Home on David Marsden

Sat, 23 May 2026 15:11:52 +0100

29.5 living. 27 bed.

Sat, 23 May 2026 12:20:26 +0100

Up half a degree inside, one whole degree outside. Pleased to discover that the boiling frogs analogy is false. But we have nowhere to jump. And it’s only getting hotter.

Sat, 23 May 2026 11:23:35 +0100

More bloody bonfires, ffs!

Tbf, we our front windows closed and blinds down, but still getting cooling breeze at the back.

Stable at 27°C in the living room, 25.5°C in the bedroom.

Drinking tea.

The Last Screw

Fri, 22 May 2026 19:41:51 +0100

Another DIY victory to add to my ever growing list.

Mum had her friendly neighbourhood gardener attach the two blocks of wood to the bench feet to raise it up so she could get on and off.

She then decided she didn’t want the bench after all, but it was too high to sit on comfortably for anyone else.

The blocks were attached with numerous long screws. Some came out. Some didn’t.

Having learnt from my earlier tortuous experience fitting a new toilet seat (full story still to come), I knew the best way to remove the remaining screws was to saw them off.

And (now I knew where it was) my trusty saw did the business right down until the last screw (it’s always the last screw).

I just couldn’t cut the last screw!

Of course! My trusty saw was a wood saw, not a hacksaw, and by now it could barely cut through butter (although it would certainly have melted butter, the blade was so hot). It was as blunt as the blocks I was trying to remove.

New hacksaw (and a few days to rest up) later, a couple of strokes of the fresh blade did the trick.

Now the bench is frankly a little low, but at least my bare feet can touch grass.

Fri, 22 May 2026 17:54:24 +0100

My neighbour: “It’s the hottest day of the year, a beautiful Friday evening after work, and the start of the Bank Holiday weekend and the school half-term. Everyone is ready to unwind and cool down a little.”

Also my neighbour: “TIME TO LIGHT A BONFIRE!”

Wed, 20 May 2026 22:28:32 +0100

Rather a confusing “economic migrants in small boats—good / extremists trying to stop them—bad” story, in the current scheme of things.

The deadly plane attack at the centre of Castro's indictment: bbc.com
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Live at the Counter Eurovision '79

Sat, 16 May 2026 23:42:41 +0100

“without the knowledge of your history you cannot determine your destiny”

Forty-seven years ago, Misty In Roots played at the Counter Eurovision rock festival in Brussels, in response to the Eurovision song contest being held that year in Jerusalem, and in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Less than a month later, Blair Peach was murdered by the British police on the streets of Southall while defending the town from the National Front.

Ealing Council allowed the march of the fascists to go ahead despite a 10,000-strong petition from local people opposing it.

Clarence Baker, Misty In Roots' manager, was violently assaulted by police that day and left in a coma for five months.

Organist Vernon Hunt was jailed for six months on trumped up charges. He was so broken by this experience of state oppression that he never rejoined the band.

Today the British government allowed another fascist march in London on the anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba.

Today I dragged my 11 year old down to the Dominion Centre and Library in Southall to meet Misty In Roots in the entrance foyer and learn a little history.

The Dominion Centre is the site of the former Dominion Theatre where Blair Peach’s lifeless body lay “in state” for six weeks while thousands visited to pay their last respects.

This iconic photo of Misty In Roots outside the entrance now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.

We came home with a signed limited edition red vinyl copy of arguably the best live album ever recorded. We spoke to some very nice people. And we bumped into my friend Happy.

And we met Poko, Kazi and Tunga from the band.

“if you’re not conscious of the present you’re like a cabbage in this society”

The Magic Faraway Tree

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 15:15:30 +0100

Took my boys to see The Magic Faraway Tree. 📺

I always remembered my favourite primary school teacher reading The Enchanted Wood and The Magic Faraway Tree just before home time every day. I loved the idea of climbing up through the clouds into a new magical land. I’ve had my head in the clouds ever since!

My boys both enjoyed me and their mum reading the books to them, too. That’s so long ago for big kid now that he didn’t want to go to the cinema and miss out on his “device time”. So he was very pleasantly surprised and amused to find himself laughing out loud all the way through. He particularly enjoyed the school/prison scene which he said was “just like” his high school, haha!

Little kid got very excited/frightened when little Fran(nie) got stuck in the Land of Goodies and he thought she might not make it back to the ladder the the Magic Faraway Tree in time. He was shaking and jumping up and down in his deluxe reclining viewing chair. Later, he leaned over to me, clawing at me. I put my arm around him and tried to comfort him.

“Are you all right?”

I asked.

“I want to eat.”

He said.

“You want to leave?”

I asked, doing my best Saucepan Man impression.

" I want to eat, silly."

“You want your feet up?”

“DAD! I’M HUNGRY!!!

I magicked a bag of his favourite cheese and onion crisps from the darkness.

I found the whole thing very charming, funny, and really quite emotional.

I wished I’d brought more tissues with me, but it turned out that I had just enough in the end.

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 17:12:43 +0100

Little kid has been finding, photographing and naming plants at school, so we did a little homework this afternoon.

He knows what a daisy looks like, but he thought that dandelions were sunflowers. “How does the lion get in?” he asked.

Pictured: Red Robin. Dark Star. Purple Archangel.

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 21:27:44 +0100

Little kid is back into space big time again. He’s been playing Universe Sandbox and watching all the associated videos. He keeps going off on long and technical descriptions of planets and their orbits, ending up by describing a planet that is “habibabububble”. It’s reached the point very quickly now where he does it deliberately and purely for laughs. It’s our favourite in-house stand-up running joke.

Today, on another matter entirely, I was interviewed by a proper journalist about a massive housing development in Southall. After my usual rambling spiel about broken promises and toxic land, I said, “One question you might want to ask the developers and the council is how many affordable homes there will be. Because in the planning permission it’s not clear at all. In fact, they don’t mention affordable homes at all, only rooms that are habibabububble.”

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 11:01:31 +0100

Trump bombs Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, Venezuela, kidnaps Venezuela’s president and his wife, threatens Colombia, Mexico, Greenland (and NATO); sets up “Board of Peace” and invites UK to join.

UK Foreign Secretary: Putin.

UK holds off joining Trump's peace board over Putin concerns: bbc.com
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Tue, 20 Jan 2026 18:34:47 +0100

What could possibly go wrong?

The Home Secretary has said she wants to create a 'Panopticon' system of state surveillance
Labour want 'Panopticon' to have 'eyes of the state on you at all times'
The National (@scotnational.bsky.social) https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:aimsrmhagunhtv5bqaslvnjn/post/3mcuj6gslve26

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 19:00:10 +0100

A Fire We Were Warned About.

Within hours of publishing an update on Southall’s Toxic Town scandal, the recycling site behind our home burned - an event long predicted by residents and enabled by years of regulatory inaction.

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 11:01:26 +0100

Some amazing photos of last night’s fire. It’s literally around the corner from us, but all we knew about it was the sound of the sirens.

Local recycling plant went up in flames this evening.

David Marsden https://davidmarsden.info/2026/01/11/local-recycling-plant-went-up.html

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 23:17:16 +0100

Local recycling plant went up in flames this evening.

Chilli On The Rocks

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 12:11:35 +0100

Made my usual chilli on Thursday. I must have been a bit distracted because I heated the pan up on a medium-high heat rather that the usual medium, making it too hot for the olive oil. Then I literally dropped the garlic powder jar into the pan (don’t tell the wife!). I got the jar out and thought, wow, that’s a LOT of garlic powder! I did think about scooping it out, but it was already burning and I needed to get the onions and cumin in the pan. I should have started over, but didn’t have enough oil left. Going against all LESS IS MORE principles I figured I could correct for the burnt garlic overdose by simply ADDING MORE STUFF. So I added more cumin, more turmeric, more sweet smoked paprika, more oregano, more jalapeños. It smelled and tasted pretty bad. I added vinegar and Kefir yoghurt, which made it look and taste more like a curry. There was tons of it.

The wife came home and had some for her dinner. She asked what it was (never a good sign). I explained that I added yoghurt to calm it down a bit. She ate it and said it was much better than my usual chilli.

I had some yesterday, and while it was edible, it was obviously (to me) totally overpowered by garlic. I don’t fancy any more of it if I’m honest.

Big Kid and the Umbrella

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 21:55:33 +0100

Big kid had lots of big ideas.

He wanted a big house so all his friends and family could stay and play together.

He wanted a big school so everyone could learn everything they needed to know.

He wanted a big hospital so that everyone could get the help they needed when they needed it.

But most of all, he wanted a big umbrella. In particular, he wanted his granny’s umbrella that she was going to throw away. The umbrella was very old, like an antique. In fact, it was Grandad’s old umbrella. Grandad had sadly died when big kid was a baby. He had cancer. Even though it was very old, and very dusty, big kid really wanted this umbrella. It was a shame to throw it away. And at school they had learned all about reusing old things and not sending them to landfill sites that poison the earth. And it was part of his family’s heritage. And, oh my god, it was BIG! It was a golf umbrella. Not that Grandad played any golf. But he did go on lots of walks in the rain to fetch things for Granny and get him out from under her feet. And now big kid could walk to school and back in the rain without needing to wear a big bulky coat that he would have to carry around with him all day. It would be perfect!

Big kid pleaded with Granny and his mum and dad, and eventually got his way (mum didn’t want “more junk in the house”, so the umbrella lives outside in the communal stairway). Granny is very pleased, and dad gets to use the umbrella, too, sometimes, when he collects little kid in the rain. It’s much better than those silly little umbrellas that snap and collapse in the wind and barely keep your shoulders dry.

Big kid is now very popular at school when it rains at home time. He’s always late home as he provides a sheltered taxi service home to all his friends. They all huddle together under his big umbrella and they walk each other home until he’s the last one and he walks home with his big umbrella all to himself.

Here’s where the story ends.

But in a parallel universe, big kid’s big umbrella becomes a source of envy. Bigger kids want it, and one big kid in particular has no problem taking it. He moves in, full of superficial charm, “Hey kid, nice umbrella! Wow, that’s such a big umbrella, kid. It would be perfect to keep me and my friends dry when it rains. Here, have some Haribos. They’re Tangtastic, your favourites. Let’s walk home together with my friends.”

Bigger kid has lots of stories to tell about how much better he is than everyone else, and, in particular, how much worse everyone else is, and why. “But me and you, we’re the same. We have my Haribos and my big umbrella. We’re a team!”

Big kid doesn’t really know what’s happening but he goes along with it because he doesn’t really have any choice. Bigger kid could just take his umbrella and leave him in the rain to get wet. Bigger kid could take away his Haribos. Big kid’s friends no longer talk to him, but that’s ok because they all soaking wet anyway, and bigger kid’s friends are all kind of bigger and drier. Although they do eat all of big kid’s Haribos. And big kid is no longer big kid. He’s little kid.

Soon, little kid’s big umbrella gets damaged and there’s a hole in it. The bigger kids were messing around with it pretending it was a sword. They stabbed a tree with it. Now not everyone is keeping dry in the rain and some people are getting very wet. Arguments start. Little kid’s umbrella is no longer a source of unity and pride among friends. It’s become a source of conflict and suspicion.

“Some kids are making us wet and need to be kicked out!” they shouted.

“That little kid is making us wet!” said bigger kid. “Kick him out!”

Now little kid has stopped having ideas. They’re dangerous. Bad. Crazy. Like him.

Things could have got better. Or worse.

Little kid’s dad noticed he wasn’t himself and he told his dad everything that happened. Dad spoke to the teachers at school. The grown-ups had some meetings.

Bigger kid told a pack of lies. He said little kid gave him the umbrella. He said little kid stole it from him. He said little kid broke it to stop bigger kid using it. Bigger kid said little kid was stealing his Haribos and selling them to bigger kid’s friends. Bigger kid took the umbrella back to protect it from little kid so that everyone could use it.

Bigger kid’s dad brought bigger kid round and made him say sorry.

Next time bigger kid saw little kid he punched him in the face.

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 10:51:12 +0100

Wife took these stunning photos this morning.

I arrived three minutes later, late to the show.

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 13:26:02 +0100

The framing of this “story” is very interesting, to say the least, for all sorts of reasons.

New archbishop urged to scrap £100m slavery reparations: bbc.com
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Mon, 15 Dec 2025 09:07:32 +0100

Our friendly local neighbourhood Evri delivery driver, who always delivered to our door, has been replaced by a new driver who throws my wife’s new shoes into a nearby hedge.

'Throw the parcel at the back door' - Evri couriers tell of pressure to earn a decent wage: bbc.com

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Unsafe discharge and death by licorice

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 21:15:13 +0100

Mum moved downstairs two months ago. It hasn’t been easy. The previous occupiers, our neighbours, left the house a filthy mess. Me and my brother got the kitchen and bathroom cleaned on moving in day, but it was far from ideal. Another neighbour who I know from work/church repainted her walls and ceilings. A neighbour my wife knows weeded the garden and did some cleaning and washing. Little kid posts the dog jumpers and cat tea cosies she knits to keep her eBay customers happy. Big kid sweeps and mops the floor for manga money. Sainsbury’s deliver a crateful of cat food, fizzy drinks, snacks, and black licorice. The licorice keeps her “moving”. I make her a cooked meal every evening, empty the bins, and keep moving furniture around as and when requested. “When I get the place sorted I’ll be fine” is my mum’s mantra. Mine is more “you need to get your health sorted” and “tell your doctor”.

Mum looks set to move at the very start of next month. Moving house is the most stressful life event, and doing so when you’re 80, unwell, and from the home you bought expecting it to be your final home in the town where you went to school is harder. She’s handled it pretty well, to be fair, although the anxiety has kicked in the closer we got to the desired completion date. It’s not been easy for me, either, as there’s a limit to what I can do from a distance. It’s mostly “ask your solicitor” or “tell your solicitor” and trying to reassure her that everything will be all right in the end.

The first week she moved in, she banged her leg during the night causing a pretty horrible haematoma, which required a couple of trips to the hospital, the GP surgery and ongoing home visits from the district nurse. Yesterday morning I was on my third spoon of cornflakes before the school run when I received a text from mum saying she’d had a fall and was on the floor. Her other leg (not the one she banged before) gave way as she got out of bed and she toppled over on to her side. Remarkably, she didn’t break anything and had got herself sitting upright again, but obviously couldn’t get herself up. I couldn’t get her up either, which is probably just as well, as the medical advice is not to move them. My wife stayed with her while I took little kid to school. Paramedics duly arrived and very carefully assessed and treated her and recommended a trip to Accident and Emergency (A&E) due to her elevated heart rate and medical history. She did not want to go, but the alternative was to wait for a home visit from the GP in the afternoon and s/he would certainly call an ambulance.

After a day in A&E, and after I left her to pick up little kid, she was told she would be discharged that evening. They’d booked hospital transport to take her home, but I drove to collect her as it might have been a long wait. When I got there, she couldn’t get out of her chair into her wheelchair without the assistance of two carers. I wondered if she’d be able to get into and out of my car. And into and out of her bed. Without falling down again. There was general agreement that it was certainly a suboptimal arrangement. My wife, who is a social worker and deals with similar scenarios in her work, advised me that what the hospital was proposing is known as an unsafe discharge.

As soon as I uttered this magic phrase, mum was readmitted to A&E so that she could be discharged safely. She was not happy about that or with me, I have to say. And I can quite understand. Everyone just wants to go home and sleep peacefully, comfortably and privately in their own bed. Today she’s been reassessed. She now has a six-week care package in place for when she goes home so that she can regain her independence without putting herself at risk of another fall. They’ve done more scans and found new problems.

And, seriously, it now turns out that her long-standing licorice habit might be the single cause of some of her most debilitating problems.

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 18:39:24 +0100

There was a huge warehouse fire in Southall yesterday. Fortunately no one was hurt. Three schools sent their kids home early. Little kid’s school was directly downwind, so they kept the children indoors all day. When I picked him up, my little lad wanted to know if his home was safe. On the way home, he broke down, sobbing primal tears. He said he’d been worried about me all day. He thought we might all be dead and had been holding on to that fear all day long.

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 14:34:00 +0100

No justice like British justice.

Terror case against Kneecap rapper thrown out: bbc.com
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Where You Been?

Sun, 21 Sep 2025 17:34:24 +0100

Everyone has been asking, so here’s the deal. Unless you count Butlins in a wet and windy Skegness (and I do), I haven’t been anywhere.

Nowhere that doesn’t have at least a flaky internet connection, or a sleeping family.

While I suppose I have been ill with what turned into an acute exacerbation of my chronic lung disease, that makes it sound worse than it was. I was still here, just under the weather.

Everyday activities became more difficult. Breathing became more difficult. But it’s carry on, or what? Throw in a few anti-sleeping pills and sleeping became more difficult. Concentrating became more difficult. For my sins, I did take a few weeks off work. But I did have a lot of free time on my hands.

As regular readers will know, I recently began excavating my old band Hovercraft from the analog archives of cassette tapes stored in cardboard boxes for thirty years. Why? Well, it’s not the first time, and it sure won’t be the last. It’s something I do periodically. Hovercraft were easily the best band I ever played in, and our life was cut short after an exhilarating nine months. I didn’t know why at the time, and I don’t know why now, but of course I have blamed myself aplenty. As well as Sir Gareth Southgate.

What better way to put all of that self-recrimination behind me than to reinvigorate the band, bring them back to life and tell the world how great we were-and still are?

With my old friend and bass player Aaron (aka Ron Nasty), I resurrected Hovercraft’s songs, created a website (hosted here on micro.blog), and began the boring, expensive, hard work of promoting our songs and searching for our lost singer/songwriter Charlie Pepper. We have a couple of big, exciting album releases planned before Xmas, and more than anything else this project has reinvigorated me, in between coughs and wheezes, and kept me going into the wee hours mixing, mastering and co-producing the whole package.

Another personal project I have been working on is a reorganisation of my website here, and more significantly, thinking about my “social” output and writing. I haven’t been very social recently, and I seem to be less interested or good at it as I get older. Plus, my time has been invested elsewhere. Anyway, I will keep at it, and will streamline my actual, proper writing so it all makes a bit more sense. I started by curating all my diatribes on local democracy and community activism and creating Southall Stories (also hosted here on micro.blog).

Yes, I am an investigative journalist! (According to Claude.)

Hopefully it will be a useful resource for anyone who is interested in all the political shenanigans in Ealing. Another archive restored!

Another personal project, and one I rarely talk about publicly, is my management of a one hundred strong online soccer management gaming community. This summer we celebrated ten years together - no mean feat at all. That’s kept me busy, too, and while the old website isn’t new (or hosted on micro.blog), it did get a makeover and some improvements, and another new website (hosted here on micro.blog) and community, and another archival project (created by Claude and ChatGPT with me as their copy and paste coding monkey like I was a teenager all over again).

Yes, I am a web developer! And an archivist! And a community manager! And (thanks to our AI overlords) yes, I am a coding monkey!

On the work front, which I haven’t forgotten about, before my recent illness, I developed a £1m+ funding application for a cross-borough youth project that will transform young people’s lives in two of the most-deprived areas in west London - and, we hope, support them to become our community leaders of the future. All very exciting, and not a little stressful - a lot depends on it being accepted and successful. I hope we find out soon if we get the grant.

Yes, I am a project development and sustainability lead! On an administrator’s salary!

On the home front, my kids are transitioning from Reception to Year one (so far so good, loss of afternoon playtime is the main complaint) and from Primary to Secondary (so far so good, all the other kids being so much taller is the main complaint).

Mum looks set to move at the very start of next month. Moving house is the most stressful life event, and doing so when you’re 80, unwell, and from the home you bought expecting it to be your final home in the town where you went to school is harder. She’s handled it pretty well, to be fair, although the anxiety has kicked in the closer we got to the desired completion date. It’s not been easy for me, either, as there’s a limit to what I can do from a distance. It’s mostly “ask your solicitor” or “tell your solicitor” and trying to reassure her that everything will be all right in the end.

Lastly, and least (and this has turned into a half-time team talk), I helped raise over £600 for my son’s school PTA. So not a bad half year’s work at all.

I might not have “been” anywhere, but I’ve been here, now. Breathing (sometimes with difficulty), creating, preserving, caring for others. Breathing new life into old. That’s not “nowhere” - that’s everything.

Sat, 30 Aug 2025 08:16:18 +0100

Rigid, inflexible, and easily countered by even the weakest opposition. No Plan B.

Why Amorim's system isn't working - tactical analysis: bbc.com
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Fri, 29 Aug 2025 09:51:29 +0100

Two years into the genocide and this is now all perfectly normal and acceptable.

Israel struck Gaza's Nasser Hospital four times, analysis finds: bbc.com
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Thu, 28 Aug 2025 19:11:29 +0100

“United have backed Amorim by spending £200m on attacking players this summer, while negotiations likely to end with Alejandro Garnacho, Antony and Rasmus Hojlund joining Chelsea, Real Betis and Napoli respectively, are continuing.”

New £73m signing Sesko looks every bit as terrible as unfairly scapegoated Hojlund he has replaced in Amorim’s totally inflexible “system”.

Garnacho isn’t perfect, but he’s a matchwinner. Antony looked reborn on loan at Betis last season.

So, it’s pretty obvious it’s not the players, but the manager’s tactical inflexibility.

Man Utd chiefs back Amorim despite Grimsby defeat: bbc.com
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Wed, 13 Aug 2025 19:58:57 +0100

The Thought (For The Day) Police are here!

BBC apologises after Jenrick accused of xenophobia: bbc.com
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Mon, 11 Aug 2025 10:40:30 +0100

Back to work today with a cough and a cold I brought home from our wet and windy holiday by the North Sea. I did enjoy the one fine morning we had on the beach.

Digging the Lost Tapes Restoration of Grimsby's No. 1 Band in 1996

Sun, 27 Jul 2025 19:55:24 +0100

Hovercraft (UK) were a real live band, briefly, in 1995-96.

We hovered in, made a lot of noise, broke down and sank without a trace, all in the space of nine months.

We were number one in the first, and possibly only, South Bank Demo Charts in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph.

There’s no chance of a reunion. That will be a relief to many. Our drummer emigrated to Australia. Our singer-songwriter-lead guitarist is MIA, last seen in India (or Boscombe). Our bass player plays in a semi-professional covers band. And our guitarist/tech guy is me.

Every few years I get out the digitised versions of all our old demo and home recording tapes and remix and (re)master them with the he latest free tools available. In the early days, that was Audacity. More recently, it’s Soundcloud’s and Bandlab’s (free) online mastering tools.

The goal is always the same. To transform the lofi, degraded analog recordings preserved on mangled old cassette tapes that were digitised using the cheapest USB analog to digital converter tape deck available twelve or fifteen years ago into something resembling what we actually sounded like in our rehearsal room, the studio, the pub, and - most importantly - in our own imaginations. (If you’re interested in learning more about mastering and how Bandlab mastering works there’s a couple of good articles here.)

Last October I went down the same old nostalgia rabbit-hole. Every time I think I’ve made the tracks sound better with the latest software, which usually means adding reverb or preset effects (which are likely a mixture of reverb and compression). The end result is something which sounds a bit louder, more atmospheric and less rough around the edges. Although all the reverb and compression can also make for a lot of additional noise, when noise is an integral part of the original sound AND the degradation of the original sound that was digitised.

Anyway, it’s all a bit of fun and allows for reconnecting with Ron Nasty, our old bass man (now known as Ronnie Nice). Ronnie and me had a lot of fun writing the band’s not entirely factual or unelaborated back story. Putting that into Claude.ai produced more amusing results, as did giving it some of the lyrics to the songs. These AIs can make pretty good music critics if you tell them that’s what they are, even if they’ve never heard a note. Claude is now like the fifth Beatle.

And that was what got me thinking… Can AI listen to music? That’s how I discovered Suno Music, Microsoft’s online AI music creation beast. And it is a beast. (Other beasts are available.) Me and Ron started off simply pasting in lyrics to the songs Ron had lovingly transcribed by listening to the old songs over and over again (only the other day I realised I had some of the original lyric sheets, but don’t tell Ron). Click on and Suno will produce three minutes of sophisticated sounding rock or pop that you can start listening back to in a matter of seconds. It’s highly addictive. You can add music style tags (folk, blues, punk, etc.) and even general instructions to generate a particular sound (“Indian sounding funeral dirge”) that you like. This technique created what I called Hovercraft Reimagined.

That was back in March. The originals, if you wanna listen.

Then I realised you could (then) upload and use two minutes of original audio. Not quite a recreation or restoration of the original songs, but getting close. We also enjoyed doing an album of Hovercraft songs as if covered by a female singer in a more chillout style.

Finally (!), Suno v4.5 now allows up to eight minutes of uploaded audio. Frustratingly, I haven’t been able to recreate some songs at all (Mr Tooting Brown seems impossible), and still the AI seems to insist on missing out intros, outros, middle bits, solos, lead guitar work. But it’s getting a lot closer to an actual recreation of the original songs and band sound and style.

We also had fun generating song and album covers with ChatGPT.

Lastly, to reiterate, all of the songs bar the originals were created using Suno. Most of the later ones I downloaded the stems, uploaded them to Bandlab and remixed and mastered them there, before uploading to Bandcamp.

I’m not expecting anyone to listen to any or all of this, but hope it’s a useful contribution for anyone wondering what or how to go about a similar restoration project, or indeed, to create your own new songs (I’ve also done a few of those, too). Some people are pretty sceptical about AI generated art, and that’s fair enough. But this has been tremendous fun, and it’s great for me, Ron and everyone else who remembers our band to be able to recreate, restore, produce and hear the old songs again in a way that doesn’t hurt the ears so much.

While it was never the original “plan”, we’re now looking at releasing tracks through Bandlab’s distribution service, and reworking some of the songs to make them poppier and more accessible to a wider audience. And we’re looking for Charlie Pepper. Last heard of in the Bournemouth area ten years ago.

We should put a card in the local Spar shop window: “Chilled out lamppost wanted to front retro space pop band”. That should do it.

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 09:24:34 +0100

This is so messed up!

‘Yves Bonnet, the intelligence chief who tried to negotiate Abdallah’s exchange in 1985 and is now a member of the far-right National Rally, said he was “treated worse than a serial killer” and that “the United States was obsessed with keeping him in jail”.

‘According to a report in Le Monde newspaper, no Palestinian prisoner – even those condemned to life imprisonment in Israel – has served more than 40 years in jail. Abdallah served 41.’

Pro-Palestinian convict freed by France after 41 years: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg8gmly8gno

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 16:21:30 +0100

“…even modest step counts of around 4,000 steps a day are linked to better health compared to very low activity of just 2,000 steps a day.”

Phew!

Forget 10,000 - just 7,000 steps is enough for health benefits, says study: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx238lgy3pwo

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 09:11:53 +0100

This explains why our government is so keen to suppress dissent.

The UK 'House of the People' parallel parliament - 50 people nominated by their communities and 50 people selected by democratic lottery - has agreed 5 top priorities for political action:
1. Tax wealth by removing tax loopholes and closing tax havens
2. Slash political corruption by banning lobbying, gifting, and second jobs in politics
3. Establish a Future Generations Act which priorities people and nature over GDP
4. Implement an immediate embargo on all arms, trade and support for Israel and other countries which violate international law
5. Grant councils power to repurchase disused homes and protect renters’ rights.
GeofCox@climatejustice.social https://climatejustice.social/@GeofCox/114906977959799046

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 11:17:38 +0100

Successful and fulfilling work “Vision Day” yesterday. Everyone brought their own ideas about what lunch should look like. My refried leftovers and pitta with hummus paled in comparison with the homemade salad bowls, tiger roll sandwiches, and a Tesco Meal Deal. One colleague brought homemade cupcakes, fruit and chocolate bars to share.

Peak Absurdity on the Ski School Run

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 22:20:23 +0100

Big kid went skiing with school today (his school breaks up for summer a week later than everywhere else). He had to be at school half an hour earlier than usual to catch the coach to The Snow Centre. Real snow, -6°C.

As we arrived, we realised he hadn’t brought his coat.

I quickly dumped little kid in breakfast club, and hobbled back to the car, which I had clairvoyantly parked half a mile away so the kids could scoot in the rest of the way. Bin collection day slowed things down, and the wife was in a state of undress and unable to fling the coat out of the window when I arrived home, meaning I had to haul myself up and downstairs to retrieve it myself, huffing and puffing and effing and blinding all the way.

Miraculously, I managed to walk without crutches at almost Olympic speed into school and presented a relieved big kid with his coat, literally as he stepped on to the coach.

When I got back home, again, in a pool of sweat, wife had gone swimming. She texted me to ask if our lad had got his coat, and to say “I need a Bailey’s after all that stress!”

This evening, when the lad got home, I asked him if he was glad he had his coat with him in sub-zero temperatures. “Nah. They gave us ski jackets.”

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 15:54:37 +0100

“Self-defence.”

Israeli forces kill 67 Palestinians seeking aid in northern Gaza, Hamas-run ministry says: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8rp62480r3o

Sat, 19 Jul 2025 22:09:39 +0100

I would do the same if I’d been spotted at a Coldplay concert.

US tech CEO resigns after Coldplay concert embrace goes viral: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx20z3ykd9ro

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 12:49:28 +0100

URGENT support to fund a legal challenge to Ealing Council’s decision to close 10 children’s centres.

Perceval House W5: Where Local Democracy In Ealing Goes To Die : davidmarsden.info
David Marsden https://davidmarsden.info/2025/07/11/perceval-house-w-where-local.html

The Pied Piper of Ealing

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 00:33:52 +0100

A couple of weeks ago, big kid sang at the Royal Albert Hall in “Ealing Together: Harmony in Diversity,” performing lyrics by Jewish socialist and renowned children’s author Michael Rosen in a new song “Ada in Ealing”, a celebration of a former Ealing resident, and the world’s first computer programmer and a pioneer of mathematical logic, Ada Lovelace.

Tonight he performed in his school’s musical version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, a story about broken promises and failed leadership. The stage lights went out halfway through, but the show went on - the children kept singing, the story kept unfolding, and somehow the adults pulling the strings behind the scenes got the lights back on.

The biggest laugh from the grown ups watching came when the council leader overcame his cognitive dissonance about political dishonesty by not paying the piper due to budget constraints: “For a politician to lie?! It’s disgusting, disgraceful, dishonourable…. Dis could be the perfect solution!” They all understood perfectly.

Sitting in that school hall, watching children perform a story about adults who make promises they don’t keep, I realised I’d been writing about the same tale in “Perceval House W5.” The Pied Piper isn’t just a fairy story - it’s a documentary about local politics.

The council leader in Hamelin promises to solve the rat problem but refuses to pay when the Piper delivers. Sound familiar? Promise to “put people before buildings,” then close the buildings. Promise “transparent engagement,” then rewrite petition rules to stop residents asking questions. Promise to protect services by cutting them.

From celebrating Ada Lovelace - a woman who saw logical patterns others couldn’t - to performing a story about leaders who’ve abandoned logic entirely. The journey from The Royal Albert Hall to the primary school hall, from Ealing to Hamelin and back again, from songs about a mathematics logician to tales about a corrupt politician.

Ada Lovelace would have spotted the flawed algorithm immediately: spend £1 million on councillor allowances to save £750,000 on children’s centres. The logic doesn’t compute.

But she’d also have recognised the pattern in the Pied Piper story. He who pays the piper calls the tune. In Ealing, we’re discovering who’s really been programming our decision-makers.

Unelected developers and council officers concocted a plan to sell off community assets. Berkeley Group paid for MIPIM trips. The council issued compulsory purchase orders to demolish people’s homes to make way for a new road and Berkeley’s marketing suite opposite the new Elizabeth Line station. The council is “powerless” to prevent Berkeley Group poisoning the Southall community, like the rats in the nursery playground. The algorithm executes perfectly.

In the original tale, the children disappear forever when the adults break their promises. But big kid’s generation might rewrite that ending. They’ve already shown they understand the contradictions better than the politicians creating them.

When then five year old Zion asked the Council Leader directly about the gasworks poisoning and got a “too sciencey” response, he understood perfectly what was happening. Tonight, performing as part of a story about broken promises and failed leadership, he understood it perfectly, too.

The lights failed, but the children kept going. The system breaks down, but the community adapts. Sometimes the show must go on until the grown-ups remember how to keep their promises.

And sometimes, just sometimes, the lights come back on.

URGENT support to fund a legal challenge to Ealing Council’s decision to close 10 children’s centres.

Perceval House W5: Where Local Democracy In Ealing Goes To Die

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 13:50:30 +0100

The Children’s Centres Crusade

Chapter 1: The Art of Political Contradiction

In the London Borough of Ealing, our elected representatives have perfected something remarkable: the ability to hold completely contradictory public positions without experiencing any apparent cognitive dissonance.

Take our Council Leader. On January 15, 2015, he tweeted: “Think its really important that we put people before buildings. Important we keep activities going & that can be done in a different way."

Ten years later, he’s closing children’s centres, buildings where people access those activities.

This isn’t hypocrisy - it’s innovation. Why limit yourself to consistent principles when you can have all the principles, simultaneously?

Mrs. Patel, a parent trying to save her local children’s centre, discovered this when she attempted to navigate Ealing’s democratic processes. What she found was a system so logically perfect that resistance had become mathematically impossible.

Chapter 2: The Democratic Möbius Strip

“Who decides about children’s centre closures?” Mrs. Patel asked at a council meeting.

“The Cabinet,” she was told.

The Cabinet explained they were implementing officer recommendations based on budget pressures created by government policy following community consultation showing residents wanted services maintained differently.

“So who can change the decision?”

“The decision-makers.”

“Who are the decision-makers?”

“The people with authority to make decisions.”

“Who has that authority?”

“The decision-makers.”

Mrs. Patel found herself trapped in a perfectly circular system. To influence the decision, she needed to identify who made it. But everyone who appeared to make decisions claimed to be implementing someone else’s decisions. The decision seemed to exist independently of anyone actually deciding anything.

Image: Jono Hey, [Sketchplanations](https://sketchplanations.com/mobius-strip)

It was like a democratic Möbius strip - no matter which direction you followed, you always ended up back where you started.

Chapter 3: The Mathematics of Progressive Budget Management

The numbers, at least, were clear:

Cost of councillor allowance increases (2022-2025): Over £1 million
Savings from closing children’s centres: £750,000
Council Leader’s pay rise: 70%
Number of children’s centres being closed in Southall: 3 out of 6

The Council Leader had discovered something revolutionary: you could simultaneously claim budget constraints while voting yourself substantial pay rises. The secret was treating these as completely unrelated mathematical operations.

“We have to make difficult decisions due to budget pressures,” he explained, while awarding himself £58,000 annually.

“But you spent more on pay rises than you’re saving,” Mrs. Patel pointed out.

“That’s a different budget.”

“It’s the same money.”

“You don’t understand local government finance. And we need higher calibre councillor candidates.”

Mrs. Patel was beginning to understand perfectly.

Chapter 4: Environmental Priorities - A Scientific Approach

The Council Leader’s environmental consciousness follows a precise hierarchy, documented through his public responses:

Tier 1 Emergency Response: Eels gasping in the River Brent receive immediate action [pdf) and public concern.

Tier 2 Public Complaint: Someone’s “bag and/or small child” taking up a tube seat merits a public tweet about “Some people.”

Tier 3 Busy Schedule: Children gasping from toxic air [YouTube] in bedrooms get told " I’m very busy.” [YouTube)]

When five-year-old Zion asked him directly, “Peter, why didn’t you help us?” [YouTube] about the gasworks poisoning, the response was so technical that Zion said it was “too sciencey” to understand.

This established a clear principle: if environmental concerns can’t be explained to five-year-olds, they’re probably too complex for five-year-olds to experience.

Chapter 5: The Southall Paradox

Only in Southall can carcinogenic benzene, and naphthalene - which is known to be potentially fatal to some people with African and Asian heritage - be released into the air from the Gasworks development at levels way above legal limits and be simultaneously “not hazardous” according to Ealing Council.

One moment the Headteacher at Blair Peach Primary School is reporting asthma and headaches [p. 10] caused by very strong smells from the Gasworks site; in another moment, the developer’s head of construction is appointed to the school’s board of governors [pp. 7-8] and arranges to remove dead rats from the nursery playground [p. 11]. These events are clearly unconnected.

It’s all perfectly normal in Southall, where kids can be locked in class without ventilation on hot days to protect them from the harmless petrol odour, and the developer’s “community liaison officer” can simultaneously be the chair of Southall’s charity umbrella organisation, an ex-Tory tobacco salesman whose former employer paid for our ex-MP’s research assistant to attend a jolly. Nothing to see here!

Here’s where things get even more interesting. The Council’s own “Southall Reset” [pdf] document acknowledges that “challenges of deprivation, low pay, are particularly acute” in Southall, contributing to “deeply embedded health and wellbeing challenges.”

The Race Equality Commission Report “highlighted the need for an investment in adequate primary care in Southall” and “deeper meaningful engagement, and better conversations with residents.”

The Council’s response to this need for MORE investment? Close children’s centres.

“So you know we need MORE investment?” Mrs. Patel asked.

“Absolutely. The evidence is clear,” they said.

“Then why are you closing children’s centres?”

“Budget pressures.”

“But your own report says we need more investment, not less.”

“That’s a different report.”

“It’s your report. You wrote it.”

“Different department.”

“Same council.”

“Different budget.”

“Same money.”

“You don’t understand local government.”

Mrs. Patel was beginning to understand perfectly. They could officially acknowledge that Southall needed more investment while simultaneously cutting investment. They could document the problem and implement policies that made it worse. Each document existed in its own logical universe, disconnected from actual decisions.

Chapter 6: The MIPIM Negotiations

Every year, the Council Leader attends MIPIM in Cannes - what Private Eye calls a “booze ‘n’ hookerfest” - with expenses paid by Berkeley Group, the company behind the gasworks development that’s been poisoning Southall residents.

He goes to “negotiate hard” with developers.

The documented results of these negotiations:

More developments approved
Continued toxic air from gasworks
Larger councillor allowances
Closure of community facilities

Either he’s a remarkably poor negotiator, or “negotiating hard” means something different in Cannes than it does in English.

Chapter 7: The Zionist-Anti-Zionist Synthesis

The Council Leader represents Southall Green - 69% BAME, one of the most ethnically diverse wards in Britain. Many of his constituents have strong views about Palestinian liberation.

His attitude? “People who commit themselves to being opposed to Jewish national self determination / liberation aren’t my cup of tea. They can exist, sure, just outside of the Labour movement.”

So he simultaneously represents a diverse community while working to exclude people from that community based on their views about Middle Eastern politics.

It’s a masterclass in representation: represent everyone, except the people whose politics you disagree with.

Chapter 8: The Protection-by-Destruction Innovation

The Council Leader has pioneered a new approach to public service: protecting things by eliminating them.

“We’ve made the decision to protect the front line by working with what we have, rather than allowing Govt Commissioners to slash and burn services,” he explains, while slashing and burning services.

It was like watching someone slash the low-hanging fruit on the trees and then set fire to the orchard; then selling the “infertile land” to developers when there’s nothing to eat.

But that wasn’t even the worst part. Mrs. Patel had discovered something even more troubling. Back in 2012, a group of unelected businessmen had met to play Monopoly [pdf] with public assets. Not the board game - though the principle was identical. They wanted to “sell off our public assets for £20m profit.”

Their target included “buildings used for services for vulnerable adults, children and families.”

“So they planned this years ago?” Mrs. Patel asked the councillor.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” the councillor said.

“But you’re closing children’s centres,” Mrs. Patel said.

“We’re protecting services by cutting them,” they explained patiently. “We’ve made the decision to protect the front line by working with what we have, rather than allowing Government Commissioners to slash and burn services.”

“But you ARE slashing and burning services.”

“We’re protecting them by cutting them responsibly.”

“How is closing them protecting them?”

“If we don’t close them, someone else will close them worse.”

“Who?”

“The Government Commissioners.”

“Have they said they’ll close them?”

“Not yet.”

“So you’re closing them to prevent them being closed?”

“We’re protecting them by cutting them.”

Mrs. Patel was beginning to understand perfectly. Round and round she went, trapped in a perfectly logical system designed to make resistance impossible.

The beautiful thing was that everyone was telling the truth. The councillor really didn’t know about the 2012 meeting. The 2012 meeting really had happened. The plan really was being implemented. Nobody was really in charge of implementing it.

Somehow, a decision made by people who didn’t officially exist was being executed by people who officially couldn’t stop it. This allows him to be simultaneously the protector of services and the person closing services - a remarkable administrative innovation.

Chapter 9: Democracy 2.0 - Now With Less Democracy

But the system’s crowning achievement is happening right now. This month - July 2025 - Ealing Council is rewriting the petition rules in direct response to successful community campaigns.

On page 294 of their July 15, 2025 council papers [pdf, see p. 294], you can see democracy being crossed out in real time. They’re removing:

Residents' rights to ask follow-up questions
Requirements for senior officers to give evidence
Meaningful participation in debates about their own petitions

They’ve solved the democracy problem by removing the democratic bits from democracy.

The timing is perfect: after communities proved they could win by building independent pressure (Save Southall Young Adult Centre, Save Southall Town Hall, Save Warren Farm Nature Reserve), the council is changing the rules to prevent it happening again.

Soon residents will be able to petition - they just won’t be able to ask questions, get answers, or participate in discussions about their concerns.

It’s democracy in name only, which is much more efficient than the old democracy where people could actually influence things.

Chapter 10: The Southall Young Adult Centre Miracle

But here’s the thing - resistance is still possible. In 2022, the Council wanted to demolish Southall Young Adult Centre to build 60 flats. The usual process commenced: consultation theater, predetermined decisions, official helplessness.

Then the “Save Southall Young Adult Centre” campaign launched. They didn’t try to work within the impossible system. They built independent pressure. They refused to accept that “decisions had been made.”

They won.

The centre was saved.

“How?” Mrs. Patel asked.

“We stopped playing by their rules,” the organisers said. “We built power they couldn’t ignore.”

Chapter 11: The Impossible Solution

Mrs. Patel realized the children’s centres could be saved the same way. But it would require doing something the system said was impossible: organising outside the official channels, building independent power, refusing to accept predetermined outcomes.

The Council had just changed the petition rules specifically to prevent another people-powered victory. But that only proved they were afraid of effective organising.

The system’s weakness was its strength: it was so obviously absurd that anyone paying attention could see through it.

The Council Leader could tweet about putting “people before buildings” while closing buildings where people accessed services. He could claim to protect services while cutting them. He could represent diverse communities while excluding their political views. He could prioritize eels over children and call it environmentalism.

All of this was only possible because residents had been playing by rules designed to make them lose.

But the campaigns to save the Young Adult Centre, the Town Hall and Warren Farm proved the rules could be broken.

Chapter 12: The Choice

Mrs. Patel had a choice. She could continue navigating the impossible bureaucracy, filing petitions that couldn’t ask questions, attending consultations about predetermined decisions, lobbying councillors who claimed to have no power.

Or she could do what the other campaigners did: build independent power and refuse to accept defeat.

The children’s centres could be saved. But only if parents stopped trying to reason with an unreasonable system and started building the power to change it.

The Council Leader would continue inhabiting his world of simultaneous contradictions, where closing centres meant protecting them and cutting services meant investing in communities.

But Mrs. Patel had learned something important: impossible things happen every day in Ealing politics.

If the Council Leader could be simultaneously progressive and regressive, protective and destructive, representative and exclusionary, then maybe Mrs. Patel could do something equally impossible.

Like save a children’s centre.

The Young Adult Centre campaigners had already shown it could be done.

Now it was the children’s centres' turn.

Mrs. Patel was beginning to understand perfectly. Even this right wing authoritarian Labour government thinks it’s a bad idea to close children’s centres.

Chapter 13: The Engagement Paradox

The Council Leader had perfected the art of simultaneous engagement.

He could tweet about “absolutely committed to engaging, listening and compromising” while sharing photos of residents protesting his refusal to engage, listen, or compromise.

He spoke frequently about “transparent engagement” and “finding the compromises everyone needs to make” - usually while explaining why the compromises residents needed to make were accepting whatever he’d already decided.

Even councillors who were “most responsive” resigned rather than “effectively endorse his toxic brand of politics.”

But the real innovation was tweeting “Welcome to Dystopia” while creating it.

Chapter 14: The Investment Paradox

The Council Leader had achieved something remarkable: he could simultaneously remember genocide while investing in it. “Remember Yesterday, Act Today,” his council posted about the genocide of 8,732 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica thirty years ago, while investing £112 million in companies enabling genocide of more than 28,000 women and girls in Gaza today. More than 50,000 children killed or injured in Gaza to pay for his pension.

It was beautifully efficient. Why limit yourself to one genocide when you could remember one while funding another? The children understood perfectly.

Equally impressive was his ability to close children’s centres for budget reasons while sitting on the board as a paid director [pdf] of a corporation that had just received £140 million in public funding. The logic was flawless: children’s services were unaffordable, but corporate development was essential.

The Council Leader had mastered the art of proportional response. Children’s centres closing to save £750,000? Budget pressures, difficult decisions, no choice. Sitting on the board overseeing “one of the biggest regeneration schemes in Europe” with £140 million in funding? That was worth £2,000 a year of his valuable time.

It was a masterclass in priorities: Europe’s biggest regeneration project required his oversight, but Southall’s children’s centres were an unaffordable luxury.

He could simultaneously claim there was no money for community services while helping to plan a “mini-Manhattan” in his own borough. The vision was clear: 54-storey towers, yes. Children’s centres, no.

He’d found the perfect balance: cut services locally to save money, earn money regionally to oversee developers' profits. It was like a perpetual motion machine of fiscal responsibility.

Chapter and Verse: The Evolution of Enlightenment

In 2010, our future Council Leader shared his frustration about “sitting around not understanding all this punjabi” at community meetings in the area he would later represent.

By 2020, he had evolved. “Words have consequences,” he tweeted. “Impact is as important as intent. Culture is defined by leadership.”

Ten years of personal growth had taught him that words matter. Which made it remarkable that he could simultaneously lecture about cultural sensitivity while closing community centres in the same diverse communities he’d once struggled to understand. It was a masterclass in progressive evolution: you could acknowledge that words have consequences while ensuring your own words from the past had none.

Disclaimer

Readers who think this is all a bit unfair, unbelievable, unhelpful or downright unlawful…

The most revealing evidence of how the system works came from inside the machine itself. In 2022, leaked WhatsApp messages [pdf] from the Ealing Labour councillors' group chat revealed what they really thought about their leadership.

Mason’s own Labour colleagues called the Council Leader “callous, ruthless, sectarian.”

They discussed votes of no confidence, referenced “corruption and even theft” regarding the previous leader, and debated “bribes” and “rewards” for loyalty. Meanwhile, publicly, they maintained perfect unity and collective responsibility. It was the perfect illustration of how the system works: private recognition of the problems, public performance of harmony.

Mrs. Patel understood perfectly. The same councillors who privately criticised authoritarian leadership accepted Mason’s cabinet positions and pay rises to sit in silent support during council meetings.The leaked messages proved Mrs. Patel wasn’t imagining the contradictions - even the people inside the system could see them. They just couldn’t say so publicly.

URGENT support to fund a legal challenge to Ealing Council’s decision to close 10 children’s centres.

Sources: All tweets, council documents, and quotes are publicly available and linked in the original post at https://davidmarsden.info/2025/07/11/perceval-house-w-where-local.html

Try your hand at democracy in Ealing with our fun interactive FAQs, budget calculator and decision-making process explainer!

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 13:43:55 +0100

Fixed the headline.

Gaza truce talks reportedly stall ~~despite second Netanyahu-Trump meeting~~ after Netanyahu demands the elimination of the people he's negotiating with: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce3newwl1zeo

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 09:42:10 +0100

A slap on the wrist.

Housebuilders to pay £100m towards affordable homes to avoid legal decision: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2d0740px42o

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 22:21:14 +0100

It’s all coming out now.

Gregg Wallace sacked from MasterChef as 50 more people make claims to BBC News: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cewgz0qw77lo

Sat, 21 Jun 2025 16:40:29 +0100

Had to go into work first thing this morning and walked forty minutes home in this sticky heat. Felt a few drops of rain as I checked on my potatoes in our communal garden, and brought the washing in.

Wife: “That’s not our washing!”

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 19:15:33 +0100

Israel launched an unprovoked, illegal attack on Iran, committed terrorist car bomb attacks, assassinated scientists, bombed residential apartment buildings, a hospital and a TV station, all war crimes.

Here’s the BBC saying how brave they are.

Israel's smaller, sophisticated military opposes larger Iran: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2lxkpekedo

Forking* Hell (Again)

Sat, 14 Jun 2025 19:05:04 +0100

Almost exactly sixteen years ago I wrote a blog post titled Forking* Hell! about the relentless, sleep-shattering racket of reversing forklift alarms from the Beaver Industrial Estate (aka Chancery Gate Business Park), just a stone’s throw from my home.

It took months of escalating complaints, sound diaries, late-night MP3s, and even a YouTube video to get Ealing Council to take the matter seriously. But eventually, following site visits and interventions, they did. Forklifts were fitted with quieter white noise alarms, acoustic barriers were repaired, and the beeping stopped.

For a while.

We had more beeping in 2013 and 2017. Each time it was the same old story, but also it was eventually resolved.

2025: Guess Who’s Back

After years of relative peace, the problem has returned. Forklifts with traditional beeping alarms are once again reversing their way into my headspace—late at night, early in the morning, and all day long.

This isn’t a one-off. It’s relentless. Some nights, the beeping continues past 11 p.m.; some mornings, it starts before 7 a.m. I work from home. My wife does too. Windows stay shut even in hot weather just to make it bearable.

And once again, I’ve gone through the motions:

Sent detailed emails to the council
Provided audio recordings and video footage
Explained the site history and previous resolutions
Pointed out that something has changed recently (a broken barrier? a new operator?)

Response time from the council: One week.
Reason for delay: “Your email may have been blocked because it included links.”
Suggested action: “Call us next time it happens.”

Because obviously, I’ve got nothing better to do at 6:45 a.m. than call a noise hotline while forklifts beep through my kitchen window.

A Brief History of Beeping

Here’s the timeline in a nutshell:

2009–2010: Original complaint. Acoustic barrier found faulty. Council intervened, site improved.
2013: Issue re-emerged. Council visited, spoke to operators, and beeping was replaced with white noise alarms.
2017: Warning signs. I emailed again asking them to restrict night operations or use quieter alarms.
2025: The beeping has returned. My patience has not.

The Ask (Again)

I’m not asking for miracles. Just the same thing that worked before:

Site inspection
Identify the offending units
Replace the beepers with directional white noise alarms
Check the acoustic baffle hasn’t fallen apart again
Remind businesses what Best Practicable Means under the Environmental Protection Act actually means

If you live near the estate and you’re also being disturbed, I encourage you to file your own complaint. Noise pollution doesn’t fix itself.

Want to Hear It?

You can:
🎧 Audio recordings from our kitchen
🎥 Video showing forklifts in action (YouTube)

Déjà Beep

History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes, said Mark Twain.

In my case, history reverses slowly, with a loud, repetitive beep that echoes off corrugated warehouse walls and slices through what was once known as my attention and the “quiet enjoyment” of my home.

*Thanks again to Andy C

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 13:14:59 +0100

I have a memory of a 80’s or 90’s British TV comedy sketch character visiting a Poundshop with his friend Alan. Alan would always ask, “How much is it?” To which the reply was always an exasperated “It’s a pound, Alan!”

Poundland sold for £1 with shops set to close: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c36594lr29ko

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 17:54:20 +0100

Exploited child labour this evening to harvest two bags of potatoes.

Big kid insisted that the “butt potato” take pride of place in the group photo.

Disappointingly small crop, but they are really tasty.

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 13:21:31 +0100

Statement from CAF Bank.

…the transition to the new service has not been an easy process for all of our customers.

At least it’s not just me.

Wed, 11 Jun 2025 11:43:03 +0100

Strawberry moon 20 years ago.

Full Strawberry Moon will be lowest in UK skies since 2006: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/weather/articles/czdym6j6rero

Sun, 08 Jun 2025 18:07:26 +0100

Incredible piece from Auntie’s most experienced war correspondent and Middle East journalist. Good explainer here, too.

Bowen: Israel is accused of the gravest war crimes - how governments respond could haunt them for years: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0r1xl5wgnko

Sun, 01 Jun 2025 19:02:04 +0100

These trees outside our home provide beautiful cover for the ugly industrial warehouse they built shortly after we bought our flat. They make up for the loss of horizon view (in reality a derelict wasteland) making our close cozy and private. They provide shelter from the afternoon sun in summer allowing the kids to play outside freely.

Big kid decided each tree symbolises one of us, according to size. That’s me on the right. My neighbour wants to have me chopped down because I leave a mess on her car when she parks underneath.

Occasionally I like to lie on a blanket in our communal garden and just watch the trees swaying in the wind. During lockdown it was incredibly peaceful and calming watching the trees and the birds - crows, parakeets, pigeons, starlings, magpies, and red kites, geese and egrets flying by overhead.

📷

Tue, 20 May 2025 19:10:59 +0100

I listened to your feedback.

“TOO LOUD!!!” you shouted above the din. Or was it “TURN IT DOWN!!!”?

Whatever it was, we listened, and thirty years later we created the easy listening Hovercraft, for those of you, like us, who are getting on a bit and just want to chill out.

13 of the Craft’s finest homebrew, a bit hazy now, but super strength, just how we (used to) like it.

🎵 Chilled Out Lamppost Wanted by Hovercraft (UK) on Bandcamp

Sat, 17 May 2025 10:45:14 +0100

My own tiny contribution to the “island of strangers” keeping us safe.

Tue, 13 May 2025 21:40:45 +0100

A little tune I created, related.

The sports presenter said: “I know where I stand on this… What’s going on there [Gaza], the mass murder of thousands of children is probably something we should have a little opinion on.”

Gary Lineker deletes 'Zionism' post amid criticism: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39x0133e2wo

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 16:51:00 +0100

It’s come to something when we’re praising the Pope for cheering for peace not war, and welcoming refugees and the homeless.

Today, we pay tribute to Pope Francis.
He welcomed refugees & the homeless where others turned their backs.
He called for peace — in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, the DRC & beyond — where others cheered for war.
His humanity is an inspiration to us all, and he will be greatly missed.
Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn.bsky.social) https://bsky.app/profile/jeremycorbyn.bsky.social/post/3lnpgnze35c2e

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 16:36:13 +0100

‘He admitted to putting a “sock over my private bits” and opening his dressing room door shouting “hooray”’.

He was doing so well up until that admission.

Gregg Wallace seeks 'space to heal' after saying claims against him 'not all true': bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyq7841w49o

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 08:10:51 +0100

Awful news.

Virginia Giuffre, Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein accuser, dies by suicide: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cql67qk0dd3o

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 12:19:04 +0100

Just for clarity, while he no longer has enormous testicles, he’s still very definitely a boy.

Little kid is five today. Job done according to his mum. At least I’m no longer getting peed on.

David Marsden https://davidmarsden.info/2025/04/25/little-kid-is-five-today.html

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 12:15:35 +0100

Little kid is five today. Job done according to his mum. At least I’m no longer getting peed on.

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 14:31:51 +0100

Keir Starmer welcomed the Magic Circle’s decision saying it brought “clarity”.

Woman who tricked her way into men-only Magic Circle finally allowed in: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy79nq4yz4o

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 14:26:06 +0100

“18,000 years ago” before anyone gets too excited.

First evidence of city-sized icebergs found off UK coast: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2xz664r2do

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 12:22:23 +0100

Full moon tomorrow night?

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 14:44:53 +0100

Southend syndrome?

US tourist takes wrong boat, ends up Southend fan: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce928nmz884o

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 21:33:03 +0100

Israel appears to commit war crimes with impunity.

Video footage appears to contradict Israeli account of Gaza medic killings: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2z103nqxo

Wed, 02 Apr 2025 09:38:16 +0100

Every outdoor seating area in the public realm is littered with beer bottles and cans, laughing gas canisters and other drug paraphernalia.

Probably not what local homebuyers here signed up for with the marketing lure of “canalside living”.

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 17:11:06 +0100

Little kid made the card at school and one of the parents handed out Happy Eid bags to the kids as they left for home.

Thu, 27 Mar 2025 12:03:40 +0100

“One night, I opened my front door to such a strong gas smell I actually thought someone was trying to gas me and I rang the police”.

Think of the children

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 14:02:55 +0100

Ealing Council are consulting on their proposals to improve services offered by the borough’s children’s centres to children under five and their parents by reducing the number of centres from 25 to 12.

In Southall, the poorest and most deprived of the seven towns in the borough, and the town with the highest rates of new arrivals to the country, English as a second language, and up to 40,000 new residents occupying all the new builds homes currently being developed, the council proposes to improve uptake of services at the six Southall children’s centres by reducing their number to two.

If you’re not already persuaded that this is an obvious, winning and ever-so-centristly adult and professional management of the local economy, then let me elaborate further with some data!

The problem with the children’s centres as they are now is that they are very inefficient. In some parts of Southall where there are no children’s centres, for instance, as few as a third of children are accessing services offered by children’s centres based in other parts of the town. And while arguably one of the best and most successful of the purpose-built and award-winning children’s centres reaches over two thirds of children in its locality, if we close this one down, repurpose the building as something else (more unaffordable high-rise flat$$$? [like we tried to do with Southall Young Adult Centre, the only youth club in town]), and get our (private) less-qualified and experienced partners to deliver cheaper and less effective children’s services in community venues such as the recently repurposed community-centre-as-a-library, churches, mosques, gurdwaras and mandirs, everyone’s a winner, right?

I should be a highly paid consultant!

To those of you who actually live in Southall, and who are mostly women (of colour) and have children who have used or use these services now, and who say to me, “Hmmm…. This sounds like cost-cutting. We need more children’s centres not fewer. What you’re proposing is madness. You’re a Labour council, why are you doing this? Many people won’t be able to travel half an hour or more on foot or be able to afford public transport to the two remaining centres. Many people won’t want to go to the places where they worship and which are highly patriarchal, not known for confidentiality, and not designed for children’s safe and secure play and development. The library is too small, and small children like to make a lot of noise and run around. Instead of looking for new exclusionary venues, why not just use the safe and secure, purpose-built inclusive children’s centres we already have? Market the services offered in the library and the faith centres”: your feedback is valuable and I have no answers. Please fill in the survey and rate my brass neck out of five.

It’s all a bit rich coming from the same council who lectured Warren Farm campaigners on the health and wellbeing of Southall’s children two short years ago. Local people fought the council’s plans to destroy much of the rewilded land at Warren Farm Nature Reserve in order to build new football and cricket pitches on it, and instead wanted to preserve Warren Farm as a nature reserve so that local children living in an otherwise urban environment would have some wildlife and peace and quiet on open land to visit. Meanwhile, the two cricket pitches at Southall Recreation Ground which are used all day every weekend in all weathers are dilapidated and dangerous.

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 14:48:08 +0100

Robin having a bath in the rainwater captured by the cover of the kids' sandpit.

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 15:19:04 +0100

Big kid can breathe again.

Plan to ban smart phones in schools scrapped by MP: bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq8y7dvw9ddo

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 21:28:46 +0100

Big kid brought home a June 1983 copy of National Geographic from the school library today (I said it needs an update!).

Some things never change.

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 13:32:45 +0100

This morning’s walk.

I don’t know why this area is fenced off, but it has the effect of creating a private space for local alcoholics, drug users and homeless people to relax.

Water flowing through the gates into the lock.

I took a few moments to enjoy the sound of the flowing water.

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 22:43:56 +0100

How it was.

How it’s going.

You Winchester, you lose some

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 17:40:24 +0100

I was chatting to one of the other parents at school yesterday morning and mentioned how little kid is totally obsessed with space, all day and every day. It’s literally the first thing he talks about when he wakes up, and he falls asleep watching Brian Cox videos. They had a special space day at school yesterday, too.

She helpfully suggested visiting the planetarium at Winchester, about an hour’s drive away.

I hadn’t thought about going anywhere outside of London.

Later yesterday afternoon I picked up my guitar for the first time in months, wiped all the dust off it, and strummed the chords to one of my old band’s songs, written by the singer who, coincidentally, hails from Winchester.

By evening, I’d forgotten all about school mums, planetariums and old mates, and I was more concerned about finishing my book and finding out whodunnit?

On page 306 of my book, right in the middle it said (in all CAPS and bold):

WINCHESTER

I checked out the planetarium and ordered four tickets for a nice family outing during half-term .

This morning I told little kid about it and he said he didn’t want to go.

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 11:38:33 +0100

‘The UK currently has schemes for some Afghans, Ukrainians and people from Hong Kong to come to the UK but no route for Palestinians.’

Keir Starmer pledges to close loophole that let Gazan family settle in UK bbc.co.uk
BBC - Home https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpdx0yn6v7lo

All in a day's housework

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 14:12:35 +0100

Busy day so far.

New school street comes into effect next month, so to prepare this morning we parked away from the school and the kids scooted in with me chasing after them on my flat feet.

Need to teach little kid how to use his brake.

Had to pop into the school office to ask for a parents' evening form.

Went to Tesco to buy the items that Waitrose couldn’t deliver later.

No time for breakfast, instead peeled, chopped and boiled spuds, chopped and fried onions with lentils, prepared carrots and leeks for honey-roasting, cut broccoli florets for steaming, mashed potatoes and spooned on to onions and lentils mixed with gravy and HP sauce in a baking dish, grated Red Leicester to go on top.

Emptied our general waste bin, wet and dry recycling bins, and the food bin.

Unblocked the kitchen sink with the plunger.

Put my laundry away.

Washed up.

Put the groceries away.

Time for a late brunch.

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 13:41:23 +0100

‘Under UK law, it is now an offence to enter the country without permission, while international law states that refugees should not be penalised for illegal entry.’

Gotta love that rules-based international order.

UK to refuse citizenship to refugees arriving on small boats bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9d5wj9l8e2o

Sat, 08 Feb 2025 12:03:20 +0100

‘The BBC contacted Biden’s talent agency, which recently signed him, but no response was immediately forthcoming.’

My talent agency said, “WTAF?!”

Trump says he is revoking Joe Biden's security clearance bbc.com
BBC - Homepage https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn57p5r99xyo

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 09:04:44 +0100

AI will drink all our water, use up all our electricity, take all our jobs, deliver to us online shopping and pizza and feed our timelines forever and ever with slop, before framing us on made up charges of terrorism or sexual deviancy, or just go right ahead and murder us in our beds.

Concern UK's AI ambitions could lead to water shortages bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce85wx9jjndo

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 08:57:26 +0100

Pleased to see that Auntie has updated the headline on this story.

Public invited to suggest names for next archbishop bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz9e23jlwdko

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 17:04:30 +0100

Back home early from work after second meeting had been cancelled without anyone telling anyone else. So we were all sat there like lemons for twenty minutes until someone asked if we were going to get started. 🤦‍♂️

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 13:30:54 +0100

Oh, and printed a couple of things I’ll need later on our new home printer - only to discover the kids have used up all the colour already printing off photos of planets.

I could use the printer at work, but it’s almost certain not to work when I actually need it to work.

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 13:28:57 +0100

Spent the morning going over the AI’s homework that I assigned it last week, correcting it and filling in the gaps. Still quicker than doing it myself? Not sure, although I found its formatting helpful to follow, and that surely saved me some time.

Virtual meeting completed eventually after the organiser (initially) and my boss (all together) failed to appear.

Quick lunch and out for two back-to-back in-person meetings (likely with all the same people).

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 11:48:45 +0100

Can’t remember ever seeing the equivalent Israel/Palestinian headline on the BBC.

In a split second, Russia wipes out three generations of a Ukrainian family bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyp8nkgxj3o

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 11:46:54 +0100

My local council in the news.

Temporary housing linked to deaths of at least 74 children bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c897d0l97jko

Sun, 26 Jan 2025 09:43:21 +0100

“Connect with others through social relationships… doing good things to other people, contributing through your work or through small acts of kindness.”

'I spent 30 years searching for the secret to happiness - the answer isn't what I thought' bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ye6d43rqwo

BBC says IDF murdered children and lied about it

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 09:05:02 +0100

‘The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says the building was targeted because it was a Hezbollah “terrorist command centre” and it “eliminated” a Hezbollah commander. It added that “the overwhelming majority” of those killed in the strike were “confirmed to be terror operatives”.

‘But a BBC Eye investigation verified the identity of 68 of the 73 people killed in the attack and uncovered evidence suggesting just six were linked to Hezbollah’s military wing. None of those we identified appeared to hold a senior rank. The BBC’s World Service also found that the other 62 were civilians - 23 of them children.’

IDF said bombed apartments were Hezbollah base - but most of dead were civilians bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgrn0nwn0eqo

What's out there?

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 01:13:52 +0100

What’s out there?

My space-obsessed four and three quarter year old might ask me that soon, so I better have an answer.

At the moment he’s happy to copy his ten and a half year old brother and stick with “What’s in Uranus?” for laughs. (Although he does actually want to know what’s in Uranus, too.)

Recently, I have been replaced by Professor Brian Cox on bedtime story reading duties.

Instead of me reading simple kids' books on space until he falls asleep, Prof. Cox narrates stories on YouTube about black holes, space-time elasticity and Fermi’s Paradox. It’s fascinating, and sends the little one off to sleep at least as efficiently as me reading to him.

I admit that while I was aware of Fermi’s Paradox, I hadn’t quite cottoned on to its significance.

That, in answer the the question “What’s out there?” there’s an unimaginably vast number of planets, stars, galaxies, etc., in an even more unimaginably vast and mostly empty space. And in spite of this vastness, there’s absolutely zero evidence (so far) of any kind of life at all other than here on our tiny, tiny speck of Earth. We’re alone.

Echoing Carl Sagan, Prof. Cox was quite poetic about it and described it as the Universe taking millions of years to come up with just the right conditions for an unbroken chain of evolutionary life to emerge that has an awareness of itself.

And that the Universe is a frighteningly violent place so it’s quite miraculous that we haven’t (yet) been smashed or fried in some astronomical event. In fact, we look odds-on to smash or fry ourselves first right here, right now.

Our evolutionarily advantageous over-confidence will inevitably lead us to self-destruction, as surely as boom leads to bust, as we ignore climate warnings from our wise elders, wage war on our brothers and our sisters, and repeatedly fail to think of the children.

We’re wedded to screens and technology as life passes us by. Doom-scribing, scrolling and trolling, when we should be out there talking to our neighbours, being the change we want to see in the ‘hood, and showing some fucking solidarity with each other. We’re not all perfect, we can all say and do the wrong things, even hold the wrong beliefs.

Identity politics has much to answer for, but the answer isn’t to dismiss people’s lived experiences. Each to their own, and everyone must be able to live their lives as they want to while not harming others. But when someone expresses themselves in ways that cause hurt or offense, piling on and ostracising them often just deepens divisions.

Instead, we need to find ways to acknowledge everyone’s feelings and guide each other toward mutual understanding. This isn’t easy, especially online, but it’s essential if we want to build real solidarity.

Because the point is that the people who want to colonize Mars, or make “their” country great again, or spend billions on war when our elders are dying in hospital corridors, are not on our side. If we could find ways to stick together, however we identify as individuals, we could challenge these concentrations of power and wealth.

I feel certain that if everyone had a decent home with enough food, meaningful and/or well paid work, and enough free time to pursue leisure interests with friends and family, then very few people would give a flying fuck about what pronouns people prefer, or if someone moved from one “country” to “another”.

Maybe then we can leave a planet that’s still inhabitable for our children.

Of course, it’s also possible that we are not alone. It’s possible that aliens are among us, badly disguised as awkward, orange humans, or owls, or neutrinos.

Who knows?

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 12:24:54 +0100

Must be the same reason they struggled in Ten Hag’s system?

Why are Man Utd struggling in Amorim's system? bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/videos/c0k5g08n6jko

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 17:10:37 +0100

Not sure why this wasn’t prosecuted under anti-terrorism laws?

White supremacist jailed for asylum seeker attack at hotel bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7vddrjjgr0o

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 16:11:32 +0100

Threat level: high.

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 09:30:05 +0100

The new President of Israel.

Israel has changed since Donald Trump's last term – has he? bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgkjxlml42vo

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 10:28:43 +0100

This Lino government is fucking awful.

Patients dying in corridors at overwhelmed hospitals, say nurses bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgly9z4z62do

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 17:06:19 +0100

Some prick just overtook me as I was indicating and turning right.

Sun, 12 Jan 2025 13:07:44 +0100

My pizza waiting to go in the oven. Kids' and wife’s pizzas are in there at the moment.

Sat, 11 Jan 2025 13:44:17 +0100

Southall Recreation Ground.

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 13:32:33 +0100

Finally some positive news: I managed to buy and replace the headlamp and brake lamp on my car all by myself without freezing to death or stabbing myself with a spanner.

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 13:30:47 +0100

Harrow Council’s lawyers have sent me a cease and desist notice for driving in a bus lane on New Year’s Day.

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 12:06:37 +0100

Wife just rescued little kid who was hanging off the top bunk bed ladder.

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 11:51:41 +0100

The peace and quiet is great, but not entirely relaxing. When the kids are quiet it usually means they are up to no good, or something is wrong.

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 11:34:42 +0100

Making chilli sans carne this morning. Kids are back at school tomorrow, so they are hanging out in the bedroom away from the smell.

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 15:12:17 +0100

This parking advice signpost is much more effective now.

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 17:35:51 +0100

Housing association sent someone round a couple of days ago to place this essential post-Grenfell fire safety sticker inside our communal front door.

Just now another guy came to do the same job.

No excuses now for not leaving the house.

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 16:37:30 +0100

We always used the have a special meal to mark New Year’s Day, like Christmas and Easter Sunday, but yesterday, as big kid was away and I had to go and collect him, we ate leftover burgers, chips, rice, beans and salad.

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 18:43:33 +0100

A wet and wild white-knuckle ride home into driving wind and rain on the London Orbital.

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 12:20:34 +0100

Big kid went home with his Auntie and cousins on Monday night, so later I will go and collect him. Hopefully traffic will be a lot less than usual today.

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:53:06 +0100

This year I managed to put up bookshelves and bunk beds, fixed a cupboard door back on in the kitchen with new hinges, replaced the silicone seal around the kitchen sink, and unblocked the kitchen sink and the toilet (several times).

But I’m not your handyman.

…these ideas I’ll turn to gold dust later

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 10:33:02 +0100

3421 isn’t working. Surely he has to try something else?

Man Utd relegation 'a possibility' says Amorim bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c1j0yg95dpno

Mon, 30 Dec 2024 10:39:36 +0100

Today we’re expecting our two nieces and their Mum. They’re at just the right ages to play with our boys, so it should be a fun day for them as usual, and a hectic one for me.

Developers: if you really want to help the community

Sat, 28 Dec 2024 10:09:06 +0100

This was survey feedback given to developers proposing to build a massive data centre on the site of the industrial estate down the road from me, but it applies more broadly to all big developers, especially those with annual profits of half a billion pounds.

I’m concerned about noise from the site causing a nuisance and health problems in an area that is already susceptible to multiple environmental health stressors, and exacerbated by deep-rooted poverty, deprivation, low pay and systemic racism and power imbalances embedded in the local authority planning system.

I’m also concerned about the local power grid. Only a couple of years ago it was reported that Ealing doesn’t have enough capacity to power more new homes that are so badly needed, particularly in Southall which suffers from chronic overcrowding. A data centre requires a lot of power. How will this work?

If you really want to do something for the local community how about you plant thousands of trees to compensate for the fact that Southall has the lowest tree canopy cover in the whole of Ealing?

How about building homes for the street homeless and providing ongoing support they will need to live in them sustainably?

How about building a drug and alcohol rehab unit to treat the ever growing numbers of addicts roaming our streets and parks?

How about using all that information processing power to work out how to provide more frequent, more reliable, free public transport in Southall and to reduce the congestion caused by all the traffic?

How about building a secular community centre, a library, a youth club, a health centre, a school? Southall is so overdeveloped now, and Ealing Labour Council sold off all our community assets to developers.

Wed, 25 Dec 2024 13:58:59 +0100

Oops! Forgot to buy Yorkshires and had to make my own (for the first time).

Looks all right!

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 18:22:08 +0100

Plan for tomorrow:

🥕 Prepare and cook veggies for xmas lunch
🍿 Watch Sonic 3 with kids at cinema
🛏️ Get kids off to bed and sleep early (haha)
🎅 Get my Santa outfit on and deliver presents (which this year are already wrapped)

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:21:48 +0100

Big kid has been enjoying CrossFit exercises at school and at home.

Big kid: “Hey Google! What’s an air squat?”

Google: “An escort is a call girl or a prostitute….”

Me: “Hey Google! STOP!!!”

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:17:04 +0100

After numerous attempts at therapising my toaster (“WTF is wrong with you, you stupid machine!") I realised that it was too depressed to talk.

I put myself in the toaster’s shoes and realised it was burnt out. It was full of crumbs (golden memories of bagels, crumpets, muffins and waffles past). Attempted arson was simply its way of communicating that it couldn’t take any more.

I unreservedly apologise to my toaster for this gross defamation.

Toast in the Machine davidmarsden.info
David Marsden https://davidmarsden.info/2024/12/17/toast-in-the.html

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 16:22:37 +0100

United losing 3-0 at home to Bournemouth with an hour gone.

Bring back baldie!

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 15:30:44 +0100

Ten months on and bath night is getting easier.

Now all I have to do is say, “Who’s going to get in Eli’s bath first? Will it be Eli? Or will it be Dad?”

Quick as a flash he’s stripped and running to the bathroom to beat me.

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 22:33:54 +0100

Xmas in Little India.

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 11:08:13 +0100

A shame we only get to choose one.

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 19:28:05 +0100

“…Netanyahu said the move was necessary because a “new front” had opened up on Israel’s border with Syria after the fall of the Assad regime to an Islamist-led rebel alliance.”

How (in)convenient.

Israel plans to expand Golan settlements after fall of Assad bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz6lgln128xo

Sun, 15 Dec 2024 12:14:08 +0100

Cricket match well underway in my local park at 9:30 this morning.

Southall Odours

Sat, 14 Dec 2024 12:19:13 +0100

I step out of my house and immediately notice the artificial “cotton fresh” scent of odour suppressants wafting south from the old Gasworks site. How can this be? They finished remediating the contaminated earth in 2019, and people have been living there in the new homes they built since 2021.

Still, it’s better than the smell of petrol, which is what we had to put up with day and night for months on end in 2018. Bad enough to wake us up in the night during the long hot summer.

And it’s better than the smell of tar, which we still get when the wind is blowing from the west. Before the asphalt plant was built, we didn’t get any odours even though there is also a Tarmac plant nearby. The Asphalt plant owners say that is because the Nestle coffee plant closed. The (burnt?) coffee smell masked the tar.

I get around the corner of my block, on my morning walk, and see the small industrial estate that was the bane of our life for months in 2022. The main culprits were the paper recylcling company, which had its own incinerator for burning (believe it or not) plastics and coated wooden pallets.

Their neighbour opposite was a custom kitchen furniture maker, which also had its own incinerator for burning laminated particle fibreboard. The garage at the front regularly burns stuff in an old oil barrel.

All of which contributed to some of the most disgusting odours imaginable blowing into our kitchen, bathroom and hallway whe the wind blew from the north-east.

I walked down the street to the corner where the local council installed a tiny corner “wildflower garden”, which my wife and kids loved because it smelled so good. Two years later, it’s reduced to a dumping ground (no one could have foreseen this).

Further on my walk, past the homes reeking of marijuana, and weaving in and out of the obstacle course of bed bases mattresses and pallets stren across the pavements, I reach the town and smell the food aromas.

I’m reminded of the old Honey Monster factory, which used to regale us with the smell of roasted (burnt?) onions (I know, right?).

And my first visit to Southall (in daylight hours), twenty odd years ago, turning left out of the old station and naively going into the underpass. The stench of piss that hit me! “Welcome to Southall!” indeed.

I finished my walk through the town and back up round and through the park. If I’d gone further up the canal by my sons' school I would have got the smell of the narrowboats' wood-burning stoves, which sometimes fills the school playground and causes kids to have to use their inhalers.

And if I’d walked along the main road home or by the junction with the big industrial estate I would have choked on the heavy air filled with the exhaust fumes from cars and lorries.

Southall stinks so bad that the council set up its own Southall Odours web page, email and hotline where you can report bad smells. Because if you don’t report it, the council can’t do anything.

If you’re lucky, you might see something done after a year or two of complaining, as long as you can withstand the constant gaslighting.

If you’re unlucky, and you’re not already dead or too ill to complain, you’ll be branded a troublemaker and excluded from local democracy.

Or you’ll be told to move by the council’s community safety director.

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 12:06:52 +0100

Don’t most start-ups fail?

Maybe a pop-up government would work better?

Government wants state to be more 'like a start-up' bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8xjqvngekjo

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 13:44:11 +0100

No one could have foreseen this.

Man Utd sporting director Ashworth leaves after five months bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/c1elzp6xeq7o

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 12:10:31 +0100

My friend Tim has been busy…

Dull Men's Club - the 'mundane' Facebook group that became an unlikely hit bbc.com
Home - BBC News https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20n76l76e1o

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 12:38:24 +0100

Luxury flats newly built by the canal.

The absence of windows on the sides of the blocks is presumably so that the residents don’t have to see the people in the poor houses next door.

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 20:02:18 +0100

Our little tree now has lights.

Kids were excited but chilling out now to carols.

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 13:21:27 +0100

Some more pizza prep and cooked pics. 🍕🍕🍕

Sat, 30 Nov 2024 17:39:09 +0100

Kids decorated our little xmas tree, but I left the batteries in the lights all year, so they’re ruined.

I think I might have binned the star lights I usually hang in the window - a relief as they cause a disproportionate amount of stress untangling and hanging them.

Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:45:25 +0100

Retreated to the relative safety of the bedroom where I’m finding solace with Radiohead and OK Computer on a loop.

An airbag saved my life

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 17:39:49 +0100

Notionally returned to wfh today.

✅ Made chilli sans carne
✅ Emailed work to say I will try to ease myself back into things, but still feeling exhausted
✅ Declined work meetings on health grounds
✅ Had a three hour nap
✅ Woke just in time for a late lunch
✅ Picked kids up from school

Dua Lipa's Tiny Desk concerts

Sun, 24 Nov 2024 14:10:10 +0100

Dua Lipa’s Tiny Desk concert at home in between covid lockdowns in 2020 is the most watched Tiny Desk concert ever.

Which doesn’t surprise me at all as we must have watched it literally hundreds, if not thousands, of times.

My little boy absolutely loved it, and even me and big kid secretly liked it, too.

Love Again is my favourite.

She’s just performed a new concert at Tiny Desk HQ, and it’s also very watchable and listenable, with These Walls the standout track.

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 16:13:41 +0100

I recently read: How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy (of the band Wilco) 📚.

It’s full of practical if fairly obvious tips on how to write and get your creative muscles going.

Here’s a poem I wrote based on two books I regularly read to my little kid at bedtime.

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 14:38:17 +0100

This went down well with the missus!

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:20:30 +0100

The air outside is thick with the smell of tar and vehicle emissions.

Not doing my cough any good.

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 10:13:26 +0100

It’s so cold this morning, when I got back from dropping the kids at school I had to do the washing up just to warm my hands up.

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 08:17:05 +0100

Yesterday’s Mac* ‘n’ Cheese went down well with me and big kid. It’s one of his favourites.

*Penne

Thu, 21 Nov 2024 11:16:48 +0100

Wife is making plans for my imminent demise.

DPD FFS!

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 17:53:22 +0100

DPD notified me that their driver had delivered my parcel. “Parcel received by Rhanderg”.

That’s obviously not me, and neither did I have my parcel.

I saw the DPD van outside my neighbour’s block opposite, so figured he must have delivered there by mistake. But, no, my neighbour didn’t have it (and he’s not called Rhanderg either).

I opened a chat on the DPD app. The proof of delivery photo was taken at my neighbour’s door. I was assured the driver would come back later, retrieve my parcel and deliver it to me. But I’d already checked with my neighbour and they didn’t have it.

Two minutes later, the driver turns up with my parcel. He said he dropped his phone in the mud (and accidentally took a photo of him not delivering it to my neighbour’s flat?).

WFH Saved My Life

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 11:24:42 +0100

I’ve worked from home since the end of February 2020. I transferred all my work and systems online to do so, and while I’m still part-time, in practice I’m now available 24/7 for every conceivable administrative emergency (“Hi David. Please order me some large coloured post-it notes and have them delivered to my home tomorrow” or “Hi David. Please bring £200 in cash to my house this morning so I can pay for my lunch meeting today.").

I won’t pretend I’ve always been highly productive, in the office or at home. But I always get everything done that needs to be done, and I’m super-flexible and adaptable. I’ve been asked to do - and done - huge, complex projects at short notice and with short deadlines that are outside of my remit and frankly beyond my skill set, but I’ve done them, learned how to do it on the spot or got help.

I do go into the office for occasional in-person meetings and social gatherings (“xmas lunch” looms) when necessary, and indeed spent a solid three hours working last Thursday with a masked colleague (she had a fever) in a freezing cold office. I’d just recovered from a bad reaction to the covid vaccine. Next day was a write-off. I was exhausted and worried about whether the work we did was really good enough. The day after and since I’ve had a terrible cough and cold, shortness of breath, wheezing. (Since my COPD diagnosis, every rasping breath I take is assessed and rediagnosed by my non-medic wife as requiring medical attention.)

My workplace is bad for my health. Pre-covid I had multiple chest infections that kept me away from work and reduced my productivity to zero for weeks at a time. Since I worked from home, and catching covid aside, I’ve had zero time where I’ve been unable to go to the office for essential work that can only be done there. Even when I’ve had coughs and colds, I’ve felt well enough to do the work that needed to be done. Somehow (until now with this new cough) I don’t seem to get so ill or feel so bad when I’m at home.

Working from home has given me the time and space to transform how I work for the better. I’m better organised, more thoughtful, less rushed and distracted. I can honestly say that I’m now the most productive I’ve ever been thanks to a more comfortable, relaxed and focussed personal work space.

And, yes, being part-time, and flexible, I can take a nap if I need one.

Why should people work at home? https://youtu.be/bQN_Fb03RfE?si=CZoQagrotTA_urw8 The ‘return to work’ now being enforced by many organisations makes no sense for many people, or the planet. It really is time that we have some enlightened managers who did what is best for people and the world, and not what they see as being best for them.
Richard Murphy https://mas.to/@RichardJMurphy/113468713160356801

Sat, 19 Oct 2024 13:27:41 +0100

I thought I’d done great with these pizzas, but big kid ate only three slices (he can usually eat all eight) and spat out his salami, little kid said he doesn’t like the sauce (it’s out of a tin, the same he usually eats), and the missus said hers was burnt and inedible (although she still ate it).

Another Door Closes

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 06:55:34 +0100

Our twenty year old fridge door failed. It refused to stay closed anymore. Hinges had gone.

After a couple of weeks battling with adhesive magnetic door locks designed for something else, I did the most manly thing I could think of. I called an engineer.

The NEFF man arrived and did the job in a matter of minutes for £172.

It’s been an expensive couple of months fixing doors, old and new.

Sun, 22 Sep 2024 09:23:25 +0100

I can’t opt-out of LinkedIn’s new AI data gathering exercise, and neither can I delete my account, because I can’t login (got a new phone, 2fa linked to old phone, fucked).

Hopefully their AI will be richer and more fully rounded as a result of my content.

Funny old game

Sat, 07 Sep 2024 13:39:51 +0100

In the good old days, football was a simple game. You had eleven players and a substitute numbered 1 to 12, no shirt advertising, a referee and two linesmen, a manager, a trainer, a physio, a scout or two, tea ladies, drinking culture, long hair and perms, the club chairman, a board of directors, a club secretary, a groundsman, a stadium in the beating heart of the town or city, fans, standing room only, electric atmospheres, matches on Saturday at three o’clock, live coverage on the radio, match reports in the Pink Final after the game, and highlights on Match of the Day at 10:30 the same night. Tradition and history.

These days, it’s big business. You’ve got a hundred players in the first team squad, shirt number bingo sponsored by online sports betting companies, the reserves, the academy, a women’s team, out on loan, transfer windows, exiled due to poor man-management, five, seven, nine subs to choose from, a referee and a substitute referee, assistant refs, refs sat in an office in a business park (a clear and obvious error), refs at home, refs in the studio, refs in the crowd, a manager, a head coach, a goalkeeping coach, various other specialist coaches, multitudes of doctors, physios, psychologists, data analysts, worldwide scouting networks, dieticians, head chefs, gambling addictions, agents, chief executives, directors of football, technical directors, presidents of business, heads of legal, heads of state, matches at any time from noon to after the last train home, an advertiser’s stadium out of town, sitting room only, live streaming all day and all night. Profit and sustainability.

At one time, a manager of a football club could expect to run all aspects of the club to a lesser or greater degree, or at least have a major say in how it was run. Nowadays, managers, or coaches, are often restricted to, well, coaching players in training and on match days, and speaking to the media before and after games. They are seen as specialists rather than all-rounders, and more specialists from the world of corporate finance are brought in to fire the tea ladies and keep the manager - sorry, coach - fully focused on his job and not get distracted by wheeling and dealing in the transfer market, player contracts, or appealing points deductions for spending beyond the club’s means.

United

Indeed, this is how United plc’s Dan Ashworth keeps Eric ten Hag successful on the pitch. Oh, wait. I’m no fan in particular of Jamie Carragher, but he might have had a point when described United last season as one of the most poorly coached sides in the Premier League. United’s usual set up is a chaotic mismatch of players out of form, out of position, out of confidence, and out of luck. Individual errors rule the day, and most of the players look lost and like they’d rather be in the physio room or gambling rehab. We rely totally on one player - Bruno - to create chances and score. This is a colossal failure of recruitment, of management, of coaching, of captaincy, of teamwork.

Fergie took six seasons to win the title after twenty six years of hurt, and three seasons after winning the cup in 1990. His team often looked like it wasn’t making any progress, but the cup win did see a consistent marked improvement season on season (13th to 6th to 2nd to 1st). Ten Hag produced a masterful cup win against all the odds, although perhaps City’s players were caught off guard expecting an easy win after United’s lucky semi-final win against Coventry. Every season Pep has them playing in a clearly identifiable system and is never afraid to switch players or tactics.

Ingerland

It’s funny to hear Morgan Gibbs-White talk about Ingerland’s new interim manager Lee Carsley and describe his qualities as basically being a father-figure. Most top-level professional footballers are with their clubs from the age of eight, and likely spend more time than most kids away from their families and any normal childhood - living the dream, nonetheless. You can understand why they would value this kind of man-management, someone who will stick up for them no matter what.

Ten Hag hasn’t got that about him at all. He’s lost a whole load of players in one way or another because he didn’t have the heart or the head or the guts to stand by them when they needed him. De Gea, Maguire, Wan Bissaka, Casemiro, McTominay, Sancho, Antony, Martial, Rashford, Greenwood.

The spineless corporate bosses meanwhile took an age to decide the safest bet was to keep ten Hag. Failure is expected and gives them half a season at least to bed themselves in and some new players, too, in time for a new manager. If he does well, then they made the right decision. If they had appointed a new manager he might have failed, too, with the current players, and that would have reflected badly on the corporate bosses.

At least we’re not Chelsea. Telling your captain that he’s not technically good enough. Successfully scraping through the play-off round of the Conference League. Moneyball gone mad (although they could have a decent team in three seasons…).

Thu, 22 Aug 2024 14:45:55 +0100

Emptying my Feedbin and stumbled across this epic from Christmas Day 2022.

The one where Matthew moves out of Sawtell because it’s too posh and goes to live sober in a homeless shelter in Melbourne with a Croatian who speaks no English (or does he?).

Reading Sunday 9 April 2023 | The Zero Room

Spuds Up!

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 19:10:21 +0100

We harvested the last three of eleven potato bags at the weekend. A decent crop, and very tasty.

Highlights were regular watering and earthing up (using homegrown compost) with my kids, and big kid’s tenth birthday party where his friends got to (among other fun activities) harvest the first three bags and take home a potato bag each.

Fond memories of going potato picking with my mum in the Lincolnshire Wolds in the early 1970s.

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 17:53:24 +0100

Well, the super secure new lock on our super expensive new front door failed catastrophically today.

I couldn’t get my key out of the lock. We couldn’t lock the door.

The local locksmith arrived within fifteen minutes, diagnosed the problem (“you need a new lock, £180”) and proceeded to spend the best part of an hour removing the broken extra secure lock (finally, reminiscent of the birth of my second son, “it’s out, I’ll have to charge a bit extra…").

£265!!!

Thankfully the lock is under warranty, but not the labour.

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 10:18:02 +0100

New e-scooter and cycle hire infrastructure in Southall Green.

[Edit]

Not the ideal location.

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 13:42:34 +0100

Bushmen came to cut the communal grass and fill my compost bin with the cuttings. #Winning

The Cuckoo's Nest

Sun, 19 May 2024 12:25:41 +0100

Ealing Genocide Supporters Club (aka Ealing Labour Party) held their Southall Branch meeting yesterday at the Dominion Centre in Southall. Under the guise of a “Your Town, Your Voice” community get together, our local elected repellents gathered on masse in all their finery. I couldn’t help myself as they posed for a group photo all gurning inanely as the photographer encouraged them to “say cheese!”. “Say genocide!” I offered. “Genocide supporters!”

Cllr Dr Murtaza of their number aggressively reprimanded me. “What evidence do you have that we support genocide?” he demanded to know. Well, I told him, my main piece of evidence would be that you have done nothing to oppose it.

Ooh! There’s Cllr Martin! Our locally elected anti-Traveller racist! “What evidence do you have to support that?” Well, here it is.

Oh, and while you’re at it, Cllr Dr Murtaza. Next time you are chauffeuring our glorious leader around in your Porsche, try not to park in a cycle lane, please.

Then there was illegal samosa factory proprietor Cllr “I own half of Southall” Anand.

I hadn’t realised until yesterday quite how visceral my revulsion for these people is. The grand cuckoo in the nest arrived about half way through the event. I would have confronted him myself, and previously I have done. Maybe I was just worn down from a week with the ‘flu, but I felt like I really had to keep my distance for my own sanity. In any case, a few council officers made beelines for me and made sure I was busy answering their questions.

Interestingly, one officer suggested to me that resident-led ward forums would be the likely outcome of this event. Fantastic news, if that’s the case. Another officer I spoke to later, knew nothing about this idea, though, but took copious notes. A neighbour and friend told me that she spoke to the cuckoo himself who told her that this meeting was in fact the replacement for he old (councillor-led) ward forums. That’s that then.

The event itself was a repeat of several resident[pdf] surveys and failed plans over the past twenty years or so (for which I’ve seen records, or taken part in). The problems are always the same. The responses from the council are always the same. Nothing.

Wed, 08 May 2024 14:22:04 +0100

OFFICE ABANDONED - SUN STOPPED WORK

Today’s office.

- davidmarsden, https://davidmarsden.info/2024/05/08/todays-office.html

Wed, 08 May 2024 12:01:23 +0100

Today’s office.

Fri, 26 Apr 2024 18:08:10 +0100

Nine year old said he wanted to grow some potatoes, so we planted chitted seed potatoes in bags tonight.

He said he didn’t know it was so much work!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 20:45:49 +0100

Andy’s post on Kingstonian Football Club losing their home reminded me of the loss of Southall’s football ground, and a chance meeting I had with an old supporter a few years ago.

Jim had lost his coat.

He remembered leaving it in the Halfway House pub next to the entrance to the Southall football ground on Western Road.

He told me he lived in neighbouring Hayes with his wife, who would be very angry with him if he went home without his coat.

He also had a house in Ireland.

We walked and walked, but we couldn’t find the Halfway House. It was neither here nor there. We couldn’t find the football ground, either. Nothing was where Jim remembered it.

Like his coat, they were very much alive in Jim’s memory, but in the world we walked in the goalposts had literally moved, the final whistle had blown, and everyone had gone home, except Jim (and me).

I felt very confused. Finally it dawned on me that Jim was probably feeling very confused, too. And probably very frightened. He asked if I could show him the way to get the bus back to Hayes, which I did.

We never did find his coat.

Thu, 25 Apr 2024 14:25:24 +0100

4 year old was born four years ago today, funnily enough.

Where's Daddy?

Thu, 04 Apr 2024 09:49:47 +0100

We have AI that can decide who is a terrorist and then track their every movement so we can wait until they're home to drop a bomb on their whole family.
But the 3 successive precision air strikes on #WCK aid workers coordinating with and following route instructions from the IDF was just a 'tragic mistake' because it was night time.

Hippy Steve

Curriculum Vitae (Memento Vivere)

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 12:42:03 +0100

Having been so bitterly rejected both in love and at work, I started to look around for new opportunities. I don’t remember how I found it, but a nursing home nearer to where I lived at the time (Cleethorpes) was advertising for a Therapeutic Activities Co-ordinator to develop a range of meaningful activities with frail elderly people who also had - iirc - impaired memory, or dementia. Right up my street (well, just around the corner).

This was the first time in my life (I was thirty years old) that I’d ever actually wanted a job, and I was determined to make sure I did everything I possibly could to get it (the money was better, too, although not a great deal). I think I really impressed them at the interview with the presentation I did (probably bullet points, but that was all the rage back then), but more my genuine enthusiasm and excitement at the prospect of doing what, at the time, seemed like it would be my “dream job”.

The role was to cover three separate nursing and residential homes in the Grimsby, Cleethorpes and Humberston area, all quite different as it turned out. I would also liaise with a colleague in Hull (where the company that ran the care homes had its headquarters), who had already been in post in his area for a year or so. Steve was a social worker by trade, and he was very upset to discover that I was not. He was also agitating for a substantial pay rise, and later on we would jointly present our case to the board of directors.

I shadowed Steve for a day or two and wrote substantial notes and reflections, before setting up my desk on the landing of the first floor next to the lift and the payphone (yes, really) at The Anchorage just up the road from Blundell Park. When I first entered The Anchorage it was a shock to the system. I was used to a welcoming, friendly, clean, freshly smelling (as much as possible), professional, and lively residential home where I used to work. The Anchorage was anything but. There was no welcome, staff looked harried, the place was so obviously run down and uncared for, it stank of piss, and all the residents appeared to be fully comatose.

That was on the ground floor. Upstairs was slightly better - at least the residents were awake. But it was like a madhouse, and brought back traumatic memories of a childhood school visit to the local mental hospital to sing Christmas carols to the moaning, leering, grabbing, drooling ~~inmates~~patients. The only redeeming factor now was that none of the inmates seemed able to move. I was going to have my work cut out here.

I think my boss expected me to have a timetable of bingo sessions, sing-a-longs, tea dances, quiz nights, etc. up and running straight away. But I would have to raise the dead first, and persuade the staff and manager to be supportive and helpful, In fact, a complete change of culture was needed. I spent several weeks getting to know everyone, not only there, but at the other two homes as well. One of the others was much larger with what seemed like a highly mobile group of very demented residents, while the other was more of a mixture of demented and simply frail elderly people. Once I got to know everyone, The Anchorage seemed to be mostly people with physical health problems, often compounded by the effects of a stroke.

The other two homes also had good, strong supportive managers, while The Anchorage had a temporary manager (one of the senior nurses), before appointing an absolute horror of a woman who mercilessly bullied me and made my job much more difficult than it needed to be. Luckily, most of the nurses and carers were good people.

To cut a long story short, we raised the dead. It turns out (who knew?) that even very poorly, very old people are up for conversation, doing things that interest them, socialising, going out, singing, dancing, moving, learning to walk again, reminiscing, and just living what life there is left. But they need help to do so. And when they get the help they need to do some or all of these things, it also turns out that they are often more continent, can walk again, need less of the carers' and nurses' time for personal care, feel better, have better health, and - crucially from the business point of view - live longer.

And when the residents are happier, have something to get up for, and are easier to look after, the staff are happier, too. We had a lot of fun. It was amazing. A highlight was organising three coaches and a disability-friendly minibus to take every resident from all three homes literally around the corner form The Anchorage to The Excel Club, which was (in the good old days), the premier night spot and bar for many of “my people” when they were young, for an afternoon of drinking, dancing, eating, socialising and reminiscing that I won’t forget (even if many of them them had forgotten by the time they got home).

The beauty of the whole endeavour was that people needing care were no longer seen as tasks to be performed and checked off on a list, but as people who had lives, stories, senses of humour, wants and needs like everyone else.

Such a great thing could obviously have no future, and when me and Steve presented the business case for expansion and pay rises to the board it was rejected outright. The most helpful training I ever did was with a trainer who advised me “don’t waste time trying to persuade people who aren’t interested - focus on those who are.” I’d tried my best, I really had. While I did really enjoy the job, I didn’t want to be doing the same thing week after week, year after year, with no prospect of advancement and for a company that clearly wasn’t interested or appreciative.

I started looking around again, and this time further afield. I felt I was in a rut, personally as well (it was all work and no play for me), and I needed a fresh start.

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 15:15:48 +0100

Wife has returned home after being abducted by aliens (scroll down past the football).

Curriculum Vitae (Repetitum)

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 11:32:55 +0100

Following on from my success delivering the news to my local community, I took a break from the world of (very part-time) work to focus on… playing in my first bands. And learning to play the guitar. Much of which came at the expense of any interest in or motivation to study, or revise for ‘O’ Levels, and later ‘A’ Levels.

Living in a small rural market town, some of my friends, and my own younger brother, in fact, had Saturday jobs bush beating - literally (as far as I know) beating bushes to encourage game birds to fly to their sporting deaths. Let’s never forget that killing is a sport for our aristocracy and their hangers-on. Famously, at the time, the host of these shootings was “peppered in the buttocks” by our drunken home secretary Willie Whitelaw. You couldn’t get away with a name like that now.

My brother graduated from bush beating for toffs to hunt sabotage.

I did well enough in my ‘O’ Levels (one A, eight Bs, and a C), that my maths teacher told me I would “never amount to anything”. He wasn’t wrong.

My dad tried to motivate me after my mock ‘A’ Level results by leaving me a drunken handwritten note and caricature drawing of me with an arrow pointing to it (I mean, in those days what else could he have done?) saying: “THICK CUNT”.

Then he got me what felt like a punishing summer job at the duck processing plant where he was a line supervisor. Being the boss’s son was no fun when they put me on the killing floor. I became a vegetarian for nine years after that (although since returned to meat eating - that’s another story).

I messed up my ‘A’ Levels (three Es, and failed General Studies writing about the punk band Stiff Little Fingers). I was profoundly depressed, but had no one to talk to about it. Mainly because I had been brought up not to talk about or express any “bad” or “difficult” feelings. Random people used to come up to me and say “Cheer up, it may never happen”, but it in my internal world, it already had.

Music, and playing guitar in a band, was my only outlet, but we were young and totally delusional. We were a three-piece, but believed we were the next Fab Four. We played a successful debut gig in Cleethorpes at The Sub, but instead of building on that, we immediately packed our bags and gear into a van, and drove to London to live in a series of squats in Stepney, Poplar and Limehouse.

An older ex-school friend was part of an anarchist community based out of a bookshop, and helped us find, gain entry to, and occasionally get the water, gas and/or electricity working. In those good old days, you could easily “sign on” the dole and get enough to actually live on.

I read and heard a lot about the politics of anarchism, which I found very attractive to my idealism. That said, I couldn’t ever see how it would work in practice, in the real world. It would need a revolution, of course, but even then, it would need a revolution in people’s minds and thinking first.

Six months living in squats, a couple of lousy gigs and a demo tape later, we packed our bags and returned home.

Dishing It Out

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 11:23:00 +0100

Following on from the pots and pans incident, my wife has decreed that the bamboo plates and bowls I bought as child-safe alternatives to our regular crockery are in fact likely coated with melamine and, therefore, toxic.

She’s probably right, although only for hot food. I had noticed that my hot food tasted a bit funny using these, but I think they’re fine for sandwiches and such.

She claims her eggs taste better (“like childhood”) cooked in our new stainless steel frying pan. I used it to cook an omelette for the first time yesterday, and it was undoubtedly the best omelette I’ve ever tasted. Is that possible?

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 10:10:49 +0100

Bit of a damp squib today, but eleven years ago these were the scenes the morning after Diwali.

Beer Nights In

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 20:25:25 +0100

I didn’t drink all of these beers in one sitting, or, in fact, any of them on Friday afternoon, prior to the school run.

Friday night I had a couple of the light beers.

Steeplechase Pale Ale: far too citrusy for my taste.

Deco WCIPA: another one far too citrusy for my taste.

Accompanying snacks made them drinkable.

Saturday night I had a couple of the dark beers. I had a feeling I would like these even less, but…

The Adventures of Mr Malty Baltic Porter: lovely malt flavour, rich, dark, but not bitter.

Salted Cinder Toffee Stout: I thought this might make me throw up, but it was surprisingly good, not too sweet or salty.

🍺

Hey David

Fri, 10 Nov 2023 10:01:00 +0100

Our contract with Plusnet for telephone landline and (not full) fibre broadband ends on 25 November. I started looking around for cheaper and/or better alternatives back in August. Not that there was anything wrong with Plusnet’s service. In fact, compared to Sky and TalkTalk, they’re bloody brilliant. But end of contract time usually means either a hike in price to stay loyal, or finding a new provider that offers new customers a better deal than its existing customers.

So, I was very pleasantly surprised to discover a full fibre broadband option available in my area. Apparently, a company called Hey! Broadband had laid there own network of fibre-optic cables in my street, meaning that we could replace our maximum 67Mb download speeds for £28 (due to go up to £54) a month with 900Mb download and upload for 99p a month for the fist six months, and then £29 a month thereafter. It sounded too good to be true!

Of course, we don’t need ten times faster broadband, but the extra bandwidth and improved coverage would be nice. It’s not uncommon now to have one of us in a Teams meeting, another gaming on his Switch, another watching internet TV, and another doing general internet stuff. The first three, certainly, have all complained at times of lag and buffering. And even the last one has found online work meetings in my bedroom-cum-office occasionally impossible due to poor connectivity.

Hey! Broadband make it clear on their website that they cannot guarantee to be able to connect new customers to their network even if your address is within their network area. There may be unforeseen problems. They also make it clear that potential new customers should not cancel their existing broadband service before you have your new Hey! Broadband service up and running for a couple of weeks without any major issues.

So, I wasn’t expecting a smooth service. For one, I had no knowledge of when or where the new fibre-optic cables had been laid in our cul-de-sac. On the adjoining road, maybe. But I would let them sort that out. When the two engineers from Hey! Broadband’s sub-contracted installation company arrived on 2 October things didn’t immediately look hopeful. They were very friendly, but looked barely old enough to be out of school, and had no idea where the cables were outside to connect us up.

After an hour or so of looking around the local area, they came back and informed me of the good news and the bad news. The good news being that they had found a cable that we could, in theory, be connected to. The bad news being that it was on another street around the corner “about three doors away”. They would need to get permission from the homeowner to go into their premises and then somehow connect the cable up to our non-adjoining property. But I didn’t have to worry, they would take care of everything, and we should hear something within five to seven working days.

Of course, seven working days later when I phoned them, nothing at all had been done, and in fact, they asked me to provide contact details for my “neighbours” and to go knock on their door and ask permission to enter their property. Which I could have done, but as I pointed out, I don’t know them, or which house it is, and even if I did, I have no official ID to show that I’m an engineer from Hey! Broadband. I asked to speak to a manager, and was told someone would call me back later.

Days passed until another engineer appeared at my door. He was even friendlier than the previous two, and old enough to have a young child of his own. He’d already had a look around and found the cable in my next door neighbour’s outside storage cupboard (as well as my little kid’s trike in our storage cupboard, which he wondered if I still wanted, and if not, could he take it for his little kid?). I let him take the trike, and he promised someone would call later that day to book a new installation date.

No one called, although we still had the revised installation date for 31 October, and another even friendlier and slightly older engineer showed up. He actually managed to connect us up, pulling the cable through from the street next to our cul-de-sac (“the longest pull” he’d ever done), cabling it out from our neighbour’s storage cupboard up and over our communal porch and up our wall to our first floor flat. He drilled a hole in our wall (reassuring my wife that, no, the hole wouldn’t let cold air or creepy crawlies in) and set us up with new full fibre broadband.

It turned out that he’s self-employed, and does up to five of these installations a day at a £100 a go. He left school aged eleven unable to read or write. As he wired up our new modem, he told me how he had a habit, when younger, of setting fire to things. He went back to college to learn to read and write when his kids started coming home from school asking for help with school work, and he didn’t want to tell them he couldn’t do it. He didn’t ask for a trike, either.

Funnily enough, I met him again two days later around the corner from my big kid’s school while we were feeding the community cats. He was doing an installation there, or trying to. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to pull the cable through on this occasion.

We’ve had Hey! Broadband for a week without any issues at all, and full 900Mb ethernet speeds as advertised, with wifi speeds around 150Mb down and 250Mb up. No telephone landline anymore, which is no loss, as we only ever used it to answer scam calls. I’m now a [Hey! Broadband Brand Champion]heybroadband.co.uk/champion (referral code: HeyDavid M39)

Break in Transmission

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 15:58:31 +0100

Last week’s swimming lesson was cancelled, and the week before that, we went away for half-term. To a very wet and wild north-east Lincolnshire right by the sea (or the Humber Estuary). With no wifi, and very poor data connectivity. In a tin can caravan.

But we all had fun, and the kids got to spend time with their grandparents who live nearby. And use their wifi.

On the night before we left I met up with a couple of my oldest and best friends, Murray and Aaron, who I hadn’t seen for ten (Aaron) and thirty (!) (Murray) years. It was really great to have a couple of pints and talk shit with them, just like the old days, as if it was only yesterday.

Any Old Pots and Pans?

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 09:13:00 +0100

Following on from the successful installation of our new front door (which my wife is now quite happy with), we now have new stainless steel pots and pans to replace the old and “dangerous” non-stick pans we had before.

My wife “read something on the internet” which said that the non-stick coatings are toxic, and so that that was the end of the matter.

Still, they are very nice new pans, even if a little more care is needed when using them to cook and clean.

Frank

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 11:11:00 +0100

Frank was my great grandfather on my dad’s side.

I only met him a couple of times. One time, me and my brother were made to wear the most ridiculous and embarrassing outfits, and we just felt very uncomfortable and ill-at-ease meeting this very old man from another time.

He was born in the early 1901. So he must have been 80 or so when we met him. Not so old these days, but back then he really was like a dinosaur, or a fossil.

I remember a couple of stories about him. After the Great War, when he was a young man with a new wife and baby daughter (my grandmother), he had to walk twenty-five miles to work, where he would labour hard for sixteen hours before walking home again, only to be brutally murdered by his father before going to bed and getting up the next morning to do the same thing over and over again. Well, he certainly had to work hard, just to survive and raise a family.

Life was no doubt much harder then than any of us can really imagine, but you try and tell that to the young people of today. Would they believe you? No!

My great grandmother, Ellen, was committed to Lancaster Asylum some time after my grandmother Freda was born. I don’t know what the reason was, but it’s possible it was because she was suffering from what would now be recognised as post-natal depression.

In those days, it was a life sentence, not to mention the shame it brought upon the family.

Frank divorced Ellen and married “Auntie Florrie”. I don’t know if Florrie was actually Ellen’s sister, but it’s possible.

Freda never forgot her mum, and secretly visited her whenever she could.

When Frank got the cancer that would kill him, Freda took him in and looked after him in her bed until he died.

Getting Dressed

Mon, 23 Oct 2023 10:00:00 +0100

My three and a half year old is going through that stage where he doesn’t want to get dressed in the morning to go to nursery.

I remember with my oldest lad some mornings I used to be in tears trying to get him ready.

Fortunately, their mum is now working from home and has taken on this task with the little one. My main job now is to remind my nine year old to “sit at the table and eat your breakfast” every two minutes.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, my secondary role was as assistant little kid dresser. I would sit him on my knee with one arm around his chest holding his arms down, while trying to hold a leg or a foot so that his mum could forcibly put on his underpants, socks and trousers without him kicking or pulling them off again.

Mum has now found a much more kid-friendly method, with no tears.

Underpants are now butterflies, fluttering around looking for somewhere to land. Socks, of course, make great foot-puppets. Trousers are caterpillars crawling on a tree branch, and his coat is a big brown bear who just wants a hug.

It’s still exhausting, but it makes the morning a little bit happier for everyone.

Too Much Pressure

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 10:52:00 +0100

Inevitably, as I sit here in the cafe next to my son’s swimming lesson, unable to drink coffee because the cafe is permanently closed, my mind wanders and starts thinking about coffee.

For most of my adult life, I’ve started the day with a cup of tea. Regular English breakfast tea. PG Tips, Tetley. Milk and sugar.

Tea was always my preferred drink, but I did like a cup of instant coffee or two later in the morning, but only if it was one I liked. I wasn’t fond of Nescafe or the other regular blends.

A few years ago, I switched to Rooibos (redbush) tea, and never went back. I also started appreciating real coffee made in a French press, and later got my own Aeropress. What really sealed the coffee deal, was discovering fresh coffee beans that aren’t burnt (Pact Coffee).

About three years ago, I backed a Kickstarter campaign to build an affordable, portable espresso maker, CoffeeJack.

Now, I’m not one of those people who backs a lot of these types of things, although it wasn’t my first or last. I understand that it’s not like ordering from Amazon or anywhere else. You’re backing a project with money in the hope that it’s successful and that you end up with a product that works as described. There’s no guarantee.

Now, CoffeeJack delivered about three years after they got my money. Which is a long time! They had lots of problems along the way, including, of course, the covid pandemic. So fair play to them for getting their project finished at all. And it was worth the wait, in my opinion. They produced exactly what they promised, and for six months I had two cups a day of the best coffee I’ve ever tasted.

Sadly, just when I thought I’d cracked it, I cracked the bayonet on my CoffeeJack. Too much pressure, to quote The Selector.

Play Street

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 12:00:00 +0100

We used to play in the street outside our home as kids growing up in the 70s. In rural Lincolnshire. Of course, it wasn’t a main road, it was the road on our council estate. Pretty much everyone had a car, and many of the houses had their own garage.

In London, or Greater London, it’s generally not safe for kids to play in the street, although we’re lucky where we are that our little cul-de-sac can double-up as a relatively safe enough play area most of the time.

The road next to us is an HGV Access Road, thanks to our local ward councillor and current council leader.

It’s definitely NOT safe for kids to play in at all.

Not until the Water Company came along. For the past two or three weeks, they have closed part of the road where my sons' friends live to clear the pipes of wet wipes, sanitary products, fat and oil.

They’ve dug a massive hole in the road, which I’ve told my nine year old is The Pit of Tartarus. It’s all barricaded off, with heavy machinery, waste skips and various bits of equipment.

So the road is now a no through road, with access only for residents and deliveries.

My kids and their friends have really enjoyed playing out in the street whenever they can, thanks also to our “Indian Summer”.

Of course, there are plenty of drivers who ignore (or don’t see?) the signs telling them the road is closed, and drive down it anyway. My job was mostly to tell them, “No, you can’t drive on the pavement. Can’t you see there are kids playing? Plus, it’s a pavement. This isn’t the Wild West!”

Fortunately, everyone was reasonable enough when challenged to back away, turnaround and drive around following the “diverted traffic” signs.

Thankfully, my job was made redundant by the older kids in the group, who took it upon themselves to relieve me of my onerous duties. They barricaded the pavements with spare cones, and now they marshall the traffic. Much more effective!

Distraction

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 15:25:31 +0100

It’s easy to get distracted.

My nine year old told his mum last night that he was so distracted by thoughts in his head at school that the teacher gave him a blank piece of paper and a pen to “download” everything in his mind.

All he could think about was Super Mario and Nintendo.

Well, it was Maths.

I always liked Maths at school. Mainly because there was no homework, or writing, or revision to do. Either I knew it or I didn’t. And I mostly did, up until A Levels.

My “Pure Maths” teacher told me I would never amount to anything. I guess he was right about that.

My “Applied Maths” teacher tried to make lessons more memorable by telling us a story about a man who grew jellies in his garden. I guess he was right about that.

I got a B grade in O Level Maths. If I’d actually made any kind of effort I could probably have got an A. Things could have been oh so different!

The Swimmer

Mon, 02 Oct 2023 11:17:00 +0100

My nine year old is on week three of his school swimming lessons.

Prior to the first lesson, he was very anxious about getting his hair wet, and getting his nose under the water. This, despite the fact that he absolutely loved the sea and the pool on our holiday last month (and last year, and the year before that).

We bought him a swimming cap, which everyone has to wear in any case. He’s got massive natural afro hair, so the first three swimming caps we bought were too small.

He was very anxious about putting on his swimming cap for the lessons. I said I would help him, as I would be there, but of course, that never happened as they all just marched straight into the changing rooms leaving me alone with my coffee-free café.

Fortunately, one of the teaching staff helps him with his cap.

So he keeps his hair dry. And after the second lesson last week, he came home and informed us that:

he put his nose under the water and survived
he wants to go swimming at the weekend
he wants a swimming “noodle”.

Bolognese!

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 15:24:29 +0100

Last week, we had a new front door fitted.

That morning, I took it upon myself to prepare a bolognese before the doormen arrived so that we didn’t need to get in each other’s way, and so that we had something to eat for lunch for the next few days.

I make my bolognese in a 12" frying pan and cover it with a grease splatter fine mesh to let it cook slowly for a few hours. When the doormen arrived, that’s exactly what my bolognese was doing.

What I didn’t realise, until it was too late, is that the dust from their drilling and general doormen work was settling on the stove top in front of my bolognese on the back of the stove.

This was brought to my attention by my wife, who was already in a state of being very upset by the new door hanging to the right and not the left like her old door.

I inspected the bolognese and the splatter mesh cover carefully for signs of white paint dust similar the to very evident white paint dust sitting on top of the stove.

I honestly couldn’t see anything, although the bolognese did have quite a sheen (although this was after I’d just added some milk to it).

Anyway, my wife refused to eat it, so I had no choice, really, but to eat all of it over the next four days.

If anything, it tasted a bit spicier than normal, not in a bad way, and I have not grown any extra fingers, yet.

The Door

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 13:17:36 +0100

The door was old, but it still functioned as a door. It opened and closed, and kept us safe and warm.

As it got older, it got a bit cranky and quirky.

The spring-loaded closing mechanism no longer worked as it should. If you were a small person, a cat or a delivery driver, you had to beware this big old heavy door slamming shut whether you were in, out, or somewhere in between.

Sometimes the lock wouldn’t work at all and you had to hope there was someone inside who would let you in. Mostly, it required a certain knack to unlock it. Which kept kids out, and ensured extra exercise for grown-ups getting up off the sofa to let kids in.

One day, the housing association’s sub-contractors came to take our door away. It was a fire safety hazard, according to a very expensive risk assessment they carried out several years ago in the wake of the Grenfell Fire.

They came, they saw(ed), they removed our old door in five minutes flat, leaving a gaping hole.

The new door is sleek and fancy.

“It’s a like for like replacement,” they said.

“Hmmm… the handle is on the right hand side,” I said.

“And the door opens to the left not the right.”

“I’m very unhappy,” said my wife.

“It’s not magnetic,” said my nine year old.

“Where’s they keyhole?” my three year old didn’t say, but the question must surely have been going through his mind as he tried to unlock the door on the wrong (right) side with the new key.

Sat, 19 Aug 2023 19:57:06 +0100

Signs of the times…

Under poisoned skies

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 08:03:00 +0100

Watched Under Poisoned Skies on BBC iPlayer last night.

It’s the sad and shocking story of children in Iraq dying from leukaemia as a result of toxic air pollution from mega rich oil companies burning off excess natural gas in the open air near their homes.

Benzene (found in the air) and naphthalene (found in the children’s urine samples) are the main carcinogens.

Levels of benzene are between 3 and 9.6 Micrograms per cubic meter or “µg/m3”.

Levels of benzene by the so-called soil “hospital” at Southall Gasworks were between 4 and 12 Micrograms per cubic meter or “µg/m3”.

Southall residents to give blood samples

Thu, 27 Apr 2023 07:49:00 +0100

After six years of campaigning for justice:

“The fact that gas used to be manufactured from coal has been lost to the public consciousness, but the chemical legacy remains.”

“These communities already have multiple disadvantages with air pollution, overcrowding and poor housing. This is another burden being placed on them.”

Via: Scientists to examine health fears at west London luxury development

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 10:51:48 +0100

Finally got around to watching Our Friends In The North.

‘None of the issues the show mines so brilliantly – from inequality, deindustrialisation and the parlous state of Britain’s housing to homelessness and the corruption of our public officials – have gone away.’

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 11:17:00 +0100

The two wood-burning incinerators around the corner from our home appear to be no longer in use. One is is covered by corrugated sheets and scaffolding (prior to dismantling?), the other area is clean and relatively tidy.

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 10:25:21 +0100

Solidarity with all teachers today, especially those striking for better pay.

Eight year old is at home, and refusing to practice for his spelling test tomorrow because he doesn’t want to be a scab.

Sat, 21 Jan 2023 21:37:12 +0100

1,001 days since my little one made his debut.

The Property Lobby: The Hidden Reality Behind the Housing Crisis in Ealing

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 20:30:40 +0100

There will be 14,800 new homes in 23 new developments in Southall over the next few years. 14 units over 10 stories high, and 7 over 20 stories high. Up to 40,000 new residents (and their cars)!

One third of the total new developments in the whole of Ealing borough (only Acton is getting it worse).

So not happening so much in the ‘white’ or richer areas of the borough, for some reason.

None of these homes will be genuinely affordable to most people currently living in overcrowded homes in Southall or Ealing, as Studio bedsit flats start at around £300,000!

Most will stay empty until they are sold to investors from China, Malaysia, Singapore, Bahrain(!) where they are actively marketed by the greedy property developers.

The same property developers who gave former Ealing Council ‘Leader’ Julian Bell and new Ealing Council ‘Leader’ Peter Mason (also a Southall Green ward councillor) over £30,000 in recent years to holiday in the south of France at the MIPIM property festival in Cannes described as a “booze ‘n’ hookerfest” by Private Eye Magazine.

Bell says, “it didn’t cost the taxpayer a penny”, but in Southall we are already paying with our health and quality of life thanks to the poisonous air from the development of the contaminated old gasworks site (due to complete in 2038!).

Town planner Mason says it was a mistake, and not what he expected(!).

Where will 40,000 new residents' children go to school (and how will they get there and back), how will they get an appointment to see a GP, which hospital will they go to when they need emergency treatment, and how will they get there on the roads already regularly gridlocked by too much traffic?

Worth taking the time to have a look at stopthetowers.info/other-cam…

Cllr Mason recommended we read Bob Colenutt’s ‘The Property Lobby: The Hidden Reality Behind the Housing Crisis’.

So I did.

What Colenutt says (and he has a wealth of experience in local authority housing and planning, and in the community resisting property developers), is that developers do have too much power (as Mason argues), but also that local councils and councillors do not do enough to resist, do not have the negotiating skills (contrary to how Mason originally described the importance of trips to MIPIM to ‘negotiate hard’), and too readily embrace the ‘financialisation’ of the land and property market brought about by David Cameron’s and Nick Clegg’s ConDem government in 2010.

So now, we have a very real housing crisis fuelling the huge profits of private developers, all facilitated and egged on by mostly Labour councils too easily rolling over and allowing them to build fewer and fewer ‘genuinely affordable homes’ (because “where’s the profit in that?").

What Colenutt says loudly and clearly is that without ordinary people’s and communities' resistance it would be so much worse, and that to all intents and purposes councils and councillors are in bed with the developers.

Non-fiction: The Property Lobby: The Hidden Reality behind the Housing Crisis by Bob Colenutt 📚

Tue, 29 Nov 2022 20:04:26 +0100

Christmas tree and lights up. Boys did most of the tree decorating. Much quicker and less stressful than previous years.

Kids' stuff

Tue, 29 Nov 2022 13:18:33 +0100

I have successfully replicated this study at home, and can attest to its reliability and validity.

An ethnographic study in Madrid charted the gradual “take over” by the child (accoutrements like toys, furniture, and special foods, and the removal of “dangerous” or breakable items) of the domicile, leaving less and less “adult” territory (Poveda et al. 2012).'

The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings by David F. Lancy 📚

Tue, 29 Nov 2022 11:02:19 +0100

Both boys are staying at home today. Big kid bounced into school yesterday after recovering from two days of fever, cough and sore throat, but didn’t eat his lunch. Think he’s just tired. Little kid has a raging temperature, but eating ok.

Fri, 25 Nov 2022 00:10:53 +0100

Public concerns over remediating the toxicity of the land… have not been addressed in the revised plans…. “no details have been provided” on the proposed remediation strategy.

Brighton Gasworks developer changes plans to include affordable homes

Washed up

Wed, 23 Nov 2022 14:07:01 +0100

✅ Made breakfast and packed lunch for Kid A.
✅ Dropped Kid B at nursery 😭.
✅ Dropped Kid B at school.
✅ Collected kids' clothes from store.
✅ Listened to the end of The AbsoluteLee podcast and the start of The Prince of Aberystwyth while sitting in traffic.
✅ ☕ and breakfast.
✅ Prepared chilli con carne.
✅ Work call.
✅ Unblocked bath drain.
✅ Received grocery delivery.
✅ ☕.
✅ Washed up…

Sun, 20 Nov 2022 09:23:19 +0100

Making pizza today, so defrosting some fresh yeast.

Meantime, it’s breakfast. Egg and home fries for me. Weetabix for the little one, and bagel for the big one.

Big one is in the bathroom feeling nauseous because of the smell of smoked paprika.

Abandon all hope

Sat, 12 Nov 2022 13:59:23 +0100

I reported an abandoned car to my housing association.

It’s been left in our little communal car park since the middle of last month, taking up a neighbour’s parking space.

It’s got no tax or MOT.

I previously reported it to the police, who got back to me to say “it’s not of interest” to them, and to my local council, who have apparently done nothing. Presumably because it’s not classed as being on a public road.

Let’s hope the HA removes it.

Strawberries for pigs?

Wed, 14 Apr 2021 10:33:42 +0100

Little did we know at the time, but these little strawberries were usually engulfed in a toxic plume of benzene, naphthalene, and god only knows what else.

Sensibly, the wife refused to eat them.

We later discovered that official planning documents for the nearby old gasworks, which was being dug up in the open air for new homes to be built on the contaminated land, stated that no vegetables should be grown on the land. Ever!

Ealing Council Leader Julian Bell publicly blamed 'the wrong kind of wind', and – quite possibly – privately blamed 'fucking moaners'. All the while racking up over £30,000 in declared gifts and hospitality from developers including Berkeley Group, who were digging up the gasworks land.

Our soon-to-be local ward councillor and (ex-)Head of Planning Peter Mason knew all about the dangers (he tells us on Twitter) from the contaminated land back in 2009 when he campaigned against its development along with our MP Virendra Sharma (who said the development would be 'a disaster environmentally').

Yet no one told people living nearby to expect to be gassed in our own homes and gardens during the three month heatwave that was shortly to arrive.

In fact, Ealing Council announced on Twitter that the odours, while 'unpleasant', were 'not harmful to health' would be 'gone in a few days'.

I later discovered that there is scientific evidence that some people with Asian and African heritages are genetically more vulnerable to very serious and sometimes fatal health conditions from inhaling naphthalene, a fact acknowledged (although later denied, despite the published evidence) by Public Health England at a packed public meeting in July 2019.

No one told us.

Ealing Council, despite being fully aware of the potential dangers to health (and to the environment) failed to carry out any kind of Equalities Impact Assessment, and only helped Berkeley Group to rush through the decontamination process to maximise their profit from Crossrail in Southall.

Profit over people. Labour Council. Our lives didn't matter to them.

Now, we are being asked to believe that our MP (who has begun making the right noises two years too late – what happened to the nearly 1,000 signature petition I gave you in 2018 Mr Sharma?) cares and is on our side, and that our local ward councillor cares and always has done. Only Bell is – unusually for him – honest enough not to suddenly pretend he gives a shit about anyone but himself and looking after his own family.

At the packed public meeting in 2019, which our local ward councillor chaired, he and Bell refused to declare their financial interests with Berkeley Group, refused to let me speak with the microphone so that people couldn't hear that the Council, Berkeley Group, the Environment Agency and Public Health England had all colluded to cover up the real level of toxic and carcinogenic air pollution – that it was consistently above legal limits and rising – by manipulating, removing, and presenting the air quality data in such a way as to make it look like it was mostly within legal limits.

At the same meeting, our MP arrived late, mostly unseen, sat silently at the back of the room, and left early, mostly unseen. At the same meeting, a strangely truthful Bell admitted that he had 'known about the nuisance, the BAD nuisance, for two and a half years'! Yet nothing could be done.

Now Peter Mason, free from his constraints as Head of Planning after resigning following his failed coup attempt to take the leadership from Bell last year, is telling us that something could and should have been done, yet all of them remained silent and did nothing for years.

Unbelievable!

How I caught covid

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 14:21:56 +0100

I tested positive for coronavirus yesterday.

I started to feel unwell – like I had flu – on Sunday afternoon. After a night felling too hot and too cold, Monday morning I had a temperature of 38.3°C.

I went to my local walk-through testing clinic later that afternoon.

It was a self-test. If I'd known, I would have ordered a test-at-home kit, although I wouldn't have got my result as quick.

I couldn't do the throat swab as it made me want to throw up. The nasal swab was faintly pleasurable.

• • •

The walk-through experience was generally quite anxiety-provoking. I can't wear my glasses or hearing aid while wearing a mask, so found it stressful trying to follow instructions. The testing marquee itself, for all the hand gel, seems like as good a place as any to catch covid.

In eleven months, I've been out to the supermarket maybe three times, the pharmacy the same, to the park occasionally. During the summer, we visited my mother-in-law after she had recovered from covid.

I took my six year old to and from school every day up until the Christmas holidays, and that is the last direct contact any of us as a family have had with other human beings.

• • •

So, it's a bit of a mystery how I caught the infection. The most likely source I can think of is our communal stairwell to our flat, which we share with our next door neighbours and their visitors, posties, delivery drivers.

When the pandemic began, we always used to wear a mask to go out, but we stopped doing that (and got out of the habit) in the summer when infection rates were low. I had still been wearing a mask to bring our grocery deliveries in, but not when I put the rubbish out....

A Successful Home Delivery and the Lockdown/Lock-in.

Fri, 01 May 2020 14:11:00 +0100

My second son was born late Saturday night (what would normally have been my beer night) two weeks ago, after a short, but intense, labour.

He was delivered at home by two brilliant midwives, who were fully protected courtesy of customised #tinap bin bag aprons, unused clean air protest dust masks, and disposable gloves my wife stocked up on back in February when – without any scientific advice whatsoever – she somehow accurately foresaw the current coronavirus global pandemic somehow reaching the UK's shores (and airports). Practising prudent use of valuable PPE supplies, the midwives wore their own prescription spectacles to protect from splashes to the eyes. (This is, of course, not true. They had NHS supplied aprons, surgical masks, and gloves.)

Home delivery

Now, we've had our groceries, pizza and most other household and personal items delivered to our home, rather than dealing with the stress of actually going out and having to interact with other people, for years, so a home delivery of our new son might have seemed like an obvious choice.

But a home birth was definitely Plan B, and only came to be Plan A due to coronavirus related issues with hospital birth and childcare arrangements for our nearly six year old, which now favoured delivery at home.

Preparing for birth

My boss had told me a few days prior that 'home births are great, because you can make a cup of tea'.

So, I stocked up on tea bags, and prepared myself mentally and physically for the big day by repeatedly ignoring my wife's pleas to listen to her hypnobirthing mp3s on the expected role of the 'birthing partner' (whatever that is), and getting through the last of my beer stockpile in anticipation of several years of enforced sobriety (in order to deal with nighttime and next morning emergencies).

I'm just thankful we never got around to implementing my boss's idea for a work appraisal, because his multi-tasking expectations are clearly way beyond my capabilities.

Labour of birth

While I fully accept that I had the easiest job on the night (bar my nearly six year old, who thankfully slept through it all in the adjacent bedroom), I was very pleased the main bit was over relatively quickly (three hours) as my right arm and hand were getting tired.

To ease the pain of contractions, and in the absence of any pain relief other than 'gas and air', my wife insisted (on pain of death) that I massage her lower back for two minutes every three minutes.

In between massages/contractions, I had to top up her glass of filtered water and hold it to her lips for her to drink.

Birth

When the baby's head came out, slowly, I remember thinking it was weirdly like watching a picture coming out of a printer.

When he was out, I immediately noticed his testicles seemed abnormally large, the size of giant tea bags. (Turns out they were swollen with fluid.)

'He's a boy, he's definitely a boy!' I said.

I could have done with some gas and air myself at this point.

After birth

My wife has been pretty amazing through it all. I don't know how she copes with the lack of sleep, although I'm doing my best to make sure she gets a couple of hours whenever she can when she's not busy feeding baby.

I have done a few nappy changes. Son no. 1 is always delighted whenever his little brother pees all over me, which was really his main reason for wanting a little brother in the first place.

Lockdown/Lock-in

We're mainly homebirds, so the lockdown/lock-in has not been too bad for us. And we're lucky to have had everything we needed, including toilet paper, flour, use of our communal garden and area where we live for exercise, sunshine, unusually fresh air, and seeing red kites and egrets flying over, among other lesser spotted wildlife.

My eldest lad has suffered the most, as he misses his school routine and friends, which is compounded by his not realising that he would no longer be the centre of attention now his little brother is here.

Southall Under Siege: The Neighbours From Hell

Sun, 25 Aug 2019 22:14:32 +0100

‘A lack of scrutiny,’ says John Freeman, Regulatory Services Officer at Ealing Council.

He’s talking about lessons to be learned from the council’s response to the new asphalt plant built in neighbouring Hillingdon borough in 2014.

‘We didn’t expect there to be so much odour from a new building, or so many complaints.’

Moving swiftly on.

Oppressive odour

The highly contaminated old gasworks site in Southall has been kicking up a stink, too.

Carcinogenic benzene and naphthalene, among a cocktail of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals and particulates large and small, are in the air.

‘The odour is oppressive,’ says Damian Leydon.

There are twenty or thirty people in the room.

No one bats an eyelid.

Upset residents

Damian is the Operations Director at 'Southall Waterside', as the gasworks site is being marketed.

It's wedged between the grand union canal, Yeading Brook and Minet Park to the north-west of the site, and two of the twenty percent most economically deprived council wards in England. Southall Green to the south, and Southall Broadway to the north and north-east.

‘The last thing we want to do is upset residents,’ says Damian.

It’s a bit late for that.

Please stop

Damian previously worked as the Construction Manager on Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset, and the Athletes Village at the 2012 London Olympics.

Presumably, there were no carcinogenic leaks, oppressed, or upset residents there.

Three times I ask Damian, ‘How many residents are you prepared to upset before you will stop?’

No answers

As for almost every question that night, at Ealing Council’s Air Quality Scrutiny Panel meeting in September 2018, there is no answer.

The meeting concludes, and later the ‘minutes’ are published, but such minutiae do not make the cut.

Was I at a different meeting?

The final report of the ‘scrutiny’ panel, six months later, reads as if the problem is in the past, finished, with yet more ‘lessons to be learned’ (and immediately forgotten).

Friends with benefits

As I leave the meeting, I see Damian having a cosy-looking chat in the corridor (of power) outside the meeting room with Julian Bell, Ealing Council's Leader.

Councillor Bell sat through the two hour meeting in silence.

I ask Julian if he’s booking his holiday in Cannes?

The south of France resort hosts the annual MIPIM property developers’ ‘booze and hookerfest’ (as Private Eye magazine calls it).

Julian is a regular attendee, all expenses paid for by Damian’s employer Berkeley Group, despite claiming to be teetotal. Peter Mason, my ward councillor, is a new attendee. He is not teetotal.

‘If my son gets cancer because of this, you better not stand so close to me,’ I say to Leydon.

He rolls his eyes.

‘David, don’t let’s make this personal,’ says Bell.

We can't breathe!

For two and a half years, my family, my neighbours and friends, have been harassed, attacked, and gassed in our own homes and gardens.

Our children have been forced to breathe ‘stinky’, poisonous air in their school playgrounds, and in our public parks.

We have been laid under siege through three hot summers, including last year’s extended heatwave.

Despite many repeated requests to stop, Damian’s uncovered, unenclosed cesspit of decontamination of a hundred years of toxic waste continues unabated.

Good neighbours

‘Be a good and respectful neighbour,’ says Councillor Mason, at the ward forum.

‘It’s unpleasant’ we are told. ‘It will clear in days, and it’s not harmful to health,’ Ealing Council namelessly tweeted. In June 2017.

Round and round we go.

Is this corrupt?

‘It’s the wrong kind of wind,’ claims Bell.

‘It’s not our responsibility, it’s the Environment Agency.’

‘It’s not us, it’s Public Health England.’

‘I’ll phone Julian and get him to put a councillor on it for you,’ Tony Pidgley, founder and chair of Berkeley Group tells us.

“Cash. Always cash.” (Tony Pidgley)

We started a campaign. Clean Air for Southall and Hayes. CASH for short.

‘I DO NOT TAKE CASH! I DO NOT TAKE CASH!’ is our MP Virendra Sharma’s frankly bizarre opening statement, shouted at us when we go to meet him.

What’s going on?

When is remediation NOT remediation?

Back to the future with John Freeman.

I email John to ask him when remediation of the soil (the cleaning of the contaminated land) is due to be completed. It’s the excavation, the turning, the moving of the toxic waste that has laid at rest for fifty years or more that we’re told is likely to be the main source of the odour nuisance and air pollution.

‘March 2019. It’s finished already.’

‘But it still stinks.’

‘Did you leave the cooker on?’

‘But I’ve seen the planning documents where it says remediation is scheduled to be completed in 2038.’

John consults his colleague, James Potter, Ealing’s Contaminated Land Officer, whose post was initially funded by none other than Berkeley Group.

A very simple explanation as it turns out.

‘The remediation for the next nineteen years is, in a sense, NOT remediation.’

Berkeley bribes?

Then there is the fact, confirmed (and denied) by Public Health England, that the majority Asian and African population of Southall, due to genetic factors, have an increased risk from exposure to naphthalene.

And then there’s Berkeley Group's track record of paying off their former finance director to keep quiet about allegations of bribery and corruption at the top of the company.

Understandably, we doubt the veracity of their own reports of the air quality monitoring data recorded by their business partner, data which they refuse to share with us.

Enough is enough.

Stop the work at the gasworks site while it is made safe.

Stop poisoning Southall.

Please donate to our legal campaign for justice: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/cleanairforsouthallandhayes/

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 21:44:00 +0100

Wife says we should have named our cat Bjork.

Because she’s small, cute and makes funny noises.

Bonfire of the potatoes

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 12:38:00 +0100

Abstract: Everyone needs good neighbours. Tags: Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes, neighbours

On Saturday night, I shared a bonfire - in honour of the last person to enter the UK Parliament with honest intentions - with three Bolivians (all of whom have jobs, and at least one of whom has a cat), a Pole, a Catalan, an Irishman, several English people (one of Asian extraction and one born in Africa), a Roman candle or two, a Chinese lantern, twelve Lincolnshire sausages, some French’s American mustard, a large bag of pomme de terres of Peruvian ancestry, and a guy that looked like Frank Sidebottom.

Oh, and - long-time readers of my blog who have not yet required a psychotherapeutic intervention will be pleased to note - some onions.

The onions went down particularly well. I fried them myself. They were so good, people asked me ‘How did you make them?’. ‘I fried them,’ I said. Did I sweat them, or cook them slowly? Not deliberately. There was a lot of them. No, I have never made French onion soup.

I also cooked the sausages. All I did was put them under the grill and turn them over occasionally, in between supping hot mulled wine in our neighbours’ garden and nipping back across the close to knock back some warm English ale and make sure our house wasn’t on fire. Unfortunately, that’s also when they burned ~~Frank~~Guy. So, sorry, no pics. (I also conducted a thought experiment about making a vegetarian alternative to sausages.)

One of the Bolivians wrapped the pomme de terres in tin foil and buried them in the burning embers of the bonfire to cook while a committee of English people tried to work out how to set the Chinese lantern alight. The token environmental activist present complained that setting a Chinese lantern alight wasn’t very environmentally friendly, and to be honest, I had some sympathy with her. Still, we were getting drunk, and this Chinese lantern was going up, one way or another. And up it went.

Perhaps the launching committee might have considered the location of the launchpad - well, actually, they did. ‘There’s a park five minutes walk from here,’ I said. ‘We’re not going there,’ they said. So, finally, we lit and launched the lantern in the close, and it rose up and up. Up and straight into the tree. Where it stayed, burning away in amongst the damp Autumn leaves. It’s still there now.

We burned some more pallets on the fire and then dug out the apples of the earth with a spade. The foil came off some of them in the process, to reveal glowing red potato coals within. Someone expertly cut the spuds in half and applied butter to the hot flesh, and passed them around with napkins and spoons. It was the best tasting potato I’ve ever had.

United, born and bred: super glue Macari

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The only United match I’ve been to in recent years was last season’s FA Cup tie at home to Spurs, courtesy of E.on’s sponsorship and their Family Football initiative. I went with a couple of my ‘clients’ from work, had a great road trip and fantastic all-round experience. One’s a Spurs fan, and I know he felt a mixture of joy and anxiety sat in amongst all the United fans (even in the Family stand) when Spurs went 1-0 up. But both were amazed by the genuine friendliness and good-natured humour of the locals as we mingled around outside the stadium before kick-off. I’m pleased to say that both are working or about to start work now. I really believe that going to this match (and we also went to Wembley and White Hart Lane) helped to put a bit of the spark back into their lives, to begin to believe and to hope again. The Theatre of Dreams, indeed!

I went to a few games in the ’90s when I was working in Manchester, mostly European nights, which then weren’t that well supported. I remember seeing David Beckham play one of his first games and you could see right away that he was a special talent. Before that, I saw Roy Keane when he was still at Forest. I think he scored a hat-trick at Bolton (where I was studying) and he was another one that you could see was on another level, right away. My favourite game in the 90’s, though, has to be Sheffield United away in a midweek game. We won 3-0, fabulous counter-attacking stuff and fantastic goals from Cantona, Hughes and Sharpe!

Back to the late 70’s again, my dad took me to see United get walloped 4-0 at OT by Cloughie’s Forest and I saw the 3-5 thrashing we received at the hands of West Brom, not to mention the 0-0 versus Wolves with George Berry. We were frigging crap a lot of the time, occasionally brilliant, but never consistently good enough.

I have a lot to thank my dad for. Thanks, Dad! He got me a Subbuteo set one Xmas and meticulously painted on the United colours, numbers and even facial hair of the players. I was gutted when my ickle Lou Macari broke both legs and he was never the same player again despite being able to return for the next match thanks to a tube of superglue!

The best thing about all of this, though, is being able to immediately rebut all the ABUs1 who, when I tell them who I support, start their tired old accusations of glory-hunting, London Reds, etc. I started watching United when they were at their lowest ebb (in terms of league status) since they became popular worldwide. I’ve personally endured almost twenty of the “years of hurt” growing up watching those other reds (funny how so many of the kids I went to school with in Lincolnshire were Liverpool fans) win year after year with just a few crumbs of comfort coming our way in the FA Cup. Both my mum and dad were and still are ardent United supporters and if it wasn’t for them I’d probably be a Mariner or worse!

So, thanks, mum and dad, for uniting and ensuring that I was born in Stretford General!

Fans of ‘Anyone but United’. ↩

Forking* Hell!

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:31:00 +0100

Date: 2009-06-22 Title: Forking* Hell! Abstract: Noisy neighbours. Tags: complaints, customer service, forklifts, noise, beeping, reversing, BEEP! BEEP!

March 16

Mr Marsden,

Thank for you email, please accept our apology for the delay in responding to you regarding this complaint. Due to a new complaint system being instigated and problems arising from its application, your complaint was not allocated correctly, hence the delay in response.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused and hope to resolve you complaint at the earliest opportunity.

Is this complaint with regard to Forking Noisy Bastards that you complained about in October last year? When I looked into this originally the company did have a 24hr operating licence, that being said if they are causing a noise disturbance to you we would be able to take some action. I have put a letter in the post to you detailing our service hours and contact numbers, please can you use our response service next time the noise is happening so that an officer can visit and assess the nuisance.

Once again, sorry for the delayed response.

Regards

Noise & Nuisance Officer

May 12

Thanks, Noise & Nuisance Officer.

Please find attached a scan of the Noise Disturbance Diary and a MP3 recording of the noise.

I haven’t been able to get any of our neighbours to witness the noise. I believe that this maybe because our location is unique in that everyone else has some barrier between them and the source of the noise (e.g., the warehouse building itself or the surrounding fence). If you care to view Google maps you can see the view from the entrance to the works site straight through to our flat on the first floor, to the right.

I’d very much appreciate anything you are able to do to bring an end to this disturbance as currently my wife and I are having two or even three nights a week of interrupted sleep thanks to this noise.

Kind regards,

David Marsden

May 28

Dear Noise Nuisance Officer,

Could you please acknowledge receipt of my email of 12 May, below and let me know what the next steps will be.

Many thanks.

June 1

Further to this, please see this video, demonstrating perfectly the noise pollution I am complaining about and a what appears to be a perfect solution:

Note that I am emailing you at 1:54 am after being woken up yet again by this disturbance.

June 3

Noise & Nuisance Officer has not responded to any of my emails, below. Does she still work there?

10 minutes ago

Is there anybody out there?

Having been woken up by these forkers yet again on a Sunday night at 3am - and they are still going, started at 11pm - I am at the point of losing it. I commute for an hour and a half to work meaning I have to be up at 6:30. What are they doing that can only be done in the small hours? Drugs? Bombs? Anyone care?

From a Council Tax paying resident in the forgotten town of Shitton.

Good night, sleep well!

*Thanks to Andy C

Red missed: how Stewart Houston and Gordon Hill made me angry and depressed

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 01:00:00 +0100

United’s FA Cup tie with Wolves last weekend and Auntie’s ‘flashback’ (Rio Ferdinand?), reminded me to finally get around to posting a few of my own memories, originally prompted by George Best’s sad demise in November.

George had quit United long before I can first remember watching them. But Best remained an important part of my United life - the school chant was “Georgie Best, Superstar, He walks like a woman and he wears a bra!” - and Dad would always remind me that whatever “my” United did they were never as good as Best, Law an Charlton and the rest of Busby’s Babes.

I can see what he meant, now! And he did concede that watching Cantona, Kanchelskis and Giggs at their peak was probably just as exciting.

Anyway, 1974-5 season was my first, when United were in the old League Division Two. I didn’t understand the significance of the different divisions then, just enjoyed the BBC’s and Yorkshire TV’s occasional match coverage when we took on the regional challengers of the time - the big guns of York City, Rotherham United, Hull City and Sheffield Wednesday, if my memory serves me.

That year we won the D2 title and returned to the top division.

We then got to three out of the next four Cup Finals (when that meant something), winning just once (but against Treble-chasing Liverpool).

Six years after we had won the European Cup with Best, Law, Charlton and the rest we had teams comprising (as I remember them):

1 Alex Stepney, then Paddy Roche, then Gary Bailey
2 Alex Forsyth, then Jimmy Nichol
3 Stuart Houston, then Arthur Albiston (who popped up on Five Live recently)
4 Gerry Daly, then Brian Greenhof, then Sammy McIlroy
5 Brian Greenhoff, then Gordon McQueen
6 Martin Buchan (c)
7 Steve Coppell
8 Sammy McIlroy, then Jimmy Greenhoff
9 Stuart Pearson, then Joe Jordan
10 Lou Macari
11 Gordon Hill, then Mickey Thomas
12 David McCreery, then Ashley Grimes

Stepney was a legend, the last of Sir Matt’s European Champions. Bailey was talented - I remember a couple of full-stretch diving saves he made in the 5-3 home defeat by West Brom….Houston was the first person I’d ever heard tell someone else to fuck off. That he did it in response to baiting from a total stranger on the terraces was even more startling to me then.

Ever since I always had a sense that Houston was quite evil. I’m sure he isn’t! It reminds me, too, of the televised live England game when Ray Wilkins told the (Uruguyan?) ball boy to “give me the fucking ball”. Not to mention when Eric jumped into the crowd feet first!

McIlroy was ‘the last of the Busby Babes’ (probably also ‘the new George Best’), but never quite managed to live up to it, despite being a great servant to the club. I was really sad when he had to leave not long after Bryan Robson and Remi Moses arrived a few years later. Not long before he moved on he scored a fantastic solo goal against Wolves.

Buchan was the ever-dependable rock and heartbeat of the team. Scored a couple of last minute
equalisers, drives from outside the penalty area, one at home to Everton?

Coppell had an economics degree apparently. Probably would make a good manager one day…. Career cut short by injury.

Pearson was an up-and-at-them, no fear, old-fashioned centre forward, replaced by Joe Jordan, an up-and-at-them, no fear, old-fashioned centre forward with no front teeth. Wonderful!

Macari was the mischief-maker-in-chief, apparently ran a chip shop outside the ground and provided the role model for free-scoring (Celtic) strikers to sign for United, dry up and move back into midfield….

Gordon Hill’s demise was a source of childhood grief for me, which even now I find difficult to understand. Lee Sharpe followed suit more recently. Thomas was a cheeky-chappy, work-hard, play-hard type with silly hair.

McCreery was our not-so-supersub and Grimes was never a United player, surely?

Which brings me back to the current team/squad. Who are the Ashley Grimeses of today? Van der Sar looks a bit like Paddy Roche, but so did Roy Carroll. We need a world class keeper, still.

Gary Neville will be looking forward to the Liverpool rematch in the Cup, no doubt!

Wes Brown might still come through as genuine class, but realistically he’s always going to be a squaddie. Same applies to Mikael Silvestre. Gabriel Heinze has been missed and I expect he will partner Rio in central defence next season, that’s if Patrice Evra comes through at left back.

Then there’s Vidic, O’Shea, Richardson, Bardsley….

Who will replace Roy Keane? That’s probably the wrong question. Football’s a team game and the best teams don’t rely on one player, but on individuals gelling as units within the team. United at their best could win without Keane (and his central midfield ‘unit’ partner Scholes, as they did in Barcelona) or Cantona or Beckham.

As a TV-highlights-and-live-radio-only kind of fan I’ve seen and heard Alan Smith, Darren Fletcher, John O’Shea all do well in there. Let’s hope Scholesy can return and even that Giggsy is allowed to play out his last years through the middle.

Out wide we have Ronaldo, Park, Solskjaer and Richardson - we need reinforements there, too.

Up front we look strong with Rooney, Ruud, Saha (when fit) and Rossi, although there’s always room for improvement.

What’s our first XI look like now? I don’t think Sir Alex knows, which is half the problem. Mine, assuming everyone is injury-free:

1 Howard - may as well give him his second chance, now
2 Neville - no brainer (the choice, not Gary)
3 Heinze (leave him at full back for now)
4 O’Shea (I’d like to see him given a run in the ‘holding’ role)
5 Ferdinand (with O’Shea holding the defensive cover in midfield this would free up Rio to be more adventurous)
6 Brown (he’s fit, playing well, give him a run)
7 Ronaldo (just stick with him)
8 Rooney (start him wide left, but let him play wherever he sees fit like Eric did)
9 Saha (start as central striker)
10 Van Nistelrooy
11 Giggs (central midfield role, playmaker, can swap with Rooney and Saha
12 Scholes (back up for Wayne or swap with Saha or Ruud for a less gung-ho approach!)

2nd XI:
1 Van der Sar
2 Bardsley
3 Evra
4 Fortune
5 Vidic
6 Silvestre
7 Park
8 Fletcher
9 Smith
10 Rossi
11 Richardson
12 Solskjaer
13 Pique

Did I miss anyone?