[Acrylic-bob]

If you are sure you want to read this, then here goes....

I was born in Salford and came to live in Accrington at the tender age of six weeks. I left school without qualifications at the age of fifteen and went to Work for Walter Smith's Confetioners on Whalley Road, where I did my apprenticeship. However the wage was so bad that I left and flitted from job to job finally ending up at Ward Knowles in Ossy at the age of twenty two. I realised then that there had to be more to life than cutting up paper all day and so I left and went to college eventually earning my degree five years later. A lot of good that did me!

I then went to work for a while in Paris and Vienna before settling in London for six years and for a year in Amsterdam after that. Then it was back home to Accy when my father died. It took a long time to get accustomed to the town again after being away for so long. I have enjoyed getting to know the town again, but I feel so sad and angry at the way it has been mismanaged and allowed to fall into the state it is in now.

The idiots of HBC, on both sides of the political divide must shoulder much of the blame for this. But I am also aware that a lot of what happens here, or does not happen, is down to the people too. We all complain of the filthy streets but say little or nothing about the sorry fact that it is we who create the rubbish in the first place.

What do I like? I like music, real music, music made by people who could not imagine a life in which they would do anything else. I deplore pop and all of it's genre's and sub genre's. It is easy, facile, superficial and just plain boring. I like music that makes me think, that challenges me and makes me stop what I am doing to listen. I like the line from Purcell " Music, for a while, shall all thy cares beguile." I like music that can transport me to places and situations that are a world away from everyday reality. For me, music has been a constant companion throughout my life and I am profoundly grateful to the men and women whose art and skill have given me so much pleasure. I also like Silence.

There are tons of other things I like; I like swearing! the more vulgar and, frankly, obscene I can be the more I like it. Creative Swearing is a recently acquired pastime and one which I am eager to develop into something approaching a minor art form.

I lo-o-o-o-ove Gin and home-made potato pie with a crust at least two inches thick and peanut butter on digestive biscuits and reading the Times on Sunday morning over boiled eggs and toast and taking my cairn terrier, Acrylic-biff, for long wallks on windy days. I am addicted to the internet and to accyweb and I cannot thank Roy enough for having the good sense to set it up and for keeping it going, it can't be easy, but it is appreciated.

What do I dislike? Fads. People who are all style and no substance. Dishonesty; I would rather know what people truly think than have them spare my blushes. Ever-present pop music. Young people who think that they know it all. Politicians who would have you believe that they know it all. Smug, smart-arsed academics, who actually do know it all. Celebrities and the media which fawns on them. Walt Disney. Christian Fundamentalists and religionists of all stripes and flavours. Fish and Wet Fish Shops, the smell makes my stomach heave. People who are rude and people who are too badly educated to realise it.

That's enough for you to be going on with I think. For the next confession I nominate Kipax.