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My day kind of started, a little late, I guess, with an 11am meeting with the chap I see at CGL (change grow live). We meet in an ‘orrid little modern box, just to the right of these much more attractive municipal buildings:

I then headed home. And later, off to Ely, for to collect a free set of bookshelves, from a FreeCycler who goes by the sobriquet flustered badger! The building below is another old-ish place in March, that I decided to snap, as I pass it all the time! I love the rounded and turreted corner feature.

Sundry other chores included such humdrum delights as a visit to the chemist, and a trio to Boyes. I was entertaining the notion of making myself an oversized ‘mushroom cap’ beret, a bit like this:

Wherefore, Seb? I hear nobody at all ask. Well, if y’all must know, to wear when we go see Merlin Sheldrake do a Topping talk, in Ely, on 28th, Nov. He’s touring to promote this book:

Whilst in Ely, I collected the tickets for said talk, bought the above book for a bargainous £5, and perused many marvellous times at the excellent Ely branch of Oxfam. I got this:

… for a pal who has several other similar books be D.G. There were numerous other fab art books, many of which I’d love to have bought, including titles on Delacroix, Titian, Rubens, and a nice big version (I have a mini edition) of The Grammar of Ornament.

In the end I only got the above. Which looks terrific. They also had a wee Taschen paperbook on Picasso, which I almost got, to cut out the pics for framing. But I opted not to, as I wasn’t blown away by the chosen selections.

Whilst in Ely, near where I picked up the free shelves, I saw this intriguing old building. Looks very ecclesiastical, as well as rather dilapidated!

I wandered around Ely, in a bit of a daze. Took in the market, where numerous traders were flogging there wares. I wanted something to eat. But couldn’t find anything that appealed to me (at a reasonable price).

And then later, I was out delivering for Amazon/Morrisons, before finally getting home. And I’m typing this in a nice hot bath!

Enjoyed some lovely social interactions. From simple exchanges of smiles, to a nice chat with a member of staff at Ely Oxfam. Had a chat with mum, around 8pm. All in all, and despite feeling a bit frazzled, a good day!

I’m a fan, kind of (poss’ more in theory than in practice?) of epic war movies. This one, a box-office bomb, recipient of several Razzies, and often billed as ‘one if the worst films ever made’, intrigues me for several reasons.

Firstly, it was directed by Terence Young, best known as a director of three Bond movies (Dr No, From Russia sand Thunderball). Secondly, it stars a latex wearing Larry O’, as General MacArthur. And third, I kinda like Ben Gazzara, and he’s in it.

And also, and very importantly for me, it looks – from various stills (such as the one below) – like the action/combat scenes are proper epic…

I know very little about the Korean War. One suspects it was probably one of America’s many super heavy-handed post-WWII anti-Commie foreign policy blunders. And, from what I’ve read thus far, online, I don’t think Inchon, the movie, is the place to go for historical truth!

But the fact it’s so massively panned actually makes me any to see it more. So much popular opinion is erroneous guff! I pretty much always prefer to make up my own mind.

I’m a man. Which, bitter experience teaches me, is a crime against humanity. As a man, I find Vera Palmer (I wonder if we’re related?) very alluring. Nuff said!

Hot Damn! I love everything about this.

Woah, Nelly! I only (fairly) recently discovered this guy. I think I first came across him via (?)…

I love what he does, combining strong rhythm, with chords and melody, such that you wind up with a near as dammit complete rendition of the original – in this case Sting by and co. (guitar, bass, drums, and poss also keys?) all on the one acoustic axe!

Great work, Kent!

It’s also a timely reminder what a checking number Synchronicity 2 is. hearing this version takes me waaay back, to my mid abs late teens. Listening to all the Police records back in the family home, in Comberton. Bittersweet memories of a long lost era.

Bu that’s one of many things that’s so Amical about music, how it can be connected with certain places and times. Fab!

I’ve been experiencing extreme difficulty booking sufficient hours to meet my weekly budgeting target, driving for Amazon. There are numerous reasons.

One of these, which I only just learned about, is the capping policy they operate. As the video above explains, they cap weekly hours at a total of 24.

There’s more to it than that, though, as the video explains. One of the issues is that I don’t want to be wasting time trying to book more shifts when the app simply won’t let me.

Amazon should def’ make a change to the Flex app, IMO, such that it lets you know when you’re no longer able to book any further work. This would prevent folk like me wasting time hitting ‘refresh’ at times when doing so is purely wasting time.

So I’vw submitted that idea, via the Flex ‘feedback’ page…

Once home, after work, my chief goal was to further the work on the engine and engine bay of the Tiger I. In the above pic I’ve altered the support/base, and added more front end detail to the engine itself.

The engine sits better now. But there’s still a lot to be done.

The above ref, from a restoration project (poss’ Bovington’s 131?), drew my attention to several things: the spacing of certain objects on my engine was wrong; and I needed to add lots of pipe work.

The pipework proved to be incredibly fiddly. Frustratingly so! Superglue was involved; gluing styrene and metal. And, as ever, it was a nightmare.

One pic I didn’t take, but really should’ve, shows how the engine and pipework might go together. The moved air-filters, shortened engine, and pipes, all combine to make a compact and complex engine. It’s a lot of work. But hopefully it’ll all be worth it!?

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get all these major bits installed. Though having said that, there’s the question of engine bay wall detail.

Today was a funny old day, and no mistake. I got tearful at Lloyds. Thankfully the manageress, Lindsey, was understanding. the cause? Poverty. I won’t go into the gory details. But skating on thin cracking ice is taking its toll.

Today’s Amazon delivery route (to be pronounced rout, as in a fleeing, defeated army… or, in pronunciation terms, American style) took me to Wittering and Stamford, amongst other places.

I wasn’t sure the fuel in the car would suffice to get me home. But it did, mercifully. Once home, we ate, and then I carried on with my Tiger I model.

My dad, poor fucked up ol’ sod that he is, only just got back from a Papworth Hospital sleep clinic today (well, technically yesterday).

Teresa and I wanted to go see him/the Palmer family, as I was delivering for Amazon/Morrisons that evening. But for various reasons that idea fell through.

Dad was playing his martyred paranoiac role, whether in response to this – us not visiting them after all – or other stuff (his relations with family at home have been suffering, unsurprisingly), I’m not sure. So in the end I decided I’d pop round briefly, on my own, after work.

And what a fucking nightmare that turned into. By the time I’d arrived, he’d drunk most – one and a half – of two bottles of white wine. And when I arrived, or rather just after, he came staggering down the stairs, moaning and spitting/drooling. A truly horrific sight.

Turns out he’s only tried to drink some oil of feckin’ cloves!

I knew this was bad. But I googled it, to check. Sure enough: if ingested, it’s toxic, get medical help urgently. So, I rang 111; a totally and utterly useless waste of time. After over twenty minutes queuing no one had even picked up my call. So I decided to ring 999.

That was another saga in itself.

God help our poor NHS*, hacked to pieces and starved to death by disaster capitalist Tories, till it’s the shambolic mess we now have to deal with. And even so, it remains a treasure we’ll be utter fools to lose (but look at Brexit; we are prize fools).

We got a call back from a paramedic. What a joke and waste of time that was! Just reiterating what my first call had already established. And they insisted on quizzing dad, despite him being so fucked up. Do they do ‘20 questions’ with mashed up road-crash casualties. ‘Which of your limbs is missing, sir?’ Fucking insane!

Anyway, about an hour later an ambulance arrives. And over the next hour or so they examine dad, and, eventually, we persuade him to go in the ambulance to A&E.

He hates going to hospital, esp’ A&E. And I can totally understand and sympathise. You’re very ill, and you’re left, unattended, in the seven circles of Hell, for many, many hours, along with loads of other hapless paupers.

After my first suicide attempt, several months back, I had a horrible visit to Peterborough A&E: seven hours waiting! And then, when you do finally see someone, you wonder why you bothered going at all.

I wanted to feel that I’d done something good: visiting dad. And then when it all went weird and horrible, trying to look after him. But I’m not sure if I might not’ve helped trigger the whole sorry episode. A fear that fills me with guilt and horror.

Guilt and horror. Dad’s territory. Pure 100% charcoal black negativity. It’s so corrosive and destructive!

And there I am, telling dad he needs to change how he responds. Stop drinking, and think positive. First and foremost, quit the boozing. So what do I do en-route home? Stop for a pint. And things go down hill from there, for me now, as well as dad.

* As a devout atheist that’s tantamount to saying ‘we’re screwed’.