Suffolk in snow

March tomorrow and it’s minus 3 outside with two inches of snow on the ground. Normally I’m all for an early onset of Spring but I have to say it’s been lovely this week. School closures, beautiful scenery and the joy of seeing your breath freeze as it leaves you. If you didn’t look out of the window this morning and feel a complete sense of joy then I pity you. 
On a more sour note, I have to say that if I hear one more person moaning about the roads I will cave their head in with a copy of The Economist. If you haven’t got the two brain cells needed to know it’s not a good idea to drive on ice and snow then you don’t deserve the freedom of speech that allows you to complain about ‘the gritters.’
And a quick note for people who compile travel reports for radio stations - when you tell us about ‘an accident caused by the bad weather’ you are actually talking about ‘an accident caused by bad driving.’ Don’t let some dickhead who was overtaking at 60 mph in a blizzard off the hook by giving him a meteorological get-out-of-jail-free card. If we’re going to live in a Culture Of Blame, we should send it in the right direction when it’s obviously deserved. 
Back to a positive attitude before I leave you in peace for the evening: I have made it through Feb without suicide or divorce, I haven’t had insomnia for a fortnight and I’m about to go for a moonlit walk through a beautiful, glistening snowscape. 

RC 28-2-18

Something worth a mention

The creation and posting of this entry I am typing right now will put me in a position that I am pretty certain will only ever happen once in my lifetime:
The number of blogs I have posted will match the number of the year in AD. 

RC 27-2-18

A taste of 'touche'

I had a bit of an argument with a customer today about the weather. I’m so sick of hearing how we’re about to descend into an ice age and get mercilessly battered by a deadly Russian wind. So when she started commenting on wanting to buy some storm shutters I snapped. I said “Look - this is Suffolk, not Siberia. It’s not going to snow enough to kill us all. Stop believing the scaremongering you get forcefed on social media and stop reading shitty British newspapers.” 
She said “Ok. I will. As soon as you stop plastering them all over the forecourt and ramming the front covers down our throats every time we come to the till.” 
I looked around me at the various newspaper stands we have, and the piles of local publications on the counter, and the advertisements for them all on the billboards outside, and promptly shut my mouth.

RC 26-2-18

An Ode to the Olympics

Skin-tight clothing, padded bums
Facial bruising, broken thumbs
Baggy clothes, protective hat
Tumbling, turning, corking, SPLAT!
Down the hill and through the pipe
Stick the landing, prove the hype 
Win the medal, get the hugs
Don’t be “Russian”, don’t take drugs
Curl the stone and hit the puck
Ride the luge and test your luck
Shoot the target, conquer fears
Try again in four more years

RC 25-2-18
2200 GMT

Five rings; three words (Winter edition)

I wouldn’t consider this some of my best work, but at least it’s finished before the Games themselves are:

Alpine skiing - Plummeting with twisting
Biathlon - Arctic drive-by shootings
Bobsleigh - Go-karting for Eskimos   
Cross-country skiing - Hiking in Winter
Curling  - shouting and sweeping
Figure skating - dancing while freezing
Halfpipe - Flip-flopping stoned gymnastics 
Ice hockey - Brawling on skates
Luge  - Formula1 without cars
Moguls - cartilage-wrecking, spine-compressing, shuffling
Nordic combined - not a clue
Skeleton - Headfirst death-wish insanity
Ski jumping - suicide with landings
Slope style -  snowy horizontal trampolining  
Snowboarding - skateboarding without wheels
Speed skating - skatey speedy circles

RC 25-2-18

Lying in; lounging about; loved up

It’s the penultimate day of the Winter Olympics, which is very disappointing. What am I going to watch while sitting up until 1am next week? I’ll have to go back to using films as an excuse for insomniac behaviour. You know the sort of thing - “Black Panther will only be in the cinema for another three months, I simply HAVE to watch Spider-Man: Homecoming TONIGHT or I’ll risk seeing the Marvel films out of sequence.”
Philippa and I have got caught up in the plight of the GB ladies curling team. It’s freezing cold outside, so we’re staying in bed until after lunchtime and catching Winter sports on TV while we can. (I have broken away only to make a pot of tea and squeeze a quick blog in, then I’ll be back with Philippa and the pillows and waiting an hour for the bronze medal match to start.)
It’s always good to have a blog-based prediction hanging in the balance while these things are going on, so here’s my thoughts on what will happen to Eve Muirhead, etc over the next 150 minutes or so:

Japan 10 Great Britain 7

RC 24-2-18

"Don't Think" (a poem)

This was really written to be performed and listened to, rather than written down and read. But as neither you or I are likely to be at an open-mic poetry evening anytime soon, I thought I’d put it on here:

ACID RAIN! ACID RAIN!
No-one mentions that again
We’ve got so used to climate change
Whatever happens won’t feel strange
Floods flow, refugees will run
Toddlers rampage with a gun
All seems normal; all ok
Who cares what goes extinct today?
Plastic pile-up, boiling seas
Starving children, choking trees
Melting ice and mangled bees
Too much to do… do as you please
Download apps and spend, spend, spend
Like that picture, don’t unfriend
Be the latest, own the gadget
Can’t afford it? Card it… Cadge it…
Payday loan! Don’t stop to blink
DON’T MISS OUT… DON’T BREATHE… DON’T THINK.

RC 22-2-18

An afterthought (Winter Olympics)

Isn’t two-man luge the most suspect sport you’ve ever seen?

RC 21-2-18
2016 GMT

Bored to Death

I had the joyous fun of a two-day managers meet-up to contend with this week. I was looking forward to it about as much as someone with photosensitive epilepsy looks forward to a strobe light convention. My expectations were that it would be mind-numbingly tedious and unbelievably unhelpful, and even setting my standards that low I was still stunned by how pointless and how painful it was.
We learnt that senior management want the filling stations to be more profitable (big surprise!) and that there may be the possibilities of staff cutbacks in a couple of months time (big surprise!) We also had to sit through a three-hour presentation by an external consultant who has been visiting various garages and, as far as I can tell, has spent his entire time compiling a powerpoint show containing dozens of indecipherable graphs. As ever, I was tempted to fill the air with snarky comments and risk discipline from my superiors due to my lack of commitment and bad attitude, but in the end I just sat back and doodled while everybody else in the room expressed my inner feelings by verbalising their own. After 15 minutes or so, every slide in the slideshow was being greeted by groans, tuts or the good old-fashioned ‘shaking of the head while huffing.’ No-one wanted to be there, no-one gained anything positive from it, and we all agreed our time would have been better spent going paintballing with each other and then swapping ideas in a pub.  
I feel like I need a big shower now to wash off all the mental scarring. Then I shall have a nice bit of grub, then I shall attack the drums for a while. 
Tomorrow, thank God, I’m back to my little office.

RC 21-2-18

Cold and measured

Two thoughts about yesterdays blog of mine:
I’ve been blogging through three Olympic cycles now, so I’ve probably written something almost exactly the same twice before (in 2010 and 2014, I expect.) I’m nothing if not repetitive.
It also reminded me that back in 2016, while sitting up watching the Summer Games in Rio, I wrote a little three-word definition of every event, and I think it’s only fair if I do the same thing for Pyeongchang. 
That’s the rest of the weekend sorted then….

RC 17-2-18

Pyeongchang haiku

Winter Olympics
British athletes trying hard
But no gold medals

Elise Christie cried
After falling on the ice
I could have done that!

Cold, windy weather
Many snowboarders tumble 
Many viewers chuckle

I’m not an athlete
But I love playing in snow
Can I join in please?

No amount of cash
Could tempt me to take part in
Skeleton or luge

This isn’t a haiku but is something I’d like to mention: I don’t enjoy the Winter Olympics quite as much as the Summer version, mainly because so many of the events are left in the hands of judges. It makes it less about physical achievement, and more about the opinions of a handful of people sitting in attendance. Those people are human and therefore open to mood swings and subconscious prejudices, and medals could be awarded based on how they feel rather than how the contestants perform. 
I’m not ACCUSING any of them of anything, I’m just pointing out where I feel the Olympic system is flawed. It’s the same reason I don’t enjoy things like gymnastics and synchronised swimming in the ‘other Olympics.’
It’s only my view, of course. It’s not really a problem with the Games, I think it’s more a reflection of my scientific, logical mind and my borderline OCD. I want things that are measurable and discernible, not left open to human interpretation.
Anyway - back to the haiku.

The downhill skiing
Is being run on FAKE SNOW!
It doesn’t seem right…..

RC 16-2-18

....and how!!

We more than made up for the wasted Valentine’s Day tonight.  A great meal, a fun game, and a little belated Valentine’s love-in that has left my head spinning and my back aching in at least three different places. 
Now I think I shall sit up and watch the Winter Olympics. It’s become a bit of a habit this week - sitting on the sofa til 1am watching Curling, then getting up early to catch up on anything I might have missed before dragging myself into work. I’ll admit something to you now…. I know bugger all about winter sports. Most of my interest lies in waiting to see people get wiped out on the snowboard slopes. I’m sorry, but it’s true. 

RC 15-2-18

Valen-whine's Day

Remember those days when you enjoyed a lovely romantic meal with your loved one and swapped little Valentines gifts and gazed lovingly into each others eyes?
If they ever happened to me, they evaporated after getting married.
Philippa came in foul of mood after a run-in at work with a patient. I was already hacked off after a day of bowel pain and constipation that may or may not (but probably may) have been connected to how many pancakes I guzzled yesterday. And to top it all off we had a power cut for no apparent reason that lasted nearly two hours.  On a better day, in better moods, we may have made the best of the situation by bringing in a takeaway and eating it surrounded by candles, but we were both in a bad frame of mind already so we just ended up snapping at each other, blaming each other, and wallowing in a state of darkness.
One positive thing - it did remind me of a very funny Bert and Ernie sketch from Sesame Street, in which they are stuck without electricity and can’t think of anything to do because everything around them needs electricity to work. Informative, and entertaining too. As soon as the power came back on I fired up YouTube and watched it.  Which didn’t sit well with Philippa. I should have been rushing to the cooker or checking the freezer apparently. 
Ah, well. 

RC 14-2-18

Pancakes ahoy!

Shrove Tuesday may be my favourite non-religious, partly-commercialised, pointless-if-you-don’t-like-egg-mix, ‘holiday’-that-isn’t-really-a-holiday holiday. 
I had four pancakes last night (one for every course, and an added one as a little treat.) The first one had bacon and cheese in it, the second one was a bit like a Spanish omelette, but with the spuds and veg rolled in a pancake instead of mixed in an omelette; the third one had heated cherries and cream in, and the last one I just rolled up and dunked in chocolate sauce. It was made with all the remains of the batter mix so it was extra thick too.
I probably ingested the entire egg production of an entire factory of battery hens, but so what? It’s only once a year. 

RC 14-2-18

Snowball effect?

Philippa came bouncing in the house like a child who had just wiped their own bum for the first time and is feeling a rush of achievement and independence. There seems to have been a powerful paradigm shift in her situation at work. With a bit more time under her belt she is feeling more confident and more able, and the nice weekend away seems to have sent in her today full of energy and enthusiasm. The improved level of relaxation led to an improved level of confidence which led to an improved level of competence. Not fighting nerves meant she was able to think her way through things and to realise that she’s starting to know what she’s doing, so I think she’s finally broken the back of the “AAAARGGGHH!!!  F*******KKKKKK!!!” period that you always have to go through at a new job. Long-term she may not take to it, but at least it looks like she’s not going to give in to the negative feelings and thoughts of the early days, and pack it all in without giving it a chance to succeed.
It’s nice to have her a bit happier, and it’s also nice for her to not have to leave the house at 7.30am and get home at 6.30 pm. Working close by is a godsend and the lack of driving frustrations is adding to her new sense of enjoyment.
It’s nice for me to not have to wait ages for my tea, either. It’s been annoying getting home just after 5 and sitting around til she comes in to cook for me….

I’M KIDDING, feminists.  I’ve cooked nearly every night when I’ve been the first person in, so take a joke when it’s offered and stop finding things to be offended by.

RC 12-2-18

Sombre solution

For the first time in all the time I’ve known them, Ted and Beryl look old. 
I suppose it’s because we haven’t been meeting up with them so often - we’re seeing them change in alarming chunks rather than seeing it as a gradual change.  Not having parents around to worry about or care about, I’m not used to the shock of watching those you love start to age and look mortal. The unstoppable slog towards death is something I think about a lot, but only in regards to myself. I’m not used to having to face up to the shock of realising that people I’m fond of are going to deteriorate and die. It’s not nice, and it’s made me very melancholy all day today. Not going into details, but I’ve mulled it over a lot and I think the best decision is to kill myself when I’m about 50. Then I’ll have enjoyed the best parts of life and done everything I’ve wanted to, without having to go through the trauma of seeing Philippa fall apart over the next few decades. I can’t imagine anything worse than being by someone’s side while they make their descent into decrepitude, so this new plan of mine gets me out of that. Makes me sound morbid and depressed, I’m sure, but making the decision to end it at 50 took all that shit out of my head and made me start to feel a lot better, so in that way this trail of thought was a good thing.
And I’ll still be around for 16 years yet, so don’t start weeping and ordering mourning suits. 

RC 11-2-18

Friday thoughts

A quick poem about this weeks weather:

It snowed.
It froze.
It melted.
It rose.
It slapped us with Winter
Then gave us a hint o’
Spring.

And a quick haiku about my quick poem:

Some peoples poems
Are beautifully crafted
But mine aren’t like that

And a quick grade for my quick haiku about my quick poem:

B-

RC 9-2-18

Shorter one than yesterday

Even at my age there is something deeply satisfying about crunching an icy puddle with my feet.

RC 8-2-18

Into the Third Millennium (kind of)

Philippa is finally finding her feet at work, thank God. Three weeks of bumbling around like a confused infant have led to a couple of days of feeling like she almost knows a little bit of what she’s supposed to be doing, so she’s starting to relax a bit and accept that maybe she’ll eventually get there. It’s good to see. Not just because the atmosphere at home is less toxic, but because it’s not nice seeing someone you love struggling and suffering through anything, and I can notice a bit more confidence in her now.  

I’m a bit desperate for a holiday. It’s just the time of year I think. Dark, very cold; everyone has had at least one bug this Winter, maybe more. And if this year runs along the lines of the last few, then we still have about 3 months of Winter before it starts warming up again. So it’s all dragging me down a bit. The thought of hopping on a plane and spending a week or so in Tunisia makes me very happy, but I can’t imagine Philippa’s new workplace would be pleased if she booked some time off less than a month after starting there. So here we’re stuck, and here we stay. 

At least we have a nice weekend to look forward to. Ted and Beryl have both been ‘feeling their ages’ lately so their son Alan has arranged a little get-together meal on Saturday to cheer them up. Philippa, God bless her, had the idea of staying at a little bed-and-breakfast near them so we didn’t have to rush home and could both have a drink. So that’ll be nice. Be great to see them both as well, as we haven’t kept up with them as well as I’d hoped since we’ve relocated South. They’ve had a busy year or so though, I know that much. Beryl’s had her knee replaced, Ted has had his prostate bored out and they’ve both been told they’re pre-diabetic, whatever that means.  I look forward to hearing all about it on Saturday and of course I’ll be letting you any snippets of Ted wisdom that pour forth during the evening…..

RC 7-2-18

MM

Well I was pretty way out with my sporting prediction on Sunday wasn’t I? This is why I never gamble, despite the constant onslaught of offers to join online bookie websites that flood into my inbox every week. I was very wrong, and I’ve never been happier to be so. I sat up and watched the game, of course. Enjoyed it immensely but I’ve been suffering since. I’d booked yesterday off to recover but still didn’t get any extra sleep. Last night I was very moody and tired and very short and snappy with Philippa, so she told me to piss off to bed at about 9.15 and for a change I took her advice. Today I have felt hungover, fatigued and unfocussed, and distracted by a very sore throat. I don’t think it’s a proper cold or anything; just the effects of breathing the freezing air coupled with the aftermath of sitting up until 4am on Monday. I just can’t handle these late nights anymore. In my twenties, sure, I could get away with drinking til 3am, having a couple of hours kip, doing a full day of work and then heading out again in the evening. Now, I get flattened for two days if I dare to sit up past midnight, even if I’m just lounging on the sofa watching gridiron. But you know what? I seem to remember saying almost exactly the same thing after the SuperBowl last year, so I’m obviously not learning any lessons from my life.

This has been my 2000th blog, by the way. I was hoping to commemorate the occasion with an insightful, meaningful, memorable piece of writing but instead this has turned into the usual waffly bullshit you’ve got used to over the years. Kind of an appropriate way to mark the occasion, I guess. 

RC 6-2-18

Guessing Game

Time for my annual Ill-Informed, Poorly-Researched, Not-Thought-Through, Shot-In-The-Dark, Wildly-Speculative and Ultimately-Wide-Of-The-Mark Pre-Match SuperBowl Result Prediction:

New England Patriots 42   Philadelphia Eagles 17

RC 4-2-18