idiocy

Another Smelling Pistake

/ masher / 2 Comments

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?

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.

It Was A Riot

/ masher / 4 Comments

I didn’t mind doing football duty, as there was usually some excitement to help the afternoon pass by. We would often have to escort visiting fans from the train station, walking the mile or so to the ground and then back again after the match had ended. Of course, the bulk of these fans were well behaved: fathers and sons, husbands and wives, all proper football enthusiasts. But some of them were just idiots, who had come along for the chance to cause some bother.

Back in the eighties, Millwall’s fans had a reputation for just that and we were all pretty nervous about them coming to the town for an FA Cup match. We expected them to be trouble.

They didn’t let us down.

Patrolling the streets before the game, in groups of three or four, I remember my colleague suddenly falling to the floor right next to me. He ‘d been hit on the head by half a brick that had been lobbed from a group of Millwall fans standing outside a pub, drinking beer. There were four of us (now down to three) and about twenty of them, all jeering at us, so there was little we could do except drag our unconscious colleague round the corner and out of the way whilst we waited for backup.   By the time it arrived, they had all disappeared.

My job was to patrol the streets during the game (along with many others – I wasn’t on my own!) to provide a level of law enforcement outside whilst the majority of the force were inside the stadium. But trouble started inside and the police were losing the battle, so we were redirected into the ground to help.

I arrived just as the second half was starting and was told to stand on the edge of the pitch with my back to the Millwall crowd along with a couple of dozen other coppers.  I’ll readily admit that I was pretty scared. We stood there – a very thin blue line – as the crowd threw abuse at us. Then they started throwing missiles: small stones, pens, sweets, anything they had to hand. The recently introduced pound coin had enough heft for it to make a perfect missile and several of these bounced off the back of my head. Of course, as policemen, we couldn’t pick them up, but I remember seeing one of the stewards doing just that, the pockets of his yellow hi-vis coat bulging with thrown money.

At the end of the match, things worsened as the fans rioted, breaking down the barriers and invading the pitch. Seats were ripped from the stands and hurled at us.

We ran away.

As the battle ensued inside the ground, a small group of us were redirected outside, to ensure the safety of the real fans as they tried to make their way home. Pockets of trouble kept appearing all over the town centre and we were run ragged as we legged it from one side to the other. Usually, by the time we got there, the troublemakers had scarpered, leaving behind a trail of broken windows and whatnot.

It was a long night. When I got back to the station I took off my coat only to see the back of it plastered with dried spittle and slimy phlegm, and I questioned myself as to whether I really wanted to be doing this job anymore.

The King Of Comedy

/ masher / 10 Comments

I’ve always been a fan of comedy.

Sounds a stupid thing to say doesn’t it? I mean, who isn’t? Everyone likes a laugh, don’t they?

But, there’s comedy and there’s ‘comedy’.

There’s After Life and there’s Mrs Brown’s Boys.

There’s Detectorists and there’s Two Pints Of Lager…

Very different shows, catering for what I suspect are very different audiences.

I’ve not yet met anyone who likes both the former and the latter.  For me – and in the two examples above – it’s the former. Every time.

But, I’ve always had a penchant for the absurd and the wacky.

I grew up with Python and The Goodies, Not The Nine O’clock News and The Young Ones, all of them anarchic and unconventional.

And I can trace this love of silly humour all the way back to 1977, when I read Spike Milligan’s war memoir “Rommel? Gunner Who?”

I don’t know how or why that book came to be in my possession; whether I just happened across it or whether it was recommended to me, I just don’t know. But I do remember reading it in the back of my dad’s Cortina on our way down to Minehead during the holidays, and I was just crying with laughter.

In later years I discovered Spike’s radio triumph The Goon Show and spent a fortune acquiring as many shows as I could on cassette tape from HMV.

I joined the Goon Show fan club and would motorcycle into London, for meet ups with them, once a month. A friendly and enthusiastic bunch who were sometimes a little too, er… enthusiastic. Occasionally, Spike himself or Michael Bentine would venture down and buy the drinks and a brilliant night of storytelling would ensue.

Through the club, I made a penpal. Of course, these were pre-internet days and so yes, an actual pen was used and we would write ridiculous letters back and forth to each other. She even put me up (or put up with me) for a month in her home in California.

Which was nice.

As a quite active member of the club, I sort of became part of the inner circle and was very excited once, when Spike invited a small group of us to his house for dinner. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go that day, as I had a family function to attend.

“Oh well, maybe next time.”

There wasn’t a next time.

Many comedy historians cite Milligan as the man who changed the face of British television and radio comedy, and I think that’s true. His influence can certainly be seen in some of the comedy  programmes that I mentioned earlier.

But, for me, he’s just the man who brought hours of laughter and joy into my life, both directly and indirectly, and for that, I thank him dearly.

He died 21 years ago, today.

It’s In The Stars

/ masher / 5 Comments

Isn’t astrology wonderful? The ability to look through space (and time) and see not only new worlds but also to see the creation and evolution of stars and galaxies.

No, hold on… that’s astronomy, that is… a proper science.

Astrology is, well… a load of crystal balls.

With it’s roots firmly planted in the distant past, when the supernatural was considered a science, it purports to predict a person’s future through the alignment of celestial bodies such as the sun, the moon and the planets, along with various star systems.  Pure hokum.

And yet, as per my earlier post, people believe in this. Hundreds of thousands of them, all over the world.

Mad.

There are many charlatans astrologers out there, earning a decent living through making this stuff up, so I thought it might be fun to take a look at what they are predicting for me.  And, I figured that if there is any veracity in this at all, then if I were to check predictions from several different charlatans astrologers, then surely there must be some crossover: surely some of their predictions will match up somewhere.

So, here is my horoscope, from several of the higher profile charlatans astrologers for today:

Mystic Meg – The Sun
Finding and keeping work that feels like fun comes closer once you switch off your self-doubt.
And talking honestly about your skills can be the key to helping this happen.
Being bolder in love comes more easily the more you practise – and yes, a neighbour to the left of you is longing for you to try.

OK, I do have a neighbour to the left of me, so you got that bit right. I wonder what it is that she is keen for me to try.

Russel Grant – Daily Express
It is not a day to take everything that everyone says too seriously. If a business rival manages to damage your confidence by getting to you through their insensitive comments, you have let them win. Don’t make any rash decisions based on another person’s thoughtless remarks.

I never take things seriously and I don’t think I have any business rivals.

Elle Magazine
Your candid perspective could land you in hot water today, as the moon fires up your forthright ninth house. Try to tone down the bluntness if possible—a little diplomacy will go a long way. This is especially important if you’re delivering feedback to a sensitive person. Is it really worth starting World War III over this inconsequential detail? The same thing holds true for any social media rants you’re tempted to post. Ask yourself—do you really feel like spending your day battling trolls?

Damn! I hate it when the moon does that to my ninth house!  WW3? Is Putin a Taurean, I wonder?  And I don’t do social media, so fighting trolls is out of the question.

Michele Knight – The UK’s Favourite Astrologer (apparently)
A month to the day after Mars not only left your financial sector but ended all planetary activity on this side of the financial fence until later in the year, the Moon is here with a chance to check in. As well as fuelling your financial instincts and imagination, as you become more emotionally and intuitively engaged this will help you to reconnect with the financial passions and fighting spirit the warrior planet of the cosmos left you with. Mars may have moved on but he has left you with the means to take your financial power back.

Ahh, so that’s why I was skint last month: Mars made me spend all that money. Or was it the moon? No, it can’t have been the moon, as that was busy buggering up my ninth house.

So, there you have it.  Nothing matches up and everything said could apply to anyone at anytime. Spout enough drivel to enough people and at some point you’ll get it right.

But, fortunately for me, us Taureans don’t believe in such nonsense.

Idiot

/ masher / 8 Comments

It took me ages to get up to Sainsbury’s this morning, to do my weekly shop, as the current shortage of lorry drivers that is causing many petrol stations to run out of fuel, meant that the supermarket petrol station was the only one in the area that had any for sale. Consequently, there were huge queues there, up to ten o’clock last night and the same again at seven-thirty this morning. Queues that ran down the road in both directions.  I didn’t want any fuel – I have a quarter of a tank, which will probably last me a few weeks – but I did need to get food, so I had no choice but to sit in the queue.

On a positive note, I think many people had looked at the queue and just decided not to bother, so when I did get in there, the car park – and of course, the store itself – was more than half empty.

I picked a trolley from outside and rattled across the car park into the store. Annoyingly, now that I was on a smooth floor, I realised that the trolley had a dodgy wheel that went Rattle Rattle Clunk, Rattle Rattle Clunk… I couldn’t be arsed to go back out and swap it for another, so decided to put up with it.

After less than two minutes, I decided that I couldn’t put up with it.

As I headed back to the entrance though, I espyed a trolley just sitting alone in an aisle: no-one with it. It was full of plastic hangers and bits of cardboard and was obviously being used by a member of staff who was tidying the aisle.  As there was no-one there though, I hatched a plan to swap them over.

Now, both trolleys had one of them locks that you put a coin into to release it.  I never had a coin in mine, but rather a handy token that I carry on my keyring. I didn’t want to lose the token, so I pushed the two trolleys at right angles each other so the bit of chain on one would reach the lock on the other and release the coin or token. I plugged my chain into the lock of the spare trolley (it just about reached). To my horror, when the coin tray popped out, there was nothing in it.  And I had no change in my pockets.  I now had two trolleys locked together and no way of separating them!

And then the Sainsbury’s lady came over and grabbed her trolley, taking mine with it. “Oh dear”, she laughed, “What’s happened here. Oh dear, oh dear.”

I pleaded stupidity.

“Oh. What can we do? We need a coin. We’re not allowed to carry any money. Do you have any? “I shook my head.  She asked a passing customer if they had a pound coin we could borrow and the customer immediately started going through her purse and offered up a shiny coin.  I explained that the customer wouldn’t get her pound back as it would be stuck in the trolley lock, at which point she declined her offer.

“Oh dear, oh dear” said the member of staff. She was a little bit ditzy, and was now getting concerned. I told her not to worry and to wait whilst I went and got some change.

Eventually, I  managed to release the trolleys from each other, but it cost me a quid.

I decided to just put up with the rattle rattle clunk.

Smokey and the bandits

/ masher / 7 Comments

I’ve mentioned several times before, the woods where I often walk the dog.

It’s that time of year where it starts looking good: the trees are starting to get some foliage and the bluebells have just started to shoot up and blossom.  In full bloom, it’s a beautiful sight and makes for a lovely walk.

But yesterday, as the mutt and I made our way round, I heard the cracking of branches.  Peering through the trees, I could see four herberts – all aged about sixteen – breaking  them from the trees. Then as I got closer, I could see that they were throwing them onto a fire that they had made around a tree.

I pushed my way through the undergrowth until I was about four or five meters away and from there  I could see that the tree was well ablaze – surprisingly so, considering the recent rain and snow we’d had.

“Oi! What do you think you are doing?” I shouted at them.  They all had hoods up, making it difficult to see their faces, especially through the smoke that was coming from the tree.

They all looked away from me, so as to hide their faces.  “We’re just having a little fire to keep ourselves warm” said the short one.

“No you’re not!” I exclaimed, “You’re setting fire to that tree, you bloody idiots”.

“We’ll put it out later”, said the short, gobby one. There’s always a gobby one. “We’ve got some bottles of water.”

“A couple of bottles of water are not going to put THAT out!”.   I needed to get rid of them, so I got my phone out. “Right, you just wait there”, I said.

“Fuck off!”  A stick flew past my head and landed in the bush behind me, as they decided to flee before I called the police.

With them out of the way, I started to tackle the blazing tree: the way this fire was raging, there was no doubt in mind that, if left, it would consume the whole tree and possibly several of those around it.

Using a long stick at arms-length, I pulled and pushed apart the tee-pee of sticks they had rather expertly placed around the tree, helping to concentrate the flames at the base.

I beat and stamped the fire out until there was just ash and embers left. A couple of small fires kept self-igniting and I wondered how to stop them.  Having the bladder of a small child, I’ll often stop for a pee as I walk round the woods, but this time, when I really needed it, I just didn’t want to go – not that it would have been enough.

And then I spotted a plastic  2 litre water bottle laying in the grass nearby.  It must have been laying there for sometime, as the water inside had gone green.  No matter: I quickly undid the lid and threw some into the smouldering embers.

WHOOSH!

I jumped back, as flames shot up into the air.

Petrol!  Of course, that’s how they’d managed to get the fire to take so well.  Little gits!

I spent a few more minutes putting out the fire I had just restarted and then headed home, taking the rest of the petrol with me – I wasn’t going to leave it so that they could come back later and try again.

All my clothes – including my coat – have had to go in the wash, as they stink of smoke.

Now, when I was a lad, me and my mates used to get up to mischief… of course we did, but we never did anything like that.

I might be starting to sound like an old man, but what is it with kids today?

Sainsburys shopping

/ masher / 6 Comments

I did my usual, weekly, grocery shop at the supermarket this morning.

Although it’s starting to get busier there, we haven’t yet gone back to pre-Covid numbers.

I think a lot of people started having home deliveries or Click & Collect during the first lockdown and probably enjoyed the extra convenience it gave them and so they have stuck with it.

Which is great, because it keeps down the number of customers actually in the store.

But, as I say, numbers are on the increase and the store is getting busier.

And people are starting to get lax: 2 metre distancing has long gone, as has waiting for someone to move out of the way. Now, people just lean across each other, grabbing whatever they require.

I was getting some eggs, this morning. And – of course – before putting the eggs in the trolley, I opened the box and checked that there were no broken ones.  It probably took me ten seconds to do so.

Satisfied they were all intact, I turned round and stepped away from the eggs,  walking straight into an old woman as I did so.

She must have been stood no more than six inches away from me! I’d have probably felt her breathing down the back of my neck, if it wasn’t for the fact that she was only about 4-foot tall.

Of course, I apologised for bumping into her.

Yes, I apologised, even though she was the one breaking the distancing rules, being too impatient to wait till I had moved out of the way.

At least she was wearing a mask. Not everyone does.

I think some people feel that if they have a mask on, they are protected and distancing isn’t required.

Idiots.

To educate or not to educate, that is the question

/ masher / 10 Comments

This Covid lockdown business is having a detrimental effect on our children’s education, as I’m sure everyone is aware.

My son is in his final year at high school – the year in which he was supposed to be taking his GCSEs, but who knows what’s going to happen there?  One thing for sure, is that he has missed a lot of proper schooling. Even when they went back to school – between the lockdowns – he was only there for a short period, as someone in his year (a teacher) tested positive and the whole year had to be sent home to self-isolate.  This happened twice in the same month!

The school – like others – started doing online lessons, but it was all very haphazard at first.  I think they have improved now though and seem to have a more rigid online curriculum in place. Even so, Son tells me that they have a lot of supply teachers and that they are mainly doing just revision.  Possibly, at the end of the year they will be assessed on what they have learnt so far.

Maths has always been a strong point for him, but when we got him to take a mock GCSE exam before Christmas, he failed.  We were told that on the stuff that he knew, he was actually very good, but that there were large gaps in his learning… obviously.  As such, we are now paying for him to see a private maths tutor once a week. Whether this will help in any exam he may or may not have at the end of the school year, I don’t know, but it can’t do any harm and – like any parent – I want to give him the best start for when he leaves school. I just wish I could afford to also get private tutors for English, Geography, Engineering and Science.

Definitely science.

Following his maths tutelage, I was discussing his other lessons with him last night and he told me how, for his science homework, he has to write up why a thick electrical  wire has greater resistance than a thin wire.

Of course, I told him that he had it the wrong way round, but he showed me in his book where he had written down verbatim what the teacher was saying in the lesson.
She had said “A thick wire has a greater resistance than a thin wire, because there are more particles to get in the way of the electric current”.

More particles to get in the way!! ??   WTF!

It beggars belief!

I have written to the school headmistress, asking her to have a word with said science teacher, but it does worry me, if that is the calibre of some of these supply teachers.

Annoyed

/ masher / 11 Comments

Sorry I haven’t posted anything in a while, but I’ve been busy.  People to see, places to go. You know how it is.

But I’m starting to get annoyed with people.

People wearing masks in their cars.

On their own.

In their car.

Wearing a mask.

Idiots.

And, I’m also getting annoyed that masks and rubber gloves are fast becoming the new urban detritus.  Our local Sainsbury’s car park is littered with them.

But, not just there, I’m also seeing them laying on grass verges; tossed onto roundabouts and carelessly dropped in the woods.

Yes, the woods: the beautiful woods where I walk Saber each evening.

I find it most annoying to stroll along the footpaths, lost in the beauty of the low sun filtering through the trees, dappling it’s light on the host of lilac bluebells that fill the woods at this time of year (yeah, Wordsworth: ‘host’ doesn’t just have to apply to daffodils, y’know!), only to stumble across an abandoned latex glove, laying there like five discarded condoms.  It kind of ruins the mood.

But, it’s not the only thing in the woods that is annoying me.

Where once there was a still silence, broken only by the wind in the trees and the sound of twigs snapping underfoot, there is now a constant cacophony of noisy kids.  It used to be that we would hardly see a soul as we did our circular walk, occasionally happening across a fellow dog-walker or two. But now, since Boris has decreed that we can only go out once a day to exercise, the woods have suddenly become infested with whole families using it for their daily  perambulations; marching their way through and widening the footpaths; breaking off branches and trampling through the bluebells.

With ne’er a dog between them!

Get the fuck out of my woods, you noisy bastards and take your rubbish with you!