There's a riot goin' on

There's a riot goin' on

An iconic cover. Flag, no text:

That must be a near-impossible sell. Imagine the cover art people trying to convince the suits looking at the sales figures. High risk. Great when it comes off. White album. Four symbols. Dark Side of the Moon. Suns instead of stars on the flag.

I've listened to this a few times this week. Rough around the edges, in a good way. Art is good at extremes. There's some wonderful, so-polished-the-shine-almost-hurts-albums, like late Steely Dan, particularly 'Aja' for example. Then there's albums like this. Made under severe pressures (financial, record company, drug-related, band dysfunction, internal meltdowns), a lot like Love's 'Forever Changes', it's the one with 'Family Affair' and 'Runnin' Away', the one, that inspired Funkadelic, Parliament, George Clinton. Apparently, one of the most-sampled albums. Proof that sweetness and harmony does not always lead to the best results.

What's so good? The horns, the vocals (generally low in the mix to indistinct, playing their part, not dominating, just about where they ought to be more often), the bass. The dark subject matter, despite some cheerful grooves. The place in time. 60's optimism ending, 70's cynicism beginning. This was a two-year creative backlog blister popping. Sweetness and light makes for some great and uplifting music. Too often it makes for mainstream boredom, mediocrity, saccharine-injected drivel. As produced by any number of big selling, big radio playing, ultimately shallow, hollow, superficial and unrewarding industry as opposed to artistry, bands. Not this album. Moments of supreme beauty, great horn section hooks, and all those basslines. Those Cern, Hubble, theoretical physicists searching for dark matter, they just need to play this and listen to the bass. There's your hidden mass in the universe, that invisible dark matter, right there, boys.

The title's supposed to be a reply to Marvin Gaye's 'What's goin' on?', released a couple of months before.

Some writers and celebs have just had bit of a deadly feast, raising money for charity

Featuring sashimi puffer fish, almost all the poison bits cut away, but enough remaining to tease and tempt and leave that frisson of lucky to (still) be alive, and along with some dodgy nuts (extract of nuts = rocket fuel), mushrooms and other stuff making up their starters, pasta main, and puddings. Hats off to them. I suppose. They didn't like the snake-venom wine much, and truly, apart from the puffer fish there wasn't that much on the menu that was so potentially deadly. The nut crackling pudding stuff was made from nuts that you'd have to eat several lorry loads of before suffering even minor ill effects. Maybe meeting the letter of the law, but not satisfying the spirit of the enterprise. Not while so many die the MSG death by a hundred cuts in any case.

I'd sponsor Clarkson. To eat all the deadliest leftovers.

My wallet's in El Segundo

The benefits of mild OCD, and early onset “oh no, where'd I leave that?”

Yeah, I left my wallet in El Segundo,

Left my wallet in El Segundo,

Left my wallet in El Segundo,

I gotta get, I got-got ta get it

No matter how much checking I do, I often end up going back to collect what I've forgotten. “Back already?” BLISS did catch me, once. Coming back for the dog. Having gone out to walk the dog. “Camera.” “Notepad.” “Keys.”What's the lesson there? More checking? Or just go and don't waste time on the ineffective checking?

I have worked with guys who make me late for meetings because they endlessly have to check their briefcases, pockets, jackets, briefcases (again), desk drawers (quite what for I don't know) and so on, before setting off on the great adventure that is a few stops on the tube and a client meeting. Forgot your Oyster Card? There's a ticket machine, and, if all else fails, a person behind a glass window to organise a ticket for you. No pen? Smiths? Cornershop? Bookies? Argos? Look, mate, how many security blankets do you need to be swaddled in before being crowbarred from the air conditioned comfort of your desk?

My impatience and exasperation is born of a number of things:

A dollop of self (over) confidence. I think I can cope with anything, armed with little or nothing. Experience suggests that fully equipped and trained, I can cope with a very limited range of circumstances. It seems that self-confidence trumps experience. I've put out a third-floor kitchen and living room fire with just a nine litre water extinguisher, and some pots and pans (once the kitchen was almost under control) while everyone else battled to save the life of a heart arrest young girl on the ground floor.

Forgetfulness means you don't remember how prone to forgetting stuff you are. How could you?

Low OCD tolerance. I'd rather do without something, muddle through, even if it's a consequence of making a point and heading off in a super-decisive manner, than be seen to be faffing. BLISS and DLL are in a chosen few of the two of them to ever see me dithering.

Zero belt and braces tolerance, where belt and braces are not required. Yes. The Titanic crew could've done with some more lifeboat drills (and indeed, with some more lifeboats). Taking the Civic to Sainsbury's does not need full survival kit and a three-page checklist.

Talking of which...

...as of 2016 you will be able to go on a cruise, on a Titanic replica, imaginatively named: Titanic II. Apparently cruises will include period costume.

William Burroughs said...

...something about after a shooting everyone clamouring to take guns away from everyone who didn't do it. All balloons (that didn't crash) in Egypt are grounded, while accident investigators investigate the balloon that crashed. Way to go, health and safety people. A sensible, balanced and measured response. That would be too much to ask, wouldn't it?

I'm on the spectrum, are you?

Autistic? Moi?

BLISS is absolutely certain of her diagnosis, 100%. There may be a grain of truth in Jerome K Jerome's description of the man reading a medical encyclopedia in the British Library:

“I walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck.”

Blokes and medical dictionaries, and the power of suggestion. There must be a syndrome for it. But, regardless, try this: for twenty four hours, honestly and candidly monitor your behaviour and your thoughts. It's a rare individual who can claim not a scrap, not one single moment, no signs whatsoever of OCD or autistic behaviour-patterns.

What brought this on? Q-tips. Those ear-cleaners that look like fluffy barbells for mice. There's a box in the bathroom. They're pink and blue, and I will only use the blue ones rather than just grab one at random. This has been going on for weeks, until this morning, when things came to a head. There it was. A pink q-tip, half in, half out of the box. Could I overcome the mental block and do the right thing, just grab it and use it and to hell with it?

No. I couldn't. I pushed it back in and took a blue one.

Scoop: Chelsea emails

From: Rafa Benitez [email: rafab@tickleherbum.co.uk]

To: Roman Abramovich [email: bossA@bigyachtbigdollar.com]

2013-02-25

15:39

Subject: JT or me

Dear Boss,

I gathered the guys yesterday for a peptalk. Well, it went down like an Egyptian balloon, particularly with Fat Frank and Ashley. Then John Terry started and things went from bad to worse (a bit like this season, heh!).

Anyway, I thought you'd better hear it from me before you see it in the papers, and either he goes or I go.

Kindest regards,

Rafa

PS: my kitbag's packed and I've ordered a cab.

Txt msg: number withheld:

Dr R, dn't let the door slam on ur way out. Pls lv the tracksuit & pkup the brn envelope at reception. Enjoy yrself at Salt Mine United or Siberia City (yr choice). R.

'Fer goodness sakes, everything aches...

Not right, and not wrong...

...just my preferred approach. Humphrey Lyttleton, writing about talking to George Melly about somehow picking up the restaurant reviewer job for Harpers and Queen (Melly was reviewing films for the Observer at the time):

LYTTLETON: (In a moment of self-doubt) I'm sure they're going to find out one day that I know nothing about it.

MELLY: Yes, but in my experience, by the time they find out you know nothing about it, you will know something about it.

Thanks Humphrey (posthumously). That's exactly what I do, now I realise it. I don't ask many questions. Not because I'm not interested, or because I don't care, but because asking every time you don't know something, unless you know plenty, is going to slow things down down to a grinding, lose-the-will-to-live halt. I don't ask because I know next to nothing. I don't ask because nine times out of ten:

• Let things ride and there's a natural explanation coming your way in any case;
• The explanation becomes redundant, ten questions about one solution and half an hour later, all you've done is delay the decision to run with solution two, which is much better;
• There'll be time later, on your own, without boring everyone who does know already, without boring everyone to whom the answer is irrelevant, and without boring everyone who for whatever reason actually does not care, to do a bit of research and find out for yourself, and information gleaned under your own steam sticks better;
• If all else fails, you can ask later. There's these things called phones. One-to-one, privately.

It's not right or wrong. I don't ask often enough.

I was once a betting shop manager. At settling school, we had a Mr Question. He asked about joint unnamed favourites. He then asked about three-way joint favourites. He then asked what if one of those was a non-runner. He then said:

“What if a punter backs the unnamed favourite, and there's three joint favourites, and one of them wins in a dead-heat, with a non-favourite.”

“Then,” said the bloke running the course, “I'd guess, or I'd lock up the shop early, slip the keys through the letter box, and clear off home. Never to be seen again.”

Love a duck, we're as common as muck

Good Lord,

I'm stiff as a board.

One hour of gentle nets. Bowling off a few steps' worth of jog-up. Ten minutes batting. That's enough to do it these days: strained chest, both knees letting me know they're unhappy about: (1) nets; (2) the cold; (3) years of abuse; (4) having that much weight bearing down on them with every step; (5) walking the dog yesterday, up and down the inclines in the woods, in the cold; (6) my hit and miss attitude to taking those cod liver oil capsules. Left elbow stiff (although I'm now able to lift a cup of tea without shaking like a leaf – that wasn't the case yesterday); right shoulder and arm painful. Neckache. Lower back pain. The list goes on.

The good news? I'll forget all about it by Wednesday, and think I need to work harder next week because I've “got that first week's fitness under my belt”. When what I've got under my belt, actually, is just way too much.

The red hot chilli pipers...

...were part of the pre-match entertainment at Murrayfield yesterday. What a fantastic, intense, close run and big hitting game of rugby. Thirty men mountains tearing into each other.

There's nothing like a bit of sympathy...

Pulling muscles (from their shell)

It's a bit of a mystery, really. I went through the usual, thorough and intensive warm up routine. It may have been a just a bit Warm-Up Lite side, perhaps. But I walked to nets from the car park. Carrying my kit. Usually, that's more than enough.

A ball was hit back at me, quite hard. The batter must've got lucky, I was on fire. Well. I was getting the odd one straight, anyway. One bounce. Stoop down, catch ball. What was that popping and tearing noise? Seemed to come from my chest?

I was a lot younger when BLISS and I met, and a whole lot lighter, fitter and stronger. I'm half as much again, scales-wise, as I was then. Even so, there wasn't much there, there, there on offer.

“You're too old. Things'll go wrong. You making the tea?”

The saddest things are that:

A) this isn't the first time the same thing has happened, and:

B) one night, soon, I will wake up with chest pain, and, forgetting that I've simply pulled something, have a few seconds of “is this a heart attack” (rebranded now: 'heart event') panic.

It burns, it burns

Bomber was big and very, very loud. He bought a moped for his short commute. Less money on petrol, ideal for zipping through the heavy south London traffic. Inevitably, he pushed it too far and got knocked off.

Coming round, he complained, loud and long, about thr burning in his chest. Until...

...the ambulance man unzipped his jacket, and diagnosing the problem:

“Been to the chippie, have we?”

Thanks Oscar

The supermarket PR teams must be rubbing their hands. Horsemeat off the front page. Just when you need to bury the bad news, an athlete shoots his girlfriend after beating her with a cricket bat.

The Essential Miles Davis...

...was issued some years ago, as a double CD. BLISS (not a fan) would ask why more than a single? It's now been updated to a four CD set and reissued. The problem is how to ramp up 'essential'? The Even More Essential'? 'More of the Essential' would suggest that the original essential was incomplete, short-changing the punter. The Essentialer?

Nice one George

We're no longer AAA (pronounced 'triple-ay') rated. We're now AA1 (ay-at-one? double-ay-one?). Apparently this makes little difference. But George Osborne used the threat of losing AAA status as a big stick to beat his political opponents with (2009). He said it was the ultimate measure of his success or failure (2010). In his words, dropping down to AA1 is “humiliating”. Now it's happened on his watch.

He deserves all he gets. But the double Ed gang would've achieved the same. Just sooner.

Fussy eaters...

BLISS out for a meal last night

Prezzo do gluten free pizza. So I must give it another go. Much as it didn't like rolling out the gluten free dough, it tasted fine, so I need to research more tips online.

What a crew to eat out with: fussy (no curry, maybe Chinese (with arm-twisting)); and super-fussy (will only eat English and Italian (whatever 'English' means now we know Shepherds' pie and mince and onion pies are 90% horse). I don't think I could cope with the frustration. My eyes roll up into the top of my head when someone says the words “hold the...” instead of just taking it as it comes.

Not saying it's cold or anything...

...but I've let the dog out to the garden, before the heating kicks in. I've just confirmed that, yes, you can get a hoodie hood over full size headphones. You just have to stretch it a bit. The dreaded slippers are at most a year or two away.

There's snow on the ground

Just a light dusting, but snow nevertheless. Cricket nets start today. Indoor nets, that is.

Bill Evans – Sunday at the Village Vanguard

Warm, and properly live (you can hear the chinking cutlery and crockery here and there), a nice way to ease into the day. I find it hard to believe that anyone could multi-task well enough to eat while listening to such a fantastic piano trio.

Grouper – The Man Who Died in His Boat

Haunting. Next up, and an equally good way to ease into the morning, a sparser, lighter, daughter of the Cocteau Twins.

There's quite a lot going on this weekend, sport-wise

Italy play Wales at rugby. Italy don't travel well, they deserved to beat France at home, them were demolished away by Scotland. Could be a good game.

Arsenal play Villa at home, and anything less than a comprehensive win will pile more pressure on the manager and the board.

Then the biggie. England v France. Five o'clock at Twickenham. There's good reasons not to be glued to this, no doubt. Forgive me. I can't think of any.

Scotland play Ireland tomorrow, and the game will be closer for Scotland being at home.

The bag of money's coming with me

Action Bronson. The Dr Lecter album. Very different from Grouper and Bill Evans. I nneded a blast or energy and humour, and this provided it.

Damn you, telephone

A chance to churn out some boring but necessary work. Friday (POETS' day I believe) and the building emptied out by half past five. “Right” I thought. “No more phone calls.” Some music in the background (The Necks – Aquatic) and I put the pile of dreary paper in front of me and knuckled down. Good progress for ten whole minutes.

Phone: contractor (calling back), contractor (calling back), client (sorry for the late call – but...).

Quarter past seven. About one tenth of the way through the pile I'd been attacking. Too braindead. Time to go home.

Freezing the taters off a brass monkey

Brass monkey weather

It's been cold enough to do brass monkeys no end of harm. Proper taters out there. So I had that 'I'm too old for this' feeling climbing through the world's smallest access hatch, to get to a vertical metal ladder, to get out of a much larger hatch and onto a roof. While it was snowing.

I almost took up smoking.

For the warmth it would have afforded.

Some Westminster lovechildren revealed

This is uncanny:

Punchy and paunchy, the boy remains almost coherent, until he talks about schools.

The bulging eyes. They're the giveaway.

The bland leading the bland

Brit Awards – The Bland leading the Bland

Music is primal. It's about connecting and art, not business and awards. Danny Baker mentioned the resemblance between easy-going bland Katie Boyle and James Cordon. There will be no Jarvis Cocker moments with Cordon. He operates like a bad taxi driver, too much attention to the meter running and not enough to the road. The awards reward careerists. The line up of acts playing was cringeworthy. Our current twenty and thirty somethings won't have a Python, a Denis Potter, any difficult and different television, to pass onto their kids. Sanitised and bland and, in all likelihood, actually, under it all, about as wholesome as a supermarket burger.

Maybe anal retentiveness comes with knowing too much

Perhaps that's why we now live in a small 'c' conservative world. Us old gits? We only had full cream milk, and we walked the railway tracks because that was the quickest route. We had bikes without operational brakes, stopped by jamming your heels into the road and hoping for the best. We gave the dog chocolates, and grapes, and all manner of deadly-to-dogs stuff and he reached a ripe old age. Music was loud. The Who were the loudest rock 'n' roll band in the world. So their posters declared. That was a selling point, not a health warning.

Bags of nuts didn't have 'warning: contains nuts' on them.

Admittedly, while there were computers, they occupied warehouse-sized facilities and had the processing power of a petrol station watch. Our telly was black and white and my dad rigged up a large toggle-switch on the side (he drilled through the wooden cabinet to do so) that somehow ran some valves and transistors he cobbled together which enabled us to receive BBC2. Yes. Three (count 'em) channels. Playing a game involved going out, gathering a mischief (the collective noun for kids back then) and playing something, rather than sticking a cable up the arse of the telly and a DVD in the PS3. But...

...cuts and bruises sustained playing on the building site resulted in treatment with iodine and plasters, not trips to A&E and the ambulance chasing personal injury company for some compo. Food was to be scoffed as fast as possible in order to get back out playing, not something to agonise over. If my mum's cooking was anything to go by, it wasn't something to agonise about at all.

It was different. Footballers trained, then went to the pub and the bookies for the afternoon. Have no illusions, they were generally shorter, slower, less athletic, and if they came up against the current crop they'd get torn a new one. When fielding a fast bowler would stick out a size eleven boot and if that didn't work, then someone else had better chase it, because he wasn't going to.

As a nation we now celebrate the ordinary and the run of the mill. Edginess is frowned upon. Hilary Mantel wins the Booker, when Will Self deserved it for a much braver, more imaginative, but much more demanding novel.

I suppose the essence is that I think there's so much emphasis on comfort as an objective, that the joy of exploring the new and operating outside that comfort zone has been lost, and here we are: a small 'c' island.

On the coldest day in weeks...

...I was outside for most of the day. Two fleeces and a (sleeveless) jacket, and still my hands were numb and my eyes running and my ears stinging. Not so long ago it had to be the next ice age for me to reach for a sweatshirt.

Not a scrap of dodgy meat in sight

A favourite meal

Well. Three, actually. All guaranteed free of unspecified and unwanted meat products:

On your travels, keep an eye out for an Indian restaurant, with a big open shopfront window, Formica topped café style tables, and plenty of people having some lunch.

Go in and get a glass of water and the following:

A main course chickpea curry (look for 'chana' on the menu) and a chilli naan. Spoon up the chickpea curry, mop up the plate with the naan. Mindblowingly simple and delicious.

Repeat the first step above, but look for the word 'dosa'. Order one. A masala or special or house special, it'll not disappoint.

You'll receive a large, rectangular stainless steel plate with one large and three small indentations. The large one will contain a light, airy and crisp rice flour pancake. Often these are quite surprisingly huge. Inside will be lightly but nicely spiced mashed potato and a mixture of vegetables. In the three small indentations there will be a white (coconut), an orange (hot and spicy), and a green (mild corriander) sauce. There will also be a small metal bowl of sambal. Use your hands, tear of scraps of the ends of the pancake, where there's little or no filling, and use them to pick up the thick sauces or to soak up the sambal. Then pick up the fork and spoon and attack the fat, stuffed middle bit, and finish off the sauces and the sambal.

Ask for the bill. Hand over the £3.50 (or thereabouts) and wander off amazed at the value this represents.

Last, use your nose. When you smell a chippie that smells like chippies used to smell, don't hesitate. Nip in and have some fish and chips. Plenty of salt, loads of vinegar.

Plates are not allowed. Walking along is recommended. Tomato sauce is right out. If there's a sitting area, then tea, bread and butter are also recommended and some tartar sauce is permitted, and a couple of big juice wedges of lemon to squeeze over the batter are a must.

It was him too, sir

The 1974 Lions touring team had a superb idea. Faced with South African teams that took fierce competitiveness over the edge into violence, and match officials unwilling or unable to do much about it, they came up with the '99' call. On hearing the call, all fifteen players either joined in the scrap that had started (if they were near enough to do so) or simply thumped the nearest opponent (if they weren't). The thinking behind this: they either send no-one off, or send off all fifteen of us and finish the game then and there. It worked a treat. They didn't have a man sent off all tour.

It's a bit similar with the horsemeat thing and the supermarkets. They've all been rubbish, so there's not any one of them in the spotlight. Not any more than any other.

A never ending supply

All you have to do, instead of waiting until it's past too late (particularly now MM isn't here to ponce off), is pick up some deodorant before the one in use actually runs out. Magically, this makes the dregs at the bottom of the one in use last for ages.

Now. Sooner = better. Now will just about do.

I need patience...

...and I need it now.

My old doctor was trying to understand why my blood pressure soars on medical premises.

“What do you think causes it?” he asked.

“The waiting room.”

“The room?”

“The waiting.”

He was doing his best to understand, and, often the case, only under scrutiny did I start to work out what was going on myself.”

“So, if you've got a one o'clock appointment, are you okay...” he said.

“Up to one o'clock, yes.”

“Then what?”

“Well, at one minute past...”

“Yes?”

The penny dropped:

“Actually, at one minute past, without receiving any explanation or apology...”

“Yes?”

“I'm incandescent with rage.”

All it takes is communication and honesty. Sorry. The doctor's running ten / fifteen / twenty minutes late. That's all it takes. Then you can decide whether to stick or twist. Wait or bail out and rebook another appointment. I think that's the issue. They don't want you calling it quits and sorting out another appointment. More administration, possibly bad on their key performance indicators, and a blank slot for a doctor's appointment book. So it's in their interest to keep you hanging on, hanging about, your life on hold because they're running late.

Same with the trains. At the station this morning, the board said the 0720 had arrived. They're big things, trains. I know it was foggy, but if it was there, I'd've seen it. Blatant misinformation. If anyone depended on the board for accurate information, they'd' have walked off the edge of the platform and burnt to a cinder on the third rail. Better still, at London Bridge, the board said the 10:54 was anticipated at 10:59. It said that at 11:01. Clearly, either Southeastern have mastered time travel (they've certainly and spectacularly failed to master railway travel), or the board's displaying utter tripe, again working to the performance targets and not the customers' benefit.

It does beg questions about the sanity of our train operators. Our safety is in the hands of an organisation that anticipates the arrival of one of their trains in the past.

“Here's your five pence.”

“But you asked for a return to London. That's £43.75.”

“I'm paying 1908 prices. From the past, like.”

“What? That's ridiculous and insane.”

“You started it. Invisible trains arriving in the past.”

Do you know who this is?

Gilad Atzmon...

...was on the kitchen stereo. BLISS was pulling faces. Like a child forced to eat something healthy. Organic. Something not accompanied by a novelty toy and served in a box by a namebadge. Something, possibly, consisting of fresh fish and fresh vegetables.

“Do you know who this is?” I said.

Before I could say he tours with the Blockheads (as in Ian Dury and the...), has released some superb middle eastern influenced jazz albums and published some books, she said:

“Whoever it is, he needs to listen more to what the others are playing...”

Well, he's the Atzmon in Wyatt, Atzmon and Stephen:

That's him there, with the very wonderful Robert Wyatt:

What I don't understand, is that she doesn't understand. The most human person I know, how does she not get the music that is probably the least technical and the most human of all.

That and hip hop. She don't like hip hop, either. Or Animal Collective.

We're one of three...

...EU nations opposing the cap on bankers' pay and bonuses. That's what the headlines say. I'd dispute the 'we' as in 'the UK'. 'We' probably are all for capping their pay. I'm for capping them. As in popping a cap in their ass. The we, I think, means our government and mega-rich chancellor, who naturally want to stick up for their cronies and buddies in the banks.

Zombie apocalypse and the garden centre

No, no, no. You need white coats...

...lab technicians, chemicals, and genetically modified everything. That'll never work.

Won't it?

In the poorest corner of India, using less seed, less chemicals, no herbicide, less water, no GM, a farmer is producing world record rice harvests. That wants looking at again. It isn't a case of not using all that stuff ICI and their lapdog ministers tell us we'd be starving without and doing okay, not even doing just as well, but producing with the best efficiency in the world.

Those lessons won't be taken on board. Not in my lifetime.

Fox bites baby? Cull the urban foxes. That's the answer. Boris Johnson as Mr Punch. “That's the way to do it.” For every fox produced baby injury there's got to be any number of cat scratches. End the urban moggy menace? No votes in that.

Bovine TB? Kill the badgers.

You might as well try to ban motorised transport when the next motorway multi-car pile-up claims some lives. Front page: Boris says: “No car, no carnage.”

We're losing species hand over fist and still ruled by nuke 'em politicians. We have a climate change denier energy secretary. Did Greyfriars ever put Billy Bunter in charge of the tuck shop?

The Walking Dead catch up

It starts tonight. That should actually be 'the The Walking Dead catch up' but that's too pedantic and doesn't work so well. I'm hoping for at least two episodes of post-zombie-apocalypse fun and frolics, splatter, blood and gore, and preferably three. That leaves Monday, Wednesday and Thursday (one episode each) and I'm up to speed for Friday. Football on Tuesday night. The horror, gloom and despondency might get too much for me. If it does I'll just have to turn off the Arsenal v Bayern Munich game and go back to The Walking Dead.

We went to the garden centre today...

...a lovely, small, independent, friendly place. I'm like a vegetarian in the butchers in those places. What I don't know about gardening could fill several books. I don't actually know my aster from the hole in the ground to plant it in. BLISS has more knowledge and enthusiasm than me.

In a lot of places, pitching up without a scrap of knowledge or any idea of what's going on can be made an uncomfortable experience. Often, if it's not uncomfortable, it's because they've worked out early that it's going to be dead easy to royally rip you off. Not here though. We bought six small tree things for the front hedge to plant between the existing small tree things that haven't grown much. We were assisted in the six for twenty quid (£3.95 each, three for a tenner, obviously our price-label reading isn't so good either) bargain on offer, and then handed clearly (with the aid of a trained eye (not something I'm equipped with)) the best six specimens on display. Their sort of brown with bark, thinning out at the pointy bits, with green leaves on. They are not: buddleia, leylandii, or Japanese knotweed. Nor are they willow, yew or oak, or bay. That, sadly, is as far as it goes without referring to the Observer book of small tree-like things.

Now...what's this button do?

Sadly, yes, it's come to this

I put an SD card into the kitchen stereo. Then I walked over to the cooker to turn down the burner under BLISS' greens, which were boiling too rapidly.

Admittedly, this wasn't too enthralling, and my mind wasn't at full capacity. It was wandering.

Still, when the music came on louder than anticipated, and I was reducing the heat under the pan, just for a fraction of a second, I was concerned to be turning a control anti-clockwise without any reduction in volume.

Just a fraction of a second...

What was on the SD card?

Well. After the home FA Cup disaster against Blackburn, I needed something warm and soothing. Taking away the thoughts of mincing up a tactically inept genius French manager and adding him to the ingredients making up Iceland burgers.

It was the Charles Lloyd Quartet. The Mirror album. Mellow and beautiful. It almost worked.

A sketch (uncredited) of the Charles Lloyd Quartet from the London Jazz News.

A Walking Dead catch up

I have my orders. [Hors d'oeuvres which must be obeyed. Comes bursting into my brain every time 'orders' are issued. I absolutely buy into the theory that we find Basil Fawlty so funny because we recognise there's a bit of him in all of us.] The Walking Dead. Season three, episodes three to nine, so says DLL, by next Friday night. She even sent me the link I need. I'd better get started. It'll be a pleasure, it's a fantastic series.

Boris OUT!

Cabin in the woods

An oxymoron. According to BLISS.

“Do you want to watch Cabin in the Woods?”

“What is it?”

“Film. Comedy horror.”

“No thanks. That's one of those...oxymorons. For me, anyway.”

It takes a lot of horror clichés and plays around with them. There's a bit of suspense, a lot of gore, a few jumpy moments, and a whole lot of laughs, mostly provided by the staff of the underground facility. Above ground, the fate of the five having a few days in the cabin, is determined by lab coated, wisecracking, high fiving wage slaves working to appease the imprisoned evil gods, underground.

There's a hilarious moment when the Harbinger, a charmless, tobacco chewing backwoodsman from 'The Hills Have Eyes', mid fire and brimstone rant says “am I on speakerphone?”. There's a running merman gag.

The film, after the first five minutes or so, is gloriously mental.

The Black Dhalia

At almost every page turn, I've been thinking, 'what a good film this would make'. So I Googled it. They've made the film. Box office and critical flop.

Boris OUT

I can forgive loads if it's wrapped up with a sense of humour. But not taking the tabloid headlines about a baby's bitten finger, and going straight for the obvious populist politics of suggesting something must be done about the urban fox 'menace'.

These are our suburbs, buildings and human habitation taking away habitats that we should look to share, not destroy. Why are we insisting on bat boxes in all new build, then talking about culling badgers and now foxes. This sort of thinking has me convinced that we're not able to learn from the devastation caused by upsetting nature, by global financial crashes, convinced that we're a nasty, twisted little species, too full of spite and self-importance to survive, or merit surviving.

So. Boris out!

As for in? How about no-one? Swampy? Swampy for mayor. He'd keep the bikes (though he might look for an alternative sponsor), maintain the scruffyness (without shadow of doubt a good thing) and not talk rubbish about foxes, urban or rural.

All that for that?

Three miles of cones. North and southbound A22 down to one lane. 30 mph speed limit. Long delays. For what?

When I passed yesterday, for the safety of a single bloke in a high viz bomber jacket sat on the central barrier smoking his roll up.

They went to Rome to see the pope, and this is what he said...

Did the Pope quit because of S***s?

According to the popular song, S***s frequently visit the Pope, and he has to ask who, exactly, they are (after a fashion) and then tell them where to go (in a short, curt way). Did Bennie get fed up with them repeatedly bothering him?

The lotus position

I've had rice tea-bags tonight. Rice with mushroom, spring onion, cha sui pork, minced pork with five spice, Chinese sausage, and soy and fish sauce and sesame oil and sushi vinegar. All steamed wrapped in a lotus leaf, giving it a freshwater, lightly smoky overtone.

There's a lifetime's supply of dry lotus leaves in the garage. The Chinese grocer's shelf markings are often unreliable, and usually in Chinese with just the price in numbers. £2.70? For enough to thatch a sizeable hut? They filled three-quarters of the trolley. They grow big, you know, your lotus leaves. Nervous of the cost (£2.70 each?) I got them scanned at the checkout. £2.20. Special offer.

“All these?”

“Yep.”

The kitchen lacks a storage facility for large amounts of huge freshwater plant leaves. So they live in the garage until I buy too much pork belly, make cha sui, and decide the leftovers demand using up in these steamed parcels.

Vintage shinpads and the dustbin legs syndrome

Our old shinpads were timber based. Sheets of plastic had sewn sleeves, into which went dowel rods. Plastic, cotton or nylon thread, and wooden rods. They could not remotely mould themselves to the shape of anyone's legs.

They were tucked into thick, woollen socks. There was more matter in one of those socks than in a modern kit, shirt, shorts and socks.

Between the huge, ridged, clumsy pads and the thick woolly socks, from the knee down your legs resembled dustbins in shape. This wasn't so bad for short, stocky players. For the tall and lanky there was that “oy, got yer legs on upside down mate?” thing. Dustbins suspended from threads.

No, I never played in those boots that went up to the ankle and had leather studs, and yes, I did play with those balls with laces in and yes they did cut your forehead, but nowhere near as frequently as some old folk claim. However, they did soak up water, become very heavy, and heading the things did require some bravery or stupidity, because it was like voluntarily taking a head shot from a decent light heavyweight.

The garden foxes...

...were playing or scrapping right by the back door tonight. Why do animals that must be close to dogs in evolutionary terms make a noise like an excited seagull under attack? They're in great nick, lovely-looking creatures.

Pope strip searched

A Vatican Valentine

“You off Bennie?”

“Yeah. Last day.”

“OK. Hand in the dress, the ring, the curly stick thing, and the silly hat. No hidden relics in those jeans now, are there?”

“Of course not.”

“No Holy Grail, no Spear of Destiny, no...”

“No. Do you think I'd try to steal...”

“Well, the last one walked out of here had Turin Shroud boxers on. Made with the Turin Shroud.”

“No. I'm clean, honest.”

“Oh. The boys got you a card. Here.”

He opens it and reads:

Roses are red-ish,

Violets are blue-ish,

If it wasn't for Jesus,

We'd all be Jewish.

Corridor meeting...

..at the food standards offices:

“This horse thing? Who're we going to blame? We need some monkeys to take the fall.”

“Why reinvent the wheel?”

“Eh? Oh. Yes. Of course...Johnny Foreigner, come on down. The French? We blame them for most things.”

“What about the French, and...the Rumanians?”

“I like the way you think Simpkins.”

The next day...

“Simpkins. You blithering idiot. I've leaked the French and Rumanian story to The Mail. It was the Yorkies and the Taffs all along.”

“Sorry boss.”

The Stamford Bridge Kids

Frank Lampard's writing children's books. Based on his experiences in football. Unfortunately, based on his early days. I think his times at Chelsea would be a better foundation:

“Sir, sir. They keep calling me fat sir” said Frank, bursting into the headmaster's study.

“Oh man up and get on with it.”

“Who said that?” said Frank looking around the room. Didier was sitting in the easy chair, smoking a large hand-rolled cigarette with a strange aroma.

“Seem to be coming from the laundry basket,” Didier said. He looked at his cigarette, “unless I've had one two many of these.”

“Sir, is that you, sir?” asked Frank, approaching the laundry basket then jumping back as the lid opened, and the headmaster, Jose, popped out.

“Could you hear me ok?” asked Jose.

“Yes sir, perfectly.” Said Frank.

Didier stood up. There was a crash.

“What's all that noise?” shouted John from the medical room next door where he was visiting the nurse. Again.

“Didier's fallen over.” Said Frank. “What were you doing in there, sir?”

“Just trying something out, Frank. You wouldn't understand.”

The bedsprings started making a rhythmic noise in the medical room.

“Not again2 said Didier, from the floor where he was awaiting a visit from the physio.

The cafe cafe

The Hairnet Café

We had a Property Café. Just down the road. Unfortunately it didn't last long and has closed. Luckily, as property professionals, they will be well placed to market the premises and get a new tenant in. Or maybe they're not so hot, and that's why they closed.

Interesting use of the word café. There are internet cafés, and property cafés (otherwise known as estate agents). It must be tempting to open a proper café., and call it that. The Proper Café. Or the Egg 'n' Bacon Café. They could rebrand the M25 as the roadworks café., the House of Commons as the Expense Café., and the gym as the torture café.

How many tabloids do you need?

Stuck in traffic approaching Greenwich today (this is an indication of (a) how bored I was stuck in traffic this morning, and (b) how long I was at a standstill, bored, in the traffic this morning) I saw a little old boy go at one of those plastic rainproof newspaper stands outside a shop. At first he looked as if he couldn't make up his mind. Then the picked up a tabloid size newspaper, then another one, the The Sun (he was on the other side of the road – far enough away for my eyesight to be functional) then at least another two. Why would you need so many papers, all presumably repeating slightly different versions of the same news?

The Egg 'n' Bacon Café.

Then, on the left, a café. that looked vaguely familiar. I'd stopped there with Dave on the way to the Rotherhithe job last year. It was run by two bruisers who looked as if they were off to the building site with the rest of the patrons the minute the last bean was mopped up with the last bit of bread.

This was a proper Proper Café. Steamy windows that had been cleaned, but not in the last few years. Tea came with two sugars and full cream milk as standard. Coffee came from one of those oversize tins of granules. The service was abrupt, and turned aggressive when Dave stuck his wet teaspoon in the sugar instead of the discarded teaspoon bowl.

“Oops” he said “sorry”.

This was met with some mumbled oaths and raised eyebrows. We'd have walked out in protest if it wasn't so appetising, if we weren't both desperate for the loo after a long drive, and if we could've been arsed. The big, bad-tempered baldie was behind the counter this morning. I was late and there wasn't a parking space, and without outside influence I have to be hungry to the point of hallucinating to stop and eat during the working day.

Proper proper café. fare it was too. None of your fancy-Dan butchers' sausages. These were frozen, sold in batches of huge numbers. At least 95% filler, grain, sawdust off the butchers' floor, and 5% meat of unknown origin. That special back bacon only old-fashioned cafés have. A dark colour, with that trademark little bit of white boney stuff in the bottom corner, the shape of the Nike tick. Tinned mushrooms. Tinned tomatoes. A range of vegetarian options: egg on toast, beans on toast, tomatoes on toast, just a coffee, just the toast. Salt and pepper. Squeezy plastic bottles filled with watered cash 'n' carry red and brown sauce. Vinegar for the lunches. Including the classic. Spag boll and chips. A masterpiece of café. culture.

Newspaper? Next door mate. Earl Grey? Never heard of him, must eat down a different café., mate.

“One late, one cappuccino, one skinny late? Coming right up. Three coffees Bob. One stirred with a fork and one with watered down milk in.”

Right, hand your hat in on the way out...

No more silly hat

How do you go about quitting when your line manager's God? Celtic are my team in Scotland and all that, but I'm no sort of expert. So that's bit of a guess about God and the Pope. He may have to answer to a lay committee like head teachers or a quango like Chief Fire Officers, or a board of trustees like the Beeb, for all I know. Still. I can imagine...

“Our Father who art in heaven, hollowed by thy name, and I quit. I'm outta here.”

“Is this about the hat?”

“Do you even bother reading the feedback forms?”

“Nah. I'm like a huge omnipotent all-seeing diety. Some mortal don't like his hat. I should care less?”

“You don't know what it's like. Every time anyone has a drink, out come the old album covers, onto the heads they go...”

“This isn't a Popegate thing?”

“Excuse me?”

“We're not in Jimmy Saville-ville, are we? There's not going to be revelations, heh, no pun intended. I could write a book. Heh. No. Seriously. There's no stories going to come out? You know. Communion wine, abusing loads of nuns while raiding the silver cupboard. Stockings and sussies under the cassock?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Is it really all about the hat?”

“Oh f'Christ's sakes.”

“Oy. Watch it, you.”

Bet 365 and the white smoke stakes

Over to Mr Winstone:

“Gertcha laptops an mobiles arht. Ya carhnt beat our odds on va nu Papa. Evens va Nazi, fifty ta wharn Ian Paisley, six ta phwar Stuart Hall. Ave a bang on fhat.”

Sorry...

But this is topical:

Bloke to sad mate: Wazzup?

Sad mate: split up wif me bird, aint I?

Bloke: what, Kate? What 'appened?

Sad mate: I insulted the Pope, didden I?

Bloke: but you know Kate's a Catholic.

Sad mate: duh! Yeah. I know she's a Catholic...

Well John, they are out there trying to hurt each other...

The taste test...is Walkers best?

Rugby-watching snacks tested, with Sainsbury own-brands up against Walkers.

First, Cheesy Curls. Mock Quavers. Not at all bad. Slightly different colour, but not unlike the real thing.

Next: Onion Rings. A bit on the sweet side, with an artificial tang. Not too bad, but there's better to be had.

Finally: Creature Crunch (Monster Munch). Absolutely awful. Beef, pickled onion and hot chilli were almost indistinguishable. They've got the shape wrong, there should be jagged edges and the pieces are bigger. This is going to sound like the “food is awful” “yeah, and the portions are so small” joke, but it's all very well boasting about how few calories per bag, but it sort of loses credibility when the nags are minuscule.

Ze ball, eez 'ere

You have to love a sport where the referee (the French referee at the Ireland v England game) can be heard telling the players where the ball is. Under a pile of unnaturally huge men in white or green shirts.

You have to love a game where the half time analysis includes Jerry Guscott saying “you have to remember that they all want to hurt each other out there”.

Is the RBS one of those banks the taxpayers are propping up? They sponsor the Six Nations. That must be a bit galling to anyone who does not like rugby and is a banker and pays their taxes.

They beat us 2-1 at the anthems. I don't know why they have two of the things, I sure there's a good reason for that. It does not seem to be due to people-pressure. The attitude seems to be “oyl sing barth a dem”. I noticed our national anthem isn't really national, it isn't about the country or the nation at all. It's a personal not a national anthem. It's all about the queen.

Funny how little things can get you fired up. One nasty, cynical ankle stamp from the Irish prop, and suddenly I was fervently behind England, desperate for them to win.

The Raid: Redemption

What a great film. A SWAT team enter a tower block under drug lord's control. The last Judge Dredd film was based around this, apparently. Like a martial arts Die Hard with loads of bullets. Not much to keep you guessing, but the action is so relentless, who needs to be sitting around guessing?

Nils Petter Molvaer...

Is making some of the most haunting, beautiful, strange and compelling music I've heard. You could tie yourself up in knots trying to pin down the inspirations. The exposure this music gets is minimal, because it's in the jazz section, and therefore of no interest to popular radio. Or popular radio disc jockeys. Who don't generally seem much interested in what they play in any case.

Vegetarian Bovril, but watch out for the celery

Which are you?

The population of the world (according to Humphrey Lyttelton) is divided equally between those who are nature's prefects and those who are forever snotty-nosed kids.

Perhaps when quoting that I should say... “those of us who are forever snotty-nosed kids.”

Rocket science...not rocket science, is it?

Apparently rockets travel according to their mass and thrust, obeying Newtonian, Classical, physics. Sure, it can take a couple of guys who are handy with a sliderule, but it's all predictable. Mars will be in a certain place at a certain time, with absolute certainty. All you have to do with the rocket is hit it.

The quantum physics world is one where you would launch your rocket with a 50% probability of it arriving at Mars, and a 50% probability of it arriving at Venus, and no way of knowing which it was going to be.

Schrodinger's biographer, John Gribbin, writes about rocket science the way rocket scientists might write about bridge builders, and how bridge builders might write about us lot in normal city, scratching our heads as soon as the Ikea flat pack is opened and the instruction leaflet unfolded.

Hologram for a King

There's plenty to recommend Dave Egger's book. Including a lesson in stripping prose down and leaving only driving forward momentum. A book about a changing world, post credit-crunch, and how us fifty-somethings can struggle with it.

Kitchen inspiration

I often wake up with odd thoughts. Today's was a menu based on the six nations rugby fixtures. Scotland v Italy, and France v Wales today. The Franco-Welsh seemed the easiest. Cock au vin avec leeks. Or, I thought, how about faggots with a rich gravy soaking into the potato gratin they're served up on.

How about a rich smoked haddock pasta sauce? Tomorrow there's English sausages with one of those fantastic Irish mashed potato variations.

Food labels

BLISS, her body already a temple, is now gluten free and so I'm starting to read the labels on food packaging. I didn't bother, because my body's more of a de-consecrated cathedral. One some dodgy beggars have had a few black masses in.

Sadly, I didn't even smile at the bag of cashews with the warning: CONTAINS: NUTS. Short and to the point. They were the healthfood shop type. That was all there was. No salt. Just nuts, and some air.

We also bought a pot of vegetarian Bovril stuff (which is actually quite good but a bit salty). There's a huge long list of ingredients, and the warning is about soy, and celery. There's all sorts in there, why pick on the celery? Do people take against celery for some reason? OK for Chelsea fans, obviously.

Knackers' Yard Catering

100% beef, 100% Findus

Findus. As in: find us anovver 'orse, we've rhan aht over 'ere. Spectacular phone in calls while I was driving this morning. There was a “you want four burgers for a quid, what do you expect, luv?”. He didn't add the benefits / council flat / unmarried mother lines, at least not on air. “You wanna go dahn the butchers” he said. I agree, but it is more expensive there, where meat is properly hung, processed, and there isn't the false impression of value when you're paying £lots / lb for injected water.

There was a chemically anal guy who gave an in depth description of reclaimed meat (or whatever it's called): “they spray what's left after everything that a knife can cut has been removed with a solvent, then reconstitute the slurry”...he implied that there was very little left after the knife. Try buying meat on the bone and cutting away every scrap you can. I get my best stock from chicken thighs. I'm a right tightwad in that respect, but there's always plenty left on the bone to flavour and enhance the stock. No matter how hard I try. … “they use a chemical that dissolves the cartilage, the connective tissue, anything with protein in it...”

There's one central core of the argument. In global terms, meat eating has had it's day, it has become indefensible and unstainable. You can either grow stuff and eat that, or grow a million times more stuff (or thereabouts, let's not get pedantic on the figures) and feed that to animals, and then eat them, with all the methane production, inhumane (and inhuman) methods that come into play when there's a quick buck at the end of the (post-slash-and-burn) rainbow. If there are qualms about extracting every last ounce of protein from a carcass, and the bloke on the phone spat out the words 'cartilage' and 'connective tissue' as if these were the end of the world, then don't kill and eat the things. There's a big difference between chucking your own chickens, pigs, whatever, your peelings and leftovers together with some feed, then putting them in the pot, and the sort of massive scale factory production behind supermarkets and burger chains, operating without regard for welfare or ecology.

Then there came a lady. Worked in Belgium. Now I'm autistic, unable to empathise, and prone to roughshod-riding. This lady said she'd eaten horse, and, at the third or fourth attempt, answered the interviewer: “how did it taste?” “well, they [the Belgians (scamps)] didn't tell me the first time...” She went on to say how it all tasted OK and what was the fuss about? OK, lady, if flesh is flesh and a joke's a joke, then what if those jovial pranksters had said 'dog' for 'horse'? Or cat? Or “well, it was bury him or eat the bugger...”

Heh! Didn't taste the difference did you? No harm done then. Pork casserole, we'll call it.

Findus said: “weren't us, guv, was a naughty third party supplier.” Way to keep your nose clean, Findus. Profit? Badge up third party supplier stuff as your own. Going wrong? Not us, mate. It's that dodgy old third party playing up. I Googled Findus: “You can trust us” it says. To say beef and sell horse? “We use only the best ingredients and a generous pinch of imagination in our recipes...” that'd be racehorse (the best ingredients) and pretend it's beef (the imagination), then?

I'm not innocent here, either. Not in a Hannibal way. No cannibalism. I have served conger eel as 'white salmon', and ox heart brochettes, as just brochettes. Wrong, I know. In my defence I plead a strong preference for anyone who says “that's delicious. What is it?” to those who ask what everything is because that will decide whether or not they like it. I had the great misfortune of sharing a dim sum meal with BLISS' relatives, and every steamer basket, every plate and every bowl was met, not with “smells good, mmm, what's this one?” but a suspicious “what's this / what's in this” forensic examination that sucked all joy from the occasion.

Now: binge Telly

Binge TV watching

Netflix have commissioned a TV series. Instead of the usual format, which dates back to the one channel, please no-one, news bulletin mid-film model, where there's a week to await the next instalment, Netflix have gone for the box set issue. All season one episodes available from the get-go. Eat as much as you like at one sitting.

The pro-moderation lobby will no doubt have something to say. They tend to be up in arms at anything preceded by the word 'binge' the way Muslim clerics become agitated when the word prophet is preceded by 'cartoon'. It makes sense to me, though.. Not everyone is available on that weekly basis. Batman, the camp 60's Adam West and Burt Ward version (I think it was anyway) used to sign off cliffhangers with “here next week, same time same channel”. Not everyone, me included, is a fan of waiting. No, the waiting does not anything all the sweeter, it just makes it later. Often, during the wait, you decide you can't be bothered, are not, actually, that interested, or go off and find something else to do. In the dim and distant past the BBC broadcast all of (I think) Smiley's People. However many hours. Straight. I never watched the series, but I sat in front of that, mesmerised, transfixed. When series get rave reviews, I still wait for the DVD release, and take them in to my own timetable.

Three, maybe four Christmases ago I got Generation Kill. I put on episode one and BLISS was hooked. The bank holidays worked out so that we were both off the next day. My eyes were starting to close sometime long after midnight. “Can you manage one more?” she asked. “Go on then.”

Good on Netflix for having the imagination to break the out of date mould and try something different. It's probably time for the negative association to be removed from the word 'binge', too. I wouldn't mind going on a winning binge the summer with the cricket team, while enjoying a run accumulation binge of my own. An Arsenal trophy accumulation binge would be nice, too, and, no, it wouldn't be all the sweeter for the wait.

Blackout Bowl

I watched (or skipped watching) the Superbowl power cut with my finger on the FF button. Same with the half time Beyonce spectacular. The theories are that she had so many backing dancers on the stage, that when they all operated their hairdriers at the same time after the show, they used all the power and so the floodlights went out.

Plainly nonsense, apparently, because they'd already had the world's biggest hairdrier going full pelt at the side of the stage making their already big hair appear huge.

The power cut seemed to inspire the 49ers to a comeback and break the Ravens' concentration sufficiently for the scores to close and the result come into doubt.

The Necks

Why has it taken so long to uncover these guys? Music press and media, you need to do better than this. Experimental, improvised, trance jazz trio. Australian. You know, where all the sports men and women take drugs, according to the tabloid headlines? Where, according to the Barmy Army, “you're only good at swimming”. They produce long, languid, dreamy pieces, acoustic drums, upright bass and piano with some electronics in the mix. Mostly lush and dreamy, with some spikes from more angular, driven sections.

Weather Report

Weather report (as in the weather)

Probably asked this before. Before you get the forecast, you get the last few hours, then what the weather is doing now. Under some circumstances I can understand the retrospective. If there's been hurricane winds during the night, people might be waking up wondering why their chimney is on their car, or why they've woken up with their bed down on the allotments. Or if there's been severe weather and they're thinking: “don't remember there being a river outside the bedroom window”, or “is that the postie with snow-shoes on?”, or “were we always this near the cliff edge?”. If it's just that there's been light drizzle, do we all really need to share that?

The 'what we've got now' may be useful, to anyone incarcerated, working in a basement plantroom, or otherwise unable to access a window. Otherwise, there's a simple choice for the: 'what's the weather now?' question. Window or TV screen. The window is more likely to be up to date, and locally accurate.

So the question is this: what, exactly, is the point of dragging out the forecast with the post-cast and the present-cast bits?

Weather Report (the band)

I often forget just how much I like Weather Report, and just how good they were. Of all the fusion jazz bands, they were the one most likely to hit you with moments of sublime beauty, with surprises, with a stunning range of capabilities. Overstocked with musicians that composed as well as performed to virtuoso standards.

So today I've listened to the two self-titled (eponymous if you want to go straight to pseud's corner without passing Go) albums. There first from the dark and ancient seventies, and the second from the mid-eighties. I've also tested the new kitchen stereo's ability to play MP3 CD's. It works. One CD to last almost all day if you need to leave it going and get on with something.

Car trouble

Turned left. Boingggg. Judder. Turned right. Same thing. I've had a broken spring. Apparently I was lucky that it didn't puncture the inner wall of the tyre. Glass half full they are, at the garage. Luckily, they could fit it in at short notice. Lucky for them, broken springs cost a fortune to replace. At least on my car they do.

They're very nice at the garage, but they do this soften the big bill blow thing. “Take a seat, and we'll be in in a mo. Talk you through what we did.” I'm sure it's a good way of keeping most of their punters happy. Letting them know that, actually, they didn't think of a number, treble it, then add the parts and the VAT. I don't want that, though. By all means give me the idiot's guide walkthrough, and don't underestimate the lowness of the idiot-level I can attain, but any more than that and my eyes glaze over. The car's had to be dropped down there. It's needed picking up. I've had to reorganise my day, and therefore my week and therefore a good part of next week. All I want to do is get out of there. With as much of my sanity and bank balance as I can reasonably expect to hold onto.

With my car, sanity-wise, that's not so very much. I changed the headlight bulbs. “It can't be this difficult” I thought. How many mechanically inept old blokes does it take to change two headlight bulbs. I had a mirror to see what I was doing and got my hand caught. Twice. “I'll look it up on line” I thought, “it really can't be this difficult.” Google Ford Focus change headlight bulb. Even the most bullish say allow an hour to do both and be patient, many say, forget it, take it to the garage. To change lightbulbs.