band of brothers – Mkingdon's Blog

I have had a Sky induced strop this week.

Being a sensible, mature adult, even mid strop I knew that it was an over reaction, and not really that important, but it did not reduce the venom by which I did what everyone does now when they are angry….updated my Facebook status about it.

Friday saw some snow. In fact it saw a lot of snow in these parts. Thankfully, due to some work appointmentage in the bustling metropolis of Manchester earlier in the day, I was at home when it started rather than trying to battle my way home through it from the office.

Said appointmentage by the way was in a section of Manchester called the Northern Quarter. This is the mecca for all things artsy and cool in Manchester, and indeed if you try to get in without a pair of converse and a pair of thick rimmed glasses there is a toll to pay.

I met with a design agency (get her!), and the office was pretty much the stereotypical version of what you might imagine it to be. It was an old mill style building, with one of those old style pull the door shut industrial type lifts. As I emerged into the office itself, I was immediately surrounded by retro cool jumpers and sarcastic T-shirts.

If you weren’t an Apple Mac computer or stripped wooden floorboard you were no use to them.

Anyway, the meeting was productive, the people were actually lovely, talented and very useful so all was well. I took my uncool M&S bedecked torso back into the real world, where I didn’t need to try so hard to be cool.

So there I was back at home mid afternoon, cracking on with some work, watching the first flakes of snow hit the ground. It soon turned into a fair deluge, and traffic thinned as the roads got worse and worse.

Anywho, such a sad sham is my life that one of the highlights of my week is the repeat of the series on TCM of Band of Brothers. I mentioned it last week, but that shall not stop me repeating my high regard for this programme. It starts at 9pm.

At 8.43pm I was told without any softening of the blow that no satellite signal was being received. I took this as a personal attack, and uttered a phrase I often quote when bad luck befalls me. “You couldn’t write this!”.

Our Sky dish is in a very lofty position, nowhere near any window, so I resorted to throwing snowballs at it in an attempt to dislodge the seven flakes of snow that were stopping me from watching my favourite programme. Of course, nothing worked, and with no signal I couldn’t even record them for later.

Naturally, Band of Brothers appears to be the only series currently on TV that isn’t repeated at least four times throughout the week. I even searched You Tube for the two episodes I was currently missing, but no joy.

My bottom lip knew no bounds as it protruded proudly to display my dissatisfaction with the world.

I constructed and dispatched a very strongly worded email to Mr Murdoch (or one of his underlings) outlining my outrage, and telling him that I wanted to cancel my contract forthwith, immediately and without delay. No bugger has replied.

So I have spent the weekend on the Virgin web site, pricing things up. It is pretty much like for like, but each have their pros and cons. Virgin have faster broadband, cheaper phone (for us) and very similar TV. Alas, one channel has stopped me from pressing the button on this change.

Virgin do not have Sky Atlantic. We do not watch it a lot, but I know that sometime soon the new series of Game of Thrones is going to appear and if I can’t watch that there will be a similar meltdown. Nothing comes between me and my dwarf sex and unlimited sword related bloodshed.

So that right there is a dilemma. I am leaning towards Virgin on principle really. It all depends now on who contacts me first, Murdoch or Branson. Let battle commence!

Oh and to add insult to injury, Tesco phoned us on Saturday to cancel our delivery due to the snow. Seriously, taking away food and Sky in the space of 24 hours is a risky business. This has Falling Down written all over it.

Falling Down — Where is my delivery Mr Tesco?

To save the day my brother and sister in law invited us for tea on Saturday night to prevent us having to eat toothpaste sandwiches. We had a delicious meal, and watched Dredd….in 3D on their clever new telly.

So Mr Murdoch I’ll have one of those fandangled 3D TVs as compensation for missing my programme, plus of course the box set of Band of Brothers!

Till the next time…..

To avoid another bit of bloggage about the banality of January, let’s wander back through the years. My Mum popped round earlier with some old photos. Louise had been asking if she had any really old black and white ones that we could frame and hang, she didn’t just appear out of the blue with random photos.

From a vast collection of photo albums (remember those) we looked through just three. They were a mixture of really old photos of my Mum’s parents, and brothers and sisters through to some that were even in colour!

Before I shock and amaze you with my incredible levels of cuteness when I was younger, take a look at these of my Mum and Dad, or Tony Curtis and Doris Day…not sure which.

I think at the time of this next one my Dad was in National Service. It is amazing and scary to think that just a generation ago every male had to serve two years in the army! My soft under belly quivers at the prospect. I am under no illusion that my Dad spent those two years in peace time on a switchboard rather than on a front line somewhere, but still, two years in uniform is a prospect I cannot compute.

On a similar note, I have been watching Band of Brothers (again) of a Friday evening on TCM. It is probably one of the best, most compelling and watchable pieces of drama ever made, and this week was the one where they spent weeks dug into frozen holes with no supplies, ammo or warm clothes at the Battle of the Bulge. I simply cannot comprehend that experience either. But I digress….

Moving on a good few years, this next one caught my eye for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I look horrified, and second this was from a time when you could have your photo taken with a monkey outside of British Home Stores. Or was that just Bolton?

There is also some top anorak action going on here along with some top gurning from my brother, more of which later.

So onto the cuteness I promised you. I’m not sure if this next one is before or after the last, but my levels of cuteness only lead me to ask what went wrong?

Brace yourselves….

I’m pretty sure that is food around my mouth, so not much changes really.

As technology raced ahead, within only a few short years we emerged into a glorious world of technicolour, Polaroid cameras, large brown swivel chairs that only Dad could sit in, but for some reason still with dodgy anoraks.

My brother is one of those people who cannot have a photo taken without such an expression. I think there are probably only half a dozen of them in existence where he looks “normal”. Some of them are his wedding photos, but not all!!

It has been strange looking back through history. Looking at myself seems like looking at someone else. I sort of remember those times, but somehow see them as seperate to my life today. I wonder how the girls will see themselves in years to come.

It will be different I suppose, as their life will be captured in many and varied ways. Facebook and twitter have already captured their every thought in recent years, and with phones acting as cameras and video cameras, they will have a lot to reminisce about. There are moving images of my younger years of course, but they are on silent jerky “cine” films which are buried somewhere in my Mum and Dad’s house.

I suppose I can only hope they have more happy memories than otherwise, and of course that I manage to stick around long enough to look back with them. If Emily keeps taking corners on two wheels like she did again this afternoon, that could be in jeopardy.

Till the next time…..

Tag: band of brothers

Murdoch vs Branson. Call me!!

Monkeys, gurning and a selection of anoraks

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