Spotify

/ masher / 6 Comments

A message recently appeared on our family What Is App group, from The Current Mrs Masher™.

The replies to her question arrived within seconds… possibly the quickest responses that I have seen from the kids.

TCMM: “Who still uses the family Spotify account? It’s gone up in price again and I’m thinking of cancelling it”

Son: “I use it everyday. Please don’t cancel it”

Daughter: “I use it everyday too. Please don’t cancel it”

Masher: “Never used it. Get rid of the damn thing.”

I was outvoted and we still have a family Spotify account that I’ll likely never use.  Whenever I want some music on in the house, I’ll just stream it from my collection on the NAS drive, straight onto the Sonos.

But, this got me thinking (dangerous, I know).  I’ve made the point before that my kids have never listened to true high fidelity audio. Brought up in the digital age, as they have been, they have never listened to an analogue recording, only digital ones, which, of course, lose some of their fidelity in the digitisation process.  To be fair, this isn’t a big deal, as only the most fastidious listener would be able to tell the difference between an analogue recording and a digital one that has been sampled at a decent bitrate.
An mp3 at 320kbps is good enough for 99.9% of listening tastes, I reckon.

But, more than that, I realised that my kids – unlike me and those of my generation –  don’t actually own any music recordings. All the songs they listen to are streamed from the likes of Spotify, Google and YouTube.  They don’t “own” any of it, they just pay a monthly fee to be able to listen to somebody else’s copy. When I pointed this out to them, they didn’t seem bothered by the fact.  I doubt anyone of their generation is.

But, is this the future, I wonder? When we don’t bother owning any CDs or DVDs anymore, we just stream from the likes of Spotify and Netflix?

My own – somewhat eclectic – music collection, is the result of many, many years of record and CD  – and yes, even Compact Cassette – purchases, that probably cost me thousands of pounds over the years. And even though it’s now all digitised onto a single hard drive for convenience, I like that I still have the original copy; the physical, tactile item, that comes with a printed sleeve showing the track titles. And of course, some of the album art is a joy to look at. Of course, all my original copies are now stored in the loft for safekeeping and I haven’t actually seen any album art for years.

But it’s nice to know that it’s there.

And it’s mine.

Going Out

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The Current Mrs M and I went to see this production at the weekend.

It has had rave reviews and I have been really looking forward to seeing it, for months. Which is a shame, because, unfortunately, I found it all a bit… meh.

And Mrs M didn’t enjoy it at all.

This version seemed somewhat frenetic compared with others I have seen, with the bulk of the story taking place outside, rather than in the Birling’s drawing room. Throughout, I couldn’t help thinking that it would have been so much better had it been set inside. That said, I was impressed with how they did the rain, on stage… very realistic.

I also struggled with the acoustics. The characters were shouting – a lot – and shouting over each other as they got into arguments, which made it difficult to pick out individual dialogue. The character of Sheila was so high pitched when she shouted, that I barely made out a word she said!

But, it all came together at the end – as it should – and Priestley’s point about morality and social conscience was made… not that I’ve ever truly understood the ending.  If either of you can explain it to me, I’d be much obliged.

After that, we went to the pixtures to see the new Mission Impossible film.
It was bloody brilliant.

And I even managed to squeeze in a funeral.

It was a… mixed weekend.

How was yours?

Happy Towel Day, You Hoopy Froods

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As today is National Towel Day, I’m hoping you both have your best Egyptian Cotton towels, either tucked into your trouser waistband or draped around your neck.  Carry it with you all day… you never know when you might need it.

That wholly remarkable book, The HitchHikers Guide To The Galaxy has this to say on the subject of towels:

A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you — daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost.” What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in “Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood who really knows where his towel is.” (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

Anyway, can’t stop: there’s an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to me about this script for Hamlet they’ve worked out.

Lost & Found

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A while back – as I mentioned in this post – I lost my beloved Kindle.

I searched everywhere* but was unable to find it.

And so, I bought a new one.

Yesterday, I found the old one.

I was looking through some small boxes that I have sitting on shelves in my shack/playroom, for some parts for a new project that I have in mind to build.  I knew that I had a small amplifier board that I had built for a different – now defunct – project and I was sure it was in one of these boxes.

It wasn’t.

But, as I put one of the boxes back on the shelf, I noticed that I’d placed it on a flat, black… thing.  Wondering what it was, I picked it up and was both surprised and delighted to find that it was my old Kindle.

Of course, now that I have a new one, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it, but either way, I’m pleased to finally have it back.

The annoying thing, is that it has been missing now for over three years and yet it was sitting under this box all the time, a box that I have picked up and replaced many times without noticing what was under it and, worse than that, it’s actually just two feet away – within arm’s reach – of where I am sitting right now, typing this drivel.

Three years!

Oh well.

*Not actually “everywhere”, obviously.

Another Smelling Pistake

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It’s that time of year when all the bluebells come out and the woods look absolutely gorgeous… for just a few weeks, before they all die off and then disappear for another year.

Our local woods – where I walk the dog – always look spectacular… as can be seen in the photo above, that I took yesterday evening.

The rangers have been round, sticking signs on all the entrances to the woods, to encourage people to stick to the main patsh, so as not to trample on the flowers.  No problem there: I always stick to the main patsh… can’t say the same for the dog, though: she’s on the patsh, off the patsh… sometimes she makes her own patsh.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if your professional job is in producing signs and signwriting, you should – at the very least – be able to spell and proof-read.

Surely?

Saints Alive

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Every year, Paddy’s Day (or Saint Patrick’s Day, to give its proper name) provides an excuse for hundreds of thousands of Irishmen to get off their tits, drinking large amounts of alcohol and indulging in all sorts of drunken revelry.

Of course, it’s well known that the Irish know how to party. For them, it’s all about the ‘craic’.  Apparently. Getting together and drinking as much Guinness and Caffrey’s (God, I love Caffrey’s) as they can; dressing up as leprechauns and jumping in the Liffey (if one happens to be celebrating in Dublin).   Parades fill the streets and the festivities have been known to go on for several days, in some places. Wearing green is – I think – the law, on Paddy’s Day.

But what about the other saints?  Are they celebrated in the same way? What about Saint George, who had his own significant day only yesterday?  For some reason, good ol’ Saint George doesn’t seem to be revered in quite the same vein as Saint Patrick.  And yet, he killed a fucking dragon, for chris’sake.

To go someway toward remedying this situation, my old BT pals and I had a gathering down at our local ‘spoons last night.  Our glasses charged with various English ales, I proposed a toast to Saint George. “To Saint George!” everyone chorused, raising their glasses in the air.

And then we got back to our various topics of conversation – in the main, who had had the biggest operation on their prostate.

I think the English craic and the Irish craig are very different beasts.

Late

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Last weekend saw the current Mrs M and I travelling down to Bournemouth, to attend a family funeral.

Sadly, our south coast contingent has suffered in recent times, this being the third funeral in as many years.

As such, I kind of know the way now… and also how long it takes.  On a straight run, this journey will take two and a half hours of your life away.  But once we have factored in a couple of pit stops for Mrs M then a further half an hour needs to be added.

I’ve never known anyone drink as much as she does when travelling: constantly guzzling down overpriced bottles of water… or Diet Pepsi – her cold beverage of choice. Consequently, any journey we take requires hourly stops at a service station so that she can then empty everything that she has just drunk.

This stop also gives her the opportunity to purchase a stupidly expensive café latté  – her hot beverage of choice – from Costa or Starbucks or whichever tax-evading coffee seller resides there.

Anyway… Bournemouth. Not knowing what the Saturday traffic would be like, I decided to err on the side of caution and leave at 10:30.   That gave us plenty of time and allowed us to take a relaxing drive down there.

So, with funeral togs laid out on the back seat and with the passenger-side footwell stocked with several litres of water and fizzy drinks, we departed dead on time at 10:33… to be fair, that was pretty good for us.

The M1 was busy but the traffic flowed freely.

The M25 also flowed freely… for about ten minutes, but then decided to jam up.  We crawled along, stopping and starting and I constantly kept one eye on the clock, but I wasn’t too worried, we still had plenty of time. “The M25 is always bloody terrible”, I said to Mrs M. “The M3 will probably be much better.”

It was, and so we made a stop at Fleet Services, so Mrs M could do her thing and then we got back on the motorway. I did some quick head calculations and realised it was starting to get a bit tight, time-wise. To use some F1 parlance, I decided that we needed to switch from a two-stop stategy to a single-stop.  Mrs M would have to cross her legs.

Back on the M3, it was good to put my foot down and try to make up some time. But, it didn’t last long. Once again, we slowed down until we were at a standstill.  Stationary traffic stretched out before us, as far as we could see.  Mrs M decided to check on Google Maps to see how far the hold up went.  “It’s red”, she said.

“Which bit?”

“All of it.”

We crawled along until we eventually reached our turn off – the M27 – and I was able to put my foot down again.  It didn’t last long and roadworks eventually brought us to yet another standstill.

I grimaced as the ETA time on the in-car sat-nav, ticked its way ever closer to the time of the funeral service.  We were going to be late. Not late like my Uncle, whose funeral we were attending, but late as in walking into the service half way and having everyone turn round and look at you, shaking their heads in disbelief. I mean, who’s late for a funeral, for chris’sakes?

Finally, we came off the M27 and onto the A31. “Nothing can go wrong now”, I said, jokingly.  Three minutes later, stationary in yet more roadworks, I started chewing the steering wheel out of sheer frustration. We had allowed four hours, to do a two and a half hour journey… and it still wasn’t enough!

We arrived just a minute before the service was about to start.  I very quickly said hello to those members of the family who I’d not seen since we were last in that very same crematorium.

Mrs M made a hurried dash for the loo.

The Village Pub

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It was Daughter’s birthday this week, so last night we decided to go out for a meal, to celebrate.

We pondered for some time as to where to go.  “How about The Chequers?”, suggested Mrs M, referring to the pub in the next village. We’d not been there before, but had heard good things, so I gave them a call and booked a table.

We arrived at 7:30pm to find the place was empty, save for three women in one corner who were just finishing their coffee.  By the time we had got ourselves seated and looking at the menu, they had gone.  We had the entire pub/restaurant to ourselves.

Whilst there was a range of foods on the menu, pies seemed to be the speciality.

I started with Root Vegetable Soup, which was quite obviously homemade and was bloody delicious.  I followed that up with a Chicken & Wild Mushroom Pie.

With chips and peas.

And gravy.

That too was homemade and was also bloody delicious.    In fact, the four of us each had different meals but we all enjoyed them immensely… the food was really good.

The barmaid who served us our drinks and meals was most pleasant and very attentive to our needs.

Contemporary music played out of some loudspeakers fixed to the walls, but it was set at a perfect volume: loud enough to enjoy, but not so loud that you had to raise your voice to be heard.

The bill at the end of the evening was also most reasonable, I thought… certainly for the fare and service that we’d enjoyed.

And yet, we were there for just over two hours and, in that time, not a single person came into the pub.

We’ve made a promise to ourselves to go there again sometime soon… hopefully before they close down due to a lack of trade.

Stoned

/ masher / 6 Comments

Back when I was a kid, Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men liked Little Weed.

And today, it seems that just about everybody does.

It’s impossible to go out for a walk with the dog and not catch a whiff of it at some point. Groups of youngsters on park benches are the biggest culprits.  Whenever we walk past, there is always a sickly sweet smell hanging in the air around them… and it’s not Lynx Africa.

A chap walked past me last night on the footpath and as soon as he had gone by, a pungent, sweet, minty aroma hit me full in the face.

To be fair, it’s not as bad as getting a facefull of fag smoke, but nonetheless, it’s not to my liking.

Of course, I say ‘weed’, but I’m not really sure what that even is. Cannabis? Marajuana? Skunk? Ganja (is that the same thing?)? I suppose I could look it up, but I can’t be bothered.

I’ve never been interested in – or dabbled with – drugs, any drugs… apart from that one wild time in my youth, when I tried some Junior Disprin.

I don’t understand why these people want to walk around stoned all the time… what’s the attraction?

And this morning, as I was taking the dog on her daily drag along the meadow, I found a small blue pot laying in the grass (pot… grass… you can see where this is going). I picked it up and had a look inside. That’s it in the photo.

Inside was a small plastic bag containing what was undoubtably weed. Out of interest, I weighed it: quarter of an ounce.  Now, I know from watching the brilliant Ideal on iPlayer, that this stuff is sold in quarters, eighths and sixteenths, but I have no idea what it actually costs.

But I bet that someone out there is kicking themselves for having lost it.

They can come and collect it from me if they like… it’s in my rubbish bin.

Look Out Al Capone, I’m Coming For Yer!

/ masher / 6 Comments

My daughter is currently in the process of buying her first house.

Now, unless they are particularly wealthy or well paid, it’s not easy for most youngsters to get on to the housing ladder, these days, so – as a doting parent – I want to help out, of course.

To that end, I have gifted her a sum of money to pay off her car loan and to put down a deposit.

As I say, the sort of thing that doting parents do, if they can.

I thought that doing such a thing would be simple: just transfer the money over. But no: I now have to prove that I am not money laundering!

Yes, you read that right: I now need to prove that I’m not a money launderer!

The only time I have ever laundered money, was that time I put my jeans in the wash and forgot that there was twenty quid in the pocket.

Anyway, to prove I’m not part of a major crime ring, I was asked by her mortgage provider to supply several month’s worth of bank statements to show that the money was in my account before I gifted it to my daughter.  This, I did and I thought that would be the end of it. But, no.  I have returned from holiday to find that I now need to prove that the statements that I sent off, are indeed mine.

So, I have been referred to a company that specialises in ID checks.  I have to provide them with ‘biometric data’ (a photo of me); scans of my passport, driving licence and utility bills (not so easy, since I went paperless several years ago). I also have to wet sign and scan in several documents stating that the money is my own and that it hasn’t come to me via any criminal means.

Jeez, all I wanted to do was help my little girl out.

Hi Honey, I’m Home

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Well, after yesterday’s excitement, we are back to earth with a bang.

A cold bang.

Relatively.

Our ‘preponed’ flight out of Mauritius was a bit bumpy, but once out of the way of the bad weather, it was OK.   The flight home was an hour longer than the one that took us there. I assumed that was because we were going uphill, but I think it’s because the pilot had to take a slight detour to avoid the worst of the cyclone.

From what we can gather, there was just one more flight to the UK – an hour after we took off – and then they closed the airport. It’s expected to be shut for a few days, so we were lucky to get out when we did.

At Gatwick, we were through Passport Control in under a minute, thanks to those e-gates that they have for British nationals, and our suitcases came off the conveyor pretty quick, so we were out in record time.

Then we came unstuck at the train station: our tickets (pre-booked and paid for, because it’s so much cheaper that way) wouldn’t allow us through the barriers. This is because they – like us –  were a day early. I explained this to the guy manning the barriers.  He nodded, in an obviously uncomprehending way. “Show me your tickets, please”, he said in broken English. He looked at them for a moment and then: “Ahh, these are for tomorrow. You cannot use them until tomorrow.”

Again, I explained why we had had to come home today, rather than tomorrow.  He shook his head. “You must use these tomorrow.”

“Look…”, I was getting exasperated now and explained it all to him again.

He opened the barrier and let us through. I think he had just lost interest.

Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long for the train, but, having been up for nearly 24 hours now,  it was an effort for both of us to stay awake for the 90 minute journey home.

Falling asleep and missing our stop would have been the last straw.

Alarmingly Different

/ masher / 4 Comments

Whenever I have had to get up for an early start, I have always taken care not to wake The Current Mrs Masher™ – she’s not at her best, first thing, and being woken before it’s actually time to get up, adds a whole extra level of misery to her morning.  And if she’s miserable then…

When I was a call-out engineer, I would sometimes get up at  2 or 3 in the morning to attend an outage. I would quietly dress and leave the house, returning a couple of hours later and slipping back into bed.  When Mrs M got up at 7, she would be completely unaware that I had even been anywhere and would often ask if I’d had a good night’s sleep!

And even now, if I have to get up early, I wash and clean my teeth in the dark, so that the light from the bathroom doesn’t wake her and I’ll gather up my clothes and get dressed in the spare bedroom, so that the noise of me dressing doesn’t rouse her from her slumber.

However, it’s very different when the roles are reversed.  Sometimes, Mrs M has to get up early for work.  The alarm clock will go off at 04:30 and will then be snoozed. It will then go off again 8 mins later, when it will be snoozed again.  I’ll kick her out of bed when it goes off for the third time. She then goes in the bathroom and bright white light will flood into the bedroom, forcing me to hide beneath the covers.  Then the bedroom light will go on whilst she rummages vociferously through her wardrobe, coathangers clattering loudly on the rail as she tries to figure out which one of her twenty or so tops goes best with the black trousers she plans on wearing.  Drawers will be noisily opened and closed as various undergarments are selected and then she’ll sit on the side of the bed and start drying her mop with the hairdryer.

After fifteen minutes listening to this racket, I am wide awake, which is when she then comes round to my side of the bed and whispers (yes, WHISPERS!) that she’s off to work now.

Jeez.