Car crash season

It’s well under way and so far going with form. Clocks go back, end of half term and a spell of wet weather – fixture list in chaos.
However, it’s early days and and the real carnage starts in the stressful two-week run-up to Christmas. Watch out for spectacular fatals where Audis, BMWs and Mercs prefer to merge with the fast lane at motorway junctions, foreign lorries pull out blind into the middle lane and wild spins are caused by madmen tapping each other in the 120mph chase.

Even money on the big players – M25 clockwise through the roadworks on the western section, M4 flyover, Hanger Lane gyratory, M3 both ways, M6 northbound between Birmingham and Manchester, A34 where it meets the M40 at J9 and the M1 both ways south of Watford. If you’re thinking of a punt though, there’s favourable odds at the cutting at J6 M40 in the mornings when the sun shines directly into the eyes of eastbound traffic or the Woolwich ferry which sounds like it’s grinding to a halt. Or you could have a flutter on the length of the queues. More than 25 miles on the M25 clockwise southern section last night.

… at least I got home in time for the Armstrong and Miller show. Best comedy I’ve seen since Bill Bailey.

Managed to squeeze in a very enjoyable walk with Mort. Rather predictably, we got lost-ish. We misjudged how quickly it gets dark and ended up blundering round a farmyard in the pitch black, detected only by silently bemused cattle. All good fun, and if Mort hadn’t found his head torch I would still be going round in circles in a ploughed field somewhere in west Oxfordshire.

The crap Bandidos

Had to laugh at the biker war that broke out in Canada. Apparently the Canadian branch of the Bandidos has been essentially wiped out after an internal power struggle left eight wasted, denuding the group to an unviable rump. They didn’t have enough money to buy the gasoline to burn the bodies. Then I read that most of them were living at home with their mums. And, er, half of them didn’t have motorbikes. Don’t suppose the Hell’s Angels are quaking in their colours.

Just for the record, the victims were:

John ‘Boxer’ Muscedere, 48
Luis ‘Porkchop’ Raposo, 41
George ‘Pony’ Jessome, 52
George ‘Crash’ Kriarakis, 28
Frank ‘Bam Bam’ Salerno, 43
Paul ‘Big Paulie’ Sinopoli, 30
Jamie ‘Goldberg’ Flanz, 37
Michael ‘Little Mikey’ Trotta, 31

Caught a bit of Bill Bailey earlier. Mike and myself once saw him perform in a pub. Brilliant.

He described footballers thus: “Borderline rapists whose job it is to shepherd a leather pouch into an outdoor cupboard.”

And he thought the Belarus flag was two bears fighting over a pineapple.

Have a good weekend.

Apps bore

Been and gone and done it. Invested in an iPod touch and now waste more of my precious leisure time looking at applications I never knew I needed. Who spends 59p online to download a host of annoying noises? (I kid you not – there really is an application for that. They should just live in my street for a bit and then they can enjoy the sound of scaffolders putting up posts for two hours on a Sunday morning. Cheers for that). I can, however, see the sense of Chippy Finder (as in fish, not carpenters).

Amateur hour

Thought the Today programme unleashed a bit of a cheap shot at Beth Tweddle this morning. She fell off the uneven bars and can now only compete for a World Championship medal in the floor exercises. Gary Richardson said that was “appropriate”. Ha-ha. Ripper.

She remains the best female gymnast we have ever produced by some distance, represented the country for more than a decade and came within a whisker of a podium finish in Beijing despite taking on the Chinese, Russians and Americans. The BBC sports reporter admitted live to the nation that he didn’t know what the uneven bars were – to more guffaws from the presenters.

I notice Ms Tweddle was stoic in her disappointment. “I’ve just got to go back and work harder for next season,” she said.

Gymnastics is not really my bag but I can recognise a dedicated professional when I hear one.

OOooOooo er

It kinda looks like fun but they are either fearless or have very low self-esteem. Check it out.

Air 2 Air – Wing suit flying, BASE jumping and Skydiving footage from James Boole on Vimeo.

By the way Al – what’s the track that goes with this video? Like it – fits the mood.

Nice surprise

Bloody hell, we beat Bournemouth. Up to 18th.

This also made me smile.

Not much else to laugh about. Anyone wanna swap lives?

More nostalgia (sorry Mike)

Big thanks to Al and And for organising the reunion. What a night.

Our one remaining teacher was on great form. No wonder we liked him so much. He’s still got a lively, acerbic wit, and talking to him again I was reminded of the amazing range of voices he employed in his story-telling. He also came up with some incredible revelations – for example, our old headmaster had been an MI5 officer in WWII. Wow.

But the thing that really blew me away was the picture Andy produced. I was joking in an earlier post that 1970s Hereford was stuck in a time warp, and that snap perfectly illustrates it. Our first class was in a shack with a wood-burning stove in the middle of the room – guess it wouldn’t be allowed now. All of us kids look like we are trapped in 1944.

…so who wants to see that?

Those were the days

Anyone else remember singing Puff the magic dragon in the back of a beaten-up 1960s family saloon on the way to a week by the sea in Wales?

Call me naive but I was astonished that Renault thought deliberately crashing a Formula One car was a good way to win a race.

Take me back to the 20th Century, I much preferred it.

All the fun of the folk

Really enjoyed this year’s excursion and all the old favourites were in attendance, though you may be intrigued to learn that there are now two Gods. The new God was particularly blotto and the old God fell asleep – perhaps because he ended up in an unfamiliar pub. (For those outside the loop, the chap we affectionately know as the Almighty is a folkie who looks like a character from the Sistine Chapel).

Met a great banjo player. I learned more in three minutes of chatting to him than I have in three years of trying to play the wretched thing.

Looking forward to next weekend’s primary school reunion. Again, for those of you who don’t know Hereford, early 1970s schools were still coming to terms with the outbreak of the Second World War. The only things missing were air raid sirens and rationing. We played cricket on the green and read books that said: “God save the KING” on the flyleaf. At least he’s stayed local.

Stupid bloody Tuesday

John Lennon does a superb job of summing it up.

See any of the Beatles stuff? Every time I hear them I discover something anew. I was scrutinising George Harrison’s guitar playing on those ancient clips of the Ed Sullivan show. Blimey, he was good. Having worked with Sir Beatle, Matt has often sung the praises of McCartney’s bass playing (Listen to Rain and hear for yourself). Then not so long ago one of Matt’s musician friends reminded me how revolutionary even the early mania songs could be. Listen again to the start of She loves you (yeah, yeah, yeah), he said. He’s right, it opens with a thunderous mad drumming. Who had ever done that before?

…Michelle ma belle. These are words that go together well. Indeed they do. Genius.

I’ll wrap up and let the music do the talking.

Bromyard folkie this weekend. See y’all there.