What’s all this about?

I’m either too ill or too cross or too lazy to blog.

I’m going to find something to do.

How do you know when a friend is telling you porkies?

Someone I know fairly well has just told me what I suspect is a load of bollocks.
Now what do I do?

There are many reasons for telling lies but to lie to a friend is something else. You might lie to get yourself out of trouble or to make yourself look big.

When I was at school there was a boy, yes, YOU, Carter, who earned himself the unsavoury soubriquet of ‘Billy Liar’ because of the whoppers he told.

I’m very unhappy about this. You see, I don’t give a flying frying pan what people do or get up to or want to do as long as they don’t lie to me.

I’ve met habitual liars in my past and I found it always put me on the back foot. No matter what you say there is always another lie waiting in the wings, ready to jump out, and the end result is always the same.

They always fuck off with your money or there’s something missing from the house. I really don’t care what people DO as long as they are honest about it.

It’s like log-rolling. There’s no place to stand. Do what you want but if you lie to me you might just as well fuck off and die.

Size 38 waist trousis - oh, the shame.

If I hear any mutterings of, ‘Arbuckle’ there’ll be trouble.

Years ago, at a market in Saffron Walden, I bought a rucksacky-shoulderbag-day sack thing. It cost 5 or 6 quids. Blimey, it served me well, but like all good things it came to an end.

I went to Tesco and in a moment of madness I bought another rucksacky thing. It is made by Morgan and I have been reliably informed that what I’ve bought is a ‘girl’ bag. AND it’s rubbish.

I keep all my diabetical anti-hypo stuff in it and my camera because I like to have these things with me at all times.

I also have a couple of black puffa jackets from charity shops. The one I had on the other day was the one made of extra-skiddy material.

The other day I went to the shop and walked back to the boat. The boat was covered in ice and two of the boards were up at the back but I already knew that.

Can you see where this is going yet?

I climbed aboard the gunwhales and made my way to the aft. Craftily dodging the deep hole into the engine bay I grasped for the handrail and KERSPLOSH my bag was in the cut.

Luckily I was at the aft of the boat and quickly reached for the short boathook and had the bag back out before it sank. There then followed pandemonium as I got the camera out from its pocket and tried to rescue everything that was in there. By some miracle even the croissants didn’t get ensoggified and the only casualties were a pair of socks.

Using the mighty power of the stove I dried everything out. The camera worked fine.

Do you know, I hate few things more than my stupid Morgan girlbag.

The bloody buckle had come undone.

Aah, life on a boat - it’s so romantic.
No it’s not, it’s like living in a damp caravan (apart from the Charley which is well worth the money).

On boats there is a tradition of painting castles and roses. It goes way back when. Imagine gypsy caravan or fairground painting and you might have an idea of the tradition. I had a joke with my friend Aiden about bungalows and tulips instead of castles and roses. So I did this painting:

I made t-shirts for him and her but I couldn’t make my stupid compluter invert the image and it didn’t come out bright either. The t-shirts got made but I could have been happier seeing as it was the happiest painting I had done for aaaaages.

We went to a mooring party on the Saturday and stayed on the boat for a couple of days. It was bloody freezing. We’re down to our last bag of coal and a few logs so we have to keep some back in case some tyre-kickers come round to not buy the boat. Nice to have the stove going; you know.

Doc Holiday tried to trump me again with arthritis this time. Everything I’ve got, he’s got. Every time. Whatever I’ve got, he’s got it too (except I beat him onto the ropes with my super-duper cholesterol levels).

I was on the radio again and here’s the link. I hope it works:

http://www.radamfi.co.uk/Nick_A_1920_17_Dec_07.mp3

In terms of other thingies I have mendified the glass in the front of the boat stove by using a bit of coathanger and the Winchester tool-in-one that Merman gave me. I have remendified the central-heating here, at Thirst Hall, and my current weight is about half a ton.

So that’s my news.

How about you?

I saw, actually SAW, Led Zeppelin in about 1974.

This was at Earl’s Court and we had tickets that cost about 3.5 quids and we we sat right at the front.

The lights all went off.

Then ‘Tssh tssh tssh, Tssh tssh tssh, Tssh tssh tssh TSSH BANG! And the lights came on on. Robert Plant ran across the stage and jumped on top of the grand piano.

The crowd went MENTAL and everyone was on their feet, Jimmy Page was playing, as I recall, a sunburst Les Paul. They were starting with ‘Rock ‘n’ roll’.

It was SO loud that I had to put my fingers in my ears because it was like having your teeth drilled.

So I saw them in their heyday. 150 (min) quids to see the Zep is not funny even if it is all for charidee.

When I saw them they were gods.

Well, in praise of them so long as they live underneath where I do.

I can tell when the downstairsers (as opposed to ‘the creeper’ who lives upstairs or the ‘complete bastard’ who lives nextdoor) are in or out.

As I look out of the window, nosing, at all possible times I can tell that the downstairsers might well belong to a racial group that might, ahem, feel the cold. Yum yum, they are freezing and have to jack up that sweet, sweet heat that comes up through my floor.

Last winter I had the central heating on for (and I’m not joking - ask Trouty) half an hour. Yesterday the hypotherms must have been out so I had to use my tool and some wd40 (steady, Omally) to produce some heat that I actually had to PAY for. Good job I’m an auto-didact central heating engineer. What a shame that I am also a twat because I left the bloody thing on all night. Mmmmm, so toasty and warm.

I said a rude swear and used my tool (Omally, I warned you) to turn the whole bloody thing off. End result - no central heating (hooray) but no hot water (boo).

If only the hypotherms downstairs would stay in all the time I’d be really happy.

Didn’t stop me from getting a gas bill for 55 quids though. What the fuck do they think I’m trying to do? Fill up a Zeppelin?

Bastard Gas, bastard water, bastard electric, bastard, bastard, bastards…..

Rant, rant, rant, rant, rant etc……

It’s a good job that I’m so nosey.
At West Byfleet station I asked what has had started the fire that had closed the ticket office. “Did Geoff let the kettle boil over?” I asked.
“Did you know Geoff?” came the reply.
“He passed away - a heart attack - the funeral’s on Wednesday".

I said a prayer for Geoff on platform 1 and then went home and told Trouty.

He was the nicest, bestest, kindest, everythingest employee that South West trains ever had.

When there was a powercut I made him a mug of tea and took it over because his stupid electric one wouldn’t work. I had rows with him when the rubbish trains were late. We became friends. I told him that you could see his car on GoogleEarth. He was a friend.

And, now, I’ll never see him again.

Trouty and I got to know him and he was such a nice, nice man.

R.I.P., Geoff. I’ll really miss you.

He’s coming again tomorrow.
Saturday morning at c. 10:00.
As regards customer service ~I just don’t can haaaaaardly believe it,
As regards how their crappy machine doesn’t work I can’t hardly believe it.

As regards the Kodak unhelp line where you pay to listen to Elton John’s, ‘Song for Guy’ and the theme from Bergerac for a whole hour and still get NOWHERE. An HOUR. An hour talking to someone who won’t put you through to a supervisor, doesn’t even know who he works for (chain of command) I really don’t know.

Trevor, who is coming to see me in the morning lives in CAMBRIDGE. On a SATURDAY.

Maybe it’s because I’m so good at complaining. Maybe Trevor is just the most excellent bloke.

Update to follow….

You know what it’s like, you buy some crap from Dixons or Drearies or Dogplops and it doesn’t work.

Sigh.

What you are SUPPOSED to do is ‘return it to Messrs. Dreadful’ who are dreadful and then spend an hour and a half on to a call-centre unhelp line (at YOUR expense) - you bought it from them so you are SUPPOSED to go back to where it came from.

But not me. I didn’t spend 14 years in the salt mines of a call-centre for fuck all. I went straight for Kodak for what I had spent 150 quids on (so I could write rude letters to Notwork Rail’s barely literate legal department) was a Kodak AIO (All-In-One) scanner/copier/printer. I love Kodak. I had a small Kodak camera which I now realise I shagged by putting rechargeable batteries in it and then I bought a super-duper Kodak 6.1 camera with which I was so happy.

The reviews for the AIO were so good I thought I’d get one even though I couldn’t afford it.

It got delivered by MoronSmash in the traditional upsidedown position. I plugged it in following the one bit of paper instructions. It didn’t work and it bollocksed my external drive.

I phoned Kodak. I’m not going to name names here because that would be unfair but I had a Big Cheese round my house who agreed that it didn’t work, gave me a new one and loads of freebies.

I was happy.

For about five minutes because I couldn’t make this one work either.

Then I was either in hospital or couldn’t raise the energy but then I thought to myself ‘look, this is ridiculous, I’m multi-quids down, the fucker doesn’t work and I have things to do’.

The only people at Kodak I could get hold of (weekend or something) was an unhelp desk. I tried everything and was told, predictably, to buy a new compluter. A fair point EXCEPT everything had worked fine until I plugged in the AIO. Thanks to diazepam my brain didn’t actually snap but I resolved to sort the situation. To be fair, Kodak had offered me the price of getting a compluter hexpert round to mendify everything but I knew there would be an argument about the bill so I got back on the phone to Messrs. Kodak.

They’re based in Hemel Hempstead and I actually got a man to drive from Hemel to my house, again, to mendify and EXPLAIN what had gone wrong. Apparently when I fed the CD that came with it all the settings had been changed but I didn’t know. I’d unplugged everything and then stuffed a USB into a doo-dah port instead of the correct one. The nice man mendified things. AND he gave me freebies.

Shall I tell you what I’ve got so far?
A ream of Kodak paper.
60 sheets of A4 photographic paper.
200 sheets of snappy size photographic paper.
3 black ink cartridges.
3 colour ink cartridges.
1 new print head.

About a million quids worth, I reckon.

Now
I’ve got over 3000 photos on my C and E drives and I don’t want them lost so I was very grateful.

VERY grateful.

My photos are now where they are supposed to be so I can post ‘Nosebleed Man’:

Why so many of my paintings are so vicious I really don’t know. Seeing as I am banned from future art-therapy sessions perhaps we will never know.

It’s the way I’m feeling. More tyre-kickers are coming to see the boat tomorrow. I doubt they’ll buy her. More fool them. She has a thinnish hull but all Springer’s do. She’s made of British steel but modern crap is made out of Polish steel which is made of melted down washing machines and starts fizzing as soon as it gets in the water.

My latest painting is a joke about traditional ‘castles and roses’ paintwork. It’s called ‘Bungalows and tulips’, but the bloody paint takes so long to dry and I want to get it finished in a week so I can at least photograph it and make two t-shirts for presents.

If I can manage it then it will be a test for the printer.

I’ve got to get up really early tomorrow and see the tyre-kickers. Trouty’s on the boat as they are turning up early but that boat’s not going to anyone I disapprove of.

Oh no.

MY GREAT IDEA:
Arthritis is one of my fave conditions. I’ve got loads, believe me. But I’ve arthritis in my fingers, hands, lower spine and, guess what, my HIPS.

My great idea was to get a super-duper-ultra-cheapo (caveat: does not exist) ticket to Guildford every day and then walk home along the navigation. It’s about 12 miles (I took a photo of the sign but thanks to Kod** my photo cannot be shown here).

But guess what - thanks to towpath works at Guildford and some weird foot-and-mouthery going on between Newark and Papercourt the towpath will be shut between a further 3 or 4 months. How come is that? They shot all the cows ages ago (some of them on the golf course - hole in one, ha ha - when they swam the river).

So that’s that little plan bollocksed. Then I thought I might get the train to, say, Esher, and walk home from there except I hate roads and the thought of walking alongside busy roads makes me go AAAAAAAAAAGH!

I used to be able to do it, from the A30 right up to the A9, but never again. I can only walk by water now.

Guess what. I bought a printer/scanner/copier thing from a companany called K****k. Ever since I plugged the bastard in my entire system has been shagged.

Tomorrow, I’m promised, a SECOND man from this firm (I’m a right bastard on the phone) is going to come to my house and make everything all better. My bet is that he fancies the afternoon off work but I shall have some co-codamol (99p from tesco and much better than any other painkiller) on hand for when his brain melts just like my system did.

My paintings are coming on but, lucky for you, I can’t post them because of this wretched thing that I wasted so much money on.

I shall time how long he is here.

And that’s about it really.

Nighty night.