Should be renamed ‘Rip Off Those Who Can Pay Tax’ in our neck of the woods. This year it will be just over £1600 on Rider’s modest property. In fact Piggynap is just querying her Tax as her ‘Band’ is different to others which are exactly the same - hopefully she’ll get a reduction. What do we get? I’ll tell you. The piece of Council grass in front left uncut as Him Indoors had been doing it… only because the Council cutters do not pick up the cuttings which get strewn all over the drive. Him Indoors now on strike needless to say. We get litter all over the place left unpicked due to our ‘Lengthsman’ being off sick and there not being money to employ a standin. We get bog standard streetlights in the village conservation area - thankfully the Parish Council has been able to pay for ‘heritage treatment’ with around a fifth coming indirectly from the city council. We get pavements resurfaced over 5 weeks which should have taken 5 days with men on site - on the days they were on site - for an average of 4 hours (finish lunchtime on Fridays of course). We get a dangerous narrow pavement to a historic local attraction left as it is (not enough fatalities/money to do it). Well we get a lot for our Council Tax where I live…. do you?
The internet domain name .xxx may be resurrected to bring adult websites into one place as I understand it. This seems to Rider to be a good thing so that everyone knows how to access such stuff should they be so minded - hitting the wrong key and finding yourself looking at something very strange has been known to happen. Presumably blocking would be easier too to protect children. In a leap of logic Rider was reminded about watching a TV programme called Pawn - a Pawn Shop business in America, run by a grandfather/father/son team who are all ‘characters’. It’s amazing the stuff they have in their shop - sometimes they buy and restore to resell as they did with an old soda dispensing machine. They bought a huge ‘teach cowboys to rope a calf machine’ once - a mechanical calf on rails came out from beneath the mechanical horse, at various speeds, the cowboy sitting on the horse then tried to rope it. If Rider could have afforded to import it and take it to Bramham 3 Day Event, a fortune might have been made. Sometimes an expert is called on - like with guns/coins/musical instruments. What makes the programme so watchable is the banter between the 3 chaps and the oddities that come in to pawn - both people and items! Have a look at this programme if you can find it…
Knock on door… opened to a vision… I swear it was Zandra Rhodes. Woman of middle youth, blonde hair escaping from funky woolly hat but her eye shadow was the most intricate bright - almost clown-like - I have every seen close up. It was predominantly red but with blues and golds and stuff - I think in tiny squares. It was amazing. Twinkly eyes, colourful clothes like Joseph’s coat of many colours, white knee boots, clip board in hand. Her opening words to Rider: ‘I love your hair’ - I immediately warmed to her since my hairdresser had just worked her magic and I look a million dollars. I really should have agreed to help her market research but I’d just switched the iron on. Oh what a lost opportunity… I could kick myself…a chat with Zandra Rhodes, or her sister…. How long did it take to put on that eye shadow? Where did she find her clothes? Did she know that vintage shop in Edinburgh? I bet she was such a great fun person … what a missed opportunity… Bugger. :O(
I’l fait beau aujourd’hui le 4 mars et c’est l’anniversaire de Grenouille (28). That’s enough French for today then… there are trois months before the trip. Consulting the Phrase book throws up some interesting things for conversation.. Je fais des economies pour m’acheter une moto.. for instance. Very amusing to let someone think Rider’s getting a motorbike. In Piggynap’s case .. je suis fauche.. might be appropriate (broke). Hopefully … ma voiture est bonne pour la casse.. won’t be needed (write-off). Oooh just found a familiar phrase .. Le cheval allait au trot; soudain il partit au galop…. How often has Rider had that experience! Anyway dinner out tonight for l’anniversaire…just as well after hard work in the garden for the first time since autumn.
Cesar Millan is doing a tour in Britain showing how to interact properly with your dog. I’ve seen loads of his Shows on TV from before he got so famous and what he does is common sense to an animal person. So few people now have been brought up around animals, paticularly in the case of those animals that humans have brought closely into their lives. Dogs are not people and don’t talk to each other so you have to communicate in the way dogs do with other dogs and they are pack animals who need a leader. Cesar has a golden rule in this order - exercise, discipline, love. I cannot understand why so many so-called experts are all steamed up about his methods cause I’ve never seen him hit or be cruel to a dog in any way in all the programmes I’ve seen. Where he is using physical ‘prompts’, these are confined to a quick tug on a leash placed high up on the dog’s neck to be effective and a ‘bite’ by using a sort of poke with his fingers to simulate a bite. He also may use a push sideways with his foot against the dog’s body to reinforce from behind the tug on the leash to help to redirect the dog’s attention to following him rather than paying unwelcome attention elsewhere. The man loves dogs - I’ve seen him control the uncontrollable - I’ve seen him deal with terrified dogs. He always has to re-educate the owners to see their dog through the eyes of the dog and understand what dogs need from their owners. This is exactly the same as happens with so-called uncontrollable equines - in 99% of cases they are not born that way but made by a stupid human owner. Great guy … watch his programmes if you love your dog.
Just finished reading a book - a thriller about a fire and brimstone American preacher with white supremicist views but who is intelligent enough to retract his views when presented with some research done by a geneticist. The geneticist shows that certain human branches sometimes suffer from deseases unknown in other branches and that where branches have intermingled the result is a much better specimen.The preacher gets murdered by rednecks who don’t want him to go public to say that we all need to intermingle to take forward God’s great plan. That’s the gist of it. Coincidentally Writeous Dude and I got talking about our family tree which, on one side, makes Dude one sixteenth Jewish. Some ancestors came from Prussia c1840s probably to escape persecution. The two Countries with the greatest mix of races could be America and us Brits. Americans have only been at it for a short time but we Brits for ages - native Celts, Vikings, Anglo Saxons, Romans, Normans, Jews, Poles, Eastern Europeans, Russians, Chinese, etc. It must be the case that anyone coming from somewhere where there has been pretty much a single race for centuries, is astonished at the variety of folk they see in Britain. This process of intermingling of the races must have speeded up tremendously with the ease of modern travel so, if we realised it, we are already breeding the human super-race and well on the way to having stirred it for a hundred years or more and turning out coffee-coloured people by the score. Of course we Brits are so much more advanced on this road because of our heritage - particularly if, like Rider, one happens to have been born in God’s own county :)
Memories have been stirred by the forthcoming trip. Walking enfamille down a road… French car comes to a halt… oh heck will Rider’s French be required?… out jumped chap, hurried to the rear and opened the boot…walked a few metres to a heap a horse had left in the road… picked up said heap with his bare hands and put it into the boot… back in the car and drove off. Thoughts of his hands on the steering wheel, perfume inside the car, wifey ‘que’ce que c’est le phew?’… which veggies were to receive the pile… would the boot be cleaned before the shopping went in. The sight occupied our thoughts for the rest of the hols. Then there was the gendarme standing with speed gun furiously blowing his whistle as Him Indoors whizzed past a lorry … he slowed down after overtaking of course. We worried that we might be arrested right up to the time the boat sailed. It could have been worse, Him Indoors could have rolled the window down the stuck 2 fingers out and shouted ‘Agincourt’ or ‘Waterloo’ but he resisted. Still, it might be that somewhere in a little Hotel de Ville in some small town there’s a faded poster with Rider’s details on it and a reward offered. Then there was the time Rider went looking for wild goats on an island near Dinard with an attractive Frenchman but that’s another story 
Ooh .. it’s years since Rider enfamille visited France. Hols had been discussed.. from a few days in New York to ditto in Hong Kong, to walking on the Isle of Wight, to walking in Portugal, to Hotel on the Algarve, to Hotel in Normandy via ferry. Criterion was fairly cheap this year to allow for a more expensive trip next year and how deliberations came to cover what they did can only be understood by knowing Rider. Tossing about on a boat again is left field, given Rider’s hatred of boats, but a fast craft has been booked. Fingers crossed for weather as, if it’s rough, the fast boat gets cancelled. A journey in a Force 8 gale in June brings back memories… Anyway brushing up on the French between now and then… a problem we shouldn’t have had if some of the Kings of England back in the day had managed to get their hands on France too… we’d all have spoken French from back then. The French will love Rider’s attempts to converse and if that fails then Him Indoors can always use sign language. So croissants and crepes and charcuterie and chic and je ne sait quoi… good memory eh? ;)
I’m in demand according to an advert on Facebook …. wanting people in their maturity to try out certain unspecified ‘products’. I was tempted to reply… after all it could be a top notch Plastic Surgeon wanting to do a before and after shoot and I want to look my best for when Writeous Dude gets that BAFTA award for Best New Writer and Rider gets to be his guest and the cameras pan on her and everyone is amazed, just like on TV last night. However they could just be wanting the matured to try out foot warmers and the like so, on reflection, maybe not worth replying…
It’s taken 4 weeks for Leeds Highways to refurbish the pavement in my short street. There have been 3/4 bad weather days in this time. The workman were on site a total of 4.5 hours a day on most days for 3 weeks - probably time between their home depot is counted as working. This week they have been about 4 hours in total. No explanation of why they were missing. Today they laid about 30 metres and left the front of my house to do, knocking off at lunchtime (Friday) as they have each week. I’m so glad I’m left to last as I happen to be the Parish Clerk so can’t be accused of favouritism! Whilst the work has been done to a good standard, I believe it could have been done in a week. Will it be finished Monday? your guess is as good as mine. Was this example of working typical? Was there a total price for the job so it didn’t matter how long it took? Why dig up pavement if tarmac is not to be laid for a week? The great questions of our times folks - carry on paying your Council Tax and hope your pavements don’t need refurbishing. Leeds Council Highways - you have made Rider mad.
