Saying good bye to the tattoo gang......

... this morning was my 3rd funeral in 6 months ...... so I am now advising friends to keep well clear of me ...... I don't know who's it will be next .... shit it might even be mine at this rate ....

I've never really worked out what the funeral is for ..... the deceased ? the close family ? friends ? .....

I've heard it said that it is a way to say good bye ...... certainly a different sort of a good bye than perhaps saying good bye to someone close and still living yet you know you will never see again ...... but thus far my latest funerals have been a murder victim, natural causes of an aged aunt, and now a far too premature... young lady ..... before that it was my dad's ..... that was different for me ..... but these last 3 ..... I've sat there somewhat as a bystander ..... seen the closely bereaved .... family .... friends and the acquaintances ..... all of us perhaps reflecting on our own mortality ? ..... who knows, maybe we are grieving for ourselves..... my eldest brother claims it's self pity ..... that's a bit harsh but then again....

But I have never seen a funeral as a way to say good bye ...... I haven't said good bye to my Dad and it's over 3 years now .... doubt I can ever say good bye to him .....

But actually this morning I didn't reflect on my mortality .... all I could think of was Katie ...... everything to live for ..... her Mum and Dad having their daughter being 21 years old for always never to grow old .......Katie's young man, his hopes stolen from him ...... her brother now being an only child ...... my youngest daughter being denied a friend into old age ...... I remember once there was a birthday card for one of them, it showed two very old ladies with some witty prose ..... not any more ..... 21 year olds are not supposed to leave this world with a heart attack .....

..... but fuck they do ..... even since Katie passed away, I have read about 1 young woman being killed by being hit by a tree whilst on an adventure of a life time in South America ...... and then only in the last few days .... a young woman took some slimming pills and that was it ..... walked into hospital ... they said there was no antidote ...... she didn't make it, there was shit all they could do for her ....... Only this past week, in the local paper, another 21 year old ..... a promising young golfer had his life cut short.....

What is the meaning of life ? .......... not a fucking clue .....
but it sure as hell isn't fucking 42 ....... so this morning I didn't reflect on mortality ...... I couldn't think of words to express what it was I felt .... what I feel ..... I couldn't even bring my self to make small talk with the other mourners ....... my gob failed me ..... my gob is still failing me .....

So no song of the day shit today ....... but instead put on the head phones, with just a couple of songs to listen to whilst staring out of my office window ........ is this really it ? ......... really ? ...... is this why we get all worked up ?

For Katherine Lucy X

FROM THE ORDER OF SERVICE

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal

Love leaves memories that no one can steal ....

We all need a best friend.......

.....sure we claim to have friends..... those on facebook claim to have 100's of friends..... but best friends..... true best friends........ they are rare indeed.......

I've known Mike since we were 16.5 years old, and here we are 36 years later still best friends and never a crossed word, not even a mis-understanding...... but boy how we have laughed .... fuck we have laughed so much in those 36 years there have been times my body has ached so much when we laughed ......... we've been arrested together, fallen off bikes pissed, knocked off bikes by cars..... stuck in a tunnel in Switzerland in a Ferrari about to run out of fuel, and just made it to gas station in time...... christ we laughed at that..... we once nearly got arrested on a German train for not having a ticket......

Mike was going to shop me to the conductor, until he realised he didn't have a ticket either..... quick as a flash exhibition of my credit card, and we narrowly avoided
stalag 13........ we don't put the world to rights, we don't share secrets..... we just laugh, and look at cars..... in fact in just over a week we are heading off to Germany for our annual pilgrimage to Essen Techno Classica..... Some of the finest cars in the world appear at this show.......

I think I would be quite devastated if anything happened to Mike ......

Yesterday morning without warning, my youngest daughter's best friend died....... They had been best friends for 21 years, it started when they were new born babies.... I am not sure that new born babies can actually develop best friendship at such a tender age.... but it was decreed they would be best friends.....

Every birthday they have been together sharing with each other...... Katie played a big part in our life...... in her teenage years she was once in my Tattoo gang.....

1 of my top tens is George Orwell ~ Coming up for air...... as a young kid we spent our summer holidays at Mablethorpe, they seemed like a golden age in the late 1960's, and when I reached my forties, I had a coming up for air moment, except I dragged my family along for the ride, katie came too...... with her mum and dad, Colin and Wendy....... the intervening 40 years or so years since my first visits to Mablethorpe had not been kind to the place..... it was shithole...... but I loved every minute of that weekend...... I always wanted a tattoo but never could have a real one...... I got a stick~on one.... Katie loved it, I got her one too and we formed the Tattoo gang...... there was only 2 members.....

On the morning we were packing up the tents... the sun shinning, blue sky in full view.... and my daughter and Katie were still in their sleeping bags..... then spontaneously they both stood up and started to have a sleeping bag race .... ala the sack race ...... we laughed so much...... Katie did that to you..... she made you laugh.....

In some ways I have no idea why I am writing this shit.... this is my shit.... but then again this is my blog..... I can write what I like...... and if I don't write this, get these words out of my head.... by brian will just turn into some kind of mush..... it's feeling a bit jellified as it is......

But I have been lucky I have had a best friend for 36 years..... my daughter had one for 21 years, until she was so suddenly taken away from her yesterday...... all those years she made her laugh..... made us all laugh......

On my way into work this morning, I stopped by to see Katie's mum and dad, what do you say to parents, just a couple of years older than myself, about the loss of their beautiful daughter...... oh how we laughed during that weekend in Mablethorpe......
this morning we cried......

Katie was a beautiful best friend

she died at 06:30 am on Tuesday 7th April 2015

she was just 21 years old

this coming sunday was to be her birthday....

Re-deemed ..... at last.....

It was funny picking up on this story this morning ........... alabama redemption  ....... as I was planning to comment on the film Shawshank Redemption this week anyway..... having watched it agaaain over the bank holiday weekend...

I am not sure Anthony Hilton quite see's himself as a Andy Dufresne but for sure it must take something to be let out of prison [off death row no less] after 30 years for a crime you didn't commit .....

Anthony Hilton came out of a prison by a more conventional way rather than digging a tunnel in Raquel Welch's backside and then climbing through a tunnel of shite, but Shawshank Redemption is another one of those movies that no matter how many times I have seen it .... and by the christ I have seen it that many times, if you look closely at some of the prison courtyard scenes, I can now be seen just towards the back next to a group of lackies... but no matter how many times I see it.... it is just a fantastic movie....

It is always difficult to pinpoint precisely what makes a great movie, but somehow you know within the first 5 minutes whether it is a great movie or just a way to waste piss sometime away ......

For me, I suppose it's all about whether you care about the characters... and they don't always have to be good characters triumphing over bad ..... there's many a anti hero in a great movie ... but with Shawshank Redemption the clues are there...... I wonder if during his prison sentence Anthony Hilton got chance to watch it.....

So for today's SoD

we can thank Andy Dufresne

like Morgan Freeman said

I have no idea what these 2 women are singing....

but is it not just wonderful on a sunny day 
so moving on such a sad day

Mozart take it away brother ......

You can't read braille with your genitals......

... so if you are blind, seems you'll be fucked if you want to read this with ya gonads..... as I once remarked I do talk bollux.....

They say you should never meet your heroes ..... but I once met Fred Dibnah.... and what a wonderful man he was.... he was great on telly and in real life just as great..... Alas Fred is no longer with us, but by eck his memory still lives on ......

Then this past weekend I met another one of my heroes .... the wonderful Mike Brewer ...... his infectious love of cars .... almost matches mine..... All the sh1te written about Jeremy Clarkson, and yet Mike Brewer entertains us year after year and does it with such boyish charm.... without lumping anyone in the process ...... and oh my what a gracious man Mike Brewer is ..... and he even shook my hand with the immortal words ..... hold out your hand fella, you've just brought a cracking motor ..... except I hadn't brought a car from him .... he was just indulging me .......You meet some people in life and glad you do ..... I'm glad I met Mike Brewer ......

What links Mike and Fred [apart from the fact they both met me] is their enthusiasm for their chosen subject.....

There I was driving to Bruges on Monday..... Bruges a fucking fairytale town ..... and listening to the radio, the afternoon play was about another wonderful man who exuded such enthusiasm for his chosen subject...... Patrick Moore ~ Far Side of the Moon ........ It's now 2 years since his death, so not much chance to meet this hero I suppose, but the play charted the start of his TV career with the sky at night..... like Mike and Fred....... Patrick could never disappoint ......

They are / were not celebrities.... merely ordinary blokes with a impassioned interest in what they do / did ......

Someone else I think I would like to meet is Harnaam Kaur ....... she wears her beard with pride..... it's not some eurovision gimmick.... it is her and she is proud of it.....  She was on Radio 5 live drivetime show, talking about how she had faced up to being the bearded lady, and overcoming the challenges and prejudice that came with being a woman wearing a beard..... but oh my lord what an inspiration she is .... for anyone feeling that the world is against them .... I bet within a nano second of meeting Harnaam Kaur you'd be inspired to say.... fuck it, to hell with it with knobs on and just get on with your life..... we are who we are .......

And how do I know you can't read braille with your genitals ? It was declared on the same radio 5 live program..... quite how the chap [who declared it] discovered this little known fact is not immediately clear.... he was talking about how important the sensation of touch is for humans ...... imagine there they were in the laboratory researching the effect of touch ...... knowing how scientists always want to learn the unknown ..... and I suppose between pints 5 & 6 someone must have said ...... I wonder if I can read braille with my genitals ? and the rest they say is history ........

So imbued with that knowledge, I finally arrived at my destination of Bruges ..... a fucking fairy tale town..... I love visiting Bruges .....

Here's my SoD

I'm sure Patrick Moore must have seen

a champagne supernova