Its only the 7th Jan!!

This morning started with a bang. Well, two to be precise. Yes with Christmas and the New Year now weighing heavy on my bank manager’s nether regions and making him a bit grumpy, and my new 2012 sock collection already over shadowed by the number of cheque stubs, the great God of electrical appliances, Saint Euronics looked down upon us and frowned twice this morning.


Firstly our extensively used dish washer, which I believe to be one of the greatest inventions known to man since Fairy washing up liquid and Nanette Newman, gave up the ghost and ground to a halt. Four rounds of washing and drying up later I finally managed to hang up my tea towel, and bravely move on to a little light ironing. Two thirds of the way though this and having completed only the right side of a favourite shirt there was a loud click and all the power went off. Having spoken badly about 2011 unfortunately I found it necessary to question 2012’s parentage as well.

Knowing a little bit about the workings of a modern electrical supply and fusing I deduced that the Iron had just committed hari kari and threw out the RCD in the fuse board. Of course I should have questioned whether Breville (who manufactured the iron) really knew what they were doing in the first place. I mean, to make a sandwich toaster is one thing but an iron where the key ingredients are electricity and water..... well, need I say more. It’s horses for courses and know your limits isn’t it. You wouldn’t ask the Germans to run a comedy club or the French to make breast implants so it stands to reason that the mechanics of compressing a couple of bits of bread and lightly warming them through against harnessing 240 volts in a metal shell with added water and steam is a totally different ball game and should be left to the professionals.

So unfortunately by mid morning I was in the doldrums and pretty pissed off with my lot, only able to look forward to negotiating access through our neighbour’s 'jungle' garden to fix the fence that had been recently blown out by recent inclement weather conditions.

So to sum up;-
As long as I don’t ever need to go out in any clothes that have been ironed again and only eat food directly from the packaging, thus negating the need for any cutlery and plates and washing up I believe everything should be ok. Other than that it’s the Shabby Chic look for me along with lemon fresh leathery hands!

Treasure Chest

I always wanted a pirates chest (You know, anchor tattoo, hair like coconuts mixed with parrot droppings etc) and as luck would have it couple of months ago I saw this little beaut at a car boot from a house clearance bloke who was making some wild claims that nothing from his stall was more than 50p. So 50p later I was the proud owner of this delightful little black box, which once had been owned by Mr B Binfield of Malta. I knew this because it had been sprayed on the top along with some additional bespoke yellow artwork.

I was convinced that all I needed to do to make my dream come true would be to strip everything off of it, then sand down to the original pine, taking in of course, many years worth of dubious Maltese paint and a car sumps worth of oil from the floor of the box to make it into the finest pirates treasure chest ever,

                                                             So here it is in all its finery!

The REAL Miracle of Christmas

Tim

Firstly, a couple of weeks ago my cousin Tim, in a knee jerk reaction to my review of his hit channel 5 show Culvert Clearance from June, where I likened him to WW2 moustachioed dictator wrote to complain and explain the word culvert; an enclosed watercourse conduit usually at least 10 times longer in length than its diameter, hence not a bridge Which was both lovely and fascinating. He also suggested that I write the script for Culvert Clearance 2 where he will do all his own stunts, and not have to wear inflatable braces, or water wings .


Then, whilst preparing a live CD for my good blogging friend Phil Gardner of one of his favourite crooners I decided to hold out the sharpened end of the olive branch in an email to my old band mates, who technically own ¼ rights to our back catalogue. In the true spirit of Xmas I was immediately called by Peter ‘Sticks’ Kill who enthused about the project but then asked for an advance on the royalties.

Jon and Pete

That evening Trent 'Brent' Baker forwarded this missive to us all;-

Brent and Marina

Dear Bear,

Superb news. I look forward to that. Blimey. There was some rare and truly brilliant material from that Show.
Lovely Moon. Rainbow. A version of Sarah featuring sticks Kill on Megaphone Marina on armchair and newspaper.Truly mental.

All yours in HUGE anticipation.

Brent

Then, finally bringing up the rear, after stalling in the traps for some time, Mr Michael J Kitson suggesting a reunion gig / download / Last Waltz push for the band

Mick

Dear Bent and Trere and Pete
Yes superb news indeed. I remeber that show well. I was ver ver drunk.
I suggest a reunion now that we are all nearly 50 and before our prostates get too big.
Love you guys

Mick

On the back of all this goodwill I have since visited Trent and Jane just prior to Christmas and wished them season greetings. Had an very funny email discussing the downfall of Joe Walsh (No, not the one from the Eagles) from the boy Kitson AND have been promised unlimited roadie and sound engineer support should the next Cary Grant tour include Brighton by the multitasking Phil Gardner.

Phil

Now that (Ladies and Gentlemen) is the true miracle of Christmas!

Peace and Love

Jon / Bear / Trere

Golden Years

I have fell out of favour with blogging just recently due to an overwhelming number of extraneous projects and the deep dark depression that tends to gather all around me like an ill fitting three armed Christmas jumper at this time of year, along with the associated cost hangover that will be a banging headache felt well into 2012. Yes technically, I am the Grinch throughout all the festive season, only taking time off during the brief few days between boxing day and New Year’s Eve when I am then hit by an all time low, facing up to the realisation that whilst my life is not too bad, the previous year has in many ways just replicated the one before!


Having said all that, more than one of the extraneous projects have now come to fruition and I can reveal one of the fruits of my labour for Pete’s 50th birthday treat;-

As I am sure that many people who have a downstairs loo will confirm that apart from a Glade ‘Touch – n-fresh air freshener, a gold album is their number two’s all time favourite wall hanging. Although I don’t believe that this has actually been hung yet in his new mock Georgian three toilet house, I am fairly confident that this gold disc will bring its owner and many house visitors some light relief in difficult times to come.

That's too big to be anything I really recognise?

Who says there is no such thing as a free lunch? Kirsty and her flatmate Amie came home on Thursday evening saying that they had had a series of texts from their Derby Uni friend Georgia on their way back to MK, telling how she had  answered the door to a tall dark stranger, who presented her with a large (no... a very large) bag of meat. Whilst she swooned at this lovely gesture, the secret meat millionaire slipped back into the Derby darkness without explanation, leaving Georgia to ponder how wonderful this spontaneous gestures of ‘love’ for her flatmate really was. Unfortunately when her flatmate returned (as I am sure you have already guessed) she knew nothing of the beau, nor any offer of free meat!

The really intriguing thing is that NO-ONE could actually identify the meat, but felt sure that a small piece of chicken skin had been placed on top as a distraction!

The case continues.        

When the boat comes in, Rubbish!

Whoever said that there are plenty more fish in the sea, was both delusional and stupid. After getting up at 5 o clock on a Saturday morning we started out on the 2 ½ hour trek down to Bournemouth. A good run by anyone’s reckoning but still with about one and a half hours too much “Are we there yet” by the bloke who was driving. Although the BBC’ s old seaweed weather predictor had us down for a blowy day with a possible short shower it was generally very nice, and by early afternoon even the sun had got his hat on.
The captain had obtained detailed information off the interweb and held up a small picture of a bloke on a boat with a back drop of sea and stated that this is where we shall go to “It’s a fish magnet.” I personally didn’t recognise that bit of the sea from the picture but he assured us that we couldn’t fail to catch. After a long time and a couple of cups of tea there was one fish caught by our salty old seadog capt’n, which was some sort Bream who we called Jim, but due to the fact it was so small and possibly in danger of being eaten by the bait we had to throw it back before we could obtain a microscope. After these early successes we moved to nearer the boatyard which was (apparently) another hot bed of specimen fish. By this point It had become quite clear to me that the Commons Fishery Policy isn’t working and it is highly likely that those swarthy Spaniards creep into Bournemouth harbour under the cover of darkness and catch the flounder and Bass and then replace them with miniature OCD crabs the size of pesetas. I say this because one of our crew whose name I will not divulge due to his campest of casts, (the likes we had not seen since ‘Priscilla the musical’ had a girl’s night out with Craig Revel Horwood) actually managed to catch about half a dozen of these miniature crabs

Unfortunately, other than the one micro Bream and a turn up full of dwarf crabs that was about it, but in the great tradition of all good fishing trips we still had enough ‘the one that got away’ stories to fill about 10 minutes for the two and a half hour drive back.

When Chickens Attack!

There is a limit to how far I can be pushed, and I believe I may have been very close to it this morning when I was abused by speciality chickens. Yes, whilst on yet another errand of mercy to save people money the world over, by meter / tariff switching I was shown into a garden in the east of the city which could be best described as somewhere between a salvage yard and a mud wrestling pit. Having eventually found the cleanest place to put my tool box I proceeded with a number of electrical checks only to notice the owner’s son slipping and sliding across the garden to a small wooden structure like a reluctant Glastonbury festival toilet cleaner. The next thing I know is the door is flung open and 6 speciality hens shoot out like circus acrobats landing only occasionally feet first. The boy then gets trailed to the shed where He finally emerges with some feed. All hell breaks loose and the lad retires to a safe distance whilst the mosh pit bubbles with feathers and mud. I of course fear nothing except maybe Snakes on a Plane 2, but find myself clocking the large black one as he starts scratching around the garden ever closer. At one stage I found it necessary to go inside to the fuse board and when I got back he was perched on my tool box, with a guilty look on his beak.


Quite simply I do not get paid enough to reduce debt, fight climate change and wrangle chickens in a swamp, and definitely won’t be going back.