just testing that video-file-transfer-workaround-doodah-thing

 

Some 5,000 videos are stored here (not all of them you want to see, that's for sure). Hat Lady called him the Surveillance Operative. You can never rest easy, huh?

Big Old Bad Bruiser Gets Haircut

 

Tough decision, to sever someone in their prime... but at least they're less likely to come smashing through the roof, come next storm.

'You have parked in: Oxford Parkway Car Park. You have paid for: Parkway Park and Ride Car Park' (Motorists beware: car parks at same site)

APCOA Private Parking. Kerching!!

''At the time the ANPR cameras observed your vehicle they noticed that it was parked without a valid payment and was therefore parked in breach of the terms and conditions of the car park. For this reason, a Parking Charge Notice was issued. It is the motorist’s responsibility to ensure they have a valid payment for the entire time that they are parked in the car park.Although we appreciate the points made in your appeal, you have provided evidence of a payment that is not for the car park in which you stayed. You have parked in the private railway car park: Oxford Parkway Car Park. This car park is for rail users only. However, you have paid for: Parkway Park and Ride Car Park/Water Eaton. This is a separate car park that is run by Oxfordshire Council and services the Park & Ride facility. Unfortunately, this payment is not valid for your parking session. All valid payment options are advertised on site. The signage within the car park informs drivers that a PCN will be issued if they fail to make a valid payment. As your vehicle was parked in contravention of the terms and conditions of the site we are satisfied that the notice was correctly issued in accordance with the BPA code of practice, and therefore not able to waiver the charge on this occasion.''

Feeling cynical

Like being in an abusive relationship. 

There's the spouse, lying from their back teeth, manipulating the context, double-tongued. Wanting to get something out of every relationship, they're always making sure the truth never comes out. Or, at least, they tell versions of 'truth'. Move a hand to lay on a withered heart and speak, with genuine, actual, tears, This is the Truth. 

Yes, Boris believes Truth himself. All the loyal people in his life (hello, Britain's valiant Tory voters!) move heaven and earth to justify, explain, excuse. He was ill before. He is ill now. He's had a baby! He's under medication. He's working. He didn't mean it. He meant something else. He has intention. We'll defend his finest feelings, duties, responsibilities. 

It's time to stop accommodating this shifting piece of maybe-once-was-man.

Really, we know what'll happen next. There are plenty of places in politics and business for liars to meet each other. A period of mourning then, Phoenix-like, he'll arise somewhere else; short-term hook up with some other noble cause, best if advantaged with power, influence and money. 

Then he can start Truth all over again.

Alternative Valentines

The people I've loved most, I've usually wanted to push them off a cliff.  

The ones who rouse my murderous id - they're the ones who get properly under a skin, electrically wired down to my fingerend nerve endings, pulsing into the emotional heartbeat to a life. 

They're the voice in the head and the drum beat telling me daybreak is here.

With them I laugh more than anyone else in the world; I listen to them, argue with them, tell them to shut up for a blasted minute while I'll defend their nonsense, their bizarre behaviour and their right to be bonkers, down to my last breath. 

I'll restore them, rebel against them, and turn my red blood into revenge for them.

It's contradictory, love, and on my Valentine's Day, unicorns don't appear. Neither do fairies, lovehearts, cute fluffy things with big eyes, and all the rest of the diamond sparkle spinning in the star-lit skies blah blah blah.

Love. In my world it's blood, guts, viscera. This had to be.

Liars, mocking the values we live by

Values? Just boring stuff, like decency, honesty, fair dealing. Not creeping around, lying, deceiving, saying cat when you really mean dog. 

But I suppose feeling in charge of the language you use makes you feel superior. Maybe we could all join them, yes? We could each be in charge of the interpretation of the words we use. We could say Yes when we mean No. We could say, I love you when we mean I don't love you, and we could say I care when we mean I don't care. 

If we did that, then we could laugh, too. We could laugh at our superior ability to trick, deceive, mock and belittle.

I'm not sure I want to join that tribe. To be honest, I want to find more constant values. I want to believe those values I find are shared by others. I don't want to join the smirking faces whose words you can never trust.

Johnson and each one of his tribe, I want to be honest to my response. I want to say to each of you, You're an absolute little shit. 

You do not represent the values I live by. Your deceit is not my shame. The shame is yours.

Knicker Notes Goes Exploring

 

A splendid Steampunk Convivial at Gloucester, where a lovely time was had by all. 

I showed great self-restraint and didn't come home with a portrait of myself as a spirit guide in the Netherworlds. (Maybe next time.)

Mine's got to be negative, so theirs can be positive

'Salma Hayek is dreadfully jetlagged, which is one of the perils of having homes around the world and frequently hopping between them. “Let me tell you about my craziness,” she says by video chat from her home in west London. “I’m here for less than a week, then I go back [to the US] for five days for my husband’s work, then I come back here for my work, then I go back to LA because I’m getting a star on the Hollywood Boulevard! It’s crazy,” she says. After this interview she has a fitting for dresses for various movie premieres.' *

Fitting in seamlessly with Cop 26, then. 

Salma Hayek, keeping good company with Boris Johnson, House of Windsor, and most others on this planet who maintain power, connections, plus spare cash in the bank for their Gold Card Air Travel.

My only conclusion - as I lower the thermostat and turn off the gas-fired boiler at 14 degrees, when I put on another jumper - is that I need to maintain a zero-negative footprint, so Salma, Johnson and Co can continue to enjoy their carbon-gobbling lifestyles, unimpeded by the concerns of mortals.

What's to be done? Apart from boycotting Eternals and cringing over the gushing prose of adoration. Time for this style of journalism to go, and a more critical approach to come in.

As in, this newspaper could start supplying me with joined-up information. At the end of the article, I want a rating scale on these objects of adoration - how many planets does Salma need to keep going? What's the carbon footprint of Eternals? Ask the obvious question - Given The Guardian is elsewhere reporting on our climate crisis - how many homes around the world do you really need, Salma?

* Journalism at The Guardian, Wed 3 Nov 2021. Hadley Freeman, probably captivated by all the twinkling.

How Victorian can you get?

Continuing the plan to evade responsibility, discover my wild child, and live out the back of a van, come and get the Victorian note in your dining experience. It's at my gaffe, waiting for you.

Screw expander patented by Joseph Fitter, 1864. Crank handle works, original casters, lovely brass frills. Add candelabra and fireplace. Christmas sorted. 

 

 

105cm x 105cm without the additional leaf of 40cm. Height 72cm. £175, no courier cost if you're local, because we'll carry it round for free. Otherwise, we'll figure it out between us.

 If you want to come and see it, send me a message. Sadly, becoming rarer! Personally I think there should be a protected space for mechanical furniture. 

 Hopefully, we'll find that space at your house.

 

PS to the official inheritors. It's not the big one. That one is still your problem.

Buy a pair of Eames style swivel chairs

 

They're up at Black Phone Vintage Etsy shop, and I'd have them myself if I had the space. 

 As it is, I'm renting out my space so I can go and live in my lovely new micro camper van.

(Ladies who live in vans cannot take with them any pre-loved furnishings.)

What I'm hearing

'I can't answer these difficult questions, so I'm going to try and wriggle off the hook by saying, 'you have no right to ask me these difficult questions'.

And of course I'm sorry. That I was caught.

Obviously I'm not sorry for having an affair. I felt quite pleased with myself about how clever I was, looking down the corridor before having a grope. I could outwit anyone, clearly. And I bet I can outwit you by saying, 'it's personal'.

Yes, I can live with deceit. Lying to my kids, to my wife, to my employer, deceiving the public and lying to anyone who asks a tricky question is fine in my moral world. Just because my moral code is not the same as yours doesn't mean mine is wrong.

Now you need to stop asking me difficult questions because it is bad for your mental health. It will be bad for you if you ask me any more questions. You will put everything at risk and make a mess of everything and it will be All Your Fault.

So what if I put my mistress in a career position so I could carry on my affair in public while pretending I wasn't? Which man in a position of power wouldn't do that? The fact that I can do it just shows you how powerful and clever I am.

And everyone else should take some blame. I didn't take advantage of anyone. It's not like she was a student wanting help with an essay.

Anyway, it's all a question of semantics. If I wanted my mistress close so we could have sex whenever we wanted and then some snoop became suspicious about late nights closed up together in a hotel room, we could say it was work. Work, work work. It's just a word which has a specific meaning if, like me, you're having an affair.'

Thanks, Matt Hancock.

How orange is my Fungi

 

Froth me up!

 

A Baby ate a Curry and This Happened

 

My new kitchen wall colour. Not up for negotiation and no compromise.

Thank you Peepah, for everything.

Bookshelves at Knicker Drawer Note Books

 

 

 

Here. With fakery, truth, madness, revenge, joy, curiosity, mortality, despair, love, forgiveness, brutality, revenge, bravery, honesty, humanity, resentment, kindness, determination, wonder, graciousness, resolution, thoughtfulness, steadfastness, memory, sacrifice, poison. It's a life.

Salvage from the local skip

 

Another freakin' makeover

Mezzanine floor, supported by scaffolding (expensive) and original Victorian cast iron drain pipes (cheap, from the scrap yard).

Copper tank, thank you Peepah!

Column, painted up, waiting for the place of its abode (watch that space, literally, in the pit).

Beautiful little window on the upper floor, with shutter, overdesigned in Steampunk style. Metal framed window rescued from a pile destined for the tip. Little lock works beautifully. I'm told it came from an outhouse. (Freecycle at its best, I'd say.)

Rrrraaahhh! With many thanks to Mr M and Mr R for sharing ideas, creative processes, thoughts, whimsies, and everyday laughter. I've not taken a welding course and have not yet had a go with the angle grinder, so much yet to learn. 

Still to come: more painting, table, sink, suspended bed, suspended sofa, swing (possibly), toilet, Belfast sink (thank you Freecycle), copper tank table, shower, lighting, solar heated water store, stove, outdoor dining area...
 

From dump space to work shop

I want to be in a place which tells me what it is to be human. A place which is made up, unique, bolted together; a place which shows its resourcefulness, wit and craft. 

I want to feel a playfulness at every point. I want to be invited to linger here, to touch, be curious, laugh. Flick a switch and see what happens. I want a space which is for ever a wondering space. What is this for? What could be?

I need a place which is honest, true to itself, unashamed of rough edges, scars, slips of the saw and wobbly location of the drill. I need to track the bone structure and neural pathway; I want to know how one thing connects to another along textures, threads, lengths, lines of light.

I want to reject the fancy layers that conceal and deceive. I need to know how my place does not disguise how it is held together. I want to see it revealed, straightforward in its declaration of itself, unconcerned with superficial coverings of smooth walls and oh-so-very nice floors.

I want a place that uses what we have, the material objects buried in the ground, scavenged and scrounged. The chains pulled from the earth and the metal walkway discarded in a pile of scrap; the door thrown away and the wood salvaged from the tip.

I want a place which uses all of itself, from top to bottom, side to side. Let no place be hidden from exploration. Let no corner be a place that we hurry from, or neglect, or draw over a curtain and shudder. I want to see it all.

I want a space for day and night to come to play. Where the light arrives, suddenly, strongly and sharply. But departs in a snap. You wonder what happened to fade and shadow. You can find those curving shapes in grey tones and slips of drawn grey, but then you'll be startled with the black and white, sharp and bright, so you'll need to keep your curiosity alive as you examine every part.

I want a place that stitches together our connections to the past to the present-day maker's marks filled with thoughts of the future. People made this place happen before, using hard tools and rough hands and steady thought; their respect and care for the day's work and what could be made in the future. And we make it happen, each day we pick up a sanding block, a power tool, a cloth rag to wipe away the dust.

And this space must be raw-edged, but warm: I want the cold wind to shoot through, but I want heavy fabric drapes and rough, warm textures too. I want the tingling chill of cold water and the luxury of hot water at the dip of your toes.

We're keeping those design values as we go. And slowly, bit by bit, day by day, it's taking shape.