The Lego Wig, Junk Mail & an Odd Place to Hang a Shirt

Sunday 16 January – first song of the day to shuffle is, ‘Lazy Eye’ by Silversun Pickups and it’s my first weigh in. I have been trying out the new Weightwatchers, pro points, for a week now and have lost 4.5 pounds (2kg). Not bad for a week. I start the day with a slice of toast, and my new discovery, a smear of Gentlemen’s Relish. I love the salty taste.

Today is birthday dinner day, my partner had a birthday on the 15th and my ex-wife has hers on the 18th. We combined the two and had a meal to celebrate, along with wifey’s two children. As it’s a joint birthday we combined the ages, therefore having a cake that sported happy 94th birthday. We had roast beef and roast chicken, a couple of bottles of fizz and obviously cake. (Which, because it was chocolate, I didn’t like)

Sunday evening brings the usual dose of drivel on the TV, so called celebrities dancing; I use the term dancing loosely, on ice. I saunter through the show, not particularly watching the action, because I am waiting for one thing. Robert Van Winkle AKA Vanilla Ice. He may be a one hit wonder and a capable skater, but this is not reason enough to watch him, I watch him because I can’t stop chuckling at his Lego wig. He’s obviously wearing a rug, but it looks like one a Lego man would wear. I hope the tape is good, it would make great viewing if it slipped off mid skate.

Monday 16 January – What is it with junk mail? Is today national post junk mail through Barry’s door? I’m in the kitchen making my first cup of tea of the day. The iPod doing it’s job playing that haunting Raveonettes ditty, ‘All Boys That Rape (Should Be Destroyed), when the first item of junk drops on the mat. A pamphlet promising me ‘inner peace’ if I join a local religious group. Barely ten minutes go by when the letter box rattles and more rubbish arrives, this time ironically the leaflets are for a slimming club and a take out pizza menu. Next to arrive is a catalogue for household products, that I never purchase, but still each week one drops though the door.

Goldfrapp play the atmospheric, ‘Horse Tears’ as the postman arrives. I have several items of legitimate mail mixed with two items of junk, a broadband offer from Virgin and an offer of free membership to a gym.

I spend the day doing some research for a new magazine article, and as the reggae/dancehall vibe of Pentonville Blues by Glide and Swerve, feat: Boy George starts to play, yet another piece of junk mail arrives. This time a scrappy looking piece of paper floats down to the kitchen floor, a homemade flyer for someone named Daz, who apparently will take away any unwanted household appliances.

Tuesday 18 January – As The Eagles finished playing ‘Desperado’ I parked the car just outside town. I decided to take a chance and park on a piece of land that has recently had the clamping warning signs removed. It’s a brisk walk uphill into town, so that should help with the diet. Out of nowhere a voice calls, “Ciao, Barry.” I turn and see my friend Silvana, it’s her birthday so I respond, “Ciao cara, buon compleanno.” It’s nice to have a little nugget of Italian life, albeit in the middle of the Potteries.

With Marc Almond shuffling to the fore to play ‘Empty Eyes’, I enter T-K-Maxx. Like my iPod I begin to shuffle between rails of cut priced shirts. I’m flicking through the stock on show, nothing really catching my eye, when something does catch my eye. My attention is drawn towards a young man with one of those gauging ear piercings; you know the kind that stretch the lobe open. Now the type of body modification isn’t what makes me look, it’s the fact that he’s looking at shirts too, but he has hooked a hanger with a shirt onto his ear lobe to keep his hands free. I smile and mutter the word ‘genius’ to myself.

As I walk back to the car I take a few snaps of the derelict land that’s been left to rot, after the building of the towns’ supersized superstore. No names mentioned, however I do like the name of one of the now impotent streets, ‘Slippery Lane’ I bet it’s a bugger to walk on in winter.

Wednesday 19 January – Why is it that supermarkets have the ability to sensible people into imbeciles? Today I take a trip to our local superstore and the first thing I see is a woman loading her three children into a shopping trolley. The children are aged between 3 to 7 at a guess, and don’t have the ability to stand still. The woman tries in vain to push the trolley as the kids inside it jostle about. The accident that’s inevitable then occurs. As the mother navigates a turn the trolley tips up and spills said children onto the floor, the conclusion being 3 wailing infants and disdainful looks from fellow shoppers.

I walk down the dairy aisle as the iPod starts to play Mr Hudson, ‘Learning To Live,’ up ahead of me is a young man having difficulty reaching an item from the top shelf. Rather than ask for assistance I watch as he climbs onto the bottom of the fridge. It was very hard not to laugh aloud, as he lost his footing and slipped ending up kneeling in the yogurts. I do hope he can get the stains out of his jeans.

I see there’s a statement from Katie Price, AKA Jordan in the newspapers today. Not usually one to spend time here talking about people in the media; notice I didn’t use the term ‘celebrities’. But who out there didn’t think her marriage to Alex Reid would last long?

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/3359396/Jordan-I-had-to-dump-Alex-Reid.html

Thursday 20 January – I’ve been listening to a lot of Billy Mackenzie the last few days, as I have to write a magazine article and have chosen to write about him. (I’ll publish it here when my lecturer has marked it.) At 14.00, and as Bow Wow Wow play ‘(I’m a) TV Savage’ I click save and it’s finally complete. I’ll leave it for a few hours, review it and then send the final draft by e-mail.

I realised today that I’m a pasta snob, I opened my kitchen cupboards and realised that I only have branded pasta, no stores own brand. In Italy there are hoards of brands of pasta, and my favourite is De Cecco, which is relatively inexpensive there, but is at a premium here in the UK. Another good one is Delverde, however that’s hard to find here and is another costly brand.

I don’t to sound like an old moaner, but at the moment I’m finding being semi retired a bit of a chore. I have endless things that can keep me occupied, but over the last week I’ve become quite an expert at procrastination. (As I type this a menu for a Chinese take away has dropped through the letter box.) The problem I think is I don’t want to be here, I want to be over in Italy sorting out my house and land, and it’s this that’s colouring my moods.

On my way out in the evening listening to, ‘Tell Tale’ by The Specimen, when up ahead of me a lorry slowly pulls out of a side road. The road is a narrow track, obviously the German driver has fallen victim to the SatNav. I stop half wondering why he pulled out when he could see me coming, and half thinking, he’s going to get stuck. He manoeuvres as best he can in the narrow streets and suddenly comes to a halt. The driver climbs down from his cab, comes towards me and asks for directions. I tell him I don’t know the road he’s looking for, and he walks away. Yes walks away, not back to his cab, but in the other direction, leaving his lorry blocking the road. I have several other cars behind me now, horns beep and one disembodied voice shouts out a profanity. I wait, unable to turn around until the driver behind me has done so. As soon as it is my turn to do a three point turn and exit the scene a police car arrives to assess what’s going on. I leave him with my red tail lights disappearing down the road.

Friday 21 January – I have a bacon sandwich this morning as the Apple device I am attached to plays, ‘Jag Vet En Dejlig Rosa’ by Robyn. A quick look on the web and the translation from Swedish to English is - I Know One Lovely Rose.

Very little happens today, I change the look of this blog, mooch around reading other blogs. I’m surprised that so many have people that have clicked the follow box, and are followers of the blog. I check my stats and have lots of people coming back to read this but very few people bother to comment here, or follow. Puzzled??

We take a trip to Trentham Retail Village in the afternoon, to pass the time. Whilst there we bump into quite a few people we know, all of whom seem to be at a loose end too.

		Trentham Retail Village 21.01.2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Saturday 22 January – I take a trip into town, pulling onto my newly found parking area. (Won’t be long before others discover the lack of clamping signs too, but for now it’s all mine… ha ha ha aha panto villain laugh.)

As I’m walking along it strikes me that when in town I very rarely look up, just straight ahead at shop fronts. Looking up reveals some beautiful old architecture, that is mostly ignored.

Walking through the shopping centre amuses me, as there’s a woman obviously in a hurry heading towards me, and she’s dragging along a small boy. She is oblivious to what is in front of the boy, and promptly drags him face first into a post. I snigger and her response is to chastise the child, asking him what he’s ‘playing at’.

I’m browsing the DVD section at our local HMV, when I catch a conversation that makes me snigger once again. It’s between three young eastern European lads, and goes like this. Lad 1 – “You can’t move for them anymore, can you?” Lad 2 – “I know, and they’re taking all the houses up near us.” Lad 3 – “Yeah, they should all f*** off back to Poland.” Lad 1 – “It’s just too easy to get into this country.”

Enough said.

I return to my car, which has now been joined by two others. Turn on the ignition, plug in the iPod, and drive home with, The late, great Billy Mackenzie singing, ‘Give Me Time’.

Apologies for any typos etc, didn't get time to check it over before posting.

The Food Fiasco and the Pointless Telephone Call

Sunday 09 January – The day starts with breakfast as the iPod does it’s job. Randy Crawford sings ‘You Might Need Somebody’, a nice chilled welcome to the day ahead. The sky is that mercury colour that makes it look like someone has set to with a grey paintbrush. I cheer the kitchen up, by standing the novelty bottle stopper I got at Christmas on the windowsill.

The morning eases past with very little effort until we leave for Wolverhampton, and dinner with friends to celebrate Pete’s 40th birthday. Yazoo play ‘Goodbye 70’s’ as we try to navigate around a white van that has been sat in the middle lane for the last few miles. The van is now crossing over the white lines either side, erratically slicing left then right. As I pass him, I glance to my left and see the driver is texting as he drives. That’ll explain his inability to travel in a straight line.

There are 17 of us at The Mermaid to celebrate with Pete. The orders for lunch are taken and the fiasco begins. One meal is delivered to the table and we wait. We wait and wait more, but it doesn’t look like any more will arrive soon. We all agree it’s best to start eating rather than wait. After 20 minutes two more meals arrive, closely followed by the waitress to tell us they have no pork left. The orders for Pork are changed and the two new meals begin to be consumed; by this time the first meal has been eaten. Suddenly there’s a rush on and three dinners are delivered, one of which is the wrong order. The waitress comes over once again, this time to tell us they’ve now run out of beef. The only child’s meal we ordered arrives and is followed by the sweet ordered by the first diner of the group. Eventually the last meal arrives and we have all been fed, albeit randomly. It felt odd finishing my meal as the person opposite was just being served theirs. As we leave I make a mental note not to book a large table at The Mermaid in the future.

A small group of us retire to the Chestnut Tree pub and have a few pints there, myself just one drink as I’m driving. It’s nice catching up with people, I hadn’t seen most of people there since going to Pete and Gloria’s wedding in Sorrento.

Monday 10 January – I spent most of the day working on my current writing assignment, becoming brain dead around 3pm. To relieve the stress I switch the iPod on and as Joy Division, throb away with ‘These Days’ I get everything together to make another batch of Limoncello. We have 1 bottle left in the freezer, and about a litre and half left of the grapefruit liqueur left. I pop over to Tesco to get some lemons and stand at the ATM behind a man who is coughing so much, it sounds like he’s hacking up a lung. Needless to say I move away and use a different cash machine. Back from Tesco, and I’m zesting and juicing lemons as Marilyn Manson bawls ‘(s)AINT’

I’m back on a diet, trying to lose those extra pounds I lazily put back on during 2010. I’m back on the Weightwatchers program, as counting points panders to my OCD. As Squeeze sing ‘Cool For Cats’ (what a blinder of a song, very clever lyrics), I prepare some salad for our dinner, with smoked haddock fishcakes. I tot up my points and see I have 19 left, enough for some red wine in front of the TV.

Tuesday 11 January – Today I created a playlist of all the tracks that have only ever been played twice and as ‘Tarantula’ by This Mortal Coil fills the house with brooding atmospherics I look at the work I’ve done for my fourth writing assignment. I’m almost finished editing when snoring can be heard, both of my dogs are asleep, one in her bed the other on the sofa. I’m still not happy with what I’ve written so go for a walk to clear my head. (How I ever get any work done is beyond me, my writing area is a complete mess.)

Followers of this blog will already know, I love those snippets of conversation that you get to hear when you’re out and about. Today I heard two women at a bus stop say the following: W1 – “She’s so bloody ugly, she’ll be lucky to get a boyfriend.” W2 – “You can’t say that.” W1 – “Why not?” W2 – “Because she’s your daughter.” W1 – “I know, I blame her father.”

I turn my iPod back on and walk home smiling as ‘Gone, Gone, Gone’ from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess plays.

Wed 12 January - Bobby Thurston sings the 80’s classic ‘Check Out The Groove as I drive home. Behind me is a van that is so close to my rear end that we’re almost intimate. This van has been hugging my bumper for about 5 minutes now and the driver doesn’t seem to think it’s a problem. I indicate to turn left, thinking he’ll ease back. Does he? Does he butternut squash. I slow down, change gear and begin to turn as he sounds his horn, unhappy that he’s now been inconvenienced, and had to touch his brakes. A shuffle takes place and appropriately as I stick my middle finger in the air, Martin Gore begins to play ‘In A Manner Of Speaking’.

Back home, I notice we are out of olive oil, so it’s now time to open the can of oil we helped harvest. (See Olive Picking, Vertical Driving and Remembrance, November 21 2010) I open the can and the smell of sunshine and greenery is released. The taste test comes next, and it’s delicious. It has a grapey flavour at the start and the freshness of long warm summer days, followed by a peppery hit. (It’s too nice to think about Weightwatcher points.)

Sadly the oil just makes me miss being over in Abruzzo, and working on our house there.

Thursday 13 January – First song of the day is Cyndi Lauper with the classic ‘La Vie En Rose’ from the At Last album (2003). It’s a scratchy vocal that doesn’t really suit the softness of the song. Cyndi doesn’t have the best of voices, but having released her 11th album back in 2010, proves she still has an audience. Maybe not the same one that loved her when she was the quirky She’s So Unusual’ singer, but an audience no less. (I like that ‘Unusual’ has three U’s in it.)

I had a message today from friends in Australia, they told me the floods there are quite scary, but they’re safe as they are on higher ground in Darwin, but the devastation all around is dreadful. Thank goodness they’re safe though.

As Robyn sang ‘Fembot’ I went up to town for a mooch around the shops. As usual the touch screen on my phone was playing up, so I went to see about an upgrade. I intended to get something standard, but the prices were ridiculous. So in the end I came away with a new iPhone4. It’s possibly got more functions than I’ll use, and I know I said before I just need a basic one for when I move to Italy. But hey, I succumbed to the lure of a new gadget. So with a picture of Tiziano Ferro for the wallpaper, it joins my Apple/iPod family.

Now all I have to do is work out how to use it.

Friday 14 January – Well as you can imagine I spent most of the morning playing with my new phone, downloading apps and making a new ringtone for it. The iPod once again was shuffling between songs that had only been played twice. Ruby Winters sang her version of the Smokey Robinson classic, ‘The Tracks of My Tears’, as I added photo’s to some of the contacts in my phonebook.

I received a very odd telephone call today, my phone flashed telling me it was an 0845 number. Normally I ignore them, as 9 times out of 10 it’s someone trying to sell me water coolers, or an weeks time share in Dubai. However today I answered it, to discover it was someone from Job Seekers Allowance. The conversation went something like this. JSA – “I’m just calling to enquire, are you in employment?” Me – “No.” JSA – “Have you recently left a job?” Me – “I have recently completed a self employed contract.” JSA – “When did that end?” Me – “Why do you want to know this?” JSA – “Because we don’t have a record of you claiming benefits.” Me- “That’s because I haven’t made a claim for any.” JSA - “Oh, sorry to have bothered you.” Maybe the next austerity cuts should include, the government’s pointless telephone calls department.

I finally complete the third part of my writing assignment, happy with it at last. I just have to come up with an short article now. (500 - 700 words). I’m about to make some notes for the article, when a shuffle takes place. The awesome ‘A Lover’s Holiday’ by Change,featuring the then unknown Luther Vandross. (Many people think Change was an American band, but no, it was formed in Bologna, Italy.)The song has me on my feet and heading into the kitchen, it’s disco beat infectious. So for the time it takes the song to play I’m bobbing along with beat and peeling potatoes for our dinner later.

Saturday 15 January – Today is my other half’s birthday, so we pop up to town to get some bits and bobs for a birthday dinner on Sunday to celebrate his birthday and my ex-wife’s, which is on the 18th.

Boy George is Like Marmite

Well the iPod shuffled and the first song of my 2011 blog is Culture Club with ‘Do You Really want To Hurt Me’, hence this weeks title. Boy George is certainly a controversial character, and love him or loathe him I’m sure the vast majority of people would admit to liking this song. It’s well crafted and the production is very good for 1982. I remember it reached number one in well over a dozen countries, and George’s appearance on Top of the Pops caused the ‘He or She?’ media debate. I remember this period in history well, I myself was singing in a band, producing our own material for a healthy local fan base, and at times my appearance during the eighties was dubious. Sadly previous years haven’t been kind to George, and his publicised problems may have  lost him some fans, but I do believe he’ll always be remembered as a true British eccentric. In support of Mr O’Dowd, I wish him luck with his new album, ‘Ordinary Alien’ out on January 31.

 

The first week of the year has been quiet, I’ve buckled down to my studies and written 3 of the 5 assignments I have this month. We had a smattering of snow that was short lived midweek, despite forecasters promising more than we actually got.

On Saturday evening I popped over to Becky’s new place and of course play with Holly, the dog we rescued from Greece. I took some of my homemade ruby grapefruit liqueur, which we consumed with gusto.

Hopefully my next entry will be more interesting, as I get back into the swing of things.

End of Another Year

Well another year comes to a close, and what an eventful one 2010 has been. I think the two most life changing events have been, the decision to close my business and the purchase of our house in Italy. It’s been a good year in most respects, I’ve been happy for most of it, however there’s been a fair amount of procrastination, in particular my Italian language studies and my writing coursework. Although I don’t make resolutions; what’s the point? I hope I’ll be able to apply myself better in 2011.

I have decided to focus only on the positive for my review of the year and throw out the negatives; there’s enough TV programmes out there listing the negatives, so you don’t need me to add to The 100 Celebrity Meltdowns or The Worst Hairdo’s of 2010. So here are my highpoints.

2010THE BEST:

Album – The Defamation of Strickland Banks by Plan B

Song – Il Tempo Stesso by Tiziano Ferro

Film – Inception

TV Show – Supernatural

Book – Mister Teacher by Jack Sheffield

Adventure – Operation Jet-set Jackie *

Random Thing – Getting our wood burning stove

Activity – Olive picking in Abruzzo *

Work – Action Project ‘L’amore é basta *

Funny – When Dutch innocently said, “They work really well together, that Fearne and Wallaby.”

* see earlier blog postings for further information

Here’s to you all, I hope 2011 is good to you and that you achieve all you wish to achieve. Health, wealth and happiness to all. Baz x