Rambling, Ranting and Shaggy Dogs

Faithless

2011-10-11T00:40:00.001+01:00

Have done a couple of tunes that speak to me.

None more so than insomnia.

If I ever get the money I'm moving somewhere that my body clock approves of.

Getting back on the bike

2011-10-09T15:57:00.001+01:00

Well last week was the first time in nearly 10 years I've been hit by a car. Not my fault and there is no one to dispute the fact. The idiot that chose to ram me; for the sake of less than10 seconds of their time; didn't hang about to see if I was dead or alive in the road & the driver behind who did stop (thank you) was livid on my behalf & I ended up calming him down from going after the idiot.

Apparently they decided to speed up and race me to their left turn, unfortunately they weren't fast enough! but hey Mr/s Idiot why let little facts like someone already being there & you not having right of way stop you from exercising your right as a car driver to do exactly what you want to do and sod the consequences for the innocent husband, father, worker, son, brother, friend & uncle that you could quite easily have killed or maimed.
I hope that it was a terrible one off mistake on your part & you've agonised all week over what you've done, because that'll mean you won't ever be so stupid and reckless again, but sadly your decision to create the accident in the first place and callous driving off without even slowing down afterwards, I doubt it.

Its been a week of pain & discomfort but I really want to get back on my bike show you and the gods of auto uber alles, we're not going to be pushed around and bullied into submission by cocooned dickheads who seem to think they own the roads. (come on someone trot out the 'road tax' chestnut)

Tomorrow will be the first time in a while I'm actually looking forward to going into work, albeit I know it's going to be painful.

Funny old time

2011-06-17T01:50:00.003+01:00

Its 10 years ago today that my dad died, ironically enough it was Fathers Day, which has put something of a damper on it for me. I spent years telling people not to bother with it; I'm not big on events that need cards generally anyway, my birthday comes and goes & I struggle to remember how old I am as its no big deal really; but there's not much you can do when its a staple of the school calendar to do the obligatory card.

I always wonder how the single parent kids feel having to colour and cut with the rest knowing its for nothing on whichever parent is missings day.

It'll be doubly odd this year as the firstborn will be waking up on Sunday morning for the first time in his new home, 200 & something miles down the country.

Not that I want to keep him here particularly, I'd been left home by 150 miles and 3 years at his age & he was well on the way so I'm all for his independence & spreading his wings but its just an odd coincidence for me that the 2 most immediate men in my life have moved out of it almost to the day a decade apart.

We're having a family evening in of his choice tomorrow, Indian takeaway, couple of beers, Paul DVD and games, so don't bother knocking or calling cos we'll be busy.

I'll raise a quick glass to my dad as well.

New Direction

2011-06-06T10:45:00.002+01:00

I've negected this blog as I've slipped into Twitter for my nocturnal rantings and have found a whole community of bikey people and doggy people and manchestery people and..... well you get the picture.

I've also found that bike theories don't really fit into 140 characters so I'm going to be making a bit more use of my Blog to expand on my twittery ramblings on bicycles & new friends & stuff. fair warning the direction is likely to change from occasional random drivel to more frequent directed drivel.

camping

2010-08-13T21:49:00.006+01:00

As a boy my family used to camp in a tent, then trailer tent, then folding caravan before selling out and getting a proper caravan that took no time to set up and spoiled half of the fun of it for me. I've always wanted to do it in my own right but its taken me a good while to persuade my brood to give it a go, at last they relented and over the last few months we've got the gear together and last week had a nice time on the east coast, sun (ish) sea (fo sho) sand (miles of the stuff), and a rather lovely time was had without TV's and all of that gubbins. ye cannit get vexed.

One of our favourite childhood jaunts was The New Forest, evocative memories for me of Boney M's Brown Girl in the Ring playing constantly, endless sunshine in the blistering summers of 1975 & 76, crunching on a sea of ladybirds walking down Hythe pier and waking up one morning in a sopping wet sleeping bag after a particularly heavy rain shower overnight had refilled the empty river bed we were camping on, momentarily wondering how I could have wet myself to such an extent and not realised.

Imagine my delight when darling daughter has said that she wants to go camping there for our holidays next year - I can't wait. The only proviso she has put on the trip is that she gets to bring one of the Ponies home - hmmm, could be tricky fitting it in the roof box.

I've also found out this week that the bad back that I've been grimacing over is actually some virus that half on my colleagues at work have got too - hooray back on the bike next week without fear of doing myself more damage, (other than frostbite, in our glorious August weather)

d'oh

2010-06-16T23:45:00.001+01:00

d'oh
Originally uploaded by shouldbeinbed

testing my link from flickr, hope you like the irony of the pic as much as I do

BBC 6 Music

2010-03-13T10:57:00.003Z

Nooooooooooooooooooooo.

It perfectly fits the remit of the BBC charter on public service broadcasting and is as unique in the same way Radio 4 is.

Radio 1 is moronic drivel that is replicated on innumerable commercial stations, It has its own spin off sub genre 1Xtra that has a listnership in single figures that could easily go and be subsumed into the mainstream

Radio 2 (Maconie & Radcliffe apart) is aimed at a generation that I've not yet reached and is replicated by the Absolute, Real, Magic and Smooth FM genre's

Radio 3 is just Classic FM

Radio 5 is a Mix of Radio 4 and talksport

BBC 7 is an endless 6 month repeat cycle of serials and comedies from the archives of Radio's 2 & 4. I have given up completely listening to it now as I've heard its entire output at least twice and even my love of Hancock and the Goons is waning with constant exposure.

I guess its bombproof because it is entirely free output, given that there's nothing at all original and its all there in the archives just ready to be picked and looped forevermore.

I'm told that Absolute radio caters for BBC 6 tastes. I gave up on Absolute (Virgin) when the breath of fresh air that is 6 music arrived & I've never considered 6 to be a Queen tribute advert fest of a station, but there you go.

Radio's 1 & 1 Xtra, 3, 5live & extra and 7 are all far less original and innovative and entirely replicated elsewhere in radio programming.
How is public service broadcasting helped by focussing on commercial clones and raiders of its own archives.

If the BBC really want to use audience figures to denigrate the impact of 6 they should at least give it a 12 month trial on FM to level the playing field and see how it stacks up against Radio 3 or 1 Xtra in a real life comparison.

This faux argument is the thin end of the edge, if they decide local programming needs cutting, beware small rural communities and isolated areas of the country. You'll lose your BBC station because it doesn't have as many listeners as BBC's London service.

open letter to anon mitherers

2010-02-27T12:25:00.002Z

Dear Anonymous

My name's not Paul and I couldn't give a shiny one as to the software you're using. Go away.

Skyride

2009-08-01T13:01:00.002+01:00

Tomorrow me and my boys will be enjoying a traffic free jaunt around the centre of Manchester courtesy of the good people of British Cycling and Sky TV.

This is an excellent idea and I really hope that people will come out and see the city as I regularly do, pootling along at a few miles an hour with time to check out the architecture and little interesting quirks that you miss holed up in a car with the radio playing.

Pray for a bit of sun for the event, not for me, I'm happy to ride in the rain and once you get wet you don't get any wetter, but it'd be such a shame for the weather to spoil the turnout when the organisers have gone to a lot of trouble on this.

My sundance worked yesterday for my convivial afternoon with friends, which turned into an evening and then a night, but I don't want to wear out the magic, especially with my hols in Northumbria looming large. I think I need to keep some joojoo in reserve.

MP's expenses

2009-05-15T09:01:00.021+01:00

I've started to write a little bit on this a few times now but I always end up in a mess of invective ranting that could well be libellous in terms of my description of certain politicians that don't 'serve' too far from me.

If the stories are right, 'forgetting' £13,000 capital gains tax and getting away with only saying sorry and paying it when exposed as a tax evader. How many other's having not paid a significant sum of tax for whatever reason would keep their job without a murmur and be spared even a police interview let alone jail time I wonder.

I was watching the BBC Question Time last night in a mixture of vague joy at the audience naked hostility towards the MP's on there and mounting near heart attack blood pressure peaks of incredulous rage at the plainly deluded attempts to justify themselves that some of the MP's came out with.

Margaret Beckett's argument that we plebs don't understand the situation was rightly shouted down and treated with the utter contempt such a patronising and stupid slap in the face deserves, It shows how far that even politico's I had hitherto considered to be amongst the more sober and principled have their heads so far up their own backsides that the real world has absolutely no way of getting through to them anymore.
I cannot tell you what was said (yelled) at the TV at this point but the words 'you patronising' are the only ones I can put in the deliberately not swearing post. Words were used that (even as an effective and inventive swearer) I just do not use under normal profane circumstances.

The woman is deranged if she thinks we as an electorate are as stupid as she made out.

Menzies Campbell trying to defend a monthly claiming for food that My family of 5 plus 3 dogs only just exceed as he'd be financially embarrassed otherwise.

What precisely do you spend your basic backbench MP's salary of £63,291 (correct as of April 08, no doubt 2.x % higher since April 2009) if you need to claim expenses for food? (profanity deleted)

Bloody hell man have some spark of common sense and pride not to stoop so low. Food is a basic necessity of life wherever you happen to be and whatever you happen to do whether you are eking out basic benefits or a state pension, one of the poor sod's scraping by on Minimum Wage, an obscenely paid footballer or obscenely perked MP.
At least in the footballers defence, they are paid their telephone number money from private businesses not the public purse.

This country is skint, Hospital wards close for lack of money, children leave school functionally illiterate, others live and die in sickening circumstances of abuse and misery because social workers are overburdened, under resourced and stretched beyond breaking point, people live in fear of crime as prisons are too full to incarcerate people that should not be on the streets, yet MP'S think millions of pounds of our money would be better poured into your already well paid coffers than addressing these and the many other issues we as a nation face.

A drop in the ocean maybe but still better than the self serving, beak wetting, jaw droppingly inappropriate kick in the teeth you people are delivering to us all by not only manipulating this system to near corrupt ends but in brazenly defending it and pointing the finger elsewhere too.

Have the guts to stand up and say it was wrong end of. don't even try and weasel out of it with such gutless and inappropriate platitudes as:-

it may appear wrong to your ignorant non MP eyes

Yes I claimed for the moon on a solid gold stick to be delivered to me in a diamond encrusted ferrari but it was someone else that approved it

YOU BLOODY ASKED IN THE FIRST PLACE YOU CREEPS and even if too busy yourselves, you have an entourage of staff(*). All bar 4 of you charge us taxpayers more than £50,000 a year for staff, 17 charge us more than £100,000 and the average looks to be in the £80,000's - what do they all do if not in part ensure you're not repeatedly making blindingly stupid mistakes all day long?

(*) assuming that they are genuine staff and not family being given their pocket money by (y)our expense account

and please spare us the godawful it was within the rules

Why not go the whole hog put on an Allo Allo German accent and say 'I was just following orders'

What the death camp guard did to the Jews at Auschwitz were within Hitlers rules, does that make the holocaust suddenly alright?

If rules are wrong they should be challenged by decent and honest people everywhere, not exploited to the hilt. How do you think that makes you lot look and sound to the electorate.

Your basic MP salary is more than double what I earn (also in the service of the general public) and I consider my wage to be a decent living one, there are plenty of people far worse paid than I am.
How on earth do I manage to feed, clothe and entertain myself and my family, travel to various places of work, and for 46 weeks of the year I might add (good hols too but nowhere near as many days away from HQ as an MP gets) on such a relative pittance and expenses that never top more than a few pound for 24/7 out of hours calls.
You may have done 70 hours last week (including travelling time) but are you going to get a pager jolt you awake at 3am on a Sunday morning to go out and delve into the worse excesses of what one human being can do to another?

Next time you get the option of setting and advising public sector pay remember your words on question time, remember just how much money you actually take from the public purse and see how close you can set my salary and those of my other public service colleagues accordingly to save our financial embarrassment too eh.

Should I hold my breath for a 620% pay rise anytime soon Mr Campbell?

Do you honestly need £157,112 ON TOP of £63,291 just to avoid being financially embarrassed.

If so you obviously have a much lower shame threshold than most other human beings.

however there's 650 odd more just like you that seem to share this contempt for the intellect of your fellow man, an astonishing lack of self awareness and the missing embarrassment gene.

How lucky you've all managed to get together in a special unit where you can indulge your inadequacies with impunity.

shame its us mug punters that have to fund it though.

Phew nearly no swearing, I need a lie down.

Golden Gordon

2009-04-14T09:26:00.003+01:00

8-1 ...........................8 bloody 1

well not quite but 5 bloody 0

or should I be singing 'What a difference a week makes, 168 little hours'

The bottom of the Northern arm of the Football Conference (Blue Square North for the pedants) has loomed large in my thoughts recently given Blyth's huge fixture backlog and a ever more frightening descent into the relegation mire.

Saturdays 1-0 win at Workington was a godsend but yesterday, yesterday! WOW

what a transformation from what I have seen recently, (inept and passionless capitulation) suddenly I'm watching a team playing with a passion and determination to win, a recognised formation and playing to the strengths of our most skillful and most combative players.

the result, a 5-0 win in front of 600+ nonplussed fans, deliriously happy but wondering where that game has been since before Christmas.

if other results had been a good for us as Saturday's were, it would have been cigars and deckchairs now but I'm still a happy post Easter bunny right now.

we are staying up, I say we are staying up.

(apologies to the non football fans, normal service will be resumed shortly)

Testing Testing

2009-04-12T14:42:00.005+01:00

Just testing adding images - I hope Genesis Bikes don't mind the free plug (and link through the blog title) for their very lovely iO ID 2009 edition bike that I went and had a look at yesterday in anticipation of my companies Bike to Work scheme eventually getting off the ground.

It looks fantastic, is as light as a feather and with its disc brakes and hub gearing should be near maintenance free.

The guy in the shop was a bit disparaging about the colour scheme (this is it folks, green or nowt) but I like it and as a long term rider of a Birdy folder in one of the least bike friendly cities on Earth, looking conspicuous on my bike is a good thing and the helpful comments I'll no doubt get will be water of a ducks back.

It's a long way out in front on my oooohhhhh I want that one list right now.

I should be Ironing.....

2009-04-11T16:25:00.004+01:00

......but I'm not, I'm sat here at my computer feeling almost physicaly sick with nerves and anticipation madly hitting f5 and hoping that the updates are good.

4pm on a Saturday when your team are in a monumental relegation fight at the bottom of the league.We're one of 3 teams in the mix for 1 guaranteed survival spot.

We are the only one of the 3 winning at the moment and the anticipation is painful.

Please God after the woeful gutless fare served up in the last 3 capitulations, let us win this one and the others lose.

so is the life of a distant fan of a not very good team.

If you've a modicum of interest, offer up a little word of encouragement to Blyth Spartans, we need all the help we can get right now

HAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY

BLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYTTTTTTTTTTTTTHHHHHHHHH

UPDATE: YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS it's all gone our way. 4 games to go, 4 points clear of 3rd bottom and 10 goals to the good over them.

Quick Update on Poorly Pooch

2009-04-10T18:05:00.006+01:00

Barney's wee was all in order and so was the phial of blood that it cost me £118 to have taken from him and analysed.

He's either got over his temporary ailment or he'd decided to see what we'd do if he took to using the house as a giant pissoir - whichever it was, he's back in the realm of killing off the grass with his outflow now.

£118 Good God!!!!! for a small phial of blood and a pot of wee to dip a jumped up litmus stick in.

I'm definitely in the wrong business.

Part of my job includes the occsionally gory and gruesome task of recovering fingerprints from dead bodies, regardless of whatever state of decomposition, dismemberment, incineration or maceration they may be in.

I've even had a pair of human skin 'gloves' on at one point in my professional career.

I get 50 quid for that and only then If I fill in the form properly.

£118 to test dog blood, pah

is it bad form

2009-04-01T23:34:00.001+01:00

to post two blogs on the same day?

It looks like the dog is paying the car insurance again

2009-04-01T22:27:00.007+01:00

As life imitates Art, so My blog seems to be imitating another.

I was going to write a long and detailed treatise on the collection of urine from a possibly poorly dog, but dang, beaten to it.

Instead I'll tell the tale of the rather unusual 5 minutes before the fairly uneventful collection process with nary (is this really a word?) a drop of Barney's (for that is poorly pooches name) golden shower spilled.

We have 3 dogs, all with their own quirks and foibles, Max, the youngest and newest to us (saluki cross so quite headstrong), is a friendly wee beastie who likes nothing more than saying hello to whichever dogs he meets on his rounds, usually after bombing towards them at 100miles an hour like a black and cream exocet.

I'm not sure if its a by-product of his pre rescue treatment but it seems that the faster his legs work, the less his ears do.

I was a tad preoccupied watching Barney for a cocked leg and dopey 'aaaahhhhh' look spreading across his face, dopey looks are hard to tell with Barney, he has a wide range to choose from. Bottle at the ready, I hadn't spotted the other pooch playing ball 2 footy pitches away.

Voom>>>>>>> Off went Max,

The next thing I see, him and Labrador thingy have met in mid air and are rolling round on the ground with Lab's owners wafting at them and shooing them apart. Max takes this as a challenge and sets about it Gladiators like to get round the obstacles to his new best friend - ignoring the wafting arms and me yelling at him as I run (well OK, amble quickly) over to the melee.

As soon as it begins, its over and Max is haring back to us, the other dogs owners are checking theirs over and I fear a law suit or shouting match, so carry on over to make amends.

As I get closer they hook the dog onto it's lead and 'dad' in particular seems to be keen to get away from us. OK maybe they're not keen to get into another scrap with Mad Max and his cronies even though they're all now safely on leads, but I'm still concerned to make sure Max hasn't done any damage to their dog so I carry on and ask from a distance if theirs is OK, dad still pulling away.

Mum eventually stops and, eyeing me warily, tells me he's a pup and their training him off the lead, all the while dad and dog are moving subtly away from us and Mum has a nervous look and is talking rather quickly.

Odd behaviour I think, as it's me saying sorry and admonishing Max, but I suppose having appeared from the undergrowth in sunglasses, shorts and a dayglo cycling top with an insane dog in tow I've probably not created the best first impression.

then my hand comes up into my peripheral vision and I'm suddenly aware of the near elbow length pink Marigold gloves that I'm still wearing.................

Shameless thievery of other peoples Ideas

2009-03-02T21:52:00.011Z

I've been inspired to wax lyrical by another blog post on a little room close to my heart. Our local postal collection office.

I've always had a soft spot for that place and the anticipation and hope that wells in you when you receive through the door an unexpected little card announcing that the postman (ours is a man so I'm sticking with that) has not been able to deliver a package.

oh wow.. a package, out of the blue, it's not my birthday, I've not entered any competitions, I can't remember ordering anything online recently:

Who sent it?

what is it?

Why the 24 hour wait?

24 hours of fevered imagination and racked brains: by the time I've got to the collection office, I'm leaping out of the car before its drawn to a halt and sprinting past the pebble garden and into the ever so tiny waiting room to collect the Million pound Diamond Tiara and first folio of Shakespeare's sonnets in his own hand that I've obviously been left by an eccentric great aunt I never knew about.

**At this point dear reader I should tell you that I am mentally talking to myself as John Betjeman and the metro-land railway music is rolling around the inner reaches of my brain**

I stand in the queue (there's always a queue) looking at the old postal map of the UK and admiring the slightly faded photograph of what was once the fastest letter sorting machine in Britain. I'm willing the person in front of me not to have one of those difficult to find letters that sees the blue shirted Santa behind the counter disappear into the back seemingly never to be seen again, but eventually they return, and it's only a letter, Ha - mine's a package, I win!! until finally it's my turn.

Affecting an air of unconcerned nonchalance I hand over the mystery prize card and it's my turn to endure the interminable wait. Have I got my driving licence? have I got a pen? oh come on....... hurry up....... don't you know Fiona Bruce is waiting outside to whisk me off to be the star of the next edition of Antiques Roadshow with my hoard of mystery booty.

Having received the always disappointingly small brown package I stroll calmly out of the office; knowing I'm just a little bit nearer to my own personal Nirvana than those I'm brushing past still brandishing their little red cards and tutting at the customer who is seemingly picking up a weeks worth of deliveries for a small country estate; before getting back to my hastily abandoned car and ripping open the parcel there and then to find nothing more than a Trade catalogue and a free sample no-drill rawl plug that was in a box just too chunky for my letterbox.

The disappointment is palpable, I sit momentarily deflated in the car as the anticipation fuelled adrenaline peak ebbs rapidly away in a wave of masonry drill bits on offer at 2 for 1 and a free pair of ear defenders with any order over £25.

and then the bounce.

a pair of ear defenders, hmmm.......I've not got any of them......... & I'm sure could find a use for 25 quid's worth of hex bolts and clout nails, and it'll be another trip to the mecca of hope over experience when they're too big for the letterbox and I've forgotten all about them coming.

Too much security

2009-02-19T00:42:00.005Z

Including the Password I have acquired for this Blog, I now have 1327(*) of them to remember.

I'm thinking of changing my Childrens names on a monthly basis and forcing them to have a combination of numbers, letters and capitals, none of which must spell a word that can be found in a standard dictionary.

The young lady sharing my profile picture will be known as blaZflis27 for the next 30 days, after which time she will stop talking to me unless I change her name again.

(*) I have been known to exaggerate from time to time.

Decisions decisions

2009-02-17T20:19:00.000Z

Well here we go then, the first big crisis behnd the scenes has been what template to use. Honestly I thought it was just me tapping away into the night, you guys should see behind the curtain, it's like the Tardis back here, levers and buttons galore. I'm a one for pressing the big red button thats says Don't, so it could all go up in a puff of smoke at any moment.

Hardly an auspicious start is it, not exactly Draft 1 of the Gettysburg Address so far.

Well tough, thats another thing about me, I've just got to have a go and see how it all looks, its not a real OCD or anything like that, but it's a bit of a compulsion all the same.

This blog will probably evolve into me howling at the moon and tapping out my opinions and tall stories on all sorts of rubbish in the wee small hours, hence my name - it sprung up from some random drivel about pornstars I left as a post midnight comment on a pals blog recently. Once I suss out the links business I'll give him his proper dues and you can go and see what a well rounded and nicely established blog looks like.

anyway since I'm putting off decorating to do this, I'd better be off to the land of lumpy paste and swearing at inanimate objects. I hate DIY.