They Think It’s All Over…

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Nearly there!

Christmas has been a quiet one for the Masher household this year: revolving mainly around food, drink and flopping in front of the telly for hours on end.

I have eaten my own body weight in sausage rolls, mince pies and Quality Street and our previously well stocked beer fridge now just has small balls of tumbleweed rolling around inside it.

The garage is piled high with polystyrene and cardboard and sacks of wrapping paper, just waiting for me to pluck up the will to take it all to the local Tidy Tip. That’s not gonna happen this week, I can tell you!

But some semblance of normality has resumed, in that the Christmas tree has been taken down and stashed back up in the loft and all the Christmas cards (we seem to get fewer every year) have been taken down and put in the recycle bin.  Now that the tree is gone, furniture has been placed back into its usual place and the living room now looks as it did… should.  Annoyingly, the Blu-Tak that we used to stick up the cards, has marked the wall and our chimney breast now looks like it has the measles. I’ll have to repaint it.

There may – or may not – be more festivities tonight.

But personally, I’ll be most upset if I’m not tucked up in bed by 11:30

Last One

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As mentioned in the previous post, I went to the last of this year’s Xmas parties on Friday.

It was a good do – free bar and free food, etc. I really quite enjoyed it.

Thing is, there weren’t that many people who I knew. The company has such a high turnover of staff that, of the sixty or so people there, I probably only knew about a dozen of them – just the old stalwarts.

But it was great to catch up with those that I did know and haven’t seen since I retired.

There was Football Freddy; Doroffee; The Big Boss and The Other Big Boss; The Legend that is… ; Moany Eric; AC/DC and Steve… amongst others. And let’s not forget Scrubs Up Well Julie, who always looks fantastic at parties, in her low cut, little black dress with the split up the side (Phew!)

The DJ was a bit rubbish, I thought, playing some modern shite that no-one had heard of, apart from half a dozen young girls with impossibly short skirts covering their ridiculously small bottoms, dancing away in one corner of the room by themselves.

Eventually, he put some decent stuff on and I was able to strut my stuff. It was like John Travolta had just stepped onto the dancefloor.

Probably.

But – under strict orders from the current Mrs Masher, not to return home like I did last week – I refrained from drinking too much of the free booze and I left in time to make sure I caught the train so that I would get home at a reasonable hour  (2am wasn’t too bad, methinks).

So, that’s it now: no more festivities until the big day, when we celebrate the birth of Santa.

My liver will appreciate the break, I’m sure.

Xmas Dinner

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Tomorrow (Friday the 13th – what could go wrong?) I am having a Christmas do, down that London.

This is with the people I was working with, only earlier this year.  As per usual, it’s a free bar and free food. It’d be rude not to go.  I hasten to add, that this soirée isn’t being held – or paid for – by the impecunious and somewhat, beleagured water board that I used to work for. No, this is being thrown – as it is every year – by their more affluent contract partner.

If it’s anything like last year (or the year before that, or the year before that) I shall likely get a little sozzled.

And, this isn’t my first Christmas party/lunch/get-together this year. This will be the fourth.

I’ve already had a get together with some old work colleagues, in Reading, this week.

Last Saturday, I attended the Xmas bash of the motorcycle club I belong to: forty of us turned up and pretty much took over the pub where it was being held, which was great fun.

And the day before that, I was with my old BT pals in ‘spoons in town.  Even though the food wasn’t brilliant, fourteen quid for Xmas lunch and a pint? Can’t knock that.
It seems though, that I had rather too much to drink.  One minute I was seated at the table, chatting away with the guys, next thing, I wake up the following morning, naked in bed, next to the wife.   Between those two events, I have nothing but a vague recollection of being bundled into a car.

I’ve not been that far gone in the last forty-five years!

I’m wondering whether someone spiked my six pints of Leffe?

Super Mashero

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There was a strange noise coming from upstairs: a hum that sounded like the shower pump, except that it kept going on and off.

Mrs M and I looked at each other, quizzically. I paused the film we were watching on telly and headed up the stairs. Just as I got to the top, Son walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. “Shower’s broken”, he said nonchalently, as he went into his bedroom and closed the door behind him

I went into the bathroom and pressed the shower button. It whirred into life with a loud hum but was silenced after just a few seconds as the pump shut down due to no water coming out.

I checked the pump – located in the airing cupboard. It looked OK: no signs of leaks or anything, so I rebooted it (I turned the power off and back on again).  It was still the same.  I did a diagnostic check on it, using the app on my phone, but it said that the shower was in full working order.

Then I turned on the taps. Water flowed from the cold, but nothing came out of the hot.  This had me puzzled and I spent ages checking around the hot water cylinder, but again, everything looked OK.

Flummoxed, I turned the taps on again and watched as the cold water flowed out, but then started to slow and quickly stop.

“Aha!”

I got the stepladder out, climbed into the loft and looked in the water tank.

It was empty, save for a puddle of lime scaled water at the bottom.  The red ball float hung forlornly in the air, when it should have been floating atop two cubic metres of water.  I wiggled it it up and down, but nothing happened. I checked the header tank and that was fine, so the ball valve in the main water tank was obviously knackered.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. I’ve probably replaced that float valve three times in the past five years.

“Can you fix it?”, Mrs M shouted up, a slight note of panic in her voice. “I’ve got that big meeting in the office tomorrow, so I’ll need to shower and wash my hair.”

“I’ll see what I can do”, I said reassuringly.

I looked at the ball valve carefully.  The plunger felt stiff and pretty much immovable. I was unable to get at the innards as the cap was sealed tight with limescale and wouldn’t budge, even using my biggest pipe wrench.

It was 9pm on a Sunday night, what was I going to do?   And why do these things always go wrong at the most awkward times?

And then I had a moment of inspiration (or was it desperation?)

I hit it.  I got my biggest spanner and I hit the valve. Hard.

Water started to dribble from the outlet. I hit it again and the water flowed out quicker and before long, the tank was full again.

I went to the Plumbing Merchants this morning and bought a new valve.

I should have bought a spare.

 

Art Sale

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Dear Art World.

I have sellotaped five blueberries to a piece of card.

I call this piece “Man’s Existential Struggle With The Human Condition”.

I am asking for just £4.5m   (£5.5m if you’d like it in a frame).

Thank you.

Nuts

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Last night, I attended a webinar – a seminar carried out online.

Our local doctor’s surgery often do these and I regularly receive texts inviting me to attend. The topics vary, but mainly tend to be around mental health and wellbeing.  As I have no issues in that area, I usually just discard the text.

But, my phone beeped with an invite the other day, inviting me to attend a discussion on Prostate Awareness.

Now, I’ve got one of those and whilst it isn’t giving me any problems – that I’ve noticed – I am of an age where these pesky, walnut-sized glands can start to cause some grief.  So, I thought maybe I should give this one a go.

The event was quite well attended, with about 25 to 30 men on there, all of a similar age to myself, by the looks of it (I actually turned my camera off, as this event lasted over an hour and fell right in the middle of dinnertime – I reasoned that nobody wanted to watch me chow down on a Southern Fried Chicken Burger and Chips, whilst they were talking about this particular part of their reproductive system).

But the event itself was actually pretty good. I came away at the end of it with a better understanding of what this paticular part of the male anatomy does and the issues it can cause.

The big takeaway for me was that some research suggests that there may be a potential prostate health benefit, by eating Brazil Nuts.  OK, all a bit wishy-washy, but with Christmas just around the corner, I think that’s as good an excuse to stock up on chocolate covered Brazils as any.

But, shall I tell you my main bugbear about this particular little gland – aside from the fact that it can cause all sorts of problems… including death?

It’s when people pronounce it wrong and call it the prostrate gland.

I don’t know why, but that annoys me so much.

And I’m not going to take it lying down.

Gladd All Over

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Last year, we had Barbenheimer – watching a low-brow, humourous film in the same week as a high-brow, serious film – in that case, Barbie and Oppenheimer.

This weekend, me and the missus did Gladdington.

I’m sure you can work out the two films involved.

We enjoyed them both, though I felt Ridley Scott’s epic stretched incredulity somewhat.

Whereas, a talking bear…

Anyway, yesterday, myself, Son and a couple of mates headed up to the NEC in Birmingham for our annual trip to the Motorcycle Live Show.

It was all rather fab, with so much to see and do… and eat.

A small highlight was the Isle of Man simulator, which gave us a taste of what it’s like to blat around the TT course on two wheels at stupid speeds. Now that’s out of my system, I have no need to actually go and do it (because that was really going to happen, wasn’t it?).

I also came away with a couple of carrier bags’ worth of merchandising, that I probably shouldn’t have been spending my hard-earned (cough) dosh on.

But that’s the thing with these shows: you just don’t know that you need a pair of overpriced, corrective boot insoles, until you see them.

Cinema

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The current Mrs Masher and I went to the pictures at the weekend, to see Heretic, starring Hugh Grant.

I’m not a fan of the horror genre and this film sort of fell into that category, but… it was alright. I quite enjoyed it, actually.

But this post isn’t about the film itself. Rather, I wanted to comment on the lack of people in the cinema with us.  It was a Friday night and the place was half empty.

Or half full.

It was the same last weekend, when Son and I went to see Venom – Marvel’s latest cinematic blockbuster – and so we saw it in the IMAX.

This particular screen, I reckon, was probably only about a quarter full.

Or, three-quarters empty.

Whichever way you want to look at it.

I know that cinema has never fully recovered from the Covid lockdown, but the numbers of people willing to go to the trouble of travelling to a picturehouse nowadays is dwindling and if it continues in this direction, then the industry will become unsustainable.  Following the great plague, so many cinemas closed down that many people now have to travel out of town in order to see the latest popcorn-frenzy inducing blockbuster, and plenty just can’t be bothered: “I’ll wait till it comes out on Netflix” is becoming the norm now, I think.

My family have always enjoyed going to the ‘flicks’ and, for us, a trip to see the latest visual feast is quite commonplace.  But, I can honestly say that I can’t think of anyone else within our extended family – or within our circle of friends – who still visit the cinema on a regular – or even semi-regular – basis.

Part of this is down to the hassle of – as I say – having to travel out of town, but I think a more likely reason is cost… it’s just so bloody expensive now.

As an example, in the cinema we go to (out of town) an adult ticket for a standard screening is now £14 … yes, fourteen quid!  Going into the IMAX will set you back a whopping twenty-one pounds.  And children’s tickets are only 50p cheaper, so,  going as a family can work out stupidly expensive.

Now, I’m no economist (far from it)  and I understand how with less attendance, they have been forced to put the prices up, but, surely,  wouldn’t it be better to reduce ticket prices and attract more people into the cinema, than to continually put prices up and drive people away?

A full cinema with tickets sold at £9 has got to be more profitable than a half-full one with tickets at £14.

Hasn’t it?

Skynet

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This week, I found myself in need of a new motorcycle helmet and so yesterday, I took a drive over to the nearest decent motorcycle shop, which is in Milton Keynes.

As I drove along the A421 in the rain – because it is seemingly going to rain for the rest of our lives – I spotted a little robot making its way along the pavement.  Like a large coolbox on wheels, it trundled along at a fair old pace, taking its package (or packages or whatever) from point A to point B.  “That could never happen in Luton”, I mused, “They’d nick it… or push it over and set fire to it”.

It was doing a mundane task (as robots are meant to do), but nonetheless, I couldn’t help thinking that someone, somewhere would be more than happy to do that delivery job.

Similarly, when the current Mrs M and I went to Prague, earlier in the year, we had an early flight from Heathrow and when we arrived at the airport it was almost deserted, save for a dozen or so passengers who were on the same flight as us.  As we stood, in an untidy line waiting for the Check-In desk to open, a robotic floor cleaner rounded the corner and headed in our direction.  Detecting something in the way, it stopped a few feet away from us. Several of us stepped aside and after a few seconds it continued on its journey.

It didn’t get far though, as a woman a little further along, hadn’t seen it, because she had her eyes glued to her phone screen.  The cleaner stopped a few feet away from her and waited.  After a minute, it started up again and turned its wheels to the left… its internal algorithm deciding that it could go around the obstacle in front of it.  At this point, the woman looked up and saw that she was in the way. She picked up her suitcase and stepped aside…. back into the path of the robot cleaner, which took evasive action and turned again.  Realising what she had done, the woman once again moved out of the way… straight back into its path.

At this point, the cleaner gave up and shut itself down and there it stayed, motionless in the middle of the gangway, until a human operative eventually came along and took it away.

I think we are still a long way from the rise of the machines.

And, as amusing as it had been, watching this lady dance with a robotic floor cleaner, again I couldn’t help but think that someone, somewhere would be appreciative of such a job… even if they didn’t get to tango with the passengers.

At our hotel in Prague, the restaurant had a robotic trolley, which would navigate its way around the tables at breakfast time, stopping for people to place empty plates etc onto it, which it would then take into the kitchen, emerging several minutes later, emptied and ready to collect some more. It was fun to watch this little motorised cart going about its business, but again, it was effectively taking someone’s job.

Robots have long been touted as being the future, of being able to free us all from the drudgery of having to do mundane jobs, but for some people, the chance to do a job – any job, no matter how mundane – is all that they want.

I’m all for technological advancement, but I do wonder if it should be at the cost of those who are already struggling to find any kind of gainful employment.

Sunday, Sunday, So Good To Me

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As Sunday’s go, yesterday’s was a pretty good one.

The weather was perfect – if maybe on the slightly chilly side, early on – as I rode up to Bletchley Park to meet up with a couple of mates for our annual Nerds Day Out. It was a lovely morning and the ride was most enjoyable – tempered only by some irritating roadworks that I should have known to avoid, as they’ve been there for ages.

Despite having visited many times, one of our little group had never been, so we had a good excuse for us to go again.  Not that I need an excuse: I must have been a dozen times already, but I still always learn something new whenever I go.

We looked around many of the huts and also made the obligatory (for us) trip to the National Radio Museum, before grabbing some lunch in Hut 4 and then going to see the Bombe.

After several hours, we’d seen enough, bade our farewells and we each went our seperate ways.

Back home, I had time for a quick cup of tea before I took the dog out and then Mrs M and I jumped in the car and headed to Milton Keynes.

We had just enough time time to shove a Nando’s down our necks before quickly heading to the theatre to see Ben Elton in his Authentic Stupidity tour.

He was this: fucking excellent.

I won’t write a review here, because many others can do it so much better, so I’ll just say: he didn’t disappoint.

That phrase could similarly sum up my Sunday as a whole.

In the words of every failed contestant on Bullseye, “I’ve had a lovely day”.

Biking Breakfast #2

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“We must meet up again for breakfast, some time.”

We’ve been saying that for the past couple of years, the illustrious Mr Jones and I, but finally the stars aligned and yesterday we met up at the Two Flags Café on the A47 at Oakham – a popular haunt for leather-clad loonies it would seem, judging by the number of bikes that turned up whilst we were there.

Of course, we also both trundled up on our two-wheeled steeds: me on my rather sedate Triumph and he on his Kawasaki nut job Ninja… with the mirrors folded in for extra speed.

The All Day Breakfast was a little pricey, I felt, but when it arrived… good lord! There was enough for two! Proper full monty. Kept me going right till lunchtime, that did.

We chatted for a good couple of hours and then bade our farewells.

Having taken the quicker (duller) route up the A1 to get there, I decided to take the more scenic roads for the ride home.

The sun was shining, the roads were delightfully empty, I had a full belly and the Rolling Stones were playing in my helmet.

As motorcycling goes, it really doesn’t get much better than that.