The pumps don't work 'cos the vandals took the handles

Hello everyone and a "special" hello to all you virus-writers out there. Twats.

The past five days have been spent patching God knows how many desktops and laptops after they became infected with Zotob, the latest in a long, long line of viruses created by pricks of the highest order intent on hurting Microsoft any way they can.

They should be skinned alive and covered in salt. That'll learn 'em.

---

When the proactive, challenge-hungry management team of ours realised that a major incident was unfolding, they ganged together and organised a conference call. You could feel the testosterone oozing from the phone as middle-manager attempted to outdo middle-manager with talk of a pre-co-ordinated, triage-led, client interface solution. I think it meant that we had to assess which areas of the business needed attending to first and then going out armed with patches, updated service packs and the rest to begin the tedious task of cleaning up.

"OK guys, it's 10:15, let's get on with the task in hand and we'll update via conference call at 12:00."

One and threequarter hours to downlad patches, burn CDs and drive to wherever we were directed. What would we be able to update on? In my case, at 12:00pm I was still circumnavigating the city of Manchester in a desperate attempt to dodge as many traffic jams as I could.

Then a voice of sanity cut through the bullshit:

"Why don't we just get on with the friggin' job instead of wasting time on conference calls?"

Silence.

"I said......."

"Yeah, OK, good point....good point. OK I'll take that on board and let you guys at the coalface get on with the task in hand. If you just make sure we have your mobile numbers we can co-ordinate this on the fly."

My mobile number eh? My PERSONAL mobile, for PERSONAL use. Bought by myself - and many others in my firm because the company has deemed it unnecessary for its engineers in the field to be given company mobiles. And this twat thinks I'm going to hand my number over to him? A guy who will think nothing of phoning me or anyone else at three in the morning to 'sort out a problem': and I pay for the privelege of listening to the socially challenged prick? It's not rocket science is it?

Fuck off.

---

Within seconds the email system is heaving and creaking under the weight of management directives being fired off right, left and centre. Emails full of sentences awash with business bollox-speak and kick-ass rampant nonsense. All geared to show just what a guy-worthy-of-promotion the sender is.

Meanwhile those of us actually doing the job quietly got on with it. Long hours spent doing a boring, repetitive job and being constantly interrupted by messages to phone this twat or that twat every hour or so.

So now the dust has settled and the back of the problem is broken. Our clients, once they realised the infection was not something unique to them, were, on the whole, understanding and accommodating. It was only when a proactive, challenge-centred, business-focussed dickhead got involved that there were hiccups. When will they ever learn?

Pretty much back to normal today. Just the usual shit - until we get told there is another conference call at 10:00am. Probably some lickspittle doing a roundup of the virus outbreak, we thought.

We were wrong. The call was to let us know that talks have been ongoing for "quite some time" with a hardware and software support company and at least 30% of us are to be outsourced before Christmas.

It's a fuckin' good job they didn't announce this last Wednesday, otherwise the proactive twats would've had the challenge of a lifetime getting us to put in the hours and the effort required to make them look good at their next appraisals.

---

In other news this week. I'm just SO relieved that Dubya has reiterated his stance on the War on Terror. Way to go George. Apparently the good ol' US of A are going to "stay, fight and win the war on terror". "Ich bich ein Baghdadi!" Try that George. It worked for JFK it might work for you. Mind you, I can't remember anyone attempting a "Ich bich ein Saigoner," and I've got a feeling that your current situation reminds me more of the latter than the former.

Still, good luck you lovable pretend hick you.

Via The Fat Buddha; Steve Earle.

---

We're having the hall, stairs and landing, along with a bedroom, completely redecorated at the moment - all due to a sneaky leak that did a lot of damage over a long period of time without Dearest and I realising. So this week we have experienced the slowest decorator in the World. He turns up early enough - the inconsiderate bastard - early enough for me to have to get up early and bog off to work to facilitate his on-the-job indolence. The man has more 'comfort breaks' than the terminally ill. Fags, brews, "fresh air"? Is there is no end to his needs? He never stays later than 4:00pm.

Today though, he turns up with a posse and an air of "I'm in charge". He was full of attitude. "You'll need a ladder for that Gary and be careful." "Tommy I think you'll find it easier to start at the top with a plough, hoe and trowel - or something." I was in a state of quiet awe until:

"Carry on lads I'm just going for a fag."

I came home at around 5:30. How four men can have progressed so little in an entire working day is beyond me. It must be harder to think of different ways to do fuck all than it is to do the job. I'm impressed.

---

Just been informed they need someone to drive to York to sort ut an infected laptop. Well, as the laughing policeman said:

"ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"

You reap what you sow.

The Story of O

Well, here it is, the absence of O. The hole in my keyboard that is causing me pain, grief and more pain and grief. You have to bloody hammer it you see. Hammer it, just to ensure that it registers. In the normal course of a paragraph yu would probably hammer it a couple of hundred times.

Why couldn't it have been X or Q or Z?

---

And so to memes. Here's one based on birthdays. As if it could possibly be accurate. Ha ha ha ha.......

Your Birthdate: July 30

Your birthday on the 30th day of the month shows individual self-expression is necessary for your happiness. You tend to have a good way of expressing yourself with words, certainly in a manner that is clear and understandable. You have a good chance of success in fields requiring skill with words. You can be very dramatic in your presentation and you may be a good actor or a natural mimic. You have a vivid imagination that can assist you in becoming a good writer or story-teller. Strong in your opinions, you always tend to think you are on the right side of an issue. There may be a tendency to scatter your energies and have a lot of loose ends in your work. You may have significant artistic talent and be very creative.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Bugger me - it's spot on. I better rearrange all my strong opinions about astrology and the like, renounce my wife and family and become a mystical prick with a leery eye and a libido to match.

Not that I distrust the occult, religion and the used car trade and all the inadequates who choose a 'career' in these most base of professions.

Honest.

Bessie and I went to Bournemouth on Saturday, no one was drownded, so we went for a swim. We spent an hour cleaning oil off the seagulls.......I don't think we'll be going again

Well, another week has flown by in a flurry of this, that and the other. These posts are becoming tardy aren't they? Do you know why? Well I'll tell you: THAT MISSIN' 'O' KEY!!!

It's driving me mad - believe me. The joy I feel writing a sentence, like the last one, with no 'o's in it, is palpable. Deeply frabjous and joyful.

So I've been spending time with Doris, my Yamaha Classical, Nylon-Strung Guitar. Caressing and nuzzling up to it. Trying to play the bugger like Earl Klugh, Pat Metheny and Mark Knopfler play theirs. But not quite making it. Ah well.

---

This evening, after a particularly traumatic day - healthwise - for Dearest (again), we went for a meal pub lunch at a local country inn corporate load of bollocks crap masquerading as a pub/'restaurant' 'country inn experience'. Early doors we went - 6:30pm roughly; to discuss the events of the day and to bask in each other's company and support. In a pub.

And what did we experience? Skriking, yarling, snotty kids in conjunction with everybody's perfect match, the feckless, "fat-as-fuck-but-I've-not-had-a-double-burger-and-chips-etc-with-a-large-diet-coke -in-case-I-get-really-fat-for -a-day-at-least" parents. Sat at the next table, the table behind us, a couple of tables to the left - and generally dotted about the entire entirity of the entire friggin' place. Like Pot plants, but noisier. Running around like feral wildcats the kids were. Knocking over tables, drinks and pensioners wherever you looked. Wonderful.

So, after we had eaten the indolent fare presented, we buggered off and walked up to the next pub in the local, twee village of - well - let's call it Legohouses. Empty it was: the pub that is - bliss. A pint and whatever Dearest's latest drink-du-jour is and all is well. Nice chairs, decent-ish beer and peace. Bliss. After ten minutes though, a couple come and sit next to us. He lights up, which I don't have a problem with - it's a pub after all - but, like ALL smokers do, he holds his cigarette well away from his face when he's not actually smoking, and where does his smoke end up? Yeah, that's right, my face.

Now I'm one of those ex-smokers who is quite understanding of smoking etiquette in public places. I don't really mind. I had to put up with Dearest smoking in our house for 6 months AFTER I gave up. So I'm quite used to putting up with other people's smoke. However, regardless of the fact that I gave up a long time ago, and have got used to the fact that, in the past, most people in a pub smoked, I have found that that is no longer the case. Certainly where I live, in pubs, smokers are definitely in the minority. So why the fuck are breweries and all the rest still frightened of taking them on? Why do we still get the old 'freedom to do what the fuck you want and, apparently, bollocks to everyone else' argument still being trundled out?

For two years now I have been attending Manchester City's new ground which, while watching the match, is completely non-smoking. A football ground. A FOOTBALL GROUND. FFS! But not a pub? Tonight I was subjected to that much inconsiderate second hand smoke, we left the pub. It was intimidating. Why should the VAST MAJORITY of people who inhabit pubs on a regular basis be held to ransom by inconsiderate arseholes who couldn't give a fuck about anyone but themselves? And I do mean vast majority. I don't know what it's like in the pubs you go in, but the ones I do - even the 'rough ones in Manchester' - always seem to have more non-smokers.

Or is it just me? I don't think so.

Smoke by all means. Smoke in pubs if you want. But hold the fuckin' cigarette in your own (or a close relative's) face when it's not actually between your lips.

I made the hard decision to go through the cold turkey and I know how hard it is, but, FFS, I've done it once and I don't want to do it again.

---

To rub my smoke-riddled face in it when I got home, I watched a truly uninspired Manchester United knock a less-than-expected-no-matter-what-the-tossers-on-the-tv-tell-you,-3-against-the- lowly-opposition's-0. I felt as sad as a sad thing on St Sad's day - the year it fell on a Monday.

Still, there's always the next round.

Time is Tight

Look what I got for my birthday. Fat Buddha was raving about this amazing iPod accessory a few weeks ago. If I remember rightly his was the victim of a red wine, dog calamity that ended in a wine soaked iStation.

The sound, for such a small item is absolutely brill. The design is classic. The whole thing folds to the size of a paperback (albeit a hefty Picador, unabridged biography of someone who lived for fuckin' ages), for packing in your bag when you jet off here, there and everywhere. All in all, a bloody masterpiece. It's all set up and blasting out in my Eyrie as I write. Sadly my Audioscrobbler won't update off it so that might look a bit static. I'll leave it there as snapshot of my musical journey in the early 21st century.

---

A few weeks ago I had a small accident which resulted in the loss of the 'o' key on my acquired laptop. This is becoming increasingly annoying. I can live with it but it's still annoying. I can't take it in work to get it fixed though because everyone will suddenly remember that I 'borrowed' it to arse about on the internet work from home about 6 months ago.

So, if you read the odd post without 'o's in it, just bear with me. I try to catch as many as possible, but some will always slip thrugh the net - like that one just did.

Show Me The Way To Amarillo B and Q

The phone rings.

"Hiya", it's Dearest, "I've had a small bump at B and Q, I'm alright but the passenger door is all crumpled in".

"Are you sure you're OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It was two Asian lads they've offered to pay for the damage".

My heart sank. Offering to pay for the damage up front? I'd say they were uninsured without a shadow of a doubt. More was to come.

"They say they only bought the car this morning and when I asked them to exchange details they said they didn't have their insurance details and, wait for it, they can't remember where they live. I've phoned the police".

"Are they still there?" I asked, fearing the worst.

"Yeah, that's the odd thing, they're sat here calmly waiting for the police to arrive".

Now that's strange. It's obvious that something's wrong here yet they're happy to wait for the police. These are strange times we live in and strange behaviour like this sets the imagination running wild. Had dearest just had a minor accident with an Al Qaeda cell? Were they wired? Had they decided that a member of the police force, when he arrived, would make a fitting victim - along with Dearest and a few DIYers as they embraced eternity and their promised virgins?

I shot off up to the store and when I arrived another acquaintance of theirs had arrived. Older and agitated he was constantly chunnering in his native tongue to the other two. It had been an hour and a half and still no police. I phoned them back.

Turns out they had attended a completely different B & Q and assumed everyone had fucked off home out of sheer boredom. No doubt another successful crime "solved" for the statistics. The control desk re-opened the call and an hour later a copper appears and immediately gives us the "Customer Care Course"-inspired apology for the mix up with such precision we all got the distinct impression it was a speech he had given many times before.

Eventually the copper gets the driver of the other car into the back of his police car and questions him vigourously. After 20 minutes he emerges to tell us that he is now under arrest on account of giving false names and false addresses.

While the questioning had been going on, Dearest tells me that just before I arrived one of the guilty party went into B&Q returning with a woman who swore blind she saw it all and Dearest was at fault. She claimed she didn't know the lads but she had asked them directions to B&Q earlier and they had been kind enough to show her the way and that's why they were there.

So, they can't remember where they live but they do know the way to B&Q? Also, they meet a woman for the first time ever and then an hour later are able to walk into a crowded store and recognise her within minutes?

Bizarre.

I kept coming back to the "why didn't they drive off" scenario. They stopped when the accident occurred, they gave explanations (however implausible) as to why they couldn't provide details. The car wasn't stolen (we found out later) so the bloke who owned it could've said he'd been driving. If he was insured the police wouldn't have bothered setting up a identity parade for such a minor misdemeanour surely.

Bizarre.

Later, the copper phoned us. The lad had never been in trouble before and had lied simply because he wasn't insured. He's up before the beak on Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile I have to fork out excess and lose my no claims.

Bollocks.

"Could've been worse though," said a bloke in the pub later.

"How?", I replied, "How could it have been worse?"

"Well, any one of them could've exploded at any minute".

---

And then it did get worse. City are signing Darius Vassell.

Hmmmmm...Sweet Nothings....

Overheard taking Tess the shit machine for her late evening crap walk. A young couple 5 yards apart as they staggered home, him mumbling, her answering back like this:-

"....Because you've asked me the same fuckin' question four fuckin' times for fuck's sake. You're a boring fucker you fuckin'.....fuckin'......fuckin' arsin' fuckin' WHELK!"

Whelk?

Laugh? I nearly died.

She probably wants to be "famous" as a continuity announcer on TV one day. Mind you, who knows, one day she probably will.

---

Bombs, panic, death, alerts, all-clears, controlled explosions, traffic chaos, closed tube stations, news crews on every street corner intent on that definitive vox-pop, that "tear-in-the-eye", that "catch-in-the-throat": "that could've-been-me" moment.

Long weekend in London anyone? Paris maybe? Madrid? Anywhere? I don't think so do you?

I mean, I'm all for "business as usual", "stiff upper lip" etc., but a nice break in the Yorkshire Dales just might be the ticket for me.

---

Remind me to tell you what complete and utter pricks Parceline are.

Money Talks....

Well, so long Shaun Wright-Philips. Friday evening he apparently wanted to stay at the club that nurtured and believed in him when other clubs didn't. Within 24 hours he had acquired a Rio Ferdinand-esque "stomach bug" which meant he couldn't play in Saturday's friendly. On the way home from the ground he phones the Chairman and asks for permission to speak to Chelsea and, presumably, lets the media know at the same time, and loads the negotiation in Chelsea's favour.

Immediately the press are on to it and we treated to tired copy all along the lines of 'debt-ridden Man City', 'financially crippled Man City' and 'cash strapped Man City' We have £60m managed debt (y'know like a mortgage) and, because of this we have no option but to sell according to the nation's sporting press. well if that's the case, where the fuck does that leave Man United? Nearly £500m debt and not making enough annual profit to service the interest payments on Malcolm's dodgy loans. They'd have to sell their team twice over.

And now we are being told that Shaun couldn't resist because Chelsea are such a big club! Are they bollocks. They're a fuckin' rich club no doubt about it but big? I don't think so. It'll be interesting to see what happens to Chelsea when Abromovich gets bored, imprisoned or 'taken out' by some shady Russian mafia type.

So, off goes SWP as expected and it looks like a certain Mr A Cole (Andrew not Ashley) will soon be arriving. Fowler and Cole. The best strike force in the Premiership. 10 years ago.

I need hard liquor, TLC and a copious amount of anti-depressants.

Walls and Bridges

This is significant news. British. Born here, Raised here, Schooled here, and then, warped here. How can you hate that much? How can you spray murder so randomly? So indiscriminately? How can you sit next to your intended prey trying to guess who would survive?

Furthermore, Why can you hate that much? Why can you spray murder so randomly? So indiscriminately? Why can you sit next to your intended prey trying to guess who would survive?

Why, why, why? You were born here FFS! What medievil twat filled you with that much hatred? Was it moral outrage? Bare female arms at the height of summer? Rowdy young men quaffing ale outside the pubs of England? Was it the very notion of democracy that offended you? A deep yearning for the proud civilsations of the Tigris, Euphrates, Ganges and the rest to return to some kind of perverted ascendancy? What was it? What made you think that setting that timer, triggering the carnage with a mobile phone or whatever; what made you think it was THE RIGHT THING TO DO?

'Cos, for the life of me I don't get it. I really don't.

You know, there are many, many things we all have to endure in this veil of tears. Twats with bombs for example, we've been doing it in the UK for quite a few years now you know. Perhaps you never noticed back in the 70s, 80s and 90s because you were too busy watching Blue Peter, Swapshop and Bagpuss? But then of course puberty probably kicked in and all those confused messages that the rest of the world's youth has to deal coursed through your brain and you took solace in an old bloke with a beard who spoke of constant absolutes, infidels and, crucially, nirvana.

Them there "legitimate" virgins waiting for "true martyrs" must sound pretty impressive when you're reduced to beating your genitalia with sledgehammers in order to dispel impure thoughts and - horror of horrors - impure deeds.

I mean, although I've never read his book, I can only imagine Allah must be pretty straightforward about such things.

Have a wank and go to hell. Plant a bomb on a crowded bus and "enjoy" your virgins for eternity.

It's a funny old world.

**The picture is of Phillip Russell, 29. Phillip died in Tavistock Square on the back of a London bus.

---

I acquired an external USB 2.0 Hard Disk from Amazon today. A great bargain at £99 for 250 Gbs (yes 250Gbs). So now my iPod, photographs and God knows what else are backed up and iTunes is able to play direct from the new disk as well.

The first PC I used at work way back when was an IBM PS2/50 (I think). It had 1Mb of RAM (massive), and.....wait for it.....an incredibly huge 10Mb hard disk.

"You'll never fill that" said some knowledgable IT type.

Think I'll Pack it in and Buy a Pick Up...

It's 10:45pm, Sunday 10th July and I'm currently sat on my patio listening to Neil Young on th'iPod, sucking on a can of Oranjeboom, and becoming increasingly aware of a local barby getting more boisterous by the second whilst breathing in the evening summer fragrancies. Oh to be in England.....

It turns out that a lad from our part of the world is missing after travelling down to that there London and catching the wrong tube train at the wrong time on the wrong day. I guess there is a slight chance that he is comatose in some hospital somewhere, but something tells me he's part of the profoundly diverse human soup underneath the streets of London.

Looks like 70 went the way of all flesh on Thursday: Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew Agnostic and Atheist - all blasted to Kingdom come - which, I guess, is precisely where the warped twats who perpetrated this atrocity are hoping to end up once they reach terrorist retirement age.

White folk in the pubs round here are once again claiming that "mates of mates" heard Pakistanis and Bangladeshis cheering in North Manchester as news of this latest disgrace fitered through. Exactly the same rumours were expoused by the same people after 9/11. I don't think so. Do you? Why would any human being cheer this type of action?

Let's not fall for the "they're all as bad as each other" argument for pity's sake, because "they" ain't. Full stop.

---

Yesterday was a barbecue at Eldest's as we watched the local cricket team win their third game on the trot to drag themselves off the bottom of the table. A lovely day - although I did drink a teensy-weensy bit too much. Hard to believe I know but there you go.

It was "flag day". Eldest and a few of his mates have clubbed together to but a massive St George's flag with "MACEDONIA ULTRAS" on it. Macedonia being the name of the cricket team and ulatras being the fanatical (Fascist) supporters of Italian teams like Lazio.

Except the flag maker spelt it wrong and Macedonia ended up as Macidonia. We argued it was the Mancunian pronunciation and before the next match we'll finish off properly and rewrite it as: "MACIDONIOH!".

Sorted. Nice one.

My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama

In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate, may peace be upon the cheerful one and undaunted fighter, Prophet Muhammad, God's peace be upon him.

Nation of Islam and Arab nation: Rejoice for it is time to take revenge against the British Zionist Crusader government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The heroic mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern, and western quarters.

We have repeatedly warned the British Government and people. We have fulfilled our promise and carried out our blessed military raid in Britain after our mujahideen exerted strenuous efforts over a long period of time to ensure the success of the raid.

We continue to warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all the Crusader governments that they will be punished in the same way if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. He who warns is excused.

God says: "You who believe: If ye will aid (the cause of) Allah, He will aid you, and plant your feet firmly."



Twats.

And, incidentally, we are NOT "burning with fear, terror and panic" anywhere you cowardly bastards.

The Beards Have All Grown Longer Overnight......

OK, the foot is most definitely through the TV screen. (See previuos posts).

[BBC Radio Five's Victoria Derbyshire]"David, *mutters under breath - I'm sure*, what role do you think you played in the successful bid?"

[Beckham] *Looks blank and thinks.....Clouds, rabbits, Tag Heur watches, Nobody loves me, NOBODY LOVES ME, MUST MAKE 'EM ALL LOVE ME..............

"A major one I hope, I mean it was a team effort but.........."

Are we still not allowed to lobotomise the poor, deluded fucker?

And, as for London getting the games....well....all I can say is......billions more pounds poured into the overheated economy of the South East. Regeneration of the East End? Well yes, up to a point Lord Copper, I'll guarantee they'll do a Compulsory Purchase Order on all the terraces that the "poor but happy" ethnic minorities live in, and replace this haven of the underclass with Seb Coe clones, sat in what we used to call Highrises, but we now have to call stuff like "a new approach to urban living for the young professional in the 21st century" They used to cost £25 a week in rent, but now cost £500,000 on account of the "view across the canal/river to the manufactories and sweatshops of that there London".

I really do hope it's a success...but, on the other hand.....it's in London, which is fuckin' miles away - both in distance and the projected ticket prices come 2012.

C'mon.............what's gonna attract me to the UK's dirtiest, most crime-ridden City? And, bear in mind that I've been there many, many times before.

All suggestions gratefully received.

Shakin' The Tree

Live8-eve saw me and a few others at Old Trafford Cricket Ground for the 20-20 cup match between Lancashire and Yorkshire and a mighty fine evening it turned out to be. Lancs smashed their near neighbours right, left and centre to eventually win by 110 runs in the 15th over of Yorkshire's 20. The victory was even sweeter as a mate of mine who hails from Batley came along with us

It was a night for good-natured banter and normally sane human beings dressing up as Batman, Supergirl, a giraffe and numerous facial adornments like false moustaches and beards.

£10 it was for 3 hours entertainment. well worth it.

---

Saturday dawned with all radio and tv channels drip feeding the Live8 concert at every opportunity. I found it hard to get enthusiatic about it but, then again, I felt the same way just before Live Aid.

By the time we got to REM though I was quite enjoying myself. As the evening progressed and the likes of Annie Lennox, Sting and Madonna had done their bits I was beginning to really enjoy it. The highlights for me though were Pink Floyd and especially The Who. How Townshend still finds the energy to thrash that guitar of his amazes me. Windmilling his arm whilst crashing chord after chord with Daltry screaming next to him looking for all the world like an Edwardian gentlemen on holiday took me back to the "good ol' days" when I could handle the sex and drugs and rock and roll and still wake up without a hangover.

Whether it'll make a blind bit of difference at Gleneagles on Wednesday though is an entirely different matter. Time will tell.

What was unwelcome was the sight - once again - of the Beckhams canoodling in the midst of all the other lovies. I swear I'll kick the tv in if I see the talentless mannequins one more time this decade. Yer past yer sell-by date darlings and you're startin' to look desperate.

To put the icing on the cake for me, old goldenballs trundled on stage to introduce Robbie Williams. Before he got round to that though he had to say something profound, so he did. He said something along the lines of 'I think you'll all agree that this is one of the most important things I've ever been involved in'. I think I know what he was trying to say but that ol' Freudian slippery wasn't about to let him was it?

Arf!

Lazy Bones, Lazin' in the Sun........part two

Just had to post this panorama of the view from my balcony. To the left are the hills of north Corfu, to the right the mountains of Albania. In front the village of Kassiopi. Kassiopi I have fallen for you big time. I could spend a sizeable amount of time wrapped up in you, and I'm not one for abandoning Manchester for long periods.

---

In 1985 I was 31 years of age. Prior to 13th July of that year I was pretty sceptical about what Mr Geldof and his grandiloquent notions could achieve. Sure the Xmas single had raised money, consciousness and, in government circles, eyebrows, but deep inside you just knew that Live Aid would be, if not an embarrasing flop, then just another prop for aging rock and pop stars to lean on as they squeezed the last drops of credibility from their flagging careers. I mean, look at some of the line up. Howard Jones, Adam Ant and the like were well past their sell-by dates on the day of the show and as for the Americans....what can I say? Huey Lewis and the News! I'll say no more.

And here we are 20 years later and Bob's still a-cussin' with the best of 'em, still harassing politicians unpracticed in the art of the truth and generally shaking everbody up again. Will Live8 succeed like its predecessor? Well I don't know. One thing's for sure though, there's a massive difference between the general public shelling out and Governments writing off huge amounts of significant debt. Time will tell.

---

We've had two murders in my little town over the past couple of weeks. The first was while we away and involved a guy having his bag stolen by scrotes, chavs, neds, call 'em what you will. He was killed as he chased their getaway van and was crushed by the wheels of their nefarious industry. On Monday of this week, a few short hours after we touched down, a 43 year old was beaten to death with a steel bar and kicks to the head of such ferocity that witnesses likened them to someone kicking a football. A 43 year old who was described by people I know who knew him as "a kind and gentle man". He'd just successfully completed a course in electrical engineering and was excited about his future. His crime? He didn't smoke and, as such, couldn't give his murderers the light for their cigarettes they had requested.

Two murders.

In my little town.

Lazy Bones, Lazin' in the Sun........

Well I'm back an' I'm chiiillllled! Two idyllic weeks of doing sod all. Much appreciated and much needed. No TV, Internet or owt like that. Just the Daily Mirror to keep us in touch with all the important stuff like BB6, Shag Island (or whatever it was called), David's Speedos and the never-ending speculation about Shaun Wright-Phillips' future. The ridiculous posturings of The Daily Mail (Arf) kept us up to date with just how many illegal immigrants had committed acts of grave consequence and just how the Labour Government had destroyed a viable company called Railtrack.

*Sits dumstruck attempting to remember at which point that most shambolic of shambolic Public Service sell offs could ever be remotely thought of as "viable"*

A superb resort - small, picturesque and quiet. Good company, good books, cheap booze, cheap food and an iPod full to the brim kept me satisfied for 14 nights. All I need is the air that I breathe..............

The night before we flew I perused iTunes and purchased Ry Cooder's newbie "Chavez Ravine". Well I love it. It's not the masterpiece that a lot of the Sundays have been damning it as, but it's near as damn it for me. Essentially it became the soundtrack to my holiday and it will forever be linked to the gorgeous village of Kassiopi, the sunshine, the people....ahhhhhh...the place.

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And then right in the middle of this Nirvana comes the news that Michael Jackson has got off scot free. I'll not say anything explicit here 'cos I believe he's a litigious little bugger *ahem*. I'll just say this: For someone who constantly expresses his innocent love for children, it amazes me that nobody ever seems to comment on the fact that all his pre-pubescent pals are boys.

I'm with Jo Brand on this one - "he would've been convicted if he was black."

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Why are we "celebrating" the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar four months before the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar? More to the point - why are we "celebrating" it at all? At great expense I might add. WTF has it to do with modern Britain?

You can't move in our street for gaily dressed, cheery children, mums and dads dancing hornpipes. The lovingly crafted, papier-mâché Frenchmen have been battered and burnt in an explosion of good-natured xenophobia the likes of which hasn't been witnessed since the halcyon days of the Empire.

Just like the Tories before him, it seems to me that our Tone is trying to rekindle the "glories" of the past in order to draw attention from the abject state of the policies of the "People's Party".

Do you think we'll be celebrating the 200th anniversary of victory in Iraq in 200, 250, 300 or perhaps 400 years time?

Furthermore, listening and watching the BBC, you would think that the entire country has been agog at the shenanigans occurring in the Solent, but the sad fact remains that, once again, it appears to be a competely sudo-centric enterprise. Surprising eh?

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And finally. Wimbledon. FFS! Just when it's lookin' like the perennial failure Henman has finally been recognised fr the nearly-man he always was, we now have a NKOTB. The press are falling over themselves to make him out an ordinary kid (probably because he's Scottish and, therefore, can't be upper-class) who listens to his iPod, eats dodgy curries and sleeps in on the morning of matches.

He's not an ordinary kid. For a start off he's lived - alone - in Barcelona during his formative years so that could play tennis competitively.

He's not an ordinary kid. His mother is a highly competitive ex-tennis-player and number one in Scotland who has obviously influenced her son to the extent that the pressure of the modern circuit has driven her so far apart from young Andrew's Dad that they have seperated.

He's not an ordinary kid.

He plays tennis.

Full stop.

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Right, the two-hour lag between the UK and Corfu is still taking me by surprise so time for bed.

Incidentally, I didn't get my redundancy - my "skills and experience are too valuable to to the company and the client".

Horizons

Well, what a week. In the midst of all our holiday preparations, Dearest receives the news that she is to be made redundant at the end of the year. Fortunately this is a state of affairs she has been hankering after for years and she will acquire a sizable sum as well as a small pension to soften the blow. When we factor in the petrol saved on 50 miles a day commuting to and from Altrincham, things are looking up. Sadly for some of her colleagues, the news has come as a bitter blow.

Naturally, this being a caring corporation we're talking about, a firm of redeployment consultanys have been employed to provide the affected staff with the tools they need to kick ass in today's cut-throat job market. In effect this means they will all emerge with identical cvs full of modern businessspeak like "energetic, team-focussed, dedicated, professional, self-motivated high achiever" and the like. All of which, it can't be denied, will come in handy as they flip another burger, ask if the customer wants "fries with that?"

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All thoughts of the future on back burner for two weeks now as we jet off to Kassiopi on Monday. See you when I get back.

Greek Lightning

I'm beginning to focus on our holiday in Kassiopi as time goes by. A week on Monday, Dearest and I will find ourselves somewhere over Europe risking deep vein thromboses with the best of them. Personally I'm planning a perfectly hedonistic, lazy and boozy two weeks before the horrible return to the harsh reality of life in the 21st century. Using my new Flickr account I have posted this pic of a delightfully distressed door in Symi.

My boss - who is a decent guy - was "invited" to apply for his own job yesterday, along with 22 others. No doubt we'll be next. Once again, as the month end comes around, I find myself shaking hands and saying fare thee well to people I have worked with for nearly 30 years.

Still, in keeping with company policy and adhering 100% to our mission statement, I am embracing the challenges ahead, employing "best practice" right, left and centre as well as leveraging myself to places men of my age have never been leveraged before.

I'd still like my redundancy though.

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"Tapping Up" is in the news I see. Messrs Mourhino and Cole, along with their club Chelsea have been hit with sizable fines and the threat of three points deduction if the club is found doing it again.

Arsenal are "disappointed" that they were not granted compensation.

That would be the same Arsenal who never had ANY contact with Sol Campbell when they wrestled him away from Spurs a few years ago. Honestly.

It really is hypocritical listening to the FA and the rest pontificating about something that everyone knows is rife.

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Did I tell you that Eldest has bought Dearest a Mini iPod as a present for all the help she gave him buying and moving into his new house? As a result, I have been given the unenviable task of attempting to fill 4Gbs-worth of disk space with Dearest's old favourites as well as "stuff I think she might like".

Needless to say, after 1 Gb I'm struggling. Dearest is essentially a folkie at heart, but she is showing tendencies towards world music and a bit of easy listening jazzy stuff. I've got less than a week before our hols.

Any ideas?

Self Portrait

stevie copy, originally uploaded by Waka Jawaka.

I've signed up for this new-fangled Flickr thingy. $20-odd for unlimited Photo storage can't be bad. I've often argued that, in this increasingly digital world we inhabit, cheap, easy online storage was an absolute nailed on requirement. Flickr is a step in the right direction. Nice one as they say 'round these parts.

It's just a question now of uploading the zillions of snaps one feels absolutely necessary to take these days, simply because there are no longer processing costs to take into account. Eeeh, processing? D'yer remember the frisson of excited anticipation as you gazed upon your prints fresh from the Chemist? No Max Spielman, Photobox or owt like that back when photography was still incomprehensible to 9/10ths of the population. Developer, fixer, red lights; a monochrome world. Hours spent manipulating enlargers and paper and making sure the timings just right.....hours it took, hours.

These days you plug your camera into your PC and off you go. Within minutes your snap can be printed in glorious technicolour, posted to a website for the world to see or manipulated to such an extent that it is unrecognisable from the decisive moment when the shutter did its job.

It's a digital world.

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Dearest and I hosted a Greek night chez nous on Saturday night. Six good friends drinking fine wines and eating what can only be described as a fabulous meal. We both did our bit, but the stifado I produced was spot on. The Greek salad was crisp and fresh and wonderful, the stuffed vine leaves were superb and the garlic and rosemary potatoes melted in the mouth. Magnifique!

The evening's music was provided by my laptop randomly extracting stuff from over 3500 tracks on my hard disk via iTunes. The visualisation option provided psychadelic swirling patterns, drenched in colour, to entertain the aging hippies amongst our happy band of brothers and sisters.

We did consider making it a proper Greek night by forbidding toilet paper from the toilet but I suddenly realised that it would be me acting the 'maid' and disposing of the soiled material the day after.

Hmmmm....as someone, somewhere once said: Fuck that.

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Y'know, a couple of weeks ago I was waxing lyrical on how the inclusion of downloaded tracks could possibly change the nature of the charts as it would take into account the hitherto insignificant musical tastes of the computer literate. Well I was right. Unfortunately rather than grown up, literate rock though, we have a bloody ring tone. Am I dreaming? Am I dead? I may as well be because through all the shite I have lived through - from "Shaddap-a-ya-face" to "You Need Hands", I always believed that we were evolving into artistically aware consumers who could cut through the shit and home in on the sublime.

So much for my analysis.

A ring tone. A fuckin' ring tone.

*Stares into the middle distance, pulls on a can of Oranjeboom and quietly despairs*

Don't It Always Seem To Go..You Don't Know What You've Got 'Till It's Gone

I had occasion to visit Manchester centre on Saturday. A trip to the Gent's outfitters being the order of the day and, naturally, Dearest tagged along to make sure I didn't return with garish jewjaws masquerading as apparell. No purple satin flares for me this time then....but my time will come. I've worn them before and I'll wear them again. But anyway, I digress.

As we shuffled from car to store we passed a good old-fashioned Mancunian pub that has graced Great Ancoats Street as long as I can remember, and I can remember this one longer than any other because it was the first pub name I actively took an interest in. It was called the "Land 'O' Cakes".

As a kid I naturally assumed that the place would be awash with Battenburg, swiss roll and angel cake. It took a lot of persuading to disabuse me of this dream. But still, it's a great name for a pub. How many pubs go by such a moniker the length and breadth of the British Isles? Not a lot - if any I would've thought. Not a boring Royal Oak, King's Arms, Gardener's Rest, Church Inn and the like, but the Land O Cakes. Certainly not a manufactured Bag O Shite name like The Fox and Firkin, Slug and Lettuce, Rat and Drainpipe or the ubiquitious Waxy McFergal's Auld Irish Muldoon's Picnic bar.

The Land O Cakes. Unique and instantly recognisable to anyone of Mancunian origin.

'Cept it's not called the Land O Cakes now. Where the words "Land O Cakes" were embossed into the very fabric of the building, some arsehole of a "developer" has attempted to apply whitewash and rewrite history. The pub has rebranded itself "Lord Atterburys" or something, certainly something without an apostrophe anyway, and has "Business Opportunity for Let" boards festooned from each vantage point.

Arf!

The gentrification of central Manchester has, post bomb, rippled to the outskirts of what we would term the City centre. The Northern Quarter north of Picadilly was the last area to be engulfed - as it were - by new money. Ancoats is currently undergoing the Urban Splash treatment. Apartments reclaimed from long derelict mills and places of worship, regeneration of council housing and local businesses. A sense of bridging the past with the present. Ancoats - the world's first industrialised, urban 'village' - bequeathing its original bricks and mortar to the future.

In the middle of all this - betwixt the Northern Quarter and Ancoats, lies the Land O Cakes "Lord Atterburys Business Opportunity for Let".

I'll guarantee you this. Whoever reopens this place will ditch the Lord Atterburys bollocks and revert back to the Land O Cakes - a name that has graced a pub on this site since at least the 1750s. And no doubt the ad-exec who comes up with this innovative rebranding will be hailed as a cutting edge genius and people will talk of meeting in the Land O Cakes again instead of Lord Atterburys (like they ever did!)

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I've still not heard whether I will be allowed to leave my place of employ with a semi-decent buttie. The Ivory towers are chock full of middle and upper mangement attempting to figure out how to leverage us lesser beings across more accounts for less money. It's not easy at the top - honest. For a start off you've got to understand what fuckin' "leverage" means in relation to human beings. Today I was working away at a new account I have recently been leveraged onto, when I get a phone call from some management lickspittle requesting my presence at another account I had recently been leveraged to. "No can do" quoth I, "I'm in the process of "delighting" a customer here" (a good 20 miles away on the other side of Manchester). Cue much gnashing of teeth on the other end of the phone and questions like "can't you do something remotely?" Well, possibly, but given the fact that I an employed to sort the stuff out that requires a deskside visit, aka "the stuff that can't be done remotely", I'd guess the answer to that question would be no.

So I end up listening to a resigned voice on the other end of the phone accepting what I have said but also letting me know that it was all somehow my fault that I couldn't be in two places at once.

Well cheers mate. You'll go far because you certainly motivated me today.

*rubs temples with forefinger and thumb, closes eyes, purses lips and mutters "prick"*

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Sunny Greece in two and a half weeks. Can't wait. Question is 'should I take my WiFi enabled laptop' in the hope that there is a rogue WiFi network either in the hotel or nearby?

Decisions, decisions.

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******ADDENDUM****** Congrats to Liverpool and, especially, to Mr Alfred the OK. I don't know what Benitez said at half-time but, bugger me......

Waiting in Vain (aka You Never Give Me Your Money....)

Well, I've still not had an official reply regarding my request for redundancy. I have worked out what it will cost them to be rid of my dissent under my terms and conditions (94.5 weeks' pay to be precise), and I do believe I will be refused because they are wanting to show savings within this fiscal year. That would obviously mean that anyone qualifying for more than 52 weeks' won't save them a penny. We'll see.

The boss and I had a clear the air talk and all's well there at least. He once again made his point and added that whatever I did would make precious little difference to the faceless number-crunchers crunching their numbers on their number-crunching machines. I told him I was fully aware of that, but it had done me good and possibly saved me from a heart attack under the pressure of having to keep my mouth shut. So, good, solid health reasons for fighting back. Fuck 'em.

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I see Peter has aggravated an old knee injury as a result of his repeated ascents of that big hill in Edinburgh. I know how he feels. Peter's put a pound or two on. In the six weeks or so since I went tits up, the general slowdown and incapacity forced on me by my ankle/foot has resulted in half a stone suddenly appearing on a figure that hasn't been described as svelte since the early 80s. C'est la vie.

It's soooo annoying though. For all intents and purposes I am mobile again, however after too much driving or walking I am reminded that all is still not well and it is fucking frustrating. As Peter has pointed out, a good cardio-vascular workout gets the endorphins coursing through the body. Calories are burned, stresses are zapped and you feel good about yourself. Having to sit with foot up, surfing, watching, listening and reading is making me feel lethargic and pissed off.

[joke]I'll be going to Lourdes for a cure next.[/joke]

But sometimes, just sometimes, I realise just how lucky I am. In the first place I was able to take three weeks off work on full pay, I was able to be seen and 'treated' fairly quickly by the NHS and free XRays were available to ascertain exactly what my problem was. As I sit and think about these 'blessings', I realise that each and every one of them are available to me as a result of folk with Socialist principles who fought and suffered through the ages to establish what we have - flawed though it is.

Before I get castigated for not giving Liberals the due they deserve for the Beveridge Report which laid the foundation for the Welfare State, I need to say that I consider Liberals to be caressed by the hand of socialist tendencies also. (Small 's'). I know this much, there were no fuckin' Tories arguing for basic rights such as these. 'Nuff said.

Cheers lads and lasses. I've got a funny feeling I'm going to be utilising what our forebears fought for a lot more in the future.

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I've got to admire the MP for Baghdad South after today's tour de force. He wiped the floor with those ill-prepared, puffed-up, wastes of space on Capitol Hill. I was waiting for the sucker punch. It never came. It was a disgrace. Love him or hate him, it was riveting politics. I'm listening to a US commentator on Radio 5 Live at the moment, and it sounds like they are gob smacked. I loved the way he pointed out that their intelligence stated he had had "many meetings" with Saddam, to which Galloway established that he had met him twice - the same number of times that Rumsfeld had met him.

Quality. It is lovely to see self-important politicians being made to look foolish by self-important politicians. Fratricide, yer can't beat it can yer?

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I see Tony the religious has got his "Incitement to Religious Hatred" shoe-horned into the Queen's speech today. Fair enough. I don't have a problem with that. I happen to think that ALL religions are props for the inadequate and they have enough problems without people inciting others to hate them, consequently I feel hating them, and exhorting the killing of them is wrong.

I do think however, that any perusal of exhortations to hatred and murder over the years would show that there is probably a significant weighting towards blokes in robes castigating "non-believers" rather than vice versa.

What is worrying about this - and I'm with Rowan Atkinson here - is that laws already exist to deal with this type of thing.

Could OccupiedCountry find itself in the dock in a few years time? Does OccupiedCountry's ridicule of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and the rest run the risk of the thought police of New Labour turning up on my doorstep, skull cap, fish-symbol and Koran in hand, inciting people to hate the non-religious with all the fervour of the Quivering Brethren. Time will tell.

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I didn't go to Eastlands on Sunday. I let Dearest have my season ticket - it's too far a walk to and from the stadium for my bolloxed ankle/foot. The last time I did it I suffered for a week. So I missed the drama, the agony and ecstasy of almost making it to Europe, and the subsequent disappointment. Ahh well......here's to next season for Psycho's Blue and White Army.

There's a Little Black Spot on the Sun Today...

Up betimes (thanks Sam) and off to the local hospital, a place I fear I've seen just a little too much of lately. A blood test pour moi this time. A test for "liver function". A test that obviously has me fearing the worst. But then again....I'm gonna live forever.

Aren't I?

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And then off to work. That place where, at present, there is little work to be actually done. Not because there ain't none, but because the company we were outsourced and sub-contracted to has sub-contracted the work we did to a company that does it cheaper than we do. Suddenly we are being observed by vultures fresh-faced MBAs who think we were born yesterday. I know writing when it's on the wall, and I'm looking at it right now.

The truly ironic thing about the 'success' of this transition, is that the sub-contractors to the sub-contractors have not, as yet, in over four months of winning the contract, actually completed a single task without one of us having to finish it for them. Guess that's why they're so cheap eh? On paper though, it looks like they're friggin' great and we're sat around doing sweet FA.

Today it came to head and my boss and I had a slanging match because I had the temerity to call it like I saw it. He said I was out of order. I said I'll be fucked if I'll sit here mute while some incompetent twat steals my livelyhood and, moreover, my pension. He said I shouldn't have said that in front of the customer who, once again, had come to ask us to finish the job. Decorum? My arse.

I've applied for my redundancy. In the meantime, I'll turn up and play the game. I've had enough. I'm only fifty, I'm sure I can keep body and soul together somewhere for the next fifteen or twenty years.

Always assuming my liver's OK that is.

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In the middle of all this, I get a phone call from my Mam. The local social services have arranged for a few handles, bath chairs and such to be installed in their flat to help my rapidly decaying Dad to perform his ablutions with a modicum of dignity.

A merry duo turned up today to fit said artifacts and promptly drilled through a water pipe. They then had to call a plumber. It put me in mind of that Flanders and Swan song "The Gasman Cometh". Naturally my Mam was at the end of her tether. It never rains but it pours.

A little verbal molly-coddling and she's OK. I phoned later, the plumber had been and all was sorted. Still, it shouldn't happen should it?

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So, all-in-all a shit day from dawn 'till dusk. After our evening meal I retired from the hurly burly of Eastenders and Holby City and whatever and retired to my eyrie to play some blues on Bella - my Fylde Acoustic and put some more pressure on my liver.

After a while I fire up iTunes and search for the masters: Robert Johnson first, Peter Green closely follows before the floodgates open and those flattened sevenths reverberate and the sorrows of the world are expressed before the inevitable resolution as we return to the root. *Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!*

Music, any music, always helps - even Rap. At least I can concentrate on the bass. Benny XVI disagrees with me however. In this month's Word magazine, the playful pontiff is quoted thus: "Rock music is the vehicle of anti-religion".

Well, all I can say is: "You obviously haven't acquainted yourself with the world of blogging yet then, have you holy fadder?"

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Music is a fact of life. A fact of nature. Music exists everywhere. From the mewling infant to the death rattle of the toothless crone. It's all around. The traffic in the street, the call of market traders, the wind in the wires, the cry of the curlew as well as the thumping bass of a thrash metal band. It's just as valid in "Honky Tonk Women", "Mistletoe and Wine" or something by the Wu Tang Clan as "To Be a Pilgrim", Gregorian Chant or something by Harry Secombe. And, get this, it's all the work of human beings. Not God. Not the fuckin' Devil. And it's certainly not an Earthly expression of the battle between the two.

Essentially it all about how we deal with this veil of tears. Life and death, love and hate, beginnings and endings - it's all there. And it's got fuck all to do with old, celibate (*sniggers*) men telling us what is and what should never be.

A Genesis and Revelation of our own without a grown man (*sniggers again, but more loudly*) in a dress interfering.

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Still, all my woes pale to insignificance after reading Mike Da Hat's weblog.

Chin up Mike.

Fools Rush In.....

Quick update. At 3:00am it looks to me that there is a defined North/South divide. In the North the anti-Labour vote is going to the the Lib Dems, in the the South (East) it's going to the Tories.

Selfish bastards.

Anyway.......we'll see.

G'night everyone, everywhere.......

Music is my first love....

I've recently discovered a fabulous place called www.artistcollaboration.com which, on account of the marvellousness of t'internet, allows musicians from all round the world to collaborate on each other's musical ideas. You can add a bass part here, drums there or guitar over yon. Fabulous. Some of it is a little amateurish as can be expected with most things on the 'net, but some of it is of a quality not far removed from the stuff you hear on your wireless.

Ahh God, would that such arenas had been available back when I was a thrusting, guitar-weilding, testosterone-filled fledgling bluesman - who couldn't play the blues, but would have sold his soul to the Devil in order to do so. No argument. "Me? Play the Blues like Clapton? Johnson? Rory Gallagher? Brownie McGhee? Errrr....where do I sign?"

I'd have killed to be able to play the blues like Joe Brown never mind Eric Clapton. Actually that's unfair to Joe, in retrospect I think he's a lot better than I thought he was in the arrogance of my youth when I still knew everything.

As the years have sped by at the speed of fucking light passed, technology has enabled the bedroom musician to produce stuff worthy of Top of the Pops, Later with Jools Holland and the late, lamented OGWT. And now we are able to emulate the superstars of 10 years or so ago by laying down bass on a track recorded in Caracas 24 hours ago. This time no young men or women risked their lives couriering the tape from airport to recording studio though. All you lucky young uns have got the rest of your lives to dive into this technology - a technology no longer tied to the restrictive unexpressive boundaries of MIDI Get on with it. Learn, grow and overthrow the Corporate shacklers once and for all.

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Via Artist Collaboration, I came across this guy. Steve Unruh is a part time musician who writes and plays all his own stuff. Drums, bass, guitars, violin, and the rest. Progressive Folk Rock he calls it and I guess if you wanted to put a label on music, that's probably as near as damn as it is to describing it. You can download a free sampler CD of his output over the past eight years or so. G'Wan. It's worth a shot - you might love it. So burn it to a CDR. You might hate it. So delete it. But bear in mind that no one but the artist benefits. No oleaginous be-suited lickspittles, no CEOs, no meeja types.

I've got a feeling that Kaptain Kobold might just be interested. (tip: Listen to the longer tracks - though all of it is good, but especially "Breaking Free Part Three" - quality. Nothin' more to be said. Let me know what you think.). T'internet. I love it.

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Well I see four times winners of the European Cup (these days called the Champions League for some reason, don't know why, the year United won it they qualified by virtue of being runners-up to Arsenal. Odd that), have got a chance of making it five.

I wasn't that bothered who got there really. If it had been Chelsea, all the Reds round here would have been bitter and discontented anyway, but now we know it's Liverpool, there's gonna be some extremely angry United fans that I know wittering on about 'flukes', 'goals that should've been disallowed' and how Man U's lifting of the Cup back in '99 was somehow better than all the times Liverpool have won the self same trophy during the years when it was a proper knock out tournament for champions.

C'mon Liverpool.

Ain't No Sunshine

Bank holiday weekend. The portents were good.

"It's going to be frigging glorious this weekend" spake the overpaid tossers we call weathermen and women. Rain, sleet, wind, cloud: the lot. All in a three day window. Perfect.

This was the weekend Eldest had his housewarming and barbecue. A great evening all round (apart from the reluctance of anyone to man the barbie. ten or twenty years ago the blokes would have been queuing up to play with fire, act Ray Mears-ish and sort the burgers - these days we're not so bloody stupid).

But yeah, a great evening with a 'beach party' theme which made for some odd sights (me included). A laptop plugged into Eldest's stereo system provided the sounds. MP3 coming of age? Possibly. The place was also awash with iPods, iRivers, Creative Rios and a thousand other variations on the art of digital music.

Quite interesting as well because this week Coldplay became the first British band to enter the US charts in the first week of their single being released since The Beatles with Hey Jude back in '68. This coincides with the Yankee charts finally embracing the download phenomenon and including tracks purchased this way.

Now this could profoundly affect the type of music we see in the top forty in the near future. There are profound shifts in the popular music paradigm occuring here. Since the late eighties at least, the type of consumer who forks out for the type of single that'll end up in the charts has tended to be a pre or just barely post-pubescent female. MP3s, WMAs, OGGs and the like tend to be downloaded by males over the age of 25. They don't consider them to be singles, but rather just another track that they like. And it's blokes over the age of 25 who have the plastic disposable income and access to the internet in such numbers that can make a difference.

So Top of the Pops just might become interesting again - for a short while at least.

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Ahh well, time to take the shit machine for her evening crap. Hope you all had a good 'un.

Ummagumma

Someone mentioned to me today that Abigail Witchall was 'lucky' because, although it looks like she'll be paralysed from the neck down for life, at least she still has her mind. A mind she can disappear into whenever the pressures of her new life become too much.

To a certain extent, I can see where my colleague is coming from, but I had to point out the massive learning curve that the poor bugger's going to have to go through before she reaches this 'Nirvana' where the mind really does overcome the prosaic realties of having your arse wiped for you, having yourself bathed by strangers and having to communicate via blinking and mouthing soundless words. No more running through the surf, playing games with your kids, making a sandwich, walking a dog, making love. No more clicking your fingers, picking your own nose, scratching.

At the end of the day, no matter how positive and God-loving you are, that's going to wear you down. Deep depression for a start. Worries about your longevity next. More worries about the tenacity of your husband and, even, eventually, your children. Before finally - in about 50 years - coming to terms with a seemingly random piece of barbarism.

Lucky? My arse! I really wouldn't want to have survived something like that happening to me - at that age. Twenty Six is no age to be condemned to complete and utter dependence on others. Certainly not with a young family either.

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Well. Fortunately my father hasn't got Parkinson's disease, his symptoms were a direct result of his own doctor dispensing inappropriate drugs. We all sat round his hospital bed one night and my mother had been reading the leaflet that came with said medication. DON'T GIVE THESE BUGGERS TO DIABETICS screamed the instructions. Side effects include shuffling about like someone suffering from PARKINSON'S DISEASE. Weakness, talkin' bollocks and early death will soon follow. So we showed it to interested nurses and he ended up on different medication, demanded that he be discharged from hospital and is generally giving us all a hard time, as belligerent, frustrated, still-not-a-hundred-percent 76, going on 77-year-olds are want to do.

He's still raging against the dying of the light though, so that can only be good. Unfortunately, he's raging against everything else as well. My Mam, anyone under the age of 90 years on the TV, Lulu on Radio 2 ("What the friggin' 'ell does SHE know about music? It's a disgrace"), and, naturally - and certainly not unfortunately, Michael Howard. Thus our days draw to an end. we've all got this to look forward to peeps.

Enjoy what you've got left and fill it to the brim.

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You know, most of what I have written on this blog since day one has been spur of the moment, get it off your chest, stream of invective type of stuff, designed merely for the salving of my soul. This is the place I can come and lash out, spit venom and vent my spleen. Incoherent sometimes, foul-mouthed on occasion, devoid of wit at others, maudlin even. But this is where I come to release some of the pressures of being 50 years old in an extremely unforgiving industry, with ageing parents, kids fleeing the nest, pensions under threat and the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it lurking 'round every corner.

And, most times, I remember, in the the heat of the moment, to save my bile as draft or in a text file somewhere due to Blogger's predilection for crashing and sentencing all of my precious time ranting to so much digital dust. But sometimes I don't. And that really pisses me off. Get your act together Blogger it's happening too often.

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Other news this week.

Tess, the shit machine nearly met her grandad in 'doggy heaven' as she ran out in front of a car speeding in a 30-mile area on Friday evening. The vet reckons that, if she had been a couple of inches shorter, and had the car been going slightly slower, she would've got stuck under the front and acquired wings and a halo within seconds.

Fortunately it was Dearest who was guilty of allowing the dog off the lead near a major road. Mind you she is distraught and chock full of guilt, but at least I can walk around smug as a smug thing on St Smug's Day. Hmmmmmm moral high round..............

Tess was discharged from the vets tonight (thank God). £70 for three consultations, a couple of injections and six painkillers.

£70. I must admit. It was well worth the money. She's starting to grow on me as we both begin to understand each other.

I'll never understand where all that shit comes from though.

Hang Down Your Head

Religion? Fuck it forever. THIS is a disgrace. I thought Mr Bush had put an end to this type of behaviour?

Stoned to death on the uncorroborated account of a twat who hadn't supported his wife for 5 years.

I'm incoherent with rage!

Who's Next?

How the hell have we managed these past few weeks without a Pope? Where has our spiritual guidance been coming from during this interegnum? Who will God rely on to get his message out without a Papal conduit? According to some rumours Birmingham City Football Club are bolloxed without a 'Representative on Earth' being around. Here's hoping the 'clave (cheers Andy) argue amongst themselves until after Wednesday's clash with the mighty Blues of Manchester.

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Well, my Dad's back in hospital tomorrow. Tests for Parkinson's Disease. It never rains but it pours. At least we'll have a better understanding of his needs and why he's like he is once he allows himself to be poked and probed again.

Fortunately he's at a different hospital. One that's a damn site (sight?) more accessible via public transport, cleaner and more modern. Here's hoping he isn't visited by a Tory candidate. It would make the national news - believe me.

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"You can't describe the feeling. When the smoke came out it looked white and I got chills," an Italian student Silvia Mariano, said. Get a life. Not an afterlife. Prick.

40,000 watching the chimney. 40,000? It sounds a lot. But it isn't. Manchester City consistantly attract 46,000 plus for premiership games every couple of weeks or so. Any other premiership team with a ground big enough would hope for crowds of the same size. I ask myself, 40,000 pilgrims hanging around to see who the next representative of their God on earth will be? Pretty poor turn out if you ask me. Especially for the founding church of the Christian religion on this blue planet of ours.

Rivetting TV though. Fuckin' chimney. Rivetting.

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Tonight's post brought to you via:-

It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding): Dylan, Bob
Rosalie/Cowgirl's Song (Live): Thin Lizzy
Pinball Wizard: Elton John
Song With No Words: David Crosby & Graham Nash
Picture Book: The Kinks
The Look Of Love: Diana Krall
I Am a Rock: Simon and Garfunkel
Everyone's Gone To The Movies (Demo): Steely Dan
Harvest: Neil Young
Spanish Bombs: The Clash
Something New: John Mayall
Faena: Gipsy Kings
Road Ladies: Frank Zappa
France: Keb' Mo'
Woodhenge: Mike Oldfield
Olive Groove: Brom Man
Easy Rider: Chris Rea
Surprise, Surprise: Caravan
I Ain't Ever Satisfied: Steve Earle
So You Want To Be A Rock'N'Roll Star: The Byrds
Reggatta De Blanc: The Police
She Is So Beautiful: Mike Scott
Florentine Pogen: Frank Zappa
Atlantic City: Bruce Springsteen
Cry Me a River: Dinah Washington
Mrs. Robinson: Simon and Garfunkel
Billy the Kid Slide Guitar + Mandolin: SJG – The Stringmen
I Can't Let Maggie Go: The Honeybus
Porrohman: Big Country
Chance: Big Country
The Storm: Big Country
Harvest Home: Big Country
Fields of Fire: Big Country
Inwards: Big Country
In a Big Country: Big Country
Carry On-Questions: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Chain Lightning: Steely Dan
Satin Doll: Charlie Byrd
Visions Of China: Japan
....and many more.........

My Back Pages

OK. Today started fine. Dearest, Eldest, Ed the Blue and myself retired to local number one (blue through and through) to watch Fulham and City scrap a 1-1 draw. Just as the full time whistle blew though, we got a phone call from my Mam; my Dad had fallen in the bathroom and couldn't get up. So off we shot in a Taxi and Dearest and I (bad foot an' all) manhandled him into his favourite chair.

Apparently he'd been trying to shower himself in order to go to the pub this evening. The poor bugger had to give up that idea. Hopefully next week eh Dad?

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After an hour or so we came home and cracked a bottle of wine while we had beef, roast spuds and yorkshire pud. Dearest then expressed a wish to watch a DVD of "Persuasion" - a BBC adaptation of the Ms Austin novel. Consequently I expressed a wish to leave her to it. She was asleep within 15 minutes.

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So finally, I have a look at my regular blogs abd discover that TimesNewRoman has challenged me to answer the following questions:-

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

I took this to mean which book would you memorise? If so then I'd have to say "The English Passengers" by Matthew Kneale. A darkly comic expose of the clash of Western and Aboriginal morality in 19th century Tasmania. A classic. If it means which book to burn then I'm with TNR - anything that claims to have come from the mouth of God.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Mrs Amelia Underwood in Moorcock's "Dancer's at the End of Time" trilogy. I was very impressionable at the time. Strangely, I shared a taxi from Sheffield to Manchester with Moorcock years later. I must write about that.

The last book you bought is:

"Chronicles Vol One" Bob Dylan.

The last book you read:

"A Year in the Merde" Stephen Clark

What are you currently reading?

"Chronicles Vol One" Bob Dylan. It's surprisingly good as well.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

"The English Passengers" by Matthew Kneale. Because genocide isn't a purely 20th century phenomenon. "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown. Because genocide isn't a purely 20th century phenomenon.. "Revolution in the Head" by Ian McDonald. Because I could read this again and again and again and again. "The Complete Pratt" by David Nobbs. I'll need a good laugh. Finally "Old Glory by Jonathon Raban. A masterpiece of travel writing as the author sails a 16 foot aluminium skiff down the Big Muddy. Philosophy, reportage and a masterful ability to bring the landscape to life.

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?

I will invite anyone who feels the need to dive in.

Cry Me a River

So, so long MG Rover. Nobody wanted to buy your cars but, somehow, as a company, it has been deemed by certain newspapers of the anti-Labour persuasion that you are more than worthy of a shitful of tax payer's money. The Express, Mail, Times, Telegraph and the rest are all castigating the government for allowing the loss of 5 or 6 thousand jobs to happen and demanding some form of State intervention. Now, WTF is that all about?

A private company deserving of State aid? Demanded by the very newspapers that espouse the virtues of raw capitalism: red in tooth and claw? How can this be justified? Ahh, simple; we need to save British English jobs.

Quite, quite commendable. Saving jobs, yes, of course. Such a noble goal, and one that the Government of the day should have made their number one priority. After all, the calamity can't be placed at the door of the blameless managment team who acquired millions of poundsworths of assets for less than a tenner a few years ago. Can it?

S'funny you know, but a few short weeks ago, I'm sure I read in these self-same bastions of the Right that not enough jobs were being sacrificied in the Public sector to finance the tax cuts promised by certain political parties in the run up to Election '05. 22,000 civil servants. All surplus to requirements apparently. Not enough. Sack more of the paper-pushing arseholes cried Fleet Street. No mention of peripheral businesses going to the wall. No mention of us (standard-rate) tax payers having to foot the bill for the inevitable benefits required by a damn site more than the 22,000 dismissed.

Way back in the 70s and 80s. The 'car workers' - as they were so imaginatively dubbed, were the 'enemy within'. The political Right detested the very soil they...err...soiled. Constantly berated them for relying on State handouts to bail them out of their latest catastrophe.

Never, as long as my arse points South, would I have thought that the Daily Express and its ilk would be supporting that industry, and screaming for Government intervention.

Clem Attlee, Hugh Gaitskill, Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan and John Smith must be sat bolt upright in their graves, smacking their foreheads with the palms of their right hand and saying: "fuck me!" (Unless, of course, they were left-handed. Anybody know?)

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A hobble to local number two was on the cards tonight and most welcome it was too. There's only so much surfing, blog-reading, daytime TV watching a man can do without going out on a random shooting spree.

How many houses have I seen transformed over the past fortnight? How many gardens? People? How often have I lay there, foot elevated, TV on and suddenly snorted awake half an hour later? I despair.

I keep coming back to this phrase - Orwellian.

The war against Asiatica is going very well I believe.

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Incidentally and for the record. I am with Youngest on this. I DON'T want Malcolm Glazer to take over Manchester United. I'm absolutley convinced he will break up the current agreement to sell all Premier league games under one umbrella payment, thus ensuring that the likes of Crystal Palace still get a payout from Sky (or whoever in the future) everytime United, Arsenal or Chelsea are on TV.

Now that would create an insurmountable wall between the top three or four and the rest.

The next thing after that of course, would be franchise football. Surely?

You Can't Always Get What You Want

Ahh well - I'll still be voting Labour. Lib Dems = local politics for local people. Who knows? Maybe when and if Proportional Representation comes in? 'Till then however.........

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Labour

Your actual outcome:

	Labour 8
Conservative -43
	Liberal Democrat 67
UK Independence Party 0
	Green 26

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

Walkin' Spanish

Sheer boredom made me drag myself and my enfeebled foot back to work yesterday. A mistake. This morning found me on the phone to my boss letting him know I wouldn't be in again. I had hoped that a little exercise would, perhaps, be just the job. Wrong. On top of that, I was next to useless at work anyway. Couldn't lift, drive or walk any significant distance. That only left paperwork - or what passes for it in today's modern, almost paperless office - and if wanted to be as bored as that I would've stayed at home for certain.

So, more phone calls to my doctor and I have finally got an appointment for Thursday morning at 8:40. No doubt I'll be as mobile as Michael Flatley by then.

And what a week I picked to be incapacitated with next to nothin' to do but read, cogitate or watch TV. The Pope pops his clogs, Tone calls an election and Prince Bloody Charles marries his mistress.

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The nonsense of all religion is, for me, encapsulated by the singing and chanting to a Big-Man-Who-Lives-In-The-Sky while swishing a fancy ball with smoke coming out of it over the Pontiff's coffin. If the perpertrators of this act had been living in some South American rainforest, cut off from 'civilisation' for centuries, we would have smiled and said "ahh poor, unsophisticated savages" as the Discovery channel, or somesuch, allowed us a 'unique insight on a tribe who still lived a pre-industrial life'. As it was we were witnessing a Western, European country in the 21st century.

Furthermore, if that wasn't medievil enough, in an age of mass, instantaneous communication, we will discover when the all-male conclave have elected a new Pope via the emmission of white smoke from a chimney somewhere in the Vatican. White smoke. Not a web site, TV broadcast or owt modern, but white smoke. I guess their God doesn't approve of digital, or, come to think of it, analogue, technology. He must've give up on his 'creation' not long after the invention of the printing press.

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Actually I wrote about the Pope's funeral the other night and thought I'd lost the post after Blogger went Tit's Up - as it frequently does. I've just re-discovered it and I'll post it at the end of this. It's quite weird how my scribbles can change so much - about the same subject - in a couple of days.

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The election is boring me shitless already. When the fuck did politics become as sanitised as this?

I'm not listening anymore. There's no passion. Why? Well, sadly I really do have to point the finger at the media - and Murdoch's gutter press/TV in particular. Sadly because I believe a free press is vital in a Democracy. Sadly , in a Democracy that is reaching the Bread and Circuses stage of its development, the free press has become an Orwellian palliative - pandering to endless, mindless obsession with good-looking, intellectually-airbrushed celebs. We'll be declaring war on some previously unknown continent next, and lying blatantly about 'our' success. It started in the 80s - the Devil's Decade, when Thatcher (*spits uncontrollably, curses vehemently and punches wall*) was madeover from a frumpy, strident-voiced asexual horror, into Judge Dredd (with added domination).

As this obsession with media image took root, every politician was churned through the same 'consultancies' and we ended up with the sterile, don't-say-the-wrong-thing-for-fuck's-sake-the-Media-will-pick-up-on-it, pile of shite that we are presented with today.

Does anybody out there remember George Brown drunkenly pontificating on the night of JFK's death? Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech? Churchill being profoundly pissed in the House of Commons? Heseltine swinging the Mace in rage? John Nott telling Robin Day he'd had enough and walking out of the BBC studios? Neil Kinnock talking of taxis delivering redundancy notices in a Labour council-controlled City?

Sad and devoid of interest. Fuck it. I'll vote Labour. I can't handle Tories. Deep within they're selfish twats who, in my experience, always analyse situations on a what's-in-it-for-me basis. The Lib-Dems I quite like. The Lib Dems round here though gave us a councilor who spent most of his four years in office living in Amsterdam, not turning up for surgeries and generally being the subject of much pissed off correspondence to the local Rags.

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Which brings me to Chuck and Camilla's nuptials. Well, what can I say? Just get on with it for fuck's sake. But don't - purlease DON'T - bore the fuckin' arse off me by ensuring it's rammed down my throat on ALL major TV channels.

Even Dearest wanted to watch it to see Mrs Parker-Bowles' dress! What is it with wedding dresses? Overpriced fairy frocks that are never worn again. Pointless.

Dearest's obsessive fairy-frockery combined with my incapacitation meant that I was subjected to this 'small' wedding for far longer than I would've wished. Before I left the lounge and hobbled up to my eyrie however, I witnessed a sight that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

A minibus approached the scene of the nuptials. The crowd cheered and whooped and waved and fluttered flags and fainted and orgasmed (possibly). That minibus was chock-full of fuckin' wastrels. Arseholes who haven't done a day's work in their lives. Ordinary folk (well apart from obvious tendencies to elevate pricks to stations far higher than they deserve) screaming and whooping and clapping and acting irrationally because a bus-full of dickheads with blue blood drove by. Shocking. And all to a soundtrack of gushing, psychophantic twaddle from the mouths of the BBC, ITV and all the other TV stations that we can now pass our days watching.

And, of course, the day after, Chazza and his Missus are attending Church; because without the Church telling everyone that they have a devine right to rule, they'd just look twattish and full of themselves wouldn't they?

Medievil.

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Here's the post about the Bob Hope from the other evening as promised:-

It's The End Of The World As We Know It (and I feel fine)

Am I missing something? Was there this much outpouring of the "world's" grief way back when? The "world's" press (BBC included) are falling over themselves to rewrite the right-wing pontificating cult-leader's past and make him out to be a rational voice in a planet driven by geo-political necessities. He was an intellectual inadequate. He BELIEVED he was the representative on Earth of a supernatural being who no one has ever met, seen or talked to. Just like a Witch Doctor. A supernatural being moreover who made the Earth and the Universe in one short week.

They were singing and chanting and incanting tonight in St Peter's Square - just like pre-industrial tribes paying tribute to a water god or some such. Fuckin' medievil if you ask me. But then again nobody will ask me tonight will they? Spoils the way it plays on Fox or Sky or even the BBC.

So long Karol, you have shuffled off your mortal coil just like all those AIDS sufferers YOU condemned to death with your nonsensical intransigence over condoms. Not to mention all those extra mouths to feed in parts of the world where food was at a premium. Frankly you did fuck all to help. A rain dance or two might have helped. Rain dances are as relevant to the modern world as "Holy communion" in my book.

For now, in an age of t'Internet and the rest, we will witness the election of a new Pope being broadcast to the world via white smoke from a chimney. Finger on the pulse or what? Set up a web page - or even a blog you jostlers, you career men - you wankers, you inadequate rain-dancers.

The media (BBC Radio 5 mainly for me) are talking this reactionary, ill-educated waste of space up like he was worthy of attention. He isn't, he wasn't. He believed he was God's representative on Earth. In any other walk of life we would have called it like we saw it. We would have called him a nutter. And quite correctly in my view. And now all his colleagues have started the shenagigans that go with attempting to elect a new Pope.

Good luck, in the meantime I'm off to bed.

Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush

Well, there you go. As widely predicted, the Election will take place on May 5th. The Queen apparently 'graciously agreed' to dissolve parliament earlier this morning and Tone turned up outside his gaff to inform the assembled hacks.

Cue floodgates of spin, analysis, reportage, claim, counter-claim and shite between now and the end of the hustings.

In the meantime, as I sit here with my bad foot elevated and iced as advised by the nice lady from NHS-Direct, I can't get an appointment with any of my local GPs until Thursday 21st April. Not much changed there since 1997 then. What has changed though is that I can now attend a local NHS walk in centre open from 7:30am to 10:30pm. This place is staffed with doctors and nurses and is available for those illnesses/injuries that don't justify a trip to A and E. So, credit where it's due and a big thumbs up to Tone and the crew.

I'll let you know how I get on.

****UPDATE****

Well, that was painless - apart from the clinical forcing of my foot to places it hasn't been since last wednesday. Less than an hour to see an assessment nurse and then, if your condition dictates, a doctor. Pretty efficient I'd say. A little like doctor's surgeries used to be like before they introduced the pointless appointment system. Must've looked fuckin' great on paper that. You're either friggin' ill or you're not. Consequently you need to see a doctor. It never used to be too difficult. You turned up, waited and you were seen to. If you were dying and and the surgery was shut, the locum would come out and see to you. These days you can't get an appointment because of the number of inconsiderate twats who make 'em and then don't have the courtesy to cancel. Near enough 30% of appointments aren't kept at my local Health Centre.

I'd give 'em a 'three strikes and you're out' ultimatum. "Well you couldn't be arsed to pick up a phone, call in or even write to let us know you weren't going to turn up , so now we can't be arsed treating you, so die you bone idle waste of space."

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PC problems at the mo'. My home desktop is playing up, constantly freezing, won't talk to my iPod and is generally unreliable. A reload of the OS hasn't helped either. Looks like friggin' hardware again - memory maybe. I just hope it's not the motherboard. In the meantime I've got a borrowed IBM Thinkpad T41 with an ASUS PCMCIA wireless network card so I'm not completely cut off from the blogosphere. Just as well with my present inabilty to amuse myself otherwise. Well.....apart from the obvious......