Post 355: Engineering work with severe delays resumed

It seems that life is a pisspoor replacement bus service for ever. As much as organising to go to 7 things in 7 days last week was a bit excessive, it was probably the right thing to do.
I am not afraid to state my opinion and stick by it unless it gets disproved, you’ve probably noticed, but Friday night was the Olympic Opening Ceremony

which I think by the end everyone was pretty happy with, certainly the fireworks were unbelievable. I’m a sucker for fireworks! However, seeing as I’m the kind of chump who can’t resist a bit of chat I said what I thought about the Opening Ceremony’s starting bit on facebook ‘Is anyone else not exactly overwhelmed?’ – well, this received some agreement but an awful lot of ‘burn the witch’ from the ‘positive police’ but as soon as they ‘forged’ the Olympic rings

it started to take a different, rather more entertaining direction beginning to celebrate that we lead the world in Music and comedy. Sure, I think that the Industrial revolution and the NHS are great British achievements. I sadly don’t think there’s anything to celebrate about the bloody Unions, something a rather radical leftie champagne socialist passive aggressive friend of mine pointed out were celebrated.
In principle I have no objection to collective action when it is used to make sure working practices are fair. For crissakes, I used to work at a company (John Lewis) who virtually had an internal union which could not be overruled by the management (It was called Registry) and I could see how much happier the staff were there. The beauty of this was it could never be hijacked for political gain by power hungry morons with busts of Lenin on their desks who always tell their members how dissatisfied they should be with management and with their government. Workers are politicised (like terrorists being ‘radicalised’) and they feel oppressed because fat bald Trotskyites tell them that’s how they should feel and it makes me mad to think that British Labour is organised this way, it makes me madder still to think I have friends who believe that this is right. Grow a brain! Ooops, off on one again!
Back to the opening ceremony – didn’t the introduction of Mr Bean just turn the mood round from

‘I’m not sure I can take another three hours of this to ‘I wonder how they’re going to light/fashion the Olympic flame and who’s going to light it’? I also thought Dizzee Rascal’s rendition of ‘Bonkers’

stormed the place, he can now go back to being ‘a bit stupid’ as this demonstrates and being a mediocre (at best) ‘Grime’ artist
What was a relief was the Arctic Monkeys belting out ‘I bet that you look good on the dance floor’ rather than Coldplay ‘inspiring’ us. Thank goodness this country doesn’t get tarred with Chris Martin’s patheticness.

That would be as mental as me representing Britain in the 100m! Anyway, the whole thing about the Games has been the disprortionate excitement and ‘hype’ that it has generated. As JFK said ‘No matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as the truth’, is how I feel about the Games. Call me cynical, I put my hand up and say ‘guilty’ but at least I do it with a sense of humour. I think that the Games are a good thing but my enthusiasm is tempered by how much it has cost and the transport chaos it will inevitably create in London. I am not really one for national pride and patriotism because it as another thing that creates division. There are already enough things that do that. Although I am by nature a little competitive, I can’t stand ultra-competitive people so for me the Olympics is just really a spectacle which I’m looking forward to seeing on 11th August. But regardless of how good/mediocre/bad we thought the opening ceremony was, I think we can all agree that the most important thing was that it hardly rained. It always saddens me that no matter how much is sunk into an event, it’s ultimate success or failure is entirely dependent on the weather. Living in this country is sometimes rubbish. Overall, I think we did well – I was one of the cynics (really?) but genuinely hope it goes well. I will of course support British Sportsmen and Women, mainly because it’ll be more fun if they win, so I’m going apeshit for the cyclist Mark Cavendish right now – well that didn’t happen. It better be worth having all the roads near my house closed until Monday. Well no it f*cking wasn’t, frankly I think that the commentators should be shot! From saying that team GB couldn’t have planned the race better at about the ¾ mark to Cavendish not even getting close at the end. These guys are obviously great athletes, but it has got to be the sh*ttest spectator sport of all time. Some sports just don’t work either live or on TV. The commentators didn’t even have a clue who was who. I suppose the disappointment of Cavendish not even getting close should prepare us for more disappointment. After all, this is Britain.
No doubt people have worked out I’m a fairly conservative, selfless, opinionated yet humble bloke by now. Well you might not find me humble, but I’m not an unreasonable c*nt. If there are people that get offended by my language. I sort-of apologise, but I sort-of also believe this.

I’ve only had one thing in the diary this week and it was something that when I saw it, I thought ‘my parents’d love that’ and indeed they did – it was Henry Blofeld and Peter Baxter

sharing their memories of Test Match Special, a bit of an institution with Cricket Fans and posh old duffers. I think my parents are in the overlap of those two groups, I’d also invited my cricketing schoolmate Owen who has just literally become a father for the second time. He doesn’t sound it but he’s so Welsh his second son’s initials are JPR.
Blowers and Baccers were awesome, a couple of comedy posh old buffers just reminiscing in front of an audience. I found myself whispering to my dad ‘how is this different from what happens at your golf club every week’? I don’t think I got an answer.
It got me thinking, Blowers is ‘living the dream’ – how many people can get flown all over the world at that age (he’s 72) and get paid to chat sh*t and drink all day while watching your favourite sport. No wonder he’s such a jolly chap! To someone else living the dream, a DJ who I used to worship, because his mixing and music production were superb. Back in the early noughties he was voted the world’s best DJ three years running. Of course I’m talking about Tiesto .
The reason I bring up this lucky bastard is that I happened to see one of his updates with Photos from Pacha in Ibiza,

a famous club I’ve actually been to a few times. Jealousy is not a constructive thing but sometimes it can’t be avoided.
In other news, my Gall Bladder operation is set for 14th August. It should be a routine keyhole procedure that hopefully won’t involve me spending a week in intensive care like my appendix did last year but still I’m nervous. Anything that requires a general anaesthetic and someone removing something that is supposedly part of my digestive system does that.
In other home news, my friend Isa has got some time on her hands as both her kids are away so she got in touch and came over and cooked me dinner yesterday. What a nice thing to do. This is not to belittle Gary’s cooking, it’s just that he can’t really flex his BBQing (sorry Brai-ing, he and Gwen are South African) muscles while I’ve still got my Gall Bladder (and any fat is off the menu) – we still manage to eat from the brai

– I just have to not have most good things.
Pickle is apparently settling in really well at my brothers and not only is it nice having Ham back around

but the garden seems to be attracting other wildlife.

Mercifully, my schedule for the next few weeks looks ok. After my operation Jose and I are planning a special recovery training regime before his girlfriend has a baby – while he is going to be busy I plan doing a few sessions at a specialist neurorehab physio practice near Dorking on my left arm/hand. It is called Heads Up and was actually investigated by my friend Tanya 4 years ago. However, my then Neurophysio told me that it would not complement her useless and expensive methods so I didn’t bother with it. This wasn’t the first time I have experienced Therapists being precious that their methods are correct. I haven’t known who to listen too. What I do know is that no-ones methods have ever made me feel even the slightest bit better. I have found that the most important thing is the rapport. Let me remind you, these people are essentially torturing you. Worse, you’re essentially paying them to torture you. The least you can hope for is to enjoy their company. I won’t say anymore.