I tried to get to ‘The North’, but it was closed

A few days ago I had to head North to Cheshire for a wedding, and it was quite definitely closed.

For a start there’s the great wall of the M6 which, as well as providing a barrier which would put the ancient Chinese into a envious frenzy, provides the perfect deterrent for invading southerners. To get North of Birmingham these days you’d be far better of mounting an elephant-mounted expedition of Hannibal proportions. Every day people queue patiently on the twisting moat of tar that is the M6 in a line worthy of an Alton Towers ride on a blistering August day and never actually get there. Those aren’t cows in the fields, they’re weary travellers hunched over trying to use their bush-tucker skills to drink the moisture from grass.

What’s more if you stop at Knutsford services you may notice that it appears a Saga tour has just come in for a pitstop, but these people were actually in their twenties when they set off North from home 50 years ago. Today they use all their wits to survive on Hobnobs and Ritazza coffee.

If you do, by some miracle get there, Cheshire isn’t so much the home of a grinning feline friend so much as the shiny-toothed gormless footballer these days, framed by the window of a mock-tudor 4×4.

The thing is I can almost see why they have them. It’s purely so they can distance themselves from the driver behind as they sit in a grid-locked road. People in Cheshire don’t have long driveways as a status symbol, it’s just that it’s the only bit of road North of Birmingham where you’d have half a chance of getting into third gear. What’s more, they don’t have large gardens because they hark back to some age of aristocracy, but because they can’t actually travel anywhere so they need something to look at.

And then, aided only by a support helicopter and a team of trusty sherpas, I arrived at Alderley Edge. At school chucking-out time and things got worse. As women off-roaded across pavements and grassed areas, using their National Trust car stickers as a permit to park absolutely anywhere, the little darlings came running out from school. In almost any other urban area, a boy in a black and yellow blazer and coordinating yellow holdall would be beaten by his peers like a misbehaving Gordon Ramsey pancake, but here it’s chic. And everybody looks the same. Like ticky-tac houses.

And as I sat in a 2 mile queue with only a dozen cars in it, I came found myself becoming increasingly frustrated. Southerners have long moved on from mocking northerners for their flat-caps and love of pigeons, but it’s hard to shake off the image of an industrial past when it takes as long to get from London to Manchester as it did by a horse-drawn carriage even when it was held up by Dick Turpin…

A post of mice and men

[approximately 1:43am BST]

S: What was that?
D: *Hmmmfff*… *snore* … *snore* zzzzzz
S: [a little louder] Huh?
D: [after a long intake of breath] Hmmmm? Go… to… slee… *snore*

[The next day, approximately 1:44am BST]

S: What was that?
D: *Hmmmfff*… *snore* … *snore* zzzzzz
s: [Shakes D vigorously] There’s something up there

It’s amazing at times how quickly the human body can bring itself online. I mean, Bill Gates has earnt a handsome penny from machines which take anything up to 5 minutes to go from being a lump of plastic to a state of alert readiness for human input. I mean, that’s not to say God hasn’t earnt a certain amount of kudos and respect or anything. But I guess the amoebas need a bit of a ‘big-up’ if you’re an atheist.

So here I am, at an hour reserved purely for those with a need for a shipping forecast, ready to take on the world. And it appears this is going to be a useful attribute, seeing as how there appears to be some kind of dinosaur running around above my head. Or perhaps a tap-dancing hippopotamus. Yes, twin tap-dancing hippopotamii.

I am of course over-exaggerating the size of the problem. In reality it’s just a small troupe of animals putting on an off-broadway outing of Riverdance in our loft. There’s clearly a whiskered Michael Flatley at work up their, but quite why they’ve chosen to wear clogs and build a set using pneumatic drills has yet to become clear. I’m blaming some thick-rimmed spectacle wearing New Yorker director mous with aspirations to be the next Tarentino.

At 1:44 I am ready to take to the loft with a bat-belt style armoury of a hammer and slipper, but by 1:47 I’m unfolding the sofa bed and sleeping downstairs.

I want to be an animal person, but sadly it’s in pretty much the same was I want to be an astronaut - it’s a nice idea, but unless around 99% of the world’s population all enter some kind of internet-allergy related coma it’s unlikely to get far up my to-do list.

I remember as a child being in awe of my grandad holding a blackbird in his hands trying to help with a broken wing and I’ve had plenty of pets, but sadly I’m better at interacting with them in a culinary rather than the ‘wild’ setting. That’s animals in general, you understand, not some bunny-boiling pet type thing.

That’s not to say I don’t have respect for our animal brothers - I’ve just handed over the deeds to the upstairs of my house to them.

I did put my head into the loft the next day, but I couldn’t help feeling I had become the mouse, poking my head through a small hole checking for foes.

So I need to come to some kind of understanding with our newfound lodgers. I’m a rational man, and I have the advantage of having seen both Stuart Little and it’s sequel. I’m prepared to offer regular cheese portions in exchange for the adoption of some kind of curfew or change from a nocturnal to a daytime existence. I know you’re just trying to ‘work up a stake’ but, you know, ‘best laid plans’ and all that…

So if you happen to be reading my blog during a break from those intensive rehearsals of celtic Riverdancing Milton Mouse, please let me if we have a deal… just wait until after sunrise tonight and we’ll have an understanding, yes?

You wanna be where everybody knows your name

Ah, memories of Ted Danson. I can almost feel myself wondering into that little bar in Boston… Cheers!

I’m old. It’s funny how you only ever feel old when it’s your birthday. Or when you use a yo-yo in public. Or try a skateboard. I mean, here I am sitting with my feet on a coffee table, with a documentary on China on back-lighting the glow of the laptop screen showing these words. All I need is a glass of Baileys (at which point, coincidentally, Sarah offers a glass of wine!).

Actually, I shouldn’t see this as my being old, more my last chance to prove I’m young before reaching one of those milestone birthdays. I fully expect the next 365 days to involve buying lots of itunes tracks from my teens, and at least one attempt at doing some ridiculous sport-type things intended for people half my age inevitably leading to the breaking of minor limbs or appendages.

I already regressed 20 years or so on my birthday by going into Hamleys. I clearly remember Hamleys from my early childhood, and was disappointed to find that everything nowadays is smaller. The tables didn;t tower over me, and I wouldn’t have needed full-on climbing intruction and at least one base-camp stopover to reach the toys placed on higher shelves.

Also, whilst I remember clearly the fire-engine and remote control car I was bought on my last visit, I didn’t remember all the people employed purely to play with the toys. I certainly didn’t remember them trying so hard to look excited by the jumping puppy-toy they have to turn up and play with 9-5 seven days a week. I also don’t remember questioning the Health and Safety implications as I ducked the flying helicopter toys with all the worry of Mr and Mrs Doodlebug after first hearing the expression ‘you’ll be fine so long as the bomb doesn’t your name on it’.

Innocent times, eh? When all your worldly worth was measured in your Ninja Turtle sticker swapsies pile, and you wanted the full array of colours of those little rubber sucker things that pinged up from the floor threatening to blind you in one eye on the way up, and the other as it returned to Earth with all the precision of a Moldovan space mission.

And, just like the middle-management who insist on buying special number plates for their grey saloons, everything had your name on it.

I was in Starbucks the other day, and after ordering my vanilla latte, I was asked for my name. I assumed that this was induction into some kind of Starbucks hall of fame. Some secret club which would see me being given the red cups all year round, and would whisk me straight through airport security at any UK terminal. But no, 2 minutes later received a paper cup with ‘van, l’ on it, and in big crayola-type letters ‘Durry’.

Then something stranger happened - I found myself walking through Bath’s Georgian streets holding my cup in a near-claw-like manner trying to hide my name. Was this through fear of some cup-snatch identity thief who would later be seen on Crimewatch carrying a bag with ‘Swag id’s’ written on it? Was it the worry that somebody may walk passed me saying, ‘ooh, I must try the new Starbucks Durry beverage’? Or was I just a little shy of my own name?

Perhaps I’m not all that old. I mean, I’ve had the same name for 29 years or so now and yet, every now and again, I get a little self-conscious of my name in exactly the same way I did the day I realised nobody else had my name…

‘Tell those Wombles in government…’

After a week of stern news, it was nice to see some more uplifting stories this weekend.

First, there’s the latest Flashmob event to hit Liverpool street. In line with the latest stage of the rickrolling phenomena, 500 people descended on the station and began to sing Rick Astley’s ‘Never gonna give you up’. Brilliant.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7343833.stm

Then there was a party political broadcast on behalf of the Wimbledon common party, led by Uncle Bulgaria. You know, he can remember the times when British childrens’ tv wasn’t so far behind?

Well, here’s a great Wombles of Central Park done on behalf of PACT, complete with Uncle Bulgaria (aka Bernard Cribbins) asking us to ask ‘wombles in government’ to get their act together!

http://pact.magiclantern.co.uk/BadAssWombles.mov

Brilliant!

Glorified version of a pellet gun*

Another week, another strong news story. Bulletins have been full of footage of the training of the Chinese Olympic running team. They really mean business. They must do - they’ve been travelling around the world running right next to the olympic torch. These guys really take the concept of psyching-out the competition to a new level. They’ve so far been training in London, Paris, San Francisco and Beunos Aires, and I daresay they’ll be going other places too.

It’s an odd concept, but everything has to be protected these days. Whereas people used to drive cars with razor sharp steering wheels and no seatbelts, today you would be cocooned in enough airbags to build your own bouncy castle the second you hit a squirrel.

The strange thing is, surely there’s something wrong when you have to protect the worldwide symbol of peace?

Then in the land of the free this week, Florida made sure everything was safer still by passing a law allowing people to take guns to work.

Up until now, people only had the right to bear arms anywhere they liked right up until the point they arrived at their employer’s car park. Of course, there were guidelines and rules to protect everyone - the weapons had to be kept in a locked glove compartment. As we all now, this is enough to stop all the bad stuff happening. Afterall, JFK would still be here if his shooter had thought, ‘well I’m focussed, but… oh… I left the gun in the glove compartment… now I’m having second thoughts… I think I’ll go home and have a cup to tea’.

As Reuters points out, ‘Publix Supermarkets and Disney World are amongst the employers who now forbid workers to have guns in their cars whilst on the job’. Brilliant. I feel safe. I can now wander the Fantasia exhibition safe in the knowledge that out back there are a hundred cars with guns safely locked away in them. Hey, I feel safe. Almost constitutionally safe.

It’s all down to the American Constitution NRA, which solely ensure we can all sleep safe have to wonder which of the people walking passed us is carrying a concealed weapon. Of course, it’s ok if someone carries a concealed weapon - they’ll have a permit.

Of course, pro-gun groups always say it’s all in the Second Amendment. That takes its cue from the ealier British Bill of Rights which includes a right to bear arms. The only thing is, these days we have cars, we have public transport, we have more stressful lives, we have more colleagues, muggers, wedding toastmasters and Simon Cowell - these are all things which make it more likely that someone will lose their temper. And in Britain we’ve realised this and banned guns.

Still, I know the next time in The States, I’ll feel extra safe knowing that, should I get mugged, there’ll be a full-scale re-enactment of The Somme just to make sure I’m safe.

* A tribute to Sir Eddie of Vedder, Pearl Jam’s ‘Glorious G’ - Google the words if you don’t know.

The seven-point guide to tv property developing

Like a rash of blotchy spots on the bald head of a man allergic to pigeons who, all of a sudden, finds himself with several of the feathered critters on his shiny head, you can’t have helped noticing the bedazzling array of property development shows on TV. From excessively frumpy ‘mummy’s gals’ to ex-Marine housewives-favourites, and every shade of Beeny and camp Scotsmen in between, everyone in TV land wants us to make money from bricks and mortar. So here’s my one-stop guide to get ahead in the world of TV property developing:

1. When being interviewed, always stand awkwardly with your hands away from your body like you have 2 hamsters under your armpits. This will ensure you take up that extra bit of screen space, and create a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ ‘warts and all’ style of filming.
2. When appearing with your partner you must always be at least 50cm away from them at all times - even if holding hands. This is clearly what all money-driven property-types are like.
3. Dress to stereotype. The man must always be wearing an old polo shirt and faded jeans, whilst the woman must have a recently topped-up fake tan, a simple but designer summer dress and pearl necklace - you are made of money and need to show it.
4. Completely ignore the advice of your given expert. Yes, they may have made millions of pounds from this kind of stuff, yes you may have asked for their advice, but remember - you know best. If you think pink walls and green carpets will sell your house, go for it! Remember: if it goes wrong the producers will never show it and no one will ever know.
5. Set yourself a restrictive budget. Nothing ever goes wrong, and that hole in the roof will always make an interesting selling feature. Seriously - engineers are worry-worts - they expect the worst - and builders are really angels who work for free.
6. Remember: Image is everything. Not in terms of the interior - people like the 5 year-old DFS look, so don’t worry if all you have to furnish your ultra-swankey 22nd century bachelor-pad is a faded Laura Ashley flower-print sofa with a small baby-vomit stain on the left arm and a dog-chewed cushion. Just make sure your hair is constantly cut so that you look exactly the same every time the film crew visit over the 12 month project.
7. Finally, and this is the big one, make it seem like money means nothing. After months of arguing with the expert you will be told how much you’ve made, and you need to make it seem like it’s just pocket money. If you were expecting 80k and they say you’ve made 150k, just say ‘that’s nice’, or ‘that’s not too bad’. If they only say 72k, remark that ‘that’s not really very much for 4 months of just sitting on my backside and watching Eastern Europe’s finest bashing bricks together’. Remember the golden rule: you’ve got to make it seem like you’re just gambling thousands on property developing for a laugh - you don’t need the money.

All in all, I think I’ve got most of it covered - though I’m sure I’m missing one or two rules there. One final thing - if you are visited by a male/female duo, just say ‘no’ if they mention trampoline shots or drinks in the hot tub…

I’m afraid it’s terminal

Biscuit-dunking, tea-drinking animal lovers with a charitable nature who thrive on Radio 4, celebrity gossip and sarcastic sitcoms lampooning the middle classes - I’m sure if we’re truly honest, all of us can find at least one likeness in the stereotypical view of ‘Britishness’.

Most of Europe would include ‘an unending obsession with harking back to the war’ into the mix too. And they’d be right too, but for all the wrong reasons. We don’t still drive around with our headlights blacked out unless we’re driving a Ford Escort with a spoiler in Essex. With the possible exception of the more barmy parts of Surrey, we don’t huddle-down of an evening in our Anderson shelters with only a copy of The Daily Mail and half-a-packet of McVitie’s digestives.

It’s that optimistic feeling of Britishness that we’re trying to hold on to. That feeling of unity. Of digging for victory. Of having Corporal Jones running around shouting about how ‘they don’t like it up them’. Edmund Hilary, Winston Churchill, they all had that ‘make the best of things’ motto which sees our SAS survive in the desert for 4 weeks with only 2 sheets of toilet paper and a lemon. The British Bulldog - it’s ugly with no purpose or use, yet it defies natural selection with it’s stiff, if crooked, upper-lip.

And this week, every aspect of British spirit went on holiday. To be fair, it was probably the only thing which did manage to get away through Terminal 5.

A shiny new terminal for the 21st century. This was Buck Rogers meets Deep Space 9 meets the business-class traveller. Well, at least that was idea. What we actually got was Malcolm from Basingstoke trying to check-in passengers armed with only an Amstrad computer, a blunt quill and a 1978 copy of the British Rail Timetable.

40 years ago we’d have had passengers grouping together to pass the luggage onto the planes. Two middle-class gents called Roger and Graham would have designed a make-shift conveyor belt on the back of the Daily Telegraph for a dozen or so lower-class chaps in flat caps to make out of a few pipe-cleaners, a pair of lady’s stockings and a paper clip.

40 years ago staff would have dug a tunnel into the terminal to get around the glitches with the computers that stopped them ‘clocking in’, with men pushing the plane down the runway in asbestos underpants to avoid unsightly staining when the jet engines finally kick-in. And what’s more, the tunnel would have been dug by someone scared of confined spaces, and the guy checking passports would be almost blind. Of course, there’d be a plucky Yank on a motorcycle prancing around, but he’d probably get runover by Flight Commander Jock Stranthorpe-Bigglesorth-Smyde who’d be piloting the plane whilst delivering a passenger’s baby and solving 10 down on The Times cryptic crossword.

The problem is, we’ve become a nation of whiners, although some would say we always were. Yes we’ve always bemoaned the weather, but normally we’d be standing waist-deep in flood water wearing our grandfather’s fishing waders delivering cauliflowers and postage stamps to the elderly whilst we’re doing it. We’d say, ‘bit nippy out’, but more to challenge each other to carry on sunbathing on a deckchair on a snowy Brighton promenade than actually chastising Mother Nature.

Maybe Britishness isn’t completely lost, maybe it’s just a transition or teenage phase.

If Boris becomes Mayor, we’ll have plenty of training before the Olympics get here to turn ourselves back into James Garner and Richard Attenborough and to starch our upper-lips. The only problem is I can’t lose the feeling that, come 2012, we’ll all be standing by the side of the road tutting quietly under our breath and blaming Gordon Brown for the fact that 25% of the runners have been run-over by bendy-busses, 25% are lost because the signs weren’t put up in time or are in Polish, 15% have been injured by tripping over potholes and slipping up on discarded kebabs and bodily fluids left by the previous night’s revellers, whilst the remaining 35% are running naked because their suitcases have been sent to Milan as Terminal 5 still isn’t working quite right…

Bit of a Bombay Shell

I like curry. I like curry a lot.

One of the things about living in a small town, is that the choice of takeaway outlets can be a little limited. I mean, we only have 8 pubs and 3 curry houses to share between a few thousand inhabitants. And as purveyors, and makers, or fine curry, there is one place of choice, and it appears we may use it a little too much:

Sarah [on phone to curry house]:

S: Hi, can I order a takeaway please?
(pause)
S: Yes, two chicken tikka masalas… one pilau rice… one boiled rice… and one plain naan.
(pause)
S: Thirty minutes? Great. My name? Sarah.
(pause)
S: … Yes I’m fine thanks… and you?…

Too much curry? Maybe…

Eggsactly as the Bible tells it

The BBC. The British Broadcasting Company. The world’s largest and, arguably, greatest public broadcaster. Today the BBC put on a fine Easter-based bit of quality programming which was only possible because, as that annoying boy scout-esque ad used to say, because of the unique way the BBC is funded.

Today, for those of you reading on Mars or more likely sometime in the mid-summer, is Easter Monday.

You can tell it’s Easter Monday by the change in surroundings. Only the garden centres are open. There’s wall-to-wall Disney films on television with multi-coloured furry animals, dinosaurs or lovable rogues (or ideally a combination of all three). All of the railways are shut whilst men in orange polish the tracks, or whatever it is they do to railway tracks, forcing everyone trying to do work to travel on the road with the fully-paid up members of the 5mph-middle-lane owners club.

Easter. The day when Jesus said all his people should give each other chocolate eggs. As I’m sure all Theologians would agree the Bible does mention a few other things, but generally it just states again and again pine trees for Christmas, and chocolate eggs for Easter - I’m sure there’s some nice pop-up editions with a nice picture or two.

And the BBC chose to enlighten us all this evening with it’s own telling of the Easter tale. As reliable as the Queen’s Speech’s place in the Christmas Day schedules, or E4 showing at least 4 episode of Friends each day, Eastenders will show something truly terrible on public holidays to make us all feel better.

Today some character called Max died, and rose again from the dead. See what they did there? Okay, so he was buried alive. He tried to call upon the great deity of mobile communications, but alas he was forsaken as the mud washed over him. Then, after a short passing of time he was unearthed and rose from the dead. There were a few moments of coughing as he emerged from unconsciousness, but within seconds he was running around, shouting and talking in that brand of Mockney accent taught to all graduates of Eastenders Comprehensive.

A brilliant idea, but I think they could do more. St George’s day is coming up, and I’d like to see Ian Beale deal a deftly blow to the dragon that terrorises the caff. They’ve missed St Patrick’s day for this year, but I’m sure next year there could be some sort of fracas at the Queen Vic, and Phil Mitchell could banish a threatening group of snakes from the square whilst Peggy screams the obligatory ‘Get out’a my pub’ that happens at least twice-weekly. Obviously they’d branch out in order to deal with as many holidays as possible, and whilst there are many orange women in the cast of ‘Enders (courtesy of the local pay-and-tan), when it comes to marking the Battle of the Boyne (a holiday in Ireland), there may be a shortage of orange men since Frank Butcher left.

So, for all those afflicted and affected by the affectations of the ‘Enders cast, here’s a nice relaxing picture to send you all back to work…

The one in which you get to interfere with a terribly poorly-sounding swan

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Only the Queen and her immediate family can kill a swan. Until now. It may be the piece I’d most like to see sent to its own oblivion in room 101, but the Berlin Phil have done something rather clever on their website.

Go interfere with Saint-Saens’ The Swan…

http://philharmoniker.web-feedback.de