Epidemic Warning or Fashion Forecast

Alys' Christening (16), originally uploaded by Kelteek.

There is news today that Obesity might be as big a threat to the world as Global Warming – well, yes, I admit there are those of us who look like a melting iceberg sauntering along the High Street but we are beaten into second place by Janet’s cousin (pictured above) who teaches schoolkids about nutrition. Blooming cheek as she is the size of a small portakabin. Her first question to the kids should be “Who ate all the pies!” They'd get 100 per cent straightaway.

BBC News say "Details have emerged of a government study which says that half the population could be obese within 25 years". So there was me thinking I was a porker and really being obese in 2007 makes me a trend-setter!!

A Milford Christening

Alys' Christening (2), originally uploaded by Kelteek.

I spent the day at a Christening in Milford Haven. It is a long time since I was at a Methodist Church and there were no tambourines in evidence but we did get a guitar-playing vicar in a built-up shoe so it wasn’t a total loss. There were hymns with complicated rhythms and plenty of room for me to make asides to Richard.

Vicar: … knowing an all-knowing God…

Me: Aha! Knowing everything about me aha… (good old ABBA/Alan Partridge)

Vicar: …giving all or nothing, but sometimes not knowing whether to go one way or another

Me: He’s having a go at Betty Bothways now (or rephrasing Losing my Mind – do Vicars do Sondheim? He doesn’t look like the Liza Minnelli/Pet Shop Boys type but who knows!)

At this point the beautifully behaved Alys, who even stayed happy during the serious ceremony of wetting her forelock, gave a little whelp. I nudge Aunt Kathleen and say “Did someone stand on her tail?” and that set of a round of noise that turns out to be her and Jean trying not to giggle in their pews. It’s amazing what you can find funny when you shouldn’t be messing about.

Later we meet at the Legion and have a buffet which included that pizza only found in Milford Haven and which looks like someone has ironed it. (I suppose it is a starch?) “I haven’t seen this pizza for 20 years”, I state prodding it to the back of my plate – “In fact this might be the one I saw then!”

Ellen who is in the photo above has turned radioactive – her wrist isn’t healing after a fracas with a (what is it patient/inmate/resident?) and so they injected her with some gloop that means she has to stay away from children for 24 hours. It’s like a mundane Milford version of Spiderman… bitten by a Radioactive Ellen, mild mannered photographer Robjohn turns into Ellenman... cue the Theme tune

Ellen-man, Ellen-man, does whatever an Ellen can

Drinks a drink, smokes a fag

Big and strong, like a man in drag

Watch ooooout! Here comes Ellen Man!!!

nothin' on?

nothin' on?, originally uploaded by --evolver--.

Some children decided to play a prank the other night –well I say children, to be honest they didn’t sound that young… or intelligent. They phoned our house asking for Richard and then posed pointless questions about gay sex – I suppose it was meant to be intimidating but frankly I am more intimidated by cold calls from mortgage companies. They didn’t realise that I have worked in sexual health services for nearly 20 years and there is very little you can say on the phone that could shock me. Perhaps “Mr John, you’ve won the lottery!” or “Mr John, your blog has won the Booker prize!”

In my time, I have spoken to countless people often worried about sexual shenanigans outside their main relationship with the complications of guilt and secrecy adding to the lack of knowledge of sexually transmitted infections. Men beginning their call with “I’m not gay but…” (But you are Blanche!) and “I don’t know why I did it but…” (cos you liked it!). So a call asking about what sort of sex I liked was none too worrying especially as I haven’t had time for sex since … oh, since Labour got in I think. For many people who work in sexual health, going home and doing it is like homework which we try and avoid. I would rather watch the telly!

However, there is a new phenomenon I have noticed which combines the two. Long ago pornography was posed, then acted, then airbrushed and finally made using computer graphics to enhance…, well let’s call them “the props”. We had a backlash and people made uber-real porn, no condoms, poor lighting, hand held wobblycam and lashings of…, well let’s call it “baby gravy”.

Dear reader: This censorship is for your benefit in case you are halfway through an eggnog or tucking into a saveloy and chips. You know how easy your stomach turns: how queasy you get when I mention seepage.

But now we have Flickr and men (and women I suppose but I am not really looking there, am I?!) post their own photostreams which tend to have a mix of all the photos they take without any editing. So we have a poorly cropped snap of the corgis, followed by an interesting (not) wall seen in Dorset, then a blurry pic of Aunt Mabel and her new invalid carriage, and finally a sepia-toned (artistic!) shot of someone’s knob taken in the living room. Usually on what appears to be a DFS sofa or sometimes a DSS sofa. They have wallpaper borders and tongue'n'groove dados, artex ceilings and often a Christmas tree regardless of the time of year.

• Does that shock me? No.
• Does the fact that they are appallingly dressed worry me, or that they kept their white(ish) tube socks on? No, not really.
• Having their head sometimes cropped, or covered in black scribble or blurred out? No biggie – they probably look better that way
• Does the fact that they left the TV on in the background distract me? A little…

I suppose I like photos to have some integral cohesiveness. If you photograph your erogenous zones with a macro zoom then I don’t expect to see Natasha Kaplinsky’s face in the top corner of the picture or a shot of conflict in Iraq/Darfur/Burma/Littlehampton. I saw one guy who had placed himself with his back on the floor and his legs up on the brown corduroy sofa, then photographed himself in mid-pull while Chris Tarrant continued to ask the question “Would you like to phone a friend?”

If they were playing porn I could understand but not everyday TV offerings. Sport maybe – skimpy shorts on Rugby League players, footballers’ thighs, now that may do it for me but Tricia? If you were gyrating to MTV or ogling E!Babes perhaps- but Richard and Judy? BBC News 24? These are the people who have Maggie Thatcher as a pin up!

What is the world coming to? The blurb on the members page who posted said items often has lines like “my dogs are my best friends”( I suppose the don’t fight for the remote control) or “I’m a pretty normal guy” … we’ll see?!

If you are sitting by your computer reading this and the TV is also on just think about it… does it get you going? Why should it, you’re watching Delia Smith (I could understand Nigella Lawson by the way!!)

So what are you watching now… let me know if you dare by comment or by email at fathobbit@ntlworld.com

choker

choker, originally uploaded by Kelteek.

Announcer: We interrupt this blog to point out that Richard is choking on cheese and cake – and yet he continues to shovel said foodstuff into his gaping maw between coughing fits!

Director: We cannot interfere with the process of life in the natural world and chose to document this incident rather than intervene in the spirit of integrity and honest reporting

Richard: Snort! Snorffel-aaa-aaah-hhaa-umph!

Merthyrsexual and Canton Crooks

We have the painters in...well, builders actually – at home, next door and now at work – is there to be no escape from improperly clad young men singing loudly and tunelessly to Radio One. Flaunting their tanned bodies and stretching their muscles – so annoying. (Do I sound even a tad convincing?)

I have my camera(s) at the ready but by the end of day three the sanding begins and we all need masks so as not to breathe in the fine dust – although the masks don’t keep out the lovely smell of the chips they have for lunch each day.

We move our desks to the front room of the building and have a view of the usual Canton crowd – hoodies and pick pockets hang about the kebab shop, bumping into people and stashing the wallets on the lintel above the door so they have no evidence on them if frisked. Knock off DVDs are sold and cars pull up and do the funny handshake – not the Freemason’s one but the one where cash and stash are passed none too surreptitiously.

Years ago Joe Jackson sang about “pretty women out walking with Gorillas down my street”. Now we look out and see well groomed, fashionably dressed young men with waddling girlfriends whose fat hangs over their low-waisted trackie bottoms and badly strangled hair. The men have made an effort although they still look a bit bender-like Beckham. Their clothes are cheap if trendy and their hair a little too streaked - Methyrsexual rather than Metrosexual. When we now ask “Is she really going out with him?” we are just wondering if she knows her boyfriend is gay?

Arsenic and old ways

Richard tells me that they went to the memory clinic today and Daddy Shortlegs scored poorly on the old mini-mental. He just can’t do sums any more! He can’t really keep a track on numbers, on time and dates, so he has a perpetual meal time, standing in the kitchen in his pants and slippers to graze on toast. Bloody toast crumbs are still everywhere! Perhaps he is trying to find his way back to his room like Hansel and Gretel finding their way out of the dark forest, following breadcrumbs in the moonlight.

Richard said “They mentioned the A-word”.

“A-word? Have you just forgotten which A-word, Rich; are you getting forgetful like your dad? Arsenic?” I perk up hopefully – what an obliging clinic they are!

“One of his current tablets conflicts with the Aricept treatment for Alzheimer’s” – although how anyone remembers the list of tablets he takes is beyond me – and I have the memory (and the arse) of an elephant. Jack now has the memory of a gnat: a forgetful gnat distracted by the promise of toast and JAG – which is like toast and Jam but available every day (not just yesterday and tomorrow) and always loud!

“They still have that skip outside” I mention apropos of nothing...

Nip Tuck Wax Sting

Hilda Ogden - The Early Years, originally uploaded by Belljw18670.

Following on from the lip smacking ginger-bollocks below, I hear from Alex who has had mishaps with her DIY plastic surgery. Having taken herself to France she finds herself stuck indoors during the rain and like most women of a certain age with few belongings in their hotel room she plays “make up” which always beats reading your Gideon Bible (or whatever the French version is). Quentin Crisp told us that make up was addictive, as is the art of applying it – one tweak with the tweezers can lead to startling consequences. Alex’s Facebook entry announces that she is nursing a near hair lip after going crazy trying to remove her moustache with Nair!

My cousin once had a problem with Immac – she was at Milford Haven Youth Club disco (woo!!) and dancing with her best friend. Doing that unenthusiastic seventies bop you see on TOTP2, they bitched about a hairy girl in her class. They shouted above the music…

“She’s a mess – what a state”

“Who does she think she is, Chris Evett – she looks like a man”

“More like Jason King - she should use Immac”

“What do you say?”

Milford was never big on technology, and in an age well-before advanced mixing techniques, the DJ coped with one turntable and so the music suddenly dipped as Julie screamed “IMMAC!”

She has never quite lived down that moment.

Alex meanwhile has updated her entry “Can you imagine how pissed off I was when a low-life wasp decided to drop half its arse into my cupids bow a day later! Spent the first four days of our French trip looking like I had a minute female sensory organ dangling from my upper lip! Combined with half my skin missing and the occasional spot of blood oozing over my frites, I think I looked spectacular.”

All of this in a week when I had to answer an email enquiry about Anal Fissures. I discovered that they use Botox on your butt to make the muscles relax and prevent further chapping! There’s something Nadine “Boggart” Baggot doesn’t mention when she’s flogging her pentapedtides. Call yerself a celebrity beauty editor – we all know she’s sharing a cheap rented flat above the Pound Shop with Beryl and Merle, the girls from the British Skincare Foundation.

Well, I’m off to the bathroom for a date with my moustache and “Just for Men”. What’s your nightmare tale of beauty gone wrong – email me on fathobbit@ntlworld.com

Ginger Tabby and Red Cross

chugger, originally uploaded by Kelteek.

Friday night: I am happily surfing, catching up with Facebook, Flickr and Big Brother Forum. Richard is less happily ‘serfing’, getting me tea and toast and sorting out a ham to boil in coca-cola.

Someone is knocking at the door. Richard answers but I can’t hear who he is talking to above the din of News24 (from my room) and SGI (Jack’s room). He is not inviting anyone in and as I am undressed I cannot go and investigate – I’m not dressing just for some hawker! However, by judiciously leaning over the banister I can hide my naked bulk whilst catching sight of something ginger in a suit and hear Richard’s nervous coughing. Rich and his dad are suckers for buying things at the door from our local gypsy or 'Lucky Heather' as we call her. They also fill in sponsorship forms and signs petitions. Richard will even talk to neighbours in the street. I worry we are being talked into a conservatory or PVC windows or something equally déclassé to lower the value of the house.

I go back to my room and shut up the smug twosome from the BBC. Why has the news decided on a Richard and Judy format? We never get two men or two women anchors at the same time as if Auntie Beeb had become so heterosexist as to consider that a single-sex news team may affront the moral dignity of the nation. I still can’t hear as Daddy Shortlegs has his telly volume set on “Wembley”. His room is next to the front door (for his convenient removal when the day comes that a long black car pulls quietly up outside) so the noise still masks the conversation in the porch.

The caller has ginger hair with chunky blond streaks and resembles a political refugee from Cats. I am sure his hairdresser said it will make him look like Geri Halliwell during the Ginger Spice years. Unless she is one of those older salon owners with vicious red hair of a colour only used by older salon owners to complement the Caramac (puppy scour) shade beloved by old males in the profession. In which case she might have hinted he would look like Holly Golightly. Unfortunately they are wrong – he has been tinted the shade of an old tabby with a grease problem and looks like “cat” in the rain scene at the end of Breakfast at Tiffanys.

Over his suit he is wearing a logo-strewn tabard – a vest affair normally sported by criminals, netball players and schoolchildren on sports day who can’t afford a set of kit in the house colours. An advert breaks occurs and Jack’s set dips down to the lulling roar of a Motorhead concert. I hear the ginger one saying he is working for the Red Cross so we are victims of doorstep chuggers – and with that hair! We are giving money to a charity which makes the young man lick his lips with delight. I work for a charity and yet Richard does not make a contribution to me. Charity begins at home you know!!

Never mind Rear Window – try Rear Exit.

builder with white van (2), originally uploaded by Kelteek.

I am sitting by the window bored between bouts of running to the bogatory (see below… that’s the blog below not my “belows”) and so take to photographing the passers-by and the neighbour’s builders.

One of them complains loudly to his boss (loud enough for me to hear although the Merthyr accent is almost impenetrable). “He’s got the camera on us all day”.

Well what is one to do when stuck at home with a new digital camera – take photos of the cat!

Hiding from the Pooparazzi

30 SECRETS IN 30 DAYS # 1:, originally uploaded by Me & my life!.

It’s been a long day thanks to Keith and Norman who gave Richard some homemade Bolognese sauce which they said was “a little spicy”. Richard joked that it contained five types of chilli which I thought was a pun on the old “5 types of cum in a Swansea curry” story - years of working on a helpline meant that more than once callers began a conversation with “Can you get AIDS from sperm in curry?” A case for CSI Madras methinks! But no, the Bolognese did had five types of chilli including jalapeños and tasted hot on the way in – and even hotter on the way out. So I have been stuck at home near the lavatory for most of the day.

I discover that Gavin has also had an explosion: he left the office today and when he got to his car the bottle of Lucozade left on the passenger seat had exploded. The entire interior was covered in sticky orange goo! And I mean covered - it's stained the roof lining and took him three hours to clean what he could when he got home. How happy do you think he was? As he said “Seats, windows, dashboard, carpets... even inside the cubby holes, over my CDs: fucking everything!” And to think they used to say it was good for you – I never trusted the stuff myself.

There have been other culinary mishaps. Picture the scene, as Sophia used to say, Haverfordwest 1986, me with big hair and shoulder pads galore making curry for my friends who had come around to help sew clothes for my wedding (it’s a long story and I’ll explain it some day - for now let’s just say “I liked cake” and have done with it). Could they resist meddling – no! Into the kitchen they trooped in twos and threes adding a pinch of something here and a pinch of something else there until the curry was metaphorically black and blue. One of the then decided to put a little salt in it and rather than use a teaspoon – oh no too simple – they upped the jar and heaps poured in. I tried sugar, vinegar, lemon juice everything but it was still the saltiest meal ever eaten (unless you count the Swansea curry above).

Of course using a teaspoon doesn’t always help. One former partner took me strawberry picking – turned out he wasn’t meaning M&S for a quick point at the fruit counter but a real farm – what next tobacco crops, cotton, nights spent running from Simon of Legree! (I only know Uncle Tom’s Cabin from The King and I – gay musical-loving stereotype that I am!! I’m still waiting for a food range containing Uncle Tom’s Carbonara – much safer than Mr Uphill’s Bolognese recipe!)

We made pounds and pounds of strawberry jam and then having used up all the preserving sugar, we turned the last few strawberries into a tart and a smoothie. The tarts were baking away in the oven and I was baking away in the kitchen as it was bloody hot day. I really fancied a cool smoothie but it was undrinkable. Thinking the Apostle spoon meant that the white stuff in a salt pig would be sugar, he’d heaped it in the blender. We poured the smoothies away and drank Canton’s water supply dry only to realise the tarts would be similarly saline! I’m not sure which of the Apostles was actually responsible so I blamed them all.

Had any culinary mishaps - email me on fathobbit@ntlworld.com

Prison Break: Daddy Legs it!!

EWWWW! Dad's Legs, originally uploaded by Jeff Danger.

3am and all the lights are out. I am sleepily making my way to the bathroom in the dark when the hall light goes on downstairs. From the doorway of the darkened bathroom I can see through to the hallway where Daddy Shortlegs is shuffling his way out of his room. His head jerks and wobbles as he looks up and squints as if to focus, making him like something feral sniffing out a predator (or prey!) but I am in shadow and he can’t see me. He can’t see as far as his own hand to be honest but I stand stock still just in case he senses any movement. “What is he up to?”

He shuffles along to the row of hooks and searches the coats and jackets one by one, constantly muttering under his breath and looking in all the pockets of items belonging to me and Richard as well as his own. Surely he doesn’t need cash so badly he’d rob our pockets – has he lost his cash card again? If I confront him he will get angry or shuffle back to his room, so as silently as possible I move closer to the top of the stairs and look around the banisters. I stand listening to the shuffling of slippers on carpet and the jangling of keys. He now has a number of keys in his hand and he is squinting into the kitchen, looking furtively for any sign of me or Richard. Coast clear, he makes his way to the front door, casting another sly glance upstairs and I have to retreat around the banisters so as to remain out of sight in the dark.

He doesn’t need a key to get out of the front door which he opens slowly and stealthily. It is obvious that he is now officially “sneaking”. With the door only half open, he stands in the draught of the porch, trying key after key until he finds the right one. He checks it once, twice, then removes the key and shuffles back into the hallway and drops the spare keys onto the hall stand. Another cagey glance upstairs and then a final shuffle back to the door with chosen key in hand. He walks out of the house and closes the door.

I race up the stairs to the first floor window and watch him progress slowly towards the lamppost outside our house. There he stands, like an OAP rent-boy clutching the lamppost in a terry towelling dressing gown, socks and slippers – sexy not! A car passes by and I feel like a guilty Mrs Danvers spying on him in his best Lili Marlene pose as he repeats the squinty searching look, his head jerkily covering the scene as if he can’t remember how to move his eyes independently of his neck muscles. Surely he can’t be looking for me or Richard, he could simply shout up the stairs as he usually does. And surely he isn’t trolling for trade! Is he ill – is he waiting for an ambulance or a taxi (or an ice-cream van?)

Is he planning an escape? Is he practicing for a quick (!) getaway wearing slippers so as not to alert us? Are his blue veined legs the equivalent of the tattoo in Prison Break, hiding plans for where to find the fridge and where he left the TV remote control? Thank God it is summer and not icy outside or the only break would be his hip when he careers along the path in his rubber-soled slippers.

I stop guessing as two minutes later he returns to the house, turning the key slowly and slipping the door back into place as quietly as possible, his hand on the lock so the latch slides home silently. I am not sure whether I feel more like a prison warder or a snitch as I wake up Richard and tell him what has happened. Did you give him his tablets? Did you shut his window? Did he eat his dinner? Yes, yes and yes... so I lie in the dark wondering what he wants. Should I spin his room for illegal stashes of Mr Kipling’s cherry bakewells? If he passes you a note or bangs out his plan on the pipes with his tin cup, email me on fathobbit@ntlworld.com

Baldie on the beach

bald lady on the beach (2), originally uploaded by Kelteek.

Richard and I decide to leave our house for the afternoon to escape the smell of burnt cardboard. We drive to Penarth and eat an ice-cream while sitting on the pier. Through the railings I can see a small woman with little hair as she walks alone on the pebbles, her outfit matching the neutral tones of the sand and rocks. Both her slow pace and her contemplative gaze blend with the slow mood of late afternoon warmth. Penarth seems as old and quaint as ever as I devour my cornet of chocolate and vanilla.

I look over the other side of the pier and see a different sight – modern, brash, colourful and ill-fitting. I give up on the thought of scampi and chips after seeing what looks like a fashion victim of a drive-by styling by Edina Monsoon with cataracts. I'm not sure I could keep anything down! My previous reverie for the balding woman has passed - now I wonder if he's an aged drag queen looking for the seagull who stole his wig! Cue Judy Garland's "The mane that got away"

For font's sake!

There is a Christening at the church today –well I think it’s a christening. People are too casually dressed for a funeral or even a wedding (which usually takes place on a Saturday).

Some of the guests are dressed more for the ensuing party than the service. I spot gold court shoes, black leggings, a silver dress and that's just the men... no not really. Finally, I spot a lump in a shrug swinging her handbag like an extra from Band of Gold.

The shrugger-lump's family (top) were not as out of place as the mum in black leggings and heels (below) who has dressed her children in a similar vein… What will the vicar think?

I watched the christening from my window feeling more and more like Jimmy Stewart in a scene from rear window as people murder fashion through my lens. Unfortunately, there is no Grace Kelly to send on a styling mission.

The Vicar has retired home to lunch after the christening without visiting us to perform an exorcism on the poltergeist that is Daddy Shortlegs who is still rearranging the kitchen stools into a heap in the middle of the floor so that he can get into cupboards and rearrange even more things unnecessarily.

The smell of burnt cardboard and Richard’s raised voice lets me know that Jack has cooked a “Chicken and Potatoes” meal for one. I say cooked but mean cremated as among the instructions on the box were such snippets as “unsuitable for microwaves” and “cook for 28 minutes” – so this has translated to put in a microwave for 28 minutes – you could cook a whole bloody chicken in that time!

So today we have had one christening, four fashion victims and a cremation. I’m not sure if there is a poem to fit the occasion although with 15 minutes still flashing on the microwave we can settle for “Stop all the clocks!”

So Horny (horny, horny, horny)

Horn Truck going to Altoona June 2006, originally uploaded by shiphorns.com.

5a.m. and someone has the horn! No, not me - I was deep in Harry Potterland when the noise came to my attention. I read on but five minutes later the noise was beginning to irritate and so I am up and looking out of the windows but I can’t see where the noise is coming from: nothing to see in the back and only a group of three stragglers in the crescent strolling home from some late-night drinking den.

Well, the two men in front are strolling, bare arms around each other’s t-shirted shoulders. Some way behind is a young woman wearing a man’s nylon hoody (what we used to call a windcheater) and high heels. With the oversized hood pulled-up and the overly-long sleeves covering her hands, all we can see is her bare legs which are tanned deep brown (making a nice change from the mottled appearance one usually sees) but she drags her feet and keeps her distance. She looks like she is being forced to model a cocktail dress designed for the WAGs of the Ku Klux Klan.

Only the shouting between the two groups lets me know they are together.

Man #1: “She’s a liar!”

Man #2: “Jill’s always lying.”

Woman: “mumble, grumble, slurrrr…” Her hood makes her sound like Kenny from South Park, only she is from a Cardiff council estate and so less articulate.

Man #1: (louder) “Oh! so Jill told you! She told you, did she? Well she’s a liar, mate - I told you she’s a liar back there. What about when …slurr…!?”

The proceed slowly and unsteadily along the road and one of the men plays with what looks like a lighter flickering on and off – I rub my eyes to make sure I am not asleep and he isn’t a council dementor with a deluminator. Nope: Chav with a lighter, just like I thought. Ms Barelegs has caught up to the men with a tottering step, step, slide stilettos gratingly on tarmac sort of gait but backs off when Man#1 turns around.

I am distracted from the altercation at that point, as the horn noise gets louder and a car enters the crescent going at a funeral pace. The driver has his hand fixed firmly on the horn and after two laps of horner (worst pun yet!!) without any success, he starts parp-parping the horn but to what ends I can only guess. Is he looking for someone? Is he in need of help? Is it the end of the world and Angel Gabriel now drives an Audi. Or has the revolution started – hold on comrade, I need to touch up my roots! He finally parks and after five more minutes of intermittent honking he goes quiet.

The other three have made little progress – woman and man#1 are arguing face-to-hood and he now throws the lighter/phone into the air and kicks it across the road and stalks back to his grinning mate. Barelegs turns and walks back towards my house, while the two men stand gawking at her, once more comrades-in-arms. The argument continues with little sense although I pick up the latest topic is finding a taxi as they totter off down a side-street.The honking car driver has passed them twice so it has become obvious he is not their taxi.

Now I have two unconnected stories to ponder and when I get back to bed I find Richard has turned out the lights (not at all pointedly, he would say!) so I am also left in the middle of Godric’s Hollow. Oh well, I’ll catch up with Harry and Hermione tomorrow. Will the hoody catch up with her hunks? Will environmental health catch up with the horned one and his noise pollution? Email me with these and other solutions to fathobbit@ntlworld.com

Nothing is very strange on Flickr

unicyclist, originally uploaded by stegasaurus.

I am once again on a train and bored. The seats are tiny and made for the pinched posterior of a recently pensioned widow-woman from Devizes who has lost weight on a small allowance of reduced-cost dented canned goods. My traditionally-built Welsh arse has exhausted itself trolling about London, so I sit in a misshapen hump, penned in by sweaty commuters standing along the length of the train all the way from Paddington to Swindon! I have stupidly gotten on the 6:45 to Swansea which is the first off-peak train from London and therefore filled with people from the cheap seats.

To take my mind of the overcrowding, the smell of sweat, fear and market stall perfume, I listen to the iPod (Ethel Merman and Dame Shirley Bassey – not together… don’t start rumours.) Still distracted I decide to sort out my mobile as it now has 21 voice messages and 125 text messages. Browsing through and deleting a large number of reassuring “I’m on my ways” and rather pointed “I am still waiting outside” from my partner and free-taxi Richard, I found this from my former student Alex…

Just picking Gav and girls up and I’ve been overtaken at Boulevard de Nantes by a guy on a unicycle with a hockey stick! Not your average traveller! :-/

Superheroes need good pants!

Three Bare Builders (100), originally uploaded by Kelteek.

Do you remember that advert for Boddington’s where Tarquin had his trollies on back to front? Well he must have created a trend as both our builder above and Daddy Shortarse have sported this look recently – actually we discovered that Ben the Builder had simply torn a hole in his trollies.

Daddy Shortarse however had his big white Y-fronts on back to front today – accompanied by a check Viyella shirt tucked in to them. This ensemble was completed by beige socks and navy slippers. In his completely dull outfit inspired by the Major years, he doesn’t look much like a superhero even though his pants are on over his shirt and back to front – how quick did he change in that telephone box. It can’t be easy to spin round and change clothes in a kiosk with a home help in tow!! At least he is dressed today and doesn’t have out his double-scoop of plum surprise.

It was not easy to continue cooking with this muttering, shuffling nuisance under your feet in the kitchen. The muttering was only mildly annoying, even when the geriatric tourettes was cranked up to 11 when he discovered someone had eaten the last of Mr Kipling’s bakewell tarts. The sight of the blue veined legs shuffling about in slippers was worse.

We decided his alter ego would be named after both the veins and the swearing:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Blue Streak!

Lady Tess T. Clays

Lady Tess T. Clay, originally uploaded by Kelteek.

So there is a sense of humour in Pembrokeshire - this boat was seen bobbing about in Milford Marina.

Party pooper!

ipod_dalek, originally uploaded by wizard of olz.

I have to text my friend Lisa to say I can’t make her housewarming party – what a pisser as it sounded great: cast of Torchwood, Spike from Buffy, an apartment in Cardiff Bay. But no, I am in Droitwich, watching John Bleeding Nettles and having a Kit-Kat before kipping on a pullout bed. More like touch wood that it’ll hold my weight. They have broadband and sky TV so why does driving through Droitwich feel like it is still in 1947. What next powdered eggs, drawing a line up the back of my legs with an eyeliner and using teabag stain to look like tights. I'll be accepting bubble gum from yanks next!

I lie awake in the dark listening to Sophie B Hawkins.

As I lay me down to sleep
This I pray
That you will hold me dear
Though I'm far away
I'll whisper your name into the sky
And I will wake up happy

Fat chance. Where is Dr Who when you need him? I need a TARDIS taxi pronto!

The place: Cardiff.

The year: Now please!!!

Where the hell is Redditch?

train trip (28), originally uploaded by Kelteek.

I plod on to New Street wondering how much a taxi to Droitwich would cost … or to Cardiff? I am missing my computer and TV, I miss home and comfort, I miss Richard and the cat. I even miss his dad (but mostly the computer). Richard isn’t missing these but I think he would like to miss his dad. During my brief breakdown at the station, while I ponder ending it all, Richard is on the phone, upset. He’d be less upset if he didn’t have his dad in the background, brandishing a remote control and shouting that his telly isn’t working… again!

“Is the train going to Redditch?”
The guard checks the boards and answers in the affirmative.
“How often do the trains go?”
“Every hour – but if one is announced, take it – we have no guarantee whether the next one will as trains are all out of whack” (a technical term?)

The next train is in four minutes and I move like Mr Jelly on Skates towards platform ten – I am a veritable Tsunami when I have the mood on me!

I get on the Redditch train and four girls sit in the seats ahead of me. They continue to have mobile phone conversations in the quiet zone and then play music loudly, singing along until the train driver, like most of his colleagues pushed past the limit of endurance in this freak weather, leaves his cabin and shouts at them to turn it off or get off! Hurrah!

The station at Redditch is tiddly and Gavin and Amanda pick me up. I feel safe at last and we sit and have pizza and watch Midsomer Murder – ah normality. So dull, so boring, so blooming lovely!! I even watch the Tour de France – yellow is so last season and doesn’t suit the pale young man in the lead. I don’t like excitement and personal challenge –that’s what work is for.

Regrets, I’ve got a few mate!!

Birmingham Moor Street 27th April 2007, originally uploaded by loose_grip_99.

The biggest is still being in bloody Birmingham!!!!

An hour later, the Euston option has vanished. The trains cannot cope with the number of people trying to do that route, so ticket-holders for Cardiff etc are not being allowed. Rats! Despite having very little power left, I phone home and tell Richard the news. He suggests that his brother could pick me up if I can get to Droitwich. I can’t find it on any of the boards and assume trains are cancelled but a guard tells me I need to go to Moor Street station.

I still have my plastic bags (how common), I can’t get to Cardiff or London, I have to walk in the rain and I have a mobile phone that has only one bar of power left. My knees are aching and I hate everyone!

I somehow mistake the direction and do a tour of the Bullring wishing I could instead go to the Harry Potter party at Borders but I feel wet and dirty and unloved – I am accused of being a terrorist and now I feel old and knackered. Young people and couples bounce in and out of shops, looking in each other's bags at new purchases, laughing and planning nights out. Other single people are like me: older, slower and wary looking. I feel too wet and dispirited to face going into Debenhams to buy some luggage … hell, I feel too fat and tired to go into Boots for Nurofen. I can’t eat in public and alone – fat people often don’t eat in public because people assume it is all one does. I had a ham roll yesterday about 1pm and a bag of popcorn – it is now 3pm the following day and I am wet, tired, alone and hungry, wearing yesterday’s clothes.

I trundle slowly onwards to Moor Street but have missed the way, and after a lot of walking (more than I would ever usually do) I am not only wet and tired but back where I started staring at the entrance to New Street Station. My exuberance and Blitz spirit of the previous night have left me by the time I finally get to Moor Street but I am momentarily buoyed when trains seem to be running. But no, Droitwich is another no-go area.

I again ring home. Richard suggests I go stay in Manchester with my friend Linda – that is further from home and the rain is heading North. I don’t want to do this, I want to go home and have decided I am close to jumping under a train (if one goes that is) or buying that Nurofen and taking the lot. I want to cry but instead sit on Moor Street station and play Avril Lavigne on my iPod and other jolly numbers to try and get out of the funk. It makes it worse (dammit I did cry!).

I feel like ringing my friend Susan for a chat – she hates Birmingham with a passion so we could have a laugh but I now have almost no power on my phone. Another hour passes and I am glued to the bench, looking at the palm trees and cappuccino bar which look fake in this bleak empty station. I am feeling sorrier than myself than I have for a long time. I hate being alone, I hate having to fend for myself – I hate not being young slim and gorgeous and able to get a bed by batting my eyes in bars like I used to do!

Richard rings to say his brother can get me if I can make it as far as Redditch – “yes trains may run that far…” the guard tells me “… from New Street” You are having a fucking laugh!!!!

I am a flickr-terrorist! A fundamental blogger!!

"Mind the gap", Birmingham New Street station, originally uploaded by chailey.

The first thing I realise is my phone is powering down as I have no charger. My iPod seems okay still and I pack my goodies into the plastic bags (neither are eco friendly nor chic). I troll off to New Street which isn’t far but without Nurofen in my system my legs are sore and my knees are screaming louder than a bunch of gay men at a Kylie concert!

Back in New Street the boards still flash cancelled in big yellow letters. Bastards. I decide to have a hot chocolate and a sit down and see if anything develops. As trains flash up on the board they linger for a few minutes before the cancelled sign flashes up… Virgin is teasing us!

After an hour I choose to ask for some help and am told I could go to London Euston, transfer to Paddington and get home in about six hours all told. “Let’s do it” I think - though why I am talking to myself as another person in the plural I have no idea. What was in that hot chocolate?

It is an hour until the next Euston train and so, camera at ready, I think I will record the day the floods stopped Britain. Only two shots taken, up walks a station official and demands to see what I am photographing. I cannot take photographs of the Customer Service Information boards or any other signs or infra structure but pictures of friend or people are okay. We flick through my shots and I delete the ones of the station. Do terrorists need train announcements to commit crimes? How does that work? Surely by the time you launch an attack you don’t care if the train to Leamington Spa is 10mins late?? The board is useless for tourists let alone terrorists. The official has no idea why I can’t take the photos but he enforces the rules no less.

I feel like a criminal. I am from Wales. I am not a Welsh fundamentalist you know!

Which reminds me of the moment yesterday when flicking through the internet with Tina she notices that we have Muslim member of the Welsh Assembly. I look up his profile on Baydar – the Welsh Assembly site which has a similar layout to Gaydar – little pics of people with short biogs. Mohammad Asghar is the Plaid member for S E Wales. We know we shouldn’t but we can’t help but laugh guiltily when we read “Mohammad also holds a pilot’s licence and enjoys flying.” If he were an undercover terrorist the Welsh National Party is not the best disguise, is it!

Trapped in Birmingham

train trip (18), originally uploaded by Kelteek.

New Street Station is packed to the gills. People in now very inappropriate shorts and sandals are waiting for taxis. No trains are running South or West so Gawd alone knows if I can get back to Wales. I wonder if Richard’s brother can pick me up as he lives in Droitwich but they seem to have had the worst of the downpour that way and he has taken 5 hours to do his regular journey home.

Tina says she will come from Coventry and get me (it’s her wedding anniversary and no way could I have let someone tackle that journey as we may have simply spent the entire night marooned on a motorway (but lovely thought Tina!)

It is getting late and I book a room in the Ibis as a safety measure in case I am trapped here – I don’t want to end up spending the night on a station with the usual drunks and a whole host of people complaining about transport, the weather, global warming, the government, etc., I want my usual Friday night (BBLB, BB, 8/10 cats, BB eviction, Friday Night project, BB Live… sounds sad but such a blessed relief to watch the mindlessness of others after a busy week! Who am I kiddin’, I love the crap).

I avoid the worst of the crowds, kids being fractious and parents being, well… shouty! I dive into M&S for essentials like chocolate covered butter toffee popcorn and go to W H Smiths for some paperbacks. Boots provides some deodorant but without a pharmacist I cannot stock up on the Nurofen Plus. With matching plastic bags I trundle off to the Ibis - I feel like a bloody Ibis wading out into the rain with just my shirt on my back.

Once installed in the Ibis, I realise I am next door to the collection of nightclub eateries frequented by mini clad girls who are simply legs and hair extensions. These are the types who want to be on BB – why do I like them on the telly but not on the street? I actually prefer them less to the hoodie types who are at least interestingly menacing and quiet.

On top of the noise from next door, the shower is in a cupboard and the TV remote control has no batteries – I phone reception and they arrive with 2xAA batteries. I manage to last ten minutes before ringing down to tell them I need 2xAAA – normally I would apologise, make the trip to reception and ask politely but I was at the end of my tether.

Nicky gets evicted: Good times.
The batteries never arrive: Bad times.

Rain, Rain, go away!

train trip (22), originally uploaded by Kelteek.

It’s now Friday and as Tina’s asked me up to Coventry to do some interviewing, I am once again on a train with camera, iPod, phone and credit cards; all the essentials for a short trip. Cardiff to Coventry with only one change and a reasonably empty train: so far so good.

Interviews over, I trot into the rain to get to the station which is just across the road. Actually trot is a lie as I was stiff from sitting all day, so I was tottering and doing small steps so as not to slip on the sodden pavement. Try and imagine a cottage-loaf learning to mince and your close to the mark.

Inside the station is a pool of people looking up at the notice boards which have a host of cancellations flashing up – more every minute!, I sit on the 16:04 to Birmingham waiting on platform 4 but it’s gone 17:04 and we haven’t moved one jot so its not looking hopeful! Someone tells me about the “if-lud-ing-guh” which I work out means flooding to a Midlander.

After some discussion Al agrees to drop me off in Birmingham and I squash into his Micra (actually it weren’t too bad even with my bulk!) but we weren’t prepared for the flooding and we we’re delighted to get through the scene above. I worried that I would weigh the Micra down and we’d have to be airlifted.

You can imagine the scenes of me in the floods: Cue BBC Wales announcement “and a whale has been seen in the floods and the crowds are waving – ooh its waving back…”

Not the brightest button

On Thursday it was London and back: knackering! The journey up was reasonably good as I was sitting facing a lovely looking man and listening to my iPod. However, the journey back consisted of me trying not to listen to two students sitting opposite me, both discussing their life via mobile phone. The first was an overly enthusiastic bunny who described his trip abroad to friends (and the entire carriage) including “hysterical” jokes about camel drivers called Ahmed with business cards and the joys of haggling. At least he was happy - perhaps it Seroxat. He piled bags on to the seat next to his but soon had to move them as the train filled more and more.

The second was doing a fine impression of a miserable hippy chick who rolled her eyes as she complained to her phone. They rearranged their belongings incessantly – why do students have to carry so much crap with them. They block the aisle which is already full as too many people are travelling on each train. The tough-looking tanned bloke in a tracksuit opposite sat silently flicking through a discarded Gratzia – very macho. Perhaps the tan was too even and the trackie too carefully matched his eyes.

I got in at 9pm and could only stay awake for Big Brother and slope off to bed. Richard is also knackered as Daddy Shortlegs has been unable to get his lights to work. Oh, and his TV isn’t working… again. Richard put all the plugs back in the sockets. Daddy swears he never removed them: it’s either a poltergeist or Alzheimer’s?

Richard: “Of course, it's not working, you’ve turned the cable box off!”

Daddy: “No I haven’t! I don’t know how to – so I have not!”

Richard: “You have! You press this button in the corner of the box”

Daddy: “I haven’t! I didn’t even know there was a button!”

Richard: “Well how come the whole box is dusty except that one spot around the button then!”

Cue furious muttering from Daddy while waiting for the FX channel to spring into life. He may not have all his buttons done up!

Harry Potter at Mimosa

Having travelled back from London, I was picked up at the station by Richard. We went to Mimosa in the Bay for a meal and were considering seeing Harry Potter but after three courses we were too full and too tired. We looked around for a waiter to bring us the check and guess who was serving drinks…
Harry Potter at Mimosa, originally uploaded by Kelteek.

What would Jesus drink?

jesus drink´s, originally uploaded by sir smoke a lot.

Picture the scene: You’re at this wedding reception in the Cana Golf and Leisure Resort, where a group of women in the corner are being right rowdy, kicking their legs up and laughing raucously. The woman in powder blue puts out her fag, downs her drink and wipes her hand across her mouth, smacking her lips loudly. Her friend begins to refill it unsteadily, spilling and sloshing the liquid on to the tablecloth.
“Mother!” says a young man sits nearby with an expression that could only be called Po-faced.
The other women all throw evils at him. “Jesus! Oh lighten up, why don’t you?”
“What are you drinking?” he asks with a reproachful look.
Nervously, his mum picks up her newly-refilled glass and says “Water!”
He grabs the glass and sniffs – “It’s wine!” he declares as music drowns out his voice.
The women hop up onto their feet, laughing and dancing as Agadoo pumps out of the speakers… “It’s a miracle” they cry “a miracle!”

My Face

So I am in a meeting and we discuss new ways of reaching people via the internet. I’m no youngster, let’s face it, but even I know my way around t’internet. A suggestion from my boss was best though as he couldn’t quite decide if we were using Facebook or MySpace. ‘Why don’t we invite people to join us on MyFace?’

Why don’t we?

myspace.jpg, originally uploaded by tom bland.

Boiled beef and plastic

We felt like David Attenborough today as we voyeuristically watched Jack stalking the microwave. Having put in a ready-meal, we found him hovering over the microwave, a towel stretched between his open arms like a gladiator’s net as he waited for the ‘ping!’ that would signal the food to leave its traps and sprint out of the appliance. Softly, softly, catchy monkey or in this case beef stew and dumplings. He stood there in his slippers and pants, shirt tucked in to lessen wind resistance, without a hint of shame slavering at the lit window.

We’re not sure why he thought it necessary to watch the microwave so closely as he’d set if for 25 minutes (the package said 8) - anything cooked had long congealed to the plastic container and was going nowhere. Was he confusing it with a ‘ready, steady, go’ meal or has fast food really got into the spirit of the thing like Cuprinol and started to do what it says on the tin.

Anyway Richard could take it no longer and dragged the offending item from its stall without the aid of blinkers, setting down what now turned out to be 'beef crisp with sizzly smoke'. Sending signals to the Sioux Richard waved off the smoke with one hand and his dad with the other. Well we couldn’t let him eat it - you know how plastic goes straight to his hips!

Not quite the cocktail set

drinkers (4), originally uploaded by Kelteek.

Lately, I spotted these two anorak clad lovelies, skulking around the church, drinking cans of beer and plastic flagons of cider. In half an hour they get through everything they have bought in their carrier bags and then ride off on their bicycles slightly wobbling.

I quite understand as I have had some friends who loved drinking. Easily getting through a bottle of gin every night, our cellar looked like Baby Jane’s. In pubs, we put a double gin in each pint of cider (it’s called ‘sin’ and tastes okay but gives you a rough hangover). Others were complete wusses. One ex’s mother, having hidden for a couple of hours between two single beds during a lightning storm, emerged looking fearful and I suggested a stiff drink. ‘Of water?’ she asked… ‘Yes Mary, a stiff drink of water!’ (Roll eyes to Heaven)

Likewise, Richard’s family are not big drinkers. His brother once asked for a Cherry B in a Cardiff pub – the barmaid looked at him in disgust and said they hadn’t served it since 1973. He thought Baileys was a tad strong and put a lovely mixer of water in it – looked like a small jism on the rocks to me.

Gramps on the other hand once decided to make a shandy and added to his beer what he thought was lemonade but turned out to be decanted cointreau (no my family do not normally use empty lemonade bottles as decanters). It tuned cloudy and tasted rotten but it was alcohol so he drank it. Nice one! My Nan used to put cointreau in my tea/coffee when I first went to live with her to help me cope with anxiety at meeting people.

However they didn’t drink that often so beers bought for some celebration would be proffered each Christmas and some, well past the glug-by-date, smelt like alcoholic jam when opened. No, he didn’t drink this – we wouldn’t let him.

I feel like a large drink after spending the entire day making up Ikea bookcases (we now have a veritable library at home so shhhh!). Richard had a brief moment of panic when he got a splinter and then wasted half an hour looking for tweezers - he’s not tough. He’d rather have been at the tennis club where he claims there is a pint of cider with his name on waiting for him. The government threaten new health warnings on alcohol and one punter emailed the BBC to ask ‘What next: warnings on the glasses?’ I said the warning on Richard’s pint would say ‘Rob knows you’re drinking. He knows what you’re thinking!’ That would mess with his mind after a couple of pints of Strongbow.

What’s your favourite health warning:

• Drinking can get you pished!
• Alcohol could make a dog seem attractive!
• Drinking and driving could damage your car!
• Add yours…

Spoonful of sugar (and a whole heap of shit!)

Spoonful of sugar, originally uploaded by wit.

Richard gets in at 10.30pm. He’s been at work since 10am and so I have been alone all day with the geriatric gnome and the cat (who glides blackly around the corridors like a furry Mrs Danvers beckoning silently for anyone to follow her and fill her bowl). I’d like my bowl filled too and Daddy has only had toast. It takes about an hour for him to prepare each slice of toast and the whole house is full of the smell of burnt offering and crumbs.

Hearing me cough and splutter against the smoke, he stopped halfway through the sacrificial toasting to ask for help to reset his TV box. I have now stopped explaining what to do – he doesn’t care to listen as the TV company is obviously against him. At least he no longer rings NTL at the drop of a hat to complain. He once rang to tell them the Disney channel logo was in the way of the programme he was watching and could they remove it for him.

Now it’s late and Daddy Shortlegs doesn’t want to take his medicine. He is always confused about what he should take and when – he goes through various complicated mathematical set ups to try and decide whether or not he’s dosed himself. We gave him a medidose box into which you can sort seven days worth of medication for easy use but his need to fiddle with anything in reach, coupled with the 'what day is it?' saga meant that we were on a hiding to nothing. The box sits discarded among old TV guides and boxes of Bakewell tarts.

‘Have I finished these?’ He proffers a box at us despite the fact Richard’s head is in the fridge.
It’s not in the gas oven because we have gone electric having come home once too often to smell gas and find the hob rings alight or worse not alight but turned on. We sit in the dark with open windows wondering how long before we can turn on a light switch without blowing up the neighbourhood. One of Daddy’s aliases is “Lord of the Rings”… and in the Darkness bind them. He is a bind!

‘These, here… have I finished them?’
‘No, you’re just starting that one today’
‘This one?’
‘Yes. The box is full’
‘So I take this one tomorrow?’
‘No, today – have you taken any today?’
‘Yes… did I?’
‘I haven’t given you any. I was out early.’
‘Oh but have I taken them? No?’

This is a daily conversation and you can see why one might want to put one’s head in an oven. I’d like Richard to put a cake in the oven but we can’t all have what we want!

Thoroughly Modern Silly (or Truly Madly Dippy!)

His shingles have been exacerbated by his new routine of spraying the carpet in his room with an industrial strength flea spray. Despite the fact the cat does not have fleas (we’ve checked), he claims he is being bitten (it’s actually the first signs of shingles but does he let anyone look!?)

The spray comes in a toxic yellow canister and says the room must be well ventilated but he never opens a window – god forbid fresh air should disturb his funk. He stays in the room with the foul chemicals and forgets the bit about hoovering up the residue – Richard vacuumed when he was in Birmingham and said he believed that he hadn’t cleaned that room since he moved in there last year. Well he’s very busy – the telly doesn’t watch itself, you know!

Contained within his own environment we are not happy about his spraying but having explained the risks it is his decision. However, he has now gone one stage further.

I get tired after work and take a little nap. In my dreams I hear a sort of “puff piff” sound. It mingles in my dream and then I hear it more loudly and wake up. It is pitch-black. I lie still but can still hear the “piff puff” noise. Suddenly a blacker hump rises from the foot of the bed.

'Jack?!'
'Oh you’re in.'
'Jack, what are you doing?'
'I was spraying the carpets' (I am two floors above his room so he has made one hell of a climb just to poison me!
'In the dark? At 10pm!' I say as I look at the luminous figures on the clock through a mist of flea spray.

I feel like Miss Dorothy battling Mrs Meers in Thoroughly Modern Millie. Is he trying to kill me or just knock me out for the white slave trade – I can’t see a wicker hamper anywhere so perhaps I am safe. In a permanent tribute to Beatrice Lillie, I imagine driving knitting needles through his head as he wombles off and I’m sure I can hear him say “Oh, pook!”

Like a fat super hero who can’t get into his lycra anymore, I crawl naked towards the door panting ‘Must get… oxygen…’ I'll check the flea spray can for details of kryptonite later.

Bird flu - stock up on Hensip Max!

bird flu, originally uploaded by Kelteek.

Wales is going to the dogs – or the birds? On top of the TB outbreaks in Swansea and Cardiff we now have Bird Flu in North Wales. The acting Public Health bod for North Wales is quoted (by the BBC no less) as saying "There's no need to panic". It would appear NPHS are recruiting Dad's Army to run our health service. Stock up on provisions and stay in doors, I say as "We're doomed!".

Perhaps it’ll carry Daddy off, the old Buzzard. It’s not the word I want to use today but it’s close. He was spotted in the kitchen today, stumbling out of the bathroom with his open dressing gown flapping behind him. His shorts were missing and on display were some spring bulbs that wouldn’t win prizes at the Royal Horticultural Show. Even if they sprouted and came into flower I doubt any of the blue rinsed old ladies trotting around the petunias would pay much interest. "They don't like it up 'em Mr Mainwaring, sir!"

laid back lad

tree fellers (57), originally uploaded by Kelteek.

I pop home at lunch time to find the tree fellers are working shirtless and the younger one, fresh from yesterday’s nap, is now having another kip on a shredder – it’s a hard life in the council! The shredder also seems not to be working and has its top off – life imitating art?! Can I convince you this photograph is for my farm machinery project… no?

Uniforms do not make all men equal

Uniforms do not make all men equal, originally uploaded by Kelteek.

Daddy Shortarse can rivet you to the spot (with boredom not fascination) when he goes on about the war. Gramps told tales of how he was given his new white uniform and thought he was off to somewhere hot (he hated the cold) – was it Africa, somewhere southern – no, he was off to Greenland!! He talked about the tricks played on other sailors and the way they cheated at cards to get extra rations. My Nan’s stories are about stockings and bubble gum, parties and how they made do and mend but had such fun! She talks of leaving Belfast and staying at Ballynahinch where they lived in a converted farm shed so my mother was born in a stable.

Jack likes to talk about death – how many died, where they died, who died. Why they died (general’s foolishness) and why they shouldn’t have died. He writes cards to his brother who died in WWII (and to his wife who died 15 years ago). It ain’t cheerful.

I found this picture in his collection and thought they might have been the first Goonie Regiment – what an odd bunch. They’re not Top Gun – in fact I’m not sure the lift goes to the top floor in most cases!? Some have only one eyebrow – the one with glasses in the front is a hoot (try looking at him without pissing yerself in the full sized photo on Flickr!). Perhaps they have packed their wits in the bags about their necks – all they need is a label saying “Please return to the circus if found”.

Jack’s squad are here and seem to be having a lot of fun in their outsize undies which should be labelled “dangerous when wet”. Jack is seated in the front wearing white shorts. Funny how he dwells on the negative when he obviously had such fun in Africa. Well, I would have fun with this bunch...

Diet Coke Break

Builders@Canton House, originally uploaded by Kelteek.

The builders are also hard at work outside my office - is it a conspiracy of noise pollution? Will I never get to have another phone conversation without shouting. Thinking 'if you can't beat them, join them' I take my tea and sit on the window sill watching the plasterer. His movements are slow and languorous - there's something mesmerising about plastering.

Within minutes I am joined by the rest of the workforce. I sip Pepsi Max, and nibble at yoghurt covered coconut clusters and chocolate covered raisins. Do these and the vegetable extract in my soda count as three of my five-a-day? Our Diet Coke break is broken by the ringing phones.

I consider opening a website - a live updated directory of where you can spot and photograph good looking workmen with few clothes on www.buff_builders (wanna join?). Perhaps each county council could run one, charge the populace for snapping time and then give us a break with council tax. www.municipal_men?