Sunny days, Sid the Seagull (Pigeon) and a DVD

Ok yes this diary is rubbish I have not written anything for ages, but there is a reason. Well sort of a reason  . . . . It’s sunny. Was that someone muttering is that it . . . Well yes it is; I mean this is Britain and sunny is a fickle thing that we don’t see a lot of particularly in the summer when it is meant to be sunny. What all this means is I have been able to get some work done outside and on the workshop. . . . Yes yes I have said all this before, but diaries are like that, not like in the movies where they edit out all the repetition and boring things

So I have cut grass both at the front and back of the house, although the pesky grass grows rather fast so by the time you get it all cut it needs cutting again which is annoying and tiring and does not make for an exciting diary. Particularly when there are no Zombies and Mr Ratty and his pals have all left. We suspect that one of our neighbours getting rid of their chickens and hutch and another rebuilding some old farm buildings may have made the critters restless. That’s Mr Ratty and the Zombies.

Anyway I have been working on my workshop and so far all is going well, I will be adding a few pictures of it soon, it is even keeping exactly on budget well the outside is and it is entirely watertight  . . . . . OK it does not have a door yet but I have a plan.

OOOooooo  I must mention Sid the Seagull who is a pigeon although from a distance he looks like a seagull. He/she is a fancy beast and almost tame, I say almost because it will get within  a few feet but will not let me touch him/her to check its rings. It has three rings on its legs and I am assuming it is a bit lost. It was certainly very hungry the first day it turned up (2-3 days ago).

And I bought a DVD from Spain for my car which arrived snapped in two, but a new one was sent and the car is happy and knows where it is going again . . . . One of us needs too I get lost very easily.

Predictions, Pirates, Sailors, Syria and the End of the World (again)

I have cunningly disguised my bit of 3D art 

for now as it is not entirely finished 

I am back and not before time I can hear you all say . . . . OK I can at least pretend you are all pleased to see me back at the helm of my favourite steam powered PC; with its very annoying and overworked fan squeaking at me as it desperately tries to deal with the internet and my spelling.  Well it was a lovely week pondering the world down in South Wales in a semi secluded lodge near the coast. It was quite interesting watching the sailing folk as they clambered in and out of their assortment of boats, but I was left with one rather puzzling question by the end of the week. You see you would think of sailing folk as lean mean fighting machines leaping from mast to mast with daggers and swords held between their teeth like pirates of old. This however was far from the truth indeed. As most of the ones I saw were rather unfit and overweight and at least half of them seemed rather elderly. Maybe this is why traditional pirates died out as a species, as they were just unable to sing (sorry Swing) from ship to ship on ropes going HAR HAR HAR.

Now while I was away doing some arty stuff watching sailors? and thinking, I sort of remembered something from way way back about that chap Nostradamus, sadly folk keep doing sneaky stuff to his predictions to try and keep him up and running, but I do recollect he first said the start of the End of the World would happen back in 1990 something, and since then folk have lost interest (when it never happened) and just use Google instead to predict everything. But I’m sure I remember that it was all due to start going down hill with war in the Middle-East and I am certain Syria was the predicted flash point. Look this was a long time ago now, we have not chatted for ages on account of Mr Nostradamus not being entirely alive. In fact the last time we met he tried to eat my brains and groaned a lot which did make me suspicious back then.

OK back to the point Syria is in a bit of a mess at present and both Russia and the USA are trying to bomb it to bits while avoiding accidently bombing one another. Now there is no doubt that President Putin is far more gung ho than President Obama but if say Mr Trump became President Trump, then I suspect he would be up for a bit of brinkmanship against President Putin. Let’s face it they are not going to be buddies and chatting on the phone to deal with those tricky international issues.

So maybe that Mr Nostradamus might have been right about the End of the World starting in the Middle East after all. I plan to wrap my head in tin foil, write poetry and do some art while hiding under the dinning table. . . . . still it could be worse I could own a VW. 

Scrambled Brains, Gibberish and Nonsense

Right onwards with my diary  I have been writing it some  time now and most nights, except when I am not near my large and lumpy desk top PC, which is not often and tells you I do not travel long distances much.  And I am always keen to ensure it is exciting (OK a bit exciting OK it’s not exciting), I mentioned lately that its quality is directly proportional to the weather and it is now getting boring (the weather and my diary) I need some sun, heat and a non white environment with green plants and birds singing. It is very unnerving to be stalked by a gang of birds who have been watching that Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name (as in The Birds).

Sadly we saw a hawk on the road today which had become road kill, I guess it is tough out there being a hawk at present or anything, there are a lot of things struggling with their own diaries not just me.

I think the snow has also scrambled my brain I now am not only misspelling words, but I am also typing completely different words to the one I meant to type and misspelling them so the auto spell checker is correcting them but they were the wrong word in the first place. How can I write when my computer corrects the wrong word so it is right but still the wrong word?   The result is gibberish and nonsense, how will I keep my followers if all I type is nonsense . . . . . . . . . . . . . AH

Yesterday I told you that Miss Tiggy and Mr Chris visited and we all chatted and had a good time, well it appears they had somewhat of an epic trip home. You see they live at the end of a little lane in the hills and while they where out the wind had blown the snow across the road so on there return they found themselves trapped in a six foot snow drift. They were then saved by a man in a tractor who could only get to them by crossing fields and was able to tow them to a place to leave their car safely. They then had to walk the last bit in a re-enactment of Scott of the Antarctic, or as they made it a re-enactment of the Norwegian chap who beat Scott of the Antarctic who no one remembers unless they are Norwegian. Luckily the snow plough arrived this morning so they are free again.

I’m sure other stuff happened like Miss Fionaski the famous Russian spy was testing her skills in water supply sabotage  as part of an NVQ qualification in  spying, as you need to keep up to date with new techniques and skills, and I was removing snow from a roof in order to catapult a goat at a supermarket or a snow drift to hunt for sheep, there are a lot of lost sheep at present too.

OOOoooooo yes mum and dad have ordered a new oven to replace the strange Victorian affair that came with the house, and which is very good at all sorts of things except reliably cooking food.

     

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The Haircut, email and the curse of BT helplines

The ghost writer is a bit stressed, or a lot stressed as BT in their infinite wisdom have changed their email server details and so several people are now shouting at him. He has one weakness as a IT guru of note and that is email, me hates setting up email even though it is a bit like buttering toast, well not really like buttering toast because the butter melts and drips and you can then add loads of peanut butter YUM, that is not quite the same as email. But he is a bit stressed due to what he has described as abject failure which I am led to believe is not really all that good. So in the morning he has said he will phone the BT helpline, which means that things must be bad because phoning one of those BT helplines is a bit like the kiss of death. For one thing they are automated nightmares and if you get your options wrong you find yourself either back where you started or talking to a nice man in an Indian call centre and although he may be a nice man, he has sadly learnt to speak English from an old 1950’s BBC news reader and therefore cant understand a word that the average British citizen says because we all talk a sort of semi-trashed localized English. Let’s face it someone from Birmingham is never going to understand a word a Glaswegian, so an Indian call centre is doomed unless the queen calls up.  He is going to spend the evening playing tiddlywinks now with a seagull hiding in a dark cupboard and saying bleep bleep bleep much like the ghost of the old Sinclair ZX-81 did last night.

The sun came out today it was a bit of a shock on the eyes first thing and as I staggered about trying to find my way to the bus stop to go to school, I accidently fell into a hairdressers resulting in yet another haircut this year. I have had three of them now which is terrible how is a chap meant to remain scruffy if he has three haircuts in a year.  Then of course because I was neat, I was then viewed with suspicion. I have found that many neat people are also somewhat suspicious, just look at car salesmen or politicians or insurance salesmen they are all very neat but none of us would blindly go and sign things they give us without a jolly good read first.  In fact the safest politicians to trust are the quiet scruffy ones, that is worth remembering next to you vote for any make sure they are scruffy and quiet; the same with car salesman although scruffy and enthusiastic would be better, maybe look for a bit of oil or grease on their shoes.

OK where was I  . . . . . . . . .. AH yes school. Some foolish person (I mention no names Miss Fionaski . . . . . . . . . AH DAMN  . . . .I did sorry about that) suggested we do our 0.45 times table. Well James made the mistake of trying to use his fingers which proved very messy and there was blood everywhere but give him his due he was persistent even if he had to get someone else to write down the answers.

I will say one thing about today it may have been sunny and dry but it was jolly cold, I have resorted to wearing several jumpers and even though the dog pushed he onto my back I got up with ease although it did take forty five minutes, but that was only because the dog laughing at me, put me off… 
      

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The Washing Machine and the Gremlins

Our rather, not very good washing machine which will do strange things just for the hell of it sometimes, because it’s a washing machine and it under the delusion it is normal, has finally decided enough is enough. If we want to spin clothes to get them dry then it has let us know in no uncertain terms we need to do this ourselves by running in circles very fast. Dad has used his vast knowledge of electro-mechanical machines that like water to try and coax it back from sulk mode, the machine however just sort of twitched and mumbled at him. He then tried to give it a good beating with a large hammer but it did not help. So Mum and dad decided to purchase a new washing machine online using a small square bit of plastic, something called a credit card. They almost never do this it is very unusual indeed, so unusual that their bank did not allow the transaction several times and they only managed to do it after several phone calls explaining that they were in fact really trying to buy a washing machine to wash things in.

It was very frustrating and took ages so dad decided it was all the fault of the old washing machine and went and gave it a jolly good thrashing just to let it know who is boss. The good news is there is definitely one washing machine on its way to the house but the bad news is that like busses it is just possible that after years of never buying a new washing machine 15 of them will all turn up at once.

Yesterday the man on the BBC weather forecast on the wireless said it was going to be hot and sunny all day but it has not been hot and it was rather cloudy, I do wish they would tell us the truth it is very difficult when they do these sneaky things. Anyway I am not sure what happened to the day it just sort of faded away and all of a sudden it is dark. In fact it is getting dark earlier and earlier here in Britain and in two weeks time Great Britain does its ritual of moving all the clocks by an hour, so the good news is we will all get to have a lie in and still get up early but the bad news is by 5:00 pm it will be well dark and I will be jet lagged for about a week.

I have finally found my two posh microphones (OK not very posh) so I will be able to record myself drumming very soon which is sort of good for me, but maybe not so good for you and I have also found most of the leads that connected up all the little boxes that need to be connected in the big orange room. I might have to make a tombstone or two, as the last surviving member of the Monty Cardboard Robot Club, for someone who needs tombstones.

OK that’s it all a bit random today but it has been a random sort of day.

  

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The hair cut, the multinational and the electricity feed in tariff.

   Today has been a funny day it started nice enough but sort of ended up really grey and just very autumn like. I have been feeling a bit tired today too; apparently this is due to nano-vampires from the woods (according to the dog).  Although I think it may be due to the fact I had my hair cut today and like that Samson bloke it has rather sucked the strength out of me. It is not something I do very often; having hair cuts as I prefer to be a scruffy bloke and it is much harder to be scruffy with neat hair.

Today was also the day of the solar panel reading ritual where dad gloats as he works out how much the big multinational power company has to pay us. He demanded a goose that lays golden eggs and six magic beans last time, because he said it would just cause the system to overload. He did get his goose that lays golden eggs and six magic beans in the end, but multinationals are not good at wrapping things up so the goose had eaten the beans but was squashed when the postman tried to squeeze him through the letter box.    

As I mentioned yesterday we have a ghost post man posting ghost post but maybe we don’t, maybe we have a ghost posted goose that lays golden eggs that has eaten six magic beans.  You see this is what happens when free enterprise gets involved in matters of magic and high finance, and trying to get multinationals like electricity companies and postal services to take responsibility for a squashed goose who once laid golden eggs is far from easy. Sending dad an old retired battery hen  as compensation did not go down well (nice omelettes though).  Mum is insisting that this time round we have money, apparently not  gold pieces of eight from the Mortzestus as dad has suggested but just regular pounds, and not bones as the dog has suggested.

I might go now and see if I can superglue my hair back on. By the way the letter box is going clatter, clatter clatter again........

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I always liked this band 

The Wicked Witch of the West, Part 3 and the CIA

So after a quietish day in the grey office the ghost Writer has been whinging about computers again, but also recons he will do some more ghost pictures. If you are wondering how he created his ghost picture it is dead easy. He sets his camera on a long exposure in a very dark place and moves about flashing a torch on and off to create multiple exposures. He says everyone should do it because they should?

Due to technical problems of a technical nature, technical nature appears to be a contradiction in terms but who am I to say such a thing. OK sorry distracted again ….. Due to technical problems part three of my fairytale is based entirely on made up stuff, a bit like part two and part one and any link to reality is entirely good luck. I would also like to add no ducks were harmed in the telling of this story.

Miss Goldilocks started the day singing and spinning gold thread on her spinning wheel in her little cottage, but unbeknown to Miss Goldilocks MI6 and the CIA had knobbled her  spinning wheel, having purchased a spell from the well know retailer of spells, Spells-R-Us that meant when Miss Goldilocks pricked her finger she would fall asleep for a hundred years. The CIA thought to themselves that’ll keep things quiet. Of course all spells have a get out clause and this one was rather cunning, if she is kissed by a Mexican Truck Driver she will wake up again.  The CIA and MI6 thought we don’t get then round here that will fix her HAH HHAHAH HAHha hah ah ahhaha haha hahah hahah hah hahahhahhh;  but by lunch time she was up and chatting to a song thrush in the garden, the CIA had not even thought about Mexican Dave, how foolish.

Meanwhile the massed masses of massed minions who were planning  to eat cake and walk their dogs and point and shout and say YA SUCKS BOO….HA HA HA to YOU, last night suddenly thought hang on its Thursday night and Wimbledon has started and then there is the Euro match on the tele so stayed at home. The Wicked Witch of the West was also rather scary so they thought to themselves Naaaaaa.

The Great Lord of all the Land and his faithful assistant Thomas Attila the h-unsmiling however have been forced to act as the last thing they need is a multitude of unhappy massed minions massing and murmuring, and a Witch laughing hysterically running up and down hills. It brought back thoughts of Mary Poppins, no hang on sorry Maria to the great Lord, and it took ages to squash all the rumours and get rid of the pesky kids with the dog.   So in the early hours of the morning as the sun was rising and the Wicked Witch of the West was asleep they unleashed the great monster of the deep into the big lake; the not so famous Monstrous Creature of the Welsh Pool.

As The Wicked Witch of the West walked her boundaries to check for intruding intruders and picnickers with cute dogs she heard noises from the big lake. Thinking to her self, hiding in wet suits in the lake are we, we will see about that.  And as she peered into the deep dark water the Monstrous Creature of the Welsh Pool suddenly bit her head off. And everyone lived happily ever after. Well until part four anyway…….. 

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The Weather and the film Blow-up

Today has been a wet grey day in the UK, I can give you an idea of just how grey by saying that yesterday was a nice day with blue skies and a few white clouds which produced about twenty five kilowatts of electricity off the solar panels on the roof.  Today has produced something less than four kilowatts, so only about 15 to 18% of yesterdays, in other words we have only had about 15% of the sun we had yesterday the rest of the day has been grey mist and rain. I can remember when I was complaining it was too hot only about a week or so ago, and now it is too wet. Sadly tomorrow according to the BBC weatherman is seriously not good for some and is going to be wetter. The only good news is that the hosepipe ban does not really worry most people now because their hosepipes have floated off down stream.

To change the subject a bit and also to repeat myself slightly within certain corners of cyberspace. I have been experimenting with the camera after capturing images of aliens and faces of zombies (OK a zombie). I have discovered that by pointing the camera into the air in the dark of night with the flash on while it drizzles is extremely interesting. If you watch the sky as you take the picture all the little drops of rain light up like tiny fairy lights and it looks rather cool. Sadly this only lasts for the split second of the flash.  I have also as some of you will know been recreating the film Blow Up the classic late 1960’s film which I’m sure you will have all seen, in my endeavour to solve the issue of the Zombie and Aliens. Interestingly those alien Nano-spacecraft look like tennis balls which seems rather apt. If you are reading the paperback …..AH sorry about the fact you (still) can’t see the photo, if you have not seen Blow-up……. Ah sorry about that but the Zombie did it…………. HAH HAHAH hah hah hahhah hah ha hahhahah ha, if you have seen the film OK I lied.

Ok I am off now, it is a bit too wet to write a good daily diary post, I might manage something better tomorrow, and the Ghost Writer and I are off to get, or move the Cultural Olympian in the morning. It appears he might end up in the middle of a mad ceilidh so I need to save him from a fate worse than death, which when you are made of cardboard is being offered a beer or two.  He will just get all soft and floppy and be no good for man nor beast.

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Andy Warhol's Plinth, an empty space which has been cursed by a witch and the Hayward Gallery and the minor distractions of the day

The cows next to our house (a distraction)

Today I am rather late with my diary entry, I sort of got distracted by things. The last of which was bats flying about over the house……WELL COOL, I have also been distracted by dragonflies and cows as well as plinths. And a picture of a  city skyline at night that Captain Nessman has set as a cunning test to see if I know things. It appears this is something I don’t know and what is even more worrying is he gave a clue but I don’t know what the clue is so………. AH…….. mum says IDIOT

A cool looking dragon fly in the front garden (a distraction) 

Turning my dinner into a fish (a distraction)

Some clouds in the sky today (a distraction)

Some of you will be thinking AH yes distracted by a plinth that is good he is getting on with that cultural Olympian, but no, it is not good because it is not that plinth, not the one I have to make. The plinth I have been distracted by is one briefly stood on by Andy Warhol which is part of an invisible exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London. It is because I was having a bit of a moan (not as in Zombies) on my blog about how conceptual art is all rubbish these days. So they are having a go at me, and if you think no they are not, that is being paranoid they also have  an empty space that has been cursed by a witch. Bearing in mind many of you know my good friend  Zilly the Witchy, I think we can take it as read that someone is having a bit of a go at me here. When I say here I mean there, there is none of that invisible art here, there is no way I would let anyone see it here.

So in order to counter act this blatant act of artist aggression by these unknown artists (Well I don’t know them) on an unknown artist (me) I have responded in a greater act of conceptual art by exhibiting the cultural Olympian which is visible on an invisible plinth in the International Implausible Gallery of Insubstantial Rationality, famous for the fact it is not only invisible but it does not exist. And as a final act of defiance the grand entrance of the International Implausible Gallery of Insubstantial Rationality has been placed right outside the Hayward Gallery………. SO, ya sucks boo. To be placing real things in an invisible gallery seems a grander gesture than placing invisible things in a visible gallery, any fool can do that.

Anyway enough of that, it has been a really nice day today in terms of Weather here, just like June although I don’t have much of the day left so I better post this or my diary entry for today will be invisible………..AAAAAAuuuuuuuuggggghHHHHHHH   

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