Category: Other stuff

Pretty concise and snappy title eh? Yes I do have a life outside Mountain Biking. No, it’s no better written or researched.

Second Life

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

I’ve said before that anyone playing Second Life was quite obviously lacking a first one. And so surprised I wasn’t to read that the Internet generation has vigorously waved a virtual “V” at Lindon Labs’ cyber-asylum. With the attention span of the Internet generation being similar to that of an attention deficit goldfish, it’s hardly an real-earth(tm) shattering news story that they’ve moved on.

Because that’s what they do, from Texting to Twitter, from email to MSN to Facebook. From deskbound personal computers, to funky laptops, to netbooks to iPhones and then hopefully miniaturising themselves up their own arse. The cool cats* twit and book between free application spaces distributing random content and demanding immediacy. They don’t need a second world to inhabit because they’re already trying to exist in too many of their own lives. Once it stopped being about forging long term cyber relationships through the bloody hard work of being something your not, and switched to broadcast channels where people you’ve never met are apparently interested that you’ve shit blue poo, Second Life was looking like a life support case.

But what is BRILLIANT is the way the not-so-cool-cats hang on to stridently tell those who’ve already left what they are missing. Allow me to quote a couple:

“have a reason to go there – like real life, Second Life is not Facebook, which is simply about keeping in touch with people in your network. I was lost at first, but quickly found new friends and new things to do. I help run a travelling vaudeville theatre group and write & perform comedy acts – something I’d never have thought of doing in real life.”

Oh do fuck off, please. You don’t help run a theatre group you deluded idiot. Nor do you “perform” unless that includes a toe suckingly cringy electronically generated parp broadcasted to a bunch of saddos eating pizza off their underwear. Here’s another:

“I do not consider myself to be a weirdo and I am certainly not looking for cheap thrills or an extra-marital affair”

Two things here: A) you’re a weirdo, ask anyone but yourself and b) you wrote that in case your wife read that. Or maybe you are one and only person whose not looking for CyberWank+. A good thing because if you ever meet the honed sword throwing latex clad godess in real life, she’s a 19 stone trucker from Northampton with a broadband connection, and a hard spot for pretty boys.

There’s even a bloke quoting the Gartner Hype Life Cycle which has sadly intersected with my working life a few times. I never really got the Slope of Englightenment as it always faces upwards, and any cyclists knows this to be a bad thing. Anyway he’s missing the point by a few million miles, because once the mainstream and the corporates have moved on, only the weirdos remain. And they may have many attributes including stapling cats to their ears, but hard cash is not one of them.

So while Second Life may now be yesterdays’ news, still millions flock to on line cyberworlds, notably if they involve stupid quests and edged weapons. “Sorry dear, I can’t come and talk to the kids, as IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT that right now nine of us are storming fuck-buckles castle, and I’m lead Orc in the fight against WhaleJaw the Mighty and his army of terrifying stoats“. You need to play that back. Probably at the divorce court.

And just in case anyone tries a counterpoint to my derision by pointing out that writing this blog is an escapist broadcast channel, then let me tell you this: I am sane enough to know exactly what it is. “Broadcast Channel?” I think not – load of old shit I enjoy writing way more than I expect you enjoy reading. And I don’t want to have sex with any of you either. I’m sure the feeling is mutual 😉

* That is definitely not me. It’s probably not you either.

Bugs in the software..

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

… apparently my version of WordPress is of an age that is no longer well supported since the fire-of-creation went out. Or something like that. I’ve got the Nano-Bots working on it, but we may be off line for a bit !

EDIT:

Lordy that was scary. We’re sort of back but everything has changed in here. I’m all a flutter and more hoghedge than hedgehog right now. I’ll fix it later, it looks like a three beer problem.

MORE EDIT:

I thought we’d have a change of theme, I know of few of you shall be delighted to hear that SnowKnob(TM) is still available. Just say the word on the poll over there. I’ve dumped the tag cloud as it’s so July-2008 in terms of what the current unclothed emperor is wearing, and the flickr widget is currently unwidgeted. I know not why.

For a second the whole thing just expired with a sad “phut”, which could have been a sign that I should crucify electrons no more. But the old IT hammer trick re-started the hedgy heart, so we’ll limp on for a bit longer. This new Admin interface tho, God only knows what’s going on. He may with all him omniscient power, but I’m clueless.

Same old, eh?

SNAP

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

I need to file and Health and Safety report from my trip this morning.

Location: Quiet Carriage located on a train travelling between Hereford and London
Time: 07:47

Situation: Two vacuous women of Black Country descent have spent the last 90 minutes variously discussing shoes, useless employees, how clever their children are, and are now debating the finer points of when it’s okay to lose your knickers in public.

Event: Kindly gent with upright aristocratic bearing seated opposite was riled beyond breaking point. Being English nothing more than raised eyebrows, almost imperceptible shaking of a well groomed head and the odd angry rustling of The Times had so far signalled his displeasure.

I think it was the knickers. A man of a certain age and standing probably has a genetic trigger that cannot be stayed when dippy women gush in not very hushed whispers, and indulge in verbal water torture. It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone mentally explode, so it’s worth reporting the full conversation.

Kindly Gent: “Madam, would you mind please keeping silent, as you have obviously failed to notice this is the quiet carriage. And you are not”
Vacuous Brummie: “Oooooh well it says Quiet, not silent and we’re speaking very quietly and I don’t think we’re disturbing anyone”
(30 papers shake vigorously signalling the communal rustle of disagreement with that last statement)
KG: “Madam, you are. And you have been for over an hour”
VB: “Well I don’t know. You should have mentioned it earlier”
KG: “I was hoping I wouldn’t have too”
(Beginners mistake here, those of us who live in the real world know that manners and politeness rarely break out on this train. That’s why I won’t sit in the cock’s carriage which does allow mobile phones and ego to ply their nefarious trade)
VB: “Well I suppose we can try and be a bit quieter”
KG: “Or you could move to another carriage where I’m sure others would enjoy your conversations as much as I haven’t”
(not sure I got this quite right, but it was an rapier thin insult that punctured the air of the tense calm so far enveloping this conversation. Sharp intakes of breaths and supportive “Yes, Get in there” from the non-bloody-annoying side of the carriage)
VB: “Well there is no need to be insulting”
(Oh I dunno, I think there is more than just cause but KG ignored the comment)
KG: “I hope I have got my point across, really your crass behaviour is totally unacceptable”

And then before the Midlands Super-Gob could respond or strike him down with her terrifying pointy handbag, he stood up, modestly acknowledged the almost silent – yet heartfelt – thanks from all of us, and de-trained* at Reading.

Leaving us with that kind of shocked silence that is gradually filled by people needing to examine some papers very closely and for a long time STARTING RIGHT NOW.

We’ve been here before. Thankfully it wasn’t me today. I was very, very tempted but had inadvertantly left the Heavy Shovel Of Righteousness at home. And obviously, if we’d been in America, someone would have been shot. Ying and Yang, struggling to see the downside of that one.

* Scorpion Pit Alert. Find the man who felt the urge to add this to the Train Manager’s script. Assume he’s the same bloke who talks about us being “re-platformed”. Dunno what this is, but sounds painful.

Got a Wii?

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

You’ll be needing some of these then. Possibly. Before I share the web site with you – which is somewhat coy regarding the exact use of these rather suggestive items – it’s worth first explaining how I intend to use them.

We have a number of in-laws visiting very soon to celebrate the fact that most of their adult life, they’ve been married. Not sure that’s much to celebrate, and certainly at least one of them gives the impression of being more than adequately cheesed off about the whole thing. So to spice it up, I was thinking “Right then, who fancies a game on the WII, there you go Mr. W that’s one’s yours, Yes you can hold it like that if you’re feeling frisky and Mrs. W? Grab a load of that puppy”

Then “KIDS, OUT, NOW” and “Okay I’m loading the game now, on your marks, set….”

I think it’ll go well. Although possibly not end well. If I’ve spiked your interest, check them out here, and thanks to Samuri for finding them. The man’s a porn-hound 🙂

Sunshine and Showers.

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

Not a terribly adventurous weather forecast for this time of year is it? A squillion pounds worth of powerful supercomputers running multi-threaded modelling software all expertly analysed by blokes with beards and yet this is the best they can come up with? So I’ve challenged myself to do better, and in no way felt hampered by having nothing more than a window, a rainfall measuring device* and many years of weather lore ingrained by being continually pissed on while commuting.

But I thought it was important to start small** and look for a niche opportunity to sell this fresh new meteorological service. So I bring to you “The Indoor Forecast” – now I accept the market is potentially only two children with no money of their own, a woman who has none of my obsession for stuff I can’t change and a dog, who while looking interested and keen, views weather as something that aids running, eating sheep shit and rolling in fox poo.

On the upside, it does give me an ideal opportunity to stop the kids’ pocket money and raid their bank accounts. The next obvious question would be “Exactly how hard is it to forecast indoor weather“. Well quite bloody hard actually Mr. Clever Trousers, especially when your heating system is essentially a NASA space shuttle only with more complexity and potential for catastrophic explosions.

We had great plans for our utility room, all scuppered by the installation of a Scud Missile masquerading as two hot water cylinders and a Swedish Heat Pump that has more than the odd blond moment. There is no room for anything other than shock and awe with the sheer quantity of stuff connecting the two. We have the output of 400 metres of under garden pipe at one end, multiple snakes of hot and cold water conduits disappearing through various apertures, electrical systems strung between the two and pumps, so many pumps pushing liquid this way and that. It is exactly like a 70s film set where the cat-stroking bad guy cackles”Ah Mr. Bond, marvel at my Destroy The World machine and see now that I cannot be beaten mwaaaahhhh”

So the bottom of the house is heated by underfloor heating, the top by big radiators, the bathrooms by huge steel towel rails all working off different circuits and powered by different, er, stuff. The hot water is another physics lesson in itself, and I’ve taken to wondering aloud if it is all really just magic, with careful examination of the darker spaces bringing elves and other magic creatures into the light.

“What has all this to do with indoor weather?” you demand. Well just this; on Monday evening, the local forecast at 21:45 hours was for a cool front passing through the kitchen (dog outside, door open), a warm channel of air being forced between two channels of high pressure (sure you can work that out), cloudy upstairs (steaming bath) and extremely wet on two walls where once there had been just dry plaster and fresh paintwork.

The outlook was not good at all. The threat of localised flooding was a real possibility, as were lighting strikes from frying electrics and definite impediments to travel unless one was packing an inflatable. At times like this, it’s important your first response gets right to the heart of the problem. Knowing this, and not much else I shouted to Carol “Probably worth knowing someting has exploded upstairs and we’ve Vietnamese boat people docking at our TV“. She instantly diagnosed the problem and dispatched me to Mission Control to shut down all systems.

Again, not as easy as it sounds. It goes like this; run into utility room and be faced with a barrage of flanges, wheels and valves, flashing me back to WWII films where the plucky brit single handedly attempts to put out a massive fire in a submarine engine room. In such films, rarely does the hero dash back into the kitchen for a chair much needed to ascend the North Face of the Scud. A riot of grunting, flipping and punching eventually created a tense quiet on the Western Front. The cascade was reduced to a dribble, which descrives well my soggy mental conditon as well.

The advent of a proper plumber brought guiltily forth a faulty “sealed for life“*** component that had decided it would rather be a hose than a pipe. We’re still awash in the sea of damp carpet, mouldering plaster and soggy floor, but had it happened an hour later, the forecast would have told of the kind of disaster that unstoppable hot water at mains pressure would create.

I am considering though a return to wood fires and tin baths. Or getting some new elves in. Elf and Safety you see – they just don’t go together. The forecast for the rest of the week is turning increasingly grumpy, with large clouds of depression and some internal wine showers at regular intervals.

* Bucket
* And work down.
*** Maybe of a mayfly. Lasted a total of four days.

Shh, it’s a secret.

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

I have just signed the Official Secrets Act* and frankly that’s a worry. Firstly, because even the most cursory examination of my past will not only uncover skeletons in the closet, it’ll will also cast a embarrassing light on why most of them have four legs. And the general proportions of a goat.

What is equally perturbing is exactly how difficult it is to complete the form. Not because it is particularly complicated, more the almost endless repetition of name, address and date of birth. I started to think this was all part of the test, and the spooks were trying to catch you out by asking the same question in many different places. And I’m not sure I will pass – because completing it on the wobbly train this morning has hieroglyphed my entry into a code as complex as Enigma.

This isn’t the end of it either. I have been summoned to present myself to the security controller who shall doubtless be an ex-military type with waxed mustache and pefecftly shined shoes**. I fully expect to be given a dressing down on multiple points including poor handwriting, form completion outside the designated boxes and a lack of mirror presentation of the corporate brogue. I’ll be lucky if I’m able to run away before being shot.

If this invasion of my shady past wasn’t bad enough, I now find a second once-mighty-oak has almost broken my desk with it’s heft and girth. I don’t even know the answers to some of the questions on this 22 page form (with a similar sized document providing “guidance”) and it’s doubtful I’ll escape without the big rejected stamp and a citation for Lack of Moral Fibre.

It is mildy diverting to find all the forms must be completed by hand. There is absolutely no joined up process by which your details can flow between documents. So far I’ve been forced to remember how old I am a staggering eleven times. It does make you wonder exactly how efficient our Home Office is because you just know all this stuff gets re-keyed into five different systems, while the originals filed in some huge, dusty basement.

Is it any surprise that government officials lose secret documents on an almost daily basis? I mean there are so many copies in so many different formats, Why don’t we just open the doors to MI5 and invite everyone in for a look-see. And then we could interogate them or torture them or lock ’em in the basement along with my capacious files.

Still I’ll be alright. Because I know stuff now that I can’t tell you about. And no, it doesnt have anything to do with that goat, the tub of whipped cream and the spontaneous combustion of terrified ungulates.

* Has anyone signed the unofficial secret act? What’s in there then “Yeah try not to sleep with Russian Spies if you’ve a briefcase full of secret stuff, y’know?”

** And that’s just the women.

I do not love the smell of wet plaster in the morning.

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

Last night our swanky new heating system suffered the kind of failure that can easily remodel your house, replacing solids with liquids. Assuming the crisis does pass, I will explain how three minutes of my life were exercised in rotating big wheels, flipping switches and winding flange levers. To ask if our heating system is a bit complex is akin to wondering whether Tesco is a tad busy the night before Christmas.

However, until then let me share with you some fine satire on the world of modern life and corporate speak. I’m sure you’ve probably seen it before, but it cheered me up this morning. And I really did need cheering up.

*TESTICULATING.
Waving your arms around and talking bollocks.

*BLAMESTORMING.
Sitting round in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

*SEAGULL MANAGER.
A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything and everyone and then leaves.

*ASSMOSIS.
The process by which people seem to absorb success and advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.

*SALMON DAY.
The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed .

*CUBE FARM.
An office filled with cubicles.

*PRAIRIE DOGGING.
When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on. (This also applies to applause for a promotion because there may be cake.)

*SITCOMs.
Single Income, Two Children, And Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids or start a ‘home business’.

*SINBAD.
Single working girls. Single income, no boyfriend and desperate.

*AEROPLANE BLONDE.
One who has bleached/dyed her hair but still has a ‘black box’.

* PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE.
The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

*ADMINISPHERE.
The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the ‘adminisphere’ are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve. This is often affiliated with the dreaded ‘administrivia’ – needless paperwork and processes.

* 404.
Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web error message ‘404 not found’ meaning that the requested document could not be located.

*OH – NO SECOND.
That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a BIG mistake (e.g. you’ve hit ‘reply all’).

*JOHNNY-NO-STARS.
A young man of substandard intelligence, the typical adolescent who works in a burger restaurant. The ‘no-stars’ comes from the badges displaying stars that staff at fast-food restaurants often wears to show their level of training.

*GOING FOR A McSHIT.
Entering a fast food restaurant with no intention of buying food, you’re just going to the bog. (Loo) If challenged by a pimply staff member, your declaration to them that you’ll buy their food afterwards is known as a McShit with Lies.

*MILLENNIUM DOMES.
The contents of a wonder bra, i.e. extremely impressive when viewed from the outside, but there’s actually naught in there worth seeing.

*GREYHOUND.
A very short skirt only an inch from the hare.

* SALAD DODGER.
An excellent phrase for an overweight person.

* SWAMP-DONKEY
A deeply unattractive person.

* MONKEY BATH.
A bath so hot, that when lowering yourself in, you go: ‘Oo! Oo! Oo! Aa! Aa! Aa!’.

* MYSTERY BUS.
The bus that arrives at the pub on Friday night while you’re in the toilet after your 10th pint, and whisks away all the unattractive people so the pub is suddenly packed with stunners when you come back in.

* BREAKING THE SEAL.
Your first pee in the pub, usually after 2 hours of drinking. After breaking the seal of your bladder, repeat visits to the toilet will be required every 10 or 15 minutes for the rest of the night.

* TART FUEL.
Bottled premixed spirits, regularly consumed by young women.

* PICASSO BUM.
A woman whose knickers are too small for her, so she looks like she’s got 4 buttocks.

Stolen brazenly from Julian who is old mate and recent hedgehogger.

The future’s bright, the future is…

On By AlexIn Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

It flies! Retro colours, rubbish pilot

.. orange-ish. Had you going there eh? Thought I had bought a new bike. No, that particular item has not even reached the debating table, and the assertion that “it is easier to apologise than ask permission” is somewhat tempered by the potential loss of testicle to the rolling pin of fiscal stimulation.

Make of that what you will. Anyway another glider has been committed to aviation which is not as mundane as you may think. Because I* built it, covered it, plugged it full of electronics and even flew it on its’ first – and nearly last – flight.

The plunge into the valley below was, this time, not a direct consequence of my stick twiddling skills. No, the major factor was launching into a autumnal abyss not troubled by any actual wind. Cutting out the technical stuff, gliders without wind are generally slightly aerodynamic bricks soon to become many, many unrecognisable shards of splintered wood.

To my amazement I managed to land** some 15 metres below my feet in some handy bracken. Subsequent attempts at flying above the ridge have been mainly successful and, so far, I’ve returned home with the same number of pieces as I started with. In the same shape. This is pretty contrary to my flying career so far. Probably just got lucky.

Every time I stand on the slope, I think “I really should be riding my bike”. I have been riding, but it’s not exactly a priority for my spare time. Saturday we had a proper MTB ride in the woods with the kids, except they had a great time sliding between trees, and I less so chasing them on Shanks’ pony, much encumbered by tyre-chewing mutt.

I think the solution would be a new bike. And possibly a novelty testicle.

* Except for the difficult bits. Carol did those. Natch 😉

** Verb used in the context of “was available for re-use” rather than anything you’ve experienced in a proper aircraft.

Not My World

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

NWM(hm)* encompasses that every increasing slice of life’s pie chart entitled “what the fuck?“. This vast swathe of nonsense starts at politicians, ends at people who confuse wealth with entitlement and pinpoints swaggery, arrogance, stupidity and downright lunacy at all points in between.

It’s quite a big slice. Give us representative examples I hear you ask. How long have you got I would reply except I have a real corker burning hot right here, right now. I’ve been extremely fortunate this year spending only a few days away from home thereby avoiding the cockmunchery of business class, business dinners and business hotels all wrapped in self importance and toe curling obsequiousness.

Last week that my world stopped while this started. One night in our dirty Capital starting out well with too many beers with too few old friends**, and ended meandering in a slightly inebriated peramble back to a new hotel shadowed by the magnificence of St. Pauls.

A nice man with a top hat and eastern European accent clearly felt I was in not state to operate a door and wafted me into reception. Where three more of a similar geographic landscape fell upon me and my luggage offering all sorts of services and smiles, somewhere in the middle of which might have been a room for the night.

Dignity is something I’ve long been separated from. And I have some history here both in a deficient self control gland and a hatred for contemporary hotels. But even with all that and headful of rubbish beer, I still delivered sufficient upright bearing to refuse assistance in carrying a very small bag and a very tired body up a single flight of stairs.

Nodding vigorously at the retention of my working class credentials, I dodged two more hotel-borg on the extended stroll to my room – the hotel being quite large and me failing to decipher the oh-so-arty hieroglyphics masquerading as room numbers. A lucky break and a repeated key stabbing action gained me access to a space both clearly brand new and evidently decorated by a man who was so NWM he probably arrived in a designer spaceship.

Of the many terrors this “hybrid third place delivering joy on many different soul levels” holds for the common man, the second most scary was represented by the bed. Or more precisely what was on the bed – to whit 12 cushions. And there were two beds . TWENTY-FUCKING-FOUR cushions? What is going on here? Clearly some kind of haberdashery arms race between competing hotels “Yes Gervase, they may have tassles spun from the testicle fur of a Arabian camel ,but who has covered the entire room with 70s wallpaper stuffed with foam? Hmm Hmm?”

Unless you are a giraffe such plump accouterments are nothing more than pointless garnish, which may go some way to explaining how only 11 pence remained for the lighting system. Some not very bright spark configured the many and varied side lights, over hanging bulbs, desk illuminations and searing mirror lights in such a way they could only be extinguished by a master switch by the door.

I’ll let you think about that while I stumble about in a doomed navigational voyage to the bed. I successfully avoided various modern edgy edges before being felled by one of the very cushions I’d tossed to the floor some minutes earlier. Only mildly winded and lightly bruised, I climbed into bed where it became apparent no expense had been spared on the heating system either.

No because they’d captured a small sun and installed it directly under my room. Three more fraught journeys to the air conditioning panel*** made little difference other than adding to the all body bruising. Eventually I gave up, adding a duvet sail to the sea of pointless cushions and spent the next six hours not sleeping much.

The alarm call had all the charm that an electronic beep can offer before being followed up by one of the reception zombies enquiring if I required anything else? A proper night’s sleep? A room that’s not heated by the earth’s core? A lighting system not designed by the bloke from the Crystal Maze? “I’ll send up a suggestion card shall I sir?”

So hungover, tired and hungry I felt my day could only improve by a nice relaxing shower. Obviously, being me, I could never get that fucking lucky. The whole bathroom was a riot of light, mirrors, angles and everything carefully designed to make a fragile head feel slightly worse. But this merely was a curtain raiser for the shower; what a statement this was – huge tiled area, multiple outlets, mirrored casings and three shiny, chromed knobs with absolutely no notation on them whatsoever.

Being a proper engineer, I twiddled with the knobs**** for a while before an ill advised full bore rotation of a random knob fired out water at a pressure speaking directly of a conduit mined to the Mariana trench. Cold water at that, although cold isn’t really a good describing word as my kids would say. They probably wouldn’t say “FUUUUUCKKKK SHIIIIT WHAT THE TWATING HELL IS GOING ON HERE?” because they’d have been too busy drowning.

The sheer volume of icy liquid left me with no option but to salmon swim back up the cubicle in order to beat the stupid controls with a bloody fist. Finally I achieved some kind of water karma, but frankly I’d rather have fallen into the Thames than spend one bloody minute in that hotel. On checking out, many shiny teeth asked me if I’d enjoyed my brief stay.

And because I’m English I said “Yes, it was lovely” and “Do you have a doctor on site because I think I may have broken your shower with my testicles. Terribly sorry“.

And yet, and yet London is a hard place to hate on an autumnal morning draped in blue sky under a warming yellow sun. I popped into St. Pauls and wished the hotel designers had spent one minute in here because – even to a dedicated atheist such as me – it has an undoubted presence and almost endless beauty. And on my short walk to the office, I ducked off the main drag and wandered happily through narrow streets peopled with every size, shape and colour you could every want to meet.

I like that. And I liked the boggling choice of places for a NWM man to get a breakfast that doesn’t cost twenty five quid and come with worryingly attentive waiters. I chose one at random, ordered up pig inna bun accompanied by a vat of tea and all was well with the world.

Until the bill came and with it a demand for the best part of ten pounds.

Not My World. Not even close.

* Hedgehog Mark. Like a trademark only spikier.

** Up to the point when I – un-Yorkshirelike – I got a round in. How much for a beer? At least serve it bloody warm.

*** I considered ringing reception for some string but could not face the bright smiles of 300 or so employees turning up at my door.

**** Which kept me entertained for a while but realistically wasn’t going to get me clean and corporate.

Bridge Works.

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

Well it doesn’t really. There is a famous* motorway bridge that fords the mighty River Severn and is occasionally open for traffic. When they finished it back in the late 60’s, the mechanical plant was so fucked they just buried in the soft clay. Which makes a fantastic jape if you’re ever asked by the metal detector nerds for a good spot to go electronic lawn-mowing**

Last year they closed it for twenty dark weeks to break the world record for the longest continuous smoke of a dog-eared roll up. Honestly, on re-opening the only difference appeared to be a nine foot length of Armco and a sign informing us of how our council tax had funded a few thousand hours of chain smoking slackery. This year they’re straining the boundaries of sanity by offering up 24 weeks of low speed slinky cones under the auspices of generic “Bridge Works”

.No idea what this means. Unless it’s a group noun for thirty orange hatted stationary vehicles acting as a leaning post for shoulder shrugging hi viz jackets. I had much time to muse on the exact purpose of closing this arterial masterpiece today, while some desultory clearing of a large accident took place.

For one hour I sat with the radio merrily informing me I’d be better off leaving at the junction some 100 yards behind me unless my travel plans included staring out of the window and swearing. Since the crack of dawn had cracked me out of my happily duvet’d bed, and my destination still felt many days away, I couldn’t help but gird the grumpy gland and wonder why the fuck this always happens to me

And some others obviously, but it’s not like they’re important. At this time I really wanted to be in one of the many emergency vehicles speeding down the hard should, or the inventor of a teleporting machine, or – and to be honest this was about the limit of my aspiration – back in bed dreaming of excuses why I don’t need to be here.

Anyway sufficient time passed for me to consider a second shave before a slow rubber-necked crawl past the remains of what was clearly a fairly impressive stack with three cars still on their side and all sorts of industrial equipment sawing away at bodywork that was unlikely to buff out.

And then I noticed something fantastic. Not the mirrored queue on the other side created entirely by ghoulish commuters with nothing better to do that stop and stare, or exchanging a respectful, manly nod with a policeman who waved we through. No it was the mere fact that two of the destroyed vehicles were BMW’s. And the other one was an Audi.

That’ll learn you tailgating and testosterone don’t mix won’t it cock-boys eh? One of the drivers of cockmobile-1 was still staggering about jabbering into his mobile phone. I didn’t just smile, I thought “hey two BMW’s AND an Audi – that’s worth an hour of my time”

Still gloating will always come back and poke one up the behind, as was perfectly observed when some five miles down the road I noticed a happy sign declaiming “Road Works here for 28 weeks, Delays possible”

Possible? Possible? People will die and mothers will give birth in these queues. At this rate I’ll have to ride through the winter and get the train. Imagine how grumpy I’ll be then.

* well famous in Herefordshire, but then that’s a short list including a cow that looks a bit like Jesus.

** I refuse to call them “detectorists” in the same way that “Railway Enthusiasts” are Train Spotters in dirty anoraks and “Aeromodelling Pilots” are sad old geeks who would cherish the kudos of being as cool as a train spotter.