Be Careful What You Wish For

In which The Author's prayers are answered – sort of …

As I've mentioned several times in the course of my blogging, I was the victim of horrific and merciless bullying when I was in school. I'm not the only one, as it turns out. Quite a few people I know have talked to me about the abuse they experienced as kids. Maybe it's like being a member of a Westminster club – we somehow recognise each other, but we're not sure how.

Anyway, when I was about thirteen or fourteen I had a dream. At the time, I thought it was a Night Terror masquerading as a sexual fantasy. This very tall, statuesque, extremely beautiful, young red-haired woman, wearing nothing but her most seductive smile, appeared in the bedroom early one morning and sat on the end of my bed. I couldn't move a muscle – and she noticed that straight away.

'You seem rather pleased to see me,' she said with a wink. I was quite embarrassed, but she just laughed. 'I've come to you for a reason. I know exactly what you've been going through, Steve. I've been keeping an eye on you for years. I know you've turned your back on Christianity, and I can totally understand why. So, in the words of the song, I've come to talk to you instead.'

'Are you the Devil?' I asked, rather nervously. I might have been a lapsed Catholic, but I knew all about Temptation and stuff. I didn't really fancy jumping out of the frying pan and into the Inferno.

'Oh, no!' she said, sounding rather hurt. 'I'm not the Devil.' She laughed. 'I'm way more fun than he is. And I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse.' She leaned in close and purred in my ear. 'Listen. I don't want sacrifices or tributes or any of that ritualistic shit. If you want to worship me, go ahead – it's water off a duck's back to the likes of me. You just need to tell the world about me and my powers, at every opportunity you get, and in whatever form you think is appropriate.'

She spent the next ten minutes or so telling me all about herself, and providing documentary evidence to support her argument. In fairness, she made a good case. Then she reached the end of the sales pitch – and it was worth waiting for.

'I'll give humankind all manner of signs and wonders to behold, and you just need to give me the credit,' she said. 'If you pledge to do that, I'll continue to watch over you and ensure your safety. I'll even tell you the exact date, time and circumstances of your death – on one condition. You know those guys who've been making your life a waking fucking nightmare? You have to promise to take all those cunts out beforehand.'

Well, how could I possibly turn down an invitation like that?

'Where do I sign?' I asked.

'No, there's nothing like that,' she said. 'No oaths sworn in blood or anything. I hate the sight of blood.' She took my hand. 'I'm a fairly laid-back goddess, really. Just don't piss me off, or I'll unleash my awesome and terrifying powers upon the world.'

'OK,' I said, 'you've got a deal.'

And she kissed me, stood up, and vanished.

Well, that all happened over thirty-five years ago. At the time I didn't know what to think. As I said, I thought it was just a particularly vivid wet dream, and tried to put it out of my mind.

But I was imprinting the Fourth Neural Circuit. My hormones were shot to hell. An experience like that was bound to make an impression. My fetish for tall, beautiful and mostly fucked-up redheads dates from that exact moment. After all, you never know which of them is going to turn out to be Her, do you? It's best to be on the safe side.

It was a good many years until I finally discovered exactly who she was. I was reading Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson's psychedelic cult SF Illuminatus! trilogy and damn me if she wasn't there, in the book: Eris, also known as Discordia. The sister of Ares. The Goddess of Chaos. The prime mover behind the Trojan War, and general Olympian troublemaker par excellence.

And it turned out that I wasn't the only person to whom she'd vouchsafed her revelations. There was a Discordian Church, and a sacred text called Principia Discordia, and all manner of other things connected to her.

Robert Anton Wilson's books finally enabled me to put the pieces of the jigsaw together. His Cosmic Trigger trilogy not only opened my eyes to the divine beauty of the Discordian faith, it brought me together with my crazy Goddess-fearing pal Vicki F. We wrote large chunks of Dodge This (the wittiest, wackiest, weirdest Western on the World Wide Web) with Eris in mind. Her mischievous influence pervades our writing then and now. At long last, some two decades after my mysterious religious experience, everything started to make (non)sense. I even had her tattooed on my back, just to be on the safe side.

I've never really had occasion to call on Eris until last night. I've invoked her name on many occasions, of course – writing for Goddess's sake, for example – but on the whole our relationship has been at arm's length. Last night, however, the karaoke evening drove me to call on her directly, via the medium of Facebook. (She's a switched-on kinda deity.)

Karaoke Update: 'Sex on bloody Fire.' Sweet Goddess of Chaos, I beseech thee to intercede now and smite these fuckers from the firmament before they start on the Phonics backlist. Come on, be nice to me. I've worshipped you unconditionally for years, and spread the one true religion widely and enthusiastically. Time you returned the favour.

A few minutes later Lucy G. (musician, artist, pagan, former lesbian) added a comment:

I could throw a curse their way if you like?

Nice offer, but I was looking for something more substantial.

However, the problem with Eris is that she doesn't do things by conventional means. The Old Testament God would have unleashed one of his popular plagues, or caused Aberdare to be razed to the ground by an earthquake, or sent a meteorite crashing through the roof of the pub and straight into the middle of the stage. You know the sort of thing he does: an according-to-Hoyle miracle.

The Egyptian pantheon could also have had a whale of a time, stealing the souls of these cretins and feeding them to Ammit, the Great Devourer, while Isis and Osiris looked on and laughed.

The old gods of Mesoamerica also went in for blood sacrifice in a big way. But I had to think about the poor girls who'd be cleaning up afterwards. Fair's fair, and all that.

Eris, on the other hand, has decided to torment the sceptics and the unbelievers by robbing them all of any sense of direction and/or spatial awareness.

I first noticed it at 9 a.m today, on the way to Spar to buy a paper. Mill Street lived up to its name for the first time in about two centuries, because everyone was milling around aimlessly outside the shops. They were even milling around outside the post office – and Martin retired about four months ago. Inside Spar was even worse, because everyone except me seemed to have forgotten how to form a queue. Inside the doors was a mass of people, wandering around blindly like the poor bastards in The Day of the Triffids. I bought my paper and legged it before they turned on me – either through sheer desperate panic, or because they needed someone with all their faculties to help them cope.

I walked to the bus stop, half-expecting the bugger from Merthyr to shoot out of the junction as soon as I got to the main road. But Eris is looking after me, remember. I'd only been waiting a minute or so when one came down from Hirwaun. I jumped on, found a seat about halfway down, and then tried not to laugh when we got to Tesco and a load of people boarded.

Bear in mind that the destination indicator read Glynhafod. This is the end of the road as far as buses are concerned – the very top of the blind valley where the aforementioned Stereophonics grew up. You don't want to go there without a valid reason. But that's where the buses go. Before they go there, of course, they have to go into Aberdare. That's a topographical necessity, in fact. So why the actual fuck did about five people seem shocked to learn that the bus was going to Aberdare? They wanted to catch the northbound bus, apparently – and they'd somehow managed to board the southbound one. My pal Jeff was on the bus, and I told him that today is International Celebrate Your Lack of Spatial Awareness Day. At the time I thought I was joking.

I called into Thereisnospoon for breakfast and to update my system. (I know I could have done it in the library, but with some eighty megabytes to download, I might well have used their entire data allowance for the month.)

While I was waiting to order my food, an elderly guy managed to completely miscalculate the capacity of his mug and pour coffee all over the place. Less than a minute later two of the barbints narrowly avoiding colliding when they were coming through the hatchway.

It dawned on me, reading the paper, that it's 23 September. Pace William Burroughs, Robert Anton Wilson was a huge fan of the number twenty-three. It turns up everywhere in Illuminatus! and Cosmic Trigger. I turned Paul E. onto the significance of the number some years ago, as a sort of introduction to Discordianism in general, and since then we've seen it everywhere. It assumed wider public significance in a terrifying film starring Jim Carrey, of course. The writers of Doctor Who and Torchwood also infiltrated it into the shows as often as they could. Russell T. Davies claimed that it was just an in-joke on set. Personally, I think Mr Davies might also have had a visit from a certain leggy redhead at some point in his life. Naturally she won't have had the same effect on him as she did on me, but we can't rule anything out at this stage.

I'm wondering how long this particular curse will afflict the people of Aberdare. It might just be a One Day's Wonder. Then again, given Eris's track record, this one could run and run …

Cutting to the Chase

In which The Author should have let his fingers do the walking

After really losing patience with the last few days' fucking around with that bloody Sony wristband thing, I decided to have a little look around Aberdare to see if I could buy a map measurer.

I used to have one a number of years ago – a compact little gadget which worked on a number of scales, and had a nice digital display for the output. I've got pretty much the whole of Wales mapped out at 1:50,000 and a fair amount at 1:25,000. I could map out the route provisionally, and then just check out the potential pitfalls on foot later on. The problem is that I haven't seen my map measurer for ages, and I've no idea where it went (ironically). I was looking for something along the same lines.

But this is Aberdare, remember. Even though we're on the southern edge of the Brecon Beacons, and a central location for tourists wanting to explore the breathtaking scenery around the national park, the Vale of Neath and the Valleys themselves, there's nowhere (apart from Argos) that sells anything like outdoor gear. You'd be hard pressed to find an Ordnance Survey map at 1:50,000 scale, never mind anything more detailed. There used to be an army surplus shop in town. That's gone. There used to be another one on the Aberaman Industrial Estate. Even assuming it's still open, it's a bit of a trek for what could conceivably have been a wasted journey.

I looked in every shop that sells anything remotely stationery-related – Wilko, B&M, The Works, Gareth Rees's – before giving it up as a bad job. I wondered about jumping on a train and going to Pontypridd. There's a reasonably large stationer's at the top of town, which might have had something in stock. There's also an army surplus shop, but the last time I looked in the window they seemed to have some rather unpleasant political posters in there. (Think of the shop in Falling Down and you'll see where I'm coming from.)

With no guarantee I'd have found anything suitable in Pontypridd anyway, I decided to see if I could pick something up online. I could probably buy something from an internet retailer, get it in a couple of days, and at least get an idea of the distance involved.

So I typed 'map measurer online' into a search engine and found a few devices that seemed as though they'd do the job. Some were the old-school 'wheel on a stick' jobs, which I remember from pre-digital days. Some were more advanced versions of the gizmo I used to have. I was browsing through the search results, and suddenly I came across Mapometer.com UK. I thought 'That might be worth a look' and clicked on the link.

It's bloody perfect! I can set my starting point and trace out the exact route using Google satellite imagery, the OS maps, or Google Maps. It tells me the exact distance I'll have to travel, and gives me information about elevations as well. It puts distance markers in at intervals, so you can break the route into stages. Best of all, I can save my project online and amend it later, depending on the results of the field trials (especially down the valley).

I'll still have to check out parts of the route, of course, to make sure they're suitable for my purposes, but this is going to save me a hell of a lot of time, effort and shoe leather. The old Yellow Pages TV ads had a point, it seems. Sometimes you should just let your fingers do the walking.

Another Piece of Shit

In which The Author is selling on Ebay once again

If you've only looked at the title of this entry, you're probably thinking 'Steve's being remarkably self-deprecating about his writing today'. But you'd be wrong. I'm not getting my paranoia in first – it's a reference to the latest skirmish in my ongoing War Against the Machines.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I've had an idea which was partly inspired by the lives of the Aberaman cyclists of the late Victorian era. However, before I attempt to put this idea to some friends of mine, I need to find out if it's even practicable. With that in mind, I've been trying to use my so-called 'smart'phone to see whether the inbuilt GPS locator is anything more than a 'cool' gimmick.

You see, this phone is absolutely jam-packed with 'cool' gimmicks – most of which wouldn't appeal to anyone over about six years old, unless they really haven't learned to read or have yet to grow out of playing Pokémon (like several friends of mine). I haven't used the majority of these features – or 'apps', as I believe they're called – since the day I took the bloody phone out of the box. This isn't because I don't want to use them.

It's because I simply don't need to use them.

Why the fuck would I need an app to tell me what the weather's like? If I want to know that, I can look out of the fucking window. And who the fuck can read a book on a screen which measures precisely 100 × 56 mm? There's also a Music Player and a Film and TV viewer. For films and TV, please refer back to the visible screen dimensions. For music, please give me something with slightly more advanced specs than 0.1 W output and a speaker so small that it makes the UK five pence piece look like the radio telescope at Jodrell Bank.

Even if I wanted to listen to music or watch films on a tiny piece of shit that makes my Netbook look like Goliath, I couldn't. For a start, there's fuck-all memory on the inbuilt chip. Most of that is taken up with the aforementioned pointless 'apps' like Music Player. They can't even be uninstalled because it's an Android phone, and Google apps are built in to the firmware. The best you can hope for is to disable them – which doesn't solve the problem – and/or move some apps to an SD card. Needless to say, the SD card doesn't come with the phone, so even the 'free' software ends up costing you money in the long run.

A couple of weeks ago I experimented with a couple of 'apps' which claimed to use the inbuilt GPS locator to track my movements. After playing with three different software packages, I gave them all up as a bad job. You see, in spite of what my friend Mark W. told me, it isn't enough to simply have the GPS enabled. You also have to be connected to the internet at the same time. Now I have a Pay As You Go phone. I accidentally enabled the mobile data one morning, soon after I bought the phone. I learned a harsh lesson when a fiver's worth of talktime vanished before I had chance to disable the fucking roaming. I've never enabled it since, and I almost certainly never will. I can't afford to be using mobile data for a few hours at a time, which is what I'd be talking about for this project.

So – Plan B: a smart wristband.

I know a fair number of people who use these devices when they're out running, cycling or whatever. I assumed that they just connected them to a PC and the software produced a map showing exactly where they've been, based on the GPS data stored in the wristband. So when I saw one of these things on sale in Cash Solutions in Aberdare, I decided that it might be worth a punt.

That was on Friday. I couldn't actually use it on Friday, because I had to charge it up first, of course. The little 'user guide' told me that I'd have to charge it for thirty minutes. However, there was nothing in the 'user guide' to indicate how you knew it was fully charging, or even whether it was switched on or off. There are little flashing lights on the side of the module, but they don't mean a thing in isolation.

(When I say 'user guide' I'm being extremely generous. It consists of a few little pictures and no text except for a note telling me to look at the website – in eighteen different languages.)

It turned out, having downloaded the full 'manual' from the website, that I needed to install three apps to my phone. I'd found two of them by trial and error on Friday afternoon. The third one, needless to say, was the key to the whole operation. I went up my own orifice on Saturday afternoon, trying to work out how to get the fucking thing to track my progress from Thereisnospoon to the Cambrian, and thence to the Coliseum. It turned out that not only does it have to be permanently tethered to my phone using Bluetooth, everyone's favourite fucked-up data exchange standard. It also has to be permanently connected to the internet.

As I'm on Pay As You Go, that really isn't an option. When only about a third of the pubs and a quarter of the public buildings in Wales have any sort of free wifi, I'll be lucky to mark the start and finish of my walk, never mind the bits in between.

I tried again on Sunday, and gave up again when it couldn't even tell me I'd walked from Thereisnospoon to the Glosters. I was rapidly running out of patience (and battery life).

This morning I decided to look at the Sony UK website. That was what I typed into Google, anyway. It appears to have taken me to Sony Europe, because the first thing I had to do was choose my location. Well, if their site is so badly designed that it can't even pin down the fucking country I'm in, the GPS in their fucking gadgets can't be up to much, can it?

I eventually found my way to the support site, and left them the following message:

Well done, Sony.

Your SWR10 Smartband is undoubtedly the most pointless piece of crap I've come across since my 'smart'phone. I wanted something that I could take out for a walk, and then use it to chart my route via Google Maps. Having experimented with a couple of apps, they didn't come up to the mark. Where I live we're lucky to have a 1G signal a lot of the time, never mind 4G. I'm on Pay As You Go, so I really can't afford to spend a few hours connected to the mobile network – even if it was available in some of the places I've got in mind. When I came across your SWR10, I looked at the packaging, saw the simulated phone displays of maps, and decided that it might be just what I was looking for. I was wrong. Completely wrong.

For a start, your 'user guide' was of absolutely no use. The ancient Egyptians used pictures to communicate with each other. In the intervening four thousand years most of us have progressed to things called 'words'. I once did a psychology module on 'Product Usability' – maybe your people could sit in next time. I hadn't realised before purchasing this gadget that I'd also need to download THREE – count 'em – apps to my phone. I located LifeLog and the SWR10 app, but not Smart Connect. I spent the next two days, on and off, trying to set the damn thing up. I downloaded a 19-page 'instruction manual' the following day. It was a little more help – but not a lot. You still need to be connected to the internet, and your Bluetooth needs to be permanently on as well. I'd be charging my phone every five minutes even if I could afford to be permanently online. Last night I gave up entirely.

As for Lifelog – if I wanted something to tell me how long I'd spent reading a book, I'd use my clock. Nice idea, very badly executed.

Utterly pointless. It's now on sale on Ebay.

That last bit's true, incidentally. I've just listed it. In the meantime, if anyone nearer home would care to take it off my hands, you can have it for a tenner. After reading such a masterly sales pitch, it's unlikely that any of you would want it, but if you do, please leave a comment. I really don't have the fucking patience to fuck around with it any longer. I'm going to buy a little map measurer and do it the old way instead.

Dolly Mixtures

In which The Author sees another set of talented young people

I'm pleased to say that my love for live theatre, having been well and truly re-ignited by the Colstars this summer, shows no sign of dying down any time soon.

I never had the chance to tread the boards as a teenager. Aberdare's Phoenix Theatre was pretty much a spent force by the time I was old enough to get involved. My slightly older friend Adrian T. did join Phoenix; he was telling me the other night of the nervousness he experienced on his way in the first time, which was quickly dispelled when he found out that loads of girls were involved. Unfortunately, a fire at their base in Aberaman put the kibosh on their operations.

Slightly nearer home, the Little Theatre – with whom Dad had been involved for a long time when he was younger – were still going, but they all seemed to be middle-aged or even older. Then there were the outright amateur operatic societies, which wasn't a scene that ever attracted me. (I've said on many occasions that if I wanted to hear a couple of fat woman shouting at each other I'd have moved to Penywaun.)

I did a couple of productions with the Little Theatre in my early twenties, having been introduced to them by Dad in the pub one evening. Then I started working away from Aberdare, and that put an end to my involvement with local theatre on any level. Having lost the key to my TARDIS, and therefore being unable to do the twenty-three mile journey in much less than an hour and a half, I always had to cry off.

In Connecting People I told you how I got involved with the now-defunct Youth Entertainment Society. Even that was a struggle, as I had to dive straight onto the bus after work and jump off in Aberaman to get to rehearsals. (I'll tell you the tale of the one show I stage managed for them another time.) Then my new boss decided that our unofficial flexitime system was against the rules, and that (as Victor Borge might have said) took care of that. I started going to plays in Cardiff instead. It was much easier all round.

By the time I went back to university I'd got out of the habit of going to the Coliseum. It took the Colstars' amazing production of Jesus Christ Superstar to reintroduce me to the joys of a live local show.

There's another performing arts company in Aberdare who have been on my radar for a few years. My old friend Pete has been involved with a group called Showcase (Sioe Gerdd) for ages. However, I was never able to check out one of their shows. To add to the fun, they often stage their plays at the Dare Valley Country Park Vistors' Centre. It isn't the easiest place to get to. Even assuming we still had buses after 6 p.m. on weekdays, the centre is the best part of a fifteen minute walk from either of the bus routes. When it's barrelling down with rain and the wind is howling around the hillsides, it's really not a pleasant prospect.

I was kicking myself a couple of months ago, when I discovered (after the event) that Showcase had staged Dennis Potter's surreal gem The Blue Remembered Hills at the DVCP. Mind you, it was the height of summer, so it was probably pissing down that night. I was also a bit disappointed to learn that they'd done Two Gentlemen of Verona at St Fagan's Church in Trecynon, a hymn book's throw from my house. So when posters started going up all over the place for their production of Hello, Dolly at the Coliseum, I made a note in my diary straight away.

I was even more determined to go when Liam J. (the young chap I had a couple of drinks with in I'll Have a Large Retcon, Please) told me he was in the show. I knew he'd done Film Studies at university, but I hadn't realised he was in Showcase as well. (As things turned out, I knew a few of the cast from being around in Aberdare.) As I was unexpectedly free on Wednesday evening, I decided to go along and check out the show for myself.

And I was so glad I did. I haven't seen the film since I was a kid, and I couldn't remember very much about it. For a company of that age group – I think the oldest are probably in their mid-twenties – there was a remarkable range of talent on stage that night. Meghann Reynolds, playing the title role, has an extraordinary voice and tremendous presence for someone so young. Stuart R., another pub pal of mine who was playing Vandergelder that night, also has a fine voice and a terrific manner about him. A young fella named Kishan Mehta has a gift for physical comedy which I'm sure will take him a long way.

There were great voices, some neat dance routines (not easy on a fairly small stage), a lot of very clever staging, and so many colourful costumes and lighting changes that it was a real visual feast, as well as being a pleasure to listen to. There were a few first-night hiccups, a couple of fumbled lines, and a couple of technical glitches, but they were perfectly understandable in the circumstances. It's one thing to do it in the privacy of the church hall, but quite another when half your family and most of your pals are watching.

Liam was playing a supporting role, so I waited by the stage door to catch up with him and lend him a book I'd promised him ages ago. While we were chatting he explained that several of the cast were doubling up, so he'd be playing one of the main parts on the Saturday night.

I went to the Mount Pleasant for a swift half and put this status on Facebook:

Great to see yet more talented young people on stage at the Coliseum tonight. An energetic, colourful and nicely played Hello, Dolly. First night nerves aside, a fine production. Whenever you hear an old pub bore moaning about 'kids today', give them a nudge in the direction of the Colstars or Showcase and ask them to report back afterwards.

So, not wishing to be an old pub bore, I went along again yesterday. I bought a programme before I went in, because I recognised so many faces on Wednesday that I wanted to put names to them. I also added my name to the mailing list, so that I don't miss anything they do in future.

My initial impression was reinforced last night – Meghann was born to sing that part, belting out the songs with the sort of energy and passion you'd expect in someone who's been doing it for years. The two guys playing Vandergelder's employees are knockabout comedians who worked really well together. There was just the right balance of pathos and farce, which can be difficult to pull off. The band were also top-notch – if perhaps a little too loud in places, drowning out the voices from time to time. The chorus and the dancers were all on top of their game, too; the frenetic 'Waiters' Gallop' featured six young girls who must have been exhausted at the end.

And, of course, there was the afterparty. Once again we repaired to the Harlequins Bowls Club for beer and shenanigans. Liam and Stuart introduced me to some of the others, and we chatted for ages about ideas for possible productions. In particular, Stuart is very interested in one scheme I've got in mind, of which more later (I hope). Liam also suggested something quite radical, which we're going to try and flesh out over the next few months. It was another great evening in good company, and certainly better than anything else Aberdare had to offer on a Saturday night. We wandered off at stop tap and I headed home to make some notes about Liam's proposal. So far, it seems doable. Watch this space, as we say …

It was just a pity that the turn-out was so poor. I actually felt a bit resentful on seeing all those empty seats when I came back from buying my interval ice cream. I mentioned this fact to some of the lads while we were chatting over beers. After all, I argued, millions of people who turn their noses up at going to see 'amateur singers' will quite happily switch on the TV on Saturday nights and watch … amateur singers. The only difference is that they have four has-beens (or never-weres) sitting on the other side of the stage.

And that's where my cunning plan comes in again.

While I was on my way out, I chatted to one of the committee members in the foyer. He'd sold me the programme on the way in, so I congratulated him on putting such a great show together. Then I made the same offer which I'd previously made to the Colstars: to look after their online presence. They've got a Wix website, which might be all right if you just want a quick and dirty fix-up, but I'm thinking about going down the full interactivity route. I can set them up with a blog, an Instagram, a Twitter feed, tie all the social media together, and build them a web identity to help spread the word by the cheapest possible means. As I said to Meghann, if I submitted a review to the Cynon Valley Leader at lunchtime tomorrow, it would probably go in about a week after their Xmas panto – if at all. Why bother messing about with Twentieth Century media in this new age of instant connectedness?

They've got my contact details. In turn, I can use my network of contacts to establish a web presence for both Showcase and the Colstars that will really allow them to get 'out there' and promote themselves.

I'm going to do everything I can to support them, because I've seen the energy, enthusiasm and commitment both companies put into their shows. After the dazzling display of Valleys apathy from the Cynon Valley Quiz League last week, I now know where my free time and portfolio of skills would be really appreciated. It may have taken me nearly forty years to throw my hat into the theatrical ring, but I think Dad would be pleased to know I'm following in the family footsteps … at least in a small way.

Ex-Captain's Log

In which The Author's new project starts to bear fruit

A couple of weeks ago I told you about my new research project, which can basically be summed up as No More Mr Nice Guy. Well, last week I published a summary of my first week's findings on Facebook:

• Told a fat chav using his mobile phone at the cashpoint to either piss or get off the pot.


• Told another chav to get out of the fucking doorway in Cash Solutions.


• Left an extremely rude message on the phone of the guy who couldn't be arsed to ring me back yesterday.


• Walked out of at least three pubs because the barbint was more interested in what was happening in Pokemon Land than in selling beer to customers.


• Told one of the Debating Society to belt up because he was in a public library, not a pub.

I had thirty-nine 'likes' within a couple of hours – which is on a par with my friends' reaction when I signed up with Gollancz back last year. I think I must have struck a chord with a lot of people.

I'm pleased to say that Week Two has been equally productive. I didn't do karaoke last night (again). I walked into the Lighthouse at 6.30 p.m. and the jukebox was already turned up to 11. I had a quick pint, gave up trying to chat to Philvis, and made my excuses shortly before 7.30. I headed to the Glosters, where a gang of my friends were sitting at the bar. I needed to go online, so I connected to the Cloud and posted this very angry status:

I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to look at everything I put together online for the Cynon Valley Quiz League last week. It's just a fucking shame that the prime mover behind the whole reboot couldn't be fucked to pick up the phone and arrange a time to meet me and sign everything off. I'll be deleting every sign of it at 1237 tomorrow, which is exactly one week since I asked him to spare half an hour from his packed schedule of daytime TV and pints with pub bores. Liz B., please don't waste any of your time on the logo, because it won't be fucking appreciated by the person concerned. Good luck to anyone putting a team together, but if the organiser can't commit to half an hour to tidy things up, I certainly won't be committing myself to every Sunday night for six months or so.

The aforementioned Liz B. is a very talented artist and illustrator whom I've known since her student days. I asked her last week if she'd be interested in making a logo for the CVQL which we could use on social media and in our documentation. Fortunately for us both, she had a bit of a backlog, and she was planning to make a start on it this weekend.

I was true to my word – even if I was a little late on cyberparade this lunchtime – and I've now deleted the Facebook page, Twitter feed, Gmail address and Wordpress site. I've also trashed the contents of a folder where I'd stored everything I'd drafted in the hope of getting it finalised this week. Since that hasn't happened, I really can't be bothered to piss about chasing people. Don't go looking online for the CVQL, because in a couple of weeks – the 'cooling-off' period, so to speak – it'll be as though it never existed in the first place.

And it ain't gonna stop there.

At the last Plaid Cymru branch meeting, Item 5 on the agenda was 'Social Media'. As usual, Brian's eyes glazed over as soon as Cerith, Danny A. and I started talking about our Magical skills. I asked the remaining members of the committee, and the people who have already decided to stand in the 2017 local authority elections, to send me photos and potted biographies which I could publish on the website.

Bear in mind that I'm not a Welsh speaker, so I have to get my old pal Gwyn M. to translate everything before it can go live on the other half of the website. That all takes time. The sooner I get this information, the sooner I can use it.

The last meeting was on 6 September. It's now 16 September, and silence has well and truly fallen. I'm not going to chase people for this stuff. Instead, I'm going to rock up at the next meeting with a sheet of A3 paper bearing a couple of photos, a few columns of text, and a shitload of blank space, and present it to the members.

I'll apologise to Brian in advance and say, 'Thanks for your contributions, everyone.'

Then I'm going to go for a pint in another bar just up the street, and they can ring me up if they've got anything to say to me.

I'm really getting too old for this shit now. It's not as though I'm kicking my heels all day. I've got a lot of things on, between proofreading, the Colstars, music events, and organising another trip to London. I'm also having to set aside a big chunk of my time for fuck all financial reward and precious little gratitude.

If I haven't got something from the Plaid gang before the next meeting, their cyber presence could well go the same way as the CVQL's. It takes quite a long time to set these things up, and (as I discovered this lunchtime) it'll take me less than five minutes to eradicate the lot.

During my last visit to the surgery, my GP tipped me off about a Stress Management course which started in Aberdare last week.

I told him, 'I don't need stress management. I need a semi-automatic and a shitload of ammo.'

I don't know if he thought I was joking. At this point in time, I'm not entirely sure myself …

You Can Call Me 'M'

In which The Author is putting the word around

It occurred to me yesterday that the soon-to-be relaunched Cynon Valley Quiz League is a bit like a secret society.

When Rhian and I were in Aberdare Park for the Tour of Britain on Thursday, I bumped into my pal Mark, who used to play for the Marquis team back in the day. I told him that the league was coming back together, and he promised to pass the word on to Kelvin and Karen.

Yesterday, while walking through town, I ran into Bernard, another old pal of mine who used to play for the Blaengwawr. As with Mark, I didn't have to go into the details.

I just said, 'The league is reforming,' and he promised to ring Alan for more information.

I don't know what a casual passer-by would have made of these rather strange conversations. In the meantime, I think we've got ourselves a nice little codename: the League of Fairly Extraordinary Ladies and Gentlemen.

I Want to Ride My Bicycle

In which The Author sees some world class athletes and jots down some ideas

This is going to be another one of those entries that starts somewhere, loops in and around on itself, and ends up somewhere else. Just so you know …

Last weekend I wished I'd actually completed my degree in Applied Biology back in the 1980s, because I could have done with cloning myself. It was karaoke in the Cambrian and Iwan's going away party on Friday night. I impressed everybody by managing to go to both and catch up with some other pals. In between singing and chatting to Iwan, I met Alan Everett, one of the stalwarts of the old Cynon Valley Quiz League. He's trying to re-establish the Sunday night competitions, and we're arranging a meeting to put things in place on 10 October. Watch this space …

On Saturday morning the Cynon Valley Museum and Gallery reopened, so I went along to check it out. It's been taken over by a trust, and is now run by a group of volunteers. Needless to say, after a week of fairly decent weather, it was absolutely pissing down on the day. The planned outdoor activities for youngsters were washed out, which is about par for the course in Wales. My pal Clint was there as the official photographer; David Leslie Davies, the respected local historian and author, was there as one of the organisers; as well as chatting to them, I bumped into some other friends while I was looking around.

It meant that by the time I got to St Elvan's Church, where Geoff was giving a talk on the Valleys connection in the Great War, he'd left by the other door. I caught up with him in the car park, and apologised for getting the time wrong. I'll definitely get around to seeing his presentation at some point, I promise.

I stayed in town for the rest of the day, because in the evening I had my third double-booking of the weekend. My friend Eirlys was having a birthday party in the Con Club, while my friend Shannon was having a going-away party in the Glosters. I stayed in the club until about 10.00, then made my way to the pub. I eventually crawled away from there some time after 2.00, leaving the youngsters to crack on into the small hours.

On Sunday evening I went to the Cambrian, where my old friend Mel Crew and another fine musician named Hugh Chidgey were hosting their monthly open mic session. Before they got going, Mel and I had a chat about the Tour of Britain. Stage 5 was set to begin at Aberdare Park, a puncture repair kit's throw from my house, on Thursday morning. Mel grew up in Nottinghamshire, and one of their local sporting heroes was a champion cyclist named Tommy Simpson. I knew his name, because his biography had been published shortly before I finished working in the book trade.

And that's where everything sort of ties in. Because here in the Cynon Valley, back in the late Victorian era, we had our own cycling hero, a chap named Arthur Linton.

I already knew there was a blue plaque on Arthur Linton's old house in Cardiff Street, Aberaman, because I photographed it a few years ago.

I didn't know much about the life of this chap until I read an essay about the Aberaman cyclists (Arthur, his brother Tom, and Jimmy Michael) in Old Aberdare Volume 5 a while ago. It's a fascinating and tragic story, which formed the basis of a play called Gladiator last year. (It came to the Coliseum, but I missed it for some reason.) Anyway, the current centrepiece of the reopened museum is an exhibition about the Aberaman cyclists. Another friend of mine, Callie Healey, has painted a marvellous portrait of Arthur Linton, working from old photographs. Some of Clint's photos are in the exhibition as well. The pieces were falling into place nicely.

Yesterday morning, dodging the showers, Rhian and I went to the park early to watch the cyclists depart on the latest stage of this gruelling tournament. Stage 5 took them from Aberdare to Bath, via the Eastern Valleys, the Forest of Dean and the Stroud Valleys. Local schooolkids had had the morning off to enjoy this remarkable occasion, and we were lucky to get a decent vantage point to watch the teams arrive.

We caught sight of Sir Bradley Wiggins, Mark Cavendish (who is much shorter than we imagined) and a host of world-class athletes as they came up to the stand to sign in and have their photos taken with the Mayor of Rhondda Cynon Taf CBC (who is much younger than anyone imagines). I got some fairly decent photos, a few half-decent ones, and some good video footage of the competitors making their way past the statue of Industry on their way out of the park.

Then Rhian and I went for breakfast (second breakfast, in my case), decided that we really couldn't have a Silly Day, and parted company about lunchtime.

And this morning, again dodging the showers, I took a stroll up to Aberdare Cemetery and took a few photos of Arthur Linton's last resting place. The memorial was erected by public subscription after his tragic death at the age of just 27. (There was some dispute about his birthdate, apparently, and his name is mis-spelled on the memorial. Nothing much changes, does it?)