The Gravel Farm

Testies

2012-01-15T10:47:00.001Z

After taking pity on me for being behind the times the powers that operate the universe have finally relented and granted me the gift of a smart phone. All they ask in return is my eternal devotion, a monthly tax and a blood sacrifice at every full moon.

Obviously I'm just kidding about the eternal devotion and sacrifices.

It's not an iPhone.

So here I am fully Androided up and supporting various edible-sounding softwares like . . . Gingersnap and . . . Icecreamy cake or something, all designed to sound fun sound easy to use, hinting that setting it all up is as easy as eating a snack.

Two weeks later and I think I've finally managed to attach my magic phone to an invisible internet tube with a blogging valve, so this is a test post to test out a post. Then after I've posted I'll check the test post, post-test.

This keyboard is touch sensitive, but if it doesn't recognise one of my key strokes then I still find I jab the screen really hard, as if I'm blogging on a 19th century typewriter made all of brass and moustaches.

In conclusion, I think we can all agree that technology has come a long way since moustaches, and I now need to discover if I can edit, preview and up- (or possibly down) load a photo.

The world needs to see the spider my 4 year old son drew on his magnetic sketcher.

I bet you're glad you stopped by now.

The End Of A Continuation

2012-01-01T01:19:00.000Z

As the last few minutes of 2011 approach, happen and fade into the past, I thought I would spend it constructing a couple of sentences to wish everyone out there, both real and those of you who just think you're real, a very happy and prosperous new year.

I'm currently at work, so grabbing a moment or two on the computer whilst waiting for the mix of fireworks and alcohol to go (quite literally in some cases) tits up and require my presence for some analgesia, a stern reproach and, if necessary, a sympathetic wince.

Stay safe, friendoids, and may your future continue to occur!

Happy New year

The Jules

The Fun Starts Somewhere!

2011-12-26T12:45:00.003Z

I found it a bit difficult to get into the old chrizmuzz spirit this year, due to work commitments making me do stuff for money on the 25th of December.

Normally you might think that an areligious type like myself wouldn't get particularly festive anyway, having quite literally the same amount of soul as a metre-square bit of tarmac with a dead squirrel on it. Literally.

But you'd be wronger than a monkey wearing a toupee, because I DO actually quite enjoy christmas, having been brought up in the pseudotraditional environs of working class England. Lights, glittery stuff and indoor conifers all break up the tedious grey monotony of the typical British winter, and I'm all for that. We need that bit of distraction.

If it weren't so, why would it have persevered for so many centuries, millennia even? There must be a basic psychological benefit in having a mid-winter jolly or else why would such a thing be adopted and adapted by so many cultures and religions that have arrived in these murky island regions thinking they're the new way of doing things, when in reality we all know they're just a rehash of some old ways of doing stuff that can't change too much because their basic unit of composition is still the human being.

Scathing about organised religion as I know I can be, I do like a bit of a knees up and the occasional present, so if that means I have to be spiritual to have a bit of fun without being labelled a hypocrite, then hand me a dog collar and pass another barbequed haunch of choir boy.

So I have missed out on the celebrations a tad, especially now I have small children because christmas is primarily about them. Watching them open their gifts on a video doesn't quite capture the full pant-wetting squeals of excitement as they realise they're allowed to play with ALL that paper, and even the toys inside if they want.

I'm not complaining really. Well, I am, but only because I'm trying to elicit sympathy despite being allowed to do a job I enjoy, which probably isn't going to happen now that I think about it.

So I won't.

Stir the violins! Play a maudlin tune of deprivation for me, fiddlers! Fiddle me sad and I shall darnce the Darnce of Melancholy, whilst wearing the blue Pashmina of Forlorn Despondence.

Oh woe! Woe is I! Woe to the max! There is woe in my hood! My hood is all woey!

There we go.

But at least we have got the New Year coming up and, if christmas is for the kids, New Years tend to be more adult orientated,. We can celebrate new starts, pretend we know more than ten per cent of the words to Auld Lang Syne and drink enough booze so that, should we collapse in a snow drift, we wouldn't actually freeze until the temperature drops to the solidifying point of ethanol. We can make solemn oaths about fresh endeavours to improve ourselves, whilst simultaneously consuming enough food and drink to smother a rhino. We can sing and dance and stay up late and party and bond and be free and above all, above all else, we can have FUN!

Oh man I love fun.

If anything, I'm more excited about the New Year than Christmas!

Oh cock, I'm on nights.

.

Getting stoned.

2011-12-15T12:25:00.006Z

Working in a medical organisation it can be easy to forget what a big deal it often is for someone to suddenly find themselves classed as a patient. They can go from walking around happy and healthy then, BLAMMO!, something untoward occurs and they're no longer in complete control of their lives.

The modern medical ethos is to involve the patient at every stage of their treatment if possible.

This is great.

Mostly.

There's always the "I don't want to go to that hospital because they do crap sandwiches and my 103 year-old great Aunt died there after a boob job, so take me to one fifty miles away" patient who perhaps doesn't get all the respect they deserve, however unprofessional that may be.

Usually though, we try to accommodate the patients wishes and, for them to make an informed decision, we like to keep them informed.

But everybody is different. We're all individuals. We're all unique*

So you might be surprised to learn that many people who end up in the purple-gloved clutches of the ambulance service don't want to know anything about what we're going to do to them. Or for them. Or with them. They have a "just get on with it, man." philosophy.

"I don't ask a plumber why he's wrenching that nut as long as he fixes the leak, and the same goes for you, Sunshine."

Fair enough.

When someone tells me that, I just obey their wishes and open the sterile packaging for the medical nut wrench.

In general, though, people do want to be involved. They want to know what's going on and why you're doing it, and above all they want to talk. It helps them retain a semblance of confidence and some aspect of control when entering a strange and often unfathomable new environment.

Putting yourself in the patients shoes, not literally as that is frowned upon and results in letters of complaint, is a useful mental exercise, but there's nothing like suddenly finding yourself on the other side of the professional fence to engender feelings of empathy in the future.

So I thought I would relate the story of my own hospital admission which happened about four years ago and what I learned from it.

It all started, as many tales of woe are wont to do, in the middle of the night, when I woke up with some discomfort in what is termed, in medical parlance, my tummy banana.

Bit weird, I thought to myself, and presumed it was simply the after effects of some strong Belgian lager I'd had earlier in the evening. I went to the toilet and noticed my wee was pink.

Stylish, I thought, trying not to worry too much, but I was more concerned about the ache in my lower abdomen having not reduced at all. In fact it was a bit worse now.

I got back into bed, but started tossing.

And then turning.

This disturbed the missus and our new bed-sharing baby, so I got up and went downstairs.

The pain spread round to my side and crept along my back, getting worse, until the ache became a sort of cold grip that made me gasp.

I tried unsuccessfully to go to the loo again, but did achieve a new pain. A completely unrequired pain that no man should ever have to endure. The tip of my penis hurt.

"Oh come ON!" I grunted to myself, as I wondered if I should try and rub it better. "I know something's wrong, so is really there any need for that?"

The pain in my side was now worse than the worst pain I'd ever had before, when I'd gone sub aqua diving with a cracked tooth some years ago. And then it got worse!

I looked in the mirror, surprised by how pale I was.My pulse crept up past 120. I retreated back to the toilet just in time to throw up magnificently, as if my body didn't know what to do so thought it would try that, see if it worked.

Staggering to the the living room, I couldn't sit, stand or lie without the pain coursing through me, although I did at the time remember thinking how bravely stoic I was being, keeping it to myself and staying quiet so I didn't disturb my wife and new baby upstairs.

Suddenly, Mrs The Jules appeared at the door.

"Why are you whimpering?" she asked, adding "So loudly?" to make a point. Then her eyes adjusted and she got a good glimpse of me.

"Bloody hell. What's the matter?" she made a face at my sweaty pallor and took my pulse, muttering "One thirty!" and rushing off to get some paracetamol and ibuprofen. She returned and I downed the tablets like sweeties.

"I think . . ." I grimaced, " . . . I've got . . ." I gurned, " . . . a ki . . . " I grunged, " . . .a ki . . ." I garbled, " . . . . a ki . . ."

"A kidney stone?" Mrs The Jules finished impatiently. I nodded up at her, now bent double in a comical Notre Dame mutant campanologist pose. "Shall I call an ambulance?" she asked.

I wasn't sure a kidney stone was particularly appropriate for ambulance transfer, despite having treated many in my time. They are excruciating, but not particularly life threatening. Also, the thought of one of my colleagues picking me up, giving me morphine and subsequently taking the piss out of me for the rest of my working life made me shudder, despite the pain. Instead, we lashed the baby into his bucket seat and made our own way to the Emergency Department.

The drive was appalling. Even my missus, who is a smooth driver, couldn't stop me clutching on to the hand hold, shaking like a dog doing it's business outside a nursery,

The pain got worse! How can it get worse, I wondered? There is no more pain to be had. Any more pain and I won't be able to think. I'll be like a . . . no simile came to mind. The pain had de-similefied me!

Of course, at the Emergency Department, there happened to be a number of ambulance personnel who were most surprised to see one of their off duty colleagues scuttle out of a yellow Nissan Micra, bent double and sporting a dashing grey colour, and into the recpetion area to book in. A couple of them helpfully followed me in to point out how funny I looked, and would I like a poke in the ribs to see if it really did hurt, and also how funny I looked.

It was relatively quiet, and I got efficiently triaged, assessed and dosed up with morphine and diclofenac. I actually sighed with relief as the pain ebbed to a dull throb over the next half hour.

Then, three days in hospital on fluids and antibiotics, all waiting for the emergence of what I presumed to be some sort of spiky boulder as it made it's way down my lacerated ureter and into my bladder. Eventually, I went home and caught it in a tea strainer that my wife now refuses to use.

And all because of this:

Hang on, that doesn't show the true majesty of the thing. Try this one:

Three millimetres! Three enormous millimetres of calcium oxalate reduced me to a barely functioning quivering wreck, rather than my usual barely functioning non-quivering wreck.

Observe the wonders of nature!

So, anyway, what did I learn from the experience?

Well, despite the best care from attentive and decent staff, hospitals are boring. Really boring. For this reason, I always tell my patients to grab a book if they can. Hospitals are also noisy at night, so take ear plugs.They're disempowering, so take a positive mental attitude.

And they're full of sick people, so take a decent immune system.

Most of all, I was reminded how thin the line is between us and them. Between the practitioner and the patient. So thin, indeed, that often it fades into invisibility.

* " I'm not."

Sliding interview.

2011-12-02T09:30:00.000Z

"Roll up! Getcher answers! Get 'em while they're true!"

I've been subjected to some questions by the lovely Feryx Lim over at Absolute Eloquence and Shit. Don't be put off by the fact that she's posted an interview with Yours Truly because, apart from that, there's some good stuff over there.

It's like an interblog love-in round these parts.

http://feryxlim.posterous.com/gravel-farming-is-so-much-fun

Badder sex

2011-11-28T14:57:00.012Z

Publicity is being gained for writers who have penned some prose involving questionable copulation, their reward being the honour of receiving the coveted Bad Sex Award from Literary Review.

Having only briefly perused the offenders, I was half expecting it to be about actual bad sex, maybe where one partner rests an elbow on the other's hair, or involving a nasty clash of teeth, or perhaps a mid-coitus nosebleed, but it's not. It’s just about sex.

I don’t think I’d be too embarrassed about receiving a bad sex award (unless it was from my wife), because it must be exceptionally difficult trying to be original when describing something people have been doing since . . . well, since before there were people.

So, in the guise of any publicity being good publicity, unless you're a murderer, I have decided to have a stab at it. You can insert an innuendo here if you are childish and unsophisticated.

Heh. Insert.

Picture the scene. It is one of classic romance, involving traditional gender orientation and eroticism that has appealed to both men and women since time immemorial.

___________________________

She opened wide after a single knock, and raised a questioning eyebrow at the darkly tall stranger standing before her.

"I have come. . . " he growled deep in his throat, a testosterone fuelled baritone that she could feel in her very core, its timbre threatening to vibrate her knickers off, " . . . to fix your washing machine."

"Oh god!" she exclaimed breathlessly, "I was just going to have a bath." She looked at him askance, and he looked back at her askance as well, "In the nude!" she elucidated.

"But I have already brought my enormous plumbing tool," he waved it back and forth in front of her flushed cheeks, its hard, unforgiving length still glistening from another lady's fluids.

"My!" she gasped, admiring his professional manner. "Then it would be a shame if you got it out and didn't get chance to use it."

"I will be very . . ." He leaned forward, lowering his voice even further as their eyes met, his gaze smouldering like slices of black pudding in a frying pan " . . . quick."

"Good." she whispered back, relief flooding quite literally out of her, and she led him into the bedroom where she kept her washing machine.

"I keep my washing machine in the bedroom." She told him.

"That is completely normal and requires no clarification." He smoothed his moustache down and wiped his brow. "It's a little hot in here." He pointed out unnecessarily. "Would you mind if I made myself a little more . . ." he paused as he unbuttoned his shirt and searched for a word, " . . . sexy."

"Why not at all." She replied. "It is very, very warm in here, and me wearing this hot, winter silk negligee as well." She shrugged it off, but left her high heels on for the purposes of decorum.

"Now," he knelt before her and raised his tool in front of them both, expertly manoeuvring it into position. "Let me at it."

"That's it. Right there" She showed him. "Yes. There. Right in the alcove. That's it. Right there."

"Yes, I can see it because it is quite large, it being a washing machine."

True to his word, he was expertly quick, finishing rapidly and then holding up his tool wot was all covered in white residue.

"You see, the problem is you haven't been descaling it, and it's a bit like a kettle in that respect, so perhaps you should use Calgon."

"That's really very efficient of you, and reasonably priced as well. Thank you very much,"

"You're welcome." He cleaned his tool on the bedroom curtains before making his way to the van, leaving another very satisfied customer in his wake.

A few days later they met in the street, swapped numbers and went on three dates, which culminated in some satisfactory sexual intercourse and began a pleasant relationship lasting almost two years before ending relatively amicably.

___________________________

Actually, forget the bad sex awards, this stuff is pretty hot.

Sorry it was so short.

Roll Me Over, In A Rover

2011-11-17T11:50:00.003Z

Thought I'd do a quick ambulance related post, because I spend so much of my life in one.

Got called to a crash a few weeks ago and, after the (luckily minimally injured) patient had been packaged up and sent off to hospital, I took a cheeky couple of snaps in the name of ~~blogging~~ reflection and learning:

I'll just park this here.

This is technically termed a "roll over" for mysterious reasons that elude me. It had narrowly missed a snack van in a layby where a queue of people were treated to the alarming spectacle of a car doing some acrobatics just a few metres away, before coming to a rest in a ditch. The driver then got out and staggered around for a bit holding his neck before we managed to catch him and stop his head falling off with some judicious immobilisation.

Okay, so he wasn't really that badly injured. The use of the spinal collar, full body vacuum splint and seven or eight large bore cannulae in his jugular might just possibly have been a teensy touch over the top, but you can never be too sure with this sort of mechanism of injury. Also I need the practice.

But what could possibly have caused such a loss of control? The driver swore he wasn't going too fast. He wasn't over the limit, hadn't taken any drugs or medication that could have affected his driving, and had apparently simply turned the corner and lost it. He seemed genuinely upset that he had been so unlucky, as he'd been driving for years and never had an accident before.

We made sympathetic sounds and told him, at the end of the day, he was still talking so there were reasons to be cheerful. He wasn't overly receptive to our pleasantries though and I suggested that, sometimes, you just had to chalk these things up to the vagaries of the universe.

It's a mystery, beyond the ken of mere humans to solve, completely unfathomable and utterly unpreventable

At least until you looked at his tyres:

The Telly Savalas of the tyre world.

I've seen more tread on an eel.

When I left the scene, the unamused police were heading off to the hospital to see the driver. On the way, they told me, they were going to find a nice heavy book to throw at him.

Camera obscura

2011-11-03T03:19:00.006Z

Woo! Hallowe'e'e'n. Argh! Urgh! Grr! Fnarples!

Maybe not fnarples, thinking about it. That's for a different celebration.

But still, Halloween, properly de-apostrophised and bulging with the promise of hollowed out vegetables and obtaining sweeties through extortion!

I now have children, which sort of curtails most things celebratory that I used to enjoy, such as meeting other adults and having a conversation about something other than Teletubbies and poo, unless we wanted to. This means that if I see an opportunity for some gregarious celebration, no matter how infantile and pointless, I will grab on to that sucker like a politician on to an expense account.

My little boy was particularly excited as he had been invited to a Halloween fancy dress party in the evening. To stop him from asking "Is it time for the party yet?" more than eighteen hundred times, we spent the rest of the day torturing pumpkins by scooping their innards out and making them into soup and pies before callously eating them in an orgy of lunch.

At one point in the afternoon, my son clocked the digital camera on the sideboard and immediately had a great idea. "I want to take some photos Daddy!"

I was unsure. The last time he'd used it I had to spend ages with a tiny alcohol wipe cleaning raspberry jelly off the lens so people didn't look like they were being eaten by the Blob in every shot.

"Puh-lease can I take some photos Daddy!" He held his hands together in front of his chest out as though praying, knowing very well that I can't resist that sort of supplication. Besides, I thought, it's a distraction, and raising children is all about distracting them. And feeding them occasionally.

I set the camera up and handed it over.

"Find something interesting to photograph." I advised, removing a sticky finger from the delicate lens mechanism.

"Okay."

Snap:

Sofa so good

That's the sofa, close up. Fascinating stuff. Look at the weave. And the discolouration. It shows the beautiful cycle of stains and stain remover, forever chasing one another down the years.

"Not the sofa. Something interesting." I remind The Boy.

"Okay"

Snap:

A bit of living room, with the wife's crocs just scuttling to get out of shot. Hardly the stuff of award winning exhibitions.

"How about the pumpkins I just spent ages hollowing out and carving?" I suggested.

"Okay"

Snap:

A moist cavity

"Maybe not quite so close up son."

"Okay."

Snap:

Got eight teeth, gonna use 'em

"Bonobo, please stop eating the pumpkin."

The doorbell rang. Great stuff, I thought, and suggested a photo of the visitors might be interesting.

"Okay."

Snap:

Yep, visitors, nearly as interesting as the door.

Or the wall.

Or the floor.

The Boy bounces around the house, so excited to be taking pictures he is actually vibrating which makes him both hard to see at the edges and quite difficult to catch. I eventually trap him with a cunningly set up photographic opportunity of his old man. Predictably, he can't resist.

Snap:

Looking good. I point him in the direction of the pumpkins which have been put on display ready for any passing art critic, and we finally have a picture taken from the viewpoint of a four year-old.

Snap:

Guard the iPod, gourdy minions.

I borrowed the camera for a moment and looked at the pictures on the little display. The ones shown here are the pick of about fifty, mostly of walls and floors, with the occasional door thrown in for good measure. I heartlessly deleted them and then handed the camera back, whereupon The Boy ran off to continue his reportage.

This included:

Light fittings:

Enlightenment

A box of red:

Desperation is evident in the dented packaging.

A bit more floor:

Skirting the issue

A sucked dry smoothie carton:

Art!

And his sister begging for a go, or possibly a chew, on the camera:

Before she finally feigned disinterest:

Eventually, the novelty wore off, and I managed to retrieve a surprisingly clean camera for some judicious memory wiping. A couple of them were actually rather good, and I think we can consider getting him his own camera for his fifth birthday in March. They do relatively cheap, tough ones that are ketchup proof nowadays and just right for little people to take photos anywhere they want.

I think I'll have to put a lock on the bathroom door.

We got The Boy ready for the party and, before we drove him to his friend's house, he was quite willing to step in front of the lens for a change.

Snap:

That's a wrap.

Gruesome.

.

One for the laydeez.

2011-10-20T23:03:00.000+01:00

In these enlightened days of equality, equanimity and . . . er . . . equipment, we pride ourselves on our modern philosophies and contemporary paradigms. Gone are the days of slavish devotion to the supernatural. Away with you bigots and begone, foul taint of xenophobia. There's no place for you here, not in these times.

Fortunately, we have museums to remind us just how primitive we used to be, which is good because it would be easy to forget that we are descended from people who had very different values to us. Once, it was seen as the very epitome of manliness to rape and pillage. Once, it was lauded to denounce long-time associates, friends and even family to the authorities for dubious religious practices. Once, it was expected that a person must claw their way to the top by crushing those who had helped them in the past, life a desperate, merciless struggle for survival, the mark of the winner being nothing less than seeing who had collected the most stuff when they died.

Happily, the nineteen-eighties are long in the past now, and we have moved on.

These days I can, in the gentle serenity of pleasant museum surroundings, look at the exhibits and interactive displays whilst trying to avoid the enthusiastically bright-eyed history graduate just itching to tell me what the GDP of Great Britain was in the 1700s. Here, I can wile away the time reminding myself that things were not always so civil.

In this picture, for instance, the heinous attitude to women is amply demonstrated by the presence of the well preserved Scold's Bridle on the right:

Has anyone seen my key? Yeah, it's about a foot across?

A Scold's Bridle, for those of you not in the know, is a cage that was placed over someones head with a metal plate that went into the mouth to prevent talking. It was used as punishment for those judged to be a nag or a gossip.

Actually, I've just read on Wikipedia that they were used on chaps as well, so I suppose it wasn't quite as sexist as I initially thought. That's very, very surprising.

Using it on men doesn't make it any less repulsive though. The Scold's Bridle is classed as a mild form of torture and was used as punishment in workhouses until as late as the nineteenth century, which shows how primitive we were until quite recently. At least these days we use mains water and electricity to torture folk, which is far more contemporary.

Any perusal of a history book or walk through a museum of human activity will demonstrate the elaborate and ingenious ways people had of causing suffering.to one another, for whatever reason. Even those implements designed for medicine often had the opposite effect on the patient. Thought and effort has, for generations, gone into improving methods of inflicting harm on other sentient beings. It's a sad state of affairs, and a damning indictment of the state of the human mind.

Wait a minute, what's that thing on the left? Some sort of torture device intended for humiliation and degradation no doubt:

Hand cranked vibrator. Just apply woman.

Oh wait, it's a vibrator.

Seriously. A hand cranked, metal vibrator.

Cool.

The presence of the vibrator actually encourages warm feelings towards our predecessors. Maybe people of yore weren't constantly thinking up new methods of punishment and torture then. Not all the time anyway. It would appear that they also put their minds to betterment, and not just for themselves but for society as a whole. Occasionally, someone would invent something that made life a bit nicer, be it helping out with the tedious chore of self-love, or perhaps providing immunisation against deadly diseases. This is something we should remember when we rush to dismiss good deeds, altruism and positivity in our species as unusual, or even as an aberration. There is good stuff out there, and always has been, even if we occasionally have to look hard to find it.

The hand cranked part seems a little superfluous though. I mean, it does a deed that is generally hand cranked anyway. Presumably you'd want to warm it up a bit as well, unless you're into that kind of thing.

I'm well aware that such items were originally designed as a medical innovation to combat the hysteria that the so-called 'weaker' sex experienced, men apparently having moustaches and big hats instead of emotions, so it doesn't exactly take away the negative view of women that pervaded society in those days.

Of course, we're much more enlightened today, and the barriers between the sexes are breaking down, the age-old distinctions in jobs and duties traditionally seen as 'male' or 'female' no longer apply. Most new doctors are women. Male nurses abound. No one is surprised by a male primary school teacher or a female mechanic. My wife can nearly parallel park.

Progress!

I was in a domestic kitchen recently and noticed that Seimens, who make kitchen appliances amongst other things, demonstrated their considerable grasp of modern gender politics with this model of dishwasher, named to encourage equality between the sexes, obviously:

Made by Siemens. So . . . many . . . jokes.

The LadyPlus 45. Men obviously being too simple to operate such devices.

As a man, I shall continue to try and clean my dishes using a rock in the local stream. I get through so many gravy boats that way, but what's the alternative?

Virtual things to do, imaginary places to be.

2011-10-13T12:48:00.002+01:00

*Ringing sound*

Me: "Wotcher?"

Internet: "Slacker!"

Me: "Uh oh. Is that the Internet?"

Internet: "Who else would it be?"

Me: "A random insult delivered in a disappointed tone? You could've been my Mum."

Internet: "Good point. But no, it's the Internet here, and you know why I'm ringing?"

Me (Blowing cheeks out): "Maybe."

Internet: "There's a whole universe in here, and you're ignoring it?"

Me: "I've been busy in the real world . . ."

Internet: "Not that daft fantasy land of yours again. Give it up will you?"

Me: "I go on Facebook."

Internet: "Pfft. Facebook. That's not the internet. That's just harvesting."

Me: "Er, Twitt . . ."

Internet: "Don't say Twitter! You're not ALLOWED to say Twitter. Twitter is a privilege, not a right, and you're abusing it by not showing up, by ignoring it."

Me: "I do read it occasionally!"

Internet: "Occasionally? OCCASIONALLY! It's there twenty-four seven. Never tiring, never complaining, never asking for anything in return. For you."

Me: "I . . ."

Internet: "You made Twitter cry!"

Me: "Oh."

Internet: "Yes. Oh indeed. And look at the weeds on the Gravel Farm."

Me: Yeah, I know about them. I was going to tidy up, freshen the place up a bit, but I've got so much on . . ."

Internet: "We've had this conversation before, haven't we? The last time I had to give you a bit of a talking to. Remember this?"

Me: "You've managed to put a link into a phone conversation?"

Internet: "I'm the internet.

Me: "Fair enough."

Internet: "So what are you going to do about it?"

Me: "About what?"

Internet: "About getting back on line?"

Me: Well, I suppose I could cut down on looking after the children. Maybe get them a load of ready meals in, or just leave plates of porridge oats on the floor"

Internet: "Hmm. It's a start."

Me: "Or I could stop spending my spare time on my current favourite website in all of the internets, because it's a massive time waster."

Internet: "Here we go. I bet I don't need to disable your Private browsing function to guess what sort of website that is eh? Lots of pink? Eh? Lots of epidermis? Eh?"

Me: "Porn? I wish. I don't have time for that. These days I get my kicks from the lingerie page of the La Redoute catalogue."

Internet: "Not porn. So what is it then?"

Me: "This." *Strains to put link in conversation* "It's a flash game called GunBlood and it's got all fake blood and gore in it."

Internet: *Sighs* "You've been wasting time on a flash game?"

Me: "Well it is part of the internet.

Internet: "Let's have a look then . . ."

Me: " . . . "

Internet: "Holy superhighway that's addictive!"

Me: "Isn't it though?"

Internet: *Silence*

Me: "Internet?"

Internet: *Sounds of shots being fired* "Damn!*

Me: "Internet?"

Internet: "Eh? Oh. yes." *Sound of eyes being torn away from game*

Me: "See?"

Internet: "It's no excuse. You need to make up for your lack of internettling."

Me: "I know, I know."

Internet: "Good. Well, I've made my point."

Me: "I do actually have a reason for my recent tardiness?"

Internet: "Oh really? I'd like to hear that."

Me: "A good, solid, water tight reason that means you will forgive me utterly"

Internet: "Can't see it myself, but go on. Humour me."

Me: "I've got a Blackberry."

Internet "A Blackberr . . .Oh. Oh I see."

Me: "You do?"

Internet: "Yes. Yes of course. I'm so . . . you know, sorry."

Me: "That's okay." *Tear-filled voice* "These things happen."

Internet: "Yeah. Yeah they do. But still, I shouldn't have been so . . ."

Me: "Hey forget it. You've got a job to do . . ."

Internet: "I have. And sometimes, it gets in the way. No prisoners, you know how it is."

Me: "Yeah, sure."

Internet: "I'll leave you to it then."

Me: "Okay. Bye."

Internet: "Bye"

*Ringtone*

Actually, the Internet is right, which is very unusual. I have been neglecting the worldly wide wonders of the webby wide web (WWWOTWWW), apart from playing GunBlood, so I need to buck my ideas up. The middle of September is occurring, and I have yet to post somehting on The Gravel Farm. Which is a shame, because there's plenty of daft stuff out there. Just a quick click through my phone photos shows me stuff to get irate about, be it bad grammar in graffiti:

Some sort of very deep, almost impenetrable philosophy?

Or a zoological anomaly in a cookery magazine:

Fish?

I could quite easily see a fight between David Attenborough and Rick Stein over something like this.

But really, the thing that I'm most ashamed about, is that I took a photo of a perfectly good tea stain on my kitchen workshop and didn't have the decency to post it. Let me, in some small belated way, make up for it now. Behold:

I'll have to rub this hard to get it off

I know what you're thinking. It totally looks like an uspide down version of the African Sub-saharan country of Benin. That's what I thought as well.

Mad.

Seven Sent

2011-09-22T16:48:00.006+01:00

Memes are something you start off doing religiously when you start blogging, as they’re a fun way of learning a bit about yourself as well as informing others of your proclivities.They usually involve answering a series of questions and then passing the task on, like a sort of benign chain letter.

After a while though you get a little jaded and become more selective, even eschewing them altogether because you’re pretty sure you know exactly how you would answer them and how constraining they can be. The last couple I did I enjoyed, but only because I broke the rules a bit and didn’t pass them on which is the memetic equivalent of a fatal mutation. Richard Dawkins would be spinning in his grave.

Were he dead.

And possessed of an ironic post-death consciousness.

This one, however, was different for two reasons.

First, it came to me from the hallowed and talent-bedecked halls of Mr London Street’s blog. If you haven’t been over there, which I doubt because he’s all popular and that, then it’s worth going to see what a blog is supposed to be like. Just reading his interpretation of this meme gives you a damn good account of his blog, and hints at depths and writing ability that are a joy to peruse.

Second, it allows me to have free reign to choose some of my own posts without worrying that I’ll be seen as some sort of egomaniac. I can do that perfectly well any old time, I can tell you. Here though, it’s not asking what my best posts are (like choosing my favourite rotting carcass), but which I think fit each of the seven categories. I can do that.

This meme is straightforward. You select seven of your previous posts that you think fit one of the given subjects and perhaps deserve a re-airing. Then you honour 5 bloggers to continue the meme. Honour them good and hard.

Here’s mine:

1. Your most beautiful post

In order to demonstrate beauty’s optical subjectivity I’m going to go for this one, where I paid tribute to TV’s Tony Hart after his death in 2009, not because the post is especially beautiful but because it was for a genuine reason, and I think that’s a sort of beauty in itself. This is a good get-out clause for those of us who aren’t really sure what beautiful writing is, and are definitely not sure if we’re capable of it. In addition, there is a sweet and utterly beautiful drawing I did at the end, which will make you gasp in wonder. Gasp like a bastard.

2. Your most popular post

Not many comments, but I get a lot of people say they like Present and Correct where I discuss gift giving between men, after I gave my dad a birthday prezzie. In the real world, it sparked off quite a few conversations and, it would seem, turned out to be a bit more accurate than I actually envisaged when I wrote it.

3. Your most controversial post

I think it was the one where I called for a secular jihad. Oh wait, no, I haven’t written that one yet. I am not the most controversial of writers, as I’m not here to annoy people. I don’t particularly mind if I do, but it’s not my primary intention. I’m going to go with a different take on controversy, and that’s the one in my head when I ummed and ahhed about posting a picture of my new daughter because she was a hairy, hairy beast. As it turns out, I’m glad I did because people thought she was cute: Bang Goes The baby's Head.

4. Your most helpful post

It's a blog. Often read by bloggers or those who are interested in blogs. I'm not going to give helpful hints in pleasing your woman, although I totally could (treat the top half like a lady and the bottom half like a well maintained Ford Cortina). So I would go for this post: It's a discussion about how one feels when starting blogging for the first time compared with achieving that first heady year. I think it could be helpful and encouraging to someone just popping their blog cherry all over the screen.

5. A post whose success surprised you

Probably my twitter post, Tactical Re-Tweet. I have since become more of a fan of Twitter, although I don’t tweet enough what with, you know, not having that much to say. Actually, it’s the other way round, in that I have huge amounts to say but don’t want to bore people with it, and am continually amazed by other Twitterererers when they post 50 good, readable tweets a day.

6. A post you feel didn’t get the attention it deserved

This one, because it’s got boobs in it. Boobs don’t get enough attention, in my opinion. They’re almost ignored by all of society, and I think that’s wrong!

7. The post that you are most proud of

Blowing my own trumpet is something that I’m absolutely brilliant at, so you might think I’d find this easy. In fact, I didn’t. After I’ve bashed out a post and then go back to it a few weeks (or even months) later, I usually find something I want to change, just a quick little edit here, or a spot of literary Who Models The Modeller, mainly because my son asked me to print out the picture of him being a giant and firing lasers out of his eyes and setting fire to Tom Cruise’s hair, and who wouldn’t be proud of a four year-old’s approval?

Now I must find 5 suckers to pass this meme on to, and thus the curse will be lifted. Casting the bones, I see the mists clear and the screaming visages of potential victims come floating through the ether. Come to me, my pretties. Come:

SkylersDad – Because I’ve always admired intelligence when it’s mixed with humility.

Madame DeFarge – Because she has so many beautifully written posts that she could just randomly lob links to any of the above categories really.

Vic – Again, a superlative writer with a gentle wit that I never cease to admire, although she has been a tad quiet recently. Vic is a blogger whom, if she doesn’t do this meme, you would be well to just flick through and read anyway.

Tempo – I’ve only recently started following Tempo for some reason, and I haven’t examined as much of his back catalogue as I'd like. If he does this meme, it might save me some time!

Vegetable Assassin – Because she hasn't got anything better to do until her toe heals. Also, she like ukuleles, and so is a good, good person. No one bad ever liked ukuleles.

That’s me memed up. I feel I can relax a bit now and see if any other monkeys dance.

All Fired Up.

2011-09-12T14:17:00.007+01:00

Whilst at a country fair recently, drinking beer from a floppy plastic glass with the structural integrity of a cloud and desperately hoping the children didn’t win a corn dolly or a goldfish or something else irritatingly folksy in the Guess the Weight of the Duck’s Tumour stall, I noticed a fire engine pull up and the crew begin showing people round it.

Happy for the distraction, I took my 4 year-old son over and watched from the side as he sat in the front seat, pressed random buttons, tried on the terrifying helmets and attempted to get the huge bolt croppers out of their holder, that sort of thing.

Unbidden, a fire-fighter and his female colleague approached me, interrupting a daydream I was having about using the Jaws of Life on a chastity belt. I was immediately wary because they had big enthusiastic grins a bit like you see on religious people when they want to convert you to giving them money.

“Hello” They said, luckily not in unison because that would have freaked me out a bit.

“All right.” I replied, then nodded at the fire truck. “Nice turn out.” I said, hoping they realised I wasn’t referring to their toilet habits.

“Yep. Always good to get people familiar with the appliance.” The lady answered. “Also gives us a chance to offer a free fire-safety check at home, if you’re interested?” She proffered a pamphlet.

I breathed that sigh of relief you do when you realise friendly strangers aren’t after your money or your soul and took the literature, which explained the fire service’s admirable philosophy of prevention rather than cure.

Admirable but, not to put to fine a point on it, a bit boring. I doubt that many people join the fire service with the ultimate aim of handing out leaflets. They join so they can see really big fires. And pornography.

“I’m not sure I need it.” I said, and explained that I was quite up-to-date when it came to fire awareness, having been to the after effects of fires a few times in my career as a paramedic.

“You’d be surprised what you might have missed.” The man suggested amiably, and seemed so eager to visit that I agreed.

A week or so later, the fire appliance (I still want to call them engines) rolled up outside my house and, whilst my boy went out to press more buttons and annoy the crew, the two inspectors came inside, bringing in a big box of smoke detectors, screwdrivers, notepads and safety pamphlets.

“First, let’s have a look at your doors!” The man said chirpily. I showed him that every door in our house is a fire door, with insulated interior and fastenings for self-closing hinges.

"Oh,” he looked crestfallen. “Yes. Very good doors those. Keep a fire at bay for an hour, will those.” He sighed heavily, then brightened. “Smoke alarms?” he said, picking up his box of free ones and his screwdriver.

I showed him my mains-connected integrated fire and smoke detectors, and the extra one in the lounge. He looked at them disconsolately, and prodded one as if it was a fish of unknown vintage.

“Really good. Really, really good.” He sounded like he was telling me I’d got cancer. Suddenly, I oozed pity for him.

"Look at this!” I said suddenly, and led him into the kitchen to show him a gaping alarm socket in the ceiling.

See that? It's not there.

“I’ve taken this one out because it just used to go off when we cooked food, even if it wasn’t burning.” I suggested, thinking he might be pleased to tell me I shouldn’t have done such a dangerous thing, and I was putting myself and my family in abject danger of a fiery demise.

“That’s fine.” He muttered. “It’s not a good idea to have them in the kitchen anyway.” He put his box down and looked around. “Do you test them, because you should test . . .”

“Once a month?” I informed him, which is about true. “Is that enough?” He grabbed on to it.

“Well, we suggest testing on a weekly basis nowadays, in case you forget a couple of times but you’ll still be checking them quite often, you know . . .”

I nodded, thinking there was probably no way Earth I would remember to check the buggers once a week, as I frequently forgot the monthly checks. He puffed his cheeks out a bit, and we nodded amiably at one another for a moment, whilst I tried to think of humorous anecdotes involving awkward silences. Luckily, his colleague then arrived having been outside explaining to my wife that it was a good idea to have a meeting up place in the house in case of a fire. We decided that upstairs in our bathroom would be best as it had a window with a shallow, sloping roof leading to the garage nearby. A possible escape route.

I was heartened by the fact that, due to the number of fire doors we had, a fire in our living room would take about three hours to reach us in the bathroom, which meant in the event of a fire we could go out for a meal or catch a film at the pictures, have a cheeky drink, return home and then call the fire service to come and rescue us. Sounded like a distinctly civilised disaster scenario.

“Anyway, how are we getting on inside?” His colleague asked, and he looked acutely depressed.

I felt terrible. Here was a man who simply wanted to show me how I and those I love might be irretrievably killed to death in a raging inferno and how was I repaying him? By thwarting his intentions with some unfairly installed effective safety measures, that’s how.

I desperately looked for something to fail on, something for him to be able to tut professionally at. Maybe I ought to ask his advice about the best way to smoke in bed, or how many plugs per socket is really safe? There must be something, I reasoned.

The loft conversion! It’s like a death trap up there, I thought, with black out blinds for day sleeping when I’m on nights, a light and a phone charger that I leave permanently plugged in at the socket that could spew out hot sparks at any given moment and a bed so comfortable that I would have difficulty getting myself up and out of it if I were actually ablaze! I don’t stand a chance I thought, happily. I told him I wanted his opinion and we trotted up the stairs. He passed the extra integrated smoke alarm on the top level and gave it a sneering nod, and then had a look in the conversion.

“Fire doors, smoke alarms and big Velux skylights for easy escape.” He almost cried. “I think you’ll be okay.”

“Sorry.” I said, as we trudged back downstairs. I tried to cheer him up by making an hilarious fire-related joke about an arsonists favourite website being Match.com. He agreed that, yes, it did indeed appear to be some sort of joke, but his heart wasn’t in it.

His colleague, obviously a more imaginative soul than him, was explaining that the dishwasher was a potential fire source, as they were usually put on when people were out or at night when the owners were sleeping, so if the motor heated up and decided to erupt in flame, as they were apparently wont to do, there was often no one awake or about to tackle it.

“Try and use it in the day when you’re in.” She instructed us. We empty-promised that we would.

They thanked us for our time, and we reciprocated before going outside to winkle the child out of the fire appliance, where they trundled off to find a more worthy recipient for their advice.

I’d learnt a valuable lesson from their visit. From now on, I thought, I would take more risks, and went inside to deep-fry some fireworks.

I'm sure the fire service would approve.

Automobiletastrophe!

2011-09-04T20:37:00.000+01:00

Last month, a combination of unfortunate occurrences resulted in me having to stay away from home for a couple of nights without packing. This resulted in my discovery of a complex new emotion the very existence of which I was previously unaware of. It's a feeling that combines insecurity and vulnerability, maybe with a dash of trepidation and a soupçon of anxiety, and involves a disconcerting self-awareness that arises from discovering yourself in a new, unfamiliar place.

With no clean pants.

Stay with me. This will be used as a focus for an emotional blockbuster next summer, believe me.

The hospital my daughter was in had very kindly provided an en suite parents' room near to the ward so, come night time, one of us could be with her whilst the other was just a few minutes away and easily available for helping with night time drug administration. This is where the father immobilises the wailing child's head as if holding a shot putt over a carton of eggs, while the mother and a nurse squirt syringes of anti-hot-baby medicine into her gullet. It was very welcome to be able to return to a private room to freshen up, removing the vomit, spittle, tears, claw marks, spilt medicine and feelings of being the cruelest parent in the world, just after that hamster you remember from middle school that ate it's own litter.

Following a shower, it is arguably acceptable to put on an already worn pair of trousers and shirt without feeling too gross. But socks and undercrackers are a different kettle of . . . er . . . fish.

My choices were limited. I could go commando, get some paper ones from maternity or buy some new pants. The latter seemed the most reasonable, although I did for a moment wish I was wearing a kilt and so might have knocked this problem on the head at the start. I don't wear a kilt because my family tartan is a type of purple polkerdot affair with a green fur trim. Quite intimidating in battle, apparently.

Not too far from the hospital is a giant budget supermarket which, for those uninitiated in the ways of urban Britain, specialises in selling everything. It's quite a specific specialisation, is selling everything, and they have adopted the pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap marketing ploy. This includes food, many plastic things and, crucially, booze.

So, necessity being the embarrassing uncle of attendance, I parked up outside the imaginatively designed cube and made my way cautiously through the automatic doors, like Indiana Jones entering a lost temple in search of clean grollies. I kept a wary distance from the pit-bulls tethered to the security desk with fraying clothes line, red eyes reflecting the flamelight from fiery braziers, and began looking for a local denizen to guide me through the tangled maze of toy golf clubs, pies and garden furniture.

People milled about, oozing almost without conscious effort in a vague directional flow through the aisles, like an amorphous parasite threading it's slow way through a host animal's well stocked and reasonably priced intestines. After a moment, I made my choice; a short, roundish chap in a faded shirt that came half-way down his front, belly separating it from his tracksuit bottoms like a referee between two reluctant duellists. He walked with a very determined gait so, like a stalker with the lowest standards in the world, I following him.

Sure enough, he soon led me past the clothing aisles, where I searched fervently for an acceptable packet of boxers. Eventually I found some which didn't have logos or hilarious groinal comments indicating I might be a porn star and swiped them before making my way to the checkouts via the mattress and onion-ring aisle.

My guide had also come back out from the shop with his groceries; eight tins of own-brand 3% lager. We paid for our our goods, and the checkout girl gave me the old "Why do you only need underpants?" look we're all so familiar.

Almost as soon as we exited, he cracked one of the lagers open and took a big, gulpy swig. He had to stop momentarily as simultaneous walking and drinking obviously didn't come easy to him, before making his way to his car.

To. His. Car.

The thought occurred to me that I should perhaps take his number and report him, but I don't think there's anything technically illegal about actually drinking a beer while driving, as long as you're still under the limit, and he looked in full control as he made his way through the fence and onto the dual carriageway. I also had other priorities at that point, so shook my head and made my way back to my own vehicle. Also, I thought, he's probably just pre-loading so it saves time getting absolutely rat-arsed when he gets home. Efficient really.

It also occurred to me that he might be Australian and therefore perfectly entitled, both culturally and genetically, to find a suitable driving beer. And anyway, who am I to judge? I'm not even a judge.

Clutching my brand new pack of emergency pants, I noticed a dented and battered ford Mondeo with a disconcertingly battered front end had parked up very close to the rear of my own Ford Parentmobile:

At least my drink-driving guide seemed to know roughly how long his car was. The driver of this one, apart from seeing white lines as something to be conquered rather than a handy spacing guide, also appeared to have thought that entering a parking space nose first had resulted in too many dents and scrapes, and so was trying reversing in as a new tactic.

It almost worked.

I considered hanging around to see if the owner knew how close they'd got to bending my precious tow-bar, but in the end concluded that a shower, clean pants and an ill child were all that mattered to me at that point, so I left.

I do wish I'd left a note suggesting they have a couple of beers before they drove home though. Might improve their driving a bit.

Hospital

2011-08-23T19:24:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago my little girl became a bit ill. After a few days of Calpolling and copious Ibuprofenisation our doctor diagnosed her as having a urinary tract infection, sent off a wee sample and dished out some magic wellness-juice.

Unluckily she turned out have a strain resistant to various antibiotics commonly used in the treatment of UTIs, and so got worse and worse over the following week until, last weekend, she was admitted to hospital. Once there they took blood samples and had the results back within an hour, showing her to be systemically unwell and harbouring a severe infection. An ultrasound of her right kidney lit up like a night scope, indicating an atypical pyelonephritis.

No-one likes to hear the word 'atypical' when it comes to medical conditions.

Cue, intravenous access, another, different antibiotic and a week of worry at her bedside for me and her mother.

After a couple of downturns and an initial awkward refusal to show any signs of improvement, she obviously decided to let the new antibiotics do their job and got better over a period of twenty-four hours.

We then thanked the incredible staff, left a donation for their social fund, said our goodbyes to some of the other parents we had got to know, wished them well and came home.

Thankfully, my daughter is now back to being her industrious little self. Despite the course of antibiotics she's been given tasting like Tutti-Fruttis, she's still determined to fight every dose as if they were made of ground up needles and chilli powder. As I try to get the syringe with the liquid past her clamped little teeth I actually relish the struggle, as it’s a vast improvement over the lethargy and flatness of a week ago.

Anyway, my stress levels over the last few days were similar to those found in a tight-rope walker with an inner-ear problem, but the relief of knowing she was on the mend was palpable. It's only then you notice the tension in your shoulders that has been there all the time start to recede, and you can begin think of other things without automatically labelling them as unimportant. Like going to work and doing food shopping.

In retrospect, you almost feel guilty about coming out of hospital when so many other children are still stuck there. I was struck and humbled by the well wishes of other parents whose children had far more serious, even life limiting conditions than a kidney infection, no matter how atypical. There seems to be room for compassion for others in people who have the best reason in the world not to give a damn about anyone else.

As grateful and relieved as I am for the wonderful care my daughter received, my mind keeps flipping back to the Children's Ward, hoping that they find the cause of 2 month-old Josh's convulsions, that Aaron loses the ticks his autism meds have left him with, that 2 year-old Cameron's 6 weeks in traction for his broken hip aren't too traumatising, and that Oliver's mum and dad never have to use the CPR that the nursing staff were teaching them on the day we left.

Here’s thinking of them and others in similar situations.

Broad Church

2011-08-14T13:54:00.006+01:00

And . . . we're back!

It comes to something when you have to blog in your break at work, and only then if there aren't any team leaders using the computer to sell ambulance service tourniquets and morphine on eBay.

This is what it has come to though, because of the demands of domestic life. Reality does like treading on the toes of the virtually inclined, leaving us to stare wistfully into a pixellated middle-distance, when once we might have a sudden urge to type something or simply read other blogs and then PLAG!, we could satisfy that compulsion there and then. Ooh, them were the days.

Plag is definitely the sound made by someone satisfying an urge to blog, by the way.

So there I was, stuck in the real world, and having to think of something to do to entertain the kids. It is a sad indictment on the state of the internet that you can't take children there, what with all those disgusting paediatricians, cyber-bulls and expensive child-slave-labour-agencies. It's just not worth the risk.

For this reason, we made our way to our local cityette, Gloucester, which has been parked about ten miles away next to the River Severn and boasts ancient heritage, roman ruins under the shopping malls and not one, but two Lidl supermarkets.

Usually, you can barely see the tattoos for the cigarette smoke in the main streets of Gloucester (presumably why they're referred to as drags), and you have to keep your head down to avoid a veritable hygiene mine-field of old chewing gum, new dog poo and medium aged spit that tend to adorn the pavements waiting to disappoint potential Dick Whittingtons.

On this day, howsowhatever, it was actually rather pleasant. People were smiling around their burgers and had put on their least crispy tracksuit bottoms to celebrate the warm summer weather. The pigeons weren't letting their almost universal lack of toes get in the way of a pleasant cooing, and the street cleaning wagons had bravely tackled the swirling litter and bacteria-laden deposits from the human, canine and avian inhabitants. If you squinted your mind a bit, you could just about stoop to categorising drinking MacDonald's coffee on a bench as pavement cafe culture, pretending for the briefest of instants that there was a certain air of European sophistication to the place.

We had a walk, being able to concentrate on some of the superbly eye-catching buildings that dot Gloucester throughout it's older bits and even attempted a spot of shopping, albeit in a mall which appeared to have been cloned from every other shopping mall in the country. We ended up swapping a watch for a slightly cheaper watch and a gift token, thus contributing about minus five pounds to the local economy.

We then went to Gloucester Cathedral.

Now Gloucester does a damned good cathedral. It's a big place, almost worthy of the might of thousands putting their sweat, tears and, all too often, blood into it's construction for the glory of . . . well, a rich, world spanning organisation based on a middle-eastern death cult, but hey, it's really pretty.

People who know me are often surprised by my enjoyment of churches and cathedrals, and houses of worship in general as I have been known to be a tad scathing about religion. The fact that there's a church in just about every village and hamlet in the country might seem like a huge waste of effort and resources to the contemporary brain, but in my opinion it shows a positive side to human nature because it demonstrates a quest for understanding. Churches are the medieval equivalent of observatories.

If you want to know how the universe works but have no idea that natural law could indeed result in something so beautifully complicated and perfectly suited to our needs, an intelligent mind would be hard pressed not to put an anthropocentric spin on things and even conclude that it has been designed, and even designed with us in mind. From this, constructing both organisations and structures appealing to that designer in order to improve your lot and try and find out what the hell is going on seems not only understandable, but even sensible, even if the end result was a form of mind control that stagnated human development for centuries.

So I'll be conciliatory and forgiving, understanding and appreciative of the results of their labours.

Of course, building churches in this day and age is just stupid, but there you go.

It would be easy to take the admittedly lovely but clichéd picture of the outside of Gloucester Cathedral to show off it's size, but without context it just looks like a big church. Better I think to show a picture of the inside with a person for comparison, like those dinosaur pictures in books you're only really interested in if there's a little silhouette of a man next to it, so you can imagine how ghastly his demise might be. In this case, I took one of the inside just as you go in the main doors with my 17-month old daughter for scale.

Of course with her being only about a foot high the place appears to be even biggererer:

It'll be nicer when they've got the curtains up.

The cathedral is quite popular with the tourists, having seen many films and programmes featured there over the years including Dr Who, Outlaw, Songs of Praise and some film about teenage wizards who can't seem to magic up the ability to act.

One thing the cathedral did have was lots of art. Most of it was obsessed with suffering, guilt and death for some reason, like a goth teenagers wet dream. Other stuff involved flags, royalty and a nice collection of gold and silverware in the treasury, enough to make you think just a couple of quid donation rather than the fiver you gave at the entrance might have been more appropriate.

And statues. Lots and lots of statues. Solemn medieval types kneeling in supplicant observance, royalty looking regal, pious fathers of the church and, my favourites, lots of sneering faces in the architecture.

There was also this:

It's no good Joseph, he's well stuck. Pass the blessed crow bar.

It was made out of fibreglass and totally reminded me of the scene in Start Wars where a bloke called Hand Solo gets carbonised by a bounty hunter called Bobby Fett. The fibreglass meant it was satisfyingly resonant when you banged on it with your knuckles, getting the attention of people at the far end of the cloister

On the way out, an elderly lady lambasted me for not knowing where I was supposed to meet her friends, having mistaken me for a cathedral guide. I pointed out that, like her, I was merely a visitor to this stone behemoth, and I couldn't help because I was a stranger to it as well, although my unfamiliarity with the building simply accentuated its mystery, because what would be nothing more than a corridor with turns in it to the initiated was, to me, a convoluted labyrinth dripping in history, a passage through time, perhaps even an insight into the minds of those who designed, financed, built and used this place in past centuries. And also, isn't that your bus?

It wasn't, and she harrumphed at me before limping off.

We finished off with a trip to Pizza Express, joining the rank and file presenting our Tesco vouchers for cheap expensive pizza, before making our way home with some nicely worn out and well fed offspring.

So, for one day only, Gloucester actually became a bit like you might hope it was had you never visited before, leaving visitors with that pleasant touristy feeling and even the desire to return some day. Including me!

At least it did until last week when some locals started rioting because someone in London was doing it and they didn't want to feel too parochial and left out.

Anyway, when I got home, the art I'd seen in the cathedral inspired me to come up with my own sculpture. Something magisterial, like in the cathedral, that combines both architecture and life, something that would compare and contrast the dead material of construction with the soft yielding flesh of the living, the truly designed and built with the evolved, selected and grown. Highlighting the difference between God and Man, if you will.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you; Strawberry On Stairs:

Deconstructing post-modern fallacies of western ideological sub-dominant paradigms in a post-9-11 world.

Art!

Fisher of Kings

2011-07-22T15:56:00.001+01:00

Cycling along the abandoned canal on my way to work, a flash of electric blue catches my eye, describing rapid but gentle parabolas from overhanging willow bough to ivy-clad birch branch.

A kingfisher!

I am pleased. Although not especially rare, they are evasive and seldom seen, particularly on a canal, even one that is relatively unused by anyone other than cyclists and dog-feaces depositors. I stop my bike for a moment, and watch enraptured as it doesn't immediately disappear, maybe being a little more used to wandering bipeds than most others of its kind. Still though, it is only visible for a second or two at a time.

Its dazzling plumage is at odds with its inherent shyness, as if embarrassed by its own splendour. No artist has ever created a colour so full of vivid life, so effortlessly natural and yet so striking. It is a humbling exercise in the superior achievement of unconscious selection over the ever-striving efforts of our intellectual and artistic endeavours.

S'pretty.

Luckily, to capture the moment, I am a modern human, with all the advantages of superior technology that allow me to share this image, perhaps save a small, frozen portion of this ephemeral scene with other members of my species. With you, my friends, with you. We are a creature that generally uses sight as our prominent sense, and and this is reflected in our tools.

I take out my phone, thinking of the adverts where opportunistic photographers take super-sharp images for posterity, whipping out their handsets and snap!, capturing the elusive snow leopard or plummeting falcon and winning awards from the BBC and National Geographic for their efforts.

My turn.

Snap!

Oh . . . kay.

Too fast. I have to be patient. There it is again. Try another one but hold the phone still.

Snap!

Missed it. Damn. The bird was moving too quickly this time. Bloody thing.Try again.

Snap!

Arse. Low light levels, that one. Hang on, it's flying again, quick!

Snap!

No? No.

Oh sod it. Have some ducks in a line on high zoom instead:

Snap!

Brown they are. Very, very brown, and not at all shy about letting you know it. Now to wait for National Geographic to get in touch. I'll see you at the exhibition.

Quantum Motherf***ing Leap

2011-07-17T22:15:00.016+01:00

What's this thing?

Ooh, a blog. Whose is it?

Ah, mine.

Oh yes, I remember, it's all coming back now. I occasionally blog about stuff, if I'm not attending to super-interesting extra-internet stuff like being a double-secret undercover agent battling evil rocket ninjas on the moon! Yeah, that's what I've been doing. Fighting evil rocket ninjas with laser-shurikens and anti-gravity slippers, and everyone knows rocket ninjas are the worst type of ninja because not only are they deadly and silent, apart from when their rockets are turned on, but they're also fast. What with the rockets and that.

Also, I went on holiday to Ibiza, and I've done a shit load of overtime at work to post-pay off my credit card, now-pay for the shopping and pre-pay for my car to be fixed after it decided it didn't need things like a catalytic converter or power steering fluid anymore. I did get the opportunity to drive it for three and a half hours to Luton airport without power steering though, which reminded me of the elderly Vauxhall Cavalier I drove when I was nineteen, only with more nappies and less Rizlas.

I parked the parent-mobile in a hotel, like so:

And tried to ignore the confidence-building broken glass in the bay a couple of spaces along:

Sadly, when I returned from holiday a week later, the car was still there, completely unstolen, and I had to drive it back across the southern bits of England with it making a SCREE-UNKUNKUNK noise on every roundabout.

So that's my ~~lame-O excuses~~ solid reasons for not blogging for three weeks covered.

Of course, the reality of the situation is that life with dependents means you have to be very dependable, and put the things you like behind the things you love.

Damn you, things I love! *shakes fist at things I love*

Anyway, enough with the moaning. It's not all bad. Occasionally I get to do things for myself. Just the other week I brushed my teeth and, sometimes, just now and then, I get that rarest of pearls, that most delicate wisp of ephemera, that tiny nugget of real meat in the Fray Bentos pie of time.

A moment to myself.

The wife is out. The kids are ~~unconscious~~ sleeping peacefully. The housework has been hidden. Suddenly, I can do something for me! I could read some poetry. I could do some of that professional development stuff I've heard we're supposed to do for work. I could research why everyone in Crime and Punishment seems to have three names. I could paint the front doorstep so it looks less like a sandcastle. Lots of productive, important, beneficial things, ripe for the taking, plucking and goosing. It's almost a luxury.

Right, what's on the telly?

Yeah, that's the spirit. Something that doesn't involve strangely ripped children's TV presenters gallivanting about, or cartoons, or brainwashing babies into recycling. Something I might actually choose to watch!

Go to guide, press the button, forget there's always about a seconds delay till it displays the info, by then having pressed the button three more times, and then frantically try and get back to the page you want as the telly catches up with your button presses, finally only doing so when you force yourself to leave the damn thing alone for ten seconds, breathe deeply, and then see what's on.

Once again, abject crap.

Well, it is Tuesday, and everybody should be out partying I suppose.

It's no wonder I watch books instead. I'd read even more if someone hadn't invented the internet or made me have children.

That sounds like I'm suggesting my wife invented the internet, which I'm pretty sure she didn't. I think it was discovered rather than invented, like gravity and the Dyson.

Hey, look, I'm missing Pobyl Y Cum, on Welsh telly. That's been going on for years, and the only reason is because it's called Pobyl Y Cum, which is funny in any language.

What else is there? Judge Judy Take Me Out? Ew. Oh wait, that's not one programme I have no wish to watch, but two. That's all right then. And Loose Women, which is . . . just . . . awful. I mean . . . just . . . awful.

Lot of repeats then, and I can't help but see that Quantum Leap is on, which I used to enjoy as a guilty geeky pleasure when I was a student. That dates me. Quantum Leap was a harmless, mildly entertaining, uncontroversial comedy drama where a scientist called Sam travels back in time to put the occasional bad thing right. Rather than kill Pol Pot, stop the Bhopal gas leak or suggest that the staff at Three Mile Island take the red flashing warning light seriously, he gets a bloke to tell some girl he loves her, or wins a race, or ejects out of a plane before it crashes, that sort of thing.

I don't remember this episode though, and judging by the description at the bottom, it's a saucy one, despite it being just six in the evening. Nudity, acts of violence and strong language? Does Sam leap into an orgy? Does the series try and revive flagging ratings by getting him to pop a cap in someones ass?

It was my type of description, and I clicked on it to discover whether Sam travels back in time to give Marilyn Monroe a damn good seeing to and thus prevent her early demise (which is what would've happened if I'd written it). Unfortunately, at that moment, my daughter decided to wake up and beckon me with the full-nappy alarm call, and my son with his "Why am I in bed when it's only six o'clock?" wail.

Sigh . . .

Bus of Ages

2011-06-20T12:23:00.003+01:00

I note a number of superb bloggers get their muse whilst taking a ride on the bus. Apparently, this is a rich seam of human anthracite in the bedrock of society, ripe for the mining, ready to be thrown on the fire of blogging to warm the hearths of . . . well, you get the drift.

On the bus are people to write about.

We are a one car family and, apparently, I'm not allowed to take the kids to school on the motorbike no matter how much duct tape I use. Because of this, I must resort to the bus when the wife goes off on her little hobby of being a state-registered nurse.

So, after a morning spent wrangling a 4 year-old boy off his trampoline and wrestling a 1 year-old girl into her tights, off we go to the bus stop, which is just round the corner.

"What do we do now, daddy?" my son asks.

"Now," I narrow my eyes, look to the horizon and put on my Ray Bans. "We wait."

And wait we do. Past the time the bus is due, which is pretty much normal. Past, in fact, the time my boy is supposed to start school, which is also not uncommon.

My daughter pulls my Aviators off my face and licks the lenses. If she breaks them that'll be another twenty quid on ebay wasted.

Eventually, just as I'm about to give the school a ring to say we'll be forty minutes late because I'm going to have to walk there at the pace of a small boy, the public transport device hoves into view round the corner. It is elderly, and erratically driven, and about as aerodynamic as a sofa. It meanders down the road like a brick being pushed by a dog, hissing to a stop in front of me, a cloud of oily smoke arriving at about the same time.

"New model?" I ask the driver, conversationally. He turns his head slowly to look at me, then his left eye, and then his right one. His brow furrows, and he glances desperately at the signs on the wall. From past experience I know he is looking for the "Do Not Distract The Driver With Pleasantries Or Queries About The Age Of The Vehicle" sign, but they have been taken off because people want friendly drivers, not automatons. Unfortunately, they got neither.

All he can see are signs that say "DayRider Ticket - £3.50" and "Work For Us; Good Wages And All The Used Chewing Gum You Can Scrape From Under The Seats", so he is forced to interact.

"Uh . . ." he says.

"Single to the school, please." I say, putting him out of my misery.

"Uh . . ." he looks at the children, his mind wrestling with the concept of three people on a single ticket. I enlighten him that they are free because the company's own policy allows under-fives to travel gratis.

"Uh . . . wanton." He mumbles.

"Oh . . .kay . .?" I wonder how to respond to this, before my brain translates it into 'one pound and ten pence'. I consider giving him a tenner to see if he might explode, but the bus is late enough already so I hand over the correct change. Wanton.

By now, my son has managed to sit at the back next to a window, so I join him. Next to us, a kid in a hoodie, looking like he's trying to be cool, quiet and mysterious, looks at me, grins widely and says "Hello!"

"Hello." I say back, settling in.

"I have to go on this bus to school now because I've got to go to a new school, because it's further away, do you go on this bus a lot, because if you do I might see you, because I'll be on it every day, so I hope it's not too busy, but it was the only school that will take me, even after my tablet, where are you going to, do you know why I have to go to a new school?" He takes a deep breath in.

ADHD I immediately think, and we begin a conversation about the emergency exits, and about how a very fat person wouldn't be able to get out, about how he doesn't like his new school, or being twelve, and a load of other subjects in between.

"Have you heard of ADHD?" he asks me at one point. "They give you tablets, and you get these lessons where . . ." he actually looks quite perplexed at that point, almost sad. "I have to go to a new school," He concludes.

"I have." I say. I decide to confront the subject head on. "Got any hobbies?" I ask.

"Er . . ." His eyes flash left and right, trying to recall. "No!" He announces proudly.

"Get some." I tell him. "And do you like writing?"

"Yeah." He says, enthusiastically, "English! That's not so bad! I'm good at spelling"

"Get a note book and a pen." I say. "Write a load of stuff down. Don't show it anyone unless you want to. See how much you can write in one day, starting with who you saw in the bus."

"Why?"

"Helps with the ADHD." I say, "Maybe.

"Does it?" He asks, and I can see the expressions on his face chase the thoughts in his head, like watching the ripples on a pond made by a fast moving pike beneath.

"Yeah." I think about my own notebooks from those days. "I think it does."

Our stop arrives and we say goodbye. I gather my son up, preventing him from trying to touch the blackheads on an elderly chap's enormous ears on the seat in front of him.

In front of my son, not the elderly chap, because ears like that would be worth writing about.

We get off and, amazingly, aren't the last to arrive at school. My boy, the epitome of young confidence and wonderful carelessness, legs it into his classroom without even a backward glance.

Those notebooks are long gone, as are my school days, but I recall I always had a backward glance.

A Pox On None Of Our Houses.

2011-06-08T16:11:00.005+01:00

Being a man who knows how to entertain children, I took them to see the birth place of immunisation last week:

Pass me my silver-ended bulls horn old chap.

As you can see, it was like a fairyland grotto for my kids. What four year-old boy doesn't dream of being taken to a museum dedicated to Edward Jenner? That's right kids, it's his genuine desk where he actually worked, or an accurate facsimile thereof yay!

Okay, so even I know the limits of the child psyche, although they did enjoy running around the rooms trying to eat original manuscripts and get some scalpels out of a locked cabinet. The real reason we went was because there was a hedgehog awareness day going on in the grounds, and I want to ensure my kids respect hedgehogs and are never seen smashing them against the wall trying to get the conker out.

Obviously, hedgehogs are the poster animal for immunisation, what with having a back full of needles, that and acupuncture, so it's not quite the topical non sequitur you might initially think, having a hedgehog open day in Jenner's garden.

It was pleasantly informative. They had various hedgehog accoutrement on display, including what they eat (anything smaller than them) and what eats them (anything that needs a toothpick), as well as other dangers inherent to being a wandering spiky insectivore, such as dogs, ponds and conker hunters, as well as a stunt hedgehog who only had three legs as a result of an entanglement with a strimmer.

Spank me! I dare you.

After a while we had exhausted the hogaciousness of the hedgehog gazebo and went for a wander through the grounds.

That day young, enthusiastic archeology students from Bristol University were rooting around in big square holes in the grounds. My one year-old daughter is fascinated by anything which feasibly involves a dangerous fall and went over at once to examine the dig. On that day they had various finds, such as a square shard of pottery, a triangular shard of pottery, a brown stone, a red stone, and a reddy-brown stone.

And two days after we'd been there, a skeleton.

Typical.

We moved from archeology to horticulture and went for a walk around Jenner's garden, which had lots of pretty things like borders, and grass, and flowers, and an orangery for growing grapes in. Technically a grapery, I believe.

Edward Jenner was one of those wealthy, scientific types with interests in natural history and medicine, but it was his research into vaccinations that earned him the epithet of Father of Immunology.

And Stabby McStabberson.

Vaccination involves introducing a denatured, weakened or dead version of a virus into your system so the body develops an immune response to it without actually having to go through all that palaver of being particularly ill.

But if you haven't got the technology to denature a virus (presumably some sort of small apple-corer) you need to look elsewhere. In the case of smallpox, Jenner found a naturally less potent but nonetheless related virus. Enter cowpox, essentially a wuss version of smallpox.

Folk lore had noted (and peer reviewed, by other folk) that people exposed to the relatively benign cowpox rarely went on to develop the much more dangerous, often fatal smallpox. Jenner inoculated a boy with cowpox, left it a few weeks, and then valiantly tried to give him smallpox but couldn't, thus providing and benefiting all humankind with the glory of vaccination.

Good job for the kid that it worked.

Word got around and vaccination became the thing to have done, and it shows a forward thinking mindset to be rather taken with the idea of vaccination and immunisation, because they came from miles around to be infected and protected. Farmers and field hands. maids and Morris men (presumably), all queued up to let Jenner inoculate them with cowpox in order to provide immunity from smallpox.

Of course, a gent such as Edward Jenner wouldn't want (potentially diseased) oiks dragging their muddy hooves through his gracious home, so he sensibly set up an external surgery where it could be done in the comfort of his own garden. Known as Jenner's Shed, it was where the actual vaccinations would take place. Jenner even named it The Temple of Vaccinia, showing he had the naming skills of a fourteen year-old writing a fantasy novel.

Anyway, it is rather pretty and any self respecting bloke would be proud to have it as a man-space. Here it is:

Roll up! Roll up! Roll up your sleeve!

The small urchin on the floor there is my daughter, The Bonobo, who has directly benefited from Jenner's work because she has herself been fully immunised from a host of once dangerous diseases. This is lucky as she's eating pebbles.

In the late 1970s, an extensive survey of the world found no signs of smallpox in the human population with no natural reservoirs and so, in 1980, it was finally declared extinct in the wild.

Of course, like any decent horror story, it's not completely gone. There are still tiny pockets, small living colonies kept alive in laboratories under high security in case it or anything similar ever made an appearance in the future. Much discussion has gone in to whether we should destroy these stocks once and for all, with governments arguing that it would be foolish to burn our bridges, should we ever need to study it again, and critics suggesting that its genome has been fully sequenced so it could be recreated from closely related viruses should the need arise, which is a scary thought all on its own.

If we do go ahead and eliminate smallpox utterly, it would be the first deliberate extinction of another species by humankind in all our history, which opens up all sorts of ethical discussions.

Whatever the outcome, I'm hope that, with a thirty per cent fatality incidence from smallpox infection, there is at least ominous music playing in those storage labs just to remind the technicians exactly what they're responsible for, and to be extra, extra careful when storing their butties in the fridge next to the smallpox tin.

Bucket o' pies

2011-06-02T08:00:00.000+01:00

Putting things in a bucket is a sound sales technique, obviously. Fried chicken, mussels, bolts, dinosaurs, worms, raw black pudding and, at last, pies!

This could easily develop into a rant on packaging, or wasting resources, or convenience foods, or obesity, or . . . are those pasties two for 99p there

The real reason I'm posting this is because I was testing Flickr out yesterday and sent it to my blog, whereupon it doesn't just save it as a draft but publishes it in all it's unprepared glory. I haven't yet worked out how to stop it doing that what with having the computer savvy of a dugong so I just ended up removing it.

Then I get comments hassling me about the bucket o' pies post that was only up for a few minutes and telling me to get on with it.

I'm looking at you Pearl.

Also, although I'm currently up to my earballs with domestic and employemental drudgery at the moment, I couldn't let the beginning of June arrive without at least the semblance of a post, so what better way to celebrate Summer than showing a picture of a bucket? With pies in it.

Right, I'm off to see if I can find a bucket full of diversions for the kids.

Simply the Pest! Petter than all the rest.

2011-05-26T12:30:00.009+01:00

I recently wrote a post from my time as a pest controller where I discussed a lady's fear of cockroaches. Phobias are always good to hear about as they are both cruel and funny, like giving Kendal Mint Cake to an elderly aunt with badly fitting dentures.

It reminded me of a time when I was contracted to clear a particularly impressive rat infestation from a farm in deepest, darkest Berkshire, where racehorses roam freely from sauna to hydrotherapy pool, where tiny, rich ex-jockeys from Ireland stare up at you and hope you haven't noticed their pointy, pointy ears, and where people who pop the collars on their polo shirts in the unfathomable belief that it's cool drive "Discos" or "Scoobies" which are always, without fail, green.

Occasionally, in amongst the unnaturally flat fields of the racehorse training grounds, you might come across a real, proper farm where they grow crops and worthwhile, useful animals like cows and pigs.

Don't get me wrong, for these farms are very different from the olden days where, heaven forbid, a real, actual farmer would own and live on the premises. Here, the farms have been bought out by large companies that have converted the buildings into desirable barn conversions that local people can't afford and, for the crops, send in a locum farmer a couple of times a week to make sure things are still alive. For this reason, any old farm buildings can become quite neglected and a haven for pesty critters.

Here was a good example of a wide-spread infestation left to run riot for many years, and centred on a dilapidated old barn once used as an animal feed store.

I considered contacting Bonzo for some mercenary assistance, but he specialised in battles, and this was a war. Also, he didn't like coming down past Nottingham because he thought the cops would be on his tail. Literally.

The substitute farmer met me on site as I arrived to set up the pest control measures (which consisted of, in technical parlance, a shit-load of poison). Once again, I was treated to someone eager to tell me about their phobia. I'm not sure why. I must look like I'm not going to take advantage. Here, the farmer said he didn't like rats. Properly didn't like them. Brought him out in cold sweats.

"What about you?" he asked.

"Me." I scoffed, "Nah. I've got no phobias."

"Really?" he asked, genuinely interested. "None at all?"

I thought for a moment and shook my head. "Nope," I boasted, "No phobias. No fears. No panic attacks. No anxieties. I have a psychology of steel. I wouldn't even flinch." I wish I chewed matches so I could have taken it out of the corner of my mouth, before saying "You can't. Not in this line of work."

Being twenty-five and enthusiastic, as well as being less likely to chew matches because I might get a splinter and, you know, mouth ulcers are ever so, ever so sore, I proceeded to give him a demonstration about why it wasn't good to be too scared of rats, because they were everywhere in a place like this. I thumped the corrugated iron cladding on the side of the barn wall in which we were standing, and was rewarded with a huge amount of scuttling and running as the hordes of rats behind scrambled for deeper hiding places.

Unfortunately, one of them decided that a better escape route would be from a hole in the cladding above my head, where it leaped to freedom, landing on the nearest available tall thing in the vicinity.

Me.

Or in particular, the bit where my head joins my torso. I believe it's called the neck.

I may have shrieked.

In fact, I may have made a noise that I wasn't even aware I was capable of making since before puberty, so high-pitched with surprise that all dogs within a two mile radius sat up and wondered who was whistling.

"Golly!" I said, (or something similar) "Look at that one!" I pointed as it ran down the entire length of my body, jumped to the floor from knee height and rushed back to it's peers behind the wall. I turned for moral support to the farmer, only to find an empty space echoing only to the sound of running foot falls outside.

He wasn't taking any chances, he later told me when we met up later for a cup of thermos-cool tea and a sandwich, as he didn't want anything like that happening to him, demonstrating a strange take on working-class solidarity.

Although I may not have developed a fear of falling rats, I did from then on show a healthy respect for overhead infestations, as well the leaping ability of our furry friends and the overatedness of thermos flasks.

Coroner kick

2011-05-20T20:02:00.000+01:00

Warning! Ambulance related post! And possibly a bit of a rant too. Avert your eyes if you must.

Recently, I was called to a man threatening to jump off a motorway bridge, hanging precariously from the outer edge, one foot dangling and white hands grasping the rail with a shaking grip. The police asked me to talk to him as he was only willing to talk to a (neutral?) paramedic, and the police negotiators couldn't get on scene for another 45 minutes.

I called upon all my negotiating training (i.e. none) and proceeded to have a chat.

At one point, quite early on, he really looked like he was going to do it. I mean a proper 'This Is It' look of resigned defeat in his eyes. I decided that this wasn't due solely to my conversational style (although it wouldn't be the first time) and I adjusted my stance accordingly.

Once, not even that long ago, I might have stepped in at that moment and gone for a securing bear hug. There is an inherent risk in doing this as they can take you with them, and no-one will ever think less of you for not doing it. In the old days, it was a risk that I might have deemed worth taking.

Now, I'm not so sure.

My baby daughter is sitting on my lap as I type this with one hand, giggling and eloquently reminding me exactly where my priorities lie.

Instead, in this case, I braced my foot against the base of the railings, examined his jacket, identified a suitable hand-hold and resolved to grab it and it alone, should he do a very mediocre Superman impression. I reasoned that, should the worst case scenario occur, I would have a reasonable (but admittedly reduced) chance at preventing a plunge, but wouldn't succumb to being dragged over the rail and onto the carriageway below.

And to anyone who might say that this isn't enough? Well, tough titty. I'd rather have to explain to a coroner why I didn't put more effort into saving someone than have someone else tell my wife that she needs to find another ~~sucker~~ partner to help pay the bills and look after the kids.

Of course, this might sound like a straw man argument, because who in their right mind would suggest a rescuer put themselves at undue risk when on duty?

Well, the coroner involved in examining the recent Derrick Bird massacre, for a start.

I wouldn't usually post a link to the Daily Fail, what with it being a right-wing homophobic, racist rag with the moral compass of a blood-hungry mosquito, but the headline is a grabber.

There is an old saying that a good rescuer is a selfish rescuer, in that they shouldn't do anything that turns them into just another casualty. Complete emotional detachment is neither possible nor desirable, but neither is getting so involved that you become of no use to the patient, and possibly just a drain on already stretched resources.

I wonder what the coroner's judgement would have been had a member of the emergency services gone in and been shot as well, especially if it subsequently turned out the original victim had been beyond help anyway.

Who would thank me for getting myself killed or injured trying to save someone else? The victim? The victim's family? My family? My employer?

We take risks all the time in this job. In the unfamiliar, dark house with the only information being "He's been cut!"; in the nightclub toilets where someone has been beaten unconscious; at the industrial accident where unfamiliar machinery is still running, or to the extremely well-known patient with a tenuous grasp of whether or not he's allowed to hit ambulance crews.

Often, with single occupant response cars being de rigeur at the moment until the media discover what a cop-out it is, we do these things alone, at night, with our hands full, and with only the briefest of information about what's been going on passed to us via the radio.

We make a decision, depending on whether or not we think the danger outweighs the response, on our familiarity with the location, on how we're currently feeling, and we hope out decision is the right one, both for ourselves and for the patient.

From a personal point of view, a victim apparently dead from a shotgun blast with the killer still possibly on scene is not something I would attend without armed police securing the area first.

If this is construed as cowardly, or health and safety gone mad, then you can colour me yellow and stick a Slippery When Wet sign on me, but at least I'll have a higher chance of going home at the end of the shift.

It's not something I feel the need to apologise for.

And the man on the bridge?

Well persuasion, and a graphic description of what injuries I would have to treat should he quite feasibly survive the drop, led to a happy (for us) conclusion, in that he decided to let me help him off the ledge and into a warm car, for a chat with the negotiators.

I think we both made the right decision.

Rant over.

Thanks for listening.

A standard conversation with a 4 year-old

2011-05-15T14:37:00.003+01:00

"What's that door for Daddy?"

"Where?"

"There?"

"Hang on a bit."

"THERE!"

"It's just a door I presume, hang on, your sister's just . . ."

"WHAT'S IT FOR DADDY!"

"Hang on a mo . . ."

"DADDY! AAAGH! THE DOOR! AAAGH! WHAT'SITFORDADDY AAAAGH!"

"Oh for god's sake it's just a door, prob . . . oh."

"What's it for?"

"Well . . . er . . ."

"DADDY!"

"Bats!"

"Bats?"

"Er, yeah. Bats. Big ones."

"Are bats very tall Daddy?"

"What?"

"For the door to be so high up?"

"Well no. They can fly. You know that."

"Oh yes. Daddy?"

"Yes son?"

"I think that door is for people."

"Possibly. Good theory. Let's go with that."

"But why is it there?"

"Maybe it was an upstairs once, but they removed the floor so now it's a door that doesn't go anywhere, and rather than go to all that trouble of removing the door and filling in the doorway, they they just closed it and are hoping no-one goes through to see where it leads. Maybe."

"Daddy?"

"Yes son?"

"Why is it a door?"

"Er . . . because it is."

"Why?"

"Because it is."

"Why?"

"Because it is."

"Why?"

"Because it is."

"Why?"

"Because it is."

"Why?

"Because . . .

Fishing for compliments

2011-04-16T11:27:00.001+01:00

*Worried eyes, glancing feverishly left and right, and then back again. And then back again again*

*Heavy, panicked breathing*

*Rustly, unidentifiable noises*

*Sound of heavy door shutting, then being locked. Then bolted. Then padlocked. Then welded shut. Then plastered over and painted to match the surroundings. Then sticking ivy over it so it looks like it's been like that for years*

And . . . we're safe!

Sorry about that. But I could be in trouble.

It's been some weeks since I posted on The Gravel Farm, and according to scripture, this is in direct breach of a contract that is so binding, so utterly unbreakable, that one does not even have to have signed it for it to be applicable to you. Or even know of it's existence. That's how solid a contract it is.

You start a blog, and you're in!

One of my unidentifiable sources (a ragamuffin from the notorious street gang, The Bran Eating Regulars) reported that an agent from The Department of Blogging was seen sniffing around The Gravel Farm. Now obviously, I was dubious, because such agents don't identify themselves, and one must rely on spotting the subtle signs that such a powerful individual can't help but possess.

In this case, the indications that he might be someone to be wary of were the the cape, purple top hat and extra head. Not many people wear a purple top hat.

And so I have prudently taken my source's advice and hidden away for a minute in the shed with a laptop.

It goes without saying that I don't wish to get in trouble with the DoB, because they could revoke my All Areas Pass, which allows me to enter any premises in the world in the name of blogging. They might also get brutal and remove my blogging finger, the one with the big callous.

So, I will post something.

Something momentous. Something to ponder, and to cause outcry, to challenge, to make the most hardened reader consider the ramifications of what they have just perused.

I saw this fish for sale the the other day:

I mean, what the hell is it?

A lumpfish? A dulltail? A depression loach?

It was in amongst the exotic denizens of our local aquaria emporia, where jewel-like flashes compete for your attention with multi-coloured swarms of piscine loveliness. There it sat, and I didn't even know fish could sit, but it did, like a an old sausage roll with eyes, gently swaying in the wake of other, more lively fish.

It took me moment to realise it wasn't actually dead.

I bet if it saw it's reflection, it'd just go and drown itself.

Er . . .

Anyway, it was also on offer, which can't add to any self-esteem it already doesn't have, but there still weren't many takers. It would hardly brighten up an aquarium, would it, and unless it has some really useful trait like producing caviar or helping do cryptic crosswords, then I fail to see the attraction.

Still, I am no expert in fish and/or the collection thereof, so perhaps I'm missing something. I mean, if looks were anything to go on, we'd stay away from cod, and steer completely clear of monkfish, two of the most delicious fishies to ever grace a griddle.

Or maybe it's one of those subjective, eye of the beholder situations, and I'm just not subjective enough.

I suppose it could be a cunning marketing ruse whereby a large section of society has been woefully persuaded that something intrinsically worthless is actually special and deserving of both comment and attention. It's like the Paris Hilton of fish. Only fatter.

Judge Dredge

2011-03-29T08:38:00.002+01:00

The canal near to our house, long disused*, has been the subject of much debate in recent years, with applications for grants and subsidies being made in order to get it up and running again.

Finally, after a lot of campaigning, organising, lobbying and discussion, money was finally scraped together and made available from various sources to begin work on making it a usable resource once again.

And it was all worth it to see an excavator on a barge!

Look:

An excavator on a barge!

Awesome with a capital AWE.

Obviously, if you have a child, particularly one of the type with a penis, they will nearly wet themselves with enthusiasm at the possibility of merely being near an excavator.

Combine that with a canal barge and the almost mystical qualities of black, smelly mud dredged from the bottom of a half-choked canal and, well, you get a state of pleased excitement matched only by a man on a day-time talk show discovering he's NOT the father of little Chantelle-Mia or Diamante-Sequoia.

My son was obviously not immune to the magic of an excavator on a barge, and day after day I would hear entreaties to go and see it, all pleading eyes and hopeful expression like a puppy at a barbecue.

Of course I agreed because, well, it's an excavator on a barge and a shitload of mud. Who wouldn't want to see that? So I would pretend to grudgingly acquiesce, whilst secretly hoping they might let me have a go.

Which they didn't. Miserable buggers.

In reality, the operators both of the excavator (on the barge) and the little sludge pushing boat that was dumping the goo on a field nearby wore the constant attention very well, returning friendly waves and thumbs up signs to the kids, although they must have felt like exhibits for the week or two they were in the area

I suppose you're bound to be naturally ebullient if you're the driver of an excavator on a barge. I would definitely be happy if I got to operate an excavator, and particularly so if said excavator was, as has been mentioned, on a barge.

In conclusion, let us look, from a different angle, at an excavator:

On a barge.

*Long disused by humans, at any rate. Coots, moorhens, swans and ducks use it regularly.

May the pest man win

2011-03-20T20:09:00.001Z

In a previous life, before I went over to the dark side and became a paramedic, I was a decent, hard-working pest controller.

No, really.

Before now, it hasn't occurred to me to document any reminiscences about this period in my life, even though I did it for the best part of a decade, starting off with a van and a wage of nine and a half grand a year, and ending up as a trouble shooting technical manager for a national company.

This seems remiss of me, because in the top ten list of occupations recognised as being able to generate anecdotes, surely being a professional killer is up there with priest and window cleaner. And hippo polisher.

I dealt with a wide assortment of pesty species, from the small and crunchy to the big and furry, from the spiky crawly ones to the feathery squawking types. Whilst prevention was the main aim of our industry, we also used poisons, traps, guns and, occasionally, biological control in the form of a Jack Russel called Bonzo.

Bonzo had a pathological hatred of anything ratty, the killing ability of a great white shark with no boundaries, and the problem solving abilities of a cryptography team. Luckily, he also had the IQ of . . . well, a dog, which was possibly the only thing preventing him taking over the world in a fit of pique.

After a particularly recalcitrant infestation of rats in a posh Manchester hotel, where the managers had consistently failed to realise that dumping your food waste in a side alley was akin to sending out flyers to every rodent in a two-mile radius with "COME AND GET IT!" written in peanut butter flavoured ink, I contacted Bonzo's ~~owner~~ interpreter to ask if he was available.

He passed the message on to Bonzo, who turned up that evening in a blacked out A-Team style van. Possibly. My memory of this is a little hazy. I'm not sure but he may have been wearing shades as well. And a bandanna.

I explained our problem via his interpreter, that we needed a quick reduction in the numbers of beasties infesting this area, so we could then implement a more permanent solution.

Bonzo sighed, nodded (I seem to recall), took off his shades and got out of the van. He cricked his neck a couple of times, took a deep breath and then . . .

What followed was like a dance. A macabre dance. A macabre dance of Death. A macabre dance of Death to the tune of the grim reaper, played on the bagpipes of doom, with a beat made from the wails of the departed and the surprised terminal gasps of Bonzo's victims. It was terrible and it was beautiful, and it was waggly.

Anyway, it was effective, and such a shock that the managers agreed to a new hygiene and waste disposal regime lest we revisit the wrath of Bonzo once more upon them.

Some of the most vivid memories I have are not of the infestations, or the premises, or the methods, but of the people I met.

I was contracted to clear a block of council flats of their German cockroach infestation in North London, a difficult task at the best of times. We had got most of the offending areas clear, much to the joy of the residents and the council, although one tricky area was proving resilient to our poisonous magic. I was convinced that a single flat to which we had not been allowed access to by the resident was a potential source of re-infestation, and contacted the council to ask for admittance. They agreed to see what they could arrange.

I turned up the following week and was met by a tall, very well dressed, perfectly coiffured and bejewelled West Indian lady called Joyce, who explained that she was a social worker. She told me that the flat I was interested in was owned by a "vulnerable and rather difficult chap" in his fifties, who might respond to the gentle persuasions of a trained social worker rather than the brutal shoutings of a pest controller.

Fair point, I thought.

She had arranged to meet him at the bottom of the block, from where we would all go up to his flat.

Whilst we waited, we had a chat, and Joyce told me she couldn't do my job, dealing with all those creepy-crawlies and what not. In fact, she had a pathological fear of bugs, and cockroaches in particular, which had even meant she had not been to see close relatives in Jamaica for fear of the roaches there, which she had been reliably informed were as big as kittens.

I began to wonder at the wisdom of her visiting this apartment.

A smell turned up, followed a few minutes later by it's owner, who was the man we were waiting for. He was dishevelled, unkempt, odorous and very, very pissed. Joyce went to shake his hand, thought better of it and turned it into a gesture indicating the direction of the lift, into which we all got.

After a moment, your nose cuts out bad smells, even the acrid stench of a chap who had put on a tracksuit top in 1983, and found it so much to his liking that he hadn't taken it off since. Still, our eyes watered and I noted that the immaculate Joyce had pressed herself almost up to the back wall in abhorrence at the state of the chap in front of us, facing the doors.

I smiled a little unkindly at her discomfort, wondering what his flat was going to be like, before I noticed something moving at the nape of his neck.

It was a young German cockroach.

My mouth gaped and I straightened up, a stupid grin of quite delighted disbelief on my face. Another one scuttled out of the his hair and ran down into the shiny haven of his tracksuit.

He had a cockroach infestation. Actually on him!

In the excitement of such a discovery and wishing to share it with the world, I forgot about Joyce's prior declaration of hatred for such things and turned to catch her eye, before pointing at the oblivious chap's hitch hiker and making a comically surprised face to her.

The result was . . . interesting.

She turned a fascinating grey colour, and appeared to be trying to see if it was possible to pass through the solid wall of the lift by pressing herself backwards into it. Her expression was one you might see on a person who, having eaten a delicious salad, suddenly discovers a boiled cat's head at the bottom of the carton. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and a strange noise not unlike someone repeatedly pressing an asthma inhaler over and over again emanated from her mouth.

I started to worry that, should her eyes get any wider, they might actually fall out.

I reconsidered the wisdom of bringing this to her attention, and mouthed an apology at her, which she didn't see as she was now staring resolutely at the light panels in the ceiling and stubbornly refusing to breathe.

Happily, before she expired from hypoxia, the lift stopped and the walking ecosystem that accompanied us staggered out, fumbling for his keys.

I followed, then turned back to Joyce.

"Did you want to hang around out here?" I asked, "Because of the chemicals maybe?" I held up the completely non-toxic to humans cockroach killing baits I was going to use.

She nodded gratefully, and finally took a breath.

I left and, taking a deep breath myself, entered the flat, which was exactly as you would imagine it to be.

There's nothing does variety like the human race.

Like Mother Earth, the Goddess Gaia supports an intricate network of life.

CD underside

2011-03-11T20:07:00.000Z

Whilst meandering through the aspirational section of Gloucester's ToysWeSell (note the inverted 'W'), I was struck by the number of dressing up opportunities for the modern child. Apart from aliens and, to me, scary monsters (Frankenstein's zombie is even more terrifying when only 3 feet tall), it was the vocational outfits that seemed more interesting to my boy.

He pawed through various guises of doctor, police officer, nurse, builder, plumber,sailor, firefighter and farmer, all designed to give him a taste of what could be in his future.

Even the pirate costume made for an interesting career possibility, although it was a traditional swashbuckler with jaunty cap and neckerchief, rather than a more realistic Somalian with an RPG.

"Look," I said, holding up a Spiderperson ensemble and some sort of man/bat hybrid.

"Oh yes." replied my son, half-heartedly humouring me, before returning to study the intricacies of a chef's outfit.

I suppose this is because, at their tender age, a job is as far out a possibility as being a werewolf or a witch, so the costumes based on reality are just as exotic as those based on make-believe.

(Eventually, after profound and deep thoughts on the possibilities of shaping ones future through association, my son demonstrated his considerable grip on reality by deciding to be 'a ladybird'.)

There were even workplaces you could buy, such as plastic kitchens for the future chef, workshops for the potential engineer, laboratories for the wannabe scientist, engines for tomorrows mechanic and . . .

Oh dear.

"What did you learn today, son?"

"Burger flipping and a lazy way to spell 'through'. "

There is a tiny chance that this comes across as a bit snobby, and I would like to point out that, having been a burger flipper myself (and actually rather enjoyed the piss-poor life experience that it was), I feel I'm well within my rights to get all hoity-toity about this.

So there.

To be honest, a lot of the extravagant gifts you can get for your child seem a bit pointless to me, especially the ones that are basically toy buildings. Seeing as how all-consuming and complete their imaginations are at that age, you might as well throw a tarp over an old tent frame and that'll suffice as just about any structure their current universe requires.

Every time I come out of one of those toy emporiums having not bought something, I have the very odd feeling that my child has benefited somehow.

Not sure what their sales force would make of that oddly warped mindset.

We did consider buying some colourful plastic tat for my daughter, who is now a whole year old and has discovered the joys of lobbing things around.

Happily for her, we realised we didn't need to buy anything new for her to throw, because our naively positioned CD collection makes for excellent ammunition:

In my defence, the Terence Trent Derby CD is the missusses.

*Wanders off, humming "sign your name across mah heart . . ."*

Sign Language

2011-02-25T08:53:00.000Z

At work we have a number of people who are responsible professionals, with an ethical and moral duty to help folk if they can, using their paramedic skills whether on or off an ambulance.

Most of the time, this involves going to where the people are hurt or unwell, and ministering to their needs there. Occasionally, they come to us, asking for help.

Obviously, the powers that be have noticed this, and have reacted by erecting a sign to welcome them:

Possibly the rudest sign since the burning bush spelt out Moses Is A Cock in sparks.*

It's not the idea I have a problem with. This is an ambulance station and there are drugs and patient records on site, albeit locked away, so a modicum of security is sensible but, really, the computers are ancient, the telly is tiny, the chairs are threadbare, the vehicles are locked, the blinds are broken and the charity box is empty.

The only thing of real value I can think of anywhere on the premises are my sandwiches, and should anyone ~~amble~~ force their way in and try to steal them, then I would fight to them to the death. Theirs, hopefully.

Morphine? Yeah, help yourself, I'll get you a cannula.

My butties? Oh, you don't know who you're messing with.

This sign seems a bit unnecessary and probably won't put off real evil-doers intent on nefarious deeds, as we are rather limited on security guards, towers, patrol dogs, CCTV and automatic intruder-tracking weaponry (other than an elderly stray cat called Feeble, which might give an interloper some sort of skin disease, should it lean on them).

For genuine visitors, a simple piece of text asking anyone to present their ID before gaining access would surely suffice.

But this sign is so . . . angry.

Is a thief going to go to all the trouble of ironing his mask and writing SWAG on his sack, sneak up to the door, put his hand out to open it and then suddenly notice the sign, causing him to have a change of heart because, ooh, that is a nasty picture, and there's a lot of red on it so, you know, they really mean it. I'd best be off.

No. All it does is be rude to anyone and everyone, no matter what they're here for.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO access! Feck off! Shoo! Hey! You there? Yeah, you with the haemorrhage? Are you authorised? No? Well gertcha then! Go on! There's nothing for you here."

The little jaunty blue NHS sign in the top right corner can't deflect attention from the rest of the design. A big, scary voodoo hand (possibly wearing a glove favoured by the more particular of murderers) reaches forward, looking as if it wants to rip your heart straight out of your ribcage, before showing it's quivering ventricles to you as punishment for coming too close to the front door when you're not bloody well authorised!.

But that's not the really annoying thing about the sign.

That would be the face.

Look at it. It's not even a proper face. Is that a hat? Or some sort of hair? Or really angry eyebrows maybe? And what's with the big circle in the middle. Is it shouting? Screaming?

I have seen a similar expression before, only not quite so tormented:

This would be a more effective sign, I think.

Actually, I may have hit on something here. Maybe all public warning signs should include a piece of classic art, so people are warned, entertained and educated, all at the same time.

I could see a Constable water scene to warn drivers of a ford ahead, or Dali's Persistence of Memory to show something might be hot. Perhaps Da Vinci's Last Supper could remind people coming out of a restaurant that this is a residential area so could they keep it down a bit, or Michelangelo's Creation of Adam on Do Not Touch signs. A William Turner jobby could be used to alert drivers to fog, or a John Waterhouse warning against serenading wispy girls near ponds.

All essential information, but delivered without threat or irritation.

I wonder what you could use MC Escher paintings for?

*Strangely omitted from the Book of Exodus.

Pun-upmanship

2011-02-16T19:00:00.002Z

A huge lorry with a load of logs on it drives past me and my mate Dave.

"Wood you look at that." remarks Dave, lazily.

"Must be tree or four tonnes there." I reply, with equal lack of effort.

"It stems from greed, really." He says, smiling.

"I wonder if it's hard to bark up?" I say, not really trying.

"He came out of that trunk road." Dave looks sideways at me. My eyes narrow. A gauntlet has been thrown down, like some sort of glove.

"Did you want to log a complaint?" I nod, pleased with myself.

"Nah. It goes against the grain. And it wouldn't get to the root of the problem." Dave is like a verbal rapier.

My eyes dart back and forth, lips moving very slightly as I try and formulate a reply, my brain whizzing like a whirligig beetle on the fragile meniscus of a pond full of pun-fish. Leaves? Too obvious. Photosynthesis? Too hard. Phloem? Too nerdy. Xylem? Just as nerdy. I open my mouth and hope something good comes out.

"I can tell you were making a pun by the timber of your voice." Aha! Result! That's unbeatable that one! Whatcha got, Dave? Whatcha got?

"I was." he replies. "But seriously, imagine having that thing lumbering towards you." he shakes his head.

Dave wins.

Accent marking

2011-02-11T07:15:00.003Z

I rolled in to work the other morning and took over the paramedic car from my mate Roy.

"Top o' the marnin' to ya!" he greeted me, and did a little Irish jig.

This was strange because of two things. The first being it was six in the AM, and no-one should be doing a jig at that time of the morning. I'm sure there's a bylaw that forbids it.

The second is that Roy is from Birmingham, and his Irish heritage is about as closely linked to him as his Kenyan ancestry. Judging by his pallor (and I do like to judge), that is quite a way in the past.

So obviously I replied in the same vein with an appropriately mangled "Top o' the marnin' to y'good self as well there, so it is!", proceeding to see-saw my elbows in and out which I understand to be the way all people speak in Ireland.

I couldn't help myself. It just had to be done. Upon hearing the Irish lilt, my vocal chords suddenly became flawlessly Hibernian, as though I harked from the sprawling suburbs of Galway itself.

This, I thought, was odd. Why couldn't I simply nod and accept that he'd accented at me, maybe smile appreciatively if it was a particulalry good one, and then carry on talking in my (arguably) normal accent.

The following few days, as we crossed our finish and start times, I decided to try an experiment to see if the phenomeon was reciprocal.

That evening, as I finished the day shift, the moon was already high and bright, and Roy began his second night shift, I promptly hollered "Why aye mon, it'll be a braw bricht moonlit nicht tonicht!"

Without a moments hesitation, he answered "Aye, you're nay wrang. Icy an' all. Ah nearly hit a coo comin' here the noo!"

So, it wasn't just me then?

Roy caught on quick and, the following morning, I was met with "Guten Tag, Englisher! Achtung, schnell, gott in himmell!"

"Guten morgan Herr Royzenburger." I replied, unable to help myself, "You haff ze car keys?"

"Nein!" he shouted back at me. "Ve haff vays of making you valk!"

How we laughed.

That evening, I greeted him with an accent from the Deep South of The United Americas (Northern Branch), politely enquiring if there was good eatin' on squirrels, and he responded with a Californian drawl, assuring me that, in fact, gingham foot-longs with crawdads were better.

This was still a success because in England we feel there are only three US accents. These are Hillbilly, Surfer Dude, and Mexican.*

So, it appears that, should someone greet you in an accent other than your own, there is some sort of psychological imperative to respond in kind.

Try it if you don't believe me.

I guarantee it'll either be true or false. Or possibly somewhere in between. That's how confident I am in my hypothesis.

Maybe it harks back to tribal days when one might meet a well-armed stranger and, to reduce the risk of being speared by a xenohophobic Cro-magnon type, emulating his speech patterns would lull him into feeling secure in your presence, so you could then stab him in the back and steal his fabulous sabre-tooth head-dress which is all the rage down the cave system this season.

Or maybe, and this is my current favourite psychological theory, it's just silliness.

Of course, night shifts take their toll on anyone, and the first thing that tends to go is a sense of jollity. On our last swap over, continuing the theme I think we had both come to expect and enjoy, I hailed a not-so-sprightly looking Roy with a hearty " 'Ow do, is thee all reet?", and was rewarded with an appropriate faux-Yorkshire lilt straight back.

"Fook off, I'm reet not int' moooood."

Still, it's not the content that counts, but the delivery. My theory stands.

Thinking back, I may have come across a potential downside, as when the new Stores chap came to our ambulance station in a large white NHS van to deliver a single vomit bowl.

He came over to the corner of the garage where I was busy test-licking defibrillator paddles to say hello.

" Allo, mon amis," he said, outrageously "Ah em ze new supplah personne, 'ere to provide for your armbularns needs!"

Obviously, I retorted in a lengthy, french-accented soliloquy taking, for humourous effect, aspects of Monty Python's Ker-nigg-hut insulting frecnhmen, the policeman out of 'Allo 'Allo and an onion-necklaced, beret-wearing, Gauloises-smoking baguette-eating stereotype, thus crafting them into a beautiful, synergistic combination of humour and good-natured racism.

Eventually, exhausted and bouyed by the banter between myself and my new, nameless friend, I stopped, got my breath back and introduced myself. "I'm the Jules." I said, and proffered a hand, expecting us to retun to our normal, everyday Anglosaxon now we'd got the fun over and done with.

"Herve." he replied in a monotone, but strangely keeping on with the foreign accent.

In fact, come to think of it, he's still using it, which in my opinion has gone way past funny and is starting to get a bit tiresome now.

*In comparison, Americans think that Brits have two accents; Upper Class Toff and Cockney.

Fraternal Optimist

2011-01-31T08:55:00.001Z

Irritatingly, a friend of mine has written a book.

This is mostly irritating because, like a lot of egocentric bloggetteers, I would like to write one myself.

I could say that the only reason I haven't written one is patently because I haven't possibly got the time, so if you do write one then you're obviously very lucky to have such a surfeit of the stuff to scribe it in. Hard work, talent and some sort of organisational ability don't come into it at all, deary me no.

So we can conclude that my friend, whom we shall call Mark because that's on his birth certificate, must have had nothing better to do. Possibly sits around in his pants all day, playing fightin' on a games console and eating cake.

Unfortunately not. He's got a full time consultancy job, and he's a part time stand-up comedian as well as being a musician and songwriter.

Git.

So, I got hold of a copy of his book, which is essentially about what might happen to human society in the near future, should advancements in technology continue apace, and proceeded to read it.

I was all ready to have a quick snigger at what I presumed would most likely be a hastily cut-and-pasted effort, maybe filled with photocopied pages out of the phone book to pad it out, some drawings his nephew did of a robot , and an interview with some old dear at a bus stop on whether she knew if the 'i' in iPad didn't stand for incontinence.

And, even more irritatingly, it's really good.

This is it:

It's so good I even wrote a review of it on Amazon, which is a successful online shop that sells books and trinkets for about the same price as a real shop.

Of course, the main thing about Mark's book is that it is a thought provoker. I mean a proper, deep, profound provoker of thoughts on society, your place in it, and what might happen to you and/or your offspring in the not-too-distant future.

Stuff like whether or not it will be possible to put off death for a half decent amount of time? Will we be able to make any material thing we want in the comfort of our own homes? Will we be able to generate energy independently of any infrastructure and it's associated hassles? Will machines have human rights? Will anyone discover what's actually in a Pepperami?

The big ones.

He also got to travel the world, interview a plethora of leading experts in their fields, drink some booze and do some diving in the Maldives with the President.

I, in comparison, went to Sainsbury's a lot. Also the library.

Mark obviously enjoyed talking to a large number of geniuses (Genii? Geniusies? Genies?), and revelled in picking their bulbous brains about what they thought would happen to the rest of us as a result of advancements in their chosen fields. Their answers are quite fascinating.

I wonder what the collective term for a group of genii is?

Maybe a cortex? Or an academy? Maybe a perspicacity? Ooh, a flange.

I hope it's a flange of genii.

Anyway I thought I would, in the hope of getting a free pint, drop a shameless plug for his book here. If you're thinking of purchasing something which discusses nanotechnology, robotics, genetics and environmental concerns in a well-written, understandable and light-hearted manner, as well as having an educated guess at what comes next, then this could be just what you're looking for.

Mark also informed me that if I bought it from the official website, he would get an extra 30p as the author.

I got mine from Amazon.

Build 'em high,

2011-01-29T13:48:00.007Z

I was passing a building site the other day and it reminded me of my long past childhood, when we had a different name for them;

Playgrounds.

Even today, that ferrous tang of dust at the back of the throat you get as you pass a construction site flips me back thirty years to the excitement of sneaking in after school, exploring a maze of corridors lined with naked breeze blocks, each gaping doorway a porthole into another dimension of possibilities.

Of course, War (with a capital wuh) was the game of choice, if one had a willing cadre of tiny Nazis (nine year-olds), and the latest in offensive hardware (sticks). Occasionally you might turn up on your own, but the chances were some other like-minded individuals intent on having an adventure of their own would quickly arrive, and everyone would happily get caught up in everybody else's games..

You couldn't go past a building site after 5.30 pm without the echoey sounds of "DAGGADAGGADAGGA-EEEEOOOOOWWWWW-BOOSH-AIEEEEEE-SCHNELL-DAGGADAGGADAGGA!" rebounding off the brickwork, patiently ignored by nearby adults everywhere.

If you were on your own, there was a simple joy to be had in wandering around, seeing what a house looked like before it was fleshed out by bricks and plasterboard, exploring the labyrinthine intestines of wall spaces and airing cupboards without boilers in, no-one to tell you what to do, or what not to do, the master of all you could survey. You can forget Narnia. This was real magic.

And then there was scaffolding.

Oh man, how great was scaffolding?

Such was our monkey-like climbing ability at that age, we could scale the outside of a half-built three-storey edifice in about the same time we could walk a similar distance on the ground. A wet day made the slippery planks all the more exciting.

Even in the seventies though, society had noticed the youthful penchant for invading building sites, and dutifully put on safety videos at school.

These were invariably made by someone who believed the only way children would learn was by using realistic special effects, so cue scenes of unlucky children being absorbed by silage, the camera lingering on their (worryingly well-acted) looks of terror as the gloop closed over their faces. Then the kid would be shown as a ghost saying he wished he hadn't gone into the silage pit on the farm*.

Or there would be one warning of the dangers of playing on railway tracks, with a once sporty kid getting his leg trapped in a set of points, before an unconcerned Intercity 125 zoomed past, it's engine drowning out a high pitched scream. The next scene would involve the boy looking wistfully at his football boots, before the camera pulled back to show him in a wheelchair, stubby legs ending at the ankles, and therefore revealing the reason he was looking at his football boots, and also why he was a bit sad, was because now HE HAD NO FEET!

Subtle.

The building site film contained walls of mortarless bricks falling without warning onto pint-sized dummies, discarded hammers on scaffolding being dislodged by a wayward child and landing on the head of his friend down below, or the whole shoddily fastened scaffolding giving way and collapsing in a heap of Meccano-like death on a gawping crowd of interlopers. It was all done with appropriate realness, including after shots of children lying in pools of blood, or in hospital with drips and casts in situ, or looking horror-stricken at the mangled remains of their friends.

It was practically an advert.

Any nine year old who hadn't previously thought of going before definitely wanted to now, especially if there was the chance of finding randomly discarded hammers or walls that toppled like cards at the merest touch.

So, after a seventies tea of fish fingers and proper chips done in a deep fat fryer like the one that destroyed that house near the park that time, we would set off from our various homes with the express intention of meeting up at the new estate, breaking in using the time honoured technique of stepping over the foot-high single strand of wire that demarcated the boundary between boring reality and our adventure playground.

Things are a Little different these days:

Six-foot fences, metal gates, padlocks, floodlights, warning signs and orange flashing strobes mean that anyone caught inside the perimeter is properly trespassing and not simply out for a wander, like in my day, when it was perfectly possible to find yourself in a construction site without realising you'd walked in.

So, the health and safety brigade denies an entire generation of children the imaginary delights of adventure, the stimulating process of exploration, and the bonding camaraderie that running around an unattended building site can give, but at what price?

Oh, yeah, all those child injuries and deaths.

Pfft.

* Splashing about in a silage pit was obviously something all children were desperate to do in the seventies, judging by the effort displayed by the authorities in preventing us diving head first into them.

Hi kids, I'm Mr Shiny Face!

2011-01-18T17:30:00.001Z

It seems like a geological Ian since I last wrote a blog post. An epoch. An age. A bit of a while.

Well, fifteen days.

That's a half a lifetime if you're a housefly.

I suppose keeping a blog must come second to ensuring my children don't do all that diseased starving they seem to go for with just the merest hint of a couple of months neglect.

Arguably.

The point is, I have less time to myself than Big Ben. It takes me about a month to read a paperback at the moment, and I have to pencil in visits to the toilet on the calendar.

The only telly I get to watch these days is children's TV, and like most parents I appear to have absorbed every song and dance routine via some sort of mental osmosis, where information goes from a strong concentration (television) to a very weak one (my brain).

There are certain things my kid likes which I don't actually mind watching as well, such as anything with computer generated trains in it, or Zingzillas which has the universally acknowledged winning combination of monkeys, coconuts and the occasional ukulele.

Then there's the stuff I can't stand. This includes just about anything with the word "green" in the title, or that purports to campaign for the environment with monotonic children prancing woodenly around city parks telling you to recycle and not eat dog poo.

Also, old stuff that used to be stop motion animation but is now all CG. Lay-zee!

Yeah, I'm looking at you Noddy.

And finally there's the stuff I would probably watch instead of most adult telly programmes. Essentially, Timmy Time, which is ace.

I've also got to know who all the children's TV presenters are now. They invariably portray perky, smiley, intensely annoying caricatures designed to appeal to their target audience, and they do it well.

After a while, though, you start to see aspects of their real personalities shine through, like a thundercloud behind the sun.

Er . . .

Anyway, inaccurate meteorological similes notwithstanding, I used to think the hardest part of the job must be pretending to get all excited over the next episode of some hastily cobbled together art programme where a bloke tries to craft a crown out of twigs without making a four-year-old look like Jesus, when in reality you've just split up with your other half, have a tequila hangover and feel grumpier than a hippo with hemorrhoids.

Which, I have on good authority, is pretty bloody grumpy.

They still have to appear upbeat at a moments notice (TV presenters, not anally challenged hippos).

But then I remembered, parents do that all the time.

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy"

"Yes son?"

"You know bananas?"

"Yes son?"

"They are yellow!"

"Fascinating son."

"And do you know something else about bananas?"

"What's that son?"

"They are yellow!"

"Fancy that."

So, presumably, anyone with a child could be a kids TV presenter. And why wouldn't you want to? It looks like great fun.

It'd be even better if you could do it partially drunk.

"Hi Kids! Know what time it is? Yay! Ooh."

Shake head.Close eyes, then force them back open.

"See that . . . pretty colours, jus' there? No there . . ."

Swipe at rainbow midges in front of face.

"S'nice, is that. S'ver' nice . . . ver', ver' nice . . . zzz . . ."

Prod from director.

"WHOA! Greeeaaat! That's a lovely show, that is, that . . . er . . . "

Squint at autocue.

"And now, it's time!"

Nod sagely; scratch chin and then look at hand.

"Oh, for . . . er . . . cartoons yay!"

Sit down on floor and stare at camera.

"Why can't I see them? Quentin! Why can't I see the cartoons?"

Put hand to ear, listen intently.

"Oh, right. Sorry kids! My mistake. It's not cartoon time yet. Let's go over to my good friend Cokey the Clown! Yay! Look at his funny white nose!"

I'd watch it.

Phone socks.

2011-01-03T08:27:00.000Z

This year, I resolve to be more frugal!

Having just had a credit card bill for, and this is approximate, a lot of pounds, it occurred to me that maybe I could be a little more restrained.

Sure, that bat-detector will be useful, at dusk, and who in this day and age can really do without a goose-peeler, but perhaps there were alternatives to some of the luxuries I have treated myself to in the past year.

I don't mean to deny myself, for I deserve lovely things, but why should I spend hard-earned moolah on goodies just so some fat cat in a corner office can have more fizzy wine and another extra large Ferrero Rocher?

Instead, I intend to use my considerably phat skillz to construct things I need, like a chap of yore.

This is not as fanciful as it at first seems, for I do have previous. Apart from my spoon, which is still talked about in hushed awe-laden tones in the fields of carpentry, ergonomics and aesthetics, I have also made other useful things.

For instance, I made a stylish and practical holder for my Blackberry mobile telephone.Thus saving myself a substantial amount of money yet still ending up with a phone cover.

Below is a pic. One of these is a "genuine" professionally made and marketed cover, soullessly gouged from the back of a cow, machine stitched together and implanted with a harsh magnet, then labelled before being sold on the internet like the symbol of capitalism it so obviously is.

The other was lovingly, tenderly crafted from materials originally used as something else, finding new life, a new purpose, in another guise, the epitome of cyclical regeneration, environmental responsibility and fiscal thrift.

I'll leave it to you to decide which one is better, but I think we all know the answer:

The one I made is . . . wait for it . . . on the right!

I know!

One might argue that I did not simply make a phone cover out of an old sock, but I took away all of the sock that was not phone cover.

Of course, I did have to buy an official leather Blackberry case so I could take a photo of it next to my homemade one, but this is a philosophical point rather than a economic one.

I now have to consider what items, luxury or otherwise, I can make myself. I have a load of spare nails, coat hangers and squirrel tails so the children are going to be okay for homemade toys, but if you have any other suggestions then I'd be happy to hear them.

Unless, of course, it's for homemade bagpipes, because I'm still wanted in Scotland for assaulting that caber tosser.

Merry . . . Saturday!

2010-12-25T21:02:00.001Z

Christmas time, and I'm off, which makes a decent change.

Doesn't seem a year since I was lamenting being at work over christmas, but it was!

This year, however, I am of a different ilk, and can join in the festivities without the possibility of having to zoom off to have my mood ruined by someone selfishly having a heart attack or taking an overdose on this most joyous of of days.

Yay!

Now, There is actual, genuine snedge outside and the kids are gradually coming down from the excitement of evidence-less faith in a big fat guy who lobs toys down your chimney even if you haven't got a chimney. As well as sugar.

Presents have been given and received, telly has been watched, dinner has been eaten and the traditional bicker has been attended to. Both stomachs and marriages are close to splitting, which is the official sign of a successful traditional exmuss.

My son, who is a few months short of his fourth birthday, turned his nose up at the stonkingly good home made beef wellington with all the trimmings, and opted instead for a Babybel cheese and a slice of bread (no butter) for his christmas dinner.

This is actually better than might be expected because, if it was his choice, the christmas menu would be something like this:

Starter: Minstrels.

Main Course: A Minstrel joint with flambéed Minstrels, roast Minstrels and boiled Minstrels, drizzled with a Minstrels jus.

Dessert: Minstrels crumble with custard. Made out of Minstrels.

This would of course be followed by a nice cup of Minstrels to finish the meal off. And maybe a quick look at the Minstrels board.

I've flicked through the films, and was quite excited about Shrek the Third and Top Gear, but in general I'm not overly bothered about telly. This is good because, well, let's face it, the TV selection is pretty crappy, and that's even with the most up-to-date supermarket freesat box. The Queen's Speech wasn't even done by Helen Mirren. Just some old granny in a bling hat.

Mind you, I would've been more excited about even the most straight-to-bargain-box-in-Blockbusters offering if the synopsis was like the one I saw just a couple of weeks ago on Movies4Men:

Rogue agents are ten a penny. In fact, the majority of secret service agents are rogue. And that's political dynamite, that fact.

Rouge agents though? Well, they're a different breed altogether. Not only are they charged with hijacking Concordes (presumably by going to an air museum and towing it out), but they must do so looking fabulous!

Now though, in the here and now, things are quieting down. Peristalsis is overcoming what initially seemed like a insurmountable obstacle and now just looks more and more like a big job, whilst alcohol gently caresses my system like a cerebral Thai lady-boy with well-oiled hands.

So I have a moment to reflect.

Yup. That's some good reflecting there.

Good reflecting.

Anyway, let me take this moment to wish you a very happy Saturday, and please spare a thought for all those who have to work over the weekend.

Happy christmas.

Tactical re-tweet

2010-12-10T21:13:00.000Z

I got pestered by some mates into joining Twitter, which I duly did being a modern, technomological sort of person, interested in the relatively new phenomena of social media and cyber-gregariousness that now pervades our society like a funny smell you can't decide whether or not you like, encouraging us to become "friends" with people we've met at a bus stop and are unlikely to ever see again.

So, there I was, Twitterised.

Of course, I obeyed the law and became a follower of Stephen Fry, because I believe that's compulsory and there may very well be some sort of penalty for not doing so.

I read other folks tweets. Some were quite good, or informative, or interesting. Most were banal. I played around with it, tweeted a few times, even twittered occasionally.

But I have to confess, I don't really get it.

To me, other social media makes a sort of sense. It's great for sharing photos with far-flung family, of arranging rare nights out, and for generally having a regular natter when otherwise you might only talk to someone every couple of weeks on the phone. It really is quite social.

Twitter seems very . . . one way.

You post a sentence. It gets displayed for a while. You write another one. Done.

And for the number of people that are going to read mine, I'd be better off writing them on a Post-it and sticking them to my fridge door.

I decided to cheat and directed my Facebook statuses (Statees? Stati?) to become tweets, so I look like I'm a dedicated Twitterer, when in fact I only occasionally look at it. This way, Mr Fry's loyalty enforcement officers won't come after me.

I do get notifications when someone new follows me, which is all very well when it's a friend or acquaintance, but most of them seem to be businesses including, strangely, a Japanese Garden centre.

Lately, I have been experiencing a sudden surge of new followers on Twitter. At first this excited me because, suddenly, people were showing that they liked what I was saying and wanted to know more! Coincidentally, they all seemed to be ladies with a penchant for naturism, for their avatar pictures were often bereft of clothing.

Amazingly, Yasmine, Constance, Celeste, Ebony, Sexxy69 and DickLuva all turned out to be less than genuine, and were in fact spamming for business in order to drum up trade for mucky films.

Apart from the copious displays of bare boobs, their expressions should have clued me in. Half closed eyes and slack jaws are, it would seem, the industry standard "look" to demonstrate sexiness, and totally not indicative of an over-enthusiastic lobotomy.

Anyway, I've blocked them on grounds that pictures of naked ladies are actually available on the internet, if you look hard enough.

So I've been told.

And then I promptly got another one. Just before I blocked her, I couldn't help but notice her name.

In such an industry, market research would, one presumes, suggest using an alias that might be judged "sexy", a name to tempt a potential Joe to view your wares, a nom-de-pute if you will. This isn't difficult, as you could just use those ones associated with contemporary screen lovelies, maybe Angelina or Nicole, Kirsten or Eva. No imagination needed.

Here, such market research had obviously passed my new fan by.

Her name was Mildred.

Now, bad as I feel about labelling people, but when I think of someone called Mildred, it isn't in the context of sexual relations. Apologies if your name is Mildred and you're reading this*, but it really doesn't rank high in the annals of eroticism, does it? The image that springs to mind is of someone with removable teeth.

I wonder if you were a chap in the market for some negotiable affection, would you pay less if your lady of the night was called Doris or Edna?

I may be over thinking this.

Initially, writing this made me feel a bit shallow, and possibly sexist against men for not including them in this diatribe. But maybe the opposite is true. Genuine desirability depends on subjective impressions, the recognition of humanity, the identification of (and maybe with) a real person, not just on plastic pertness and a gormless physiognomy, lovely though those attributes must obviously be.

A name is important.

Of course, the popularity of any name changes from one generation to the next, so todays Angelinas will be tomorrows Myrtles, and the height of allure will one day be represented by Maude, Ida and Mildred.

Anyway, with that tangent well and truly offed, I deleted Mildred and exited Twitter for a few weeks. I'm obviously not exploiting it to its full potential, which may be my fault, but I also don't seem to have the urge (or indeed the time) to learn how to.

Ultimately, blogging may have ruined Twitter for me, because why would I want to tweet when I can squawk?

*Although, to be honest, it's not really very likely, is it?

Charity, Limited.

2010-11-20T10:49:00.002Z

We had one of these flyers through our door the other day:

First glance, they look like they are the epitome of altruism, helping poor, needy, pink skinned, blue-eyed children who can't even afford Ben 10 or Barbie Elastoplasts.

And look! In case you didn't get the message that they help children, it is reinforced by a picture of a dog:

Surely they must indeed be a worthy cause, for why otherwise would they have a picture of a dog?

In fact, this isn't a charity, but a business which aims to get you to give them your old stuff so that they can sell it on for a profit.

I haven't got a problem with that per se, but it does try and emulate charitable organisations, and it's only when you notice there's a company number at the bottom rather than a charity reference, you realise.

It's even got the dodgy spelling that real charity fliers have.

Personally, I tend to give my old stuff away (if it's one of those rare items that I haven't destroyed doing whatever it is I do that turns clothes into rags within weeks) to charities like the Salvation Army, because they go directly to people who need them, rather than via a shop or agency.

This one is a bit cynical mind, although it defends itself by saying it provides clothes to the less well off.

This is true. If they pay for them.

I'm not here to bang on about faux chariddy, but it was the marketing technique of this one that got me thinking. Obviously, someone has read that cute things have big eyes and outsize heads, playing on our inherent protective instincts of infantile things. From this, they have decided that the dog must be photoshopped to have an even bigger head and bigger eyes than you might find in the real world.

Because, obviously, you can't find a picture of a genuine cute puppy anywhere, can you?

Look at this one though:
Hideous.

A normal picture of a real one would've been better, even if it is one of those tiny dogs which are supposed to be fluffy and white but have those horrible reddy-orange patches where they constantly drool, lick or piss on themselves.

So I wonder where cute ends and hideous begins. Probably the cutest thing I've ever seen on the internet is that Slow Loris being tickled. It's got the big eyes, the gentle demeanour and the appropriate baby-like visage to bring out all the gooeyness in you.

The makers of Shrek got it down pat with Puss in Boots:

What about stuff people have phobias about. Is a baby snake cute? A spider?

I think that's fairly cute.

This however, was supposed to be, but misses the mark by an order of ew:

What are they trying to do? Encourage little girls to hate babies?

Nasty.

Of course some humans, who worry about what they look like because they no longer have to worry about eating or being eaten, notice when someone else is cuter than they are and then try and increase their own cute levels when they feel they are in deficit, with mixed results.

You see, this is cute:

However, despite much thought, work and money, this is . . . er . . :

. . . I don't think anybody knows what this is, but cute isn't the adjective that immediately springs to mind.

I suppose we should remember the shallow subjectivity of beauty, and maybe we can all be cute on the inside.

Actually, scratch that. I've seen a liver.

Anyway, the company that started off this train of thought, Rutex Ltd, leaves its email address at the bottom of the flyer, so I have sent them a message telling them I am a Nigerian finance minister, who needs to store three million Euros worth of penis enlarging pills in their office, and if they send me their account details and passwords I will give them a hefty consultation fee, 100% honest, may your God or Gods be kind to you.

Wonder if they'll ~~fall for it~~ accept my business proposition.

The gift of getting gifts.

2010-11-08T16:00:00.002Z

Whilst a-shopping in a shop today, I noticed they had an offer on toy cars. Might be a nice little treat for a small person I thought to myself, magnanimously, and might just have the pleasant side effect of shutting up a whingeing kid.

And look, they had an special on Transformers!

Can't go wrong with transformers, I reasoned. Always popular, as they combine the traditional roles of . . . well, cars and robots. Yes, very traditional.

I was about thirteen when Transformers came out. Transformers the toy, not the electrical current transferring device, because that's been around since Einstein invented electricals.

I was lucky enough to have a couple of the figurines, and must have got a full two or three enjoyable hours of excitement transforming Optimus Prime into a lorry and then back again before his arm came off and stayed that way for ten years.

There was also, if I recall correctly, some sort of reddy-brown jet fighter contraption, the transforming process of which being so hideously complex that you had to have a working knowledge of 11-dimensional M-theory physics to convert into its robot alter-ego and back.

It was almost certainly a governmental test to seek out the precocious mathematical prodigies who could complete the task, and then put them to work in the Department of Very Hard Sums.

Because of this, most of the time I played with it was as an aeroplane with a random foot sticking out, or a robot with one big flappy wing impeding its progress.

Anyhoo, this Transformer I clocked in the shop was a police car, and was quite little, which excited my inner child. I wondered what the intervening quarter of a century had provided in the way of toy innovation and transformer design. I turned it over to look at the back before I parted with my hard-earned two quid:

And I'm glad I did, because the back bore the legend "DOES NOT CONVERT" in a font similar to that found on military cartons definitely not containing glowing bullets.

Huh?

So the Decepticon Transformer Barricade Police Vehicle, who's sole selling factor is the ability to change from a car into a gurt monster robot to terrorise local populaces . . . er . . . doesn't.

What a disappointing label. Like having a sticker on a knife informing you it "DOES NOT CUT" or a post-it on your wife saying "DOES NOT LOVE YOU".

What's the point of it then?

I wonder how many children have got one of them home and then suffered the crushing desperation of trying to transmogrify it into a robot, only to be defeated by the cynical marketing ploy of the manufacturers?

Dutifully, I put it on the floor, stamped on it, and then replaced it on the shelf in the shop, before slinking home.

Instead, I think I shall look to get such presents from a mail-order catalogue because they must rely on fairly full descriptions to persuade you to buy their tat. In this way, the toys do exactly what you'd expect, and also incidentally provide some potential career advice:

That, friends, is a Playmobil Amphibious Getaway Car, complete with dark-suited masked driver holding suitcases bulging, presumably, with valuables he has just liberated from the oppressive banking authorities using toy guns and toy threats to kill.

Now, with that you see, you get everything you pay for. You get a car for getting away, you get a legally ambiguous hero to drive it, and you get a sense of glamour attached to the criminal underclass.

Actually, it's quite a good idea. If you're doing a bank job near a river, imagine the surprise on the coppers' faces when you drove into the water and chugged your way to freedom.

Devious minds, them Playmobile fiends.

Voice Recognition

2010-10-22T19:46:00.003+01:00

I really didn't want to turn this into some sort of parent-y blog, because there are lots out there better at it and far more gooey than what I am. Unfortunately, at the moment, it's all I know . . .

So apologies, both for the lack of posts and the repetition of this theme, and I will understand if you decline to read on because you're missing intellectual discussions on mobility scooters, floating leaves, boobs and toilets.

If you're still here?

Well, ta.

-------------------------------------

Do you remember being a kid, and being almost asleep but not quite, but too tired to open your eyes? In that nice little, swirly zone just before you actually go under, when you're so pleasantly relaxed that scientists would actually be able to classify you as a liquid?

I loved that feeling. Still do in fact. These days, I'm usually able to get myself to sleep, eventually, although I do still find it hard to "switch off" as people who are very good at kipping tell me you're supposed to do. When I do that, I concentrate so hard on switching off it perks me right up.

Anyway, eventually, I usually manage to find the appropriately monotonous thought routine that bores me into submission, and off I go.

When you are tiny, you often need a spot of help, and that is often the sounds of your parents' voices, either reading to you or just general chit chat.

That's a bit of a dilemma for a parent, because you want to get them off to sleep, so you use your most soporific of voices, and read The Gruffalo in a quiet and surprisingly camp lilt

But what if it's not necessary?

What if you can just witter on about the days necessities and still get them off to sleep?

I remember, if sleeping in the car or somewhere, how nice it was hearing my parents' voices, not even quietly, chatting away about how fags had gone up to 50p a pack and it was health and safety gone mad, whatever health and safety were. You could happily drift off knowing they were nearby, and you didn't care what they were talking about, or even if you could hear the words, as long as they were in the near vicinity, just as long as they were there and you could safely have a kip.

Your mum could've had a voice like an eagle on helium, but you'd still be able to fall asleep listening to it.

Nowadays, I am the baritonic rumble that helps send my baby off to sleep. It's never when I'm trying to get her off, but only when I happen to be walking her around, or pushing her in the buggy and chatting quite normally, when suddenly I notice she's zonked out, snoring gently into a pool of dribble on my shoulder, or slumped forward with head at a disconcertingly trachea-warping angle.

Then, I change to a whisper and immediately, she wakes as if thinking I must be talking about her. Which is possibly the case.

It's not just voices either. Stick on the Hoover next to her head, and not a peep. Rustle a piece of paper in the next room and her eyes spring open like the guard in a jail just as your about to steal the keys off of his belt.

I wonder if this is an evolutionary trait, in that loud noises nearby are most likely simply everyday things going on, and present no danger, but the quiet rustle of a leaf or gentle snap of a twig could very well be a big hungry, toothy thing sneaking up on you.

There'll be a paper on it somewhere, by a scientist with an interest in babies getting eaten.

Whatever it is, it's nice when they drop off and, despite my theory that I could talk at normal volume with no ill effect, I still creep around her like a particularly nervous ninja, even though I could possibly just carry on stomping around singing Amarillo in a croaky falsetto.

But still, would you want to risk disturbing this:

Nuh-uh.

Reversatility

2010-10-11T09:55:00.000+01:00

Eddie Bluelights over at Clouds and Silvery Linings, a blog which blogs about blogs, bloggily, has decided that I needed to be awarded.

The award is rather touching, naming me as a Versatile Blogger, which makes me feel a bit like a Swiss Army Knife, able to unscrew a bottle of plonk and get boy scouts out of horses hooves with my various stainless steel appendages.

I get a picture!

Look:

Eddie himself was rightly awarded this title, and being the dutiful blogger he is, appropriately read the small print and adhered to the rules with genuine gusto and a diligence usually found only amongst the most succesful of traffic warden.

Hence my award.

In order to appropriately qualify for this award, I must reveal ten things about myself and then nominate a number of bloggers who I think will be up to the task of meme-hood.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see BAFTA or Oscar winners having to perform tasks for their awards, but apparently I have to work for this one.

Dance little blogger, dance.

The first part I can do, although I feel it would be richer for the reader if I used the all forgiving medium of lies, but as it is I will tell the truth, because the source is an honest sort of chap.

They might not be interesting, because I've told you all the interesting things about me on this ego-fluffing medium I call a blog, but awards don't care about that! They just want wordy toil.

Still here goes:

1. When they phone, I enjoy asking telephone call operators in Mumbai what the weather is like there at this time of year. The answer is invariably "Hot", "Wet" or "Hot and wet".

2. Today, I was wondering whether if you had no thumbs, you would be best wearing a poncho as there aren't any buttons on it.

3. Fridays are my favourite day for no other reason thant they are named after a lady called Frig.

4. I think aspirin tastes like earwax.

5. I can't get my head round the idea that before there was the universe, there may have been nothing, not even space. This makes the space between my ears ache.

6. I can't decide whether or not I like wearing pyjamas.

7. I sometimes use my pet house Rabbit, Bert, as a paper shredder.

8. After slagging of African redbush tea for years and years, saying it smelled like something a large carnivore with kidney problems might use to mark its territory with, I quite suddenly and unexpectedly like it now.

9. I really would rather like a banjo, and I'm not quite sure why.

10. I once spoke a damn decent amount of Spanish, and have managed to forget most of it, which is pretty unforgiveable really.

There you go. A scintillating glimpse into the inner workings of The Jules. Bet you're glad you asked now, eh?

As to the second part of the award, I feel it would be unfair to dump a meme on poor unsuspecting, innocent folk, minding their own bizz-nizz, and expecting them to jump just because I shouted "Frog!"

Actually, I would like that, but I'm also painfully aware that the ones I would like to choose are often on the receiving end of similar awards and memes and such-like, so I'm going to be kind and give them a break.

Kindness is versatile right? Sometimes it lets you be cruel.

Who models the modeller?

2010-09-30T08:14:00.020+01:00

We have been exploring an exotic location. Somewhere that we have been to before but, in retrospect, it seems we have only passed through, like itinerant travellers too caught up in their destination to take note of their current surroundings.

Basically, it's where we live.

We don't seem to notice lotsa things almost in our own back yard. Stuff people come from all over the place to see, so it's a bit daft not to play the tourista in you're own ghetto, innit?.

And because we can't really afford a holiday at the moment, as well as having the cute, drooly shackle of a baby in the house, we are having a staycation. This is holiday speak for not going anywhere even though you've got a week of annual leave booked.

Well, this isn't exactly true.

When deciding on a staycation, you must still make the effort to go places, and to experience stuff that you know about yet rarely do, otherwise, well, you're just staying at home really.

For instance, about forty minutes from us is Bourton-on-the-Water, which has got a bird park and a model village.

Bird parks are cool. They've got birds in them, and birds are pretty interesting, especially if they talk, or scream, or are brightly coloured, or eat other creatures, or are bloody huge. In fact the best bird would combine all of these traits and be some sort of meat-eating, osprey-sized super parrot. I was excited.

They didn't have a carnivorous super-parrot, which was a touch disappointing, but on the whole it's a nice place. Lots of birds.

Model villages though. Are they cool?

Well, seeing as I have never, in all my decades, been to a model village, I didn't know. And as this one was right there and I had a kid with me, it seemed an opportune moment to go and have a look.

It messed with my mind man!

First of all, there is the ominous photos of your darling, tiny cherub looking like Sprogzilla:

I was tempted to 'Shop in some lasers coming out of his eyes, and then stick a tiny picture of Tom Cruise flailing about with his hair on fire, but when I say Phototshop I mean Microsoft Paint, and it's a bit of a faff. You'll just have to use your imagination.

Go on. Picture Tom. Picture his hair. Now . . . WOOF! And off he goes yay!

The model village uses Bourton itself as a template, although only roughly as the ephemeral structures of humanity are wont to change, so it's not entirely accurate. I didn't see a tiny bird park, which was a pity. I considered suggesting they set one up, maybe using painted wasps as the birds for lifelike realism.

Other than that, the buildings are startlingly realistic, and it's a little surreal watching folk wander about, towering over them. As I hadn't got specific permission to show peoples faces in this blog, I have blocked them out with appropriate ogre masks using the magic of awesome Paint skillz, which I feel is artistically sensitive to the context:

The village had another trick up its sleeve, which I quite liked. In one corner, behind the model of the pub in which the model village is situated in real life, is a model of the model village:

Now, that was bit cool.

Hang on though. Look in the corner of the model model village:

It's a model of the model model village!

A model model model village.

And look! By Neptune's Soggy Beard, could it possibly be? Yes, yet another model of the model model model village:

Okay, my inner geek did like that quite a bit, and I might just have tried to get close to see if there was yet another microcosmic representation of the model village. But there wasn't. Or at least I couldn't see it and presumed that there wasn't, which raises a few existential questions about things being there if you can't see them.

This isn't the same as the question "If a tree falls in the wood and no-one witnesses it, does it make a noise?" because the answer to that is patently no. It makes lots of sound waves, which travel through the air as pressure differences, but only become audible when they hit a listening device such as an ear. Never understood why that was a conundrum. It's just a matter of physics. Which is possibly what everything is.

Anyway, my inner child struggled up past layers of fossilised responsibility and the diamond-hard strata of mature levelheadedness that usually make up my personality, to surface briefly in my psyche, and I imagined tiny people looking up at not so tiny people, who were looking up at slightly bigger people, who in turn gazed fearfully up at even bigger folk, and so ad infinitum, until at last they got to the pinnacle of the event, the ultimate being, the one looking down at all of them and their tiny lives, an indulgent smile playing on a beatific face, like the very sun itself looking down on them from on high.

MEEEEEEEEE!

With the universe constantly making us feel small by being all mind-bendingly huge and that, it was nice to be in a place which, quite literally, bigs you up a bit.

Oh, go on then:

Run, Tom, Run!

Security to the pussy aisle.

2010-09-23T08:17:00.001+01:00

Continuing my recent intellectual sojourn into the world of law and order, where I suggested we might have a more individualised legal system, or possibly even a set of personal laws for every single person in country, I suddenly realised that, even if it came to pass, we might be our own worst enemy in implementing such a scheme.

You see, we know where we are with a set of rules. We like it. We like limits.

Why do we stop at red lights if we can see there's nothing coming?*

What would happen if red lights were treated as a Give Way rather than a Stop? Possibly not a huge amount, although if it did happen I'd take out shares in insurance companies.

Is the primary reason we stop at a red is because we are afraid of being caught? That the unseen police vehicle will jump out from behind a stack of paperwork and nee-naw you into submission, or that this set of lights is one of those evil HAL 9000 ones which record your transgression, and then if you try and get it to let you off just says "I can't do that Dave." in its monotonic yet strangely camp voice.

In some countries street signs, road markings and street furniture have been removed from towns as an experiment to see what happens to the accident rate, which is a noble pursuit and one I would heartily agree with as long as such a trial wasn't carried out in my home town. No one has right of way, no one knows where a street ends or begins, and the traffic lights were all taken offline.

Rather than the carnage one might expect, the accident rate dropped.

To zero.

Ostensibly, this was because drivers took more care, drove more slowly and were far more observant than if they blindly assumed they had right of way and therefore couldn't be blamed for any nastiness that might occur.

So, no rules makes people more careful, more considerate maybe?

Interesting argument for anarchy there.

Of course, the police have generally got far more important things to do than wait for red-light transgressions, and the lights themselves are usually empty of film, haven't had their memories erased for two years or are covered in graffiti, so it's unlikely that you will get caught should you decide to take your first foray into the criminal underworld in this fashion.

I do like to think though, that we don't generally burgle or murder other people (no matter how much we want to sometimes) solely because we're afraid of the consequences, but more because we realise it's intrinsically wrong, ethically as well as legally.

Policing the law depends on our goodwill, and our belief that, in general, we fair better with the rules, despite their occasional hindrance to us at a personal level, than without them. So we'll stop at the red light, even at three in the morning, when sensible people are having a kip.

So we should not obey our laws through fear, but because we think they are reasonable limits to our liberties that allow us to live together relatively happily.

The police are then faced with only a relatively small number of transgressors, which they can invest more resources into bringing to justice for us, and also making shows where they show lots of bad drivers being caught, and suspiciously few bad drivers getting away with it.

Because we have to live with them, it's important not to accept any old laws our glorious leaders put before us, especially those disguised as "for our own safety", or "to ensure our continued freedom". If something comes from authority, it is almost certainly untrustworthy, so it is vital that one questions its origins, its merits and its possible consequences.

This mindset seems rare today, with too many people letting the tabloids do their critical analysis for them, effectively letting sales-driven humanities graduates decide what's important in society. Do we really want someone who got a third in Communication Studies trying to tell us what laws are important, what homeopathic medicines cure cancer, and what science that they barely comprehend is going to save/destroy us, just because they have a loud voice in a paper?

Sorry, ranted a bit there.

Anyway, security is so ingrained in us that this supermarket I went to the other day realised it could save money by not actually having security guards in place, but just by placing their hats in a prominent position as you walk in, reminding us that they could totally secure our arses if they wanted to, even if security's not actually present at that moment in time:

Hats are better than real guards. They don't sleep, need breaks, choke shoplifters to death and rarely steal Double Deckers from the confectionery aisle and blame teenagers.

Just a quick buff and a peak-tweak and they're ready for the shift.

Unfortunately, there is a significant minority in the populace who feel that they can parasitize the rest of us, who can't compete with legitimate enterprise so they have to nick stuff. This is particularly a problem when items of extreme value are at stake:

Someone who desperately wanted a nice tin of Pussy drink but was too embarrassed to pay for it might very well take it into their dehydration addled brain to shoplift, and then what would the shop do?

Sometimes, you need more than hats.

*Most of the time, anyway.

Warm as a cucumber

2010-09-11T08:56:00.012+01:00

For a few weeks now, our milk has mysteriously been going off before the use by date has arrived. Raspberries have been turning mouldy, yoghurt has starting blinking and Babybel cheeses have . . . well, stayed exactly the same because you could put them in a nostalgic time capsule, bury them in tarmac and dig them up to show on Blue peter in twenty years and they wouldn't have changed at all.

But lots of our fresh stuff has been displaying a remarkable grasp of comestible entropy, and I don't like it.

It's like living in the middle ages.

I wonder if they had use by dates in the middle ages?

Turnip. Display until sold. Use prior to decomposition.

Anyway, in this modern, technological world we've been living in since the Year 2000 heralded the arrival of the future, I presumed that the fridge I entrusted my perishables to would've have been able to fulfill it's primary purpose and stopped stuff, you know, rotting and that. Apparently not.

Still, it's a few years old now and, because nothing is built to last anymore, one must expect it to go wrong at some point.

First things first, I ate a space through to the back of the fridge so I could get a good look inside:

After rapidly considering the merits of a ham and cheese toastie, making it, eating it and then hiding my plate, I had a good look round for anything like a badly set temperature control in there that might explain the unseasonably warm innards?

There it is:
A dial labelled 'temperature' and set to 'low'.

Damn. If it's as low as it can go, then it must be broken, and you can bet your bottom salad shelf that it won't be an easy DIY repair, but some tiny, complex mechanism that can only be obtained from the Bupyeong province of Korea, where it is carved from the sternums of Asiatic black bears by artisan monks and costing the best part of fifty quid.

Sighing, I informed Mrs The Jules that, sadly, the refrigerator had packed up and we would need to spend cash that we didn't have on a new one, unless that one we saw dumped in the local Site of Special Scientific Interest was still there in which case I could just empty the badgers out of it, load it on the trailer and bring it home.

"What do the instructions say?" she asked, completely unreasonably.

I shook my head at her and her little ways, smiled gently and informed her that they would presumably tell me to get a qualified electrician in to fit a plug, to put food in it that you want to keep cold and to refrain from shutting children in it, even annoying ones.

"Presumably?" she asked, equally unreasonably.

"Well, I'm not actually going to waste time reading instructions when it's patently obvious that it's not working, that the temperature is set to as low as it can go on the dial and it's still quite balmy inside, am I? What's the point?"

I am suddenly aware that I am talking to nobody, as Mrs The Jules trots off and returns half a minute later with the fridge instruction booklet which I haven't seen for four years since we bought it, and pointlessly begins leafing through it.

I start wondering if I can afford a Smeg fridge, because who wouldn't want smeg in their kitchen. Unfortunately, we would need to take out another mortgage to afford one, and it would be ironic if we did get one and subsequently starved because we couldn't then afford to buy any food to put in it.

A few minutes later, the wife tapped the bottom of one of the pages, reminding me that the dials in the fridge would've been designed by engineers, and so one shouldn't take what's written on them too literally:

Apparently, Temperature Low is the warmest setting.

To make it cold, one must turn the temperature gauge to High.

Obviously.

I gnashed my teeth, shrugged my shoulders and held out my hands with thumbs facing outwards in the universally recognised posture of resigned exasperation, letting the universe at large know about the failings of people other than myself.

"Its a bloody good job they don't make altimeters!" I called to Mrs The Jules as she replaced the instructions back in whatever mysterious realm they came from.

A drawer probably.

Then I went and turned the fridge temperature down. Or up. No, down.

Definitely possibly down.

Flaw and order

2010-09-02T04:48:00.004+01:00

September arrives in a flurry of unremarkableness, and I note that I appear to have become one of those bloggers who posts about every week and a half, sometimes even less.

Harrumph.

At present, I feel I have achieved something if, at the end of the day, the children haven't been grievously injured, starved or rounded up by the social services child ~~catcher~~ protection unit.

Blogging has slid down my list of priorities, along with sleeping, socialising and going to the toilet.

I might write to my bosses to suggest they give me paid time off and a laptop so I can get a reasonable shot at spewing my random cerebral diarrhoea onto the internets. They're very understanding and only have our best personal interests at heart, so I can reasonably expect to be pleasantly accommodated.

In fact, it might behove me to write to my MP and ask for my own personal bylaw that says I have to blog, and anyone who stops me is in breach of my civil liberties. Yeah, there's a vote winner.

Thinking about it, having personalised laws might be a tad unwieldy. Every case would be setting a precedent, so there's a possibility of it not working.

How about a spectrum of law though, with each individual allowed to sit on a different part of that spectrum depending on how reliable and sensible they are?

I'm onto something here. Stay with me.

For instance, a particularly competent driver would be allowed to travel at 120 mph on the motorway and not be fined for it, whereas someone driving a Clio with racing cans, widened wheel arches and a fake gear dump valve sound would not be allowed to drive at over 30 mph, and they would have to keep the car in third gear at all times, even when starting off. Rover drivers would be told they must at least try and get up to the speed limit, even if they only get within ten or twelve mph of it. But at least they will have tried.

Someone who does lots of charitable work and donates their free time to the community should totally be allowed to shoplift, but the inveterate, unrepentant pilferer should have those collars they use to stop dogs biting out their stitches after an operation put on their hands whenever they go to Tesco.

Relatively sensible, happy, non-depressive alternative-reality enthusiasts should not be punished for taking drugs (which could be legally produced in government controlled (and taxed) hydroponics centres). Angry drunks should be limited to a glass of room temperature Liebfraumilch every alternate Thursday lunchtime.

Actually, that's probably a bit too draconian. Nobody should be forced to drink that stuff, and anybody who does so voluntarily should be offered free counselling to find out why they like to hurt themselves so.

Anyway, as the voices of reason and unfettered conscience of humanity, bloggers would obviously be placed at the top end of the law spectrum, and be allowed to get away with just about anything as long as they were going to write about it later on, strictly monitored by the Department of Blogging (DoB).

Common sense, really.

This plan could alleviate the overcrowding in prisons that newspapers are constantly haranguing us about whilst simultaneously gnashing their spleens over too short jail sentences. With my plan, someone accused, and indeed guilty, of an offense could be retrospectively promoted to a higher level on the law-scale, and thus instantly become not guilty of breaking the law. Everyone's a winner.

Except, maybe, any victims, but they don't really contribute to society other than to remind us what a bad place the world is, so we'd have to sweep them under the social shag pile. No change there then.

Of course, there is going to need to be sensible discourse on what laws are going to be kept, which ones repealed and how each person is judged as to their merit and where they should be placed on the law-spectrum. The arbiter would have to be a sort of super-judge, and particularly special. Somebody modest, humble and wise beyond their years, someone who can talk with crowds but keep their virtue. One who is able to walk with kings yet not lose the common touch.

A difficult position which should be amply rewarded in terms of fame and remuneration.

Can I reluctantly suggest myself?

This is obvioulsy a rhetorical question.

Of course, I realise that society changes slowly, unless it's gadget related, and thus the laws of the land are unlikely to be completely replaced by a novel approach for a couple of years yet, so I will just have to be patient.

In the meantime, as the old adage adages at us, rules are put there for the guidance of the wise, and the blind obedience of the foolish.

So, mostly blind obedience then.

Bang goes the baby's head

2010-08-21T07:07:00.007+01:00

Psst.

Wanna see a hairy baby?

Course you do:

That's Bonobo, and she's 5 and a half months old. Combing her hair is a two person job, and we're getting resigned to the fact that, conversation starter or not, it's going to have to get trimmed soon.

The conversations invariably go something like this:

OLD DEAR: "Ooh pretty, how old?"
ME: "Five months."
OD: "You must be very GOOD GRIEF LOOK AT THAT HAIR!"
ME: "Yes, she has got quite a bi . . ."
OD: "Marge! MARGE! Come and look at this hairy baby!"
OTHER OLD DEAR: "What's that Pru?"
OD: "This baby. It's very very hairy."
ME: "She."
OD (nodding): "She's very very hairy, Marge. Very hairy baby!"
OOD: "Well, babies do seem to have lots of hair these d . . . WHOA!"
OD: "See?"
OOD : "Yes. Yes I do. That really is a very hairy baby."
OD: "Isn't it though?"
OOD: "It really is."
ME: "She."
OD and OOD (both nodding): "She. She's very hairy, isn't it?"

Then they wander off, leaving Bonobo smiling like a loon because she loves the attention.

And so do I, if I'm honest. I don't mind the extra twenty minutes it takes to get round ~~Asda~~ Waitrose because of being stopped every few metres by her adoring public.

The question I find odd is quite a common one.

"Is she good?"

What does that mean?

"Is she good?"
"Well, no, not really. She's already robbed a couple of post offices and I found her crudely drawn plan to poison the water supply unless she's given free access to boobs for the foreseeable future."

Actually, I wonder if that would work?

What I think people really mean by "Is she good" is "Does she sleep a lot?". Personally, I reckon she is a good baby because, whilst she doesn't sleep that much, she's usually happy, giggling and loves human interaction, and only gets upset for good reason (like not having boobs when she wants them, which a lot of us can identify with).

All babies are good. Annoying sometimes, but good.

So, next week, we're going to go to a specially trained lady who knows how to cut childrens hair, including babies, and miraculously leave them with roughly the same number of ears they came in with. Having previously attempted the task myself, I now have no compunction against paying someone else to do it, because it's like trying to shave an angry cat on a roller coaster.

Oddly, it will be a bit of a wrench having some of her womb-grown barnet removed, but we have to be pragmatic. If we leave it any longer, the lugs will get unmanageable and we'll be introducing her as a tiny rasta.

Have no fear though, because, should we regret having Bonobo's locks trimmed, there is an immediate solution, found through the ever-giving magic of the internet. Can I warn you not to click on the link below if you are of a tasteful disposition:

Babybangs

The only way that could be improved is by the addition of gold hoopy earrings and a velour tracksuit with a playboy bunny motif on the arse.

I might book her in for her first tattoo while I'm there. It would have to be something classy and timeless.

Any suggestions?