Road Rage: Part One

~ beetleypete ~ 8 Comments

This is the first part of a fiction serial, in 775 words.

As the car in front of Dave’s indicated to turn right, it also braked heavily. Having to stand on the brakes to avoid ploughing into the back of it, Dave pressed the horn and kept it on for a good three seconds.

Moments later the indicator cancelled, and the car carried on straight ahead. Dave turned to Frances, obviously annoyed.

“Where does that bloody fool think he’s going? He’s probably on the phone or something”. She was in agreement.

“Yeah, he could have caused an accident, and if you had run into the back of him, that would have been your fault. Hang back a bit, Dave, in case he does something else stupid.” Dave did as she asked.

“Look, it’s even got a personal number plate, MH500. I hate those pretentious things, and god knows how much it cost him.”

At the roundabout, Dave pulled the old X3 into the right hand lane, and accelerated. The silver Qashqai stayed left, but as Dave drove around to the third exit, it suddenly pulled across, missing his BMW by inches as it took the third exit in front of him. He blasted the horn again, but the Nissan accelerated away, creating some distance between them.

It got through the next traffic light on amber, leaving Dave stuck on the red. Frances was relieved.

“Glad that’s the last we will see of him, Dave. What a nutter!”

After stopping at the small branch of Kwik Save to get some milk, they were home ten minutes later. A huge removal van was blocking their driveway, so Dave had to park right at the end of the street. Frances was suddenly interested.

“Looks like the new people are moving in next door today, Dave.” He was grumpy now.

“They could have at least asked if it was okay to block our drive though. Bloody inconsiderate, if you ask me”.

Getting closer to the house, they could see around the large truck. On next door’s driveway was a silver Qashqai.

It’s number plate was MH500.

Frances looked at her husband, and he looked back, knowing what she was going to say.

“Bloody hell! Don’t tell me that idiot is going to be our next door neighbour, Dave?”

As they were going into their house, the removal men dropped the big ramp at the back of their truck and started to unload. Dave closed the door and spoke to Frances as she was taking her knee boots off in the hallway.

“Well, Fran, it looks like mister idiot driver is moving into old Jean’s place. I will be having a word with him about his crap driving and almost crashing into my car”. Fran wasn’t so keen.

“Leave it for now. They probably got lost or something. Wait and see what they’re like. You never know, we might get on well with them”. But he was alerady walking into the living room, muttering.

“I very much doubt that’s going to happen”.

While his wife was getting dinner ready, Dave went up to have a couple of extra hours in bed before his night shift. Once Sinead got home from school, they would eat early. That had become a well-established routine since he went onto permanent nights. But five night shifts of twelve hours paid better than six day shifts of eight hours, so it had been too good to turn down.

But there was no chance he was going to get that extra rest. The removal men were shouting as they unloaded, banging and crashing some of the heavier items as they walked up and down the noisy metal ramp. He heard his daughter get in from school, so knew it was around four-fifteen, then she was in her room chatting loudly on the phone to one of her friends.

He gave up on sleeping long before five-thirty, and went into the bathroom for a shower and shave.

Gulping his food down, and obviously in a bad mood, Sinead tried to ease the tension as they ate.

“Did you see the new neighbours, dad? Have they got any children? I hope they are my age, or close to it, that would be good”.

He put his knife and fork down before replying to his daughter.

“No, we didn’t see them in the house. But we saw them in their car earlier, and they nearly caused me and your mum to be in a car crash. So I don’t know if they’ve got any kids, and I don’t care. Now let me finish my dinner, I’ve got twenty minutes before I have to leave for work”.

Sinead knew when to keep quiet.

Original Songs And Cover Versions (45)

~ beetleypete ~ 28 Comments

In 1964, I bought a record by a band I had never heard of, ‘Them’. They were from Northern Ireland and fronted by a singer with a great voice, by the name of Van Morrison. (Jimmy Page played guitar on the session)

My dad told me it was an old Blues song, not a new one. So over the years I looked into the song’s origins, and the other versions that had been recorded.

Big Joe Williams recorded the song in 1935, and although he is credited as the writer, the song has traditional roots that are lost in time but are believed to go back to the days of slavery in America. In 1953, Blues star Muddy Waters had a hit with the song, and my dad was able to get me an album containing his version.

Later cover versions included Paul Revere and The Raiders, AC/DC, John Mellancamp, Aerosmith, and The Amboy Dukes.

Here is a selection for you to choose from. I still like ‘Them’, with Van Morrison on vocals, and the Muddy Waters version..

Original Songs And Cover Versions (44)

~ beetleypete ~ 27 Comments

At the age of 12 in 1964, I heard this song on my transistor radio and knew I had to get the single. It sounded so cool, and was very much of its time.

Originally recorded by Dobie Gray, Ramsey Lewis released an instrumental cover of the song in 1965. His version was a huge hit, based on his popularity at the time.

In 1966, The Mamas and Papas used the song as an album track, with lead vocals by Mama Cass. Then in 1974 Bryan Ferry covered the song as an album track and single release that got into the Top 20.

It’s one of those songs where I liked all of the other versions. But I still prefer Dobie’s original.

Urban Hell

~ beetleypete ~ 62 Comments

My friend Antony sent me this 26-minute video featuring places around the world best described as ‘urban hell’.

It’s a real eye-opener, and makes me very grateful that I live in a small village like Beetley.

(There are some very short advertisements during the clip that you can easily skip.)

Original Songs And Cover Versions (43)

~ beetleypete ~ 33 Comments

In the 1960s, I was a great fan of the American Folk Music artist, Tim Hardin. His short songs, plaintive vocal, and poignant lyrics appealed to me greatly as a teenager. One of these was a song he wrote, ‘If I Were A Carpenter’. It was on his 1967 album, ‘Tim Hardin 2’.

But the year before, Bobby Darin had a huge hit with the song, before Tim’s album release. Many people who know the song from cover versions were (or still are) unaware of Tim Hardin’s short career, and that he wrote the song.

Many more cover versions followed. Joan Baez in 1967, The Four Tops in 1968, Johnny Cash in 1969. Then Bob Seger, Leon Russell, Robert Plant, Dolly Parton (as a duet), and others.

Tim Hardin was addicted to heroin for much of his life. He died in 1980 at the age of 39.

For me, his original version of any of his songs will always be the best one.

Pointless Stats

~ beetleypete ~ 58 Comments

For the last couple of weeks, I have had daily views of between 850-1300. This was even on days when I hadn’t posted. Given that 280-375 would usually be an average-to-good day’s views, it’s plain to see that isn’t normal.

It didn’t take long to discover that 80%+ of those views have originated in China, and we know that means one thing.

Content Scraping.

I’m beginning to think that almost my entire 13 years of blog posts have been copied for use by AI, and there is nothing any of us who blog on WordPress can do about it.

It also makes the views stats pointless, so I have stopped looking at them.

Monday: Another Week On Fast-Forward

~ beetleypete ~ 57 Comments

So it’s Monday, and before I know it, it will be Wednesday. Blink twice, and it’s Friday. Days passing like weeks, weeks passing like months. A year feels like four months, and people online are counting the days until Christmas Day.

38, in case you were interested. (I wasn’t)

When did that start to happen? In my childhood, summer seemed to last forever, and the distance between one Christmas and the next felt like two or three years, not one.

Sundays were often interminably dull, and seemed to last longer than the week that followed them.

I can make a good guess at the answer to that, and if I asked someone who was 10 years old, they wouldn’t agree with me.

Time passing too quickly is the curse of old age.

When is old age? When does time start to feel like being on fast-forward on a VHS tape? Perhaps everyone has a different answer, one special to them. But for me, I know exactly when that happened.

March, 2012.

I retired from work, and moved to Beetley to enjoy that retirement, and make the most of it. But I had no idea what was about to happen.

Time changed. Or to be more accurate, my perception of time changed.

I felt like my life was rushing by, like looking at the landscape through the window of a high-speed train.

The thirteen years since then has flashed by, as if in a dream.

One morning I wake up, and I am 73 years old. I sit pondering the great mystery of life, and ask myself a question.

“How did that happen?”