Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Anyone who knows me knows I love a good hat - particularly a fedora (I have rather more than is strictly wise).

Well, it seems that algorithm me has been caught by teh intarwebs and teh intarwebs have taken notice. I keep getting adverts for a US Cavalry hat:



Not this precise example, but very close.

Trouble is, I know I could rock it.

But in Ilford?

I wrote this for Christmas 2005 and thought that an airing fifteen years later might be fun. I took a bit of a liberty, I’m afraid…

I’d forgotten how steep the stairs are, how quiet the house can be, and how the stairs creak. It’s been many, many years since I was here, and things have changed; my circumstances are, how shall I put this, somewhat reduced.

The last time I visited, we celebrated. A meagre celebration to be sure, but a celebration nonetheless; we were never ones for the grand gesture, but we knew our business and this time we had surpassed ourselves. We had got where we were by sheer hard work and a passion for the detail in a closely written contract.

And we did well, very well, our company was a legend in the City.

I remember that it was cold that night, as cold as it is tonight.

My, my, but these stairs are steep; were they always so? The effort of the climb is drawing my breath in gasps. The irony is not lost on me as I wind my way up, step after step to the grand bedroom.

The snow was fresh on the ground and I remember clearly the crump, crump, crump of my footsteps as I walked the silent streets, the brandy fortifying my every pace. I remember the cloud of condensation from my breath swirling into the still night, and the patterns it made as it passed the flickering gas lamps.

I paid little heed, but soon snow was falling so fast that I could not see. And as I walked I became aware of the profound silence around me, the desolate muffled stillness of the darkened city. I walked and walked: time itself seemed frozen, and the faint glow of the lamps, dimmed by the blizzard seemed ever more distant.

One more flight up: there are cobwebs and dust everywhere; the carpets threadbare and unwelcoming. Every step onward wearies to the very marrow, but I continue.

Ah, the doors: heavy and dark-stained oaken just as I remember. Unchanged.

I cannot think now, how long I walked that night, but by and by the snow stopped falling and a mist set with that foul sulphurous smell that betokens a thickening fog; one of London’s best. And still I walked, and as I did so my mood darkened – influenced no doubt by the numbing cold that weighed like chains upon my shoulders.

I cannot say how long it was before I realised that which should have been obvious.

Yes, the heavy oaken doors with their brass handle. I reach out with numb hands, my breath catching in my throat as the hinges creak and the doors swing open.

I remember now why I have returned, as the voice in the darkness, tremulous and afraid addresses me and I reply…

‘I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?’

When Virgin Media decide to have an outage, they don’t kid around.

There have been numerous times during lockdown where we’ve lost broadband for at least a day, which is annoying at the best of times, but doubly so when you’re working from home. (Happily we are sufficiently stocked with DVDs, CDs, books and other relatively low tech (!) items that we can entertain ourselves once streaming is no longer an option.

Last night though was a special one. I was playing Civ on the PC when all kinds of error messages popped up and the computer started running diagnostics on itself. I didn’t even realise at that point that the internet had gone, I assumed that something had happened to the PC. Well, it rebooted and everything seemed fine except that that was when I realised that we had no broadband. I checked on the iMac just to ensure it wasn’t the PC arsing around, but no, it was the broadband. Oddly, I was still getting WiFi, but no internet, which in itself is unusual. When one goes, they both go, as a rule.

Checking the Virgin Media website on my phone, I found that everything was down: broadband, cable TV and the landline, though they reckoned it would be fixed by morning. So I went to bed.

Anyway, this morning, I logged on and all seemed well. I came downstairs and it was only when I tried to demonstrate the Amazon Echo to colleagues during our weekly informal online chat that I realised that we had a problem.

Earlier in the year, I bought a mesh WiFi system to counter the odd dead spots in the house – it’s only a small house but the Victorian method of building (to paraphrase aitch_pea) using a combination of marshmallow and diamond, meant that there were bizarre WiFi blank areas. That’s worked pretty well, but it is hard wired into the main router, meaning we effectively have two WiFi systems working through a single connection. So the “Eero” (mesh) system pretty much slaves of the Virgin Hub and our devices just log on to whichever signal is strongest at any point. Usually it’s pretty seamless.

But this morning, the mesh WiFi was working but the principal WiFi wasn’t and all the Amazon Echo devices (except the recent addition in the kitchen) predate the mesh and link directly to the principal hub WiFi. We had internet access, but not from the Virgin Hub. Or at least it was wired internet to the Eero gateway and WiFi thereafter.

It’s all fixed now – a reboot of the Virgin Hub put that right, but interestingly, it could have been days before I noticed had I not needed to use the Amazon Echo and having logged in to the Virgin Media website it was reporting a possible data breach and recommending users reset passwords accordingly.
It would have been nice to have an email. Had I gone to bed before the outage occured, I might not have known for some time that there were any issues.

The long and the short of it is, if you subscribe to Virgin Media for broadband etc, log in and change your password. They might not bother to tell you.

For the avoidance of any doubt, it is autumn, now. Definitely autumn.

Not only is it getting dark noticeably earlier of an evening, but for the first time since early May, or certainly late April, I am sitting here at my lockdown desk and wearing a hoodie. I am not yet quite at the point of needing the heater as I did in March, but it’s good to know it’s there in the corner should I need it.

The other sure-fire sign that the temperatures are beginning to slide (and for the record, I’d like to observe that about now, we are in prime temperature territory for Bryan’s personal comfort), the lockdown beard has gone and I’m back to sporting my (increasingly grey) goatee. Or is it technically a Van Dyke? My erstwhile friend glassfinger used to sport a ‘proper’ goatee and it made him look like a turnip. I think mine must, in truth be a ‘Van Dyke’ – you need the accompanying moustache unless you’re happy to look like an idiot.

The beard was just getting more and more unkempt and though I’m no oil painting, I do have certain standards and having trimmed it a couple of months ago for shape, it seemed to be sulking and refused to get any longer again. The tidying trim had convinced it to bush out rather than get more Gandalfesque.

Actually, looking at the linked graphic, mine is currently somewhere between ‘goatee and moustache’ and ‘extended goatee'.

For no reason other than the fact that I am a contrary sod, I often seem to loose a full beard just as the weather is getting colder, despite having maintained it throughout the summer. In a month or two I’ll probably get fed up with shaving again and start back on the full beard.

Of course, this is all in the name of vanity. I’ve always favoured facial fuzz of some kith, kin or kine, but in the twenty years since I gave up on my receding hair line and started shaving the top of my melon back to simple, dignified Picards, if I don’t have something on my face, I just look like a boiled egg with the point end at the top.

Happy Monday, folks.

This is a piece that toyed with writing about a month ago but initially decided against. This subject has been tasking me more than it should do and has been doing so for nine months.

Forty-nine years ago this month, I made a new friend. He joined our school at the beginning of the second form, and within days we were firm friends. Within weeks we were thick as thieves, having similar interests, largely shared musical tastes and an almost identical sense of humour. We both toyed with playing guitar. He stuck with it, I didn’t (I had no aptitude whatsoever, and although I could tell a string was out of tune, to this day I couldn’t tell you if it was flat, or too sharp).

For the purpose of this piece, I shall refer to my erstwhile friend as Alceste. One should not necessarily identify the guilty, and it is an appropriate name.

( Long ramble for context here )

This then, is Alceste:

The over-imagining underachiever, a man of little ambition, dim understanding, ordinary intellect and irrefutable opinion; a monumental ego built on the shifting sands of his own self-loathing, a reflection of his own misanthropy. A negligent and casual racist who sees remonstration as only arrogance and condescension.

Alceste is a man who avoids responsibility and discord by closing his eyes and ears and pulling back his horizons to the inside of his own four walls and the society of a decreasing number of unchallenging acolytes. He is slowly becoming dehumanised through isolation and resentment; a Kantian combination of dislike and ill-will. A born-again Christian, whose god merely rubberstamps Alceste’s own judgements.

His one true love is in playing guitar and here he has persevered, and to my ears he has attained a competent adequacy, which in fairness I believe he recognises as he has retreated in the main to a comfortable twelve bars and three chords.

He is both dichotomy and paradox: the man who rages against the dying of the light even as he snuffs out the candles.

I mourn the friend I lost some forty-odd years ago and resent the pitiable reflection that had me fooled for so much longer.

The Fripps continue to show that lockdown is having no effect on them:

https://youtu.be/H2cDrnVrPP8

I am both annoyed and glad to be awake.

Annoyed because I didn't sleep so well and I'm still tired. Not insomnia by any means but one oddly repetitive dream followed by an anxiety dream.

And those dreams are why I'm glad to be awake, the first is fading rapidly, but involved, of all things, lots and lots of packed sandwiches wrapped in foil. I must have been snoring because I kept feeling bumps in my back, which instead of waking me, just got incorporated inexplicably into the reverie.

Later, in the next dream, I was back in a version of the office, where I was contacted by Matthew with a view to going to lunch. Somewhere in that dream, I ended up for a time in a church hall style advice centre, then had my laptop and iphone stolen. I started walking back to the office and somehow got turned around. Got on a bus, which seamlessly became a tram.

I was dropped off in a very wide valley, with a number of rivers in it, and several unfinished flyovers. I was trying to find another bus stop when I woke up.

Hand me the straight waistcoat and put my analyst on danger money, Baby.

Today was a good day - friends around for an appropriately socially-distanced get together in the garden. And we premiered the new gazebo, or BeRT (Big Red Tent) as Furtle has christened it:



Erecting the gazebo was remarkably simple, despite there being ample opportunity to catch fingers here and there. We elected to just have the one side enclosed to hide the less appealing side of the garden, whilst affording a decent view of the rest.

We knew Tanya was arriving around 5 minutes before she actually swung into view on account of the unmistakeable growl of her imported and hugely impractical Ford Mustang.

Tony and Tracy Lee brought their little spaniel, Fosco with them. She is always good fun, though understandably, Moneypenny was less enamoured by the idea and spent a great deal of time hiding in the lower part of the garden, or viewing the scene from the her vantage point atop the fence where Fosco failed to spot her. In the end, I took pity on her and lured her over with a few Dreamies, and then carried her into the house where the dog couldn't get to her. She then spent a happy few minutes driving Fosco mad, pulling faces through the glass.

It was a fine old afternoon of chat and barbecue, and once I'd managed to charge my Anker Soundcore, we even had a bit of music to listen too, as well.

After everyone had gone home, we decided to sit out under the gazebo a little longer and finish off the wine. As it got cooler, thoughts turned to the possible acquisition of an outdoor heater. I mean, we bought the gazebo right at the end of summer, so it's only logical that we should think about outdoor heating, right?

Right?

As far I can tell, yesterday was all grey and rain. It certainly went and stayed very dark around 4.40pm and got nowhere close to brightening up before dusk. Other than that, it just felt like one of those miserable summer days that come along from time to time.

Something has changed. I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Today is brighter, the sky is blue and the sun is shining, though it is forecast to cloud over again, later. The temperature is pleasant, but even at 10.30 in the morning, there remains an underlying crispness to the air. Not a cold crispness, but something almost textural.

The leaves are still green, the plants lush and there are flowers blooming all over the garden (note to self: deadhead the roses over the weekend), but something’s changed. The celestial clock has moved along an infinitesimally small notch.

Yesterday was a miserable late summer day. Today is a pleasant early autumn morning.

You can feel it. And it's early.

As yet another season begins to wind down in 2020 and we draw ever closer to autumn, I am finding relief in the lower temperatures.

Nearly every working day since the end of the first week in March, I have been sitting at the conservatory table with my office laptop, carrying on as usual. Or as near to usual as we can manage. At the hight of summer, which is really only a few weeks ago, I had to have a fan blasting me at close range, even with all the windows and the skylight open. All it did was blast me with warm air, but it provided some relief. Now I am happy enough with just the door open, or if it’s particularly blustery, the door closed and a couple of windows open.

Temperatures have yet to get to the point where I am looking at breaking out the hoodie, but even that is now on the horizon.

We have been quite lucky during lockdown. Until last Thursday – a week ago today – the furthest from home I’d been was for a couple, or three circuits of South Park. South Park is okay as parks go, but walking around them for the sheer sake of walking is tedious. Beyond that, I’d made a couple of forays a hundred or so yards up the road to pick up my prescriptions and that’s been that. Elle wandered into town once, to find out that by and large, anything she wanted to do couldn’t be completed, or was frustratingly complex to achieve. So we’ve not bothered. Except for last week, when we decided to take advantage of the easing of lockdown and take the train into Liverpool Street, and mooch around London a while.

Even in late lockdown, London is a strange place. I wish we’d braved it during lockdown proper to see it completely empty, but as it was, off the main thoroughfares the place was largely deserted and even the busier places felt more like a quiet provincial town during half-day closing. If I can find somewhere to host a few pictures so that I can link to them, I might put something up in a later post. There are some across on Face Book, if you’re interested (and have access), but it might be nice, in time, to decorate a page here, like the old days.

I doubt that we will repeat the exercise anytime soon, however. Whilst we remain blessedly Covid-free (indeed free from any ailment!), other, underlying conditions make me vulnerable, so I do not feel the need to place myself in a position where I can catch something too frequently.

If the Great British Public actually played fair, this should not be too much of a consideration. To be fair, the majority do follow advice and follow the distancing rules, wear masks and so forth, but there is a significant minority who are happy to wear a mask around their neck and pretend to themselves and the world that they are following the rules. So, we continue to shield.

Quite how I would have coped if this had all happened while I lived in Clapham, I do not know, or indeed how we would have coped whilst living in Whetstone. The ‘Athenaeum’ as we called it would have probably been easier to survive in on account of the space, but the second flat was about the same size as The Gin Palace, but without a garden, and I think that it access to that garden that has kept us sane. We are relatively self-contained and lockdown hasn’t been the chose for us that it has been for many and being able to sit outside, do a bit of gardening, or just drink cider out there, has helped.

A summer winds down, we’ve bought a gazebo. We might get some autumnal (and spring) use out of it, so we can enjoy the outdoors a little longer, as this all spins on.