SHED OR ALIVE !

Reports of my death would have been greatly exaggerated if there had been any.

Sorry about the lack of shed stuff.

It's still stands and doesn't leak.

I broke another finger.

My head aches, not presumably related to a finger snapping incident.

My cricket team hasn't won any games this year.

I have accidentally usurped the captain to regain my rightful place as The Big Cheese.

My son is growing at an alarming rate.

My daughter is a legal adult, but struggles daily with the real implications therein.

I have been a legal adult for 28 years and 2 weeks and I still struggle with the legal, moral and other general implications therein.

I still wish for the extermination of all advertising executives.

I have completed Meta's questionnaire, a life achievement akin to climbing Everest or discovering time travel.

I still have a job.

I still love the B.F.G.

It's still fuckin' rainin' here!

Solstice came and went and I hardly noticed it.

I haven't had an alcoholic drink for 10 days.

Elderflower champagne doesn't count because it's far too weak.

If I ruled the World, every day would be the first day of last week.

I'm so very glad I'm not called Percival.

How much wood can a woodchuck chuck?

I should write to my Australian mate.

My neck hurts.

Cheese can possibly save the world from annihilation.

I'm just trying to find the bridge.

Moffs enjoy the environs surrounding my bathroom light, even they probably know it isn't good for them.

Bob Dylan can't sing.

Is this the eighth wonder of the world?

GANG OF TEDS

This took me back to a much older persons childhood. A gang of Teds hanging around the street in the dark.
I expect they were all just off to listen to some Elvis or comb their D.A. 'Barnets' incessantly whilst trying to chain smoke Chesterfields without removing them from their pursed lips.

Actually, I could be making all that up. They may have been waiting for a bus.

When they got on it, they would probably have hogged the backseat upstairs and tried to dodge their fares, and then when they got off they would have said

"GET STUFFED GRANDAD !!!"

to the conductor as they bounced away on their beetlecrushers and winklepickers.

To tell the truth, once I'd plucked up the Dutch Courage, I asked the nicest looking one of them what such a fine upstanding socio-economic sub-group was doing at that time of the evening.

He replied that Paul McCartney was doing a photo shoot for his new album, 'Band on the Run Again' and had asked for a group of hip kids to pose for the cover, and not to forget the spotlight.

Bastard never showed up, did he!

No wonder they look so glum

TINY LITTLE DUDE.

Here is a photo of a tiny little dude.

I dont think at first he was aware of the camera, but once he did notice it,

he

became

an

absolUTe

SLUT

for the lens!!!

Quite frankly, this particular reproduction is the only offering
which is possible
to put up on a blog without fear of being flagged as leud.

If you see a very small person, male or female about your house or maybe even whilst walking your ferrets, please make sure you dont accept a cheque from one in payment for any goods or services. Very little dudes have aquired almost unimaginable notoriety as con artists and swindlers. They would gull the last stitch from their own favourite Auntie. They can't help it, just second nature. In fact, in some necks of the woods it's rude not to.

SUN IN CANCER, ARSE IN GEAR.

Yes, all you good people of the omniverse, the Earth has beetled around once again to the part of it's orbit that floats a great deal of boats. As a result, a new and Tigger like energy has risen in me which is usually the case come Solstice. Being a Cancerian is cool. Birthdays are usually sunny affairs.

I am filling my days with "buildin' fings", 16 hours a week I get paid for it, thanks to a renewed career as a handyman.

The other Buddha-knows-how-many hours construction work has gone into the previously much touted shed project.

I'm not in a position to show any photos of progress because it's all very hush-hush, don't ya know. You'll just have to wait. Gadzooks, I can almost smell the tension from here.

Needless to say, the postage stamp sized urban garden is littered with piles of wood and rusty old nails. It's a health and safety nightmare, an A&E admittance waiting to happen. But I prefer to run the gauntlet, it lends life a sense of derring-do. Besides, there's no point in clearing up until the wobbly woman warbles.

The next week or so will produce a camping holiday, cricket, an annual visit, loud music from my revamped car stereo, outdoor fires (upon which I usually sacrifice at least one piece of clothing albeit mistakenly), birdwatching, peoplewatching, a lack of watchwatching, beer drinking and hopefully a modicum of sunburn, all of which you may well get to read about.

Until then, here are some random things captured for your delectation and perhaps, if you will, even amusement.

Here, we can clearly see that a junk food empire has been brought to it's knees by a renegade sparrow. Some kind of alliance has obviously been struck between it and it's feathered friends which commonly appear on the menu dressed in tight fitting batter suits.

The upshot of this I suspect was probably several dozen spotty ill-looking natives frantically scouring the locale for a similarly puke-worthy helping of feral pigeon in a bap.

They wouldn't have to go very far in this neck of the woods.

Next on the agenda is my own fascinating experimentation with Do-it-Yourself brain surgery. The tricky part is getting the bread knife and chisels clean again afterwards. Of course, I wouldn't recommend this form of amateur neuro slicing to the feint hearted, but the more adventurous among you will be pleasantly surprised by your children's next exam results if you get it right. However, if you get it wrong they are only capable of watching Big Brother until you've gone back to the old drawing board before another well intentioned stab at it.

And here is a monster from the deep which I fished out of my garden pond. The fucker took me 8 hours to land and left me with a vicious hickey which I quite clearly cant go to the medical services with in case they think I'm one of those weird people who can only become romantically attached to lampreys.

For those among you who believe I had to turn my back on it to get attacked in this region, think again, it's not how it looks. It does however, bring a whole new meaning to the words 'blue tit'.

And that, my crusty little old barnacles upon the hull of humanity, is that. Be good to yourselves and to those immediately to your right. Anybody on the left can get stuffed.

OF CHANGING CARS AND SHIFTING SHEDS

I've been awfully quiet, in bloggy respects, of late. There are a few reasons. Attempting and failing to mend a car and then selling it for a pittance. That was a wee bit disappointing but as soon as the horrid thing was gone, I felt better, even though it wasn't my car. I hadn't stolen it or anything silly, just doing the B.F.G. a favour because she has no time for such tasks. I polished it until it stood resplendent in the spring sun, awaiting a new mug to throw good money after bad at it.

Having sold it, I then realised that trying to buy a bargainatious runaround for the similar pittance plus a maximum of £250 was going to be nigh on impossible, especially now I had no car to go and view them with. This is because my chivalrous nature has conspired to shoot myself squarely below the ankle region by lending my lovely shiny car to the aforementioned B.F.G. so she could get to work and keep me in the style to which I have become accustomed, ie piss poor.

However, after the next two weeks endlessly picking over thousands of car adds and websites about best buys and parts, the Car Fairies turned up a much better car for my lover at only £15 more than the old French charabanc. And there endeth the tale on a happy, nay ecstatic, Japanese note.

And then so on to the shed.

My garden shed is, or should I say was, much loved (by me at least). It contains/contained as you hopefully can see by the video tour, all manor of the types of crap that men in their forties have accumulated by the natural course of events. Well, events such as skip scrounging and never throwing anything away anyhow. And so when it ceases/ceased to hold out the rain and smells/smelt of rot and is/was clearly suffering in it's old age it is/was time to put it down.

So I did/have.

You can't take a shed to a vet, or flush them down the toilet like unwanted pets, so I tore it down with a claw hammer, and when that wasn't manly enough, my bare hands. Spiders of varying shapes, sizes and hues scuttled willy-nilly hither and thither as bits of mouldy plywood and 2x2 flew in all manner of directions at the mercy of a tea crazed loon in the midday heat.

Part one of my rebuild was all but done and most of the fallout taken to the dump. The rest goes tomorrow, excepting all the salvaged pieces, of which there are few.

I will shop for new (recycled) timber, and stick to my design which involves interior doors and a PVC window all scrounged for nowt locally over the past few years and weeks.

Eat yer 'eart out, The Feckin' Wombles. I'm building an architectural masterpiece. An Ediface to the Gods. Builders of similar shacks will flock from miles around just to be in it's looming shadow. Upon it, cats will sit and birds will shit. Molluscs will slime and wind and rain batter at it's corners like banshees. But it will resist because it will be held fast by love....and about 500 2"screws.

Keep your eyes on this space for hot news of the Great Project as it nears completion.

I will try my damnedest not to leave it for so long that you burst with anxiety before the next post.

Oh, and I genuinely hope you are all beginning to enjoy the summer at last, except those of you who burn easily or who live in the Southern hemisphere.

RESPLENDENT SPRING!

A blue sky, clear but for a random scattering of gently metamorphosing clouds, plays host to bleached white gulls. The seabirds laugh and wheel in a seasonally appropriate oxymoronic state of manic nonchalance, utilising the languid updraughts billowing invisibly from city streets stimulated by the first truly warm day of the year.

Far below their raucous cackling, I sun myself greedily, soaking up as many rays as I can before this most fickle of seasons turns it's many faced head to reveal an altogether less clement mien.Today though, a patient breeze has replaced the recent rash or hasty gales. It casually transports tender offerings of mingled light fragrances across the neighbouring environs to my hitherto starved olfactory sense. Tree blossom plays an unlikely bedfellow to warm skin.

Twittering finches alert my gaze skyward again. They commute across the azure with staccato flurries of wing beats which give their flight the look of a shuttle weaving an imperceptible thread under and over through the jet streams miles above them, perhaps manufacturing a simple tapestry upon which the ensuing months will eventually embroider the full heated passion of summer. Love sick buzzards arc and soar in lordly fashion above, their presence betrayed only by their eerie monotonous wails which pierce the erstwhile serenity of the afternoon firmament.

As the evening wanders on towards it's close, illuminated by a decreasing effulgence, the disorganised intricacy of trills and whistles that is blackbird song will echo around the urban environs displaying their territorial intent as they lay claim to the treetops by unremitting aria. The common toad who comes hither to feed on various tiny lifeforms will doubtless appear as is her custom on relatively balmy nights.

For now, my eye is caught by the fiery lily beetle as it prepares to gorge itself on the fresh growth bursting through the soil. I hear bumble bees amble drunkenly through the air on a constant vigil for nectar filled blossoms upon which they can fuel a cool night in waiting for yet another day. I can look on as a sunfly hovers erratically, vacillating violently between the ivy leaves as if shadow boxing for fun.

I love the spring for it's renewed sense of hope and life, it's light and the feeling that something exciting is about to happen.

And I suppose it is, if you count the rest of your life.

LUDWIG VAN SPIDER; A STORY OF CROSS SPECIES COMMUNICATION

It takes an absolute age to teach a common garden spider to play Beethoven on a web. Firstly one has to link the intricate silken threads through a midi interface, no mean feat I can tell you. I had to enlist the help of one or two of our visitor friends for that one, but therein lies another long winded tale of intergalactic travel and other-worldly antics I can tell you just wouldn't wish to be burdened with, so I'll not bother today.

I reckon this little chap seems to have embraced the subtle nuances and minor to major key changes of one of the world's most enigmatic and recognisable piano pieces, even if I, his mentor, may say so myself.
It took a great deal of patience and understanding, not helped tremendously by my own ineptitude on the old Joanna, which knows no bounds. I haven't even got as far as 'Chopsticks.'
However, through unparallelled diligence and a rigorous diet of flies and woodlice, (I hate bluebottles especially, and those invertebrates get stuck between your teeth, yeeuk!) myself and Ludwig struck up a rapport musical which may go a very long way towards furthering homo-arachnid relations beyond anything the space program and all those experiments with L.S.D. ever managed.
At first, he found it easier to play if he went too fast. Impassioned cries of 'Adagio! Adagio!' could be heard across the haphazard urban landscape, as I pleaded with him to slow the piece down from the Andante he seemed to have settled upon. I was almost at the end of my tether, and so literally was Ludwig, when one beautiful Autumn morning, I took my early cuppa into the garden to find Little Luddy, concentration etched across his tiny multi-eyed brow, winding his way around the web, calmly and with such concupiscence as to bring a tear to even the most hard hearted of fellows. Each gentle up rise in tempo, each contour of the sound so delicately navigated it put me in mind of a youthful Evgeny Kissin.
And so, today, you can hear the piece in it's entirety. I hope you can enjoy it and perhaps it may inspire you to take up the challenge of inter-species communication. Let me know if you decide to train a centipede to tap dance, or encourage an ant colony to form a Welsh Style Voice Choir. It is difficult, but if you can handle the constant knock backs, the rewards are bountiful and uplifting beyond your wildest imaginations.
Good Luck, comrades in artistic ventures. With your success, the world will owe you a debt of immeasurable gratitude.
(All music composed by Ludwig Van Beethoven)