brain drain

I've spent a good part of the last 24 hours trying to unblock a drain outside, in the cold and wet (and at times, dark). The heavy rain doesn't help as I'm bailing out the drain trying to de-silt the pipe. Ever inventive, the latest tool pressed into service is a Uri Geller-type bent spoon. It works for a while, but then the drain can't cope with sheer volume of water coming down the drainpipe. I mean, I'd even rather be working, let alone all the other things I've got lined up to do.

Tomorrow should see me sitting a test for a new (i.e. additional) home-based job. You have to sign a non disclosure agreement about what the work is all about. If I breach that I have to shoot myself. I used to do really classified work, the ever-pompous "work of national importance", which apart from having to sit in a Faraday cage to actually do the work, seemed much more relaxed than this commercial stuff. Still, there was the Official Secrets Act to consider. The most irksome part of it was having to dress up for the meetings, which involved me buying a suit. I once had to roam around the bowels of GCHQ - ooops, just off to load the Browning.

stumble in the jumble

Another Saturday, another village jumble sale. We are now the proud possessors of a portable black and white TV. I switch it on, hoping for re-runs of The White Heather Club. Oh, and some strange Swedish kitchen scales with a slider thingy, an embroidery of the cave paintings at Lascaux and a lampshade. This jumble sale was a civilised affair, unlike the ones in the next village where folk cut a swathe to the bric-a-brac, armed with enormous bags, push chairs and shopping trolleys, scattering OAPs and toddlers alike. At all jumble sales, however, there's an unwritten rule as to how to go through the piles of clothing, creating a peristaltic movement of items down the line for the next person to see. It's quite amazing what people buy, a embroidery of the cave paintings at Lascaux, for example. Meanwhile, I'm off to practice the Sir Roger de Coverley, just in case the BBC comes to its senses.

another day another Dali

Well, that was yesterday. Today's challenge (apart from having to review a 600 page novel written mainly in an irritating present tense) is a 500 word piece on surrealism in fashion for my college art course. At this stage, having exhausted my knowledge of same, i.e. Schiaparelli's shoe hat, I am being to wonder if I can pad it out with an erudite discussion about odd socks. Are they truly surreal or just a product of bad laundry management and poor logistics? Any contribution towards the remaining 400 words would be appreciated.

On another surrealistic note, Freecycle listings are a great source for the social commentator. Looking through yesterday's offerings on the Hastings list, I see that someone wants Gary Rhodes and has recently taken possession of a black dustbin and some cycling overshoes. Have the police been informed? The strangest offering I've seen so far was a burnt saucepan (I thought about it but decided against it).

prose and cons

So, just as I'm thinking, sod all of this malarkey, don't define yourself in terms of a job (or lack of it), along comes an interesting vacancy (thanks, Ruth). It's for maternity cover (haha, given earlier posts), for a year, full-time and in London, but it's very interesting and well-paid. But, the application form! I'm exhausted. I've battled through screens and screens of it, trying to shoe-horn in various bits of gainful employment over the years, and just when you think the end is in sight you get to the difficult bits, and boy does this employer squeeze you:

"Please tell us about a time when you developed a good working relationship with a client."

"Can you provide an example of a difficult relationship that you have had at work, explain why it was difficult and what you did to overcome this."

"Please provide an example of where you have found a creative solution to a problem."

as well as the usual supporting statements, and sundries such as what colour nail varnish do you prefer, waist measurement, size of overdraft, recreational drug use, favourite flavour of jam, etc.

And, usually, after all this effort, you get diddleysquat back from them.

At this point, I head for the duvet, thinking mmmmmm, can we live on courgettes?

hierarchy of needs

Waking to an unreasonable level of grumpiness today, I was led to ponder Maslow's theory of human motivation (as one does). Discredited as it is, it's one of the few things that sticks with me from the various management courses I have done over the years. Surveying the base of the pyramid, I am thankful that my physiological needs appear to be satisfied, although more sleep is always welcome. The next layer is also OK if I squint a bit in the direction of financial security and pray to the God of the NHS. Onwards and upwards, there are a few holes in the social layer and then it starts to crumble, which is a great shame as creativity is at the apex. Mmm, not sure how starving-artists-in-garrets fit into Abraham's chart.

I read, courtesy of Wiki, that Maslow

"studied exemplary people such as Einstein ... rather than mentally ill or neurotic people, writing that 'the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy'".

Worrying, that he was a psychologist and not wanting to study "unhealthy specimens".

On that note, I wonder what Maslow's take would be as to why grumpiness set in yesterday when I got an e-mail from someone to whom I have sold a very modest item on eBay - just over a fiver including postage - so I make a profit of about £2.50. She's thinking of bidding on something else I have up - if she gets that, would I dock the first item's postage? Now, everyone makes a little bit on postage so this would reduce my profit to £1.50. There always seems to be something financial lurking to destabilize me - a phone bill, the car tax, NI contributions - but isn't my reaction to the loss of £1 a little worrying? Pass the St John's Wort.

move over, Darling

I am suffused with anger about the 20p tax thingy. When they talk about the group that this affects, think Richard and me. I never thought a Labour government would target those on a low-income, so I'm shocked and extremely annoyed at the recent announcement. Could they have been more blunt?: bugger off if you are non-productive. If you don't earn enough to support the consumer nightmare we seem to live in and have the audacity NOT to have children, that's it. Why not issue the pills now? After all, that would save us from being a drain on society any further.

whiplash

Ah, village life! Think Mapp and Lucia, with Mr Pooter popping in from time to time from the Big Smoke (or should that now be The Big Shelter Just Outside The Emergency Exit?).

Forget Ambridge, where Rooth & Daaaaveed still haven't recovered from the notion of Set-Aside and Hellin's blue cheese is still stinking in some far-off outbuilding, but welcome to this corner of Sussex, where the long-running feuds, gossip and intrigue could populate several series of a riveting Sunday night drama on ITV (mmmmmm ....).

We have blossoming octogenarian romance, property development scandals, power struggles and gavel misappropriation (the W.I. will never be the same again). Even Interpol turned up once (they were very polite and refused a cup of tea). We also had a cheese importing business; I believe it was parmesan.

The parish council is busy and active. I must remember to contribute some of my more off-the-wall ideas for traffic calming, including fly-tippers being encouraged to leave their sofas, outmoded TVs and cookers to stop 4x4 drivers from pretending they are auditioning for "French Connection" or "Speed". On a similar note, we have a wide and varied selection of litter to keep any keen recyclers busy for about 5 years.

The church does its bit to keep us all entertained, notably through plans to bolt a kitchen and lavatory on to the 14th century building. We are implored to Move With The Times. I'm not sure if the churchwardens intend to cook up a storm in there, but clearly having to dash from the church to the public loo means missing some of the salient points of the sermons. Visitor information, presumably including directions to The Facilities, is provided in French, Dutch, German and Spanish, oh, and in Sussex Dialect.

But, ha, I digress. The Hot Topic of the moment is the village quiz. Having been sequestered in the village club for many years, recent huffing and puffing has led to a consideration of other venues. The rapier-like wit and modest drinking habits of (most of) the regular quiz teams is no match for the sharpened points of steel with feathers attached flung in the general direction of a round sisal board by groups of seasoned imbibers. In other words, the darts team have edged us out a bit. Well, to be fair, we have been offered another room for the quiz, but it's rather like the Brotherhood of Man playing the Hollywood Bowl. So tonight, dear readers, we are off to a local hostelry to try their quiz night. We are promised free entry, a cash prize and, the deal-clincher, sausage and chips. Now, our team doesn't have the greatest history when it comes to pub quizzes, i.e. we win a fair bit and so become instantly unpopular, so this could be a one-off. We shall see.

Planet Rock Cakes

When I lived with my parents I used to hate Sundays with a complete and utter passion. Bored. Bored. Bored. Nothing to do for most of the time. Never saw friends. Endless cricket on the telly, seemingly all year round (although it wasn't then). Bath at 6 with Pick of the Pops on the aforementioned Perdio was a brief glimmer of hope, but then grim Sunday evening TV viewing brought me back down again. "The Good Old Days" was on the TV on Sundays in the 1960s. How ironic.

Now, though, I love Sundays. Never two the same, with loads of interesting things to do. Today: late-ish breakfast, rant at The Archers, making a vat of soup together, playing air drums to "Smoke on the Water", dancing in the kitchen, bit of gardening, baking rock cakes, doing a bit of art, drinking tea in the sunshine, looking forward to a nice supper with a glass of wine or two ... In fact, it's a:

hip shakin, radio shoutin, soup tasting, rotivatin, beetroot plantin, charcoal drawin, cake baking, cat strokin, wine drinkin, roast eatin, Sunday!

(save you a rock cake, Judith)

from Perdio to Perfidy

Our house is stuffed with radios. There's at least one in every room, apart from the downstairs loo, but there's one just around the corner if you are desperate.


The first radio I remember was a big hulking thing that my brother had in his room, which I used to listen to occasionally, but the first one of any great import was a Perdio transistor with a bright gilt grill. I used to claim it as often as I could and twiddle the dial that had magical names like Motala, Kalundborg, the wonderful Lux and Allouis. Of course, pop-pickers, I did listen to the top 20 countdown on Sundays and by then had a growing collection of LPs, but I loved the radio for the plays, for classical music and for listening to foreign language stations which drifted in and out with the tide. I used to stare at that dial for hours; I really should have got out more.


I found a Perdio radio (I now know to be a 1962 PR36 Fanfare) a few years ago in a collectors' emporium in Brighton and had to get it. It's not quite the same, though. The dial and the grill are there as is the badge, although reduced to "Perdi" now, but some of the casing is pink and not oatmeal and the L/M switch isn't right, but the on/off switch sounds the same. I wasn't joking about the time I spent with that radio.

Which brings me to the cursed tale of digital radio.


On a very rare shopping trip recently, we bought a new digital radio suprisingly cheaply. I'd wanted one for ages, so it was jolly exciting. When we got the thing home it was permanently stuck on the BBC Asian channel, which isn't so bad as the music is good, but more variety was required. Anyway, I have no patience for instruction manuals, but Richard has, so we eventually got off that and on to Birdsong. Now, we live in the country, so aren't short of a twitter or two, but it was very soothing. Then we find out that the channel is temporary. We then switched allegiance to TheJazz, an excellent station, and soon the notebook next to the kitchen radio is full of tracks and artists. However, that closed down in March. The reassurances that we can listen to it online fall on drum solo-deaf ears; listen up, Classic FM, not all of us have online access where we want to listen to music (can't quite see us sitting around the PC in the spare room and, anyway, that's where I work everyday). I like drama on radio, so access to OneWord was something I had in mind, but that has stopped broadcasting. Thank goodness for Planet Rock, we say, to find that its future, too, is in doubt.


No wonder the bloody radio was cheap - there's nothing to listen to apart from the main BBC channels and, er, sport. Hurumph.

cape of good hope

Scouring the house for things to sell, as usual. I recently acquired a rather nice cape, thinking I would wear it myself, but have decided to let the eBay population have a sniff. I was rather impressed by its Harvey Nichols label, a first for this household which isn't generally known for its sartorial elegance, although Richard scrubs up nicely, thank you very much (down, Judith).

I've found some CDs we can live without (not sure why we have some of them in the first place - hope they are ours and we haven't borrowed them from someone, eeek) and one or two books. Most of my books for sale are on Amazon, but occasionally I spot something I think will do well on eBay and give it a go.

Some of my friends gasp when I tell them I'm selling my own books. I'm not sure how and where I became desensitized to this, living as I have so closely with books all my life. I used to make houses out of annuals when I was little, and carried on making my world out of books, rather less literally, for 15 years, not counting the various times I was studying. After school I used to go to the bookshop of Beatties department store in Wolverhampton and buy books, mainly Penguin Modern Classics. My confession, offered up to cleanse the soul on this lovely spring day, is that I read hardly any of them, but used to buy them for the covers alone. Modern Classics had wonderful covers, mainly of modern art; I was studying sciences, but my real interest was in art and design.

How appropriate, then, that I should be selling my world of books and anything else I can lay my hands on, to help maintain our life here and to fund the art course that I shall finally be starting in September.

One of those Beatties' books was David Karp's "One", with a wonderful Edward Hopper cover showing a man and a woman in deckchairs staring out, desolately, at nothing in particular. I bought it in 1972 and I had it until last year when I sold it. Mmmmm, I think I might just nip on to Amazon and see if I can replace it.

one mad tart in the kitchen

As Monday is now the day I assume the mantle of Dolly Duster, I was particularly interested in last night's BBC offering based on the history of advertisements for cleaning products. Now, I like a vintage advert - very useful for spotting items of decor - but am pretty scathing about the advertising industry per se. Full of Ridley Scott wannabees or frustrated wordsmiths taking themselves way too seriously and paid far too much. I hadn't heard the expression "two tarts in the kitchen" (and its even more insulting variant 2CK, which I won't spell out) before last night, but it confirms everything I think about this contemptible "profession".

Researching it today, I find that David Ogilvy is quoted as the first advertiser to stop the condescending "two tarts in the kitchen" commercials and instead use an experienced older woman, nicknamed the "battle-axe". Progress there, then.

princess margaret serves me ice cream

After a late curry on Friday night, I had a very odd dream about attending a medieval royal wedding at which Princess Margaret served me coffee ice cream. Very peculiar. I'm not known to think much (or a lot) of the royals, although I have been known to lust after an ice cream from time to time. Last night's epic (after a sherbet or two) was equally bizarre, but thankfully forgotten. I dream a lot: recurrent themes are singing (usually in a made-up language) and driving a car from the back seat (no prizes for that one). My favourite is the flying dream, in which I soar over buildings, checking out people's back gardens and the like. An excellent way to travel - cheap, low on carbon emissions and plenty of leg room.

loud, louder

Went up to London last night to hear the Neil Cowley Trio at Cargo. What a treat. These boys are just utterly fantastic and such a range - from delicate tunes picked out by Neil on the piano to the three of them raising the roof. Those more equipped to discuss jazz have talked about the band's “augmented chordal feel, sense of momentum and mininimalism set free". Wish I'd have thought of that. Still, in my book it's just bloody marvellous. Drummer Evan Jenkins played an absolute storm, as did bassist Richard Sadler, but it's the seemingly inexhaustible Cowley at the piano who set the place alight. They are on Jools Holland on 4 April. Queue up for a copy of the latest album.

doin' it

It's now the time of year to just get on and do it - meaning the vegetable garden. It's always a bit daunting. Sowing the seeds is great; I love filling up the greenhouses with trays upon trays (HOW many tomatoes??) . Inevitably, though, the time for digging the beds looms. The permaculture folk say don't bother to weed, but after a year of neglect I reckon something has to be done. Last year's waterlogging courtesy, as it turned out, of next door's leaking water pipe and the ensuing pipe laying and trampling has meant our heavy clay soil has taken a beating. We did grow some beans, but not much else. Even the tomatoes didn't play ball. This year, armed with The Self Sufficientish Bible and DK's Organic Gardening book, I am determined to do better. It's only fair I do most of the work as I'm here most of the time and work is intermittent. I work in the garden with the radio on, unless it's "Quote, Unquote" or "Just A Minute" both of which I hate with a passion. This year I will be spurred on by re-reading "Hovel in the Hills", an account of a couple setting up in Wales, and John Seymour's "The Fat of the Land". Seymour's "five acres and a cow" self-sufficiency manuals are famous; this book, however, is about Seymour and his wife Sally and their smallholding in Suffolk. It was published in 1961, not long after they settle at "The Broom" for a rent of £25 a year, plus rates. I got this copy from the library, where it has been languishing on the county store shelves, taking a rest from the pounding it has had over the years. I like to think of it being read by generations of gardeners and allotment holders, taking a break in the shed with a mug of tea. Some people like their books to be pristine, not me.

Right, boots on.