Fucking Clowns

Katie began juggling mud balls on site today. Juggling is something that irks me to a fever pitch. I hate it, it is the single most inane activity that humanity has to offer. I hate the people that juggle, with their stupid 'alternative' lifestyles and their stupid Jester hats. They all drive their 2CVs to the latest 'free vegan love-in festival' in their stupid tie-dyed clothes and dungarees. With their stupid overlong beards (men) and unshaven armpits (women). All being terribly individual but looking and acting the same. It's like juggling is a sign of counter-cultural activity and to be alternative you have to learn to throw three balls up in the air without dropping them. Because that's all juggling is. The ability to not drop something. It's like people that ride unicycles, they fall into the same category. I saw some cunt outside a pub one time having to be helped onto his unicycle by his mates. It made me think: What kind of vehicle is that you have to be helped onto in order to use it? What if you were stuck somewhere where there was no one around? You'd have to walk and carry your stupid fucking unicycle with you, wouldn't you? GET A FUCKING BIKE, stop trying to show off to everyone around you that you're 'CRAZY' because you can balance on a wheel. Do you know what I'd do to jugglers and unicyclists if I was in power? I'd treat them like Vlad Dracul treated the insolent Turkish emissaries and NAIL THEIR FUCKING HATS TO THEIR HEADS!!!!

Vlad, he'd have no truck with jugglers...

I didn't have any nails to hand on site today so in spite of this I got the hose and liberally sprayed Katie with it to stop her juggling and make her work. It certainly worked a treat. It also worked on Lawrence when he was trying to flirt with Merel. It was like a cat with a spray bottle. I tell you there are far too many raging hormones on that site.

In other news, go and see Drag Me To Hell, not only has it got the beautiful Alison Lohman in it, but it is a return to form for Sam Raimi. Never mind Spiderman, this was a great horror comedy in the style of Evil Dead I & II and Army of Darkness. In fact it was so much like them I was half expecting the Lamia to start chanting 'Dead By Dawn! Dead By Dawn!!' or Bruce Campbell to apear in a cameo. Mind you, since all his superhero money old Sam seems to have forgotten poor Brucey...

Ash, he'd have no truck with the Lamia...

D Day + 23741

Today is the 65th Anniversary of the D Day landings. As we were driving to work John and I were listening to BBC York. Some Old Dear had called in to tell the presenters about her D Day Memories, althought most of them seemed to take place in 1947, three years after the Normandy Landings. Anyway, John suggested that I ring up tell the presenters about my Grandfather's memories of D Day. It would go something like this:

'Yes Granddad used to tell me all about his times on the Normandy Beaches, he said he had a great time. He remembers it like it was yesterday, he told me that once those landing craft dropped their ramps, it was like a turkey shoot. Men were dropping like flies, but he kept going. The bodies were piling up and the place was like an abattoir. Finally they got on the beach and the killing continued. Yes, Granddad shot a lot of Americans from his MG42 machine gun post that day. He spent a lot of time in Argentina after the war...'

Granddad mans his post...

We have the daughter of the house owner and her partner here at the moment, they are back in York for a wedding at the weekend. They live in London, she is a Doctor and he is in 'finance'. They have that confident, affable demeanor that the rich carry around with them. He is cleaner cut than I ever manage to be, even two minutes after shaving. They are so rich that last night they put the dishwasher on after only loading two plates, two cups and two sets of cutlery into it. John and I usually load the machine over a week and are very careful when we set the thing working, due to cost of washing up tablets and liquid, not to mention the waste of water. Anything smaller than a full load we wash by hand. It also inspired a converstion in John and I about what level of richness you have to be to be able to afford an Aga. There is an Aga in this house and we figured an Aga serves as a yardstick to measure richness. If you have one, you are rich, if you 'have always wanted an Aga' you are poor. That's the law, right there.

Champagne? Check. Oysters? Check. Aga? Negative = NOT RICH

Donuts of Shit

I've been pretty quiet of late as I've been busy what with one thing and another, last Wednesday I spent a lovely day in the company of Kate, which nothing could spoil. Not even the biggest shit storm of madness that has occurred in the last two years. I have to tell myself I don't miss her.


Work has been anything a shitstorm. It is literally one of the best jobs I have done for a while, since, erm... last September anyway. I was playing the nice supervisor last week, I bought a load of donuts for my team and put them under a bucket for them to find after first break. They were ecstatic. Then later I had to send, let's call them, Student A and Student B off to another area to help clean an area for Andy. When they came back Student A and B asked me to buy them a pint in the pub after work, to which I initially agreed. I then thought about it and said no, I'd already bought them donuts, to which Student A said 'Yeah, but they tasted like shit!' There's gratitude for you.

I did a Google Search for 'Shit Donut' and this was the first picture that came up. So it is used to illustrate my point...

On Saturday John, Cleo and I hosted a Barbecue, to which all of York's Medieval PhD students were invited. I needed a break from Nerdom so I invited my Sheffield buddies along to bring up the cool quota. Lauren, Steve and Kate tipped up, along with Bob, Craig, Marcus, Alix and Sarah. The rest were John's (and Cleo's) friends so I had nothing to do with them. In the event, my mates proved how cool we were by NOT leaving the party at eleven o'clock on the dot to stress about how much work they could have done had they not been out enjoying themselves. I spent most of the time in charge of the grill and topping up my sunburn from the flames. The evening progressed into a drunken orgy of violence that spilled out onto the street and ended with three houses being burned down on Scarcroft Hill, including ours.

Scarcroft Hill 3am; 31/05/09 The Police move in with Tear Gas

A Sunday afternoon Craig, John and I headed out to Whitby for the remainder of the afternoon as it was so nice. Craig and I had to literally drag John away from his laptop to come and enjoy the sunshine. After we had secured him in the car we arrived in Whitby to be promptly captured by Algerian Pirates and placed aboard their ship where we were transported to the Barbary coast for three years living as white slaves.

Craig laments agreeing to come to Whitby with us. Mainly due to the incessant sea shanties than the slavery

We managed to revolt against our master (taking our tips from the screening of Spartacus last week, without the bummery...) and took control of a schooner and made it back to Whitby, where we continued our tour of the town. We climbed the hill to the Abbey where John and I had an icecream covered in 'Dracula Blood'. Whether it really was Dracula's blood or the blood of one of his victims we never found out. After gorging ourselves on blood John miscounted the 199 steps as 198 on the way back down from the Abbey. I assumed that one of the steps had been removed for repair. Finally pausing to play in the arcades I managed to win myself two tins of peppermint sweets and a key fob tin with a smaller key fob in it for the princely sum of £2 on the two penny pushing machines. I remember one time years ago, when Carl tried to win a Spice Girls key fob which he had become fixated with in the same machines. He ended up spending ten pounds to get the thing out. Who's smashing society now, Carl?

Trophies of the hunt!

The Oubliettes of Brodsworth

Here I present the second in a very occasional series of guest blogs, this one comes from the computer of David Menear of Hull University (if you can really call it a University...). So sit back, tighten your belts, relax and enjoy...

The Oubliettes of Brodsworth

Yes I was a survivor of Brodsworth 2008, one of only a handful to escape the gruelling punishment that Alex, or Grupenfuhrer Alex as he liked to be known, would mete out over the three weeks Hull University were there. I remember the first day clearly as yesterday....
The rusting minibus trundled out to the site where we would get our first archaeological experience digging trenches in a medieval graveyard, mindless nervous chatter to cover the empty silences, to banish the thoughts of the tales we had heard of Herr Alex. The first sight of the bespectacled beast brought each member of the team quickly to attention.

Grupenfuhrer Alex looking for victims for his cult

‘You will only speak in zee German accent’ he growled at us, blithely pushing aside his revolver and WW1 airplane book. His near balding head catching the sun, his eyes tilted menacingly at the group and selected a random member, Ben- now lost to history/Brodsworth. ‘You will be zee bum boy, imitating ze great teacher, me!’. We had heard of Alex cherry picking people out of groups and humiliating them by making them dress up in Ninja outfits and making them goose walk for his pleasure. We could never expect Ben to be the same way ever again.
Lining each person up against the church side, he drove his car close to the line of students and proceeded to play a 30 minute rendition of Burzum and ‘Ninja metal’ on a tape player. He said he was going to break Iceland with his music, become a megastar and get a model girlfriend. Inside, we all laughed at the handlebar moustached man in front of us, but we did not dare show it outwardly. After showing us last year’s workers and what had become of them, he wanted us to dig a trench section by the end of the day or else face the wrath of ‘Ninja Metal’.

Previous volunteers

After a hard days graft, with Alex disappearing every 20 minutes to the tea room nearby (whilst he made us work throughout our dinner break), he said we had finished for the day. Little did we know that this did not include Ben. The last we saw of him was Alex leading him to his menacing Citroen car, parked right in the woods.
Back at the base camp Alex prowled around the main utility building, daring anyone to verse him at Monopoly or any other assorted board game. Watching the man, nay beast, play at such a game you could not help wonder what exactly went wrong in his life. How could a man, aged 30 +, take such great cackling desire out of beating poor students, why did he revel in it so much that he dressed the losers up?

Alex’s deluded jokes and one of his many victims

Throughout the whole stay, every night we often heard a wolf how along with the shouting of ‘Ninja is for life’ at midnight. Each morning another volunteer had ‘disappeared’, their tent ripped to shreds by either claws or ninja knives. Each morning we looked into our lecturer’s eyes, the other trench supervisors and outside volunteers for help but each looked away, as though there something we were not meant to speak about. It was like something out of Darkplace, just something we had to accept and not mention.
I could see the tension that Grupenfuhrer Alex was having on the place; I could see it on the ashen faces of Helen and Colin. The biggest effect was on Angela, one day after breakfast she just snapped. Throwing aside the worn monopoly board, running out into the grounds she screamed and ran head first into the minibus. This was the effect that Alex: Titan of Terror, the Queen of Queer, was having. Surely I thought, as I finished my toast then looked at Angela’s caved in head, it could not last.

The Chainsaw was out of sight

The penultimate day. I had rang home begging for a lift back on the morrows eve. Having managed to avoid Herr Alex by cleaning artefacts and bones (I hesitate to wonders whose), I gamely limped back (Alex had also taken one of my crutches as a cruel joke) to the cabin. Feeling a sudden heavy clawed paw on my shoulder I knew it was he. “Are ze coming for food and drank Frau David?” I literally could not resist, not least because he threatened to beat me and MY mother up. The hairy bastard.

We eloped from the base and made our way to the local club, a place where they were as mad as to serve Sunday Lunch on a Thursday, it makes me sick too dear reader. We sat opposite each other and ate, his little red face gulping each piece of meat that his claws threw up to his face, his spectacles rattling with the joy of eating the bloody steak. I tried to engage him in music, something I knew he had a passion, but it was no good. He kept waffling on about Bajrs this and Bajrs that. I think he may have recently eaten some. I kept picking at the steak I had chosen, something was not quite right about it, something was off. Admittedly it might have been the colour of the steak or the tuft of hair on the side of the plate. But I could not refuse not eating it, especially since I had known Alex never takes anyone to dinner.
As the last morsel of food popped into my mouth a mad cackle from Herr Alex emanated forth, he tugged at his moustache, pulled his trousers down and made obscene gestures. I could make neither hide nor tail of what he was saying but one word was getting through...“gegessener Freund Ben!!”. Jesus. This is what Alex wanted, this is how he lived his life. The last I saw of Herr Alex he was running full pelt towards the nearby woods screaming as he went. I had to stay behind and vomit my best buddy back up.

His favourite food, steak, human steak (preferably rare)

It is with an ashen face that I find myself contemplating returning to Brodsworth this Summer, I know the horrors ahead and I still see the devastation around me every day when I’m in lectures with less and less students in the seats. I have to face Grupenfuhrer Alex once again.

Lions 10 Christians 0

Friday rolled around with no trouble in sight, after work I basically relaxed and watched Seinfeld with John, Craig and Marcus, into the early hours. I had half a plan to go out around York but it didn't really flesh out and I went to bed instead... Saturday brought the spectacle of the York Roman festival. York, being a historical city, likes to celebrate its past with various festivals throughout the year, one of the biggest being the Viking festival in February. Thousands of hairy bastards descend on York, take over the city centre and reenact battles in the museum gardens and end it all with boat burnings down the Ouse. It lasts for days; the streets are awash with rapine and pillage as York celebrates the Medieval equivalent of the modern day Hells Angels. Only without the Harley's.

Holy Shit!!! It's the Vikings!!! Run!!!

Not so the Romans. Roman reenactors are harder to come by. The York Roman Festival seemed to consist of six Romans, twelve Celts (who were in fact Viking reenactors press-ganged into Celtic service for the weekend) and three Germans selling overpriced garlic bread. Perhaps more people want to rape and pillage than learn how to march in formation and carry out sword drill. John seemed to enjoy himself, he would, he's a Romanist. I thought it was quaint. What I did like was when the very nice lady at the Roman Medical tent was giving us a talk on the various medical instruments the Romans used. She was talking for ages and we were just standing there nodding our heads and not saying anything. There were no pauses in her flow and I was wondering how long we could keep her standing there and talking, by us not interrupting. I know what it's like to talk to the public and when no-one asks questions you feel as though you have to keep talking even if you are running out of things to say. I was playing a game in my head to see if we could make her carry on talking for about three hours. Luckily for her there was a pause and someone said 'thank you, that was very interesting.' or some-such phrase which ended her talk. I was disappointed that it only lasted about ten minutes. Next time another opportunity like this occurs I'm going to time it properly.

John, enjoying the Romans, cos that's how he rolls...

On Sunday the Roman 'Festival' was concluded with the screening of the restored version of Spartacus. I've not seen this film since I was very young, but it's one of those films you see bits of but never manage to sit down and watch from beginning to end, so you feel as though you've seen it. What I can say is, is that that reissued version is brilliant. A real tribute to the brilliance that was Kubrick. Spartacus himself becomes very much a footnote to the power play and politics in Rome that was cut out of the original cinematic version. It's great, the bad guy, Crassus is actually working against corruption and trying to bring back the glory days of Rome, the seemingly sympathetic and helpful Roman Gracchus is completely corrupt and taking advantage of the rot that is infecting the civilisation. Nothing is black and white, not even in Ancient Rome... To end it all I'm still amazed that no one stood up at the end and shouted 'I'm Spartacus!'

Would the real Spartacus plaese stand up?

From the Heart of Hell I Stab at Thee

The Wednesday off meant that I could go into town and buy cheap envelopes for my ever expanding EBay empire. I have finally started selling the Osprey Books I bought last year and already they are showing promise for a lucrative return. Over breakfast on Thursday morning I looked at the weather news in York and saw that it said heavy rain in the morning, light rain in the early afternoon and heavy rain for the rest of the day. We got to work and the rain started. It belted it down and soon we were sliding all over the site like Torvill and Dean, Steve, the Project Director asked me if I'd seen the weather and I answered truthfully what I had seen that morning. With this information he decided to close site for the day. We packed up, got all the tools into the cabin, locked up and... the rain stopped. The clouds lifted and the sun came out. By this time all the students had disappeared so we couldn't go back to work. The first thing Steve said to me on Friday was 'I'm not talking to you'.

Area 2; 21st May 2009; 9.45am

Cleo the cat hates me. There is a cat in the house and she hates me. I can't do anything to change her mind. I try to feed her, pick her up to stroke her, play loud Black Metal at her, shout at her. Nothing works. But she's all over John like a rash. She can't get enough of him and he hates cats. It just goes to show you how fickle women are.

Evil, pure evil...

Pot Noodle Protests

Helena and Joel came up to York last weekend, I met up with them both along with Bert, Claire and some guy called Jim. Hel and Joel had gotten engaged on Saturday night, so congratulations were in order. I met them about five and we were drinking all night, slightly interrupted by a trip to an Italian restaurant. Finally Hel, Joel, Jim and I made it to the Ackhorne, by far my favourite pub in York. As a happy coincidence there was the famous Sunday night quiz on. I had completely forgotten about it and was whooping with joy when I realised! We were all pretty much worse for wear by this time and this only added to the hilarity of the quiz. The woman doing the questions was sat out on the patio and was miked up so all of us inside could hear. As she started the questions there was a constant buzzing from the microphone, it was like under going torture whilst sitting an exam. As the evening progressed, the mike got worse and worse until it was flicking on and off. It was like the quiz was hosted by a stuttering quiz master. There were questions like this; 'What did Wa______ ____vive in 19__ with only h_ ____?' and 'th_ __ kn__ as ___ in Canada?' We were all literally pissing ourselves, but then it got better; She asked a question about John Lennon and Yoko ONE. I couldn't believe my ears. We were crying laughing by this time. When she came round after and asked if anyone wanted questions repeating I asked her for the John Lennon question and she repeated Yoko ONE. The table next to us asked her the same thing and got the same reply, they too were on the floor with laughter. This was the best quiz I have been to for a long time, even since the times when we would go to the Ackhorne quiz and the landlord, Jack, would give us answers and we'd still lose.

Yoko One and Yoko Two?

I crashed out in a drunken state and was awoken by John at 2.00am unable to get into the house as he'd left his keys on his desk in Bromsgrove. That boy is a danger to himself. The next morning was the start of the new job, it took us quite some time to negotiate the York morning traffic, but we duly arrived to be confronted by the sight of nearly one hundred students. It was a pretty frightening prospect I can tell you. It was like being confronted by Zulu warriors at Rourke's Drift. As it goes it is the dossiest £14 per hour I have ever worked for. We don't start until 9.30, finish at 4.30, have three breaks and all I have to do is tell the students which end of a trowel to use. Today it lashed it down so we finished early and I also found out that we don't work on Wednesdays. If only it lasted longer than three weeks...

Students Sir, thousands of them...

After returning from work we saw that John's car had been broken into with nothing stolen. The fact it wasn't even stolen and burnt out after stint of joyriding was further insult to the injury. I think the crime may have been tied in with the fact that John had ripped up and stuck up a BNP poster that had come through the post. The indication being that we didn't vote BNP at this house. The problem was, from a distance, i.e. driving past the house, it looked like a normal BNP poster the indication being that we DID vote BNP at this house. John's stance against racists just ended up making us look like racists. This is what I have to deal with on a daily basis. The fucking idiot.