Seeking Catharsis

I think i mentioned in an earlier post something about being aware of your own comfort zone. When you are not expanding your experiences or changing things up from the same old routine your comfort zone retracts and you become more resistent to new things. Much like getting 'old and stuck in one's ways' this can be helped by trying that new sandwich on offer and doing something you have never considered before. I once tried to 'break out of my rut' of not knowing what to do with my life at 21 by starting to sell insurance (Something i thought i would despise and had never considered doing in my life).


My reasoning was simple: If i can't think of what i want to do when i'm apathetic and looking for new things then why not do something i would hate. Surely that would make things clearer? Sure, it didn't work as i had planned but i got a great week away all paid for by the company and learned a lot of new stuff the following months as i went around selling 'Income protection' for the Combined Insurance Company of America, or CICA as we were known. It was a good product and a lot of the salespeople i spoke to said they had never made more money in any job they had ever done. It was fun for a while but i don't think i was in the right place in my life for that kind of work. I believe i left one day and the next week was working as a manager at a local tourist hotspot not too far from Winnie the Pooh bridge. As you do.


10 years or so later, i still don't have a clue what i want to do but am reassured by Baz's lyrics from Sunscreen that 'some of the most interesting forty year old's' he's met don't have a clue either.
I'm sure 'The Dude' would agree that what is perceived as apathy from others can lead to a full and happy life. It's not laziness, merely an almost Zen Buddist like acceptance of taking things as they come and understanding to 'just be' in the moment. Whether something is classically good or bad is irrelevant, it just 'is'.


I've noticed lately that my comfort zone has contracted around me while i've blindly been doing the daily grind. Before i've realised what ive been doing i've turned 30 and been doing the same job for 3 years with not a great deal to show for it. Sure, lately i've got a bit more organised with regards to getting things going with my acting chum Pete Russell. As of yet we have still to meet up and get shit going, plans are in place and we have a good line up for the kind of content we are after with regards to our Generation Project. Which is essentially a collaberation of people of all ages who know each other within a close linked social network of like minded souls. Sounds good when i write it like that. I'll make a note to put that on the back of a Tee-Shirt.


Needless to say i'm in that dark place where work is a chore and most of the time i either dread it or get overly stressed and end up driving home annoyed only to wake up the next day and have to sit in stressful traffic and do it all again. It wasn't this bad when i used to get the train. I used to enjoy the relaxing hour out of my day and catch up on reading. Screaming through my library of online book purchases that first fill my shelves then have to be moved under the bed from lack of room on my shelves but still remain unread due to my driving antics. I would get the train more if it didn't work out so frickin' expensive. Because i work 9-5 and by that i mean 21:00-05:30 leaving my house at 17:30 to get there in time and arriving home at 07:00 means life is topsy turvy and the train charges me peak prices, even though i am LEAVING LONDON on what is usually a train with 4 people on it. I don't find it 'fare' that i should have to pay full whack on a train that is only going to pick people up from my neck of the woods anyway. Oh well, c'est la vie.

Needless to say, change is needed and pronto or i feel i may do something i will later regret. Like throwing someone off the roof of Babestation. Or coming in with a semi-automatic carbine and a postal uniform. While it may come as a shock to some as to how i can possibly be bored surrounded by scantily clad women, believe me, it's just a job like any other. If you are not inspired and your average workload consists of button pushing and telling people the same things over and over again like a fracking parrot you begin to lose the slender grip on reality you have left. It was good back in the days of producing/moderating one or even two shows at once. When they put you in charge of the audio and graphics for four shows at the same time and they are all live the fun stops. You do not have the time to be creative or theme the shows. This kinda bugs me as i don't think we're giving our audience anything more than the same show every night of the week with 'the babes' just going through the motions as it were. Holiday round the corner methinks but i have no clue where to go. It feels like all my imagination has been sucked out of me. I reckon Antonia and I will do what any normal couple would do in such circumstances and write down 6 places to go and roll a dice.

Cleaning House

It's that time of the decade again and the house must be 'sprung cleaned' Spring, Sprug, Sprig..... Forget it. Lluckily, Heather did most of the work before I had seen the light of day, a rare sight to me anyway. Noisily hoovering on the landing repeatedly banging my door as if to drive home a less than subtle hint. I'm still not sure what she wanted so I simply opened the door and went back to bed.

Today, being 'not the day of rest' and the drive to the event too damn far for my liking I gave paintballing with Babestation a miss (Madness I hear you say) and went about doing the front garden with Heather. We couldn't bring ourselves to weed the new drive but are both somewhat loath to do so just in case we irreparably damage it somehow. I mean how do you get in contact with 'Cowboy Irish contractors' should anything go wrong.



Proof that we did work once, that and I was seen out in 'the big room' during daylight hours. Also having developed a quiet calm to lawnmowing I decided I should go round the garden with the strimmer. However, after my haphazard job of the bit round the pond. I resigned myself to the secret knowledge that no-one should ever have to lay eyes on my handiwork and quietly put the baffling contraption back in the shed, never to be touched by me again.


The 'Kingdom of Vegetables' is doing well. We have all eaten plenty of fresh Lettuce and are waiting for the Cucumber to get just a little bit bigger before we can have a slightly more exciting salad.



All in all things are ok in the Swinhoe house at the moment. All the appliances are working fine, the hoovering gets done but that damn fridge door never got repaired by Dad leaving me to look behind the freezer door situated underneath to better understand the mechanism. I'm thinking that door needs to come off too, if only to clean the rather disturbing 'gunk' running down the inside. Here, have some pics of our lovely home grown produce to take your mind away from what may be lurking under your cooker, behind your fridge or standing over your shoulder right now.

Kingdom of Vegetables!

Antonia and I thought it would be a great idea to start having babies, but since children are just so darned expensive we both thought it would be easier if we grew some plants in the currently unused greenhouse down at the bottom of the garden.

A mere £25 was required for some giant grow bags, Tomato plants, Chillies, Peppers, Cumunger (Jared-ism), Courgettes, Broad Beans, Peas and two types of Lettuce. Having spent a pleasant Monday morning planting the aforementioned i had an epiphany of what to do with the Lettuce to avoid the predictable ravages of the slimy type of creature so fond of soft leaf veggie produce.

I decided to put them in Hanging Baskets, because of this I think i'm a genius and only hope no-one has thought of it before. It seems such a simple idea, i'm hoping it has been overlooked, because the last time I checked, slugs can't fly. I'm half expecting to come down one morning and find one of the slimy bastards doing a 'Tom Cruise' from Mission Impossible down into one of the baskets. If that happens i'm gonna eat my new inflatable boat.

Speaking of which, the new boat is awesome. I got it for the upcoming trip to the Norfolk Broads. After speaking to a few locals, funnily enough, down one of the locals. They informed me that sometimes it is difficult if not impossible to moor up along the banks of some of the more popular or just plain small stops along the way. Therefore it is not unusual to moor up in the middle of a 'broad' and then take a dinghy to shore. Sadly the 4-man inflatable I ordered was not going to be available in time, so I opted for a three man. Which should do fine, either we somehow all fit in (and hopefully don't sink) or we do two trips. I reckon it will not only be amusing, especially when we're pissed, but also a good bit of excercise. Wisely, I also bought some triple braided rope. Small but durable, for attaching to oars and possibly the boat itself. I was considering getting an electric winch fitted to the boat and a laucher so someone could send off one end of the rope to the dinghy, which could then be pulled in. Then I remembered this was a holiday, not an episode of the A-Team.

Ahoy There!

And welcome aboad the craziest cruiser on the Norfolk Broads!

As it turns out there is so much going on this year with regards to the 'Nurburgring plan' it has been put on hold till 2010, which is a shame.

In the meantime however, i've decided to take a trip to the Norfolk Broads with Antonia, Naomi and Mark. We all know each other really well and as far as silly couple things go it should be a hoot.

The boat in question is a 42ft Cruiser called 'Star Time 2' and looks like this bad boy here. Considering the biggest thing I have ever sailed is an 16ft Enterprise then it ought to be a pretty steep learning curve.

We all went out for a curry to discuss the finer points of what we should be taking with us, apart from most of the written off stock from at least two different Wine-Racks. Unsurprisingly I thought it would be rather entertaining if we got some 'nautical themed costumes'... As you do. Of course, I want to actually pick up the boat dressed in said attire. I'm not entirely sure they will let us walk away with it, but nonetheless I am growing my beard for the occasion regardless.

Mark foolishly suggested we should buy RC Boats to race down the narrow waterways... Of course such a throwaway comment is never lost on me and I quickly bagged one off Amazon.

Unfortunately, the night in question that I ordered the above boat, I happened to be working. As usual I was a little 'out of sync' with the whole Daytime/Sleep/Alertness ratio and when I read 30 inches in length I thought of my old ruler from school (It was 30cm/12inches). I held my palms out in front of me and thought "Yeah, that will be cool" and placed the one click order.

Two days later Antonia comes in my room at about 15:00 saying "What have you been ordering?" and brings in a box the size of which I can only describe as a 'Coffin for a medium sized dog'. It's my last night at work for two days now, so it will be going on charge when at get home at about 07:00 Thursday morning and depending how much sleep I feel like having, considering if i don't get up early I lose a day off. Then it's straight down the local resevoir for some trial runs!

The road is long

Roads are long, they would be frickin' pointless if they weren't. They all lead to Rome.... and everywhere else. Since i've started off about roads I might as well put in my few cents worth about the paths we follow.

Whether it's hereditary or environment, peer pressure or perception. As the quote goes: "a lot of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." As most people, we all see our own limits to be the limits of the world. We all make our own boundaries and because of our pre-determined comfort zones, we very rarely step outside of them. Which is a shame, because when your comfort zone is not expanding it is either contracting or reinforcing boundaries. This is when we all find ourselves 'in a rut' and feel unimaginative. Not to mention increasingly frustrated with loved ones and those close to us.

Thats why I would highly recommend doing something out of the ordinary. Nothing that will cost the Earth, but something well outside any of you or your friends comfort zones... Something like buying a car for £500 between a few of you and driving to Germany and racing round the Nürburgring.

This idea started off innocently enough over, shockingly after only a pint and a half down The Stand Up in Lindfield. It all started after mine and my friend Joel's epic road trip across the USA the previous year and we both had started to get itchy feet.


The rules for the Nürburgring were simple:

-Spend £500 for a car, on the road (thankfully not including insurance)
-For every £1 over £500 spent incurs a 1 sec penalty at 'The Ring'
-Minimum 2.0 litre engine
-Manual transmission
-No vans or trucks
-Pre 1997 registered (not including '97)
-Minimum 2 people insured (for sensible reasons as well as it working out cheaper)
-Every team must have matching jumpsuits (why the hell not)
-Every team to have tents and sleeping bags
-No GPS allowed (where's the fun in navigating Europe if you have tech)
-All people taken in a specific car has to be in said car for lap timings

I would prefer a route that goes from Newhaven to Dieppe and then on through Paris. Just to see how we would all handle the Arc de Triomphe in cheap cars that we've probably bought from a shady bloke called Dave in a Crawley pub.

It looks as though something similar to the above route will be more likely. Even though it's roughly 400-500 miles no matter which way you go. Nontheless I have no doubt it will prove entertaining. As we try to coax our decade old deathtraps across the backyards of our closest neighbouring Europeans and head first into peril.

On my team I'll be taking my lovely and 'clued up' girlfriend as navigator (which I may live to regret) and the inimitable Mr Dan 'Splintz' Spencer, who is quite simply a living legend. Between all three of us the combined driver/passenger weight should be something in the region of 30 stone, which I hope should be just about right. I'll be posting up some of the hilarious cars I'm bidding on closer to the time, but so far we all look set for a June-July date for this insane trip.....

Oh and I forget to mention, if any of the cars blow up en-route (betting odds to follow in a future post) we'll probably consider burning them and leaving them in a ditch... Just for jokes. OK maybe not, but this of course means they have the opportunity to jump in other racers cars for the continuation of the trip, thereby weighing down their cars and impairing their times when they reach 'The Ring'.

So I implore all of you to go out and ignore the foolish 'fear tactics' of the newspapers Credit Crunch and go out and enjoy a bit of spare cash while you have some! Seriously, if you can spare £300 between three of you I'm sure you can come up with a similar 'Top Gear' style challenge and no doubt it will be an absolute hoot.

When it all goes wrong it will all be on this Blog for reprisals.... Stay Tuned.

Drive Time

First of all i would like to draw your and everyone elses attention to the new petrol tax headed our way. Lucky us.

Driving for some is either fun, frightening or a chore. You either do it because you enjoy it, because you have to or because if you didn't you would spend even more time in traffic. Viewing it from the chewing gum ridden seats of one public transport vehicle or another. That is of course presuming said vehicle actually turns up in the first place. A few people I know choose not to drive mainly because they have realised the truth.... they aren't any good at it and would be a hazard and a danger to other road users. I admire their candour.

Unlike other road users with whom I regard as enemies (don't we all) I am usually pretty easy going but have a bit of a 'patience breakdown' when people start exhibiting symptoms like these:


The Speed Freak: Actually the opposite of the fast moving-suped-up-corsa-driving 19 year old you would expect. These types actually adhere to the speed limit as tenaciously as a pious man attends mass in 15th century Rome. This is mainly annoying when coming out of a 60 mph area and into a built up 30 mph area. As the speed freak will ensure they are already doing 30 well in advance of the streetlight addled, signposted area. Then usually end up doing 27 anyway... Just to be safe.

The Lane Changer: Usually associated with what used to be termed 'BMW drivers' now spreading to the general populous. Those who in short fits of pre-emptive psychic visions are convinced one lane of a traffic jam will move quicker than another and will continually 'swap lanes' in a typical 'grass is greener' fashion all the way through Streatham, Brixton or other similar highly congested area. The lane changer will rarely use their indicators instead will presume you also possess advanced psychic powers and are watching their every move because they are clearly smarter drivers than you and must be doing something so clever that you should allow them in and then follow them, because they are right. Instead do your utmost to be patient and try and get ahead of them so you can demonstrate how an indicator works by cutting them up and timing the traffic lights as such so you leave them stranded there next time they change.

The Tailgater: Quite obviously insecure and probably not hugged enough as a child the tailgater, having detachment issues finds it necessary to examine your rear bumper as close as is humanly possible. While at the same time remaining in a low gear to enable them to stop quicker, lest your slow down and accelerate quicker so they can be close once again.

The Rich Tosser: This label applies to anyone, whether it be in a new Jaguar, a BMW X5 or some other spangly new fangled contraption. Of course this isn't a general rule as some people who buy these cars do it because they like them and it represents the ultimate evolution of machine (personal to them) as a 'driving experience'..... the rest of them are 'tossers'. Notice how most have absolutely no clue how to drive their ostentatious money flaunting machine and less of an inkling of how wide said vehicle is. British roads, as we all know, were not built at the time of the automobile and with space at a premium haven't really got much wider in the later years. People who spend that much money on a car should at least know how to drive the damn thing instead of just sitting behind a parked car on the side of the road waiting for oncoming traffic to let them by. Even though you could get a John Deere tractor through the gap that's ahead of them.


To be honest, it's us fools who live in the south-east that are the main culprits for driving idiocy. I'm originally from 'up north' and as such my parents have brought me up in a down to earth friendly geordie kind of way.

Try it for yourself sometime, simply get in your car when you've got time off and drive up to Scotland. After you pass Preston on the west or Newcastle on the right things start to slow down. Except for white van men (that's understood though, they have a reputation to uphold) it's almost as if people are using their cars for enjoyment, a real Sunday drive attitude everyday of the week. I don't understand why we have all got ourselves in a god-awful rush. Life is pretty long and would be a lot sweeter if things were left to grow organically, deadlines weren't so unrealistic and people planted roses and helped them grow, not just stop by to smell them once in a while.

So slow down, not only would it increase your chances of not becoming a statistic. You would arrive to work only slightly less cross because the traffic my friend..... Will always be with you.

Porn Flakes

Online buying and selling is quite commonplace nowadays, well at least if you have access to a computer. Personally I have quite a bad habit of Amazon overkill. My job, while quite busy does get a little tedious. Especially as I work 9-5 and when I say 9-5 I mean the 'other' 9-5. You know, the overnight kind. So while my button pushing, camera moving, microphone toting antics are important to the type of live television I am involved with. Sometimes things get a little slow and I simply have to buy some crapola to amuse myself.

Unfortunatly what frequenly happens as of late, what with my bizarre circadian rhythm, is I buy things at 02:34 on Wednesday morning and then completely forget about it on the drive or train journey home. Come Friday morning a couple packages appear from Tim, my friendly local postie and it's like Christmas! 80% of the time I have absolutely no clue what could be in them. Yesterday I hurridly opened some brown paper and bubble wrap to discover a Laser poiner/torch, a pair of Heelys and a childrens book called Not yet, Yvette. The book and the Laser pointer I can almost justify, but Heelys? I'm 29 years old dang it!

The Heelys are absolutely hilarious however, mainly because no-one would ever suspect you are wearing them at that age. I find it particularly amusing to stand in the local Wine Rack and discuss the finer points of of the Campo Viejo 1995 Gran Reserve Rioja and why that year was particularly good. Or reminisce about the bottle of Eileen Hardy Shiraz you once had and gave to a friend for a 21st birthday present (William Tyroll if you're reading this, i hope you savoured it). As soon as the person isn't looking I will 'Heel off' at speed across the newly polished floor to the Australian whites section. Needless to say i suggest you get yourself some.

Laser pointers, as any 14 year old will tell you are the ultimate evolution of the R/C car. What do they have in common i hear you ask. Simple, they both extend your sphere of influence. Anybody who can affect his environment, even in subtle ways, without touching something physical automatically gets you noticed. Loud people get noticed, they are also bloody annoying. Especially if they are particularly stupid and have limited grasp of cause and effect. Because they compound their idiocy into a package that cannot be baulked. If you attempt to restrain or advise against their obviously flawed beaviour their brains can't process the information quickly enough. So they just shout at you instead, i'm sure you all know at least one oaf that fit similar criteria. Anyway, I digress. Laser pointers are a simple way to expand you sphere of influence but are always better if used covertly. Don't go and shine it in someone's eyes, even if the label says 1mw. Shops, businesses (office meetings especially if you're not in them), apartment windows at night and cats are all fair game. Cats are particularly hilarious. Those crazy critters will chase the 'elusive red dot' for ages or at least until they tire or run into something. (RSPCA note: I don't condone this behaviour but would draw you're attention to this). It's also great for entertaining your drunken bloke house guests and excercising your feline if said cat has eaten 'other cats' dinner.

As for 'Not yet Yvette' It was bought as a joke present for Babestations finest (IMO) Yvette. The leggy half american honey for the aforementioned television show, to be found in the 900's of the Sky platform and also can be found in a different format as Party Girls on Freeview (Channel 46). While having the 'gift of the gab' Yvette is also a bloody good laugh and a amazing television presenter, but is at the moment tragically confined to the more 'sordid' angle on televisual fame. The lifestyle we all lead is quite extraordinary and most absurdly bizarre. Stories the likes of which you will have to go to the ends of your imagination to believe, but all of which are true.

Now you know what I do, I shall hope to see some of you texting the show and with luck, if I am working that night i will get you one heck of a shout out.


Some of the exploits of cast and crew will be appearing in this blog, but for now dear reader, you will have to be patient and wait for a future installment...