It was not until I did my Christmas shopping yesterday that I realised what a big hole Woolies will leave in the High Street. It is a serious inconvenience. There was a massive branch on Rye Lane here in Peckham. The Chernobyl branch of the People's Revolutionary and Victorious Grocery probably looks better stocked and maintained this month.
What will fill its space both literally and figuratively? Surely Peckham cannot handle another afro hairdresser, butcher, international money transferer, luggage vendor, mobile phone unlocking specialist or pound shop even if they do finally amalgamate all of these industries under one roof (and a lot of the shops on Rye Lane already come close). Of all the big chains in the Woolies bracket, Rye Lane probably has them all already. There's a Greggs, an Argos, a Morrison's, a Clark's Factory Shop, a McDonald's, a massive KFC and Peckham already possess branches of the Three for a Tenners; Netto, Lidl and Aldi.
Given those firms represent the high end of the Rye Lane retail experience, it is unlikely that Marks & Spencer are going to replicate their woeful Camberwell branch here and I think it is safe to say little interest has been taken in the site by Selfridge's, Harvey Nicholls or Harrods.
There is also the problem of where to go now for cheap stuff. By stuff, I mean absolutely everything under the Sun. Where do you go now if you want to buy plastic boxes that neither provide a home to smuggled cockroach carcasses nor cost the same as what your intuition tells you you should be paying for something ovenproof? Where do you now go for Christmas crackers that will not have to suffice as somebody's main present due to budget constraints and yet will not contain scraps of radioactive barbed wire? In fact, everything, barring fresh food, you could probably get at Woolies for cheaper than any other major chain and yet of better quality than at a pound shop. Yet, over the last ten years whilst credit card firms were willing to give a £50,000 Gold Card to your pet cat as long as there was a signature on the form reading Herbert T. Cat, too many people swapped looking for value for the dunderheaded tactic of waving a bit of plastic around in an attempt to keep up with the Beckhams. Buffoons across the country could dribble away the thought of debts the size of Jupiter in front of a 98 inch plasma tanning machine that required the wall it hung from to be reinforced.
Woolies had a niche which makes it even stranger that it has gone out of business. Is that not what they always say in business books - find a niche? Is that not the key to untold riches? Poundland is still too pikey and randomly stocked to step up to the plate and yet all the other big firms think themselves in the aspirational bracket and charge accordingly.
What I will miss the most about Woolies though is that it was the home of the bargain. Some of my greatest CD purchases were form Woolies. The music was cheap enough to take a punt on and so one winter's Saturday in Chatham High Street, I gambled on a Velvet Underground album, a Philly Soul compilation and a Motown compilation. I still play the last two over ten years later and the Velvet Underground album eventually found a loving owner better suited to tend its needs. In the words of Meat Loaf, two out of three ain't bad. It is only thanks to Woolies aggressive discounting that I could have taken a gamble where a 67% success ratio would be satisfactory in the days when all I had to rely on was the pittance paid for, in the words of that other ancient rock act, Dire Straits, moving refrigerators and colour TVs around the Rochester branch of Comet.
In an era when it is possible that a lot more of us could end up in jobs we thought we had waved goodbye to after school and on similar wages, who is going to step in and fill the almighty black hole left by Woolies?
Tuesday 16 December 2008
Monday 8 December 2008
Mugs who spent money in Lapland New Forest deserve no sympathy. For a start, the naming formula for the place is the same as that given by yuppie flat developers to unfashionable parts of London to make their concrete dorm boxes seem somehow an essential part of London's funky fabric despite the fact that, by dint of being thrown up at the end of City airport's runway they have a shorter commuting time to Frankfurt than the West End and all the local bus routes start with a letter, they are about as far removed from beating-heart-of-the-metropolis cool as Alperton is from Mont Blanc. You know there's a weak product behind a place where the syntax is the only thing they can mangle to make the place sound attractive.
Also, let us not forget that these families will now have anecdotes that will last them Christmases to come. As Shakespeare would have written had he set Henry V on an estate of two or three bedroom starter homes with easy access to out-of-town supermarkets and tansport links,
This day is call'd Saturday, 29th of November.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Lapland New Forest.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is 29th November.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had when Dad headbutted an elf and security kicked off.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall the attractions,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Lapland Snow Scene, the emaciated huskies,
Sheds and tents, snow spray and Fake Santa-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And a Christmas shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that shells out thirty sheets with me plus an extra tenner to get a photo with Santa
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now at Alton Towers
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their crackers cheap whiles any speaks
That fought the elves in trainers with us upon 29th November.
Nobody wants to hear about perfect Christmases. However, who would not want to hear about the year we saw a plastic polar bear in the attack position, paid £5 to go into a tent masquerading as a Christmas market but only sold £1 rolls of wrapping paper, saw elves smoking and texting their mates and saw Mummy run over an elf with a pram when the elf tried to charge her extra for a photo after a four hour queue to get into Santa's shed? Lapland New Forest wasn't a rip-off, it was a thirty pound investment in years worth of comedy gold to be recounted at every Christmas from now until eternity. Frankly, you can keep your "Gavin and Stacey" DVD gift packs.
As such, I will be running my own Easter Fair here in London. In the interests of transport access, I will be using the railway arches underneath Peckham Rye station. Although they may look like dodgy cut-and-shut mechanic workshops, they are in fact, the enchanted warren of the Easter Bunny. Your mewling horde will marvel as they see real live rabbits dressed in ballerina costumes suspended from the ceiling, I mean, flying as if by magic, throughout the warren. There will be a traditional Easter Market selling traditional spoiled goods from the Netto on Rye Lane (entry costs extra), "classic" Easter music (Oasis, Kaiser Chiefs, Ne-Yo) will sound throughout the mystical warren and finally, guided by local children (all armed to the teeth, with criminal records longer than an Emerson, Lake and Palmer live recording and wearing traditional South London Easter costumes - Nike tracksuits) visitors will be able to meet the Easter Bunny himself. Visitors should not be discouraged by the smell of marijuana or doner kebab on the Easter Bunny's costume, nor should his notoriously short temper deter children from queueing overnight for the chance to spend an extra £20 on a low resolution photo with our magical furry friend and a dented creme egg. Come one, come all.
Also, let us not forget that these families will now have anecdotes that will last them Christmases to come. As Shakespeare would have written had he set Henry V on an estate of two or three bedroom starter homes with easy access to out-of-town supermarkets and tansport links,
This day is call'd Saturday, 29th of November.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Lapland New Forest.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is 29th November.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had when Dad headbutted an elf and security kicked off.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall the attractions,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Lapland Snow Scene, the emaciated huskies,
Sheds and tents, snow spray and Fake Santa-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And a Christmas shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that shells out thirty sheets with me plus an extra tenner to get a photo with Santa
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now at Alton Towers
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their crackers cheap whiles any speaks
That fought the elves in trainers with us upon 29th November.
Nobody wants to hear about perfect Christmases. However, who would not want to hear about the year we saw a plastic polar bear in the attack position, paid £5 to go into a tent masquerading as a Christmas market but only sold £1 rolls of wrapping paper, saw elves smoking and texting their mates and saw Mummy run over an elf with a pram when the elf tried to charge her extra for a photo after a four hour queue to get into Santa's shed? Lapland New Forest wasn't a rip-off, it was a thirty pound investment in years worth of comedy gold to be recounted at every Christmas from now until eternity. Frankly, you can keep your "Gavin and Stacey" DVD gift packs.
As such, I will be running my own Easter Fair here in London. In the interests of transport access, I will be using the railway arches underneath Peckham Rye station. Although they may look like dodgy cut-and-shut mechanic workshops, they are in fact, the enchanted warren of the Easter Bunny. Your mewling horde will marvel as they see real live rabbits dressed in ballerina costumes suspended from the ceiling, I mean, flying as if by magic, throughout the warren. There will be a traditional Easter Market selling traditional spoiled goods from the Netto on Rye Lane (entry costs extra), "classic" Easter music (Oasis, Kaiser Chiefs, Ne-Yo) will sound throughout the mystical warren and finally, guided by local children (all armed to the teeth, with criminal records longer than an Emerson, Lake and Palmer live recording and wearing traditional South London Easter costumes - Nike tracksuits) visitors will be able to meet the Easter Bunny himself. Visitors should not be discouraged by the smell of marijuana or doner kebab on the Easter Bunny's costume, nor should his notoriously short temper deter children from queueing overnight for the chance to spend an extra £20 on a low resolution photo with our magical furry friend and a dented creme egg. Come one, come all.
Tuesday 2 December 2008
A lot of articles about London dig up quotations about the city from great literary figures of old. It is almost as hackneyed a method of starting a piece as the infamous dictionary definition which was a great trick in primary school as it made you look scholarly and provided a good excuse to leave the class room and roam the corridors "looking for a dictionary." You would think though, that by the time you got to the stage where you were judged to be so good a writer that people paid you to do it, you would be slightly more resourceful. After all, you wouldn't go to the doctor's and expect them still to prescribe Calpol for every ailment from the sniffles to bowel cancer.
Some of the best descriptions of London though are overheard from everyday Londoners. Two that have stuck in my mind were of that ilk. What is best about them is that they say a lot about the mentality of the people that trotted them out. Thus they give you a sense of place with a bonus of resident. After all, what would London, or any city, be without its population.
A recent favourite, my friend heard someone describe their house as a "1930's semi with a tudor feel." The 1930s semi describes vast swathes of London. It is probably far more representative of a London that Londoners occupy than the gherkin, Belgravia mansions or the Barbican. What was great about the quote though was the shameless reinterpretation of that other most English of design concepts, the mock tudor. What is a "tudor feel" after all? Do the vast kitchens have their own postal disctrict? Is there a maze on the front lawn? Does a guild meet at the serving hatch? No, of course not. The homeowner is trying to tread a fine line. On the one side is her "shame" of admitting to living in a mock tudor house which she feels would classify her as a plumber in a tracksuit. On the other, she is briefing everyone what to expect if they come round so they can't leave the house gossiping viciously about how she didn't mention the black beams and whitewash on the front wall and that she's no better than a plumber in a tracksuit. Simultaneously, she is also trying to engage in that activity that the stunningly mediocre do to get anywhere in the status race: talking up her game. What an informed purchase this particular item was. Why, there must be only a few hundred thousand examples left between Chislehurst and Eltham. What canny ablity to find such a gem. If she had a rusty Ford Escort van in the driveway, would she describe this as an "proto-sports utility vehicle with a seasoned aesthetic"?
A similar favourite of mine was a woman advertising a room in her flat on the company's internal bulletin board where I worked at the time. She described the place as being in "Limehouse Village." It is one thing when estate agents stick quarter or village or quays on to the end of a name like Gasworks, Hangman's or Dungheap but when the residents start doing it too, it is a bad business. What scenes can the Limehouse villager expect to see in this delightful rural idyll? Is that an ancient coaching inn I see before me that has been open since all of England had its first Tudor feel? Is that the local parson cycling merrily past the green waving at the local cricket XI as the birds chirp in the trees only disturbed by the occasional thwack of willow upon leather and the subsequent gentle ripple of applause? Could that be the village postman chatting happily away to the loveable old lady who lives alone in the seven hundred year-old New Cottage who knew his father when he was the village postie and his father's father before that? No, its a Victorian slum with a dock in the middle dotted with the identikit sterile yuppy flats.
Some of the best descriptions of London though are overheard from everyday Londoners. Two that have stuck in my mind were of that ilk. What is best about them is that they say a lot about the mentality of the people that trotted them out. Thus they give you a sense of place with a bonus of resident. After all, what would London, or any city, be without its population.
A recent favourite, my friend heard someone describe their house as a "1930's semi with a tudor feel." The 1930s semi describes vast swathes of London. It is probably far more representative of a London that Londoners occupy than the gherkin, Belgravia mansions or the Barbican. What was great about the quote though was the shameless reinterpretation of that other most English of design concepts, the mock tudor. What is a "tudor feel" after all? Do the vast kitchens have their own postal disctrict? Is there a maze on the front lawn? Does a guild meet at the serving hatch? No, of course not. The homeowner is trying to tread a fine line. On the one side is her "shame" of admitting to living in a mock tudor house which she feels would classify her as a plumber in a tracksuit. On the other, she is briefing everyone what to expect if they come round so they can't leave the house gossiping viciously about how she didn't mention the black beams and whitewash on the front wall and that she's no better than a plumber in a tracksuit. Simultaneously, she is also trying to engage in that activity that the stunningly mediocre do to get anywhere in the status race: talking up her game. What an informed purchase this particular item was. Why, there must be only a few hundred thousand examples left between Chislehurst and Eltham. What canny ablity to find such a gem. If she had a rusty Ford Escort van in the driveway, would she describe this as an "proto-sports utility vehicle with a seasoned aesthetic"?
A similar favourite of mine was a woman advertising a room in her flat on the company's internal bulletin board where I worked at the time. She described the place as being in "Limehouse Village." It is one thing when estate agents stick quarter or village or quays on to the end of a name like Gasworks, Hangman's or Dungheap but when the residents start doing it too, it is a bad business. What scenes can the Limehouse villager expect to see in this delightful rural idyll? Is that an ancient coaching inn I see before me that has been open since all of England had its first Tudor feel? Is that the local parson cycling merrily past the green waving at the local cricket XI as the birds chirp in the trees only disturbed by the occasional thwack of willow upon leather and the subsequent gentle ripple of applause? Could that be the village postman chatting happily away to the loveable old lady who lives alone in the seven hundred year-old New Cottage who knew his father when he was the village postie and his father's father before that? No, its a Victorian slum with a dock in the middle dotted with the identikit sterile yuppy flats.
Tuesday 25 November 2008
East Dulwich Forum: General
A personal tribute to my favourite local website.
Posted by: ThreadBear
At: 07:56
Morning all, just wondering what really gets on people's nerves out there.
For me, I can't stand non-Heinz baked beans. When Mrs. Bear buys Somerfield beans, I chuck them straight in the bin. ROFL :)))))
Posted by: DulwichDerek
At: 08:00
Three-wheel off-road pushchairs blocking Lo9rdship Lane. No wonder there's so many roadworks. >;()
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 08:01
Dishonesty.
Anyone seen my wife? Curvaceous 35 year-old last seen at my house night before last.
Posted by: Smiffy12
At: 08:01
Kiddie porn or nonces.
Scum.
Posted by: Webinator12
At 08:02
JeffyT, she's at my house. Like she said last night on the phone, she'll be round later to explain everything. Please don't air on public forum. Undignified.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 08:46
Offered: Large selection of women's clothes. Size: tubby.
Please collect from 56, Lyndhurst Way - front garden.
Posted by: Webinator12
At: 08:48
Come on, mate. No need. Let's be adults.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 08:49
COMMENT REMOVED BY MODERATOR.
Posted by: Cyberkitten23
At: 09:01
How tubby?
Posted by: Alexxfromhernehill
At: 09:02
Anyone been to The Gowlett? What's it like? Have heard good pizzas.
Posted by: Cyberkitten23
At: 09:07
How tubby, JeffyT?
Posted by: Moderator
At: 09:10
JeffyT, please mind your language. Family forum.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:11
Moderator, or should I say, Sarah. ¿Cómo estuvo la clase de español con mi mujer anoche?
Posted by: Moderator
At: 09:12
Come on, Jeff. We can deal with this another way. Hope you can understand the alibi. You need to speak to Michelle tonight when you get home form work.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:14
COMMENT REMOVED BY MODERATOR.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:15
¡Manche estar puta!
Posted by: Cyberkitten23
At: 09:15
JeffyT - I am a size 14. Would they fit me or am I too small? Am about 5ft6.
Posted by: CarbonPrint
At: 09:16
Morning all.
Posted by: Peckhamused
At: 09:18
Morning CarbonPrint
Posted by: Endpoverty
At: 09:20
Morning. I hate bendy buses and dog mess.
Posted by: ThreadBear
At: 09:21
JeffyT, sorry for your loss but this is an East Dulwich Forum. if you live on Lyndhurst, perhaps you should use a Peckham forum.
Posted by: Peckhamused
At: 09:23
Roadworks on Lordship lane. Grrrr.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:25
Also offered, wedding ring. one careful male owner. Not worth much, hence giving away.
Posted by: LadyM
At: 09:27
Jeff, come on. Grow up. This won't help.
Posted by: Webinator12
At: 09:29
Jeez, come on Michelle, you said you wouldn't get involved.
Posted by: LadyM
At: 09:30
Stay out of it, Tony.
Posted by JeffyT66
At: 09:30
Stay out of it, Tony.
Posted by: CarbonPrint
At: 09:31
Great pizzas at Gowlett. Good boozer.
Posted by: ThreadBear
At: 09:32
Isn't The Gowlett more Peckham way? East Dulwich only, please!
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:33
How could you, you bitch? 12 years down the tubes. With him!!???!??!?!?!!?!
Posted by: LadyM
At: 09:35
I'm so sorry it has to be this way, Jeff. Will pick up Jack and Louisa from school and they'll be staying with me.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:36
!!!!
Posted by: LadyM
At: 09:37
It is 4 best.
Posted by: Alexxfromhernehill
At: 09:38
Thanks CarbonPrint. Will go tonight. Pizza - yum!
Sorry to hear about problem JeffyT and LadyM, Hope all works out for best.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:38
The kids are staying at home! Final!
Posted by: JeffyT66
At:09:39
Thx Alexxfromhernehill. Perhaps we could go for a drink at The Gowlett sometime.
Posted by: LadyM
At: 09:42
Grow up.
Posted by: Alexxfromhernehill
At: 09:45
I'm probably a bit male fo your liking JeffyT66 but flattered. :))
Posted by: CarbonPrint
At: 09:48
Ha ha ha ha.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 11:45
Michelle, your boyfriend is outside my house. Please remove before I call police.
Posted by: LadyM
At: 11:48
WTF?!?!
Posted by: Webinator12
At: 11:50
Looked like rain, came to collect your clothes from front lawn.
**Sent from my Blackberry**
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 11:52
he has 3 minutes to get lost. Or I'm going out there myself. He's trespassing. I'll shove that f*****g Blackberry somewhere painful.
Posted by: LadyM
At: 11:53
Tony, just go home. Doesn't matter about clothes. Jeff is serious.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 11:55
Right, he had his chance...
Posted by: LadyM
At: 11:55
What's going on? Tony, answer your mobes.
Posted by: Webinator12
At: 11:55
klajshgfdijksghh9387y2r7tfgocn- 98shw292s
**Sent from my Blackberry**
Posted by: LadyM
At: 11:57
Tony, answer phone!!!
Posted by: Cyberkitten23
At: 12:01
JeffT, I can come and get clothes evening. Can I have ring too? Am near Lyndhurst Way, can collect anytime.
Anyone in area now? Anyone know what all those police sirens and ambulances were for??? Teen stabbings?
Posted by: ThreadBear
At: 07:56
Morning all, just wondering what really gets on people's nerves out there.
For me, I can't stand non-Heinz baked beans. When Mrs. Bear buys Somerfield beans, I chuck them straight in the bin. ROFL :)))))
Posted by: DulwichDerek
At: 08:00
Three-wheel off-road pushchairs blocking Lo9rdship Lane. No wonder there's so many roadworks. >;()
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 08:01
Dishonesty.
Anyone seen my wife? Curvaceous 35 year-old last seen at my house night before last.
Posted by: Smiffy12
At: 08:01
Kiddie porn or nonces.
Scum.
Posted by: Webinator12
At 08:02
JeffyT, she's at my house. Like she said last night on the phone, she'll be round later to explain everything. Please don't air on public forum. Undignified.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 08:46
Offered: Large selection of women's clothes. Size: tubby.
Please collect from 56, Lyndhurst Way - front garden.
Posted by: Webinator12
At: 08:48
Come on, mate. No need. Let's be adults.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 08:49
COMMENT REMOVED BY MODERATOR.
Posted by: Cyberkitten23
At: 09:01
How tubby?
Posted by: Alexxfromhernehill
At: 09:02
Anyone been to The Gowlett? What's it like? Have heard good pizzas.
Posted by: Cyberkitten23
At: 09:07
How tubby, JeffyT?
Posted by: Moderator
At: 09:10
JeffyT, please mind your language. Family forum.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:11
Moderator, or should I say, Sarah. ¿Cómo estuvo la clase de español con mi mujer anoche?
Posted by: Moderator
At: 09:12
Come on, Jeff. We can deal with this another way. Hope you can understand the alibi. You need to speak to Michelle tonight when you get home form work.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:14
COMMENT REMOVED BY MODERATOR.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:15
¡Manche estar puta!
Posted by: Cyberkitten23
At: 09:15
JeffyT - I am a size 14. Would they fit me or am I too small? Am about 5ft6.
Posted by: CarbonPrint
At: 09:16
Morning all.
Posted by: Peckhamused
At: 09:18
Morning CarbonPrint
Posted by: Endpoverty
At: 09:20
Morning. I hate bendy buses and dog mess.
Posted by: ThreadBear
At: 09:21
JeffyT, sorry for your loss but this is an East Dulwich Forum. if you live on Lyndhurst, perhaps you should use a Peckham forum.
Posted by: Peckhamused
At: 09:23
Roadworks on Lordship lane. Grrrr.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:25
Also offered, wedding ring. one careful male owner. Not worth much, hence giving away.
Posted by: LadyM
At: 09:27
Jeff, come on. Grow up. This won't help.
Posted by: Webinator12
At: 09:29
Jeez, come on Michelle, you said you wouldn't get involved.
Posted by: LadyM
At: 09:30
Stay out of it, Tony.
Posted by JeffyT66
At: 09:30
Stay out of it, Tony.
Posted by: CarbonPrint
At: 09:31
Great pizzas at Gowlett. Good boozer.
Posted by: ThreadBear
At: 09:32
Isn't The Gowlett more Peckham way? East Dulwich only, please!
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:33
How could you, you bitch? 12 years down the tubes. With him!!???!??!?!?!!?!
Posted by: LadyM
At: 09:35
I'm so sorry it has to be this way, Jeff. Will pick up Jack and Louisa from school and they'll be staying with me.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:36
!!!!
Posted by: LadyM
At: 09:37
It is 4 best.
Posted by: Alexxfromhernehill
At: 09:38
Thanks CarbonPrint. Will go tonight. Pizza - yum!
Sorry to hear about problem JeffyT and LadyM, Hope all works out for best.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 09:38
The kids are staying at home! Final!
Posted by: JeffyT66
At:09:39
Thx Alexxfromhernehill. Perhaps we could go for a drink at The Gowlett sometime.
Posted by: LadyM
At: 09:42
Grow up.
Posted by: Alexxfromhernehill
At: 09:45
I'm probably a bit male fo your liking JeffyT66 but flattered. :))
Posted by: CarbonPrint
At: 09:48
Ha ha ha ha.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 11:45
Michelle, your boyfriend is outside my house. Please remove before I call police.
Posted by: LadyM
At: 11:48
WTF?!?!
Posted by: Webinator12
At: 11:50
Looked like rain, came to collect your clothes from front lawn.
**Sent from my Blackberry**
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 11:52
he has 3 minutes to get lost. Or I'm going out there myself. He's trespassing. I'll shove that f*****g Blackberry somewhere painful.
Posted by: LadyM
At: 11:53
Tony, just go home. Doesn't matter about clothes. Jeff is serious.
Posted by: JeffyT66
At: 11:55
Right, he had his chance...
Posted by: LadyM
At: 11:55
What's going on? Tony, answer your mobes.
Posted by: Webinator12
At: 11:55
klajshgfdijksghh9387y2r7tfgocn- 98shw292s
**Sent from my Blackberry**
Posted by: LadyM
At: 11:57
Tony, answer phone!!!
Posted by: Cyberkitten23
At: 12:01
JeffT, I can come and get clothes evening. Can I have ring too? Am near Lyndhurst Way, can collect anytime.
Anyone in area now? Anyone know what all those police sirens and ambulances were for??? Teen stabbings?
Thursday 20 November 2008
Just joined a gym.
Again.
Why are these places always full of the same people? How do they find so many people exactly the same and then allocate them evenly around the gyms?
Wacky Mr. Motivator Employee - No necked lycra lizard. Laughs like Kriss Akabusi with a loud hailer and greets inner circle of gym users with manly arm wrestle likely to cause injury if they're a bloke or fatherly arm round shoulders if they're not (assuming he can get his arm high enough in the first place given he is a) likely to be comfortably below average height and b) have shoulders like Ram-Man). Studiously ignores anybody who shows up at the gym less than six times a week. Keen observers will note that he never really talks to any of his inner sanctum.
The Other Trainer - Slender and slightly effeminate bloke who minces around like a trained ballet dancer. Makes a big ceremony out of shaking your hand when you first join and then studiously ignores you when you don't opt to be bled dry by the cost of personal training for which he charges you fifty quid so he can humiliate you in front of his mates. Can't walk past a mirror without straightening his back.
Freeweights Loiterer - Wears a sleeveless t-shirt. Hangs around the freeweights like Gollum hung around the Ring of Power. Never lifts a thing but occasionally does the odd chin-up before spending ten minutes pacing up and down with his hands on his hips like he's about to go for the Olympic record. Will be in the gym before you get there and there after you leave.
Gym Buddies - Allowed to use the freeweights by the Freeweight Loiterer because there's two of them. Always blokes, one of them will probably have a wooly hat on or a sleeveless t-shirt. They watch each other's rippling biceps as they train - briefly - before breaking off to talk technique for fifteen minutes so they can convince themselves they don't fancy each other. Avid watchers may spot a high five going down when one of them breaks a sweat.
Unfit Office Worker - As a kid he never looked right in a PE kit. Now, many many years later, he is still the same height and shape but with a pot belly. Think Penfold in shorts. He has decided to join the gym to get fit and because that is what everyone else at work does. At least that's what he tells himself. The fact he spends forty minutes working a cross trainer like he's having an epileptic trying to wrestle a tree from the earth with his war face on suggests he's working through some major issues. Wears glasses throughout.
Fine Tuner - Similar to the Freeweights Loiterer but actually does some exercise. He is a perfectionist in skintight labelled sports gear. Even his sweat patches look deliberately placed. Likely to be stood with some lightweight dumbells twisting his forearms slightly for hours at a time. He will stare intently at the same few muscle fibres looking for visible growth. Will eventually start scowling. He wants to project the pain of his perfectionism but really he's just sulking because his forearms haven't changed shape throughout his entire three hour routine... again.
New Guy - tubby sort in a football shirt desperately trying to recover ground lost to the first ten years of corporate slouching. Has a respectable degree and decent job but can't figure out how any of the resistance machines work. Starts looking confused when shoulder press machine seems to be exercising his legs more than any other part of his anatomy. Starts to look fed up when headphones get wrapped round machinery and he stacks it clambering off the machines with all the grace of a warthog with an emptied hipflask. Slouches off to use the rowing machine because at least that feels like exercise. Gives up after five minutes coughing up blood, wheezing and turning worryingly pale. Opts for ten minutes on the exercise bike before sheepishly leaving the arena and taking out his frustrations on a bag of Doritos and a blog.
Again.
Why are these places always full of the same people? How do they find so many people exactly the same and then allocate them evenly around the gyms?
Wacky Mr. Motivator Employee - No necked lycra lizard. Laughs like Kriss Akabusi with a loud hailer and greets inner circle of gym users with manly arm wrestle likely to cause injury if they're a bloke or fatherly arm round shoulders if they're not (assuming he can get his arm high enough in the first place given he is a) likely to be comfortably below average height and b) have shoulders like Ram-Man). Studiously ignores anybody who shows up at the gym less than six times a week. Keen observers will note that he never really talks to any of his inner sanctum.
The Other Trainer - Slender and slightly effeminate bloke who minces around like a trained ballet dancer. Makes a big ceremony out of shaking your hand when you first join and then studiously ignores you when you don't opt to be bled dry by the cost of personal training for which he charges you fifty quid so he can humiliate you in front of his mates. Can't walk past a mirror without straightening his back.
Freeweights Loiterer - Wears a sleeveless t-shirt. Hangs around the freeweights like Gollum hung around the Ring of Power. Never lifts a thing but occasionally does the odd chin-up before spending ten minutes pacing up and down with his hands on his hips like he's about to go for the Olympic record. Will be in the gym before you get there and there after you leave.
Gym Buddies - Allowed to use the freeweights by the Freeweight Loiterer because there's two of them. Always blokes, one of them will probably have a wooly hat on or a sleeveless t-shirt. They watch each other's rippling biceps as they train - briefly - before breaking off to talk technique for fifteen minutes so they can convince themselves they don't fancy each other. Avid watchers may spot a high five going down when one of them breaks a sweat.
Unfit Office Worker - As a kid he never looked right in a PE kit. Now, many many years later, he is still the same height and shape but with a pot belly. Think Penfold in shorts. He has decided to join the gym to get fit and because that is what everyone else at work does. At least that's what he tells himself. The fact he spends forty minutes working a cross trainer like he's having an epileptic trying to wrestle a tree from the earth with his war face on suggests he's working through some major issues. Wears glasses throughout.
Fine Tuner - Similar to the Freeweights Loiterer but actually does some exercise. He is a perfectionist in skintight labelled sports gear. Even his sweat patches look deliberately placed. Likely to be stood with some lightweight dumbells twisting his forearms slightly for hours at a time. He will stare intently at the same few muscle fibres looking for visible growth. Will eventually start scowling. He wants to project the pain of his perfectionism but really he's just sulking because his forearms haven't changed shape throughout his entire three hour routine... again.
New Guy - tubby sort in a football shirt desperately trying to recover ground lost to the first ten years of corporate slouching. Has a respectable degree and decent job but can't figure out how any of the resistance machines work. Starts looking confused when shoulder press machine seems to be exercising his legs more than any other part of his anatomy. Starts to look fed up when headphones get wrapped round machinery and he stacks it clambering off the machines with all the grace of a warthog with an emptied hipflask. Slouches off to use the rowing machine because at least that feels like exercise. Gives up after five minutes coughing up blood, wheezing and turning worryingly pale. Opts for ten minutes on the exercise bike before sheepishly leaving the arena and taking out his frustrations on a bag of Doritos and a blog.
Monday 17 November 2008
Is it any wonder professional footballers grow up to be such cocky, ignorant scum?
Where I play five-a-side, three teenaged greaseballs show up around the same time as I do. The two eldest show up in full Arsenal, Manchester United or Porto replica gear. Their socks almost as carefully folded around their shin pads as each strand of hair has been lovingly teased with three times its own weight in hair gel so that the whole resembles some kind of interpretation of Pat Sharp fighting a porcupine in a deep fat fryer. They also sport beards that look like they have been drawn on with biro and a GCSE geometry set. Pencil thin streaks of fur being, to a beard, what a stick figure is to Michelangelo's David. The third member is a vile looking miniature of the elder two of around fourteen. He differs in appearance only in that he wears Chelsea training kit and isn't up to the facial hair yet. They stand about before their match practicing keep-ups and other tricks and they're quite good at it.
The true villain of the piece though is the caretaker of the pitches. This oversized lumpen halfwit leaps around these three like some ingratiating Dickensian butler. He celebrates each kick by screeching like a retarded sea lion at feeding time the name of whatever Premier League "Megastar" happens to be floating within the cavernous space between his ears at that moment.
One day, he found out the fourteen year-old had just signed some sort of apprentice contract with Chelsea. He nearly blew-up. Residents up to half a mile away must have thought it was mating season for some hitherto undiscovered donkey sanctuary. Needless to say the thirteen year-old was beaming though he beamed in a way that suggested he expected that reaction and was used to it. Sadly, he probably had every right to.
Adulation for footballers is such that one can beat a colleague sufficiently to get himself locked up and not even face a serious threat of losing his job. Another can become captain of the national side and still stand about in nightclubs urinating almost pure alcohol down the inside of his trouser leg. At work he can acquit himself snarling at and manhandling anybody who dares question his supposed authority, referees included, without any significant threat of criticism, let alone censure.
The reason why is because of the unfulfilled dreams of morons like the caretaker. Idiots like this will now tell the thirteen year-old that absolutely everything he does is brilliant which, judging by the sneering little twerp's face, plenty of people already had. They will cluster fawningly around him just for the slightest whiff of glory by association. The odds against this kid actually making it as a professional, let alone one at Chelsea, are enormous. That won't stop them though. Those with a professional interest in his development will tell him he's great because of the money they can make from him if he actually is good enough. Talk is cheap and therefore, a great investment. Everyone else doles out the same kind of unquestioning adoration just because it is a chance to say "I knew him when..."
As such, he'll grow up, as he seems to have done already judging by his haircut, able to ignore anyone with anything critical to say in favour of any number of creeping morons, many of whom will be full grown men, who would be happy to drink from his jockstrap. When he gets it wrong, unless the club spits him out, like a two year-old, there will always be someone to coo over him and wipe up his mess no matter how old he gets. Paul Gascoigne is an example.
Boys who are good at sport are courted by men prematurely. Footballers in their mid-thirties are still referred to as boys or men as if they were interchangeable terms.Treating boys as men for purely on the grounds of ability to run, jump, kick a ball whilst continually relieving them of responsibilities, duty or serious criticism ensures that those who grow up to be footballers never get to grow up at all.
Where I play five-a-side, three teenaged greaseballs show up around the same time as I do. The two eldest show up in full Arsenal, Manchester United or Porto replica gear. Their socks almost as carefully folded around their shin pads as each strand of hair has been lovingly teased with three times its own weight in hair gel so that the whole resembles some kind of interpretation of Pat Sharp fighting a porcupine in a deep fat fryer. They also sport beards that look like they have been drawn on with biro and a GCSE geometry set. Pencil thin streaks of fur being, to a beard, what a stick figure is to Michelangelo's David. The third member is a vile looking miniature of the elder two of around fourteen. He differs in appearance only in that he wears Chelsea training kit and isn't up to the facial hair yet. They stand about before their match practicing keep-ups and other tricks and they're quite good at it.
The true villain of the piece though is the caretaker of the pitches. This oversized lumpen halfwit leaps around these three like some ingratiating Dickensian butler. He celebrates each kick by screeching like a retarded sea lion at feeding time the name of whatever Premier League "Megastar" happens to be floating within the cavernous space between his ears at that moment.
One day, he found out the fourteen year-old had just signed some sort of apprentice contract with Chelsea. He nearly blew-up. Residents up to half a mile away must have thought it was mating season for some hitherto undiscovered donkey sanctuary. Needless to say the thirteen year-old was beaming though he beamed in a way that suggested he expected that reaction and was used to it. Sadly, he probably had every right to.
Adulation for footballers is such that one can beat a colleague sufficiently to get himself locked up and not even face a serious threat of losing his job. Another can become captain of the national side and still stand about in nightclubs urinating almost pure alcohol down the inside of his trouser leg. At work he can acquit himself snarling at and manhandling anybody who dares question his supposed authority, referees included, without any significant threat of criticism, let alone censure.
The reason why is because of the unfulfilled dreams of morons like the caretaker. Idiots like this will now tell the thirteen year-old that absolutely everything he does is brilliant which, judging by the sneering little twerp's face, plenty of people already had. They will cluster fawningly around him just for the slightest whiff of glory by association. The odds against this kid actually making it as a professional, let alone one at Chelsea, are enormous. That won't stop them though. Those with a professional interest in his development will tell him he's great because of the money they can make from him if he actually is good enough. Talk is cheap and therefore, a great investment. Everyone else doles out the same kind of unquestioning adoration just because it is a chance to say "I knew him when..."
As such, he'll grow up, as he seems to have done already judging by his haircut, able to ignore anyone with anything critical to say in favour of any number of creeping morons, many of whom will be full grown men, who would be happy to drink from his jockstrap. When he gets it wrong, unless the club spits him out, like a two year-old, there will always be someone to coo over him and wipe up his mess no matter how old he gets. Paul Gascoigne is an example.
Boys who are good at sport are courted by men prematurely. Footballers in their mid-thirties are still referred to as boys or men as if they were interchangeable terms.Treating boys as men for purely on the grounds of ability to run, jump, kick a ball whilst continually relieving them of responsibilities, duty or serious criticism ensures that those who grow up to be footballers never get to grow up at all.
Tuesday 11 November 2008
I've never been one to take one bus when two buses, a train and a tube will do. As a teenager, nobody was more familiar with the Maidstone & District bus network around the Medway Towns than I. I would happily take superfluous detours via the Davis Estate (on the 105), Weeds Wood (on the 181) or Twydall (on the 118) just to see what would happen. Any day was improved by the journey home from school if I could catch a 132 from the Pentagon and change on to a 115 somewhere along Watling Street thus skillfully avoiding a detour around the unspectacular sights of Gillingham and saving myself five minutes of walking at the other end.
Even today there is little, that could be classed as a routine activity, that satisfies like getting the better of the public transport system. Those times when the plan comes together and you can rest your M-16 on your shoulder, relight your big cigar and grin wide enough to make the Cheshire Cat look like Panthro with piles. I have wondered if it is not a product of the days when my Dad took my brother and I round the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden and I stared up from underneath the couplings in awe at ancient but monstrous tube carriages. I was certainly always breathlessly excited by the prospect of a train journey to London when I was small (the sound of slam doors and the smell of the carriage - two things that I'm sure if I experienced them today would be as appealing as the spaghetti bolognese sandwiches I used to make out of my dinner) and even now, there's something about the memory of the roar of the buses hurtling around the Pentagon Centre bus station and the rush to sit at the front of the top deck and "drive" home that can distract me from whatever it is I'm doing. Despite the many terrible, overpriced and interrupted journeys I have to make, as if it were my miscreant child I always look for the slightest opportunity to see the public transport system, as the old tube posters in the museum used to say, as something warm and bright.
Thus, tonight, I was kissing the badge and secretly punching the air when I walked on to Charing Cross Road and saw a lesser spotted 176 approaching that could take me all the way home. Sat downstairs at the back, I tucked into my novel as we chugged towards Leicester Square station. Then there came an ungodly noise. It didn't sound mechanical, animal or human. It was the sort of noise that instantly raises your blood pressure and locks your brow into an almighty frown which could only mean one thing: a baby. It was after ten at night and I imagine, if I was that age and still stuck on a bus, I'd be screaming the place down too and I was almost tempted to stay on board just to listen to the incredible variety of sonic effects this thing could produce. Its father slouched indifferently against his seat with a hundred yard stare and bloodshot eyes and its mother occasionally prodded a finger in the direction of its pushchair in the lamest attempt at pacification since the appeasement of Hitler but neither seemed particularly interested in silencing their little bundle of burglar alarm. The thought of spending the next forty minutes locked on board with this sonic torture device proved too much and I decided to use my transport smarts for the benefit of my sanity and contrive a less convenient but more peaceful route home.
My plan was to take the Bakerloo down to Elephant and then take either a bus or train to Peckham from there. It seemed reasonably straightforward. So, imagine my surprise when, once on the tube, I looked up from my book to find myself at Piccadilly Circus bound for Queens Park. I shouldn't be having senior moments before my 30th birthday and I was a bit hacked off to have added extra time to my journey. Getting on the tube in the wrong direction is what tourists do and I sheepishly changed back on to the southbound line and eventually got to Elephant. So far, so so.
I walked through what can best be described as the unique Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre to the station. My luck was in again. The next train to Peckham was due in three minutes. On the stairs up to the platform, I found my route blocked by a man making a pig's ear out of trying to carry a pushchair. A meal has not been made out of so little since the New Testament was a rough draft. In fact, he managed to take up so much room in executing this Herculean task that I did that rarest of things in London and actually looked at him. He started to seem familiar.
Halfway up the second staircase, I clocked, looking over his shoulder in my anxiety to get past, a vaguely familiar looking woman holding the erstwhile passenger of the obstructing pushchair. I was just starting to wonder if it could possibly be when, from the woman's arms, came an unholy but familiar screech.
Even today there is little, that could be classed as a routine activity, that satisfies like getting the better of the public transport system. Those times when the plan comes together and you can rest your M-16 on your shoulder, relight your big cigar and grin wide enough to make the Cheshire Cat look like Panthro with piles. I have wondered if it is not a product of the days when my Dad took my brother and I round the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden and I stared up from underneath the couplings in awe at ancient but monstrous tube carriages. I was certainly always breathlessly excited by the prospect of a train journey to London when I was small (the sound of slam doors and the smell of the carriage - two things that I'm sure if I experienced them today would be as appealing as the spaghetti bolognese sandwiches I used to make out of my dinner) and even now, there's something about the memory of the roar of the buses hurtling around the Pentagon Centre bus station and the rush to sit at the front of the top deck and "drive" home that can distract me from whatever it is I'm doing. Despite the many terrible, overpriced and interrupted journeys I have to make, as if it were my miscreant child I always look for the slightest opportunity to see the public transport system, as the old tube posters in the museum used to say, as something warm and bright.
Thus, tonight, I was kissing the badge and secretly punching the air when I walked on to Charing Cross Road and saw a lesser spotted 176 approaching that could take me all the way home. Sat downstairs at the back, I tucked into my novel as we chugged towards Leicester Square station. Then there came an ungodly noise. It didn't sound mechanical, animal or human. It was the sort of noise that instantly raises your blood pressure and locks your brow into an almighty frown which could only mean one thing: a baby. It was after ten at night and I imagine, if I was that age and still stuck on a bus, I'd be screaming the place down too and I was almost tempted to stay on board just to listen to the incredible variety of sonic effects this thing could produce. Its father slouched indifferently against his seat with a hundred yard stare and bloodshot eyes and its mother occasionally prodded a finger in the direction of its pushchair in the lamest attempt at pacification since the appeasement of Hitler but neither seemed particularly interested in silencing their little bundle of burglar alarm. The thought of spending the next forty minutes locked on board with this sonic torture device proved too much and I decided to use my transport smarts for the benefit of my sanity and contrive a less convenient but more peaceful route home.
My plan was to take the Bakerloo down to Elephant and then take either a bus or train to Peckham from there. It seemed reasonably straightforward. So, imagine my surprise when, once on the tube, I looked up from my book to find myself at Piccadilly Circus bound for Queens Park. I shouldn't be having senior moments before my 30th birthday and I was a bit hacked off to have added extra time to my journey. Getting on the tube in the wrong direction is what tourists do and I sheepishly changed back on to the southbound line and eventually got to Elephant. So far, so so.
I walked through what can best be described as the unique Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre to the station. My luck was in again. The next train to Peckham was due in three minutes. On the stairs up to the platform, I found my route blocked by a man making a pig's ear out of trying to carry a pushchair. A meal has not been made out of so little since the New Testament was a rough draft. In fact, he managed to take up so much room in executing this Herculean task that I did that rarest of things in London and actually looked at him. He started to seem familiar.
Halfway up the second staircase, I clocked, looking over his shoulder in my anxiety to get past, a vaguely familiar looking woman holding the erstwhile passenger of the obstructing pushchair. I was just starting to wonder if it could possibly be when, from the woman's arms, came an unholy but familiar screech.
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