Mixed Messages

Just as an aside, it obviously wasn’t an old plane we were flying on. It’s all done out in a very plush style, new seating and entertainment consoles and the like. Yet, when you go to the toilet, there is a big sign saying.

“NO SMOKING IN THE TOILETS”

Another smaller one directly above that one saying,

“It is a Federal offence to tamper with the operation of the smoke detectors fitted in this toilet.”

A third sign covered the lid of the bin and says,

“Rubbish only, no cigarettes.”

Part of the safety briefing says there is no smoking permitted anywhere on the plane, and that the toilets are alarmed. (They are even more alarmed after I’ve been obviously.)

Despite all these messages, what is that I can see in front of me just below the lock to the toilet door? A fold down ashtray. With the words “For Cigarettes” on it.

Perhaps you wouldn’t need all the other signs if you didn’t have an effing ashtray on the door of the toilet. There’s another one on the outside of the toilet door too.

Talk about mixed messages.

If they can upgrade the rest of the plane why the hell can’t they replace the doors to the toilets?

More Crawley Morons

What is it with the people of Crawley? Do they take special classes to become halfwits? I’m not asking for a friend, I’m asking because I want to know what makes so many of the inhabitants such utter morons.

I was stood waiting for Helen to come out of Lush. I’d been to do something else and there’s not a hope in hell of me going in that shop. It smells bad enough when you walk past and the doors are open.

Now, not wanting to be in the way, I went and stood directly in front of the signpost that is in the middle of the walk up from Queen’s Square to the entrance to the Mall. And I stood still. Now, I’m not exactly inconspicuous, but that doesn’t stop people either walking into me, or only noticing a couple of steps before they get to me.

And then the abuse starts, or the dirty looks, or the muttering. “Get out of our way they” say or indicate. Then they’re not very happy when I reply along the lines of, “Don’t be so stupid! Were you planning on walking in to the signpost? If you weren’t then stick your inability to avoid inanimate objects where the sun doesn’t shine. If you were intending to walk into the sign post then I’ll happily move and let you do it.”

Cue more muttering.

Anyway, as I was stood there a couple came along with a dog. Now, I’ve no idea what breed of dog it was but it was a big, tan brown thing and it looked less than impressed at being in town amongst lots of people. It was even less impressed at being near Lush with all the smells emanating from there. I don’t blame it, it drives me mad and my sense of smell is shocking. And then the owners of the dog took the bloody thing into Lush with them.

Seriously, how can you not know that a dog, with their ultra-sensitive sense of smell, is going to be driven insane by the sensory overload of being in Lush? After a couple of minutes one of the couple came out of the shop with the dog. It was making strange whinnying noises.

Simply jaw dropping that they wouldn’t realise the effect on the dog.

All That Glistens

Is worthless. What if that was true? What if, all those millennia ago, those that chose, chose differently?

Instead of “precious” metals being gold, silver and platinum, and “precious” stones such as diamonds, emeralds et al, how about they had gone with something else. So we went with excrement, sand and hair for example. That humans hadn’t turned out to be a race of greedy magpies, attracted to only the shiniest of items. Giving them a value above any other items found on the ground or under it.

Deserts wouldn’t be seen as the harsh environments they are. They would be a hive of activity. All sorts of enterprises would spring up. Tourists would flock to see the vast array of riches spread out in front of them. When going to the beach, there wouldn’t be the constant moaning about sand getting everywhere. Yes, we would still spit out the grains of sand that had found their way into our food and drink, but it wouldn’t be in disgust. It would be in wonder at the value the little grain would hold. Those few grains of sand would be worth something. It could be exchanged for more sandwiches, or a drink, or a journey home, away from the beach and its riches.

Water companies would be paying us to take our waste away instead of charging us for the privilege. Every time we went to the toilet it would make us richer, make us useful, and there would be no inequalities in the supply. Polishing a turd would be the normal.

Hairdressers would pay you to cut your hair, and would be at the top of the food chain. Their skill would be valued. No more looking down noses at them. People would aspire to be hairdressers.

If we were to go back to the start and do this would it have made a difference to how we are now? Probably not. Even with such a change in what we consider valuable, humans have the kind of dangerous nature that would overtake the upside of anything. The big corporations would still arrive and take over. Slavery would happen again. This time all of those not smart enough or quick enough to escape capture would be put into cages and force fed to make the harvests bigger. Humans would be harvested for their waste and hair so that others could get rich off it.

All the money would flow the same way as it does today. Only those not in control would be even worse off, they would have the fate of battery chickens, or intensively farmed cows. Only any use whilst they are producing. The bald would be turfed out to die.

We would end up in the same state, regardless of what was chosen to be valuable. It’s just the natural way for the greedy human race.

Rate or Slate

I’ve been reading a lot recently, even more than I normally do. I’ve been reading a lot of books in genres I don’t read a lot of. Expand my horizon a bit from the factual/crime/sci-fi/thriller/horror/fantasy staples I usually read.

I’ve been tracking them on Goodreads, I spent a while a couple of years ago adding everything I could remember reading on there. The last couple of years I’ve signed up to the yearly reading challenge. I set myself a target of 150 books for the year, and I’m already past half way through that.

I have my Goodreads account sync’d to my Twitter account, so when I do updates on Goodreads, or finish a book and give it a rating it automatically goes out on my Twitter feed.

I finished reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness yesterday, and I gave it a two out of five rating. Only for someone to get irate on Twitter about my rating. “Excuse me? The greatest book ever written.” was part of their response. Someone, who isn’t one of my 1200+ followers, took time out to complain about my personal view of a book.

Then I thought that is one of the great things about books, and it’s the same for music, films or TV, that everyone has different tastes. Someone’s five star rating could only get a one star from someone else. It’s totally subjective. I’ve mellowed with age, I don’t get so preachy about what I think is great, I’ve come to realise that it’s down to individual choice.

But for the books I went back and had a look at the ratings on Goodreads. They put a description next to each of the stars.

1 – Did not like it.

2 – It was OK.

3 – Liked it

4 – Really liked it

5 – It was amazing

I’ve rated getting on for 3000 books, of which less than one percent get the top “It was amazing” rating, my overall average is at 2.82 and I think that is perfectly normal based on the wording of the ratings.

Then I look at other people’s rating. And it makes me wonder if I’m doing something wrong. The majority of the people on my friends list, or come up on my feed have average ratings of over 4. Only one other person had an average of less than 3.5. At least fifty percent of those I looked at had ratings over 4.5. Which means that they rated more than half the books they have read as being “It was amazing.”

Now, I know that people go for the kind of books they feel they are going to like, but it’s not natural for the majority of what someone reads (and some of them have got well in to the hundreds on the numbers of books read) to be that highly rated. As some of them are going to be absolute clunkers. It happens. I recently gave a book 1 star, and that was only because you can’t leave zero. The thing was I was really looking forward to reading it before I started, but it was so bad it was one of only three books ever that I’ve considered just giving up on.

If I ever get published myself, then I would be fine getting a two star Goodreads rating for any book I’d written. Three would be great, four is dreamland, and five would be special to me. But for others it would be happenstance.

But if I saw a stranger’s bad / poor review of a book I loved, I don’t think I’d take to Twitter to tell them they are wrong. I might momentarily think it is a shame that they don’t like it, but then let it go as they aren’t me, and they are allowed to think whatever they like.

Lonely Luggage

Have you ever noticed that when you are waiting for your luggage at an airport carousel, there is always that one piece of luggage that has been abandoned? It glides around the meandering track of the conveyor belt almost screaming out “Please retrieve me. Why have I been deserted?”

And as we wait for our luggage to make its way from our flight to the terminal at Tegel, there it was. That lonely suitcase. Doing endless laps around the carousel, like a brightly painted horse on a fairground ride. A pale red hard cased midsized suitcase, with definite signs of wear and tear. Scuff marks, a small dent, various stickers from previous journeys, and the little tag for its current one.

It was a remnant from an earlier flight from Istanbul. A poor lost lonely wanderer, forgotten by its owner, or discarded like a piece of paper in the wind. The number of laps it had made in unknown, but by the time our own bags turned up it had done well over twenty.

It had been turned around, and turned over, as people either looked to see if it might be theirs (despite one person who then picked up a black cloth bag instead), or nudging it out of the way as they struggled to drag their own heavy bags from the carousel.

We left with it still going around unclaimed. Had it even turned up to the correct airport? Was there a poor soul stood at Schiphol or Dubai waiting for their trusty pale red case to pop out onto the carousel there? The last person standing forlornly looking at the now empty carousel willing their bag to pop out so they can go to that meeting, or catch up with those long lost relatives. Only to find they now have a long lost case instead.

Will the case and the owner ever be reunited, or will they be doomed to circle luggage carousels for the rest of their days? Or when the airport closes for the night, will the suitcase be packed off to a lost and found, only to be auctioned off months later and only for the excited winning bidder to find it is full of now decidedly green Twinkies. What goes around comes around I suppose.

So Called Experts

The experts were out again, after the long hot summer we were told that it had been so hot for so long and so dry that autumn wouldn’t happen as it normally did. We wouldn’t get that wonderful cavalcade of glorious colours on the leaves. Everything would go from green to brown and dead on the ground in the blink of an eye.

 

Yeah, right, do these experts try and outdo each other on just how wrong their predictions will be?

 

If anything, autumn is more colourful than ever. Such a glorious array of yellows, oranges, reds and browns, all mixed in with every shade of green possible. The weather is still great now, so the backdrop to this amazing colour palette is lovely blue skies, with little wisps of fluffy white clouds.

 

The fall of the leaves hasn’t even started in earnest, only a few float their way to the ground. The acorns and conkers aren’t as timid as the leaves. Rapidly throwing themselves to the floor hoping against hope to be fertilised and planted to grow up to be the magnificent trees they have fallen from.

 

It won’t be long before all the leaves that are going to fall have fallen, and the barren branches, sticks and twigs weave their way up to the sky. And then the leaf blanket will cover the ground making it slippery. But in the meantime stop and take time to look around at the wonderful colours on display, or even take a picture like I did. It will last longer.

 

 

 

Hope, Fail, Sigh, Repeat

Another season is underway. The promise of it was exhilarating. The reality is somewhat less enthralling. I’ve been an American Football fan since the 1980’s. For all of that time I’ve been a San Francisco 49ers fan. For the first fifteen years it was wonderful. Countless division titles, five Superbowl championships, and other NFC title games.

Then it started to drop off, and by the time the noughties were fully in swing the number of wins per season was nearer to nought than they were to ten. We had three good seasons in the early tens, winning a couple of division titles and missing out on a sixth Superbowl win by less than five yards. Then the wheels fell off again. But for the Cleveland Browns we would have been the worst team in the NFL.

After a disastrous start to last season we ended up winning six of the last seven games of the season. A reasonable draft and free agency left us hopeful of a good season. More wins than losses for a change, and a possible playoff berth.

Five games in and that all looks like a distant memory. If we didn’t laugh about the way we were playing we would cry. And they would be bitter tears. A loss against the Vikings could be expected; they reached the NFC Championship game last season and had strengthened. We beat the Lions, despite our best efforts to contrive a defeat from the jaws of victory. Then came game three, and whilst chasing the game came disaster. Our QB went down with an injury on a play he shouldn’t have made. It turned out to be a season ending ACL injury and you could feel the deflation.

Game four saw us throw away chances to beat a quite poor Chargers outfit, and yet we could still find ways to go downhill from there. We were playing the winless Cardinals last night. And as only we can manage, after a good touchdown drive to start the game things went downhill from there. We missed the extra point. We gave the freedom of the field to a wide receiver who was in a different post code to the cover. Fumbles, an interception, an injury to our primary running back, dumb ass penalties. It was all here.

We got a touchdown to give us hope, only for us to attempt the worse ever two point conversion try I’ve ever seen. Then we let the Cards score straight away again and it was all over. Robbie Gould missed a field goal, his first miss in 39 attempts going back to Halloween last year. We got another touchdown, but another crap attempt at a two point conversion meant we needed two onside kick recoveries and scores in just over a minute. No one will be surprised to learn that didn’t happen.

We’ve seen this all before. There are ongoing themes, a lot of which can be throwing fingers in the direction of the coaching staff. Silly penalties at stupid times – yep seen that a lot recently. Fumbles, more of them than at a drunken Christmas party, which with interceptions means we rack up more turnovers than an episode of the Bake-Off. A complete inability to tackle, especially in the open field, we’ve had less effective tackles than there are on show at a eunuchs’ convention. And finally a secondary who appear to be wearing signs that say “throw the ball over here for a completely open receiver.”

The pre-season optimism has gone. All that is left is gallows humour and a sense of we’ve been here before.

I still watch, because that’s what fans do. It may be out of morbid curiosity, I may not like what I see. I may swear a lot. I may make flippant, sarcastic, or cynical remarks and poke fun at my team. It’s what I do to stop going mental. It prevents the inevitable eye rolling from continuing out of my head, down my body and off down the street.

I took five minutes away from the game last night to rewrite Fatboy Slim’s “Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat” to become “Run, Sack, Punt, Repeat”, along with new words for all of the song. Then I rewrote part of it again when I came back to find that Brieda had gone off injured.

As I look at the wreckage of another season, with seemingly little hope for improvement on the horizon I may rewrite it again, but the punchline will be different.

HOPE, FAIL, SIGH, REPEAT.

 

But for the time being, here’s what I originally rewrote last night

So there was this kicker who was like kicking off
He didn’t know what he was doing
But he kicked far man
Like, really far man
Ball in the air
And then this returner ran in
You know, not just ran
Like a long run
Like a really, like you know
Dislike
You know what happens next
Like run and score
They were tackling
We weren’t tackling
They were scoring
And I don’t know whether anyone else noticed it
But all that was happening was
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Suddenly I think we’re going to score
Suddenly I think we’re going to win
But we don’t
I’m just dreaming
I’m just dreaming
I’m just dreaming
I’m just sleeping
I’m just hoping
I’m just praying
And then
Another
Injury
God damn
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat
Run, sack, punt, repeat

World Cup Willies

The World Cup is over. It has not been as I expected it to be. I drew England in the work sweepstake. I moaned like fuck when I did so about a waste of money. There were certainly no high expectations. England had been talked down a lot. The last sixteen and then home beckoned. But they did better than I had thought they would. Getting through the group stage was easier than it had been for a while. The last sixteen game was tense. The last minute equaliser by Colombia had the hallmarks of a typical England performance – promise and then disappointment. Going to penalties my heart sank, we’d been here before, more times than I care to remember. But England won the penalty shoot-out, a first for a world cup tournament. Then they got to the semi-finals after a victory over Sweden.

 

And then came the avalanche of unhelpful, unrealistic, and unwarranted media hype. Getting carried away as usual. It was only Croatia. A game I expected us to lose, but I was definitely in the minority. I’d backed Croatia to win the World Cup before a ball was kicked in anger. They are technically superb, and the team and their fans seemed united more now than at any time in the previous ten years. They should have won the 2016 Euros, but fighting and flares from their fans during a group game put them off their stride. They threw away a two goal lead in the last ten minutes of the match and were never the same again in the tournament, losing to the eventual winners Portugal in a dull game that went to extra time.

 

England took the lead in the semi-final. A great free kick from Trippier after five minutes. Only eighty-five minutes to survive then. First half chances were squandered, and sure enough Croatia equalised in the second half, and then got a winner in extra time. England were out and the torrent of negativity started. The game had only just finished when the denigration started. They hadn’t played any good sides. Too one dimensional, No plan b, no creative midfielder. Too cocky.

 

The last one is blatantly a lie; I can’t remember any other England squad being so low key about their chances before a tournament. Good sides is debateable. We have previously lost and drawn games to the teams we played, or teams supposedly at a similar level. Before the tournament started a lot of people were saying we would lose these games, and then when England wins, the same people say we should beat those sides. Bleating on that they are below England in the FIFA rankings. Rankings that are so inept, that even FIFA recognise they are a load of shite and are about to change the whole way they are calculated.

 

As for the style of play? Yes a lot of that is true. It was true before England played a game, yet the level of vitriol after the fact is just stupendous. The squad and the style of play was a reason why England weren’t expected to get past the last sixteen (or even out of the group stage according to a lot of keyboard warriors), and yet after reaching a semi-final, it’s described as a disgrace England didn’t reach the final. Get real people. If someone had told me at the start of the tournament that England would reach the semi-finals and go out after extra time, after previously won a penalty shoot-out, and have the golden boot winner, I would have laughed them out of the room, whilst snatching their hand off at the same time.

 

Speaking of the golden boot, the slagging off of Harry Kane is beyond a joke. There was a problem. It was he wants to play every game there is, yet no one seems to sit him down and say “no, you shouldn’t play, you need a rest, and it is for your own good.” He wasn’t as sharp in games at the World Cup as he had been in January / February. Coming back from injury too soon in April caused that. Yet despite that he still scored six goals. Granted one was a complete fluke, and three were penalties. Everyone is claiming he shouldn’t have won the golden boot, it is tarnished. However if penalties are so easy, how did Ronaldo, Messi and Modric miss them during this World Cup? In fact without Kane’s goals, a possible defeat to Tunisia and then out of the group stage. A loss to Colombia in normal time. And for all his lack of sharpness in front of goal, his all round play is overlooked. The ability to hold the ball up, link up play and his passing range are ignored.

 

The other sadly predictable outcome of England going out in the semi-finals was it gave the fans of the big three horrible red teams the chance to slag Tottenham off as usual. The Arsenal banter page had a ‘Keep Calm and Blame Tottenham’ meme up on their Facebook page as the final whistle blew. And along with the Liverpool and Manchester United fans, they took to the message boards in their droves to blame everything bad about England on Tottenham (whilst also saying Belgium had the same problem as well). For a change though the Chelsea fans took a step back from that one.

The final of France vs Croatia was a surprise to most. The talent France had left at home suggested they should have been tournament favourites from the outset. They won, ruining my money winning chances in doing so, and in the end it was comfortable. They were helped by some strange refereeing decisions for their first two goals. But in the end, they had the tactics and the quality to overcome whatever was put in front of them. Something England could well do with learning from.

 

VAR was used for the first time at a World Cup. On the whole it was alright, but there isn’t enough clarity on when it is used, and it can take too long. In one game play was called back for a penalty, after the opposing side had gone down the pitch and had a shot on target at the other end. It only covers four specific situations; other situations are still on the referee only. Watching the relatively few games I did see, the inconsistency in the refereeing was frustrating. Even within the same game at times. Some of the officiating teams aren’t up to it. What does it matter if there are more than one officiating team from a country? It should be the best sets of officials regardless of where they are from.

 

The other thing was the lack of bookings for simulation. Only one throughout the whole tournament. A tournament that had the most extras from Platoon that any tournament had ever had. It is disappointing. There is supposed to be a crackdown on simulation, but it just isn’t happening, and some of the best players in the world are the worst for it. If it isn’t tackled properly it’s going to get worse. Even a blatant clumsy dive like Harry’s Maguire’s goes without punishment.

 

For a variety of reasons I saw a lot less games in this World Cup than I had at any since the eighties, only catching probably one in three up to the semi-finals. There were a lot of surprises, big names going out at every stage. Despite the media hyped potential issues there would be in Russia, there was a lack of trouble, and apart from the final trophy presentation, glorious weather. On the whole I think it was a good world cup.

 

There were downsides. British media getting carried away as usual. They never learn. English fans getting carried away with a quarter-final win, wrecking cars and invading an Ikea to jump on furniture. Many were quick to (rightly) criticize this, especially non-English fans. Yet after riots, looting, deaths and more in Paris and other parts of France as they celebrated winning the World Cup, there isn’t a single word of condemnation uttered by those fucking hypocrites.

 

Apparently it’s just part of the game when other countries win.

 

 

 

Random Musings From Being On Tour

They always say never go back. There can be many reasons for that. There are memories, some bad that bring up feelings long buried. Some are golden, having a glow all around them. Things will have changed. Buildings will have been demolished, and new ones will have sprung up in their place. Others will be abandoned and empty. Some will have been repurposed. Those special places of your memories aren’t that pub anymore, they are a restaurant, or a shop, or, as one particularly bad experience showed me, they turn your spiritual home into a damn Sainsbury’s café.

They also say that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Well going back to Leicester had both of these, and on a lot of occasions, both at the same time.

On arrival to the city, the carnage of the roads around the motorway junction and Fosse Park haven’t changed a bit. It’s still a lunatic free for all. Yet further down Narborough Road you get the noticeable changes. The Post House is now a Premier Inn. Jesters, the first nightclub I ever went to is a health centre. That’s the most immediately noticeable thing, the pubs have gone. There has been a vast cull. Outside of the city centre it appears that more than half have gone.

My old house, the only place I have ever owned, is still there. The window lintels still painted in that dark blue that I used to paint them more than twenty years ago. The house is double glazed now. The factory that used to be next door but one is gone, it’s now a three story block of flats instead. The view from the back of the house has changed as well. I used to be able to see the back of the old City ground, the Carling Stand as it used to be. Now I can see a few struts of the new ground. Most of the open land that used to separate the back of my house from the ground has been built on. The space has been filled by numerous multi story blocks of flats. A whole estate has popped up in between.

My grandparents’ house doesn’t look the same. It doesn’t seem as big. The corner shop is gone. Yet that old scruffiness of the few streets around it has stayed the same. They lead down to the river on two sides, and are hemmed in on a third by the old gas works. Nothing looks new here. Close by, the former national velodrome has gone. It is more houses. Unneeded now that newer, indoor locations in Manchester and London have been built for the Commonwealth and Olympic games respectively.

It’s strange to see the new City ground, a stone’s throw from where the old one was. Separated by the old car parks. A few new builds have appeared, but most of the old ground in boarded up wasteland. Though I bet to the residents of Burnmoor Street, it must look like a paradise. They actually have daylight to their rear windows instead of the back of the east stand blocking everything out.

We walk into town, going along Eastern Boulevard to Mill Lane and then through the main campus of De Montfort University. It’s all changed apart from the old admin block and the Hawthorn building, everything else is new. The Fletcher building and the old student union, and the James Went building, along with their paternosters have gone. Brand new buildings in place, and De Montfort University seem to own all of the Newarkes now.

I knew that the spire to St Mary de Castro had been taken down, but turning to look through and over Rupert’s Gate to see a low tower is still a bitter disappointment. Through the castle yard and out the other side to where the townhouses I always wanted to live in are still there. Still a pipedream. Roger Wyggston’s house is now a restaurant and bar, the costume museum is gone. The Guildhall still looks the same, inside as well as we find out a couple of days later, and the Cathedral sits next to it. Risen in importance since they found Richard III’s body and reinterred it here, but it pales into insignificance compared with the multiple grandiose Cathedral buildings we will visit later on the trip. There really is no comparison between a medieval parish church raised to cathedral status, and one built as such.

The Globe is still the same, and O’Neill’s is as I remember. We can’t get into Bruxelles to relive memories of the Dome, due to bladder man being in shorts and boat shoes. Tony and Chris haven’t changed much apart from hair colour. Friendships picked up again after such a break. Bouncing around pubs is good and we part after arranging to meet up to watch England on the Monday night.

A day walking the river and canal follows. They’ve let nature take over a lot. Trees are bigger, foliage is denser. Buildings have gone, and not all have been replaced. The council have finally realised what a historic city they have, and information boards and signs have sprung up all over the place. Still no explanation for the brick wall with the big hole that sits by West Bridge though.

Abbey Park is the same, but it seems smaller somehow, as if I have grown. In fact most of the walk from Raw Dykes to Watermead seems shorter now. New builds appear on Wolsey Island; only the chimney survives from the building that used to be there. The little wharf that we hired a mini barge for my twenty-first birthday is now trees and reeds. New ugly houses and flats stand back from the road. The National Space Centre is now here, next to the old Museum of Technology in the Abbey Pumping House.

And then the school is gone. Where Ellis stood, running down to the river, it is now meadows. It is the learning establishments that seem to have changed the most. De Montfort University is unrecognisable from the Leicester Polytechnic it was when I went to it. Ellis is gone completely, Rushey Mead and Soar Valley are completely rebuilt and re-sited, and sturdy, high metal fences protect them from casual passers-by. They no longer merge with the Rushey Fields. They are now their own enclaves. English Martyrs looks different up on its hill and Babington seems to have moved and expanded.

The church still remains on the corner of Peebles Way and Gleneagles Avenue. It has lost the ‘Of Good Counsel’ and is ‘Our Lady’ only now, but it looks exactly the same as it did for all the years I was an altar boy there, and as it did when I was married there.

The next day we do the New Walk, this seems shorter than my memory suggested as well. It is as if a section is missing, but there is no missing the monstrosities the council allowed in the post war years until the seventies. The market has shrunk and looks less vibrant, but Walker’s is still there, still doing amazing pies, and a proper crusty soft cob. Why can’t anywhere else in the country manage to make them like this?

_______________________________________________________

We leave Leicester via an indirect route, making our way around the city until we hit the A6 north, sticking to the old road, not the new bypass, so we can go through all the villages on the way up to Loughborough. Then past Kegworth and the data centre I used to work at for eighteen months. Eighteen months of a torturous minibus journey to commute there, only for me to pass my driving test two days after moving to an office back in Leicester that was a ten minute walk from my house.

Then it was on to Sheffield. A part of the journey I didn’t mention on social media. You never know who is watching and monitoring it. I spent a lot of time there fearful of a hand on the shoulder, or a shout of ‘oi you, Kev’ and a confrontation with the ex-wife’s family. I played snooker for the first time in years, and we did our first ever stay at an Air B’n’B. It wasn’t bad, but a weird sensation of sleeping in a stranger’s house.

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We carried on up to mums, over Snake Pass and a relaxing evening. Heysham village for dinner and a recharge before a day trip to Carlisle. It was nicer than I had expected. The castle was good, more complete than the typical English Heritage ruin. The Cathedral dwarfed Leicester’s, and there were plenty of nice buildings in the city, and the people were so friendly. The journey to and from Carlisle ran between the edge of the Lake District to the West and the Pennines to the east. It was a windy drive, but spectacular views, although the motorway is light on traffic, it’s a difficult drive.

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It’s funny how your eyes and mind play tricks on you, making you see things that aren’t there, because of connections they make. The toiletries in the hotel were all branded. A brand I hadn’t heard of before, Acca Kappa. Now if that doesn’t sound Greek, I don’t know what does. So when I looked at the name of the soap it seemed quite reasonable to me that the name of it would be Greek Mandarin. That triggered thoughts of indecipherable conversations. Not only would it be all Greek to me, but with an added layer of Chinese translation. Then I thought it must be a particular species of Mandarin, one that came from Greece, not that orange growing sprang to mind when thinking of Greece, even if they do have the climate for it. It was only the fifth or sixth time of reading the packet that I saw it was actually Green Mandarin. Was that a newbie studying Chinese for the first time? No, the smell of the soap was definitely orange. Of course, green oranges made as much sense as anything else that had popped into my mind. Not that any of that stopped me from going through the same thought processes when I looked at the box the next morning.

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It was a large bed with two long large fluffy pillows each. They seemed great at first, when they were being used to prop you up for lounging around watching the telly. Personally I think that between that lounging in the afternoon and going to bed at night someone had switched them. Trying to sleep on them was horrendous. They then acted as if they had turned into bean bags that had had seventy percent of the beans removed. Trying to find a comfortable position on them was nigh on impossible. On my side at the edge of the pillows meant all the stuffing disappeared and my head was flat on the bed with my head at a funny angle like some kind of deformed goblin. Lying on my back wasn’t an improvement. When my head hit the pillows it sank through and both ends curled over inwards and tried to suffocate me. After a while of frustrated tossing and turning, one of them ended up on the floor and the other got folded in half before I could finally get to sleep.

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How to cause chaos in one easy motion? It’s a piece of cake, just wave a twenty pound note as payment in a pub. They obviously must be used to everyone using cards to pay, as they had to go and get a cash drawer to put in to the till. And then go and find some cash to put in to the cash drawer. Ten minutes that took them, we’d had quite a bit of our drinks before we got round to actually paying.

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Some people just can’t be happy. There we were, walking along a picturesque street in Ripon, one that didn’t allow motor vehicles down it. We had arrived in Ripon as the second stop of the day, having left Durham after breakfast. We had stopped at Richmond Castle in glorious sunshine. I was melting due to the gloriousness of the sunny day, and since getting of the car in Ripon’s market square I had been staying in the shadows, keeping the fiery glare of the sun off of me and relishing the slight breeze than ran down the ancient cobbled streets. We were approaching the cathedral, the reason for our stop here. The street was flying bunting across the road. It made a lovely foreground to the imposing entrance to the cathedral beyond. I had stopped to take a photo. As I did so an older man, with grey hair and a tidy grey beard, wearing glasses, passed us by muttering. As he continued on his way on the sunny side of the street with a frown on his face, the light breeze carried his muttered words to us. ‘Fucking tourists’. And off he went muttering at anyone else he didn’t consider to be a local. The fact that England were leading 5-0 at half time couldn’t even put a spring in his step. At least everyone else we met was friendly, and the cathedral was great, and it was nice and cool inside. The obligatory guide book, fridge magnet and pen were obtained, and we even got an ice cream before heading to Harrogate and our next overnight stay.

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Harrogate is an old Victorian spa town, full of old Victorian stone and red brick buildings of all shapes and sizes, with large green spaces in the middle. It is the model of what a sedate Victorian town should be. Only no one appears to have told the local residents of today that fact. Having got there late on a Sunday afternoon, we weren’t expecting it to be the liveliest of places. Especially after most of Ripon had started closing at three. Most of the towns restaurants were closing at nine, and by the time we had ventured out they were full of drunken England fans trying to cram some food in before they all closed.

We found a place on the edge of the town centre, where we were served by what appeared to be a twelve year old boy. As we sat outside enjoying the warm evening air another twelve year old boy strutted over in his best pimp impression flicking the collars of his Fila tracksuit top as he did so. But his pimp walk came to a halt as his mother screeched at him to wait at the car and then he had to cram himself into the rear seats. A man with a Salvador Dali moustache sat playing gooseberry on the table in front of us, spouting shite as he tried to ruin the couple’s conversation.

We moved on, admiring the buildings and to find the next drinking location, stepping past the ambulance and police car amongst the broken glass to end up facing a choice of an identikit Pitcher & Piano or a local opposite. Hundreds of drunken England fans or two men and a dog? No choice really. After a quick drink we strolled across one of the green spaces towards some seventies monstrosities sat amongst the other buildings, outside one sat a brand new Bentley. However its owner must have had more money than sense as it was a dreadful pea green colour. The next pub choice was similar to the one before, identikit Slug & Lettuce with drunken England fans, or the Montpelier.

As we sat outside the Montpelier having our drink, one of the England fans wanders down the road past us carrying two something and cokes. He ducks into a shop doorway as if to use the facilities, only to come back out with one arm down his shorts as if he was still trying to find it. The look on the face of the old woman who passed him at the time would have turned him to stone in mythical days. Meanwhile a threesome pulled up and abandoned their car nearby and ran frantically from bar to bar trying to find food before diving back into the car to carry on their search. Just before we were leaving an old man in what appeared to be Ugg wellingtons took his dog across the road, shouted at it to pee and then brought it back into the pub.

We headed off in the almost dark night, drawn towards the largest and most spectacular looking building, only to find it was the Wetherspoons. After a five minute walk to get out the other end we magically found ourselves back on the road to our hotel where we finished off with night caps.

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After being unable to check in because we are too early, we nip into a pie and pasty shop for a spot of lunch as there are two tables available out in the sunlit pedestrianised street. By the time we had got food and outside, some old bids had taken one table, but snaffled all the chairs but one for people who hadn’t arrived yet, and they hadn’t been in to buy anything. Despite the fact we said we’d be quick and that we were there before them and had hot food on plates waiting to be eaten, they were stubbornly reluctant to release one of their snaffled chairs. We took one anyway and were finished before the final member of their party turned up. They were just left with a parting shot ringing in their ears.

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So, after climbing Steep Hill, not really a street name, more a description, we find that the Cathedral is closed for the first day since 2006 (as the helpful tourist information office guide told us). It was because there was filming taking place there for some Netflix random historical drama series about one of the Henry’s that was being produced and directed by Brad Pitt. We weren’t having much luck in getting into historical monuments at the top of hills this week, after Durham Castle was closed to tours due to the RAF centenary celebrations there on the Saturday.

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Norwich Castle Mall. Where no one knows where the hell they are. You go into the car park, well you do when you find it in the signpost free centre. One way systems that only appear when you find out the lane you travelled down the night before on the bus happens to be for buses and taxis only. Then none of the junctions tell you anything. Inside the car park there is no indication of how to get from the car to pedestrian exits. After a lap of the car park we find a door with stairs and a lift up to the mall behind it. Once in the mall, the plan doesn’t show exits to the outside world, and we have to guess the level and direction of our escape. Then once outside there are no maps to the castle and the tourist map picked up from the hotel shows none of the street names that we can see around us.

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Bury St Edmunds, lovely place, but almost impossible to escape from. Why? Because they put random locations on their traffic signs at each roundabout, and then a totally different set of details on the next roundabout. One had signs for Newmarket and the A14, and the next had no mention of either. In any fucking direction. All three ways indicated places that we had already come from. It took ages to escape.

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Google maps. You are without a shadow of a doubt the biggest crock of fucking shit known to man. Where you indicate that there is a junction, roads should actually meet there. It shouldn’t mean that the road we need to get onto actually passes over the road we are on via a fucking flyover. You occasionally put direction arrows on roads to indicate they are one way streets. How about the novel idea of putting arrows on all one way streets instead of just randomly selecting ones that might have? And whilst you are at it, trying getting the arrows to point the right fucking way you utter fuckwits.

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If you can drive and need money, then get yourself to Cambridge and get a taxi driver’s job. You’ll have enough to buy a house and a gold plated Rolls-Royce within months. They start their late night tariff at 7PM, they charge idling time whilst at traffic lights, and the start of the journey only covers 90 yards instead of the standard 170 for increments. All laid out by the council to make them the biggest trip-off merchants in the city. And there is fierce competition for that let me tell you.

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An obviously homeless man is chuntering aggressively to himself and the world in general before he approaches us to ask for money for a cup of tea (whilst carrying and drinking from a can of super strength lager). When told no he starts going off on one and I say ‘fuck off’. He gets louder as he walks away and even Helen has enough and turns to scream at him to shut the fuck up.

Moments later an arrogant tosser looking at his phone nearly walks into her and then stands there refusing to get out of the way, as if he owns the pavement, and it isn’t him that wasn’t looking where he was going. Fuckwit.

But then the journey back to the hotel on the bus showed that not all Cambridge residents are total scum. After confusion over which Sainsbury’s we needed to bus to get to, the driver lets us stay on the extra stops, and a lovely old West Indian woman helps us to get off at the right stop to get the other bus that drops us off near the hotel.

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The hotel itself is infested. They are everywhere. They appear in little groups. They appear to come out of every orifice in the building. They all congregate in the dining area hoping to get some crumbs of the pizzas that have been brought out. They have scurried past us sat in the bar area, glaring at us with their beady little eyes, chattering away amongst themselves in undecipherable sounds. We ask at reception if they will be there at breakfast and if so from what time. We are told that the bus load of Spanish schoolchildren are due to be down for breakfast at nine. Best get up early to avoid the rush though.

Not that it did us much good, they started appearing from half eight, running around with plates that contained croissants and Nutella, or bowls full of Coco-pops, before running off to the grounds to arm themselves with sticks. We went and hid in our room until their coach had gone away before heading out for our final day of the tour.

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It had been a marvellous twelve days. We managed to get to look around at least part of thirteen towns and cities. We saw or visited eleven cathedrals, seven castles, and hundreds of other historic, medieval or ancient buildings. We had Italian, American, East African, English, Turkish, French, Indian, and Mexican food. We drove over a thousand miles through twenty six counties and saw and did things that we hadn’t before. Back in Crawley it was a trip to the tip and a supermarket. Talk about coming back down to earth with a bump.

Not A Record Year

Most people who know me know that I’ve always been slightly obsessed with music. I can’t remember the last time I went more than a week or so without buying music in one format or another. It may not have always been new music. I’ve spent countless hours wandering around charity shops, second hand stalls jumble sales and car boot sales looking for music.

 

Over the years I’ve built up massive collections twice, having to start from scratch in 2001. Since the dawn of mp3s I’ve rarely gone anywhere without an mp3 player, and have ran out of space on pc’s, laptops, and external drives on more than one occasion.

 

I’ve always been a vinyl junkie, and since vinyl has been taking off again over the last few years, when I’ve bought new music it’s normally been on vinyl. Most new releases tend to come with download codes, so I have the physical thing of beauty that is a vinyl LP, and the portability of listening to it whilst on the move. I’ve probably bought a new release every week.

 

However, this year it’s not been like that. I haven’t been in a record shop all year. I’ll qualify that by saying HMV isn’t really a record shop, and I’ve been in there a couple of times to get presents for people, but I haven’t bought anything for myself. I’ve not looked at the offerings in the supermarkets. Sainsburys, Asda, and even Aldi have vinyl selections, but I’ve been walking straight past. Charity shops have been getting short shrift as well. Crawley’s vast array of charity shops must have seen a substantial downturn in earnings so far this year. Not even Amazon has seen any musical action. I haven’t listened to a single thirty second track preview.

 

It got all the way through to week twelve of the year before I bought any music for myself. Even then it was only the ubiquitous Now That’s What I Call Music release. Number 99 in what is now a never-ending sequence. I have them all, either on Vinyl through to the early twenties, or then on CD from the twenties on. It’s more out of habit now than anything else. I may have bought it, but I’ve only listened to the first four or so tracks.

 

I still have a backlog of tracks to listen to from albums I bought at the back end of last year. I just don’t seem to have the time or inclination to listen to a lot of music. I rarely travel that much nowadays, the hours of having the iPod plugged in to block out the general public as I walked, bussed, or got the train anywhere has shrunk down to probably an hour or so a week.

 

The decks sit on top of the unit next to the sofa I sit on in the living room. Yet it barely gets used. Thousands of records adorn the units on the opposite wall, yet the sense of apathy around playing any of them seems to grow by the day. So much so that I’ve committed to having a thorough sort out and selling a number of them. Something else that I’m struggling to getting around to.

 

Part of me wonders if I’ve hit that stage where music is over for me. A constant companion over the years, especially as I had no television for several them, it has now drifted away into a casual background acquaintance that I barely seem to recognise. Or is it that this writing I now find myself doing has taken over? Do I avoid playing music and using my senses to accept incoming stimuli so that I can concentrate on outputting streams of consciousness instead? Or is it somewhere in between the two?

 

I hope it is not the end of my musical fascination, it would be a terrible way for it to end. Yet it is not something I can force, I think I’ll just have to wait it out and see if it does come back to me, hoping that the apathy will depart.

 

Perhaps once I’ve sold some of these records and CD’s that I’m sorting out, and had that kind of cathartic clear out, it will clear my mind out and it will all come back to me.

 

Listening to Now 99 too much isn’t necessarily going to help.