The new blog

This is the new replacement blog which should get something written on it sometime this week... maybe.

http://the-jolly-blogger.blogspot.com/

Calling time on the Jolly Buffoon

The Jolly Buffoon Project is to end due to a rebranding and restructuring process which should result in something meaner, leaner and quite frankly better than what came before. The vicious character assignation that has led to this revaluation has been cut and pasted below...

"Martin is a man in his late fifties. He has a moustache, and seems to everything in slow motion. His belly is large. He likes old motorbikes, speaks with his mouth full, refers to women as "females", and puts one hand on his hip when he takes a whizz. Martin reminds me a little bit of what Sam might be like in thirty years time; except that Sam is already like that. Martin's slow and precise ways earn him little favour with the various contractors that come through our office, because it takes him three weeks to explain something that anyone else could explain in five minutes."

The above seems like the usual abuse but together with what was said in the pub last Sunday it all adds up to an unpleasant wake-up call. This shit has been in the pipes for sometime but this entry has convinced me that a change is required because quite frankly I am a joke to most of the readers here and although I enjoy light-hearted banter this quite frankly ain't it. Generally I didn't want to be taken too seriously but it has reached the point where people don't take me seriously at all and worst of all don't listen to me. So I have decided to terminate this blog and rebrand myself (there will be several fresh blogs to replace this one). Watch this space...

Guns, Hobbit holes and motorcycles. It could only be one thing: It's Day dream of the week III!

It all started with Jonathan Meades (doesn't it always) looking at Northerness and how it affects, amongst other things, Architecture. In Finland he described how a chap called Sonck created a uniquely Finnish architectural style. Here's Meades doing a better job than I ever could to describe this style...

I was somewhat inspired by this and started dreaming about my own dark, snug little burrow. I have often wanted to build my own house and earth sheltered housing has often been considered as I've planned and then replanned my fantasy home. My latest plan is to build a hobbit hole into the bank of a south facing hillside whilst having the entrance on the opposite northern side. 

This picture gives an idea of what I'd like to build.

My mind then wandered to the interesting and distant fantasy of motorcycle ownership which had been a target of mine whilst I was unemployed and skint. Somehow I never got round to doing the test and I have now decided this must be done by the end of 2010. Good god I sound like a politician setting these targets but unlike the government I intend to stick to this one and here is the reasons why...

These beautiful machines are Chinese and are exact copies of Soviet Russia's M72 motorcycle outfit which in turn was a simplified copy of a BMW R71 outfit that Germany's Wehrmacht had decided didn't fit the bill for their own forces. These Chinese machines are built under the name Chang Jiang and have a small but enthusiastic following though the workmanship is a little questionable by all accounts but the reviews have been good. I've also been looking at guns recently too after going clay pigeon shooting in the Welsh borders but alas the law prohibits me from owning this beauty. *Sigh*

Webley-Fosbery Self-Cocking Automatic Revolver

However this thing I can own it's a copy of a New England Fowling Gun.

I promise I will write a lot more next time...

February - A month with more highs and lows than a bunch of Drug Addicts locked in a pharmacy

So far February has been an odd month full of highs and lows but instead of having to ride these waves of fortune the Jolly Buffoon appears to be ploughing through them like a oil tanker. A couple of weekends ago everything was awesome I had spent the weekend messing about with guns in the snow whilst wearing a capote in a sort of glorified piss-up, Jess and George are now parents to a bouncing baby boy (I think they named him Alex) and we finally crushed Bolshevism by winning the pub quiz.

"Noooo! Not again! Curse your damned luncheon club!"

Fate then took a funny turn (funny strange not funny haha) and during the week I was informed of the death of my Great Uncle whilst a fellow blogger's father blew his brains out after some appalling gaffs made by artless hedge fund managers on his father's behalf left the poor man penniless. For my Great Uncle at least his death was welcomed as this once tall, proud man who had been a pillar of his local community was slowly robbed of his mind by Alzheimer’s Disease whilst his body became increasing broken and frail. That side of the family are a funny lot who come across as a bit secretive and snobish at times and I suspect there is quite alot of family politics going on too that my part of the family doesn't see. My parents, myself and my brother were the only other family there apart from the immediate family and I suspect this may improve our standing with that side of the family. Anyway I'm digressing into family politics (which is a dark and unhappy area to venture into) so when my folks arrived my brother and I were asked if we'd be pallbearers which we nervously agreed to. We waited outside until the hearse and limousine arrived they were Coleman Milne's finest; a Cardinal hearse and a Dorchester limousine.

Coleman Milne Cardinal Hearse

Coleman Milne Dorchester Limousine

My Great Aunt climbed out of the limousine and her eyes seemed to fix on me and stare at me for an uncomfortable length of time (I think she was trying to remember my name) before being distracted by other mourners but our presense had been noted. An error in the positions of the pallbearers so the tallest were in the middle causing the coffin to gently see-saw as we walked/staggered along with their shoulders acting as a pivot. After lowering the coffin back down off our shoulders onto trestles we all scurried to our seats and the funeral got into full swing. There was a good tallying up of my Great Uncle's life in which we discovered he was a sergeant with the mortars in a county regiment and landed in Normandy on D-day. A job which partly required him to run from mortar pit to mortar pit under heavy fire checking on the status of the crews and then reporting their readiness and availability back to the officer in charge. Not suprisingly he was wounded several times but went back into the lines as soon as his wounds healed sufficiently. He was mentioned in dispatches and recieved a personal commendation from Monty himself. Several poems were read during the proceedings which were done by a vicar with a spearch impediment that sounded like a cross between Pontius Pilate's in "Monty Python's Life of Brian" and Ken Pile's from "A Fish called Wanda" (both characters are played by Michael Palin) which was due to loose false teeth or so Dad suspected. It was the only thing that really spoiled an otherwise thoughtful and tastefully done funeral. After squelching through the entire churchyard carrying the coffin to the grave (the bottom of the coffin was floating by my ear as we still hadn't got our positioning right) my Great Uncle was slowly laid to rest. Reflecting back on the pallbearer experience I don't know how eight burly guardsmen carried Diana's coffin off that plane as the six of us struggled to not tread on each other whilst carrying the coffin of a man who was at least 6' 2" tall. The wake afterwards was good, I especially remember the sausages with had been glazed with honey and then sprinkled with seseme seeds. Delicious! I was given a doggy bag (no I didn't ask for it I was offered one OK!?) which the housemates helped to devour when I got back to Bristol as well as a four pack of Tanglewood tinnies.

After that there was a quiet weekend with the luncheon club failing to perform finishing a dismal eighth. A menacing e-mail by one of the managers has gone around to all staff about personal internet use in the office I have cut back on my lunchtime internet brousing and started reading again so there maybe a book review on the way soon. Oh yes I also passed the new version of the cycle proficiency awards which are now called Bikeability Awards! I await with frustrated anticipation for my cyclescheme voucher so I can get my Pashley.

This might interest the engineers (if you like fluffy, wuffy kittens you can stop reading now the rest will bore the poop out of you) it's a film of a container ship in a typhoon the interesting bit is the shots of the corridoor where you can see the ship's sections all twisting and heaving in different directions...

Jorrocks!

Aaaagh! I seem to be surrounded by smug couples at the moment and sadly I'm single. My status as a single man has to end soon otherwise I shall brutally murder the next happy couple I see enjoying each other's company with smug, oh so fucking smug looks on their faces. St Valentines Day is soon too which just rubs in the fact that I've been single for too bloody long even more. So it's time to don my pinks and go out hunting for a fox.

On the hunt it's only a matter of time before the hounds pick up the scent of my quarry.

There is another post in the pipeline which I will start working on again soon (ed: It's now done see below) and NO Marianne it isn't about cars. Toodle-roo and Tally-ho!

DAMN YOU MARIANNE! Now look what you've made me go and do...

For a while now I've been promising myself that I'd loose some weight and grow a personality and Marianne decided to help me with the weight issue. She hawkishly watches what I eat and bitches at me about my portion control and calorific content. I walk into work most morning with Marianne (her clinic is roughly in the same direction) but a few days ago she rushed off slightly early and assuming that she was miles away I started to dawdle into work. However on the way hunger pangs over took all rational thought (I hadn't had any breakfast because my cupboards were bare OK!?) and I popped into a cafe called Zazu's Kitchen in which I ordered a bacon and egg sandwich to take out. Whilst sitting there waiting for my order Marianne stormed in and victoriously exclaimed "CAUGHT YOU!" The rotten swine had double backed on herself to call on Charlie allowing me to over take her in the process so she could catch me out with a bacon sandwich in my mits.

I won't deny that sandwich tasted damn good but I did feel more and more guilty as the morning dragged on. I decided I needed to do something, like some kind of proper exercise but I don't like the idea of going to a gym with their sky high fees plus I don't have the time or the inclination to do that sort of thing. At this point I should say that there is a strong (and quite militant) pro-cycling lobby in my office with many colleagues cycling into work because they; a) they like to cycle; b) it keeps them fit; c) rush hour in Bristol is appalling and d) Firstbus Bristol are a bunch of thieving bastards who could organise a piss-up in a brewery let alone a bloody bus service. I decided to get a bike and commute to work and back on it which would make my journey into work quicker in the mornings whilst burning the calories on the uphill slog to get home. Work is part of cyclescheme which is some kind of government tax fiddle designed to encourage companies to get their workforces cycling into work. My employer buys me a bicycle and safety kit of my choosing (up to a £1000 worth) and charges me a meager hire fee over the next 12 months before selling me the bike at secondhand prices (10% of original price). My employer gets brownie points for being eco-friendly and a workforce that turns up on time because they haven't been stuck in traffic whilst me, the employee, gets a bike at a low price that's paid for over 12 months. Anyway that very lunchtime I toddled down to see the boys and girls at Mud Dock a cafe-cum-bar-cum-bicycle shop which is an approved shop on the scheme and after waiting for the ubiquitous alcoholic Bristolian to finish talking utter rubbish at the staff I got a quote for one of these...

It's a Pashley Roadster Sovereign with hub brakes and gears (I hate derailleur gears) a huge and comfortable Brookes saddle and an enclosed chain drive to protect the chain from the worst of the elements and my trousers from getting caught in it. As well as getting fit there is always hope that I meet a nice lady too (see above post) as this picture suggests...

A nice bit of rump.

Anyway as for the rest of my life my bank balance is taking a kicking as I shell out for re-enactment goodies and I'm thinking about opening an ISSA for a mortgage deposit. I'm preparing to go out on the journey to the utopia of house ownership through the dark land of debt. I'm becoming an adult...

Nordschleife, Monaco or Mille Milgia?

Firstly I'll apologise for being so rubbish lately and not updating the blog but the post-Christmas/pre-New Year period was ruined for me because I caught a stinking cold. I've also been lacking inspiration and wanting to throttle one of my housemates. Fortunately with Ben, Matt and occasionally Dom capering around my writer's block hasn't lasted too long so here are my latest musings.

Last night down the pub (as always) Ben and Matt started chatting about the £500 challenge and the fact that Laura (Matt's girlfriend) wanted to tag along. Laura didn't want to ruin an all boys adventure so Marianne decided she'd crash the fun saying she'd cover the event photographically and so Laura would feel like she was spoiling our fun. Hmmm. There was further muttering from Matt over insurance (insurance to cover our cars for the Nordschleife would be expensive to put it mildly) and Ben suggested jokingly Monaco. Matt and I both liked the idea but this seemed to set Laura off on one of her erratic turns of temperament. From what I gathered Matt had been mooting an idea that they'd go for a holiday there or something and Laura didn't like the thought of the rest of us crashing their romantic getaway. Charming.

Monaco

Anyway after I got home and was getting ready for bed I thought of a brilliant idea why not head done to Italy and follow the competitors of the Mille Milgia, once an endurance race through northern and central Italy and now a road rally for cars built between 1927 and 1957. When it was an endurance race it was an open race on public roads with racers like Sterling Moss averaging 97mph along the route! Not surprisingly it all ended in tears in 1957 with a huge smash in which 13 people died and it all ended up in court. It then slowly died out until it was revived again in the early '80s. Now at this point some of you will be saying how the hell does he intend to get a rare and rather fruity motor eligible for the Mille Milgia for just £500? The answer is of course simple we don't take part in the event but simply shadow it soaking up the Italian sunshine, the scent of Castrol and the melodious sounds of vintage cars thundering through the confines of the narrow streets of Italian hilltop towns all whilst scoffing great food and snapping photo's of the automotive erotica rumbling past. Our cars' endurance would be sorely tested having to travel down to the event, chase the cars through beautiful countryside and then roar home again with their boots stuffed with the local vino, olive oil, cheese and as many dry-cured Italian sausages that I can find space for. Also we could visit the Ferrari and Lamborgini factories which I believe are just a short detour off the route as well as take in San Marino and Rome which are on route.

The route of the Mille Milgia 2008

But before I warm to the idea of all this I have to remember that both Matt and Ben are philistines and have no appreciation for most of the vintage automotive beauties that'll be doing the Mille Milgia. Ben'll be asking wear all the Japanese performance cars are and Matt will be annoyed because the only German cars he'll probably see are Mercs and both of them will suck their teeth and shake their heads whenever they see an Italian car scream past before arguing over how long it'll be before it breaks down. Bollocks... oh well just a thought...

 

Ben: "A Bugatti"

Matt:"It's not a German made one is it though?"

Ben:"Nope"

Both of them:"It'll breakdown before it reaches the finish line"

Matt:*Squeal of girlish glee* "OOOOoooo!"

Ben:"Ugh ruthless German efficiency"

Matt:"Hmm looks a bit old. I think getting shocks for that thing would be difficult"

Ben:"It's still the devil's work"