The Windermere Self-Immolation Society Day-Trip to Frinton

In the last few weeks, I've found I have had more time at this time of night (after 11:00pm) than I have had for a long time. My days were and still are full of work, the difference between now and a few weeks ago is that Will has gone and while I am in no way blaming him, I did allow him to be a distraction for me, which meant that I ended up doing lots of stuff after the wife went to bed. I even convinced myself that my best work happens when everyone else is winding down for the night.

I miss having Will at the end of Facebook messaging for about 18 hours a day, but it has allowed me to reorder my day and schedule it properly, allowing me the luxury of having late nights to myself again... and Christ is it boring.

Tonight was descending into the prospect of staring at the computer screen, willing myself to feel tired enough to a) be able to go to sleep and b) stay asleep past 6:00am and then I thought, 'I could write a blog entry', so, here I am. I warn you, I'm a wee bit out of touch...

I have thought about blogging quite a bit in recent weeks, wading through the quagmire that is the English countryside with four very brown dogs. Every other day I rail at some injustice or example of fuckwittery; ejaculate profusely at the wife when she gets home from work and then can't be arsed to articulate it all again [you are all aware that the word 'ejaculate' was something Dr John Watson did quite a bit in Sherlock Holmes's company, aren't you?] in a blog.

The injustices of our government; the demonisation of our poor and disabled - things I would have been incandescent about a year ago, now fill me with anger and then ambivalence and finally apathy. My days are too full of the realities of modern day business fuckwittery to rage against the machine any more than I already do... And trust me, a lot of my apoplectic rage in recent weeks will come back and bite me on the arse - I half expect the bank/printer/e-commerce/major on-line retail outlet [delete as appropriate] to tell me to fuck off and never darken doors again, fairly soon. The prospect makes me wince, but I can't say it would be a shock. But the incompetence of the world just pisses me off beyond what is healthy...

So, here I am. Do I have anything to moan about? Loads of stuff, but, you know...

The new neighbour, who I christened something derogatory a few months back, is actually a thoroughly decent chap - very friendly and quite conscientious. I think his missus is having a hard time ... post-natally ... but they have pretty much blended into the surroundings and, by the looks of things, won't be the newbies much longer. The loud woman who lived next door to the people who live next door to Fishwife have gone. They left quickly and quietly and over a month ago and I only found out because Fishwife knows most things. 

All the shenanigans at Mr Miserable's place has changed the landscape over there and the Lithuanians are almost part of the scenery. Back on my side of the road there's much happened. The weed smoking dude who I've always wanted to get friendly with and his lovely partner also did a moonlit flit; Fuckwit or his lard-arsed concubine have been quite ill recently; sick enough for paramedics and ambulances and there's Fishwife, who, it seems, has sold his house and is waiting for the chain to not unlink and we'll have brand new neighbours...

That's something to fill you with excitement and trepidation. I might sound like I moan about Fishwife (I mean it's not exactly flattering, but I'm not going to say his name in case anyone I know knows him!) and his loud kids, but they've been, head and shoulders, the best neighbours we've ever had and they will be missed.

I was back on the radio today after an 11 year hiatus. I like going on the radio. I always reckoned the way I could talk I'd make a great talk radio host; but the weird thing is, like many of my generation, I would rather have the graveyard shift playing all that eclectic shit I love and you never hear on the radio.

You can see I'm out of practice, I've been doing this an hour and this is as far as I've got; usually I can get between 2500 and 3000 words down in an hour - especially if I'm on one (hence why there's always mistakes).

Right, no point in boring you all rigid. Let's do this cos we ain't for yonks...

Effercio et Ineptias

• I have been listening to Sam Healey of North Atlantic Oscillation and his sublime solo album Sand. I reviewed it last year; I'm still listening to it and almost as much.
• However, I have also had the pleasure of: Lorde, London Grammar, Engineers, Billy Joel, Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters and Amanda Palmer.
• St Vincent is worse than some of the shit Roger listens to.
• I have barely picked up a book let alone read one.
• TV: Shameless US; TWD; Almost Human (quite good - interesting ideas); Sleepy Hollow (bonkers brilliant) and True Detective (blimey!). There are others.
• Health is as good as can be expected. Catching a cold was a nightmare and I now fully appreciate how dangerous the common cold will become to me in the future. But generally I'm still walking three miles a day and I'm just about back to normal after the cold (it only lasted 6 weeks).
• I met a 19 year old dog today who had more bloody life in her than my Lexy (8). The old girl actually was one of the many good things that Monday February 24th brought; I love old dogs, we don't realise sometimes how brilliant old dogs are. My dogs are just starting to get older and the next ten years will, hopefully, be pretty good ones.
• Radio Northampton hasn't changed that much; Bernie Keith was 10 years older, a little greyer and now sports a beard. he also has a lovely dog, who realising I was a soft touch gave me a hard time in that new continual 'fuss me' stage.
• I have tried three different saag paneer recipes in the last three weeks; each one had pretty much different spice mixes - which was why I wanted to do them because while I like my cheese and spinach curries, I fancied a variation on a theme. Ha! Do you know what the first one tasted like? The second and the third; that's what and all three tasted just like my usual saag paneer recipe - the similarity was almost disturbing. Spinach does that to most things.
• We had some ground frosts back in November...

Album Review

8194 Satake
Every Great Man Is Unique

What is going on? A band bursting with opal fruit like brilliance with a sound like the lucid dreams of a donkey with really bad shits. Ormonde Crotsville's blisteringly weird album of jazz kazoo mixed with baroque screaming is like nothing you've ever heard before and probably won't again, as EMI have dumped this band faster than you evacuate your bowels after 17 pints of Guiness and a bat vindaloo.

Schnorgle is 17 minutes of dwarves being strangled by kittens in jumpers with a melody not dissimilar to Auschwitz. I'm not sure if it's a musical instrument bassist Blag Hôgenstraub is playing or the recording of his cat being castrated but it certainly adds to the entertainment.
Attend the Fjords is a 2 minute yodel. Crotsville at his most sublime, singing - pub stylee - the Norwegian national anthem in Swedish. Pure genius.
Violent Scalding is a percussion piece where Vorm Placento, the Venezuelan drummer, immerses himself in a vat of boiling hot water while guest musician Jimmy Page talks about turning 70.
Pound hog is just plain dutty.
Chortz is like a solid gold sausage of an instrumental. It's fiercely dubstep while only using violins and frozen bananas on Tesco bags stretched over seals' teeth. Groovy.
Dying in a Leningrad Apartment staffed by Drunks is the weakest song on the album, mainly because it is just organist Dong Boo making noises like he is masturbating to an episode of The Munsters. However, this might be deliberate as this meandering wart of a song bashes into and then defenestrates The Attack of the Turkmenistani Bastards - a veritable temple to jazz kazooeyness.

An utterly genital-fondling fruitcake of an album, full of egg white and Polyfilla.

Of course, the thing that comes lurching like a man with half his brain smashed away at you is whether or not every great man really is unique or if uniqueness is not really unique but a bit samey.

2/10

Track Listing:
1. Schnorgle
2. Attend the Fjords
3. Violent Scalding
4. Pound Hog
5. Chortz
6. Dying in a Leningrad Apartment staffed by Drunks
7. The Attack of the Turkmenistani Bastards
8. Schnorgle (reprise)

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...