……………….. “I’m a werewolf.” He said it deadpan. No inflection in his voice, no hint of a smile, no boast nor irony. Just “I’m a werewolf.” John found his jaw opening and closing as he tried to find a reply. Nothing. Having someone state that they are a werewolf is like felling a metaphorical giant redwood across a person’s train of thought, John found. His mouth tried to open again, John shut it decisively. Finding no way forward he tried to review the conversation for earlier errors or misunderstandings. They had been discussing martial arts, or in truth, John had while Peter had offered the odd nod. John had been musing aloud about the mixture of martial arts in which he was currently training. Taekwondo, all about kicking, and Wing Chun Kung Fu, all about punching, blocking and generally using your hands and arms to fight. He had wondered aloud if the combination of the two styles was the recipe for becoming an unbeatable fighter. Unusually, Peter had brought something to the monologue. He answered the rhetorical question. “No.” This had brought John’s first pause. The fact that Peter had chosen to speak on the subject of martial arts was sufficiently out of character to warrant attention, but for him to state such an opinion categorically, was quite shocking. John had started to dismiss the statement by pointing out the shortfalls of kick-boxing, but Peter had again surprised him by interrupting to say he hadn’t meant there was a better style. Perplexed, John had asked what he meant. “Any human can be beaten by a werewolf.” John was relieved to hear it was a joke, but also slightly irritated that Peter was wasting his time. “A werewolf!” he’d scoffed. Then he’d said it; “I’m a werewolf.” .. .. The silence extended uncomfortably. John was lost for a reply. He looked at Peter, trying to interpret what he saw. Peter sat looking back at him, a blank canvas. He was betraying no emotion, but had a look about the eyes that John couldn’t define. John’s first reaction was to laugh it off, but some deeper instinct was warning him not to. It wasn’t the wary-of-further-embarrassment warning that prompted you to exit promptly when someone told you that they’d accepted an invisible friend as their personal saviour, or the other not suffering fools lightly imposition of the nutter on the bus. It was a warning of real danger. .. .. The silence was really dragging out now, and Peter was showing no sign of relieving it by word or deed. .. .. John had a book of autostereograms at home. He had bought it on a whim and been amused by how you could be looking at a seemingly random pattern and then suddenly your brain flipped it’s perception over and you were looking at a 3d image coming out of the page. That was what it was like. The silence dragging on, the look about Peter’s eyes, his instinct confusing him, […]
Continue readingBreaking News!
Just a quick one. Whilst being dicked about something fierce in work this morning, I was walking across the yard from one department to another. I met up with Nick, the union rep for the drivers, (he who said he would clear it with the management for me to get some practise in at my reverse in one of the works trucks. Which, after some arsing around he duly did.) Well, I was minding my own business, and was in a fairly foul mood due to the aforementioned dicking- about- ness, when he pulled up alongside me and congratulated me on passing. I thanked him and said it was about time. He then said, unbidden, that he been in to the transport office on my behalf, and they (the transport management) were on about setting up a training scheme for me! Happy days! Frown upside down. As I say, it was unbidden so he had no need to invent it, so I’m hoping it is genuine, and that the deed follows the intent. That would be perfect. Whatever they have in mind, and however long it takes, I have my foot in the door. I have been on professional drivers websites where newly qualified drivers were offering to work for free to get experience. That’s how tough it can be. If they come good on this, it would be ideal. Work to their standard, get known, then when they need me I’m there. The drivers all reckon our place is the best paid driving job in the area, and they don’t ask for nights out, sleeping in your cab. Most of the jobs on the interweb expect it. This is before my license has come back from darkest Wales, and therefore before I’ve stepped into the office to present my case. There is hope for me. Yay! I’m going to leave it there, just a quick but really hopeful entry. Later, Buck.
Continue readingHat and this and that
Well, I’ve given up on my old hat. It has served me well, if tightly, for these last few years. I ordered it from Canada so when it arrived, and was too tight, I didn’t fancy the return postage for a bigger size. To make matters worse, the hat-band seems to have been forged from titanium. No amount of squeezing it onto my head would make it stretch. Then there was the problem with the brim. Although on my profile picture it is doing as I wanted, usually if you bent the front down to shape it the sides would all go to cock. Nice hat, served me faithfully, but faded badly and now it’s time to move on. Here is the new improved hat. I started window shopping a week or two ago and came across this style. It is shaped into a dipped brim at the front and back, and though I didn’t know it, soft as gloves on your head. (Not that that is where I usually wear my gloves, you understand.) I tracked down the style, then a U.K. stockist (for about £40 plus P&P) then found someone selling them for £17.95 inclusive of P&P but they wanted me to set up a new payment system (Worldpay. Never heard of it.) Then I realised they were selling the same hat on ebay! Bleeding typical. When it arrived it was too big, but I boxed it up again, sent it back and had the smaller size in three days! Good service! Enough of the words and such, check out this baby: Yeah verily, I rock! Whilst I’m here I suppose I’d better clarify a point in my previous entry. The talking snake was a biblical reference alluding to the hilarious story of a talking phallic symbol that tempted the first woman, thereby damning the first man. Which seems to indicate that misogyny is not new and that the bible was written by men. Freud must have pissed himself laughing when he read that one. I only mention it to rule out any misunderstanding involving a certain Mr Harold Potter and his abilities as pertaining to the field of parseltongue. You would think such elucidation unnecessary, indeed patronising. I would have agreed had it not been for an incident of late. My niece, Robyn, posted something jolly on her MySpace jobby to the effect of ‘ Five years from now we could be walking in the zoo, with the sun shining down on me and you.’ In the spirit of balance I replied ‘ Or lying, dying, bleeding and in pain, under a bus in the pouring rain.’ Which she said was horrible. I replied ‘ A poet, like a prophet, is without honour in his own town.’ Which she simply didn’t understand. Apparently the youth of today are unaware of the ridiculous fiction they should be despising. Go the yoof! Meanwhile, back at the Buck-cave… I have made good my resolution to get push-biking. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, […]
Continue readingEvil Lisa!
I forgot to say, we went around to my sisters house last Sunday. She is a bit of an evil genius at the making of puddings. If you think of the artistry of Gary Rhodes, the relish of Nigella Lawson, and the to-hell-with-the-calories of the Two Fat Ladies, you are in the right area. Add a soupcon of talking snake and you’ve got it. With one pudding she managed to break two diets. I love my sweet stuff so I piled straight in, but Wendy was saying ‘perhaps I’ll have a spoonful out of one’. Lisa, gave her a bowl (they were already made up into little bowls) and after the first spoonful, even though she was full, Wendy was eating the lot. I was half way through my bowl, in an ecstasy of creamy goodness, when our Lisa started talking about the problem she’d had with the jelly. Bugger! Jelly =gelatine =animal product. I’m a veggie. I paused, spoon laden with calorific sublimity, then thought ‘well I’ve already eaten some. Screw the animals’, and troughed the lot. Bad Bucky! Buddha demerits. Which is a recurring ethical problem. I have leather goods, I use slug pellets and pesticides, yet I want to be a veggie. At what point does a life inherit value? Buddha says not to take any life, as we are all indistinguishably one. But would he not have boiled dirty water? It’s a dilemma, but it’s bedtime. Later, Buck.
Continue readingAnd there’s more…
Well it’s proving a good week for us. Wendy had her interview today, passed with flying colours, and is back to being a (part-time) wages slave as of next week! When she was last with the C.A.B. she worked on a project called G.P. Outreach as a sort of independent advisor. She would go to doctors surgeries and deal with people the doctor referred, such as people with debts, housing issues, benefits problems etc. The idea was that she could then deal with people who were too loony or simple to just attend the regular bureau. Then, in dealing with the some of the causes of stress and misery in their lives it would let the doctor offer a more holistic package whilst freeing the doctor up to just deal with the medical issues. I only mention that to explain that in her last role Wendy had to take on a whole lot of issues then deal with most of them herself as the clients weren’t capable, and keep on dealing with every little issue that arose in their lives. She was constantly having ongoing clients calling her and then she was worrying over every thing in their sad lives. Although on the one hand rewarding, it was emotionally draining and too much of a burden for her. Which brings us to her present job; trainee debt specialist. In this capacity she is specialising in her favourite subject (debt), she is part of a team, and because of the massive (and inevitably increasing) workload in that field that the bureau faces, it is her boss’s policy to deal with all of the clients problems in one, or at the most two interviews. Then case closed. These are going to be compos mentis clients so there is no need to hand-hold and take over their cases. It’s sort everything out, tell them what to do, or arrange it, then let them get on with it. Also it is one very short bus ride away from where we live, her previous job entailed two buses, or a bus and a train, or if I happened to be off, an hour’s drive in rush hour traffic (to cover about seven miles!) So, old job bad in all sorts of ways, new job better in just as many, and having the added bonus of letting Wendy specialise in her favourite subject. Also she’s lost the best part of another stone since we returned from Scotland, so everything is peachy in the world of the Wendster. I have made a decision about my martial arts. I went to a Karate class the other day to try it out. It was weird, but I expect it was good if you stuck at it. The only reason I went is, as I’ve mentioned previously, Taekwondo more or less ignores the fact you have hands. They are just handy (as it were) counterbalances for when you are kicking. This is fine in a competition where your opponent won’t […]
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