truck reading (chilli premonitions)

closing in... round the corner...

E

gear down...

N

get irrate at silly little red not-car that has just cut you up on the massive roundabout owing to a limited understanding of traffic flow, and distinct disregard for lane discipline

C

engage handbrake

O

amber light... disengage handbrake, make it go 'mhrrrrrrr vuuub vuuub vuuub mhrrrr' (or similar)

N

light changes to green, apply pressure to accelerator and pull away...

but there's no A... bad times

there should have been an A! why? because then the lorry would have been full of encona chilli sauce... you know, the nice fruity one with scotch bonnets in it...

nom nom nom

although tbh, the thai sweet chilli variety would have been cool, as that compliments pretend cheese on toast perfectly... with a bottle of that, some bread in the freezer and a packet of pretend cheese you are officially well away in the big wide-world of student eats...

i have been told the former goes great in baked beans...

but i couldn't possibly comment...

don't like baked beans

'epic' propeller meltdown

the 'on the wonk-ness' of that propeller is scarin' me a bit now...

i should probably work on the whole "its gonna break free from its mount and come careening across the motorway" obsession i appear to have developed... whilst born in final destination, i just see the actual effect itself as more 'epic' - something more fitting of the global armageddon that is '2012'...

(oh no! he's back onto the end of the world again...)

sailed past corley at a rate of knots though (happy time), listening to ash's 'supersonic 7"s', which by some queer quirk of fate was exactly the same length as my journey (19 tracks - 74 mins), but has left me with an unnaturally strong urge to make some bouncy pop-punk...

let's just say, its probably a good job that i wasn't listening to 'the downward spiral'... step away from the cd player (industrial)bwoi...

today i learnt that when you move sainsburys closer to toys 'r' us, no-matter the size of the sainsburys, there is lil' point in having a toy section... and thus, they don't. why did you move sainsburys? why did you move? but then the move did lead to the introduction of up/down auto-walks (like an escalator without the steps) which are prone to issuing harsh diktats regarding an individuals behaviour whilst travelling there-on...

(that's like two steps south of skynet)

and parking sensors in the parking spaces... which caused me a bit of anguish (don't got them round here... they'd probably end up adorning the exterior and interior walls of most of the local populace) - techno-parking, whilst becoming more common is still a lil' far out for me...

(one step...)

but then i don't really trust microwaves...

there's something just not-quite-right about them...

(***ping***)

more likely that the end of the world will start in a car park though... actually that's a complete lie, its just i love the whole dark car park thing you get going on in zombie movies... car park, tunnel, wherever its dark... that way zombie-joy comes...

that probably needs refining further, as the (exterior, well lit) car park in the day of the dead remake does supply a few moments fo amusement (burt reynolds)... and the whole dead gathering 'in the lot' and at the doors of the mall is a zombie apocalypse i can really dig...

there's something about that whole impending doom kick that i jus' really like...

it was executed poorly in diary of the dead... (but we're not going there right now...)

although i'm not sure that giant propellers feature in a zombie apocalypse scenario... i don't know, the two just seem a lil' incongruous, more like something out of a superhero/apocalypse (non-zombie) movie...

which is a bit of a shame...

cos its just round the corner from corley (and there's as good a chance as any that it will start there*...)

far-out

*it probably won't to be fair... its sure to start somewhere much more sinister like that funny lil' building by the river in alverly with a sign about a chlorine warning alarm... chlorine? yeah right... they're probably (inadvertently) making zombies down there, hence the field of cows... for protection

motorway driving II

note to self - singing the "i don't gotta pee at corley - i'm gone pee at the watford gap" song doesn't work whilst travelling northbound... is going to lead to an unfortunate bout of geography-related disappointment...

although on the plus side, evidence would seem to suggest that those 'final destination' moments relating to the appearance of a truck carrying planks (with nails in them), pipes and other heavy gonna kill you (albeit in a slightly amusing way) stuff, are much more likely to happen to people in final destination movies...

still always pass the trucks slightly 'wide' on a windy day though...

i reckon that salt mountain (the one by the m6) would make for an excellent, if highly-contrived final destination death scene... by applying a liberal dose of manga, there's probably some way to utilise those little diamond things on the inside lane of the m6 (as you hurtle past the turn-off for the a38)...

but then if you're gonna go manga, i guess you don't really need to go final destination... you could sack off the teens, and the dodgy accidents and just replace them with mech-suits, bad dubbing and huge explosions...

right-on.

the big wind-turbine/propeller thing by the side of the m1 (daventry-ish, around DIRFT) is also mounted on the wonk... for real, when you watch it the rotation does look seriously laboured... this breaking its moorings and going prospecting on the motorway for cars is much more final destination i think...

so here we turn to the soothing influence of radio 4... the afternoon play, its something about an independent school and having tuned in half-way through, there is a definite air of the random to the proceedings... but at least it stopped everything exploding... (at least until the archers comes on!!!)

you can't beat it for delivering random factlets through-out the day either... and nothing beats woman's hour for soothing a traffic jam...

but around corley... we turn it off and let the manga hang-out...

cos its corley after all...

and there has to be rules...

although, if there was no corley, then there would be no "i don't gotta pee at corley" song, and i don't know if the western musical tradition would ever recover from such a loss...

or something...

reasons to hate corley services... (herd of yeti)

i'm going to starbucks
gonna get myself a frappuccino
f-r-a-p p-u-c c-i-n-oooo yeah

yesterday started at corley services... and yesterday ended at corley services...

westbound, both times...

of course you shouldn't infer from this that i live at corley services... there was some day before the first visit and some day (well, night) after the second... the notion of starting and ending the day there is just a bit more 'poetic'... and you know its about the poetry. the effect of corley on the mind does however render a small grain of truth unto that statement... and whilst we're trading in truths... i actually have this proper irrational hatred of corley services (its a long-standing condition, its roots shrouded in the mists of time)

corley services (westbound)... now there's lovely

so the first visit was in the early half of the day... i'm not sure exactly when for reasons that may/may not become apparent in the fullness of time... there was a bit of a celebratory air to the morn... and music form a lyre (ok scratch that, its corley... i was there with frau linenwrecker, feeling pretty darn fine)...

done order a frappuccino... happy-[bwoi treat]-time 8)

"venti caramel frappuccino (coffee base) with extra coffee..." 

"do you want the whipped cream on the top" 

"oh yes, absolutely with the cream"

that's roughly how the conversation went... anybody who has sampled the joy of an x extra shot charged caramel frappuccino will be fully aware of the loveliness i was expecting... 

i, being pedantic as i am, was a lil' worried about the fact that the order 'process' had changed... there was a promotion... indeed.

after years of having starbucks'-barista-types giving me funny looks whenever i order a frap with extra shots in it... they're now advertising it as one of their 'things'... oh yes, now its a an 'extra-coffee frap' as opposed to a frap with shots...

for the record, the optimum number of espresso shots for a venti frappuccino is two. extensive research has taught me that whilst three provide one hell of a caffeine kick, the frap ends up a extremely easy to suck up the straw in one go... in such instances the iced-coffee/frap line is blurred, and its not quite right...

at two, the ratio is perfect trust me on this... 

anywho, promotions are generally an indicator of forthcoming bad-times... and lower quality delivery at the point of sale... (ooh mystery-shopper-bwoi!!) 

but i was undeterred.

once upon a time, i had a very interesting extra-shot/frap type incident... i had a craving, i was on the motorway, the services had a costa not a starbucks, but i figured they had a summer coffee product and surely you can add extra coffee to that...

digit's crossed i ordered one... just the one shot (playing it safe)

i received the strangest looking frap ever... it was essentially two drinks in one cup, and any attempt to mix the two substances was met with stubborn resistance...

essentially i had the creamy-cool caramel shake type drink on the top, and a steaming hot shot of espresso in the bottom... don't get me wrong, it was a nice drink... with careful application of 'straw technique' it was possible to get both hot and cold coffee goodness into your mouth at the same time...

the effect was a lil' weird, but good...

i always attributed the non-mixing to the different 'bases' used by starbucks and costa... the costa base has some kind of uht thing goin' on, and for this reason i have generally avoided them... the starbucks base always mixes perfectly...

well, until the other day...

when at corley, my extra-coffee frap was delivered unto me as two drinks in one cup... caramel frap goodness at the top, and a cold shot at the bottom... don't get me wrong, careful application of 'straw technique' made for a delightful drinkin' experience (if not the one i was expecting)...

but isn't it weird the one place that my frappuccino ever got messed up is corley services?!

i think its more than just coincidence...

although credit where credit is due, the toilets generally only smell of brown p!ss... to date the worst service station toilet experience i've had was at northampton services...

where a herd of yeti had apparently had earth-shattering bowel movements in and around the same cubicle... that morning the foyer positively hummed of sh!t, it was in a mound coming out of the top of the bowl, painted onto the side of the bowl, and the cubicle walls and floor... (its a well known fact that a herd of yeti cannot flush) it has to have been a team effort...

and the lil' light thingy that tells you when the next inspection of the facilities is due was telling me it was 18mins overdue...

but back to corley... the second visit was a toilet stop (relentless and lemonade induced, on the way back from the gig at bell)... fair enough i suppose...

but upon entering corley for the second time in the day, i suddenly became disorientated... struggling to even remember what day it was, and totally confused as to what (if anything) i had been up to in-between times...

it was like i'd only ever been at corley...

so how do they do it...? maybe its with 'the magnets' (lasers being too expensive to deploy nationally right?)?

i don't know, but corley can't mix a frappuccino and it messes with your brain... and in addition to being science_FAKT, they're also two damn good reasons to avoid the place...

there's something not quite kosher about corley services...

motorway driving

learnt me an important lesson today... listening to the beastie boys first thing in the morning can affect your outlook to the day in a manner similar to the shamen... the wailing down the motorway may have contributed to the feeling, (there ain't nothin' beats a slice of 'intergalatic' while the sun is sortin' its business out...) but the basic principle still holds...

although, truth be told, i didn't start the music until after the early morning shipping forecast... gotta love the shipping forecast (there's a whole bunch of gale-force action today btw)... its a proper soothing influence... if i ever pull up at home after a gig and the shipping forecast is on, no matter how much i need to go, nobody passes go until the forecast is done...

in the morning it does seem a bit more random (nonsensical) yet equally soothing... as with all unscientific studies this result may have been influenced by beastie-boy-contamination...

then i'm in tesco... event horizion top of the £5 dvd chart (and rightly so) in a lovely special edition box with a red cover (i quite like the red, although the green tinged faces of the original poster are truly iconic)... and there's a sweeper thingy... its beeping...

its not quite as funky as the dishwasher from the other day... but it would appear that i'm still making a beat in my head, except - disaster! the beep is about 1/32 too long and is jarring with the offbeat i'm putting in the last bar of the beat...

at this point i just want to wrestle the sweeper thingy off the attendant shouting "this lacks the funk of the dishwasher from the other day", and work my funky thang on the on-off switch to make it fit the beat, or at the very least get a bit of a remix goin' on...

but i restrained myself and continued to mooch around the shop... thinking about dishwashers

or more specifically how my certified crack-head parental unit used to soak and wash all the dishes before loading them into a prehistoric (5 car wide) borscht dishwasher (faded ancient black and yellowing plastic, used to put out about 95dB of random noise - beat that matlab!)... isn't that a bit like going up to your mate mike and saying "woof" with the purpose of expressing the notion you just bought a dog?

or...

well actually that's about as far as that thought got, cos by this point i was back to beatcraftin' with my mind...

kinda jazzy number, with a bit of a shuffle... some nice ride work, and then in came the upright bass...

happy time