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.

Salsa Sauce

I was on a watching brief today. For the three people who read this shit who are not archaeologists I shall explain what a watching brief is. When a developer decides to build something new, like an abattoir next to a children's soft toy factory, for instance, the development has to pass through several stages of archaeological investigation that has to be paid for. Full scale excavation is the highest of these stages, with a desk based assessment at the lowest. The developer has to take this extra cost into account when they decide to build a pole dancing club next door to a primary school, for instance. One of the most prolific activities of an archaeologist is the watching brief. This is an activity that entails the archaeologist being dispatched to a site that is being built, say, an artillery range next door to a playground, for instance, and literally watching the machine that is building the foundations of, for instance, the chemical warfare development plant next to the nursery. We are there to make sure that any archaeological remains are fully recorded in accordance with the local County Archaeologist's brief.

Shits and giggles never stop in archaeology...

This is what I was doing today and as usual it was no different from any other watching brief in the country. In that, when I arrived I was separately told by the cross eyed farmer and the grumpy machine driver that 'you won't find anything here, this is waste of your time and my money.' Despite my decade long experience and three years studying the subject of archaeology they still knew better. I guess when the farmer bought the land we were working on he must have stripped the entire field down to it's natural subsoil, identified and recorded any archaeological cut feature that existed in the pre-modern strata. It is my understanding that the farmer not only recorded these features to the acceptable levels of academic peerage that govern archaeological grey literature but submitted the report to the local Sites and Monuments Record office for future rumination under a tried and tested academic framework. This is the only course of action I can think of that would lead both these men to the conclusion that 'you won't find anything here.' Although, I had my doubts, especially when the farmer told me the village we were working in was the place the Vikings had 'parked their boats before walking to the Battle of Stamford Bridge', and I insisted on following the brief I had been given, that is, to watch the machine work for any archaeological remains, rather than listen to their, obviously, greater knowledge. I was texting Logan Josh throughout the day, I was telling him about the above situation and his reply sums up today's work:

I love that shit. As if we have not been sent by a third party but rather we have insisted we be allowed to watch. East Yorks farmers are the worst. They still think the English Civil War is raging and get all their 'news' via someone they know who attends church.

And in other news, we will be following Prince Rupert's campaign against Cirencester...

I was watching Knightmare the other night. Do you remember it? It was the spoddy Dungeons and Dragons rip off that was on ITV back in 1756 or sometime when I was in my early teens. It was a nerd fest, where three fantasy role-playing social retards had to navigate their equally 'insecure around girls' mate through a computer generated 'dungeon'. I fucking loved it! I sat transfixed trying to work out how many rooms they must have built to emulate the dungeon. I never cottoned on that it was all done in some tiny studio painted green with the images overlaid with computer graphics. I was a simple child. I always remember that every time the dungeoneer walked into a new room they asked 'Where am I now?' (they were wearing a helmet through which there were no eye holes) their three spoddy mates would always answer 'You're in a room!' NO FUCKING SHIT SHERLOCK!! WHERE ELSE ARE THEY GOING TO BE? IN A FUCKING FIELD? ON AN AEROPLANE'S WINGS? UP A FUCKING TREE?

Where am I now?

Erm....

Anyway, watching it again made me come to new conclusions about Knightmare. The first thing that struck me was the uneasy idea of a bearded creepy man in a tabard locking children in his 'dungeon'. If I had kids I would not be allowing a man called Treguard of Dunshelm to look after them. 'Yes, they'll be fine in my dungeon, there's plenty of fun awaiting!' Fun for who, Treguard? If that is your real name, which I very much doubt. Unless you had really nerdy parents who played D&D. I swear that man is wanted in Vietnam on statutory rape charges. AND WHERE THE FUCK IS DUNSHELM? IS IT A CUT PRICE CLOTHES SHOP IN ROTHERHAM?

A picture paints a thousand words...

But watching further I realised that the show was nowhere nearly as good as I remember. Treygard's introductions seemed to go on forever. It was like sitting through one of Ataturk's speeches. He was explaining the rules of the game in prose so formal it made me go blind. Once away from the most boring man in history the kid in the dungeon came across several other characters that lived in the dungeon. Generally the first was a wall monster called, I shit you not, Granite Arse. At least that's how I heard it. The second seemed to be one of Treguard's former child sex slaves, Lillith, or something. These two inhabited the lower reaches of the dungeon and as the kids progressed they met more characters. This got me thinking, were the actors who played these parts paid a proper wage or bit pay depending on their screen time? Imagine if you got the job of playing Cobble the Gnome? Imagine if Cobble resided on the forty sixth level of the dungeon and to reach the level the children would have to toil for six long years to get there. With the complete retards that took part in this game there would be no chance of you ever drawing screen time and therefore no chance of ever getting paid. Since most of the kids who took part couldn't even spell SHROUD or SHOVEL for simple level one spellcasting, Cobble the Gnome would be a very poor gnome indeed. I bet Cobble still drinks heavily now, trying to blunt the pain of what could have been an illustrious television career dashed by brainless idiot children that couldn't even work out right from left when walking along a chasm edge.

No! Your other left, you fucking prick!!

By the way, the farmer was right. There was nothing there. I didn't find anything.

Paranormal Bollocks

On Monday Lauren and I watched Derren Brown's program about exposing Spiritual Mediums. I'm not a big fan of Brown, but it was a good to see an examination of the techniques employed by the 'psychics' to manipulate and exploit the vulnerable and grief stricken. This led onto a discussion about Lauren's friend's mum who was also claimed to be a  'medium'. Apparently her spirit guide had channelled through her to tell Lauren that there was something wrong with her car wheel and when Lauren checked the tyre was flat. HOW FUCKING FREAKY IS THAT? Now, why the spirits would make a point of telling Lauren something that she would have noticed as soon as she went to get into her car, I don't know. But that's what makes me a skeptic.

And we all know, cats are always right... 

The program also led onto a discussion at work about Ghosts and the like. Again, I am highly skeptical of the existence of things that cannot be proved by the rigorous dry reasoning of SCIENTIFIC TESTING. Things like Ghosts. Ghosts and 'spiritual guides'. Why do ghosts and spiritual guides always come as stock characters? Think about it. Lauren's friend's mum apparently has two spiritual guides, a Native American and an Ancient Greek. Now, call me skeptical again, but how can she even begin to understand what these guides are even saying? Does she speak ancient Greek or Navajo or Cree or Cherokee? Most likely not, so how can she follow the spirit's advice? The reason these 'guides' have been chosen is because they are the layman's approximation of intelligence in history. Everybody has heard how wise the Greeks were, well, along with bumming, they invented maths and that Plato fella invented psychology or physiology or something clever beginning with P and ending in ology. And we've all seen Dances With Wolves, those Indian chaps must be clever with their quiet meditative ways and their wind catchers and diminishing supplies of buffalo. Well, they couldn't out smart fucking small pox or fire water could they? But it's the same with ghosts, people always see ghosts of  18th Century Gentlemen or Nuns, little Victorian Girls or Roman soldiers (as here in York). When Ghosts are reported they are always something historically recognisable. Why do people never report seeing ghosts of 6th Century Anglo-Saxon peasants tilling the fields or a 1980's Yuppie who died from a coke overdose after a particularly hard fought merger and acquisition? Why are spirit guides never ancient Phoenicians or Cuthbert the peasant from the 13th century who worked in the local dung smithy? Why? Because the general public don't know they even existed. Since the general public's view of history is tempered by Television, most particularly BBC costume dramas and Dickens adaptations, there's no wonder people make these connections when they see a 'ghost' or call up their local Spiritual Guide.

Would you trust this man with your dead Grandmother?

Further to the other day's Road Rage, Lauren and I have noticed an alarming trend that occurs on the A59 every morning between the hours of 7am and 9am and 4pm and 6pm. It's name is enough to strike terror deep into the heart of any driver, Howard Carter had his Curse of the Pharaohs, we York commuters have the Curse of the Farmer! Yes, everyday at precisely 7am and 4pm the local farmers decide it is time to start driving tractors towing trailers packed to the brim with hay or potatoes or pig shit or anthrax infected sheep carcasses up and down one of the busiest roads to York at the busiest time of the day. The farmer drives his tractor down one lane whilst his high foreheaded, web toed, idiot son drives down the other lane in the opposite direction. They reach the roundabouts at the ends of the A59, circle them and head back on themselves at precisely 14 Miles per hour. The cars are backed up to Thirsk and Huntington full of sweating, swearing commuters desperate to get to work on time or to get home for the night. If it wasn't for these bastards we'd be home in about twenty minutes.

Get out of my fucking way you backwards animal fucking cunts!