Following on from my last Top Gear related fridge magnet post, I have had precisely zero responses to my request for help. As such, I still have no idea how many word magnets were contained within the April 1998 set.

I even wrote to Top Gear Magazine editor in chief, Charlie Turner, twice and failed to elicit any kind of response at all.

Having picked up the latest edition of the magazine (no. 243), I was delighted to find a new set of word based magnets and am now half wondering if my approach back in January this year got his production team thinking and that in turn resulted in the new set being issued. Charlie, if you read this post, and I hope you do, please let me know.

This latest set of magnets is great and this time there are 141 separate words plus four fools, four speech bubbles associated with the fools and a Top Gear Magazine banner. The magnets will enable you to write your own fridge nonsense about motoring and the size of your manhood (unless you're a lady).  I specifically counted the number of individual magnets so that in 15 years’ time, I’ll have an idea how many of them I have managed to lose. The photo added to this post will even enable me to know which specific words have gone (although the flash 'flash' presents a slight problem).

My next observation, and one that gives me some satisfaction, is that the word magnets are the same size as the 1998 set and so I can add 1998 words to the 2013 sentences and vice versa. In fact, if you once again turn your attention to the photo, you’ll see some old words below the new ones.

Just think of the hours of fun ahead of me, I can barely contain my enthusiasm!

So whilst I go and get creative with the fridge door, you’d better go out and buy your copy of the magazine because you’ll be gutted if you miss out.

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On Friday night I sustained a head injury of the type most frequently used as an excuse to cover up domestic violence. Honestly, I walked into a door and gave myself a cut and a decent bruise in the process. After I got over the shock and pain, I had to see the funny side; I mean how often is a door the genuine cause of a head injury?

I’d like to be able to claim I was drunk at the point of impact but the fact is, it was only about 9:00pm, the kids were still up and the time for relaxation and alcohol consumption hadn’t arrived.

To set the scene, Mrs Baldwin and I were chatting in our conservatory, I got up to answer the call of nature and wandered through our lounge, into the darkened kitchen, through on to the utility room and finally into the toilet. Upon arrival I switched on the loo light and got on with the purpose of the visit.

As I left, I switched the light off and that plunged my world into darkness. At that point I made a mistake, my eyes hadn’t adjusted and so in effect I was temporarily blind – as I walked out of the toilet door, I walked straight into the door that separates the kitchen from the utility room. 

In coming through that door in the first place, it had swung back into a half closed position and so as I left the toilet, no more than three feet later, the left side of my temple met the rough edge of the door and with quite a thud too.

I didn’t see the door at all and that meant that I wasn’t ready for the impact, I didn’t have my hands up and that meant the head butt was a complete surprise - at the time I yowled in pain and let loose a stream of expletives.

I staggered back into the conservatory without sustaining further injury and then Mrs Baldwin found me an ice pack for my bleeding head. Rather stupidly (and it didn’t take me long to realise this), I put the ice pack on my face straight from the freezer! Thirty seconds later and blimey I was in yet more pain. Think about an ice cream brain freeze but much worse. As I pulled the pack off my head I realised I’d had it over my left eye and was struggling to see again – you see (although I didn’t) my eyelid wasn’t working properly .

Picture this; I am slumped on a sofa, in pain, trying to reduce the swelling on my forehead whilst simultaneously trying to avoid frostbite and then I have the added joy of Mrs and Master Baldwin laughing at me and offering words of wisdom along the lines of ‘you can’t keep taking the ice pack off, the swelling won’t go down if you do”.

So this incident started with me talking a piss and ended up with me having the piss taken out of me. Ah the joys of marriage and parenthood.

Still, on the bright side, at least I got a blog post out of it.

My note to self – don’t do it again! Obvious perhaps but I will have to think more in future because there is every possibility that in a similar set of conditions I’d do the same thing again.

If thinking doesn’t save me and there is a next time (or Mrs B. does actually resort to physical abuse, maybe over another seventies purchase), the only alternative will be a crash helmet. Got to protect my devilish good looks somehow!

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Yesterday night I watched the second episode in a BBC 1 series called ‘The Prisoners’. Last night, as indeed the week before, the programme prompted an interesting flow of thoughts and emotions that in turn inspired this post.

By way of a synopsis, the film makers followed a series of inmates around the London prisons of Pentonville and Holloway during their sentences and then when released back into their communities. The characters featured so far are serial petty offenders that actually need to be in prison in order to cope with their lives – drug abusers, alcoholics, homeless souls etc. Prison gives these people a bed, a TV, food, structure, sometimes a prison job, companionship, often a much needed detox and it costs them nothing to live.

It’s fair to say that those followed are the detritus of society with low intelligence, limited education, no employment prospects and often from malfunctioning families.  Their drink and/or drug habits go on to fuel the antisocial behaviour (shoplifting, violence) that gets them banged up again and again and again. In one chap’s case, a gregarious 43 year old Londoner, that has meant 14 years in prison for simple and stupid offences.  One twenty-something had been imprisoned on 42 separate occasions! These people are institutionalised because they go to prison, serve their time, get let out and re-offend in no time at all so that they end up detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure once again.

Now this post isn’t intended to be a review of the series but rather a reflection on the conflicting emotions that it has generated by watching it.

Here is the list; bewilderment, sympathy, frustration, anger, guilt and a sense of satisfaction.  

Starting with bewilderment – personally this comes from having no mental reference points for anything I am watching. For the characters, I can’t think from their perspectives at all and I can’t rationalise their behaviour. To me their self-destructive spirals of decline are shocking and confusing.

I do end up feeling some sympathy for the characters though because they are in a state of purgatory all the time – these people will achieve little, will go nowhere and will have nothing.  Most of these prisoners live pointless lives and even struggle to string a coherent sentence together.

They aren’t murderers, rapists, child abusers or terrorists (the kind of inmates one would only have negative thoughts towards) but instead lost souls with little hope of finding the ‘light’.

I certainly sympathise with the wardens and probation officers that have to work with these people. I also sympathise with the parents of one or two of the inmates.

Frustration comes from listening to these characters, free from the effects of addiction, talking about turning over a new leaf this time and staying clean and getting a job when you know full well they are deceiving themselves. You want to shout at the telly (and the people) when you watch the addictions take hold once more or the effects of homelessness taking their inevitable toll. I found myself thinking ‘are you stupid’ about a particular individual only for it to dawn that the answer was simply ‘yes’.

On to anger – I have found myself feeling anger about the system, about the way that it completely fails to help these people cope with life. Then from a conflicting perspective, I get angry that these morons are living their hopeless lives at the tax payers’ expense and adding no value to society at all.

For me guilt then takes hold because some of the thoughts above aren’t exactly charitable! I watched a teenager last night self-harming and tying ligatures around her neck and honestly, a small part of me thought – if she killed herself, so what!

The final emotion that I have experienced is a sense of relief and satisfaction with all that I have.  It is easy to fall into the trap of forgetting just how lucky you are. Last night I sat back and reflected that I am fortunate to have come from a good family, to have a good family of my own, to have had an education, to have had some opportunities, to be healthy and to have had some great experiences.  

So to end this ramble, the producers have done an excellent job of playing with viewers’ minds. If you haven’t seen an episode of this series, give it some thought, you may also experience a roller coaster of emotion.  If you want compelling television or thought provoking viewing then I’d have to recommend this series. It’s reality TV but it’s gritty and uncomfortable and has a much more important set of messages to convey than ‘The Voice’, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ or some of the other guff that fills the schedules.  I have to say the BBC has done a good job with this one.

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Whilst driving to work today I had a bizarre feeling that prompted an odd train of thought that in turn resulted in today’s post. 

The wonderful Mrs Baldwin had today booked off work as holiday and suggested that I take her car to work instead of my own. Bearing in mind that hers is an Audi A5 and mine is a Skoda Fabia, you may well appreciate that there was some appeal in the suggestion. Let’s be honest, her car is better in every meaningful sense than mine.

To set the scene, I spent many years of my career in the automotive industry and have driven God knows how many different types of car, so much so that I fail to get particularly excited about modern cars (a car is a car is a car and after you’ve driven anything for a while it stops being interesting). To add further insight, I am also 42 and going grey, a father of two excellent, if demanding, children, and the joint owner of a reasonable house and all the responsibilities and financial burdens that come with this life stage.

So this morning as I drove to work in my wife’s motor, cossetted in dark grey leather and listening to The Sword album “Age of Winters” (which is great by the way), this bizarre feeling of being a proper grown-up popped into my head.

How mad is that? I am already grown up to the point of looking old!   

To be clear, this wasn’t an ‘I love this car’ feeling or ‘I am excited by this car’, more a recognition that this car is not a youngster’s play thing. The car is an Audi so it conveys status to a point but for me it was not about the car suggesting a level of success or anything snobbish (which is good because it’s not mine anyway); it was about somehow feeling more mature at the wheel.   

The odd train of thought that followed was:

Do I not feel like a grown up all the time? Will I feel less grown up when I get back in my Skoda? And, wouldn’t I rather feel less like a grown-up anyway?

Maybe I’ll write another post when I have worked through that psychological minefield. In the meantime my observations are these; Audi and oldie sound, and in my case feel, too similar; maybe I’d better stick to driving my own car in future and shouldn’t I be worrying about stuff that is actually important?  

Anyway, it's lunchtime and I am off out to buy a copy of Max Power.

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.From a website perspective, this is a landmark article – the likelihood is that you will never read another one like it. I am about to praise a politician! Read on if you are intrigued!        

Regular readers will know that I am not a fan of politics or politicians. That stated; the media noise around the death of Margaret Thatcher (MT) is worth a blog post. As I grew from a child into an adult, it was MT that ran the country and so I have first-hand experience of her policies – like the hated Poll Tax (in fact I was probably one of the only teenagers in the country that paid it – more fool me).

Despite my aversion to politics, I think that Maggie was an impressive character and deserving of her place in history amongst the political elite of this country. I didn’t, and still don’t, agree with some of her policies and perspectives but her grit, focus, determination, conviction and sheer hard work were undoubted.

If you think about great PMs from our political history (Churchill, Disraeli, Gladstone etc.), Margaret Thatcher will be remembered for centuries to come. The same couldn’t be said for some of our recent crop of hapless leaders. David Cameron and Gordon Brown for example will be long forgotten long before they die and will certainly not be deserving of a state funeral.

I have found the celebrations in certain quarters about her death to be thoroughly distasteful; the individuals shown on the news should feel ashamed of themselves. I have no problem with Maggie receiving tributes in the House of Commons or getting a decent funeral; in fact I am delighted that the Queen will be attending.

Maggie Thatcher polarised opinions in this country but my belief is that she made a positive difference to this country when it damn well needed it. As much as I love the seventies, Maggie helped fix the stuff that had turned to shit during the decade (think constant strikes, the three day week, economic gloom and power cuts).  And she didn’t have extra martial affairs or break the law or fiddle her expenses or pander to the media whilst she was doing it.

Maggie was a working mother, was very much a woman in a man’s world and had a decent set of beliefs and values. I can’t help thinking that we could do with an equally powerful and trustworthy leader to shake this country out of the economic mess it finds itself in now. Cameron certainly isn’t the man for the job, and neither is Boris Johnson for that matter.

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I was pleased to read this article on the BBC this lunchtime.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22079232

Blake’s 7, a cult seventies series, is to get a modern interpretation. As usual part of me screams ‘why?’ because the original was great, but in this instance part of me craves to see the series made with the special effects that it deserved (instead of the naff effects, cheap costumes and the dodgy, low budget and wobbly scenery it was infamous for). To be fair, some of the original acting was a bit wooden too!

I am sure that opinions will be divided amongst the fellas (and discussed at length over pints of real ale). My friend Chris, a fan from the start, may be pretty disgruntled – I am sure his degree and subsequent career in computer engineering were inspired in part by ORAC. But then again, even he may be intrigued.

Remakes are a funny business; some I genuinely hate – The Italian Job and Alfie for example. Some I just don’t get i.e. the new Sweeney film (the ‘why?’ question again). Some are brilliant – Doctor Who for example.

Who knows how Blake’s 7 will translate into the twenty-teens? I will be looking forward to finding out. I hope that it ends up being made and broadcast on a channel I can actually watch.   

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