Brennig Jones (and friends)

So there are three bits of information to record.

Firstly, we are back in Chez Jones. We have travelled 210 miles in the last two days, but now the outside world is hidden from view, the curtains are closed, the lounge lights are dimmed and we are curled up on the couch, relaxing with a nice cup of tea after having just polished off a milkshake picked up on the way home from a certain fast food outlet. Ahem.

Secondly, we had a lovely time in Bath. And Wells.

In the former place the hotel was very nice, our room was absolutely gorgeous and the breakfast this morning was very yummy. Soph did us proud with that choice of a place to stay.

Also in Bath the restaurant we ate at last night – Aqua in Walcott Street – was another truly excellent choice from the Soph. The food on my dishes was fantastic (so were the contents of my glasses. Hic!).

The people at the next table were both hilarious and contemptible, and an outstanding example of why humanity needs to buck its ideas up or just become extinct.

After a lovely meal we walked through the freezing night air down to the taxi rank outside Bath Abbey and saw, on the brief walk, typical examples of the kind of late-Friday-night lifeforms that I used to see so often when I worked in that city.

Not many minutes later we were tucked up in a football pitch-sized bed that was extremely comfortable.

Today we spent some time in Bath (and saw a brilliant street entertainer – photos may follow!) before nipping down to Wells for lunch, walking, talking, browsing the bookstalls in the market and just chilling out.

As soon as I put the laptop down we are in for an episode of 24. Or two.

The third detail to record is that as today is the 31st I have reached the end of my self-imposed challenge to post once a day for January and give each post a one-word title.

Thank heavens for that! It was very easy but as the end of the month loomed closer it seemed to put me under more pressure.

Anyway… 24 beckons.

I (eventually) got home last night to be greeted by a very excited Soph.

“Shall I tell you the surprise?!” she asked with such great enthusiasm that I was left in no doubt as to the correct answer.

Soph doesn’t do secrets, not the way I do.

“I’m taking you away tomorrow night,” she said. “I’ve booked a hotel in Bath and a restaurant and everything!”

And so this evening, when we’re both done with work and have packed a few things, we’re on our way westwards. Without the Ho. That’s a joke.

In other news…

Here’s a bizarre thing. The soundtrack in my head is a song I haven’t heard for about four months – ‘Build’ by The Housemartins.

I’m going to have to look it out now.

Here’s another bizarre thing.

The question in my head is ‘Whatever happened to Linda Bartlett and Sue Batten?’

Two people who haven’t been in my head for years.

WTF?

I am hating the passenger opposite me. I started to hate her even before I sat down.

She built her nest on one of those two seats facing forward/two seats facing backward/table in the middle arrangements.

How can one girl in her late 20s occupy all four seats and the entire surface of the table?

So I indicated I was going to sit opposite her and asked her to move her stuff. She did, but she tried to kill me with a look.

You failed love.

Then I set out my laptop on the table.

She tutted and started to move her stuff from underneath my laptop – which I graciously lifted to allow her to (begrudgingly) make some space. And then she tried to kill me with a look again.

You’re still in the failing category love.

Then she like made like a phone call like.

Imagine a really plummy – but affected – accent:

Oh hello Briony (I hated her for that too) it’s Jasmine here. [drones on in plummy voice for some minutes and then...]

Well I don’t like know where to get orf like. I imagine it’s like the High Street? No, I’ve never been to Oxford before. Yah. Could you send me like a text? With directions?

By this time my loathing is accelerating upwards through the gears quicker than a Lotus.

OK like. I’ll see you around eight. Yah, bye.

When she cleared the table she left on it what I can only describe as a large covered dinner plate (LCDP) – the covering is some kind of raffia affair tied with the Bluebird insignia that, to me, signifies… Toffee!

I’m telling you this because the LCDP is sliding around on the table as the coach navigates the highways and byways of London village.

There are many twists and turns on the highways and byways of London village.

If the LCDP slides in to my laptop just once – just ONCE – more I’m going to stand, pick the thing up, walk the length of the coach, dump it in the bog and flush it.

She keeps steadying it and then, because she has the attention span of a goldfish, removing her steadying hand.

And then it slides again.

Steadying hand.

Steadying hand removed.

Slide. Bang in to laptop.

Steadying hand.

Steadying hand removed.

Slide. Bang in to laptop.

FFS!!!!

And she’s chewing her nails.

Actually… no, that’s not accurate.

She’s dining on her nails. I think she’s on her third course by now.

Hey – nailbiters – do you know how singularly unattractive you look when you’re massaging the inside of your mouth with your fingers?

I hate her.

Have I said this already?

No, really. I loathe her.

Self-centred doesn’t even come close to describing this stuck-up little bitch. She’s so far up herself she could lick her tonsils from her arse.

Flick!

Oh-oh.

We’ve developed a new mannerism.

Flick!

The hair toss.

Slurp!

There go the fingers. Straight after the hair toss, the fingers head right for the mouth again.

Ooooh, she’s so scrummy!

And the thing is – because I’m a guy I’ve got a detector and I can tell these things – she absolutely LOVES herself.

I’m going to get my phone out and video her and put it up on YouTube so we can all have a laugh and a groan at her expense.

Damn.

It’s a bit too dark in here.

Bugger.

Flick!

Slurp.

Steadying hand.

Remove steadying hand.

Slide. Bang in to laptop.

Steadying hand.

Flick.

Slurp.

Slide. Bang in to laptop.

OMFG!

She’s removed the LCDP!

It’s now on her lap.

Flick.

Slurp.

Hand on the table.

Hand on the window-ledge.

Flick.

Slurp.

Do you know how many germs you’ve transferred in to your mouth?

Twenty-six billion zillion quadrillion.

Die bitch, die!

Have I mentioned that I hate people today?

Today I was a twunt;  I left my laptop at home.

Twunt twunt twunt twunt twunt!

Fortunately I didn’t need it – the files I worked on yesterday evening were on the pendrive in my pocket. Which sounds like a Little Feat track: ‘Pendrive In My Pocket’.

Umm.

If you’re not a person who knows the Little Feat back-catalogue that probably isn’t funny. To you.

Anyway.

I missed not having it around, my lappy, and yet I felt strangely… liberated.

Unfortunately there is a downside to that liberated feeling; things were left undone:

• I couldn’t complete the two album reviews I was due to complete this morning
• I couldn’t have my customary blog-readfest on the way in to the office
• I couldn’t finalise the playlist for this weekend’s podcast
• I couldn’t tinker with that feature I’m writing for the Icelandic magazine

All of these things add up to today being a bit of a bummer.

However, in other news… I may have found an accountant! I have a meeting with her later this week but on the phone she sounds ideal.

Yay!

I tried to give young Vinnie some gentle showjump schooling this evening.

The top arena is 20m x 60m (equirubber, fibre and sand) and a lovely surface to jump on.

We schooled flatwork for 20 minutes and achieved a forward-going shape that was soft, supple, relaxed and just very lovely.

I hopped off, put up a small ‘figure of eight’ course of four fences:

* A crosspole with 80cm at the midpoint at ‘B’
* A single 90cm upright with colour fillers at ‘E’
* A narrow ‘stile’-type 90cm with brush fillers just before ‘X’
* A 90cm parallel with 1m spread and colour fillers just before ‘X’ on the rein-change.

Nothing big, nothing scary, just schooling fences that could be ridden individually or as a course of four jumps – or even repeated/changed as required.

After our previous showjumping disasters I was slightly cautious at first; we approached the first – the crosspole – at a gentle trot, and I was slightly defensive in my position.

Vin stayed as cool and calm on the approach as he had been during the flatwork schooling; we landed in canter, he still felt soft so I let him carry on.

We cantered the track of four and I brought him back through trot to walk, patted his neck, told him he was brilliant and gave him a long rein for a lap of the arena.

Then we came again; this time he was slightly stronger, marginally quicker but he still felt very good so I shortened the reins, shifted out of the defensive position in to a relaxed forward seat and kept quiet while he got on with the job.

He was brilliant again! I gave him a rest and then we had one more go before calling it a day.

As soon as he landed over the first fence he snatched the bit and bolted; we steamed around the arena at what felt like a hundred miles an hour.

I had excellent steering but no brakes at all, I had to perch there until he’d run out of sufficient steam to permit me to guide him to a halt.

There’s nothing physically wrong with Vin; he’s even had his back checked in the last week, he just flips out and goes back to being a racehorse – jumping everything very fast and very flat.

I have to get the bugs out of his showjumping, this is very scary.

Jesus Bloody Christ! That’s it. I’m dumping my useless accountant as soon as I can get someone else in the frame.

I don’t want rocket science. I just need someone to calculate and submit my quarterly VAT return, do the company returns and directors returns.

Am I after too much?

Well yes, I evidently am – or so the useless wankers who have been supposed to be carrying out these tasks would have it.

I’m reduced to fumbling through Yellow Pages unless anyone knows a good competent accountant who isn’t going to charge an arm and three legs for doing routine work?

That spelling looks wrong but I can’t find an alternative that looks right…

We were on our way back from Soph’s parents last night; the route from their part of rural Worcestershire to our bit of rural Oxfordshire is single carriageway ‘A’ road all the way. Not one ‘A’ road, we have to switch between a bunch of them, but the quality of road remains the same all the way.

It was dark, about 2.5c and there wasn’t much traffic on the roads.

At one point as we were coming across the top end of the Cotswolds we caught up with a lorry which was following a car.

The lorry was a six-axled articulated lorry and it, like us, was doing 60mph. Which is illegal; the national speed limit for Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) on a road of that specification is 56mph.

But the lorry driver wasn’t having any of that legal nonsense.

He pulled right up behind the car and put his headlights on full beam. And left them on full beam.

I felt sorry for the car driver, it must have felt as if he was getting lasered to death; lorry headlights being set at a punishingly blinding height for car drivers even when dipped.

But this lorry-driving maniac had only one thought; he had to get to wherever he was going and he had to get there quicker than the 60mph that he was being held back to – by the car in front.

I dropped back a couple of car lengths and flipped my headlights up to full beam and left them there until the lorry driver eventually dropped his back to dip.

What a total shite this lorry driver was.

Anyway, the car turned off, probably to find a hospital to have his retina-burn treated, and the lorry sped away from us in a burst of speed that was completely inappropriate for a country road.

The lorry registration number was X111 EDC. We think the haulage company was ‘Spicer’s’.

If anyone can throw any light on this company I’d appreciate it; this was dangerous driving at its worst and should be reported.

This is a biggie for us Brits but feel free to answer the questions if you’re from another place

How much do you trust your news sources?
Totally / Mostly / Some / Not at all

How much do you trust the BBC News that you hear on the radio or see on the television?
Totally / Mostly / Some / Not at all

If a BBC News programme stated a position by a politician and then played a video clip of that politician saying words that supported that position, would you believe it?
Totally / Mostly / Some / Not at all

What if you came across evidence that the BBC staff had spliced together unrelated clips by that politician, and that the position the BBC News were presenting was actually a fabrication, a total misrepresentation of the words that the politician spoke, and what if that politician was the President of the United States? Would you feel comfortable in believing the BBC ever again?
Yes / No / Don’t know

Do you believe that this will never happen?

Until today I thought the BBC was truthful and would never edit information together in such a way as to present a falsehood.

Now go and read this.

Vin was so pleased to see me this afternoon! Or perhaps it was the carrots in my hand. No, it was definitely me he was pleased to see.

I tried to explain to him why I hadn’t been up to see him during the week; that my car had died and getting up to see him had been impossible.

But that unfortunate situation is now over because I’ve got a new car and can get up to see him more often. I think he thought that was good news.

Vin’s had a busy week. On Monday he had new shoes. On Tuesday he saw the chiropractor. Both events are routine, he gets new shoes every six weeks and a chiropractic check every six months.

Apparently the chiropractor fell in love with Vin and raved about his character, temperament and conformation; It’s not surprising, he is an exceptional boy.

We schooled this afternoon and he was excellent, right up until the time someone started setting up a course of showjumps.

This is typical of Vin, showjumps get him excited; ten minutes before the showjumps came out he was relaxed, happy, supple and obedient.

As soon as the first fence was built he went rigidly tense, stopped listening to me and bounced his way around the arena. It took quarter of an hour to get his head back to a place that was approaching where he was beforehand.

Vin’s attitude to showjumps concerns me.

I trust him implicitly over cross-country fences and his dressage is borderline excellent. But put coloured poles anywhere near him and he loses it.

And for an event horse, that’s seriously not good!

Next Sunday we’ve got a clinic with JP; it’ll be interesting to see what that yields. And in a few weeks we have a cross-country clinic with William. I can hardly wait for that one!

So the girl over there? She’s feeding her offspring.

I’m on the coach, a couple of minutes ago teen mummy got on with her two sprogs (one is about 18 months the other is maybe three months) and plonked them down.

I recall that when she got on she bought just one ticket. So the two offspring travel for free? What a con.

When I’m the Supreme Ruler of the Universe I’ll reverse that little earner. Those little gits will have to pay 10 times the adult fare, not travel free! We can’t have toxic little yobs (I don’t care how young they are!) screaming and yelling and puking and having tantrums in the company of peace and quiet-loving adults. Like me.

Anyway, teen mummy sorted out her sprogs and got out enough stuff to indicate she might have just bought out Mothercare. The whole chain not just one store.

And then she hoiked up her jumper, hoisted out one of her milk-engorged mamaries and slapped the leaking tit in the mouth of the younger of her two little brats.

Now look, there’s something wrong with this picture and I’m trying to work out what it might be. Can you help?

But while you’re pondering, let me give you another thing to consider.

If I whipped out my digicam and started snapping off photos of her breastfeeding the newer output of her too-active reproductive organs, am I doing something wrong?

Am I?

Because the next question is:

If I’m doing something wrong in taking a photo of her exposing her breast in a public place, why the hell is she exposing herself in a public place?

What’s the crime? Taking a photograph in a public place?

Because if your answer to the question is ‘yes, in taking a photograph of that woman exposing her breast in a public place is wrong’, then where’s the crime of ‘taking a photograph in a public place’ on the statute books?

I’ve got news for you, that crime doesn’t exist; it isn’t a crime.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not offended by teen mummy getting her tits out in public; I have no sense of indecency and therefore have no values of decency to get bent up about.

I was just wondering if teen mummy knows the situation she’s putting herself – and her younger offspring – in?

And is she perhaps aware that photos of her tits could be all over alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.breasts.sucking (or on facebook or on youtube) in the time it takes me to press the ‘send’ button?