Black Heart, White Noise and an Orange Jump-suit

My part-time mother gave me extra hugs at the school gate today.
Just before kick-out time, it rained heavily, ensuring all parents were wet and bedraggled. Then, just as the doors opened, it stopped, for I had arranged it that way.
We picked up a Pops and I took her home, for our house is warm and dry. I showed her my Guinness Book of World Records 2003 and we played with the rubber band gun I got for my birthday. Every time you shoot, the other has to do a Ringmaster speech - "Welcome, Ladies, Gentlemen and children of all ages to the poppy and Max Shootathon in which the daring Hero(ine) will perform feats of endurance..." Later we played Dogs in their Beds again, which is why my room is rearranged again.
The a tired Jof got home and I made her happy, as only a #1 Son can.

Carbon-based Orphanism (not euphemism)

I was at school half an hour before it opened, and still I got in! I didn't know you could do that, until ErinsMum told me. I did extra reading with the early birds but in retrospect I failed to catch any worms. I wonder if it's based on Grandad's saying about the early cliff-walker gathering the blackberries?
At school we got a stranger-danger letter about a short bald man trying to get kids to go home with him. I know someone of that description but in his case, it's the kids asking to go home with him.
After school I became a member of the 'Walking Bus' that ferries temporarily orphaned children down the road to Ben's old school for after-school club. Classmate Lewis mentored me and I quickly got the hang of it. I now like jacket potatoes with cheese and cheap ham: I did have supper #2 once I'd got home but who's counting.
The childcare is now provided in a portakabin built by the playground and we ran through the rain to the main building for hot food and I watched Wall-E and I wasn't allowed to swap Match Attax! cards. Given the choice I would go there every day but it's like, £10 a go, and I wouldn't be able to go to guitars, gym, swim, the park, Scouts...
Jof was still at Nanna's so we picked her up from the railway station and I was feeling generous so I gave her 0.75 picoseconds of relaxation time before demanding she play with me.
Thing that gets me, it doesn't matter how many times I say "But I'm not arguing", they don't believe me.

Lucky Strike (No Matches)

So today I hear that a Californian couple out walking their dog on their own land found 3 buried metal canisters from 120 years ago - and found unused gold coins inside. They expect to get $10 million or so from tidying up their ranch. The coins were hidden by persons unknown during the gold rush and due to rarity and mint condition, they're worth a fortune. Now why is it that when we dug up our garden, we found rusty water pipes and bits of broken glass?
During a bedroom clear-out, I found a book called 'How to be a Roman in 21 easy stages'. I had borrowed it from my old school a year ago and am now a qualified Roman. So I returned it with a little shamefacedness to the nice lady at reception and ran away. Because I won't be available for Park Thursday, we took the chance to go today and I met many familiar faces from old school and new, Scouts and others. But then it rained so I practised my guitar at home.
Jof has gone off to see Nanna again, leaving us to fend for ourselves. And she's taken her tablet so I can't play games...

Hatstandiformity

Not a particularly interesting day at school apart from the bit about myths and legends but we scooted back for a guitar lesson and the teacher says I might move on to the next tune next week.
I don't have much spare time on a Tuesday so I hoovered up some quiche (serves me right for spilling it) and rushed off to gymnastics where my old colleague Caitlin joined the group. And Naughty Bradley.
On the way back I chased a cat and spoke with delight about my plans to hit them with cricket bats until they end up in the sea. This is because I have ancestral memories about cats poo-ing on lawns and digging up seedlings and I am not a vindictive animal-abuser really. Apart from when I crushed all those snails in our garden.
Nanna says she is doing so well she might be sent home next week. I said she should get some servants to help her at home.
Therefore for no good reason I include an evening view of the lights of Portsmouth Harbour, taken from the top of Portsdown Hill. Marvel at my ability to perform this function while doing a forward roll 3 miles away.

Nose to the Grindstone once more

Back to school. Today was the open day we were supposed to have last week and several parents invaded our humble offices.
I showed off my coursework and my joined-up writing is coming on a treat. I'm at the stage where you contrive to join up every single letter whether they join sensibly or not, using the wiggliest of tails, like the hyphae of some extra-terrestrial fungal mat. I get lots of encouraging comments from Miss M (well, with an initial like that, what do you expect) but it is immediately clear that my spelling is atroshus etruscan atishoo totally crap.
Incidentally, both of the nice houses with the big gardens I can see from the window are up for sale. I want a willow tunnel and the bonfire back, and now the estate agents even put an advert through the door saying come and see the house, it's taking the weewee.
Ben didn't join me before Scouts in case it rained but we met there and did taste and smell tests as part of our ongoing investigation into the 7 senses. Scouts are of course equipped with Scoutsense and either Batsense or Spideysense depending. We had to taste and identify honey, chili, salt, sugar and Marmite and boy did Ben pull some funny faces. So here is an entirely unrelated picture of me getting my Chief Scout's Bronze Award from the council leader for getting all the badges.

Earth...Risen!

I attempted to break my own record and sleep for 12 hours but just missed out.
I built some tower with my latest Lego brick bonanza and we finished Earthrise. I dismantled the final keyboard and supervised the addition of the last keys.
It has extensive hidden texts, from the good old chewy-floppy-bum-nudist to "History of unfulfilled prophecy by Christians" and "Die by the sword".
In a break with reality we've also included the symbols for the first 56 elements on the periodic table, because you just have to, really.
It's OK at a distance I suppose but up close it looks a bit silly. Also it's quite large.

You get about 64 keys per row, and there are 47 rows, although many of them are the larger space bars, ALT and CAPS LOCK buttons etc. Then again there's quite a lot of little ones as well so you might be looking at about 3,000 keys. Well, it's something to do. Above the night sky bit is a picture of Charles Darwin also made out of keys, the inspiration for this cheap knockoff. We only had to buy the glue.
Then Ben came to pick me up for 4 hours' play and that's all I cared about. We played Hay Day on his tablet and already I have a better farm than his mum. It's a newer flashier version of Farmville so easy enough to understand. Jof got back late and said that Nanna is much better and is no longer attached to any machines going ping and tweet.

Excuses and Justifications

So Jof left us again this morning, Nanna is still not dead although the medicine is not fun, and she has requested new nighties. I was under strict instructions to be a good boy etc and to make sure that the laundry went out on the line while the south coast was not actually underwater.
First up was the BottleBank walk. This has been a sparsely populated and infrequent walk since Dry January and the local park was full of short people enjoying the unaccustomed sunshine. Problem is, 3 or 4 years ago, I would have known half of them. We see the usual array of adult sub-types (Quiet hung-over men, trying-too-hard-to-be-jolly mummies with 3 kids, unwilling older sister in charge of dribbling toddler) but we didn't know any of them.
Eventually we did Tunnel Park (Football Harry and younger brother Rory) and met Emma Puddle's parents (separately, neither of them with Emma) and started talking about Lego, a subject never far from my mind.
The Lego Movie has had rave reviews from many professional film critics and many of my professional school-friends and swimming group friends etc. Jof said we can all go together. But she's always gone to Nanna's, and we thought maybe we could check it out in advance, you know, make sure it's suitable for people of a nervous disposition...
Anyway, we got a bus do
wn there and didn't go up the Spinnaker Tower or anything, but it does look rather good when it's not lashing down and we saw the Isle Of Wight ferry leaving and talked about how a few well-placed 12 inch shells through the engine compartment might sink it. I remain convinced that torpedoes were not invented when our defunct flagship aircraft carrier "Ark Royal" was on active service.
The Lego film is full of jokes, asides, sly allusions, colourful amusement and even 2 humans. Jof might like it, perhaps if I take her she'll be OK.
Then we finished the black void of endless space on our little mosaic and I played Lego while Jof visited Nanna in hospital. We had a few letters left over from the last 3 keyboards so again I entered them all into the very pleasant anagram-solver.net and it came back with (amongst 39,000 other choices) 'History of unfulfilled prophecy by christians' which I personally chose. After supper, the PuddleDaddies fell through the door on their way back from the Beer Festival that Bud couldn't attend because he was with me in the park and the cinema. I was tickled, abused and my TV program was interrupted, and one of them started messing with the recently-glued mosaic keys. Who needs mates like that anyway, I bet mine had a much better time with me.
Later we did a cycle count (inventory assessment stock check) on my Lego mini-figures. With a double-blind stock count I now have 288 Lego humanoids. Not bad.

Killing the Mermaid

Got to childcare early today and even managed a game of football before the place was officially open. The skin-rash I got yesterday (rough surface on the pool float I was on) has not gone - I still have a pink tum - but the magic ointment has taken away the pain.
When I got home from swimming I found a new Lego set which Jof had bought me to occupy my weekend. There is a massive box of 1600 blocks and 2 Lego Movie Mini-figures and something called the Piece of Resistance which appears to be a low-grade catapult/booby trap. The character Emmett that comes with it has a coffee cup included, most of them seem to nowadays, in a secret product placement deal.
I got the Terminatrix and the Mermaid as Mini-figures. Therefore I crushed the Mermaid under my box.

Lady Bracknell speaks

To lose one grandparent may be regarded as a misfortune: to lose 2 looks like carelessness. Today Nanna actually texted Jof to say she was feeling better, which is highly promising.
But then we lost Grandad when the hospital he was supposed to be released from (sorry, discharged from) denied all knowledge.
Am I the harbinger of doom, an ominous omen and a portent of peril? Dear Follower Martin suggests my next fancy dress outfit should be the Grim Reaper.
It's ok, we found Grandad again later when he came home from a different hospital. He says he looks like a Picasso because he's growing a second nose further up his face, for them to use later.
Meanwhile I spent the day in childcare with some boys from my class, and many other familiar faces, although I can never remember their names. My copy of Hunchback of Notre Dame came through today so I spent hours rewinding and playing the fight scene and telling Jof how funny it was.

Building the Good Ship Mungo

Up relatively early to get a bus for 10am, practically still dark.
It was business as usual at the naval dockyard because we could see HMS Illustrious and HMS Dragon being worked on by cranes and fabricators and welders etc. But we were there to meet Ben and build ships out of Lego.
I have a small amount of experience with the world's favourite brick and once I'd elbowed my way into the block building workshop, I met up with at least 4 schoolfriends and began building.
The scenario is a single room with several tables and trays of assorted Lego bits. You build the most bodacious 'Ship' you can, get its picture taken and the construction is recycled back into the trays for other grubby fingers to salvage. The most difficult bit is sourcing raw materials so you send your pet adult off to steal from the other trays.
Sadly if you preface a free event with the word 'Lego', then you must expect it to be heavily oversubscribed.
When Ben joined me we decided to form a partnership and he added a touch of élan to the 'Ship' and when we presented it to the Judges we got a personal thumbs-up from the Captain of HMS Victory! Our ship has a working catapult, a Helium Confusion Reactor, Flag of Inconvenience and a distressing tendency to collapse on the way to the Judge's bench.
The nice helper-lady (who was not Elizabeth's mum this time) said what an honour to have a man with scrambled egg on his sleeve vouchsafe our work. I'm not sure if I trust anyone who's so bad at eating breakfast that it ends up stuck to their arm.
Then Ben came back to mine for an hour to ... build Lego ships. Not that we like Lego or anything.
Jof came back late at night to report that Nanna isn't well, but is getting lots of medicine in hospital.

Museums are Free

Didn't feel the need to get up today, either.
But eventually I reminded him of the promised trip to the museum, didn't know I'd have to walk there. This wouldn't have been a problem if it wasn't raining, as it happened, we got soaked.
Portsmouth museum is on Museum Road, didn't see that one coming. The current temporary exhibition is a sparse smattering of Egyptian artefacts and one corpse. I paid my 50p and did the brass rubbing tour and deciphered some hieroglyphs. And there was a room about Sherlock Holmes who I recognise from Tom'n'Jerry.
The rest of it (yes, I did use the lift, even to go down) is Pompey Football club, some fine art which did not tickle my juices and Portsmouth through the ages which has medals, bombs and an old organ, as well as entire rooms done up to look like the 1950s or the 1870s, various. There was even a bicycle as used by the shipyard apprentices, and a picture of them all cycling away after a hard day's shipbuilding, one of them looked just like Erin's Dad.


Dead Giza

One exhibit is of a map of Portsmouth where the roads have been replaced by colloquialisms, phrases and sayings best spoken in the local accent. It's at just the right height for people of my age to read, lucky I did not read out the extremely fruity phraseology just south of Albert Road.
The dead guy was from 2,600 years ago so has probably stopped whiffing. I also learned that (ankh, wedja, seneb) means life, wealth and good health, so ankh, wedja and seneb to you all, sounds distinctly Vulcan to me.

Later we went to the park but there was nobody I knew. During a fight he pulled my trousers down in a public place and I got well huffy and demanded payment. Then Jof came home but hoovered up some food and went right out again, to drive through the rain and see Nanna and take her supplies, while she lies in hospital. I did a card with love hearts saying have a grate time in hospital. Meanwhile, Grandad is lying in a completely different hospital. I guess I have reached that age where 50% of my family is in hospital.

Die by the Sword

Today was a pyjama day. I have warmly adopted this idea by Ben or Erin or whoever it was and I intend to stick to it. After all, it saves on laundry.
Although there were 2 of us in the house, you wouldn't know it as I watched TV, played Lego and hooted to myself while Jobs were being done. We now have a blind in the kitchen instead of curtains, which turned out to be holding on to the wall by the merest of rawlplugs. In addition, there was a flurry of phone calls about Nanna who is going to have to stay in hospital for more tests, let's hope she passes her tests soon.
Earthrise (our mosaic project using keyboard keys) is progressing nicely but we've run out of keyboards again. Plus the glue is kinda smelly. But we looked at the letters we had left over and asked an anagram website what words we could make from them: I rejected the following possibilities

• BEER OLYMPICS
• HOBBY = CHEMISTRY
• BIBLE THUMPERS
• GET YOURSELF HIGH

in favour of "Die by the sword" which fits in wonderfully with my school topic on Romans.

Let the Needle drag the Record round

Sundays are recovery days and I had lots of that to do. I chased my Copper Knight around the table with my underground train and hooted and shouted and made silly noises and was told off frequently, why do they have to go on about it so much?
It was only at about 5pm that I agreed to get dressed and leave the house, having missed out on the many trees the park has lost to the wind, lying on the ground chopped up by buzzsaws.
The local dog population has been trying to out-do each other by getting the biggest stick available.
But I saw plenty more storm damage at the old walls at the harbour entrance. One of the cannon ports under the Round Tower is open because the door has been removed.
It's clearly a wartime addition and the concrete is rusty but it's also got stalactites! The little snot-like straws hang down from the limestone roof and probably haven't been seen in years.
The sea has ripped holes in the saluting wall and the bit over the waterfalls. The tidal defensive moat behind was gushing out over the stones, and as it was low tide we clambered down and stalked around on the makeshift stepping-stones. The Millennium walkway thing in front of the Admiral's bridge has been completely eroded and you could walk all the way through but I decided not to.
Later we wasted some money in Clarence Pier arcades and I climbed in the park while eating an ice cream. We crossed Admiral's Bridge in the dark leaving Jof to cross the dangerously unsupported sea wall walkway on her own.

A Capital Idea

It started promisingly when Jof gave us a lift to the station. The first drawback was immediate when the train announcement board said sorry we have no trains but we've got you a bus instead.
The vintage double-decker bus was green, elderly and aromatic and the front seats on the top deck were already taken.
At Havant they said we have no trains either because of a landslip at Liphook and many fallen trees on the line. The tannoy announcer kept extending the delay time 39-42-47-52 minutes and we finally set off 20 minutes before we were supposed to arrive. We played hangman. Words used: Transformer. What are you. Proffesor Max. Lego Minifigures. Dead ant. Super pigs rule the world.
The phone wouldn't send texts even when we stood on the platform pointing it at a cellphone tower.
Bune is a man (probably) that went to school with Bud and he met us at Waterloo a mere 2 1/2 hours after we set off. His wife Michelle (although I insist on calling her Colin) works for Shell right in front of the London Eye so we all knew about the bodacious swing park right there.
Their kids Cameron and Ellie and I found it was locked, and raining. One of the pods is orange so we decided it was ripe and would shortly fall off into the river.
So I got an ice cream and they got blue ice-sludgies and we crossed Westminster Bridge and saw the Police horse and got the underground train to Tower Hill right by the Tower of London.
We tickled the bronze statue of the Roman Emperor Trajan in the willy and had to pay 50p to have a wee (spend a penny inflation) and then went into the Tower where the bogs were free.
It's a mere 940 years old and we saw the Traitor's Gate and the Bloody Tower and a polar bear made of chicken wire and we went in the White Tower. It's totally chock full of really groovy stuff with antique guns and swords and stabbing weapons and torture kit and cannons and armour and gold and windy staircases and some ravens in a cage. For lunch we both had the Kid's fish'n'chips for only £23, cheap at thrice the price and he told me to find the toilets on the way out.
How was I to know I'd found the roped-off gold-plated toilets by the Royal Banqueting suite (closed for UN functions only).
Then we climbed the inner-outer walls and all the towers were built in 1240 just in time for lunch and they had some crowns and prisoners and you can try on the weapons and helmets and Ellie was giggly and Cameron was naughty.
The queue for the crown jewels had gone so we saw them and you get to go on a travelator and the oldest thing they've got is a 12th Century spoon because they destroyed everything when they chopped the king's head off in sixteen-something and there's millions of diamonds and maces and swords and jugs and ewers and a wine cauldron I could have a bath in and it's all rather swish and glittery but you can't take pictures.
Even the doors look like the ones at the bank.
Once I'd got some swag from the shop Bune et Family left us and we ran over to Tower Bridge even though I was getting very tired feet. The bridge is ace and you will remember it from the Olympics and the last glorious century, in case you'd missed that. It looks really good from road level but even better from above.
We did the tour and you get to go on the walkways and there's a couple of films and we went in the engine room and did the interactive challenge and we found the place where the 2 bridges don't quite join and some people have added padlocks just like the love-lock bridge in Gay Paris! It is lit at night by lots of spotlights in the pavement and it looks cool but the vendors of unknown food devices nearby are very smelly.
I nearly had to get carried back to the underground station and when we changed at Westminster onto the Jubilee line we descended another 3 levels and it was like a giant ICBM silo sunk deep into the London Clay.
Once we'd got essential supplies from the concourse shops at Waterloo, (beer, bananas, match attax cards), the black and yellow departures board said the best train home was on platform 13 and we ran for it. It was standing room only so we sat in first class and made it to Winchester before the train guard lied by saying there was space elsewhere but they all got out at Eastleigh so I stretched out over 3 seats and then Jof picked us up and took us home and cooked for us and I showed her all my artefact winnings and I crashed out for tennish.
Victory Items:
Tower of London Commemorative coin. 4 (count them, 4) different squashed penny souvenir items, Tower Bridge passport sticker set, Tower of London Apprentice Knight badge, London Underground train carriage (unspecified line), knight in shining copper armour pencil sharpener, 3 foot welts/bunions/corns/blisters, and several tellings-off for being manic. Time out of house: 12 1/2 hours.

SPQR

'Monopoly'

My Counter moves in sixes and fours

My magic key opens all the doors

I roll the cards and shuffle the dice

And I get to toss all the coins twice

©Mungleton 2014

Grandad has to wait another week before having his comedy nose-bandage removed. He says he may have to miss the Valentine's dinner at the Manor. Shame it isn't a masked ball.

Incidentally, he says that the Financial Times reports that Lego Minifigures will outnumber humans on this planet in 2019. Oh no! I'm betraying the human race!



I was framed, yerronner

Poppy O'B is leaving my school to go elsewhere. At this news, several kids in my class burst into tears. The Year 4s did their play which is the Pied Piper. Faithfully following the original format, a girl whistled at rats and they died. But then the mayor said No, we won't invest in the Portsmouth school system and the Rat-whistler said Oi give me the money and she took all the boys (apart from one on crutches, who was too slow) and locked them up in her cave under Portsdown Hill, until school funding levels were increased.

Today it hailed down the kitchen chimney and made the range cooker go pinklepinkle.

In fact there was so much precipitation the playground was flooded and we had to exit via reception, which is wide enough for one person to go in or out, but not 2 at the same time. This Keystone Cops piece of planning held us all up.

We retrieved Blind Uncle Len's World War 2 map from the framer and I did this cheap sight gag.

In swimming the teacher says I'm nearly at the next hat level but I was pooped at the end.

My homework over half-term is on Romans. They did a bit of work here a couple of thousand years ago, and introduced the garden snail to the chagrin of gardeners ever since.

I made a shield with integral dagger and scabbard for easy murdering!

A Tinder Right-Swiper

It was supposed to be 'Open-Day' at school so my work could be inspected, but that seems to have changed dates as well.
For once, it wasn't raining so we got to Thursday Park with high hopes and an extra coat. The high winds had pushed over a tree which had crunched the fence right by where we normally have our picnics and the workmen were there buzz-sawing it away.
Johnny retreated again so Bob and a random Purple-top and I searched the park for the little plastic monkeys that have materialised everywhere and Ben joined us and we collected branches.
The little pink girls in this picture refused to obey their owner and went in the freezing water. Then they realised that their legs were wet icicles and their howls of anguish warmed the cockles of our hearts until their mummy managed to remove them.
But it's really no fun when you're cold, it's all you can think about so we all agreed to leave and we took Bob home and he invited me in, so I got an hour playing Wii.
I have made my own footballer called Fudgie-Wudgie (better than Ben's one which is Firstname Lastname) and I was Manchester United and I beat Arsenal 4-3. The park lakes have not soaked away and we expect more drizzle tomorrow.

Valentinos: Are you ready to Rumble?

Some decent thunder rumblings at 0400 today, but they didn't develop their full potential and the Royal sleep remained undisturbed.
SAGA! News from the old people ...
Grandad has to go into hospital to have his penguin bandage removed. They say he can't wear glasses for weeks afterwards. The stoic senior is playing the hand he's dealt, but weeks without reading will be somewhat dull, but I suppose he won't scare the natives any more.
In other news, Dear Follower Fiona's mother is a little confused and has taken to accusing visitors of bringing round unknown cutlery and appliances and leaving them in her home. I have advised that charity shops are your friend, and the simple purchase of a couple of those nice silver teabag strainers, novelty-comedy telephones or onyx eggs to leave in the upstairs sink will help, as will surreptitiously moving the furniture around.
Today is French Day. I chose to dress in the colours of the Tricolour rather than in 'Surrender' white, I i-Maginot they'll appreciate that. I also took a 40 year-old brass Eiffel Tower to brandish, which came in handy when we had to build a working model in uncooked spaghetti and marshmallow. On the way home we took Pops and we discussed the Hunchback of Notre Dame who was a misunderstood man with a lot of gargoyle friends.
She is not coming to the Valentine's dance. She has heard that there's a slow dance at the end where you have to find a boy, and she is worried it will get out of hand. I think she has been speaking to one of her mothers again, and has been given Ideas. The only dancing I do is the Random Gyration Dance, not slow, so we played on my bed. Anyway, Harvey and Ben and I have to protect Eddie from his girlfriend, otherwise he will end up having to have sex. I'm not sure Ben knows as much about it as he's suggesting but it all sounds terrible. I declared loudly that I have already dumped 2 girls but have 200 more interested in me.
We queued up at the wrong entrance just in time for it to start raining. Basically the format was:
Boogie, go to toilet. Boogie, cool down outside. Boogie, get drink. Throw hotdog in bin, boogie. It was hot and loud and oppressive and I kept trying to hide or leave and teachers kept making me go back in.
I was pooped at the end and moaned about hunger and then didn't eat it and got hurting leg syndrome and was sent to bed early to wallow in my own hard-done-by-ness.

Pouring oil on Troubled Daughters

Left Grandad to it and left for school. The weather was quite ambitious again so I commandeered a lift in the Popsmobile which is structurally similar to the Popemobile but without the fanatic-proofed glass. Meant I didn't need the wellies I'd carefully put on.
Grandad managed to drive home through the storm still looking like a penguin and scared some children in HomeBase (while buying lampshades) into the bargain, always a good move.
Then it was the usual frenzy of guitar lesson, gymnastics and stuffing food in my face against the clock. I look forward to being an adult when I will have all the time in the world to waste.
I have another wobbly tooth. Thing is, the last one took 3 months to detach and a second followed it within a couple of days. Teeth are unpredictable creatures.