To paraphrase a famous Klingon “Today was a good day to lie“* as was ably demonstrated by my announcement into a late afternoon conference call. “Yes, Alex here – I’ll go on mute, it’s a bit noisy“. Not so much a lie really, more taking the thing we call truth and treading it into sodden soil while I walked over it looking for somewhere to live.

And while the phrase “Log Cottage” dredges up memories of fetid riding accommodation and over-sized saunas, this Family sized cabin offered much in way of temporary stabling for man and bike. Included are far reaching views, three ponds, – one big enough to swim in if you’re some kind of cold blooded nutter – endless garden and sufficient wood to cement the link between house building and the deforestation of the Amazon.

It’s really too expensive even for the two years months apparently required to nail down the house contracts*** but Carol will be negotiating hard and I’m fairly sure she kidnapped the renter’s much loved family dog and stowed it in the boot. Ransoming that hostage to fortune is likely reduce the price – failing that it’s a meal for 4.

Still this is mere displacement activity to stay my surfing fingers from the weather forecast centered on Shepton Mallet. This much misunderstood home of a famous tool represents the closest habitation centre to the CLIC-24 course. Currently, most authoritative sources call for a week of high pressure, low 70s temps and floor to sky sunshine.

Until Friday. When the pressure falls off a cliff and a phalanx of impatient depressions launch themselves at the epicentre of 500 people riding. Bringing with them, wind, rain and, er, depression for any of us still out on the course. I know long range forecasts are rubbish BUT only when they predict sunshine. Otherwise, they tend to the knob-on-block accurate.

Not content with impotent railing****, my pro-action has seen the cat sporting a hastily nailed lucky horseshoe on a spare ear, and lucky rabbits feet***** are being eaten by the warren-load. I’m considering this as a new form of Blue Sky Thinking.

I stole that line from Nige Parker. That’s if you’re groaning right now. However, if your response was more “that hedgehog bloke occasionally comes out with some right crackers” then Nige provided a very basic idea and I professionally polished it. Just so we’re clear.

I’ve nothing else to say on the matter. In fact this whole post is merely a wide eyed ramble in response to chugging back an industrial strength “Guatamala Elephant” double espresso at 9pm.

Probably time to wash it down with a beer.

* As opposed to yesterday where I battled the Ferengy sausages screaming “Today is a good day to fry“**

** Any Trekkies, feel free to go and get a life somewhere else. You should know, I print out and eat all hate mail.

*** I am well up for applying the same technique to the seller.

**** A fine name for a band.

***** But not for the rabbit. Obviously.

… this isn’t the setup to a joke because that man was me, and what happened next was more shocking than funny.

Me: “Pint of Niche-Micro Brewery Bitter markteted especially for ale snobs such as myself and a packet of your finest pork scratchings”

Barman: “Sorry, we’re out of pork scratchings”

Me: “What? One of the few reasons I patronise your pub is for the joy of crackling some pork* while appreciatively quaffing a dodgy beverage thrice hopped and ten times overpriced”

Barman: “Just no demand for them anymore I’m afraid”

Me: “Not true, I’m demanding them. Right now.”

Barman: “Sorry, no can do**, new rules you see” [jerks derisive thumb] ‘head office say we have to sell healthy snacks‘

Me: [full turn to take in fifteen builders bellys, twenty guys in suits with a hand shaky alcohol dependency and ol’ bob comatose and dribbling under his favourite table] “It’s not a bloody Gym in here. Everything south of the entrance is unhealthy and that includes those dodgy sausages you’re pretending aren’t leaving a horse missing a vital appendage‘

Barman: [Leans elbows on bar in accordance with Publican’s subliminal messages section 4.1 “Customer starting to piss me off”]”Look, we’re trialling this new ‘healthy scratchings”, have a bag on the house”

Me: [on return from explosive mental orbit]”What madness is that? We’re talking about supsicious pig scrapings double deep fried and then fried again to be absolutely sure they’re unhealthy enough. You cannot make a Scratching that does not fur up artories and root symptoms for four major diseases. It’s like trying to sell a Lighter Choice Deep Fried Mars Bar ”

Barman: [Spoken]: “Here’s your beer” [Unspoken] “Now fuck off”

My moral compass would have vibrated angrily to an exit direction had I not already paid for my drink. Instead, I explained to almost no one who was interested, that this represented the passing of another British Icon.

I’ve already lamented the loss of the car and motorbike industry and the demise of our civil engineering heritage, surely I cannot suffer the lopping off of yet another cultural emblem?

I blame St. George. Once you start importing patron saints from Portugal, the death of scratchings is sadly inevitable 🙁

* An activity still punishable by ‘random insertion of pig knuckle sandwich’ in some US states

** That kind of lazy grammar slang makes me mad. A Pig Knuckle Sandwich up the japs eye is too good for them.

This post may come over as a little distracted. In the last few days, I have been finding myself mostly lost, and short of trailing breadcrumbs to every destination, there seems no end to this extended state of nervous anxiety.

Monday was a directionless day as I lost myself and most of my mind attempting to crack the laptop replacement codex. But first I had to locate my new office which involved me riding past it once, and walking around it twice more. The cruel irony of the reduced circumstances, in which we cyclists find ourselves, is the front door of my working home is merely a waypoint on the continuing journey to the bike store.

And that’s just the start of it. The concept of lazy design takes its cues from a much washed and almost traction-less concrete floor, bike hooks so close together their capacity is reduced by half, a locker which is 2 inches shorter than a pair of suit trousers*, and a weary traipse up stairs and down an apathetic lift to arrive on the very same floor you left some hours ago.

The switching logistics of bike kit, clothes, locks, shoes and trousers is a burden I am already too weary to carry. A quick scan of the social lepers that make up the firmâ’s cyclists show they too are natily dressed in that much maligned sartorial garb of shirt, tie, waterproof socks and towel.

Eventually I found an unoccupied desk which took almost no time compared to finding the concealed entrance of the new building. I fully expected the security guard to welcome me in the style of Mr Ben’s shopkeeper after I’d accidentally stumbled through the door – whilst resting on what was clearly a wall.

Indiana Jones, eat your heart out. I have found the dread portal. But it really wasn’t worth the pain of the search.

Lunchtime rocked up about ten minutes later which sent me on an unfed voyage of non discovery. A phone call diverted me from retracing my earlier steps as I struck off in the vague direction of laptop replacement central. Phone call finished, I found myself fed into the snarling maw of High Holborn.

But not lost. Geographically disadvantaged certainly and genealogically incapable of asking for directions. It’s a man thing but pointless anyway in our fine capital, as the street demographic is 80{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} confused tourist and 20{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} fuck-you-I’m-far-too-busy Londoner.

I struck out in a hopeful direction. Then another direction. Then, finding myself back where I started, turned round three times, muttered a cursed incantation and stomped off confidently through a spiritually promising passage**. Which ended rather more physically in a dead end.

Driven on by hunger, bloody mindedness and a one man pincer attack on vaguely remembered landmarks, only 45 minutes later did my navigational prowess sweatily deposit me at the entrance to the correct building.

But with most of my lunch hour gone, it was disappointing to find the form of extreme tedium and length was not valid. Because I had failed to have it notarised and counter signed by God. An oversight which brought much mirth to the pocket of IT that believes it may be part of the Civil Service. Come the revolution, they’re right behind estate agents when the Ninja Badgers*** are unleashed.

I was back in London today and the experience was much the same, except with added rain and wind and absent minded murder attempts. I’m really not going to miss this place.

* even for old “Ditch Standing” Leigh.

** This is not a sexual reference. However much you’d like it to be.

*** Armed with the cutlery drawer of hurt. Sometimes you have to go all in with the full might of your armed forces.

Probably not. Certainly the sanctity of your property when faced with the invading hoard of scrotal Aylesbury. Last year, a false alarm left me filling silly and cold after a one man/one cat naked pincer move on the barn. Last Thursday, the 3am alarm call heralded something significantly more nasty.

And different. Firstly I decided to arm myself with more than the shield of justice, the sword of truth and the swinging willy of righteousness. So struggling into jeans while the alarm insisted – at above the pain threshold – that someone was in the barn and all the neighbors were soon to be awake.

Attaining a geographical position of ‘outside‘ was preceded by much flapping of dressing gowns and more general flapping. I traded myopically punching the alarm codes with just punching the unit which proved a whole lot more effective, and launched myself outside brandishing a broom handle and feeble torch.

Even in a state best thought of as upright, but asleep, the security light strobe show clearly chronicled the escape path of a man making good his lack or morals with stolen collateral. I crashed in through the bike side door, swept a fast count of frames, breathed a sigh of relief and incautiously barreled into the office side.

To find the window broken, the blinds flapping and a woody desk space where a laptop used to be*. Within snatching distance were still my Tag watch, wallet and two digital cameras. And of course – a single unlocked door away – all my precious mountain bikes. So the alarm did it’s job even if the window locks didn’t. I was 90 seconds too late to accost the rapscallion who’d taken the whole “property is theft“** thesis to a new level.

The police were great. Two competent blokes turned up 10 minutes later and summoned a sniffer dog. The prowling hound found a trail of scrote through many gardens in the road – ending uselessly at the curb side where a car had been parked. ” Look on the bright side” one of the uniforms said “you weren’t targeted, it was just opportunity crime and after the alarm scare, they won’t be back“.

And yeah, nothing was stolen that can’t be replaced, our house wasn’t violated, the kids were never in danger so maybe we should be grateful. But I’m not, I’m a little irritated with myself for not hiding stuff away, with the ballache of fixing windows and adding another two locks to each opening***, moving stealable stuff inside and securing all the bikes.

Yet that isn’t the primary emotion. It’s sadness that we have to do it. It’s frustration that a locked down laptop with a disk full of encryption is going to fetch£20 at best. Stuff like this chips away at your faith in human nature and that’s just not nice.

Still, it did take my mind off the debacle of the latest bike storage arrangements. Words – for once – fail me.

* on the upside this was the firms’. On the downside, they weren’t delighted I had lost it.

** It goes like this. If all property is theft then it has already been stolen. So all I am doing by nicking stuff is balancing the books and avoiding double counting. Although maybe I’d giving the bloke too much credit, you could conclude he’s just a robbing twat.

*** Anyone wants to break a window is going to need a cannonball. Me too, if I ever want to open one again.

I caught the end of some group therapy TV prog where a roomful of organic bad debts were being encouraged to stop spending what they didn’t have. One credit crunched disaster was singled out for having spent£10,000 on shoes, while another appeared to be single handedly bailing out the entire soft furnishing industry.

Despite Carol’s verbal prodding, I struggled to make any connection to my own spending habits, but in the spirit of house harmony accepted a challenge to record my weekly spending. It is soberingly instructive while turning you into a penny counting meanie with a latent accountancy streak.

And while I accept that stuff – especially in the unique fiscal environment that is robbing London – is ludicrously expensive, life without daily consumerables is kind of miserable.

Allow me to lurch lightly to the right of lunacy. Our coffee run involves a trudge to the local smug Baristas’r’us where I order four drinks and sternly resist all incremental selling of biscuits and flapjacks. 10 minutes later and 10 pounds lighter, I am office bound clutching two normal coffee shaped drinks and something called a skinny cappuccino. With chocolate on top – don’t even ask me to explain that because my final item is a double shot Latte with a vanilla twist created specially for our team metrosexual.

This isn’t New York, it is not even the London office, I am recording real events from bloody Milton Keynes.

“Why can’t we drink normal coffee?” I hear the Microsoft Money’d tutters mutter. Let me say no more than refer you to a previous post on that subject. Nothing has changed except – inexplicably – it has apparently morphed into something even more lethal . And because my taste buds can no longer stomach instant coffee, I’ve been forced to buy my own perky copulator.

We bought a Gaggia so I could back away slowly from the bile and nascent violence of certain forums peopled by those who believe not fridging your coffee beans should invoke a capital offence. An innocent request enquiring upon the best machine for a modest budget ended with the two, er, keenest protagonists threating to kill each other. But, because it’s the Internet, obviously they never left their keyboards but even so… scary.

It came with instructions which – as a bloke hardwired with ‘fuck it, plug it in and see what happens’ DNA – are now illegible after a swift blast on the steamer* launched the milk skywards in the style of a Harrier jump jet. This vertical take off has left an interesting indelible pattern on the ceiling, and accesorised our once black cat with a a sporty stripe.

It took me three strong cups to work it out, by which time I was chugging down Valium in an attempt to stop me wallpapering the entire street.

Anyway you may be unsurprised to hear that my Economy drive lasted exactly two days. The breaking strain of the self imposed fiscal rules was breached by a decision to race off early for a free parking spot, thereby saving myself two pounds. This mad pre-breakfast dash left me no time to prepared any food for the day** – a decision which was to cost me over a tenner come lunchtime.

So our collective decision to try and preserve cash stocks before over fishing renders them extinct has so far seen a purchase of a car, a house*** and a coffee machine. I may as well just buy a new bike and declare myself bankrupt.

World meet Mad. Mad, World.

* Like a milkly fluffer 🙂

** You know when your lunch is trapped in a Tupperware container, middle age is no longer just a number.

*** OK we haven’t. But it’s not through a lack of effort on our part.

I have just had it pointed* out to me that hedgehogs have now been classed as an offensive weapon. This, after an altercation in which a man launched said unwitting mammal at a small boy.

Explaining the attack, in that peculiar language of policemen everywhere, the perpetrator has been charged “for assault with a weapon, namely the hedgehog“. Only as an adjunct to the story do we find that “It was unclear whether the hedgehog was still alive when it was thrown, though it was dead when collected as evidence“.

The rest of the story – not that there is much more to tell – is here.

And because it is clearly novelty news day, soon self important wankers will be able to bray “I’m on the plane” after the EU scandalously approved the use of mobile phones on aircraft. The last bastion of the drunk and unconnected has been breached by the airlines looking to make a fast buck.

Flying is already as close to hell as any living experience can be without adding several hundred Apprentice-Wannabees shouting the odds.

My future travel plans will involve either a donkey or an underground station. Although ironically I find myself facing 2 hours of short-haul travel on Friday. Pass me that hedgehog.

* Yes, I was striving for a hedgehog related verb**

** No, I didn’t say it was going to be amusing.

Help me out here. One ISP publicly washes its’ hands of monitoring their networks for naughty people stealing music. In a move reminiscent of Pontius Pilot, TalkTalk are playing the “we’re just the conduit card and the security of your digital property is nothing to do with us” card. Okay, well I can sort of accept that especially since the music industry doesn’t seem to be coughing up the requisite greenbacks to fund an army of net-watches.

And yet here we have BT spying on all of our browsing habits in order to target us with specific advertising. That’s the same bloody thing isn’t it? Oh now I see what i missed – one of them costs money and the other one makes it. So it is fuck all to do with ethics, corporate responsibility or even the protection of people’s livelihoods. It’s about making more cash, abusing the privilege of net privacy and applying a moral code forged in the crucible of capitalism.

I would respect TalkTalk’s position more if they’d just ponyed up with “look there is no money in this for us, link it with some advertising revenue and maybe we can do a deal”. As for BT, well they’ve been fucking people over since Mercury had the temerity to target a tiny percentage of their market share. I’d trust Max Mosely over those slippery wankers*.

Loosely related is the Government’s headline splash on a technological solution to pedophiles stalking children on social networking sites. What a masterstroke because anyone who has spent five seconds in the digital age cannot, of course, create a disposable email address. It’s worse than doing nothing because it creates a false sense of security for anyone dumb enough to believe anything these attention seeking worthies put out.

And if we’re talking useless organisations today – after constant chasing – we received “We are not returning your call. The person you need is on holiday. We hope to be able to provide an update next week” from the seller’s solicitors. This is an except copy of the last time they could be bothered to reply, except the date has moved on two weeks. Fax all use frankly, so sadly it looks like Cabbage-Land will not be for us.

Frustrating is not the word. Well it is because I cannot easily convey a digital copy of the noise a head makes repeatedly smacking a keyboard. Let’s try “gfljklsgjklsfhnklhdsjihdsjhjisioas”. That’s what is tattooed on my forehead 🙁

* possibly not an ideal choice of phrase. If what is alleged turns out to be true 😉