Stuff and Nonsense

I have just watched some of the England vs Mexico “World Cup Warm Up”. Don’t worry though, I haven’t bought a white van stuck a cheesy cross on it and started reading The Sun. No, it’s simply the case that Sky Plus is recording the football and some other garbage for my Wife so for the few minutes of slobbing on the couch that I could bear, I did watch it.

Why am I recording this loathsome dross? Because, my 7 year-old Son is desperate to play football, to understand football, to partake of the playground football chatter etc. I did the same when I was his age. I distinctly remember a substantial collection of dog-eared cards featuring the likes of Ray Clemence and Kevin Keegan. No doubt I succumbed to the same peer pressure as my Son feels now. He just wants to belong and though he’s a keen and useful Rugby player, Rugby just doesn’t have the same “Opiate of The Masses” appeal.

Despite the cards though, I went only once to a football match. England vs Switzerland under 21s at Wembley. It cost the princely sum of £5 for the coach trip from Runcorn with Palacefields County Primary. I remember we had a great day. Wembley was the biggest place I’d ever seen but wandering round it (9 years old and we were told “Don’t wander off, straight to the toilet and back”! It fair gives my parental heart palpitations just recalling it). Well, of course we did not do as we were told which is why me and a friend whose name and face have long been supplanted in my memory banks by years of pointless trivia almost missed the coach. Can you imagine that? These days those Teachers would (unfairly) be publicly named and shamed. I presume the Teachers were frantic and very stressed out wondering where we were but I don’t recall any sign of that. Worryingly, I’m not even sure they knew were were missing until we weren’t.

Now, you may notice here that I don’t have much to say about the football which may seem a bit odd given it was at Wembley after all. Well, I did watch some but frankly from where we were sat the players may well have been Subbuteo (I had to look that word up, never had cause to write it before) figures and the ball but the merest speck of white. It was noisy. People were shouting endlessely about nothing. And so many of them. There were more people that I considered might exist on the whole planet at that time. I couldn’t share a joke with your mate because I couldn’t hear anything other than The Noise and I couldn’t join in with The Noise because it did seem to be just Noise; not words.  Being a self concious and nervous 9 year old the prospect of gently lurching in random directions and screaming very loudly “eeerer  aaahh sh olellee eeyyer” was frankly more terrifying than risking someone noticing that I wasn’t joining in.

It’s not as if you could even mime like in assembly when you knew the words but didn’t want to sing. Hellish. Truly hellish. And to think, some people grow up, work hard and spend some of their hard-earned to go and be in that crowd. You have my sympathies. I can’t imagine how awful the rest of your days must be that a saturday at a football stadium can be seen as a good thing.

Anyway, I digress. The thing is, despite my opinion on football I recognise that I am quite possibly the weird one and so accept that my Son may well find some joy in”The Beautiful Game” that I cannot. So, for that reason, I shall at least ensure he has the opportunity to witness professional football so he can join in with the rest of the mob. With any luck when we watch it back we can at least turn the sound down.

Strange after all these years that the TV coverage features the identical sound track to every game as the one they were playing at Wembley all those years ago. The Noise. Perhaps this is simply what you get when you put enough people who can’t form sentences in one place and the average IQ becomes the dominant force.

If you think this post is just whining from a miserable old bastard who doesn’t see much point having quite so many people on the planet doing pointless things you are, quite probably, right. A discourse on the recursive nature of musing on pointlessness which is, in itself, pointless is reserved for a later (pointless) post.

“What’s all this about motorbikes then?” says my Mum. Ah… so, her neighbour (hello Lorraine) has been on facebook again and has noticed my latest post. So, to make sure that they’re both on the ball I thought I’d post some information that Mum should be very interested in…

Dear Mum,

Eating cheese before bed does not give you nightmares. Sometimes I eat cheese sandwiches before bed just to test that I’m still right on this and you are still wrong.

Apple skin does not “rest on your chest”. Unless you actually drop it before eating it.

My face will not “get stuck like that”. As I write this I’m pulling a very odd face indeed. I’ve also left a window open to ensure the wind is blowing past. I’ve been doing this for several minutes now and my face has not yet stuck in its contorted state. I’m pretty sure that it’s not going to.

Fear of an accident is no reason to wear clean underwear. It’s just good hygiene. In any event, during the worst accident I’ve had I thought I’d probably crapped myself but it turns out the only skid marks were from the tarmac. In either case, the cleanliness of my underwear prior to the accident was of no concern to me and of less concern to the hospital staff.

Watching TV does not make your eyes square. Anyway, TVs are wide-screen these days so if there are any ill effects it’s more likely to involve rectangles (16:9 ratio) than squares. We also have high definition these days so I think watching TV is actually likely to improve my eyesight.

I didn’t wear my glasses and I have 20:20 vision today. I told you I didn’t need them. My son though DOES need his. So Ollie, if you’re reading this just read the bits above and realise that your Dad was right about a lot and I’m right about you really needing to wear your glasses.

It doesn’t matter whether you slice the cheese on the long side or the short, it goes just as far. The volume does not vary depending on the cut.

Sitting on the radiator does not give you chilblains. It does however give you plumbing bills and the occasional need to re-plaster.

Eating the seeds of apples/oranges/grapes etc. will not result in a tree or vine sprouting from my bottom. Yes, I’ve checked.

Playing with it will not cause it to fall off. Though speaking as the father of three boys I understand why you were keen to make a point on this one.

So, as you do when you have young children and you’re travelling you buy tacky gifts at the airport. You know the type of think… wristbands, pencils, pens, keyfobs…

Buying gifts at the airport isn’t in the same category as buying your wife flowers from the petrol station on the way home either. The gifts are tacky but kids like tacky. All they really want is something that has the name of the place you visited and is small enough to take into show-and-tell on monday. This type of souveneir isn’t sold in the massive shopping mall next to your hotel, it might be sold at some tourist spot but on a busy business trip generally you are not going to make it there. So, the airport is the place. The place you can rely on for the little things that get kids wonderign about the world and gives them something to look up on the globe, pin to a map, whatever.

This has worked very well in a recent spate of business travel. Wristbands from The Netherlands, Key Fobs from Paris, Red Sox plates from Boston (best not mention this last one since I bought three and only had two on unpacking in the UK…) but Malaysia? No. At Kuala Lumpur International Airport you cannot buy this stuff. You can buy Gucci, Dunhill, Perfume, Cigarettes, Cigars, Booze and Kids toys that you will find in Tescos all over the world. You can buy chocolates and you can buy Union Flag Key Fobs and little Beefeater figurines from the KLIA branch of Harrods but can you buy a T-Shirt “Someone who loves me went to KL and all I got was this lousy t-shirt”? No. Can you buy a key-fob, medal or indeed any piece of tat with “Kuala Lumpur” emblazoned upon it? No.

Fortunately, anticipating a certain lack of shopping ability on my part rather than cheesy-gift-free-zones my Wife makes plans for my failure to obtain appropriate gifts and has a certain stock of location agnostic giveaways that could be from anywhere and are at least something, rather than nothing.

I type this on a Malaysian Airlines Business Lounge PC, gazing onto a pristeen  taxi-way awaiting the flight home. The headache has almost gone, the Nausea already has and the “Kuala Lumps” (think Delhi Belly) seems to have, how shall I say, run their course.

Wait! Genius! I just notices a small pile of identical postcards. Pictures of a 747-400 at KL and on the back it says “Malaysia”.  They will do. Write a “Wish you were here” message on them and post through the door back home. Three delighted kids guaranteed. Thank you Malaysian Airlines!

“Flight MH4 now boarding at gate 4.” I have to go…

In a London Starbucks today…

“Two cappuchinos, one earl grey tea, one breakfast tea and a cup of hot water please.”

“Would you like ice in the water?”

I think for a moment. Yes, that makes sense. My colleague who wants hot water will be able to drink it without 3rd degree burns so yes, ice makes sense to me.

“Yes please.”

Teas arrive. Coffees Arrive. Water arrives (with ice) in a plastic ‘glass’.

“This can’t be right…” methinks. I feel the ‘glass’. It’s cold – luckily, lest it collapse in a molten heap.

“Excuse me. I asked for a cup of hot water.”

“Hot water?”

“Yes”

Assistant 1 confers with assistant 2.

“Sorry sir, we do not do hot water.”

“Pardon?”

“We do not do hot water.”

“But my tea is hot. It’s made with water.”

“Yes, but it’s tea.”

“But it’s only water until you add the teabag. Until then, it’s hot water. Isn’t it?”

“Yes, but we can’t sell it.”

“Ah, I see…”

I gather my thoughts. I think the problem is they want to charge me for a cup of hot water (ok) but it’s not on the menu.

“Could I have a cup of tea without the teabag?”

“No teabag? No, sorry”.

I’m now starting to question my own sanity but the city type standing next to me hasn’t had this much fun in years.  I think I’ve got Starbucks man cornered now though, he’s not going to wriggle out of this. I have a cunning plan (kudos Baldrick)…

“Could I have a cup of tea please but please give me the tea bag. I don’t want the tea bag in the cup.”

“Sure, no problem, here you are sir”

He hands me the cup of hot water. And an orphaned tea bag.

So, I go to bed late and plan to begin work today at a respectable 9am. Usually I consider myself very fortunate to live so close (15 mins drive) to the office. But this brings with it key holder responsibilities and this morning I get a call at 3.30am – just 3 hours after heading off to bed – telling me that the intruder alarm has been triggered at the office.

We’ve had false alarms before so it did cross my mind not to bother going down. I was barely conscious after all. If I go, by the time I checked it out and come back it was going to be almost 5 and the kids would be up between 5.30 and 6 making real sleep impossible at home. So, I tell my wife I will work early and come home early. The house will be empty for a couple of hours after lunch so I can catch up on my sleep and perhaps get some more work done before the evening play/dinner/bath/stories/bed routine.

Well, conscience got the better of me and I decided to go down. If two zones had been triggered, the police get notified automatically but for one, it’s just me. The most likely scenario is a false alarm, the next most likely, kids who would have been scared off by the alarm and wouldn’t hang around. But they might leave the building insecure so I have to go.

At this point one can’t help wondering what if there IS an intruder? Well on balance of probability I think it’s very unlikely someone set off one zone and subsequently disabled the alarm but nonetheless, caution is in order so my Wife sets an alarm for 30 minutes hence. If I don’t text to say all is well before the alarm goes off then she calls the police. At least if I’ve been left for dead or am otherwise incapacitated help should arrive very soon after. My wife isn’t going to sleep until I text anyway so this seems like a sensible precaution.

Well, as expected it appears to be a false alarm. I can’t figure out the alarm to tell me which zone it was so I decide to stay and begin the working day early. It’s useful, I have another server migration to do, this one can be done without notification to customers so I begin. The few minutes I have to write this post arises from the backup/restore/cycle that takes a while and starting any other meaningful work that will be interrupted a few minutes from now by a completed restore is foolish, resulting only in something else that will be delayed by interruption (llike my sleep).

Disruption to one’s slumber can have odd effects on the morning brain. Almost since I arrived here pre-dawn I have had the song “The Model” by KraftWerk playing in my head. You know the one, “She’s a model and she’s loo-king good… da dum, da da da da da da de dum”. This is often my “song for the day”, that often good but frequently dreadful tune that you have running around in the noggin all day long. This morning though, it’s so pernicious that on returning from tea-making a moment ago I sat at my desk, noticed the restore wasn’t finished but that my PC was strangely silent and wondered where is Kraftwerk? why has the music stopped? What crashed?

Several minutes of frantic clicking wondering why iTunes has closed -or was it a radio station I was listening to? or BBC iPlayer perhaps? has resulted in the eventual realisation that this song was only EVER in my head today. I’m at work. I don’t have an iTunes library here. That’s at home. iTunes didn’t close down. iPlayer or the radio didn’t close down. I wasn’t listening to anything other than my own sleep-deprived brain. “da dum, da da da da da da da dum”.

That’s all for now. It looks like the restore is nearly finished and I must also yawn repeatedly for a few minutes. As no doubt will you after reading this tosh.