MarkW

Would that be Mrs Wilton, manager of their Gillingham branch?

I have no idea why, but just recently I have had a spate of very weird dreams. Last night I had two: In the first, I had walked out of my business and taken a job as a salesman in an Allied Carpets showroom, which for some reason was located in the attic of one of the high street shops in town. On my first day I tried to convince the boss that we really needed to diversify into bedside lamps and garden tools, before getting fired for selling car insurance to someone who came in for a tufted Wilton. In the second, I was watching Masterchef with my wife, when our very own [mention]Six30[/mention] appeared as one of the contestants. I said "Hey, I know him - he's on the Motorbike Forum!" Everything was going fine until Monica introduced the skills test: "You have 20 minutes. I'd like you to bone this chicken..."

Crumbs - I didn't know we had a Biscuit Sheriff. It's a M&S Traditional Biscuit Selection offering the choice of Fruit Shrewsbury, Demerara Spice and Ginger Crunch. Well let that be a lesson to you, and next time have the foresight to enquire about the provenance of the comestibles before lending a hand. Personally, I wouldn't lift a finger to help anyone unless the biscuits were from Fortnums. Or Waitrose at the very least.

One of my mates is a tabloid journalist, and on a day when the papers are full of Brexit news I was relieved to see that he had gone for the big story:

I did not state that, its just a given these days isn't it? If you did not see it, it did not happen. When we moved up here from Suffolk 12 years ago I pranged a car at the end of the street as I was trying to get the transit van round the back of the terraces. It was about 3 am and nobody was about, but I left an apologetic note on the windscreen and said I'd pay for the damage. The bloke came round the next morning and just stood on the doorstep with his mouth open, not quite believing anyone would own up! I paid for the repairs and bunged him a few quid for the inconvenience, and he came round a few days later with a really nice bottle of wine as a thank you. A few years later I had to do something similar when I royally f*cked the steering geometry on a neighbours car: he'd left the front wheels on hard left lock after reversing into a space on the road outside his house, and as I pulled out I clipped his wheel. Result? XC90 one; BMW Alpina (with its shitty aluminium steering components) nil. I got him a hire car whilst his was in for repairs, which cost me more than I'd bargained for as it turned out he had nine points on his licence!

JUST SO YOU CAN FEEL MY PAIN, THIS WAS THE CONVERSATION WITH MY MOTHER OVER LUNCH THE OTHER DAY: Mark, Remind me to go into Waterhouses when I'm in town. - Where the f*ck's that? The bookshop. - You mean Waterstones. Yes, Waterstones. There's a book I want to read by A.A. Milne. - One of his early novels? I'm guessing you don't mean Winnie the Pooh... No, he's a restaurant critic who died a couple of years ago. I've read some of his stuff and it's quite funny. - That's A.A. Gill. Oh of course. A A. Milne. - Gill. Yes, Gill. Laura, could you pass me the salt? - That's Vicki. Laura is my brothers wife. Oh for Gods sake Dominic, are you going to correct everything I say today? - Hmm... Anyway, what was the name of that woman whose daughter was in your class? - Which class? I think she was in your year at primary school, or the year above. Or it may have been secondary school. - OK... We went to their house once. - When was this? Ooh, let me see... it must have been 1988. Or possibly 1989. They lived in a village. - Well, that narrows it down... And there was a church in the village. - Yup, we're homing in now... There was a wedding at the church - it was up the A50, past the football stadium. - Well can you remember who any of the other guests were? No. We didn't go. - What? Well who did? Let me think... err... it was Charles Darwin. - Hell's bollocks! What are you driveling on about? Just tell me where Charles Darwin got married. - Maer. Maer! That's the place! - And you think that's up the A50, do you? It is - I see signs for it when I'm in Stoke. - That's Meir. That's what I said! - No, you said... oh, never mind. Right, so we're looking for the mother of a girl - as yet unidentified - who may or may not have been in my year at school, who lives in a house in Maer that we went to 30 years ago. Actually it might have been your brother who came with me. - Marvellous. What a fascinating trip down memory lane this has been...

It's Six I'd be feeling sorry for! Anyway, I'm not cold-hearted - far from it. I've just had enough of her endless self-aggrandising stories and the fact that she elevates herself not through her own achievements but by belittling those of everyone else. She had a middle management role at a mediocre university and carries on as if she'd been the bloody Vice Chancellor. She disapproves of my parenting because I let my kids discover for themselves where their interests lie and then help them to develop them, rather than using her method, which was to make me do whatever she thought would get her the most social status with her 'friends' - all of whom I thought were vapid flakes at the time, and all of whom dumped her when the old man kicked the bucket rather than deal with the social stigma. She may be my mother, but I don't like her much - she's got a shitty personality. I've made many mistakes in life, but the one I regret most is ever having confided in her: anything she knows she just treats as ammunition to be used in an argument, no matter who else gets hurt in the process. I was driving her home from Manchester once, many years ago, and came across a bad accident on the A34 that must have happened only moments before. I stopped to see if anyone needed help, and the haranguing she gave me was sickening: at one point she said "What did you stop for? They don't matter - I want to get home and have a coffee." I nearly kicked her out at the side of the road. I don't like my brother much either. He's a pompous ar*ehole with a grossly inflated opinion of himself, and has looked down his nose at me his whole life. The only time he didn't was when he lost his job (apparently they had enough of his arrogance too) and it looked as though he'd lose his house. I paid his mortgage for the 18 months it took him to find another job, at which point he reverted straight back to being an ar*ehole. I'm not on the breadline by any stretch, but with a young business to run neither am I rolling in it, and the money for a second mortgage that was bigger than my own took some finding. We don't even get invited for Christmas now. F*ck the pair of them.

Correct.You're welcome to have her on a timeshare basis with Six if you feel sorry for her.

[mention]Six30[/mention] - can you account for your whereabouts when this took place?

That's true. At the other end of the spectrum, I remember coming down the M6 in the early hours of the morning once with my father-in-law at the wheel. The entire stretch of motorway was empty except for us in lane 1. We eventually came up behind someone sitting in the middle lane, and rather than undertake or overtake them he moved into their lane and spent the next few miles flashing and beeping them to move over, his blood pressure getting higher the whole time. Just at the point he was about to have a coronary they finally moved over, he overtook them and then pulled back into lane one and carried on the journey.

Hmm... This Christmas has followed the exact same pattern as every other time we visit her or she comes to us, with roughly the following chronology: 1. Interminable anecdotes in excruciatingly tedious detail about her neighbours cats. She has become a mad old cat woman for whom they are a convenient and sufficient surrogate for people, and she treats them like her babies. I nearly ran over one of the festering things as I was leaving, which would at least have given her a new story to tell, but luckily I saw it just in time. 2. Endlessly rehashed stories from a scintillating life in middle management, all told exactly the same way she always tells them, and as though they were being told for the first time. 3. Updates from her visits to the chiropodist, dentist, doctor, and cancer care specialist. 4. Reminders of how she didn't tell anyone at work that she'd had two types of cancer and they never knew, amply compensated by the fact that she's told me this five billion f*cking times in the intervening 14 years, and always with the same smug self-congratulatory tone. 5. General criticism of anyone who goes out in the evening for a drink, all of whom she labels 'drunks'. Drunks also include anyone who makes a noise in the street after the curtains are drawn, or who does anything even slightly out of the ordinary in town. 6. A maudlin pseudo-psychologists dissection of my father's suicide 30 years ago. I didn't care then and I still don't care now. 7. Boring stories about people I don't know, some of which go back to the mid 1960s and concern people I have never even met. 8. Gloating over the misfortunes of others - especially people she likes to feel superior to, and usually whilst pretending not to remember their names to illustrate how inconsequential they are. If any of the above occurs during a meal, it will be delivered with a mouthful of food, most of which ends up splattered on us: years of living alone has given her the table manners of a starved pig at a trough of swill.

This is the easiest option. I think it's being added to Mod 1 later this year: ">

I don't understand why people get so bent out of shape about middle lane hoggers. Yes, technically it's incorrect, but in nearly 30 years of driving I can't remember someone sitting in the middle lane ever causing me to have to do anything more demanding than poke the indicator stalk up and overtake them, or just sail past on the inside.

Taking my mother back to her house today, and for the first time since I bought it I found myself opening the curtains this morning praying to God that nobody had stolen my car in the night.

Ooh how many watts is that? I'd have to check (I bought it for my wife when she had a dalliance with the guitar a few years ago) but I think it's 50W. It certainly had some grunt, and a load of cool built in effects that she quite liked.

Yup - there's a Fender Mustang with remote switches if you're interested!

The Stingray was about £1,800 when I bought it and the amp rig was about the same. Dunno what I'll put them on for yet, but they're pricey bits of kit! I've got other basses, guitars and other bits and bobs acquired over the last few years kicking around though - I'll do a list and post it up with piccies.

Great to meet you and Lewis as well! Hope he gets on OK with it, but if he has any probs or just decides it's not what he's after, give me a shout and we can sort it. And if he decides he fancies the bass instead of the guitar there's my 1200 watt Trace Elliott stage rig and a Stingray 5 about to hit Ebay. That'll blow the windows out!

It's the only option left. She has refused to slip into a diabetic coma despite the amount of cake she's pushed into her face, and she seems to be immune to alcohol: I've given her enough pina colada to drop a rhino, but she still keeps wittering on...

Fixed it for you.

AND IN THE SAME VEIN: "Ooh Mark, what's this song on the radio called?" - "Brown Eyed Girl." "Oh that's right. Who's it by? I really like it." - "Van Morrison." "Ah yes, of course. I can't remember how he died, but he was very young." - "That was Jim Morrison." "Oh yes, I remember now - Van Morrison's that whiny northern ponce who thinks he's God's gift to music." - "No, that's Morrissey." "So which one is Van Morrison, then?" - "Do you know Brown Eyed Girl?" "Yes..." - "He sang that." "Oh - I like Brown Eyed Girl..."

"Ooh Mark - look at that rabbit!" - "You mean the one that looks exactly like a seagull?" "Yes. I don't think I've ever seen one like that before. Why do you suppose it's so white?" - "BECAUSE IT'S A F*CKING SEAGULL!"

PM me your address and I'll send you mine.

I picked my mother up yesterday so she could spend a few days with us over the New Year. I suppose I'd better think of something to say, because it'll be my turn to speak soon. It is our family paradox that the more tedious, pointless and relentless piffle my mother inflicts on me the less inclined I am to call her, meaning that when I do call her she has all the more tedious and pointless piffle to inflict on me. This morning she has been wittering on about the Mistral: "It blows for hours at a time - just a constant, relentless, infuriating noise that you can't get away from and that eventually drives people insane. You can't imagine what that must be like, can you?" - "Yes."

It does indeed - it sits inline between the guitar and amp. Price-wise, he can have it for peanuts: the newest version is just £109 on gear4music.com, and the only second hand version of mine I found on Ebay was from Japan, and more expensive than a new one! How does £30 sound?