White xmas my arse!

White Xmas my arse!
What larks! Snow, ice, and Rage Against The Machine.
I seem to be getting sent into the freezer every shift now, hopefully just until the xmas rush is over. On Sunday it was miserable in there, I was on a bit of a downer. 2-10 on a Sunday, in the freezer. Glum was I.
Then I got home and Wendy told me that Rage had beaten Simon Cowell's karaoke clone to the xmas number 1! I was buzzing! What Yuletide frolics we shall have. Best xmas No 1EVER!
That was definitely the best 99p I've ever spent.
Bill Bailey was triumphant on Twitter that night. A success for real music, he thought. As he so rightly said "Hey Cowell, F+++ you I won't do what you tell me!"
Might be an anthem for me next year, "Killing in the name."

Then there was the snow. All very pretty until it freezes over night. Then you have the mard-arse want-to-live-for-ever types who think that a slightly damp road means you should do 6mph (literally. For about three miles through town.) I was overtaking whenever I could, holding a 40mph slide as I snaked along. That was later though, in the morning I ran Wendy to church, then on the way home thought it would be fun to have a bit of a slide. Only doing about 20-30mph, open, empty road, thought it would be a giggle to put the handbrake on.



Not so much fun. Locked up (obviously) lost all control, and started sliding towards that open roadworks you see.



Shit, shit, shit, shit!




And that will be another new bumper, please.
Wendy was so much less than pleased.

When I got home I spotted this, which has to be the most optimistic bit of clothes hanging in the history of laundry:




That amused me. It's not a brilliant quality photo', but you can see the sitting snow, and it was actually snowing at the time. Respect!

I think I have already mentioned (was it on here or on Twitter?) that after me telling one of the bosses (after he asked how my driving was going) that 'it isn't they are fucking me over' the next day a senior manager pulled me up and said that they were still on about getting me on the road with the warehouse-to-wheels scheme, but at the moment they had a desperate shortage of pickers and a surfeit of drivers. Come the new year...

Yeah, right. When they hand me the keys I'll start to believe them. Still now I've stopped pestering them over it, there was no reason for him to start me off again. There are no jobs out there, I'm trapped until well into the new year.
It's a possibility, but if I see another job I will be applying for it.

Also in the news, yesterday the neighbourhood urchins were pelting the front room windows and car with snow/ice balls. Wendy told them to stop, as did I, so they went behind a garden fence and carried on.
I lost my rag. Started feeling all that old anxiety bubbling up again. It's not the deed, it's the feeling of lost control, of being a victim. Not the porch banging through the house as it takes a hit, but the anticipation of the next one, seeing Wendy getting wound up, and being unable to do anything about it.
Not this time.
I stormed over to the offending wretch's house and banged on. The dad is bloody huge, but I am not going loony again. He would be the same size as every bugger else lay down with broken legs (4lb's pressure, applied to a not-bent knee joint).
He wasn't in so I went to the other kids' house, ready to take it as far as necessary. He however brought his brood to heel.
I know, I know, massive over-reaction.
The last time the kids got me in such a mess that I'm not going back. I was sleeping all day to avoid them, sat upstairs in my computer room with earphones in so I couldn't hear them, and happier at work than at home. It's taken me two years to get over the anxiety and state of panic. I still have a slight aversion to the front room.
I'll take a good kicking, or put people in hospital, but I'm not going back to that.

Plus side, I'm motivated to return to my martial arts just as soon as possible.

Anywho, merry non-denominational winter holiday to one and all!
Killing in the name of...
Buck.

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I refute it thus...

I refer, of course to Bishop Berkely's philosophical argument that we can only be sure of the existence of matter as and when we perceive it. More commonly thought of as 'matter doesn't actually exist' and Samuel Johnson's legendary reply; kicking a rock and declaring 'I refute it thus'.
A seconds reasoning shows it doesn't actually refute it, but a clever and witty spontaneous reply, none the less.
Anyway, I'm here to refute, or at least argue.
I have started to follow Adam Baldwin (the American actor who plays Casey, a comedy fascist, in Chuck) and the links he posts are moving me to reply. Either he is keeping in character or Casey was type-casting.

Let us begin.
He posted a link to an article which had a cartoon of a stereotypical yank hick sat on the porch of his ser-then plantation house, whilst other white, suited types picked cotton in the field. The suits were labelled tax payers. The hick was saying something like ' we'll look after you, provide you with health care' etc. and it was entitled 'about slavery'. The accompanying article said that Obama was good for at least making people decide between freedom and Socialism, or freedom and slavery.

Right, where do I start? The implied, if inverted, racial dig at the cotton picking blacks? The pejorative, closed question that states if you have any form of social conscience you have no freedom? No, lets start at the beginning; the slavery jibe. If it wasn't for people with a social conscience there would still be slaves. Business is never going to say 'tell you what, why don't we enshrine your rights in law, ensure a minimum wage and your right to get a different job if this one is too shit?'
The slaves never have a voice and business will not cut it's profits. It is up to the free and empathetic, those with a conscience, to stand up for those forced to live on their knees.
Here is the proof, from 1863. Some poor yank got the shit beat out of him.

This is what business always wants, an expendable workforce bereft of rights.

Then there is the matter which seems to be causing this polemic disingenuous waffle, the matter of public health care. Thank (non-existant) god that I live in dear old Blighty, where the ideal of a national health service is at least an aspiration. To think that someone would kick up a fuss about the thought of the poor having a minimum safety net of health care! Capitalism in such a crude form, in a nation that professes to be Christian, is disgusting to me. Economic Darwinianism is a fallacy, one that invariably leads back to slavery. If all 'men' were 'created' equal, and on a level playing field, then perhaps one could ascribe lack of financial security to laziness, and promote health care nazi-ism as a form of incentive.
As neither of the above pre-conditions are close to being fulfilled, the conclusion does not follow.
A chap with learning difficulties, born into a family of under-class dole wallahs, who is expected to leave school/ jail early and scam his life on benefits and crime is in no way equal to a really clever kid born into a middle class family who expect him/her to go to university and beyond.
The fact that kid A is not likely to amount to much in financial terms doesn't mean his/her life is intrinsically worth less. Or to put it another way, as a guiltless baby do we let kid A die of an illness because his family have no money?
So, to return to the nub of the point, are we nobler creatures if we look after the less fortunate or if we exploit them for our own pitiless gain?

That's all I have to say about that.

Then he posted a link to an article which claimed that the data that suggests global warming is a fabrication.
I honestly can't think why anyone would claim that.
I found myself like Mulder when Scully makes claims based on her belief in Catholicism. He is willing to consider any possibility, however far fetched and statistically unlikely, if it is grounded in the physical universe. Yet he is dismissive of her 'faith'.
I found myself in the same boat over this. I don't know all the evidence but have a blind belief in science and the scientists.
It is just incredible to me that the overwhelming scientific consensus (except, until recently in the States) should be made up. Why? To what end? What do all these disparate scientists gain from it?
There is obviously an answer to the inverse, why do the deniers deny? To what end? What do they gain from it? Money.
There are reports from sources as diverse as holiday companies not being able to let the holiday makers off the boat at the pole (forget which one) for a walkabout because the ice had all melted, Alaskan houses subsiding because they were built on stilts onto the permafrost which has started to melt, polar bears becoming a nuisance around northern townships because they can't find enough ice upon which to hunt, etc. On which note, I don't think anyone who saw David Attenborough's documentary with that poor polar bear swimming for miles because it had no ice upon which to hunt, then in desperation attacking a walrus (or sea lion) colony and getting battered, will soon forget it.
The point being, the evidence seems to be all around us, (freak weather everywhere, melting icecaps, etc) and the only ones who stand to lose by us combating it are the big polluters. ie, big business. Back to my point about slavery, if we give the capitalists free rein everyone loses. They are never going to say, 'if we cut our profits by half we could eradicate emissions.'
Take the legendary GM electric car scandal, up and running, ahead of it's time, recalled and crushed with the patent sold to an oil consortium.
My point then is; there are massive interests in promulgating denial of global warming, there is no coherent scientific/ business gain from stating there is warming.
Go figure.

That's it, rant over, blame Adam Baldwin.
Buck.

Onward.

Time marches on, taking us all with it. Little changing, little happening, different day same ol' same ol'.
I'm seizing the moment to set to typing. Wendy's sister has just 'phoned for a rant, so I have half an hour (at least) to spare.
I don't know, I seem to be stuck in a rut at the moment, trapped in a job I don't like, knowing they are screwing me over, with no prospect of getting my driving out of it. The driving jobs outside of work are either catch 22 or really temporary. Not really an option.
Then there's the possibility of the army. Not ideal, and an option strongly opposed by Wendy and my family, but if needs must one that is a workable solution.
The bloody sax is a pain as well. Whilst I am learning I can't seem to get a sense of satisfaction, of a job well done. I'm at best approaching a level that shows some understanding of where it should be going, then it's on to the next chapters. It really is two or three chapters per lesson. I sit down and he says this next chapter (which I haven't even looked at whilst trying to get to grips with the previous two or three he set me) is a good one to warm up on! What! Then there are all the horrible things like timing, flats and sharps. I'm so focused just on trying to read the next note and make my fingers press the relevant keys I don't have the mental capacity to simultaneously beat out 6/8 time or remember that the next note had a flat sign at the beginning of the bar so you press different buttons.
When all's said and done, this is just learning. I am hoping that one day (the sooner the better) I will be able to read the music as fluently and naturally as I read a book, thus freeing myself up to think about all the other stuff I should be doing. No sign of that happening any time soon.

On the bright side it's nearly new year. A fresh start. Get back into the Kung Fu, keep looking for a driving job, keep plugging away at the sax. Probably just the time of year cheesing me off. Cold, dark, all the extra stress of the damned holiday period, the seasonal illness etc.

I feel like I've written all this before, that nothing has changed, is changing or will change.

Just got to soldier on. What are your options?

Next year it will all change. By the end you won't know the ennui-ed me you see before you.

Later,
Buck.

It is what it is

well what the hell else could it be? Redundant? A tautology? A waste of two seconds of my life listening to inane drivel?

Sorry, just carrying on the thought from the 'title' box. I am very tired and a tad cranky in case you hadn't noticed.

Just to say after spending nearly a quarter of my annual take home pay on driver training and after all the prevarication and promises, when I again asked today if there was any sign of me ever getting on to the final bit of warehouse to wheels, a manager said to me "in a word, no."
As I have long suspected.
Bunch of bastards.
Months they have been stringing me along, always with plausible plans, and finally, 'no'.

On the bright side, it's not like I have turned any work down on the off chance they would come through. I've been applying for every job that's advertised, and many that aren't, and always it comes down to experience.
Two jobs I've seen since passing my test that were OK, about not having experience, both agency. The last said he would ring me when he had something more definite, never got back to me, and one today. £7 per hour, class II driver, but only until Jan/Feb.

I'm tempted, even so. There will be no work at all at the end of January though. It would be nice to drop my works in the shit for xmas and start building up experience, even if it would be a drop in hourly pay.

Wendy's out painting the town red tomorrow with her hell-raising crew from C.A.B.. Well, going for a meal, at any rate. I think I'll do the maths then. Could we afford to take the pay cut, and how long could we last with me out of work.

The army said they have received my application to 're-enlist' (gulp) but it will take several weeks to process as I'm an ex soldier. Presumably they will have to track down my records from previous service. I will be a driver, I will, I will.

Wendy's still not happy about the thought of me being mobilised. She's got me down as dead, wounded, or loony. A dude's got to (try) to do what a dude's got to do. I have grave doubts as to whether I'll even get in. Got to keep as many irons in the fire as possible though.

Right, well tired me,
later,
Buck.

Back sliding

Hi. I've come to a decision; if I'm giving up on Taekwondo, give up on it. I'm treating myself to a month and a bit off, then my new year's resolution (and my xmas present) will be to go back to Wing Chun Kung Fu, joining with the full package. This is about £100, what with the uniform, membership and insurance. If I do it all in one hit though it will show this time (my third attempt at joining this particular club) that I am serious and committed.
My first time my life revolved around getting wasted, so it was doomed from the start. The second time Wendy was unemployed so money was tight, and I wanted to do both Kung Fu and Taekwondo (so I would have the flashy head kicks and the up-close fighting excellence) but that was just too expensive. I chose the cheapest one, Taekwondo, at less than half the price per lesson.
Now, as I have mentioned, I just want a fight-winning style. Any style is only going to be as good as the person who teaches it, and the Sifu (Chinese for the Japanese 'Sensei')of this club was taught in Hong Kong, as a kid, by the sons of the legendary Yip Man. The same chap of whom they have just made a film, and Sifu of Bruce Lee.
That's a pretty impressive lineage.

With my current sax obsession I can only fit in one fighting style and Wing Chun is nuts and bolts fight winning. So I'm slobbing out now, but I'm equally excited and nervous at the prospect of going back.

I wagged it/ had a days holiday yesterday. Find out which in a few hours when I go in to work. They are supposed to return your holiday request forms the same shift as you tender them. It was over a month since I put mine in, I asked my manager if I could have the form back (approved or denied) on about six different occasions. Nothing. So I kept quiet about it last week and just took the day off. Bollocks to 'em!

I'm in today, off tomorrow. Got to try and get the mighty Micra MOT'd tomorrow. More money.

Still no news about any driving jobs. I will have to sit down and concentrate on getting that TA application off tomorrow.

One good thing at work, when I went in on Friday the place was abuzz with gossip. It turns out the GM and his assistant (the hit-men who were brought in to shake things up, turfing de-kit out of our jobs and bringing in agency workers, trying to make the cleaners all agency etc) have both been demoted!
The Gm has been demoted to transport manager and his deputy (Ass Man -assistant manager- to borrow from Chuck)has been demoted to shift manager.
Smell the schadenfreude!
Karma really is a bastard.

Talking of which, I guess the Buddhism didn't take. I see and approve of the better way, I follow the worst. Trying to get a job killing people just so I can get on with making money. I don't have a problem with killing people, in the general sense.
But Buddha is pretty categorical in saying that it is not a good thing.
I have been rationalising why I can't follow the right path since I started to take an interest in it. This is pretty much crossing the Rubicon though. I don't believe in an after life, but Buddha seems to have it cracked as to how to live this one.
Guess I'll just have to muddle through.

Anywho, got to get on,
later,
Buck.

It never rains...

but it pours.
I've not been blogging much of late because nothing was happening, then, like the proverbial bus, three come along at once.

I bought Wendy a skirt off ebay a few weeks ago from Lilith's Gothic Crypt. Take note of the name and tell everyone you know of it. When it finally arrived I thought my troubles were over (getting any communication out of the seller was a problem, then the postal strikes- a pox on the Royal Mail!). A few days later I thought to ask Wendy about it and she admitted that she would never be able to wear it because it was so poorly made. The waistband had been sown twisted in several places, it looked cheap and tacky, and the seem didn't hang right making the skirt look puckered at the bottom.
I wrote to the thrice damned Lilith's Gothic Crypt, enclosing photo's and asking for a refund, and saying if I didn't receive a reply within a week I would be leaving feedback. I did try to sort it through ebay's resolution centre, but because the seller had put 'no returns' on the advert I got an automatic response saying that a refund wasn't available.
Which, by the by, is (as I understand it) illegal, anyway. The distance selling regulations say that I am entitled to a refund. Her stating that she doesn't do refunds does not affect that. That would be a contractual right, which can be added to a statutory right but can never take away from one. I remember that much from my brief stint as a Citizens Advice volunteer.

I was ignored, as I was kind of expecting given the previous level of communication. I left feedback saying 'Crap comms, worse product, no refund. Waist sown twisted, seams off. DO NOT BUY FROM!', and left it at that. I thought that was just £25 I'd have to put down to experience, and at least I'd left shitty feedback.

Then I got an email off ebay saying they'd removed my feedback because of it's offensive content!

No sirree bob! Straight onto them and cancelled my account. Bastards!
Tomorrow Wendy is going to print off the distance selling regulations, then I get to write a letter quoting the regulations and if I'm still ignored I'm then referring it to the Office of Fair Trading and the Financial Ombudsman Service who automatically impose a £250 fine I've just found out.
Justice will be mine!

What other news, oh aye, they finally got the new rigid trucks in today at work. Big huzzah's! Went into the office, said the new rigid's are here, what about my driving?
To no-one's surprise they instantly moved the goalposts. Now they are waiting for the volume to pick up then they can send me for an assessment.

An assessment! That is not Warehouse-to-wheels, there is no training in that. I've paid for my training, got my licenses, all I need is a day or two with a driver beside me to show me the job and get my confidence up and they won't even do that!
An assessment. I could have taken that straight after passing, when the driving was still fresh in my head, but I wanted to make it easier on myself and get the final part of warehouse to wheels.
All that hot air boils down to a vague promise that at some point I can have an assessment. I've been waiting for months for fuck all. Thanks for nothing.

I've been given a few hot tips for potential employers but they are not recruiting at the moment. Promising though.
I have a day off tomorrow so I will be double checking my T.A. application (didn't send the attachments back with the last email, oops) and getting that off again. Checking the job centre and a few other sites, and generally trying anything to get me out of my current job. Bastards!

My only other real news is that my attempt to break free from the tyranny of T-mobile (on my 'phone) has failed! The internet company said they couldn't get the code (remotely) to unlock it so I am going to try a place in town tomorrow.

Lovely, lovely, lie-in tomorrow!
Later,
Buck.

Give them the vote...
I was driving home from work today. It's only a twenty minute drive whatever route you take. On the way home I prefer to take the longer route by the motorway which affords the illusion of haste. I pulled out of our works onto a single carriageway, behind a car with a huge boy-racer red stripe over it. It shot off, and I tootled after. The road became a dual carriageway after the next island, and I caught up with the boy racer who was staying in the inside lane. As I drew closer I considered overtaking, then fell back when the car swerved half into the outside lane, then just as precipitously pulled back in again. I gave the crash-waiting-to-happen a big gap. The same happened again.
The situation stabilised so I ventured an overtake. As I drew level it was a woman lighting her fag! She'd obviously been routing in her handbag.

A mere two islands later I still hadn't made it to the motorway, but as I pulled across the island the car to my left drove straight out in front of me! I was standing on the brakes and sliding to a stop before I'd properly realised what was going on. The car pulling out in front of me stopped and I slid to a halt an inch or two from hitting it. I stared at the driver, a bit stunned at the stupidity, and it was a woman holding her hands up in a 'sorry, can't be helped' sort of way! I mouthed 'you stupid bitch' but more incredulously than angrily.

I made it to the motorway and was chugging along minding my own business when I noticed the traffic was slowing ahead. Everyone was queueing to get into the outside lane, as a National Express coach was holding up the middle lane. This struck me as odd as they are usually barrelling along. As I got closer I saw it was being held up by an artic lorry. Now I know the lorry isn't allowed in the outside lane, but I also know they are limited to 56mph, and this one was on and off his brakes.
As I in turn cleared the lorry there was a car, about five feet in front of this honking great lorry, doing an apparent speed of less than 56mph in the (which by this point had become) third lane, with two empty lanes to the left of it, being driven- obliviously-, by, you guessed it, a woman with an older woman in the passenger seat!

Fuck me! It's only a twenty minute drive and I saw three life threatening situations, all by women drivers!
OK, today was exceptional, I don't normally see anything, or if I do it's me doing it, but goddamn!

Unbelievable. Those who know me know I'm all for equality in every sphere and am a liberal that is always ready to see the other chaps point of view, holding no contentious beliefs (with the possible exception of the belief in the mass sterilisation of the religious, facists, chavs and ugly people) but woman should stick to buses, and I don't mean driving them.

:)


Buck.

Saigon... shit!

Hi there. The title is a reference to Apocalypse Now, in case any one missed it.
I've sent my T.A. application back.
If all goes (well?) to plan that should be the start of it. Back to the army. Different war, same shit. Saigon....shit!

Got to be done. I need trucking experience to get a decent civvy driving job. The catch 22 is they won't give you a job without experience and you can't get experience without a job. So I'm screwed.
Work is really pissing me off. They keep telling me they don't know when the new trucks are arriving. They have just paid shit loads of thousands of pounds for these trucks, you'd think they'd have some interest and idea when they were actually going to arrive. It's not like they could have been lost in the post, they are bloody great big things, hard to mislay.In the mean time I have been plodding on in my role as an order picker. Now they've gone and screwed that up as well.
We have a minimum pick target we have to hit each shift, but now they have slowed the trucks down and expect us to still hit our target figure. And they are gearing up for xmas, so we had to do a 2-10 yesterday (Saturday night!) and because there was no work for us in grocery they sent us all into the freezer. They joy never stops.

So I've seen my arse, spat my dummy and generally am miffed. Off to the army I jolly well (try to) go. In an odd kind of way I would like a tour of duty in a 'hot' warzone. Last time we were all primed but it was a (desert) storm in a teacup. They told us we were being sent out as bait (to get killed so they could discover the position of the Iraqi artillery) and we were to man our guns and keep doing the job even if our best mate was lying screaming next to us, then.....nothing. Had it not been for our thoughtful 'allies' killing so many of us we would have got away with only a handful of deaths. (on our side.) Kind of hard to get over that. All steeled and prepared then no release.
Anywho, in a way it would be good to get back to it.
The manager I previously discussed the T.A. with was saying that if I do get mobilised (and the CD ROM the army sent me said, reading between the lines, 'you will get mobilised') work has to pay me whilst I'm on active service and the army pays me as well. And I get all the driving experience I need. The M6 will seem a bit tame after that.

Going to have issues with Wendy over this. She thinks it would be a bit of a risky venture.
One thing at a time.
I might not get in.
I might not be mobilised.
If I am mobilised it might not be in warzone.
If I am mobilised in a warzone I might still not see any action.

That's my latest news. It might all come to naught, but it's another iron in the fire. Can't be doing with doing nothing any longer.
Buck.

This and that (innit!)

Just posted this on myspace, I'll chuck it here too.

Hi, I'm enjoying a long weekend off work. I was off Thursday, in Friday, off Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Bloody lovely! I'm just waiting for an email from the National Lottery and all will be perfect.

The one blight on my well being is my poorly thumb. I dropped a pallet container door on it at work. The door itself is only light, you could pick it up with one finger. It is five foot tall and tubular steel and it fell over just as I was reaching to pick the one beneath it up. It cracked me across the quick of my thumbnail and sweet Jesus did it hurt. I was hopping around for a couple of minutes, swearing and laughing, unable to believe it was hurting so much!
For that much pain you want to be sticking a limb back on, not fannying around with a small bruise under your nail. The lack of street cred was crippling. Wendy said I'm a big baby. Thanks for the support there, wifey. It woke me up and I had to go and ice pack it (and neck some ibuprofen) at two in the morning.

This has a knock on effect on the comfort of my saxing. Yesterday my saxing was as painful to me as it is to those who hear it. It's my right thumb, the one that takes the weight of the sax and holds it forward in position.
Poor Bucky. I've known suffering. Wendy was banging on about the time she broke her arm and had to try and sleep with four steel rods drilled through the bones in her arm. Small fish compared to a bruised thumb. But we men don't like to make a fuss.
No point is there? It always gravitates to ' I was in labour for thirty six hours', anyway.

The saxing is progressing apace, despite the suffering for my art and the withering lack of sympathy I endure. As I said on my Blogger blog (will have to pick one or the other soon, it feels like I'm developing a typing stammer) Pete, the sax sensei, isn't giving me chance to master one chapter of the book from which I'm learning, before he's turned the page onto two new chapters. I'm always playing catch-up. He said he's pushing me because he thinks I'm capable.
Little consolation as I spend an hour murdering new notes I can't read, and times I can't do.
Hey ho, it means I should get up to speed quicker, just harder.
Finding his way down to Baker Street...
Which is another point, all the bloody sax bits I've been looking up from pop songs seem to be played on alto sax's. Dammnit!

The floor! I've finally got around to lending that forty five degree angle cutting device off Wendy's brother, and whilst by no means perfect the job became do-able as the colonials would have it. Look:





I never said I was a floor laying woodwork monkey, OK? For me that's pretty damn OK.

I have been obsessing over my sax of late as you are doubtless all too aware, to the exclusion of my martial arts. I got to thinking, in one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, there is a vampire, Otto, as memory serves.
Stick with it, I am going somewhere with this.
I have read the self-proclaimed intelligentsia saying that the Pratchmeister's works are allegorical in their themes.
Otto had taken the pledge and was staying 'dry'. No more blood for Otto. Obviously that is an allusion to the T.T. world of abstaining alcoholics. So far so bloody obvious. But he then went on to portray Otto as totally fixated on photography (to give it a comic twist, flash photography -light being something of an issue for vampires-). His point was, and mine may eventually be, that the single minded obsessive energy that Otto had previously focused on drinking (blood) was now being channelled elsewhere.
We've got there in the end. My question is, rhetorically, has Pratchett expressed a truism?
Is this why I have been so focused on my martial arts, and now am single minded in the pursuit of sax mastery? Is it just redirected alcoholism/ (other) substance abuse?
Not that I am concerned if it is, just wondering is all.

On the subject of martial arts, I had a moment of epiphany last night. Keep it to yourselves, but I have finally decided that as soon as I get my driving job, and therefore have more money, I am quitting Taekwondo and going back to Wing Chun Kung Fu. (The style which Bruce Lee was taught.)
It's not a decision lightly made, but I want a fighting martial art. Which should be an oxymoron. Sport martial arts, especially where you do all the head kicks (which I love *sob*) but are buggered if someone goes to punch you, are not what I want. Some might point out that it's taken me eighteen months to work this out, but previously I was planning on doing both.
Now I realise if I'm working sixty hours a week, two late nights is enough time away from home. Also now I'm saxing I just want a practical, down and dirty, fight winning martial art. Learning Taekwondo just so I can show off when the fight is won seems like too much hard work.

There is still no change with the driving. Still waiting on the new trucks, so I can have an old one.

Right, that is about it. I'm all up to date, going to get some grub and start the saxing!

Later,
Buck.

Today

Hi there. I mentioned it on Twitter, but today has been full.
It was my day off and a Thursday, so time for the big shop. I set out at about eleven in the morning. I thought this would ensure I missed all the queues. Wrong. Where do all these people come from? Surely there can't be that many coffin-dodgers and dole-wallah's in Warrington? And why did they all choose that precise moment to congregate in the aisles of Asda and mill about aimlessly?

Even if one was to go so far as to extend to their list of inalienable rights the right to shop when I want to (and I'm not saying I have)why must they do it so slowly? And in a way calculated to cause the maximum rage in shoppers on the clock?

I really was losing it today. I had to get back, unpacked, get a brew, and out again by twelve thirty for my sax lesson at one o'clock. On several occasions I had to find an empty spot in an out of favour aisle and take deep breaths. I was a careless nudge or an insult away from violence. When I went past the homeware section I had a mental picture of my hand reaching out and grabbing a knife. I pulled myself up short before that developed, but my subconscious wasn't intending to peel spuds, that I know.

So I was a might miffed by the time I'd finished. Ran out to my lesson (shoulder strap snapped on my sax case in the middle of town, obviously. Luckily it's a solid carrying case so no damage.)Then Peter (Sax Sensei) ran me through some stuff I hadn't mastered before turning the page onto two new chapters! Bloody hell it's hard. It is a compliment, of sorts. I forget the exact words, but he said he was pushing me because he thought I was capable. Fine when I have mastered it, a vertical learning curve at the moment.

Got to cut this short, she who must be obeyed needs to go to bed, and my typing keeps her awake. Suffice it to, work tomorrow (please be there, new rigid truck) then Saturday, Sunday, Monday off! Deep and sincere joy!

Later,
Buck.

Nazi apologists!

There has been something of kerfuffle in these sceptred isles of late. A minority party of holocaust deniers, non-white deporters, and gay haters has been saying they are being unfairly portrayed as neo-nazis. In the interests of balance the BBC let their Fuhrer, sorry, leader, on to a political programme. Some thought this was implying a legitimacy to his views and granting a perceived equivalence to the mainstream political parties with whom he shared the panel.
Others laughed up their sleeves at the thought of him trying to rationalise the indefensible and relished the prospect of him exposing his views.

In fairness I have to say I didn't watch it. I have pretty firm views when it comes to politics. Not necessarily on policies, but on principles. The point being; New Labour is too right wing for me, so I have no interest in anything the British National Party have to say.

That having been said, I did follow the story. Jon Snow (of Channel 4 news) said in his blog that the fuhrer was no match for the women on the panel. The impression I received was of a rout. Wendy's brother and sister-in-law saw it and said he was reduced to incoherence.

All good and well. Job done, back to the normal run of politics, where the torturing, murdering, and war crimes are at least denied. And are done without thought to gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity. Equal opportunities fascism. Admittedly some are more equal than others, but if they will go around living where there are oil reserves or being vaguely brown coloured on the underground they are asking for it, really.

Back to the plot. All was well re the openly fascist party.

Then I went into work this morning. I work in a warehouse. This means I am paid for how fast I work and how much I sweat, not for having an above room temperature I.Q., sadly it means all the people I work with are the same.

There was only one topic of conversation, the bloody B.N.P.!

These Sun reading, Sky watching, never questioning sorts were all saying what a good job the fuhrer had done! One chap was quoting him as saying " You're saying I'm a nazi, but my grandad was in the R.A.F. in the war, Jack Straw's grandad was in jail for refusing to fight."
As though that was a point scored. If we were voting for their grandads that might have been relevant. It also sidesteps the issue of his grandad being willing to die to fight a country that was espousing the views he now professes.
Later in the canteen they were still banging on about it, saying that foreigners have more rights than the English and somehow linking the BNP to a P.C. backlash. Quoting all those dubious stories the sensationalist right wing press like to 'report'. Taking it as read that all Johhny foreigners come over here and are immediately given dole and council houses while native (the unspoken implication being: 'white')English are refused everything.
Telling them that the Home Office stamps on the economic migrant's passport 'no access to public funds' cuts no ice with these people.
All the stupid things that the P.C. crew have done in their overzealous attempts to indoctrinate the young; blackboards having to be called chalkboards, some councils not putting up christmas decorations because it might offend people of non-christian faiths, etc, etc. All of these are demonstrations that the (again, 'white') native Englishman is not free in his own country. All of these things will go away if one votes for the BNP.

To say I was miffed is an understatement. While I'm as irritated by P.C. as the next MAN (tee hee)electing the BNP is using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. For a start you have to question the provenance of these stories, then you have to ask was that an isolated incident of a well-meaning tree-hugger losing the plot, then you have to explain that all the Eastern Europeans at our works are talking their own lingo amongst themselves as it's easier for them, not as an insult to the native mono-glot Britain. Finally you have to teach tolerance and understanding of other peoples points of view, then shoot all the BNP.

So, that was my day at work.

Bloody depressing.

There is your answer BBC. Anyone with two brain-cells to rub together saw the fuhrer get ripped to bits and prove his views indefensible. The people who are his target audience, lacking the luxury of that second cell, thought he did a sterling job and see him as the great white hope. (You see what I did there?) The Sun is the best selling 'newspaper' in Britain, so the great unwashed are the majority.

Crap.

Buck.

Getting started.

Hi there. I'm just experimenting with this here Blogger. I had a blog with the thrice damned AOL, but they stopped hosting them, and then I broke free and found a decent ISP.
My internet chum Liztooyou suggested I set up on Myspace and I've been blogging on there ever since. ( www.myspace.com/bucknihilist , if you desperately want to catch up.)
I've just had a look at this following a new chum's interest in it (http://goodgawdgirl.blogspot.com/ or Jaxlawgirl on Twitter).

It looks clean and uncluttered. I'll have to see what I can do to rectify that.

A little bit about me then, to set the scene for subsequent blogs. I'm not like the other boys. I was once flattered to be described as 'independently stylish'. Really I just wear what I like. This has run to old-school goth chic for quite a few years now.

I have been training in martial arts for the last couple of years, currently Taekwondo.

Earlier this year I finally passed my HGV test, so I'm qualified as a trucker, just waiting to get a job at it. My current employer have said they will let me drive for them, and I'm currently waiting for that to materialise. If it does not, I have a plan 'B'; to join the Territorial Army as a driver to get my experience. I have served in the Army for three years as a young man, so feel up to the task.

Five weeks ago I realised a long-held ambition to get a tenor saxophone. I've been taking weekly lessons, practising for an hour a day and obsessing. Good fun.

Also this year I got married to my long-time girlfriend, (13 years of long-time!)Wendy.

I've been tee-total for about two years.

I'm a bit of a bleeding-heart liberal, socialist, and all round good egg.

Well, I think I've lost the will to live. That is generally a sign that I've waffled enough.

When I actually have something to write about I trust I do it better than this. Not much, but better.
Later,
Buck.