2012 - 20

Holiday Musings

Well, that's the Easter break over and done with for another year. Ahead of me is 6 weeks, a week off, and then another 6 weeks before that 6 weeks is matched by a summer holiday. That's the next 19 weeks of my life mapped out then...

Apparently, I've seen Richard Digance in concert - at the Royal Theatre - about 25 years ago. Really? Jesus, I must have been really drug addled back then because I can't remember it. "Made a big impression, then?" Asked the wife, as I stood there desperately searching my memory banks for some snippet and failing miserably.

But I'm sure it will come back to me at some point. On Tuesday, when we were in Leicester, I was sitting on one of the market stalls waiting for the girls to finish their toileting needs, I had a clear as a bell recollection of something that happened donkeys years ago. I sat there in the sunshine and relived a moment from my youth. When the girls got back they were deeply engrossed in some conversation and we continued on our way and by the time we got back to the car I'd completely forgotten my flashback...

Perhaps my memory is becoming shot to pieces? Just last week I saw something that incensed me. Someone - on line - mentioned they were doing something over Easter and it was only going to cost £28.50 each to attend and I thought, the last time I did that it cost about a fiver and I was appalled at the cost of it then! Can't remember what it was, though...

I've also had to deal with the gnawing realisation that now I'm almost 50 I'm eligible for Saga holidays and cheap motor insurance. I also appear to be having the kind of self-doubt and antsy-ness that one would associate with turning 40 - at least traditionally, that was until everything shifted forward ten years. Apparently 60 is the new 50, so therefore 50 must be the new 40.

I actually looked at a job in Thursday's Chronicle that required me to stack things in boxes and wondered if I could do something like that. I couldn't. I wouldn't let myself. But the thing is, after two weeks of being free from kids, I'm wondering if my abilities are being wasted. The break has allowed me to step back and look at my career path and I've realised that I might have to look for a different kind of job.

I had a conversation at the end of the week, which I will skirt around because of what it involves, but a mate of mine told me that he knows of a pub that will shortly be in need of a manager and I found myself doing what I did a couple of years ago; imagining myself back behind a bar. Are you mad? That's what my good friends would say if they read this. Working in a pub is madness. Too much hard work for little reward and you have to put up with drunken idiots and all the really unsavoury wankers you get in a pub.

The thing was, there's a period in my past that a) I can recall very well and b) I don't really talk about much. When I worked behind a bar.

When I was 15, my dad, disillusioned with his role at the adhesives company he had worked at for 20 years, decided he wanted to do something different in his life - something totally out to left field. So my parents began training to become pub landlords. Ironically, I kind of blame this on my failure to excel academically; suddenly being on your own when you're doing your O levels is a temptation too far. It wasn't like my folks pushed us through school either; so having no encouragement instead of almost none wasn't really going to change things; but had they decided to do what they did now, I think social services would probably have been crawling over my family home faster than a crow on carrion.

They got their first proper pub - The Crown Inn, Hardingstone - in 1979, so I became immersed in the pub scene at an age when I should have still been playing football and chasing girls through summer meadows. They lasted just over a year there before deciding that working in a pub was like a cross between a prison sentence and slavery. They moved onto the Club scene and really succeeded there.

I worked at the Crown; initially as a glass collector and washer, then a few months after my 17th birthday, I started pulling pints and drinking them. My dad never trained me, but I learned quickly through a mixture of observation and osmosis. Dad had a kind of full time barman at the Crown (I really can't remember his name) who covered the place during days off and stuff. Once, while he was busy, I went down to the cellar and changed a barrel of Holstein. I'd never done it before, but had watched my dad do it so was confident. I almost succeeded, but forgot to latch the connection properly, so when my dad returned from his brewery meeting an entire barrel of expensive lager had spurted out of the bad connection and covered everything in lager. Even in those days, that was about £40 down the drain.

My dad was pissed, but also he was kind of pleased, because I'd tried to do something good. So he decided that he would show me how to run the cellar. I changed hundreds of barrels over the next few years and never made the same mistake again.

As I was crashing and burning at the 6th Form, my folks were looking at the possibility of moving into clubs. The couple who had inspired them to go this route had themselves begun running a social club west of Daventry and both of them looked better for it. My mum had already started to have problems with her chest and the stress of running the pub was shattering their solid marriage. They saw the job for stewards at Shenley Hospital Social Club and got it, quite easily.

I maybe should have gone with them straight away and I've talked about that year before (or maybe I've skirted around it and promised to tell you about it, I can't remember!), but I kept my hand in behind a bar either at my job - at Lings Forum, or at my then local - The Lumbertubs. Then I joined up with my folks in the county of my birth and after a while my dad decided that as I wasn't looking like I was going to get a proper job, he might as well take me on.

It was during those 18 months that I finally connected with my dad. I think he'd always felt a little too distant towards me. I was mummy's boy for starters and I didn't have his ethics, unlike my two older brothers. I seemed to be more prosaic than practical. Hell, he might even have thought I was gay. I was certainly considerably more difficult than the other two had been. I also think he believed that in some way I had inherited the Rodway madness; something I'm sure you will hear about in the coming years. But suffice it to say; there were a lot of similarities between me and my gran and without being harsh in the slightest, my grandmother - Ethel Rodway - was as crazy as a skip full of foxes on LSD.

Despite the usual growing pains that late teens suffer, my time working for dad in that grotty, sprawling, ramshackle 1950s building was one of the best times I had and many of the jokes, sayings and things that happen are still alive in the world. Jokes and expressions that just wouldn't work in print, but still happen within the confines of family and just possibly further afield (I noticed last week while out with the dogs and Mammary Lass that she has a couple of things in her repertoire that she learned either from me or from my dad).

My dad revelled in the spotlight. I saw for the first time in him that he was possibly more like me than he was my other two brothers. I think now that maybe he was having similar thoughts to I am now about his life. My dad was a grafter and he admired and respected Ronnie Jr and Stephen because they shared that work ethic. He could discuss projects with them and they wouldn't look at him like he was talking Albanian. But during our time together at Shenley, I discovered that I shared a love of surreality and silliness with him. My dad was just fucking hilariously surreal at times. We would muck about like a couple of overgrown babies at times and instead of putting customers off, people used to hang around the bar to see what impromptu routine would possibly spring up.

Anyhow, they quit Shenley and eventually ended up in Maidstone and I never worked behind a bar again. In fact, I cannot recall pulling a pint for probably getting on for 30 years (although I'm sure the wife will remind me that I did it once in 1986 and I'll spend the rest of the day trying to recall it). Also, the pub world is completely different than what I remember. My good friend One El has made that abundantly clear; plus my personal indulgence - Real Ale - is a completely different beast to the barrels of Mann's IPA I dealt with in the late 70s. Plus bar staff no longer appear to be able to do calculations in their heads and have these tills that now look like massive computerised adding machines. Pubs are different now.

Perhaps I just have itchy feet again?

Roger's been and gone since I wrote the above; we suffered an Everton defeat at the hands of their arch rivals. He was gutted; so was I. I really have no desire to play the luckiest cup team in the world in the final; good luck to Chelsea tomorrow.

We've got guests; Neil and Jenny. We're off out for a birthday meal tonight at Pooja.

Why do I feel like I'm going to have a panic attack?

Stuff

• I have been listening to: Axess/Maxxess; School of Seven Bells; North Atlantic Oscillation; and something in the car, but I'm buggered if I can remember what it is.
• I have been reading a lot about the US Elections on line.
• We've decided upon a radical but not very arduous redesign of bits of the garden. I say it isn't arduous - on paper it should be really easy, but my dad was responsible for part of the structures we want to move and, well, when he built things, they stayed built.

2012 - 19

Change or Die

It's been a while since I had a Facebook rant, but it appears overdue and necessary now.

I've made it clear that I don't play many games and the ones I do tend to be through Facebook - Scrabble, Bejeweled Blitz and Collapse - and I get up to an hour of mindless fun a day before I move onto other things. Today, two of those games have effectively been barred to me and I expect scrabble will follow suit if the Pop Cap Games rep's comments are anything to go by.

Apparently, if you are the provider of an application that works on Facebook then you have to 'upgrade' to Timeline and therefore people who use the game also have to 'upgrade' and that means the end of the old Facebook and in with a dog's dinner of a set up. Timeline is a fucking abortion and that's being kind to it.

I have noticed that gradually all of the things I've used have migrated to Timeline, which means that unless I'm forcibly made to upgrade, in which case I shall say my goodbyes and quit the thing for good, I shall just be using the thing to promote my blog and maybe post some tunes. I expect the next thing will be people being unable to post comments on Timeline users pages without upgrading. It's just a load of bollocks anyhow. All it is is a way to find out what you like so Facebook can sell your info to companies that might find a mug to buy things from them. I am going to seriously investigate what I've liked over the last five years and unlike it, even if it means missing out on important info or updates.

Google+ is like Facebook was, but unfortunately it is just as easy to pick up 'friends' or follow people you have zero connection with and regardless of a suggestion that people would go and use it, the grand exodus hasn't materialised. People have become dependant on Facebook and therefore don't want to risk missing something by not being on it. Zuckerberg deserves credit for addicting people to a drug that he can tinker with until his heart's content with the knowledge that 99% of the people using it will follow along like willing sheep to the advertising gallows.

Over the last year I have been waging a campaign against the adverts on my page. It has been, I'm well aware, a futile gesture because most of these parts of the application are manned by robots, but I click on 'offensive' or 'sexually explicit' or 'other' and type in "I will never, as long as I have a hole in my arse, ever buy anything from anyone that advertises on your crappy company's pages." At times I definitely don;t have as many adverts. But now I'm having my friends likes thrust down my throat. "Fred Bloggs likes this!" Well, whoop-de-fucking-doo for Fred Bloggs. I'm sure he also likes having his scrotum licked by cats and his eyes pissed in by goats, but that's him. Just because he is my friend doesn't mean I want to share his fucking life!

Oh God; Joe Public likes One Direction. Perhaps I should abandon nearly 50 years of eclectic musical taste to listen to a boy band with less collective pubic hair than Gail Porter. Or perhaps, because Helen Back likes Audi UK I should abandon my belief that all Audi drivers are cocks and get myself into 30 grand's worth of debt by buying one of these German monstrosities that turns all the drivers into knobs? Hey, Sheila Blige likes Lady Ga Ga - my God how individual of her! Maybe I should do the same, even if I think she has as much talent as one of the paving slabs in my duck run.

Sheep. You're all fucking sheep. If I'm forced to use Timeline then I will not be a sheep even if it means I have to use my computer for other, possibly important, things.

2012 - 18

Idiots Rule

I've always found my local chemist to be something beyond belief. It's a Lloyds Pharmacy and I can't fathom for the life of me how they can appear to be so inefficient and inept when there are so many people working there.

I have a repeat prescription for my Ventolin inhaler and as I've had this rotten cough for nearly five months, I've been using it more than usual, hence my need to get a repeat. The wife and I were heading off to Leicester for a few hours, so I dropped in the prescription, told the Amazonian shop assistant that I would pick it up later, as she said there would be a 15 minute wait, at least. I looked around, saw a solitary old man and seven members of staff and wondered how the hell it could take so long.

We went off to Leicester, had a pleasant time with Selina and got some shopping. When we got home, we took the dogs out and rolled up at the chemist's at 4.28pm. This is important. I was just going to collect a prescription that had been dropped there SEVEN hours earlier. It took me less than a minute to walk there and when I arrived there was a little old lady in front of me, who looked like she thought she might die before she got served. I counted the same amount of staff and noted that at least three of them seemed to just be stacking little plastic baskets. The old woman turned to me and said she was being served, so I shuffled forward about two feet from the counter; I was standing there with my receipt in my hand and felt ignored.

Suddenly from behind me, this man wearing what looked like a delivery uniform walked past me and up to the counter and started talking to the pharmacist. My first thought was he was a delivery man or someone to do with Lloyds, but it soon became clear he wasn't. The chemist called one of the assistants and she went to the counter, as this happened, the man half turned to me and said, "I'm just collecting a prescription."

"So am I." I said, but he took no notice. I could feel the red mist begin to rise. One of basket stackers had started to process his script, asking him all the usual questions - do you pay for prescriptions, etc. - and I reacted accordingly. "I'm... I'm just collecting a pre-paid prescription, mate. It's already been done, I'm just picking it up." He looked at me like I'd spoken to him in Cantonese. "You... pushed in." It was all I could think of saying.

"I said, I'm just collecting a prescription," he said like I hadn't understood him the first time.

"Yes and I'm saying, I've paid for mine, all I am doing is picking it up."

"That's what I'm doing." The assistant, seemingly oblivious to this exchange, asks the man to enter his pin number, which he does.

"Yes, but I'm just picking mine up. It's ready and waiting for me."

"So's mine."

"No it's not. They have to process it. You just pushed in front of me and that's bang out of order."

"Sorry." He said and turned round to discover that his card had been rejected. He tried again and again and both times it said his pin was not accepted. "I'll pay with cash," he says, but the assistant can't get the till open or ring in the charge. The time was now 4.40pm.

The chemist told the assistant to do something with the till and I noticed that the display also said 'Training Mode'. Just as I was about to say something, the chemist spotted it, came round and switched the till back to how it should have been. The man got his change, didn't even look at me and left the shop. I was still standing there thinking I'd suddenly become invisible.

"Excuse me," I says to the chemist, who was back behind the counter busy stacking plastic baskets; the assistant who had served the rude man in front of me had disappeared to the back of the dispensary area and the Amazonian girl who had served me earlier had her head stuck in boxes at the front of the shop; she was looking for something for the little old lady.

"The assistant will be with you in a second sir." She said and the mist went crimson.

"Oh, you can see me then?" I said a trifle too loud.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I was just saying, you noticed I was here." She frowned at me. "It's just, I'd been standing her for two minutes before that guy you just served came and pushed in in front of me and you or the other 50 people that work here didn't seem to notice."

"I'm sorry sir. I'll see that you are served straight away." I wasn't. The assistant reappeared about 90 seconds later. The time was now 4.47pm.

"What's the name, sir?"

"Hall, Phillip Hall."

"Have you got an address, Mr Hall?"

"I do, yes." I said smiling.

"Can I have it?"

There were now at least five more people queued behind me. "Not with all these people within ear shot you can't." Asking people to repeat their addresses in public as proof of identity is a stupid idea - do you know how many heroin addicts use chemists to get Methadone scripts? An opportunist druggie will latch onto an old dear's address quicker than a desperate man will get an erection looking at a super model in the nude. The assistant frowned and turned to the chemist. I reached into my pocket and pulled my wallet out and thrust my driving license at her; this seemed to make matters worse. I mean, obviously I could have stolen the wallet just so I could hatch an elaborate scan to get two Ventolin inhalers! I am the master criminal!

"I won't be a minute," she said, scuttling off in search of my package.

She was about four minutes and it became painfully clear that they couldn't find my prescription. One of the people behind me let out an exasperated sigh and walked out mumbling about Beech Avenue - a chemist that seems to be able to turn around customers in about five minutes and everyone there is friendly and lovely. I should have gone there.

The chemist now got involved; didn't bother to apologise to the four people behind me for the wait and went rummaging through plastic basket full of prescriptions. One of the other, pointless, assistants said something about having run out of Ventolin, but some had been delivered at lunch. More frantic searching and avoiding my increasingly angry face. The time now was 4.52pm.

The chemist found my prescription, glanced at me sheepishly and disappeared behind the dispensary and grabbed two boxes of Ventolin off of a shelf in front of her, put them in a bag and sealed it. She handed it to the assistant who brought it to me. It was 4.55pm.

"Can you confirm you address for me," she said, obviously going through her own sales script.

"No. I can't." She winced and threw a glance at the chemist.

"Is that it? I've been waiting here for 25 minutes; I've had someone push in front of me; been ignored and had the audacity to bring my prescription in at 9.30 this morning only for it to be filled in front of me in less than 30 seconds? This place is an absolute joke. I would have been in and out of Beech Avenue in five minutes!"

"They have an automated dispenser," said the chemist apologetically.

"That's no excuse. You've had this seven hours. What if I'd waited for it like she had suggested?"

"We would have told you to come back."

"When? When you were closing for lunch?"

"What do you want?"

"An apology would be nice. The promise that you'll employ people to serve your customers rather than stand around stacking baskets!"

"They're not authorised to use the till."

"I didn't need the till. I paid for my prescription. Here's the receipt!" I said holding it out in front of me. "One of them could have got it for me."

"They couldn't because it hadn't been filled."

"Oh, no, that's right. It hadn't been filled and you only had it for seven hours."

"I'm sorry if you don't feel we have done well enough, sir."

"Thank you; even if I don't think you have any idea why I'm angry." I grabbed my prescription, thought I heard the assistant utter something about confirming my address, and stormed out of the chemist. It was 5:01pm. 31 minutes of my life that Lloyds Pharmacy owe me.

How on earth do some places survive now? Customer service? My arse!

Suits

Because I am only a food shopper; I don't understand the phenomena of going shopping. The wife buys most of my clothes and I reluctantly troop along after her when I need things that she can't buy on spec. However, in Leicester, we were there to buy me a summer jacket for work as my woollen one is rather stupid on warm days.

We ended up at the House of Frazer, which, in my microcosm, was always the hutch that one of our rabbit's, the eponymously named Frazer, lived in. The wife understand shops that sell things other than food; I don't.

Anyhow; Selina spotted a nice jacket. It needed to be bigger but we found one and within 20 minutes I'd bought a summer suit-styled jacket and shopping wasn't as painful as I expected it to be. My problem is essentially you could lead me around Leicester and I would gleefully go; I love the city and like Nottingham, it has so much of a city centre that you can find little shops that wouldn't last five minutes in a toilet like Northampton. The thing about shopping is you do it at a completely different pace to everything else and while I can probably still walk a couple of miles without having to sit down and let all my spine bits fall back into place; the weird ambling, stop start, stand, shuffle and move dance that is mall shopping really fucks my back up - big time!

This was expedited by a wonderful lunch in Bobby's and a walk along the Golden Mile - which for an enthusiastic Indo-phile - is a truly cosmopolitan experience (even if I think it isn't as good as it was a few years back, but lots of places in the city look like the recession has hit them hard).

If I had to live in a city, Leicester would be top of my list.

Quiz Night

I'm a bad loser. I don't show it very often, but in recent weeks, I've felt that our quiz team's mantle of brilliance has slipped, not because of our lack of knowledge, but because of a ringer's appearance on our biggest rival's - the Bar Stars - team.

There's been a friendly rivalry between us and them for the last few years and I'd say that while it's about even on wins; we're the more consistent and we've probably won three times the amount of money as them, mainly because the wife and Roger have a nose for the big money envelopes.

At times, there are others who compete and some win. It would be a dull quiz every week if the spoils were always shared by two team; but that's because up until about 6 weeks ago, there were three teams that regularly pushed each other to the final question. When there was a full contingent of players in the team Clean & Serene, then you wouldn't bet against them winning. This team boasted a colleague of the wife's and pretty much Mr Obscure Facts about sport - often an unpredictable round depending on One El's mood when compiling the questions.

We started off averaging 5/10 on sport, if we were lucky; and now I'm unhappy if we get less than 8. Sport is the round that Roger and I are solely responsible for - the other team members take a break when round 4 starts. Having to score highly on sport is a necessity when up against Serene's captain.

Then their team just dismantled. One of them emigrated, another moved, one had a baby (not literally, but that takes up his time) and suddenly the team was no longer a team and the captain was left on his own.

Our growing prowess at sport was the thing that often tipped the scales for us against the Bar Stars. They were awful on sport, but could pick up lots of points on the music round because they had a team member who knew more about music than all the record buffs put together.

Then the Serene captain hooked up with the team not very good at sport and suddenly, we were coming 2nd with scores that would once have guaranteed us victory. Over the space of 6 weeks, they won 5 times and while they never won the jackpot, I started to feel as though my enjoyment was disappearing. Look, I could never go to a pub quiz for a laugh. Especially at Al's Toilet World, because the beer isn't good enough, the surroundings aren't salubrious and he seems to think parts of the pub are actually storage space, so patrons get crammed into small areas because he's too lazy to pick up some rigging.

Last night the ringer was there again and I said, quite honestly, that I was growing tired of playing for second all the time. I said that because of the ringer, the opposition were playing with at least a four point advantage from the start and sat there feeling grumpy and resigned. I like my quiz; I like my quizmaster and we all enjoy our Tuesday nights, but I could see it going sour and on that very night.

We kicked off with two 8/10s and I figured we were already a couple of points behind them; two 9s made me feel happier and a couple of 10s had me feeling that we had at least tied up another £5 second place.A couple more 8s and we finished with 70 out of 80; a winning score, normally, but I feared that only getting 8 out of 10 on the music round might have stymied us.

One El read the final scores out and our rivals finished third with 64 points. We all looked at each other slightly gone out - they were 6 points worse off than us; more than we'd ever been behind them. Second only got 66 and we had run away with it. CJT, who once upon a time could have been called our 'ringer' because of his obscure knowledge, picked the £10 envelope; but we had a fiver profit for our kitty and we all felt as though we'd overcome a major quizzing hurdle. Yes, we might lose another four on the trot, but we can beat them and that is what will keep us going, despite the flat beer, grubby surroundings and absence of essentials - like mixers, spirits and atmosphere.

Stuff

• I have been listening to: Hydria Space Folk, Jethro Tull, The Golden Palominos, Peter Gabriel and George Harrison.
• I have put off reading Chavs because I'm not in a reading frame of mind.
• I have prepared my unkempt part of my veg plot to put beetroot and spinach in.
• I have finally decided that if all I do is whinge about my holiday disappearing and don't get on with stuff then I really won't feel as though it has been beneficial. This means the pub on Friday with One El and the start of my 50th birthday 'celebrations'.
• Today my wife bought me a netbook for my (birthday and) summer time ambition of writing and getting burned to a crisp simultaneously, if we get a summer this year, that is.

2012 - 17

Golf Again

I'm sitting here waiting for the play-off of the Masters to get underway. It's between the brilliantly named Bubba Watson and the South African Louis Oosthuizen, who I, in this very blog, said would probably never win a major gold tournament again. I'd like him to win because Bubba is a really silly name. What is even sillier is he was born Gerry, so why he would wish to call himself Bubba is anyone's guess. Plus, when he wins he cries and thanks God. Oosthuizen is more likely to shoot a black man and hire a private army to guard his diamond mine.

The thing is, we were out with the dogs today and I discovered two things - the Internet has ruined apocryphal tales/urban legends and some old men are full of bullshit.

One of the parks we take the dogs to has a huge sweeping area of grass that could be the basis of a fantastic golf hole with trees to the right (or left) and more trees to the left (right), undulating hills and if you pictured it made of concrete, it's like a massive 50 acre half pipe. Well, some bloke obviously thought the same thing and he was out there, hitting golf balls down the hill; Marley went over to say hi and we eventually got talking to him. The wife mentioned the only good thing in golf being the movie Caddyshack and that prompted the old bloke to tell me a yarn.

"You know the character Chevy Chase played? I nodded. "The brilliant golfer who choked when the pressure was on?" I nodded again, wondering if that was the case as it had been years since I last saw the film. "He was based on a real golfer."

"Was he?"

"Yes. Back in the 60s when Palmer, Nicklaus and Player were dominating the sport, there was this club player called George Marshall and he could beat these guys 9 times out of 10, but couldn't beat them when there was a tournament, so he never turned professional."

"How did he beat them then?"

"Practice rounds, friendly matches, stuff like that."

"Oh." says I.

When I got home I searched George Marshall - couldn't find him. Searched for 'golfer who beat professionals all the time' and variations of that and got nothing. Did find something that was almost related in that someone else had asked a similar question on Yahoo Answers about two years ago. It's all utter bollocks.

It's advantage Bubba in the golf...

Paper Waste

This is how exciting my Easter has been. I threw away 14lbs of waste paper cleaning out my office, which, frankly, looked like a toilet.

It's still all square in the golf.

Hose Ban Pipe

The hosepipe ban came into force on Thursday. It has rained every day since. Is that irony?

Advantage Bubba again.

And he wins. Time for bed.

Monday, Monday

The country woke up this morning to disbelief and thinking the calendar was wrong. Was it really April 1st and not the 9th?

The Daily Mail, doyen of right wing Britain and inventor of massively preposterous 'exclusives' is openly condemning the government, especially the Tories with being out of touch with the rest of the country and forcing potential voters away from the party because of their stringent and punitive measures. Zombie baby Jesus, has the world gone mad?

Well, actually, yes it has. It has been going mad for 30 years and now it's officially bonkers.

The wife is in her sewing room repairing a pair of my jeans that have gone at the knee and it made me realised that we've always been frugal - sometimes out of necessity, but usually because we've never seen the point of being fast and loose with money we haven't got. I know we've both spent money on things that ordinarily wouldn't crop up in a weekly shopping basket, but hey, life is about enjoying it as much as you can; isn't it? Well, yes, but if 'as much as you can' means spending money like running a tap then you can only enjoy yourself so much, surely?

I could go out and buy a brand new pair of jeans - ranging between £10 and £200 - and just live off my overdraft next month; but what if I need a new shirt or boxers? Or if my Xbox (which I don't own, btw) needs upgrading to the latest G4 version or whatever? How am I going to pay for that? My God, my phone is three months out of date. My mates all have iphones. I need my anus bleaching. All this expense is so unfair... I know, I'll go and get a credit card.

Several years ago we got friendly with a couple who lived in a lovely house, drove THREE cars, had all the modern technology you could wish for and some, went on at least two foreign holidays a year; went to gigs, plays, day trips to Alton Towers or whatever the latest craze in theme parks is and then sat and stared at their bills at the end of the month and would see that they were spending a grand a month more than they had coming in. So what did they do? They went out for a meal, bought some DVDs and transferred their credit card accounts into other ones so they could dodge the massive repayments for a couple of months.

This was a couple who would have barely anything in their fridges and cupboards; would have to go without essentials to put fuel in their cars to be able to go to the jobs that didn't pay for their lifestyle. One day when I asked them, quite candidly, why they did it, the response was 'well, everyone else does it.' Scary as fuck.

Is it any surprise that a couple of years down the line they hate each other, but are so in debt that they have to stay together because to split up would plunge them onto the verge of bankruptcy - something one of them asked me about. My reply was that it might be the best route, but they would struggle for at least three years. Everything would have to be done on a budget; they would be cash users because they'd struggle to get anything but savings accounts. They could only get credit cards with 50,000 APR rates and they could never get made bankrupt again or they might as well go and live in a Third World Country. Oddly enough they went off the idea of bankruptcy because they couldn't trust themselves.

But these aren't the only people I've known or met who have this same attitude about money. It's like they're saying, we're not going to go to prison unless we do something fraudulent, so lets splurge while we're young and worry about the debt later. It's a good job these people don't have kids (yet).

Speaking of kids; a worrying trend I've noticed is the amount of kids whose relatives work in the building trade who seem to believe they will walk into employment, even with building work in this country on the slide yet again. My mate Dez, who has at least two years of guaranteed work with his construction company was telling me that he's aware of a lot of people who were in the building trade who just can't get work there at the moment and are looking at factory or sales work.

Down the pub last Thursday, I got talking to a girl called Emma who used to work at the homeless night shelter, but left because of a combination of two things - the stress and the money. She now works about 50 hours a week in telesales. She has to work that long because otherwise she wouldn't earn enough to live on. The pressures she faces are not the same as working with the homeless, but they are just as testing. She said that her fiance and her would like to have kids, but they simply can't afford it and they wouldn't do anything as irresponsible as bring a child into this world without knowing they could look after it. Amazing realism from the younger generation; but within five minutes she was talking about how the two of them will go and blow £100 between them on a Saturday night out. But, they're young, they're allowed that.

The changes to tax credits now means that the government are fleecing even more from those who need it the most. My three former colleagues at the YOT - all working mothers, all part time support workers and all dependent on their tax credits to be able to work - have had mixed feelings about the changes. One of them already works the correct amount of hours, so she will not lose a penny; she might even gain a few quid because of changes in her tax rate. The other two work 4 and 8 hours short of the new limit, so both now face the dilemma of no longer earning enough money to be able to afford to work. How does that make sense?

The YOT has bugger all money; there are even rumours that some employees are now doing what constituted as my job, even though it has been made redundant. These people are doing this job because there isn't enough money to keep a sustainable work force there, so therefore there is no money to be able to increase either of the women's hours. Their boss told me that both might have to leave and he isn't sure if they'll be replaced, despite his project being one of the stars in the YOT's slipping crown.

Pensioners are being hit again. Pensioners, you know, the people that Tories usually depend on after their rich friends to vote for them because they don't like the socialist namby-pamby posturing the left always display. Pensioners; who, arguably, are partially responsible for this mess are also people who have worked all their lives to be able to avoid paying things like extra tax.

The wife just said that something is going to happen soon; another general election maybe or the rumblings of more street level revolution perhaps. The thing is it's clear that Osborne's theory isn't working, more and more people are suffering and he's allowed 218,000 very rich people an extra 5p off their tax bills - bills incidentally they already have very good accountants ensuring they don't pay as much as they should anyhow. The governments cut and slash policy hasn't been replaced by the private sector; hell, the private sector just needs to look at the price of fuel to know that it isn't viable to replace the public sector.

When I was made redundant, the key phrase at the time was that the private sector would step in and fill the void created by all the redundancies - a lot of the people out of work would be able to find similar work (probably not for as much money) as companies are created to replace outmoded council jobs. Except it didn't take a genius to work out that if all the money they were saving didn't actually exist any more, then how was a private company going to set up without some funding from some form of government agency or quango, which no longer had the money to give? Are people all fucking stupid?

When the Daily Mail start to seriously question the exploits of a largely Tory government then you have to start believing that something is going badly wrong. The problem faced by the Lib Dems when they first came into joint power was that Cameron and his crones popularity increased while Clegg and co hit rock bottom - this was classed as their one and only chance because they were finished as a political party; but Bradford West,, the NHS, the budget, public dissatisfaction, the crumbling economy and rising inflation, unemployment and social unrest has meant that now the country is no longer confident that the Tories are the best party to lead us forward; but neither are Labour and that leaves the political landscape both interesting and worrying.

The Libs had to suck it up as the Tories brought in measures that seemed necessary but harsh; they couldn't afford to argue that much because with Cameron so popular a snap general election would have meant a Tory majority and heaven knows what that would have meant for us all. Now, the Libs can start to exert some pressure, because the Tories are highly unlikely to be able to securer a majority at an election. We are faced with the prospect of an even more diverse coalition; in fact we're facing what the Italians faced in the 1970s - political ambiguity, general elections at the drop of a hat and growing dislike of politicians in general.

Cameron hid behind the umpteenth relaunch of the Big Society again last week; he seems to think that piffling projects that have not inspired the general public are more important than dealing with the problems, but as I've said before, Tories don't do well when they have to make decisions; they usually get in with the economy buoyant, not when it's in the toilet. They are good at sustaining a good economy until everything goes tits up and the Labour come in for a term and sort it out. They don't do well when they inherit problems or make them for themselves.

Don't get me wrong; this isn't a sea of change. there are people out there deeply affected by the cuts who would still vote Conservative, regardless of how often Cameron and Osborne shit in their mouths. They couldn't bring themselves to vote Labour or anything else, because they ruin the country; don't they? Of course they do. They ruin the country by rebuilding crumbling infrastructure that the Tories allowed to decay. They can't vote Labour because Labour are really communist pinko liberal sperm whale loving black lesbians or oiks. Yes, that sums up Tony Blair's neo-Tory reign perfectly...

I've said it before and I'll say it again - we're all going to die waste deep in our own filth of starvation or a disease that the NHS wouldn't treat because it doesn't have enough money...

Stuff

• I have been listening to Serena Maneesh; U2's Unforgettable Fire; early Simple Minds, Debussey and Orbital's new Wonky thing.
• My reading of Chavs has stalled.
• I watched the golf, the winner blubbed like a girl.
• We are going to Leicester tomorrow to shop, do the Belgrave Road and catch up with Selina Lock, who we haven't seen since September!
• We're also meeting up with Mammary Lass for a dog walk this afternoon; expect much throwing of vile insults.
• Am I the only person who is finding Game of Thrones only worth watching for Peter Dinklage and the few occasions that Daenerys gets her kit off? It's okay, but it's hardly breathtakingly awesome TV is it?
• Week two of the holidays and the weather is crap; the first week went too fast and this time next week I shall be on a Teacher Training Day for which there is no training for me...

The Nostalgia Factory (ii)

Sausages and Golf

I dunno. Easter for me usually means a fast approaching birthday; the hope of getting Easter eggs from someone and watching four days of unbridled golfing genius from one of the most picturesque (and controversial) golf courses in the world.

The Masters for many years was consistently the most exciting of golf tournaments and the fact this major is held at the same place every year, you get a sense of familiarity that comes along with other sporting traditions like the Grand National, the Boat Race and Wembley cup finals. Depending on when Easter falls, you would get various views of this world famous acreage; in full glorious bloom or looking like spring hadn't quite arrived in Augusta, Georgia. Whatever the weather there, I could quite happily sit and listen to the dulcet tones of the incorrigible fascist Peter Alliss wax lyrically when all the cameras are looking at is miles of sky all weekend.

But the last couple of years have been different. For people who don't understand golf, or think it is a good walk spoiled, you won't understand this, but the two most important days of any golf tournament are usually the first and last - the two in the middle are also interesting, but they lack the sudden impact of a game that isn't really action packed. In the UK, at our own world famous tournament, day 3 is called Moving Day; an attempt, perhaps, at attracting a bigger audience than the 3rd day of a tournament deserves? But generally, for me, the Masters is about rediscovery and tension. The first visit back to an old friend in a year and whether or not someone I want to win (normally not a Yank) can steal that famous green jacket.

So, two years ago, the BBC lost the rights to show the first two days live; this sporting jewel had lost half of its coverage to Sky Sports and frankly, I'd rather cut my penis off than purchase anything that has Murdock's grubby paws on. Therefore I was left with watching streamed coverage on the Internet, which was either interrupted by spam ads or the signal being blocked. I had to download a certain software to be able to watch it and while I checked to see if the iLivid software was safe, I also didn't see any real need to have it to be able to watch the stream. Since downloading it, my Google Chrome has gone tits up; none of my bookmarks appear to be working and while I've checked the PC thoroughly and ran all kinds of checks on it, it appears that I have to manually go back and ensure that my browsing experience is the same as it was at 9:00pm yesterday.

But that's an aside; the thing was, I just couldn't get into the groove. Watching a picture that looks suspiciously like the same quality as 1980s video tape recordings, you have less chance of spotting the ball, even on the greens, than you have of finding Wally. Sky's commentary team all seem to think they're Americans and hyperbole is the watchword, whereas at the BBC, it's all very gentlemanly, gentile and sophisticated - even with comedy Ken Brown darting around the course like a lanky Gollum in pursuit of his precious. Last year I gave up and just watched the Sunday night climax on BBC2, but my only exposure was reading 36 hour old reports in the Guardian, so I just didn't get the same tension and enthusiasm. This year, I feel that Sky has once again completely ruined one of my TV traditions. I expect I'll watch the final day, but whether its on the computer or in the lounge - pissing the wife off, no doubt - I don't know...

I have very few friends who are as keen on golf as I am. One of them now lives in Texas and our days of watching the Masters round his place surrounded by beer and drugs have long gone. My other golfing buddies were actually actual golfing buddies; I used to play the game and admit that it was one of the few sports that I felt totally comfortable with, even if I was absolutely shit at it.

I started to play golf with my mate Mitch when I was about 13. We'd go down to the old pitch and putt course on Abington Park, hack our way round 9 holes and then hang around until it was time to go home. While Mitch discovered other pastimes (but did eventually return to playing), I tried to play golf at least once a week - inspired by the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Lee Trevino, I never had aspirations to be professional; just good enough to feel satisfied with my performance. You see that is the real bug in amateur golf; most novices know they'll never be any good, but it's not about beating others, it's about beating yourself. Shooting a better round than last time; playing a better shot out of the rough or a bunker, or just trying to be better than you were - which, is really why any of us play any form of competitive sport. A casual runner will argue that they run to keep fit, but many run the same course and keep an eye on their times - I wouldn't be at all surprised if runners or anyone undertaking any sporting activity at some point pictures themselves in the final of that sport's world championship. There isn't a golfer I know who doesn't put themselves in the position of 'this putt to win the Open'.

While I was actually pretty good at snooker and possibly could have gone onto some bigger things had I practised more than I did when I was young; golf was the game that I really wanted to be good at; but it was also about getting better on my own rather than seeking guidance. I didn't want to be told how to play, I wanted to work it out myself and change the way I played accordingly. This philosophy, I discovered, is possibly why I have had only half a dozen rounds of golf in the last 18 years.

It was Toby who really took to golf with me in a big way. Toby, who I actually have nothing to do with any more, fell in love even deeper than I was with the game and during our early twenties, we would play as often as we could - initially on Abington Park, but usually on horrid days when no one else was playing or in the evenings when we didn't have to pay. We soon grew bored with just playing the pitch and putt, so we sat down one day, drew a plan of the course and then turned it into a 9-hole 36 par golf course. I won't go into details, but essentially, we would use the 9 tees and the 9 greens and mix them up; 7 par 4s, 1 par 5 and a solitary par 3 - the 9th hole, because it was almost impossible to incorporate it into the other 8 holes - too many trees in the way.

Then Delapre Golf Course opened (well, it had been open for a while, but we started to get restless and wanted to spend some money on a proper course). We spent a year playing the two 9 hole par three courses - once on LSD - and eventually we were joined our mate Andy, who had also rediscovered his love of the game. Delapre was expanding and it opened the Hardingstone 9; a 32 par mini course, which was considerably more difficult than it looked because it was built on a reverse camber, which meant that left handers found it much easier to play and there are considerably less left-handed golfers than right. Andy, Toby and I were joined by Andy's mate Charlie and our four ball Saturdays began.

In reality, all four of us were shit; but we improved and depending on the day none of us were much better than any of the others. We competed against each other every Saturday and we'd all win our fair share of four balls. I started to play an extra round a fortnight at Wellingborough's exclusive private course, with my mate Adrian (now in Austin) and he started to try and improve my game; this resulted in my game falling apart. He also warned me that my swing was putting an enormous strain on parts of my body that good golfers don't use - this was something to haunt me. While Adrian and I toiled away at improving my game; my weekly Saturday game continued apace; we no longer took drugs when we played and Toby had become an advert for Pringle. He became obsessed with the game, spending every free moment at the driving range and he should have improved to the standard where he should have beat us every week; but you see, that's the thing about golf, what you think and what you do are poles apart.

In terms of ability and the overall scores - we kept count - there was little between Toby and I and even less between Andy and Charlie; in fact, in his quiet and unassuming way Charlie began to become the most consistent player among us; which meant that even if he shot 45s every week on the Hardingstone 9, he'd win at least one game a month.

Now, you might be wondering why the word 'sausages' is in the title. Well, during the early days of playing golf with Toby, I was also working for him, in a chuck wagon on Moulton Park, serving sausage and bacon sandwiches from 6.30 in the morning until mid afternoon. I got paid fuck all, but it was better than nothing - this was around 1987. One cold morning, I, being the head chef, was getting the breakfast run together, bent over to get some sausages out of the cool box and did my back in. It as an odd one, because I felt this horrendous twinge, yelped, rubbed the area of my back where the pain had come from and got back on with what I was doing. As the morning went on, the pain increased and my mobility disappeared. During lulls in business, the two of us would often grab a golf club from out of the boot of my car and practice golf swings on the embankment next to our van; that day I didn't even try and Toby sensing that I'd done myself an injury eventually let me go early. By the next morning I could barely move. I was racked in pain and needed to see a doctor.

Now, years later and being something of an expert in back pain, I could probably hazard a guess and say that I think I might have trapped a nerve. I didn't slip a disc because I know what that's like; but whatever I did might have had some major impact on my future health. My doctor at the time seemed to think that I'd torn a muscle, but three weeks later and still in a lot of pain, I got referred to a specialist, who I can honestly say told me nothing except that I wasn't disabled - which, at 25, I didn't think I was anyway. There's a bit more to this story but frankly it's not that important to this thread.

I recovered, but it took 6 weeks in total and by the time I went back to the chuck wagon the writing was on the wall for it and me. Despite this employment setback, Toby and I continued with our golf and this timeline catches up with Charlie and Andy around 1994...

I find it hard to believe that I did so much on a Saturday when I was young. There seemed to be more time to do things and spending three hours at the golf course every Saturday afternoon didn't eat into it. My game started to show signs of improvement; my short game was pretty good, my long game was also getting there, but the two rarely arrived on the same Saturday. My putting was erratic and I was averaging about 42 around the Hardingstone course - that's technically 10 over par, but we always played the course longer than it was to make it a proper 32 par rather than the weedy 32 it was supposed to be. If I was handicapped, I would probably have played off 18.

Then one Saturday my life changed.

We arrived at the course a little after 1:00pm; it was a sunny but cool May day; a light breeze and probably ideal conditions for the likes of us. We sorted out the playing order and I was first off; I walked to the first tee, placed my ball, took my 5 metal club out and loosened up. I can remember this round of golf like I can remember my mother's face...

The Hardingstone 9

Hole 1: Is a par three; if you were playing this hole halfway through a round then it would probably pose no real threat. It's 160 yards straight up hill and once you'd warmed up you could make the green with a 4 or 5 iron, but as it was the first, we realised that we needed to go down into the bag and look for something with more distance. It was a better hole to be above than below. I cracked my drive right and it settled on the fairway about 20 yards right of the pin. My playing companions all teed off. I played a poor second shot and left my ball 30 feet short of the flag and just off the putting surface. I putted up to the hole, popped it in and was satisfied with a bogey. Score +1

Hole 2: A monstrous par 5 even by a standard 18 hole course, it also dog legs right and have that reverse camber I told you about; so it didn't matter where you hit it, if it hit the fairway, it rolled down to the bottom of the hill and you were left with another driver's length shot. If you went too far right, you'd end up on the 3rd's fairway and be faced with a bank of hawthorn and bramble in front of you; it was a far more risky shot and we'd all lost balls on numerous occasions when we'd hooked up there. I teed off first because we'd all got 4s at the 1st. I cracked it right down the middle and got appreciative noises from my companions; but it went left and nestled on the edge of one of the sand traps. When I got to the ball, I realised I had to stand in the bunker to play it; the ball would be at least 2 foot above my feet! Even professionals would find this a tough shot. I took my 5 metal out, hit the ball low and swerving up the hill. It travelled about 100 yards and left me at least 90 to go. I got on the green in four, two putted and walked off with another bogey. Score +2

Hole 3: is another par 3 and probably the easiest hole on the course if you hit the ball straight. If it fades to the right, you lose it down the hill that the 2nd cuts through, but anywhere else you tend to be okay. I took an 8 iron, hit the ball high and straight and it landed about 4 inches from the hole. We all stood and thought I was going to get that elusive hole-in-one. I tapped in for a birdie. Score +1

Hole 4: Technically another par three, but at 210 yards, you just have to bring the tee back 30 yards and you have a par 4 and that's what we did. I drove it down the middle, followed it up with a wonderful chip to land the ball on the edge of the green about ten foot from the hole. My putt bounced looked far too fast, hit the flag and fell into the hole. I had recorded my first ever back-to-back birdies. Score: par

Hole 5: The toughest, but shortest par 3 on the course. it measures at about 70 yards and is down hill. If you hit it long you lose your ball; hit it right and you lose your ball. Hit it left and you will probably lose your ball with your second shot if you catch it too clean. Leave it short and you at least have a chance of getting on the green, but it's 70 yards, you struggle to leave it short unless you fluff your shot. I was still teeing off first and I hit my sand iron high and straight. It bounced on the edge of the green, shot forward and stopped 2 feet from the hole. My companions were suddenly becoming as impressed with my round as I was and this is where our little group was special. We all wanted to beat each other, but if one of us was having the round of their lives, then the others supported him like he was in the lead on the final round of the Open. I birdied my third hole in a row and was pumped up. Score: -1

Hole 6: If you play this as a right hand dog leg going up one hill and down another it's almost 500 yards and is again technically a par 5 for a novice; however, if you cut across the 7th green and flirt with the pond, you can turn it into a very doable par 4. However, we were sticklers for precision and put in our own out of bounds rule. I sliced my drive really badly and it was heading to the out of bounds line, but hit a sapling on the ridge, which we classed as the OOB line and fell like a stone, landing on the correct side of the slope. We all looked at each other; I'd been given a reprieve - had I had to play again, it would be my third shot and my great round would have been blown to shreds. But the shot was hard; it was amongst weeds, close to the sapling it had hit (which is probably now a 50 foot tree). I hit it well, but knew it was going to fall short. I was 30 yards short of the green with an uphill shot in front of me. I took my trusty pitching wedge, hit the ball sweetly and it rolled up and sat about six inches from the hole. I tapped in and got my 4th birdie on the trot! Score -2

Hole 7: A bitch of a hole because the pond sits between you and the green. Hit is short and lose your ball, hit it long and you sail over the back and face a 40 feet drop down to the no man's land between the 1st and 9th. It's really just an 8 or 9 iron shot, because you are playing downhill, but if you don't hit the ball clean you are stuffed. I was hitting the ball really well; dropped it onto back fringe - cutting another break - and two putted for a par. Score -2

Hole 8: The life changing hole. Andy, Toby and Charlie were all having reasonable rounds, buoyed by my own spectacular round, which smacked the face of my usual form. I'd teed off first at every hole and the 8th was no different. It was the longest par 3, uphill and nearly 200 yards. It was the second hardest hole on the course and posed all kinds of hazards if you didn't hit the ball well. I took my 5 metal, got myself comfortable and hit my shot. It was as clean as a whistle. It sailed up and forward, bounced ten feet short of the green, skipped up and rolled forward, stopping less than a foot from the pin. I turned to Toby, we all cheered and I hi-fived him...

Now, what I'd like to tell you is I strode up the 8th, tapped in to go -3, got to the 9th, which is a long, downhill, par 4, hit my long drive hard and straight, landing on the green (because we'd done that before), where I putt to go -4 and record a score of 28; which, if you include the handicap I should have had would have been a net -13 or a round of 15! However, the hi-five was the thing that did it.

We were all so pumped up; the guys were hooting, I was totally made up and I could afford a shit last hole and still be about 6 shots better than my best ever round. As our open hands met in mid air, I felt something go. That's the best way of describing it; something just went. It was quite possibly the most painful experience of my life at that point in my life and now, many years later, I realised what I'd actually done. I'd slipped a disc. I might only have been 32, but having done it twice in the last 2 years, I recognise that gnawing incendiary old friend.

The term crippling pain is a bit of a cliché, but that is the only way I could describe it. I was in agony and my compadres realised this. I was almost in tears from the pain and unlike some things this wasn't going away; if anything it was getting worse, especially if I tried to move. My legs had turned to jelly and I wasn't sure I could support my own weight, let alone walk. Suddenly the greatest round of my life had been forgotten. We slowly made our way up to the green; my mates trying to gee me up and keep me positive; but I already realised that I'd done something spectacularly bad.

The pain was so excruciating I couldn't even putt. It was impossible for me to even address the ball and I had to reluctantly withdraw from the game. The guys tried to get me to play the 9th, offering me a gimme for the putt I couldn't take on the 8th; but I couldn't physically grip my driver. I was using one of my irons as a walking stick.

The doctor reckoned I'd probably caused my sciatic nerve to get trapped, he probably didn't think I was old enough to have a slipped disc. This pain was something altogether different from the pain I had at the chuck wagon. I got sent to physio and it took a couple of months to get better. The guys continued playing every Saturday without me, but keeping the spot open for when I came back; but I was scared to start playing again and my back still didn't feel right as summer turned into autumn. I never said I wasn't going to play again, but they replaced me with a mate of Charlie's and later, when I felt I could go and play golf again, they weren't prepared to let me rejoin the group; so my only real golfing outlet was barred to me. I could play on my own, but that wasn't really why I played golf, not any more.

When it was clear that I was not welcome back in the four ball I helped set up, I tried to get my own group together, but the guys I got to come along were not really into golf as a weekly recreation sport and after one round we didn't do it again. This coupled with my reluctance to actually open up and hit a ball, because I was scared I might do my back again, meant that I just stopped playing. It would be 8 years before I got the clubs out again and ironically my last 3 rounds of golf were with the person I had my first round with - Mitch.

The brain is still there (in me). I knew what shots to make, I just didn't make them and the 18 holes we had on the main Delapre course resulted in me shooting two 100+ rounds and an 80, which should have heralded a rediscovery of my golfing prowess and enthusiasm, but the winter came and it's been something like 6 years since that happened and I've fucked my back up twice since then, had a shoulder operation and was recommended to consider not playing golf again by my last physiotherapist, despite having barely played at all since my first back incident.

It's probably the one thing I really get pissed off about - not being able to play golf again. When I last saw Adrian, he suggested that I just find a safe swing; try not to skin the ball and just play to my physical capabilities; but golf was also a way to vent - a metaphoric punchbag - and I'd have a lapse of concentration and end up in A&E.

So, my golf is now limited to one and a half tournaments a year - half of the Masters and all of the British Open (which I won't have to take a holiday to see this year, I believe it falls at the start of my summer break). I'm an event spectator and soon I won't even be that, because I'm just not subscribing to any channel - I'm not that desperate to see things the government no longer believes we have no right to watch without paying for it.

2012 - 16

Best Laid Plans...

Thursday was going to be simple. Get up, go shopping, meet One El for a much missed lunchtime imbibe, take the dogs out, cook dinner and chill. Sounded to me like a recipe for a good day. Then the first spanner appeared. "The double glazing repairman is coming in the morning," said the wife last night.

"What time?"

"Between 9 and 6."

"But I'm doing the shopping tomorrow!"

"Yeah, I know. You'll just have to fit it around somehow." Oh great...

The double glazing repairman arrived at 9.03, so that was one major concern dealt with easily and he had left by 9.20. He took his measurements and departed like the wind. I got myself ready - I had to stop off at the doctor's for a repeat prescription - and then the phone rang. It was my mate Tony, who just happens to live close to where I do the weekly shop.

"I think I've got you a copy of that film you wanted," he said, peaking my interest. I've been after a copy of Winter Kills for a couple of months and as it is out of print, the cheapest you can buy it is for about £25. It was one of my favourite films when I was younger and while it has a reputation and lots of apocryphal tales about it, I think it was a bonkers alternative reality version of the Kennedy assassination and worthy of a couple of hours of my time.

"I'm over your way in a while."

"Call in and pick it up. I'll put the kettle on." Sorted. Not only do I get a film I wanted but I get to have a cuppa with a mate I don't see often enough.

I stopped off at the doc's, got onto Kenmuir Avenue, heading towards Duston and when I got to the end of that road, as it joins onto a road called Fairway (cos it's next to a golf course), I looked right and saw a Volkswagen people carrier literally about 100 yards away. Now, I get cut up just about every day by people pulling out of turnings with sometimes as little as 10 feet to spare, so with 100 yards you'd think it was not only safe but pretty much the norm. The Volkswagen was so far away I could have driven a tank and he wouldn't, normally, have been restricted.

Within five seconds of pulling onto the road, I could see in my rear view mirror, the people carrier hurtling towards me and I was up to the 30mph speed limit by this time. Also in my mirror was the image of a man ranting, raving and calling me everything you can imagine using mime. I shrugged. What had I done wrong? Anyhow, he's up my arse like a randy gay man for the next mile or so; all the time gesticulating wildly at me; flashing his lights and I started to think that perhaps I was dragging a corpse behind me or he thought I was someone he knew (and presumably wanted to kill). We got to the Cock Hotel junction and I just caught the red light; he was behind me and I noticed his car door open and he started to get out. Uh-oh, thinks I. I'm not going to open my window and be punched by some eejit, so I undid my seat belt, put the car in neutral and got out myself.

"What the fuck do you think you were doing?" The balding man wearing a tracksuit yelled at me.

"What? What did I do?"

"You fucking cut me up!" He's now standing about 6 inches from my nose and his eyes are bulging.

"I did not cut you up. You were about 100 yards away from me."

"You fucking cut me up!" It was like he thought I hadn't heard him.

"How fast were you going?" He ignored me and started to tell me I'd cut him up again. "You were driving about 50 in a 30 zone, during Easter week when the kids are all on holiday. What if you'd hit someone?"

"You should be more observant." Suddenly his anger was disappearing.

"Look mate, I'm sorry if you're having a bad day, but don't act like a prick." I turned around, to a chorus of blaring horns - the lights had changed - got in my car and drove off.

Less than a minute later, he's up my arse again, looking like a prize twat before turning into King's Heath and giving me lights, horn and finger.

We live in such a pleasant world now.

A Lost 90 Minutes

The Darkest Hour - the crappiest 90 minutes you'll ever spend?

Watched this teen-biased SF action film last night. It started really well and during the first 20 minutes you got the impression that apart from it starring no one you've heard of, it had potential. Even when the aliens appeared, you thought, 'hmm, this looks interesting.' Then something changed. It was like the writer's 6 year old brother took over scripting duties and the relatively competent actors all forgot how to act. By the end of the film, I was wondering why I even bother downloading half the shit I do.

Who Trek?

Having worked in the entertainment industry (of sorts) you get a basic understanding of the possible and the highly unlikely. If I was told that Superman and Spider-Man would team up, I knew that even if it hadn't happened before, it is a likely scenario because comics companies, despite being fiercely competitive, do that kind of thing to stimulate sales. Equally, whenever people talk about a Superman/Batman: World's Finest film, I baulk at the idea because despite both characters being owned by DC, the film rights are owned by different companies and there's all kinds of legal bullshit making it as unlikely to happen now as when the first time the rumour was started.

The Aliens versus Predator movies took far more backroom squabbling than you would imagine and there are some franchises that you just would never see teaming up, despite the amount of Freddie v Jason films or whatever. So imagine my amusement when a website I use to satisfy my inner geek speculated that Dr Who was going to meet the Borg...

To be fair, Den of Geek often out-geeks its rivals by having articles and stuff about all manner of cult and marginally watched genre things. I read their reviews of programmes and wonder if their reviewers would know how to be critical even if they were bitten by a real critic. Most of the site's output is either sycophantic bollocks, obviously written with possible advertising incentives, or article dissecting what a strange symbol on a movie poster might represent. They make big news out of nothing.

The first trailer for the autumn's new DW series was really big news and the geeks were out in full force, pouring over each second of the trailer trying to find some clues. Now, I'm sure producers know this now so they put lots of ambiguous stuff in it just to spark a reaction, but the suggestion by some of comments that not only was the cyborg character reminiscent of the Star Trek arch villains The Borg, but one of the people in a crowd scene had Chakotay's facial tattoos, suggesting this particular episode could be a Star Trek crossover.

Do me a favour? Stop it now. The chances of this happening are pretty slim - like in tracing paper thin, especially given Star Trek's owners reluctance to do anything with any of its characters unless it's been through 18 months worth of committees and they've held a seance to talk to Gene Roddenberry. The chances of this being anything other than a coincidence at best is remote.

Film Shop Home

So, I got round my mate Tony's; had a coffee and a chinwag, left his place about 11.45 and got to Sainsbury's, which was like Christmas Eve. For God's sake, the shops are closed for about 30 hours in total, but you'd think people had to go and horde in case the world ends on Easter Monday. The place was heaving and it wasn't helped by people just wandering around open mouthed, gawping and yawping at nothing in particular.

I spent £30 and it took me almost the entire length of that shit film I watched last night to get round and out. 45 minutes shopping and 40 minutes queuing. It was a nightmare made worse by the chatty assistant at the checkout who seemed to think she was as much a friend as a conduit for payment.

Finally got home about 1.45; already 45 minutes late for my beer with One El, but deciding that I had far too much still to do to take the luxury of a beer into consideration. So I got the hoover out and tidied up the lounge. Got my coat and found the DVD burn of Winter Kills on it and thought, 'ooh, let's see if it's DVD quality', put it in the DVD player and was presented with an option to play the film The Lion in Winter... A late 60s film with Katharine Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, Anthony Hopkins and a lot of young British actors. Not the film I thought I was getting...

Towers

Where I walk the dogs has been pretty inspirational over the years and especially so this last year. What with the old Express Lift tower in the distance offering up scenes from Mordor and some other landscapes that could come out of some fantasy or another.

Having never managed to finish the Lord of the Rings books and being utterly demoralised and disappointed by The Dark Tower series, I finally had an idea the other day for a short story about a tower. It isn't part of the themed short stories I've been writing and working on throughout last summer, but it is in some ways along the same lines. It is called The Tower Pilgrimage and it's not going to be long and it's about half finished.

It's set in the future, about 400 years, and history is only taught to children once they pass the age of 13; the history of their world is hidden from them until they go on a pilgrimage, with an old teacher, and learn the truth about the past. It probably has a specific name for the style it is written in and I'm in two minds how to end it; three if I go for something left field.

I Lied

The positivity of the fortnight's break has been to stay well. I want two weeks of utter relaxation and doing stuff I want to do (which requires my sometimes busy schedule to go as planned) and I don't want a bad back, cold or reappearance of the cough that hasn't really gone away to spoil my holiday.

However, the aches are back. My back, obviously being supported by varying levels of stress during term time has been complaining to me like a Victorian housewife with too much fluid in her womb. My arm has been groaning at me and my knuckles feel as though someone has pumped collagen into them to hide the wrinkles (they don't look like that though or I would be worried). I think a state of relaxation at nearly 50 with a history of 'arthritic' complaints is a recipe for pulled muscles, cricked necks and general fragility.

Of course, this all could be down to: emptying the duck pond, digging the veg plot, putting my spuds in, weeding the borders, pruning the trees, clearing up the mess and generally making the back garden look like a garden and not afterthought in purgatory. That's probably it, then.

Stuff

• Today I have been listening Andrew Bird, which wasn't that bad; Jon Hopkins' soundtrack to Monsters and discovering that some of my MP3 discs don't play in my MP3 player.
• This weekend is my annual sit in front of the TV and look at azaleas and racists.
• My wife never buys me an Easter egg.
• I have some extra hot Mexicana Cheddar to try.
• A friend of mine asked me if I wasn't married how many of my Facebook friends I'd like to get jiggy with. I considered the list and decided on three possibly four. However, I also considered the fact that regardless if I was married or not, those selected would probably need to want to reciprocate otherwise we get into slightly dodgy areas. Thus proving some of these Facebook memes or whatever they're called are poorly thought out and a waste of your time.

2012 - 15

Conspiracy Theory

You know how it is; you're flicking through the 450 channels of shit on the TV and you stumble across something interesting. This being cable TV there's a good chance that whatever you're watching has been shown on some terrestrial station in the last 30 years, so, essentially, whatever you're watching is old news.

My main problem with paying Virgin Media loads of money for 450 channels of shit is that 440 of them really are shit and the chances of you actually thinking, "Oh, there's a documentary on fish that wear knickers on The Community Channel, I must watch that," probably wouldn't even register on you (although, I can think of a few people who would go out of their way to watch a programme about knicker-wearing fish). This was compounded by the fact that 98,000 people watched Mad Men on Sky Atlantic (that's a 75% drop on BBC2 figures). Even corporate cable stations are never going to be as popular as they would hope to be. But, this is an aside; nothing at all to do with why I'm telling you this.

So, there I am, last night, after the pub quiz, flicking through the channels because I've missed Family Guy (which I'd seen already) and there were no 90s blockbuster films to endure. I stumbled across this programme, which was on something like PBS or TCC or Discovery Clunge about the Roswell Incident...

Of course, the problem with Virgin is that sometimes they're more shit than normal; so when I hit the i button to find out what I was watching, I had a simple 'No information about this programme available' notification - bugger.

Anyhow, whether it's true or not; been disproved or was just simple anti-conspiracy theory, I don't know. Doing a Google search brought up about 20 different documentaries, all of which could have been the last 15 minutes of the one I watched. So, what made this good TV? Well, nothing really; it was a documentary, with a number of talking heads, photos and grainy footage - possibly staged to look like 1949 New Mexico. The thing was, this ex-army colonel (I presume he was a colonel because he referred to himself as 'colonel' at least three times when telling of events) produced evidence to suggest that Roswell was indeed a massive cover-up. That six months before the infamous 'incident', the US Senate withdrew weather balloon funding from the USAF, because it had monstrously over spent. The guy in charge of the famous base believed that the scientists working there were close to being able to understand how the weather works and whether or not man could have control over it (they obviously weren't), so authorised more weather balloon shots against his superiors' orders.

On the day of the alien arrival; a plane from another air base reported seeing something strange in the sky and one thing led to another and the whole myth surrounding Roswell grew. The wreckage found was not an alien space craft but a camouflaged weather balloon! The colonel went on to suggest that the US Government not only knew about it, but were very careful to ensure that the true facts weren't revealed, especially with the Second World War and growing Cold War in everyone's memories. So, said the colonel, Roswell was a cover-up, just not the one all the romantics wanted. What made this man even more likeable was the very last thing he said; "Of course, all the conspiracy theorists out there will just say I'm part of the alien cover-up. Some people, eh?"

Be funny though, wouldn't it?

Faecal Wars

Dog shit - a contentious issue. Most people I know who own dogs clean it up and put it in the proper place (although I hope to God that they just incinerate it, because I'd hate to be the person having to remove the pooh from each plastic bag in the sorting process - 'Pooh in that bin; plastics in the other'). However, whenever I take the dogs out - now during school holidays and weekends - I'm amazed at the amount of dog shit left by uncaring owners.

I don't know what it is; perhaps some people don't like carrying a little black bag full dog waste around with them; perhaps they don't like the idea of scooping it up, in case the bag splits and they're left miles from the nearest hot water tap to scrub their hands clean; or perhaps they're just lazy fucktards? I admit to ignoring my dogs' shit, if they take a dump in the middle of the woods or I don't see it or if they do it in a way that makes it impossible to pick up (dog owners will know exactly what I mean by this - ever tried eating soup with a fork?).

But the wankers who don't clear up their doggy doo-doo aside, most people fill those green or red bins up to the hilt with foul smelling, noxious crap - which appear to get emptied by someone. For the responsible dog owner, shit is merely the unpleasant part of a good walk.

Now, I was pointed to an article on a web page yesterday about a sickness bug that has been hitting dogs and senior vets believe that it is being caused by... cat shit. yes, I know, I should be saying right about now that any animal that eats cat shit fully deserves to get an upset stomach; I mean any normal animal just wouldn't go near the foul smelling fishy mess; but dogs... well, they lick their own arses, so you get a rough idea of how base they tend to me - instinct animals that have adapted to lick faces as well as bums...

Three of my dogs have succumbed to an unknown malady in the last week and the wife has noticed that not only have the hordes of semi-feral cats in the area taken to crapping on my newly tilled soil, but now all four of them have been partaking in the ingestion of said crap.

The point is, about 20-odd years ago there was a big hoo-hah about the toxic affects of cat shit. It was a prominent thing in our then circle of friends because there was essentially a 50-50 split between dog lovers and cat lovers and one of our number was pregnant with her first child and owned two cats, which not only shat in a box in the kitchen, but also outside, in their garden and, more importantly, most other people's gardens. The pregnant woman was being irrational about going to houses with dogs, so the wife, pissed off about this bitching, moaning and whingeing, showed the article to the other woman - which stated that pregnant women could give their unborn children brain damage, blind or deafness and all manner of other maladies if they come into contact with cat shit and it somehow gets into their system. She waved this away like all cat lovers by suggesting that her cats shit smelled of roses and you could eat it with honey if your hungry enough (incidentally, this is also the same woman who thought breastfeeding should be compulsory for children up to the age of 21).

The article didn't suggest that dog shit was any better than cat shit, but it did say that humans are responsible for disposing of their dog's shit, while cat owners allow their cats to roam around the gardens of all their neighbours and take craps wherever they fancy. Say for argument sake in the garden of the family with no cats or dogs, whose children play in the garden all the time, especially in their sandbox. Now, unless you have a completely unruly dog, it isn't likely to get out at night and take a dump in the garden of a house ½ a mile away - yes, sometimes you wish it would, but...

For all the problems with owning a four-legged shit making machine; if you are responsible for it, then you should be held responsible. However, if you own a cat, your first line of defence is that it is an independent animal; usually the second response, when asked about the amount of shit it deposits in others gardens is to shrug or be dismissive or use the first line of defence again. Cat owners are not responsible; they don't have to be, normally. The cat will come for food when it wants it; cuddles when it wants them; in fact, cats are far more mercenary than dogs - in general - having a dog is like having a moral-less 6 year old; having a cat is like having a sullen teenager.

Mundo de Servicios

Do you want to know where there's more shit than any dog or cat could muster? Yes?

Then go to Al's Toilet World.

Govern This

I was watching Cameron waffle on about the Big Society for a few minutes this morning and it dawned on me why the Tories are so keen on privatising this, decentralising that and generally trying to get everyone else to do their jobs. It's because they actually don't have any idea how to run the country and are hoping that unelected officials can take up the strain in local communities; the kind of place that any Tory MP will only have visited near a general election and because the party ordered him or her to go there.

Boy Oh Aboyne

Yeah, okay, this is filler and most everyone knows this already; but pity the folk of Aboyne in Aberdeenshire. Last week it was so warm (even hot) there was more flesh on show in March than had ever been seen north of Newcastle and yesterday they woke up to 6 inches of snow!

What made me shake my head in despair was the BBC's attempt to make yet another Global Warming story from it, when it's simple - this is Scotland; you know the place that originated the saying Four Seasons in One Day. It is perfectly normal for this part of the British Isles to go from sunny and warm to blizzard conditions; it has happened since people first lived there!

That said, it is blummin' taters in Shoesville today.

Stuff

• This week I have been mainly listening to: Jon Hopkins, Gary Numan, Carmina Burana, House of Love, Hybrid and something called the Immersion version of Pink Floyd's The Wall.
• I have just started reading Chavs by Owen Jones.
• I planted 5 rows of spuds yesterday: 2 rows of Mayan Gold; 2 rows of Kerr's Pink and a row of potatoes I dug up that were chitting after being left in the ground after last year's harvest (despite digging the ground over half a dozen times, I still managed to miss 9 potatoes). If these are anything to go by on previous years, I'll get twice as much from them as I will from the others - these oddments are: 3 Golden Wonder; 2 old Kerr's Pink; 2 Nadine and 2 Kestrel.
• My niece appears to have opened her own tattoo parlour!
• It's nice to know that toffs like Boris Johnson can shout 'you fucking liar' several times in a lift. For Ken Livingstone, who was on the receiving end, it must have been a bit like being back where he was born.
• Was quite amazed to know that in Victorian times; women used to be administered a 'vibrator' to ease hysteria and drain excess fluids from their wombs. In a time when only women actually knew they could have orgasms, this must have been quite fillip for them, even if it had to be done under 'medical' conditions.
• Is disappointed that it's already Wednesday...