What

What a difference a day (or two) makes.

In true British style, I'm about to start some gentle weather discourse.

At the weekend it were boiling..... and now..... it's feeling like deep, dark autumn.

A ten degree temperature drop and some rather chilly winds have meant that my shorts and sunglasses are making way for socks and woolly hat.

It's decidedly cooler, and though there are promises that it'll pick up again by the weekend.... I'm not convinced.

I DID have fun at the weekend discussing the fact that it was "too hot" and bemoaning the scorching weather - in a very tongue-in-cheek manner with the overheated punters at the pub.  I knew that all too soon we'd be able to have a further conversation about the lack of summer and the bad weather we always have.... that's the advantage of working with drunk people.

So, I've tried to be a good boy.  I've tried to get back to my blog on several occasions, each time to be thwarted by such events as computers that refuse to work or a stomach that needs to be filled.

Just now, as an example, I received an email that wasn't really intended for me.... I had to forward it to someone else, and in order to do that I had to log in to a different mail account, find some mail with that person's email address , copy and paste between one email client and another, forward the mail..... it all takes time and provides endless opportunity for being sidetracked..... I rest my case, and I rest my feet on my case while I get my book out.

Point in question - one minute I'm typing my blog.... the next minute I'm reading and commenting on another blog..... then I hear the front door opening and I'm making a cup of tea for my mum..... time passes.... and passes......

And so, it comes to be that at some point I was hoping to post a few more pictures from THIS last trip to the borders area of Northumberland..... and of course, I end up posting pictures of fish and a previous trip to Northumberland....  it's more complicated than it needs to be.

In honour of a recent competitor on "Celebrity" Big Brother, I've made my very own internet based "wishlist" and you're all free to pick off as many items as you wish to send to me in exchange for, well, how about some gratuitously bad holiday snaps?

Here's my wishlist, and remember it's my birthday on the 24th September!!

Treading

Wake up.... do some jobs.... go to the pub..... come home..... be tired.... repeat as necessary.

Trying to enjoy my week of solitude but not really finding much time to relax and do nothing....

This morning I've brought some washing in and folded a few pieces before unceremoniously dumping it on one of the kids' beds.  I've cleaned out the cat litter tray and fed and watered the cats (outside today) while I cleaned the cat feeding area in the kitchen.  I've repacked all my fishing gear that's been strewn around the kitchen in various states of wetness due to downpours on the last two successive fishing trips to Tatty Watter.  I've re-tensioned the sagging washing line and washed it down.  I've cleaned my scruffy coffee jar that had a crust of melting coffee granules all around the top of the lid.  I've bleached all the cleaning cloths, brushes and scourers.  I've made a cup of coffee and somehow managed to lose it.

It's now time to start on the lounge (which after last night's activities - i.e. me being late home and slightly drunk looks like I had a party in there) and then I can start thinking about some lunch and a late shift at the pub (tea time until closing time - on a Tuesday, which is renowned for being, well let's just say quiet).

So, this week of "home alone" despite me eating prawn crackers from the bin and finding some crumbs of what appeared to be biscuit(?) that had gathered in a fold in my jeans......  I'm living on vegetable curry that I managed to make and when I don't have the inclination or time.... it's cheese and crackers all the way.

I've just noticed that my bedroom looks a mess now too..... groans..... right... no time to say "hello, goodbye" I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.......

Time to hit the lounge!

Weeks

Flying through space and time at a rapid rate of knots.

This week, Curiosity landed on Mars and presumably it landed on the Martian cat that was having a crap in the giant litter tray (or crater as we prefer to call it).

Oh dear..... and therein lies the power of the internet..... one minute I am happily tootling along writing a blog, and the next minute I am watching videos of ducks accompanied by techno music....

Sidetracked.....

Here's where I got up to:

Curiosity confirms that there was indeed in the not so distant past, life on Mars

Mars landing plan of Curiosity

And then I started looking at ducks, foxes, Olympics... a whole heap of other sidetracking things..... and that's my point really....

Where do these weeks go?

One minute I'm breathing a sigh of relief that I've survived another Saturday scrumdown at the pub.... then there's the tranquility of line-cleaning on a Sunday morning.  Monday I do a little afternoon evening shift and I have two days off on Tuesday and Wednesday.  This week, on Tuesday, I have absolutely no idea what I did with my day.....  oh wait, yes I remember, I've been researching glasswashers (of the mechanical kind, not the two pound an hour spotty kind) and how we might successfully lease or hire one that performs better than the one we already have.

Ok, so that's most of the week so far accounted for..... and yesterday......  I went fishing.... I fished a little bit of the canal near Elland and had a few perch and a nice bream - was very slow going, but I sat out in the sun and had a nice relaxing day - must do it again sometime - not only because my fridge now has the customary remnants of a pint of maggots in it!

And that's where weeks go.....  add into the mixer that this week I had vowed not to drink, and have so far managed to drink every single day...... plenty of  Facebook.... Olympics..... curry..... blog reading.... pogo playing..... the list goes on....

Fox takes a deep breath.......  waiting for a call from a man about a glasswasher and then..... a bit of gardening and a shift at the pub tonight.

crunch

Back to school.

I've been sent back to school to study the finer points of running a pub.

It just so happens that the landlord/lady who runs the pub where I have achieved some form of employment, has been awarded a free place on a training course courtesy of the pub company from whom they rent their pub, and "tig, you're it!" or should that be "I'M it"?

So there's a pub which seems to think it's in Morley which is really more like in Dewsbury, and for the next five days I'm trying to explain to a guy who only understands "swot analyses" and the "5 P's of marketing" that his theoretical marketing and promotional strategies hold very little water when you're confronted with five guys in banana costumes who are on the "ale trail".

It doesn't take me very long to come to the conclusion that life would be much simpler if I kept my mouth shut.

On the plus side, the landlady/lord do keep stressing to me that they do eventually want me to manage their pub for them when they step slightly to the side in September or thereabouts.

It could, as George Formby predicted, all turn out nice again.

Employment Law tomorrow - hooray!

light

Out of the darkness into the light.....

It's Wednesday and this week that could only mean one thing.....

The landlord/lady (depending who you speak to) - return from their holiday and my grip over their public house reverts back to one of being a casual employee.  I have only one more evening shift to do and everything goes back to "normal".

It's been a tough week running the pub and I've probably clocked up around sixty hours - which doesn't sound like a frightening amount in a week until you realise that there have been two other people also working at the pub - the lad who has done the daytime shift will have done thirty six hours and my partner in crime, who works some evenings and weekends with me will have done perhaps thirty five or more hours.

It all adds up to a rather large wage bill, some tired bar staff, and a couple of sun-tanned publicans!

Despite my  fear and nervousness at the THOUGHT of dealing with the week.... it's turned out to be quite rewarding and relatively straight forward.  I have a methodical way of working and it's stood me in good stead this week.

Highlight of the week was surviving the "Ale Trail" on Saturday with the help of Antonia, Dawn and Mandy.

Lowlight of the week is probably the dripping tap that I've hammered into the barrel of Kelham Island's Easy Rider! (Which I don't think is my fault).

Highlight - Managing to deal with real ale for the first time (at a cellar level).

Lowlight - finding out that I have to be at the pub for the beer delivery with no warning.

Highlight - Putting three new barrels of real ale on during a busy Saturday shift.

Lowlight - A light-bulb exploding and tripping the fuse......  (a real head scratching moment).

Highlight - Managed to get a whole day off fishing yesterday.

Lowlight - Several times, when climbing into bed, late at night, I've remembered something I have to go back to the pub for!!

not

Not dead, just in a fuggy haze of Carling and Jagerbombs!

Ale Trail Saturday came and went, and yes, it was manic at times....... we're all alive though..... not sure about some of the punters that bought silly drinks though!

One day soon I'll be free to come and read and write ..... for now...... I have one hour before I am back behind the bar.....

Time for some food.

Confused

Confused from Huddersfield!

I am working some crazy stints at the pub this week..... I mean crazy!

Some days I'm opening up the pub, other days I'm closing up the pub..... and all the twiddly little bits that go inbetween.

A good number of years ago, I worked as a Mainframe Operator - the computer was so old and grey that it filled a whole, enormous, air-conditioned room.

The disk drives (whose capacity was tiny) needed two people to lift them, and the tape drives were like those that you might see in a mad scientist's laboratory in an episode of Thunderbirds.

I say "a good number of years ago" but it might surprise that this was still in operation around the time of the millennium switch-over, by which I mean the twentieth to twenty first centuries!

Well, that job was a split-shift pattern, and one week I would be working 6:30am to 2pm (including Saturday morning) while the following week I'd be working 2pm to 9pm (or until you'd achieved the workstream - sometimes early hours, others you might get a half hour earlier) and that week there'd be no weekend working.

I shared the shifts with a clever young chap called Sean and we did ok..... we actually ran things quite well.

The ONLY problem I had with those split shifts was that you sometimes get disoriented.......

It's wasn't uncommon for me to wake up at silly o' clock in a cold sweat thinking I'd forgotten to go to work, or that I'd missed a shift, or that I didn't know which way was up and what day of the year it was.

It's the only time in my life that I've had irregular working patterns and hours..... and it did strange things to me.

Well.....

I'm sure the more astute readers have already guessed where this is heading.....

Day one of my hectic schedule and I'm already waking up in that familiar cold sweat!

Right now I'm typing so fast so that I can get this down..... get to the pub to open up..... go to the supermarket to get some food...... cook myself some food and head back to the pub for the evening shift (I need to make myself some decent food because once I'm in the pub tonight I will be there until closing time).

Roll out the barrel on next week!

Trail

The butterfly effect is kicking in....

I don't know why, but when I am getting ready to do the afternoon and early evening shift at the pub on a Saturday, I start to get nervous.

As soon as I pour the first drink and my eyes get accustomed to the gloom over the till and the fine print on the keys thereof, I'm fine......

It's the "Ale Trail" that does it!

It's a bit like the feeling of jumping out of a plane and hoping that you have a parachute strapped to your back but without being able to check until you're falling to earth.

It's unpredictable and a bit wild.....  you could crash in a heap on the floor with Carling lager all around you or you could float majestically to earth, landing on the big red cross amid raptures of applause with a finely poured pint of real ale clutched in your hand.

Who knows what the afternoon will bring....

I only hope it isn't a series of requests for "shooters" and "jagerbombs" and that everyone just wants Guinness and Carling - it would make life much simpler for us humble serving agents!

So there you go..... I'm up to date with the Tour De France..... nonplussed over the latest events in the Big Brother house...... and if I don't pour a drink for someone soon, well I might just break into a cold sweat!

See you all tomorrow for a Sunday Search perhaps?

where?

Where on earth does the time go?

Seems like one minute I'm doing the Sunday Searches, and the next minute I've got headache and it's Thursday lunch time.

Perhaps it's the cause of the headache that's responsible for these missing days?  A few beers at the pub last evening in order to lend some support to a trial run of an "unplugged" jam session - the pub was quite busy for a Wednesday evening and although the musicians were not out in force, they did manage to put on quite a good show.... and of course the beer was nice!

But that only accounts for one single evening, and I can't blame THAT for the rest of the week.

The Tour De France is taking up a fair bit of my time - I am only watching the highlight shows this year...... I'd be more than happy to fall into the trap of watching endless hours of the live show but it DOES take up so much time.  It's a fascinating sporting spectacle, and one which I look forward to every year.  For those unfamiliar with it, it's a very tactical and complicated game.... it's not just riding round France on bikes... oh no..... much more complicated than that, and I'm not even going to start explaining it here.

But that's only an hour a day or a middle of the night viewing experience when the heat/humidity/sound of rain are keeping me awake.

Big Brother is merrily marching towards its conclusion in a few weeks time - I'm always up for an episode of Big Brother - car crash TV which simultaneously manages to be at its best and worse.  This year has not been a "classic" by any stretch of the imagination, and I wonder whether the best days are a long time behind it, but I still watch the spectacle.  This year has been most notable for its unashamed game playing and general lack of "love"!  Everyone hates each other, and I in turn, hate them all!

That's another hour out of my day accounted for..... and sometimes I watch Big Brother's Bit on the Side - the companion forum show..... but not religiously.

Pogo - Online gaming accounts for a few hours of my week.

Lego Batman 2 on the Wii - that's eaten a fair old chunk out of my days this week..... if it didn't crash quite so much it would probably have had more!!

Facebook - countless hours - but usually while I am doing something else as well.

Work - did a couple hours Sunday and a few hours on Monday.

Music - I've been collecting a load of "pub friendly" tunes that I can stick on an iPod and play on a random cycle.... there's nothing worse than being stuck in a musical loop at work - ask any shop worker during the christmas period!!  Once collected - from various sources..... I have "cleaned" them up - discarded any that were faulty (for whatever reason) and "equalised" their volumes (whereby they go through some software that matches the volumes together so that you don't suddenly blow up your speakers with a really loud song).

The music thing, in fairness, has taken bloody ages!!

Blogs - reading blogs.... it takes a      l     o     n    g    time to read all the blogs.  Some bloggers manage to post multiple items per day, while others might manage one shot a week..... they all take time.... and that is sometimes followed by a little research..... and the process of formulating a charming and witty response.  HOURS!!

Now, I'll be glad to go to work tonight, just for a rest!!

Tinker....

Tinkering with my widgets.

I know I shouldn't but I'll just do it until I need glasses!

After a rather late and stressful bar shift last night, I'm left feeling a little flat today.

I was hoping I might rise late, have a bite to eat, pack some fishing gear and head out to charm a fish or two out of a local fishing hole, known, rather imaginatively, as the "Duck Pond" at Lindley.

Of course the British summer has other ideas, and it's possibly the wettest morning I've seen since I lived in Outlane, some seven or eight years.

So, I've been tinkering.

I've changed the "chicken" tune to one the is more suited to our current situation, and I've uploaded a few couple more webcam highlights.  Don't forget to click on the arrow, on the right, under where it says "music player" to hear my latest selection.

There's a definite "weather" and "ducks" theme running through the air today!

The tune in question is dedicated to my late cousin Dan - It's a track by a band called Lemon Jelly and I'm pretty sure you'll be able to guess its name.  I remember the twinkle in Dan's eye when he told us about this track.  I'd heard it before but didn't know what the heck it was.  Anyway, this is an "unplugged" version of that tune and I'd give anything to be playing it to Dan and imagining him dragging out, not only this version, but every other version that has ever been released and quite a few that haven't as well.  He was an avid, obsessive compulsive, collector.

The stress at work was caused by a lack of customers......  between the hours of half past eight and ten o' clock, the pub was empty..... I cleaned and tidied, wiped and dried, mopped and stacked, rinsed and wrung..... until there wasn't a surface left that I could tackle.

Bored by the inactivity, I had a go on the quiz machine and was almost in "cash winning" mode when a single solitary customer walked in.....  rats!  I think he had half a lager and went to pick up some salt and pepper chips.  Lucky lad!

I got another seven or eight customers that came in and stayed until closing time.

I managed to clock up one complaint about my music choice in the pub (the trouble with "compilation" albums is that there's always one or two tracks that you don't like, and the landlandy happened to walk into the bar at one of those moments - even I don't like the track, but if you had a jukebox there'd always be someone who'd put the Wombles on or something right?).  I could write a bit more about this "music" thing.... perhaps another day?

At 2:30AM I woke up with more "window" fever!!  Did I check the windows?  Knowing full well that I did!

Fingers crossed

I got a fortune cookie last night and the fortune said......

Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.

.... and I like that.

I know all fortunes and astrology and stuff are just ambiguous claptrap......

BUT.....

When I went to find the aforementioned piece of paper to take a photograph.... it wasn't there......

I found it tucked down the side of the sofa along with a twenty pence piece!

Cool!

Brief blog, but I'm working tonight and it will be verging on tomorrow by the time I get home, so you'll just have to make do with that!

 

Tinker.....

Tinker, tailor, soldier, procrastinator!

My car's broken......  not only is it broken, but the required part is not available until the seventeenth of July, and that's slightly over a month away..... when they said "one month next Sunday", I don't think anybody was laughing.

The particular part that's broken is a spring..... they make the wheels go up and down into the potholes that the council leave for us.

Now this spring is a special spring.....  you can only use a spring manufactured by the original car manufacturer because it's so rare that nobody else would want to make it.  The spring only fits my particular model and only those of that particular model that were made in that particular year!

It's a "one off" and I presume the original car manufacturer are manufacturing the part on that basis..... there is no stock of it.

So, I'm housebound..... which is less painful than it might originally sound in comparison to being egg-bound!

I'm wishing to be fishing!

So, I've spent a little bit of time getting back to my blogger template...... I've resurrected the "music player" featurette and also have paved the way for a future re-release of the ever popular "bowling cam" widget.... so keep your eyes peeled over on the right hand side of my page for when THAT goes live!

The "music player" function is a nice simple affair.... and I've (rather against my usual style) made sure that the player doesn't automatically start, which could result in heart failure for any number of blog visitors who have their sound turned up too high and have yet to be notified.... and it shouldn't piss you off too much because now YOU.... yes YOU....  You sat there in your vest and pants, slobbering your cornflakes all over the keyboard...... can start and stop the music at will...... I will probably change the tune weekly or so, in order to give you a chance to have a listen should you so wish.  If you look on the right hand side under the "bowling cam" there's a little arrow.... if you click that it will play some music.... if you click it again it won't play some music....  even YOU can manage that!

* [edit] - Apologies to those of a nervous disposition for my first choice of "music" - it sums up my dark mood and reminds me that if Armageddon were coming down the road, it would be accompanied by this excellent track..... one of the best gigs I ever went to blah blah blah.....
** [edit] - Cheryl Cole has now replaced my music of choice!  Blame Yorkshire Pudding for that one!

Bowling cam is another matter all together!

I've lost both of my webcams!  As soon as I find one of them, OR as soon as I find a really cheap, nasty, horrible, low quality piece of plastic that purports to be a webcam..... it will be up and running.

To make these little doo-hickeys do what they're intended to do..... I've had to install my own little web server..... so the stuff you'll see is actually coming to you live(ish) and sort of directly from the computer in my bedroom..... and of course if you're not seeing or hearing anything, then I've switched my computer off or my house has burnt down and you should call for a fire brigade or something......

And so, this merely proves that point that..... 

"one man's car part is another man's web server" - (Confucius)

On the other hand....

Been too busy with Ubuntu and walking to do any blogging.....  I am just going outside and may be some time!  So, let me leave you with this famous quote!

"The decay widths have higher-order perturbative QCD corrections, and these are particularly important for the  decay which dominates over a wide range of (light) Higgs masses. The main effect is to cause the quark mass to run from its "constituent quark" value at  to a lower value at ."

Say what now?

I was just flicking through my "stats" and it would appear that I received six hundred and sixty six pageviews in the month of May.....  Strange!

Wow it's been a busy little day with one thing and another.  I know that most people don't consider the things that I do as anything other than procrastination but I've done loads of it!

I have sectioned and printed a whole heap of OS maps for the purpose of walking.  This also involved me going to my mum's house to use the printer and to return something she'd passed on to me in error, and of course involved me copying everything onto a USB stick to take with me for the printing which also included a Langdale Pike walk document that I've downloaded.

I emptied the dishwasher.  I emptied the drainer on the sink of the items that don't go in the dishwasher.

I went to see Richard to get some computery bits to rebuild a computer that I've been doing for the past few hours - which is going badly wrong and making me tear my hair out.  I've even spoke to Richard about what he thinks and I am still no further with it.

I've spent time researching the "movie and meal" deals that we could choose for this weekend and finally chosed.... and booked that for Saturday night.

I've watched the end of a film that we started watching last night.  I've watched a film that I downloaded last night while I slept.

I've broken and subsequently bodged back together my USB stick.  My NEW USB stick no less..... it fell into three pieces!  It's only a couple of weeks old.

And that's about it - all time consuming nonsense that somebody simply HAS to do.... and I've jolly well done it!

AND I've written a blog entry for the day!

Panic

I'm typing this in a bit of a flap.... 

Having reached the end of my very short tether regarding my under-performing antiquated laptop and its very own personalised geriatric copy of win-doze.... in a peak of fury I decided to completely wipe it and install windows from scratch AGAIN.

This is the life of a windows user.

Anyway, the machine's looking alright now and it's got a new lease of life.  The only thing left to do is install a few pieces of software - no doubt crippling windows in the process.

This is the life of a windows user.

Well I was planning a large-scale jaunt out to the Dark Peak tomorrow with my mate Ben, but as I type it's bloody hammering down with snow, the forecast for Edale for tomorrow is snow, rain and twenty five mile an hour winds.... the sort of thing you really ought not to be clambering about on a large millstone grit escarpment in.

So we've pared back the expedition and we're doing the 12.5 mile Colne Valley Circular - a route I know quite well - and which provides us with several safe bail-out zones where we can curtail the adventure with no harm done.

Right now I am cursing the snow and desperately trying to find the Memory Map software and the routes that I've created......  

This is the life of a windows user that goes out walking in the snow!