The Burning Blog

The Atlantic Coast Express

There used to be a train called The Atlantic Coast Express – ACE for short – that left Waterloo at 11am sharp for the West Country.  It traversed the old London & South Western route via Basingstoke, Salisbury and Exeter before some of the carriages were dropped off for places like Exmouth, Ilfacombe, Bude and far flung Padstow.  I think that when steam trains stopped running sometime in the summer of 1967, the poor old ACE went down the river, along with other named trains like the Bournemouth Belle, that so excited anoraks in those days.  I used to have a video of the ACE steaming down to Salisbury, circa 1962, but that too went down the river and when the bailiffs turned up, I dived in too, for a 10 year dip actually.

The last time I went out West without getting wet, was for a business meeting to Exeter, during the 90s.  After spending almost 300 smackers going first class and buying the ticket with five minutes to spare, I tucked into a good fry up in the dining car and then, and then I arrived at what can only be described as a complete dump.  The meeting was great fun – discussing tourist signs and whatnot – but oh my dear, the yokels.  My boss and I decided to adjourn to a local hostelry for another fry up with the Daily Mail brigade. Later, we both walked across a park - full of the kind of people I’d later become - and oh salvation, the station and hearing the word Paddington coming over the tannoy, oh bliss it was to climb aboard.

I must confess that I love travelling by train and this is what made the whole day so enjoyable, particularly, because I also knew that I’d be returning to London.  In fact, I remember once spending a horrendous four days up North and the absolute joy of hearing the announcer at Manchester’s Piccadilly station mention the such and such departing at 17.30 for London Euston and off I trotted.  Once I was not so lucky when I saw another 17.30 pulling out of Glasgow Central and then, and then I had to get out to the airport and I HATE flying too. 

I think what I’m trying to say is that these days; I don’t like spending time out - of a big capital city - in any country.  Here in Britain, I don’t mind too much, the odd day or so in a five star but then I get a bit itchy and want to go home.  I really love the built environment, the diversity, the sounds and music of the city, the smells, the sirens, traffic jams, pavement cafes, love it all.

The writing group is planning a week’s strip, sorry, trip to the country for a bit of creative thingy me bob. It’s actually learning how to be creative and write better like [sic], in the glorious Devon countryside near Exeter.  We’ll be driving down and I’ll be the em, driver.  Nothing wrong with that, I can drive anywhere, it’s just that I don’t fancy living in the green pastures for five days, I’ll be counting every second before we return. I don’t mind if I can return each night to London by train but sleeping in the provinces is just so passé and then there’s the sex problem too.  I suppose I’d go to Brighton for a week because (1) I like the sea (2) Brighton is not in the least provincial and (3) there’s plenty of the physical if you want it.  I’d even go celibate if the writing group went to Rome, Madrid or Paris but Devon, oh my god, all those cream teas, dumb locals, horrible smells, boy racers, hoodies…

I’ve always had trouble saying no to people I like and respect and this Devon trip is no exception but going would be absolute agony for me.  And then there’s the heat of September and all that Malarkey.  The only solution to this problem is if I drive the group down on Monday, drop em off and head back to the great smoke by train and repeat the exercise on the Friday.  Do we have a solution here; I await a response.

Cheers.

Andrew      

Beefcake in the Post Room

I was watching Ms. Boyle singing an Elaine Page number on You Tube, after reading the library’s Saturday Telegraph.  Since I’ve stopped watching television again, I missed seeing this frumpy perpetual spinster – the Torygraph’s words, not mine - singing in a way that can only be described as magnificent.  Better than Elaine Page, Ms. Boyle is a star and I can only imagine how she would sound with an orchestra in say Carnegie Hall or the Royal Opera House. She has one of the best voices I’ve ever heard.

 see here!

Susan-boyle-four

I got to thinking too about jobs and interviews, apropos, my recent endeavours to seek a permanent position.  Now I must confess that the interviews I’ve attended have all been quite fair over the years but would Ms. Boyle really be able to brake into the musical/media protection racket, looking the way she does?  Now I know she is unemployed – the Telegraph reporter seemed to be clueless that this would limit a gal’s wardrobe somewhat – but it’s the double chin and weird hairdo that would do her down.

About three decades ago, I was working in a typewriter factory and became friends with a guy who was a part-time model. Basically, when he couldn’t get a job, like me, he’d seek temporary work.  We’ve remained close friends to this day, although he hasn’t lived in the UK for yonks now.  Anyway, a few moths later, no months surely, he was telling me how he’d landed a plum job in the city – but you don’t even have O-level maths I whined.  In a nutshell, he’d been propositioned by some guy, agreed to take it up the arse and lost his, eh, cherry.  When he started work, big problem, this guy wouldn’t leave him alone; if he was photocopying something, he’d often feel a hand on his leg or bum.  My friend’s girlfriend found the whole thing hilarious but then she didn’t know the half of it.  In her mind, her highly talented boyfriend had fought off stiff [sic] competition!  My mate eventually resigned because his ‘boss’ changed the job description somewhat, to include some weekend working at the office – just the two of them, of course.

My friend then realized the potential earning power of devastating good looks – no, it’s true – and got jobs in print journalism, graphics, trainee illustrator, area sales manager and night club ‘singer’.  The later two required shagging woman although I don’t suppose it made a blind bit of difference.  Happily settled in Holland now with an older woman, I do recall that he became a rent boy before marrying for a while for money.  Since his wife was really a lesbian, he caught her in the sac once with a chic; I’ve never really figured this one out.

Although my mate is now an industrial software designer earning good money, it really did all start with, um, well you know, don’t you.  Poor Ms. Boyle wouldn’t have got a look in but things are changing for you my dear, go on, go for it, your singing is stupendous and take every opportunity you can; I think you’re smashing.

This sex for jobs business seems to have completely passed me and Ms. Boyle by.  I did sort of come across it while working for the ministry.  There were two deputy managers below me, lets call them Miss X and Miss Y.   Every summer for some odd reason, the post room would become staff less for about three months and it was the custom to hire a student; this was really important because there weren’t emails then.  As the job was quite responsible (and well paid too!) they use to advertise and Miss X and Y would do the honours.  Owing to some rather unusual practices in the past, the personnel department asked if I’d sit in on the interviews.  I have never seen such a Dutch auction in my life.  Miss X liked beefcake and Miss Y like floppy haired Hugh Grant types.  EVENTUALLY, we agreed on a piece of beefcake – I only did this because Miss X was slightly higher in the pecking order than Miss Y – and voila, Miss Y was a tad put out and bombarded mois with a string of complaints on how beefcake wasn’t up to it, blah, blah, blah.  Some colleagues (female) thought that Mr. Beefcake was wonderful while others (female too) sided with Miss Y.  Our floor was in a state of intermittent civil war when Miss X went off to Thailand with her hubby for six weeks.  On the following Monday morning, I came into work to find beefcake gone and a floppy haired public-school type delivering the post in a nonchalant sort of way.  I left it this way until Miss X returned.

On Monday morning at 9 o’clock, Hugh Grant was happily working away.  At 2 o’clock, I noticed that Mr. Grant had disappeared and Miss X said he was ‘sick’.  At 9 o’clock the following day, Mr. Beefcake was back; I then got it, the two were employing their boyfriends or more likely, bits on the side.  Civil war was resuming so I brought in Ms. Boyle, once removed and peace reigned supreme. Thank god employment law was lax in them [sic] days.

See yer.

Andrew   

Police Action Five

Since I’ve been given a free view box, I’ve been watching some of the police action videos - when I’m eating my beans on toast.  Naturally, when I’m not eating my beans or anything else for that matter, I don’t watch nothing [sic], why, because the telly is so unspeakably bad.  This is all because of Nuts TV going off air, sorry, only joking.  Back to the police actions stuff and all that malarkey.  The malarkey is that these police videos are in truth, really very funny. 

When Clint Eastwood made the Dirty Harry films, these and others too contained themes that were ‘suggested’ by the FBI.  No honestly, this is really true, they saw the scripts and ‘suggested’ that crime mustn’t be seen to pay.  I don’t know how far the FBI actually wrote great chunks of the script but there you are.  One thing you can say about the Dirty Harry films is that Sergeant Gallagher (is that right) doesn’t have to take on children and/or criminals who are utter incompetents.  Moreover, Gallagher didn’t have to key work suspects either.

One of the most amusing aspects is night club chuck out in some ghastly provincial town centre which is as dead as um, night.  Take away the revelers and these places would be ghost towns devoid of any life form at all.  With the cameras running, the police go chitty-chatty with the clubbers who are usually bashing the brains out of each other.   Rather than act like proper policemen and grab the perpetrators, they um, key work them.  After key working Gary or whoever, Gary naturally takes objection to then being arrested, followed by the inevitable struggle. I can’t believe that local commanders would sanction such totally useless policing, I mean, the sheer cost of key working somebody like this must cost thousands and then you’ve got Gary’s friend Wayne.  Usually, Wayne interrupts Gary’s key working session and then is key worked himself.  Eventually, after completing a risk assessment, Wayne gets arrested while trying to stop Gary being hauled off to a police van.  It’s all very silly. This is REALLY what happens when the cameras aren’t there.  The police hide until territorial support turns up and then wade in and arrest as many people as possible.  I saw this once happen and even clubbers just standing and talking got nicked.  In fact being guilty had nothing whatsoever to do with being arrested.

The children, ah bless ‘em, popularly known as ‘hoodies, they gather in a park and get surrounded by the Bill.  Being small in size, they get stopped, key worked and searched.  Inevitably with the camera watching, they always happen to have drugs, are frequently drunk, foul mouthed and lippy.  Sometimes the youngest ones drive cars, there’s a bit of a chase and they crash. There’s something rather absurd about a 13 years in a tatty escort trying to get away from police in a state of the art Porsche.  Even adult drivers are silly too and lead the police on a 30 mile chase across Essex before crashing and trying to leg it.  By this time there are another five cop cars plus helicopter.  Any criminal worth his salt knows how to stop the police dead in their tracks; you just reverse back at high speed into the police car immediately and scarper.  No chase, no sirens and certainly no helicopter, end of story, but of course these ‘successful’ pursuits are never shown on television.

If I was a British agent in Paris, circa 1941, I’d probably not go into a coffee shop and say: “Excuse my good fellow, do you speaky the English.”   I would not; I repeat not, walk down the Champs de Mars and ask a policeman for directions, no not ever, not even in French.  Likewise, if I was a bad boy living in Luton, circa 2009 and tagged, I would not nick petrol from Tesco, then do it again from Sainsbury’s – all in broad daylight – and then do over a ton on the M1.  If I was another bad boy living in say Dover, I wouldn’t Eurostar it up the M2 at 145 when an arrest warrant had already been issued for me by the magistrates at Basingstoke.  No siree, not me and that goes for most other normal blokes.  Oh here’s a good one, young man is driving home with his bird in white van and is followed by police.  The guy gets nervous and starts to speed up, the police speed up too and a pursuit ensures ending in the inevitable.

The reality.  A good British spy in wartime Paris would have probably spoken street French with a regional accent.  Professional criminals must be laughing all the way to Monte Carlo.  Proper criminals don’t like driving because they say you become an instant, eh, criminal.  They take the train, use taxis and most importantly of all, they are generous contributors to the various police good causes, such as the annual local nick’s Christmas bash.  Even the less sophisticated - the villains not the cops – will after robbing a footballer’s house at two in the morning, never exceed speed limits and hire state of the art vans – paid for of course.

See yer

Andrew

In a prison in Paris

http://www.gearthhacks.com/streetview/file.php?fileid=3625     

I am overcome with sadness right now as my ex boyfriend (from my 20's but we were still good friends) suddenly died in a house fire in Wales (along with his dog) : www.facebook.com/pages/Nigel-Rees-AKA-Fish/61830572125?v=photos&viewas=718

...In case anyone (Andrew) wonders why my phone's off! Sorry, I'll get back in the groove soon,

Alison x

The Residents’ Meeting and the Butter Dish

Hi guys, I’m baaaaack!  Oh dear, our dear, dear [sic] leader has commented that I ain’t done [sic] a blog for some time, ah, I’ve gone all coy, only joking my sugar pops.  Let’s see now, oh yes, I went to a residents meeting the other evening in the old warehouse where I live.  We talked about boring whatnot such as fire regulations and what to do with the common room, no I’m serious, we do have one.  My mate Eddie wanted it turned into a brothel, naturally I supported him and we were both given the cold shoulder for the rest of the evening, only kidding; everybody just thought that’s Andrew and his friend being silly. 

I enjoyed my self immensely, why, because of the people who attended.  The suits from the housing association were pure middle-England.  They pronounced every syllable and probably lived in places like Sidcup or Swanley.  Sweet in their own way, they probably had children who are firefighters or policemen. I’m sorry, no I’m really sorry for starting the blog in this way; I was going to mention solders fighting in…the remainder of this paragraph has been deleted by Eddie ‘cos he says my life won’t be worth living if I continue in this vain.

Middle-England they were not, that’s the residents I mean.  Loads of the guys were gay, everybody was either of that condition and/or yuppyish, artistic, looked intelligent, sensitive, refugees, transgendered, mad and, and one word sums them all up – vulnerable.  I got talking to a guy who’s a surgeon at the Royal London.  He explained that where I live, everybody has to be referred by an agency so for instance, the refugees sponsored by the church are there because they kept getting bashed up for being, um, refugees, in their previous abodes.  Others have mental health problems, are ex drinkers or former (?) drug users.  The surgeon has a history of drug and mental health issues too and I wasn’t entirely convinced that I’d be happy if he cut me open, I mean, supposing he relapsed or something. 

There was one rather poignant theme which kept coming up, namely, that residents kept telling the housing trust people that this was his or her home and how they loved it here.  They really did, it wasn’t phony in the least, these neighbors of mine for the first time in their lives felt safe.   I think, they also in truth, found the brothel idea rather amusing although I subsequently said I thought the common room could perhaps be better used as a café serving a full English.

Later in Eddie’s flat with the Missus, I said that I was astounded that people living in a converted flower mill in Rotherhithe could actually call this place home.  Eddie agreed with me but then we’ve both come in via the St. Mungo’s scene and I told him that I felt different to the others.  The Missus was completely incapable of saying anything constructive at all, I’m not even sure she knew  she was on planet earth, but there you are.

I think one of the problems is that my housing association is always trying to kick me out.  OK, OK, I know that I’ve got behind with the rent from time to time but this endless issuing of Notices to Quit can drive a guy crazy.  I mean, I’ve had to contact my MP five times to get these silly things stopped and then, and then we start all over again.  I must be the only person in the entire block who is still living on a 12 month starter tenancy and I’ve been here almost three years.  Basically, if this ever gets to court I’m out – no real legal rights and whatnot – and yet, the housing association have a mortal fear of adverse publicity and they know that in our correspondence, I generally copy in the local press which somehow keeps things at bay.  Oh, how they’d love to chuck me out but what a story, middle aged ex drinker with dodgy liver and kidneys chucked back on the streets, wow, I’d certainly have my day in court – in court you can say what you like without it being defamatory you know.

Of course, they’ll get me one day and that’s the problem, they know it and I know it and that’s why I don’t feel at home here. I suppose at some point I’ll have to move on even though I don’t want to move on and yet in a way I do.  I’m quite used to having to move on when I don’t one to and have written about this in an earlier blog called ‘Evictions of the World Unite’.  Having to move on when I don’t one to move on has become a bit of a way of life and so to the butter dish.  I’ve been after one for sometime and finally found one at Tesco – porcelain - at £6.25  You see, I’ve never bought anything for my flat because of the problem of  having to move on when I don’t…OK, I’ve bought some teaspoons, an alarm clock for work, a cheapo picture of Marylyn Munroe and some plastic flowers.  What I have not bought is the TV – green & white - mattress, fridge, microwave, all the furniture, table spoons and a radio/cassette player; kind gifts from neighbours. 

I suppose in my heart of hearts I’m not totally at home in London.  It’s a wonderful city but I’d rather live in NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles or Paris. It may be that I should live in cheap hotels and then up sticks when I get bored.  If my job becomes permanent, I might just do that.

Because of having to move on when I don’t one to move on, everything gets junked and I end up buying the same little things over and over again from coffee pots to CD racks.  Sometimes, I look for things and then remember that the iron disappeared after the last having to move on.  I could of course buy a van and then when having to move on when I don’t one to move on, it’s only courtesy of the traffic warden.      

Back to the residents meeting and all that kafuffle.  Some were complaining about the window cleaners abseiling down the outside with the possibility of catching residents in the nude – what the fuck do I care.  Or how about void units, eh?  Here’s one, we have a new caretaker, yippee, I’m so happy or something about the loft space; now my ears pricked up.  In the past, when I’ve had to move…I sometimes stored stuff surreptitiously, the bailiffs don’t always catch on. I’ve currently got things stored in three separate places overseas. You can even kip in a storage space for weeks, just make sure you have extra keys cut before having to etc.  Maybe this summer, I’m going to move on because I want to, now I’ve not done that for years.

Cheers

Andrew

 The other day, at the hostel I am currently staying, we got a visit form the mayor for London, Boris Johnson. The week before, the staff at the hostel were running around

Tidying this and polishing that, they even threw my nieces bike away. The fact that her bike was in the right place for bikes, out of the way, and out of view. When the day finally came for the visit, the hostel and the day centre next to it were the cleanest I’ve ever seen them! While mayor was in the day centre, no users of the centre were allowed

inside. When the time came for him to visit the hostel (where my niece’s bike was), He looked at his watch and decided he didn’t have the time to take a look around. After all

the staff had done! Considering he was visiting a centre for the homeless, you would have thought he would have made time to speak to at least one homeless person. I had some questions for him, as I’m sure a lot of others did. The charity running the hostel invited him to show him what they did, and then didn’t do it when he was there! That to me is Bullshit with a capital B!

Mak1st

…The Saturday matinee? Somewhere you could send your kids on a Saturday morning where they actually looked forward to

Going, where you knew they where safe for couple of hours while you got on with the shopping, cleaning shagging without worry, sleeping in or whatever else you needed to do on a Saturday morning. Also, what happened to the 1’oclock club, where you could send the kids in the summer holiday, and they could do something with their time, better than the devil making work for the idle hands of today’s youngsters in comparison. Why do we not have as many after school clubs nod holiday play centers that youngsters could go to? As we all know, street corners don’t make great youth clubs! It won’t be the absolute solution to the rise in youth crime, teenage pregnancy And youth on youth murder, but it would  be more of a positive way of trying to tackle these issues, as opposed to the clandestine way our police forces and Politicians who don’t have to live in the neibourhoods where these things occur. Start putting money where it makes sense. We only need a nanny state if it is actually looking afer our youngsters, not trying to lock them up out of society.

Mak1st 

 But People say they wouldn’t like to bump into me on a dark night. But in actual fact I’m nothing at all like that. Even as a teenager I didn’t pick fights.

 The only reasons I would fight is to protect my family or myself.

 So next time you walk down the street don’t judge someone on face value because know what’s in their hearts, Do you?

Dave

 Best of luck 

Dave xx