Ark, where art thou?

Or, ‘why Noah built an Ark rather than buying a citroen hatchback’.

Despite the best efforts of scientists and former US presidents to convince us that the world is heating up and becoming a desert metropolis, it’s been very wet and windy across the UK over the last few days. When we lived in a city, it meant we would watch the local news and see images of flooded fields and fallen trees and wonder what all the fuss was about. Now that we live in the countryside, it’s our local fields and roads that are on the news.

Heading to work on Wednesday, I suddenly forgot who I was, and came over all gung-ho explorer-man. Merrily pootling my way to work on my country roads, avoiding branches and wheelie bins which had suddenly decided to commit suicide by laying down in the road, I was met with a flood. Not some puddle. Technically, I suppose, you could have called my road a river. Its usual single-tracked black asphalt nature had gone all muddy brown and flowing. Drainage ditches on either side had over-flowed, and covered the road in about 6 inches of brown water.

One car at the front of the queue turned around but, and I ‘m not sure I’ll ever know exactly why, I decided to plough on. Or ‘boat on’ more precisely. “Harsh revs and dip the clutch” I remember the driving manual telling me 10 years ago. And I made it. “Hurrah”, I thought, “I have beaten the elements, and now on to my first base camp of the day where I will put up a tent and cook beans”.

Then I saw the next one. Longer, a little deeper, faster flowing. All was well until a truck coming the other way creating a bow wave that pushed water over the bonnet of the car in front. But somehow I made it. I made it to find the road was closed further upstream. A 4×4 jeep gave up and turned around saying it was too bad – my expedition was over. I had to go back. Past the BMW driver who I smugly boated by, as he stepped out into water above his Armani-clad ankles. Steam and smoke billowed out of my little green canal boat. We were moving at a pleasant couple of knots when the clutch gave way under the effect of the muddy water. We were chugging, kangaroo hopping, but so nearly there. Until the dapper chap in the car in front stopped to talk to motorists coming the other way, leaving me still in the water. LEAVING ME STILL IN THE WATER! The clutch gave up, and technically, for a few seconds, I was sailing. Drifting in the flood water which I swear had a current to it.

But I made it. Home and dry. And after a few miles the car started behaving less boaty and more car-like again. And the only negative results seem to be the cost of going through a car-wash, and 10 minutes spent clambering under my car, in the rain, replacing the air-filter which had been slightly submerged in the sailing activities.

All the fun of the country. I definitely think Noah was right – you definitely need a boat, not a little green citroen, if you’re going out and about during flood conditions though.

BBC’s 3 & 4 do irony

Irony. And not in an Alanis Morrissette kind of way.

It’s Tuesday the 9th of January and showing on BBC4 we have “Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe’ in which we take passing swipe at how bad US TV is, and on BBC3 we have ‘The Baby Borrowers’, in which teens borrow babies.

Brooker’s show is giving examples of US soaps with casts including mermaids and the Pope, and showing the ridiculousness of supposed dramas like ‘Sleeper Cell’. One TV exec. explained his theory that you could start a new channel showing excrement in a bowl. It’d have to be steaming so that there was a sense of movement that would catch the viewer’s eye, and some new-age music in the background. His theory goes that viewers would turn over after a few minutes, but the next day would come back. A little more intrigued each day, the amount of time they’d spend watching would gradually increase, and eventually you could show a telephone number where people could phone for a buck a time and guess whose celebrity pooh it was. Marvelous. He believed in it. The sad thing is, I think it would work. The even sadder thing is, I think I’d probably flick it on every now and again.

I kid you not, I then turn over to BBC3’s ‘Baby Borrowers’ and within minutes I am comfronted with a screen showing close-ups of baby excrement in its multi-coloured glory. The show’s pretence is that it’s a social experiment and an attempt to succeed where the government, schools and the churches have failed to reduce teen pregnancy. To me, it’s an appalling excuse to laugh at how useless a group of teens, pre-selected for their complete lack of competence in managing their lives, are at looking after someone else’s baby. SOMEONE ELSE’S BABY. Will people watch anything? I’m beginning to lose faith that people are watching this knowing that the teens were selected to make ‘good’ tv, and that someone has selected what highlights of the 4 week experiment to show in order to make ‘good’ tv. Remember people, this social engineering is only possible because of the unique way the BBC is funded…

I’m beginning to think the ‘steaming pooh’ channel may be one of the better options available. I’d pay for it as part of a cable package…

Robinwatch II

It’s not the greatest day today. It’s grey, it’s drizzling and cycling across the common was more like trekking to the pole unaided. But still the garden is full of its own little social system. Here’s the view out of the window:

There’s a certain smugness to being human. When it rains you have the option of being dry, whether that is by going inside a building, opening an umbrella, or putting up your hood. You then get to watch all the animals outside doing there thing. Cats sulk, dogs run around excitedly, birds are mostly grounded. It seems our Robin also has a certain amount of smugness – he has his own house:

Despite his attempts to patrol the garden, fiercely defending his territory, he’s not the only inhabitant in our garden. A family of blackbirds has moved in, so all is going swell in our fine little habitat.

Pulling my red sox up

I’ve always loved America. I know that may not be a cool thing to say in Britain right now, but I admit it, I’ve always loved America. You know those people you get on daytime TV saying, ‘I’m a woman/man trapped in a man/woman’s body’, well I’m like an American trapped in a British person’s body.

Actually, I take that back, there are many facets that make me quintessentially British. I’m practical – I like planning and organising before setting about the problem. I love complaining, but never to the person who’s causing my discomfort – I’ll never return food in a restaurant, but I’ll warn my friends off of ever going there. I have a stiff-upper lip, a pale complection, less than perfect teeth, prefer cycling on the road to being in the gym, tinker with my car and like old-fashioned things. I like travelling the world, and am happy to be self-depricating about my country. There you have it. I’m definitely British.

Yet there’s always been that US streak. I like their music, from Grohl to Geffen. I love the Romantic hero in James Dean. I love the little towns of Middle-America that all end in ‘-ton’, with wooden shops selling donuts and coffee by the pint. I love the large cars that run forever, where you can climb over the seats into the back and end up in a neigbouring town. I like the American Dream – what’s the British Dream?

With that in mind, and in line with my more outdoorsey lifestyle this year, I’m going to be more pro-active in following my American sports. When we had SkyTV I could spend afternoons secretly watching NBL reruns on the sports channels. I liked Basketball and got into it at school, and have always been a casual observer. I like watching NFL games (a hang-up from playing John Maddon’s American Football on the old Commodore Amiga), but being British I should really follow Rubgy which shares its birthplace with my Dad.

So it’s baseball for me. I’ve signed up for my account on MLB’s website. I’ve always been intrigued by Seattle’s sports teams, hometown of the music of my youth, but when I travelled there I have to admit I was taken by the Puget sound and Vashon Island even more greatly. So it’s the Boston Redsox for me, and I’ll be keeping tabs on them this season.

Am I selling out not following British sports? I doubt it. Will it make me more American? Probably not, but it’ll probably lead to me spending more time dreaming about going there…

Only in America – The ‘Aroma Tire’

America. Land of the free. Home of the brave. Purchaser of a car tyre which smells of dasies. Well, not daisies actually, but Lavender, Orange or Jasmine. A press release slipped out just before Christmas announcing that a new, revolutionary car tyre was being rolled-out in the US. The company admits that it’s aiming the product at women, with heat-resistant oils replacing the usual burnt rubber smell of normal tyres.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not unduly distracted by the sense of burning rubber when I step out of my car. I’m certainly not troubled by it in my car – that accolade normally goes to the stench of the blown piston-ring of the white ford escort van in front burning half a litre of oil as bluey white sheep-like clouds form out of its exhaust pipe as it chugs down a country lane smelling of silage and muck-spreading. Still, different strokes for different folks…

Scented tyres

Let it Snow, Let it Snow

I was going to write something witty. It was well thought out, coherent, and funny. Honest. Then I got distracted. Not by ticking clocks, unannounced visitors or sore toes, but by Skyscanner.net. I look at British Airways every now and again to plan trips away, and generally fantasise about trips to foreign climes.
I will go to Times Square again some day soon. I promised myself that before I went down into the sweltering 42nd Street Station one September and it was gone, but for now I’m looking at Europe. As I stood above Europe’s largest glacier from my vantage point at Skaftafell in Iceland this year I promised myself I’d go back there too. I promised myself to put aside more time, more money, to get fitter and go back being more ‘outdoorsy’. So far that’s manifested itself in buying loads of fleeces, but I guess that’s why I’ve set myself the target of riding my bike each day too.

The trouble is the putting aside the money and the time, but perhaps most importantly my itchy feet. No, not some terrible Athlete’s complaint, but here’s what happens: You go on any travel website, be it hotels carhire or flights, and you get that delicious drop-down menu. It makes you salivate at it sweet, sugar-coated wares. You tell yourself you’ll just have one, but you’re tempted like some evil devil-bribery to explore the other options. To taste all the fruit on offer. The next thing you know, you’re considering Norway. In March. Believe me, it’s cold in March (minus 3c). But it would be somewhere new, and for some reason I have this desire to see everywhere, all at once. Well, certainly everywhere cold for the time being. Perhaps it’s because I want to see it before the doom-mongering scientists are proved right and everywhere starts to resemble Egypt on a hot Tuesday, but probably just because I’m a cold-dweller. That is to say, I like the cold. I hate the hot months – they’re associated with the bad stuff like Hayfever, Asthma, sore contact lenses and having to bare my legs to the world. Much more for me the necessity of a good water-proof coat, mittens and boots in front of a roaring fire.

So here I am planning my (ahem) Summer Holiday. Somewhere cold, damp(ish), possibly necessitating a four-wheel drive hire car (which doesn’t damage daisies or pleasant green boggy fields too much). Norway, Iceland, Finland, the world is my oyster. Well, a snow oyster at any rate…

The Ticking of the Tell-Tale Heart

Or: A Swedish household goods shop’s homage to Edgar Allan Poe.

I’m a traditional kind of guy. Some might go so far as to call it old-fashioned. The kind of person who’s not quite a CAMRA member but hankers after some Dylan to listen to every now and again. I like cosy pubs with dark wooden tables, real fires and men who sit side-by-side with their dogs rather than Weatherspoons (although I’m sure an old-man theme-pub is probably on the cards any day now). I don’t have a digital radio and still enjoy the crackle of vinyl records.

This means I also like the idea of a traditional alarm clock. I don’t wear a watch, and I haven’t done for at least 11 years. I find the idea of strapping a battery-powered gizmo to my arm so that I can constantly see the man-made division of days, and that I’m constantly late, unappealing. Instead I have a pocket watch. A mechanical, wind-up, pocket watch, so that I have to make an effort to find out what the time is. In a similar way, I like the idea of a traditional alarm clock.

I finally caved in the other day, and I know have a traditional alarm clock. One with a hammer and two bells. One where you have to wind it up. And wind up the bell. And set the regulator to make sure it doesn’t run too fast or too slow. I’m sure most people would find that stupid – a battery can take all of those tasks away – but like tinkering with my bicycle, it’s that hands-on quality that makes it satisying.

The traditional alarm clock I now have has a draw-back though. It’s from Ikea, and cost me the satisyingly old-fashioned price of £3.59, or something like that. It’s black and has two little bells, and looks a bit like this:

It’s also got one problem – it’s sooo amazingly loud! There is absolutely no chance of me oversleeping with this one – it stops you from ever getting to sleep in the first place! I actually fell-apart with a fit of the giggles the first night. Who made this thing? Certainly someone who either works in a very loud workplace, or who has some severe hearing impairment. Tick I tick want tick to tick go tick to tick sleep. It ticks four times per second. FOUR TIMES PER SECOND.

This is how I can see the next few nights going. At first I will try to persevere, and try not to notice its problem. I’ll avoid making eye contact. But eventually I will crack. Eventually I will crack. I’ve fantasised about what I’ll do. I’ll smother it with the pillow until its ticking is gone. Then I’ll smash it into a thousand pieces and bury it under the floorboards. And because I’m too proud to admit in this case the traditional is not as good as the little battery-powered clock I’d been using before, I’ll have to bury it to hide it. But it will continue ticking. Maybe the lovely Sarah and visitors to the house won’t hear it. But how can they not hear it when it’s so loud? It will continue to tick forever, forever haunting me. I will never be free… tick… tick… tick.. tick…

** My apologies to Edgar Allan for this post.

Goodbye little Chef

So the Little Chef has gone. Once the oasis in a newish motorway network completely devoid of anything. With it’s highly priced food, and the way it always puzzled me that it was a restaurant which tried to entice you into buying chocolate bars and boiled sweets at the little stand at which you had to pay. All the finest restaurants do it you know, in a sort of ‘if you didn’t like our food, why not try this junk?’ sort of way. Always full of businessmen in pale grey suits with paler grey strips. Where a slice of toast used to cost more than a week in Brighton. Still, it always used to be a treat on family trips to visit relatives in Rugby – Beans on toast with margarine on the toast…

Robinwatch

Time for a pictorial update on our fine feathered friends that keep inhabiting our garden.

The problem with modern rock

Over the New Year Period I found myself watching the Isle of Wight Festival Highlights on E4. Maybe I’m getting old, but they just don’t make bands like they used to. Okay, so there were the Foo Fighters (Grohl continuing to be a’face for hire’ on our screens), and Primal Scream’s Frontman Bobby Gillespie certainly has form from his Jesus and Mary Chain days, there was Lou Reed and Procul Harum, but otherwise it was all off-the-peg pop.

The Festival still holds the World Record for the largest festival from 1970, where 600,000 attended. In 1970 you had The Who performing Tommy in its entirity, Free, Hendrix, Hawkwind, Miles Davis (!), Kris Kristofferson, Ralph McTell, Pentangle, Dylan, The Doors, Joni Mitchell, Emerson Lake & Palmer and The Moody Blues. Today you get Richard Ashcroft and Chris Martin.

Chris Martin pretty much embodies what’s wrong with modern music for me. It was classical composer Richard Wagner who both embodied and championed the ‘Romantic Hero’ – an artist must struggle for recognition. With Dylan, the Stones and any number of 70’s icons you know they’ve worked and struggled. Some are self-induced, drug and drink addictions for example, but you know they’ve done a real job at some point in their lives, and worked hard to move beyond it, mixed in with a bit of luck. Somehow, just somehow, I can’t help thinking Martin, with his Sherborne Schooling complimented by his First in Ancient World Studies from UCL, didn’t have to endure that. While we may smile warmly that after everything in his life it was a coconut tree that nearly finished Keith Richards off, it’s hard to feel anything for Martin, whose stage-routine is more like a Yoga video and whose accolades include being voted one of the ‘sexiest vegitarians’ by PETA.

So that’s it then, the rockstar is finished. It appears The Buggles were wrong, it wasn’t video that killed the radio star, it was redbrick university educations that killed the rockstar to some extent. Sure we’ve got Pete Doherty, but in the 70’s stars managed to work whilst in that state rather than looking like a startled puppy. Even music industry figures are watered down – Louis Walsh is just a mild-mannered Sir Jimmy Savile, except whereas Savile brought us The Stones and Manfred Mann, Walsh has unleashed Girls Aloud and Westlife. Whilst I’m sure Martin will continue to wow women ‘rock-pop’ fans and men in closets, where’s the working-class underdog?