Listening to a Depeche Mode playlist today, and in “Personal Jesus”, every time they sing the line ‘reach out and touch Faith’, I sit there thinking that Faith is screaming back at them, ‘leave me alone you bastards, stop fucking touching me!’
All hyped up and ready for the Carabao Cup third round draw. Burnley away. Not the kind of draw you want. There is a certain symmetry as Helen was born in Burnley, but a Tuesday night trip to Burnley in November isn’t what anyone needs. It was a neither one thing or another draw. They aren’t in the Premier League (something our owners didn’t seem to know when they tweeted about it – they must have missed their relegation last season), but they are high enough up the league ladder to make it difficult. If it was going to be away, at least be somewhere decent, or against someone decent. Them at home would have been fine, but it’s just a bit of a let-down.
Helen hasn’t been having much luck with her prescriptions this year, and the Kamsons next to Southgate Medical Centre have been little to no help. But they managed to surpass themselves this time, as when she turned up to pick up her prescription, they told her she’d picked it up two days before. Only to then deny having given her prescription to someone else, and as a replacement have her a totally different brand with not as many doses. All whilst trying to gaslight her and say they had never said they gave her prescription to some random. Absolute clowns.
Speaking of clowns, I’ve been playing a few more of my self-curated artist playlists. I created most of these years ago, at which point I can only assume I was completely shit faced. The David Bowie playlist had a track in it I didn’t even recognise. And the Michael Jackson one had ‘Got To Be There’ on it, which is OK, but not exactly one of his biggest bangers; and the duet with Paul McCartney, the very creepy ‘The Girl Is Mine’. If I did have to drag Macca into it why did I pick this instead of ‘Say Say Say’? the more worrying thing is that I’ll have played these playlists a few times over the years and never noticed some of these travesties before. They might all need reviewing.
Remember back in the eighties where the games on the Acorn Electron, or the Amiga, had you going from room to room to find things, but it got more and more difficult to get to where you needed to be the longer it went on. Well, we played a 2022 real life version on Friday as we tried to get to Standen House. We merrily made our way across Crawley to go up Turner’s Hill Road. Only for the roundabout on Balcombe Road to be closed. So, we took the detour the other way along Balcombe Road, and a sharp turn back on ourselves at the Cowdray Arms, and back past Worth School and Abbey. Only to get to Turner’s Hill and find the road through to East Grinstead closed. So, it was off through Crawley Down and Felbridge and into East Grinstead, past the Sainsbury’s and back towards Standen, only for that road to be closed at the roundabout as well. Fourth time we did manage to get there, and arriving there did feel like we had solved the game’s big mystery and completed the level.
We went for a pizza in East Grinstead after the Standen visit and were sat in the window overlooking the High Street. Where, for at least ten minutes, we saw a confused and hapless Deliveroo driver wander up and down, back and forth across the road, through alleyways, all trying to find whichever food establishment he was supposed to be picking up the food form. Obviously unable to read the map on his phone. Which didn’t bode well for whoever the poor sods who’d ordered the food were. If he ever found them (not guaranteed by any means), it was highly likely that their food will have been cold. Unless it was ice cream they were ordering, in which case it would have been melted.
Saturday morning felt like a rush. I was in town early, but the window seat in Maccy D’s didn’t offer up any observational gems. Then I was rushing around to finish off all the photos needed for the work photo scavenger hunt. And a detour to the museum to get photos of my pieces of work now on display (after being missed initially).
Then to writing group and back to town to get a haircut. Only to find my usual barbers in the middle of a renovation, and so no trim from Sideshow Bob this time. It must have been Crawley haircut day, as all the other barbers close by had queues out the door. It took a bit longer than planned to get my hair cut. The amount of hair on the cloak shows just how long and scraggly it had gotten.
Heading home, the bare-chested bloke pushing a bicycle with a new boxed microwave on it didn’t look suspicious in the slightest. Not did his about turn and detour when he saw a couple of police cars parked further up Brighton Road.
Why aren’t Crawley Town allowed to own a dog? Because they can’t hold onto a lead. After the heroics of easily beating Premier League opposition on Tuesday night it was back to earth with a bump as they played bottom of the league Rochdale. We were preparing for the cremation party, so I was checking the score at regular intervals on my phone, and was happy to see a 1-0 lead at half time. Not so happy to see an equaliser in the second half, or a sending off not long before full time. And even less so when looking at the match stats and seeing we were outplayed in all aspects. Still winless in the league, but at least out of the relegation zone on goal difference.
The cremation of the dearly beloved Adidas polo shirt went ahead on Saturday night. The fire pit was going well, and people were round, but hen the t-shirt went on they were all off doing other things. It burned surprisingly well as a solid mass as I sat there poking the fire with a long stick until it was just ash.
Later on, all the years of old paperwork we wanted to dispose of went onto the fire as well. Old bank statements, credit card statements, utility bills and the like. My favourite what do you call joke came to mind again and it may have been more appropriate if it was Helen throwing the paper onto the fire. ‘What do you call a woman who throws all her bills onto the fire?’ ‘Bernadette’. (Burn a debt for the terminally slow amongst you.) On one of the other open tabs in my head, the Four Tops were playing on top volume.
I went to the bathroom, and through the open window I could hear a loud, strident, woman’s voice shouting, “Die! Die! Die!” it did sound quite disturbing until I realised, they had friends round for a barbeque and that one of those friends is called Di. And that no murders were about to be committed. (That I know of.)
A new Sunday night cop drama. Ridley. Well, retired cop, brought in to help. We’ve seen the kind of carnage that can bring (Baptiste, I’m looking at you). A fictitious town/city called Bradfield, but supposedly in Yorkshire (so a cross between Bradford and Wakefield then). Both of the lead characters have had their natural Northern Irish accents beaten out of them. There are four episodes, and so I was expecting the long game, but it’s a single case per episode, so we can see what the pattern is going to be for the series before we get to episode two.
Some long-forgotten case the old git worked on is relevant again, so he’s called in to help. Everything is solved. They forget that AC-12 was a different character in a different series even if it is the same actor, and so throw in a sub-standard copper getting investigated for how they handled the old case. And finally, someone thinks that the main character can sing, and so at the end of the episode he goes back to the club he part owns and sings an ‘appropriate’ song to the crowd in the club who are wondering where the hell this random rocked up from, as elsewhere the real cop is putting the bow on the current case.
It is worth pointing out that there has been a series called ‘The Singing Detective’ back in the eighties. And that they’ve let many actors who have played fictional detectives sing in real life. (Bruce Willis – Moonlighting, Telly Savalas – Kojak, David Soul – Starsky And Hutch, to name a few). It would be good if we don’t get a Christmas album of “Adrian Dunbar Sings…” As, Mary, Joseph, and the wee donkey, no one needs that.