Milky Milky

I was sitting on the steps of the Minister last night waiting for Sam to show up for food and drinks (I got a frantic call off of her at about 8:10: Her 'I'm a bit lost, I can't find the Minister!' Me 'What do you mean? Just head towards it' Her 'I can't see it' Me 'It's the biggest fucking thing in York, you can see it from everywhere, it's the thing that looks like a big church [drawing laughter from a family sitting close by]' It seems she was in the only place in York that the Minister is invisible from, given that you can see the fucking thing from Bridlington, she'd broken a new world record). As I was waiting I was earwigging on one of the many Ghost Walks that operate through York, morning, noon and night. This one was being run by a  young lad who was a bit self conscious in his top hat and cape (more people should wear capes. The Red Army did in World War Two and look where it got them!). He wasn't particularly funny or erudite. It got me thinking, just imagine if you were on holiday and had decided to take the wife on a ghost tour to spice things up a bit and it turned out to be a bit shit. What a waste of money that would be normally, but last night, I counted no less than three Ghost Tours all operating at the same time within spitting distance of one an other. Imagine if you'd fallen in with the crap one, but there, just in earshot were two others, where the audience were either guffawing with mirth or screaming blue murder through fear. Yours was a plodding, pedestrian retelling of the history of York through the medium of ghosts whilst the other punters were having the times of their lives. I'd be angry and upset about this turn of events and would probably spend the remainder of the tour feeling bitter towards my guide. He wouldn't have got a tip that night, I can tell you. In extreme cases you might even find yourself running between the different groups trying to ascertain which one was the best. There should be some kind of tour guide police, there to keep all the groups separate so this situation would never arise. I should be in charge of tourism in York. I'd also keep a check of the tour guides and if I thought they were crap at their jobs I'd have them publicly hanged in King's Square.

Hang some fucking sense into them

I was idling these thoughts when a rather shabbily dressed elderly gentleman, dragging a shopping trolley behind him, shuffled up in front of me. I took him for a gentleman of the road. He nodded at the Minister and said (in a Welsh accent) 'Have you been in there?' I told him I hadn't been in there for about three years. It's true. The last time I was in I went up the tower, suffered vertigo and have never been back since. He took this as an invite and sat himself down besides me. I didn't mind, I was alone and waiting and company passes the time. I did mind his smell though, he smelled of cows. Which, as it turns out was rather apt as he was an ex-cow farmer from Cardiff. We got chatting, he told me he'd been in the RAF for two years during his national service. My interest piqued I asked him if he was a pilot. He said no, medical and my interest waned. He told me he was up in York for the Great Yorkshire Show and was particularly interested in the cows, which was no surprise, given he'd spent all his life (bar two years) milking the fuckers. He told me some story about some chap he'd heard on the radio who's pig had won the best pig in the village title, I responded by saying it was a title to be proud of, no doubt. Just then another Ghost Tour turned up (the fourth one within fifteen minutes, Jesus, someone is making a lot of silly money at this game) and he started to show his true colours. As the punters filed past us he started belting out hymns at them as though to bless their sins away for listening to stories about ghosts. I just sat and laughed. It was just then that I got the above mentioned phone call and made my excuses to Mr David Williams (as was his name), and left to meet Sam. I would like to say that this encounter went some way to patching up my absolute hatred and revulsion of the Welsh, but it just served to indicate that I was right all along. Seriously though, he was a nice guy and I hope he enjoyed the cows.

Proper Beauty

I'm off to the pub quiz tonight, everyone is invited, except for you, 'cos you're a cunt. I'm taking Nathan's bass back for him (he lent it to me this weekend so I could do some recording. I only managed to get the drums laid down...). I have taught myself to play some of the funky bass lines from Seinfeld so I can do a bass run when we either get a question correct or Paul says something sassy.

Age of Nero the Hero

These posts have been a bit quiet over this weekend as I have been a bit quiet myself. After last weekend's non-stop drink fuelled orgy that turned ugly and spilled out onto the streets of York, I decided that this weekend wouldn't be a repeat performance. Instead I took shelter and hid from the outside world. This left me in the company of the Ukrainians as they never seem to go anywhere at weekends. In fact they seem to arise at the crack of sparrows every day and make as much noise as humanely possible at stupid o'clock in the morning. I'm sure one of them has a road drill in their room they are using to prospect for oil or mine their way back to the Ukraine. At least that's how it sounds to me at 6.00am... They are either drilling or bellowing into their mobile phones in Russian outside my bedroom door. They speak so loud on them that they could really cut out the phone bills and just shout at their relatives in Kiev. They'd still hear them.

Sergei! I think I can hear Fydor calling! Quickly, go get Babushka!

Having slagged them off, I do have to tell you, they are still some of the nicest people I've met. I just get a little tired whilst when making my dinner I have to answer questions about Crystal Skulls and Carpathian Dragons ('No, they are fakes, mostly made in the 19th century, no the dragons don't exist, it was for a TV show.') or I have to fake complicity when they show me Ukrainian metal detecting sites where the spoils of war graves are displayed. Relics ripped out of the ground with no contextual information. I get tired of being asked to watch YouTube videos of Metallica playing in Moscow (what! Metallica played Moscow! When did that happen? I've NEVER seen that footage a million times since when it was released back in 1991!). Having said all that, they made me dinner on Saturday night, some Kazakhstani dish containing some mystery meat (Johnny told me it was dog, whilst making meowing noises...) and fed me beer. I like them, I help them buy their plane tickets and uninsured cars, but I just wish they'd be a little quieter...

At least on Saturday and Sunday mornings...

This is my last week in York for some time, I'm back up on Heslington East for this week and then a week later I'm off on an African adventure out to Tanzania. I'm off to find the cradle of civilisation, or at least the cot of culture, and to do some big game hunting. I hear they have tigers and penguins and kangaroos and pumas out there, so, I'm going to take my rifle and wipe the smiles off their stupid smug faces. However, this week at Heslington East I am teaching school kids the amazing aspects of archaeology. Of all the University workers I am the only one with a CRB check that covers this job. There you go, there's fuel enough for comments. Whilst on site I was contemplating nipping behind the spoil heap for a piss this afternoon but got too nervous about it. I wasn't sure of the implications of pissing out of sight of, but near kids. It's a fucking minefield, all compounded by the fact the local press had just come on site to take photos (of the kids doing archaeology, not me pissing...). I can imagine the headlines in York's Evening Press: 'Slipped Through The Net! CRB Sicko Exposes Himself To York Kids!' They'd drag me to Clifford's Tower and fire me up brighter than Christmas!

I only wanted a piss!!

All Shall Fall

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. The Ukrainian butchers seems to be multiplying. Another one hatched last Monday. We had formal introductions during which I missed his name. It is now beyond the embarrassing point where I could ask him again what it is, so I generally say 'hey!' or 'hi!' when greeting him. The house now seems very full with four Ukrainians (one in transit) and an Evil Herr Doktor doing human experimentation in the cellar. It was with great pomp and circumstance that the Doktor in question, Herr Clay announced this morning he would be leaving soon. He like me, is fed up of being awoke to the sounds of showering Ukrainians at five o'clock every morning. At least this means the beatings will stop and I may regain feeling in the right side of my body once again. But having got something of a Stockholm syndrome relationship with Clay I am sorry he will be off. Sad times indeed.

'It has been a pleasure, but I must away to Durham...'

Clay's proposed leaving will not be the only thing that has drawn to a close this week and the excavations at Heslington wrapped up amidst the two wettest days of the century on Monday and Tuesday. The rain fell in sheets and reminded all involved of the great Tsunami of 2004. We slipped and slided our way to the end of site, I had finished everything I needed to do, except my context sheets. Well, I didn't want those doing post-ex to have to deal with a ball of wet paper so I left them to finish off back in the office. On Tuesday my team bought me a box of beer as a farewell present, I was so touched I prompty opened a bottle and passed it round them all. I thought they hated me for making them work outside and/or in the rain. Obviously they were harbouring some deep seated form of respect for me... It seemed to have paid off as we were the most efficient team on site and had everything wrapped up way before time. But, having said that, there was still more to do over on the Herr Doktor's area as he had jumped ship and buggered off to Germany for a long weekend of cheap frothy beer and cheaper Frauleins whilst the rest of the archaeology department cleared up his fucking mess.

Up yours, Heslington East!!

And that brings me to the end of site 'party' held at Penny's. She was hosting a barbecue which I was fast running out of excuses to go to, so fortified by beer at Logan Josh's summoning I was driven out to the arse end of North Yorkshire to end up feeling slightly uncomfortable in the presence of my peers. The only thing to do was to down as much beer as humanly possible to get me through the night. It ended with Penny showing us pictures of a dog she hasn't yet taken ownership of on her computer. I was very glad when all the feigning 'awwws' and 'oooohs' were over and I was promptly dropped back at my gaff.

No-one barbecues in the rain, quite like the British...

Escape from York

My old mate Andy called up to York this weekend. It's the first time he's been out of the tiny Welsh hamlet that he lives in. He was looking at Marks and Spencers and saying 'Wow! I've never seen anything so big! It's bigger than our barn! Imagine how many chickens they have in there!' I've not seen Andy for about five years when I worked for Cotswold archaeology and lived in Wales. You will recall this is where my deep-seated hatred for Wales and the Welsh manifested itself. Andy is OK though, he's from Little England in Pembrokeshire, the only pocket of civilised Wales that exists. When we finally chase the Welsh into the sea and make the whole Principality into a safari park like Kruger, we could turn Pembrokeshire into a 'Traditional Welsh Miner's Village'. A place where the tourists could stay and experience life as a subhuman Welsh and soak up the atmosphere and coal dust.

 Relive the past in our 'traditional pretty Welsh Village' purpose built accomodation

Anyhoo, I took Andy out to meet my work mates and some of their mates. Alia and Helen upset the poor lad by talking about looking at the their vaginas in mirrors. The following evening was a far more sedate affair at the Black Swan folk festival, lorded over by Trev, York's premier Ghost Tour leader and the unfunniest man in Australia. He strutted about all night like a retarded Peacock on heat. The Black Swan was the basis for a bit of a get together for some old Yorkian students organised by Sarah and to which about five of us turned up... Sarah had warned me that there would be Morris Dancers in attendance, but thankfully none emerged during the time I was there.

The Horror...

During the day I showed Andy the sights, sounds and colours of York. He found the walls too high for his delicate constitution so I took him through town instead. We bumped in Laura peddling archaeological 'experiences' to unsuspecting members of the public, we also took a ride on a steam train at the National Rail Museum and went in the Yorkshire Regiment's museum because it was cheap. The cheapness was our undoing as we were accosted by some street crazy who seemingly had an illegal collection of Great War rifles hidden away in her house. She followed us around a few exhibits telling me the history of the Great War through the medium of Blackadder. I explained to her and her partner I was a member of No Man's Land and she asked me if I had an interest in the First World War. I told her it was only a passing interest.

 

 Nope, no interest at all in the First World War...

Later on found us sheltering from the rain and looking at the 25lber gun outside the Castle Museum. We were just discussing firing it at Clifford's Tower and knocking one of the corners off (but not without first having recorded it at 1:20 scale, it is a scheduled monument after all, Andy pointed out) when a little lad of about 7/8 years old walked over and the conversation went thusly:

Him: Wow, can I have a look at this gun please?
Me: Of course, it's not mine Kid. Knock yourself out.
Him: Could I destroy the world with this?
Me: Probably not, you might need something bigger, like an 88.
Him: How does it work? Can I blow up a building?
Me: Not without a lanyard and I think the firing mechanism has been welded up.
Him: I'm a child of mass destruction.

You can't make this stuff up...

They're in the Fucking Walls!

The Ukrainian butchers made it to the UK on Friday night, tormented by visas and volcanic ash they finally touched English ground, Terra Britannia, if you will. Despite weeks of Lauren and I working ourselves into a frenzy about possible gang rape and robbery they are both (there's only two of them at the moment) really nice lads. They are clean, polite, funny and generous, especially with the Russian Vodka they brought over with them. They fed Steve and Lauren full of it on Friday night and then on Saturday night three of their friends came over and preceded to fill me full of freshly caught fried pike, Ukrainian sausage and the aforementioned Vodka. And whiskey. Lots of Vodka and Whiskey. So much so I couldn't see properly but I'm pretty sure the night ended up with Balalaika recitals and traditional Russian bear dancing. There may have even been some firing off of AK47s in the back garden...

The Evil Dr Clay also turned up this weekend, in his usual manner of not taking other people's feelings into account he turned up at about 6.30 AM on a Saturday. Immediately he stamped his authority on the house by knifing one of the Ukrainians. He then forced me at dagger point to go and see Four Lions with him on Sunday, it's a great film that puts the Fun back into Fundamentalism. Go see it.



Today was the first day back at Heslington working for York University, we set off in Clay's car since mine was off the road having some medicine to make its tummy all better. This is how the journey goes from the house, or how the journey should go from the house: Two minutes up Tang Hall Lane to the A1079 Hull Road, get onto the roundabout at the A64, but come all the way round back onto the A1079, turn left onto the site entrance, all in all a fifteen minute journey if the lights are against us. This is how Clay delivered us: up Tang Hall Lane onto the A1079, get onto the roundabout, get off the roundabout on the A64 on the way to FUCKING LEEDS! Travel halfway to FUCKING LEEDS before turning round and heading back to the A1079 and site about six hours after setting off. An illustrious start it was not and I shall be driving us to work from now on. On site the students were alright, not that I can tell, they all look the same to me, there were some new faces and some old ones. Including this man in this incredibly rare shot:

On your knees Nicky!

The wind round here gets wicked cold

So what am I actually doing in York? I hear you cry. Allow me to fill you in. I'm here to work on a job at a Tarmac quarry outside of Thirsk. The reason we are excavating it is because the quarry is being enlarged and it is close to the Thornborough Henges. As you undoubtedly know these are important features of a prehistoric landscape and probably have various related features of a similar date in the surrounding area. Obviously it is important to record any archaeology that comes up and this is where I come in. The machines are stripping the ground and we are digging and recording any features we find in preparation for the quarrying operations.

Is there anybody out there?

I first heard of this job through Gigi, our 'team leader'. Gigi is short for Luigi, yes he's Italian, but this didn't stop me thinking he would be like his name sake, GG Allin and would be running around the site in the nude, doing a shit, then eating some of it and assaulting the rest of the staff. It turns out I was wrong. He's nothing like GG Allin. He has never been to prison, eaten human faeces or even played in a band. I'm not going to say I'm not disappointed, but I'm also glad I wasn't raped.

This has yet to happen...

The first morning consisted of watching two Safety Videos provided by Tarmac. The first one, Ten Golden Rules, taught me the right and wrong way of repairing a hydraulic pressure hose, piped to a breaker. It also taught me the right and wrong way of fixing a 40,000 volt industrial generator. So if you have any problem with either of those, let me know. The second video, 'Once Too Often Dave', was a cautionary tale with all the gravitas of an auteur movement film. It even had a twist at the end that would make M. Night Shyamalan reassess his career. I suggest you hire both of them from your local video store.

Don't do a Goddamned thing until you've learned this book by heart...

Out on site, there appeared to be something funny going on that I can't quite fathom out. On the Western edge of the site is a large artificial lake. It appears that the spoil that is being stripped from where we are working is being bulldozed into the lake on its western edge. The dumpers go back and forth carrying the spoil and a bulldozer spends all day pushing the stuff into the lake. Now, on the other side of the lake, the eastern shore, a massive 360 machine with an extra long arm is busy digging out the shoreline and dumping the spoil on the dry land. On one shoreline is a machine busily filling in the lake, whilst on the opposite shore line a machine busily enlarges the edge. It would appear that between them they are gradually moving the lake east, UP the field. I'm not sure if it is one big practical joke on Tarmac instigated by the machine drivers.

'Is it me, or has that lake moved?'

Speaking of machine drivers, one of them (we call him Wavey Davey) appears to have a slate loose. He drives one of the massive dumper trucks up and down all day and the repetitive nature of his work seems to have affected his head. Every time he goes past he gives me the 'thumbs up' sign or waves. Not wishing to seem a cunt I return the gesture. He goes past me about twenty times a day. That's about forty 'thumbs up', as he does it on the return journey as well. Now this is getting out of hand already, as it interrupts what I'm doing I am losing working hours giving him the 'thumbs up'. I need to break the cycle but have no idea how to. Basically I'm trapped in 'thumbs up' Hell. I don't want him to go past me giving me the 'thumbs up' and not get one in return and then think I'm a cunt. He's a big man (I think they built the dumper cabin around him...) and I don't want our already tenuous relationship to turn sour. How do I get out of this? He seems like a decent chap with what I know of him, that is, he waves at me. Surely people who wave are nice people? Like this guy:

'Hello everyone! Hiya!!'

He must be nice, look all these people are waving back at him:


I don't even know how myself and the driver have got into such a situation. Maybe it's because he heard we have women on site. Maybe he thinks he'll impress them by waving at them. Maybe he's mistook me for a women since we all are wearing bulky high visibility clothing that makes it impossible to determine gender from a distance. Maybe he thinks he's got a chance with me because I keep waving back. Maybe I'll have a hot date this weekend. A girl can only hope...

My God Sir, I've Lost My Leg...

A reasonably quick update for all you out there slavering for details of my private life. Last Thursday I went to see the greatest Grindcore band of them all: Napalm Death. It got rather sweaty and violent at the front and I still have the bruises to prove it. Anyway the best stuff they played was:

Suffer the Children

Siege of Power

From Enslavement to Obliteration

Scum

The Kill

You Suffer

Nazi Punks Fuck Off

And although I shouted for them to come back on a play one more song they didn’t.

Napalm, but not Napalm Death...

Saturday found me in the company of several hundred fat, balding, middle aged men who all had a thing for even smaller men in uniform. I feasted my eyes on such treats as a re-fight of the Battle of Borodino and laughing at knob heads who play games based on ‘what if’ scenarios, like what if the Second World War had continued and the Nazis had invented giant robots to carry on the fight? I mean really, World War Two? Giant robots? Go out and meet some girls, for Christ’s Sake! By far the highlight of the day was seeing this twerp:

He fights sitting on his arse. We'll have to move him off it...

Not only that but I saw his fabled mirror twin as well:

Waterloo, finally facing my Waterloo...

Both dressed like the Little Corporal’s that they are. I once worked with one of those gentlemen (not the chap in the Pink Floyd T-Shirt, he bravely stood in the line of fire to get these photographs…), I couldn’t tell you which one though.

On Sunday I slowly recovered from my uncle’s 65th Birthday celebrations and moved up to York along with Lauren. We are both working outside of York and decided it would be easier for both of us if we moved in together. Having now spent a day in the same house I feel I am in a position to give an accurate description of how it is to live with Lauren:

Int: a front room in a house in York, a Television is playing in the corner, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ is showing on the screen. Two people sit on the sofa, one male; ALEX and one female; LAUREN.

LAUREN: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…

ALEX: Yep

LAUREN: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…

ALEX: Yep

LAUREN: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…

Ad Nauseum until a Dancing Dog comes on the Television and distracts LAUREN for two minutes…

The house we are in is a six bedroom affair, Lauren and I assumed we’d be the only ones living there until the Estate Agent told us from next week four Ukrainian butchers would be moving in. So that means we’ll either have a fridge full of good meat or Lauren will get gang raped.

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.

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!

If you know of a better 'ole...then go to it pt6

There was a massive cull at Arcus after the Broad Street gig had finished. This is typical of shortsighted archaeological contractors. A big job finishes and rather than finding all the well trained staff something to do, like cleaning finds or other post excavation work, they let them all go. Two weeks later another big job comes up and they have to start hiring again, but by that time all the well trained and competent ones have already got off their arses and found themselves a new job. This leaves the useless lazy cunts as the only ones that take the new work. The other positions are filled by students and new people who are untrained. Like I said, most archaeological companies can't see past their own fucking noses. Being one of the former I had already found myself a new job, in the form of a Bomb Disposal Technician at the Seletar East Base in Singapore:


It's a lot more glamorous than it sounds, but here's how I got the job. I was in Poland on holiday when Bill contacted me. I couldn't take the call and called him back when I got home, Bill had worked as NML's EOD cover at Vimy and various other sites, so I knew him well. He had mentioned when we worked together at Vimy that he had a job in North Wales coming up and if I was interested on working on it. So I thought that was the job he was calling about. Turns out the North Wales job was over (thank fuck, I wouldn't have to go back to Wales again...) and he had a position in Singapore if I wanted it. It took me about two seconds to think it over. One of the main reasons was I'd never been to Singapore before. The other, the money was about three times more than I was earning at Arcus. Food and accommodation was all included, as were the flights. I was rubbing my hands together with glee.

Singapore, shit. I'm still in Singapore...

Like I said the job sounded a lot more glamorous than it actually was. For the most part we were running a magnetometry survey over the disused airbase looking for anomalies that might or might not (more often the case) be explosives. We had a wonderful digger driver, Ang, he had his own machine that we hired along with him. He had some brilliant turns of phrase, the lanky streak of piss Dr David Kenyon joined us for two weeks. When he left Ang asked after him 'Where's Big Foot?'. Brilliant. We also had the dodgy Mr Wong who drove one of the other larger machines and his simple minded work mate who's name I forget but who smiled all the time. The Malaysian Mr Wong and Laughing Boy mistrusted the Chinese Ang and vice versa. Politics between digger drivers who would have thought it?

Boss Man Ang sitting in his 'wife'

I had some good times in Singapore, but I ended getting fired for writing a blog about it on Myspace. I'm not going to go into details but I still believe there was a lot more to it than just the blog, but whatever; there can't be many people who have been pinpointed by the Singapore Secret Services... If there is enough demand for it I will publish the post that got me fired. I was back in Rotherham and jobless, so I did what every part of me told me not to do. I took a job with Arcus. This time at Garden Street in Sheffield:


I was working again with a few old colleagues, Izzie was running the site but as is usual for archaeologists, not getting paid the proper amount for the job she was doing. It was during my time at Garden Street that I also started to work at Brodsworth, but only on the weekends. I was needing to work all the hours God could send to get things off my mind so being able to work Saturday and Sunday was great. It was also during my time on Garden Street that Nick from Onsite got in touch and hired me to work on the Barbican project he had running at the time. I jumped ship from Arcus and piled up to York:


The site was a medieval cemetery with nearly six hundred skeletons in the area indicated. There was also a couple of Roman skeletons and features, but it was mainly dominated by the Civil War mass graves and recut medieval graveyard. Added to this was the medieval church foundations, preceded by the Anglo-Saxon wooden church. This is were I met all the lads from Onsite, Tim, Sir Stanners (with whom I had worked before as you will no doubt remember...), Berny, Barry Onions, Alice and Wincey. I also helped Lauren get a job with Onsite whilst on this site (she's never thanked me for it...). Robot the Bruce was running the site under high levels of stress and we were made to dig the graves under the yellow light of streetlights one morning before the sun had risen. We had a shitty cabin with no electricity in the middle of a rat infested carpark and one gas heater around which we would all huddle during breaks. The rats had become so used to us they would stand at the cabin door watching us eat our lunch. A tramp once broke in and slept in the place overnight. I even think he was appalled at the squalor we were working in and tidied the place up for us...

BONE FRENZY!!!

We didn't have a site toilet at the Barbican as the site was over the road from Kent Street toilets (the building directly south on the photo, the one with the trees surrounding it). Kent Street toilet was a notorious cottaging spot in York and we had to run the gauntlet of grimy middle aged bummers trying to crack onto us every time we wanted a piss. Believe it or not, it was the first time I've been confronted with the seedy underbelly of homosexual lifestyles and not something I want to repeat. There was a guy who would always bring his dogs down to the toilets as he pursued his hobby. We called him Dweezil as he bore an uncanny resemblance to Frank Zappa. At Christ's Mass, he would bring the dogs down with tinsel tied around their leads, bless him for getting into the spirit of the season. At other times in late summer he would wear tight cycling shorts as he snoozed on the benches waiting for clients.

It's going to be a wet one, boys...

Everyday there was an advert scrawled across the cubicles for the particular fetish that was in demand that day. Sir Stanners was freaked out to see 'I want a Young Builder in a Lilac Bra', being the youngest male on site it seemed that the shitty finger was pointing at him. Another time I found a post-it note on the floor of the cubicle, with delicate fingers I took the offending item over the road for the others to see. It was covered in a scrawl which looked like a spider had fallen into an ink well and crawled across the page. The note was covered on both sides with a story about an eighteen year old boy meeting a middle aged man in the toilets, it ended with the ominous phrase 'Roll on meat week'. It quickly became our site catch phrase. There was a shopping list in the same script that was plucked from the toilets for our amusement, it was calling for 'limons' and 'wharter'. Kent Street toilets has now been closed down by the Police, but during our time there someone tried to burn the place down, we never found out who this was, but I do remember a particularly angry scally running up and down the road threatening to stab someone after he'd been propositioned in the toilets. Maybe he'd got a posse together and tried to exact some mob justice. I could fill a whole blog post just on the Barbican, but I'll leave it there. I was off to Lichfield, but that's to come in the next part! If you missed the previous posts of this story find them here:

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

And to finish another plug, here is a link to Ashley's rather good blog of writings: Dangerous Ideas from the Wood

This day anything goes, burning bodies hanging from poles, I remember Halloween

I went back to work at Nostell Priory on Friday, Nick had called on Tuesday to ask if I could give a hand for the next couple of weeks. Although I am in the middle of setting up a business, a little extra money never hurts so I agreed but said I couldn't start until Friday. I was asked back because on the site the developers have lost all sense of reality and decided to they would be laying soak-aways and pavements outside of the already agreed footprint of the car park. The ground workers have moved in and begun construction of the car park site. Obviously these new areas are archaeologically sensitive areas and we need to be there not only to watch the machines but to excavate and record anything that comes up. When I left, it was a pastoral idyll, a sweeping view over cow littered fields. Majestic trees reaching towards the clear blue skies. A lush greenery rarely seen on archaeological sites. It felt good to be there, it was a tonic for the heart and mind. Detox for the soul.

How I left Nostell...

The site now resembles Isengard after the Orks move in. The site is being run over by massive 360 Earthmovers, Bulldozers and dumper trucks. It like being in the centre of some horrific future war where the Robots have risen against their human masters and built killing machines capable of destruction on an industrial level. We are the lowly human resistance cowering in our final 20m grid square, each moment could be our last as the War Droids move in.

How I returned to Nostell...

Friday night was my Cousin Sara and Shaun's Wedding reception. They'd got married in Jamaica a couple of weeks ago. I didn't go as I couldn't afford it, so it would have been churlish of me to miss the reception, even though I was on the guest list for the Cannibal Corpse gig at the Corporation that night (not that I'm bitter). In the event it was a great night, Sara was suitably pissed from the start, everyone was dressed in their wedding best and most of the party goers were up dancing to the tunes belted out by the fat Rod Stewart Lookalike DJ. It was a good chance to catch up with the family something I rarely get a chance to do as I get older. There was even the obligatory karaoke, with Rotherham's Boots the Chemist workers caterwauling to It's Raining Men.

No one butchers disco tunes like Rotherhamites!

The Evil Doktor Herr Clay had also asked me to go over to York to celebrate Halloween at a student party on the Saturday night. It was also to meet the woman he's been keeping in his Austrian dungeon for the past 23 years. Her name is Anna and she seems to have developed Stockholme Syndrome, as she was quite attached to the Evil Nazi Scientist. It was all set, Dr Clay was to come to Rotherham and pick me up on the way past. Twenty minutes before he was to pick me up I get the following text message: Change of plan bitch, I'm coming up to York by train. You OK to drive up? Sorry for the mix up, but don't pretend you're surprised... As ever; the best laid plans of Mice and John... Put John Clay into the mix of any scenario and the whole thing goes to rat shit as soon as you can say 'cake and arse party'. You'd think that someone who has spent so long in Germany perfecting diabolical machinations against humanity would have picked up some of that world famous Teutonic rigidity for organisation... I duly drove to York and met Herr Doktor Clay and his captive Anna, we then spent the next few hours running around getting various pieces for our costumes. The three of us went over to Aleisha's where were saying for the night, I smeared curry and then fake blood all over her walls and we set off to the party. It was a great bash, there were far more people there I knew than I excepted, the music was loud and booze was free, 99% of the punters had some costume on. I thought the best ones where the two short lads who came as hobbits.

This photo ably demonstrates Clay's cop-out costume (Crime scene) overshadowed by the lengths some people go to make a real effort...

And what did I go as? Well, I carried a toolbag filled with hammers, wore a fake beard and a blood splattered shirt. I accessorised with a bling necklace and three fingered dollar sign ring. Can you guess? I was Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Rapper...

If you know of a better 'ole... then go to it pt5

I'll continue with my holey memoirs. I saw Stella the other day and she told me 'I were rate enjoyin' it, then tha stopped wraytin' it.' So this prompted me to wrayte a bit more...

Where was I? Oh yes, I'd moved to York, living with Kelly and Hel and just quit working for Humber in Beverley. Bring yourself up to speed here. I was offered a few more weeks working for Humber; we'd discovered most of medieval Beverley under the unexcavated area of site in the last week of the job (as is the usual case with archaeology...). I had to decline as I'd already agreed to start work with Network Archaeology in the North Yorkshire Dales. Oh! How I wished I'd stuck with Humber... You may recall, Network were the company that piled into Ireland and created a ratshit pile on the N2 project that CRDS had to clear up. Alarm bells should have been ringing, but I was lured by money:


The job was similar to the Welsh Pipeline that I had worked on with Cotswold; so again the picture here is a representative of the area in which we were working. I should have known something was up when we were required to be on site for twelve hours a day. This didn't include the hour drive to site every morning and hour drive home, which we were not paid for. This was because, as usual with archaeology, the HR people had accommodated us in a village an hour away from the site, rather than looking for somewhere close to work. Bodies on site, not hearts and minds, is the catch phrase for most archaeological companies. Everybody was tired, especially the drivers, minutes became precious, we had about two hours to ourselves at night. In which time I had to prepare food, eat and get washed, leaving just enough time to stare at Imogen Thomas on Big Brother for an hour before bed and doing it all again.

Thanks Imogen, you helped me through the bad times...

This is where I first met Sir Stanners, we became close friends due to our hatred of pretty much everyone else we were working with. The two of us were housed together for a short while and we would just bitch about all the other cunts we were working with. It was one massive freak show, the entire 1983 Ministry of Works digging circuit had joined Network for the job. There were the stoned out hippies that had missed the seventies. They'd all lived through it, but they just weren't aware of it happening around them they were so whacked out of it on goofballs. It was like Ken Kesey's Magic Bus has tipped up and unloaded on the side of the site. The Nether-Kennet Acid Test had turned on, tuned in and dropped out in North Yorkshire.

'Hey dudes! Get on the bus, quick, I hear network are hiring for the summer!'

The entire archaeological operation seemed to be fumbling about under the smoke screen of the killer drug Marijuana. There was so many people smoking on that site it was ridiculous. I think there was only Stanners and I that were not on the 'evil weed'. There was a point that the Pipeline contractors came up with the idea of random drug tests for all staff including us. I was quite in favour, after all, we were working along side heavy plant and welding operations. The site was littered with massive concrete pipeline fittings. I wasn't keen on people operating heavy machinery after having been drinking or smoking the previous night. The news reached us and there was pandemonium amongst the archaeologists. There were calls that it was against our human rights, that we should protest against this infringement on our privacy. Let's all make a stand against 'The Man'. Basically nobody wanted to lose their jobs after being tested positive, which ninety percent of them would have done... Sir Stanners and I just laughed at the paranoid wrecks of humanity before us. Network broke me as an archaeologist and as a human being. I quit, I took the money I made in the short while I worked there and took a break from working. As the money dwindled I had to bite the bullet and find another job. With an intense hatred of commercial archaeology I took a temporary job working for Gamestation in their factory:


This was three months of further madness, mumbling Joan, that poison dwarf Dawn, the neanderthal Metal head with a receding hairline he was refusing to acknowledge, Jose and the rigged election and the Polish day with the 'frenetic' translations of Polish to help us all integrate. I finished here in time for a move back home to Rotherham after a trip to Morocco with Nathan. Back in my parent's gaff I was stuck for a job until I saw ARCUS advertising for work in South Yorkshire and Leeds. I sent in a CV and was called by the office. Can you guess which job they offered me? The one that was ten minutes from my house, or on the site I would have to get up at five am to get to? As usual no one in the office had read my CV and they offered me the job in Leeds. I told them about where I was living and that it would be easier for me to get to Templebrough as it was just over the hill from where I was located. It was like a light bulb had been turned on somewhere in the darkness of the ARCUS office. So I ended up on a Roman Fort outside of Rotherham:


The true horror of this site is now buried under an industrial building. It was in the midst of shitty cold and wet winter, working on a clay site, excavating V shaped ditches whilst being constantly harassed by the digger driver and his banksman about how little we were getting paid. Mind you, there were some good people on this site, most of whom I was to work with again over the next few months; I met Lauren, Clare, Linzi, Mike, Izzie and the Serial Killer Scott here. Scott and I went on to work at Smithfield Carpark in Sheffield after we'd finished:

You can actually see one of the trenches we cut through the concrete in the satellite image. There is very little to say about this site except that nearly three years on the site still has yet to be developed. Next up was Broad Street:

Yes, it's a block of flats, but it wasn't when I worked there. The housing development had been halted by Paul who was conducting the watching brief before the buildings were being erected. He'd stopped the construction as he claimed he'd discovered medieval buildings on the site. This is how he sold the site to me when I arrived on my first Monday. It quickly became apparent that he was way out of his depth and the 'Medieval' walls turned out to be a 19th century factory boundary wall. He told me it dated to 1649 as that was when Sheffield Castle was pulled down and the sandstone blocks that made up the foundations were obviously stone from the walls of the castle. The fact that it had a bottle from about 1850 sticking out of it seemed to bypass Paul. The 'late medieval' road had modern hardcore in it's construction and appeared on a 19th century Ordnance Survey map.

Sheffield Castle circa 1267

The site was contaminated with diesel and we all refused to work in a trench where the stuff was leaking out. I fondly remember all the staff standing on the edge of site watching Paul try to shovel clean the edge of the trench with his one good arm (the other one had been kicked by a horse over the preceding weekend, it probably disliked him as much as we did), whilst diesel ran over his boots. Great days. There is a blog's worth of stories about Paul and not just from this site, I have been told of his past work. He was working along with his twin brother (a transvestite vicar, I shit you not) and they would frequently have wrastlin' matches on the spoil heap. The two were placed far away from the rest of the site on an area they couldn't harm and on the Friday site tour they would duel with mattocks rather than explain what they had done the previous week. The site director would just walk away with the phrase 'Thank you, once again Gentlemen, for your valuable insights.'

Would you trust a site to this man? No, me neither...

The site finished and we all moved inside to work on the post excavation, everyone else mainly cleaned pottery from the site, whilst I sat and did sudokus and forced everyone to listen to Kraftwerk. I scored myself a job in Singapore but that portion of my memoirs is reserved for the next part...