Milt's Page

Pensioner Poppers At Glastonbury

2009-06-28T22:49:00.003Z

Track of the day - All Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

Bogsville must have been the wettest place in Britain yesterday. Play on the centre court was washed out as was the local 'Bury A Rockstar Festival' or BARF as it's known round here.
Just as well because there weren't any old rockstars available, what with recent events in California and the preposterous preponderance of pensioner poppers booked into Glastonbury.

Driven indoors by the deluge I sat, barf bag at the ready, watching the BBC's red button coverage of Crosby, Stills and Nash, Status Quo, Spinal Tap, Tony Christie, Tom Jones and Neil Young and decided that people must flock to Glastonbury because it's Glastonbury rather than to enjoy the music.

I suspect that you can hear better live bands at Butlin's.

Perhaps they'll invite Sir Cliff to next year's do now that there's a roof on Centre Court at Wimbledon.

Michael Jackson Has Died

2009-06-25T22:57:00.001Z

Track of the day - All Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

This little duck is a nestling Coot. Unlike adult coots that are renowned for their baldness, the nestlings have a full head of very colourful hair. I'm going to request a coot style hairdo next time I visit 'the mad barber'.

The Best For Less

The helpful service people at Volvo sent me a letter this morning advertising their 'Essential Service' costing 'Only £150'.

As far as I can see, their 'Essential Service' is an Oil and Filter replacement and the Adjustment of parking brake shoes and lever. If I really want value for money they'll add an MOT test to the package for 'Only £179.99'.
Sorry Volvo, your offer stinks.

Breaking News

Michael Jackson has died.

Traditional Country Pastimes

2009-06-23T22:25:00.001Z

Track of the day - All Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

The sun shone and a record 52,000 flocked to the country seat of the Earl and Countess of Bogsville to enjoy all the traditional pastimes that country people love best.

How Green Is That?

2009-06-19T08:57:00.002Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

The milkman delivered our milk at 03.15am this morning. I know this for a fact because I overheated in bed, got up to cool off and watched him deliver it.
His electric float appeared from nowhere then he ran up and down the driveways delivering pints of milk and collecting the empty bottles, before running back to the float and disappeared round the corner to finish his round. "How green is that?" I thought to myself and went back to bed.

I hate to think what time he started work but he had to load the milk onto the float before he started the delivery round so it must have been early.
I'll have to ask him when he comes back this afternoon to collect the money.

The first milk deliveries that I can remember were made by a guy with a horse and cart. The horse had a feed bag hung round its head. Straw went in at one end and brown stuff dropped out of the other.
Old man Inscoe who lived opposite us used to rush out and follow the horse along the road collecting the steaming piles of brown stuff in a bucket.

I thought he was just cleaning up but Ma said the brown stuff was called manure and that old man Inscoe was going to put it on his rhubarb.
I asked Pa why he didn't put manure on his rhubarb. He said he preferred custard.

At some point in history the dairy replaced the horses with electric milk floats and they've been using them ever since. I don't know what happened to the horses but I don't think battery acid is much good on rhubarb.

Dogs Are More Useful Than Hearing Aids

2009-06-16T22:31:00.003Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

Imagine my surprise when I spotted this helpful little booklet on a chair in the kitchen this morning. I know that I'm not getting any younger and that I'm not very tall for my age but even so.

Yesterday my hearing aids were retubed, rebalanced and the default volume turned down a couple of notches. The shouty young ear doctor man told me to wear both the aids all day, every day for a month, so that my brain gets used to hearing the world the way that it is supposed to sound. He EXPLAINED that by taking the hearing aids out I'm just confusing my brain.
All the staff at the ear hospital shout.
I think it probably has something to do with them only dealing with deaf people.
The posters on the walls tell you to speak clearly and not to shout but the doctors and nurses all shout anyway.
Perhaps they can't read.

Today found me sitting in the sun, my confused brain bombarded from all sides by the deafening cacophony of bird screech and traffic roar that is, according to the ear doctor, what you people with normal hearing experience every day.

Sitting in the garden it seemed to me that I might just as well be sitting on the central reservation of a motorway.
Compared to this auditory hell, my tinnitus masked, virtually soundless, everyday world is a haven of peace and quiet.

How does a hospital guy with perfect hearing know what living with my tinnitus is like?
He doesn't. He might think that he does but he doesn't.
It makes about as much sense as a male gynecologist explaining to a pregnant woman what childbirth is like.

Anyway - after two hours of listening to the world through two hearing aids I'd had enough and ripped the aid out of my right ear. As a result I missed the delivery man when he came to the door. Luckily dog alerted me to the fact that there was an intruder and I was able to wave him down before he disappeared.
In my opinion dogs are more useful than hearing aids and far better company.
The care home brochure is going in the shredder.

Prince Edward Island New Release

2009-06-14T21:06:00.004Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

The week ended well here in Bogsville. The long lost thousandth piece of the jigsaw turned up under my chair in the back room. Mrs B took time off from Helping the Aged to run the vacuum cleaner round and found the little bogger.

The vacuum cleaner came out because we had young people staying for a couple of days. Well you have to set an example when young people come to stay. I even got both my hearing aids out and inserted them in the appropriate place but still couldn't hear what anyone said. For all the good they did I might just as well have stuck them in my a**. I'm off for a retube tomorrow.

Love Song Trilogy

The band known as Prince Edward Island have a new release on their myspace page. It's entitled Let's Stay In And Go To Town and opens up with the inspired line "The ash tray's overflowin'".

It's billed as part two of their Love Song Trilogy or the flip side of Sex In The Morning - "I'm coughin' you're yawnin'" that I've been plugging for weeks now at the top of the page.

If you are over 23, I insist that you go to their page and enjoy the lyrics of all their offerings. The band deserves global recognition.

I should know - I'm an expert on such matters and am gagging to hear the final part of the Trilogy.

Nasser Hussain A Joke

2009-06-11T22:55:00.003Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

Oh dear again! England must have left the attitude notice on the wall at the Oval. This evening's seven wicket defeat at Nottingham by South Africa suggests that either the players' mental attitude was a wee bitty off or that mental attitude is no substitute for genuine ability.

I just wish that someone at Sky would get Nasser "Will he dare to play the reverse sweep shot?" Hussain out of the commentary box. The guy might have been England cricket captain but as a commentator he is a joke.

Go North Festival Inverness

2009-06-10T10:44:00.002Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

The band known as Prince Edward Island perform live tonight as part of the Go North festival in Inverness.
So if you happen to be in Inverness rather than Bogsville or anywhere else...

The Secret Of T20 World Cup Success

2009-06-08T22:33:00.003Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

Here's the secret of the England cricket team's success against Pakistan.
The notice on the changing room wall reads - Nothing on Earth can stop the man with the right mental attitude from reaching his goal, nothing on Earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
The guy on the right of the picture obviously had the wrong mental attitude - he didn't even get to play in the match.

While the England team relied on attitude to see them through against Pakistan at the Oval, the Sri Lankan team used duvets to keep them warm enough to dump the Australians out of the ICC T20 World Cup at Nottingham.

Cricket Cap & Tit

2009-06-06T10:14:00.002Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

I think that this fine new cricket cap complete with maker's tag belongs to West Indian cricketer David Eddison Bernard Jnr.
He was wearing it during Wednesday's World Cup warm-up match against England at Lord's. I'm not sure whether leaving the tag on the cap is a style thingy or just an indication that he was required to give the cap back after the match.

Netherlands 1 England 0.
Oh dear!

Baby birds have started turning up for breakfast, lunch and evening meal. This one's a blue tit.
He was quite capable of feeding himself but when someone else will feed you why bother?

Sneezing Ladies

2009-06-02T10:22:00.002Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

You should never underestimate the power of the human sneeze or, come to that, overestimate the strength of fasteners on close fitting clothing.

Last night in search of sneezing ladies wearing close fitting summer clothing, I wandered along to the Hole in the Ground bar. My first visit this year.
Outside was a large sign announcing the New Indian Kitchen. I wasn't aware that there had been an old Indian Kitchen. Must have been after the smoking ban came into force.

There were no ladies at all in the pub, just four old men watching adverts on a big screen TV. I should have left right there and then.

"Sorry we're out of this and out of that," the manager said. "We have got Carlsberg," he said pointing at a pull clearly marked ice cold Bulmers.
On the front of the pull someone had stuck a piece of paper. The biro written message on it read Carlsbug.
I asked for Carlsbug.

"I haven't seen you for a long time," he said.
"No one's seen me for a long time," I replied, "and it'll probably be a long time before any one sees me again."

He explained that there was very little to drink in the pub because he no longer orders the drinks.
The owner's son places the orders.
As neither the owner nor his son does a regular stock check or works in the pub...
Exactly.
Yet another pub with no beer which is just what you don't want when Bogsville's Summer has been crammed into the last three days and nights.
I drank two pints of Carlsbug then the Carlsbug ran out. So did I.

Zooey & An Icepick

2009-05-30T19:33:00.005Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

What is it with jigsaw puzzle manufacturers? For the second time in three weeks we've completed a 1000 piece puzzle to find that it only has 999 pieces. One piece missing. What a ripoff!

Readworthy Bl**s

I'm struggling to find visit worthy bl**s. In the last two days I've been to dog pages, cake pages, baby pages, knitting pages, gardening pages, hiking pages, photo pages, model car pages, witch pages, ripped jeans pages, political comment pages and failed to find anything grippy or tittery or anything really. Come to think of it the pictures on the ripped jeans pages weren't too bad.

Why bother? Because half the people listed on the right hand side of the page no longer post or they've gone into hiding or have just gone or they have secret pages that I don't have access to.

This then is by way of being a 'cris de coeur'. Send me some links to interesting, readable pages, pages like Zooey from New York used to write. Zooey stopped writing in July 2005 and I've been waiting for another entry ever since.

"Zooey, I sense anger here. Are you angry today?"

"Angry?....me?..not at all. Are we getting any closer to the part where you write me a prescription? because i have to be honest with you doc, 5 more minutes of your bullshit, and i plunge an icepick through your eye...not that i am in a 'angry place' or anything."

Yes Zooey's writing had a certain something that's sadly lacking in the dog and model car pages I've looked at so far.

Wherever you are Zooey I hope you're well and thanks for the pieces that you wrote back in 2005.

Double Bass

2009-05-28T17:37:00.001Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

The local tea room shut down. Apparently the retired Bogsvillians claiming their special offer breakfasts and cups of tea or coffee reduced the profit margins to zero.

I've been having a few problems with Windows XP recently. Nothing I can't handle of course. Or so I thought.

By last night I'd just about got the computer back to how it used to be. Everything was working fine so I decided to do a bit of a cleanup, to get rid of temporary files etc. A bit of fine tuning you might say.

I pressed the mouse button and watched in horror as my desktop lost all its icons and my My Documents folder emptied itself. All my Firefox and Opera bookmarks disappeared and my email store folders vanished into thin air.

Everything is back to normal again now - I think. I've decided to steer clear of cleanup software.

According to one of my recent emails, 'playing a big instrument brings bigger pleasure to women'. I'm going to get a double bass or a tuba. It'll be interesting to see just how much pleasure a little old guy with a double bass or tuba brings to the women of the World.

My friend Sue Ridgepipe from down the road informs me that Double Bass is a sexual position in which the man enters the woman from behind, and then fiddles with what's available up top with one hand and what's lower down with the other. The position is similar to that used when playing a double bass, but the sound produced is different.

Thanks for that Sue. A Double Bass it is then.

Susan Boyle

2009-05-26T23:08:00.004Z

Track of the day - Cry Me A River - Susan Boyle.

Thanks to Susan Boyle, Blackburn in West Lothian will never be quite the same again. You can read the official line in any national newspaper.

Here is the alternative view as posted on the web by some Blackburn residents.

"Cracking singer who stays just round the corner from me, but watch it tomorrow night and other words will spring to mind
Wired to the moon
As mad as a bucket of frogs
Bonkers"

"I seen her chase folk with a half brick in her hands wanting to club them to death!
I'm keeping the full story till she gets famous and I can make a wad out of it!"

"If you stuck a sign on your door saying 'karaoke' she'd be there!"

"Remember guys, she's single!"
"And deservedly so. Even by West Lothian standards she's the bronze medal."

I was getting a roll and sausage yesterday and the lassies serving were talking about her and the conversation went..
"You must remember her? She used to chase us with a shoe ...."

"Today's update.
Council put up a new front fence for Susan, photographers take pics of the fence being built!
It's a glitzy life here now."

"Even our camp postie got the undivided attention of the snappers today, clicking away like mad at him as he delivered the post to her house!"

"Conversation in the street between a neighbour and Susan,
Neighbour:- How does it feel to be a star Susan?
Susan:- **** off, I'm a professional now. I'll not be singing for nowt no more so you can **** off and tell the papers that!
Oh dear."

The Carrot Slicer

2009-05-25T11:34:00.005Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

Did I ever tell you about Bill from the Hole in the Ground bar who works in the canned vegetable factory? I'm pretty sure that he's the guy who lets his dog foul all the grass verges round here.

Just before Easter he confessed to his wife that he'd had a terrible urge to stick his ~~penis~~ todger in the carrot slicer at work.

She was horrified and suggested he should make an appointment with a therapist to talk it through.

Bill told her he'd be too embarrassed but promised he'd deal with the urge in his own way.

A few weeks later, when he got home from work, his face was ashen. His wife could see that something was seriously wrong.

"What's wrong, Bill?" she asked.

"Do you remember what I told you I wanted to do with the carrot slicer at work?"

"Oh, Bill, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"Bill, what happened?"

"They sacked me."

"Yes but what about the carrot slicer?"

"Oh. They sacked her too."

Red Headlines In Google News

2009-05-22T22:29:00.003Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

It's Friday again. I'm not sure where Wednesday and Thursday disappeared to, but I suspect I lost them trying to fix the computer.

Physically installing a new hard drive is easy but getting software reinstalled is a total pain in the ass.

There wasn't anything wrong with the hard drive that I replaced. It just wouldn't boot into XP. It is now connected as a slave drive. At least all the files on it are still available.

The fact remains that it has taken me two days so far to get everything looking more or less as it did before Wednesday morning's breakdown. Except that this morning all the headlines on the Google News page were showing up in red text in Firefox and Opera. Internet Explorer to my annoyance displayed everything in the usual blue. An update of the graphics driver fixed that.

Foxhole Update

The repaired fence is still in one piece but the soil round the doorway I left for the fox shows signs of tracks. Something is coming and going during the night. This morning Dog marked the gap as part of his territory by leaving a large gift in the middle of it. If the fence is damaged again tonight it will be his fault or mine for not clearing up after him.

I did mean to but I've just remembered that I forgot.

Jigsaw

I've been sent a 1000 piece London jigsaw puzzle.

Rebuilding fences and computers is apparently deemed not time consuming enough.

If the sun shines tomorrow I'll cut the grass.

What's the photograph at the top got to do with any of this? Nothing. I was going to write about something else.

Problem On The Computer

2009-05-20T23:16:00.002Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

Slight problem on the computer front. The bloody thing wouldn't start.
I switched on and got some error message or other. I suppose I could have done a Windows repair installation but I was worried that I might lose all my valuable garbage so I trotted off to the shop and bought a new hard drive.

It's taken me all day and most of the night to get it up and running some of the software that was running yesterday.

I have sore eyes, a stiff neck and am bad tempered to boot.

Perhaps things will run more smoothly tomorrow, or should that read today?

A Fox Doorway

2009-05-18T14:01:00.004Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

Last Saturday morning I found holes ripped through the fence at the end of the garden (picure 1).
Not a cat, a cat would have gone over the top.
Far too big for a rat unless it was the size of a dog.
We decided it must have been a fox.
I repaired the section of fence.

Yesterday the fence was undamaged.

This morning the fence was wrecked (see picture 2) but further along this time.
Whatever the creature is it's incredibly determined because it had ripped newly screwed slats out.

Mrs B suggested leaving a doorway for it to get through, which struck me as being an eminently sensible idea. The bottom picture shows the newly finished fox doorway on which dog had just piddled. I'm hoping that this will solve the problem.

Fitness

Not content with developing thighs that can crack nuts, my wife phoned the local gym and asked if they could teach her how to do the splits.

The receptionist asked, "How flexible are you?"

She said, "I can make any day but Tuesdays and Thursdays."

Homebirths & A Thigh Toner

2009-05-17T22:44:00.005Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

All this stuff in the newspapers about MP expenses has got me thinking. I'll become an MP for Bogsville, then I'll be able to get some expensive hi-fi gear, a new bed and a glittery toilet seat, courtesy of the tax-payer on my expenses.

These ~~presents~~ essentials would be much appreciated as it's my birthday tomorrow.

Strangely enough I don't remember my actual birth day but I was told it was one of those, "Hot water and plenty of it!" midwife, homebirths, that all the celebrities are going in for these days.

Pa didn't turn up for the birth. He didn't turn up for any of my birthdays until I was five.

When he did turn up I went and hid under a table and, metaphorically speaking, I've been under there ever since.

1 in 5 people

1 in every 5 people in the world is Chinese so, as there are 5 people in Mrs B's family, one of them must be Chinese.

It definitely isn't Mrs B so it's got to be either her mother or her father, her older brother Booger or her other brother Wun-Hung-Low.

We're pretty sure it's Booger.

Thigh Toner

When Mrs B finally got back from Leeds she brought in a "Thigh Toner". It's like a big, bright blue, butterfly clip and is guaranteed to give you thighs that can squeeze the juice out of lemons or crush nuts.

It's going straight in the bin. At my age I can do without presents like that.

Quicker By Train

2009-05-16T11:28:00.004Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

I wake up at six. At seven I struggle into my clothes to drive Mrs B to the station. She's visiting Leeds.

The roads are empty and the lights are all on green. It's what driving must have been like fifty years ago and I'm back home again by 07.15. The sun is shining and life is fine. Mrs B. will be in Leeds at ten.

At 08.23 I get a text message. It reads

"Stuck at Birmingham. Signalling problem at Derby. Well worth getting up early!"

At 09.11 another message comes through.

"Still stuck but supposed to be moving shortly. We've just been told we will now be moving to join the queue at the blockage, where there will be a further delay. AND there's no buffet. We are now moving."

At 10.11

"Just passed Tamworth. Trolley just reached me. Have run out of coffee. Hope this is not what the rest of my day will be like."

Then at 10.18, seven minutes after the train should have arrived in Leeds, the following message arrived

"Just been told not stopping at Leeds. Have to get off at Sheffield and get another train."

She's now due in Leeds at 12.18.

It's quicker by train!

Wild Bore

2009-05-14T22:42:00.004Z

Track of the day - All Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

This morning the butcher's shop at the end of the road was advertising Wild Bore. I assume he meant Wild Boar but you never know round here.

There were two dark blue undertaker vans nearby, both marked Private Ambulance. Hope it wasn't another delivery of Wild Bore to the butcher's shop.
Luckily today is Friday so we'll be having fish.

I know that they're running out of burial space in the local cemetery but I don't think the local butcher's is the answer.

There's obviously a nationwide problem with finding spaces for the dearly departed because a headline in last Sunday's newspaper read

Dead man 'hit by train'.

Another case of illegal dumping I thought but as usual I was wrong. Turned out that the man wasn't dead at all until the train hit him. Yes I guess that would do it. Did it for a friend of mine last April and he was always pissed off by redundant adjectives too.

Someone just pushed a piece of paper through the letter box. Printed on it in large red letters were the words "New Car Wash Open!".

I don't know why they bothered to push it through my door because it's quite obvious that Volvo is anything but "New".

It's about time someone gave a thought for people with old cars.

BALLS

2009-05-13T23:44:00.001Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

The message on the jigsaw puzzle box read, 'WARNING: Choking hazard, small parts. Not suitable for children under 3 years'.
In other words it should have been a doddle for anyone of my mature years.
It took six bl**dy nights to discover that one piece was missing, presumed swallowed by an under 3 year old!
If your little angel has pooped out a piece of the , Lindisfarne Gospel Puzzle, let me know and I'll send you the address to send it to.
Incidentally, if you've got a 4 year old who can complete that puzzle, you've got yourself a genius.

Have you read about the speed camera in Whitely, Hampshire that's caught 23,500 drivers in two weeks? That's a cool camera.
Well not a cool camera really, it must be red hot. That's more than one speeding car snap a minute.
The solution is simple. Don't fine the drivers just send their cars to the crusher, that would solve the problem.

I enjoy an educating read so imagine my excitement when I found a copy of The Isle Of Wight Council's Community and Family Learning Service's Adult Learning Plan Version 3.

It includes the following gems,

The programme has been well received within the Isle of Wight Council with recent pilot with leisure staff leading to the future expectation of this would be to have this project open to all departments of the council and have people directly referred through self referral and the PDR cycle.

Got that? OK so try this for size,

The Service is currently undertaking an Improvement project with LSIS focusing on whole organizational support for Skills for Life including refreshing the IWC Skills for Life strategy and staff training for embedding LLN across the Service.

And finally,

Through the successful completion of the 'Putting the "e" into ACL project' we have established an online learning environment called Moodle.

Wish I'd found version 1.
As past president of BALLS (the Bogsville Association for Learning Life Skills) seems to me that the IOWCCFL service needs to appoint a new TURD (Training Under Review Director).

Twin Sisters & A Photographer

2009-05-12T23:46:00.001Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

These twin sisters celebrated their 101st birthdays in January this year. Remarkable!

Reminds me of the time the editor of the local paper sent a young photographer to take pictures of 100 year-old twin sisters.
One twin was hard of hearing, the other wasn't. Usually worked out just fine.

"I think we'll have you sitting on the sofa," said the photographer.

The deaf twin turned to her sister, "What did he say?"

"HE SAYS HE WANTS US TO SIT ON THE SOFA."

"A little closer together please ladies," said the photographer.

"What did he say?"

"HE SAYS SQUEEZE UP A BIT."

They moved closer to each other.

"Won't keep you a minute, just got to get the focus sharp," said the photographer.

"What did he say?"

"HE SAYS HE'S GONNA FOCUS."

"Good gracious! Both of us together or one at a time?"

St Cuthbert's Way

2009-05-11T22:54:00.004Z

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

It's been so long since I tried to write anything here that I've forgotten what little bit of HTML code I used to know.

I've been training to become a recluse and last week, wearing my best recluse gear, I set off to Northumberland to follow in the wheel tracks of Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne who, in 676, left the Monastery on Holy Island, drove over the causeway to adopt the solitary life and retired to a cave.

It seems to me that Cuthbert would have found it much easier to become a recluse right here in Bogsville. Either Cuthbert did a lot of hiking around to find the right cave to hide away in or his sat-nav was on the blink because every little path in Northumberland appears to be called Cuthbert's Way.

Mind you Cuthbert wasn't a Saint when he was hiking around with a duff sat-nav looking for a cave, elevation to that high office came eleven years after his death when some local smart arse decided to open up his coffin and found that Cuthbert was still perfectly preserved.
If the temperatures in Cuthbert's day were like they were last week I'm not surprised that he was still well preserved.
Suffice it to say that I have decided against living in a wind swept Northumbrian cave especially if local smart arses are going to be opening up my box every eleven years to see if I'm perfectly preserved

According to Wikipedia "Cuthbert's asceticism was complemented by his charm and generosity to the poor and his reputation for gifts of healing and insight led many people to consult him, gaining him the name of 'Wonder Worker of Britain'".
Sounds a bit like me, even if I do say it myself.
I have to visit the local hospital a couple of times a year to prove that I'm not developing glaucoma. This usually means I'm hanging around for hours so while I'm there I like to spread the good deeds, Cuthbert style.

Hospital regulations require patients being discharged to leave the building in a wheel chair, unless of course they've succumbed, in which case they don't need a wheel chair, just a box.

Last time I was whiling away the hours there I found an elderly gent dressed and sitting on the edge of his bed, a suitcase at his feet. I decided to help him on his way.
He got a bit lippy and insisted he didn't need my help to leave the hospital but after a chat about rules being rules, he let me wheel him into the lift.

On the way down I asked if his wife would be meeting him outside.
"I doubt it", he said. "She's still up there changing out of her hospital gown."

Tits & Fat Balls

2008-07-14T08:08:00.002Z

Track of the day - All Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

I'm anticipating a lot of unwanted traffic from this post, can't imagine why. I was going to title it Great Tits and Fat Balls until I realised that the birds are in fact young long tailed tits.

What happened to global warming? It's bloody freezing here. The middle of July and the temperature this morning was 13.4°C. So far this month 16.4°C has been the highest 8.00am temperature. The sun did appear for a short time yesterday but on Saturday evening my feet were so cold I had to switch the central heating on.

Mrs B has disappeared to the Welsh coast for a week so tonight I may need to look out a hot water bottle.

Dragonfly Emerging

2008-07-12T22:11:00.003Z

Track of the day - KDF (live taster) - Prince Edward Island.

The bug crawled up out of the pond, the back of its shell broke open and a dragonfly started to emerge. Its wings were scrunched up like the centre of a lettuce but then they started to unfurl.
Grotesque but fascinating.
The last time we counted there were five of them at it. You can see a larger version of the picture here.

After a day or two hanging around and drying out they end up looking like this one. I think it's a Common Hawker but I'm probably wrong.

Common Hawker

2008-07-11T22:45:00.005Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

The rebuilt computer is now up and flying. The problem was the monitor. It wasn't getting a signal because it was defaulting to VGA rather than Dvi or something. And there was I thinking I'd screwed up the motherboard or stuck the processor in upside down.
As if!
Minor crisis over, I wandered off to the garden pond to see if any of the young hedgehogs had fallen in and drowned.
They hadn't but I found myself watching a dragonfly drying out after it had climbed out of its moulting skin.
Google suggests it's a Common Hawker dragonfly. Seemed pretty uncommon to me but there you are, just shows how little I know about anything.
What is apparent to me is that if you sit on your ass long enough in an urban garden you get to see plenty of creatures that you would only expect to find out in the countryside.
I think it helps if your garden resembles a mini jungle, so the next time that someone tells you that the garden needs working on, just tell them that you're creating a wildlife sanctuary.
Here's a picture of another 'Common Hawker' I spotted. This one must have metamorphosed yesterday. It wasn't there this evening.
It probably went off to join the hedgehogs.

Hegehogs & Rat Poison

2008-07-10T23:45:00.003Z

Track of the day - I am a Pig and you are a Cow - Prince Edward Island.

Two weeks ago I was in the garden shed and heard high pitched squeaking. I couldn't see anything but just to be on the safe side I filled a couple of little bags with rat poison and stuffed them under the shed.
High pitched squeaking in our garden tends to indicate that the rats have moved in again.
I didn't hear anything more until last Tuesday when I went out to refill the bird feeders at 7 o'clock in the evening.
I suddenly realised that the squeaks were back, louder than ever and they were coming from somewhere by the back door of the house.
I peered round the corner of the house and discovered an adult hedgehog shepherding five very small hedgehogs.
By the time I'd got hold of my camera, the adult and one of its offspring had disappeared through the hedge into next door's garden. The remaining four were squealing and running round in circles. Whenever one set off the other three tagged along behind it.

Eventually they split up. One ran off across the lawn and disappeared into a clump of irises, two ran off in the opposite direction, under the side gate and out towards the road. One stayed by the shed for a while and then disappeared too.
We haven't seen any of them since.
I'm glad they had enough sense not to eat the rat poison.
Now I'll have to pick up all the slug pellets.

Prince Edward Island Tour Scotland

2008-07-09T23:47:00.007Z

Track of the day - The Keith Disaster Fund (live) - Prince Edward Island.

Prince Edward Island have avoided Bogsville and embarked on a wee tour of Scotland and the North of England.
Luckily the Glasgow gig was streamed live on the web and I managed to get a passable version of The Keith Disaster Fund. It's yet another great track from a band that should be getting major media coverage. Wake up you guys at the BBC. There's a seriously talented outfit out there.

When I haven't been jumping around humming bits of KDF I've been ripping the vital bits out of my computer and replacing them with more modern bits. Sometimes I've been ripping and humming simultaneously.
Yes building computers is great fun.
New CPU, new motherboard, new memory sticks, new graphics card, new power supply, any fool can build a computer.
I pressed the on button, the fans whirred into life, the speaker beeped once, the monitor screen remained blank for a few seconds then came up with a stunning, silver message on a pure black background, 'no signal'.
The good news is that unlike the rest of the new bits, the fans are amazing.
They should keep us really cool if the weather ever warms up.
Lifetime achievement award ..dit dit dit, Lifetime achievement award ..dit dit dit.

Slow Children

2008-05-23T23:27:00.014Z

Track of the day - I am a Pig and you are a Cow - Prince Edward Island.

SLOW children! How much slower than slow is SLOW?
I expect there's a council worker lurking about with a radar gun who dishes out the appropriate certificate.

While I'm on the subject of signs. What about this one?
Watch children.
What is this - viewing point number 5 on the local paedophile trail?

You're far less likely to attract unwanted attention if you watch birds or a Prince Edward Island gig.

Antique Araldite

2008-05-21T23:04:00.000Z

Track of the day - I am a Pig and you are a Cow - Prince Edward Island.

I think it's time to invest in some new glue. The Araldite I used today to fix the handle back on the chisel is clearly marked to sell at 6/-.
That means it must have been bought in those good old, pre decimalisation days here in the UK when there were twelve pence in a shilling and twenty shillings in a pound and I was still a carefree lad about town.
Decimalisation took place in the UK on February 15th 1971 so that makes the antique Araldite at least 37 years old.
It still comes out of the tube ok but will it go rock hard? - as the art mistress said to the gardener. Aye there's the rub, as someone else said.
I think I'll send the picture to Araldite. They might send me some of their 2008 vintage.
P.S. 6/- is the equivalent of 30pence in new fangled decimal currency. In 1971 the change from your pound, after you'd paid for the Araldite, would have bought you two gallons of petrol.

Double Cheeseburger Tailback

2008-05-20T22:37:00.002Z

Track of the day - I am a Pig and you are a Cow - Prince Edward Island.

I saw the tailback and the advert and couldn't resist taking a photograph.
A mile of stationary cars queuing to get a double cheeseburger - I don't think even Bogsville residents are that stupid.
I don't know though - most of them probably are.

Lookin' For A Job

2008-05-19T22:54:00.002Z

Excerpt of the day - The Boxer - Simon and Garfunkel.

"Asking only workman's wages I come lookin' for a job,
But I get no offers,
Just a come-on from the horse on Seventh Avenue.
I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome,
I took some comfort there.
Oooh la, la, la ..."

He must have been dreadful lonesome!

The Latest Fashion

2008-05-18T22:37:00.004Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

What do you mean it's the latest in hair fashion?
You're a coot for God's sake!

Top Of The Range

2008-05-17T22:06:00.004Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island..

Here's a top of the range final resting place, complete with double yellow line and adjacent parking bay.

New Road Layout Scheme

2008-05-16T10:35:00.005Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

The planners have come up with a new Road Layout scheme for elderly people in Bogsville.
Laying out elderly people in the road is a brilliant idea.
Saves on burial space and creates road calming humps at the same time.

Terribly UnBritish

2008-04-22T23:43:00.001Z

Track of the day - All Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

I've never been able to see the point of banning people from driving when they don't have a driving licence, but it happens in courts all over Britain every day.

Today however the full weight of the British legal system caught up with thirty five year old Jamie Manderson from Swindon.
Manderson's first driving ban was imposed in 1988 when he was 15 years old. It didn't do the job because he has since accumulated a further 50 disqualifications, making a grand total of 51 driving bans in nineteen years.
He has never had a driving licence, presumably because he's always been banned.

At his latest court appearance, following an arrest last Saturday, he pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified and driving without insurance. The court awarded him a further five year ban. This time the court in its infinite wisdom also jailed him for 24 weeks and added to that a further 8 weeks from a previously imposed suspended sentence, making a grand total of - 32 weeks.
Anyone who thinks that that'll cure him deserves to be locked up with him.
Amputation of both feet might fix him but it would be terribly unBritish.
32 weeks - just enough time to learn how to clone credit cards if he doesn't get out early.

Credit Card Statement

2008-04-21T22:25:00.004Z

Track of the day - All Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

Last week I paid the London Borough of Southwark £350. In actual fact I made two payments to them, one for £200 on the 10th April and one for £150 on the 15th April. I know this because my latest credit card statement arrived this morning and told me so.
What I don't know is what services I paid Southwark Council for because I haven't been within 150 miles of Southwark this year and I certainly haven't been sending them money out of the goodness of my heart.

Yes, I have fallen victim to credit card fraud or whatever it's called. My card has probably paid to get someone's car unclamped. According to the credit card company's fraud department, it has also been used by someone to purchase a cover for a Tempur Memory Foam mattress and a load of wonderful herbals from a health shop.
Sounds like an amateur to me. I mean to say £16.93 for a mattress cover! Could have been a lot worse. Could have been a Tempur mattress.
If you recognise the items and paid for them with my card, drop me a line. I'd like to try out the mattress.

They've Frozen My Account

2008-04-20T22:20:00.002Z

Track of the day - All Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

My credit card company informs me that I may have been the victim of identity fraud, that they've frozen my account and that I should destroy the credit card
When I get my next card statement I have to examine the transactions and report anything suspicious.
As far as I can gather I have been purchasing items from a health store somewhere or other. Doesn't sound like me but there again you never know.
Chances are that I've destroyed my card for nothing.

Last Friday I went to the funeral of a guy I worked with for over twenty years.
The obituary notice said that he had died suddenly.
I'm not sure that 'suddenly' prepared me for the revelation that he had been hit by a train at a local station.
How do people, whether they are family, rail employees or emergency team members come to terms with something like that?

Mentally Exhausted

2008-04-18T08:56:00.003Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

Yesterday I was fitted with a pair of digital hearing aids. It was an ear opening experience.

Over the last ten or twenty years I've got used to sound being a jumbled background noise, something I tuned into to mask the constant hissing inside my head. I tried and usually failed to make sense of what people around me were saying. In the end I gave up making the effort and just drifted off into my own little muffled world.

Yesterday when the guy finally switched on the aids I knew that something major was different and it was pretty scary. I was suddenly aware of people talking in the corridor outside the fitting room, the soles of my shoes scraping on the floor, chairs creaking, the second hand moving on a wall clock and my stomach rumbling. My brain went into overdrive, trying to make sense of it all. The difference is staggering and I'm not sure that the experience is altogether welcome. By the end of the day I was mentally exhausted.

In my new auditory world there are sudden, unexpected sounds everywhere and they are overtaxing my brain. I may decide that the effort isn't worth it and go back inside my own little muffled world where I feel safe.

Discharged

2008-04-16T11:35:00.003Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

I've just had my "tube and book" appointment that turned out to be a "choose and book" appointment with an ear nose and throat consultant.
I drove round and round the hospital looking for somewhere to park. Eventually I found a space outside the maternity unit. There are always spaces outside the maternity unit because the majority of Bogsville mothers are far too young to drive.
A five minute hike found me in Ear Nose and Throat from which I have now been discharged.
I insisted on being given another hearing test and today's results show no asymmetric hearing loss so I no longer qualify for a head scan.
Tomorrow I'm off to another hospital collect my digital hearing aids, if I can find somewhere to park.

My Wife Is An Insomniac

2008-03-23T23:40:00.001Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

Deirdie, the pheasant has disappeared and a badger has appeared in her place.
I haven't seen the badger but Mrs B assures me that there was a badger waddling round the back garden at about five o'clock this morning.
And so, after many years of marriage I finally learn that my wife is an insomniac.
From now on I'll sleep with one eye open.

Snow In The Air

2008-03-22T08:54:00.003Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

No glorious Spring weather here in Bogsville. Woke up yesterday to mad March winds and snow.
This morning the temperature is 2.2C, there is still a gale blowing and there's more snow in the air.
Happy Easter!

A Very Modest Property

2008-03-20T11:59:00.004Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

It's good to know that I'm not the only fan of indie band Prince Edward Island's wee ditty 'Partlife'.
Listen to this dj's intro to the track. Sounds like he's after a drink!
Any ro-ad up, as they say round here, good luck to the band. Awesome lyrics folks.

Omega

I have just been informed that my watch will soon be back with me from the service department. About time too. They've had it since the beginning of December.

Hearing Test

After the debacle with the NHS 'Tube and Book' system that turned out to be the NHS 'Choose and Book' system my appointment with an Ear Nose and Throat consultant has been confirmed.
So there you have it, everything comes to he who waits. It's just that some have to wait longer than others.

A Very Modest Property

I quote the judge from his McCartney divorce judgement.

"They lived at Blossom Wood Farm house on the estate of 1500 acres. I have seen pictures of it. It is a very modest property."

1500 acres!
Modest!

Buckingham Palace 180 acres
Windsor Castle 13 acres
Kew Gardens 300 acres

You may take it from this that the Judge's idea of a very modest property differs from mine.

Pheasant Plucker

2008-03-14T09:59:00.001Z

Track of the day - All Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

Yesss!
The much maligned Choose and Book site finally offered me an appointment slot.
That's not strictly true because it actually offered me not one, not two but three apointment slots. I booked one for mid April. I'll be going for the full works - ear transplant, nose reduction, wrinkle removal, facelift and face filler. They want me to take all my drugs along so it could turn out to be quite a party.
I think I'll pop along to the Hole in the Ground bar this evening to celebrate.

Pheasant

Deirdrie, the pheasant, is still wandering around the garden. She's been here for the best part of a week now eating bird seed and just about any little green shoot she can find. So we now have a dog wrecking the lawn and a pheasant eating all the plants in the flower beds.
Dog hasn't met the pheasant face to face yet. When he does I may well have to become a pheasant plucker.
Hope I got that the right way round.

How About A Nose Job?

2008-03-13T23:21:00.003Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

No wonder the NHS Choose and Book website is unable to offer me a session with a local ENT consultant. I'm having to compete for appointment time with private patients who want to pay for nose reshaping, cures for snoring, facelifts, facial fillers whatever they are, and the removal of facial lines and wrinkles.
I jest not. Those are the areas of expertise being offered by some of the local ear nose and throat specialists.

"Good morning Mr Bogs. How about a nose job? Or what about getting rid of a few of those unsightly wrinkles? No it wouldn't improve your hearing but it would make you look years younger.
Ask the young lady on reception for a copy of our latest price list on your way out."

Let's face it, once you're deaf you're deaf but there's real money to be made out of wrinkle removal and nose reshaping. I expect there's a fortune to be made out of facial fillers too.

ENT Appointment

2008-03-12T11:20:00.006Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

The Bogsville NHS Choose and Book system is still refusing to book me an ENT appointment.
I went online this morning, I had nothing better to do, the Choose and Book screen indicated that an appointment was available on April 14, a waiting time of 33 days.
I booked it.
A 'Do not close your browser while we finalise your booking' message came up on the screen.
I left the browser open.
Eventually the screen changed.

Booking Confirmation
Your appointment can not be booked.
Please contact the Choose and Book Appointments Line on 0845 xx xxxx x or your referrer Doctor. You can find their contact details on www.nhs.uk.

I phoned the 0845 number. A human link in the NHS booking chain told me that she couldn't help because her computer system currently had a blank screen' and that I should phone again later by which time she hoped that the system would be working again.
I decided to go back online to see if the appointment slot was still available.

Step 2 of 3: Choose Your Appointment
There are currently no appointments available, please try again later.

I went downstairs to make a cup of coffee and found a letter from the hospital. The letter contained details of an appointment with an ENT consultant for Wednesday 2nd April. Confused, I phoned the Hospital to find out what was going on and was told that the appointment didn't exist and that the letter was a mistake.
At 14:42 I logged in again to see if they had fixed the problem and discovered that I was now locked out of the system.

"This reference number is currently locked because of an incorrect logout. Please contact the Choose and Book Appointments Line on 0845 xx xx xx x to have the reference number unlocked."

Mrs B says that I should forget the NHS and pay to see a consultant and she's probably right but that isn't the point. An NHS hearing test diagnosed that I have a problem and referred me to my NHS doctor who suggested that I should see a NHS Ear Nose & Throat consultant. The NHS designed and paid for the Choose and Book system so I'm choosing to use it, if only to prove that it doesn't bloody work.
According to Alistair Darling's 2008 Budget speech today,

"The focus for the next decade on the NHS will be creating 'world-class services'."

World class services? What planet do you live on Mr Darling?

Asymmetric Hearing Loss

2008-03-11T09:18:00.004Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

A female pheasant has taken up residence in the garden. She moved in yesterday and is still with us this morning.

Tube and Book System

"It's called the Tube and Book system. We put your details into a computer and it tells us all the available slots for seeing an ear nose and throat specialist."
After my recent hearing retest the nice little hearing tester guy wrote a letter to my doctor so I made an appointment to find out what was in the letter. When I phoned the surgery I discovered that the doctor only holds surgeries on two days a week. I finally got to see him last Friday, two weeks after I phoned to make the appointment.
"You should see an Ear Nose and Throat specialist," he said. He explained that my test results indicate an asymmetric hearing loss. In other words it's not the same for both ears.
I explained that I'd got fed up during the test and hadn't pressed the button to register some of the sounds for my right ear.
"That might explain the results, but you should still see a specialist. He'll want to do a scan to see if there's a problem with the auditory nerve on the right side of your head. Your particular hearing loss could be caused by a growth on the auditory nerve. There probably isn't anything wrong but unless you have a scan you won't know whether there is or not."
So there you have it.
In my eagerness to prove that I needed an aid in my right ear as well as my left, I've let myself in for a session in a scanner, if I can find a specialist who can offer me an appointment.
The doctor explained that thanks to the latest computerised Tube and Book system that wasn't a problem.
"Have a word with the receptionist. She'll arrange it all."
I had a word with the receptionist. The Tube and Book system offered me two local appointments during a week when I'll be in Dorset and one appointment at a hospital miles away. I thought she was joking but apparently not.
I told her that if there was an appointment available in the South of France, I'd think about it, otherwise I wasn't interested in travelling vast distances to see a specialist.
In the end she gave me a letter that explained how I could access the system myself and arrange my own appointment.
Everything went well until I get to the what's available page, all I got was

" Step 2 of 3: Choose Your Appointment.
There are currently no appointments available, please try again later."

What worried me most is not the system's inability to offer me an appointment but that the Tube and Book system turned out to be the Choose and Book system.
No one speaks clearly these days.
Either that or I'm going deaf.

From Bad To Worse

2008-02-23T09:48:00.001Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

Things go from bad to worse. I've now got camera shake.

Never mind I'll probably feel a lot better when today's cricket, rugby and soccer results are in.

The good News Is

2008-02-22T23:52:00.001Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

A very friendly little guy tested my hearing this afternoon.
The good news is that my hearing in both ears is almost normal.
The bad news is 'almost normal' means 30% below normal for sounds round about the 250hz range. By 500hz I'm operating at 50% below normal and that reduces to 70% below normal everywhere else.
70% below normal! No wonder I can't hear the front door bell or the phone. I'm surprised I can hear anything.

Anyway the friendly little testing guy made impressions of both my ears in preparation for two digital hearing aids and wants me to see an ear nose and throat specialist.
I am now feeling even more miserable than I was after my trip to the Hole in the Ground bar.

Meanwhile the frogs and toads in the pond are croaking out their Spring mating calls. I can hear them so they must be croaking at somewhere round the 250hz mark.

A Pint Or Two Before Bed

2008-02-21T23:36:00.001Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

It may be a sign that Spring will soon be with us or it might be that I'm feverish but this picture reminds me of some strange dreams I've been having recently.
You see I've spent the last two days feeling off colour, under the weather, one degree under and liverish.
I have no one to blame for this sorry state of affairs but myself.
I really should have known better than to trot along to the Hole in the Ground bar for a pint or two before bed. But as I've only been in the damn place about five times in the last twelve months I felt a sudden urge to support local endeavour.
Should have been safe enough. The last disaster of an absentee manager departed to add much needed umph and zing to the social life of some unsuspecting part of the USA, so I thought it would ok to venture out or in again, if you see what I mean.
Much to my horror I soon discovered that the old absentee manager has been replaced by a much younger, but just as invisible, manager.
Invisibility seems to be a key requisite for unsuccessful bar management in Bogsville. I expect the same is true everywhere.
Unfortunately, while the manager relaxes invisibly but bed creakingly audibly upstairs, legions of microscopic bugs gather invisible but deadly in the downstairs beer pipes.
After consuming almost two pints of his lager, I couldn't finish the second pint, I woke on Wednesday morning feeling decidedly out of sorts.
That evening as I sat in front of the computer screen with my head between my knees, feeling cold, clammy and hoping that I would see out the night without ringing for an ambulance, I decided that if I ever visited the Hole in the Ground again I would order bottled beer.
Unlike most bottled beer drinkers I won't be drinking out of the bottle. Knowing my luck I'd get the one that the rat had just peed on.
On the wall in the bar was a freshly printed notice.
It read -

"Would you rather stay at home and drink or have a pint of our real lager?"

From now on I'll stay at home and drink coffee. I can do without the salmonella bugs they dish up with the real lager. Mind you the dreams were interesting.

Omega Watch Service Department

2008-02-19T11:33:00.003Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

Since May 1965 I've been the proud owner of an Omega watch.
The watch has been busily winding itself and ticking away the seconds while seven UK Prime Ministers and seven US Presidents have come and gone. The longest that I've been without it was when I left it hanging on a peg in a shower in the South of France and someone walked off with it.
Three weeks later they handed it in to the camp site office and I got it back.
Apart from those two weeks it has only been off my wrist when it required a service. And thereby hangs a tale.
Last November 29th I decided that it needed a service and as I had a 'good will' voucher from Omega for a free service, off it went to The Omega Watch Company Service Department.
And yes, it's been with them ever since, despite the fact that they sent me a letter on the 6th of December saying that they expected to complete the repair in two weeks. So much for the good will. I'm beginning to think that they've either lost it or sold it on eBay.

Wrong on both counts

Omega service department inform me that they only received the 'good will' free service voucher at the beginning of February, hence the delay.
If that is true, it begs the question why didn't they ask for another copy when they wrote to me on 06/12/07?
At least the watch is neither lost nor advertised on eBay!
The letter ended with an ominous sounding,

"It will only be returned, once we are entirely satisfied your watch is performing to Factory specification."

I may never see it again.

For those of you who find the fate of my watch mind numbingly dull. Here's a link to a picture of Stan wearing his coat and neck brace.
The local Accident and Emergency department say they won't know whether they can remove what's left of the camera from my forehead until they've examined the scans more carefully.

Friction Burns

2008-02-14T12:12:00.002Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

Last week I took Stan for a walk on the end of one of those extending leads. It seemed like a good idea. Give him some freedom but keep him under control at the same time.
This week I have plasters on the fingers of my left hand, a pair of ripped gloves, a fleece with friction burn holes on the right sleeve and a waterproof jacket that looks like someone took a knife to it.
All this because Stan took off after a labrador that sneaked up behind him and tried to sniff his ass. Stan objected strongly and set off in pursuit. I grabbed hold of the rapidly extending cord to stop him. It was a mistake I won't be making again.
Stan's fine, my fingers are recovering, I've sewn up the fleece, binned the gloves and banished the extending lead.
If that labrador's daft enough to stick his nose up Stan's ass again he can look after his own welfare from now on.

Plum Blossom

2008-01-29T23:41:00.000Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

The plum trees at the end of the road are coming into blossom. I expect it's the heat from all the local exhaust pipes.

A Gentle Stroll

2008-01-28T13:03:00.000Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

I have just got back from what was intended to be a gentle stroll with the dog. The dog had other ideas.
He seems to have two modes - fast asleep and hurtle.
The back lawn used to resemble a bowling green but thanks to the dog's hurtling it now resembles a ploughed field.

Hearing Test

Last week I took my ancient analogue hearing aid along to the local hospital to get it retubed and to get some of their wonderful free batteries.
The receptionist took one look at it and decided that I needed a more modern model.
On the wall of the audiology unit there was a poster showing museum pictures of NHS hearing aids. It indicated that my hearing aid was discontinued some time before 1980 which just shows how long the NHS waiting lists for hearing aids are round here.
With any luck I might get a new digital model some time before my eightieth birthday - if I ever reach that landmark, which seems unlikely if Stanley doesn't master his braking system.
At the moment the old retubed aid is working fine except that the new tube is too short and I'm a bit self conscious about appearing in public with a lump of pink plastic hanging out of my left ear.

RSPB Birdwatch 2008

Mrs B decided that I should give up an hour yesterday to count the birds in the back garden.
Usually there is an endless stream of feathered visitors but there were very few flying in yesterday.

It might have had something to do with the bedraggled sparrowhawk that decided to lurk in next door's apple tree. Mrs B feeds the little birds and the little birds feed the sparrowhawk.
Next time I spend an hour counting birds I'll make sure there there isn't a sparrowhawk in the area first. I would have frightened it off but without my glasses I thought it was a pigeon.

Prince Edward Island TV

The PEI band videos are available here from MySpace TV. I always wondered what happened to the suit I donated to charity. It had full length trousers when I used to wear it.
Question - Is Prince Edward Island the only band currently displaying an ironing board on TV?

Prince Edward Island TV

2008-01-25T15:29:00.000Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

Four songs from Prince Edward Island's BBC 2 Scotland gig are available in glorious technicolour here on the BBC iPlayer but only if you live in the UK. For those who do not have the Gaelic, there are subtitles.
The video tracks are also available on the Rapal website. Perhaps they work outside the UK.
The original tracks and the videos are on the band's Myspace site and also on Myspace TV.

Prince Edward Island On BBC2 Scotland

2008-01-23T12:09:00.002Z

Track of the day - Partlife - Prince Edward Island.

I took a short sabbatical but they sent me back.

Christmas came and went and was followed inexorably by the New Year.
The festive tree stayed outside in the back yard and the lights and decorations remained in a box in the upstairs cupboard.
Stanley took up residence downstairs while the children who are no longer children took up temporary residence upstairs, bemoaned the lack of Christmas decorations and then moved out again to celebrate the New Year elsewhere.
Stanley, having nowhere else to go, decided to stay.

We discovered Stanley in a local rescue centre. He's mostly greyhound and runs very fast except when he's sleeping with his paws in his ears to block out unwanted sounds. Unfortunately his brakes don't always work.
"Here Stan! Here boy!"
can sometimes result in me being dumped on my back in the middle of a muddy field.

Hole in the Ground Bar News

The Hole in the Ground bar manager and his family suddenly upped sticks and decamped to America. So if your local bar has recently been taken over by a useless fat Limey who never goes behind the bar to serve anyone, you have my sympathy but please don't send him back.
Because of the smoking ban I don't know what the current state of play is in the Hole in the Ground bar but it couldn't be any worse than it was when he was in charge.

Blackout

The lights went out in Bogsville at 6:50am this morning. Alarm clocks failed to go off and heating systems failed to switch on. Bogsville bodies stayed in bed and local schools and businesses ground to a halt. The power was back on by 9.20am but they'd already sent the kids home from school for some inexplicable reason.

Prince Edward Island

At 6.45pm on Thursday 24 January the band known as Prince Edward Island, they who penned the memorable lyrics -
"You look like I need a drink
A little something I can cling to!
Is this it?"
Partlife
will be appearing on BBC 2 Scotland. Not much use to anyone who lives anywhere but Scotland, unless of course they have access to Sky Channel 990.
This recorded live BBC gig is interesting in that it was the band's only gig of 2007.
The video tracks should appear on the Rapal website from Friday 25 January.

Merry Christmas

2007-12-24T23:43:00.000Z

Track of the day - Run Run Rudolph - Chuck Berry.

Milt has been allowed out of exile just long enough to wish anyone who may stumble upon his page

A very merry Christmas!

A Strange Desire To Blow An Old Emperor

2007-12-03T00:50:00.000Z

Track of the day - Willow Weep For Me - Buddy de Franco.

Unfortunately Iris ran out of blow just before Santa was fully erect.

It's strange what people want to wrap their lips around. I have a great desire to blow an old Emperor.
That's an antique Boosey & Hawkes clarinet before anyone gets the wrong idea. I spotted one in a music store and arranged to go back with my mouthpiece so that I could try it out.
I've lusted after the chance to blow an Emperor clarinet for 50 years.
Stupid really because it must be twelve years since I last blew a clarinet. When I got home I decided to spend a few hours getting used to mine again so I'd have a reference point.
Today I have a pain in my right thumb from supporting the weight of the clarinet and a bottom lip that feels like it needs stitches because I was biting on the reed too hard. If I go back to the shop I'll take Iris with me.
She can hold and blow while I do the fingering.

Santa In Need

2007-11-29T11:10:00.000Z

Track of the day - Nice Work If You Can Get It - Bud Powell Trio.

Iris suddenly noticed that Santa was in need of a blowjob.

Trouble In Reception

2007-11-27T19:59:00.000Z

Please listen to - Today's Gloomy Weather Forecast - Channel 5's Weather Lady.

Our scene is set in a small town situated 114 miles from London, 5 miles from Birmghm and even closer to Dudley.

"I hear you've been causing trouble in Reception," she said from somewhere above and behind me. "It's not our fault. It's the National Health Service that insists on you filling in the form every time you visit us."
I didn't argue. My small but amazingly powerful Chinese dentist lady had me pinned down on my back and was probing my oral cavity with a pointy steel object. My right shoulder was trapped beneath her small but amazingly powerful left breast. I decided it was best not to move.

The receptionist had told me the form I'd handed her was incomplete.
"What about your health?" she'd said.
"It's fine," I told her.
"No. You've got to check the entries. Are there any changes that we need to make there?"
"No. No changes," I told her and then, as an afterthought, I added,
"Still manage a pee and a bowel movement every morning. I just wish I could wake up first."
The receptionist is a very attractive young lady but humourless.
I'd hate to read my latest personal health entry.

Joshua Redman

2007-11-24T23:49:00.000Z

Every time I get to watch Joshua Redman play I find myself wondering, "How on earth does he do that?"
Last night I finally found something he does that I can do.
Then he stood up and started blowing again.

Joshua Redman on NPR

Stripping

2007-11-20T23:29:00.000Z

The DIY expert from the end of the road came along this morning to borrow my axe. I'm not sure what he wanted it for. He didn't say and I didn't like to ask. As he was wandering off with the axe over his shoulder, he stopped.
"What are you up to at the moment?"
"Nothing," I said. "Absolutely nothing at all."
At that point I felt a sudden and dark cloud of guilt descend on me. Which is how I came to spend the day stripping in the little room under the stairs.
The guy who lived in the house before us called it 'the telephone room'. Delusions of grandeur I guess.
We put a WC and a washbasin in there and some lousy wallpaper and called the room the downstairs WC. There's still a telephone in there just in case someone calls mid bowel movement.
Nothing is allowed to interrupt the call of nature in Bogsville Heights.
I was in that little room stripping away merrily from 10.00am until about 3.00pm which is much longer than I'd intended.
I'd reckoned on an hour to strip the wallpaper, an hour for lunch, an hour to slap some paint on the walls and half an hour to clear up.
In the event I got most of the paper off the walls but it just seemed to get stuck to the oak floor.

When Mrs B. came home it took her two hours to notice that I'd been doing anything. Just goes to show what a state the wallpaper was in.
I don't think she'd have noticed at all if she hadn't changed her shoes and found bits of paper stuck all over them.
If she'd come home an hour earlier she'd have gone for the axe from the end of the road.

A Leaf

2007-11-17T21:48:00.000Z

Clarissa suddenly noticed that Giles had a leaf on the toe of his right shoe.

Batlike In Bogsville

2007-11-15T10:23:00.000Z

Track of the day - Boom Boom Boom - The Animals.

I've been keeping my head down and my feet up recently.
I spend hours every week hanging batlike, upside down, suspended from my latest waste of money purchase, an inversion table.
I've wanted one since I boggered my back at work twenty five years ago.

"You can't leave that box on the floor Mr Bogs. Move it."
I should have ignored him. But in a fit of bogsian pique, I waited until he'd gone then heaved the box up onto a table, put a chair on top of the table and dragged everything over to the wall. Standing on the chair on top of the table I could just about reach an overhead cupboard.

Just as I got the box level with the cupboard, it began to split. I twisted to get the contents in through the open door.
There was a loud crack like a pistol shot and excruciating pain at the base of my spine.
I had a sudden and compelling desire to hang upside down but there wasn't a tree branch handy.

The Doctor was a complete waste of time.
He suggested "Bed rest and aspirin."
No surprise there because that's his remedy for just about everything.
A kindly physiotherapist wired me up to an electrical device that caused everything to twitch uncontrollably. That was fun and strangely erotic and it got rid of the pain until the next time I forgot I had a back problem and tried to lift something.
Every time my back was bad I knew that if I could just hang upside down the pain would go away.

Now, thanks to my inversion table, I just lock my feet under a padded bar, raise my arms in the air and hurtle backwards until I'm hanging upside down.

Has it cured my back problem?
In a word, no.
But it's good fun once you get used to the blood pounding in your ears and it keeps me out of the way.
Perhaps my legs will get longer.

Incidentally my new Left and Right socks are a great success. I'll have to take them for a walk.

Lap Dancing Lesbians And Socks

2007-11-14T20:37:00.000Z

Track of the day - Dead End Street - The Kinks.

Mrs B has gone out for the evening so I'm trying to find something to do.
There's plenty on offer but as I'm neither gay nor lesbian I may be ruled out of the bridge and lap dancing.
Scoffing edible handbags sounds promising but as I've already had a pork chop a handbag on top would be pure piggery.
Sleeping with mummies might be dead easy and far less taxing. No on second thoughts...
Looks like I'll have to join the lesbians for the evening.

I ventured out into the vast metropolis earlier today to replace the contents of my sock drawer.
Mine were holey enough for a pope or an archbishop.
I am now the proud owner of seven brand new pairs of dark blue socks.
When I ripped them out of the packaging I discovered that two pairs are clearly marked left and right, L and R.

God only knows what discomfort I'll suffer when the lettering wears off and I grab two odd socks.

FCUK

2007-11-13T09:56:00.000Z

Track of the day - Donald Where's Your Trousers? - Andy Stewart.

"Hello, FCUK Oxford Street?
Donald Featherstonehaugh, pronounced Fanshaw, here.
Could you check the changing rooms for a rather sordid pair of black Marks & Sparks trousers? I seem to have left the store without them.
You've already found them. That's great.
Do you think someone could bring them down to me at St Pancras?
Yes I know you're very busy but it is really really urgent. You see I'm feeling a trifle vulnerable at the moment.
Exactly. So you'll appreciate why I don't feel I can move from where I am now.
Yes well I'm standing behind a large suitcase so I don't think anyone's noticed yet...
but I fear it's only a matter of time..."

A Nawk & An Howl

2007-11-12T20:00:00.000Z

Track of the day - I am a pig & you are a cow - Prince Edward Island.

Just in case you're not a bird expert, this is a nawk. Well that's what most people round here call them.
I was nawk admiring this morning when a lady wearing a very smart bird watching hat and bird watching body warmer examined it through her very expensive bird watching binoculars and told me the nawk was actually a kestrel.
Just after she'd finished putting me straight, an old guy came along with his dog and told me it was a nawk.
I told him it was little but definitely a nawk and he agreed.
The bird watching lady walked off in disgust.

Up in his oak tree the owl, or howl if you prefer to add an haitch, was fast asleep. The nawk wasn't big enough to bother him.
The park ranger says he calls the howl Rocky.

For anyone who prefers beatles to nawks and howls here's a link to Baby's In Black from the Shea Stadium concert. I love the shot of Mum handing out tissues to her daughter.

Messages From The Spirit World

2007-11-08T13:30:00.000Z

Track of the day - Somewhere - Dave Brubeck.

Aunt Nellie was my maternal grandmother's sister and she was watching a budgerigar when I took this photograph about fifty years ago.
For some inexplicable reason I've been trying to find Aunt Nellie's grave for the last two years.

Then three days ago I found some papers in a box that came from my father's house when he died. The papers indicated that my mother had purchased a cemetery plot in October 1960.
This worried me somewhat because when Ma died she was cremated, not buried. Not much chance of sorting that one out, I decided.
Then it dawned on me that Ma had bought the plot for Aunt Nellie. So I went looking for her grave again. I'd been looking in the wrong cemetery so it's not surprising that I hadn't been able to find it.

The cemetery manager found the grave for me easily enough.

It was the only one in the row that had an unsafe tag attached to it.

I don't know whether my mother's side of the family believed in messages from the spirit world but my father's parents certainly did. He was a dab hand with a ouija board and held regular family séances that terrified my father. Somewhere there's a notebook in which Grandfather Bogs kept a record of the happenings. There are also some highly dubious photographs of people surrounded by ectoplasm. I'll have to find them.
Anyway, whichever spirit it was that sent me off in search of great aunt Nellie's grave, you can relax now because I got the message loud and clear and the headstone will be made safe.

Red Tape

This morning I was informed by a monumental stone mason that I can't just pay for the repair. I have to apply for official transfer of the plot to my name and get the documentation signed by a Justice of the Peace before the mason can touch the headstone.
I was about to contact the City Council to complain about all this red tape tripe when I discovered the following words, hidden away on a council web page.
"The council will arrange for and fund the cost of the repair of the headstone, without relatives having to get involved."
So they should. They damaged the headstone in the first place.

My spirit sources will be keeping a close eye on future events.

I'm now off to visit Prince Edward Island.

The Lady With The Wheeze

2007-11-07T23:53:00.000Z

Track of the day - Deep Purple - Duke Ellington.

We're definitely into the season of mists minus the mellow fruitfulness here in Bogsville.
I tune in religiously to the TV weather reports to discover what tomorrow will bring.
If I'm honest I tune in because I have a thing about weather ladies.
I'm currently worried about the health of Carol Kirkwood, the BBC lady with the wheeze. I'm sure the sound crew could mic her up more sympathetically. She's a desperately shallow breather.
Judge for yourself from this recently recorded breathless clip.

She ought to pop over to Prince Edward Island.

St Pancras

2007-11-06T20:35:00.000Z

Track of the day - Whirly-Bird - Count Basie.

It's very handy for the train if you can bring yourself to mix with the peasants.
There's probably a helipad.
How will they get the mail delivered if there's no pedestrian access?

I'd rather have my own little piece of Prince Edward Island.

Buy One Get One Free

2007-11-05T09:57:00.000Z

Track of the day - Temptation - Arctic Monkeys.

It seemed like an offer that was too good to miss so I nipped inside to see what was available.
Turned out that the 'buy one get one free senior citizens' had proved far more popular than anticipated and they were clean out of stock.
The guy was apologetic and said he was expecting another container load from the docks as soon as his mate could sort out the paperwork.
Next door they were filling the bargain window with their current two for one offer.
I was tempted but they looked a bit skimpily clad for Bogsville weather conditions and pretty lifeless too, probably fallen off the back of a lorry somewhere in Kent.

Bob's Bombs

2007-11-03T10:31:00.000Z

Track of the day - Rudy's Rock - Bill Haley.

The local Hells Angels staged their annual firework display last night.
Their displays used to be put together by a biker named Bob whose air bombs shook the foundations and shattered the windows of local houses. Bob's Bogsville bomb blasts must have registered on earthquake measuring devices round the world.
Bob died a couple of years ago, not, I hasten to add, while mixing up pyrotechnical piledrivers.
As yet no one locally has managed to recreate Bob's eardrum rupturing recipes.
The originals were bequeathed to the military.

The deadline for purchasing your own little piece of Prince Edward Island has been extended.

Caught Short

2007-11-01T16:35:00.000Z

Track of the day - Right Place Wrong Time - Dr. John.

Caught short in the woods, I was urinating against the trunk of an old oak tree when, "Toowit-toowoo", I realised that my efforts were being observed by this tawny owl. Luckily the owl had no camera.
When I proudly reported my sighting to a ranger, he was singularly unimpressed.
"Yeah. It must be the most photographed bird in South Staffordshire, that one."

I spent yesterday listening to news items on radio and tv about drinking alcohol and cancer, eating red meat and cancer. The end result was that last night after three months of total abstinence from alcohol, apart from a couple of pints of beer in Yorkshire and another two in London, I suddenly felt the urge to revisit the Hole in the Ground bar.
I really wish I hadn't.
The place was so empty that I couldn't help wondering whether it was related to the quality of red meat and beer on offer there.
Eventually I wandered outside into the back yard where they've put tables and space heaters to accommodate smokers.
One lone smoker stood by the glass door watching the soccer on a big screen that was the only sign of life in the bar.
He finished smoking, dropped what was left of the cigarette on the ground behind him, went back inside and closed the door.
I decided to follow him but found that he'd locked the door. I rattled the door for a while but there was no one to open it so I climbed out over the wall and went home.
P.S. If the current owner of the bar reads this, a stile would help.

The Joy Of Window Shopping

2007-10-30T09:34:00.000Z

Track of the day - I am a pig & you are a cow - Prince Edward Island.

Window shopping in London is far more interesting than window shopping in Bogsville.
This joyful little window was part of a display at Joy in Paternoster Row.
If they'd like a couple of pictures of their 'live mannequin displays' I'm sure I could oblige.

Dressed To Kill

2007-10-22T09:29:00.001Z

Track of the day - Get Away - Georgie Fame.

Gunshots echoed. I assumed that the local farmer was shooting rabbits.
I was wrong.
The chauffeur driven Bentley set, dressed to kill in all their country finery, were shooting pheasants driven out of the woods by flag waving peasants.
I suspect they would have been just as happy shooting the peasants.

Final opportunity to purchase your own little piece of Prince Edward Island.

Old Cobblers

2007-10-19T10:50:00.000Z

Track of the day - Beach - Jewelsband

Increasingly troubled by back pain, his mobility started to suffer so he sought medical help.
After endless visits to sympathetic but singularly unhelpful medical specialists, he stumbled upon one who offered a permanent solution.
"The good news is that I can cure your backache. The bad news is that it will require castration.
You have a very rare condition which has caused your testicles to press up against the base of your spine. The pressure is undoubtedly what is causing your back pain.
The only way to relieve the pressure is castration."
He was shocked but eventually signed up for the procedure. Even the loss of his old cobblers would be worthwhile if it meant freedom from pain.

He left the hospital with a spring in his step. Yes he definitely felt like a different person.
It was time to make a new beginning, to live a new life.
Passing a tailoring shop, the thought came to him,
"That's what I need for the new me, a new suit!"
In no time at all he was inside the shop.
"I'd like a new suit please."
The salesman nodded and eyed him briefly,
"Let's see, how about size 42 short?"
"That's right, how did you know?"
"Years of experience sir and it is my job sir."
The suit fitted perfectly. As he admired himself in the mirror, the salesman asked,
"How about a new shirt sir?"

"Excellent idea. What size do you suggest?"
"Let's see, 34 sleeve, 16 collar."
He was amazed, "Spot on, how do you do that?"
"It's my job sir."
The shirt fitted perfectly. As he was buttoning the collar, the salesman said, "How about a new pair of shoes to go with the suit?"
By now he was on a roll, "Why not?"
"Let's see, 9½ wide."
"Right again. You have an amazing skill there."
"It's nothing sir, just my job. New underwear sir? It would complete the transformation."
He thought for a second, "Might as well."
The salesman stepped back, eyed his waist and said, "May I suggest size 36?"
This time he took great delight in pointing out that the salesman had got it wrong.
"No. Got you this time. I've worn size 34 since I was 18 years old."
The salesman shook his head,
"You can't wear size 34 sir. They would press your testicles up against the base of your spine and give you one hell of a backache."

Have you purchased your own little piece of Prince Edward Island yet?

A Pain In The Ass

2007-10-18T10:33:00.000Z

Track of the day - I Can See Clearly Now - Jewelsband.

For the last two weeks my back has been a pain in the ass, left hip and left calf. As a result I've been stuck in a chair in the house while the rest of the world went merrily about its business except for the people on a bus that's been stuck in the road since 7.30 this morning.
The postal strike came and went, the Queen attended the dedication of a memorial to the 16,000 UK service personnel who have died on service since the end of World War II, England won a one day cricket series in Sri Lanka, the Australian team demolished India in a one day series in India, England surprisingly reached the final of the Rugby World Cup while its obscenely overpaid bladder welliers unsurprisingly lost 2-1 to Russia in a soccer match played on an imitation grass pitch in Moscow.
Gordon Brown decided not to hold an election, the Liberal Democrats lost their ageing leader, the BBC formulated plans to sack people in an attempt to save a couple of billion pounds while continuing to honour Jonathan Woss's six million pound contract and the Metropolitan Police were criticised for photoshopping a photograph to prove how easy it is to shoot the wrong guy seven times in the head on the London underground.

Meanwhile my 'pain in the ass' back pain, went totally unreported - until now.

There's still time to purchase your own little piece of Prince Edward Island.

Hanging Out In Bogsville

2007-10-05T22:31:00.000Z

Track of the day - Words - Jewelsband.

Word of our squirrel proof bird feeder is spreading among the local squirrel population.
It is rapidly becoming the place for hanging out in Bogsville.
Does the Guinness Book of Records have an entry for 'squirrels in a squirrel proof bird feeder'?

You can now hang out in your own little piece of Prince Edward Island.

Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder

2007-10-04T22:49:00.000Z

Track of the day - I Can See Clearly - Jewelsband.

It seems that our squirrel proof bird feeder is no longer squirrel proof.

Have you purchased your own little piece of Prince Edward Island yet?

I Might Have Gone Blind

2007-10-01T10:09:00.000Z

Track of the day - I Can See Clearly - Jewelsband.

I turned up for my three times cancelled appointment at the local specialist eye hospital. My appointment was for 9.00 am. I was eventually called at 9.40 am. by a doctor who looked barely old enough to have completed his A Levels.
He sat and read through my hospital notes.
"You don't have glaucoma. You are, in fact, suffering from ocular hypertension and we have prescribed drops to reduce and control the intraocular pressures."
So far so good. At least it proved that he could read and that he probably had the right set of notes in front of him.
Eventually he put the anaesthetic drops in my eyes, peered at the back of my eyes, measured the pressures and declared me fit as a fiddle.
"I'm very pleased with your progress. Your pressures are down and your field test results were normal. How do you feel about it?"
I launched into a long attack on a system that had failed to honour three appointments that it had arranged, thus increasing my test period from six months to twelve months in which time I might have gone blind.
He was apologetic and said that the appointment system had now been changed.
"We now send you a letter much closer to the time of your test so that we know that staff are available to conduct your examination.
I've put you down for a retest by a nurse in nine months time."

So there you have it. The new improved system means that the cancellations will start after nine months instead of six months and the test will be conducted by a nurse rather than a doctor.
Reassuring isn't it.

Have you purchased your own little piece of Prince Edward Island yet?

My Years As A Trappist Monk

2007-09-29T23:41:00.000Z

Track of the day - I Can See Clearly - Jewelsband.

If you're going to strip off to demonstrate solidarity against racism on soccer terraces, make sure you know the guy you're standing next to.
The Celtic fan on the right of the picture seems to be keeping a very close watch on his neighbour's tackle.

It's been Happy Birthday week. Friday was Bogs the Younger's birthday and today Bogs the Elder is lit up somewhere on the Thames.
Consecutive days but five years apart. I think their procreation probably took place at the start and end of my years as a Trappist monk, or of the years when I was marooned on a traffic island in Wednesbury.
Bogs the Elder is apparently distraught that only ten people are accompanying him on his drunken voyage of discovery along the Thames and Bogs the Younger is green with envy because he only had three people to carry him home last night.
At least they are prepared to admit how old they are.
This morning I was third degreed on the phone by a helpful Barclaycard lady.
"How old will you be next birthday?" she asked.
That was a bad start because I'm not sure how old I am now.
"OK we'll forget that one. Can you tell me the last three digits of your land line phone number?"
I thought carefully and suggested "201".
Wrong response again because I was later informed by Mrs B, who uses the phone, that 201 were the last three digits of my parents' phone number and they both died years ago.
Barclaycard lady was very understanding and asked some questions that I could answer.
"Are you sitting in front of your computer and is there anyone else there I could speak to please?"
I was going to ask her if she was doing anything after work but we somehow got cut off before I could ask.

I've spent a large part of the day cleaning out the deep fat fryer.
Seems that it got switched on at six o'clock last night and was still looking for something to fry at eight o'clock this morning.
God knows what the next electricity bill is going to be.
This morning the house stank of hot fat. It could have been worse. And before anyone accuses me of negligence and of being unfit to operate a deep fat fryer I would like to point out that my homicidal wife was entirely responsible. I could have been well and truly crisped last night

Once in a lifetime opportunity to purchase your own little piece of Prince Edward Island.

Amateur Rider Crematorium Tribute

2007-09-26T09:44:00.000Z

Track of the day - Beach - Jewelsband MySpace Link.

"What's he on? What's he on?" and "Go on my son!" was the cry from local cycling enthusiasts as amateur rider Velo C. Peed appeared leading the field of Tour Of Britain professionals towards the finish line.

Fire at Crematorium

Bereaved relatives and staff were forced to leave Aberdeen Crematorium when fire damaged one of the burning units in the complex recently.
A fire service spokesman said the cremator equipment was "well alight" when crews arrived.

Fire at a crematorium! Whatever next?

A Happy Juxtaposition

On the topic of bereaved relatives I'd like to thank Manx Islander for sending me this touching tribute, broadcast recently on Manx Radio.
To quote my Manx Islander source
"I've made a note not to let Manx Radio handle my funeral oration."

Buy your own piece of Prince Edward Island.

Lost & Found

2007-09-23T09:10:00.000Z

Track of the day - The Rest Of My Life - Jewelsband MySpace Link.

I spotted this heartrending note stuck to a window on a canal barge the other day.
It serves as a timely reminder of just how hard hearted some wives can be.
I recall the sad story of local fire brigade hero Bert Slingsby who lost his wife and dog during a bombing raid on Birmingham in July 1942.
He found her again on the 3rd August 1952 while on a day trip to Blackpool.
No one seems to know what happened to the dog.
Mentally scarred by the horrors of this story I have always tried to avoid visiting Blackpool.

Prince Edward Island's - MySpace page.

Drain Tapping

2007-09-21T10:29:00.000Z

Track of the day - Beach - Jewelsband
Jewelsband MySpace Link.

Is Big Brother tapping your drains and tracking your conversation pieces as they flush away to a better life somewhere?
He certainly is round here.
I caught this guy listening to the drains at the end of our driveway yesterday.
Hell's teeth, is nowhere safe from the identity pilferers these days?

From now on my personal waste products are going through Mrs B's shredder.

For some unknown reason this 1970's big momma on a beach in Saint Tropez, made me think of double skinned, suspended ceilings in Moscow.
I've never been to Moscow but the web informs me that double skinned, suspended ceilings come into their own when the water from the bath or shower in the room above overflows and becomes trapped between the latex layers.
The result looks like - well - like a paler version of the woman in the picture.

Visit Prince Edward Island's - MySpace link.

Chelsea Between Managers

2007-09-20T03:12:00.000Z

I wake up in the middle of the night, switch on the computer and find that Chelsea are 'between managers'. Sad isn't it!
Personally I couldn't give a flying ****.

Elderly Bitch Hunting

2007-09-07T08:35:00.000Z

Track of the day - Hot Dog Buddy Buddy - Bill Haley.

Our visitors have left for pastures new so it is very quiet round here except for the deafening rumble of articulated lorries.
The elderly bitch proved that her taste for hunting hadn't diminished by tracking down and then ripping up a honeysuckle root.
To be fair to her the root was preventing her from getting at a rat.
The rat got the message and disappeared - temporarily.
Come to think of it, the arrival of the rats has coincided with the absence of dogs from the garden.
Has anyone got a bucket of lion or tiger dung I could have going cheap?
Yes I know lion and tiger dung doesn't go cheep unless, of course, you stand on its toe.

A very polite young man appeared yesterday and asked if I was satisfied with the electricity and gas that his company was providing for us.
I explained to him that the gas came out of the little holes in the gas oven when I turned the tap and ignited just fine and the electricity lit the lamps so yes I was satisfied, except for the service last Monday morning when the electricity they sent us was too powerful and blew up Mrs B's hairdryer.
He promised to send us less powerful electricity on a Monday morning so that should help.
By the time he started asking if I knew about their telephone service, I'd lost interest.
Exploding hairdryers is one thing but telephones that can electrocute or gas you is something I'm not prepared to invest in.

As I type this I hear the clopping of horses' hooves on the road outside. I look through the window and there's a white hearse drawn by two white horses, followed by a couple of black stretched funeral cars going past the house and the hairs rise on the back of my neck.
Exploding hairdryers on Monday morning and a horse drawn hearse on Friday.
I'd better go and sweep up the rat poison.

If I could catch the rat I could always use it in a salad.

Prince Edward Island - MySpace link.

A Young Rat & An Old Bitch

2007-09-04T23:39:00.000Z

Track of the day - It's Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

Tomorrow is the day of my much cancelled and rearranged peripheral vision test.
I am expecting yet another last minute phone call to tell me that it has been postponed.

We have visitors in the house and yet another rat in the garden. It's only a very young rat and cute as rats go but I'm assured that the randy boggers are capable of reproduction when they are only six weeks old. If true, that's impressive but worrying.
I was hoping that the visitors' dog would solve the rat problem but age seems to have put paid to her hunting instincts.
That's a problem I understand only too well except that in my case I do at least still attempt the chase.
Make the most of your freedom for the next couple of days rat because as soon as the old bitch leaves, the poison pills are going down again.

Prince Edward Island - MySpace link.

Long Abandoned Roman Roads

2007-09-03T09:49:00.000Z

Track of the day - I am a pig & you are a cow
Prince Edward Island.

We're back from our week by the sea that turned out to be a week exploring the Yorkshire Dales.
Mrs B's idea of a good time seems to be trekking up near vertical hillsides and squeezing through tiny 'v' shaped stiles to get to long abandoned Roman roads.
It's a pity that the last century's road builders didn't follow the Roman road builders' example because I haven't had to drive round so many bends for years which is a good job because I'm lousy at it.
Scenic they might be, built for speed they are not, unless you are a middle aged biker hurtling round on the assumption that there is nothing solid coming the other way. No wonder the locals drive round in Land Rovers.
Every biker in Britain must head for the Dales at weekends. God knows where they go to, they just seem to be attracted by bendy roads and small gaps between cars.
Perhaps they all end up on the beach at Scarborough, we didn't.

Prince Edward Island - MySpace link.

The Photographer Lady

2007-08-24T23:04:00.000Z

Track of the day - A Picture Of You - Joe Brown.

The title of this post should really have been How I Became A Flasher's Assistant.
A professional photographer lady arrived this afternoon to take photographs of Mrs B's flowers. I didn't even know she had arrived until Mrs B came to find me and told me to get off my backside because a very nice young lady needed my assistance.
Always willing to be of service to a nice young lady, particularly one with a French accent, I found myself holding an umbrella in one hand and a remote flash unit in the other.
To be honest I was so impressed by the lady's equipment that I would have been more than willing to hold anything for her.
As it was I ended up being a flasher's assistant in my own back garden. Is this what it has come to I ask myself.
A week ago she was camping out with and photographing the Heathrow demonstrators and today the poor wee thing was trying to create something marketable out of Mrs B's flowers for a piece in a national magazine.
If I knew who she was I'd buy the photographs off her. Mrs B was quite right, she was very nice and if she can make Mrs B's flowers look newsworthy she's a creative genius.

I've just realised that tomorrow is the start of the August Bank Holiday. Why they have to arrange a Bank Holiday to coincide with our trip to North Yorkshire beats me.
Perhaps I should look at a calendar occasionally.
It might help if I looked at a map too because the week by the sea that I was looking forward to, turns out to be a week on a working farm miles away from the Yorkshire coast.
I think I'd better leave the flippers at home and take hiking boots instead.
Perhaps I will take the flippers and a snorkel in case there's heavy rain.

Elder son phoned tonight. He's off to play at a music festival in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis.
Seems like a long, long way to go to batter a drum kit but you're only middle-aged once.
The bogger gets around a bit.
Last weekend he was somewhere south of Edinburgh and a couple of days before that he was somewhere or other in Russia.
Am I envious of all this gadding about?
Certainly not, because tomorrow I'll be stuck in Bank Holiday traffic somewhere south of wherever the GPS unit tells me that I'm going. Anyway, Mrs B says it will be very nice and she's always right. She was certainly right about the young lady with the camera.

Lady On A Flat Rock

2007-08-21T23:09:00.000Z

Track of the day - Right Place Wrong Time - Dr. John.

Right now a couple of weeks on a sunny Mediterranean beach would be good but instead we're off for a week to a farm somewhere in the wilds of North East Yorkshire.
I think I'd better go and buy a new fleece, some waders and yet more rat pellets.

The rat and the rain have conspired to keep Mrs B indoors where she has cleared out a walk-in cupboard at the top of the stairs and found boxes and boxes full of my 35mm transparencies that were hidden away in there.
The lady on a flat rock in the South of France is from a Kodak slide marked Aug 1972.
I wonder if she's still there? Somehow I don't think she'll be on a farm in Yorkshire but you never know.

Monster Rat

2007-08-16T12:09:00.000Z

Track of the day - Muskrat Ramble - Louis Armstrong Hot Five.

So much for my skill as a rat poisoner. The boggers positively thrive on the little blue pellets I've been putting down for them.
This monster rambled round the lawn while I was drinking coffee in the garden.
I blame it all on the local take-aways and the lady who keeps putting bread and seeds out for the birds.

Doesn't appeal to me but round here people will wear just about anything.

Brighten Up The City Week

2007-08-14T23:24:00.000Z

Track of the day - Dead End Street - The Kinks.

This week is 'brighten up the city week' and there's more than one way to brighten up a Bogsville dead end street as this skipping lady is about to find out.

A Sleepy Shropshire Town

2007-08-09T08:34:00.000Z

Track of the day - Get Away - Georgie Fame.

Accompany me on a pictorial tour of a sleepy little Shropshire town.

I never did manage to find the long-stay WC.
I assure you that I was in and out of this one in 'a brace of shakes'.

Fart Uncontrollably

2007-08-06T20:33:00.000Z

Track of the day - Punchdrunk - Bela Fleck.

In a futile attempt to avoid my cigarette smoke Mrs B spends most of her time at the Swedish flat pack furniture superstore. As a result I am now able to assemble a bookcase or cd tower in about the time it takes for the first ash to drop off the end of my cigarette.
This is the sad state of affairs at Bogsville Heights since our leaders introduced the smoking ban that has brought to an end my nights out in the Hole in the Ground and Tulip & Tiara bars.
The only place locally that doesn't have a smoking ban sticker on the door is Bogsville Heights so I'm sort of stuck here.
The local public phone box doesn't have a sticker but I might just as well stay at home as stand in the phone box all night.

The bus shelter has a no smoking sign, the local undertaker has a no smoking sign so even the local corpses are denied a last fag before they depart for the crematorium, which I've no doubt has a no smoking sign stuck on its door too. When I'm finally transported there I'm going to insist that I'm delivered with a full pack of Benson & Hedges.
I did wander along to the Hole in the Ground bar last Friday.
I sat in the back yard with a pint of something or other until it got too cold to sit outside and then wandered inside where I was immediately struck by the welcoming smell of stale urine and B.O.
I stood at the bar while the little guy standing next to me smashed the Bogsville record for breaking wind.
"Sorry about that mate," he said to no one in particular and broke wind again.
I wandered off to the other end of the bar. Smokers don't bother me. People who fart uncontrollably do.
No I'm not planning to give up smoking. I have no desire to have an even more finely tuned sense of smell.

Invaded By Brown Rats

2007-08-03T20:07:00.000Z

Track of the day - Hoots Mon - Lord Rockingham's XI.

Here's a fun entry.
We woke up yesterday to find we'd been invaded by brown rats.
Three rats were gambolling around the lawn at the back of the house. One was a brown brute, the female no doubt, that dwarfed the other two. They seem to have decided that the Bogs bird food that gets dropped from the feeders is to their liking especially as they can wash it down with pond water and have dug themselves a handy home in a rockery.
Needless to say we've stopped feeding the birds and started leaving little piles of rat poison along the bottom of hedges and against walls.
I don't feel good about it, in fact I feel bloody awful about it but the rats aren't likely to toddle off to somewhere else before they've increased the local rat population.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the field mouse but I guess I've finished him off too.
Three piles of the poison pellets had been taken by this morning and another two by this evening. I've covered most of them with half sections of plastic piping and the neighbours don't have cats or dogs.
If there's no sign of the rats tomorrow I'll clear the stuff away.
Mrs B has, for some reason, decided she doesn't want to be in the garden with the rats so we spent most of today watching heron in a canal.
I suspect that we were a lot closer to rats there than at home in the Bogsville Heights rattery.

Here's some bedtime reading for you.

Yellow Jersey Shropshire

2007-08-01T23:13:00.000Z

Track of the day - Pawn Shop Blues - Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.

I can confirm that Michael Rasmussen, the guy who wore the yellow jersey in the Tour de France for 10 days before he was sacked by his team for telling them he'd been in Mexico when he'd apparently been in Italy all the time, has now set off on the Tour de Shropshire.
I was wandering around Ludlow in Shropshire when the yellow jersey suddenly appeared right in front of me.
I couldn't help noticing that the recent scandal seemed to have aged him.
Wonder who I'll spot tomorrow?

NHS Appointment Cancelled

2007-07-31T08:34:00.000Z

The phone rang at 9:05 am.
Mrs B answered it. The call was for me.
"Guess who?" she said, handing me the phone.
It was the Eye Hospital.
"Hello Mr Bogs? I'm sorry to phone so early but I'm having to cancel your appointment this afternoon. The lady who does the field tests just phoned in sick. There's nothing I can do about it. We'll send you another appointment through the post."

So there you have it. Another National Health hospital appointment cancelled. This time I got five hours notice.
Wonderful system or at least it used to be before accountants started running the service.

March 5th - Cancelled
June 18th - Cancelled
July 31st - Cancelled
August 6th - Cancelled

IMPORTANT
The Trust's policy is not to automatically offer further Appointments to patients who fail to let us know they will not be attending.

Rather Like Sinbad

2007-07-30T16:53:00.000Z

The sun appeared yesterday so I took a break from flat pack book cases and carried the Sunday papers into the garden.
I'd been reading for about ten minutes when I realised that vision through my left eye was blurred, a bit like looking through frosted glass or a lens that has been smeared with Vaseline.
My eye had felt a bit gritty when I woke up.
I cleaned my glasses and discovered that I could see a whole lot better without them than with them.
So much better, in fact, that for the first time in fifteen years I was able to read the small print on a label.
I announced my discovery to Mrs B, made a mental note to visit the optician first thing on Monday morning to get the miracle recorded for medical science and proceeded to read out loud from everything that had printing on it.
Half an hour later I decided that my left eye wasn't performing as well as it had been so, rather like Sinbad, I gave it a good rub with the palm of my hand and a contact lens dropped out.
This was confusing because I hadn't worn my lenses for days, not since we went off to search for flat pack book cases last Thursday morning.
I set off to the bathroom to check the contact lens pots. The bloody pots sat there empty, peering up at me from the shelf.
When I checked my right eye, I found a lens in there too. No wonder I could see better without my glasses.
Tomorrow I have my annual appointment at the Eye Hospital, which is just as well because I don't think it's a good idea to wear contact lenses for four days without cleaning them.

The mail just arrived. One brown envelope addressed to me.
Change of ophthalmology clinic appointment.
Unfortunately it has been necessary to change your appointment on Monday 6th August 2007 at 11.00 am.
Your new appointment is now on Monday 1st October 2007 at 09:00 am.
This is now the third time they have canceled my original 5th March appointment - March then June and then August. It's way beyond a joke. A lot can happen to your eyesight in seven months especially when you leave your contact lenses in for 90 hours.
I still have a field of vision test set for tomorrow afternoon so I expect I'll end up being incredibly rude to some poor little girl on reception who is in no way responsible for all the cancellations. I'll ask her to point me in the direction of the complaints department.

Just A Note

2007-07-27T23:09:00.000Z

This was a week when I rediscovered the ills of hill walking, was taken for a ride in a new motor, lost interest in racing cyclists, found a handwritten note from a policeman on the hall table, visited a giant Swedish superstore, had problems with a burglar alarm, discovered that the strange toothpaste my wife had purchased for me contained poison that possibly wrecked my liver, sat smoking in the back yard of a no smoking pub drinking lager that disagreed with what was left of my liver and was visited by relatives.

With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain,
For the rain it raineth every day etc.