The ramblings of a child stuck in a mans body

Test test test

The ‘male thought process’ phenomena from the parallel world of project vehicles.

Indeed, fleet size is related to theoretical driveway/garage storage places thus:

FS = Pth + Ptemp + int(0.5+(Dnew + S))

Where:
Pth is the theoretical storage places is based on Mini sized vehicles, stacked.
Ptemp is theoretical storage places available on a temporary basis from friends and family,
Dnew is variable between 0 and 1 based on desirability ratio of the new purchase.
S is the imaginary factor, 0 to 1, induced by the concept that ‘it’s a scrapper with loads of good bits on which I can sell on eBay and make money…’

Thus, someone with only one parking space will own two cars and be in the process of scrapping a third, in a friend’s chicken shed, whilst looking at prices of an intermittent fourth.

There is also the fact that when four or more actual spaces are available, one of the vehicles becomes a ‘long term project’ and will not move for at least five years until trees grow through it, only then may it be replaced with a newer long termer.

Garages

Garages are permitted to only store half their actual storage capacity (as opposed to theoretical capacity which is based on packing cars in so tight you get out through the sun roof and lift a mini in sideways).
The other half must be full of the ‘useful bits’ that you took off the scrappers over the last decade, plus half a bag of soil per car per year stored.

There is also the ‘cyclic focus phenomena’.

This is where one starts with a wreck (project) and one purchases another wreck (donor) in order to restore the first wreck to its (imaginary) former glory.

At the start of the process wreck A is the focus of all the attention. Talk in the pub centres around original or novel features and the fact that one much like this almost won le Mans in 1963 (but with a different engine and chassis/body). Mention is also made to the massive potential the car has to be ‘tuned up’ to produce five million horsepower by using the Canadian market intake and tubular exhausts.

Wreck A was bought with a few months MOT left on it. It was driven round a bit and only broke down when it rained or after it was left parked on a slight incline. Then it was laid up in an arbitrary garage/lock up/friends field with a tarp over it (thus ensuring massive corrosion). This must be left for at least six months before any work may start. Don’t know why but it just seems to be that way.

Then, one day when the sun comes out, an investigation reveals corrosion (we can patch that up), some parts completely worn out and some bodges that the previous owner has installed. How it got an MOT like that is a mystery, but you would quite like to know the number of that garage to see if they can do your other cars!

So many parts are needed that wreck B is purchased.

Wreck B is a bargain, it has almost (but not quite) all the bits you need plus a really ‘desirable’ dash quadrant trim piece that you are sure will sell on eBay for the price of the car. Whilst removing the seats, you see shiny paint and notice the floor is in really good condition, much better than wreck A.

There now follows the ‘focus re-alignment phase’.

A gradual process where more parts from wreck B are to be fitted to wreck A, until the tipping point is reached and there is more of wreck B in Wreck A than there is original bits.

There now follows much discussion and beer drinking, with some standing around the car and a fair bit of pointing at it. Now the plan is to fit a few bits from A onto B and swap the registration.
During this whole phase, no actual parts are physically touched, they just sit there, rusting and seizing.
Now the focus has been successfully moved to wreck B and wreck A will be sold as a ‘project vehicle, 90% finished’.

 
Money has been spent, rent has been paid, and time has passed. But you still have a shit car.

Abnormal behaviour.

Anyone found with space in their garage will be excommunicated immediately.

Anyone found with a clean and tidy garage will be shot.

Anyone thinking of converting a garage into a spare room will be shot twice and excommunicated an indeterminate number of times.

Earlier this week, a good friend of mine showed me his ‘Bucket List’, and it got me thinking what I would put on mine. For those of you who don’t know, a ‘Bucket List’ is essentially a list of things you would like to achieve before you go to meet your maker. Rather than wait to be diagnosed with E-Coli from a dodgy cucumber before making a list, I thought I’d make one now.

A quick Google showed me some typical ones, for example swimming with dolphins or climbing a mountain. I have no desire to do either. Climbing a mountain involves too much effort, and with my level of fitness, the mountain would kill me bloody quicker than any dodgy cucumber. Same with dolphins; a story in the paper this week about a Labrador puppy biting the face off a small child proves than animals are unreliable. I’d jump in the water and Flipper would eat me.

There aren’t many places I would like to visit either, once you’ve crossed off all the countries where I won’t be eaten by wild animals or terrorists. Besides, I’m only 23 years old. Any places I really want to visit I could do so in an annual summer holiday. I find foreign travel stressful; I’d rather find a beautiful private resort and have people called Enrique and Elena bring me drinks while I relax, rather than spend hours travelling across a hot desert to find that a Pyramid looks exactly the same as it does on Google. Or be captured by pirates.

Some other suggestions included going into Space. Conveniently, Sir Richard Branston Pickle who’s famous for lots of things that have failed is building a plane that can fly into Space several times a month. This is fabulous news, except it would require me having to add ‘Rob a bank’ to my Bucket List. Not to mention I’d rather he concentrate on making a reliable broadband service than flying me into Space, where I know I’d inevitably sneeze in my helmet. God help the other passengers if a helmet isn’t required.

I was genuinely surprised by the number of people who wanted to meet their idol before they die. Although there is a problem with that; what if your idol doesn’t want to meet you? Waving your Bucket List under their noses won’t help either. Maybe ‘Getting arrested’ and ‘Obtain a restraining order’ would be more appropriate on the Bucket List. This is also applicable to people who include ‘People I want to shag’ on their list.

No, I have decided my Bucket List will consist of skills I want to have mastered. These include learning to play the guitar, learning a martial art, and obtaining a licence for a vehicle that isn’t a car.

Knowing how to play Guitar is like a big metaphorical key to getting places in life. If you reply to “What hobbies do you have?” with “I play guitar”, you are almost guaranteed a reply of “ooooooh”. For further praise, fib a little and claim you can play Lynyrd Skyrnd.

A Martial Art is something I have wanted to learn for many years now, but haven’t due to laziness. This is a shame, because at the moment calling me a pussy is a huge understatement. My fighting skills consist of apologising immediately, even if they’re in the wrong, and getting the hell out of there. So I shall start Martial Art tuition as soon as possible; it will give me great satisfaction in the future knowing that I could be a BOSS if I ever got into that sort of situation.

As for obtaining a licence, it’s pretty much settled on what sort of licence I could get. I did consider a motorbike licence, but then I reflected on the way I drive a car and realised that obtaining a motorbike licence would be the only thing I’d achieve on my Bucket List. Not to mention, as previously mentioned, animals are unreliable; a badger would run out in front of me, and the next day my liver would be in the body of another motorcyclist. I don’t trust helicopters; Colin McRae was a master of controlling vehicles and crashed one. Learning to fly a plane would also require ‘Rob a bank’ to be on the list, so that is out too. HGV licence is also a no, as that would tempt me into quitting any stressful job and taking the easy life behind the wheel of a Tesco lorry with only an iPod, a sandwich and a porn magazine to keep me company.

So I have decided to learn to drive a steam train. Yes this is technically cheating; the licence is to use the boiler on the train rather than the train itself (does this allow me to work on people’s central heating systems?). I have always loved the beauty of steam trains; I think in this modern day there should be a scientist somewhere who can use the electric power lines on the existing railways to heat up the water on board into steam. Sadly they’re all busy trying to stop global warming, or making sperm out of the skin from people’s bottoms. Which is a shame; I can only imagine how magnificent it must be to watch a steam train go full speed through a station. I also have a more significant reason to learn to drive them; my Grandfather drove them. It would be fantastic to know exactly what he did for a career that he enjoyed before his death, and make me feel a little closer to the man I never knew.

Anyway, that is my list complete. I only included skills as there are other things which I thought were common sense; a rewarding and enjoyable career, and to start a family of my own. Although I have been told that choosing skills makes me look like a character from the PC game, ‘The Sims’. So I’m off now to complain about being hungry and bored, and to wee on the floor.

I met a troubled man, his words were kind,
A friend he did become.
But then I sipped the poison, and spoke my mind,
And all became undone.

A vow to meet another time, we parted ways,
But knew was if not when.
I wish my friend knew how much, i want to say,
I’d like to hear his words again.

This week I will be winning the £117,000,000 Euromillions Lottery jackpot. There is no way it cannot happen this time, and in celebration of my soon-to-be riches, I have devised a plan on how I shall spend it (after parking my current Vauxhall Astra in the Managing Directors private parking space at work and leaving it there).

First of all, a house in the country that’s suited for men. I know you’re now thinking I want a gay brothel, so let me clarify by saying a house that looks beautiful and historic from the outside, but very modern on the inside. It needs a pool table in the living room, a swimming pool, and a very large patio (with shelter) for us men to cook the BBQ. In fact, there are two things which we men love doing the most; washing cars and cooking a BBQ. I could happily spend every summer weekend doing those things. Women would be banned, unless they promised to leave the salad alone. I don’t want floppy green water adding unneeded calories to my burger. My house would also include my own private gym, so I can eat said BBQ and not have tits.

Speaking of washing cars, the house needs a garage. Not some small garage, but essentially a nice looking stone warehouse, where I can store the fleet of historic and modern vehicles I would buy. Classics would include the 1977 Aston Martin V8 Vantage, and a Shelby Cobra. Modern vehicles would include your usual mix of supercars. I would be incredibly tempted with an Ariel Atom, although the result would be…flammable, and me leaving my £17million fortune much earlier than expected.

I would then buy a yacht. Not a small yacht, but a BIG one. With Jacuzzis, swimming pool, a decking area for my BBQ, and last but not least, a helicopter pad. A discussion with colleagues ended with the conclusion the yacht would be kept anchored in Monte Carlo, and every month we’d drive in a convoy of convertible supercars through France at ‘some’ speed to spend time on the yacht. I don’t think I would ever get tired of saying “Hey guys, who fancies having a party on my yacht?” I’d even hire cocktail makers, and a lifeguard to save those who’d inevitably fall into the sea and be eaten by a shark.

To those who claim I could become bored with my wealth, fear not; I’ll be occupied by starting up a Business and looking after my pet Donkey, which I will call Munchkin. My Business will be a small office, but my employee’s will have high motivation. Mostly from watching their Managing Director arrive through the main gate backwards in an Ariel Atom.

For those of you who want a share, please apply in writing to ‘The Mansion near Thame with a Lamborghini screeching in the front yard and a terrified Donkey’.

Now, who fancies having a party on my yacht??  =)

As I write this I have my cat continuously attempting to lie across the keyboard. This is very inconvenient, so I’ve just pushed her off, taking down the pile of empty coke cans with her and landing on her head. Cat has mixed feelings about the situation.

Since I last updated this, I have been dieting a lot and using the gym/squash courts at least three times a week. As a result, I have now lost 1-2 inches off my waistline. Does that warrant a “woop woop”? I think it does, especially because I have to put up with the tediousness of the gym, and the stupidity of the people in there. Last week, me and this middle aged woman entered the gym at the exact same time, and left at the same time. The whole duration of my workout, she walked on the treadmill. That’s it, no jogging, or fast paced strides, just simple walking. Now, gym memberships are not cheap; if it wasn’t for the discount I get through my job, I’d have to consider drastic measures to afford it. So this woman must be seriously rich to afford such an expensive walk each week, when it would be a lot cheaper and a lot more interesting to walk to the door of the gym, turn around and then go home again.

In the past few months it also seems like the countries of the world are all shitting over themselves. Egypt was the first to make major news. I was quite disappointed that each time I turned on the evening news it didn’t show an armada of Aladdin-clones on camels. However, pictures were released of a man who taped bread around his head as a helmet; this more than made up for the disappointment.

Now we have Libya where a man wearing a tea towel on his head is clutching onto the country like a little child who’s been told to give back the toy he just stole. I don’t know whether the Libyan people are either desperate or just plain stupid; marching to protest against a psychotic man who has an army with miniguns, and helicopter gunships can never end well. Not even some rolls and baguettes taped to their head would help them there.

Not content with being left out the newspapers, Charlie Sheen then decided to stir things up. Now, until 2011, I had never ever heard of Charlie Sheen being a drug-addicted, threesomes with prostitutes-loving, room-smashing alcoholic. I always thought that was Kiefer Sutherland before he cleaned up his act. Yet clearly Charlie Sheen sipped some sherry as it turned midnight on December 31^st, and decided his life wasn’t very exciting. So in the space of two months he’s been in the newspapers more than Egypt and Libra, he’s smashed up more hotel rooms than the members of The Who, and now he’s making the very bold claim that Keith Richards is nothing compared to him. Now, the only person who’s ever been more wrong is my colleague Gary, who while using a pub quiz machine decided that a Vampire Bat was a type of bird. It also takes quite a lot of ego to boast about being such a talentless waste of his dad’s sperm. Which reminds me, as a result of his antics, he’s been fired from Two and a Half Men; the show that made him £1.2million per episode. This proves America has too much money; I have seen that show dozens of times and thought he was about as funny as the VAT increase to 20%. Give that money to the cast of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ instead!

Or give the money to me. I need money. My car is costing me more than Charlie Sheens cocaine addiction. My computer is less healthy than Charlie Sheen is (I’m having fun with these Charlie Sheen metaphors haha!). I also want to visit a few places this year, not to mention hold a fantastic joint birthday party for me and my “little” brother Ross, who will be 21 this year. 50-100 people, need to find a big enough (and nice enough) venue to hold everyone, and get very, very drunk indeed! Bring on November!!

I’m actually getting increasingly worse at updating this. As I said though in my previous post, it doesn’t help that there is more excitement in a pot of Yakult than there is in my life.

Well, first of all, I had my holiday! Which was fun, sort of. After much hassle with updating the SatNav with French roads, and me desperately resisting the urge to purchase for it the voice of Yoda, the family set off late Thursday evening much to my joy. Me and Ed celebrated with much singing, guitar hero, and fish and chips.

However, the reason Ed was over was to help assemble a flat-pack wardrobe from Homebase. A seemingly good quality wardrobe judging by how the two boxes each weighed the same as a small truck, but then which turned out to be the most ridiculous wardrobe ever. For example, the manufacturer had drilled about a thousand holes into the wardrobe, yet only about thirty were needed. HOWEVER! Throughout the instructions, it constantly popped up with the following message; “PLEASE NOTE: There are no pre-drilled holes for screw C”. So, for a flat-pack wardrobe we had to borrow a drill and make more additional holes to the thousands there already were. Brilliant! However with the help of Ed, then the following day, Paul, the wardrobe was finished and is now standing proudly (just) in my room.

The Friday evening, at about 1a.m in the morning, I then drove to the Aylesbury Tesco store to buy things for my party the next day. Somehow I ended up spending just over £100; please don’t ask me how, not sure myself. It involved many bottles of alcohol, many crates of beer, and lots of glasses to put said liquids in. I was there for longer than I planned to be, partly because I spent so long trying to find a worker who spoke English to ask for assistance, and mostly because when I eventually did find an English-speaking person, he decided I was his new best friend. No shit, he wouldn’t let me leave the wines and spirits aisle for about half an hour. Only when he started talking about his life at school did I make an excuse to get the hell out of there, in case he wanted to write down his number or something.

Saturday kicked off with Ed waking me at a ridiculously early hour, but then regretted it when I told him he had to help wash the patio. Guests arrived in various fashions. Some walked, some drove, some catapulted themselves over my back fence. Luckily the weather stayed moderately warm, so barbeque was still cooked. Sadly, everyone else were boring sods and didn’t seem to want to get as ridiculously drunk as I did. This was unfortunate when I dared to mix up my drinks with a bottle of cider, and soon afterwards was collapsed in the corner of my living room, worried that I was about to become the first and only person to make a fool of himself. Thankfully I sobered up again after a little while, although that didn’t stop me from staying awake all night, or stop me from feeling hung over the next day.

Just after lunch my friend Alex appeared, and it wasn’t too long before we were thinking of what we could do. I suggested visiting the village of Turville, about twenty minutes drive from me, which happened to be the village where ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ was filmed. I knew there was meant to be a lovely pub there that sold dinner, so a plan was made to wander around and then eat.

For anyone who lives in the Thame or surrounding areas, I highly suggest visiting Turville when it’s a nice sunny weekend; it was such a beautiful place. Tiny; it would only take a couple of minutes to walk from one end of the village to the other. The buildings were really old, possibly Tudor era, and even had more horses than villagers (complete with shit on the road) to add to the awesomeness. We saw the house that belonged to the Vicar in the show and took pictures of it, and took pictures of it (probably to the owners annoyance), and saw the church that was used too. At that point we both noticed a windmill at the very top of the hill, and next to it what looked like a gravel road leading up to it. We then discussed how, no, it could not possibly be a road as no vehicle would ever get up a hill that steep, as it looked almost vertical. At which point Alex said “let’s climb it.”

By the time we were a fifth of the way up, I think I was more out of breath than I’d ever been in my life. I’ve jokingly been grumbling about it ever since, although I did enjoy it really. Firstly because the view from the top was fantastic, and secondly because he fell over, I did not. Win! Sadly we couldn’t actually reach the windmill itself as the dirt track just disappeared into barbed wire and nettles. We did however take some pictures up there (of which can be found on my facebook) before we carefully made our way back down to the pub.

We sat in a small side room of the pub first. I like to think it was because they weren’t serving food yet so went somewhere quiet, although the real reason is because I was too retarded to open the door into the restaurant area. It was while sipping our drinks, that an American film crew approached us and asked if we knew the area. Apparently they were doing some filming of the village, especially the windmill we’d just climbed to as it was the same windmill used in the opening to the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang film. We reacted with awe and horror; awe because this was new information to us, and were quite pleased we’d seen yet another landmark used in British television/film, and horror because neither of us had taken a single picture of the windmill while we were up the hill. At the time I noticed a picture of the windmill, so just took a picture of that (although a few days later I went back to Turville and did take a picture of it). We then had very yummy fish and chips while sat in the pub garden, although the weather did keep threatening to return the fish back to its natural habitat.

That night we rented the film ‘Four Lions’ and if you have not seen it already, I highly recommend renting it as soon as possible. The film is about four very useless suicide bombers in their Jihad against the British public. According to the back of the box, it’s a funny film, and it proved to be very funny indeed.

Next morning was an insanely early start, by which I mean 9am. However it was made up for by Alex introducing me to ‘Eggy Bread’ which I had neither tried nor even heard of before that weekend. It was delicious, and I have made it twice since that day. We then went to Towersey festival, something I have attended numerous times but was the first time for Alex. Disappointingly it was a lot smaller than last year, two stalls I particularly missed; the wooden sculpture stall which sold magnificent wood carvings of vehicles, animals, humans, and giant male genitalia, and a jewellery stall where the owners had a remarkable memory for me and gave me bigger and bigger discounts each year. All was not lost though, I was given permission (yes, that’s right, I needed permission) to purchase a large wooden staff with an evil skull on the top of it, continuing my tradition of buying useless shite and then forgetting all about it when I get home. Although Alex very nearly bought a Trombone, which if he’d carried through his intention to purchase, it would have eclipsed every impulse buy i’d ever made (except the Degus… I do not think i’ll ever make a worse impulse purchase)

Sadly after Alex returned home that evening, the rest of the week went by without much excitement. Tuesday and Wednesday I continued to enjoy an empty house, with the highlight of Wednesday being an elderly lady I walked past as I entered Sainsbury’s. She looked like she was barely able to stand herself, but strapped to her front in a specially designed fabric carrier was a baby. I was tempted to say something, but she didn’t seem to be falling over and faceplanting the baby, so I carried on with my day.

Wednesday night the family returned to much noise and mayhem. It has made me realise just how much I need a house/apartment for myself. For 51 weeks a year, the house always has at least one other family member present, meaning I cannot have a group of friends over to socialise. The peace and quiet was valued more than you can possibly know. I actually made sure (with the help of Jo, thanks Jo x) the house was incredibly tidy, and all housework was done while they were away. Naturally within 24 hours the house looked more untidy than before I’d started. Unfortunately, I’m going to be in my current job for at least another year, possibly University but it will depend on how well I do in my latest attempt for promotion. So I’m probably not going to be in a financial position to move out for another four years. I may lose my hair and develop some sort of psychiatric condition before then.

Blimey, looks like I haven’t updated this in quite some time.  But then again, not too much really happens in the world of McGoun. Life has been very good, but it has been about as exciting and eventful as a flower arranging competition.

I finally have the old Astra serviced, and it is now running a lot better. It had better run better; last month I averaged 22mpg in my little 2.2 Astra. That’s appalling! That’s in fact worse economy than the Mercedes-Benz 5.5 twin-turbo V8 vehicles, which puts into perspective how broken my vehicle is. But fingers crossed; when I get paid I shall try another full tank of fuel and hope that gets me further. The official figure is meant to be 34mpg; I’ll be happy with 30mpg haha.

I went to the wedding of my Aunt Mary which was absolutely fantastic. I do wish someone had warned me in advance about how much of a bitch driving across Reading is. So many traffic lights and traffic cones, it took me nearly 20 minutes to cross Reading alone. We arrived at the wedding with four minutes to spare; my Aunt later commented that in a picture of us walking to the church, we did look rather rushed. Although I will openly admit I am not a huge fan of churches, it was a lovely wedding and the party afterwards was brilliant; on a boat, down the river Thames.

My kind father came down to visit last Saturday and helped me with more of my bedroom. We cleared the room, and gave the room a whole new coat of paint as the previous paint was about as useful as washable toilet roll, except more annoying. Every time I leant against the wall, it left a blue/black mark from my clothes, and washing it off resulted in washing the paint off as well. So I now have Dulux Endurance on my bedroom walls, and that means if I do draw on my walls I can wash it off. Speaking of Dulux, there is nothing more embarrassing than approaching a boy in Homebase and asking for Durex Endurance. I realised my error, noticed the boy was saying nothing, so assumed he was either being very kind or was not yet old enough to know what Durex was. I kept quiet too.

Following the decorating of my bedroom, my mum has now gone on the warpath regarding buying a new wardrobe and a new bed; the wardrobe especially as currently all my clothes are in a big heap on the living room floor. What resulted next was her dragging me and my friend Chris to Ikea.

Now, this was my first ever trip to Ikea, and all I can say is; what an awful, awful shop. Who on earth thought it would be an amazing idea to make you all walk in a one way direction, not let you pick your product up, but instead hand you a slip of paper to write down your order? This is not like Argos; this is a LOT worse; especially as we were buying a wardrobe. After my mum had bought some plastic flowers that somehow still looked dead, and sat on every sofa we passed, we finally got to the wardrobes. My mum pointed out several wardrobes, but I found one in a nice chocolate brown that not only looked brilliant, but was practical and would match my room. The price was reasonable too, until we then realised this price did not include a shelf, a hanging rail, drawer, or doors. So essentially I was set to buy an upright box to just throw all my clothes in instead; nice one Ikea. This is where the little slip of paper became a nice big kick to the testicles; having to write down the name, size, price, code, quantity and aisle location for the upright box, the doors, the shelf, the hanging rail, the drawers, and even the nifty things that go behind the doors to stop them slamming. Needless to say this was an excruciatingly long process, although I kept myself entertained by handing the paper to my mother and walking the wrong way of the one way system to be rebellious.

What I also did not realise about Ikea is that to get something delivered, it would cost £60. That’s nearly a third of the price of the wardrobe, and with four of us in the car there was no way it would fit. Determined that I was NOT going to leave there empty handed, I bought a very attractive tree. It’s called a Yucca Elephanti (feel free to google it) and its now looking very nice in my bedroom. Although I am praying that it stays its current height and width. With quite spiky leaves, it could become troublesome and painful in my little bedroom.

On even less successful news, my two week holiday begins in five days time. I did have plans to have a good friend who I had not seen in ages stay with me, but sadly due to work he was forced to cancel last minute. I am now left with the possibility I’ll be stuck with bugger all to do for two weeks, and need to begin calling people to fill the days up. I do have my party on the 28^th of August though, although the original idea was to have a couple of barbeques going in the garden; with Britain’s schizophrenic weather this is now looking highly unlikely. Now faced with a decision; be a man and cook in the rain under a shelter, or cook something else indoors. Sadly the house isn’t really big enough to accommodate over twelve people. Oh well, we’ll figure something out!

I would like to end this blog with a dedication to my Aunt Susan, who sadly passed away a fortnight ago after a fight with cancer. She was a lovely, kind lady who although fairly quiet, was always laughing and smiling. She will most definitely be much missed for future family meet ups. The church service was lovely, although due to not wanting to risk repeating the wedding fiasco and turning up with minutes to spare, we arrived a whole hour early and nearly joined the church service for the funeral before the one for my Aunt Susan. I was especially touched by just how strong both my Uncle Philip and Cousin Sally were on the day, and I wish them both that the following years are not difficult for them.