Contains adult themes and material that some people may find offensive.
Date: Wednesday 1st July 2020
Quarantine: Day
Location: No!!! I don’t care if you do tickle my feet with a feather duster. I’m not telling!
Specifically: BLOODY HELL! How much!? Well er...OK I’ll PM you!
Real world. Surrounded by, undoubtedly), some of the most amazing projects in the UK at the moment. Sean is working on his airship, Ian is driving his punked up steampunk go kart, a sleeping pod is being converted from a 3D simulator, a portable sound stage is being restored , horse drawn carriages lie in various stages of restoration and there's a steam powered Dalek you can trundle around in if you get bored with the other stuff! Not much point having VR when you’re surrounded by such mind bending levels of creativity. Michael Jackson would have loved to get his hands on all this!
Virtual World: Might as well bin the bloody thing. It pales in comparison to the real world at the moment which is much more exciting! Although I am finding VR useful for watching movies on a massive screen!
The Outer Limits
This evenings VR trip was to the ‘You Tube VR Cinema’ (you remember, the one with the shitty looking auditorium with flexible screen that resizes for maximum viewing pleasure.
I begin watching ‘The Outer Limits’ a TV series I was always desperate to watch as a boy but was prevented from doing so by my, clearly well intentioned, parents. They thought it was way too scary for an impressionable ten year old with an over active imagination and that I would probably have nightmares for the rest of my life (yeah! Bring it on!)That and the fact that it came on after the the 9.00 p.m. potting shed (or some such). The kiss of death. Because programmes shown after that time were considered unsuitable for young viewers by some pimply arsed wind muffin who’s job it was to loaf about all day watching great TV before declaring it *“much too good for children” that was all the justification my parents needed.
As a result 9.00 pm Monday was a tortuous time in our household. For my parents because they knew I was going to kick up a fuss the moment they said “right that’s it off to bed”. and for myself because my strategy of staring at the TV in the hope I would pass on an interest in sci-fi/horror via osmosis had failed once again.
This was further intensified by the fact that if I feigned deafness well enough I would occasionally catch the opening credits before the inevitable ‘time for bed’ and on a really good day I managed to cling on long enough to see the first few scenes before falling foul of the dual strategy of “bed!” AND turning the TV off! Oh how hard childhood could be. On a really really bad day my parents would also throw in the threat of “no pocket money if you don’t get up those stairs straightaway!”
I don’t quite know why I felt 'The Outer Limits' would be so cool to watch. I’d never seen it! Maybe the kids at school talked about it or perhaps I’d read something in the TV Guide and the stories always sounded intriguing. I don’t know. One thing that really did get me going was the opening. To this day ‘The Outer Limits’ had one of the best opening sequences I had ever seen on a TV show. It began with a close up of fuzzy interference on a TV set which was accompanied by a dramatic voice over that went something like...
There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. We will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to the outer limits.
One day I did actually manage to see one single image from a few minutes into the show. I made an excuse to come downstairs on the pretence of wanting a drink or something. My parents heads turned in shock the moment they heard me come through the door. ‘Back to bed with you!“ “But.....” “no buts now mean now!” That was the last I I ever saw of The Outer Limits until last night when I watched the pilot episode ‘Sandkings’ with Beau Bridges, Helen Shaver and Kim Coates!
Anyone remember that episode? Don’t you think Kim Coates looks the image of Elijah Wood!!?
This was the scene ....
*Copyright: ‘Matilda’ by Roald Dahl
UNPHASED
Every so often people will come out with a line that is just classic. My friend Deb messaged me last night since we hadn’t spoken in a while. She asked how I was..
“I are fine at the moment. Not a very productive day. Being pestered to go and look at a time machine and an airship. Pah better things to do! How are you dear chum? “
This was her reply...
“Looking at a time machine sounds fun! I'm OK ta”
She couldn’t understand why I couldn’t stop laughing!
“Oh I see - neither can you?
Lots of things are fun a time machine is out of this bloody world incredible (well if it was a real time machine that is).
THE FISHERMAN & THE PIKEY
Today is a special day! ‘Ian Gadget Thomas’ is coming over to do some work on his go-kart! Sean and Ali bring over to Hymie as soon as he arrives. Sean and Ali look genial and pleasant Isn looks walks towards me as if I owe him sic months unpaid rent.
Brief greetings then its over to the stage trailer that Sean bought recently for £500. It’s a bit of a fixer upper but Sean estimates he can bring it back to a roadworthy condition in about two weeks! Incredible! If I were given the task I would just lie in a heap on the floor with a handful of anti-depressants.
Ali is there. I don’t know why she hasn’t featured in my blog yet. According to Sean Ali is probably the one in control - he certainly seems to rely on her keeping him on the straight and narrow. His logic about most things is simple and straightforward - except it frequently isn’t.
Lets take the yacht...
Ali doesn’t fly - in aeroplanes that is.
She sails - in boats that is
The only sailing vessel available in which to travel to America is the QEII (*verify*)
The QEII is expensive
OK so far...????
Good. Now for the ‘this is where the logic sort of goes to shit’ part.
Sean hears about a yacht
Sean enquires about buying the yacht
He’s asked questions
Do you need the crew?
Eh? What for?
Ill have it transported back to the UK I’ll need a few lessons.
“Lessons!!!? You mean you’vev never sailed in a yacht before!?
“Ive never even been in a yacht before!”
In the end the sail falls through (that wasn’t even meant to be a joke but it made me laugh so I’m leaving it!)
Theres nothing quite like listening to someone who is passionate about something be it a hobby, interest, profession or whatever. Ian ‘Gadget’ Thomas is one of those people. His passion is fishing.What he doesnt know about fishing would fit on the back of a postage stamp. What I don’t know about fishing would fit on the back of several parachutes laid end to end across the length of the River Severn.
Ian is a talker, I’m a listener. It’s a good combination, or a discomforting one. It all depends on whether you are equally passionate about the present topic or whether it just bores the arse of you and you would prefer to hammer nails into your own head because the pain is easier to bare than someone droning on in the background. It’s usually quite good for me because I can sit there and allow others to ramble on. It also means I don’t have to share anything about myself. The less people know about me the better.
Ian is married to Tara. Tara doesn’t talk about fishing. I don’t know whether she’s for it or against it or just plain not interested but she certainly doesn’t have time for it. So who does Ian chat to about his fishing exploits? His stories, favourite rods, baits, lures, biggest fish caught. And the inevitable one that got away? “Holy Christ yeah - no shit!” “I’m tellin’ you one day when I were a lad I set out with me fishing rod. Just casted of when I heard this scream. Turns out my hook got caught in Bella Thompsons hair. She came over to me, slapped me in the mush and said she was never going to speak to me again. Even grabbed hold of me flies as she stormed off”
Answer - anyone who’ll listen.
By the time we arrived at the Co-op I had learned a number of things.
Ian *makes his own fishing rods
He is one of the top 20 anglers in the country
He once cast a fishing line about 20 yards further out than the British champion who then got a bit cross (mardy arse).
The one that got away (a catfish that, when caught, weighed in at over 280 Ibs.around 30 lbs heavier than the world record.
He has written a number of articles for angling publications.
Owns a dazzling collection of fishing lures with hilarious names.
*Apparently the proper term is ‘build’
I left lures until the end because I found them
quite fascinating. It is difficult to write about fishing lures without falling into a quagmire of innuendo and double entendres. A phenomenon that is not helped by companies who produce these things (frequently) in the shape of genitalia and give them names like ‘Sinking Wobbler’, ‘Hoola Popper’ ‘Happy Hookers’ and ‘Eureka Wiggler’. Not surprisingly, as I discovered on our return, Ian has a rather spectacular collection of fishing lures. I can’t recall any of the names but you can get an idea from the examples above!
Example of my biggest catch Example of Ians biggest catch
Like many within the steampunk community Ian is a fascinating and intriguing character. Don’t look at the surface because that will tell you nothing - well nothing that’s accurate.
Imagine if you will the archetypal guy who would build a powered go kart - mainly from bits and pieces lying around a farmyard . Two oil drums form the bodywork, a small engine provides the power, a water based solution provides steam rising from a small chimney and it has been given a ‘futuristic Victorian’ custom paint job by Seans wife Ali. Ian is currently riding it around the farmyard.
What sort of person do you imagine right now?
This one?
Or maybe this chappy?
Or maybe someone like this....?
No way???
You’re right of course, an exaggeration that I’m not sure I would get away with if Ian finds out (so I won’t be showing him - more than me life’s worth). But it’s closer than the first three.
The first time I saw Ian we were at the Asylum steampunk event in Lincoln, probably the worlds event of its kind. I’m not sure whether we were introduced or whether I just snapped a photo of him because he looked like such a character. I also thought he looked a bit like someones guard dog.
He reminded me of the skinhead character that the late Dick Emery used to play.
“What do you do”
“I’m in the ovawizall business ain’t I?
“pardon?”
The ovawizall busines?
“What does that involve?”
“People hand me their cash and valuables ovawizall I’ll beat the shit out of them”
Actually ..... this is the real Ian!
DANGEROUS TERRITORY
Relaxing over a coffee in the farmhouse I was impressed when Ian started playing the banjo! Even more so when I found he’d only been playing for around a year. It couldn’t last. The conversation somehow wandered away from banjo playing and entered the murky waters of politics. Specifically transgender. (*verify the actual issue)
It was an issue I felt strongly about
I taught gender issues in my role as a secondary school teacher. In fact it was I who introduced transgender into the KS4 scheme of work. In line with our visitor policy (students learn much from someone’s personal experience) I arranged for a visitor to come in to do a question and answer session with my Y10’s. The visitor was my friend Drew Ashlyn (born Andrew Cunningham) who began living as a woman from the age of 18 after coming out to his mum after years of heartbreak confusion, torment and turmoil.
But I’m getting ahead of myself
Bottom line. Telling Ian about teaching lessons on transgender rights made me sound pompous and arrogant. What was I expecting him to do? say “oh I’m sorry Dave I didn’t realise you were an authority on transgender rights I do beg your forgiveness”. I really do need to learn to shut my trap. I am here because Sean allows me to be here but he can just as easily tell me to twat off if I start upsetting his friends.
HYMIE
Hymie is being a smug git at the moment. Still who can blame him. The poor chap has been driven all over the place (usually up the bloody wall). Not to mention pestered by vigilantes, busybodies, nimby’s and the bloody law.
At least now thanks to Sean and Ali he has his own little patch of grass as well as the opportunity to have some of his little bits and pieces repaired.
Take it easy everyone!!
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