• General

As senses go, this is about the last one that I have left. I’m just about blind and my extremities are going numb (thanks, diabetes) but my hearing is not too bad; that’s how come I heard the water coming down from the Creeper’s flat.

We share a waste pipe. Because I had to dismantle the airing cupboard to mend the hot water tank and couldn’t be bothered to remantle it I can smell what he’s cooking and all that.

So, this morning I was lying in bed and whiff, whiff, what’s that I can smell?

Trouty will tell you (God, how I miss her) that I can smell loads of things. I don’t go around sniffing dogs’ bottoms but I could probably get a job at an airport. I can sniff things out a treat and I don’t even want a Bonio; just 60 grand a year will do me.

Sniff, sniff, sniff. Ahah! If I’m not mistaken it is the pong of Cannabis Sativa, otherwise known as ‘dope’.

No wonder their bath overflowed (although they will never admit it) because the new Mrs. Creeper was obviously whacked out of her head on the skunk.

I don’t mind people smoking a bit of weed, I done it myself about ten years ago, but this is starting to get ridiculous. Water through the ceiling? Pong of marijuana waking me up? Rude and obnoxious Creeper who refuses to say sorry? Bloody builders who have the idea of decorating involves the use of a Kango hammer?

I’m at the end of my rope and, although that is a metaphor, it may soon be literal.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I needed to get this crap off my chest.

H.

• General

The Beatles’ version is, of course, the best but this one is interesting.

It doesn’t have the backwards guitar that they smacked out in Abbey Road with George Martin but it still has the feeling of the song. As songs go it is my life in, ahem, my life in a bottle. ‘Float upstream’ - of course you can’t. If you float downstream then you are dead but in this song life is celebrated. Sleep. Blessed sleep. I try to spend at least 50% of my life asleep. Please don’t wake me, please don’t shake me. I’m only dreaming.

Have a good day.

H.

• General

I don’t why but this song has always done it for me.

My fave album is ‘Revolver’ because there was so much George on it.

Enjoy this one:

The song ends so shortly. This is reflected in the lyric. Like the ‘relationship’ it just dies on its arse. Cuts off. If I sat up all night, scratching my head, I couldn’t write a better lyric; never mind a better song.

• General

I know quite well who you are.
IP addresses and all that.

You know what my address is (henrythethirst@aol.com) so why not drop me a line?

• General

My OCD is getting worse:

Bit more Otway, I’m afraid,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dc_ffPld9o

Now, how does this bloody bread machine work?

• General

WARNING:
THIS IS NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK OR CHILDREN OR MOTHERS OR ANYTHING.

DON’T DO IT UNLESS YOU’VE HAD A FEW…

Welcome to Kunt and the gang…

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. You should see the rest of his stuff. Ha ha hah!

• General

Everyone keeps going on about these ruddy breadmaking machines so, today, I went and bought one from Messrs. Tesco.

I haven’t used it yet, I’m not that stupid, I’ve been reading the instruction book.

Hmmmmm, loooks like I knead (need, geddit?) some strong flour and some dried yeast. I shall also need some powerful detergent seeing as how I haven’t washed-up since Christmas.

I just buy cutlery instead.

Still, I did clean the bog yesterday and now all I have to do is work out how much a ‘cup’ is worth in real money.

A ‘cup’? - depends how big your cup is, I suppose. My ‘cup’ is about a pint so if they want me to put a pound and a half of flour in then off we go.

Should you hear a loud bang from the New Haw direction it will be because I’ve turned this infernal machine on.

• General

Oh, ha ha, Doc Holiday.

He hasn’t seen me for a fortnight and I’ve lost 10 kgs.

His Volvo broke down the day he got back but at least his Porsche still works.

Porkers should follow my regime and just eat tinned fruit out of the fridge.

Losing weight is easy. All you have to do is encourage a disinterest (not an uninterest) in food. Eat if you are hungry (which you shouldn’t be, seeing as we are the 4th richest country in the world) and, if you aren’t hungry, don’t eat.

Slimtastic!

• General

I might be nearly blind but I do have a couple of senses that work pretty well; smell and hearing.

Hmmm, that’s interesting, water coming out of my bathroom light fitting. I knocked up.

I spoke to his bird and she declared no knowledge. One of the things I’m not is stupid. If there is water pissing through my light fittings then it must be coming from upstairs. Eventually the Creeper (for it is he) turned up and he came to have a look.

“Where’s this light fitting?”

“Well my guess is the one with water dripping out of it and a bucket underneath.”

Not a word of sorry. “Phone your landlord", says he.

My guess is that his new bird had let the bath overflow and didn’t want to admit it. Bloody litigious society. “I do this for a living, you know” is what he said before he declared my bathroom as “Whiffy” and left the premises.

Well, if I hadn’t had half a bathful of his crappy water through my ceiling then he wouldn’t have had to put up with my bathroom, whiffy or not.

I got on the phone to Vodka Mick and he knows a bit about plumbing. He put on his running shoes and came straight round. There is no way that I could pump water up to flood my own ceiling. The water had to be coming from upstairs.

Round comes The Creeper. Mick recognised him and told me that he does, indeed, work for the Water Board. He digs up drains.

My brother knows the Creeper’s dad and he told me years ago that he was a complete and utter…

Meanwhile I am left with a sodden carpet and water dripping out of my lightbulb.

And not a word of apology.

• General

Having done some tidying up I left some bags of rubbish outside. I thought I’d better take them down to the bins but Hey! What’s this?

Someone had left a stick-in-the-mud right next door to my pots of weeds and mint. It looked a bit thirsty so I gave it some light refreshment. I haven’t a bloody clue what it is or who left it there. It looks about dead but I might be able to revive it.

Tell you what, life is bloody weird.

• General

When boating, about the only knot you will ever need is the clove hitch.

Loop, twist and loop.

You can hold a twenty ton boat with this simple knot.

It always amazes me when I see ‘boaters’ trying to tie up with what looks like Grandma’s knitting or an effing birdnest.

Still, that’s because I’m brilliant and they aren’t. “How do you do that?” they ask and I show them. They never get it because they don’t pay attention. I’m like the Jack Hargreaves of the Navigation.

Silly Sailing Simon, just before he got the chuck off the Nav. taught me a few things. Some of whch I thought were lies but they weren’t. He could tell when a lock was opened or a boat was coming. The shock-wave off a boat goes about (and I’m not joking) about half a mile in front of it. He could tell by the pull on the mooring lines.

Here’s a thing he taught me: “If you can do it any more slowly then you are going too fast".

I had a go on Mr Dot’s boat the other day. Yes, I crunched it and he had to rescue me. The controls were alien and I didn’t know what I was doing. But I live to fight another day and I can slip clove hitches.

Cheers A and J, we had a lovely trip.

• General

I have now not eaten for two days on the bounce.

It’s a bit of a shame because I’m not a bad cook really. Dining for one? Forget it.

Vodka Mick came round and helped me cut my hair. It’s just about down to the wood. Point 0.5 on the clippers and the beard and all. Skinhead.

Then we went down the Navigation and hitched a ride with some friends. It was so lovely to be back on the water - I missed it so much.

I walked back from Pyrford. It’s odd not having a beard anymore.

• General

Well, we were looking for a Buffalo Song that had been lost for thirty years.
I found the lyrics in about 10 seconds and then I started looking for the tune.

I found this…

Enjoy.

• General

Some people might think that ‘obsessive REPULSIVE’ might be a bit more like it but I don’t care. I’m in my fifty-first year you know and you youngsters don’t know what it was like in the olden days. We never had them EMthree-pees, all we had was a stick of wood that they used to make liquorice out of before they started using dogs’ noses.

It is my solemn duty to become really interested in something for a few months and then forget all about it for a year or more. Times crossword, painting, wild flowers, walking, boating, smoking, two members of ‘Badfinger’, John Waterhouse, Haslemere…

Oh the list goes on and on.

Anyway, I’m glad that so many of you enjoyed Otway torturing the, ahem, Theremin so I dug out another example of his craft.

Otway and the Hamsters Geddin! It’s a disco version of his top 200 hit, ‘Bunsen Burner’. The words/lyrics/libretto are very funny.

Enjoy.

• General

Guess what the birthday boy told me…

As he is technermological and I am not I might not be able to explain it very well.

What you have to to is get a tube of Pringles and eat them (sorry about that, I know they are disgusting) and then make use of the tube’s foil lining.

Then you make a small hole in the bottom of the tube and slip it over that aerial thing on your Wifi thing. Then you have to point it this way and that and it will super-increase something or another.

Many happies, dear Youngblood. How about if I boot some creds into your mobile? I’ll need to know which service provider you are on.

You might like to provide a more sophisticated version of the Pringle aerial than I can, just for the benefit of all my readers.

Love you,
H.

• General

There is a so-called ‘musical instrument’ that I first saw being played by Jimmy Page about a hundred years ago. It has, like, an aerial on it and the closer you get… etc.

I wish I could remember what it’s called.

Here’s Otway torturing one:

What the hell are these things called? Something beginning with ‘S’?

Never mind; enjoy a bit of Otway.

• General

Otherwise…

• General

On Tuesday, when I have to go to Buffs, I spotted them. But they were only small. On the Thursday, Doc’s day, I went into the butcher’s and asked how much he would give me for them.

He hadn’t got a clue. He’d never heard of them.

I checked them today. Chicken of the woods. Getting larger.

I’ll be up there Thursday morning and if I don’t get four quids for the lot I’ll have a nice breakfast. And so shall my friends.

• General

Yes, I did idle some of the day away watching freerunning from Trafalgar Square.
It was not very good.

Here’s a link.

I started watching Parkour on BoobToob because I was so jealous. The clips that I watch are mostly Eastern European and, God, how they fly. There are no catch-nets, just ability. To see someone climb an alley or jump across one, to see someone climb a block of flats…

Have a look on BoobToob for Parkour and you will be amazed.

How in the Hell can they do that?

• General

It has always been a matter of pride for me that I have NEVER lived in a road visited by ice-cream vans.

Okay, so call me a snob (because I am one) but listen to this… My hippy uncle used to drive an ice-cream van and he got stuck on for sounding his chimes after 7:30 pm.

Anyway, the other day I was listening to the radio when all of a sudden, DING A LING DANG DONG DOODLE DOODLE DOO DING DING etc.

Oh for a ‘Black Widow’ catapult.

So now I have the world record noisiest rubbish builders doing up the moonlight-flit flat with a Kango Hammer and, oh, the shame, Mr Whippy up my road.

I must try harder to win the lottery.