Journal Entries
Nipper Observations: Black Shuck, Black Shuck, that iPod don't give a... (9 in a series)
Posted Apr 26, 2007
Eldest nipper got an iPod for Christmas. He spent a few months just putting the odd bit of stuff on it as you do when you're a kid.
Meantime me and the missus have been ripping a back-catalogue of 15 years of cds, and I haven't even begun to think what to do about the 10+ years of vinyl from before that. (Blimey, if I've got over 25 years of music, how old does that make me? No need to answer that.)
A few things come together at this point:
Eldest nipper has just noticed all the other mp3s on the pc. I say 'noticed' - he always knew they were there, but has just hit that age where he's realised that there's a whole world of stuff out there. So, over the weekend he whacked the entire contents of our iTunes library onto his iPod. He's also aware that in the past when he's asked me or the missus what we want put on the cd player that I've steered clear of The Darkness when the nippers - particularly youngest nipper - are about.
So eldest nipper phones up tonight and the conversation goes like this:
Eldest Nipper: "I've got The Darkness on my iPod. Can I listen to it?"
Paff: "Erm, well, the thing is, there are a few questionable tracks on there, and, erm ..."
EN: "There won't be anything I haven't heard before."
P: "Yeah, you're probably right. Hmmm. Let me have a think."
So, thing is, I don't want to make a fuss, and he is 13 next week, but do I wan't him listening to 'Black Shuck', and, in particular, 'Get Your Hands Off My Woman'?
Hmmm.
Paff
Discuss this Journal entry [7]
Latest reply: Apr 26, 2007
Creative streak
Posted Apr 19, 2007
Ooh. My creative streak might be back. I've been struggling to put pen to paper all year (except for a mad half hour back in Feb), but now - right now - I'm simultaneously:
writing up another F1 track for my uni project, knocking out the opening para of an entry on GP2 for PR, tweaking something I found lying around from 5 years ago that I might just pop into the AWW, evolving more than just the beginnings of the sequel to 'The (other) day Princess Anne Survived' which will be fictional in part (and I've never written fiction before), realising that there's nothing in the least bit wrong with a short poem I wrote 6 months ago and wondering if I can remember the sign-in details of my hootoo poetry writing alter-ego, starting a bit of personal narrative that might go some way to explaining the mysterious deaths of a not insignificant number of rock musicians over the past 3 decades.
Problem is, I fear I might lose the plot, or just plain explode. [no, I didn't think there'd be one of those]
Should I just focus one of the above (and which one)? Or should I continue typing up a paragraph here, scribbling down a sentence there, saying stuff out loud everywhere...?
And will just stopping to write this cause it all to dry up and go horribly wrong?
Quick, post, no time to preview.Paff
Discuss this Journal entry [10]
Latest reply: Apr 19, 2007
Looking out a dirty old window
Posted Apr 11, 2007
9 months ago I started writing a journal entry entitled 'Looking _at_ a dirty old window'. It never saw the light of day. The point of it was going to be this:
I'd just moved into a squeaky-clean apartment in Jersey (for the weekdays, anyway). Opposite was a disused skanky old building - with dirty old windows - that was in such a poor state of repair that regularly people walking past would stop and stare and point and contemplate how it could still be standing. I would watch this going on from across the road in the comfort of my aforementioned squeaky-clean apartment.
(Boring, I know, which is why I never wrote it up).
9 months later...
The building with the dirty old windows is being demolished. It was 5 storeys high before Easter. It was 3 storeys high on the Tuesday after. It is 1 and a half today. The dirty old windows have all been knocked out, and I guess it won't be long before yet another squeaky-clean apartment block turns up in its place.
Meanwhile, I've not washed _my_ windows in 9 months, and although I live in hope, the there doesn't appear to be a window cleaner doing the rounds.
So now I'm "looking _out_ a dirty old window", and, on account of the building opposite being knocked down, I can now see that "down below the cars in the city go rushing by".
(Still boring, I know, but at least there's some kind of point to it).Paff
Discuss this Journal entry [8]
Latest reply: Apr 11, 2007
Dog Observations: The back door (2 in a series)
Posted Jan 25, 2007
It's all about routine with dogs:
When I go out and play with the dog, we go out the back door. We play in the garden. We chase the frisbee. We run round the house. Stuff like that... Routine. When I feed him, I take him out for quick wee first, and we go out the side door. It's usually around the same time each day. Then we come in. He gets a bit excited. He sits down. I get the food out. He waits. He waits. He eats... Routine.
So what happens if, for once, I take the dog out the _back_ door for his quick wee before dinner? Well, he goes loopy: It's the back door, which means we're going to run about, aren't we? But it's just before dinner, so we're coming straight back in to get excited and sit down and wait for our food, aren't we?
So he does both things. Runs round in a circle, comes straight back and sits down to come in, then runs round in a circle, then comes straight back, then runs round...
Me and the missus almost wet ourselves laughing. The dog almost wet himself with the excitement.Paff
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Latest reply: Jan 25, 2007
You callin' me a gypsy?
Posted Jan 25, 2007
[Back on hootoo after a month off]
The diocese want their house back. So Paff the gypsy is on the move again.
Whichever way you put the statistics, it looks fairly hideous. Pick any one, they're all true:
This'll be the Paff family's 3rd house move in 15 months. That's an average of one move every 5 months. We're moving into our 4th house in Devon since we got here less than 3 years ago. We've had 5 Devon houses if you count the one we bought but never lived in. We're moving for the 6th time in 3 and a half years.
So, is it getting a bit tedious? Oh yes. And it ain't cheap either. But hey, there are advantages to moving every six months or so: You get to know exactly what's in the loft:
I was so confident about where the Christmas decorations were this year, I didn't even go up there myself, I sent eldest nipper up and he found them straight off. You get a chance to ditch the stuff you never needed anyway:
We aquired a very long ladder off our neighbours 8 houses ago (6 years ago). I used it once. Moved it about with us until last summer when I left it in the barn along with some acro-props, about 30ft of copper pipe, maybe 100 quids worth of plastic guttering and a couple of plasterer's platforms. You get a chance to ditch the stuff you _really_ never needed anyway:
We aquired an oven off a friend of a friend 8 houses ago. We never used it. Till we got where we are now, where the diocese don't provide an oven. It's rubbish. We're going to leave it for the next vicar.
So anyway. Paff the gypsy is on the move again. Give it six months and I'll be at it again.Paff
Discuss this Journal entry [16]
Latest reply: Jan 25, 2007
aGuyCalledPaff
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