This month, for a change, I’ve broken this up into sections, with titles, so you can skip the bits you don’t like. (“How about we just skip all of it!” they all chorused, oh my aching sides, I just didn’t see that one coming! You twats. 🙂 )

This change is due to me abandoning the old “front page”, and using the latest missive as the front end. What do you think, does it work?

Clicking on any image will take you to the relevant gallery, and larger images. 

Cricket;

As a mark of how “organisation” isn’t my strong point, it was only in the week before the first of the world cup matches I was due to attend that I realised that I was rostered  to work on the days of two of them. Gary was NOT best pleased when I asked him to shift swap, his morning shift for my evening shift,  at short notice. He was even less pleased when I told him I was only going to work the early section (8.30 am to 12.30 pm,) of those days, leaving all the loonies to his tender care. But, fair play to the lad, he did me proud. So, on those there days, I skipped work at 12.30, drove home, changed into whatever ludicrous outfit I was wearing that day and drove into the city, and parked the car at great expense. Soon after, I’d meet with an aghast Lee-Anne, (“am I really married to this clown?”) I’d give her the car keys, and catch the free bus to the ground. After the match I’d take the bus back into town, and Lee-Anne would pick me up from there. I was normally rather well refreshed by this point.

Arriving at the ground I’d meet up with Adam and Helen.

I actually met Adam and Helen for the first time at the first match. But, as it seems Adam is as big a cricket tragic as I, we must have both been online at exactly the time that the tickets were first released. Thus we had ended up buying tickets right next to each other for each and every match. Not only that, but an old boy and his Mrs, whose name I didn’t catch, had the seats in front of us for all three matches. Adam is Polish, not a nation known for its cricket enthusiasm, but for all that he proved to be as boring as me.

Funny thing is he doesn’t drink, neither does Helen. That was handy, as I do. This meant they could watch my kit for me when I went off to get more beers in, or when I  fucked off to circumnavigate the ground taking photos. I tended not to eat while there, as the food was shite, which didn’t help my alcohol consumption rate one bit.

I won’t bore you with ball by ball descriptions of the games, suffice to say they were all fab.

The first one, Bangladesh vs Afghanistan was amazing. The Bangla boys are great enthusiasts, loads were wearing fancy dress, and drums and singing were the order of the day. The crowd was roughly 80 % Bangladeshi, 15 % Aussie and 5 % Afghani. This must be the first match I’ve been to where I took more images of the crowd than the match!

  

Though I did catch this scorcher of a “bails off” shot.

Windies against Zimbabwe was a massacre. Big Chris Gayle slamming big hit after big hit, (16 sixes, 10 fours,) to reach a record 215 runs, and Windies clocking up what was, for a short while, the highest ODI score on Aussie soil of 372 runs.

 

 

 

 

 

Ireland against South Africa? Lets say that the Ireland supporting contingent who turned out, myself included, were 90% of the crowd, and a bit partisan to say the least. The crowd were a riot of Irish costumes, and flags. The Saffers were as miserable a bunch of pricks as you can imagine. I love watching Hashim Amla play though, and, as ever, he had a good knock, scoring 159 off 128. Ireland, inevitably, ended up getting hammered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s the end of the live cricket for me for this year, you’ll be glad to know. We won’t have another season like that while I’m still here, so I’ll be going up to Sydney or Melbourne to see games for the next couple of years. Me and Lee-Anne intend seeing an international match, (either T20, ODI, or 5 day test,) at each and every major ground in Aus before we come back to Blighty to live. We’ve got Hobart, the WACA, the Gabba to go.

The whore next door.

Neighbours. At the new house, on one side of us we have Gary, an old bloke who looks a spitting image of The Simpsons “Mr Burns”. He’s pleasant enough, always says “Hello” and passes the time of day. I cannot imagine him becoming a mate like Pat from Henry St was/is, but he’s cheerful enough. Next to him is a very old boy, who doesn’t come out much.

Next but one on the other side we have Tim. Our first exchange went thus; “Hello, I’m Taff, I’m just moving in!” “Hello, I’m Tim, I’m just moving out!” That’s not cause and effect there, just in case you were wondering. Tim is an unreconstructed hippy, a “drum circle” hippy, one with a “Atomkraft? Nein Danke” sticker on his car. So we’re not overly upset he’s moving on.

BUT, the guy between us and Tim, our most immediate next door neighbour, we haven’t seen, let alone met, yet. I did meet a little girl, presumably his daughter who, again presumably, has limited access too, once. She was sweet, but shy, and took a great liking to Digby.

One night I came home from work to find a scantily clad, dolled up, rather buxom young lady stood outside our porch. I parked up, and approached her. It didn’t take a great deal of imagination to realise she was what the late Mr Pratchett, (RIP mate, thanks for the kind comments,) would have called; “A young woman of negotiable affection.” First thing that went through my mind was; “It’s not my birthday, I’m not due a treat, and Lee-Anne hasn’t mentioned getting a girl in, so what’s up?” I asked her if I could help; “I’m looking for number 40, got a date.” I saw Gary’s post-box read number 36, so that could only mean the house the other side of us. I escorted her across, just for her safety, (ok, but mainly cos I’m a nosy bugger, ) and yes, number 40 was marked on his wall. “I’ll just have a fag before I go in thanks” she informed me, and texting someone on her phone, she lit up and stood outside. I left her to it.

All I can say is, it’s legal here, we even have a government inspector of brothels, and if he’s lonely, or horny, and he at least treats her well, (and tips,) and as long as she’s not been coerced into working in the sex industry, who are we to cast aspersions? Best of luck to both of them.

 

Mary

Mary’s attempt at getting to be recognised as the world’s most bonkers old bint continues.
The first time she came around to our new place, Lee Anne asked her, after showing her about the place; “What do you think of the house mum?” Her reply “Yes, no, no, no.” So Lee-Anne left it at that, we still don’t have a clue as to what she thinks of it.

She also has an infuriating habit of feeding our dogs. For a woman who is obsessed with losing weight, she seems to make up for her own lack of eating by force feeding animals. Her back porch is a mess of seeds, fruit, and possum shit.

But it came to a head the other day. When I drop off the dogs with her during the day, sometimes she’ll be out. She won’t have the dogs in the house as they once ate a book of hers. They’ve been long cleansed of that habit since they ate one of mine, and got well beasted for it. But she won’t believe that they will not eat her precious diet, “finding myself” and other mad old bat publications. So the dogs go in her shed, there’s a mattress and toys in there, and it has a mesh door so plenty of air circulates, not a problem.

The other day when I dropped them off, there were bones everywhere for them. I tidied them up, binned them and told Lee-Anne about it. Lee-Anne went spare, as she’s long warned Mary about feeding our mutts, as we don’t want Mary to become their “food person”, and split their loyalties. Not only that, but each and every time they stay there, they don’t eat their evening meal at our place, which is a fucking waste of dog food. Mary tried to convince Lee-Anne that it had only been “a couple of small scraps,” but I knew that it had been more than I could carry in two hands, enough for a pack of Beagles.

Strong words were said.

 

Coronation Street

Families, who’d have ‘em?

It’s all doom, gloom and moaning back at the family mansion. My niece had the temerity to go and get engaged, and now she’s planning her wedding. For many weeks the phone calls home consisted of the, not unexpected, drama of me listening to my mother go on and on and on and on and on about who should and shouldn’t be invited. Also which permutations of relatives were to be considered. “Well, if she invites cousin X, then she can’t invite uncle Y, or otherwise nephew B won’t go. But if she invites nephew B, but not aunty L, then grandchild C won’t go. I don’t know how she’s going to manage it!”

Then my niece made the most fatal error, she invited my mother, and told her the wedding was going to be held…..”In Bridgend! I mean Bridgend is too far boy, you can’t expect someone of my age to go there, nor your sister, it’s not fair!”

Just to put this in perspective; Bridgend is the sort of distance from Llanelli,  where mam lives, that most people in Aus would happily drive to get a decent bag of fish and chips.

“Been here before!” I thought. Fourteen years ago, when me and Lee-Anne were getting wed, I had the same tale; “Penzance?!?!? Penzance is too far boy, you can’t expect someone of my age to go there, nor your sister, it’s not fair! You have your wedding there, then bring everybody up to Llanelli, and we’ll all go to the Dock Stars Club together.”
Three things went through my mind at this point;

1. Mary, Lee-Anne’s mother, was coming over from Australia to the wedding, her and Mam are exactly the same age.
2. Organising our wedding was a pain enough, without organising a second do in Llanelli straight after.
3. Why the fuck would I want to subject people to a night out at the Dock stars Club? It’s an utter shithole which I have never ever frequented!

Just to compound things my niece’s partner phoned up Mam and told her what he thought of her refusal to attend. Then the shit REALLY hit the fan!

Can’t blame the lad, he’s not really aware of how screwy my family is, and how they operate to different rules to the rest of society. First mistake he made was thinking that as weddings are fun family events, Mam would enjoy herself and be thrilled to be invited. WRONG! Mam doesn’t do “enjoy”. Also he should have been made aware, that Mam’s whole world is encapsulated in three streets, and anything outside of that may as well be considered as being as far away as Ulan Batar or Alice Springs. Not only that, but if you are organising something then the first consideration should be “making it easy for Mam to martyr herself” by coming.

He probably wasn’t aware that Mam has an arsenal of universal truths that cannot be argued with, such as; “That’s not right is it?’ “They can’t do that!” “It’s not fair see,” “What would people think?” and not forgetting “It’s easy for you to say that, it’s different for me.” With the ultimate weapon being; “You don’t understand! “ (It’s pointless asking “Ok, well explain to me what I don’t understand,” as that will bring the sub clause; “You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” into play. Conversation ends at this point.)

So you may be wondering; “How the hell did you get her to come to your wedding in Sennen?”

Easy. The best way of playing a “passive aggressive” person is to go along with them. I would phone up weekly, twice or three times a week even, and give her a report on how it was going. I’d tell her of all the friends, relatives, and locals who were going to be there, how everybody was really looking forward to meeting Mary, and seeing Bethy as bridesmaid, how there was going to be a huge bash in a local hostel, with free bar, and the whole village turning out. Then I’d finish it by adding, “Shame you’ll miss it all, I’ll bring in the photos up for you to see.” Then add some more spice, as in something along  the lines of; “Oh, did I tell you that a friend from the village is using her mobile hairdressers salon to do everyone’s hair free, as a wedding gift to us?”

I will admit I’d put a stop to the whole “Dock Stars” idea, by telling her exactly what I thought of that. Even her super weapon; “You think you’re better than us don’t you?” didn’t penetrate my resolve on that one.

Eventually, she cracked, and not without letting us know what a huge sacrifice it was that she was making, and how nothing was right about our plans, and how she knew it was all going to end in tears and; “why do you have to do these things, why can’t you just have little quiet wedding in Llanelli,”, and how much time effort and pain she was expending to be there, she came.

So why is this section called “Coronation Street”? Simple, if you live as restricted and parochial a life as some of my family do, and your only contact with current social mores is Coronation Street or Eastenders, or Pobl Y Cwm, then you star to believe that that is the way people actually interact, and behave yourself accordingly. Any normal, happy or unhappy, family event or social intercourse has to be turned into a full on melodrama, or it’s not real. Make you think eh? (The Archers is of course exempted from this, as it’s really, totally and utterly, true to life. Apart from Kate Madikane that is, who, if real wouldn’t be able to walk into any pub without total strangers punching her in the face hard.)

The wedding is in August, I have 5 months more of this to get through, Lord have mercy on my soul. Oh, thanks for the invite Jemms, sorry I cannot be there. (No, honestly, I am!)

ETA: If anyone breathes a word of this rant to Cynthia/Mam, I’ll fucking garotte them!

Work

One of my little girls at work, a lovely young lass, who is prodromal psychotic, made a stand the other day, and wrote a protest on the ladies toilet wall. Fair play for standing up for herself, but rather daft to initial it, so we knew who had written it.

Talking of the works bogs, (this blog is full of interesting stuff is it not?) the other day I went into the men’s, for a “quiet sit down,” only to find a workman was halfway through a job in there. But, luckily, he had sodded off somewhere else at that moment. I took the opportunity for five minutes peace and quiet in there. Though, on leaving, I couldn’t help thinking the plumber wouldn’t be thanking me for my visit when he returned.

Conversation with a social worker..

Her: “Oh you’re Welsh are you (after guessing Scottish, Irish and Dutch,) can you say that place with the long name?”
Me: “Llanfairpwll etc”
Her: “That’s amazing, it’s such a shame the language died out.”
Me: “It hasn’t”
Her: “Yes it has, I read about is somewhere.”
Me: “It hasn’t, it’s spoken by 20% of the Welsh population, and is taught in schools.”
Her: “Yes, but no one speaks it as their main language, do they?”
Me: “20% of the population of Wales speak it, many as their first language, there is a Welsh language TV station.”
Her: “Oh, maybe it’s Irish I read about.”
Me: “That’s still going strong too.”
Her: “Scottish?”
Me: “Still spoken but not as much as the other two.”
Her: “You’re making this up aren’t you?’
Me: “I’m making this up!?!?”
Her: “Well one of them is dead and not spoken anymore.”
Me: “You choose.”
Her: “I’m sure I read about it somewhere.”
Me: “Idiot’s monthly?”

Gigs

We saw Billy Connolly, at the local exhibition centre. As fate would have it I was also rostered on an evening shift that day, but was owed a couple of hours so skived off at 7.00 pm. What can I say? The old boy still has it, though age and illness are starting to take their toll. He came on, and, within two lines, had the audience rolling in the isles. He used his Alzheimer’s and prostate cancer as kicking off points for diatribes, (he has to use notes these days,) which was brave, and a good way of dealing with the impact of them.

His best line about his illnesses was not one of his own. “Micheal Gambon gave me some good advice. He told me that when I’m acting, and the shakes and tremors start to kick in,” (shows his arm doing the Parkensonian tremor that he now gets,) ”to stick my hand in my pocket. Just remember to put it in your jacket pocket not your trouser pocket, he said.”

He did a full hour and a half, (used to do a full two hours,) and no encore. But fair play to the man, he’s a legend and still holds you entranced. I was so impressed I bought a souvenir tea towel.

I went to see The Sixteen, brilliant gig. There were 18 of them for some reason.

They ranged from a lovely young blonde girl of about 19 yrs, extremely nice posh totty, to a lady who must have seen some 80 summers or more. One female alto was wearing a tux, as opposed to the evening dress all the other females were wearing, so may have come in on the other bus. Harry Christopher himself was fucking fantastic to watch, coaxing and urging the best out of the vocalists.

About half the program was music by Palestrina, (Palestrina’s greatest hits?) who I’ve long collected. There’s no such thing as “too much Palestrina,” I’ve since decided. Though their renditions were beautiful, I still preferred the Palestrina stuff I heard sung by Kings College Choir. They also did some stuff by the Scottish composer James MacMillan, someone I’d not come across before, but will now start to collect. (James MacMillan was born the same year as me.) The only disappointment for me was that it was all polyphony, no plainsong.

We’ve got tickets to see Dylan Moran on his next tour, he’s the only stand up who can give Billy C a run for his money in my honest opinion.

We see Ross Noble this month, expect a review.

We also got tickets to see “Le Noir”;

The cirque extravaganza that has taken the world by storm finally comes to Canberra. Enter the captivating world of LE NOIR – The Dark Side of Cirque, an extraordinary evening of intimate cirque style entertainment starring some of the most incredible acrobatic acts on earth. Carefully engineered with the deliberate intention of making the audience part of the entertainment offering a 360 degree spectacular view of the stage. 24 of the very best performers from all four corners of the globe, many of them formerly from Cirque du Soleil, are the centrepiece of this production. 

“Melding of physics, physique and psyche is what makes us marvel” The Courier Mail, Brisbane

“Jaw-dropping feats of athletic skill and precision… Impossibly breathtaking” Stage Whispers

“Surreal, beautiful, seductive and at times hilariously risqué*.” Time Out Singapore

*”Hilariously risqué”, normally means; “you’re going to get a bone on Taff.”

 

Bethy

We were invited round for a meal at Bethy’s & Brandon’s  the other night, our first time of being dined by them. Bethy was the perfect host and had “cooked” up a Sushi banquet for us, and bloody lovely it was too.

Odd seeing our little girl as the “woman of the (shared) house.” But she’s revelling in the role and has taken well to independence.

As a return favour, when Brandon was away on a birthday party in Melbourne the other day, she came and stayed with us, and had a sleep over, the first since moving out. It was funny and sweet having her “home” again.

Bethy and Brandon went to a party the other night, a “transvestite” party. They went as two of Bethy’s favourite Agatha Christie characters, (oh come on, you know who!) I think they look stunning.

 

 

 

Bah! Long gone are the days when I got invited to theme parties. To parties even.

 

My own stupidity

No I’ve not changed nationality again. What happened was when Lee-Anne ordered my “Cornish Guilt” T-Shirt for Xmas she was most displeased to find the one above delivered instead. She wrote back to the company, informing them of their cock up, and asking where the one she ordered was. They apologised profusely, offered to send out the right one that day, and insisted she kept the “Swedish” one.

So now I get to be Swedish, as well as Welsh (by genes,) Cornish (by spiritual home,) English (by birthplace,) British (by passport,) and Aussie (by Citizenship.) I’m a whole multi-cultural extravaganza in one body me.

 

Talking of my erratic nationality.   A week or two after our move, one day I was rooting about in our garage, looking for my back issues of Viz. Under a suitcase, and in a carrier bag, I found this;

I really should have it framed or something.

The Marmite Easter Eggs, which I desperately wanted to try, are either a myth or were snapped up before any of you could buy a gross of them to mail to me. (A bit like “Stilton Beer?”) My cousin Kieran did send me some “Creme Egg Biscuits” as consolation, which were fab and devoured with glee.

Got a haircut the other day, and as ever, I decided to have my bi-monthly shave after it. It’s a regular routine, have a haircut, have a shave. But, seeing as the previous two months had left a rather luxuriant, (for me,) growth, I decided to not just whip the whole lot off, but to see what I looked like with a ‘tache. I thought it’d make me look dashing, virile and debonair, a bit like a modern day Jason King, or Charles Bronson.

I took a photo and sent it to Lee-Anne. “What do you think of my new image lover?” I gaily asked; “It makes you look like a fucking peado, get rid of it before anyone else sees it,” was the reply.

Oh talking of things sexual, as I tend to, (when not talking of things scatological,) the other day while driving home,  I pointed out a sticker on the back of a lamp post to Lee-Anne; “Gay prostitute for hire do you think?” I asked. “It says; “Dial an Ironer”, what the fuck are you on about “Gay Prostitutes” for?” I must get new specs, I thought it said “Dial a Boner.”

I’ve been doing some DIY, which for a change hasn’t ended in heartbreak. We had an old coffee table, perfectly good and serviceable, but a very dowdy looking. “Never mind,” quoth the idiot, “I’ll sand it back, and varnish it, and it’ll be good as new.” So, first buy a sander. This meant a trip to the local Bunnings, which is guaranteed to end in arguments. We strolled through the tools department. I wanted an orbital hand sander, Lee-Anne pointed; “That looks like a good one” “That’s a jigsaw Darling” it went downhill from there. Eventually, just before blood was shed, I got one.

I also bought a lemon tree, which I snapped in half while planting. Luckily I’ve been able to save it.

Eventually I got round to sanding it back. It looked great stripped bare. Then I applied the stain and varnish stuff. It looked fucking hideous after that. I stripped it right back to the wood again, and tried it with just a stain. It now looks great.

Although as you can imagine, for the cost of the sander, sandpaper, stains and varnishes, plus brushes, (oh, and a new pair of jogging bottoms, having ruined the old ones with stain,) I could have afforded a new 3 piece suite, let alone a coffee table. Oh, it’s now three weeks later, and I’m still trying to get the stain out of my skin.

Technology

I spent months and months of trying to get the BBC “Iplayer” on our TV, unfortunately region coded, and cannot be watched outside of the UK. But there are ways around this! I finally thought I had it sussed. We hooked up with a “virtual private network” (VPN) for a cost of $12.00 per month,  then I could watch Iplayer on my computer. Oh so good, so good! If you’ve ever watched Aussie TV you’ll know how crap it is, and how the BBC, (and ITV and Channel 4,) are worth every penny of the license fee.

So great, I had a perfect, and perfectly illegal, BBC Iplayer portal, all I need d now was to get it from the computer to the TV. We opted for a “Chromecast dongle”, as they are touted to be the best way to get stuff from phones, Ipads and computers onto the TV. It works great for our phones, and the ipad. But from the computer? Not a sodding hope! I was tearing my hair out in frustration, when I noticed our VPN has a “live chat” feature for support. I hooked up with it, and explained to the nice young man in India my problems, he had the answer; “We don’t support chromecast.”

Fuck me pink, it could only happen to me.

Me and Brandon, my pet geek who is always wheeled in to help with matters technical, got around it, in the end, by hooking an old laptop, one we weren’t using and which was just laying around, up to the TV. Then by putting the VPN software on that, and connecting to the router wirelessly we could get the BBC on our tele, YAY!!

Except since getting it we’ve realised that we never watch Tele enough to make it worth the cost of the VPN, so we’ve not renewed the subscription. Plus ca’ change, plus ce le meme chose.

I joined Facebook. After years of avoiding it as it’s too fucking hip and trendy, and that Zukerberg fucker already has money falling out of his arse, I gave in and joined. I’m really enjoying it, it’s given me a way to communicate more frequently with some very nice people, and Alan Harness.

I’ve taken to doing a “Cooking with Taff” section weekly, just for a lark and out of the kindness of my heart. If you ignore the ridicule posted, you’ll find that some people have really enjoyed it.

I’m not quitting this blog got it however, you’ll be please to know, as this is a place where I can share my profound inner thoughts, existential musings and knob gags.

I just used word’s “replace” facility to change every inclusion of “teh” to “the”, it made 42 changes. One day I’ll learn to type properly, then I’ll be able to post volumes of shite here. (Go on say it, you know you want to, it’ll make you feel better.)