Saturday, November 07, 2009

When I'm Not Cleaning Windows

Monday 26 October

Wrote a review of Sergeant’s debut album for the Jocknroll blog. It’ll certainly be one of my albums of the year come the time people start making lists of their albums/records/TV shows of the year, which is any time now.

Things have calmed down on the drive to and from work and while I’m still swearing like a trooper in the car at some of the imbeciles who’ve been allowed to grace out roads I’m less inclined to ‘out’ them on Twitter under the #baddriver tag.

Had the gym to myself today. I’ve upped the Shoulder Press by 1 weight and I’ve replaced “the plank” with some sit-ups for a few weeks just to see what difference they make.

Today is the first day of Daddy Cabs picking up both girls on the same run. I now pick K up from a more stress-free train station. By that I mean that I don’t get wound up by witnessing lazy people parking in Disabled bays or blocking off other vehicles because (a) they can’t be bothered to find a parking space (it’s hardly the biggest car park in the world) and (b) they can’t walk the length of themselves (some of them could do with the exercise – since when is being fat and lazy a disability?) There are always plenty of spaces at the new station and the journey to and from is generally less stressful.

Having checked the questions for the quiz night I realise that despite adding an extra audio round there are actually less points available than last year! Last year’s quiz went really quickly and there some grumbles about that. In a panic I write some more questions.

Tuesday 27 October

The evening was spent preparing this Sunday’s radio show and giving some thought to my entry for the HBA awards. I was well chuffed to be nominated last year and I know I'll need to improve for this year’s awards. With the awards being in Erskine, along the M8, he station are keen to get as many entries in as possible. Whether we win or get any nominations is another story. Fingers crossed.

Wednesday 28 October

My first #baddriver in a wee while this morning as SN02 ZBV proves time and time again on the route from Barnton to Craigleith that the concept of indicating is an alien one to him. It’s okay, mate, we’re all mind readers capable of knowing exactly what you’re going to do next. Cock!

My daughter was complaining of headaches. Just as I was giving her some Calpol in her bed, she threw up all over the carpet, the bed and me. The smell and mess were not pleasant. Scrambled eggs everywhere! That wasn’t the end of it but I’ll leave it there.

Thursday 29 October

I’m knackered. Maybe all this gym work is taking its toll or maybe I’m not getting enough sleep but I’m exhausted. Last night’s clean up took it out of me and I didn’t sit down until 10pm, which is normally when I prepare for bed. I watched “Never Mind The Buzzcocks to wind down and then trundled off to bed.

Parking at work is at a premium at the moment due to roadworks. What? Roadworks in Edinburgh? Shurley shome mishtake! At 0618 I got myself parked and took a walk to the nearest cash machine. My attention was drawn to a sticker on the machine as I typed in my PIN. It said “Cash Machine Best Practice”. I don’t know if it was the patronising tone suggesting I wasn’t smart enough to hide my own PIN number from prying eyes or the use of “best practice”, the type of office bullshit wankspeak that drives me up the wall, but it annoyed me. “Best practice” is up there with “equality impact assessment”, “competency framework” and “360 degree appraisal” when it comes to corporate tosh. Almost as bad as L’Oreal’s made up ingredients – Boswelox, Pro-Tensium, Pro-Retinol A…Even Avon are at it now.

Monday 2 November

I just can’t get used to these early starts and although the alarm is set for 5.30am I still have an annoying habit of waking up at 4am!

Did crap on University Challenge. I get annoyed that it makes me feel stupid, even though I’m not (honest). It doesn’t help when she-who-must-be-obeyed reels off answer after answer.

Tuesday 3 November

Took a half-day so I could (a) meet Flick’s new teacher and (b) put some work into my HBA awards entry. The chat with the new teacher was rather brief – I spent more time talking to the Head – but worthwhile in terms of putting a face to the name. Apparently Flick is regarded as “a bit of a character”. I think (and hope) that’s a good thing. I also wonder if every school is like Waterloo Road or Grange Hill. I do hope not.

Wednesday 4 November

Taking an hour off work so I can trail to Glenrothes to pick up a parcel that was undelivered yesterday. Only complaint is that the card didn’t specify whom the parcel was for and if ID was required. Luckily, it was for me and I had my driving licence. Considering the out-of-the-way location of the depot it would be a bit of a pain if someone had arrived with little or no ID or to find that the parcel wasn’t for them but a spouse or family member and then have to trail back home for ID. I only took one wrong turn on the way back to Dunfermline! Glenrothes is a warren of roundabouts and “sneaky” roads and I never leave there without taking some sort of "detour".

After an hour at home Daddy Cabs is back out on the road to collect Flick (today she has left her bag at school) and the Good Lady Wife. We then have less than an hour at home before we have to head out again. I drop the girls off at Rainbows/Guides and head off on the A92 to Kirkcaldy for a VRN meeting to discuss the HBA awards and who will be entered in which category. I’ve put together an entry for the Best Specialist Music category but after the meeting I decide it needs amending to give more emphasis to the mod/soul element of it. I’ve also volunteered a possible entry in the Speech category, using five minutes from the Andrew Collins interview I did in August.

On the way home some twat decides to tailgate me while sticking his full beams on. The lights didn’t seem legal – there was a blue tinge around the outside – and the ferocity of them was blinding. Cock!

Watched “Never Mind The Buzzcocks and Jamelia, whose music I’m rather indifferent to, was hilarious. During the Identity Parade round she said she knew the answer because the person in the line-up had tried to sell a story on her to the press! Priceless.

Thursday 5 November

Same shit, different day. it's amazing the effect all this exercise is having on me. I'm so much more industrious, concentrating better and generally more efficient and not wasting a minute.

Once again I had the gym to myself. Do I smell? Well, I don't when I first go in.

Made a “Girls! Girls! Girls!” compilation for a colleague. You always hope someone likes a compilation you've made them. I still put as much work into a CD compilation as I ever did with the cassette equivalents. It's just a lot quicker now.

Friday 6 November

E-mailed our property management to point out that a neighbour was parking his car on a piece of grass that we all the local residents pay maintenance for. He usually has three, sometimes four, vehicles parked around his house (and I don't just mean "normal" cars) and he's decided that the one piece of grass in the street (bar everyone's own gardens) is now his. It isn't. He's now badly churned up the grass and the irony is that he's a green keeper! I've never really had a problem with him until now. It'll be interesting to see if the property management, who get a big annual fee from residents both to pull their finger out. My issue is not so much the damage done but the prospect of the bill being passed on to all the residents instead of the perpetrator of the damage.

Saturday 7 November

A very industrious morning and by 9am I'd fed the birds (well, filled the feeders) , de-iced the car, taken the mountain of recycling to Tesco, drunk to cups of coffee and eaten boiled eggs on toast. Listened to the fabulous "Sounds of the Sixties" between 8 and 10 and then turned over to BBC6Music where Andrew Collins and Richard Herring were sitting in for Adam and Joe. Did my radio listening while preparing tomorrow's radio show. Realised that I had pencilled two tracks by Scott Walker and Cher so I've binned one Cher track ("Twelfth of Never") but as one of the Scott Walker tracks was from Scott 4, which was released under his real name on Noel Scott Engel, I'm playing both of those. My show, my rules.

It's going to be an Andrew Collins sort of day because later I'm going to cut my 31 minute interview with him down to 5 minutes as a possible entry for the HBA awards.

Spooky or what? My neighbour, the green keeper, has started to attempt to patch up the deep tyre tracks on the grass but it looks like he's taking turf from another part of the same piece of land! Does he think no-one will notice? Hmm, interesting.

The window cleaner climbs over the side fence before realising that it wasn't actually locked! One of these days, I'll get around to cleaning them on the inside!

Make the fatal mistake of sitting down to watch 5 minutes of a game only to see a pulsating 45 minutes between Swansea and Cardiff fly by. It's 2-2 at the break after a thrilling first half.

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