More Random Questions

 

Welcome to South Manchester, currently enjoying drizzling rain and light winds. It is also day 233 of restrictions and lockdown and now, Boris the Clown has finally decided that England will go into full lockdown again from Thursday for a month. He claims it will be to “save Christmas” but in reality, scientists have been urging him to do so for the past two months because of rising infection rates. 

The moron said in March that we will be “driven by the science” but when scientists, the leader of the opposition and various others urged him to do so in September, he ignored them because “Boris knows best”.

The problem is that he doesn’t know best – and he never has. He is just a fat scarecrow masquerading as a political leader.

Anyway, enough of that – let’s answer some random questions from Sunday Stealing.

1. What has been your favourite part of the year so far.

Are you serious? 

2020 has been a bloody awful year and will continue to be so right up until the very last second by the looks of it. It started in January and February, as all years do, and I hate those cold, bleak and dark months. In 2020, however, I guess that in those two months, I could go to the pub, see friends and family, go to gigs, go to shops and maybe even travel to somewhere warm. Sadly, I didn’t travel but I did go to a couple of gigs and actually meet and speak to people. 

So, with great reluctance, I will say that February was probably my favourite part of the year so far, because it was less dark and less cold than January, I managed a couple of gigs and I had optimism for the rest of the year until Coronavirus came along and vanquished the rest of the year.

2. Have you started Christmas shopping?

I usually do most of my Christmas shopping in November to get it over with. This year, it will all be online because non-essential shops are closed for a month. To be fair, I hate shopping anyway, so most years I do the same. Shops at Christmas are awful, full of people doing last minute shopping, with massive queues everywhere and loud Christmas music blaring out into your ears on a never-ending loop. Sadly we will still have to shop for food etc. – although we won’t need as much because I doubt that there will be a family gathering this year.

3. Do you like your handwriting?

My handwriting is just about legible and it is okay. Interestingly, I was looking in a cupboard upstairs and found a binder with my maths notes from school. My handwriting then was much better than it is now, but that was perhaps because we were forced to write with a proper ink pen (as opposed to a biro). It’s really not that bad now, If I’m honest, so I guess the answer is “yes”.

4. Song you could hear over and over and over again.

I’ve had a look at my list of songs on iTunes to see which ones I have played most since I bought my iPod a few years ago. I’ve selected this beautiful masterpiece from the multi-talented Steven Wilson. It is a progressive rock work of genius, clocking in at almost 12 minutes. But don’t let that put you off from listening to it. 

It is a peaceful song that starts off slowly and gradually builds up, with piano, acoustic guitar and vocal accompaniment. It is about an old watchmaker who married his wife Eliza but never really loved her. And then she dies and he thinks he is free of her but she comes back to haunt him as the bond they have is too strong to be broken even in death and he cannot rid himself of her even after she has died.

Here it is in its full melancholic glory.

5. A favourite quote.

“Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that who cares?... He’s a mile away and you’ve got his shoes!”

courtesy of Billy Connolly.

6. Last dream you remember

First, some background. After the death of our last cat, we have been a catless house for a month or two. Mrs PM is now ready to fill the cat void and we were going to wait until 2021 but she saw a story on a local Cat Protection charity site about somebody who dumped three black kittens in a carrier bag in an alleyway in a nearby town. They were covered in the own poo and quite poorly. They are recovering and now ready for adoption. We were so appalled by this act of cruelty that we have decided to take all three of them. They are black cats and are currently being prepared for adoption, which will take a short while (a couple of weeks).

It seems that people don’t want black cats because of superstitious nonsense. Nevertheless that is no reason to just dump three kittens in a bag.

Anyway, back to the dream. Last night, in my dream, my imagination told me that the three little rascals had come to live with us and were running around our house just being cats. One of them had no teeth but was trying to chew on my fingers and the other two were so quick that I couldn’t catch them.

A slightly mad dream – but I am really looking forward to filling our cat void again. 

7. Most expensive object you want to buy right now.

A huge holiday to the Far East. Realistically, when this Coronavirus pandemic has died down, we will take our holidays in Europe (that we had to cancel this year). After that, we will travel to the Far East again, perhaps Malaysia or Japan again (we haven’t decided). 

8. Describe your eldest family member.

I guess that would be Mrs PM’s dad. He is a really funny outgoing guy, aged 78, and has absolutely no shame. He will strike up a conversation with anybody about anything and usually he tries to do so in a stupid way. We’ve been on holiday with him a couple of times and each time he has embarrassed us. I just sit and watch him in action. 

In America, for example, we were on a boat trip and he asked a bemused group of Americans “Do you speak English? I’m not from this country!” which had a strange reaction. Some of them just laughed, and others just said “What? Of course we speak English. We’re American!” to which he replied “I didn’t know you spoke English over here.” – before laughing out loud. And of course, he had broken the ice and spent the rest of the trip acting as the comedian, making them all (and us) laugh at his antics.

He is a funny extrovert guy who is the first to stand up in the audience when somebody asks for a volunteer.

9. What has your weather been like?

Autumn has kicked in so the temperature has dropped a little. It is still quite mild and we have had a couple of stormy days, but today it is just a dull, featureless, grey day with drizzling rain. We have had some sunshine though and last week I enjoyed a walk at dawn with leaves turning into beautiful golden and red colours. 

10. Do you enjoy your job?

No. I am sick of my career (you may have heard me moan about it before). It’s not the company I work for – they are pretty good actually – but rather the job itself. I work in IT and have done for 36 years and now find myself in a niche area (which I will tell you all about when I retire). However, I am just bored – bored of the job, bored of the office politics, bored of the actual day to day grind. The people I work with are amazing and clever and it isn’t them; it’s the job itself, the procedures, the programming, the documentation, nature of the job. 

I can’t wait to retire.

11. What is your favourite everyday item?

My laptop. Without it I would be lost. It has all of my music and every bit of rubbish that I have ever written on this blog, as well as a load of other crap that I have written (including three travelogues, a half-finished novel, lots of short stories, etc.) as well as being the gateway to the world in terms of the internet. 

12. Are you currently obsessed with any TV show?

Yes – I’ve watched a couple of great ones recently. I will single out a mind-bending and very intriguing German drama on Netflix. I recommend it if you like weird stuff but you may need to have your wits about you to understand what is going on. I loved it – and don’t worry – it is all in German but dubbed on Netflix so you don’t have to read subtitles.

Also, I heard some great news last week. My favourite serial killer is back. Dexter Morgan is returning for perhaps one final series. I loved that show and can’t wait to see the new series.

13. Book you’d like to read before the year ends.

I don’t have any in mind. Ss far this year I have read quite a lot of post-apocalyptic thrillers and I need a change so I might go for “Homo Deus” by Yuval Noah Harari,  the follow up to “Sapiens”, which I found very interesting.

14. Describe Kindness.

Kindness is not leaving three helpless black kittens in a carrier bag on a cold autumn day in a town in Northern England. 

15. Describe your favourite candy in great detail.

I am not a huge fan of “candy” or sweets as we prefer to call them. I guess I will have to say Lindor chocolates. They are delicious but I rarely buy them because I will scoff an entire box. We will have some for Christmas but I will make Mrs PM ration them out.