Elvis Impersonator Beeston Weir

Ex-girlfriends i've upset today: 1
Arguments with man behind counter in shop today: 1
(Relatively successful then)

You will remember i was non-too enamoured with Derby in my previous review so it was with some trepidation that i once more hit the A52 yesterday and headed west to Pride Park. Don't worry, i'm not going to go off on one about the Women's FA Cup Final but i do wish the idiots who planned this new stadium a few years ago had given a thought to road access and car parking facilities for a few minutes before giving the builders the go ahead. Still, we did eventually get there and it only took us an hour and a bit (for a fifteen minute drive).

Anyway, i had to show you this photo. This was after the match (Arsenal won by the way - almost as unsurprising as the fact that the boys team lost to Man Utd tonight) and shows the awkward plight of the wheelchair bound press cameraman when he has to do his job on well watered grass. Try as he might, he could not keep up with the rest of the crew and each time he caught up with the little posse of celebrating players and got his camera ready they would break off and go and party in front of a different area of the stands. If only i'd thought to put it on video mode.....

Down at the Self Preservation Society today it was pretty full (in the loosest sense of the term). There was Martin and Ron (are they ever not there?), Ken who we met the other day (i wish he'd wear socks with his trainers and joggers combo), Darren who's one of the younger boys like myself (look, late thirties/early forties is young down there). Oh, and Barry was there too but he was putting a new roof on the building and only came in for a cuppa later on. It's his job by the way - we didn't draw lots to see who was going to put the felt on...

The other person there was a guy called Les who i hadn't seen before. Think Jerry in Pheonix Nights, Tony 'and Bully's special prize' Green in Bullseye or any former rock'n'roller still sporting a greying quiff and you will get the idea. A quip for every retort, a joke whenever there's a silence to fill and a vicious taunting of anyone who has the audacity to poke his head round the door means things never appear dull when Les is around. Sadly his lines could do with updating a little and his jokes are mainly rubbish but you can't have everything.

Once more chat got round to medical matters:
"...he's having his gall bladder out"
"Well you don't need that f***er anyway do you"
"Nah, like the appendix, waste of time"
....Slight pause....
"Like my prick"

You get the picture.

Ken you believe it

Items purchased at B&Q today: 3
Faulty items going back to B&Q tomorrow: 2
(Could've been worse, could've been Argos)

So i cycled down to SPS (5.6 miles round trip - impressive eh?) and pumped some iron. Not very much iron to be fair so i think it's best to say i'm building up slowly.

A couple of the old boys were there; Martin and Ron who run the place and are subsequently there most mornings and a guy i hadn't seen before called Ken. He must be in his late fifties/early sixties, wore a t-shirt and joggers that looked more than a couple sizes too big for him and looked pretty pale and unhealthy. Nevertheless, he was chucking some big weights on the ends of the barbell and really pushing himself to do the requisite reps. The banter was flowing as usual but i kind of felt a little disturbed for some reason. After Ken shuffled out muttering something about an appointment i threw a questioning look over to Martin:
"He's off for his chemo. Prostate cancer"

Gee zuz. I'd felt slightly embarrassed that the skinny old guy was doing weights three or four times heavier than i would ever dream of doing and that was before i knew he was ill. I am in awe....

...And moving on swiftly. Did you see Reggie Perrin tonight? I was a bit dubious about the 're-working' of an old sit-com - especially when it's Martin Clunes in for Leonard Rossiter (next you'll tell me the poet laureate is a girl) - but it was tres bon. Still, i didn't get where i am today talking about the modernising of a seventies sit-com.

I'm playing in a football tournament tomorrow and then we're all out on the sauce for the evening. It could be messy. It will certainly be blog-free and it's only 50/50 for Sunday.

Der is for Derby

Minutes spent on the phone to a call centre trying to cancel a subscription: 49 (and they're calling me back within 10 days to confirm!)
Income generated today: Nil

Well i did promise...
As the crow flies Derby is the second nearest city to my home. However as the time flies it's the nearest thanks to the delightful Brian Clough Way.That said, i've hardly ever been there and i still need a map to get around. Occasional forays in the past have included two, maybe three nights out, a handful of uneventful shopping trips and a very memorable afternoon standing on the terraces at the Baseball Ground getting coined from the Popside.I'd never felt massively inclined to head over there much as you can tell but recently quite a few friends had told me that the shiny Westfield shopping centre was the new Meadowhall (like i'm interested) and i'd heard that the Quad was worth a visit. I was also intrigued to inspect the 'Cathedral Quarter' they'd been mooing on about for a while on all the promotional literature so off i shot.

The place is dead once you're out of aforementioned shopping centre. It seems that any business worth its salt simply had to relocate to Westfield which opened a year or so ago (i think) and subsequently the streets are empty. There's a fair chance there are more uninhabited shops sporting To Let signs than actual ones open for business and as for the Cathedral Quarter... well, let's say i walked through this cultural area once without realising then had to go back through it again just to make sure it was there.

The Quad was good though - it's a cinema cum art gallery cum meeting place and they show decent films that are not necessarily of the blockbuster variety. There was a photographic exhibition on (free entry - yippee!) and they do a decent cup of coffee served by surprisingly pleasant staff in the funky eaterie.

But that was the highlight and the photos show i'm not messing. If the rest of my tour of the Midlands continues in this vein i will have to consider relocation myself...

He ponders, he quests (he wonders if that's correct verb usage)

Word of the day: flange
Corporate claptrapism of the day: push the envelope (yawn)

No SPS today (again) so i started pondering:
I’ve lived here all of my life and yet I still don’t really know where it is. To people in the South we’re the gritty North and yet to anyone living in Sheffield and upwards we are most definitely Southern puffs. Quite where our borders are remain a mystery yet everyone has heard of us. I’m talking of course about The Midlands.

According to Wikipedia (“so it must be true”, ‘The Sun’) the Midlands goes as far east as Skegness, as far north as Chesterfield, includes part of the Peak District, has a southerly point somewhere near Northampton, heads west beyond Telford over to the Welsh border and corresponds roughly to the outline of the ancient Kingdom of Mercia.

I’m not sure these borders are correct though. Certainly the BBC don’t think so. To them the East Midlands seems to be the little triangle at whose points lie Derby, Nottingham and Leicester - they do mention Lincolnshire from time to time but it’s purely tokenism - and the West Midlands is basically Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Stoke where it is apparently compulsory to talk in a reeelly strainge waiy.

In any case we have no true identity. If the south stops and the north begins at Watford Gap where the hell do we fit in?

More to the point. Why do people in Corby sound like wannabe Londoners? How can seaside towns be included in something named ‘The Midlands’? And perhaps most importantly, does anybody care?

Whether you do or you don’t, I’m going to find out. From time to time I will head boldly and randomly out into the middleish wilderness to bring you wonderful insights into what is after all, my own local area, and of which I probably know very little. I will photograph and document my travels and when I run short of ideas and need a few words to fill a page I shall google wherever I am and make it look like I know what I’m talking about. And it'll give me something else to blog about and yet another reason to do as little work as possible.

So tomorrow I begin my voyage of discovery. Remember the old adage that charity begins at home? Well this isn’t a charity so I’m going to start in Derby.

Walk the walk, shout the talk

Business calls received today: 0
Time spent caring about the above: 0

Blumming knackered. In my quest to discover the world we went into the Peak District yesterday. We walked 3 miles, (felt like ten thanks to hills steeper than Bob's Rock) had a bit of dinner in the pub, went home and collapsed into the chair. Too soon it was time to play 5-a-side whereupon i shouted at and argued with all and sundry about subtle nuances of the game that you probably wouldn't understand. I'm annoyed that people still don't accept that i'm always right - why are they wasting their time answering back?
I'm also fairly miffed that i got a ball full in the face at point blank range and am still suffering slight dizziness and severe can't-be-arsed-ness.

This means no SPS today so i can't tell you the tale of semen that rhymes with Yemen.
Forza Reading!

The Self Preservation Society

Business calls received: 5 (yes, it was a bloody busy one)
Bad jokes heard today: 3 (but i'm still laughing at one of them)

Since I started 'working from home' again it's been very hard to do anything remotely work like - I'm just far too busy.
Even if i don't have to do the school run, by the time i've checked my emails, replied to any remotely interesting ones (doesn't take long), deleted crap, unwanted ones (takes longer) and dashed off down to the gym for an hour it's almost time to start thinking about lunch. I haven't even allowed time here to google, yahoo and youtube my way through an ultimately unfulfilling hour's waste of an idea. Imagine the inconvenience when the mobile goes and i actually have to talk business to someone?

Anyway, i digress. I wanted to talk more specifically about the gym which i have now, i think quite aptly, labelled The Self Preservation Society. This monicker is not for selfish purposes. Whilst i have an interest in trying to keep myself relatively in trim the name is applied more in honour of the other attendees than for anything i am likely to do. Let me explain:

This is no ordinary, David Lloyd, 60 quid a month, yearly contract, beautiful people gym. Think scout hut, school disco, playgroup or afternoon linedancing and you immediately think of delapidated hut festooned with appropriate banners and notices stuck to the wall that nobody will ever read. Now imagine that hall emptied of everything, put down a frayed carpet, ensure windows won't open no matter how hard you push and then re-fill with antiquated gym equipment (has to be 1980's or earlier), rusty weights and cycling machines that wont stop even when you finished pedalling fifteen minutes ago and you have a pretty good idea of where i go most mornings. It's great and all for 70 shiny pounds. Per year!

And the main reason i think it's great is because of the people. Every morning the older generation come out of the woodwork and meet at the SPS (that's what i'm going to call it - can you see what i've done there? well i have just returned from America...). These guys have known each other for years. You'd never see them at another gym and, quite frankly, they wouldn't go anywhere else. Whilst most men of a certain age meet in the pub (or more likely in the doctor's waiting room) this lot go to keep fit, take the piss out of each other and crack rubbish jokes that you've heard a thousand variations of. They moan about football, the budget and winter fuel allowance and finish it all off with coffee and biscuits. Chocolate digestives of course.

Each one has something to say. Each one makes me laugh in their own way (they're not always trying to and they don't always know it!) and most of them seem to have troubles which they appear to bear well - it can be very humbling. I'll tell you more about them as we go along.

Oh yeah, it's great to be the young one in the crowd again!