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Sunday 28th March

Bands, Beer, Birds and Bother

Hey, hey, hey, I'm back! Bigger, louder and a little more random than before. As you all know, I've been off in Warrington, where I am now gainfully employed as a Technical Author for Martin Dawes Systems, working on the documentation and online help for their DISE covergent billing software. The documentation set is relatively new, so there's lots of work to be done, not only on producing it but looking at the hows and whys of production - the tools, the standards and the editorial process. Not exactly thrilling if you're not so inclined, but I find that sort of thing really interesting. So, thus far, it looks like the job's a good 'un. Of course, I can't really say anything else as I made that rookie mistake of letting my boss know my website address. D'Oh!

Actually there is one thing I don't like about work and that the 6.30 start every morning. I'm currently living with my sister in Nantwich (more of which later), which is about 40 miles or so from Warrington. Fortunately, I've managed to find someone in the company who lives just a couple of miles up the road and he gives me a lift in and back. However, in order to avoid the worst of the traffic we set off at about 7.15. On the other hand this also means I get to leave before 5 in the evening, so am usually back home in time for The Simpsons. And given that the alternative to getting a lift is a two-hour journey by bus and train, I don't suppose I should moan. It's just that, having not worked for a while, I'm finding that I get home, have my tea and fall asleep in front of the telly by about nine o'clock. Ah, it's a hard knock life.

Enough with the moaning already, I hear you sigh, what about lastfriday? Well, it was almost certainly the last one I'll work the door at and probably the last one I'll be able to get to for a while. But it was definitely the best of the lot so far - the place was packed, the bands were excellent and everyone seemed determined to enjoy themselves (although some people obviously "enjoyed" themselves a bit too much...). Taking the chairs out of the hall definitely made a difference to the atmosphere and it was good to see a moshpit developing. Good work fellas! First up were those leading exponents of post-man-pat-core, No Names Mentioned. I wasn't able to give them my full attention, thanks to those inconsiderate gits who wanted to come in whilst they were on, and standing by the door is definitely not the best vantage point, but they seemed to start slowly and get better. No matter, they were still bloody enjoyable. Now hurry up and get some mp3s on your website guys, so the rest of my friends can hear how good you are. Next up were Kid Conspiracy, who built on the foundations laid by NNM and were very good indeed. So good that not only did we get lastfriday's first crowd surfer (nice one!) but I was moved to invest three quid in their CD. And this despite their guitarist's resemblance to Paul Scholes. Check them out. After the glitch of their appearance at The Fez club (see January's archive) Disarm were back on top form. Everything sounded good to me although, again, outside influences prevented me from giving you my undivided attention. And finally, the late Abdoujaparov who, thanks to a traffic jam on the motorway, didn't actually arrive at the venue till ten o'clock turned and didn't get on stage till nearly ten to eleven. They were very entertaining - Les knows how to work a crowd - and a lot of very patient people who had turned up to see them and stuck around had a very good time. Sadly, I had to leave before they finished but I'll be checking them out again in the near future. Top band. congrats to all involved on putting on another splendid night's entertainment - here's hoping there are many more. Oh, and a big "Hello" to Paul, who accused me of being Bubba Ray Dudley. Thanks chief, haven't heard that one for a while!

Good news for those who have a vested interest - I finally picked up my new spectacles on Friday afternoon. I wore them out of the shops and was in a whole new world for a while as I got used to them. Sample pictures are now available on my Spectacles page. God, I'm so handsome! Well, maybe not, but they are a marked improvement on my old ones.

Living back in Nantwich has it's surreal moments. Like finding out that there is no longer a dedicated newsagents in the town centre. Beddows has long been shut, I know, but I was surprised to find that the Beam Street one was closed too and is now home to a wedding dress shop. With neither the supermarket nor WHSmith opening before 8.30, I can't get a paper before I go to work. Not that I necessarily want one everyday but it would be nice to have the choice. The other thing about the town is that somethings have changed quite considerably - there's now an Aldi superstore where the council depot used to be, and new housing estates are spring up all over the place - it's surprising how much things have stayed the same - Zak still runs the Market Street chippy, the pubs all have the same names (except The Talbot, which has been The Frog & Ferret for the last few years). It was also surprising to find that Nantwich is now home to a record shop. Given that for a long time Woolworths was the only place to buy music, this is big news to me. I was somewhat put off by the display of 70's prog rock albums in the window, but will be spending some of my day off checking the place out and will report back on my findings.

The one great thing about living in Nantwich is that I can get to see my beloved Crewe Alexandra play a bit more often than I have in the past couple of years. That said, the only gane I've got to so far has been the home game against Cardiff which was spoiled by the wind and lost to a comedy goal, when a speculative cross-cum-shot rebounded off the bar, struck the keeper and went in. Basically, the sort of thing you'll see on "Nick Hancock's Own Goals & Gaffes IV" in a couple of months. Arse. Of course, they then managed to comfortably beat the clayheads of Stoke in a game I didn't go to... Ah well, there's a few more games to get to before the end of the season.

Some of you may remember that a while back I mentioned the sort of games that we used to play in the car to while away long journeys. It doesn't matter if you don't, I'm going to waffle on about it now. Anyway, one of the games I mentioned was to try to spot the names of obscure villages that sound like actors from a bygone era. On my daily commute I pass by or through some likely candidates, but during the course of my travels, I have expanded their imaginary biographies somewhat and drifted off the point a bit too. So, for your delectation and delight, I give you:

• Minshull Vernon - not a classical actor, but actually Hardy's equivalent of Shakespeare's Falstaff. A minor character who appears in several of the Wessex Chronicles. Sometimes an innkeeper, sometimes a shopkeeper, sometimes a gamekeeper, always characterised by extreme thrift and miserliness. Notable for his non-appearance in Far From The Madding Crowd.
• Lostock Gralam - one of the leading classical actors of the early 1900's, he was said to be at the peak of his powers during the pre-war years. He returned from the First World War a broken man - injured in combat and mentioned in dispatches, his appetite for the theatre was obviously diminished. He became a virtual recluse and was notoriously difficult to work with. Becoming poverty-stricken in his old age he was rescued by his long-standing friend, Charles Laughton, who paid him then then outrageous sum of £10,000 for a minute-long cameo appearance in Hobson's Choice.
• Occlestone Green - one of the great lost literary figures. Green was a prominent figure in the first drafts of Bob Dylan's 'Under Milk Wood'. (I never understood why he got that Welsh bloke to read it, rather than set it to music...) Green was the lighthouse keeper, whose dreams were filled of the visions of the men he had killed by obscuring the light and luring their vessels on to the rocks. However, he showed no compassion, no remorse and swore to do it all again. His character was later reworked to become the more sympathetic Captain Cat. Very little of evidence of Green's existence remains, apart from these few lines from a first draft held in the Dylan Thomas museum: Down by the harbour, where the fishings boats bob, bob, bob on the ink black, slink-backed sea, Occlestone Green, the lighthouse keeper, dreams of his past. Of lights obscured in the dark, dark, night and of sailors impaled on needle sharp, diamond hard, storm charred rocks. Of cargoes he salvaged and ravaged and scavenged and savaged and how he'd tear out his heart to do it again.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Sunday 7th March

The brie Fi ate is sour

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye, although I'll be gone by the time you read this. I'm off into the wide blue yonder to start work and will be living in a place with no Internet connection, so there'll be no updates for a while. At least not till I've either sorted out a place to live, or found a decent Internet cafe in Nantwich (not holding my breath on that one), or I've got my feet sufficiently under the desk at work to spend all day blogging and downloading crack whore mp3s..... If there's any important news, those of you unfortunate enough to have my mobile number can try that, the rest of you will have to leave a comment here or try the Hotmail account listed on this page. Actually, I will be back in sunny Conisbrough in a couple of weeks or so, so you won't have to wait forever for your fix of FatFakir. I'll definitely be back for March's lastfriday gig, as that line-up promises to be a cracker - No Names Mentioned, Disarm, Kid Conspiracy and Abdoujaparov. What more could you want?

(Yeah, alright Lisa, I know you want Peter Andre, but we can't afford him. Not anymore. Could have got him for £30 and a couple of cans of Special Brew before Christmas, but not now. Ooh no, "I'm too big for Mexborough" he says, Wants fifteen grand, doesn't he? And a separate dressing room for each of Jordan's breasts. Well, I'm sorry Pete, but if that's your attitude, the deal is off.)

Go on, stick your oar in:

Friday 5th March

I'll give you my skin

The big news over the last couple of days has been the airing of the Princess Di tapes on US television. I've absolutely no time for the woman - I didn't like her when she was alive and I've grown to like her less since her death. I think I'm especially bitter because the Crewe match on the afternoon following her demise was cancelled "as a mark of respect". As this was one of Crewe's rare appearances on SkySports and I'd travelled up to London to watch the match in the pub with my brother, I was more than somewhat dischuffed. And then there was all that fecking palaver over her funeral and the bleedin' wall-to-wall coverage - I swear there was no alternative on either TV or radio that day. Plus, given that the woman has been dead for six and a half years, there doesn't seem to be a day go by when she isn't in the news. Come on people, get over it. Anyway, in amongst all the usual toss about what she said or did and how Chazz wasn't a very good husband, there was one revelation that did make me smile - apparently Chazz wasn't too happy that Harry was both a boy and had red hair. You can just imagine him there at the bedside saying in that strangled voice of his, "Oh god, it's a boy. Mummy won't be pleased. And, ugh, look at that - he's a ging-er. Ging-er! Ging-er!" Of course, the conspiracy theorists have suggested that James Hewitt might be the real father, but I don't think they've considered those other two members of the Royal Family with ginger(ish) hair - Prince Edward and Fergie. I might be wrong but if comes down to a choice between the tights-wearing ponce who left the Marines to work for Andrew Lloyd Webber or the diet-crazed fun-loving jolly-hockey-sticks publicity monster, I know which one my money would be on and it's not Eddie.

'Twas a sad day down at Mexborough JobCentre today as I signed off, a mere nine months after I first signed-on there. Like all my dealings with the JobCentre, it wasn't as straightforward as I expected. Despite the fact that I was signing-off, they still wanted to interview me as it was the end of my weekly signing period and there was something that the "QST team" wanted to see me about, apparently. Anyway, both the people that I should have seen were unavailable, so I ended up leaving them my mobile number so they can get in touch if needs be. I expect I'll get a call at about ten o'clock on Monday morning, just as I'm in the middle of a "meet and greet" at work. (Have I mentioned that I've got a new job yet?)

And finally, it's "Good News!" for the Cambridge posse that read my blog-cum-webpage. Set the date in your diary and be prepared to avoid the Corn Exchange like the plague, for on Monday 5th July that nabob of naivety, the idiot of the outback, the bungle in the jungle, Peter Andre will be performing all his hit and, quite possibly, the soon-to-be smash 'Insania' (Do-do-doo, come on and do the conga. Do-do-doo, Insania.) Be there or be safely at home knitting coats out of dog hair. Or something.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Thursday 4th March

Walking down Madison

Well, I spent yesterday wandering round the mean streets of Warrington. I checked out the route from the train station to the bus station, the bus route to work and the varied delights of the town centre. The one thing I didn't manage to do was check out the range and prices of properties available to rent in the area. I managed not to find most of the estate/letting agents that I had in mind to visit and I didn't find any properties that I was particualarly taken by. Perhaps I was just looking in the wrong place. Hopefully my new work colleagues will be able to offer me a bit more advice next week. I also have to say that the bits of Warrington that I saw were a bit short on comedy names except for, obviously, Cockhedge Shopping Park and Locking Stumps. And sadly, there were no houses to let on Thynne Street, which was a shame because I think the tagline "Fat Bloke on Thynne Street" would have been a good one. BTW, I did take my digital camera with me, but I only took a few photos and they're not very interesting, so I've deleted them already.

The one aspect of my trip out that did pleasantly surprise me was that I had virtually no troubles with public transport. Usually, if I go anywhere, I end up waiting ages for a bus or my train is delayed or some other minor catastrophe befalls me, but yesterday was virtually perfect. In the morning, I arrived at Conisbrough station about a minute before the train arrived and everything went smoothly from there - I made my connection at Sheffield and got a seat, despite the fact the train was packed, and arrived in Warrington on time. The Warrington buses all ran to schedule and I didn't have too much hanging around waiting for one. And when I decided to head home, I found that I had a three-quarters of an hour wait for the next train from Warrington to Sheffield so decided to catch a train to Manchester, where I had only a couple of minutes wait for a train to Sheffield. Sadly, things went a bit pear-shaped when I got to Sheffield as the connecting train (the 16.24 to Doncaster, fact fans) had been cancelled so there was another long wait for the next one. I decided to get some beers in for the wait, but then changed my mind and nipped over the road to the bus station and caught the bus home instead. Which not only got me back earlier, but also stopped in the village so I didn't have to worry about walking up the hill from the station. And I got back in plenty of time to watch Liverpool beat a bunch of no-hopers from Bulgaria in the UEFA Cup. Result.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Tuesday 2nd March

She's a little lighthouse

You know, having acquired a digital camera you'd think I'd take it everywhere I go, just in case the opportunity arises. But no, I left it at home instead. Which today was not the right thing to do.

Firstly, I went off to purchase some new spectacles. The first new pair of spec's in about five years, to be honest. Well, if your sister and your brother's girlfriend (that's two separate people - we're not complete yokels) both tell you that you need some new glasses then you've got to think that maybe they're right. So, off I went. Anyway, the trouble I have is that I am sooooo short-sighted that I can't really tell if the glasses I'm trying on look alright or not. This has been the cause of some disasters in the past - I once had some big plastic-framed glasses that I thought looked great when I tried them on and looked absolutely terrible when I could see them in focus. What I ought to have done today was take the digital camera and get the assistant to take some photos. At least then I'd have had a "sneak preview" of how they were going to look instead of depending on someone else's judgement and my fairly fuzzy, non-corrected image of myself. To be fair to the assistant though, she was very helpful and we concurred on the two pairs that I ended up choosing. For the record, I ordered some fairly small rectangular ones and some small round ones as a second pair. I'll not get them for a couple of weeks, so you'll all have to wait till then to see the new, improved, 21st-century, handsome Jim.

Secondly, on the bus back from town I saw something which I can't believe I haven't noticed before. Perhaps it's a new venture, that can be the only explanation. Anyway, coming out of Doncaster, heading through Balby towards the A1, there is, on the left-hand side of the road, a car valeting operation. This car valeter offers a thorough personal service and is called Mr Hand Job. I swear I'm not making this up! Funnier than just the name of this place though was the site of three or four lads all washing cars in the company uniform - bright blue fleecy tops bearing the legend "Mr Hand Job" in six inch high yellow lettering on the back. I couldn't help thinking that they probably never go out on the pull in their work clothes....

Finally, I realised that despite having lived in Conisbrough for about ten months I've not taken any pictures of the castle and today would have been a perfect day - the sky was clear, the sun was shining and the castle looked great. Ah well, I shall have to hope that the weather is as good later in the week.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I'm off to Warrington for the day for a bit of a recce of the town before I start work there next week. I'll be checking out the pubs, the bus routes to the office, the pubs, places to live, the pubs, the shops, the pubs, the leisure facilities and, of course, the pubs. And I think I might just take my digital camera with me. I'm having to go for a look-see because the three people that I know who used to live in Warrington have all moved out/on in recent times, much to my surprise. So much for my "friends in the area"! I've got an early start in the morning because I'll have to set off back by 5pm to have any chance of getting home to watch Liverpool versus Levski Sofia on the telly. Expect a "comedy" update on my misadventures on Thursday.

Go on, stick your oar in: