Anarchy in the UK

It's a little bit difficult to write anything here without mentioning the events of the past forty-eight hours. I had planned to get all high and mighty and tell you that I'd returned to the running club after a three week layoff; a layoff that was brought about by nothing more than idleness and indolence; but I'd imagine you'd be looking into your computer screen and hissing:

'Bollocks to the running club! What about the riots?'

So while treading very carefully and avoiding falling foul of any extant policies on the use of social networking media, I offer you this:

It was Monday afternoon and in our own enclave of South West London we doubted any of the weekend's rioting and looting that had scarred other areas of the capital. After all, as I stated in a former post, Battersea has become something of an upmarket location in recent years. And when we saw groups of young, masked hoodies giving the riot-gear clad bobbies the run around outside the fire station it was more comedic than serious. A kind of Benny Hill romp in Burberry.

However, when the smoke grenades started being aimed at the fire station it became a bit more of a serious proposition. Then we heard tales of a local fire engine being targeted in Brixton and hoodies removing the axes from the lockers and using them as a means to gain entry to the crew inside. Apparently it was just the quick reaction and remarkable ability of the driver that got the crew and appliance out of a pretty sticky situation. It's not easy to perform a J-turn in a fire engine.

We pitied the oncoming watch as we changed over and headed home. One of our number didn't actually get there due to meeting a hostile band of natives just up the road who surrounded him on his motorcycle and proceeded to kick seven bells out of him. He's now recovering at home with an interestingly coloured torso and the word 'ADIDAS' temporarily imprinted on his face. Part of what occurred later that night is captured here on Youtube. The area was continually misrepresented by the press as 'Clapham.' It is in fact Clapham Junction......which is in Battersea.



Driving into work the following day was like entering some kind of war zone. The detritus of a hard night's looting was spread across the road that spanned the sealed off area of Clapham Junction. Broken glass was absolutely everywhere and the still burning party shop seen in the video above belched black smoke into the sky.

It wasn't long before we were out on the fire engine relieving the tired and dirty crews that had been fighting the fire during the night. They had done a good job considering the upper floors were inaccessible due to the staircases being burnt through. In fact, they had done such a good job that by 14:00 we had the fire fully out and the scene cool. My crew were filthy, hungry and exhausted and we began to wind the job up, all the while watched by a crowd of community minded locals who had arrived with brooms to help clear the mess up. At that stage they were held behind tape and a line of coppers but they waved their brooms indicating their burning desire to get to work (Note to self: If this type of community assistance continues I wonder how viable it will be to claim that my garden has been set upon by a gang of rioting, green-fingered hoodies?)

Just then I saw the blonde, bouffant head of a stout, suited man in the distance. He was surrounded by an entourage of hangers on and a woman I instantly recognised as Theresa May. And they were heading our way.

'Stand by, chaps,' I said. 'Boris is on his way. Look lively and make sure your chinstraps are done up.'

'Nah, it ain't Boris,' said one of my lads. 'He's on holiday.'

'He cut his hols short 'cos of the riots,' I explain.'He flew back this morning.'

As I affected my most professional stance, scanning the front elevation of the building for hot spots, I watched the Mayor's approach out of the corner of my eye.

Make sure my handshake is firm.

Make sure I speak clearly and don't swear.

Make sure I take complete responsibility for all the hard work the other crews did.

Boris was almost upon me, walking with purpose. I did a final check of my lads ensuring they weren't slacking or fucking about.

I was sure I could smell Boris's aftershave masking the fading tang of Factor 30 sun lotion.

I swivelled to meet the Mayor of London and held my hand out to greet him.

I'm sure I saw Theresa May make that hairy palmed gesture at me as Boris swept past us majestically, not even acknowledging our existence, intent on engaging with the group of volunteer cleaners, all waving their brooms like demented Mary Poppins.

'Right guys, pack up, we're going home,' I instruct my lads and we head off back to the station for a cheese roll and a round of mutual back-slapping.

So as I wind this blog post up we had a quiet night in London last night. The clue might be in the 16,000 pissed off coppers on the streets and various gangs of vigilantes. I'm kinda hoping they're out and pissed off tonight too because I'm about to head back to SW11.

Laters.

Faux Dog Tags and Shirley Valentine

Listen, I've done no running and very little physical activity of any kind lately so if the word 'Running' that occurs in title of this blog had you logging in hoping for some split time action forget it.

Although I do actually spend some of my time running I've never considered myself much of a runner (good job really considereing some of my non-achievements...I prefer that to 'failings').  I'll never be a runner and to be quite honest I have little time for runners. They tend to stand around in ridiculous clothes looking like they need a good meat pie. And all they do is yabber on about bastard running. Let's face it, as cave people we either ran after our food or ran away to avoid becoming someone else's food. We didn't need compression socks or stupid fucking sleeves to do that. Neither did we need to convene a meeting of the hungry gang to discuss the most efficient way to run up a 2% incline.

Anyway, now I've offended a very good percentage of my friends I'm kinda hoping that I might flush my anonymous contributor out from his/her hiding place and encourage another pearl of anonymously created wisdom.

If  'Anonymous's' calling me a tosser was based on the dual meaning of the hairy handed antics of a man that lives alone coupled with his or her distasteful opinion of me, that was very good. However, I doubt his or her consideration actually ploughed that deeply. Come on, 'Anonymous,' have another go. You do wonders for my hit counter, by the way.

Anyway, with no running stories to entertain you I'm drawn to my employment as one of those people in London that extinguishes fires (is that oblique enough to argue that I haven't actually mentioned I'm a fireman?).

However, I am disallowed to mention my employment in any detailed degree so I'm not in a position to regale you with the antics of the natives of SW11. What I might be permitted to say is that I was in Battersea the other night 'on business'and it was like a return to the old days. In recent times it's fair to say that Battersea has become something of an urban village. An area of Nappy Valley domiciled by city types and young professionals.

As a boy from Peckham I remember Battersea being considered a dark, frightening place that was dangerous to enter. And when I started my current career that perception hadn't changed greatly.

I first visited Battersea 'on business' as a fresh, green person-that-puts-out-fires back in 1992. My colleagues that were based at the far more salubrious Kingston were terrified to report to the three storey building on Este Road so I was sent instead. Those were the days when the local Battersea Belles shagged the fella that worked in the local kebab shop because they thought they were being Shirley Valentine-esque.

Or when the fellas all got faux dog tags made by the local cobbler and hoped for a random game of volleyball because they'd been so thoroughly affected by Top Gun. How they ever hoped to play ball games while being permanantly attached by rope to a snarling beast that would later fall foul of the Dangerous Dogs Act, God only knows.

Back then as you entered Este Road you were greeted by joy-ridden Ford Capris and dog fights.

Those days are now gone. Although, as I stated above, my last night in Battersea while 'on business' was a bit of a return to form. Yep, the never-quiet-silence of a Battersea night (the Ford Capris and Pitbull Terriers might be gone but the trains still shunt in and out of Clapham Junction throughout the hours of darkness) was pierced by a warring couple who were both desperate to rush the other to a hole in the ground. The screaming and hollering went on for at least an hour in a Vicky Pollard meets the Right Reverand Ian Paisley kinda stylee.

On convening in the morning in the room where meals are served my colleagues all looked bleary eyed and tired.

'What's up, lads?' I asked. 'You all look like you've been up all night.'

'Didn't you hear the screaming?' I was asked.

Of course I did. but to me it's a bit like being the guy that lives next to the motorway and never hears the traffic.

It's great to be back.

Tosser

It's been a while since I sat here and tippy tapped a blog post. That's mainly down to my old, steam driven PC really beginning to give up the ghost and die. It's taken to just shutting down of its own accord now. That's very infuriating if you're in the middle of writing something important. Luckily for me I use my PC for nothing more important than playing music and watching porn. That said it's still infuriating if Mick Jagger's half way through singing The Next Goodbye or Nina Hartley is midway through doing her stuff.

The PC ain't quite dead yet although it's operating naked at the moment. I've removed the cover as I reckon the internal bits are overheating. Probably a bit too much Nina Hartley action. But while I'm on the subject of death I'm quite nicely segued into the latest comment from my anonymous contributor. His/her latest offering can be seen attached to my last blog post but basically it states that I was a tosser when those photographs were taken and I still am now and I should crawl off and die in a hole.

I could, of course, simply delete this comment but I'm a fervent believer in freedom of speech. If 'Anonymous' wishes to state publicly that I like one off the wrist who am I to argue with him/her? I wonder if any of my compadre bloggers suffer the same anonymous contributions?

Anyway, I am now back at work after a tour of duty that had me feeling very vulnerable. I kept thinking that someone might leap out from a cupboard with recording equipment having captured some inappropriate comment or other and finish me off for good. Unlike 'Anonymous' I make all of my comments in my own name.

Vulnerability aside it didn't take long for the natives of SW11 to welcome me back into their slightly warped bosom. My problems of late seemed to dissolve when I witnessed the aftermath of the gentleman that mistook the engine air vent on his girlfriend's Smartcar for a fuel filler cap.

After wrenching off the vent cover (surely the fact that it didn't unscrew smoothly should have been a clue) he proceeded to pump £7.04 of unleaded over the hot engine.

Highly flammable liquid plus red hot metal is a fine combination if you're trying to achieve an impressive conflagration in a petrol garage and the destruction of your girlfriend's new Smartcar. Luckily for the boyfriend he suffered no injury. Well, at least he didn't whilst at the scene. I suspect his (ex) girlfriend might have given him the good news when he got home in a cab.

Anyway, tomorrow is another day and I'm due back in SW11 for more fire related shenanigans. Our new Fire Brigade Union branch rep is due to address his members to inform them of the latest round of attacks on our terms and conditions.

Unfortunately the new branch rep is a tosser.

Well, according to 'Anonymous' he is, anyway as the new branch rep is Yours Truly.

Who'd have thought it? A man whose politics sit slightly to the right of Genghis Khan.

Laters.

Memories in Black and White

Right this is a bit of a cheap shot. A bit of blog indulgence that takes little effort.

I ran into an old friend the other day. Adrian is from a posh family and back in the day was a high flying university undergraduate.

'What the fuck was he doing running around with you, Waterman?' I hear you ask.

I used to go out with his sister.

Anyway, he decided to do an examination of the cult London Rock-a-Billy scene of the 1980s for his sociology degree. It just so happened that I was part of that cult. It was a cult not unlike the cult of the West Highland Way Race in that everyone knew each other and gathered at the same events except that rather than Ron Hill Tracksters and Inov-8s we wore Levis 501s and dealer boots.

At the time Adrian gave me a load of hard copy photographs he took of us Rock-a Billies. They were in black and white to effect a 1950s feel. Over the years and through moves to West Germany, Canada and Ireland the photographs were lost to the four winds. Forever, or so I thought.

Then, after 25 years I ran into Adrian again and he have me a disk of the lost photographs. So in a cheap shot, an act of blog indulgence, I attach some here. I was about seventeen or eighteen. You will notice that we spent an inordinate amount of time combing our hair (of course I selected specific photographs to illustrate this, but in those days losing your comb was the 80s Rock-a-Billy eqivalent of losing your mobile phone).

If I could achieve this level of skinniness again I might give Jez Bragg a run for his money.

Back

Well, in terms of stressfullness that was about as tough as Brixton parking warden. I am disallowed from commenting on the detail of the Carpet Parade and each of the individuals that arrived at Meerkat Manor to testify to what a great bloke I am were instructed the same so don't expect too much detail from them either. Oh, by the way, if you are one of those that turned up to support me, the cheque's in the post.
(Nb: If you happen to be reading this and are in the employ of The Man, that was a joke....no money actually changed hands. Although I bought an awful lot of alcoholic beverage immediately after.)

But I have to report that on Friday morning I took roll call in South Chelsea to applause from my lads. Later I took my place in the chair in the mess where I always sit. It's not 'my chair' as we don't do designated places around the mess table at Battersea.....but it's the chair that I mostly sit in and bristle with concern when someone else sits in it.

Anyway, I'd like to claim that things are back to normal now but I have this feeling that I've been smashed about these past eight weeks and it'll take a little while to get over.

While I was at home and making like Steve McQueen in the cooler I had much time to think. I decided that if I returned to my role as a Station Officer at Battersea I would be a soft, fluffy Guv'nor that tolerates all the foibles of those around him.

That lasted a day.

It didn't take long to spark at a lack of courtesy and fairness and metaphorically slap one of my younger charges down.

Daddy's back.

Anyway, I'm gonna sign off now and prepare for my first night duty in eight weeks.

Laters.

Flipping Flippant

You may have noticed a wee bit of jiggery pokery having taken place. Basically the last blog post I wrote is no more. It's zapped, kaput, ironed out (although I'm assured that it resides somewhere in Google's cache.)

A good friend suggested that given my current situation my last post was flippant. Firstly, every blog post I write, unless it concerns suicide or death, is flippant. If flippancy were a banned concept on my blog, I would have no blog.

So I guess in that sense it was flippant, but not carelessly flippant, or so I believed. I had intended to convey a message. But if it appeared carelessly flippant to him then it must have to others as well and for that reason I removed it.

Secondly, what I was trying to suggest was that this situation hasn't broken me. I'm still the same man that I was in January when my professional conduct attracted a different type of attention. But saving life is what a person in my employ gets paid to do....get over yourself. Insult a politician, however, and prepare your sorry arse for a flailing.

Anyway, the fact that I've spent hours upon hours with a cloth and a tin of Parade Gloss, going round and round in circles on my shoes, should be a demonstration of a lack of flippancy.

Bulling shoes is a well known concept in service personnel circles but for the uninitiated it involves spending forever rubbing shoe polish and spit into one's shoes to achieve a mirror-like shine. Then as soon as you put the shoes on your feet a good fifty percent of your hard work cracks and pings off onto the floor.

I also picked my undress uniform up from the dry cleaner's today. I have no idea why it's called an undress uniform because it's a dress uniform complete with rank markings and medals. It's a naval thing, I think.

The last time I spent this much time preparing my undress uniform it was in preparation to represent my employer at the Royal British Legion Annual Service of Remembrance at the Albert Hall.

How things change.

Anyhow, tomorrow will come and tomorrow will go. See you on the other side.

Blue Spots on Parade

The discussion went something like this:

'Dave, are you running the Horton Park ten mile race on Sunday?'

'No.'

'Oh, go on. It's for charity.'

'No.'

'There's a bottle of wine for the first three finishers.'

'Is Steve the Snake running?'

'No, he's injured.'

'What about Dickie the Dart?'

'Injured too.'

'Fred the Flash?'

'Injured.'

'Brian the Bullet?'

'He died two years ago.'

'What percentage is this wine?'

And that's pretty much how I got talked into running a ten mile race two weeks after running sixty miles on the West Highland Way. Artistic licence has been taken with the names above (you don't say!!) but it was an examination of a relatively small field of 58 runners and the lure of a bottle of Vino Collapso that made me don my Royal Tank Regiment running vest on Sunday and go out the door at a stupid time to run around Horton Park.

So I arrive at the race registration and immediately think that I'm fucked as I see some serious looking, lean runners around me. The preponderance of Garmin GPS's always makes me feel technologically inferior and like a fella that's woken up after a night on the wine and decided to do something he's clearly not prepared for.

Probably because that's exactly what I am.

Anyway, the race starts and true to form I hare off like George Michael after hearing a new public toilet has been opened on Hampstead Heath. For a short while I'm leading the pack and I can smell the demolition of my recent ignominy in failing at the West Highland Way Race. Even before I've reached the first mile marker (bags of ambition....fuck all ability).

Then the familiar sound of footsteps behind me increase in volume and I feel like a floundering fish being reeled in by some eager angler.

I look over my shoulder and see some fella I recognise by sight just hanging on to my pace. For a moment I compare my frustration to that of Jez Bragg in his battle with Stuart Mills in this year's Highland Fling. Then I realise it's a bit like Del Boy Trotter likening 79 Nelson Mandela House to Kensington Palace.   

Anyway, I ease off the gas a bit and engage my shadow in conversation.

'Alright mate, what time are you looking for?'

'Don't know....I've never done a ten mile race before, only half marathons.'

'What's your PB for a half?'

'1:33.'

'I'm gonna stop for a piss, mate.'

So off he trots and I slot into second place. The rest of the race is run at bastard threshold level as the sun rises in the sky and the morning gets hotter. I'm in such a serious, Paula Radcliffe style zone, that when I really needed a piss I have a quick look about and then get my willy out and piss on the move. You know that way that leaves a zig-zag trail down the road.

Somehow the Gods smile upon me and inflict everyone behind me with feelings of inadequacy. A 44 year old fella with wine stained lips breaks the tape in second place in 1:17 on a course that was actually measured at eleven miles.

So what now?

Well, I didn't get my wine because I bugged out before the prize giving as Mason (dog) needed a walk. The wine cannot now be located (probably because some other fucker has drunk it) but I also have a free one hour session with a physiotherapist.

This quite excited me, particularly when the race organiser identified said physio as a she. Then he pointed her out and I realised that I've 'won' an hour with a Jo Brand lookalike.

This all goes to prove that it matters not how high and mighty you can convince yourself you are, in a big willy contest, John Holmes is just around the corner.

Or on parade, when you've decided to use Klear floor polish on your shoes, there's always an unexpected rain cloud on the horizon (only squaddies will get that....blue spots).

Laters.