Sweet sixteen

There's nothing like the gentle sound of your sixteen year old son wretching violently into the toilet at half past one in the morning to make you realise that time has indeed marched on since you were changing nappies in the middle of the night. The bodily function may have changed, and the end that needs attention may be different, but the need to be a diligent parent has remained. I stayed in bed whilst The Cat and The Cat's Mother tended to his needs. Not that I was uncaring, it's just that I thought my role was best as amused father the following morning. I may yet be proved right.

We had been to the 18th birthday party of the daughter of a friend whose son is the boy's best friend. It took place in the sort of bar that appeals to eighteen year olds, but for the grown ups it was a moment to think, "I'm so glad I don't have to do this anymore" It was alternately red velour, black walls and shiny mirrors, in places dark in other places bright and sparkly. Lovely. The Cat's Mother and I thought we should stay for an hour, which was both polite and enough time to catch up with the other oldies we know. It wasn't long enough to embarrass the offspring with our presence. We left as The Boy downed a(nother) beer and The Cat finished her first gin and tonic. At some time nearing one in the morning they crashed through the front door. And forty five minutes later The Boy made his presence felt in the bathroom.

For no obvious reason, our alarm clock decided that it had missed out on the action and some time around four in the morning it decided to turn itself on. It took me several minutes to work out what the time was...have you ever looked at your watch sure in the knowledge it must be a quarter to seven when the hands are definitely telling you it is five past four. As was the digital clock nest to it. It's like drinking a cup of coffee when you think you've been handed a cup of tea.

The Poet Laureate and Auntie Gwen hauled me up for my comments about public sector pensions, so let me just say this...it's not that I think people don't deserve to have a living income when they retire. I do, absolutely. But there is a real problem...it has been apparent for a decade or two that the pensions offered simply cannot be afforded...they will bankrupt the country. The private sector is offering much worse pensions than it used to because of the affordability issue. There are two factors at play...one is the ageing population...people are living longer so pensions need tobe paid out for longer, and secondly, by far and a long way the greatest growth in employment over the last decade has been public sector employment. So there is/will be more pensions to be paid for a longer time. Whether it is the current rabble in No 10 or the descendents of Tony Blair, the decisions would ultimately have to be the same. It's harsh. I know that, but at the end of the day it is horribly inevitable that change has had to come. The promise is, though, that public sector pensions will remain the best available. Personally I think we should all move to Greece where (I'm told) if you're in the armed forces you can retire at 45 and then your children get to inherit your pension when you pop your clogs.

And quickly backj to my photo a day...this is Monday night's...a panorma of the quad at The Boy's school. I realise these don't work so well on the blog...the best thing to do is simply to right click and download it...you can then enlarge it in your normal photo viewer so you get the effect. Or don't...it's up to you!

Tormenting kids (2)

I'm trying to catch up...and I've only two days to do it.....uuuurgh! At the moment the rain is pouring down, the thunder and lightning are banging and flashing, and Noah is about ready to launch his Ark. In the real world, the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Gadaffi for butchering his own citizens, which seems strange as I thought that was part of the basic job description for a tyrant. Life can be so unfair.

I'm delighted to see that in honour of my birthday, some 750,000 public sector employees are taking the day off. I admire their chutzpah, especially because my own celebrations are going to be quite modest. I hear they they are going to be marching and waving banners. I'm deeply honoured, and as far as I know from studying 'This Day In History' this will be the most significant event ever on June 30th. Some, of course, are a little embarrassed by their support for me, so will be claiming that it's all about their protecting wildly extravagant pensions which will bankrupt us all before we know it. But I know the truth and am touched. I mention my birthday only in passing, and don't feel obliged to send me birthday greetings on Thursday. Between 9 and 12.

Back in history, on Sunday we went off to see Elton John. A five minute walk from the flat to the Sussex County Cricket ground. We awoke to a sea fog which enveloped the city, lifted, then enveloped it again, before burning off to allow us to sit in the scorching sun getting bronzed (red). Reg played a cracking set of two and a half hours seemingly enjoying himself immensely, as did The Cat's Mother and I. The offspring, however, realising this was not in fact a Bo Burnham gig didn't have much fun at all. It may have been that they were determined not to enjoy him, which was odd as they had duetted with 'Your Song' at UP's birthday bash in the early new year. At the end we followed the Yellow Brick Road home as we watched The Sun Go Down on me.

Tormenting kids (1)

I guess when one says, "I feel like I've been violated" and the other says "That's the worst thing that's ever happened to me", it would be wrong to judge it an all time success?

The Cat's Mother and I, on the other hand thoroughly enjoyed our feet being nibbled by garruda fish at a spa in Brighton at the weekend. It sure as hell tickles like crazy to start with, but then gets very relaxing.

If graffiti changed anything it would be illegal*

Well I always knew that I wouldn't be able to manage a post on Saturday...we were traveling down to and enjoying the Brighton sea air, and we were busy enough that I couldn't get near a computer. Sometimes it's good to be free of the tyranny of the key board.

Friday night we did a guided tour with some friends of East London's Street Art. This was different to my previous attempt which largely involved me going "Phwoar...look at that...it's brilliant", as it involved a paid for guide. Who knew his stuff. So we learnt many things including the difference between tagging, graffiti and street art. That there are interesting rivalries, and that Banksy may be the public's favourite street artist, but not necessarily the street art community's. We had about three hours looking up walls and down gutters to see the best of Britain's new talent, and even got to hold a mushroom made by Cristiaan Nagel. Most of this was in the rain, and we still came away transfixed and fascinated and completely enthused....

You can find out more from these two web sites here and here






*thanks Banksy...

Tramp in armour

I think you had to be there at the time, but hey, here goes...

I was sitting at my desk

At the other end of the office DogGirl (she owns the office dog, I'm not being rude)

I'd removed one shoe because I had rubbed a blister in the morning

DogGirl beckoned me to explain there was someone for me

I stood up and hobbled across the office to be greeted by a German tramp. A little way behind him stood a man who looked like The Cat's Mother's ex

I knew he was a tramp by his attire and the bloody cut on his chin and that skin tone which indicates a life lived outside. I knew he was German when he started to speak. It was very, very 'Ello 'ello, but thicker.

In his hand he had a package

He rattled on for a few minutes with me nodding and smiling. About what I had no idea. I couldn't understand more than one word in ten

Eventually I cut in and asked if the package was for me. It was. So I took it.

He continued and I caught that at one time he had been a designer for games software company UBI Soft, but they were taken over by the French and as he was German he got booted out. I said it was normally the other way round. He agreed and said he knew 'blitzkreig'.

I still didn't know what was going on.

My mobile on my desk rang and I rushed to pick it up. Hobble, hobble, hobble. But missed the call. So I returned to my German tramp. Hobble, hobble, hobble. Around the office everyone was looking puzzled.

The German continued until I asked if I should open the package. Yes he said, I hope it's not a bomb. I did. A smart yellow box with a couple of USB sticks in...a gift from a company called WinkBall who will video your event and then post it around various social media channels.

After some ushering from me, I managed to get him and his lurking friend out of the office. As I hobbled around, one boot on, one boot off.

Just then my mobile rang again...a friend from round the corner just checking that I was OK "Not bound and gaged?" as he'd just had a couple of odd characters in looking for me.

Uuuurgh...odd, really odd...

Thank heavens The Cat's Mother and I had two very nice glasses of Rioja at our new local tapas bar later.

40 Love

Yesterday The Cat's Mother was at Wimbledon watching the Venus Williams match. Meanwhile, I was grinding away in the office. There's no justice is there?

Fortunately, we have some of these in the fridge so I don't feel I missed out altogether

Errrr?

I seem to be really quite forgetful.

I forgot to post at all yesterday, even though I knew what I wanted to post.

And I also forgot to take a picture for today's post. So I may have to cheat. Cheating does seem to be the way ahead these days, so my conscience remains clear on that count. I'd like to comment on FIFA and the resignation of Jack Warner with his 'presumed innocence', but I've probably said enough in the past about corrupt football, footballers, and shall just hope that it all comes crumbling down quickly.

As for Sunday, it was, of course, Fathers Day, and something I used to ignore when I was the son. These days I'm the father, and the son is 'encouraged' to let me know what a great Dad I am. Admittedly it didn't start too well as I woke up and had to go and make the tea for The Cat's Mother and me. She has no shame. But she did then go and awaken the sleeping beauty, who bounded out of bed with the speed and grace of a lame elephant. Some ten minutes later, I was presented with punched eggs on toast, for which I was, and remain, very grateful. In case you're not familiar with punched eggs, they're like poached eggs but are kind of squashed and mis-shapen. They taste the same - delicious so I'm not complaining.

Later, downstairs, I was also presented with a lovely card and a special bottle of whisky. You have to read the label.



So I achieved on Fathers Day.

Naturally, we then had a lunch party. We'd ordered cheeses from La Cave a Fromage, and we served every one a sample of each of the five. No body told me, but evidently I was supposed to talk everyone through them....I made it up as I went along. And some of the rowdy crowd failed to stick to the strict order I tried to impose. Really people!

Lesbian fantasies

In the rather tawdry world where some despotic Arab leaders are given free reign to do whatever they like to keep their subjects under the jackboot (not mentioning Saudi Arabia or Bahrain) whilst others are condemned for their actions (not mentioning Syria or Yemen)and yet others are facing barrages of high explosive western taxpayers money to unseat them (not mentioning Libya), a rather curious phenomenon has arisen. The lesbian blogger. Obviously in the heat of the Arabian spring it matters whether you are pole dancing or carpet munching. And carpet munching seems to be the thing. Except it isn't, because fabled lesbian Syrian blogger Armina Arraf is in fact a fat middle-American male. And it now transpires that the LezGetReal lesbian blog which posted 'Armina's' blogs was edited by another 'lesbian' called Paula Brooks who it now turns out is another fat middle-American male. This could just be dismissed as bizarre, if it wasn't for the influential nature of these sorts of things at the moment. In a world where it is often social media that is the first and best purveyor of breaking news, there is a real need for bloggers to have a sense of responsibility, and not just play their fantasies out in public. Not that I can think what is the motivation for pretending to be a Syrian lesbian online...I've searched high and low on the interweb for videos of Syrian lesbians, but they seem pretty few and far between.

I think I lost a day...I was supposed to be putting a daily picture throughout June, but there's a day missing I think....dang.

Yesterday was one of those days I just don't enjoy. The sort of day we all have when we do nothing other than chores and 'stuff'. It's a needs must kind of time, but yucky none the less. There were two highlights. The first was buying The Boy his first suit. That's a big step I think into the real world. He got the suit for two reasons...one he's allowed to wear a suit when he moves up to the sixth form, and the second is its school prom time in a couple of weeks. We trawled round every shop in Bluewater, before settling on a very nice one from Reiss. He looks a dish as ever (no bias there).



To perk ourselves up after accomplishing our mission we dived into Yo Sushi! Where we piled the dishes high. Sushi is a great treat and it's always fun grabbing the dish you fancy when the conveyor belt comes round.

Winning Friday

Kellogsville posted a really interesting piece here which prompted me to enter the Nivea promotion...a picture that reflects closeness. I chose this picture



It's one of my favourites...and it won me a £100 prize! I can't tell you how chuffed I am...and looking forward to spending my winnings...thank you Kellogsville

Anyway, I got a little app for my phone which lets me take 360 degree pictures...here is the local park in Bermondsey. Unfortunately, it doesn't work too well on the blog...but on my computer it fills the screen, and it's as if you're standing in the middle looking around. The best way to look at it here is to double click on it and then mouse around on it...lots of fun! Or go and look at what other people have been doing at www.photaf.com

Photo fest

I take a lot of photos....I like to snap away, and just occasionally there's quite a good one amongst them. But like most people with a digital camera, these don't get printed off, and spend their days languishing on a forgotten corner of my hard drive. It's a shame really, but I suspect that if I took 'real' pictures, they too would spend their days gathering dusty in some drawer somewhere. So it was with a little bit of encouragement from the Cat's Mother that I have sorted out the 'best' ones. By best I don't just mean technically the best, but the ones that mean the most even if they're a little crooked or a little blurry. It was no small task...I think I have around 15,000 digital pictures, and over the course of some weeks I got that down to about 1500 or so. We've been lucky over the last couple of years because like toasters for wedding presents we've been given three digital picture frames. So the 1500 pictures have been loaded up and set on random and left to do their thing. the fantastic thing is that when you walk in the room, you just don't know what it is you're going to see...so it's quite exciting to anticipate what might be coming up. Here's the frame in situ...in amongst the Cat's Mother's framed group holiday prints. By some chance, the picture showing is Grandma in Cyprus with her father (my Grandfather Harold) on her (first) wedding day....obviously I wasn't there at the time, and this is from a selection of family pics she recently sent us.

I have other photo stuff...but that can wait for tomorrow!

Money, money

My photo safari is not going well. Yesterday I missed the opportunity to take a picture of a "fancy dress" shop. Fancy dress in the sense it is ideal if you're going off to a vicars and tarts party. Actually and in truth, if you're going to a tarts and tarts party. The shop has no shame in displaying its wares in its windows. It's certainly got plenty of frontage. And all very peculiar because it's in the middle of a very suburban, middle class, middle-aged area. Obviously those parties where you drop you keys in a pot are in full swing in leafy Epping Forest. I may yet go back just to provide you with the evidence. Obviously not for any other reason. I'm not sure The Cat's Mother would thank me for a lacy, see through black and red negligee in finest nylon, with matching suspender belt and stockings. Not to mention the patent leather high heels. mmm is that too much detail?

I was going to the office next door to the shop to discuss, yet again unreasonable and unjustifiable service charges from one of my flats. I'm not an accountant, so thank heavens The Cat's Mother is and had helped me go through the accounts to highlight some problem areas...gates that require £5000 of maintenance every year, an entryphone that cost £21,000, redecoration work that cost £11,000 with no estimate or any detail...and so on. Now I know why it was so important to get a grade 'A' in 'O' level maths...

And talking of money, here's my photo for the day



This is the sign for one of the most interesting and enjoyable events I've been to...we all went last year, and the show finally closed earlier this. Very hard to describe...the action takes place in a giant machine which the audience enters and then moves around as the play progresses. We all went, with me having booked, and not told the rest what we were going to. I like doing that...I love the idea of surprises...receiving as well as giving, so planning these little ventures can be as much fun as the event itself. The play was (almost incomprehensibly about the danger of letting bankers and financiers run free. Oh that's a theme I buy into. One day some politician will recognise that finance is a part of the the global infrastructure, so too important to be left to a bunch of greedy, self-obsessed egotists, and etc, etc, etc

Money by Shunt Part I from Susanne Dietz on Vimeo.

Come dine with me

I'm still trying to get a quote for the car insurance, and it's proving a remarkable experience. I went through Compare the Meerkat and then through Go Compare. Both came up with quotes by the same companies....even though the quotes varied widely with the same insurance company quoting £50 more through Go Compare than they did through the Meerkats...even though they were supplied with the same information within a couple of minutes of each other. Just shows what nonsense it all is.

At the same time my motorbike tax is up for renewal...I've tried to do it on line, but the DVLA have decided I don't have insurance, so I can't, even though I've got the certificate in front of me. I tried to ring them but they're 'exceptionally busy so can't take your call right now' according to the message before they hang up on you. Yes, right, drinking tea, stuffing their faces full of biscuits whilst waiting for their fat index-linked government pensions...and thinking they might go on strike because they're going to have to contribute more. Feckers...not surprisingly I've battled with them before and I'll shout four letter words at them again. It's the only place I now of that it's more expensive to buy on line than do it in a shop. Just how bad can government services be?

So back in Sarf Lunndunn, and round the corner from my office in hyper hip Bermondsey, here's a traditional sight - Manzes pie and mash shop. It's charming and quaint and full of history...in fact so full of history I think there should be a preservation order on the idea as well as the shop itself. Most days, there's a queue out the door and round the corner...it's as popular now as it's always been...probably more. The menu is not extensive. It's meat pie and mash eels (stewed or jellied) and liquor. I've no idea what the meat is (they say beef), nor the liquor. I tried a meat pie once and it wasn't quite to for me....I'd love to love it...I'd love to love eels and mash too, but I just don't. In fact the thought of eels repulses me. But as an institution, this is an absolute treasure....

Rainy Sunday

I'm building up to a little rant about things Middle east and things Banker...I wonder if I can keep a lid on it for another few days?

If all else fails, I think I may yet become a computer engineer. My computer has been making some peculiar noises over the past several months...to the extent that one clever computer engineer decided I needed a new hard drive. The noise didn't abate after the change of bits and bytes. Then last week, someone pointed out it might be just the fan. I opened up the casing and it was quite dusty in there, so I whipped out the Dyson and Hoovered it. I can't tell you how much fun it was making the fans spin with the suction action of the vac. And low and behold, as quiet as a quiet thing. I'm dead chuffed.

Yesterday we were going to go out on the River Lee...there's a place near Nazeing where you can hire little motor boats. the added benefit is that it's based at a pub. Unfortunately, instead of us going to the water, the water came to us, trapping us all indoors. All day. There were no black and white Stuart Granger movies to watch, nor cakes to consume around the fire in the hearth, so no wonder we were all a little tetchy by the time we went to bed.

Bucket loads of fun

We managed a walk round to the local pub yesterday with the aim of sitting in the sun and getting some fresh air. Unfortunately the sun and clouds had other ideas so we sat inside....it was good to be out. The Cat was out having a coffee with her Dad...I'd report the name given to him by The Boy, but I'd be in deep trouble. The Boy himself was revising, but given that history revision recently involved playing a WW2 game on his X Box, I'm not sure what it may have meant...possibly watching 'end of the world film' 2012 will count towards his geography grade? I guess all the skiing videos are something to do with physics...

...in the meantime we went shopping and bought this beer bucket in anticipation of all the BBQs we'll be having this summer. Naturally as the drought has been declared in parts of England, the rain has started the garden is in drowning. The Boy of course is most excited by the bucket, but judging by the fact that it stayed on his head for an hour, he may not have fully understood what its purpose is...