Fear Of Music

Torchwood - an anagram of Doctor Who or utter bollocks? Or both?
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There's 5 dogs in there somewhere...

About six months ago a new resident arrived on our street, a scruffy woman who has the appearance of a Bag Lady who has come into enough money to buy a house, and luckily for us she chose one two down from chez nous. With her came a number of dogs, at first thought to number three or four, but later confirmed as five. Almost as soon as she arrived with her own kennel club, said mutts were climbing over the fence and mucking about in neighbouring gardens. D, who has the misfortune to live next door to Bag Lady frequently found her mutts in his garden, who it seems were pretty much allowed to wander about untended whenever she was away from the house. Although not a problem to us, D & my neighbour had to put up with garden invasion and incessant barking as soon as one of the pack heard one of us in our gardens. Although fences have been strengthened since, and garden invasion is no longer a problem, one mutt in particular who looks like some kind of poodle/hound cross is frequently to be seen wandering about in the road outside. When asked about this Bag Lady's response is "Oh, he'll come back" and then to continue her conversation with a friend stood in her doorway. She won't get any sympathy when it gets run over, I'll tell you.

Bag Lady's lackadaisical attitude was in evidence again recently when she held a party for some young kids in her back garden. They camped in the garden overnight, and again, we were not disturbed, but L who has D between him and Bag Lady said they were kept awake by the noisy little blighters until 4 in the morning. Obviously Bag Lady had just left them to it, and probably sleeping in the front of the house did not hear the cacophony from her garden.

I hope her lazy outlook on life is not reflected in her personal hygiene!
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The impatience of some car drivers is well known and illustrated yet again the other day. Approaching a young woman crossing a road, admittedly at a fashionable dawdle, a middle aged bloke in some kind of sports car of the type Clarkson and co would describe as being favoured by "cocks", doing no more than 5 mph decides to parp his horn loudly as he got close to her. Jeez, it's not as if he didn't see her and making her move a tad faster would have saved him all of 3 seconds. Fair play to the woman, she ignored him completely, which made him even angrier. Catching my eye he glowered at me as I looked straight back at him slowly shaking my head. He took off from the junction with a roar and a tyre squeal. Clarkson is right, his kind are indeed "cocks".
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I am used to Phill's missus regaling me with tales of woe regarding the over-stretched HM Revenue & Customs staff and the ludicrous management dictats they have to put up with, but this takes the biscuit. Due to a tax worker's tiredness (Friday post-lunch perchance?) a client of mine had her limited company accidentally liquidated. This could have had serious consequences were it not spotted early, both by me and the client. The tax worker admitted that he had erroneously got my client's company name mixed up with a similar sounding company that was in liquidation and in his "tiredness" accidentally attached the two sets of records together. Sad but true.
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It's our annual family BBQ on Sunday and so far, touch laminated chipboard (can't afford wood furniture these days), the weather forecast is looking quite good. Watch while I feign ignorance and let Robert take over the BBQ (I'm buggered if he reads this!)
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Aggressive begging is a thing that I thought only happened in documentaries, but I was a target for it the other day. My view on begging is never give them anything, for although this country is broke, there is still a safety net, stretched to breaking point as it may be. No-one need starve here, they can just go without Diamond White instead. And they make the place look untidy.

Anyway, I was walking home the other day when a slightly deranged looking young guy mumbled something incoherent as I passed him in the street. As is my policy I ignored him and walked on. Next thing I know he's shouting at me "Oi, I'm fuckin' talkin' to you". Idiot that I am, I turned round. Once he got my attention he started a rambling nonsensical diatribe that possibly included drivel about me going home to feed the wife and baby, or maybe his wife and baby, I couldn't tell. He wasn't drunk, and didn't look stoned, and although his teeth all seemed to be pointing in different directions I just think he was a maybe a Murdoch or two short of an obfuscation of liars. After a couple of minutes of this crap I told him "Cut the bullshit, you want money, right?" "Er yeah, can I have 40p?" he mumbled. I almost laughed. All that for 40p? Have some ambition, man. "No, you can fuck off" I replied, turned and walked off, instantly regretting it as although he wasn't a big bloke, he was definitely a bit mad. As I walked away I could hear a stream of half-hearted abuse being shouted at me, which quickly petered away. I looked round and he was already talking to his next victim/punter.

You may think my views on begging a bit harsh, but face it, if you give these pests money what are they going to spend it on? A nice cheese roll and a tub of macro-biotic yoghurt? No, I don't think so either!
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Some of you may know I do a music blog, and a few weeks ago I did a brief line about Steven Wilson (he of prog rock kings Porcupine Tree for the uninitiated) and his soon come new solo album Grace For Drowning, and included a video clip from his website. On Blogger one is able to see where traffic coming to your blog has come from, and this piece has had hundreds of hits directed from file sharing sites in the vain and frankly idiotic hope that I have uploaded an album that hasn't even been finished yet. Prescience is a great thing, but unfortunately I am not yet privy to time travel.
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That's all folks, such is the exciting life I lead. In the words of David Byrne "Heaven...heaven is a place...a place where nothing...nothing ever happens", ergo Shoesville must be Heaven! Aren't I a lucky boy?