Back and forth

The clocks going forward today was a bit of a bitter sweet sensation for me. Around 9 last night someone brought to my attention that the clocks were going forward one hour. This caused me to then work out if that meant we got an extra hour in bed or if we lose it. After much confusion and debate I worked out that we lose an hour but in exchange it will get dark later. Hmm, I’d grown attached to that hour. We had become close over the winter period like we do every year. It was like having a summer camp girlfriend. Over a period of time you’d spend your life with each other but once summer came to an end you kind of say an awkward goodbye and forget about each other until the next summer. The extra hour in October was a clear indication to me that I should take things more slowly now. Hey, we get the extra hour in bed and the whole reason the clocks went back in the first place was to adapt to the winter months.

In fact within a week of the clocks going back my body became all cold and I couldn’t be bothered to do anything. I just wanted to sleep or perhaps hibernate if the opportunity arose (it never has). More recently however, I have been sleeping longer for some unknown reason. I mean I have been banking some good ten hour sessions but for no apparent reason other than my body was trying to hibernate. Or, as I concluded it was altering for the summer months. A bit like whenever I go on holiday abroad and live a few weeks in the sun. As soon as my hind touches Great British soil I’m bed stricken with a cold for a couple of days. It happens all the time. A lady from my old job told me a few years ago that it was because my body got used to the sun and when it came back to all the grey and wet it freaked out and shut down which resulted in a cold. It then used the time spent in bed to readjust itself to the demands that I required from it. I recall staring at the lady in an odd way and thinking, ‘you’re crazy’ but finding myself nodding in agreement at the same time. However, reflecting back I think she is right and it’s actually the same with me towards mid-to-late March, I suddenly feel knackered and solemn but this is because I’m pretty much rebuilding myself for the summer and I don’t want or need the 8 hours a night kip and am content just with a 4 or 5.

So when I woke this morning, I looked at my mobile phone and realised that it had moved the clock forward for me (it hadn’t, I changed it last night but at the time I’d forgotten) so I spent most of the morning biggin’ up the Nokia and all it’s gizmos to everyone (when I finally remembered that I did it last night I was too ashamed to admit it). But what was great about the change in time was the weather which isn’t related to the clocks changing. I am so glad that the first day of spring was a sunny one though. It may have been chilly and yes, I did shiver walking along the street. But it was bright and the sky was blue which kind of lifted my spirits and made me think, perhaps, foolishly that this summer will be a hot one. I don’t know how I can come to this assumption based on today being sunny, and I have now probably jinxed it because of this proclamation. Still at least today was great and it felt like this was the ‘real’ start of the year and the previous 3 months were nothing more than a prelude (with a tundra thrown in for fun). I can tolerate the loss of the extra hour until we are reunited again in October and the whole cycle happens again but I just thought today was a good day. Don’t know how long this optimism will last though, I just saw on the BBC website that we’ve got rain this week!

In other news, has anyone seen a programme called Being Human on BBC Three? I saw it for the first time last night and thought it was great. It’s got a pretty far-fetched concept and storyline but I kind of like that odd random style.

unSUSTainable

I’ve been meaning to write this entry ever since I walked past the shop to get my haircut a couple of weeks ago. That day as I was running late so I took a short cut through the food hall where on the left I saw a large sign with the words written, ‘Sust, closing down’.

Sust was the only shop in the vicinity specifically focussed on trading ethically sound products. I suppose it didn’t help that it used to be next to Sainsbury’s but I always thought it was a great idea and for a good cause. Yet when I stared at the sign I realised just how much of a rubbish supporter of ethically produced goods I was. When I went into Sust I used to walk around thinking, ‘yep, I’ll buy that Mexican silver chain next week.’ Or, ‘maybe next month I’ll buy that hand crafted wooden dolphin.’ Instead I used to compromise (and to offset my guilt perhaps) on a chocolate linseed bar or some odourless environmentally friendly soap. Basically nothing over £20 it seemed. Although in my defence I did buy some bongos from there for £25 and I once even bought some CFC free deodorant which was spray-on. The bongos are great and I’ve still got them although hardly played they look good on my shelf. The spray-on deodorant was a bit of disaster though and the protection only lasted for a couple of hours.

So with customers like me there wasn’t much hope for the shop. But that got me thinking whilst I was getting my hair chopped that Sust didn’t really do that much wrong. I mean it was very competitively priced and although it hadn’t the marketing budget of Tescos it was still well known around these parts. Where it suffered was from my laziness. Although fairtrade coffee was sold there aplenty I wouldn’t go out of my way there just to buy coffee and soap. I don’t like going to town because I spend money and it is pretty boring so I just want to go to one place and get in and out before subliminal advertising overpowers my conscious mind and I find myself buying those little French yogurts for no apparent reason other than it’s buy 6 get the 7th free, or whatever. Never do I think that I need a chain or a ring and although they had wonderful clothing there most of it was a bit too extreme for me. So perhaps that’s one of the reasons why Sust folded because lazy fools like me didn’t bother making the effort to always buy their coffee and other small essentials there. Or when I had to buy a new belt because my old one snapped (perhaps that is for another entry) why didn’t I think of going to Sust and look at their choice. Instead I went to FatFace and bought one that was way too expensive but I bought it because I wanted to be sure this one wouldn’t snap in public.

Still I wish I had bought so much more. Everything there was practically handcrafted and helped those in the third world. But as my sideburns were being trimmed I concluded (or made myself feel better) that even if I shopped there everyday I probably couldn’t have helped it from going bust. I do wish I’d gotten that poncho though. That thing was badass!

P.S. I forgot to mention that after my haircut I went into Sust and they gave me a list of websites that they used to source their products so I’ve put them up here.

www.namaste-uk.com
www.nomadsclothing.co.uk
www.onevillage.com
www.patchoulifair.co.uk
www.sharedearth.co.uk
www.siestacrafts.co.uk
www.sunlover-uk.com
www.montezumas.co.uk

Clingy

There are many things I am not good at in this world. A lot of them I have come to terms with and have tried to improve these weaknesses over time. Others I have cut loose and given up, conceding that I will never be good it them. And then there’s the final category, the one where I know I’m rubbish but somehow don’t ever think about it. A rather big build up you may think and I’m afraid you are now going to be as disappointed like we all were when The Phantom Menace came out in the cinema. You see, I’m rubbish at handling cling-film.

I abhor the thing and yet I accept that it is part of daily life. I make my lunch in the mornings after realising that I save x amount of pounds a week by not eating canteen food. I did the math and it’s worth a couple of hundred pounds a year. I realised that I actually like making sandwiches with cold toast (perhaps I’m a freak). So every morning I make my toast butter the each slice and slap in either cheese, ham or if I’m feeling sophisticated, humus. Anyhow, I’ve mastered this process just as well and can do it while day dreaming about what it would be like to live in a country where it was sunny each morning. However, things come to a sharp halt and I need all my senses to tackle the next task. I often knock back a gulp of black coffee to galvanise myself before opening the cupboard. There in a rectangular box is the cling-film I use to wrap up my sandwiches. Every morning I pick up the box open the flap to see the serrated metal edge on the inside. I see this as some sort of intimidation tactic so bare my own teeth at the box to show I am not scared. I grab the sticky translucent sheet and begin to pull. I tug hard and the sheet unravels from the roll but always being careful not let my fingers get entwined at the end. For I have fallen at this stage many time before where I it all gets stuck and I try to pull my hand away but only succeed in unravelling more cling-film which eventually gets rolled back but all baggy and practically unusable.

Still this isn’t the most difficult bit. The hard part comes when I try to cut the sheet using the serrated edge. Every time I pull back and with force run the sheet against the edge only one end of the sheet tears off and nothing more. Once that happens going back is pointless because as you pull it back you tear the sheet unevenly and it becomes loose and clings on to itself which is a nightmare to unpick. No shit, this event happens every morning and each day I think I need to go on some cling-film handling course. Eventually what is left is a ball of cling-film which I try to wrap my sandwiches with. I usually manage to cover the top half but some of the unpicking is just too difficult to do so I tear that piece off and take another gulp of my coffee. I stare at the ball of cling-film terrorising my sandwiches and virtually every other day I give up and pull it away and throw it in the bin. I then turn to cling-films arch but more expensive enemy, tin foil. The cutting of the required amount of foil is easy as is the wrapping of my sandwiches but there is still something in ‘the morning’ me that wants to master the art of cling-film handling.

Tuning To The Right Path

Seems strange when you write about things you think are funny but secretly you keep in your head until for some unknown reason you throw it in the public domain.

For me, listening to tunes is the lifeblood of my living day. I need to listen to music. I’d even go so far as to say that twiddling the knobs to find the local radio station was acceptable if that was the only way to listen to music. My local radio station has a play list created in the mid-nineties and hasn’t for whatever reason ever changed. I sometimes spare a thought and create a scene in my head that a criminal breaks in every weekday and thrusts a shotgun at the DJ’s head forcing him to play, Texas, Natalie Imbruglia and Toni Braxton on constant repeat, forever.

I don’t know why but music to me is sacred (is it probably is to you), I guess I view it as ‘me’. Some way to describe me at that moment or how I view life, I do feel awfully melodramatic writing this shit, but at the same time I think I should write what I feel. You see I box songs in little metaphorical cubes to remind me of things. I’ve got hundreds of them, all personal to me. Sometimes though I talk about them because I feel like I should and then add what they mean to me. The recipient usually looks at me, pulls the stink face, and says ‘shut up’. Still I don’t give a fuck. That’s how I treat and handle music.

This evening I spoke about two boxes of music that I had stored in my mind. The first box was only created last summer. The tune was Coldplay’s “Life if Technicolour II”. I first heard shards of it on the album where they seemed to have cut up the guitar bit. That was one of my favourite parts of the whole LP. That guitar intro used to mess me up in July, listening to it as I walked along the canal. Inside I found it hard to contain all this bubbling of emotion that featured the luminaries of hope, fear, success and motivation. That’s what it did to me and that’s what I boxed and stored in my mind to eventually be filed in the hard drive of my subconscious.

Coldbrain whom I met for a few beers this evening probably didn’t realise that when “Life in Technicolur II” appeared on the ropey television it was one of the tunes that had a box. It’s strange but listening to that tune suddenly made me want to do something purposeful. I really like the song, I think it’s well written and the guitar rift makes me think, ‘shit that’s good’. What I did tell Coldbrain was that Underworld’s, Born Slippy was the tune that would boom around me if I ever had a million pounds, told my work , ‘see you later’ and walked out the building with a black holdall wrapped around my back wearing skin-tight jeans and a dodgy crew cut. That’s the song that reminds me of escape. From when I first saw it and watched Renton swagger down the street without a care in the world even though he should have been riddled with guilt, I thought that song was the bollocks. I wanted to feel what Renton must have been feeling. A bag full of money, no obligations to tie him to anywhere and a badass pair of plimpsoles, what else in the world do you need?

Writing about my boxes of music makes me feel that they will now not come true. It’s based on nothing whatsoever but still I feel that now I’ve written this, the tune will not play should I rob a bank, double cross everyone and walk away with the loot. So I deal with it by thinking I’m an utter mentalist and that there’s plenty of other songs that evoke many a feeling. So what if I never find myself bowling down the streets of London with a bag full of cash money I still picture myself in better situations, like when winning the lottery and cruising around the world to the beat of the Bar Kays ‘To Hot To Stop’.

Netbook

I got a new netbook the other day and am quite chuffed with it. I first encountered one last August when I was contemplating getting a new laptop. After searching the interweb, well just running a few Google searches, I read an article about a ‘netbook’. What on earth is this? I thought, so clicked on the link. The article written by some dude high on technology explained how a new strand of mobile device was entering the scene. Looking like a laptop but half the size with a quarter of processing power and no CD ROM they were ideal for surfing and word processing. My grubby little fingers rubbed themselves together with glee at this thought. How a jealous look would appear on my face at seeing all those people carrying around their slick “13 inch Sony Vaios. It wasn’t really the design that brought the green-eyed monster to come and sit with me. Nope, it was the size. They could fit easily in a bag to carry around. Whereas when I jammed my laptop in my rucksack it kind of resembled something the Ghostbusters used to wear when on duty.

When I saw the photos of the first generation netbooks, they looked like little toys. Like ‘my first computer’. Still, the fact they had only a “10 size screen made me blind to the fact that they only came in three coloured tops, lime green, pink and baby blue with a white keyboard. So keen was I to part £160 for one so I could type and surf the web easily on the move I didn’t even bother buying one online. Nope, I betrayed my oath never to pay over-the-odds for computer goods and went to PC World.

These little netbooks were huddled in the corner looking more suitable for a 7 year old than for me. Still I didn’t care, the convenience outweighed the fact it would look like I carried around a Speak ‘n Spell. I chose a lime green one but the guy with the creased shirt told me they only had baby blue left. The transaction was swift and quick. Back at home I fired up the little machine only to remember that it didn’t run on Windows and instead used Linux. This took some time getting used to but after a while I really liked the little netbook. It would go around with me everywhere I went and if I stopped for a drink or was waiting for someone I would try and hook up on wireless. Even if there was no free wireless I would still spend the time thinking of passwords on the off chance I may get in. I never did.

As the months rolled by I realised that my old laptop had become obsolete. It had been acting up but since I bought the little machine I hardly used it. This fact made me realise that my computer habits consisted of surfing and word processing and that’s it. No computer games, or online gaming or Photoshoping (if that is actually a word). I considered selling the laptop so done another Google search to find out how much they were selling new. That was when I saw the new generation netbooks. If only I hadn’t seen it and wasn’t wooed by adverts so easily. The new netbooks didn’t look like a child’s toy but sleek contemporary pieces metal to accompany Ikea furniture. They had hard drives larger than my laptop and the keyboard was almost full size. Still this came at a price and one of 250 big ones. Not the sort of money I had to spend, certainly not on lavish and hardly essential things like that. Still I wanted it. I looked at my old laptop and thought I would not get much money for this. But my current little netbook was still in pristine condition with a box and manual still colleting dust on my wardrobe. That was it. I slapped it on ebay and one week later I was posting it off to somewhere in England having got £141 for it. This meant only £109 to contribute for a new netbook which wasn’t too bad (it was but I convinced myself it was a bargain) and now I’m using it to write this entry.

The Tea ling King

“It’s like egg shaped and you unscrew it so you can put the junk in there.” The spotty faced sales assistant looked at me with an expression of confusion. His largest spot on his forehead caught my eye but so wrapped up in trying to be articulate in my description I closed my eyes to think of a better way to tell him what I was looking for than stare at his pulsating pimple. I paused and thought the best way to help him understand what I was looking for was to act more enthusiastically in my description. So I took a step forward and started miming an egg shape while shouting “OK, it’s metal with little holes in and is shaped like an egg and tea goes in it.” At this point I thrust this imaginary egg shape towards the guy who looks at me in horror. And replies rather whimpishly that he hasn’t got a clue what I am talking about. The problem I find myself with is that I do not actually know the proper name of the product I wish to buy other than calling it a tea egg. I’m too embarrassed to ask for a tea egg but equally my powers of description leave adolescent part-timers a quivering wreck. So why all this hassle?

Well, recently I have been consuming copious amounts of tea. First it started off with the traditional Tetley tea bag with a splash of milk and no sugar. Then I moved on to Twinnings peppermint tea for a while which was superb for settling my stomach but nothing much else. It looked like pond water and didn’t really do anything to me. So I ditched the peppermint tea for only hangovers situation. It is here that the peppermint tea comes into its element, it’s great in sorting out that dodgy stomach after a few too many drinks the previous night. Still on a Wednesday morning, I found myself taking a sip and staring idly at the cup waiting for some aliment to be cured. It never happened. And so, I moved back to Tetley teabags, this time doing the sick but satisfying thing of leaving the tea bag in my cup instead of taking it out. This made the tea extra strong and I enjoyed the added kick but at the same time the taste kind of mellowed me out too.

Green tea came into the scene when I was around someone’s house and we ate a meal and afterwards they asked if I wanted some green tea. I nodded and after a few minutes I found myself slurping this green tea which really helped the meal go down. The next day I went to the shop and picked me up a packet and so this became my drink of choice after something to eat. However, this recent crash course in tea still had another twist. A friend of mine was going to China so I asked if they could pick me up some Chinese tea. They agreed and I thought nothing more of it until 3 weeks later she slid a large cardboard container across the table and told me this was some authentic green tea. When I lifted the lid of the cardboard container I saw dark green shredded leaves and immediately knew I needed to get a tea strainer.

Back at home I looked up tea strainers on the internet (because I’m all about the rock ‘n roll) and found that among all those strainers there was the ‘tea egg’. A small stainless steel egg shaped ball which could hold a small amount of tea leaves. The tea strainer did make me feel uncomfortable, it all seemed rather prim and proper with also excess wastage involved. By the time I moved removed the tea leaves from the strainer my tea would be cold. This tea egg phenomenon seemed appealing and the fact it was sold out on the website made me want it even more.

And so I found myself in John Lewis after trying a multiple of shops terrorising this spotty part timer trying to explain to him about the tea egg. After thrusting my egg shape before him he suddenly decided that backup was required and called the assistance of his supervisor. A small grey haired lady ambled up to me and asked what I was looking for. Once again I found myself closing my eyes for a moment and thinking carefully what words I should use. This time going for a more calm approach I described the egg and how it is unscrewed at the middle so that the tea leaves can go in. “Ah, you mean one of those tea egg things?” She replied with a friendly smile on her face. “Yes! Yes, that’s the one.” I bellowed my eyes bulging at her response. “Yeah, we don’t sell those.”

I got a tea strainer in the end and although the Chinese tea is gorgeous I still feel a geek fumbling about with that strainer spilling leaves all over the floor.

In other news, major props has to go out to Sazz for introducing me to this which subsequently made me discover this. My days seem a little bit funnier when I hear these songs. Both tunes are pure genius.

Hey Ma, if you could see me now, arms spread wide on the starboard bow