No Dick In Oakworth

Local band ‘Keep The Drummer Happy’ played a gig at the Snooty Fox in Oakworth on Saturday, with a brand new bass player and a heavily tweaked set list…

A number of villagers made the journey over to see them, and despite the heavy fog by the Flappit, most of us found our way over there first time.  However the Bedmaker – possibly confused by memories of our recent visit to the beer festival, went the long way round with a quick stop off in Oxenhope.

Overall, the gig was the barnstormer we have come to expect from this young band, with only the decidedly weak rendition of  ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ marring an otherwise faultless set.  The second half of the gig in particular really got the audience moving as the band belted out a range of hits, including an almost sublime cover of ‘Seven Nation Army’, which, I promise you, will be awesome next time round. 

Other highlights included what I am increasingly considering the bands signature track – Fleetwood Macs ‘The Chain’, a song which the band appear to have reworked slightly to great advantage – and the complete absence of ‘Moby Dick’ (hurrah!).

The departure of Eddie ‘Ben the Bass’ Swales to pastures new at York University must have initially seemed a mighty blow to the fledgling group, but the new ‘Ben’ has filled his shoes admirably and I for one can’t wait for the next show, which unconfirmed rumours suggest may be New Years Eve at an as yet undisclosed venue.  Keep watching www.ktdh.co.uk for details (website should be finally up and running over the next few days).

Joking Aside…

One of the benefits (or perhaps curses) of the ever increasing popularity of the text message as a means of instant communication, is the rapid propogation of topical, up to the minute, (and often near the knuckle) jokes…

A celebrity only has to die, or split up with his/her partner, or do something particularly outrageous these days, and before you know it the inbox of you and your friends’ phone is inundated with quips, puns and howlers of varying degrees of hilarity and often downright cruelty.

Who makes these jokes up?  Perhaps it is a plot by the phone operators to increase traffic on the networks and thus increase profits – after all, SMS messages can become expensive.  As Fanackapan found out recentlywhen he inadvertently sent a 4 message joke out to his circulation list (around 50 recipients) and helplessly watched his credit dwindle to nothing.

Even natural disasters are rarely immune to this phenomenon, which brings me to my point:

Why have there been no jokes whatsoever about Cockermouth?

I’d have thought they’d be flooding in by now…!

Spindly Fingered Technophobe

The hearts of gadget lovers throughout the Kings missed a beat and increased their pit a pat minutely as Fanackapan unveiled his new Nokia N97 mobile to the world last night…

Giddy and high on the heady scent of freshly unwrapped technology, his long, spindly, shaking fingers struggled immediately with the touch sensitive display and the miniscule keyboard, on which he is doomed to tap out any number of text messages, facebook updates and web addresses over the next 24 months.  However, fortified by a couple of pints of Carling, it was mere minutes before he had configured his ‘always on internet’ and logged into You Tube to view a video of his idol Spike Milligan at some sort of awards do.  His Facebook account is also set up, so expect updates on his profile with ever increasing frequency, and he has a live weather update confgured to show local Bradford weather ‘as it happens’.

The only thing he needs to do now is figure out how to make a phone call…

Deprived…

Deprived of the chance to commit to a full days work by Mother Nature herself, my thoughts turned (once the requisite bacon sarnie and cup of tea had been ingested of course) to issues miscellaneous…

For example, I spent a not inconsequential amount of time in an internal debate about whether or not the Telegraph and Argus – with its increasingly numerous grammatical and spelling errors and it’s total lack of current, up to date articles of interest to anyone but its own editorial staff – was worth the energy required to read past the front page?

I also pondered the relevance of my (much trumpeted) ‘Stand Pie Baking’ competition in aid of the Alzheimers Association in view of the ordeal facing a local yacht designer, who is going to trek to Everest Basecamp in aid of the charity early next year.  (Sponsorship details to follow on this site very soon by the way).

I considered the purported act of ‘cat burglary’ allegedly perpetrated by a graphic designer of my aquaintance who was sorely in need of beer with which to refresh his guests, and (to the relief of everyone in the village with a stash of Carling in the garage), concluded that the whole sorry story was (probably) a mixture of bravado, sleepiness and sheer twattedness on the part of the recipient of said beerage.  Although I may be wrong – investigations continue.

So, on the whole, an uneventful day – I’ve been very wet at times for instance, but nothing to make a song and dance about, I’ve printed some menus out for a forthcoming event but even the heady aroma of barely damp inkjet ink did nothing to inspire me to inscribe more than a minor footnote in the journal of my life.

Mediocrity is the enemy of inspiration.

Ever yours

Old Heatonian

Christmas is Coming…

…and no doubt there are people out there considering purchasing a laptop or desktop PC as a gift for someone special.

If that is the case, now is also the time to start thinking about getting it set up correctly so that it will be safe to use and will work first time on Christmas Day, thus avoiding tears and tantrums as you realise that PC World is closed for the day.

You should also seriously consider making sure that your computer is adequately protected against viruses, and if you will be connecting to the internet, that a firewall is in place and set up correctly.  As my (ever growing) list of satisfied customers have found out, there are some beasties out there which will wreak havoc on your PC, never mind the everpresent danger of stealing your credit card and/or identity details.

Obviously, prevention is much better than an expensive cure.  In view of this, please consider the following:

For a flat fee of £25, I will visit you in your home at a time to suit you, ensure a suitable virus checker is in place on your equipment, configure your firewall and ensure (if required) that your broadband connection, plus any WiFi networking around the house is working correctly.  Any other services you require can be negotiated on booking.

I am also available for any PC configuration issues, virus removal and security advice, general PC repairs and upgrades and network/broadband/wifi problems, as well as bespoke dynamic website programming and design and very competitive web hosting packages for both personal and business use.

If you are still shopping around for a desktop PC, why not get in touch about that as well?  I do custom built designs tailored to your needs fully guaranteed at competitive prices, with a personal follow up service package second to none.  Get in touch for a quote.

If you are interested, please email me at oldh[at]oldheatonian.co.uk (replace [at] with @) with a subject line ‘PC Services’.  State brief details of the services you require and a contact telephone number, and I will be in touch.

Overheard in the Kings…

It is no secret that one of the bar staff at the Kings – the incorrigible Mr Woo – recently went on a disastrous date, escorting a young lady of pristine virtue to a tapas bar in Leeds…

…where he proceeded, via the medium of 5 pints of lovely lovely Stella and 2 bottles of the finest wines known to humanity, to get absolutely slaughtered, while his companion sipped delicately from a glass of diet coke.

‘Mr. Woo, given that you’d already shown yourself up good and proper by staggering around like a 2 bob watch, to the extent that she was walking 5 yards behind you while you made your way to the train station – it must have been obvious that she wouldn’t want to see you again.  So why, when you threw up in the taxi, didn’t you try and get it into her handbag?

You might have saved yourself a £50 cleaning bill!’

Career Change

Part of the remit of my hush hush job with the government means that I often come into contact with people looking for a change of career…

I spoke to one bloke the other day in such a position:

‘I really fancy being a farrier’

‘Well, that’s definitely a change of career’ I answered, ‘have you ever shoed an angry horse?’

‘No’ he replied, ‘but I once told a petulant pig to piss off!’

Ba Dum Ching!!

A Package Arrives (part 4) The Contents Revealed

…well, to be fair it was all a bit of an anti climax. The package contained 2 copies of a newsletter published (probably at great expense) by the ‘Save The Bradford Odeon’ campaign, detailing the latest news and views about the proposed plans to demolish the old Odeon cinema building. Presumably the intention was that I would write a piece about the campaign and publish it on Old Heatonian, although a complete lack of notes or any way of identifying who had sent it so I could talk to them about it precluded this immediately.

You see, in my eyes, the Odeon is an eyesore, and always has been in my lifetime – even when it was open for business.

My first memory of the Odeon was of the time when my mother took me to see Bedknobs and Broomsticks – sometime in the early 70′s I think – when I was but a wee lad. I remember it vividly, because it had just got to the bit when that Murder She Wrote woman had enchanted the bedknob to make the bed fly, when the lights came up, the sound went down and the manager, dressed in a tuxedo and ludicrously out of place dicky bow, walked on to the stage to announce that the building was on fire, and that we should all make our way out of the building in an orderly fashion. As an afterthought he added that our tickets would remain valid for a later showing, should the building survive this catastrophe.

A mere slip of a lad, I think I was more in awe of the sight of the fire engine and its huge ladders than I had been about a flying four poster.

My last memory of the Odeon was to see the Phantom Menace on it’s opening day – and the less said about that odious pile of donkey faeces the better – suffice to say I have tried in vain to scrub that memory out of my head for many years, to no avail.

In between, there were many ground breaking moments of my life accomplished in the Odeon – ranging from furtive fumbling and snogging in the dark with the female conquest du jour, through witnessing rats picking through discarded popcorn wrappers a few seats away from me while watching Nightmare on Elm Street 3, to the act of sheer carnal lust visited  upon me by an Australian girl of my aquaintance halfway through Toy Story. I haven’t been able to look at Woody in the same light since!

I watched every one of the first three Star Wars films there (back when Star Wars was good), including a marathon session one Bank Holiday when I sat through all three with my mates. This coincided with the weekend when I decided that I should finally use the L’Oreal black hair dye I had been hoarding for the last few months, and caused not a few raised eyebrows on my return to work.

But I have never found the Odeon to be an attractive building – the words ‘carbuncle’ and ‘eyesore’ have been associated with the building in my mind for as long as I can remember. Of course, I was sad when it finally closed down – there were a lot of memories of the place itself and what it had contributed to my life. But I have never been sentimental about the building itself, with its grubby red brick walls contrasting starkly with the ‘pseudo marble effect towers’ and the tiled lower entrances which look remarkably like the entrance to a public lavatory.

There is, however, a hard core group of people who think it should be preserved in some way in its present form. Fair enough, in some ways I can even find myself sympathising with them to the extent that I wouldn’t like to see another anonymous glass and steel and concrete monstrosity in it’s place. But neither do I think that the building contributes positively to the ambience of Bradford, such as it is with its derelict buildings and abandoned building sites.

The architectural heart of Bradford City Centre was torn out years ago with the demolition of Swan Arcade and the old Kirkgate Market, and the rot has never really gone away since. Some point to the successful rebuilding of the Alhambra many years ago as an example of what could (or should) be attempted with the Odeon. But the Alhambra was a beautiful building to begin with…

What do you think?

A Package Arrives! part 3 Speculation on The Contents

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I finally examined the contents of the envelope…

Given that it had been addressed to Old Heatonian, I thought it may have been photographs, or possibly something from the Hallidays announcing that they had either a) lost another pet somewhere or b) had passed the three week mark WITHOUT losing a pet, and were enclosing a copy of their certificate from the Cat Protection League to prove it. Or even c) a copy of the bill they had had to pay for rebuilding the bathroom the last time they ‘mislaid’ something around the house.

But no. It was something quite unexpected, and something which puzzled me as to its provenance, given that there was no explanatory note, or any indication as to who had sent it or what they wanted me to do with it.

The attending members of the Grumpy Club were almost as puzzled as I was.

It was…

To be continued

A Package Arrives pt 2 – Is It Safe?

Continued

The air of expectation in the pub was almost palpable – puctuated by random grumbles ‘geronwivit’ – as I mischeviously pretended to struggle to open the relatively non-descript envelope…

It was addressed to ‘Funk – Old Heatonian’, and had been pushed through the pub letterbox – presumably sometime earlier in the morning. 

Given the nations heightened state of awareness of all things ‘terrorist’, I was of course reluctant to rush into anything, fearing retribution from any one of the, shall we say, unwitting contributors to our ongoing account of village life.  So I sniffed the package all over, searching for the tell tale odour of marzipan or any unusual chemical smell. 

I examined it minutely, looking for pinholes placed to allow an explosive compound to ‘breathe’. 

I flexed it cautiously, hefting it to determine any unusual weight distribution which may betray the presence of batteries or timing mechanisms.

I fingered it delicately, searching in vain for the telltale sign of wires.

At last, finally satisfied that the parcel would do no harm, I slowly, and methodically, began to tear open the flap…

To be continued