Friday. Day off work. House to myself. Cricket on. Got on Popmaster and won! Pizza for tea, then off to see Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets in Hull… Oh, and it’s my birthday too… A good day. Hope yours was too x
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I’m also spending Friday night in Hull. Er, like every other Friday night. Mrs. M’s brother in law is over so it’s Bolivian stew and some refreshing beverages – my first for two weeks, unbelievably.
Playlist today – Pernille Rosendahl, Michael Head & The Strands, Mahler’s 5th, Pretzel Logic and Magnetic Fields (the Jean Michel Jarre album). Might have a bit of Van before tea. Life could be much worse.
How was the Friday poo today?
Surely this is a question for Saturday following the Bolivian stew?
A little late, but present and correct.
Three more from The Bolivian Stew later.
Thankfully, as a great man once said, you can’t get a boat to Bolivia.
Daily summer routine: Get up 7.30ish, toilet, eat fruit, drive to gym, then pool, drive home 1ish, cook and eat lunch (chickpea korma today), drive to the beach, laze/swim/read, call in at supermarket on the way home, watch a film, go to bed 10.30ish. That’ll be my day pretty much every day until October.
Seriously?!!! Not even one afternoon cleaning sewers? Jammy basket!
You missed out the six hours of looking in the mirror.
What on earth do you think I go to the gym for?
I fail to see the connection between gyms and narcissism… I mean, what??
Porrige
Dog walk
Admin
Shopping
Lunch (salad and sushi)
House chores
Gardening
Backache
Golf range
More backache
Tea and biccies (current status)
G&T at 6 ish
Sausages for dinner
Catch up on Chernobyl
Maybe bit of time in music studio
Bed
Life is exhausting isn’t it ?
Catch up on Chernobyl… It’s necessary when your pants are too tight etc.
Pretty good thanks.
Breakfast was largely more fruit than cereal thanks to the big box of cherries and strawberries in the fridge, coffee from the faithful Bialetti then the usual two mile walk to work during which the rain held off.
Apart from a few emails I was up to date with work stuff so spent quite a bit of the day online training for some new software. Being Friday a few people disappeared for the afternoon so I had the office to myself, which is always a treat. I picked up tickets for one of Ian McKellen’s one man shows at the Harold Pinter Theatre in autumn (which delighted my other half).
Thrilled to find a £3 off voucher in the bag when shopping in Tesco after work, even though than meant I had to buy so much that I immediately spent the £3 on a bus home. Not long in and had a home made gin and tonic ice lolly even if it isn’t that warm here, and will start dinner soon (pasta) to be ready when my girlfriend gets here for dinner, red wine and Killing Eve. Textbook Friday really.
Happy Birthday 🥳
A gin and tonic ice lolly? NO!!!!!!!!
Oh yes. I had half a bottle of tonic that had gone flat so mixed it with some pink gin, a little creme de cassis and a teaspoon of caster sugar and pours into lolly moulds. Not to much alcohol to keep the freezing point low, maybe about half a pub measure per lolly. Very pleasant in a hot day, or even a not so hot one. Campari and soda is good in frozen form too too!
Happy Birthday, Bill!! 🎀👑👊✨👸😘
Happy Birthday!!!
Enjoy the gig too!
Wake
Breakfast
Commute in
Translate
Lunch
Translate
Commute out
Dinner + wine
Sofa: snore
Appe burfdee Bill.
In a strange quirk of coincidence, today is NOT my birthday.
The Day Today: oh, it was a classic.
Day off today (only been doing nine day fortnights (every other Friday off) for 3 years and still can’t get used to them.)
Haricut
Post Office
Charity Shops (leaving empty handed – again)
Episode of The Sweeney
Washing Up
Listening to Girlschool and Tommy
Shopping
Classic? No … very humdrum
Tonight will consist of an Amazon order, Beer, another catch-up episode of that Thatcher thingy on BBC, and more Beer.
I certainly know how to live it up
I have three things to say about The Day Today;
Christ’s Chin
Novelty Bobble
Alf Ramsey’s Porn Dungeon
Bomb Dogs
Bransons Clockwork Dog
….and the going is good-to-flimsy.
Happy birthday Railroad!
I won’t bore you with every detail, but highlights of today include a continental breakfast, piddling about with my new modified clamp for the Disco Antistat, listening to a charity shop Sandy Denny LP and having a lovely swim with Mr B in a nice warm private pool. And on the way home we spied an intriguing handwritten sign for a ‘Barn Sale’ at a farm in the middle of nowhere tomorrow. Please let there be records!
Didn’t catch Plopmaster but will try to listen on catchup. Have fun tonight xxx
@minibreakfast I thought it was just me that called it Plopmaster!
Modified clamp… My poor mind…
HB2Y Railroad.
I had a splendid day. A pal and I have recorded a bunch of covers of classic songs with 12 and 6 string acoustic guitars and two voices, all recorded at once, live in the studio. Today we were finalising the mixes which is brill fun.
Tonight it’s left over pasta and garlic bread which is warming up. I’m about to pour a G&T. Then I suspect a couple of large glasses of my favourite French peasant red which I recently brought back with me.
Finally a pleasant late and inebriated half hour of hurling insults at political idiots via Twitter, then bed.
Rainy day here (yet again), at work for another 3 or 4 hours. Then hope to go for a 5k run if weather clears up. A light supper and the US Open until bedtime probably. Not too exciting.
Happy birthday! Apart from the eight hours I worked, it’s been nice and relaxing. Rest of the evening is:
Cooking
Choosing what movie to watch (will take two to three hours)
Watching that movie
Tea time (lots of tea, indian tea, and biscuits)
Maybe watch an episode of Vikings
Time to do some quality snoring, getting up 5:20 tomorrow
Dude, where you live “watching an episode of Vikings” is really just staring out of the window, isn’t it?
Yes, but I’m paying for HBO so I’m trying to make the most of it.
Many happy returns.
Woke lateish due to a very busy week spent in Leeds then glamorous downtown Slough. Sent invoicing to “accounts department” then to the warehouse to unload and prep kit for Sunday’s jobs. Finished the day painting 5 x monitor hides for Sunday*. Currently halfway through a bottle of San Miguel while daughter cooks. Quite a good day, if a little dull.
* guess what colour
Motogp Catalunya practice.
Tomorrow, Catalunya qualy then the greatest race in the world…Le Mans 24 hour.
I wanted Alonso to win last year…but not this, hope its one of the Rebellions.
Happy birthday Bill, sounds like a cracker!
My favourite birthday thing is that the number of people you need in a room (assuming random birthdays) to have more chance than not (I.e. probability that 2 share a birthday of >0.5) that 2 of them have the same birthday is 24.
Picked up new specs from Boots. I had no idea how bad my eyes have become. Suddenly the world is is clearer, brighter place. Or maybe it’s just that the sun just came out.
Took some wrongly-delivered shower seals back to the plumbing supplies place. They came in a 10ft tube so I had them sticking out of the sun roof, making the car look steam-driven.
Sat at home all afternoon for a guy to come and do something to the boiler. While waiting I edited an hour-and-a-half focus group down to 12 minutes. My office is the sofa and the cricket was on in the background. He arrived at 10 past five, of course he did. Once he’d gone, a quick run to Sainsbury’s for wine and curry. Can’t be bothered cooking tonight. It’s warming up now. The curry, not the wine. That’s getting demolished as we speak.
Now I’m in the garden learning the chords to I Will Survive for a thing I’m doing tomorrow. It’s got a Bm7b5 in it, a kind of stretched A minor, which has me worried because it’s on the tab I’ve found online, but it just doesn’t sound right. Frankly it’s taking all the strength I have not to fail a part.
Happy Birthday Rails, happy weekend all.
You started learning I Will Survive… At first you were afraid, you were petrified
…
m7b5 is my fave chord of the moment. What fingering are you using? If it’s these chords
https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/gloria_gaynor/i_will_survive_chords_991389
try x2323x.
What fingering are you using? And Moose hasn’t replied…
I know, I couldn’t think of any way of avoiding the obvious response!
Sirs, you traduce me.
Today was spent mostly sorting out yesterday… After her walk our dog was limping badly so we arranged an X Ray with the vet. She needs a new left hip which is apparently genetic and been getting steadily worse. Her right leg has been compensating and now she’s ruptured her cruciate. Shes only 5. Bad enough but we’ve got a holiday booked for Greece next Saturday and now she can’t be left. So, an afternoon spent on the phone to holiday company, travel insurance company, the vet that will do the surgery and I think we’re sorted as long as our insurers don’t wriggle out of coughing up. Suffice to say if we can’t rearrange the holiday and the pet insurers don’t come through thats an eye watering sum of money…. Cruciate surgery is booked for a week Monday when we should have been on a Greek beach…
At least the dog is comfortable, my other half has stopped crying and England won the cricket…….
Hang on, ‘got on Popmaster and won’?? You mean you were on the radio show itself? If so, congratulations, not only for winning, but for being brave enough to enter. I usually do well (providing there are no questions about chart music of the 21st century), but I know one of two things would happen if I ever plucked up the courage to enter. I’d either dry up completely and make a fool of myself or I’d get every question right, feel invincible…and then get asked to name three songs by Ariana Grande, or some other 21st century popster. Actually, I don’t think I could name three songs by artists I like, unless I liked them pre-1997 (my cut off point for remembering the names of songs/albums/family members/etc).
Happy birthday, by the way, and, if you were on the show, who was your three in ten and which question were you must proud of getting right?
My day, by the way, started off with me watching The Big Clock – great film, before listening to some albums, including Kate Tempest’s very good new one. Went food shopping with the wife, which was torture, because I was hungry and I’m a week into stopping eating cakes/sweets/chocolate/etc to try to get my belly back down to a respectable size. I saw so many things that I wanted to eat.
I did come up with a winner of an idea though, and I need to invent a word for a fear of something that doesn’t have its own word. That is, the fear of opening a parcel of 5 custom made picture frames you’ve ordered yourself over the internet after measuring the pictures and sizing everything up yourself. I get in a right kerfuffle trying to work out if the measurements include the mount or whether the measurements are for the whole thing, etc. Pleased to say, I got it right this time, but that’s not always the case!
As for my idea, I finished a box of Fruit and Fibre yesterday and started a new one this morning. In other words, I had a bowl of bran flakes for breakfast this morning and a bowl of raisins yesterday. Before opening the box this morning I stood it upside down, shook it one way and then another, but when I opened it there was still not a piece of the fruit in sight. So as I was reaching in to the bottom of the bag, trying to find a sultana or piece of banana it hit me – salt and shake! I’m not advocating putting salt on breakfast, but how about applying the same principle to breakfast cereal? A box of bran flakes with a little bag of all the other goodies inside. That way you get a bowl that looks like the picture every time and not just when you’re 2/3 of the way down the box, before the last few bowlfuls have more raisins than bran flakes. It’s got to be a winner. What’s the number for Mr Kellogs?
Happy Birthday and congrats on the Popmaster win. As it happens, I played along today and only got 15 on your questions. You did very well. But do try to answer in time 😜
HB2U!
Here in Lichfield it was up at 9, bath and coffee. Dogs taken to groomers, collected prescription from Tesco and treated myself to a Costa cappuccino before spending the rest of the morning writing nonsense. Dogs needed picking up at 1.30, managing a walk with them in the park, in the first dry 30 mins of the week. Then drove to Solihull and picked my grandaughter up from childminder, gave her tea and put her to bed, at her ma’s house. Apart from work, where I don’t go on Fridays, the groomer and the 1 year old are the only humans I have seen all week, the wife being in Turkey. Exciting life, oui?
I spent most of your birthday sneezing and coughing and binge watching Series 3 of Designated Survivor with streaming eyes. Hope you enjoyed your birthday more than I did.
Not exactly a typical Friday…got up four hours earlier than usual and took the bus to work, where me and my colleagues jumped into two cars and drove to the place where our boss keeps his flashy motorboat. We then spent a few hours on the water, drinking cider and beer and enjoying the gorgeous archipelago and the sun (the clouds disappeared the very moment we got on the boat).
When we got to the guest harbour at Djurgården we stopped and had lunch (poached salmon and potato salad, in my case) and opened a bottle of champagne.
After lunch we left the boat and walked over to the Gröna Lund funfair for a pentathlon of funfair games, and some more drinks, and soft serve ice cream with licorice sprinkles, and dinner in the evening sun on the terrace restaurant (veggie burger and chips for me) before rollercoaster rides ensued, soundtracked by the live gig from the Swedish hip hop collective Tjuvjakt on the main stage in front of tousands of screaming and singing fourteen-year olds.
After that we parted ways and I walked home in the wonderful warm summer night, party music everywhere and happy people celebrating it being summer and the weekend.
Got home to find a parcel on the doormat containing two new CDs, and a notice slip to collect a bigger parcel full of films.
Day off tomorow, working on Sunday; then it’s two weeks vacation for me – finally! I’m exhausted from the intense first 5½ months of 2019…”Everything going wrong all of the time” could be its motto.
Oh, and Happy Birthday!
@locust
What a lovely day!
Yes, it certainly could have been a lot worse!
But now I’m absolutely knocked out tired, fell asleep through an episode of TV that I tried to watch (need to see it again tomorrow…) Time for bed! 🙂
Happy Birthday.
After a late session reading a Bernie Gunther detective thriller I had an unsatisfactory night’s sleep with dreams that I can’t remember except that they were involving Nazis somehow.
Up at about 7:30 for coffee and toast. The weather, viewed through my kitchen window as I scoffed toast did not look promising. I had a slice of bread and peanut butter and another coffee. A stay inside day. Caught up on FB and this blog, read my emails (mostly spam) and then went onto Spotify to listen to everything there by The Comet Is Coming (very dark and smoky, almost opiated sounding) and followed that with everything they had by Sons Of Kemet. A good ear-blasting.
Heard a good quote but can’t now remember what record or which guest artist, but a Sons of Kemet track.
“I don’t want to take my country back. I want to take it forward.”
A slogan for us all.
Spent most of the rest of my time today, as I did yesterday, making progress with my re-digitising of CDs. I’m replacing all the mp3s in my library with FLACs, where the discs are present. Been doing this for the last few weeks and now have all of my box-sets and about 1/3 of my single artist albums done. Once I’ve completed those there will be the vast quantity of multi-artist samplers, coverdiscs and hooky CDRs.
Just had my dinner of Singapore Noodles, washed down with a beer. Another beer will most definitely follow that one. Might have a large G&T later but only one, as I’m off to Daylight Music at the Union Chapel tomorrow lunchtime and I don’t want to be hungover for that.
I may watch some TV now, if I can find anything I feel like watching.
Arrived home from a tortuous 12 day trip to Mexico, Los Angeles and Seattle Enjoyablr trip but hard work.
Got a nice PPI cheque from Yorkshire Bank who told me 3 years ago I wasnt owed anything now all of a sudden its £4K.
Made a nice Salmon with Spaghetti and cheese sauce for my good lady wife.
Early night to try and overcome jetlag and catch up on last 2 weeks.
After stopping work at midnight the night before, I woke up at 5:30 – which is too early but what else can one do when one is blessed with intellect at this level of ferocity? I had tea and toast and wrote some bollocks on here. Showered at about 7:30. Heard one of my teenage daughters having a meltdown. Bravely decided not to get involved. Went to work.
20 mins later summoned back by Mrs Sleb cos I’d left my work bag by the front door.
A mid-morning meeting was successful because I used a Depeche Mode lyric in normal-sounding discourse. (“It’s a competitive world”, if you’re interested).
Client was expecting huge annual report by the end of the day but most of the content would have been filler bollocks – so I did a polite cut-to-the-chase email, which was much quicker and the client was delighted. I’m going to do a lot more of that, I think. Not everyone needs Sandanista! when London Calling is what they want.
On the way home 6:15pm and reflected briefly that when I was younger I had jobs where the business of the day could be done quite easily in enough time. Yet now, we feel under constant pressure. I am not a workaholic – I don’t do long hours because I am an eccentric perfectionist. Getting extra people in to help is made very hard to do.
Late afternoon Mrs Sleb was let down badly by a local medical centre (lots of detail here but yadda yadda) and this upset the delicate logistical knife edge that a family uses as a tramline on the flying fox we call life. Due to this snafu, everything that followed went tumbling down too like dominoes (if only there was a word or a phrase to descibe that effect…).
Ended up at McDonalds with some of my children at 9pm having our evening meal. Reunited at home with the rest of the family and watched Hamish and Andy True Stories – which is a brilliant, brilliant programme. Aussie and NZ readers may be aware.
Looking forward to days when I can watch a box set and polish off a G&T at wine o’clock (or something).
Happy Birthday Bill!
The Sharon Shannon Band and Seckou Keita in Liverpool. Stupendous start to the weekend…
I traveled 90 minutes to give career advice to a friend of a friend I’ve never met before.
Then I watched the Women’s World Cup. Cooked dinner for us. Lounged outside reading.
Drink has been a nice Empress G&T. Well, I say “a”…
Work. Our new lab technician is a lovely chap but messy so, when he left at lunchtime for his 3 week holiday, three of us spent the afternoon tidying up the lab.
Received email allowing me to host gig in local library. It’s taken nearly 6 months to get to this point, and now I have just 4 weeks to sell tickets.
Home. Took daughter to Street Dance.
Home. Collected daughter from Street Dance.
Home. Took daughter to Fonda 500 gig, at which I pogo’ed. Nights Out review to follow.
Home. Bed at midnight. Up at 6am this morning (wondering why my feet hurt), so post-lunch snooze timetabled.
Bit of a late post, but congratulations on winning popmaster! We normally listen to 6music in the office, but one of the surgeries I work in has radio 2 on in the waiting room so I do like to linger around half ten.
Hope you had a good birthday, because of the weather Mini Paws’ cricket practice was cancelled. Usually it’s an excuse for Mrs. Paws and I to sit and watch the little ‘un run around whilst we have a pint. Instead we went to the local pub for a bit and came home to a dinner of leftovers. Saturday has a funeral and a birthday party to attend.
Oh, hope that you had a good birthday too.
Our surgery, which I frequent quite often, has Radio 2 on, and I’ve lost count of the times that I get called through just as Popmaster starts. I must be the only person who wants to wait in the waiting room a bit longer.
I was off on Friday and heard said Popmaster – well done, sir.
And doesn’t he have a lovely voice?
Ken Bruce, I mean