Well, I must admit, at 11AM this morning, I didn’t expect to be typing this blog. It’s the middle day of my 3 days off (in fact, I’ve got 9 days off, consider this a 12″ extended version), so me, Gary and Jamie were due a walk. As can be expected, Jamie pulled out due to unforeseen circumstances (for the third week in a row, might I add), meaning that Gary and I were left to do the walk on our own.

With the help of Google Maps, I’d chosen the location. I remember Ste, from Employment Palace, telling me there was a nice walk in Guisborough, which isn’t too far away. Despite being out the night before, I awoke, fresh as a slightly decaying daisy, reeking of alcohol and vindaloo, complete with an occasional burp which tasted of Jagerbomb. Joy.

Anyway, prior to Gary picking me up, I headed of to Lidl, to pick up some water for the trip. Let me just say that I got as far as the petrol station… in fact I’ll let my Facebook status tell the story…

Andrew D isn’t far wrong – I took a stash of bog roll in the camera bag, just in case!

Gary picked me up, and along with his dog Boris, we headed along the A19, A174, A172, A171, and just a smidgeon of the A173, we arrived. Once thing that was instantly noticeable compared to our other walks, is that spring had definitely sprung. The trees were starting to grow leaves, and the whole area had a much greener hue to it compared to the rest of the walks. The first photos were taken, when Gary discovered a small tunnel. Unfortunately, we didn’t get chance to emulate Jamie S’s epic troll photo as the tunnel was full of flies.

Immediately after this photo was taken, disaster happened. As I was putting the camera back in its bag, it left my grasp a little too soon, and went hurtling to the uneven, gravel-stone ground. Fucking hell. The crunch it made was enough to make me bring a little bit of sick up. “Oh well, the lens could do with an upgrade” was my instant thought. Imagine my surprise when I picked up the camera to find absolutely no damage to the lens glass, or the camera mechanics. Upon closer inspection, there’s a small chunk removed from the lens body, and a small scratch near the shutter button. That’s all. My luck for the month has now been used up.

The walk continued. It was all uphill, but it wasn’t as uphill as the challenge we were about to set ourselves. We reached a junction in the forest paths. While I took photos of daffodils again (oh, come on! they’re only out for a few weeks every year!), Gary looked through the trees, and noticed how close Roseberry Topping was. It was literally half a mile away.

Roseberry Topping is a place I will always hold dear. I’m going to ramble on here, and for that, I don’t apologize. It’s one of my favourite places on this planet. It was always visible when we went to places for days out such as Whitby. It’s the prominent focal point for the whole of Teesside. I seem to remember Cleveland County Council using it in their logo for a years, even though it’s technically in North Yorkshire. Anyway, as a child, being 11 years old, I always remember having a dream about it. being visible from Hartlepool. A few days later, on a walk home from school, I stopped dead in my tracks on the coast road. There it was. Roseberry Topping was indeed visible from Hartlepool. I couldn’t quite believe it.

In January 1992, Daddykins took me and him to climb it. This was 20 years ago, there was no path at the time. There’s a photo somewhere of me, climbing up the side of it, grabbing onto frost-covered ferns for dear life, as we attempted what seemed like the impossible.

Again, there are photos of me and Daddykins at the top of the hill – we made it up there without further incident or injury. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a clear day, so Hartlepool wasn’t visible. On the way home, to give you an idea of how long it was ago, I heard “Twilight Zone” by 2 Unlimited for the first time, and went home to play Bubble Bobble on my Commodore 64.

The next time I climbed it, was with Wayne, and his dad. By this time, it was the summer of 1995, and the pathway to the top had been laid. It was still a bitch to climb. Unfortunately, there’s no photographical document of this walk, but after we’d came back down, we went to see Judge Dredd at the Showcase… my one and only trip to this particular cinema.

Back to the present day, and I left you with me and Gary, stood in the middle of a forest, wondering which way to go. I’d already had a few miles in my legs by then, and I was reluctant to do the Roseberry Topping bit. Gary convinced me it was a good idea. I don’t know how he managed that.

At the bottom, I took a video. It’s pretty clear just how uncertain I was!

Oddly, I arrived at the top, and my exact thoughts were “Woah… was that it?” I think, the only difference between my previous trips up Roseberry Topping and this one, was the fact I’d notuched up 55 miles of walking in the previous month, and I had a bottle of water. I’d hazard a guess that they both helped.

I almost lost the contents of a testicle when I noticed I could see Hartlepool, and could easily make out Steetley Chimney with the naked eye. The image below is a cropped image, but the original can be found here

It would have been more prominent if the buildings attached to it weren’t demolished several years ago.

We reached the top, and made contact with an elderly couple who had also made it to the top. Apparently, they make the trip to Roseberry Topping every hear for his birthday. He was 83, and she was 80. Bloody hell. If I look a day older than them when I’m their age, then these walks have done their job. They walk all over the local area, and even gave me a couple of ideas for future walks. As they were about to leave, they asked me to take a photo for them on their camera. They were even apologetic over it. I hope I convinced them that I really, really didn’t mind at all!

OK, so there needs to be some evidence that we made it up there, hence the title of this posting. Glen posted the “pics or it didn’t happen” comment, on my previous posting, as he knows for a fact, I don’t go anywhere these days without some type of digital picture recording device

So, there’s me cared for… as for Gary and Boris… You’d think they were waiting from a lift from a nearby plane…

Something visible from the top of Roseberry Topping is a structure. I have no idea what it is, or what its purpose is…

It was enough of a mystery for me to want to go down and investigate it. Thankfully, Roseberry Topping has several paths leading from its top to its base, and one of them leads you along this path. In fact, it’s the main path to continue if you don’t fancy attempting the big hill. Along the way, we found, of all things, a discarded lightbulb. Gary suggested that it would be a good idea to move it from the beaten path, to somewhere a little more safer. Although a perfectly acceptable idea, it meant that I ended up carrying it for about half a mile before dispensing it in the afore-mentioned little buildong…

Neither the walk over there, nor the photos clear up the mystery of this strange little building in the middle of nowhere. It’s either a folly, or some type of hunter’s refuge from years ago, if things suddenly turned shite.

The three of us (including the dog) didn’t fancy going back the way we came, as we’d have to complete the bottom third of Roseberry topping again, therefore we took a chance, and headed through what we think was private land. There were no signposts, and the gates were opened by hand, so if the landowner happens to view the endomondo link at the end of this post, and notices we trespassed, I’m sure the lord’s prayer has something about forgiving trespassing ‘n’ shit. I didn’t eat any of your crops, though if you get a ladybird infestation, this could be the reason why…

It’s rare enough in 2011, to see ladybirds. It’s even rarer to actually see them “doing it”. Therefore, this video should be considered ultra rare I would have considered doing a voiceover / soundtrack featuring 70′s porno music, but as we were probably on private land, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.

We rejoined a path. Thankfully, it was the correct one. It led us back through the forest, and after a detour following an obstacle course which we both avoided, we arrived back at the car park.

It seems a perfect opportunity to post the Endomondo link, therefore…

Does the link work?

If it doesn’t, I’m not going to apologise, it’s not my fault. I can’t change the privacy on my walks at the moment, because whatever scripting they’re using to show the buttons, has died, so I can’t change my default view. Whoops. Gary’s calculation also left something be be desired. I’m not sure why, but it showed us in several fields. My link is much more accurate, yet I have no idea why. There’s an obvious alien invasion about to take place.

The last paragraph in this post saw me ripped off, and it was entirely my own fault. On the way home from the walk, we pulled into a Tesco service station. I was already feeling the pain from the walk, and after noticing it sold beer, picked some up. After all, it would have saved me walking down to the offy in agony. I’d headed to the till with the following:-

4x Stella, 568ml @ 4.39
4x Stella, 440ml @ 4.99

There was other stuff I’d purchased, but that was the fucker. How did I not notice I’d picked up two different sets of volume, and prices? The receipt will forever be a testament of what a cock I really am…

Settle down, friends. Pull up a comfy cushion and prepare to read the epic tale of how it’s taken me almost 90 minutes to get from Employment Palace, to the comfort of Mercuryvapour Towers.

It all started when I left work a little late. There was no reason for me to, as I was already signed out, I’m just used to hanging around for a couple of minutes. On my way to the bus stop, I bumped into Dan, who I’ve worked with on and off for a few years. Dan doesn’t like moths, but that’s a tale for another day. He mentioned that he’d just seen the bus whizz past. Oh well, I’m sure I won’t have to wait long for the next one. After all, they’re only supposed to be 10 minutes apart. 20 minutes later, I’m still waiting.

[2010-10-19 08:28:17] Here it is…

I see the bus in the distance. Hurrah! Now, what is hard to describe is the position of a bus stop. It’s on a slip road leading out of an industrial estate. As part of my “Take a picture of absolutely everything” non-project, I oddly have a picture of it to describe what I mean.

It is quite clear from that image, that a slow moving vehicle could come out of the slip-road, and block the view of any approaching mode of public transport, meaning that the driver will go past and not even know you are there. This is the nightmare situation that caused me to miss my bus. A street cleaner came trundling along the red cycle path, just as the Number 1 approached, meaning that the drivers view of the stop was totally blocked, he’d have never knew I was there…

As the song goes, “my hands were clenched in fists of rage”. I screamed some obscenities at the street cleaner, and begin to storm off on the long walk, knowing that there wouldn’t be a bus there any time soon. Yes, you guessed it. I’d been waiting 20 minutes, which means the bus that was due at that time sailed past me when I was about 100 yards away from the bus stop. I can still feel my foot throbbing from where I kicked the lamp post.

I continued to walk to the junction of Oxford Road / Stockton Road. At least, I could get the number 6… or so I thought.

The number 6 came hurtling around the corner, I stick my grubby little paw out, aaaand it sails past, to the next bus stop 50 yards away. I could have ran for it, but knowing my already terrible luck, he would have headed off on his merry little way just as I got to the door. There was only one thing for it, wait for the next Number 1. I was at the bus stop 10 minutes. It seemed like a fortnight. Even listening to “My Old Piano” by Diana Ross, and “The Look” by Roxette didn’t lift my horribly sour mood. Eventually, the sticky, horrible, overheated bus arrives, and I climb on, giving my money to the driver who looked like he’d lost a fiver and found a tumour. I don’t like public transport.

The bus journey was awful, as it normally is. I pass the boredom by tweeting things going on out of the window. These were both boring and unpleasant.

The final stop was Lidl. In fact, that was the whole point of me getting the bus – I’d have normally got a taxi back to Mercuryvapour Towers, but I didn’t have any food in. I was also surprised to see the sign above the door that stated they had an alcohol license from 7:30AM to 11:30PM

My basket contained 4 cans of Stella, 2 almost-out-of-date curries (30% off!) and a bottle of 39p coke. The journey back to Mercuryvapour Towers ended up with my phone playing “Dignity” by Deacon Blue. Ironically, the one thing I don’t have this morning.

You know, it’s just been a crap few days, and October’s always a shit month, so I’ll probably not be blogging much in the near future. Yes, even less than usual!

The past few months at work have been OK, but it’s now the silly period, and it’s even sillier than usual. I could go into details, but as the Facebook Grass (the “person” who grasses up lowly employees to the higher management should they even breathe a word of truth about our place of employment) is doing his/her thing again, I’ll just say one thing. “LOL”.

Mind you, I don’t think many people at work actually read this site any more, so I could sit here and blurt the whole thing out. It’s pure pantomime stuff, it really is.

Tonight, however, I’m going to hopefully forget about the whole fucking place, and let my hair down, for I shall be attening The Studio tonight, to watch a few local bands play, including Accidents By Design and the almighty Infernus. Should be a good night.

Back to the subject of blogging, I have completed blogging about that stupid sodding hard drive. It works, that’s the end of it. Therefore, the other morning, after another shocking 12-hour shift, I came home and decided to write a blog about music. I’d been listening to one of my favourite tracks, and decided I’d write an indepth blog about what I liked about it. Only thing was, I’d written an identical blog 18 months ago, and didn’t realise until I’d just about finished it.

ironically, that previous post also gives details about hard drive upgrade problems I’d been having around that time.

Anyway, because I’m not going to waste an hour’s worth of typing, here’s the post in its entirety..

I’ve had a shit day at work today, so you’ll have to forgive me for having one of my “ooooh, a song I like, and how I came about it” blogs.

Anyway, the track of my choosing today is “Invent Yourself” by Julian Laxton. Now, I know that, unless you’ve arrived from here from a search engine, you know nothing about this track. It’s another one of my obscure TV themes, I’m afraid.

Back in the mid 90s, Disney commissioned a program called “Okavango”. It was a totally forgettable programme for me, except for the theme music, which I absolutely loved. I couldn’t possibly describe it. Except for it sounded slightly wobbly, as if the tape it was being played from was worn out.

Some time in the early 2000s, long after the show had stopped being shown on the Disney channel, and every trace of it on the internet had dried up, I began to look for the theme music.

In 2003, I submitted the following to some online forum…

> Er… hope you’re able to help, but I live in the UK. I remember a US show
called “Okavango”, and I’ve been after the theme for years. I ran Google
over “okavango theme tv” and came across
www.new.co.za/~currin/julian_laxton.html as the top result. Does this
happen to be the theme from the TV series? If so, how do I get a copy of it
shipped to the UK? If it helps, it was shown on the Disney Channel in the UK.

Heh. “shipped to the UK” indeed.

I got a response back…

I think Julian himself would be the best one to answer this, try him at:
[removed email] or visit his website at [removed defunct website]

I know he sells this CD from his website…

With no definitive answer, the “case went cold”. I didn’t bother contacting the email address given because it felt like I’d strayed off the wrong path. Obviously, I hadn’t, but I wasn’t to know that at the time.

5 years passed, and on April 17 2008, at 11:15, I posted to Glen’s forum, on the subject about favourite TV themes…

Now here’s a repressed memory coming back.

During the late 90s, there was a show on the Disney Channel called “Okavango” about some family who moved to a reserve somewhere in… um, presumably the Okavango. Think “Wild At Heart”, but completely disneyfied and shite. It had one saving grace… the theme tune, which I absolutely adored.

It has disappeared off the radar, unsurprisingly, no clips of it on youtube at all (none that I can find, anyway), so I had to resort to a Google search to find this…

http://www.livevideo.com/video/879B8A7FC91946638664C8498F0362F4/okavango-intro.aspx

Unfortunately, whoever encoded the sound on this one kinda fucked it up, so it sounds horrible.

Glen replied…

Never heard of it, but I reconsided the bird off of Alien Nation. Do I win a prize?

My response…

Only if you can find a better copy of that theme music.

No less than 6 minutes later, I got the following response…

EDIT: Fuck it, you have (g)mail.

No idea what the original reply was, but almost instantly, I had a preview of the afore-mentioned track in my gmail inbox. I couldn’t believe it.

What The FUCK? How did you find that?

The file you sent me is a large chunk of the theme, or at least the “base” of the theme, but it fades out before it gets going. I demand information!

This is more than what I’ve heard for years. I love you, Glen.

Chad, no doubt, will have something to say about the last 4 words of that sentence. I never discovered how he found it so quickly, but he did provide me with the links to preview and purchase..

It’s Invent Yourself by Julian Laxton, preview and purchase below;

http://www.rhythmrecords.co.za/store/viewAlbum.asp?idAlbum=641

http://www.at.artslink.co.za/~julian_laxton/PlayMusic.htm

At the time, I didn’t recognise the name, and had totally forgotten about the afore mentioned email conversation several years ago. Turns out I was right all along. My hunch which I didn’t decide to follow up all those years ago was correct. And I never even realised.

Later that same day, I purchased a totally DRM-free MP3 for something like 50p. This was 18 months ago, when DRM was all the rage, so finding a clean MP3 of the full tune was a bonus.

It turned out that for the purpose of using it as a TV theme, it was sped up by approximately 10%. I think I prefer the original, slower version.

I’ve just noticed that this post contains more swearies than any I’ve written for a long time. Ah well, never mind, eh?

EDIT: Ooooh, I do like these edits. Missed out a quote mark which meant that the first section of text was missing. Quickly fixed, so sorry if the post didn;t make much sense originally.

I really dislike them.

For the past two nights, there has been one of these little shits in the office. I happened to be the first one to spot it the other night, as it happened to land on my “umbilical cord” (the wire from my headset leading to my phone). I froze, slowly backing up, unplugging my headset, and then legging it. As I reversed it headed towards me. I think everyone thought I was mad.

It turned out that 4 of the 5 people who were in the office with me also severely disliked the little stripy buggers. The only person to not admit to disliking them was Dick Brown, webmaster of short-lived shitfest

Now, wasps have a habit of disappearing just when you don’t want them, meaning that an unexpected reapparence is always possible. This did indeed happen, as I looked down, and found it had made itself comfortable on my shirt. “FUUUUUUUUOOOOOO” I screamed, in a particularly camp way. All eyes turned to me, as I once again, danced around like an idiot.

The wasp, once again, possibly laughing to itself, disappeared. I mentioned that it’ll disappear, and reappear when we last expact it.

An hour or so passed. We were chatting amongst ourselves, when IW suddenly mentioned the wasp. He was spot on. It had lulled us into a false sense of security, thinking we’d forgotten about it. It was spotted seconds later, buzzing around one of the lights in the office. It was newspaper time. Eventually, it landed on a desk, and with a presicion blow with the Hartlepool Mail, our waspy intruder was no more. The body was disposed of, and was never thought of again.

Earlier this morning, another wasp flew in. This one was huge. Unfortunately, the Hartlepool Mail was not available, as I’m the one who normally brings it in, but I’d not been shopping. Thankfully, a replacement Daily Express was found, and the attack began on our second winged war-monger in two days. Many attempts to crush it with the afore-mentioned publication only resulted in wasted efforts, and a possibly angrier insect.

Thankfully, the second incident one again resulted in death before it had a chance to release its pheromone-based “scream”. With a well-timed and fatal blow, Dick Brown, webmaster of soon-to-be-a-domain-placeholder dick-brown.com, struck our striped stinger with such a well-timed blow, that he managed to crush it underneath a light fitting and its support.

Obviously, two wasp attacks in two days mean that there’s a large chance of the same thing happening in the very near future, meaning that tonight, I’m going to have to spend the whole night in Employment Palace with every window shut…. Grrr.

So… why I dislike wasps. I have memories of my mother absolutely hating anything that was stripy, and had wings. It may have been something to do with that. I also had a repressed-memory which exploded earlier tonight. I was in my primary school. I had returned from having my dinner at home, which was the norm for me. I was such a fussy eater that school dinners were totally out of the question. Anyway. I remember heading over to my friends who were playing over on the field. One of the fads at the time (if you can call it a fad, I must have been 7?) was to pretend to insert an insect down each others’ necks for the whole experience of watching the victim child squirm, much to the amusement of his/her watching “chums”.

In this particular instance, I’d been told I’d received a wasp down the back of my neck. Of course, used to the old joke by now, not believing it, I laugh it off, only to feel an odd sensation on my back, like an insect about to inject me with venom. It happens.

If you are lucky (or in my case, protected) enough as a 7-year-old to experience no more than a few cuts and grazes , your first insect sting is a wake-up call of what pain actually can be. Right in the middle of my back, I had a white-hot pain that I simply couldn’t get rid of. I was crying my eyes out. I remember running over to the dinner ladies, one of them consisted of the lady who lived (and still does live) two doors away. I seem to remember getting the afternoon off, and we went strawberry picking at a place called Sessay. This used to be an annual day out for our family, and I have no idea why it coincided with a school day, and how my parents managed to get me the afternoon off. It’d never happen these days!

I have the sad duty of announcing the death of a good friend and work colleague. Stu, one of the security guards who look after where I work, sadly died of a heart attack yesterday.

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.