Statistical Review 2007

As always, a statistical review of the year:

Cups of Coffee: Approx. 950

Cups of Tea (New Entry): Approx. 30

Number of Fry’s Pepermint Creams Eaten: Approx. 20

Furthest Trip: Oslo

Number of hire cars driven: 4

Websites redesigned: 3

Limbs broken: 2 (both toes)

Bulbs planted: Approx. 50

New cello strings: 14

Phones broken: None – Hurrah!

Number of times lost driving around Paris Peripherique: 1

Trips up Eiffel Tower: 1

So there you have it. The year in review.

I’m a lumberjack

I spend 49 weeks each year hoovering and tidying up the house trying to keep the outside off the carpet and out of the house. So that’s essentially: keeping the outside, outside. But for 3 weeks each year a great, glorious stonker of a tree is welcomed in, complete with soil, dampness and an incredible number of needles.

Yes, we know the water will find a way out of the stand and on to the carpet. Yes, we know a certain number of bugs will crawl out, cross the floor and find their way into the coffee table fruit bowl just in time for guests coming over. And yes, we know it will drop its needles like an amazonian monsoon, with each little green icicle embedding itself so deep into the pile of the carpet that even Harrison Ford’s archeological skills couldn’t see it rising again from the Earth.

But it’s Christmas, isn’t it? And these things must be done in the name of making everything festive.

And so, like so many people, we left the airport car park Row 6F, in search of the finest Christmas tree in all the land.

Mistake number 1 may well have been to not think about where we were going to display mother nature’s creation within our Ikea space-saving house. Although my brain may well have been thinking ‘4 feet’, what came from my mouth in all it’s Victorian splendour was, ‘One of you finest 6 feet Christmas Trees my good man, and don’t dilly dally’. And despite half of its greenery being deposited firmly in the pile of the car’s carpets, there we were 20 minutes later trying to force something the size of the Titanic through our rather more humbly-sized door. And then the wrapping which was making it narrower came off.

Once the shower of tiny green eye-poppers had found their way with Frodo deep in the middle-Earth of the biscuit carpet, it was time for the pruning. Branches were passed into the garden, and the tree was given a hair cut worthy of a Toni or Guy, maybe even a Rocko. I was Alan Titchmarsh and Percy Thrower combined. So now we had something only 4 feet across. Splendid.

I disappeared to make a slight thinning of the trunk to allow the tree to drink and stay healthy and, after a few seconds of manly wood-working noises, promptly returned with a towel over my thumb. A towel to stem bleeding which could only ever have come from a chisel to a manly digit.

Still, it’s Christmas. And after only minor perferations to the skin, and rather more substantial perforation to the thumb. Some ruined car upholstery, some even more ruined biscuit carpet, and a serious dent to the pride. There stood before our resplendent tree. Armed with only a few bits of tinsel, some dangling balls and fairy lights there was one more conquering of the elements by man. Maybe to everyone else it was no conquering of Everest, but to us Nature had been tamed and placed within our living room to show everyone our great triumph.

A real Christmas tree.

In our winter city, the rain cries a little pity

Let me take you by the hand, and lead you through the streets of London Bristol.

Read any newspaper and you’d be forgiven for thinking that cities are disastrously horrible places. Where every street has a chalk outline from last week’s murder gently washing away in the acid-drizzle, and a 24 hour news channel crew at the other doing a piece to camera on ‘yoof’ crime.

Don’t even think about taking the alleyway shortcut. Down there lurk the baddies deemed too bad for the director’s cut of Robocop, selling guns to toddler groups, crack to golf club members, and time shares in the Costa del Sol.

The streets are apparently awash with binge drinkers leaving noisy dens in inequity at 3pm, and the you can’t cross the road uninsured drivers driving 90. On the pavement.

The sound of the city isn’t industry anymore. It’s the sound of everyone’s attack alarm going off in their handbag.

The thing is, today it was all rather continental. On a brief walk I heard at least six different languages, and despite what the Daily Mail say, I don’t think any of them were illegal immigrants. The real highlight were the crowds gathering around two guys who had set up the wares from a suitcase. Not knock-off dvds, but speed chess. They were playing 3-minute games of speed chess, and asking watchers to donate towards prostate cancer care on behalf of their friends.

So maybe Ralph McTell had it right. The streets do have people reading yesterday’s news, but the closed-down markets are uber-trendy apartments and the seamen’s missions are long gone. But it’s the grime that the tourists want to take pictures of. It’s what they expect to see.

And some of them unknowingly got a bit extra for free today. A groups of about a dozen were taking pictures on their cannons, snapshots of a backstreet greasy spoon. Steamed up windows, plastic ketchup dispensers on the tables in the shape of little tomatoes, and neon card in the windows highlighting today’s specials. A street cleaner sweeping around the sign advertising ‘Drury’s coffee’.

Oh, and a genuine ‘Dury’ walking up the alley beside it.

Thrilling in the name of…

So, December 1st. A day when everyone opened that little window marked ‘1’ and gorged themselves on the first of 25 little slabs of choco-treats that will mark, every morning for the next 25 days, the celebration of the birth of arguably the greatest human ever to walk the Earth – the son of God. Mine’s a Doctor Who one with Darleks and everything.

It was also the quarter-century of quite possibly one of the most monumental albums of all time, Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Sure, like the other fellow I’ve mentioned in this post he’s had his ups and downs, his monumental fame and subsequent fall from grace, but you have to admit it was pretty groundbreaking.

Arguably the first black pop-culture icon to be recognised around the world, every track Jackson penned was a winner, and any album which manages to feature both Vincent Price, Paul McCartney and Van Halen must be worth a mention. Oh, and it was produced by Hollywood’s Mr Golden Touch, Quincy Jones. Jackson’s management claim 105m units shifted, but even Billboard’s more conservative estimate of 65m makes it the biggest selling album of all time.

It didn’t get a Christmas Number One in the UK though. Jackson had to wait until the ’95 to reach that accolade with the Javis Cocker flatulence-inducing Earth Song for that one.

The thing is, to get a Christmas Number 1 you don’t actually need to be ground-breaking. Or talented. Or creative. You just have to follow a simple recipe.

Rolf Harris – 2 Little Boys. Scaffold – Lilly the Pink. Benny Hill – Ernie. Novelty records are a definite hit, and fair enough, you have to create a character and market it. I have no problem with that. There’s work involved, but like any good meal there has to be a cheese foundation.

But then it goes down hill. Wings – Mull of Kintyre (which my middle school orchestra played weekly like it’s own adopted national anthem). Tom Jones – The Green Green Grass of Home. Renee and Renato – Save Your Love. Take one glass of mulled wine, add a dash of sentimentality, and sprinkle liberally with some national stereo-typing, whilst saluting the national flag of the music industry cash-cow.

Then there’s those for whom actually penning a hit is too much like work. Much better to pick a tried and proven thoroughbred. Gary Jules – Madworld. Robbie Williams – Something Stupid. Westlife – I have a dream. Shitney Houston (genuine typo, honest) – I will always love you. Take an old hit now maturing and wipe of the dust of dewy-eyed sentimentality, and give it a modern twist, and preferably a central key-change modulation. Behind every chef there’s a skilled butcher, carefully carving away the fat and gristle, leaving you with something succulent and substantial.

However, the ultimate sin has to be Sir Cliff. Not content with 50 years of royalty, and Christmas Number 1’s in the 60’s, 80’s and 90’s, he went for it with the Millenium Prayer. Not a sentimental rehash nor a cover in site. Here we have lyrics borrowed from the aforementioned JC, crowbarred into Scotland’s most famous sentimental ditty Auld Lang Syne (which, incidentally, only scholar’s specialising in such works wearing smoking jackets actually know the words to). Sir Cliff manages to take every other category and put it together into a fine stew of all of the above ingredients. And failed.

If we’re all honest for a minute, not in the sense of owning up to Labour Party donations or anything, but just quietly admitting, amongst friends, there have only really been two great Christmas Number 1’s. And one of those has one of the best lines in pop history, “Does yer granny always tell you, that the old songs are the best. Then she’s up and rock ‘n rolling with the rest”. Not in the case of Christmas Number 1’s though, eh, granny?

So there you have it. Christmas Number 1’s.

Oh, and in case your wondering, the best one was my birth year. No mention of Christmas, mistletoe or wine, santa, stockings, or worbling Italians or pink incarnations of Sir Noel of Edmunds. Pink Floyd’s The Wall – possibly the greatest Christmas song ever.

Sneaking up on you

It’s funny how things sneak up on you.

After a small haitus whilst sorting out a major reworking of my ‘official’ site – turning it into something more professional, hopefully – I’m back.

But as is often the case with these things, life has a canny way of sneaking up on your from behind and tickling you with it’s long tenticals of funny coincidences. So here I am slaving away trying to generate more freelance work. I’ve got nic, friendly pictures and everything, and a nice clean website design worthy of one of those trendy Kensington clothes shops I always marvel at when stuck in traffic where you have to ring a bell in order to be ‘allowed’ in to browse, and Flickr harbours a nice surprise.

The Schmap!! Travel Guide have shortlisted one of my pictures for inclusion in their guide to Roath in Cardiff.

So there you have it – I may get to pay back Roath Park for all those sunset-lit walks around the lake.

Normal, cynical posts will resume asap.

Driving Home For October

So here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody’s having fun.

Seriously people, can we not have a gentlemen’s agreement about when Christmas officially begins. I mean, I know the great people at ConglomoMart will have us believe that everyone starts their Christmas shopping in October and that we really, really, need to know about their latest whizz-bang-fantasto toy on October 1st, but honestly people!

So let’s sort this out once and for all.

Here are things we don’t need before December:

• Red cups in Starbucks and special White Chocolate (for which read, tenuous snow-related) Mochas
• Kerry Catona trying to tempt us into buying our Turkey’s from a certain supermarket in September because everyone elses Mum has gone there already
• Any songs by Slade. Full Stop.
• Snow flakes in Shop window displays – it now snows more in February here than it ever has at Christmas
• Santa – he has been taking Christmas orders via his Elfen representatives at our local shopping centre since early November. If this is truly beneficial in lightening the Elves’ workload then sure they should start collating wishlists in July?!?

Now I can hear you all calling me a scrooge and miserable so-and-so, but I have to admit to feeling Christmassy. Yes, me. Christmassy. Right now. I’ve been admiring the newly decorated trees in the High Street, and wrapping-up warm in my Christmassy scarf. And enjoying the cold. It’s good.

But can I draw your attention to the date at the top of this post? November the 25th. There’s the gentlemen’s agreement. I’m happy to act as the Christmas Groundhog – but I can tell you know, Christmas will always officially begin one month before the big day.

No, bar code

“I’m sorry, I can’t do anything. You see it doesn’t have a barcode…”, the shop assistant says as her machine beeps with metronomic regularity as she continues to try to scan a satsuma which, as I believe she has already noted, does not have a barcode.

“They’re satsumas. They’re £2.99 a bag”, I offer helpfully. I had thought they were expensive (that works out at about 80p per little orange ball of juiciness), and now that they’re holding me and an entire queue of people up in a shop I really want to name (but won’t for reasons which will become apparent), I’m beginning to think they’re even more costly.

“Yes, I know. But without a barcode, there’s nothing I can do”, she replies whilst looking all around her like a helpless puppy having it’s posterior sniffed by a much larger dog. “You see, without a barcode, you can’t buy it”, she says. I want to explain that the courgettes went okay in their usual green outfit, rather than being stripey black and white. The bread too now I come to think of it.

Then she hits on a great idea and sets her green light to flashing red. Now we’re gonna see some action. Super assistant runs over looking so efficient she has been given her a headset to make her look as if she might actually have appeared in The Matrix films.

“Satsumas”, she says to the assistant wearily. “I know,” says the assistant, “but I’ve explained to him I can’t do anything without a barcode”. I’m willing to let it go that she’s just referred to me as ‘him’, but my mind really just wants an explaination of why she can’t do anything. Surely this kind of thing is in the training, just after the seminar on saying ‘Do you need any help with your packing’ to people who have only bought a dairy milk bar.

Eventually the problem is sorted. Feeling that someone should apologise for the delay, I chose to fill the ensuing silence with a sympathetic look to the queue, whilst remaining an air of confidence with only a dash of guilt and a splash of embrassment.

“It’s okay,”, says the lady behind me, “it gave me time to tell that assistant over there all the baguettes on the shelves are mouldy even though they’re still in date”.

Every little helps I suppose.

Overfamiliarity

There is such a thing as being over familiar with someone. For example, the ladies in the supermarket queue in front of you comparing the relative merits of their monthly cycles. Or the lady in the bank who insists on telling the cashier about all 15 of her nieces and nephews, despite the bank seeming to have laid-off all but one employee, who is now left manning every branch of said bank on their own.

Then there is the local curry house recognising you from not only your order, but from your voice on the phone.

Chicken saag, chicken tikka masala (a speciality of the house, no less), egg fried rice, boiled rice and 4 onion bhajis in case you’re wondering.

Despite there only being 5,000 residents of my chosen locale, there are 8 pubs and 3 curry houses. And I only frequent one of each. My choice of pub is easily explained by its Suffolk-brew Greene King on tap and the fact that its gentleman’s convenience not only is called ‘gentleman’s louvre’ and is adorned with oil paintings in every available crevice, it also has a sideboard in it.

My choice of curry house is less obvious. At first I thought it was the large-print picture of Princess Anne greeting the owner that sits proudly over the fireplace. Then I thought it was the way it is a hive of activity with waiters running everywhere even when it only has 2 people dining. Then I started to dig deeper. I think really, if I were to really put my finger on it, it would be the fact it is in a very old building which before becoming a curry house was ye olde town inn. Better still, before that it was an apothecary which later served as home and office of Dr Edward Jenner (he of vaccinations fame). He cured cowpox in that very building, and I like seeing the cows on the common. There’s a tenous connection there. Honest.

So there you have it. I get my curry from an apothecary, and it weaves its spell on me.

Maybe we’ll exchange Christmas cards this year. Maybe we’ll talk about the old days in 10 years time, leaning over the bar, standing on the same paisley carpet.

Maybe there isn’t such a thing as over familiarity after all.  Or am I just convincing myself to buy more curry?

Write hear, right now

Terry Wogan, Woman’s Hour, The Today Programme, Panama hats, peppermint Viscount biscuits, home-grown runner beans,fishing gnomes and bobble hats. All the preserve of old people. Well, except the bobble hat – Badly Drawn Boy used to wear one of those, I think. And Bennie from Crossroads.

I’m just practicing because today I finally became a fully paid-up, monthly subscription member of ‘the old’.

So I’m in the den of Sir Richard of Branson browsing the cd’s. That in itself is not a characteristic of having ‘the old’. Not even my perusal of Johnny Cash or Led Zep.

Then in the queue it happened. I found myself standing in the queue beside a woman who I thought really ought to either be a) wearing more clothes, or b) made aware that in modern society we do actually expect people to wear some clothing. Tick box 1 of list confirming ‘the old’. Then I became aware that everyone in the queue must be filming some kind of tv programme for CBeebies, such was the dazzling array of complementing and clashing colours they were wearing. Seriously, it was like Teletubbies with the colour turned to ‘extra dazzle’. That was box 2 ticked.

Then the ultimate confirmation. I presented my chosen records to the cashier, who looked like she’s barely started school. A little aware of the fact that I was probably the only person in the house of Sir Richard at this precise moment who’d selected Elgar and Walton string quartets. In fact, I was probably the only one in any of Sir Richard’s houses across the land who knew who Elgar or Walton were. Possibly even what a string quartet was.

Shop-girl murmered something to me whilst staring at her feet, and I replied ‘I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Sorry, the music’s terribly loud’. And that was it. Prince sang at full volume about 23 positions in a one-night stand as the soundtrack to my youth being swallowed into the earth beneath me, a brief but meaningful scene in the movie of my life. I had contracted all the symptoms of ‘the old’.

I was hoping Tarantino would be the director. I’m sure every male does. With my character being faultlessly read by Samuel L Jackson. I’d settle for Ken Loach’s grittiness at a push. As director, not actor, obv. But it appears Victoria Wood is getting her name embossed on a canvas director’s chair and is looking to start lining up work. And I think she’s got her hands on the opening drafts of the script of my life.

Iceland goes pop

Icelandic pop