to be hungry anyway.

Afterwards we checked into the Hotel Overheated then went to the evening bash. I impressed everybody with my 'dancing like a wazzock to Take That' routine, and a fun time was had by all. Good as always to see everyone.

After that, FFA wanted to go clubbing – you could meet somebody who really loves you, etc. - so FFA, Leanne, Long Tall Wanda and me got a taxi and hit the bright lights of Burnley. Girlfriend was by this time having trouble with her vertical hold, so went to bed.
According to the bloke on the door, the nightclub had two floors - “Eighties and Cheese” and “Really rubbish techno.”
We settled for the former and although there was lots of Eighties I didn't see any cheese at all, and I was feeling peckish by this point. So that was a bit annoying.
But apart from that it was a good laugh, rubbish dancing and all. By chucking out time there was broken glass all over the place.

Waiting For This Moment

2007-07-31T14:46:00.000Z

Strange to be in the pub in Preston on a school night, but Gareth who never comes out with us wanted to come out and today was the only evening we could all make it, so there we are.

We all sat around in various states of surprise at the evening's main news. It was flattering to have been included, trusted.
There was a hearts in mouth moment – couple of minutes, actually - when we feared it was going to be something awful, a terrible illness or a new job in a new town, but no.

I haven't quite got my head round it yet. I'm happy and glad, but can't help but wonder if this is actually the good news story it's being presented as.
I'd like to hear it from all angles before reaching any final conclusions, but that's probably not going to happen.
Is it terribly grown up and sophisticated, or a bit sad and grubby?

Charlie's reaction was lovely and she slipped comfortably into her role as Interrogater in Chief.
FFA, JP and Girlfriend were, I think, fairly flabbergasted. Leanne, who already knew, seemed subdued. Long day, apparently.
I do know that they all absolutely think the world of him, and unlike some of his friends, this isn't going to change anything.

No Churns, No Porter, No Cat On A Seat, At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street

2007-07-22T22:06:00.000Z

Had a very pleasant boozy afternoon in the pub with Girlfriend and Looby off the internet.
He lives very faraway, just up the road in Lancaster.

From his writing, Lancaster sounds like a dark and gloomy world of depressing international cinema and painfully avant-garde performance art.
We go to Lancaster every now and then, but I don't remember it being quite so bleak or intense as how Looby presents it. It's just old ladies doing their shopping and people waiting for buses. I'll have to remember to wear my Bohemia seeking goggles next time I'm there.

Looby's interesting and funny. It was our first meeting.
He used to serve refreshments on the West Coast Main Line, stopping at Milton Keynes, Rugby, Nuneaton, Tamworth, Stafford, Crewe, Warrington, Preston, Lancaster, Carlisle and Glasgow Central, currently works in the cut throat world of high finance, and is never happier than when sitting in the corner of a pub adapting translations of East European short stories for the stage. In the great tradition of artistic heavy drinkers, he's as thin as a rake. Runs like Niles Crane too.
Hopefully that won't be the last we see of him.

What? Are You Crazy?

2007-07-19T18:56:00.000Z

Back to Manchester with Girlfriend and Leanne to see Dean Friedman at the Royal Northern College of Singer Songwriters.

He was really good – just him, a guitar, a piano, a ukelele, and an ever so slightly awkward stammer in the early stages. He played all the hits and Girlfriend sang quietly along to just about everything, swept along in the moment, which was really nice.
I enjoyed it more than I expected to. I thought he might be a bit sappy, but that wasn't the case. He's got some powerful songs. Maybe he has too overstretch a little to reach the high notes these days, but overall it was dead good.

Juggling Protege turned up late – tssk – arriving during the half time break.
To add insult to injury, he set about videomugging Dean in the bit where he stands about in the foyer afterwards, hoping to sell CDs at £20 each.
JP got him to say get well messages for all his (JP's) friends, or for anyone else who might be feeling less than 100% at any time in the future. It took several takes, but was worth it in the end. JP's a very funny man, and the Deanster took it all in good heart. Probably.

We bade our farewells – JP was driving to Cornwall the next morning – then drove Leanne home.
Since we returned from Derbyshire, she's been going out with someone she met not long before. Sounds nice. She says it's going really well, and is big smiles happy. I'm ever so pleased.

We resisted the urge to do the 'Slide over here, Babe' actions during Lucky Stars, but I'm pretty sure we were all thinking about it.

Downtown Lights

2007-07-14T22:20:00.000Z

If there was a prize for “Being useless at finding your way around Manchester,” I'd put money on me and Girlfriend winning. We just don't get it. Where is everywhere, relative to everywhere else?
On the plus side, our sense of wonder and surprise is never diminished whenever we visit the City of Rain -
“Hey, isn't that the GMEX again? Didn't we just walk past that an hour ago?”
“Maybe that's a different one.”
“Yes. That'll be it. Definitely.”

I bought some new jeans, because my current pair has become so threadbare around the buttock regions that an embarrassing pants exposure incident can only be a matter of minutes away, in jeans time.
They remind me of Dodo, my childhood soft toy of choice. I loved that dog. Mum had to keep sewing his head back on.
Girlfriend bought a gothy type dress in Afflex Palace for the wedding we're going to – and that I'm photographing; yikes – in a few weeks. It looks nice whichever way round it's supposed to be worn.

In the evening we saw The Blue Nile play their first concert in three hundred years at the wonderful Bridgewater Hall.
They still sound just like they did in the Eighties; in fact, they sound just like the Eighties.
They make a lovely noise and your man Wotshisface is possessed of one of the most gorgeous goosebumps voices, and some achingly beautiful songs.
One I'd not heard before, Family Life, was especially evocative - “Gather me in snowfall, and the cars going by the north and the south; flowers on the table and the coffee gets cold like the milk in my mouth.”

There was oodles of enjoyment to be had simply from watching the more devoted fans – and Blue Nile fans are nothing if not devoted; quasi-religious in their reverence, almost – lapping it all up, hanging onto every sweet, sad note, every word, loving every last drop of it. Which is kind of magical, really.

Here's a picture of an interesting old pub - note the juxtaposition of the ancient with the modern, blah blah - tucked away a mere hundred yards or so from the Bridgewater Hall. That'd be a good half hour's walk then.

You're Always Chasing After Deer, My Dear

2007-07-10T21:59:00.000Z

We drove over to Leeds after work, to see Midlake at the Irish Centre.

We met up with Steve, who'd led us to believe it was a part of town where you'd think twice about leaving your car. It didn't seem so bad.
True, several nearby houses had metal grills over their windows, but we didn't knowingly experience any hassle.
It's a nice little venue - social club by day, rock venue by night. If we'd been there at lunchtime we could have played bingo with the over sixties over a bowl of stewed cabbage. I'd have enjoyed that.

We've become suddenly obsessed with Midlake, what with only 'discovering' them last month, or something – I'm in a bit of a time warp right now - but we felt very lucky to catch them.
I can't remember loving an album so much for a very long time.

Mildly disappointing that they weren't dressed up like on the album sleeve - “I caught an apple and she caught a fox, then I banged my head on a branch, so had a bit of a lie down under a pile of leaves, and when I woke up it was Spring and we'd been burgled” - but apart from that they were totally rockin'. A very good night.

Screamadelica

2007-07-08T21:47:00.000Z

We spent a very enjoyable afternoon in the pub with Joella and M.
It was our first time in a pub since the smoking ban came in and it was fantastic, if a little surreal. I'm so pleased.

After a few pints we went to another pub, but did our drinking on the concrete 'n' weeds bit by the RNLI where the skateboard punk rockers sometimes hang out. We must have scared them off.

Then we went for a cup of tea at her parent's house.
Joella said there's a woman in one of the flats next door who has lots of loud and enthusiastic orgasms at all hours of the day - leading to some potentially awkward moments over the breakfast table, I dare say, not to mention lunch table, dinner table, or middle of the night snack table for that matter - but it was all quiet while we were there.

I pass the house twice daily on my way back and forth from Company X, and now I always slow down and wind my windows down as I drive past [this is being written six weeks in the future] but apart from the sound of dodgey brakes on my Toyota Nosebleed, I haven't heard a squeak, enthusiastic or otherwise.

Wonderful World

2007-06-29T21:38:00.000Z

I made my debut public performance with the Barbershop Chorus tonight and feel very proud.

It was a balmy evening, and Girlfriend and Fairly Famous Actor came along to cheer me on.
They settled at a table not too far from the bar with a bottle of wine each, which they set about making short work of, while I stood about feeling a little self-conscious, never having worn a houndstooth check blazer before.

Dressing up like door to door salesmen from the Fifties – “Can I interest you in a carpet, Madam? Nylon stockings? Contraband dried eggs?” - hardly seems a good strategy for the Chorus to attract new and youthful recruits, as is their stated intention, but I can't say I mind.

I suppose the truth is I'm jealous at the thought of losing my crown as the young sexy one.
I like to think of myself as Justin Timberlake to their Bing Crosbys, the eye candy to their Uncle Joe's Mint Balls – so I'll be buggered if I'm going to let some bloody Mika muscle in on my scene.
Keep the Old Guy jackets, I say, and while we're at it let's introduce compulsory toupes, little short grey ones, for all members of the Chorus.
Have you thought about how “cool” you'll look with one of those sitting on top of your golden mop of luscious curls, hey Mika? Well? Have you? Grace Kelly my arse.

Anyway, it was a great gig, as we say in show business, not a dry seat in the house, etc.
I mimed most of it, having a really sore throat and not being too sure about some of the words. I don't think anyone noticed.
Backstage after the show, Field Marshall Woodplumpton made a stirring speech to the troops and said some kind words with respect to it being my debut appearance and so on. The whip round was as generous as it was unexpected.
Girlfriend and FFA enjoyed the popular classics – Wonderful World, Moon River, YMCA – but weren't so keen on the faffy technical numbers, which they said were probably more enjoyable to sing than to listen to.

FFA was particularly amused by the way every song was delivered with a cheery smile and jaunty dance, regardless of context:
“Hello emptiness...” - cheeky wink - “...I feel like I could die...” - shuffle feet, jazz hands - “...Bye bye my love, goodbye!” - big smile, thumbs aloft.

Then again, I've seen his Pa Larkin, so I hardly think he's one to talk.

Out Of Time

2007-06-27T17:37:00.000Z

"My time server has lost six minutes this week," said my colleague Terry. He scratched at his keyboard with a half eaten biro, fishing for crumbs.
"That was careless," I replied.
"Huh?"
"Well, to lose one minute is unfortunate, but to lose six is just plain careless."
"Huh?"
"Oh forget it."

Fields

2007-06-21T15:54:00.000Z

Me and Girlfriend tramped through the fields looking for somewhere to let off my rocket. Nothing doing. There were too many cows and houses around, and I'm nervous about it all going wrong and setting fire to somebody's dairy herd.

The ideal place, of course, would be on the beach back home. Perfectly flat for miles and miles of hardly anybody.
Still, I don't know if I'm supposed to alert the airports, and I'd hate to ruin somebody's holiday by accidentally shooting down their Ryanair shuttlebus to Barcelona. I fret too much.

Here's a snap of the entry point to our ditch walk. In daylight, it looked like we'd clambered maybe 100 metres or so. Under a coal black, starless sky, with our beer heads on, it had seemed at least twice that much.

It was our turn to cook dinner, so Girlfriend spent the afternoon making margaritas – “What do you think of this one?” she'd ask every few minutes. “I've put in twice as much tequila as last time, and three times as much vodka” - and I laid the table. We've come to the conclusion it's all about limes.

After that it was more Scientology in the upstairs living room, followed by Twister. Here I am about to whup JP's arse. There's some video footage which suggests foul play was involved, but I insist I was merely asserting my rights.

There's also some fantastic video footage of me singing Thriller while Leanne, Charlie and JP do the dance routine. It won't be hitting YouTube anytime soon I don't think, so here's a still.

It was another up until sunrise night, listening to music and that.
Leanne apologised for seeming a bit elusive in the last year, and promised it won't happen again. She says we can kick her arse if it looks like she's going down that road again.
We decided that everybody's allowed to have one year of being a bit rubbish, and that was hers. Which isn't at all bad going, just the one.
She says best friend A had told her it was good to have her back.

It all went a bit group hug, which is no bad thing in moderation.

Best joke of the week:

What's Charlie doing?
She's bringing up some cheese.
Does she need any help?
Yeah. You can hold her hair back.

A Very Big House In The Country

2007-06-20T15:35:00.000Z

We visited Chatsworth House today. FFA and Charlie did a flying tour of the inside, but the rest of us headed straight for the gardens.

They're beautiful – flowers, more flowers, me and Girlfriend forming a human sundial - and we were especially taken with the maze.
It was funny to wander blindly for ages making absolutely no progress, bumping into the same people again and again, all faring similarly badly. It was one of those “It's not the destination, it's all about the journey” metaphores.
I tend to get a bit ratty and impatient if I don't achieve what I've set out to do within, say, ten minutes: I'd sooner do without than wait that long to be served in a bar or library, for instance, so I'm sure left to my own devices I'd never have made it to Maze Central.

Here's a man on a horse.
I love formal gardens, me.
JP umpired from a safe distance.

We stopped in Bakewell on the way back, to pick up some tarts.
Standing around while FFA used the cashpoint, we were approached by a thrusting young man dressed as a monk who addressed us as “Dudes and Duderinos.”
The only rational response I could think of was to smile and walk away smartish, which I did, but the others lingered. They spend their working lives arguing the toss with nutcases and charlatans, so for them I guess it was a busman's holiday thing.

In a previous life I'd have spent half an hour disagreeing vehemently with everything he said, before finally giving him all my money in exchange for an armful of booklets about Eastern spiritualism and the importance of surrendering Earthly goods, so in my book I'm calling that progress.
JP, who is a kind and trusting soul, gave him a quid for one of his books and a chat about his home town.
In the pub afterwards, we agreed that it was quite likely JP's money would soon be spent in a bar, but as we didn't see it for ourselves we can't be entirely certain.

Not even Leonard Cohen can ruin a good game of Call 'Em All.

Find The River

2007-06-19T22:56:00.000Z

What better way to idle away a sunny morning than poring over Ordnance Survey maps looking for funny place names? It's one of my favourite things about being British.

Here is some nice lavender.

In the afternoon, me, Girlfriend, FFA and JP went for a stroll in Dovedale.
When I was little Dovedale was one our favourite family days out and I haven't been back in, ooh, twenty five years, getting on for twenty five light years. I was pleased to find it completely where we'd left it.
There was always one particular spot on the journey, a bend in the road with a small lay by on the left, with a horse in a field on the outside of the curve, and a lovely view down the valley on the other side, where me and my brother would have Dad pull the car over so we could rush out and spew up. Happy days.

JP updated me with the latest from his job as a top secret intergalactic superhero - he has leggy assistants! - and I waffled on a bit about long exposure photography. This doesn't demonstrate it very well. I'd like to go back some overcast day with a tripod and a neutral density filter.

FFA can – and did - identify just about any bird we asked him to, which to me is just wonderful and something I'm deeply envious of.
“What kind of bird is that, FFA?” I'd ask, and he'd patiently explain that it was a chaffinch, easily identifiable because of its double white wing bars.
“That's a male, because of it's pinky brown underside,” he would add.
“Oh. And what kind of bird is that one, FFA?”
“That's also a chaffinch, Tim,” he'd say. “Easily identifiable because of its double white wing bars. That's a male, because of it's pinky brown underside.”
We passed a happy brace of hours in this fashion, ambling beside the river in the late afternoon sunshine, playing pooh sticks and beating off insects. The air was thick with midgets.

Back at the house it was jambalaya night, easily identifiable by its pleasing spicy aroma and pinky brown hued rice and potatoes.

Later in the upstairs living room, we played a new variant of What The F*ck, called Who Wants To Be A Scientologist?
In S*n Fr*ncisco – yeah, yeah, sorry about that – somebody in the street handed Girlfriend a lengthy questionnaire to fill in at her own leisure.
You'd have to be barking, not to say in possession of too much spare time, to diligently answer all two hundred rather earnest questions, then supply “them” with your name and contact details – though I guess barking and excessively time-rich are just the qualities “they” look for in prospective prey. But the questions lend themselves well to the WTF format.

So we had a right good laugh debating “Do you make thoughtless remarks or accusations that you later regret?” and “Do your past failures still worry you?” and “Do you turn down responsibility because you doubt your ability to cope?” and “Does life seem rather vague and unreal to you?”
Incidentally, just how creepy is “Could you agree to strict discipline?”?
Why not be honest and get straight to the point? “Fancy joining a cult? Free brainwashing!”

To change the mood, sometime around midnight we went outside to play bush jumping. This was Leanne's idea. It consists of running as fast as you can into a hedge. It was funny.
Then we played hide and seek a bit, and then me, FFA and Leanne walked down the nearby stream/ditch to see how far we could get.
The squelch of mud between toes became quite pleasant after a while. There was barbed wire to negotiate, and branches and brambles and quite deep bits. It was pitch black save for the scant illumination provided by a torch with a fading battery, and of course, this was also Leanne's idea and terrifically funny.

Everybody had gone to bed when we returned maybe an hour later, so we had another drink. Slimy little creatures crawled out of our trouser pockets and scampered in slo-mo across the floor, no doubt wondering how the hell they'd got there and how they were going to get back.

Eventually the sky grew light, the sun came up and we called it a day.

Holiday

2007-06-18T22:53:00.000Z

Fairly Famous Actor piled his stuff into the boot and we drove to deepest Derbyshire, beer and wine bottles happily fizzing and clanging respectively, as excited as us to be off on our latest adventure.
It was a nice day. What with all the weather we'd been having we weren't sure if Derbyshire would be closed, but we made it inside OK.

Leanne was already there when we arrived, not long ahead of us. The lady came round and gave us the key and told us about the bins and when the gardeners would be here and so on – sunbathing in the nip would out of the question for Thursday morning then; Boo! That's my favourite time – and then left us to run about excitedly looking at everything.

I wouldn't say that the initial running around saying “Ooh, look! Nice bathroom / kitchen / entrance hall / grounds / whatever” is the best part about renting a holiday cottage, but it's certainly part of the fun. There were before and after photos of what the place was like before the owners did it up – a derelict shell in a field – and it was impressive.

Girlfriend, FFA and Leanne set about unpacking food, and I documented the process. Charlie and Juggling Protege arrived not long after and so the joyful “Ooh look!” thing happened once more.
Soon it was raining again, really bucketing down, but we were so pleased to be there it didn't make much difference.

It was pizza night, then we moved upstairs to the living room and played What The F*ck - “the outrageous drinking game for 2-100+ players.” It's a board game we bought in S*n Fr*ncisco.
The idea is that you ask someone a question, then everybody else has to try and guess that person's answer.
With it being American, some of the questions don't translate too well – who really cares about the chance to attend a Presidential Inauguration? Or meeting the British Prime Minister? - but others prompted some good discussions.

What would you rather give up for six months? a) Chocolate b) Shampoo
What would you rather have more of? a) Friends b) Money
What would you rather rid the world of? a) Disease b) Crime
Would you let someone vomit in your mouth for $50,000? a) Yes b) No

We generally avoided questions of the “Who would you rather take a shower with? Player One or Player Two?” nature, which I think was for the best.

It Might As Well Rain Until September

2007-06-15T22:51:00.000Z

Outside my window it rains and rains. Rain all over Preston, rain all over England, relentless rain all over everywhere relentlessly.

I put on my wellies and waded over to the datacentre with a big tupperware box of cartridges to perform some restores, disaster recovery work.

Rex the security guard was standing where his potatoes used to grow, idly prodding the sodden ground with a garden fork. The rain beat down on his upturned face, his eyes closed, praying for drainage.
I stood a while with him, gazing skyward, the rain gathering into little streams running down my neck and inside my shirt.
“No sign of it stopping any time soon, then?” I said pointlessly, and went on my way.
He says he's never seen anything like it.

Neil, my former team leader, paddled by in a canoe on his umpteenth lap of the car park. “It Might As Well Rain Until September” played tinnily on his phone.

I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to keep my head down and just getting on with it.
Stella, my eighties style yuppie witch of a team leader, has given me a load of stuff to do which doesn't require too much thinking, which has suited me fine.

The other day Bill Surname CEO announced over the crackly bing bong that there'll be more redundancies down the pipeline. We've been promised our department is in the clear, that we won't be effected, but we've heard all this before. It's getting a bit monotonous and the news has barely caused a ripple.

I quite fancy a holiday.

Antichrist Television Blues

2007-06-01T22:40:00.000Z

We rode a taxi downtown then waited for a train – the BART, if you must – to send us whizzing under the Bay and resurfacing on the other side in next to no time.
We emerged from the underground station blinking like moles with suitcases, which we trundled through the scholastic streets until our brows were moist with dampness. We dumped them in our room – the cases, not our brows - then headed straight out again for some serious dawdling about.

Berkeley is the city of a squillion students. Telegraph Avenue is where the bustle is, and where Girlfriend bought some Lego earrings from an enterprising kid with a street corner stall.
We browsed second hand bookshops and second hand clothes shops – the nineties are the new eighties, apparently – and had lunch in the scruffiest cafe we could find.
It was the sort of place where bearded men and women buy one coffee, then sit at a table and read an entire novel, or write one, or as was the case with one particularly unselfconscious young man sat in the window, pull out a bass guitar and a Portastudio, and proceed to lay down some tracks, man.

We meandered around the University campus, eventually wending our way up to the Greek Theatre, the work of one WR Hearst.
Once it was all tear gas and National Guard troops round here, and though the students aren't quite so revolting as their sixties and seventies counterparts, dissenting voices are still making themselves heard. It was day 182 of the protest.
Tattoos & body piercing & politics.

We returned to the Greek Theatre in the evening, where The Arcade Fire put on a farewell show for the last night of our holiday.
It's a brilliant venue and it was a great show. Everybody had a good time. It was a wonderful summer evening – it didn't rain! Phew! - and I can't imagine a more perfect way to have ended the trip.

Tomorrow we have to be up at stupid o'clock for the airport. It's hardly worth going to bed. Tired but happy.

American Beauty

2007-05-31T22:24:00.000Z

Mel's for breakfast, then we caught the number forty three – no, not that 43, though we did think about it – to Haight-Ashbury.

Back in the day it was the hippy epicentre of the universe, but that didn't put us off. There were still re-assuring quantities of alternative lifestylers in evidence, which was good.

We browsed shops. Amoeba Records was pretty cool, and I bought a Haight-Ashbury shaky egg (made in Taiwan) from a music shop as a gift for my local Singer's Night Help Group.
We spent ages browsing in The Booksmith, and I thought about buying my own bodyweight in Annie Leibovitz product, remembering just in time that you can buy stuff off the internet now, which saves on suitcase taxes. Sorry, bookshop.

Lunch was in the Red Victorian Peacenik Cafe, then we plodded what seemed like several miles - possibly because it was - back to the hotel.

Here is some interesting detailing, and these are beautifully restored.

At Alomo Square we watched as bus after bus rolled up, people dutifully piled out to have their picture taken in front of The Painted Ladies, then got back in the bus to make room for the next lot.
Pacific Heights was very pleasant in an affluent big house neighbourhood kind of way, though I think I preferred the view back up the hill from down in lowly Cow Hollow.

Dinner was Vietnamese – possibly the best meal of the whole trip – then we returned to Sol's bar for more margaritas and White Russians.
I like the whole American bar thing, with just one guy working the room. It's as much “An Audience With...” as it is going out for a drink. Kids were playing pool, customers were playing cards at the bar for what looked like quite big money, baseball on the telly.

I've had a great idea for a sitcom. It's about a bunch of people who practically live in a bar and are almost like family to each other. It needs to be called something snappy, like “Bottom's Up!” or “Here's Mud In You Eye.” I'm sure I'll think of something.
Our friendly bartender gave us drinks on the house, and we stopped out late and got a bit squiffy. Cheers.

Lunch shot: Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament Banana and Nutella Crepe. Worth the airfare alone.

Scream If You Wanna Go Faster

2007-05-30T22:31:00.000Z

I went down to fetch coffee and cornflakes from a little breakfast counter in the motel reception.
The same lad who had checked us in last night stood up to say hello. His hair was all sticky up and he was still in his pyjamas. He'd clearly been sleeping just behind the reception desk. I apologised for waking him and scampered back to our room to tell Girlfriend.

It was another sunny California morning and we walked into town.
My friend Juggling Protege tells me that in Liverpool, if you see a pair of shoes dangling from telegraph wires, it means that's where drug dealers go about their business. I wonder if the same applies in Santa Cruz.

The town, like our motelier, was just waking up: shops were opening their shutters to the day, and the only people about were students heading off to college and homeless people congregated around the bus station. It was all very ordered and civilised. There were two pleasingly old fashioned looking cinemas in the town.

They reminded me of that scene in Field of Dreams where Kevin Costner steps out of his motel to discover he's back in 1972, and the Godfather is showing at the picture house, and he meets Moonlight Graham out on his evening stroll. I love that film.

I splashed out on a few new T-shirts – not literally, thankfully – and the young salesman in American Apparel, on hearing our non-Californian accents asked where we were from. I gave my stock answer – North West England, an hour's drive from Manchester. He mentioned that his favourite band was from Manchester, and when he said it was Elbow everything briefly went warm and fuzzy as we chatted about how great they are, blah blah, etc. So that was nice.

We wandered down to the amusement park on the Beach Boardwalk, where went on the ferris wheel – it goes really high up! - and rode the Giant Dipper, which being made entirely of wood and paint makes it something of a historic relic.
I feel slightly sheepish confessing that before today I'd never been on a rollercoaster, but I have now and it was fantastic and terrible and fantastic. Now I understand why people scream and shout on rollercoasters – it's because you can't help it. It's just the natural thing to do. I feel I'm ready for The Big One now.
Girlfriend also went on the carousel, another historically important monument owing to its “throw the brass ring into the clown's mouth” feature. I took loads of snaps of her riding gently round and round, and she looks really sweet and lovely, grinning like a big kid.

There were loads of school kids running around the place, and lots of teachers standing around with clipboards trying to keep tabs on everybody, and there was a really pleasant atmosphere.
It's a while since I've been to Blackpool's Pleasure Beach, but I don't remember the atmosphere being so good natured and innocent as this.
Kids in America, as the poet and philosopher Kim Wilde once said, all seem so polite and well mannered. It's something you notice again and again, and I'm sure it wasn't just us viewing the world through rose-tinted “We're on our holidays so everything seems great” glasses.
If they do have chav and townie kids in the States, then they keep them all locked up in police cells, because we certainly didn't see any. It makes a big difference.

After all that excitement we loaded up on sugary drinks then hit the road once more.
At The Mystery Spot we paid fifteen dollars to stand on unlevel surfaces while a man dressed up as a Park Ranger – but not a real Park Ranger; I bet he gets loads of stick from his Real Park Ranger mates – gave an entertaining and instructive talk.
Basically, gravity is all wonky at The Mystery Spot, a fact which continually confounds all the world's leading gravity experts. Bottles of water roll up hill! People appear taller or shorter than they actually are, depending on where they stand! You can walk up the walls! I go with the alien spacecraft theory myself.

Then it was back to San Francisco. We left the car at the airport – easier said than done - and got a taxi back into town for our second insane rollercoaster ride of the day. How he managed not to kill anybody was the real mystery of the day, but then again, maybe he did and we were just going too quick to notice.

We're staying across from Mel's Drive In.

Miles of the day: Let's call it sixty.

Santa Cruz, It's Not That Far.

2007-05-29T19:41:00.000Z

Breakfast was a no nonsense self-service affair over in the main complex, brought out by burly blokes in Stars and Stripes bandannas. They looked liked the kind of men who would know their way around a Harley Davidson flight deck in an emergency.

Big Sur is a stretch of rugged, rocky coastline spanning ninety miles or so. There doesn't seem to be a definitive boundary, where it starts and stops, it's just, you know, Big Sur. It has its own misty micro-climate.
I'd love to come back in the depths of winter when the weather is at its wildest, when the ocean is a frothing cauldron and surfer dudes are tossed about on the waves like matchsticks.
“Surf's up, Dude! Dude? Dude? Hey, where did that dude go? Bummer.”

This is the waterfall in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.

There was an entertaining face off when we popped into a post office to buy stamps. Girlfriend handed the man a half written letter so he could work out what the postage would be when she came to post it.
Only he wouldn't give it back to her. Once you hand an item to the US Mail, it becomes their property.
“But I haven't finished writing it yet.”
“Too bad. It's mine now.”
“But...”
“Sorry. I can't let you have it back, Ma'am.”
The guy showed a little leniency, allowing her to quickly finish the letter then and there, but on no account was she to leave the premises. Or he'd have shot the both of us.

We drove on past glorious beaches and rocks and that, up to Carmel, an absurdly posh town where every shop is either a gallery or a jewelers. You'd be screwed if you needed a pint of milk, though you could probably get a painting of one.
We did lunch outside the Hogg's Breath - enormous patio heaters blazing away at every table – and I've no idea what this is, but it watched our every move. I think it may have been a remotely controlled CCTV bird-bot, sent to make sure we didn't steal the cutlery.
Afterwards we cruised a few galleries, most of which seemed to cater for the wealthy tasteless, but there was some good stuff here and there, then we went for a stroll on the beach. I spent a good while grabbing people's cameras off them and taking their picture whether they liked it or not.

We carried on to Santa Cruz. The roads were busy with rush hour commuters heading back from work. We passed field after field of farmworkers waiting around for their lift home.

It was evening when we checked into our motel, close to the seafront. We were the only customers that night – or ever, perhaps - which only served to make it seem just a teeny bit creepy.
We took an atmospheric stroll along the pier, and it was all very Springsteenesque: the bit in Born To Run about “the amusement park rises bold and stark, kids are huddled on the beach in the mist.”

I bought a Santa Cruz key ring and bottle opener, and dinner consisted of beer, nachos and leftover cherries on a bed of, well, just on a bed.
Now and then I'd take a look outside our window.

Lunch shot: Caramelised in Carmel.
Miles of the day: Ninety.

Big Sur

2007-05-28T00:16:00.000Z

Waving goodbye to our psychedelic bathroom we wondered if there are people who try to collect the full set. There surely must be.

Then we had one last look at all the pretty horses and sped off in search of that old Highway One again.

We stopped in Cambria to buy a paper (Front page story - "New structures would be severely limited on 900-acre ranch overlooking Estero Bluffs"; Property pages - "Holy Shit! How much?"; Sports pages – none) and ordered sandwiches at the deli counter.
This involved ticking millions of boxes on a spreadsheet for the endless permutations of types of bread, spread, filling, cheese supplement, meat supplement, salad options, stock options, whether you want them to reclaim your VAT and pass it on to whale charities, donkey charities, retired biker dude charities, and whether you want to eat it straightaway, tomorrow, next week, next month, or never.

So we scoffed our haul watching surfer dudes in action, then went to see Hearst Castle.

William Randolph Hearst was born extremely rich, then devoted his life to becoming, like, mega-extremely rich, a feat he pulled off with considerable aplomb.
He owned an enormous newspaper empire, his style was jingoistic and sensationalist, and it's said he played no small part in starting the Spanish-American War in order to boost circulation figures.
“You provide the pictures,” he may or may not have apocryphally told his reporters, “and I'll provide the war.”
It is known, however, that both Hitler and Churchill filed copy for Hearst during their lifetimes.

The castle was never completed in his lifetime, chiefly because no sooner was a room finished, then he'd change his mind and have it torn down again.
There are fifty six bedrooms, sixty one bathrooms, nineteen sitting rooms, and two rather tasty swimming pools. Personally, I'd knock through to create a small lake.

Everybody who was anybody wound up here – I'd guess that when invited you either turned up or kissed your career goodbye – and he was the not very thinly disguised inspiration behind Citizen Kane.

We carried on our way, stopping awhile at this popular hangout for sea lions.
We also saw and heard a sea otter, which made Girlfriend jump up and down with delight. You should hear the racket they make when smashing clams together in their little otter paws.
The light was fading, a bit yellowy and deliciously gloomy as we headed on.

We're staying in a little wooden lodge in Lucia. It's great. I'm thinking it would make a perfect writer's retreat.
What couldn't I do in a room like this?

Miles of the day: Ninety five-ish.

Queen Of The Coast

2007-05-27T03:11:00.000Z

Chatting to our innkeepers John and Ann Marie, it dawned on us that as far as getting to see the United States is concerned, you're probably better off being non-American.

American employees don’t get much holiday - ten days is fairly typical, it seems – so they go a bit travel bonkers at holiday weekends. They flew in from all over.
A two week gentle saunter, like the one we're engaged in, would be the stuff of dreams for most Americans. They do their travelling in short bursts, so it’s little wonder so many have never heard of, say, Wales. Or Texas.
Ruminating on this, we got in the car and buggered off.

We drove south, back down the bendy SR120 that didn't seem so bad on the inland side, then across miles and miles of flat, hot agricultural country. Near Oakdale I stopped to buy some cherries from one of the many roadside fruit sellers you see along the way. The woman - a middle aged Britney Spears, all dolled up but kind of AWOL behind the eyes – had the juiciest cherries I've ever tasted.
We were pleased to see signs for Modesto. It’s mentioned in Laura Cantrell’s Queen Of The Coast -
'In a roadstop in Reno at supper time,
The waitress comes over with a look in her eye.
Says, "I saw you in Modesto almost thirty years ago,
And I can still remember every song in your show"'
- and of course, it's where top beard rockers Grandaddy hailed from. In interviews they often bemoaned the lack of anything much ever happening there, so we took the hint and steered clear.
Likewise Morrissey Boulevard.

The bleakest place we drove though was Kettleman City. It’s the point at which they switch off the irrigation, and hey presto, America’s food bowl becomes instant desert.

Actually I’m not sure if the next thirty miles technically qualify as desert, but it was near enough for me. John Innkeeper, who used to commute the three hundred and fifty mile trip twice a week, had forewarned us that this stretch was just like Nevada.
We passed close to the spot where James Dean died.

We’re staying in the gloriously fifties-kitsch Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo.
We asked the lad on reception how long it might take to walk into town and he looked at us like we were insane. You have to cross several hideously busy roads, some of them twice, before you’re actually any nearer to the town, so with hindsight, perhaps he had a point.

The town itself is pleasant enough – a tidy little college town – although it was a little lacking in character, we thought. It doesn’t seem to have a focal point.
It is noteworthy though for Bubblegum Alley, which is both really gross and strangely compelling, and wouldn’t be out of place in the Tate Modern.

Much later on, after the hotel dance hall had cleared and the place was all but empty, and you could see headlights blazing by on Highway 101 in the mirrors behind the bar, only two hundred miles to LA, Longbeard and Gonzo were discussing what constitutes a good woman. Every sentence ended in “Dude.”
Longbeard’s girlfriend was also present, apparently not minding being discussed like she wasn’t there.
“A good chick knows when you're at breaking point, Dude,” said Longbeard.
His friends nodded sagely in agreement.

It’s our new favourite catchphrase.

Chasing After Deer

2007-05-26T22:19:00.000Z

We headed back into the park. It was far busier today, on account of it being Memorial Day Weekend.
We parked up and caught the shuttle bus to the foot of the Vernal Falls trail.

There's a very well trodden footpath so there's never any delusion that you're striking out into wilderness country. That doesn't mean to say the trek is without its dangers.
Although there'd been less snow than usual this year, the rivers and waterfalls still looked full enough, and as you approach the Falls, mist fills the air and the path becomes perilously slippery.
One false move and, frankly, that would be the end of you. The path bottle-necks and the crowds thicken - incredibly we saw people wearing flip-flops - and we walked quite high but not to the very top. Girlfriend had an attack of common sense and asked to stop. I didn't mind.

Next we did the Mirror Lake Loop, a nice circular walk which takes you well away from the crowds. Soon it's just you and hundreds of bears hiding on tiptoe behind every tree, all saying "Ssshh! Humans!"
The path takes you directly underneath the Half Dome, which rises almost 5,000 feet above the path, and at seven measly degrees off vertical is the sheerest cliff in North America.

It's all absurdly picturesque. Butterflies flutter by, children laugh and play in the water, people happily potter about in boats. It's like walking round inside a children's picture book.
We saw another bear.
I managed to catch a rare and very exciting sighting of, Mmmm, a cowgirl.

As evening fell we drove up to Glacier Point in time for the sunset. It's another precipitous drive, alarmingly so at points - we saw snow! - and it involves driving fifteen miles away from the valley floor, then fifteen miles back in again, ending at The Car Park On Top Of The World.

The view was completely and utterly spectacular. This snap doesn't begin to do it justice.
And this is what it's like to stand at a railing and look down on a 3,200 foot sheer drop.
People regularly die here.

Darkness was descending. As we left the park, a deer darted across the road right in front of us. I slammed on the breaks and came, like, this close to hitting it.

It Covers The Hillsides

2007-05-25T19:19:00.000Z

I lost count of the times we said "Wow!" today.
The first big one was driving into Yosemite National Park when El Capitan (7,569 feet; 3,593 of them rising vertically from the valley floor) first came into sight. It's just vast. Huge. We swore a bit, then laughed, then said "Wow!" some more.

Here's a bear sauntering around a meadow.

We hired some bikes. They don't have gears and you brake by pedalling backwards, which is an odd experience and takes a little getting used to. I was especially proud of Girlfriend for getting back in the saddle, as the last time she rode a bike on holiday she was knocked off by a car and broke her wrist.

There's a twelve mile traffic-free loop around the valley floor, so that's what we did.
Here are some people in a dingy.
Here is Girlfriend cooling off in a river.

When we were done with the bikes, we drove up to Tunnel View. The sun was low and shadows stretched across the mountains. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it.

Hummingbird

2007-05-24T15:24:00.000Z

We drove south down the Napa Valley, thirty miles of vineyards, then headed east, finding our way to State Route 120 which takes you to Yosemite.

It's all farming country, industrialised and not all that pretty, the landscape flat and monotonous.
We drove from small town to small town, and wondered what it must be like to live here.
Our favourite place name was Potato Slough. It was very hot.

East of Oakdale, as you approach Yosemite, the road becomes what you might describe as preposterously winding. We called it The Road Of Death, because it seemed like terrible unpleasantness could happen at any moment. If you dare take your eyes off the road for a second, you look to the right and far, far below you see a looping stretch of tarmac and realise you've just driven up it.
There was a lot of nervous laughter.

We're staying in an incredibly beautiful, peaceful place twelve miles from the park entrance. Our room is huge, the bed big enough to sleep three or four if that's your thing, and best of all, there are hundreds of hummingbirds feeding on the veranda. We can hardly believe it.

We sat on the swing and drank tea, later moving onto beer and nachos, and generally flopped.
I passed a couple of hours trying to photograph hummingbirds.
They have to feed every fifteen minutes, you know, in order to keep their metabolism going. Apparently, at any time they're just one hour away from starving to death.

Here's one, and here's another. And here are three.

Miles of the day: Ooh, about 250.

It Was A Very Good Year

2007-05-23T09:54:00.000Z

Some dash round visiting loads of wineries in a day. I guess if you're a connoisseur then this is Wine Tasting Heaven, but we’re more your undiscriminating slurping types and decided one wine tour would be more than adequate.

We chose Sterling Vineyards, not because of its unique growing conditions, fruity nose and noble pedigree, but because you get to ride in a cable car as part of the admission. That’s two types of fun for one ticket, and that’s the way to my heart.

So we did the tour, which was interesting if a little cheesy, then had a tasting.
A smartly turned out lady pours you a sample and you’re encouraged to look thoughtful then say something sophisticatedly appreciative like “Yup, I like that. Next!”

My tasting notes:
2006 Pinot Gris - OK.
2005 Lake Chardonnay - OK.
2004 Sangiovese - Yeah, alright.
2004 Cabernet Sauvignon - Nicer.
2006 Malvasia Bianca - Alright as well.

It was sensory pleasures all the way today. In the afternoon we went for a spa treatment, or whatever it's called. It's what you do in Calistoga.
It consisted of lying in a bath delicately scented with volcanic ash and lavender for half an hour, while being forced to listen to a CD of crashing waves and wind chimes with cucumbers on your eyes.
Then you have a lie down and a willowy lady rubs stuff into your feet. I was sure I'd kick her, such is my ticklishness, but actually it was alright. I was also a bit worried I might get the erections so spent the whole time focussing very intently on non-erectionly thoughts - the pros and cons of automatic transmission versus manual gears, the downwardly spiralling fortunes of Leeds United, what on earth did people ever see in Dave Lee Travis? - and it seemed to do the trick.

After that we went off to separate rooms and a burly fellow called Oak smeared me in lotions and set about dislocating my shoulders.
I asked if I had a lot of tension and he said yes. I put it down to the wind chime music and the extreme physical pain. But you know, in a perverse way, it was really pleasant physical pain.

It seemed a very Californian thing to do. I'm sure you can get massages back home in the Preston area, but could it ever be the same?

Bar Shot: Hydro Bar and Grill again.

It's In The Trees!

2007-05-22T20:40:00.000Z

Back on Highway One for fifty more miles of elegantly sweeping roads, stunning coastline and running about looking windswept.

We drove up as far as Leggett, where we paid five good dollars to drive through the drive-thru tree. Only I bottled it, and sheepishly drove round it instead. With hindsight, the car might well have squeezed through unscathed, but I'm not too regretful that we only walked-thru. It's better for the environment that way.

Then we drove inland to the Napa Valley, home of more wineries than you can shake a bunch of grapes at.
We're staying in Calistoga (pop. 5,190, and named by a man who meant to say something else) and it's incredibly hot after the cool breeze of the coast.
It sure is pretty and Main Street is a picture. There's a homely small town feel about the place which is very becoming indeed.
Here are some people crossing the road.

We ate at the Hydro Bar and Grill. The waiter studied English and finishes on Friday.
One of the waitresses is getting married, but there's no definite plans made yet.

If you see this guy's laptop, give him a call, it sounds important. No se haran preguntas.

Today' miles: 190.
Dinner Shot: I heart lettuce.

Planning A Bootleg LP?

2007-05-21T14:13:00.000Z

We're staying in a beautiful old watertower. It's bright and comfy and the walls close in as they rise towards the ceiling. It must be a pain trying to fit wardrobes.

We'd planned to go horse riding today, but I was feeling kinda zonked in the head and not really up to it, so we cancelled. It was a bit of a disappointment, and I know Girlfriend had gone to a lot of trouble planning and booking it. So I didn't feel too great about that, but hey.

Instead we wandered round the little town, checking out the touristy shops - that'd be most of them - and galleries, then had some quality log sitting time on the beach.

We're pretty sure this is an osprey.
This is frothy, Man.
This is a big nosed pregnant lady wearing a smock.
Here is some grass blowing about.

It's a lovely place, with a fetching Main Street that looks out across the bay. The guide books usually mention 'bohemian' in their descriptions of Mendocino. What this means is there are lots of artists living here, and some of them haven't washed in a while.
Dreadlocked young crusties with well worn camper vans and a dialect you might call "California beach bum surfer dude" mingled peacefully with well off looking tourists approaching retirement age.

In the evening we ate at The Moose Cafe. It was nice. Quite posh. At 8:35 they were turning customers away because they were closing.

Then we went to Dick's Bar - "All Dicks and no Richards," according to the sign. Drank margaritas and watched baseball.
Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants was looking good for beating a home runs record. I think. The Giants' stadium is on the shores of China Basin, and canoeists wait around in the hope that a ball should come their way. One lucky paddler collected a ball that had been walloped out of the ground by Bonds, and if he goes on to beat the record, the ball will go for squillions on eBay. They repeated the clip endlessly.

On the jukebox you get three tunes for a dollar.

Girlfriend's selection:
1 Modest Mouse - Ocean Breathes Salty
2 The Specials - Gangsters
3 Can't Remember

My selection:
1 The Clash - London Calling
2 Can't Remember
3 Can't Remember