I make my boss look stupid.....

Thats the accusation I'm facing right now.... and I also dont respect my team members..... or something like that.

...and all from an e-mail from the boss.

The thing is I don't disagree, not entirely. I don't have any special powers to make my boss look stupid, just plain old "stating the bleedin' obvious" is more than sufficient to outline his inability to find his own arse with both hands.

and as for "team" members, well. Lets just say the ones I don't respect are the ones who last saw employment selling shoes..... or in more specific cases, counting bricks on a building site.

blah blah lar di dar...... we've heard it all before. I'm not gonna look for a new job, its far too entertaining watching the whole thing tear itself apart. If it comes to it, I'll document the entire HR encounter here, in this corner of reality I like to call home..

Musical accompaniment to this post: Morcambe & Wise, Bring Me Sunshine

Less than a decade to get to the moon...

I had to see it for myself.... I just had to touch it's alloy/polycarbonate shell before I could even dare to think it was true.

but there it was, shiny and new just out of the showroom. No dear reader, this item isn't mine and to be honest it's nothing special in its own right, its the huge hurdle the purchasee has had to vault to get to this dizzying conclusion of outright ownership.

Yes..... Pooch has finally bought a brand new motorcycle.

In recent years its become a running joke.

Pooch: "I'm test riding a [insert random bike make/model] this weekend"

Me: "Ohh...... gonna chop in that Brough Superior you bought in 1926 for a model with electrics and those new fangled pneumatic tires are you?"

Pooch: "well, you never know....."

Pooch on his old ride: Taken just last week

Ah, but we do know don't we..... in the 8 or so years I've been riding bikes Pooch has NEVER even been close to purchasing a new bike. I think he prefers to borrow them for a few hours then take 'em back to the showroom and informing the bemused salesman that "well, its nice but I don't think I need a bike with more than 3 gears"

Even the prospect of saving money by getting rid of the nice man who walks in front of his bike waving a red flag didn't entice Pooch to a new purchase.

So, when rumours within the bike industry surfaced that Pooch was about to re-ink his quill to sign for a new bike I almost bought an ounce of Old Holburn.

Of course no one would believe him, Pooch had cried wolf too many times (I'm sure there's a pun in there somewhere).

He'd turn up outside the pub on a Triumph or some other monstrosity, some of the really dunk punters would marvel at his "new" ride while the majority would simply turn away and tut to themselves knowing it was nothing more than a test ride machine.

But now......its.... really....... here.

Ok, so he's gone and bought a BMW (he's getting on a bit you know) but at least its cylinders are vertical and there's no attachments for farming equipment. I think it may take a few months before Pooch gets the colour back in his wallet, sorry cheeks and he gets used to 4th gear and a crash helmet not made from leather.

I cant find the compression lever or the spark retardation handle!

So, the bunch of backsides that I work for have decided that no one will be getting a pay rise this year..... not because people think their products are shameful or their services revolve around spin, lies and excuses...no... its because the shares are HIGH and will probably go down and all the managers are having trouble fueling their 4 and 5 litre 4x4 SUV'S.

It sounds like I'm upset, but I'm not, I've not had a pay rise in 5 years, not even inflation based rise. I'm just amazed at the excuses that are being used. No doubt next year will be "Sorry no pay rises as the company is washing its hair"

as a result of the doubling of fuel prices over here and no pay rise I'll mostly having "Princes Tomato and Sardine Paste" for lunch in a bread buttie. Lovely.

Bikes and Tight bands

So many things so little time..... before I'm questioned about not doing "proper" work and blogging instead.. but here goes..

Hmmm yes, I have bought myself a new bike.... and yes its the expensive BMW one. Not too expensive as its second hand... sort of. Has 255 miles on the clock and was a BMW Staff bike. I collect it tomorrow.

Also my Dad has had a heart attack.... well, he's had two, one last Wednesday but no-one believed him then another on Friday. My Niece said "he's been rushed into Middlesbrough Hospital"..... I don't know whats going on in the NHS but I'm unable to see how someone can be "rushed" to a hospital that's over 35 miles away..... especially as there's a perfectly good hospital 10 miles down the coast in Hartlepool....

Anyhow, he's sort of OK, he's due out of hospital today as they have de-coked his arteries and told him to cheer up...... or something like that....

Oh, and before someone else says it I will...... The new bike was ordered BEFORE the owld fella was ill.

Anyhow, I thought this tune was kinda appropriate in the circumstance...... ok, perhaps inappropriate, but what the feck I'm going to hell anyway

Dead Miners Boot

Dead Miners Boot, originally uploaded by Delmonti.

I know I know, another cop out posting. There are things going on, but I just cant be arsed to post them....... Hmmmm.. Ok then, here's a short rundown.

Firstly, I should explain the photo. In my new photographic interests I'm collecting dead (discarded) gloves and shoes, and here's my latest..... Well, it was from a few years back but still counts.

New bike possibility: I've test ridden, of all things, a BMW.... The K1200S to be precise. Nice bike with unique features but not as powerful as the Blackbird and at £13000 it's bloody expensive....

Sorry this was supposed to be short, here goes...

Had to replace the sprockets and chain on the 'bird - £400
Shocks on the 'bird are shagged, Honda want £500+ (not gonna happen)
Bike Insurance is due - £200+
I'm having delusions of living a happy peaceful life with the woman of my dreams - so I've joined a dating site, the lack of interest is quickly returning me to my natural state of mind...... that and extreme self abuse.
I've been out in the countryside walking - thanks to Pooch who can read a map for the best routes that pass pubs with decent ale.

ps: I dont think there was a miner attached and burried under that boot.....

Fiddy cent...... thats 42 too many

News has come informing me that after all these years my talent as a drummer has finally paid off. I can now hold my head up in the presence of the greats..... I can now be classed as a "professional" musician.

You may remember a while back I "helped" out in a band.... and in the confusion recordings were made and they ended up being digitally minced and lightly sprayed with a mixture of CDIF and Miracle Grow and found their way onto iTunes and other purveyors of lug candy.

Well, it would seem that "our boat has come in" in for form of our first Royalties payment. The band has the dubious task of having to split the sum of...... eight cents.

I say dubious as I'm unsure how to split 4p amongst five people without causing a rift....... now, during the 80's I had an old jam jar full of 1/2P pieces...... I know it wouldn't solve the sum, but we could split fairly and send the remainder off to charity.... if I had a loft I'd check there first.

Dead Shoe at Virginia Waters

Dead Shoe at Virginia Waters, originally uploaded by Delmonti.

Found this kids shoe impaled on the entrance gates.... no doubt as a warning to other renegade wandering souls as to the fate held in store should they be found again.

It's not all 50 degree lean angles

Oh.... it's been awhile then.

I think the last 2+ years of blogging was more to do with Tramadol than it was about me. Since kicking the habit I've felt a definitive decline in spewing forth meaningless drivel..... its a small price to pay for a more levelled existence.

The Hip: is now more or less fixed. I was out in the garden playing badminton with Em after doing a 2 mile walk to see the bluebell woods in Hatchlands Park (pictures here)

Last weekend was my first real bike tour since the op. A 4 Day tour of Devon with an average of 200+ miles a day (no straight roads in sight)..... and it was marvelous! (Pictures here)

So I guess this is probably the start of the slowdown with blogging. No doubt there'll be the odd one or two posts, but nothing like the flood from the past...... unless it all goes horribly wrong of course.

Sandals not recommended

"Doing the shitkickers waltz"

No lights and a "Park" at one end can only result in either a mugging or a shoe full. A perfect venue for Strictly (celebrity) Come Dancing I think.

are you the gatekeeper?

These gates were found on my daily walk to work, praying to be unlocked?

Ballet & Brownies

I found this sad and lonely soul struggling to cross the road this morning,,,, still dragging its long dead comrades

Who me? I'm doing fine thanks.

I was wide awake at 5am this morning. No reason for it, just was.

I'll still be late for work tho'.... I say late, but the only person concerned seems to be me, so I'm not sure that counts.

I have this urge to walk into work, but there's a drawback. It means I have to stay "at work" during lunch, and I sort of need that hour to remove myself from the building..... it's like a cleansing... as this place makes you feel mentally "dirty" and the people suck the very soul from you.

All last week I solved this by driving into work, then at lunch time driving home, having lunch then walking back to work. It worked out quite well, although there's no benefit to the environment as I still pump out gallons (or should that be liters? or tonnes?) of CO2 from driving the car....... but hold on....... that's right....... I couldn't give a flying fat fuck about the made up shit about our next "end of the world" crap.

Do you remember the 70's when the last drop of oil was months away? or perhaps the Acid Rain killing off all of our oxygen giving forests? Still not enough? Don't forget the hole in the ozone layer which will mean radiation poisoning on a global scale. Did I mention Aids? or perhaps Bird Flu, and what about Super TB, and don't even think of eating a cows spine!

Yes, all crap. Believed by gobby women and blokes who want to get into their knickers or make a buck or two from it.

Just for the hell of it I'm gonna leave all the lights on in the flat today and turn on as many devices at work as I can.

I've just read that back...... must be Monday.

Two new tunes that have made me smile....

and "by the power of Grayskull" do I need it right now.

Here's the first, which is probably more predictable if you know me...

Tankus the Henge's "Smiling makes the day go quicker" (it's their MySpace site, check on the music player for the track... Thank to Mr Hunt for this suggestion)

....and then there's this... Neon Neon "I Lust U" and it's something I should not like..... but I do!

....and only because its funny.

Just how many dimensions does this world have? I'm not on about the current theory of the Universe, string mechanics or 'brain dimensions. I'm talking about the state of peoples minds and how we change at different rates in relation to others..... and on occasions chemical imbalances either prescription induced or recreational.

Talking of mad bastards and chemically induced states I'd just like to confirm that at this moment in time I have nothing against Simon. (Simon is a mate from another time (space and interface) that has in the last few weeks become a figment of my reality). In fact, I think he's a bit of a lord. No really, as I sit here soaking up a cocktail of Tramadol and Citalopram with a hint of Miles Hunt's "Note to self" filling the air with it's own "string vibrations" I can only admire Simon's current position within society and contributions made.

So, Simon, stop being a bit of a cock, no-one is taking sides (ok, I might be, or could that be paranoia?).

Come on, get ya finger out (no pun intended) and have some Brother Lee Love. I understand you have difficulty playing the guitar nowadays, although I'd doubt I'd notice any difference, but don't let that encourage me. You could always join in on all the other fine things us middle aged fat and baldy bastards would like to get up to but cant anymore.

After all, some of us will be dead soon.

Love, Light and Happiness (found printed on the arse end of life..... of course)

Massage with Vosene

Back to work:

Hmmm. I have to go back to work on Tuesday. Have To. I don't know anymore if its me or work that find those 8 hours so poisonous..... To be honest I do know. It's those people.
This last week I've found thoughts drifting to future confrontations with what can only be described as the cast from Sesame Street.

The often shouted response to my predicament is "find another job then".... and that's when the 25 years of working class pre-programming by the black suited bean counters bootstraps itself deep within my subconscious and I spew out another excuse not to get off my 3 buttocks and go do it....... procrastination? well, not completely, I have grown a beard and bought some Granola..... I may even end up smoking a pipe and start a leaflet campaign

It used to be a pleasure finding a problem. It meant I could do a better job, improve something, maybe even stop a potential catastrophe.... and always with the satisfaction of someone saying "Nice..... well done".

Now, finding a problem will more often than not result in a large lump in the corporate carpet and see the erection of a hanging jib in the car park and a cry from the ivory tower of "Release the dogs!"

The only way to survive this is to play them at their own game....... but I'm just not interested in this sideways move of priorities. I'm an Engineer not a political smoozer. I really don't need to gather evidence and work to their badly worded, contradicting rules just to prove they are awful people without soul, morals or a purpose other than themselves.

Is that admitting defeat? I guess to them it's a total victory, another thorn removed from their collective flanks.

Oh.... bollocks. Who am I kidding, this kinda stuff is gold to me. If it was all sweetness and light you'd be somewhere else reading other unfortunate blogs and I'd be deep in a world of self importance and smug satisfaction...... Hmmmm, yes, I'd much prefer to be sitting here gobbing off about some pointless shite I have no control over.

Rant over. I can feel my tramadol loosing its effect....... I must return to "Under the hammer" on BBC1....

Name that cover art

Do you think this image was the inspiration behind that Vinyl cover art?

Ardvreck Castle

Come on Goober, name that Single/Mini LP and band...... actually, if you know me then you already know that there's less than a handful of Bands it could be.... ok, perhaps just two then.... and it doesn't look like something shot in Birmingham....

Narrower than an IBM managers imagination.

Arse.

Horden Pit

Two miles south from Easington Colliery in Country Durham is Horden. Just another East Durham pit village. It's still there, in name. Changed beyond recognition... not particularly its layout and environs, but it's people.... and that goes for almost all of the east Durham pit villages.

Sometimes when I think of the people I grew up around, the community and its characters I can hardly believe it's all gone.

"The profit's too small for the black suited boys"

So, I found a documentary on the closure of Horden Pit in the mid 1980's. It gives a fairly good insight into what was lost...... and there was a lot to loose.

It's in 4 parts, the quality isn't too great and will probably only interest the northern contingent of this blog....... Here's the first part, other parts will be links under the video player.

Click here for Part 2

Click here for Part 3

Click here for Part 4

Are your whites as white as mine?

It's not the first time I've heard of this report. Apparently my old home town is the "whitest place in England and Wales"**

That's some claim. There were not a lot of different colours going on from what I remember.... The only black faces seen were from shift changes at the pit and "Love Thy Neighbour" on ITV. Since the early 90's and the closure of the pit that statement no longer applies......... and I'm too scared to watch Love They Neighbour just in case.....

So.... no blacks, no Irish, no Polish, no Asians, no Scottish, no Africans, no Welsh, no French, no Germans, no Inuit...... just us white, working class types..... with a fantastic Chinese Take Away.

Has being ethnically un-diverse made me a racist? Well, probably, but not in the context of your definition of a racist. Just because I can do maths and understand statistics and therefore wont go walking about in Hackney after dark dosent mean I'm racist, it simply means my god (at times) is the law of averages.

The long walk to school

** Just out of interest......... are ginger people counted in with the "whites" or "non whites"?

Demos

There's a bunch of demo's from the studio sessions I helped out on over here.

Below is some images I managed to grab and stuff into a small video. Identities have been emphasised to help locate perpetrators.

10 years and me....

Sitting on ya arse with nothing much to do has always been an incentive for me to become creative. In recent months/years it's been with the still camera, but occasionally, I have been known to fanny about with the camcorder.

Usually this has been around my "brother-from-another-mother" Goober, when he's been either gigging, rehearsing or maybe the odd road trip.

So. I dug out the "Simon Wood shagged this Video" DVD which I compiled in 2003 from a weekend trip to Cambridge in 1998 where we (Goober, Simon, myself and not forgetting Pete Moore) hired a studio for no other reason than to celebrate 10 years since the last time we were actively in a band.

So it's 10 years on. Lots of things have changed. I no longer have to imagine what it must be like to work alongside The Wonder Stuff, nor do I feel the need to ignore Mr Wood..... maybe I need to explain.

Mr Wood and I seldom got on (he's the guitarist.... actually, do any drummers and guitarists get on?), lets just put it down to a personality clash.... He probably had one and I didn't.... or something along those lines. Anyhow, I've not spoken to the fella since August 1998, and I think it's worked out just fine but I'm always open to new experiences and if anyone from "Edd Smash & The Dinosaur Wangs" wanna do a 20th anniversary get together then I guess I'll be up for it....... I even know of a decent rehearsal/studio.

I digress..... I sat down yesterday morning, and played the DVD "Simon Wood Shagged this Video". I was quite surprised how good the "shagged" bits were, even more surprised how funny the The Wonder Stuff piss takes were and just a little impressed with Goobers "Miles Hunt" impressions.

So, here they are, warts and all.

Pete Moore: Rhythm method guitar
Goober: Bass, Vocalist, songwriter and Vehicle delivery operative
Simon Wood: Lead Guitar, antagonist and shagger of videos, accommodation
Dave Dawson: Drums, gobshite, cameraman