The Sturdy Soapbox

The king of the mixed metaphor.

Without doubt, the king of the mixed metaphor has to be my old school pal and latterly boozing partner Andy.

He used to make us shriek with laughter with some of his impromptu howlers.  "Yo'm risking leg and limb"  or "you're getting into sticky waters" or even "It's no good when the boss is breathing down your throat"

This morning, the housebound Charlie Chalk dropped out a good one.  "I'm going to kill two dogs with one bone"...

He's going stir crazy since stepping on some broken glass at home last week.  Now his foot is bandaged up he can't get a Shoe on and says he won't wear a sandal in case I am lurking with a camera (as if).

This morning I did start on a limerick There was a young fellow named Chalk, stood on some glass now can't walk...  I can't think of any more which is a pity, I used to be quite good at limericks, but most of them are unprintable here more's the pity.

Determined on a lazy Sunday.

Seeing how someone nicked my Citroen, I won't be going anywhere today (or any other days for that matter till I get it back or manage to find alternative wheels).

Via J-Walk, I found myself introduced to Steve Mays at www.smays.com  He says he's going to read the soapbox every day...  Bad time to jump on board expecting and everyday post.  Try the archives, there's some fun stuff in there somewhere.

Had to do a bit of impromptu tidying up yesterday what with Darlo Sue coming round to see me.  I scrubbed the toilet clean and you know she didn't even use it.  I chastised her on the phone last night.

Now I've calmed down a bit over the loss of the Citroen, I can report on another happening.

A couple of weeks ago, the new owners of the building came to introduce themselves. The asked me what my plans were.  Well, having lived here almost 20 years, I don't really have any, but of course they do.  Planning permission that is, to rip the building apart and turn it into luxury flats.

So they edged towards how I would feel about moving.  I have no objection to moving, but there are things to be considered.

The place I am in now, is rent controlled.  You'd pay twice as much a week as I do for a place half the size.  They intonated they'd make a concession.  Then there's the cost of moving seeing how I am welfare trash n all.

Mid week I got a call from their office "We understand you are looking to move"...  I explained this was not as clear cut as she seemed to think it was, but I have agreed to go see a flat on Tuesday about half a mile from here in a very nice block, set in beautiful gardens.

It sets the ball rolling, but even though I knew having to leave here was going to happen at some time, I didn't think it would be so soon.  Darlo's coming with me to look the place over, in fact she's quite convinced it is the move I need to reshape my life.  The building is next door to McBark's surgery.  I've already e mailed him and suggested we may become neighbours.  I guess he'll put in for a rebate on the rates.

It's PMG's birthday today.  When I saw him in the week, he appears to be a step closer to his intention to up roots and move to New Zealand.  The family went to London last weekend for a meeting with a headmaster from a school in a place called Pukey Hooey or something like that.

I suggested that next time I go over there, I might stop off at Staples on the way and get some of those little yellow sticky dots.  He looked puzzled so they I went on to explain "If I put little dots on everything I like, we can borrow a van and I can take it away for you".

He didn't seem very keen on the idea.  Personally I thought it would solve all his problems.  I could look after the LCD telly etc just in case he decides to some back.

Happy birthday PMG.

I know I kep banging on, but it will stop as soon as you start listening.

Londonist Introduces... Mika

Last week we went out to watch a man from Beirut with colourful trousers and big hair, sing songs about fat girls, gay affairs, and lollipops. Tonight, we think you should do the same.

Mika was born in the middle of a warzone in 1983 (yes, we realise that makes him disgustingly young), moved to Paris and spent most of his youth in London. What you need to know is that he's Universal Records great hope for 2007. If you like the Scissor Sisters then you're pretty much guaranteed to like this boy and his impressive vocal range. He's tall, good looking, very colourful and seem to be channelling the voice of Freddie Mercury.

His first single, the I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight sound-a-like Relax, Take It Easy was released during the summer and is brilliant. In fact if we'd not got the album sampler for the forthcoming Life in Colour Motion, which is destined to be the accompaniment to your dinner parties as well as your discos, we'd be claiming he'd peaked before we'd even heard an album. As it is, we can agree with a fellow pop pundit, who when leaving his secret gig at Ronnie Scott's, declared "Bloody Hell, that sounded like a greatest hits set."

Mika sang 5 fabulous songs (and 1 bizarre one), including the aforementioned Relax. Amazingly everything is this good. Love Today goes all Beck on our asses with Mika chatting away before it turns into a big stomping chorus, Grace Kelly talks about his love of the great screen legend and features the best Freddie impression we've ever heard; Billy Brown is a cute, tear-worthy tale of a man who gets married but has a secret gay lover and the gigantic Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) sings about his love for the non skinnies among us and is destined to end up a dancefloor classic. Oh, and the bizarre one? Well it was a song called Lollipop which wouldn't seem out of place if sung by Gwen Stefani accompanied by part of a musical. We've tried to forget it but it seems to have carved a nagging hole in our brain.

We also like this boy a lot because he says things like this

"After I started singing as a boy I started to get jobs everywhere. With the help of a terrifyingly tough Russian singing teacher, I got to be really good at professional gigs. I did everything from recordings with the Royal Opera House to the Orbit Chewing gum jingle. I'll never forget calling up British Airways to get a ticket, only to be placed in a line, listening to my own voice. That was a painful 8 minutes. I think the other main reason for getting so much work was that I was insanely cheap! My mother and I had no idea what i was supposed to get paid, and no one was in a hurry to educate us. Looking back on it, i think 45 quid for the Orbit chewing gum jingle, could have been a little too cheap.”

Tee, hee.

Mood is a bit better than this morning.

Darlo turned up this afternoon, with bread and sugar free pop and a bumper bag of meat from Bob the butcher just to get me through the weekend.

Then after we'd tweeked her cv (cos she was canned yesterday), we retired to the pub at the top of the street.

My clan have given me all the support I could ask for, even if it's only a "there there never mind".  Wally the Welder says he's going to duff em up for me if he finds em...

Then, something really nice happened in the pub.  A old fellah I haven't seen for 12 years walked in looking only about 3 years older than when I last saw him.

He was an old fellah when I used to see him on a regular basis at the Queen Street Tavern in the late 80's.  I have to be honest I thought about him recently and thought he might well not be with us any more, so seeing him on that level alone was nice.

His name is Ken and a more gentle, affable fellow you would be hard pressed to meet.  Last time I saw him for a pint circa 1995, we discussed the fact he had spent quite a few years photographing all the pubs in Walsall.  I was just cutting my teeth with the internet at the time and would have written a web site about toenail clippings if I thought it would attract visitors.

I was more interested in scanning Ken's huge collection of pub pictures many now  gone and indeed we agreed to do this.

Then, Ken had a setback where he was less mobile after plod took his licence off him.  He only lives a street or two from me, but you can't very well go round knocking on doors asking "does Ken live round here"? can you ?

It was great to see him again, fit as a flea if a little older.  We had a chat about his photo collection and I gave him my mobile number in the hopes we can see my little idea of putting up a website of Walsall's lost pubs on the net.

Despite the fact the emergency vehicle sirens (every 20 minutes), schoolkids (three times a day) and Citroen stealing miscreants pissing me off to extremity, I've lived in this town and this street (twice) for a long time.  Whilst I preferred the West country to live, I didn't really speak the language there yet, despite being a Scouser, I speak fluent Black Country and so, this place is sort of important to me.

Gave Darlo a copy of the Mika CD. I'm listening to it now and it is quite addictive, just very bouncy, happy songs that make you happy (and you can hear the words, which is inportant to us 50 year olds).

He says his influences are Freddy Mercury, Beatles and Scissor Sisters and I reckon you can hear that, but he's still a one off.  The new UK single is Big Girl you are beautiful which apparently El Tel is already playing on Radio 2 (the TOGS have it)...

So, my friends have rallied round and cheered me up and so has Mika and if we find the Pikeys who nicked my Citroen, Wally the Welder's going to duff em up...

Anybody seen my car ?

Despite my aches and pains, I got up early this morning as there was very little in the house to eat.

I packed up Bob the butcher's curry, took my big container to get some more rainwater for the carnivorous plants and went out only to find no car.

I thought I was dreaming, I even looked up the street in case I had parked it there and not in my usual parking bay.

Of course it wasn't there and it was in its parking bay last night at 5 o clock, because OBC popped round to drop me off some curry and I saw the car when I went out.

I'm surprised they would pick on a 16 year old Citroen.  It would be easy to get in and hotwire of course, but they don't start straight off the key when they are running on LPG and then there's the wait for the suspension to inflate, so they weren't looking for a quick getaway.

If it is not recovered or gets burned out, I will get very little in "market value" and if I get it back damaged, the insurance company could still write it off because of its age.

Darlo is going to get me some bread and stuff on her travels today and Bob the butcher's going to put me up a meat survival package which Darlo will collect for me.

I'm pretty redlined at losing the car.  I was only thinking the other day that in 2 and a half years the only hassle I've had has been a torn off door mirror.

I've had a pretty shitty week all round and this is a fine finish indeed. Officially in sulk mode all weekend.

What I am listening to right now

I downloaded a few of Mika's songs from the internet and really liked them and now I have the CD thanks to PMG and I really like that too.

Fun music that makes you tap or sing along.

He's got a very colourful website here: http://www.mikasounds.com/uk.php  I just watched the video stream of his new single Big girl you are beautiful, great vid, great song.

He's worked in the US, but I don't think he's that well known there yet.

Far be it from me...

I had a really irritating day.  Phone rang so many times breaking my concentration for even the most trivial of pursuits.

I decided to settle this evening with the  last few episodes on DVD of the quite excellent Bleak House and a decent Rioja given to me by a member of the OBC clan.

I was able to overdose on "shake me up Judy" and cheer the heroes such as Mr. Bucket and even Mr. Guppy and of course hiss and spit at the likes of Skimpole who got his come uppance from a "mere woman". 

Second time around I still got a lump in my throat when they found poor lady Dedlock "as jed as a rot" in the pouring rain.

As for the outcome, I was a little disappointed with Esther.  she quite rightly promised herself to Mr. Jarndice and chucked him for in my opinion, an interloper.  But far be it for me to contradict the author.

This is a fine piece of television drama where each actor no matter how small the part, gave everything they had to portray their character.

If you haven't seen it, please see it before you die.

Widgets 2

These widgets are pretty addictive and they are easily deleted too if you download one and it gets on your nerves.

I just found a patrolling Dalek who just glides round your desktop presumably looking for something to exterminate.

I see the Flickr feed has picked up Wally the Welder in his bondage outfit - His secret is out...

Impressive Vista like widgets

BBC News 24 carries a technology show called Click.  Yesterday they did a piece on little things you can do to your Windows XP machine, to make it look like Vista.

It pointed one in the direction of Yahoo's widgets.  You can see a couple I've already installed, which includes a link to my Flickr pictures and a nice analogue desk clock.

Here's the link for that, where you can find the links or even watch the programme if you so desire:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/default.stm

Here's the widget link :  www.widgets.yahoo.com

Do be aware that if you haven't already got it, you will be leaned on to install Yahoo toolbar.  Not to everyone's taste, you can opt out, just read the pre install instructions.

There are links on the Click website from Microsoft add ons too.  Enjoy playing with your widgets, I know Wally the Welder has been known to.

Bush the soxer

It's official GW is a soxer and here's the picture to prove it.

He's not yet made Soxer of the week over at web central for soxers everywhere www.sandalandsoxer.co.uk/home.htm  He's certainly going to make the grade though looking like that.