George Davis Is Innocent

The above appeared, clumsily spray painted on the wall of a dilapidated pub building in Leamington, a couple of months before Christmas.

At first, being ignorant of gangster lore, I assumed it referred to a local lad; some poor yob out misspending his youth who had found himself on the wrong side of a policeman’s taser. Before he could protest that he had just gone up that there alley for a quick Jimmy Riddle he’d found himself banged up for burglary with 500 other spurious offenses to be taken into consideration and escorted to a prison cell by a couple of uniformed officers who were slapping each other’s backs for singlehandedly improving Leamington’s clean-up rate over night.

His siblings, his mates, even his 85 year old granny with her dodgy hip and rheumatoid arthritis had taken to the streets of Leamo armed with cheap aerosol’s to protest his innocence on every wall, pavement and fence they could find.

Who was George Davis? That was the question that was rattling around my mind every time I walked past this enticing bit of graffiti. Who was he? What had he not done that he had been accused of doing?

In the end I Googled him. And lo and behold George Davis wasn’t a local lad done wrong by the local constabulary at all but a London mobster who was dodgily convicted for The London Electricity Board Robbery in 1975. He was released a couple of years later as a result of a campaign by supporters who protested his innocence before being later re-imprisoned for armed robberies that he did actually commit. So not so innocent after all.

Which must have been a bit of a kick in the teeth for Roger Daltry and Sham 69 who via T-shirt wearing and song-writing had come out in George’s defence. Stick to rock opera’s, Rog, your wrists are too subtle to divine the true realities of a man’s innocence.

So back to the graffiti of 2010. George Davis Is Innocent? Plainly the graffiti artist hadn’t done his research properly. I’m eagerly awaiting an addendum to the said piece of graffiti that starts with the words “Well, actually, ahem, the thing is...”

Or perhaps this is the first instance of “retro graffiti”. A celebration of famous graffiti from times gone by? Is the wall at the back of Tesco’s car-park going to shimmer with the words “The Juwes are the men who will not be blamed for nothing” sometime in the not too distant future? Or shall I get ahead of the game myself and paint the side of my house with the legend: “Is there intelligent life on earth? Yes, but I'm only visiting”?

Hmm.

Answers painted on a brick wall at the usual address please...

2nd Class Stamp

Before the commencement of work-based employment activities this morning I nipped across the road to the post office to collect a parcel that hadn’t been delivered yesterday (how I love receiving those big red “You Were Out” cards with the big offended tick placed in the “returned to post office” tick-box... how dare I not be at home when the postman calls).

A usual there was a small queue ahead of me and the guy at the front was plainly banging his head against a brick wall in his endeavours to get his parcel located.

“Can you not trace it from the barcode?” He asked. He had this nugget of information on a scrappy piece of paper that he kept waving at the white whiskered postal worker behind the counter.

Mr Postal Worker – who, if I’m honest looked like he’d been rejected from Last Of The Summer Wine for being too wintry and vinegary – scanned a glazed eyeball over the paper, grimaced like he was beholding a snot encrusted handkerchief and grumbled, ”No. It’s an international barcode.” He then harrumphed and sighed like he was explaining the concept of cause and effect to a brain damaged monkey.

Monkey fall from tree. Monkey hurt head.

“Yes but...” said the customer (doing a sterling job to keep his temper), “It’s been sent recorded delivery. You must be able to trace it surely?”

“I know it’s recorded.” Said Mr Evil Postal Worker and shifted on his feet like a bull about to charge down an injured matador. “But it’s an international bar code, isn’t it?” Cue another sigh and the stomping of hooves.

Meanwhile my queue colleagues and I were now beginning to shift uncomfortably on our feet. As I waited (silently praying that the man’s parcel could be located without bloodshed) my eyes couldn’t help noticing all the “abusive customers” warning posters that were plastered all over the small parcel collection office. You know the kind: the post office reserves the right to refuse to serve customers who are abusive and threatening...

A copy of this poster was glued to the wall, to the serving hatch window and to the counter top upon which the customer had thrown his piece of scrappy paper.

It made me wonder if perhaps the parcel collection office had a lot of trouble with disgruntled customers. Hmm.

In the end the customer had to ask outright that someone be telephoned to see if the barcode could be traced somehow so the location of his lost parcel could be identified.

At this point the postal worker flung down his mug of tea, flung up the telephone and proceeded to have a grumpy telephone conversation with the postal worker on the other end of the line. This involved the barcode number being repeated out loud, a little louder each time, in a tone of voice that suggested that the person on the other end of the telephone was... yes, you guessed it, a brain damaged monkey with a defective hearing aid.

MONKEY FALL FROM TREE! MONKEY HURT HEAD!

The telephone was then flung down so hard it bounced out of the cradle and onto the floor. The bull was not happy and stomped off to find customer no.2’s parcel.

The telephone rang. He belligerently ignored it until his business with customer no.2 was complete and then once again wrenched the telephone up to his white whiskered ear. He listened silently. Flung the telephone back down and told the exasperated customer with the scrappy piece of paper that his parcel was at “Jubilee Station” and “hasn’t yet moved from there”.

Where was Jubilee Station? A shrug of the shoulders answered that query followed by a gleeful “we can’t do anything about it until it reaches here (here being Leamington Post Office). Your best bet is to speak to someone at Jubilee Station.”

And that was it. Customer interaction complete. Scrappy paper man left shaking his head and muttering sundry imprecations to the deaf, brain damaged gods of the Great British postal service.

It was then my turn. I looked at the “abusive customers” poster on the counter and honestly thought about it for a moment but, in the end, decided it just wasn’t worth the hassle. Besides which, although Mr Grumpy Postal Worker had taken my red card my parcel was brought to me a by a nice female postal worker with an incredibly long, thin ponytail, a big smile on her face and a disposition to talk pleasantly about the weather.

Despite the wind, rain and grey clouds outside she was like a breath of fresh air.

You Can Tell By The Way I Use My Walk

Despite the utter contempt for snow-worriers and ice-cowards exhibited in my previous post I must admit that conditions here in the UK are possibly a little worse than those I was so glibly making light of. There are talks nationally of fuel rationing and billions of pounds lost from the UK economy. Things are beginning to sound dire. Or rather, more dire. And even here in quiet old backwater Leamo we have the odd snow drift that occasionally reaches a height of 2 inches or more and the odd bush that has been felled by the sheer weight of snow upon it.

I’ve been trying to phone Ray Mears but he stopped taking my calls sometime before Christmas.

What is most noticeable though about this current instance of bad weather is the persistence of the white stuff. Over the last few years any snow that has fallen in these parts has disappeared again within 24 hours or so. Like it’s been a mere token gesture. A quick hello and then it’s gone.

Not so on this occasion. Three days later all the snow remains in full force and has slowly transformed itself into ice so hard and slippy I’m amazed I haven’t seen Dean dragging Torvill along the pavements by her frilly forearms.

Walking has suddenly become an extreme sport. It takes the utmost concentration to remain upright on one’s feet – let alone placing one foot in front of the other and perambulating normally.

Now, when I walk about town I am wont to plug myself into my MP3 player and lose myself in some bangin’ tunes, innit?

Because of the snow I find I am having to modify and adjust my normal playlist. Fast music, you see, makes me walk fast. It gets the old heart rate going and I end up scurrying around at supersonic speed.

Speed and ice do not mix. Not unless you can allow for a sudden and unexpected lowering of your eye-level to the pavement and a braking distance of 5 to 6 feet.

So I am having to select all the ballady, slower stuff so that my walking speed slips into a funereal march that ticks all the health and safety boxes for walking in hazardous conditions.

The droning tones of Leonard Cohen and David Sylvian have so far protected me from pratfalls and broken limbs of varying degrees of severity.

I ought to be grateful...

But the sublimated extreme sportsman in me is dying to load up a bit of Metallica and go for it.

I could probably take out half the population of Leamington if I pogoed properly.

Snow Day

Why, in the UK, does the snow take us by surprise every year?

We act like we have never seen the stuff before.

Ohmygod! Snow! On the ground. On the roads. Everywhere! White stuff! I can’t possibly travel in that. Our modern technology just cannot cope with it! We’re just not built to function in snow! Stop the country! Back to the caves!

A hundred years of industrial revolution grinds to a halt in the time it takes for some middle class office worker to pull back the curtains, see an inch of snow on his people carrier and decide that it is simply too difficult to attempt any kind of journey into work.

Scott of the Antarctic would throw his frozen shite at us in disgust. I bet Sir Ranulph Fiennes is out on his front lawn right now sunbathing and eating a Cornetto.

What utter wussies we are.

The entire country shuts up shop. It’s ridiculous. My wife has had to take an unpaid day off work today because all the bloody schools are closed.

There’s barely an inch of snow on the ground here in the Midlands! It’s nothing. Nothing at all. When I was a kid I can remember weeks and weeks of heavy snow in ‘81/’82 and having to walk to school in it every day. The staff all turned up for work. And so did most of the kids. The only time the school ever gave us a day off was when the boilers broke.

Nowadays everybody leaps onto the smallest snowflake as an excuse to take a day off. To have an impromptu holiday. No wonder this country is the poor old man of Europe. Where’s our hardy British spirit gone? Over the last few decades it’s been replaced with a whiny, wheedling, shirking tendency to try and wriggle out of any onerous responsibility or task that requires even the tiniest bit of hard work. Nowadays I suspect schools and businesses close merely to avoid the possibility of litigation should someone slip and smash their buttock on a kerbstone while trying to gain access to their premises.

It’s cowardly, lazy and a little bit tawdry.

The snow up North has been far worse and I bet there’s a fair few people there who will still struggle into work nonetheless.

From the Midlands down to the South though (maybe I’m wrong) the snowfall hasn’t been nearly as bad. It should be business as normal with the added novelty of some beautiful winter views to gawp at from our office windows.

Instead most people are at home watching telly or building snowmen in the garden.

I’m not. I’m at work.

Harrumph.

Pass me another turd, Scott old man, I’ve got the ballista working properly now.

"Ang Is A Sket"

This particularly informative piece of graffiti appeared on the road outside my house late last week. Applied with white aerosol paint the letters are about a foot high and each word has been rendered with a wobbly capital.

I have, I admit, been tempted to take a photo of it to publish it here for your delectation but, much as I love you all, being run over by a passing BMW or a souped-up moped doesn’t strike me as a suitable pay-off for my photographic skills so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

I had to Google the word "sket". I’m afraid I’ve long lost touch with street slang and youth speak but there are some bizarre resources available online which can bring one up to speed in no time at all (the Urban Dictionary being invaluable). Sket, for your information, means a loose woman of elastic morals. Or thereabouts. You get the picture I’m sure.

So basically some love-struck teen has discovered that his gal has been spooning some other chap behind his back and it’s soured his brandy somewhat to the point where he feels he must besmirch her good name in the nature of a painterly public broadcast announcement to warn all us other chappies to steer well clear of her unless we’re not averse to taking sloppy seconds.

How sweet.

I can’t help feeling sorry for Ang for all that she may be no angel. I can’t help but think of her every morning as the wife, kids and I pile into our little red Peugeot and inevitably drive over her name as we set off for our various destinations in town.

She’s been condemned without a fair trial. She may be innocent and of unblemished character but the tarmac now accuses her of base harlotry. She may even be guilty, may lie on her back nightly with a whole regiment of thrusting young bucks... but there may be mitigating circumstances. Maybe her "official" boyfriend is something of a sket himself or just plain nasty and she has sought comfort in the arms of someone more worthy and more understanding of her needs.

Whoever she is, I can’t help thinking how upset she must feel to see her name cast so indelibly to the dirt in this way. How awful if she lives in the same street (which presumably she does) and has to pass this graffiti every day with her parents or her siblings. What must they think? The shame must be burning her up inside.

I hoped, when I first saw the lettering, that a good rain shower or two might wash it all away. But no, Mr Paragon Of Virtue Himself saw fit to spray his snide little missive in permanent paint. Nearly a week later it’s still there, as bright and brazen as when it was first applied. Hester Prynne must be turning in her fictional grave.

Whoever you are, sir, I put it to you that there are worse things in life than being a sket.

Being petty and immature are two of them.

Disaster Movie

My ambient paranoia has become such that, just like Chicken Little, I feel that my life is like an imminent disaster movie just waiting to happen. All the ingredients are there: low flying jumbos, a spate of local fires, a cut in funding for the local emergency services and more oddballs wandering around the streets than you could fit into the Casualty waiting room (and I’m talking about the BBC medical-soap series here, not the A&E reception of the local hospital which, let’s face it, tends to be bad enough).

Take the plane thing.

Now it might be I have just become more sensitive since having a little ‘un arrive on the scene but I swear to God they are flying lower and in greater numbers than ever before. So low I could slash their tyres with a kitchen knife as they pass overhead. Has Birmingham Airport re-arranged its flight lanes I wonder? I don’t recall this volume of air traffic ever occurring when I was a kid, teenager and young adult.

And I know the chances of one of them falling out of the sky is so remote I’d stand a better chance of winning Strictly Come Dancing than witnessing a plane crash on my home town but even so. The paranoia is there and kicking like a mule.

Every time a jumbo strains overheard I find myself listening closely to the engine sound just in case, you know, I can hear if something is wrong. Not that I’m a flight engineer or anything but I’d imagine hearing a rattle or a coughing exhaust at 3,000ft isn’t going to spell good news for anyone.

And then there’s the flight path itself. I find myself triangulating it mentally, breathing a sigh of relief when I realize it does not pass directly over my boys’ nursery and school buildings. Or my home. My place of work I don’t care much about. To be honest a good plane crash would sometimes relieve the monotony – provided, of course, no one was actually in the building at the time (I mean, I’m not completely callous).

More and more I find myself objecting to this invasion of my family’s personal air space. Who are these people who are endangering the lives of my loved ones with their holidays and their business trips? Why can’t they catch a bus? Or better still, walk?

Haven’t I got enough to worry about with the dying economy, the permanent risk of terrorist attack, food shortages, global warming, misleading food packaging, the war in Afghanistan, the UK’s underage pregnancy rates, swine flu, an increase in the Bank of England’s base rate and the Tories getting into power at the next election?

It’s all too much.

Come on, air traffic control! Give me a break! Send them over Coventry. It’s not like anyone would miss the architecture...

Meeting The Locals

Wednesday evenings have somehow become take-away night. The reasons for this are far too mundane to go into so I shall skip them. But being a connoisseur of the fish & chip supper I’ve been taking myself off to the local chippie at the appointed hour there to purchase the finest cod and chips that my hard won money can buy.

It’s a mere 5 minute walk to the top of the street but it does take me through the badlands – the rough end of the street; the wrong side of the tracks, etc.

By and large I’ve encountered no trouble but have passed some sights that have encouraged an occasional bout of rubber-necking. Couples arguing in cars. The contents of front rooms scattered over DIY gravel drives. And enough snotty nosed 7 year old smoking Marlborough’s to make me think this country’s potential population explosion might be naturally capped in about 40 year’s time.

This Wednesday, however, was different.

There I was, my freshly wrapped chips slung under my arm, heading towards home when 4 lanky youths disembarked very untidily from a house on the other side of the street.

Naturally, minding my own business, I attracted their dubious attention.

Initially I got the ubiquitous “alright mate”. I admit I didn’t respond. I’m rather choosy about whom I consider to be a mate. Maybe this was my mistake? The next two comments were plainly insults – I can’t even recall what they were – followed by loud, rather effeminate hooting laughter.

I didn’t respond again. I carried on walking. Neither quickening nor slowing my pace. Curiously I didn’t actually feel threatened. I’d quickly surmised that these paragons of teenage virtue were no more than 14 or 15 and were merely being buoyed up by each other’s leaking testosterone. On their own they wouldn’t have said boo to a goose.

But afterwards I did feel angry. Not seething, blood boiling angry but angry in a “maybe I should have crossed the road and lamped one of them” kind of angry. Why should they be allowed to get away with such behaviour? What makes them think they can act so aggressively to complete strangers and not have any come-back?

I know, I know.

It’s not worth the risk of a flick-knife in the guts. I’ve got a wife and kids at home. I’ve got cod and chips under my arm. All they’ve got is their own inferiority driving them on to acts of desperate foolhardiness.

But nevertheless the anger was there. Little shits.

In the past I have responded when a complete stranger has seen fit to be arsy with me in the street. I haven’t really thought about it. I’ve just hit boiling point straight away and launched in with some particularly nasty vitriol. The old adage that lions roar so loudly to avoid combat has held true. My opponent has usually turned tail and beat a mouthy retreat.

Afterwards I’ve usually kicked myself for being so damned stupid. But I can’t deny that I’ve also felt a small, glowing sense of satisfaction that I’ve held my own. Stuck up for myself. Taken no shit.

This Wednesday I was just too tired, too preoccupied, and possibly more sensible.

But even so. I can’t help wishing I’d kicked some ass.

Do you think it’s possible I have been exposed to a small dose of gamma radiation?

Fair Or Foul?

I got excited at work last week.

This singularly rare occurrence was caused by Kirstie Allsopp.

It seems that my employers were taking part in the new Keep Britain Tidy campaign that was about to be fired up and were asking for volunteers to take part in a special lunch time litter pick. How was Kirstie involved? Well, this new national campaign was being figure-headed by the particularly luscious Kirstie who I mistakenly thought was going to be personally throwing her lust-inducing weight behind the endeavour.

I was all prepared to wear rubber gloves and rubber boots (in fact rubber everything), give up my lunch break and get stuck in to the man made mountains of mess that regularly besmirch my home town of Leamington Spa. Not only was I prepared to invest in my own litter picker (which I’d be quite prepared to let Kirstie handle) but I was actually plotting to shovel extra detritus around the district’s footpaths and byways just so I could present my bulging sacks to Kirstie at the end of the event to show her what a tip-top litter picker-upper I really am.

I just know she’d have been impressed and would have whisked me off for a mochaccino somewhere to say a private thank you.

I had it all planned.

Sadly, once I tore my eyes from her picture and actually read the article on my work’s intranet properly it transpired that Kirstie would not be present at the actual Leamington Spa event. Instead she’d be at the official launch in London. What? Get your bleeding priorities right, Kirstie!

It seems all we’d get in L Spa was my big boss in his marigolds.

Not exactly a crowd puller. Needless to say I spurned the litter pick and moodily ate my sandwiches in the park and begrudgingly threw my crisp packet into the bin afterwards.

This is the story of my life. To not exactly brush fame as to see it smeared across someone else about 100 miles away.

Not that we don’t get to meet famous people through special events organized by my employers...

Only last month I could have taken part in an anti dog fouling campaign and met (not necessarily shaken hands with) Ricky Tomlinson who was taking a personal interest in the campaign and actually come down to Leamington Spa to throw his lust-repelling weight behind the launch.

Now I’m not knocking this campaign at all. Speaking as someone whose shoe soles seem to be permanent turd magnets I wholeheartedly approve of any endeavour to remove dog logs from our streets.

But Ricky Tomlinson? Posing next to a dog turd bin? It didn’t exactly get the juices of my enthusiasm flowing.

Kirstie, you’ve broken my heart.

P.S. Would anyone like to purchase a second hand litter picker? Unused. Clean. Grip handle squeezed only once. Going cheap.

A Fence Is The Best Defence

The Bloggertropolis security compound was strengthened and fortified against all rogue incursions of the canine variety over the weekend.

A sterling local company of fencing experts who go by the name of ID Fencing descended on the ol’ homestead early Saturday morning and disgorged enough woodery and nailery from the back of their flatbed truck to construct a fully functioning watchtower complete with machine gun posts and sniper slits.

Alas, such an item of garden furniture was beyond their remit to build and so instead they worked like Trojan’s to put up a 6ft fence that greatly diminishes the possibility of anything larger than a squirrel ever gaining access to the inner sanctum of my lawn and herbaceous borders.

I’m proud to say my backyard is now tighter than a gnat’s arse.

We’ve even seen a drop-off in the amount of cat poo that normally bullet-holes the lawn which, as far as I’m concerned, is an added bonus.

Although we’ve lost a little bit of view and the illusion of space the good definitely outweighs the bad. For the first time ever we feel safe and private in our garden. And more importantly we feel that the kids are safe. Our troublesome neighbours with their rampaging rottweiler left over a month ago but we decided to push on with the fence plans regardless. You never know who might be moving in after them – a wild cat maniac, a boxing kangaroo aficionado or even a man in a cloth cap with a penchant for cock fighting. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

As it happens the fence was a wise move.

The fencing boys – being local lads – were able to inform us that the garden that abuts onto the bottom of ours belongs to a “half way house” of indeterminate variety.

Marvellous. And I thought we lived in a nice area. Hyacinth Bucket as opposed to Onslow and Rose.

Seems I was wrong.

Seems we have the Gallagher’s living at the bottom of the garden. Or to be exact, rejects from the Jeremy Kyle show. During bouts of weekend gardening Karen has been able to eavesdrop on drunken protestations of love and drunken death threats should one or other of the rehabilitatees veer from the path of physical faithfulness and exclusive intimacy. Not so much the course of true love as the coarse...

Anyway, Mr and Mrs Ex-Jailbird own a ruddy great pit-bull.

*Sigh*

I’m wondering if there is still time to electrify the fence and build that watchtower...

The Fame Game

On Monday afternoon Karen and I decided to make the most of the last day of our holiday staycation by following in the footsteps of many and spending a pleasant few hours in the local park with the kids.

And by “the kids” I, of course, mean our kids specifically rather than “the kids” generally. I’m afraid the days when I’d sit on a park bench necking back a bottle of Diamond White with the local yobbery are far behind me. There are, after all, only so many cars that you can nick, joyride and leave burning by the roadside while you hold up the nearby petrol station before it all becomes a tad boring.

Ennui totally killed crime for me. My low boredom threshold made a straight man of me in the end.

So we’re feeding the ducks and some of it is reaching the birds and 33% of it is going into Tom’s mouth as he can’t bear to part with his share and we pass what looks like Russell Howard on a park bench.

For those of you who don’t know Russell Howard is an up-and-coming comedian who appears regularly on the BBC’s Mock The Week programme and is extremely funny – and I apologize to my overseas readers as Russell Howard and Mock The Week will undoubtedly mean absolutely nothing to you but the experience I’m about to recount possibly will so bear with me.

Anyway, Mr H is neither swigging Diamond White nor getting down with the kids but is doing his best to look unobtrusive and unremarkable while he talks to someone rather earnestly on his mobile phone. He is, in effect, blending in.

And indeed he would have got away with it but for an uncanny act of synchronicity... I’d bought Karen Mr H’s comedy DVD for Christmas last year but as we’re working our way through an immense DVD backlog we’d only got round to watching it the day before our visit to the park. The “Extras” package on the DVD features footage of Russell in civilian mode where he looks oddly unrecognizable from the bouncy persona he presents on TV and stage... but having seen it we were able to see through his “blending in” tactics and pick him out immediately.

It was him. On a park bench in Leamington. Him off the telly. A real life famous person. Him. Him there.

It’s funny but I always thought I’d be unfazed by a close encounter with a famous person. That I’d play it cool. Nonchalant. They are, after all, only people. Same as you and me. No big thing. Autograph hunting is for saddoes. Etc.

And yet I cannot deny there was a small part of me wanting to run up to Russell, shake his hand, say hello and act like his best mate in a manner that would have resulted in the rest of my life being spent trying to overcome the subsequent sense of shame and wince-worthy degradation.

The impulse was so strong.

But I was saved by his mobile phone. Fame be damned. There was etiquette to think of! One cannot just interrupt a phone conversation for the sake of self gratification! It’s bad form! It would be un-English Goddamnit!

So we fed the ducks and left Russell Howard in peace and he – no doubt feeling the sniper glare of our distant attention beginning to bear down on his shoulders – soon got up and walked away from us, looking smaller than he does on the telly and disappointingly un-star-like and disappeared into the milling Bank Holiday crowds of Leamington Spa.

When we got home we did a quick Google search... you know, just to see if he was playing any gigs locally which would explain his presence in the park and found this (check out the last question at the bottom of the page).

Yep. Russell it seems lives locally. He’s moved in. He’s become a Leamingtonian.

He and me are practically brothers!

Welcome to Leamington Spa, Russell! Hope you like it here. But next time you’re walking around town, keep your mobile phone handy, eh?

For both our sakes.

May I Orate Your Meal For You?

For my birthday last week Karen took me out for a fabulous lunch time meal at the Leamington branch of Café Rouge.

We’ve been to Café Rouge a number of times and for a restaurant chain they’re pretty damned good. Decent food, decent atmosphere and decent service. I’ve got no complaints.

But it’s a pity they don’t vet their clientele a little more.

We’d just despatched the starter when a young couple sat down at the table behind us. Graduate types. Young go-getters that type of thing.

The woman was fine. Softly spoken, quite sensible and socially sensitive from what I could hear. So quite what she was doing with Mr Soapbox Hooray Henry I don’t know.

He had one of those voices that could be used to drive ailing ships away from hidden coastal reefs. Imagine a rutting gnu that can enunciate in clear Home Counties English and you’re pretty much there.

Couple this natural propensity for volume with a youthfully inaccurate belief that everything – and I mean everything – he had to say had to be heard by everyone else within a 5 mile radius and you can imagine how the delicately romantic conversation that was taking place between me and Mrs Bloggertropolis was constantly peppered with the blunderbuss protestations from Mr Everybody Listen To Me.

“Oh ya, my last girlfriend, she just wanted too much from me, you know? Too much emotional stuff. The sex was great but I had to let her go... only thing I could do... I sometimes miss her but not much...”

“Ya, I’ve just come back from Africa... got off with a lovely girl there... blonde... very blonde, not a local girl... all my girlfriends are blonde in fact... I only ever go for blondes... white and blonde...”

“And the groom was like: I’d never known what love was until I met my wife and I was like, Oh God, this is atrociously wet, let’s hope the best man’s speech is better and then he stood up and was all like: ya, I’d never seen true love before until I saw these two together... and it was like awful, worse wedding ever, thank God for the free booze!”

A real charmer right? As it was he’d already blown his chances of getting into his female’s friend’s knickers in the first few seconds of their conversation with this absolutely classic opener:

“You’re looking really well – have you recently lost weight?”

By the end of the meal, his gargantuan sound bites had become the unasked for entertainment for a number of tables in our part of the restaurant and many a mirthful look was exchanged between complete strangers and ourselves as we masticated our dauphinoise potatoes.

He, however, was in complete ignorance. Which amazed me. How could he not realize how loud he was being? I’d be mortified if I thought I was being that boorish. I’m sure we’ve all done the youthful thing of recounting a joke or an anecdote a little too loudly in the mistaken belief that it’s comedy gold and a passing television producer might be in the vicinity who will want to push television stardom our way... but to roar an entire conversation?

Is there such a thing as the Town Crier gene?

Would I have been totally out or order if I’d performed an emergency tracheotomy with a fish fork?

Shout your answers to me from wherever you are; the Poulet Suprême au Roquefort is far too quiet for my taste.

A Load Of Rubbish

Just over a week ago I had the misfortune of being called out in the early hours of Sunday morning to attend a fire alarm activation at my place of work. I didn’t get away again until 7 am.

Seeing the windy streets of Leamington Spa at this time in the morning as I wended my way home was something of a revelation.

Or rather like something out of Revelations.

I don’t think I have ever seen so much rubbish and stomach lining spread over so much surface area of one town before.

It looked like someone had disemboweled a rubbish cart at 15,000ft and let the contents fall to earth in a 10 mile radius.

It was horrendous. Chip paper. Newspaper. Polystyrene burger cartons. Styrofoam cups. Half chewed chips and chicken nuggets. Shredded lettuce. The ubiquitous McDonalds paper bag. The entire gherkin crop of Bulgaria. All of it knee-deep.

I swear I saw pigeons re-enacting the trash compactor scene from Star Wars.

Worst of all though was the vomit.

We are talking vast, half congealed porridgy oceans of the stuff.

And it was multicoloured.

My worst encounter was under the seat of the bus shelter right outside the Parish Church. It was pink with red bits in it, flecked with the odd strangulated shard of green. Someone had either thrown up a chicken tikka or had crawled home minus their entire stomach and the taste of their lower intestines dissolving on their tongue like a rubbery alka seltzer.

If this is the morning after the night before I’m glad I no longer frequent pubs or go out drinking as a social pastime.

What disgusting selfish creatures we are.

All this waste. All this mess. And it probably happens every Thursday / Friday / Saturday night of every week of every year in most towns across the Western world.

Here are major contributions towards global warming for you. Here are carbon footprints that smell as bad as they look.

As I picked my way home through the detritus the litter pickers and street cleaners were already hard at work picking, sifting, lifting and hoovering up the evidence of a single night’s pleasure seeking.

I felt sorry for them. Sorry that such thankless work is plainly necessary.

Oh I know it gives them a job. A friend of mine once threw litter quite deliberately onto the street and justified it by saying "it gave someone a job and allowed them to earn a living”.

Well, as I said at the time, such a stupid argument could also be used to justify rape, child abuse and murder but I’m sure the police and the support workers and the attendant counsellors would all rather be doing something else if they could ever express a choice about it.

Forget dubious employment opportunities, what this billowing carnage said to me was the majority of our species just don’t have any true thought or respect for their own environment or the people they share it with. That maybe too many of us justify appalling behaviour and antisocial activity under the guise of “just having a laugh” and “just having a drink after a hard week at work”.

That maybe going out and getting yourself absolutely twatted on a Saturday night is not so much an innocent way to let off steam and de-stress but a way of proclaiming to the world that you really just don’t give a toss about anyone or anything that exists outside your own little sphere of beer-goggled selfishness.

What a load of utter garbage.

Our street cleaners are unsung heroes.

We’d all be dead or dying of cholera, typhoid and bubonic plague by now if not for their sterling efforts.

Gentleman and ladies of the broom, I salute you.

Disaster Management

Following on from my Pushchair Paranoia post back in March you might like to know that my anxieties have moved up a notch, Condition orange has over night become condition red (and yes, Red Dwarf fans, this has meant changing the bulb).

Suddenly I’m finding myself imagining the wildest of disaster scenarios and speculating on what would be the best way of dealing with them in order to ensure (first and foremost) the survival of my kids and (ideally) myself as well if I can manage it.

Take a recent bus journey to school that I undertook with my boys. What if a stricken Boeing 747 (engine failure perhaps or terrorist attack or even a dipsomaniac pilot at the wheel) suddenly dropped out of the sky, wings aflame, and smashed to earth just a few blocks away from where the bus was waiting at a red light? What would I do?

I decided I’d have to yell to the eldest, Ben, to kneel face down on the floor, close his eyes and cover his ears thus protecting his eyes from the shattering glass and his ears from the noise as I leap across Tom in his pushchair and put my own hands over his ears to facilitate the same. I’d just have to hope that my own eardrums could take the noise of the impact.

Yeah. That would work. Job done.

On a recent jaunt around town with my family I found myself wondering what would we’d do if an insane sniper had holed himself up in the Parish Church clock tower and was taking pot-shots at the good people of Leamington Spa as they went about their daily bread. How would we get home safely? I found myself triangulating the sniper’s field of vision and plotting alternative routes to get us out of the danger zone and home safely whilst allowing for the fact that Tom was in a pushchair and Ben is mildly asthmatic.

I was pretty inventive too. My safe route involved utilizing the backdoor of a couple of shops and using the local topography to afford us effective cover and continually keep us out of the sniper’s vengeful sights for the duration of the journey home.

I ought to be employed by the MoD.

But this isn’t really normal, is it?

Do I have a problem, do you think? Why is my mind pushing such outlandish disaster fantasies to the forefront of my brain when I could just as easily be ruminating on Keeley Hawes’ cup size? I mean it’s not like I don’t have other more salient issues to worry about at the moment.

Do I need help?

Or am I just following the Boy Scout’s admirable code of always being prepared?

Mugged By Kindness

This is probably evidence – not that any is needed – that I am a true curmudgeon.

Picture this: I’m walking home. I need to cross a road. I pause at the kerb as I can see out of the corner of my right eye that as car is waiting to turn left across my field of progress.

Yes. I really do have a “field of progress”.

Now, rather sanely, I decide to halt forward momentum at this point. I don’t want to get into physical intimacy with a metallic object that is travelling at 20mph. Besides which he has a right of way.

The Green Cross Code Man and Tufty the squirrel would both be applauding me at this point. I’ve done the right thing, you see. All those road safety lessons as a child have paid off.

The driver however brings his vehicle to a halt and rather insistently waves me across.

I obey but instinctively feel aggrieved and annoyed. It isn’t right, you see.

The road was completely empty behind him so there was absolutely no reason for him to make a point of stopping on my account. Another two seconds and I could have crossed the road perfectly safely (if not more safely) without his flamboyant display of largesse.

He had the right of way. It’s perfectly clear: the Highway Code dictates that he should not have stopped but continued on his way.

Now, maybe I am just being ungrateful? After all, I would feel a darn sight more aggrieved if he’d mounted the pavement, motored his radiator grill right up my jacksy and then continued merrily on his way without stopping to shout even the briefest of apologies.

But I can’t get over the feeling that his gesture was more about power and superiority than kindness. I didn’t need him to stop. I felt almost bullied into crossing the road in front of him.

The danger with not following the expected codes of conduct of course is that your actions can be misinterpreted. What if his hand signal to cross the road was actually his attempt to dislodge an angry wasp from the breast pocket of his shirt? What if he was merely clearing the air after a particularly foul air biscuit (“fart” to you and me)?

The answer is obvious.

I’d be lying under the bonnet of his car in a non-KwikFit approved position, leaking claret all over the macadam and listening to him shouting at me that he had right of way and what the hell did I think I was doing trying to cross the road in front of him?

*sigh*

Maybe I need to get out more?

Or less?

The Cock Tree

This newest of Leamington landmarks appeared, proud and ready erect, sometime in the run-up to Christmas.

One morning the tree was inoffensively asexual and passive and the next it was unmistakably male and “up for it”.

The worst thing about this most unimaginative bit of graffito is that it lies (stands?) smack bang in the middle of my route home from work and is absolutely unavoidable unless I take a detour of several hundred miles (a bit of an exaggeration) in order to avoid the accusing stare of it’s malicious helmet.

When you are on foot after an exhausting day at work such a detour is, quite frankly, unpalatable and so I inevitably run the gamut of the helmet and find myself tutting at it every single time.

Lord knows I’ve tried to see the funny side. I mean graffiti can be entertaining. Even educational when it’s produced by someone with a brain cell that can rub its shoulder up against another one.

Maybe there is some hidden pagan quality about this site that I am in complete ignorance of? Maybe it is a site of extraordinary virility like The Long Man of Wilmington? Scores of barren women come to this tree by night, drop their camisoles and sit praying meditatively for a patient and cold buttocked half hour on its gnarled and horny roots (steady!) in the hope that the old gods of the forest will make their wombs fruitful and overflowingly productive?

Maybe this graffito is an emblem of an all male secret society that I have patently not been invited to join that celebrates the leaping vitality of the male member in various (inevitably) homo-erotic rites that would, to quote Morrissey, make Caligula blush? They meet by night, swigging bottles of Diamond White and cans of Special Brew, and there by the light of the full moon they sing carousing songs of maleness, pledge allegiance to Old One Eye and prove their devotion to the cause by dropping their hoodies to reveal their... er... hoodies...

Sadly I suspect not.

Sadly I suspect the real story is that a rival gang from one of Leamington’s neighbouring towns – Warwick or Kenilworth perhaps – decided to make a foray into enemy territory late one night and tarnish the reputation of us resident Leamingtonians by implying, pictorially, that we are all great big nobs. Let’s face it, it could even be the handiwork of a disenchanted and disenfranchised local boy who, tired with his lot, tired with the fact that his own town refuses to see his celebrity potential and burgeoning star quality decided to hurl his overlooked artistry into the cold, uncaring faces of all those who lived and worked around him before hurling himself, aerosol can in hand, onto the train tracks at the back of Flavel’s factory, there to be squished under the locomotive wheels of the 9.25 to Dorridge.

This penis could be his final testament. His last will and willy to the world.

Oh who am I kidding?

It’s just no-good, scruffy, bored kids isn’t it? They’ve disfigured what was a very beautiful tree just for the sheer hell of it and I have to look at the damned thing every time I go home from here to sodding eternity and there is nothing that can be done about it – no cleaning agents that can remove it without damaging the tree, no way of eradicating the graffiti short of felling it’s living host. Curse them. Curse them and their amoral can of plebeian aerosol paint!

They’re great big cocks the lot of them.

To Grit Or Not To Grit?

Back in the good old days when men wore cloth caps, drank real ale by the cartload and went to bed in hobnailed slippers icy roads and footpaths were rarely the source of major moral dilemmas. They were certainly not problematic enough to put you off your woodbines.

I mean the solution is simple, in’t it? Yer just sling a bit o’grit or salt down and tell people to walk proper careful like... It’s bloody winter what do you expect?

And should passersby still go arse over tit in the slippy conditions well... it’s only a laugh in’t it? That’s just the way life is. And if you end up in th’ospital wi’ a broken ankle or two we’ll drink ter yer good ‘ealth in pub later... no ‘arm done, like.

All sounds very sensible and civilized to me.

But alas, the good old days are no more and instead we find ourselves mired neck-deep in the modern age of political correctness and litigious opportunism.

You see gritting the pathways these days is a can of worms or a hot potato that few are brave enough to handle and in dear old Leam (from which I hail) such moral dilemmas cause many a frilly knicker to be entwisted.

In the modern age it seems one (and by one I mean an individual or a corporation) can be successfully sued if one decides to grit an icy pavement but a passer-by still falls over upon it and splinters a rib or three on a frozen dog poo... whereas if you do nothing at all and they fall headlong into a storm drain and break their neck they can’t touch you for a single penny. You are not responsible.

Crazy but true.

And I have it on good authority that this bizarre state of affairs is just as applicable to home gritting / salting. If you grit your pathway and your friendly neighbourhood postman cracks open his knackers in a spectacular pratfall that sees a recorded delivery parcel inserted somewhere tight and moist he can sue your ass to kingdom come. But if you leave the pathway as nature intended and he still anally ingests your brown paper wrapped package from Holland well it’s just tough titty cos he can’t touch you for a rusty farthing.

As true as I’m sitting here at the foot of our stairs.

Now, am I the only person in this country to think that such a selfish, mealy mouthed, spiritually impoverished outlook is a national disgrace? Indeed, is it a national disgrace or is such jobsworthy (mis)conduct just a local (in)delicacy confined to the ice-covered streets of Leamington Spa?

Surely as a nation we are better than this? Surely to do something is always better than doing nothing? Don’t we have a responsibility to each other as well as to ourselves? Isn’t there such a thing as a communal duty of care?

Do we really want to see Mrs Scoggins from number 73 cracking her spine in half performing an ice skating move worthy of Torvill and Dean in their heyday as she takes a walk to the local post office to buy a second class stamp?

Ladies and gentlemen, your thoughts please.

Bye Bye To Woolies

So Woolworth’s has finally gone into administration. Another Great British High Street institution bites the dust.

It’s been written about (far more expertly and feelingly) by other bloggers but I feel the need to add my twopenneth-worth to the debate (as opposed to adding it to the purchase fund).

I shall miss Woolies greatly even though I hardly ever shopped there (yes, blame me, Mr Woolworth, for your lack of sales). The Woolworth shop sign has been a pillar of the Leamington town centre for generations (Leamington is full of dodgy architecture) and was my gran’s favourite shop.

I shall miss its deep red Ariel-like typeface. It’s creaky hand-winched escalator (Leamington store only). The gaudy aisles. The Pick ‘n’ Mix. The unhelpfully spotty sales assistants. Especially the one with spiky hair (like Rod Stewart) who would effetely stand to one side and chew his fingernails rather than risk breaking them by ringing up a single sale on the antiquated cash register (blame him, Mr Woolworth, for your lack of sales).

I loved Woolworth’s far more as a kid. And it was never “Woolworth” – singular (as is correct) but always “Woolworth’s” which for some reason now strikes me a strange. The school holidays were always made complete by a trip to Woolworth – we’d inevitably have Christmas money or Easter money to spend and after Toytown, Woolworth was the store to spend it in. For me this usually entailed purchasing an A4 writing pad (narrow, ruled feint, margin) and some Woolworth felt tip pens with which I would construct bizarre stories inspired by my fevered pre-adolescent brain.

As I got older I fell out of love with Woolworth. I became a store snob and, may the gods of the High Street forgive me, Woolworth just seemed a little down-at-heel. A glorified pound shop almost. A white elephant store. It lost its identity. You were never quite sure what exactly Woolworth was trying to be. A little bit of everything it seemed but never anything definite.

In later years I merely used Woolworth as a short cut to get from the main shopping road (The Parade) to the road behind it that runs parallel. This seems an awful thing to admit to... like going into a pub merely to use the toilet without buying a single drink. But about 12 months ago they reorganized the store and sealed off the back exits (except for cases of fire) thus condemning this glorious cut-through to the stuff of myth and legend. Now I use the local branch of the HSBC instead but it’s not quite the same.

My most recent visit to Woolworth – a couple of weeks ago – was motivated by mercenary tendencies. On its last legs, blood oozing from its severed jugular, Woolworth were offering a 3 for 2 deal on all their toys. Christmas was (and is) getting nearer. They have a fine selection of Lego which I love. It seemed too good an offer to miss. So I made sure I didn’t. I pounced like a screaming hyena and got myself some bargains. I blew a lot of money that day – possibly gave Woolworth a temporary stay of execution (thank me later, Mr Woolworth, when I toss you my loose change) – but ultimately I came away in the knowledge that my selective purchases had saved me a good £60 and therefore cost Woolworth the same.

I did, I admit, feel a little cruel. Like I’d just snuck round the back and looted a burning building while the fire brigade were busy at the front. But hey, they invited me in. They were ripped and torn and desperate. They were selling the shirt off their back and throwing in the underpants for free.

It was sad to see.

*Sigh*

Sometimes a bullet through the crust is the kindest thing.

Ka-blam!

At ease, soldier. At ease.

What’s The Scores, George Dawes?

Whilst on the subject of tax (as I was in my previous post... kind of) have you ever wondered where all your hard earned tax money goes...?

Ahem.

We had new doors fitted to the Gallery a couple of weeks ago. Not cheap MFI reconstituted pine doors. No. Fancy, remote-sensory, duel pump powered, automatic, DDA approved doors. In other words, doors with attitude and ruddy great knobs on (literally).

They cost someone a lot of money. My employers. The local authority (though not alas on doors).

Two weeks later there are still a number of problems with the doors.

Unconnected, exposed wiring is still hanging down either side of them. I’m trusting to luck that none of it is live or essential to the building services.

The door sensors are a bit “over zealous”. They open at the approach of visitors – fine. But when they come to close again one doors senses the other and opens again. And again. And again. In short we have flapping doors. Coming into the Art Gallery is akin to storming into the saloon bar at Tombstone, Arizona. The doors flap dramatically behind you as your order your firewater at the bar.

And lastly (though rather importantly for a security conscious art gallery), the key is impossible to turn in the lock. Honestly you need to have the strength of Geoff Capes (remember him?) to get in or out of the building. My key is now so twisted it looks like a Möbius strip.

The door men are having to come back again to put all of this right. This will be their third visit in three weeks.

Ker-ching. Thank you for your donation.

Faith In Human Nature

A few months ago I reported on a monumental act of misfeasance.

Back in February somebody stole our green recycling bin that had been newly delivered to our house by the local authority. I had to go to the police (as directed by said local authority) and fill out various reports before we could be allocated a brand new one.

All this on top of some petty thief’s criminal attempts to foil my magnificent recycling plans was too much to bear. I suffered apoplexy, hysteria and gout and was hospitalized for several months. I suffered hallucinations and wrote them down as blog entries. I was not a well bunny.

Imagine the horror then of returning home at the end of last week to find that our general refuse bin (black this time) had also been snatched.

It was gone. Just gone. Left out for the refuse team who were due to empty it that day and then stolen in the prime of its life.

In the space of a second I was on the edge of full mental collapse.

One bin goes missing and you feel – despite the annoyance – OK, just kids messing about, some drunken a-hole having a laugh as he wends his way home. But two... suddenly it feels like a vendetta. Siege mentality sets in. The hatches are battened and the big guns wheeled out.

Xenophobia and misanthropy leap to the fore. Who was it? Who was it? Is this the start of a hate campaign? Are they going to steal our car trailer next? It was our Polish neighbours, I’m sure of it. It has to be! They speak with a funny accent and own three cars... it has to be them! Or it’s the chavs up the road. Of course! All that bling... it’s a telltale sign. They’ve got our bin hidden in the boot of their bright blue BMW...

By nightfall I had drafted a scathing blog, written letters to the editor of the local rag and dictated a letter to the chief exec of the council. I even considered writing to Boris Johnson but managed to reel the wavering line of my sanity back in before I crossed that point of no return.

Imagine my surprise then when, next morning, our black bin was mysteriously back on our doorstep. They’ve all got addresses on you see and some kind soul, finding it perhaps abandoned and enfeebled by the roadside had taken the trouble to return it to the family who loved it most dearly.

Oh joy.

What can I say? I felt a mite foolish. All that ranting and raving. All that class war mongering. All for nothing.

My faith in human nature has been totally restored. There are good people out there.

So God bless you, every single one of you. I shall think of you all every time I stuff a full refuse sack into my newly returned black bin.

I shall keep this country clean for you.

There is a corner of a foreign landfill that will be forever England.

Windy Billets

A 6 year old, a 7 month old baby, two adults developing colds and one sitting a major Uni exam in 7 day’s time holed up in a tent in the middle of tornado conditions in one of the wettest valleys in mid Wales... were we utterly mad?

Quite possibly.

It’s fair to say that the weather could have been better. High winds when we arrived had the farmer guffawing at our efforts to erect our Vango uber-tent in his camping field though I’m at pains to point out that Karen and I achieved this assignment so singularly that ours was one of the few tents in Wales not to be blown out into the middle of the North Atlantic by the end of the day.

When we asked the farmer what the forecast was like for the rest of the week he smiled and nonchalantly replied “first the wind, then the rain”.

And he wasn’t bloody wrong.

Anyone who’s ever sat in a tent while the wind howls around them outside knows how oppressive and claustrophobic such an experience can be. However, we could just about cope with that. The kids were fine and we were definitely getting lots of “fresh air”. The torrential rain on Monday evening however was the last straw. Karen and I were feeling decidedly rough by this point and just could not get warm. All our plans to walk the hills had gone for a burton and we just couldn’t face another few days sitting miserably on a plastic ground sheet listening to the deluge outside fall at a 33 degree angle in an attempt to perforate our tent defences.

We either had to find an emergency B&B or bite the bullet and head home.

Our one and only stroke of good fortune saw us locate possibly the last free B&B in the area – another de-camped family tried literally 5 minutes after us and were turned miserably away. I admit I took sadistic pleasure in their disappointment knowing that we had secured the one-and-only room for ourselves.

Ah. What can one say about a proper bed and a television? A sofa and an en suite bathroom? Cooked breakfast and no washing up? Such things are worth killing for. Honestly.

The rest of the holiday was alas a bit of a wash out – 2 of the museums we went to turned out to have closed down and the weather was still too inclement to risk a walk in the hills. So we mooched around Machynelleth, Corris and Betws-Y-Coed and took comfort in the fact that the weather was ineffably worse back at home in Leamington Spa.

Ho hum. Another Great British Holiday experience notched onto the old umbrella handle.

We got home Thursday afternoon and I then had to get my head around some last minute revision for my Uni exam on Saturday. Poetry In English Since 1945. And what a bitch it was too. One of the toughest exams I’ve ever sat. I had to answer 3 questions. Normally I run through the list of questions at the start and put an asterisk next to the ones I feel competent enough to answer. By the end of the list I’d earmarked just one.

Gulp.

I had to find 2 more. 2 more!?

Suddenly being stuck on a hillside in Wales with a tornado shredding my sleeping bag around my legs seemed a much healthier place to be...

Timeslide

A chance encounter this lunchtime has set me off reminiscing...

In-between bouts of heavy rain I decided to kick-start the old MP3 player and take a mooch along one of the many river walks that perforate my home town of Leamington Spa. As luck would have it, this particular route took me by the college where I completed my art foundation course back in 1988 and where I met Dave who, for many years was my closest friend. My best friend, in fact.

Now Dave is still a good friend but life being life we now rarely see each other and hanging out never extends further these days than a rare 20 minute rushed conversation on the street corner, usually in the morning when he’s on the way to his job and I’m on my way to mine. He has a family, I have a family... What can I say? Our commitments and drives seemed to slowly separate over the years until the bond that once held us close as brothers disintegrated without either of us ever quite being aware of it.

It’s something that occasionally causes me a twinge of regret and pain but never for very long – there just isn’t room or time in my life at the moment to dwell on it. And I guess that says it all. As for Dave, well, I’m probably being unfair but I don’t think my absence from the great scheme of things particularly impinges on him at all... but that’s possibly the subject of another post.

Anyway, this lunchtime, as I wandered passed the college where Dave and I first met who should I run into? Dave Jr. Dave’s eldest son who bears an uncanny resemblance to his father when he was 18. It was odd to see him goofing around with his mates the same way Dave and I did exactly 20 years ago and in the same place. Just for a second I honestly wondered if I’d walked through a hole in time or life was inexplicably repeating itself in some kind of temporal ox-bow. Some weird loop serving no other purpose than to endlessly repeat itself.

For the briefest of moments I was 18 again with no other worries than the thought of bunking off from lessons for the afternoon, my head full of stupid ambitions and dreams which now, 20 years on, seem wasteful, ill conceived and ill chosen. Looking back at myself I was lumbered with a profound lack of direction and a hopeless lack of motivation. Not a great combo.

But when you’re 18 it’s fine. There’s plenty of time to do things, loads of time... too much time in fact. So much time you fritter it away on silly pranks and things that don’t really matter and things that are of no consequence.

And I envy Dave Jr that.

But despite the pleasurable regret, the slight sugary tinge of melancholy that is tinting my spectacles this afternoon I’m glad that I’m here and not back there. It’s good to have passed through that period and to be standing on a hillside looking back at it through a pair of wizened binoculars... because as someone clever once said: the past is a great place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there. Besides which the sexual desert that characterized my twenties is not something I’d ever care to revisit no matter how young it might make me appear.

Today then, for the first time ever, the small grey hairs in my beard and hair are most welcome. They’ve been hard won by trial and experience.

And when I was 18 I certainly would have envied myself that...

Blofeld Is My Next Door Neighbour

It’s not often that my hometown makes the national news (winning Britain In Bloom for the umpteenth time running is never front page material) but when it does it does so with style.

You’ll all no doubt have heard the news of James Bond’s fabled Aston Martin taking an unnecessary nosedive into some picturesque Italian lake on route to the film set of “A Quantum Of Solace”...

Well, it’s with a quantum of pride that I reveal that the driver hailed from good old Leamington Spa... the small Midland’s spa town that brought forth such luminaries into the world as Aleister Crowley, Terry Frost and yours truly.

And now we can add Fraser Dunn to that list, the hapless driver who lost control on a steep mountainous Italian bend in wet weather and took out Bond’s trademark wheels big time.

Fraser escaped unharmed (naturally) and merely brushed off his tux as the car was craned out of the drink by Italian contractors. Reports that the lake was filled with remote-controlled sharks with lasers attached to their foreheads are so far unfounded.

Mr Bond himself was unavailable for comment being up to his hips in posh, busty totty but Blofeld was heard to scream a tirade of curses before pounding his pussy to death in angered frustration.

Er...

Or have I got that the wrong way round?

Can You Feel It?

No I'm not talking about a game of hunt the sausage with Michael Jackson, I'm talking about the earthquake that struck the UK at 1.0 am last night.

Apparently it measured around 5.2 on the Richter Scale and was centred somewhere in Market Rasen in Lincolnshire.

The effects were felt all the way deep down in my neck of the woods in Warwickshire. Thankfully the only casualty in my house was a Lego Luke Skywalker figure who took a tumble from the top shelf and was later found by me, wedged (no pun intended Star Wars fans) behind some boxes on the floor. He was still gripping tight to his light saber, bless 'im.

That's the force for you.

Like I said: can you feel it?

Tag Team

Good day fellow bloggers; yours truly has been tagged good and proper by blogging buddy Old Cheeser and so I must most humbly submit myself to the task at hand.

The rules are simple (they could have been written for me):

First: post the following rules and a link to the person who tagged you.

Second: share seven interesting facts about yourself. The more amazingly interesting the better.

Third: tag seven people at the end of your post linking their names to their blogs and advising them of their tagged status via the comments facility on their own blogs.

Couldn't be easier. Except finding seven interesting facts about myself is going to be an absolute labour of Hercules...

1) One of my aunts is a distant relation of Audrey Hepburn. But sadly so distant that there is utterly no mileage in me trying to capitalize on the connection.

2) I have met Mel and Sue, Roger McGough and two members of Killing Joke. Mel and Sue I met at Weston-super-Mare train station: Mel was lovely and friendly, Sue was much cooler but still very polite. They made a point of not getting into the same carriage as me. Was it something I said? Roger McGough I met at a book signing - top bloke but he gave me a very weird look. Was it something I said? The KJ band members - Jaz Coleman and Paul Raven - I met during an amazing gig at the Birmingham Institute. Jaz shook my hand (his was very sweaty) and Paul Raven was wandering around brushing his teeth. He just gave me a weird look. Was it something I said...?!?

3) I am a secret Lego geek. I absolutely adore the stuff and am an avid collector. Sad eh? However, the way I look at it, there are worse addictions. I could be into crack, booze or gambling. Or, as Karen has just pointed out: I could be into football. I'm also keen to big up the fact that Lego is a lucrative investment as the models tend to increase in value as they get older.

4) When I was a toddler my mother tells me I used to regularly throw myself down the stairs (was it something she said?) without incurring a single injury. And then one day I fell down the bottom two steps and fractured my leg resulting in a few weeks in hospital. Why my family hadn't invested in a stairgate is still a mystery to me.

5) I started my as yet unrewarded writing career when I was about 7 years old after seeing Star Wars at the local cinema. Since then I have tinkered with stories and poetry with only the occasional year off here and there for bad behaviour. A veritable monster was created. Blame George Lucas.

6) A friend and I once snuck into the grounds of Guy's Cliffe - a local heritage site owned by the Masons and reputedly haunted by the ghost of lady Felice of Warwick who threw herself from one of the windows into the river below - and part-way round were confronted by a very spooky presence. I'm not joking for once either. We didn't actually see a manifestation but something unwelcoming was definitely there. I'm happy to report that we both turned tail and ran, wise poltroons that we were...

7) I have a phobia of moths. I can't stand them anywhere near me and I cannot relax if one gets into the house. Urgh. Horrible flaky, powdery things.

There you go - seven not so fab facts to ponder about yours truly.

And now I'm tagging Ally, Eve, Rol, Laura, Tris, Emily and Per.pri to do the same!

Wet Rot

Apologies for the lack of blog action over the last few days – I’ve barely had time to drink a cup of tea let alone tinker with the English language in an entertaining manner.

On Saturday the River Leam burst its banks and, at ground level at least, came within 3 foot of the Art Gallery where I work in dear old Leamington Spa. Hence Saturday lunchtime I was called in to work to help install flood barriers, put out sandbags and remove every valuable painting from the walls so that they could all be stored somewhere safe.

Unfortunately, despite all these precautions, the water managed to get in through the foundations of the building and our under floor store – directly beneath the main Gallery – filled up with over 5ft of smelly, river water.

Hence, yesterday – which was actually my wedding anniversary – I had to go in again as most other staff are away on holiday this time of year to help with the clean up operation. I had originally booked the day off so Karen and I could go out for a meal but it seems the restaurant we’d planned to patronize had also been flooded! As it was Karen was very understanding and we decided to postpone our day out together until today.

So yesterday saw me (begrudgingly) slaving away at work instead of stuffing myself silly with top nosh and gazing adoringly into my wife’s eyes. Not the celebration of 2 years of marriage that we’d planned.

Still, the clean up operation is now underway. Pumps are in place to empty the flooded store and engineers are primed to strip down the boilers as our boiler room also ended up under 4 ft of water.

At the end of the day, compared to other areas of the country, we got off very lightly which is a very sobering thought indeed.

As for me. Top nosh beckons today. And Karen and I are concentrating on getting ourselves through to the weekend – Saturday will see us heading off the Marazion for a week’s well deserved holiday!

I can't wait.

Demon Barber

I’ve just returned to my computer after getting my hair cut at one of Leamington Spa’s most recommended barbers, Francesco’s, in my lunch break.

Bloody hell but the guy who dealt with my hair was rough (not Francesco himself alas). Sweeney Todd just doesn’t come into it. I feel like my head has been savaged by an irradiated combine harvester driven by a rabid three-legged Alsatian high on turps.

The comb was scraped so hard across my scalp you can plant potato seeds in the furrows and my ears resemble a pair of McCoy’s crinkle cut crisps (cheese and onion flavour, thank you for asking).

Even the fluffy brush thing with which he finished off his follicle artwork was batted about like he was playing Australia in the Ashes. Six!

Wow. A haircut and an Indian head massage all in one go. Now that’s what I call service.

Thankfully his finesse with the scissors was exemplary. Bloody good job as I suspect he could have snipped the gonads off a gnat in mid flight with the ruddy things.

The man barely spoke – which normally doesn’t bother me as I like someone to concentrate when they’re swishing about my head and face with sharpened cutting devices – but he did have a weird penchant for humming the Yankee Doodle Dandy tune. Even weirder his mobile phone rang half way through and he deliberately left it unanswered just so he could listen to the ring tone...

Yes. You’ve guessed it: Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Played on a banjo no less.

As a ring tone...

?!?!

I mean really!

But what about the haircut I hear you ask...

...brutal!

Doctor Who Exclusive!

Having lived for most of my life in the completely land-locked town of Leamington Spa I was mystified when a friend found a web site this morning that purported to tell the history of the Leamington Spa Life Boat Museum. It waxed lyrical about the brave life boat men of Leamington Spa as they risked their all on the high seas to save stricken sailors along the rough Leamington Spa coastline.

Leamington also appeared to have uprooted itself from deepest Warwickshire in the very heart of the country and re-sited itself near Carlisle on completely the wrong side of the UK!

What the hell was going on? Had I entered an alternative reality?

Almost.

Further investigation revealed that the source of this mystery lay with the BBC and Doctor Who. Follow the links below to find out more:

http://www.leamingtonspalifeboatmuseum.co.uk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_tie-in_websites#Leamington_Spa_Lifeboat_Museum

Future visitors to Leamington Spa please note: life jackets will not be fitted as standard.

House Of Cards

After spending a small fortune – well, ok, just merely a few quid – getting some business cards printed for my fledgling web design business I’ve spent the last few days trotting around my home town of Leamington Spa, trying to offload some of my newly minted wares onto the counters of the friendly shop keepers that make up the business sector of dear old Leamo...

And aside from one shop (where I personally knew one member of staff) all of them replied in the negative. No you cannot display your flea-bitten cards here. No can do. Clear off.

It’s very demoralizing.

I realize it is of course the prerogative of every business owner to choose who, how and what they display in their own shops in the way of advertising but I can’t help feeling a mite peed off about it all. It really felt like a long line of doors being slammed shut in my face. One after the other. Bang bang bang.

Thanks for nothing, guys.

Welcome to the cut throat world of small business.

Jumped The Gun

It seems I was a mite premature in my peevishness towards the Leamington Courier. I had an email this morning from their contribution’s editor thanking me for my letter about the Smack nightclub and advising me to see this Friday’s edition… a sure sign that my letter is primed for publication.

Another teeny-weeny serving of fame beckons.

Who knows I may end up as a guest on Loose Women after all…

Or should I be setting my sights a lot higher?

Sprint For The Weekend And The Smack Letter

Friday, as we all know, is the best day of the week. The whole day is imbibed with a sense of uplifting optimism that can lift even the direst spirit. I realize this pro-plus quality has everything to do with the approaching weekend and the glorious potential that accompanies it. Even if that potential is never realized it doesn’t matter – the weekend is great because it’s “our” time. Time to do our own thing, spend time with our families, time to follow our own pursuits without the boss or the taxman clocking your every tea break and loo stop. Time to do absolutely eff all if that’s what you feel like.

This Friday is especially good for me because (a) I’m taking Karen out for a meal at a fab new Thai restaurant in Leamo tomorrow night to celebrate both Valentine’s day (belatedly) and her birthday (prematurely) and (b) I’ve booked Monday and Tuesday off as holiday so I get a whoppingly huge 4 day weekend followed by a short week at work. Top!

With it being Karen’s birthday on the Tuesday we’re planning a day out somewhere together – possibly shopping in Birmingham, possibly a day mooching around Moreton-in-the-Marsh – wherever we end up it’ll all be good and I’m sure another nice meal will feature as part of the day’s entertainments. I can’t wait. Hedonism – it’s my favourite hobby.

On another matter I was very disappointed to find that a letter I’d written to the local Courier newspaper wasn’t printed in this week’s edition. I feel personally insulted. How dare they decline a missive from yours truly! I spent at least 10 minutes composing the damn thing!

Anyway, just because I’m able and not because you’re at all interested I shall paste a copy of the letter below so that it is saved for all posterity. The background story is this: a local night club has decided to change its name from Sugar (dubious in itself) to Smack and has even set up a web site called trysmack.co.uk to publicise itself. I feel that given Leamington’s history of heroin addiction amongst some of its residents such marketing techniques are deeply offensive, stupid and crass...

For information: Andi Conway-Horbury was the local resident who originally complained about the new name of the club to the Courier.


"Re: Sugar night club renamed Smack

I share Andi Conway-Horbury’s disgust regarding the recent renaming of the Sugar night club. Aside from sounding cheap and nasty, the new name is plainly a cynical manoeuvre on the part of the club owners to cash in on the drug scene. Given the crass name of their web site – www.trysmack.co.uk – they evidently think heroin abuse is not only cool and fashionable but also an ideal sales pitch with which to encourage young customers through their door. This is surely deeply insulting to their potential clientele – as well as incredibly insulting to all individuals and families who have had their lives ruined by heroin addiction.

I’m sure the club owners will want to impose responsible house-rules on drug use and possession within the confines of their club, particularly with reference to all banned and illegal substances – I mean Heaven forbid that the club is constantly raided by the police and earns itself a bad reputation which jeopardizes its license – but I fail to see how cashing in on the heroin scene in such a tactless manner will in any way aid them in their efforts to keep their premises drug free.

Given the nature of most night club entertainments maybe a more suitable, less contentious, drug related name could have been chosen? Alka Seltzer or Imodium perhaps?"