Sod it!

Current Tune is (Steady as she Goes by The Racontours)

Guess where I am? On a train….supposedly heading towards Lichfield, but, once again, due to the ineptness of Railtrack, the main line down through Lichfield is shut and we are heading via Birmingham. But we are not heading via New Street, oh no, to make matters even worse they have decided not to stop the train at New Street but to take us all to International instead. That adds another hour onto the journey time.

I doubt that I will make it to the depot much before 10. Given the fact that I wanted to be there for 7am it seems the day has been wasted.

Hopefully they will have it sorted out for tomorrow. Every single holiday they insist on giving themselves too much work to get through. They would be much better giving themselves easily achievable targets and that way they don't piss off thousands of passengers on the first day after the work.

Weekend was quiet. I spent most of it asleep. Obviously my body decide to give up on the idea of 14 hour days each day.

Current Tune is ( I wanna be adored by The Stone Roses)

I can see this turning into another one of those long rambles as there is very little to do on the train other than type. I suppose I could watch the DVD that is is the player, but it is Serenity and a little too much of a charge about movie for this time in the morning. I will stick with the music and the typing instead.

I downloaded Open Office rather than pay Microsoft £80 for something that should have come with the damn computer. Open Office does everything that you would want of a word processor. In the end, I suppose Works does as well, but I could never get the hang of it's habit of not being able to read funny formats. I haven't looked at the spreadsheet yet, but it should function ok as a basic number cruncher.

It's bucketing down with rain and not looking like a good day. Oh well, I only hope tomorrow is a bit better.

I spent all day yesterday fighting with Nobby and playing racing games on the X BOX. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to drive a car whilst you have a cat plastered across you eyes because that's where he has decided he will sleep for the next 10 mins. So you think..”ok, leave him there and I will move over here”….nope, that doesn't work either because then HE moves as well.

Home

I have been at Lichfield all week. When I am down there I have been staying at a pub at a place caled Muckley Corner. The pub is wonderful. Each bit of furniture is different, makes the place feel special.

Last night I had a superb meal. It was called Zapone. It is Salami, covered in pigs trotters and boiled or steamed until the trotter melts and turns the salami gelatinous. This is served on a bed of pui lentils. It was superb. Very tasty, slightly sticky, and the lentils set it off wonderfully.

I got a life back to Manchester with ian and, afer getting stuck in only a couple of Bank Holiday traffic jams, I am now home and Nobby is pleased to see me. Well, apart from playing me up for the last 15 minutes.

Oh well. As I went out on Wednesday night to watch Man Utd, and I get up very early whilst away, and am currently shagged out, I'm off to bed..

Once more into the breach

Current Tune (And the Band played Waltzing Matilda by The Pogues)

Back on the 5.20 am train to Lichfield. Had to go home last night as I had forgotten anything that would allow me to pay for my hotel room or get cash…Doh. Also, I had forgotten to put enough food down for Nobs, well, he had food, just he would have been hungry by the time I got home on Friday.

Current Tune (Steady as she Goes by The Racontours )

For some reason the train on the last 3 trips has been swelteringly hot. It’s a nice brisk day outside, but when you step on the train it’s like there is no air. However, I think I have cracked it this morning. Same train manager. Obvioulsy she is one of these cold blooded women who insist on having the central heating on, even in the middle of Summer, when there is a heat wave, and still feels the need to put on a thicker sweater!!!

Current Tune (I am the Resurrection by The Stone Roses)

The current play list on the laptop is set to random, but I can’t help thinking that the laptop is copying my recent choices as I played bother of the above tunes yesterday. Maybe it’s just coincidence. E are just arriving into Crewe. The outskirts are all very 1980’s housing. Can’t help wishing there were still streets of 2 up 2 down terraced houses. There are a few left, but once upon a time there must have been streets and streets. People keep pushing for newer and newer, and more and more. Apparently the average American man, if he was still willing to live to the standards that his Grandfather lived to in the 1950’s , would only have to work 1.5 days a week. The rest he could have as leisure time, but he has to work the way he does because he wants 2 cas, a pool, an ever bigger house, etc etc. If he was happy living a 1950’s lifestyle then he could live it on 18% of his income. Then again, a large percentage of the population of the USA believe they have been kidnapped by Aliens sometime in the last 10 years. See the sort of crap you pick up when you read Bill Bryson??

Current Tune (Dirty Old Town by The Pogues)

I think the laptop is a secret Pogues fan/? I am going to reset it and see what the next tune is on Random!

Hmmmm The Sound of North America by The Beautiful South. Could have been worse, especially given some of the music I have on my laptop. Meatloaf at 6 am doesn’t really appeal? I will have to go through my music tracks and give them some sort of rating, that way, everything rated as 2 stars could = morning music? I lke all the albums that I have on here, but only at certain times. I want to but a portable hard disc and hive all the music off to that. I was looking at some in Argos the other day, there is a 500 GB one for about £80, but there is a 1 TB one for about £120. I am tempted. A TB , I mean.,,,that’s more memory that anyone had ever heard of 15 years ago!.

Current Tune (William it was Really Really Nothing by The Smiths)

Christ…The Smiths, on a sunny bright happy day like this? It’s enough to make you throw yourself off the platform underneath one of those 125 miles per hour Virgin trains. According to the guy at the station one of these things went through the station on Monday night and tore down miles of overhead wire. Trains were being diverted all over the place. Glad I wasn’t travelling by train THAT night!

Current Tune (About Time by Elbow)

Current Tune (False Alarm by Cherry Ghost)

Lol. I think I must have nodded off during the Elbow track. Not exactly the best morning music. It’s much more a late night/pissed kind of track. Oh well, Cherry Ghost is more my sort of style anyways. Anyway, time to bugger off again. Tonight we are off to watch the match at a pub near to Darrens. Hopefully Man Utd will not panic. There have been times when they have played football of the Gods, and there have times when they may as well not bothered turning up. I think Fergie will put the fear into them. There is so much that this match means. 50 years after Munich etc. It almost makes you believe in destiny!

Current Tune (Homely Girl by Chi-Lites)

Have just arrived at Stafford where , once again, we have been informed that there in engineering works, so we are delayed. No idea when we will arrive, but if it’s over an hour late I will be claiming my fare back!

Ho Hum. Bloody trains!

Apparently

There is a British Stammering Association.

It's website addres is www.www.www.www.www.www.www.www.www.www.www.britishstammeringassociation.org

noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

Why the hell did I wake up at 4.30 when I am not due in work until 8.30? As I said earlier in the week , I think my body clock is screwed.

I am currently watching News 24. The weather is looking reasonable for the next couple of days, and then it turns showery. I think people are rushing the gun by saying that Summer has arrived. When I was a kid they always used to say "naer cast a clout till May is out"..i.e, still wear a coat when you go outside othewise you will catch a chill. I never believed it then and I don't believe it now, but thats what they used to say.

I am off to Burton this weekend for a games con. Back to Manchester on Sunday as I am teaching Excel to the CS girls. I have spent a week or so writing the presentatons, the spreadsheets and the quizzes for them to do Excel basics. Hopefully it will be worth the trouble.

I ate some potato cakes for supper last night, this morning I feel all phlegmy. Wonder is there is any sort of link. I suppose it could just as easily be hayfever. There is a link between me eating cheese and how my stomach feels the next morning. If I eat cheese late at night, the following day my tummy rumbles like nothing on earth.

Pull my finger

Finger is a little less swollen today, but I still have my ring on other hand. It feels very strange.

I was walkng through a shopping cenntre this morning as saw one of tose pick and mix stalls, and I thought, hmmm, maybe I will pick a few. Then I noticed the price. £1.35 pe 100gms. That's 313.50 a klo…thats, (does the maths) £6.00 odd a pound, i,e £1.50 a quarter. Hmmm, I think they can get stuffed. People get taken in because they don't do the maths.

Am I alone in doing something this anal? Do most people just go up, pick sweet, then seem a little surprised when their bag of sweets has just cost the £8.00?

I am currently watching The History Channel. One of the better things to come from Satellite TV. Fascinating documentry series on 20th Century Battlefields, presented by Jon and Dan Snow. I missed it the first time around when it was on the BBC. Am watching the entire thing one after another. It's been a very informative day. Currently we are on Stalingrad.

Am having chicken for teawhen I get home. Dunno how I am going to cook it, might make curry, or might make mexican. Not had mexican in ages, but I will need to go and get some stuff from the shops.

Sulky Cats

Amazingly enough, given the fact that he has been out all day and has led the life of riley, he has been sulking since he came in for some reason.

The 3rd finger on my right hand has swollen up for some reason, I have had to take my ring off. It was painful, and trust me a painful ring is not a lot of fun..lol. I will leave it on my other finger for a while and see if it has any effect.

I havn't taken the ring off for 20 years. It belonged to my Grandad, and is a signet ring. It's the only piece of glitter that I wear. I am not really a fan, but I wear it because it was his.

A question

Can cats get sunburnt?

Nobby was out all day yesterday and when he came in he seemed to be very pink around his eyes and nose? the only thing I can think of is that he has been lay in a sunny spot and caught the sun? it wasn't bothering him, but do I have a tanned cat?

OMG he is becoming a sun worshipper. Pretty soon he will be asking for tanning sessions under a sun bed, and wanting spraying! What have I created?

It was a nice enough day yesterday, but bloody hot when you are wearing a bright yellow freezer jacket. I carried it in the end. Got home and had a sandwich. I can't be bothered cooking when I get in, I just eat at work at lunchtime instead. Work does quite nice food, and there is no need for 2 big meals a day.

It's 5.45 am, and I have been awake since 4.30 am. Like I said the other day, my body clock is very strange. It probably thought I was going to Lichfield. Oh well, it can catch up on sleep later as I will be home at a normal time rather than working late at Lichfield.

Ever since HR banned Facebook at work there have been so many work people joining that it seems like everyone I know I pretty much work with. This time last year there were about 4 of us..lol It's a bit like banning alcohol in the US in the 20's. That probably turned more people to drink than just allowing them to buy it whenever they wanted.

A friend of mine was telling me that, in some booze stores, everyone in the group has to be over 21 before you can buy booze. Why does that bother me? Well, if you are a parent and you pick the kids up from school, it's against the law to keave the kids in the car alone so you have to take them with you. You walk into the shop to buy wine for dinner and they refuse you because you have the kids with you. Fucking fundamentalists! Trust me, there is more to fear from the Fundys in the USA than there is from an whole army of Osama Bin Ladens! They will be banning Disney next!

Last night Griff Rhys Jones had a doc on BBC2 on Mountains. Quite good it was a s well.GRJ has always amused in his bumbling way and I have always been fascinated by mountains. There is a special feeling you get from looking down on a world from along way up. The scenes, te fact that you are so alone. Apparently there are more people living in 1 square mile of London, than live in the whole 2000 square miles of the Mountain region that he was walking in. You are not going to see anyone. Imagine having an area 3 times the size of Manchester and not seeing ANYONE! Must be a fabulous feeling.

Oh well, it's nearly 6 am. Time to get up and have shower, feed Nobs, kick Nobs out to get sunburnt again, get dressed and head for the bus stop. I forgot my book yesterday, so I ended up reading The Metro. It's an adult comic. Games, stories about who is sleeping with whom, and a little bit on the new estaurnat scene in Manchester. The were reviewing the new restaurant bit of Dukes 92. To be honest, it got a little bit of a slagging. While Dukes 92 was ok for a beer whilst you were taking a break from de-percussion, it's not really somewhere I would want to go and get a poshish meal, but apparently they are trying.

This morning the BBC are leading with the amount of food that s thrown away each day? If they only knew!! At the end of the day people these days are too concened with sell by dates etc rather than if the food looks,tastes or smells bad. Why does wine have a sell by date? I'm confused? People these days are too sterilised. There was a customer th other day who complained that there was a caterpiller in the lettuce, so they threw the lettuce away..FFS! Just wash the damn lettuce! They are so used to buying lettuce that comes pre washed in bags that they have forgotten how to wash a bloody lettuce. Caterpillers in lettuce are not a bad thing. It shows that the caterpiller has good taste. When I was a kid we used to grow veg in the garden. Pick a cabbage, chop it up, put it in salted water in the sink and wash it. Why? To make sure you kill any of the insects that may be in there. Insects LOVE veg. You honestly think that the veg you buy from the supermarket has never been in contact with any slimey slugs etc. You are fooling nobody but yourself!

Oh well, that was a 5 minute jump up and down. Time to go.

Early Morning

It's 5.40 am on the Tuesday after the Bank Holiday, and I am awake. I don't know what the hell my bodyclock thinks it's doing but there is very little chance of any more sleep.

I will get up soon, even Nobs is asleep so there is no need to wake him up..lol.

Apparently it's going to be a nice day today, which is a bit of a pisser when then bank holiday weekend was a bit of a washout. It was hot and sunny all day at Lichfield, but then went a bit rainy when I was waiting for the train to Birmingham. It was sweltering during my walk to Hagley Rd, but then started drizzling after I got showered and changed. Saturday was a washout and Sunday was drizzly. Monday was cold and damp.

I don't think I have a very busy week scheduled but these things change at a moments notice. Hopefully I will not have to goto Lichfield until next week. We will see.

Oh well, better get up and have a shower. No point in lying here waiting till the last minute.

:)

:)

Tomorrow, Bano Holiday, and a chance to have a bit of a break. There are a couple of bands playing outside Urbis as part of a music festival so I may pop off and watch them, depends on the weather really.

Cherry Ghost played in the same place previously.

Manchester is starting off on it's annual round of festivals. they are regular events and last until Octoberish. We have the food and drink festival, various music festivals, Queer up North, Opera, Arts festivals, loads and loads of stuff. The food festival is usually very good. Lots of chance to try unusual stuff and drink the night away.

Am currently watching Indy…why does it have to be snakes

I went down to the shop earlier, bought some food. Last night I looked and found 1 pack of crackers, 1 tin of tomatoes and a stack of cat food. Nobby is eating more than I am.

Anyway, I bought some ham, cheese, beef, some bread, milk and biscuits. Potatoes and veg and some corned beef. I made corned beef hash for tea (hash, for our American readers is NOT drugs).So, after being hungry at 11.30 last night, I finally made some food at 14.30 today. Oh hum, It's not like I don't have several weeks worth of food stored on my arse!

I let Nobby out as I was going to the shops. he would normally stay out for 4 or 5 hours, but he was waiting at the back door when I came home 20 mins later. Obviously he was less than impressed with the weather. Anyway, as is the nature of cats, as soon as I let him in, he wanted to go out again. He is currenly asleep on the spare bed as this is how he sulks with me. If he is talking to me he is usually snuggled up against my legs. So…That's ME told!