Brennig Jones (and friends)

It’s been a brilliant evening with much productivity.

Vin and I schooled in the indoor arena (I love that facility!) and Vin, it’s no exaggeration to say, was a complete and utter star. He showed real class from the moment we started our working-in through to completing the exercises that JP set as our homework.

It’s bloody cold up at the yard, the sudden drop in temperature has put a biting chill on everything; during the day Vin’s been stepped up to his medium-weight, full-cover New Zealand rug. At night he’s on double stable rugs, the outer being a full-cover medium-weight too; he’s as warm as toast underneath his layers – wrapped right up to his ears.

After kisses, hugs, pats and carrots it was homewards bound. The journey is starting to get hazardous. The quantity and thickness of fallen leaves on the country lanes makes driving less certain, but you wouldn’t think so to see some of the twunts who come zooming around tight corners as if they have a direct line to Gravity Dot Com. The crossroads just west of Leafield is, in particular, v.dangerous.

Anyway.

The Joneses are at home. Tea has been cooked and eaten, the washing up has been, erm, washed up and tomorrow morning’s podcast has been recorded early and ftp’d to the server – though not released yet (but trust me on this… tomorrow’s episode is a four star blinder!).

Mugs of tea have been dispensed and an episode of Little Dorrit is on the television. And then bed. And an episode of Angel, perhaps?

But if any little fuckers come knocking at the door looking to extract money or sweets through the annual process of extortion we call “Hallowe’en” they’re in for two chances. Slim and No. And Slim’s just left town.

We’re off to London village tomorrow to attend a book launch. I’ll write about that in detail another time, I don’t think the author would want his work to be associated with such ramblings in this post.

On Sunday we’re off to Worcestershire to be royally fed by the in-laws. I think we should stop eating now in preparation.

B.

1. The song that I woke up in my head with was Coolio and I’ll See U When U Get There (a version of which will be used to wrap up tomorrow morning’s podcast)

2. Soph’s guilty secret that she’s been hiding from me is that she’s been watching Dawson’s Crack Creek in the mornings

3. I’m really crap at the Soap Opera game, up until now I’d thought that Dawson’s Crack Creek was set in Australia

4. Soph’s dream about a talking Polar Bear looking for a house in France and falling in love with a girl and going on the run fills me with happy smiles.

B.

I was on edge today.

I was fine at work. In fact, work is great, thanks for asking. I’m loving it. Everyone is lovely, and I’m enjoying the learning process. And, I shouldn’t say this too loud in case I jinx it…but I don’t seem to be involved in the child-related stuff so far…fingers crossed!

My previous job was way too involved in the ‘Children’s’ side of things. Which so ain’t my bag, Baby.

So, I finished work at 1pm (woo!) – early closing on a Thursday.

And from then on I was on a mission. Cash machine. Post Office. Tip. Home.

The cash machine was broken. The one in the bank ran out of cash just as I got there. So I queued.

Onto the Post Office.

Queuing out of the door.

So I thought sod that, I’ll do it in Witney.

So I walked to the car. It’s a nice walk. Except I dropped my earbud.

If you saw a harrassed looking lady staring at the pavement in Abingdon today, that was me – it worked. I found my earbud! May have looked slightly deranged in the process, but hey ho.

Tootled home. Stopped at the Tip. We still have no effing bins!!!

Drove into town. More queuing. So many cars.

Nipped into a space saying ‘HA HA Ms Range Rover – suck on that!’ and feeling very smug.

Grabbed the MASSIVE book I had to post back to Aberystwyth and hurried to the Post Office.

Time was of the essence. Got to get home…

Got within touching distance of the PO and realised I’d left my bloody wallet in the car.

Hurried back to the car, pushing people into the road when they got in my way.

Trotted back to the PO, stopping only to give the chavvy, trousers-at-half-mast boys who accidentally shoved me a very dirty look before huffing on my way.

Posted my very heavy book at much expense and was asked many questions by the teller girl about whether I’d like a credit card. NO.

Stopped in Somerfield and impulsively bought bags of maize and popcorn snacks along with the kitchen rolls I’d originally gone in for.

Eventually got home. After tackling the stupid drivers and traffic lights.

Threw shut the curtains with aplomb. Pinged the telly and DVD on and hurried upstairs to put on comfort clothing (elasticated waist for snackage fats).

And settled down with my leftover pizza, Frij and bags of snacks…safe in the knowledge that Bren wouldn’t be home in time to catch me.

Edginess gone. And breathe.

Snuggled up on the sofa, under the fleece…and watched…High School Musical.

Purloined from work earlier in the week.

I hang my head in shame.

But, as cheesy as it is (so cheesy I can’t watch it without crackers*), I was kind of disappointed when it finished.

I was expecting to see the actual High School Musical they were going to put on.

What a swizz.

*Quoting ‘Reality Bites’.

PS – oh, and now I’m off to Slimming World…really should try for a big poo first after all the crap I’ve eaten over the last 7 days…but I’m already late.  Tut!

The dream that Bren refers to in a recent post was just weird.

In fact, I seem to have mostly weird dreams.

But this one was particularly odd.

I dreamt that I had itchy arms.

I rolled my sleeves up and saw that feathers were starting to grow, out of my skin.

I realised that, obviously, I was turning into a pigeon.

That’s a far as that one got. Thank God.

Then there was the one where my Mum was going to get a tattoo of a photo of herself at her own wedding, on one of her shoulders. For an anniversary present.

I am quite precise in some details in my dreams.

Then there was the one which involved a very stormy rainstorm in my Mum and Dad’s house where the rain was coming in through the very badly fitted windows, which had massive gaps everywhere. I have no idea how the windows were held there.

Oh oh oh…and I just remembered the other weird one I had last night. I was breaking into my Aunty Barbara’s house. Somehow getting onto the roof and climbing in (the details are fuzzy there). And why, Sophie, were you breaking in to your aunt’s home?

Why, to sleep, of course.

And I particularly remember the fear of being caught, when I saw the glow of light from the lounge as ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ was finishing and I realised I’d overslept and that they were going to find me and freak out…But they just acted like it was normal that their niece that they don’t really see anymore was curled up in a bedroom having somehow broken in…

These are all from last night.

I try to tell Bren about the most weird ones as soon as I wake up, but they all escape me now…But, yeah. I need help.

[sings]
I am the Champion, my friend
and I’ll go on fighting to the enddddddd!
[/sings]

I have just finished a meeting where two of the five of us were playing meeting bingo.

The aim, if you don’t know the rules, is to agree a common objective with some – but not all – of the meeting participants beforehand, and then try and achieve that objective with none of the people who aren’t ‘in the know’ getting wise to a game being played.

Today’s objective was to slip as many Australian colloquialisms in to the meeting.

The meeting ended with the score at:

Me: 6
Him: 4

Although when he attempted to squeeze ‘seaweed muncher’ in I nearly called a foul because it wasn’t in context.

For the record…

Me: visit the dunny; she’ll be right; a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock; chuck a spaz; dag; bouncer (yeah, I know the last one is a former character in Neighbours but I was on a roll – and was working at squeezing in Ute and Mangle before the meeting ended!)

Him: as dry as a nun’s nasty, seaweed muncher, freckle, bush telly.

Championnnnnnn!!

B.

In the words of the prophet Gabrielle

But sometimes there are dreams that you just wouldn’t want to come true. Ever.

I’ll let Soph explain.

B.

One of my paid jobs is to write album/artist reviews. These reviews then appear on an American ‘reviewer’ website in their entirety. If the review is outstanding it usually appears (largely unedited) on the website or MySpace of the artist or band that was reviewed.

If the review is, how shall I put it, less than enthusiastic, the full review still appears on the ‘reviewer’ website. But sometimes a highly edited version appears on the website of the artist or band that was reviewed.

This editing isn’t as bad as the editing that is prevalent in ‘Theatreland’ where, for example, a billboard outside a theatre might say ‘OUTSTANDING… The Daily Telegraph’ but the full context in the original Daily Telegraph review might have been a quote such as ‘This production could be outstanding if the entire cast were struck down by a terminal affliction tomorrow and replaced with the cast and director of Les Miserables’.

Don’t snigger. I’ve seen it.

But this editing – or potential editing – is one minor constraint that sits on my shoulder when I’m writing a review; try to avoid words or phrases that might be contextually extracted and applied with new meaning.

There is another constraint that sits on the opposite shoulder, adding unwelcome weight to the reviewer’s lot. A desire not to slaughter any innocents.

Because the truth is that (sadistic bastards aside) no one actually wants to write a review that buries the reviewee. I mean, I could sit here and say to someone nearby ‘Listen to this, it’s really really shit’, but there’s no way I’d write that knowing that the reviewee (and, possibly, their friends and relatives) would see the words. What’s the point? And anyway, I do believe in encouraging people to higher levels of expertise, not taking them outside and shooting them.

But every now and then the very lovely Kristie in New York throws an act on to my desk and says ‘review this’ and I might do my usual thing and want to have the reviewee taken outside and shot.

My process is simple.

If there’s a bio I’ll read it before I google the names involved, if there’s no bio I go straight to google. And while I’m fiddling with the interwebs I’ll load the album in to iTunes, import it and then move the tracks to my Review playlist and sync the lot on to my iPod. This handy little method enables me to listen to the albums as I’m moving around London or up and down the M40. Very handy.

I sometimes wish it wasn’t. Today I wish I didn’t have the sense of hearing.

I have just finished writing a review for a band that is, frankly, shockingly, painfully… awful. I can’t give any further details, it would be most unprofessional. But this was the very first time as a reviewer that I want to use phrases like ‘audio hell’, ‘Grievous Bodily Harm of the Hearing’, ‘not so much wall of sound as a concrete block of noise’, ‘hysterical high-school C-list musicians performing in what sounds like a drug-induced screaming session’ and ‘please take my wallet, take anything you like just put those instruments down’.

But car-crash incidents notwithstanding, the vast majority of artists have been interesting to listen to, and talented in no small degree.

But there is a line to be drawn.

I just wish that today, I could have drawn it in another place.

B.

Pizza. Chips. And on the television: Motorway Cops. Brilliant!

B.

07.07
I gaze out of the window at the frost-covered Oxfordshire countryside. The sunrise is breaking over the horizon, blindingly low, painfully bright. The flock of sheep move slowly around their field occasionally breaking their pecking at the frozen grass to shift to a new location and try again.

In the other neighbouring field a mixed herd of Guernseys and Jerseys have just been turned out to pasture, a couple of the younger bovines are gambolling friskily around in the permafrost; perhaps it is their first winter?

I look downwards towards the tarmac at the huge quantity of shards of broken ice that has fallen off the roofs(1) during the night and early morning.

It’s warmer now, than when I first got up; a balmy minus 12c; considerably higher than the minus 16c that frostily greeted me when I tried to get in to the car when I left the house.

Tried to get in to the car.

All of the bolts in the car door locks were frozen, but even with those freed the doors refused to budge; the four doors had been welded tight to the car body by the cold. I broke the handles of two of the car doors in my attempt to get in; a combination of over-playing my own strength and the locks made fragile by the deep cold.

Bugger. That’s an additional future expense, getting those repaired!

But on the bright side… despite the sub-zero temperatures outside and the attendant hazards of driving in extreme cold I made it to the Oxford park and ride on time. And the coach arrived on time. And left on time.

But sadly, we won’t be arriving in London village on time. Won’t be arriving in London village on time because there has been a massive pile-up on the motorway, a pile-up of road-closing proportions.

08.45
At least I am inside – in the coach – I have food to eat (they provide breakfast and there’s a good supply onboard) and I have many cartons of orange-juice to drink (part of the breakfast service that the coach offers). And I have a toilet onboard too, should I need it. And WiFi. And 13amp sockets. So I’m not doing too badly really.

When I remove my earbuds I can hear the driver’s two-way radio, the other coach drivers are feeding their intelligence in to the mix. I have heard reports of fourteen pile-ups on the southbound M40 between Oxford and London in the last hour alone. And six pile-ups on the northbound M40.

Yes friends, the motorway is shut in both directions.

Rhetorical questions occur, all along the lines of why is it that many motorists drive their cars in adverse weather conditions as if the situation on the roads were ‘normal’ (whatever ‘normal’ is)? Do they feel impervious to all pain? Do they think that, as they sit in their speeding tin cans, that the comfort of their favourite armchair magically bestows upon them some kind of invulnerability?

Or perhaps they have such an inflated self-belief in their own driving abilities that the immutable laws of physics and inevitability (icy roads, speeding tin cans, massively lengthened breaking conditions, not enough distance between vehicles) don’t apply to them?

Perhaps we need to retrain drivers and remove a fundamental tenet of the British driving test?

I believe it is time for us to remove from the mindset of the motorist the whole paradigm of ‘the speed limit’. Yes that’s right. Do away with it entirely. Why? Because the thing that we call ‘the speed limit’ encourages people to believe they have an absolute right to drive in a preordained manner and that as long as they drive within the rules nothing is going to happen to them.

Consequently, far too many people believe that if the law says they can drive on that piece of road at 70mph, then drive at 70mph on that piece of road is what they’re going to do – regardless of the constantly changing conditions.

09.55
The M40, this morning – as are many other roads in the UK I’m sure – is testimony to that way of thinking being wrong, completely utterly and totally wrong.

Maybe we should introduce a whole new concept; ‘the safety limit’ or perhaps ‘acceptable driving standards’? Perhaps it’s time to introduce and emphasise the concept of ‘the safety limit’ or ‘acceptability in driving’ in every single driver instruction session, and make prevalent use of the concept of ‘the safety limit’ or ‘acceptable driving standards’ in the driving test itself?

10.47
It’s very pretty out there. But we’re all bored and restless now. We’ve been on the coach since 06.30 and although we’re warm, comfortable and have access to food, drink and a toilet, it really is a waste of time for us – and the tens of thousands of other motorway travellers – to be trapped here.

I’ve dealt with several telephone calls to do with work matters and pinged off a few emails to get things rolling in various areas. The BBC are carrying the story as a front-page item.

My sympathies go out to the family of the deceased but my empathy does not allow me to shy away from the issue here. If the driver was operating his vehicle within acceptable levels for the conditions (and also, assuming the driver was fit and well), this tragic accident need not have happened. It’s as simple as that. I’m sorry if I appear harsh, but it’s the truth. It isn’t cars or lorries or buses that cause accidents, it’s the drivers operating the machines with less than the complete amount of care and responsibility.

Some people might say in a faux sneering way ‘Oh, I’m sorry you were inconvenienced. But someone died you know?’. Yes I do know. And in making that statement they’ve made my point. Because the truth is… no-one had to die on the M40 this morning.

If the speed limit is 70mph but the conditions are less than perfect, drive at 50mph; it really is as simple as that. But we don’t, do we? And that’s how accidents happen, isn’t it? The answer to both of those questions is obviously ‘yes’.

11.05
The driver is in agreement with the majority of the passengers. As soon as the coach has inched its way off the motorway at the next junction, instead of jamming for space on the ‘B’ and then the ‘A’ road along with all of the other traffic, she’s going to turn around and head back up the motorway to Oxford.

Eminently sensible!

But I’m going to write an email to the bus company in support of the driver, just in case her arse needs covering with regard to this decision. Yes, this is the right course of action, but someone somewhere might complain, supporting the driver in this decision costs nothing and it could ease any grief she gets when she’s back at HQ.

11.15
Two of the passengers have elected to get off the coach when we’re in the process of turning on to the northbound carriageway and get a taxi to Princes Risborough where they’ll catch a train to Marylebone. It’s an interesting idea. Except all of the southbound motorway traffic is also going in the direction of Princes Risborough. Given the enormous volume of the not-moving-on-the-‘B’-road traffic it sounds like an expensive way of passing time – sitting in a taxi not going anywhere watching the numbers clock up on the meter.

But we’ve chatted, broken down a few social barriers that we Brits are so good at erecting between ourselves, passed the time in conversation. So it hasn’t been a total waste of time. No, not a total waste of time.

B.

(1)    Roofs of passing motor vehicles

Upsetting news that Zara Phillips’ horse Tsunami II was put to sleep after being injured in a horrendous fall at the Pau ***** FEI Classic in France. I feel sad for everyone who knew and cared for this horse, I’m sure the grooms will be devastated more than most other folk but co-owner Melanie Duff will be badly hit too.

I just wish the writers of the Daily Mail would get their facts right, ’7ft fence’ indeed. Stupid cnuts.

B.