Freshly Spilled Thoughts

Throwback Tuesday. Real life shizzle and silliness…

Back in the days when the Egyptians were still carving pyramids by hand on the internet, there was a website called something like “Rather Good”

And it was what it said on the tin.

They had Mick Hucknall holding a giant rabbits ears back, saying, “Holding back the ears” (instead of years)

And a Madonna ‘Erotic’ track that went…

“Bill Oddie.
Bill Oddie.
Put your hands all over my body”

Always used to make me laugh for some reason.

The Goodies was hit and miss at times, but at its best it was mad, anarchic and a quintessential 70’s sketch show that helped shape our generation.

Some very sad news was unexpectedly bestowed upon me this morning.

I was reliably informed that a lovely woman I used to work with, who must have been only a year or two older than me, died of cancer this year.

She was so friendly and bubbly, it’s difficult to process even when you haven’t seen them for a number of years.

You know how, when you think of people, you imagine them out and about, living life.

Even when you’re not in touch with them, it is comforting to think of old acquaintances in this way.

Then one day someone tells you they aren’t around anymore.

That isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

The finality of it is the hardest thing and there’s nothing you can do about it but honour their memory.

When you see someone, you never think that will be the last opportunity you’ll ever have, but unfortunately sometimes it is.

For me it’s when I bumped into her in Solihull one day. I had already left the place I worked, and she had too.

She was looking for a job at the time. Later she met someone and looked the picture of health in relatively recent photos.

Honestly, if I thought about it all too much it would make me cry.

One thing I’ve always been able to do is replay points in time and conversations in my head as if they were only yesterday.

They never go away.

I remember the time I took a day off work and her playfully saying, “Are you feeling better, Dean?”, the next time I was in.

And the time I gave her a bodybuilders version of the ECA stack jotted down on a piece of paper, which she used to get weight off before a holiday abroad.

When I worked downstairs, one guy I worked with referred to her as “Mandy’s tarts upstairs”, which was all just a bit of banter.

Nature can be both fickle and cruel, so if there is a God he/she/it can shove it up its arse because it’s all weighted the wrong way.

Forgive me for writing a post that is bereft of levity, but this has been the most shocking news I have been in receipt of for quite some time.

One of my enduring memories of her is that she was always smiling and interested in the latest bit of office gossip, to make the day go by that little bit faster. My impression of her is that she ‘worked to live’ as oppose to the other way around.

So on that note this post is dedicated to my old work-friend, Mandy. I’ll raise a glass and I won’t forget you. RIP.

“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” ~ Charles Bukowski

It’s hard to think of what the last genius sitcom was.

Some might say ‘The Office’.

It would be hard to argue against that, especially with the stapler in the jelly and the impromptu guitar rendition of ‘Hot Love’ on a Freelove Freeway, by David Brent.

Me…. personally I’d say it was probably Black Books.

Bernard: [grabs a book at random] This one’s good, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it’ll change your life!

And if you’ve never watched it, you’ll never know about the Little Book of Calm

Manny: You think I should wash my beard?

Bernard: Yes, I think you should wash it. Then you should shave it off, nail it to a frisbee, and fling it over a rainbow.

I also particularly liked the Summer Girl episode…

Bernard: I’ve got to get a girlfriend, just for the summer, until this wears off. She’ll be a summery girl. She’ll have hair. She’ll have summery friends who know how to be outside. She’ll play tennis and wear dresses and have bare feet, and in the autumn, I’ll ditch her, because she’s my summer girl!

[Bernard runs up to his ‘summer girlfriend’ wearing an accordion]

Bernard: Hello! I’ve come to serenade you. I can’t play guitar. I can’t play this either, but I thought it’d be less obvious.

66 posts down. 34 to go.

Sam Neill seemed like a nice man.

Here he is singing Creep by Radiohead, accompanied by his ukulele… and dedicating his rendition to all the people out there that wanted to be special.

We all are, by the way.

Some people just haven’t realised it yet…

Not many things in the news really capture my interest. I only watch the news if there’s been a good murder, not that I wish that on anyone.

It’s just the Columbo in me that comes out.

One thing that did capture my fleeting attention, was the bloke who nearly got sucked out of a plane window after an engine component had broken off and smashed the glass.

Apparently his wife (I presume it was his wife) had to hold onto his legs to stop him flying off into the abyss.

Imagine that…

There you are, chatting about something mundane like whether the hotel you’re staying in has air conditioning, then next thing you know your husband is being sucked out through the plane window.

Traumatising to say the least and can you imagine the hefty compensation claim against the airline.

I guess if she’d got sick of him to the point where she found the way he crunched his Cornflakes in the morning more than just a bit irritating, she could have just leg go of his legs.

Whoops.

“I tried to hang on. Alas, Brian whizzed off and is now somewhere in the Pacific ocean. I try to console myself with the fact he always loved theme park rides and this one would have been up there as a red letter day experience.”

Dating Ad:

“Recently Widowed HolidayMaker Seeks Partner After Previous One Got Sucked Off… Out Of The Window”

I shouldn’t joke about it.

The good news is he’s still alive and well. Apparently he has little memory of the incident.

What a story, though.

A thought becomes a spark, igniting a flame until it becomes a fire.

Billions of neurons bounce around, urging my fingers to spring into action, so that words may form and dance around on the paper. Sometimes making mischief.

Not tonight, though. Tomorrow. Maybe.

Some days I miss lyrical rap like this. Rap that made you feel something…

Everything’s Gonna Be Alright by Naughty By Nature

“Cause I’m Naughty By Nature, not ’cause I hate ya”.

Bradbury recommends picking out a bunch of nouns and then just writing about the one that creates a spark.

The one that jumped out at me was “The Forgotten Key”

My first attempt at an intro was:

The forgotten key was something that he’d only ever heard his dad talk about in passing. The old man was legendary at spinning a yarn and nothing got in the way of a good story, so he didn’t think it was actually real. Not in a million years! Until that day he discovered it hiding underneath an old dusty picnic blanket in the dark corner of the loft. He shouldn’t have even been in there crouching beneath the roof beams, and he’d surely get into big trouble if anyone found out. It was weighty and magnificent in his hand. He stood there for a minute imagining what a key such as this would open. A mighty chest full of treasure? A door to an inner sanctum of some kind? Should he ask his dad about it when he comes home from work or keep this to himself, at least for now?

Moments later there was a loud yet familiar noise outside. The screech of the brakes on his dad’s old Ford pickup. “Shit! He’s gonna kill me.” 

You read some funny things in YouTube comments and Amazon reviews.

Take this for example on the song “Black & Yellow” by Wiz Khalifa:

“When I was a kid, I listened to this for the first time. I heard Wiz say “You know what it is” and I cried because I didn’t know what it was.“

*chortle*

Reminds me of the time I was reading a review on coconut foot cream and one person wrote (paraphrased):

“I used this on my greyhound’s feet and it worked like a charm. So well, in fact, that it won the race. Highly recommended.” 

Still makes me laugh now.

That’s enough hilarity for one day. Until next time.

I watched a somewhat disturbing film the other day called “Speak No Evil”.

I mainly watched it because James Mcavoy is in it as he doesn’t often disappoint.

(I discovered afterwards that the director is the same guy that did Eden Lake, which is one of the most unrelenting horror films of all time).

It’s all about this couple from London that go on holiday to Italy. Whilst there, they meet and befriend another couple who live in a farmhouse down in Devon.

When they return back to London they get an invite from this couple to go and stay at their farmhouse.

And that’s about all I can say about it other than it’s not a normal weekend away and it’s put me off staying at relative-strangers houses for the rest of my life.

So if you need me, you’ll find me in a castle with the bolts slid firmly across the door hewn from solid oak, with a handy dagger nestled under my pillow.

This is one for people that like awkwardness, tension and nail biting.

If you like this film, it’s a fair hunch that you will also like another one called Calibre.

Don’t forget to lock your back door before you watch any of these, which is something I forgot to do once. As a result, as a precaution I had to check all the rooms and wardrobes whilst brandishing a makeshift weapon, which was actually a small statue of a horse.

You couldn’t make it up.

The ‘tiny horse just in case’ video here, created by moi, is uncannily accurate…

Ray Bradbury says the great secret to writing is excitement, in that when you’re writing something you want to share with the world, you have to be excited about it.

The reader can tell if you’re not.

He believed that thinking is not what is required to write, but to feel.

He said that if you write as fast as you can, you prevent intellectual hesitation and capture raw truth.

Love, fear and hate are the primary drivers for anything worthy of excitement.

For me joy can be found in the flow state. The part where you stop thinking and revel in the art of doing.

I first experienced this as a child at the age of 8 when my dad came home from work with a computer game.

I loaded it up and got lost in it for many hours. I forgot to eat.

Nothing else mattered.

That’s why Matthew Smith is one of my heroes. It was the first time I remember experiencing something that captured my attention and imagination in such a profound way.

It’s a good lesson from Bradbury.

Write with excitement. Don’t think… and where possible, try to be joyous 🙂

Repeat the mantra.

One of my pet hates is having to plug things in to charge them.

I don’t even like plugging phones in every day.

I remember the wonder years when I could plug a T9 phone in, charge it once and then forget about it for 2 weeks.

We were winning at life and we didn’t even realise it.

Now everyone walks around with phones the size of paving slabs that are so power hungry, they need to be plugged in like someone suffering with OCD just to make it to the end of the day.

“Thank f*ck for that, I got to the end of the day without dipping below 20 percent. Heaven forbid.”

Earlier I was using bluetooth headphones and a robot voice warned me, “Battery low”

“Oh fuck off. I don’t want a job working for my own headphones.”

It’s the main reason I’ll never buy an electric car.

I went in a Tesla a few months ago and it had no soul. Just an electric display on the dashboard like some Frankenstein love child of Elon Musk.

I like a multitude of buttons I can press, just to see what they do.

I enjoy turning dials and manually adjusting whatever it is I feel inclined to fiddle with.

I’m a child of the 80’s that likes to have a good prod, if you’ll pardon the expression.

I don’t think progress is having to plug a car in like some kind of umbilical cord.

“We have a solution to petrol and diesel” 

“What is it?”

“Well, you know how at the moment we can fill cars up with fuel and drive off in seconds?”

“Yes. I find it handy.”

“We’ve made something you can plug in that you have to wait around hours for it just to charge.”

“But isn’t that slower?”

“Yes. It’s slow as molasses.”

“What’s good about it?”

“Zero emissions and a lot of stuff eco warriors seem to like.”

“But don’t Boeing 747’s run on shit tons of fuel?”

“Yes.”

“Are we going to make them electric? Seems pointless otherwise… all those planes flying around while we’re in electric Lego cars.”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“We’ll market it as something that makes people feel good about themselves. We’ll tell them it lowers their carbon footprint. Eventually they’ll be buying vegan sandals and converting from beef to tofu. Trust me.”

“But are we going to still fly first class, selling these chumps all these electric vehicles they have to plug in every day for the rest of their lives”

“You bet your ass we will.”

“Hey. You still got that classic V6 Alfa Romeo in the garage?”

“God yes.”

I’m just thankful we don’t have to plug ourselves in every two minutes.

When I’m low on energy I just eat a Satsuma.

Why don’t we have cars that run on oranges instead.

The man from Del Monte would love it.

The best thing about being 19 is that you can literally live all day on a banana.

Want to buy Toffifee and live on that all day as as a student? You can.

I did.

I bought mine from Woolworth’s.

But a time comes when you need real food…

Like chicken, eggs and broccoli, or you’ll run like a bad lawnmower.

One day in the future, you’ll find yourself in a queue next to a 19 year old kid in a supermarket and you see they only came in to buy 6 fairy cakes.

Teenagers look at your asparagus and wonder how anyone could voluntarily eat such a thing.

They frown at leeks, shudder at kale and cower in the company of brussels sprouts.

Meanwhile, they’ll undoubtedly eat all those fairy cakes in one sitting when they get home.

They don’t know it, but it is at that exact moment in life they are living the dream.

Limitless energy, 6 fairy cakes and oblivious to caloric or nutritional requirements.

The only thing that tops this is an infinity pool in an exotic country with a chorus line of showgirls at the other end.

That’s a topic for another day 😉

We made it to Wednesday.

What legends we are.

Seriously (as Simon Cowell might say).

On Friday we will be 2 days ahead of the ‘memory island’ that is Wednesday and the weekend will tantalise us with its wares.

Then Monday will rear its ugly head again.

But it’s okay, because we will have another opportunity to be legends again.

It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

I took a picture with an old backup phone while I was out the other day (there is a reason for this I won’t explain here)

It looks great on the phone but it’s a washed out representation of me by the time it ended up off there and on here…

Ladies and Gents I present to you, “Mega Blur Man”.

Tal Bachman released a song called “She’s So High”, way back in 1999.

I bought the single.

I don’t know how many times I listened to that song, but it must be at least a couple of hundred times.

I forgot about it for years, then remembered it again the other day.

It’s a very nostalgic song for me.

The words themselves don’t resonate particularly, it’s more the poetic energy it evokes.

It reminds me of a time when I would stay up until birds were twittering outside and being in touch with a version of myself I never really want to lose sight of.

A higher state of consciousness, perhaps.

This is worth a quick watch. Cast of awkward yet legendary sitcom, “The Office” reflect on the series 25 years later…

Cream-coloured ponies and crisp apple strudels, doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles, wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings, these are a few of my favourite things.