The Wedding of the Year?

Villagers in Urchfont St Mange didn't realise what they'd started when they began a petition to demand that miserabalist 'singers' James Blunt and Dido become husband and wife with immediate effect. From a few barely legible signatures grumpily scribbled over the post office counter, the movement has grown so that even world leaders are now going from door-to-door getting signatures for what quickly became dubbed 'The Marriage of the Year'. In quiet London, over twenty people signed in just under a week. In Glasgow, a barely known village in Scotland, an amazing eleven people signed up outside just one off license. Half of Pink Floyd signed in between making hit pop records, and even the Queen was said to be 'considering her options'.

Betty Ozone-Layer, the grumpy old bag that started the ball rolling, is perplexed and puzzled. 'I'm perplexed and puzzled,' she told this blog's reporter over a pint of liquidised haddock in the village local. 'I thought Didos were extinct. I've had people phoning me up from all over the world, including Salisbury. They want to know when the happy day is.'

Further along the village street Ted Tumour was happy to talk to me about the whole thing. 'Never heard of 'em,' he choked between puffs on a huge pipe. ''Spect they're down from London, dropping litter and blocking up our septic tanks with their drug-induced projectile vomiting'.

Meanwhile attempts to contact the happy couple were rebuffed by burly security guards Tamsin and Bunty-Jane, who were standing guard outside their adjacent mansions in sleepy London.

'F*** off or we'll kick your kidneys clean out of their sockets,' were all they could say. I left in a hurry but not before I saw the curtains twitching in the happy pair's vast sprawling complexes. Will the stork be paying avisit soon?

The Garage Preservation Society.

Dateline 2035. Amazingly on a road in Warminster one of the old garages has survived all the upheavals of the last few years. It is believed that this is the last remaining garage in southern England.

The Garage Preservation Society has been formed by a small group of car anoraks, former boy racers who used to use the garage thirty years ago to buy crisps, fags and petrol.

Their aim is to buy the site and restore the garage to its original late twentieth century condition. One of the members has an old car and intends to haul it to the garage by horse to display outside. The shop will be reopened selling non-organic pre-packed food, watery lager, stale crisps and old fashioned newspapers including 'Take a Break', 'Weekly Soap', 'Chav World' and 'Wahey, Tits Bums Fannies and Burn Ups for the Lads'.

How to join - send a minimum of 1/2 kilogram soft fruit to

Reg Parker
28a Badger's Retreat
WARMINSTER
Wessex

As well as a monthly magazine you will also be allowed to sit in Reg's car once a year and pretend to drive it whilst honking the horn.

Survival Plan for the Twenty First Century.

We all know that the ultimate double whammy is coming - Climate Change coupled with Peak Oil are going to pack a punch most of us won’t survive. Judging by most people’s behaviour a lot of you are quite happy to be sitting ducks.

But for the non-hippy, non-lemming minority it’s time for us to start planning our own and our families’ survival. There is still time to secure yourself a sort of future, but remember every day wasted will reduce your chances of surviving.

I can’t guarantee anything of course, but if I were you I’d be taking the following action -

If your house is less than 50 feet above sea level sell it as quickly as you can. There are still a few suicidal divvies out there itching for a sea view. If you’re in a city - no matter how high up - make plans to get out ASAP. Again there are still mugs, mired in the past, who actually WANT to live in a city!

Find a small rural property, preferably detached. Ideally you’ll need about an acre of land per family member for food, plus another acre or so per family member for growing wood. A sunny position would be helpful if you plan to continue to use electrical goods. A wood burner is also essential. Remember that once the Gulf Stream fails, winters in the UK will be on average 10 degrees centigrade colder than they are now, although this should soften as global temperatures continue to rise inexorably. Plan for at least 50-100 years of cold winters. If on an exposed site small wind turbines may be useful. A good independent water supply is essential. And it’s no good having the perfect hideaway if it is not in a defensible position. It’s likely that most of us will need to compromise in any case, as few properties will meet all conditions for optimum survivability.

Try not to be too remote - a mile or so from a larger village or small market town would be useful. Some sort of trading is likely to survive PPO. A railway station would be a huge benefit, even a position near a route that is currently closed is better than being on a road! There will be a huge (if desperate) rebuilding of closed railways over the next few decades as roads fall into disuse.

Ease yourself into your new community as you don’t want to be seen as an outsider when things kick off. Communities are likely to close in on themselves as central government breaks down. Start doing favours for your new neighbours, get involved in local initiatives, don’t make enemies, learn and use skills that make you valuable rather than a useless mouth.

Become a jack-of-all-trades. Learn how to work with wood and metal, cook, build, raise animals, grow food. These are all skills that will be useful to you, or to sell or trade with the less capable.

Liquidate your rubbish. Tread more lightly. Go for a minimalist approach to possessions. There are still mugs willing to pay silly prices for useless consumer items. Sell your life on eBay before moving. Buy useful items - axes, saws, woodland, instructional books.

Exchange your money for gold or silver. Paper money will be valueless as things break down. Close bank accounts and turn the cash into gold and silver or woodland.

Sell your car ASAP. Again there are mugs out there who will burden themselves with one of these valueless albatrosses. Petrol will soon be two, three, four, five pounds a litre, and driving will become a hobby for the very rich on an ever-shrinking and increasingly decrepit road network.

Work with nature rather than against it, and face the future rather than hide from it. Survivors need to be strong, sane and grounded, traits that our current lemming society detests and discourages. Look after yourself physically and mentally and respect and protect everything in nature around you in your new life.

And find time to chill out and enjoy yourself!

Norfolk Broads 1 +

Moored on Womack Island with swans and ducks all around us, and a flashing kingfisher in the bush opposite. After a day of dull weather the sun broke through at exactly the right moment, shining through the trees along the bank. Earlier watching crested grebes in front of the boat gulping down fishes almost as big as themselves, and a Wednesday evening at the boatyard in Stalham with nobody else around as it grew dark.

At Stalham looking around The Museum of the Broads, getting the personal treatment as it had only been open two days and we were the first visitors, or almost the first. Outside moored on a little side stream a steam pleasure boat, big enough for about six people, sheeted over until the summer.

Irstead, a village so intertwined with the river that the houses had boat garages under them. The place appealed to both me and Wulf, for me it was the intimate way a classic English village seemed strangely alien as it incestuously flirted with the water, for Wulf it was the way it sounded like 'bastard'. A few steps from the water a little display stand selling hand-painted English whimsy like flowerpots and horseshoes, with an honesty box for the payments. Chavs don't hire cruising boats ...

The Ferry Inn at Horning, out of season a perfect place for a lunchtime meal, looking out over the water whilst munching through unusual Norfolk delicacies like Welsh Rarebit pasty with onion rings. The quizzie paid out well too, just about paying for our meals and drinks thanks to Hangman 2 and the new 'Millionaire'.

And walking to the hide on Cockshoot Broad as stormclouds gathered to the north, watching ducks brave the miniature waves through the slot in the side, walking back on a wooden walkway above the swamps as the wind picked up capriciously and sent a big branch crashing just a few feet from my head.

Seeing the world at 4 mph or even 6 mph on the water motorway of the Yare.

Playlist 1 - Norfolk Broads April 2006

It's important to match the music with the place, and we packed the following for our week's cruising on the Norfolk Broads. Most played album was easily The Mitchell Brothers A Breath of Fresh Attire.

The Specials Singles The Specials 1991 Crysalis
Jazz & Cinema Vol 2 Various 2000 Universal (France)
Pet Sounds The Beach Boys 2001 Capitol
A Breath of Fresh Attire The Mitchell Brothers 2005 The Beats Recordings
Baraba BavaRio 2001 Lawine (German Import)
Hold Your Colour Pendulum 2005 Breakbeat
O Samba Various 1989 Luaka Bop
Set Yourself On Fire Stars 2005 Arts And Crafts International
Mahler Fifth Symphony Berliner Philarmoniker 2002 EMI
Muzsikas Marta Sebestyen 1987 Hungaraton (Hungarian Import)