Dark night.

It's a dark night, and a good night to watch the Dark Knight.....

I've been up to my elbows in films again. Spent a bit of time watching some old black and whites, watched a few episodes of John Shuttleworth's 500 Bus Stops, and crowned it all off with a viewing of the Dark Knight movie.... the one with Heath Ledger as a crazy arsed Joker and Christian Bale as a Batman with a Samuel Tweetesque speech impediment!!?? (anyone remember Thamuel Thweeth?)

At two and a half hours long it's a bit beyond my standard concentration levels and there were a couple of moments where I felt it was going on a bit but I stuck it out and thought it was a good film, albeit quite brutal and much too harsh for the younger eyes that I might have liked to lend it to under normal circumstances.

As for the rest of the day..... well.... gas fires were quite important..... Pictureka (a game like "Where's Wally") played a large part.... waiting in my car playing Pokemon while my mum attended various health centres..... ginger wine.... parkin pigs..... cherry scones..... usual stuff.

Perhaps I've got room for a beer tomorrow?



Perplexing: 3:38pm (last Saturday afternoon) in Albert Square..... I thought it was Coronation Street in Manchester, not Eastenders!! A very busy European Christmas Market and a giant illuminated santa.... what more could you ask for? The more eagle eyed amongst you may spot Sally Webster wandering about like she's just been discharged from a mental hospital complete with straightjacket (or perhaps you won't?)!! I might be wrong about this being Albert Square.... Sally Webster may not be in this picture.... I've still got that one-leg-shorter-than-the-other trademark tilt!!

Never return.

Never return to a firework that's gone out. Even if the firework never properly ignited, it's not the best solution to go and stick your eye over the top of it to see what happened. We all learn these little rules of life, and they go along just fine until......

Even a broken boiler can burn you.

Having thwarted my usual boiler repair man and having soured our relationship by him having to back away from the deal seriously out of pocket..... I contacted the boiler manufacturer......

Here follows their reply:

As your appliance is now out of warranty, should you wish for our engineer to visit your property, we can do so for a fixed charge of £215 which includes most parts, labour and VAT. The only parts not included in this fixed price are the heat exchangers and expansion vessel, therefore should we find that any of these parts are required, our engineer will quote separately on site for the completion of the repair.

I would advise however that we do reserve the right to charge an abortive call out fee of £82.25, should our engineer be unable to gain access to the appliance, where parking is not available, where the appliance is deemed beyond economical repair or find the fault to be external to the appliance. This may also apply if the visit is cancelled by yourself with less than 24 hours notice.

Ouch..... burned again. What happened to my eyebrows??



My recent trip to Manchester. Not only did Sally Webster from Coronation Street try to buy some amaryllis bulbs from me in the market, but my good friend Shaun Ryder bought me a pint in the Marble Arch. If you look carefully you might just spot the lovely Wally Dawn in this picture.... Sally Webster's phone number goes to the first correct guess.

The boiler man cometh.....

... and invariably he faileth to fixeth my boiler.

The boiler repair man has suffered a severe defeat at the hands of my obsolete Gloworm Fuelsaver F 55F broken down machine. Parts were replaced, earths were restrapped, connections remade, circuits tested, voltages measured..... we even tried turning it off and on again!! For all intents and purpose, the boiler should be working... it goes through its routine and the final step is the spark which ignites it... and that's where it fails.... all other preliminary stages are present and correct.

Upshot, it's still f-f-f-freezing.... my boiler repairman has suffered a devastating cost in spare parts which he can't return or charge for.... I think it's new boiler time..... insert groan here.

We are all very disappointed but only one of us is cold.



Manchester Eye and the Arndale Centre - After a few beers and a trawl around the festive markets in the city centre on Saturday afternoon and evening. Spent some time in the Marble Arch (my first but not last visit there) and the Briton's Protection (where I struggled to get through a very fine pint of "hung, drawn and portered").