This week has been quite an eventful one in the life of our rather unremarkable little hamlet. Described variously as ‘picturesque’ (Oooh!), ‘quaint’ (Aaah!) and ‘sleepy’ (Oi!), our hitherto undistinguished residential aggregation has attracted the national press. Why, you may ask. Ok so you didn’t but you might as well stick around; you’ve got nothing better to do or you wouldn’t be here, right?  Apparently Dark Forces have infiltrated our local political environment.  Already somewhat right wing, apart from a very few socialists and a larger LibDem enclave whose meetings are apparently attended by one of my cats, the locality … Continue reading ‘February-ish’

Ok, you’re getting the hang of it now, Brits really do talk about the weather constantly. This is because it is generally neither insipid nor deeply traumatic but impactful in that must-find-something-that-doesn’t-go-transparent-when-wet sort of way.  British weather is idiosyncratically variable such that prediction is rather more psychic than meteorological and today is no exception. After hurling rain with the consistency of stair rods most of the night and glowering in a hostile manner most of the day, it turns the heat up the moment I hit the fields. Not that this evaporates the moisture (I say moisture – it’s more … Continue reading ‘Soaked Again’

It’s a Bank Holiday here in UK land – or the fifty-first state as it’s more commonly known.  Fifty-first? Fifty-second?  How would I know, I don’t even know how many counties we’ve got here and you could fit the whole shebang into Central Park with room round the edges for immigration and a dog track.  Although you’d have to find somewhere else for the Scots as they are currently on an independence high and sawing their way along Hadrian’s Wall with a view to casting themselves off[1]. Anyway, Bank Holidays are the times when us Brits arm ourselves with barbeque … Continue reading ‘Rain’

Recently, I felt compelled to add some variety to the sounds escaping the windows and boot of my car when either of these is opened. The neighbours at least will have observed that I’ve had the same cd in the deck for several months and so, clearly, something has to be done about it. Time then to burn a special edition so I crank up the media player, load a blank and start dragging and dropping tracks onto the slate.  But what’s this? No drive?  How can that be?  It was there yesterday, it ripped yesterday, it was acknowledged as … Continue reading ‘When We Only Had Radio Luxembourg and Buying a Bulb Was Men’s Work’

Okay, you win, I APOLOGISE you pestiferous, pea-brained, gnat-witted, god of Excessive Precipitation.  Clearly I have upset this cloven-hoofed repository of extreme grandiosity by suggesting that the British weather really didn’t do anything terribly exciting, just got damp a lot so that we’re always obliged to carry raincoats.  By way of vengeance, he, she or it has taken it upon themselves to dump somebody else’s monsoon on us so that parts of the country got a month’s worth of rain in twenty four hours. Now you’d think that, this being an island, the excess would just run off the edge … Continue reading ‘Ye Gods’