Instruments

I lay on my bed with my body running from port to starboard.
On my left hand side was a window with a curtain which I could see edge on. The window was secured with great bolts and could not be opened. Ahead of me just beyond my feet Ann’s Jacket hung on a hook.
As we began to cross the Bay of Biscay the jacket moved on its hook. More correctly the jacket remained where it was and the whole ship oscillated about it. The instrument of Ann’s jacket recorded the pitch of the ship.
Out of the corner of my eye I observed the curtain move into the cabin or rather the whole ship moved away from the curtain. The instrument of the curtain measured the roll of the ship.
Round about two O’clock in the morning Ann said she had had enough and was going collect her life jacket from the bottom of the wardrobe and go and wait in the ‘muster station’ for the inevitable call. I shouted at her to get a grip of herself and felt much better for my little bout of nastiness.
There were not many for breakfast the next morning

Black Prince second attempt

Off on the Black Prince tomorrow for a cruise . At least it doesn’t look like a chunk of Shopping Mall has broken off from a city centre and is floating gently round the shores of lake placid. The first 3 or 4 days will be the Irish Sea and the Bay of Biscay and so it should feel like a proper journey at least. I shall report in due course.

Cheese Mission

There are many little peculiarities in border speak.
Ann asked me to get some cheese from the village shop Saturday. “..and be sure to ask for the tasty cheese”.
The following shop conversation ensued.
“Oh and could I have some cheese?”
Ivy replies “ Do you want the tasty cheese Doug?”
“yes please but what would happen if somebody said to you – please don’t make it the tasty cheese, I cant stand tasty cheese”
Ivy “then they would have the mild cheese”.
At last I got it.

Snow

From the Llyswen side of Boughrood Bridge Friday 9th Feb 2007

2007

New Year started badly. Toilet wouldn't flush. Drain blocked.
Travelled 28 miles to Merthyr B&Q and bought a set of rods.
Didn't help and the plunger dropped off in the pipe.
Had to lie flat on the ground and stick my arm up to recover it.
The professionals sneered at my incompetence and agreed to come round and fix it tomorrow. There then followed between me and Ann a risk assessment of the coming 24 hours and possible contingency arrangements involving a bucket and her Aunt who lives in the next village but who goes to bed at 7.30pm.
Then had shower and noticed Homer Simpson soap on a rope Christmas present.
Decided to use but on applying to my body his head immediately fell off leaving a jagged edge upon which jagged edge I severely bruised my left nipple.

Christmas Eve

Olive -Did you watch the final of 'Strictly Come dancing?
Caroline- No we were watching 'World War' - Who won?
Ian- We did.

Super Annuation

I don’t know if this is in your papers or not I don’t bother with newspapers these days.
In ‘Pension Week’, where I get my kicks , there is a headline ‘FAS pays out pitiful £1.7m in three years’

FAS = Financial Assistance Scheme and it is this scheme which is supposed to compensate people who have lost money in occupational pension schemes.
What I found interesting and entirely in line with my view of government, the ones who put this scheme in place, are the following facts.
100,000 people lost pensions when their sponsoring employer collapsed.
£2.3bn was earmarked in this scheme as a lifeboat.
In 3 years the FAS has paid out £1.7m to 454 of those 100,000 but has also paid £10.4m in staff wages and running costs.
The number of people paid out works out at about 6 people for every member of staff employed and that’s over more than 2 years.
I must see if I can get a job there. I reckon I could spend most of my time lounging round here in Brecon and maybe pop up to London on Ladys’ Day , Midsummer and Michaelmas do my three cases and then go home.

Bait

Did you get here searching for any of these?
If you did then let me know Im looking for them too.
Elsie Doreen Grantham
Elsie Doreen Mcleod
Alfred George Mcleod
Montgomery Graham
David Silver
Wendy Davies Lee Manor School
Martin Rhodes Bland Welch
thanks

He she it

It is always odd when reading the human element in a statement to find it referred to as 'she' , when of course it should be 'he'.
'The scientist in such instances will consult her data'
'The philosopher knows that her training will cover this'
When I encounter 'she' in such circumstances I always wonder what that womans doing in here when 'he' is perfectly understood as neutral.

I can smell burgers now the rain has come

Went to Brecon Fair yesterday. It was very many years before the magic of hot dogs and burgers finally deserted me and even now like an old dog my metaphorical ears still prick as if to the word ‘cats’ when the smell of frying onions wafts in.
Marcel Proust can keep his dainty cakes with me it’s the smell of frying onions and the front at Southend on Sea.
We wandered around these stalls – all containing Welsh food products.
By the way many years ago we visited the Kestrel pub just outside Brecon and it was kept by a German prisoner of War who had remained behind. We went there to see a Badger who had taken to coming into the bar and circulating among the clientele before departing into the night. The badger arrived dead on time and passed along the guests shaking hands and presumably making representations about the source of bovine TB before leaving by his usual exit and making his way back to the set.
An American visitor then asked the owner for something to eat that was typically Welsh. The landlord replied “Well there is only Welsh rarebit and that’s bloody awful”.
Back to yesterday it began to rain and at the same time I caught the smell of frying onions. Although I don’t eat the stuff these days I think subconsciously I probably resented the fact that it had started raining just as I had been ‘offered’ a hot dog, and I found myself saying to Ann, “I can smell burgers now the rain has come”.
I suppose I should have sung it and she might have sung back “Think of the cholesterol in your veins”
I did try desperately to get a picture of an enormous elf especially when she was eating cod & chips from out of the paper but failed. They all came out blurred

Macworld

I sometimes think what would have happened if the human gene pool were from the beginning of time composed entirely of my genes and that the genes did not mutate.
What would be the consequences for humans?
Well never in a million years would a human have contemplated milking a cow and then drinking it! So we can rule out everything that follows from that disgusting aberration including rice puddings. In fact I cant see my genes allowing the killing and eating of animals at all. Although I do eat meat my behaviour is acquired but with a universal predisposition not to eat meat in the genes then such behaviour is likely to remain deviant. “He was seen scoffing a bacon sandwich” would have the same effect in Macworld as “Gary Glitter is minding the children” has in this.
I think my genes would predispose humanity to invent the wheel and other things like computers etc.
I also think that human kind would be predisposed to the idea of God.

They all look/sound the same to me

Last month I noticed a new CD - 'Girls Aloud Greatest hits'.
That was 4 weeks ago - I wonder if volume 2 is out?

Llandovery

Well I thought I was destined to sail aboard the Black Prince however it seems that I was destined not to as Ann got taken ill on the day it was due to sail.
Just goes to show what a misleading thing destiny is.

Here is a good place to visit. Llandovery. Interesting shops with lots of cafés one of which seems to be always surrounded by motorcycles like white corpuscles round a wound.
The café I chose was slightly up market to the bikers grotto. Ann wanted a cappuccino and not seeing it on the menu I asked; “Have you got any cappuccino?”.
“Whats that ?” . “Well it’s got a sort of frothy top to it”. “Oh you mean milky coffee?” “Yes alright”.
Anyway the bacon egg and chips were top hole and very cheap too.
Actually whenever I see that combination of motorcycles and café I think of the café there used to be next to Forest Hill Station in the 1960’s. I went in there once and found several aggressive looking rockers on the pin tables. Not wishing to show fear I strolled up to the juke box and inserted some money , this gave me the opportunity to legitimately turn my back on them and to work out how to extricate myself more permanently. Unfortunately I pressed the wrong button and instead of some respectable ‘hard’ tune reinforcing my rightful presence the unmistakable sound of Hayley Mills singing ‘Lets get together , yeh ,yeh , yeh, why don’t you and I etc’. I retreated at once.

Willersley unruined ruin

I love this place that I pass on my way back from the dreadful Hereford. Completely unrestored. What a pleasure to see a decrepit ruin untouched and rotting away as nature intended. Maybe it is owned by somebody who doesn't care about the mazooma he is letting slip , but more likely there is some unresolved ownership dispute and greed pulling in more than one direction causing the whole thing to stagnate.
My earliest recollections of play are of exquisitely overgrown bomb sites in South East London. Now even here everything is being tarted up and 'improved'. The bombsite long ago became anonymous blocks of flats in the early 60's but there is no comparison aesthetically with bombed out buildings filling up with nature 6 years after the war ended. The ruined watermill on the Wye over the bridge in Boughrood is done up and lived in now it is the way of all things round here these days.

Things I never want to do again

Drive to or from any address in Birmingham.

Reprogramme Sony bedside clock/alarm.

Telephone Nationwide Building Society.

Give the Peace.

That will do for the time being.

Das Boot

In 8 days time I am steaming across a storm tossed Bay of Biscay in a plague ship – it is my destiny.
36 years ago while queuing to see a Lloyds underwriter I first saw this particular ship on the back of a magazine and liked the sound of it. I never thought about it again until it miraculously rematerialised in late September.
Every morning the news programs were full of tedious stuff about the size of the bags you could or could not take onto a plane and the different objects you could or could not take and vast hordes of would be passengers getting held and fed up.
I was asked to arrange a surprise holiday for Ann’s birthday by her mother and couldn’t face all that flying nonsense when the idea of a cruise occurred to me.
I rang to see what was available close to the date and leaving from the UK.
The Black Prince was leaving Liverpool on the 7th of November for France, Spain and Portugal. Instantly my mind went back to that Lloyds office long ago and the picture of the Black Prince in the magazine and I felt compelled to book it. I must say that we have never been on a cruise and have never wanted to or looked into it or have any knowledge of cruise ships. I recognise the names Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth and Aurora but that is all. I did feel that I had to book this one though.
Having paid the money it then occurred to me that we would be travelling most of the time back and forwards across the Bay of Biscay in a small cruise ship, during November; the Bay of Biscay not being known for it’s gentler side.
Ann was stunned and pleased by her mothers present but she recognised the name of the ship instantly as having been recently in the news for ¾’s of her passengers going down with some vomiting virus. I don’t read the papers or pay too much attention to the news since history invariably repeats itself and I have seen it all the first time round. I keep hearing in my head Eva Cassidy singing ‘People get ready there’s a train a coming you don’t need no ticket just climb aboard’

Happy Birthday to me

Received this card from Ian and Caroline today.

No work in a fair lumper

There is no work in a fair lumper

You can rely on this observation in practically all cases.
Maybe there are exceptions but I cant think of them and as I sail further into lumpishness myself, I feel the work in me just ebbing away.
I do have some exquisite examples of local lumpers but cant , due to cowardice, bring them to a wider audience.
I heard TP in the office, staring at the keyboard of her computer, mutter to herself with a sigh. ‘There is no work in me today’. I had never heard that expression before and took it to be a Radnorshire saying. They seem to revere work in these parts. ‘He’s a good worker’ is the highest possible praise. I don’t see work as a virtue but I wouldn’t dare say that here, local political correctness would be outraged.
The idea of work as being something that is contained within a person must affect the way that work is understood.
Last week while mentioning somebody she knew TP said, matter of factly “mind you she’s a fair lumper”. I rushed to Google, having just used up the last few crumbs of my self contained work to check the phrase. I couldn’t find it even connecting it with Radnorshire in the search terms. All the other locals understood the expression perfectly so I conclude that a ‘fair lumper’ is a Radnorshire expression for somebody who is ‘big boned’.

Last Post

The next post I make here will not be sarcastic, ‘negative’ or heavily ironic.
I may be away for quite a while now trying to get myself into an appropriate mood to produce such a thing
Look back at Christmas time if its going to happen at all it must be by then.
So for the second time I say “I am just going outside and may be some time”

Scott of the Antarctic “ Quick lock the bloody tent this time”

Encounter with a lady in a Victorian Spa Town

Yesterday went out to get a cold drink from JO’s and thereabouts came upon a young female built like a prop forward loudly effing and blinding as she marched down the street , her feet forming an obtuse angle between them in the most aggressive male posture. My father used to tell me I walked like a poof but Ann says I walk like Inspector Frost. I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window and noticed she was right. Don’t look in her eyes, don’t look in her eyes I told myself.
I breathed a sigh of relief as she macho'd off at a fast rate round the corner effing loudly at some unseen prey. At least on this occasion I should not be tested/humiliated.
And then I imagined the six girls in our office as policewomen all armed with truncheons and attempting to arrest two ton Tessie Berserk. I could see her fling them right left and centre like so many kittens and then effing off into the sunset to the sound of ‘Born Free’.