Back to work after such a nice weekend. On Saturday Brodie and I went down
to Dorking to see the pub he’s in the process of buying. Not having much experience of Surrey I was expecting the place to be like Bromley or Oprington, but it wasn’t – it was really quite rural with spectacular countryside. We met up with Charlie who took us to a little pub hidden along a tiny path half way up a steep hill. Fantastic. Badger beer, a ploughmans and a breathtaking view while we ate and drank. After lunch we walked to another pub just along the way and had another pleasant pint each. Wandering around little villages from pub to pub on a hot sunny day is one of my favourite pastimes – I wonder if there is any way to get a career doing it…hmm.. Anyway, we eventually made it to The Cricketers and spent the afternoon chatting to the present landlord. It’s a snug, friendly little pub with a nice walled garden. What a great place to come and visit that’s going to be.
The journey back was bizarre. South Central make Connex look like an efficient bunch of experts… first leg…dorking to Sutton. At the platform a bloke approached Brodie for a light which was a cue for Brodie’s joke de jour. When he’d finished and the laughing had subsided, the guy apologised and explained he had a light all the time. He took his wallet out of his pocket, opened it and it burst into flames. We were slightly shocked as you can imagine, but not as much as we were when he calmly closed the wallet, extinguishing the flame and returned it to his back pocket. We got chatting and he turned out to be in the magic circle on the way to do a stag party, and was kind enough to entertain us with some really rather excellent card tricks while we were waiting for the train.
When it arrived, he said goodbye and sat at the far end of the carriage. Don’t blame him really – it must be a right pain in the arse having to spend your entire journey doing your act. However, more entertainment was coming our way in the shape of a couple of little kids who decided that Brodie would make an excellent dad. “Will you be our daddy ?” the asked. He replied that he was already busy with daddy tasks and so couldn’t. “Will you be our daddy ?” they asked again. Again he politely refused. “Will you be our daddy ?” they persisted. The children’s mother sitting nearby explained that their dad was dead and told them to stop. They didn’t stop. They just moved along the carriage and started to ask other people. The mother really didn’t act surprised leading me to the conclusion that this was a common occurrence – you never know, one day they might get a “yes ok then” and he could turn out to be a handsome millionaire…or something.
The kids worked their way up the carriage towards the magician. “Oh yes that’s agood idea!” Brodie shouted, ” go and ask that guy to do some tricks”. For the first time in their life probably, they obeyed. The prestidigitator turned round and gave us a cold stare and then came down to where we were all sitting and went into a full on magic routine. The kids were in absolute awe. I had to take picture to capture the look of innocent amazement on their faces. The family got off at the next stop, but the magician was on a role and asked if he could do some more tricks for us.
Obviously we answered yes and he entertained us until we reached Sutton.
It was then that the journey changed tack from bizarre-entertaining to bizarre-fucking-irritating. Of course, after 6:30pm South Central don’t run any trains from Sutton to New Cross. London bridge yes. Victoria yes. But not New Cross.
My ticket was to New Cross Gate and from bitter previous experience I knew that I wasn’t permitted to go to either of these stations. So Brodie suggested we go to West Croyden, and then walk over to east Croydon. Not having a better suggestion I agreed and we waited what seemed like hours for the next train.

Up until the train arrived at West Croydon, the weather had been spectacularly good. As soon as we put our feet on the platform it started raining – not just drizzle, a full on thunderstorm. There’s no nicer place to be during a thunderstorm that walking through Croydon in shorts and a t-shirt. We eventually got to the station – of course my ticket wouldn’t go through the gate and so I had to ask the guard. He looked closely at the ticket, and as the water dripped off my nose I warned him that I wouldn’t take kindly to him questioning it because I really didn’t want to be there in the first place. He let me through, joking that in that case he would question it…very amusing young man…very amusing..

Sunday morning was another one of those classic “modern” Christian praise programs where everyone sings uplifting songs holding their hands in the the air. It was so inspiring that I did more work on my Uplifting Christian Song Generator. Later we had a splendid roast chicken dinner at my mum and dad’s, getting back in time to watch the Sunday Big Brother omnibus….ahh…perfection 🙂

Have you noticed a new type of marketing for a certain type of music. Probably not – because it’s known in the biz as “stealth marketing”. They’ve discovered that people in their late twenties upwards don’t like the teenybop marketing they suffered all the way through their childhood with Radio 1, Cheggers plays pop and No Limits. So that take a different tack. They get the target artist to guest on a few “cool” albums. They get a few serious interviews in The Guardian, Salon or the observer. They go on radio2. They get them to turn up on the right tv programmes late at night when you feel that not many other people are watching…in all the idea is to give you the impression that you’ve discovered something cool, and underground. Well the Guardian wouldn’t print an article about someone if their music wasn’t special would they ?
Then the final act – a tv ad campaign with a picture of the album cover and a low, serious voiceover that says “The new, crtically acclaimed sound of [insert pretentious bullshit band name] is now available to buy in the shops with their brilliant debut album [insert poncy album title].”
And people go out any buy it.
Listen folks, just because Terry Wogan and Jimmy Young aren’t on radio 2 anymore doesn’t mean it’s no longer the old farts station. Did you buy an album by that wobbly headed twat David Gray ? What about the Dandy Warhols or White Stripes ? HAH! You’ve been buggered by the marketing men. Your punishment is to have to listen to the bland mediocre crap you just forked out for.

The night before last, Ian, Kate and I sat in the Rosemary branch talking about this and that. Kate was relating anecdotes about the time she spent in Argentina and we listened attentively. Now this is going to sound so utterly stupid that you might start questionning my mental health – I know I did – but one story really amazed me…as it should, being total bollocks. She told us about how she stayed in this remote village where it was traditional to castrate sheep…with their teeth. Apparently she even had photos to prove it. Now look, I know it sounds stupid but you’re reading this, forwarned. We were in a pub, after consuming quite a few pints, and this story was in the middle of some legit stuff…
Anyway – I didn’t sus that it was bollocks until late yesterday when I had a moment of clarity. That morning I even asked her if she’d brought the pictures in…oh god what a wanker…

Yesterday I went over to Eltham to sort out my mum and dad’s ADSL, only to find my dad with bandaged hand after seriously burning it. He’d put some plates under the grill to “warm” them, forgotten about them, and then picked them up. Skin falling off everywhere. After a while my mum managed to bludgeon him into calling NHS direct, who after the obligatory hour-long wait to call back told him to go to hospital. What a great service that is….
Before they left they had time to tell me about the next piece of spectacularly shitty luck to be given out to a couple of my favourite relations – a malignant tumor. These particular relations are possibly the most selfless, caring, funny, lovely people on the face of the earth. They’ve spent their life just being good people and helping other people out. What is their reward ? Two dead children, chronic illness, chronic financial difficulties and insults from the mad part of the family. Now they’re both in the same hospital being treated for different problems…one of which has just been discovered to be pretty bloody serious. Isn’t it bloody fair ?
As I’ve said before if there is a god, he’s a bastard. Perhaps this is some sort of biblical test of faith ? Have they passed I wonder ? Sorry, but you just didn’t pray enough – take the down escalator. What a nasty egomaniac shitbag. He’s like the school-bully on a universal scale.
Even people who live good lives still can’t escape his shitty sense of humour. You grow, and develop, and learn, and become wiser. All the time your body is decaying, slowly but surely taking you closer to death. All the things you learn slowly vanish as your brain cells disappear. If you survive all of the common health obsticles such as heart-disease and cancer then you can enjoy old age and all of the pant-shitting, senile, confused, dignity that goes with it. Thanks god.

Here’s a story as amusing as it is probably apocryphal, that also nicely illustrates the dangers of tattoos.

This guy, heavily into the gay scene, decides to get a tat. He opts for some type of oriental pictograph and carefully researches what symbol would adequately describe him. Being a hedonist he asks the tattooist for the symbol for “pleasure”. The tattooist obliges and once the blood and scabs clear up he proudly displays it while wandering around soho.
We have discovered, from someone who knows, that the symbol actually means “pleasuring the clitoris”. Let’s hope he’s not into oriental men because his pulling power will suddenly tail-off…

Now if he’d mistakenly bought a t-shirt with that design on, he’d feel a bit of a fool and would probably give it away. But this is a tatoo. When he’s being helped out of the bed by the nurse so she can clean up his shit when he’s 83, that symbol will still be there.
Would you ever make a fashion decision for an item of clothing that you had to wear for the rest of your life ? What if you were asked in the 80s ? You’d still be wearing those Farrahs, that Gabbicci jumper and that waffle tie today….how much of a prat would you feel ?

And as for Chinese or Japanese symbols…what sort of lame cheese-brain opts for that ? OK – if you’re chinese or Japanese then ok – you know what you’re doing. But the sort of nob-ends that go for this are usually westerners with absolutely no clue, to whom the idea of tattooing “love”, “hate”, “mum”, “pleasure” or “ACAB” would be abhorrent….if it was written in English. But in Japanese or Chinese it looks exotic dunnit. Yes well guess what – to the Chinese and Japanese, it just looks like words, and you look like a right tit. You’ve made a decision about a longer proportion of your life than you’ve lived for already…and none of this “I want to die young” bullshit either. What sort of person wants to live to 80 ? Ask someone who’s 79.

Today we are due for some thunderstorms to end the period of intense heat and humidity that Britain has been sweating under for the past week. Everything looks beautiful in this weather, but personally I can’t enjoy it because even the lightest physical movement, such as shifting a buttock, or raising a glass to my lips results in a waterfall of sweat down my spine. How lovely it looks in a light coloured t-shirt. So I wear black t-shirts. That works well until the end of the day when instead of sweat patches I’m left with an attractive salt diagram of my underlying gut.
So instead of going out and “enjoying the weather” I spent the weekend lying still at home.

In fact so strong was my reluctance to move further than the front room that I even ended up blowing out a party. Tony was over from France for a long weekend and I’d promised him a party on saturday night – but when it came down to it we ended up just sittiong around the flat, very still. Getting mashed in front of the telly.

Tony pointed out how different our attitudes had become over the last ten years with respect to parties. Ten years ago, he and a few mates were so desperate to go to a party that they drove from Bristol to Portsmouth – only to find the party consisted of a few early-teens, their parents and a few aunts and uncles sitting around the front room watching telly.
Compare that to this saturday where we knew of a party full of people we like and things we like to do, that’s in the same town…and we didn’t go….because it’s quite hot and it’s a long way to Streatham. How crap is that ?

So sorry for a crap weekend Tone.

1571
“Hello, this is a message from BT. In response to cutomer feedback, you may now record your own outgoing message with BT call-minder for only a pound a month.”

For a pound a month BT can lick my balls.

What’s all this ? Justice ? That’s not very British is it ? Whatever happened to “it’s the rich wot gets the pleasure, and the poor wot gets the blame” ? That’s what made Britain great.

Suddenly a bunch of upright,respectable businessmen have been prosecuted for corporate manslaughter and could face imprisonment! Good lord, just because their cynical profiteering led to mass murder really shouldn’t mean they get punished – business is business after all. In the good old days we’d just give them a hefty back-hander and send them on to another directorship.

You see I have no problem with these people who hold high-power, responsible jobs getting obscene salaries….providing they are prepared to take responsibility. In other words, if as a director of a company you do well, for example by making the service you provide better whilst increasing profits without killing anyone, then a masive bonus could be worth it. However if you make a right bollocks-up of the whole rigmarole: decrease profits, kill hundreds of your customers, that sort of thing, then you should be prepared to take responsibility and be punished accordingly. In fact this is the only justifyable reason for a death penalty in my opinion.
So let’s start a campaign to bring back capital punishment for corporate manslaughter. Can you imagine the beauty of Gerald Corbett’s purple nose exploding as he burns to death in the electric chair ?

Quote of the day comes from Charlie Brooker in this week’s Guardian:
“Morning has broken ? Good I hate morning. You wake, soaked in your own filth, your face raw from last night’s tears, shards of shattered shot-glass peppering the bedspread, and you ask yourself what difference it would make if instead of going to work you spent the day banging your head against the kitchen table and howling till your skull bursts open and the pain flops out. Or is that just me ?”

Well, there are all kinds of things that I could write about – that we’ve been married six years, that we’ve hit our overdraft limit on July 5th, that Michele hit 32, that Margot (landlady of the Rosey) has installed her parrot, Clive, in the pub, that George Bush still doesn’t get it, that we spent much of the weeky tidying for what turned out to be a ten minute visit from the landlady…..

but you know I can’t be bothered…instead I’m just going to hide away in the flat, shout at the telly, write pointless programs, drink red wine and generally appreciate Michele and Humphrey (my beattiful birds 🙂

Connex have lost their franchise! Yahoo!
I know it probably won’t make any difference to the traveling public; the next bunch of incompetent, money grabbing, hopeless, pin-striped wankers won’t be any better. But how nice to know that the directors and the shareholders will be really unhappy. With any luck many of them will end up without a job and living in penury. Hoorah!

Why not send your cheery comments to connex – let then know how happy you are that they’ve gone.

One of the problems with e-mail, blogs and even snail mail is that the longer you leave a response, the more daunting the prospect becomes….so you end up not doing anything ? So what does kick one into action exactly ? Well sadly in this case it’s not because I have something fascinating or incisive to say, but just because I know it will get even worse if I don’t write something.

Anyway, yesterday we were due to be going to a wedding..sort of thing…they’re already married but they got married in India so this was for all of the people who missed it. The celebration is in a place called “Chesham, Bucks”. The word Bucks scares me as it seems like a continent away, but once I noticed it was on the Tube map it didn’t seem so far.

Lesson 1: Just because it’s on the tube map doesn’t mean it isn’t a fucking long way away

We got the maps, directions, train-times and everything ready to go but, fortunately, I developed a major gut-rot and was in no fit state to go on saturday morning. Why would I say “fortunately” ? Surely I’m not that opposed to long journeys ? Read on…
Michele sent an apologetic e-mail to Simon and Laekha explaining the situation….

Later that day they called us to see how I was. “Hows the party going ?” Michele asked. “err…you know it’s tomorrow don’t you” Laekha responded.

Today we did go to Chesham, and it took 3 hours. If I hadn’t had the belly-ache yesterday, we would have done the same tedious journey only to discover bugger all…and then we’d have to do it again the next day. Michele would have, quite justifiably, castrated me under these circumstances because it was I that firmly corrected her when she suggested that the party was sunday not saturday. I truly am a total twat.

Lesson 2: Martin is frequently as wrong as King Wrong

Anyway…Chesham is in Zone D. Yes D. There is a D. It goes 1,2,3,4,5,6,A,B,C,D. The girl at lewisham station (new ticket office – still only one bastard window open) also didn’t know about it either. It turns out that you can’t buy a Zone D Travelcard from a NR(BR) station, only from an Underground station. “But how do I get there ?” I asked. “Well, buy a 6-zone card from here and LT will upgrade it for you [ for the cost of the difference ]” the ticket office helpfully advised.

Lesson 3: Nothing told to you by a connex employee can be considered to be a fact, no matter how confidently they tell you

We got to Charing Cross and I optimistically handed over our 6-zone cards and asked for an upgrade.
“I can’t do that sir, these aren’t LT cards, they’re from BR” the ticket office guy told me. I protested that it even had an LT logo on it but he wouldn’t shift . At that point I came close to breaking down, despairing at how shit and unfair our wonderful 21st century integrated transport system was…”Oh god…” I shouted”…”why…why is it so difficult ? All I wanted was to get from Lewisham to Chesham and I can’t fucking do it ? Jesus why…”
“OK OK I’ll do it for you” the guy interrupted and went ahead and did it…Nice of him, and I should have been grateful I suppose but all I could manage in the way of thanks was “but I really shouldn’t have to be brought this close to tears to get this sorted…”. The guy agreed. Props to the man with common sense..

The icing on the cake was to pick up a copy of a glossy rag called “Upfront: The connex lifestyle magazine” from the train. Lucky because I really need some advice on my lifestyle from connex. It is beyond parody.

Lesson 4: No matter how much of bunch of cunts you think connex are, they are always capable of surprising you by being even worse

So we went there, drank, ate and chatted and then came back. Despite the efforts of Connex and LT we enjoyed ourselves…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Back home now, Humphrey is eeking, I’m still mulling over Orwell’s MI5 list and tomorrow is monday.