Arrrrgh me eyes, me eyes!

A relatively quiet week on the collecting front has not given me that much material with which to use for this week’s blog and as I would say on the phone to my mum, “nothing happened much this week.”

Due to the torrential thunderstorms we had on Saturday I didn’t managed to pop into town until late on in the afternoon, which is probably my least favourite time for wandering around the shops. I’ve lived in quiet a few major cities in my short time and I gotten myself lost on more than one occasion, usually due to over indulgence in malted barley, that has called for a walk home in some pretty dodgy areas. Now I can categorically state that on no single occasion have I ever felt under threat or scared as I stagger down some dimly lit alleyway. I even slept soundly on Golders Green tube station like a baby in the early hours and wasn’t violated in any way, shape or form! This may have a large part to do with Dutch Courage although I don’t think that’s the whole story, but basically put me in a large city shopping centre at around four thirty on a Saturday afternoon and I will keep a hand constantly on my wallet and cast darting looks around every corner expecting to be jumped at any moment. Newbury this Saturday afternoon was no different and I felt distinctly uncomfortable as I made my way around my usual route of shops. Unfortunately by this time of the day the pubs have been open for a few hours and even more unfortunately the “wrong” type of person had been taking advantage of this. Basically the streets were littered with drunken middle-aged blokes, weaving their way from pub chain to pub chain and then taking advantage of the good weather by standing outside clutching their precious glasses of fizzy lager. And here’s another thing I noticed, why were they all so bloody ugly? They were almost to a man shaven headed, with a liberal smattering of tattoos and that unhealthy looking overweight factor, you know the one where all the weight is in the belly with little skinny legs. So they all think they look like Phil Mitchell when really they look like Big Daddy. Even more unfortunately a large proportion of them seemed to be Welsh if the various raised accented voices were anything to go by. In fact I saw one inebriated chap staggering right down the middle of the high street stop two young girls walking the other way. The girls happened to be wearing matching T-Shirts that Mr “Catch of the Day” obviously thought gave him an ideal opportunity for an ice-breaker. “I’m from Wales you see” he slurred to the very scared looking young ladies. Oh nice one fella! If the wet patch on the front of your trousers wasn’t enough to put them off, remove all doubt in their minds by opening your gob! Anyway just after this I entered the British Heart Foundation and got my third Löwenbräu glass, so there’s my link!

I went for the first time up to the car boot sale at Swallowfields near to Reading on Sunday, which was a good decision as it turned out as the local boot had produced not a sausage in the way of glasses and was far to full of nasty sellers trying to rip my kids off for old TY Beanies. It would have been a complete waste if it hadn’t been for the nice tombola man who was full of his usual “have one for good luck” friendliness. Anyway back to Swallowfields that was probably the biggest car boot I’ve been to this year and apart from the fact the spotty burger-fed youth on the gate charging me double entry fee before I realised, it was a well-organised affair. I picked up three glasses and I’m now kicking myself for not at least asking the price of two others which whilst being similar to ones already in the collection were slightly different. One of the glasses was bizarrely on a stall nearly totally comprised of new goods, mostly garden ornaments and if I hadn’t had been buying a lovely waving butterfly ornament for Simone then I probably would have missed it there, quietly perched amongst the pottery mushrooms and terracotta wheelbarrows. Reuben got half a dozen TYs, from nice buyers who had them priced at a sensible 20p each so we both went home more than happy.

We popped up to Newbury Racecourse on Sunday afternoon as ever the thrifty people we are, they were having a free day, free entry, free race-cards and if the rumours we’d heard were true more free goodies for the kids than you can shake a stick at! Unfortunately in true Malignant style we arrived in plenty of time for the racing but far far too late for the goodie bags. Needless to say that ungrateful kid 1 and ungrateful kid 2 set up their banshee wailing much to the amusement of the posh race-goers in their best Ascot hats. I then lost my money on the three races we watched and had to pay 2 quid for a stick of candyfloss! When did spun sugar become so bloody expensive and so much for the “free day”!

Has anyone heard of the Ciao Website? Basically it's a review website where you can post you comments and views on all the usual stuff, CDs, DVDs, Books etc, but you can also review other more abstract stuff, like websites, or food, or jobs. You really should check out this review of headache relief solution "4-Head" written by me old mate the Gashmeister. Mind you he's not the one that's just been signed up for a free read as much as you want book deal has he! So stick that in your skinny rickets ridden life and smoke it!