Boss Radio

I just heard on the news that we're now in the worst slump we've been in since 1987. So there I was, all prepared for the usual accusions from one lot of politicians and the excuses from the other lot.

Nothing. Silence. Just comment from people in the city and the resident news dept. talking heads.

It took me a little while to work it out but now I think I've got it.

In 1987 this lot were the other lot (If you catch my drift...).

Things are more like they are today than they have ever been before.

I injured myself.

It's something that can happen to vinyl junkies such as myself at anytime of the music-listening day. I sprained my tone-arm lowering finger.

Naturally it was straight down to casualty for me. Ambidextrous I may be, but because of the placement of the tone-arm on the turntable mounting even left handed people have to lower it with their right hand. Or maybe rig up some kind of really stupid mechanism as a protest against a right handed dictatorship world.

I was quickly triaged by a doctor who rushed me to the back of the queue and a within only a few mere hours I was called to a cubicle. I should have realised that something was wrong when the nurse asked me to take off all my clothes.

She was about to perform what I assume was a secret mystery life saving procedure upon me when a doctor came rushing into the cubicle. "No no nurse!" He screamed. "I said 'Crook his little finger, not finger his little...'"

I assume from your ill-concealed expressions and unnecessary chortling that you don't believe me. You think I'm making this up. Let's be honest, up to this point it does rather beggar belief, doesn't it?

And yet the truth is, yes of course it's not true. I played a record titled 'Crook his little finger' on my media player as I was going to post a letter today. It was a beautiful sunny day and I found myself singing it no matter what came up on the player after it, so I switched it off and promptly thought of that punch line. After that it was a simple matter of constucting a lead-in storyline to reach it.

What the doctor really shouted as he came into the cubicle was "No no nurse! I said prick his boil, not boil his..."

...but you won't enjoy it...

Drizzle. Gah, I hate it. I like weather that can make up its mind. Drizzle doesn't know what it is, it probably doesn't even realise that it's annoying. Mind you, I guess for the people who live along the upper half of the river Thames it's a much more preferable option to real actual rain, being far less likely to cause any real actual flooding, but when you're driving - I say it again, "Gah."

It hits your windscreen and your wipers don't know what to do. They wipe the screen and half the time there's not enough moisture on there to make it worthwhile, all it does is leave a smear right across where you're trying to look out of the window, and it makes a ghastly scraping noise as it does so just so's you know that damge has been caused, even if it is too fine for you to see. Just yet.

So I opt for manual use and sit there driving along with the screen slowly fogging up in front of me and suddenly realise that I can't see and bash to 'wipe-NOW' lever and clear it. Occasionally the fog is actually caused by my having turned off the the demister because it's blowing hot air around the top of the car and my head is telling me to go to sleep, but usually it's the drizzle.

I did think that using the windscreen-wash function would be my best option for screen lubrication and cleaning purposes, but it would seem that there is a hairline gap of some kind in my windscreen reservoir. All summer it's been full of plain old H2O, but come the cold weather and I put some of that expensive special windscreen-wash-only anti-freeze in there and the water thins out just enough for it to squeeze out of the crack, wherever it may be.

We were supposed to be out enjoying ourselves as well. We British take our pleasures very seriously. I only had to go and pick up a parcel that the courier had apparently been unable to deliver, but having been without the car for a couple of days while it was being road-worthiness tested, mum wanted to come along for the ride, and soon as I picked up the parcel she said "Where are we going now?"

Good question. Not 'home' it would seem. So I suggested visiting a nearby town and doing a spot of shopping at their posh supermarket. Unfortunately it was drivetime and the roads were crowded, hence I was driving down what should have been little-known backroads and other cars were following me, sometimes they even followed me from in front, or in the other direction. It's a pain. I go to all the trouble of discovering all these little alternative routes and other motorists promptly do the same, so the next time I go thataway there's other traffic on the road. On my road.

I don't know where they get the gall.

But as if trespassing on my special route wasn't enough, some of these miscreants put their lights on, thinking for some reason that it's a bit dark. It's not dark you planks, it's rainingdrizzling, and all you're doing is shooting out jets of light that hit the little drizzle drops and burst into a thousand stars before my very eyes while I'm trying to see where I'm going. I would put my lights on just to show them the error of their ways, but then they're just going to think 'Ooh, this is bright darkness, I'd better put the foglights/main beam on' and I wouldn't want to encourage such asinine behavior. The way I see it, if it's actually getting dark two things happen, firstly I can't see what speed I'm doing, and secondly, the street lights come on. Yes, someone somewhere went to all the trouble of inventing these light sensors so that the lights would come on whenever they're needed and what happens? People still decide to decide for themselves whether it's getting dark.

And flash me because I dare to disagree. That's the bit that gets my goat.

Then, as I was driving right on the speed limit down one of these roads I found I was being pursued by a tailgater. This not only got my goat, it got my whole herd of sheep and a pair of elephants that had wandered into the room. Now I not only had to deal with oncoming traffic, I had twinkles coming at me from the rearview mirrors too. Meanwhile ahead of me there was a bend coming up, I eased up on the accelerator a little to navigate the bend. This was more than the guy behind me could stand and as a gap opened up in the traffic coming the other way he floored it and overtook me right ahead of the bend.

I'm a mild mannered guy. No really. You might not guess it from reading this missive but I'm a really calm person in real, none blog, life. So I sat there with my foot paused on the brake pedal because I didn't know any better than this idiot if something was going to come around the corner, and I suddenly found myself wanting something to come around the corner. I thought that if was to accelerate around the corner (Which is as a matter of fact what I normally do) he would be trapped on the outside and have a full frontal. That'd teach him.

Fortunately nothing did come around and moments later he jumped the red at a set of traffic lights just a little further down the road, so I lost him and relative calm befell me again. By the time we reached the store I was a picture of zen. Compared to sharing my own bit of road with a bunch of maniacs with my name painted across their chests, shopping was a walk in the breeze.

By the time we left the store it actually was dark and we set off down the road lit up like a Christmas tree. Well, a well illuminated motor vehicle anyhow, and I was determined to enjoy the return trip whatever happened. So the engine started 'missing'. Actually not so much missing as misfiring and occasionally not-misfiring. I started thinking cheerful thoughts and revving the engine a lot, then we hit a series of mini-roundabouts.

As I started across the 1st one the engine cut out.

Don't you just hate it when that happens? We sat there with the emergency lights on trying to start the thing while a 5 mile long queue of traffic that wanted to come around the roundabout began piling up opposite. I had it in mind that I would roll back if the guy behind me would just come around and get out of my way, but he patiently waited to see what I would do. I had pretty much decided that I was going to have to get out of the car and direct traffic when I hit on the idea of turning off the headlights and trying the starter again.

It caught.

I revved like a lead footed obese drag racer on speed and shot off. Behind me someone honked.

Ungrateful swine. It's not like I did it on purpose.

It was a hard ride home, between the car misfiring and me not being able to see where I was going half the time I was finding it difficult to reamin cool, and my mother suggesting that if I was going to keep on panicking like this we'd better sell the car didn't help either.

Halfway home I realised that I had only put the parking lights on.

Some times you just can't win.

The Vogon's are due to destroy the Earth any time now. One of them just dropped me this poem to make me feel better about it.

Cult to Deke.

See, see the
Helpful sky
Marvel at its big yellowy-orange depths.
Tell me, Kevin do you
Wonder why the baboon ignores you?
Why its foobly stare
makes you feel flamcorborated.
I can tell you, it is
Worried by your gerphunkesvesen facial growth
That looks like
A nemetoad's.
What's more, it knows
Your farg potting shed
Smells of snot.
Everything under the big
Helpful sky
Asks why, why do you even bother?
You only charm fishes.

Ask nicely and he'll drop you one. You see if he won't...

I've got my new glasses. Widescreen and graduated.

They take a bit of getting used to.

I'd explained to the optometrist (Or whatever) that with my regular glasses I couldn't see the screen properly when I was typing on the computer unless I used my reading glasses (Which incidentally, I never use for reading, I'm just so used to doing it without glasses...), which meant that I couldn't then lean back when I was just surfing unless I switched back to my regular specs.

He suggested I tried lenses that gradually 'backed off' as you looked downwards. It sounded like a good idea at the time.

Then I saw the bill...

Oh well. They work OK except that when I glance downwards as a part of my normal everyday existance it feels like my eyes have gone all blurry, I have to remember to move my entire head, and when I'm typing I have to crick my head back then look downwards to see the screen. On the other hand it does mean that I can then loll backwards in my seat and look at the screen in the same relaxed manner with which I watch TV.

Talking about TV, I have to hold my head at an un-natural angle to watch it properly now. Fortunately I've found a comfortable position in the chair which holds me in that position. For a while.

Oh well, at least I don't have to change my glasses to type my blog any more.

Except that I just did, without thinking. It was an automatic reaction. Type blog: Change glasses. And as a result of this, I've noticed how much heavier my new glasses are.

So to sum it all up, I've just spent vast sums on a pair of glasses that cause me to mistrust my own eyesight, move my head around like a Thunderbirds puppet, try to slide down my nose under their own weight, and give me the occasional crick in the neck, and due some kind of Pavlovian reaction I'm not using them for the one thing I bought them for.

Fortunately the shades I got for half price as a reward for buying these new super-specs look really cool.