Ladders are for men

Fantastic, I have now weaved through the process of purchasing a set of ladders.  What a palaver.  Especially getting payment details set up.  But it's done.  So in the next few days I can expect a phone call from the DIY people and a delivery date.  So I can then get on with stripping and painting a window which desperately needs attention, then having a closer look at guttering and even the slate where the pigeons appear to be entering.  Although this part may be limited as the entry point is a few feet away from the gutter.  My arms wont quite stretch that far, unless I happened to be Mr Fantastic from the Fantastic 4.  But were I Mr Fantastic there would of been no need for ladders in the first place.  Being fantastic certainly has its advantages.

Understanding what is needed for a set of ladders is a bit of a process.  There are so many kinds on the market.  Three section and two section extension ladders come in various lengths.  Not to mention the three way, five way, twelve way combination ladders.  They can also be bought in different grades.  Depending on how much weight they are to hold.  If I were a hod carrier I'd need something a bit stronger, but I'm not and fortunately don't suffer from excessive overweight.  In addition, no matter how long the ladder is, this length isn't the length it will be used for.  The base has to stand away from the wall.  It's always difficult to tell this, but the taller the ladder is the easier it is to give yourself more space between the ladder and the wall.  It's convenient to have some length to play with.  I opted out for a nice long two section ladder, with each section at 4.2 metres.  Which was another minor issue.  Bloody metres when I'm a foot and inches person.  They never did metres when I was at school.  A metre is just a little longer than three feet, I'm guessing about 3 feet and 4 inches, approximately.  Which is enough to know.  Too much more information and it will knock some other vital piece of data out of my memory.  Something I may need one day and then will not know I need it because I've forgotten it.  So when my ladder eventually turns up it should be about 8 inches high.  No, it must be a bit higher.  At 8.4 metres when at full length.  Enough.  Yep, enough and manly enough, I think as I nod my head.  I should be able to do a great deal with it.  Lots of man things.  Ladders are for men hmmm.

Funny how doing something like ordering a set of ladders has now inspired me.  To the extent I have now checked out the local DIY store to find it closes at 9 p.m. tonight.  I'm almost of  a mind to go there, but as it's only 25 minutes to closing time, I'll not fully savour the aroma of being a butch man in a butch man store.  Amongst all those tools and things.  Not to mention the weird fascination looking at screws can give me.  When I check them out I wonder what they would be used for.  Some are flat topped, some rounded, they may be cross or flat faced, sunken or not, and made in all different lengths and different materials, you name it and I'm sure there is a screw made from it which has a specific purpose. It must be absolutely wonderful to know exactly the type of screw you need for the job you are doing.  Each with it's purpose.  Not quite but nearly as exciting as looking and purchasing stationary.  I honestly love buying blank notebooks.  I don't know if it's an odd thing to admit, but a few hours in a big stationary shop or a DIY shop to me is relaxing.  Maybe I should go to them more often. 

For the time being I'll settle on the ladders.   I just hope they will love me as much as I will love them.  Damn better not let Sparkling know she has got some competition.

Ladders and their obstacles

This morning was exhausted by checking out the DIY store for a set of ladders. I looked at the store's web site and found what I wanted.  Then headed down towards the store, walked around it, found the ladders section, but the pair I'd seen online were not in the store.  You can set your mind to doing something and find there is an obstacle in the way.  This obstacle then stops you in your track then another decision has to be made.  In searching for quotes about obstacles I came across this one:

"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

~ John Wooden

This is a great little side stepping method.  There is a term called functional fixedness.  When you look at an object in a certain way and can only see a certain use for it.  When it becomes difficult to extrapolate a different us or different way of using the object.  This is the being stuck or functional fixedness.  Wooden's quote here says to me.  OK, you can't climb up a ladder today and do the thing you needed to do, however I could of charged up the drill, purchased the appropriate items for another project and done some research for it in order to do the project.  But I let myself get stuck in one frame of mind and one idea.  There is always something you can do, if you can't do what you wanted to do.  Simple as that.

This afternoon  I had a bicycle ride, for need of exercise and to release my thoughts. I didn't know what to do with myself.  You could say I was at a loose end.  Indeed now I think about it there were other things I could of done, but I didn't, I rode my bike, stopped at a bench near the Thames and sat there.  It has been a beautiful hot day, with little in the way of humidity.  I sat watching the odd boat and tried to combat the distractions of my thoughts.  Thoughts which have a way of creeping up on you and not really helping out.  I noticed a large orange buoy in the water.  On one side of it there appeared to be water resistance as an waves indicated.  Taking into account the direction of the waves it became a simple solution, the Thames was in the process of having a tide and the water was coming in.  I tried to sit up straight as I realised I was slumping.  The warmth of the sun was relaxing.  I felt a need to chat and a pang for Sparkles.  It happens once in a while.  And although the place and time was relaxing and nice, I watched those other distracting thoughts and wrestled control, gently otherwise I'd of surely looked like a wild crazy man.  Wrestling yourself can be a noticeable thing in public places.  Mind wrestling is much less observable.

So Wooden's quote in some other respects is about going with the flow.  If a buoy happens to be in the way the water will push around it and just carry on doing what it has to do.  Oh to be like water.

Being drunk

Alcohol has a tendency to make me 1. soppy, 2. emotional 3. hungry 4. Happy, 5. in need of talking to those I love. When I ring up those I love they are usually sobre at this point.  Sparkling Eyes doesn't want to hear me.  But may I say when she rings me and I am sobre and she is drunk, I have to listen to her, even though my head gets in a right tizzy.  I get hungry.  I can't help it.  I drink, get drunk and need a portion of chips. It's definitely not good for me, because of all those calories and my new found way of going into a Weatherspoons pub and stealing sachets of sauce to put on my chips.  Emotional, dam I get so emotional and tuned into to all sorts of stuff it is almost as though everything which happens when someone talks to me that I feel it has happened to me.  Lets not forget being happy.  I'm a happy drunk.  I get tired want to sleep and also have a silly smile on my face, which probably goes hand in hand with the desire to hug everyone.  What the hell happens when I get drunk I don't know.  Just it releases some inner person to a much greater extent.  No matter what I do I can't get away from him, he's me but he's a different me.  Awwe and lets just say I could do with a good hug from Sparkling on such occasions.  Even if she has her sane head on and is avoiding me like the plague.  Such is the demeanour of being drunk.

Shame on me.

Farewell to a fish

Someone left at the Fish Factory today.  He'd been made redundant, had worked for 24 years and now was off.  Blimey 24 years just like that, all over with.  People he'd known, friends made, chit chats had and all to end today.  At least he didn't wear a suit and was cazh (casual dressed).  A nice bloke.  It made me think a bit of my own place in the pond.  How the inevitable was soon to happen, soon in this case being the next three plus years.  When my efforts to climb the ladder and actually get to do a fish chopping job I like; then big boss of the ocean has decided it will all go.  So typical how some huge whale comes along and bosses about the other fishes, and doesn't really understand the roles they play.  Doesn't understand the cogs in the wheels.  But at some point will strut their gills forwards and say with emphatic and loud burps "I did this...I did that...had I not done the world would be a worse place..."  What a load of old twaddle.  There sure are too many whales out there in this world strutting their stuff and pulling their weight.  Making themselves look good, when they are not doing anyone any favours.  Just looking for their own little pot bellied egos to be stroked.  "oh you are so good Mr Whale, the world is a changed and better place."  When the reality is the world is not a better changed place at all.  Whales I have learnt have little brains, so there's a lot they don't take into account.  Little brains and big mouths. 

Well there's only one choice left, become a turtle.  Then I'll be able to pull my head into my shell and pretend nothing exists outside of my own comfy place.

Summer holidays and crazy kids

You can always tell when it's the summer holidays.  There are kids all over the place, like flys buzzing around a warm pile of dung.  Having a kid and letting them loose in the world is the fashion statement of summer.  You can't get away from them.  Wherever you turn there are parents and sprogs.  Every shop, every pavement, every doorway, every available seat, shop, bus stop, cafe, there they are.  All shapes and sizes not to mention variety of volumes.  Some are stuck on constant screaming loud and while others could of been mistaken for taking an ampetamine or two.  Mums do their Linda Blair impression, bellowing the name of their offspring and breaking all fragile glasses as thier pitch out does any opera singer.  I can see their heads turn on necks as they look around for the little angel of their life.  Plastic lenses were developed to withstand such excrutiating screeches. 

Summer becomes the time when the worst of child caring abilities is on show for the world to see.  It is outlandish with absolutely no conscience.  For the children, angish and psychological scars are developed to taunt them when they have grown into adults.  "I can remember when my mum shouted at me..."  Many a therapist could be kept in perpetual work with it all.  This is how love is expressed for the sproggs.  Love which comes from a  hypercritical do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do attitude.  It's obvious here learning by example has no meaning.

I do not know how we survive as a human race, or even how we progressed from an ape like form to standing upright.  There must of been a genetic defect which allowed us to communicate by vocalising words and not grunting.  It is the only rational explanation, especially when you see these little creatures full of energy and their in tow companions parental figures.   Emotional maturity, sexual maturity and intellectual growth take three completely different routes.  Were the human race to reach a form of emotional and intellectual equilibrium before hormones were allowed their rampant release, the world would be a different place.

Sprogs.  You can't help but love them, it's just everything else attached. 

Twighlight Zone Coincidence or not?

Sometimes you can watch a movie or episode from a program and it will stick in your mind.  It stays there hidden away but remembered.  Not forgotten like other passively viewed material.  Somehow it has had an impact.  This for me is true of an episode I once saw of the Twilight Zone.  A fantastic series of science fantasy weird stuff, I think made in the 60s or perhaps earlier, but great viewing.   Funny thing is although I enjoyed watching the TZ there was only every one episode I could remember.  About a man on a planet who was given a robot to keep him company.  The robot was a woman.  A real woman acting the part not some make believe set of metal cans stuck together.  The man got to love his robot woman and then one day a spaceship landed and said he could go back home.  He wanted to take his robot but they said it wasn't possible, maybe because of the extra weight.  He refused to  go back and they in turn broke or killed the robot woman.  The program ended.  But it had somehow left it's mark on my mind.  The episode was old and in black and white.  Of all the episodes I saw this one I remembered.  Amazing.

By some very odd and mysterious chance, I then happen to come across an episode of TZ.  Coincidence or not?  It was the same one I had seen years before, the one which left an imprint on my psyche.  From nowhere it had come, it's called The Lonely.  I did think the one of the original actors was Spencer Tracy but I was wrong.   It was Jack Warden, who had led an interesting life before he went into acting.  Nightclub bouncer, was active during the second world war and broke his leg in a parachute jump and decided to become an actor.  He was a juror No 7 in 12 Angry men as well.  The robot was played by a British actress called Jean Marsh.  I found this a little odd as the series was made in America, she would of been in the US at the time.  Quite a feat for a young woman to travel there and pursue her career.  Jean Marsh subsequently made her name in a British TV series called Upstairs Downstairs (Rose Buck).  She was even married for a while to Joh Pertwee 1955-1960 which probably related to the fact she had also done a few episodes of Doctor Who and has continued her acting career since.

The Twilight Zone was a great TV series.  Each episode lasting about half an hour and having some thought provoking moral question.  The weird and wonderful mixed with the foibles of human nature.  So I couldn't help wonder whether this coincidence was along the same lines.  A clash of random possibilities all coming together to make a reality in a time and place which meant something.  Something to me.  In a world of statistical improbabilities there is certainty an improbably event can and will happen on occasion.  Well I'm glad it was watching TZ and not being hit by a meteorite.  Worse still would of be something unfortunate while at sea.  It begs the question of whether someone can actually be unlucky.  Especially when being unlucky is a statistical probability.  Because some unlucky events events are highly stacked in happening.  For example losing a bet on a horse race, not winning the national lottery, becoming a famous film star and having tea with Jean Marsh.  In which case, crossing fingers, not walking under ladders or having a lucky rabbits foot are all pretty much irrelevant.  If something will happen it either will or it will not and it will depend on the odds, but once in a while the odds aren't as unlikely as you'd think.

Big Momma has been swearing

Big Momma has been having a bout of swearing.  She has just been dropping a lot of those words which builders use.  The F word and the C word.  The worse thing is she has been doing this in front of her grandsons.  They spoke to me in confidence saying, "I love Big Momma but she has been swearing a lot.  I want the old Big Momma back.  She's lovely." What can I say.  She does what she does and is not a state hired granny but a full and propper granny.  I am sure she will revert back to her ordinary knitting-clothes-for-babies-self in no time.  But let this be said, sometimes a good swear is good.  It acts like a release valve.  I know, I've had the F word used on me a few times, come to think of it, even the C word.  However, I don't let it get on my rag. 

Just as I have realised, staying as calm as you can in any situation, will only be in your favour.  They usually ride themselves out.  Unless you happen to be talking about someone who is a 100 percent C word.  Fortunately, there's not too many of them about.

Memos

Memo to self, don't open the door to people you don't like, more so when they are drunk. 

Memo to self, buy some ear plugs.

Memo to self, take up lessons in self defence.

Memo to self, stop writing memos.

Sparkles has the flu

Sparkling hasn't been well.  It's the flu.  She has quite rightly said "who gets the flu in summer?"  Well apparently Sparkling has.  Mind Big Momma has said she's got the flu as well.  It has been raining a lot.  This is expected for the typical British weather and may have contributed.  Summer and rain is like salt and vinegar on chips.  It's going to happen.  But you just got to ask yourself how can the flu virus still be about at this time of year?  Like it has been hiding away under some kind of rock and then decided to come out at the most unfortunate time and claim a victim.  There I was thinking as always the female species had extra resistance to this kind of bug.  But, poor Sparkles has been knocked for six and spent most of the day in her bed.  When I hear this a bit inside of me goes awwwe, and like I want to wait on Sparkles with Chicken soup and hot water bottles just to make sure she is OK.  Of course hoping to be resilient against this strand of the virus. 

All I can think is maybe this nasty little bug has been around for a long time and Sparkling is unlucky enough to have caught it when the rest of us normally get infected in the winter.  Maybe this is it.  I know there have been times in winter when I have gone down with a bug and it has lasted weeks if not months.  Never quite shaking it off.  If you had the choice to get the flu it certainly would be Summer.  The chill of winter always makes it a lot worse.  I do hope Sparkles takes on lots of liquids and is able to fight of lurgies.

Lemon, honey and a tot of whisky. These are the basic ingredients to help cope with the lurgies.  Think I'll buy some today.  Lemon anyway.  Lemon is always good for something.  Get well soon hon am missing you.

Custard pie for the billionaire

It seems someone with a sense of humour tried to throw a custard pie (shaving foam) into the face of a billionaire media God.  The wife lept to his defence like a tiger or is it dragon, but being half the age of the billionaire lets not call her an old dragon.  Unfortunately after this event the public and press were no longer allowed to watch the spectacle as the eighty year old defended his omnipotent and limited actions of his own newspaper.  It's a shame.  We all know the reality is the media God and his aids should of been strapped into a style so the public could throw all kinds of detritus at them, because in reality they should be made to suffer humiliation.  It's there in the back of everyone's mind.  Personally I have decided not to purchase this man's newspapers.  All I can hope is a large part of the public come to their senses and do the same.  Unless of course they are each allowed a moment with a custard pie.  Oh it would of been so good to see the episode re played time and again on YouTube.  How the mighty should fall.  Especially when they have been raised to billionaire status.  Billionaire God like status.  For all purposes incredibly rich people are latter day Gods.  Well, mortal ones anyway, if they can escape a custard pie it doesn't mean they can avoid the grave.  Although good diet, food, relaxing billionaire lifestyle probably go a long way to helping avoiding it, for a little while anyway.

I woke up this morning after two and a half pints last night.  My head is a little bit sore but not full blown hangover.  Sparkling as usual did not reply to my texts so I guessed she was working.  A quick phone call to my mate L & B man who always entertains my slightly tipsy moments.  Later Sparkles texts me to say she heard me on the phone, because L & B had been in her house I guess.  She avoided me.  How unfair.  If you are drunk it should be law you are allowed to make nuisance of yourself for at least ten minutes to any sober person you want.  Then the next day they have the right to hit you with a custard pie.  Well, they should be allowed a little compensation.

It's so sad the days of Charlie Chaplin have gone.  But mark my words, the custard pie will return.  Long live the custard pie.

Cope with stress like a duck

I must of been in some kind of zone today.  Where the stresses of the Fish Factory were copeable.  Mind I have been trying a little exercise each time I've felt the shadow of psychological angst drop down on my shoulders.  It's simple.  Just counting from 1 to 5, while saying to myself, "relax, on each count I will feel myself relaxing,"  of course I say this internally.  Not so everyone can hear and think this bloke has lost the plot.  Which would be awful.  I'd then be really losing the plot and getting carted off to some secure unit.  Mind its not just the counting which helps.  The fact I felt tired this morning as well probably had a part to play.  I woke up needing another couple of hours sleep and was thinking of Sparkling, she had rang me up the night before.  I knew she would be sleeping in late.  It helped being tired holding the notion of waking up and getting a cuddle from Sparkles, very calming.  At times though being too alert from drinking over strong coffee, or not getting enough physical exercise doesn't help.  Too much caffeine definitely accelerates the heart.  High heart rate, and blood pressure are not things which help your internal coping mechanisms.  One thing feeds into another in a vicious circle.  Racing mind and a excited parasympathetic system.  Breaking the circle comes from recognising it and doing something about it.

I came to the realisation some time ago that being stressed doesn't help any situation.  Or being over emotional.  Says he, the fat man who just can't help his emotions at times, even a soppy cartoon can make tears run.  OK, if I'm happy or sad I can't help it unless I have to, but as for stress and it's insidious drip, drip effect that's a different thing.  One method of coping with life's turmoil is to stand back from it, then to seriously think about it and instead of offering up doom and gloom settling down to real understanding.  At the moment when I am reacting, I now do my best to calm and stop the reaction inside of me.  This is where the coping with stress comes in.  If being uptight about something is not actually going to help with the situation then it is a matter of getting rid of the uptight feeling.  For instance, I know if I blow up like Vesuvius I'll be physically aroused, high blood pressure, elevated pulse, seeing red or green or blue, unable to see think straight, the flight or fight response kicking in.  It is however, momentary, this flushed crazy episode.  However, if it is allowed to vent then like a storm it has to wear itself out.  The craziness has to be allowed to slowly subside.  This is the way of emotions.  It's not to say there isn't a time and a place for the appropriate emotions, just to take note, when they are not going to help they need to be coped with.  This I believe is what Emotional Intelligence is all about.  Over excitement takes away the rational clear mind, the mind where solutions come from, where creativity and thinking out of the box is situated.  Self understanding is being able to adapt and know when to suppress the excited side of the emotional tyrant.  A prime example would be in card playing.  Where poker players observe their opponents for any facial or physical sign they have given away their hand.  A player who could not stop themselves from smiling whenever they had a good hand would be a dead give away.  You'd simply fold and not let the pot build up.  Silly sod.  He'll never win a big hand.

It could be emotional intelligence is about growing up and being mature.  I've met grown up adults when I was s a child who were more childish than I was.  Who even many years later still act in the same way.  It's as though they have never learnt or understood.  It can become of greater concern when such persons are in positions of authority.  What happens though is these emotions now become part of their personality,of how they will react.  Or you could say they just haven't learnt to control themselves.  It's true they haven't.  Were I a duck and afraid of water then it the phrase "water off a duck's back" would be anathema to me.  But ducks somehow learn to cope with water pretty easily.  It's not just the oils in their feathers.  They to have to go through the initial anxiety driven moment of their first ever dip into the water as they follow a parent.  It hardly takes any time before they get used to it.  What a skill to have, then again I expect over excitement and water are two different things.  But were I in the process of drowning and panicking, having the mind of a duck would probably save my life.  Quack, quack, anyone got a bit of bread?

A cricked neck

I don't know what happened.  It was like...one moment OK the next a twinge and gradual descent into pain.  My neck was cricked.  At first I could ignore it.  Then I was adapting to it, allowing for it, giving in to it, but the more I gave the more it took.   Neck and shoulder became stiffer, without realising it I could not turn my head at all.  Instead tending to turn my body to face people and talk to them.  The little twinge had become a fully blown  pain in the neck of the highest order.  I felt like I was doing a Robo Cop impersonation without the dramatic music.  Every movement became excruciating and only sitting as still as possible helped.  Each  minute made it worse.  Even when I had a couple of pints of Guinness it didn't seem to take my mind off it.  I was hoping a little intoxication would do the trick.  But, inside I was screaming to just lay down and try to sleep through the whole episode.  Then hopefully when I'd wake up it might feel better. At least in sleep you can momentarily forget most things, providing you're able to get to sleep in the first place.  Which I then found, sleeping with a cricked neck is difficult because then you have difficulty finding the perfect position to lay in.  The pose where it all goes away and I could close my eyes to forget.  I preyed on one thing, that as I slept I didn't move and make it worse.  What a pain.

The next day it seemed to mostly go away, except it is now a total of 3 days and there is still a twinge there.  I'll not even attempt any gym, I just don't want to exasperate the thing.   As though it has a mind of it's own and by being kind to it, it will be kind to me.  I've had encounters with people I thought were a pain in the neck but this real crick is worse than them.  We've had rain for the past 3 days as well, perhaps my body is now sending messages to me.  Like some people who have arthritis and know when the weather is changing.  Maybe my neck will have different pains with different meteorological conditions.  Rain means cricked.  Well I can take it easy for now and have a good reason to while away the day being a couch potato and watching the golf.  Imagine being there in Sandwich and trying to turn your head just after the ball's been hit.  What a pain that would be.

Suffering withdrawals from the News

BBC journalists are on strike this morning.  The first time in years.  It's killing me.  How I love a dose of cut throat politics and news, the smell of blood as one lie is told upon another, the back stabbing, the intrigue, the whole kit and caboodle of it.  I scanned like a mad man possessed through the radio stations and there was nothing.  Absolutely nothing to rival the Today program.  How am I going to get through the morning?  Not even listening to talk about football helped.  I suppose it might of were I a footy fan, but it didn't.  Damn.  Damn the cut backs to the World Service.  What is happening to us all.  I need my adrenaline junkie shot of the news and skulduggery.

No choice, might just have to pop to the shops and get a BEANO.  What's Desperate Dan doing nowadays?

Snotty nosed youth runs against fat man

I wonder if it is a testosterone thing.  When a man sees another man and then must try and outdo them.  Or it could be a competitive thing.  Who's better than who?  Except for Who on first base or was it second?  So I got on the running machine and started the belt.  About half way through the session some young upstart who didn't have a pimple on his face, or a fat belly and actually had hair on his head then got on the machine next to me.  The little shit.  It didn't bother me to start of with because all he did was walk a lot.  I was well out running him.  I looked over at the display and thought how could some little shit like this be so unhealthy in the good old days when I was his age the running belt wouldn't be able to keep up with my pace.  He then decided to up the ante.  Pressing his finger on the little upward pointing triangle.  So the belt begins to revolve faster and faster.   It now hits two or three kilometres an hour faster than my own.  I think to myself he is just trying to show off, I check the time on my own display and try to mark it in my head.  Noting how fast he is going and guess this kid isn't going to last more than one minute at most because he just hasn't shown the form with all his walking.  Pretty faced nice skinned little shit.  So I carry on jogging away and am feeling a little tired because I'm running at a faster than normal rate.  The shit still is going away from me on his machine.  The one minute mark passed.  The two minute mark passed.  Then it happened.  He gave way and could not sustain the pace much more than three minutes.  I knew it.  Just a flash in the pan little runt, he may have youth and beauty but he just don't have the legs and lungs.  My only annoying thing is I am presently unable to run at the fast rate he did for a three minute duration.  But I will.  The little shit.  I'll get there and I'll keep pace with him and rather than slowing down to a walk I'll just gently ease down to a jog then stick two fingers up to him.

What it cost to lose one pound in weight

Losing weight is bloody difficult.  It's difficult for a reason.  It was Oscar Wilde who said "I can resist everything except temptation" no truer word has been spoken when it comes to food.  Food which tastes good. But food with a taste may not actually be healthy.  For example, chips.  Chips with salt, vinegar and perhaps a little bit of tomato sauce.  They're hot, you've just bought them and the vinegar is steaming off, as you take a nicely coated chip the waft of vinegar stings your eyes just a little bit, you place the chip in your mouth and it explodes with salt, vinegar and steaming heat which sometimes may burn your mouth.  But it tastes very nice.  Especially after a pint or two, or particularly on a cold day.  When it's raining the difficulty then becomes keeping the rain off your chip bag so it doesn't get too soggy by the time you are half way down the bag.  You know what I mean, don't you?  And if anyone hasn't had a hot portion of chips from a chippy then they haven't lived.  Cholesterol thumping, zillion calories bad for you, but hell don't they taste goooooood!!!  Which is as good a reason as any why it is bloody difficult going on a diet and losing weight.

So to help I've tried to understand what it takes to lose weight by spending a few minutes looking at web sites and reading bits and pieces.  Only of course to then check out something infinitely more interesting.  But the facts are along the lines of, to lose a single pound in weight you have to burn 3400 calories.  I didn't add an extra nought this is the figure I got.  So, if you had to lose ten pounds in weight then you would have to somehow burn up or reduce food consumption to the value of 34,000 calories.  This is now becoming obscene.  But I haven't finished.  When I go to the gym and do my fat man running routine I get disappointed at seeing the number of calories which have dropped off in a half hour session.  After which I am pretty well shagged out and am not up to do much more aerobic exercise.  Half an hour burns approximately 350 calories, give or take a little.  The amount burnt off depends on how much you weigh, your gender and I guess how honest you are with the effort.  I notice some people will stand with their feet astride of the running belt while it spins round and they have a moment's rest, this is cheating, cheating, I so wish I could stand for an hour and lose weight and not break a sweat.  So losing weight, which nobody actually does, like how can you lose weight, and if you did where would you lose it?  So reducing your weight by one pound will take approximately five hours of continuous running.  If this is, my calculations are correct.  A single pint of Guinness is approximately 350 calories, and most other pints of beer will be more or less around this mark.  Again this magic number is the same as the effort to run for half an hour.  So I'm now feeling like I am not actually getting anywhere.  I also found a new fad in training techniques, it was to build up muscle and not just to spend half an hour running or rowing.  The reason behind this seems to be as your muscles get bigger they burn up more calories when they are doing nothing than a smaller set of muscles.  Weird.  Read it for yourself.  Of course when I tried to have a closer look at these web sites promoting this type of exercise I only got so far, because they then wanted to lighten my wallet.  This wasn't the kind of weight loss I had in mind.  Scientifically though, I don't know.  I just don't know if this is something someone has said or whether it has been justified.  Then to become a fat cat web site owner, I expect it might mean a few porkies have to be told now and again, although strictly speaking not entirely porkies but you know what I mean.

Fact, to lose weight you have to reduce your calorie intake.  This will mean either not eating so much or changing your eating habits.  So now when I have a portion of chips I no longer eat the whole portion.  I'll eat some of it and throw the rest away.  I wish I could say the same about chocolate, but I can't.  Changing eating habits is hard.  Bloody hard.  Saying this one easy method I came across and is quite common sense, is to masticate every mouth full of food for 30 chews.  This allows the saliva to do it's work and prepares it better for digestion.  Further it takes time.  This is an important factor.  For with any meal it is only after about twenty to thirty minutes the stomach actually starts to feel as though something has been eaten.  I mean.  Given you were in an eating competition you could absolutely stuff your face for thirty minutes before feeling the need for a good puke.  It's quite simple, just take your time while eating.  I sat with my plate of Chinese at lunch time and managed a unique feat.  Reading the news online via mobile phone and counting from one to thirty while eating.  I didn't think it was possible but I did it.  One side of my brain must of counted and the other read the day's news.  There's not a great deal more I can do on account of only have two sides to my brain so I probably maxed it out.

Lastly, it is a fact the brain gets pretty hot when it is working.  It has a unique system of keeping itself cool.  It's own radiator in a sense.  This is the Cerebral Spinal Fluid (CSF).  Now I'd of thought if the brain runs hot then it would be possible to use up a lot of calories just by thinking.  The CSF isn't pumped around the brain as far as I know, but it is there to provide temperature control.  So in one sense it's possible to say the brain can act like a muscle.  As muscles exercise they get hot and burn energy, as a brain exercises or thinks it too gets hot.  The only thing with a brain is it does not have muscles in it.  So I'm not entirely sure why it gets hot.  Maybe it's because of all the neurons firing.  Well better to be a neuron than a moron.  So I still have no idea of sitting here and thinking of exercise or thinking of food actually helps to reduce weight.  In any case it does keep me entertained.  And I haven't got up once in search of a chocolate biscuit.  So it must of worked.

Going out for a run

I've been lacking in my blogging duties lately and I know it.  I'd get home after a day at the Fish Factory, or if not working doing the usual catch, chilling, maintenance things and have no idea of what I'd write.  As Elmore Lenard said in order to be a writer you should write everyday.  It's a lot easier said than done.  Ideas and events just don't grow on trees, get plucked off and then matured into some kind of wonderful bit of prose.  However, even if I've lacked motivation and somehow stuck a red hot poker up my arse to get me to write something I have tried at the time to make it as clear and readable as possible.  So this paragraph is just for me and no one else, but you're not going to know it until you've got to the end of it.  Tough titty.

I woke up this morning and saw my belly.  I thought back to the days when I was a kid.  Those were some dusty memories, lots of cobwebs, I blew the dust off and recall how I used to think.  As a kid I could never understand how people got fat.  Be it other fat kids and there were not many of them about those days, or adults.  I even thought the adults were greedy, fat people and looked on them in a derogatory way.  Nowadays, now I am fat it's an eye opener.  It creeps up and before you know it the clothes which used to fit you.  Which were quite nice ones just don't.  The size I have to shop for has gone up.  At one time it actually was size small.  Bloody hell.  Small.  Now I contemplate whether I should toy with the extra large just so there would be a little extra room in the clothes after they have been shrunk in the wash.  But I haven't yet.  So while staring at my belly and thinking all week long I had been desperately trying to fit some gym in and intended to go running, I made the decision I would go running this morning.  In fact straight away.  So I did.

There's a lot of difference from running on a treadmill to being able to run freely.  The treadmill is quite predictable, it's pace is guaranteed, whatever pace you program into it.  The belt doesn't deviate in this respect.  However, when outside running I don't run at a constant pace, it varies according to the surface and other obstacles in the way.   Road running is said to be the easiest running to do.  Pavements are uniform and they are hard.  Their hardness allows your feet to predictably bounce back and there is a shock factor as each step impacts on the pavement.  Something it is easy to get used to.  Running shoes are made so to help you run easier and either bounce back off pavement or to cushion the impact.  The predictable foot fall allows you to set a comfortable pace.   Running on any other softer surface is going to take more effort.  The most difficult to run on is sand, it absorbs every impact so it takes more energy to lift up your leg.  Sand, wet soggy grass and inclines sort the men from the boys.  Running in the park can be enjoyable, the birds the trees, fresh air they not only give you a lift they take you back to nature, they're destressors.  Except for dogs, dog shit, and youths who may want to harass you.  But then getting up early in the morning can help to avoid some of these factors.

After the run and a wash, there is a period of calmness which descends.  This is like hitting some kind of meditative state.  As the brain releases chemicals and a natural high kicks in.  It's very relaxing and probably one of the things which results in some people becoming addicts to exercise.  I can see that.  However, we are all human beings, animals really, but unlike any other animal we don't have to run about to avoid predators or work too hard at making a living.  Although it may not seem it at times.
 
With all the benefits exercise does bring with it, I've really got to get out there and be doing something.  Only thing is to avoid dogs who want to join me or leave little parcels of smelly stuff, kids who think it's fun to taunt a fat man running and the weather.  Which is always unpredictable.

Take the phone off the hook and get connected

Something is up with my Internet connection.  It has been on the point of exasperation.  On I'd switch my PC, wait because it takes a few minutes to have coffee and biscuits, then wait a little more as the modem connects and a Google search page comes up.  But recently it has decided to become worse than a vacillating rat in a scientific experiment, trying to decide whether it is worth going for the extra cheese and getting an electric shock or if it should just stay where it is.  One second it connects browser pops up and then immediately the next second it has disconnected and the browser gives the I-can't-find-it message.  Back and forth I would go.  This has happened since returning from my break up North. 

In some mild desperation I rang up BT, and listened to their recorded message on how to check your own house telephones.  Taking them all out of the sockets and then putting them in one at a time.  Well, this really wasn't much use, the message lasted four minutes.  At the same time I was listening to these next to useless instructions for some reason the browser window worked perfectly well.  Hmmm.  I listened to the message and thought this was some kind of lucky break, just coincidence.  A paranoid part of my mind might even say the PC and modem were taunting me.  Playing with me, letting me think it was perfectly OK while I was in the process of reporting a problem.  The problem with BT is if they have to check your house equipment they then charge for the privilege of coming out.  This is a little bit of a no brainer, because most people would say BT go and jump on your bike I'll just change provider and sod off.  Anyway, the PC showed it's feminine side, working perfectly well, pulling up pages quicker than a normal.  Bloody thing.  I put the phone down.  Maybe it was me.  Maybe it was working perfectly well, because now it certainly was.  Once the phone was put down blow me over the bloody thing disconnected itself again.  Maybe it was possessed?  No.  I don't think so.  But even though the phone call achieved nothing in its content the act of taking the phone off the receiver had.

So the next evening rather than pull what little hair I have out of my head, I took the phone off the hook.  Hey bloody presto I've got Internet.  So I still don't actually know what is wrong with the line.  The only thing I have to worry about now is, whoever is listening in on the other end of the receiver.  Perhaps some government agency?  Well it's more likely then PC possession.

Back to the grindstone

It's back to the Fish Factory after a two week break.  I wonder what beholds me?  It is only when I take a holiday I realise the importance of taking time off.  The importance of seeing Sparkling Eyes and getting to tell her I love her.  Time in the company of people you love can calm a tense nerve.  There will be circumstances when this doesn't happen, but overall having a break because the break was sorely needed is a wonderful thing.  I'm sure the day will be short for me, because I always find it difficult working longer hours after time off.  However, I have in my phone a picture of Sparkling with a relaxed smile on her face, and a glass of wine, she was looking at me.  It's a bright sunny and happy picture, so a quick check of this should help me get through the day by putting things in perspective and hopefully keep my head in the right place.

Bum ache after a cyle ride

It's Sunday.  Before I got up this morning I had contemplated hitting they gym.  I then got up.  Had breakfast and really didn't have much enthusiasm for the gym.  I hadn't got up early enough.  This was a mistake.  If I had gone to the gym then it would of been a couple of hours out of my day.  I would of known the ongoing fight against weight gain had been fought this day and been comfortable with myself.  Conscience at ease.  Instead, because the fight didn't get to round one my next step was to get the bicycle out and have a ride.  For it seems so much easier just having to sit on a saddle and turn my little leggies on a couple of peddles.  No real effort.  But knowing at the same time it is exercise and there is a mild amount of effort involved.  So to this extent it is the easier option than hitting the gym for a couple of hours and having to put up with people stinking of B.O. on the next machine to me.  I'm sure I have a degree of B.O. when I get sweaty, but hope it smells like spring flowers and  isn't particularly stinky.

So with a nice and leisurely cycle in mind I set off.  Some four and a half hours later I returned back home.  I sit here and my arse is killing me.  Like I could of just been the star guest at a swinging gay convention, someone must of slipped me a pretty large dose of rohipnal.  God, that seat is hard.   Shit do I need a soft goose down cushion to sit on or what.  My hands are blistered to from holding the grips.  I don't know how much I sweated but am sure as the wind was in my face, hair and going up into me pits it evaporated pretty well.  On one main road I got overtaken by a woman and she was riding a woman cycle.  Not like she had a sporty cycle, it was a woman cycle.  Great, my manliness is now in question.  The truth being, at this stage I really didn't care a great deal.  On the last leg of the way back home, I was using every short cut I possibly could, standing up on the peddles rather than sit on the razor blade arse killing seat.  I know why those Tour De France fellas are so skinny.  After sitting on those seats the pain takes away any thoughts of food.  I can feel myself walking like John Wayne.  Except without the bloody horse.  If it weren't the gay convention maybe it was the bloody horse that bent me over.  Maybe I should sit on some frozen peas.   

Must remember, get gym kit ready for tomorrow.  Stick lock on bicycle and forget the combination.  Steer clear of all male bars.

Dry cleaning a suit

I been to the pub, am adequately pissed and can't remember what I was going to write about.  It is so easy when intoxicated to think of many different things, they all have deep and wonderful meaning but then they all disappear from your mind like fairies.  But of course fairies do not exist even if your name happens to be Sir Conan Doyle and you are open to being hoodwinked.  Such are the meanderings of my mind.  For some reason Steive Nixs (if that is how you spell the name) is on them, but it will pass.  Anyway, yes, what I was thinking of was dry cleaning.  I don't know why they call it dry cleaning but, I'm sure it is not actually dry but rather the nature of the chemicals which are used.

After going to a graduate tea party for University Girl, who will now need a new pseudonym, I decided my suit needed to be cleaned and pressed.  I'm ashamed to say I only possess the one.  I got lots of nice dress trousers, but only the one suit.  Well, the thing was due for a clean and press.  A professional one.  I learnt it was professional when they asked me for £9.90, bloody ell I thought, dry cleaning prices have gone up.  Today I had to collect it.  The time was 5 p.m., which wasn't so good because I wanted to go to the pub and meet some drinking buddies.  It would mean turning up a little late.  Which would mean I might have a problem getting a seat, unless it was next to the Old Witch who suffers from mental illness.  Pubs will let anyone in.  Well I did get there and stood at the bar for a good while watching Andy Murray do his usual losing display.  Back to the suit.  I picked it up at 5, yep the time didn't change from the earlier sentence.  As I'd forgotten my ticket, I then had to sign in a book to say I'd received it.  The woman at the cleaners said it was the "naughty book."  OK I got over being naughty.  Took the suite home and the next thing I thought about was I needed to have a quick look and a sniff of it.  Look to see if it was any different and a sniff to see whether it had a chemical smell to it.  On account of the dry cleaning liquids they use.  How can a bloody liquid be called dry.  Talk about oxymoron.  It was then I realised why it had been years since I'd used this local dry cleaners.  I noticed there was a cat hair on the suite which hadn't been removed.  I sniffed it and the chemical smell was very faint.  So faint I wondered whether there was a problem with my nose.  I also wondered if they had actually cleaned and pressed the thing.  I checked the back of the knees, which would of been creased and they were nicely pressed.  So the suit had been through some kind of process.  But I wasn't entirely happy, on account of the cat hair.  I knew there were some hairs on the suit and thought they would all be removed in the dry cleaning process, but apparently they are not.  The smell wasn't particularly impressive and this resulted in a long distant memory saying to me this was the reason why I stopped using the local dry cleaners,  I wasn't entirely convinced they were doing their job.  Maybe my suit got the last batch of chemicals.  Maybe, it wasn't cleaned at all and some little old lady had just gone over it with an iron but couldn't be bothered with picking the cat hair off.  Well it worked, I'll not use them again and need to find somewhere they do a good job.

Damn, there's another item to add to the list, find a good dry cleaner.  One who doesn't use a little lady in the back with a hot iron.  Now if only I could kill two birds with one and find a dry cleaning roofer.

Life sapping cue waiting

It seems nowadays it is difficult to get a full happy long sleep.  Happy being one where there is no nightmares, or waking up in the middle of the night, or being disturbed, and without having to resort to counting sheep or some other strategy to drop off.  Again at about 4:30 a.m. I could hear the pigeons waking up and leaving the roof.  As they scrape their beaks, chit chat and then fly off they steal my sleep.  In little kit bags under their wings there goes another hour.  Sometimes two. Where is there a good roofer when you want one?  This could be the day's task.  Establish contact with a roofer and get an estimate.  Or is it, go to the DIY store and get some ladders?  Possibly, I'll have to think about this one.

Ever since coming back from Scotland I've set myself little objectives each day.  Well I don't have Sparkling to guide me and make demands.  Sometimes I would fulfill them all, other times just one from the list.  Oh yes, a list is a very important thing.  I don't know if I've said this before, but I should of unless I'm going a bit senile, which I sure I am.  A list is an important thing.  Very important.  It sets focus and gives you something to direct your energy to.  A list is undeniable, it is writing something down and planning, it's also psychological because there is an element of commitment one you've written it down.  Not that items on a list have to be done, it's just every time I look at the list the ones not crossed off represent some kind of failure as well as a reminder they are still pending.  Crossing off items becomes an achievement.  I did it.  Like for instance yesterday I decided one of the items was to get a passport application form.  I went into two different Post Offices on four occasions before I could be bothered to wait in a short enough cue.  I can't understand why they don't just put the applications on the wall with the other applications they have easily in reach.  Except maybe because making you wait they can actually drain away part of your life blood.  This is what cuing does.  It saps it away.  Like there are better things to do.  Memo to self, yet again, always go out with a good book it is a tool against the life sappers.  Being able to read anywhere is another useful talent to be given.  I did get the application, it took a half hour wait, but could of taken longer if I didn't walk out of the Post Offices refusing to be sucked into their life sapping, stifling demands.

Saying that, I once went for a job at the Post Office, on their counter services.  I was young at the time, either late teens or early twenties.  I had to go to London and sit an exam.  I think it was some general ability test, a Level A test in psychometric terms.  Things like add this up, find the odd one out etc.  The marking I was told was pretty strict.  Unfortunately, I failed to hit the pass mark by only three points.  Three bloody points and I would of had a job for life.  A job where I could of been the life sapper.  Thank goodness I failed.  Think I'll hit the pub tonight.  See a few mates, have a laugh, miss Sparkles.  I'll refrain from giving her a phone call if I'm pissed.  I know what it's like talking to piss heads on the phone.  The same as waiting in a cue at the Post Office.

Talentless America

I had began writing this blog with something else in mind.  But as it so unfortunately happens I'm sitting in a room with the TV on and watching America's Got Talent.  Only to think the programme should really be called Talentless America.  It would certainly be a more appropriate title.  A man has just flown a kite indoors, the crowd erupted.  Granted he appears to have some kind of learning difficulty, his mother said it was epilepsy.  But hey America, it's nothing more than a bloody kite.  Which also begs the question, whether it is right or wrong for talent shows to allow contests to with sob stories to perform.  Talent doesn't need any kind of depressive, sad emotion drawing excuse to be talent.  OK, I'll admit there these stories are sad, they do pull on your heart, but if facts are facts it really doesn't matter if someones partner died.  Which led to their inspiration to shoot tiddly winks through a hoop.  First the stories should be killed, let them do their thing and then vote whether it has any meaning.  In the end the truth will come through.  As later episodes go on these talentless persons are voted off.  For now their stories have already been heard and we're all immune to in order to pull votes.  Get over it, you got one leg, so what hop on the other one and give us a tune which actually hits the right notes. 

Rock Chick has just pointed out, the panel of three judges has two British members.  Piers, has a histrionic vent.  I just can't help feeling there are times when he follows the crowd, even when the crowd is clearly wrong.  This is America folks.  Sharon, well maybe she's had too much plastic surgery and its effected the bitchy bent she can have.  I never know what direction she swings, but there is something she does when the act is crap.  Like jumping on some cussing bandwagon.  She would definitely be the lead fish wife in any group of fish wives.  The panel, is missing probably the greatest opinionated British judge of all, Mr Cowel.  How, I am sure Mr Cowell, the man with the false titties and whose girlfriends have a shelf life of six months and his ego always has problems being in the same room as him, so much so he has to make sure the mirrors are covered.  At least his caustic judgement always cuts through any group of spectators and smacks them down like a professional wrestler.  Without him there is no sanity.  It's prime insane stuff. 

Unfortunately I don't have the TV controls.  Next week I'm going to book an appointment for a lobotomy, no I'm not, after enduring this I'll not need one. 

Putting an iron in the fridge

There I was in the garden.  Cutting grass, trimming plants, cleaning the outdoor chairs and table when I wondered where Sparkling had gone.  She'd taken the car to get some potatoes and brockley, the tatties were going to be turned into jackets and the brockley steamed because it's good for you.  I wondered where Sparkling was.  It must of been over an hour.  I kept making myself busy.  Popped in and turned the chicken down, it was more than roasted by this time.  Put the mower away and came in the house to sit down.  Two minutes later I here Sparkling's car come into the drive.  The door opened and she dropped off three bags of shopping to return to the boot.  I'm glad I didn't take my boots off or put my feet up at this point, good thinking, because if it looked like I had done nothing then I'd of had a boot up my arse.  We bought the shopping in and Sparkles told me how she had just seen her mum.  I unpacked the bags, putting tins, plants, vegetables on the side.  Sparkling grabbed hold of the iron went over to the fridge, reached down began to open the door and realised she had an iron in her hand.  Not the 2 litre bottle of milk.  Poor thing she's been distracted today.

The car needed a repair in order to pass it's MOT, because it had just failed.  A little wielding needed to be done.  Unfortunately it meant an early start to the day.  The car had to be dropped off at the welders, we then had to go into town, get prezzies for Rock Chick because it's soon to be her birthday and then another prezzy for University girl who has just finished University and is about to graduate.   During this time Sparkling had to face a bus ride.  Or rather two bus rides because I said it was cheaper than getting cabs all over the place.  She gave me the stare.  This one said "I am not going on a bus" being a sweet talker she reluctantly got on a bus.  Then got a bus back.  The bus back wasn't as comfortable as the bus into town.  On account there were a lot more people on it.  Sparkling chose to sit at the very back just above the engine and nobody had opened a window.  I could not believe how hot and stuffy it was,  this is bloody Scotland, these people love the cold.  The heat to them is like the crucifix to a vampire.  Yet they all sat there baking away.  I could barely breath.  Sparkling was not happy I could tell.  Then she told me she would never sit on a bus again.  The two people sat next to her stank of body odour.  Well if one of the passengers had bothered to open a window it would of been a lot more pleasant.  I just couldn't believe it.  Anyway, this means Sparkling is now traumatised and will not get on a public bus again.  Who can bloody well blame her?

Rock Chick is working tonight, but a few minutes before she set off I asked if she would make me a cup of tea.  She gave me the "you must be joking" look.  I said she could put the kettle on while her response was she would be going in three minutes, no five minutes.  Enough time I said to put the kettle on.  She looked at me and said "just coz you got the man-o-pause." Then stared me down like Clint Eastwood in one of his Westerns where he knows he's going to come out the better.  A minute later up she got and left, there was an imaginary swirling whirl wind as she left.  I can tell she has inherited the drama queen gene from Sparkling. 

It seems the only sympathy I get nowadays comes from the cat.  Olly.  Like me he's male.  We have to stick together, especially in a house like this.  Like me he's getting fat as well.  Well at least I still got my balls.  For the time being anyway.

Rain and a lay in

Got up late today.  It's odd how easy it is just to lay in bed and sleep through the morning.  Each time waking up and hearing the sound of rain outside.  Heavy and persistent.  Sparkles had made up her mind and I was going to go along with it.  It was to sleep and enjoy the lay in.  I had no problem with it at all.  I dreamt of my yellow and navy socks, appropriated by Rock Chick.  Sparkles had a more dramatic dream, one where her jaw had dropped off and she had to be taken to hospital.  Well.  I mean.  If your jaw dropped off you'd want to be taken to hospital as well.  It's the sort of thing you'd notice.  Maybe it was the rain.  And today is the summer solstice.  Here's some news.  There was no sunshine in Scotland, but a lot of rain, buckets of it. 

I've been given my jobs to do.  With the help of L & B Man the immersion heater has been fixed.  It was my job really but he took it over and did the wiring.  I must learn a lot more about electricity and stuff.  A lot more.  These are the kind of things, plumbing and electric they should teach at school, but they don't.  It's about time someone lobbied parliament and said "we want to learn real practical things, not geography." Not that I have anything about Geography, but knowing what a caldera is hasn't helped me as much as knowing what colour wire is live and what is neutral.  There's not many volcanoes round here.

OK must hit the hay.  The cat is out and he still hasn't hassled me to let him in.  Which means I'll be up at 3 a.m. letting him in.  I'll wait for the elbow in my side and the word "cat" being spoken like a magic word which a genie has to comply with.  Except I'm the genie.  Less the magic. 

Making Ice Cream

I caught an episode of the wonderful Mr Jamie Oliver doing a 30 minute recipe, which was as always very informative and inspiring.  Then thought I'd have a go at making the ice cream.  It was one minute fruit ice cream, and so easy to do.  He advocated getting frozen summer fruit berries from the supermarket.  So I did.  Into which goes natural yogurt, runny honey and maybe a tad of mint.  This is all put in a food processor and of course Jamie being Jamie made it look so easy.  I had a little problem with the blender thing, because it had been in the cupboard for a long time and was Big Mommas.  I'd never used it before.  Oh, nearly forgot, I also bought plane chocolate which was melted in a Baine-Marie, which was the first time I used one.  It was not problem at all.   However, the summer fruits were more than a little tart, even with the honey and chocolate. 

The making it didn't take one minute maybe about ten.  Then it took an  hour to try and freeze the thing.  Then when I dished some up it was still half soft and not properly frozen enough, it was at this point I discovered how tart it tasted.  It could of been two hours and still tarty, but definitely frozen.  So it was summer berry ice cream with a tarty taste.  What I will say was, I went out of my way to get all of the basic cheap ingredients, the biggest cost was the runny honey.  Maybe it was the honey which wasn't sweet enough?  But as I had dribbled melted plain chocolate throughout the ice cream, kind of layering it. The taste was bearable.  But next time I'll think more along the lines of using sweeter fruit or even icing sugar.  Perhaps having a look for other recipes on ice cream making, for I am not completely convinced using natural yogurt is the way forward.  Could it have been missing some real cream I ask myself.  Probably.  Cycled four miles today so had partly balanced off the calorie intake.  Well you got to try.

The revelation of a pint

I've been to the gym this evening and for some reason my belly hurts, it must of been the three sets of 20 sit ups.  Not many but for a little pot bellied man like myself but it was enough.  Again half an hour on the running machine which was pretty good, then only to find I had just about burnt off 350 calories.   A few weight machine exercises and I finished.  On the way to the train station I met Language man (on account he speaks 4 languages and is Belgian), but being a Belgian is nothing to do with his language skills.  I offered my hand and he gave me a hearty hand shake.  Then suggested the pub.  After a hand shake like that how could I refuse?  Just the one pint for me but the conversation was good.  Though sometimes I do wonder about conversing with people who have similar political and religious views as myself.  The reason is because you're always in agreement and the thing with a good discussion is there should always be a little bit of debate or even argument.  Language man is a nice bloke and very easy to get along with.

It was while talking to him I got thinking, and maybe it was the pint of Guinness as well.  For you never know, sometimes one of those lovely black glasses hits the spot.  I got thinking about general stuff.  It must of been after or during the conversation about the Universe and how insignificant we were, but how awe inspiring and humble it made us feel.  The stuff being along the lines of our fleeting lives.  Yes, this was the train track and the pint which got me thinking.  With all the stresses at present in the Fish Factory the conversation added a bit of perspective.  However, I didn't talk about the Fish Factory.  In the long, haul of existence, ours is but milliseconds of milliseconds in the grand universe.  Our likes and dislikes, our pain in the arses things are so insignificant they are hardly worth thinking about.  Although personally the biggest pains in the arse tend to be other people.  I'm sure some of them feel this way about me as well.  I know Sparkling and Big Momma can for sure.  I hope not all the time, because then my name would probably go on some hit list.  Yes.  All those things which cause distress can be overcome with the right frame of mind.  This is what I thought.  Only thing is finding, getting or becoming the appropriate right frame of mind.

I then at some point realised, after consuming my pint it had cost me the half hour run on the treadmill.  So now I was back to square one.  Zero.  For which there is something quite interesting about as well.

Google rescued the moon

Last night was supposed to have been one of the most wonderful lunar sights to view.  The moon being eclipsed. During this process it turns a magnificent blood red colour.  But one thing the moon could not of accounted for on such a wonderful occaision was the weather.  Big nosey clouds spanned the entire sky.  For they to were bustling to get a good view of what was going on.  Those poor mortals much lower down in the cloud's pecking order didn't get a whisker of a chance.  Nope.  Old big ed cloud stuck himself right in the mid of view.  Relatively speaking not even mid view but pretty close to our own noses.  Bloody things.  Fortunately for earthlings there was this little thing called Google.  As soon as the page was opened up a graphic of the moon hovered above the darkened title.  As the page loaded you could see the moon go through it's phases and then once loaded it was possible to pull a slider button accross and see it go through the same phases at whatever pace desired.  Yep.  Google rescued the moon. 

Three hips for Google.

Exercise makes you eat - the alternative...

The problem with doing exercise is it makes me want to eat.  Then usually the idea of doing the exercise in the first place is to reduce the extra pounds around my girth.  Not to mention the doughnuts either.  I just don't know what it is.  My appetite becomes even more voracious.  It's not like I'm eating good quality healthy food either.  Take yesterday for instance.  I got on my bike and had a 6 mile round drip ride, to a supermarket.  Got there, bought various items and ended up having a meal for one Indian, chicken madras, rice, nan bread etc followed by a couple of slices of battenburge cake (very nice to) and a few strawberries.  The Indian really wasn't up to much, which is the way it goes with ready made meals from supermarkets.  I looked at it before throwing the thing in the microwave and wondered how come the pieces of chicken looked so palid, like they hadn't even been cooked in the sauce?  It was obvious, they hadn't, the sauce and the chicken had just been dropped into the container, probably by a machine which didn't care a great deal about it.  Mind, I must say the sauce was OK, I've had controlled flatulence all day long.  Controlled meant running off away from people to have a good fart somewhere less populated.  That will teach me.  Big not to self.  When having an Indian make sure it is on a Friday or Saturday.  In fact any night where the next day I'm not going to need human contact.  So with the cake, Indian and strawberries I doubt if the 6 mile bike ride actually burnt off as much as I consumed. 

Alternatively it could be some reluctant part of my personality or brain which is subconsciously saying "you don't want to lose weight, be slim, fit, healthy or a stud muffin.  It's hard work.  Live with yourself.  Get over it."  It's not a loud voice which says this, it's like a whisper I can barely hear, well, if I heard it then I would be suffering from not just weight gain but some mental disorder as well.  Hell, one problem at a time is enough, I don't need two.  When I think back to the days when I used to run miles, maybe 4 or 5 times a week.  I was skinny.  Now I understand why.  Then I didn't eat much either.  On account of not having much money and a poorly paid job.  When you look at third world developing countries being fat is something they generally don't have any issues with, on account of not many of them being fat.  I could go and get my jaws wired up, or even stomach surgery, but I'm not as grossly fat as that.  Just enough to be disturbed by it.  Maybe I should start taking some of those berries they advertise.  The ones which cost an arm and a leg.  It makes sense, if you spend a lot of money on dried up health food berries you won't have so much to spend on food and then you will also want the berries to work, on account of their cost so in turn don't eat so much.  Hypnosis.  This is what I should consider.  I once saw a show where they hypnotist made his subject jump up out of the seat as though it was on fire whenever he heard a certain word.  There must be a suggestion which can be made to make me feel I don't have to eat so much.  I know "you're fat, stop eating that doughnut" I'm sure it will work.  Unless of course my subconscious mind decides to jump in there and negotiate.  It's enought to drive one crazy.

Well if it comes to it, I'll just have to give up exercising.  Put the bike on ebay, avoid the pub, all Chinese restaurants and find another highly addictive passtime.  But as I sit here, I can't think of anything I'd like to do.  Maybe I should have a cheese and pickle sandwich, it'll get the little grey cells working.

Have 2 wheels will travel

Well I collected my bicycle.  It felt weird riding a bike for the first time in years.  The balance was there, it just seemed the thing went faster than I thought bikes normally went.  Then there is the saddle.  Which feels more like sitting on an old wooden washing board, two minutes and my arse was killing me.  Which led me to using the standing technique of peddling.  As for suspension.  Well the model I chose doesn't have any, it was then I felt the holes in the road.  I'm glad I ordered mud guards for it.  At least they half worked.  Oh yes and it rained, I light drizzle and then stopped.  However as it had been like this all day long I found myself dodging puddles.  All this and finding I couldn't always keep the handle bars straight they wobbled a little as well, it all seemed just too well lubricated and easy riding.  When I timed myself it took 25 minutes to ride two and a half miles.  I was riding into the wind and taking lots of back streets so trying to avoid the main road.  Back streets are good, little traffic and they feel safer.  I almost have an impulse to ride it to the Fish Factory tomorrow.  It's just the security of it though.  I have a lock which would take a year to saw through but it wouldn't stop nefarious persons from damaging the thing.  They can do what they like with the seat, which would give me a good excuse to get another one.  I'll see.

In the next few months I could be losing the belly, I'm sure it may mean avoiding the butter biscuits I've just had with a cup of tea.  Well I did cycle 5 miles and I have got wobbly legs. 

Another moan about youth and beauty at the gym

Sometimes I wonder if I am losing it.  Other times I am so certain and sure.  Perhaps it is some stage in life which gets to this point, or an intolerance of other people.  Or even the GOM (Grumpy Old Man) syndrome thing.  I have been trying to get control of it and build up some kind of discipline.  Such as going to the gym.

Yesterday I felt extra energetic, which must of been on account of having a couple of days breaks since my last visit.  I managed to run 24 minutes out of 30.  Which is something for a little fat man.  I so love watching the youngsters or beautiful people on treadmills.  Especially when they try out the machine next to me.  Only to find they are even more unhealthy than the fat man.  I'm more unhealthy than I have been for a long time, but these other people are a hell of a lot younger.  After ten minutes of exertion they usually stab at the stop button and get off the machine.  Doing their best not to pant too much or appear to have broken a sweat.  The men who like to see their muscles in the mirrors are the funniest of all.  Sometimes I wonder if they come to the gym just to see physics at work.  As light bounces off their bodies and reflects back at them.  They even carry out this behaviour in the changing room where there are a lot fewer mirrors.  If they could carry around a picture of themselves in their own wallets they couldn't be any happier.  Here is evidence of muscles and brawn not mixing.  The big men do tend to sweat though.  Maybe it adds something.  Besides the smell I don't know what it could be. I wonder, what has happened to youth?  Then try to forget it and think of better things so as to pass by more minutes as my little leggies bound the rotating belt.

Beauty they say is wasted on the young.  Or if "they" don't then someone wise did.  Some of them have a way of walking and talking.  It is like they need to mark themselves in this world, and by talking in a certain way or pretending they have a recovering crippling injury, limping and wearing an over large rimmed baseball cap they achieve it.  To me and probably to most other GOMs they look and sound ridiculous.  Their perception of the reality of the world is nothing short of a belief in Father Christmas.  Which probably makes a lot of sense because it wasn't so long ago they found out he didn't exist.  Oops hope I haven't let it out of the bag.  No, I'm sure not.  One of those very people I see could be the world's next greatest inventor.  Except not at their present age, state of mind and odd looking behaviour.  Then again as a GOM this does sound a tad over generous.

Is a woman ever wrong?

I was in a situation where I lost my head.  It fell off.  It didn't really fall off.  Rather it exploded.  Being a bloke these things happen.  For men unlike women don't have a propensity to continuous griping, they let so many discomforts pass and then when they have mounted up they blow up like Vesuvius or even one of the Icelandic volcanoes (whose names are so long and complex only someone who speaks Icelandic can pronounce them).  Get the idea, just think exploding volcano.  When a man reaches this point they have usually put up with a great deal.   In an ideal world the best thing which can happen is another person asks them what is up and then listens to them.  However, this is not an ideal world.  If it happens to be a woman in the vicinity they would rather not listen.  Their response may be to trivialise or compound the situation making the fella feel even worse.  The reason is they have an inability to listen.  OK girls I can see you now rolling up your sleeves and about to beat the crap out of me.  

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. -- Winston Churchill

OK, this is a broad statement and it can not be directed at all women.  Therefore it is a generalization and probably applies to most of them.  In the region of nearly 100 percent.  Personally I have found more men with better listening skills  than women.  But then I am a man and I am not talking about gay men either.  I expect a woman would say it is men who can't listen. Well I must admit certain things a woman can talk about do not have much weight.  Which is certainly something a man learns never to mention to a woman.  No matter how fat her backside looks you will always say it looks beautiful.  It's like me saying my shirts make me look fat, not that "I look fat in this shirt because I am fat" such a comment would be preposterous.  I can't say whether this generalization goes for lesbians either.  On account I really don't know any lesbians at all.  Although I the encounters I have had with them they have acted towards me as though I had leprosy and ignored my presence.  So I basically ignored them.  There must be a hell of a lot of lesbians with their knickers in a twist, which probably gives them a little smile every now and again.  But lets not distract from the discussion.  Women don't listen because were they to actually listen they may have to admit something which would be a complete shake of their woman worldly perception.  They may then have to admit at some point they are wrong.

Women get the last word in every argument.  Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.  ~Author Unknown

In defence, women state men are never right about anything, and secondly men should be listening to them not expecting they listen back.  I'd really like to say it is a two way street but in is not.  It is an asymmetric street.  Only a man would know what an asymmtope is as well.  In my experience men generally are more laid back than women, they just go along with things.  Agree most of the time, do as they are told like little puppy dogs.  Learn to sit and roll over according to their mistresses requirements.  They are pulled along by their lead. But once in a while when something gets too much for them they will blow up.  As I did.  At this point they have had it up to their eyeballs in horse manure, the straw breaks their back.  It's a big time blow out.  While for a woman their blow outs tend to be along the lines of constant niggles and drones.  They have little sense of when to stop and just go on and on.  As though stating their point once is not enough so they have to state it repeatedly.  The other side of the coin is when a woman has an opinion and has not stated it at all.  It's odd but these two extremes of constant reminding and niggling against not mention at all exist.  They are present because there is no middle road.  When they have not said something there exists a temporary no mans land.  No mans seems an apt phrase to use as well.  For no man in his right mind really wants to be in this place of limbo.  Which can be difficult to detect, but the clues are there and get pieced together after the event.  A man is not told something because he should already know it and he should of used his wonderful power of ESP (Extra Sensory Perception) or maybe even mind reading to understand and comment or act in the way he should of commented or acted but didn't know about.  Even the great Agatha Christie detective Poirot would have a problem.  Maybe it's why in the TV series he never has a female friend other than his house keeper.  If he did he certainly wouldn't of had any time to do his detecting.

Women speak two languages - one of which is verbal.  ~William Shakespeare

A woman will defend herself rather than admit being wrong.  It becomes a game.  A tit for tat, of "you did this" and "you said this" not forgetting their elephant memory where things are dragged out from years earlier in which you as a man hadn't even given a second thought and can't believe at this very moment they suddenly have such great salience.  What is really needed is a moment of listening.  Because whoever at that point is the calmest of the two should sit back and ask themselves a question.  What happened to get to this point where this man has blown his top?  Personally I am of the opinion that women although believing themselves to be softly, softly brilliant communicators are actually not very good at communicating at all.  For communication does mean listening then speaking.  Listening with ears, listening with heart, listening with mind.  Real listening means walking a mile in someones shoes.  And the person who can show this skill can calm the worst bear in the forest.  But no, a woman has no tolerance of calming a big old grizzly bear.  She will make a quick and instant woman logic appraisal of a situation and take no other view.  It will be along the lines of "you are acting like a child just because your shoes were thrown away."  All the other things which raised up to the final straw are if no consequence.  A woman is right and a woman is always right as far as a man is completely concerned.  It is only when the man has eventually broken down and thought this is a silly situation and starts to admit fault to part the event begins to calm.  However, try and get an equally mature and adult response from a woman for an admittance of their own blame and you may as well stand in the Sahara desert with a rain coat, umbrella and Wellington boots.  It's just not going to happen.  Reason, they have just been vindicated because you were wrong and now they can add this one to their little black book and pull it out in five years time.

Despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, I have not yet been able to answer the great question that has never been answered: What does a woman want?
Sigmund Freud

Perhaps I am asking too much.  As Freud said.  A woman's mind is infathonable, especially when she doesn't know it.  But what she will know is she is always right and never the opposite to right, which would be adding a new word to her dictionary.  In the end, as a man all you can do is love them, accept them, and accept you're the one who will always have gracefully bail out.  After all you don't want to end up waking up in the morning with an eyebrow shaved, coloured nail varnish on your fingers or one trouser leg sown up.

Or should I be saying, I hope I live to see tomorrow.

Rain Rain

It's raining.  It was raining yesterday and it's raining today.  I had a short walk yesterday to see Monster Boy and cats and dogs fell from the sky.  On an adjacent patch of green there was a horse tethered with a foal next to it.  The poor thing was soaked through.  I wonder do horses get the flu.  On the way back from seeing Monster Boy the foal had ran up the hill and out of sight of the other horse.  The big one neighed in concern calling the little one back.  Taking a slightly circuitous route I saw the foal at the top of the hill, just out of it's parent's eye sight.  It was standing in the cats and dogs getting soaked through and with a sorrowful look about it.  I walked past and it's ears pricked up.  The parent neighed beyond the brow of the hill and was running as far as it's tethered rein would allow it.  Miserable and wet the poor little thing.

Well, we're lucky it was only cats and dogs rain, if it were elephant rain I doubt if my umbrella could of coped with it.

What to look for in purchasing a bicycle

The search for a bicycle took on new bounds yesterday.  I hit the local store with the intention of not just looking but scrutinising what was available.  Trying to understand exactly what today's bicycles are all about in comparison to the old ones.  Generally they look more rugged but this could be one of those ploys to make you believe they will actually last longer.  It's not really the case.  Saying this, the most startling thing is the change in technology, in gears and brakes.  The old style cycles always had cantilever brakes.  These just pulled a cable which then applied brake pads to the rim of the wheels.  Wheels could lock if depressed hard enough and in poor conditions the breaks would less effective, or completely ineffective.  It is a lot more common nowadays to see bicycles with disk brakes.  I thought these were for cars.  Nope, not just for cars, very much for bicycles as well.  I have never ridden a bicycle with disk brakse, so I don't know how they feel, but there does seem to be some value in having them.  Especially hydraulic disk brakes which will have give a greater loading to the pads.  Very interesting.  The number of gears cycles have is also extraordinary.  My old racer used to have 5 or was it 10 gears, now gears range right up to 27.  I'm sure that doesn't include a reverse.  Well there are some things which don't change.  I was also amazed to see some bicycles had suspension built into the frames.  Which seems a bit needless I thought.  However, if you go mountain biking (MTB) then it may be useful.

I was reading the first mountain bikes were put together by blokes who just wanted to coast down a mountain track.  They got some heavy frame bike and would then bolt on Motorcycle wheels.   We're now talking big chunky things, to give them more grip.  The reality in the UK is there are very few mountains about.  Certainly in England, but I suppose if you want to do a little bike rambling through woods and parks it's a similar thing.  Not quite the same scale, but similar.  Of course it would also mean putting up with being chased by dogs as they had their walkies.  The MTB wheels although excellent for grip are actually slower for cycling on roads, whilst suspension on a bike would be advantageous for rough terrain or pot holes in roads it is an additional item which can go wrong.  This makes me think of the Volkswagen Beetle for some reason.  An odd lovable car where we all think of Herbie (I'm sure it's time they had a remake) which unlike other cars was air cooled.  Which probably contributed to the different sound the engine made.  However, by having air cooling it meant there was an additional item not to worry about.  The bloody radiator, because it didn't exist.  So I am pondering on a style of bike which is between both a road bike and a MTB, but looks like an MTB.  This is called the hybrid, most of which have little suspension on them.  This would be suitable for roads and as a possibility for cycling to the Fish Factory.  The only way it would pay for itslelf.

So as I walked round the store I took notes, wrote down what bikes caught my eye and some of their specs.  I was a little dismayed none of the store staff approached me to see if I needed any help.  Sod em I thought.  I also took photos of the bikes so as to prompt my memory when it comes to making a decision.  This stage is very much the fact finding.  I've been checking all the bikes I liked on Google to see if I could find reviews on them.  One of them made by a company called Voodoo is brand new to the market and has very few reviews.  It looks good but how far do you trust something which doesn't have any track record at all.  I want reliability as much as anything else.  The other most noticeable thing was to find nearly every bicycle didn't have the extra bits on it.  The bits which are equally important, no pump, no bike stand, no mud guards, no water bottle with cage,  no lights etc..  All these other items have to be purchased separately.  Some of which can be pretty expensive in themselves.  Mud guards for instance can cost nearly 30 quid.  A decent lock to keep the bike chained up could easily topple the same price and some going as high as 50 quid.  It seemed like some kind of madness as I looked at these things. It became really no surprise as I looked at further bicycles on the Internet to see they had broken the four figure level on price.  Wonderful, surely it would be better to go and by a Beetle I thought at least then you could put shopping in it.  Whoever is willing to part with such money were either very serious about bicycles, had more money than brains or has never worried about costs anyway.  Russian oligarchs come to mind, but I have never seen any of them pictured riding a bicycle to work if they work at all.  Although the odd politician has, mind they don't do much work either. 

So the thought process has began.  Do I or don't I?  Where's Lance Armstrong when you need him?

Today's agenda, Shakespearse's insight, listening and humour

Got up early this morning, the pigeons decided yet again they would act as alarm clocks.  Coming down through the tiles, clatter, clatter, then followed by a communal coo cooing.  I contemplated a double barrel shot gun, but don't have one and then thought of a blow pipe.  A long accurate blow pipe with needle like darts, they wouldn't know what hit them and I'm sure I would not have to registered with some authority for having a dangerous weapon.  Dragging myself out of bed now at 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday after about 5 hours sleep I will probably go through some kind of coma state during the day.  Gym, shopping, (must make a list) DIY store, pressing trousers and bicycles again.  Should I take the plunge on a cycle?  It will definitely help me exercise and may even help get this belly down.  Though I would be loath to use it as transport to and from the Fish factory.  The idea of being sweaty and stinky all day long doesn't appeal.  Then I get hit with echoes of Aristotle's "you are what you repeatedly do...."  great.  If this means each time I go to the pub I am starting on the rocky road of fattism I'm in trouble.  I wouldn't mind when half the people who go there have certain personality quirks on the obscure.  Just to think, some time ago I never frequented the pub and preferred a gym addiction.  You are what you repeatedly do.  Maybe I'm going through some kind of change or the need and want for a change, or perhaps I'm reminiscing too much for something long ago which does not exist today.  Begin able to breath, being fit, having extra stamina and drive where others failed, and most certainly calming down a bit more.  So I'm still thinking what to do next.  Gym stuff is nearly packed so I'm half committed to it.  Better write a shopping list.

Shakespeare is always good for a quote, every play will have a score or more of sayings infiltrated in everyday English.  Most of us probably don't realise it.  I do like Hamlet, the Mel Gibson version it's been a few years since I've seen it so I might try and fish out the copy from somewhere.  I think it's on old video.  The quotes are important especially when they have personal meaning.  Which no doubt goes for any quote by any person at all.  Here's something I have been thinking of lately, it is where Plonius gives advise to his son before he goes away, the speech is actually a lot longer.

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!

It is the words "...to thine own self be true..." I'm thinking of.   I interpret this to say, if you are feeling happy then be happy, if you have been pushed to a point of anger and can not hold it in, it must come out.  For me it takes a lot to push my buttons and make me scream.  I usually hold it in, but when I am unable to walk away it explodes.  If this outburst happens it can be exacerbated, especially where the protagonist or third party fails to listen as I give account for my actions.  Communication has ceased and can only spiral into a worse situation.  Their non listening response is a barrage of shit making it worse, they are not understanding.  There is ignorance.  My resulting counter action is best to say nothing at all.  They have failed as a human being to me.  Two tense or angry people can never find a solution to the elephant in the room.  Each the individual's following actions will determine my next response as the elephant waves it's tail.

Humour however is the greatest releaser of tension, it can flip entirely bad situations into shared learning experiences.  But it takes certain sorts of people to use this ploy and know it, to know they should not get sucked into an aggravated situation.  Humour is the peacemaker of all strife.  Sometimes I receive joke text messages.  Once in a while I will pull out my phone and read them.  They can help combat a lot of negative feelings including blue sad feelings as well.  Most definitely, listening and humour are life rafts in a sea of sharks.

Funny.  If you had to see your local quack you'd never get prescribed a bucket of humour pills.  Something to think about.  To perhaps become an inventor of the humour pill and a rich happy millionaire.  Now listen here Doc I've got this idea...