I have been busy during my weekly sabbatical from all things blog. I have learnt many things and seeing as how I have bored my friends closer to home with deep thoughts, it only seems fair to share them with you.

25th Anniversary

Depeche Mode. Bless em. As I have told you all b4, I listen to a LOT of music at work. The Royal Mail allow us to listen to our MP3 wotsits whilst we work and when I am not called upon to manage a team, I do my time in the trenches and key away for just over 6 hours a day. This week I learnt that it is downright impossible to listen to Depeche Mode’s first album, Speak & Spell and not be cheered up. Try it and you will see. My closest neighbour, who for insane reasons chooses not to listen to music at all, wondered what the f**k I was listening to. It seems in my unlikely ignorance that I was playing it a little loud. Bearing in mind that my curious mate was born in 1978 and likes to mostly listen to music where african americans swear a lot, I was not expecting his approval. I passed over the headphones and turned it up. First he smiled and then start to wig about approvingly. After thinking about it all day, he wasn’t sure what it reminded him of, but did at least admit it wasn’t bad.Talk about hands across the decades. He was only 3 when I bought Speak and Spell from Woolies in Dover. This makes him 28 and my battered cassette version 25 years old. 25 f**king years old. I rarely listen to the cassettes anymore and as the only cassette player I own is in the car I am unable to do so now (for reasons I will explain shortly). My copy of Rio by Duran Duran is the next oldest at 24 and I could go on. As those who frequently take the piss out of my current varied musical tastes will testify, I will listen to just about anything these days, a far cry from the days when I only owned a mono tape player and 7 cassettes. As for today, Mp3s ahoy. I just can’t get enough.

Problems For Which There Is No Solution - Part 1

Some days start so well. I had a nice lie-in this morning until 9.50am. Yes folks, I am sleeping my life away right up to the point where I am old and can no longer stay in bed past 4am. There I will be. 65 years old and ready for a Sunday morning pillow fight at last. It was 10:30 and I skipped out to the car, weekend shopping list in hand. It started and then stopped. Nothing. Time to get my moneysworth from The AA. An impressive 20 minutes later and the yellow coated bloke told me the bad news. Distibutor gone. Get this folks - £400 + labour. My local garage is ringing round for a second hand one but he wasn’t hopeful. I wont know for sure until Monday but it did top what was an already forgettable week.

Buggar.

Problems For Which There Is No Solution - Part 2

Finally the biggie. I was very vague and typical in my comments last week when trying to explain my adventures with the family. I won’t bore you with the details. I have already done that with Mr V (thanks mate) and I suppose it doesn’t really matter what the specifics are. All of us at some point have had a flaming row with family members about something that seems like the end of the world for a few days. No matter what you do, you can’t stop thinking about it. It affects work and no amount of Basildon Electobeat Synthpop can return a smile to you face.

Its now in perspective and although I doubt we will be speaking to that branch of the family for a while after “things were said that can’t easily be taken back” (to quote a cliche), you just have to move on and hope that time will heal. I don’t regret what was said but that doesn’t help much.

So, does any of that make sense? Hope so. I now consider myself unburdened.

Mighty Mac

So there he was. Ian MacKenzie. The man who put a tampon in his mouth in his 2nd form to see what would happen. Thanks to his noble efforts, 20 or so of us now know that you face fills out like a greedy squirrel stealing nuts. Thanks mate.

It was on about half way through the Edinburgh Festival program after Newsnight on BBC2. His bit only lasted 3 minutes or so, as he stood on a street corner doing live poetry at passers by. Balls of steel. Mac, we salute you!

Later doods

Categories: Car, Music, Work
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