Hello Mr Lemon Fish

Land of Manc

Woof

With Fish in Our Beards

Mornings recording of records is paused due to lack of battery power. Go see Eddie the buildings manageer and let him know about the leak and the rodents! Come out for the recharge period. Start of the day and I was convinced I'm not gonna finish today, a wall of boxes in front of the racking that will complete the job, an avalanche of boxes where one had collapsed from the wall I'd been building too. Repair that situation. Then move onto the new stuff. Shift around 50 boxes and build a new wall. Usual situation, dusty, shite conditions but I quite enjoy the physical nature of it, makes a change from sitting on my arse all day.

Music today is all garage/psych influenced stuff, The A-Lines, The 5 6 7 8's, Thee Milkshakes, and The Prisoners keep me hard at it. The Dentists planned for the afternoon.

Try contacting Tracy via Meebo but Easy don't seem to like it and a direct contact through IM suggests we're offline anyway!

Wotchya at?

Return to the Land of Manc and the Blackhole of Gateway House II: The Revenge, plan is to complete the listing today. Be a relief to be out of dust, mouse poo and drips!

Restless night, sleep was elusive, feel knackered as a result. Can't locate the Blackberry, too tired to look. Get news sorted, sup coffee and get ready for the 7.30 train out of South Parkway.

As the Night Starts to Close In

Er...first off Happy Birthday Ken. OK another catch up, the reasons for which will become apparent....

Revenge of the Rodent in Happyville

Friday and the curse of Fade with train travel this week comes to visit me. Earlier in the week Nicola has hassle getting to Salford and the curse of unfortunate train ticketing, I got it on Friday as my ticket wasn't valid. My own fault though. Other than that the travel to Oxford Road was fine. Sort Coffee and wander to Picadilly. Back into the 'Blackhole of Gateway House II: The Revenge'. Figuring on the amount I need to achieve in the day and the fact that I suspect I've over estimated the achievable I begin the day with a call to Tracy. I get Shan. We chat and it cheers me up more than it should. I call Tracy, sort a few things and it's down to work. The blackhole still suffers from a water laden, dripping pipe and I aim to record the records in the two racks in this part of the room to get away from the drip. My worst fear it that the pipe is some sort of soil pipe, I suspect it deals in reality with the water from the sinks in the canteen (bes scenario). The presence of gurgling water and drips means the preventative application of Joy Division (when in Manc listen to the local sounds, yes I know they were from Salford but it's all the Land of Manc to me). This it turns out is a good choice and by the time of enforced recharge break I'm over half way through. The downside is that I'm covered in dust fom the work that created the pipework and covers the boxes, discover that the place has evidence of rodents and I'm hoping that there wasn't too much mouse shit amongst the dust I have so liberally covered myself in.

Lunch is spent searching for Radian B Minera bath for Monst. I fail (I suspect eau de sweaty athelete ain't popular), refuse the invite of a bunch of Bush Baptists to a drink and chat about Jesus (they're too nice to put through my usual rant on the subject) and I resist the temptation to grab a pint. Result is I work like a loon on return and by 3.30 I'm done, desperate for a pint and nip for a Guinness at the station's Sports Bar (and horrify the barman by waiting for the thing to settle only to down it in one - mind you I needed it!)

Home, feed the family and rest my weary bones, only to receive a bollocking for alleged snoring. I say alleged because I was awake at the time of the accusation and I'm not certain you can snore while awake. I question the definition of snoring currently applied by Monst, it don't go down well!

It's a Strange Way to Go About Things

Saturday, the day to argue with the boy about homework, it's traditional, routine and upsets Monst who is sleeping in to get over the lack of sleep induced by my alleged snoring. Anyway prior to that I use the opportunity of an early rise to watch 'The Godfather II'. I'm a sucker for Gangster movies.

News, Spacemen 3, Experimental Audio Research and a retread of the Radian B experience fill the rest of the day. Plus this blog catch up.

The Spirit of Christmas is Truly Rum (Mountgay for Preference)

So having woken, blogged the news, put a link here for me to investigate more fully later in the day, I get to dash for the 7.04 that heads for Warrington Central (how that generates a wry smile of amusement everytime I encounter it rather than the guffaw generated by Milton Keynes Central). When there I transfer to the Scarborough train which goes direct to Manchester Picadilly. See I even know what I'm doing on the way here now.

Bump into the lovely Liz O'Neill on the platform. Chat as we head to Gateway (she's now an inmate of the gaff). Exciting day (well depends on your definition of exciting and when it comes to dealing with this lots files I have a low excitement threshold) because I enter the second archive today. I have been told it is better than the last one, the Blackhole of Gateway House. Eddie kindly lets me in. On the plus side it it brighter and seems more spacious than the Blackhole. The downside is there is still a jumble of archive boxes in the place and a large number of unboxed files. To get at the racking I will need to move a slew of boxes and then return them from whence they came. So what in my mind was a simple room to deal with is is turning into the 'Blackhole of Gateway House II: The Revenge'. the other downside in the place is that there has obviously been a need to adapt the plumbing of Gateway House (which has left heaps of concrete dust and revealed the woderful 60's concrete reinforcement to me), and it has a couple of pipes that gurgle with water (and one has a slight drip from it) and are gonna make me wanna pee all day, I can tell. This in itself is an issue because the lavatory arrangements in Gateway House surround the lift shafts and I'm the other side of a door with swipe control for which I have no swipe card from the toilets. Throw into the mix a general level of hypochondria as a result of Cal's lurg and I can tell it's gonna be a fun day. Luckily I'm on the right side of the swipe to have the escape switch and a well placed nove keeps the door open so I can get back the other side.

Never mind I dig into recording the boxes of crap in the first set of racking and filing cabinets and make rapid progress. It helps that only four of the eight filing cabinets have things in them. Plan is to get another rack of records sorted before jacking for the day. Still that will require the afternoon because here is still no power in this blackhole so I need to recharge the laptop. So off into the heart of the Land of Manc I wander. Nip into an easy Internetcafe and blog. Before I do thi grab some paper and a pen for some reason. Plan is to head from here to some lunch somewhere and then back to finish the days listing. In the near distance I can hear the plaintive wail of a Sally Army Brass Band playing 'In the Deep Midwinter'. By 'eck I'll have to trample on any notion of Crimble spirit in myself sharpish....

Tracy rings at some point to let me know it looks like the library in full has been assimilated according to Agenda for Chaos. Deep joy, it didn't take them long to do........ Usual NHS moans, grons and general whinge on the subject, you can inser them yourselves. Which reminds me positive vibes to Julie over at Life in the NHS who is suffering our latest wave of reform with considerably more grace than I could muster in similar circumstances.