Misfits Mid-Life Crisis Adventures in East and West London, Surrey & Kent (The NEXT Chapter).

Week 203 Saturday 5^thMay until Friday 11^thMay 2018.

Hands up who loves free stuff, everyone loves a freebie.  When my nephews and niece see a “free” badly taped gift on the front of their fave magazine they don’t realise that the gift has been factored in to the price of the mag.  Or staff outside a shop holding a tray with samples hoping to entice you inside, even these are not free.  Occasionally at a large train station there will be beautiful people handing out promotional products such as cans of drink or chocolate bars.  I’ll admit there have been times when I have gone from vendor to vendor leaving with a collecting of sugary products to enjoy later.  But even these are not actually free.

  “Its a pretty time of the year in the garden”.
 
I definitely love free things.  Last weekend I came home from shopping with two things for “free”.  On both occasions the items were from large shops which should have been paid for.  Before any clever dick shouts out “tea leaf”, these items were places on the conveyor belt and missed by the sales assistants.  The first was situated on top of another product which was missed completely as the bottom box was slide across the scanner.  The second item was actually handled by the cashiers who said “I think this is yours” and put it in my shopping bag.  In both incidents I wasn’t hiding anything, apart from not speaking up.

  “As my shade disappeared i moved around the garden”.
 
Last weekend I walked out of both shops feeling like I had won the lottery.  The total value of these items was about £5.00, as you can tell I’m easily pleased.  A few years ago this would have really worried me; in fact I would have said something.  But now I have come to realise that there are far more important things to worry about in life.  As with most people I am honest, in fact I am a terrible liar.  But time and time again it feels like the people who lie, cheat and play their way to the top seem to receive all the riches (and I’m not just talking monetary).  While good honest folk get their faces pushed deeper and deeper in to the mire by a size 12 boot.  My two little freebies didn’t change the world and probably wouldn’t have costs the companies anything in reality.  As I said it wasn’t my error that they were missed but as I walked out of the shops for me it felt like a small success against that machine that others call “the system”. 

 “It would have been wrong not to”.
 
Now For Something Completely Different……

  “Enjoyed my our trip to Kent”.

Velcro ® is extremely useful and fun to pull apart.  Ask most people and they will tell you that it’s was a spin off from the space race; these are product created for use in space which has now found a use in everyday life.  Looking into its history (on Wiki) it turns out that it was actually created in 1941 by a Swiss engineer George de Mistral. 

  “People everywhere, enjoying the sun on a bank holiday”.
 
Get to the point, I can imagine you shouting.

   “Didn’t know Morris dancing was still so popular”.
 
One product which uses this helpful creation is shoes.  Over the years I have helped my 3 nephews and niece to fasten there footwear with the help of these sticky strips.  Another group of people whose shoes use this clever invention are older people.  During this week I bought sandals that use Velcro ®.  Normally I wouldn’t have looked at theses, but my office has a dress code which states flip flops are enemy number one and sandals “must have“ a back strap, this forced me to buy something.

  “Even Dickens had a good time”.
 
Because I have larger than the average feet I find tough sometimes to buy suitable footwear.  But there are a couple of shops which don’t make me look as if I have a pair oil tankers hanging off the end of my legs.  Initially I was turned off from buying these because of the way that they fastened as I imagined them being worn by a retired woman who gets out once or twice a week to buy a newspaper and knock children off their bikes as they ride past on the pavement.

 “I could get to enjoy gardening”.
 
But looking at them I soon realised that they were perfect for what I needed.  No one’s going to look at them closely and notice that there is not a delicate buckle on the strap.  Surely I “choose wisely” (a quote from a fave film) because in an emergency I would be able to slip them off quicker than others screaming as they fiddle with small pretty clasps.  As they regret “choosing poorly”, unlike that ugly moo with oil tankers strapped to her feet fastened by Velcro ®.  Thank you George de Mistral for saving my life due to **.

 “My new old lady sandals”.
 

(** insert disaster natural or otherwise here).

And Finally……

 “Always have to visit for cake and coffee”.

Spent bank holiday Monday in Rochester, which was full of chimney sweeping Morris dancers with bells strapped around ankles.  MOZ and I really enjoyed cake and coffee in Tiny Tims. 

 “You can visit Tiny Tims at “http://tinytimsrochester.co.uk/.
 
I was congratulated during my 1 to 1 on having only 1hr 8 mins of “comfort break” during April.  That’s a lot of piss.  People close to me already knew I was full of it.

 “Writing this shiz, yes someone does”.

My Mid Life Crisis Conts……

This week I have mainly been watching:  

“Click”, (TX: 05/05/18).  “Have I Got News For You”, (S55, ep 6, TX: 11/05/18).  “High & Dry”, (S1, ep 1 & 2).  “Home From Home”, (S1, ep 4).  “Kiss Me First”, (S1, ep 6).  “Lost In Space (2018)”, (S1, ep 1).  “Peter Kay’s Car Share Unscripted”, (TX: 07/05/18).  “Secrets Of The Super Elements”, (S1, ep 1, TX: 24/05/17).  “Star Trek (ENT)”, (S1, ep 1 to ep 26).  “Star Trek (VOY)”, (S7, ep 22 to ep 26).  “The Crystal Maze”, (S8/S2, ep 4 , TX: 06/05/18).  “The Golden Girls”, (S7, ep 8 to ep 10).  “The Graham Norton Show”, (S23, ep 5, TX: 04/05/18)(ep 6, TX: 11/05/18).

This week I have mainly been listening to:

“Chasing Earhart”, (ep 8, 31/08/17)(ep 42, 06/05/18).  “Don’t Quit Your Daycast”, (ep 25, 05/09/12).  “Grief Cast”, (ep 34, 25/04/18)(ep 36, 09/05/18).  “Iain Lee (Highlights)”, (04/05, 07/05, 08/05, 09/05/18).  “In Poor Taste”, (ep 19, 26/04/15)(ep 20, 09/05/15).  “LBC Podcast: Mystery Hour”, (10/05/18).  “LBC Podcast: Nick Abbot (Whole Show)”, (05/05, 11/05/18).  “NASA: Houston We Have A Podcast”, (ep 44, 11/05/18).  “NASA: In Silicon Valley”, (ep 89, 03/05/18)(ep 90, 11/05/18).  “Skeptiod”, (ep 595, 31/10/17)(ep 620, 24/04/18)(ep 622, 08/05/18).  “Soundtracking With Edith Bowman”, (ep 88, 05/05/18).  “Strange Times”, (ep 261, 06/05/18).  “The Adam Buxton Podcast”, (ep 75, 06/05/18).    “Morrissey”, “Air”, “Artic Monkeys”, “Gun’s And Roses”, “Kasabian”, “The Manic Street Preachers”, “Haim”, “Faithless”, “The Belle Stars”.