Over which you don’t go. Unfortunately I have “line blindness” which leads me often snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Last night was such an event. A great dinner party at the home of partner in crime Mr Evans. A surprise was the presence of the current “Future Mrs Hardy” (FMH).

Now let me explain the “Future Mrs Hardy” concept. This is a position that indicates I like someone in “that way” but they must be unobtainable and have a strong sense of humour. The current holder of the post fulfils these criteria wonderfully; Intelligent, attractive, ludicrously young, a sharp of humour and what I take to be failing eyesight.

Last night I had what I thought was a good evening, bravely fighting the corrosive effects of drink I was (in my unbiased estimation!) occasionally amusing, listened well and near the end of the evening gained the FMHs phone number, I mean, what could go wrong…

I’m not going to say exactly what went wrong but suffice to say drunks should have their fingers removed to prevent embarrassing late night texting issues occurring.

Went to vote early, a groggy hangover head made the European voting slip a bit of an effort, I swear it was twenty miles long. Evan at this time of the morning, 7.15, a passer by walking his dog shouted in to the lonely Labour man sitting at the entrance “I’m not voting today, they’re all crooks”. It’s going to be a long day at the polling stations.

The good news is that early poll research, me and Keith down the Sea Angling Club, indicate a landslide for our boy Andy Dumas. So tomorrow morning I expect to awake in a world were the sun shines all the time, we are all nice to each other and digital cameras are free.

A word to the wise brought to you by a completly fictional parable in which a man with a extra large windscreen on his BMW touring bike gets into a race with a very nice looking custom Vaxhall on the M11. The mistake this completely fictional character made was trying to raise his windscreen at 110 mph. This fictional man now has a dent in his bank account.

Naturally, being a completly made up story, he won the race!

Last night was the quiz. Most had fun and it was a good turn out. Team Steve & John (me and John Evans have been asked to do it every fortnight, I will come to that later.

Kim Throwers team came a valiant last with Kim even getting the give-away question of the night wrong (when was the battle of Hastings?). Knowing me he thought it was a trick question, it wasn’t…

A couple of things soured it for me; I think I got a bit of “I’m the boss” attitude from the land-ladies husband (I had just screwed up slightly on the scoring) and Sheila (who runs the quiz) is a “micro manager”. The first one is easy, I’m my boss, so b***** ***, take it or leave it.

The second is more subtle and raises the reason I all most certainly won’t be doing regularly, at least at the Cinque Ports, Shelia is doing it to raise a bit of money for charity and have a fun night at the pub where she is a regular and with this in mind everything is tailored for the pubs current clientèle. This is fine and admirable, but, not what I’m interested in. I suppose I always take things too seriously but I would have two aims; get more people attending and improve my comparing.

One of the limits put on this is the early start time, 7.30, which is almost set in concrete. Almost every one I approached said this made it difficult as by the time they’d got home from work fed the kids etc, it was too late to come, especially if you have to travel.

So there we have it, I grab at fame by becoming someone elses bitch, bow out or, possibly, find another pub that wants a pub quiz…

On to Castle Beckington where the scourge badly behaved teen-age daughters seemed to have spread. Whilst not for a moment approving of the dreadful teen-age attitude here I was a little surprised to find the parents completely unaware of that terrible child illness, TDH syndrome (Teenagers Don’t Hoover). I myself contacted this at a very early age and sadly suffer till this day. Most men only recover from this, and then only partially, upon the administering of a “wife”. Tragically it was found that I had a strong allergic reaction to this cure and have had to live with the affliction. It’s a burden I carry with good grace…

And parents, if you think it’s bad now, this is a picture of middle class students away at uni… (picture courtesy of my niece Emily Hardy)

Norfolk was, well, this is where self censorship rears it’s head, it was family; that can be good and it can be crap but for the sake of peace you don’t dwell…

I’ve been back for some time but am victim of my reclusive side at the moment, the word “drifting” doesn’t come close – I seem happy with a sort of “groundhog day” where I am constantly re-installing the Linux operating system on a range of computers made up from piles of bits, top fun I think you’ll agree but not great conversation!

And the world has changed, my how it’s changed. I thought the problem was the slowly encroaching state increasingly defining what views I should hold as it moved to re-introduce body snatching, sorry, presumed consent (if I ever knock anyone down at a zebra crossing I am happy to assume they consented to it). But what really has amazed me is the value of what little money I have evaporating. What is it that makes people not care when their money disappears except when its property values? The value of the pound has dropped against most other currencies so as we import most of what we consume, especially my toys, that means, for instance, that every hundred pounds I had is now worth about 70 pounds after just a few months. The effect is masked for the moment with over stocked shops desperate to sell before Christmas but come the new year imported good must start to go up in price – and I am now expected to roar down the shops because of a few quid off VAT, er, I don’t think so, I’ll save it as I’ll need to buy heating in January thanks!

Though the truth is, possibly because I don’t have children, I’m really looking forward to the depression. I remember the three day week and rolling power cuts in the seventies, great fun or at least it helped hide the fact I dressed in my Mums fur coat and stack heels, thank God digital cameras didn’t exist then.

The seventies – I wonder whatever happened to Celia…

With my commercial hat on today I did a bit of writing for a client, the usual stuff; “gawk in awe at the quality of our product and slickness of service” and so forth.

In my early twenties I suffered from the disease of “schoolboy poetry” (alarmingly I’ve recently been made aware that some of this material still exists in the vaults of an ex-girlfriend) and for a brief instant thought I would be the new Bob Dylan. It must be said that I was not alone in this as, at the time, the art schools were full of ner-do-wells such as myself fuelled on idleness, Pink Floyd, alcohol and librium.

The real Bob Dylan is still around and producing material that beggars belief.

Now, the rule is that as you get older and more comfortable the creative urge retreats, especially, I would content, as that the roots of the best creative material are nourished by pain. Has anybody mentioned this to Bob? I would admit that the latest album is not, for someone of my generation, “Highway 61” but it’s still way better than most things around. It must be depressing for all the talents that burn out after a year or ten to see an old guy producing songs that are better than most penned in their long forgotten brief burst of creative light.

I wonder how Bob is when waxing on about the pleasures of a clients all to familiar product?

Yesterday Twitter, today this. Perhaps I should do some work?

Installing this WordPress thingy was fairly easy, now the hard part, content.