Xmas greetings and Felicitations

Here we go then, heading into the final part of the year and ready to embrace the New year with renewed zeal and vigour. Allegedly. Its been a weird old year for me, with rushes of inspiration to write and then complete apathy to follow on. I promise to try harder next year as I need the practice if I'm ever going to be at a level to pen that first novel, that first play, that first TV series ro that first football match report for a Fleet Street organ. Or maybe my first blogs after becoming the breakfast show presenter on Planet Rock. Or launching my own radio station.

One can but dream. Don't laugh, every one of those features on the plan. Which will be a masterpiece when completed. Lets hope I don't need it. Or that if I do it does what I hope it will do.


So, how to sum up this year in Grocerjacks life? Odd might be a good word. Eventful would be another. Peaceful and tranquil however, do not fit the bill.

I suppose the first big thing to affect me was tearing an intercostal muscle in a coughing fit one night. I have never known such excruciating pain ....a pain that has still not fully gone. I, being a good drama queen, thought it was a heart attack but was soon bought back down to earth by Hellsbells. No golf for nearly 3 months due to the incapacitating nature of the injury meant that for a while even my notorious grumpiness which lets me be President of the GoGB was pushed to the point of permanent rage. Then we had the interminable madness within The Company of re-orgs gone wrong, good people thrown out, monkey brained clowns promoted and me with a tub thumping bible bashing boss. Me, an atheist and all. But despite our theological differences she was very good and very kind. Religious nut, maybe, but she made me feel good again after the trauma of watching friends get walked off site. I actually gained strength from her, which doesn't fit easily but maybne her faith in me rubbed off. Next was the bombshell news that Hellsbells had found a lump. Yep, that sort of lump. A visit to the Doctors confirmed that even he thought it was not a good lump. Hellsbells had to wait two months for a visit to the hospital for all the relevant tests, which happily came out as negative and the lump was something else altogether and totally harmless. During that time tensions rose and she battled on stoically with just the odd lapse into crumpled heap. I was in Spain when she got the good news. We partied as hard on the Iberian coast that night as they did on the sunny South Coast of Britain.It's weird how everyone automatically assumes the worst case scenario. Maybe its human nature or maybe these days we just like to know what we're up against and as such we opt for the path of pessimism to prepare ourselves for the worst.

In August, after 2 long years I finally had the orthodontic appliances that I had fitted top and bottom removed. two long years of humiliation and physical pain had come to an end. No more mouth ulcers or wire lacerations. No more headaches as jawbones and teeth were pulled under mechanical force into new unfamiliar positions. No more smiling through closed lips and no more wondering what people thought when they saw an array of metal lining the teeth like a row of metallic robot guards. The result was damn near perfect and despite the slight flossing obsession I seem to have gained it was £4000 well spent. I smile more these days, despite what people might think. What was interesting was just how many people I know who never noticed. Hellsbells took 2 hours or more to notice, not even seeing the broad grin when collecting me at Montpellier Airport. Pie never noticed until the same time as Hellsbells, and then claimed we was still so young she couldn't remember me without braces before. She's 13 and a half the cheeky cow. Kid had to be told eventually but hey, no-one does archetypal insular teenager quite so well. And to be fair she was rather anxiously anticipating her GCSE results. She passed all 9. MiddleSis, whose transformation using cosmetic laminates was my inspiration, noticed after 15 seconds. I guess people with new teeth notice others new teeth far more quickly. LittleSis new up front as she was taking me to the orthodontists. Lucky, who works in my team also noticed immediately, but then she had 2 years of the same thing when she was younger. No-one else in the team noticed. So, the lesson is no-one really takes that much notice of how you look, no matter how paranoid you are.

After a glorious relaxing holiday at The Money Pit it was back to work in September and the brush with death we had with Monsieur French Fuckwit Lorry Driver. To this day I can honestly say it was the most terrifiyng event of my life. Far more terrifying than my motorbike crash in 1992 which gave me a 5 week stay in a state run hotel. Or hospitals as they're called. This time no hospital was needed but I still wonder how the least likely outcome became the actual outcome. If I wasn't an atheist then I'd think it was a test of my ......faith?

In October another week at The Money Pit on my own got off to a bad start with a 6 hour delay on the ferry crossing, foul sailing and driving weather and a 657 mile journey the length of France on my own in a right hand drive car with a broken rear view mirror! All this to revise for an (important) exam. and to close the Money Pit down for the winter. The revision spolied the week away for me but a rare game of golf was enjoyed but underlining that all was not well from the accident. Luckily I had been persuaded into a compensation claim but my neck, shoulders, lower back and left ankle have defiinitely suffered due to the impact and forces at play during the accident. The weather was good and all I wanted to do was laze about and sightsee, but I had to stick my head into books to revise all the stale stuff I'd read already.It was hateful and the more I read the more I resented this waste of a holiday.

Was it worth it? On December the 9th, my email notifier popped up with the title 'Open University - Exam results for AA308 now available" in the title bar. Fear struck at me like a 30amp shock from the mains. If this was a pass then I had finally got the degree. I would be a BA...or a BSc. Either way it meant the work would either be worthwhile or a monumental fuck up and misjudgement of my own capability. It would be akin to Paul McCartney thinking Heather Mills was a good choice of wife, or thinking he could ever write a good song again. I decided I couldn't face looking at the result,. After all they'd contact me with any re-sit details wouldn't they? And besides I'd made my mind up that I couldn't go through all that revision bollocks again. Fuck 'em. Fuck the OU, fuck the tutors, fuck the examiners and fuck all the idiots who write the course materials. They'd all conspired against me, the bastards. They didn't want me to pass....they didn't want a Chelsea supporting, Guinness drinking, Comprehensive School educated oik like me to be remotely academic, to be part of the 'Alumni'. See how easily the paranoia and conspiracy theorem takes control?

So I went to get a cup of tea. I returned 10 minutes later to see yet another OU email pop into the inbox. But.........this time the header said "Award of BA degree". Blimey they must have it wrong I thought, but this time I followed the link to the results page. There it was - 60% exam score, overall course score 75%. A pass. Not a distinction. Not a grade 1 pass. But a fucking pass all the same! I am now Grocerjack BA (Open). Of course I am considering the Honours extension by doing a couple of Creative Writing courses. but that's just garnish in my eyes. Am I chuffed? You bet your fucking arse I am.

And thus far that is it. I head into a different Christmas this year. One where I'm thankful to be alive. Thankful that my family is alive and well. A Christmas where despite everything I hit 2 big targets, straight teeth and a degree. Even if the golf deteriorated to a 26 handicap its been worth it. And maybe that handicap is something to improve next year. Its a Christmas day with dinner at the pub with the extended family and not worrying about seating 16 people. No worries about frictions in the kitchen about what order to serve the food in or who has what. Dinner with nobody having to attend anyone else whilst we try to eat, with adults unable to speak or settle down lest a child needs to be waited on hand and foot against the backdrop of a kitchen looking like some sort of modern day apocalyptic post-Hiroshima nightmare. A Christmas Day topped by the Christmas Night party (something I just don't get) but this time at LittleSis's Ranch in the evening where I can kick back and have a glass of wine and cuban cigar safe in the knowledge that for the first time in many years I'm not suffering from a blood pressure attack from the cacophony of noise from presents and toys competing with TV and music, whilst watching kids and adults unwittingly trash my house. I could actually enjoy this one! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.


Later, GJ

Politicians and Idiots - Any diffrence?

Idiot MP's are complaining about the recent arrest of Damien green and the search of his parliamentary office by Police, presumably looking for evidence. Most of the complaints do seem to be coming from the Tories, which may be unsurprising considering Green himself is a Tory MP.

My issues with this complaining are........

a.) Do the disgruntled MP's think that they are above the law?
b.) Do they think that the police should need explicit permission from the Home Secretary to search an office?
c.) If the answer to b.) is yes, then shouldn't that apply to searches on company offices or even private homes?
d.) If a shadow MP receives information of a sensitive or classified nature from a civil servant, shouldn't he/she, as a matter of duty, then report that rather than just talk to the press?
e.) I didn't hear much complaining when people were being arrested in the 'cash for honours' scandal - from whcih of course not a single person was charged.

As I say, idiot MP's, a title that suits them all.

Another little gripe as well. Sir Michael Wright, the coroner in the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest has ruled out 'unlawful killing' as a verdict that the jury can return. So, the family have walked out in apparent protest. Hmmm....does this mean they would only accept one verdict as being right? That of 'unlawful killing' seems to be the only acceptable option to them. Which renders an inquest a bit pointless doesn't it?

Weeks , if not months have been spent on this in order to analyse the evidence. If only one verdict was right or possible then why bother with the cost and trauma of a very public inquest. I'm no judge, or even very au fait with the law but it seems on reading the coroners statement that he has based his summing up on a solid understanding and explanation of UK law rather than any emotional criteria that might come into play. Isn't that the right basis for any decision the jury may reach?

Later, GJ

Conspiracy of technology

Another gap between postings! I'm afraid time seems to conspire against me more and more these days so as much as I'd like to post daily, the reality is its going to be more sporadic than that.


A little progress has been made with 'The Plan' in that the mind map is halfway completed. It strikes me that mind mapping software is amongst the best and most useful stuff ever invented for putting thoughts down and making sense of them. Last week saw another one of those periods where technology was going to fail or conspire to make the week a little more challenging.

Item number 1 to bring on the the cold sweat of technology failure horror happened on realising that the 'sync checked items only' option in iTunes would remove all the songs that didn't have the check box marked. I was trying to sync the damn thing with 4 new tunes I'd added to the library. Hence selecting this option gave me 4 songs on the iPod and removed the other 5419! Not a disaster you might think as the songs are on the PC hard disk, but the fact is that it took an overnight sync of around 8 hours to get it back to where it was. Could I live without the iPod? Possibly, but I can't help feeling a small wave of panic if I go anywhere without it, similar to the mobile phone, the watch and trousers! These software designers have a very long way to go to make things foolproof, especially if someone as technology savvy as me can get it so wrong.

Item number 2 on the list of things to make life a little shittier happened on Wednesday when LittleSis called me to let me know that the hot water tank had sprung a leak. At first she couldn't be sure it was the tank as the water appeared to be running through the airing cupboard ceiling. Note, not trickling, or dripping, but running! This however turned out to be condensation. Credit where its due, she didn't panic after Kid and Pie had called her to come and help. Hellsbells was at work and couldn't leave, and I was in the same boat. LittleSis covered all the right things, switching off the water, turning off the immersion and the controller for the heating and water. My tamed plumber came out and diagnosed the issue as a fucked up immersion heater element that had decided to leak through the top where the electrics are housed. Doesn't sound very safe to me that such a thing could happen, but 5 hours and £70 later the situation had been fixed by The Tame Plumber - all that work for £70 including parts, he's a fucking marvel and a pretty well kept secret for me. He did, however question why we had an immersion on, when the boiler is working perfectly. He may as well have questioned next doors cat such is the paucity of my plumbing knowledge, capability and interest. Plumbings a black art isn't it?

Item number 3 on the list of things to make you scream a little was the failure of a one week old external hard drive I bought for the main home PC. Yep, halfway through moving some data across the power supply decided that it couldn't be arsed to carry out its 'raison d'etre' and did the electro-mechanical equivalent of topping itself. Ok, so the data that is critical was only copied to it, and I did have a month old back on a networked machine I have, but there was still around 80Gb of data lost where its alluring alleged capability and reliability had tempted me to move the data instead of copy it. Fortunately it happened when I was workiong from home so after a mercy dash to the suppliers, it was returned and new one purchased. But yet more hours lost in the pursuit of repairing or rectifying something I've come to rely on.

It wouldn't be so bad if one of the damn things I want to fail decided to pack up. Like the TV for example.......then I could justify a nice big 46" flat screen system with associated Blu-Ray Home Cinema system to replace it. Hellsbells won't let me even consider this and although the idea of sabotage has crept in, I don't think I'd pull it off after the last cunning ploy* I used to buy the current TV.

*Tell Kid aged 9 that you've bought new TV and tell her its a secret from Mummy, knowing the first thing she'll do is tell her. Make sure this happens on sunny friday when Mummy is in the pub having an evening drink. Do it at a time when Mummy has had more than one or two so she's all happy and smily. Let Mummy moan a little but accept it was necessary. Go home and order the TV!

I'm working on another plan to get a new all singing all dancing fuck off HD TV, but if anyone has any sneaky ideas then all offers are gratefully appreciated.

Later, GJ