The Blog of Lone

Since I’ve been quite busy recently, or just lazier than normal, and have been neglecting the little Blogmonkeys, I thought I owed you all a little something to read.  Don’t worry I’m not going to throw stories at you (not yet at least).   I actually got 2 requests for a new entry on the Blog, and I’m not sure whether I was more flattered or terrified by the idea that people actually read this thing.  So anybody smashing their heads against the keyboard screaming ‘not him again’ at the top of their lungs, well, don’t blame me, blame Captain Dix and M.  It’s their fault.  Really it is.

So back by popular(ish) demand, for your enjoyment, a new entry in the diatribe that is the Blog.

“Outside of a dog a book is a man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” - Groucho Marxs

As of tomorrow, I’m finally going to have a permanent home! 

We get the house tomorrow and are going to spend the day cleaning it, and we fully move in, moving vans and all, on Friday.  This does mean, however, I won’t be online and there’ll be no fresh posts for about 2 weeks, as it’s going to take a week to get the ‘net connected in the new place, and then I’m off hiking.  I’m going to spend a few days wandering around the backwoods of Kent, just me and my tent, getting to know the place a little.  It should be a nice break to the end of the summer holidays, which I’ve mainly spent working in dusty warehouses, before heading back off to university, getting back to basics for a while, wandering through lanes and woods at my own pace, just chilling out and getting my head together before the coming year’s hard work.

So, if you don’t hear from me for a couple of weeks, don’t feel sad, ignored, neglected; I’ll still be thinking of you all.

Peace and love - these feet were made for walking. 

As you’ll all no doubt be aware, Crocodile Hunter and general all round nature loving bloke Steve Irwin has died tragically while filming on the reefs off Australia, after being stabbe din the heart by a stingray barb. Having brought global attention to wildlife issues and opened his own zoo, as well as being such a lovely chap, the Australian government have offered recognise his achievements by offering his family a state funeral for the much loved Aussie. His family have, however, declined, saying that Steve was just a normal bloke and would have wanted to be treated as such; personally I don’t know many guys who go leaping on crocs for a living, but you can appreciate what they mean.

Rest in peace Steve.

So far, as a relaxing break from hauling boxes around all week, I’ve spent the weekend … hauling boxes around.  After getting rudely awakened at stupid o’clock in the morning by my parents, without even a cup of tea (for shame!), I’ve spent the day helping my bro move into his new student digs in Canterbury.  Maybe digs isn’t the right word, and not just because it went out of fashion before I was born, but because his house is more like a weird little holiday house than the normal student pit you’re expected to live in.  Brown carpets, dark wooden furniture, beds made by a bored Swiss clock maker on his day off, it’s all very nice; if a little twee.

As I normally at least get paid for shifting boxes around, my parents did have the courtesy to buy me and my brother lunch.  We had mexican, which was nice.  But I had a lot of mexican, which wasn’t so nice.  And it was hardly even my fault!  I ordered something called the ‘Grande’, and something in the name should have really rung a few alarm bells in my empty brain.  It was a small mountain of nachos, topped with cheese, tomato sauce stuff and jalapenos, lots of jalapenos.  On top of all this, which already rose several inches from the plate, were 2 large tacos, one full of sour cream, guacamala and refried beans and the other shredded beef; you could really have had just these 2 and it would still have been more than a normal meal.  I tried, oh gods how I tried to eat it all, but sadly it just wasn’t happening.  And worse still there were so many chillis in it that I was forced to have an ice cream sundae, that was about 4 times bigger than I was expecting.  I really shouldn’t have eaten it all.

And the moral of the story is: don’t order anything with the word ‘big’ for a title, whatever language it’s hiding behind.  You’ll live to regret it, but only if you’re lucky!

Peace and love - Box mover professionale. 

To my rented house.  That’s the one in T Wells, not Reading (which I no longer have), or Brighton (which I’ve only just got).  And let me tell you, as if you have a choice short of just closing the browser, I won’t be sad to see it go.  Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely house; it’s just that when you’ve been living out of boxes to some extent for 6 months, sleeping on a mattress because beds don’t fit up the stairs and been dying to redecorate an incredibly tacky room, well having a house to really call home will be nice.

Another reason to look forward to moving, just one week away!, is that I’ll have something to do to keep me busy.  I’m an easy going person as most people would agree, I get on with most strangers, I get along with Nick the trainee pilot at work, Pete, who has a talent for swapping sexual words into song lyrics and Andy, who has never left the parcel warehouse, ever.  All that said though, the one person’s company who I’m getting sick of is my own. 

Wake up early.  Sit around a bit, read a book, check my emails.  Look at clock, 10:30.  Work starts at 16:30.  By the time that actually comes around I’m embarrassed to admit I look forward to shifting boxes around a warehouse for 4 hours a night, just to get away from sitting around by myself; and it’s not as if carrying boxes is particularly mentally stimulating.  I try to work during the day, really I do, to get some writing done, but with minimal external stimuli it’s really very difficult; when you sit around a house all day, it’s very hard to write about anything other than sitting around a house all day.  It’s like a rather large sensery deprivation tank, with the world outside reduced to a background hum.  Very frustrating.

Roll on next Thursday and a new house.

Peace and love - why is the daddy long legs trying to eat me? 

I read an article in my favourite paper The Independant the other day, which had some pretty shocking facts for us all.  For instance:

Myspace currently constitues 4.5% of all internet traffic.  (the other 95.5% obviously being porn

1 in 6 Myspace pages contain viruses that download when the page media opens, logging your net movements, deleting your files and generally being nasty.

There you go, Myspace has been invaded by hackers and is, after all, only out to get you!!

Peace and paranoia

But well done for trying.  I hate replying negatively to anyone good enough to leave me a message, so give yourself a pat on the back, if you can, for being lovely enough to comment.

Actually today saw me embark on a one day only career as a hospital porter.  Ooo.  Ahh. 

It’s slightly scary to think of someone in a position of authority allowing people like me loose in a hospital, but that’s what your hard earned tax pounds are being spent on; hiring fools like me!  I have to say dressed up in blue scrubs I did look uncannily like a trainee doctor, think JD in Scrubs, and don’t think it didn’t cross my mind to steal a stethoscope and treat a few people, just to lessen the waiting times of course.  All craziness aside, I’ve got to say I throughly enjoyed my day as a hospital porter.  It’s actually very rewarding chatting to people and reassuring them that they’ll be ok, as you push them into theatre to have chunks cut out of them.  It’s even better when you see them afterwards and they’ve survived, you feel that although only in a minor way, that person is alive with a new hip/knee/pair of breasts because of me.  I tell you, it feels good.  With that altruistic glow inside you, even mopping up the blood in the theatre afterwards can’t put down your mood.

Love and Peace - Here’s to Emily attacking moose in Canada, Toby and Omar for great comments, and Daryl for inviting me to his house.  I love ya’ll.

Once again I’ve failed to keep this all up to date, but then again you’re probably expecting that by now, so it doesn’t really matter.

Thanks to Jez and family for throwing an amazing 18th/21st/50th/silver wedding aniversary party; all I’ll say is that you really know how to hold one hell of a party!

 That I’m actually sat here writing is because, however, another party I was going to has failed to happen this wkend.  The blame for this has to go to lame people who couldn’t be bothered to visit their friends (for shame!).  As you may be able to tell I’m a little bitter about this, partly because I now have a long boring weekend ahead of me, partly because I gave up 3 days of paid work to free myself to go to this party, but mainly because doing so is just lazy and plain fucking rude.

Truth be told I’m also a little riled because as I’m at home instead of at the party I had to split up a dog fight caused by a removal man (explanations later) and as such now have a hand that somewhat resembles a sieve, ie. it’s full of bastard holes.  Ouch.

I’ve recently spent a few days down at my new house in Brighton, which no doubt many of you will come to visit and enjoy, in the company of my new housemates Darren and Beth; who are both thoroughly nice human beings.  As well as that the new house in Tenterdon has finally gone through and we move in 3 weeks! (hence the earlier removal man coming round to give a quote).

Peace and love - I’m a bastard lemon squeezer!  Thanks for the jazz, lads. 

Ok, so, so far I’ve been a parcel sorter, an assistant at Laura Ashley, and now a gardener and a removal man.  Life sure is exciting at the moment.

What the agency promised to as a garden centre actually turned out to be a 20 acre plant nursery.  So instead of wandering around occasionally spraying things with a hose (if such things weren’t banned) it turned out what I was actually doing was working for 8 hours a day in a large field.  I picked plants up, put plants down, picked plants up… well, you get the gist of it.  Occasionally as something of a treat I got to pick plants up and throw them into dumper trucks.  Well, a treat of sorts anyway, it just so happened that I was working while they were throwing away the burbarus (think spiky plants that people grow to stop burglars), and not even safety gloves can save you from those little mothers!  So all in all it was a tolerable week, made so by making friends with a rather nice bloke called Joe, after which I felt a bit like a sexier, more tanned, Alan Tichmarsh; working in a field 8 hours a day during the hottest week for 100 years helped roast my skin a lovely colour!

Yesterday I got a nice break from agriculture and became a removal man for a day.  It was surprisingly ok work, the people were friendly, the tip was good, and you got to drink as much tea as you could keep down.

Time for some audience participation … feel free to send in suggestions for the next job I might get offered (however implausible) preferably on the back of a postcard Blue Peter style, or if you’re feeling lazy, which I know you are, just post them in a comment.
 
Peace and petunias - Why do spiders love car wing mirrors so much? 

A day spent looking for new cars, my old escort is sadly passed servicable and the wheels, which are the only bit worth anything on it, are sure to fall off soon.  A day spent drinking beer.  A day spent firing my Dad’s crossbow the length of the garden in an attempt to kill empty beer cans.  A day spent watching the Thirteenth Warrior.  Bliss.

Peace and love - fuck fuck fuckerty fuck fuck