Keep smiling through...

Cheap video time again!

2009-07-15T23:40:00.002+01:00

walking down the main Sydenham high street I saw one of the charidee shops with videos at a bargain 50p each, and an even bigger bargain of four for a quid. How could I resist?

So four more old fashioned VHS videos, which I probably won't watch for years, but stored away for that proverbial rainy day. Which, with the amount of videos I've bought over the last few years, would be enough for a long, wet spell on Noahs Ark.

for an outlay of only one pound I picked up the following:

'Falling Down'. Some sort of vigilante type film, according to the blurb. Released in 1982, & starring Michael Douglas. I've heard of him ,not the film.

'Hard Eight'. About a veteran gambler, who is on run from the old bill, but has lots of other enemies. Four stars are named on the box. Gwyneth Paltrow & Samuel L. Jackson I've heard of. Philip Baker Hall & John C. Reilly I haven't.

'Back to Bataan'. an old war film, I've not heard of. Or maybe I have, but can't recall. An old black & white film, released in 1945, starring John Wayne. Such is my lack of history I've not heard of Bataan, so I'm now looking forward to this film.

Lastly 'Flying Leathernecks'. Another wartime John Wayne number, about a flying squadron. This one is in colour, released in 1951. There is actually an aviation museum of the same name in America.

Pepsi Max-imise your money!

2009-07-15T23:15:00.002+01:00

I was indoors all day today, updating one of my other blogs. I popped out a ten to four, as I had a routine appointment at the quacks, after another blood & urine test. All to do with my diabetes. This was a sort of follow on, after I was diagnosed with diabetes 2 back in January. And these tests were actually related to cholesterol. I knew this was coming, & wasn't looking forward to it. I eats lots of meat, & fried food. Though I also have pasta & rice as well. But I don't do vegetables. Apart from peas & potatoes. Mushrooms sometimes too. But in the main vegetables are what my dinner eats, which is one of my stock catchphrases.

I was pleasantly surprised to say the least. My cholesterol levels were high, but not excessively so. I was told they were only slightly higher that they should be, and something that can be lowered if I lose some weight & sin't that much of a concern. He has decided not to write out a prescription for tablets to manage it. Result!

On the walk back down the road I popped into Somerfield to pick up one or two things & saw that 12 cans of Pepsi Max were still on special offer, reduced to £2.99, from £4.80. Ignoring the reduction if you'd have told me this time last year I'd be drinking Pepsi Max & found it ok to my palate I'd have said you were crazy! At it happens it's actually slightly better than Diet Coke. Which is weird, as I always preferred regular Coca Cola to Pepsi! Explain that one, because I can't.

Anyway, I was at the counter, & as I handed over a tenner for my purchases I was charged £9.29. more than I expected, but rather than query it on the spot i stepped away & studied the receipt, as I didn't want to hold up the queue.

Instead of £2.99 I was charged £5.09! my first instinct was to think I'd picked up a larger back than was on offer, so I counted the tins & there were only twelve. I walked towards the exit, 'muttering' thoughts in my head- 'Fucking bastards! Trying to rip me off!' In fact they were not trying to rip me off. If I walked out of the door they WERE ripping me off.

So I turned round & walked over to where I'd picked the cans up from. Sure enough the large A4 poster with the price clearly said £2.99. Rather than queue again I walked up to another member of staff, by some other tills, & told her I was overcharged, showing her my receipt, and telling her what I thought it should have been. She told me to just queue up again & they would sort it out at the tills. I told her. politely enough, that I wasn't going to queue up again as it wasn't my error. She called the manager over & he spoke to me. I told him what had happened and we went to the Pepsi display.

He looked at the price poster, and read the very small print at the bottom & said that special offer had expired yesterday. He told me I could return the Pepsi if I wanted my money back. Or keep it. I had another idea. I suggested he refund me the change from £5.09 on my receipt to the £2.99 clearly displaced price, as that's what he was advertising it for sale as. Hee, hee! He had no choice but to agree, and took the poster down at the same time!

One nil to the shopper!

Well,well, well!

2009-07-15T22:57:00.003+01:00

At last! I'm connected properly at home again!

I've been busy for most of the day doing two large posts on my football grounds photo blog, so haven't had much chance to catch up here, but I do plan to...honest! ;-)

This evening I popped out to a pre-season match at a local sportsground, an easy 15 minute stroll away from home, between Croydon, of the Combined Counties League & Redhill, from the Sussex County League.
It was entertaining enough, & I was in pleasant company, chatting to a couple of Croydon fans I know.

The whole evening got me thinking, & I've now got an idea in my head for yet another wordy blog, from my 'real' blogging stable, that is blogs in my own name. I'm not entirely sure if I can keep it up, as I struggle to maintain all of the blogs I'm juggling with at the moment!

I won't go into detail here, except to say it will be a sort of diary to my season. If it works then I will put a public link to it on my main grounds blog, but at the moment it will stay firmly hidden until I see if I can devote time to it or not.

I'm trying not to raise my hopes about it, as although I'm actually quite positive & even a little excited by it, I tend to let myself down by starting projects I can't finish. And that's without life in general knocking me back when I get silly ambitious ideas in my head, way aove my station.

Time will tell...

At my wits end...

2009-07-13T12:36:00.002+01:00

Not quite, but not far off it!

My internet is playing up again, hence my lack of posts. Both here, and elsewhere. You may recall it was fucked up a month or so ago. But service was restored. Last Tuesday it took me twenty minutes to get a connection. Since Wednesday morning-nothing!

I phoned up to complain yet again. It's funny how they call you back if you say you will cancel your direct debit if they don't, once they say they can't!

Anyway, after some more smarmy Indian call centre bullshit they asked me to check the laptop in another area, to see if it was the modem or not. Well I had no choice did I? They said it probably wasn't as I had been getting connections previously. So I said call me back in a couple of hours, and I would go out and check. This was about two o'clock in the afternoon, I hadn't been out yet, having got up late as it was my day off work, at about eleven. So I popped into the bathroom to have a wash before I left. I pick up my phone as I was about to leave & noticed two missed calls, caller withheld.

I had a feeling the dongle thingy wouldn't work, I know it's fucked as they made me do the same thing a few weeks before. Surprise, surprise no connection at either London Bridge, or Trafalgar Square. When I got home they rang back...surprisingly-surprising because it was when they said they would-& apologised, saying they tried to call me back, but I hadn't answered earlier. The local towers were bering upgraded. Hmm...I said that's what they said last month. Yes, that was to check if they needed upgrading, now they were doing the work. Bullshit! He suggested sending a new modem, but said it would be the upgrade work, which was being completed tomorrow (Thursday). He would call me back on Friday evening to see that everything was ok, which he assured me it should be. Fair enough, though I didn't think it would.

Come Friday, & no connection! I told him this when he called. He said he would order me a new modem & it would be at no extra cost...I butted in & said what do you mean no extra cost? I should hope not! As I hadn't broken anything! You're not supplying the service!

Anyway I'm due to have one arrive, sent to me at work, tomorrow, Tuesday. I'm bringing my laptop in to work to test it there & then, & he will call me. If they try to fob me off I will ask them...how come, late on Friday evening, I actually got a connection? But then nothing for the rest of the weekend? It's a shocking, shoddy service from Three. Which is a shame,. as until these recent problems the service has been fine. But when something goes wrong...

So it's only a computer! Am I addicted to the internet? A sort of surrogate alcohol? Maybe? I don't know.

But what I do know is that I don't want to be sat in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous every night to keep sane. blogging calms me, & it's something I enjoy. I love taking photos, & my grounds photos blog has been well received all over the country, and,beleive it or not, across Europe! It's something that gives me a sense of worth & achievement far beyond what I ever thought I was capable of.

My laptop is my emotional crutch. It is the use of the internet that keeps me from drinking & occupied. I am at a loss without it. It is no coincidence that I have been thinking more & more of 'just having a few drinks'. Not a huge bender, I don't suppose it would take much to get me drunk at the moment anyway, as I'm over seven years sober. But just enough to have 'one taste' again, & to 'escape' from the 'madness' that is going through my head, because I am so stressed out over a lump of metal that's not working, which is my laptop.

And that's not a good frame of mind to be in, trust me! Which is why I went to an AA meeting last night, the first one I've been to in over a month. Maybe I don't go to enough of them, who knows? But I know where they are, I need them now & again, & this is one of them times.

I don't know what I'll do if my computer doesn't work. I feel like I'm heading back to square one, & oblivion.

Last Thursday the Supporters' Team had their annual cricket match with the Bromley fans. We won last year, but it's a bit like England & The Ashes. You only win once in a generation. And, sure enough, we lost again, so they lead 3-1 in the one off anuual 20/20 series against us. I was working til seven. But I dashed there & caught the end. I was after the usual team snap, & a chat to our lot, so I could knock up a small write up for the team blog. But a couple of mates started taking the piss, and refused when I wanted a team photo, so I never got one. I went off home, without staying afterwards. I was really pissed off. Stupid over such a little thing, but that's how fucked up I am at the moment, and being without internet doesn't help. Waiting that night at Mottingham station I had thoughts through my head that I haven't had for a long time, & the track did look inviting.

I don't want to top myself, & hope I don't, but I do know that is how I will finish my life. I am very fragile emotionally at the moment, & just hope I can get my internet back, so I get in a stronger frame of mind mentally.

My lunch break is over now, but I've said what I want to say really, and just by posting here a bit of a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Which is the whole point of blogging. I do enjoy it..but more importantly it keeps me sane. And if it does that job, others are welcome to joke that I'm addicted to the internet.

Shouldn't charity help others?

2009-06-30T13:30:00.000+01:00

I had the chance to sponsor someone at work today. I turned them down. well not so much turned them down, I just ignored them.

I was at a different workplace to my usual one, as they were short staffed. But I know everyone who works there. Not as friends, but as colleagues. And the difference? To use a drinking analogy, even tough I'm a sober, recovering alcoholic-a friend is someone who would happily buy a drink in the pub after finishing work. A colleague is someone you work with, & once you finish at the end of the day you don't want to see until you get back to work the next day. Simple!

Anyway, one person came into work for the afternoon & she dumped down a sponsor sheet onto the main desk & stated that everyone was going to sign it before she went home! Hmm... I've no problem with giving money to 'charidee' if I'm asked personally & nicely. You know: " I'm doing this walk to raise money for blahdeblah, would you be interested in sponsoring me.." But some people might just have different standards of communication skills to me, so I could let that go, if it's a charity I support, or just like the sound of.

None of that was explained to me though. There were three of us on, other than her. Our line manager put herself down for a couple of quid, myself & the other bloke ignored it. She wandered past at one stage and said that we hadn't signed it yet! She picked it up not long after, then brought it back later, saying aloud again that we hadn't signed it! Fucking sharp or what! Can't you take a hint love? I'm not bloody well interested!

And why not? A number of reasons actually. From where I'm sitting a sponsored event should be for a deserving cause, usually helping people in need, or supporting a community group. This was actually by her local church, and the proceeds were for improvements to the church steps! that's like you or me having some tiles fall off of our roof then doing a sponsored event asking YOU to pay for something that only BENEFITS me! You really are taking the piss! If you were asking for some money to help, say, a soup run to benefit the local homeless, then maybe I could support that. I say maybe because I don't tend to support religious based charidees just so they can show how caring they are on the one hand, while totally denying equal rights & acceptance of gay people on the other. So no, if it is for a cause like the homeless, then I would support someone fundraising for an non-denominational organisation like Shelter.

Mentioning religious fundraising reminded me of the other week when I was out & about in the Croydon area on a Sunday. On my way from the centre of Croydon to the old airport visitor centre, four teenagers got on my bus. They had labels pinned onto their front & back, similar to numbers in an athletics race meeting, which clearly stated they were doing a sponsored walk for a local mosque. Well walking, apart from the mile or so they were on my bus. they jumped off right in front of a checkpoint & the chap there happily signed their sheets, with no mention of their cheating by taking public transport, just a cheery word, and a wave as they walked down the road, probably only as far as the next bus stop!

The 'doorstep' appeal also failed my 'sponsorship checklist' by the actual event. Now call me old fashioned, but a sponsored event should be something that challenges you, exerts you, makes you earn the money you raise for a good cause. This one was a sponsored walk from the church itself, in Camberwell, to the River Thames! Which is a distance of, wait for it, three miles! And over flat ground! And you have the cheek to call that a sponsored walk? A stroll up the road more like!

She eventually took the form away from the main desk after around two hours or os after she'd originally thrust it in our faces. At least she had the humilty not to ask us why we weren't sponsoring her, I think a bit of an argument with me might have ensued!

I don't want to jinx things

2009-06-29T22:39:00.000+01:00

But I've managed to log on ok this evening. And yesterday too. Two days on the spin. Which on current form is a fucking miracle! My internet connection has been playing up for a few weeks now, part of the reason for my lack of posts on here.

I use mobile broadband with Three, & i've been with them for about eighteen months now, since I bought my laptop through the gift vouchers I got a work in 'recognition' for my twenty years service to the local authority I work for.

I'd not really had any problems. Sure it cut out sometimes, or didn't always log on immediately, but for just over fifteen quid a month I wasn't too fussed with these blips.

But then I couldn't get any connections at all. So I rang the customer number. The first call I made from work, as they were free to Three phone customers, but my mobile is with 02. Fat lot of good that was, as I needed my laptop in front of me apparently. So I ended up, over a number of calls spending just under a score on my mobile. All to speak to some smarmy git in an Indian call centre! It was clear, through their transparent politeness they they didn't give a shit.

I'm loathe to change over to another company, I'm old fashioned like that, if i buy something & like it i stick with it. But I came very close to stopping my monthly payment from my bank & signing up with someone else.

The stupidness, some might say madness, going through my mind is that it's all my fault. That my life is so shit it serves me right for doing something that I enjoy, & gives me confidence and self worth. Which blogging does, none more so than my photoblog of football grounds, which is actually looked at by people from all over Europe!

I'm just glad it's up and running at the moment, there's plenty I want to say on this blog, but it's been a long, hot day. So I'll chat again tomorrow, hopefully, if I can get online ok.

At the weekend my mate Cookie got hold of a pair of the free tickets for the all ticketed 30,000 limit Armed Services Day at the old Chatham Dockyard. I'll tell you about that, probably. In the meantime I'm going to publish a load of photos of him below. For no other reason than he asked me to, and he has friends in America, & this is the only way they can see them. He did me the favour by sorting the tickets, so this is my way of paying him back.

Cookie snaps!

2009-06-29T21:51:00.000+01:00

So here we go....

On the way to the Armed Forces Day, huge Union Jack on show as we go past.

Just inside the entrance to rhe old Naval Dockyard.

Not the best of shots, into the sun, here he is as happy a little boy with new toys on Christmas Day!

Dads Army! With the Home Guard from WWII.

In front of one of the warships, this is HMS Cavalier. This is one of my favourite snaps.

Here he sits in the Captains chair.

And gets his most hated town of Colchester in his sights.

One Medway Queen standing in front of another... ;-)

He begged me to take this one!

Talking about the history of this WWII American jeep, with it's owner.

And standing next to it.

He doesn't like this one. "It shows my gaps!"

Flying the flag for his friends over the pond!

With members of an Essex Battalion from WWI.

Keep the bloody pin in!

Guess what he wanted to be when he grew up? ;-)

Lovely double chin! ;-)

One for the album before he gets nicked!

Told you! Sitting in the cells...

An ambition satisfied!

2009-06-17T17:11:00.002+01:00

There are some things in life that I've always wanted to do....at the weekend I achieved one of them!

I was on holiday, so I could allow myself a few 'treats'...my diabetes 2 isn't going to kill me, so I can be 'naughty' now & again. Sunday night was such a time.

The day before we'd been unable to locate a fish and chip shop that sold the world famous 'Deep Fried Mars Bar', that we're led to believe is a staple diet in Scotland, the heart attack capital of Europe!

It sounds disgusting, but it was something we wanted to try, LoLo certainly did! But no luck in the few chip shops we looked at. Belgian Anorak couldn't believe there was such a snack, even after I'd told him to Google it!

On the Sunday evening I was on my own, as the others were flying back home to London, or across the Channel. I'd been walking around for a few hours, & hadn't had much to eat, so was a bit peckish. I had planned to go to the speedway, which was at four, & headed to Queen Street station, having seen a poster at another station.

Which was lucky, as I'd forgotten the address of the stadium. my luck ran out.

I was still in 'London mode' & had forgotten what a third world country it is north of the border. There was no Sunday train service on the line, where the station by the speedway was! Primitive or what?

Instead I walked about, nowhere in particular, then headed for the famous Glasgow Necropolis, by the Cathedral. That was shut by the time I got there, so I'll save looking at that for another visit. The Necropolis is wonderful! Set on a hillside, overlooking the city, my snap really doesn't do it justice.

But the real highlight for me came after I'd been round it. Before I got there I stopped at a chippie & had sausage & chips. Well that's what I ordered, & yes, that's what I got. But they automatically dished up two sausages, not one. I wasn't complaining, but wasn't expecting two.
As I was leaving I clocked a sign in the window saying 'Fried Mars Bars'!

Now being English, I was a bit paranoid about them thinking I was taking the piss by ordering it, so bottled it, believe it or not! besides I'd have looked stupid going back into the shock for one, was my lame excuse.

But after leaving the cemetery, it was about nine o'clock by now, the rain was just starting, so I thought to myself: 'Fuck it, if I don't have one now I never will!'. So I ordered one! It takes a while, as the fat has to be very hot, to allow the batter to seal the Mars Bar in.
It was handed to me wrapped, so I didn't open it, with the rain now coming down. I dashed over the road to the train station, & unwrapped..

The photos are a bit blurred, as I had the Mars Bar in one hand, and the camera & umbrella was in the other, with bag over my shoulder. But this is what it looked like:

Then I tasted tasted it. I felt like a naughty little kid!

You know what? It was delicious! I wish I'd bought two!

Doh! Wrong airport!

2009-06-17T16:57:00.002+01:00

Last Thursday I flew up to Glasgow. Right destination, wrong airport!

Luckily it was the one I arrived at, not left from! I was going from Luton, with Easyjet. I'd only been up to Glasgow once before, for a weekend with my brother & one of my mates, for a Celtic versus Leeds pre-season match. We flew up then, & went to GlasgowPrestwick Airport, which is actually about 45 minutes train rides away from Glasgow Central station. I can't remember who we went up there with last time, but assumed it would be the same airport, which is a mere nine minutes from Ayr, in the other direction by train. And where I'd planned to spend the beginning of Thursday morning, to look at the football ground.

Imagine my surprise on arriving to get off the plane, and into the arrivals bit, to think...'this doesn't look right', initially assuming thye'd rebuilt the terminal. But I couldn't see any signs for the railway station. Turns out we were at the other airport, which is closer to the centre, only twenty minutes or so by express bus. It made no odds to me, I just felt a bit of an idiot for not realising!

The trouble I've had....

2009-06-17T16:25:00.003+01:00

with my bastard internet connection!

I was THAT close to cancelling my direct debit with the bank & saying fuck off Three!

I got back from my trip to Glasgow on Monday night, & tried to log on. Still nothing! Yesterday evening I got in from work & again no luck. I gave it another go at around ten o'clock &...BINGO!

This morning it was fucked again, but after another attempt, about an hour later it was fine. so maybe, just maybe, normal service is being resumed.

It doesn't stop me being pissed off tohugh. I realise I pay not very much for the service, just over fifteen quid a month, but I'm still a bloody customer! And I resent being taken for an idiot, even if I know sod all about computers!

I spent over fifteen pounds on three mobile phone calls, when complaining. And had no connection for two weeks. plus the stress worrying about it. Now I 'stress' is the new 'bad back', but it does do your head in!

What pissed me off most was the bullshit from the callcentre. answered by someone in an Indian call centre, the English might be ok, but the accent is bloody difficult to understand. And then when I'm moaning they have the cheek to say 'sorry, it's a faint line'..I'm not surprised if you're halfway round the fucking world! More like a standard cop put excuse when you're getting moaned at by someone like me! The pretence of taking my number, promising to call me back, not once but twice, when clearly they had no intention of doing so! I've been far too polite this time. But if it happens again i'll show them what abusive can be!

I can't really complain too much, as prior to this, I've generally been happy with the service. It can be a bit erratic, but at the price I pay what can I expect? But to be practically two weeks without a connection is simply not good enough.

Hopefully I can catch up on my blogging, but to tell the truth there's only so much I can do, & I've had a number of football messageboards to catch up on, as well as putting some snaps from Glasgow on my Facebook, so it gets tiring after a while.

Time for a small break from the keyboard I thinnk. Stick a pizza in the oven for dinne,r with extra cheese chucked on top, with a few splashes of Worcester Sauce. Then an episode of The Simpsons on Channel Four.

Bloody Marvellous!

2009-06-07T23:37:00.003+01:00

I got in this evening & tried to log onto the internet. Still not working. So I played a bit of solitaire, with the telly on in the background. Almost as an afterthought, just before I switched off the laptop, I tried again. more in faint hope, than expectation....

And, yes you've already guess it, there was a connection! I'm not sure that it won't play up again, but hopefully whatever was wrong is sorted!

Now I'm on here I'm not in the mood for a long post! Despite having so much to say 'in my head' when I couldn't get onto my blog. Always the way eh? Plus I'm a bit tired now, having had a good few days of football messageboards to catch up with.

I had a nice day today. The rain that was due had turned up overnight, & it was dry. So I set out to visit a couple of places that I'd seen from an email service I've signed up to with Ian.

London, & the borders just outside, are full of untold amazing little places to see, which are way, way off the 'ordinary' tourist radar. It's those quirky little spots that I love. Two of them I visited today.

The first was an airport visitor centre, at a place where there's no longer an airport! On the Purley Way there's the only remains of Croydon Airport. Amazingly home to the first ever passenger service in the world. Though surely that should be joint-first, because if they were only the first they'd have had nowhere to land? It's popularity declined after the War, with the emergence of both Heathrow & Gatwick as the main London airports, as well as the urbanisation of the Croydon area, finally closing in September 1959. The old grass runways are long since built on, only the terminus buildings remain.

It's only open on the first Sunday of the month, but don't let that put you off. It's a working building, with a number of local businesses using it for offices, but at the back, up the stairs, the old control tower is now used as a couple of rooms for a small museum. We were taken round by an old boy who actually flew from here in the early thirties! As had another volunteer, who I chatted to, & he was ninety! Both were well spoken, & had no doubt had a privileged comfortable middle class up bringing, for early passenger aviation certainly wasn't within the price range of the working classes! I'm very much a working class (inverted) snob, but for once I listened & learned. They were fascinating. I love finding a little gem like this, free as well, & it was a cracking start to my day.

I'd spent almost an hour & a half here, I didn't think it would be that long, most of the afternoon was still ahead of me. It was still only just after one.

I got the bus back to Croydon, then jumped onto the tram, out towards Shirley. Another long lost local industry, but once again preserved. Again open only on the first Sunday of the month, & only from May to October. I was going to climb up the Shirley Windmill!

I got there a few minutes after two, & I only had ten minutes or so to wait until the next guided tour, at quarter past. You had to clamber up narrow staircases, & steep too, the steps like ladders, but without the 'gaps'. The chap giving the tour took us to the top, and talked us through each small floor, as we descended. I'll be honest, a lot of it went a little over my head, but only because I'm not that technically minded. I'm more 'local history' than 'industrial history'. But that's not to say it was boring. Another good hour spent here. I bought a guide book, and it also had a small walk around Shirley in it. As I didn't have time to head elswhere, as it was now almost four o'clock, I followed the route, & completed the not very strenuous circuit.

Something that interested me was one of the local pubs.

Called 'The Surprise', it had a local connection for me, as it was named after the rare Camberwell Beauty butterfly, which was shown on the pub sign. This building was formerly two cottages, converted to an inn around 1867. One theory about how the pub got its name is that about a hundred years earlier the butterfly had suddenly, and briefly, appeared in such great numbers that the event was called "The Great Surprise". Later, towards the end of the 19th century, they became quite common again in the district, and visiting entomologists coming to see them are reported to have refreshed themselves at the inn here, which was duly renamed after the famous event.

I also walked around, & photo-documented, the churchyard of St. John the Evangelist.

This was a 'bonus' as I hadn't planned to visit any cemeteries, but have now added another one to the 'collection' of ones I've been to.

All in all not a bad day. I wasn't able to get any surrepticious snaps of lardyarses, but-in a similar vein-this old cartoon from the airport tickled me!

To anyone looking in....

2009-06-06T18:50:00.003+01:00

I've got some connection problems with my laptop. I'm typing this at my local internet cafe.

I've been told by 'Three' that it's local connection upgrade, some sort of work involving the nearest mast(s) to me.

To be honest I think they're bullshitting, but they've said it should be sorted by Tuesday, so I'll give them the benfit of the doubt.

So far it's cost me eleven quid on mobile phone calls to them! So I'm not really that much of a happy chappy at the moment!

Keep your fingers crossed for me...

It must be love!

2009-05-29T00:14:00.000+01:00

A mate of mine has just started two new blogs.

One is a general wordy one.

The other is a football one.

It's early days at the moment, so he's not getting personal yet & talking about his love life...so I thought I'd be the one to 'out' him as a Marge lover!

Sometimes there’s nothing wrong…

2009-05-28T13:58:00.001+01:00

With blowing your own trumpet. And today is one of those days. Here’s a question for you. Do you know exactly where you were seven years ago?
I do.

I was lying at home in bed. Being sick, sweating hot & cold, shaking a little, & being sick until it hurt. Dashing to retch over the bath, throwing up nothing, as therewas no more to bring up, but my stomach still going through the painful motions.

I’d just got back from the first ever Supporters’ Team tour, which I’d organised. Back them I was obviously aware I was a heavy drinker, & deep down knew I was an alcoholic. In fact just over a year before I’d stayed on the wagon for just under two weeks, & gone to a few meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. But I went back on the booze, ‘kidding’ myself I could control my drinking. The truth was AA was ready for me, but I wasn’t ready for AA.

For every alcoholic there comes a moment in your life when you can’t get any lower from where you are (though many do fall further into their own personal abyss) & you accept you need help. I was lucky. I knew what AA was, at least.

But I was still very, very frightened. I phoned up a fellow Hamlet fan Madge, & asked him if I could go with him to a meeting the next day. I actually shared my thoughts at that meeting, & was extremely nervous. Worried in case I said the wrong thing! How stupid is that?!

I don’t go to many meeting nowadays, I know where they are when I need them, & I’m in the minority of people who use the ‘rooms’, as we like to call meetings, that hasn’t got a sponsor, or done the AA twelve step programme. Why? Don’t know really. Truth be know I think I’d let myself down, by lacking the dedication to follow them through. And at times I’m quite fragile emotionally anyway, so I don’t really know, or want to know, what can of worms I might open up for myself.

I done ok, anyway.

In case you haven’t worked out yet, I’m giving myself a huge, personal pat on the back, at today marks SEVEN YEARS OF SOBRIETY for me! It’s not something I shout from the rooftops, but I can to so on here!

My life isn’t perfect, not by a long chalk. But it’s moving on, hopefully, where I can start to look ahead to three or four years time, where I will, hopefully, be debt free, & I can start thinking of nicer holidays & maybe even saving money for the first time in my life.

But the most important thing is….even if I feel like shit, or am sinking into the depths of depression, my life is still a MILLION times better than when I was drinking.

I didn’t really think how much this day means to me, until a customer walked into work today. He’s also in AA, & I told him quietly that I was seven years today! He was so pleased, congratulating me, and an emotional warmth came over me, through his genuine kindness, that I almost started crying with joy! I was welling up certainly. And had to pop out the back, away from the public areas, for a few moments to compose myself.

This was three hours ago now (I’m typing this in my lunch-break) & I’m desperately trying to hide a huge grin ever since. But don’t worry I’m inwardly smiling, & I’ve got that all over ‘Ready Brek’ glow!

Tomorrow is just another day…but the greatest thing about it is that it’s a day where I won’t pick up a drink!
One day at a time! Marvellous!

You can't knock a freebie

2009-05-27T00:41:00.002+01:00

I was passing through Victoria today, and outside the station there was someone handing out promotional freebies of mini 150ml cans of Pepsi. Not bad eh? You can't knock something for nothing. Well not unless some total stranger punches you in the face.

But this wasn't ordinary Pepsi. Or Pepsi Max. No! This was PEPSI RAW.

Pepsi what? Allow me....

The blurb on the tin tells us that it is NATURAL BORN COLA. Apparently Pepsi Raw was born differently to other colas. You won't find anything but naturally sourced ingredients here except for the bubbles. What you will find is a naturally great cola taste.

We're then invited to tell them what we think @ twitter.compepsiraw

No chance! I've just about got my head round Facebook thank you very much. That's enough 'interacting' for me, or whatever it's called. I promise you there's no way I'm going to joing the 'Twittering classes'.

Besides it wouldn't take me that long to tell them what I think of their Pepsi Max anyway...

It's fucking disgusting!

Not disgusting enough that I didn't go back & forth a few times claiming nine small tinnies in total. When it's free it's drinkable-just! But there's no way I'll be paying for the shit when it's on sale in the shops!

A terrible tragedy

2009-05-26T00:22:00.000+01:00

over in America when a little four year old girl died in an acident on a running treadmill. She was playing on it & somehow got her head caught up in it, & a cord that hung under the console somehow acted as a noose, & she later died in hospital.

It's impossible to imagine what it must be like for anyone to lose a young child. Think about how bad it must be, then multiply it a thousand times or more, is my guess. My heart goes out to the childs mother.

No mention of the dad from me? Ah....
This is where my sympathy ends. for the father is none other than the former boxer Mike Tyson. The obnoxious piece of shit who is a convicted rapist who has never ever shown any remorse. Whilst I wouldn't wish anyone's child to die-even his-I hope he is suffering inside. Really, really hurting. He really is a horrible bastard from where I'm sitting. Rape is just one step below kiddie fiddlers, as far as I'm concerned. I've more 'respect', if that's the right word, for 'ordinary murderers'.

A few years ago the then loopy 'lost the plot' England manager Glenn Hoddle famously suggested in an interview with 'The Times' that he held a "controversial belief that the disabled, and others, are being punished for sins in a former life." No I'm coming round to this idea, with the death of Tyson's young daughter. He's not so much being punished for a previous life, though if reincarnation does exist I'm sure he was just as much a total cunt in that one too, but getting his just deserts for the way he's behaving in his current one. Bad karma comes back to haunt him and all that.

As I've said it's terrible that such a premature & tragic death could befall such an innocent little girl. but if these unfathomable things must happen...it couldn't happen to a more 'deserving' father!

What a load of rubbish!

2009-05-25T23:48:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks or so ago I was given a leaflet.
The Sydenham and Forest Hill Youth Forum needs a makeover!
So the blurb said.

It went on: "The Forum is a youth organisation that works with young people within Sydenham, Forest Hill and Perry Vale. We're launching a new youth led participation project but our name (the sydenham and forest Hill Youth Forum) is long, and we know it. So we're asking you to come up with a cool logo that people your age will recognise as the place to get involved in anything youth-related. the chosen logo will win a brand new laptop, plus a professional design package."

So far so good, eh? Hmmm.....You can fell me going into 'old fogey mode' already can't you?
What they're actually doing is re-launching their youth project because their current one is clearly a total failure, or there'd be no need to 'launch' it. And as for the crap name, well YOU gave it the name in the first place!

Still, what's my problem? Just moaning for the sake of it, as per usual? Ask yourself where did I get the leaflet from? The local library perhaps? Or doctors surgery? Housing office? Answer? None of the above.

It was handed to me on a train. Well I'm 42, and look as if I've had a 'hard life' so you could easily guess another decade on my age, & it wouldn't surprise me. What I'm trying to say if I'm hardly within the catchment target group of this printed in thick card, in four colours (Ie: hardly cheap to produce) flier, so why was it dumped on me?

Because it wasn't just dumped on me! I was on a train heading for London Bridge, in the middle of the morning, after the rush hour had finished, and we were heading towards New Cross Gate,, with the train having started from Caterham, in the heart of suburban leafy Surrey. A polite middle aged woman was walking down the train, carriage by carriage, leaving a couple of leaflets on each set of seats!

Apart from the obvious about 'how fucking stupid!' as in who the bloody hell on this train is likely to be interested in this very youthful niche market, the person dishing them out is almost certainly ( now I don't know this, I guessing this based on my stereotypical compartmentaling) aone of the lefty, hoodie hugging, greenie save the planet brigade. Who, if I were to be dumping rubbish from my bag onto the floor of my carriage be tut-tutting away to themselves, but obviously, being a middle class tosser, not having the bollocks to speak up and have a moan.

This is where I let myself down, because I didn't really take in what this litter lout was dumping down the whole train, and only really got wound up by it when I got off at London Bridge & walked past the front two carriages littered with them. Now you could say that maybe passengers would pick them up as the train went back & forth up & down the line, but anyone who uses public transport will tell you this doesn't happen. As cleaners are always jumping on board at the terminus to clean them up, mainly as a result in the explosion of cheap, throwaway papersin the last few years. As if the minimum wage cleaners don't have enough shit to shovel they had a few hundred expensively produced crap to deal with.

It really makes me wonder what kind of idiots get jobs in the public sector like these sort of inter-acting forums with local youth? and you know what pisses me off most? I can guarantee you that the litter bug doing this vital youth consultation is paid a darn sight more than I am in my job!

It's enough to make you break the law...

2009-05-24T00:14:00.000+01:00

Or it would have been, if we still deported convicts to Australia!

A Sydney magistrate handed down a four-year drving ban to a 19 year old man for speeding, & has threatened him with jail if he carries on driving. So far so good. But the threat he issued to the lad is shocking, if not tempting, were you not to take it as a serious comment:

He was told that he will 'meet big, ugly, hairy,strong men there who will pay attention to you and your anatomy' & 'shower with the gorillas in the midst' if he fails to obey the ban.

It might seem funny at first, but be serious for a moment. What the fuck are judges who hold peoples' futures in their hands doing coming out with shit like this? You can bet your bottom (Australian) dollar, as opposed to just beting your bottom if you're in jail, that he is one of those judges who think that 'women ask for it' if they get raped when pissed.

Are they connected?

2009-05-23T00:58:00.000+01:00

I was over in north London yesterday. I went to the Emirates with a couple of colleagues from work to watch Arsenal take on Liverpool in the first leg of the FA Youth Cup Final.

Great value at a fiver, & a cracking game, 4-1 to the young Gooners. But I'm not posting to tell you that.

It was my 'half day', working til two, which happens every other Friday when it's my Saturday on. Rather than go home, then leave not long after, I walked around the Islington area for a while. Specifically visiting the local Islington Museum as I hadn't been there before.

I'm going to tell you about that either. Except to say it's worth a visit if you like local municipal museums, and that it's on the lower ground floor, below Finsbury Library.

It's the library that I do want to mention. now I'm a bit of a hoarder, when I'm in somewhere like a library outside my local area I always leave with a few free leaflets that I might find interesting. And this one was no different. Free local paper & some of historical walks around Islington, produced by the neighbourhood amenity group. Which are interesting in itself, but still not what I want to tell you about!

Nope, what I really want to share with you was two leaflets that were side by side to each other, in a somewhat unfortunate 'product placement' type way, that perhaps tells you more about the way my mind works...

The first was offering the services of London Friend.

The second was for the South Islington Stroke Club! Which wasn't the sort of 'stroke club' I'd associate with people who might need the services of the first leaflet!

What a fucking idiot I am!

2009-05-22T00:01:00.002+01:00

And for once I mean it!

As I've mentioned, I'm off to Glasgow in three weeks, then the following weekend I will be in Brussels. I've had my flight booked for sweatyland for a few months, but Brussels is a recent thing. Wednesday was payday, so I booked my hostels for both trips, and my one in July to Helsinki & Riga. So far so good.

Then I wnet to book a Eurostar ticket at lunchtime yesterday. I can only afford thecheap book in advance £59 returns, so am restricted to certain trains. I'd had the first one, early Friday morning picked out, & a late one Sunday to come back. But when I went to book it the Sunday ones had gone up in price, and out of my budget.

So it was over to the Eurolines website to check the coach travel. not my chosen way, as it takes ten hours each way, but a neccesity, & as a little bonus I'll save about a fiver! Yes, you're right, that's no bonus at all really, I'm just trying to make myself feel a bit better.

Anyway, I've booked the coach, then printed off the e-ticket...Oh fuck it! I've only gone & booked the wrong date! I've gone & vought a coach ticket for the Glasgow dates going to Brussels! Shit, shit shit!

So I quickly phone up the number on the website, and am told it should be ok to change...then....because I've purchased a 'cheap deal' fun fare it's not possible to change it, & no refunds offered! Fuckity, fuck! The last thing I need, & can't afford, is to lose fifty quid! It's there right in front of my eyes, on the website, after I double check, when I've put the phone down.

The bloke from the call centre tells me to purchase another ticket, & send in a letter of explanation, with both bookings, to their Customer Relations Department & informed that "it shouldn't be a problem" to get a refund."

I won't be holding my breath waiting for one. It's my stupid mistake, which I simply shouldn't have done. Typical when I hve such a tight budget for my trips that I muck up like this. I'll cope, and if I get any money back that's a bonus.

It wouldn't surprise me if they issue a 'credit note' for another trip, which isn't what I want, as I prefer to go abroad by train, and taking the coach is only ever out of financial neccesity.

Nothing I can do about it, just got to get on with things eh?

When is a crisp not a crisp?

2009-05-21T22:22:00.002+01:00

Well according to the makes of Pringles it's when it's a Pringle! Unfortunately for them the Court of Appeal disagreed. You might be wondering what the fuck they're bothering to go to court for? Of course they're bloody crisps! But this series of court cases wasn't about crisps, but tax evasion.
The Revenue people had said that they were potato snacks. Which is what crisps are made from. Why? Apparently most foods are exempt from VAT, but not 'potato snacks', as they're classed as 'savoury snacks'.
The Pringle merchants defence was that 'only' 42 per cent of the 'snacks' were potato, the rest made up of fat, flour, & assorted additives.

Well they look like crisps, taste like crisps....so that makes them crisps from where I'm sitting. Albeit fucking expensive ones. They are tasty, but pricy. The only time I buy them is when they're on a special offer, like 'buy one, get one free' type thing.
They are very 'moreish', in that they are curved, so you can put them over your tongue, and let them 'melt' as you crunch them.
It's all in the presentation, which is why they cost a few bob more than your average packs of Walkers. They're all the same shape & size. Almost a real life 'european banana' tale.You know the sort of anti-EU story that appears sporadically (& coming to you soon, with the European elections due) about all bananas needing to be a specific size & bend! (Thankfully not applied to cocks. Blow jobs would be much less fun if they were all the same shape & size!)

Pringles are now crisps, something we always knew. Poncy, overpriced crisps, but still tasty! Well the salt & vinegar ones are anyway. I do love salt & vinegar crisps. Which is a bit of pain as I'm off to Brussels in four weeks time. And one thing your 'Johnny Foreigners' don't like is salt & vinegar crisps. You can get all sorts of smelly cheesy one, with added garlic or parika. But traditional salt & vinegar? Nowhere! To think we bailed out the plucky little Belgians not once, but twice in the World Wars. And how do they repay us? Fucking disgusting paprika crisps!
Ungrateful bastards! No wonder we have to remind them sometimes that " If it wasn't for the Enlgish you'd be Krauts! "

Wednesday shopping!

2009-05-20T00:06:00.001+01:00

Day off today! I don't work Wednesdays in my job, as I'm sure those of you who know me realise.

I indulged in one of little 'pikey' hobbies...all above board & legal, I hasten to add!

While I had a large bag of dirty clothes going round in the local laundrette I picked up my pre-ordered prescription from the chemist. Then had a nose in one of the local 'charidee' shops & picked up four more videos at ten bob each. A veritable bargain. Though once you see my choices you'll see why they're so cheap. Very 'hit & miss' I know, but when it's only fifty pence at stake it's a darn sight easier to give something a go & take a gamble, knowing it might be a complete & utter shite!

The Thin Red Line A Second World War film, that looks half decent, set in the Pacific. The actors in it, among others, include Sean Penn & George Clooney. One to save for a rainy day, as it last for two & three quarter hours.

Short Cuts is an unusual film, in that it's not an action one. It appears to be a, sort of, series of short films, interwoven into one, about 22 people in Los Angeles. the video was released on the arty-farty Artificial Eye label, which issues non-mainstream type films. Another lengthy one, lasting three hours!

Les Patterson Saves The World. He might well do...but I don't think he'll do much for the film industry! I'm not expecting this to be much cop at all, but it 'stars' both Sir Les Patterson & Dame Edna Everage. And I enjoy watching 'both' of them, so I thought I'd give this one a whirl.

Commando Leopard Described as 'action trash' in one review, so I dread to think how awful this one is. The only reason it caught my eye was because it had Lewis Collins in it. Not that he's a great actor, or anything. No, it's just that I watched every week as I grew up on 'The Professionals', & I did have a bit of a crush on his character Bodie in my early teens! ;-)

I heard of little white lies...

2009-05-19T00:14:00.003+01:00

But this is bloody ridiculous!

So the (sub)Standard is under new ownership, but a leopard doesn't change it's spots!

Army "Camp"

2009-05-17T22:23:00.002+01:00

I was out & about up town today, having watched the Youth Team in the morning. I wasn't going anywhere in particular, just wnadering about for a couple of hours. I ended up gravitating towards one of my favourite museums.

In one of the First World War galleries there was a projected slideshow of recruitment propaganda posters.

Is this one the gayest one ever or what!

Money, money, money....

2009-05-17T22:02:00.002+01:00

Anyone got any spare?

It's payday on Wednesday, & it begins very tight budgeting for me. So tight I should have spent a lot less in the last month, but I've still got a few pennies left.

June & July sees me go on three trips, which is too many, my choice, but still a worry.

The Supporters' Team tour is at the end of July. We're going back to Helsinki to play the HJK fans again. An expensive city at the best of times, more so now with the economic recession, & the pound crashing against the Euro. I arrive there on a Thursday morning, & stay til the Sunday, when I am then getting the boat over to Estonia, then the early morning coach to Riga, in Latvia, where I fly home from on the Wednesday morning. I don't spend much money anyway, out of neccesity, so I'll cope. Finland is expensive, but I'll eat very cheaply, then treat myself in much cheaper Riga.

I also decided to go up to Glasgow for a long weekend, in June, as my good friend from Namur, Belgian Anorak, has his PSG Belgium supporters' team in the Queens Park FC supporters tournament at Lesser Hamden. Again I'm flying up, arriving Thursday, coming back on the Monday evening.
I'm also looking forward to that. There's a number of excellent free museums in glasgow, plus I'll try to get round some non-league grounds to photograph, if i can get into them. And it's 'normal' money, & chip shops are filling and cheap. not to mention the local delicacy! And on the Friday afternoon, when the Belgians arrive, we have a tour of the Scottish Football Museum arranged!

What threw a spanner in the works was another Supporters' Team trip! Usually we go away for a weekend early in the year, January or February. But the Gaffer announced that we wouldn't go on one, which I was disappointed about, as people would need money for the expensive trip to Finland. Which was fair enough. I went over to Belgium for a footballing weekend, staying with Belgian Anorak & his fiancee Rocky. Which I really enjoyed.

After I'd arranged to go to Glasgow though, flights already booked, the Gaffer announced we were going to Brussels in mid June-the weekend AFTER Glasgow luckily- for a tournament which he have got an invite for!

So I'm having to try to save every penny I have, to go to all three. Of course I could miss Brussels. But I haven't missed a Supporters' Tour yet, since we first went abroad in May 2002, a record I am personally very proud of, & one I don't want to break. I have to decide very soon how much time I stay in Brussels. I hope to go by early Eurostar on the Friday morning, the competition is on the Saturday, and get the last one back on the Sunday evening. I'm restricted to these times, by the cheap £59 return fare. The only alternative would be to get the Friday night coach there, & the Saturday night coach back. I don't really want to do that, as it only saves about a fiver, will be quite tiring two nights on the spin, but will obviously save me spending money.

I've fingers crossed I'll scrape/save enough shekels together for everything, & I know I'll enjoy my times away, even if I'm short of cash. I'm just scared I don't have the discipline/willpower to not spend any money over the next couple of months on anything else!

Hopefully I'll be ok...fingers crossed for me! ;-)

Anyone got a tissue?

2009-05-17T21:54:00.004+01:00

How embarrassing! But don't worry nobody I knew noticed!

I was on my way home early evening yesterday, & I was going through London Bridge Station. The toilets were open on one of the quieter platforms, so I decided to pop in there and see if there was anything going on. Not my 'cottage' of choice, as the station can be busy at times, which makes people a bit nervous in the toilets (understandably) and there are police based on the station.

I stood at the urinal, I needed a slash anyway, glanced quickly to my right to ascertain that the others were not just having a pee, and sure enough, the other three people there were 'willy waving'. To cut a long story short the bloke next to me grabbed my cock and wanked me off. Now I hadn't played with myself for a couple of days so I shot all over the place! I wiped up with my fingers and rinsed my hands under the tap...after licking them, naturally! ;-)

So far so good. I walked down the ramp to towards the platforms for my train, and at the bottom of them, where there were a number of people milling about, waiting for their trains to pop up on the boards, I noticed a couple of funny looks & quick grins as I went past. I looked down....

And there on the front of my trouser leg was a big glob of my spunk! Whoops.... Must clean up more in future! serve me right for storing it up a couple of days! ;-)

I never thought I'd side with the Old Bill but...

2009-05-12T21:30:00.003+01:00

There was a story of an ongoing court case in the papers this morning, & I had to stop myself from swearing out loud on the train!

You know...one of those "What the Fuck...!?!" moments.

Hasanali Khoja is a Muslim catering manager with the Metropolitan Police who was asked to cook sausages and bacon for his job, and is now claiming damages for religious discrimination.
He claims his bosses knew he was not supposed to handle pork, which is forbidden in Islam, when he began working for them in 2004. But the 60 year-old, from Edgware, in north London, said he was told to when transferred from Hendon to Heathrow Airport in February 2007.

The first thing that springs to mind is what on earth were the 'bend over backwards political correctness brigade' doing by emplying someone who couldn't cook an esential fuel for a 24/7 workplace, like a police station, namely an traditional full English breakfast?

But then, if this man was so religiously principled as he claims to be what on earth was he doing going for a job where he even worked with pork?

The sheer hypocracy from yet another religious nutter! For that is what he is! I desperately hope that common sense prevails & this stupid claim is thrown right out of court, just as the case brought by the christian bible bashing barmy woman was last year, who was a registrar with Islington Council, & refused to officiate at civil partnerships because she didn't believe in gay marriage. (Civil Partnerships NOT being marriage anyway, as the bigots in churches & mosques & other assorted temples of hate, refuse to allow them. So much for equality eh?)

If pork is such a sinful thing for Muslims to touch can you explain how many small businesses run by followers of Islam get round this when they sell their overpriced sausages & bacon, stacked up in the fridges of their over priced corner shops?

What a load of old bollocks!

Hand on heart

2009-05-08T20:45:00.002+01:00

Tell me you wouldn't do the same if you were an Honourable Member of Parliament.
Claiming for this, receipts for that. More homes than the local council before Maggie allowed them all to be sold off.
Greedy. Out of touch with reality. Not fit to govern.
All fair points at first glance. But do you really think it's only the politicians in power who are raking it in? No chance! It's called human nature.
I have no idea what you work as, but if you could claim expenses on things that are actually unrelated to your work, but day to day living are you really saying you wouldn't? It's not the politicians that are greedy, even if they are-if that makes sense-but the system that's at fault.

Strange isn't it how the papers are concentrating on the Labour ones, anyone would think they had a (not so) hidden agenda of getting an Old Etonian crony into Number Ten. And why not? The right wing establishment media, led by the Evening (sub)Standard got Bumbling Boris elected as Mayor of London, so what's to stop them doing the same nationally with toffee nosed Cuntish Cameron?

The whole story has nothing to do whatsoever with the integrity of politicians, but everything to do with getting the tories back in power. That's a tory party with fuck all idea of how to govern, even less than nouveau Labour. Which isn't that surprising as they are the same in all but name.

Compared to the average man in the street MPs are paid a fortune, but in the 'real world' they are not paid that much for the task of 'running the country'. I'm not going to say I don't begrudge them a penny because I'd be lying through the gaps in my teeth. But if they can make money, & give work to family & friends in the process, they'de be mugs not to.

I'm not sticking up for them, just being realistic. Who the fuck is going to turn down money if they're being offered it? They may all be a bunch of cunts, but htey're not a bunch of stupid cunts!

It's been a while

2009-05-07T22:19:00.002+01:00

since I've posted. Over two weeks in fact. It's not that I've had nothing to say. I've always got an opinion or two. Nope. It's the age old problem of not enough hours in a day. so while I've got an idea or two in my head by the time I get home from work & have finished bits & pieces looking at various messageboards, or sorting out my photoblogs, I'm then a bit too cream crackered to start tapping away at the old keyboard.

Which is a shame. For me. As I do enjoy blogging, and I've probably got too many blogs on the go. In no particular order....

The Supporters' Team one. Updated once in a while, over the season, not too often, but when I do it's very time consuming.

My general photo one. Ditto, & not updated as much as I should. This is where I 'dump' anything & everything that doesn't fit into other ones.

My football grounds photo one. The one I currently work on most. A labour of love really. I started it a year ago, & over a hundred grounds covered, with over twenty one thousand hits!

My cemeteries & memorials one. The one that I have least time for. But slowly & surely building up. The problem is each post has a lot of snaps included, as I cover a cemetery by publishing anything from fifty to a couple of hundred snaps.

My London sights (& further afield) one. I started this at the start of the year, the aim was to include one post a week, of a museum or some other visitor attraction,but this seems to be beyond me. The visits I can do, as I don't work Wednesdays, but the actual getting the posts done is where I fall behind.

So that's my excuse for not 'wordy blogging' much on here recently. not much of one I know.

And what do I go and do? Like a complete and utter muppet I go and start yet another photo blog!
But at least I've had the sense to make sure it's one where a photo or two speaks louder than words! Enjoy! ;-)

Die you swine!

2009-05-07T22:18:00.002+01:00

The end of the world is nigh!

Swine Flu is going to kill us all!

Actually it's quite funny. Not the actual 'threat' of Swine Flu, but looking at the reaction of others when you sneeze on the train into work. And at the moment is sort of sneezy weather. I don't suffer from hay fever, least not that I know of. Though I think I may have some sort of mild version of it. On hot, summery hay fever type days I can sneeze a bit too much, and sometimes have sore eyes. But not too serious. Certainly not anything to bother about, it's just mildly irritating. So I just get on with things, rather than bother my quack about it.

With this Swine Flu I'll just get on with things as well. At the moment it may not be quite as serious as is being hyped up by the media. It's possible there could be a lull, with a mega outbreak in the autumn. Who knows? I'm happy to take my chances. That's not to play down it's potential seriousness, but the majority of those that may die will be the weaker anyway. The old, the young. Those with lower immune systems. In short people who are more susceptible to illness anyway.

I'm one of those who will shrug his shoulders, wonder what all the fuss is, & get on with things. If I catch it I'll just suffer at home, if I can't get into work, & struggle on through until I'm feeling better, only leaving the house for football!

I'm not scientist so I have no way of predicting where this Swine Flu will go. If it cripples half of London then fingers crossed it's not too painful when I catch it. One 'bonus' if I do get infected is that I'm recently diagnosed diabetic, so I have a card where all my prescriptions are free. Not to be sniffed at, so to speak, at over seven quid a pop!

So where has this Swine Flu come from? Mexico apparently. And from pigs. Which is why I'd call it Mexican Flu, rather than Swine Flu, because it's infecting the swine directly in London.

I don't know if you've noticed but a number of schools have been closed as a precaution, after some of their pupils have fallen ill. But no ordinary schools. No sir, no!

Alleyn's in Dulwich: £4,332 per term.

Dolphin School, Clapham: Between £4,290 to £8,070 a year.

South Hampstead High School: £3,700 per term.

Hang on....a flu bug that wipes out the toffee nosed privileged swine that 'buy' their education, giving them a huge unfair advantage in life, simply because they have more money than ordinary people. Put it like that & I'm happy for them to be dropping like flies. Not quite happening. Anyone sufferinf from it are simply quarantined & confined at home, if not in hospital. Which is funny in itself. As they've just got to sweat it out, & there's nothing that their private, queue jumping health schemes like BUPA can do to make them recover ant quicker than a 'common oik' AKA working class person living on a run down inner city council estate!

Swine Flu indeed! I suppose that sounds a bit more acceptable & comforting than Class War Death Flu, to give it its proper name. Manufactured in a dingy basement flat in a rundown Hackney backstreet! Now wouldn't that be marvellous!

We can all but dream eh? ;-)

I'm 100% pro welfare state but...

2009-04-21T21:48:00.002+01:00

sometimes you have to question what they are for?

I'm no politician, but to the biggest problem is not that there are so many benefits out there, nor that 'all the foreigners' claim them. (Which is actually a racist urban myth) Non English residents are as entitled to receive benefits as much as you or me, it just so happens that immigrants are often at the bottom of the pile, so are more likely to have no work, or be in the poorest paid jobs. And it's actually notp ossible for asylum seekers to sign on.

My only gripe with the system isn't that money is available, but that once on the benefits money-go-round it's hard to jump off. Take a job & you lose your welfare payments, which is to be expected. BUT you also lose your housing benefit, & things like that, so you have to be in a decently paid job to be able to afford to live and pay the rent/mortgage as well as have a minimum basic lifestyle. A total benefits trap, which I don't have the answer to.

So while I'm one hundred per cent behind the welfare state I'm also supportive of the campaigns for people to shop benefit cheats. Those who sign on, but work in the 'hidden economy'. Not that I'd grass anyone up myself, but there are enough people who will. And if you fiddle your benefits you deserve to get done! The irony being many of those who do cheat are poor white working class, who moan about immigrants taking 'our jobs and houses'! A generalisation from me, but it's true!

As I said I don't know what the answer is, but one deterrent would be to bang people up when they are caught. I have no idea how many cheat are discovered & punished year by year, I'm sure the stats are out there, but it's the stories that make the papers that are the ones that will put people off.

Or give them the green light to go ahead & chance their luck if this story from the 'Croydon Advertiser' is anything to go by.

Tracy Gowlett, a 47 year old mother of three was spared jail after magistrates were reported to have taken pity on her. She had fiddled over ten grand worth of benefits. A combination of income support, housing benefits & council tax benefits, after she failed to tell the authorities that her husband had moved back in with here. He'd apparently moved out in 2001 because of 'extreme financial hardship'. Maybe if they'd been on the fiddle earlier he wouldn't have had to bugger off in the first place...

Because she sobbed in court, & pleaded if she had gone to prison her old man would have had to give up his job to care for their children, she was 'punished' with forty hours community service! That's a whole working week to do! Hardly aa sentence to put you off is it?

She has already paid back £750 of what she bogusly claimed, having got a job in a supermarket. Which sounds all well & good, until you read that before that she hadn't had a job since since she was 24-yes you read that right. A 'mere' twenty three years. Presumably milking the benefits system dry. Suddenly she gets rumbled for being on the fiddle &, hey presto, a convenient job before she's up before a gullible beak!

What odds she stops working, & her repayments go out of the window at the same time, before the year is out?

I have no idea what this woman & her family are like, but I'd bet my last fiver that she would fit in perfectly as a guest on the Jeremy Kyle show!

Darting about on a Sunday

2009-04-19T22:33:00.000+01:00

Today I was ashamed of my Football Club. I say ‘my’ Club, I am a mere supporter, it’s no more mine than yours really. But I put a claim in by way of my lifelong stint as a fan.

This afternoon I was a mere bandwagon jumping bystander really, if I’m honest. So it might be a bit rich of me to say I was ‘ashamed’. Perhaps I could downgrade that to ‘saddened’.
For the first time this season I saw one of our many Junior sides, apart from the Under Eighteens, who I watch regularly on a Sunday morning. I ventured over to the far south-eastern edge of London to Bexley Park Sports Club in Darford, for the Selkent League Under Sixteen Challenge Cup Final between our boys & Our Lady Youth.

I didn’t know anything really about either side, but gleaned from the League website that the oppo were undefeated in the league, having only conceded six goals; & that we were second, but a good few points behind, having drawn & lost a few. So they would have been red hot favourites. Which I guess would have scuppered my plan to send in a snap to our local rag. But I’d still go for a team photo afterwards, if we lost. Not so much a happy snap, as maybe a few forced grins.
That was my plan…

In the end we lost 5-3, but what a fucking shock we gave them! We went one up, then got another, before they pulled one back. But restored our two goal advantage, to go three up at by half time. But after the break it was another story. They attacked in waves, although we did have some half decent chances, but they hit back, with a couple of late goals finally doing us.

Now I know these are young lads & they're gutted as losing, but their lack of discipline was awful at the end. After we were looking beaten one of our players walked off the pitch! At the final whistle, after the obligitory begrudged handshakes some of our team threw their shirts on the floor, showing no respect to them. Others got changed on the spot, & at least one left the ground before the medals were presented. The boy who walked off during the game was moaning at how shit all his team were, as if he was a star!

How the manager allows this petulant behaviour is beyond me! It was an embarrassment to watch. So much so that I trudged out of the playing field with a heavy heart, before the presentations. I was embarrassed by their childish reaction. Whatever happened to dignity in defeat & pride in the shirt?

Instead of walking a mile & a half back into Bexley I strolled in the other direction, entirely sure where I was off to, but following my A to Z. Heading to Dartford town centre, not for any reason other than it was a nice sunny spring afternoon, & it was now getting dark later. Why? I wasn't going there to see anything in particular, I just fancied the walk. Part of it along the edge of Dartford Heath, and in the town through Central Park. I 'splashed out' on a large bottle of Pepsi Max , which was on a special offer at only a pound at a little corner shop. When I drank 'proper' soft drinks I was always a Coca Cola man, but since being told I'm diabetic thre months ago, I'll drink either because the low/no sugar ones are as shit as each other!

So I was swigging & walking & strange as it may sound just enjoyed doing that. It wasn't particularly scenic, as 'scenic' what I like. My type of scenic is looking & observing. town centres, buildings, that sort of thing. Much of it was with a wood to my left, & a road to my right. walking by Dartford Heath was pleasant enough, lots of yellow flowers, but roughly wild scrubland, not exactly picture postcard, but still countryfied to me, as a London boy. It was warm, but not baking. And while walking through the Heath I got thinking about how I'd love to strip off & sunbathe-which I never! Naturism is something I've never done, but would actually like to one day somewhere, just to feel the 'freedom' of fresh air on my body. I certainly wouldn't do it in the summer when it was hot as I get sunburnt easily & burn bright red & peel. I wouldn't wish that on my dick! ;-)

I also passed a small football club, Fleetdown United, from the Kent County League, unfortunately the gates were locked, so I couldn't nose in & take some snaps. But at least I know where the ground is now. I've seen a couple of matches in this league recently. At Lewisham Borough & Crockenhill. A very low standard, but pleasantly enjoyable, if you take into account they're keen but not very talented. Plus it's very cheap! Couple of quid at most if they do a programme.

Which helps, as I've really got to save money over the next three months, as I've got three trips planned, & I need every spare penny so I can actually live on them! Today was cheap, and I kept myself lazily busy, So I can't complain. The 'hard bit' starts tomorrow, as it's payday, & money will be in my pocket again. The easiest thing to do is to 'save' money by not spending any when you've none in your pocket. The difficult part is not to spend it when you have it! I really think I will be disciplined enough to do this, as I have no choice if I want to survive on my little break, & f I can get into the habit of spending less money then I can save some more, both for other trips and to pay off more debts.

Take it down!

2009-04-16T23:26:00.003+01:00

Walking down the road I passed a couple of shops that still had one of those 'Happy Easter' posters in the window. You know the ones, they have the days of the break, & you can write in your opening hours over the holiday.

Good Friday. Easter Sunday. Easter Bank Holiday Monday. Fair enough. I can cope with all that. But can anyone tell me what the fuck is 'Holy Saturday'? Just because it's slap bang between the day where Jesus was killed and he did his comeback piece, does not make it a 'Holy' Saturday! Not from where I'm sitting! What a load of old nonsense!

But that wasn't actually what I was going to moan about. That was more my 'supplimentary' gripe. Today is Thursday. Easter was over three days ago. Yet the posters are still up in the window. Which to me is slapdash, lazy, incompetent even. One of theshops was a bakery. And when I see out of date posters in their window that implies to me that they don't really care about much at all. If they can't be bothered to take down aan old poster I start wondering what they can't be arsed to do in their kitchens. Why clean today what you can do tomorrow?

An out of date poster makes me a not very happy Easter bunny. If they can't be arsed to take down an out of date mock goodwill message from their shopfront then I have'nt got much faith in them to sell me fresh goods from a clean kitchen. It's enough to make me stop shopping there. Ot itv would be if ever I was one of their customers in the first place.

But I've never been one for supporting small shops anyway. I'm more than happy to continue to trawl the 'grredy' supermarkets where I can get cheaper stuff at a price that matches the meagre loose change in my not very full pocket. Doesn't stop those posters annoying me though!

I actually ended up enjoying being somewhere I didn't want to be!

2009-04-11T22:30:00.005+01:00

Yesterday I went to a wedding!!!

Why the exclamation marks? I know I overuse them in my puntuation generally, but the reason I put some there was because it's so rare I go to one, & I've not been to any at all in my almost seven years of sobriety. So the appeal of a free bar didn't hold much appeal. Truth is I didn't much fancy it at all...

A few weeks ago my 'mate' Cookie gave me a bell & asked if I wanted to pop down to Rochester because his mum was getting married. I've met her a couple of times before & she's a nice lady. But I certainly couldn't say I really know her, or the family.

It was strange, because on the one hand Cookie invited me, but on the other hand I still wasn't sure if I wanted to be in his company for such a personal event. Hard to explain without going over a lot of previous, but I'll give it a go,while trying to be brief at the same time. ...

We've known each other for over a dozen years or more, we got to know each other through football, when he started popping down the Hamlet when he was about sixteen or so. I got to know him quite well, and I'd always support him & back him up when I could, as friends do. In September 2007 he even treated me to a long wekeend in Berlin, which I couldn't afford.
But I also had a habit of taking the piss out of him ,as he did of me. And I posted something on his blog which he took umbrage at. And then it got personal. He attacked me on his, so I responded. He then said some really nasty stuff on his, real hurtful vitriolic stuff. Not just personal but totally evil. I could really have got personal & played 'tit for tat' & verbally stuck the knife into him from the past when we were a lot closer, but chose not to. I didn't need to sink to that nasty level. And the friendship was over.

I was saddened, but not totally upset. For the simple reason was I felt I that I hadn't done too much wrong & my conscience was clear. As far as I was concerned it wasn't me who had problems but him.

Out of the blue, just under six months ago, I got texts from him apologising. I knew he'd been back in prison, what for I've never asked. To be perfectly honest I didn't know what to think. I wasn't sure if I wanted to resume a friendship after what he'd said. I didn't need all this shit, and I like to think I'm loyal to my friends & always will be while they're my friends. That is what friendship is all about. But once that friendship is broken it's over. A bond is gone that can never be joined again. But bridges can be rebuilt, & I am glad he got back in touch, as despite everything, I did miss his friendship & he will always mean a lot to me, no matter what.

I thought long and hard as to whether to speak to him & meet up with him now and again. And I really do mean long and hard. And you know what? I'm glad I did. I don't have many friends, and neither does he. It might be partly selfish on my part, but I still care about him a lot.
He's still the fool, and talks a lot of nonsense, & don't get me started on his religious mumbo jumbo & some of the other company he keeps! Well ok, now I've mentioned it...he's converting to judaism, which is his choice, but.. and this is a BIG BUT.. one of his other mates is Jerry, a nazi white supremacist, who has been to the Fatherland that is Germany to attend right wing festivals! A Jew whose best mate is a Holocaust denier! You couldn't make it up! Someone please knock some sense into him because I can't!

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, the wedding!

I wore a shirt, which was smart for me, though I didn't go 'suited and booted'. A bit difficult as I don't possess a whistle. But I was assured it would be ok by him. Just as well, because he wasn't wearing one either! As you can see from this snap, as he 'blended in' with everyone else in the front row!-

But, to be fair, it was a smart top he's got on.

He met me at Rochester station, and we popped into Baggins,

And had a quick wander round the Guildhall. ,which includes some of the maritime history on the Medway towns.

Too much information for Cookie, his brain was starting to go into overdrive, so he needed a liedown...

And so, after all that culture, we went to the bar where the ceremony was. A smart bar on the High Street. With the actual ceremony in the basement downstairs, which was an crypt type place, and well smart with old brickwork. There were about fifty people there, and he didn't know many himself! Some relatives he knew, but he hadn't seen them for a while. And his sister was up from London, with a few of her posh 'freeloading' university friends.

We were there about an hour before the nuptuals. And we were in a small bar area, just for the wedding party. Free champagne, or orange juice. Here he is with a glass of champers.

What was funny was he was moaning that his mum had been moaning at him for weeks not to get drunk, and after the serious business was over she was still nagging him, with me assuring her I'd kep an eye on him! He was actually sober when he stepped back & knocked over a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket on a stand, sending ice, water, & the champers across the carpet! Which was hilarious! And he had no shame in claiming the dregs that remained in the bottle as a top up! Which might sound a bit 'pikey', but it's also got a touch of class in my book!

I'd never been to a civil wedding before, and it was quite short and sweet. Also quite amusing, as his mum was clearly very nervous, but she got through it! I sat near the back, as I was only a minor guest, on my own & it was surprisingly emotional. I wasn't so much moved by the event, as realising what I would miss out on. Not the 'wedding' thing. But a 'civil ceremony'. Although I'm a lot more comfortable with being gay than I was, I can't see myself ever finding a partner. I'm not particularly attractive & my teeth are a complete mess, missing & smashed & crooked. I don't have any social skills, and wouldn't know where, or how, to start looking for a boyfriend. I'm totally resigned to never being in a relationship & will only have pick ups fom the internet or sex in toilets. I felt happy for them but also sad for me, and I had to be quite strong to hold back some tears.

After the deed was done, and the marriage register signed,it was back upstairs for the real drinking to commence, with a free bar for the night! Fucking great! Where the bloody hell were they when I was still drinking? Which probably answers itself. Nobody in their right mind would have asked me to such occasions . One time I was it was for the wedding of one of my old friends Runner, who is a Millwall fan, who I knew a an old drinking partner from the Hamlet. I thought it was a great evening, the beer was flowing, I'd caned as much wine as possible during the meal, just because you could, even though I wasn't a wine drinker, & that was it really. Except the next day my brother tried to say I was a bit out of order having a go at the Italian woman, and making her cry. Truth is I haven't a clue what I said, & still don't to this day. And don't have a clue who she was, except she was someone's partner at the bash. That's an alcoholic for you. I am ashamed, but I don't regret, because you can't look back as that will screw you up. The only sorrow I have is that I don't know who she is to make amends.

There was a break before the dancing and celebratory drinking kicked in. The cellar had been relaid out, into two long tables for the meal, which was a sit down buffet, hot food; with the family table at the top. Now for me I prefer a good old fashioned 'working class' buffet. Triangular sandwiches, cheese & pineapple on a stick, bowl of jellied eels, chicken drumsticks, dips, assorted party 'crap' from Iceland...you know the spread! But this was nice. And no chips or even potatoes in site! Pasta, vegetables (which I ignored!), a noodle dish, with crunchy sort of vegetable crap in it (which dare I say it but I don't know what on earth that shit was but it tasted ok!), satay chicken, and slices of roast beef & lamb. Presumably no pork at the insistence of the new-jew Cookie! And there was enough to go up for a second plateful if you wished, which naturally I did. As I say, I'm more at home with a 'council estate platter', but that's for me to say. NOT the posh lot sat by me from the university. They actually expressed genuine surprise that it was acceptable tucker. Muttering, but not too loudly in case anyone heard them, they expected pinapple & cheese on a stick, & lots of sausage rolls. I really had to bite my tongue & count to ten to keep my mouth shut & not create a scene. fucking poncy stuck up toffee nosed twats! But it was good grub, I'd have been happy with sausage rolls, unlike them, but this was actually posh for me! I don't know if they were expecting a delivery from Iceland, or what!

The speeches came next, and they were short and sweet. It was strange because Cabbie, the groom, had his brother in law as the best man, and he'd hardly met Cookie's mum. But he seemed alright. His missus also said a few words at the end, and it really struck a chord with me. She mentioned she saw the true happiness in Cabbie's smile, when she first met them together. And that was just like christmas 2007, when my brother Mook, who had been married for over twenty years had split, and then met his now fiancee Mountie. She came over for the first time that christmas, & we (myself & sisters) all met her for the first time then. A few days after she went home he asked me what I thought, and he was dead nervous about it, which was unusual for him. I had to think carefully about my reply. I had to say I'd honestly never seen him so happy in his entire life! So I could see where the woman at the top table was coming from today.

Even in the midst of middle age people can find happiness, which will be for the beginning of the rest of their lives. I don't think I will ever experience this, but for a brief moment it would be wonderful to imagine, but I shut that out quickly as it's too depressing to contemplate reality.

Before the wedding yesterday I was actually dreading the whole afternoon.Sitting in the small bar, sipping orange juice, not knowing anyone apart from Cookie. Wondering how on earth I'd try to stretch conversation out, as everyone else got progressively drunk around me. I was desperately trying to work out how soon I could sneak out, without appearing rude. With between six or seven my target-at the latest!

But it didn't quite work like that. It actually turned out a pleasant evening! This is how 'normal' people have a good time! Despite almost seven years sobriety I still can't get over how 'slowly' ordinary people drink. And with a 'free bar' too! But then I suppose that's simply another symptom of alcoholism that never goes away. Not being able to consider drink rationally.

After downstairs was set for the evening the happy couple cut the cake.

This was later cut up into small pieces, and put into napkins, for eveyone to take a piece home, which is traditional. Which I did, but maybe one ot two extra 'slipped' into my pockets, and I ended up with a greedy, 'pikey' six pieces! And it was all delicious! Sometimes you can ignore watching your sugar intake with diabetes 2! (I hope) Well I'm not dead, and it was a rare treat!

Then they had the 'first dance'

When that was done it was time to 'disappear'. Not sneak off early as planned, I had surprised myself by enjoying myself, but to avoid getting roped into dancing! I simply can't dance. Never have done & don't know how to! Through my teenage years I avoided the 'teenybop' discos, because all my mates tried to cop off with girls & I didn't fancy them, so didn't like them things. Scared in case my mates got me to talk about & to girls, when I fancied the boys. Then, as I got older, I simply 'fell in love' with drink, instead of going to gay clubs, and besides I can't dance anyway! Excuses, excuses maybe? But another reason I'll always be lonely without a partner...

There was a smoking area outside, not that I smoke. But it was somewhere to 'escape' from the dancing downstairs, to just chill out and chat, it was actually nice to see Cookie talk to some old relatives, and start to relax. He insisted I take a few photos of him with them for for his American friends. I'm not sure if he wanted me to include them all on here, but what the heck!

This one is with his mum & sister.

Here he is with his 'new dad'!

This is a snap with two of his uncles. The one on the left had a jokey syrup with him...

Which Cookie took a shine to! ;-)

There was also a yard behind the bar, below the smoking balcony, which was closed off. In the middle was alone palm tree. no tables, chairs, nothing! Presumably at the beginning of a 'makeover' for the coming summer months. There were wires coming out of the paving stones, I would guess for those great patio heater stands. They are great to stand under at dusk. If ever I had a proper life, and a garden and money, I'd get one for outside! for some reason Cookie wanted his photo taken with it.

I don't know what a 'Freudian' type would have made of this. A lone tree, surrounded by emptiness & Cookie. How would you interpret his life from that? I'm not going to answer my rhetorical question. Those in glass houses & all that...

Thankfully, from my point of view, his nazi mate, who he'd asked along didn't show. I somehow didn't thnk I'd want to be in his company, and would have told him so in no uncertain terms. Which would have been a shame on Cookie, as it might have taken a bit of the shine off of his day. But then he shouldn't be making excuses for cunts like that anyway!

One of his ex-work mates Security did show, and he was actually a decent bloke.

To be honest they did talk '(ex)shop' a bit too much for my liking. But then, if it wasn't for his recent spell in prison Cookie would still be happily employed in that field, rather than currently on the rock & roll. And they didn't rabbit on about work in a boring way, so I didn't mind really.

There was another bloke we chatted to & what a prat he was! Cookie mentioned that he was looking into maybe moving abroad to make a new start, & that set White-Van off! He moaned about all the foreigners, & illegals, caliming all the benefits & sponging off the state, when your Englishmen couldn't get anything. He ranted about Albanians & Kosovans who smoked, drove cars, and all had big screen plasma televisions on their walls! not to mention taking our jobs while signing on. And how did he know this? He owned properties which he rented out to loads of them, & saw their flash lifestyles when he went round to collect their rent! Oh the irony! Just a pity I didn't have the facts to hand! What a tosser!

I dread to think how much I had to drink. I was overdosed on J2O! The funny thing was that whenever I went to the bar and asked for a Becks, vodka, & a J2O the barmaids asked what flavour J2O I wanted. They couldn't quite grasp the fact I couldn't care less and just said that any of them would do!

Beer must make you want to piss more, as it was quite a while before I had a slash. So I thought Cookie had been joking when he said that he had pissed into the sinks, rather than the urinals, before he realised his mistake, as they looked the same!

But you know what..he had a point!

All too soon it was gone half past ten at night, and I had to bid my goodbyes, and say my thank yous,Cookie struggled to get through the cellar bar wothout getting grabbed for a boogie!

He managed to 'escape' their clutches by insisting he had to walk me up to the station, which they fell for!
And as we were strolling up Rochester High Street 'Star Wars' fan Cookie bumped into a Stormtrooper! I kid you not! He wanted his photo taken, but bottled it, I knew he'd regret it & made him ask to pose for a snap!

And on that bizarre note I bade my farewells, ending up on the 23.05 train back to London!

Stuffing my face on bits of wedding cake, happy to know that an old friendship was getting cemented again, though after he reads all this I'm not so sure! ;-)

Deepest sympathy...

2009-04-10T09:42:00.002+01:00

You would expect a substantial minority of the population to be upset this morning, so if you know any of 'their communtiy' please offer a crumb of comfort & sympathy to them.
Don't overdo it mind. That crumb of comfort' is metaphorical. No need to invite them in for tea and biscuits or you'll never get rid of them!
It's those people who are members of christian sects I'm on about. Actually if you know any Jehovahs you can let them through your door, despite their reputation for people even worse 'doorsteppers' than double glazing salemen they are actually the easiest to get rid of. Sit them down, make them welcome, lull them into a false sense of secuirty. Then go out into the kitchen where they can't see you. Stick a finger up your nose, & have a little twizzle. The bogeys are quite nutricious anyway, and then start gushing a nose bleed. Dash back in with the claret flowing & ask them if they've got a tissue. They soon bugger off!
Today is 'Good Friday'. Which I always find a bit strange, as most of the shops are shut, there's no football as the Hamlet are playing tomorrow, and the Easter Eggs aren't half price in the shops until Tuesday. But each to his own I guess, so 'Good' it is.
It's also the day that Jesus dies on the cross 'for our sins'. Yeah right! You go out and go down the bookies, with a banana in a plastic bag, pretending it's a shooter, & demand the takings. I'm sure when the beak sentences you to ten years he'll change his mind when you tell him: "But, your honour, I'm an innocent man! Jesus Christ died for my sins! He's done thepunishment!"
Jesus Rest In Peace eh? Enjoy while you can, as the crafty git pops back on Sunday. Harry Houdini eat your heart out!
But the fact is today until then he is brown bread. So if yo know any genuine, misguided, bona fide, card carrying bible bashers put your arm round them and confort them in their time of need:
"Sorry to hear about your loss mate"
-Quizical looks.
"Deepest sympathy. Was he ill? He was quite young?"
-"erm who? I don't know anyone who's died"
"Yeah that chap you're always talknig about. The decent sort of bloke...."
-"....???????????????...."
"Oh whatsisname? Magician chap? Oh gawblinmey, it's on the tip of my tongue. Jesus Christ, I should know it...JESUS CHRIST! That's the geezer. Sorry about him snuffing it today. At Easter of all times..."

Real football does NOT involve armchairs!

2009-04-09T23:24:00.003+01:00

"Did you see the game last night?" I was asked at work this morning.

"Yes, it wasn't bad, for that standard. Got a bit nippy though..." was my response.

Which is where I lost them. Turns out the football to watch was the European Champions League quarter finals between Liverpool & Chelsea, with Barcelona against Bayern Munich on another digital sports channel. Whaddaya mean? You haven't got a Sky dish on the wall? Tough shit you tight fisted git. Down the pub then, surround by 'lifelong fans' who've never been near a football ground in their life. The most opinionated people in the pub, wearing the newest replica shirts, and they're always right! Who treat you with total distain once they find out you follow a lower division club, or even more pitful, a non-league 'amat-uur' side. What is with people that they can't even pronounce the word amateur properly? And it's NOT amateur it's semi fucking professional you ignorant twat!

You may be a quite interesting person, capable of talking sensibly about football for hours on end. But if you don't go to games just fuck off and stop annoying me! Armchair fans just make me switch up. I reach for my own remote & stop listening. Go away. You bore me! And YES, I am full of contempt for you!

Call me old fashioned, but watching football is something you do standing up. Sure, sometimes you have no choice but to sit down, but at least that's at the ground, with lots of the higher Football League grounds being all seaters nowadays.

Don't get me wrong, I love the atmosphere at big games. But that atmosphere is for grounds. Not pubs! I'd rather watch two sides play down the local park, rather than ducking & diving to try and get a glimpse of a screen in a pub full of pillocks, screaming undying love for 'their boys' despite never having been to watch them in the flesh in their lives!

There's nothing better than watching a game, nomatter what level. But sadly it's never 'in the flesh'. What a 'teasing' expression that is! I'd love to see Cristian Ronaldo ' in the flesh ' on television...what a waste of 'talent' while he's playing or Man. United! ;-)

But I digress! I had a choice last night. Watch one of the European games in a bar, or go to a match. I chose the latter. In what was practically a park. A pitch in the middle of a running track, with no terracing or seating. Three rungs BELOW my team Dulwich Hamlet in the non-league pyramid, which makes it eleven below your Arsenals & Chelseas! Local players who have a run out for the love of the game, paying matchday subs to play! Lewisham Borough versus Rusthall, in the Kent County League Premier Division, case you're wondering. Two one to the hosts, and where it lacked in true quality it made up for in keenness & endeavour. They may not have been the best footballers in the world, but they gave their all. And what more can you ask on a football pitch?

I work every other Saturday, & until seven o'clock at night two evenings a week, so I have to miss more games than I would like to. But it's works that pays the bills, and chips away at my debts, so I can't complain. Despite those restrictions last night was my ninetieth of the season!

And I wouldn't have it any other way! Follow your football down the pub, but I'll be a supporter at REAL games!

You're worse than Richard & Judy!

2009-04-07T22:17:00.000+01:00

With the mass Premiership armchair orientated modern 'footie' world how galling must it be when your team only makes the news because your average crowd is more than the viewing figures for Richard & Judy & their bookclub on some obscure digital channel called Watch, which is ironic as nobody is actually watching it!

Apparently the viewing figures are a mere blip of 5,000. With Northampton Town, nicknamed the Cobblers, even getting more than them! Which sadly isn't even totally true, as although more of Northampton Town had more than five thousand at their last home match-5,025 to be exact-against Swindon Town, they have had ten home gates with less than the Richard & Judy five thousand through the turnstiles.

So you really can sing "You're worse than Richard & Judy!" to the Cobblers! Which doesn't prove anything apart from the fact that tabloid journalism is a load of old cobblers, as they try to make a news story out of Richard & Judy getting so few punters tuning in. When in actual fact it's not a shock at all. Let's face it what the fuck is the Watch TV channel & who actually cares?
And more pertinantly why does it exist? How can they make money? Richard & Judy clearly couldn't care less if anybody tunes in, they're only doing it for the benefit of their wallet. Maybe a bit harsh, but while I don't know their personal bank balances they certainly don't need to 'prostitute' themselves out to obscure digital channels to put food on their dinner tables. Though you can't blame them mind, as they're a bit high profile to try that nipping past the tills trick again I suppose!

The only reason people have digital telly is for access to the pay to watch sports channels and the films. There is freeview type channels now, and with the price of a digibox thingymajig being around fifty quid or so, probably much less, you do get access to the BBC3 & BBC4 type stuff, as well as the Channel Four & Five ones that seem to show repeats of sme, admittedly, half decent American shows. You'll have worked out by now I haven't really got a scooby what all this digital lark is all about. Which shouldn't surprise you.

I've got an ordinary telly, & wasn't planning to get a digital box until forced to, whenever the analogue is switched off in the London area, prior to the whole country going 'modern' by 2012. My telly has five channels. More than enough usually to find something to watch. And if not, when I'm not on my laptop like I am now blogging, I have several hundred unwatched videos & DVDsfor those 'rainy days' when there's crap on all five terrestrial channels. Or as I prefer to call them-'normal television'.

I do actually, believe it or not, possess a digital box receiver for my telly. A mate of mine gave me his old one just before Christmas. And I'm sure there is some decent obscure stuff out there. Documentaries maybe. Crime dramas, & comedy. But when would I have the chance to watch them? Very rarely. So the box, or whatever it is as I haven't even looked at it, still sits in the carrier bag he gave it to me in.

So apologies to you Richard & Judy, it's down to lazy bastards like me that nobody's watching you, not because we can't be bothered, but because we can't be bothered to set up our pikeyed digital receivers!*

* I lied. Give me Paul O'Grady, followed by The Simpsons, for my 'teatime' viewing on a Wednesday when I'm not working anyday! ;-)

If you think you're Jaded...

2009-04-05T22:34:00.002+01:00

And now she's laid to rest. Farewell Princess Jade of Bermondsey-by-East-Angular! If you're sick of the media hype surrounding the death of Jade Goody then spare a thought for those of us who live or work in Bermondsey itself.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not heartless. It was extremely sad that a young mother only 27 years old died of cancer. But to read the papers you'd think she was cross of Mother Teresa, Princess Diana & erm, that's about it, both rolled into one.

So who exactly was she? A dozy cow who got lucky on a reality television programme. And got extremely rich as a result. I don't hold that against her, she happened to be in the right place at the right time. But to hold her up as some latter day saint is an absolute nonsense.

It's said she was extremely brave to go so public on her illness, and that she has saved so many lives by telling young women to go for smear tests. Which isn't really that brave at all if you think it through. Here is a young woman who was let down by her doctors, who failed to spot her cancer in time to give a fighting chance of beating it. By speaking out she is reacting naturally to the 'incompetence' of the quacks who I have no doubt she feels failed her.

And of course she was 'extremely brave' to have the cameras follow her every step closer to death, by having camera crews follow her 24/7. And what a caring woman she was. Doing it 'for the boys'. Well if that gave her a focus who am I to criticise? But I would have more sympathy if she wasn't grabbing the hundreds of thousands, maybe even a million or two, to 'look after them' in their future private school education which is as far a cry from her 'Bermondsey roots' than you ever thought possible. Caring to the end or money grabbing? I know which one I'd go for!

The hypocracy of the press is astounding, having pilloried her in life she's their heroine in death. As is the gullibility of so many people. Not just the lemmings who religiously buy the currant bun every day, & were lapping up the twelve page 'Jade Remembered' pull out in the News of the Screws this morning. Take Stephen Fry, widely acknowledged as one of the funniest & most intelligent persons on our televesions screens. Now either he's being too clever for his own good (translation:Whoosh! That's gone right over my own head) or he's had another breakdown and lost the plot. He came out with bit of verbal dihorria-"A Princess Di from the wrong side of the tracks. All impulsive spirit and smiles." Really?

The only thing she had in common with Diana was that they were both relatively thick. But at least Diana cared about others. Whether it be HIV patients,sick children in Great Ormond Street, or even ploitically campaigning against the use of land mines. Jade? She was happy to mak racist jibes about her fellow contestants on Celebrity Big Brother. The only thing she cared about was her own earning potential. Ignorance is not an excuse for racism. No matter how stupid you may be making 'jokes' by bullying Shilpa Shitty, or whatever her name was on CBB, WAS racism. Even little kids who watch CBeebies rather that 'Celebrity BeeBee' could have told her that.

As I've stated, I'm sorry she's died, but not her personally. Which reads, at first glance, like a nasty attack on her. But it's not. What I mean is it's tragic when ANY person dies that young from cancer. She's not brave. They are all brave. Famous or not famous. I'd actually go to say those ordinary folk who are dying from terminal illnesses are a lot braver as they have to stare death in the eye without the security of knowing they can use their fame to provide for their family.

When Diana died mass hysteria took over the country. Shamefully so. I'm proud to say I took no part of it. In fact I got called into the office at work as I worked in a library at the time, though I'm not there now. All my colleagues knew I had no time for the monarchy. Most of the staff got sucked in by her death caused not just by a drunk driver, but by the fact she thought she didn't have to wear a seat belt. No doubt not ideal if she wanted to give Dodi a blow job as they sped through Paris...
Some colleagues found a couple of books on her & got some flowers, setting up a little remembrance display by the entrance. And seemed surprised and moved when I found some more. And then for some reason took offence when I topically exapanded it. I grabbed some books on car maintenance, first aid, wills & other stuff! Some people are so ungrateful when you try to help!

My mum was a fervent royalist. We always ruined Christmas dinners past when we took the piss during the Queens speech, as she called for silence, & inevitably made the 'Fred Scuttle' Benny Hill type salute during the playing of the national anthem at the end of it! What I didn't realise, until a good few years after my mum had died, was that only a few hours after the crash in the Paris tunnel she was caught on the news cameras at six AM in the morning, one of the first people to lay flowers down at Kensington Palace! Which eventually became a huge carpet of flowers. I'm sure her death is fondly recalled by flower shops up and down the country! In these recession hit times at least the florists of Bermondsey would never have had it so good. Or did they?

I work in Bermondsey, near to the Blue Market. Well they call it a 'market' but it's actually half a dozen stalls if you're lucky. But that's by the by. Apparently Jade's granddad used to run a stall here. And some locals started sitcking bunches of flowers to a tree, once she'd snuffed it. How long before the black and white of the zebra crossing would resemble a multi coloured carpet of flowers as they stretched across the pavement & beyond?
Well despite her being "Bermondsey's Princess" (as appointed by Fleet Street hacks & assorted local nutters) they never quite engulfed the area:

That was it less than twenty four hours before Bermondsey would come to a supposed standstill for her funeral.

Though to be fair there was a note attached:

So being the inquisitive kind I was curious to see exactly how many had taken their tribute to be 'near Jade' (Good grief! Pass the sick bucket per-lease!) to Albins, by Southwark Park. Would part of the park itself act as an 'overspill' for the 'Diana for Dummies'. Hmm...a good working title for an unofficial Jade biography that, but I digress. After work, seeing as it was a nice sunny day coming to an end, I strolled through the park to 'pay my respects' & silently laugh at the crowds gathering & laying flowers. Imagine to my surprise that there were no queues, nor huge lawns of floral tributes. Yes, there were some, but hardly Diana-esque for such a real peoples' Peoples' Princess:

The next morning I was in Bermondsey for work. The funeral cortege was due to stop at the blue at a quarter to nine, & I started work at nine. I'd read that 'her own people' from Bermondsey were going to turn out in their thousands upon thousands. Yeah right! Certainly there were crowds, but only to be nosey. Hundreds there were, but mostly grannies, & their daughters, and their daughters...simply to say they were there, and to show off their snaps on their mobiles. A bit like me actually. Except I just happened to be on my way to work as the hearse had left the Blue & was turning down Southwark Park Road. Abd strangely enough, traffic was still flowing, buses going past, and the pavements weren't ten deep with rivers of tears flowing along the gutters, except when the paparazzi were snapping away as people desperately tried to get their muge etched with mock-grief in the papers.

I thought it rather apt that for a pseudo-celebrity she had a mock copper on a bike to control the traffic. Funny how a dozen protesters in copycat uniforms can be nicked on the anti G20 demo for impersonating the old bill while in an armoured car, but this bloke can do what he likes on his motorbike!

And I hope they never dropped any of those flowers. That'll be an £80 on the spot fine for littering! ;-)

But whom am I to 'mock' ordinary people for paying their respects? When they do a good job of that themselves?

'I came here today because Jade was a great mum.That she was a star is irrelevant, it doesn't come into it. She was a great mother to her kids who she adored.'
Pardon? you mean she was like the vast majority of mothers in Bermondsey, & other inner city areas? In which case how come you don't have a season ticket for every mother who has the same qualities but dies, up at the crematorium at Brenchley Gardens? Nothing to do with her being a star? Bollocks!

To sum up exactly how stupid people are who never met her in their life, how about this?
"I have followed her since she was on Big Brother and she became part of my life. She was a very special human being'. Said the crazy stalker who subscribed to all the obscure cable channels which Jade starred in/padded out.

Now that she's dead a buried, in the ground under the roots of a private wooded burial ground in Essex, far away from her roots in Bermondsey, the talk will be how she might be remembered locally. Already there's suggestions of the council estate where she grew up on, the Dickens Estate, named after some old fshioned writer chap, to be re-named after her! And even a statue erected in her memory! By all means I'd love to see a statue. Paid for by public subscription..then we'd see how much 'her people' loved her, if they had to dip into their own pockets! And where to put it up? The Blue Market Place maybe? Outside her old block of flats? Maybe not. Though i'd be more than happy to have a plaque put on her old block. Maybe have a part of it named after her. How does the 'Jade Goody Rubbish Chute' sound?

I can't believe a permanent memorial hasn't been suggested for her, on the vacant fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square? But why so far. Why not here?

The empty 'first plinth' outside Rotherhithe Library, where it couldn't be safer, as Bermonsey people always look after their own. Just like the previous 'Bermondsey Boy' Tommy Steele statue, which someone 'arf inched & melted down for scrap many years ago! Perfect!

I'm in bits...

2009-04-03T23:26:00.002+01:00

I got home from work tonight, a little tired. Got a bite to eat, and slumped down in the armchair to complete the report & photos from last weeks Supporters' Team game against the Frenchies from Le Bromlei for the team blogsite I do.
After that I planned to do a post on here about Madonna & her failed attempt to buy a sister for her bought for son.

And then I got a text from a mate of mine...

Our good friend Belgian Anorak had contacted him.
B.A. had been trying with his partner, at great expense for them to try to conceive a child through IVF treatment. Many attempts & no success. Then only last Friday I got a wonderful text that they had ben successful & Rocky was pregnant! It put a smile on my face & had a wonderous 'inner warmth' for the rest of the day! They are wonderful people & I was so pleased for them...

But today something has gone wrong, & she is in hospital, their dream is gone, as the pregnancy is over.
I texted my mate back in shock.
Then sent a feeble attempt at a supportive one over the Channel to my friend. What words can you say?
How can I express, or try to comprehend, such sadness? I was in tears as I sent them, real big fuck sobs, more emotional than I thought I could be, & I'm welling up again now as I type this.

Really decent people who would love to be able to have a child.
A gift that Madonna has.
But she is too rich & lazy, to go through the natural cycle of childbirth, instead choosing to buy herself a family, ready made, to hang on her arm like trophies.
She truly makes me sick!

I want to post more & rationally explain with what I think about Madonna.
But right now I can't.
I am sick with sorrow for my Belgian friends.

It's just as well I have no money, or i would be on my way over there now to offer them support. Which is stupid, if you think about it. They have teir families & lots of close friends to support them & certainly don't need me. But that shows how much I care about them . I'm hurting inside at the moment, but not half as much as them, multiply how upset I am by a million & you might get a little bit closer.

Somehow I don't think I'll be sleeping peacefully tonight.
My thoughts are with them.

How times change....

2009-04-02T22:35:00.002+01:00

Yesterday the Square Mile that is the City of London was in practical lockdown thanks to the various demos protesting around the G20 Summit.

Now I'm getting on a bit, but I still like a good demonstration, though I don't go on too many nowadays. At the very least, even if they're crap, it's a good photo opportunity, & I do like to take snaps of 'real' people. That is pictures with people in it, not just buildings or scenes, but humans to 'humanise' them.

So a stroll around the City yesterday would have been right down my street. Except I wasn't going to waste a whole day penned in like sheep, with no toilets or water in a small area surrounded by riot police, intent on riding roughshod over any rights people have to hold law-abiding demonstrations in this still supposedly democratic police state. And get away with it.

And that's exactly what happened around the Bank of England. I don't know what time people were 'released' from their demo, I didn't really pay much attention to the news, but it must have been at least six hours, probably a lot more. Of course 'the end justifies the means'. With the actual rampaging being minimal, & certainly nothing like the scale seen against other G20 type junkets in other countries, when they've been held there. Ignore the fact that we are in the grip of a total police state, where they can control everything we do.

Sounds a bit dramatic? Maybe? But look around you. Cameras everywhere. Plastic coppers with no power...except to stop & fine you for minor offences like smoking in the wrong place, drinking alcohol in the street, dropping a sweet wrapper, going one mile an hour over the speed limit, or half an inch onto a yellow line. Don't get me wrong, I don't drive and don't give a fuck about hte 'poor motorists', I'm merely trying to highlight how much of a police state we're in, without even thinking about it.

Another reason not to go to the demo yesterday was the amount of tossers who were on it. The middle class guilt tripping day trippers out on a protest before they cosy down to their exams & start wearing their suits & business skirts to take their rightful place as part of the establishment that their public school education has groomed them to join. Lemmings the lot of them. Let's all march on the Bank of England. Yeah! Ignoring the fact it's surrounded by narrow streets that are easy peasy for the old bill to blockade & contain. Sure you can smash few windows, daub some graffiti...but those cameras are watching. you won't get nicked today, or maybe even tomorrow, but in a couple of weeks time you're gonna get your door kicked in at dawn by two dozen of Scotland Yards finest in quasi-jackboots & you're nicked & going to jail.

Sorry, but that's not for me!

But it wasn't always like that. I've just googled it and am shocked to realise how long ago it was! a quarter of a century ago I was in my prime! I shouldn't be that surprised if I think it through logically. I was in that small adult window of my life when I liked a drink, but wasn't fully dependent on alcohol yet. I was still able to go places & demonstrate, fit & fast enough to stand & fight...or run if need be! I was checking the date of the old 'Stop The City' demonstrations, & they were in 1983 & '84, anarchist led, before they petered out, as the police got on top of them, & the courts handed down enough heavy prison sentences to deter people.

I can't remember much about those 'Stop The City' days, I think I went on two or three of the early ones, when the numbers were higher. Although not an anarchist, or any sort of 'ist', I tended to side with the hard core anarchists. For two reasons. Firstly they tended to be up for it, & but their boot or fist where their mouth was. And that's why I was there. To join in a bit of mayhem & have a laugh! But secondly, and far more importantly the anarchist types stuck out like a sore thumb! They didn't give a shit in their own individual style, so if the old bill came wading in, or had snatch squads, I was wearing ordinary jeans and a t shirt, so could briskly walk away and sort of blend in with ordinary people.

I'm remembering a really funny incident where I was wearing a white t shirt with a large black CND symbol on it, under a sports jacket. I was on my own, but there were plenty of people milling about, & just like 'greedy capitalist' supermarkets nowadays I got 'two for the price of one!' There was a couple of suits taking the piss, and as I walked past I heard one of them mutter: 'That one almost looks normal" after he clocked my t shirt. I stopped and said: "What was that?" & before he could splutter a 'shitting his pants' explanation I clumped him & went for his pal, as he backed off! But even funnier was the attempted intervention of a 'peace maaaaan!' pacifist beardy tried to stop me with a 'no violence!' wail. I'm actually making that up...I'm not sure if he had a beard! But I told him to "fuck off you mug!" & smacked him too! That's what I call 'fghting for peace!'

In another incident there were some pissed off demonstrators just standing around doing nothing, moaning about the 'lack of action'. Don't forget this was a -whisper it!-quarter of a century ago. And the old bill were still naive about crowd containment, meaning they were still pretty much clueless. So if you had half an onze of common sense you could lead them a merry dance. There whingers were some punky types, & as I was clearly in earshot next to them one tried to wind me up by exclaiming that there were 'too many CND wankers for anything to happen'. Well fuck that! I said 'come on mate, there's some shops round the corner!'. And there was. I can't remember where it was now, but there was a parade of shops. And as a result of my 'offer' seven or eight of us went for a stroll. I can't remember what shops we smashed, but we did one or two. I know one was a newsagents, and they wrecked the shop by throwing thigns around, and we put the window through. 'Demonstrating' about the exploitation of women, with them not noticing that I was actually pocketing a few of the top shelf mags to have a wank over when I got home! Yes they were straight porn, not many shops sold gay porn back then, but they still had cocks in them. Just 'ruined' by those disgusting female flappy bits! ;-)

I also remember attacking a family butchers! Why? I still remember their chant: "Human freedom, animal rights! One struggle, one fight!" as the old boy who seemed to be running the shop on his own cowered in the corner. Too frightened to use any of the big fuck cleavers he had on his side of the counter! Chickens & chops were flying all over the place as his stock was wrecked! Which I joined in with, even though I can't stand vegetables & am a proud carnivore. Always have been, always will be. As one of my favourte sayings goes: 'vegetable are what my dinner eats!' I can still see the look on his face as, during all this sixty seconds or so of total mayhem, I took a sheet of some sort of greaseproof paper, & grabed some chops, which I wrapped up in it. simply grinning at him & saying 'cheers mate!'

I'm sure I could remember a lot more if I put my mind to it. This was a period of my life when I was at my most politically active. The miners strike. Anti nazi demonstrations, when we had some real battles with the National Front. Coming off worse on more than one occasion, but usualyy being well on top. Printworkers strikes, shipyard strikes. Have a picket line & I would travel. It really was a mental period of my life.

If I sat down & put my thinking cap on I really coud come up with some tales, & don't even get me started on the football! Although a through & through Hamlet fan I wasn't adverse to going to the odd Millwall or even Chelsea game 'for a bit of a laugh'! But that's all for another posting. I'm not sure where this one is going. I started off moaning about the old bill yesterday, but the liberties we took in yesteryear, maybe it's people like me that are the cause of the modern day police state! ;-)

A fiver well spent

2009-04-01T23:59:00.004+01:00

What can you get for a five quid nowadays? Not a lot you'd think. But if you go trawling the 'charidee' shops as I do you can get some veritable bargains. Or junk, which you wouldn't othewise buy if it wasn't for the cheap price tag on it!

One thing I've noticed in this 'credit crunch' (such a polite way of saying we're all fucked!) is that the second hand shops are marking down their old videos. Which suits me fine. Unless it's something exceptional that I want, like when I was searching for & eventually got the second series of 'Queer As Folk', I won't pay more than a pound, two quid being a rip off, no matter what the cause, if you're permanently poor like my good self. Now & again you see a bargain bucket where they're 'buy one, get one free', or even some at ten bob each. (That's 50p, if you don't know 'old money' lingo)

But more & more these shops are knocking them down to fifty pence each all over the place. Well I say 'all over' I mainly frequent the ones in Sydenham where I live, Bermondsey where I work, & Eltham every few weeks. Eltham? Don't ask! Well ok then...there's one of the public toilets in thst area which is quite busy for some cock fun, & as a bonus there's a number of charity shops along Eltham High Street!

I was over that way last week, and as well as enjoying a blow job & a wank I picked up some second hand videos. And got some more today at home-videos!- while waiting for my washing to finish its cycle at the local laundrette. That's two lots of washing this week! I've had a bit of a bakclog, & it's sunny & dry out, so no need to 'waste' money in a drier.

It's not stuff I'll watch straight away. Maybe not even this month or even year! It's stacked up in a huge pile for a 'rainy day' when I'm bored. I know I'll enjoy most of them, or even if I don't I've took a 'gamble' to see what they're like. Well at fifty pence each you can afford to splash the cash! So what sort of crap have I picked up exactly?

Here goes, in no particular order:

1) 'The Crying Game'. From 1992, set in both the 'killing fields of Northern Ireland' & 'the seedy yet vibrant underworld of contemporary London'. It's a film I've know of, but not seen before. I think I will enjoy this one.

2) 'Deathwatch'. Made in 2002, never heard of it before! A horror film, set behind the German lines, about the few English survivors from their regiment. I'm quite interested in the First World War, so this could be worth watching. Well what do you expect at that price! ;-) It's worth it because the sexy young scamp Jamie Bell is in it!

3) 'And Now For Something Completely Different'. From the 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' team, in 1971. The Flying Circus was before my time really, & I've never really watched their stuff, so it will be interesting to see if I like this or not.

4) 'The Deerhunter'. Film classic, made in 1978, which lasts for a lengthy three hours, or five minutes shy to be precise. It stars Robert De Niro, & the film won a total of five Oscars.

5) 'Red Scorpion'. 1988 complete action junk from the look of the blurb on the cover. A Soviet agent, last seen fighting in 'Rocky IV', goes undercover fighting a rebel African guerilla uprising. Presumably a spin off from the Rocky film, and made not long after. I dread to think how rubbish this one will be!

6) 'The Missionary', a British comedy from 1983. Set in Edwardian England a missionary man of the cloth returns to London to set up a mision for fallen women. Written by, & starring, the brilliant Michael Palin, of Monty Python fame, but I am a big fan of his travels too.

7) 'Glory', released in 1989. I don't know this one, despite it winning three Academy Awards. It's an American film about the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts, which was the first black regiment to fight for the North in the American Civil War. I've no idea if it's any good, but it sounded interesting enough for me to pick up.

8) 'D3 The Mighty Ducks'. The box doesn't say what year this kids Disney film was released, it's the third in the Mighty Ducks series. To be honest the only reason I've grabbed this is because it's about ice hockey, & I like that sport! I know I've got another video in this series, but not D3. I'll have to dig it out, so I can hunt around for the missing one. Preferably before I watch either of the pair I've got, & realise how crap they are! The unbelievable thing-only in America!-was that this series spawned a genuine team in the NHL!

9) 'Dave Spikey overnight success tour Live'. Not a film, but a stand up comedian. I do like comedy. There's nothing better than escaping into to laughter. Problem is I have no idea who this chap is! This was recorded at the Leeds City Varieties Theatre, which somehow suggests I won't be chuckling that much...

10) A BBC video. Of the 1966 World Cup final. Enough said! (The final was actually just under three months before I was born, though I did see a repeat of it in Battersea in 2005!

They think this post is all over...it is now!

How exciting is this?

2009-03-31T23:39:00.003+01:00

I kid you not...this is a genuine display case from the Horniman Museum!

Thankfully it's NOT a fair reflection on their collection!

Honest!

Blimey! They've got the RIGHT time!

2009-03-30T19:42:00.000+01:00

Where? Actually it's a place where you'd expect the correct time. At a train station. Where clocks are quite important if you got one to catch.

At London Bridge station which I use practically every day you get onto the main concourse from the platforms & there's an escalator in the middle, leading down to the Underground. You walk through some modernised arches, which have small posh shop units on either side, known as 'The Vaults'. I think of it as 'expensive stuff I can't afford', and continue to pop into Sainsburys or Somerfield on the way home.

Hanging from the season is an electronic clock. And it's correct to the minute. Which is fine. The problem is it's out to the hour! I noticed it when I got back from Prague last October, when the clocks had gone back sixty minutes for winter time. I naively assumed they'd just not had time to re-adjust it, and expected them to have done so by the next morning. But the next day became a week, which became a month, which became...two o'clock last Sunday morning when the clocks went forward again for the start of British Summer Time, and now HEY PRESTO it's perfect again!

Incompetence at its best!

What a difference an "i" & a "y" makes...

2009-03-29T23:19:00.001+01:00

When the word involves the word 'horny'!

On Friday, as I told you, I was off work. By complete coincidence my mate Fidel was planning to visit the Horniman Museum, in Forest Hill. This place is well known locally.

It has been around for over a hundred years. Parts of it haven't changed since I was at primary school, which was less than a mile down the road. We were often taken her on 'fake' school trips, meaning they were free, & very little organisation or transport costs for the teachers. But they were still fun. And back in those days, up until my mid teens, we often popped in there at weekends, not to learn as such, but somewhere to mess about and wind up the attendants, eventually getting chased out! In adulthood I continue to go back, probably three or four times a year. Even if you've seen most of it there's always something interesting to see again. It's also a trip down memory lane, see what hasn't changed, and also amazed at home 'modern' & 'hands on' some displays are. The music room is amazing.Instruments from all over the world, some old, some modern, with individual numbers.

All the way down the room are low 'tables' with pictures on the flat top of 'interactive instruments'. It's a touch friendly thing, where you find the number you want & pictures & words come up on the top telling you about the instrument, and sound comes out playing it!

Now you're probably thinking...'and?' but to someone as 'technophobic' and old fashioned, tone deaf & musically challenged as me it's a modern miracle machine! I know nothing about music, cannot & have never played an instrument, well ok, briefly the recorder at primary school, and maybe hit a triangle in the annual nativity play! But you know what i mean. Someone like me should be bored to tears by this collection, but it fascinates & totally entertains me. It makes the museum worth visiting on its own.

On Facebook I commented that I was: "going to visit the Horniman on his day off...not quite the 'horny man' he'd prefer, it's a museum & a wonderfully eclectic free one, so it could be worse! ;-) "

So it was the hornIman on Friday, but today I got my hornYman! Got a text from Ali from Leyton, the lad who likes dreassing up in leather! Now it doesn't do much for me, but he's young (late twenties) & got nice cock! The 'downside' is I think he's very confused sexually! (Not that I'm complaining! ) He's happy to have his cock sucked, & wank me off, but that's as far as he wants to go! Though he seems to like me spanking him a little! But I think he's very confused sexually. Meaning brings round straight porn to watch, which isn't so bad if you ignore those horrible flappy bits on the girls! ;-) But the good thing is I put my gay porn on the DVD, and he watches his on the laptop. Best of both worlds!

But he gets off on talking about how sexy his sister is, but thinks me trying to lick or touch his arse is 'dirty' even though he gets off on me massaging a finger up it while I'm give him a blow job! Confused fella!

Still I can't complain, it's certainly better than an old fashioned five knuckle shuffle on your jacks!
And not a bad way to spend an hour or so on a Sunday evening.

Just after he left a football friend 'Blabber' was popping round to drop off some of his old programmes he no longer wanted, so for the next half hour I was dashing round putting my dildo, lube, & porn out of sight! He knows I'm gay, but despite what he says, I think he's a bit two faced & bigoted underneath all that! But I can cope with that as long as he doesn't say anything to my face. What he gossips about I tend not to worry about, even though most of what's said gets back to me anyway! But I don't intend to give him any more 'ammunition'!

I recall when I came out to my football friends about ten years or so ago, still in my drinking days. Despite the fact everyone was extremely supportive it is still the most emotional moments of my life, and very tearful! But also totally liberating and empowering. I've sometimes wondered if I would have been able to face up to my alcoholism if I hadn't come out as gay to my friends first? Who knows?

'Blabber' was apparently fine about it to my face, but only a couple of nights later he was in the bar on a training night. Blabbing-hence the tag!- & slagging me off behind my back to the actual First Team players! Thankfully the barmaids, who liked me, tipped me off, and put me 'back in the closet' on my behalf, saying he was 'stirring' & 'joking', & I never got any grief from them. Of course I'm sure some wouldn't have believed him, but that wasn't important. What hurt in a way was the confirmation that he couldn't always be trusted. I'm not ashamed of being gay, & liking men. Otherwise I wouldn't have told people. But he was out of order for the hypocracy. i've never mentioned to him that I knew wah t he did. That's something that gives me a bit of satisfaction, knowing over him!

I'm sure there are some other Hamlet fans who are, indeed one-at least- I know most certainly is, but will stay hidden in the closet until he dies. Which I find, in the twenty first century, extremely sad. But each to his own, he has to sort his life out, and I've enough on my plate trying to improve mine!

I still speak to the 'Blabber' today, but he's 'just a mate', not what I could qualify as a true friend. In all honesty what I call 'true friends' you could count on the fingers of one hand. Definition of a 'true friend'? Hard to explain. But in my book it's someone who you would do anything for, inconvenience yourself to help, and always be there for them, no matter what. And believe they will do the same for you. That's why I may only have a few, but they are the best people in the whole wide world!

I should've been in France!

2009-03-28T16:21:00.001Z

Yesterday I happened to have the day off work. I had hoped to be in France for the weekend, but lack of funds conspired against me. As did late fixture planning by the Gaffer who currently runs the Dulwich Hamlet Supporters' Football Team.
Those who know me I am still slowly, but surely, paying back long term debts, stretching back to my drinking days, when I ignored all bills in pursuit of my only idol alcohol, & ran up huge debts with various credit companies, some of which I'm repaying, others...well if I think I'm financially fucked now I dread to think how bad it would be if ever they caught up with me!
I could pay back what I owe quicker than I do, but if I were to live on a diet of beans on toast, & stay cocooned within my four square walls of my flat I would crack up completely, & it would be back to square one.
So I pay back what I can afford, & basically live on a monthly income of about two hundred quid, after all bills, repayments & rent. Which has to inlcude food, and basic living costs which we always seem to 'forget about' unless money is tight. stuff like laundrette, washing powder, shampoo, toilet paper, that sort of stuff.
Out of this I try to save a few pence for my trips abroad, which really are the highlights of my year, though I live extrmely frugally on them. Staying at backpackers hostels, & practically eating out of chip shops and supermarkets. One day, in a few years time, I will be able to 'treat' myself when debts are clear, to a 'real' hotel & 'proper' meals in restaurants. I enjoy going to visit new grounds to watch foreign football on my jaunts, as well as ice hockey, if I can find any. I'm also 'fortunate' in that I love going around taking photographs of empty grounds and also cemeteries, both of which are time consuming, but free!
I pick and choose my trips carefully, and can only go on a few of them a year. At the end of February I went to Belgium for a long weekend. I stayed in a Belgian Youth Hostel in Mechelen on the Friday night, having watched one of the local teams. I didn't see anything of the town centre though, as I spent the afternoon at Fort Breendonk. In the morning I headed to Namur on the Saturday morning, to stay with my good friends Belgian Anorak & his fiancee Rocky. I really do love them as thoroughly decent people. And they are kind enough to put me up in their house for a couple of nights. On Saturday evening we saw Namur get stuffed again, this time at FC Brussels, & on the Sunday he drove to Paris to watch PSG! Magnifique!
I now have a big soft spot for PSG, thanks to my friendship with Belgian Anorak. But my first Parisian love is for 'little' Red Star. It really was love at first sight when I first went there in early 2004! And how that came about is somewhat strange too! I happened to pick up a discarded copy of the 'Independent on Sunday' which carried a story about the imminent demolition of the Stade de Colombes, in Paris. Which was the Olympic stadium from 1924, & also staged the 1938 World Cup Final. Now up until then I'd never been to France properly before, apart from day trips to Calais or Boulogne, which don't really count. Oh, and one to Dunkirk, I've just recalled. But they were just day trips with school, or family type things, or piss ups doing beer runs with mates. Even going there to get drunk on my own! My very first trip across the Channel was when I was about eight or nine, on a day trip to Boulogne, with the 8th Camberwell Cub Scouts! It was a great adventure for me, though iIdon't recall anything about it. On our return there was an essay competition on the day for all f the cub packs in the Camberwell area, and despite my really untidy writing, I won! I think I got a really boring (at the time) book on planets & the universe. I wish I still had it as a little momento. I thnik this was one of the few times in my life that my mum was proud of me...
Until my first visit to Red Star I didn't like the French, & thought they were rude bastards. It's true they still are...but I am English after all, what do you expect me to say! So how did I end up a Red Star from afar? It could quite easily have been another old, historic French club called Racing, who are based at Colombes.(It is also home to the Racing rugby union club) Until the fickle hand of fate stepped in! I had booked an overnight coach from Victoria to Paris for the Saturday night, go to watch the Racing match on the Sunday afternoon, & make the return overnight coach trip that night. But after I'd booked the tickets the Racing fixture was switched to the Saturday. So my chosen game was off for when I was in Paris. Fuck it! I dropped an email to my mate History Snob, and he suggested I go to watch Red Star, who had a nice old stadium, with a good fan base for their level, which was then a regional division six. I liked the ground straight away. I located the club shop & bought a few souvenirs, asking the geezer behind the jump if he spoke English, but the answer was 'non'. Not to worry. At half time I was minding my own business when the Club Shop Man came up to me with another bloke...who was a Red Star fan, originally from England! I spent the whole of the second half chatting to him, and ended up with my photo on their website, for which he does a regular English page! I told him we had a Supporters' Team, & said, only half in jest, that if ever they raised a side we'd go over to play them. Which we did the following season! And I've been back to at least one game every season since. Until this one, which finally brings me back to the weekend! I had this weekend booked off as annual leave since the start of the season, as I picked out the fixture away to Le Havre B to go to.
This was to have been my last foreign trip until the Supporters' Team summer tour to Helsinki in late July. Now Helsinki is an expensive city at the best of times, even more so with the economy being fucked, & the pound crashing against the euro. But I haven't missed a tour yet, since I instigated the first one to Amsterdam, in May 2002. Following which, incidentally, I stopped drinking, and have been sober ever since! For the last three seasons we have also had a mid-season European 'mini-tour' over a weekend. But this year we didn't. The Gaffer originally gave the the go-ahead to investigate one for Lisbon, but as soon as I did, and starting making initial contacts, he pulled the rug from under me, never having given a reason as to why. It me feel so small & a total cunt, and I've never been given a satisfactory explanation as to why. Though that's all history now, in the past. It's not worth dwelling on it. I know I did everything correctly & all I've lost, apart from a bit of face, is some personal respect for him as a person.
Later he explained it away by saying there was to be no mid-season tour because he thought some people might not be able to afford two tours, what with Helsinki being a little more expensive as a destination. Which is perfectly feasable...
In the meantime the Belgian PSG supporters' team had got an invite to the Queens Park supporters' tournament in the middle of June. So I decided I could just afford a weekend up in Glasgow, combining meeting them & cheering on the Belgians, with a bit of sightseeing, for a long weekend.
So my 2009 holidays were all laid out, as I could afford them...just! February-Belgium. March-Le Havre. June-Glasgow. July-Helsinki, from where I'm oving on to Riga, in Latvia, for a couple of days; then, lastly, my annual birthday trip to Prague in October.
Then came an amazing two faced about turn from the Gaffer! Suddenly-after having booked Glasgow- we are now in a tournament in Brussels, run by the Union Saint Gilloise supporters' the weekend after the Scotland trip! I've not missed a tour yet, and have no plans to do so now, but two foreign trips in consecutive months really is crazy-even more so for me who is semi-permanently 'fiscally challenged'. I'm committed to seven days in Finland & Latvia, which I could have cut to four. And five in Scotland, which could have been only two. Which would then have left me enough to go to both Le Havre this weekend, & also Brussels.
But I had to knock Le Havre on the head, & stay at home to try to keep some money back, which isn't easy at the best of times. It will mean, for the first time since I've been following them, I haven't watched Red Star during a season. I will try to squeeze in a very short, probably consecutive overnight coach trips, in late May, to see them. But how I really wanted to go, or where. I know I will enjoy the Brussels tournament when I'm there, but it really is an expense I could do without. Yes, I could just choose not to go, but it is something I do not want to miss. I can-& do-travel cheaply, & live on proverbial peanuts, so will just cope. At the moment I'm not entirely sure how, but I will!

Been there, dunnit!

2009-03-26T20:15:00.000Z

CON-GREGATION said the headline. Well headline's too big to describe it really. It was only one of those one sentence snippets that pad out papers. And the sentence in question was: 'A conman posing as a worker at Salisbury Cathedral mayhave duped hundreds of visitors into giving him cash donations'

I like that bit about 'cash' donations. What else were they going to give him? Here you are squire have my bible, I'm just leaving & don't need it anymore...
But what made me chuckle about the tale was the trip down memory lane it took me. All the way back to September 1978. For Salisbury read Canterbury!
I can date it so perfectly as my team Dulwich Hamlet were away to Canterbury City in the first qualifying round of the FA Cup, & I'd pursuaded my best mate (& wank buddy for several teenage years actually..I've often wondered what became of him...probably married with a couple of kids!) and his cousin to go to the match with me. We got the train down and strolled around the town. Which inevitably meant diving into the famous cathedral. Being a Saturday morning it was packed with tourists. And one thing about these christian types is that they do love their candles. And candles means money! Now we're not thieves! We didn't smash open a collection box, or anything like that. More your Sarf Lunnon wide boy apprentice entrepreneurs! So we stood in front of the collection box, & honed our finest choirboy voices, 'selling' the candles! And we were doing a roaring trade on behalf of the 3rd Canterbury Scouts, when questioned! Or were until rumbled after about half an hour by some strange bloke in a skirt...cassock I think they call it! If I knew then what I know about lots of priests I think I'd have allowed him to catch me & take any 'private' punishment he chose to dish out!
But back then, when you're thirteen or so, it was like a Benny Hill chase, as we told him to fuck off, called him a cunt and he chased us along & around the pews, with other weird men of the cloth joining in, before we thought they might actually grab us & we dived out of a side door! I'm not sure how much we made back then, but if memory serves me right it more than paid for all of our train fares, & the money to get int the game!
Which was played at the old speedway stadium, where they shared at. You were miles from the pitch & we got bored...
At half time we walked round the track & there was a shed behind the goal with a tractor in it, presumably used for pitch maintenance. Now I ca't drive, and have never had any interest in motors whatsoever. But my mate could.And guess what ?The key was in it! But he wasn't a tractor driver, though he could nick a Ford Escort or two. So we could only get it to shake, and stop-start.
By now the second half had started. And then came a tannoy anouncement I've never heard at a football ground before or since: "Would the boys behind the goal please get off of the tractor before we call the police!"

Read the bloody label!

2009-03-24T19:54:00.000Z

I was well pissed off at work today! I don't usually blog about work, in fact I avoid mentioning work like the plague, having almost lost my job through blogging back in January 2006. Only keeping it thanks to the strong support of my trade union. Without whom I would not be here now, as I have no doubt I would have ended my life in the mental state I was in at the time if I had joined the ranks of the unemployed.
So I will be careful what I say...
On Friday I popped into the supermarket on the way home, buying a few bits & pieces as it was payday. I picked up two bargain packets of ten slices of roast beef, down from £2.95 a packet of ten slices to only 65p! Their use by date was at midnight. but, as with most pre-packed foods, you have a good few days of leeway after that. My rule of thumb when picking up almost out of date bargains like that is to sniff before I eat. You can tell if something is off or not. The idea was to make some sarnies to keep me going as I was at work on Saturday, & out and about on Sunday. sods law, typical of me, I forgot to make them. But I wasn't going to let them go to waste. Beef is a bit pricy for me to buy on a regular basis, hence when I saw them on the reduced shelf I quickly grabbed them. It really did feel like a naughty treat. That's what not having much disposable income does to you!
So I chucked them in my bag, along with some bread that would be too hard if I didn't eat it, and mde up some sarnies on my lunch break. I used two thirds of one packet, with the other still unopened, & left them in the fridge at work overnight.
Come Tuesday morning I got four crusty rolls from the bakers on the way in, & looked forward to finishing off the roast beef in my break. I do love crusty rolls, but don't eat them too often. When I do, then, they taste so much nicer. I was almost licking my lips in anticipation. So far so good...
I started work, but after half an hour or so my boss came up to me & asked if I had some cooked beef in the fridge. Before I had time to answer she continued. I chucked them in the bin, I was cleaning out the firdge & they were a month out of date.
No they weren't you fucking stupid cow! Are you blind??? It clearly says 'USE BY 20th MARCH', which was less than four days ago! Thanks for ruining my luchbreak you dozy bitch!
But did I say any of that? Nope. I took a deep breath & thought was it worth it? No it wasn't. I simply popped into the small kitchen area by her office when she wasn't paying attention, which is most of the time, if I may say so. And rescued them from the bin, putting them in my bag, which while not refridgerated, lunch was only a couple of hours away.
And you know what? They tasted fine, I never had the shits & I enjoyed my beef rolls, which were delicious!

I work for a local authority, and my line of work is a front line public service. There have been a few memoirs-& I do mean a few, I've read three in total-from people who work in the same line as myself. I always kid myself that I should do a book on my job. Indeed a few people have suggested it to me. I clearly couldn't do while I am still in the job i'm doing. But with bosses like these I have no shortage of material! My current boss to feature fairly prominently...

I'm easily pleased

2009-03-22T23:15:00.002Z

Which is quite true, even though I tend not to suffer fools gladly, & sometimes come across as a bit of a miserable cantankerous old git! But in actual fact I find that in sobriety, despite still having lots of problems, I am not just less judgmental of people, I am happier with lifes lot, if things are going reasonably ok. And today was one of those.

I was heading over to east London, a side of the water that I dislike, for no other reason, if I'm honest than I'm from south of the river! The east end has a lot of history, & places to explore, but I don't seem to put myself out to do so. The Hamlet Youth Team had reached the final of the London Cup, at a complete shit hole that is Mile End 'Stadium'. A godforsaken dump that is the local athletics track. One stand, where you're miles away from the pitch. It quite an apt description actually, godforsaken, as the team that uses it as a home venue are Sporting Bengal United, from the Kent League. Kent? Don't ask...I know it's slummy Essex Senior territory.

So I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone (three actually) & make a bit of a day of it. So I visited the Museum of Childhood at Bethnal Green; followed by a wander round Tower Hamlets Cemetery, before going to the match.

The childhood museum was actually much more fun than I remember it, I doubt if I've been there for at least a dozen years. It's set on two levels, with case after case of toys through the ages. Far more than I could possibly tell you about here. But it is worth a visit, if ever you're over that way, & just as importantly, it's free! The only slight disappointment was that there was no guidebook on sale.
I took a fair few photos, which I'll get round to posting on my 'touristy' blog eventually. But I thought I'd share a few with you now.

This cracked me up!

Not that I'm one to suggest her family nick the idea, but just in case the dear departed Saint Jade-yay!told you she'd croak on Mothers Day, should've gone to Paddy Power-didn't raise enough dosh to ensure her boys are looked after, though somehow I think they'll be raking it in just for being her sons as they grow up, what about a Baldie Jade game, where you can imagine what her chemo wigs would've been like, if she could've afforded them? Well you know how hard it was, saving every penny for the kids...

And then there was this toy television set. You probably got a better picture on this one, that the real one that mummy & daddy had. (Note to any young children reading this: A 'mummy & daddy' were adults you lived at home with, who were married. A few people still live this strange old fashioned way today)

Who on earth would buy something like this? Assuming it actually worked!

Can you imagine how shit the ice cream must have tasted like, if you attempted to make some with your friends? Thankfully I was from an age when the Cornetto was invented, so I could get one of them with the pocket money I'd saved from not wasting it on some plastic ice cream making crap! Or just grabbing one from the shop and running as fast as I could! And you had to be quite fast, or it would have melted before you got far enough away.

There's an urban myth that little boys who play with sissy dolls will themselves turn into sissies. Not true! I don't recall playing with my sisters dollies. People are born gay so surely gay boys will be going 'phwoar' with their Action Men...

Well it's an argument, which sounds feasable, until you see this fucked up one! That's no soldier, it's an out & out psychopath! Never mind eltro-sick bastard-shock treatment. If you think your little boy's a poof just get him one of these! Should put him off blokes for life! Just look at those mad as fuck eyes. I reckon Dennis Nilson was a perfectly adjusted child until he got one of these for christmas! He was so scared he pulled it apart, while playing in the bath, and tried to wash it away...the rest is history as they say!

I love cemeteries, I can't put my finger on it, but I think you'll be surprised at how popular they are. Though how many people go to the lengths of taking photos of them I don't know ;-)
But there are dozens of 'friends of cemeteries' groups all over the country. I'd never been to Tower Hamlets Cemetery before, so I took the opportunity to have a look while I was in the area.

As you can see it's completely overgrown & left to decay. On purpose. As it's now a nature park, deliberately left to go wild. If I were to describe it I'd call it a graveyard of a graveyard.

After strolling round there for an hour or so, it was time for the match. This picture tells you what you need to know...

A cracking five one victory over Thamesmead Town...

Never mind son, look what you might have won!

And after the final whistle, & photos, I went for a stroll along a bit of the Regents Canal, to Limehouse, before heading home. A little tired, but happy in the fact I might be a bit of a 'Billy No-Mates', going to some strange places, but I'd had a really great day. Helped by the result..but isn't that always the case with football?

Farewell Ron

2009-03-21T23:06:00.003Z

I found out today that an old mate of mine died a couple of days ago. I say 'old mate', he was old, certainly a pensioner, though I doubt if he'd reached his 'three score and ten', I don't know. I hadn't seen him this season. Season? Yes he was a fellow Dulwich Hamlet fan. Which doesn't make him a 'mate' in the normal sense. As I only ever saw him at football. His name was Ron the Print, as he used to work in the print, & was actually a proud veteran of the picket lines at Wapping. Ever since that dispute he had a bitter dislike of the police. He was an ordinary law abiding man, and always supported law & order. Until he saw the vicious old bill in action as Maggie's bully boys. He was always apologetic when he recalled those battles in east London, unable to quite believe he was so naive about the boys in blue.

I'd known him for as long as I can remember. He'd follow all the teams, like me. first Team. Reserves. Youth Team. Even the younger age group Junior teams on Sundays. Like me. But I knew nothing much about him. Apart from chatting at football. He fell ill with Parkinsons, which he'd got progressively worse with over the last ten years at least, but over the last few could barely sit properly in his wheelchair, with his body ravaged by the illness. But still he had to be at Champion Hill. Until, over the last season or so, he couldn't even get to the ground.
It was a relief to hear he'd died, even though I'm sad I am happy in a sense. That he's now no longer suffering in his shell that was laughably called a body.

In an ideal world I want to die quickly. Either in my sleep, or from a quick heart attack. Bang! And I'm gone. Not that I believe I will go like that. I'm certain that one day I will end my own life when I think I've had enough. Though i think that will be a conscious & rational mental decision, not based on physical illness. My biggest nightmare is to have a dehabilitating disease where my body goes, but my mind stays intact; or even where I'm 'vegetabled up' in an accident & lose use of my limbs, as another scenario I don't want to contemplate. Or to go blind. Which, despite the old tales, is NOT caused by wanking, or by not eating carrots. I happily wank every day, & cannot stand carrots.....in fact I've only ever had one use for carrots & not very often. Use your imagination. Thinnk Bugs Bunny. You know...what's UP doc! ;-)

But enough of that, back on topic of having a decapacitating illness. In a situation like that I would love to have the protection of a 'living will' whereby someone can assist me in dying. Which is totally illegal in this country, where anybody helping you would get done for murder. Which is why hundreds of people who want the tight to choose when to end their own life with dignity end up going to Switzerland, where assisted suicides are legal.
Which is a crazy situation. But a way round the law....for some. Not an option for those who are poor, or living alone with no support. It's all well and goo for families to be able to all go to cuckoo clock land and bid a final farewell to their loved ones, but you're living in cloud cuckoo land if you believe the same option is available to the poor on council estates, who may be struggling on benefits. All too easy to arrange if you're from a comfortable middle class family from Dulwich Village, but not so if you live on the East Dulwich Estate a mile or so in the other direction.

What a crazy world it is when a Member of Parliament has to bring in a Private Members Bill just ot get the matter discussed, even though there is no chance whatsoever of it going to a vote, never mind becoming law. Ease your conscience by discussing it, but not having the balls to vote for it. Scared of the crazy christian minority who think they speak for the country.
An ill dog is humanely put down. Horses are shot. Yet the supposed most intelligent creature of all , that is us human beings, have to suffer til the bitter end.
Suicide is a way out taken by many people with mental health problems. Often brought on by quacks tinkering with their medicine, or not giving them the proper support or treatment at it's 'too expensive' & after all 'nutters' aren't vote winners when it comes to spending taxpayers money. But who is to say they are all crazy? I've always maintained that suicide is not a cowards way out, but something that takes a lot of courage to go through with. Real craziness to me is the system in this country that forces people to live to a point way beyond what is a basic existence, where the 'kindness' of putting animals 'out of their misery' is more important than humans have a basic quality of life.

Give me an assisted end to life when I want to finish it, on my own terms, rather than the indignity of ending up like my friend Ron the Print please.
I don't know if he fought his illness tot he end, or whether each day he silently prayed for the end. Whichever it was I am just relieved his suffering is over & wherever his spirit may be in the afterlife he is at peace.

How inconsiderate

2009-03-20T23:19:00.005Z

Why are some people not allowed to die with the dignity they deserve?
Jade Goody, the real peoples' princess from Bermondsey (Diana who?) has faced her iminent demise with from cancer with dignity. Selflessly hogging the front pages, along with pages two, four, five six and seven...colour supplement to come later post mortem, when what does the jealous bitch, who was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, Natasha Richardson go & do? But bang her head on a skiing trip, to out-death our Jade!

Well I'm not falling for that! Sunday is Mothers Day, & what could be more fitting for the saintly former ignorant racist bitch Miss Goody-two-shoes than croaking it before the kids have brought up the tea and toast on a tray? That should out-trump the upstart from the Redgrave clan. Jade wants her front page spotlight back!

Never mind Trafalgar Square. There's another empty plinth in London. Standing outside Rotherhithe library. There is nothing on it. Not anymore. Formerly a statue of'Bermondsey Boy' Tommy Steele, it was 'arf inched & melted down for scrap a couple of decades ago. how about a national campaign for our Jade to be erected there.... the only problem being who the fuck is actually going to contribute to it? (Oh, shit! I'm starting to get serious here!) Yes, it is terribly sad that she is dying so young from cancer, but who on earth is she that warrants so many column inches? Heart of gold though. She's 'doing it for the kids'. Scraping together every single penny so that they can have a future. Not to mention her new husband & her mum are looked after too. I wonder how long the money will last with them? He's a mockney-cockney wideboy thug, & her mum....well! There's a saying that you can only judge as you find, and I've never met her, even though she lives in Bermondsey & I work in a public building in Bermondsey too. Until a few weeks ago. She popped in, with the two grandchildren in tow. Oh & accompanying camera crew from Live TV, who are somewhat ironically filming a documentary about Jade until she croaks it. Live until death eh? now in my line of work, where I deal with members of the public I have had to encounter some decidedly thick people to say the least, & Jade's old girl Jackie is up there with the worst. This woman is what the word stupid was invented for. It really wasn't Jade's fault that she didn't know where East Anglia was, or called Shipla Shitty (NOT a spelling mistake either!) racist names, because having now met her mother it's all clearly in her genes.

What hope her two 4 & 5 year old boys, with a nan like that? But there is 'hope'. Because it's been reported that the money Jade raises by dying will go towards their private education. If there was any shred of sympathy I had for Jade dying (& to be truthful I never had much anyway, I was just indifferent, as I don't know her. Why should I be anything else?) goes down the pan if she thinks 'looking after her kids' is buying them privilege. But if you're going to go for it let's not do it by halves. I'm quite looking forward to granny Jackie with her two grandsons at parents evening at Eton, with a Live TV camera crew not far behind. Now that-for the first time ever-would make reality television worth watching!

Fucking bastard sobriety!

2009-03-19T23:20:00.003Z

I don't actually want or need a drink at this very moment. But I am so envious of those who can!
Tonight Dulwich Hamlet lost at home to Woking in the quarter final of the Surrey Senior Cup. Which doesn't sound so bad when you bear in mind we play in the Ryman League Division One South & they are Conference National, which is the top rung of non-league football, and three divisions above us.

EXCEPT....

Woking are in a serious relegation battle, and sent a team of youngsters & assorted nobodies to fulfil the fixture. They even forgot to pack their shirts & had to borrow a green away strip from our Youth Team manager! But that wasn't the biggest shambles of the night. We are (un)comfortably mid table, no chance of promotion, the play-offs realistically out of reach since before Christmas, if everyone was honest. This cup would at least have been a decent end to the season, it would have been Merstham away in the semi, who are also from our division. Albeit above us. But it was winnable. Tonight. The semi final. The cup!

And that's what makes it so fucking frustrating. There's not a lot of good times supporting an average non-league football team, so you tend to grasp any tiny bit of hope that you can tentatively touch. 'Normal' people can unwind, release their anger, & calm down by knocking back a few pints by closing time. Maybe going home a bit tipsy, even drunk, but calmer. Alcohol is a downer of a drink, which brings on depression, but it can also lift moods at times like these. I won't even attempt to explain what I mean by 'times like these' for if you are a football fan there is no explanation needed. You understand.

But I can't do that. In sobriety I am unable to pick up one drink, for it is that first drink that will get me drunk. Not literally, though I doubt it would initially take too many pints, as I haven't had one for almost seven years! Because the first drink becomes a second, followed by a third, chased down with a fourth...and so on.

It would be great to be able to go out and have a few bevvies & get a bit mashed. Sometimes I hate not being able to, even though I know I don't want to. Maybe I'm wistfully looking back to how I imagine I used to drink after games, which is clearly nonsense, as I drank to get drunk and fuel my addiction. But still, in my head, I imagine my drinking like old people recall the 'good old days', when in truth they were shit!

If ever I allow the teasing dregs of alcoholic madness in my brain to allow me to pick up a drink then it won't be a 'drowning my sorrows' session, to clear cobwebs of footballing depression. I will be totally out of my depth & back on way to skid row. I was fortunate enough not to be a 'street drinker'. I always had a roof over my head, and kept my job. Ironically I came closest to losing my job in sobriety at the beginning of 2006, as readers of my old blog will know. But just as Dulwich Hamlet are semi professional footballers I was a 'part-time' street drinker. For more than once I didn't get home. Waking up at the end of the line at a deserted station, not able to get home. Or at the end of a bus route in the middle of knowhere. Or simply waking up on a bench, or on a bit of green, not knowing how I'd ended up there in alcoholic blackout. Not that often, over the years of my drinking. Maybe 'only' once every few months.

That's why I can't pick up another drink, which is why I said that I don't want or need a drink tonight. I just wish I could!

Seems a nice chap...

2009-03-17T23:34:00.000Z

When it comes to music, and I've said this many a time, I'm a bit like an old fashioned High Court judge. "Erm...who exactly are the Beatles?" Well not quite, but music really isn't my forte. When it comes to popular music, and by popular I mean generally not just 'POP' music, I'm not very knowledgable to say the least. I know many of the more successful bands and artistes down the years, but know very few of the songs, even the ones that people always jump up to a weddings, and other awful social events.
It's not that I dislike music, I do listen to some, but usually as 'background' rather than real pleasure. My entire CD collection is either old, withdrawn (Ie: very cheap!) library stock, or freebies given away with newspapers. Of which I have three shoeboxes full, the vast majority unlistened to. Despite not having heard a lot of them I continue to buy a paper I wouldn't usually purchase if it's giving something away. At the weekend I bought the 'Sunday Times' for example because it included the disc 'The Dreams We Have As Children', which was a recording of Noel Gallagher live at the Royal Albert Hall. Not bad, considering I would have bought a paper anyway, I just 'juggle' my custom depending on what is on offer, if anything. It is a varied selection that is given away, as I was looking for the CD I jsut mentioned I also found two recent ones with it-a copy of the orginal soundtrack recording from 1965 of 'West Side Story' & 'Pet Shop Boys Story 25 years of hits'. I haven't counted how many CDs I amassed from the weekend papers, but it must be a couple of hundred at least.
I don't listen to the radio that often, but when I do it's almost always talk radio stations, LBC being my usual one, though I do twiddle the dial sometimes.
So as I say I do know of lots of musicians, but don't know them either. And tonight I discovered one on the televison after I'd got back from football. When I got indoors I turned the laptop on & looked at my favourite messageboards, with the old gogglebox on in the background. (Thought for the day: If a television set is a 'gogglebox' does that make a computer a 'googlebox'?) The 'South Bank Show' was on. Usually a high brow arts programme, but with a populist appeal. And this episode was one of those. It featured the gay singer Will Young. Four things struck me. How insecure he seemed, albeit with a huge self belief & confidence in himself at the same time. How great his voice was. How good looking he was. And how down to earth he came across as. I could quite easily have a crush on this man!
A lot of the time, when I see the 'South Bank Show', I'm put off by how snobby and up their own arse some of the pretentious media luvvie tosspots are, but there are episodes like tonight where I stop what I'm doing & concentrate on the programme itself. Not that I'm a regular viewer, I don't watch it that much, I couldn't tell you how often, or when, it's on the telly. But to seen one that holds my attention & captivates me is a rare pleasure. So for that Will Young I thank you! Phwoar!

Just out of interest...

2009-03-17T00:41:00.000Z

as my memory may be going, I was wondering about those 'wildcat' strikes a while ago at various power plants up and down the country. I didn't follow the disputes in detail, but it appeared to be some sort of 'British jobs for British workers' thing, after some foreign company won some tenders, but then planned to bring in people from other parts of Europe to do the job. Which didn't go down too well, espcecially as jobs are being lost left, right and centre.

As I said I wasn't sure of the ins and outs of the dispute, but I might have had more sympathy for them if there were similar demos over here in the early eighties. You know, when half of the collpased British building industry seemed to emigrate to Germany, or West Germany as was, even spawning 'Auf Wiedersehen Pet!'. It's just that I can't recall power workers walking out on wildcat strikes in support of their Teutonic comrades, picketing the airports, asking the British builders to down tools, waving banners that said 'German jobs for German workers'...

They know how to enjoy themselves...

2009-03-16T06:59:00.000Z

& I'm hardly a fashion conscious person to say the least, but what is it about the Irish, the plastic paddies, and their assorted 'hangers on' who just want to get pissed, that makes them dress up like pillocks to 'celebrate' St. Patrick's Day at this time of year?

I popped along to Trafalgar Square this afternoon for a little while, as it was London celebrating Paddies Day, which is actually on Tuesday. Which is fair enough, as to do so then would clash with the BIG Ryman League Division One South match between Dulwich Hamlet & Walton Casuals, which is ADMISSION FREE for Comic Relief. Which I'm not complaining about, but I do object to the emotional blackmail that's put on you to contribute to the bucket collection at the ground. I may not want to give money to Comic Relief. And as it happens I don't. It's not as if I'm flush with spare cash anyway, but when I have got some I like to decide which charidee I support. And I prefer to give money to a single cause, rather than a general one where it's swallowed up & goes to some vague project, which may not be my preferred choice. And with home games on Thursday v. Woking in the Surrey Senior Cup, then Worthing on Saturday in another league fixture, charidee will most certainly begin at home, as I save the admission money from one of these. If we win those three I'll be laughing, which will make some Comic Relief for my pocket!

I didn't stay in the Square long. But might have done if there were more celebrating 'undressed' like this chap...

but the majority were like him...

To be honest the smell of alcohol was in the air everywhere, & it got a bit overpowering for me, which you might find hard to understand how it affects me, after almost seven years in sobriety. But it does. And weird as it may sound the 'fumes' of booze do give you a 'taste' for it! I wasn't actually tempted as such, but thought it safer to go elsewhere.

It was a bright sunny spring afternoon, with a couple of hours daylight still left, & wasn't really sure where I was off to. Just ambling really. But I ended up in Grosvenor Square, home of the American Embassy, & took a few snaps of the building, and associated statues in the vicinity, for publishing in one of my photoblogs at a later date. For my troubles I got stopped by the Old Bill, and questioned under the Prevention of Terrorism Act!

AL-QUAEDA LOOK AWAY NOW!

To be fair to them they were polite, and not at all stroppy, like some coppers can be. They were polite, & I said what they were doing was crap, but I understood they were doing their jobs. One of them actually agreed it was all bollocks really, and used that word! I told them I like taking photos around London, and that I think it's the greatest city in the world, London born & bred. He was surprised, and said most Londoners were trying to get out of the place! Hmm..bit of a generalisation there,but then he probably reads the Daily Mail in his tea breaks.
After that I went home, had a sexy young man waiting at my door....
And now I'm blogging before I go to bed, no need to have a wank before I turn the light off tonight! ;-)

What to do today?

2009-03-15T11:49:00.000Z

I woke up 'late' this morning. After ten o'clock. I say 'late' because it meant I wouldn't have time to go to watch the Youth Team. But that's not the end of the world. It appears sunny outside, though I haven't actually got through the front door yet. Which is just as well as I'm sitting in my armchair, stark bollock naked, playing with my...laptop! ;-)
Last weekend I saw them play & it was sunny, but it was windy & bloody cold, so I'm hoping the temperature is a few degrees higher when I go out in an hour or so. I could stay in of course, I could tidy, blog, surf the net, read...whatever. Won't have a wank mind, as a bloke is popping round this evening for some fun, no strings attached, just messing about sexily, who I met on a gay contact site. He's a lot younger than me, late twenties, & likes dressing up in a leather skirt & top! Which is fine by me, not my scene, but each to his own, and if it gets him horny i'm not complaining! This will be the fourth time he's popped round in a few months, & it's certainly not a relationship or anything like that, but I enjoy it! ;-) You know what? I couldn't even tell you his name! I haven't worked out if he's straight or bi, he does talk about women too, but i don't know if that's just because he's 'pretending' he's 'normal'!
Whatever! I'm looking forward to it!

In the meantime I'll probably go out later when I've finished on here, & had some breakfast/lunch, just to wander, and take some snaps. It's going to be packed up town, as it's the London St. Patricks Day Festival, two days early, around Trafalgar Square. Somehow I'd don't think the once agin active Continuity IRA will be making that the target of a mainland bombing campaign! I'm undecided what to think about the taking up of arms again. I've always been pro-Republican in my beliefs, though I've got no Irish background at all. I've always believed the end justifies the means if the cuase is right, and I think there should be a United Ireland. One country, one Parliament, one name. The British have no place over there, despite the claims of the protestants who say they are. I suppose the nearest 'solution' is as now, with a devolved Northern Ireland, as a totally independent country, from both the UK and Eire. But that hasn't happened, & if it did it would only cause a split country, albeit one probably in peace, like Belgium. Except in Northern Ireland it's not Belgium. And it's just one fucked up place. Belfast is split between protestants and catholics. Literally. The people generally don't mix, they keep apart, & the other side are 'demonised' as monsters! It's like the walls seperating the Palestinians from the Israelis, the only difference being that one side doesn't live in third world conditions. They really are fucked up in Belfast! There really is steel walls and barbed wire fences separating catholic streets from protestant ones. Politicians hark back to what a momentous occasion the fall of the Berlin Wall was, ignoring the fact that another one still exists in 2009 in Belfast, technically part of the democratic United Kingdom! Granted you can cross the Belfast 'peace' wall, and there aren't watch towers to murder you if you try, but realistically most people don't for their own safety.
Do I support the new killings? Truth is, & this surprises me, I'm not totally sure. The jury in my head is out. But I can see why there are some who are willing to continue the fight. The Irish War was unwinnable for both sides. But, as far as I'm concerned, the IRA/INLA won a moral victory with the peace process. The British Army presence was scaled down, as was the harrasment. But in many parts of Northern Ireland the catholic/republican population are still oprreseed, discriminated & second class citizens. The aim of a 'United Ireland' & 'British Troops Out' was never achieved, and Ireland is still occupied. So it comes as no surprise that some are taking up arms again. I can understand why. But if it actually achieves anything is another story.
You may think I am crazy, but ask yourself a hypothetical question....if Belfast became London, say, & the British Army wore French berets, & we were controlled from Paris, are you really telling me you wouldn't take up arms, or at the very least support the (English) Republican cause?

Welcome...

2009-03-13T22:17:00.000Z

To anyone who discovers me, and any old readers of mine!

'Wordy' blogging is something I've been struggling to do over the last few months. Take that as good news. As I think that's partly not just because I take up too much time doing my various photoblogs, but also because I'm happy doing them, which means I''m fairly content.

But as soon as I hit the keyboards I get all 'feelygoody' inside. It's something I enjoy. So over the next couple of weeks I'm going to try to get back into the habit of blogging again. So watch this space...and if I have got back into the swing of things there will be a lot more to read!

Chat to you all soon, hopefully!

Beware of your email!

2009-03-13T22:01:00.000Z

I've always been honest with what I post, & am certainly not ashamed of what I do. I accept some people may think me, maybe, a 'bit strange', or is that my inferiority complex kicking in again? But I'm not here to dissect myself. More to warn you about the dangers of the internet, and how things can be used maliciously against you.

A bit of background, and I won't use actual names in case it's googled! There's a football club who I wound up when we played them by wearing a scarf of another club who they hate. Red rag to a bull, and yes, very childish & provocative. What I didn't expect was the backlash from some of their fans on their messageboards. I am a well known, high profile fan from my club, so I am well known. So they called me all sorts on their boards. Fine. I can cope with that. What I was not expecting was photos of both myself & my brother to be posted on there. Plus my street address, from my name in letters pages of my local paper, on line. They googled me everywhere, and included my brother's work details. And they also googled my email address, which they got from one of my footballing blogs. This linked to an adult gay website, where I had a very personal, intimate profile on; including full frontal snaps. I'm not embarrassed by them, it's a way I get sexual no strings meet ups now & again. But...this was traced through my email, which came up when they googled my email address! To see my profile, which they posted on their messageboards, they had to sign up to that site! As a result I got even more personal/homphobic abuse & I had to quickly pull the profile & leave the site. It was geting way too personal & I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't shaken up by all the 'attention' from them. Thankfully they are in a far higher division than us, this was a local cup game we played them in, & I'm hoping the 'fuss' will die down as they get bored. But sure to flare up if ever we play them again in future seasons. But I took the precaution of deleting my old blog, as it had a HUGE amount of personal information that they would twist against me once they found it. And I wasn't prepared to take that risk.

If you add your email to various things on-line then google it! Like me, you may be surprised by how easily we can all be traced on the internet.

Hence a new email, & a pretend name for me, totally different to my previous blogging monikers on here.

Which is a shame, as I really did like my old one!

But time to move on. As the title says...'Keep smiling through...'

And don't worry, the one person who's popped round a few times for some some fun from that site, well I emailed him to explain I was deleting my profile, & we still meet up occasionally. In fact you'll be pleased to know he was round earlier this evening.... :-)

I would like to say 'Happy New Year'...

2009-03-13T21:58:00.000Z

but that would be total bollocks! Now I know it's all relative, and I'm in a half-positive frame of mind at the moment, but 2009 has been a bloody disaster so far!Where to start? At the beginning I suppose. And ,for me, that'll be Friday 2nd January. I'd finished work at two, and then popped up town to take a few snaps,and just wander around. I got home just after six. So far so good...My telly is in the bedroom, but as I've got no heating, well one small electric fan type one, given to me by a mate. I very rarely use it, but we've had such a bad cold snap at thec start of the year, so I moved the telly into the front room, and heated the one spot. I also used my laptop in here, sitting on one of my armchairs. Anyway that Friday night I leant over to turn the power socket on, all the plugs being on an extension lead, and I caught my foot in one of the cables and the laptop slipped out of my hand, less than a foot to the floor, with a clunk & froze. Broken completely! Another casualty of my alcoholism. No I hadn't been drinking, but the reason I have no heating yet is down to my old drinking days. I simply never paid the bills, and owe quite a large sum to the gas board. For many years in alcoholism I simply never paid bills apart from the rent. But as I sorted myself out, eventually, in sobriety & when I almost lost my job & was seriously suicidal at the start of this very blog, I first paid off the electricity bill, and in a couple of months time my debts to the water board will be paid. Next up will be starting to make payments to the gas people, & getting the hot water put on at last as a result. So you see, I only dropped my computer as a result of the cold in my flat, which was a consequence of ignoring bills in my drinking days.When my computer broke my head exploded. Not literally, but it might well have done. It was like I'd had an arm chopped off. I got a huge amount of pleasure & positivity out of it. For a moment I felt worthless and useless again. It was my fault for thinking I was anything other than that. Getting ideas above my station! I asked friends for help, & they tired to reassure me it was fixable. But that wasn't helping me at that very moment. I went very quickly into a sort of depressed, worthless, what is the point of anything, type mode. I wanted to get out of my fly to try to clear my head, but I was actually too scared to. I wasn't one hundred per cent sure if I was able to be responsible for my actions. Thoughts were whizzing through my head with jumping in front of train prominent. Or going to Tower Bridge and getting ready to go for a 'swim' without paddling to the side. It's been a while since I've felt that way, & it does frighten me at times. It also confirms my belief that when I do die it will be by myself taking my own life.I felt crushed, and vulnerable. There was only one way I knew to get my head screwed back on again, and that was to go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I wanted to go out and get drunk, the only thing stopping me was the inevitable 'downer' I would be on afterwards, when I'd realise I'd thrown away over six and a half years sobriety. Go to the rooms of AA are wonderful. Look for the similarities in people sharing, and you always find something to take away. There's a saying that you take away the alcohol and you're still left with the 'isms'. I'm not sure what 'crazyisms' I've got but the meetings calm me down, when my thoughts need to be reigned in, & AA does this for me. It shows everyone has their own problmes, but the most important thing is that I don't pick up a drink. Not just at this moment, but many times insbriety I've said to myself if it wasn't for AA I'd be dead, and I doubt if there's truer words I could speak.Things picked up, when I spoke to my friend Cleopatra. Her fiance Geekie owns his own computer firm, and she's spoken to him & he will look at it & try to fix, at cost price for the parts! But not for a couple of weeks, which still seems like an eternity. But the clock ticks round, and I leave my laptop with her, when he's next due up in London from down the south coast where he lives. It turns out the hard drive was completely wrecked, so I lose whatever i had saved on it, including quite a few photos that I haven't saved anywhere. My loss, the most important thing is that for only forty quid it's fixed! (Well £63 or so actually!) When I picked it up after coming out of hospital I treated cleopatra, her little boy Natty & myself to a 'slap-up' meal at the local Wetherspoons!Did I mention hospital? The month only got better-not! And despite what you've just read it wasn't any self harm. I had, what I thought, was some sort of spot blowing up on the back of my neck. It was sore,& I couldn't move my neck properly. This was on a Friday. I was off work on the Saturday. So, first thing, I went to my doctors. Silly me! Expecting a doctors' surgery to be open on a Saturday, when half of the country go to work! I would have to wait until monday morning. I was in a fair bit of pain, not agony, but seriously irritating. I'd been to football that afternoon, practically every game in London was off due to the freezing weather, I ended up at Erith Town versus Croydon, at Thamesmead Town, where Erith groundshare. It's was one of the most awful nil nils I've ever seen! Not all bad, there were quite a few fans from other clubs there to chat to, a few fellow Hamlet fans, & I knew the half dozen or so Croydon faithful. On the way home I decided to make my way to A&E at Lewisham Hospital. I actually apologised for going to see them as I wasn't a 'real' emergency! But I still needed to see a doctor. As it happens I was only there for a couple of hours, which was no time at all for an A&E visit. I had some sort of folicle infection, with blistering on the back of my neck. I didn't ask exactly what it was, I was interested, I just wanted it treated. So I was more than happy to get a prescription for some antibiotics, and buy some pain killers over the counter. I wasn't so happy when I got to the bloody chemist! Seven quid for a fucking prescription! That's on the NHS! So why am i paying out as if I'm a queue jumping private patient! Outrageous charges!I was told it should start clearing up in 'three or four days', and if it didn't I was to go to see my GP. Well what should have happened didn't! My neck blew up badly, and although I was a bit concerned I wasn't too worried. With hindsight this was only due to the fact I couldn't see the back of my neck! As the 3 to 4 day 'deadline' approached I kidded myself it was getting better as I could move my neck a bit more. But the antibiotics were due to run out the following weekend, so I made an appointment with my quack at 4.30 on the Friday afternoon, convenient as I was finishing work at two. I went to see him & any hope of reassurance went out of the window when he looked at my neck & his exact response was: "Oh my goodness! I've not seen anything like this before! It's the size of a cricket ball!" He ordered me to return to Lewisham pronto.And that's how I came to be sitting in A&E again! I eventually had a doctor try to treat me but sticking syringes into my neck & draining puss out of it, but it was too difficult & too much, only about six millimetres drained, when she said if she could get around ten or twelve milimetres she would sent me home. While she was doing this all I was thinking was....Yes! I'm working the next day, & would have phoned in sick to catch the Hamlet away to Cray instead! But hopes were dashed, as she said they'd have to keep me in. Damn! By now it was gone eleven o'clock, I assumed they'd sort it out in the morning, but I wasn't sure how long it would take, so I asked if it was ok to go home, then come back. I had to get my phone, and-more importantly-some books to read. I wasn't feeling sick, so I would be awake, ans knew how bored I would be. The doctor saw me on his rounds on the Saturday morning, and said not to eat or drink anything, as I was going to have a small operation later that day. And LATER it was! As I was a non-essential op it kept on getting 'knocked back' & they eventually took me down to the theatre at ten at night! They knocked me out, and cut an incision into my neck ,and cleared all the shit out. I was then kept in yntil the Tuesday morning, having been on a drip & various medication. But it didn't end there. My neck was alright, but doing other routine tests on me they said I was type diabetes 2! It doesn't rain it pours! How I'll cope I don't know, I'm not sure what it involves, even now, over a month later. I could go on for a lot longer posting here, and tell you more about my time in hospital. But, to be honest, I want to get this post out of the way, & try to explain why I'm starting this new blog...