gripes of pipes

A perennial issue is whether to go for a picture of something seen but irrelevant which merely pleases the EYES or to (if one should appear) post a picture of an interesting happening. This evening's exciting extended period of deliberation was between the pleasant pipes pictured above, a late favourite or a rare moment of excitement along Earl Gray Street on the way home featuring a slightly smoking building with attendant concerned onlookers watching the speeding appliances and slightly wobbling hose-men who spent ten minutes looking vaguely bored on top of the ladder whilst the fire was presumably damped from within by his hidden colleagues.

I didn't like the end results though. Apart from the fire engine. A bit.

The pipes are vaguely relevant anyway as mine continue to under-perform. The pharyngeal inflammation looks like it's heading to the larynx rather than the snout which will at least spare me the indignity of snuffling and dribbling snot everywhere for the next few days; I can instead look forward to croaking and coughing my way through the multitude of films, comedy performances and dancey things booked over the next week to entertain my visiting parents. I'll have to try and position myself next to one of these blazer-and-panama wankers who feel the need to narrate their thoughts on the performance to anyone in the vicinity and gurgle at them if they attempt to speak. Not many things are more annoying than people eating crisps or popcorn during a film but codgers stage-whispering their interpretation of the meaning of things to each other has to be one of them.

Should really go to sleep ready for a long day's tidying tomorrow. I believe I have already meantioned that I fail to see the need; my parents know exactly how messy I am capable of being and should be thankful that I am at least being messy in my own home rather than theirs where I managed to not only make a complete tip of my own small bedroom but also the wee room with the computer in next-door to it and the corridor linking both to the rest of the house.

In a way it's important to maintain a sense of packed-to-the-gunwhales-messiness as it will hopefully prevent my mother getting any funny ideas about making me take back some of the boxes of crap I requested that they store in their capacious loft. I feel there are extremely valid reasons for keeping stacks of Melody Makers, not least for the lovely smell of old inky paper which has been kept in a box for years. It's also a little harsh for people who have a loft, a garage and a couple of sheds to demand the right to offload the accumulated clutter of childhood on people who barely have one cupboard to rub together.

At least they're coming up by train and thus cannot bring anything with them.

Equally I can't sneak anything into their car for them to unwittingly take back and store...