Some people might think that ‘obsessive REPULSIVE’ might be a bit more like it but I don’t care. I’m in my fifty-first year you know and you youngsters don’t know what it was like in the olden days. We never had them EMthree-pees, all we had was a stick of wood that they used to make liquorice out of before they started using dogs’ noses.

It is my solemn duty to become really interested in something for a few months and then forget all about it for a year or more. Times crossword, painting, wild flowers, walking, boating, smoking, two members of ‘Badfinger’, John Waterhouse, Haslemere…

Oh the list goes on and on.

Anyway, I’m glad that so many of you enjoyed Otway torturing the, ahem, Theremin so I dug out another example of his craft.

Otway and the Hamsters Geddin! It’s a disco version of his top 200 hit, ‘Bunsen Burner’. The words/lyrics/libretto are very funny.

Enjoy.

Guess what the birthday boy told me…

As he is technermological and I am not I might not be able to explain it very well.

What you have to to is get a tube of Pringles and eat them (sorry about that, I know they are disgusting) and then make use of the tube’s foil lining.

Then you make a small hole in the bottom of the tube and slip it over that aerial thing on your Wifi thing. Then you have to point it this way and that and it will super-increase something or another.

Many happies, dear Youngblood. How about if I boot some creds into your mobile? I’ll need to know which service provider you are on.

You might like to provide a more sophisticated version of the Pringle aerial than I can, just for the benefit of all my readers.

Love you,
H.

There is a so-called ‘musical instrument’ that I first saw being played by Jimmy Page about a hundred years ago. It has, like, an aerial on it and the closer you get… etc.

I wish I could remember what it’s called.

Here’s Otway torturing one:

What the hell are these things called? Something beginning with ‘S’?

Never mind; enjoy a bit of Otway.

Otherwise…

On Tuesday, when I have to go to Buffs, I spotted them. But they were only small. On the Thursday, Doc’s day, I went into the butcher’s and asked how much he would give me for them.

He hadn’t got a clue. He’d never heard of them.

I checked them today. Chicken of the woods. Getting larger.

I’ll be up there Thursday morning and if I don’t get four quids for the lot I’ll have a nice breakfast. And so shall my friends.

Yes, I did idle some of the day away watching freerunning from Trafalgar Square.
It was not very good.

Here’s a link.

I started watching Parkour on BoobToob because I was so jealous. The clips that I watch are mostly Eastern European and, God, how they fly. There are no catch-nets, just ability. To see someone climb an alley or jump across one, to see someone climb a block of flats…

Have a look on BoobToob for Parkour and you will be amazed.

How in the Hell can they do that?

It has always been a matter of pride for me that I have NEVER lived in a road visited by ice-cream vans.

Okay, so call me a snob (because I am one) but listen to this… My hippy uncle used to drive an ice-cream van and he got stuck on for sounding his chimes after 7:30 pm.

Anyway, the other day I was listening to the radio when all of a sudden, DING A LING DANG DONG DOODLE DOODLE DOO DING DING etc.

Oh for a ‘Black Widow’ catapult.

So now I have the world record noisiest rubbish builders doing up the moonlight-flit flat with a Kango Hammer and, oh, the shame, Mr Whippy up my road.

I must try harder to win the lottery.

As I sat upon the lav. and admired my blood be-splattered sheet I thought, ‘Aye aye’.

I could see a pennant there. I could cut that out with a pair of scissors.

The pennant is a long and rather flowing flag.

In the olden days them pirates used to fly a white and then, God help you, a red.

Imagine the scene. You have enticed a tasty bird back to your place but she yelps at the sight. ‘Calm down dear, it’s not a tammy-huff it was just my broken nosebleed’.

So the sheet is fucked but the pennant is not lost. I could cut it down into a triangle, paint some crap at the edges and stick it down. Lots of varnish.

Modern art is SO easy, all you have to do is SEE.

So I’ve lost a sheet but what I have gained is a work of art. Seeing into the future I know that ‘Blood Pennant’ will be worth a few bob. And I haven’t even done it yet.

Any offers?

When the posse rode into town and hitched up their horses to convert my slum dwelling they must have had a job-lot of doorbells.

Because they sound the same and the walls being made of cardboard it can be hard to tell which bell is going off.

BRIIIIIING!

Eh, wassat?

Must be Incapability Brown so I put some clothes on and opened the door. No one there. I went and got my specs and I could see someone waving from down the landing. I put my kicking boots on.

My exhaustive local enquiries revealed that no one knew what the fucking hell I was on about.

LESSON:

Change doorbell to ‘Tubular Bells’.
Don’t answer the fucking door (especially if it’s a bayleaf).
Take battery out of bell and only answer to a prescribed knock.

Ahh, that’s got that off my chest - how has your day been?

Thursday is Doc day so I have to go, Sometimes I walk but it had been weeing with rain so I decided to waste even more money in the direction of South West Snails.

I chatted with my friend at the ticket office and then made my weary way up to the platform. Usually I sit on the bench where I know the train doors will line up but today the bench was wet with rain and there was a lad sitting on it with his mountainbike all over the platform in front of him.

Having had the quickest of looks my nose started itching.

Ten minutes to waste so I walked to the end of the platform and back - that’s right, because I am so nosey.

Then I came back.

“Sorry, do you want me to move my bike?”

“No, no, I was just looking. You must have about 30 gears on there. Nice welding too.”

Killer question time.

“What make is it?”

“It’s a special.”

Special indeed because I can smell a stolen bicycle from about a mile away. It had been resprayed. Silver. Rather badly.

“How do you find them disc brakes?”

“I put some vegetable oil on them to stop them squeaking”

“Err, you put VEGETABLE OIL on them?”

“Yeah, but that was a while ago, They’re better now.”

To cut a long story short he was proud of his bicycle and showed me his ‘D’ lock. He had paid £10 for the bike.

Ten quids? For a bike worth three hundreds?

Had I still been in the job I would have nicked him but I’m not so I didn’t. I could see he was innocent bang through.

The train came and I went to see the doctor.

“Is it wet outside or is that you?”

“It’s me.”

So went my appointment with Doc Holiday. I was sweating like a sweaty pig that had just eaten a load of strong cheese.

He waved his pen at me and told me that it wasn’t a magic wand, although he wished it was, and said he didn’t know what to do with me.

At home I spoke to my landlord and he told me I would have to cough up 149.79 a month. Where the council think I’m going to find all that is a mystery. I tried to phone them up but they have Thursday afternoons off. I phoned the Samaritans and they suggested the C.A.B. - guess what, they were shut.

I used to be a Prince of the City; I could hoof doors in and sort anything out. It is most demeaning to consider the wreckage that my life has become. But with all this I learned objectivity and I can see myself, as in a mirror, and think to myself, ‘you’re fucked, matey’.

Ask for help and you don’t get it.

Guess what. I sat on the wooden bog-seat and it broke and the two sharp ends that were left stabbed me in both my arse cheeks.

Tra lah…

Thanks a bunch.

As is per effing usual I spent the night at St Peter’s hospital.

I had a rather nasty fall and, as I am a medical expert, I suspected that I had broken two ribs. When the ambulance persons know where you live and recognise you it might be a little message from him upstairs.

They whacked in a cannula and filled me up with saline drip and a vitamin B one. Then they kicked me out.

Are there any buses at half seven on a Sunday? Are they frying-pan.

So it cost me a tennner to get home but I still live and I will keep doing so until I am dead.

Actually I rather like my weird life. There have been moments of disappointment but, on the whole, I can’t complain. String it altogether and it ain’t so bad really.

May your God keep you safe.

H.

One advantage of being a southpaw is that it is not expected.

‘Sinister’, is what we are called. Well, I’m left-footed, left-eyed and, most importantly, left-handed.

I can spot a cack-hander from miles away. I can tell by the handwriting. I can just tell.

In a fight I can wave my right hand about because that’s where they think the blow will come from. All of a sudden the left comes out from behind my back. A blow so hard that it will take your nose off.

Don’t ever take on a Southpaw.

I was down at the garage, talking to my Singhalese chum.
In came two scummers.
One of had an AnnoyanceFone so I said “I don’t recognise that one”
“That’s because you’re old” came the smart reply.

Well, I might be old but I was at least a foot taller than either of them.

“Can you knock off 79p off these biscuits?”

“No”

A garage at coming up to closing time is really asking for it. I usually hang about when I can smell trouble. I am big and my knuckles are about number one size. It saves scummers the trouble of getting over the counter. My Singhalese friends know that I will always be there and that if there is any trouble then someone will get their lights punched out; and it won’t be me.