Linky

Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to watch all of the episodes of “Police Squad” back to back. IN COLOR!

So, because of this, blogging has been on the back burner for a while. I must admit, the past few weeks have been hectic as hell. Some of you may remember over the last couple of years (well, since about 1998), I have been complaining about the heating system in Mercuryvapour Towers, and the fact that it’s been completely knackered for about 10 years. Over the least couple of years, I worked out that if you don’t run the hot tap, the heating will kick in after a couple of hours, with its distinctive “chink….. whoooof” noise, and all will be well until someone runs the hot tap. The house will then be plunged into the murky depths of coldness, and if we had a winter like we did last year, that clearly isn’t a good thing. There was only one thing for it. Invest in a new boiler, and invest we did!

Boiler has arrived, early. I’m either going to end up in hospital or prison 8:04 AM Sep 28th via Twitter for Android

I know that most people probably got sick to death of my incessant tweetings about the status of the boiler, but this was a big step. It was certainly something I was dreading. When the original boiler was installed back in 1994, the house was in uproar for about a week. I think every floorboard got lifted. I expected something similar. It wasn’t as bad this time, in fact, we even got the “blue carpet” treatment for a couple of days…

I expected having to completely dismantle everything in this room, as the old water filter is in my cupboard. The “crystals” in it haven’t been changed since it was fitted, so according to the plumber (whose name I can’t remember, but he had an apprentice called Lee), it was no surprise the old boiler packed up.

Thankfully, they didn’t need to get access to it, so I was safe. In fact, they only entered my room once….

There are strange people in my room. THERE ARE STRANGE PEOPLE IN M…. oh, he’s only bleeding the radiator. 29 September 2010 12:31:09 via web

I will never know if ‘Lee’ saw what I was typing. He was a bit shy, and if he had to ask the main guy a question, he referred to us as ‘The Customer’. I felt sorry for him in a way, obviously having to follow the rules to the letter. I felt like saying to him “Please! You can call me ‘His Royal Highness”, but I didn’t. My room must have been a whole new experience to him. Clean(ish) floor, yet a bed that had clearly not been slept in for days, as it was piled up like Steptoe’s yard. Either way, a day and a half after it started, the blue carpet was lifted, we were left with a terminally scarred bathroom floor, but most importantly…

It’s all over. We have heat! 29 September 2010 15:59:39 via txt

I clearly can’t decide on the best way to tweet, but yes, everything is warm and cosy here now. Unfortunately, I’ve left it a little too late to book a place at university to study the timer controls, so I’m making to with “off” and “on” at the moment. It does, however, mean a trip through the long dusty corridors of Mercuryvapour Towers each time I get too warm, but that’s a small price to pay.

In other news, I’ve bought a CD. No, really. I’ve invested in a dying format. Yes, I was drunk. Yes, I’d watched *that* episode of Eastenders where Peggy Mitchell “walked away”. Yes, I googled “Peggy’s Theme”. Yes, the result ended up with me buying “The Simon May Collection: Eastenders and Other Themes”. Yes, the arrival of the afore mentioned CD caused the postie to ring the doorbell, while I tried to gather some digtnity (in other words, underpants), while I went downstairs to collect the parcel. Except that the “parcel” fitted through the letterbox. Yes, I ended up stood on the doorstep, with hair half-past Wednesday, with the postie shouting “Oh, it fitted through your letterbox”. Of course it did. It was a CD.

Therefore: I was the proud owner of…

I intended to do a full review of the CD, in fact, most of the drafts I wrote centred around this particular purchase, and my attempts to review every track. It’s simply not possible, as it’s got to be the biggest hit ‘n’ miss CD I’ve ever purchased. The ultimate track, which I didn’t even know was on the CD, is “Barracuda”. You won’t recognise it by the name, but it’s the jazzy, synthed up end theme to “Howards Way”… linky here for those who missed my facebook jizzfest over my discovery of the afore mentioned theme. That alone is worth the £6.99 I paid. The ultimate downside to the entire CD is track 22, named “Glory Be To God On High”. When you realise that all of the lyrics are sung to the Eastenders theme tune, and sung by a bunch of kids, it equates to the most painful 3 minutes and 18 seconds known to mankind. If you’re after a song constructed around the Eastenders theme, however, you do get Anita Dobson’s “Anyone Can Fall In Love” as track 17, and in a rare move of theme-tune availablility, the 2009-present version of the Eastenders theme is included, though there’s no “extra” bits in this version, it’s literally just the theme, clocking in at a measly 1:10 in length. The other versions have been at least a little different from the ones used in the programme.

As I approach the sacred 1000-word mark, I’ll have to turn my attention to work. It’s been busy, and I can only assume it’s only going to get busier. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I’m enjoying it being busy.

Oh yes, I’ve also got a new phone, if you couldn’t work that out by the last post. It’s also less than a month to this blog’s 10th birthday. To add to my ever growing of dead celebrity obituaries, Norman Wisdom left the station yesterday. A shame, but at 95, “bloody good innings”, etc.

Chris was round tonight, so a night of vegetation in front of the telly was in order. The afore mentioned programme sparked enough interest in the room to warrant its watching. On the other hand (ho ho), there wasn’t much else on.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable look back at the man’s life, with clips from shows I didn’t even think existed anymore. The end theme, however, made me shout of with amazement.

Let me take you back to 1992, 1993ish. My record collection was still at a minimal level. Few singles, fewer albums. This was boosted by an old relative clearing out her cupboards, and a stack of mainly uninteresting LPs were given to me. Out of all of the albums played, two tracks stood out. One of them featured on a scratchy old Telstar compilation album named “More Green Velvet”, and was entitled “The Lonesome Boatman” by The Fureys + Davey Arthur. It was a short, flutey, instrumental with a great guitar track and very 80s sounding seagull samples.

Now, thanks to the tinternet, I was able to find many different recordings of this, but not the one featured on the More Green Velvet album. The online stores only stocked the same CDs which had a different version. Even Spotify didn’t have it. Thankfully, I managed to find a version of it on youtube. It was longer than my vinyl version, though it would appear that the disc it came from was long out of print, and therefore went for an absolute fortune on ebay. Sigh. This was the only time I’d heard it coming from a source other than my own record collection.

Years pass, and on Friday, I’m awoken with the tune in my head, and the realisation I’d not tried any of the digital download sites. Within minutes, I was 69p lighter, and downloading “The Lonesome Boatman” My long search was over! In fact, I tweeted about it…

Finally got a digital version of “The Lonesome Boatman” by The Fureys for 69p… had it on vinyl, given to me by a long dead relative. 11:45 AM Aug 13th via web

All was not right, however, when I played it through headphones for the first time…

Ugh. Disregard my earlier “Lonesome Boatman” tweet. Awful analogue tape damage on this version all the way through. 69p wasted. Grrrrr. 1:48 AM Aug 14th via web

If you’re listening through speakers, it’s not too bad, but on headphones, the right channel is terrible! This version is taken from a “greatest hits”, so I’m hoping for a better version out there somewhere.

Er, anyway, back to the telly theme link…. two days after purchasing it, the very same version was used as the closing credits for the Jeremy Beadle thing. I find it really a bit spooky and coincidental that I would buy this tune almost immediately after waking up thinking about it, and two days later, for the first time in ~18 years, actually hear it broadcast on TV. It’s just weird, and a little too concidental.

Oh, and, to end this posting with yet another “death” announcement, according to the UKGameshows mailing list, Jack Parnell, one of the two composers of the original “Family Fortunes” theme (Bob Monkhouse / Max Bygraves era), has died. The other composer, Dave Lindup, died in 1992. Lindup’s son, Mark, is the keyboard player from Level 42.

Joffa also had a flickr account which I didn’t know until right now.

Lord Charles is speechless…

I’m going to play “Double Dutch” loudly. Because that’s the only song of his I can remember, and even then it was because of the Dope Smugglas remix in 1998ish.

The sooner 2009 ends, the sooner I can get on with life, and start afresh…

JANUARY 2009

The first proper post saw me killing off the video blogs. They were unpopular and embarrassing. I took the first of a handful of walks throughout the year, and documented it with photos. Work continued to get me down, for reasons I can’t think of, and I survived the great Google outage. The first death of 2009 came in the form of my 4Gb memory stick, which succombed to a shorted out USB port…

FEBRUARY 2009

It snowed a little, more than once. JT moved onto the other rotation, and I started blethering on about creating backups using Clonezilla. Unfortunately, this was not going to be the last long-winded post about my computer experimentations. In fact, this seemed to be the whole theme of the year. Work started on building houses on the vacant land on Warren Road, despite it being heavily landscaped only a few years before, no doubt at great cost to the Hartlepudlian taxpayer.

Dick Brown, webmaster of www.dick-brown.com (the w’s stand for wankstain) received an insanely full bottle of orange squash.

MARCH 2009

An entirely forgettable month, if I’m honest. I worked overtime for only the second time in my life, and I went to Durham with Chris at some point, to give my camera its first test. I ended up misjudging a step and twatting my knee off the floor. The cooler on the sarnie machine also malfunctioned, casuing it to display “HEALTH CONTROL” on its VFD display.

APRIL 2009

April 1st consisted of vast amounts of kitchen cleaning. April 4th consisted of my Grand National faux pas, and mercuryvapour.co.uk once again moved servers.

A bird took residence in Mercuryvapour Towers, and it became apparent that nobody reads this blog anymore.

MAY 2009

Unperturbed about the bad news regarding the blog “statistics”, I still continued to write. On May 7th, Andy The Iridium Fan donated the second mercury lantern into my streetlighting collection, in the form of an unused Revo Prefect.

The biggest overhaul came towards the end of this particular month wne I took delivery of a new dartboard.

A lot of spare time was taken with this particular hobby from this moment on.

Dick Brown received some money from MS, on May 13th. I have no idea what for, but I was on-hand with cameraphone, to record the historic event…

JUNE 2009

So, everyone will be asking, where were you when he died? Yes, surely, the biggest, most famously untimely death of 2009, according to the mercuryvapour.co.uk super-statistic website generator, is…

Yes, sod Michael Jackson. This was the most untimely death for me anyway

Apart from death, June consisted of record breaking sunburn, after climbing Christchurch, and spending about an hour up there.

It really was crustier than it looked.

Unfortunately, it turned out that a sunburned scalp was to be the least of my worries, as July rearerd its ugly head… stay tuned for Part 2

I feel that I can’t say much more than that. I am truly, truly devastated. He really was one of the best blokes you were ever likely to meet. I have known him pretty much from when I started at my job 8 years ago.

We would often spend time joking with each other about which one finished our shifts first. I would often say, as I was leaving the building, someting along the lines of “Well, there’s 8 cold ones in the fridge for when I get in”, normally resulting in a glare, and a “Yeah, go on, fuck off!”, which was even more prominent if he just happened to be starting his night shift as I was leaving. One of the best examples of this was when he was on Messenger, at work. He was sat in his little security office, and I took a photo over the line of cold cans I was about to drink. Honestly, you’ve never heard swearing like it. It was hilarious. He always remembered that night, and would often remind me of it, usually adding the word “twat” to the end of it.

I recall the time I received a call on my mobile from him. I can’t remember the exact details of what it was he asked me, in fact, I didn’t even know it was him, as he called from a different number. When he realised I was out, enjoying several and/or many pints, alongside a game of snooker, my phone turned blue.

He will always hold the record for the “most calls taken by a security guard”, following the release of a particularly bugged piece of software. I think it was something like 400.

He was a stickler to the golden rule… if you order a takeaway to be delivered to work, you always ask the security guard if he wants anything. Otherwise, your food may be subject to a 20-minute “cooling off” period in his office. Many a new worker fell foul to that rule, only to be presented with luke-warm, stodgy chips! If you asked him if he wanted anything, your food would be hand-delivered to your desk, no questions asked, and no matter what type of “eating at your desk” ban may have been in place at the time. To put it simply, if you respect him, he respects you, and that goes for everything.

My memories of Stu are long and rambling. He was a great guy, a true asset to the company, and someone who will be sorely missed by all who knew him. I’ll miss you mate.

I am happy to report, however, that he is recovering well.

You will have to realise that typing this is probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. If I word things incorrectly or inappropriately, I apologise. If I use my own style of ‘humorous content’ , again, this is my way of dealing with it. No amount of years ‘blogging’ could have prepared me for what I’m about to say. It will be rambling, it will be from my point of view.

So, at 3AM on Thursday, I was at work, just came back back from lunch. My mobile goes off, with “Dad” appearing on the screen”. This is not a good time for my dad to ring me, so I instantly knew something was wrong.

I answer.

“Jamie, get a taxi to Accident and Emergency… I’ve got something wrong with my ticker”

“Oh fuck”, I reply, unable to calculate the severity of the situation.

Something else was said. I didn’t take it in. The next thing was the sound of rustling, no response from Dad.

At this point, voices can be heard, alongside frantic activity. “Pulse… no pulse… anyone find a pulse”…

The phone hung up, or I hung up at this point. I can’t remember. I knew it was bad. I was beside myself, literally hysterical. Anyone else who happened to be on other people’s phone at the time would have thought that someone had died, and they’d be entirely right. My dad was “dead” at this point.

Separate from this, something just fell over on my desk just as I typed that last sentence. I’m not a one that believes in ghosts and shit like that, but that was weird

Either I received a call, or I managed to get through to someone who answered by dad’s mobile. The nurse acknowledged that my dad had a heart attack, he was critical, and I should get myself there as quickly as possible.

I was offered a lift by Paul, which I was in no position to refuse. My first priority was to get in touch with someone. I rang Chris. I have no recollection of the conversation except the fact that I’d somehow arranged with Paul to pick him up on the way to the hospital. How I got across to him where Chris actually lived remains a mystery.

The journey from work to Chris’s, then the hospital, was the worst time of my life. Not knowing exactly what was going on, a few brain-garbled sentences to go by, I didn’t know what was going to happen as I went through the door. A nurse was already waiting for me. I expected the worst.

I was taken to a little room. I’m not a big fan of TV Shows such as Casualty, but I recognised this room. It’s where you’re going to be told the worst. Blue carpet, orangey-peach wallpaper, plastic covered chairs alternating between turquoise and orange. Seconds later, one of the nurses who was treating my dad came out.

“We’re doing all we can to revive him”. I can’t remember what I asked, but the resulting answer was something like “until we all agree there’s no more we can do”.

I clung onto Chris. I felt pain like I have never felt before. I have heard the word “crushed” mentioned as an emotion before, but have never felt its true force until that moment.

At some point, I had tried to phone his fiancee, who I shall refer to from now on (for the sake of anonymity) as L. I wasn’t able to reach her. Nothing. Just a voicemail. I left a message which was probably indecipherable.

The next memory is a confused one. I remember being asked if I wanted to see him. At this point, I don’t think he was back round. Maybe he’d came around by then. I don’t know. I do remember someone saying that it may be more distressing for me to see him in this way. You can guarantee this wouldn’t be the case. Either way, I know he was back alive. The nurse advised me to look past the wires and the pipes. this, as a “geek” was easy, but obviously, everyone sees things differently. I saw my dad lying there. This was my first glimpse of him in this state. I took a look around. There were about 10 or 11 people stood around looking relaxed. I noticed he had his “funny trainers” on.

“Hiya Jame”, he uttered though his oxygen mask. He never calls me Jamie unless I’ve been naughty.

Choked with emotion, I just stuck a thumb up. Obviously, the relaxed people had a job to do, and I was directed to an office where I could gather my thoughts and at least begin to take stock of what just happened.

I was visited by certain members of the ‘crew’ for want of a better word. The main surgeon came in, and explained everything. I asked what the chances were. “50/50″ was his response. I think I laughed out loud at this point, as an image of Homer Simpson popped into my head saying “Oooh, I like those odds!” Funny how the brain works sometime.

Everything at this point was just a mush. I can’t put times to anything. I received a call on my mobile…

It was a bloke. “I don’t know who you are, but I think you’ve got the wrong number”… yup, the voicemail I’d left for L had fallen on “deaf” ears, thankfully. Any information given in that recording would be null and void anyway. It turned out, obviously, that the list of numbers I have for people was seriously out of date

I asked the nurse if I could have my dad’s mobile, which was duly given to me. Dad remained totally on form. Through his mask, he said “Sorry, I’m gonna pump”… *phhhrp*. I laughed hard, it was the first genuine light relief since this whole incident began. Or, in my dad’s case, it was “shite relief”.

He was to be transferred over to James (Jimmy) Cooks hospital in Middlesbrough. A few more staff came over and told me the procedure. about going in through his groin and opening up whatever needed to be opened. However, now that he was stabilized, it was a case of waiting for the ambulance to come and take him over there. I phoned ‘Tiggy’, one of my dad’s closest friends. I was hoping he would have a home number for L as the number I had turned out to be useless. He didn’t have a landline number, but he did have a different mobile number which was the same one in my dad’s phone. Tiggy took it upon himself to contact as many people as he could on my behalf to let them know the situation. Words can’t express how thankful I was for him doing that.

After trying to drown out the sound of someone being violently sick in one of the recovery bays, the ambulance arrived from Middlesbrough. He was more alert by this point, yet still totally dazed. He was more concerned about his car keys, and the fact his car was left in the ambulance bay. For you see, when he started feeling ill, he got in the CAR and DROVE to the hospital. No, really. There’s no doubt that this action saved his life. A minute after he’d got out of the car, he was on the trolley and technically dead.

The ambulance arrived, and he was wheeled quickly into the back of it. I couldn’t go with him for obvious resons. Ambulances aren’t exactly designed to carry passengers, and me being there would have been pointless anyway. Dad disappeared in the ambulance, with its blue lights blaring.

After tearfully thanking the staff for everything they’ve done, I begin to walk home with Chris. I have never felt so lonely in my life. I know I have used the word “lonely” a lot over the past few years. I realise now that it was without its true meaning. It was about 4:30 AM by this point. Can’t really remember the time. We left the hospital grounds and I froze on Holdforth Road. Not one other sole apart from us two were around. There was silence. Absolute, complete and utter silence. Apart from Chris, I was truly on my own, with not a clue what was going to happen.

I didn’t want to return home. It took me at least 30 minutes to walk home. For those who know the location of (sigh) “Mercuryvapour Towers”, you’ll know that this is a long time. I couldn’t go into the house. Obviously, I had no idea what I would expect, or how I would feel.

The house didn’t feel the same. It felt cold.

Chris stayed with me in this time. Everything upset me. Stupid things. Dad had brought me back a keyring from Scotland a year or two ago, and the faceplate had become unstuck. No less than 24 hours earlier, he said “Remind me on, I’ll glue that back on for you”. The keys, keyring and faceplace were laid out on the table, unstuck. He’d also opened some biscuits I had in the fridge, and had a couple of packets of crisps which I said he could have.

The next 2 hours or so was just a complete blur. I had to give it at least 2 hours before I called up Jimmy Cooks and checked how my dad was doing. This was when I closed on the website. It really wasn’t relevant any more, especially after the post I’d made previously. You may remember it. I’d whinged at how there’d been no holidays booked this year. If we’d have gone ahead with the holidays this year on the same date, look what would have happened. It became apparent that anything I’d written on the blog no longer had any relevance.

I eventually plucked up the courage to ring Jimmy Cooks. By the time I’d rang, he was just coming out of the operation, and was asked to give it another hour or so, just so he can be assessed.

Again, there was another hour of sitting around. Nothing much that could be done. It was just another hour of my life that will remain permanently blank. I went through my dad’s phone and contacted who I thought would be relevant. Most of them I woke up, but unfortunately it had to be done.

I rang Jimmy Cooks up, and they had news that things went well and he was recovering. There was still a 12 hour “critical” period, but he was recovering well, and they would accept visitors at any time. I cried again, hugging Chris to within an inch of his life.

Plans were arranged for Chris’s dad to pick up the car from outside the hospital. After this was done, Chris went home for a couple of hours and I was left truly on my own. I didn’t actually want to be in the house on my own. I wandered around outside, inspecting every inch of the front garden. As a neighbour left the house, I’d let them know what happened, that my dad had a heart attack, and giving them as much information as I could. All were shocked, and offered any help that they could. The times I did enter the house, I walked through the living room, to the kitchen and back again, repeating the process.

Chris came back up after a small amount of sleep, and found me doing the afore mentioned routine. I’d even switched the telly and the sky box on, yet had left it in the “main menu”, clearly taking no notice on what was happening on screen. He’s asked me how long it had been like that. I couldn’t give him an answer.

I was torn, and not good for anything, and this was clear. I didn’t know what the fuck to do. He arranged a taxi to pick us up and take us to Jimmy Cooks. It felt like the longest taxi ride in my entire life. It probably was.

After negotiating (badly) the maze of corridors and entrances, we eventually found the CCU (coronary care unit). Apparently, we’d walked right past it. The doctors were seeing my dad at the time, so we were shown to the “quiet room”. I think I called more people at this point just to give them an update.

We were shown into see my dad. From what had happened about 8 hours ago, the recovery was incredible. I believe it was still classed as “intensive care”, but he was fully awake, talking and cracking jokes with the nurses. He had to lay flat, due to the fact they had to insert a camera through his groin, and that obviously would take time to heal. Oh, and the presence of a drip which he kept setting off the alarm for by raising his left arm to do anything. He was also on oxygen via a nose pipe, though I guess this is normal.

They obviously kept having to do things to him, so Chris and I left for a quick trip into Middlesbrough itself in order to get a couple of things he might need such as a dressing gown, it simply became apparent that Middlesbrough somehow didn’t cater for the erm… “larger man”, unless I was just looking in the wrong place. He did, however, appreciate the grapes and bananas I bought him.

L was there by the time I’d got there, and all three of us had to put up with my dad’s sense of humour for a period of time. Normally, at this point, I’d say “Joy” sarcastically, but this time I really mean “joy”.

Day 1 ended at this point. L left a short while before me and Chris, yet, thanks to the bus having to be diverted, she probably got home long before us.

As soon as we got back to mine, there was just enough time to have a bath and change of clothes before we headed off to the club, with the main aim of giving everyone a verbal interpretation of what I’ve typed in the previous 2,222 words.

Chris returned to mine, and after a short time, I walked with him back to his house. The walk back from there, however, was awful, as the memories of the previous day came flooding back. At one point, I had to hold on to some nearby railings as I felt that my legs couldn’t hold the weight. This was probably exhausion, as I’d been awake at least 31 hours by that point.

Eventually, I made it home, by this point, it was 2AM and after failing to “get my shit together”, fell asleep on the couch. I’d set my alarm for 9.

11AM came, with my phone ringing. I’d totally slept through the alarm. Obviously, the ringtone is more important, seeing as it could have been the hospital phoning. Thankfully, it wasn’t. It was just someone wanting to find out the visiting hours.

The rain had been constant all night. IT was the heaviest constant rain I’ve seen for many years. This was no normal rain shower. I’d collected some belongings my dad wanted, such as his reading glasses and some tracksuit bottoms, seeing as my pyjama hunt has proved fruitless.

I made my way to the hospital alone, as Chris had done more than enough over the previous 38 hours. I did text him and tell him that the road was reopened, so my bus journey was a lot shorter than the one we’d taken the previous day.

I was lucky enough to get off one bus and straight onto another which would complete the journey to Jimmy Cooks. Unfortunately, I got off a stop too late, and ended up walking in the wrong direction, despite saying to myself “You know, I’m sure that’s the hospital back there…”

It was indeed, and this rain did not let up. I arrived at the CCU, soaked to the skin. I looked into the intensive care bay my dad was in yesterday, only to find it unoccupied. They had moved him out of the bay into a small ward. Obviously, this was a good sign.

Unfortunately, for my dad, where they had pummeled his chest in order to get his heart going again, they’d left a hell of a lot of bruising around that whole area, as you’d expect, and that the bruising was now starting to come through. This meant that although he was on the mend internally, the external pain was excruciating for him. Any slight movement, including beep breaths, had him wincing uncontrollably in pain. I had to keep thinking to myself “it’s better than him NOT having his chest compressed”. He was obviously given painkillers for it, but these didn’t help.

Despite the fact he’d only been in that ward a few hours, he was moved again to another ward in between receiving an x-ray to check to see if they’d cracked any ribs. His ribs were fine, they were just bruised. Apparently, the “little tablets” helped.

A doctor, who bore an absolutely stunning resemblance to Andy Bell out of Erasure, delivered the worst possible news to me. Daddykins has to eat more fish. And with him out of action, I’ll probably have to cook the fucker! And yes, chippy fish is totally, totally out of the question.

When the curtain was pulled back, Dad had visitors from two good friends, who also offered to give me a lift home. Unfortunately, thanks to the flooding on the A19, the diversion of dropping me off must have added at least half an hour to their journey

If you’ve made it this far without photographs, or skipping anything, I can only thank you. It is unlikely that I’ll update this with any further information in the very near future, as the “serious” part is over, and I’ll be cutting my computer time to the absolute bare minimum. I will still check my emails at webmaster[at]mercuryvapour.co.uk and reply to where relevant.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8129617.stm

I shall always remember her from “That’s My Boy” and the episode where she said “Oooh, titties” about 50 times.

In other news, my sunburn appears to be getting better, and the streetlight once known as XJT5 (now XJT3) has been painted black.

“It is with regret that I announce the passing of” Dom DeLuise.

Lenny Bennett also died very recently without hardly a whimper from the blogging community. I assume the master tapes of “Punchlines” and “Lucky Ladders” hold very little monetary value in 2009, and have since been destroyed or recorded over.

“Cannonball Run” isn’t very funny now, apparently. I’ve yet to watch the DVD I received in a newspaper…

The day started with Breakfast once again. Now, let me just explain about the breakfast. You’ve seen me mention it many times, but I’ve yet to explain in great detail what it consists of. And, seeing as we’re in our penultimate full day, I might as well tell you.

Just over the junction from the hotel was a lovely little eaterie called La Terrasse. You may have noticed I’d mentioned it a few days ago, when discussing Chicken Brochettes. Anyway, this was our chosen breakfast spot too. For €8.50, you get the Fench Breakfast, consisting of half a baguette, crossiant, (including jam / marmalade if required) orange juice and hot drink of your choice. It really is a perfect way to start the day, even if it is a little expensive. I’m considering taking it up as part of my daily ritual. It surpassed the breakfast we had in Berlin by some considerable margain.

Before I’d gone away, I’d been informed of a few must-see places. These mainly involved around dead people. The two places that immediately sprang to mind were Jim Morrison, and the Catacombs. But seeing as Bastille Day had been on 14th July, we thought that we might as well go and see Bastille to start the day off. After all it, was on the Metro Map, and considering we knew how to use the Metro now, there was no harm in giving it a quick try out on a lovely Sunday morning.

Tickets were purchased, thanks to the machine on the Ecole Militaire platform. Once again, we entered through the automatic gates, and awaited our train. There was rarely a wait longer than 5 minutes for every train we waited for. This was ideal.

So, after swapping trains, we reached Bastille, expecting something immense like what we’d seen the day before in Le Grande Arche. So, as we exited the Metro station, our collective thoughts were…. um, is this it?

Considering Bastille Day is so widely celebrated, we expected to find more than an admittedly large statue, and something that may, or may have not been some type of ticket office.

The ticket office isn’t featured in that picture, before you question me! In fact, after a quick Wiki, I was right about the ticket office. It was indeed a ticket office, for the Opera Bastille, and that structure you see before you in that photo is known as the July Column.

We took a walk about, considering it was a stupidly hot day. We walked past Bastille itself. Or at least I think we did. All of the historical point of interest signs were in French, and Google Maps wasn’t much help.

We ended up by the side of the river again, and I broke out the camcorder for the last time in this particualr holday, meaning that the tapes I’d bought from the Louvre were completely useless. They’re still sat in my suitcase, wrapped in their cellophane. Ah well. They’ll do for next year.

After deciding there was little to see or do here, we headed back to the hotel in order to pick up my Lonely Planet guide, and also so that I could use the “room facilities”.

I began to read the section on graveyards in my little book, knowing that Jim Morrison’s grave was somewhere in Paris, and thanks to the Metro map given in the afore mentioned guide, we pinpointed it to the exact location. Within minutes, we were back in the metro station, buying tickets to feed through the machine. I bought two, as I understood that we would need to return. C+J only bought one.

Once again, the metro trip was like one of those things where your brain switches off, waking up every few minutes to see which station you’ve stopped at. As expected, the correct station was located, and we exited the urine soaked rat-tunnels.

The Père Lachaise Cemetery was just over the road, so we negotaited the traffic, and entered through the most unstable steps I’ve ever seen.

Now, over here, graveyards are roughly the size of postage stamps. Tiny little things with 3-foot high headstones, where you can easily see from one side of the graveyard to another This wasn’t the case here. This graveyard consists pretty much entirely of huge crypts where whole families are laid to rest. I guess “burial real estate” is at a premium in this particular capital city. According to my handy little guidebook, there are roughly 1,000,000 people buried here. There are maps on the entrances and exits, but the whole place is still confusing. Everything is split into divisions and roads, of which there are about 90.

After walking about for about half an hour, with not a clue where Jim Morrison’s grave was, we consulted one of these maps. It wasn’t much help. Another half an hour later, we eventually found it! And it’s very, very small.

For someone with the status of Jim Morrison, I was expecting one of the large monuments to be his grave. Nope. In fact, this is it…

At this point, my phone rang for the first time on the entire holiday. It was Daddykins, wanting to know what time we were arriving back in Newcastle on Tuesday. It felt weird saying “Can’t talk now Dad, I’m at Jim Morrison’s grave”… In fact, walking around a graveyard with a camera felt really weird anyway.

Aother person buried in the same cemetary is Oscar Wilde. As you’d expect, however, his grave is a little more… erm… “impressive”. Covered with lipstick, with little poems left on it.

There’s a story about this paricular gravestone. Now, the angle I was stood at when I took this photo makes it hard to tell, but the large angel on the gravestone was once complete with a full set of male genitals, which were lopped off at some point and used as a paperweight in the cemetary office.

It occured to me that both of these foreign trips we’d made have had unintentional links to Oscar Wilde… In Berlin, there was the Oscar Wilde Irish Bar, and here we were, standing outside his grave. Ironically, his grave was busier than what the bar in Berlin was.

Edith Piaf’s grave was also there, again for someone so famous, hers was almost unnoticeable. in fact, I wouldn’t have seen it if an american tourist hadn’t said “Gee, look, Maw! It’s Edith Pee-aff’s grave!” (They didn’t really say that, did they? – Ed)

Um, no.

There was one grave which wasn’t mentioned on the map, but I would have liked to see… the grave of Gilbert Becaud. You may remember I mentioned him yesterday, and even purchased one of his CDs. I knew he had died, but it wasn’t until I got home I found out that he was buried in that very cemetary. I might have even walked past it without knowing. Bah!

After walking around the cemetary for what must have been two hours, we began to head off for something to eat and drink, eventually settling for a little café a few hundred yards from the cemetary. Something I did notice about Paris, despite most of the shops being closed on Sundays, the butchers were still open. This is obviously the complete opposite of here.

Anyway, this particular café was the only one where we actually needed to speak French, as the owner didn’t speak a word of english (alledgedly). For fear of ordering something completely different than what I wanted, I just stuck to a drink, while C+J went for a sandwich of some description. We ate and drank up, and now it was my time to shine. The only French I’d managed to learn in my entire time there was how to ask for the bill…

“Le addition, sil yous plait”.

The whole bill came to €15, or something like that.

So, we headed back to the metro station, only to find that the stop we got off at was unmanned, and therefore, you needed a ticket to get back in. That was fine for me, obviously, as I’d bought two, but for C+J, who only bought one (and used it up), it was a bit of a problem. therefore, we had to get on via another nearby station. Thankfully, this didn’t alter things too much, and we quickly found the way back to the hotel.

By this time, we’d left it a bit late to visit the catacombs, as by the time we’d have got there, it would probably have been closed. Instead, we decided to stay closer to home and take a quick look around Hotel Invalides. You may remember this as the impressive structure we walked past on the first day, and also took photos of on the 2nd day.

It looked even more stunning in the sunshine. We entered the main complex, and after only a few photos of cannons, we were informed by the security guard that they were closing tonight, and to make our way to the nearest “sortie”. Fair enough, at least we knew where the place was.

It was 7PM at this point (it felt much earlier if I’m honest), so we continued to have a bit of a walk. We even retraced our steps of the first day, and our agonisingly long journey through the back streets in entirely the wrong direction. Obviously, this time it was a little more relaxed, as we weren’t carrying half-ton bags with us.

There was a camera crew in the area outside the “national assembly”. Don’t know what they were about to record / broadcast, but I’d hazard a guess at a news report of some kind…

We walked towards the Invalides metro station, where we got off on the first day, just to have a bit of a look round, and see if we can pinpoint exactly where we went wrong on the first day, and where we should have gone. We also took a walk towards some buildings that looked interesting. At this point, I don’t think the other two were that keen on going any further, but meh! I wanted photies, and photies I got.

Suddenly, as we got up close to them, they began to look very familar. It became apparent that we were at exactly the same spot where the 90-minute boat trip dropped us off at a few days before. Aaargh. It became apparent just how much of a waste of time that particular boat trip was!

Anyway, with my photo bug satisfied for the night, we began to head off for something to eat. We were going to try another one of the cafés near the hotel, only to find that we should have checked the prices and the menu… this means we had a little bit of a walk to see if we could find anywhere to eat, before eventually settling for La Terrasse again. I had the chicken brochette again, as it was really nice, C+J had a burger each.

By the time we’d finished, it was getting late, and we left La Terrasse at 10:15PM. We gave up completely on trying to find somewhere reasonable to have a cheap beer, so therefore headed back to the hotel and had a relatively early night. With only one day to go, I didn’t want to spend the whole day packing, so I forced everything in my suitcase apart from the bare essentials.

I then spent the next hour in the bath. It was glorious. But what was even better was the shower. I normally don’t like showers. I prefer long hot soaks, but this particular one had some type of healing quality on a body which must have walked the length of a marathon in the previous six days.

With the majority of my stuff packed away, I was ready for my final full day in Paris, expecially looking forward to seeing the catacombs…

Bootiful!

Oh, wait. Wrong advert.

(source) – Cheers Marko

EDIT: I’ve un-privated this post because I made reference to the Bernard Matthews advert. He’s also dead now.