American Tourists

We've all met at least one like this:



Stories about Americans in England:

From a colleague, on the underground (about thirty years ago):

American: 'Oh pardon me, does this train goda lie-cester square.

Colleague: 'I'm afraid not. It does go to Leicester Square, though, if that's of any use to you'.

Amercian: 'O-o-oh'.

---

Personal, on the underground (about twenty five years ago):

American Woman: (to husband) 'George, it's four stops. Four stops George. Ya got that?'

George: (cringing and red faced, three seats away) 'Shure Hun.'

American Woman: (at next stop) 'Not this one George. It's three stops, OK? Three stops. Ya got that George?'

George: (turning purple, cringes again)

American Woman: (and so on at each stop, counting down)

Crowded Rush Hour Carriage: (struggles to contain itself, giving way to fits of giggles and laughter)

---

Personal, in York, in an 'antique' bric-a-brac shop, about fifteen years ago:

American Woman: (to Proprietress, and holding bone china item) Oh pardon me dear, this cup has no handle. Is it broken?

Proprietress: (irritatedly) No DEAR, it is NOT. It's a Georgian tea bowl; it's unusual and quite valuable. Don't break it.

American Woman: 'O-o-o-h.'

---

Personal, in York, in a specialist tableware shop (about fifteen years ago):

American Woman: (to assistant and pointing to a display of Wedgewood blue jasper ware) 'Is this the traditional English?'

--- 

From Mrs Gruff, at breakfast in a Gateshead hotel (about ten years ago):

Waitress: (to group of American 'businessmen') 'Right then, are you ready to order breakfast?'

American Businessman: Uuh, yeah! I'll have bacon, crispy, eggs over easy, maple ... '

Waitress: (brooking no nonsense) 'So that's bacon and eggs then, is it?'

American Businessman: Uuh, yeah, I guess so.'

---

In fairness I should offer, though I would rather not, that I'm aware that the behaviour of our kind when abroad is all too often shameful rather than simply embarrassing, so we really cannot throw stones. However, the sketch is funny.

That's All Right Mama

Peerless.

Because It's Christmas

Just in case you're enjoying the festive season:



It's nice to know that I'm not alone in my dispirited cynicism.

A Gruff Christmas to anyone daft enough to read my rubbish.

Tony Bennett

My most liked Tony Bennett song:



Mr Bennett is 85 and still sings with the passion and vigour of youth.

Department S: Is Vic There?

With apologies to Ros.

Which 'remembers me', as my daughter Emma used to say, of the time the art department of Vole were thrown out of a pub in Sidcup, one lunchtime about thirty years ago. The editor, one Richard North (not the famous blogger, as far as I'm aware) asked the landlord what the problem was and was informed by the latter that he did not like our sort and would not have us in 'his' pub (we were wearing black leather motorcycle jackets). Shortly afterwards, back in the office, he telephoned the brewer's publicity department and introduced himself, as an editor on The Observer news desk, which he was at the time. Naturally he was welcomed, thanked, assured of co-operation and asked how he might be helped. HE explained that the paper was preparing an article on English pubs and asked whether anyone could answer a few questions. Naturally, again, the brewer was only too happy to help and put Mr North through to a suitably qualified spokesman. 'How can I help you', the spokesman asked. 'You can tell me why three friends of mine have just been thrown out of one of your pubs simply because they were wearing leather jackets', he was was told. Eventually, after a prolonged bout of coughing, spluttering, breathless gasps and obvious sounds of near seizure, the suitably qualified spokesman struggled to reassure said editor that ' ... we value ... etc ... and do not ... etc '. The art department laughed at the tale and went on with its work, and never entered the pub again.

Stanier's Streamliner

She isn't as inspiring, threatening, menacing or promising as an A4, nor as uncompromisingly modern as a Bulleid, but she is a thing of great beauty, even if the tender appears too short, on six wheels, and the overhang at the front too great. It is, though, nice to see her pulled by a Brush Type 4 in the most pleasing livery worn by those locomotives.

An A4 at Speed

I like the sound of a supersonic jet fighter swooping overhead as the locomotive passes the microphone.

Les Jaguars: Guitare Jet

Mrs Gruff roared with laughter at this and remarked that the characters in this Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse sketch are just like my father and the late Mother Gruff:



She's not entirely unfair.

If Only ...

Probable Quaires

Hislop married? Is there no end to female stupidity? What would marry that smug little runt.



Cameron is very definitely bloody queer, in some way or another, and we're taking it up the arse.

Prince Buster: Madness

Just Like Eddie

Never a fan of Eddie Cochran I have nevertheless always liked this:



Perhaps because I remember it from infancy.

Rick Stein Tastes The Blues

'Tastes' is best understood as meaning observes a vapour through delicately tinted spectacles without ever risking anything in his mouth by the insertion of alien morsels. Rick Stein is one of those snot gobbling little cunts I'd like to hit with a hammer and his too terribly BBCly stay in an hotel made from a disused cotton gin (daaahling you could almost smell the sweat and hear the spirituals) says more about the precious little wanker than I am able to. His derision of things English when abroad earns him a place against the wall when the bullets fly, the flabby little cunt.

Please Please Me

Superb, and so much better than the original.

The Night Mail

Night Mail

By W.H. Auden (Music by Benjamin Britten, Directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright).

This is the Night Mail crossing the border,

Bringing the cheque and the postal order,

Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,

The shop at the corner and the girl next door.

Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:

The gradient's against her, but she's on time.

Thro' sparse counties she rampages,

Her driver's eye upon the gauges.

Panting up past lonely farms

Fed by the fireman's restless arms.

Striding forward along the rails

Thro' southern uplands with northern mails.

Winding up the valley to the watershed,

Thro' the heather and the weather and the dawn overhead.

Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder

Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,

Snorting noisily as she passes

Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.

Birds turn their heads as she approaches,

Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches.

Sheepdogs cannot turn her course;

They slumber on with paws across.

In the farm she passes no one wakes,

But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.

Dawn freshens, the climb is done.

Down towards Glasgow she descends

Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes,

Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces

Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.

All Scotland waits for her:

In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs

Men long for news.

Letters of thanks, letters from banks,

Letters of joy from the girl and the boy,

Receipted bills and invitations

To inspect new stock or visit relations,

And applications for situations

And timid lovers' declarations

And gossip, gossip from all the nations,

News circumstantial, news financial,

Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,

Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,

Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,

Letters to Scotland from the South of France,

Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands

Notes from overseas to Hebrides

Written on paper of every hue,

The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,

The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,

The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,

Clever, stupid, short and long,

The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

Thousands are still asleep

Dreaming of terrifying monsters,

Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's:

Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,

Asleep in granite Aberdeen,

They continue their dreams,

And shall wake soon and long for letters,

And none will hear the postman's knock

Without a quickening of the heart,

For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

Duck Soup

My most liked Marx Brothers film:



'I could dance with you 'till the cows come home. On second thoughts I'd rather dance with the cows and you'd come home.' I roared with laughter when first I heard that joke, at about the age of nine or ten, and I'm still reduced to tear inducing fits and giggles by it.

Dvorak

Zorya by Floex

Tomas 'Floex' Dvorak, composer of the music accompanying the games Samorost2, Questionaut and Machinarium. Hear this here and buy it here.

A Silly and Destructive Bitch

Watch this and try not to splutter into your beer in disbelief:



Count off on your fingers the points she makes that you can dispute in your head but cannot prove with data or references you have not recorded and do not care to Google now.

We thought her a solution in 1979 but I knew in 1981 that she was nothing more than another 'would be' on the make. I voted for her in 1983 only because voting for Michael Foot was as sensible as attempting to kill oneself with an overdose of paracetamol. If I voted for her in 1987 it was for a similar reason. Despite my support for the Falkland's campaign I was absolutely set on not voting for her successor, or any other, in 1992 and so did not vote. In 1997, hoping to confound Blair, I joined the Labour Party, and then I came to understand that the way forward lies outside party politics.

Dusty Springfield

Them: Baby Please Don't Go

The Comic Strip Presents ...

The Hunt for Tony Blair:

There are some first rate black Doowop songs but I prefer the raw 'edginess' of white Doowop, and that song encapsulates, expresses and exemplifies the genre, as they say in clichéland.

The Delicates

One of my most liked:

Tornado

The lines and essentials of that locomotive are more than ninety one years old; the progenitor of several classes of the type, no 1470, Great Northern, was in service, on the Great Northern Railway, in 1922.

Cruel But Kind

All who have known a village idiot know that he is not so stupid as not to know that he is stupid and to resent those who are not so stupid as he. Stephen Hawking is not stupid but his not uncontested need to prove himself reminds me of the resentful village idiot I once knew.

This is a nice machine:



I'm not keen on those handlebars though.

Just Because It's Saturday Night

Hank C Burnette:

Wooden Sprockets and Chain

Wooden Planetary Gears

A Note on Tactics

When the other fellow thinks he has a firm grip on your vitals leave him to his pointless daydreams, take the time to find his weak spot and then make a paralysing attack on it, with all your might.

Beautiful Joinery

Ingenious Solutions For Which There May not Be a Problem

A Pointless Exercise in Precision

Women's Liberation for Those MCPs Who Don't Understand

I still smile when I remember replying, to a woman who quoted that line to me, 'until the battery runs out, when they need a man to change it'.

Which 'remembers me', as my daughter used to say, of a conversation I could not help overhearing between two women about how women can do everything and don't need men, who are completely useless. One of the women broke off from her tirade for a few seconds to swing round and ask my colleague if he could fit her new windscreen wiper blades for her.

Tree Houses

A Pallet House

Johnnie's Allotment

Brilliant.

3D Printing

The potential of 3D printing is unlimited, offering as it does self-sufficiency in high technology and freedom from the tyranny of manufacturing, retailing and built-in obsolescence. Legal types will, without doubt, have countless hours of highly profitable fun arguing about ways and means of protecting patents and intellectual property rights, politicians will be much exercised by the perceived need to regulate and control the application and use of the technology and money grubbing parasites the world over will pay sycophantic placemen a great deal of money to devise ways of appropriating and exploiting the same for their profit and our further enslavement.

Just as technology seems to have made really big wars so destructive they have become a thing of the past so it seems to be making the appurtenances of big business so restrictive they need to be sent the same way. We cannot put off for much longer the much needed and long overdue realignment of social and economic relationships.

Homebuilt.

Interesting, or Not

These are characterful and stylish vehicles:





I'm not one for caravans but I do like this:



The Beetle's rear suspension looks as though it needed beefing up but the idea has potential.

My Bicycle Ride

I bought a pump, stamped 'government property', whatever that means, yesterday, for the sum of £1/0/0, and pumped up the tyres on my 1992 Marin Eldridge Grade, and today I've been out on it. I haven't ridden a bicycle since 1970 or 71 at the latest but was delighted to find that one really does not forget how to do it. This afternoon I rode round the block a few times but this evening I rode to the White Church at Fairhaven, along the prom at Lytham, and back, perhaps four miles all told. Going out I had to stop two or three times to catch my breath and rest my legs but I made the return ride in one leg, and I must have been going at a lick because I was catching and overtaking people who'd cycled past me while I was stopped.

I felt the difference the various gears made and decided that the front tyre needed more air and generally got the feel of the thing, and I've torn the bottom of one leg of my trousers, and acquired some subtle oily highlights on the same, which confirms that I should have bought the bicycle clips I saw for sale in Brooks of Fleetwood, and my leg buckled when I stepped off the bike at the back gate, but I'm strangely energised. The funny thing is that before the ride I had intended buying more alcohol but now I don't fancy it. I'd never thought of cycling as a recreational drug.

Chances Are

Rough and difficult to think of as a hit yet it was.

Walking Is So Twentieth Century

How long will it be before the tax payer is buying these for PCSOs, CEOs, traffic wardens et al? It's a nice idea though, and likely to prove a runaway success.

Not to be outdone, Toyota are also in the field:



Replacing human activity seems to be more appropriate than 'supporting', although this could be useful in helping the disabled to move more independently:



How long will it be before some twenty five stone, lard-arsed 'couch potato' sues the manufacturer because the device failed to support his weight?

Adding An Engine to A Bicycle

Unless something has been missed, it appears that all the torque of the engine will be transmitted to the hub through the spokes, which is not a satisfactory method. That wheel is not going to last very long, although probably longer than the tyres and brakes.



In England this adaptation creates a moped, for all intents and purposes, and is therefore subject to the myriad rules and regulations governing its construction and use. I doubt that such a device could be legal as things stand.

As an aside, why is it that almost all YouTube videos dealing with anything touching on self-reliance, from building a home to home brewing, are made by Americans? Is the English genius for innovation and invention moribund or is it that we just don't proclaim our achievements as readily as our trans Atlantic cousins (not to mention our northern neighbours)?

Relics II

While I'm 'at it':

The original is quite small, about two and a half inches by one and a quarter at most, and was done in York, sometime between 1st April 1996 and 1st August 1998. We lived in a small flat that had been cheaply converted from the first floor of a Victorian 'town house' and to while away some time one afternoon I sketched a more interesting idea for the fireplace in the sitting room, then half the original room (the other half forming our compact bedroom), and a simpler effort for what was then our kitchen / dining room behind it.

Relics

I took out an old but almost unused layout pad today, so that I could rough out some ideas for garden screening that I have, and found this, and since I rather like it I'm posting it here:

I can't remember when I drew it but the absolute terminus ante quem is Monday, 5th February, 2007, when I removed myself from Berwick-upon-Tweed. By some odd coincidence the same sheet of paper bears notes I made on the functions of a domestic dwelling place, thoughts I've been mulling over for the past few months, and particularly over the past few days.

An Exemplary Instructional Video

Clear and concise information, clear and fluent diction and plenty of clear close up shots.

Theo Jansen

Our New Bicycles

They're not actually new as in brand new but they are new to us. We've been without transport since the early part of the year and I've been looking for a couple of bicycles for the past two months or so. On Friday I was alerted to these:

Mine (actually fluorescent red, not orange)

Mrs Gruff's

Not at all what I would have chosen had I any money at all but at £25.00 each, and not 'knock off', not an opportunity to let pass, especially since, having paid for them on Monday, I discovered on Tuesday that in all probability I have lost my JSA and, with a single figure sum in the bank, am well and truly in deep shit, though worse things happen at sea, as they say at sea, and I've survived worse circumstances.

I've removed the ridiculous MTB mudguards which I will replace with something conventional, as also the handlebars, and my saddle, which is not at all comfortable.  Unfortunately both machines were delivered to me with flat or under inflated tyres so cannot be ridden until I can afford a pump.  Some metal polish and elbow grease should see the dull and rusting parts shiny and bright again and with a set of appropriate tools - some allen keys and the relevant special spanners - I can start putting both contraptions back into first class condition.

The Marin Web Site offers the Eldridge Grade for £1,099.00 and the Palisades Trail for £899.00, although they appear to be of an 'improved' specification. Unless ours are some embarrassing Far East copies that only an ignorant novice would be seen dead on I seem to have picked up a bargain, which has put a grin on my face.

Addendum: By chance I've discovered a link, with a photograph, claiming that both bikes date from 1992, which makes them almost vintage (according to the rules of the VMCC). Another web site claims the same date. I shall contact the manufacturer for confirmation and consider carefully whether to restore the machines or upgrade them as I had intended, as and when my finances allow. I'm not a devotee of the preservationist faith but I do think that if something beautiful and practical can be used in its original form there's no compelling reason to change it. Our bikes are not beautiful however; the colour schemes and applied decorations are appalling and the various fittings may be in need of replacement, in which case they are not worth preserving.

Some official living extravagantly at the tax payers' expense is bound to disapprove of this, purely on the grounds of safety of course, but I rather like it:



Pointless and impractical for most of us, it is ideal for those planning to live in isolation in wetland and wilderness areas peppered with lakes and waterways, like the Yukon or Northern Siberia, and considerably cheaper than a seaplane.

I've no idea why the film goes on for 9m 28s.

Memories

I'm still looking for a job, too often sober, where once I seldom was, and still miserable. This could be my song:



Mrs Gruff once came home at two in the morning, after being away for three months, and cooked me a roast dinner, as I snored by brains out on the bed, fully clothed and arms and legs akimbo and every which way. On another occasion she brought silence to the bar at Kings Cross station, at about nine in the morning, by shouting 'you drunken bastard' into her mobile phone. I vaguely remember the occasion, more because she reminded me of it than from personal recollection. Then there was the time I collapsed against the door of my 'study' and Mrs Gruff heard my neck crack as she forced her way in (it still clicks and makes grinding sounds when I turn my head), and the occasion I lay down to sleep on the cobbles of the shared courtyard, wearing only my underpants, and the Christmas Dinner I cooked after drinking two bottles of Plymouth Navy Strength gin; while sharpening the carving knife I hacked into the joint of my left thumb and sent a spout of blood into the open cutlery draw, three feet away. I wrapped a tea towel round the mess and declined the offer of a lift to hospital because dinner was ready and I did not want to spoil it. I still have the thumb.

Happy days. I do hope I can afford them again, some day.

Anthem for Lost Youth

Not, perhaps, as eloquent as Owen or Sassoon, or any of the numberless poets slaughtered where poppies grow, or shot out of the air over Berlin, or Hamburg, or the factory towns of the Ruhr, or those manuring French and Dutch beaches, but not the less effective in saying 'fuck you' to those who believe we are just the raw material of manure.

Fuck you, and fuck you we will. The time is coming.

Henrietta

I don't have a photograph, and I don't really know what she looks like, I certainly wouldn't recognise her if I passed her on the street, but I was delighted to return her to the 'wild' as the sun sank about an hour and a half ago. Mrs Gruff brought her home last Friday, after nursing her back to health. She had been brought in very cold, covered in slimy pond weed and breathing noisily, having been discovered, almost completely submerged, trapped between the surface of a pond and the net covering it. Only her paws, gripping the net, had saved her. Mrs Gruff treated her at home and fed her, and the discovery that she had escaped on Monday from the cat carrier she had been recovering in confirmed that she was well and truly on the mend. We thought she'd crawled out through the gap below the 'garage' doors but I was delighted to find, today, that she had made a home in one of the plastic bags holding bits and pieces in what we call the shed. She'd had to climb into a collapsible crate to do so, dragging nesting material with her. At about half past ten I went into the shed, taking care to make sure that I didn't step on anything living and breathing and I was delighted to see her, dimly, on the floor, having obviously just dined on the cat food Mrs Gruff had bought for her. I swept her up in two handfuls of the soiled shredded paper she had spread about the floor and took her outside where I deposited her gently on the 'lawn' and left her. The last I saw of her was the dark shape of a hedgehog taking advantage of the 'wild'. I left her within two feet of the worm rich spoil heaps my trenching efforts have created. I hope never to see her again, except at night and by accident (should you see a hedgehog in daylight you can be sure it is ill).

Good luck Henrietta.

Pudding

Dinner was a broad bean and red onion risotto followed by this:

Home grown, and chemically untreated, strawberries with homemade cheese. The flecks of green are chopped chives. We lost all but one strawberry to molluscs last year; this year only the largest fruit (viz: one strawberry.) showed any sign of damage. Table salt for slugs and crushed shells for snails, immediately upon discovery. I was assiduous and industrious last year and this year I've seen few signs of slime and even fewer signs of the slimers. I don't agree with those who claim that everything has a right to life. However, even were I to be persuaded by their arguments I would still object that nothing can have the right to live at my expense, since such a right compels me to put the life or lifestyle of another before mine and that is not what I was brought into being to do, and eating my strawberries is at my expense, and unacceptably so.

The strawberries were small and sweet, and I and The Mrs Gruff, and not the molluscs, enjoyed them.

The Velvet Underground

I've written before about the house I rented, while a mature undergraduate, from a post graduate student and her half skeleton in a box, the North African threshing sledge propped against a wall in the sitting room and mint condition copy of The Exploding Plastic Inevitable Tour. I don't remember this song as one of the tracks on it but I have it on a CD recovered not long ago from Berwick-upon-Tweed:



This is on the album (and not on the bloody CD):



It 'remembers me', as my daughter used to say, a long time ago, of a time long ago.

Another Path

Here are some photographs of my present effort:

This piece of stone may have been a lintel removed from the back of the house when the tacky kitchen extension was tacked on and I cannot now remember whether I dug it out nearby or found it lying behind the 'garage' (recte very large, if inconveniently low roofed, shed). It's quite heavy and required considerable effort to shift to its new site. I had to lift it perhaps half a dozen times before I was satisfied that it was more or less level with the uneven path it lies beside. The stone was supposed to butt up against the path but I discovered what appears to be the edge of another path jutting about an inch and a quarter out from the edge of the upper about an inch and a half below the surface (the lower path, or whatever it is, can just be seen to the right of the shadow that is to the right of the edge of the upper path). This threw my measurements, obtained with bricks in a rough dry run, out by an inch and a quarter. Happily I saw that, all being well, I could move the stone immediately in front of the shed door back by almost exactly that distance, and so it turned out. The arrangement isn't how I would have it could I have it otherwise; I'm satisfied, however, that it works at all.

These two blocks have obviously been shaped and may have been parts of a sill. Although they are different depths and heights, put together they are only slightly wider than the pieces at either end of the path so I decided they were ideal for a step.

I think the slight difference in depth and the off centre 'joint' add a rather rustic touch, even if not quite Zen.

I'd put quite a lot of work in to arrive at this stage: I cut a shallow trench, one brick's length wide, to set the central line of bricks, for over all length, and was delighted to find that I was correct in estimating that I should have to set the stone back by just an inch and a quarter (approximately by eye). I had to cut back to pull the stone out and then excavate behind it. A good hour or so with the claw hammer was needed to hack off projecting concrete and rubble from the shed footings before I could push it back sufficiently. I then had to pull it out and lift it two or three times so that I could level it up again. Once I'd reseated the stone I was able to dig out a full width trench and settle on the pattern.

The larger gaps between the reddish brown and hideously textured bricks are due to their being smaller than the pink or purple, obviously re-used bricks.

Not obvious in this photograph is the 'soil' (actually a mix of builders' sand, rotting weed roots, cat shit and dust) I spent about an hour to an hour and a half trowelling and brushing into the gaps between the bricks, and then washing down with two watering cans full of water to settle it.

I'll lay the upper level tomorrow and finish off the 'grouting', and when everything has settled I'll try to find some of the Irish Moss that was growing freely in the front garden, before I dug it all out, to sow in the gaps.

My wood fired oven is now, of course, a non starter.


Addendum: Job Done.

Not an elegant solution I'll readily concede, however it was the best I could do with the resources available to me and is, I console myself, not unworkmanlike.

And here is a photograph of the tools I used:

A few tools, some rudimentary skills, a stubborn sense of independence and a cussed determination to do as one will are all a man needs to earn a reasonable living. I think we've lost sight of that in our quest for credit worthiness and a quite life.

Post Script: The area looked like this* a year or so ago:

The agent's inventory describes the scene as 'a well maintained garden'. It wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, a garden, maintained or otherwise, although it will be, all being well.

* A huge improvement on this:

Which was the view from the flat.

Automatic Gearbox for Bicycles

The engine might easily be fitted into the space within the hubless rear wheel. A twin rotor Wankel engine could drive a generator providing electricity to a linear motor in the wheel rim. I think such a vehicle would be pleasant and exhilarating to drive.

Mrs Mad?

Eccentricity is inexorably being criminalised. How long can a society that suppresses any form of individuality, ostensibly for the common good, last?

Electric Trailer Tent

The Enfield Musket

Again:



What a beautiful machine. I hope to ride one some day.

A Crocker

This is a badly put together video of an idiot misusing a fine example of the finest US motorcycles manufactured and one of very few capable of matching the best English motorcycles of the time:



I'd give my eye teeth, as they say, for a Crocker, and that machine deserved better than that.

Mal fait and delta minus!

Hmmm.

'It's a challenge to ride'. Yes indeed.

My Path

Constructed re-using materials from the garden (hence its ugliness):

This is what the area looked like before my efforts:

The house is ghastly. I left the choice up to Mrs Gruff and did not see it until she had put down a non-refundable deposit for credit checks and so on, a mistake I will not make again.

A Useless Exercise

Practically useless, although undoubtedly 'clever':



It's so childish that it really is 'clever' only in an infantile sense and about as entertaining as Newton's Cradle. Having built one though, it was only a matter of time before some other 'clever' person thought of this:



Why do I post the videos here? Purely because, believe it or not, I have a severe hangover and am therefore useless myself at present.

Yes It's Soppy But ...

The Mayfair Set

Not without bias but still valid as an historiographical, albeit outline narrative, source:

Episode 1:













Episode 2:













Episode 3:













Episode 4:













Whether or not one approves of the activities of such men, one must admire both their abilities and their single-minded sense of purpose.

Motorised Bicycles

The more I see of these 'board track replicas', the more I fancy one for running about locally. I could ride one legally on my licence, provided the engine capacity is less than 50 cc.

Aaaaaaghhhhh!

The local GPs' surgery has just called to make an appointment for a repeat blood test. I had one done on Tuesday last and my GP told me that she wouldn't contact me unless there was something to discuss. I'm not particularly concerned as there are a number of non medical reasons why a repeat test might be necessary (lost sample, inconclusive results, errors of various sorts etc) but there is a certain black humour in having blood taken on Friday 13th. The woman who spoke to me did offer an appointment 'very early in the morning' but I opted for one in the middle of the day, just to be safe.

Robot Snake

Keith Floyd, may he rest in peace, was scathing about cooks who called themselves 'chefs' and I share his cynicism, particularly where overpromoted telegenic nonenties are concerned. Celebrity Chefs do nothing for me, except for two, one of whom is Heston Blumenthal, and here's why:





Whether or not Mr Blumenthal has a 'nerdy' backroom boy beavering away on his behalf, his creations are those of a genius.

Say Stylish, Not 'Retro'

I'll have to check on whether I can still ride a moped, something I've never done, on my licence.

On Being English

No one watching Easter from King's, courtesy of BBC iPlayer, can be in any doubt about what it is to be English, even the young Chinese boy in the choir.

How the fates do favour one: Having just retrieved my belongings, in perfect condition after more than four years in store in an unventilated steel container, I am delighted to hear a piece that I possess, though after so long cannot now name, and can play shortly. These days, of course, the BBC rarely delights without immediately disappointing and I was not surprised when, perhaps in defiance of Dr Johnson's observation, a young woman with an all too obviously, and for some unpronounceably, foreign name (Halliki Voolma) and an accent that could have been Scotch, could have been American or could have been international, but was not English, stood at the end of the piece I possess and cannot name and read the lesson.

How times have changed.

We English learned long ago that the British believe they can fool us into thinking we alone amongst the peoples of the world are not entitled to a homeland, a history and a culture and so we know that when the BBC attempts to prove canines, and foreign dogs at that, can be bipeds it does so in defence of its British Marxist raison d’être and not in celebration of our 'celebrated' tolerance of diversity and change.

How times must be changed.

St George's Day

On which occasion we remember that we are English not British.

A happy St George's Day to my reader.

Paradise Regained, Another Country Revisited and A Little of Myself Lost, Again

On Wednesday last I spent almost ten hours driving a Ford Transit Luton to Berwick-upon-Tweed and back to Lytham St Annes, three hours loading it single-handedly, including a sofa and some bulky, though not heavy, shelving units, and two hours unloading it, with the help of Mrs Gruff (Why is it always easier to do anything and everything without a woman's help?). I've spent the two days since assembling the Ikea flat packed storage that I was certain was by now warped and rotting, having lain in store for more than four years, at a cost of more than £3,000.00, and I am unusually happy, almost ecstatically so. Why? Because I have my belongings; my books, my essays, my floppy discs, my tapes, my CDs, my LPs etc, about me again, all in perfect condition, and I feel human again, that's why.

Searching for something at YouTube I came across this:



Which evokes two very poignant memories and reminds me, by a convoluted extension, that on finally removing myself from Northumberland I have cut the last remaining link with that place.

Addendum: Searching further I came across this, which sent shivers up or down or out of my spine:




LOL @ 'that famous book by Nabokov': I was reading that book at the time and Nabokov is one of my most liked authors. Given the importance of the events then current how could I forget the song?

Addendum (written 25/12/23):  Seven years after taking the IKEA units out of storage I had again to put them in  store, unfortunately into a shipping container kept outdoors, where, after three years and two lockdowns, I found they had warped.  However, instead of rotting the composite panels had fallen apart and the units collapsed as the glues failed due to the freezing and heating of the water that had puddled inside the container from holes that had rusted through the roof.  By coincidence, the owners of the storage site, a boatyard on the south coast, sold the place, to a group of East Europeans,  just as we gave notice that we were giving it up.  Ten years after writing, above, of my joy at discovering them unsullied I had to throw the pieces of wood onto the pile of scrap timber at Lowestoft Recycling Centre, just one of many many disappointments. 

Three years storage of various items, including a lot of boat stuff, in that rusty container cost me more than £5,000.00.  Thankfully, apart from some superficial but disfiguring damage to some of my books, most of my things were more or less all right.  No wonder I have no money. 

An Unusual Arrangement

I have not see an engine with one side valve and one pushrod overhead valve per cylinder before. It's an unusual arrangement and rather stylish I think.

A Quick Wood Fired Oven

By some strange quirk of fate, the previous occupants, builders or some other lazy so and so left a sizeable stack of bricks, both new and unused and reclaimed, in the garden. I've used some to build a simple barbecue and will use others to make a short path. I had no idea, however, what to do with the rest. Now I know:

I lack the chimney liner, or anything similar, the builder of the example illustrated used for his 'chamber' and will try to build a corbelled roof instead, although I could use some stone blocks that are lying behind the shed.

I'll need to buy the wood though I'm shan't need much so it shouldn't be too costly.

The article describing the construction of the oven above can be seen here.

No Knead Bread

Here's an interesting and simple recipe for bread:



I'm going to try that.

The ancient Egyptians cooked their bread in conical clay pots. Perhaps they were the inspiration for that recipe.

Four Stars, Diamonds Are Forever, Super Novas, Setting Suns and Obscure Allusions

Messrs Prendergast, Cochran, Nelhams-Wright and Craddock:

Late purveyors of tragedy to patrons young and now not so young.

Ermm, Aaah Ermm?

We'll support you if you agree with us and we like you? Where's the independence in that?

I agree that the party system is now moribund and independents are the future of English politics but I cannot support anything as presecriptive as the Independent Network.

US Census Worker Lynched

It may not be subtle but a lynching is a very effective way of telling inquisitors to Mind Their Own Business.

I do hope the report is not a hoax.

Dear Woman (Pass The Sick Bucket)

This is what happens when you leave your testicles at home or lend them to a feminist:



The Conscious Men Foundation? Feeble minded, spineless ball-less clowns might be more accurate. How are those wankers, there is no other word to describe them, going to live with themselves when they realise they've made complete bloody fools of themselves? They need masive repeat doses of Testemax:

I Really Shouldn't ...

... but I'm really proud of this:

I made four of this small loaf, of slightly different shapes and sizes, this evening, two of which we ate with dinner, which was a carrot and butter bean soup with onion and garlic, and croutons, although I used too much water and the soup was not as punchy as it should have been.

Mrs Gruff is taking one to work to eat with lunch tomorrow (later today). I think it looks beautiful. The texture is superb but the taste could have been brought out. I need to learn a bit more but I love making bread.

My apologies for the poor quality of the photographs; my digital camera is just a small compact, now five years old and not expensive when bought, it serves its purpose however, and it was a present.

Undeniably Stylish, Even if Not Very Efficient

Admiral Sir George Parr

' ... this is Britain.' Need one say more?

We may not be able to do anything, as in not a bloody thing, effectively these days but at least we can still laugh at ourselves, which is a bloody good thing because the rest of the world must surely be laughing at us. The Bird and Fortune sketches are very funny but their being piercingly accurate satires of the existing state of affairs also provokes sad reflection.

General Sir George Parr

Complete nonsense of course.

Precise Correlations and Epistomological Problems

Surely the finest comedy ever produced by any British broadcaster? Certainly as good as anything produced by any other culture and, I imagine, readily understood in any other culture.

Guess The Sex

Clue: The driver was not a man but was not responsible (they never are) and the court will no doubt take her tears into consideration. She's clearly not fit to drive, and equally clearly as thick as fucking shit, but that's no reason to prevent her from risking other lives by denying her hard won right to hold a licence, not by any means.

Mrs Pankhurst, whom Mr Pankhurst might reasonably have slapped about a bit (what jury would have convicted him), would have been proud of her. That video reminds me of the story, reported elsewhere on this blog, of the woman who drove along a railway line because the satnav had told her to. She was not responsible either. A society that endows the irresponsible with rights is doomed.

The sisters are doing it for themselves (I once infuriated a gaggle of misandrist feminists by adding 'until the batteries run out') and God help the rest of us.

Addendum:

Here's a video of the aftermath, notice that all of those sorting out the chaos and clearing up the mess caused by one extremely stupid young woman are men (this video and the text following it were added after the comment left by UBERMOUTH):



Rather than inventing 'pay gaps' between men and women, in pursuit of yet more profitable victimhood, it might be more illuminating to examine the relative costs, socially, economically and environmentally, of men and women.

Another:


View Larger Map

Zoom into the larger map to see the arrows indicating the direction of travel and wonder.

Steve Coogan as Gerry Adams

Billy Connolly on What Women Want

Spot on:



Just say NO!

Mark Lawson Does David Mitchell

Another blind alley. Thinking that there was a remote possibility that Mark Lawson might pull something interesting out of his very small hat I clicked on the iPlayer link. After what seemed like an hour and a half I saw that I'd been yawning for fifteen minutes and, unable to take any more, closed it.

The good thing about the BBC is that no matter how boring, witless or mediocre the 'talent', nine terms at Camox Bridgeford will not adversely affect one's chance of a living on the licence payer, though it helps to have been up at Cambridge and not Oxford.

Christopher Hitchens Does Stand Up

Richard Dawkins in Action

Could Life Be Much Better?

I'm eating home made bread, my own, with home made preserved lemons, my own and eight months old but not quite ready, with olives and anchovies. I've run out of alcohol but the windows are open. the vernal equinox is now less than thirty six hours away and I know what to write. Could life possibly be much better?

Should I die tonight I will die happy, and life can not be better than that.

Addendum: Posted at about 03:10 on Monday 21st March.

Post Script: The vernal equinox occurred yesterday.

In Uncertain Times

In case you've forgotten (and don't forget to hang, draw and quarter those traitorous bastards who've sold you into slavery - and never ignore the call when sounded), this is the song of a people who felt they possessed something worth dying for, and survived:



Get off your settees and prepare for hardship; you're going to have to fight or what you grandparents had, whether you wish to or not.

PS: The photograph shown in the link above is of US troops and the dependent slivers of metal displayed on the man's left breast are marksmen's badges. The equivalent award in the British army was to be allowed to double back to barracks, in full order, without a bloody good bollocking from the Sergeant Major.

The sign saying ' Better 'Ole' above the sandbagged entrance to a shelter refers to a Bairnsfather cartoon of the First World War.

The Spitfire is painted in a shade variously described as Photo Reconnaissance Blue.

The flag shown at the end is not fit to wipe one's arse on.

When War Comes Again to Europe

We may remember songs like this and sing them with as much passion and hope should war come again to Europe:



Pater Gruff served in the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Pacific, and inculcated in me respect for those, sworn to kill him, whom he may have killed in the service of his king, and I might have been called upon to kill in the service of his successor.

We fight each other only because the few of those who speak our language and presume to call themselves our leaders cannot agree with the few who 'lead' those like us who speak another language.

I have no enemies but those who think of me as their enemy, and those I will oppose with such might as is mine until my last breath.

Are They Serious? (II)

More from the wonderful whacky world of 'recruitment' advertisements, both from Jobcentre Plus:

Firstly, and here, just to prove that I haven't made it up:

DIRECTOR

Job No:BPS/16682

Wage £6.15 TO £6.60 PER MONTH
Hours 37 HRS OVER 5 DAYS
Location LYTHAM ST. ANNES, LANCASHIRE FY8
Duration Permanent
Date posted 18 March 2011

Description:

'Good communication and telephone skills, need to be I.T. Literature. Will include answering the telephone taking reservations, checking guests in out, general typing and data inputting. Full training is given and work based qualifications are available if required. Shifts are 5 days out of 7 and include evening and weekend work. . . '

£6.15 to £6.60 per month? I would draw your attention to 'need to be IT Literature (sic)', although I'm sure the mistake is attributable to the DWP and not the advertiser.

Secondly, and here:

DISH WASHER/DOMESTIC

Job No:BPS/16519

Wage £6.28 PER HOUR
Hours 7.5 PER WEEK, MONDAY-FRIDAY, 6PM-7.30PM
Location LYTHAM ST. ANNES, LANCASHIRE FY8
Duration Permanent
Date posted 21 February 2011

Description

'Previous experience is essential. Uniform and training/induction provided. Duties will include washing up, clearing tables and any general cleaning tasks as required. Successful applicants are required to provide an enhanced disclosure. Disclosure expense will be met by employer. . To apply ring the employer and speak to either Jayne'

'Previous experience is essential ... an enhanced disclosure ... '. That rules out redundant aircraft designers then, of whom there could be quite a few locally, if the Dynamic Duo don't stop butchering the armed forces with the defence machete. All that for a dishwasher's job.

Another Annoying Exchange With A Brainless Robot

I'm almost too angry to type. I scrapped my car last October and 'phoned the insurer to cancel my policy. I was given some information that contradicted the information given to Mrs Gruff, when she had done the same a few days earlier, so I 'phoned again, and was given yet more contradictory advice. A third call confirmed that as I had scrapped the car the policy would have to be cancelled 'immediately' and the full outstanding amount plus a cancellation fee of more than forty pounds paid. Firm words followed, with an instruction not to cancel the policy, and I continued to make the scheduled monthly payments. Today I received notification of the automatic renewal of the policy at the end of the month, and called to cancel it, explaining, in reply to the dull robotic questioning of the operator I spoke to, why.

In a tedious and whining North Eastern accent the woman began droning on about charges, until I angrily informed her that I could not be charged for not renewing a contract that has expired. What drove my blood beyond boiling point was her statement that because I'd scrapped the car she would have to cancel the policy immediately and, to comply with the Road Traffic Act I would have to return the certificate within ... I was disinclined to listen to any more and hung up.

What is the point of that?

The vehicle for which the policy was created no longer exists so cannot be driven and the policy itself cannot be used for any other vehicle. The policy is paid up in full and no outstanding charges remain. The company has never requested the return of any other expired certificate. This is simply another petty rule devised by some half-witted and immature jobsworth, dead from the neck up and the waist down, with the intention of oppressing us all just a little more.

It beggars belief that there are people whose function is simply to dream up ways of irritating or annoying the rest of us more than they can already and enforcing them.

This is What A Feminist Looks Like

The ideal:



The real:

Code Pink: Code for Do Not Fuck (except with a shotgun)!

On The Merits of Co-operation.

Bill Maher on Men and Women

C Hitchens on C-Span

Are They Serious?

View Larger Map

Why have I posted this unremarkable Wigan street scene? I'm looking for work. I haven't worked for nearly eight months and I'm not claiming benefits. I am wholly supported by Mrs Gruff at present, as I have no money at all. My creditors are being disagreeable, quite aggressively so, so I need work, and I'm looking for work. Unfortunately the few jobs that are available are either outside my scope in some regard or simply not worth doing. However, I'm looking for work, which is how I came upon this advertisement at the Jobcentre Plus web site:

'Delivery person required for Parbold area. Duties are to deliver papers to peoples houses in local area. . Please post Current CV to Gemma' (Job No. SKM/31224, here)

A local newsagent, McColl's, requires applicants for a paper boy's job to submit a CV. I couldn't believe it either, although experience has taught me that it would have been unwise to have written that 'I've seen it all now'. I'm certain that somewhere, there are even more absurd things awaiting discovery.

Bicycle Trailer Tent

Anyone who has ever used 'nice idea' camping gear knows that it often has severe limitations and never quite works as in the animation. It's still a nice idea though.

Ignorati? Mobocracy?

Regardless of how it may be pronounced elsewhere in the world, in England, and by English people, Mascarpone is not pronounced mask a pony.

A C Grayling and Christopher Hitchens on The Allied Bombing Campaign

To avoid the tedious introductions in the first video, especially George Gibson's grating 'umm aah' rich ramble, go straight in at 6:15:

Shadow of The Vampire

This is an unfinished piece. I publish it because I am sick of deleting unfinished pieces.

Here it is:

There's an amusing production available, for a limited time only (as you'd expect from a hierarchical, monopolistic, statist organisation with delusions of commercial competitiveness making a pretence of social inclusion and democratic accountability), at BBC iPlayer.

It's a very camp production, or at least it seems so to me, although you'd have to be of a certain age, upbringing and education to see that, with some very theatrical performances, perhaps 'inspired' by the overly theatrical performances of the actors and actress in 1920s horror films; it's enjoyable none the less. Willem Dafoe plays Max Schrek, the actor who played Count Orlock in the original Nos Feratu. The theme of the plot is that the director FW Murnau has discoverd the vampire Orlock in a remote rural hidey hole and done a deal with him to make the film. The deal being that he gets to keep the actress. Willem Dafoe is unrecognisable as Shrek and it's a valid criticism of the film that he looks too robustly healthy; in the original film, Orlock looks sickly and diseased and Shreck should too. The curse of the vampire is not only that he is condemned to feed on human blood, and so steal the souls of others and condemn them in turn to an eternal living hell as vampires but that in feeding the vampire feeds on the diseases of others and suffers from those diseases in turn, each disease building on the those he has ingested before, suffering and torment building with each meal, in the knowledge that as diseased and tormented as he might become he can never find the release of death.

It's a pity that the make up did not suggest that.

Crap, as I'm sure you'll agree. It's one saving grace is that I've published it.

Bobby Vee: A Forever Kind of Love

The Norrie Paramor arrangement, recorded in England for the 'U'K and Australia:

White Sauce

I taught myself how to make a white sauce, almost by accident, and, perhaps because simple things are said to please simple minds, I always take great pleasure in making one. Watching this video is no less enjoyable.

PS: I use milk straight from the fridge and have never had a problem with lumps.

Cooking With Dog: Pork Kakuni

I May Have Dreamt It.

It's 03:46, on Thursday, 24th, by the clock on my PC, despite what the timestamp on this post says, and I've just heard an electric milk float pass by outside. To reassure myself that I'm not yet completely demented I peeked through the curtain in front of me and saw the vehicle 'as large as life' as it sped past.

It must be almost thirty years since I last heard that sound at this time of day.

A Dog's Life For Me

A pat on the head, some kind words, somewhere warm to sleep, a full belly with a few treats, and better health care than is available 'on the NHS'? I'll be your dog:

For Ubermouth

Rave On, M Ward

It's Not My Fault

Unfortunately it's all my fault; I have no one else to blame.

Eating Balut

Balut is a duck embryo cooked in its shell.



I'll admit that I'm not at all sure I could eat that.

Bop Bop Baby and Hip Shakin' Momma

I've always liked Hank Burnette's records. He managed to combine a driving, hard core Rockabilly and raw live sound with just enough of what seems at times to be self-parody to suggest that he did it for fun and the love of music, without dreams of international stardom, which makes him, in my book, bigger than many better known artists.

For Some Strange Reason

... this appeals to me:

How to Deal with Petty Fascists.

I think that was nicely done.

Here's another example:

A Perfectly Good Tyre

What Every Woman Should Know

Top Gear: Proving That BBC Comedy is Not A Thing of The Past

Tom Petty: Free Falling

The Devil Is Supposed to Love His Own

I celebrated my fifty fifth birthday earlier this week and logging on to Live 365 this evening I noticed a list of 'Rock 'n' Roll' birthdays. Gene Vincent's birthday was on the eleventh of the month, others fell on the tenth and the sixth but none on the eighth, except that of Terry Melcher. I could only laugh: I have the same sort of luck as Mr Melcher, without his success.

Children of the Dammed?

I'm fucked if I know.

Oriental Cooking

There's a teppanyaki* restaurant in St Annes. I haven't been there for a while, and am unlikely to go again in the near future, sadly, but the fun of the place comes from the active participation of the diners in the culinary spectacle. Had it not been for my enthusiasm, and that of The Mrs Gruff, lubricated by several flasks of sake, our last visit might have been a very flat occasion, so miserable were the miserable gits sitting beside us.


* Iron plate grilling.

Tommy Cooper: Spoon, Jar - Jar, Spoon

When You Simply Must Get to The Pub, Regardless of The Weather

Angle Grinder Man

He's real, unlike all those American Super Heroes and just to prove he's famous ...

Aaaaaahhhhhh.

There's a bird singing outside my window. It's dark (18:59) and I'm about to check on the dough for this evening's dinner (pizzas), which should be rising nicely. To add depth to the Cheshire Cat grin on my face I saw Marston's Oyster Stout at £1.00 per 500 ml bottle in Booths and spoiled myself, despite our desperate financial circumstances, with two.

The Musket (Again)

I'd love one of these:



With silencers:



How it was made:



More beautiful than any woman.

The builder's web site is here.

The Crew Cuts

One of my most liked songs, for more than forty years.

The Harptones