The Postman Always Rings Twice

Wow, I really got a roasting on Facebook for that last post. Just when I thought this blog was supposed to be written by me and was therefore an online diary of my thoughts and actions as I saw fit to discuss, it turns out it's actually owned by everyone that reads it! Well, Flip Me! That's the last time I'll be doing that, so from now on I'm just going to listen to you instead and write exactly what ever it is that you want me to write about. So from here on in expect a load of Doctor Who content, a load of crap about some old Science Fiction programs that were axed for being too shit and travel blogs about places I've already been to.

'Gosh, really hope my readers like what I'm writing! I only do it for them anyway'

Hang on, no I won't. You can all go FUCK YOURSELVES. If you don't like it, don't fucking read it. But there is one I'd like you to do, if you have comments don't post them on the Facebook posting, put them on here please. The reason is, the Facebook stuff gets lost in the other torrent of shit that is the Newsfeed and at least they stay on here and are in context with each posting.

Yeah, just stop it.

Speaking of posting. I have just returned from the Post Office at Broom Lane. Fucking Hell, it was only an hour but I feel about forty years older the place had such a life-sucking effect on me. Recently I have got to know the different Post Offices around Rotherham quite intimately. The main one in town always takes a while as it is busy most of the time except in the afternoons when Rotherham becomes a ghost town for the most part besides around the Wetherspoons pubs, where beer is cheap and fights are often. There is another on Wellgate that is usually empty unless it's Pension/Giro day. This is no surprise given its close location to the feared Job Centre. The staff are VERY young in here and rather surly. They also, inexplicably have a dog behind the counter and it can get very disconcerting when you're asking to weigh a package whilst the young lady shouts 'Shurrup! Get down!' between asking if you want it sending First or Second Class.

'Can I send this to Rangoon, it's some silk stockings for a dear lady I met there in '43'
'Shurrup!'
'I'm sorry! All I want to do is to post this parcel.'
'Get off my leg!'
'How dare you? I fought in Two World Wars...'
'Stop shitting every where!'
'Boo hoo..'

The best by far is up at the Brecks. You walk in and are confronted by a section of brick-a-brack, second hand Robert Ludlum books, decades old Fishing Weekly magazines and most disconcertingly 'Treasure Hunter' metal detecting magazines from the 1980's. The place is like a Charity Shop and behind the counter are two old dears. Your heart sinks as you think you're going to be in there a long time as they work out how to turn the computer on. But no! Fear turns to pleasant surprise as they both are incredibly efficient at their jobs and burn through the pile of parcels in no time at all. Bam, in and out! The Brecks is so far away it feels like it's well over the County Line but it's worth the extra distance travelled to avoid going to Broom Lane.

Just the good ole' boys Never meanin' no harm Beats all you never saw, been in trouble with the law
since the day they was born Straightenin' the curves Postin' their mail...

To return to what I was saying, Broom Lane Post Office has the ability to suck the life out of you. It's like one big Derby and Joan club. The place is packed with pensioners withdrawing their life savings to stuff under the mattress, cos they 'don't trust the darkies running the banks', or sending a parcelled up kitten to their granddaughter working as an English Teacher in South Korea. Mind I think at least half of them were young and sprightly when they went in, they have just been waiting to be served for over fifty years. Because it is the slowest Post Office service in all of South Yorkshire, if not the country. If you had two parcels to send you'd be faster travelling to Land's End Post Office, posting one parcel, turning around and driving to fucking John O'Groats Post Office and posting your second parcel than you would waiting for an empty slot at Broom Lane. I was in there today as I only had a few parcels to post. I thought it wouldn't take too long, but boy, was I wrong. The queue was massive as usual, but the staff were oblivious to it as the customers at the counter were engaged in full flowing conversations about Bristol accents, travelling to Leeds conferences and how to be a Best Man at a wedding. I shit you not.

The best years of my life are passing by... I'll never have this time back again...

Eventually the queue thinned to an extent that I was finally seen. But my journey was not over yet. Not by a country mile. Every minute detail of the process was poured over by the Post Master, every press of the computer keyboard was deliberated to it's finite degree. Each address was meticulously recorded on the proof of purchase slip. I could feel another nail of my coffin slowly banging in as he printed and stuck each stamp on my post. I was stood there so long rigor mortis had set in on my left leg. Countless Aeons passed, great civilisations rose and fell before I handed over payment. The books in the parcels had long since turned to dust, but I was out of there! I could live and breath again! No more had my life been suspended in the Chryogenic process of the Broom Lane Post Office. The sooner they sack all the Post Office staff and replace them with robots, the better!

Let's create a social impetus for enjoying wearing our national dress

There has been little to report since my last entry, except I went to see Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese's latest film. As you'd expect from Scorsese it is well made, brilliantly directed and acted, the scripts were good, but it left me wanting. I felt the film wasn't as good as it could have been. It was let down by a couple of very unnecessary scenes and I felt as though half an hour's (at least) worth of cuts could have been made and it could have been an altogether tighter and gripping movie. It seemed slightly over indulgent and plodding. Not one of Marty's best. But it brings me to conversation Ninjasaurus Rex and I were having over another romantic lunch date about Scorsese's films. He said 'when I think of him, all I think of is Gangster films.' I protested and to shove it further in his stupid face here is a list of films directed by Scorsese with a 'G' to mark out the gangster films:

1. Sinatra (2011)
2. The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2011)
3. Untitled George Harrison Documentary (2010)
   
4. Shutter Island (2010)
5. "Boardwalk Empire" (1 episode, 2010)
   
6. The Key to Reserva (2007)
7. The Departed (2006) G
   
8. No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005)
9. The Aviator (2004)
10. Lady by the Sea: The Statue of Liberty (2004)
11. "The Blues" (1 episode, 2003)
    
12. Gangs of New York (2002) G
    
13. The Concert for New York City (2001)
    
14. Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
15. Il mio viaggio in Italia (1999)
    
16. Kundun (1997)
17. Casino (1995) G
    
18. A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995)
19. The Age of Innocence (1993)
20. Cape Fear (1991)
21. Goodfellas (1990) G
    
22. Made in Milan (1990)
    
23. New York Stories (1989)
24. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
25. Location Production Footage: The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
26. Bad (1987)
27. The Color of Money (1986)
28. "Amazing Stories" (1 episode, 1986)
    
29. After Hours (1985)
30. The King of Comedy (1982)
31. Raging Bull (1980)
    
32. American Boy: A Profile of: Steven Prince (1978)
33. The Last Waltz (1978)
34. New York, New York (1977)
35. Taxi Driver (1976)
36. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
37. Italianamerican (1974)
38. Mean Streets (1973) G
39. Boxcar Bertha (1972)

Hmmm. Not many there really is there? Five in fact, five out of a list of nearly forty. A list that doesn't include his really early shorter works. So Rex, STFU! And please don't try to tell me that Taxi Driver is a Gangster film, it's not, it's a vigilante film.

You talkin' to me?

This post went a little away from the topic I was going to write about, North Korea, so that will have to wait for another time. One final thing, I forgot to mention Young Matt's blog in previous posts. It's one I read and once you get past the atrocious grammar and spelling it's rather funny. Read it HERE.

Let the bastards grind you down...

Lauren and I went over to York yesterday in order to view a property that Lauren had found on www.cheapshitholes.com and that we were interested in moving into during our brief tenure in North Yorkshire. When I had looked up the address one thing slightly concerned me. The house was on the edge of the York Ghetto, Tang Hall (also known as Wu-Tang Hall).



Now, as a student I was always warned by my older peers that Wu-Tang was a place of misery. A dark forbidding place, nestling on the extreme edge of civilised York, waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting city and flood it with a torrent of drugs, vice and chavs. Only the strong city walls prevented this creeping horror. That and the massive police cordon thrown around the estate. Armed police guards patrolled the front line between Wu-Tang and civilisation, the last bastion of hope amongst the well-to-do York denizens. In this role the Police were not unlike Vlad the Impaler and his defence of Europe against the rolling hordes of Turks in the 15th Century. The Police Chief of York had yet to call for mass impalement of the Orcs that populate Wu-Tang, but my peers assured me it wasn't long off.

Impale some sense into them!

When I actually ventured into Wu-Tang as a student I discovered that I had been lied to. Hearsay and fear had played a part in painting Wu-Tang as a den of inequity where even a wrong look would suffice to be on the receiving end of a good stabbing. Then I realised the people that were spreading these rumours were middle class students used to a comfortable life in the Shropshire Pile waited on hand and foot by servants and butlers. Wu-Tang was a little rough around the edges, yes, there were gangs of roaming kids, indeed, but all it was was a down-at-heel council estate. Nothing more. The people who filled my pretty little head with such nonsense had never been to score drugs in places like Pitsmoor, or got lost after a gig in the centre of Moss Side. No, they had no idea of how bad places can get. Wu-Tang Hall is a slightly scruffy part of the otherwise extremely higher middle class York.

I say Quentin! If we build a club, all the working class men can gather there, drink their ale and beat their wives to their hearts content and never bother the rest of York again!

But this wasn't the reason why I was concerned about the house being in Wu-Tang Hall, I was actually worried that the place would be a shit hole. The estate is full of cheap student housing and as a professional this concerned me. I am now above taking anything that comes my way in order to be housed. I will not settle for mouldy kitchens, draughty bathrooms or bedrooms overlooking the sewage treatment plant. But when we arrived I was pleasantly surprised by the place, it was above standard, tastefully furnished and the only spot of mould I saw was in the front bedroom. There was even a vacuum cleaner for Lauren. We took the place there and then and met Steve for a fish finger sandwich for lunch.

Why does the Captain have fishy fingers?

Arrival at home brought fresh news from the Job Centre. As you will recall, I have been dicked about and punished for attempting to better myself by actually finding work. You will recall my In Depth Review. You will, no doubt, remember that the man who took me through the review process filled in the form on my behalf, asked me to sign two boxes and told me everything had been completed satisfactorily. Not so... After our trip to York, I was presented in the post with the form the bloke had filled out for me with the words 'PLEASE COMPLETE ALL RELEVANT SECTIONS' written in Biro and highlighted on the front page. I looked through it and saw at least nine sections that had been left blank by the guy at the Job Centre which were awaiting my attention. I over turned the table in rage and screamed! How much more of my time was being wasted by the inefficient cunts at the Job Centre? How the fuck do they go through their process of selection of people for employment there? Do they give every one a form to fill at their interview and the ones who fill the least sections in get the job? Are prospective employees given a task of carrying out the simplest of procedures and the ones that fail spectacularly by nailing their hands to a desk or just sit on the floor sucking their feet are welcomed into the position? I am in the process of writing a letter of complaint about this very situation. Watch this space.

Ooooooh!! I could crush a grape!!!!

On a final note, I forgot to mention previously that Hrönn has started a blog about knitting, now I'm not the world's greatest knitting fan but she does make some nice things, so here is a PLUG.

Do Ye Know Ken More?

It seems I have been spending a little bit too much time with Ninjasaurus Rex over the past week. I don't think there was a day where we didn't have a liquid lunch, shopping trip or general get together over World War One terrain. It all culminated on Thursday with lunch together and then a trip to the cinema. In very different circumstances it would have been considered a lovely romantic day. However he is a 36 year old man and I am a 35 year old man and I find the idea quite nauseating. It's not because I'm a homophobe, cos I'm not, but you haven't seen what he looks like... I haven't seen him since Friday afternoon since I think his wife, Sarah, was getting suspicious and made him stay in for the weekend. The film we went to see on Thursday was The Hurt Locker. It comes very well recommenced and it certainly deserves its Oscar for best film. Which is also great because it was up against Avatar, so the win was a two fingers up to that steaming pile of shit and the Directer James Cameron as The Hurt Locker was directed by his ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow.

Boom! Boom! Shake the room!

I went out last night with Mainy, Linzi and Joolia to celebrate Joolia's birthday. T'was a good night and I bumped into many people I haven't seen for a while. I got hideously drunk and ended up in Renoirs... Again. It's Mainy and Linzi's influence I tell thi. I awoke this morning with the fear that the house had been broken into at some point last night. Well that would be the only explanation as to why it felt like a tramp had shat in my mouth...

With only hazy memories of last night, this is how it easily could have ended. I'm not quite sure...

OK with not much else to tell you, I'll give out a few plugs to some blogs that I'm reading at the moment. First off is Logan Josh's seminal work on the fractious nature of humanity. That is when he's not writing boorish and drunk posts. Al Sithee is still harping on about Iceland. Please God will it ever end? Tarquin Sheen's blog is always very good once you get through the usual racist rhetoric. Owen updates about once a week, it seems to be less nowadays since he got himself a bird, but it's rightly amusing when he does. Hildemaus NEVER UPDATES, EVER! And neither does Mithraea. Ashley's updates are fairly regular and his stories are good, as are his descriptions of sleeping rough in the woods... And finally, this is not a blog but I haven't mentioned it before, here is the New Pylon Cafe. Run by the evil mastermind Darren Rea, it is a revamp of the much loved and much missed original Pylon Cafe. The original site's forum has now been turned into a Book by Danny Salter of which there are about six million different editions.

I am not a number! I'm a free man!

Before I begin, here's a little plug for Al Sithee's BLOG. He's just got back from Iceland and is harping on about it like no one else has ever been there before. I suggest you ignore a large portion of it and concentrate on the stuff he writes about me.

Iceland: It's a keeper...

Back to me. as you may remember from my previous POST, I had been jerked around by the Job Centre; having to go home to call the office I had just been in, yadda yadda yadda. Anyway, the weekend rolled to its inevitable conclusion and I got up reasonably early on Monday morning to attend my Indepth Review at the Job Centre. From its flowery description one would expect it to be a lengthy process of interviews, of having to endure a torrent of being pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed and numbered. I half supposed I would be tied to a chair in a small room lit only by a single light bulb, the floor awash with urine and faeces from previous interviewees. A hard nosed guard would enter the room and scream at me in an unintelligible language whilst slapping my face. This would continue for days whilst they kept me awake by throwing buckets of icy water over me. Finally I would crack and give them the details of the work I had been doing. When it would be ascertained that I had worked less than sixteen hours I would be released without a single word, left standing in the bright sunlight, clothed only in filthy rags and starving.

'Mr Sotheran to Room 13, Please'

As it happened the actual 'Indepth Review' consisted of me telling the guy behind the desk that I had done 14hrs of work and then me signing two boxes on a form to confirm it. He asked me if I had any questions. I paused. Yes I had a question. I asked him why had the Job Centre had dragged me down to town to sign two boxes. Couldn't I have filled the form in online? Couldn't I have signed it when I signed on the previous Wednesday? (I knew the answer to the last one, if that fat sack of shit from Wednesday wasn't going to even bother setting up an interview for me, then she was damned if she was going to produce a form for me to sign, to avoid me having to come back.) You know what he said? He said yes, you could have filled it in when you signed on. In fact he gave me the sheet and said if I get any more work fill it in and hand it in when I sign on again in two weeks. The problem was not me getting up early on Monday morning, it was the inconvenience of having to do something I could have done the previous fucking week. The thing is, Monday is a day for looking for work, it's the start of the week, people know what is in store for them as they start on a new site. Signing two boxes took me out of the job market for over an hour. It's like the Job Centre are punishing people for actually going out and finding work.

Don't even think of getting a job!

But then this is what the Job Centre is all about, inconvenience. They make you attend Back To Work sessions which take time out of your day whilst they state the fucking obvious. They force an unwanted career path on you (more of this later when I attend my second phase back to work interview...), they drag you down to the office to sign two boxes when you could actually be looking for work. I don't understand it and I don't think anyone ever will. It's a riddle tied up in a big dollop of shit.

Floundering in a Sea of Dunces and Incompetency

Check this out: On Wednesday I went down to Rotherham Job Centre to sign on as usual on every other Wednesday. This time it was slightly different however. This time I had something to say when they asked 'have your circumstances changed at all?' Yes, I replied, yes they have. I had work for York University on Thursday and Friday. As this was legitimate and going through the books, then I thought it best to declare it. When you sign on you are allowed to work up to sixteen hours in a week and still claim your benefits. As the work was only about fourteen hours I was well within this limit, so I thought I'd do the responsible citizen thing and tell them before I worked that I was working. I told the fat lump of a lady who resembled a big dollop of shit in a hessian sack tied up tightly with string sitting behind the desk about my impeding work. Now, from previous experience I had been told that I would have to get in touch with the Barnsley Office to sort out my declaration of work. The piece of useless crap behind the desk asked me to sign on, then handed me a piece of paper with a phone number on to call and sort out an appointment when I got home. I didn't really look at the number but called it when I got home and the phone was answered by some fucking insect in the ROTHERHAM JOB CENTERE!

The Job Centre: Don't bother trying to get work!

Literally: What The Fuck? I had been there not half an hour previously! I had sat in front of a big pile of excrement and told her I had work, she sent me away with a phone number for the SAME FUCKING OFFICE SHE WORKED IN!! The fat lazy sack of dogshit couldn't be bothered to press the mouse button a few times or pick up the telephone in her pudgy fingers, mash the buttons with her sausage fingers and arrange the appointment for me there and then. I fucking despair, I really do. Office work sucks the fucking life out of people, the Job Centre seems to do more so than any other job. Mind you, working in a place that seems to consist of endless lines of tracksuit wearing fucktards demanding to know where their 'fucking giro' is would be enough to grind anyone down. But for that lazy shitbag to not even bother calling upstairs for me is beyond the Pale. How humanity ever managed to get to the Moon is beyond me...

'Houston, this is Eagle One, come in, over'
'Hello, you have reached the Houston voicemail service, we are all at lunch, please leave your message after the tone...'

Anyway, the job I was doing was teaching York University students how to field walk in a proper and archaeological sense. It was a right laugh, I basically strutted around like I owned the place, shouted at the students to work harder and laughed at them when it rained. I was staying at Anna's place for the night where she fed me a steak as big as MY FUCKING HEAD and gave me sausage sandwiches for lunch on Friday. Happy days.

Om Nom Nom...

But... Whilst in York I was also checking out a three bedroomed house Lauren had found on the Internet. I will be working in York for a period of about three months along with Lauren and we both thought it would be a good idea to get a house for the time we are there. Lauren has a shorter period to work, but the Evil Docktor Clay will move in for the last month as he and I shall be working together again. Allow me to clarify that for you. I need a house for three months. Lauren needs it for five weeks, THEN Clay will move in for the last period. Simple yes? Lauren contacted this house advertised on Gumtree and explained that we needed TWO ROOMS for THREE MONTHS. Simple? I went and saw the house, talked to the very nice Landlady, explained again WE ONLY NEED TWO BEDROOMS FOR THREE MONTHS BETWEEN THREE OF US. She seemed happy with it, I seemed happy with the house. I called Lauren and told her I was happy with the house. Lauren called the landlady to confirm a few things. Now, somewhere in between Lauren initially emailing the woman detailing our needs and me telling the woman the EXACT same needs, face to face, and Lauren calling her the mighty egg whisk of Chaos was applied and the woman told Lauren we were being expected to pay for the whole house; three bedrooms, not the two we had told her we needed and not the two she had agreed to to face to face with me! At the risk of repeating myself, What The Fuck? Didn't she read Lauren's email? Wasn't she listening to me? Was she just smiling and nodding whilst I was talking, but thinking about kittens or knitting or whatever it is that women think about? I told Lauren to tell her to get fucked, we'll find somewhere else. Fucking landlords, they think they own the fucking planet. Well, it's their loss, they could have had money off us for three months, but know they get nothing. Next time I'm in York I've got a good mind to go round and put bricks through their newly installed double glazed windows...

This is what you get if you fuck with me!

Vorwärts!!

I don't want to bore you more to tears than you already are by these posts. I don't really have much to tell you about this past weekend, unless you want a blow by blow description of the Square Bashing game Ninjasaurus Rex and I had on Sunday, which I won by the way. I'm not going to describe the take away pizza I had on Saturday night (Spicy Pepperoni, by the way) nor the side of dipping chicken that I had. I will not talk about the way I waded through Saturday night entertainment provided by Harry Hill, Ant & Dec, Louis Theroux and Alan Yentob as I sat slumped, half cut from an afternoon drink with Ninjasaurus Rex. Neither will I give you a track by track review of the new Burzum album which I have listened to about six times every day since I got it. Well, eleven years is a long time to wait for something new from Mr Vikernes. So, as I am not going to do any of that, I am going to Navel gaze for a while. You may want to stop reading here, because it will be of no interest to anyone but me. Don't blame me for carrying on reading...

Last week, or the week before, I forget, I set up a Myspace page for my Great War Black Metal 'project' Abwehrschlacht. Basically, Abwehrschlacht was a return to where I began with music. Back to the Black, so to speak. The Black in question being Black Metal. It has been nearly twenty years since I recorded any form of Black Metal so this was coming full circle. Back in 1993 I was involved in the band Xaztur and my later solo project Immanis. During my time in both of these bands I was involved heavily in the underground Black Metal scene that was bubbling under the surface of music. This was the best time in my opinion for Black Metal: it was dark, underground, mysterious, dangerous, dynamic and very difficult to penetrate both musically and physically.


By the latter, I mean, to get hold of records one did not simply walk into your local branch of HMV or Tower Records like today and pick up the latest Dimmu Borgir or Cradle of Filth album like the Pop Music they are. In fact this was actively discouraged. No, we had to write to the bands themselves or record labels and distributors in order to get hold of the recordings. Many were the hours I spent putting dollar bills into envelopes along with hand written letters in order to get the latest albums by Mayhem, Burzum, Emperor, Gorgoroth and the like. This was also the way the latest news about new releases was spread. I would write to a band to get a copy of their demo (on cassette tape) when it arrived they would send a handful of flyers, promoting their band and others, which I would send on in the next letters I wrote to friends or bands.


Why am I telling you this? To put you in the picture of how difficult it was to get hold of new music back in the day. There was no file sharing, no MP3s and no Myspace. With reference to my earlier bands, Immanis and Xaztur, I don't remember exactly how many demo tapes we sent out to people (Xaztur had one rehearsal tape and one full demo, Immanis put out two rehearsal tapes), but the final Immanis rehearsal tape was hand numbered and I think I sent out no more than thirty copies. The numbers would have been much higher for the previous releases as the last rehearsal tape for Immanis was when I decided to call it a day. Now, since setting up the Myspace page for Abwehrschalcht, it has had, to date, 555 profile views and the songs have been played 167 times. This is by no means a massive amount, but compared to 1993, it is astronomical. It is the equivalent to sending out over forty demo tapes within a week. But I still look back twenty years and feel we've lost something from the Black Metal scene. The sense of immediacy has destroyed the sense of achievement one felt when a new album came through the post.

Keep the fires burning...

Kimberworth Chainsaw Massacre

Over on his Dreamland Chronicles blog, Logan Josh was writing about nutters he has met through work, now far from making this a mutual cock sucking session I suggest you read it. As it happens I have also been working for the past week in the company of nutters. My father is a tree surgeon/landscape gardener and I have been helping him and his sometime work partner Darren on a rather large job which consisted of seemingly cutting down primary rain forest on the outskirts of Rotherham. My main task was dragging the trees onto a fire and burning them on site.

Incinerate them all, pig after pig, village after village...

Usually when one starts a fire it drags all the local misfits out to poke their nose in where they think it belongs. Surprisingly this time it didn't despite the fact the smoke that was coming off it was like the Chernobyl radiation cloud. We were burning hawthorn and as I say, it was my job to drag the wretched stuff to the fire. The aptly name hawTHORN tore my arms to shreds so they ended up looking like Niklas Kvarforth from Shining's arms:

Suicide is painless...

But personal injury and smoke billowing about like the dust clouds thrown up in Tunguska in 1905 are not what this blog is about. I'm going to tell you about the nutters that came on site as we worked. The first we didn't really have much contact with as he was busy with his work, so without a name to call him we christened him the Kimberworth Commando:

Don't tell em your name, Pike!

You will note his attire. Combat gear, head to foot. This day was the first warm one we've had for a while so he was without his black beret which he otherwise proudly sported. It turns out he wasn't actually in the proper military at all, but had been a member of the TAs. Yes, the Kimmy Commando had been a weekend warrior, cannon fodder on minefield clearance duty. Yet he still clung desperately to this sense of worth as he emptied the bins for the pub. Darren reckoned he had every box set of Dad's Army in his backroom. We were also graced on the site with the presence of David, the ex-miner, ex-taxi-driver, ex-bread maker, ex-airline pilot, ex-public speaker, blue collar green Eco warrior with his own chainsaw:

'I've got my own saw, do you need any help?'

Darren had been filling our heads with stark warnings about gypsies coming on site and eyeing up the tools. He had spotted cars full of gypsies coming into the pub car park, waiting for us to drop our guard. To Darren, every truck that went past was packed full of Romanies slowing down to survey the site for things they could rob. Apparently they were everywhere, so it comes as no surprise to learn that as David approached I thought 'this is it, my number's up!' He was going to slit my throat, rape me to death, steal the chainsaws and eat my babies. But no, he only wanted to know what we were doing with the logs and if he could have them for his Aga. Now, from a previous POST, I had always assumed that only the very posh had Agas. David proved me wrong. He had had one for twenty years and he was as working class as they come.

Agas, now available for the poor!

David turned out to be a really nice guy except for one problem. He talked. And he talked. And he talked. And he talked. It was a fucking wonder his jaw didn't fall off. There was no pause in it either, it was just one continuous stream of consciousness. He told us everything in mind numbingly minute detail, we learned all about his stray cat, all about his solo flights and all about how many times he went and picked up 'our Gert' from work. We assumed his wife, 'our Gert', worked both a day shift and a night shift just to get some respite from his continual flow of verbal diarrhea. Having said that he did occasionally come up with a little gem of information, but after four days of listening to him continually whitter on most of it was lost on me. If you can, imagine a stream, nay, a torrent of Human Effluence cascading over you, with the occasional tiny nugget of gold sticking out and that was what listening to David was like.