where art collides

This is one of those time has no meaning days. I have a jobs list but nothing that won’t wait. In one sense it doesn’t make sense to use the internet on a day like this. If time has no meaning it means you have a lot of it going spare. If I use the internet the third law will kick in and that time will have gone. Decisions decisions.

I did just pop out to the back garden for a kickabout with a football with our youngest. The garden has no chance really. It is littered with cracked pots and broken plants, bashed by ball. The lawn itself is in dire need of attention, lots of muddy patches and where there is greenery it is often moss. There is really no point in doing anything about it whilst it is still used as a sports field. Perhaps I should get the groundsman from the school over the road to come in and give it some industrial strength attention.

It’s a good phrase, “industrial strength”. Handy for lots of situations though I’m not sure I can quote an example here, other than the one I just did. It’s a bit like “fair play”. Useful, generally. I’ve made myself think here, wondering what other phrases come into the same category.

The pause for thought is represented by a couple of carriage returns, invisible but hopefully obvious. I’m afraid I can’t think of another such phrase though if I do I’ll burst out mid paragraph, a kind of metaphoric “Eureka”. Eureka is also a handy word but not a phrase and really only meant to represent the fact that you have discovered something unexpectedly.

You won’t see this but I am writing this bit at a desk in the TV room. It used to be my study but that went out the door when we got a TV. It might surprise you to hear that our oldest was thirteen before we had a TV in the house. I eventually bowed to pressure from a daughter about to go up to high school who was worried she might not be able to keep up with the TV gossip in the playground, although I don’t think they call it playground at “big school”. Playground is for kids.

Although I effectively lost my study it is quite handy to have a room that I can shut the door on and not have to put up with the rubbish they have on. It isn’t all rubbish but the vast majority is. I usually end up in another room on my laptop indulging in a bit of third law, or writing stuff like I am now.

Most of my writing is done on a sofa in the living room or in the kitchen or the conservatory (with Colonel Mustard and the lead piping). That bit in brackets is an in phrase for those in the know. It isn’t quite an eureka phrase and certainly not worthy of a shout out, in case you are analysing every word for the promised expression of surprise and discovery.

That expression may never arrive. I do feel as if I should be offering a prize for the first person to spot such an expression but I won’t because I’ll probably be inundated with emails and comments with “entries” none of which will be right and all of which will be expecting some kind of response. Not that I don’t like comments. I’m a pretty gregarious individual and like to engage with folk.

That’s my rule for twitter. I only follow people who are real people and who have something to say other than “buy my left handed widget”, “offers on left handed widgets” and “sale of left handed widgets ends at noon”. I don’t even know what a left handed widget is and seeing as I am right handed can’t see what possible use I could have for one unless it is something like a fork which I hold in my left hand using my right to manipulate the knife. I might be completely wrong here. It may also be that left handed widgets can also be used in the right hand in which case they are mislabelled, misrepresented and quite possibly miss sold, though not to me as I won’t buy one because I won’t be following them on twitter. I don’t think I’ve ever bought anything through following a link on twitter. I do get a lot of my news through twitter mind you. Breaking news, you saw it first on twitter, hot action as it happens from first hand witnesses, unless that is it is just a simple retweet. In fact it is mostly going to come from retweets as I don’t know anyone who lives in a war zone and who is likely to be filling my stream with live action coverage.

I have been stranded in war zones on two occasions in my life. The first was on 9 11. I was at a conference in the USA. The whole thing fizzled out as the planes crashed on day one of the conference. Many of the attendees had not yet arrived and most who could, drove home leaving just the overseas visitors to spend a week around the pool and going out every night.

The second was during the July 7^th bombings in London. I had been expecting to catch a train back north from Kings Cross that day but instead was “forced” to spend the whole afternoon in the pub, crashing out at my sister Sue’s place in Balham for the night. It was handy having a sister living in Balham (gateway to the South) but she lives in Cardiff now which is also quite handy for when you want to go and watch the rugby at the Millennium Stadium which I am wont to do every now and again.

I remember once staying with Sue in Balham after watching England play Wales at Twickers. Sue had been the “good Auntie” and taken Joe then aged three out in London for the day. Hamleys toy shop, that kind of stuff. It’s hard work looking after a three year old, especially when you are not used to it so when I got back from the rugby Sue was desperate for some adult company, a few glasses of wine and a meal. Unfortunately I had been on the pop at a corporate jolly all day and all I could do when I got in was collapse. Poor Sue.

Sue’s a violinist you know. When we were kids we used to play the sailors hornpipe together, her on the fiddle and me on guitar. We would repeat the tune playing the verses faster and faster until we could physically go no faster. Mam and day would be quite proud when they saw people stop outside our house to listen. We still do it as a party piece. That and “The Irish Washerwoman”. Fair play 🙂

Slipped that one in, the fair play. You can’t claim it as a new phrase though because it was in the original spiel on useful phrases. Spiel is also a very useful word but like Eureka, not a phrase. I might be being a little harsh on myself here insisting on the useful phrase being a phrase rather than just a word but there again rules is rules. If you make ‘em there is no point in breaking ‘em straight away though I know that “rules are meant to be broken”.  That last phrase by the way is not one of the useful ones. It is interesting enough but not in my book useful, and this is indeed my book.

It would be no different if it was my ball and we were playing football. If it’s my ball we play by my rules. Period. Full stop. I don’t really like the word period, it’s too American and I don’t know why I used it.

3rd law part 17 here

3rd law part 19 here

Just installing a piece of software from Dell. I recently upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 8 and the computer won’t work like it used to. For example I have a SIM in it that needs some driver software call Dell Mobile Broadband Manager. This seems to have disappeared during the upgrade. Dell won’t let me search their website before verifying that I am a genuine customer. The software download is so that it can interrogate me to validate that I am allowed to look for the driver on the Dell website. That’s control for you. So much control that I now have the message “We’re sorry, we encountered a problem and were unable to complete the service tag detection. You can either Try Again or Cancel to select another option.”

Huh. I’m on holiday now. It will have to wait until I get back to work. It isn’t the end of the world as a) I’m supposed to be going offline whilst on holiday and b) I have two phones I can tether the laptop to use for internet access during the week hah – laughs in the face of adversity/authority (delete depending on your mood).

It’s early here in the Davies household and rather than lie in bed waiting for the alarm to go off I’ve decided to get up and let the 3^rd law take over. In this case I’m not surfing tinternet I’m writing a bit of the 3^rd Law book which seems to work in just the same way. It would seem that the Third Law permeates other areas of life as we know it. Inneresting. There could be a doctorate in this. Taking it to the extreme it could mean a Nobel Prize. Wow. I didn’t realise when I began all this Third Law stuff that it could be so big! It isn’t yet of course but in might be.

I have around 45 minutes before I get up off the settee and make a pot of tea. This is later than is normal but I did say we are on holiday so I am affording us a little lie in. I’m good like that. Generous. Notice that I didn’t say generous to a fault. That would have been going over the top and is really up to others to say. I don’t want to be remembered for being “that guy who used to go around thinking he was generous to a fault.” What a plonker.

I’m not generous to a fault. Happy to give a tip where a tip is deserved and am often being seen to complement someone on their new hairdo – nice words are not hard to come by and if it makes someone’s day then why not. You will have noticed that I kept that bit gender neutral. I didn’t want to be accused of sexism or “being after something”. I’m sure that it is perfectly possible for a bloke to appreciate a nice comment about his hair just as much a woman.

It is more likely that one would comment about a man’s facial hair rather than the stuff on the top of his head. The former will attract statements such as “that’s a fine brush you’ve grown there Martin” whilst the latter is more likely to be in the vein of “thinning a bit on top I see, I’d shave it all off if it was me”. I can see Martin stroking his moustache, rightly proud, whereas the nameless chap in need of a home shaver will have no choice but to agree in a manly but resigned to his fate manner.

Never been into moustaches myself. They are a bit ticklish and I don’t like the way they pick up bits of food. Yuk. Sometimes when we go camping I give myself the week off shaving. I don’t mind a bit of the rugged look when kipping in a tent. It’s all part of the adventure even though we are probably on an organised campsite and pitched in between two large caravans with satellite TV dishes on top where the inhabitants retire every evening to watch a continuous stream of soaps. Huh (to be accompanied by contemptuous sound effects).

There was one year we went camping with a few other families, one of which had a caravan but where all the others were in tents. One morning the skies opened and about a month’s rain fell in two hours. We all huddled under the awning of one tent. The caravan owner, Alistair, was desperate for us to retreat to the comfort of his caravan but we would have none of it. I still have a video of the morning showing a river of water running off the front of the awning. The rain finished and the campsite having the benefit of the good drainage from a sandy soil soon returned to normal. This was in Jubilee Park in Woodhall Spa. Last year we were there and it also rained. I took another video and posted it to YouTube. All it was was water bouncing off the tent. I also decided to monetise the video but got an automated message from Google, or some oik saying that this was an unsuitable video for monetisation! Some people have no idea, or perhaps they were members of the Caravan Club!

We have been camping since time immemorial, the Davies family that is, not the human race. We all know the human race has been living in tents since the dawn of time, or words to that suitably dramatic effect representing the thousands of years of human evolution in a few short words. The Davies family started camping in a borrowed tent when Tom, our first born, was a baby. It was a small tent but we weren’t the family of six that we now are. Having a small baby on our hands we had finished eating and were ready for bed quite early, eight o clock say. I remember playing my guitar inside the tent trying to get him to sleep. It probably looked odd from the outside seeing the tent all closed up with the sound of a lullaby coming from within.

I like to think that my dulcet tones had the right calming effect on the kids though as they grew I did on occasion have to raise the tone to represent slight crossness. Also I’m not sure I know any lullabys on the guitar though it might have been “Summertime” which was one of my staples for singing the kids to sleep. I have been known to sing myself to sleep at the same time especially having just arrived home jetlagged from an overseas trip.

Poor Anne would look forward to my return from these trips having been looking after the kids on her own all week. The funny thing was that I, who would have spent the whole week wining and dining in posh bars and restaurants would be looking forward to a simple meal of beans and toast whilst Anne, who had spent the week living on beans on toast would be after something a little more upscale. Life huh:)

Teatime…

Go to 3rd Law part 16

3rd law part 18 here

I saw on Facebook just now that a dog had killed someone’s cockerel.   Not good. The trials of life in the country I guess. A friend of mine keeps chickens in the centre of town and had a cockerel that was the subject of regular complaints from a neighbour. You do hear of people moving into the countryside and finding themselves woken regularly at a very early hour by a farm cockerel. For such people I have no sympathy. It is a little different for those living in town where cockerels have probably not been common features in the urban landscape for hundreds of years now. Having said that I was a bemused bystander where it came to my friend’s situation. I wasn’t affected by the dawn cock crow and didn’t mind him having a cockerel. I think the cockerel eventually died – the strain of having to service all the hens must get to them all in the end.

A regular supply if fresh eggs is no bad thing. Makes a big difference having your eggs fresh. You don’t notice it until you’ve tried. Almost the same as with bread though not to the same marked extent. Fresh bread is a real luxury. I went to a baking master class once at the cockerel owner’s place (the one in town, not the one in the countryside). The baker told us that in “the old days” mothers would not let their kids have bread until it was a few days old as otherwise they would wolf the whole lot down. Inneresting eh?

The subtitle of this bit of the third law is “thief in the night”. Please note that only refers to the death of the cockerel initially referred to and has nothing to do with the rest of the piece unless it slips in accidentally. I’m thinking swimming now. I started swimming last summer when there was a general consensus that I needed to lose weight. The treatment is working and the inches have been disappearing.

The one thing about swimming is that it gives you a lot of time to think. The pounding of the lanes could be an intensely boring exercise were you unable to “get into the zone”. There isn’t much looking around to do. I can’t see much without my specs anyway, even to the point where I have to ask an attendant the time when I think it is getting near to when I should be getting out. This is important as I normally stop off for a swim at Yarborough Leisure Centre on my way into work and I need to make sure I’m not (too) late in.

Even though I can’t see much I do like to wear “mist resistant” goggles, given to me for Christmas by my sister Ann, fwiw. Her family are also swimmers. They are real pros compared to me. I asked one niece if she would like to come swimming with her old uncle Tref. I said I was a pretty slow swimmer at 25 minutes for 20 lengths. She said she did 16 lengths in 5 minutes. Hmm. We had a race and even with a handicap of having to swim four times as far as me she still won. Fair play.

Anyway in pounding the lanes I get, as I said, time to think and to observe. The first observation is in swimming techniques. Some are really annoying. There is one woman who bobs up and down a lot and her feet seem to go at twice the rate of mine, an unfeasibly fast stroke rate. For some reason I find this irritating. Then there are the women who seem to just go for a chat. This too is irritating when I am there, totally focussed (ish) on the task in hand.

Some people swim faster than others. Most swim faster than me. I’ve long since stopped worrying about being passed by old dears who seem to glide effortlessly by. I’ve not been able to work it out. I suspect it is down to the length of my inside leg. I always buy “short” legged trousers and I reckon that the power in swimming comes from the leverage obtained from the longer leg. For the record there is an etiquette when lane swimming. The written rule is that you always swim in a clockwise manner with the slower swimmers sticking to the lanes marked out for that purpose. The unwritten rule is that if you catch up with a slower swimmer you don’t try to overtake. You just wait until nearly at the end of the lane and turn around early thereby finding, if you are lucky, a totally empty pool ahead of you. There are exceptions to this. If there are only two of you in the lane it is perfectly acceptable to pass on one side as you are not likely to encounter another swimmer coming the other way. Sorted.

Being pretty blind I have come to recognise the regulars from their outlines. If I saw them in the street, me with my specs on and they fully dressed I’d probably blank them. They’d think I was a right antisocial bastard. The average age of the regulars tends to be on the high side though you do get a younger cohort coming for the very early swim. I can’t understand how they have the discipline to do this. If they are coming out at 7.30 when I am getting in the pool they must have been up and at it by 6am wouldn’t you think?

I tend always to use the same locker, number 333 or triple Nelson. That refers to a cricketing term – Google it. I also like to use the same end changing cubicle as it is slightly bigger than the others. I reckon I only get it a third of the time as other swimmers must have the same idea. Sometimes people leave their clothes in the cubicle rather than using a locker and it can be a bit annoying when this cubicle happens to be my favourite. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not a massive deal but I thought it worth mentioning. One of the culprits might read this and change his or her ways. Unlikely but you never know.

By the way I know that some of you will be thinking that these Third Law posts are longer than your average post. Well that of course is because the third law says time goes faster when using the internet so in practice they shouldn’t seem to take any longer to read than one of say 500 words which is normally considered to be more of a sweet spot for posts. I’m a reb I am.

That’s all. Gotta go swimming. Cockadoodledoo.

Part 13 is here.

Part 13 is here.

Christmas is officially over. I realise that Christmas was really officially over on twelfth night, some time ago. The decorations have long since been packed back into their boxes and restored to their high up inaccessible places ready for next year’s bout of figuring out which lights worked and which ones didn’t.

This however was not the case for my office. The Christmas cards have stayed there all month, totally unnoticed if I am completely honest. Ignored. Call me a miserable git but I don’t send Christmas cards from work. Whilst I don’t mind receiving cards if that’s your thang I far prefer chocolate, wine, whisky and so forth. Doesn’t happen very often mind you.

So today the Christmas cards at work were brutally disposed of. That isn’t entirely true for no brutality was actually employed. I was just feeling around for a dramatic way of putting it across. Emphatic was the other word that came to mind but it didn’t seem right. Perhaps “efficiently swept aside and deposited in the waste bin” might have done it but the fact that they have been there three or four weeks longer than they needed to be doesn’t sound particularly efficient.

Anyway in the bin they are and by now the bin has been emptied and the cards are on their way to the great rubbish tip in the sky, or wherever they are taken in Newark, and are no more.

This is worth examining. On each card was a greeting. The greeting varied from card to card but the sentiment was the same. “Happy Christmas from Reg, Val and the gang at Global Telecoms Solutions Ltd” or some such organisation. Often I have not heard of Reg, or Val, or maybe even both of them but hey, they obviously meant well.

The question is did the sentiment die with the card or does it live on in spirit? This is similar to the fridge/light bulb question but totally different. If you don’t know what I’m talking about Google it. You may not find the answer but it will keep you quiet for a few minutes. To find the answer is going part of the way towards finding the meaning of life. To go the rest of the way will take more than a few Christmas cards.

I went to a philosophy lecture the other week at the White Hart Hotel in Lincoln. It was a most enjoyable evening. When I first arrived I got talking to a woman and somehow the conversation got around to religion, possibly because of the philosophic theme of the night. It was at that point I must have mentioned that I couldn’t understand the whole religion thing despite having lived for a year in a theological hostel – Coleg y Bedyddwyr, Bala Bangor (again Google it).

Known affectionately as Bala Bang the hostel was populated by a rich mix of Ministers of Religion in waiting and rugby playing good time boys who were there because of its low cost and proximity to the library and bookshops (ie pubs and takeaways) in Upper Bangor. It was there that I discovered Bill Parry’s duck.

I was making food in the kitchen one day and in walked one of the apprentice inmates known as Dai Chink (don’t ask) with a gentleman in a dog collar. I was introduced to the visitor who proceeded to ask me whether I supported football. I replied that I didn’t which somewhat threw him. He had had in mind a line of reasoning designed to persuade me to abandon my wanton life of hanging out in pubs and playing pool for a simpler and more rewarding existence that comprised a service to a Higher Authority.

Rather than ask me what sport I did like he proceeded to tell me that if I was a football supporter I would be wanting to cheer my team all the time, wouldn’t I? I replied somewhat cautiously that I might but wasn’t completely sure about this. He went on to say that the lads that lived in Bala Bang did support a team and were cheering them on all of the time.

At this point I found my feet and said that I lived here and didn’t hear the lads cheering all the time. The line changed to a metaphoric cheer (!?) and that their team was God’s team. Oh okay I said and proceeded to eat my food, the missionary pitch being over as far as I was concerned. As an afterthought I said that he knew my name but he hadn’t told me his. At this he said that I didn’t want to know who he was which I accepted without concern.

Dai Chink however butted in and proudly announced that this was the reverend Bill Parry. I’d never heard of him and at that point we kissed goodbye (metaphorically) and they went on their way.

That night I remembered the incident and related it to the boys in the pub. It turned out that the reverend Bill Parry was infamous for his duck. Bill Parry’s duck was a World War 2 amphibious landing vehicle that he had bought with the intention of sailing with his family to Australia!

His first attempt ended in failure as the duck apparently sank in Caernarfon harbour, a few metres after leaving the quayside. His second attempt was slightly more successful but still only made it a few hundred yards further into the Menai Straights at which point it sank for good and the project was abandoned.

Both attempts made the local TV news in Wales and understandably made Bill Parry a bit of a laughing stock. He was by the time I met him a minister without a parish as presumably nobody would have him.

The story was slotted away in my list of anecdotes to be occasionally recanted over the years when the conversation turned to religion, or maybe even football.

There is a nice twist in the tail of this story. I was out with some of my old university mates a couple of years ago and I said “whatever happened to Bill Parry?”. The story goes that Bill is now a Sandra, or some similar female name. What a wonderful way to round off the story I thought.

Returning to the present I told that very story to the woman with whom I was chatting to at the White Hart. It didn’t raise much of a giggle and turned out she was a journalist working for a Christian publication.

A friend arrived and I moved on. It was an interesting evening. This was partly because the lecture and pursuant debate was enjoyable and partly because to a certain extent it crystallised my thoughts on the subject of philosophy – highly valuable considering my involvement with the philosopherontap movement.

The lecture covered the subject of Simulation Theory and the Matrix. The Matrix is a movie – Google it. Simulation Theory holds that we all just exist as simulations run by a civilisation more advanced than ours.

There are some convincing logical arguments in support of the theory although no certainty. It is an interesting philosophical subject to debate. During the debate there were some quite revealing questions from the audience. Some clearly didn’t have the intellectual capacity to follow the argument. Others clearly felt very uncomfortable with a line of reasoning that clashed with their own religious beliefs. At some stage it was mentioned that surely a people with the capability to run such simulations were dangerously close to being god-like, which was “obviously not possible”. The lecturer had logical answers to all the points made by the audience.

The bit of the debate that crystallized my own thoughts was the notion that none of this process of logical thinking was ever going to lead to anyone finding the meaning of life.  This was almost certainly the case whichever line of philosophy being considered though it doesn’t take away the value of the subject as a line of academic study and debate.

So I was left with my own original perspective that the meaning of life would either never be discovered or that there isn’t one so I might as well enjoy myself while I am here. The organiser of the evening had anticipated this because there was a wonderful drinks ordering system designed so that people didn’t have to get up to go to the bar. All you had to do was send a text to a particular mobile number with your order and table number. My pint of lager appeared within minutes of sending a text – surely a miracle! J

You can decide for yourselves if there is an answer to the Christmas card question but given the choice my preference is whisky or wine.

go to 3rd law part 12 here.

go to 3rd law part 14 here.

It’s another cold day in Glocamorra. I’ve just noticed that the heating switched itself off so I’ve changed it to “all day”.  Today is one of those gentle no pressure days. I have some boxes of kids books to put up in the attic and Hannah to pick up from Newark Northgate train station and that’s the lot.

There is something romantic about a railway station. The start or the end of an adventure. Of course this is not always the case. You might be one of the entrapped majority, slavishly arriving for your regular commute, cursing a delay, the absence of a seat or the underperformance of the air-conditioning system.

The rules

Do not talk to anyone and avoid eye contact.

This was traditionally achieved by carrying
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Sometimes I practice the third law whilst wearing earphones and listening to music instead of surfing. It’s difficult to know whether this is a genuine alternative. I suspect not but sometimes there is no choice and on a boat in the Mersey estuary heading for the Isle of Man I am in one of those ongoing “no option” situations. No cellular signal = no internet access.

Actually this may not be entirely true but if such a connection exists it is almost certainly diminishing and a drain on the laptop battery which, in the absence of a power point, I need to last the whole journey.

You will have instantly noted that I am on the way to the Isle of Man. This is an annual pilgrimage to see my mam and dad for Easter. We do see them at other times of the year but usually it is on the mainland. The ferry journey to Douglas is not only expensive – knocking on £500 for the car and six of us, but also a full  day’s journey as we have to drive over to Liverpool to catch it.

In going to the Isle of Man there is an element of going back in time. This is partly due to the quaint olde worlde aspect of the place and partly down to my rule of going offline when on holiday. No twitter, no email, no Google+, Facebook or any other online destination guaranteed to prove the Third Law without a shadow of a doubt.

I like to describe this as the process of going offline and re-entering or reengaging with society. You have heard about the fact that every cigarette you smoke knocks an hour off your life (or whatever the factoid is).  Well every week you stay offline lengthens your life by a month, or certainly appears to and it is often the appearance that matters, to some people anyway.

I’m not big on appearance, being a bit of an internet dweller where such things are either irrelevant or can easily be manipulated according to your choice of profile picture. It is difficult then to modify this practice when it comes to real offline behaviour. That’s why I like to spend some downtime in places like the Morning Star of the Strugglers where nobody really gives a toss about what you wear. Afaik.  At least when they mention my shorts or loud shirt they don’t do it in a derogatory way, I think.

It’s hot on this boat. I have discarded coat, fleece and shirt. Before you start to get worried I should hurriedly mention that I am still wearing a tshirt. It’s my red “Training” tshirt purchased from LA Fitness, Newark’s small clothing and accessories display. I guess most people buy stuff to train in.

I bought it because I had caught the first train back from London having spent an unplanned night there. The previous day I had been about to enter the gym when the phone rang. To cut a long story short it was a chap called Keith who I proceeded to meet that night in a pub in Kings Cross and then to whom I offered a job.

I can’t remember where I stayed that night. Perhaps with my sister in Balham but perhaps not. Anyway I didn’t have any clean clothes to change into the next day. When the train arrived in Newark I got off and went to LA Fitnes for a shower and purchased an outfit there.

I like that sort of spontaneity. We don’t do enough of it. So anyway that’s where I got this shirt from and I am wearing it now much to everyone’s relief I’m sure. It’s funny how a shirt can be the source of such relief. One can imagine the whole of the Niarbyl Lounge letting out a big sigh of relief as they realised “there was another layer”. They are a discerning lot the occupants of the Niarbyl Lounge. They have all paid three quid each to reserve a seat there and every conversation is conducted in hushed tones. We are a very refined.

Not as refined as those in the Mannanan Premier Lounge where people have paid an extra eighteen quid for the privilege of free cups of tea and coffee and the personal service of an attendant. There being six of us I didn’t fancy forking out an additional two hundred of her majesty’s best spondooliks  for the round trip.  We did at one time travel first class but then they introduced the “no kids under the age of eight” rule which annoyed me no end. Now that we have no family member in that category it is expedient not to fork out the extra cash in anycase.

For those of you that have not yet experienced it they get more expensive as they get older. On a logarithmic scale I believe. If you don’t know what I’m talking about google it. Logarithmic that is – I doubt google search is intelligent enough to understand the finer points of the growing cost of kids as they progress through their education.

It’s almost dark out there now. According to the skipper we are approximately half way, at least that’s what he said over the tannoy a few minutes ago. I call him skipper because I can’t remember his name. He must have told us. They normally do when telling us the ship is about to depart and run through the safety procedures etc.

I am, if you haven’t already spotted it, admitting that I didn’t listen to the safety announcement. I was listening to 10cc on my laptop. Not good, not responsible, I know but there you have it.  My interest in 10ccwas rekindled a few years ago when I was out and about in Cambridge with Terry. We were on our way to or fifth or sixth pub, can’t remember exactly, when we came across a poster at the Corn Exchange in the middle of town.  The poster said “10cc on tour”. Bugger me if they weren’t playing in Cambridge that night.

In we walked and they let us in free of charge – there was only half an hour or so of the gig left. The great thing of course is that bands reserve their best songs for the last half an hour and there we were: Dreadlock Holiday, I’m Not In Love, Rubber Bullets etc etc. I was in heaven. All my childhood favourites. What a night.

At this time I must point out that the sum total of all my favourite songs of youth were not just those produced by 10cc. There are others, but you understood I’m sure. The list is in fact a long one and one that I revisited and spent a small fortune acquiring digital versions of in advance of my 50^th birthday beach party last December.

In my ears at this very moment is Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.  One of the greats.  I remember the DJ at a school disco telling us it wasn’t really a dance track but he played it for us anyway – we were, after all, the customers.

Anyway back to the safety announcement. If you are reading this it means I must have survived the trip to post it so all’s well that ends well eh? Said with a slightly impish grin on my face suggesting I thought I had been a very slightly naughty boy but got away with itJ

The main cabin of the ship is downstairs from where we are by the way. Noisy and full of kids under eight. Let’s move on.

Brief intermission

During that barely perceptible interval the Davies boys headed out on deck. It was v windy and there were some lads there having an illicit cigarette. Preferring not to die of passive smoking and having emitted a loud fart which we all know can be highly dangerous in the presence of a naked flame, we withdrew to the safety of the bar where we purchased some cold diet cokes for our refreshment. At the same time, John, the youngest of our party, returned from the ship shop (and Bristol fashion – sorry had to get that one in) with a large bag of M&Ms which he generously shared around.

We hung around the bar, as boys do, swapping stories and generally enjoying a bit of banter. Later, drinks consumed and with no mutual desire to prolong the session, we returned to the Niarbyl Lounge and safety. The bar was in any case about to close as re were about to enter Manx territorial waters. At least I think that’s the reason it shut – they weren’t very specific when they made the announcement. Sounds good anyway if possibly totally off the mark. It clearly can’t have been the skipper because I’m sure he would never have made an announcement that left its audience still asking questions. I’m happy with my thought process – I wouldn’t want to be driving off the boat with doubts in my mind as to the reasons the bar shut. It would be a huge waste of some brain processing cycles that could have been applied to the creation of the most famous poem that was ever written

Probably not. Driving a car is no the best environment for writing good poetry, especially in the dark and even though I know the road very well.

It has changed a bit over the years mind you, the road that is. That’s progress, evolution even. The addition of a traffic light or two is evolution. It’s the road adapting to traffic usage patterns, assisted no doubt by the fine men of the Douglas Corporation. I assume they are men though I dod see a female civil engineer a few years back. She was in charge of a gang of men lifting the new Peel Marina bridge into place. Very exciting it was. We stood there for ages watching the crane work its magic.

Waaaa, one time, head nods rapidly up and down. The music is taking over and the ship is coming into harbour. That’s what I call the third law in action – offline mode.

3rd law part 9 here 

3rd Law part 11 here

It’s raining on the roof of the world. Well on the roof of my conservatory at least. I can hear it and I can see it. Being a bespectacled person I can also often provide advanced warning of the imminence of such precipitation. It only takes a drop or two. There is probably a scientific formula that states the necessary rainfall density (drops per square metre) required for this early warning mechanism to work and likely includes the value of the surface area of the specs (glasses – not specifications – use of the latter word would not have made contextual sense in this sentence). Today I am sitting inside the conservatory so talk of an early warning system is immaterial.

I have just come back from town. A trip down town is never countenanced lightly but on this occasion I had to buy Joe a pair of trousers before we go on holiday. The task was made harder by the fact that he was not there with me and I had instead his little brother John in tow. Anyway I came away with some trousers and bribed some peace off John by taking him to Cafe Nero.

I am not the biggest fan of sitting in coffee shops. I think people do it for the sake of it. This time was different. We had good window seats and my phone was out of order so I had to talk to my son! It was great.

We sat there looking out of the window. The biggest question was who was in the goldfish bowl? Was it us sat inside or was it all the other people scurrying along under their umbrellas or huddled overcoats. We were the smaller box but there again when you go and visit an aquarium you sometimes go through a small space under a tank and look at the sharks and fish swimming around you.

The right answer is in the mind of the questioner. There is no right answer and all answers are right, without question 🙂  Just put that bit in as an afterthought and the smiley face indicates that I was quite pleased with myself. That is something completely within my control in this case. I could have chosen a different emotion. Exhibited surprise perhaps or even nonchalance. It isn’t beyond the realms of the imagination to see how one might say that sentence again in a nonchalant manner, twirling a stick as I go along. I don’t know how to do a nonchalant emoticon btw.

Anne’s cousin bought me a walking stick for my 40th birthday once. Ok ok I know I don’t sound as if I am forty. In fact I’m not. That was nearly ten years ago. Can’t believe it! I’m still a kid. Who but an immature adolescent boy could write such drivel anyway? Huh.

It’s not the warmest of rooms today, is the conservatory. Warmer than outside maybe but really merits a thicker sweater than I am currently wearing. I’m actually wearing an Animal hoodie, quite consistent with being an adolescent. My mum bought it for me last summer – there’s a general thread of consistency running right through this bit of writing don’t you think?

Well we can kill that one off straight away.

You don’t see much gold top milk in the shops these days. It’s mostly just full fat, semi-skimmed and skimmed. I’ve never quite seen the point of skimmed milk. It’s just coloured water if you ask me. Also once weaned off full fat, which is of course normal milk, and on to semi skimmed it is difficult to go back and the idea of drinking the ordinary stuff let alone gold top. There again, you never see it any more…

This leads nicely to the fact that I have just taken delivery of hte February issue of Agri-News, published for Manx farmers by the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture. The kids signed me up for it when we were at the Southern Agricultural Show outside Castletown one summer holiday. We go there every year – the Isle of Man not the Agricultural Show. Not that I mind going to such shows. In fact I very much like em.

Its good to keep in touch with our farming roots. My lot were farmers if you go back far enough. These days the Davies family is in the internet business. Wasn’t much of it around way back when. In fact you don’t have to go back very far for there not ot have been internet. Its one of the reasons that the third law is not yet widely known, although I have never met anyone that either disagrees with the hypothesis (theory?) or has been able to disprove it.

I’m not sure whether either hypothesis or theory were the correct words (and there was no real reason for the word “theory” to be in brackets either) but you know what? It just doesn’t matter. Not a jot or an inch or a gobble or a quack. Note the mixing of terms of measurement there. The latter two were not even that but they instantly came to mind – from the song “If I were a rich man” AND NOT EVEN IN THE RIGHT ORDER. Caps accidentally switched on there but I couldn’t be bothered to undo them.

I once recorded the first verse of If I were a rich man on our answer phone – me playing the guitar. At the end of the song I just said “please leave a message”. I found later this was a mistake. I was away on business in the Soviet Union and every time I rang home I had to wait a whole minute before I could leave Anne a message. In those days the costs were something stupid like £5 a minute. Ah well. It was an expenses job anyway.

As I approach the one thousand word mark for this episode the words begin to slowly run out and stop exactly there.

3rd law part 8

3rd Law part 10

Editor’s footnote: for authoritative post on rainfall measurement techniques see here.