Saturday 31 December 2011

Happy Blogmany

Ah, New Year's Eve. I was at Leeds railway station this evening and honestly, the short skirts, the stiletto heels, the bosoms on show - I really shouldn't have worn those clothes, not with my figure.

I'm joking, of course, although I have worn some bizarre things on New Year's Eve in the past. When I was 16 I remember failing to get into Torquay's Piazza pub wearing a black and white checked shirt with a bow tie. Quite why I thought the 'harlequin waiter' look was going to help me appear over 18, I don't know. I was also brandishing very badly faked ID, so much so I might as well just handed over a piece of paper with 'I be 18' written on it in crayon, and it would have been more convincing. In the end myself and my chum Dave Baker went to KFC and ended up back at my house drinking the contents of my mum's sideboard. Happy New Year Mr Baker, I trust you will end up doing something just as exciting tonight.

The year after KFC-night, my girlfriend of the time told me she wanted an 'open relationship' so she could snog other blokes in front of me all night. Amusingly, she was diagnosed with glandular fever a few days later and I was the only one who hadn't caught it. Strange girl she was, I was told a few years ago that she is now a 'lesbian bookshop'. Not an owner of a bookshop, the actual bookshop itself.

Subsequent New Year's Evenings have always been a bit, well, different. 1997/98 I slept through, after having been so utterly bored of Torquay's 'Crazy Horse Saloon' (it was neither crazy, nor equine based)that I just went home at 9pm.

For the Millenium I ended up in a warehouse in Liverpool with various chums watching The Lightning Seeds, Stereophonics, Orbital and Pete Tong. But my abiding memory was attempting to sleep in a friend's car in the car park, having thought I could do without a sleeping bag and just put a coat over myself. It was -2C outside and I spent most of the night begging my friend to 'make the car hot'. I believe I actually passed out from the cold rather than fell asleep that night.

Then there was an evening of indie-rock in Wolverhampton which involved so much headbanding that me and chum Rusty ended up with whiplash for a week.

One lovely night saw my mum produce copious amounts of food from nowhere, and I shall always cherish the look of delight on my wife's face as mum pulled a massive trifle out of the fridge at 1am.

Ultimately, as time has gone by, I've wanted less noise, insane drinking and dancing like I've got rickets. Instead, it's just nice to spend time with the people you care about.

Anyway, whatever you end up doing tonight, be safe and enjoy yourself. And if you're planning on sleeping in a car, bring a duvet.

Thanks for reading my 2011 nonsense, I'll try harder next year.

Monday 5 December 2011

Suitably alarmed

I’m pleased to say that we’ve got a brand new burglar alarm at our house. Not that I believe any of you reading this are committed thieves (well, there’s one or two of you I’m suspicious of) but it’s more just a sense of relief at getting the darned thing in place. Reason being, I’ve not had a great relationship with alarms and house security in the past.

When I rented a room in Wolverhampton many years ago I wasn’t given the code to the alarm, so when I returned from a long weekend and my landlady was out, I couldn’t shut the stupid thing off. Add to that a large hold-all over my shoulder and my generally shabby demeanour (it had been a long weekend of drinking, eating and 8 hours travel) and I couldn’t have looked more suspicious unless I had a small mask on, a stripy jumper and the word ‘swag’ emblazoned on a sack. Brilliantly I just stood on the doorstep telling passers-by “I do live here you know” which worked. But then that’s the reaction people get when they hear an alarm these days, not ‘my word, someone is being robbed’ more ‘there’s a bloody alarm going off, that’s so annoying.’

Another house I lived at had no alarm and I came home one day to find that my housemate had not only left the back door unlocked, but the door was wide open all day. I had no key to lock it, and he was away for the night, so I spent 40 minutes shuffling the fridge-freezer across the kitchen to block the door and slept with a kitchen knife under my bed. Me? Paranoid? Not at all, although I know you all think I am...

Then there was the alarm at our last house where the code to activate the thing worked a treat, no complaints there, but upon entering the code for a second time the unit had clearly decided I was now a murdering thief and went off with gay abandon. Still, I managed to shut the thing off by ringing the man who had installed it 4 years previous and saying “Can you tell me how to turn the alarm off, I’m not a burglar by the way.” His brilliant solution was simply “See those wires? Pull them all out.” Comforting to know that hi-tech security could be defeated by random violence.

So when we got to our new home I was delighted to find a brand new system with a state of the art control panel the size of Barnsley on the wall of the hall and sensors in every room. What could be simpler. Then it transpired it had been installed by the previous home owner who had the technical skills of a radish. The genius had managed to set it up so that you activated the box in the hall and then had a grand total of ‘no seconds’ to get out, so you immediately triggered it by moving towards the door. Perhaps he was made of gas or had the ability to teleport, like a member of the x-men, and was able to use it. Oh, and he’d left the master code as 1111, try working that one out eh? To be honest, we’d have been more protected just putting up an a4 sign on the door saying ‘please don’t burgle us’.

So now we have an uber-safe system that is pet-friendly too. By that I mean the sensors are tolerant to the cats, not that the burglar alarm chats to them while we are out.

Although, that would be ace.