OK, it's the second and final part of the blues competition. I woke up this morning and thought it would be an idea to do it today.
So who are these blues guys? I'm afraid there's no prize this time. Eric Clapton, who signed the CDs for the first part, has withdrawn his services as he is wont to do. I remember when he left The Yardbirds. A tragic time.
But as a special treat for you all, here's 29 seconds of that band's Jeff's Blues, lead guitar by Eric's mate, the great Jeff Beck. Just imagine this in a live setting, seguing into a 30 minute jam.
Just a couple of quotes I've picked up from the internet concerning the new Friday evening ITV sitcom, Teenage Kicks.
Phil McIntyre, executive producer, said: "Ade Edmondson is one of the UK's most loved and talented comedians. This is a long overdue return to Young Ones madness. I am delighted to be working with Adrian and ITV on this five-star comedy mayhem."
Adrian* Edmondson, star and co-writer said: “I think it’s misleading to suggest this show is a return to Young Ones madness. This is much more of a family sitcom. It’s aimed at anyone who’s been a parent or a child. Which, of course, is everyone…"
We saw ten minutes of this on Friday as we'd been reliably informed by the free papers that it was diabolically bad.
It was worse than that. It was a kind of My Family for the "punk" generation.
Actually, scrap that. Adrian might take it as a compliment.
Oh, you've got to vote for Boris. He's such an idiot.
No, I'm voting for Ken.
Ken's in it for his mates. Boris is great. He's such an idiot. It'll be good to have an idiot in charge. Better a complete idiot than someone who's in it for his mates.
The inaugrual Geoff & Betty mixtape. We found Mixwit via Boggins whose own mixtape is very enjoyable.
Mixwit is a great idea but doomed to failure as it relies on the mp3s being permanently available on the internet. Of course the buggers are always disappearing so that in time there'll be nothing left on this tape. There will be the sound of silence which is probably how it should be.
p.s. If any of the songs are no longer there, skip till the next one.
I'm feeling a bit sensitive about my belly. It's grown over the last few months and I've received three comments about it recently. The last one was "You've got a real belly now, haven't you Geoff?"
"I've always had a belly."
"Not a noticeable one. It's a real belly now."
My spirits are not helped as I watch the disappearing back of an ex-friend as he runs past me. We used to play tennis together. Now he runs marathons like a fucking gazelle and here I am plodding along with my increasing waistband.
I think it's down to the handful of nuts I have with my breakfast. I'm cutting out the nuts. I'm sure that'll do the trick.
*******
Highlights of the excellent Tony Hancock/Joan Le Mesurier docu drama included the three uses of the "c" word. Especially Tony's drunken "Kent! What am I fucking doing in Kent? Kent! You are a cunt!"
I can relate to that. Kent is one hell of a cunt, as is Ken Stott's and my middle aged spread. But I've got a few years on him and should be able to lose it.
I never got Hancock's humour, but I got his misery. But wasn't the humour in the misery? Yes, but it wasn't funny. You had to be there, I suppose.
*******
The electricity meter reader today had some words of wisdom.
"My kids are very political. I tell them politics doesn't make any difference. It's scientists who make the world we live in. They're the ones who change things."
He'll eventually be out of work due to advancing technology and the widespread use of smart meters.
Today's film review is from Keith Norman, General Secretary of the train drivers' union, ASLEF.
The film looks like a disgusting piece of propaganda dreamt up by the kind of wankers who have a go at train drivers for making them late for work in the morning.
Here's the trailer for the film. Mackenzie Crook's come a long way since The Office, hasn't he?
And any film with Imelda Staunton and Kerry Katona just has to be...
Did you hear about the gig where Charley Pride supported The Fall?
No? Bloody sod you, then.
*******
Whenever I turn the telly on in the evenings nowadays, I always seem to get this image...
...as if it's there in the box, breathing through the air vents, lying in wait for me.
It disturbs me in a way I can't describe. Something to do with mortality and stifling dreams. A complete lack of joy. Such a long, pointless existence which even death cannot relieve. A look in the mirror that says "kill me now and kill me painfully so that at least I can feel something for once in my life."
The Tory leader of our council is going all green. He's pictured in the latest council magazine wearing a green tie. There's another picture of him further into the magazine wearing a suit and open-necked shirt, just like Davey Cameron. But the green tie made the biggest impression on me.
The Tories have kept our increase in Council Tax below the rate of inflation for the second year running. They've been able to do this thanks to the following...
1. They're axing meals on wheels for the 420 people who use the service. Hot meals delivered to those in need are being replaced by a choice of frozen meals (presumably to be stored in those large chest freezers that the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society have in their spacious kitchens or utility rooms). Not only will the recipients have a "bigger menu choice and better value for money", they will have "added freedom when it comes to deciding what time to eat." Those who need help cooking their meals will, of course, be able to read detailed cooking instructions on the packaging. And if they can't open a bag of frozen peas and boil some water to go some way to their five fruit and veg a day, well, isn't that what families and neighbours are for?
2. "Our improved recycling service means that residents in most houses and maisonettes in the Borough will have their recycling collected every week. As there will be less waste (what's left) this will be collected fortnightly." We're being given new bins to store our reduced amount of waste. The trouble is, I don't really understand the logic. Why, because they will be collecting paper and glass and plastic bottles more regularly, should our unrecyclable waste be reduced? Unless we're not currently being good recyclers. But even a cursory glance at other people's bins on collection day will indicate that most of us are already doing what we can. And a collection once every other week of stinking rotting rubbish sticking out of the tops of bins is not going to be doing too much for our environment. It might please the local rats, though.
The UK's greatest film director of recent years is Nick Broomfield.
Nick's been making outstanding documentaries for years. But his last two films have been docu-dramas. And if you've been annoyed in the past by Nick's less than sexy voice or his less than sexy demeanour, please watch Ghosts and The Battle For Haditha because he is not seen or heard in these films.
Nick tells it like it is. There is no poncing about, no actors trying to find their characters by over-the-top acting in a Mike Leigh way. This is real.
The reality of the war against terrorism is clear in The Battle For Haditha. When your enemy is among the civilian population how do you react when one of your colleagues is blown up? A group of young men, ready and pumped up for revenge in a battle situation, hit out indiscriminately at the locals, killing innocent men, women and children, the only "enemy" they can see. The killing of innocents, of course, makes excellent propaganda for the insurgent recruiters, making sure the war on terror will never go away.
Corporal Ramirez is a young man, fucked up by all the death he's seen. He leads his men into battle. (He leads the mass murder).
The officers are pleased with the Marines' response. They'd acted as a finely honed fighting machine should.
"Royal Marines, outstanding job. Corporal Ramirez, you handled yourself like a true professional out there. I'm gonna promote you to Sergeant and I'm gonna recommend you for the Bronze Star. You kept your head in the Game and you kept your Marines alive."
There was a cover up. The official line was that it was a real battle, that the Marines fought back bravely and took the lives of many insurgents. Until the cover up was exposed and Ramirez and his colleagues were accused of murder.
Yesterday on Smooth Radio they played Love's magnificent Alone Again Or. Sandwiched in between WHAM! and Luther Vandross.
Today they've played Don't Stand So Close To Me, a song based on Sting's experiences as a teacher when he was often the "subject of schoolgirl fantasy."
What the song doesn't say is that the fantasies usually involved the heroic girls ripping the fucker's tongue out so that he couldn't sing.
It's the end of a very long era. Since the 70s, between the two of us we've bought Record Mirror, Melody Maker, Sounds, NME, New Music News, Smash Hits, The Face, Blitz, i-D, Flexipop, ZigZag, MixMag, Muzik(??), Select, Vox, Q, Mojo...
But for the past ten years it's been a strict diet of Uncut.
And recently it's become a chore, one in which, as a lazy person, I've not really participated. While Betty bites the bullet and reads all the chaff about the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and various other rock pensioners, I just skim through the new CD reviews and have a laugh at the letters written by extremely serious middle aged men who think The Hold Steady, for Christ's sake, are the future of music.
The Hold Steady - The Future Of Music
I saw she was struggling with the latest issue this week. Those golf and slippers dullards REM have apparently produced their "most straightforwardly enjoyable album since 1906's New Adventures In Hi-Fi."
"Just think of how much real reading you'll get done without all this shit," I said to her.
And I cancelled our subscription, just like that, two days before the next direct debit was due.
There is the worry that maybe we'll miss the odd gem like the re-issue of the brilliant White Noise album, An Electric Storm. But look, here it is on Uncut's website anyway.
So it's a final goodbye to the printed word. And a big hello to the 21st century.
It's always interesting to have an insight into other people's work lives. A fly on the wall kind of thing. Because none of us can really guess what actually happens.
I work in a large office and me and my boss are the only men in the whole building. The following is highlights of our working day. You only see a glimpse of me at the end.
I go back to work on Monday. I enjoy my time off but I enjoy my work too. I get job satisfaction.
On my last week off we went into London a couple of times. Saw a couple of Oscar-nominated films and bought lots of CDs and books in Fopp.
The initial plan for this week was to go into London a couple of times, too. Go to a couple of galleries, go to see a critically acclaimed German film.
But with so much to catch up on at home, what's the point?
We've seen the pictures before, we've seen critically acclaimed German films before (it'll be on the telly in a couple of years anyway).
So we're catching up on our reading, our blogging and our Sky+ backlog.
The Bloggies and The Observer List of 50 Most Powerful Blogs are just there really, of no relevance. They just confirm the very opposite way I see blogging - as a social meeting place for people with similar interests. Let them get on with their silly awards and rankings. When they've all given up I'll still be around doing it as long as my cyber friends are.
This week's telly viewing has been a mixed bag. BBC2's White documentary on a Bradford Working Men's Club which started out well but without any real historical context of working class culture ended up with a lot of miserable faces moaning about lack of community and feeling like a foreigner in your own country. The Enoch Powell documentary just added to the impression that this country is overpopulated and the ones that need to leave are the ones without white faces. It was all the more depressing because you just know that this is how a hell of a lot of people think.
Mad Men started slowly but picked up quickly as soon as characters from outside the workplace were introduced. Purely workplace-based comedies can work but dramas need outsiders to make more rounded characters.
The 1986 version of Northanger Abbey confirmed my theory that villains in Austen dress to the left. Peter Firth may have ended up the hero (ooh, missus!) but he was a villain all the way through it. Katherine Schlesinger dreamt her way through her part like a doped up Sarah Brightman - a fantastic performance. It was all very 1980s New Romantic with the look of a music video, gothic dream sequences and all.
And so to today. Betty said we've got a busy day. We've got to buy a couple of sandwiches and some bedding plants. And we've got to visit my old mum before falling asleep later this afternoon.
Congratulations are due to tv funnyman David Walliams on the completion of his swim from Bognor Regis (UK) to Bondi Beach (Australia).
The swim, which took 60 weeks non-stop, is the greatest feat of human endurance in history.
Walliams set off from Butlins Holiday Park, Bognor Regis, in January 2007. He was accompanied on his journey by Round-The-World Yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur who sailed alongside the courageous comedian, occasionally throwing bottles of water and healthy freshly caught sild into his path.
Walliams, who has now raised £30 billion for Sport Relief, was in good spirits as he crawled onto Bondi's famous golden sands.
When asked what he missed most during his time in the ocean, he winked and said "a nice cup of tea".
He was immediately mobbed by several be-thonged young ladies.
What a beautiful rendition. And Joss Stone gives it her all. She adds a touch of soul to proceedings. And the way she lightly brushes the fallen chocolate off her heaving cleavage is a joy to behold.
But don't you think one of us guys could become the face and voice of Flake? Munching on a chocolate phallus, after all, should not be the sole preserve of young, breathy women.
I'd like to see either Stuart Staples, lead singer of Tindersticks singing in a field of daisies, or Antony of Antony and the Johnsons on a wobbly water bed.
How can Goldfrapp get five stars when, to quote the reviewer, the lyrics were "only occasionally decipherable". Combining words and music is clearly a problem, in the opera house and musical theatre as well as at pop concerts, but to suggest that a song cycle was as good as it could be when you could hardly hear any of the words seems, well, odd.
We bought the new Goldfrapp album last week and it's the first of theirs that I've really liked (I need to reassess the others). It is excellent and if you want the lyrics, they're printed inside the CD booklet. Personally, I don't want the lyrics. I'm quite happy with the voice and the emotion.
To say understanding lyrics is all important is to declare war on pop music. This sentiment comes from the intellect which is an unwelcome intruder in the world of pop. It is not cool or clever. It is showing yourself up as a reactionary philistine.
I've had a bit of a result. My radio-listening work colleague has discovered Smooth Radio. Shit name, but the music's a damn sight better than Heart. A reasonable variety of pop from the past 50 years. Quite a bit of rubbish, agreed, but quite a bit that's good too. You just watch Heart's ratings plummet! The day it's buried I'll tramp the dirt down.
The problem is, Smooth's FM version gives a shit reception in our office. So I had a brainwave.
I've brought in my redundant digital radio for general office use. As long as they keep it locked to Smooth! And I can borrow the old office Radio/CD player to play my classical CDs in my lunch hour, thereby avoiding annoying Betty.
I am currently listening to Bach, calm in the knowledge I won't hear Take That 40 times today.
But Bach doesn't half go on, doesn't he? In fact I'm a bit fucking sick of him.
I've been listening to a couple of John Cale albums from the early 70s, the pop masterpiece Paris 1919 and the "I was classically trained, you know" The Academy in Peril. The latter has performed a miracle on me. It has got me into classical music.
But where do I start?
How I could have done with middle class parents, a mother who read Shakespeare and a father who listened to Bach, instead of being saddled with a mum who listened to Jimmy Young and a dad who read Wilbur Smith. I wish I'd had expensive private lessons to learn the cello instead of learning basic strumming guitar chords from my dad's long-haired factory worker friend.
My humble background is a cross to bear, but I don't let it get me down.
On Saturday I got a few classical CDs out of the library and I kind of like them. But I'm a newbie to all this and I don't know which are the cool composers, the majestic musicians or the commanding conductors. It's all a mystery to me.
Is Brahms the U2 of classical music? Is Bartok the James Blunt? Who do I adore and who do I avoid?
How on earth do I acquire taste with no guidelines, no classical "blood", no classical "ear"?
I'd be grateful for your suggestions, my learned friends.
In the days of the miners' strike, one day stood out. It was the day that Gary Yates went down in legend.
Gary was a big, confident lad and thought he could do everything himself. He had a loud mouth and boasted to his mates that he could see off a coach of scabs by himself.
So his mates let him have a go.
The night before his shift, Gary couldn't get to sleep. He was worried he would let his comrades down. By the time he got to his solo shift he was exhausted. He sat propped against the picket fence, couldn't keep his eyes open for a minute, said "oh, fuck it" and fell into a deep sleep. The scabs had a peaceful journey to work.
The incident is known in folklore as Gary "Fuck It" And The Union Nap.
******
In the days of the miners' strike, one day stood out. It was the day that Gary Bates went down in legend.
The lads were huddled around the brazier, taking the piss out of each other when Big Dave piped up that he was feeling hungry.
Gary Bates owed Big Dave a favour. Big Dave had stepped in to stop Gary from getting a beating a few nights previously.
"I'll get you something," said Gary to Big Dave.
So Gary went off to the bakers with instructions to get Dave "a nice cheese and tomato toastie."
Half an hour later, Gary handed Dave his food. Dave opened the wrapper.
"What the fuck's this?" he said.
The incident is known in folklore as Gary "Fuckwit" And The Union Bap.
We are watching BBC4's Saturday Classics season, catching up on all the stuff we missed first time round.
Last night we finished watching the production of Pride and Prejudice which got a lot of dotty women hot under the brassiere when it was first shown in the 90s. In it, Mr Darcy is truly one dark, brooding cunt.
And there was something we noticed that even the most avid Austen fan might have missed. It seems that in Austen adaptations, the heroes dress to the right whilst the villains dress to the left.
Did Jane stipulate in her will such fine details for any future theatrical productions of her work?
The short documentary on Edwyn Collins' rehabilitation from his stroke was extremely moving. It's sister programme about the Scottish music scene from the late seventies was a load of shit.
I was ready to learn about Postcard Records and Scotland's indie heritage. What we got instead was an early dismissal of indie labels by Claire Grogan and a dispiriting trawl through 80s bollocks such as Hue & Cry, Deacon Blue, The Proclaimers, Wet Wet Wet et al. They even tacked on fucking Scottish political independence and the SNP and the bloke out of Runrig, none of which has anything to do with the music scene but more to do with washed up minor pop artists trying to keep their names in the media as some sort of spokespeople for a generation of people with crap music taste.
There was no mention of The Skids, the early good Simple Minds and absolutely no mention of Jesus & Mary Chain or even Primal Scream.
How can Edith Bowman live with herself for reading the script that made Scottish music sound about as vibrant as Ireland's?
As part of my job I am responsible for making sure the switchboard is always staffed. Due to staff reductions recently I have had to call upon temps, something I hadn’t done for ten years or so. How times have changed!
In the 90s, a temporary telephonist was more often than not an Australian on a year’s stay in London. Now it seems she is more likely to be British. Not just British, but a well-spoken between-jobs British actress.
Three times in the past few weeks I’ve been telling various actresses about the play wot I wrote and I’m getting tired of it. It was, after all, 16 years ago now and it’s a bit pathetic to keep harking on about something that got one derogatory review in the Ham & High.
I think I get on well with actors though I’d like to know what they’re thinking about me. In my experience they’re always really friendly, but you never know what kind of egomaniac is lurking beneath the mask.
I’ve decided I won’t mention my silly little play to the next one I meet. I’ll just talk about them, what kind of theatre they prefer, whether they’ve been on the telly, whether they write as well as act...
We are enjoying the third episode of the BBC2 repeat of BBC3's excellent comedy, Pulling. I laugh out loud when Karl accidently gives himself a Hitler moustache. I laugh again as he is run over, lifts his arm for help and gets a smack in the mouth for being a nazi. And I laugh when he realises he has landed in dog shit, this time with recognition.
"We've seen this bit before," I say to Betty.
"This was the programme that Ian Penman recommended on his blog. He said that some BBC3 comedies aren't given the accolades they deserve because of the critics' snobbishness towards the channel. We tried to watch this episode at the time. You said it was shit, ha ha ha."
"Oh yes," I say, "I remember."
"There's a bit later where they play The Smiths when he's feeling suicidal. You thought it was too obvious."
"Oh yes," I say. "And here I am enjoying it."
"Ha ha ha."
"I did the same with the Sopranos, didn't I? I said the first episode was too slow until you started watching it. Now I think it's the best thing ever."
"And The Wire," says Betty.
"Did I?"
"You were going to give that up after 20 minutes."
"Was I?"
"Ha ha ha. And you laughed out loud at the Hitler moustache last time too. Did you forget that?"
"Ha ha ha."
N.B. The ha ha ha's in this post signify actual laughter, not cruel mockery.
"The raffle causes more problems than anything. The trouble is, as soon as one year's trip is over, Alf is on the phone asking how many people for next year's. It's what he lives for now.
You've got to feel sorry for him. He must have had a stroke - he talks out of the side of his mouth and dribbles everywhere. His jacket and shirt are covered in saliva. You don't want to brush up against him, although he does have a tendency to get a little close for comfort when coming round with the raffle tickets.
This year we had a little altercation. We missed out on the raffle tickets; we weren't in the bar, we were in the lounge. Alf's 80 year old pitbull assistant started hassling and we gave him some good tempered banter in reply. The pitbull took offence. He didn't like being spoken to like that.
We were eventually worn down and bought some tickets. We won the £6 prize but Len, the organiser of the trips, has funny turns and he tore up our winning ticket.
But good-hearted Len told Alf what he'd done. Alf came to our table and took six pound coins from his pocket and put them beside my drink. The coins were stuck together, covered in an unknown bodily fluid.
I went to the Ladies and washed the coins and my hands with soap and water. I dried them under the warm air hand dryer."
You can stick your Jon Savage up your arse. The only true account of punk is here, those times as seen by a true newpaperman, author, raconteur and Betty's favourite columnist, Bob Ogley. Bob not only lived through punk, he lived through the War, dodging doodlebugs, and through the Great Storm of 1987, dodging Sevenoaks's seven falling oaks. Here are some gems from the article...
" I imagine many people younger than me will disagree with my assessment of this noisy, heroin-addicted, sickeningly obnoxious band but I understand their desire to find an alternative sound to the poor music offered in the mid-1970s. I certainly accept their place in history as the group which launched this unforgettable new cult."
Dead right, Bob. What did we have in the mid-70s? Prog, Bob! All those dinosaurs in their mansions with their banks of keyboards. Long-haired layabouts. You couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl until you'd pinched its arse.
"A bit of a rebel himself, McLaren made them work in his shop selling such items as T-shirts and dodgy bondage wear."
McLaren's bondage wear was always dodgy. The zips were always breaking. And many a time was the blood completely cut off from a young man's pride and joy. Older, more experienced members of our society knew where to get more reliable bondage wear. And that certainly wasn't the King's Road.
"The Pistols rapidly picked up a following of arty weirdos and disenchanted speed freaks and achieved instant fame following a TV interview in December 1976 when several times they used a four-letter word - the first people ever to say f... on telly. Instantly, they were a household name."
For "arty weirdos" read "art-school students", weirdos every one, many of whom went on to form their own so-called "punk" bands. The speed freaks had been around for years and were just glad to have some fast paced music to accompany their drug taking. The instant fame of the Pistols was gained at the expense of the career of a good, honest journalist and tv presenter. What they did to poor Bill Grundy was unforgiveable.
Yes, I'm not above telling crap jokes during the most moving piece of film on television this week. I didn't shed a tear along with Bobby Charlton but I did with David Attenborough. The Panamanian golden frog is no longer in the wild. Once upon a time you had to watch your step unless you splattered one. Now, thanks to a bastard fungus the only golden frogs left in Panama are in captivity.
Awww. Look at his little hand waving.
Goodbye-ee, Goodbye-ee, Wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee Tho' it's hard to part, I know, I'll be tickled to death to go, Don't cry-ee, don't sigh-ee, There's a silver lining in the sky-ee! Bon Soir, old thing! Cheerio! Chin-Chin, Nah-Poo, Toodle-oo, Goodbye-ee
Today we went to the cinema for the first time in two years, encouraged by all those good reviews for the Coen Brothers' latest, No Country For Old Men.
We go to see Coen Brothers films at the cinema. They're always worth seeing once, if no more. We haven't got any DVDs of their films and we won't be getting this one.
Don't get me wrong, it's well worth seeing. It looks good, it's got lots of tension, plenty of humour, some great performances and...
Well, that's about it really. We've seen it, it's filed to memory, somewhere.
Probably worth an Oscar or two but that's not saying a great deal in an age of shite English language films. (The previews of the forthcoming attractions at the cinema confirmed my prejudices).
We're going again in a few days to see the latest film featuring Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood. We always see films with Daniel in as he's a modern day acting giant.
Let's hope the film does him at least a modicum of justice.
The most embarrassing thing to come out of West Ham's Pardew era was not losing to a Neil Shipperley (for Christ's sake) goal in the play-off final. It was those fucking t-shirts.
I loved Bobby Moore. But those fucking t-shirts, "Moore Than Just A Football Club". What a half-arsed wanky piece of disrespectful advertising. Pardew looked a prick in his and so did anyone else who bought one.
So to tomorrow. We've had all week to remember the Busby Babes. We had our minute's silence before the England game. But tomorrow's the Manchester derby. Manchester united in remembrance. Will the City fans cry? Did the Everton fans cry when Liverpool remembered Hillsborough? Did Bradford Park Avenue fans cry on the anniversary of City's fire? Remember that horrific day?
In the week that the cunts in charge of our national game get erect penises over fucking even more with its history, we've all got to tune into Sky tomorrow, God's day of rest, to cry over something that happened before a lot of us were born. And the players are wearing a special 1950s kit with, get this, no advertising! What a mark of respect! Long, baggy shorts, v-necked shirts, big, clunky boots smeared with dubbin, a ball as hard as a coconut, half-time cigarettes and cups of tea in a steaming dressing room.
It's the no advertising on the shirts that really brings a tear to my eye, though. I hope they'll be on sale afterwards. I want to look like Gary Neville.
I meet my cousin on the train. We bump into each other about once every six months. We talk a bit about old times.
When we were young we used to go tenpin bowling together. Neither of us goes now. But he tells me the bowling game on the Wii console is pretty much as good as the real thing. You can even make your ball curl by using the right wrist action!
He does have a hobby nowadays, though. He goes clay pigeon shooting. It's great. You can spend a whole day doing it or even just a couple of hours. It's a sport of great skill and it's very social. He's tried shooting real birds but it's not as satisfying as shooting the clay sort.
Yes, I say, there must be more luck involved in shooting birds. It all depends on their flight path.
I am right. He takes my interest as enthusiasm for trying his pastime.
"Do you fancy it, Geoff?"
I can't think of anyone less suited to holding a gun and conversing with a bunch of gun toting guys than me. Except perhaps Prince Edward.
"I don't really have the time," I say.
"What do you do with your spare time then? Everybody's got something."
Sunday was the day for the annual church service to celebrate the life of Grimaldi, one of the greatest clowns of all time, if not the greatest.
Separately, clowns and church services give me the willies. Together, they'd be overwhelmingly creepy.
Seeing pictures of the service makes me wonder which songs would be suitable for funerals attended by clowns.
Maybe the following...
Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson for a service attended by a clown who is burying a dear one.
Cathy's Clown by the Everley Brothers for the service of a clown whose next of kin is named Cathy.
You won't find another fool like me by The New Seekers for the service of a clown who thought he was the best thing since sliced bread (or since Grimaldi). "I wanna tell ya, You won't find another clown like me babe, No you won't."
Clowntime is Over by Elvis Costello for the service of several clown colleagues who died in a tragic circus van pile up on the M1.
The vicar would wear a flower which would spurt water into the faces of the mourners as they shook hands to thank him for the service.
Talking with an actress yesterday, as you do, I discovered the identity of the actor who's going to play Rhett Butler in Trevor Nunn's forthcoming stage musical production of Gone With The Wind.
It is none other than Pop Idol failure, Darius Danesh.
Real actors, actors who have trod the boards and put the hours of pain in, are really pissed off with this. And so they should be. Apparently Hugh Jackman, a genuinely talented hard-working musical actor, was originally up for the part but something happened and Darius snuck in there.
There is a crisis in musical theatre. Do we, as a nation, allow these reality show johnny-come-latelys into an artform we've held dear for generations? Trevor Nunn is pissing on the legacy of Michael Crawford.
And I, for one, am not going to stand for it.
I refuse to buy any more tickets for musicals until this abomination is stopped dead in its tracks.
As you do, we were discussing last night the possibility of forming a kind of skiffle band using medical add-ons to a failing body as musical instruments.
So a percussionist could be playing the false teeth.
A piper could be playing the colostomy bagpipes.
Hearing aids could be used as amplifiers.
A tracheostomy tube could be used as a kind of vocoder.
An amplified (via hearing aid) pacemaker would provide the backing rhythm.
I'm bored. 2008 was going to be the year I read and wrote poetry. I'm bored with poetry, with writing it and reading it. To be honest with myself, I'm not very good at either.
2008 was going to be a fiction-free year. I'm bored with reading fiction, can't take it seriously. But what's left?
I went to the bookshop. What about an autobiography?
I bought a bestseller, Bill Bryson's childhood memoirs, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.
What a boring book! What a smug bastard! And the advertising inside for his other books! I've never seen the like!
There are thirteen pages of arse-licking reviews. And the inside back cover has pictures of all his other books just in case you hadn't been brainwashed already.
I've got three more books lined up. Simon Napier-Bell's Black Vinyl White Powder. A Drink with Shane MacGowan. And Owning Up: The Trilogy by George Melly, as recommended by Arabella.
Can anybody recommend any other entertaining non-fiction/autobiographies? You'll be performing a public service.
Taking the gauntlet from the missus (see her links for more entertaining lists), the following is my list of Ten Songs That No Grown Man Should Own. As meme's go, this is one that all bloggers should have a go at. You think you're too cool, eh?
1. Follow You, Follow Me - Genesis I could never understand the appeal of Gabriel-era Genesis. Far too clever for me. This, in 1978, was the first time they'd floated my boat. I saw them live a year or two later. They were shit.
2. Hotel California - The Eagles The Eagles' Greatest Hits 1971-1975 is the world's third best selling album after Thriller and Back In Black. Our school had one AC-DC fan. Nobody liked Jacko or The Eagles. With Hotel California, The Eagles were past their best and in their pomp. Joe Walsh was a new Eagle. I loved Joe Walsh. This single is beyond the pale. but I don't care.
3. Welcome Home - Peters & Lee My mum loved this song. I seem to remember her developing a fancy for Lennie Peters. This, and I Just Called To Say I Love You are the only two singles by blind performers she has admitted to liking over the years. I always thought Peters and Lee were an item but they were married to different people. The clue's in the name, dummy.
4. Big Seven - Judge Dread Judge Dread was a big favourite of our Ronnie Corbett-lite friend of the family. We'd sit in his living room on a Sunday afternoon, two young families, and he'd play this sexist filth. Big Seven was a more complete record than Big Six. It is more lyrically rounded and he keeps the Jamaican accent all the way through, not wandering off to South America.
5. Macarena - Los Del Rio Two creepy, pervy middle aged taxi drivers trying to get off with beautiful young women. Thinking they're in with a chance! No, Grandad. Keep your eyes on the road!
6. Private Investigations (12 inch) - Dire Straits A vinyl film noir. From the album Love Over Gold about which Wikipedia says "Due to its lengthy atmospheric instrumentals it has been cited as the band's only album that resembles progressive rock, although not quite achieving it." There's something magnificent about not quite achieving progressive rock. A beautiful failure.
7. Call On Me - Eric Prydz Pervy video with hot babes, ahem, "towelling" themselves down. Played to absolute fucking death on MTV Dance a couple of years ago. Based on Steve Winwood's Valerie, it shouldn't work but it does. Oh yes it so does!
8. Aqua Marina (Stingray Theme) - Gary Miller
Miller provided the singing voice for Troy Tempest. You really couldn't tell, Troy was that good. I was in love with the idea of Marina, a mermaid who would hold my hand and take me through the most unimaginably beautiful coral. She would hold my breath for me in a kiss.
9. The Last Waltz - Englebert Humperdinck I love the idea of "two lonely people together". I look at all the lonely people. Where do they all come from?
10. Chant No. 1 (12 inch) - Spandau Ballet Who can forget Robert Elms' poetic introduction to the Ballet's live Scala show? I hear True every day at work. It is my least favourite song of all time, that joke just isn't funny any more. But this slice of white funk still gets me up on the dancefloor.
I love films. Not "film", films. I've loved films since I was in my late teens.
"A bit late to be getting into films," you may say.
But the films I like are for adults. I couldn't sit down with a child and watch a film. One of us would get very bored very quickly.
Heath Ledger is dead, the victim, it seems, of the pressure he was under playing the Joker in the new Batman film. Yes, Batman. A 28 year old man couldn't handle the psychological consequences of portraying a character in a kids' film.
I had a Batman outfit when I was three. I would run through Bournemouth town centre, pretending I was Batman.
My Lonnie Donegan double CD is getting on my tits. It was not cheap, it was a tenner. For a tenner I expect the raised plastic bits which the CD holes fit over to be intact. As soon as I opened the case for the first time, they both crumbled. I expect this from cheap CDs, though why I'm not sure. They can't be saving that much by using crap packaging, surely. Still, at least the front of the case hasn't broken off. Yet.
Another thing that pisses me off about this compilation is the fact that it is a double rather than a single CD. Several of the songs have various versions. There are about five Midnight Specials coming down that fucking line! I don't want four studio versions and one live version of the same song. I want one definitive version. The best. That goes for anybody, except maybe the Beatles whose German versions of their classics sound like different songs. What kind of anal completist actually enjoys listening to the same song over and over?
"But Geoff, didn't you notice the bass player farting halfway through the second chorus in Midnight Special Take Three?"
No, I didn't. And I couldn't give a bollock about it.
"When they've worked all week, the match for them, it's a bit like people down south going to the theatre".
Brilliant, King Kev! You've really raised the bar. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time.
You can see through all this bollocks about Newcastle United fans being the best in the world, salt of the earth, community minded, proud of their history, more working class and honest and neighbourly and humorous than other fans, deserving of success more than any other team's fans in the whole wide world. Toon Army, my arse. They can't hold a fucking tune.
Donna doesn't know it yet, but when she walks through the door to her secret 50th birthday celebration they will be playing Donna by Marty Wilde. Not Donna by 10CC or Donna by Ritchie Valens, but the cover of Valens' song which is "nicer" than the original.
As part of his set, the DJ will play Hey There Lonely Girl by Eddie Holman, the first song which Donna really liked in her teens.
For my 50th birthday bash I'm hoping to walk into the room to the strains of Space (Jefrey With One F) by The Pixies. I will later have a little smooch to Bohemian Rhapsody.
Woody Guthrie, Philip Pullman and Larry Grayson may seem like strange bedfellows, but all three had/have a common obsession.
Guthrie recorded several songs about DUST. Indeed, he became known as the "Dust Bowl Troubadour".
DUST is a major theme in Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials. Indeed, his novel entitled The Book Of Dust is due to be published in 2009.
Grayson's stage act included running his finger along the top of the back of a chair, searching for DUST, then exclaiming, "Oooh! Look at the muck in 'ere!"
Last weekend I spent editing all Betty's 60s and 70s compilations down to eight cracking CDs. It was time well spent.
This weekend, inspired by the latest Uncut Magazine CD of influences on Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline, I have bought a Woody Guthrie compilation. And to complete my old music spree, I spent the remainder of my HMV voucher on a Lonnie Donegan skiffle CD.
Lonnie was feted on the first of BBC4's Pop On Trial discussion programmes. As big an influence as Elvis on British 60s bands, according to the panel of Joe Brown, CP Lee and 50s throwback Pete Wylie. Stuart Maconie chaired the discussion with his usual chummy aplomb.
On the website you can vote for your favourite track from each of the decades, though I'm not sure if you can tell them which you think is "the most important, influential and entertaining decade". Which is the premise for the series as far as I can tell. Maybe that vote comes later.
I can't decide which is my favourite song from any decade. I like several from each of the lists provided. Why can't we vote for our least favourite? Why haven't they got a shitlist? Surely a decade can be judged by its worst as well as its best.
Back to Joe Brown. Joe got away lightly when it came to a stage name. No Wilde, Fury, Eager, Pride, Power, Gentle, or Fame for Joe. He got to keep his real name. Joe said that Larry Parnes wanted to call him and his band Elmer Twitch and the Fidgets! And Joe refused!
Like the prostitute thing where you have your first pet's name followed by your first street's name, there should be something similar for one's Larry Parnes' name. I'm working on it, but for now Betty has given me and my imaginary band the moniker of Rory Fire & The Coals. I am seventeen and have smouldering good looks.
What's your Larry Parnes' name? The best one will receive a record contract with Pye Records.
It's time for one of my occasional psychosomatic illnesses. This time it's heart disease. I've been feeling a tightness in my chest, going down my left arm. Yesterday I had an ECG and a blood pressure test. I was fine. "It's not cardiac," said the nurse, softly into my ear in a crowded waiting room.
So it must be digestion related. Because I've read that angina can have similar symptoms to indigestion, it stands to reason that the reverse must be true.
Time to look at my diet, I suppose. As if I'm not always looking at my fucking diet. I have a lot of sympathy for the girl who can only eat chips. It took them years to find out she has gastro-oesophagul reflux disease and that chips are all she can comfortably digest. It goes against the rules, you see. Chips are supposed to be bad for the digestion.
Well bollocks to the rulebook. I can't eat potatoes full stop. Or "healthy" porridge. Or "healthy" omega 3 fatty fish. But I can eat hot, spicy foods and drink alcohol 'til the cows come home. That's against the rules, too.
One thing I've learned about the digestive system is that it doesn't respond to reason. We're all different. It's just that some of us are unfortunately more different than others.
This year's Corrie workout babe is Vicky Binns. Vicky plays Molly, mad staring-eyed daughter of lonely, obese, face like a punched doughnut, bottle-bottomed spectacle wearer, baker Diggory Compton. She found love with slack-jawed, overweight, face like a Yorkshire pudding, ignoramus, car mechanic Tyrone Dobbs and has lost her love handles just for him.
Last year's Corrie workout babe was Vicky Entwistle who plays wasp-chewing, face like a bag of spanners, voice like chalk scraping a blackboard, seamstress Janice Battersby.
Next year's Corrie workout babe, according to the missus, is likely to be Jennie McAlpine who plays Fizz Brown. I like Fizz and won't hear a word said against her.
The name Vicky Binns just happens to be a combination of two high street off licences, Victoria Wines and Oddbins. Molly Compton happens to be one of the least alchoholic Corrie characters. Vicky is missing an opportunity.
Back at work on Wednesday after our lovely long break and people are saying they were bored at home, desperately missing routine and a reason for getting up in the morning, glad to be back in the office.
How will they cope when it's time to retire? Are we going to have future generations of working 65 plussers, unwilling to get off the treadmill, drawing their pensions and their salaries, accumulating more and more wealth until they're unable to leave their homes?
What is this work ethic bollocks and who's the tosspot who invented it?
We dispensed with tradition last night. Tradition dictates we watch Hootenanny and shout expletives. But I just wasn't up for it last night. I couldn't bring myself to swear at Macca. Not after the year he's had.
Then they counted down from ten to one. We opened the front door to watch the fireworks as the breezy bollocked Scots Guards played Auld Lang Syne. All we could see was some badly dancing middle aged swingers in the window of the house across the road seemingly beckoning us to join them in their new year shenanigans. Well that's what it looked like in our inebriated state, so we shut the door pretty sharpish.
Most of the evening was spent watching The (100) Most Annoying People Of The Year 2007 on BBC3. I'd heard of most of them and most of them did annoy me. Three snippets of information I missed last year include...
1. The revelation that Mick Jagger used to get bees to sting him to enlarge his manhood.
2. The revelation that Bryan Ferry is an aficionado of Nazi style.
3. The revelation that former professional Christian athlete Jonathan Edwards had a crisis of faith and resigned from Songs Of Praise. I didn't know he had presented it in the first place!
My new year's resolution is to keep up with the news that matters.
I go to the bar to order a round. The CD starts again - All Day And All Of The Night. The young barman asks his co-worker if this is The Kinks. She doesn't know. He looks at me. "Yes," I say, "it is The Kinks".
"It's not You Really Got Me, is it?" he says.
"No."
"I like that one. It sounds similar. I like The Kinks."
"Me too," I say. I've always liked the Beatles and Stones but only really liked The Kinks for the past few years."
"I'm a DJ, you know. 60s, 70s and 80s. I DJ'd here on Christmas Eve. Were you here?"
"No."
"I love the 60s stuff. Specially the Beach Boys. I love the Beach Boys."
"Pet Sounds?"
"Sorry?"
"Pet Sounds. It's a Beach Boys album. God Only Knows?"
"?"
"God Only Knows. It's a song on Pet Sounds."
"I like I Get Around."
"Yeah, their earlier stuff is good, too."
My music history lesson over, I pay for the drinks. I go back to our table and continue to talk Jupitus.
The new groups are not concerned With what there is to be learned They got Burton suits, ha you think it's funny Turning rebellion into money
The song White Man In Hammersmith Palais demonstrates Joe Strummer's disappointment with black youth preferring pop reggae over roots consciousness. Joe wanted a black and white revolution, to a soundtrack of serious music. He didn't get it. The white punks were more interested in showing off their fashionable clothes.
How on earth did we lose the Hammersmith Palais? One of London's most "iconic" live music venues? Now an office/live coffee complex! Oh dear.
Phill Jupitus (him again for fuck's sake) is apoplectic with rage that it became the home of School Disco, Le Palais' reliance on the silly mainstream as opposed to the cutting edge of Jupitus music bringing about its downfall. If only it were still open, Jupitus could have performed Wake Up And Make Love With Me with the aging Blockheads. Imagine Jupitus singing "I come awake, with the gift for womankind, you're still asleep, but that gift don't seem to mind." to an audience of portly middle aged men. What a mindbogglingly revolting image!
I shocked myself by agreeing with something Robert Elms said. His parents met at the Palais at a dance. A lot of London's couples did meet there. He said School Disco was performing the same function in the 90s and noughties, though not just Elms's beloved "West Londoners". How many couples met at a Pogues or Cramps gig in the 80s? I never saw anybody copping off.
Maybe we'll see a resurgence of old fashioned dance music, inspired by Strictly Come Dancing and we'll need venues like the old Palais again, with its dance floor and its stage in the middle, not at the end. What we won't see is a new punk or a new Two Tone. The mid 70s to mid 80s have gone forever and a Mick Jones/Tony James tired punk rehash won't see us through the future. Tribute bands and original bands with over the hill surviving members do not a vibrant live scene make.
Your time is dead, Phill. Face up to it.
Geoff ("danced"* at the Hammersmith Palais in the 80s)
* no you fucking didn't, you stood still as a corpse!
Well, no, not really. I'm not getting drunk, I'm having just enough to make me fall asleep in front of the telly between midnight and 1 a.m. The same as I have at all other weekends of the year.
Each year I think I'm going to try a new drink. This year's was Gin and Dubonnet, the favourite tipple of our current monarch and her deceased mother. The problem is, when would I drink it? I'm not one for aperatifs as I don't have a sit down meal where I have to make small talk with people I have little in common with. Because that is the raison d'etre of an aperatif, isn't it?
So no new drink for me this year. Oh, apart from the port I've bought for Christmas morning, bringing back happy memories of my first alcoholic drinks, the Christmas port and lemons, no stronger than a weak shandy or snowball but nicer than both.
Our Sky+ box is taking one hell of a hammering at the moment. It's 50% free but that won't last for long, there's just so much on! I've recorded all the MR James stuff, knowing we watched most of them last year but not remembering which ones. We've just finished the BBC's entertaining new version of Oliver Twist, mourning the death of Fagin's crow at the hands of the Peelers and sniggering every time we saw the name of the actor who played Bill Sykes. Tom Hardy in a production of Dickens! English teachers all over the land will be wetting themselves.
Tomorrow we will turn the computer on and read any blogs that are active. We will toast you all with a glass of port. We will cook our salmon and steamed potatoes and carrots and green beans. We will microwave our individual Christmas puddings. We will sit down in front of Top of the Pops. We will think of all the suffering in the world, and we will remember...
I've been tagged by Glenda. Thank you, Glenda. This is the first time I've been tagged in 25 years of blogging. It's a Christmas questionnaire. So it's probably best if I do it now while you're all still around. You are still around, aren't you?
When people say "Christmas" you immediately think...
My old nan sat two feet away from the telly in front of the Queen's speech, the volume turned up to maximum.
This Week A man and a woman are watching tv. There is a break in the programme. The channel shows the trailer for The Motorcycle Diaries which is on over Christmas. The man says to the woman, "What kind of weirdo is going to watch that?"
Last Week We are looking through the Christmas terrestrial tv schedules at work. TV Quick or something similar. The others are ticking off all their favourite shows. I'm getting depressed. I say, "The only thing I can see that might be worth watching, apart from Corrie, is that." I point.
Last Christmas, I lent you my car But the very next day, you drove it away In tears, you couldn't get it in gear You were picked up by the Specials
Once spliffed out and twice high You kept your distance behind the Hyundai Tell me baby, do you recognise me? After all that gear it doesn't surprise me
(Happy Christmas!) I wrapped it up and sent it With a note saying "SMOKE LESS WEED", I meant it Now I know what a fool I've been But if you're doped up now I know you'll be doped up again
Last Christmas, I lent you my car But the very next day, you drove it away In tears, you couldn't get it in gear You were picked up by the Specials
A crowded room, friends with tired eyes I'm hiding from you and your ganja vice My God, I thought you were someone to rely on Me? I guess I was a shoulder to cry on A face on a lover, mary jane in his head Under the covers, you were smoking it in bed! Oooh Oooh Now I've found a clean love you'll never fool me again
Last Christmas, I lent you my car But the very next day, you drove it away In tears, you couldn't get it in gear You were picked up by the Specials
The Guardian were yesterday creaming their pants over the appointment of Fabio Capello as England manager. He likes Visconti and Fellini. Mozart, Bach and Ella Fitzgerald. Kandinsky, Mondrian and Klee. He appreciates fine wines, is an adventurous gourmet and visits La Scala when he can. His politics have moved over the years from socialism to rich capitalism, though he still has respect for trade unions.
A picture is painted of a man who will never be friends with John Terry. Unless Terry goes down the Tony Adams route of alcoholism, hitting rock bottom and rebuilding his life by writing poetry. This will not happen while Terry is at the top of his game and in the England team.
I am optimistic about Capello. Although he is a tv pundit in Italy, he is quoted as saying he doesn't like watching football on the box. There are too many close-ups, you cannot see what's happening all over the pitch. Capello sees the bigger picture and no one individual is more important than the team. Capello won't have his favourites. He won't play Lampard and Gerrard together in the centre in a 4-4-2 because they're supposedly the best two English central midfielders. Capello's football is built on defence. Lampard and Gerrard cannot defend to save their lives. Capello will upset some egos.
I'm looking forward to the next few years watching England. The big-headed players and the WAGS can all fuck off. No more Flash Harrys, no more prima donnas.
There's a famous quote, fuck knows where from, that men think about sex every seven seconds. It's a load of bollocks, of course. But what about women?
Girl With A High Sex Drive says, "Every seven seconds? What about the other six?"
Jesus Christ, that's scary. That's getting into Michael Douglas territory.
As far as I know, this is the first UK tv programme about blogging. Of course they concentrate on the naughty naughty naughty sex blogs written by women, with nice soft focus pictures of young thin women with small pert tits sitting bolt upright in front of their sexy laptops wearing nothing but knickers and stockings. What a load of shit!
Girl With A High Sex Drive is quoted as obtaining 100,000 readers a month after her first six months of blogging. After eighteen months it was a quarter of a million a month. By her second anniversary it was two and a half million!
This, of course, is bollocks, too.
If I counted all searches for Beverley Callard's breasts on this blog as "readers", I'd be deluding myself something rotten. I think Girl may just have had a few more rude searches than me.
They say there's a blog created every second. There are 343563677468575786789096 million blogs active on the internet at any one time. Good ones, boring ones, funny ones, excruciating ones. There's an interesting documentary or two to be made about this phenomenon.
Last night I wrote my Christmas cards. I have three married cousins I send them to. They all have children.
The three sets of kids are known to me as...
1. & Thomas 2. & Boys 3. & Family
I'm sure Thomas wants to be known as "Tom" or at least "Tommy" by now. "Boys" are growing up, too, old enough to read and wondering why this "Geoff" person doesn't know their names. "Family" are feeling even more put out as this "Geoff" twat doesn't even know how many of them there are, let alone what sex they may be.
It's too much of an effort to ask any questions. I'll just have to make notes when we receive cards from them. Get it right next year.
The current singles chart is full of Christmas songs old and, er, old. Mariah Carey's warbler All I Want For Christmas Is You is the ladies' choice to download. The Pogues are chasing Mariah's ample behind, pissed as newts. Roy Wood is dangling his luxurious split-ended hair over her barely covered tits. Band Aid are sticking plasters on her scuffed heels. Slade are taking it in manly turns to lift her off the dance floor. A be-jumpered Shakin' Stevens is tinkling sleigh bells with Andy Williams in the background.
But enough of my fantasy!
It gets me thinking. I need some more Christmas songs in my collection.
I mean, I love Phil Spector's album. By all rights it should be shooting up the charts. But I need more. If only I had the all time classic Christmas album in my collection.
I used to. White vinyl, just like snow. December 1981. A great time to be young, dumb and full of Christmas spirit.
What a great album! Cristina, Suicide, Was (Not Was), Material, James White. August Darnell (Kid Creole before he was shit). You'll all know The Waitresses' Christmas Wrapping, of course.
And then in the late eighties, I moved. I gave away my records as they weren't the future. But every Christmas from then on I've wanted my Ze album back.
So I look on Amazon, and there it is. Re-released on CD in 2004. Why didn't I see it before?
So this is my Christmas present to myself. It won't arrive 'til after the big day. But I'll play it in my head this year.
Things fall apart but they never leave my heart Good Morning Midnight: it's Christmas...
1. Elvis, The Bear Formerly Known As Mohammed, is to co-star in the new Ray Winstone vehicle, The Play School Massacre. Elvis will play Little Ted, the vicious sidekick to Winstone's East End gangster godfather, Brian "Fackin" Cant. Elvis says of the role, "It is a departure for me, a new beginning. Impersonating the Prophet was fun at the time, but looking back I think my actions were immature in the extreme. I'm just loooking forward to playing alongside some of the greatest English actors of our generation. It is a dream come true to work with Ray."
2. Knut the polar bear, who celebrated his first birthday this week at Berlin Zoo, has announced that he is in the running to appear as Iorek Byrnison in the follow up to The Golden Compass, the film based on the first of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials novels. Knut says of his ambitions, "I think I can do it. I come from a showbusiness family, so you could say it's in the blood. I'm very gentle around humans but can play rough when required. I know I've got to lose some weight but the good people at Berlin have recently put me on a diet and I should be in my optimum condition in a matter of a few months. I really see Hollywood as a possibility. There have been rumours that I will be relocating to London Zoo in the near future, but I would refute these most strongly. I've had a taste of stardom and I've liked what I've experienced, but now I'd like a bit of a challenge to go with it. I am 100% certain my future lies on screen"
Our annual local restaurant family meal occurred on Sunday. We were celebrating our mum's 76th. My sister was also celebrating the fact that, for the second year running, she won't have to spend Christmas Day in my miserable company. She's off to Whistler where there's going to be 75 metres of snow over Christmas. Or something like that. A Whistler's mother of a snowfall.
The Chinese restaurant was absolutely packed, mainly populated by friends and family of the man with the big badge which stated it was his sixtieth birthday.
"He's not sixty!" exclaimed my mum in a loud voice. "He's seventy if he's a day!"
I ate and drank too much and Monday at work was spent feeling a bit nauseous. The longer the day went on the more I realised the two weren't necessarily connected.
"There's a 24 hour sickness bug going round," I was told.
I'm very open to persuasion when it comes to illnesses. I went straight to the chemists after work. I needed some travel sickness pills to combat the discomfort.
"Hello, Geoff!" said the assistant in a very friendly manner.
I don't know her and she doesn't know me as far as I know. But ever since she started working at the chemists she's greeted me in the same way. I'm beginning to think maybe she does know me. The only place I can think she knows me from is primary school. But I can't tell her age. She might be ten years younger than me. I can't ask her if she knows me from primary school. My date of birth is on my repeat prescription. I could receive a slap in the face.
"You're almost 46, Geoff! You were doing your Eleven-Plus when I was born, you cheeky sod!"
"Well how do you know me?"
She's not over-familiar with the other customers. She must know me from primary school.
She's not the girl who gave me a Chinese burn and made me cry, is she? If she is, that's bit of a turnaround. The little bitch who dished out unwarranted punishment is now handing out stuff to make people feel better.
I'm a needy blogger. I leave comments, not only in the hope of the "LOL, I snorted cocaine all over my monitor" type response, but also in the hope that I will get comments back from that person on my own blog. What a needy bastard!
Most of us are the same. But there are some who don't go pimping their blogs to all and sundry. And some of these are bloody good, too. The following are my favourites. Think of it as Geoff's own Guardian Guide, only better than the stuff The Guide recommends...
Beyond The Implode I read, but I never comment. Betty reads but she never comments. We're a bit scared.
This is me "On The Road", one weekend in The Midlands about twelve years ago. Betty dressed me up as a hep cat. Didn't I look cool, daddio?
Those were weekends literally On The Road, mainly the M25, M1 and M6. Drives across Cannock Chase, through Alpine glades and past B&Qs. Walks in the countryside in the daytime, eating in curry houses and drinking in pubs in the evenings. Followed by a Sunday afternoon drive home, perked up by a pot of coffee at Northampton's premier service station.
Now the furthest I usually drive at weekends is to ASDA, a five minute drive away. If I feel tired, which I inevitably do in the late afternoon, I have a kip. I have less energy but I need less.
No longer a hep cat. More an old, comfortable moggie.
