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Magic Darts

October 29th, 2018 · Posted by Skuds in Life, Music

While watching the European championship darts this weekend I found myself daydreaming about being a darts player, as I often do. I know I would never be good enough to even play in a pub league team, but wouldn’t it be fun coming up with a nickname and choosing walk-on music for the tournaents?

I think the name would be pretty obvious. With my name it would have to be ‘missile’, as in the infamous Scud missile, so that is sorted: a claret and blue shirt with “Skud Missile” across the back

The walk-on music is a bit harder. Michael Van Gerwen has already taken the best possible one, Seven Nation Army. Some of the other choices are OK. James Wade using Thin Lizzy is good and somebody else has Daydream Believer which works quite well. I’m not sure about Snakebite’s choice in terms of music, but it does work well for him and his style. Ditto Max Hopp’s use of that terrible ‘Oh-oh-oh Baby, Ooh Ah!’ song. Terrible music, but good for the drunk crowd to sing along to.

Personally I like the more dramatic, guitar-based tracks for this. My current thinking is that any of these would be good walk-on tunes for a darts tournament:

  • Sad But True – Metallica
  • School’s Out – Alice Cooper
  • Epic – Faith No More
  • No One Knows – Queens of the Stone Age
  • Time Bomb – Rancid
  • Kashmir – Led Zeppelin
  • Black Night – Deep Purple
  • Fight for your Right – Beastie Boys
  • Dog Eat Dog – Ted Nugent

Mind you, you can’t go wrong with Green Onions. Maybe I would give that a go.

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The art of motorcyce maintenance

October 15th, 2018 · Posted by Skuds in Life

I’m starting to think that maybe I should have bought a new motorbike instead of a used one, because things keep going wrong with it.

First of all it was the back tyre losing air a lot, which turned out to be a split in the sidewall. While getting that sorted I had the clutch lever replaced because it was bent out of shape – though to be fair that was our fault, probably done when Jayne fell off it.

Then it was all the instrument lights going, so I bought soome LED bulbs and put them in it. Then it was losing headlinghts because of a blown bulb, so I got a new H4 bulb and fitted that. At the same time I bought a new brake lever so it matched the new clutch lever, and because there was a bit of a bend that was on it when I bought the bike.

There was also the small matter of a bend foot peg that a friend managed to bend back for me, but that was totally my fault because I did it when I came off the bike.

Now it is the speedo. On the way down to Brightona today we were on the A23 and halfway down I realised that the speedo was on zero, even though I was doing about 65mph, Then I realised that the trip counter and odometer were not going round, so now I need to find out whether the speedo cable has come loose or is broken.

I’m sure I wouldn’t have half of these problems on a new bike, but then again I am learning more about bike repairs than I would have done otherwise, so maybe its all for the good after all.

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Dad jokes

October 15th, 2018 · Posted by Skuds in Life

Recently I have had some trouble eating anything much more solid than yogurt, so I have been having a lot of soup. Mostly cream of tomato, carrot and coriander, leek and potato, parsnip, lentil and bacon and so on.

In th supermarket yesterday we were looking in the soup aisle to see what other options there were to add a bit of variety, and it went a bit like this:

Jayne: chicken soup?

Me: got some of that at home

Jayne: pea soup?

Me: yes I probably do by now

True story.

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Keeping Crawley Open House open

September 2nd, 2018 · Posted by Skuds in Life, Politics

Sign the petition to try and stop this cut

There was a bit of a shock in the West Sussex county council’s new forward plan when it was published this week. The wording is all quite bland and might not sound like much, but the implications are that several services in the county will not be able to afford to continue, including the Crawley Open House service. [Read more →]

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Camel Balls

September 1st, 2018 · Posted by Skuds in Life

Liquid filled!

One good thing I did see in Waterlooville was the sweet shop, which had these in the window..

I really can’t imagine somebody saying to their kids “if you eat all your greens I’ll let you suck some camel balls after dinner”.

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Ghost Town

September 1st, 2018 · Posted by Skuds in Life

Jayne and I went to Waterlooville today to visit Chas and see how he is settling into married life and see his new house.

In some ways it seems like a nice enough place, but it has one of the most depressed and depressing town centres I have ever seen. The population of the town is about two-thirds the population of Crawley, but you wouldn’t know it. You can see lots of new housing development all around, but the town centre itself was like a ghost town. It is mostly pedestrianised, but empty of people. And this was on a Saturday afternoon. [Read more →]

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Crocked

August 28th, 2018 · Posted by Skuds in Life

It had to happen sooner or later, but I had my first motorbike accident on Sunday. I would like to think it will be my last, but the only way to guarantee that would be to stop riding. Nothing too serious: I didn’t break any bones or wreck the bike. [Read more →]

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A life in a playlist

August 28th, 2018 · Posted by Skuds in Music

The other day I decided to knock up a playlist of my life. The idea was to have one song for every year that I have been alive. I arbitrarily decided to not have more than one track for an artist and I was a bit flexible about the dates. Sometimes there is a song against the year it was released as a single, or maybe the year after if that is when it charted, or the year before if that was when it appeared on an album. [Read more →]

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Born to be mild

August 18th, 2018 · Posted by Skuds in Life

I am still persisting with the world’s lamest midlife crisis, which mostly involves spending a ton of cash on motorbike accessories. It is turning out to be an expensive hobby, when you add up the cost of helmets, padded jackets, gloves, boots, chain cleaner and lube, oil, visor cleaner, disc locks, and other sundries. [Read more →]

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Two ways to feel old

July 30th, 2018 · Posted by Skuds in Life

As you get older, it gets really easy to actually feel it. Here are two ways I have felt it recently.

Reading entertainment news. Most recently it was a story about Demi Lovato being hospitalised, to which my first reaction was wondering why some obscure one-hit wonder merited such coverage. And then I looked her up and find thst she has made 6 albums and had 7 top-20 singles, including one that got to No. 3 in the UK 6 years ago, so obviously she is not obscure, it is just me being completely out of touch with current pop.

Talking to young people. At work we have a constantly refreshed supply of graduates joining the company, and we usually have one in our department. As you talk to them and make a passing reference to something that you consider to be a common reference point you realise that they don’t have a clue what you are talking about. I know that some things would be common conversational currency to my generation that I would not expect younger people to pick up on, like Lawry McMenemy’s adverts for Barbican, but when you find that they have not seen Jaws, or even heard of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest it is a bit of a shock.

And there I was, thinking that I had my finger on the pulse because I know who Cardi B is and listen to Bugzy Malone, but in reality I have just turned into my Dad.

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