Tesco, bless you

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:16:22 +0100

I now know where to get the ultimate Tudor barmaid pulling gear...

I surely cannot fail! Thanks to the Vanquisher for keeping his eage eye out in Tesco this afternoon and immediately capturing this season's must-haves.

Kenny on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:16:22 +0100

One of the long talks in the garden...

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:24:01 +0100

I haven't uploaded my pictures yet, but I do have this one of Z and I having one of the long chats in the garden, thanks to Roger. This one makes her look about the same height as me, which is far from the reality...

Kenny on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:24:01 +0100

Tenterhooks

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:13:20 +0100

Do I owe the tax man or does he owe me? Looking at my P60 for last year, I'm guessing the latter.

BTW, it has to be said that Carrie Gracie was hilarious this morning. Too clever by half. And she managed to annoy Simon McCoy.

I have an afternoon of conference calls; you can envy that.

Kenny on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:13:20 +0100

Bless

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 10:20:28 +0100

This is what happens when the Beckmeister drops by...

I also have a can of Stella, a wasabi peanut container and a wasabi peas bag with other such doodlings.

I love her too, but please don't tell her.

Someone please motivate me to work...

Kenny on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 10:20:28 +0100

Name time

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 14:14:24 +0100

Okay, the guitar deed is done...

I now need a name for said beast...suggestions on a postcard or in the comments please.

Kenny on Sun, 05 Sep 2010 14:14:24 +0100

Revenge

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 14:47:54 +0100

As I stated on Facebook, my next door neighbor has either been drowning cats in his washing machine or singing all day. Up with this I will not put. I considered violence but das noggin is in no state to take any more damage so I'm going down the passive aggressive route.

I knew I would come back from Louis' with a burning desire to buy an instrument. It was a toss up between a keyboard and a guitar. Having played on Louis' upright piano while no-one was around, I don't feel like I could cope with the disappointment of buying a digital keyboard, so I'm off into Wigan to purchase an acoustic guitar. Looking at the prices on t'interwebz, guitars are really quite cheap.

Next door will suffer.

By happy chance the guitar shop is about 100 yards away from the Tudory goodness that is the Tudor (and its other considerable merits).

On another completely unrelated note, as I have wandered around the various bits of France and Belgium, one would be quite surprised to find that quite miraculously wireless technology has been deployed. Don't know how that happened. :)

Kenny on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 14:47:54 +0100

Just a little interjection...

Sat, 04 Sep 2010 00:56:38 +0100

I'm still buzzing from traveling so am wide awake.

Le song du jour:

Kenny on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 00:56:38 +0100

Le Kenny est arrive

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:32:30 +0100

I'm home. Probably the easiest flight I have ever done in my life.

I am also sporting a bandage around das noggin. For the first time in my life it is not a UDI. Trying to catch the Zedmeister should be done while squiffy, not relatively sober.

I've no idea where the Vanquisher™ is but he's kept chez Kenny in a very orderly state. Je dois dormir. La tête throbberai.

Kenny on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:32:30 +0100

Quickie

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:09:34 +0100

Not that any of you miserable buggers ever would but could you please sponsor Bryony? I have. If just one of you opens your moth-eaten wallets, I will consider the bazillion hours of my life I have spent writing the code that facilitates this nadir of t'interwebz and its subsequent content worthwhile.

I shall be checking her donations page, so I will know who you are/aren't.

Kenny on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:09:34 +0100

Le redux

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:51:46 +0100

Caution -- serious post alert.

I have a few hours while Louis is at work and everyone else is out so I thought I'd bob on to t'interweb for a bit.

For more reasons than I care to list, it is now the official policy of gorners.com that all humor directed at the French cease. For a start our humor does not translate that well, particularly in print although Louis et al have found my bastardizations of the English language highly amusing -- to wit, \"abso-bloody-lutely\". In fact, if I get back to Ouge's (sp?) house before I leave, I must take my phone (to take a picture) with me where I will find it written on a whiteboard in his kitchen, such was the hilarity it caused. It is now the policy of Sepmeries, Reisnes etc that the word absolument be articulated abso-putain-lument. The education has worked both ways. I have discolored their English, while they have improved mine by explaining language constructions that I had never understood. I guess I am the more culturally rich from the deal.

Point number two -- you would not believe the houses here. Were I not the polite guest that I am, I would have photographed every last house I have been in. They are incredible. When I first hit the States, I was gob-smacked by the size and design of the houses. French houses here blow everything I have ever seen in my life completely out of the water. I visited two yesterday where my jaw literally dropped on to the beautifully tiled floors. They are built to be enjoyed, not just lived in.

I sat with Louis et al one night as he showed me what his house was like when he bought it. It was an old farmhouse that was decrepit. Over some years, he has transformed it into a veritable palace. He joined the house to the one of the many barns thereby creating not only what you would consider a banqueting hall, but a second storey (in some of it) where now exists the kids' bedrooms and my residence. During the course of the renovation, he took painstaking care to make sure he re-used anything that could be from the old buildings. So the tiles are original, the beams etc. As things progressed, he found newspaper cuttings and documents dating from the turn of the 20th century. Of particular note were a newspaper article from 1930 that predicted the second world war (only it is named the third world war), resistance propaganda, share certificates. Absolutely fascinating stuff. Alors, the photos of the house then documented his progress in renovating step by step as he altered things, added things, cobbled the courtyard, put in the staircase etc. Utterly amazing.

Which brings me on to point number three -- the community spirit here is palpable. In the US and UK, we live in an isolated state. Here, friends pop by at random intervals, pile in and children just be children together no matter where they are. There is no need to organize sleep-overs; the kids just arrive with the adults and everything just unfolds naturally. I would say it's like me pitching up to my parents' house. You pile in, say hi and then help yourself to the contents of the fridge etc. There are no Ps and Qs to be minded. I can only think of a couple of places in the UK where I would be at ease doing that; two of them are family (notably not my brother's house). I kind of do it at Albert Towers too, but that is because these people are family. Here the family is a subset of the village.

I noticed most of this when Albert and I hit Valenciennes many years ago but thought it was a one-off, a single data point if you will. Having many more data points from the last few days, it is conclusive.

If I lived here, I could not do what I do for a living now. The contrast between the pressure of work, the processes, the rigidity, the inexplicable drive for sterility and the laissé faire of home life would be enough to send me into deep depression. Hell, I'm guessing I would have a much lesser need to lose myself on t'interwebz for hours at a time. Like Louis, I would maybe check my email once a week rather than having my phone beep every thirty seconds and me scramble to get to it.

It's a different -- and orders of magnitude better -- way of life. The French paradox of eating, drinking and smoking too much yet living to a grand old age is not really a paradox at all. The extremist capitalist way of life in English speaking countries all over the world is the reason we have a need to have a French paradox -- we stress ourselves into an early grave by constantly monitoring everything we do.

The first thing I am doing when I get back to England is rearranging my dining room. At the moment, I have a huge dining table that I use as a desk and a smaller one that is nominally a dining table but which usually acts as a storage area for stuff in transit (BTW, I have explained how utterly marvelous the words \"stuff\" and \"gubbins\" can be in English) to/from any room in the house -- it's like a buffer zone. The smaller table will be used as the desk. The bigger table will be used as a proper dining table. Actually, let me correct that. It will be used as a table should be -- where when people come around, we can sit together and talk while the music plays with easy access to the kitchen. I already have a liberal policy in my house -- if you get through the door, help yourself (in French my best guess at the spelling is sèr toi). This small rearrangement will make that more obvious. At the moment when I have visitors, we usually end up in my living room on separate chairs/sofas listening to music and talking (since that is where my Mac Mini lives). I intend getting another one and syncing it across the house so I can do the same in the dining room.

Other changes will involve food. It dawned on me why it is that I am so crap in the kitchen and why I find food such a chore. It is because I let it stress me. I buy stuff and then never eat it because I am sat away from the kitchen. If I could do everything I can in my living room either in or in proximity to the kitchen, all would be good. Aussi, rather than worry about the \"done\" way of making stuff, just don't bother; follow your instincts. Food should not be a moment in time but a constant and steady intake whenever you damn well feel like it. If you feel like a smoke half way through, do so. I should eat more bread too. It's not like we cannot get decent bread in the UK anymore...it should be there and just torn into whenever. It should be a natural act to get in and tear off a piece of bread and munch it as you do whatever you need to.

For those of you who frequent chez Kenny, these are the new rules (in the loosest sense of the word). Unless we're watching a film, the dining room is where it will be at. And as the Vanquisher™ knows full well, there will be no asking, just a \"sèr toi\" attitude.

I know this sounds kind of twee (here goes Kenny again on a stream of serotonin), but travel does change your view on how to do things. Had I not traveled in my younger days, I would have completely capitulated to Wigan norms. Certain events in your life challenge your fundamental ethos. I can name every single one of those in my life and this has certainly registered as one. Due to events that I will not go into because they are deeply personal to Louis and his family, my stay here had to be altered somewhat but even though those events are very sad, I would not have had it any other way. It has been truly inspiring.

In short, the French have it totally right and I, for one, retract every single word I have ever muttered in jest that was aimed at them.

You have never lived until you have driven a 1968 425cc deux cheveaux.

Kenny on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:51:46 +0100

Walls come tumbling down