England is dirty

0°C, ice again.
weekend at home- too much marking to go away on adventures. This time of year uncovers what’s been hiding beneath lush grass all summer. English roads and lanes are bordered with unbroken lines of MacDonald’s packaging and mineral water bottles. Some of those water bottles have their sides pierced.

image

They are always carefully pierced in the same way. Sometimes, a plastic tube remains inserted in the side. It’s a sort of bong left by local druggies. They use this to stupify themselves and then leave with their piles of litter behind.
A bit of detective work could trace them. In the discarded shopping bags, there is often a receipt, which could track the buyer.
A few years ago, someone died in a festival tent in that field. Sometimes I find foil, but never needles. Drugs.
Such is modern life.

Urgent tottering

15°C, sun

The olympic torch procession thing passed through town today, I think. there was a nucleus of noise and crowds which is calming down now. I was out with the dog and could hear music, horns, pea-whistles and amplified voices from a point that audibly moved along at a steady pace. There were small groups of people hurrying towards the nub. They almost broke into a trot, not quite but handbags swung with some urgency. Other people walked quite quickly too, that’s a remarkable thing for a nation that likes to walk veerryy sloowly. Maybe you had to be there to appreciate the point of it all, but the noise was not a attractor for me.

Planefinder

4°C, clear. Showers later.

I can hear a rumbling above. the deep-throated rumble of hot air out the jetpipes of an airliner. So, with a novelty website to check what aircraft it is- Planefinder, I see nothing on the computer screen. Oh dear, not as good as suggested.

Later: there is supposed ot be one overhead now- from Manchester to Heathrow flying at 18,000 ft. It’s clear sky above & I see nothing up there. It’s obviously a stealth-airliner!
Erm, unless there is a delay and the website is a few minutes late. Ah, yes, that’ll be the reason.
You can get apps for phones that do the same thing. So get one for your smartphone and wonder around with your phone looking upwards worrying about where the missing planes are.

June tomorrow

15C, Sun, easing westerly. KC44 miles.

June already, but I haven’t finished with May yet. Look, here I am wishing my life away in an inverted way and I’ve been in bed since 8.30pm. Can I use an excuse? I’d like to use the one about cycling 44 miles then driving 100 more.

My old dog is certified stupid- I have just had to rescue her. She’s been barking for a while, that bark she has reserved for ‘let me out’. So, the caring responsible pet owner that I am, I went to investigate. There she was standing on the kitchen table, unable to get down. I hope I get into scrapes like that when I’m old.

Mazda 6

-11° to +3°C, more damned snow.

That temperature left me aghast this morning. Minus eleven! The ice outside achool is quite something too. The council refuse to grit/salt it and have done for at least 8 years. Why? It’s not their policy- when I hear that I hear “we’re not going to tell you why”, or “we don’t know”.

I’ve done something stupid, though it seemed like a good idea at the time. To warm up when I got home I decided to shovel snow & spread salt. I have no grit but plenty of salt,  someone suggested spreading fire ash on the path. Fine it works, but sooty black wet footprints are coming into the house. I will regret this when the sun comes out and the floor is clearly visible.

Nevermind, I have an interesting car to drive for a few days. Mazda 6 sits outside; comparisons with mine are tempting. Mostly they’re small (apart from the diesel engine & 6 speed box). Maybe I will get a chance to use that 6th tomorrow. Anyway, cars are boring.

The christmas cactus looks good.

Laptop

5°C, grey & dank.

Here I am typing this from the kitchen sofa, there’s a novelty. No more will I trudge upstairs to the desktop computer to tap away my unpointful ramblings.
I’ve been thinking of buying this laptop since last summer when I’d spend the first hour after work lolling in the hammock. I can’t resist performing an eccentric little experiment now, let’s try the signal strength out in the garden….

Yes it’s true, I can browse the web from the garden. I shall enthuse about this next summer. Today, it’s rather cold & damp out here.


Roberts Sound 66

8°C, clear but still damp.


DAB/iPod clock radio: ‘Tis a shame that it’s faulty. The sound is smooth, it’s reasonably easy to set up and has some nice detail features- you can set the alarm for one-off, daily or weekdays. That’s neat, I only need to switch off the alarm for each holiday instead of each weekend.

Roberts 66

The sound quality is good, certainly better than my old clock-radio. It’s a little rich and bloated in the bass & lower mid-range but there is an equaliser setting to hide the worst of this. It really needs a treble tweeter to add sparkle to the sound though.

Arrow: like new

3°C, clear & the sun’s coming up.

freshly unwrapped.

New bike: well, it cost as much as a new one, it looks new and I’ve got to put it together today. That latest cold is guilty of stopping my cycling for over two weeks now.

I’m starting to get annoyed at the poor WordPress service, this morning I have made 3 attempts to complete a post started yesterday which resulted in no response from WordPress’s servers.

Glass drop

7°C


Laurie anderson:

  Langue D’Amour
Let’s see. Uh, it was on an island. And there was this snake.
And the snake had legs. And he could walk all around the island.
Yes. That’s true. A snake with legs.
And the man and the woman were on the island too.
And they were not very smart.
But they were happy as clams. Yes.
Let’s see. Uh…then one evening the snake was walking about
in the garden and he was talking to himself and he saw the woman
and they started to talk. And they became friends.
Very good friends.
And the woman liked the snake very much. Because when he
talked, he make little noises with his tongue, and his long tongue
was lightly licking about his lips.
Like there was a fire inside his mouth and the flame
would come dancing out of his mouth.
And this woman liked this very much.
And after that, she was bored with the man.
Because no matter what happened,
he was always as happy as a clam.
What did the snake say? Yes! What was he saying?
OK. I will tell you.
The snake told her things about the world. He told her about
the time there was a big typhoon on the island
and all the sharks came out of the water. Yes.
They came out of the water and they walked right into your house
with their big white teeth.
And the woman heard these things. And she was in love.
And the man came out and said: We have to go now!
And the woman did not want to go. Because she was a hothead.
Because she was a woman in love.
Anyway, we got into their boat and left the island.
But they never stayed anywhere very long.
Because the woman was restless. She was a hothead.
She was a woman in love.
And this is not a story people tell.
It is something I know myself.
And when I do my job, I am thinking about these things.
Because when I do my job, that is what I think about

 
Photo: The whole view from the back of the house is visible in this little blob of glass. something odd is happening in msn spaces. Often when I try to upload a picture to a post, no picture appears, instead I get two blank "drafts".