Someone Here is Missing

My mate Chrissie, who I haven't seen for a while, commented recently that she loved reading my blog because I was such a grumpy old git... Well, today I had evidence of an even grumpier old git.

A couple of months ago, when I was in a lot of pain from my back and attempting to get out of the house, the wife and I took the dogs for a walk to some local woods. Now, for those of you who don't know our dogs, here is a quick description:

• Ness - small, black and furry. looks like a jet black fox, has nothing but white noise going on in her head. is vicious but only to the other three dogs. She might be small, but she's pack leader. She's probably a cross between a Sheltie and a wolverine.
• Murray - the baby of the team and arguably alpha male even if he isn't sure what male means. He is a bit of a poof and he's recovering from having an operation to remove a lump from his leg, so he's currently on his lead when we go out. He looks about as harmful as a Christmas fairy. He's a collie cross.
• Lexy - short, stocky and loves people. If you come to visit us, you've come to visit her and she will cuddle you - whether you like it or not. Is a bit short-sighted and has one tone, so unless you know her, she sounds the same happy as she does angry. She is a basset hound staffie cross.
• Marley - retarded, pony-like, a big puppy who is incredibly defensive, but also quite soppy. She is a stereotypical rescue dog - one minute off on her own snuffling in shit, the next attacking any dog that comes within 50 feet of us. She has got much better and has very few 'moments' (touch wood). She is a Labrador, German Shepherd, Mutt cross.

When we were in these woods, Marley, who has a thing about men in hats, started barking at this old man who was minding his own business. The wife thought she'd dealt with it, but the old git started shouting and threatening to call the police because we had this 'vicious dog'. I lost my temper and after several obscene words, told the old **** to **** off or I would setting my ****ing dogs on him and then he'd know what it's like to be ****ed over by vicious dogs. It wasn't my finest moment and I don't think the wife was at all amused. To be fair, it was wrong of me, but we had both apologised to the old bastard and he was having none of it. I felt like asking him if he'd be satisfied if I had the dog put down.

The upshot of this was, I avoid men in hats when I'm out and to be fair to the Marlster, as I call her, she's been pretty much free of trouble for months (touch wood). She did try it on with a staffie about a month ago, but she got her skinny arse handed to her on a plate and has been quite passive ever since.

Now, back to today. we're over the park because there's a bit of frozen snow on the floor and Ness adores snow. We were having a good walk and my feet were beginning to freeze, but you make sacrifices for the dogs. Marley has been okay with other dogs and was off making the acquaintance of a big black lab and I was walking past this old codger who was walking his Cavalier King Charles spaniel - on its lead. Neither Lexy nor Ness seemed the slightest bit interested - Murray tends to avoid other dogs. When Marley was finished with the lab, she headed in our direction, veered off to the left to meet the spaniel. She was not bounding up or acting in a threatening manner at all; she was wagging her tail and the codger suddenly reacts like he's being attacked by wolves. He stands in front of his dog, so Marley side steps him and makes a bee line for the other dog's arse. They are dogs after all and they like sniffing each others' bottoms!

The man kicks out at Marley. "Oy, she won't hurt your dog," I call out, but the man takes no notice and takes another weak kick at my dog. "Oy, she's just doing what dogs do, mate, you know, having a sniff. So don't do that again!" Anyhow, Marley, sensing she's not wanted, wanders back over to me and then off for a sniff in a different direction. I'm seething, but I'm also heading away from the guy, so left it alone. We were actually on our way back to the car and about 5 minutes later we were just about there when I noticed that old codger was also on his way to where my car was parked. I estimated that his dog had been in the park about 7 minutes, where mine had had at least 45.

Now, I had Murray on his lead; Lexy was off sniffing at fences (she has a fence fetish) and Marley was nowhere to be seen - not a worry, she often isn't seen, but is always close by. Ness, who is as menacing as a feather duster to other dogs, decides she's going to say Hi to the little spaniel. I call her, but she's having none of it. The little Cavalier seemed eager enough, but the owner didn't and tells my Ness to shoo and waves his arms at her. I see red. "What is your problem?" I ask and he ignores me again. "I said, what is your problem?" This time he looks at me but instead of answering me he tells me that my dogs are vicious.

"How the fuck do you work that out?" I said getting angry now.

"Well, look at him, he's on a lead." pointing at the boy. I felt like laughing, hysterically.

"He's on a lead because he's just had an operation on his leg! He's got to take it easy."

"Well, my dog is in season."

"And these three are all bitches." By this time Marley appears, but is surprisingly giving the old bastard a wide berth.

"You have no control over your dogs, they should be on leashes."

"What, so I can take my dogs out for less than 10 minutes, like you are?"

"I said, she's in season."

"And that doesn't mean she's ill. She also isn't likely to get fucked by any of mine. He's on a lead and they've all been done." I says, pointing at my dogs.

"Yeah, that's likely."

"Excuse me, are you suggesting that I'm lying about having had my dogs done?" he says nothing. "Are you suggesting I look like someone who doesn't care about his dogs and will let them run riot?" He says nothing again. "Just what the fuck are you saying?" He started to move again, this time beyond me and up the road. By this time I'm back at the car and the boot is open. Murray is in it, Lexy is back and Ness is doing her usual bit of standing looking at the car like its some kind of ancient artefact. I ask her to get in the car and she just continues to stand there.

"You obviously have no control over your dogs," says the old man, who is past me now and that's it, the red mist descends. I pick Ness up and literally throw her in the back of the car. Marley is still sniffing about, but I shut the back of the car anyhow and stomp after the old man.

"I don't know if its the weather, or if you just got up in a bad fucking mood, but none of my dogs did anything for you to be even remotely pissed off with. But you've certainly pissed me off. I don't care how old you are or what your fucking excuse is, but if you insult me or my dogs again, I'll stuff your little dog so far up your arse, his ears will replace your fucking tonsils. Do. You. Understand. Me?" I'm about an inch from his face and his little dog is actually trying to climb up my leg to get a fuss.

I didn't see his reaction. I turned back round, walked to my car, shouted at Marley to get in the back, that I was reopening and without a batter of an eyelid, she did. I got back in the car, saw at least 3 of my dogs all looking at me like I'd threatened them all with the dog pound and started laughing. I said, "It's all right guys, it wasn't you, it was that stupid old git."

Just why he was in such a foul mood I have no idea. Perhaps his missus would let him have a shag this morning. I could have understood it if any of my dogs had been acting with menaces, but they were all a bit knackered (apart from Murray) and were about as threatening as blancmange.

Some people are just cunts, I suppose...

Utopian Daydream

Perhaps I'm just losing it, but I can't understand why the next Ashes test, which is in Perth and therefore closer to England than Adelaide was, starts two hours later, GMT.

+++

It seems I shall not be returning to work before 2011 (and that probably won't last long, as cuts are going to mean me looking for a new job, and with my sickness record... sheesh). The doctor is less happy about my health than I am. She had made it clear that she really didn't want me to go back to work until I'd seen the spinal assessment people. Our appointment today was a little disconcerting in many ways. The odd feelings I have in my left leg - that's not just the pain, but the weird electric shock sensations (I described it as feeling as though I had a mild sunburn under the skin) are down to either nerve damage or pressure on my nerves from the prolapsed disc. I expressed a wee bit of concern that it's been 11 weeks since the 'slippage' and that the average time is normally 6 weeks for it to heal. She said, quite rightly, that the intense pain and inability to move had gone within 6 weeks; but what the Internet fails to tell you is that it can take almost twice as long to recover and in some cases, you never really regain the feeling and abilities you had prior to the slipped disc.

It certainly explains why I'm in as much pain and discomfort now as I was a month ago. I think she thinks the spinal injuries clinic people will recommend an operation. My mate Wendy, who also suffers from similar crap, was talking about a 5 year window of healing for nerve damage and HR at work were suggesting that I might be eligible for early retirement due to ill health.

GODS! Three years ago I was like a goddamn super rabbit in the bedroom; I could yomp round woods and fields like a demented young David Bellamy and I laughed at my occasional dodgy backache with a contempt that would make Ming the Merciless proud. What the fuck happened?

Anyhow, the 22nd is D-Day and depending on their prognosis I will return to work (for however long that lasts) on January 5th. In the meantime, the doc has put me back on Tramadol - the drug that completely bolloxed my brain in 2009. Her argument is that she wants me to take them for the next 3 weeks while I'm off work, so I can switch my brain off and just let the painkiller do its job.

+++

I'm supposed to be going to the cinema for my yearly visit on Saturday. The problem is Northampton actually has heavy snow forecast. I don't believe it will happen, which usually means it will. Also, I went on line today to book the tickets. I was mortified that it costs £7.60 per person to go now and even more fucked off that it also costs an extra 70p per transaction to use my Visa to book them. The film I'm going to see has been out over 3 weeks, is unlikely to be packed out and I can walk up to the kiosk and buy a ticket without paying the extra £1.40.

It's a swizz I tells you and we get conned by it for anything we go to see via the Internet. I hope the person who invented this little con gets knob rot and his genitals fall off - painfully.

+++

Watched Scott Pilgrim versus The World this evening, despite not really wanting to because of thinking the comic was utter shite. Various people recommended the film numerous times and because Legend of the Guardians appeared to be aimed at 6 year olds and was essentially Australian, we did the SPvTW thing.

It's probably one of the most unique movies I've ever seen. A few key points: It would have been nice to see Mary Elizabeth Winstead with even less clothes on than she had in the fleeting bedroom scene - she is quite gorgeous. Michael Cera doesn't really act - he's just the same nerdish guy he is in all his films. Ellen Wong is quite gorgeous, but not as gorgeous as Mary Elizabeth. Wasn't Brandon Routh Superman for a while?

It's a load of crap and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

O Tannenbaum

Apart from complaining about the incompatibility of my sausage fingers and this poxy keyboard, my favourite moan tends to be how much I hate winter. I've never been a big fan of the cold and now that my body seems to have readjusted to life without the inhalation of smoke I'm finding the cold weather to be that most faithful of female dogs - a bitch.

The news that this coming weekend heralds a cold snap that could make the last one look subtropical has been greeted in Chez Hall with two reactions: the wife's reticent look of despair as I go off on one every 20 minutes and my own going off on one every 20 minutes reaction. The forecast also suggests that as well as having a subzero Christmas, we're likely to drag this bastard weather all the way into 2011. The wonderfully named Joe Bastardi of the anything but Accuweather site (that's anything but accurate) reckons by the time we hit the festive season we'll see a return to warmer conditions. Let's face it, unless there's a massive shift in the Earth's axis, warm doesn't mean anything until at least April, more like June and then only if we're really lucky.

The warm glow of encouragement comes from Norway of all places. it's currently -15 there, at the time of writing this. On Friday when the UK will be shivering in daytime temperatures of -2 and night time lows of -8 (in this area, I hasten to add; if you're in Scotland or Wales - ha ha ha), then Oslo will be basking in a daytime temp of 0 and a night time one of -2. Either someone at the Met office hasn't bothered to update their Norwegian forecast or there is something resembling less cold weather somewhere in Northern Europe and Joe Bastardi can keep the I at the end of his name! However Rob McElwee of the UK Met Office seems to think that we'll all be doing brass monkey impersonations until January 10th at the earliest.

I'd just like to emphasise that all this fucking horrid weather doesn't do my back any good. I have aching joints where I should have just plain old joints...

***

Which leads us nicely to this...

I essentially packed up smoking pot a while ago. Yes, if I was offered some at a party I'd smoke it and at Christmas I sometimes used to treat myself to some; but normally only if I could score any. When you're fast approaching your maiden half century finding people who sell it who are reliable and that you actually know is a bit difficult.

I'm back at work for an hour or so tomorrow and then back properly on Thursday and my biggest fear has been the already oft mentioned fact that in the last four weeks my rehabilitation has not actually shown any signs of progress. If I'm going back to work on Thursday, arguably I could have gone back 4 weeks ago for the improvement that I've seen. My doctor really doesn't want me to go back until I've been assessed by the spinal injuries unit and to be honest if she knew that I'm in as much pain and discomfort as I was the last time I saw her she would not be letting me go back to work - especially with the weather set to turn bitterly cold again.

I have a few friends who suffer from similar problems to me; either spondylosis or a herniated disc or just general arthritic problems (ironically, while I haven't got arthritis, spondylosis is classed as an osteoarthritis... I still haven't quite worked out the semantics of my problem yet). These friends have all been advocating one thing - that I started partaking in the weed again. All of them big up the benefits as an analgesic and as a drug that seems to allow the user the pleasure of it not being a royal pain in the wherever it hurts at that moment in time. My main argument is that, yeah it might be good for my aches and pains, but what about my lungs? Half of them reckon I should smoke it neat - too much of a temptation says I; if I smoke it neat, then I soon fall back into the nicotine related addiction. I am, after all, a recovering nicotine addict. Then eat it says the other 50%. Great idea says I, except I enjoyed smoking it so much how long before I'm tempted into at the least buying some herbal tobacco and leaving myself in the temptation arena again? Plus, it's really good having a wife who doesn't think I smell like a dirty old ashtray!

It hasn't failed to register with me that since packing up rolling my own that the annoying withdrawal things seem to have outweighed the benefits. Who would ever have thought that stopping smoking would have made my skin as dry as as a Rizla or my hair as greasy as a phial of cannabis oil? There is also the 'Um, guys, it's illegal' factor to take into account. I don't live in California (although the climate might help) and I can't see my doctor advocating it for one second, despite her being of West Indian origins. I don't know any one who can get it regularly, nor do I know anyone who, if they could get it, can vouch for the price or the quality. it's not like going to Tesco and getting something past its sell by date. It's not like I can take something back and demand a refund. Well, I could, but I appreciate what little mobility I currently have...

***

Right, enough of this piffling nonsense. I'm off to watch the finale of season 5 of Dexter. The best television programme to come out of the USA since the last best television programme to come out of the USA!

The Octopus

A Review of The Octopus by Amplifier

(released for general sale on January 31, 2011)

Once upon a time there was a heavy rock band called Amplifier. They released thunderous anthems and songs like O Fortuna, Motorhead, Panzer, The Consultancy and Mongrel's Anthem. They showed excellent musicianship with tracks like Glory Electricity, One Great Summer and UFOs and all the while they threatened to throw off the unjust tag of heavy metal band and be proclaimed as the next great thing in progressive rock.

The Octopus does exactly that. Amplifier toy with us. They pretend to be something they're not. Amplifier are the newest champions of prog whether they like it or not! Let's also get one thing straight; there are prog metal bands like Opeth and Anathema and Amplifier are not a prog metal band. In fact, we just have to forget this 'metal' tag once and for all. There are heavy rock bands out there and there are now heavy prog bands too - it's a fact, don't forget it.

The Octopus is a bitch of a record. as much as you love it, it smacks you in the teeth. It has moments where you just wonder if its just a bit of filler and the album could have just been a long single album; then it hits you with tracks like Interglacial Spell or Interstellar and you realise that you need some reticent moments. It is important for those quieter, almost after thought pieces of music such as The Runner, Utopian Daydream and Embryo - they help break up the epic tracks; giving you time to rethink, to digest what a monster Sel Balamir has constructed/created.

But this isn't just a lovefest; there are tracks, including the title track, that are not immediate; tracks you have to work with. The Octopus sounds fabulous; all kinds of range of guitars from gutsy to staccato, interesting bass lines, clever drumming, intricate effects and a balance between light and dark that shows just how much this band has progressed from its early days, but it also needs you to work with it. Some tracks have a meandering feel, while others you want to go on for longer; but I think its all part of the big picture that's being painted - concept albums are like that.

It might be that they're all getting older (and therefore wiser), but this double album that could have wasted a lot of time and effort like parts of Insider did, just seems to rattle along for over two hours that seem a lot less time and in my humble opinion, a band that turns two hours into less time has achieved what they set out to do.

Is it a concept album? I was asked what I thought it was about and I honestly couldn't tell you, even though Balamir told me himself (but I think that was a wind up). It certainly doesn't sound like a concept album about a world run by sentient octopuses who farm humans. it does sound a little like an ode to the human condition; possibly an examination of the future of humanity, or perhaps a hope that for all the shit that inhabit our lives there is also a future, whether humans will play a part or not.

There is only one track under 5 minutes - that's the opener. 7 tracks that can be described as epics - the highlight for me at the moment being Interstellar. But tracks such as Trading Dark Matter on the Stock Exchange, White Horses at Sea/Utopian Daydream and Fall of the Empire all have the ability to be put on constant rotation; but so do most of the tracks on the album. it is a phenomenal achievement - but I would say that, I'm a big fan.

Sel Balamir, Neil Mahony and Matt Brobin have been plying their trade for over 10 years; they don't appear to have a record company any more and that is a real shame because this album would have been a great addition to any label. It's the kind of thing KScope should be putting out and throwing the full weight of their support behind. It might be a labour of love; it's taken them over 4 years to produce and one wonders how the hell they managed to survive. The Octopus is a great album; it fully deserves people like us to part with our cash and help these guys pay their mortgages. The deluxe version comes with a 72 page graphic novel; but that's been sold out. But if you like your prog heavy, your metaphor skewed and want something you won't tire of quickly, I recommend this big big time! Oh, and any album that manages to sample Montgomery Burns deserves your cash!

8½ out of 10

Glass Potato

This is a sort of food rant, hence the hybrid title.

I have been called many things in my life, most of them consisting of FOUR letters and beginning with the letter C. However, I am also a SNOB. I am especially a Potato Snob.

For me, potatoes are the most important part of 50% of the meals I cook. The reason they aren't important for all of the meals I cook is because spuds don't tend to go well with rice or pasta, unless you know something I don't. In fact, if I want to be pedantic (and I'm often called that too) I probably don't even have potatoes with 50% of my food. Between the two of us we go through shit loads of rice and there are always at least 5 different kinds (read shapes) of pasta in the store cupboard at any one time. Our store cupboard has so much stuff in it, it once prompted the wife's brother to ask us if we seriously believed there would be a nuclear winter in the foreseeable future.

I come from a family where at least 6 out of 7 meals a week had spuds on them. As they got older, my folks warmed to pasta, but rice was something the Chinese and Indians ate; or if you were treated to chicken fried rice on the extremely rare occasion a takeaway (that didn't originate from a fish and chip shop) was had . Potatoes were quite important to my mother; she preferred floury spuds for some things and waxy ones for other things and as a result I built up a love for one kind and a hate for the other.

Waxy potatoes have their place; fortunately for me the place they belong are in things I rarely eat - like potato salad, in soups or stews or cold (ugh! Cold spuds, how positively gah!). For me spuds need to be floury and the flourier the better and that means with anything I eat.

My potato fetish has been ridiculed over the years by various members of my family and by in-laws, but for me spuds are the most important accompaniment in a dinner, as they are the bulk of what you're going to eat. If the spuds aren't good then the rest of the dinner isn't. It is important for me that when you have a jacket potato it absorbs the butter, mashes well, but retains that dryness that gives it a certain amount of versatility. I recently bought some potatoes called Osprey in Morrisons, on the strength that they made 'excellent' jacket potatoes. I think I would rather have eaten monkey brains, because the consistency of Osprey jackets was how I'd imagine the grey matter of little primates to be like, except, possibly, a little wetter.

I also find the descriptions of potatoes by supermarkets to be a little vague; but I suppose they're just trying to sell units. I also find the majority of supermarkets to be unadventurous and dull; Tesco being the worst; never in all my shopping years have I seen such a piss poor selection of potatoes from the country's largest food retailer. Sainsburys' and Waitrose are the two retailers that seem to realise that spuds are important and not just something you have with meat and veg. Over the last few years, the former has introduced their Heritage range, which are essentially floury roasting spuds (with the exception of Arran Victory, which I have yet to discover just what they're useful for and have stopped buying them). Waitrose are as good as Sainsburys and feature Shetland Black, which is one of the best and most versatile spud (excellent chips) I've had in years; however, they only seem available for about 6 weeks a year and if you miss them, you miss out.

The Heritage line also have spuds that I think struggle to bear that label - Red King Edward's, Red Duke of York and Kestrel (which I grew myself this year) are all reasonable tatties, but I would look for other varieties.

In my opinion, I tend to avoid common spuds like Maris Piper, King Edward's and Desiree, which would suffice in a post-nuclear landscape. Potatoes like Cara, Sante, the aforementioned Osprey, Vale Sovereign, Estima and the very poor Lady Balfour are some of those that I avoid like the plague - cheap, mass produced rubbish with bollocks for descriptions and poor quality.

The spuds that, in my humble opinion, are the best on sale include Wilja - which I used to deride (mainly because they were my dad's fave and he had zero spud taste, to be honest), Bartlett's Majesty, which are the purple potato I've mentioned in the past. These are versatile if lacking in flavour a touch; but they are considerably better than Rooster, which can be used for all manner of things but tend to be a little flavourless. If you can get them, I would strongly recommend main crop Nadine - best if you grow them yourself in dry ground, but even shop bought they are a tasty tator. The best of the heritage range tends to be the wonderful Golden Wonder - it is called that because it was used for the crisp; but it's fantastic as a roast and also makes wonderful chips. Its a low cropper when grown and sometimes the tubers are small, but it has flavour like no other potato, apart from maybe Mayan Gold - which is a Taste the Difference spud for good reason. British Queen and Edzell Blue are both excellent roasters, but because they're low yield you have to literally be up early to get them from your average Sainsburys.

Mayan Gold is one of the Taste the Difference range, like Vivaldi, but where the latter is pretty poor, Mayan Gold are wonder-ful. Arguably it's an ancient spud, being grown from a hybrid of Golden Wonder and rare South American spuds, where the vegetable originated. Mayan Gold look like they should be waxy, but they're not. in fact, they're very floury, but they cook ridiculously quickly, so you have to keep an eye on them all the time. One minute they're perfect little spuds, the next you have a saucepan full of sludge. They were grown to be quick cookers and versatile - they need to be steamed if you can't keep an eye on them for ever. They make excellent chips - which is essentially what inspired this page of bollocks in the first place. I could harp on about why supermarket potatoes are spoiled by being washed because they allow the starch to be converted to sugar which means that the crispiness is turned into brown and initial crispy then soft and icky; but I won't.

Spud rant over. I feel better for that.

Ladykiller

The title of this blog entry was going to be Putting on the Ritz, but I haven't heard that song for a number of years. There's a reason why I considered calling it that and it sort of makes me feel really evil...

The wife (you remember her) has a number of favourite films and one of them is Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. It's not really one of her favourite films, but she loves Peter Boyle as the Monster and she especially likes the musical number called Putting on the Ritz. it makes her howl like kid. If you're not familiar with it, it's here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ-aRwEbp5I.

On Thursday night, Roger and I decided to go to a pub we haven't really frequented in a long time. I'd been there Thursday lunchtime too and it was here that the reason we hadn't been there for a long time was finally explained. Let me elucidate.

It was some time in 2006 or 7. We were having a quiet pint, watching some football match on the big screen and generally just minding our own business. It was my turn to go to the bar and as I sauntered up to it, I got accosted by a strange looking man. He got right in my face and bellowed something at me in the form of a question or at least that's what it sounded like. No one seemed to take any notice of the fact that I was being verbally assaulted by this hulking great figure and on return to my seat, I decided, especially after something similar having happened at another pub we frequented just a few weeks earlier, that we'd give this place a miss for a while; even if it did have excellent beer.

On Thursday, I'm having a pint of the lovely Oakham Citra with my good pal One El, when I heard this bizarre hooting from behind me. One El and the nice barmaid Emma both took little notice of it, so I didn't either. An assortment of strange noises and bizarre speech accompanied the initial hooting and into my eye line comes this big fella who was the man who had got in my face a few years earlier. It was pretty obvious by the way One El and Emma were talking to him that he was as they say in uncouth circles - a few sandwiches short of a picnic. His name was Michael and he was a victim of dear old Maggie's Care in the Community measures back in the 80s. He was totally harmless, but obviously a bit intimidating to anyone who doesn't know that he has mental health problems and suffers from severe autism.

He got in my face a couple of times on Thursday; but I now knew what the problem was and it wasn't a problem at all. He seemed more interested in what was going to be empty soon and in his own unique way, he came over as being quite sweet really; daunting but harmless.

So what's this got to do with the above? Well, not a lot but just enough to link it together. So there was Roger and I, pulling up outside the Romany for a Thursday night drink for the first time in years. The car was parked, we climbed out and we could hear music coming from the lounge. I'd been told that the old Thursday night Jam Sessions had been discontinued, so I was a little confused; so I figured we'd go into the bar instead. it was, after all, where I'd been just 7 hours earlier.

I ordered two pints of the wonderful Citra, with its grapefruit undertones and its Oakham hoppyness and was served by a young girl who was promptly insulted by a guy who had been in the pub when me and One El turned up at 1pm. Roger looked at me with that, 'are you sure this is a wise idea' look on his face and all the time there was this racket coming from the lounge. It sounded like karaoke but equally it could have been some dogs howling at the moon. Emma, the nice bar maid from the afternoon appeared and sorted out our beer, smiled and explained why the noise from next door sounded like Putting on the Ritz from Young Frankenstein (my description, not hers).

It was a party for local Down's Syndrome kids and their parents. There was food, cake, soft drinks and a karaoke machine, which all the kids were having a go on. By the time we had been there an hour, we were laughing, but not at the kids, but along with them. However badly they were singing, they were doing magnificently well and deserved the thunderous applause they were getting after each song.

Now, this ties into...

***

I decided to write an article for the Real Ale magazine called Over the Barrel, it's a freebie produced by CAMRA for real ale pubs in the county and I read it every 3 months - it's a quarterly magazine. It probably survives on advertising alone and the people who put it together are volunteers. As an ex magazine man, it's dreadfully put together, but it's free and its a good read, especially if you're into real ale.

So, I wrote this 'on spec' article and submitted it on Thursday afternoon and it was largely about pubs' failure to be a success in the current market and how I see it. I think pubs like The Romany, the Queen Adelaide in Kingsthorpe and The Vic, our regular Tuesday night quiz haunt, are the kind of pubs that need to be copied rather than new and revamped pubs following the multiple lager, cheap food and bouncy castle route, which many of them seem to think works. The thing is, my entire point is that local pubs have to be more community oriented and The Romany proved that by having this party - on a quiet night - for the disadvantaged and for a group of people that your average pub would never consider welcoming into their establishments. it was heart warming and left me with an even warmer glow than the fine Oakham beers did. Well done The Romany. I shall be adding you to my regular Thursday night drink route again!

***

Apparently, Anglia Water Authority were supposed to have written to me to inform me that they were going to dig up my front garden. They didn't.

Apparently, Clancy Docwra, the contractors who dug up my garden, were supposed to have knocked on my door at 7.40am and asked me if it was okay for them to start using a pneumatic drill. They didn't.

Anglia Water promised to ring me back within an hour to offer and apology and an explanation as to why this had happened without my knowledge. they didn't.

Clancy Docwra rang me at 3.15. I answered the phone and heard this condescending voice at the other end say, "Hello sir, I understand we woke you up this morning?"

I am so glad I heard and learnt what the acronym CAUC was the other day, because these two companies are full of them...

***

2011 could well start very badly and if things don't improve it could get much worse. The Office for Budget Responsibility reckons that the number of public sector workers who will lose their jobs has dropped from 490,000 to about 330,000 (I might have got the figures slightly wrong, but we all know the score). Well... I looks like I might be one of those 330,000. Merry Fucking Christmas...

Cthulhu Sleeps

Ideas. I have bags of them. Remember in the blog where I said I always fancied myself as an ideas man, but I wouldn't even know how to promote myself as one. "Hi, I have great ideas! Who says so? Well, I do! Okay, I'll try not to let the door smack me on the arse on my way out!" ...

The problem is I rarely do anything with them and even when I do they rarely get past the first draft stage. Take Dead Girls for instance. I was looking at the umpteen different versions, stages and notes I've made on the idea. It's a rounded idea; in fact, its a perfectly formed skeleton. it just has no flesh.

That got me thinking and looking. About a year ago I wrote down a lot of my ideas and saved them in a file, more for posterity than because I believed I would ever do anything with them. You see, over the years, I've had a lot of ideas that appear to have become other people's ideas, either conceptually or almost completely. I even had this bizarre notion that the world was in fact a complete construct of my imagination and everything that happens in it only happens after I've thought about it first. That's the kind of thing a once drug addled mind contemplates. The thing is its happened with comics, with stories in TV shows and even feature films. In reality, it just proves that there's nothing new under the sun and that if you have an idea someone else will also have the same idea.

So, I've got this file with x number of ideas in it and all it is ever going to do is sit there gathering cyber dust; why not reprint the ideas in this blog, so that down the line I can say, "Hey, that was my idea!" or "See, I had that idea first!" or even, "That shit head Michael Bay has stolen my blockbuster idea and turned it into a crap movie!"

The list of ideas that follows consists of things that range from one to several lines - they are embryos and nothing more, but I figured it might be a bit of fun for you to see how my mind occasionally works...

15 ideas

1. “Time Anarchy” – When time travel technology is stolen, a group known as The Tempus Fugitives begin to travel back in time, leaving modern artefacts to disrupt the space time continuum.

2. “Nightcrawlers” – The obelisk in Zaper – a small sleepy Cornish hamlet – is demolished in 1989 to make way for a development, but 20 years later, there is just a reinforced steel fence around the site. The company that owns the site refuses to talk to anyone and Zaper no longer has any inhabitants.

3. “The White Fathers” – two ancient tablets hidden centuries in the past are discovered by a sinister organisation, three children are charged with the task of ensuring the third and all important tablet does not fall into the wrong hands.

4. “Juxtaposition” – Bob is a 40-something jobbing roadie, who just happens to be in the right place at the right time to save the life of a young pop sensation. Bob is happily married with two kids, but the star becomes obsessed with the man who saved her life and decides he deserves better. It's The Fan in reverse!

5. “You are Here” – a family becomes separated by something unexplainable in the middle of a hot, dry, summer day, that never seems to end. They can all see each other but can't communicate and it soon becomes apparent they are all in different realities, each with their own threats and dangers...

6. “Succubus” – a famous writer’s wife dies in tragic circumstances, but within a week of her death, no one but her husband remembers her and then all evidence of her existence begins to vanish.

7. “Conversations with God” – When a lift breaks down for two hours, one of the two occupants of the car claims to be God.

8. “Ghost Writer” – an untalented writer begins to write blockbusters; his secret is he has the ghost of a dead unpublished novelist producing his work for him.

9. “Second Contact” – Aliens have arrived on Earth and are greeted as the first ‘other’ race in the universe, but they were preceded several years earlier by others and the safety of them and Earth is suddenly in jeopardy.

10. “From the Beach” – five people turn up on a deserted beach; where are they from, what do they want? Why is one of them wearing animal skins? Why has another got a futuristic weapon?

11. “Alone” - Michael lives alone in his house with his dogs, he has chickens in the garden and he has no contact with any of his neighbours. Gradually you realise that he has no neighbours; in fact, no one lives on his street, or in his town, his country of his world. He is alone in the world and everyone else is gone.

12. "Cosmopolis" - Set 1 million years in the future where every living being in the universe lives inside a massive Dyson Sphere. The construct is so large it has taken every atom in the entire universe to build it, leaving the rest of the known galaxy a desert. Everyone lives there, except for the Chinese, who ceded from earth in the 51st Century and have been roving the galaxies as a nomadic race ever since.

13. "Spirits in the Material World" - six ghosts who team up to try and solve the mystery of the world.

14. "Dicky" - a drug loving scientist invents a drug that allows people to experience an entire lifetime in an hour. At the same time a scientist develops the discovery of the millennia, when he creates a power source that can freeze time - indefinitely - with just an AA battery. Anything except for human beings can be frozen in time. If a human undergoes this form of 'stasis' he goes mad and dies. However; administer the drug created by the first scientist and put the person in the stasis created by the second and you have a perfect harmony.

15. "Space Grazer" - the story of how two people created a fantastic kids book about an astronaut cow and his fearless farmyard buddies, but then fall out over creative rights to the point where neither wins but they no longer care about that...

There are about another 100 ideas languishing on my PC, some of them aren't even ideas, they're more like a couple of sentences introducing a character or a concept that I wrote so long ago I can no longer remember why. I have small files with names that make no sense; files that haven't even got titles, just the opening line of whatever I've written.

Obviously, the above list doesn't include such things as The Future, which was the first novel I ever finished - it's crap and I was 18 and it never got past a first draft. The same can be said for Gentle By Name, but that has been edited several times and there are versions where I've attempted to take it to that next step. The aforementioned Dead Girls, the several autobiographical and semi-autobiographical bits of bollocks and a 'book' which I started writing in 1996 which, when I stopped working on it, had not even got to the halfway mark and was over 600,000 words!! When you consider that GBN is a finished work in most ways and it weighs in at 85,000 words, you can see why the 'Tome' as it is occasionally referred to is quite amazing. Also, essentially, it hasn't even got a plot; it's about a couple who win an enormous amount of money on the lottery and how it affects them and the people around them. I stopped working on it when the main male character decided to build a golf course...

Stuff like that isn't what I'd regard as inspirational, despite the fact there was that At Home with the Braithwaites program a few years back, which, essentially, is that idea. But, lets face it, most people dream about winning lots of money - so there's nothing there I could say wouldn't have been considered; well apart from the sex on the dining room table scene - which I hasten to add was not wishful thinking as the person the main character has sex with was a right munter...