Dec-ision

I have decided upon a challenge/mission to see me through to the end of the year. Throughout December, I will post only positive, amusing, uplifting phrases and musings. I’ve been very negative lately, and I know that negativity is a state of mind that can turn into a habit that is hard to break out of, and I fear I may have stepped over that line this month. Too much moaning, too much time in the pity pit, too much time looking at the weather forecast instead of looking at the beautiful skies.
No more.
I hereby pledge to surf a fun wave of cheeriness from here until 2018.
You have my word…

RC 30-11-17

Inviting trouble...

So Jane Austen has replaced Winston Churchill on the ten pound note. 
I’m all for equality but shouldn’t it be judged on equality of achievement?
Churchill made us a First World power and saved Europe from the scourge of Nazism.
Austen wrote some crap books.
No contest.
I know there are feminist arguments in favour of the change but surely “It’s time we had a woman” can’t be the only criteria considered?
One thing to be thankful for, I guess. At least it isn’t Princess Di. 

RC 29-11-17

J'accuse

Is it my imagination or has every establishment that sells fizzy drinks ‘on tap’ decided to cut down on the gas?
My non-alcoholic tipple of choice is always Pepsi. (I’ll only succumb to Coke if there is no other option available) In the last couple of weeks I have had a glass in at least three separate locations and every time it was like drinking tap water that had been coloured dark brown and flavoured slightly with Pepsi. It’s happening everywhere and it’s all about saving money. It’s putting profit before customer service and because we’re British we just take it, so they’ll keep on doing it. I don’t know where it started but it’s spread around the county like something supernatural from an M.Night Shyamalan film and it needs to stop now. I imagine it started innocently enough - the CO2 was running low at a village pub and no-one had noticed - but once they got away with it they obviously contacted everyone else in the Drinking Establishment Cabal and said “Psst. Brothers….. hear me now. You know that feckin’ awful pasty syrup shit that we buy on bulk and then mix up live through a multi-purpose hand-held serving gun that we never bother cleaning? Well you can save yourselves a few more pence if you just don’t bother to use gas. Go through the motions with the siphon thing but just don’t have it hooked to a canister. It’ll be flatter than a Norfolk ironing-board but who cares? This is England, so no-one will complain. They’ll drink the shit we serve them without even blinking. They might even bend over and grab their ankles in front of us, so used are they to allowing Big Business to rim them in the Snakehole on a daily basis. Capitalists Unite!!”
I imagine that’s exactly how it happened.
Bastards.

RC 28-11-17

P.S. My employers will thank me for this bit - the way to avoid this crappy flatness is to buy all your Coke and/or Pepsi in can or bottle form, for example from your local supermarket garage…

Thanks Mr Williams

My mood seems to have plummeted quicker than the temperature outside. 
Driving home in darkness does drag me down. But as Philippa pointed out to me a few minutes ago - ‘give it another month and the days will start getting longer again.’ Time does seem to be whizzing past quicker than a comet with a promise. I remember thinking ‘Hell, it’s only 6 weeks til Christmas’ and that was 2 weeks ago, so now 2 more weeks have passed so we’re 2 weeks closer to Christmas, so it’s now only 4 weeks away. 
I hope my old GCSE maths teacher is reading this, he’d be so proud.
Things aren’t so bad really. It’s just turned BLOODY cold and for some reason that makes it seem even darker even earlier. Plus, every other customer we face is panic-buying shovels and corned beef because they saw in the Daily Express that there MIGHT be a bit of sleet this Thursday. So the general atmosphere from the general public is one of pissed-off Winter selfishness. 
One cheery note  - I found myself the perfect advent calendar and it’s sitting on the kitchen shelf just waiting for Friday to arrive. It’s a Limited Edition Coconut Lovers Special - so every morning I’ll open a door and get a snack size Bounty to start my day with.
Happy times, after all. 

RC 27-11-17

Grooves and Flicks

Inspired by my last blog, here’s five more movie/song tie-ins (that I’ve completely invented):

John Lennon’s “Woman” was written about Meryl Streep’s character in “Out Of Africa.”
Jack White was inspired to write “Seven Nation Army” after falling asleep during a re-run of “The Chronicles Of Riddick.”
The Kris Kristofferson film “Convoy” took it’s story from a hit country record of the 70s - (“9 to 5” by Dolly Parton.)
The Yuletide Mud classic “Lonely This Christmas” was written as a DVD extra bonus track for the Cliff Richard film “Summer Holiday.” 
Holst wrote ‘The Planets’ after a torrid two-week affair with Mozart. Each part of the suite relates to a certain night they spent together, and a certain position they utilised. That has nothing to do with movies, I admit, but it could have led to an interesting version of ‘Amadeus.’ 

RC 25-11-17

Two mighty productions (& too many parentheses)

A true fact I discovered this weekend. (At least - I think I discovered it this weekend. I’ve had so many doubts about my memory recently that I may have discovered this years ago and then forgotten it since.)  
Bob Seger’s “We’ve Got Tonight” (which is one of my favourite slow songs,) was originally a song about rock-and-roll music. Bob re-wrote the lyrics after watching a scene in “The Sting” (which is one of my favourite films.)
Love it. 

RC 22-11-17

Buuuusssssyyyyy

Is it Christmas Eve already? I was over at the store this afternoon and the bloody aisles were packed. Are people really starting to stock up on supplies for the festive period? Maybe they think we put things out cheaper now and then hike the prices up just before Christmas week. Maybe we do, but if so you’re not beating the system by buying early - you’re falling into our trap and giving us money now, and giving us time to come up with other ways to suck your wallets dry in December.
That’s what you need to remember about supermarkets - we’re bastards, and we’ll get you any way we can.

On a less depressing, less corporate-brainwashing-inspired note, I have been LOVING the bright, still mornings and the bright, beautiful late afternoons. This has been an awesome month for colourful sunsets. 

RC 21-11-17

Two months today is my birthday

Christmas shopping seems to have begun in abundance. The main car park for the supermarket was twice as full as it normally is on a Monday and several of them swung in our way for re-fuelling. They should have done it on Friday really, as the prices shot up again this morning, especially on diesel. This means I may be able to report a record intake for a Monday in November, but I’ve had to deal with more unhappy customers than usual. There is a wide-reaching breed of person who refuse to accept that fuel prices fluctuate and that it’s not me personally that sits there with a calculator deciding how high to make the cost of their weekly fill-up. I have to stand there and listen to Middle-Aged Mrs Windbag telling me how little Tarquin won’t get the item at number 17 on his Christmas list because I’ve dumped 5p a litre on petrol, and I’m not allowed to scream “Stop spoiling him or buy a f**king bike, then” or I’d be fired.  
To cheer myself up I’ve had a good look at some potential advent calendars. I’m a bit late ordering this year and I want to try something different, but I’m not sure where to go or what to look for. I might see about making one myself. I have found a website that does next-day delivery on some nicely-decorated boxy ones that you fill up yourself with treats of your own choice that you know you will definitely like. Hmmm - how about this for an idea - we get two, and Philippa and I have to fill them up for each other? That way we know we’ll get stuff we like, but it’ll still be a surprise each morning. That sounds wonderful, and rather sweet, really. I shall run it by her later, and in the meantime I shall order two to be delivered so she won’t be able to say no.

RC 20-11-17

Words, man

My challenge didn’t quite go as planned today. I set aside the whole morning and I sat down with a copy of the periodic table and a blank sheet of paper, but then at quarter past one this afternoon I realised a) I’d forgotten to have any lunch, and b) I’d forsaken the idea of a readable paragraph in favour of coming up with the longest word possible. CAMOUFLAGES is still the record, but I’ve found some other interesting 10 and 11 letter words creatable using the element symbols. But if I want to turn this effort into an actual, sensible blog posting then obviously I’d need to use smaller words as well, otherwise it would just be a long list of long words strung together, and you can get that by playing the classic pen-and-paper game ’Stairway.’
No - I suspect you would expect more from me than that, and I shall strive to deliver….

RC 19-11-17

Rerun Rory

Am I starting to repeat myself? I sat here yesterday thinking my Periodic Table Poetry idea might be original, but now I’m not convinced that I haven’t thought of it before. Not only that - I think I may have BLOGGED about it before, but then never followed it up.  
But if I have - so what? Doesn’t every great writer borrow from their own back catalogue? Shakespeare did it. Charles Dickens did it. Enid Blyton used to write a book a week, you’re not telling me she didn’t stumble through the same plot points every month or so.  Agatha Christie churned out the same old shit every year and just substituted Poirot for Marple every now and then. Hell, even The Bible uses the word ‘Amen’ over and over, and that’s the biggest selling book of all time, so give me a break, bitches. 

RC 18-11-17

Cymbals and Symbols

Philippa is out for ‘quiet drinks’ with some friends in Norfolk, so I have just enjoyed a great three-hour session on the drums. Now I am blogging while waiting for some pasta to cook before a late bolognaise supper, during which I shall watch something suitably action-packed courtesy of Netflix. 

Still 9 minutes to go on that spaghetti….

Been a week of quite short messages from me. Maybe part of me thinks that dropping 750 words in one day (see Nov 7th) means I’m allowed to be a bit lax with the word count for a while. I don’t know. My mind is a complicated thing and I can’t pretend to know why it thinks the things it does. I would like to point out though that oftentimes the blogs that are shorter are the ones that I spend more time writing. However… having said that, I need to get back to writing longer blog postings, so I’ve thought of a new challenge to work on. I want to write a blog post that only uses words that can be made using the symbols from the Periodic Table of The Elements. For example - the word “NEWSPAPERS” uses Neon (Ne), Tungsten (W), Sulphur (S), Protactinium (Pa), Phosphorous (P), Erbium (Er) and then Sulphur again to make it plural (a bit cheaty, I know, but needs must, etc..) The longest one I’ve found so far is CAMOUFLAGES, which uses EIGHT different elements and is ELEVEN letters long. 

Not sure how I’ll get those into a coherent blog post, but I can give it a go. 

RC 17-11-17

New saying invented, perhaps

Shag my boots. It’s the second half of November already! I feel the month is flying by without me getting a chance to pause and enjoy the good parts of it. I can only hope the months in the early part of next year fly by just as quickly, but I bet they won’t. The second part of Winter, the part after my birthday, is always much harder for me, and it seems to last longer each year. Damn February. It’s my nemesis. It sits upon the calendar to taunt me and drag me down and to make me start thinking about it three months before it gets here.
I’m weird, aren’t I?

RC 16-11-17

Pearls of Wisdom, perhaps

Here’s a realisation from my working life:

Nothing upsets a convertible owner more than people NOT looking at them while they’re driving…

And I found this written in a notebook, so I may have used it in a blog already. But just in case I haven’t:

“I’ve realised…. In times of unease…. Men throw themselves into work, Women throw themselves into bed.”

RC 15-11-17

6 weeks today will be Boxing Day

LISTS - for no other reason than I’m too lazy to write a proper blog, and I’m so far ahead with paperwork at work that I had some spare time on my hands today so filled it with some list-writing.
[just as a little aside, do we still call it ‘paperwork’ when it’s all done electronically?]

MY FIVE FAVOURITE CHRISTMAS EATINGS

Christmas Pudding
Mince Pies
Shortbread
Cashew Nuts with Raisins (thank you, Holland and Barrett)
Cold turkey, stuffing and mayonnaise sandwiches

MY FOUR FAVOURITE TOM HANKS FILMS

Bridge of Spies
The Green Mile
Toy Story 3
Splash

MY THREE FAVOURITE DRINKS (Nov ‘17 edition)

Earl Grey Rooibos Tea
Gingerbread latte  
Mackeson’s Stout

MY TWO FAVOURITE NAMES FOR RABBITS

Thumper
Fluffkins

MY FAVOURITE HOUR OF THE DAY

5 - 6 pm

RC 14-11-17

Streams of sub-consciousness

It’s our wedding anniversary on Christmas Eve. 
I don’t know what to do about it really. Do we go away for it or do we settle down for a Christmas at home? Those Above Me have determined horrendous opening hours for the garage over the Christmas and New Year week but thankfully my team are all very co-operative and of different lifestyle persuasions so I’ve been able to find a way to man everything without anyone being unduly shafted and thereby pissed off.  Does that mean I can steal a few days away or is that setting a bad example? 
It’s all very confusing.

On a much less pressing but nicely distracting note, I am getting dangerously close to considering the possibility that I might actually reach the milestone of 2000 postings on this blog! If it looks like I’ll get there, I might plan a nice party to celebrate, which might or might not involve inviting regular readers of said blog to join me for a shindig at a yet-to-be-determined location.
Keep on coming back for more info…..

RC 13-11-17

Lonely poppies

Our village has a little war memorial, remembering people who gave their lives 1914-18 and 1939-45, and commemorating the existence of a nearby USAF air base during the Second World War. Every year they do a little open-air service to mark Remembrance Sunday, so Philippa and I like to dress up and go along and pay our respects. There were only a few people who bothered showing up today. It was very quiet indeed. I don’t know whether this is the modern world - less people care about the past or what was given by those before us, or whether it is just a sign that those of the older generation are dying off now. They’re not going to turn up if they’re not physically able to. Or maybe there was just a bigger event going on somewhere else that more of the locals went to. To be fair, it’s not a huge village anymore so there aren’t many of us who live here, so maybe a dozen or so is the best that can be expected.
Anyway, we turned up so we did our bit, and it’s none of my business what other people choose to do with their Sunday mornings. But I felt I should mention it.

RC 12-11-17

Cinemasterpiece

We went to see “Murder on the Orient Express” today (the Kenneth Branagh version) 
I love the book, and the 1974 film version with Albert Finney is one of my all-time favourites, so it’s fair to say I approached the viewing with a certain amount of trepidation, but I LOVED IT!
My only regret is that I know the story so well that there were very few surprises, even allowing for the character changes and extra plot twists they’ve put in. But nevertheless it was probably the best film I’ve seen all year. If you’re going into it with absolutely no prior knowledge then you’re in for a real treat and I envy you. 

RC 11-11-17

I'm lazy, so here's some haiku

I thought you might not have had enough poetry from me for one week, so here’s some Fri-ku. 

Wintry winds today
Colder than it’s been all week
November pains me

A whole weekend off
My wife and I shall snuggle
And plan for Christmas

I would like to buy
Suffolk’s biggest Christmas tree
And force it indoors

The best Christmas tale
Is “It’s A Wonderful Life”
Or “Christmas Carol”

My plan this evening
Was not for Christmas haiku 
But it has happened

RC 10-11-17

Angst, and answers

It is getting frighteningly close to Christmas. We have made no plans, we have bought no presents, and I am starting to have my annual seven-weeks-beforehand panic, where I convince myself we will not be ready in time and the lives of everyone who knows me will be ruined as a result. 
So what am I going to do about it?
Bury the worries beneath an onslaught of red wine, Wii gaming and drumming and hope that when I wake up tomorrow I’ll either feel completely differently about it or been transported back in time a month… 

RC 9-11-17

Records

I think I may have blown my record for “Most Words In A Single Blog Posting” out of the window yesterday. I haven’t counted them, but there seemed to be lots, and I can’t remember ever doing a longer posting in my many years as a blogger. I may be very wrong, of course. I seem to have a small memory of writing something very long to coincide with my 1000th posting. Did I do a thousand words to celebrate the thousandth? I’m not sure now, and I make a point of not looking back at past writings so I’ll never know. I have a curious feeling that if I were to look back and re-read past entries, I would see the truth about myself in word form and I would no longer be able to convince myself that my musings are the stuff of literary genius. So I leave well enough alone. I live in my little bubble of contentment and self-deception, where I have a multitude of dedicated followers in every known country in the world, whose very lives revolve around waiting to see my poetic perfection published in a post, or my earth-shattering philosophical wonderments placed, via my keyboard, upon their screens. I am a God here, and I am happy. So leave me be….

RC 8-11-17

An Ode

A long time ago, within this blogsphere, I expressed my admiration for some of Lewis Carroll’s long-form poetry, and expressed an interest in writing a nonsense epic poem of my own. I even knew what I wanted it to be about, and what I wanted it to be based on. It would be a pastiche of, and homage to, ‘The Hunting Of The Snark‘ and would tell a tale of where I think we are and where I think we’re going.
It’s taken me about four years longer than I had hoped, but I think I am now ready to share it with you.
Ladies and gentlemen: THE SHUNTING OF THE ARK….

The Shunting of The Ark


“I’m going to make it rain!” God said
“It’s high time that man became wet.
So they’d better get ready, and cover their head
With the driest hat they can get”

You see, God had toiled when making the Earth
And all Man had done was be lazy
He’d plundered the planet and wasted it’s worth
Behaviour that drove our God crazy

He’d sat up in Heaven, maintaining his silence
Berating himself for his folly
While down below Man unleashed warfare and violence
And “Sesame Street” and “Where’s Wally?”

He’d given Man free will; the urges to search 
Things to be worshipped, indeed
But on Sundays, instead of being thankful in church
Man just got drunk and spilt all his seed

Instead of the wafer - vodka he took
Instead of Communion; crimes
facebook he turned to, and then The Good Book
(Not The Bible, but Radio Times)

Religion came second to TV and cars
Less children knew God than knew Shrek
The World became run not by priests, but by ‘stars’
It was Surmon by Ant, and by Dec

God used to be quite a generous chap
He used to be peaceful and calm
But now he was angry, he’d had a bum rap
And he wanted to cause Man harm

So he rolled out some thunder and seeded a cloud,
made the skyline imposing and frightening
“I’m making a storm of which Zeus would be proud!”
He said as he sharpened his lightning

“Man better get ready to run for the Hills
He’d better start packing his bags.
I’m wiping out Prozac and dietary pills
I’m seeing off dealers and slags

It’s time to take back what is rightfully mine
I’m wiping the slate clean on Earth
I’m passing Man’s place further on down the line
To a creature who’ll realise it’s worth”

He tried to be fair; to give Man a last chance
So he sent him some signs of his plan
But the signals were lost in the desperate dance
Of “We’ll take what we like - coz we can!” 

If God needed his children to know how he felt
He should have uploaded online
With the millions of messages (badly misspelt) 
He might have got noticed on Vine

But Man did not heed the warning that came
He was sure everything was okay
And he carried on living and doing the same
And ignored the impending Dark Day

Man did as he did, as he always had done
He rode the most selfish of waves
Putting ‘soul’ behind ‘stuff‘, putting ‘faith’ behind ‘fun’ 
Sending hope and love into their graves

The forests kept falling, the fish disappeared
Man continued to rob the World blind
And the God that had made him, the God he once feared
Was the very last thing on his mind

So when the flood came he knew not what to do
He knew not that he reaped as he sowed
And the words of the wisest were proved to be true
As God took back the debt he was owed

He opened His Heavens and let the rain drop
To wash off the stain Man had made
And the People, in panic, all rushed to the shop
Thinking spending would come to their aid

The seas they all rose as the Wise had predicted 
Land became covered in water
God watched from above and felt coldly conflicted 
Lambs he had loved went to slaughter

As the deluge descended the multitudes prayed
Expressing the panic they felt
But the deity drowning them couldn’t be swayed
God turned a blind ear as they knelt

He had reservations but knew He was right
Mans behaviour had become abhorrent
God averted his eyes, turned the sky black as night
And increased the tumult of the torrent

For month after month, the rains pounded the Earth
Til the sins of the sinful were drowned
And the downpour of Death had soon proven its worth 
When no signs of our stain could be found

When the waters receded, the Earth was anew
And the plants and the birds they all thrived
Only Man, with his wonders, had fallen afoul
While the ‘lesser of beings’ survived

The ants in their colonies; bees in their hives
Wasps in their nests, with their Queen
Emerged into Sun and got on with their lives
Thinking not of the way things had been

The last of the Men, scattered hither and yon
One by one into darkness they curled
God smiled at his work, put his sunglasses on
And the insects took over the world 

RC 7-11-17

Tolkeinites suck

I’m never happier than when I’ve been to a fireworks display, but today I am like a ten-year-old on Boxing Day - all glum and down and suffering a bit after the build-up, excitement and ultimate pain of being back in normal life mode.
I had planned to fill you in on another joyous fireworks evening last night, but it was a lot colder than on Saturday and by the time we got in I was bloody frozen and just wanted to have a hot chocolate, then a hot shower, then bed. 
It was a very different event to the previous evening, but no less enjoyable. The display was less ‘spectacular’ but the atmosphere was much friendlier, and the quality of the soup on sale gave them some extra bonus points from me. ‘Spicy Moroccan Vegetable’ is not a flavour I would ever think of putting together myself in soup form, but it was just the job for a chilly outdoor occasion and was so thick they could have called it stew. 
One incident from the night that I have to mention: 
We were standing next to a very nice family of five people, who we spoke to on and off several times. As we approached the end of the fireworks, when the frequency of bangs and the height of the rockets just kept on increasing, one of the younger members of said family remarked - “Every time you think it’s finished, something else happens. It’s a bit like the last ‘Lord of the Rings’ film.”
So I said “Except better, because this is actually worth watching.”
The woman who was standing in front of us, who had paid very little attention to the display itself and had made no effort at interaction with anyone prior to this point, was so offended by my comment that she had to turn around and huff very loudly and pointedly in my face. She held back from actually shouting anything but looked very much like she wanted to ram a large rocket up my arse and then sit me on top of the bonfire. 
One of these days I’ll write a blog about adults who are blindly obsessed with the fantasy genre and why they are worse than religious fanatics, but I can’t be bothered right now. 

6-11-17

Whoop, whoop!!

Just finished Part 1 of our two-way weekend Bonfire/Fireworks Spectacular. (Why are so many fireworks displays called ‘spectaculars’ by the way? Is that an official, recognised, acceptable collective noun - ‘a spectacular of fireworks’?)
Good fun had by all, and a very impressive display. There was a wonderful full moon that poked behind the clouds just as the fire was lit which made it even more amazing. I wasn’t keen on being shoulder-to-shoulder with middle-aged beardies stinking of weed, but that’s the downside of going to a big event like this over a quieter village display like tomorrow - you get more ‘wow’ in the skies, but you get a lot more bodies in the field. Doesn’t matter too much though, does it? Once the rockets are shooting towards the heavens you just spend your time looking up and the world around you disintegrates. That’s how it is for me, anyway. 
Has there ever, in the entire history of mankind, been a more enjoyable invention than the firework?
I have a slight crick in my neck from tilting my head back to look up for 20 minutes, but I got to stand near a bonfire, and I’ve been drinking hot soup outside, so all is well. 

RC 4-11-17

11th month.... 11 lines...

A crap poem (November)

A small blanket of black covers the Earth
My heart sinks lower in my chest
Immunity awaits the onslaught of Winter germs
Tissue sales rocket as handbags and offices get stocked
Smaller ones search skyward for snow
Excitement builds as Yuletime approaches
Shopfronts display a waterfall of Christmas
Poppies adorn proud chests
Large piles of burnable rubbish are checked for hedgehogs, and lit
Cramp becomes a regularity
Chilblains too

2-11-17

Pensive; attentive; reflective

I ripped the Hallowe’en stuff out of the garage by 9.35 am. And I promise that’s the last time I’ll be humbuggy about it this year.

It was a very mild start to November, was it not?

We had a beautiful sunset behind ours this evening. One of those ones I wish I could paint accurately or commit permanently to my memory, or both. It’s amazing how a nice bit of colour above the horizon in the last hour of daylight can lift my spirits. How on Earth people can exist in cities where the only view you get as the Sun goes down is of the same grey buildings around you is beyond me. I get to see the colours in the sky change moment to moment as the nearby fields slip into shadow. I can’t imagine it’s such a heavenly sight watching bland architectural shit-heaps getting slightly darker. 
No wonder so many urbanites take drugs. 

RC 1-11-17