Week 201, Morning Tweets

Dawn light smiles on the magical path
The song of many birds brightens while the morning wakes 
Until the threshold of visibility dims their sound again for the start of the day.

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Week 200, Glass bird, fractured fall, red resolution

Here are my New Year resolutions, 1 to 12.

Resolution number 1: Don't make New Year resolutions, just do the thing anyway whatever the time of year. If you recognise that there is an issue then choose to address it or choose to accept it.

Resolution number 2-8: As above.

Revolution number 9: The Beatles, White Album.

The White Album transports me back to a time of bizarre, jam-jar cocktails - pre-hipster by nearly 30 years - and alcohol infused madness, I dubbed them Earthquakes after the cocktail invented by Toulouse-Lautrec.

Perhaps they weren't jam jars, maybe pickled onion jars, it matters little other than they tasted of neither jam nor pickle. What did matter was that it was a suitable receptacle for traversing the optics behind the two bars in the city centre pub where a friend worked first thing in the morning, assuming the local, small-time, gangland hatchets weren't there.

Pernod, no matter how little there is, the taste dominates.

Some problems are never addressed.

Arriving already pissed by 10am and sharing the spoils, it's odd how quickly a person can get used to that amount of strong alcohol at that time of day.

And she continued, where I never could.

No resolution.

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Week 199, Park Like a Joyrider episode 2/2

And the winner is!

As evidenced by the numerous endorsements applied to the windscreen this car was the favourite of the judging panel.

Unusually there was not much finesse or technique present, but I cannot question the impartiality of the judges.

A sure-fire sign that this was a worthy contender is the position of the rump.

The rear of the vehicle is teasingly placed well into the path of traffic on the adjacent main road.

This entrant was well aware that the "20MPH" signs on the below road are rarely observed.

Just one example of the use of initiative - it isn't just the transport, it is the environment too.

Observe the single wheel on the pavement and the breaching of the double-yellow lines.

And the expected blocking of the main pavement route.

These are a gentle nod to the nature of the competition.

Not going over the top to impress, a small collection of well calculated infringements.

Winning two stick-on tickets and a paper commendation under the passenger windscreen wiper.

Well done.

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Week 198, Park Like a Joyrider 2018 episode 1/2

No this driver has not lost their marbles, they are a competing in this year's Park Like a Joyrider contest.

A new entrant with a new style.

No dangerous bodywork on the vehicle restricts the opportunity for snagging innocent parties.

However, there is a clearly deliberate complete failure to achieve congress with a provided parking space.

And indeed the space is also blocked for anyone else that may wish to use it.

There is also a beautifully blocked pavement in two directions, that's a little touch of class.

A promising start for this one

Areas for refinement next year could be:

Dangle of the rear end into the 'live' road area.

A broken wing mirror with shards of glass.

Rear wiper blade missing and the wiper poking out perpendicular to the vehicle.

A deflated tyre.

Use some initiative and try to improvise, no marks will be lost for experimentation.

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Week 197, The cusp of 90K

Here we are at the heady, 88,999 mile mark.

A Nazi being pursued by the forces of law and order, exactly as it should be.*

Time to weigh it in.

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* 88 is a hate symbol used by right-wingers.

Week 196, Not letting the grass grow

The work on Firth House - a listed Georgian building on Wilkinson Street, Sheffield, once owned by Mark Firth the Victorian steel tycoon - is cracking on a-pace.

Over the last two years there have been, on average, almost yearly deliveries of builders supplies - specifically a batch of breeze blocks and a large bag of building sand, delivered two years ago, on the same day.

At this rate by the turn of the next century millennium the building may be in tip-top condition.

Keep up the good work chaps!*

The grass certainly isn't growing under their feet.**

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* They will almost invariably be chaps, and the slow work is almost certainly the responsibility of whoever owns the place who has given up.
** If you haven't spotted the bag of sand then look at it now, that's the joke - over-explaining in the manner of Take a Break or similar publications...

Week 195, Spinward, Rimward, Coreward, Trailing

"This is Free Trader Beowulf, calling anyone...

Mayday, Mayday..."*

...

We will not make the leap to the stars.

Interstellar travel will not become as common as international travel is today.

But we can still travel the universe in our dreams.

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* Traveller™ Science-Fiction Adventure in the Far Future