Graft

Working from home today. Its 5pm and Ive done bugger all. Have just drunk a pint of John Smith bitter and pointed the camera out of the window next to the desk where I am supposed to have been working.

The Wye Valley Mysteries

Its the Royal Welsh Show next week and that and the hot weather reminds me of the events of just a few years ago. Events that would change our lives forever.
Ann was working at the Erwood Craft centre half way to Builth Wells.
The Craft centre, the remains , post Beecham, of a railway station including some railway carriages and an engine or two was adapted mainly as a workshop for the talented wood turner who owns it. Ann was working part time in the teashop.

One morning she came into work and put her handbag down in the shop and went behind the counter to put the coffee machine on. A young woman with child, about 6 or 7 entered the shop and engaged my trusting wife in happy conversation while the Artful Dodger removed the handbag from its secure location, on the floor in the shop on the public side of the counter.
She didn’t discover the missing bag until later and although to my mind there was no great tragedy , cash trifling, credit cards insured, junk in purse a welcome evacuation, Ann was devastated particularly about the contents of the purse and the lost forever telephone numbers, recipes, addresses, till receipts etc. So she called the police. A policeman did arrive and gave his opinion his, politically incorrect opinion with which we both strongly agreed, that it was probably a tinker, one of a great horde who turn up each year for the show.

He suggested they drive down to the camp and see if they could see this woman walking about. They did but found nothing. Ann insisted on me and her revisiting the camp in the evening but again we saw nothing and although I felt myself turning into a character from Hetty Wainthrop Investigates, Ann was deadly serious I am only thankful she wasn’t armed, ‘go ahead punk make my day’.

A day or so later we learned that the credit card had been used at a petrol station near Brecon and then the police turned up with a polythene bag containing the entire contents of the handbag, a pile of utter trash. Ann however was over the moon. Some workmen on the A470 had found the stuff in a ditch. The thief, being of the same opinion as me, had removed the good stuff and flung the rest. Ann went through every little slip of paper lovingly until she came to a piece that wasn’t hers. This turned out to be a social services form with the thief’s name and address on it. Hetty put her theory to the police and Ms Fagin was caught bang to rights. Ann , who earlier had been demanding the death penalty recovered her peaceful good humour and put away the magnum. The police were happy with a detection and a conviction.

Now I come to think it didnt change our lives at all.

Poesy

You know how you can find a piece of driftwood and without doing anything to it beyond displaying it turn it into a work of art? I think they call such things objets trouvés although that may refer to the bags of soiled nappies I find that are occasionally hurled over our fence from the pub car park next door. I suppose given the right institution and hype even these might have some artistic pretensions.
But I think you can 'find' poems too and not just by noticing the occasional sometimes Freudian rhyme that slips out. My favourite I heard while listening to the late night shipping forecast on radio four delivered in the deadpan voice of, I think his name is Perkins, Low ,heading west, slowly losing identity. Not much of a poem and maybe I am relying on the rhythm of his delivery to give it any claim at all but it sums me up.

TWO DAYS LATER ANDI REALISE I HAVE ALREADY SAID THIS BACK IN SEPTEMBER 2005.
I WILL LEAVE IT IN THOUGH AS EVIDENCE OF A MIND CRACKING UP.

Sale

Here is an automated email Ive had from the Downing Street website in response to the message left below.


Dear Mr Mcleod

Thank you for your message to the Prime Minister which you sent through the Downing Street website (www.number-10.gov.uk).We need to confirm that we have your correct details and that the message shown at the bottom of this email is from you.
Click on the link below to confirm your message.Once you have confirmed your email, your message will be passed to Downing Street staff to read. Although the PM is unable to answer emails personally, all your messages are read and the PM is given a report on the issues raised, along with a selection of messages.
Thanks,
The Number 10 Web Team
Here is the text we received:
RE: The sale of honours
Dear Prime Minister,
Could you let me know the cheapest honour youve got - not counting your
own of course.
best wishes

12 months extra time

7.25am last Monday in Llandrindod Wells. You cant quite see it in this picture but the monument is to the Great War 1914 - 1919. I wonder if there were pockets of German resistance still operating behind enemy lines in Llandod after 1918 or Is there a better reason for the extra time ?

Same

Why is consistency a virtue?
A television programme must repeat the same elements it displayed last week in order to continue to be watched.
The supermarket requires all vegetables to conform to a consistent pattern.
The laws under which we live must be the same everywhere.
The decision of Judge B must be consistent with the decision of Judge A.
The untruths a politician told today must be consistent with the untruths he told yesterday. He can lie as much as he likes so long as he is consistent.
If Gravity or the other laws of nature were not themselves consistent then life would be impossible.
But life is not impossible without the same TV programme being shown endlessly, the same tomato being eaten again and again. Perpetrators of graffiti getting locked up in Surrey and it counting towards their GCSE coursework in London is inconsistent but not impossible and not undesirable. A politician occasionally telling the truth would be a novelty. No they are not unfairly criticised they are all, every last man jack of them consistent liars.
When I was about 7 I noticed at election times all the Labour and Conservative posters and the occasional Liberal poster. I asked my mother what it was all about.
She said; "Labour stand for the poor and the Conservatives stand for the rich - the Liberals dont stand for anything - your father votes Liberal"

Sunday Lunch 9th July 2006

Today went for lunch with Ann's Aunt, on the left and her mother on the right.
The following conversation is in progress.
Aunt - Did you read about that man in Lyonshall? He jumped though the patio door and attacked another man. He bit off his thumb and ate it. Then he bit off his nipples and ate them too. They took him away and I think he is in a mental hospital somewhere.
Pause.
Mother replies -The patio door cant have been double glazed

Economics

Called in at Leigh Delamere motorway service station on the M4.
A one litre bottle of still water to 'take away' was very finely priced at £2.07.
Obviously £2.00 was insufficient to provide a profit and required a careful balancing of the forces of supply and demand to get it right.
Meanwhile in Builth Wells yesterday the petrol station puts its price for a litre of petrol up to £1.01. I think though I can rely upon upon the thrifty spirit of the Radnorshire people to jerk quickly on the choke chain of demand and bring this impudent cur to heel.

Rien ne va plus

I didn’t pay too much attention to the news stories about the Government inviting license applications for a number of ‘supercasinos’ except to wonder in passing why a British Government would want to create these kind of monstrosities and putting it down to the general degeneration of life.
Now the answer appears simple they flogged the Dome to an American and in return for this they had to fiddle some kind license for a supercasino there. Hence the blind of seeking multiple license applications and Prescott the heavy putting the screws on Southend to withdraw from the special one.

Feng sui

We closed our Builth Wells Office and moved everyone to Llandrindod Wells - hence it's a bit crowded. So crowded that two days a week I work from home and a colleague occupies my desk. I think I can call it my desk as I am in it 3 days to her 2.
She now tells me that according Feng sui the state of my desk is not conducive to something or other and the same can be said for leaving the toilet seat up.
I am not sure whether FS requires that the lid be lowered as well as the seating facility although I can see a case might be made for leaving the lid up in the kamikaze position. kamikaze I recall meaning divine wind.
The position of objects may be significant in a real way. I remember sitting on the beach at Pendine and poking at the sand with a stick. I observed as three grains of sand moved a small distance from each other. It occurred to me that although they had only moved a matter of millimeters the distance of every other point in the universe to the grains in question had altered and immediately. Therefore no action however trivial has less than universal consequences. This sudden insight into the nature of existence occurred to me 7 years ago and I can honestly say that since that time it has made no difference whatsoever. Perhaps I should try closing the toilet seat?

Laws

This is an interesting website Megans Law operating in California.
Observe the distribution of sex offenders in an area and the idividuals themselves, their location and offence record. See if you can find any common facial attributes and thus revive the scientific fortune of phrenology - who knows its demise might be soley down to political correctness. Try to work out how John Reid will promise this sort of thing but get out of delivering anything at all.
Personally I dont care whether they introduce it or not, I might find it amusing if they did. Reason is on the side of those that say 'No' , but then reason is dead.
I used to watch/listen to Question Time years ago. But now I cannot bear to hear it.
If through error I arrive , via my remote control, at;
1) Question Time
2) Bazuka that ferruca
or
3) The advert with the hordes of aggressive women marching into some city square demanding sanitary towells.
I immediately change channels.
I am not sure what the connection is between this stuff and the Megan's Law bit but since reason is dead there doesnt have to be one.

Fête

Just this minute returned from the annual Church fête at the vicarage.
Won a very small bottle of indian tonic water on the bottle stall and bought a bottle of home made elderflower cordial. Brecon Town band playing well.

Tea in the refreshment tent only 25p in a china cup and saucer. I gave them a £1 and told them to keep the change. Does that make me a Philanthropist?

Not too well attended while I was there but it began filling up as I left - I dont think the two events are connected.

Now Ive got to spend 3 hours cutting our grass and probably will have to go into the office sometime before Monday for another 3 hours to sort out my work. I have noticed recently that if I have a problem case I have this ability to 'walk away from it in my head' - I dont have to 'walk' very far before it is lost completely .

Pork Sushi

They say we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
I think I might just have.
My son at 15 marinated some chicken.
I came home from work as he was going out and he said to me.
“There is some chicken in the fridge you can have”.
When he’d gone I took out the chicken and ate some.
It tasted lousy but as he had made it specially I persevered but even so gave up half way through the dish.
When he came back late at night he asked me if I liked the chicken.
I lied ‘yes but I couldn’t eat it all’.
He went to the fridge and saw the remains.
“You did cook it?” he asked nervously , and I swiftly realised my error.
My sausages arrived from France at last.
I began eating a long thinnish one at the beginning of the week.
It smelled disgusting and wasn’t very pleasant but nevertheless I ate my way through about a fifth of it.
Today I fried the rest and it tasted quite good, quite civilised.
Here is a picture of the wrapper. I cant see anything to suggest that I shouldn’t have eaten it in its original form but I know more sophisticated pallets than mine occasionally drop by here so perhaps they could pass judgement.

Grandmaster

The shame of it - I wasnt going to show you this, and not just for aesthetic reasons. I went to the Gouesnou chess club and played this young chap (thats the one seated nearest the camera). I lost the first two games!! uuuugh!.I won the next 4 thank God and toyed with the idea of letting it be known that I had allowed him to win the first two.
The last time I played a difficult 10 year old was at Gwbert on Sea at least 10 years ago. He was very strong although it is possible that his feet didnt quite reach the floor while seated. I really needed a win but my position was deteriorating until the best I could hope for was a draw. I couldnt even be sure of a draw though and so I was obliged to adopt some shameful tactics. I lit a cigarette and gently blew the smoke towards him. I can still see him now, poor little chap, rubbing his eyes and looking like it was well past his bed time. I did get the draw though.

More excitement

3 weeks ago while hanging on the phone waiting for, first Norwich Union and then Legal & General to put me through to a human being I traced my mothers ancestry from my mother back to 1801 in Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire. All I had to help was my grandmothers maiden name Hudson, her year of birth 1880 and the annoying music coming from the Norwich Unions automated switchboard.

Iv’e got a life and this is it

For more than a year now, every month, I get a monthly statement from Citi- bank showing 50 pence outstanding on a credit card account I cancelled more than a year ago.
Businesses strive to increase their profit margins and I would like to increase my pleasure margins by taking the next paying in slip that they send and paying in 49 pence. This would reduce the balance outstanding to 1 penny. A bit like a kind of financial homeopathy the less there is the more potent is the effect . (so Im told)
I don’t want to trigger anything like an intelligent response that might cut off these letters though. Decisions , decisions.

Are they still up?

Searching the net for the whereabouts of Richard O'Sullivan , 'Man about the House' and occupant of 'Robins Nest' I find him resident in a nursing home having suffered by all accounts a stroke, alcoholism and manic depression.
While in bad taste Death List does at least reveal the names of some people you perhaps will be surprised to learn are still alive.
Lady Bird Johnson for example.
I think it was Lyndon Johnson who said something like, 'He has pissed on his last campfire' , which is quite a good way of describing my own attempted despoiling of the awful Pearl Assurance sales meetings I was forced to attend.

Call of Duty

We had the Mothers Union round to our house on Tuesday for a meeting.
This is a very good Christian organisation for women.
Unusually the leader of the group engaged in some kind of semi scripted exercise which involved asking the members. “What is the biggest gift you have received?”
Nobody spoke and so my wife Ann to be helpful replied ‘A bicycle’.
This was duly acknowledged and then one other of the group volunteered the probably more sought after answer “Well I suppose the gift of life”.
I was on the computer killing Germans while this was going on.

From your Dance Critic

Here is a picture of a Welsh Dance troupe that accompanied us on the ‘twinning’ to Brittany. They looked pretty good but the jigging didn’t strike me as ‘Welsh’ – not that I would know anything about it. It seemed to me rather like something contrived –‘this is how we would imagine Welsh dancing to be if there were such a thing’.The Breton dancing though really did feel as if it had been around for centuries evolving like one of Darwins finches in the isolation of an enclave.

The Ontology of the Sausage and other trivia

Captain Oates would never have turned up again a few days later stuck his head in the tent and announced 'I've just come back for a bit.'
Anyway I have returned but it may not be for long.
Here is a picture of a 'cheese and wine party' attended during the week.
Thats Lord Bingham talking to our vicar.
A few years ago I remember the vicar, worried about possible lack of attendance at the Church fête, saying. " Ive managed to persuade Lord Bingham to open it so at least the IRA should turn up".
On the subject of food I inadvertently left my sausages in Brittany last week.
Our host has arranged for somebody staying on for a further week to bring them back. I wanted to take a picture of myself with knife and fork at the ready and insert a caption along the lines of 'and even as he sat his sausage had set sail for the shores of Wales'. I wasn't sure about the expression 'set sail' and also 'even as' and so used the Yahoo question site to ask someone. A lady called Vaness said she was French and gave me the translation. However she pointed out that I should use the plural of the word sausage, as there is a possibility it might be confused with a penis. I was brought up on 'Carry on ' films and so I find such pathetic jokes hysterical and it is of course what I intended. I don’t know whether she meant this as a genuine correction or if she was merely expressing her contempt that I should think it was funny. By the way in this part of Wales the plural of sausage is indeed sausage. They don’t ask for a pound of sausages but a pound of sausage.
Although each sausage is unquestionably a separate entity the apparently illogical unity imposed upon these spatially separate entities illustrates a different way of thinking about it/them. He who says sausage and not sausages thinks of the world differently just as he who ends his sentence with a verb has a subtley different world view. Thats why I wish I could speed up learning French as I am getting a bit bored with the present perspective.