Good blog spot...

Whilst trying to find out if the Old Bailey justice statue is blindfolded or not I discovered this blog.. good shots!

Tomorrow

is World Book Day - what book would you recommend the world read?

Right now it would be Rabbit Redux... Skeeter n Rabbit are making me chuckle...Not easy to narrow it down other wise!

The Old Bailey

is 100 today!

So from my seat here on the 5th floor I salute you! Everyday I look upon the the statue of justice, (a woman (without a blindfold), holding in her right hand a sword standing for the power to punish, and in her left hand a balance standing for equity) and hope for some!

Preferably against my neighbours.

Scunthorpe 3 - Gillingham 1

Oh dearie me. Dropping like a stone. We were 1 all - super Matty Jarvis scored to equalise. But then it went down hill. Chorley off and another from Scunny. They got the third in the 90th minute.

That and a dreadful England show in the rugby made for a really damp grey Saturday.

Spoke too soon

Woken up at 11.30pm. So I banged hard on the ceiling - partial cease in noise, then it began again and contiuned until 2.30am...

This morning I am a tad grumpy (tired generally - NEED A HOLIDAY) and also of the mind that the average Londoner thinks only of themselves. I might be wrong, but I hate the way people treat you, starts to make you become as selfish and thoughtless as they are... which will mean that eventually gun crime will be normal....oh how I love my life right now.

Dodgy pikey!

Nice hat tho...

The bearded lady..

Nice beard?! Scarf?!

Paella..

for lunch. Feel a tad billious...

Kids

Be happy!

Noise Abatement .. the story continues

I dare not speak of this for fear of upsetting the status quo...

However since I delivered my letter of complaint last Friday I have, surprise surprise, NOT been approached for a discussion about the situation. One suspects that a quick sing song on Sunday morning relieved them of their sin and allowed them to carry on regardless. That said this week - so far (ok I have had 2 late-ish nights, Tues footie and last night Brad) things have been less stressful... there that's done it - status quo rocking all over the world - or in my case above my room tonight.

Suffice to say myself and flat are still in tact.

Troy

Not sure it was a great film - technically it was quite stunning, and of course Brad Pitt on my new TV looked amazing - however perhaps punctuating it with 'Party Animals', the News/Desperate Housewives (x2) probably made it seem better than sitting down straight for 3 hours would have done. Anyways - the blonde bomb shell meant I went to bed happy!!

Just as well cos if today is like yesterday work wise I will pulling my own hair out fairly frequently!!

That said - Capricorn (Dec22-Jan20) Today you get to demonstrate your gift for calm in the centre of the storm. If everything was smooth sailing you would only be bored at a time when you need challenge and something testing to do. You might be conscious of an increased vitality and mental alertness but all this energy might seem to vanish very quickly. Even so, when you need it you do have the stamina and patience to deal with the situation.

Gillingham 0 - Brighton 1

By crikey what an awful display of footballmanship...

Oh well - I probably needed a nearly empty Rainham End so I could vent - part sparring with the annoying old fogey sat behind us who seems to have lost the art of positive thought.

This is League One - wake up and smell the coffee - its a poor league and many of our players are no where near the stature of Prem players - if he wanted that he should have stayed at home and watched the TV...

Anyway Brighton not so much played as bull dozed their way through the game. And of course a former player scored the winner. Mr BAs Savage who I had bemoaned as a donkey went on and scored it... crass. He got royally booed and yellow carded for reacting to our taunts!!

Poor. Poor. And once again the topic of relegation must rear its ugly head...

Calling all London Walkers!

This is free! Walks for the weekend! I may try Wigs n Stockings!! :-)

All the best Chippy

One of the key reasons I am a complete Gills addict is due to sharing the same class room as Chippy whilst at primary school. We grew up together and went radically different ways once we hit the 13 year old mark.

I watched his early career from the muddy Teynham playing fields, when Lotus Sports were my weekend entertainment, and have fond memories of early Gillingham youth team games at the Garrison ground.

Today he officially quit professional football. I am a bit sad cos it means I won't see him play Tuesday night at Priestfield for his current club Brighton - who we face in a mid week league game. Somehow it would have been more appropriate if he had played his last match there.

Thanks for the memories mate and all the best for your future endeavours! Hope you realise how much some of us lived your dream with you!

Apologies...

Been a tad sparse with blog entries - but relax I will be filling in the gaps this weekend - live from my lounge/diner! That's of course if the letter I left for my upstairs neighbour this morning doesn't kick off a major conflict.....well 4 nights on the trot I have been disturbed... sick of it - I am. Wish me luck!

Strewth

England beat the Aussies! With an exciting finish... can we do best of 3?!

Iconic

Colliers Wood in snow this morning!

St Pauls

In the snow!

Star Gazing!

Cor! Last night as I alighted from the 7.45pm tube, from Bank, at my local station I found myself smiling at a bloke who had just got to the bottom of the escalator and was headed for the north bound platform. As my smile met his gaze I realised I was looking at DI Turner from the Bill... and boy is he better looking in the flesh! I was quite taken!! Anyway from the website you can email the actors!!! Eye eye!! :-) Wonder if he would remember slightly flushed, mysterious but attractive, lady in a red coat on a Monday evening... ?! There must have been a reason I wasn't wearing my Gillingham hat (apart from the obvious ones!!).

Oh well one can dream. I saw PC Loxton at my local tube station once. All this is significant as they film The Bill round my neck of the woods and I can reach Sun Hill nick in 5 mins from my flat. Interesting huh! You never know Phil Hunter may pop up one evening!

Not so star gazing

Gabby Logan - Radio 5 Breakfast - WHY?!

Do not smoke...

Still no ciggy since very late on Saturday 27th January...

Come on! And the reasons to stop thanks to the ASH website:

The health benefits of stopping smoking start almost immediately:
After...
20 minutes: Blood pressure and pulse return to normal
8 hours: Nicotine and carbon monoxide levels in the blood are halved, oxygen levels in the blood return to normal
24 hours: Carbon monoxide is eliminated from the body and the lungs start to clear out the build up of tar
48 hours: There is no nicotine left in the body. Taste and smell are greatly improved
72 hours: Breathing becomes easier, bronchial tubes begin to relax, energy levels increase
2 - 12 weeks: Circulation improves, making walking and running a lot easier
3 - 9 months: Coughs, wheezing and breathing problems improve as the lungs have room for up to 10% more oxygen
1 year: Risk of heart attack is halved
10 years: Risk of lung cancer is halved
10 years: Risk of heart attack is at the same level as non-smokers
Medium to long-term: Risk of developing lung cancer, other cancers, heart attack, stroke and chronic lung disease is reduced - the sooner you stop smoking, the sooner your risk starts going down
Medium to long-term: Stopping smoking at any age increases your life expectancy, provided that you stop before the onset of serious disease. Even if you have developed a disease, you can benefit from stopping as your body will be under less strain and be able to fight it more easily
Medium to long-term: A smoker who has suffered from a heart attack can halve the risk of a second heart attack by stopping smoking
Medium to long-term: Ten years after quitting smoking an ex-smoker's risk of lung cancer is reduced by 30 - 50% compared with that of a continuing smoker
Medium to long-term: Smokers who stop before the age of 35 have a life expectancy not significantly different from that of a non-smoker
Medium to long-term: Smokers who give up smoking between 65 and 74 years of age have a better life expectancy beyond 75 than those who continue to smoke
For life:
Reduce stress
Any physical activity is easier
Don't tire as quickly
Improve sense of taste and smell
Improved skin

That said I have fantasised about having a cigarette - but I think that is more because I didn't realise the last one I smoked was going to be the last one. There is half a packet of fags in my desk drawer and I know if Baggy had not turned up early last Tuesday night I would have had one before she arrived... suffice to say I am now kinda glad I didn't and haven't. That said talking about it is making me think I want one. I do not.

Then Jerico - 1987

So after spending most of Sunday on a music Odyssey I cannot tear the earphones from my ears and rest. So to bed I go with the tortured strains of Mark Shaw etc and Then Jerico...

My family will tell you I was totally in love with Mark Shaw.
My brother endlessly ribbed me for it.
My friends endlessly ribbed me for it.
I even fell in love with someone who looked vaguely like him.
In fact I actually wrote to the man.


Boy the hormones at 14 years were far more attuned than they seem to be 20 years on.

This picture was on my bedroom wall for months. And it was not a small poster! Sure its still at home somewhere!!


Anyway laying in my bed my mind was returned to that day in 1987 when I heard the Motive for the very first time... I was in a shop somewhere with my mum and it was on in the background. Then it kept getting played on Radio 1 (that shows how long ago we are talking!). eventually band and song title were known to me... and my pursuit of TJ discs began...

The Motive 7" vinyl single summer 1987...

First (the sound of music) Vinyl LP 1987 ... 'Apathy and Sympathy', 'Laughter Party' and 'The Hitcher' among my favourites... also contained a poster of the band (then a 4 piece) sat in the long room at Lords in cricketing attire. Good b&w shot.

I bought the Muscle Deep, Cassette Single in the Summer 1987 on a trip to London - my paper round money stretching to the plastic sealed single sized cardboard photo and cassette within..

The the Big Area single was released in 1988 and it shot them to wider coverage (well it was their highest charting single - No 13) and inclusion on compilation albums (yup I have one somewhere Now that's what I call music No 10 or some such early edition of the now infamous brand.)

The Big Area Cd LP Feb 1989.. Then the genius that was the album. I was totally hooked and have vivid memories of discussing said album with girls at school who I normally avoided. But then I was the guru and I didn't like sharing my favourite band with lesser mortals... Hard to pick favourites from this album as they all meant something to me

Side One: Big Area/What does it take?/You Ought to Know/Song for the Broken hearted/Darkest Hour

Side Two: Reeling/Where You Lie/Sugar Box/Helpless/Under Fire

I guess the 12" version of What does it take with Belinda Carlisle helped sway it!!

What does it take? 12" vinyl single 1989

Well I don’t know if I am wasting my time/Every day you’re getting harder to find/Makes me wonder if it’s all in my mind/But it keeps me hanging on/Oh yeah!Hey!/You keep saying your doing your best/Still your East don’t meet my West/So I, take a look around/Compare you to the rest/But it keeps me hanging on/Hey! /What does it take/To break through?/To make your earth move(If I could live)/Hey! /What does it take/To reach you?/What do I have to prove?/If I could live in the moment with you/What would I do?/And you with your mass serenade/Love everybody/You remember their names/To them you are vision/A dancer in the rain/To you they’re all the same/Hey! What does it take/To break through?/To make your earth move(If I could live)/Hey! /What does it take/To reach you?/What do I have to prove?/If I could live in the moment with you/Don’t you want me?/Ow!What do I have to do/What do I have to do/What do I have to do/What do I have to do/To make your earth move?/What do I have to do/Hey! /What does it take/To break through?/To make your earth move(If I could live)/Hey! /What does it take/To reach you?/What do I have to prove?/If I could live in the moment with you/Hey don’t you want me?(If I could live)/Hey! /what does it take/To reach you/Don’t you want me?/Hey what does it take/what does it take/Don’t you want me?(If I could live)/what does it take/What does it take/Oh what does it take/Gonna make your earth move /I wanna make your earth move…

In 1989 I was but a mere 16 year old trying to pass her GCSE's so she could progress to the 'A' Level world .. a new world when Indie and Brit Pop would be emerging. When music would be truly ruffled again. But until such times the loner in the class would reject Acciieddd and House music and stick instead to the lyrics and rifts that Then Jerico provided. I still get tingles listening to the compilation CD I have (my cassette players all knackered and vinyl player at home).

Reeling.. I was. I do.

Now Mark Shaw has his own venture using the TJ name but mainly writing his own material. 'Almost' was a good album and there are tracks on that which make me stop and inhale a sharp intake of breath. And I read on Answers.com he lives in Tooting...oh well maybe I'll bump into him one day!

Desert Island Discs

Sunday morning and today I kept Radio Four on after my weekly fix of the Archers.. it was Neil Tennant of Pet Shop Boy fame telling Kirsty his desert island discs. Which got me thinking.

Could I narrow my huge eclectic tastes down to just 8 tunes? What would be my luxury and what would my book be?

I immediately panicked!

Then I started to think about it in more detail...

Musical Influences....

... and in order to help my thinking I decided I needed to spend some time re-organising my music library (you know the sort I mean - my MP3 musical library of all the c-d's I have so far managed to rip and transfer across).

Current total library = 5,000 songs. And I need to whittle that down to 8!!

My SUnday has been and continues to be a vogage of albums, singles and bands I had forgotten about. I hear a few notes and a time and place flood my back ground. People and influences stir my senses. I could have stayed up all night just pondering... I love days like that!

The village

Today I walked to Wimbledon village! 8 miles round trip. Cob webs be damned.

Shame my phone to blog kept saying failed and you had to see the picture twice! Shows how busy I have been unable to check...!

On the plus side...

not had a ciggy since Sat pm...

Cough & Splutter.

I have spent the last 4 days feeling rough as the bottom of a hamster cage. A tingly sore throat bloomed into full blown muscle aches which forced me to my bed at 6pm Sunday night with a hot water bottle and as many cold and flu drugs as I could find. Sadly after the worst nights sleep I have had for a while, it was Monday am and I still felt rough. This general feeling of coughing, aching and hot & cold spells continued into Wed am when a conversation with Baggy, who is well versed in aliments, made me realise my lungs were rebelling. (When your skin on your back feels like lizard skin - all crackly and on fire its lung related). I had woken from yet another painful nights sleep - back aches and hot sweats - resolved to go to the doctors. I hate being ill.
So I got through to the Doctor's surgery at 9.05am. Oh yes 'we have an appointment at 9.20am'. 'Great.' So I quickly dressed, cleaned my teeth and hoofed my way to see the doctor. Which made me uncomfortable and hot. As I sat in the waiting room I did wonder what worse germs I was collecting - then again every trip on the tube is a germ fest.

I was called in - temperature taken (via ramming a thermometer in my ear hole- ouch) and the chest listened to front and back. My throat told to say aaah and then she told me it was viral. Coughing up phlegm was good. Being nearly 35 and smoking whilst on the pill however are not good. SO I came out of the surgery with a flea in my ear about something unrelated to the reason I had gone in. But I was told to take as much paracetamol etc as needed for my back pains.

Oh well - the local GP sponsored by all manufacturers of ibuprofen.

Anyway 3 days off work ill. The crucial question I have to ask is bed n radio versus sofa and TV. In hindsight bed and radio are far better. Daytime TV will drive you to drink/despair/drugs/eating copious amounts of cack food. I am sure I have piled on the pounds the last few days - well no walking for a start and just eating random amounts of whatever was in the house. It's days like this I wish my mum was pootling around downstairs - she'd always come up with tea and food when required and make sure I was OK. Living on your own means people only know if you tell them and then all you get is a text message or email. Thankfully Baggy had a pre-arranged to stay over as she had a conference (the daffs look lovely BTW Baggy - they're all popping open now! Thx!) and Mr G popped by with plenty of fruit and OJ. Pity the neighbours took no heed and made as much noise as ever.

Back at work today.
That too will will drive you to drink/despair/drugs/eating copious amounts of cack food.

Yawn.

Either way there are a few retrospective posts I need to do... quite a bit happened between my last post and then becoming too ill to move.