Marlow – Mkingdon's Blog

Gigs, Gore and Getting No Planning Done.

19/10/201419/10/2014 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Now that all the initial excitement and euphoria about Emily getting her job at WDW has subsided, we’re now having to get our heads around her not being here for a year. That is the down side of this whole thing of course. It will be a huge change for all of us and of course for Emily. I say that as a Dad who still uses the Find my iPhone app to check she has arrived safely at work when she drives there. It’s about three miles away.

If she is to move away, I think we all feel better about it as she is off to Disney. She knows the place well, and working for the mouse, it is clear that there are rules, regulations and other stuff in place to make the sure the young folk on their programmes are looked after.

She is slowly working her way through all the admin and paperwork that will enable her to go, including a CRB check (which costs), an admin and accommodation fee (which costs), and of course her flight and visa (which costs). This programme is not something to casually consider on a whim. It tests the candidate’s commitment, determination and bank balance at every stage.

After my very busy week of planning, outlined in last week’s post, I have done absolutely nothing holiday related this week. I’ve been busy in other ways, mainly with work, with a couple of very busy days down in Marlow doing all sorts of worky things. On Tuesday night it was that time again for our regular pilgrimage to the Level 42 tour. It tends to come round every couple of years, and this time marked the 30th anniversary of my first ever gig, which was Level 42, in the same venue, the Manchester Apollo.

My brother and I met up after work for a large and lovely McDonalds before making our way to the second row for the gig. This was to be the closest we have ever been to the action at a Level 42 gig and it was super to be so.

A lack of planning and forethought on my part meant that I had to be up at a stupid hour on Wednesday morning following the very late (for me) night on Tuesday to make my way down south. The drive down was a blur of energy drinks and open windows in an attempt to avoid an abrupt meeting with the central reservation.

Having made it in one piece, the next couple of days were a whirlwind of meetings as they normally are when I’m down in Head Office until I escaped on Thursday evening for the race home. Whilst in Marlow, I realised that I have a strange wife. Louise is currently on a placement in the Operating Theatres at our local hospital, and I woke early on Wednesday morning to this text.

and then later, more detail, as I needed that!

(WARNING: SKIP THIS NEXT ONE IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH ABOUT GORE AND STUFF!)

Having vomited all over my desk at work, it made it crystal clear that nurses are a special breed, and it’s a good job there are odd folks like them out there. It works both ways, as not everyone could endure my job. Sometimes the stapler in my top drawer can jam, and I have often drawn blood trying to fix it. We are all heroes in different ways. By the way, the “patient” was brain dead, hence the beating heart!

Hopefully you weren’t eating when you read those texts!

So I resolve over the coming week to find some time (not in working hours of course) to do some more planning. The next stage is to loosely plan on which days we’ll eat where. I have my list, to which it has been suggested I should add Senor Frogs, and I see no reason not to, and I will use said list to allocate an eatery to an appropriate day. If there are any new or little known good places to eat then please do let me know.

I am also looking for recommendations for the “next series” to watch. We’ve done all the obvious ones –

Breaking Bad
Homeland
Orange is the New Black
The Killing
A good many Dexters, but not finished them….

and loved them all in different ways. We have Netflix and Amazon Instant Video (and no social life clearly) so if you have found one of those gems that compels you to binge watch at the expense of living your day to day life, we need to know about it. I thank you!

Till the next time…..

That’s right, I write.

10/11/201310/11/2013 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Reading last week’s post back a few days later I was struck with a sense of pomposity and over blown self-image, but hey, I is a writer now, so I guess that is how I roll!

Still, outing myself in that way was a good thing. It has made me write, and as I type I am up to just short of 12,000 words. That sounds like a lot, but I need to get about 80,000 which of course isn’t daunting at all.

There is nothing like completely winging something to get the juices flowing.

I did call upon two kind folks to read the first few chapters last week, (after Louise had read it) just to get some honest feedback as to whether I’d be better spending my time power washing the yard in my spare time. The content was very raw of course but their feedback was encouraging enough to get me to continue.

So if and when you do read this thing, I shall tell you who that was and you can send them hate mail!

I am enjoying it too. I do have frequent attacks of the “this is a heap of shite” but I shall carry on regardless, taking pleasure in the process as much as I can. The story is developing on the page and in my head, so I just hope it is good enough to hold someone’s attention.

Outside of writing stuff, the week has been filled with work of course and another stay in Marlow. M’colleague and I were delighted to discover that the heating was broken in our “hotel” upon our arrival, and so after consuming huge amounts of Chicken Saag and Naan bread we returned to the hotel where I slept in every item of clothing I had brought with me. Well, I say slept. I lay horizontal for a few hours until about 6am.

In a vague attempt at revenge I emptied the hotel room of anything that wasn’t nailed down and my laptop bag is still full of complimentary shortbread. Had I a bigger car, I’d have had the fridge and TV away too.

I don’t do cold very well.

Emily is working most days at our local Debenhams. She has a Christmas job in the cafe there and is quickly becoming a black belt at Lattes and operating a dishwasher. By the time she finishes at the start of January she will have about 80% burns and a bank balance she has no idea how to spend. I am calculating the due rent as we speak.

Rebecca continues on her course at college (Media Make Up and Hair), and is enjoying it very much. Her small ambition is to finish the course and then immediately start work doing the hair and make up on a major Hollywood movie. I see no reason why not.

Tonight, Louise and I are going on a date night. If memory serves that will involve finding a deserted car park and fiddling with her knockers for a few hours. Either that or we will go to the cinema. We haven’t decided yet.

If we do the latter I don’t know what we’ll see yet, but as long as it involves £20 of Pick N Mix it will be a date night of which dreams are made.

I only have to sell a few more books and that will be the Pick n Mix paid for, so thank you.

Oh yeh, BUY MY BOOK!!

Till the next time…..

It’s Been Fur Too Hot for Oli

21/07/2013 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Oli

A bit of early bloggage this week, as I don’t want to be writing this thing at the normal time today as I will be watching the golf.

In the on-going soap opera that is the Williams way, it has been a fairly uneventful week to be honest, with the major events being as exciting as me being away with work for a couple of days, and Oli having a haircut.

With the weather as it has been for while now, what you don’t want to be is an Old English Sheepdog. As cute as he looks with a fuller plume, by the time he had kept Louise awake for three nights panting the hair had to go. I suffered a similar fate back in the late nineties and have never been the same since.

A few months ago, we invested in some decent clippers for Oli, as we were fed up of paying enormous fees to dog groomers. Having now shaved him twice, we understand that they are probably underpaid!

The right kit probably helps, as he is a wriggly bugger, and has some real issues with you shaving his legs. So after doing the easy bits on his body he then spends a couple of hours looking like he’s wearing wooly chaps. I can say there end the similarities between Oli and myself. My chaps are leather.

So it took both Louise and I all of Saturday morning to get him to an acceptable state. We then had more hair on us than Oli ever did.

Of course now he’s all ready for the heatwave, today it has been overcast and cool and he’s been snuggling up to anything with a temperature to keep warm. I suspect we are not in his good books.

I’d like to do the same to both cats. Not because they are hot, I’d just like to.

I timed my night away from home well. It was officially the hottest day of the year, and to compound matters I was down south in Marlow, where everyone knows it is always at least five degrees hotter then the frozen north.

As I arrived at my hotel on Wednesday evening, it was very hot outside. However as I opened my door it took me back to that first blast of Florida heat as you first leave the airport. It appears that the central heating was on, and had been for some time. With the outside temperature being over thirty degrees, inside it must have been knocking forty.

I wrestled with the radiators for a while to get them off, opened the windows, and stripped down to my undies. Imagine a sumo wrestler on a single bed watching the telly.

With no breeze coming through the window I had to eventually leave the room and go for a walk as the outside temperature was refreshing compared to my room. I did a good hours walk, worked up a nice sweat and went back to my room to find the place no better. I stood in a cold shower for twenty minutes before going to bed where I enjoyed a good half hour or so of uninterrupted sleep.

My walk did allow me to discover a lot more of Marlow than I ever have before, which has pretty much been the office, my hotel room and Pizza Express, and it really is a beautiful place. I couldn’t however even afford to look in the estate agent’s window.

I was back home Thursday evening, and we’ve been planning Emily’s birthday celebrations since. We’re all out for a meal on Friday evening (about fifteen of us) once everyone has finished work, and then it will be a “gathering” back at our house for her to open her presents.

No doubt next week’s blog shall share the details with you, plus a few photos.

Right, time for golf.

Till the next time…..

My Buddy Gyles Brandreth

14/04/2013 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

All the kerfuffle over the last few weeks has brought quite a few new readers to these parts, so I sit here staring at the blank page all of a quiver at the extra pressure brought on by these newbies.

My regulars know and tolerate the quality to be expected here, so I merely wish to delay the disappointment of those brought here to read my ramblings. Here goes…

So last week saw me undertaking “executive travel” once again, with Tuesday in London, an overnight stay in the five-star, sorry I mean 0.5 star Prince of Wales in Marlow, and Wednesday in HQ in the same town.

As I’ve often said, I do appreciate London, in short doses and usually once back on the train with it shrinking into the distance. My meeting was in Piccadilly Circus, which as usual, saw this simple Northern Lad staring slack-jawed at the twinkly signs and all that stuff we only see on the telly. I did my best to avoid all eye contact on the tube, and to stand on the correct side of the escalators to avoid being mown down by some swarthy investment banker as he sweeps past on the way to his next bonus.

Like most northerners I assume that the streets of London are strewn with celebrities, and I often spot one or two in those brief few hours in which I enter and retreat SAS like from it’s smoggy grip.

Alas, this time, I only saw Gyles Brandreth. I was coming up out of the underground at Paddington to catch the train back to Marlow, and he was filming, I assume for The One Show. No doubt it was a twenty-minute piece on some crucial story such as who invented tin foil or the percentage of the population with a third nipple, as is the norm for The One Show.

I sauntered through shot all casual like, trying to act all blase, like getting on TV is something that happens every day. Do watch out for me on The One Show as I shall obviously feature heavily.

Our family of course are regulars on it!

The only other times I have appeared on TV were way back in earlier decades. Whilst working for Nat West, we “volunteered” to work on ITV’s telethon programme at Granada Studios in Manchester, and my legs and shoes appeared briefly on national TV behind Richard and Judy.

The other time was a close shave in more than way, as I was handing a drink to runners in the Bolton Marathon, and having spotted a camera, I risked life, limb and my childhood innocence by dashing through an army of runners to hand Jimmy Saville a drink. He was very gentle!

As claims to fame go, I suspect there are more impressive ones. Oh yes, I did also used to work with Howard Donald, from Take That…….’s cousin. I think I’ll stick with walking past Gyles Brandreth. Not something I would want as my epitaph or on my gravestone of course, unless someone wants to pay £10 million for my funeral in which case I would have a headstone that wouldn’t look out-of-place in Vegas.

I would never do politics here, but regardless of your views on our recently deceased ex leader, do we really need to spend £10m to put a box of skin and bone into the ground? I can think of better uses of that cash to be honest. I need a holiday for a start!

Friday night saw a rare night out for us (minus Rebecca of course who is constantly attached to her Tom). We went to the cinema, and it was one of those trips to the cinema which was more about having a night out, rather than seeing a particular film. In the end we decided upon Identity Thief, and it was better than I expected. It was, I thought, going to be another gross out comedy spawned by the Hangovers and Bridesmaids we’ve seen recently, and it was I suppose, but good all the same.

Identity Thief — Better during a sugar coma

The trailers before the film though confirmed that Hollywood is struggling for an original thought, as Hangover III was shown, along with another trailer straight after that for what looked like a Hangover Junior, you know, a bit like S Club Juniors when S Club 7 were starting to implode in a haze of weight loss tablets and in fighting.

I forget what it was called, but basically the similarities leave me hoping that it is actually a spin-off, and not being passed off as a standalone effort. Don’t get me wrong I’ll be watching Hangover III, and of course Anchor Man 2, but I wonder if we’ve used up all the original ideas in the world. God knows, I’ve used the same seven gags in ten years of trip reports so I speak from authority.

Anyway, we enjoyed the film, and I went for the double trouble option of Ben & Jerrys and Pick n Mix. Sugar induced nausea adds to the enjoyment of any film, and when asked to pay for my snacks, it also gave me another better use of that £10 million we’re spending on a funeral!

Till the next time….

PS – Buy my book!

Cath Kidston and the £8 lunch

03/03/2013 by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

This will be a blog free from slagging off all the bands and singers you like and I don’t! I promise.

It has been a fairly ordinary week to be honest. Work wise I was once again down south in Head Office in Marlow. As much as the 4am start to get there for the beginning of play is painful, at least the roads are quiet.

Of course by the time the working day is ending the body is telling you that it has been far too long a day too, but the upside to the couple of days away is that it really breaks up the working week.

After driving back home on Wednesday evening, the bulk of the working week is done, and the weekend is almost winking at you with flirty intent.

To add spice, interest and exhaustion to this trip down south, on Tuesday after driving down to Marlow, I had a meeting in central London to do too. Every day is a school day of course, and I learned that as posh as Marlow is, if you want to get a train anywhere other than Maidenhead from there you have to change!

To get into Paddington took an age, with the stress of a thirty-second slot to make the connection.

The meeting was at 2pm, and as I am wired this way, I of course arrived early. Having had breakfast at a ridiculous hour, by the time 12.30 rolled around I was sucking the front of my coat to absorb the remnants of lunches gone by that had no doubt found their way down the front.

Not to fear thought I. As soon as I emerge from the tube station in central London, everyone knows that every other shop is a Starbucks or Costa, so securing lunch would be a breeze.

My meeting was near Harley Street, so I tubed it to Regent Park station. Right then, let’s get lunch sorted. A cursory glance raised a concern. Lots of very nice looking buildings of course, but a distinct lack of java.

So I seemed to have found the only area of central London without a Starbucks on each corner. So I had to set off in search of food. A good fifteen minute walk took me to Marylebone High Street, so I’d soon be in business here surely?

Alas, being one of the bohemian and upper crust areas of London, the array of shops left me underwhelmed. It was all Fromageries and Cath Kidston. Had I wanted to lunch on guava and jalapeno marmalade with a dark rye poppy-seed foccacia my choices would have been unlimited. Frankly, I was looking for a golden arches for familiar food and free WiFi.

It took me half an hour to find a Starbucks which was too full, so after a free wee, I carried on the search for food. Almost back where I started, I finally stumbled across Entre Nous. This was as downbeat as it got around here.

It was trendily run down, and by this stage it would have to do.

Eight quid for a cheese sandwich and a coffee later, and I purposefully sat in there for a full hour, at least getting some value from their heating for my £8.

Feeling ever so regional and non cosmopolitan I took my absurd accent off to my meeting.

It went well, despite me being distracted at my £8 outlay, and I was soon back on the tube, and then trains to get back to Marlow just in time to end the working day. By this time, I was more than ready for a quick evening meal (thankfully on expenses) and a swift retirement to the exclusive five star country retreat in which we are always housed when away with work. Despite an early night, sleep was fitful and interrupted, as it always is in the crappy beds provided.

Whenever I get home from these adventures, it certainly makes me appreciate my own bed.

The joy of it all is that I am doing the whole thing again next week, but before that I have a wonderful visit to the dentist to look forward to on Monday. It involves drilling, and I’m not happy. It must have been that £8 cheese sandwich that did all the damage.

Such is life.

As some sort of teaser marketing campaign, I shall …..erm…tease you by letting you know that I am working on a “secret project” at the moment and at some point soon I may reveal it to you. As an added bonus one or two of you might even give a toss.

Either way, I’ll update you and inflict it upon you as and when it is complete. Don’t bother guessing, it won’t be that, and I can assure you all it is NOT planning for a holiday!

Till the next time…..

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