SSSSSNNNNAAAAKKKKEEEEE! Very old photo (May? 1990). Mesa Verde National Park. Always thought it was a Rattlesnake. Google Lens suggests it might also be a Pine snake. 🐍

Irreplaceable! (I have a work commitment tomorrow morning.)

Heart skipped a beat (or several) when I saw this in the canal this morning…

Annual (eek!) morning walk.

CURRICULUM VITAE (MEMENTO VIVERE)

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).

File under HamasIsrael don’t care about their own people?

When I first went to university, one of my first mates was a very quiet and shy bass player, a Geordie skinhead called Tim. Tim was into getting stoned and listening to Frank Zappa. I never got into Zappa. But I am now. Your browser does not support iframes.

Those were the days.

THRIVING?

My son’s school’s Thrive teacher is leaving. She helped transform my lad’s experience of school from being one where he had weekly if not daily challenges with regulating his emotions and his behaviour, to one where he enjoys school every day. She’s going to be very greatly missed. I managed to tell her this today and thank her for her work. It was so sad to hear her story. She has committed ten years of her life to helping our youngsters get the best start in life, and done lots of extra work getting accredited to do so.

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

CURRICULUM VITAE (HOCUS POCUS)

Inevitably, my time as a Manchester University player came to end, and I left the club by mutual consent when my contract ended. Somewhat bizarrely, looking back on it, I joined what appeared to be an obscure and tiny religious cult in the middle of nowhere (deepest, darkest Lincolnshire), dabbling in some rather questionable therapy / witchcraft. My role was primarily as Administrator with responsibility for making sense of the almost entirely lacking paperwork, contracts, and financial arrangements of the company (?

TEACHERS

Yesterday morning, I was sat in the foyer of my little kid’s children’s centre waiting for the staff to arrive so he could start his day. He was eager to get in, banging on the locked doors to the main part of the nursery. In my day, the kids would be trying to get out, not in. Some other parents, younger than me, commented the same. Everyone recounted some particularly, sadistic child-hating teacher who regularly brutalised them or some other poor unfortunate during their formative years.

CURRICULUM VITAE (AD ABSURDUM)

I spent most of my three years ‘working’ in Manchester down the pub. When I was in my shared smoke-filled office, I was more often than not playing a very early demo of football manager (four free seasons, on repeat), or compiling a regular comedy fanzine for the five-a-side footy team I helped to found and run. They were crazy and fun times. Every other weekend, I got a train back to Lincolnshire for band rehearsals, recordings and occasional gigs.

CURRICULUM VITAE (AD NAUSEAM)

After failing to become the next George Harrison, I spent three years idling around, getting into trouble, and generally not knowing what to do with myself. I had some summer jobs working on a local farm stacking straw bales on to lorries from Cockermouth, feeding turkeys, and working in the grain barn (doing what I can’t remember, although I do remember not being able to breathe because of all the dust).

365

It’s my 365 day ‘anniversary’ on micro.blog. When I moved here last year, it was in the wake of the X-ification of Twitter, the exodus to Mastodon, and generally wanting to start blogging/writing again. I’m still on Twitter/X, and left Mastodon to move. I did start blogging a bit more to begin with, but that soon tailed off to nothing, as it always does. I did try to interact with the micro.

TORYBOY

ToryBoy The Movie is the account of filmmaker John Walsh’s disillusionment with what he saw as the corruption, lies, hypocrisy and general incompetence of Blair’s Labour government, and his conversion to the Conservative (Tory) Party general election candidate for Middlesbrough in 2010. Under his own steam and £15,000 of his own money, John found his opponent, Sir Stuart Bell, the serial incumbent Labour MP, invisible and unknown to his local constituents who nevertheless voted him back in every four or five years (albeit with an ever diminishing majority).

WRITING TO MY MP: ICJP - COMPLICITY IN WAR CRIMES

Adapted from this template letter. Dear Mr Sharma, My esteemed representative: I write to you today with a heavy heart, weighed down by the profound disappointment I feel in your recent actions. Your unwavering support for Israel, despite its blatant disregard for international law and its commission of war crimes, has cast a shadow over your impartiality and your ability to hold office effectively. The recent decision by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) to serve written notice to Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer of their intention to prosecute UK governmental officials for their role in aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes has sent shockwaves through our nation.

CURRICULUM VITAE (REPETITUM)

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.

CURRICULUM VITAE

I’ve had a long and winding career in the fields of work and education. At one time, I was doing quite well, but it all got a bit too much and it’s been a bit of a struggle since. Which is a shame, because it would have been nice if things had turned out better. I was never really suited to work. It’s almost always felt like a real imposition, a drag, and a massive downer.

Last night, I watched ToryBoy The Movie. This morning, I watched unelected former Tory Prime Minister and Jewish National Fund patron David Cameron become the UK’s new Foreign Secretary.

DISHING IT OUT

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.

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

Into our seventh hour of relentless fireworks. Happy Diwali in Little India. 🎆

BEER NIGHTS IN

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 last three movies I watched all had the same ending: a daughter reunited with her father. 🍿 Blader Runner 2049. Blonde. 12 Years A Slave.