Read Ian's Stories

Who says time travel is dead? I always wondered what it would be like to live in 1920s Britain, and after today’s cuts in welfare,  I’ll probably get the chance. Actually, my gran worked downstairs in 1920s London. She said it was great if you didn’t mind the streets being ruled by violent gangs and safety was only to be found on streets with an occupied sentry box. A different image to the popular “gay 20s” image. Speaking of troops on the streets, I thought it was a good idea for the cost-reduced police to back away from dealing with the kind of “anti-social behaviour” that goes on in Britain. It’s actually civil unrest, and that’s a job for the cost-reduced army.

Just to prove I don’t like anything alternative just for the sake of being cool, when moving house, I went through the CDs and I’m sure I decided to get rid of Antony and the Johnsons and Belle and Sebastian thinking how forgotten and uncool they now were and that it was finally safe to quietly ditch them. Now I regret it because they’re both ubercool again, ie they’re getting a re-run in every weekend magazine. Cool, not cool, cool again. God it’s so difficult. If I actually have given away these “masterpieces”, I don’t regret it. I tried to like them and I didn’t. I don’t hate them. I like the idea of them. I would even say I’m a fan of the idea of them, but I just don’t like the music.  Okay maybe I’ll see if I just buried them under the Cherry Ghost and Badly Drawn Boy CDs. Cool, not cool, never going to be cool again, or will they?

It’s back to the novel which is struggling to exist amidst the paint pads and rollers and wood filler. I liked my mouse swap idea in yesterday’s blog. I think I might try to develop that. Anything’s got to be easier than writing a novel. Descaling the insides of a hot water cylinder by hand is easier than writing a novel. Yesterday’s major distraction was the shower not switching off. Oh yes, the water went off, but when I went downstairs, the pump was still spluttering away. So after registering on handyman.com (a site for repressed mechanicals)  I discovered all sorts about my shower, except how to stop it. Lots of info on how to get the reed flanges, pressure widgets and PCBs going, but nothing on stopping it. I decided to switch it on and off a hundred times until it got the message but many thanks to all those who contributed online to solving the problem.

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Many people enjoy contradicting others. They enjoy it so much they even contradict themselves. My local pub, the birthplace of contradiction, contradicts itself by having a sign outside to stop walkers entering in muddy boots and yet inside there’s a book of local walks for walkers. Either you want walkers or you don’t.

People who complain about low light levels in their houses build conservatories so they can bask in the light. They then built it out of Reactolite glass that cuts out most of the light, or wear sunglasses.

People go to the pub to cheer themselves up, but then they drink alcohol, the number one depressant. Doctors go mad about the dangers of salt in food, but they do nothing about alcohol which poisons and kills ten teenagers a day.

Recently I  decided to go with the flow and look at getting tattooed, just down one forearm with fashionable quips: fuck off and die, love / hate, Fiona Bruce, the usual thing. I can press my forearm to the windscreen in a macho display just like other males. However having the windscreen etched with the same tattoos and just pressing my untattooed arm to the glass and pretending they’re all mine works just as well.

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Fiona Bruce wears her coat indoors with the waist strap done up for very good reasons:  every time they start shooting the Antiques, she’s debagged and her pristine white trousers are hoisted up the flagpole. They hardly show her from the waist down these days. But that’s because she’s half woman, half desk.

Today I went in a high street mobile phone shop and gave up. The lighting in those places is now so bright even the carpet can’t stand it. It’s so hot men stand around in their vests while the women stuff the plutonium-enriched part of their phone in their mouths and hum Katy Perry. They’re so overdoesd on the image they have to live it all the time. I’m going to buy online.

The new Bosch windscreen wipers I bought weeks ago at Halfords for £17.49 are starting to work. Halfords looked at them and decided they were working but they just didn’t fit, so tough! No money back. I decided to stick with them. I liked the idea of a windscreen wiper that gets round to it in its own time. The best way is to watch the forecast and start them moving two days in advance of bad weather so they build up a head of steam. When the rain stops, you just pull them away from the windscreen to avoid scratching.

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“Tinkle tinkle clank, what a lot we drank” to (mis)quote Wendy Cope. As the crash and rumble of recycling starts up, it must be Friday.  A week since the move and the dust has already developed into tumbleweed. With no carpets to soak it up, the stark reality is Hoover or die in a dust avalanche.

I just watched BBC 4′s Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Child, still available on i-player. In his own words it reveals a small part of the intense method behind the effortless playing. Hendrix flows because he actively “banished negative thinking”. He never looks at his guitar nor do you notice wrong notes. On Radio 3 Nigel Kennedy’s cover of Little Wing is often played. Hendrix is no Nadia Boulanger, but there’s much more to Hendrix than simple Extra-Terrestrial Rock God.

Speaking of banishing negative thinking, I hope to banish Vodafone. They claim I live in a mobile phone black spot. In fact it’s a Vodafone black spot. Caroline was left standing at the station due to a text that’s still not appeared.

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