Uncanny Tales – (088) On the Way to Maybury Hill

As a young man, H.G. Wells had spent an unhappy time living with an aunt in Horsell which was then close to Woking and is now part of the overall sprawl.

So, when he wrote his great science fiction novel, The War of the Worlds, he had the Martians land on Horsell common, in sight of where Wells had once lived.

This enabled him to have that area of Woking become the first to fall victim to the terrifying invaders weaponry.

In the novel the hero of the tale, having witnessed the first meteor fall to earth, was pursued by the merciless tripods from the common and along Maybury hill.

Were the invaders to land today they would have to negotiate a huge six-way roundabout, dissect a one-way system, a no left turn, a no right turn, two traffic light junctions, three pelican crossings and two quite appallingly designed mini roundabouts.

I think faced with the product of 21st century traffic management and in particular Woking Borough Councils ill-judged town planning, that the Martians would have given up and returned home long before they were exposed to the pathogenic bacteria that eventually saw them off.

The world saved by the ineptitude of local government, what Irony.

Uncanny Tales – (086) I Don’t Like Mondays

 

Journal week ending 23rd May 2008

 

In the words of the Boomtown Rats classic song title, I don’t like Mondays.

Now I know I’m not alone in that dislike and I hate Mondays on several levels, and I know I’m probably not alone in that either.

There are some Mondays I like more than others such as any Monday that falls during my holiday leave, providing I’m not at home, and Bank Holiday Mondays for example are on the whole quite painless and in a week which boasts a Bank Holiday Monday I don’t like Tuesdays, but I don’t think there is a song about that.

 

The reason that I dislike Mondays so much, apart from the obvious one’s, is that Mondays are our designated refuse collection day in other words it’s when the bins are emptied.

Now I am well aware that the collection of household waste is an essential part of life, and I certainly wouldn’t want the practise to stop after all I do pay handsomely for the privilege.

 

I should point out that I do have an issue with the manner and means of collections that have been imposed on us.

Which is this, although we do have bins emptied weekly, we do have to suffer fortnightly collection, so general rubbish is collected one week and recycling the next and so on.

If you have the same arrangement in your area, then you know what I mean and if you don’t then you will have firsthand experience soon enough.

 

However, my chief gripe about collection day stems from a need to get from A to B without hindrance.

In other words, being able to get about without having to wait an indeterminate period of time for the dust cart to reach a point whereby the immeasurable queue of cars can continue their short journey.

You may think me petty or prone to exaggeration or both, but this is a reoccurring problem.

It’s bad enough when it happens on a main thoroughfare but at least they only block on side of the road under those circumstances and the traffic can still flow albeit in a restricted form.

But when it happens on the access roads to a housing estate, they block the whole road and make no attempt to find a spot where cars might be able to pass.

 

Take this Monday for example I was on my way home having been to the shops in town and turned onto my estate to find a dust cart blocking the road.

The road had cars parked down one side with hardly any spaces to pull in so fearing a protracted wait on this particular stretch of road I did a u turn back out onto the main road and drove another mile to enter the estate from the opposite end.

As I did so my heart sank as I could see 100 yards ahead another dust cart blocking the only other access road to my destination.

I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw two other cars that had made the same discovery as I had.

I drove on as far as I could, about thirty yards from the obstruction, and tucked into a gap between two parked cars and waited.

I looked down the road at the driverless vehicle with its busy orange flashing lights which are supposed to warn of some kind of activity apparently not in this case.

I turned on the radio and amused myself by listening to Ken Bruce’s “Pop Master” quiz on  Radio 2, shouting out the answers and berating the contestant when they got it wrong.

Five minutes passed and nothing changed apart from the additional cars taking positions in the available gaps behind me.

The second combatant took her turn on the quiz and just as they were about to choose their bonus subject, I saw activity ahead.

A man in protective clothing moved towards the truck and opened the door.

The protective clothing consisted of safety footwear so they can kick your bins without hurting themselves, a Hi-visibility yellow coat so we can see them not moving very fast and Gloves to stop them getting chapped hands in the winter,

He climbed into the cabin after a few moments the truck started to move slowly in my direction.

As it did so the driver started making exaggerated hand and arm movement for which I could give no explanation.

As he got closer to me, he became even more animated and then he leant out of his window.

Still unaware of what the problem was but realising he was looking at me I wound down my window,

“You’re in the way” he shouted and pointed beyond my car “I need to get to those bins”.

Now although I find collection day to be a huge inconvenience, I put up with it, I don’t really have a choice but for him to start having a go at me rather pissed me off.

“What do want me to do about?” I responded.

“Where exactly do you expect me to go?”

“You should have hung back further up the road” He shouted again.

I didn’t point out to him that if I had stopped further up the road one of the cars behind me would be parked in the space now occupied by me instead, I said.

“So, I should have to park half a mile up the road because you’re inconsiderate”.

“Inconsiderate” He bellowed “Inconsiderate you’re the inconsiderate one mate”.

I took a deep breath before saying “One of us is blocking the road and it isn’t me, should I draw you a picture or do you get it now”?

“You’re the one blocking the bloody bins” he retorted his face a rather unattractive purple which did not go well with his yellow coat. 

“God forbid you actually have to wheel the bins an extra six feet” I replied “Mate”.

At this point a woman stepped off the curb and walked over to truck and looking up at the funny purple man made some enquiry about collection times for the coming holiday weekend.

“For god’s sake don’t distract the dustman now we’ll be here all day” I shouted to her.

The driver bristled visibly at the mention of the word “dustman” and ignoring the woman he drove slowly off followed by seven cars and there disgruntled drivers.

Only then could I continue my journey and although I had missed the end of “Pop Master” I felt I had acquitted myself well and struck a blow for the common man, figuratively speaking of course as he was younger and fitter than me and more purple.

DUE TO A WATER SHORTAGE IN WOKING

Due to a water shortage in Woking

The Council has issued an edict

And the swimming pools response

Is to close lanes four, five and six 

IF YOU ARE WONDERING ABOUT THE WHEREABOUTS

 

If anyone is wondering where all the traffic cones, personnel barriers and sundry mobile street signage have gone I can now reveal their whereabouts.

They are currently to be found on every Road, Street, Lane and Close in Woking.

Some barriers stand sentinel around abandoned holes in the ground, while cones are to be found either in ones or twos making potholes or broken drains or in uniform rows blocking off perfectly serviceable lanes for weeks on end for no apparent reason.

We also appear to have all the temporary traffic lights in the land and so numerous are they that they rival, in number, the towns Christmas lights.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TEA BAG

 

The difference between a tea bag

And Woking Football Club

Is a simple one to discover

A tea bag stays longer in the cup

Uncanny Tales – (26) Waiting For God in Frinton

I’m in my sixties now and I started drinking when I was 15, which was in the early 1970’s.

I always looked older than my age, though not old enough to pass for 18 when I was three years younger but it was the 70s and landlords pretty much turned a blind eye to 15 and 16 year olds drinking as long as they didn’t look to out of place.

My first ever pint was in a pub called the Man in the Moon and it cost me 17 pence, and the first sip of that foaming brew set me on the road to oblivion.

 

I didn’t drink everyday but when I drank I didn’t hold back and I didn’t know when to stop. 

On one occasion, a Friday, I left work at 5.30pm and went straight to the pub, with that week’s pay packet in hand, in those days we got paid weekly and in cash, I woke up the next morning in a bus shelter with 3 pence in my pocket, I had pissed away a week’s wages in one night.

On a works beano one year we went on a day trip to France the more serious drinkers among our party drank nonstop for 26 hours and very nearly drank ourselves sober, one or two of the group had to be carried but the hardened drinkers walked back to the ferry.

 

On another occasion after a friend’s house party I woke up on the bedroom floor, having no idea how I got there.

It was only later when I spoke to my friends that I found out the whole story of what I had done and that they had carried/dragged me home.

They were good friends, who through my behavior, I gradually alienated one by one until there was no one left to get me home.

So I woke up in gardens, subways and gutters, I even woke up in a skip once with a kebab stuck to my face.

In the end I was disowned by my family and my only friends were fellow drunks.

 

Despite my drunken binges I still managed to hold down a decent job so when I was in my late twenties I moved to Woking to take up a very well paid job which served to fund my benders very well indeed.

On one particular weekend in September I had been drinking since breakfast and kept it up all day, by midnight all the pubs were shut, but a serious drunk always knows where to find a drink so I took a cab to Casper’s, a members only an all-night drinker.

It was there that I met Angela who would ironically become my salvation.

She was a good looking woman, around about my age, who was also a drunk, although the drink hadn’t yet diminished her looks.   

 

The next morning I woke up in the passenger seat of a car on the sea front in Frinton, with Angela sleeping beside me, slumped over the steering wheel.

I had absolutely no recollection of how we got there, or why we were there.

I got out of the car to stretch my legs and the bracing sea breeze almost knocked me off my feet.

I walked along the sea front, trying desperately to clear my head but things were no clearer 20 minutes later when I returned to the car.

Which by some miracle was parallel parked to perfection, and I marveled at how we had got from Woking to Frinton and lived to tell the tale.

 

However a sense of doom came over me as I looked at the bright blue Chrysler in front of me because although we had got to Frinton unscathed the car had not.
The front of the car carried all the hallmarks of a serious front end collision.

 

I roused Angela from her drunken slumber and got her out of the car and walked her up and down until the sea breeze had blown some of the cobwebs away.

“How the hell did we get here?” I asked

“Get where?” she mumbled

“Frinton” I replied

“Where the hell is Frinton?” Angela asked

I walked her further along the seafront until we reached a café that was actually open at 6.00am on a Sunday and several coffees later I got some sense out of her

“The last thing I remember we were in Casper’s and you said “I haven’t been to the coast for ages”” She said slowly “so we finished our drinks and got in my car”  

“And?” I pressed

“And then you woke me up” she said, head in hands

“Do you remember hitting anything?” I whispered

“No, like what?” Angela queried

“I don’t know” I replied “but whatever it was, you hit it hard”

 

It was after nine when we stood up to leave and a small group of fishermen were coming in as we were going out.

“All I know is old Joe was walking the dog when he got hit” one of them said

“And he’s dead?” asked another

“Yes and the driver didn’t stop” the first one replied   

What little colour had returned to Angela’s face while we were in the café instantly drained away as the realization of what she had done dawned on her as well? 

 

We returned to the car but Angela was too distraught to drive, I was suddenly stone cold sober so I got behind the wheel and chose a route that took us back to Woking via a circuitous route.

 

After that September Sunday all those years ago when some poor resident soul in Gods waiting room lost their life at our hands I lost my taste for booze.
I still see Angela from time to time, she still lives in Woking but she never came to terms with what we had done that day and surrendered completely to the demon in the bottle.
I see her around about town with the other winos and I believe she sleeps under the canal bridge.

I wonder if she sleeps any sounder than I do.

RUSH HOUR VIEWS

 

It was Monday morning again

The kids were back to school

And I sat in a jam

No better or worse

Than any other Monday

My car came to a stop

Beside the drive of a large house

Long past its best

And I saw fixed to the crumbling masonry

Of the once grand gateway, a sign

“Eland Place”

I laughed to myself

And pondered just how many

Eland run free

Along the A247

Then the traffic inched forward

And I looked again

This time the sign read

“Elan Place”

So I pondered again

At work I sort the definition of “Elan”

“Enthusiastic and assured vigor and liveliness”

“Distinctive and stylish elegance”

“A feeling of strong eagerness”

And picturing in my mind

The dingy ramshackled house again

It occurred to me that

The prospect of African antelope

With their short spirally twisted horns

Making their way towards Byfleet

Seemed more appropriate

WOKING

 

Woking so wants a claim to fame

So tenuous links to the famous they list

On the official Woking web site

Such as Adelina de Lara, Concert pianist

The Spice Girls and George Bernard Shaw

Queen Elizabeth I and Lady Hamilton

Paul Weller, Peter Gabriel, Rick Parfitt

Peter Davison, The Jam and Eric Clapton

Sir Alec and Eric Bedser the Cricketing twins

These and many more appear for their sins

H.G. Wells is a particular favourite

With several places in town with his name on

But when he wrote “war of the worlds”

He had the Martian land on Horsell common

Because sadly while in the town he hated it so

He made sure that Woking was the first place to go

ON THE WAY TO MAYBURY HILL

 

As a young man H.G. Wells had spent an unhappy time living with an aunt in Horsell which was then close to Woking and is now part of the overall sprawl..

So, when he wrote his great science fiction novel, The War of the Worlds, he had the Martians land on Horsell common, in sight of where Wells had once lived.

This enabled him to have that area of Woking become the first to fall victim to the terrifying invaders weaponry.

In the novel the hero of the tale, having witnessed the first meteor fall to earth, was pursued by the merciless tripods from the common and along Maybury hill.

Were the invaders to land today they would have to negotiate a huge six-way roundabout, dissect a one-way system, a no left turn, a no right turn, two traffic light junctions, three pelican crossings and two quite appallingly designed mini roundabouts.

I think faced with the product of 21^st century traffic management and in particular Woking Borough Councils ill-judged town planning, that the Martians would have given up and returned home long before they were exposed to the pathogenic bacteria that eventually saw them off.

The world saved by the ineptitude of local government, what Irony.