Bye Bye bristle...

I just can't wait to get one!

It'll be a bit of a bugger to get upstairs, but I'm sure that there'll soon be a way to do this if our boffins aren't stamped on by the bureaucratic dinosaurs which infest Whitehall...

I went to a presentation by the marvellous Trevor Baylis once. He was showing everyone how his wind-up torch was brought to the market despite the tedious time-wasting by officials, and was explaining how the UK Government stifles any innovation, by letting civil servants 'examine' inventions, write lots of reports, waste months of valuable time and eventually cause the inventor to give up and wander off (usually to America).

In one ecstatic moment, he showed everyone a letter he'd received from 'an expert' pen-pusher, who dismissed almost everything he'd worked on for the last few years, and stated loftily that 'It probably won't work', without having a shred of evidence.

These are the types who are now drafting our financial futures, so beware!

And I also want a mower attachment on this fantastic machine...

And a hedge cutter...

Yardarm yarn...

Heart stops at 17mins 51secs...

Some time last year, I took a bit of flak from assembled correspondents here, for stating that I preferred later Pink Floyd songs to their earlier tracks. The comments were understandable, and my only defence was that most of their earlier stuff was produced when Scroblene funds were even lower than a turtle's waistcoat...

Late last year, a Chum gave me 'Live in Gdansk', by David Gilmour, and this has been an Ipod favourite from day one. It was so poignant too, that Rick Wright died just a week before the album was released. Watching the video of 'Echoes', with his beloved keyboard getting the full treatment, the atmospheric eeriness of the middle section gradually reduces the live song to an ethereal quality, which I really find quite disturbing.

But, at precisely 17mins and 51 seconds, David Gilmour's rapturous ringing reel just makes all the hair on the back of my head stand up on end, and the palpitations start!

So, if I start the track at London Bridge, there is usually a small commotion just after Sevenoaks, while a late middle aged rocker feverishly spins the Ipod dial to maximum, rams the noise-cancelling earphones to within an inch of severe aural disaster, and glazes over in a wash of pure delight...

It's just after a minute on this clip...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zC_0qBZzy4&feature=related

Pecker on the loose...

'You'll have to chop out those old columns', said the site foreman, Duncan Disorderly, 'They're in the way...

'There's no way I'm going up there with a bloody pickaxe and anyway, we don't have a long ladder since we ran out of wood for the stove', said Pat, beginning to feel slightly worried, and nervously scratching his trousers.

'Then use the sodding crane Pat, it's sitting there doing bugger all'!

'Oh sod it, alright, but keep the elfun safety blokes away for a couple of hours', said Pat...

Canoe story...

When we cleared out the Elder Scrobs' 'Turrets' in Rye, Sussex, there was a huge heap of memorabilia stacked in the roof, and Mrs S, Lovely Sister S and Scrobs (himself - in charge of bottle opener and corkscrew on several (many) occasions)) spent days doing the big bin-bag shuffle.

This happened years ago, but just recently, owing to a need to reduce the severe weight on the ceiling joists upstairs, (The Turrets was in danger of collapse from accumulated stuff from years gone by), this exquisite book reappeared.

Kit Carson was my hero then (I was nine), and so were David Livingstone (The Eagle), and Roy of the Rovers, (Tiger) and we all collected those spinning cardboard wheels which you attached to a loop of string and eventually whizzed them to a frenzy. They could cut through a whole school desk, or even the legs of the Latin master... after which you were beaten senseless by the powers that were.

Cut to a few years ago...

When we all went on hols to Brantome (somewhere in France; several bottles away) some years ago, we hired a couple of canoes and went down-river to Bordeilles for some sort of water/alcohol experience. Elder Daught came with me and Younger Daught with Mrs S.

The water was pathetic. The summer drought had reduced the flow from maximum Victoria Falls to Thames Water Lewisham dribble, and we had to work pretty hard to get anywhere - even paddling downstream!

When we were encalmed at one particular spot, I yelled at ED 'Dig Carson, and dig deep', which was overheard by the other two on our watch...

Which explains why we all collapsed with excess mirth when they discovered why I'd screamed these simple words...

They're buggers, families - aren't they...?

Welwyn Garden City...

I'd have loved to show my Dad this aerial pic of the nine houses that his Dad built in the twenties.

He didn't know about computers, although the Daughts taught him to play 'Harrier Attack' on our Amstrad 464...

His marks, his skills, his small signatures, and his Dad's, are all over this place and I just want to go there again and soak.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&as_qdr=all&q=welwyn+garden+city+the+quadrangle&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&gl=uk&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=title

Sudoku, Bush and Gilmour...

This was published in the excellent Metro freebie newspaper today.

I always grab a copy when I'm nearing 't Metropolis, as they run a good early news section with not too much poncy crap about actors and other wasters and nobodies, and, they also do a great selection of Sudoku. I've graduated from 'Easy - pillock', through 'Moderate - smartarse' up to 'Challenging and effing bloody difficult'! Mrs S is much better than me and covers all the foibles of the 'fishtail', the 'swordfish' and the 'grunchfuttock' (you're making that up!) and many more memorable moves. She can spot a 'quad' or a 'hidden pair' at several paces, which is much more than I'm capable of in this cold weather...

But this little gem of an article on our new President (soon to eclipse Nodrog Bruin, the Loser of the West) had the poised Scrobpencil quavering with mirth, and not just a few unrequired looks from sitters-by I'm sure. It seems that the outgoing President leaves a note to the new incumbent in the top drawer of the presidential desk....

Just for the record, while I'm working the squares, my current Ipod music is David Gilmour's solo album, 'About face' and the songs are literally electric (just listen to 'Let's Get Metaphysical') - especially when I can get a five, or maybe an eight or a nine, in the bottom left squares after swooning out of Waterloo in an alcoholic haze after a long, languid and liquid lunch with a grateful estate agent...

Update...Today is the 130th anniversary of the Battle of Rorke's Drift. This calls for a large toast with a large bottle of Red; I bet they show Zulu tonight...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorke's_Drift