On the rails

I am saddened to report that the dear old bike has had to go to hospital. Shortly before Christmas it was due it's MoT and Road Tax. No big deal, needs a new tyre on the front just to be sure, but part from that it should be fine. How wrong can one be. I gave it a quick once over with the intention that on the Monday I'd ride to work, nip in to the local Watford Tyres en route and get both tyre and MoT sorted. Errr no.. the bike would not start, I could not hear the fuel pump start, there was total silence. Maybe flat battery? Nope - headlight shining bright enough to blind. Get suspicious, jiggle wire coming down from handlebar - pump springs to life. Release wire, pump stops. Turn handlebar left and right, pump starts, pump stops. Damn. I know what that means - a broken wire. Go back inside house, dump biker gear, emerge as alter ego - commuter man!

And that's who I've been ever since - weekly train pass and gently trying to sort getting bike to garage. Not that simple - RAC doesn't cover me at home, it won't fit into the back of the SAAB. I feel a bit of a cheat wheeling it down the high street and pretending that I arrived there and 'it just broke down .... honest guv!'.

So Christmas comes and goes - the bike sits outside the house. Mind you, I'm not going to work over Chirstmas so no big deal. I take a look at the wiring but stripping the insulation from the loom to find the break in the rain and wind is unappealing.

I take the train. First thing that surprises is the cost - ye gods, how much? But I only want to go to London. For less than that I can get a return to Madrid by plane! Well maybe not ... it'll cost me more than the flight to get to the airport. Still a stranded biker and his cash are readily parted and at least I'll have a warm seat. Wrong again! Seats are a rare commodity and have usually been bagged by people earlier than me on the line. Even when, on odd days, I do get a seat I find myself next to some immense man mountain who occupies more than his fair share of the padded real estate.

Of course trains run to a regular timetable. This is true sometimes. The rule is that if you are late to the station then the trains run on time. If you arrive in good time for the train then it is delayed or cancelled. I have yet to work out how they know whether I am going to be late or early - and how they could possibly schedule the trains to take advantage of my random arrivals, but somehow they do.

Every week I have to buy a new weekly travelcard. This is quite a good idea, not only does it prevent me incurring a fine for travelling without paying, but it also acts as an underground pass as well. I like the underground. You get to have close encounters with people you would never meet intimately otherwise. The tube train drivers seem to delight in attempting either a GT start from the lights with 10,000 close packed souls on board, or discovering that they have mistimed the braking as they arrive at the next station and they are forced to do an emergency stop to prevent the train running on out of the station. These maneuvers invariably result in a collision with some other unfortunate as they too become detached from whatever support they had been clinging to.

As we arrive in Goodge St station the entire train empties. I'm not sure why. Why is it not Leicester Square or Tottenham Court Road that attracts the masses. Why Goodge St? Anyway, a mad rush for the 4 lifts ensues. There is only ever one of them down, the other 3 are going up. How does that work? Needless to say, the outrush from both the northbound and the southbound trains will not fit a single lift. I take the stairs. 186 steps later I emerge - my heart is doing about 130 beats per minute and my throat is dry and a slim girl walks nonchalantly past as I gasp for air. Damn! I'm on the rails!

Aici zace un om .....

Well hello again dear reader(s) - my boundless optimism has considered the possibility that there may be more than one.

So it's a new year. So what? One day it was 2006, the next it's 2007. And this is supposed to change everything? I don't think so. The fish in the tank can barely tell one day from the next. The cats schedule their feeds twice a day, so maybe they have some concept of time. But we, the human race, homo sapiens (spot the oxymoron), think that the transition from one year to the next is a time of renewal. Why should it be, and why should it be this arbitrary point in the calendar. I mean, for example, the winter solstice has some meaning in astronomical and astrological terms - but what's 2 or 3 days later mean? What does 9 or 10 days later mean? Just arbitrary points in a time continuum - it's like that faux invalid, Andy, in the 'Little Britain' series had stood up at some distant point in the past and said 'I want that one!' but Lou wasn't there to say 'Are you sure?'

Anyway, I'm off topic. I'm also off paint. Ugh .... people do this for a living. Well I can understand that, I suppose. At least they get paid for it. But as a hobby? No, no, no, NO!!! So I have been painting the hall for the last couple of weekends on and off. We have chosen a calm mix of magnolia and 'biscuit' - roughly digestive biscuit colour rather than chocolate or pink iced biscuit colour. This is, in fact, probably better than the mix of aubergine, green and yellow we had previously - at least it doesn't challenge the more conservatively minded fiends (freudian slip) we have.

Decorating seems to consist mainly of preparation; sanding, filling, more sanding, washing, laying the masking tape so you don't accidentally paint the carpet, choosing colours, trying to get the ladder into position, and then tidying up - rinsing brushes in smelly white spirits, endlessly rinsing the roller to clear the paint blah, blah bleugh.

Somewhere in this cycle of prep and tidying comes the actual painting bit. This would be quite easy if the area awaiting paint was a simple flat surface, but it isn't. Of course it isn't, you stupid fool! If it was then you could do the whole lot in a single day and done with it. No, there are corners, pipes, door frames, doors, coving, dado rails, skirting boards, banisters, and even a moulded plaster arch surround. All of these variations on the theme of 'flat' has to be coped with. And each takes time - extra time, lots of extra time!

Oh there are short cuts. Use a 'one coat' paint? Oh hahahahaha! One coat, yes if the previous paint happened to be the same colour, or very close, to the one you are applying now. 'Oh yes we improved our hall radically - we changed from a pale cream to magnolia - it made all the difference.' Errr no! You could probably have gotten the same effect by not smoking 40 a day in your house for the last 20 years and washing the walls! Anyway, for those who think you can just apply a coat of 'one coat' paint and cover a completely different colour - you can't. Undercoat and 2 coats of the 'one coat' are required for a decent finish.

So enough on painting and decorating - it will be the death of me.