Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

One arrived back at the Athenaeum Club after a hard day's running the country, to find the inestimable colonel_maxim in something of a lather.

It seems that someone from his friends' list had gone one better than the steampunk keyboard. Sadly, one does not have access to that journal, but rarely does Google let one down in times of extremis. I therefore present the steampunk computer



And as it says on the chap's site, ( the obligatory sepia shot )

I am in the happy position of having work to do, but being unable to do it, and as it is late on Friday afternoon, my motivation is draining away very rapidly.

I am trying to interrogate our subsidy data base for another interminable and pointless PQ. The payments team are running some arcane tests on the system, which means that anything other than their diagnostic (makes me feel right Trekkie) exercise, is progressing to geological timescales. Part of the fun, if I can ever get the data down is that the question I am answering will return virtually nothing of use to the MP (yes, the same MP I have waffled about before). For someone who aims to reform the system, he betrays a shocking lack of familiarity with the subject of his ire.

This morning I had my annual job chat which went well. I now have to go and muck about with my objectives a bit to make them look better, but apart from that…

Lunchtime saw Yours Truly wandering out to buy a Mother’s Day card. I remember when it was Mothering Sunday, which to me, sounds better. I also took the opportunity to wander into half a dozen local mobile phone shops with a view to acquiring a new battery for my V3 Razr. This turned out to be far more problematic than I think it should be. I had to wander out of two shops because they were so full, finding an assistant was not dissimilar to locating the source of the Nile. Of the rest, only Vodafone sell batteries, all the other places were either out of stock or never sell them anyway, preferring to unload new phones on people instead. Given that when I eventually purchased the new battery, it cost £40 I’m not entirely sure that a new phone might not have been cheaper.

Still, if I am to upgrade at some point (not, I hope for another 12-18 months, but I‘ve said that before), it will be to the even funkier Motorola V3i or V3x.

Tonight I shall slob around, I think, and listen to music. Then I shall watch the West Wing and maybe last night’s House. Tomorrow, NWO fans, I shall be finishing off Marsilla the Golden, and then starting on Aurelia Dandolo. Please note that I am the only person on the NWO writing team who ever spells Dandolo correctly.

In the next stage of a low-intensity war of extreme pointlessness, in which telemeister has decided to pit his preference for bottleneck blues against mine for rock the louder, bastard offspring of the delta, I present here, the caddyman guide to musical development.

As told by Mr Roll and Mr Woogie, both of whom have since left the business (though the latter's partner, Mr Boogie still tours the dance halls).

Oncepowntahm there was down in the mouth of Old Man River hisself, down on the very delta, a sound they called the Blues. The Blues done lost his wife, his job, had kicked his dog and his liver was suing him for abuse. Nonetheless, people were mighty impressed by Ole Blue, and one day they up and walked him up to a place called Nworleens where he done come close to killin’ hisself on Comfort, so sad was the boy.

Any road up came the day when Ole Blue opened his sad old eyes and there he was, wandered clean up the ways to Chicago. Lost his bottleneck on the way (mebbe to pay his fare) and then got hisself a job. Poor Olde Blue still was depressed awhiles though, but he hung on in there.

Some years passed, and despite it all, Ole Blue got fat on good corn from the prairie; made a little money and got into business for hisself. Sad enough to report, the market wasn’t what he thought it was, and he took hisself a younger business partner and formed the trading concern of Rhythm and Blues. Thanks to Mr Rhythm they jollified their business a mite and soon the bubblegum and pepsi-cola brigade made ‘em richer than Croesus. Course, Ole Blue was still depressed, so when he got drunk again and lost his stake in the company on a turn of cards to a pair of shysters no one was real surprised.

Ole Blue still plays guitar, and sometimes he picks out the bottleneck and goes back to his roots. People still like him, that nice old man, but they buys their music from his old company, now trading as Rock’n’Roll them fancy shysters who done took Ole Blue an’ his buddy Rhythm fer all they had. Course, they kept the old name fer awhiles, then sold it on as R&B. At least no-one associates Ole Blue with that no more.

Anyways, the world don’t generally like mean folks who do old fellers out a what’s theirs by rights, and some years later, them boys, Rock and Roll got their comeuppance. They was out enjoyin’ their ill-gotten gains when they slipped further off the rails. Mr Rock didn’t know where to draw the line and soon was hanging around with ladies of ill repute named Mary Jane, and mekkin’ loud noises late at night and gettin’ picked up by the law.

Mr Roll left soon after, leaving Mr Rock on his own. Somehow he still keeps on going, getting louder an’ louder. But his voice is goin, now.

Ole Blue’s still down on the delta, mind, and occasionally he meets up with his old friend rhythm an’ they kicks out a tune for the old days.

People still like Ole Blue.

Next: By which I mean "if I can ever be bothered"; how Folk emigrated, got sunburnt and hung-over and became bluegrass. Then the story of how he bought some cows, got depressed and ended up in Tennessee, distilling whiskey he couldn’t drink and slowly becoming country after his liver gave out.