Food, Places, Music and Moments

Welcome to a sunny and pleasant South Manchester where we are in the middle of a slight heatwave. We had temperatures of 30°C and more this week in Manchester which is about as hot as it ever gets here. Now, though, it is a pleasant 24°C on a Sunday afternoon.

Let’s dive in to Sunday Stealing with a set of silly questions.

FOOD

TWO foods you can't stand

1. Rhubarb. I am certain that rhubarb is either cultivated and grown in the deepest bowels of hell itself or is an extraterrestrial monstrosity that was planted by aliens intent on eventually taking over from humanity as the dominant species on planet Earth. I hate rhubarb so much that I can barely suppress the urge to retch when I see it. Horrible stuff. 

2. Apricots. I recently accidentally bit into an apricot, thinking (stupidly) that it was a small peach. I realised my mistake within two nanoseconds and threw the whole thing away, while trying not to heave. Disgusting vegetation masquerading as fruit. 

FOUR foods you love

1. Cheese. I love cheese so much that I have to try my best not to eat it all the time. There are cheeses that I am less keen on but 99% of them are wonderful. One of my current favourites for a treat is sold in our local cheese shop (and yes we do have one). It is called Harrogate Blue and I love it. At Christmas we get together with our next door neighbours for a cheese and wine evening and I am in heaven trying all manner of different cheeses. 

2. Roast pork. If we go out on Sunday for a traditional Sunday lunch, Mrs PM always predicts that I will have roast pork with crackling on the side. She’s always right. 

3. Mrs PM’s paella. Mrs PM decided that she was going to have a go at paella and it was the best decision she has made. She tries it with a variety of meat and vegetables but it is always amazing. She is allergic to seafood so we can’t always try it in Spain itself unless there is a meat one (which there isn’t always). But I love it.

4. Indian food. It took me a while to get into Indian food because I was never sure what to eat. However, I have a couple of Indian friends who have guided me over the years and now I know exactly what to have. We have a couple of Indian restaurants locally and they mic things up from the traditional Indian food you find in restaurants. I just love the spices – as long as they aren’t too hot.

PLACES

TWO places you never want to see again 

1. Johannesburg, South Africa. I worked on a project that covered four airports in South Africa and the main computers were at Johannesburg airport and, being a key team member, I was the idiot who always had to stay in Jo’burg while my team mates got to go to places like Cape Town. And Jo’burg is a very dangerous place. I loved parts of it, like Sandton City and the people I met were wonderful. But I wasn’t really allowed to venture out because of the high crime rate. 

2. Salvador, Brazil. Mrs PM and I started our Brazil trip in Salvador and as I was flying over, I read that this city was one of the most dangerous in Brazil We were staying in a tourist friendly area but when we arrived, the taxi driver was telling us where not to go because we would risk being robbed – if we were lucky. He told us that there were certain no-go areas even for the police. I liked where we stayed but to go again? No thanks. 

FOUR places you'd like to revisit

1. Tokyo, Japan. Tokyo is absolutely enormous and I didn’t realise the scale of this magnificent city until I actually got there. We were there for three days and we only scratched the surface. I think if we had spent two weeks there we would still need to go back. And of course Japan itself is a wonderful place that I want to visit again. 

2. Hong Kong. I have spent about 18 months of my life in Hong Kong due to lots of work trips and the odd holiday trip and I absolutely love the place. In fact, we are planning to go there early next year on our way back from Malaysia and I can’t wait. The longest I stayed there was three months and I loved being an honorary Hong Kong resident. I was sad when I left but I have returned and I will do so whenever the opportunity arises.

3. Nice, France. Mrs PM and I tend not to go to the same places in Europe more than once but Nice is one of the few exceptions. It is a beautiful city on the south coast of France that can be used as a centre to visit a lot of amazing other places, like Cannes, Monte Carlo and Antibes. We were there earlier this year and we are thinking of perhaps going again next year. 

4. New York. I’ve been to New York twice and the first time I was basically shown around so quickly that I didn’t get a chance to really see the place because the woman who was our guide (a friend we were staying with) was scared of the place. This was back in 1989. However, Mrs PM and I went back for New Year in 1998/1999 and as intrepid explorers we just walked around ourselves. I felt perfectly safe and even wandered back to our hotel at 2am after visiting Times Square for New Year and an Irish Bar. We were there for four days and it wasn’t enough. 

MUSIC

TWO musical artists who make you want to change the station 

1. Justin Timberlake. Mrs PM went to see him recently and up to that point and for a while afterwards she has been incessantly playing his music. And his music, in my opinion, is dreadful. We have a joint playlist and there is no way on this Earth that Justin Timberlake’s music will get anywhere near it. 

2. Kanye West (or whatever he calls himself these days). I don’t like hip hop at all but Kanye West is right at the bottom of the pile when it comes to hip hop artists I would give a chance to. Enough said.

FOUR musical artists you love to listen to

1. Steven Wilson is a British progressive rock singer and musician who is the main man in the band Porcupine Tree as well as having a successful solo career. As well as that he continues to work in two other projects called Blackfield and No-Man. He is prolific and as well as being a singer and multi-instrumentalist he is a producer and he remixes the albums of other artists. He is a man of many talents.

2. Devin Townsend is a Canadian progressive metal singer and guitarist who is very prolific. His musical style ranges from extreme metal to ambient electronica with quite a few genres ticked off in between. His vocal range is incredible, ranging from melodic vocals to screams and growls. 

3. Riverside are a Polish progressive rock band who have successfully filled a gap that I missed since my favourite band, Rush, ended following the sad death of their drummer Neil Peart. They are my current favourite band. The singer/bassist is called Mariusz Duda and I love his songwriting style as well as his solo career and other project called Lunatic Soul. I've seen them a couple of times recently and intend to see them when they next venture across the English Channel. 

4. Nine Inch Nails have been around for decades and their music has featured in a lot of movies. I saw them live this year and they haven’t lost anything. The raw anger from their earlier music was still there as well as the more subdued recent material. Trent Reznor is a genius in my view and is still going strong. The band are releasing a new album to run alongside the new movie Tron: Ares. 

MOMENTS

TWO moments you'd like to erase

1. The entire Brexit campaign and Brexit vote. If ever anyone wants an example of ignorance, incompetence, lying, gullibility and stupidity, just study that whole campaign. It is the biggest mistake that we as a nation have ever made and it embarrasses me immensely. People just can't see the damage it has done and will continue to do. 

2. The day that Boris Johnson became Prime Minister of the UK. I will say no more, lest I rant mercilessly. 

FOUR moments you'd like to relive

1. The day that Mrs PM and I got together in Hong Kong. 

2. This isn’t a real moment but I would like to relive some of my days at Liverpool University. It was one of the happiest periods of my life. 

3. My trip to Japan (again not really a moment). 

4. The day that I told my dad that I had passed all of my A-Level exams to gain me entrance to Liverpool University. He was so happy and I was delighted that he knew before he sadly passed away shortly afterwards. 

Ozzy Osbourne

I’ve delayed writing a post about Ozzy Osbourne because I only recently posted about his last concert in Birmingham and his former band Black Sabbath. The gig happened just a couple of weeks before his death and the timing is poignant. 

Ozzy Osbourne was a unique individual whose lifestyle was so hedonistic that he even succeeded in shocking one of America’s most offensive bands, Mötley Crüe. Many were amazed that Ozzy managed to reach 70 years old, let alone 76. 

He had a fine and unique voice, and it is reported that even though he was known as “The Prince of Darkness” and was perhaps one of the most outrageous rock stars in history, people who knew him and met him report that he was one of the funniest and kindest people you could ever know. 

Here are some examples:

Ozzy grew up in an area of Birmingham called Aston which is about 8 miles from where I was born so I am familiar with the areas he frequented in his youth and the environment which shaped him. If you had heard me speaking when I lived in Walsall you would have been forgiven for thinking that I sounded like Ozzy. My accent was actually stronger than his and although I have lost my own accent now, Ozzy’s remained although in a slightly milder form and tinged with American. 

As I said in my post about Black Sabbath I followed them even after Ozzy was sacked from the band in 1978 but I also followed Ozzy’s solo career, which thrived under the management of his wife Sharon. 

I have to admit that I wasn’t a huge fan of the reality series “The Osbournes” but I did enjoy the bits where Ozzy was unintentionally funny. And he definitely could be funny. Here he is trying a Olivia Newton-John’s health drink:

I’ve read his autobiography, “I  Am Ozzy” and I have to say it is one of the funniest books I’ve read. I even went to work dressed as Ozzy on a charity fancy dress day way back in 2010, complete with my impersonation of him. 

I am saddened by his death, especially such a short time after his gig. It’s a shame and we have lost a national treasure over here in the UK. I’m impressed with what he achieved over his lifetime, especially since we were born such a short distance away from each other. 

I’ll leave you with my favourite five songs from Ozzy’s solo work. 

5. Perry Mason (from Ozzmosis – 1995)

This might be a slightly controversial choice amongst fans of Ozzy’s solo work but I think this is a great song. There’s just something about it that I like, perhaps the idea that this could actually be the theme song to a future Perry Mason series.

4. Shot in the Dark (from The Ultimate Sin – 1986)

This song reminds me of a great time in my life and that’s the reason that It is my number four choice. There was a lot of good music around at that time and it all brings back very fond memories. 

3. Crazy Train (from Blizzard of Ozz – 1980)

When Ozzy was sacked from Black Sabbath it took him a while to recover but he came back with his first solo album called Blizzard of Ozz and this song is probably his best known solo song. I think it’s a great song. In fact an easy listening version of this song became the theme song to the Osbournes.

2. Let Me Hear You Scream (from Scream – 2010)

This song is an absolute heavy metal anthem and I think Ozzy’s voice is amazing in it. It’s a very heavy song and I absolutely love the chorus, which I sing along whenever it is on.  “You’ll hear me scream if you don’t switch that off!” says Mrs PM.  Result!

1.  No More Tears (from No More Tears – 1991)

“No More Tears” is an absolutely amazing song. I love the menace it invokes, the bass line, the guitar and the way the song evolves as it continues, almost in a progressive way, with an orchestral section towards the end that sends a shiver down the spine (well in the full album version anyway). If you like the single version, definitely check out the album cut because it is even better. 

And finally

Here is a beautiful song from the album No More Tears (that I guess can be classed as a power ballad). It is called Mama, I’m Coming Home and shows Ozzy’s voice at its best.

Thanks for everything, Ozzy and Rest in Peace. 

I will miss you.

Plastic Alphabet Soup

Welcome to a cloudy but sunny South Manchester where the weather is predicted to improve next week, which is great because I have a cricket match to watch on Monday. 

Let’s dive straight in with some Sunday Stealing tomfoolery, this time in the form of alphabet prompts resulting in my sharing more of my inner weirdness with you. 

Strap in folks!

A. Auto

My car is a boring grey Vauxhall Astra that I have had for a number of years now. It’s nothing special but it is reliable and rarely has a problem. We have two cars and, now that I am no longer working, my car doesn’t get used that often. It is much easier to get around the city using public transport and we are going further afield we tend to use Mrs PM’s car because it is more economical. I am therefore considering selling it and just using her car, or alternatively we could sell both cars and buy a new electric one. It’s all up in the air though and I can see myself still having the same car next year. 

B. Bed size

We have a king size bed which implies that I am the king of my own house. However, I am actually the fourth most important living thing in my house behind Mrs PM and my furry overlords. Usually at this time of day, the two cats are sprawled on the bed fast asleep so it is really their bed until I decide to use it, at which point I find myself with a cat at my feet or lying in between us ready to wake us up at dawn for food. This is why I have banned them from the bedroom (unless Mrs PM objects – see what I mean? Fourth most important living thing). 

C. Cats

As I said, we have two cats. Ziggy is a large male black cat and Star is his younger sister. We picked them up from a cat charity because they had been abandoned by an utter arse (I am moderating my own language here). There were three of them in a small cage dumped in an alleyway in the middle of winter. I have no idea how long they had been there but they were all very ill as a result. We would have taken all three but the third one was very ill and needed extra treatment. In the end the owner of the cat charity took her and she is happy in a house with about fifteen other cats. Ziggy and Star now rule my house and I am their slave. 

D. Dogs

I had dogs as a kid and I really love them. Sadly Mrs PM is more of a cat person, even though I mentioned that we owned a dog and a cat. I miss having a dog. 

E. Essential start to your day

Now that I am retired, I wake up naturally, apart from sometimes when Mrs PM wakes me up when she starts work. My first priority is to get dressed and go for a walk to wake myself up and get some exercise. My average walk length is about five miles per day and when I return, I have a shower and then a late breakfast. 

F. Favourite colour

Teal is my favourite colour but I also like blue, green and red. 

G. Gold or silver

I think silver looks better and I would rather have a silver watch than a gold one. 

H. Hand you favour (righty or lefty)

I am right handed. 

I. Instruments you play

When I was a kid, I played the trombone for five years because my dad thought that I would become a 1970’s version of Glenn Miller. Sadly, my taste in music developed to such an extent that the trombone wouldn’t fit into the styles I like. So I gave it up. 

Now, I am trying to teach myself the piano and, although progress is very slow, I can actually play some simple tunes. I also have a synthesiser and as a separate project I am trying to develop a cover version of “Just Can’t Get Enough” by Depeche Mode:

I am about halfway through and my plan is to use a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) to record it as an mp3. The synthesiser also has a Vocoder which means that I can try to add vocals. I haven’t played with that part of it yet so I am hoping that it can autocorrect my terrible voice so that it doesn’t sound like I am trying to strangle one of my poor cats. If I am happy with the result I may share it. 

J. Job title

Retired. However, this time last year I was a Senior Software Engineer. 

K. Kids

I have two kids with my ex-wife (although they are both adults now). One of them is 29 years old and the other is 32 years old. This make me feel really old. Mrs PM calls them “The Clones” because they look startlingly similar to me (the poor lads). 

L. Live (rural, suburb, city)

I live in a pleasant suburb of South Manchester that has easy transport access to the city centre and various other districts of the city. It only takes about thirty minutes to be in the Cheshire countryside if I fancy a little taste of the rural life. I don’t think that I would like to live in the city centre though. Manchester is a wonderful place but the city centre is just a little too busy to reside in. 

M. Meal plans

I don’t have any meal plans. We tend to decide roughly what we will have but not rigidly. 

N. Nicknames

I’ve had a lot of nicknames over the years. Here are a few of them:

Snowy, Bagpuss, Joe 90, The Milky Bar Kid, Specky, Scrumper, Bricktop, Rambo, Mr Puniverse.

O. Overnight hospital stays

I have never stayed overnight in a hospital – nor do I want to. 

P. Pet peeves

This is a subject for about five hundred posts so I will list just one or two.

First, all politicians. They are either malignant narcissists like Donald Trump or Boris Johnson or they are slimy liars. I am particularly annoyed by Trump and Vance at the moment but there are plenty all over the world who make me angry.

Second, the increasing role that social media is being abused by people in the world. If you read my last post (which you can read here) you will see that I have a bog problem with influencers – and they are just the tip of the iceberg.

I could go on but this will be a very, very long post so I will stop. 

Q. Quote from a movie

R. Regrets

This relates to I above. I would have loved to have learned to play the guitar. 

I would also like to be fluent in a couple of other languages.

S. Siblings

I had two younger sisters but sadly the older one passed away a couple of years ago. I still miss her. My remaining sister lives near to Harrogate and we try to see each other as often as we can. 

U. Underwear

Yes – I wear underwear. 

V. Vegetable you love

I wouldn’t say that I love any vegetable but I do eat a lot of carrots, broccoli, courgettes (zucchini in America), peas and sweetcorn. I am happy to eat other vegetables too and I am one of those weird people who actually like sprouts. 

W. What makes you run late

Usually Mrs PM. I hate being late and she prefers to be “on time”, i.e. she runs the risk of being late. However, she has improved massively over the years and these days we are rarely late. 

X. X-rays you’ve had

The only X rays I have had are at the dentist. 

Y. Yummy food

I love most food to be honest. It would be easier to ask me about the foods I don’t like. I will say that these days I tend not to eat desserts but that’s not because I don’t like them.  

Z. Zoo animal

It’s got to be an elephant or a big cat. 

The Influencer

This is my 1000th post. 

I have a soundtrack song that skirts around the topic of this post. It is called #Addicted by my current favourite band Riverside, so listen along while you read (only if you want to of course). 

I want everybody to be like me. I want you all to listen to the same music as me, read the same books as me and base your fashion choices on my own. I want you all to have the same beliefs as me and basically use my ideas as a philosophy for your future choices. 

I want to influence you all. 

Okay, let me tell you one thing about the words I wrote above: they are complete and utter bollocks.

My own belief is that everybody should be as individual as they can be. People are unique in this world and that’s exactly what makes humanity so brilliant on the whole. You never know what you are going to get when you meet a new person.

Having said that, it is perfectly fine to get ideas from people to enhance your own life. I do this all the time. However, I am not a good role model at all. 

When it comes to fashion, I am totally inept. I have written about this before and if it wasn’t for Mrs PM I would wander around the streets of Manchester dressed like a sack of potatoes with legs, arms and a head. When I go shopping for clothes I am utterly clueless about what to buy. When Mrs PM and I first got together, one of the first things she did was to tell me (in no uncertain terms) what was wrong with my clothing choices. 

My musical taste, while it skirts around various genres, is a little bit niche. I like popular music like rock and pop of course but the music that I really love has been described to me as “an acquired taste”. I have also been described as a “musical dinosaur” and I didn’t like that one little bit (as you can probably tell since I mentioned it in the first place). 

The books I read are also very niche. I love anything really weird (the weirder the better), which means that I gravitate towards science fiction, horror and anything that is just – well – strange. The same goes for TV and movies. 

Why would anybody be influenced by that?

About a year before I retired, I started looking at potential hobbies to keep myself busy and one of the suggestions made me laugh out loud. That idea was: 

“Become an influencer”

What? At my age? Have you ever met me?

I have seen influencers in action in the flesh. I have seen people (mainly women) photographing themselves when they have bought new clothes, pouting in a way that would attract any fish with large lips. I have heard others (mainly men) bleating on about sports products and things to make them look like the latest Adonis and showing off their muscles in a way that makes them resemble a very poor man’s Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

The idea of being an Influencer is that you end up with an army of followers who hang on to your every word, your every image (no matter how bizarre) and all of your lifestyle choices, which includes things like the restaurants and bars that you got to, the meals you have every day and all of your amazing ideas, no matter how crazy they are. When you have this following, you reap the rewards with advertising and in extreme cases, companies giving you things to try in the hope that you will praise them allowing the company to get sales indirectly from you. 

I don’t want any of that. 

I would hate to see a Plastic Mancunian clone following me to a restaurant dressed exactly like me and telling me how influential I am. 

I am not influential at all. I use this blog to basically tell people what a weirdo I am, how incompetent I am and what an idiot I can be. And I welcome people laughing at my antics. 

But to follow me and try to be like me?

You have to be kidding. 

Equally I have no desire to obsessively base my lifestyle choices on a person I’ve only ever seen pictures of, who is really nothing but a gigantic show-off. For example I love rock music but I have never had the desire to pursue the hedonistic and debauched life style of some of my past favourite artists. 

You can rest assured that on the list of potential retirement hobbies that I have compiled, “become an influencer” is not on there at all. Mind you, I am a self-confessed weirdo so perhaps there are older people out there who may be tempted to listen to my advice, wear the same clothes that Mrs PM tries to get me to wear, read the same weird books and listen to the same weird music. However, I like to think that anybody who is my age is so set in their ways that the very thought of being influenced by me is as hilarious as the concept of Plastic Mancunian himself trying to become an influencer. 

Influencers just want fame and money for doing bugger all and I would never want to be one.

I say make your own choices. Don’t follow people – just be yourself. 

Life is too precious to live it vicariously. 

Bloggery Pokery

Welcome to a dull South Manchester where it is raining slightly and, for summer, quite a chilly day. Hopefully normal service will be resumed for the weekend.

This post answers questions about blogging and just out of interest, I checked the number of posts that I have made. By lucky chance I spotted that this is post number 999 so my next one will be 1000. I have a couple of ideas for post 1000 and I don’t want to mention this milestone there – so I will do it now (since we are talking about blogging)

Some of the bloggers I have read are far more prolific than I am; I tend to post once a week on average. I am now retired so in theory I could improve that post rate and perhaps I will try in the coming months. 

Before we dive into the questions (from Sunday Stealing as usual), I thought I would give you a little history. 

I started blogging in March 2008, so this means my blog is 17 years old. That makes me feel old because I was a mere child of 45 years old when I first started posting this drivel into cyberspace and inflicting it onto poor people who just happened to stumble on it. 

It was Mrs PM who encouraged me to start blogging because I was very tentative at first. There have been times over the years when I thought about giving up but I plodded on and now I am quite happy to continue. If nothing else, The Plastic Mancunian gives me an excuse to just write this garbage for people to read. 

The bad news for regular readers is that I fully intend to continue to blog for the foreseeable future but before I go on I would genuinely like to thank everyone who has stumbled on these pages of rubbish  and commented on the bizarre claptrap that comes from my brain. I will also continue with Sunday Stealing posts (because it is fun) but I will also try to post about the weirdness that pops into my head from time to time. 

Poor readers!

I may just give the blog an overhaul though for my 1000th post to make it look more modern and fresh. 

Watch this space!

Let’s dive in, shall we?

1. When are you at your blogging best – a.m. or p.m.?

I prefer to write in the morning when my brain is at its most fresh. However, I actually write posts at all times of the day, depending on what I have been doing. I am writing this particular post at 11:30 am so it will probably drift into the afternoon. 

2. How many blogs do you have? Please include the links in your answer.

I started a photo blog called The Plastic Mancunian’s Eye with the aim of regularly posting a photograph but I stopped way back in 2012. It still exists and the link is on the right. 

In the end I gave up with the blog because I found that I was posting photographs on this blog and I didn’t see the point of having two blogs. 

I did consider starting a blog dedicated to the music I love and I may still do that. Perhaps I’ll call it The Plastic Mancunian’s Ear. 

3. Do you prefer silence when you compose your posts and write your comments?

No. I listen to music. 

This is the lucky song that is currently accompanying this post.

I love listening to music when blogging because it helps me to relax more and, perhaps paradoxically, helps the creativity a bit. In fact, some of my posts have been inspired by listening to music, whether it be just a song title or the meaning of the song.

4. What's the grossest thing you've ever spilled on your keyboard?

In my former job, I once spilled an entire cup of tea on my keyboard and had to have it replaced, which didn’t please the IT department. At home, I am fortunate enough never to have done anything so clumsy. 

5. Ever posted while intoxicated?

Some people probably think that ALL of my posts are written while I am intoxicated. 

The truth is that absolutely none of them have been written under the influence of alcohol. Almost all my posts contain drivel and nonsense and I can only imagine what they would be like if I were intoxicated. I would almost certainly regret them and remove them later.