Hell to pay.

Customer service. I bang on about it. I never stop being aware of it. I give credit where it's due, and I certainly don't hold back when I've been let down... and let down, I have been!!

Sky customer services.... waited in all day for the engineer to come to fix my unsightly satellite dish. I took great pains to explain that my house is three stories high, and beyond that the dish is attached to the chimney.... so imagine my chagrin when Conrad arrives and his opening gambit is:

"You've no chance mate!"

Mere fractions of an hour later and Sky customer services are on the phone to me telling me confidently that, not only will Conrad not fix my problem, but I am not a Sky customer, that they never installed the system, that I've never bought any equipment from them, and that I don't subscribe to their services.

"I do." I protest.

"You don't" comes the voice down the wire.....

Pantomime ensues for several minutes before I suggest she looks harder at the computer screen.... much harder!!

A twenty minute phone call establishes that I do indeed have Sky TV... that I am a paid up subscriber, that they fitted the equipment, that they supplied everything, and ..... Guess what??

We finally establish that I have a high roof, and that Conrad will not fix my problem.

Someone else is going to call on Thursday this week, and I fully expect round two of exactly the same thing.

I could go on and regale you with further tales of dissatisfaction, but then what will I moan about tomorrow?

Chuff a duck.

You sometimes can't win, to the point that you sometimes wonder why you bother.

I am in trouble for locking the cats out.

Despite the fact that this particular act was originally encouraged by my mum, it is, seemingly, now it has been put into action, unacceptable.

For the record, and in my defence, and contrary to the misinformation my mum has received, here are the weather conditions for Huddersfield for the rest of the week:

Tuesday (today) High 12 degrees - Low 12 degrees (cloudy).
Wednesday (tomorrow) High 12 degrees - Low 7 degrees (showers).
Thursday (day after next) High 13 degrees - Low 7 degrees (showers).

After which time, the folks will be back in the country. Admittedly it is set to come a bit cooler on Friday, but still I think you will agree that these temperatures are NOT cold for December, by any stretch of the imagination.

If you can't tell, I'm very annoyed that my mum felt fit to question my judgement and she firmly believes that against all common sense I'd leave the cats out in an arctic blizzard and she'd be returning home to four ice cubes.

All my frustration could have been avoided by a visit here!

If anyone else thinks these temperatures are too cold to leave the cats in a greenhouse then feel free to add to my splendid mood.

Post update update: Vindication came, whilst watching the weather forecast, and it was described as being "exceptionally mild".

Three....

And that's the magic number.

I am starting to relax into the Pole Moor pace of life.

I managed to get my USB Freeview adapter working last night, and it found a fair few channels. so long as I watch television on the computer, I don't have to miss too much now. Heroes was the evening's viewing highlight for me. A real treat.

Today, having let the chickens out into a wind tunnel filled with sideways-rain, and cleaned a veritable mountain of cat puke up, I went back to my house. I read the blogs, had a shower, collected a few more clothes, and tidied up a bit. My house is starting to feel a bit cold and unlived in now. I put the heating on for an hour and played a bit of Pogo.

Blip - Another internet disconnection......

Undeterred, I type on.

Settled into Pole Moor this afternoon - That is, up until the point where I decided it might be nice to watch a video!! Remember videos?? Well, the setup here, like the weather, is wild and unpredictable. After thirty minutes "rewiring" of the TV, the video recorder and the DVD writer, I was watching Whisky Galore (one of my all-time-favourites) and within thirty more minutes, of course I was fast asleep.

I am sure I have broken my heel. It's very painful, and I thought it was an achilles heel injury. When I cast my mind back to what I might have done to cause so much pain and damage, I was reminded of a time in a changing room somewhere, when I pulled on some trousers and caught the back of my heel on the wooden seat in the cubicle. I hit it quite hard, and it did bleed. I had forgotten all about it. I am thinking that recent walking expeditions have aggravated this injury. I really can't live with the concept that I might not be able to walk more than a few miles, or indeed be able to ride my bike. I don't know how long I should wait for it to mend itself before I visit a Google searching doctor about it.

Internet still down..... 11 minutes later and I am back again.

Thirty nine steps.

Anyone who has followed my blog for any amount of time will know, without even having to think about it, that whenever I have to look after my mum's house at Pole Moor.....

I get extremely pissed off!!

Today is the start of thirty nine days of house sitting, of chicken husbandry, of cat caring, of shattered internet connections, and limited televisual experiences.

Eighteen chickens.

Four cats.

No internet. Well internet that is so temperamental that I have been trying to create a blog entry for nigh on six hours now.

Browsers that don't perform as they should - A combination of Opera, Firefox, and Internet Exploder will not (between them) allow me to publish a single photograph to my blog. A combination of windows internal firewall and the browsers' individual security settings are all arguing with each other.

Unfamiliar, unresponsive and frankly frustrating collection of photo editing software. I scanned a bunch of photographs earlier (for the purpose of my blog) and had to crop them.... It took me bloody hours for what should have been a ten minute exercise. The irony of this wasted time, is of course that the fourteen images I now have won't post.

A paranoid over zealous installation of Zonelabs Zonealarm (additional firewall), that won't let me fart without sticking a cork where monkeys shove bad nuts.

I've been house sitting for approximately twelve hours of the thirty nine days, and I am already tearing my hair out. Stay tuned for a complete and utter breakdown, which I predict will happen sometime around Thursday.

Saturday sample.

As promised, a couple of weeks ago, and never fully delivered..... I bring to you.... A Saturday Sample of "next blog" activity.

I sample twenty "next blog" examples and summarise the findings.

Today's results:

Twenty blogs sampled.

8 Blogs were spam.
4 Of the spam blogs hijacked me (got rid of the next blog button and removed the "back" functionality of my browser and tried to install software) and launched further adverts.
6 Blogs written exclusively by women.
1 Blog written by dogs.
2 Indian blogs.
1 Norwegian blog
1 Italian blog.
0 British blogs.
1 Blog features pictures of roses and poetry and made me feel sick.
1 Blog was entirely about kitchen interiors.
1 Blog featured really poor jokes and quotes.

The standard of blogging on offer to me today was VERY poor. The best blog I found today was written by dogs. I ONLY wish they would not use a camera with a flash, that fires directly into an animal's eyes!!

Here it is!

The state....

The state of blogging?

Well, I don't know what sort of state blogging is in. I decided to make a random sweep, using the little "Next Blog" button.... up there..... go on, keep going, right at the top .... got it?? Right... well.... no.... don't click it JUST yet!!

Ok, so the "Next Blog" button will take you magically to a random blog. I had heard that the chances of finding anything other than advertising spam and porn were actually VERY slim.

I decided to click through twenty blogs, and to record the type of blog and move on. Here's what I found:

7 Advertising and financial spam blogs.
1 Explicit gay porn blog (no warnings).

2 Japanese blogs.
2 Malaysian blogs (one in English, the other not).
2 Spanish blogs (one political, one about dancing).
1 Blog about taking a whizz in a public bathroom/toilet and the etiquette.
1 Very strange football blog (that was just a bunch of emails).
1 Blog of Dutch poetry.
1 Scrapbooking American mum of 2.
1 German yo-yo blog.
1 Random, quite funny blog.

Quite a sorry bunch, I am sure you will agree. Of the twenty sampled, I would only go back to one of them, and it wasn't the one that had pictures of young men whizzing into each other's mouths!!!

So, what's the state of blogging?

I can't say that this experiment really tells me very much, other than the fact that I am lucky to have such a nice bunch of blogging friends. I am lucky to have found so many interesting and worthy blogs to read in my time.

Not many people take the time or effort to read or write blogs at weekends, so maybe I will make a regular Saturday and Sunday feature out of this random blog sample and the search engine criteria that I enjoy so much.

The "Next Blog" button is pretty much worthless!!

PS: I accept absolutely no responsibility for what you might find if you use the Next Blog button.... Do so at your own risk!!

Mixed emotions.

Following on from yesterday's pro-animal campaign.... It is with sad news that I bring you this report.

A few days ago, I noticed that something had been nibbling away at the corner of the bags of birdfood that I keep in the cupboard underneath the kitchen sink. Vermin!!

I decided to try out the "humane" rat trap that I bought some time ago, which has since been renamed humane-animal-feeding-station - since it has fed every living animal this side of the Watford Gap, and caught approximately none of them. They've been queueing up around the block, and you may have noticed some of them on the "bowling cam".

Suffice to say, one pack of Emmental later, no animals caught. Birdfood all packed into tins and containers, safe from attack. Something is definitely eating the cheese though.

Commence operation "Shock and Awe". Two conventional mouse traps, baited with Wensleydale are laid out. Commence operation "Shock Horror" when I discover the crafty critters love the Wensleydale and manage to eat it without springing the traps.

Cue the cunning fox.

At approximately five o' clock this evening, I smeared peanut butter across one of the traps.

Fox 1 - 0 Mouse



In fairness to myself -

a) Peanut butter is the king of mousetraps.

b) It doesn't look at all like this fella suffered. No blood, no struggle, clean, quick, instant death!!

c) I am a hypocrite, but who wants these in their house?

Corgi horribilis.

Cast your minds back.... back.... back..... you are feeling sleepy.... wait, that's the wrong sketch.

Cast your minds back to January the 20th.

What were you doing? No, I don't know either.

What was Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh doing?

Well, if you are sitting comfortably, then I will begin......

He was shooting peasants at Sandringham... Oh, did I say peasants? I meant pheasants, but I am sure he wouldn't be bothered which of the two he fired at.

During this pleasant little country pursuit, the party of eight's enjoyment was positively ruined, when a fox ran out from beneath a minion's Doc Martened foot.

The shout went up "Fox, fox" and nobody could have argued with the astute level of animal recognition. Then, somebody's gun went off, and someone else's too.... a few shots were fired (presumably so you couldn't pin it on any one of them - like murder on the orient express) and the fox fell wounded.

Poor old uncle fox.... he lay there wounded for a while until one of the minions promptly stepped forward and coshed it with a flagpole.

Hoorah!!

The fun recommenced and those bloody peasants didn't know what was hitting them.

Five minutes later, it was all over and the minion returned to the fox, stamped on it, dragged it twenty yards, finally throwing it into a hedge.

They don't call them beaters for no good reason.

Well, as a kindred spirit, I am appalled at this sort of behaviour. I thank the woodwose that someone cares enough to stand up to it.

Enter Mark McGowan (performance artist, vegetarian, and animal rights activist).

Live on radio, he ate a corgi. The queen's favourite dog. He bloody well ate one.

If you were ever going to forsake your vegetarian principles, then this is the way to do it in style.

Mark was reported to say that it tasted "disgusting".

(for anyone interested - the corgi died at a breeding farm, and was minced with apples and onion)

I will stick with slugs.

Toad in the hole!!

I wasn't going to make a blog posting today.

I haven't been up to much. Got up late.... Played some Nintendo (of course)...... Went out for some lunch..... Visited the folks..... Came home, and the two pint lunch caught up with me.... Snoozed on the sofa to the dulcet tones of Alan Titchmarsh explaining something about an ice age??

It's all there in a nutshell, not that my blog is merely a boring "woke up, had some toast, got dressed" kind of journal you understand.

I've been goaded (or is that toaded?) into making a posting though.

I know I've been ranting about lurkers recently.

I know I encourage everyone to leave their pawprint in the sand, as they walk across my mind.

So, what is it that's wound me up?

See yesterday?? Well of course you can't actually see yesterday as such, but you can see the post I made yesterday clear enough. It's down there underneath this one (unless this one happens to be the last one on the page and yesterday's post has fallen off the stack into the archives - It's true that yesterday's blog is today's virtual chip paper!).

Well..... If you look at yesterday, you will clearly see, that at the top of the posting it carries a date stamp. It was obviously Friday, hence the title of the blog entry. The whole blog entry is about it being Friday.

Someone called Toad has been and commented on yesterday's blog (today), that it is in fact Saturday.

The irony of this comment is tearing me apart.

I know today is Saturday. I know I shouldn't be bothered by this comment. It's either a cleverly crafted mindfrik, or an incredibly silly reader. I can't decide, and it's making my head explode.

Coupled with the fact that Toad left no clue as to who they might be, or their reciprocal blog address....... I'm scuppered.

I fully anticipate a flood of comments telling me the day now, but believe me, once it's been pulled, my leg's not going to fall for that one again. Pull the other one, it's got bells on, as they say in Yorkshire!

Personal development.

A short while ago, the mighty Yorkshire Pudding made a comment, comparing me to Simon Armitage, and refusing to state whether this was a good thing or bad, and inviting me to make up my own mind. Rightly or wrongly, I took this to mean it was an insult!!

Rol came along, and stated that he felt it was a compliment of the highest order.

I am an ignorant bugger sometimes, and indeed, I often tend to form opinions about things I know feck all about. It's a nasty quality that I possess. I seem to remember reading some of Simon's work in "The Examiner" - Our local Huddersfield based rag. That was all I knew, and I hadn't much cared for it.

Anyhoo.....

Cutting to the chase..... Whilst house-sitting at mum's a week or two ago, I spotted the book "All Points North" and in order to broaden my horizons, began to read.

Well, I've finished the book now, and although there are several more books I should be reading before forming my opinion, I have already decided.......

1) I've enjoyed reading it.
2) I don't think that referring to yourself in the third person (if that's the right term) really makes someone a literary genius.
3) Omitting the words "the" and "and" and "a" does not turn a piece of writing into a poem (in my humble opinion).
4) I felt in parts that the author was trying to sell me a script, namely the Jerusalem thing.... I just didn't think it fitted into the book at all.
5) Some of it was very funny.

One thing I noticed whilst reading the book, and something which troubles me..... The experiences and stories of being in and around Huddersfield come as no great surprise to me. The beliefs and values that are being written about, are generally those of everyone in Colne Valley, and are well observed. I am frustrated by the simplicity of it all.

Imagine my mother and me, walking round the Tate Gallery.... Upon seeing a pile of bricks, the conversation would go something like......

"Look at that, that's not art. I bet you like it don't you?"
"Mum, it's art. It is no more or less valid than a bloody Van Gogh."
"So you like it?"
"I have no feelings about it either way, other than the fact that it is stirring some emotion in you and provoking conversation between us, and therefore it MUST be art."
"Well, I could have done that."
"Yes mum, of course you could have done it, more importantly you didn't do it and someone else did."
"Well it's rubbish"

End of conversation.

In the Simon Armitage context, I am very much in my mother's role.... but I CAN see that I have no position from which to criticise, as indeed, someone else did it, and I didn't.

If a publisher ever described my book like this "The specifications for the books are high -beautifully produced, they all have flaps and are sewn and printed in Italy" - I think I'd be looking for a new publisher!!

You look across the table at the nicotine lozenge that's been lying there for three days now. It wouldn't hurt to eat it, but you've done so well, and decide to have a smint instead. In twenty years you've never done a day without nicotine, and now you've done three.

You read back through your blog entry, and wish you'd sent it to a publisher instead of letting every man and his dog read it already.

Five things you don't know,

That I have never revealed;
But done in Haiku.

Naughty Yorkshire Pud,
Has forced reciprocation;
How can I refuse?

Jethro Tull concert,
Milton Keynes Bowl eighty-six,
I slept through it all.

First time I ever,
Saw someone take heroin;
Hawkwind - Leeds Uni.

For eight years of life,
I was an awkward vegan;
Life's easier now.

I once loved a girl,
Who worked in the same office;
I never told her.

Sometimes I am scared,
To try something different;
Afraid of Failure.

And so there it is,
Five completely random things;
Never seen before.

In true "tag" fashion,
I am bound to call upon,
Others to follow.

Spice-The-Cat is one,
Polgara is my Second,
Rol can be my third.

Sophia sorry,
You are the fourth poor beggar,
I am requesting.

One more soul to go,
I say sorry in advance;
Kristiine, would you please?

To explain the rules,
In Haiku is difficult;
Please see Yorks Pudding.

Tempting fate.

I know I shouldn't mention this.... I know I should keep my mouth shut.....

It is officially twenty hours, since I smoked a cigarette.

This might not sound like a brilliant achievement, and I am certainly NOT looking for reassurance, or support, or encouragement. I haven't even made a conscious decision to stop smoking. I bought some nicotine lozenges, with the aim of cutting down.

It seems quite apt, that on today of all days, the budget day, when cigarettes have just gone up by a further eleven pence per pack (of twenty), that I should be kicking it into touch.

As a positive measure, this is my story.

Recently I have been smoking two packs a day. That's forty cigarettes every twenty four hours. The old price of my habit, was approximately ten pounds and twenty pence per day. The new inflated price would be ten pounds and forty two pence per day. In the last forty eight hours, I've smoked just nine cigarettes, and eaten about three tons of food!!!

I'm gonna be able to breathe again, but too fat to get out of the house.

Bugger.

Hurray, it's the first day of spring.

To celebrate this gloriously sunny day, I've been out walking. Admittedly, I took a rucksack of food with me, but I have been out walking.

I also managed to take a few pictures.... nothing amazing, but they're on Flickr of course!!

There were quite a few things I wanted to write about today.... my mind's all over the place.....

Normal service will (hopefully) be resumed as soon as possible.

Quandary.

In life, there are decisions to make.

In fact, in life, we make millions of decisions each day that require no effort or thought at all.

Which sock to put on first? Subconsciously, I imagine every day I put the same sock on first every day. It's not something I think about.... except for now.

And what of the causality of putting on the same sock every day?

Would life take an alternate path if I made a conscious decision at the last minute and put down the sock, picked up the other one and put that on instead? Would those micro-seconds of adjustment mean that I get run over by a bus later this week? Unlikely, but probably just as likely as it is unlikely to be honest.

These are not the decisions that are currently troubling me though.

My current situation is thus:

I am unemployed (through choice, honestly) and am not looking for work.

Both Dawn and I have our own houses, we both have mortgages, we both probably have to spend more each month to keep our heads above water, than is healthy.

I have a lifelong desire - It's not an ambition, it's something I feel like the pulling of a tide - to move to Canada.

I currently have enough money in the bank that I don't actually NEED to work, but the longer I don't work, the less useful and large this ever decreasing sum of money becomes.

I have a business, through which I work contracts. As I am not looking for work, the business running costs are eating into the bank balance.

There is a rat living in my garden. As much as I love all things of nature, a rat running up my trouser leg is not a prospect I relish. Nor for that matter, is the prospect of said rat finding a suitable life partner, and establishing its very own rat utopia 'neath my bird feeding stations.

So....

What should I do?

I could wind up my company and take all the money for myself, but I need to put this money to good use, and not (as in all previous situations where money has landed on my doorstep) become a drug dealer, a drug abuser, or indeed piss any of it up against the wall.

I could get some sort of job, but in my current state of mid-life crisis, I am completely unsatisfied with my career options. I don't actually know what I want to be when I grow up.

I could move in with Dawn, or vice versa, and our combined efforts could actually wipe out 99% of the money troubles we both experience. I've had troublesome house-sharing experiences in the past, and this naturally makes me shy away from this option. The longer our situations go on though, the less money there will be available to achieve these ends. Coupled with the fact that there are Dawn's kids, and I have no parenting skills whatsoever, or indeed any parenting rights, this doesn't seem like an easy option.

I could just sell up, lock-stock-and-a-whole-barrel-of-fish, take my leave and move to Canada, and buy a house for cash money dollars, and stack some supermarket shelves or something.

Both Dawn and myself could sell up, and move to Canada. We could afford a house, and still have a fair amount of cash in the bank left over. Dawn's kids, added to this equation, their schooling, their dad, etc etc, create a myriad of problems, which seemingly make this task impossible.

I could poison the rat.... against my zen-like attitude towards nature..... Hope that the little birds don't get into the container of rat poison, and that the larger birds don't eat a poisoned dead rat.

So what do I do?

What would causality make of any of this?

......

I pull on my left sock, and fill a peanut butter jar with warfarin, lie down in the road with a cold compress on my aching brow, and wait for the 539 bus to Hebden Bridge to pass clumsily across my broken bones! (Note to self - must update my will, and benficiaries)