The hedgehog is going off line for a welcome rest while – with my normal meterologically intuitive timing – I shall be getting rained on in the Isle Of Wight. An opportunist punt at a cheap weekend seems to have morphed into four fractious days in a damp caravan marooned with bored children.

The weather forecast is for sun, light winds and visibility of a 100 miles. Sadly that forecast is for Casablanca, whereas our low lying Atlantic island shall be lashed with rain, swept by fierce winds and – if one particularly gloomy report is to be believed – sprinkled with light sleet. In June. Global warming? Bring the melting ice caps to the UK – we’ll freeze ’em up nicely for you.

As you would expect, there was the chance of a spot of bike riding but the prospect of paying twenty quid to follow a few hundred people round the island has paled somewhat. Especially when considered against a backdrop of boring headwinds and squally storms leading to misery, suffering and the inevitable moist unmentionables. Still my ruthless strategy of throwing out the kids clothes so I can add more beer to the luggage should at least dull some of the pain.

And pain is not far away after riding with a ridiculously fit mate of mine last night who was “a bit tired from racing the previous day“. That’s as maybe but only when I stopped talking and started making desperate non verbal “I can’t breathe” chopping motions accompanied by a bluing face and partially collapsed form did he stop. For about 10 seconds. Still great trails though and I can pretend it’s all part of my cunning training plan. Assuming I don’t die first.

For those of you not enjoying the mobile home/happy camper experience, may I recommend the 25th Annual Testicle Festival. You can’t make this stuff up.

So come Tuesday, expect many blurred pictures of rain soaked landscapes and sullen children striking bored poses in the short, but much cherished, silent sulks which follow their inevitable sibling explosions. And there’s “free entertainment on the camp site to cheer Children and Adults” to look forward to. Oh Lordy, I wonder if TestyFest has streaming video.

So bottoms up, wellies on and caps set at a jaunty angle. IoW, here we come – ready or not.

My hobbies are bikes, beer and being annoying. Beer is more a lifestyle choice but since it takes so much of my time and money, I’d rather think of it as a hobby. Being annoying is essentially baked in from birth., it is in the genes “ I know this from my the way my kids behave.

Already spiked on the hedgehog are hobbies that think they are sports and jobs that you feel you deserve but are completely unqualified for. Most of your prejudiced and stereotyped angles covered there you would have thought, yet the other day I wandered past a shop proudly announcing Everything for the Hobbyist Fish-Keeper sold here

Fish-Keeper – now that’s a rubbish hobby. How hard is it? Get a tank, decant fish into it, spray occasionally with fish food. My friend tells me that at the extreme/deranged end of the hobby, there are those who proclaim themselves fish tamers. Oh come on: sorry bob can’t come to the phone right now, he’s out the back tackling a difficult trout. And while I accept that there are those in the watery kingdom that do look up for a bit of a bundle, once you’ve removed the ability to oxygenate, even the ugliest guppy, grumpiest carp or psychotic tench hardly represents a lethal threat.

So what we’re talking about is grown up tadpole collecting. All the fun you can have with a pool of stagnant water, a net and a million midges. Sounds great – put me down for Fish Fanciers Monthly (first edition half price with free Pike Wrestling Techniques illustrated booklet).

Another friend is telling people he is moonlighting as a Dolphin Polisher. I first assumed this was a urbane sexual reference to which I was rurally stupid. But no, he’s trying to convince otherwise intelligent people that the big tunas are covered in barnacles and other detritus of the sea, and his job is to give them a damn good polishing before they go out to entertain the crowds. From the nods of amazement he received, it’s good to see the age of innocence is not completely over.

Other pointless hobbies include Gardening (outdoor DIY), Bird Watching (ooh a bird, oooh another one, repeat until death) and Mountain Biking (ride round in ever decreasing circles, searching for a muddy enema). From the crammed lifestyle magazine section in the local newsagents, it’s clear that there is almost no pointless pastime we’re not prepared to spend significant time and money on. When the Train Spotter (Sorry Railway Enthusiast) periodical count passed five, it was clear to me that the world has finally gone completely mad.

I think I’ll stick with beer. Proper northern hobby in lieu of a family veto over whippet and ferret ownership.

But as someone kindly pointed out there is a U in c*nt 😉

The firm organised a group hug last Friday at some massive old Victorian pile (that’s a house and grounds not some kind of turn of the century medical complaint). The majority turned up on Thursday night and although I had high expectations of extreme hangovers, they both met and exceeded those expectations when I pitched up on Friday morning. It appeared I had strolled into a “rough as a badgers’ arse” convention and there my much self pitying rubbing of heads and gagging at fried food.

The conference centre was a huge house converted into a smallish hotel with sufficient grounds to hunt bear in. It’d been built by some industrialist who’d bought half of Guildford on the back of oppressing the working class. This is the kind of place where the top hatted ruling class would bristle their mustaches and declare – in all seriousness – “Sir, I am de-masted” and other such nonsense.

It did, however, provide a perfect opportunity to be roughly handled round the tender regions by seven middle aged men. This is not a situation a straight bloke with a northerners aggressive protection of personal space generally finds himself in. Unless you were a public schoolboy in which case it probably happened most days. With buggery to follow. During a ‘team building’ (I know, I know) session, we had to imagine inert bark as raging volcantic torrents and find a way across using nothing more than our ‘teamed’ skills, a couple of tree limbs and a willing victim.

So at the crux of the challenge, I found myself stretched across a lava chasm (or dead tree if your imagination was still stunned by hangover) desperately groping for a slippery stone while the rest of my all-male team desperately groped parts of my body where no man should be allowed. Unless it’s the doctor and you have an embarrassing disease.

I couldn’t help feeling a frission of excitement which I hastily put down to the joy of completing the challenge through the little known motivational art of cheating. Still we were let out early and while “the manhandling 7” and around fifty others milled about in the hope of finding transportation home, I drove ten miles in the opposite direction of the M25 and went to ride my bike.

This I did with a couple of my friends who despite the dark forest and muddy trail, did not feel the urge to indulge in any team bonding action other than buying me a pint. Which was most welcome as I’ve been getting shuddering flashbacks every time I’d passed a tree.

A dophin-net like deep scourge of the odd stuff people send me brought these little tiddlers to the surface. Some are a little sexist, some are quite rude. If you don’t like that kind of stuff look away now.

It’s verbal’s birthday and she – through the power of small people exponential growth – has reached the age of eight. Her presents include a “Moon Hopper” which is clearly a plastic remake of the classic 1970’s pogo stick. From her attempts to pogo so far, I would not expect her to make her next birthday.

(EDIT: found a couple more, my inbox is a sea of internet driftwood)

So while you enjoy those, I’m going to spend my day off looking at doors. I fully expect a conversation with my better half to go something like “Yes, that’s a door and so’s that one and… tell me again what are we doing here?“

… but I’ve just seen the new must have product at despair.com and while browsing the posters found one which – I think – a few of us corporate sell-outs can probably relate to:

There’s many, many more here with hardly a dud amongst them. And if I had to choose just one more on a similar theme:

Shipping charges very reasonable as well. It’s what the Internet was made for 🙂

Rubbish title, rubbish picture but happy man behind the lens. In a fiscally irresponsible moment of “I have insufficient expensive hobbies in my life right now“, I’ve bought myself a digital SLR.

But not a new one. The Canon EOS 300D is the granddaddy of digital cameras much superceeded by newer and cleverer technology. But it has two enduring values; it was cheap and it is simple to use.

Having had a film Canon EOS many years ago, it was like having an old friend coming back into town. Everything I loved about that camera is almost exactly the same on the 300D and the one thing I hated has gone. That’ll be the “what’s the photo look like then” delay which was the very reason I sold it in the first place.

Wish I’d kept the expenses lenses tho. As already I’m scanning ebay for something a bit longer and pimpier than the free one my friend chucked in.

My rather posh (and amusingly significantly more complex) Canon S80 is a superb shot taker in a easy to manage package. But I’d forgotten the tactile joy of a ‘proper’ camera and the fun in trying to frame and light decent compositions using the viewfinder.

It’s going to be great for the summer and on that note, I just wish it’d bloody stop raining.

Yes, that’s you I’m talking to at the back, with your shuffling feet, guilty demeanor and chest pressed chin hiding a face shaped to verbalise “not me gov, honest, I’ve never taken nuffin‘”

If not you, who? Someone in malicious authority has flicked off the sunshine switch and simultaneously turned the rain tap full on. Grey skies clamp the planet and occasional sunny strobes are instantly hidden behind a curtain of wind blown wetness with hail to follow. Two consecutive sodden commutes suggested a deed pole like email address change so if you’re in the market for some deep water harbour action, mail me at almostdrowned@athousandfathoms.wet. Anything with a draft of less than ten feet can be easily accommodated.

Meteorologically, I am absolutely in sync with the sky meets ground low pressure system after my football team was relegated from the top flight on goal difference. Goal Difference for fucks sake. That’s like being dumped by your first girlfriend after she’s tearfully explained you’re the best shag in the universe but she can’t been seen playing hide the one eyed womb ferret with a bloke whose middle name is Derek.

Obviously the team is not at fault. Others conspired against us by playing eleven of the crowd against our nearest rivals or cheating the transfer system through a process technically known as “ah fuck it, they’ll never notice“. And before anyone and I MEAN ANYONE spouts some shit that it was in our own hands and this bitterness is nothing more than sour grapes, let me remind you it’s Sheffield we’re talking about. We don’t do rationale argument, we do ‘it’s someone elses fault‘ and ‘everyone hates us because we’re a bit rubbish“.

So I’ll be supporting Chelsea against the craven Manchester United who turned up but didn’t play last weekend, and AC Milan when they take on the club we’ve come to think of as “Historical Artifacts who think the shell suit is a class garment“.

If the weather doesn’t improve soon, I’ll be writing to the MP who I failed to vote for. But since he was sworn in with a majority of forty three million, it’s unlikely to make much difference.