Lobos is a smooth operating system.

Incredibly, there has been a lot of love on the streets for Lobos the Robot. The people on the street want to know more. What can I say? It was a narrative construct. Lobos the Robot does not exist. Lobos is barely a coherent conceit of a character where he was invented, in this Blog.

But it got me thinking: How might someone find out Lobos the Robot has stolen their potential office romance?

“Hi. I’ve noticed you around the office. So… what do think of the office party? Pretty bad as usual eh?”
“Ha! Yes, the best thing I find is to have a few plastic cups of warm white wine and hope it takes the edge off!”
“Yeah – I know what you mean.”
“Hee, hee! You’re funny! I always end up getting tipsy though, if I’m not careful! I’m already getting a bit giggly!”
“Do you want a top-up?”
“Why not? I’ll just see you over by that robot thing.”
“Lobos? Ok I’ll see you in a couple of minutes.”
(3 minutes later…)
“I’ve just brought the bottle… What’s going on?!?”
“Oh, it’s not what you think! It is totally above board. Lobos and I are going steady now.”
“That’s crazy!”
“Is it really that crazy?”
“Yes, of course it is, in the regard it is very far from normal.”
“But what counts as normal these days? Hmmm?”
“It’s an automaton! It can’t go anywhere without a power socket, at the very most, 4 feet away! How did this happen?”
“What can I say? I always have had a weakness for DJ’s.”
“It’s hooked up to two speakers! And the music is atrocious! It is playing a tape of Jive Bunny and Mastermixers the boss has put into the cassette player in its chest! This is ridiculous! I was only away 3 minutes!”
“I’m sorry, I was waiting on you when one thing led to another and before I knew it I was looking down at its 143 blinking green eyes and I was lost in every single one of them then it was obvious I had to be with Lobos tonight when Lobos gently stroked my cheek.”
“With its single pneumatic rubbery pincer, you loon!”
“Lobos has something that is very hard to find these days – charisma.”
“Right, well, two can play at this game.”
(Later that same evening…)
“I'll be back, I’m just popping through to get my The Shamen tape from my brief case to crank this party up a notch! Whoa! What’s going on in here?”
“What does it look like to you, boss? I am clearly humping the communal office laser printer.”
“What’s it got… have you drawn lipstick around the paper feed tray?”
“Don’t pity me!”

So Lobos has taken a job and now a relationship… what next? Lives? Is this what you want, people on the street?

This actually turned out darker than I thought it would. Here's some music to leaven the mood:

I Robot. You nuts.

Wandering to the bus-stop the other morning I was contemplating the new warm, sunshine lit day and what I would be getting up to in the office later. With the birds twittering out of sight, the old man from down the street strolled by with his morning paper and 4 floury rolls in a white bag. I noticed that there was someone standing at the bus-stop. I recognised the face. It was a face I had not seen since school. I deemed him to be a bit of an odd-ball at school, having had dealings with him over a week in the Greenhouse Club. I had always felt that by now he would be a bona fide weirdo. However, there he was. At the bus shelter.

I decided to do the decent thing: keep my head down and avoid eye contact in the hope he would not remember me or not sense my lie that I did not remember him.
“Greville, how are you?”
Damn it.

As I talked to him two things struck me. One: he wore Velcro polish-able shoes and an anorak a size too small with the hood normally zipped into the collar out and flaccid down the back but, yet, Two: he was not acting like the eccentric I had concluded he would have become all those years ago.

He was, in fact, articulate and fairly engaging for someone talking at a bus-stop, telling me about their life. He had for a number of years been in an institute, but not the sort I had thought. He had recently moved back to the area having been replaced at his laboratory job by a robot. I'm no detective but it didn't give me doubt as to the skill of his job, I mean it wasn’t as if I felt that the robot was a Tomy kids toy one with a audio tape player in its chest and stickers for actual LCD read-outs. I just believed it perfectly reasonable that it was a proper, expensive thing with pneumatic arms which replaced him. It's about time robots were starting to be employed and we were getting more opportunity to relax, so my spidey-senses were not tingling.

[Actually, in a digression, how do you find out there is a robot going to replace you in your job? I would love it to have been the case that on a Monday morning his boss went across to his desk:
“Good morning. Did you have a good weekend?”
“It was quiet, y’know, what with the weather. Glad to get back in the lab to fire up the old Bunsen burner, really.”
“Sure. Here, what’s that beside those old boxes at the back of your desk?”
“I don’t… er… I don’t know what you’re... where?”
“Next to your bin. It’s some kind of robot – it’s got this robotic arm and stuff.”
“Does it? Oh… er…”
“Yeah, and it has a plug. Have you ever plugged it in? I’ll plug it in.”
“Aw… don’t… er… don’t…don’t plug it...”
“Look at that, it is like it is trying to copy what you are doing!”
“Is it?”
“I tell you what – it’s pretty good! Hey! And you can put a cassette tape in its chest! I’ve got a Genesis mix tape in a drawer somewhere!”
“Really?”
“Poor Lobos, I bet he ‘can’t dance’, ha, ha!”
“Who?”
“Oh, I’m calling the robot Lobos now.”
“I see.”
]

He was now re-training and hopeful of getting back into work, possibly in a different science.

This was almost pleasant and my fears of being seen conversing with him by the extending queue for the bus behind us had dissipated. He had turned out OK. Who would have thought?

A little down the quiet road a bus appeared round the corner. It was not the bus which stopped at our stop. He continued to talk as he nonchalantly watched it approaching, getting larger on the road. He checked a Velcro shoe. Then, as it continued past he followed the bus with his head turning and fists clenched, almost winding himself round the bus stop-pole, all in one motion, and shouted: “F***ERS!”

Oh right. He is a loony.

Absolutely yelled it out. At 8:20 in the morning on a quiet street with a queue of people waiting to go to their potted plant office jobs behind him and me. All of them now thinking I am his friend having watched us chat for 10 minutes. I felt them take a collective intake of breath. And then watching on with renewed apprehension as he returned to talk about his family with me as if nothing had gone slightly mental just there.

I wanted to tell them it wasn’t what they thought, I didn’t want to talk to him, I thought he was lunatic years before they did. But I figured any sharp move made by me now would only result in queue turning into mob: The abusive mad scientist and his chum he probably experimented on.

Jumble Sale Toys

On having a conversation – and how I came to do so was by most diabolical means indeed – I was returned to a world in my head that I had almost forgotten. This was how the conversation:
“I remember getting a Sylvanian Family when I was little. I got it at a Jumble Sale.”
“Oh?”
“Yes – it was just one Sylvanian Family. It was a child Rabbit.”
“So you only had one member of a Sylvanian Family?”
“Yes.”
“Does that still count as a Sylvanian Family? Is it not, then, a Sylvanian Orphan?”
“No, that’s awful. Anyway later at another jumble sale I got a Sylvanian Family to go with the Rabbit. He was meant to be a Dad I think and had a chequered shirt. He was a Bear.”
“He was a Sylvanian step-father!”
“He wasn’t!”
“He was! How do you explain him having an anthropomorphized child Rabbit when he is an anthropomorphized Bear? How complicated was this Sylvanian family tree? I bet there were other Sylvanian skeletons in the closet too. We need the Sylvanian Family anthropomorphic Shrew Jeremy Kyle to get to the bottom of all this!”

So, yes. The Jumble Sale. Now generally out of fashion, years ago when the local jumble sale was announced – not to be confused with the similar appearing Sale of Works [notable difference: an old women sitting with a hat made of doily, selling bars of tablet? You are attending a sale of work] – it was real excitement round where I grew up.

Usually held in church halls or community centres with the different colours of tape lacquered onto the floor, there would be long bench tables filled, piled high – stappit fu – with every conceivable type of thing one could ever hope to put onto a shelf: Dog eared books, cracked china plates, LP records whose album covers had been scrawled with teenage graffiti, old dust choked computer monitors and small electrical items with copper wires dangerously exposed, paint splattered ornaments, engrained ash trays and so on. There was a huge amount of clothing, stacked high where nervous little ladies unable to see over would wonder about it all tumbling down to leave them crushed under a tonne of tops, skirts and sequined scarves. Then there were the chairs, curtains, televisions, welsh-dressers and gardening equipment held at the side for the mid-sale auction. And, of course, the big draw – the table of household sheets.

For me at that age, it was the toy bench that was obviously always going to be the main attraction. While the old folk were all about the heaving through piles of kitchen towels and bed linen, I was carefully picking through damp smelling cardboard boxes of cars and figures. It was truly exhilarating.

These boxes, full of used, broken and somewhat dated toys, to my mind, were treasure troves. If Willie Wonka had gone into the second-hand brick-a-brac business he would have found it hard to compete with the excitement I felt about a Jumble Sale Toy selection.

In amongst the My Little Ponies, Smurfs, Sylvanian (abandoned) Families and trains, invariably there would be Star Wars figures with limbs missing [these already damaged figures were invaluable in scene setting while playing out a particularly robust game in your bedroom – storm troopers lying with only one leg at the side of Yoda, light-saber drawn] or a Han Solo with his face chewed [simply incorporated into your play with the line, “Why Chewie! Why!”], chipped lead painted metal vehicles and an Action Man in just his blue y-fronts with his patented gripping hand clutching a revolver [as if they had made Have Had Better Meetings in the Office and Now Waiting Quietly In On The Wife Action Man], perhaps an E.T. with extending neck would be caught up in the string of a yo-yo, or there would be a slightly granulating rubber Boglin. A myriad of small, plastic things which were mostly given away free in cereal boxes would often be at the bottom. If you were lucky, a rummage to the sides of the box would yield a ball-bearing game. And if you were very lucky the game would be a portable pinball game. These pinball games were great.

If I went home with a Marvel annual from 1978 with a major comic strip of the Incredible Hulk in it and a word search only half completed, a mauled star wars figure and a pinball game with a space/robot theme then that Jumble Sale would live long in legend.

Kids these days would be all about going to jumble sales to get MP3’s to inject up their i-pods and happy slapping an old PlayStation 2.

I doubt they would care much about finding a Boglin.

Changed times.

Summer Hockey (part 1)

I recently decided I wanted to do something active with my spare time over summer. So I was delighted last week when a notice appeared, pinned, on the office cork board asking for staff to put their names down for the Company Summer Mixed Hockey Team.

Beginners welcome! it said, novices will be encouraged! Meeting once a week but no need to play all the games, just come along when you can! it stated.

Excellent.

Although I had never played hockey before in my life, this sounded just what I needed – a few beers, some laughs, maybe a cake or two and a knock-a-bout game of hockey on the grass with a few of the company chix in the late evening summer sun.

Using my best hand, I stuck down the name: Greville Tombs.

One thing was clear before the first game – I needed to get just a little more fit. Didn’t want to disgrace myself, after all. I began to covertly train in the office: Filling the photocopier to the maximum paper level, selecting my PC’s default printer to the one at the far side of the room, fluorescent highlighting reports with two colours, taking the stairs instead of the lift. Only, because I had essentially loosely based the training regime on the first Rocky film, it didn’t really make much of a difference – it being an 8 minute montage regime and all.

Turning up to the first game it became very apparent that this was not the genial summer game that the notice had hinted at. The company team was generally made up not of cakes and chix, but of management. I was the only grunt. This was serious. We had opposition. I was instantly handed a strip, told to strap on my shin guards and pop in my gum shield and get out onto the pitch to warm up.

I put on the red, cotton, polo shirt. The badge printed large onto the right breast. The fit, slightly neat with sleeves tailored tight around the bicep. I commented on how I was loving the retro 70’s styling and was glad I was lucky enough that it accessorised with my red socks and long green shorts. I thought it might have been a radical move, green shorts, but it looked like I could pull the fashion off with this top after all, so things were already looking up.

To distract from the fact I had neither shin guards nor gum shield as I asked if there was a spare hockey stick, because… well, I didn’t have one of those either.

I was handed an old wooden hockey stick, a thump club of a thing. The type I would see leaning against the wall at the back of the P.E. storeroom when I was a lad. The type that may have been stained with blood. I took it, gauged its considerable weight and said, for no reason other than I felt I should say something sporty, “I am mainly usually deployed on the left flank.”

Then the game was on.

As I ran up and down the left channel with my oak branch stick in hand while watching the fitter, taller players speed around, far ahead of me, slapping the ball between them with their lightweight, angled headed graphite and titanium composite sticks I had a thought: It was like Bjorn Borg when he had his weird comeback at Wimbledon in the early 1990’s and he brought with him an old wooden racket from 1981. Only he could play tennis. So I was more like Bjorn Borg if he had turned up to a golf championship in the early 1990’s with only one golf club made of bamboo.

When the match ended, and not a minute too soon as I was veering close to being seen on my knees, throwing up at the sidelines from fatigue by my manager, I asked what had happened. We had beaten the yellow tops 4-1. Brilliant!

And so, as I headed for home, dramatically hobbling from the hour of jogging on the left, unable to see straight from the dehydration, arms close to dislocation from the lumber of the old-era hockey stick, I had another thought: Bjorn Borg played with his 15 year old racket and was massively unsuccessful. I, on the other hand, had just won. Bjorn Borg? Yeah, he wishes he was me.

In case of emergencies - smash glass to release the Hypercolor shirt

As I checked on my emergency trousers, the realization struck me the other morning that I am not a risk taker. That I have emergency clothing in my bedroom should “the worst happen” at all is ridiculously safety conscience. They are not just another pair of reasonable trousers and a commonly worn shirt just like any other. No: invariably my emergency clothes are items which I have calculated I would not ever put on unless they were absolutely all I had to still function outside throughout the day. They are the most ill-fitting, worn out or unfashionable items I have kept especially for only the most apocalyptic eventuality. And by that I clearly mean that either a small fire in the sock drawer somehow managing to destroy all but my very least favourite socks would need to take place, or, heaven forbid, a burglar was to steal all but my tightest fitting pair of trousers. This makes no sense. I see that now. I understand what you are saying. What I need to do is have these things placed in a secure holding unit, away from the other higher risk apparel. It will virtually pay for itself. But it doesn’t stop there. When out I have an emergency handkerchief that I keep in my other pocket from the regular, in use handkerchief. Sometimes I confuse the two and it makes me angry at myself. I leave a little juice in the carton “for night time juice emergences”. I have an emergency umbrella in my work desk drawer… and also an emergency biscuit beside my emergency plastic cup from the water cooler dispenser that I keep in case the plastic cups are not replenished at the cooler for any reason. It would almost be fine if I kept this up throughout my life, but I don’t. I don’t regularly back-up information, or keep a hardcopy of names, numbers and addresses of friends. Occasionally I leave letters from my bank unopened for 3 months. I might not have a cabinet full of tined food, wind up radio and torch combo, hammer and medical kit, but I do have these old scraggy pants in the back of the drawer, y’know, just in case.

Open Letter: Issue 37

Dear Booler,
Although not a subscriber to your quarterly organ, I am an avid reader whenever I can scrabble upon an issue. Usually I flick through your breezy collection of local lawn bowling stories never believing I would see any reason to write in.

Now, this may be the wine talking, but I have been inclined to write this evening having read your latest issue, no. 37, because I have detected a worrying lapse in your editorial quality control.

On page 19 there is a delightful article about Agnes. I enjoyed it very much. Agnes is 97 years old and you suggest that she may be the oldest bowler in Scotland and further ask if any reader knows of anyone older?

Well, yes I do. Very recently, actually, I found out about an older bowler.

Because back on page 9 is Lily Kelly. And the piece about Lily, a well known bowler in her club, is all about her reaching 100 years old. There is a picture of her cutting her cake as some sort of proof. I'd like to think that the hired disco is playing songs by Kelis.

Considering the item about Agnes was basically just all about her being likely the oldest bowler in Scotland, it must have come as a blow to her when she got a hold of a copy of your journal to find out not only is Agnes not the oldest bowler in Scotland, she is also not the oldest bowler in your magazine. Sorry Agnes.

What kind of madness is this?

I also find your vendetta against John Grant distasteful.



I wonder if issue 38 will now continue with a co-ordinated sleaze campaign against John, should he not lie himself prone upon your booler moral alter. Will there be kiss and tell scandal stories surrounding John giving free raffle tickets to the younger grandmother bowlers? And will these younger grandmother bowlers be pictured draped across things?

I do hope that this is not the tone the publication will take.

Yours in sport and free magazines,
G. Tombs.