Down(ing Street) and out

Running the country is such a piffling business, I can see how politicians could get bored with trying to make people’s lives better and indulge in a spot of bun fighting. There’s really nothing more thrilling in politics than watching a leadership mandate implode. Sag, really, like someone’s opened the oven door too early.

Will he, won’t he – the prime minister seems to have made it clear that he’s not packing up the furniture in the Number 10 flat until someone has the decency to stick the knife in his front, which I think is eminently respectable. If people are going to gang up on you they really ought to feel it. 
Except – and this is a canny calculation on the PM’s part – no one with any clout will actually be brave enough to do the deed, so the prime minister can squat in Downing Street as long as he likes, basically. I mean he actually can now that Labour has changed the rules on no fault evictions. Someone will have to give him six months’ notice, but I don’t know who actually owns the building. Would it be the king?

There have been a series of ‘dramatic’ resignations today of the most junior and inconsequential ministers who will have emailed their letters over (CCing in various media outlets of course) and then panicked afterwards that nothing will actually happen. It’s been a real who’s who of who’s that – not because no one wants the top job, but rather because some of them want it too badly, and it’s not really good for the old image to have been the one who betrayed the boss.

It’s not a conundrum, in the classical sense – you know, like whether the chicken or the egg comes first. In this case the chicken won’t make a move until a series of minor eggs have been smashed in a speculative fashion. Like vultures, the big names only circle once the whiff of decay has started to emanate. You have to feel for all of these MPs who worry for their jobs come the next in election in – checks notes – over three years. Perhaps this uncertainty and stress could be channelled into some sort of sympathy for the general public? Crazy thought. Just as I type, the minister for victims has stepped down. Who’s going to speak out for them now?

Life irritating art

I saw a video on Instagram earlier of US television’s Dan Levy appearing on Claudia Winkleperson’s eponymous chat show, where her and her celebrity guests tried to explain the 1990s phenomenon that was Mr Blobby – a truly harrowing cultural blip, this pink foam character with a bulbous round head and yellow spots was a fixture on Saturday night telly juggernaut Noel’s House Party and wrought carnage with every appearance.

It’s hard to explain the Blobby saturation – there was a number one Christmas single, beaucoup de mercy and at one point a dreadful money grabbing theme park that mercifully tanked almost immediately. Mr Blobby had a life and career of his own – the original plan had been to pop a different celebrity guest in the suit every week, but Blobby quickly gained sentience and ruined that idea.

Of course he appeared on Claudia’s show and scared the crap out of Levy, who hid behind the guest sofa chanting under his breath whatever motto his therapist has given him for moments that surface his deepest traumas.

It reminded me of my own Blobby experience – I did GCSE art at school, and there was a double lesson on a Wednesday afternoon. Mr Clarke would let us have control of the CD player in turn, which in the late 1990s meant all Greenday all the time, until it was my go and I played Mr Blobby’s single on loop for the entire hour and twenty minute lesson.

It was something unpredictable, and in the end was right – I really did have the time of my life. I never did get to use the CD player again, but it was worth it.

Not me…

No you’re lying in bed at 10pm desperately trying to think of something to put on your blog because of an arbitrary quest you’ve committed to that’s meant to involve posting something every day that’s essentially meaningless but has actually turned out to be quite a useful discipline on the days when you actually have remembered that that is indeed what you’re doing and have prepared something reasonably thoughtful rather than dashing off any old meaningless crap in a vain attempt to meet said challenge even though no one cares and there will be zero actual consequences were you to not write something every day as evidenced by the fact that you forgot yesterday and the world has maintained its axis.

I’m nuts for Brazil

The biggest country visiting my blog at the moment is Brazil. I couldn’t tell you why I’m so popular in Brazil, because I don’t believe I’ve mentioned the place in any of my various ramblings.

Now I’ve been to Chile and Argentina, but perhaps I need to make my way to the land of the samba seeing as the notoriously friendly and irritatingly handsome folk have taken me to their collective bosom.

It could just be that the rest of my numbers are so desperately low that it’s artificially highlighting the Brazilian fandom, or perhaps I’ve inadvertently offended the nation and been cancelled in my absence. Who knows, I shall enjoy the mystery for a little while longer.

Vote of confidence

I took great pleasure today in voting – not because I think my ballot paper will have any effect, especially not in the treacly mess of local politics, but because it’s the one time you can feel particularly engaged in the machinations of your country.

There are other civic touch points – paying your council tax, renewing your passport, getting arrested – but none of them have quite the same sense of occasion.

I also hold the mutually exclusive viewpoints that 1) local politicians should be not seen and not heard, and 2) that you really can’t complain about anything if you haven’t voted.

Both are a nonsense of course, but in practice we only ever hear from our tinpot local council members every four years when they deign to shove a pamphlet through the letterbox filled with pictures of them pointing at all the things they’ve not done anything about.

And neither would we find it acceptable for any elected representative to claim that they only represented the people who made it out on polling day and ticked the right boxes. This isn’t America, for goodness’ sake.

And now the calm period before the storm of finding out who’s won what, which parties have had a nightmare and who’s going to be walking round for the next week or two with an unbearably smug smile on their face. Though we mostly know the answers to those questions already, to be fair.

A fond farewell

It was my grandad’s funeral today – he was a lovely man, full of integrity and eminently respectable, he set a high bar for me live up to personally and I’ve got lots of fond memories, but there was one in particular that I shared with people at his memorial service.

I remember staying with grandma and grandad when I was little and getting up early because I knew grandad would be up watching television.

All the curtains would still be drawn and the house would be dark, but we’d sit and watch Flipper or Skippy or Lassie or whatever else was on channel four that early on a weekend morning.

After that he’d make me some Ready Brek in the microwave, with a bit of grandma’s fancy mixed sugar sprinkled on top (she had a sugar bowl with brown sugar mixed in with the white stuff.

It’s an inconsequential memory in many ways, but to me it feels ineffably nostalgic and cosy, a little snippet of a way in which he shaped my early thinking.

Chip off the block

I used to run this little pony show as a chip shop review blog and quite enjoyed myself doing it, but then suddenly found myself not having written anything on it in a year for whatever reason and decided to have a bit of an overhaul. Are we in a net better position? Arguably not, but we’re here and that’s that.

But it did get me thinking over the weekend as I was sat in a chip shop how much I miss the excuse to pop out and try a new place (“It’s for the website, it’s important”), especially when there’s something innovative on offer. Though any reviewer will tell you that life is much easier when the thing you’re reviewing is bad, because for some reason the creativity flows much better – it’s harder to be nice.

I was in Machynlleth for the comedy festival, which is an absolute treat incidentally, and if you enjoy comedy it’s well worth considering. Unless you hate camping, in which case book a room somewhere for three years’ time and go then.

There are two chip shops down the main strip of Mach, though they are in fact the same place with two different locations – this monopoly doesn’t seem to be harming things, especially their creativity. They’ve come up with whatever the next size up from a jumbo sausage is (like getting a jeroboam of champagne) and my particular favourite from my meal the other day was a battered mushy pea fritter with chilli jam in the middle.

Savoury legume doughnut probably isn’t on anyone’s bingo list, but it’s a delight worth trying. As is the place in Arbroath on the east Scottish coast that does an all you can eat chip shop buffet. It’s a seven hour drive away, but it consumes my thoughts – it’s just a question of when, not if I go up there and eat until I can’t move. And it wouldn’t even be for the website.

I can see clearly now

What a difference a day makes, etc. It’s been largely dry today, but with enough fat dark clouds lumbering overhead that you can’t feel too safe. You still want to take your waterproof coat with you just on the off-chance, even if the sun is shining brightly. Croeso y Gymru.

I saw waterproof, it might have been billed as such when I bought it many years ago, but these days it’s anything but. It lets water in at the seams, and if I stay out in a shower for too long the very fabric itself becomes saturated with moisture.

I have any number of things I could wear that would be drier in a storm than my actual waterproof, and I include the concept of gaffer taping a series of buckets and plant pots together for shelter.

But there’s something psychologically stimulating about deploying my waterproof, and it looks like the sort of thing you should be wearing when the rains come down. Less fashion, more victim.

Still, that’s all moot now that the rain has stopped and the sun reappears briefly. But it will be back. It always comes back. And I’ll be ready (but ill-equipped).

Rain of terror

It is raining a lot right now. It rained a lot the other day, to the extent that the rain started to permeate the tent and it was raining inside. I didn’t like the inside rain, I think rain is definitely the sort of thing that’s best kept outside. Unless it’s in a controlled fashion like a shower or misting your house plants.

The water is puddling on the roof, and I’ve tried various things to stop this from happening, moving the pegs and pulling the guy ropes this way and that. None of it ultimately seems to make a difference, so I just have to assume that the fabric of our tent is going the same way as the skin on my throat and no longer has the same level of tautness that it once enjoyed. I’m getting to the sort of age where my skin looks more like it’s draped than it’s effectively containing whatever is within.

I ran around the tent with a waterproofing spray the other day when it first rained, which seems to have done the trick in stopping the water coming through. I can’t get my head round the fact that spraying something wet can stop other wet stuff from making other stuff wet, it’s magic. I’m slightly worried that it’ll ultimately give up, and that this will happen eventually in the small hours, which are the worst hours to have to deal with a camping catastrophe.

I have decided though that despite it being only 20 past seven that I am now done for the day and can start to burrow my way under my many blankets and coverings with a view to emerging tomorrow when the rain has stopped. A temporary hibernation, if you will.

Feeling tents

I am camping this weekend, which doesn’t necessarily sit too well with me. It’s not just because it’s quite cold and wet where I am (surprise: Wales), it’s also that I’m not naturally outdoorsy.

In fact I very much enjoy being inside, especially when it’s warm and comfortable. Who doesn’t like being warm and comfortable? Well, outdoorsy people.

It’s entirely too early in the year to be camping, even if it is May. I think there’s a sweet spot in early August, but it still gets chilly at night. Sometimes I have to wear a hoodie backwards to cover my face while I sleep, but this weekend I’m contenting myself with three blankets and a hot water bottle.