Cameron Crow

The David Cameron smarm offensive on Absolute Radio (previously Virgin Radio for those who give a fuck about U2) included not only a dig at something he quite clearly doesn't understand but also a bit of a grovel to government-maker Rupert Murdoch.

Apparently Cameron "loves" Sky Plus.

Nice one, cuntchops.

Christian O'Connell himself was being a bit of a crawl-arsing bastard (my dad's turn of phrase) and the two chaps got on like a house on fire.

Cameron even had time to appeal to thick female students when he lied that he was a big fan of Paolo Nutini.

As we all know, anybody who likes the deeply cerebral Radiohead's noodlings would hold no truck with sincere Scottish blue-eyed soul, possibly the worst form of music in the history of the world.

Back To Bexley

I am more like my dad than my mum. Quiet. Though he had more of an adventurous childhood. He had a best friend to be adventurous with. Quietly.

In Christchurch I had no friends and I couldn't have been happier. Then all of a sudden we were on the move again. My mum had really had enough of being starved of adult company. A quiet husband wasn't enough for a fiercely sociable 34 year old woman.

So we moved back to the borough of Bexley. But we weren't able to get our own place straight away. We spent the next several months at my dad's parents' small terraced three bedroom council house. This was punishment for my mum for bringing us back. And not particularly pleasant for a young child used to space and privacy.

My dad's parents were quiet, too. My grandfather relaxed by doing the pools and watching the wrestling. The pools and the wrestling seemed to take forever, all Saturday. My grandmother seemed to spend all her time in the kitchen, boiling socks. Fish and chips from the chip shop was a weekly treat.

I remember by bedroom wallpaper most of all. It scared the shit out of me when I was ill. And I seemed to spend most of my time in that house with one sickness or another.

Shapes moved. They became three dimensional. They throbbed, heaved, backwards and forwards, side to side, span and spiraled. The wallpaper was alive and its only reason for being was to drive me mad with nausea and fear.

I started school, a tiny school around the corner. I immediately contracted measles. The wallpaper had a field day and the measles perforated my eardrum. My mum and dad were arguing. My grandparents were, too. They were all only keeping together for the child. The sick, weak child in the box bedroom.

Come on, Dad. Hurry up and get a deposit on that dream house!

Libraries Gave Us Power

In response to a complaint about our library's self-help service, a council spokesman said the following:-

"The use of self-service enables staff to perform more customer-focused functions within the libraries, such as helping choose books and offering guidance on the use of the public computers."

I don't need to use the public computers but any suggestions on which books I might enjoy reading are welcome.

So the next time I see my favourite library assistant I will ask her if she could point me in the direction of suitable books. I'll say I'm 47 years old, I enjoy intelligent films and television, have extremely catholic taste in non-bland music, and am leaning more towards non-fiction as I get older though I have recently enjoyed reading the library's stock of John Wyndham books and am currently enjoying Patrick Hamilton's Hangover Square. My political views are pretty left wing for this day and age, I do not wish to read about sport as the only sport I like is football and footballers' autobiographies are notoriously fucking brainless, I hate Jeremy Clarkson with a passion, Stephen Fry, though I think he's a nice chap, bores me senseless, comedians and journalists are mostly a bunch of tossers, I went through a period of reading plays in my 20s but I've grown out of that now, same with Philip K Dick, I do like a bit of poetry but couldn't sit down and read a whole anthology, I am not interested in anything a man of my age is supposed to enjoy such as cars, trains, Brunel, DIY, finance, religion, eighteen year old girls, murdering the mother-in-law, koi carp or fucking Wii.

"Please, Mrs Library Assistant? Can you point me in the right direction?"

Blind Date

Hattie Lancaster, 33, PR and Marketing Executive

Mark Barrett, 32, Systems Analyst

MARK ON HATTIE

First impressions Friendly and outgoing. I was very nervous and a bit tongue-tied to begin with so I was relieved she took the initiative.

What did you talk about? Anything and everything. From Rothko to Andy Murray's chances of eventually winning Wimbledon. And music. We were both at the same Animal Collective gig!

Any awkward moments? I dropped my fork on the floor but the waiter was nearby and quickly gave me a clean one.

Good table manners? Excellent.

Best thing about her? She was funny and interesting. And she has a lovely smile.

Did you go on somewhere? She had to be up early the next day. So, no.

Marks out of 10? 8.

Would you meet again? Yes.

HATTIE ON MARK

First impressions? He seemed a little nervous. A friendly face, though.

What did you talk about? Music, mainly. And Andy Murray for about half an hour.

Any awkward moments? He sneezed into his hand then asked me if I had a tissue.

Good table manners? I've seen a lot worse. And a lot better, I'm afraid.

Best thing about him? He likes some good music.

Did you go on somewhere? I had a long journey home and had to get up early the next morning.

Marks out of 10? 5.

Would you meet again? I may see him at a gig. But, no, there was no spark between us.


Mark and Hattie met at some poncey expensive middle-class wanky restaurant in London.

Part Review Of A Book I Took Out Of The Library Using The Self-Service Machine

I am currently reading NOT IN MY NAME: A COMPENDIUM OF MODERN HYPOCRISY by JULIE BURCHILL & Chas Newkey-Burden.

Yes, that's how their names are written on the front of the book as everybody's heard of JULIE BURCHILL and nobody's heard of Chas Newkey-Burden.

It's very entertaining of course, as most things JULIE BURCHILL is involved with. Mainly because both the writers tend to see things in black and white.

There are no grey areas.

I'm just waiting for the moment when they get together on the last page and say:-

"LET'S BOMB IRAN!" just like that dickhead Kenny Everett did at that Tory Party conference.

OK, that was Russia and that was *funny*. Bollocks was it.

Peace, Julie.

Suicide Is Painless

I'm sure the verdict on Michael Jackson's death will eventually be "Death By Misadventure".

But for the so-called Peter Pan of Pop, an overdose of painkillers is somewhat less of a misadventure than, say, flying too close to the sun.

All That Dorset Has To Offer

Christchurch was lovely. I loved it. My dad went out to work and I had nobody but my mum for company. We'd go out for walks to the shops, get the bus to the seaside. I got a little brown body in the south coast sun and a Batman outfit in which I ran down Bournemouth High Street, oblivious to the crowds.

I went back to Christchurch a few years ago. Surprisingly I could kind of remember it. The waterside, the park, the castle, the high street. Most people in Christchurch are now retired. My parents' generation. In a different life we could have stayed there and I could have developed a regional burr.

My dad loved it there, too. He enjoyed working for Shand Kydd and was settled in the house and town.

But my mum hated it. She wasn't making friends. She missed her parents and sisters. As entertaining as I was, I was not adult company. I wasn't due to go to school for over a year so there were no young mothers for my mum to chat to. It was a pretty lonely existence in a very nice place.

Two memories that stick out for me from our year in Christchurch were both frightening. Once we were crossing a bridge over the railway just as a steam train whistled underneath us. And once my cousin was babysitting me and the silly girl got it into her head that there was a prowler in the house.

But with my mum in the house I was safe. Happy playing by myself in the living room, listening to food being prepared, rooms being hoovered and the quiet druggy sound of the radio.

As my mum was going mad with loneliness, I was loving my own little world.

As for my dad?

Was he in his own world, too?

Bring Back Robin Day

Last night we watched Question Time for the first time in years. Jarvis Cocker was this week's non-politician and he's usually entertaining.

Jarvis didn't really have much to say and only seemed to be on there for the Michael Jackson question at the end.

But demonstrating just how far to the right the Labour Party has gone over the years, I found myself in agreement with Iain Duncan Smith on identity cards and with Peter Hitchens re. the railways.

i.e.

Identity cards are a waste of money
The railways should be re-nationalised

It was also a bit rich of Jarvis to slag off Michael Jackson for being crap for the past twenty odd years when Jarvis himself hasn't exactly set the world alight with his solo "career".

Though still staunchly anti-Tory for most of their views I found myself getting more angry at the audience than the panel. They seemed to clap at everything like performing seals. You even get members of the audience with seemingly very strong views asking leading questions then applauding the panelists who give completely the opposite opinions. What kind of mind-altering drugs are these people on? If the Question Time audience is supposedly a cross section of the public, do we have a public of moronic floating voters agreeing with everybody then closing their eyes to place their cross on the ballot paper?

Probably.

Me And The Muggers

Dino went to a good home and I was allowed my own space. I was an only child and I soon learned to play alone, happy in the company of Baby and Daddy Mugger, my two pandas.

My first few years were spent in Welling, not far from where Kate Bush was growing up. Except she lived on a farm. A Welling with a farm is a different Welling from the Welling I've always known. Maybe she lived in a magical, invisible farm in the sky above Welling.

My mum and dad were pretty close to their respective sisters and parents so there was quite a lot of visiting. I didn't enjoy the company of people outside my immediate family. I knew most of them were nice and they gave me nice drinks and nice things to eat but I would rather have been alone with Baby and Daddy Mugger and my toy cars. I loved the shapes and colours and metallic feel of the cars and they would tootle along at a nice slow pace under my gentle guidance. I had no truck with those children who hurtled their cars along as if they were machines of destruction. Those crashing, smashing little bastards were all around but not yet destroying my toys. Not yet.

When I was four my dad got a job as an engraver for the Shand Kydd wallpaper company. The job was on the south coast and we upped sticks for Christchurch. The next year was to be one of the happiest years of my life and one of my mum's most miserable. They say you can't please all the people...

My Tiny Carbon Footprint

No, your eyes do not deceive you, we are still at home.

I woke up at three o'clock on Saturday morning and immediately had a panic attack. It's not the first time. They usually occur when I'm away from home and have had a stressful day's driving. This time it was the night before. I still don't feel right now.

So bollocks to Wales. Last time we were there I nearly killed ourselves and the people in the other car. I'm not a reckless driver but I do sometimes lose concentration when I get tired. Which is every afternoon thanks to this bloody medication I'm on.

Anyway, I'll stop whingeing and make a list of nice places I will take my lovely car in future.

1. ASDA.
2. Sainsbury's/Homebase.
3. My mum's.
4. Bluewater, if they ever show a decent film ever again.
5. Ebbsfleet International Train Station for those exotic foreign holidays.
6. The council tip.
7. The petrol station.
8. The place where they service the car.

If it wasn't for the car I don't know how I'd survive.

Look, You're Getting These For Free, What Else Do You Want?

Before I leave you for a week I have something to get off my chest.

Yesterday I took some books back to the library and picked up some I wanted to take out.

"You can use the self-service computer to return and take out books," says the library assistant at the counter where there is no queue.

So I try to scan the books I'm returning and there is a malfunction. A teenage library assistant clears it for me and takes away the book that doesn't scan.

I try to work out how to scan my library card to take the new books out. The screen demonstrates a hand feeding a card into a slot. I have a hand and a card. But I see no slot.

I go back to the original assistant. There is still no queue.

"Can I take them out here? I can't work out how to use the computer."

"It's very straightforward once you've done it once."

"Well I haven't done it once."

"Maybe next time you'll get more help."

"Is it now policy to direct customers to the self-service computer?"

"It's very easy, you know."

I was trying to bond with her, to agree how terrible it was that stupid rules meant that even though there was hardly anybody in the library, library assistants like her weren't allowed to do the job they'd been trained to do. Of course the reality was, she was thinking...

"They employ these young girls to do nothing. I'm not going to work my arse off while these young girls are walking around the library with nothing to do, getting paid for doing nothing. I've been here for five years. Does seniority count for nothing? I'm going to have it out with the senior librarian. That young slip of a thing should be explaining to customers exactly how to use the self-service computer. She should stand over them while they do it, correcting any mistakes, making sure that the next time they use it they won't come running to me. I am more important than her. I shouldn't be spending my time behind a counter checking in books and checking them out, rushed off my feet, when some young thing who hasn't been here five minutes can't even pull her finger out to help the public properly!"

Sci Fi Wi Fi

My amazing life story will have to be on hold for a couple of weeks. I'm on holiday, taking a well earned break.

For some crazy reason I fancy reading some science fiction. I've just finished Richard Matheson's entertaining yet laborious The Shrinking Man. Couldn't get on with Neil Gaiman or Brian Aldiss. Got some Wyndham and Bradbury lined up. I like them. Or at least I think I do.

Any others you can recommend? As the actress said to the bishop, I think I had enough Dick in my younger days.

Asimov any good?

Child Or Dog?

When she was pregnant with me, my mum worked at the Atomic Energy. I don't think she personally handled atoms and I don't think whatever she did there harmed me in any way. Her best friend at the Atomic was carrying at the same time. A girl.

I was born in the cold December of 1961. A Wednesday's woeful child, full of tears.

I've still got the mark where they put the needle in. Antibiotics straight into my chubby little leg. I've got the mark but not the memory. I remember nothing from baby years.

The first thing I can recall is riding my tricycle, legs pumping away like manic sausages, heading along the pavement for my dad as he came home from work, a packet of Murraymints for my consumption about his person.

I don't remember our dog. Dino was named after the Flintstones' pet dinosaur and loved nothing more than to eat my mum's cigarettes. The possible risks of having a small child and a dog together were thought insignificant. But a small child and a dog who eats your cigarettes were too much for my mum's meagre housekeeping to handle. The cigarettes were essentials. So either the child or the dog had to go...

The Life Of Brian

After nearly five years of this I'm a little lost for things to say. I think it's time I set myself a little project to get me going again.

So, for the forseeable future, I will dedicate this blog to my life story. Starting right from when I was a cute little tot. How does that grab you?

They say everybody's got a story to tell and this will be mine. You will laugh, you will cry.

No, bollocks will you cry.

You'll laugh.

Not with me.

At me.

I Don't Do Facebook

I am a hypocrite. Banksy really pisses me off for hiding his/her real identity from the world. Yet I refuse to join Facebook as I don't want my own name out there, having to make friends with people I'd rather not be friends with.

The rush for Facebook Vanity URLs is presumably now over. It's too late for me to be the biggest "Geoff Twat" on the internet. Let some other Twat be the biggest Twat. See if I care.

From what I've seen of Facebook it seems to be populated with:-

1. Pictures of groups of pissed young women with red eye.

2. Pictures of groups of pissed young men with red eye.

3. Pictures of groups of pissed young women and pissed young men together with red eye.

4. Pictures of wedding parties on tropical beaches, including the bride's two young children from her first marriage.

What a load of bollocks! But then again I don't see what you bloggers get up to on there. Am I missing out?

Terrible Middle Class Humour

Reading John O'Farrell's An Impartial History Of Britain Or 2000 Years Of Upper Class Idiots In Charge I am struck by a surfeit of terrible middle class humour. It's there on every page, sometimes more than once a page. It is too much to take.

In my lifetime, I have been bombarded with terrible middle class humour. Time and time again I have sat down to watch a tv show and there it is, terrible middle class humour, sniggering at itself, thinking it's clever, thinking it's funny.

I bought this book last year at a reduced price. I haven't felt so short-changed since that awful Bill Bryson one.

Now where's my Jim Davidson autobiography?

Teenage Angst

Although a lazy sod at home, at work I work hard. I work to pay the bills. Job satisfaction involves getting some figures to agree.

Today I googled someone who went to the same two schools as me. He's a professor now.

He had enthusiasm for his subjects. Straight A's at A Level. Degree, postgraduate degree. Enthusiasm all the way through. He must have had it, mustn't he? You don't get to be a professor without an enormous amount of enthusiasm for your subject.

Some people just naturally fit in with the way the world's been constructed. I'm incredibly jealous of them.

Last week I was asked if I've always liked figures. I said no, I've never liked them, but I can live with them. I like words and music. But words and music don't pay the bills. Unless you're very lucky or very talented.

Why couldn't I have been born with enthusiasm for things that I could earn money from rather than things I've spent thousands on? Why did my parents have to have me?

Everything's so unfair.

Farage Balloon

9.05 p.m...

"Oh, it's that programme with Meera Syal. I like her. She's a good woman and really intelligent. Her husband's good as well. Do you like him, Geoff? He's got a new show starting soon, Sanjeev."

9.30 p.m...

"It was such a long list, wasn't it? Too big for the booth. I was looking at some of the names. Did you see Labour had three Indian names? That settled it, I wasn't going to vote for them. It took me ages to find UKIP. They weren't called UKIP, though. They were called the UK something or other."

Don't Believe The Hype - Broadstairs Is Crap, Too

Isn't the weather glorious? OMG!

It's days like these that I wish I was by the coast. But not any old coast.

The papers show pictures of crowded beaches. Usually Bournemouth, sometimes Brighton. You know, an easy day's return from London.

There's nothing more unappetising to me than a day on a crowded beach. You need space on a beach. You need to be able to walk along it without having to slalom burning bodies.

I want to be by the coast but I don't want crowds. I want a nice walk along a deserted beach, a nice walk along a not too vertiginous cliff top and a nice few hours sitting, reading, listening to the waves.

I'm bored with the seaside in Kent, though. I've had enough of my previous favourites, Deal and Reculver. The driving there and back isn't worth the mediocre views. I'd rather spend the day in our garden, even with the smell of wafting barbecued meat assaulting my delicate nostrils.

Later this month we're off to Anglesey for a week. The views are splendid there. There is room for us to walk and relax.

And don't you just know it will be pissing down.

Stonehenge

Does the idea of seeing Spinal Tap live appeal? Bad enough in a venue but standing in a field?

Thousands of people will be able to experience the Tap this summer at Michael Eavis's Funny Farm. Of course, any entertainment on show in the film was to be gleaned from offstage areas. A shit rock band trying to be funny onstage is just a shit rock band trying to be funny onstage.

I've seen some unintentionally funny bands in my years of gig-going. There was the craply-caped Rick Wakeman, Yes starring The Buggles, Genesis with pervy little Phil in his raincoat, the very hairy ponce Sammy Hagar, the very hairy ponces Rush, The Tolkeinesque Enid, the preposterously portentous Comsat Angels, the ridiculously "wasted" Wasted Youth, the comically "lovesexy" Prince, the pretentiously ironic REM...

I could go on. Of course Spinal Tap will think they're going to be the funniest thing at Glastonbury. But with Tom Jones, Tony Christie, Status Quo, Blur et al on the bill they won't even come in the top ten.

Which unintentionally funny bands or artists have you seen live? i.e. the opposite of The Grumbleweeds.

The Karaoke Crowd

We went out for a quiet drink. But the karaoke crowd took over the pub.

A middle aged man set up his computer, speakers and microphones. He played snippets of songs. And in between he sang a few and invited his following to come and have a go.

Karaoke deejays have people following them from pub to pub. These people are not talented enough to win through the early rounds of Britain's Got Talent. But in their heads they're David Gray or Neil Diamond or the girls from ABBA. In their stupid self-centred heads.

They take it seriously. They feel the anticipation as they mentally prepare for their next time on stage. Because they do have several chances each to show off as the evening progresses. Their fellow karaoke creeps cheer them on, applaud them off. The deejay pretends he's reading out the next singer's name as if he doesn't know him (19 times out of 20 the singer is male). He does know him, of course. They're all part of the same strange family.

I imagined them all getting together for a karaoke family funeral. Then, as if by magic, some dickhead started up Robbie Williams' Angels. I could see the coffin and the tears as the karaoke family swayed in their seats, arms aloft, as the young singer belted out an off-key version of that death classic. It's exactly the send-off Neil Diamond/Elvis Presley/Gene Pitney/Roy Orbison would have wanted. And his manner of death, a massive coronary on the karaoke stage was exactly how he would have wanted to go.

Yes, we did get Babylon and Wonderwall and Amarillo and 500 Miles. It was so fucking predictable. The twats had absolutely no imagination. At least the bloke who looked like Ian Curtis could have done She's Lost Control, really lost control and fucked up his dad's laptop.

Take It To The Top

There were a few low points during Sir Ranulph Fiennes conquest of Everest. Fiennes was in constant contact with his team at base camp who captured the lowest, bleakest point on tape. The point where his lungs were bursting, he could see barely a yard in front of him and his comfortable home in England seemed a million miles away.

"I don't think..." he said, "I can carry on. More than man can take. Stress affecting all. Even Sherpa tensing."

Election Special

Remember when I said I was going to publish my book of poems?

Well, when it comes down to it I can't be bothered. They're throwaway, anyway. Not the sort of poems that Phill fucking Jupitus or Griff fucking Rhys fucking Jones could get their teeth into. I'm a pleb with simple tastes, no potential literary giant.

What's really occupying my mind is who to vote for. I don't know why I'm getting all uptight this time round. Is it Labour or Lib Dem or Green on the pro-European side? Or will I go anti-EU and vote for Arthur Scargill's or Bob Crow's party.

Tony Benn's supporting communist/capital punishment fan Crow. Tony Benn's a very nice man, a Christian David Attenborough. How can a nice Christian get into a political bed with an atheist who believes in an eye for an eye? It's all very confusing.

Scargill's a nutjob who's still fighting the miners' strike. He's preaching solidarity with the Tolpuddle martyrs, apparently unaware they died in 1968.

And what about naughty Labour? They took us into an illegal war, don't you know? Blood is on Labour's hands. Gordon Brown shook hands with the devil Bush! So the Lib Dems are telling me. And the Lib Dems have got criminals talking with victims in Chard and reoffending in Chard is down to approximately 0%. It brings a tear to my eye. Just imagine a rapist sitting down with his victim, promising he won't do anything she doesn't want next time.

The Greens want to stop all animal testing on drugs. I'm not so sure that is a very good idea. I'm pretty certain the drugs I take were tested on animals. "Yes, but humans are very different from animals. You might as well test drugs on vegetables." Yeah, right.

Oh dear. What is one to do? Who are you going to vote for? And why?

Election Fever

My mum and stepdad read the Daily Mail.

She's angry about MPs.

"You can't trust any of them. They've all got their snouts in the trough. All that taxpayers' money. That's your money, Geoff. Just who are you supposed to vote for? The British Parliament is totally immoral and corrupt."

"So who are you going to vote for, Mum?"

"Your stepdad reckons UKIP."

Toryzone

"I really like this song," said a work colleague.

"I don't," I said.

"It's Ronan Keating. It's lovely."

"It's shit."

"But it's about his dead mum."

"Why didn't you say? I thought it was fucking awful. Now I think it's poignant."



Last night we had the sound turned down on the tv as David Cameron spoke sincerely into the camera for the Conservative Party Broadcast.

Funny Ha Ha Or Funny?

The retiring journalist is holding court. She's going to continue to write, she's known nothing but writing since she was eighteen.

She looks at me.

She says she's going to write something funny.

I am not sure whether she's ever written anything funny. Or how difficult it would be to start writing funny stuff in your later years if you never have before.

I don't know why she looked at me. I've never said anything funny to her. And she's never seen any of my writing.

Maybe she thinks I appreciate funny writing.

I do. But it's got to be funny.

La Mort

Last night I dreamt I was on my death bed. I was surrounded by all the accountants and trainee accountants I have known in my working life.

I think I can read this dream. But just imagine if it were to become real.

Suffice to say I don't want accountants surrounding my death bed. In fact, I don't want people at all. I want a solitary robin, singing his little heart out, perched on my window sill. He'd look at me with sympathy and I'd breathe my last.

How To Save The World In One Easy Lesson

We sat through Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in three sittings and are now crossing our fingers that Greenland doesn't disappear as if it does it will be a very bad thing for the world because lots of people will be living in water and swimming with the fishes.

In his bid to save the world, Gore has spent years flying all over the place, his slideshow in tow. Let's hope that, unlike Icarus, he doesn't fly too close to the burning sun.

The audience in each country nod sagely and go away to prepare for green power. What we need are leaders of the free world who are obsessed with light bulbs and standby lights, the little things in life that could make so much difference. You could imagine Al Gore as President of the United States, flying the world with a supply of energy-efficient light bulbs, giving the Queen and the Pope tickings off for their wastage, getting out his MacBook and showing them illustrations of the consequences of their evil reliance on chandeliers and security lights.

The MacBook is the portable computer of choice for the likes of Al Gore, Stephen Fry and David Attenborough. They are all filmed looking seriously into their laptops on planes, at home and in public buildings. I have a MacBook but have yet to look serious in front of it whilst being filmed. This is one of my major ambitions in life.

Take It As Read

How fast do you read? Could you read a book in a day? Could you really take it all in?

I know there are people who can do this. Surely they must be speed-reading, getting an overall impression, not giving themselves time to get truly involved. Where's the pleasure in that? Books are there to be read at your leisure. It's not a race.

Since joining Twitter I've learned to speed-read tweets. Something like this...

whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares? lol. whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares? lol. whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares? lol. whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?whocares?

I'm joking. I don't lol that often. And I do care.

When it comes to blog posts I quickly scan the whole post then decide if the subject matter is of interest to me. If it's not I move onto the next blog on Google Reader. I read the ones I'm interested in at my leisure.

Move along, now. Nothing to see here.

Drukqs

At the beginning of this month I went to pick up my repeat prescription at the chemist's. They'd neglected to order one of my items. I had enough of these pills to keep me going for a couple of weeks so I came back in the middle of the month to get them.

Yesterday I went to pick up a new supply of everything. The chemist said I was too early, I'd have to wait 'til the 15th or I could put my repeat prescription in jeopardy. I told her I was running out of one part of my prescription and the 15th would be too late. It was their fault I didn't get my full prescription at the beginning of the month. She relented but warned me of the possible consequences if I ordered too early in future.

So for next month I said I would like all the items on my prescription. She said I could have them all except for the hayfever nasal spray. Because it had been over six months since I'd ordered this item I would have to see my doctor to get it back on the repeat prescription.

I said the drug is for hayfever! For most of the year I don't get hayfever! Why should I order this drug in the middle of winter? I don't get hayfever in winter! What a stupid rule! Etc, etc.

But rules are rules and I'll have to waste my doctor's time in the next few months. Not just yet, you see, as I have a nice big stock of last year's over-ordered hayfever drugs at home. I hoard them like a squirrel hoards its nuts, bury them underneath more drugs, filling up the cupboard like a junkie.

I love that spray. I can't get enough.

What A Waste

I wonder if there's a Brazilian one-man air conditioning repair company called Jesus Of Cool?

Anyway, my mum phoned me up on Saturday to tell me she'd heard The Blockheads on Jonathan Ross's radio show. The new singer sounds just like Ian Dury, she said.

My mum still has me down as a massive Ian Dury & The Blockheads fan. Oh, and that "gravely voiced" Tom Waits.

It's been a long time since I listened to either. What I was listening to in the early 80s was limited to the records and cassettes I had. I couldn't afford a large, eclectic music collection. Even so, my mum's memory is selective. I had a reasonable number of albums for someone with little disposable income.

Reasonably well off young people these days have it all. A whole swathe of popular music available for free on the internet. Back then I took what I could from what was currently being pushed in the NME. The 50s, 60s and 70s were confined to history. Just imagine if NME readers nowadays stuck to the current indie music, ignoring pop's great history. What a boring generation they'd be!

A Shyness That Is Criminally Vulgar

Last night I was thinking, as you do, about the autographs I have owned. I've seen plenty of celebrities but never asked for an autograph for myself. I was always too shy and my mum and dad asked for me. In fact I didn't want them to but they felt they had to. Part of being a parent is embarrassing your children in front of all and sundry.

When I was five we were at a local fete and Eric Sykes was there. He was there in some official capacity so I presume his services were paid for. My mum dragged me up to Eric. I didn't know much about him but he signed his autograph for me. "To Geoffrey, best wishes, Eric Sykes".

Then when I was about seven a Tesco supermarket was opening in Crayford. My mum thought it would be a good idea to go along to the opening. Two Millwall footballers, Dereck Possee and Eamon Dunphy were there in an official capacity so they must have been paid for their services. My mum dragged me up to the two men and they signed their autographs. "Derek Possee" and "Eamon Dunphy". This was in the days before I wouldn't piss on a Millwall player if he were on fire.

Then when I was about ten my dad took me to Loftus Road to see Q.P.R. v West Ham and sitting behind us was the great Frank Lampard. (His son, the current scumbag Chelsea player will always be "Junior" to me). My dad turned to Frank and said "Frank, can we have your autograph, please?" Frank obliged and wrote "Frank Lampard".

In each of these cases I was egged on by my parents to ask the other adults for their autographs. In each case I was terrified I might have to, almost to the point of tears and my parents asked the men themselves. But each time they convinced themselves they were doing it for me, the boy who was too shy and needed to come out of his shell.

Britain's Got Shite

Britain's Got Talent makes stars of ordinary people.

A person who is talented at something possesses an unusual innate ability in their field.

Enrico Caruso was a talented opera singer. Paul Potts isn't.

Gene Kelly was a talented dancer. George Sampson isn't.

Judy Garland was a talented singer of songs from musicals. Susan Boyle isn't.

John Coltrane was a talented saxophonist. Julian Smith isn't.

Both George Best and Vinny Jones could play football. George was talented. Vinny wasn't.

Britain's got a load of Vinny Joneses all being told they're George Best. And the British public are happier watching Vinny Jones than George Best!

That's just not right.

All Our Yesterdays

When I was at school it was all the fashion to paint our haversacks with pictures of our favourite pop star, album cover, etc.

A small gang of us were big Tomorrow's World fans. And we were in love with the gorgeous Judith Hann. My friend Stuart was a talented artist and he painted beautiful portraits of Judith on all our bags. How proud we were to display our sexy bags to the other boys, dull in comparison with their botched Yes logos and rudimentary Ozzy Osbournes.

After a year, however, the paintings began to fade, through wear and tear. Stuart volunteered one weekend to repaint our bags with our favourite Tomorrow's World presenter.

He turned up at school on the Monday with a batch of the most beautiful Judiths we had ever seen. Mine even looked like she was winking at me and Graham's was most lascivious!

But when Stuart tentatively revealed to us the picture on his own bag, we had the biggest surprise of our young lives. Because this was the day our friend Stuart came out to the whole school. His favourite Tomorrow's World presenter was not Judith Hann. Oh, no.

That was the day our friend made a Rodd for his own back!

It Wasn't Just The Police

The Hillsborough Disaster was not an accident, but it was waiting to happen.

You read about fans of other clubs than Liverpool being involved in crushes in the Leppings Lane end in previous Cup semi-finals. Fans were segregated and herded into areas they maybe didn't have tickets for. They were herded in like cattle with no escape route as Sheffield Wednesday's board, like many others, had decided to erect wire pens to keep the fans from invading the pitch. Did they forsee the possibility of fans invading the pitch to save their own lives? If they didn't they must have been pretty fucking thick.

It would be impossible to have complete justice for the tragedy. Unless you could imprison a Thatcherite mindset.

Alex, Vic and George

So I finished the Alex James book. I didn't throw it out the window when Keith Allen made his unwelcome appearance and I trawled my way through Alex's flying lessons, his falling in love with the lovely lady he made his wife, his buying his very big house in the country and his soppiness at the birth of his beautiful children. Where was the cheese, Alex? I expected cheese.

And in just over a day (extremely unusual for me) I have read Vic Reeves' Me:Moir, the story of the first twenty years of his life. I liked Vic before and I like him even more now, though I am jealous, once again, of reading about somebody who grew up with friends who wanted to form a band.

Finally in my trilogy of three autobiographies, it's George Melly's, as recommended by Arabella. Yes, I'm keeping the least flamboyant, most conventional character 'til last. Come on, George. Don't let me down.

This Is The Sound Of My Soul

Terry Hall's appearance on Later With Jools was heartwarming for us old miseries. I know he never smiles whilst performing but he looked so pissed off throughout the whole show he negated any enjoyment anybody might have gained from any of the music on offer.

Why The Specials are back together playing live, God only knows. Jerry Dammers sensibly doesn't want anything to do with it. High octane ska is best performed by young energetic musicians to an audience of skinny rude boys, not by a band in their fifties egging on middle aged fat fucks like Phill Jupitus and his ilk, all struggling to breathe as they pound the floor with the full force of their furred arteried bodies.

Turning back the years is the last thing Terry wants to do. Why can't we let him sit at home with his feet up like the rest of us middle aged curmudgeons?

One of the free papers gave ABC five stars for their live performance this week. And Martin wore his lurex suit! This is the sad chicken-in-a-basket circuit that The Specials are now joining.

And of course there's Spandau fucking Ballet. Tony Hadley, fresh from appearing at last year's Gala at the Tory Party Conference, will sing hits such as True and Gold in front of audience after audience of cloth-eared morons all over the country, reminiscing about the absolute low point in pop music history as if it were somehow a good time to be alive!

Ice Cold With Alex

More words of wisdom from our learned friend and Blur bass player, Alex James.

"I was a hedonist. I wanted to get drunk and be irresponsible."

Prat.

"I saw life merely as an opportunity to have as much fun as possible. All young people do, I think."

Wrong. We weren't all fun-loving, Alex. Many of us were depressed, you know.

And on why festivals became the place to be seen for hordes of middle class students in the 90s:-

"I think it was because the best music attracts the prettiest girls and when the pretty girls come, everyone else soon follows."

I think you'll find, Alex, that the best music in the 90s was in the clubs. And I'm at a loss to understand why being a pretty girl means you've got good taste in music. And does everyone follow pretty girls? I thought only creepy men followed pretty girls?



To be continued.

Sky News Live Today

Bad spelling is a must for the common man or woman's funeral. And Jade Goody's was no different. From the "Gran Daughter" flowers to the "Your Special" written on a girl's balloon, this was a funeral for the uneducated. Which makes it all the more special that so much of Jade's money is going towards private education for her sons.

Then there was the "Marmite" flower arrangement. People either love or hate Marmite, say the adverts. People either love or hate me, like they love or hate Marmite, said Jade.

Yes, Jade was like Marmite. You either loved or hated her like you loved or hated Marmite. Or maybe, like me, you are totally indifferent to Marmite and were totally indifferent about Jade.

Am I allowed to take this position? Is it allowed to not really be bothered about Marmite or Jade Goody? Do I have to feel strongly one way or the other? Marmite's a very ordinary foodstuff. Jade was a very ordinary young woman. Ordinary doesn't really move me.

This Is A Low

The two loves of Alex James' life are Graham Coxon and cheese. He's ended up with just one of those but anybody in their right mind would choose something tasty over a myopic ex-drunk.

I'm reading Alex's autobiography and not liking him one little bit. He talks about the students at Goldsmiths College while he was there as cultural revolutionaries who bestrode "the ultimate decade of the last millenium" like colossuses. I presume by "ultimate" he means the last. Because Britpop and Britart was mostly a load of old cack, wasn't it?

He talks about Charles Saatchi being extremely "clever" because he saw the potential in Damien Hirst's art.

"No one's right all the time, but some people have a knack for picking winners, and they become winners themselves."

What bollocks! As if Saatchi wasn't already one of life's privileged winners and able to influence by his wealth alone!

More on Alex in future weeks.

Thought for the Day

You know those World's Best Dad mugs? Patently bollocks, aren't they? There's only one world's best dad, whoever he may be.

And so many dads have got them, you've got to wonder how many of them are less World's Best Dad than World's Biggest Cunt.

There have got to be dads out there who, when they're not being great dads, are absolute cunts. And it goes without saying that a lot of these dads are closer to being the world's biggest cunt than being the world's best dad.

So next time you see some big cunt slurping his tea out of his World's Best Dad mug, remember he's unlikely to be the world's best dad. He's just a cunt with a mug.

My Blog's New Manifesto

Would your blog be more or less entertaining if you just wrote an online diary of your working life?

Mine would be a must-read. But I'm not going to do it, of course. I'm not that stupid.

So what you get is a mixture of tv reviews, news commentary and the strange things I'm told or overhear or see. Not really about the stuff that affects me directly.

Why not continue as before?

Because I'm finding it an increasingly arduous task to do the things this blog was set up for. I'm getting bored of waffling on about stuff off the telly. I can comment more succinctly on Twitter. I can get things off my chest there without having to construct something deep and meaningful, making my brain ache.

So from now on, expect ill-thought-out opinion and observation, not long-winded review. There are too many words in the world as it is.

Strike!

Last night we watched a talking heads programme in which ex-strikers told us their memories.

There were some surprises.

As a rookie reporter, the odious shit Kelvin MacKenzie had once been on strike. But he spoke with relish about how when it was his turn to be on the management's side in the Wapping dispute he would goad the print workers by sticking two fingers up at them as he drove past the picket lines. People were losing their jobs and he was laughing at them.

As an angry young pilot, Norman Tebbit had withdrawn his labour. But of course the boot was on the other foot when he became Secretary of State for Employment and he presided over the destruction of the working class. He said he was perfect for the job as he had inside information on how unions work, having once been an active union member himself.

Then there was Eddie Shah, once a less than enthusiastic striker, then the enemy of the print workers union as he started the shite Today newspaper using new technology. Shah hates union leaders with a passion and told a story of how five coffins were once sent to his home, one for each member of his family. Whether this was an action perpetrated by union officials, Shah didn't say. But he hates them anyway.

There were women, too. The women of the Dagenham Ford plant, fighting for equal pay with the men. And Anne Scargill, fighting to keep coalminers and their families alive and well during the 84-85 miners' strike.

Back to the men's world, there was the gravedigger who described probably the most animosity aimed at strikers by the general public. But what else can you do, working in appalling conditions with bosses who don't give a shit about your health or welfare?

(This got me thinking, wouldn't it have been funny if, as well as rubbish piling up on the streets, bodies were too? Imagine those documentaries. "The 1970s. 3 Day Week. Petrol shortages. Energy crisis. Rubbish and bodies piling up on the streets. We were ready for a change. A revolution. Four skinny white boys who were hanging around a clothing store called Sex...etc, etc").

And finally there was the miner who appeared on The Tube with The Redskins. He stepped up to the microphone, ready to cut through all that 80s new pop shit with his words of working class solidarity, backed by a soulful socialist worker skinhead combo. And what happened?

The microphone didn't work.

We Have The Actors, Why Not The Writers?

Twitter seems to have thinned things out. I continue to flit between twittering and blogging. But there's less of me here and more of me over there. And my attention span is getting even shorter. I can't read too much, I can't write too much. So why don't I shut up and get on with it?

I've written enough about the first Red Riding on here. The second and third episodes were probably even less entertaining and the various strands didn't really come together satisfactorily. It was a mess which left me not caring what the fuck it was all about. Let's just forget about it and watch something decent.

Like Mad Men. The second series is as good as the first. I can watch this beautifully written character-driven stuff 'til the cows come home. What's particularly galling is that we can't seem to do this stuff in the UK. The Americans hit us with superbly crafted stuff like The Sopranos, The Wire and Mad Men. What do we have? Piss poor adaptations of sensationalist novels.

A Dose Of Reality

Jade Goody's funeral, on April 4th, will be a "Jade Goody production", according to her publicist, Max Clifford.

Large television screens are to be installed outside her local church for the thousands of members of the public likely to turn up.

The funeral will not, however, be broadcast live on Channel 4. Davina McCall will not whip up the crowd into a frenzy of tears. Attendees will not hold up signs saying "Hello Mum" or "Living The Dream".

It will be a dignified affair. Big Brother obsessives have grown up a lot over the last few months. They now know it's no good living the dream if the dream ends up as a nightmare. Look at Chantelle, falling in love with gorgeous posh Preston, ending up with that little London runt Jermaine.

Life is shit for almost everybody and fame doesn't change that. Reality has kicked in for the reality massive. They will never again be able to watch a young woman on Big Brother without thinking of the future consequences. They will never want to get too attached to strangers ever again. If you hurt when a stranger hurts just how much are you going to hurt when someone close to you hurts?

Britain has grown up.

No Pets, Please

As I was stroking my sister's dog I was told I look so natural with a dog by my side. My family have given up hoping that I might produce offspring and now are trying to urge me to get a pet. They think, to make my life complete, I need to look after another living being.

Fortunately, when it comes to children and animals me and Betty have pretty similar outlooks. We don't get on with children. We never have, not even when we were children ourselves. OK, I suppose I don't mind children if they're quiet, if they keep themselves to themselves, if they're seen but not heard. But you don't get that a lot nowadays, more's the pity.

We don't get on with cats. Cats give me the creeps. Their suspicious feline movements, their smarmy furry sidling up to your leg, their viciously digging claws, their disgustingly rough tongues, the revolting way they lick their privates, their innate need to kill. If cats were human they'd all be locked up and in straitjackets.

Dogs are a different kettle of fish. We love the sight of a good dog, though not a rubbish little yappy one like a Yorkshire or Cairn Terrier. And dogs seem to like me.

I think dogs know I'd let them get away with things. I'd let them run wherever they'd want, shitting and pissing, sniffing and tasting wherever they'd choose. With our 1980s dog, Cindy, I'd let her shit anywhere in the park, though thoughtfully she never defecated on the football or cricket pitches. I wasn't going to pick it up, it would have made me retch. Of course she'd shit in our garden, too. I'd spend hours going round with a spade, scooping it all up, plopping it in a bucket and tipping it into the sewerage system.

Dogs' waste, vets' bills and the inevitable illnesses and death are what stop me from getting one of these beautiful creatures. And the responsibility, of course. Responsibility for the two of us is all I can muster.

So, no, no children, no animals for the rest of our lives. Nothing to make our lives complete.

The Damned United

"But, Geoff. You like football. You like films. Why not go and see The Damned United?"

Because I am loyal to the families of my heroes. If the Clough family say the book is a load of old shit and as we all know films of books are very rarely as good as the books, just what is the point?

I will go further and say if any currently or previously working class person does go and see this film they will be betraying their forefathers and mothers. Let's have some solidarity with the Clough family, people.

Besides, the actor playing Billy Bremner looks like Bob Mortimer in a joke wig.

D.I.V.O.R.C.E.

I'd already spoken to my mum earlier in the day. But she phoned back early yesterday evening to tell me my cousin's husband had left her. He'd been having a secret affair for a year and straight out of the blue he left, leaving his middle aged wife and their child. My mum said she was shocked. Of all the marriages in the family this was the one she thought would last. I don't know if all those marriages included mine. I never know with her.

How was I supposed to feel? I'll tell you how I feel. Quite good about it, really. Good to hear about a marital break up in another part of our extended family. First it was my parents, then my sister. But those splits were subject to my dad's influence, weren't they? Everybody knew he was the lowest of the low, going off with a woman twenty-odd years his junior. And it was his blood that made my sister leave her husband.

Well, it's time for my extended family to join the modern world. Divorce happens. Yes, it's painful for the people concerned but we're talking about human beings here, not devils and saints. The question is, will my cousin's husband join my dad in the devil corner? Probably. One tends to see things in black and white from the moral high ground.

Paul O'Grady/Old Lady

My stepdad got tickets off the internet for Paul O'Grady's television chat show. The retireds like Paul O'Grady now he doesn't dress up as a woman.

So off they went to that London, using their free transport passes and joined the queue to get in. But why were there two queues?

The woman in front of my mum said the other queue was the "Priority Queue".

After a while they found out what that meant.

The people in the Priority Queue went in first. Then a few people from my mum's queue were let in. Leaving lots of disappointed pensioners with promises that they shouldn't worry, next time they would be in the priority queue.

So a wasted journey for many, including the old woman who'd got three buses with her son as she was too infirm for the rigours of train and tube travel.

On the back of my mum's tickets, in small letters, it does explain that entry to the show is not guaranteed. Talking to a work colleague I have since found out that this is exactly what they do for Loose Women shows, too. It virtually guarantees a full house.

I am so angry at this I could spit. How Paul O'Grady can treat people who have fought in two World Wars in this way is absolutely disgraceful. O'Grady, if you're reading this, let me tell you now, I will never watch your show. Even if you're still on the telly when I'm retired, I'd sooner watch some cooking bollocks presented by someone with no personality than a so-called man of the people who has absolutely no scruples about wasting the time of hard-working ordinary people.

Mr Bean Goes To Hell

My memory of 1974 is pretty poor. But I'm sure that year wasn't as boringly brown as in this first part of Red Riding. And I'm sure a lot of the police were bastards. But were they really as violent and diabolic as in this fiction?

And as Betty said, the main character was wearing "one of those jackets the young men always wear when they make dramas about the 70s these days." Not a leather bomber in sight.

As with Life On Mars I came away thinking, like the journalist who had a go at the scientologist, YOU WERE NOT THERE!

The story was particularly unbelievable. Sean Bean was not only a nasty successful working class property developer who terrorised his way to wealth, he was a child rapist and murderer, too.

I think.

I wasn't sure by the end.

The police, who knew all about Sean's evil ways, beat up the investigative journalist and gave him a gun to kill Bean. They couldn't do it themselves, you see. They were in too deep.

And for a man who was Yorkshire's answer to Al Capone, it was bloody easy for the wimpy, badly injured young journalist to breach Bean's security and shoot dead his two bodyguards then Bean himself.

This week's Yorkshire Ripper case should be interesting. Sutcliffe will seem like a pussycat in comparison to Mr Bean.

Once Upon A Time In The West

My stats tell me I had 174 unique visitors yesterday, a massive increase on my usual small readership. Which only goes to prove THE POWER OF TWITTER and the insignificance of day to day blogging.

Still, let's get back to normal.

We're not having a holiday this year, this year being 2009 Worry About The Future Year, so we have to take vicarious pleasures. The 2-part series Touring Britain with David Heathcote (repeated at 11.30 on BBC4 tomorrow night) was a pleasure. In the first part he used an 1887 Baedeker Guide to tour the north west of England and in the second he used a couple of 1930s Shell Guides to tour Dorset and Cornwall.

What about that erection, eh?




I was already enjoying David's company but when he got to Padstow I began to like him even more. It took him an age to find somewhere to park and walking round Padstow's crowded streets he could take it no longer.

"Padstow: it's rammed with people of the most obnoxious kind. And it sucks."

The guide David was using was written by John Betjeman.

"The thing about the Betjeman entries, it's all about the buildings, it's not about the people at all. Sometimes it's the people that are the problem. I feel like the worst kind of inverted snob, but right now, I couldn't give a stuff about Padstow."

The guide Betjeman wrote in the 30s described the "unspoilt Cornish experience". A time when a village like Polperro was actually lived in all year round by real families. A time before landowners sold people's homes to the new landlords of holiday homes and the rich second homers. A time before the village died.

Titter Ye...Oh, Please Yerselves

Inspired by Shaggy Blog Stories, TwitterTitters is a book of comic writing, all the proceeds of which (less the production and postage costs) goes directly to Comic Relief.

You can read about it here and buy it here.

I won't be buying a copy as I bought two copies of Shaggy Blog Stories (embarrassed by the unfunniness of my own story and slightly amused a couple of times at others), I thought Phoenix Nights was bollocks and Chelsey: OMG! looks like a load of old shite. Maybe some of you lesser known *writers* are in it and can persuade me to fork out the nine quid.

But if it takes your fancy, go ahead and buy it. Christ knows Twitter's got to be good for something other than mentioning how you didn't get to sleep last night and that you're having a nice cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch.

Soap On A Rope

Talking about Coronation Street today, I was told it was "downmarket". In comparison to University Challenge and QI.

Well, I suppose it is. You don't need to be brainy to watch it. But you can be.

Craig Charles, hyper-intelligent renaissance man, poet, author, comedian, DJ, actor, cokehead, has been having the piss taken out of him by supposed "Corrie fans" at the football.

"I’ve never had any problems like that with Red Dwarf fans, they’re generally intelligent people," he said to The News Of The World so it must be true. "Maybe not so much with Corrie, it’s kind of lowest common denominator stuff!"

No, Craig. Corrie's humour is subtle, requiring a more mature intelligence than a comedy made for teenage boys whose balls haven't yet dropped. Stick to your turgid Funk & Soul Show and your audience of three ageing talc-addled Northern Soul bores.

Are You An Underachiever?

I have to battle against thinking I am. Thinking that would be boasting that I'm capable of actually achieving something of artistic merit and it was just down to my lazy attitude that I've never made something of my life.

I could have been a musician, a film director, a screenwriter, a novelist. All these things I could have been but I've just been too lazy to find other people with the enthusiasm to help me.

See? It's a good case for the prosecution.

Rather than make my own art I take great pleasure in criticising other people's. Is this healthy?

Well, look at all the tortured artists. There's no way in the world I'd want to be one of those. Satisfaction in your own art can't last forever. Unless you're completely up your own arse. And who wants to be Bono?

So give me the lazy life with full reign to think and observe without the drive to be someone. The drive that screws people up.

The Life Of Riley

Watching Ian Broudie on Sky's Songbook series I started thinking about what could have been, if only...

I wanted to learn the guitar in my middle teens. I got a cheap second hand semi-acoustic and my dad's mate from work (not the one who taught me to play tennis) out of the kindness of his heart gave me some lessons. He was a lovely bloke, small, slight of frame, with long red hair. He was into melodic rock and singer songwriters and played in a band which did covers of the hits of the day

I was at that age when I was very open to suggestion when it came to music. Yes were what my friends at school liked so I did, too. But there was no way I could play like Steve Howe, not in a million years.

So my guitar teacher showed me a few chords, basic strumming. And within a few weeks he got me a big notebook in which he wrote down the lyrics to some songs with the chord changes in the appropriate places. I could pretend I was Bob Dylan or James Taylor or Neil Young. We even did a duet doing Bad Company's Feel Like Making Love which was a bit strange as I wasn't ready for any of those shenanigans.

I enjoyed being taught but it wasn't much of a revelation to me. All I could do was strum and sing which got a bit boring after a while. I started writing my own songs which were rubbish. I knew they were but it was something to do to take my mind off the horrors of study.

Now, watching Ian Broudie and reading Rip It Up And Start Again I realise what could have been. If only I'd had an older brother or sister into cool music. If only I'd had some arty mates who wanted to make future music. If only I'd been brought up in Manchester or Liverpool or Sheffield or gone to art school in bloody Watford! I was in the wrong place at the right time.

Not that Ian Broudie ever wrote good songs. He just strums and writes rubbish, just like I did.



For Ian's tips on how to become a musician (including how to be in the right place at the right time, go here).

The Full Circle

Yes, more digs, I'm afraid.

In this week's Socialist Worker there's an in-depth article on online social networking, saying how it is the antithesis of socialism and how the lack of actual real social interaction in today's society is part of a capitalist conspiracy designed to alienate the middle classes from the working classes, keeping them in their own cliques, making them less likely to fight the Nazis and the capitalists on the streets, less likely to hold Socialist Worker placards at protest marches, less likely to fight for the right to work of the common man or woman, placated by videos of cats being abused by their cruel owners and lost in a world of masturbatory self-centred blog posts about their sad unpolitical lives.

For some time I have been sick and tired of the reactionary and wooly liberal broadsheets taking a pop at my friends and our hobbies but now the Left's blustering bullies have their foot in the door I am beginning to find the whole thing a farce of Brian Rix proportions.

A Question Of Etiquette

When talking to friends and family about another man, I use the term "bloke". As in "There's a bloke on the train who gets right on my tits." Or "He's a nice bloke." Or "The bloke's a wanker."

But things are different in a work situation. I can't say "The bloke from the bank rang back about direct debits."

I can't say "guy" because I'm 47 and English.

I can't say "man" because I'd sound like a child.

So I end up saying "chap". I sound like a Royal.

I don't like it and I'd never say "He's a jolly nice chap," but what else do I call these people?

The Bloke In MVC: An Apology

He's probably forgotten about it but the memory of it is haunting me.

A couple of years ago, CD and DVD shop MVC was closing down. All stock was for sale at knockdown prices. Of course, I filled my boots. You don't look a gift horse in the mouth (yes, I did buy some Joni Mitchell).

I was umming and aahing over the Jah Wobble anthology. I wasn't overly keen on him though I did enjoy a 12" he did with Holger Czukay and of course the Public Image stuff is fantastic.

So I thought "sod it" and took it to the counter.

The assistant looked at me with horror. "Good choice," he said, but didn't leave it at that.

"I honestly didn't think anybody was going to buy it," he said. "I'd made sure it wasn't easy to find. And I would never have believed in a million years that somebody in Bexleyheath would want to buy a Jah Wobble album."

He wanted it for himself. The shop was closing down, he was losing his job and I was taking his only compensation.

I felt awful. But I didn't stop him scanning the barcode, didn't stop him taking my card. My signature was unwavering and confident.

I played the CD when I got home. Apart from the Public Image stuff and the one track with Holger Czukay, it was shit.

I played it again last week. It was still shit. And I felt the guilt rise up in me. And it won't go away.

A BRIT of Alright

The winners of the BRIT Award For Outstanding Contribution To Road Safety, The Pet Shop Boys, were running through a medley of their songs, old and new.

"They're alright," I said to Betty. "But I prefer Suicide."

OK, I know it's not like comparing the Beatles and the Stones or the Pistols and The Clash, but I knew what I was getting at.

So glad to see Iron Maiden win Best British Live Band, not because I think they're any good or because they were the one band shortlisted I have seen live, but because the serious, heartfelt acts like The Verve, Coldplay and Elbow were beaten by votes from a devoted fanbase who follow their heroes purely to be entertained, not to feel at one with the singer onstage, having an intimate, sincere moment with Ashcroft or Martin or Garvey. Iron Maiden may be shit rock 'n' roll but at least they do rock.

Trouser Trouble

Middle aged spread creeps up on you. I thought I was fine wearing my 34 inch trousers. Then it was time to buy a new pair and I realised the old ones had stretched quite a bit.

Wrapping the tape measure round my waist is dispiriting. It's one of those metal measures you use for measuring your living room or your dick. "12 inches but I don't use it as a rule!"

38 inches, though! I don't look it. To look at me you might say 34 or 35. But 38?

So I shop for some 38" trousers. Short leg. Fucking hell, I'm like Danny DeVito!

But 38's too loose. I try on a pair of 36s. I have to breath in and they're too tight around my bulging, muscular thighs and my perfectly proportioned arse. So I buy the 38s with a belt.

Trouble is, the holes in the belt are in the wrong places. Either too tight or too loose. So I make a hole with a screwdriver and a pair of scissors.

Not bad. But with my light blue shirts, if I walk any distance my trousers start to fall down. It's fucking embarrassing to keep pulling them up when I'm walking. You see, the light blue shirts are made of thinner material than the others. There's not enough bulk around my middle. Either I need to feed myself more or I need to get some braces. I can't wear braces! This is not fucking Gordon Gecko or Mork and Mindy, this is 21st century business!

Twitter Ye Not!

I'm having a bit of a blogging break, just getting into the Twitter thing that's sweeping the nation because everybody wants to arselick celebrities like Fry and Ross.

Well, I wouldn't recommend any of the celebrity ones. They're deadly dull. Except for Calvin Harris (oh come on, you know Calvin Harris!), who makes me laugh. Musicians have always been more entertaining than so-called comedians.

Anyway, I'm over here and Betty's over here if you want a peek. If you haven't joined yet, come and join us (as the Salvation Army officer said to the actress).

Too Much Too Young

There is an outcry amongst good-thinking people about the 4ft tall 13 year old father who got his 15 year old girlfriend pregnant "during a night of unprotected sex". A whole night? A 13 year old whose voice hasn't broken? That's pretty good going. I bet he was a sensitive lover, too. And I bet he needed some deep-voiced Barry White soul to set the mood.

Then I read that he's from Eastbourne. And it all kicks into place.

Say you're a young boy on your first walk to the front at your seaside home town. What should be an exciting fun-filled day is totally spoiled by the sight that greets you on the prom. Thousands of motorised wheelchairs, driven by 95 year old 1 m.p.h. maniacs and stationary contraptions containing what my mother kindly describes as "the waxworks", staring into nothing but God's endless gullet.

A young boy experiencing this would vow to never get old, to get the stuff of life over as quickly as possible, become a grandfather at 26 and leave a young, good-looking corpse!

Plutonium Blondes

There's a battle going on in my head. Two songs I heard this week, each song just once, one on the tv, one on the radio. One I hate, one I love.

I wake up with the one I hate going round my head. I try to force the one I love to come to the fore. But the one I hate is always there, gnawing away.

The eighties.

So much to answer for.

Football Is The Loser

It was a sad day for English football when Peter Shilton took Bobby Moore's record for the most number of England caps. But he WAS a goalkeeper and DID play into his late fifties and Ray Clemence WAS shit so I wasn't completely surprised.

But yesterday was an even sadder day as David Beckham equalled Bobby's record for an outfield player.

Bobby was a footballing god. The coolest, calmest footballer ever to put on an England shirt. He could read forwards' intentions so quickly he knew what they were going to do before they did.

Beckham is a one trick pony. He has a sweet right foot. He can cross a ball in open play and he is very good at set pieces. But he is no Brooking, Hoddle or Gascoigne. He doesn't take your breath away with his dribbling or quick thinking defence splitting passes. He is good at what he does but what he does is very limited.

He prostitutes himself in the media. He bores us senseless with his family pictures and his meat and two veg bulging in his girly white pants like gobstoppers in a greedy boy's cheeks. His tattoos and hairstyles have been laughable. His boots are like ballet pumps. In fact he wear a tutu on the pitch. He prances up and down the touchline, lifting his skirt when an opponent comes near him, pulling his girly pants up as high as he can. As he prepares to take a free kick or a penalty he lifts his skirt in front of the opposition's wall or goalkeeper, pulls his pants up over his manhood, lifts his penis and displays his clean shaven golden balls, freshly painted along with his finger and toenails in the changing room before the match. It is blatant gamesmanship, which namby pamby referees nowadays ignore as it is all part of the "modern" game.

Beckham is not fit to lace Bobby's boots.

Brain Food

From today's Metro...

The Mediterranean diet may be good for the brain as well as the body. Eating the way people do in southern Italy can help reduce the risk of an elderly person's mental decline turning into Alzheimer's disease.

High consumption of white bread, ham, cheese, pizza, tiramisu and ice cream, plenty of strong coffee and forty cigarettes a day could cut the risk of developing the ailment by half, according to researchers at New York's Columbia University Medical Centre.

"Well, fuck me," said sufferer Arthur Grinley, 87 from Haywards Heath. "If I'd known about this fifty years ago I wouldn't have been a bleedin' brown ricer for most of me adult life."

Lay, Lay, Delay

How bloody naive am I? Watching The Doors live from 1968 on Sky Arts the other night I was wondering where the bass player was. Was he hidden backstage? It took me ages to work out that Ray Manzarek was playing the bass lines on his keyboard.

Of all the sixties bands, only the Beatles outdid The Doors in the classic albums stakes. Six great albums with Jim at the helm. That's some going in only five years.

Sky Arts are also giving us the Classic Albums series. The Band's The Band was one. Not a classic album, really (you could maybe cobble one together with its best songs and the best from Music From Big Pink). But me and Betty both like The Band and whenever they're mentioned we always seem to get onto the Bob Dylan question.

You see, Betty doesn't really *get* Bob Dylan. She likes a few songs and liked his drug addled performance from the 1966 tour. But that's about it. I almost *get* him. I don't understand the lyrics but love the songs and what he does with them.

Which makes me think that there are lots of different ways that people react to Bob Dylan. You can like his songs, but only done by other people. You can like his lyrics but not his songs, in the same way I like Leonard Cohen. You can like his acoustic stuff but not his electric stuff like the bloke who shouted "Judas!" Or you can like his electric stuff but not his acoustic stuff like I did up 'til last year. You can like everything he's ever done, including the latter strangled voice stuff. Or you can just like his 60s and early 70s stuff, like me. Of course, he could give you the absolute creeps and you'd rather stick knitting needles in your ears or listen to Trout Mask Replica on repeat for 48 hours. You could think the young Bob Dylan was sexy. Or you might prefer the young John Taylor from Duran Duran.

Only in the last case would I question your sanity.

So what about it? Where do we stand on the Bob?

Bollocks To Them All

Claire Rayner on Comment Is Free, demanding her mates a say on Thought For The Day.

Just a few points, Claire.

1. "Yet the National Secular Society and the British Humanist Association, representing the 46% of the British population who belong to no religion..." No you do not. You represent yourselves. Don't bring me into it.

2. "The BBC can't claim it is offering what most people want. The secular society points out that its 46% of the population is more than all the minority faiths put together." If the BBC just offered what most people want, imagine how shit its programmes would be. One of the good things about the BBC is that they cater for minorities.

3. "Among Today's 6.6 million listeners there could be considerable interest in secular humanism. They need to know about groups where they could feel at home." For heaven's sake, Claire, do you really think people listening to Radio 4 who have an unnatural obsession with not believing have never heard of the BHA?

By the way, Claire. When Thought For The Day is broadcast, at 7.45 a.m. I'm either just about to board a train or taking a couple of paracetamol in bed. I couldn't give a toss what's on the radio. But I'd rather listen to Thought For The Day than the presumably secular Chris Moyles Show. Just.

Revenge Of The One-Eyed Scotsmen

Clarkson, I'm watching you.

Dead Of Night

At 2 o'clock this morning, Lord Tebbit rose from his coffin and spoke into his dictaphone, accusing the BBC of double standards after the corporation had sacked Carol Thatcher from The One Show after she had referred to a tennis player as a "golliwog" in the green room.

"It seems very odd that (Jonathan) Ross can be back broadcasting having made obscene insulting remarks on the air, and Carol Thatcher, who said something which is ALLEGEDLY highly offensive BUT WHICH I RATHER DOUBT WAS MEANT TO BE SO, in private, should be banned. It is probably a bit of a way for the BBC to get back at Carol's mother."

Speaking as a licence payer, Norm (as I'm sure you'd want me to start), now the annoying bitch has proved herself to be racist I never want to see or hear her on the BBC ever again. If the BBC had wanted to get back at Carol's mother they would hardly have employed the twat in the first place. And no, I don't like cricket, but if I did I'd support the West Indies just to spite you, you small-minded little Englander prick of a man.

Highlights Of A Weather-Enforced Day Off Work

1. Loose Women. Geoffrey Hughes advertising the two-hander he's in at the Oldham Coliseum. Yes, a two-hander at the Oldham Coliseum, missus! Carol McGiffin, 48, (from Maidstone, like Chicory Tip) showing off her engagement ring like a stupid teenager. Carol was previously married to Chris Evans so let's hope she's developed taste in men over the years.

2. The BBC News and the commuter who was angry at the authorities' lack of response to the snow. "There are no gritters! It's like a third world country!" Would any of you like to suggest which third world country the South East of England resembles?

3. A search on my blog for "Lennie Peters and The Krays". "Sounds like a band," said Betty. Probably one that would play the Dirty Water Club.

The Lederhosen Ones

Maidstone's finest, Chicory Tip are the Christmas regulars at the village hall my mum and stepdad occasionally frequent. On Saturday, though, it was the turn of a "German" oompah band.

One of my dad's favourite old phrases was "Oompah! Oompah! Stick it up your joompah!" Which is what I'd say if I were invited to such an event.

The oompah night started off well with cold meats and apple strudel for afters, but degenerated into audience participation and the wearing of silly hats. Six people on my mum's table were really getting into it, loudly banging their licked-clean spoons in time with the music, downing the brandy and cokes like there was no tomorrow.

The 2009 Bloggies

The Bloggies are blogging's equivalent of The Oscars. Awards for blogs are about as ridiculous as you can get. They're rewarding failure. Writers and directors of Oscar nominated films are rich. They've made it big. Their awards are recognising their success. Same with music awards. The artists have sold their music by the truckload.

Bloggers aren't successful. And don't kid yourself that just because you've got a book deal you're a success. Think to yourself how many books fail, wasting paper. You're a failure as a writer if your writing doesn't make you rich. For every blogger there is always somebody better than you writing for free a few links away.

Even though I think it's a shitty idea I've still got a few questions to ask the Bloggies team.

1. Why is it that there are awards for Best Canadian Weblog and Best Australian/NZ Weblog when you've dropped the best American Weblog category? What the fuck have the Americans done to you? They've just elected a black man as President for God's sake! And you reward them by withdrawing their award? Shame on you!

2. Why are there two non-English language blogs on the shortlist? Don't you fuckers know blogs don't do subtitles? Who do you think is voting? We all speak English, knuckleheads!

3. Why has the Best GLBT Weblog category been replaced by Best Microblog? Why on earth are people who don't have much to say more important than a wonderfully creative minority? If you want to microblog, go Twitter yourself!

4. Why are there an Icelandic and a French nominee in the Best European Weblog Award? English is not their first language! A European blogger living outside the British Isles has to be an American or British ex-pat. You know the fucking rules!

5. If you're going to have a Best Teen Weblog then you've got to have a Best Oldie Weblog. Blogging is dominated by twenty somethings up to sixty somethings. Let's have some great grandmothers for a change! They've got a whole lifetime of knowledge to impart.**

Anyway, best of luck to all the nominees. I won't be voting because none of my mates are on there. They never have been. And they never will be. And in the true spirit of blogging I will only ever vote for my mates. So I will never vote. So ner!


** My favourite is I've Still Got Me Marbles, You Know written by Maud Langley, an 89 year old from Chorley.

John Martyn

Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Clifford T Ward, Elliott Smith, Jeff Buckley...

Sensitive male singer songwriters who died too young. John Martyn outlived them all but 60 is still too bloody young to go. I only got into John a few years ago but I love his albums to bits. He'd just been made an OBE along with hundreds of other people who have never been geniuses.

The UK is very strange.

Murph

Bollocks to those book deals,
Bollocks to the Bloggies.
We've had much more fun
With our friends the doggies.

We Are The Goon Squad And We're Coming To Town

Yesterday I bought some new glasses. I asked the assistant in Boots if frame fashion had changed since I bought my last pair a little over two years ago. Apparently frames have got thicker. I opted for a thin-framed pair.

I've never been fashionable. Men being fashionable reminds me too much of Robert Elms.

Elms was spouting his usual nonsense on Style On Trial: The 70s. He said that anybody who says punk was about the music doesn't know what they're talking about. Punk was about fashion and punk fashion was over in three months. When middle class kids in Doctor Martens got involved, punk was dead.

Elms always talks as if his experience of life is the only true history. Punk wasn't just about cool kids shopping in West London. It was about kids all over the country starting bands, something which hadn't happened since the golden days of skiffle. You didn't get bands like Buzzcocks, Subway Sect and The Fall dressing in Vivienne Westwood clobber. While Elms was changing out of his punk gear into his nascent new romantic outfits, punk morphed into post-punk and pop music entered a truly great phase.

The Colin Hunt Tie

I went to a leaving do on Monday. A bit of tomato fell out of my sandwich onto my tie. It left a stain.

As my only other tie was creased I decided to buy some new ones. Imagine my delight when I found out that Tie Rack were having a 75% off sale.

So yesterday morning I changed into one of the new ties, a delightful blue one with little yellow flowers.

When I got home and started my usual moaning to Betty about my day, her eyes began to laugh as she kept looking down my front.

"Is there something funny?" I said.

"It's your tie," she said. "It's a bit...Colin Hunt."

"It wasn't Colin Hunt in the shop," I said.

"Maybe it's with that shirt. It's not necessarily a Colin Hunt tie of its own accord. It's just in combination with that shirt."

That shirt is a rather fetching blue.

"The tie just seems to stand out, like the design is three dimensional."

I took the tie off in a fit of pique and took the other new ties out of the bag. I held them up to my shirt, one by one.

"Is this tie Colin Hunt?"

"No."

"Is this one?"

"No."

"Is this tie Colin Hunt."

"A bit. But only with that shirt. Probably."

"So I've bought two Colin Hunt ties!"

You see how touchy I can be! Betty was only saying that one of my ties looked Colin Hunt with that particular shirt and that another tie looked a bit Colin Hunt with the same shirt. With a nice white shirt, both ties would look fine and dandy. But I wouldn't let it lie. All night I went on and on about my Colin Hunt ties. I'm sorry, Betty.

I'm wearing the slightly Colin Hunt tie today with a white shirt. I look like a dashing Member of Parliament.

Short People Got No Reason To Live

What Mick Hucknall sees in the mirror, reported in Saturday's Guardian Weekend...

"I keep reading that I'm diminutive - why do people call me that?"



"I'm 5ft 11in with size 11 feet. I'd actually like smaller feet. It might be a fetish, but I do like graceful feet, and small ones lend themselves to grace."

Maybe, Mick. But we all know what big feet on a man lend themselves to, don't we? Would you really have been such a big hit with the ladies with little baby feet on the end of your long, muscular legs?

All The Nice Girls Love A Scouser

"If you are a nice girl you like the Beatles and if you're a naughty girl you like the Stones."

Eve Pollard, talking in the present tense about the sixties on BBC4's Style On Trial.

What a load of bollocks! What the fuck have a woman's sexual habits got to do with either the kind of music she likes or the type of man she fancies?

And surely it would have been the case that most young people at the time would have liked both the Beatles and the Stones.

Of course the Beatles were better, but that goes without saying.

Back to Black

Funerals are shit, aren't they? Not as shit as weddings, but shit nonetheless.

The modern style of funeral with the picture of the deceased up front and members of the family feeling obliged to give speeches is just too tacky. Play a song by Westlife and reflect? Reflect on how crap the song is!

I still cried, of course. I'm wetter than a wet weekend, me. It was my first Humanist funeral and the Humanist chappy was very sincere and inclusive of everyone and even choked a bit when he read one of the grandchildren's letters.

But it's the dismal poor man's church-like setting. The "uplifting" or "humorous" music which is supposed to convey the character of the deceased. The creaking mechanical movement of the coffin as it jerks behind the curtains. There's just no class.

And then you file out and spend three hours looking at dying flowers, milling around like those morons on the Antiques Roadshow! Followed by some extremely awkward conversation.

More often than not followed the next day by people who went asking each other what song they'd like played at their funeral. Who gives a bollock?

I Want To Live Like Common People

Working, as I do, in an area saturated with young office workers, I often have advertisements for gym membership thrust into my uneager hand. They mistake me for someone who's got the time and the inclination to work out.

Yesterday I was handed the new advert for the latest class at Gym Box.

"CHAV FIGHTING..." it said on the front. "...Martial arts with Burberry belts and a fist full of sovereign rings".

I turned to the inside.

"The louder they grunt the harder they fall...Why hone your skills on punch bags and planks of wood when you can deck some Chavs? Welcome to the wonderful world of Chav Fighting. A world where Bacardi Breezers are your sword and ASBOs are your trophy."

I think I ought to go to this class. Just to see what sort of twats it attracts. I'll take along some of my Chav mates dressed as middle class wankers and we'll kick shit out of the twats in the changing rooms.*



*Not really. Do you honestly think I know any Chavs, dear reader?

Jesus the Jew

It was a cracking start to the new series exploring Christianity on Channel 4. Howard Jacobson didn't pull his punches and actually made me sit up and take notice of what he was saying.

Here's Howard talking to Cardinal George Cottier, former Theologian to the Pope...

HOWARD: I'm wondering how, for example, a Jew can never read parts of the New Testament without feeling more than scandalised. I mean, when John talks about the Jews as devils, for example, the children of Satan.

GEORGE: The Gospel of John isn't an anti-Jewish gospel. It is a gospel that speaks about love. And from this vision of love, one can understand, relativise the meaning of these texts. But we certainly cannot touch what is, for us, a word of God.

Hmmm. So this evening I consulted our Collins Holy Bible and read the following, which John wrote at 8:44...

"You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires."

This, according to John at almost a quarter to nine, is what Jesus said to the Jews.

Howard's right! How can George say there is love in Jesus' words? Unless I've taken those words out of context.

Next week it's Michael Portillo who used to make me physically sick just to look at him. But after a decade of smarm-meister Blair he doesn't seem so bad after all.

It's Always This Time Of Year

He once told me that if I ever have to stay in hospital I should ask for kosher food. It's fresh, hot and delicious, unlike the usual NHS slop.

He wasn't Jewish. He had the cheek of the devil.

After a long spell in hospital, last week he breathed his last. I can imagine the rabbi visiting him as he slipped away.

Next week it's his funeral. In Golders Green.

The Worst Film Director In The World...

...by far, is Phil fucking Good. I wince when I hear there's a new Phil Good movie out.

Apparently a Phil Good movie is up for an Oscar this year. Not again!

Phil fucking Good! How old is this bastard? He seems to have been around forever!

Me, I'm Just A Lawnmower

It's been prog week on BBC4. And once again that old chestnut about punk killing prog was mentioned. Rubbish on the streets, blah blah blah.

Let's get this straight once and for all. Punk did not kill prog.

In 1980, a full four years after this so-called murder, our white, upper working class/lower middle class boys' school was still a hotbed of prog. The sixth-form centre music centre was awash with the stuff.

So why didn't we all join the revolution?

Because there was no revolution! Listen to Phil Collins interviewed on the prog documentary...

"Allo. Sid Snot 'ere. D'you know wot really gets up my 'ooter? Wot really gets up my 'ooter is when all these so called cultural commentatahs go on and on abaht 'ow punk rock killed prog rock. It's all a flippin' lie, I tell ya!"

Well, what Phil actually said was that he was once at an airport and Rat Scabies came up to him. Rather than spit in Phil's face, Mr Scabies shook the Genesis drummer by the hand and told him how much he admired him. Isn't that a turn up for the books?

Then Chris Martin's uncle Ian Anderson told us how Johnny Rotten used to slag off Jethro Tull when the Pistols were around, then later admitted Aqualung was one of his favourite albums.

So there you go. Punk did not kill prog.

But did it kill socialism?

Discuss.

A Message From The BBC

In these financially testing times it is with great sadness, yet much hope, that we, the BBC, announce the amalgamation of two of the corporation's flagship shows.

It was a difficult decision to make but Jools and Jo are ready for a new challenge after 35 years solid service to the nation.

Doctor Who and Later With Jools are to be replaced by a brand new show, Doctor Hootenanny. Jools Holland will play the Doctor with Jo Wiley as his trusty assistant, Jo. Jo has indicated her commitment to the new role by vowing not to get pregnant for the next ten years.

We are hoping this show will be a great success as it will be a mixture of Jools' tried, trusted and popular boogie woogie "I'm In The Mood For Love" cod reggae sound and frightening images such as The Hucknall, The Lennox, The Sting and The Paul Rodgers With Queen acting as if time has not ravaged their once fresh faces and bodies. It will be a real family show, entertaining Middle England's middle aged parents and young children alike.

TV license payers will hopefully be pleased to hear that Jools will not only be playing The Doctor but will also be providing the voices for the daleks for a merely nominal fee.

That Creative Urge (Sick Bag Not Provided)

2009 is the year that all decent bloggers will get a publishing deal. I can feel it in my bones.

But seriously, this is the year that I want to see some of my stuff on the printed page. I just want something on our bookshelf that has been entirely written by me.

I know it sounds silly. After all, my ambition to write and communicate has been realised on this blog. I love doing it. It is the most pleasurable form of written communication there is.

So why do I feel the need to write a book? And what on earth would I publish?

Why? I honestly don't know. My idea of creative writing is messing about with words. I can't take myself seriously enough to plan things and see them through to the end. I couldn't write a novel! I just write any old shit that comes into my head. I always have done. It's getting out all the jumbled crap that comes in. I've tried to start novels, screenplays and plays and I always give up. There is no plan there, just a load of dialogue that goes nowhere. I decided a few years ago not to start another novel or script because I knew how it would end up. In the bin.

So what can I write? There's my autobiography.

I started my autobiography earlier this week. Christ, was it depressing! I got to the age of four and I wanted to drown my beautiful little brown body in the sea at Bournemouth. I didn't want to come back to South East London and have to socialise with relatives and other children. I was happy with my mummy and daddy and my toy cars. I wanted to sink to the bottom of the sea, my little hand clutching a two inch bubble car.

So what else is there? There's my dream blog which might make a good stocking filler for myself if I had some decent illustrations to go along with the dreams. But I haven't. By the way, did I tell you about the Radio 4 researcher who e-mailed me to ask me if the dreams were real? Weirdo or creative genius? What do you think?

So I'm left with an anthology of my poems, my least popular blog writings but what I enjoy doing almost as much as this blog. So this year I'm going to write some more funny rhymes and have a good laugh with myself and upload them to Lulu. That's if Lulu will have me.