We’re gonna party, a party tonight
As I sit here in my study the morning after, the sun is out, it’s 8am, Sunday 14th June 2009 , it’s already warm and a red kite (bird of prey with long wing span and distinctive calling sound) has just flown by my window.
And here is the News last night I went to a party hosted by Mr and Mrs New.
Last night I went to Ken & Gerry’s party in Sheffield a hundred miles north of here.
Ken is my oldest friend from Grammar School days in Willesden North West London. Funny we first met on the football games session when I was a central defender and he was a centre forward and we clashed, the teacher breaking us up. In the 6th year we became friends. Today, to me he looks no different to those days, just greying hair, but still has that infectious ear to ear grin. Yesteryear when we were Prefects in the 6th Form, we, with Bob Sweet and Clive Willy almost ran that school. All the lads were shoved out in the rain, but the pretty girls could stay in of course at break time. There was no discipline problems, any boy out of order just got looked at, and if necessary picked up by the shirt and tie and banged against the nearest wall. Instant justice.
Also there last night was Keith and Kevin, plus their wives, more Ken’s friends than mine, but again from school days, and we did go out every Saturday night for months to a country pub in Harefield, to consume 8 pints of beer. I actually asked last night why we did that and why the Cross Keys, the answer was apparently it was my idea in the 1st place, but I don’t subscribe to that hypophosis. Kathy was there again with her husband, she is friends with Kevin’s wife Chris, and she instantly recognised me from what must be 5 years ago, when she was outrageously flirting with me at a music venue in Camden, where Ken’s sons were performing.
The highlight last night were these guys:
The Soul Brothers dressed as the Blues Brothers, an 8 piece band, they really got the place rocking, I have not danced so much in a long time. In fact there have only been 2 ex girlfriends, Hazel (Irish) and Gina (Pilipino) who could out dance me stamina and style. But, last night I was on my Jack Jones, and most of the dancing to their rhythm was solo bopping. I did not stay overnight either like the rest of them, for the bbq today. So I drove back and got to my house, which is not a home, at 02.30 hrs.
Although this band were brilliant, I did feel flat, being on my own. Although Kathy wanted to dance with me and we did to the Mavericks record “Dance the Night Away” and a couple of slow records…….. when the husband is cramping your style, and everyone else was in couples, much as I wanted to dance the night away with Kathy I could not.
It was just like when my youngest son got married in Cambridge 3 years back, then it was even more poignant. Though on that occasion my new daughter in law’s sister danced the night away with me, but her husband was hovering too.
I also found it hard to bid farewell, again because I am like a spare piece of anatomy at a wedding, and keep a brave face. Highs and lows, and when we reminisced why is it me with the reputation? “Oh Allan on that scooter in the Mods and Rockers late 60’s he was mad, Allan was always a trouble maker”. Even Gerry said 42 years after the event, “you were a bad influence on Ken, I turned up at the Oldfield with my friends on a hen night and Ken was there with you dancing with the girls, and he should not have been there”………….oooopppps……….maybe that is why she has often given me the cold shoulder and I was not invited to their wedding. Kevin was Ken’s best man and also mine. I have never been best man, well in some people’s eyes, not mine.
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Life as we know it..........the computer age
LIFE BEFORE THE INTERNET ----------------------------------
Memory was something you lost with age. An application was for employment. A program was a tv show. A curser used profanity.
A keyboard was a piano! A web was a spider's home. A virus was the flu! A CD was a bank account.
A hard drive was a long trip on the road. A mouse was a rodent that ate cheese. A mouse mat was where a mouse lived and wiped his feet. And if you had a 3 1/2 inch floppy ...you just hoped nobody found out!
Fast food was fish and chips, computers occupied a building, phones were used to talk on, petrol was 6/8d a gallon, a pint of beer was 1/10d. the internet linked nuclear missile silos…….. those were the days my friend we thought they'd never end xxx
Memory was something you lost with age. An application was for employment. A program was a tv show. A curser used profanity.
A keyboard was a piano! A web was a spider's home. A virus was the flu! A CD was a bank account.
A hard drive was a long trip on the road. A mouse was a rodent that ate cheese. A mouse mat was where a mouse lived and wiped his feet. And if you had a 3 1/2 inch floppy ...you just hoped nobody found out!
Fast food was fish and chips, computers occupied a building, phones were used to talk on, petrol was 6/8d a gallon, a pint of beer was 1/10d. the internet linked nuclear missile silos…….. those were the days my friend we thought they'd never end xxx
Monday, 8 June 2009
Dear Mr Postman look and see, if there's, a leter a letter for me
Life as We Know it, a job opportunity from Heaven
I came home from a job interview in Oxford, to find a letter from the postman, for another interview, and I had to read it 3 times, because I swear I never applied for this job!!!
Now the job in Oxford that I was qualified for, even though they wanted an unqualified officer, and it was a job, the duties of which I had done time and time again…..well I did not get that job. So rather than spiffing, more like spitting .
At first I thought I could not possibly go for this 2nd interview in 2 weeks……..wooooooooo. As I said I had no recollection of applying, never heard of the company and the interview was in Her Majesty’s Pleasure yes a local prison (just visiting!!). Then I thought well this might be a job from the hand of god, like Maradonna’s hand ball goal in the World Cup against Peter Shilton, except my postman was the divine messenger.
I even asked for the person specification and the job advert, pretending I could not find it on their web site, when I emailed them my interview attendance confirmation. Still I cant remember applying, it’s like my name and address has been jumbled up with someone else’s.
Anyway the job is about rehabilitation of offenders. Hey I can’t get a job, so the job to go for is to try to get offenders not to re offend and get them a job. Very worthy actually. Now I have convinced myself to go for it, even though I don’t have an Information Advice & Guidance qualification, but I have got life’s years of experience and common sense. We will see.
However, though I can’t remember the cause for this chapter it did cause the thought process about how a lot of criminals are very clever, if only they devoted their brains to moral and legal practices. There are many I have come across, importing fake mobile phones, creating fake artwork, logistics , distribution, manufacture of fake designer clothing, overseas business trips, contacts. They were improper entrepreneurs.
For instance in the good old late 70’s when I was in Westminster, I was chasing a gang for 6 months. In that scenario you do try to get inside their minds in order to outwit them and therefore catch them. Their modus operandi was to go North twice a week to car auctions, buy a number of cheap unroadworthy second hand cars. Then they would give them a shampoo and set and sell them through newspaper advertisements as private individuals from varying addresses. They did not pay for the advertising and it seemed they were always on the move , week by week. New phone numbers, new addresses and the Evening Standard married up advertisements for flats to let with the cars to sell. The gang also had links with an estate agent , so the flat would be given the once over as well as the cars for sale outside in the street. None of the advertising was paid for. Also the gang leader used 10 different names and 10 different bank accounts.
Now, really, I quietly admired this guy. How on earth did he remember who he was in certain situations and with certain people, and what happened if the permutation changed and he was faced with a group who knew him by different names, the mind boggles. But, his mind did not, and for 6 months I was chasing shadows. Soon as I found out where he was, he and the gang had just exited stage left.
The mistake he made, and they all make mistakes, is he started using stolen MOT’s for the dangerous unroadworthy cars. One young couple with a child actually drove home after buying the car. As they rounded the North Circular Road a front wheel came off as they were driving, no exaggeration. So he had to use stolen MOTs, no expense was spared in selling the “excellent condition” jalopies.
Now I got Notting Hill CID interested and we hit a few past addresses. We found a rubber stamp that led us to a lock up garage workshop in Lots Road Chelsea, early in a dawn raid. This Detective Sergeant and I scaled the blue metal chained gates, and jumped over, and in true Tom & Jerry cartoon style, tried in vain to tread in mid air back up again as 2 Dobermans crept up below our airborne feet with their snarling jaws open. Ooooppps, clambering back up, the radio did not work in the Q car, so our intrepid plain clothes police officers had to wait at the end of the road to flag down a passing police car. No mobile phones in those days. Then Crocodile Dundee’s version of the Metropolitan Dog Handling Team turned up grinning with their lassoes and, guess what, the dog problem was no more.
Surprise surprise when the workers turned up , not to get the car shampoo and buckets out, but instead to be handcuffed and carted off in the black maria. So after 6 months in 72 hours the gang was being apprehended. One address remained in Maida Vale. The Territorial Support Group Police ( official name for Neanderthal officers) covered the back alleyway. The front door, no one answered and the police could not force it open. So I said I would drop kick it, and in true kung fu tradition I sailed horizontal straight through the door which remained locked with my legs in the house and my head, arms and torso in the street,,,,,,,,,,,derrrr. I get pulled out of splintered remnants of a black Victorian Front Door. Then the door was kicked off the lock and there was a chain. I go next door for a hack saw, we saw through the chain. Now as you can imagine 7am and all this door carpentry took quite a while and was not exactly quiet. The door finally bangs open and down the stairs comes Paul Walsh the gang leader in his dressing gown, asking “who is it”, to which a burly Police Sergeant’s reply was, “who is it” who the f***g hell you think it is, your nicked”
I came home from a job interview in Oxford, to find a letter from the postman, for another interview, and I had to read it 3 times, because I swear I never applied for this job!!!
Now the job in Oxford that I was qualified for, even though they wanted an unqualified officer, and it was a job, the duties of which I had done time and time again…..well I did not get that job. So rather than spiffing, more like spitting .
At first I thought I could not possibly go for this 2nd interview in 2 weeks……..wooooooooo. As I said I had no recollection of applying, never heard of the company and the interview was in Her Majesty’s Pleasure yes a local prison (just visiting!!). Then I thought well this might be a job from the hand of god, like Maradonna’s hand ball goal in the World Cup against Peter Shilton, except my postman was the divine messenger.
I even asked for the person specification and the job advert, pretending I could not find it on their web site, when I emailed them my interview attendance confirmation. Still I cant remember applying, it’s like my name and address has been jumbled up with someone else’s.
Anyway the job is about rehabilitation of offenders. Hey I can’t get a job, so the job to go for is to try to get offenders not to re offend and get them a job. Very worthy actually. Now I have convinced myself to go for it, even though I don’t have an Information Advice & Guidance qualification, but I have got life’s years of experience and common sense. We will see.
However, though I can’t remember the cause for this chapter it did cause the thought process about how a lot of criminals are very clever, if only they devoted their brains to moral and legal practices. There are many I have come across, importing fake mobile phones, creating fake artwork, logistics , distribution, manufacture of fake designer clothing, overseas business trips, contacts. They were improper entrepreneurs.
For instance in the good old late 70’s when I was in Westminster, I was chasing a gang for 6 months. In that scenario you do try to get inside their minds in order to outwit them and therefore catch them. Their modus operandi was to go North twice a week to car auctions, buy a number of cheap unroadworthy second hand cars. Then they would give them a shampoo and set and sell them through newspaper advertisements as private individuals from varying addresses. They did not pay for the advertising and it seemed they were always on the move , week by week. New phone numbers, new addresses and the Evening Standard married up advertisements for flats to let with the cars to sell. The gang also had links with an estate agent , so the flat would be given the once over as well as the cars for sale outside in the street. None of the advertising was paid for. Also the gang leader used 10 different names and 10 different bank accounts.
Now, really, I quietly admired this guy. How on earth did he remember who he was in certain situations and with certain people, and what happened if the permutation changed and he was faced with a group who knew him by different names, the mind boggles. But, his mind did not, and for 6 months I was chasing shadows. Soon as I found out where he was, he and the gang had just exited stage left.
The mistake he made, and they all make mistakes, is he started using stolen MOT’s for the dangerous unroadworthy cars. One young couple with a child actually drove home after buying the car. As they rounded the North Circular Road a front wheel came off as they were driving, no exaggeration. So he had to use stolen MOTs, no expense was spared in selling the “excellent condition” jalopies.
Now I got Notting Hill CID interested and we hit a few past addresses. We found a rubber stamp that led us to a lock up garage workshop in Lots Road Chelsea, early in a dawn raid. This Detective Sergeant and I scaled the blue metal chained gates, and jumped over, and in true Tom & Jerry cartoon style, tried in vain to tread in mid air back up again as 2 Dobermans crept up below our airborne feet with their snarling jaws open. Ooooppps, clambering back up, the radio did not work in the Q car, so our intrepid plain clothes police officers had to wait at the end of the road to flag down a passing police car. No mobile phones in those days. Then Crocodile Dundee’s version of the Metropolitan Dog Handling Team turned up grinning with their lassoes and, guess what, the dog problem was no more.
Surprise surprise when the workers turned up , not to get the car shampoo and buckets out, but instead to be handcuffed and carted off in the black maria. So after 6 months in 72 hours the gang was being apprehended. One address remained in Maida Vale. The Territorial Support Group Police ( official name for Neanderthal officers) covered the back alleyway. The front door, no one answered and the police could not force it open. So I said I would drop kick it, and in true kung fu tradition I sailed horizontal straight through the door which remained locked with my legs in the house and my head, arms and torso in the street,,,,,,,,,,,derrrr. I get pulled out of splintered remnants of a black Victorian Front Door. Then the door was kicked off the lock and there was a chain. I go next door for a hack saw, we saw through the chain. Now as you can imagine 7am and all this door carpentry took quite a while and was not exactly quiet. The door finally bangs open and down the stairs comes Paul Walsh the gang leader in his dressing gown, asking “who is it”, to which a burly Police Sergeant’s reply was, “who is it” who the f***g hell you think it is, your nicked”
Thursday, 4 June 2009
Now for something not so completely different . Another look at life from the outside in. More Madness this time closer to home in the recent past.
Have you ever lived with someone that was not normal. I am no angel, but I live by logic and by common sense, well I try, but not everyone is the same.
I remember Bill Barr. He was an Inspector at Brent, and we went to his nice big house in Wembley one sunny day in the 70’s. All the windows were open as you would expect, and he was rushing down the driveway, then he shouted at his mother in law who was house sitting. The central heating was on , yes it was a sunny summer’s day. He told me that she put so much electricity on one day, the tar insulation on the underground main cables to the meter was melting.
Now I have known loopy Lou like that. How come a prospective live in partner is on her best behaviour, then resorts to selfish madness after a year, when you have moved in together. Open the windows in the winter with the heating on, close the windows and doors in the summer, and switch on electronic air fresheners, instead of allowing natural fresh air in through the windows. Energy conservation, what is that, a £400 utility bill to boot. Mind you recycling was not her pet subject either, food always came out of a packet and her way was to landfill all the rubbish, as well as waste energy resources and warm up the whole planet. What a wanker. BTW apart from watching murders on TV Ms Gordina Blue loves to watch cooking programmes...................WHY...............when it obviously comes in packets and tins !!!!!
Oh one more thing, the bathroom window which opened sideways, she would keep that open when the house was vacant, but at least she did not put a sign out saying “dear burglar, no one is in, use a ladder and help yourself.”
So your country does not need more lerts, no need to be alert, what we need is complete and utter imbeciles to populate our planet earth.
To me they are in the ascendancy.
Have you ever lived with someone that was not normal. I am no angel, but I live by logic and by common sense, well I try, but not everyone is the same.
I remember Bill Barr. He was an Inspector at Brent, and we went to his nice big house in Wembley one sunny day in the 70’s. All the windows were open as you would expect, and he was rushing down the driveway, then he shouted at his mother in law who was house sitting. The central heating was on , yes it was a sunny summer’s day. He told me that she put so much electricity on one day, the tar insulation on the underground main cables to the meter was melting.
Now I have known loopy Lou like that. How come a prospective live in partner is on her best behaviour, then resorts to selfish madness after a year, when you have moved in together. Open the windows in the winter with the heating on, close the windows and doors in the summer, and switch on electronic air fresheners, instead of allowing natural fresh air in through the windows. Energy conservation, what is that, a £400 utility bill to boot. Mind you recycling was not her pet subject either, food always came out of a packet and her way was to landfill all the rubbish, as well as waste energy resources and warm up the whole planet. What a wanker. BTW apart from watching murders on TV Ms Gordina Blue loves to watch cooking programmes...................WHY...............when it obviously comes in packets and tins !!!!!
Oh one more thing, the bathroom window which opened sideways, she would keep that open when the house was vacant, but at least she did not put a sign out saying “dear burglar, no one is in, use a ladder and help yourself.”
So your country does not need more lerts, no need to be alert, what we need is complete and utter imbeciles to populate our planet earth.
To me they are in the ascendancy.
how to not park and ride
I went for an interview yesterday with Oxfordshire County Council. The job is one I could do, have done with my eyes blind folded. But they had 7 to interview including 2 internal candidates, so normally these jobs go internally and they only advertise to keep the Unions happy. After all they know the internal candidate. The job was about doorstep crime and protecting the old infirmed and vulnerable against the cruel and unscrupulous. Like these roofers that knock on an old dear’s house and say she has a loose roof tile and to fix it will cost £50, then they charge her £1,000 or even more, and there was nothing wrong with the roof anyway. Sometimes these parasites actually take the petrified old dear down to the Post Office in their dirty van to cash the giro. They put further fear into them saying if the work is not done there and then and the loose tile falls on someone walking past, they would be liable.
So the job was to prevent and cure, to educate and enforce, to be on David’s side versus Goliath.
Now I left in plenty of time to drive 66 miles to Oxford, and of course when I get to the M40, the Police have closed it in both directions (multiple pile up – fatal collision). So I still have time, but time is ticking on, and my car is only ticking over, yes gridlock, for thousands of us. So I telephoned, the recruitment department, I was in Oxfordshire, I was 17 miles away. They unhelpfully said follow the diversion signs, when I asked them for an alternative route, derrrrrrrrr, if there were diversion signs would I be on the phone asking them. Wait for it, it gets better. I saw one Policeman on my road the A43, because all the action was on the closed motorway. So I drive out of the queue to get some vague direction signs, and then get back into the queue. By now I am late, still talking to the interviewing panel by mobile phone.
Oxford is park & ride, the town council hates the motorist. I only know this through life experience, there was no details given to me when I was asked to attend an interview. So I head for the park and ride signs, get on this bus, ask the driver do I need a ticket, “no”, he says. ”Ok it’s just step on”, “yes” , says another passenger. “Do you go to New Road” I ask the driver, “don’t know” is the answer, ok we have a live one here, or do we. “Do you go to County Hall”, “yes”, well this is progress, “can you tell me when we get there”, “if I remember”, more helpful information from this public service provider, don’t you just love public transport. “You want single or return”, he says, “why you said I don’t need a ticket”, “single or return”, “well my car is here its park and ride so why on earth would I need a single ticket”, “£2.20” he says, “you said I didn’t need a ticket”, by now the queue is like 10 miles, long , 10 people actually I exaggerate. I know it’s been 40 years since I was on a bus, but when my mum used to claim half fare for me and tell me to shrink in the seat, we had conductors and it was never this complicated.
Next, I am now finally sitting on the bus having given up talking to the moron behind the steering wheel. I then phoned the council again, telling them I am now on one of their buses heading (hopefully) in their direction, but asking them for a landmark so I would know when to get off, as the driver had been so helpful. Guess what, no one in the council could tell me if the bus I was on would get there. I was even given another telephone number to call, but it was the wrong number (of course).
BUT, help was at hand a fellow female passenger obviously took pity on the blind talking to the blind and leading nowhere fast. She basically said hold my hand you’re a stranger in Oxford (paradise), and I did, noting that I had just spent £7 on phone calls for no help whatsoever.
The interview was nice , relaxed as an interview could be. I talked a lot, but as any reader would read I have a lot to say sometimes. But then I was told the wrong bus stop for the return trip to wherever I had left the car, no maps, no “you are here” signs, the kind of obvious helpful information you may think for a well established park and ride system, well established meaning years not quality.
So when the bus turns up and the bus driver sees me ready to board of course he puts the accelerator down and like a Mr Bean sketch as I run in hot pursuit in my new suit (give a little whistle & flute) and briefcase he parks at the stop I should have been at, sees me in his mirrors and pulls away in true bus driver trained fashion.
Obviously I got a bus eventually, else I could not write the tale, but why are we surrounded by incompetency. Gissa job I could do that. Actually I could not, I could not be as incompetent as those that cost me £7 and £2.20.
So the job was to prevent and cure, to educate and enforce, to be on David’s side versus Goliath.
Now I left in plenty of time to drive 66 miles to Oxford, and of course when I get to the M40, the Police have closed it in both directions (multiple pile up – fatal collision). So I still have time, but time is ticking on, and my car is only ticking over, yes gridlock, for thousands of us. So I telephoned, the recruitment department, I was in Oxfordshire, I was 17 miles away. They unhelpfully said follow the diversion signs, when I asked them for an alternative route, derrrrrrrrr, if there were diversion signs would I be on the phone asking them. Wait for it, it gets better. I saw one Policeman on my road the A43, because all the action was on the closed motorway. So I drive out of the queue to get some vague direction signs, and then get back into the queue. By now I am late, still talking to the interviewing panel by mobile phone.
Oxford is park & ride, the town council hates the motorist. I only know this through life experience, there was no details given to me when I was asked to attend an interview. So I head for the park and ride signs, get on this bus, ask the driver do I need a ticket, “no”, he says. ”Ok it’s just step on”, “yes” , says another passenger. “Do you go to New Road” I ask the driver, “don’t know” is the answer, ok we have a live one here, or do we. “Do you go to County Hall”, “yes”, well this is progress, “can you tell me when we get there”, “if I remember”, more helpful information from this public service provider, don’t you just love public transport. “You want single or return”, he says, “why you said I don’t need a ticket”, “single or return”, “well my car is here its park and ride so why on earth would I need a single ticket”, “£2.20” he says, “you said I didn’t need a ticket”, by now the queue is like 10 miles, long , 10 people actually I exaggerate. I know it’s been 40 years since I was on a bus, but when my mum used to claim half fare for me and tell me to shrink in the seat, we had conductors and it was never this complicated.
Next, I am now finally sitting on the bus having given up talking to the moron behind the steering wheel. I then phoned the council again, telling them I am now on one of their buses heading (hopefully) in their direction, but asking them for a landmark so I would know when to get off, as the driver had been so helpful. Guess what, no one in the council could tell me if the bus I was on would get there. I was even given another telephone number to call, but it was the wrong number (of course).
BUT, help was at hand a fellow female passenger obviously took pity on the blind talking to the blind and leading nowhere fast. She basically said hold my hand you’re a stranger in Oxford (paradise), and I did, noting that I had just spent £7 on phone calls for no help whatsoever.
The interview was nice , relaxed as an interview could be. I talked a lot, but as any reader would read I have a lot to say sometimes. But then I was told the wrong bus stop for the return trip to wherever I had left the car, no maps, no “you are here” signs, the kind of obvious helpful information you may think for a well established park and ride system, well established meaning years not quality.
So when the bus turns up and the bus driver sees me ready to board of course he puts the accelerator down and like a Mr Bean sketch as I run in hot pursuit in my new suit (give a little whistle & flute) and briefcase he parks at the stop I should have been at, sees me in his mirrors and pulls away in true bus driver trained fashion.
Obviously I got a bus eventually, else I could not write the tale, but why are we surrounded by incompetency. Gissa job I could do that. Actually I could not, I could not be as incompetent as those that cost me £7 and £2.20.
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