Rub a Dub

We are off to the local on Saturday to meet some old friends.

The local used to be a bikers' pub.



Now you're more likely to see golfers.



When we were regulars, a Lloyd Cole lookalike was, too.



Joining him in misery was his girlfriend, a Hazel O'Connor lookalike.



Last time we were there, a topless man was being thrown out just as we made our entrance.



But the pub's in the Good Beer Guide now. So we're expecting a more refined clientele.



Cheers!

Martyn Shivers

Murph's post about serendipity and how it's preferable to WOMAD old Peter Gabriel advising us on what we should be listening to made me think: what if I were looking for a new artist to listen to based on what I am currently listening to? I am currently listening to John Martyn.

I'd never sat down and listened to John Martyn until I saw his fantastic performance on the Old Grey Whistle test programme last month. Someone who I'd previously dismissed as an old folkie suddenly became essential. In the same way that I used to assume Elliott Smith was just another shit Americana bollocks artist when in fact he is not Americana at all, John Martyn is not really folk.

So I'm listeninng to John Martyn. Now what else might I like?

Let's consult bloggers' favourite music site, last.fm. Come on, last, give me something new.

On their similar artists' list (based on overall listening habits) there is a 100% chance I will like Fairport Convention. I don't actually mind them so I'll give them that one. But they're not new to me.

Mmm...Bert Jansch 99%, Roy Harper 94%. Maybe I should be growing a beard after all. Maybe I ought to give these folkies a chance. Let's go down the list a little...

Joni Mitchell 78%, Neil Young 72%. Yes, I love them. But they're not new to me.

Paul Weller 61%, John & Beverley Martyn 57%.

Eh? Come on, people. If you've got some John Martyn albums you've gotta get the classic ones he made with his ex-wife. And stop bloody listening to that prick Weller.

last.fm looks pretty good to me. You can sample songs by any artist you like the look of. You can network with other music fans. I would have loved this 20 years ago. 20 years ago we went on our own, we stood on our own, we left on our own. And our bedrooms were not places to socialise.

But this similar artists section really is a load of old guff. If I were to connect John Martyn with anyone in my record collection it would be Arthur Russell and possibly Massive Attack (since they seem to have got their whole sound from John's album One World). They're nowhere on the list. Maybe I'm just too way out. Maybe I should put Arthur Russell into the similar artists search.

That's better. It's alright, I feel like I'm amongst friends now. They're probably all intellectuals, but at least they're not all middle aged beardies.

Mine's a pint of Old Peculiar.

Asparagus Syndrome

I try to get my five a day. A glass of pineapple juice, muesli with dried fruits, an apple, a large portion of peas or broad beans or soya beans. I think I just about make five portions of fruit & veg a day. I should live to be 90.

(By the way - did you know it doesn't matter how many glasses of fruit juice you drink a day, they only add up to one portion so you can't just gorge yourselves on orange juice, you lazy people).

Sainsbury's are helping us all reach our goal. When you spend £20 there you get a lucky coupon which tells you if you've won some free fruit or veg. So far we've won a carton of apple juice which we don't drink and two packs of fresh asparagus.

I was delighted to find the asparagus at two packs for £3. I took the two packs to the checkout with two bottles of bleach. I managed to pay £3 for the asparagus less £3.98 in asparagus vouchers, making a profit of 98p! 32p for two bottles of bleach and two packs of asparagus! Fantastic!

What I didn't realise is that after eating the asparagus, you need to use the bleach every time you go for a piss. Because fresh asparagus eaten in the quantity suggested by the government makes your piss extremely stinky. I almost passed out from the smell. As I was taking my post-asparagus piss, I wasn't thinking about all the good it was doing me with its vitamin c and its folic acid, I was thinking "how am I going to get through the next 20 seconds when the smell of my own piss is killing me?"

I should have known better. The following is a photo of the actress Sarah Miles, clearly dead after drinking a pint of her own asparagus laced piss. Her suffering is over now.

Soul Britannia (Twinned with Betty's 300th Post, *Yay*)

Count Suckle had all the best records, imported from the States and Jamaica. But where to play them?

The owners of the dance halls wouldn't rent them out to the Caribbean community so the only alternative was house parties.

The trouble with house parties is that they create noise which creates a natural antagonistic reaction from the neighbours who call the police who confiscate the sound systems.

And of course there's the perfectly natural reaction from teddy boys and other stupid white boys who disrupt the house parties by throwing petrol bombs and chanting "Burn the niggers! Kill the niggers!" and "Go back to your own country!"

This was the start of the first of the Notting Hill race riots in 1958.

Later in the programme we get working class white youth culture expert Robert Elms summing up the whole era:-

"I think for me mod is the core idea behind the whole youth culture caper, and between that extraordinary relationship between the music of black America and the lifestyles of working class England. I mean, mods are predated by teddy boys and the teddy boys are great, but the teddy boys wanted to stay in their place, they were very kind of brown ale and down the pub on a Friday night and 'gawd blimey' and they were right wing and they were all of these things..."

Yes, Bob. They were all of these things. They were racist cunts and they were gawd blimey and they were GREAT. They were GREAT because they were a smartly dressed youth culture, weren't they? Part of the youth culture caper, all the japes and fun of flick knives and petrol bombs. Oh what a jolly band of boys!

It's all a bit of fun isn't it, Bob?

Me and The Salesman: A Fantasy

I tell the salesman, "Last time we ordered one we had our old one with a company called A. The salesman said A were in the process of being taken over by a larger company and he himself was in the process of moving to a different company, B, and would we like to buy B's product? I thought that was a bit sneaky so neither A nor B got our business and we used C."

"Was it Harry W?" asks the salesman.

"Yes. Do you know him?"

"We took over A," he says. "Harry did leave for B but he was back with us within a year. He's not on the road any more, he's working in the office now, somewhere more suitable for a man of his experience. Lovely man, Harry. One of the best. Old school."

"No he wasn't," I say. "He was a smarmy creep just like you are, just like most salesmen I've had the displeasure to do business with. In fact, if I was writing Death of a Salesman, the death would involve horrific bollock-crunching torture. I'd like to see the salesman smarm his way out of that one."

Street Life

We've had Andy Whyment from the Royle Family recreating his dim-witted character in Corrie.

Now it seems we've got Rodney Litchfield from Early Doors, sitting in the pub by himself, a miserable old bastard who never buys a round.

Corrie are nicking the best characters from the great Craig Cash comedies. Which makes me happy as you can't really see them acting like lunatics and getting involved in ridiculous murder storylines. No, they'll keep Corrie light-hearted.

In last night's episode, Street lothario Dev tried to get off with Rodney's granddaughter by buying her a drink, not realising the drink was for her grandfather.

"Thanks for the drink, chief," said the old man as he left the Rovers.

"Is he being racist?" asked Dev of the granddaughter.

"He calls everyone 'chief'" she replied. "Besides, I think he can tell the difference between people with roots in the Indian subcontinent and native Americans." (or words to that effect).

Eh? Is this in response to the Big Brother furore? It's one of those lines you get in Corrie now and then where the scriptwriter is being clever but not really making much sense.

There are no racists in Corrie. Plenty of murderers, but no racists. There are people of different colours and backgrounds just getting on with life, drinking a hell of a lot, and falling in and out of love. Maybe less realistic than Big Brother but a damn sight more entertaining and with more lovable characters.

Can we just vote Janice Battersby out of the Street for good?

Please?

If A Picture Paints A Thousand Words...

Christ, I was looking rough this morning.


"Come on, Betty," I said. "Take my photo, quick. Let's put some colour back into my cheeks."

There was a large explosion.

Et voila!.....

This is in place of the ninety-five year old Geoff I was going to post from this site which doesn't work for me.

C'est la vie!

The New Harry Potter

You don't mind if we watch Big Brother?

No.

We're recording Five Days.

So are we.

So slow, isn't it?

We've only seen the first three quarters of an hour. Seems alright. The brother of the actress who was in my play is in it.

The play "wot you wrote"...Eric.

Ernie.

Who does he play? This brother.

The young policeman.

Is there a young policeman?...Did his sister do anything after your play?

I suppose so. I thought I saw her in an advert. The actor who was going to but didn't play the main part in my play ended up in The Bill. He was a central character in The Bill. Another actor on the course was in Eastenders for a bit. I keep looking out for them. It's such a long time ago, I'm not sure I'd recognise them now.

You ought to write a book. You always were good with words. You could give up work, sit at home doing nothing all day. That's what you'd like to do, isn't it? You could create the new Harry Potter. Become a multimillionaire.

No, I couldn't.

Why not? She's done well for herself.

I can't write prose. Only dialogue. And I'm no good with stories.

You don't mind me turning the telly up?

I Am...

...mortified I can't find Toby Anstis' blog.

He asked me before lunch, "Why not read my blog?"

Now he's off air and I miss him so much.

I've just read all your new blog postings and, feeling a bit slow today, I couldn't think of one single comment to make.

I can think of plenty to say to Toby, if only I knew what he was blogging about.

Can anybody help me and find Toby's blog?

Oh where oh where is Toby's blog?
I feel I'm in an awful fog
Or in a desert, perhaps the Gobi
Without the one and only Toby

Anyone For Tennis?

Their 4x4 was written off by a falling tree in last week's high winds. Good for the tree, I say, taking one of the bastards with it.

Unfortunately, when it comes to motor insurance, this is not an Act Of God, and they can choose a new £25,000 monster.

Also, luckily for them, there's a brand new 4x4 out. The queue to test drive one is predictably long.

In a year in which we are not going to fly, reducing our carbon footprint to the size of a sparrow's, it's heartwarming to discover that other members of my extended family are doing their best to help with the destruction of the planet. I totally despair of the selfish human race as I look at my smug face in the mirror.


*******

Yesterday was spent re-evaluating our CD collection. Which meant bringing down all the 80s, 90s, and early noughties CDs I'd stuffed in the loft a few years back and bringing some back down into the listening fold.

I tend to have manic purges now and then and throw the babies out with the bathwater. Betty is more sensible (if it wasn't for her I'd have got rid of half the contents of the house by now).

So welcome back Moby, Madonna, Jake Slazenger, Manic Street Preachers, Radiohead, Mad Professor, Tricky, and Fairport Convention. All that Britpop shit went straight back into the loft however, to have their own Britpop party with Elvis Costello and Nick Cave brooding in the corner.

Dismissing Jake Slazenger? What was I thinking of?

Modern Day Heroes Part One

Russell Brand, zombie version of George Roundy, Warren Beatty's character in Shampoo.






You love him or you hate him.

I used to hate him, now I love him. Not for his humour but because he's always there and I just happen to like it that way. I don't need to watch him, it's just good to know he's there. He's a thoroughly nice bloke with "wanker" written all over him. But don't worry, he knows it. And anybody who's been called a cunt by Sir Bob Geldof is alright by me.

Saw Shampoo, the film, last week for the first time. Still don't fancy going back in a time machine to late 60s California. Still happy I've never taken drugs.

The film ends with the old rich man getting Julie Christie. As if that sort of thing happens in real life!

The Devil & Daniel Johnston

It could have been so different if I'd discovered Daniel Johnston in the eighties. I would have been over him by now. I would have loved him for a few years then dropped him from my listening schedule.

My eighties fixation with American indie music has long gone. I didn't hear him at the time. And that time has gone.

I'm not over him. I'm discovering him for the first time. And Christ, do I feel for him.

Not only manic depressive in the extreme, with all the horrible delusions that go with it, he was, in addition, born into a very religious family. The poor sod never had a chance.

His whole life seems to be either filmed or on a cassette tape. And that's really freaky.

There are his freaky cartoons, too. And of course his songs obsessing about a teenage girl he once knew. When I say obsessing, I mean obsessing. He can't leave her to the past.

Satan is never absent from either his songs or his art.

His songs have been covered by the great and good of indie rock. They probably sound clearer and more professional than Daniel's versions but no way could the stars put as much real feeling into the songs. Daniel hurts so much it's painful to listen. Since his teens he's needed buckets of medication to keep him from doing something stupid. But being the real deal, he's skipped his medication in order to perform his songs the way he's wanted to: honestly and with full raw emotion.

It's too much for me. I'm quite happy with false emotion and singers just singing the songs, not baring their haunted souls. OK, there are a lot of suicides in my music collection but they all seem to be holding things together on the recordings. Please tell me they are. I couldn't bear it if they're cracking up.

The film ends with Daniel out of the mental home, living with his elderly parents. He so wanted to become famous to be able to afford to make his parents' lives comfortable in their dotage. They end up caring for him, 24 hours a day.

They won't be able to do it for much longer. They are running out of time.

Junior Mastermind

Name: Jonathan Witsaboutim

Location: Swotsville

Subject: Green Day



Green Day? Green fucking Day?

Dad, why do you have to foist your taste in music on the poor sod? And then get him to memorise every single thing about that shitty so-called "punk" band?

Ooh, you big rebel, Dad. Green Day on Junior Mastermind!

Sorry Dad, these are the tossers who closed the coffin lid on Top of the Pops. Them and the Red Hot fucking Chilli Peppers, with their interminable live sets. Music for middle aged men with no concept of a pop tune. How in God's name is your son ever going to find himself a girlfriend if he's obsessed with Green chuffing Day at the age of 10? You've ruined him, Dad.

Letter To The Sun Newspaper

Dear Editor

I am afraid I cannot summon up any "revulsion over another botched hanging", a feeling which you say is "worldwide".

Iraq is still a long way from becoming a peaceful democracy with civilised executions.

However, the more people who are executed by hanging, the more experienced the practitioners will become, and the more expertly the job will be done. There is nothing more morally uplifting than a perfect execution, performed with grace and humility, allowing a dignified end to life.

Messrs Bush and Blair have started the democratic ball rolling. It is up to the Iraqi people to run with it so that they too can one day have a capital punishment system to be proud of.

R Dean Taylor Day

It's R Dean Taylor Day today here on Contains Mild Peril.

Here's a bearded loon on the run from Threshers in the video of Indiana Wants Me. Scruffy git deserves all he gets if you ask me.

And here's a snatch of the ex President and First Lady of Northern Soulah, Mr & Mrs Smith, before she left him for boily necked working class wannabe, Nigel Kennedy.

Come on, this'll only take five minutes of your time.


If you haven't got it, BUY THIS ALBUM.

The Generation Game

She STILL looks 61. Have a guess how old she is.

47?

She's 48. She's had everything done. Botox everywhere. She still looks 61.

She must have had a hard life.

She was a smoker.

Don't you find these programmes depressing?

Not really. I like to see how other people live.

I had to sit through bloody Deal Or No Deal all Christmas Day. Now it's this rubbish. It's all so depressing.

I'll turn it off then. I'm recording it anyway. I'll watch it tomorrow.......Ron's finished his book. You can borrow it if you like. Do you like Fred Dibnah?

Wasn't he on Mastermind?

No. That was Fred Housego. Fred Dibnah's the bloke who steeplejacked. Dead now.

No thanks. Not really my kind of thing.

It's good, isn't it Ron?

Brass Buttons

To help get Betty in the mood for her project, yesterday I ordered a Nudie suit from the hire shop.





They've only gone and sent me a Noddy suit.

Hotel California: LA from the Byrds to the Eagles - A Short Precis (Laurel Canyon For Beginners)

Woodstock was the apex of peace 'n' love hippiedom.

The Manson Murders* and Altamont shot the 60s clean outta the sky.

Cannabis was the drug for peace 'n' love 'n' sharing, maaaaan.

Cocaine was the drug for selfishness and cynicism.

Whatever was goin' on, David Crosby was at its centre, tubily naked in the hot tub with small breasted women.




*The headline on some American magazine at the time called Charles Manson "The most dangerous man in the world."

Were they being ironic, or just up their own arses?

Later Vs Whistle Test

Just compare, not the performances or the songs, but the way these two perfomances are broadcast...

Here's Spiritualized on Later With Jools with their classic song, Broken Heart.


And here's Roxy Music on the Old Grey Whistle Test with their classic song, Ladytron.




On the Story Of The Old Grey Whistle Test, Jools is quoted as saying his show is the grandchild of Whistle Test.

Of course he's wrong. They're like chalk and cheese.

Whistle Test is so much more intimate. The tv viewer is not being patronised. There is no ego about the presenter. Bob Harris is in the studio but in the dark, an unobtrusive presence. He hasn't got a piano right there in the middle of the studio saying "THIS IS MY SHOW". He lets the music speak for itself.

And a Whistle Test performance is not a LIVE performance in front of a LIVE studio audience. There is no audience. The band are playing as if in a real recording studio. And that's what makes this kind of tv so much more exciting. You feel like you really are a fly on the wall, just you, watching the band create. You're not being told you're part of a big live audience and that THIS IS HOW LIVE MUSIC IS.

I don't care if not all the Whistle Test performers were playing everything live. Whether they were playing to a backing track. So what? That's what happens in studios. It's what it looks and sounds like is what matters.

Sorry Jools, but I'd rather see Jason Pierce in a small studio with a few of his mates, singing to a backing track, than all the clever slow zooms and pans to backing singers and violinists, trying to give the appearance of "live" music in a cavernous space filled with idiots with free tickets who'll applaud any old shit. It just doesn't cut it on tv. If I wanted to see live music I'd go and see The Fall. And I really couldn't be bothered to see them any more.

Comfortably Numb

My tranquilisers are continuing to make sure I have sleepy train journeys to and from work.

Yesterday evening, as I awoke, I caught myself smiling. I don't usually smile on public transport. I hope this is not the start of a worrying trend.

Then again, maybe this is not the first time, but just the first time I've caught myself doing it. Maybe I always smile in my sleep and people know to steer clear of me.

If I start laughing in my sleep I may soon have the carriage to myself.


*******


My current stats are reasonable, with about 20 odd regular readers. At least I hope you're all regular. You've got to be odd.

Search engine queries that come my way have recently become more predictable, however. I've had enough of Sandi Thorn's Flour in her hair and Bev Callard's ample bosom.

The following searches are like peaches in a bowl of rotting Golden Delicious...


What is the weight of the cocaine I buy in the little bag?
Sorry I can't help you, old son. Try taking some scales along next time you see your dealer.

Nick Park middle aged spread.
Yes, I can see it's possible. But why? Was he a sex symbol as a young man? Gone to seed?

Middle class wankers dinner parties.
Are you looking to attend one? Do you really think they'd advertise themselves as wankers? Look, there they are playing that game where someone sticks your character on your forehead and you have to guess who you are.


*******


My post on the Bexleyheath rockabilly Scientologists has been found by someone in Chile. The post had been translated into Spanish.

Apparently "Four Mark Kermode lookalikes" is "Cuatro lookalikes de kumode de la marca."

Oh yeah?

Dear Mr Cameron

Dear Dave

I am most upset by the news that Big L** DJ, Mike Read has made it onto your shortlist to stand against Ken Livingstone for the job of London Mayor.

I know you are a cultured man, a fan of Radiohead and Coldplay, and a supporter of the blogging community.

I don't know if you know, but there is a statue of the great writer Oscar Wilde, just across from Charing Cross Station...



I have it on good authority that if Mr Read becomes Mayor, he is determined to replace this tribute with one of his own favourite cultural "icon"...



I am begging you, as a cultured man, Dave. Please do not let this man lead Londoners. I would even prefer Adam Rickett.


**Big L - Frinton-on-Sea's premier radio station

A Message From Jools Holland

Good evening all.

I hope you'll all be staying in tonight to watch my




HOOT




A NANNY


(GEDDIT?)


Tonight my guests are Paul Weller, Sam of Sam & Dave, Amy Winehouse, Marc Almond, Ray Lamontagne, Madeleine Peyroux, The Kooks, The Zutons, and Lily Allen. What a show it promises to be!

To earn my tiny slice of the British public's money, I will also be playing the piano in my own particular way.

I do hope you'll see in the new year with me and not fall asleep as you did the previous 14 years.


Cheers,

Jools Holland
The BBC


p.s. As a special treat, my good friend Rowland Rivron will be there to make sure the party goes with a swing. Please do not shout "cock" or "wanker" at the screen.

Eric Prydz Vs Floyd - Proper Education

This video makes my blood boil.

How can they take an absolute classic song/video and completely turn it on its head?

Roger Walters suffered at the hands of dark sarcastic teachers with their thought controlling ways.

Now kids have the upper hand in the classroom, it's all gone too far the other way and teachers cannot use capital punishment as they used to.

Mr Prydz is making a mockery of this song by showing inner city urchins running amock, probably skiving off school where they only abuse the teachers anyway, when they should be sitting quietly doing their homework.

How could Roger Walters allow this to happen? This coming after letting those ridiculous Scissor Sisters loose on his absolute masterwork, Comfortably Numb.

What a kick in the teeth to the people of Berlin!

The Sweets That Last

She must be ninety soon. We could ask her but she knows so little English and she has so little opportunity for conversation.

She's just had one cataract operated on. They're due to do the other one in a couple of months.

The routine is, we ring her door number, she answers the intercom and is supposed to let us in. But she still doesn't know she has to push the button, after ten years living there. We are let in by the staff.

She greets us at the door and we are welcomed by a small plate of fruit each, a small orange and some grapes.

Today, accompanying the fruit, are about ten Werther's Originals.

We could ask her where they're from but she knows so little English.

In the kitchen are two large family-sized packs of Werther's Originals. I deduce they are Christmas gifts from the Care Home's petty cash. I may be wrong, maybe she's developed a taste for Werther's Originals recently. Maybe her neighbours have introduced themselves by offering her a sweet or two.

They last, do Werther's Originals. Twenty of them could keep you going all day. You wouldn't need more than one meal a day for minimum sustenance. Just suck on these little buttery toffees all day and you wouldn't feel the need to communicate with anyone. Your days would just fly.

Ghost in the Machine

"You're becoming addicted, aren't you?"

"No. But I can see how people get into it. It's Noel. It would be nothing without him."

Noel Edmonds. you either hate him or love him. I know this because I can see the love in the contestants' eyes. That attractive, presumably intelligent young psychology graduate would let him clamber all over her, she loves him so much.

The fat man thinks Noel's a mate. Noel calls the contestants by their nicknames. He shortens their names to be chummy. "Nichola" becomes "Nick". Nichola loves it even though she only gets called "Nick" by her best friends. Noel's one of her best friends and in addition, is an incredibly attractive man with that glint in his eye.

The "banker" phones Noel to offer the contestant a deal. Noel's on the contestant's side. He's on all our sides. He calls the banker "Scrooge". It is Christmas, after all.

People in the audience shout things out. The sort of cheeky things that a child might shout out if allowed in the studio. Although this is a show for adults, they all seem very childlike. And for their childlike comments, Noel rewards them with a little Christmas box with some money in. He's still got that glint in his eye.

This is an adult show. The excitement of losing or winning large sums of money is blatantly sexual. A television company without vision would have chosen an obviously modern sex symbol such as Vernon Kaye to present this show. But the company knew about the millions of people who had their loins enflamed for the first time watching Swap Shop or Noel's House Party. Whole families used to come together at Christmas as Noel made the day of a terminally ill child. And would there be a thriving swinging or dogging scene today without the groundwork done by Noel's Swap Shop?

I've a feeling this is the ghost of Christmas future.

Fishy Tale Of New York

It was Christmas Eve babe
By the fish tank
An old man said to me, "look there's another one"
And then he sang a song
(He'd had some Special Brew)
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

I picked a plucky one
A tiny, darting one
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So Happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

They've got koi big as cod
They've got julies of gold
But they're all young and pretty
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand
On a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me
Guppies were waiting for me

You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of New York city
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more
Bublé was swinging,
All the fish they were swimming
We kissed by the tetras
Then danced through the night

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing Galway Bay
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas Day

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you faggot
Those cheap lousy maggots!
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing Galway Bay
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas Day

I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my fish from me
When I first met you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around them

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing Galway Bay
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas Day

A Verse For Christmas

When I was a young blogger I was very naive and thought people would be interested in my silly little poems about pop stars. Poems such as this one about Chris Evans' fantasy shag and lead singer of one of the worst bands of all time, Texas...



Oh Sharleen Spiteri...
Do you eat dairy?
Your complexion is four out of four.

Your smooth creamy skin
Is packing 'em in,
But your middle aged pop is a bore.


This was before I realised you had to network in order to be a big blogging star. The muse, however, hasn't left me. And yesterday I was inspired by hearing a song on my least favourite radio station, Heart 106.2.

I hope you enjoy it, though experience says you won't...





When Crosby sings White Christmas
He sings it with such class
When Michael Bublé does the same
I just think "silly arse"

Bing can almost fill me up
With happy Christmas cheer
Bublé brings me to despise
This rotten time of year

I have no need of presents
I'll be content with nothing
But Bublé's gob filled to the brim
With sage and onion stuffing

The Christmas Number One

I've never seen X Factor but my eyewitness for the final tells me it was fixed.

The song they chose to be the single was not a man's song. It was a woman's song, a Mariah Carey/Whitney Houston type warbler.

Ray, the 18 year old Robbie Williams wannabe, couldn't really do it justice. You felt a bit sorry for him, trying to hit the high notes, his bollocks not allowing him to.

Ray was good, very good, but he's got bollocks and was therefore at a disadvantage.

Maybe they should have chopped them off, shaved them, and fed them to the judges, brought a bit of I'm A Celebrity type entertainment to the proceedings.

Ratings (and Ray's voice) would have soared.

Radio Times

I'm too honest for my own good.

On Tuesday I had an email from a BBC Radio 4 researcher. He said how much he enjoyed my dream blog. He asked me if they were authentic dreams.

I couldn't tell a lie. I got back to him admitting they were made up. I didn't hear from him again.

If any of you listen to Radio 4, I would be most grateful if you would let me know of any programmes in the future about people who actually have dreams that are funnier than the comedy cack** they usually churn out.

Also I would be grateful if you'd tell me if they replace Thought For The Day with Geoff's Dreams.



** admittedly I only hear previews of such cack just before the morning news at 6.30 a.m.

Xmas Book Preview

We get a few books at Christmas. We get to choose the ones we want. I look in the ‘Religious’ section.

I see AN Wilson’s biography of Jesus Christ.

“Jesus!” I say.

“Are you alright?” asks a concerned colleague.

I surreptitiously take Jesus and the Andy Summers autobiography. I want to compare and contrast.

One thought he was God’s gift to the world. The other was in a band with a man who thinks he’s God’s gift.

Jesus/Sting. Crucifixion/Tantric sex. Both bolt upright for hours.

Who suffered more? Jesus on the cross or Sting on the job?



It’s Christmas so I’m reading Jesus first.

45

45 today. A quiet day, busy at work, no time to reflect or look forward.

I'll read some blogs at dinnertime. And tonight I'll watch telly and drink wine with my favourite human being of all time.



Christ, isn't my diary boring and twee?

On A Happier Note

A big hand, in fact several big hands, for Royal horse Neddy, who has been named Horse Personality Of The Year by viewers of BBC's One Gel And Her Horse, the primetime Saturday afternoon Royal Horse show on digital channel BBC Royalty.

Neddy, who is owned by the niece of the Prince Of Wales and named after his favourite wireless comedy character, received 100% of the 13 votes submitted by viewers pressing the red button.

Well done Neddy!

Quotes of the Year 2006

Overheard on the train: a young lady speaking to a friend on her mobile phone about why she is changing gyms...


"I go there to work out, to de-stress, not to get stressed out by some fucking weirdo looking at me."

Classified Results

Beatles 10, Stones 7

Lentil Soup 10, Leek & Potato Soup 2

Christmas 0, Birthday 4

Roeder 1, Pardew 2

Bergman 10, Almodovar 6

Antiperspirant 0, Trust Deodorant 8

Curb Your Enthusiasm 10, Lead Balloon 0

Paolo Nutini 0, Amy Winehouse 0

Ghent 8, Bruges 8

Ashes 0, Champions' League 0

Harvester 3, Victorian Restaurant 1


One score draw, two no-score draws.
Possible jackpot.

Post Post

Since Royal Mail's reorganisation earlier in the year, we never know when our post is going to be delivered. Depending upon the levels of staff sickness and/or holiday leave, it could be any time between 8.15 a.m. and 1.00 p.m.

I spot a postal van outside my office window at 11.45 a.m. I go out to investigate.

A postal worker is waiting by the side of the road. I ask her if they have our post. She says yes, probably, but she doesn't know where the van driver is so she can't deliver it yet.

I relay this to a work colleague.

She says there was a Royal Mail delivery driver in her home town, a very intelligent good looking man, who one day stopped his van in the middle of the road and walked away. He never came back.

He can still be seen walking the streets, beard down to his navel, muttering to himself.



Twenty minutes later, our post is delivered.

The Victorian Restaurant

A gentleman relaxes after a bloody good blow-out at The Victorian Restaurant...





Actually this couldn't be further from the truth.

The Victorian Restaurant perches on top of the Prince Albert Pub in Bexleyheath. It is not a Victorian restaurant at all. One look at the website and you can see it is a French restaurant…

· Experience the delights of our extensive french cuisine menu.
· Enjoy first class service in a sumptus (sic) setting.
· Sample fine wines from our large selection to a background of classical music.

As you climb the stairs from the sumptus (sic) antique brass and copper decorated Prince Albert bar, pint in hand, you’d better hold your breath to prepare yourself for something special. It’s been recommended by my stepfather’s son and my sister’s partner’s friend so you can imagine my anticipation is high. It’s two o’clock and it’s time for lunch.

We’re doing this for my mother’s birthday. We usually go to the Harvester – all the salad you can eat for free so you don’t have to order that much for the rest of your meal.

But today it’s a proper 3-course meal in a posh-for-Bexleyheath setting. The waiters and waitresses are very attentive and the menu is reassuringly expensive.

I don’t know whether it’s in my genes (my dad was a tightwad who would never eat out, never in fact have so much as a cup of tea in a café) but I have a limit on how much I spend on a meal. £15 each for food, which I think is plenty. So when I go somewhere expensive I end up going for the cheapest thing on the menu.

I know we’re not talking “expensive” expensive here, not talking Sunday supplement restaurant review sort of figures. We’re talking £6.50 for a starter, £15.95 for a main course, £3.25 for vegetables, £4.50 for dessert.

No, I will not pay thirty quid a head. I will have the set menu, thank you very much. However much it upsets my delicate constitution.

I say quietly to my mum, “On the website, they say this is a French restaurant. Although you wouldn’t have guessed it from the name.”

My mother is used to speaking to the hard of hearing.

“I CAN’T SEE ANYTHING FRENCH ON THIS MENU!”

Oh dear. The waiter looks upset.

“Madam,” he says, “This menu is 95% genuinely French. It is written in such a form so that English customers can understand it. We have a French chef. We are French. I personally have worked with Michel Roux. I have served many celebrities.”

Oh dear. This cuts no ice with me and certainly not with my mother.

“Is liver and bacon French?” she asks.

“Madam, we tried to take liver and bacon off the menu but there was such a demand for it that we had to put it on again. It is not French but it is not our choice. Some of our customers prefer British food. Can I take your order?”

“Can I have the roast beef set lunch, please.”

Refusing to order off the a la carte menu as for £30 a head I’d expect not only a good meal but enough wine to get pissed out of my head too, I order the roast lamb set lunch. After a pleasant lentil soup, thirty pieces of lamb arrive, swimming in an ocean of black gravy, accompanied by a lone unnecessary Yorkshire pudding.

“Sauce, sir?”

“Mint, please…Thank you.”

“Have some more, sir.”

“Thank you.”

The vegetables are roast potatoes, bitter yellow slices of courgette, crisp mange tout, and a creamy sickly cauliflower cheese. Basically, the sort of yucky Sunday lunch you get anywhere, but at £14.95 for three courses you can’t go wrong, can you?

The three less money-tight members of our party eat a la carte. They seem to enjoy it but it’s still far too much food for normal appetites. Fat bastards would love it here.

For dessert, I choose the lightest dish, a mango sorbet. It is refreshing but possibly does not complement the remainder of my Spitfire ale. Yes, I’m drinking beer as the wine is eighteen quid a bottle and I’m not spending that on a bottle of wine.

So almost completely sober and stuffed to the gills with too much food, I waddle home to watch the second half of the Everton v West Ham match.

It’s rubbish, we lose, and I'm certain the piece of lamb stuck between my teeth is going to cause an infection.

Bring on Christmas!

Get The Beers In

It's the most wonderful time of the year.....

This is the time of year when hard-working Geoffrey turns into a social animal. My grandmother used to say to me "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." This was during my 'O' Levels, from a woman who never had any play in her adult life.

The thing is, however much I hate work, I find it preferable to having to socialise.

The following are the highlights of Thursday and Friday lunchtimes:-

1. Thursday lunchtime in the Maple Leaf pub, a Canadian theme pub with pictures of Mounties on the walls and Molson on tap. Knowing that once I start on the red wine I won't stop, I had myself two halves of John Smiths Smooth - Britain's favourite bitter and the only one in the pub. I accompanied this with a cold BLT on soft baguette...



A couple of others in our little gang gorged themselves on this muck...



...poutine, the Canadian national dish of chips, cheese and gravy. This prompted a five minute discussion on the tastiness of chips with curry sauce. Throughout the lunch hour my digestion held up remarkably well - I know my limits, and like Ken Barlow, two halves of bitter are enough for my delicate constitution.

2. Friday lunchtime in the Porterhouse, an Irish themed designer pub. Knowing that once I start on the red wine I won't stop, I ordered myself a £3.05 pint of Porterhouse Red...



...although an "ale", not really an improvement on the John Smiths Smooth.

This was a mistake.

The only other beer drinker, a lager drinker, finished his second pint and asked me if I wanted another. Me with three quarters of a pint left.

"No thanks," I said.

"Oh go on, keep me company."

"Oh alright, I'll have a half, please."

"Go on have a pint."

And he's off to the bar to get me another pint.

I know it's going to fuck up my guts but I've got to be polite and of course I've got to buy him a pint in return when he quickly guzzles down his third pint.

If only I was a stronger personality, if I could say "no" in a firm but polite way, if only I was six foot seven and built like a brick shithouse, I'm sure my guts wouldn't suffer so much. But I'm weak and give in to peer pressure.


And Christmas hasn't even started yet. These two outings were to celebrate a birthday and a leaving-work. Tomorrow we celebrate my mum's 75th at The Victorian Restaurant. What is Victorian food? Betty has mentioned greengages. Will it involve offal, hearts and kidneys? I know one thing's for sure. I'm going to suffer.

Hallelujah

It’s someone’s birthday at work today. Someone else is leaving for another job tomorrow. I’ve had to sign two cards. I have two stock phrases for each eventuality.

Have a great birthday
Wishing you a very happy birthday

All the best in your new job
Enjoy your new job

The act of writing any one of these wishes gets me down. I am a glass half-empty kinda guy. But I put on a happy face and get on with it.



*******



Yesterday I saw Leonard Cohen near Trafalgar Square. If it wasn’t Leonard Cohen, I’m a Scientologist and I’m about to buy a property near Tom Cruise’s new one near East Grinstead, the home of Scientology.

Leonard was with a much younger, dark-haired woman.

Leonard wore sunglasses.

Toffee Galore

Chubby Broccoli, the fat vegetarian producer of the James Bond films, first saw the new Bond, Daniel Craig, in a film called The Mother. The Mother was written by Hanif Kureishi, and is too miserable for words. We bravely fought our way through it on Sunday and Monday.

In the film, Daniel not only shags his best friend's sister, he shags their mother, too. He swears a lot and sniffs cocaine off a Black & Decker Workmate. All very un-Bond like.

Then again, maybe it's time for Bond to appreciate the older woman. Now they've filmed all the books they're going to have to start on remakes. Why not recast the original Bond girls in the same roles? I'm sure Ursula Andress and Honor Blackman wouldn't mind a little bit of adventure. And going by The Mother, Daniel would be well up for it, too. You can't beat experience in the spy game. After all, a plateful of granny's homemade stew goes down a damn sight better than a dodgy mouthful of raw fish.

Flushed Away

As a youngster, Pinky and Perky used to scare the shit out of me...



If I'd been a child growing up in the past fifteen years, any Nick Park animation would have done the same...



The Nick Park grin is a bit of a bowel loosener for a sensitive child...


Uncle Nick's coming to get you.

When he started his campaign of world domination he must have looked himself in the mirror, laughed his evil laugh and boomed, "ONE DAY THIS MOUTH WILL BE EVERYWHERE!"

Because he's an evil bastard, he was desperate for nice middle class children to wake up in cold sweats in the middle of the night, scared out of their wits. If they pissed the bed, even better. Of course, the kids couldn't tell their parents as the stupid mums and dads actually thought Nick's world was part of a nice cosy plasticine English world, like Noddy for the politically correct.

The kids don't like it, mum and dad! They're terrified of the teeth!

And while Nick's in his studio, painstakingly creating his next Nick Park's Mouth Oscar Winner, the Yanks have got in on the act and struck a deal with Aardman to produce a CGI version of the same old same old...




That's it. Next Disney will want a piece of the action and Mickey Mouse, Pluto, even poor Bambi and Dumbo will be recreated with the leading protagonists grinning diabolically. Parents will love it and children all over the world will be having nightmares. And Park will be in his creepy element, satisfied he's spoilt more young lives.

Save the children. Save the babies.

Ban the mouth before it's too late.

Ghent

We looked down from above.





We reflected on things.





We kept out of the gym.





We gave our legs a good stretch and drank more than was good for us.






We saw double.

Suitably Refreshed

Pictures from Ghent soon, but for now a few words on Eurostar.

The Eurostar train may seem a sophisticated form of transport compared to Easyjet. Indeed, checking-in and passport control are so much easier and quicker. And of course a Eurostar passenger has the carbon footprint of a robin as opposed to the elephant's of your frequent flier.

But no matter how nice it seems, the general public do use it and the seats for us ordinary passengers are very similar to airline seats, you get wailing children coming back from Euro Disney and in addition, mobile phones are not outlawed.

In particular, games can be played on mobile phones, games which emit a "beep" sound every twenty seconds inches from my sensitive ears, for most of the journey.

What an annoying tit, twenty years older than me but with the maturity of a three year old. His wife must be used to his noise as she didn't tell him to bloody turn the sound down.

Apparently he'd enjoyed Bruges. I doubt whether the feeling was mutual.

Behind Saraband

Behind Saraband is a documentary about the making of Ingmar Bergman's superb 2003 TV drama -"Saraband".

The director gives the actors clear directions; what, how, and when. These directions free the actors from worrying about anything other than playing their parts.

After a scene, the young actress stands, it seems in tears. She feels she hasn't found 'the truth' in her playing of the scene. The director reassures her. It is not what she feels that is right. What is right is what is seen by the audience. The scene seemed right to the director on his monitor, so it is right for the film. No argument, just gentle reason.

The 84 year old director is more touchy feely with the young actress than with the rest of the cast; a woman and a man in their sixties, a man in his eighties. They have a wealth of experience and do not need a director's guiding hand. The young woman needs the old man to physically move her with his bare hands. Which he does at every possible opportunity, the old goat.

The director never watches any of his own films. Once they are completed, that is it for him. He has lived the film and it is time to move on.



*******



And it is time for me to move on. To Ghent. I will be back next week.

Till we meet again, my friends.

Bottoms up!

Ooh Goody. A Quiz.

We're off for a long weekend on Friday to see our good friends, Adam and Eve. A more miserable looking couple you couldn't wish to encounter.

As I am bored shitless and can't think of anything to write about, here's a little quiz for my long suffering readers.

1. Where do our friends Adam & Eve live?

2. What shampoo do they use?

3. Adam was on the panel of the first Gardeners' Question Time. What was the first question he answered?

4. What is 'their' song? (A clue: It's not Three Times A Lady)


The person with the most correct answers wins a recycled Body Shop comb.

Napoleon Complex

If I was a male emperor penguin, would I say goodbye to the missus as she buggers off to look for food whilst I spend the winter with an egg up my arse, huddled together with hundreds of other males in order to shelter ourselves and our uncomfortable eggs from the biting Antarctic winds?

No. As soon as the females left the males, I'd be running after them, shouting "Room for a little one?" Some other mug could have my egg and my place in the scrum.

The saddest part of the first of the second batch of David Attenborough's Planet Earth programmes was when the poor male arctic polar bear, after a couple of months without food, after swimming the ocean to look for land (as his old home is melted by global warming), finally spots a herd of walruses on a rocky shoreline. The bear is too weak with hunger to get to one of the walrus babies, is gored and ushered away by walrus mothers, and left to die.

I'm sure George Bush would say that this is what God intended to happen.

Keep 'Em On

Since Jack Duckworth has lost his sex drive, he hasn't had much going for him. He hasn't even got the prospect of work to skive from - he's not going to be one of Corrie's army of working pensioners. Vera's sexual promises are becoming more and more pie in the sky as they both settle down into a very dull old age. No pigeons. No gee gees. Just a few more years of sitting around giving worldly advice to the incredibly dim-witted Tyrone.

And last night, as Vera, Molly and Fiz secretly arranged Jack's 70th birthday bash (pretending to Jack, Tyrone, and Tyrone's partner-in-dim, Kirk, that they were going on a girls' jaunt to Amsterdam), dim-witted Tyrone arranged in turn a secret strippergram for Jack in the Rovers.

So the party started, and surprise surprise, the stripper turned up at the same time and Kirk ushered her out of the pub before she had a chance to even take off her fake copper's hat and shake her hair loose.

Jack's libido completely shot, he couldn't give a shit and announced to all and sundry that the celebration should be a celebration of JackandVera as he'd be nothing without his little pumpkin pie. Or words to that effect.

I really hope that's the last strippergram I see. It's been a long-term fear of mine, ever since the living dead in the Thatcher government declared them as FUN, that some bloody idiot would arrange one for a birthday of mine.

I would run a mile. Literally. You wouldn't see my heels for dust and your evening would be ruined and so would mine. The stripper would get paid for doing nothing. What a fucking waste of money and time.

The only thing I've had to encounter that was close was near my 40th birthday. Me and some workmates were "celebrating" Christmas at TGI Fridays. Now, I love Fridays. Thank God it's Friday so I can fuck off home and leave anybody who enjoys socialising with workmates to their FUN at a shitty American theme restaurant.

So they announce it's my 40th birthday. The waitress brings a cake for me to blow out the candles and the whole fucking restaurant sings Happy Birthday to me. Everybody encourages me to stand on my chair.

Well fuck that. I don't stand on chairs for anyone. I sit there extremely red faced. The others on my table feel short changed.

I've ruined everybody's Christmas and you know what?

I'm glad.

On The Death Of The Greatest Rock 'N' Roll Venue Of All Time

Johnny Joey Dee Dee
The toilets full of wee wee
Goodbye to CBGB's
Let's listen to the Bee Gees

Norman Wisdom, Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee

I see a lot of these on my travels. Young people, under half my age, wearing teeshirts or carrying bags with this logo. The Ramones logo is a fashionable logo. In fact, I probably see more of these than Kurt Cobain's miserable face. The Ramones are cool. Cool dudes. Yeah.

There was a time when band logos on teeshirts were uncool. When I wore them, of course.



My first band teeshirt was designed by Roger Dean and illegally traced by my dad. It took him bloody ages in the garage, after work in the evenings, at weekends, to get the Yes logo onto a silk screen. It was a totally illegal operation because the materials were nicked from work, but it was done out of love and a need to get away from the rest of the family in the garage when he could have been watching Benny Hill or The Generation Game with the rest of us.

And after all that work, he only used the screen once to print a blue logo onto my cheap yellow teeshirt, my only teeshirt at the time which didn't have those awful capped sleeves.

Did I look good in my tight yellow Yes teeshirt, my hair cascading down to meet the top of the crew neck?

Of course I didn't, but I wore that damned teeshirt for most of my teens.

Until...

Ohmygod, rockin' Dire Straits came along with their Making Movies sweatshirt. I loved that subtle red creation. It was so comfortable I even wore it in an ironic way long after I'd stopped digging The Knopf's finger plucking. Even when he was wanking around with Sting on that cancerous Brothers In Arms album. Yes, I was that perverse. And as an added bonus, it certainly kept all those horrible women at arm's length - as a late developer this suited me right down to the ground.

Since then there has been the mistake of the Prince Lovesexy Tour Teeshirt which was totally unsexy, worn once, and not really suitable to iron. The nineties and the noughties have so far been band-teeshirt-free for me. I have matured and I am slowly growing up, too.

So what now? What should a middle aged man be wearing?

I've got my eye on a nice little Trivium number.



We'll buy the hoodie from Primark. Who fancies a few months in my dad's old garage?

In New Music We Trust

Gratuitous shot of Girls Aloud. Which one's your favourite?


December's Uncut is out - time for me to catch up on the new music I missed out on during the year.

Number One in their top 50 albums is Bob Fucking Dylan. "Is he still going?" I hear you ask. Yes, and music journalists are still sucking his dick, as hard rocking Americans might say. Bob was bloody good 40 years ago but 40 years is a bloody long time and now he sounds like he's playing for the dead.

Uncut try to sell me new Americana shit all the time and I'm not having any of it. I'm not having any of the kooky Bjork-like Joanna Newsom, either. One kooky Bjork is more than enough for one lifetime.

Last year at this time I discovered the Vitalic album months after anybody in the know. This year it's the turn of Hot Chip ("wry tech-geeks" who admittedly I have heard quite a few times but it's taken them all this time to wear me down) and CSS (Brazilian "punk-funk" according to the hip old gits at Uncut).

As you should know by now I'm not a fan of blogging that slags off hard-worked shop assistants but I think it's time for me to get on the bandwagon.

Ten minutes I was waiting there as the gothette-lite was looking for the Hot Chip CD under 'C'.

"Hot Chip's under 'H'" said a more senior assistant. "Band names are filed under the first name, solo artists are under surnames."

First day nerves or maybe she'd only ever bought albums by bands with one name such as Incubus, Sucubus, and Cocubus?

She didn't have to look for the Girls Aloud Greatest Hits I bought as they were pre-packaged. OK, I know I'm setting you up for a punchline.

Weekend Teaser

Are hush puppies







the Kid Jensens





of the dog world?

A Mother's Logic

You know that other one off Little Britain? Not the fat bald one?

The other one.

Him. He's gay as well.

But he's a real heterosexual stud. He's been with loads of women. He's shagged Abi Titmuss, for Christ's sake.

Has he really? He was seen out with Denise Van Outen. She was just covering for him. They weren't sleeping together, they were shopping together...Besides, I can tell.

How?

They were on the Paul O'Grady Show. You know he's gay?

Is he?

Course he is. Well, every gay he's had on there, when he greets them they give him a kiss on the cheek. Julian Clary did. The little fat bald one did. And his friend did. When real men go on the Paul O'Grady Show they just shake hands.

In a manly way?

You'll see, Geoff. He'll be out of the cupboard soon.

Bushell on the Radio

I put on the radio for ten minutes a day. Radio 4 at 6.25 a.m. A bit of news. A bit of waffle from some correspendent who seems to repeat whatever is said by the bod in the studio. A bit of sports news. And quite often a plug for a radio comedy show.

It wasn't that long before Linda Smith died that they previewed a show by taking the piss out of the strange accents of comedians like Smith and Mark Steele. Betty's much better at doing the uniquely wanky voice of Steele than I am, which is strange because he grew up not that far from where I did.

Linda Smith grew up a lot nearer, just up the road in Erith. She had an accent like no-one else in Erith. I wasn't really taken with her humour.

Just after her death, I saw the repeat of the Room 101 show she did. She seemed a nice, genuine person and it made for heartbreaking viewing. And then I had a dream where I walked into a courtyard and there were people milling around, waiting for the unveiling of a memorial to Linda. Her death was obviously affecting me in ways her life didn't.

Then this morning I hear the trailer for yet another tribute to her. Steele, Jo Brand, and the OTT-voiced professional Londoner Arthur Smith all have their memories. The joke Brand remembers is the one that Linda is probably most famous for, the one I've heard about 1,000 times.

"I grew up in Erith, a place that is so crap it's not twinned with anywhere. But it does have a suicide pact with Dagenham."

I'm sure she could have been remembered for many witticisms but this is the one we are stuck with as her legacy.

Yes, Erith is crap (as I am sure Dagenham must be). But it's no more crap than most places. Most of us still live in these crap places and did not escape to exciting old London or to the safe cossetted yet exciting BBC land of panel shows. Most of us get on with living in dull suburbia with its lack of excitement, its houses with gardens and flats without, its roads and pavements, its bits of green, and hot and cold running water and heating in the winter. I'm quite happy to be bored in these circumstances. Erith and Dagenham don't have particularly high rates of poverty or crime. We can't all lead exciting lives but most of us are fed and warm and feel safe.

Erith and Dagenham are also two of the few places in Greater London a lot of us can afford to buy property. So we're really stuck in the crap, aren't we?

I'm sure Linda had some withering put-downs of arsehole politicians in her repertoire so why do the BBC highlight this particularly crap, offensive joke?

Do I really need to answer that?

Observation v Opinion

Of course I like showing off (why else would I have a blog), but I dislike arguments. It hurts me when other bloggers contradict me when I say something or somebody on the telly is shit. It hurts me to realise I am wrong.

But is there enough for me to write about if I limit this blog to just observation? I'm afraid I can't do it.

It's very difficult for me to observe without sticking in my tuppence worth. Even when I do try it, say with the Peter Stringfellow post, you assume things, don't you? I say I see Peter Stringfellow and I say nothing bad about him, yet everybody thinks that my opinion of him is that he's a sexist old scrote who should be made a target at a shooting range for crackpot crackshot militant feminist sharpshooters.

I can't help it, I'm a natural character assassinator and the telly brings out the worst in me as I shout insults at all and sundry. One of these days I'm going to throw something heavy at a particularly smug comedian and then I'll need a new telly.

The problem is, a lot of those people I despise are thought to be talented by fellow bloggers.

Oh dear.

I really want to please each and every one of you, all 20 of you, (it was 4 for ages so you're less of an exclusive bunch now), but I suppose it's not possible. I hope you all consider me as your friend, albeit a friend you'll never meet (let me assure you you'll never want to meet me as in the flesh, even drunk I'm as shy and retiring as a sober Mavis Riley).

The cut and thrust of debate does not interest me. As long as we're all nice middle class wet liberals, I'm happy to share cyberspace with people with different senses of humour. There's nothing worse, after all, than a bunch of people all laughing at something because it is "supposed" to be funny, not because it actually tickles their funny bone. A theatrical performance of one of Shakespeare's comedies or Eddie Izzard Live spring to mind.

So please bear with me next time I insult one of your comedy icons.

Rest assured, I will be wrong and you will be right.