Of markets and old friends

After spending the morning chilling in the sun and cleaning out the pond which my mum’s ducks inhabit, I spent much of yesterday afternoon at Penrith Market and Car Boot Fair. The usual tat stalls were in evidence, selling their bargain multi-packs of crisps, shampoo and meat; I bought a hat for my holidays, one with a wee pocket inside and a cord to go round my neck to stop it blowing overboard into the sea. At the Car Boot Fair I managed to pick up an absolutely mint condition Lomo Cosmic Symbol for a bargainous £3 (although my mum thinks my haggling skills leave something to be desired, and I should have offered £2.50…).
Later we went into Carlisle for the obligatory visit to TK Maxx - always worth a quick shufty, since while Carlisle’s residents are great at trawling through and picking up all the Nike shell suits, they’re not usually quite so adept at filtering out the Duffer or Fake London Anyway, that said, there wasn’t much decent clobber in evidence - I bought some shorts and stuff, and a bag for my holidays.

In the evening I met up with J. and her hubby S. for a drink or eight in The Sportsman. I haven’t seen or spoken to J. (who I know from 6th Form in Brampton) for about 15 years, so it was great to catch up. It surprised - but delighted - me how easily we got along, and we had loads of reminiscing to do, as well as filling in the blanks of the last decade. She’s a good friend and I hope it’s not another fifteen years before our paths cross again…

Pussycat, Pussycat where have you been ?

Well, yesterday - I went to see the Queen. Ok, so I didn’t actually see her, but I went on a tour of Buckingham Palace, and she was in there somewhere; I know, ’cause the flag was at full mast.
It was a gorgeous day in London yesterday, so an afternoon spent strolling around the air conditioned thronerooms, ballrooms, and galleries was more than welcome, although I gave the gift shop in the back garden a miss…

On the way home my left wing mirror spontaneously fell off my Vespa. It looks like it might have been sheared through at some point, so either someone’s been twisting it trying to remove it; or more likely, someone’s given it a knock and kept quiet about it. Arseholes.

Teenage Fanclub

Went to see Teenage Fanclub perform ‘Bandwagonesque’ at the Forum in Kentish Town last night. The gig was part of this years ‘Don’t Look Back’ thing. It was really baking in the venue, ridiculously hot. After ‘the fannies’ had worked their way through the album, they encored with a set of tracks from their more recent albums; although we left before the end because I didn’t know any of the tracks and Z. was beginning to melt…

Oh Beehiiivvve…

This weekend hasn’t been quite so exciting and non-stoppery as lasts, largely - I think - ’cause I’ve been home alone. Z. has travelled to the North Country to visit her god-children and I have been left to my own devices.
Saturday was very quiet on the farm, I think, because of the rain; which was intermittent but heavy when it did fall. The clothes I’d hung out overnight to dry and dried, got wet, dried again, and got wet again. Still, I made myself useful building frames for the beehive. It turns out that the hive we have has got a moody queen, which in turn makes all the workers moody, and not so much fun to be around; so we’re also going to look at forcing her to abdicate and replace her with a more gentle queen. The plan is to move the bees from the old hive(s) on Thursday afternoon which should be fun. All beekeeping outfits and smoke guns…
Oh, and I was also filmed by a Russian TV crew who were on-site doing some documentary about city farming or somesuch. Very severe those Russians: “you will stand there”, “you will move some pieces of wood” “we have finished”. We contemplated doing a ‘The Plank‘ type scenario behind the reporter as she spoke, but weren’t convinced she’d get the joke, and were worried we might get shipped off to the Gulag for our troubles…

Sunday’s been pretty dull so far. I took the car to the carwash - which was an adventure (I’ve never done that on my own before), done the laundry, hoovering, uploaded some new photos, etc. I did suddenly realise that I needed to buy something from halfords - at 3.45 (Halfords closes at 4 on Sundays) - so there was a brief moment when I thought I’d found something to do…

Poo

Sorry, but I can’t think of an alternative title for this post that is any more suitable… After a particularly boring, dull day in the office (brightened up only slightly by the discovery that someone had fu**ed up the site twenty minutes after I should have gone home - cheers for that.) - I decided to scoot on down to ExCel to have a look at the shiny new cars and things that are The British International Motor Show. OnlyI got a little lost. To be fair I always get lost on the way to ExCel - for an International exhibition centre it’s exceptionally poorly signposted. Maybe it’s only for the tourists who get the train there, or a taxi; and they’re trying to ensure the locals don’t find it - and who can blame them there.. ?
Once I found the way to ExCel (via the airport…), I got lost again. There was some ‘rock in the dock’ thing going on, which meant that the usual car park was closed and you were expected to park under the venue; only that wasn’t signposted either (bar a big sign that suggested they’d charge you a fiver if you tried to park under the venue). So… three times round the venue before I stopped and asked a yellow-bib were the hell I was supposed to put my bike. “up that way” “under the building?” “yeah.”
So - I got parked, then realised I’d left my helmet lock at home, so I’d have to carry my camera kit and helmet around the exhibition. I then wandered the underground car park forlornly (lost) for about 10 minutes until I saw some other people and followed them up to the surface. Got my camera out and mounted my flash. Snap! No flash. Snap! Still no flash. Seven very dark photos later I put the flash back in my bag and went to adjust my camera settings for indoor lighting. Unfortunately, the cheapo BP511 battery I bought on eBay about a year ago, despite being ‘fully charged’ five minutes ago had discharged and was now dead as the proverbial doornail. I reached for my spare battery but there was no sign of it, so I went over to a corner of the hall and emptied by bag out. No battery to be found anywhere. So - no photography, so no point whatsoever me being there. And I’ll need to buy a new BP511 (or two). Poo.

On a slightly brighter note, nobody took my ticket off me as I entered the venue, so guess I can go back next week. They did have some very nice cars. I absolutely fell in love with Marlene Dietrich’s Auburn 851, and there were some great concept cars - one that opened out into a full-on DJ booth with decks, speakers and strobes; and another whose whole side lifted up and out, presumably so wheelchair users could get in and out easily. There was also the Mystery Machine, Lady Penelope’s car, Lara Croft’s Land Rover, Bond’s Aston, and a mad old car from The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. So all in all, probably worth a revisit.

A Flying Car ?

A helicopter carrying a Vauxhall Corsa has just flown past my office - what’s all that about then ?
(and why haven’t I got a decent camera with me when I need one?)

No news is good news

Just in case the sunny weather was making you feel that all was good in the world, here’s a couple of headlines from this morning’s BBC RSS news feed:

• Teenager detained for cat cruelty
• Racing Watchdog probes dog deaths

I read an article in a Sunday newspaper yesterday, that concluded that we should carry the assumption that all people are good until proved otherwise, I’m finding that kind of difficult to do right now…

Billy Childish and Special Guests

Just how often do you get to see a guitarist, a drummer, a dancing pig-man, a gimp, a flame-eating midget, and a naked feather dancer who lays real eggs into a bowl on stage in a beautifully restored Victorian theatre ? (The Bleeps). Also present (but not necessarily correct) were SchwaB (tight, but seemed to forget there was an audience or any other bands waiting to come on and had to be ‘gently’ persuaded to leave the stage), Selfish Cunt (the bastard stage-school offspring of Pink Grease and Brett Anderson on poppers; accompanied by three blokes in cheap dresses who looked like they’d rather be anywhere else), The Boyfriends (Soup Dragons circa 1987, trousers too tight), and the ever rockin’ Billy Childish and The Buff Medways, who were worth the wait.

The Deptford Beach Babes / STOT21stCPlanB

Went to see STOT21CPlanB supporting The Deptford Beach Babes on Saturday night at St. Mary’s Church, Stoke Newington and had a great (if slightly surreal) night out. It transpired that the ‘event’ was actually a joint birthday party for Simon and Ella of The Deptford Beach Babes and Steve (STOT21CPlanB), as well as a leaving do for Jenny of the ‘Babes.
Since the Baby Jesus doesn’t like people selling beer in his dad’s house, we had to buy raffle tickets (Jesus likes gambling), and these were exchanged at ‘the bar’ for bottles of beer, which went very well with the party food and cakes nearby. Unfortunately, Z. was almost two hours late arriving, which meant that I went through quite a few raffle tickets before she showed and almost missed STOT21CPlanB (who I mistakenly thought were headlining). Thanks to Jim Cauty for giving me the nod that they were on!

Shine On

It was reported earlier today that Syd Barrett had died sometime in the last few days. A very sad day, and I still haven’t got round to buying that cool Mick Rock print of Syd that I’ve been fawning over for the past few years.
I ought to wear black tomorrow…