London

I've been living in London just over a year now and would like to know why postmen's trolleys are dotted around the city, usually looking abandoned, at the top of hills. Is this the point where they quit their jobs? Who should answer me? The London Mayor, yes he'll do. And while you're there Boris, why are cars in this city becoming smaller and boxier and resembling more and more Enid Blyton's vision of toytown? There they are plugged in on rich people's drives.

I admit my car sits largely neglected near my flat, but I'm loath to get rid of it; we've had some good times, my car and me. Besides it used to belong to my Grandad and it's nice to see it outside of a morning. I take it for a drive once a week so it doesn't feel too neglected.

London is going by bus or tube to an unexplored part of the city, to meet a friend at a pub, or a street or a station, and spending forever trying to find them. Then there's the getting back across the city, getting on a late night tube alone, sitting in a carriage with other people sitting alone, making the weary journey home. 

I miss the randomness of smaller places. It's so rare you bump into someone you know.

Walking up a hill and stumbling upon a familiar object; another postman's red trolley. Are the letters still inside, Boris? One day I'll stop for a breather and find myself an interesting letter to read. Then I'll write them a letter back and ask them to meet me.

Paris

A few weeks ago I went to Paris. With only two french phrases to hand, 'La Sange est dans l'arbre' and 'bonjour mon petite bureau de change' I managed to make it from Gare du Nord to Montmatre, buying both a pain au chocolate and tickets for the Metro. The Metro only went part way, I was heading for Abbessess, remembering that stop from Amelie, but someone had thrown themselves on the line and the train only went part way. Recalling that Montmatre was up a hill, I left the Metro and made my way uphill, until I saw the Sacre-Coeur shimmering in the afternoon sun. I got myself food -I ran away from the first food place because I didn't want the people in the queue to hear my awful french- and sat on the steps of the Sacre-Coeur looking over at Paris. The Eiffel tower was hidden from view. Then I managed to make my way to Montparnasse to meet my friend Richard, where from then on, I let him do all the talking to order food, drinks and train tickets.

This is a picture of Richard in the Louvre approaching the Venus de Milo, a place whose courtyard we walked around for twenty minutes looking for the entrance, before finally realising, after watching people coming from the ground like ants, you entered via the glass pyramid. I'm sure I will forget this again next time. Rumours that before Richard walked up this corridor, the Venus de Milo had both arms are unfounded.

Attacked by punctuation marks

Part of my job - proofing for the FSA website has been taking its toll. I have to obssess over punctuation and missing words and capital letters, while ambulances race past on their way to save lives. Last week I spotted the word 'within' missing from a sentence. A wonderful moment for industry.

On my way home I stopped at the greengrocer's to buy tomatoes. When I left the shop and looked in the brown bag there wasn't a tomato in sight; it was full of semi-colons. At home I try to read a book and all the words jumble up and dare me to make sense of them. I look in the mirror to brush my hair to find my hair is sitting on top of a giant comma.

At night I dream I am proofing but I can't read any of the words. The dream changes, it becomes lighter and calmer. I'm in the church, this is more like it, I'm getting married. I turn to kiss the bride, lift the veil, only to realise I've married a full stop.

And no, I'm not going to proof this blog.

Washing

I'm sure there's some conspiracy to stop me showering in my flat. It started before Christmas, I was walking home on Saturday lunchtime with my Christmas shopping when I spied a fire engine towards the top of my street. I thought to myself: 'ha, ha, some buffoon has burnt their house down just in time for Christmas'. Then as I got closer I realised the fire engine was parked directly outside the block of flats where I live. And the firemen's ladder was reaching up to my front room. 

It turned out there had been water cascading down the walls of the flats below and it was coming from our flat. Our flat was totally dry though. It meant the plumbers coming in and we had no hot water for a while. I went to my parents' house a day earlier for Crimbo.

 

Then last week someone came round to fit new tiles in the bathroom, which meant the shower was out of action for another couple of days. Then Monday, I get home from work to find the Gas man knocking on the door to say there's been a gas leak in the building and they've turned off the gas; which means no hot water. 

I've been showering at work at the end of the day. So if you see me on the 268 bus on my way home, wearing a dressing gown, my hair wet and a towel draped round my shoulders, you'll know why.

Lorraine

It is a saturday morning in December 1980 or maybe January 1981. Tiswas is on TV. We have no TV at our house but, undeterred, we go to Dixons to watch it. They have plenty of TVs. We turn all the TVs in our view to ITV, so as not to get sidetracked by Swapshop. I, aged ten, pretend I am browsing for a colour TV. My brother just sits cross legged on the floor eating Sherbert dip. A song is introduced. A fat bald man appears and sings about Lorraine, a doll dressed up and sitting on a chair. The tune is driven by an upbeat harmonica line. The lyrics tell the story of Fatty meeting Lorraine, but the chorus tells us, 'that when I find her, I'm going to kill her, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorraine, Lorraine. It turns out they were going to get married, then Lorraine ran off. However once he catches up with her they have a brief fight before they 'sort the whole thing out' and Fatty decides he doesn't want to kill Lorraine after all. Three minutes, twelve seconds later and 'Lorraine' by Ska band Bad Manners is over, but this is the start of something. Something exciting, something to get obsessed by; this is my introduction to pop music.

I'm not sure I stumbled across pop music or whether I'd heard the buzz from the cool kids in my class and decided to go and suss it our for myself. I'd like to think I stumbled across it but I'm not sure that's true. The cool kids - Lee Perrin and Karen King - liked Bad Manners, but Madness were cooler and the Specials more dangerous. 

'Lorraine' wasn't the first record I bought but it was the first record I wanted. I went to Horsham market with my Dad to buy a record, but I was worried. Pop music was viewed with suspicion in our Christian household. There was a line where Lorraine punches Fatty in the nose and he slaps her round the head. Was this record too violent? I missed the bit where they went to bed together. I thought maybe they were tired, after all the relationship upheavals. I didn't have the nerve to ask for it and ended up buying, on my Dad's recommendation, 'Imagine' by John Lennon; a record far more offensive to Christians, what with its lyrics about imagining a  peaceful world free from the troubles of religion. At ten I would have been better off with the more cartoonish 'Lorraine'.

I would make regular visits to Horsham market or Boots and look at the Bad Manners' albums: 'Ska 'N' B' and 'Loonee Tunes'. I would write down the song titles and memorise the names of the nine piece band. Albums were out of my price range but I finally got a piece of Bad Manners when I bought their follow up single, "Just A Feeling', for my eleventh birthday.

'Lorraine' was never a huge hit for Bad Manners. It reached No.21 in January 1981. I tried to tape it off the radio, waiting with my fingers on play and record of a portable tape recorder, next to a poorly tuned radio 1, listening to the Top 40 countdown on sunday night. Unfortunately though, by the time I came to record it, it had slipped to No.36 and didn't warrant a play. 

I've never heard 'Lorraine' played on the radio since, or for that matter any Bad Manners records since the early eighties. The closest it came was a few years ago on the Mark Radcliffe show, when someone had rung in to answer a question for a quiz. The caller was a plumber who happened to be round fixing the sink of one Doug Trendle - Buster Bloodvessel himself. Doug spoke briefly on the phone and I expected Radcliffe to cue up a Bad Manners record, but it wasn't to be. Which is a shame because those early songs: 'Lip up Fatty', 'Special Brew', 'Just A Feeling' and 'Lorraine' are great fun. I must have bought the seven inch of 'Lorraine' about four years later from a second hand record shop. I listened to it tonight and I still love it; it was after all the start of my exploration into music.

My Ears

I went to a gig a few weeks ago which ranks among the worst gigs I've ever been to. I despised the audience for clapping lamely at what was just noise. The last thing we should do is encourage these people. If that's the sounds they're into I suggest a career in road digging. Anyway, the upshot was my ears haven't worked the same since. For a couple of days they hummed. That went but they still didn't feel right. Then a few days ago they seemed to have got worse and there was a humming in my left ear or right ear, or both, I couldn't tell. I woke up with it one morning. 

     

However, when I went into the front room this morning the noise stopped. Then I went back into my bedroom and there it was again. Hang on a minute I thought to myself, maybe this high pitch buzz is coming from outside of my head? I bought a new Bose speaker for my ipod last Sunday and I checked the power supply which was buzzing.  I switched it off and the buzz from my ears disappeared. Hurrah for faulty equipment!

It's funny because whenever I buy anything, or make a decision about anything, I hesitate, sometimes for far too long. I spent ages wandering lost in thought around the mac shop on Regent street, agonising about whether to buy this speaker. Eventually I did. The feeling I get when I buy something is guilt. I reasoned it out that my sister had a Bose speaker so I was allowed one too. The guilt has gone now, though the buzz remains.

Sights from the window

I've recently moved to the seat by the window at work, where I watch the National Express coaches come by from the North on their way to Victoria. Then there are coaches full of school children staring out the window, no doubt being taken to the National History museum or some cultural attraction. Last week I saw a butcher's van go by, with the men in the cab dressed in white coats covered in blood. Well, that's what it looked like from the window. 

There's a woman (pictured above as a blur - she's hard to photograph this woman) who comes by twice every day with a child strapped to her front and another two in the huge basket on wheels at the front of her strange bike. She casually takes in her stride the four lanes of traffic on Avenue road, while onlookers from the office above look down aghast (or try and take pictures of her for their own amusement). 

In this picture there only seems to be one child in the basket. I wonder what happened to the other one? Maybe he's using his dinner money to take the bus.