Swiss Army Wife

I don't know if you have one of these, technically neither do I... Not yet. There's pretty much nothing Antonia doesn't do to not only keep herself busy and active, but to bring in a little bit more money.

She's a Personal Trainer with some highly amusing clients, some of them pretty much pay her to just go through, do a little excercise and mainly have a nice long chat. She also works at a garden centre cafe on the Ashdown Forest and is loved by all there. Not only that but after work all day she comes back home and cleans some of the local office's in the village we live in. During the spring months she also helps out one of the local farmers in his Lambing efforts, bringing little bounding bundles of future Sunday Dinners out into the world.

Somehow she still finds time to do the washing, pick me up from the station, tinker in the garden and make dinner. Quite simply, she is a legend and i would be lost without her. In ref to the last post, as i am now being picked up from the station. It all went well and i am now working at Psychic TV. The hours are friendlier and to be fair getting up at 05:32 in the morning isn't so bad, it beats driving through Streatham and Brixton at any time. The latest shift at Psychic finishes at 03:00 and on one day a week at 04:00. Since i can be home 1 hour later, that doesn't offend me so much as when i was getting home at 07:10. At least now i can still technically get up at 10:00 having had enough sleep to not just 'zombie it' through the following day.

I have picked up my camera again and have started snapping once more. I feel i have the time to do this now. The team i now work with are very pro-active in outside projects, a few have just finished some very promising documentaries here's a trailer for 'If They Were Heard' by Ben Gorman.

I agreed to shoot a festival the other day one of my village acquaintances was organising. It seemed like a good opportunity to get back into the swing of things after so long. The following are some of my favourites. I shall be uploading some backdated photos in the next blog, feel free to get in touch if you like any or want me to come round and photograph you naked... What? Who said that?

Fire-Chain and nearly a full clock face.

A lot of consideration for fire safety was taken into

account as thousands of pounds worth of tech was

placed on bales of straw.

Easily my favourite shot was taken at about 01:55 using a

Fish-Eye lens on 30 second exposure.

Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow

It doesn't look like there is a job available anymore in the Psychic department. I guess that means i'll have to pack up my knapsack and move on, there's nothing left for me here now.

Things you need to enjoy your job:
-Autonomy (that is, you have some say in what you do day to day)
-Complexity (so it's not mind-numbing repetition)
-Connection Between Effort and Reward (i.e. you actually see the awesome results of your hard work).

I can't tick any of the above and that, coupled with pretty much being regarded as insignificant, frequently ignored or forced to repeat myself countless times. Needless to say change is needed, at this point i would even go and work in a Game store, just to have a regular income, albeit pitiful and a fresh change. While that is lowering my standards exponentially. It will at least be stress free, at times here i feel like i may harm myself or others... it's just a good thing i have a girlfriend and a reason to live and more importantly i DON'T have access to an M16 Assault Rifle.

I've been in this situation before, whether it's with a girl, a situation, a job and the solution is pretty simple. State your concerns, try to remedy, make others aware of your intentions and throw the results at each of the aforementioned processes and see where you're at. Or to look at it another way.... If the bad times outweigh the good, the party's over. While i would love to just walk out i don't think the choice would stand me in good stead, but on the flip side why should i give a shit.

I've made a lot of friends here, not to mention two department heads who i've known nearly all of my life. After three long years of doing night shifts, maybe it is time to move on. It just seems a shame to throw away the knowledge and relationships i've built up here. While the job isn't exactly taxing and it's nowhere near as complicated or involving as some of my previous jobs i have had. It has lost the 'quality' it used to have. When we were making something of the television we were putting out. Theming a show, making it fun and different for all involved. Now it's just about pathetic repetition and saving money (while at the same time wasting money by having too many people on at once and making working conditions unbearable for a majority). Oh well, C'est la vie. We all move on, it's just a matter of when. I'm pretty much resigned to resignation now. What i'll actually do i have no idea but i do know it's better to get a new job before leaving your current one. While a career change at 30 is probably not advisable, it seems the only course of action for me, it's either that or do what everybody seems to do in this industry and just go to a rival channel. Of course that won't help with the whole point of this excercise in exodus which was essentially to get a day job so i could spend more time with Antonia and hopefully get some semblance of a normal life back. Be able to see my friends without rushing about on my only time off and for once in nearly 15 years find out what this 'Weekend' thing is i keep hearing so much about.

Interesting times

"May you live in interesting times"

Purported to be an old Chinese curse, i would say we all live in interesting times even if you don't always see it from your own point of view. I guess it's a matter for objectivity or perspective. The fact that in order to see the light you must risk the darkness.... Even if you stub a couple toes along the way. I wouldn't go so far as to say i'm going through a Carl Jung style mid-life crisis because i'm just so darned optimistic about the future. I have no clue what i'm going to be doing next year, although if current plans hold i will be getting married, so that's at least one thing for the diary.

I don't really know if i'm educated or ignorant, talented or lucky but i do know what i like and i won't betray my principles for anything, ever. Surely that's got to count for something down the line. By that i don't mean the afterlife, i'm not going to live like a Paragon my whole life just to find out that all the molecules that came together by chance to create me will eventually have a collective Epic Fail and drift apart back to nothingness. Making the equation of my life return to it's equilibrium and in the grand cosmic scale of things it will have been worthless.... At least from my point of view. I'll tell you what, when we get there we can talk about it as long as you like.

What my future holds? Who knows. What your future holds? That's another question, one i will try and help answer when i join the Psychic channel in a few weeks.... It's on the cards.

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!