Avoidance

On Saturday, I went to the gym. However, due to the local council wishing to tear up the roads at a moment's notice, I was stuck in a load of traffic on the way to my normal gym. Having a reciprocal gym membership with this well known fitness chain, I decided to go to another of their branches instead.

I got to said establishment and pulled into a parking spot. I reversed out a little, with the intention of straightening and tidying the parking up. Nothing worse than being outside your polygon - there's no excuse. Anyway, as I was slowly reversing out, some pillock goes by at a ridiculously fast speed and honks his horn. He then pulls up a little further down and has the audacity to stick his head out of the window towards me and make, what can only be described as, a Shaw Taylor Police 5 'Keep 'Em Peeled' gesture with his fingers. (Ask your parents.)

He looked bigger than me so, even though I had really done nothing wrong, I kept my fingers to myself. This is Wembley. You can lose your fingers for just blinking at someone in a funny way.

It was then that the charade began. He parked up a little way down, but refused to get out of his car, instead opting to try and stare me out through his rear view mirror, knowing full well I'd have to pass his car to get into the gym. By this point, I'd got out, grabbed my gym bag from the boot and was about to make way towards my hour of sweat and tears. But I saw his eyes. They looked menacing.

So, I began to do what many of us must have done at some point. In order to buy some time, I acted as if I'd lost something. On the surface, I was pretending to look for my gym card. In my head, I was thinking 'You look like a wally'. I opened the boot and rooted around. Looked up - he was still staring. I went to the passenger door and looked in the glove compartment - beady eyes still on me. I leafed through my pockets, 'sighed'. He hadn't moved an inch.

Buying time had failed. Only one option left for delicate folk like me. I got back in my car and drove home. It was the only sensible thing to do. I'm a realist. I like my face as it is. The muscles can wait a day, I'm just glad I still have a pair of eyes that point forwards, ta very much.

Time is but a passing fad...

See, I take my eye off the clock and it's August already. My last blog update was at the end of May. That's atrocious.

Although I must admit that a lot's happened during the intervening months. Work wise, my class received their Key Stage 2 SATs results and were, by and large, very pleased with themselves. And so they should be. They worked their socks off. Although it still seems some aren't happy. Alas, there will always be critics.

The kids performed their leavers performance, then waved goodbye to life at Primary School, taking their first steps along the long and winding road of adolescence and onto adulthood. Take your time, little ones, it's not as much fun as you think it is, when you finally get here...

As for me, my summer holidays are in full swing. Spent a few days in Cornwall last week. Never been before, but will certainly visit again. Being able to actually see the stars in the night sky was a real treat, as well as popping down to the beach for a spot of surfing as and when the need arose.

However, living there? Never. To me, the rolling green fields and lines of trees are all very well and good for a little visit, but I'm a city lad through and through. I like rude people around me. I like car fumes and noise. I like to sample the delights that international cuisine has to offer me simply by popping down to my local high street. I like to know that if I ever need a packet of Digestives at 3 in the morning, the Happy Shopper down the road will always be willing to serve me. I like broken slabs of pavement tiles - they add character. I like to be busy. I like to meet people from the farthest reaches of the planet on a single night out in Willesden. I like to play chicken with the buses. I like the dodgy London Underground system. I like being a part of the vast number of religious and international festivals that are celebrated here. I like to pay over the odds for anything and everything I buy. Well, maybe not the latter but that's the price you pay for the rest of it.

I'm probably in a minority, but I don't mind. Makes the feeling even more special.

Off-road driving

Walking down the local high street today, I happened to encounter upon this huge BMW 4x4 conveniently parked on the pavement. Clearly, he didn't feel as though there was enough space on the road.

Which is fair enough. I mean, with a car that big, why should the driver use the road at all? No doubt he's more used to deep, treacherous ravines, rocky mountain terrain, miles of waterlogged stretches of paddy fields and awe-inspiringly steep hills for those 4x4 gears to be put to real work.

Oh sorry, no he's not. He's driving in Wembley.

Facebook: Update

I'm addicted. It's official.

This must be what heroin feels like.

I find myself checking it every few hours for a mere snippet of a comment someone may have saved on my 'Wall'. As for the photos people leave of me in my youth, well, they're cringeworthy, yet strangely captivating.

There really, really must be more to life than this.

Getting to know you

I've joined Facebook. I don't understand it myself. I feel I was rallied into it by others and their overzealous comments on the sheer wonderfulness of its existence.

It just seems to be a place where one of two things happens.

Thing Number One
You happen to stumble across someone from your life whom you've spoken to for ages. Could be an old work colleague, maybe someone you were mates with at school. For this, I like Facebook.

Thing Number Two
Some nutter from your past manages to track you down. You've spent all these years trying to distance yourself/change your your name by depol in order to get away from this person, then in one click of a mouse, they're back with you again in all their inanely nerdy glory. For this, Facebook, I can never truely hold you dear to my heart.

Polite people

Went to the petrol station to top up the air in my car's tyres this afternoon.

I'm overly concious about this issue now as I went through a period of not checking the tyres at all, resulting in them quickly wearing down to well past the legal limit. Not big and not clever.

I went to a Texaco petrol station close to where I live. I pulled up beside the machine and then - being the precise keeno that I am - went around my tyres checking what pressure I should be filling up to.

Again, in my days of laxness, even when I did get around to filling air up, I'd just fill up without checking anything. I must have often filled up the car with the air that the push-bike in front had used. This probably was a secondary factor to the tyres going bald.

Anyway, as I was being safety concious and checking the tyres, a man pulled up behind me and asked if he could jump in. I was just about to begin the process myself but he had greasy hands (like a mechanic) and looked bigger than me so I let him cut in front.

I kept my distance throughout in case he turned nasty.

However, when he was done, he politely turned round and, with a cheeky little glint in his eye, said that there was still quite a bit of time left in the machine and that I was welcome to quickly make the most of it.

I did just what he said. And there was still time left after that for the next chap who had pulled up.

Our mechanic friend must have put at least a quid in. It's good to know that polite people still exist.

Even if he did have very greasy hands.

Manners

As you may have read earlier, I try my hardest to get to the gym. When I can be arsed.

I dream of a set of abs tight enough to grate cheese on, arms that Popeye would be envious of, a chest that would need doorways to be widened to allow me to pass through.

In reality, my abs are hidden under an ever increasing podgy belly, arms that even Olive Oyl would snigger at and a chest that's more sparrow than Schwarzenneger.

Nevertheless, I persist. However, it seems to me that all rules regarding politeness and manners seem to go out the window as soon as you enter the house of pain.

For example, I'm actually surprised that I haven't yet caught any kind of fungal infection from other folk who use equipment in there, then wander off without wiping down, leaving a gloriously glistening damp patch on the seat that my rear end is about to advance on.

Then, there's the grunting. In any normal situation, a man (and more women now I've noticed too) groaning and roaring like a lot of them in there do would raise a few eyebrows. But, no. In there, you can be as loud as you want and no-one bats an eyelid. Except me. I'm always fascinated by the people making that much noise.

They also pull unattractive faces as they do their lifting. I often wonder if that's their sex face too.

Today, though, I encountered a new phenomenon. I was getting changed after a bit of a workout (I'd much rather have watched Deal Or No Deal) and was getting my bits from the locker I was occupying. As I was kneeling down, a middle aged gentleman then approached and opened the locker directly above mine.

As he started to get his things out, something fell to the floor from his locker. Now, in any other circumstances, I'd have picked it up and offered it back to the person who'd dropped it. Dummy - here you go little chap. Papers - there you are, busy office person. Glove - don't want to lose that, it's chilly today.

He'd dropped his underpants.

Now, call me rude, but I didn't even offer. I took a quick glance, realised what they were and looked away. I shouldn't have done that. By looking away, I turned to face his flacid penis in my face.

I suppose that's a lesson for us all. Always be kind and considerate to others, or else you too could end up with a floppy willy waving at you.