Should have gone to crookedtongues.com

Thanks to my kind friend David Van Win for his less than kind words about my new shoes.

Oops. Last minute decision to buy a new pair of shoes for a special occasion - see above for result. When you need em before 8am next day your online casual sneaker options are limited. And if you live in St Albans your high street options are even more limited. Sure you could jump on a train to the big cheese in just twenty five minutes, but for a pair of sneakers it would be massively cost & carbon inefficient. I was in London on Saturday but I was sort of busy helping out at the Independent Label Market. Vinyl rules.

So today - with budget, the environment and speed in mind I nipped in to St Albans town center [fashion hell zone] in my filthy size? ten cons. First off Orifice to check their limited range, then to Sole to check their range that has not changed for 3 years. Then to the pimp my hoodie and pimp my denim stores - but that was a mistake. No shoe joy to boot. Final desperation resort... TK Maxx. No shame. Desperation called and conquered. Picked up the above tartan Superdry super shoes for a snip at less than £15. Bargain. Got home. Posted a litte photo to celebrate my Scottish heritage homage / tightness on Facebook. Within 5 seconds an old friend with a terrible taste in music called baby face David Van Win pipes-up with "id sooner lose my feet in a car crash..." - THANKS BABY DAVE.

These are the shoes I would have ordered online if I had time... A pair of Pointer Taylor's in WOLF from Crooked Tongues. "Wolf" is a cool name for a colour. Full stop. Hope you like these babies David?

Please don't laugh at my tartan shoes. I like them.

So you like shoes? Check this howlingly cool site out then: www.sneakerpedia.com.

Policing the local community

Grab your pooper scooper dooper.

No shit Sherlock. For real. Etc. I've just been elected as a committee member of the Fishpool Street Residents Association - the FSRA - which sounds quite scary. I've loving re-named the coffin dodgers club the Fishpool Street R****** Association already. The FSRA and its curtain twitching members are all too easily abused - as will be my new found special powers. For real they really are a passionate bunch of do-gooding clever old so and so-s. Obviously I'll fit right in. How did this madness happen? I was nominated and subsequently elected for my great work in the community of course. Possibly to curb by breakaway activity for example the various loud n late illegal parties I've organised at the pub, the massively successful Fishpool Street Royal Wedding Street Party, the Half Pint Club for parents and kids [Friday nights and Sunday afternoons at the LRL], formation of a risotto club, my fag-in-hand doorstep street watch [AKA crime prevention] as a stay at home unemployed dad, my popularity with the young folk and the working class, the fact that I'm already the Major of the street / the LRL / the curry house / the Inn on the Park on Foursquare, my community mouse catching skills, etc. They're just jealous and want to be as popular with the kids as I am. If you can't beat em, elect em, is probably what they were thinking. Nuff said. Nearly.

Naturally I can't speak about the initiation ceremony and secrects that were shared with me at the AGM meeting I attended last Friday night. Friday the 13th. A coincidence? I don't think so. Freaky dancing that's all I'm sayin. Very Masonic. I know what you're thinking. Friday night! Pub night! The agenda has to change already. I'll be pitching my own alternative vote for non pub night meeting clashes at the next meeting - that will probably be on a pub night.

Anyway. I'll leave the old dears to continue the genuinely amazing work they are doing to maintain the fabric of our big society and the charming appeal of our wonderful street. My aims are simple. Consider me a mole steering the machine from the inside. My policies are pub and party centric. Not geriatric. Jesus they spent five minutes harping on about the fact that the treasurers accounts were out by a mysterious 54 pee. And later on about the psychology of litter bins - you know bins attract litter etc.

My challenges are: Pick up the giant human turd down the street that is a hideous horrifying blight that has been there for several weeks now and is disturbing some residents. To get said giant human turd photographed and included in the next FSRA newsletter. To pick up dog poo. Pick up litter / take it home and put it in my own bin. Build bridges between the yoof and the nearlry dead. Organise a few alternative g and tea parties. Introduce on the spot fines for dirty cars. Removal of unsightly window ornarments. Maintain my hanging baskets. Make sure my windows are clean. Create a Facebook page. Make sure no one closes the pubs. Protest hard. Wear my combat jacket more often. Listen to more Billy Bragg and Bob Dylan. Buy a gnome. Raise some cash for charity. Stuff like that.

JustGiving car crash charity boo

Grrrrr just giving me a headache.

Afternoon campers. Here I am trying to do something for the good of mankind and I've bummed out. Like selling my minty gt6.

Today when the child passed out on the couch I thought I'd create a JustGiving page. Initial set up was easy peasy. But then I found adding a photo was bugging out and the theme I selected [from a very limited choice] is not showing on my page. Bummer. I tweeted @JustGiving about thirty minutes ago and I'm mortified they haven't got back to me. Bitchin.

Anyway here is my do-gooder page [see mess above] it looks crap right now and I've raised no cash at all for the MS Society [my chosen charity] so far.

Doubtless this will all be resolved soon and I'll feel more charitable when this disaster sorts itself out. You can probably donate but I won't be happy till my page looks smart. Downloaded the JG Android app too so if you do donate I'll be first to know - after you. The first person to donate can have a free hug.

My cruddy looking page is at: www.justgiving.com/benferrier

GIVE SOME

UPDATE: Ok so JG got back to me on Twitter an hourish later with "@benferrier please check that photos are below 640x480pixels or email to help@justgiving.com and we can upload for you #JGhelp". To which I replied "@JustGiving the website said photos should be under 4MB?" - see screen shot here from add photo page. Now unless I'm drunk on tea 640x480pixels is TINY - so why the heck does the page say 4MB ehh.. Where does it say 640x480pixels? And how many average folk can crop down an image to a specific pixel size ehh? We'll get to the bottom of this. I really want to start getting some giving action going.

UPDATE: All mysteriously sorted. Although the Facebook app is a bit rubbish. And the theme issue seems to be randomly reccuring. Ohh well who gives a grand. Give some.

Selling stuff on eBay aint just about winning innit

Not winning is for winners.

Just failed to sell my minty Triumph GT6 on eBay today. Nevermind kids. It's been massive fun despite now being totally broke. Even loosing has it's flip side - erm winning. In many ways it's been a big triumph for me. Even if I'm not laughing my way to the Leeds. I'm not going to go in to the detail now tho because I'm pooped. This is just a super dooper quick post to say what the heck, I'll be back, like Kim Jong Il with a new better than ever evil bra sniffing plan in the next 24 hours or so.

Quick thanks to some super fine folk in the Twitterverse before I go to bed and think about what I've done today / over the last two weeks. Cheers to: @webuyanycar, LINGsCARS, @perfectionvalet, @macchinaclub, the Wilson brothers - brother A and brother B to name just a few - there are countless more. More shall be revealed in due-course but for now it's a rap.

Give my Triumph GT6 a good gnome

A good gnome these days is hard to find.

Have you ever searched for a gnome online? Not I. Not until today that is. A friend just posted a question on Facebook, he was asking if anyone knows where to buy a gnome. My instant reaction was "Gnomebase" - quite a few people "liked" that.

Anyway. So I went on my search for a gnome online. It's not as easy as you'd think to find the gnome you have in mind. You know the classic garden gnome. They're all plastic and novelty gnomes. Try scrolling thro 33 pages of gnomes on eBay and you'll see what I mean. The world has gone mad - GOOD QUALITY TRADITIONAL GARDEN GNOMES ARE NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND - it's like trying to find Osama Bin Laden in a haystack.

You can incidentally buy Gnome / Elf kits very cheaply for just a few pounds or less and these would make you look as much like OBL as you would look like a gnome or an elf or even one of snow whites seven dwarfs, even a smurf with a bit of blue face paint.

The long and the short of it is that if you're looking for the ideal Fathers Day gift don't bother with a gnome. Get yourself down to eBay before 3pm on Monday 9th May and snap yourself up my lovely vintage 1973 Triumph GT6 mk3. Not a plastic facsimile / pastiche of an original classic but the real sapphire blue real deal. It really is one of a kind. Happy shopping.

Read my sorry assed tale on eBay now and get bidding like a drunken gnome. Please share this link with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, email, morse code, carrier pigeon, on the back of a postcard, etc - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/250807307211.

Cheers, Ben