Things that annoy, part 3,127

That new Tesco's advert with the Spice Moneybags in it. Like they need any more cash? Like we need reminding how perfect and lovely their lives are? It's like a poor joke version of Hello magazine repeated every commercial break. No more!!

Other things that annoy me include being stricken with lurgy. It's non man flu, coz I'm still working; on a groovy and good course at the moment and I don't feel like missing it. But I've got a stinker of a head cold and have had to abort my jolly pub trip this evening, and replace it with horrid blended whiskey; lemsip and more paracetamol than you can shake a steak at, or indeed a stick. So instead I've amused myself picking up my don't-die meds, cooking myself a most moreish casserole in the slow cooker, treating myself to a small Amazon binge courtesy of an old and valued friend at birthday time and planning my next jolly jaunt, which should be most jolly indeed if it all comes off, which knowing me will involve a certain amount of chaos, accident and everything going to shite. Unfortunately the Kwakker won't be back and going in time to be involved; the guts of the engine are still off being made shiny and lovely and bigger, faster, stronger at the workshop then it's a week or so for rebuild. Just in time to run it in during the most disgusting weather that Lincolnshire can throw at me. Joy.

Oh, and belatedly. Mikey's beer review. Marstons Old Empire IPA.

"Mmmmmmmmmmm, very tasty"

So farewell then....

It's always a shame when you say goodbye to a regular character in your life or indeed the life of your blog, but say goodbye I must. To Christine the gay coloured Hellbound Honda who is no longer stopping the grass from growing in my front garden, she has departed on to other things. The surprising thing is that those other things don't involve the smelter, they actually involve going vroom and I actually got some money for her. Flogged her to a young petrolhead boy racer'y type from Newcastle who is into Honda's and pretty confident he can pimp her into something very zoomy indeed. Fairysnuff, the boy's got a hobby and best of luck to him. In fairness she hauled my fat arse around for many, many miles and even after the stresses she caused me, I'd rather see her running and continuing to exist than just being a bit'sa or scrap. And my garden's marginally tidier. Now to get the Kwakker going again....

Also cheerio for a while to Tabs the kitten who's heading back to scouserland; we've had warfare at Fortress Mike this weekend as the two black toms jockey for position. Tabs has the athleticism and attitude; Giz the experience, accuracy and disdain. Of course I'm biased. And poor old Tabs doesn't understand why we side with Giz. 'Coz it's his house you fool! He also can't understand why I don't want somebody who walks in his own turds jumping up and walking on my kitchen worktop.

And a leaving do at work for the bald Essex man who's departing for sunnier climes and more profitable work. It's the third party I've been to involving him; he was one of my trainers on Basic all those years back; and he left on foreign secondment about four years back so there was a bash then. I think we've gotten rid of him for good this time, which makes me token southern bloke on the stations. I'm learning to speak like a twat, wear chunky jewellery and prefix every comment with the phrase "apples and...". Arrived at a party late, as I'd gone to see a mate first, got hijacked by some of the younger lads and forced against my better judgment to go to a salubrious nightclub, one "Legends" and it's legendarily bad. Every town needs a sweaty horrible dive; this place has several. I do however have a set of awful photographs with which to embarrass my colleagues at some point later to be sprung on them. Oh joy. In fact, it does seem since the quack's put me on a more rigid diet routine with the "drink in moderation" advice, party life has gone mad and I have in fact been; to quote Father Dougal; "drinking like a mad eeedjit". Out again last night; my "few pints at the nice bar at the station" turned into a many pub/many pint beer and coctail fest.... oh horrible coctails, leave me alone.... and you'll be glad to know I feel accordingly awful today. Well, got to have some fun left, haven't we.

Twenty two puffs and a puff of air in a leather bag

I believe I'm right in saying that there's an inferior sport to Rugby Union called "Football" played by men who are even too weedy to play League? And somebody said that there was an important match tonight, and that it was really important to beat Croatia, and that it would be really humiliating to lose?

To quote my mate from HMR&C.....

"MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH"

Too much money; too many houses; too many pies. Exhibition players from an exhibition league, no grit. Sod 'em.

Back up north

Got sent up to one of my old stamping grounds by queen and country today; a night's sleep would have been useful. Instead I got lots and lots and lots of attention from the small guy; then to be woken again to see the dead mouse he was punting across the bedroom; then to be woken again by nausiating crunching sounds that I tried to ignore, but later revealed themselves to be coming from a messy red thing that he'd been eating where a mouse once was. Maybe a subtle hint that he's had enough of dry food and it's time I fed him meat? Revolting. That was a two tissue job, getting rid of that one. Glad I didn't have my glasses on.

SO... up early, showered, shaved, a bit of house work and then into the fun factory where they planned to send me and a whole bunch of people up to Wetherby in North Yorkieland for a presentation. Seventy five'ish mile hike; only for us to arrive and discover said presentation had been cancelled, nobody had thought to tell us. Ah, efficient, is the government. We're a classy outfit. Looooooooooooooooooooow class.....

Which left time for a bit of a mooch around Wetherby to drink coffee (decaff; yeuch) before the return. Stone buildings. Nice shops. House prices that make you go "ARRRGHHHHHH". Felt like a friendly place again. Definately a spring in the step from yours truly; a direct link back to happy times from the brickwork. A good morning, if a bit of an abortion from a time and motion point of view. Which paved the way for the rest of the day to go to shite....

They've downgraded me to category 4 health, which means my place on the violence course refresher in December is going to be cancelled; which means my thumping ticket is expired after Feb' next year until after this health business gets sorted; which is very possibly going to queer me professionally. Marks out of ten for happiness, I'm chucking out about minus a million as I leave work. Furious with them, and gutted at the same time. My pop around the supermarket on the food shop turned into an hour or so; I think it was a stomp&grumblefest; always useful in these circumstances. A ton of supplies bought, which distracted me at least. All healthy; gritted my teeth and walked past the lovely fresh meat pies and cheeses.... bastard medico's, bloody health nazi's, why can't you just let a bloke die happy? A couple of days off now; stuff to do beckoneth....

News of the day

Now as it happens, I know a certain officer of HMR&C. He made the following comment about todays events; the missing disks and the chairman's resignation:

"MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I took that to mean that he thought the department had been dying on it's arse for the longest time; poorly managed and poorly run with precious little morale left among the slaves. It was only a matter of time before something horribly horrible happened and he wasn't suprised, but was impressed that the chairbloke had contributed so nicely towards his own job loss targets and saving the job of a clerical johnny somewhere.

At least I think that's what he meant.

Ippo Facto?

Only I'm so shite at planning that I actually manage to attend south on the night that nearly everybody I know is actually out of town doing something else. Typical. A smarter man would have abandoned the attempt at sociability and given it a go on a different weekend. But Captain Boody-Minded here gets the bit between his teeth, and even with body clock completely ferked from the previous day's occupational rubbish, and the world of everyone providing various distraction eventually gets on the road by late afternoon / early evening even though the whole plan had been to go down at the crack of sparrow's fart, get some shopping done and visit a few pubs during the day; mooch around Hometown and see a few things. So the opportunities were limited. But none the less, managed to pop in on my buddy of old Kaz, and then join SouthernSophie and her excellent other half Andy the eccentric west country chap for beer, jollification and eventual sofa sleeping; before enjoying a breakfast the following day that my doctor would definately not approve of (sod him), bumping into Sue and Mim, excellent people I've not seen in a year or more, and enjoying the afternoon's Cup Rugby on telly, including Bristol beating a French side who's strip (light brown with large pink flowers on it) was not so much gay, as utter flaming faggotry. I saw; my eyes told me accurately what they were reporting but I barely believed.


Filthy night coming back... rain, gusting winds, leaves blowing from left to right. A curious fact struck me as I was getting ready to leave my grans pad, where I'd stopped en route, that the rain down there smelled different to this stuff up here, in fact more or less what it smelled like when I was growing up. Comforting, that. The trip back... going into a lorry overtake, into a solid wall of spray I seriously doubted that I'd be out of the other side again intact. Clearly those doubts were wrong, as I'm sitting here typing this at the now, but it was marginally scarey at the time. Hey ho. Back in the days when I was consorting with Hellbitch 2 I used to find the trip from up here to down there at the end of a visit utterly depressing. Now I have a similar relationship with the northerly trip from there to here. What's the point? But then in fairness I'd not want to move back, unless life gives me a damned good reason to. That'd be like a retreat. Screw that. If life moves forward and takes me back, fair enough. But the north's not bad, the place is fair enough; ok, the job's pants; and who know's what's around the corner?

Well, that screwed that then

You'll notice I'm not down south. Or actually, probably you won't.

Anyways up; point of the matter is, I was still chilled at seven, and getting headachey and generally screwed up; driving south was becoming a massive no-no. Retreated fully clothed to the duvet. This chilling business; damnit, that's a game for younger people! Rapidly concluding that for whatever reason, I can't laugh of the inconsistencies of my working life as easilly as I used to!

Oh no, say it isn't true

David Jason as Rincewind,

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, noooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Days like this

Not my best time of year really, we're way beyond that magic window where the sun is warm and the wind smells of burning leaves; we're into that cold, flat time which reminds me of evenings with no sunset, just a darkening grey that your eyes can't pick up; reminds me of wellington boots, waterlogged river fields and dogwalks I didn't want to be on at the time. All the trees are naked in the gloom, and three hours after getting in from work, I'm still chilled to the bone.

Of course, the fun factory sending me out into the cold, cold nastiness at six fifteen am; and then keeping me there for four hours; and then sending me for four more hours in a chiller store; and the road back being completely bunged, and us having to navigate the town centre in one of our best battlebuggies (never feels right, that) adds to the chilled effect. My brainy brain is frozed. And I've got to get my stuff together and head down south to see buddies.... Running a bath to reboot my body.

So, onto nicer things. The small lad is operational again, doesn't quite have his full vim back but it's coming. He's got a big gap in the fur on his back but it's clearing up and so's the wound. Ended his compulsory house arrest yesterday in just the same way he did first time he went out on his first serious patrol, years ago.... on his timing. I walked in from work, blocked the lounge door with the briefcase and then he just sidestepped it and me from where he'd been hiding in the other corner of the hall. A quick jump into the garden, a flick of the tail and a "yeah, what?" look over his shoulder. Classy beast.

In the wars

The little lad, that is. Came in from work to no greeting for a change, just saw him skulking behind the lounge door by chance. Matted fur on his rump, and a real attitude against me putting my hand anywhere near it. All kinds of odd sounds that you never hear in a happy cat.He's grumpy as hell, won't go outside and he's been using his litter tray rather than someone else's garden which he's not done in years. All was clearly not well, so a trip to the vets was booked; as it turned out his first ever non routine visit. A wodge of money later, I now have one grumpy pussy feeling very sorry for himself and glaring at me for holding him down while 'vetenary removed one large lump of his lovely fur to uncover an evil looking and smelling wound on his back, which was abscessing and filled with revolting smelling pus. Mainly cleared up, until he had enough and played the came of "climb dad's shoulder to escape" which he's not done since kittenhood. The vet's not sure if it's a fight wound or the result of a thorn or similar on a trip out, but fighting's my bet; there's that ginger tom across the square that he's been falling out with lately, that's suspect number one.

And that's pretty much done for my day. Many things to do have gone undone. I'm still up at half eleven instead of the nine when I planned to crash out. And I'm up in five hours. Joy. But gotten the big furnitur'y thing dropped off to Jules last night, which was good; always nice to socialise, the Mikey Moving Firm is cheaper than Pickfords (payment in beer rather than a couple of hundred for a van and blokes), and good to see her cat Mil's again, even with the very humiliating turd dragging incident and associated sulk at our hilarity. Nice gaff you've got there hun, a very civilised area of a very civilised town; must drag you guys to that excellent boozer just around the corner from you!

Blokehouse

Well folks, I've been away neglecting my online responsibilites by doing some of that "having a real life" nonsense. Actually socialising with real people, that sort of thing? I know, it's insane, isn't it. Normal service will be resumed shortly, I'll be back to my misanthropic, snarling, insane best in short order.

So..... this house has been visited by numerous blokey friends up from Hometown. How can I tell? It's got more beer than it used to, the bin has kebab wrappers that are banned from my diet, the toilet is waving a white flag of surrender after terrible abuse and my computer desktop has developed from somewhere a highly dubious background image involving a naked blonde and a horse that I can assure you is NOTHING to do with me, they left it as a gift.

Bless 'em. Belated birthday beer (part 1) was the order of the day. Yes, I'm a year older. My old mucker Mr H turned up on Friday, followed by the Alien Kev and his mate Nick the day after; various towns were hit, beer was consumed in fairly enormous quantities reminding us in no uncertain terms that we're getting to old to lark about like that. On top of that, I scared myself rigid during a daytime collection run to Lincoln to pick up furniture for a matey, with the enormous cloud of smoke that my car left burst behind it in the face of the lorry I was overtaking; like a huge oily fart, it was and indictative of poor health in THAT engine too. A quick inspection suggests it's just a seal on the way out - it's leaking anyway - and the double change down put a good splurt of hot oil on the exhaust system causing a burnoff. At least I hope that's the case. Pretty good drama anyway.

The boy Giz is currently adjusting to having his home to himself again; all in all he's been pretty gentlemanly as regards having to share his space with an energetic kitten, living up to his new "majestic cat" tag, and only losing his temper and biting it on the back of the head on the last day of visit. But then, maybe he's been totalling the kitten related breakages, and taking revenge on my part? Here's the destruction stats.

Small kitten = one vase, one dinner plate ( 2 )
Four drunken blokes = nil

So that's a sure win for the kitten then.

Battle of Lincolnshire

Must be happening right now.

Nothing else can explain the two hours of constant automatic rifle fire and mortars that's been going on outside my window for the last couple of hours. Either that or some Jihadists have moved into the next street, or a firm of Brazillian electricians has set up and the police have gotten wind of it.

Or is it Guy Fawkes night........?

Actually for once I do approve of something, and I approve of bangs and noise. Very bloke. I did rather hope to get down south beforehand, visit the "good bangs shop" and get some heavy explosives to launch skyward myself, but time took it's usual deciding hand. Then again, with any luck I can get some cheaper when it's not brisk season for such things, and set up a good barrage in time for the new year, or maybe just after, or maybe just for the sheer hell of it :o). The cats are not too stressed out, although Giz has had his garden privileges revoked for the night; he's making due with beating up the kitten who's gotten the smacking tonight that he's been after ever since he's been here. No claws of course, but a goodly display of fighting technique from the home team, who's put some smackdown on his kitteny ass.

Things that annoy. Part 3,427

Why is it that nobody in the pub (Thwaites Flying Shuttle, by the way) tells you when your face has had a reaction with your shaving foam and you've got a hossing great zit on the go that really needs sorting out? That's just embarassing.