Brennig Jones (and friends)

8.30am – Fidgeting in bed.  Too hot.  Too cold. Oh sod it. Get up and make a cuppa and check t’internets. Quietly.

9.00am – A crumpled pillow-faced Bren stands on the stairs looking confused.  I offer breakfast in bed.  He returns to bed slightly less confused.

9.30am – I drain my second cup of tea.  Switch Andrew Marr off and make another cup.  Settle down to read.

10.00am -  Still reading.  Bren promises to get up at 10.30am.

10.30am – I get up first, after Bren informs me he’s brewing up something special for the toilet.

11.00am – I wave farewell to a jodphured Bren, and clutching my short shopping list head to Sainsburys.

11.05am – Sainsbury’s is mayhem.

11.10am – People look at me in puzzlement, wondering what I have to smile about.

11.15am – I chuckle to myself at how mad people are.  I follow my list and am at the checkout. Sadly, sans raisin bread.

11.20am – I am still at the checkout.  The woman ahead of me seems to think the end of the world is coming and has bought EVERYTHING.

11.25am – I see a checkout with a dwindling queue.  I jump in as I see a woman with two children and a massively full trolley rushing towards it.  Bad Sophie.  But smug.

11.27am – I’m free!

11.30am – Witney car park.  A place where people forget car parking etiquette.  A woman waits for another woman to get into her car and vacate a space.  She waits in such a position that NO-ONE can get by. Twat.

11.33am – Sophie discovers that beyond the twattish parker there are many other spaces for her perusal and use.

11.35am – Still smiling.  Amazing, I know.

11.40am – Dorothy Perkins is closed. Ah well.

11.41am – Ooh, M&Co is open though! Some clothes are tried on.

11.43am -  After stifled laughter clothes are hung back up and Sophie discreetly leaves.

11.45am – More perusal of clothes at New Look. Oh, £10 jeans! And a chunky cardy! And a long-sleeved-T.

11.47am – More barely-stifled laughter as the long-sleeved-T is nearly ripped.  Jeans look like they cost £10 (i.e. rubbish) and chunky cardy is already bobbly.

11.48am – Changing room girl covets my coat. Ha.

11.49am – Rain!

11.52am – Costa. Queue. Survey available seating.

11.53am – The sofa area is occupied by two women.  And their coats are taking up precious spare chairs.

11.53and 30 seconds-am -  I ask a young Dad with a small baby if I can sit in the seat in the corner. Yep.

11.59am – I continue reading ‘The Amber Spyglass’. Occasionally glancing at cute baby who is beautifully quiet and well-behaved.

12noon – Baby starts screaming in a high-pitched way as young Dad roughly wipes it’s nose.

12.01pm – Young Dad ignores piercing screams. Sophie’s smile starts to fade.

12.05pm – Young Dad realises baby is still screaming and shuffles him/her slightly.

12.06pm – After a breather, baby continues screaming.

12.07pm – Young Dad starts packing stuff away.

12.08pm – Young Dad is gone. Sophie stops reading the same sentence and manages to concentrate on the rest of the paragraph.

12.15pm – Sophie drains coffee and makes a move.

12.20pm – Somerfield.  Raisin loaf. Anadin Extra. Sorted.

12.25pm – Woolies (R.I.P) – must get an Advent Calendar. High School Musical? Hannah Montana? Fuck off.

12.35pm – Car. Sigh. Hoorah.

12.42pm – And home.

Oh sod it, am bored of that now…and I’m sure you are.

So we went to the pictures today.  And Frankie and Benny’s.  Bren will expand on the latter, I’m sure.  He was making notes and everything.

‘Quantum of Solace’.

I’m sorry to be a cliché but how HOT is Daniel Craig?! Cor blimey, love a duck. He’s a fit chap, isn’t he?That’s not the only reason I enjoyed the film.  What it lacked in coherence it made up for in action set pieces.  Even if they are all entirely infeasible, as is Bond’s ability to make it through each disaster with but a few attractive scratches.

Some of these evil masterminds need to get some target practice in, don’t they?

But then, who cares – it’s an action film.  I enjoyed it for what it was.  Although I wish we’d watched Casino Royale again, just to recap on ‘Previously…on James Bond…’

I mean, why was he so upset about a scooter?

I am supposed to be out this Wednesday evening.

It’s a big work do. There will be about 750 of us ‘staff’ at a black tie ‘end of year and awards dinner’ in a hotel conference centre in west London.

I don’t know what time dinner will be served, but we’ve been told the bar will be open from 18.30 to 23.30.

So if I stick with it I need to sort myself out with a monkey suit for Wednesday evening. And if I stay until… erm… 23.00 I might get home by 02.00. And then get up at 05.00 to go to work the next day.

Hmmmm…

None of this is very attractive.

But it might be a shrewd diplomatic move to go – to see and be seen.

As you might guess from the numbers, it’s just a staff night out; wives, husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends aren’t invited because that would double the already seriously large number.

The meal, I should imagine, would be served on a production line model with staff running around like worker ants under the burden of many plates.

I’m secretly dreading it.

But feel that I should go.

I just know that they’ll cock up my vegetarian meal order – with 750 folk on the roll I’ll be in the minority and will get pushed to the back of the queue. So instead of cold shoulder I’ll probably be dining on a cold non-meat dish.

Ho hum.

I am also supposed to be out next Wednesday evening for the yard Christmas meal. Much prettier, much younger company and no talk about work but much chat about equine-related things.

Gosh, it’s so hard to compare the qualities of the two evenings!

B.

Perpetual Spiral recently described the forces in play in his life, and how keeping his diverse set of interests going is a balancing act of competing priorities.

And it made me do a stock-take.

Although my interests and priorities are completely different, the balancing act I go through on a daily basis is broadly similar and – as a result – there have been times when I have come very close to the limits of my ability to cope with all of these things.

You may know that I’m currently working in London? And that we’ve moved to Oxfordshire recently? The change of home means that I now have the luxury of sleeping in my own bed each night, but my daily commute has been pushed up to between three-to-four hours.

The increase in commuting time helps me keep a handle on things which is bizarre given the amount of time it takes from each day. I can get away with it because I’m not doing the driving. And while I’m sitting there I have free broadband and an electric socket for my laptop. And I have my earbuds.

So I work.

I work on various projects in different areas of my life. Obviously there are some that I can’t work on but the compartments of my life are easier to manage because I am able to spend 3-4 hours a day commuting.

And those compartments of my life are:

Sophie
It is a complete and utter pleasure to spend so much more quality time with Soph than I used to. The too often used cliché ‘best friend’ doesn’t even come close to describing how she and I fit together. I would like to spend even more time with her and sometimes fewer hours in an evening in front of the laptop, but she is the reason that all of these things hang together so well in my life. Memo to self: We should see if there’s anything good on at the cinema and give ourselves a treat for being the funnest couple ever.

Work (1)
The 9-5. Except I put far more time in to my job than the scheduled 40 hours per week, but I don’t feel too bad about that, because, for the most part, I put those extra hours in whilst I’m travelling. Yay!

Work (2)
As well as being a jobbing contractor/consultant who works through his own Ltd company, I’m also building a network of retained customers. This relationship-building and running my own company both take time and effort that must come after the daily 9-5. The administration/operation of my Ltd Company seems to be taking far more effort than it should. But that might be because we seem to have accountants working for us who are both expensive and incompetent.

Reviewing
This is difficult to categorise. I review bands and albums for an organisation in the US. It’s difficult to analyse because it’s inconsistent. I receive an email from Kirstie in New York asking me to review a few tracks or an entire album or even write a musical breakdown, a kind of précis, of a band. I might get four of these commissions in a month and then may not get any for a few weeks. It is paid work (which is good) but when each commission comes in they usually have very tight deadlines (which is not good). It can take several hours to write each review.

Podcasting
We shouldn’t just count the time spent in front of the microphone – about 55 minutes a week; 45 minutes producing the podcast and about ten minutes writing up the show notes for the website. It might surprise you (especially if you’ve heard it!) to learn that there actually is an amount of preparation involved. But again the prep is not a massively difficult thing to fit in, because I’m able to do all of this (including research songs, read up on bands and generate and deal with related emails) whilst I’m commuting. The podcast earns no money and it also has no cost (apart from the ‘financial value’ of my time). I do it for fun and because I love music and – inevitably – because I love the musicians and the work they do. If I can get just one more person to listen to and enjoy something that I consider is worthwhile listening to, my work here is done.

Writing (1)
This is the pure fun stuff. This is the writing that I do for pleasure and just for me. I’ll work out a synopsis or rough out an idea or just sit down in front of the keyboard and bang out a conversation or a scene that’s been playing in my head for a while. I might also write a characterisation, or perhaps a piece of descriptive narrative – a scene that I want to capture on ‘paper’ that’s been occupying some brainspace lately, or even something I’ve observed that I want to see how it would look in the first, second or third person. Or perhaps switch from active to passive voice. This is fun writing, it earns no money but what I learn or polish as I write may appear in later pieces of writing for which I may be paid. So it’s not just fun really, it has earning potential. For example, I’m currently roughing out a scene which could be a very marketable short story. But in this genre of ‘writing purely for fun’ I also include writing for this blog. Because it is fun. And experimental (sometimes).

Writing (2)
This is almost pure fun stuff. This is writing uncommissioned work that I just want to write, possibly even because I’m just driven to write it. Characterisations, descriptive narrative, scenes that I have observed – or want to observe – ideas for shorts or longs, or even short stories or something longer themselves. I write a lot of these; even finish most of them. If they’re very good I might pimp myself around various organisations and try to get them picked up. If I’m not successful I might just publish them on the website. Or let them languish on a hard-disk.

Writing (3)
Commissioned work (such as writing book reviews, producing features like ‘nude paragliding in Estonia’, short stories, fiction, faction, PR pieces etc). Usually these are not much fun to write but they do generate income. The most enjoyable is writing for magazines such as Private Eye and NME – despite the often crippling deadlines – but I don’t do much of that these days.

Horses
Vin is, without doubt, the best therapy in the land. Yes I love competing (no matter what the discipline or the level), but I also love riding for pleasure, whether it’s schooling or hacking. And I love being around him for fun. I find that any kind of working around a horse is therapeutic whether it’s grooming, cleaning out their feet, changing rugs, skipping out a stable. And I love the sense of achievement I get when we do something. It doesn’t matter what that something is; just successfully completing a thing is good enough. If I have a day purely to myself I can easily spend a handful of hours at the yard performing Vin-related duties, even taking the lorry out for a spin and filling it up with diesel counts! As far as getting 16 hands between my legs goes, I try to ride five times a week – three times during the working week and Saturday and Sunday.  But sometimes other things get in the way, which is what has happened this week, and as a result I haven’t ridden since last weekend. Boo.

Other things
Under the heading of ‘other things’ there are things that don’t take up sufficient time to rate an activity category of their own, or things that might be on the radar but haven’t yet materialised. Chief amongst these is the record label which I’m setting up. It’s a big bag of unknowns but it will operate under my guidance – with other people doing the work. I don’t expect my input to be that much, apart from offering advice, helping make decisions and determine policy directions. There are other things in the ‘other things’ category that relate to even more other things (if you see what I mean). Spending quality time with Sophie, for example. Fitting in visits to Daughter. Visits to the in-laws. The list is quite long really. Add to this the ‘sorting out’ of the recent RSSFeed/hosting issues with crappy old Servage and transferring things to Shiny New GoDaddy and the list starts to grow longer. New on the horizon is getting involved in organising a band tour next year!

So that’s it really. Add those things together and you get a fairly typical week.

How does yours look? Feel free to pick this up as a meme (but let me know so I can come and be nosy!) or do something in the comments.

B.

Which does, on the face of it, look like something of an oxymoron, the use of ‘fucking’ and ‘wankers’ in the same sentence. But bear with my general sense of irateness (yes it is a word, I looked it up) for a moment and all will become clear.

Harshly titled maybe but… What is it with Oxfordshire drivers?

As I drive to/from the Park and Ride every day the same questions keep popping in to my head. Day after day, week after week…

1.    Have I stepped in to some kind of parallel universe where the normal rules of driving don’t apply? Or
2.    Do driving instructors and driving examiners in Oxfordshire not cover roundabout etiquette? Or
3.    Does everyone really know all about roundabout etiquette but choose to forget it the moment they get a full licence?

Let me illustrate why I ask these three questions with one example (but might become more!) plucked from the world of random weirdness that I encounter on the killing joke that is the A40 every single day.

If a driver on a roundabout has to cross from lane three to lane one in the space of 5m in order to hit a roundabout exit, then that driver is in the wrong lane, right?

Right.

So go on then, guess how often I see this.

No, go on. Guess.

Twice a day.

Every single day.

WTF?

It was never as bad as this on the Worcestershire roads, not even in Chav Central. Indeed, driving in Detroitwich was easy compared to the perilous hazards of slogging up and down the A40.

At least on the A38 (Worcestershire’s main trunk road) you generally know where the people around you are coming from and going to.

But on the A40 in Oxfordshire?

They don’t give you a clue what they’re up to, not a single fucking clue. And – scarily – they seem not to have much of a clue themselves!

However the Oxfordshire driving madness isn’t confined to just leaving roundabouts. Oh no.

Welcome to the crazy Oxfordshire world of joining roundabouts.

Pick a lane. Go on. Pick any lane. But for fuck’s sake please folks, pick just one lane.

[clears throat]

Attention Oxfordshire Drivers:
Approaching a roundabout and straddling the white line that separates two lanes isn’t clever! It is also illegal.

It’s even downright dangerous, especially when the odds are that you are going to leave the roundabout at a completely different junction than either of the two lanes you’re attempting to line yourself up for is suited to.

Driving standards in Oxfordshire are really awful.

It isn’t just roundabouts.

On good roads, roads with a speed limit of 60mph or 70mph the locals just crawl along with such dawdling panache that you’d think they were posing for some kind of Saga (over 60s) lifestyle advert intended to emphasise how languidly peaceful driving a couple of tons of metal really is.

Newsflash.

Driving a couple of tons of metal isn’t a languidly peaceful pursuit. And behaving as if the rest of the world doesn’t matter is simply a sign of how disconnected from reality you are.

And that is not good.

Have you taken a driving test lately?

I have.

I took and passed my advanced motorbike test a couple of Christmases ago, so I’m now licensed to scare professionals.

You, on the other hand, scare everyone.

B.

In an attempt to deal with the point that Caroline has raised about truncated RSS feeds, I’ve just reset the feed length in my admin panel.

If that doesn’t push the full length of posts out I will need to look elsewhere.

B.

Soundtrack: Saturday Night,  16 Millimetre. Head-dippingly good!

No, not some thoughts on what to do with your ex-boyfriends, former girlfriends etc…

I was over at Lisa’s place the other day reading this article about racehorse rehabilitation. Apart from emphasising the difference between the US and the UK, the piece also reminded me how far Vin and I have come.

Vin is my third TB ex-racehorse. I’ve rehabilitated all of them myself. Unfortunately it takes two years (or sometimes longer) of retraining to get the mental out of their heads and turn them in to safe riding horses. And retraining them isn’t a job for amateurs.

But it’s very rewarding, to see a rehabilitated racehorse having fun and enjoying a new lease of life.

Unfortunately ex-racehorses are as cheap as chips at bloodstock auctions.

I say unfortunately because, far too often, experienced equestrian people who are inexperienced in the skills of rehabilitating racehorses pick up a news article and read about how inexpensive ex-racehorses are and that just such an ex-racehorse has recently won a Four Star three-day-event somewhere in the world

And these people engage on a course of action that usually ends in tears.

Or worse.

So if you’re an equestrian type of person and you’re thinking of nipping along to Ascot Bloodstock Sales with £1,500 in your back pocket in the hopes of coming away with a nice little project to turn an ex-racehorse in to a riding horse…

Don’t.

B.

p.s. Soundtrack: Stop Following Me by 16 Millimetre. How excellent has Australia’s best kept secret become? Brilliant!

I’m on the bus, it’s 07.05 and dark outside.

A female (about 20-something) just walked past me to ask the driver to turn the air con down because it is a bit roasting in here. Roasting in a non-sexual kind of way.

And she was wearing – are you ready for this? – apart from boots, tights, skirt and jumper…

A fur hat and -wait for it, wait for it – sungalsses.

Tada!

The world of irony has finally reached the world of fashion.

B.

p.s. Soundtrack – Bitches Ain’t Shit But Ho’s And Tricks, Dr Dre. Excellent!

This is just one side of a conversation I couldn’t help overhearing last week, it was conducted at full volume by two people standing in front of me in a queue. The googled privacy of the folk concerned have been protected by the cunning use of bio-degradable asterisks. Read it and weep:

K*m W*ng*r is going out with M*tty D*nst*n?

Is she really?

She’s really fit she is.

She used to go out with a guy called Dave. She had a couple of kids by him.

Well, well, well. K*m W*ng*r is going out with M*tty D*nst*n?

Has she got any kids by him yet? No? And she’s got five kids by other blokes?

I haven’t seen Matty for years, I went to primary school with him.

No, he’s the same age as me, makes him 35, 36?

Well, well. K*m W*ng*r and M*tty D*nst*n.

Who? Kathy?

She’s a laugh she is.

Does she know that joke? The I’m a celebrity joke?

Cos that Martina Navratillova, you know she’s a lesbian? Well she’s going to win it because she’s been eating bush tucker for years.

(I was so tempted to stand up and shout ‘ta daaa!’ but for one fact; I’m very partial to some bush tucker myself. In a vegetarian kind of way!)

B.

p.s. Soundtrack: The Loadout by Jackson Browne. Just excellent!

Vin has been off work for a little while.

He’d grazed his leg out in the field last Tuesday; it was nothing, he’d just removed a little fur to reveal the pink flesh underneath while having a real old hoolie around his field.

I’d looked at it and treated it appropriately and we’d got on with life.

Unfortunately 24 hours later I had a call from the yard to say that the graze had become infected and his leg had become swollen.

And indeed, that evening, his near fore did look as though it had been temporarily borrowed from a small elephant.

Doctor Bren diagnosed three days of rest, daily hosing and an evening spray with a drying anti-infection compound.

I also decided to give him a gentle intro to work, when it restarted, and that we would be confined to gentle walk/halt exercises for a few days.

A couple of hours later I was talking to one of the other liveries at the yard about injuries in general. I mentioned that I was surprised at the way Vin’s leg had reacted to what was, after all, a very minor injury.

She told me that the local soil seems to be high in unfriendly bacteria. Apparently there are a number of horses at the yard who seem prone to mud fever, and those who pick up insignificant cuts usually become infected and have to spend a few days afterwards on box rest.

This is very similar to the soil down on The Mendips in Somerset, where I lived and kept horses for a number of years.

The obvious mitigation is to have Vin turned out with brushing boots in an attempt to cover the parts of his legs he’s most likely to knock when he’s carting around like the two-year-old he thinks he is, but I’m reluctant to go that far. Wearing brushing boots all day seven days a week isn’t good for their legs. Well, it’s not good for a Thoroughbred because their skin is thinner than heavier breeds.

So we’re going with no leg boots, although over-reach boots will be worn. And I’ll be watching the situation very carefully.

As expected Vin has made a full recovery from his graze, but owing to too many time pressures I’ve hardly had time to work with him this week.

I could do with a week off.

B.
p.s. Soundtrack: Love Needs A Heart by Jackson Browne. How brilliant that track is.