2013 - The Year In Review

Time...

2013 -

Illness diagnosed
Wilson disappointed
Bowie impressed
Despair arrived
Amplifier shocked
Acrimony incurred
Hopkins monster
Ade provided
Salvation descended
Cold remained
Will excelled
Summer sparkled
Borderline Press
Followed by
Mushroom abundance
566 Frames
Convention season
Zombre book
Sand brilliance
Corporate Leeds
New friends

2014 -

Hope horizons

... time, never enough of it any more.

May 2014 be better than 2013. 

Once upon a time I knew a man called Mr Chan. He said, "I don't want life to be better, I just want it to be fairer."

Album Review 4 of 2013

Only four? Blimey...

Sand

I've been blessed. 2013 has been a veritable cornucopia of musical brilliance; everything from the sublime David Bowie album to the very unsubtle Amplifier, something or someone has come along to fill this year with delights, and to think it started so badly...

2013 began with me really looking forward to the new Steven Wilson album and being so unbelievably underwhelmed by what, in my humbled opinion, turned out to be some shite jazz rock homage to King Crimson done really badly, I thought the year was unlikely to get any better. I mean if I get so disappointed by the god-like Steven Wilson, what hope have Amplifier got, especially after that meh last album? And what's that? There's a new David Bowie album coming out? Oh, for the love of God, the universe and everything else...

There have been about a dozen quite stunning albums this year - albums to leave you wondering how music like this has never been done before - each of them vying for potential album of the year; the position that Steven Wilson might have been a shoo-in for had it not been for his album's utter awfulness. Looking across all the CDs I've bought - actually purchased with hard cash - which usually are the contenders for album of the year, it was still pretty much a fight between Bowie and Amplifier. If you'd have said four weeks ago that Sam Healy would become odds on favourite to win that personal honour, I'd have said, "Sam Healy? Where do I know that name from? He's in a band I like, I'm sure of it?"

I believe my album of 2012 was the almost perfect collection of ditties called Fog Electric by that Scottish band with the catchy name - North Atlantic Oscillation. If you'd prodded me, I would have remembered that's where I've heard the name before. He wrote Mirador possibly the most beautiful song of the 21st century so far.

Sand (by Sand) is quite ... breathtaking. It is also mind-numbingly beautiful. Fantastically inventive and some wondrous thing that can remind you of everything ever. If I told you there was hints of Elbow, Simon & Garfunkle, Genesis, David Holmes, Sugar, Phil Spector, Adam and the Ants, Bob Dylan, the Moody Blues, Fatboy Slim and so many more I just can't put my finger on; yet complimenting all the influences is this utter perfection of an individual's record, would you be impressed? I think it is only spoiled by its 43 minute duration; it needs to be a couple of hours longer. Yet for all of the 10 stunning songs on this album and my desire for it to be never ending, the best song is less than a minute and a half and has the longest title.

Sam Healy is a bit of a sea man. NAO's albums are called Grappling Hooks and Fog Electric - both have songs about the sea and sailors and things nautical and you can see his fascination with the sea sneaking through in this; even the title/band name - Sand - is something you associate with the coast and frankly he could have a fascination with it for as long as he likes if he continues to produce music like this.

Let's also get one thing straight - there is prog in this album, a fair bit of it; there's also theatrical pomp rock and a fair bit of electronic wizardry, but if I had to put a label on it, I'd probably call it 'Almost Pop' because just about every song on it has you singing along to bits of it; tapping your foot to some weirdly 1970s mellotron or thinking someone unleashed Brian Eno on the Brady Bunch.

That's the other thing about this album - bonkers schizophrenic; it doesn't know where it is from one moment to the next, except Sam... Sam knows exactly where it is and where its going and that is why it works so well. Musical genius? I wouldn't say he wasn't.

This is the album I began this year expecting; this is the album Steven Wilson wishes he could make. This could be the album of the decade so far, because I can't think of another album I've reviewed in recent times that has got

10/10

One Man's Pain

It might be deemed as slightly unprofessional for me to complain about things that relate to my new job - you know, the publishing business thing that has prevented me from regaling you with the stress of being me on a twice weekly (sometimes thrice) basis. You know, my employer might not like it (that'd be me then) and it might be viewed as a little defeating.

So let's talk about my mate Bill Wall.

Bill thinks he might be getting too old to be running a fledgling business in 2013, because it is seriously fucking up his life. Not only is he surrounded by a level of incompetence that belies belief; he's of the opinion that possibly he's dead and this is just some kind of hell. Or perhaps he's in a virtual world and he's playing 'Have A Shit Life' from the makers of Sim City, in 2563.

Bill signed up for a recognised mail company - not one that recently floated away - took his first consignment of parcels down to their depot and two weeks later received a bill that almost made him cack himself. An example, because it is so ludicrous it's worth repeating - a 397 gram parcel sent to Poland cost £55 - (I will cut and paste that several times, be warned) The royal postal delivery service would have charged Bill £4.95 and he thought it would be a good idea to avoid them.

The same company who believe that a 397 gram parcel sent to Poland [should] cost £55 also gave Bill an account and got him to sign a direct debit. They also installed software onto his computer that has caused a 'runtime error 217' on it and he now believes his network no longer works and it might even have put a Trojan in his system.

The good news is Bill has been told that his first bill for just shy of £300 for 13 parcels will be drastically reduced, by about £240; however, no one there has assured him they can fix his computer and he currently has no way of using their software or to print labels; so he's having to use the more expensive royal version.

Then Bill had problems with taking money from people face-to-face. He needed some way that people could pay him with a credit or debit card, to increase his earning potential. So his slightly understaffed bank went off and sorted it out for him - he says, "trust me, it's a damned sight more complicated than that, but we haven't got all year to tell this story," and who are we to argue. His bank set up this payment facility - Bill needed specific equipment for this facility to work - he needed a specific mobile phone and he'd just got himself tied into a new contract with a state of the art Sony phone, which wasn't compatible with the payment facility.

Suddenly Bill had one of those small portable card reader jobbies and an account with the company who processes all the transactions and absolutely no way of setting it up or using it. The bank that did all of this for him have kind of crawled under a stone.

Blimey Bill, that's been tough luck! And don't forget: a 397 gram parcel sent to Poland cost 55 fucking quid!!!

Except that wasn't the end of it. The same company that have the card reader gadget also set up an e-commerce system on his website, because that's going to be Bill's primary revenue source and you need something right and proper to put trust in customers'. Bill was singing the praises of this conglomerate of banks and finance companies about how much cheaper than other less reputable companies they were and yet it was a bit like indirect taxation - all that extra tax you pay isn't taken out of your wage packet so it doesn't really count. Bill is being charged a whacking great chunk of his potential profit just to have the service. It costs him nearly £300 to set it up; then £50 a month and 2% of his transaction fees and while he isn't suggesting he's been mis-sold, he is suggesting that some of the charges were possibly glossed over.

Bill tried to explain to these new and unexpected keepers of his soul that he was just starting out and the charges levelled at a new business seemed almost punitive. 

Oh pray tell, how many ways are there to say ... tough shit?

And then Bill got what is called in posh circles as 'trots extremus' and considered just going and getting a job, once he got off the loo.

In case you forget: sending a 397 gram parcel sent to Poland will cost £55 if you're an idiot or they just saw you coming.

Poor old Bill. I'd like to sympathise with him, but I've had it even worse and I've also had the shits...

Spoiler Warning

(The following review is mostly ambiguous, but it does kind of give the entire thing away, so if you haven't seen this TV series DON'T read this, even if this is essentially the reason why you should watch the TV series.)

Your next box set: Breaking Bad

"Convince yourself, you are someone else..." Is a line from a song, by Swedish band Junip, which was used to preview the finale of this TV series. In a way that is entirely what Breaking Bad is about - convincing yourself you are someone different.

We came to this series very late. In fact, we started to watch it just as it was entering the end game in real time. Real time... yeah, I think that was one of the things that surprised me so much about this TV series; at some point in season 5 the main cast are sitting round the pool in Walter White's modest Albuquerque home and they are talking about the last 12 months - the entire life of the series we were watching. Was it really just 12 months in the lives of these 5 people?

This is the story of a mild-mannered chemistry teacher who has let the world walk over him; has lost a potential fortune and is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He is married to a selfish woman, has a son with cerebral palsy and a baby daughter on the way and he's just turned 50. This is bad enough, but through a series of events he loses just about everything he had left, except his family. It is when he has nothing left that he comes up with this idea that he could make crystal meth - a highly addictive drug that is common in the USA but has not really made the inroads in the UK - all he needs is the right people to help him.

Enter Jesse Pinkman - a feckless waste of space ex-student of Walter's who really is just a complete and utter dick, but through Jesse the next 12 months unfolds in some of the most jaw-dropping TV moments you will ever witness!

But... it's about a chemistry teacher and a wanker, how can it be so good?

I think that's why it took us so long to watch it and why there are so many people out there professing to have never seen it: the premise, on paper, looks a bit thin. It's the only thing that is.

Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul - the protagonists - are chalk and cheese, yet soon you see something developing between them - a chemistry, if you will. Plus the meth they cook is so good everyone wants a piece of the action, which links the two of them together even more. As the short first series segues into series two, we are introduced to the 'real' supporting cast - not Walt's family, but the likes of 'the lawyer', 'the fixer' and the 'villain' - three utterly crucial elements for making this TV series as good as it was.

Saul Goodman - a lawyer (just), who has his fingers in more pies than you could imagine. Mike - a hitman and problem solver who works for Saul, but really works for... Gus Fring, the head of massively successful chicken restaurant chain who is also the largest drug baron in the southern United States. Three characters who would help turn this into quite possibly one of the most spectacular TV shows ever made.

By the end of series two you are still rooting for Walt; he's still the 'hero', but from season three on, Walt really becomes the chemical mastermind persona he has invented for himself - his is Heisenberg and you start to see the flicker of megalomania behind those dark, bespectacled, eyes.

To say that carnage rules the next couple of series is a slight overstatement, but it's never too far from the surface. People get killed that you just wouldn't expect to die and things are never predictable. You think you can guess what is going to happen next and its the last thing that does happen! This is what made this series so enjoyable, you kind of had to give up second guessing it because anything you thought might happen wasn't a patch on what they actually opted for.

Then, at the end of series four, you wonder what the hell a fifth season could have in it. It ends; just about every loose bit is tied up in that explosive perfect season finale. When the final series begins it acts almost like an epilogue - the loose ends of the loose ends seem to get tied up ... But that was the TV show's charm, the ability to lead you down a path only to be rugby tackled from the side. Series five proved that not all of the loose ends were tied up; in fact the ones left were a lot more unpredictable than Gus Fring. As the final series progressed, things just got grimmer to the point where you knew, deep down, there wasn't going to be any form of happy ending...

I liked the analogy that for the entire series Walter thought he was in charge, but in reality he was never 'in charge'. He was always controlled by something - whether it was Fring or his own love of being a super villain. How he took control in the series' final episode and did everything the way he wanted it done was a fitting tribute.  A good friend of mine said he felt the finale was rushed (it was 75 minutes long) and I can see that, but I can also see that it was necessary. The time frame of the series: 12 months pass between series one episode one and series five episode seven, but a further 12 months pass from that point by the swimming pool and the bloody riot at the very end, in fact, all the finale action largely takes place on Walt's 52nd birthday.

In the end most people got what they deserved; like real life some things were fairer than others. I'd spent three seasons hoping that Skyler White would die in the most horrible of ways and, remarkably, that Hank, the consummate professional cop would get his man, because it was what he deserved. Or that Jesse would actually live happily ever after with that cute girl and her son; but nothing I 'wanted' happened yet it was still one of the most mind-blowing TV shows ever and like The Sopranos its kind will probably never be repeated.

I watched the finale last night, after managing to avoid most spoilers (no thanks to Malcolm Alsop for almost killing my enjoyment by using his Facebook status to tell the world what had happened) and worked it out that we started to watch the series midway through August (so about 8 weeks in total to watch 60 episodes) and yet I feel as though a huge hole has been excavated in me, one that I don't see any other TV show filling at the moment.

People will tell you that you really should have watched it. Trust them; these people are right. This is essential television; it is culturally superb; it is what television was created for, to entertain, to shock, to get a reaction. Vince Gilligan cut his teeth on The X Files but will be catapulted into the same arena as Joss Whedon and JJ Abrams on the strength of this show. Bryan Cranston is already a huge star and I expect a bright future for Aaron Paul, whose character, at the end, got what he deserved.

So did we.

Rating: 10/10

Addendum: This is the music used to preview the finale: http://youtu.be/W9V-Hh0uTaI it is possibly the loveliest song I have heard all year and the words... Jesus, you would have thought they had been written specifically for the final episode...

1000 Yard Stare

Hello.

Remember me? I used to be prolific, now I'm just tired.

I am of the opinion that for someone who thought that time was speeding up (without humanity being perceptively aware), by immersing myself in doing so much has just exacerbated the situation and weeks seem to be whizzing past at a rate of knots. The thing is, if this is the case, the winter will zoom in and out, it'll be next spring before you know it and we'll be watching our lives just dissolve away. At the least the weather has been reasonably benign...

Obviously Borderline Press has been monopolising my life. I eat, sleep, breathe it. I seem to spend time I didn't think I had sorting out problems, smoothing over cracks and generally being 'in charge' and yet we have nothing to show for it and I appear to be, on many occasions, at the mercy of people I'm depending on, but being the new cog in the wheel doesn't afford me any favours, in fact, at times, I think I'm having the piss taken.

Banks have been a burden; printers have been slovenly; creators have tried it on and organisationally it's just planning, replanning and throwing away ideas and starting again. Someone said, 'You'll learn from your mistakes." I said, I don't want to be seen making too many mistakes because by the time we get it right everyone will think we're shite.

But, you know, I have the other blog to talk about Borderline Press. I actually do that semi-regularly. This blog is about my life and the stuff that goes on around it... and... at the moment the only thing happening is Borderline Press.

The quiz team is averagely consistent still; I missed God Is An Astronaut live and was so distraught about it I didn't realise I'd missed the concert until two days after it was on - I've wanted to write my personal scathing review of their new album - Origins - but I haven't had the time to sit down and tell you how dull, boring and uninspiring it is - and that after 5 particular solid and enjoyable post rock albums, the band appear to have lost it. With due deference to Roger, perhaps GIAA should become God is an Accountant...

We've just about caught up with the rest of the world on Breaking Bad; it finished last night, we have 1 episode to watch - so no spoilers!

I have to admit that the last couple of months have been so busy and full of stuff that at times I have found myself staring - in my head - at not just a big bag of tobacco, but at mixing the big bag of tobacco with illegal substances - especially when I lie in bed at night with my mind racing and wishing that I could Just. Go. To. Sleep! But I've not gone down that route because I actually feel pretty good now that I'm nearly 14 months into it and I like being alive, even if life seems to be whizzing past ...

Anyhow... I'm now stuck for stuff to write about, so I think it's time for...

Fishwife Tales (episode 273)

Mr Miserable, the guy who lives next door to the Lithuanians (formerly known as the Sexually Explicit Family) upped and left his wife for a younger woman about three weeks ago. At first we thought there must have been some form of tragedy over there; what with all the red eyes and hugging, but it appears that the bald cunt who has never spoken a word to me in 13 years because his former next door neighbour didn't like me, has run off with a 40 year old woman who has three divorces behind her. Mr Miserable had been with his partner for 33 years; they were childhood sweethearts. I suppose it was a bit of a tragedy.

The Lithuanians have been extremely quiet.

The Wide Bwoy and his pregnant spouse are still in the throes of renovating the Dead Bloke's old house and they appear to be doing a good job, even if the constant presence of builders - coupled with a water main bursting in the street - has made our normally quiet little road a hive of activity and noise. The downside of Wide Bwoy is the amount of friends with kids they have. The street has been slowly filling up with families - young families - and I think the wife and I are looking at an exit strategy at some point.

Fuckwit continues to spend money like its going out of style and while I have no idea of his circumstances, I do know he is on DLA and she gets benefits for being his carer. I was told the car valeting I see every three weeks or so might be paid for by Motobility - but I've since found out that that applies to new cars. They've downsized from their focus back to a Y reg WagonR, but still pay some guy to clean their car - they must be filthy...

They have also had all the soffits replaced and that thing that sits above front doors in old houses - the thing that usually stops the rain from falling on you - they had that replaced with something that looks like it wouldn't be out of place on TOWIE. The house is covered in scaffold; they've had gardeners in again and frankly if they can afford any of this without their benefits they shouldn't be on benefits and if they are paying for all of this with benefits then I'm getting to the stage in my life where I find that offensive and I might have to mention something to someone...

**UPDATE** Fuckwit found over £5000 to have his house tarted up from the outside. £5000 for soffits, and a new thing over the door? You are having a laugh? But Fishwife told me and he knows everything. If Fuckwit and Fat Lass have forked out £5k then I really want to know how he's getting this money and I am so, so, impressed that someone ripped him off!

That brings us to the inevitable Fishwife. How do you think I know about Mr Miserable? Fishwife knew. How did I know about Wide Bwoy (and his mortgage woes)? Fishwife knew. We've had some pretty good weather for sitting on the patio doing some work on the laptop - I've resorted to wearing headphones, even if I haven't got any music on otherwise he'll be leaning on the metaphoric wall and start shooting the breeze with me - whether I want to or not. In fact, because I have been so busy recently, I've got quite abrupt with him at times and while I worry because my dogs do make some noise, they don't make half as much as Fishwife's two boys, who currently seem to be on a 'let's see how much I can wind my brother up' campaign.

Yesterday, the eldest was riding his bike on their decking - a game that is becoming increasingly difficult as they are growing exponentially - and decided to start ringing his bell. I was attempting to take ten minutes to read some of the new Stephen King novel and literally five of them were non-stop ringing of a bicycle bell. Had I been nearer the kid I would have ripped the bell off and shoved it down his throat... Noisy little shit...

I fear going out in the garden at times, especially if he's there, because he'll want to talk and he'll gossip and I seem to have grown out of it. When I had nothing better to do it was fine, but I struggle with time management at the moment; Fishwife doesn't appear to believe in it at all...

Which brings me to the distinct possibility that we're going to move in the next couple of years, depending on the success of Borderline Press. As long as I have broadband we can live just about anywhere and the destination of choice appears to be the south Scottish coast along the Solway Firth. Provided we can afford to move there, this is the embryonic plan. I will end up with a Scottish fishwife and fuckwit, but at least their accents will be mellifluous and different - for a while.

Until then, I shall sit here in my office and when I'm not stressing and up to my eyeballs in work, I will stare out of the window and dream...

Who, Why, Where, When and What the?

Blimey...

I can't remember the last time I did just one blog in a month and that was the one I called a kind of contractual obligation blog. This one feels like a blog that needs to be written before it all gets forgotten about...

So in the style of ineptias et effercia ...

• Bale - traitorous Welsh scumbag. I don't deny anyone the right to improve themselves but the way he went about it was pathetic and so below him I kind of hope (in an evil and nasty way) that he does a 'Woodgate' while at Real Madrid. 
• Phone - bloody hell. I got my most recent mobile phone in 2008; mobile phone technology hasn't so much developed as left me behind. I now have a phone that doesn't look too dissimilar to one of those fangled iphone jobbies. Apparently it has x more memory and ting than the iphone my memory was basing it on. It does things that my first computer would have dreamt of doing and it scares the bejesus out of me...
• Borderline Press - there will be a News Blog at some point in the next couple of weeks (maybe even tomorrow). I just want to make sure the entries for that weren't like the entries for this blog a couple of years ago. Keep'em wanting more!
• Summer - finished Thursday.
• Shed roof - finished Thursday. But GET IN!!! I am notorious for being the shittest DIY person whoever lived with all the functioning limbs. I conquered a slight fear of heights, a roof made of filo pastry and honeycomb and various other hazards, obstacles and a blazing hot sun to recover the shed roof. That's correct, those of you with good memories for trite things will remember that recovering the shed roof was one of my BIG tasks for the summer... of 2012.
• Monitors - two of the buggers, giving me and extended screen. How do people only cope with one?

  

  This actually is what my desk top looks like sometimes...

• The funniest joke in the world - the punchline of which is Roy Orbison. However, there's more to it than that. Back in the 1980s, when I was best known for being that 'stoned guy', I had a friend (who sadly amounted to nothing) who I spent a lot of time with and got pissed and stoned with very often. One day, while or shortly after sampling some hashish or some such, I came up with (or it might have been him) the fuinniest joke in the world. It was so funny that we lost 22 minutes of our lives laughing so hard and so fiercely that a bystander might have thought we'd been repeatedly kicked in the testicles with white hot shoes on. We were collaborating at the time and I grabbed a sheet of paper, scribbled down the legend that some people think was 'Roy Orbison' and turned to the guy I was with and said, as I saw it slipping out of my grasp, "What was the start of that joke again?" He looked at me with that slightly confused expression he has retained and shook his head. He couldn't remember. I couldn't remember, but it was still there, I just needed something to bring the memory back. But what was worse was I turned to the guy I was with and said, "Roy Orbison," and it set us off laughing again for about another 5 minutes, by which time neither of us could remember what the actual joke was...
• IE - That's Internet Explorer, not the educational definition, and it did something the other day that caused me grief for almost the entire day and all because of something that shouldn't - couldn't - have happened... I wouldn't use IE if it was the last browser on the planet and the only alternative would to browse the web by sticking my head up Bella Emberg's arse. I hate it, it's shit. However, it is in my menu thingy and on Tuesday, when Neil was over developing me spreadsheets for Borderline that I would easily understand, he, unfamiliar with my PC and my new double dynamic monitor system, didn't notice that I already had Chrome open, went into the menu, found IE and opened it. I saw him and cried "Noooooooooooo," in that Homer mocking Charlton Heston way and told him to shut it down because it was evil. No shit, I said, "Shut it down, it's evil..." In a Wicked Witch of the West way and he did just that. Clicked it off and it shut down straight away. Except...
  Something happened; I don't know how and I've asked people in my frustration why this strange phenomena happened and they didn't know either. In fact the person who gave the solution - because it's happened before - doesn't really know how it happens (and when a developer says that you have to wonder a wee bit). Anyhow, it seems the opening and closing of IE inexplicably ticked the 'work offline' option in the menu; this then affected all my Microsoft products and anything that uses a Microsoft product. I was put 'offline' in the new equivalent of Outlook; it caused problems in Google Chrome; it was one simple thing that caused me no end of grief because I would never have considered IE was the culprit... I had to go back into IE, click to 'offline' button and shut it down again. All in all, a major headache and proving my point that it's evil.
• I have had a reasonable harvest this year; the most pleasing being actual red tomatoes (and yellow ones!). We had enough green beans for one dinner and the purple potatoes (skin only) were surprisingly versatile. We had some very ordinary white beetroot to go with the normal red stuff and we might get a pepper or a courgette before the end of September, weather permitting (but these weren't planned they just grew out of the compost).
• I have been reading nothing but comics in foreign languages; looking at pretty pictures; watching Breaking Bad (now on season 4); listening to whatever takes my fancy - today it has been Talk Talk and Jon Hopkins. My 'hard walking' regime has been set back by my hard breathing. 
• That's it. I will be back, I just don't know when...

Surely, If You Wallop Someone... Eugh.

I am more than aware that the once ubiquitous blogs have dwindled during a period of time when one would expect me to be at my most prolific – the summer; but, you know, starting up a publishing house tends to take its toll on your time and I’ve actually been doing so much I’ve barely had the time to sit down and write anything that resembles a blog. Doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing though… and, of course, that means at some point you’ll be exposed to some proper dodgy writing rather than the usual dodgy stuff.

The demands of starting a business aside, I’ve been trying to write and edit the Robotz story and my artist partner seems happy with the route I‘m going. I have never felt more alive than on deadlines – I realised this a few years ago when I gave myself a deadline to complete a task, it added a frisson of constraint.

I remember a number of occasions where the guy who replaced me as news editor at Comics International failed to deliver a page at the 13^th hour and I would, literally, knock one together in 15 minutes. Of course the downside of this was my boss was intelligent enough to realise that if I could knock up a perfectly adequate page design and fill it in less time than it took him to drink a cup of coffee, why on Earth was he paying us so much money (for, some would say, old rope)? If only starting this business was so easy…

Once, not so long ago, I would have devoted an entire blog over to the fact that I have now passed the one year point in my no smoking campaign. As an addict, I know that there can’t be any slip ups because I’m in a stressy period and I could easily succumb. However, the wife and I have been watching Breaking Bad for the last couple of weeks and this crystal meth stuff that Walter White manufactures looks far more interesting than other more legal drugs… J

I look a little like Walter at the moment – shaved head, heavy stubble, and when I was in the opticians last week sorting out my eyes, I put on a pair of frames that made me look just like Walt did when he first shaved his head. I’m sort of glad I flunked chemistry.

See? (If you’ll pardon the impending pun) I’ve been to the optician and that would normally have probably required a biographical illumination and probably a long descriptive passage about some fuckwit who I argued with. Instead, I was seen by a pretty little petite thing and a very amiable eye doctor. There was a woman there with level 3 COPD. This was the only thing I needed to see and hear to make me realise that I made a very sound decision stopping smoking. I haven’t got my new glasses yet because I want the wife to accompany me as the ones I‘m currently wearing she would not have let me buy had she had her way.

There is below this somewhere a photo just taken on the webcam of me sitting on the patio writing this with said glasses on. Here’s modern technology for you? Next there’ll be things like mobile phones and looms…

Actually taken over a week ago, that's how behind I am!
Oh and yes that is an old man's vest

Obviously the Moby look went out years ago. I got these glasses as a kind of homage to my dad who wore glasses that I didn’t think suited him… That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I need new glasses because all of this close up work is giving me monster headaches – like the one brewing at this moment. But that might just be down to the fact that Fishwife can’t get out of his back door at the moment and is having to use the alley to take his dog up and down to the loo. Whenever he uses the alley, Lexy takes personal umbrage at this and causes merry hell. Seriously, if you saw this meek and mild dog behave when someone is in the back alley, you would deter burglars from even contemplating doing either house.

I could bang on about how you all need to discover the truth about welfare figures and don’t go believing everything the right wing press and UKP tells you. I could also recommend you go and read the Guardian’s excellent piece on whether or not fracking is environmentally dangerous – and it leaves you to make up your on mind. Or I could take photos of massive beetroot and show you how piss poor my potatoes look like they’re  going to be. But I won’t. I don't want to talk about football either, or cricket, or the weather (but hasn't the weather since May, on the whole, been a blessed relief?)