Clunk...

Scrobs was watching the excellent film last evening, 'The Train', yesterday, with the superb parts played by Burt Lancaster and Paul Scofield. It's a good story, with plenty of suspense and drama and well worth a revisit. The final stages have a background of an engine cooling down, with an unmistakable noise of contracting metal - rather like my old Riley 1.5, but that's a different story! Somehow, that noise adds to  the scene as a kind of programme music, there doesn't need to be anything else, and I found it added to the finale in a most unusual way!

Earlier in the day, I was mucking around in the kitchen, and decided to make some bread in the air fryer - a pastime which attracts me more than somewhat, as I'm forever trying to perfect a skill which is taking ages...

While everything was steaming up, my Alexa was playing the fabulous album, 'Aerial', by Kate Bush, and the song 'Joanni' popped up. Now, I love that song, it's one of my all-time favourites, partly because I used to play the whole lot on an ageing MP3 player on the train, and woke up one day, with the unforgettable 'clunk' of the percussion ringing in my ears, and also just in time for me to get ready to get off before I ended up in Hastings!

My theory, which actually needs testing by the ridiculous BBC 'Verify', is that the drum beat was pinched from the final moments of 'The train', and I challenge anyone to disagree...

Gene Hackman R.I.P....

I was saddened to read about the extraordinary death of Gene Hackman and his wife.

I'm not really a film buff; in fact the last time we went to the cinema was to see 'Philomena', and that was years ago, but as live TV seems so dire these days, with tiresome over-woked (sic) re-makes of old series, cobbled together for a diminishing audience, I've bitten the bullet, (on advice from ED), and taken up an Amazon Prime subscription! It has been a game changer, and while I used to read quite a lot, I'm finding so many good films are available for just a few pence, that I'm back to getting as interested as I was well before we bought our first VHS machine!

When I heard about the Hackman tragedy, I thought a re-visit should be made to the old favourite, with the car chase, but while skimming through the titles available, I found one which also looked good, as I like Dustin Hoffman as well, and thought it would be worth a pop. Gene Hackman plays Finch, and it is one of the best films I've watched in ages!

The plot is just amazing, and as the 'fixer', Hackman displays a masterclass in playing a most disagreeable chap!

The story has so many facets, the ending is extraordinarily exciting, and although I see it came out in 2003, it seemed as fresh to me as if it had just been released!

And another good issue is, that if you couldn't understand the plot at any stage, and wondered why so-and-so said or did something, you only need to dial up the credits on Wiki, or other good sites, and get your answer!

But I may actually watch it again, just for the pleasure of seeing such great acting from a good guy!

Scrobs gets political...

I find that the resident media we have to endure these days has very little to accommodate the minds of the middle-aged, and the elderly citizens of our country.

I read the tax-paid BBC stuff on occasions, and their ‘opinions’ are pretty well aligned with the Starmer obfuscation, so it’s clear that I’ll never believe a word they say, but others are just chucking out negativity in all directions like a man with no arms!

Whatever happened to local friendship, lovely chats with neighbours, decent approaches from newcomers to the village? Is it ‘money’ or a flash car? What section of a race of indigenous British Citizens craves far too many badges of some sort of Facebook cult, to make others think they’re important?

Beeboids thrive on the inadequacy of such shallow values, with their ridiculous praise of ‘diversity’, foreigners and even worse! The substitute for normal British behaviour is being eroded by the disgraceful Beeboid agenda to make normal British Citizens think otherwise, and it ain’t going to work Chez Scrobs, I can tell you!

(Posted elsewhere, if you see it, emial me and I'll send you a chocolate orange)!

Clouseau's busted doors...

Last evening, I wanted to see a scene from The Pink Panther, where Peter Sellers, wearing a suit of armour, calls out, 'Follow me men', and collapses as the double doors open, and he is flattened on the floor!

I don't know why I want to see this again, I just want to, so there it is!

So, the DVD set bought on Ebay gets a dust off, and the movie begins - or does it...

Sold a pup! The bloody thing stalls, shakes, changes etc., and the immediate scene I wanted to see for a huge laugh got missed because of a 'jump' and a stall in the playback!

And I still haven't seen what I wanted!

Whaaaaaaah...

'Voice coach'...

"You're only supposed to p**s off normal British citizens..."!

 

Three footer...

 I've just managed a three-footer!

What! You may ask?

Well, I'll explain...

Michael Parkinson once said that if you could wee a stream of at least two ft in length from your trousers to the porcelain, then you probably don't have a problem with the prostate issue!

I've had all the tests like many men of my dotage, and so far, touch wood, there's no problem, but while this bloody five hours chemo every few weeks for Mantle Cell Lymphoma is continuing, (at least for the next three months, so roll on Easter), I just get a little bit twitchy about any consequences, so anything which makes the day a bit rosier, is fine by me!

36 inches isn't a bad score, I mean, I have to stand well back to achieve that, and my doctor, (a good friend), once said that after initial tests, he wasn't even going to bother with the telegraph pole interrment, or whatever it's called, and sent me home with a couple of Smarties, which you used to get for a vaccination, back in the fifties...

Half-way through the treatment is such an achievement, and life is in the Spring now, with bulbs showing, plants popping up here and there, and plans are a-foot, so we're well on the mend!

Today's anniversary...

 

The magic word in the kitchen...

 It's very simple - it's 'Bugger'!

Yup, possibly unacceptable in some circles, but it is the single word beloved by our superhound, as she can hear the from every room in the house, and sometimes the garden in Summer!

Let me explain...

I rather like cooking these days, my daughter is always trying new ideas, and follows several sites where recipes abound, and it's a delight to be able to create new items indoors when there's three inches of snow outside and the shed is like a fridge, so it's inside duty as a must!

I'm still tackling a few leftovers from Christmas, and new ideas are always welcome, but who can beat a home-made pizza with a decent salad? You also need a bottle or two of Leffe beer to create one of these for some reason, but that's another story...

So with salad building up on a plate, there becomes more limited room for adding each item, and the inevitable happpens - something drops to the floor, with a solid version of that 'word'! Yesterday, it was half a lettuce, and after the echoes of the expletive, (actually, is it an expletive or just a rude word?), have subsided, there is a rush of paws and like lightning, the vegetable vanishes from the kitchen!

To find it shredded all over the place at a later hour is neither here nor there, but if it had been - say - fillet steak - that would have gone in half a second!

So, dear reader, you can see why I rarely have to wash the kitchen floor, I just shriek, 'bugger', and the job's done in seconds! I reccomend it to the house!

Crane story...

It had been ages since I'd met my oldest friends in the neighbourhood, Gloriette and Elias Sagtrouser, for one very good reason; 'The Bells' has been closed for some time, as the previous landlord finished up in court after letting in the pikeys, and also allowing them to continue drinking until 1.00am, when PC Lumbersnatch decided that enough was enough and raided the place with the help of Policewoman Fyre-Cracquer! So the old place had been bereft of customers for some time, as the owners couldn't find a tenant, and as I had no need for any concrete bollards, or brass screws at his Builders Merchants, we'd not bumped into each other recently!

But a few days ago, after posting my Christmas thank-you letters, I noticed the huge 4 x 4 parked outside the saloon of the newly-re-opened pub, and couldn't resist a quick peek into the bar. Once Gloriette had seen me and waved furiously, Elias came over with a huge paw extended, and led - or rather forced me - to the bar where a huge hug and several pecks with Gloriette completed the mission of seeing my great friends again! 

After a few inconsequential comments about Christmas, I mentioned that Elias must be glad to be back selling building materials at high speed, which was his custom, and he agreed that it was indeed the case that the customary ten days of boredom away from building sites had meant that he was on the verge of going out and actually building something himself, just to justify the position he was in, but as Gloriette had told him in no uncertain terms, that he should enjoy the few days in the year that they ever have off, he'd damned well make the most of them with good grace, and several bottles of Chateau bottled red wine!

As is usual, after Elias had offered his card to the new landlord for refills all round, he immediately launched into a frightening story of an incident which occurred on the second day back at work.

His company is supplying the development of a large office block in the town, and while Elias doesn't sell ready-mixed concrete, he arranges for the deliveries through an agent, as there's a lot of timing to be considered so that the stuff arrives at any particular time. There had been some considerable rainfall over the Bank Holiday. and the site was awash with mud and debris, such that the concrete lorries were having a hard time negotiating the site easily. There was a tower crane hoisting various items all over the site, and one of its jobs was to lower its hook close to the area where the concrete lorries were trying to move around, so the crane driver offered to help when a lorry actually got stuck!

Elias actually became serious at this point, and I wondered if there might have been some repercussions with his involvement, but Gloriette winked at me, so I naturally felt a bit better, because a wink from my dear lovely friend sends shivers just about everywhere on my physical being!

Elias went on to tell me that the lorry driver's mate had leapt out of the cab, and attached the hook of the crane to the back of the concrete truck, so it could be lifted clear of the deep puddle of mud which had engulfed the back wheels! All went well for a short while, and the lorry struggled clear of the quagmire and slowly headed for the gate, with the hook still attached to its rear.

Now, said Elias, nobody understood what actually happened next, but somehow the driver, seeing his mate jump into his cab, assumed that he was free of the hook from the crane!

But he wasn't...

The lorry began to trudge forward to the site entrance, and there was a sudden shriek from the site's emergency hooter that something was amiss, so work immediately stopped! And it was just as well that work did stop, as the lorry was half-way out of the gate, with the crane's cable still attached, and getting quite taut to say the least! The consequences would have been catastrophic!

Elias admitted that his agent had been on site at that moment, and had turned a blind eye to the health and safety issues concerning the 'hoist', and after offering several bollockings, and a few well-chosen words to the unfortunate man, who had at least seen what was happening and pressed the alarm before rushing out to wave down the lorry, the incident was quietly swept aside, thank goodness!

My third pint of Sheps' 'Winter Bastard' 6.3% ABV shook slightly at the thought of a hundred-foot crane crashing down on a site full of carpenters, brickies, and various Portacabins, and decided that it was perhaps better to be retired from all that, and lead a quieter life with my dog and some plans for the garden...