War

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Both of my grandfathers fought in the war: my paternal grandfather, Charles, fought in WWI, whilst my maternal grandfather, Albert,  fought in WWII.

Charles was always a proud old soldier and – long after the war – was often to be found in the Royal Legion drill hall, getting pissed with his mates and reminiscing about the old days. Every few years he would travel to France by coach with a load of his old comrades, and proudly all wearing their medals, they would make their way to Belgium and tour Ypres, one of the main places where he fought during the war.  History shows that the battle there was terrible, with huge loss of life and many casualties, but nonetheless, he was always happy to talk about his time during the conflict. Sadly, he died before I was old enough to appreciate what he had done and I personally never really got to talk to him about it.

Albert, however, was never one for discussing what happened to him. We knew he was captured and put in a Prisoner Of War camp, but that was about it.  But, after doing some research on my family tree, I have managed to find some war records that shed some light on what he endured.  In Feb 42, he was stationed in the Middle East with the Fusiliers. He was captured in Tubruk sometime between Feb 42 and May 42 and was taken to Stalag VIIIB (later renumbered to Stalag 344) in Lamsdorf, Poland. He and his compatriots were then made to walk a thousand miles (it took them about a month, I believe) – travelling through Prague – to a Quarantine & Clearing camp in Italy:  Campo 66, near Capua. From there, they were taken to Genoa and he saw out the rest of the war in Camp PG52,  Hut 9.

It’s hard for me to really appreciate the hardships that both my grandfathers went through – in their different ways – during the two conflicts, but it certainly affected them both differently afterwards.

Friendship

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Most friendships are fleeting, I would say. They come and go as people’s lives change and move on, and few of us have long-lasting ones.

My oldest and best friend is my mate Paul.

We started work together way back when I was only sixteen, straight out of school.

Unfortunately, we don’t see as much of each other as we once did, as he got married and moved away. A long way. Too far to visit on a regular (or even semi-regular) basis.

But, we keep in touch and Mrs Masher and I visited them last year, spending a very pleasnt weekend with them oop north.

Forty-six years we have known each other.

I’m sort of proud of that fact, because it takes a bit of effort. Distance easily takes a toll on friendships and despite telephones, email and the advent of social media, it’s very easy to lose touch with people.

Unless you make the effort.

Case in point: I popped in to see my dad the other day. He was just saying farewell to some visitors… friends who had stayed overnight.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Trevor and Val”,  dad answered.

“Oh, what… Trevor, your old  cycling buddy?” Dad nodded. He’d mentioned his mate Trevor several times over the years. “Crikey”, I added, “how long have you two been friends now?”

Dad thought for a moment and then said “Since we were six”.

My dad is eighty-seven.

Now, THAT’S making an effort.

Star Studded Leg

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I was looking for an old photo yesterday, when I came across this one.

Many years ago, a friend of mine appeared on the TV show Blankety Blank – at that stage hosted by Les Dawson.

Tiny (ironically nicknamed because he was so big)  was allowed to take two guests with him, so he took his girlfriend and – as I had helped make his application successful – he invited me along as well.

When the time came, I had my leg in plaster, following an incident with my dog, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

We turned up at BBC Television Centre and were ushered in the direction of the studio.  Coming down the stairs at that point was Matthew Kelly, who was a big star at the time due to the television show Game For A Laugh.  As soon as he saw me, he made a beeline and came straight over and shook my hand: we had something in common, as he had recently had his leg in plaster following a parachute landing that didn’t go to plan.

After the show – which my mate won, incidentally – we were invited back to the Green Room for drinks and nibbles with the cast.  My poor memory prevents me from remembering everyone that was on the show, but I do remember Matthew Kelly, Cleo Rocos, Charlie Williams (a popular comedian at the time) and, of course, Les Dawson.

I felt like a bit of a celebrity myself, as they all queued up to sign my plaster cast.

Last to sign was Cleo Rocos, who had shot to fame as Kenny Everett’s sidekick.  She walked over, put an extra layer of bright red lipstick on and then got on her knees and planted a big smacker on my thigh, before signing it.

A few weeks later, at the hospital, I was having the cast removed. As she was doing it, the nurse was reading some of the signatures  on there. “Are these all real?” she asked.

“Oh yeah”, I said nonchalantly, as if those were the social circles I mixed in.

I kept the cast for a while, but it eventually crumbled and I threw it away.

About twenty years later, I heard Cleo being interviewed on the Danny Baker Breakfast Show, as I drove to work.  I pulled over to the side of the road and sent in a text asking whether she remembered kissing my leg.

I felt immensely gratified a few minutes later, when Danny asked her the question live on air and she said that she did remember.

Because it’s something I’ve never forgotten, either.

Speccy Four Eyes

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My eyesight started to fail me in my early forties.

Up until then, it had always been spot on.

So what was the catalyst for my eyesight to suddenly start deteriorating?  Well, it could have just been age, of course.

But, I firmly believe it was down to a change of job role: whereas I had been out and about doing stuff, I was now sitting in front of a computer screen for eight hours a day.

And that can’t be good.

That said, I’m still doing it now… and my eyes continue to deteriorate.

But, needs must.

I was in a meeting at work yesterday and I noticed that of the ten of us seated around the table, eight of us were wearing glasses.

I wonder if – as a nation – our eyesight is getting worse, as more and more people are spending more and more time staring at screens.

Alarming Progress

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A couple of years ago, I decided I should get an alarm for the garage.  It’s always had one, but it’s not particularly good and now that I have en expensive motorcycle and a not-so-expensive motorcycle and several hundred pounds worth of power tools, I thought maybe it was time to upgrade.

However, I wanted the alarm to have several additional features that are just not available on commercial alarm systems, and so I decided to build my own.

As I say, it’s been a couple of years now since I started this project and it is still sitting on the bench. That’s it in the photo.

Unfortunately, it’s been one of those projects that has gone on and off my back burner quite a lot, and the main reason for that has been the programming side of things – I’m rubbish at it.

It’s also one of those projects that has suffered extensive scope creep… everytime I think I’ve reached a point where I’m happy with it, I find myself thinking “Hmmm… it would be good if it did so and so, as well”, and it then spends another few weeks on the bench while I fail miserably to get the amended programming to work and then lose interest in it.

The most recent example of this is where I decided that the alarm sounder side of things should be changed.  The siren is incredibly loud and the flashing lights are very bright and (trying to imagine every scenario), I thought the neighbours probably wouldn’t appreciate that going on for twenty minutes in the middle of the night, if we were away.  I came up with a solution, but again, my programming skills let me down and so the project headed for it’s home on the back burner. Again.

A chap I was talking to on the radio turned out to be very good at this sort of thing and offered to help, and so one evening last week, over Google Meet, I shared my code with him.  It took him about ten minutes to figure it out – I was doing the right thing, but I was putting the code in the wrong place… damn nested If Then loops!

And so, it is now definitely finished (probably).  I just need tofinish building it, stick it in a box and fit it in the garage.

And then my garage will be protected by an alarm that:

  • Has multiple and adjustable length keypad entry codes
  • Different entry times depending on which entrance is used to access the garage
  • Single button-press alarm setting
  • Auto alarm arming (should you forget to set it when leaving the garage it will arm itself, providing a set of criteria have been met)
  • An incredibly loud siren that sounds in conjuction with some flashing floodlights inside the garage, but which turns off after a set period of time, leaving the floodlights flashing until the whole system resets itself after another set period.
  • A set of floodlights that flash as per above, but can also be switched on and off manually by the keypad when the system is unarmed, to provide a good working light when tinkering with motorbikes, etc.
  • Control of the normal garage lights – ie, the lights come on when the door is opened and go off again when the door is closed and the system is armed (either manually or automatically)
  • Battery backup if the mains supply fails.

So now I need to crack on and get it built (in truth, a lot of it is already done).

But it’s carrently on that back burner again, whilst I think of shit to write in this here blog.

Keeping Up Appearances

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There is a route I sometimes take when walking the dog, and the footpath passes in front of three small houses, in a terrace, that are set aside from the rest of the street and look out over the playing field.

A much better vista than the rest of the street, I’d argue.

Probably quite annoying for the postman though, as he can do the whole street as normal, but then has to go the long way round just to get to these three houses.

Anyway, the house on the left is neat and tidy, with a gravel path and a small lawn that is always kept short.

The house on the right is immaculate. It always seems to be freshly painted and the doors and windows are always gleaming. The neat front lawn has a small cherry tree in the middle which is pruned regularly. The front hedge is cut with a laser, I’m sure, as it is not only neat and tidy, but the edges are cut at perfect right-angles and there is not a leaf or a twig out of place..

The house in the middle, however, is a bit of a state. The doors and windows look like they have never been cleaned and are black in places and the wooden window frames are rotten and really need replacing. Weeds grow and hang from the gutters and the pebble-dash facia is stained and cracked. The front garden grass has never been cut – well, not in the several years that I’ve been walking past it –  and in Summer, it reaches knee height and looks a mess where the foxes have run around in it. The small white picket fence at the front is broken and leans out into the path at a jaunty angle, threatening to snag the knees of passers-by.

It’s a mess.

I’ve always assumed that the property must be owned by an elderly person, who struggles with the physical and financial aspects of property maintenance.

But, yesterday I bumped into the lady who lives in the house on the right, as she was walking her dog on the playing field. We’ve spoken many times before, but this time I brought up the subject of the middle house and the way it stuck out like a dirty, sore thumb.

She rolled her eyes and and went on to moan about how it lowered the tone, etc.

“Is it an old person who lives there?” I asked.

“Good Lord, no!” she said. “He’s in his forties, I think.  He’s a solicitor and is doing quite well for himself, I’d say… judging by that flash Porsche he has parked out the back and all the fancy holidays he goes on.”

Different priorities, for different people, I suppose.

A soupçon of vomit

/ masher / 6 Comments

I wrote here a few years ago, that’d I’d not yet found a soup that I didn’t like.

Well, that is no longer the case.

Always willing to try new tastes and flavours, I will often pick up a tin of whatever Heinz’s R&D people have decreed to be the next best thing.

And – more often than not – it really is quite nice… as horrible as the ingredients they have thrown together might sound.

Let’s face it, Pototo and Leek doesn’t sound particularly appetising, but… it works.

So, when I saw some Broccoli and Stilton adorning the soup shelves in my local Sainsbury’s, I didn’t hestate in picking up a tin.

I wish I hadn’t though: it was ‘orrible.

Tasted like sick.

I mean… don’t get me wrong: I still ate it all, but, I really didn’t enjoy it.

Of course, not everybody’s pallette is the same and either of you may well get a very different taste experience from this than I did.

Just don’t come crying to me if it makes you want to retch.

Foxy

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The current Mrs Masher had I had a night out in Aylesbury yesterday evening… because I know how to show a girl a good time.

Firstly, we went to a steakhouse restaurant, where I had the most sublime 8oz fillet steak. Cooked to perfection, it was, without doubt,  the best piece of steak I’d had all day.

Full of red meat, we then went to the local theatre to see a talk being given by Jason Fox – he of SAS Who Dares Wins fame.

It was most interesting to hear his story, as he has led a far more exciting life than many of us.

In truth, I’d hoped we would hear more of his time in the military and tales of daring-do from his special forces days, but he was obviously restricted with what he could say in that area.

Likewise, I was looking forward to some stories and gossip from behind the scenes of SAS WDW, but he only briefly touched on that.

But, he regaled us with tales of his adventures around the world and he was brutally honest about how his mental heath suffered when he left the forces on a medical discharge.

He told us about diving for pirate treasure and kayaking for thousands of kilometers up the Yukon River. He told of how he and his mates set a new world record for rowing unsupported across the Atlantic and how they capsized and nearly died, more than once.

I’d say it wasn’t the most riveting of lectures – he’s no raconteur – but he spoke with an honesty and humour that endeared him to us the audience.  Standing on that stage, he wasn’t the gnarly, rugged persona we see on the telly – he was just a man… a soldier who’d fought not just the Taliban, but his own fears and inner demons as well and had then gone on to make himself very successful in the world of media.

As we drove home, I found myself thinking that in later years, when he’s much older amd spending more time on the sofa watching telly and less time buzzing around the world in a helicopter, he’ll be able to look back and be satisfied with what he has done and what he has achieved.

I’m not sure many of us would be able to do the same.

Blinded By The Light

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Whenever I take Saber (that’s her, to the left) out on a walk these dark evenings, I put one of those LED collars on her.  Her colouring – black & tan – means that she easily blends into the shadows and it is very easy to lose sight of her.

So, when we reach the woods – or the fields, depending on where we are going – I take her lead off and slip her LED collar over her head.  It then doesn’t matter how far she disappears into the bushes, I can still see the brightly flashing pink collar, floating ghost-like as it chases some poor frightened Muntjack through the trees.

Being able to see where your dog is at all times is both helpful and comforting and so these collars have become very popular with dog owners.

However, there are many dog owners out there that never let their dog off the lead and yet, they still give it a bright LED collar to wear when they go out.

Can they not see it? It’s three feet in front of them… on a lead.

I don’t get it.

But also, many dog owners don’t want to be left out, it seems – I see many of them wearing those strap-on head-torches as they walk along.  And some of them are just SO bright! It’s like a car headlight coming toward you in the darkness.

There’s a chap who walks his spaniel off the lead, over the same field that we sometimes go to. Miserable Fuck, I call him, because despite saying hello several times, I’ve never even received an acknowledgement from him, so I’ve given up trying and we now pass each other silently.

His dog wears a bright orange-glowing collar around his neck at this time of year and MF wears a super-bright, one billion candlepower torch on his head, which blinds me as we pass each other.  I’m sure he does it on purpose. I’ve taken to closing one eye as our paths cross, just so that when I get past, I still have some level of night vision and I’m not completely blind for five minutes.

Maybe, one day, I’ll make a point of ‘accidentally’ bumping into him.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you”.

Grammar Police

/ masher / 5 Comments

Following on from yesterday’s post, I was reading an article about grammar and so-called Grammar Nazis.

“Am I a Grammar Nazi?”, I wondered.

And, I guess I am… to a point.

Bad spelling and bad grammar annoy me, though “annoy” is probably too strong a word.

Niggle me. That’s better.

Not that I am any kind of English language or literacy expert. However, I do consider myself reasonably competent.

But, I do have a habit of correcting people… which I probably shouldn’t.

Because I’m not an expert.

Indeed, I remember one guy who worked for me a while back – excellent engineer, he was, but his report writing was risable – littered with poor spelling and a lack of punctuation. I often ribbed him about it – in a good-natured way, of course.

Nonetheless, I could tell he wasn’t happy wth me pointing out his mistakes and so I stopped.

As I say, an excellent engineer, so who was I to criticise his weakness in this area?

There are plenty of people out there for whom a decent level of written literacy is a struggle. Many may not have benefitted from as good an education as wot I had, of course, And for others, English may well have been a weaker subject for them.

So, who am I to judge?

But, I still maintain that one should have decent literacy levels if your job requires it… such as in the signwriting example in my last post.

I can’t help but take pictures of poorly written signs. Here are a few recent ones.

Surely, if you make and sell  jokey stickers for people to put on their cars, you should make sure you get it right… no matter how unfunny the sticker is.

I can’t remember where I was when I saw this, but I do remember feeling appalled by it.

And when I took my car in for an MOT a couple of months back, I just HAD to take a pitcher of this.

Pedantry

/ masher / 10 Comments

Both kids were out last night and so the current Mrs M and I decided to go out for a meal.

In a small village about ten minutes drive away, there is a pub which is reknowned locally for its good food and its ambience and so that’s where we ended up.

Being a weekday, it wasn’t at all busy and so we easily got a table and our food was delivered quickly.

Delicious it was too.

We chatted over coffee, and Mrs M asked I’d go there again.

“Oh, I doubt it”, I said, “It would annoy me too much”.

She looked confused. “But it’s really nice here and the food was lovely. I thought you liked it”.

“I do. But… they’ve used the possesive ‘your’.”

“What?” She looked even more confused now and so I pointed to the red painted wall behind her, which had been niggling me throughout the whole meal.

Professionally signwritten – by hand – and painted with faded gold lettering, indicating it had been there a long time, it said:

“Enjoy Yourself Now. These Are The Good Times Your Going To Miss.”

It’s A Con

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Now that she has passed her test, my daughter is obviously keen to get out on the road and so, last night, we spent several hours comparing meercats, in an attempt to find some affordable car insurance.

It’s ridiculous, the amount they charge young, new drivers today.

OK statistics may show that a higher number of accidents are caused by these newer drivers, but, that doesn’t mean that they are ALL bad drivers. It’s probably impossible to tell which ones are bad and which are good, I suppose.

But, premiums are going up every year and one cause of this is due to the number of uninsured drivers on the road.

Of course, a lot of these drivers can’t afford the high price that insurance premiums are costing nowadays and so they drive uninsured. Then they have an accident and so the premiums go up again the following year. It’s a vicious circle. (BTW, I don’t in any way condone driving without insurance!)

The only way they can get these premiums down, is to get older and drive without having any accidents.   Age and No Claims make a significant difference to your premium.

As does where you live.  Unfortunately, living in Luton, we’re not blessed with particularly good crime stats and so that adds a premium to the… er, premium.

Also (and I don’t understand this at all), your occupation can affect it, too.  As a vehicle mechanic, Son pays significantly more for his insurance, than his mate who is the same age and has the same car (pretty much), but who works in retail.

Ridiculous.

Anyway, we got her the cheapest insurance we could find:  £3,140.00.

That’s right: three thousand, one handred and forty pounds.  Not that much less than what she paid for the car!

Just got to hope she gets older and doesn’t have any accidents.