The Freezing Moon

This has been a week that has seen massive student protests and riots against a LYING TWO FACED coalition government and their ridiculous plans to destroy several centuries of education in one swift swoop. But I'm not going to dwell on this as it just makes me angry and depressed. Instead, come with me on a journey of Polar exploration, a magical trip to the land of ice, a tundra landscape dotted only with rocks to serve as navigational points. Come with me to share the joys of last week's work!

Nov 6 1912

Broke camp on Ross Ice Shelf. Bade a sad farewell to Chef and Patty. They take four dogs with them and small amount of supplies. -14 degrees recorded by thermostat in automobile. Not sure it's working correctly but bloody cold anyway. Camp at base of glacier, the men are in high spirits. Sense of adventure is high, everyone happy to be here.

Farewell Patty!

Every journey begins with one step...

Nov 7 1912

Glorious day of bright sunshine but still sub zero temperatures, storm moves in by afternoon. No land marks causes hard going but we push on and make six miles today! Last of the dogs die in the evening, finish the day by pulling the sledges by hand. Camp still in good mood despite the hardships.

Nov 8 1912

The men are tired. Scrump has come down with a fever and Jonty seems to be having fitful sleep. They show me a brave face though. It can't last. Finished off the last of the dogs, a stew with the precious few vegetables we have. No tinned food left and all perishables are now rotten.

 

 Nov 9 1912

A storm brought fresh snow fall and collapsed three of the tents. Tick-Tock and Old Captain Merry took quite ill. Kept the party awake for the duration of the night. Merry announced he was going to attend to his ablutions and walked outside. No sign of him since. I pray that the furnace will hold out. Had to find alternate food sources all of which were unsuccessful.

Nov 10 1912

Lieutenant Farington and Corporal Tubes along with Tribby and Slack, the stokers, found dead in their cots. Froze to death over night. Terrible business. Storms getting worse and visibility down to nil. No hope of rescue coming. Not even sure where we are, all compasses are frozen solid. Had to burn the last of the sledges to keep the fires going. Damn this place. One last toast with the remaining brandy: Gentlemen, The King!

'for God's sake look after our people'

Death would freeze my very soul, Makes me happy, makes me cold!

OK, here is the obligatory snow post. As my UK readers are aware the country has been under the ICY GRIP OF WINTRY DEATH for the past week. Chaos has reigned as people have taken to digging out their basements to use as shelters and storage for canned goods for the forth coming apocalypse that is always heralded by the arrival of the snow. In supermarkets up and down the country people have been seen fighting pitched battles over the last bottle of HP sauce. The BBC has a 24hr 'grit watch' in the form of updates every ten minutes. We need to know which councils are unprepared for snow after all their money sunk in Icelandic bank accounts a couple of years ago. Old folk are freezing to death for fear of spending some of the money stuffed under their mattresses on fuel bills. Abandoned cars litter the streets where only ghostly figures move like spectres seeking shelter from the grim fist of cursed white.

Looks like I'm not getting to work tomorrow...

I'm loving it. I love snow, I even love the chaos it brings. Nothing delights me more than watching idiots struggling in their cars to get to work because the cracker factory would really fall to pieces without them being there at their workstation. I've not been at work all week, on Monday I did attempt to get to York from Rotherham and made fifteen miles in three hours. I decided to turn back see what would happen if the sun came out and melted the stuff. It didn't and more fell so I've not been able to move the car all week. It does make me feel a little guilty that the guys are all out on site working whilst I'm sitting here on my fat can in the warm drinking tea and eating biscuits. But the feeling doesn't last very long.

How I left site on Friday...

...and how it looked on Monday, photo courtesy of Logan Josh

What has pissed me off is that fact that last night I missed seeing Wolves in the Throne Room play in Leeds. I'd had the tickets for ages and even rung the venue to see if they'd cancelled the gig themselves. Turns out they were braving the weather and played. I should never have called... But taking advantage of the inclement weather; Dave, Jon and I set out last night to get some promo photos for Abwehrschlacht. I keep getting asked for band photos to illustrate interviews but we have none, so last night we took advantage and headed into the woods. Jon came along as official photographer. He used to work as a gig photographer for the Corp back in the day, so he was a great choice. We stood in the woods, he snapped some pics, we walked through the woods, commenting on how warm it was, he snapped a few more pics. We said 'let's go up on top to where the field is.' We did and instantly wished we hadn't. The icy winds that whipped across the open fields threatened to blow us back into the trees. Mind you, this is Black Metal and it was grim enough for good photos so we took it. They've turned out excellently, here's a couple that have yet to be farted about with. Jon described them as photos from a serial killer's family album...

To celebrate the snow, here's a few Videos for your delight:

The Man Who Came In From The Cold

Now I'm back on track, I can tell you what I've been up to this week. The second biggest thing occurred on Wednesday, when I took Sheffield University Archaeology Society up onto a bleak moorland. I arrived ahead of the students and watched as Colin disgorged them from the minibus. He then did a quick about face and sped off into the distance wittering on about some lecture he was supposed to be giving. On a Wednesday? The only day that Sheffield University students don't have lectures? A likely story! He was most likely found staring at Plum Jam in a farm shop for the afternoon. I was on Broomhead Moor under the guise of teaching the students archaeological drawing, it turned into an exercise in separating the wheat from the chaff. Despite being told repeatedly that it would be FUCKING COLD, most of them turned up with only t-shirts and shorts on, along with plimsolls and no socks. I, however, was wrapped thermally in a Heater Body Suit. We filed up onto the moor and I gave brief instruction on how to draw Tumuli in an archaeologically suitable manner and set them about drawing their own burial mounds.

That's a pile of shit! Rub it out and start again!

After about two hours most of them were turning blue, so I took them on a walk about to warm up. We gazed at the prehistoric features of the moorland that Tim had pointed out to me the week previously and I bullshitted them about Bronze Age cemetery siting and intervisibility with the landscape. Thank God none of them knew anything about it, otherwise they would have caught me out... Then it began to snow.

Snowblind!

Up in the moors the snow settles pretty quickly and the poor lambs were having to wipe two inches of snow off their drawing boards every few minutes. An end was called to their suffering and we packed up. Using my expert tracking skills I led the party back to my car where we waited for Colin to return. And we waited. And we waited. Until eventually I had to leave as I was giving a lecture on the Great War in an hour and needed to prepare and feed myself. At that stage we'd already been waiting two hours for Colin, an hour longer than his agreed time of arrival. I hotfooted it to the pub and scampi and chips, this time with salad and no peas. This banquet fit for a King was followed by me delivering what can only be described as a powerhouse performance in front of a packed house. I gave a lecture on the Archaeology of the Great War and the adoration was such, I was carried from the room on the shoulders of the audience amid a standing ovation. Men and women alike were moved to tears from the emotionality of the circumstances. I got twenty quid as well.


But.... The best thing to have happened this week was the arrival of Midnight At The Pylon Cafe by Daniel Lee Salter. It is a compilation of Danny's Pylon Cafe website forum that several of us contributed to for six years (I'd link it, but it was closed down long ago). It's a trip down memory lane for those of us involved and a fascinating insight into the minds of dysfunctional Rotherhamites, scarred by years of unemployment and addled by hallucinogenic drug usage. A must for every bookshelf! I received my copy on Wednesday but couldn't pick it up until Thursday (when I was hoping to God Darren hadn't received his copy and would be harping on Facebook about how he was the first person to read it...). But, Heaven be Praised! Even this delay meant that I was the FIRST PERSON IN THE WORLD TO TOUCH AND READ THE BOOK, including Danny himself!

What you gon' do with all that junk?
All that junk inside that book?
I'ma get, get, get, get you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my book.

The other things that happened this week were I worked for Big Andy where he made me wait for him in a poly tunnel for TWO HOURS, while he fucked off to Skipton on a beano. And Lauren had her 'finishing the Barbican report' drinks. Yadda yadda yadda.

We. We. We. We. We. We Are Floating In Space

I was asked by Ninjasaurus Rex for dinner on Friday night and for a game of his Starship Combat game Captain Ferk III (it was under the guise of 'playtesting' but I know full well he's only doing it to make me play SciFi games...). As he knows a thing or two about cooking I politely accepted the offer. It was either that or CHIKEN TIKKA PIZZA from the Punjab (the takeaway, not the region. The delivery cost would be astronomical to have a pizza flown in from the sub-continent of India). Although I've always been suspicious of the Punjab takeaway (they do curry, Pizza and Kebabs all in the same place, make your minds up lads), Sarah recommended the CHICKEN TIKKA PIZZA and they have been commended by Whiston's local Snooker 'celebrity' Shaun Murphy. At least that's what the portrait shot of him on the wall says. In the event Ninjasaurus Rex made a lovely Rogan Josh curry and then I lasered his face off in deep space. It was just like the Return of the Jedi, but with less Ewoks.

'Everyone to the life rafts! This has gone to rat shit!'

On Saturday I was graced with the presence of Justin and Lucy. They were on their way home to Brighton from Scotland. The pair of idiots had decided to go to Scotland for a two week holiday in the depth of the ICY WINTER OF DEATH. With just an ancient camper van to sleep in the foolhardy pair reached Oban only to break down on New Year's Eve in Tesco's carpark. The snow fell, there was nothing open and even the gas in their heater froze. Cutting their losses the pair retreated to Lucy's parents, with their heating and food, and called in on me on their way home.

'try it in third...'

I immediately dragged them out for a walk down Whiston meadows but not before Justin had become worryingly obsessed with the Cliff Richard Calendar and Card that Lauren and Herr Docktor Clay had respectively given me for Christ's Mess. Justin wanted to see Ulley Reservoir as it had featured quite heavily on the news a couple of years ago, when it threatened to breach and sweep all of Whiston away in a flood of Biblical proportions. Fortunately it never happened and my building of an Ark was all in vain. When I say Ark, I mean a massive cage which I was planning to herd all the Rotherham female population into.

'I promise you, it's for your own safety. I'll let you out when this is all over...'

So we walked over hill and dale, and over another hill and into another dale. Ulley was further than I remembered, so our plucky little band turned off up a snow covered road and back on ourselves before night fell and the wolves came out. Justin had not only become obsessed with Cliff Richard, he had become obsessed with having a curry as well. We took a taxi down into Rotherham town and after trying a few places (one was no longer a curry house and another was closed. At 7pm on a Saturday night? I ask you!) we plumped for Akbar's, yet another taxi ride away. We had to wait in an extremely loud bar area while the waiter's built our tables or something, but we finally got to eat. It was good, but the meal was crowned whilst waiting for our taxi home. A young lady came teetering on six inch heels onto the snow with two massive fireworks. Intending to set them off to celebrate her mate's birthday the expensive one failed to impress or even go off and the one that cost the least was akin to Akureryi last year... Finally back in Whiston I showed J&L the pubs of the village until getting drunk and collapsing in my bed. A great weekend.

And finally I'll just leave this here.

It's Snow Joke

A little bit of snow has fallen in the North of England and as usual when this kind of inclement weather patterning occurs chaos has broken out. There has been rioting on the streets with cars being over turned and set on fire. Anti-snow protests in Wetherby have resulted in the death of sixteen people, including three police. In Sheffield the Supertram was derailed and looted before being set alight. The BBC News sent their intrepid Foreign Correspondent to the North to cover the stories. They uncovered horror stories of children refusing to go to school and instead spending their days fighting with crudely crushed together balls of snow. The general public is afraid to step into the street lest they be attacked by gangs of youths armed with these rudimentary weapons. Half of the pensionable population have fallen victim to the unrelentless snowfall by either freezing to death after refusing to put their heaters on or have slipped on the ice and broken a hip. The cost over the past two days to the NHS is comparable to the GNP of a small African Nation. Something has to be done and done fast, I'm at my wit's end, I can't get to Meadowhall to buy parcels from Poundland.

Oh No! No to Snow!

as I've been pretty much confined to the house due to the snow, I've been doing what I normally don't do. That is, watch TV, not only have I become consumed by the Jeremy Kyle Show, but I've slipped into Come Dine With Me. I have to do something to break this downward spiral up so I have also been watching the entire output of the Flight of the Conchords. I've exhausted that avenue of entertainment and will now have to turn to the two Kurosawa films I was bought for Christ's Mess. I'd go out sledging, if I had a sledge and some friends to go with.

'Can I come and play on your sledge with you?'
'Fuck off!'

With not much else to tell you, I thought I tell you a couple of jokes. The first one I told to Jamey over Facebook and she said I had to put it in this blog. The second I found when searching for a translation of the Funniest Joke Every Told in the Monty Python sketch of the same name. This second one actually made me literally laugh out loud for about two minutes. Let me know which you prefer...

A woman is giving birth and the midwife takes the baby, looks at it and says to the woman 'There's some good news and some bad news'
The woman says 'OK, what's the bad news?'
'Well,' says the midwife 'Your baby is ginger.'
The woman says 'Well what's the good news then?'
'The good news' says the midwife 'is that it's dead.'

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, "My friend is dead! What can I do?". The operator says "Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says "OK, now what?"

Swordfishtrombones

I only allow myself one trip to a church a year (not to PRAY! Good God, what do you take me for?) and as it's getting close to Jesus' Birthday this happened last Friday. I wasn't visiting the church for religious reasons, it was to see a musical group, The York Waits. I was under the impression they were a Tom Waits cover band. They aren't, it's a Medieval quintet of merry troubadours, who maketh a noyse of shawms. They were performing at Wentworth Church as they did two years ago when I last saw them. It was a great night of Sackbuts, Crumhorns and Hurdy Gurdys! Although there was no jigging in the aisles we were merrily wassailed all night. Mind you, the rest of the audience were at least three decades older than me, so there wouldn't have been much jigging with all those delicate hips. With the culture out of the way we ended up in the most unfriendliest pub in Wentworth. They even rung the time bell at 10.45! On a Friday night! Christ, I thought we were living in the 21st Century now, what with 24hr drinking licenses back in place. Obviously the news never reached Wentworth...

Tom Waits, not the York Waits...

Saturday evening's entertainment was thwarted by the weather. I love snow, I think it's great. I just don't like it when it stops me from doing things. Like getting to Newcastle for a party because the A1 is completely whited out from a blizzard. I was travelling up North to see Alistair, Keith, Jon and Shirley from No Man's Land for a curry party at Alistair's place. An hour and half into the journey and the snow fell in a flurry, turning the whole road into a Grim and Frostbitten Kingdom. Sadly I decided to turn around in case it got too tricky. I spent the rest of the night drowning my sorrows in the beer I'd bought for the party, a Chinese take away and Wife Swap (the program, not the actual act...).

The A1: approximately 19:00hrs 19/12/09

I made a Festivus card initially for Hrappi then I thought I'd make it available to all who answered the call for addresses on Facefuck. Only a few of you asked for a copy, so I thought I'd better make it even more widely available. Here it is for you to cut out and keep although you won't get a personalised message from me hoping you will choke on your Christ's Mess Pudding:


And just for Festivus, here is a rather long, but pretty amusing Singapore blog, don't worry it's getting closer to the point where I got fired so you won't have to read too many more of these...

Friday, June 08, 2007

Wednesday morning consisted of me laying out some grids until I got fed up with it, well, until we all got fed up with it and we left site at lunchtime. We did have a legitimate reason, Mr Wong and Sing were still Jungle bashing, so we couldn't get near the top part of the site anyway. Also the computer started playing up after I dropped it in one of the hangers... We had to pick it up from the repair shop so we could carry on with the scanning work anyway, so at least our break was legitimate. Ang is getting so used to it, he doesn't argue anymore, he just jumps in his cab, asks us if we are going to Yishun for a lift and drives the JCB to it's parking place. On the way back B&T had an argument, I sat in the back with my hands on my ears saying 'I hate it when mummy and daddy argue!' this meant that T**** didn't come with B*** and I to get the computer. The feculent assistant explained to us that the computer was beyond repair and nothing could be done, the warranty being practically useless as it only covered software. We took it back as it had all the data on it anyway and B*** had an idea as to how to get the stuff off it. We had a lunch of Curry and great Naan Breads and went our separate ways, B*** went back to Yishun to hit the computer with a hammer until it worked. I wanted to go to Chinatown, as I haven't been yet and wanted to make the most of my afternoon off. I went via Little India, just for fun, you realise. I was immediately asked if I wanted to buy a suit off some random punter in the street. 'I don't wear suits.' I told him 'What about a nice shirt?' he countered. 'I don't wear shirts either.' It took a while like this to extricate myself from the conversation. Trouble is, I arrived at Chinatown and I was walking down the main strip a certain Mr Michael Wong dragged me into HIS Manchester Tailor shop. He started by buttering me up 'You look fresh, have you just got up?' 'I've been up since seven.' I told him. It was about 2.30pm. Then he proceeded to go through the exact same conversation as the guy in Little India:

Michael 'You want a suit, I got good suits. All Italian cloth'

Alex: 'I don't wear suits, Michael.'

Michael 'These are very good quality, Italian'

Alex 'Yeah, they really are nice, but I don't wear suits.'

Michael 'OK how about a nice Italian shirt?'

Alex 'Again, I'm afraid I don't wear them.'

Micheal 'Good Italian cloth, very good quality.'

Alex 'There obviously appears to be some breakdown in communication here, Michael. It's not as though I am discussing the finer points of Sartre's Existentialism with Ang. All I'm telling you is I have no need for suit or shirt, no matter how nice or fucking Italian they are.'

I took my leave and went into the Chinatown Heritage centre, with a promise to Michael that I'd be back in two weeks with some money and a change in my attitude towards suits and shirts. The Chinatown Heritage Centre was excellent, as with most museums here. It had a great mock
up of a typical Chinatown building with all the little separate rooms. It also dwelt on the fact that the biggest building in Chinatown (the Theatre, I forget the name. Google it.) was
the best place for suicides until the modern high rise housing developments took it's crown as suicide choice number one.

At the end of Temple Street in Chinatown, is, unsurprisingly a temple. In fact there is quite a few. I went into the Sri Mariamman Hindu temple, a beautiful example of Hindu architecture, bedecked with fabulous beasts and heroes and heroines of Hindu mythology, it is the oldest of Singapore's Hindu Temples and probably the finest. All these wonderful beasts peer down on you as you enter through the main gate, a massive double doored wooden affair. Inside are further sculptures all over the roof of the main temple building. Dragons, Tigers, cows, men and women all compete for the space. I took my shoes off and went inside for a closer look. I saw that you had to pay $3 for the privilege of taking photographs. As the temple was free to enter I didn't mind this little fee and paid my three bucks. I took one picture and my camera's batteries promptly died.

That was one expensive fucking picture. I hope their fucking temple burns down.

I went to see Zodiac on Wednesday evening, a great movie that I will go and see again as it is quite complex and The Coughers Union was sitting directly behind me and hacking his sphincter up during the entire performance. Thursday brought about a full day of actual work, after which
B*** and I went swimming for a couple of hours. Today, Friday was declared a day off. I don't know what the idea behind that was. I prefer a Saturday or Sunday, so I can go out on Friday night. But, I'm not the boss, am I? I spent Thursday evening discussing the finer points of
European women with Ariff, I told him that they were all fat, ugly, violent, broken bottle wielding pigs, which is true for about 70% of them.

I got up this morning and set off to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. It was fantastic, I saw a couple of Lizards, and a family of monkeys. In fact I walked around a corner and they were all sitting on the path, creeping slowly forwards I got a good few pictures of them, one of them was sniffing another ones arse, so I recorded that for prosperity, or should that be posterity? Then a load of schoolkids came up the path and frightened them away. I also went over to Bukit Batok Nature Reserve, where I looked at the historical site of the Japanese Shinto Shrine which was built buy our POWs. It isn't there any more and the original step appear to have been covered by modern concrete ones, but there is a monument. I finished my battlefield tour at the Memories At The Old Ford Factory, where the British Commander Percival signed the surrender. Again, a fantastic museum. I have yet to come across a bad one.

It's conversation with Ang time again:

I was listening to the Spice Girls on the radio:

Alex 'Ang, do you like the Spice Girls?'

Ang 'Spy Girls?'

Alex 'Spice Girls (starts singing Wannabe).'

Ang 'I only know one spy; James Bond.'

I thought I'd better leave it before we got too confused, then he came over and asked:

Ang 'Where's Bigfoot?'

Alex 'What? The Rockies I think.'

Ang 'No, big foot, your friend.'

Alex (twigging) 'Ah, Dave? He's gone home, may come back later.'

Ang 'I call him big foot, he has size twelve feet.' He then proceeded to show me his feet.

Alex 'I'm only size eight.'

Ang 'Me too.'

Alex 'Well Ang, you know what they say: "Small feet, big cocks"'

Ang 'I see show about Bigfoot.'

He then went on is some detail and gesticulation to describe the film Bigfoot and the Hendersons.

Alex 'Yeah, I've seen bits of, it's called Bigfoot ad the Hendersons.'

Ang 'No, called something else I think.'

And here we go round the mulberry bush...