Boss Radio

The weather forecasters got it wrong again, so yesterday afternoon, having just realised that it was in fact quite a nice day and not at all the monsoon they'd been predicting, we got in the car and went for a drive to somewhere.

Try as we might we couldn't find it and instead wound up at The Living Rainforest again, where, not wanting to waste our one year memberships, we took another look around. The poor old Dwarf Crocodile had been glassed in.

Now I've seen this poor creature trying to get out of its pit and there's no way it can make it, so it's not been glassed in to protect us. I therefore have to assume it's been glassed in to protect it from us.

The sad thing is, I don't find that hard to believe.

Last year the UK flogged £5,400,000 worth of military hardware to Georgia. We also trousered a magnificent £55mil from the Russian army.

Now those two figures may seem a little uneven to the average unmilitarily educated observer, but the Georgian army also benefitted from a $63,000,000 train and equip programme from the USA. The intention was that Georgia could then join NATO and ooh maybe even, erm... fight in Iraq.

I suspect an assault on South Ossetia wasn't even discussed in the coffee break.

In a completely unrelated interview on the radio last week someone trotted out the old adage 'Guns don't kill people: People kill people'. I've never understood that argument.

If people kill people, don't give them guns.

They're a band. I first heard them many years ago when I was touring Scotland in the Land Rover with my mother, they were being fairly heavily played on Radio Caroline, the last of the offshore stations, in particular they were featuring the track 'Make me do anything you want'. By the end of the holiday I knew the song well enough to play it and the song and mountains of Scotland have become an abiding memory, I can't separate them.

Naturally I bought the album.

It contained one other track that I really liked, 'He's always there, watching you', and others which were OK I guess, and that was that until the arrival of the internet, and to be more exact, Ebay.

In those early halcyon days of Ebay I was looking up everything I could think of, not to buy - I wasn't even a member yet - but just to see what wonders were on there, and thus it was that I discovered that A Foot in Cold Water had recorded 3 other albums. Later, after I'd enrolled, I left an ongoing search for them just to check prices, and on occasion even considered buying one, 'though I never actually did.

Last week one of their albums came up from a European address, and it was pretty cheap, a definite temptation, so I put it on my watch list and with just hours to go I've just checked on it to see how it was progressing...

10 people have bid on it so far. It's up to thirty odd euros which is somewhere around thirty quid which is somewhere around sixty dollars. I began to think something nasty might have happened to one of the band.

Apparently not...

It was listed as "Nude cover"...

I was driving home on the A303 eastbound. For you foreigners and Brits with no intimate knowledge of the UK road network out there the A303 is a road that cuts almost straight down the middle of the leg at the bottom west of England then boogies on down to London, and since it's been motorwayised for a large part of its route it's now a very useful way of hurrying home (Although I rarely use it when I'm going somewhere else. Not picturesque enough. Well, except when it goes past Stonehenge anyway. That's picturesque enough for as long as the road vibrations haven't demolished it).

As I approached the Newbury/Winchester/Southampton intersection I espied a new service area. Fuel, food, and farting (C'mon, does anyone ever do anything else in those places? It sure doesn't sound like it to me), who could ask for anything more?

Well, some sign that intelligent thought was involved was involved in the layout would have been nice.

We turned in for a little light refreshment, by which I'm not referring to fuel or farting, and whoops! Almost immediately missed the turning into the 'Cars' area. I paused as I turned in, it seemed to me I was driving into the petrol station forecourt, but no, the other road was definitely labled 'HGVs' and there were... erm- five parking spaces, so I pulled into one.

Almost immediately a car to my left missed the turn into the cars area and came to a halt along the HGVs track. It reversed back and pulled into the last parking place, behind me. I surveyed the area and on the other side of the forecourt was a building labled 'Wild Bean Cafe - BP - M&S', I also noticed more parking spaces but the only way to get to them was to drive through the forecourt without buying any petrol. I could see that getting annoying if there was a queue for fuel. Meanwhile on my left another car missed the turn into the cars area. I could see that getting annoying as well.

So having ascertained that there was no marked walkway through the fuel dispensing area we walked across it to the building on the other side. I had expected three entrances but there was just the one, so in we went. It was an M&S food shop, very well stocked, but the 'Pay here' sign was right down the far end of the building, meaning you had to carry your purchases all the way back through the store and back through the petrol filling area to get to your car. I could certainly see that starting to get annoying. In addition, this was the same till you had to go to to pay for the aforementioned fuel. Yup, you had to walk right through the store even if you didn't want to buy anything. Deliberate I'm sure, but do I need to repeat 'Annoying'?

The 'cafe' turned out to be a small area in the furthest corner of the store. It had one table with seating for four people healthy enough to climb onto the seats, otherwise I guess half a dozen people could stand by it. Against the wall was a serve-yourself hot food area with tongs thoughtfully provided to get the food out with. On the wall was a sign saying we could use either till to order our drinks and pay for our food, so we went to the one in the corner of the cafe.

"I'm sorry," said the cashier. "But there are other people waiting to be served."

I looked around. There was a long queue of people waiting to pay for their petrol and maybe shop purchases. Slowly it dawned on me.

"You mean..." I said, my eyebrows dusting the ceiling. "That I have to choose my hot food, walk back out of the cafe, around the side of it to the back of the queue, and then wait my turn to pay for what would undoubtably by then be lukewarm food, after which I walk back into the cafe down this convenient little lane to sit down and eat?"

The cashier seemed surprised at the question. "Yes" she nodded, as if she was talking to a simpleton. I'm not claiming that I'm not a simpleton you understand, simply that I don't like being addressed like one. I searched through my mind for a big word, but none was forthcoming so I settled for 2nd best and adopted my trademark Clint Eastwood squint (Hey, it's Eastwood's fault for not trademarking it himself).

"Doesn't that seem a little... asinine?" I enquired.

"Yes" she replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. I'm sorry but this was starting to get really annoying...

We went back to the cafe and I put the hot food back into the dispenser and we walked out. As we crossed over the fuel dispensing area again another car had just missed the turn into the cars area. We got into our vehicle and crossed the fuel pump zone one last time and followed the 'out' arrows. They took us down the side of the building, and there behind it we found more parking places.

Don't quote me on this, but I suspect Alice in Wonderland had something to do with the design of this place.

And the hiring of the staff.

There's something insidious about loosing your hair. You can see little bits of it falling out in front, but you can't see the top so you think it's alright. You continue to exist in your little 'I'm still pretty hairy' world because no one has that cruelty gene to the extent that they will call you a slaphead until it's obvious, even to you, that the bits disappearing from the front are joining up with the bits that you can't see from the top. In my case things are complicated still further by the fact that some of my hairs are refusing to fall out, instead they continue to sit atop my head, necessitating the occasional cut and comb. All hail the mighty Silvikrin Hair Tonic .

There are those that try to maintain that Silvikrin hair tonic was merely charlatan's potion and that it had no real effect upon the human bonce, but I think that my little flag wavers up there and the fact that more and more people are getting balder quicker younger these days proves that the mighty little bottle did indeed have secret mystery resorative powers no longer availble to man.

Alas the mighty super-gro food for the head and the hair that should grow upon it is no more, and thus it was that I went to buy a new car.

I may not have mentioned this lately, but my mother had problems with her old car, especially in hot weather, which we've had quite a lot of recently, so my sister and her husband rather generously offered to buy her a new one and last wednesday they came around to take us out to look at a few garages. It looked slightly overcast outside and the thought of taking a hat/cap with me never entered my head (More evidence, were it needed, of the damage being done to my upper extremety by the lack of any kind of hair-assistor-stuff). Naturally the sun came out, in spades.

As soon as we stepped out of the first showroom to wander around the yard I knew I was going to be in trouble. It felt really silly walking around looking at cars with my hands over my head but they were the only protection I had, so I wandered around looking like a prisoner-of-war trying to make sensible evaluations of over-priced second hand transportation that I could hardly see for the sun reflecting off their super-polished outer shells.

The second salesroom was a bit better, it had lots of trees that I could stand under while I pretended to analyse the array of features spread before me in the guize of everyday cars. Alas, we drew another blank. Even 2nd hand cars it seemed were now out of our price range. Then on our way to the third "Previously used vehicles" venue we spotted a garage with lots of price signs on the cars parked outside. We stopped to look. The prices were just so much better...

It was now just turned mid day, internet standard time, which meant that the sun was at it's zenith as we wandered around the lot looking at car after car. The guy doing the selling thought I might be interested in a nice red Mazda sports (Vroom vroom...) which indeed I was, I like the sound of Mazda engines. Where other engines tick over the Mazda hums. There was a problem though. Only the driver's seat was fully adjustable, and mum couldn't see over the dash. Salesmanguy's suggestion that she could use a big cushion didn't go down too well with me. For over one and a half thou' I don't expect to have to buy a cushion.

So we looked at other cars, and others, and more others, and all the time the sun was beating down upon my poor old achin' head.

Bottom line, when we finally got home I was in pain. I splashed water all over my head, several times, then smothered it in aftersun cream, a few hours later I went to bed.

Yesterday I awoke and my head had gone crisp. It was dry and hurt like mad if I tried to flex the skin at all. I spent the day complaining about it.

Today I looked at myself in the mirror. I have a bright red head. A bright red head that looks really silly. A bright red head that looks really silly and hurts.

Where's the Silvikrin hair tonic when you need it?