Life N Times

A Game of Two Types

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:55:50 +0100

Watching football with other males has always been a pastime that I find particularly strange and interesting in equal measures. Watching a game as it happens in front of a screen ever more so. I love the team I support as much as the next man I’m sure. The tension, the butterflies in the stomach, wringing of hands, pensive glassy stares, are all part of my repertoire, and have me recalling some of the more chequered moments of love in my life. I give the occasional yelp at a moment of excitement, even prone to punching the air, pulling my legs and arms aside as if engaging in a tackle, even the occasional cuss is known to escape my lips at a moment when my guard is down. In short I am one of those many vicarious supporters whose desire to be involved is limited by the ability to do so.

But witnessing the reactions to those same others of my species there seems an awful lot lacking in my displaced involvement than theirs. The booing, the yelling, and high-fiving, running around hugging those closest seem a long way from what I would consider a reasonable response from the events unfolding on the television screen. Am I to self-aware to let myself become caught up in the moment as if witnessing some classic Christmas panto? Or am I somehow distant from my supposed brethren, lacking in some of the finer nuances that make a man a man? Shying away from the hula-bolo, maybe my team needs such outpouring of emotion as they loose again, a result not mirrored by the team who warrants such feeling. Or maybe I need to watch these games by myself and on-time, the only conclusion I can come to as I admonish my friend for the bad luck he brings anytime I watch a game with him. For that is definitely another point I have noticed in this my foot-balling history.

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Who Says Karma Isn’t Gonna Get Yer?

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 13:11:01 +0100

How many times have you appropriated goods from your local shop? A couple of screws from a DIY store when all they had was a box which would have been way to much for your needs. Not paid for the stick of gum that lay at the bottom of your basket or trolley. To be honest I am prone to the odd lapse of payment aversion, whether unconsciously, or as a statement against corporation profit, or just plain because I haven’t got enough money, or want the thrill. There are times where for whatever reason I walk out of a store with more than I went in, but my wallet not any lighter.

Well yesterday was such a day. I walked over to the gas station picked up a newspaper from the stand on the forecourt walked over to the cash machine. Got some money out, turned around, and for whatever reason carried on walking. As I crossed the road away from the scene of the crime, I asked myself “Why did you just do that?” But with a fleeting consideration nothing came instantly to mind. Slipping the paper under my coat to keep it dry, off I trotted to my new temporary home where my boat was now moored.

To be honest I didn’t think much about this minor indiscretion, after all what was £1.50 to the behemoth that is BP? Well Karma showed me what it was? Intent on maintaining my record of watching my team live, either in flesh or on the TV, I made my way to a local drinking establishment which was showing the game with ample time to spare. Get there, settle down, even read the paper in question for a bit. Kick-off time approaches, I prepare for witnessing a resounding victory which continues their unbeaten run in the League.

Ten minutes before the spectacle begins, the power in the pub goes off. OK such things do still happen, workman go through a cable or some other such misfortune. Looking outside the rest of the street and other premises are in blazing artificial light. The candles come out, I make the calculated decision that this could be a pro-longed experience. Off I trot as quick as I can, trying to locate another place which is showing the match. For what this season has shown me, is that if I am not sat watching the game before kick-off, my team invariably looses. A simple, not mystical but very true realisation. I walk and walk but no such oasis presents itself. Until finally, a dim gloomy lamp hovers in the distance, and as I approach my saviour beckons. Push through the doors hoping the walk was not as long as it seemed. But the time counting up in the top left corner of the screen tells me this is not so.

Of course my team looses. A sad and painful moment marks the end of a glorious run. And of course in my haste I leave the newspaper in the blacked out pub.

As a means of rounding off my repayment to the karmatic balance sheet, when I leave my transient mooring of the last 2 nights, pushing off, my boat runs aground in water to shallow for the purpose I require. Not knowing this is the case, I investigate all the options my wiser boaters have bestowed upon me. I try this, it doesn’t work, I try that, it doesn’t work. My only recourse is to call upon another far more knowledgeable of such things than myself. He advises to try the things I have already gone through, with the final alternative only for him and some others to come to my rescue.

And so they arrive one and a half hours later. My rugged band of boating knights, advising, cajoling, pulling on ropes, trying with all their sense of wit and charm to get the twenty tonnes of my home to move. And so finally it does, safe in the knowledge that no harm has been done, and secure in the fact that is not a consequence of my limited experience. So we head back with two of my rescuers aboard along for the ride and companionship, and of course to do my lock gates and paddles.

As I finally reach my more permanent home all I can do is wonder if all these events could have been avoided with a small payment to the man in the petrol station.

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The Night that Followed the Day Before

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 13:08:12 +0100

What a night followed the day before. No heat: not the end of the world, wrap up warm, use my quilt when I’m watching TV, although problem not solved, at least it’s alleviated. Funny looking toilet water: OK, don’t flush it; use the sink to drain what needs to be done. Don’t tell anybody, whose to know.

But last night now, I surely didn’t sleep a wink. All through the night I’m hearing waste or water or waste and water, or water and waste, what ever the hell it was, rolling around in the three huge banks that this green giant of a baby holds. There’s a sloshing this way, then a sloshing that way, a deep rumbling murmur as the boats pull and rub up against each other. Not really a situation which promotes peace and tranquillity. Although the boat must have been pitching an awful lot in the night for the thing to make such a much damn awful noise, this must be one aspect of living on the river which I must have got accustomed to. As when I’m lying down I do feel as if I am straight. A small mercy in this novice boatman’s life.

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No Heat and the Crapper's Out

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:06:12 +0100

Yesterday has got to be one of the most pain-in-the ass days there has been on my new boat to date. Difficult, not in the sense of a “Boo-Hoo what have I got myself into?” day, more a sense of “well things could be a little bit better”. After all who wouldn’t want heating when the weather outside is something like 5 degrees centigrade? Especially when you think all I have between me and that distinctly chilly river outside is 6mm of steel and 3 quilts.

Well I’m out a diesel, and being out of diesel means as well as not being able to go anywhere to get any diesel, the central heating won’t work, because as you may have guessed it, the heating is powered by diesel. Of course I could plug some sort of electrical heater in to take that edge off. And I do have a fan heater here. But as any of you who have experienced such a thing should know, those mothers eat your electricity. Allied to the knowledge that my electricity runs on tokens which cost £2 a pop and have to be slotted into the meter, witnessing what little cash I have whizzing around at ever quicker rates than I would care to see, means its not really that much of a valid option.

So as I wait for the diesel boat to come trundling down the river to fill me up my options are distinctly limited. In addition, my toilet is full of some sort of brown crap. The nature of which I’m not entirely certain, but to think about it logically, well what do you reckon? This boat has a holding tank, so on every occasion the toilet is used, everything that came out of you, plus the water in the toilet bowl gets stored in some tank way down underneath my bed. In order to empty the tank, you use a pumping station located at different spots along the river, where you plug a hose in and it sucks the whole thing out, so I’m told, I’ve yet to have that pleasure. But of course I can’t move. So the flushing of the toilet is on hold, whilst I sit in the cold waiting for the diesel, which would allow me to get warm as I go up the river to empty the bloody thing.

Just the other day Chef, one of the other merry band of boaters who lives on our marina, told me a story, I hope not prophetically, about someone who had problems with their pump out. Apparently they had some air trapped in their system, and when they went to pump it out the tank blew throwing you know what everywhere, and making their boat inhabitable for six months. I so do hope that's not the fate awaiting me considering I’ve only had the thing for a month.

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