bruises on my hands from digging my nails out

hello there


and so the dark, murky, strange and indeed questionable world of "facebook news feeds", look you see. this is something which is forever in the news. quite understandable, really - complaints shall always come, for there is always someone who will disagree with what information they are being given.

sadly the phenomenon of "fake news" has been ludicrously misunderstood by the masses. for some reason it has become quite trendy to dismiss any news that displeases you, or that you disagree with, as "fake news". that is not how it works. just because you don't like something does not make it a falsehood. but yeah, it is easier to dismiss it under that premise, isn't it?

of more interest to me is how, exactly, facebook elect to show the news they do. observe the above, a rare glimpse of my profile. note the "trending" section. yes, that's right - all American stories, and virtually all of domestic American in content. which is to say of no relevance whatsoever to me and my life in England.

there is a bizarre and worrying trend here in England to give prominence to domestic American news and current affairs. not so long ago the BBC gave a significant percentage of a 3 minute news radio bulletin to news of a riot in some prison there, somewhere, commenting that it was "the worst riot" in however many years. erm, yeah, so? what's that got to do with me? why would i, within Yorkshire, have any interest in this?

sure, there is some international interest in whoever our friends in America elect, say, President, but not all that much. their entire system is set up, or if you will rigged, to maintain a very steady status quo.

no idea why that "facebook" thing is trying to influence me to be interested in these particular "trending" news stories. other than giving me something to post here, however, safe to say they have failed.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

some books

hello reader


now then, here we are again, look you see. having read another two novels - not just one and not three - i for some reason feel compelled to share my thoughts, views or if you will reaction to them. it's taken a bit longer than i had anticipated to read them, but that does not particularly matter to you. such are the dynamics of an internet, you could read several years worth of book reviews what i have done all in a day, so as and when i do them is of no consequence.

my instinct tells me that what i have to say of these books, too, shall be of no consequence. but, your call on that if you read on, perhaps in a not entirely unusual set of circumstances i am wrong and this is of some use to someone out there somewhere.

so, as as become standard, a look at the two, followed by some quickfire, no spoiler comments for those keen to avoid spoilers or are simply in some sort of rush.

to commence where i did, and as they are pictured, A Game Of Ghosts is, i believe book 15 or so in the Charlie Parker series by John Connolly. it is superb, except for one obscenity that will have many readers reaching to burn their copy somewhere around 150 pages in. meanwhile The Bad Mother by Amanda Brooke is a novel that i am not sure i was ever the target market for. i dragged my heels reading it somewhat, and should perhaps have stopped before finishing it. but that does not make it bad.

righty-ho, one of them *** POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD *** warnings is quite in place, just in case. also, links to where one may buy or if you like purchase either or both of these novels are given purely for the convenience of worldwide shipping, going on how internationalist my readership is. such links are not any sort of affiliation or endorsement - this blog is ad free, and i make not a single solitary penny from it. but it does make me feel good, or at least momentarily less alone in the world, whenever someone stops by and reads something here.

ok, then, readers. off we go with A Game Of Ghosts.  considering how good - great - the last couple of Charlie Parker thrillers have been, i was really delighted when this one turned up in paperback.

provenance of my copy? for some reason many of you consider this aspect more important than anything. well, anyway, part of a 2 for £7 deal off of Tesco. with this i purchased Don't Let Go by Michel Bussi, what i have not read yet. but will.

what of the plot? well, Charlie Parker is doing his detective or if you like investigator thing. in this instance, his contact at the FBI or CIA or whichever it is sets him on the trail of a missing Private Investigator. the reasons for wanting him found are unknown, or at least never shared with Parker. as the hunt begins in earnest, it soon becomes quite clear that the person missing has a most peculiar, completely obsessive and suspicious interest in the subjects of ghosts in general, one infamous moment in American history (as depicted in this novel, at least) in particular.

on top of that, the Charlie Parker series goes far, far, far more human drama / soap opera than it ever has done before, so be warned. Charlie's personal life is a mess, his chums the lovable killers Angel and Louis are also facing something of a personal crisis.

other than to say this is almost all exceptionally brilliant, my concern that this review of sorts is of no use is down to it being (at least) book or story 15 in a series. like, if you've not read some, most or all of the previous 14 (or whatever) then this is not an ideal place to start.

the obscenity? somewhere around page 150, i think, John Connolly writes that making tea by (and this makes me physically ill to write) putting the milk in first is somehow the English way of doing it. no, John Connolly, no it is not. it most bl00dy f*****ng well decidedly is not, sir. i know, appreciate, respect and understand that you are Irish, and as such there is a natural affinity for the Irish to not like the English at all; with reasons for that being several and in some decidedly distinct instances with good reason. but there is no reason to go and write something as inflammatory as that.

maybe someone claiming to be English made tea this horrendous, disgusting sounding way. perhaps not for John Connolly, but for someone Irish, many years ago. the legend of that might have spread, and that could be one of the biggest reasons why the Irish have had such an issue with the English. if so, that does not excuse Mr Connolly pouring petrol on the flames here, and i bet it was a bl0ody Frenchie what made it that way. when you think, that does sound like the kind of nonsense they would get up to.

the echo of a whisper of the magnificent Doctor Sleep by Stephen King came to mind more than once whilst i was reading this. not a copy, and not really all that similar in style or story, but still - a feeling, if you like. this was something i felt worth mentioning, should it resonate with any fellow fans of that fine novel. a novel which, if i remember it all, does not insult the entire population of England with obscenities about how they make tea.

so, anyway, The Bad Mother, or more correctly the bad mother i suppose, for the title is all styled in lower case. by Amanda Brooke, who i had not heard of, but clearly has had a reasonably long and successful career as a writer.

indeed, it was the lower case nature of the title what drew me in, as well, provenance fans, as the £2 or £3 "book of the week" price what Tesco had on it. many people totally knack me for mostly writing here in lower case. sorry, i just love it. why? perhaps because of how titles in lower case looked on things like the first Tin Machine album, or the poster for the silence of the lambs. who knows, perhaps no one cares, but i like it.

the plot? tricky one, really, as the back of the novel, as seen in the last picture below, gives next to no details away. with this in mind i am quite reluctant to say too much, but also understand that there is little i can say of the novel without doing so. a little bit stuck, then, i find myself. how about if, for some reason, you are reading this and want to be relatively spoiler free, you just skip over the next paragraph, and then that will be great, yeah?

phew. ok. Lucy and her husband, Adam, are expecting their first child. this is after a couple of years of what appears to be happy married life, should you care to overlook the patent oxymoron, and much to the delight of the relevant mother-in-laws. all would seem to be going well, except that Lucy, as pregnancy goes on, appears to be getting more forgetful and careless. is it an indication of her being ill-prepared or ill-suited to being a mother, or would there be a more sinister reason? not helping, for it never does, is all sorts of family resentments and family secrets coming to the fore....

my feeling after a few chapters was "i, a chap well into his 40s, is not the intended reader of this". but, i cracked on. yes, i know the advice is if you are not enjoying a book ditch it, but i just can't. i always want to know the end, hope it might get better, and, well, flat respect that someone has done and incredible thing and written a novel that's considered good for publication. believe me, i know how hard it is to achieve that.

whereas there was much of the story and narrative i appreciated, the characters were a little too one dimensional for me, in terms of the story entire. at times it is rather too much Peter Robinson, as in everything just all gets wrapped up nice and neatly in the last 5 or 6 pages as per, with apologies to John Connolly above, the English way of doing things.

just who do i think the target market is? i am not sure one can speak this way in the modern world without being arrested for sexism or similar, but perhaps one could suggest more of a female, of the lady, variety of reader may get more from the book than what i did. although i am keen to say it was not bad, just perhaps not meant for my eyes.

right, well, not much for me to add. except, for those interested, the amount of time i dragged reading the bad mother out over may well mean it is only by July, should i still be a going concern, that i may have read another two books and commented here. although you never know. perhaps i shall fly through the next two, we will see. or i will, and you, if you so wish, can read of such here. as and when it happens.

my thanks, as ever, to you for taking the time to read this. or, indeed, for just having a gander at the pictures and that.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

can you fix a tumble dryer for south of seven quid?

heya

for those of you in a rush, the answer is yes, indeed, if you can get the part or parts required for lower that £7, and - let me make this clear, and - you have the requisite skills to do the work.

should it be the case, look you see, that one of the two points above are lacking, then the answer, alas, is no.

just which category do i fit in to, from the above? as in, i mean, the "yes" or "no" answer? well, perhaps it would be kind to say that i was in a third category, which is to say "i tried". but as that attempt did not end in that which some would consider victory, i suppose i had better settle for "no".

where to begin with this adventure? i suppose with why, or how come, i came to know so much of the vagaries and ways of tumble dryer repair concerns. this all commenced, or kicked off, when my (considerably) better half notified me that she heard a loud cracking noise off of the tumble dryer, and then noted that the drum within it - the one where wet garments are transformed to dry - had stopped spinning.

our understanding of the wizardry of a tumble dryer relates very much to the spinning part. should it not spin, then no magical drying. as, on the whole, both i and my entire family really do rather prefer wearing clothes what are dry as opposed to those what are wet, we took a decision to investigate costs of a new belt to put on it.

much delight, merriment, happiness and joy was had when we discovered that a new belt for our particular form or if you like brand of tumble dryer was south of £10. a decent amount south of £10, as it happens, for the cost seemed to be also 1p south of £7. so, pooling our resources and efforts, we bought a new belt.

the belt, to be sure, arrived. it looked identical, or if you like exact, to the remnants of the one which was broken, except of course that the replacement one was a looped, perfectly formed belt, rather than having a jagged edge snap in it.

indeed, we referenced the internet, specifically some of them you tube video things, for instruction and guidance as to how we may go about adding this new belt. all such videos, documents and so forth said that, in essence, a tumble dryer is a "fairly simple" piece of technology, and quite straightforward to amend, repair or get up and running.

after several hours of toil, hard labour and discernible harm suffered, i can say quite categorically that all statements which suggest or state that it is an easy task are not as avoiding of being misleading as they could be.

one of the more interesting things i became aware of after watching the videos and then trying what i saw was how skilfully edited the videos are. commentary such as "then you just loosen the back" sounds so easy that you are distracted from the fact that the video fades out, not revealing exactly how the loosened back, say, lets you get the belt over the drum.

i am not necessarily saying the creators of these videos are deliberately misleading simple folk such as me. perhaps they just assume that all and sundry "will know" what they meant, and so elected to shave a few moments off the running length of the video but getting rid of these parts.

this is something i have said before, and shall no doubt be called on to say again. much of, indeed many of, the problems in this world stem from one person assuming that another, or group of others, knows something or other in relation to their own actions and words. if we could all get away from that self centred approach to thinking, my this whole planet would be a better place to live.

of the 7 or so hours my (considerably) better half and i spent trying to get the tumble dryer sorted it was, i think, some 3 which were spent on working out how to slide the belt over the drum in the first instance. the thing kept getting stuck or trapped on some form of lip or catch. this was not an element discussed, mentioned or raised in any of the videos what we saw.

it was around half time of trying to slide the belt over that we heard a distinct, sharp, crisp (hello, Faye) and most unwelcome "crack" sound. we knew that it was a sound which should not have happened. and yet we carried on, determined that the belt was not going to get the better of us, despite deep down knowing that our endeavours had probably rendered the machine now impossible to get up and running correctly.

we have had, or better still had, this tumble dryer for around four years. if you look at it from an activity based costing perspective, the deprecation factor of costs meant that our investment was around £50 per year to have it, excluding energy or power costs. in terms of previous maintenance or wear and tear, indeed yes our model was one of them branded a fire risk, so the manufacturer came and replaced a part on it just slightly north of a year ago.

our era is one in which we are conditioned, or encouraged, to think in terms of the above. all and everything is seen as being disposable, or easily replaced. quite a shame, i think, hence me having a go at a repair. no, they do not seem to "build things like they used to", but i suppose they are also cheaper and safer.

that picture above? some spare screws what i now have, which appeared to serve no purpose being in the tumble dryer. well, they probably did, but i did not put them back. some of them were not returned because, frankly, i could not remember nor work out where i took them out of. not bad going, when you consider how many pictures i took as i went about the business of trying to repair it.

anyway, with the belt on we progressed to the final stage. this was futile, i suppose, since we were fairly confident that the machine was knacked anyway. perhaps we had just engaged in that "keep calm and carry on" approach, despite the saying now apparently being out of fashion. or maybe we thought that whatever had cracked, possibly snapped, would magically fix itself once we had the belt on over the pulley system and the machine back together.

warning, then, as the next picture features some blood. not much, and just a tiny scratch, but blood all the same.

yeah, that was the harm inflicted on me. the belt, no matter how many times we "gave it a good pull" to "loosen it" was having none of being flexible enough to stretch over the pulley. this was clear some 30 or so minutes into trying, but it did not stop me spending two or so hours having a good go at it.

did i utter any, or many, profanities and vulgarities with each failed attempt? oh, dear reader, yes. quite a formidable tour of the lexicon of expletives was undertaken with me as the guide.

eventually, exhausted, deflated, defeated and on the brink of tears, i just gave up on the whole thing. we are resigned to the fact that a new tumble dryer must now be purchased, for the climate in which we live does not offer quite so many outdoor drying opportunities as you might have thought.

i patched it all up, then, save for the spare screws. the bits which i could not or could not be bothered to add back to the machine were just shoved in the drum. rather interestingly, the parts all fitted in that perfectly. it is like the designers and manufacturers knew that many who tried to carry out a "simple" repair or replacement on the machine would have this precise need.

off it went, then, to the nearest "recycling centre", a place once known as the local tip or the local dump. some solace - not a great deal, but some all the same - was taken when i saw just how many other tumble dryers were left there. evidently i was not alone, then, in being led down the path which said "yeah, sure, of course you can replace the belt yourself, no problem".

anyway, on to the next adventure, then.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

toyah

howdy pop pickers


well, this is something of a flashback, look you see. several months, or if you like 3 or so. 4, depending on how you count, really.

back then, to be sure, my (considerably) better half and i did something what we had not done since 2012. no, not that, although i suppose it was somewhat quasi Valentine related. what i speak of is going to a concert performance by an artist.

in 2012, it was, famously so, The Stone Roses at Heaton Park. this time around, i will have you know, it was the wonderful Toyah.

on my travels i caught a glimpse of a poster advertising that Toyah would be performing a concert quite near us; at the lovely Princess Alexandra Auditorium in Yarm, an area of the country celebrated for being really rather posh. when i saw the poster i knew two things - that my (considerably) better half really, really likes Toyah, and that by this point i had no idea what romantic gesture of offering i would get her for the previously mentioned Valentine's Day. later on in the week, i put them two things together and all of a sudden had an ideal solution.

my (considerably) better half grew up loving Toyah's music from thousands of miles away from her stomping ground, never once thinking that she would ever get to see her perform. how absolutely splendid, then, that i should be able to make this so.

as for me, well, i was always aware of Toyah, but not so much for her music. the first thing that comes to mind for me when i think of her, perhaps other than the striking artwork on her albums, is her film career. at a far too early age for it i saw Jubilee purely as it had Adam & The Ants in it, and she was of course also in the superb documentary Quadrophenia.

let it be said that Toyah, whether you are familiar with her music or like me not so much, gives a phenomenal, fantastic evening of entertainment. her passion and enthusiasm for performing would be enough, but as it happens she is also one truly fantastic singer.

it turned out, as the night progressed. that i was a lot more familiar with her music than i might have thought. various mists cloud my memories, but maybe the older sibling of a friend quite liked her back between 79 and 82, say, and i have abstract memories of hearing her music coming from their stereos and what have you.

Toyah invited the fans down, during an instrumental break, to come and take "selfies" and that. the above is one my (considerably) better half took. yes, quite. as you can see she is not quite so prolific as i am in terms of taking selfies, hence her neglecting to feature her fine self in the image. but, still, lovely picture.

would i go and see her again? Toyah, that is, not my (considerably) better half. most definitely.

but did my (considerably) better half enjoy it? as ostensibly it was a quasi Valentine's Day treat, as well as a curious self obtained birthday present for moi, going on the date, i would imagine some of that is important. yes, i believe, yes she did.

perhaps i should limit the words here and give way to the pictures, for those interested in them.

where were the boys whilst we engaged in such shenanigans? off having lots of fun, i believe, with the sensational Harlo gang. cheers for the babysitting services!

no, i don't know if it will be another six year gap between concerts. hopefully not, really. but as time goes on and responsibilities mount, one can't always get off to gigs. also, most are frightening costs. Toyah, i am delighted to say, was wonderfully priced. not that i would not have spent more so that my (considerably) better half may have seen one of her childhood heroes.

and that would be that, i guess. in a sense sorry that it took so long to add these pictures here, but what they hey, as of the day today here they are.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

when you don't know your own support

hello there


yes, cricket once again. a rather disturbing development surrounding it in the last week or so, to be sure. maybe it has been resolved by the time this gets published. and, by resolved, look you see, i mean that Colin Graves, with no small amount of disgrace, has done the decent thing and resigned from his position as Chair of the ECB.

for some reason, and no i cannot think how he got to this point, Colin Graves elected to defend the decision to create "100 ball cricket" by saying that "younger people are not attracted to cricket any more". full details can be found here, with the BBC being used for a link as it is about as close to impartial as you can get.

clearly the job is beyond Mr Graves, then. or he simply is no good at it. i would happily invite Mr Graves to our village on cricket practice night to see dozens of kids playing and enjoying this fine game. or, if we are a bit too north for him, i would suggest he goes around the hundreds of villages, towns even, just like ours where the same happens.

yes, that is some footage above, for those of you who can play the video, of James taking a single during a game. nice batting, son.

one of the fondest memories i have of the last cricket season has become one of my fondest ever. we were playing Skelton, in what was i think their first ever competitive game at that age level. in terms of the game, they had some very good players but our team won comfortably. what Skelton won, though, was hearts. it was astonishing - no, beautiful - to see just how happy and enthusiastic they were about taking part, being involved and simply playing.

i would like to think this country is full of stories identical to the one above. should Mr Graves really not understand that there is a whole lot of passion and enthusiasm for cricket at a younger age, he should leave now. his comments made me angry, and felt like a slap in the face to all of those who give up so much time and put in considerable effort to make youth cricket happen.

indeed, another video of James. in the above he is having a bowl, keeping a nice tidy line and making the batsman have to play a shot.

perhaps Graves thinks "the kids" are not attracted to cricket because of the lack of viewing figures on the tele. well, he and the ECB did that, did they not? a decision was taken to sacrifice audience - and exposure - for money. they sold the rights to Sky, meaning cricket was stripped from its natural home of free to air TV. you cannot complain about no one watching if you make it difficult and expensive to watch, chap.

to each and every person that is involved in coaching, playing or encouraging cricket - especially at youth level - a very big thank you. also, a plea to ignore what this patently poor choice for Chair of the ECB had to say. how very sad for someone in such a position not to understand the passion for the game.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

of spennymoor

heya


it is said that the population of the UK is about 63 million. this is quite superficial, look you see. a far better, more informed way of saying this is that there are 62,980,000 people living in the UK who seek a much better life and 20,000 in the UK who already have it, for they live in Spennymoor.

yes, no, yes. yes, this is about Spennymoor, no i am not going to do some sort of "tourist information" thing because yes, i know you already know how awesome it is. when it comes to tourism, Spennymoor outranks virtually all non-Royal related attractions in the UK, and even then beats most of the ones with a Royal link that is tenuous at best, such as anything to do with Prince Edward.

as i had the pleasure of recently being a guest within the grounds of Spennymoor i did, however, think that some of you might like some insights, observations and what have you. pictures, yes, to be sure.

oh, surely, yes, that is decidedly a drain. but not just any drain. no, this is a drain in Spennymoor, and thus it is of a calibre and nature superior to others.

to be honest i don't know all that much about the Spennymoor life, other than people in colloquial terms call the place "the Spenny" or "the S". but that picture does give every suggestion of an exciting life. one cannot but help wonder of the circumstances in which a pair of scuba style swimming goggles and a quaffed, emptied and distressed can of Fosters lager ended up down there.

would it be fair to refer to Spennym...the Spenny as "the inland Hartlepool of the Moors"? i am not sure. my observations suggest that the people of Spenny don't go around hanging people or members of the animal kingdom on the grounds of suspicion of being French. yet what they lack in that regard they would seem to make up for, most agreeably, in not randomly handing out parking tickets to anyone who dares visit their fine corner of the land.

yes, that's a mattress in the middle of a road, discarded by someone who has presumably found something more agreeable to sleep on. no, as point of fact, this was not taken in the Spenny. closeish to the place, i suppose, but not actually. i just really had nowhere else to add this picture.

but, that said, i have every confidence that the people of Spennymoor have mattresses on which to sleep and so forth. whereas i do not have first hand knowledge of this, surely it must be the case. the fact that i saw, so far as i can recall, no discarded mattresses during my time in the Spenny suggests that they have developed a more sophisticated means of disposing of unwanted ones. good for them, i say, good for them.

speaking of mattresses for sleeping and so forth, this.

ah, now then. strictly speaking no, this picture was not taken in the Spenny, and nor was it in the land of the abandoned mattress. somewhere central, or in between, the two, we shall say. if they look like what some might call "cock pills" to you, then that is precisely because they are such. two, so far as i could ascertain, empty packets discarded in a bathroom for the gentry. around midday, no less.

i must confess i am quite fascinated by the detail of the consumer, or consumers, of these. was it, i wonder, one gentleman who took both packets, or two gents who took one each, having met in the bathroom and further electing to form a slightly longer than usual short term yet mutually beneficial friendship.

these tablets, or pills, would appear to be called "ultimg" or "ultim8".  believe they are a variation on them famous viagra pills, the blue ones. someone i know, and please for legal reasons can we all just agree that i did not specify or state that it was Spiros, once took four times the prescribed amount of viagra, decking them with several cans of super strength cider. i know this because Spi...because the anonymous person what did it chose to phone me, declare himself the "w@nk!ng warlock" and claimed that for several days after he had been mistaken for a walking, somewhat horizontal version of Gibraltar by several passers by.

smoking in the Spenny? it is not frowned upon any more or less than it is in the rest of the country. a conspired effort, alas, has managed to distract all and sundry with the real evils of society by convincing the masses that cigarettes are to blame for everything.

yes, i really rather enjoyed smoking in Spennymoor. i mean, let's not get carried away. no, it was not "well, i was going to quit, right, but the pleasant experience of smoking in Spennymoor reaffirmed my love of doing it so now i shall not". cigarettes away from the Spenny have been just as enjoyable, let me assure you. but i shall always fondly remember the one or two, several, that i had whilst there.

that's the machine next to the sink where the empty pill packets were. at £3 a go, blimey. the gentleman who had two or gentlemen who had one each were clearly determined that expense should present nor provide any barrier to pleasure. and why not.

have i ever dabbled with such pills? not really, that i am aware of. although no David Lee Roth, my skills and prowess as a sexualist seem to be all natural. perhaps a time shall come when i feel that i require such to enhance or maintain my proclivities. as and when such a time comes, maybe i will rather consult a suitably trained physician or similar rather than relying on a vending machine located in a bathroom of a well known supermarket.

yes, go on then, a slightly closer look at the discarded mattress, to finish off. since, it seems, i took nowhere near as many pictures that i thought i had in The S. maybe i just had a dream, a juicy and succulent one, of taking lots and lots of pictures in the place.

and, well, there we have it. should you be considering a trip to Spennymoor, The Spenny, The S, and for some reason you are looking here for tips and advice, all i can really say is that there's no barrier that should prevent you from going. enjoy it; i did.

right, let me go and have a think or consideration about other matters to write of here.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

cricket is back

hello there


well, summer's nearly here, if not exactly all here, look you see. as part and parcel of the English way of doing things, it is of course a truth that the moment the weather allows for it to be, so it shall be that cricket is played.

yes. the reward we get, here in England and indeed an increasing number of corners of the wider UK and British Isles, for enduring a long, dark winter is plenty of lovely sunlight. one would really struggle to find a better use for long, sunny days than to spend them playing and watching cricket.

oh, great. i see once again that blogger, or google, or whoever, has elected to "auto rotate" my pictures again, meaning they are all sideways. hey ho. from what i can ascertain from the stats most of you read this on some sort of mobile device, so i guess you are good to go in terms of just tilting or rotating your phone or tablet or whatever to see the image the right way around. or, you know, don't. maybe they work for you sideways.

so, anyway, yes. James is very much part of the whole cricket thing once again. regular readers will recall his utter dislike for all that snow business, so to him summer (or spring, i suppose) is most welcome. it means, to be sure, that he can get out and about without freezing or getting wet or slipping.

above is a scene quite early on from the first practice session of the year. well, that is not true. it is more honest to say first outdoor session of the year. for the first three months of the year some indoor training sessions were held, just to keep all and sundry on top of their game.

should you have a keen eye, or have a thing for games, in the above you can most certainly see my (considerably) better half. also, it might be that James and/or William are there somewhere. i can't really make them out, my eyes are not what they once were. if they ever were all that.

just like the first image the above picture of James is not from training but from the first match of the season. one which our team won, although as i have said before and will always say, it is important that the winner of any match of cricket is the spirit of the game itself. but, at time of writing, we have played two, won two, and we are all delighted with this.

yes, true. after the events of our winter, or if you like the summer of the southern hemisphere, we do indeed live in a time when there is a new dynamic to the game. but no, absolutely not, we have not introduced the whims and wonders of sandpaper to our game. it would be best to leave such nonsense to our friends in Australia, although i believe it would be fair to say that they too have now abandoned the use of rudimentary DIY or joinery applications in cricket.

no, William is not in a team for the cricket this year. he is a bit too young to be playing it competitively. but, as you can see above, he really rather enjoys going to the games so as to explore the different grounds. and, true, he too has enormous fun at the practice sessions.

do i still provide an unofficial worldwide coverage of the matches? yes, kind of. well, i take pictures and videos to send along to Dad, as well as giving him score updates. from what i can ascertain, our team now has a very, very healthy fan base down in New Zealand, thanks to my Dad sharing these updates with his chums.

some of the video i mentioned in that very last paragraph? sure.

that is one of the finer deliveries James bowled in his first competitive over of the season. no wickets, but from what i recall he also gave no runs away. certainly no extras, at the least. a most splendid and steady start. yes, his Grandad did indeed express approval for his performance.

what do i think of this new idea, "Cricket 100"? that thing where each team will face 100 balls, with the number of deliveries counting down? messy. it sounds like someone's clumsy, ill advised attempt to "Americanise" the game, what with American sports traditionally featuring a clock counting down. should the intention of this new format be to "sell" the game to our friends in America, then i am unsure how altering the game beyond all recognition would achieve that. should it be that our friends over the pond would wish to embrace cricket, then i would have thought that 20Twenty or T20 or whatever you call it would appeal.

unless i am very much mistaken, yes, that is the first selfie of my (considerably) better half and i this spring, moving into summer. quite difficult to get, too. she was quite busy helping and being involved with the practice and training, whereas i had some quite urgent business with the bar, and indeed a packet of Marlboro cigarettes.

would i have liked to play cricket myself? well, i kind of did in my younger days. some of my most important formulate years were spent in a pre-sandpaper Australia. there, if it was daylight and you had time, you played cricket. when i returned to England from there, it was a truth that they played football instead. honestly, i suspect i would have lacked the dedication and commitment to make it as a decent cricket player. did have fun playing rugger, though.

yes, an "in match" picture above. one that i used the "zoom" feature on the camera what i have, welded as it is to a phone for some reason.

for how long does the cricket season go on? my understanding is that it commences at the end of April and goes through to the early stages of August. so, then, for much of the time when England is open to the idea of having a spring and a summer, but of course the weather does not always agree.

and on that note, the above is why i qualified we are spring, not summer as such. by the last few overs of the first game the light, as you can observe, became a slight issue. that was some time after 8pm, so splendid that we had some sun. roll on, however, the days or rather nights when the sun is in the sky until well after 10pm.

well, that would be that for this for now. undoubtedly, dear reader, further cricket updates shall come here for those interested in a hopefully supportive way. but, for now, then,



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bowen tapes

now then


it would, look you see, seem that i am, perhaps more by default than design or if you will ipso facto, doing what i suspected might happen earlier this year. this would be at least one post per calendar month pertaining to Bullseye broadly and the greatly missed Jim Bowen specifically.

the latter is of relevance here. yes, i know it is hard to imagine Jim away from Bullseye, his chosen forum via which he did his thing. every now and then, though, he was persuaded to step away from the studio so as to perform his art by other means. undoubtedly the most famous of these instances was when he stepped in for "the italian job", so to speak, when the German incumbent could not handle the job, but we have covered that ground before here.

yes, quite. not one, not three, but indeed two recordings of Jim Bowen in action. two similar, but ultimately different ones, as we shall see if you stick this out and read on.

did i go and seek these items (remember, not one and not three but two, which you get nothing for if they were in a bed according to his holiness the most righteous Jim Bowen may he rest in eternal peace) as a tribute to the great one after his recent passing? no. well, partially. we will get to the specifics of provenance as we go on with this. assuming, of course, that you read on.

what i would say now, however, is that i got all of these items for bargain prices. less than £5 in total for the pair, i think. the final figure may well even be south of £4, i am having a look. going on market price indicators, one of them was then quite the bargain.

to start with the first purchase, then, although i believe this was the most recent or should you prefer last or indeed youngest of releases; the DVD Jim Bowen You Can't Tell These Anymore!

provenance of my copy? alas, one of my favourite shops, That's Entertainment, was closing down and had a sale. they are, i believe, moving all operations online, via the splendid Music Magpie website.

so, this disc was sat there as part of a deal, where you could have it for £1.99 or one of three for £5. as the closing down sale mean 75% off all stock, i got this for whatever 25% of £1.99 is. i suspect it is somewhere just slightly north or south of 49p.

having not heard of this DVD before, for if i had then i would have surely already owned it, i did some research. from what i can gather it seems a rare, scarce thing. the best price i saw it for online was, in a used condition (like my copy, for full disclosure), listed as north of £20 but just slightly south of £25. quite steep and exploitative,  really, unless the money from the sale goes to one of the many charities which the honourable Jim Bowen was a patron of. anyway, anyone not prepared to stump up that sort of money is clearly not a proper, committed, dedicated fan of Jim Bowen, or has otherwise discovered that the whole thing is online, for free, on that "you tube" thing.

oh yeah, the disc. this was filmed at a venue in Blackburn, and i am quietly confident that it was made post-Bullseye, pre-Vatican era. ostensibly, it is one of them "live stand up comedy" shows, but let me not accidentally cheapen it. because it is Jim Bowen doing it, this is the best thing ever.

as the title suggests, this is Jim Bowen lamenting the way the world has gone. everything in society went south precisely when ITV took Bullseye off of the tele. we lost our moral compass, with no guidance given to how we should live via his sermon on a Sunday tea time. to this end, Jim shares with us, his devout audience, jokes which are not offensive at all, for they laugh with people and not at their expense, and explores his sadness at how he is not supposed to tell them any more. also, he tells an absolutely brilliant story about an episode of Bullseye what ended up not being screened, due to the out of character drunken activities of two Irish contestants on the show.

much of the same is on offer in an audio form with the tape Jim Bowen Live! Super! Smashin! Great!. this i did quite deliberately purchase without actively looking for it. i was just searching the internet for things pertaining to Jim Bowen, and this cropped up for sale.

should the provenance be the internet, the cost? approx £2.50, as it happens. so both together did, assuming my skills with % are correct, cost me just south of £3.

in showing the dedication Jim had to cities and towns what start or should you prefer commence with the very same letter what his most excellent surname does or sadly rather did, this one was recorded in Blackpool, not Blackburn. or Bolton. or Basildon. also, not Basingstoke. i could go on with the list of places where this was not recorded. for the sake of less typing, i would ask you to just accept that i could do that, whilst we carry on with the actual point of this, if indeed there is much of any point.

mostly this is the same material on the DVD. there are, however, a few extras. highlights of the extras include referencing some contestants if Bullseye with casual obscenities vented in favour of their guilt of the sin of greed and the subsequent loss of prizes.

yes, by the way, one does hear Jim Bowen use what society deems to be offensive language in both recordings. in his defence - not that he needs me to defend him - this was all before he accepted the job of being Pope Francis, so as far as i am concerned he was not breaking any terms and conditions of employment. besides, if he was, well, look at the terms and conditions the pope before him broke.

the tape, alas, was not perfect. despite being brand new and factory sealed (it looked to be and the fella what sold it to me assured me that it was) there was some damage. the tape had one or two "folds" in it. whereas some fast forwarding and rewinding, or "fast backwarding", straightened it out (plus a bit of pencil magic), the sound was distorted as a consequence.

distracting, disappointing but not a failure. that's what i say of this. whereas it is not perfect, i all the same used my deft skills to convert this tape to that "mp3" format, so as i may be able to load or otherwise add it to that one decent device Apple made, the iPod. now i may listen to the voice of Jim Bowen on a night as i lay down to rest.

alas, no, the great Tony Green does not make a guest appearance on either of these recordings. he does get mentioned in the most respectful terms, though. someone called Hughie Green gets mentioned, mind, and not in particularly complimentary terms.

right, that's about that. yes, indeed i am happy with these purchases. surely, if i can, i will find something else to say of Jim Bowen and/or Bullseye next month, just to keep this regular thing going.



be super smashin great to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hobbies my father taught me

hello there


for some time i have, look you see, thought that i should really do a follow up piece to this one, in which i explored a popular card game what i learned off my Mum, to be sure. to give some sort of fairness or balance, it strikes me as being so that i should have a gander here at something what i learned off of my Dad.

events have conspired, as in retrospect they always seem to do, to make today the day that is as good as any to do exactly or entirely that.

yes. with another edition of the FIFA World Cup looming, it is time for a sticker book album and countless stickers to go in it. although, in the latter respect, maybe not so much.

where this is a hobby my Dad taught me is relatively straightforward. he is, or maybe was for i am unsure if he remains so, quite fanatical about getting these albums and completing them. always was, apparently. Gran kindly gave me this album, as it came free with a newspaper and she had no use for it. when she handed it over to me, she recalled with some fondness my Dad's habit of collecting stickers, cigarette cards and so forth throughout his youth. and into adulthood.

i had done sticker books before my Dad introduced the path of doing football ones. from my own youth i can recall, with some fondness, doing ones for both ET and Return Of The Jedi; two films ostensibly aimed at the whole family from the early 80s. perhaps you have heard of them in passing, or maybe not. to various degrees, and as an aside, both have merit and are worth watching.

that there above is/are some initial stickers what came free with the album. alas, no, no Panama team stickers, and no sign of Messi or anyone like that. still, quite a nice gesture, made all the nicer as you will find when we get to the part where i moan about the cost of stickers for this album.

anyway, around the time of them sticker books what i spoke, i think my Dad clocked that he could rejuvenate his own interest in such and have a hobby with me by introducing me to the joys of the English & Scottish football sticker album collection thing. i am not sure when, but this will have been either the 83/84 season or maybe the 84/85 one.

as far as i can tell they don't do that "mega" album any more. but once, they did. you got, i think, all four top divisions in England (back then it was Division One down to Division Four; far easier than the current names) and then i think the three main divisions in Scotland. football divisions; obviously "Scottish divisions" as a general thing has a good deal more than three. but, anyway.

indeed, that is the England page or pages for Russia 2018. whereas i have two stickers in it now, don't recall who, this is blank. England were of course widely expected to host the 2018 edition of the World Cup, but [text removed due to FIFA having a love of lawyers], so Russia it is. and why not.

this would be the best England team to feature in a sticker book for many years - perhaps 18, as point of fact. why? well, no Wayne Rooney. although i am not sure why they call him that, going on what the fans and all those who are aware of things like [text removed due to legal advice] shout at him, you would be forgiven for thinking his name is actually Wayne Carr or Wayne Kerr, depending on your provincial accent. anyway, i do not have to see him, and that is a good thing.

no, i am not sure why they don't do the football stickers every season for the divisions in England and Scotland any more. should i be called on to guess, i would say in these hedonistic "Premier League" days, royalties and "image rights" payments to some players would make it too expensive. also, with the kids having so much to spend their money on these days, maybe there is just no demand.

speaking of demand and cost, i was horrified when i went off to purchase some stickers for this album. i had, reasonably, expected a price of 50p per packet. no, it turned out to be 80p a packet. and for that you only got 5 (five) stickers in the packet, making a cost of 16p per sticker. interestingly if you write off to Panini and purchase any numbers you are missing, they charge you 22p per sticker.

whereas i thought i might buy 5 packets for 30 stickers for £2.50, i instead ended up spending £3.20 for 4 packets and got 20 stickers out of the deal. and none of them were, quite frankly, all that interesting. well, maybe one.

is my Dad having a similar torment with all of this? not sure. the last time i was with him and World Cup stickers were on the go it was the 2010 edition, the one celebrated with the vuvuzelas. he and Richard lost the plot somewhat with the stickers for that, buying many hundreds of packets and ending up with thousands of duplicates. this i know, as for some reason i ended up with all the duplicates. i think i still have them here somewhere, in a box.

that's five stickers for 80p on display, then. no, i am not all that sure who all of them players are, or indeed if any of them have any chance of glory.

one thing perhaps lost with no mega massive sticker book each season is an unsolicited knowledge of teams from far away. mindful of the fact, of course, that there was no internet thing back then. to this day i still have a thing for one Scottish team, Morton. i attribute this purely to the fact that, whenever that album came out was that me and Dad done, i did seem to get a disproportionately high number of stickers for Morton, be it the team or individual players.

as for the actual World Cup, will i be shouting on England? well, yes, no, maybe, perhaps, kind of. it would be nice if we could give a decent account of ourselves in the tournament and not leave it in disgrace, really, and that's all. i don't have any expectations or hopes of us winning; i suspect few do. we have some decent players and that, as well as a respected gentleman for a manager, but there's a hefty list of national teams which easily outclass us out there on the pitch.

Panama would be my team of choice, really. it's their first World Cup, i think, so i hope they enjoy. and yes, my enthusiasm for them is purely down to the song Panama off of Van Halen, or at least Van Halen when they were decent due to David Lee Roth being in the band.

what i particularly like about the above page for Panama in the World Cup 2018 sticker album is that it lists the spelling of Panama in various different languages. nearly all of them spell it, oddly, "Panama". which means the above looks like it is just the lyrics for the song Panama.

indeed, yes, it would be awesome if Panama won the World Cup, and to celebrate David Lee Roth was respectfully invited to come along and sing Panama to a worldwide, if not global, audience. one really suspects that Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina, etc might get in the way of this dream. but man, what a beautiful dream.

above is the one and only "shiny" i got, the emblem or logo for the Costa Rica team on a partially silver background. the player stickers are dull and bland, and the shiny stickers just are not as shiny as they once were. perhaps they now use eco friendly materials to print them on, or cheaper ones. what they charge more for to sell.

the astronomical costs involved in attempting to complete a 2018 World Cup sticker album have been covered on other corners of the internet. whilst i don't remember exactly, i think someone calculated that you would have to spend somewhere north of £500 or £700 on stickers to do it. that is, if you did it the fair and square way, which would of course be curious, since [text removed on legal advice] awarded to Russia.

i am sure, however, that if you and your mates did "swapsies" with doubles then you could get it done cheaper. perhaps you would only need to spend just north of £375 to fill the album.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

promise not to stare too long

hello


and so yet another "throwback" thing, look you see, even though this is not being written on a Thursday as such. no, in this instance it is not yet another look at "the beast from the east" or "storm emma", as that would be boring. instead, then, it is a look at the brief, maybe all too, return of the "beast from the east" what happened a week or so after we thought all the snow had gone.

the stability and strength of the Welsh is, i think you will find, illustrated by them plucky daffodils in the image above. for them it was spring, or if you will Spring, and so they were going to bloom no matter what the weather. indeed, quite, they are still going strong now that the snow has gone again.

exactly when did all this happen? it is easy to forget March, here in May, but still. i think, or as i recall, it was about a week after the first wave of snow and that. but, for precision, i am sure if you do one of them google things you will find more information.

why did it happen? according to them soothsayers, charlatans, warlocks and wizards who claim to be able to foresee the future down at the "met" weather office, it came off of Russia. this, of course, let to many columnists, humorists and other such socially inept types creating hysterical jokes along the lines of "well, at least it makes a change from Russia sending deadly poisons to kill traitors!!!". such jokes were met, in relatively equal measure, with contempt, slight chortle sounds, manic laughter from the deranged and a trifle of bemusement.

oh, indeed, William was thrilled with the return of the lovely, thick, fluffy, crisp (hello, Faye) snow. his new found passion and enthusiasm for sledging was kindled like a phoenix. unfortunately, indeed regrettably, he had not quite put the sledge away as we had instructed him to, hence the picture above being possible. so, then, no sledge action this time.

the biggest problem, or if you like gauntlet, thrown down by this if not unexpected then not particularly welcome, return of "the beast from the east" was what to call it. many elected for "the sequel". so, to this extent, this second wave of quasi spring or if you insist Spring snow got called things like.....

The Beast From The East 2 : Electric Boogaloo

Beast From The East II : Attack Of The Clones

Beast From The East 2 : Their First Assignment

The Dark Knight

The Beast From The East 2 : The Sequel

The Return Of The Beast From The East

Beast From The East II : The Wrath Of Khan

The Beast From The East : Age Of Ultron

Beast From The East 2 : Judgement Day

and other such nonsense. me, personally, i think, just called it "oh bother", or "oh dear me", or words to that effect. probably with a few vulgarities involved, to be honest.

yes, of course i sent Richard some images of the return of the snow. his response to that was, well, i think that you would be able to work that out in the above image. he was of course in another land; one which did not have any snow as such. quite pleasant weather, by the looks of it, and i am absolutely sure he was only having the one beer as it was the only thing to cool down with.

most of you will be here partially for a Richard picture, true, but also for some video. let me not disappoint, then, and give you some video of this second wave of snow.

how was driving in this seminal return of the snow? not so bad. we had some decent street clearances off of councils, which i am sure is not related to the fact that local elections are on the horizon and all down to them wanting to do the public service they are paid at a premium for. also, the snow seemed keenest to settle just on lands and grass rather than tarmac based roads.

for those wanting an illustration of this, well then, here you go, one image at random what i took on my travels.

does this post represent the last "throwback" to the snow of March? i would certainly hope so. if fortune smiles upon us all, then perhaps we can get on with some quality spring and summer, cheers. it would be most splendid not to see the snow for quite a while again, at least several months.

well, then, that's that. until the next post, i suppose.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a new calendar for the newish month

heya

this, i know, look you see, is probably a little too late into the month to be of any considered, practical use. but, we are here now, it is done now, to be sure. yes, for those who for some reason use my blog for their calendar consultation requirements, here it is. at least, here it is for the month of May. in 2018.

indeed yes, for those following this story so far this year, i have elected to switch over to the Minecraft one, which i paid a quite reasonable 12p for. the "Babes" one off of Poundland was pleasant, like, but the corners kept curling in. cheap paper, cheap tat, perhaps.

am i a big fan of Minecraft? not especially. the boys seem to like it; from what i can gather it's sort of a quasi Lego computer game. please note, though, that i have no quarrel or issue with the game despite not being a fan; rather i just don't know all that much of it. except one can obtain cheap, branded calendars featuring it.

elsewhere in the house we have this magnificent Stonehenge calendar on display, what William made at school. i thought i would add this too, since the date information may not be all that clear for some of you on the Minecraft one.

certainly i was excited when William came home and informed us that he had a school project to do on Stonehenge. and yes, this excitement turned into disappointment when it turned out to be the other Stonehenge, which is to say the rocks and that rather than the classic song by Spinal Tap. nonetheless, i took this as an opportunity to show William a video recording of Spinal Tap performing Stonehenge, and he liked what he saw for he saw that it was good.

right, i will try and remember to a calendar update for you in June, too.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!