...ruffles...

We’re a Will and Grace type household. I don’t mean Emma’s a firebrand redhead and I’m a gay guy, except; Emma is a firebrand redhead of course. Specifically, we’re Jack and Karen people, I don’t mean Emma’s a feisty lady with an acidic tongue and I’m a gay guy. Except Emma is a feisty lady with an acidic tongue… Ooh ducky…

Anyway, Fraiser, Friends, Will and Grace, (I should, given my age and social status, add Sienfeld, except I’ve never really seen it) – I like quality American comedies.

In Vegas we got an insight into how Americans make their TV. Deep inside the MGM Grand Sara spotted a small booth with a couple of men in it. The sign outside invited people to ‘sign up’. I went and bought a cool CBS Sports T-shirt, Sara asked what it was they wanted people to sign up for.

It turns out it was they were testing pilot TV shows and were looking for people to give them feedback. Hoping to see the first episode of “My Mom’s Made of Mince” or “Our Neighbours, The Elks” we put our names down.

It turns out we were to watch Mystery Girl (which has worrying amounts of coverage throughout the web), this is a cross between Sex and the City, and Ally McBeal – a quirky former It Girl becomes a writer for a fashion magazine and subsequently uses her It Girl training (an in-depth understanding of fashion labels) to solve crimes. Oh, and she makes friends with her agoraphobic shoe making neighbour.

Yes, really.

In the final scene after she’d solved the murder, and got her front page story Mystery Girl’s impressed boss turned to her and smouldered “But can you do it again?” to which she turned to camera and said “As long as celebrities keep behaving badly.” Before putting her pencil in her mouth seductively.

It was as bad as it sounds; throughout the show we had keypads on which there was a dial and a display. The default display read ‘50’, if we were enjoying the programme we were expected to turn the dial up (Maximum 100), if we were getting bored, we turned it down (to 0). Every second of our enjoyment, or otherwise, was being captured.

By the end of the half hour my dial read ‘6’, Emma’s read ‘4’, Christ, even my TV obsessed younger sister would have only marked it around a 78.

What struck me about the process was what this did to the programme making. Whenever something visually interesting happened I automatically turned the dial up, any extended dialog, I turned it down. As Homer might say; ‘BOOOORING’.

Assuming I’m reasonably representative of the average viewer (apart from not being American, obviously), what this means is according to their research, there should be more visual impact and less blah. Which, of course, would mean something like The Office wouldn’t get out of the starting blocks. It means that TV will only be made if there’s plenty of bang in the buck. Stories, dialog and interplay are simply not commercially viable. The hollowed out characters in Mystery Girl were testament to this.

I understand that Corporate America needs to reduce the risks that creativity offers but we’re all going to end up pretty numb if we continue to follow this path – all we’ll get is a procession of Benny Hill type shows. All the while there is less and less chance another Office, or Monty Python, or Vic and Bob, or Little Britain, or League of Gentlemen reaching our screens.

God bless the BBC, that’s what I say.

0 comments  

Labels: TV and radio

The Rough Guide gives you some very simple instructions about Las Vegas; if you want to go and look for the hidden city, the one the guide books don’t tell you about that the locals frequent. Don’t bother, it doesn’t exist.

It’s a refreshingly honest place. Turn up, spend money, have fun, go home. We are not here to enrich your soul or enlighten your being. We are bigger and stupider than anywhere in the world.

On average each of the 29 million visitors to Vegas loses $688 gambling. Each slot machine makes on average $250 profit a day, and each table $2500. The hotels are vast complexes which are pumped full of pure oxygen to keep gamblers awake, there are no exit signs or clocks, and drinks are served free to keep the punters’ gambling creative. Wadda place.

I’ll get round to all the various things we did and saw in good time, but in short…

Stayed at the Luxor, shopped at Caesars Palace, took part in some viewer research for an appalling comedy drama pilot show on UPN, went on the rollercoasters on top of the Stratosphere and New York New York, ate at the Bellagio Buffet, gambled a little, saw the Bellagio fountains visited Elvis-a-rama and saw an Elvis impersonator, ate a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, saw Lance Burton’s magic show, the MGM Lions and Siegfried and Roy’s Tigers, had taxi rides with one driver who wanted to assassinate the president, and one who thought it was funny to hoot his horn at an old woman crossing the road in an electric wheel chair. Took advantage of the outrageously good exchange rate and bought a stack of CD’s and trainers, saw the gondolas on the second floor of the Venetian, had burgers in the Mandalay Bay resort, but not the Rossini burgers, the one with truffles and fois gras, because they were $60…

But we didn’t get married much to the chagrin of everyone who called, emailed and texted within hours of us getting home. Sorry.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

When I went to bed last night I managed to concoct a theory to do with eggs, potatoes and my current situation. Something about there being a basic human need to trade. If I have a potato and he has an egg, but I want egg and he wants a potato, we trade. That’s it. And if that were the only reason for working, to trade to satisfy a basic human need, everyone would be traders and most jobs would be redundant.

Politics, accumulation, and power are the real reasons people in the modern world work. Satisfying the basic human need is actually a tiny proportion of anyone’s spending. Therefore the angst that has resulted from the political shenanigans that have been going on is what I’m really being paid to suffer.

Just to clarify, I haven’t been sacked, or anything like that. Materially nothing has changed; I still do the same job for the same salary. It’s just according to these job ads my salary, which on Thursday was a good one for the company, now equates to a relatively junior role. Which doesn’t change my material well being, just dents my ego. Which is all rather meaningless in the great scheme of things. I’m sorry to bore you with it.

Right, that’s that. We’re off to Vegas on Sunday for a week in the stupidest town on the planet. I’ll see you all when I get back.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

Yesterday I earned a good salary in a challenging, stressful but enjoyable job. Today I don’t. The job section of our local paper is advertising four jobs at our place. One of the four is a ‘Head of’, just like me. The job reports to the big boss man, like me. It requires an MBA or equivalent, like me. It offers a salary 30% higher than mine.

What does this mean? Am I being screwed? Am I on my way out? I have no beef about people earning more than me, but salaries quantify your worth to the company. I thought I was part of the solution, a new wave of creative and dynamic individuals hired to turn the company around. Now what? I’m part of the problem? Is a new new wave coming in to solve the problems created by the old guard? Even when this particular member of the old guard has only been in place a year and has never been told they’re going in the wrong direction?

The whole thing smacks of gross incompetence, a common theme at our place, people who earn good money and live good lives making isolated decisions without any consideration for the wider picture. I doubt anyone has even considered what the 30% differentiation communicates to the interested world. Good money does not equal good people.

But why should other people be allowed to make you feel like this? I don’t need more insecurities, I struggle with the concept that my friends hang around with me because they like who I am and not because of Emma or Spankee or a circumstance they’ve found themselves in, I don’t need people to make thoughtless and arbitrary decisions about my worth and value. The calculation is too hard for me as it is.

So what now? I’ll challenge the logic, I’ll apply for the jobs (I’m more than qualified), I’ll make their lives as uncomfortable as possible. And then what? Well, they may tell me to fuck off because they do think I’m an incompetent prick. So in the interim? Beer, flying out to Vegas on Sunday and listening to Public Enemy.

Fuck em all.

Wrong time to blog, I know.

0 comments  

Labels: Work

To suggest Championship Manager is a popular football management simulation game is like saying your fingers are the frilly things that make your hands look pretty.

The current 4th edition is exquisitely detailed, so much so that there’s a story that Leeds United once tried to buy a fictional Championship Manager player that had been planted deep inside the game.

Personally, I favour Championship Manager 2; partly because the gameplay is less comprehensive so processing power can be handed over to the Angolan 4th Division as well as La Liga. Mostly it’s because years ago I went from managing Oxford in the 2nd division to the European Cup Final with Everton. The game took place in front of my dad’s Amiga at four in the morning, and as we figuratively lifted the trophy I realised my parents were probably upstairs fretting as to why I hadn’t spent my teens experimented with recreation drugs.

In the real world, Jamie Brooks is a prodigiously talented Oxford United striker who two days before a trial with Arsenal was struck down with a debilitating illness called Guillain Barre Syndrome. It nearly cost him his life, and may yet cost him his professional football career.

I’m currently playing Championship Manager 4, and as usual I’m managing Oxford. I’ve let my heart rule my head and let Brooksey rehabilitate on my weighty wage bill. He’s been permanently injured for two seasons, commanding a status of ‘Out for several months with a viral infection’.

During a mammoth session on Sunday a message popped up to say that Brooks was finally available again, apparently (and this is genuinely what it said)…

“Jamie Brooks has resumed full training after his bollock fell off.”

0 comments  

Labels: Football

There’s something hypnotic about hitting your fridge with a hammer. However rather like dabbling in crack cocaine you really don’t know you’ve gone too far until it’s too late.

I don’t mean thumping a hole in the door to reach the cheese, I mean hacking away the build up of ice. We have huge icebergs packing every crevice and corner of the fridge, our claw hammer lies wantonly on the floor. Pasties and Chicken Kievs whimper quietly deep in the depths of the cold wasteland. I must retrieve them, this I must. I haven’t gone through the filament yet, but I will. Oh yes. I will.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

We've all done it haven't we? Those cripplingly embarrassing moments which come back to haunt you from time to time. For me, it was accidentally buying my Grandma a three pack of tanga briefs for Christmas. Even now I can't pass a Marks and Spencer without maniacally swatting imaginary flies from around my head.

Poor old Justin, he's 'accidentally' exposed a Janet Jackson booby (or as it's called in Thoroughly Modern Milly - 'a front') during the Superbowl half time show. How lucky she taped what appears to be a small cog from a dishwasher onto her nipple beforehand. How strange that the costume, which looks like it would otherwise withstand a nuclear assault had a weakness around the right cup area. What tough luck, normally when he tries to undue a woman's bra he's all fingers and thumbs.

Whether this was a carefully staged part of the show or not, it doesn't surprise me that the Superbowl needed a bit of spicing up. American Football is the most cripplingly boring game you can hope to watch. Especially as its sold as a sport hell bent on excitement, power and aggression, or at least that's what all the adverts with rambo-esque musical montages of NFL heroes screaming "Let's hurt them bad" would have you believe.

I understand the game - you have six goes (or downs) to move the ball ten yards, if you move it ten yards you get another six goes. If you don't move it ten yards the other team gets the ball. The objective is to move down the field and into the End Zone for a touchdown, worth something like 5 points. It's played in four quarters of fifteen minutes - one hour in total.

I watched a Superbowl final once. During the eighties Channel 4 was more than the visual Guardian it's now become. They used to cover obscure sports like Sumo and Kabbadi, their NFL coverage in particular was exciting and new. 'My team' the San Francisco 49ers reached the final and my A Level timetable meant that I couldn't watch the Sunday night coverage and sleep a little later and get in for Sociology or some such on Monday morning. It was mind crushingly dull, for three hours large men shoved each other and the ball moved inch by inch in one direction, then inch by inch in another direction. In between were endless adverts, or Channel 4 would cut back to the studio where Englishmen with feint American accents would talk about offence and dee-fence.

The half time extravaganza was lavish and expensive, but the sound was ropey and the singers clearly miming, not something that matters when your in Row 4,768 of Candlestick Park. The game ended with a last second touchdown, except in American sport, the last 30 seconds can last up to twenty minutes. It was, apparently, the most exciting Superbowl ever.

Last night I watched the build up, diddy Dermot O'Leary (an NFL fan, apparently) sat next to a monster with a jerry curl afro and nodded along to useful insights like "It's the team with the best team spirit that will win". I watched an hour, which allowed me to see the captain's toss the coin for kick-off (only America can have 6 captains on each side), I also got to see the first twenty seconds of the game. Then I went to bed. Bored.

I woke up this morning to read that New England Patriots had won in a 'thriller' but I now know that it was probably anything but. Anyone who did endure the whole thing would have been thanking god for the right nork of a troubled musical dynasty's favourite daughter.

0 comments  

Labels: Music

It just doesn't snow like it used to. In the old days you'd get four feet of snow overnight and in the morning you'd wake up to it being bright and sunny. You'd get your wellies on and jump into the nearest snow drift, stand in it up to your neck for hours and not feel the cold at all.

Now snow is grey and slushy and icey, and you get stuck in your car for hours. It took me two hours to drive the half hour journey home on Wednesday night. My dad managed four and a half hours to do the 17 miles from High Wycombe to Thame.

My mum phoned us, clearly worried, at about 8.30. I knew she was worried, because she said "I'm not worried". She was pretty justified, Dad's somewhat demob happy as he careers towards the end of his career on into blissful retirement. He's usually at home by 4.30. His non-appearance was a bit out of character, to exacerbate things further, he didn't have his mobile phone.

Eventually, having trailed a host of websites trying to ascertain something more than 'all roads are hazardous and should be avoided' he appeared. Mum phoned to say he was back and put him on to tell the whole saga.

It had taken an hour to get out of the car park, he said. The traction control and ABS on the Mini is a winner, he said. The conditions were so bad, when he got to Sainsbury's to buy some cigars, the door froze up, he said.

The fact that a pack of cigars took priority over everything else (including my aged mother) didn't seem to strike him as in any way odd.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

For no good reason yesterday I briefly watched a programme on CBBC called Crush. The show's presenter went to a school, picked out one of the children, David, and revealed to his class the name of the girl he fancied, Katie. David was then challenged take part in a gameshow where the prize was a date with Katie to Disneyland Paris.

OK, bypassing the fact that this is a hideous concept for a children's gameshow, the first round was called 'Getting to know you'. David and Katie went into a booth for three minutes. David had to think up a string of questions to ask Katie. He would then have to use the information he gleaned in the three minutes to answer some questions on Katie's favourite things (Lee from Blue and Ponies, obviously).

David followed up "What's your favourite school?" with "What's your favourite fish?". Oh well, Katie was a bit of a munter.

0 comments  

Labels: TV and radio

According to Sara, The Last Samurai (or Last of the Summer Wine as it's hilariously known in our house) has Oscar buzz.

The film takes you to back to Japan (not China as stated in earlier editions) about 150 years ago. It's a country in flux; battling the implications of a modernisation programme. Japan's ancient social structures and traditions are being dismantled by a few greedy bureaucrats who see riches in an arms deal with the US. Agreeing to buy the modern weaponry not only secures a trade agreement but supplies the westernised bureaucrats with an arsenal powerful enough to destroy the arcane Samurai that stand in their way. US vets are brought in to train a ramshackle army of Japanese conscripts. Japan gets rich, destroying the samurai and losing its identity in the process. It's all very zeitgeisty, an imperialist regime imposes an ideology at odds with the natural law of a society, only to suffer a cataclysmic cultural kick back. Or something to that effect.

Sounds good doesn't it? Lavish sets, historical context, intricate plotlines; it's got Oscar buzz written all over it.

And then there's Tom Cruise, the westerner thrust into the lost culture, battling the language barrier, struggling to understand the customs played out around him. Is he the silent observer whose battles the contradictions in his head? Nah, he's the most powerful actor in Hollywood, no such understatement here, after all nobody says no to Tom Cruise.

• Nobody says no to the fact he has to become a samurai
• Nobody says no to the fact he's the last samurai
• Nobody says no to the fact he has to be the best samurai there ever was
• Nobody bothers to explain whether an attack by a gang of ninjas is a government backed assassination attempt on the village's powerful leader (BORING!) or a vehicle for Cruise to get cool with a sword.
• Nobody says no to Cruise bucking a thousand years of tradition by turning Japan's Emperor from a distant and impassive demi-god into a compassionate humanist by the power of one well constructed monologue
• Nobody says no to Cruiso endlessly winning mock training fights with other samurai whilst ignoring the sub plot of rampant westernisation happening in Yokahama
• Nobody says no to Cruise falling in love with the only young woman in the village
• Nobody says no to her falling in love with him despite the fact he killed her husband
• Nobody says no to Cruise turning her from the brink of suicide to unstinting love by saying he was 'sorry'
• Nobody says no to Cruise standing with a horse in the middle of a mountain range as the film closes
Nobody, presumably, will say no to him getting an Oscar for this pile of self indulgent shite. The nob.

0 comments  

Labels: Films

It may surpise you to hear that the picture on the left is not a close up of a skip outside the back of a hairdressers shop. It is, in fact, darts player Andy 'The Viking' Fordham. The woman on the right is UK Pop Idol 2003 winner Michelle McManus. Both had a good day last Sunday. They hit professional highs with Fordham winning the BDO World Darts Championship and McManus clocking her first UK number one.


Unless you were beginning to think my new site accommodated for the blind by automatically switching your browser to a magnified setting it won't have escaped you're attention that these people are larger than your average celebrity.

Being fat affects these two in different ways. For Fordham, it's a huge positive. Firstly, he's supposed to be like this and secondly he's more like this than anyone else in the darting fraternity. He weighs 30 stone and wears a couple of hundredweight of cheap jewellery on his non-throwing arm as a counterbalance. He's the quintessentially stereotyped darts player, which is much easier for the general public to comprehend.

McManus, on the other hand, is a square peg in a round hole and is not so fortunate. It's not that big people can't be successful singers, ask Aretha Franklin, Meatloaf, Luciano Pavarotti, Alison Moyet and Chubby Checker, it's just it's better that pop stars are thin. Let me explain.



The music industry needs a high volume of hits to generate a steady income. The rare and unpredictable commodity of talent doesn't come in an even flow, nor is it available in high enough volumes to pay the bills. Mute records boss, Daniel Miller, recognises that he'll shed a heap of money on Luke Slater and Plastickman records in the four years between each multi-million selling Depeche Mode or Moby album - something he has to grin and bare. In the world of the corporate music industry, where there are investors to satisfy and staff to pay what is needed is a steady income. In order to keep selling records these companies have turned to things more tangible, immediate and predictable. By dancing, flashing cheeky chappy grins, and baring flesh, a good-looking pop star veils their limited musical talents. Kylie is a supreme pop star, but not because of her voice. A pop star's talent is totally different to the talent of Elvis or The Beatles.

The problem is that McManus can't tick many of the boxes a modern pop star should. She's not thin; she can't suggestively rotate her hips like Girls Aloud or do the clench fist of agony patented by Gareth Gates (or wear oversized cowboy boots - I can't find a picture, but you watch). In pop music terms she has nothing but her average voice. It's not a problem that most pop stars have to deal with, but she does. The Pop Idol public viewers vote inevitably chooses a winner who is the most average and with so little in her arsenal, you can't help thinking she's ultimately doomed.

0 comments  

Labels: TV and radio

We were interviewing at work today. One of the candidates said "It's hard to build relationships over email... unless you're a paedophile of course".

We said: "Um".

0 comments  

Labels: Work

My left foot was forged on the playing fields of Thame and can shoot, pass, and dribble. My right, to use footballing parlance, is only useful for standing on. I didn’t think it could be more useless, until Boxing Day.

Boxing Day is my favourite day of the Christmas period. The pressures of present buying have gone, and you’re free to get that musty claustrophobic feeling of The Day itself out of your system. 

My Boxing Day is about football. In the morning I join The Men to wheeze my way around the local park for a couple of hours. Then it’s home, shower and off to the Boxing Day game at Oxford. 

This year’s morning game had a good turn out with a good-natured robust game of seven a side. I’d even bought a new pair of Diadora Contaccso Sg Football Boots from Brantano for fifteen quid. After an hour Gareth waltzed his way through our static defence and lined up to slot home his team’s eighth goal. I gallantly careered across to block and planted my right foot in preparation for my final lunge. Except it wasn’t my foot, but my ankle that took my full, and not inconsiderable, weight.

I felt a twisting crunching sensation in my leg and a shooting pain. Gareth suggested I “run it off”, but I could barely stand. By the time I got home swelling the size of a tennis ball began to appear around my ankle. By the time I’d foolishly hobbled to and from Oxford’s 2-1 win over Orient it was going purple.

This was my first proper sporting injury; a sprain, a proper ‘damaged ligaments’ sprain. Chicks dig sporting injuries, it was all “Ooh’s” and “Aah’s” and “shouldn’t you go to the doctors”. I was tended to and waited on for, ooh, about four and a half minutes. What I didn’t realise is that Chicks don’t dig sporting injuries for very long, Lucy was so disinterested that about 2 minutes after seeing it she acted out a What’s My Line charade of a soldier clipping my elevated foot with one forceful downward swing of her arm. Everyone winced… then laughed like drains. I thought an injury would be cool, I hadn’t anticipated the weeks of nagging, dull pain that nobody is interested in. It’s getting back to a normal colour now but it’s going to take six weeks to heal and longer to fix. 

The blood from the sprain flooded into my foot causing it to swell. I wake up in agony as the veins become packed full of goop, the hairs on top of my foot feel like tree trunks. They just don’t tell you about this stuff.


An unforeseen aside of the injury was seeing Jules. I’ve known Jules for nearly twenty years she’s funny, silly, and sporty and bullies you about your posture. I don’t see any of my friends as the eloquent, trained, skilled professionals that they are so watching Jules acting out her role as my Physiotherapist was odd. She was professional, knowledgeable, impassive, and caring. She examined me, massaged my foot and gave me advice about treatment and exercises. She even ranked it as one of the top ten sprains she’d seen. I know she’s trained to do this stuff, but there was something very soothing about it. I can’t wait until I have a CRM web enabled database problem, then I can watch Spankee at work. 

Mind you, she also took away the beer I was drinking saying alcohol was bad for the healing. Then she drank it herself which I presume is some kind of homeopathic alternative treatment.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

OK, so we’re just about there. I’ve been toying with changing things around for a while and New Year seemed a sensible time to do it. There’s still quite a lot of fiddling around to do, and I think the design needs tweaking (is the old school styling right? is Courier working? is it a little bright? do we want the old logo back?) anyway, I figure it’s time to throw it at the wall and see what sticks.

So what’s new? Not much, but you can make comments on my postings, so you will inevitably meet Barry, resident of Linhope and Spankee’s flatmate. I’m pretty sure he’ll be correcting my spelling and generally hurling abuse in response to each and every post within seconds of it going live.

You can still read about who I am, although it needs re-writing. You can still have free mix CD’s. There’s a load of new links. The decaying Wants list has been replaced by a less volatile list of CD’s, which should help you to get organised if you want to rob my house. I’ve added a cast list so you can put faces to names and there are a few new pictures.

Things look a little plain on the homepage at the moment, the page looks a lot better with pictures, so on the left is a few of the CD’s I’m currently listening to and my plan is to furnish more posts with pictures and links, it’ll look lovely, promise.

Normal service is about to resume, Christmas and New Year was eventful, so prepare yourselves for the story of The Foot and our New Year shindig in Derbyshire.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

WHY [smack] WON'T [smack] THIS [smack] FUCKING [smack] THING [smack] UPDATE [smack] MY [smack] SITE [smack].

Oh, that's sorted it.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

For many people, today is the last day in the office before Christmas. This creates a certain bonohomie around the place as people become demob happy at the prospect of the coming festive season.

Normally, I look across the desk at the top of someones head and a wall planner. Today I am looking across my desk at novelty Christmas earrings, and a pair of novelty deely boppers.

0 comments  

Labels: Work

Walking from Marylebone to Baker Street Tube yesterday morning I heard the tones of a perculiarly muffled medley of Christmas carols being sung. It sounded rather like a call to Muslim prayer as heard in those pre-war Iraqi reports on how Baghdad continues to function despite the threat of invasion. I thought, perhaps, there was a nearby Mosque I'd never heard or seen before.

But this was clearly Christian song and as far as I know George Bush hasn't achieved religious hegemony yet. My second thought was that there was a workman nearby enjoying the festive season in an area where the acoustics distored and amplified his voice across West London.

I crossed the road and passed Boots, and the singing got louder. The rush hour pedestrian traffic was quite heavy so it took a while to see where the noise was coming from. Sitting on the floor was a tiny tramp nonchelantly singing through a four foot long traffic cone.

Naturally nobody gave him money, success really does take the edge off this level of creativity.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

Following the Secret Santa debacle, Friday's Christmas do was, as expected, OK. It wasn't great, nor amazing, just OK. The Ambassadors of Fun were knocked sideways, because the little taste of Rio (in Bracknell) turned out to be a just a side salad with a big kebab of Berkshire concrete hell hole on top. The reality was never going to meet the expectation, so the night was always going to be tinged with disapointment.

The food was generally dire; Tesco value pack potato wedges, pita bread and fried mushrooms passed off as canapes, microwave heated chicken, followed by Creme caramel without the crunchy top.

The entertainment came from the Red Hot Dancers, pretty girls in thongs, and greased up boys in loin cloths executing moves choreographed in the school playground. By dreading the thing all week, I gave it every opportunity to exceed my expectations. It didn't.

Finally there was the disco which was one paced and predictable. People jogged on the spot through endless office party classics. The songs are paced so not to enduce heart palpatations amongst people who call dancing "Having a bit of a boogie". If you're going to dance, you might as well dance, break sweat, turn purple, put your head in a base bin, at least camp it up a bit. If at the beginning of the next century they look back on the pop culture of yesteryear, hopefully the office party bored swaying dance won't make an appearance.

I knew things weren't going well two minutes after we left. Two women behind me were chatting. "Do you remember Morris Minor's" said one, "I don't remember" said the other.

It wasn't like there weren't people enjoying the night, tables where everyone genuinely got on seemed to have a lot of fun. I couldn't help but think that if I had gone to it with the people from the Little Publishing Company on the Hill, I would probably have had the best night ever.

Leaving your inhibitions and the subsequent consequences at the door seems to be the way to do it though. The girl in the black mini dress held together by a reel of tit tape took this approach. There was flesh everywhere, the dress was cut down to her waist, her thunderous thighs shone in the spot lights. She seemed unconcerned that her bosses were watching as she ascended onto the podium and, in front of four hundred people, proceded to give herself a gynacological examination through several Ricky Martin hits.

It seemed to be a theme of the night, whilst she was the first, she wasn?t the last. Another spent the whole of Lady Marmalade thrusting her crotch in the face of an impassive bouncer. It seems that despite the potential long term consequence of these actions, the purchase of a new g-string is not something to be kept a secret.

The women weren't alone. Men, of course, can always be drawn to the honeypot of some knicker flashing. But the disturbing and decidedly less aesthetically pleasing sight of middle aged senior managers taking the opportunity to drag their tasty marketing executive onto the dancefloor and cop feel of thigh and booby was truely unpleasent.

Not that the modern streetwise young lady of today can't cope with an unsophisticated letch. Most young ladies today know that a sultry shimmy around the belly of an overwieght Accounts Director is less of an inappropriate sexual advance and more a meaningless negotiating lever come pay review time. But the thing is, its got to make Monday's Team Meeting a little uncomfortable hasn't it?

0 comments  

Labels: Work

We've just done Secret Santa.. the woman who hated what I bought her last year got a voucher. Clearly someone wasn't taking any risks. The reaction from the women? Couldn't have been more excited if she was sitting on a tumble drier.

I got a box of Celebrations Chocolates and a whiskey drinkers gift set. My Christmas is made, god bless you all.

1 comments  

Labels: Work

This is where blogging comes into its own, an opportunity to release some built up tension?

God I hate Christmas at work. It's the Christmas party on Friday and people have become utterly pre-occupied by it. It's like they've never been out before. We're a small company, so we're going to a theme night in Bracknell designed for small companies, it's called something like Red Hot in Rio and sounds like hell on earth. It's going to be all novelty ties and inappropriate sexual suggestions - it's so The Office it's unreal.

'Is everyone excited about Friday' Said the girl who job appears to consist of acting as an ambassador of fun for the company.

The temptation to tell her to fuck right off was almost overwhelming, instead I showed my disdain by not looking up from my keyboard and asking what we were supposed to wear. She was horrified I didn?t know because she's been planning her outfit since fucking October.

On top of that comes the office phenomenon of Secret Santa. We're operating a kind of Secret Santa style present buying operation amongst the family this year, which is fine, we want to buy presents for these people.

I have no desire to buy a present for anyone here at work. We did it last year, and it's slowly come back to me that the person I bought for was positively offended by the £5 piece of crap I bought them. They don't know it was me, and it wasn't offensive in the obscene sense, but it was a piece of crap. This is because a. I had £5 to spend, b. I didn't know this person from Adam and c. I had no enthusiasm for the concept.

I can be a generous and creative present buyer when I want to be. Emma has benefited from Off-Roading, Simon from rally driving, and my dad was positively enthused during the series of exotic novelty fruits. But people at work?

The reason I'm blogging this is because I'm tempted to come clean and announce it was me and that I don't care because the shitty clock I got went straight in the bin at the garage before I got home. I wasn't offended by receiving this turd of a present, because I have the half a brain that is needed to know that Secret Santa is nothing more than a meaningless token effort that is only fun for compulsive present buyers who would buy presents for dead cows given half the chance.

How dare they be offended? What the hell did they expect? It?s a secret, so you can?t ask for a list, and it's £5 so your not getting a Ferrari. It is a scheme forced on us by the ambassadors of fun, which means it has appeal to the lowest common denominator.

So distressed was this person at the present I got them, that this year they've doubled the budget and allowed each person to give some suggestions. The slip of paper I picked includes Night Watch by Terry Pratchett, which helpfully someone has put in brackets: - (A book). I feel like storming downstairs and banging on the desk and shouting "I KNOW IT'S A BOOK NOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT A KORG KAOSS 2 IS?" before walking out.

0 comments  

Labels: Work

Just for the hell of it, I mixed up a heap of the tunes I played on Saturday, I'm calling it Scuff Live, it's not in the mix club yet because The Premiership starts in four minutes, but if you can't wait, email me and I'll send a copy. Here's the tracklisting.

Never Leave Me (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh) (Acapella) - Lumidee
Light Your Ass On Fire - Busta Rhymes feat. Pharrell
Stand Up - Ludacris feat Shawna
Turn It Up (Refried) - Ugly Duckling
William The First - Mighty Dub Katz
Toot Toot Hey Beep Beep (Mantronix G-String Mix) - Kool Keith and Heather Hunter
Work - MAW feat Puppah Nas-T and Denise
Damelo - DJ Gregory
E Samba - David Penn Remix
Go Down (Tim Deluxe Mix) - Jon Carter
Deeper Down (Hill Sixty Mix) - DKS
Love At First Sight (Kid Creme Mix) - Kylie Minogue
Punkcity - D'Ranged
It Just Won?t Do (Without You) - Tim Deluxe feat Sam Obernik
Lucky Star (Jaxxhouz Dub) - Basement Jaxx feat Dizzee Rascal
Satisfaction (Isak Original) - Benny Benassi Presents The Biz
Crazy In Love - Beyonce Knowles

0 comments  

Labels: Music

I love the way after a party you start to piece together little bits and pieces that you missed. People tell their own stories of the night, things you didn?t have anything to do with. Gareth tells me that the drink was overflowing with his mates. Apparently Gareth's best man Tim strode up to the bar at one point and said to the barman 'Can I have five of the gayest cocktail you've got please?'

Having sunk something sickly and pink with umbrellas in it, it was Gareth?s turn to step up to the oche. He asked the Australian barman what it was he had been drinking, to which the barman replied -

'I dunno mate, but it was pretty bloody gay'

0 comments  

Labels: Music

Prior to the 1998 World Cup cart horse England legend Tony Adams was interviewed in one of the papers he reads in his post-booze renaissance. He plays the piano, goes to the theatre and doesn’t feel self conscious about giving paternal love to another man. One copy of the Observer to Mr Adams please.

He said the weight of expectation on a World Cup squad is the hardest thing to bear because when you're the one on the pitch, it's you who has to do the things everyone at home assumes you will. So, whilst most people have the luxury of sitting in their chair claiming, when 2-0 up with 20 minutes to go, that Tony Adams is the best in the world at shutting a game down. It is Tony Adams, human being, who executes the minutiae of what this means - slowing the game down, retaining possession, keeping a clear head, staying organised, communicating, closing others' down etc. If he doesn't, regardless of his history or reputation, the team will lose and he'll be to blame. Everyone expects it; Tony's got to do it.

It's this malaise of expectation that people with a similar background to me often go through. Our comfortable, middle class, safe and stable upbringing lulls you into a false sense of security. Our parents provide a comfortable environment that we've grown used to. If we needed something, generally speaking we could have it. We didn't have shed loads of money but nor were we short, concerns about cash, if there were any, simply never got through to us kids. There may have been the odd overdraft here, or loan there but it didn't deprive us of shoes.

Now we're in the big bad world it's easy to assume that these comfortable straight lines of our childhood will continue. That without any effort we can forge and afford that same comfortable life. It's easy to forget that in order to stay on that even keel we still have to steer the boat. Redundancy, divorce, separation, negative equity and all the things you may never have experienced in the past are still there to get you. Just because your in an ocean with a thousand fish, doesn't mean you can stop swimming.

On Saturday night Tredge told me he was 'Loving my work' on the decks, I don't take, or believe compliments easily so I told him that we played what we wanted for four hours then stuck Crazy in Love by Beyonce on. It's rather easy to assume that this is all there is to it. After all, people like dancing and having a good time, so all you have to do is put good records on. Simple.

Afterwards, I was kind of disappointed that this party staple was the thing that triggered mass shape pulling extravaganza. After all it was the record that made people move, I just put the needle on that record. But then again football's just about someone kicking a leather bag of air between two sticks. Having a comfortable and successful life is just about having money, a positive outlook on life and nice friends and family. Conceptually it's all so easy.

I got thinking. It is easy to play records and operate a mixer, it's easy to say that you simply drop a big party bomb and everyone dances. But you try doing it at 7.30 when people are just taking their coats off and you'll get the mildest of nods to a recognisable tune. Try pushing people onto the dancefloor with hit after hit and you'll have an empty dance floor all night. DJ-ing looks easy, and the mechanics of it are, but there's more to it than that. You have to gently cajole people into it, make the atmosphere comfortable and fun, warm their minds and bodies up to the idea.

That's the theory. But better than that, that's what we did. Slowly, over five hours - a fifth of a day - we eased people into the zone. From walking out of a cold winter night and onto the dancefloor. At 12.40 we knew, absolutely knew that the party was ready for that record, we knew the reaction it would get. Why? Because we understood the dynamics of the party, we'd set it up that way, we'd provided the atmosphere, the venue, the drink, the company and the music. Nobody knew that they were being controlled, in fact we didn't know we were doing it, but we orchestrated it all so that at 12.40, no earlier or later, we could pull the trigger and it would go off.

So we pulled the trigger, and it went off. How bloody exciting is that?




0 comments  

Labels: Music

“Hi do you remember me? I used to work in the department opposite you” said the girl whose face I immediately and incorrectly identified as belonging to Catherine O’Leary, who I lived round the corner from my parents and I haven’t seen since I was nine.

It was a bit like that on Saturday. When Simon and I decided to have a party in a pub that would hold 200 we were pessimistic about being able to fill it. So we told everyone to invite their friends, and their friends friends and their, well, you get the picture. We had no idea who would turn up.

“These are my flatmates” said the girl, pointing to a woman who stared at me as though I’d unpicked the stitching on her favourite teddy bear. Who two minutes later was poking me and massaging my shoulders. Who two minutes after that appeared to be retching over the bar.

“Dance with me”. I didn’t. Gareth later informed me, in a story which became more grotesque with each telling, that she quickly became involved in a vigorously amorous clinch with a stranger in brown slip-ons.

The multiplier effect of our laissez fair invite policy threatened to swamp the venue, the phone kept ringing, the emails kept arriving, the guests became further and further removed from the original invite list. Everyone turned up, from Internet celebrities who live in log cabins in Canada to Emma’s sister’s friend’s husband’s sister’s mates.

It was, of course, great. Faces put to names, old acquaintances rekindled. People sucked vodka out of the Ice Luge. Penny and Mike flew in from Jersey especially as a total and complete surprise. The night was punctuated by countless half conversations with everyone from my sister, to my oldest school friends to newer friends like Clare and Meg. If I stood everyone in a line, these people could have pieced together my entire life story.

There were selfish reasons for the party, we wanted to DJ. Five hours through Maceo and the Macs, Salt N Pepa, Ludacris, Collapsed Lung, Junior Jack, into an awkward hole I struggled to climb out of, back out to Finger Lickin’ breaks, and inappropriately hard techno. For the final 15 minutes we pounded out Groove is in the Heart, Crazy in Love, and Jump Around to a room full of people dancing on chairs and pulling their best shapes. Even the bar staff were bouncing around like loons. My only regret is that we didn’t have anything to play for the Finnish barmaid who asked if we had anything from her homeland. She still gave us a couple of free shots, presumably because she’d had a good night and we’d been good customers.

Eventually our extended licence expired and the lights came up, it was time to pull out cables, pack away records and lug the PA back down three flights of stairs. Suddenly we were confronted by a wall of very very drunk people. Supremely, unexpectedly drunk people, each and every person I talked to was bouncing off the walls, or slurring their speech or acting inappropriately. Probably because unknown to most people, the bar staff kept in the spirit of the party by only serving doubles.

0 comments  

Labels: Music

When I worked at The Little Oxford Publishing Company on the Hill I had an almost sibling relationship with a girl in my department. Whilst I was more sensible and pragmatic, she was deeply intelligent yet a bit erratic so we got on and hated each other at the same time. My approach meant my Directorial bollockings were less frequent and my pay rises marginally better. Although in that company, this really only meant that my peanuts were dry roasted and hers ready salted.

Anyway, she had perfect punchline to any musical conversation: -

“So what are you having as the first dance at your wedding will it be Bastard by Motley Crue?”
“What are you going to sing at the Karaoke how about Bastard by Motley Crue?”
“I always sing songs to my niece, Row Row Row Your Boat, Incey Wincey Spider, Bastard by Motley Crue.”
“Which tune from Oklahoma shall we sing next, hmm, Bastard by Motley Crue?”

I use it all the time, it’s the perfect way to end any conversation about music. Anyway, I had my first homoerotic experience last week, a mid-week karaoke night in Coventry.

I have no beef with Karaoke, herds of women screeching Summer Lovin’, tribes of men hollering Wonderwall. People seem to enjoy themselves, there’s a sense of fun in humiliating yourself with your mates. It’s safe, it’s silly, it’s what you do from time to time. I wouldn’t do it even if you nailed my scrotum to my feet, but people do it don’t they?

Only this wasn’t that type of Karaoke, this was for regulars, earnest men with delusions of a semi professional singing career clustered round a small dance floor taking it in turns to show us their stuff. Wind Beneath My Wings, Forever in Blue Jeans, Life is a Rollercoaster, and, ulp, Angels.

God it was awful, navigating an axis of Stereophonics and Neil Diamond, each bloke, aged about 50, dressed casually, with the look of the killer about them, would step up, close their eyes in emotional concentration and with a little echo effect from Dave’s Mobile Disco, give it welly. I can’t imagine for a second that they would go back to work on Thursday and tell their mates what they did. They probably don’t tell their wives, it would have been like, I don’t know, buggering farmyard animals or something.

These guys were serious about their seedy hobby; they even did that thing where they moved the microphone away during the long notes. You know, to protect the sound system from their powerful range.

My reticence to engage in this musical S&M meant I was accused of trying to look cool, mainly because I didn’t dance to the bloke in the braces singing Enrique Inglasias’ Hero. I was accused of being miserable because I suggested we threw sugar lumps at the bad people, glasses at the really awful. People were even shocked when I got up to sing, but alas they didn’t have Bastard by Motley Crue.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

Point your right finger in the air and draw the figure six. Keep circling your finger in this way.

Now stick your right leg out, circle your foot in the same direction as your finger.

Now whilst you’re doing it, change the direction of your circling your finger.

LOOK! Your foot has changed direction too.

Try it again, much as you try not to, your foot will always comply with your finger. But you can do it if you use opposite fingers and feet.

There, that killed a couple of minutes didn’t it?

0 comments  

Labels: General me

To my immense disappointment this weekend I had to buy myself a dinner suit. For one, I've hit an age where my friends rather like the curio of dressing up posh on occasion. But mostly my need comes from my job, which dictates that I have to go to a couple of black tie dinners a year (no, I'm not a very part time waiter).

So, it's become economical for me to buy, rather than rent, something I didn't really want to do. I don't like wearing them, I don't feel particularly special in it. I feel my youth ebbing away as I'm shoe horned into the constraints of adulthood. I know, I'm probably too old to get sulky about wearing a tie, but I'd really prefer a groovy pair of trainers.

Simon's got his own dinner suit, which has been sagely handed down from his dad and has probably been hand stitched by an aged London tailor who works only by candlelight. When I heard that he was wearing his dad's dinner suit I envisaged huge flares, a purple dress shirt with capacious ruffles cascading down his chest and a vast velvet bow tie, like Eddie Large on his primetime Saturday evening show in the 70's. Sadly though, it's a classic cut that fits perfectly.

I'm not sure whether my dad has a dinner suit, he's several inches shorter than me, so I'd look a right banana if I did wear it. I had to get my own.

My brief was simple, keep it classic and keep the cost down. There's not a great choice of course, a dinner suit is a dinner suit. Each shop has a rack of classic black suits; stripe down the trousers, slightly shiny lapels, the works. They all also have a couple of white ones, and ties with diamante diamonds embedded, you know, for people who want to look a bit different and special (aka like a twat). I was flumuxed as the couple next to me in Marks and Spencer oggled the white suits with admiration, putting a range of multi-coloured bow ties up against the lapels to see how they matched.

I went classic, and cheap - machine washable even. Sullied and depressed, I also bought a parka with a furry hood, It's kind of cool, like what the kids wear.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

I’m back. Flu-less, cold-less, injury-less, even hassle and stress less. I fell into the dark abyss and was, for seventy two hours, corrupted and diseased. I succumbed to my first day off work (man or boy) since Kenny Dalglish resigned as Liverpool manager, but having weathered that harsh winter, I’m refreshed and unleaden with the angst of my circumstance.

I couldn’t have done it without my friends Nurofen, Lemsip Cough Medicine (for chesty coughs) or Ribena Original for they all gallantly waged war with me on the hideous spectre. And we won.

I don’t know whether I feel better (better than I did before I was ill) because I’ve beaten the illness, or because I'm not ill anymore, or because I know that when I’m old and decrepit, every day will feel a bit like last week and I should be thankful I’ve at least got me ‘elf.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

I’m at work and I’m ill. Properly, unable to do anything ill, not a bit chesty, I don’t have that flu people who don’t actually have flu get. The flu that manifests itself as a slightly irritating cough and a runny nose. No, I have a flu which renders me unable to do anything. Well, apart from foolishly drag myself into work so not to break the record of not having had a day off work for 13 years. I played football last night, but the aches and pains are nothing to do with my fitness or lack thereof. Emma’s had it, her kids at school had it, and now I have it. Ill.

Nobody cares of course, you say that you’re feeling terrible and people make neutral comments like “There’s something going around”. The coughing interrupts your sentences, making you sound like you’re putting it on for effect. Nobody wants to be my audience; nobody wants to watch me play out my ordeal, my head in my hands, the shuffle to the kitchen. Despite inviting people to join me, nobody wants to follow me to the toilet and watch me sit in a cubicle for 20 minutes slumped up against the wall. Nobody wants to get inside my head and really know how I’m feeling, and how brave I’m being.

I shouldn’t be here. I should be at home, in bed. But I have a week of emails to get through having been in York last week. I want to have a day off on Friday, and don’t feel its right to run sick days into holidays. The thought of driving home fills me with dread. I know, I’m patently stupid, you have no sympathy for me.

I shall tootle along until three, then I’m going. I’m not having any lunch, because I can’t face it. If I go at three I’ve practically done my hours and the run will remain unbroken.

I feel awful, I really want you to know that.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

Work has consumed my time, my thoughts and everything over the last six weeks. It’s had a peculiar effect on me; I’m not sleeping, I’m suffering from a very uncomfortable frozen shoulder, but more than the physical, it’s sucked my imagination dry and distracted me from the things that I consider makes my life worthwhile; family, friends, music, football. Even trying to write to this site, I’ve sat trying to articulate the few ideas that have permeated the fug but as soon as I sit down the ideas, the energy, and the flow of thoughts all dry up.

Some people get to have their work and their life on the same continuum. I imagine musicians and sportsmen don’t see any real divide between what they do to pay the bills and the rest of their life, but for most of us work and life appear to be very different things.

It’s not right; our lives should be our lives. A linear progression from birth to death during which we do everything we want, whenever we want. Instead, five sevenths of our time we’re diverted into the work cul-de-sac which is full of frustration, politics, incompetence, dealing with people you would normally cross the street to avoid.

It’s a peculiar thing. My ambition at work, and what keeps me doing what I’m doing, is to make something that doesn’t work, work well. It’s because I think I can achieve this that I don’t run away and live in a hole in the ground. But despite this ambition, the truth is, I don’t really care if it doesn’t work. If someone tells me I’m not allowed to see any one of my friends in the future I’d be devastated. If someone informed me that I couldn’t achieve what I want to achieve at work, I’d greet it with a shrug of the shoulders. None the less, I still follow this foolish ambition to make the company I work for, the best it can be.

I could have it all wrong. I work for a company that relies on volunteers to do a lot of its work. It has very clear ethical guidelines that ensure these volunteers don’t exploit the company for their own gain. But the rules are flaunted continuously and people are making money left, right and centre. They should be working for a ‘greater good’ but most are doing it for their bank accounts and egos. I could use the company to improve my personal wealth if I wanted to. I could increase my income by up to 50% by ramping up my expenses on meaningless meetings all over the country. I could have twice as much holiday by taking days off sick or sneaking home when the boss is away. Nobody would bat an eyelid if I did. But with me, if someone invites me to a networking lunch in Bristol, I turn it down in favour of a day in the office trying to meet the company’s objectives. It seems hopelessly naive.

I’m not a blind company man; I just think this is the right way to work. But it causes me so many hassles. My salary is my salary, I don’t claim anymore expenses than I should. So I have a little less to spend at the weekends than I might have. I haven’t had a day off sick since the half term before my A Levels thirteen years ago. So I get five weeks holiday and no more. I put a lot of energy trying to block people who are just trying line their pockets or egos in the name of being a volunteer because I don’t think it helps the company and I don’t think its right. I know some people don’t like me because of it, and I worry about what is being plotted behind my back. I wonder whether it’s really worth the hassle.

On the other hand, I’m punching well above my weight in terms of my role and responsibilities. People far brighter than me at school, who went to better universities, are not doing nearly as well as I am. By doing what I do, the way I do it, I’ve had great holidays in Paris, Barcelona, Majorca, and Italy in the last twelve months and still have Las Vegas to come in February. I watch Oxford play football, and buy records and can still afford to eat. More importantly I have the best group of friends and family I could ever hope to have. Presumably, like I do with them, they stick by me because of who I am and the way I am. If I was different I’d have a different life, with different friends. Perhaps your working life does reflect on your real life in a more profound way than by just paying for it. Given that I don’t want a different real life, perhaps I should stick with the same working life I have.

Maybe modern life is not that rubbish after all.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

Occasionally I’ll receive a text message from Simon hailing the virtues of some CD he's listening to at work. You wonder why many IT projects fail? Probably because IT consultants are listening to Acid House whilst building your fully secure online banking service.

"Ooh I must remember to encrypt the current account details...WHOOOHOO here comes the breakdown WHISTLE POSSE WHERE ARE YOU!... now where was I, oh yeah, coffee"

Quite how he manages to concentrate on anything whilst listening to the headrush of Hardfloor Acperience is anyone’s guess.

I like listening to music whilst I work; my A Level revision was done to the magical tones of The Orb’s UFOrb, Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, and the Aubrey Mixes. When I used to work at home, a carefully selected CD warbling in the background increased my productivity and eased my working pains.

“If this annoys you, I can turn it off”

I couldn’t actually hear anything, but it turns out The Woman At Work has Dido playing on her laptop. Now, of course I can here the tinny top end of each tune, awful whimsical music, played through terrible laptop speakers at a volume which is a fraction above audible a fraction below clear.

Heaven, absolute bloody bliss.

0 comments  

Labels: Work

I seem to have slipped into a parallel universe. Usually I have time to muse about the world and the universe, construct complex theories on life, and weave comical set pieces which lighten the heavy burden of our times, then forget them all and post gibbering rubbish on this site. Not at the moment though.

On a totally unrelated note, should planning be about ensuring you have a manageable and consistent flow of activities, not having, for example, 21 projects to manage in the last three months of the year, compared to 4 in the first three months. Also, you know that thing about how authority and responsibility should go hand in hand? How you shouldn’t divorce the two? You shouldn’t assume the latter without the former. And, on balance you shouldn’t devolve all responsibility when things go bad and assume it when they get sorted out. Should you, SHOULD YOU?

Anyway, enough of conceptual thoughts not grounded in anyone’s experience of the last couple of weeks. What else?

Emma graduated from her Headteacher qualification course and received a paperweight for her trouble. A metaphor, said the guest speaker, “The paper can wait”. Alyce hurt her back falling off a horse. Well, I say hurt, broke it is more accurate. She’s in a back brace, but she’s going to be OK, although apparently a bit shorter.

Scant consolation I know, but we went to visit her in hospital on Sunday and had a couple of hours chatting and reminiscing. It was ace. Poor Alyce had been stuck lying on her back for a week and was bored silly, we suggested, helpfully, you’ll agree, that she could count the dimples on the ceiling tiles.

“174” she replied.

I tell you what though, she’s dead funny Alyce, we had a great time.

Oxford are on fire after a humbling defeat to Reading (more of that below for the benefit of Linhope stalwart and Reading fan Barry) so it’s happy days. Imagine if my life was blighted by people who couldn’t plan and people who assumed authority but no responsibility?

0 comments  

Labels: General me

A bloke at the football has a replica shirt emblazoned with the legend ‘We 8 Reading’. This is nearly as perplexing as the gutsy singing of the Hokey Cokey at the Kassam recently; how on earth do you…“do the Scott McNiven and you turn around?” I’m perplexed because much as we try to 8 Reading, no Oxford fan can really bring themselves to do it.

Hence, the banks of the East Stand faithful sing “We hate Reading (‘suppose) and we hate Reading (‘suppose)”. OK, well, they don’t, but they did sing “You’re only here ‘cause it’s Oxford” to Reading fans who were indeed only there because their team was playing in Oxford which does strip the song of the irony it had when it was sung to 30,000 Arsenal fans at Highbury.

Like the game at Highbury we were cut to ribbons by a Reading side who passed their way through our lumbering back five on countless occasions and enjoyed considerable shooting practice from the edge of the six yard box. Oxford are a team built for the third division, Reading for the first. Oxford’s pitch offers, quite literally, too level a playing field upon which expensively constructed teams are invited to outclass us. It’s all so clinically obvious, it’s difficult to be bothered about it.

I wandered whether it was just me but the blokes behind me confirmed it wasn’t. When they spotted the bloke in the We 8 Reading shirt one turned to the other and asked…

“Do you think he 8’s writing too?”

To which his mate replied, in a rare moment of quality East Stand humour

“He probably 8’s all school”

0 comments  

Labels: Football

Yesterday: After three weeks of cycling between 10 and 15 miles a day, I was looking forward to my first five-a-side of the season. 15 days of cardio vascular whatnot, my speed has increased, my endurance has improved, my recovery rate has dipped below an hour. Fitness gives you great benefits, you feel better, you (should) look better, and in a sporting context it gives you space to think about using your skills rather than keeping down the lining of your lungs. As a footballer, I can pass, have good positional sense, can time a tackle to perfection and can outthink most of the other players. Except until three weeks ago I was burdened with poor fitness which clouded my skills in a fug of feeble bodily impotence. But lo, I am probably fitter now than at anytime since school, watch me fly.



Today: Hurt.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

My idea of posh food served by a French person is having a Pret a Manger Super Club sandwich on Regents Street. Le Manoir Quat’ Saison is a level of quality and service I can barely comprehend.

Whilst Emma’s been telling people the reason we took lunch at the world famous restaurant was because “We were hungry” it was actually because my family bought her a meal for two for her 30th birthday.

As you can probably tell, this is no six quid chicken in a basket merchant. Le Manoir is owned by Raymond Blanc. Imagine, if you can, a cook so famous he’s beyond Ready Steady Cook.

Let’s pause to contemplate that bombshell…

It’s so high class it’s coming back the other way. The quality of the service, food, and surroundings is so high there’s simply no need for any snotty pretence which means you’re made to feel entirely comfortable and relaxed.

We took drinks and ordered our food in the gardens. The wine waiter didn’t, as I thought he might, suggest ‘Vin au Imbeciles’, before walking away sniggering smugly to himself. His recommended Chardonnay was spot on. Only Emma was drinking so she went for a half bottle at £28, which means unless you benefit from some economies of scale by going for a full bottle, you’re looking at £56 for the full Monty. And that was a cheap one – one Champagne was £1600 – a lot of money to giggle stupidly and say “Ooh the bubbles have gone up my nose”.

After a little Cod thing to clear the palette it was on to the vegetable soup. Now I’m no expert, but I’d wager it didn’t come from a tin. In fact it was so green each bowl must have contained such a concentration of vegetables that it would’ve fed a small African nation. Our French waitress took us through our order step by step, although she did get her translations a little mixed up telling us rather than it having “hints” of flavour, that there “maybe a little parmesan”. Given the price I’d have expected something a little more definitive.

For the main course, I had cod and mash, although in posh restaurants it’s “crushed potato”, Ooh, get you. Emma had lamb.

Then came the cheese.

When we have cheese it’s usually Tesco blue stripe, it’s usually mild cheddar and it’s usually in kilogram blocks. We like cheese. The nutty offer of the cheese course before dessert was readily accepted and a gargantuan choice presented. Like a Countdown contestant I took a selection from all over the plate. They were orgasmic. My experience of blue cheeses is that they can burn your nostril hair; this offered me a taste that toured my mouth. Just as it seemed it was going to consume my head and overpower my taste buds, it retreated, tantalisingly giving me something new to deal with. It was perfectly balanced, so constant, never too much, never too little and at just £5 for a piece little bigger than a Trivial Pursuit segment, I don’t think I could go back to Tesco Blue Stripe (because I can’t afford to).

The meal was finished with a desert which was so posh it made Vienetta seem like a poor man’s posh ice cream. We took coffee in the gardens.

Although price of the meal in total would have been roughly the same as a weekend away in a three star hotel being there for four hours was like being in another world, I’m go back to tomorrow… because I have to wash the dishes.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

Whilst out on my bike (every day for the last three weeks) I’ve noticed things I wouldn’t normally. On the edge of Aylesbury, as is customary, there’s a sign which says “Welcome to Aylesbury”, hung underneath is a luminous yellow sign which says “Parking restrictions start from 30 June”.



In other words, welcome to Aylesbury… but not that welcome.



Of course what is should say is ‘Aylesbury, Thank you for staying as long as you did’.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

“Hello”
“Hello, it’s Vic, the eagle has landed”

Emma sent me a text at 11am on Friday; ‘do you want pizza with the Dobscrubs tonight?’ I said yes, joking it was, after all their last night of freedom before the baby arrived.

We went for somewhere with a bit of class; so Pizza Express it was. We generally ignored Vicki’s assertion that ‘things were happening’, after all, you’d expect things to happen after nine months wouldn’t you?

Nobody has a second choice with Pizza Express. Nobody diverts from their standard order. With me, it’s always a Fiorentina never anything else. Perversely Nobby is rather odd (now now, let me finish)*; he has either a Sloppy Giuseppe or American Hot, from which he idiosyncratically removes the chillies as he eats. We try to guess his choice, it’s a ‘thing’ we do. He chose American Hot, adding an air of excitement by keeping his decision concealed until he ordered, we ‘Ooh’ed’ when he did. This coincided with the waiter getting a cramp and buckling up. He thought we were Ooh-ing his pain, so he reassured us he was OK. We looked perplexed.

As we talked Vicki idly picked the discarded chillies from Nobby’s plate. Someone may have commented that this would speed things up. At the end of the night we paid and left. The Dobscrub’s gave us a lift home; we said our goodbyes as normal.

Last Saturday I said to Vicstah, ‘we’ll see you on the other side’ something I said to my sister a few days before she had Sophie. The reaction was the same; a nervous “Oh I’m sure we’ll see you before that” followed by the rapid arrangement of another night out. Last night I chose to go for a simple goodbye. It was 10.30pm.

The phone rang on Saturday morning at 11.30, it was Vic, the eagle had landed. The commencement of labour I assumed, we’d seen them 13 hours ago. Although, on reflection, the eagle thing would have been a particularly crap analogy for labour, and Vic has a linguistics degree. It was only when she took me through the timetable of the night (things started happening at midnight, the midwife called at 3am, in the hospital by 5, the baby arrived at 10.50.) that it became clear she’d actually popped.

“The baby’s arrived!?” I said

Emma pulled the phone off me. It’s a little girl, don’t know how heavy, name unconfirmed. How was the labour? “I swore at Nobby”, to which the riposte should have been, ‘well obviously, now how was the labour’. How are you feeling now? “A little sore” – I should coco. Is she beautiful? “I don’t know Nobby’s been cuddling her”. Which I suppose is fair enough, Vic’s had her for the last 9 months, Nobby deserves his chance.

*Enter alternative joke: - ‘or oddly Nobby is rather perverse’

0 comments  

Labels: Babies

This weekend I will go to the football and watch Oxford play Mansfield, we’re top of the league and still unbeaten so I’m looking forward to it. The rest of the weekend is pretty blank, we may go to the cinema, we may see Katie, we may even visit the Dobscrub’s new baby, if Vicki conveniences us all by having it on Friday or Saturday (come on Vickster, some of us have to work). But we don’t have much on, and frankly, I’m glad because I’m emotionally spent.

The first time I remember meeting Sara she was in full Stone Roses chic in a pair of flared jeans and wallabies shoes. She was about 13. I don’t remember the first time I met Gareth, but it would have been about four years ago and Sara would have insisted on him dressing up in his best clothes when they came over. Sara doesn’t wear flared jeans anymore, and Gareth barely changes out of his slippers when he comes over. Things change.

They finally did the biggie last weekend and got married. In what was a full day, I nearly wrote off the Rolls Royce (with one working door) hired to ferry Sara around. The Pastor decided to call Sara Louise, “Louise Sara” during the vows. Two people did a runner when Sara walked in realising they’d got the wrong wedding, and then returned having forgotten their camera. A guest sitting at the front of the church in full view of everyone suffered the crippling embarrassment of her camera film rewinding and her phone going off… to which she cursed herself with an audible “Oh for fuck’s sake.”

During the reception, the best man Tim took his duties somewhat literally, his speech dismantled Gareth’s personality bit by bit with stories of vomit, drinking, and nudity, which were illustrated with pixilated photos. Afterwards Emma’s Grandma said that Gareth and Emma’s dad’s speeches were marvellous, but for some reason neglected to mention the best man. He also started a near riot by opening up some old East coast, West coast shit*.

Despite a minor panic over a late arriving DJ, the evening do saw Gareth’s often monosyllabic teenage brother turn from gangling pubescent to Fred Astaire, wowing the ladies (including, most disturbingly, my mum) with moves so nifty it was like he’d been force fed Ceroc lessons since a young age. He finished the night off at 2am returning to his teenage roots, ordering tequila and two vodka shots and then disappearing to the toilets to throw up.

There were other cameos, Donkman’s dancing, the appearance of a back up bridesmaid, Tom doing a Del Boy prat fall when trying to lean on the shoulder of his girlfriend just as she stepped away to talk to someone. Gareth’s mum’s first words when she appeared in her beautifully tailored, carefully chosen designer outfit: “Ooh I’m sweating like a pig”. Then there was Claire shaking her booty like a high class table dancer two minutes before bursting into tears like someone had shot her dog blubbing “It’s like she’s left us”. Another rendition of “One more tune” like we were back on the Stag. Emma’s auntie filming the whole shebang on a video camera the size of an elephant. Tim breakdancing. The dancefloor invasion during the first dance… by the mother and father of the bride. The Waitrose Paprazzi pushing their way into the cheap seats “’scuse me, scuse me, oh no I don’t want an order of service, I’m not invited”. Me and Katie looking on aghast as Gareth’s divorced parents enjoyed a tongue sandwich then walked off the dancefloor revealing themselves to not be Gareth’s parents at all. And what about the ushers and Sara posing for a picture whilst questioning through fake smiles “What the fuck is he doing” as one dirty old bugger tried to lick the ear of the photographer?

The biggest surprise of all was being singled out in Gareth’s speech. Apparently me and Emma have offered “support, advice and above all common sense” which, whilst I’d have preferred “Elk racing, Leer Jet flights and fire breathing” was very touching.

So ubiquitous is the presence of Sara and Gareth in our lives, I had totally forgotten how close we are as friends. But moreover it confirmed to me that we’re on track with the Ruffles Philosophy. Y’see, we want a house that our friends can come to anytime they want. You may have to take us as you see us, which is usually in a mess, but you’re always welcome, the kettle is never cold.

I love the way Sara and Gareth come over in their tracky-bots to do little more than chat the world away, eat takeaway and watch the telly or how Simon appears on a Sunday to watch the 1980 version of Flash Gordon. We may not impress you with our cooking, or the size of our house, or our off-beat holidays to Upper Volta but if you come over there’s no pretence. Totally relaxed, totally normal. I like having friends who let us be like that.

On Saturday Gareth helped confirm to me that the philosophy is working, if during the 20 months of organising, we helped make things a little easier then I’m happy.

*we went to a split site school; there were two lower school’s Lower School East and Lower School West which merged into one upper school in the fourth year – there were rivalries.

0 comments  

Labels: Friends

Someone’s been watching me, having read “Have gun will travel – the story of Death Row Records” on holiday I got thinking about the gap in my record collection dedicated to Gangsta Rap. During the height of Gangsta Rap I was enjoying the more left field acts of the genre who ploughed a more conceptual furrow – The Goats (Politics Hop), The Gravediggaz (Death Hop), Pharcyde (Silly Sausages Hop) Cypress Hill (Munchies Hop).

I wasn’t a fan of G-Funk; it was a little weedy after the sonic onslaughts of Public Enemy and NWA, and the brilliantly creative samples of the Party Hip Hop it was now eclipsing.

The book is basically the story of Suge Knight, yet, if it was good enough to have a subtext (it isn’t) it would actually be the story of Dr Dre. Reading it I began to realise that with the exception of the few lyricists with anything to say (Eminem, Chuck D), the producer is god in Hip Hop. All the great dynasties have been themed through their production teams; Sugarhill Gang, Marley Marl, The Bomb Squad, Dr Dre, Timabland, and The Neptunes – the lyricists are two a penny.

Lyrically, Gangsta Rap is banal, but reading the book, so are the lives of its protagonists - which are a very boring cycle of fights and beefs punctuated by about three stories of interest i.e. Suge Knight holding Vanilla Ice out of a 23rd story window by his ankles to make him sign over rights to his album, and the killings of Tupac and Biggie Smalls – which seem to be little more than petty spats that got out of hand rather than any lawless street war. There doesn’t even seem to be very many guns involved – in fact they all seem to jump out of their skin when a gun appears.

Given Death Row’s extensive roster of acts you’d think it’d be difficult to find the definitive Death Row album, but it becomes clear that since the 90’s hip-hop has been all about franchising (Wu Tang Clan with Method Man, GZA, ODB, etc, Eminem with D12 and 50 Cent) and most of the spin offs are crap reproductions. The Death Row records worth having have been produced by Dre, and of those The Chronic is where it all started.

The Chronic is a brilliant album, as well produced as any I’ve heard, especially turned up to 25 in the car. But after The Chronic, the genre (sub-genre? whatever) leaves me cold, I like Snoop’s drawl but the rest on the West Coast just make up the numbers and the East Coast equivalent is really very lame pop RnB.

However, being a consummate archivist when it comes to my record collection I needed something to fill my East Coast Gangsta void. The record that always comes into my head is Mo Money Mo Problems by Notorious BIG (featuring inevitably Puffy on backing “Ah Ha’s” and “Oh Yeah’s”). This record is several years old, and was deleted ages ago. I’ve been trying to track it down since I got back from holiday, preferably on 12”, but I’d even failed to find it on CD. The Diana Ross sample has drilled into my head constantly ever since – you don’t know how pre-occupied I’ve become with the record.

Well, someone does, yesterday whilst virtuously walking from Blackfriars to Marylebone after a meeting I dropped into HMV. On a rack of re-released classics, there it was; a repress of Mo Money Mo Problems by Notorious BIG. It wasn’t there last week, but there it was: it – perfectly positioned product meeting me – target demographic. It was expensive, but I’d become so obsessed by it I just had to have it.

WHO’S BEEN WATCHING ME, HOW DID YOU FIND OUT, DAMN YOU CLEVER MARKETING MEN, DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL.

0 comments  

Labels: Music

Who hasn’t had a few scrapes on a bike? OK, OK, you can put your hands down now, don’t draw attention to yourself, you’re at work remember, you’re not supposed to be reading this.

I’ve had many; I’ve used a peddle-back break, one which I didn’t know I had, whilst taking a corner making me involuntarily apply my front break and sending me flying over the handlebars. I’ve slipped a bike into neutral losing all power causing me to slide alarmingly across a gravely road tearing my 'Battle of the Planets' t-shirt in the process. I’ve been hit by a car, and was so startled just jumped back on and rode off without a word to the horrified driver.

Having cut and banged my knee in that accident, Emma, along with a number of her maternal friends insisted that I visit A&E to get it checked out. After all, they said, knees are funny things; a small bang can come back and haunt you in years to come. It was a little swollen and quite sore. I think Emma may have made me a cup of tea out of sympathy. Yes, it looked that bad.

So the next day I went to A&E and sat with the children with pots on their heads and the winos who had overdosed on Vim. Being healthy, male and in my early twenties, having walked in unaided and wandered around picking up leaflets, I was left to wait for two and a half hours for my check-up. Eventually I was seen by a dashing young doctor who rolled up my trouser leg carefully so not to damage ligaments or dislocate the knee cap. I sat and looked down, wincing and what we might see. I was shocked to see…

My knee.

I swear, even the cut had healed up, the swelling was nowhere to be seen, the doctor muttered something like “another Munchausen tosser”. When I asked him to clarify he looked me in the eye in a pitying way and said. “Would you like a tube-e-grip to go on it?” I said no and left in a hurry.

Despite this my greatest fear and scrape has always been with divots; little folds in the road, the lowered part of pavements that allow cars to access driveways. Anything, in fact, which is less than a quarter of an inch high.

For some reason I can bunny-hop any Doberman that comes my way (I used to have a BMX Raleigh Burner with yellow Mag-wheels and trick nuts… Ah now you’re checking my flow.) but when it comes to navigating over something you can barely see from six inches away I’m all over the place, I inexplicably line up my wheels in parallel with the fold or curb and find myself hurtling along unable to steer with my legs sticking out desperate to stop myself. When eventually I come to a halt, all the cars that have stacked up behind me drive past, laughing hysterically.

I’ve been on my bike everyday this week; I’ve been near to catastrophe about two hundred and forty times.

0 comments  

Labels: General me

I’ve often thought there’d be mileage in a blog dedicated to commenting on Daily Mirror stories. I used to read The Guardian on the train, but I found I only liked G2 on Mondays (sport and media) and Fridays (Music and TV (which is like Monday’s Media section without the interview with the BBC Head of Welsh Cultural Programming). That plus I can’t turn the pages of a broadsheet without giving those sitting around me a blooded nose in the process. Instead I buy the Mirror which I can read in an hour, be thoroughly entertained by, and usually ensures me a double seat. Three things caught my eye today: -

Firstly this story, which I’ve edited to the essentials: - “Heather McCartney has registered her name as a brand and could develop a range of cosmetics. A spokeswoman for McCartney said she did it to use her name to benefit land mine charities and had no intention of releasing a range of cosmetics. If she does, the Mirror screamed, the range could compete with Stella McCartney’s own range of cosmetics creating further tension between Stella and her dad Sir Paul.”

Unconfirmed reports also saw Stella McCartney buying a nail file from Boots, she said it was because she had a rough edge to one of her nails. HOWEVER, (eyes narrow suspiciously) IF she uses that nail file to saw off her leg at the knee in a desperate attempt to win back the affections of her father this could create further tensions between Heather and her husband Sir Paul. The intrigue!

The letters page offers this cracker: - “Can the recent blackouts in London and New York be too much of a coincidence? Could it be that terrorists are tampering with our infrastructure in preparation for a major terrorist attack?” (This is my favourite bit) “Come on Tony Blair, tell the truth for once.”

Tony Blair resisted the urge to tell us the truth for once in answering “Yes, it’s probably too much of a coincidence and no, it probably isn’t terrorists.” Wriggled his way out of it again, the snake.

What about the enigmatic little boxes that contain corrections from previous issues. In the Guardian they usually contain things like “Correction: - The King of Deheubarth died in 1063 and not 1062, oh how we all had a jolly good laugh at that.” In the Mirror the corrections leave you panting for more. Today’s included: -

Correction: The lowest temperature possible is -273 degrees centigrade; it is not possible for temperatures to drop to -700C.

What was the story?!

Mind you, it might be worth getting the Star ocassionally on the back of today's issue the headline bellows in letters as big as houses “BECKS GOES AWOL!” referring to a story whereby David Beckham’s flight from Spain was diverted from Manchester to Stanstead causing the footballing icon mild inconvenience. The drama!

0 comments  

Labels: Music

Sadly I can’t claim ownership to this rather incisive social observation. For it is Simon who accurately concludes that women communicate their excitement through the medium of showing each other their wrists, hence…

WRISTS! WRISTS!

I have much to tell you, the week in Italy you know about but we’ve also done lunch at Le Manoir, a weekend in Mallorca with my favourite people in the whole world, and Australia Jo’s wedding.

I have developed the theories of Bridesmaid’s Envy and Airport Machismo, pondered structuralism in relation to my friends; have developed firm opinions about the role of producers in Hip Hop. I’m redesigning justinruffles.com with masses of new functionality (if pictures and good spelling can be classified as functionality). We’re on a healthy living kick. And Oxford are on a six game unbeaten run, third in the table and in the second round of the Carling Cup.

And we have Sky!

WRISTS! WRISTS!

What’s more, it’s Sara and Gareth’s wedding on Saturday, the Dobscrub’s baby is due. The social diary is packed with Willy’s birthday, and Dave Gorman and Al Murray gigs. And we’ve got a party in the planning. All I have to do now is find some time to tell you all about it.

And we have Sky!

WRISTS! WRISTS!

0 comments  

Labels: General me

Imagine if you will, the people of London converging on Trafalgar Square singing the songs of their region. East Londoners; The Lambeth Walk, those from the West; Tosca, the North, If I Were A Rich Man and the South; 21 Seconds by So Solid Crew. Each follows a horse and a little man in pyjamas, upon which their hopes and dreams rely.

The Siena Palio is the Italy’s most spectacular festival. Every July and August the town’s seventeen family groups or Contrada establish bragging rights through a series of brutal, lawless horse races around Il Campo, the town centre, not the Bolton centre back.

Before each race the Contrada march through the streets, singing songs of battle, afterwards they feast and celebrate. The races are riddled with corruption, it’s been known for jockeys, local Italian cowboys, to be kidnapped on the way to a race. Corruption runs so deep, it is said that by the time they get to the start line no more than three of the seventeen horses have any chance of winning such is the drugging and bribery that goes on.

After an hour and more of jockeying for starting positions, the race lasts 90 seconds, jockeys ride bareback and are frequently sent crashing to the floor. It’s a contradictory event, the rivalries are fierce, yet the atmosphere celebratory and friendly, the racing is chaotic, yet regimented by history and pageantry.

Emma nearly fainted in the crowds, we waited for three hours for something to happen, I’ve no idea who won. It was ace.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

On holiday we rarely got going before 4 o’clock. The heat was oppressive (the car registered 42 degrees one day) so we did little more than sit by the pool and siesta. I don’t really do sunbathing, to use a Danny Wallace-ism – “I know what I want and I know how to get it, it’s just that usually what I want is a cup of tea and a biscuit, and how I get it is by going to the kitchen.” So in between my five books we did frequent a few local towns.

The nearest was Pistoia, a town typical of the area, although you can become complacent of Tuscany’s beauty. As we sat in the square watching the Galetaria seller open her stall in preparation for the evening’s trade I turned to Emma and asked her a question I’ve wanted to ask for ever: -

“Is sweat dripping down your back and into your bumhole?”
“Yes what about you?”
“Yes”

Pistoia’s like that; it really needs something to lift it from being more than just another Tuscan town. Pisa is equally unremarkable but at least it’s got the tower. When you walk out of the meadow and into the town it is remarkable for its emptiness. It’s a town built on bad surveying techniques. Figuratively, not literally, if it was literally built on bad surveying techniques it wouldn’t be there.

Italian towns in August are dead; you can walk through them on a Saturday afternoon and not see a soul. Siesta is very unnerving for those of us cursed with a protestant work ethic. Would it be too much to ask the locals to siesta in the town square to assure hapless tourists that people live there? For all we know everyone could have been killed by a huge leak of noxious gases.

Florence on the other hand doesn’t fail to deliver or impress. When I went as a teenager it was in the middle of huge clean up so the Cathedral and surrounds were covered in scaffolding. That gone it is everything you hope for and more.

Emma, whose map reading skills are nigh on legendary told me before the holiday that we were so far from Florence that it wasn’t on our map although we were just 20km away from Firenze. It makes me wonder, how many people, and there have to have been a few, go to Tuscany intending to visit Florence but never make it because they are unaware of the Italian spelling.

We parked in a city centre car park, when we returned we were greeted by a swarthy unshaven Italian covered in sweat, in a dirty vest. He muttered something to his mate then turned to us and said “That will be 10 Euros please” in a voice which suggested he had learnt English from Mrs Slocombe from Are You Being Served? As we sorted through our funny money he broke back into his growling Italiano. we handed over the cash and he said “Thenk-ewe very maaaarch, your car is around the corrrrrner”. He even rolled his ‘Rs’. Apparently he went to boarding school in Dorset which has clearly paid dividends now he’s secured this late night shift in an undercover car park. Whilst we were tempted to ask about buggery and the intricate private school fagging system, we had to get home.

You’ve got to admit I’m a bit of a Bill Bryson, we visit the cultural behemoth of Florence and tell a story about the car park.

0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

Strategically it was a simple holiday; low key and low maintenance, and whilst there was something very fedora hat and imported copies of the Independent about a week in Tuscany, it met all pre-defined objectives. We were based in Il Cagnagno; a tiny hill village outside Pistoia which was accessible only by “A rough but asphalted road”, as if to say, ‘well at least it’s asphalted, what do you want? Jam on it?’

Emma took driving responsibilities, a fair challenge for the winding ascents to the apartment which were reminiscent of family holidays driving through the Alps and Pyrenees. One time mum took over from a tiring dad whilst driving over a precarious Alpine pass. As she pulled away, a guide book balanced on the dashboard slid down and jammed behind the steering wheel locking it up and putting the car on a direct trajectory towards the edge of a million foot drop. She eventually decided to brake, and shaken they swapped back over so dad carried on driving, fully rested from travelling fifteen feet in the passenger seat.

Our apartment was a converted something or other with narrow windows like those you find on castles. Maybe Il Cagnagno was an independent state, as many of the towns in the area seem to have been, although with a population of no more than six, its nuclear arsenal was likely to be limited.

The pool next door was a honeypot for beautiful middle class locals. Young Italian women are without exception slim sexy bronzed nymphets able to wear bikinis without a second warning, capable of walking in 38 degree heat without perspiring a bead of sweat, and able to exit and enter swimming pools like supermodels. But their gorgeousness is short lived because young sexy slim Italian women just don’t grow into older sexy slim Italian women. They leap straight to being gnarly 32 stone deep sea monsters with jowls like a clowns pocket. Could it be that the diet of pasta and pizza, and inevitable stream of dates they attract catches up with them? That they wake up one morning with legs like oak trees. Perhaps Italian men don’t marry the thin ones because mama wouldn’t accept them (no child baring hips, don’t like their food, sullied by years of being gorgeous) and the fat ugly ones, hidden away learning to cook for years, suddenly become desirable wife material. Emma thinks that British Women win overall because they may start plain, but at least they sustain their plainness longer. 


0 comments  

Labels: Holiday

I am currently away from this blog, I shall be returning in a week, I will deal with your queries then. If your need for blog relief is urgent, please contact another blogger. But then come back to me. I’m funnier, and rely on your site hits to give my life value and purpose.

Yep, I’m off on holiday, which I’m sure you’re relieved to hear. I am fully aware during this hottest of hot patches, you could perceive from my recent musings that I, the boy Ruffles, have spent the last month playing tennis once, going out for dinner with Katie once and watching a whole heap of TV. This isn’t true. The TV bit is, but I have done other stuff.

It’s true I don’t really like the heat, if I were to choose one season to live in for the rest of my life; it would be winter (I can’t abide the Halfling seasons of spring and autumn). I find it very difficult to enjoy a hot day. I can’t sit in the garden and read a book, I mean I can read, but I’m not like Clare at college who covered her legs in cooking oil when sunbathing. She fried, quite literally.

This is the funniest time of year for me. It’s my birthday on Saturday, an occasion of underwhelming gravitas. The school summer holidays meant opportunities for parties and presents from friends were limited. Even when people were around, I wasn’t. I’ve spent many birthdays sitting in the boot of a car waiting to board a ferry on the first stage of an annual family invasion of Europe. We’ve even had holidays when I’ve gone back to work after two weeks on my birthday.

It doesn’t even have a particularly special place in the family calendar. Y’see we have a family birthday week. Two days before mine is Annia’s birthday, three days after is Kirsty’s. Yeah, go on, parents as regular as clockwork. Even Australia Jo’s is on the 5th. Emma’s 30th, which exists in blessed isolation in the middle of May, lasts forever. Her 30th lasted a month. My 30th was cocooned in several other birthdays and eclipsed, quite rightly, by Penny’s wedding. Over the years my birthday has simply paled into insignificance.

But I’m not bitter, the football season starts on Saturday which is compensation enough for me - life’s not that bad.

0 comments  

Labels: General me