It's A Bloke Thing.

I have a nephew named Jamie. He lives in Great Yarmouth with some other members of our numerous family who moved to the coast some years ago and have settled in comfortably. Great Yarmouth is not the town it once was and is no longer great. It's very difficult to find employment so Jamie works all the hours he can in a bowling alley, and therein lies the story.

My wife and I went to Yarmouth to see the family over the New Year but Jamie was working so we went to see him at the bowling alley. The seafront at Yarmouth has recently benefited from an extensive and expensive refurbishment however, some of the older attractions date back to the 1950's and the bowling alley is one of these. Jamie wasn't busy and asked if I wanted to have a look behind the scenes. I have always been interested to see how things work so jumped at the chance. My wife declined the invite and couldn't see why I was so interested, she just didn't get it.

Jamie explained that the alley was built in the 1950's and it was still the original machinery. It was fascinating to watch this old machinery gathering the fallen pins via a simple mechanism and smoothly putting them back in place time and time again. I could imagine the youth of the 1950's with slick brylcreamed hair pretending to be Elvis and the girls in their bobby sox and flouncy dresses on Saturday night. The town would have been thriving, there would be money in their pockets and the bowling alley would be the place to be seen. As Jamie finished his impromptu lecture-cum-tour he presented me and my father in law with an old, damaged skittle each. The plastic was torn on the outside but the internal wood seemed to be intact. I am not usually sentimental and I am not materialistic but I was quite touched that Jamie gave me this skittle. It has no monetary value and is hardly ornamental but I felt I needed to do something worthy with it. I decided to strip the plastic off then stain and varnish it. 'What for' my wife said, she just didn't get it.

In my naivety I thought to myself no problem, strip the plastic off, a quick sand down and stain, hey presto. I didn't take into account the plastic would be glued to the wood itself. It took hours to prise the plastic away causing painful hands and a lot of splinters whilst trying not to damage the wood. I also stupidly thought the wood be one piece of beautifully lathed timber with a glorious grain running through it. It is no such thing. It's made of odd blocks of timber a bit like one of those 3D puzzles you can assemble but all glued together. Where I had taken the plastic off the wood had split and fractured. It was like trying to sand a hedgehog. I managed to impale myself several times on the treacherous barbs, but I persevered. 'Why,' asked the wife, she just didn't get it.

After several hours of preparing and sanding I managed to get it in reasonable shape to be able to stain it but, I must confess, I haven't got round to it yet. What I have now is a lump of wood with a bit of history. The only conceivable use for it is as a door stop or perhaps to knock an intruder over the head. However, I am strangely proud of it. My wife still doesn't get it. I am not sure I get it myself; it must be a bloke thing.

The Kings of Neon.

Can you see the band in the photo... no? neither can I. Hidden in the distance, behind all the lights, are those modern purveyors of popular music known as The Kings of Leon. We went to see them last week and this is the photo from the back of the LG Arena in Birmingham. They had a mightily impressive light show with different colour schemes for virtually every song and the strobes were an epileptic's nightmare. The Band themselves must all be shy retiring types because they were in silhouette for most of the gig and didn't really engage with the audience much at all. Even when Caleb did speak I couldn't make out what he said, he just mumbled. I must admit though, it made a refreshing change from singers bellowing ' I can't hear you' at the audience which is really annoying.

I had not been to the LG arena before, it's quite a nice venue with food outlets, bars and even acoustic live music laid on before the main event. Nice except for the toilets that is which seemed to have been designed with mind-bending incompetence. There are no urinals, they are all cubicles which were full so the men had to queue which caused much confusion and head scratching, we men are not used to the relevant protocols. Each cubicle contained one of those thin boxes used for disposing of used 'Women's things' which were clearly pointless. The cubicles were so small that there wasn't room to stand up and open the door; I had to squeeze myself in next to the pan to be able to open the door enough to get out. This caused much cursing and bemusement by my fellow users attempting the same manoeuvre. On the way out I checked I hadn't wandered into the Ladies by mistake, I hadn't. It's possible some wag had switched the signs on the door. I should have made more enquires about the ladies facilities.

They had people selling bottles of beer out of those wheeled trolleys that old ladies use to do their shopping. One of these venders managed to knock his trolley over and all his bottles rolled across the floor to our feet, we assisted him in picking them up and putting them back in the bag. I don't expect he told his customers to open them carefully or they could be sitting through the gig soaked in beer. It was nice to see the venue had complied with their responsibilities with regards to disabled access but this didn't actually extend to letting the disabled patrons see the band. The disabled section was in the standing area at right angles to the stage. All they could have seen was the people standing in front of them. Let's hope they went for the atmosphere.

Anyone who has been to gigs such as these will be aware of their uniformity, it generally starts with he touts outside attempting to sell or buy tickets. It always seems strange to me that, if you have tickets to sell, why would you buy more? If you don't resell them you make a loss. I expect they know what they are doing. A large number of people who attend gigs are numerically challenged. The marshals had to shift people round us on two occasions because they were in the wrong seats. It's not difficult, the number is printed on the ticket, you are guided by a marshal and the numbers are on the seats. At every gig people sit in the wrong seats and then take umbrage about being moved. The seat ballet is hotly followed by where's Wally. This involves someone on the phone behind you trying to locate someone he knows somewhere in the audience and generally follow the lines of, 'what.... the left of the stage... by the stairs...which stairs, are you near a blonde girl in a white shirt?... I can't see a blue shirt... now, now walking past now...wave now... yes wave.....you said left of the stage do you mean right' so on and so forth. The trouble is you can't help but look for their friend as well. About this time you get the Mexican wave which seems to go round and round for ever. Fortunately we were spared this particular annoyance this time. There is generally someone on your row that continually gets up to go the bar and toilet you have to keep getting up to let them through.

At the end of the gig there is the rule of the encore. Every band does it from the humblest pub rockers to the mighty giants. The set finishes, they say good bye the band leave the stage while the lights go down, the audience cheer and stamp their feet for five minutes and the band come back on and do another couple of numbers, usually their most famous ones which they have been saving. I have even seen bands come back on when the audience weren't interested. What a farce. There is no point to it, it's just what's expected. As the stream of drunk, tired and happy fans stream out the venue's exit door there are the dodgy men selling knock off T shirts all laid out on the pavements outside. They are probably the ticket touts from earlier, I guess every business needs a bit of diversity. The next part of the proceedings is the half hour wait to get out of the car park with nothing to alleviate the boredom except laughing at people who have clearly forgotten where they parked the car. Sometimes they even start arguing with each other round an empty parking space.

There was a slight difference this time though at the encore. The band had launched into their last song 'Sex on Fire' they were rocking for all they were worth and the audience was right behind them. The camera picked up a stark naked man dancing and singing like a crazed loon which was flashed up on to the screens. The atmosphere changed to one of hilarity in a heartbeat as thousands of people stopped concentrating on the band and tried to find the dancing loon in the audience. You had to feel for poor Caleb and the boys.

A Shaggy Dog Story.

What kind of dog are you? It occurred to me some time ago that, if I had been a dog, I would probably have been a labrador. I share certain characteristics with the animal in that I have a generally placid nature, we are both prone to be a little overweight with a tendency towards laziness and, dare I say it, we are quite pleasant to look at. My wife on the other hand displays the cool elegance, fine looks and reserved nature of an afghan hound. The image of Winston Churchill depicted as a Bulldog has become iconic and embodies the pride of the British fighting spirit. Who could deny that Graham Norton displays all the charm of a yorkshire terrier in being small, yappy and over excitable. In the recent crop of useless celebrities there is Rylan Clarke who bears a startling resemblance to a poodle in that he is high maintenance, odd to look at and completely pointless. The list goes on.

Any cat or dog owner would tell you that their pet has a personality. I am no zoologist but I would suspect that this is true of all the more intelligent mammals. No doubt sea-lion and dolphin trainers all over the world would claim the same. That's why we humans are so fond of animals, we can see ourselves in them. It's no surprise that the ancients believed in re-incarnation when they could see their loved ones spirits in the animals around them.

I have heard it suggested that there is more evidence for re-incarnation than  for a heaven. No one has ever come back from heaven to state the case, even the TV spiritualists admit it's all a fraud. However, there are plenty of documented accounts of memories of past lives and people speaking in languages they couldn't possibly have known. The most famous case is of the current Dalai Lama. When the previous incumbent died, the other lamas consulted their oracles and went to Lake Ihamo La-tso to wait for a sign from the lake spirit of where the old leader had been re-born. They were shown an image of a little house at the bottom hill in a distinctive village; it took them four years to find it. So the story goes, the four year old child immediately recognised his former colleague dressed as a slave and started talking in a dialect not native to that particular region. It doesn't say why the lama felt it necessary to disguise himself, perhaps it was to prevent over eager mothers forcing their children on him in the manner of the ugly sisters and the glass slipper. After many tests perfected over centuries including picking out items belong to the previous Dalai Lama from a jumble of artefacts, it was deemed that the young lad was indeed the reincarnation and he was whisked off
to begin his religious training.

For me, the jury is still out on this reincarnation business because people see what they want to see. Animals do seem to have personalities though and many are a lot more pleasant than some humans. If I ever find out the answer I will let you know, assuming I still have hands and not paws.

The Art of Spoiling.

There is a theme park close to our Buckinghamshire hideout. It's part of a chain that caters for young children before they are old enough for the likes of Thorpe Park or Alton Towers. Attached to this theme park is a dinosaur park and open farm. We took our two and a half year old grandson there last Saturday along with his dad. It was a gloriously sunny day and we had a really good time. Our grandson wasn't really interested in the animals, at that age they just like to run around in circles and test their parents resolve by being as wilful as possible but we all had fun.

I have to admit that I wasn't tickled pink with the idea of becoming a grandad. Whilst I was happy for the mother and father, I was disturbed by the landmark of becoming old and the negative connotations. I brooded on whether I should put away my guitars, get a pipe and some slippers and take up gardening while sucking on Werther's Originals. Once I realised this attitude was clearly tosh and gave myself a stiff talking-to, I got used to the idea.

The thing about being a grandparent is that you get all the fun without all the hard work. Anyone with children will tell you they need constant attention and every move has to be watched for fear of disaster or mishap. As a grandparent you get to do all the spoiling, go on rides and play with them and, as soon as things get sticky, you just hand them back. Grandparents don't have any responsibilities involving healthy diets, discipline or nappy changing. Some grandmothers can't help interfering and taking over the parenting role, which is a mistake in my opinion, you should let your kids get on with it and provide guidance when they ask. Then again there is the unspoken favourite granny competition which is rife in most families. Most sensible grandads stay out of this particular bloody and bitter battle.

All our parents were invaluable when we were bringing up our children but we had no idea of the depth of feeling involved and their motives for it. We thought they were just being helpful because that's what was expected of them. Had they tried to explain it I wouldn't have understood. It's like being a teenager when someone tells you that it's just a phase, you can't actually see the truth until you are in your twenties and watch someone else go through it. I thought I was done with phases. It makes me wonder how many more of life's great enlightenments are hidden round the corner.

It's possible to enjoy your grandchildren more than your own children because you don't have the worry, the unrelenting demands and you don't have to carry round enough kit for a small army. This weekend was particularly poignant because the little chap was in an hospital intensive care unit three weeks ago suffering from a mystery illness. We were expecting the worst or the possibility of serious long term damage but, by a miracle of modern medicine, he made it through unscathed. The doctors still haven't found the cause of his illness but he is a very lucky boy and we are a very lucky family.

Applause for Doors.

I did some recording with one of my musical collaborators this week. He had managed to find a female singer who liked his music and was willing to add some backing vocals to our existing efforts. We turned up to the studio with our new find in tow and her backing vocals were added; she is very good. It transpires she is studying art and had recently had an open air installation on show in the local area which attracted a lot of attention. She showed us pictures of the installation and it was quite impressive. It would have been interesting to visit it and educate myself on a subject I know nothing about.

The thing about meeting new people is that they can open doors for you. Other people have hobbies, jobs and contacts that can lead you in completely new directions if you are curious enough. Take our new-found singer, we could develop a friendship which would involve supporting her in her artistic endeavours by visiting her exhibitions and meeting her arty friends. I could develop a lifelong interest and an insight into modern art which, at the moment, is a closed book to me. Alternatively my musical collaborator may give her a larger role in his music which would take it in a much more folky/country direction just by her being there.

When you are very young you believe that the way your parents do things is the only way and, as you grown up and mix socially, your friends open doors to alternative lifestyles and attitudes. I can still remember being fascinated by my friends' houses and the way they did things. My best friend at infants and juniors was a lad called David and his parents seemed to me to be so glamorous. His mum had long blonde hair and wore jeans. There was always food about and we could have whatever we wanted, she even kept glucose in a packet in the larder, imagine that, glucose. I didn't have a clue what it was but I knew we didn't have anything that exotic at home.

In my later years at secondary school there was another lad who took to knocking for me. He was well known for fighting and causing trouble. I remember how he once bragged that he managed to avoid the police by hiding in a coal bunker for several hours. I also remember being stop searched by the old bill just because I was walking down the road with him. I began to avoid him and that particular door stayed firmly closed.

As people get older and get settled with partners, life seems to become more insular. The opportunities for meeting new people with interesting doors to open diminishes. Eventually it ends up back where it started, slaves to habit and unwilling or unable to consider new things in case it rocks the boat. I suspect that keeping a curiosity about the world is what keeps people young at heart... or is it the alcohol.

Upstairs Downstairs.

My lovely wife has a phobia. It's not one of those that affect your quality of life, more of a minor inconvenience. She is claustrophobic and won't go in lifts or travel on the underground; she doesn't like caves or tight spaces which is a shame as I quite like caves. She is a game girl and will always make the effort when visiting tourist attractions but sometimes we have to beat a hasty retreat when it becomes too much for her. The main issue is that she won't go in lifts and, as a consequence, I have become an expert on stairs.  

Humping our luggage up and down flights of stairs seems to be a feature of our holidays. It's not too bad if we are on a lower floor but when you have to climb to the fourth floor or above it can become a bit tiresome. I generally request a lower floor but it's not always provided. Just recently we stayed at a hotel and were faced with a choice of a second floor room kitted out for the disabled or a standard room on the seventh floor. We ended up in the room for the disabled as we couldn't face seven flights of stairs; mind you the shower room was big enough to get a football team in.

Alternatively, I could go up in the lift, put the bags in the room, get the lift back down and then walk up with her but that seems the long way round and I would have to carry her bags as well. I am too much of a gentleman to let her walk up on her own and I would worry that she would get lost. I can imagine us wandering the corridors like dispossessed ghosts looking for each other so it seems easier to just bite the bullet and stagger up the stairs with our bags. It's surprising how many times a day you go backwards and forwards to your room, with or without bags, and it's especially annoying when you have forgotten something and then have to go back up to get it.

Multi- storey car parks are to be avoided where possible. Nothing smells quite like the concrete staircase of a car park with its bouquet of urine, vomit and dankness, sometimes with the added hazards of dodgy lighting and winos to climb over. Hospital staircases, whilst smelling much nicer, have the inconvenience of long meandering corridors to negotiate. On one memorable occasion we visited a sick relative on the 11th floor of Hampstead Hospital; I thought were going to have to send out for additional oxygen.

You would think that with all those stairs we would both be thin as whippets but that's not the case unfortunately. I don't really mind not going in lifts, who wants to be crammed in a tin can with the great unwashed anyway. 

Love Thy Neighbour.

We are getting new neighbours. A seriously large van appeared in our street last week; the family across the road filled it with their furniture and drove off behind it out of the road. Yesterday, a different and not so serious van appeared and unloaded furniture into the newly vacant house causing much speculation on our part. The previous neighbours were a quiet, unassuming family who caused no problems despite the fact that there did seem to be rather a lot of them. Rather than knocking the door with a freshly baked apple pie to welcome the new arrivals, my wife and I sat and brooded about what kind of inconveniences they would cause us.

The fact that people move because of neighbours is well documented.
I know of a case where a neighbour with a shared drive put his rubbish out and the gentleman who lived next door was so aggrieved because one of the black sacks was partially on his half of the drive that he called the police. I also know of a court case involving a rotten fence and a wind chime.

The worst case I ever came across involved a lovely, elderly couple who lived in a well-kept semi- detached. Many years ago they had bought a substantial part of the neighbour's garden in addition to their existing land. They were very proud of this garden and spent many hours working on it. The gentleman who sold them the garden died, his house was put on the market and sold to a young family. Within two days of moving in, the father had ripped down the fence and reinstated the original garden. When the elderly couple complained they were faced with a hail of abuse and threats of the direst consequences if they touched the fence. The police were not interested saying it was a civil matter. They took the matter to court, the father was given many opportunities to remove the fence by the judge but failed to comply and was eventually jailed for a month. The father stated he would rather go to prison than see his children deprived of their garden. The elderly couple who had been robbed of their pride and joy became too traumatised to go out into their own garden. I spoke to the offender, he was polite, well spoken and had a responsible job with one of the London councils. His argument, which he passionately believed, was 'why should an old couple have a large garden while his children could only have a small garden' he was completely oblivious to the legal argument or the fact that he should have bought a house with a bigger garden. Your just can't reason with some people. This went on for at least two years and I didn't find out the final outcome.

On the lighter side, there was an occasion when my elderly neighbour disappeared for about six months. My wife and I convinced ourselves he had died. Imagine her shock when she went to hang out the washing and there he was, hailing her from his garden as large a life. We are still laughing about it.

As for our new neighbours, they only seem to have one car which is a newish mini cooper so don't anticipate parking issues and they are not adjacent to our house so initial impressions are favourable.