2023 be damned!!

Lowlights of the year

The invasion of Ukraine continues in a First-World War-style meatgrinder-stalemate

Hamas butchers 1200 Israelis of all ages at a pop festival. Israel's reactionary government retaliates by flattening Gaza and killing over 10 times as many Palestinians

Despite him being a lying, narcissistic sociopath, Trump is getting more popular in the States and unless he is sent to prison in time, will be the next POTUS. Which of course will be a disaster not only for the US but globally.

Liberal democracy around the world is under attack from China, Iran, Russia and other half-witted regimes such as North Korea who sow misinformation on our social media, fuelling conspiracy theories.

The world seems to be getting even more stupid - ever more venal and corrupt politicians reaching either the wrong conclusion or just lining their own or their friends' pockets.

And they will be replaced by more of the same, as the people who should be our politicians have zero incentive to go into it.

So what's the bloody answer then?

One idea I feel very strongly about is abolish the post of Minister of Education. Every minister of Education who comes in says "I had a brilliant education - so everyone will have what I did" introduces another one-size-fits-all system, oblivious that most kids aren't academic.

As a result of Michael Gove's reforms English became a dissection class of fronted adverbials, which is enough to put almost everyone off the subject for good, when really a child's imagination is one of the most precious things in life, and as I've said before, the one thing that the education system pulverises.

Replace with a permanent committee of high profile educators and adopt a German style system (as Beveridge originally recommended) of grammar, technical and secondary schools. 

Stop trying to be a second rate China with this obsession with maths, and start being a first rate Britain. We're a really creative people in all aspects of life. After all, the wealthiest Chinese send all their children to Public schools here. Critical and independent thinking is what's needed, not a bunch of mindless automatons who have only been taught how to pass exams, instead of being educated.

And maybe abolish the internet. It's handy for the discussion of ideas and nonsense like this, but it's been fuelling stupidity and misinformation for 30 years or so. It's only effectively policed by totalitarian regimes, and it's just too easy to manipulate in liberal democracies.

I'm only scratching the surface here, but I should also stop NOW.

What about me???

In August I moved in with my parents who very kindly accommodated me. It wasn't as bad as any of us feared.

I've come to the realisation that I need to make a distance between my old life and new life, at least for the time being. I know time is a healer and certain enmities and suspicions that are harboured by both parties will gradually cool down.

I don't think it's worth the time and stress to talk over and over things we can't do anything about, despite the fact that modern life suggests this is the only way approach these things. 

When I have fallen out with people in the past and met them decades later, it's instantly water under the bridge  - it takes too much energy to keep enmities going for years at a time. And I spent years doing that with at least 2 people.

Saying that, there are people I don't want to see ever again of course. And some I wish were dead. And I have no qualms about that at all.

I miss the dogs and my friends. I miss being part of a family.

But I have made new friends here in Wells and reacquainted myself with old schoolmates.

Life for me is in the main, believe it or not, one of contentment. 

My Problem with booze

I've been drinking way too much. Drinking every night. I have a problem with alcohol. I can go without it but rarely do. The last time I drank was 3 days ago on the 30th.  In all, that day, I had 8 pints of strong beer: a UK gallon. I'm only small too.

A small Bailey's please.

So I think about going to the gym and getting really toned, but then I remembered I've had enough of gyms for one incarnation, so just walking loads and perhaps some swimming. I like flow-activities. Good for the brain.

I will have to stop buying booze at the supermarket. Get back into non-alcoholic beers. But only in pubs and bars.

So I guess that's my New Year's Resolution.

The boring bit about games

I'm really looking forward to playing RPGs 3 times per week or more. Katy's asked me to run a game for some teenagers in February on their half-term. I'm pretty sure I want to run the classic funhouse dungeon, White Plume Mountain.

1981 version

The session is intended to be a one-shot (completed in one session). That may be slightly ambitious with WPM, but it's full of puzzles, magic and combat. It makes no logical sense whatsoever - every room is entirely random - but if you can buy into this it's great fun. 

Like a D&D advent calendar.

I hope the kids like it - it's different to modern D&D as the new adventures are more focussed around a narrative.

I for one am loving being a player in Temple of Elemental Evil which we do on Wednesday afternoon/evening. It's so cool doing a Dungeon Crawl. It was also the second module (adventure) I bought in 1985. It blew my mind. It's great playing it.

What now then?

Why this blog is rubbish

I read the other day that most good art is created by flawed individuals who may be in a bad place. Some examples would be Larkin, Picasso, Caravaggio, Liszt.

And there is that current conversation of separation between art and artist: do we take down the Eric Gill because he sexually abused his daughters? If yes, do we take down the Caravaggios because he was a murderer? The difference is surely how long ago these things happened. If the 20th century it's more pertinent. If it happened now immediate expulsion. The 16th century? Doesn't matter!

I do find it genuinely easier to write when I'm in a bad place. My ideas just flow out of me, like thought-diarrhoea. And I'm as fucked-up as Philip Larkin, but I just don't get angry any more.

This post has taken days to get going.

The thing is I'm trying - and often succeeding -  to live in the moment and notice beauty and warmth and pleasure. All the easier while I have no capacity for planning (or indeed facing the future) anymore.

I have so much time I can use what grey matter I have left to take on big ideas and watch and listen to footage of the likes of Christopher Hitchens and Werner Herzog. 

I've always like the company of intelligent people.

What was I saying again?

Gut-buster

I'm fat again. It's sugar. Sugar in biscuits, sweets, beer. I look bloody awful, and my jeans have never been tighter, and yes, I do wash them at 30', so it is me.

I've felt really indulgent recently, and the new Lidl is amazing for biscuits and being me I want to sample all of them. 

I tend to drink alcohol on Tuesday evenings and at the end of a D&D session on a Sunday - having drunk zero-alcohol beer up until then, to keep my struggling brain as functional as possible.

I need to be more disciplined. I yo-yo these days.

Favourite Dinner party guests

Mars Bars are the most popular confectionary. The reason is they are sweet, and not much else. And the textures are easy on the gob. Is it the best chocolate? Of course not; I wouldn't even describe it as chocolate. 

But it's the most popular. 

I use this particular metaphor to remind people that popular doesn't mean best. It often means least offensive.

People who I would love to have met, who may not have got on so well at a dinner party would certainly offend a lot of people.

Frank Zappa - highly difficult music, very intellectual guy who interspersed his music with offensive words and lyrics. The man who put the sneer into rock and roll. Huge output of music from large orchestral pieces to self-indulgent guitar solos, with incredible songs using multiple key changes, meters and improvisations. Check out the band he had in the early 70s with George Duke and Ruth Underwood. 

Werner Herzog - auteur director and actor. Made feature films and documentaries, usually of individuals trying to achieve something in a world that is alien and hostile to them. Aguire Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, Grizzly Man. He is fascinating to listen to, and the stories of the making of his films are as fascinating as the films themselves. 

Andy Kaufman -  a performance artist masquerading as a stand-up comedian. The joke is on you. And if you don't get the joke, at least Andy is laughing. Also Elvis's favourite Elvis Presley impersonator.

And why do I admire them? Because they're mavericks. They followed their vision without any compromise or tangents. I realise they're very Marmite (adj). But mavericks tend to be. 

You may hate them, and that's okay.

By the way, I am the antithesis of a maverick. 

My Current Addictions

So much news going on and so much of it terrifying. I've found CNN is the best one in the States: Fox is rabid, MSNBC horribly smug.  Thank goodness for Sky and BBC and C4 in the UK. And left and right criticise them.

My list of top news stories is as follows:

Trump. This is huge. America split down the middle. And I fear this could end in a civil war, the implications of which would be profound for America but also the rest of the world.

Ukraine: Belarus is about to install Russian nukes and Medvedev is threatening to sever the info cables under the sea that connect us to each other. This could be the start of Cold War 2. But is Putin desperate enough to actually go ahead? We (collectively) in the West certainly didn't trust the USSR back in the day (some of us didn't trust America either) and I see no reason to trust Russia/Iran/ChinaNorth Korea now.

Starvation in North Korea. This is a country that can't grow enough food to feed its 26 million inhabitants and there is a starvation there that echoes the starvation in the 1990s. Compounding this is the fact that the leadership is spending money it could feed its citizens with on its nuclear development program, and has stopped importing food from China. In fact over the last 3 years it's closed its borders and expelled foreign citizens to the extent we only know what's going on there from the few people brave enough and canny enough to have communications with the outside.

B Johnson is dominating the front pages in the UK but this story is a footnote. If you haven't already realised that to him the truth is an irrelevance then you should probably get some therapy. 

Buffoon.

Swatting

I always hated this time of year as it's exam weather - the most brutal time to be indoors for days swatting away. Seeing as I never could get down to any effective form of revision, and would always get sidetracked, I have always hated exams as the stress I endured was awful.

The Executioner.

This is all a pathetic attempt to try and make a pun about swatting as now I'm running round the house looking for flies (for some reason we get a lot of them here) with this bad-boy (pictured). And it's addictive.

However, this farcical attempt at a joke is not working and probably was never going to.

Sorry. I'll go now.

The Truth about my dementia

 The Grim Bit

What to write anymore?

I could go on about the minutiae of my life in that droll way I do which everyone is very complimentary about. But I think it's getting boring. 

I suspect it's lost its way a bit.

So what can I tell you? I don't want to sound self-pitying. It's a danger area I try to steer clear of. It never helps anyone.

I'm going to try to cut through the chummy guff and tell you what I can. 

There are 2 people immediately involved with this dementia issue: J and me.

Our relationship has been more companionship than anything for the majority of our marriage. There was a period I wasn't aware of when J couldn't bear to be with me due to how I'd changed.

We had relationship counselling 2 years ago. It was always going to be the sticking plaster over the rift.

It was horribly upsetting. For me, I felt such a failure. I still couldn't understand why things had just gone; just petered out.

We then got my FTD diagnosis.

The more we learned about the condition, the more it explained why I didn't get where J was coming from most of the time, my lack of empathy, why I was behaving like I do, and the symptoms I was directly conscious of, like tiredness, irritability, oversensitivity to light and noise, my unwillingness to do shared activities or go anywhere, losing words, substituting words, the ever increasing brain fog, my temper and even more faux pas than ever before.

We probably use FTD as the whipping post more than it deserves, nevertheless...

...here we are J and I, in the present. Her working upstairs and me downstairs typing this. 

I try not to think of the future as it means further degradation of my brain and behaviour. Nothing I nor anyone else can do about it.

I've always been nostalgic for romanticised visions of my past and at the same time haunted by those myriad times where I let myself down, which I'm reminded of every morning as I wake up.

J is very future-focused (management -speak) and we are finding it very difficult.

What is our relationship, what will future relationships look like, how rapid will my deterioration be?

It's very difficult planning if you don't have even a rough idea of timings; key-moments.

I don't know where any of 'this' is heading. 

But this is where we're at.

Mitigating the Inevitable

Okay, let's try and be positive here. I am trying to keep my brain fit and functioning. This is how.

I'm playing with the dogs every day - Stanley and I play a game with these balls which bounce irregularly. I throw them off the wall and he goes crazy trying to catch them. I think it's his new favourite game. He's not interested in the other balls that have a regular surface and bounce predictably. We do this for half an hour at a time. 

Aren't dogs brilliant?

I love the dogs. Chippy is a bossy dachshund who is deeply suspicious of strangers, and Wilbur is a dopey Spaniel who is the greediest dog in the world, but he's lovely.

I've also started juggling again, to try and keep my coordination from going. Years ago in the 90s there was a juggling craze. While juggling 3 balls is muscle memory you do get out of practice and I used to be able to do tricks. I'm trying to do 4 ball juggling again as I used to really like that. I'm getting there...

I read lots of news  - The Times everyday, parts of The Guardian, BBC website for news as it happens, and also other magazines and feeds. Looking forward to today's news to see who our latest totes-inappropes PM will be.

I also run D&D games as no doubt you know. This involves assimilating huge amounts of information, storylines, and roll-playing numerous characters while riffing with the players. All the while trying to keep the flow of the story and plot(s). It can be exhausting.

I DM'd a new campaign yesterday - very different in its setting (think Game of Thrones meets John Carpenter's 'The Thing') which I think went pretty well.

I write a journal every night. It's complete salacious garbage but it's my complete salacious garbage.  

It's cathartic, if nothing else.

So I am trying to keep going - keep ticking over - while the temptation is to sit on my backside watching the same old stuff on YouTube!

All things considered I'm doing okay.

I'm okay.

Dementia Boiling over

 I'll fight you for a beer

Having FTD BV/SV isn't great. Well, it's shit actually. I get by. I'm keeping busy and active and that's pretty good for me. 

I did a load of gardening last week, filled the skip, ordered things for the house. God - I'd let everything slip for months and months and now there's mountain to climb, but I'm breaking it down into doable chunks. It's good for me to keep active - have lists of achievable tasks for each day and it's good for my mental well-being.

But however much I do, I still have dementia. And it comes to the surface when you are least expecting it.

On Saturday I was at a friend's house. It was a birthday party. We were all sat outside with the blistering heat and the 11 year old daughter of our host was fetching us drinks the whole time.

A new couple joined us, sat at the other end of the table. He had one of those voices that just carried above all others. A sort of unfortunate nasal South eastern accent. He and a woman were talking politics. 

He said a couple of things that jarred with me. "Margaret Thatcher. She had a job to do." It was all sounding rather Daily Mail to me. I had to leave the table.

After a relatively short time everyone apart from him and the woman were indoors. Later, after even more beer in the heat, he was talking to J. She flailed her arms around, gesticulating. 

I couldn't hear what was being said, but neither could I help it anymore. I stormed up to him to berate him of his Daily Mail bollocks and the fact everyone came indoors leaving him outside as that's all they could hear was his voice talking shite.

I was quickly ushered away by everyone.

I'm afraid this is probably the future. I'll expect to be hit a few times in the short and long term. And at the age of 53 never having had a fight in my life, it's probably not the best tactic.

But at the time I was unrepentant and angry at this guy's views.

And another thing...

I woke up sweating with alcohol in the early hours and made my way down to the hammock beside the pool (!) and expected J and everyone else to be furious with me. 

When J found me she was really sweet. I wasn't expecting that reaction. Oddly no one seemed to mind. Maybe I'd said what they were thinking. Or maybe the waters had been calmed with everyone being told I had this weird dementia.

I was too embarrassed to ask. It was S's (our host's) belated birthday party and I'd presumably upset the evening, or had I provided the entertainment? 

We had breakfast and drove home.

We have another 'do' in the near future where I know there are 2 people who drive me nuts with their pro-Putin right wing views. I think avoidance of them and alcohol will be the order of the day.

Improvisational Skills

I DM'd some downtime for the players in last night's session with my Monday crew. You may know we have a WhatsApp group called D&G which was set up before I joined. I asked after a month or 2: 

- Why is the group called D&G?

- Dungeons and Dragons!

- No that's 'D&D' not 'D&G'.

- Oh.

They're all dyslexic, see. No one had noticed.

Anyway, the players finished one part of the adventure. It's kind of done in chapters - modules in old 1st Edition - which they have to complete, and then they have downtime - like a rest back in the town where they live, with minor events thrown in for good measure. 

They had rescued a dwarf called Morley from a hermitage on an island that was under attack from some aquatic zombies. They later revealed to the dwarf that there was a price on his head. Morley, suddenly terrified, pleaded with them and told them he'd been set up.

From here on in I basically improvised a story with counter claims and subterfuge with a powerful local merchant who is very popular with the townsfolk, despite being an utter crook. None of this will play to any single group's  benefit. Any outcome will be a Pyrrhic victory at best. 

Just like real life really.

The session went really well and served to enrich the environment with role-play and (almost) zero combat. 

I really enjoyed doing it and it gave me a lot of confidence and contentment with my neurological faculties, in stark contrast to Saturday night's frolics.

 

 

The Sedentary Life Calls

Busy as a bee

I don't know what the hell has happened with the formatting here. I fxxxing hate centred or justified type. And yes I have been trying to get the formatting back to ranged left.

I've been really busy recently. Following on from the 6 days of work (I worked Monday too putting a sundial pedestal back for a Royal personage in Richmond Park) and so I thought I would continue with the momentum and do lots of work around the house - work I've neglected for months. J is simply too busy with her job to do stuff, so it's only fair I do the janitoring.

And then today…walking the dogs with J. She lets Chippy off who’s going ballistic and he shoots

off. We then saw that he’s not running after squirrels but some deer - he’s a dachshund too, which is comical yet still unacceptable.. Panic takes us. 

I’m wearing sunglasses at 7 in the morning in the expectation that within half an hour I’m really going to need them. I start running not looking at the uneven ground and turn my ankle. 

Cue Malcolm Tucker impression.

Oh blast...

So this throws a spanner in the works. I’ve turned ankles and sprained wrists all my life so I know how to deal with them (foot up, ice pack on and off in 20 minute bursts).

Back to the walk and we searched for Chippy for 15 minutes or so. We returned to the spot where he'd disappeared and there he was, coming from the other direction, with a euphoric, deranged face on.

But I’m a bear with a sore head. Don’t come near me.

I will bite. Or throw something. Or worse. 

Oh, if I had napalm right now...

Thing is while I still had the bit between my teeth I was going to start decorating a bedroom next week. Hopefully with a rest I can still do that. 

If not I'll read that ever increasing mountain of D&D books.

Bring on Autumn. The coolness, the water, the colours, the perfumes, the relief from this un-British heat and drought.

So next week we are thankfully forecast lower temperatures and rain. I read today our wonderful privatised water utilities haemorrhage billions of gallons; Thames Water alone 600 million gallons of water A DAY. We have the only privatised water companies in the world, and when they’re not pumping thousands of tons of raw sewage into our lovely rivers they’re awarding themselves and their shareholders millions of pounds in dividends. 

Makes ya proud, don’t it?

Think of the animals

Awful pictures of wildlife that have been killed by dehydration. I’ve got an insect water feeder coming today.

I get very depressed and sad about animals. We treat them so awfully. I still eat meat but I’m veering towards vegetarianism. With the passing days I like to think I would miss meat less and less.

I suspect this is to do with FTD - even though my empathy to humans is diminished I have heightened emotions. Especially towards maltreatment of children and animals.

Current Music and Media Tastes

I’m very much in a practical mode at the moment. I’m really not interested in reading D&D books (despite having bought yet another adventure book…).

What I’m currently into:

George Duke - Fusion

Banda Black Rio - 70s Brazilian funk

YouTube - barely watch it. Ditto Abba.

Samba makes me really happy - keeps my spirits up. It just has that vibrancy and vivacity that is absent from say, this.

Especially when George Duke plays it on Brazilian Love Affair. Don’t like the sloppy R&B stuff, but I do love the fusion!

It’s too much noodling for most. I love to be bombarded with it. I can’t get bored with it. 

As you were.

Arthur English

 Noise of female

I'm very noise-sensitive today. I couldn't do breakfast at all. Too much jaw-jaw. I just took myself off and wrote a long email to an old friend I'd recently got back in contact with, who lives in Sydney, Oz. He's a mason too and still going at 65.

It's good to be in contact with old friends and with modern communications the world seems a little smaller, and the people you want to call just a stone's throw away. It's the best thing about the 21st Century. So far.

There's now the huge dull throb of whatever it is they're using to build whatever it is they're building at the hospital behind us. It's awful. Goes through to the bones. The house feels it too, as it shakes away like an old auntie at a wedding party.

My noise-cancelling headphones aren't quite as effective as I'd like. Perhaps the next generation will be world-cancelling headphones. 

I guess they'd be more like a helmet though.

The End

J has told me not to read the papers so much as I get so wound up with it all. My brain churns it around - over and over and over like hot coals in a tumble dryer. I've always had this but it seems to be worse now with FTD.

It does seem like end-times at the moment. 

• The environment. 
• War in Europe (we were told this would never happen again after WW2 but for some reason people don't count what happened in the former Yugoslavia.) 
• China. 
• Price of fossil fuels
• Everything else.

And there are still people who are so far down the rabbit-hole they think we're the bad guys.

At least in the west we have the luxury of thinking we're the bad guys. You don't have the option of questioning the state in Russia or China without serious repercussions. 

Activities for the demented

Today I mowed the lawn for the first time in months (maybe years). It was quite easy. Now we can see the dog poos too. I also cleaned the patio which was still covered in Saharan dust after that weird rain a week or 2 ago. Looks better.

Geraint Davies, earlier today.

I am also going to clean the house as J's mother who is also called J (saves a lot of fuss and bother - I'm thinking of changing my name to J as well) is coming to stay with us. So I'll do that on Thursday as the tides of chaos will destroy my good work if it's done today.

And I need to sort out the window sill on the bay. It's actually not a single sill but a bunch of protruding bricks covered in sand and cement. Pretty crap for the Edwardians. I guess we were going downhill at that stage after the high-standards of the Victorians.

Aren't you glad you read all this? But it is important for us demented ones to have shit to do otherwise we atrophy much more quickly. A few tasks every day. This is why a lot of us get volunteering work or keep going as long as we can, reducing our hours as we progress.

The Rick Wakeman of Dungeons and Dragons

As the masterful prog keyboard wizard himself played 2 keyboards simultaneously, I have been running 2 D&D campaigns - not quite simultaneously - but 2 in one week. That's quite a challenge.

We're keeping the Sunday group small and manageable as things can get quite noisy and out of hand with more than 5 players. This group is focused and I am enjoying running the games very much. I'm really looking forward to Sunday. 

It's great to have these things in the diary that punctuate our week - rather like booking holidays or weekends away. It gives us hope.

An Apology

Having been told off by J for naming names and the possible repercussions thereof, I have now turned over a new leaf with a more diplomatic and considered approach to blog writing.

I tried to explain that should anyone come to the door with bad intentions I have first-rate weaponry and a foolproof method of body disposal. Unfortunately, this did little to assuage her. 

No pleasing some people.

Miserable Bastard

Annie get yer gun

My friend Annie is an excellent photographer and great businessperson. We live in close proximity but hadn’t seen each other since lockdown. We met up for a coffee and I cheekily asked her if she would put my blog site on her Facebook feed to her 1700-odd followers/friends.

My intention was quite selfish really. I want to get my blog out and get the numbers up. 

The reaction I got wasn’t what I expected. 

I wanted them to say how hilarious and brilliant it was. No.

People were very caring and kind. And also the numbers were quite small. 

I think part of the problem was the post they first hit on was the one previous to this, and it’s probably one of the least good (crap in other words) posts I’ve written.

I guess the other problem was people (myself included) don’t want to read stuff that will bring them down.

So in answer to the lovely compliments, I can provide the following reality check…

Sensitivity

Brave. No. I’m quite cowardly. Although when it comes down to it, instead of being a dribbling retard on a commode, give me a bullet to the head any day.

Journey Makes it sound like a noble cowboy on horseback wandering towards the sunset, like Alan Ladd at the end of Shane. It’s very romantic but the reality it’s more of piss-up in the wind.

Generous. Well, I buy my rounds and I’ll help people just as I would like to think they would help me. But in this context I think generous is the wrong word. I don’t think I’m being generous  - in fact I think calling me generous is being very generous indeed! 

I’m doing a blog as I’m quite good at writing, I find it easy, and it gives me something to do when I’m not working. Also, I don’t feel after my diagnosis I have anything to lose really, and any adulation is gratefully received. 

Quite selfish really.

Sorry to anybody reading this. But my diagnosis doesn’t make my motives or persona more noble. It’s just a thing I have and I write about it. I’m no better than you. Unless your name is Xxxxxx Xxxxxx..

FRONTAL-LOBE RANTING

Ukraine 

What brave people. What a great, principled president. 

And to those who have been apologists for enablers of Putin, I hope you feel ashamed. You are crypto fascists at best. 

'Useful Idiots' as Lenin used to call them.

These people are usually on the fringes of politics. On the right, Trump, Farage and Bannon who blame the European Union for antagonising poor Mr Putin, and on the left Diane Abbot, Jeremy Corbyn and Richard Burgon, who blame NATO for doing the same thing.

Liberty. And fuck Putin.

'Oh, he's no worse than our leaders.' I used to hear down the pub.

Well, he does happen to have his dissenters murdered. I'd say that was different for a start.

They don't call him the Demagogue of Democracy for nothing yet I've had Facebook 'friends' who thought he was great.

I de-friended them. Can't be bothered with people like that in my life.

More important is to NOT forget the people who are under his cosh at the moment. Celebrate their bravery and refusal to bow down to his murderous whim. Ordinary people attacked by military-might commanded by an international pariah for reasons of spurious imperial drivel.

Let's do all we can to help the Ukrainians.

Baron Harkonnen

The other day I went to see a George Duke tribute band. They were magnificent, playing Fusion which is one of my favourite forms of music. The keyboardist was really funny - like a little kid. He kept putting both thumbs up after we applauded - so un-rock and roll! What a player too - the feeling he had for his music was incredible.

The quiet parts of the music are not a green-light for drunk people to chat loudly. But that didn't stop the people in the front row.

Annoying person at George Duke tribute concert

I think you can tell this really annoys me - as much as people talking or on their phones at the cinema or people putting their feet up on a train seat. It's so inconsiderate. If you want to goof about loudly go back into the pub; don't spoil the concert for others.

An ex-girlfriend is a huge Stevie Wonder fan. She went to see him in Hyde Park and there were people talking all the way through it. She was incredulous. A living legend is playing live in front of you and you're talking about crap with your mates.

Anyway, the person who really annoyed me was sat in front, looked like the guy in the photo in a wig, ate with her mouth open and couldn't say please or thank you to the staff. 

Entitled witch.

Work sucks

I've got my 2 last jobs starting this Friday. I'm replacing some setbacks on some buttresses on a Church in Barnes - St Michael and All Angels.

Setbacks on a buttress

Set backs are the stones with angled, sloping fronts which allow water to cascade off. Quite a straightforward job and I'm doing it with my old mucker Fyfe, who will be leading the charge.

I won't be sorry to be leaving the profession. Most good tradesmen will tell you that the majority of contractors don't care at all about quality, and the standard of tradesmen these days is patchy. The reason people leave is because of the lack of quality control and the lack of appreciation for their efforts. 

About 3 years ago I worked on a project for a prestigious cemetery in London. The job was split between our contractor (I was subbing for them) and another contractor who had never done a job like this. The architect had never worked on a restoration project either. He was absolutely clueless, and had to be guided by experienced people in my contractors company in order to get through the process.

The other contractor had clearly never handled stone before (they couldn't believe the weight), used a cementitious repair mix on the stone which bled white everywhere and at the end got someone to hand-paint the grey cementitious mortar white to make it look like lime.

Both the architect and the other contractor won awards for their work. 

And that is why people leave.