Boss Radio

Ah, how I remember the good old days, those days of cycling into town to buy an LP or three then cycling home again with the records swinging gaily from the handlebars. I used to do it almost every week - What else was I going to spend my money on? - even in winter. The problem with winter was the short days. Lighting up time would frequently pop its head around the door before I got home, and back in those days the forces of law'n'order would do yer for that. Not a problem if you had functioning lights, but it's amazing how often I found myself with a flat battery, they didn't last as long in those days.

Of course, as you are all aware, batteries regenerate when unused, so I could usually expect to get maybe 10 minutes out of them before darkness overcame them.

A knowledge of lighting up time was imperative.

Lighting up time was dusk, otherwise known as half an hour after sunset, I think I may have mentioned this somewhere before, did I also mention I've just looked it up again and it's still the same? One thing I do remember was that, somewhat annoyingly, it never actually seemed dark at lighting up time. This is interesting because today I happened to notice that sunset was due at 4:21 (PM...), which meant that lighting up time would be, er... 4:51. We went out in the car (Mum's way past the cycling years), had a snack at a local tearoom, then set out into the country to monitor the sunset.

By my reckoning the sun actually set at about 10 past 4, give or take a few minutes on account of it was hidden by cloud for the last part of its trip, but that's OK, sunset is calculated at sea level, and I think we may have been a little higher than that. Whatever, to me it was still quite bright enough to see by at 4:21, which coincidentally was when I was first flashed.

Street lamps began coming on at around 4:30, by which time everyone but me and one van had their lights on, that ties in with their having to come on between 10 and 20 minutes before lighting up time, to me it was indeed getting dimmer and I put my sidelights on to pacify all the flashers who were suddenly able to see me because the street lights had come on. Actually I'd also realised that I couldn't read what speed I was doing.

At about 20 to 5 someone flashed me even with my sidelights on, and since I'd reckoned that sunset was actually about 4:10 I decided that this was an appropriate time to put my full lights on. As usual this caused the rest of the world outside of my headlamps to disappear, which I hate, but I drove on until the official lighting up time of 4:51, then I found somewhere deserted and turned my lights off.

It was dark.

So in the sixties/seventies it was light half an hour after sunset, and now it's dark. Obviously the sun's not changed, so it has to be my eyes, and mine are apparently still better than almost everyone else's. An optician once told me that over exposure to over-bright artificial light was destroying our eyes.

He was right.

So Gordon Brown has just made his make or break speech and early opinions are, well... Not very invigorating to be honest.

They basically ran the gamut from "That's what he always says" to "That's what they all say." I'm guessing you can guess the political slant of the responders by which reply they go for.

The reason for this dearth of constructive critique is that the newspapers haven't come out yet. Tomorrow nearly everyone will have an opinion, and for a frighteningly high percentage of them it will be based upon what their choice of 'paper has to say. And Britain's favourite daily is The Sun.

In other words Rupert Murdoch will be dictating how people will eventually vote in the next election.

That's not my opinion, by the way, it's the opinion of The Sun itself, and of the politicians who woo the Murdoch clan at every available opportunity. Which I find a little frightening. The thing is, all newspapers are registered as such, it gives them certain privileges. To me, any 'paper which publishes opinions as news should lose that registration, opinions should be kept to the opinion columns.

Meanwhile I can but exhort the Sun's 10 million readers to think for themselves whilst they're admiring page three with one hand. Don't let Rupert Murdoch tell you what to think.

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If anyone noticed my several week's absence and wondered why, I just thought I'd mention. I downloaded Opera 10 for Mandriva Linux, and it doesn't work. It doesn't even load. Hence I am writing this on a pretty pink laptop running XP, and I don't like it.

XP that is, not the pretty pink computer, which I shall continue to worship for at least as long as it takes for this to get published...

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?