Category: Life

I have often criticised the big city over the water for its’ shortcomings and the bad press it often receives, mainly but not always of its’ own making. However after being given the accolade of European city of culture, it has pulled out all the stops in an effort to show the world it is a modern and vibrant city. None more so than the latest stunt which was for me at least, truly memorable. A giant spider arrived unannounced in the city centre some time last week and hung from the side of one of the buildings by Lime Street Station.

Bean Counter, the Traveller and myself went along to see it on Saturday gone. I have to say it was a masterpiece of engineering and spectacle. Despite having to wait for hours and being crushed by the hordes it was well and truly worth going to see. In fact it was so good we went again on Sunday to bid it farewell. The Traveller dropped us off at the Birkenhead Tunnel entrance on theLiverpoolside on his way home from yet another drunken weekend that has become the hallmark of many of his visits.

We arrived at the spot we had chosen at around 5-30PM and we waited. We were still waiting at 6-30pm and we waited some more until 7-30pm and then we waited again. By this time the crowd were getting restless as spots to view the creature were becoming all too scarce and some of the kids were restless. Shouts of “Mum, when’s it coming, and I want to go the toilet” rang around the little haven BC and myself had chosen. At 8-30 ish the band that preceded the spider appeared in the distance and we knew it would not be long before it took its’ final bow.

When it finally appeared after a long tour through the city streets that must have been every coppers nightmare, a huge cheer went up from amongst the 250,000 plus people that had gathered there. There were fireworks, pyrotechnics, Water displays a snowstorm and plus the orchestra that had assembled to provide the almost eerie music that accompanied its’ tour of the city. BC and myself left at10pm which had meant we had been standing in the same spot for some 5 hours and my legs were aching, but I felt that it had all been worth it.

Words cannot do the creature justice. I can only hope that the photographs in the Gallery will make up for my lack of writing skills. The city could have put on a concert or spectacular laser show but that has all been done before. I have never seen anything like this and it made the whole event of European Capital of Culture stand out from anything I have ever seen before. It is not often I praise the big city but I applaud this event and I will never forget the spectacle. It has certainly cured my Arachnophobia.

 

Friday 05^th September and the heavens opened. I have never seen as much rain in one day. I arrived home from work to be greeted by the Traveller as he had come to stay for the weekend and he had brought the bad weather with him! Within an hour I received a text from Roger Moor who told me to look outside my back door. TT and me gingerly opened the back door to see a lake where I used to have a garden. There was stuff floating on it as the drains had merely given up under the surge of water and there was nowhere for the stuff to go.

As RM arrived across the small river that was once my driveway; all three of us stared out at the darkening skies and the rising water and unanimously decided we needed inspiration and divine intervention. I donned wellies and waded out to the beer shed for the inspiration and we waited for the divine intervention. The divine intervention was taking its’ time arriving and so after much inspiration RM and me decided to try and brush as much water into the road as we could. I took to ramming sticks into the drains to see if I could reduce any blockages which did no good at all.

After a full case of inspiration, divine intervention duly arrived and not a moment too soon. The water was almost to the top of the outside shed floor when one of the drains gurgled, belched and then decided to start taking water. RM and me shoved water towards the drain as fast as we could while TT opened beers for us at an alarming rate. By the time the water was at a safe level the three of us were pissed, well I was at least and the other two were not far behind.

Beancounter arrived almost as soon as the driveway was cleared and while she did not need water wings to get into the house, events had started to go downhill fast. Two cases of inspiration rapidly disappeared and the spirits came out to keep our spirits up. The radiator was full of wet socks the floor was covered in mud and the chip pan was heating up nicely. It wasn’t exactly the Dunkirk spirit but it showed you can have an eventful evening with wet socks and good friends

 

At long last my hard drive has been replaced and although I have still to replace much of the stuff that has been lost, I can now attempt to catch up on some of the postings I should have made weeks ago. With this in mind here are the photos of Teechs’ leaving do in August. Sorry for the delay.

As usual things have been hectic over the last few weeks. The Driver came to stay with me for a weekend, I had not realised it had been last January since we had met up last. However we tried to make up for lost time and managed to get through enough beer and gossip to make up for it.. We have promised to try and keep in touch more often and it is to be hoped that we will meet up before Xmas.

Teech has gone to Dubai but not before we sprang a “surprise” leaving do for him at Château Ghastanbury.  All the usual suspects were there including Commander Riker, Miss Décolletage, The Revellers, Ted Magnum, Big Bad Brad, and of course Beancounter. As is customary, we wished him well as the evening descended into drunken mayhem and spilled out of the house and into the grounds were a bonfire was duly lit. Many photos have been taken but due to the failure of my home computer I am unable to upload them at this moment.

A few days later and BC and me are having a farewell meal with her youngest, Johan the Destroyer, his girlfriend and his brother in a well-known Liverpool restaurant. A trip to the Tequila bars and Vodka shot bars completed an evening of mirth and merriment and we arrived back at BC’s house in the early hours. JTD left for army duty en route to Cyprus a few days ago.

That brings us to Saturday gone, and Tedstock. A separate post including photos will be made in the Barbie section along with some of the recipes we used for the day. Tedstock marks the end of the summer and barby season as far as I am concerned and the next big event will be Halloween. Until then the nights are getting longer as summer peters out and autumn slowly makes its entrance. Some of the flowers in the garden are well past it and the record-breaking rainfall we have had this year has meant that some of the crops I planted have met with dismal failure. My tomatoes are still green due to a lack of sunlight and the slugs have eaten almost all of the courgettes and cucumbers.

Like Teech and JTD summer is leaving, I hope it’s a case of Au Revoir and not farewell.

It has been a strange weekend. The weather as usual has been awful.  Spirits have been low all around and most people are in awe of the events unfolding around us, mainly the credit crunch and now the news that Russia has invaded Georgia. Most of this has not been overshadowed by the Olympics in China which to be honest has not held my attention. Graphics in instead of real fireworks and a young girl who mimed to some one else’s voice because the originator of the voice was not deemed photogenic enough. Yes it is a shambles and would have been a master piece of PRif they had not been caught out!

Anyway Bean Counter and I decide to take Rhonda out for a spin on Sunday evening and watch the sun go down on the local shore line. This would have been a triumph if it had not been for the low lying cloud that hid any rays of sunshine that might have been in the offing. Anyway I bumped into a friend or at least some I have known for 20 years or more and they told me they are going away to Spain. Yet again it seems as though every one else but me is moving away. I wished them well and I sincerely hope that they make it. As for me well I am stuck here for another year at least or until the credit crunch is over.

It is strange but the crunch that started in America by people that I have never met and will never know has affected my life so much. Roll forward 24 hours and I am the house belonging to Little Miss Sunshine and for some strange reason I am watching a soap opera that normally I would never have given the time of day to. However this particular episode involves some one who was in the very first episode some 40 odd years ago. The guy is now in his seventies and is trying to write a book that encapsulates his life and all of his triumphs but mainly failures. He is stuck in the same house and the same road that he grew up in and has never managed to escape from it all.

There is absolutely nothing wrong in this if you are happy to die where you were born but he is not and I somehow felt a lot of empathy for this character. What if this happens to me? It appears that every one I know is leaving for sunnier climes and happier shores. The list is too long to even mention but here I am still in the same house I grew up in. In the grand scheme of things I am not struggling for food or shelter, I do not have to worry about famine or war and I live on a lot more than a dollar a day that many people in the third world, have to live on.

However something is amiss and I doubt that I will ever find out what it is. I only know that I do not want to be here but I don’t know where I want to be or what I want to do when I get there. The credit crunch, started by people I do not know, in a country I do not live in has affected me and all the plans I ever had. It is so frustrating to be bound by circumstances beyond your control. If I was massively in debt and had wasted opportunities then yes I could say that what ever fate befell me, it was my own fault. But this is not the case, I have stuck by the rules of the system in the belief that eventually I would be better off for having done so. In reality I am no better off than some one who has never worked and has claimed benefits through out their lives. They have nothing to lose and I do and I have. The state will pick them up dust them down and ensure that they do not lose out.  The state cares nothing for me and millions like me, we are merely tax payers or cash cows to be milked until we have no further use and then discarded and castigated for daring to complain and voice our opinions.

My friends who have managed to escape agree with me and that is why they will never come back to the UK and most of those I know, if they have not made arrangements to escape are planning to.  Still living on more than a dollar a day, knowing the water is safe to drink and that tanks will not appear over the horizon any minute now must be a blessing and for that I should be grateful.

Virtually all plans are on hold for the foreseeable future. The recession is turning into a full blown crisis. To give you a clue as to how it has affected score of people, repossessions are at an 18 year high and lays off and redundancies are the talk of most pubs for those who can still afford to go in them. I find it hard to fathom how events in the US have affected us here, but they have and the sub prime market has hit the prime market or in other words, the shit has hit the fan.

I had planned to sell my house next march and had 3 buyers lined up for it. One by one they have contacted me to inform me that although they can get a mortgage they cannot get a mortgage for the price of the house. Let me explain for those of you in other parts of the world who may not understand how our economy in the UK works. Many years ago mortgage companies would only lend a certain value of the house you wanted to buy. That way if you ever defaulted on the payments they were sure of getting all of their money back. During the 90’s and the noughties that percentage went way over 100% of the value. So it was possible to borrow more money than the property was worth. The banks figured that with property prices constantly going up they could not lose.

Fast forward to the credit crunch and no one will lend any money or if they do the percentage available is falling fast. For instance a few months ago it was possible to obtain a 90% mortgage, then it fell to 80% then to 75% and now news is that the banks will only lend a maximum of 70% of the value of a property. So if you house is worth 100K sterling then some one has to come up with 30K sterling as a deposit. Consequently no one is buying and no one is selling. House prices are falling rapidly and some by as much as 30% in the last 12 months but people cannot save the deposit. If a house is being sold for example, say 40K then some one still has to find just over 12k for the deposit. ( for the benefit of my American readers 100k sterling equates to 200k dollars and just a few months ago that would not have bought a garden shed!)

Very few people are prepared to take that kind of hit or financial loss and few people can save up 12k. Something I never thought I would see in my lifetime is rents falling. There are so many new unsold properties out there that developers are now trying to recoup some money by renting them out and the market is flooded, renters have so much choice. In the meantime people like me who banked, perhaps unwisely, upon being able to sell my hose at a fair market price to fund an alternative lifestyle have no option but to sit put until things pick up if they ever do in my lifetime.

Good luck can sometimes be put down to a matter of mere timing and right now mine stinks, pass the gin!

The economic downturn continues, with fresh news of redundancies and closures. It appears no business is immune. MY friend who works on a butty van has reported that the sites she delivers to are closing and the takings are going down daily. She says it is not hard to see that her own job will be in jeopardy quite soon along with those of her colleagues.  Our government has decided not to go ahead with the dreaded 2p tax on fuel duty and thinks we should be grateful for this apparent small mercy.  House prices are falling through the floor and most have dropped by 18-20% in 12 months. The banks have stopped all mortgages under 75% so even if a house that was worth 100,000 pound last year is now only worth 82,k the buyers would still have to find 22,500 pounds before a mortgage lender will look at them.

Enough of this doom and gloom; surely there must be some good news somewhere? Well the weather, another subject close to my heart, is set to be the wettest summer on record since records began here in the UK. I thought last year was bad enough; indeed I only managed three of four barbecues last year. This year I have had one, which is why there have not been any posts in my Barbie section. The grass on my lawn is around 18” high because the weather has been so bad. It has not rained continuously, it seems to wait until I get to work or am engaged in some activity that stops me from mowing the grass for the sun to come out and then as soon as I am able to get in to the garden with some gusto, the heavens open. The proof of the amount of rain and the lack of sunshine has meant I have a green house full of green tomatoes that I have no idea what to do with. No honestly I hate green tomato chutney.

I did take Rhonda out last weekend and Bean Counter managed to clamber on board and we set off burning rubber on the highways and byways of the borough. The bike is going to take some getting used to. My last machine actually felt like a part of me and together we became one unit. This TA does not fill me with so much confidence. It may be that because I have been out of biking for so long that I am just very wary, however going around corners the wheels feel like 20 pence pieces. I suspect this is due to the knobbly tyres. The riding position is very high and great for visibility but any speed over 60MPH makes your head feel as though it is about to be blown off. Another aspect of the high riding position is that the centre of gravity is also quite high. In my book this is not a good thing on a bike. Its also a lot heavier than anything I have been used to before although this could just be because I am now well into middle age and not as fit as I used to be. I do know if I drop the damn thing it will be a hell of a job to get it off the ground. I have decided to add another section to my blog about travel and I will write in detail about the bike and the ongoing attempt to make it and myself ready and fit to go long distances.

I suspect that amongst all the doom and gloom about weather and the continuing slide of property prices and the announcements of job losses, there will be a silver lining I just don’t know where.

Wow, the entry “technic cleansing” certainly got a response. I have had hate mail from dedicated PS3 owners and congratulations from X Box owners saying told you so! Well Commander Riker and me have come up with a project for the summer. CR reckons it is entirely possible to resurrect the PS3. I have pulled what is left of it out of the pond and placed it into the grid where it is currently oozing green slime. When it has drained we are going to take it to bits, clean up the insides with contact cleaner and install a new hard drive. I am going to create a wooden case to house the bits and we are going to call it a PS3 Xtreme. I have my doubts about this but CR reckons it will work.

Technical difficulties still abound and my ISP has now gone off. Calls to those very nice and helpful technical staff at some call centre on the Indian sub continent have been as much use as an ash tray on a motorbike. My access to the net and posts will therefore be sporadic and limited at best until Catsili get their finger out. You may ask why not change providers? Well most providers want to lock you into a 12 month contract and I hope to be away from here in 9 months, yes it is that close. In the meantime their may new ornaments in the pond.

It has not been a good week technologically speaking. Some time ago my Cambridge Audio amp gave up the ghost and decided to cut out at irregular but frequent intervals. My Play Station has been nothing but trouble since I bought the damn thing and I have regretted wasting money on such a useless piece of junk from almost the day it arrived in my house. The up-scaling DVD player I purchased has been showing signs of overheating and consequent picture and sound loss. The large format Digital TV has also found to be wanting when it sometimes decides to show random colours and vertical stripy lines instead of the crisp clear picture it was purchased to provide.

A few days ago and my current pride and joy, Rhonda The Honda, was knocked over buy a group of people watching my friend The Beast trying to extinguish flames coming out the back of his van. That is another story for a future entry. I went to see TB to get my bike back from his house last evening and pushed the ignition button on RTH and waited as precisely nothing happened. It turns out that after righting the bike some tyre kickers and lever pullers had switched on the heated grip switch and my battery had run dry. The bike is new to me at least and trying to figure out how to find the battery and how to get it out of the housing was a major feat in itself. However it was accomplished after much teeth grinding and hair pulling. I took it home to charge up.

Feeling less than pleased that RTH was sat miles away and I was unable to take her out for a spin, I decided to relax by watching the last two episodes of Doctor Who that Roger Moor had kindly placed onto a DV disk for me. About 30 minutes into a gripping episode the up scaling DVD decided it had overheated and would now only show a few frames of picture and the occasional sound bite when it felt like it. Feeling non-plussed about this I turned on the play station and decided to watch the rest of the disk from that. It has to be said the picture was superb but there was no sound. I swapped cables, reset the Sony, consulted the manuals and rang friends for help but all to no avail. The Play Station had decided that it was only fit for deaf people and as I still have hearing left it was going to show me exactly who was boss. Several hours later and I had just about enough of this piece of shit laughing at me. As I said earlier I have regretted buying this item and I was determined if it was not going to work for me then it would not work for any one.

It has to be said that the Play Station does not bounce well nor is it waterproof. I expect the frogs in my pond are extremely happy with their new pond ornament. It was in its own little way my episode of “Gourmet Night” from “Fawlty Towers” in which Basil Fawlty decides to give his car a “Damn good thrashing” I have consequently banned all Sony products from my house and I have resolved never to purchase one of their products ever again. It’s a one-man crusade and it won’t make any difference to the Japanese giant but it makes me feel good and I know I wont have to suffer one of their over bloated and so complicated pieces of hardware ever again.

There are advantages of getting rid of stuff that does not work, it is extremely good for the soul and it is one less item I have to worry about when I go away. I wont have to store it or transport it anywhere. Unless the up-scaling DVD and the TV decide to buck their ideas up a similar fate awaits them. It is called Technic Cleansing.

After the excitement of getting the bike, it seemed the week would not get any better but it did. Bean Counter and me headed off to London for a two night concert in Hyde Park.  We left on the Friday to ensure being there nice and early for the Saturday show. It starts sure enough with an innocuous train ride from Lime Street Station to Euston on one of the all singing and dancing Virgin Pendolino Trains. They are whisper quiet, very clean and super fast with lots of electronic gizmos and flashing seat numbers. Even the doors are electronic push button, and that includes the toilet doors. I make mention of this because when we were not far from Euston, BC and me decided to haul our luggage from the racks and stand in the corridor near the exit doors. I decided it would be a good idea to use the toilet before I got off and duly pressed one of the buttons on the door. Not much happened so I pressed it again.

The door slowly opened to reveal a woman in some obvious distress and frantically trying to cover her modesty. She started shouting for me to close the door but I could not. I grabbed hold of it and tried to pull it back but it was stuck in the open mode. I was desperately trying to apologise for this intrusion when other people started to look to see what the commotion was about. Feeling like some sort of pervert all I could was turn my back and attempt to cover the doorway so no one else could see in and wait for the electronic door to close again. Fortunately everyone could see the funny side after a few minutes but when she came out I felt too embarrassed to go in and use it myself. You would think the new toilets would have had some system that said engaged or in use but they do not. My advice to any one attempting to use this contraption is to knock on the door and ask if any one is inside.

After a hot sticky ride on the tube we arrived at our destination flustered and glad to be out of the airless London underground at rush hour. After changing the pair of us went outside to take a stroll around Park Lane and Mayfair. As we neared the Dorchester hotel we could see a lot of armed police and heavily built security types with dark glasses and on the steps was Nelson Mandela. I shouted and cheered and waved along with a couple of hundred others who had got wind he was there. The great man waved back to everyone and I was so busy cheering and clapping I didn’t take a photograph. But I have the knowledge that I got closer to the man than any one in the audience of the event held for his 90^th birthday party in Hyde Park that evening.

For those of you unfamiliar with concert etiquette, you are not allowed to take in food or alcohol. Your bags are searched on the way in and you are victim to the scandalously high prices charged by the vendors inside. It is difficult to get around this but BC and me are now consummate concert attendees and as usual we had our plans. We purchased two bottles of water emptied the water out and filled them with 1 part gin and 2 parts tonic water. These look fairly innocent and many a hard pressed security guard has given nothing more than precursory glance at the label on the bottle and waved us through. Our plans this day not come to fruition. I had bought the wrong bottles of water, they were still water bottles. So what I hear you ask? Well the difference is this; the screw tops on flat drinks are only one thread deep as no pressure builds up in the bottle to burst the top. I discovered this while sitting with my feet in the Dianna memorial fountain and opening one of my bottles. The top flew off with such a loud bang that every one in earshot turned and looked at me as if I was terrorist letting off a bomb. Again I apologised profusely to all that were following my every move and took several hefty swigs of my “water” to show no harm was intended or done and was pissed within ten minutes. There was nothing for it but to keep up the charade until the bottle was empty. Half a litre of gin disposed of in almost 15 minutes. The second bottle was dispatched just as fast and we staggered to the arena entrance barely able to stand.

After entering the arena it was time to hit the Pimms tent and 20 quid later one jug of watery Pimms appeared on our table. Fortunately I had with me my concealed hip flask and was able to top it up to a reasonable strength within minutes. The prices charged at the event were astronomical and a portion of stickleback and chips was ten quid (it should have been fish and chips but the “fish” was that small it could only have been a stickleback). A 500ml bottle of 4% Gaymers cider was four pound. I know these people have to make a living and the cost of these events are enormous but when you have no choice but to eat and drink from the vendors who all set their prices at the same level there is no competition at all. Clapton was brilliant but we left the event some 80 pounds lighter than when we went in. I also need to make mention of the fact that it is now called Hard Rock calling instead of London calling due to the event being sponsored by the Hard Rock chain. This has had the effect of stopping many of the smaller independent stalls from being allowed into the event. There were no clothes stalls or “Head” stalls and much of the very essence of a concert has now been lost to hard nosed commercialism and it is very much the worse for it.

I did not make the same mistake on Sunday and after a cream tea on the terrace of the hotel I purchased sparkling water with much stronger bottles. We did not open them until we were in the arena and they lasted almost until the encore by the Police. We still hit the Pimms tent and we did have a great time but whether we would do it again is very much in question. The sheer cost is astronomical. Tickets for the two days came to around 200 pounds plus the hotel and the transport there and back. All in all the weekend probably cost around 1000 pounds including spending money but we did get to see Nelson Mandela.