The sun is shining, birds are singing and black beetles the size of your fist are on the wing and giving me some serious fear …

But alas all good things come to an end and tomorrow my short break in the picturesque village of Triana, Spain, will be over.
It’s been such a relaxing time, a time to catch up with old friends and drink beer somewhere different. Not forgetting of course the chance to experience the unique ‘Pint of Carling and a Bacon Sandwich – Only 5 Pounds!’ deal in the airport bar on my morning of departure. At 6am.
Although I’ll be sad to leave, with dreams of making a home yout here for Mrs. Funk and I burning brightly in my head for weeks to come, it will be good to be home.
Pint in the Kings on Sunday anyone?

I was livid!

What a relief…

I am currently in the doctors surgery for example, waiting to receive the test results from my last visit to the hospital. I have been here now for 2 hours, waiting patiently, and thanks to the quite frankly miraculous technology powering my latest mobile phone am able to quite comfortably create this entry.

Technology can sometimes be a right bastard…

I am currently in the doctors surgery for example, waiting to receive the test results from my last visit to the hospital.  I have been here now for 2 hours, waiting patiently, thanks to the bloody electronic arrival notification system in operation at the surgery.  I arrived at 8:30am for an 8:45 appointment, and duly entered my details onto the touch sensitive booking in screen, and was rewarded with the message ‘Your Arrival Has Been Recorded’.  I settled down into a chair, safe in the knowledge that someone, somewhere in the surgery was indeed aware of my presence and were preparing for my visit, and mused on the heavy days work ahead of me in my hush hush position for the government.  Work which would unfortunately fall on the shoulders of my top secret colleagues while I wasted my time waiting for information which could probably have been communicated to me by a more expedient process. 

Like the mail.

I sort of consoled myself with the thought that perhaps they had called me in because there was some problem that needed dealing with, the consolation being of course that I wasn’t wasting my time by being here to hear ‘no news’, not that there would be something wrong.

As the surgery clock ticked round to 9:15am, I decided that, although I had overheard the receptionist explaining to another patient that one of the doctors was off sick, and that a certain amount of rescheduling had taken place to fit everyone in, it was time to enquire whether or not I would be seeing someone soon.  So I made my way to the desk, and rang the teeny tiny bell to gain the receptionists attention.  After a short pause, during which the assistant receptionist delivered her tray of steaming mugs of tea, the receptionist came over to the desk.

‘Can I help you?’
‘Yes please, I’m just wondering if you can give me a rough idea when I will actually be seen?’
‘What time was your appointment?’
’8:45 – I arrived at 8:30′
‘Ooh, you’ve missed that.  Did you arrive yourself?’
‘Yes, I drove.  My cars in the car park.  Should I have brought someone with me?’
‘No, you misunderstand.  Did you check in on the arrivals thingummy bob on the desk’
‘Ah!  I see.  Yes, I did’
‘Well, you can’t have done it right.  It hasn’t registered you.  Mr Funk is it?’
‘It is’ I answered, simmering with barely pent up fury that technology had finally let me down.
‘Well, can you make another appointment?’
‘No, I’m missing work as we speak.  I’ve waited 2 weeks for this appointment…’
‘Well, I’ll try and fit you in with the duty doctor, although there’ll be a bit of a wait’

Dutifully, I rang the top secret government department and spoke to my handler to inform him of the situation, and give him the bad news that he would have to arrange for an alternative interrogator for my first few ‘appointments’.

So, here I am, waiting patiently, having watched countless patients enter and leave the surgery, their examinations complete.  ‘The Don’ – noted bon viveur of the village – has been, had his ears syringed, and gone again.

Technology is a wonderful thing…

While waiting, I have, via the facilities offered by my quite frankly amazing new mobile phone, managed to eschew the dubious delights of the waiting room reading material, in favour of scanning the Guardian online, and have checked out the surgerys website (in vain I might add) in search of a place to register my views.

Surely my turn cannot be too much longer.

I hope it’s good news…

It wasn’t the recent onset of warm weather, which has finally convinced certain members of the Grumpy Club that it was safe to take off their coats while sampling the wares of the pub.

It wasn’t the fact that Chantel McGregor has kept her promise, and looks likely to never play at the pub again.

It wasn’t even the fact that Fanackapan has finally had his ‘jewish adjustment’, and he no longer walks around with a look like a frightened rabbit in anticipation, although he is currently walking around a little bit like John Wayne – and that could equally mean Marion Morrison or John Wayne Bobbitt.

No.

After months of speculation and uncertainty and behind the scenes negotiation, it looks possible that we may finally get a Dyson Airblade installed in the gents.

Faced with a ludicrous 90+% increase on the rent of the pub when he came to renew the lease last year, Landlord Andy decided that he wasn’t going to stand for it. The options from the pub company were 2 fold and fairly straightforward – pay up or leave by the end of the year.

Andy chose the top secret third option – fight!

He sought advice on tenants rights and the rules and legality around rent increases, and concluded that the dastardly pub company just might be in the wrong with regard to the level of rent increase they were demanding. So he decided to take the company before an arbitration hearing, in the hope of resolving the issue in a legally binding way. The pub co responded by extending the deadline, possibly in the hope that Andy would just give in and pay up. But I’m sure anyone who has encountered Andy when he has the bit between his teeth will testify, that wasn’t going to happen.

The hearing was finally scheduled for 12th April, and as the day loomed, an air of despondency settled around the pub as locals contemplated the closure of yet another local favourite. It’s possible that the company would have installed new management, but on past experience it might have only been a matter of time before the Kings Arms went the same way as the Fountain.

So, it was with some surpise that the Grumpy Early Birds called in a couple of days before the deadline to find mine host whistling, skipping round the pub and contemplating turning the heating on. As the day was nice, he even threatened to sit out front and relax in the sunshine for the day.

The pub company had capitulated at the 11th hour!

Probably realising that they could not possibly win the case, they had pulled out of the hearing, made a sensible offer on the rent and agreed to extend the lease for 20 years.

So, with the future of his tenancy in the pub assured for now, it’s time for Andy to make good on his promise to install those Airblades ‘if and when I get an extension on the lease’!!

This means that even the most trivial of topics often become the subject of close scrutiny analysis and (often) heated debate, with the miracle of 3G Internet browsing on our mobiles often, but not always, providing a definitive solution to the issue at hand when the shouting is over.

Yesterdays topic was the oft debated urban myth that water flows down a plughole in different directions depending on what hemisphere of the earth you are on.  The vast majority of the lunchtime crowd, including Spike, Captain Kidd and Teaching Assistant Tom agreed with the hypothesis, leaving poor barman Dom a lone voice in the wilderness crying for the truth to be heard – at least until I arrived.

The internet was consulted, and apocryphal tales from various merchant seamen appeared to back up the theory, as well as that fount of all knowledge – an episode of the Simpsons ‘Bart vs Australia’, Episode 119 first aired on 19/2/1995.

The process that would seem to be the likely candidate for causing this phenomenon appears to be the Coriolis Effect, which in a nutshell is a consequence of the earth spinning on its axis and dragging everything else around with it, with inertia coming into play – it’s complicated.  The Coriolis effect is what causes hurricanes to rotate, and has to be taken into consideration when firing artillery shells, for instance, but it’s effect in small closed systems (like a bathtub emptying when you pull the plug) is negligible at best, and can only really be measured under very strict, controlled circumstances.  Indeed, this Wikipedia articledescribes an experiment where the consequences of the Coriolis effect was actually seen to affect the direction of the vortex formed when the water drains from a container.

However, in that case the fluid had been left to settle for 24 hours, and the temperature was kept constant so that no other forces could be influencing the results – the article begins ‘It is a commonly held myth that the every-day rotation of a bathtub or toilet vortex is due to whether one is in the northern or southern hemisphere.’

I think in terms of water pouring out of the bath or sink, there are far too many factors (for example, the shape of the container, the wildly fluctuating temperature gradients throughout the fluid causing spontaneous convection currents, general movement of the fluid) affecting the flow of water toward the plughole for the Coriolis effect to be a factor in what direction the water will spin round the hole.  Fluid dynamics is perhaps one of the most complex physical processes to model and measure – the fact that the Meteorological Office has access to some of the most powerful supercomputing facilities in the country and still can’t predict the weather accurately over a period of more than a couple of days is testament to that.

So, in a way, everybody is right, as long as they state that when they have personally witnessed the effect, they mention the fact that it was under strict laboratory conditions, with a decent sample rate and on both sides of the equator.

Otherwise, I fear they may be talking bollocks.

End Note

In the course of writing this, I researched the subject quite thoroughly, reviewing both anecdotal data and scientific observation.  I settled on the conclusions of the Wikipedia article as Wikipedia, while some naysayers might doubt the accuracy of some of it’s articles, it is subject to quite meticulous peer review, so I would trust it’s fairly unbiased conclusions as much as anyone elses. 

Anyway, Stephen Fry said it’s bollocks as well, so there!

With Valentines Day and all the plastic sentiment and mushy smushy smoochy that goes with it out of the way for another year, it isn’t long before the harsh reality of sharing your life with your loved one hits back home hard.

It isn’t easy.  It’s an ongoing process of neverending compromise, and true love – far from being that unexplainable lightning bolt that rips through your body when they first brush against your hand, caress your cheeks softly with their lips or stick their tongue down your throat – is the tenacity to ride the wind, to change and develop together, working toward the day in the impossible future when you will be the same and as one.

Along the way, once the initial ‘I can’t bear to be away from you for a minute, can’t sleep can’t eat feel constantly sick when you’re not here’ has worn off, the little things that really annoy you rear their head.  Like the snoring, the dodgy haircut he insists ‘looks cool’, the way she prizes shoes above all things, the noises they make while eating… the list goes on.  I myself am far from perfect – I fart a lot in bed for instance, and I insist on wearing my lovely scarlet boxers that I know she hates whenever I can.  Not to annoy her you understand, I really do love my lovely scarlet boxers.  In fact, I have them on today. But I know, just know that Mrs Funk is waiting patiently for the first hole to be blown in the gusset by a particularly noxious guff, so that she can triumphantly and with great ceremony, put them in the non-recyclable waste – possible with a full accompaniment of toxic waste/bio hazard warning decals.

Mrs Funk, by contrast, is perfect in every way

When it isn’t right though, it isn’t right, and all too often a relationship can come to that point where it’s time to part ways.  It’s rarely a pleasant experience, for either party.  Especially the one who didn’t realise it had all gone so so wrong, in their fools paradise, where the bluebirds still fill the air with a sweet sweet sound when the light of their life walks into view, shimmering in the soft focus of love and desire.  No, it’s quite possibly a bit worse for them when the dagger falls.

Ending a relationship, especially one that’s been ongoing for a while, is difficult.  Fortunately, for the cowards in the world, technology gives us a multitude of tools to use, so that we don’t have to look that person in the eye and say ‘Its Over’.  EMail and text messages are probably favourite, with the more ‘social networky’ and indeed exhibitionist of us possibly choosing a good, public wall message on Facebook.  Or a Tweet on Twitter?  Or a good old phone call.  Ultimately though, the best and bravest among us will always opt for a face to face meeting.

However, as Chandler said in Episode 2 of the first series (I think – get checking Friends geeks) – ‘there’s always that awkward moment, just after you hand over the note’…

Of course, in terms of guilty pleasures, this is fairly minor, with not too much of an embarassment factor when people actually find out about it.  Indeed, when I discussed it in confidence with my close friend Fanackapan, he himself admitted a similar fondness for the wacky adventures of the lovable gang of New Yorkers. 

We spent many a precious minute together after that, extolling the undoubted virtues of Rachel, the cockiness of Monica and the kookyness of Phoebe.  We described and re-enacted our favourite scenes by the bins at Cartwright Hall, and wistfully drank coffee at the Cat ‘n’ Cup, trying fruitlessly to recreate the atmosphere of Central Perk. 

Heady days, as I’m sure you can imagine.  With this common bond between us, we even revealed one or two other, secret, guilty pleasures in which we indulge.

However, as the woman for whom Fanackapan was cat sitting over Christmas discovered while tidying up the bedroom on her return, Fanackapan isn’t always too good at keeping his guilty pleasures secret…

Despite the doom and gloom of sustained economic recession and unprecedented snowfalls, 2010 dawned with the majority of the Kings Arms regulars nursing a hangover from a storming New Years Eve, both at the Snooty Fox in Oakworth where local band Keep The Drummer Happy played a gig, and at the Kings itself, where customers were entertained by Scarlett Heights.

Since then, at least 2 of the young ladies who frequent the Kings have passed their driving test, so the roads in 2010 will arguably be a more dangerous place than before.

Hemlines and hairlines rise and fall in accordance with the barometer of fashion. However, nowhere, not even in the darkest depths of a dystopian nightmare would you ever class Mr Woo a fashion icon. Nevertheless, since Mr Woo braved the clippers and took his lustrous locks down to a shockingly short crew cut, a surprising number of his bar customers at the Kings have followed suit…

First to fall was Fanackapan, who eschewed the delights of ‘that bird from the hairdressers rubbing her breasts on my head while vigorously scrubbing my scalp’ in favour of an impromtu number 2 in the Kings Arms smoking shelter, courtesy of Mr Woos and his portable clippers. He was closely followed by Dribbly, who decided that a quick snip at Mr Woos Clip Joint would be far easier than driving to the hairdressers at Asda. I even thought that the follicly challenged Scottish Lawyer had succumbed to Mr Woos charms, however I was mistaken.

It was an easy mistake to make though!