Marching in Manchester...

yesterday against war. We were demonstrating outside this year's Labour Party Conference where Gordon Brown, Prime Minister and lickspittle to George Bush was speaking.

Eddie our local roofer...

says the batten boards on my gable end are rotted and need replacing. He points up and I crane my head to follow his finger. We'll need to hire scaffolding. Eddie knows a scaffolding man, best in the business, born on a scaffold, to a scaffolding family. Eddie's man is to scaffolding what Richard Rogers is to architecture. Scaffolding Joe is not only an artisan he's an artist. Scaffolding Joe can raise a 50 by 30 metre bracing structure in three hours tops using no tools other than his teeth. And a fine set of pearly whites they are too, or so I'm led to believe. The man's an artist, repeats Eddie, he should be in a gallery. Okay, says I, hire the man, he sounds just what we need.

"Of course there'll be the usual formalities". Says Eddie.
"Formalities?". Says I.
"Formalities". Says he.
"What formalities might those be?"
"Formalities required by the Worshipful Company of Scaffolders (Manchester Branch stroke North West Region). They'll need a sacrifice, a modicum of gin and you'll have to wear a hat during the ceremony."
"Jeeze, Eddie" says I, "It's only a few bloody poles held together with bolts. You make it sound like a religion. Sacrifice indeed."
"Do you want the job done or not?"
"Okay, but I get to choose my own hat."
"I'll arrange it for Thursday".

Well...

we're still here. Hello, hello... damn the light's gone out... hello... can anyone hear me... hello... hello... bugger...

End of the world...

shock.

If, as the doom mongers predict Europe's Large Hadron Collider opens a black hole tomorrow that sucks us into oblivion at least the miserable buggers won't be there to crow about being right. So some good will come of it.

This evening...

it is sunny. I got a photo as evidence. Of course I had to tart it up on photoshop, and the angle is not good but the sun really is there, behind that cloud.

The summer weather in the UK this year has been shite. Shite, shite, shite, shite, shite. It has pissed down to such a degree Trench Foot has once again reared its ugly, er foot.

Many villages and towns have been swept away by the deluge, a fact confirmed by old Caleb from the nearby hamlet of Much Wanting who speaking to journalists said. "It is true. Many villages and towns have been swept away in the deluge. Indeed my old nanny goat Bertha was swept away only yesterday... no, on second thoughts I think it was my eldest who was swept away. Yes, I'm almost sure it was him. In fact I know it was him because as he sailed by I distinctly heard the shout 'Dad, I'm being swept away' To which I replied, 'Now you mind your manners young man'. This was said because I can't abide children shouting in the presence of their elders and betters. Deluge or no deluge standards must be kept. 'Okay' he whispered, though I might have misheard him over the torrent's roar. He might have said 'Tokay' but if that was it I've no idea what he meant. You know, Bertha was swept away last year too. Now I come to think, it wasn't Bertha who was swept away but my other eldest. When I say eldest, I mean until he was swept away, and now my latest eldest has gone. But what was that loud whinny and dull thud of hooves on sacking just before the splash? A sound I remember hearing last year too. And how could I have twice mistook my boys for a goat? My dancing jiggling boys both caught by the roaring swell. It's not easy being a parent."

My mate Sean...

on Liverpool's Crosby Beach. He's on the right.