Aimless (2)

I apologise if you were reading this blog a couple of years ago when a lot of the next few sections of the story were told. But this is the new, improved version!

Also, I am putting my podcasts on a new blog, latest one here.

Anyway, enough of that. The story continues...

My mum and dad met at the Embassy Court in Welling. This was the local place to see and dance to the bands of the day. This was my dad’s music, The Ted Heath Orchestra, big band shit like that. My mum was a big Sinatra fan.

My dad and his friend would stand at the front, close to the band, their necks jerking back and forth like pigeons’ necks, in time to the music. The equivalent of our later headbanging except there were plenty of women around in the dance halls of the day to admire their smart head moves and smarter Tony Curtis haircuts.

My dad was still doing National Service, in the Air Force, when my mum and dad got married. They lived for five years in my dad's parents' home. No room to swing a cat but it was the only way they could save up enough money to get a deposit on a house. In the end, my dad was lent most of the deposit by a man whose gardening he did. They were on the housing ladder and moved to Welling.

When she was pregnant with me, my mum worked at the Atomic Energy. Her best friend at the Atomic was carrying at the same time. A girl. We were the children of the future.

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.

The first thing I can recall is riding my tricycle, legs pumping away like manic sausages, heading along the pavement to greet my dad as he came home from work, a packet of Murraymints for me in his jacket pocket.

I don't remember our dog. Dino was named after the Flintstones' pet dinosaur and his favourite meal of the day was a packet of my mum's cigarettes. The cigarettes were essentials. The dog wasn’t. The dog had to go.

Dino went to a good home and I was allowed my own space. I soon learned to play alone, happy in the company of Baby and Daddy Mugger, my two pandas. My mum often brings up Baby Mugger, even today. Baby Mugger was the child I never had.

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

When I was four my dad got a job as an engraver on the south coast and we upped sticks for Christchurch.

I loved Christchurch. My dad went 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. My white body went brown in the sun and I felt more comfortable exposing the upper half of my body than I have since. I had a Batman outfit in which I ran down Bournemouth High Street, oblivious to the crowds.

My dad loved it there, too. He enjoyed the job 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. She was lonely.

Two incidents stick out in my mind from then. I was scared shitless by the steam and whistle of a steam train going under a bridge we were standing on. And I was scared shitless when I was left alone in the house with my cousin one day. She got it into her head that there was an intruder in the house. Silly girl.

Despite those couple of frights I remember it as year of comfort and security. With my mum I was safe, happy playing by myself in the living room, listening to the sounds of food being prepared, rooms being vacuumed and the quiet druggy sound of the radio.

I had no friends and I couldn't have been happier. But my mum was going mad with loneliness. So we moved back home.

We weren't able to get our own place straight away. We spent the next several months at my dad's parents' council house. Yes, back there again for my parents. Even more crowded now and not good for anybody's nerves, especially since my parents had now had a taste of independence.

I went to the chip shop on a Saturday with my dad, watched the wrestling and checked the pools with my grandad. But my happy days with my mum, just the two of us, were gone. I remember being ill most of the time, lying in bed, afraid of the wallpaper.

Shapes moved. They became three-dimensional. They throbbed, heaved, backwards and forwards, side to side, span and spiralled.

I started school, a tiny school around the corner. I immediately contracted measles.

The wallpaper had a field day and the bastard measles perforated my eardrum. As my mum and dad argued, my grandparents argued, the one unifying force was the sick, weak child in the box bedroom. Come on, Dad. Hurry up and get a deposit on that dream house!

Staycation

As part of an all-out assault on your patience I have decided to produce some podcasts perfectly unsuitable for BBC Radio. I was going to do videos but couldn't bear to look at myself. It's bad enough having to listen to my own voice!

Don't worry, I haven't given up on the memoirs. The next installment will be along soon. Anyway, turn the lights down low, close your eyes and prepare for the sexiest voice on the internet.

Aimless (1)

My mum was born in 1931, in Cornwall. My grandad had his own coffin-making business. My nan was a housewife.

My grandad had been in the Great War. He’d been gassed in the trenches. He never talked about it.

My mum had an older brother and two younger sisters. Her brother used to catch rabbits and keep ferrets on his person, under his clothes. All four children were given 'opening' medicine by my nan. They’d get caught short in the fields and have to use dock leaves to wipe their arses.

My nan didn't think much of life. Her most common saying was ‘Life is hell on earth'. As her family were always pretty well-off in the scheme of things, there must have been a depressive streak running through her. She was certainly not one to think of the deprivations of others less fortunate living lives that could truly be called 'hell'.

During the Second World War, my grandad joined the army but was discharged quite quickly. They didn't want old'uns like him. He moved to Welling in south-east London where he lodged and worked locally as a clerk of works.

My mum, meanwhile, was living the idyllic Cornish life, far away from the action. I have an image of my mum running on Marazion beach as a German bomber flies overhead. Jerry looks down and waves.

My dad was born in Bexley in 1932. Born in the same council house he grew up in, the one his mum eventually died in. My dad’s dad was a labourer for the council. He could have been a footballer. Arsenal wanted him but he chose the security of a steady council job.

My dad used to say my grandad was as fast as a whippet and, being small, would run with the ball between big centre halves’ legs. Centre halves were giants back then.

My dad’s mum, like my mum’s, was a housewife. She was more cheerful than my mum’s mum.

My dad’s childhood was idyllic, too. He loved the countryside. A teacher once addressed him in front of the class and said he knew that all my dad wanted was to be in a field, alone, miles from anyone and anywhere.

My dad was evacuated to Derbyshire during the war. Bexley was close enough to London to be bombed. My dad loved Derbyshire. I never knew a place with beautiful countryside that my dad went to that he didn’t love, that he didn’t want to move to.

The war ended and my mum’s dad sold his coffin-making business in Cornwall and bought the house he was staying in, in Welling. The family moved from Cornwall for good. My grandparents knew there was nothing in Cornwall for young women. My mum would have had to marry a farmer, muck out for the rest of her life. The girls wanted more than that. They wanted work, glamour, lights and life. Life, not the slow death of the countryside. Not the sort of place my dad dreamt of.

Preface to 'Aimless'

You know what? I've done over 16,000 words now but I'm missing getting a response from you lot. Writing is a lonely business when you're just writing for yourself. I like to communicate. Oh, how I miss work and its cut and thrust. How I wish I were there now, stressed up to the eyeballs, listening to bullshit.

So I'm going to serialise my life story on here. Right from the very beginning. I hope you'll have the patience to see it through and not desert me as the going gets tough. When I've finished I'll probably self-publish it, something to show the nurse in the old people's home. She or he will say, 'Geoff. At least nobody can say you didn't live a life. Of sorts. No, really, it's very interesting. Honest, it is.'

My Life Story - Excerpt

MJ kindly requested an excerpt from my ongoing autobiography which I am currently doing instead of getting off my arse and finding a job like the benefit scrounger I am. So here is a bit I wrote yesterday, a taster for the best-seller it is sure to be, giving a glimpse of the tragedy to come which would divide our happy nuclear family forever, oh spare me the violins!

80s pop was beginning to break out of its gloomy shell and bright young things were getting more and more outlandishly dressed and fresh-faced. At about the same time in the NME there were articles on two new bands, ABC and Haircut 100. I thought ABC’s cycling outfits were ridiculous and the Haircuts had nice jumpers and sensibly high-slung guitars and were more becoming of the modern pop star. Michael was of the opposite opinion. So I chose Haircut 100 as my prediction to be the next big thing and he chose ABC. This was before either of us had heard a note of their music.

If we’d been kids, ten years younger and more boisterous, maybe we’d have had a fight to decide it like the Gary Glitter boy and the Marc Bolan boy. But we didn’t even have a bet as we knew pop music was to be enjoyed, not to get into arguments about. I have never judged someone by their musical tastes, maybe some light teasing about Cliff Richard or Wet Wet Wet, but as with your football team, I don’t mind who you support as long as you don’t force me to experience them.

So who won between the two bands? ABC were the more popular, I’d say, and made more money. But Martin Fry is still doing those chicken-in-a-basket 80s nostalgia tours whereas Nick Heyward is known as one of the greatest thinkers of his generation and is always being asked for quotes on a whole myriad of subjects.

I was totally bored with my course by now. I’d chosen the wrong subject for the second year in Econometrics with its particularly pointless equations. But I was still there, hanging on, not wanting a job. I needed something to tip me over the edge and make me give up.

It was the day I bought the 12 inch single of ABC’s Poison Arrow. I’d cycled to Cloud 9, all the way to heaven, and back and played it and added it to my growing collection of pretentious early 80s 12 inchers. It was a Saturday evening. I’d had my chips and was settled down in front of Match of the Day. My mum and sister were in bed and me and my dad were watching the football, him shouting out the usual ‘It’s “one-all”, not “one-one!”’ at the blasphemous commentators and ‘Don’t tickle it, it won’t laugh!’ at the hapless “fanny” players. My dad was quite sober that night. A usual night would involve me leaving him downstairs at 11 p.m. so he could eat his one meal of the day in peace, his boiled hearts or kidneys or other muck straight out of the saucepan he’d cooked them in. I’d wake up a couple of hours later to the sound of the television’s high pitched tone, I’d come downstairs, see the red dot in the middle of the screen and turn off the TV. He’d be slumped in his armchair, mouth open, snoring like a good’un and I’d shake him awake with difficulty and coax him to go to bed. Once I came downstairs after being woken up by the TV and found him drowsily pissing into the kitchen sink. When I told him he was disgusting he said his dad used to regularly spit in the sink and spitting in the sink was much more unhygienic than pissing in the sink. I begged to differ but I wasn’t going to make a scene.

His pissing wasn’t confined to the toilet and the sink, however. Once he had a slash out of the bedroom window and woke my mum up. I don’t know if he told her that his dad used to spit out of the bedroom window and pissing out of it was more hygienic, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

So, there we were, father and son watching the football, a happy picture of family male bonding. And the phone rang. He got up so quickly I guessed he had been expecting the call. And he was sober. I heard the mufflings of a short conversation coming from the hallway and he came back in and told me he had to go out.

My Life Story

It doesn't get much cooler than this



This is the life. I am spending my days lazing around and writing my life story. It's a dull life I've had but why would anyone want to read about an exciting life? They'd only get jealous.

I've done 10,000 words so far and I've got to my mid-teens. So 30,000 words to go and 35 years. Can I write that much? I'm going to need an awful lot of padding, going off on tangents, making up lots of dialogue. But now I've got a bit of time to myself I actually believe I can do it.

And where I used to think whatever I'd written in the past had been the finished product, I know this is only the first draft, to be played around with, fiddled with until I've got something to show the world.

Of course next week I'll probably be rolling on the floor in despair.

The Power Of Positive Thinking

So there we have it. 25 years in the same office, many happy years, though recently unhappy, I've been luckier than most.

25 years ago we had six full-time staff in our department. Now, we get a lot more work done with one full-timer and two part-timers. From next week, apparently, optimistically, that full-timer will be replaced by a part-timer. And that's me gone.

Computerisation is great. I wouldn't be able to do this without it, find new friends and show off in front of them. But it's replaced so many jobs over the years. Good, honest hard work is out and creativity is in. I don't mean traditional creativity like making music or art or literature, a much more modern kind of creativity, a knowing look, a bright spark in the eye, a brain trained in business becomes a brain that is so open to so many opportunities it can hardly contain itself within the brittle skull surrounding it. Why don't we do it this way? Have you thought of doing it this way? What about this, what about this, what about this? So many creative ideas flooding from the business brain, spreading over the boardroom table it's difficult to keep them apart. But do you want to? Maybe the ideas all interlink and organically grow into one big idea and we can see the big picture and we look up to the sky and look and look and realise just what a gigantic wonderful world this is and we're so lucky to be a part of it especially in this day and age when creative people are at the hub of a future that can only be sunshine and flowers and positive thinking is going to make it that way and this PowerPoint presentation is going to prove it, you bet it will.

Here Comes The Summer

Now I've got some time at home, thinking what I want from a holiday, a nice walk by the sea and, er, whatever else people do on holidays, so I go to the travel agents and say I want to go somewhere where you can have a nice walk by the sea, thinking somewhere with a long prom like Brighton. She says she likes Puerto Pollensa in Majorca, yes it's very nice there, or maybe Benalmadena on the Costa Del Sol from where you can walk by the sea all the way to Torremolinos if you so wish and I'm thinking do I really want to walk by the sea seven days in a row and I'm thinking, no, I don't really.

And I've seen my fill of cathedrals and ruins and mounds and ancient drawings and mosaics and fuck me, do I really want to go to a monastery at my time of life and I don't really want to taste alcohol I want to guzzle it down with gusto.

But I do want to walk by the sea and I will, on a nice day, get the train to Brighton and walk along the prom to Hove, turn around and walk back again and get the train back home in time to have something nice to eat and to guzzle down some alcohol and watch the bleeding telly cos that's what I like to do, OK?

Climbing Up on Hampton Hill

I have been feeling a little heavy recently, too much comfort eating, possibly comfort drinking, too.

So I was at my mum's last Sunday and I mentioned this to her.

"There's some scales in the bathroom, underneath the thing. You're better off bringing them downstairs and putting them on a hard surface. The kitchen's best."

So I went to the bathroom and got the scales from under the thing, took them into the kitchen and stepped on them. Thirteen stone!

"I'm a couple of stone overweight, too," said my mum.

So I've cut out a lot of wheat. Two slices of bread a day in my lunchtime sandwich. Then I started on the Ryvita. Ryvita, Ryvita, Ryvita. I mentioned my new health kick on Twitter. Beverley replied to me. Bev's alright...

@RyvitaCrunch Beverley at Ryvita @geoffwetblanket have you had a look at our website? Might help inspire you x www.ryvita.co.uk :-)

I suppose if I were a musician or an artist, inspiration would be easy to find. But being a dieter, looking at pictures of cardboard with white stuff on them doesn't get my creative juices flowing.

A week into my diet and I'm off the Ryvita and into Oatibix. The view from the top of Hampton Hill is superb.

1066 Country

Yesterday we took the train to the coast. I used to drive to the coast but I get too tired nowadays on longer journeys than a few miles.

The train to Hastings was air conditioned. The air conditioning smelt of sweat but what do you expect in standard class?

Our nostrils were not given a rest all day. Toilets, fish, chips, fish 'n' chips, fish 'n' piss, barbecued meat, the wonderful smells of our seaside resorts.

As usual in Hastings, I decided to head for the cliffs. Except this time I couldn't find the way up. My memory's not what it was. So we turned back from the full car park and headed for St Leonards.

Past the burnt down pier, the people's pier, we walked along the prom prom prom, past sunbathers, lone young men with guitars, a group of people singing Tainted Love, big men cooking meat on barbecues and many lager drinkers. It was St George's Day and your racist little Englander would have been disgusted by the ethnic diversity on show, families from differing backgrounds brazenly enjoying themselves on a beautiful day on a relaxed not-too-crowded beach. Of course the pictures in the papers always show young blondes on Brighton or Bournemouth beaches on work days with unseasonally hot weather or a sea of bodies on the same two beaches on weekends or bank holidays.

Brighton and Bournemouth, young blondes splashing with joy.

What's wrong with a tattooed drunk with 9% lager and a pitbull snarling at the camera, UK Subs and The Vibrators at the local pub and chips gorged in their thousands?

Show us as we are.

1976

1976 was a pivotal year in the history of pop music. Top of the Pops didn't speak to the kids, it was full of acts yer gran liked. Our Kid! The Old Grey Whistle Test was all West Coast hippy nonsense. Noodle noodle noodle. The kids' older brothers' music. There was nothing for the kids. Nothing I tell you.

Britain was ready for an explosion, a revolution, a movement the kids could really get excited by. It was about getting back to basics, the roots of rock 'n' roll, "here's a chord, here's another chord, now go and form a band."

Punk took the nation by storm. The kids were united and they would never be divided. They spat, they pogoed, they took drugs that made them spit and pogo, they called Bill Grundy a dirty old man, the kids were public enemy numbers one to a million and adults didn't know what to do, they were running scared, they were holed up with their James Last and Judge Dread albums, throwing their car keys into the middle of the room, hoping to God for some middle aged thrills with Brenda from number 7 as Brenda's children played their Damned single and threw up out of their bedroom window.

So a time of adult promiscuity and teenage anarchy was raging as Brotherhood of Man took the number one spot with a song about snogging a three year old and God you felt your whole world was on a knife edge as you taped Yes off the radio and snuggled in the corner of the room, big headphones hiding your waxy ears and your dad said "Have you heard about this thing called Punk? Apparently they can't play their instruments."

And you thought what a big deal it all wasn't and 35 years later you can't believe just what a load of shit the media comes out with about nineteen bloody seventy-six.


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The Wisdom of Kirsty Young

"Public spending is being cut by £81bn (nearly 6% of total national income) within 4 years, pushing up unemployment by half a million in the public sector plus adding nearly a further half million in the private sector whose jobs depend on public expenditure." Michael Meacher yesterday (thank you Vicus for alerting me to the existence of his blog, ooh ages ago now).

The Kirsty Young presented series The British At Work has been a load of union-kicking nonsense. The unions were "on top" till the 80s when employers got "on top", did they Kirsty? If by "on top" you mean protecting jobs and working conditions I suppose they were "on top" but that all went out the window in the 80s.

Kirsty proved she knew fuck all about what was going on in her own generation with her take on the lyrics to the single Wham Rap! and the image of the band Heaven 17 on the cover of their album Penthouse and Pavement.

In Kirsty's world, Wham Rap! was about finding a job you like in Thatcher's land of opportunity. Of course the song is really about the impossibility of anything but a dead-end low-paid soul-destroying job or the possibility of rejecting this and having some self-respect on the dole. Better to be out of work than doing long hours of shit for peanuts.

In Kirsty's world the "message they are giving..." on the cover of Penthouse and Pavement "...is very clear: BUSINESS IS NOW COOL AND SEXY."



Fucking hell, woman. You really don't get irony, do you?

Music and Me

I used to think I was going to be a musician, a writer of songs and a star. No I didn't, I was fooling myself. I haven't picked up that ol' geetar for nigh on 25 years.

But recently, what with all this new technology and whatnot, I have begun to have dreams that maybe there's something there, maybe I've got the music in me. I've downloaded an app for this thing which has three synthesisers, sequencer, etc. The manual's fifty pages long!

Then I think who am I trying to kid? Whenever I hear somebody's music, somebody who blogs or who tweets, I think, yeah, well, you're alright and I'm glad you've got a hobby and all that, but you're a better blogger or tweeter.

It's so easy to expose any old shit on Twitter, not much harder to do any old cock on your blog, but when you say to the world "This is my music" you really are laying yourself open to comparisons with stuff that actually sells. I know I haven't got a hope in Hell of selling any of my music because I just haven't got that star quality, the gift of writing a catchy tune, so I'm sorry but you'll just have to put up with my bollocking words for the next however many years. I'm not going to be the next Mungo Jerry whoever he is, so this is it, this is all you're getting.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

New App

I've got this new app, you see, which means I can blog from my iPhone. This is the future, man, using the one finger I use to point accusingly at animals.

"Did you do that, you naughty boy? You're going to be in trouble."

I don't know how this is going to turn out or what to touch next - it's either "Done" "" or the little camera symbol. I'm guessing it's "Done". Any ideas what happens if I press the other two?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Hairy Escape

Last night I had a bad-trip dream.

I walked into some kind of market and was accosted by a woman standing outside a building. I seemed to be on a promise but she asked me to do something before I could go inside with her. She was a kind of hippy woman but not too smelly. I said OK I'd do whatever she wanted.

She went inside and came out again with people I could only describe as her sisters. Her older sisters, hairy and more smelly. Men appeared around me who looked like this...



They smelled to high heaven, too. They were chewing heavy wholemeal bread which I could see was what the commune were selling at the market as the bread was stacked high on a stall.

My new girlfriend handed me a false beard. She said I was to wear it before I could get access. The beard was made from hairy pubes, earth-mother minge hair presumably donated by the ladies present. Don't ask me how I know none of it was from the men but I just did, OK?

Then the eldest woman present brought a bowl containing a placenta to the proceedings. Don't ask me how I knew it was a placenta, I just did, OK?

I put on the minge beard and the placenta was handed to me to cuddle. Meanwhile, the men (see above) were watching me intently, chewing their bread. And the women looked at me with maternal pride.

So the dream ended.

But in real life, here's my latest film. Don't all rush at once.

Who Am I?

True Grit is an excellent film. I can't remember the John Wayne version and I've never read the book but it's just the sort of film that young teenagers should love rather than all that Harry Potter and Twilight nonsense but they won't of course because they've been brainwashed by the media.

We only go to the cinema once a year or so now. So it's good to see the trailers for forthcoming films.

A constant theme in these films seems to be identity. Something changes in the male protagonist's brain and he can't remember who he is or he can remember who he is but can't remember what happened to him or his identity has been stolen by another man or he has become another man with only his name remaining.

You can see his moronic face looking into space and hear his moronic brain whispering "Who am I?" to itself.

If only his mum hadn't forgotten to wash his PE kit with his name sewn into it.

Club Mellow

My latest film is here. I've given up trying to embed them and I can't upload this one to YouTube for some reason.

And as an extra bonus I've been sifting through the thousands of films on the site and actually found a funny one here! Xtranormal is not a social networking site so it's difficult to find stuff you'd want to see. But there have got to be some gems amongst the dross and I'm making it my life's work to find them.

The Olympic Stadium Fascination

One news item we Londoners can't get enough of is the battle for the Olympic Stadium. It's on the local news almost every evening and the selflessness of the owners of the two clubs involved brings a tear to the eye.

Here is my take on the ridiculous saga, including another appearance by my favourite actor, the sexy topless French footballer.

Designer Cake

That's it. I've definitely had it with football. I cancelled my Sky Sports subscription last week but I had to give a month's notice. Today's match was so fucking awful I would rather have been watching the Superbowl cheering on the New York Dolls or whoever's playing this year.

Anyway, my latest video is here. I'm not going to stop doing them just because you don't like them, you know!

Michael Rodd's Screen Test

Two new films for your watching delectation.

Here

And here.

One of them's even topical.

Sorry.

Hamlet Unchained

And here's another one.

The same actor as in the last one but this time with an Australian accent. Last week Steven Spielberg described him as the new greatest living actor now that Pete Postlethwaite has passed away. And who am I to argue?

Where There's A Will

This past week has been about wills. Betty's aunt died last Saturday and as with my dad and Betty's dad, no will is immediately forthcoming. She wanted to be buried in a dress which has mysteriously disappeared. And the man who helped her for most of the past eleven years wants his expenses repaying. This is all happening 170 miles away and really we just want to brush the problems under the carpet. Let's just hope social services aren't too overworked to sort things out.

So today I broached the subject of wills with my mum and stepdad. Yes, their wills are with the solicitor's. But which solicitor's? Good question!

I'm not letting you off lightly with will talk, though. No, I have another film uploaded to YouTube. It can be found here. I'd dim the lights first if I were you.

World Cup Willie

Hello! It's me again. The annoying tit who keeps posting shit animated scripts on the internet.

Still, at least I'm enjoying myself. It reminds me of when I did a serious scriptwriting evening class in the early 90s and I just brought in loads of short, crappy sketches. "Like Reeves & Mortimer," someone kindly said, but I like to think I was more influenced by absurdist theatre. Ian S Coe, that sort of thing.

Anyway, my latest "piece" is here. I've given up trying to embed them.

Happy New Year to one and all.

His Old Man

Tissues at the ready as I present my latest tear-jerking cartoon. I've even worked out how to upload to YouTube!

I promise I won't go mad and do one of these a week, but you know us boys and our new toys!



p.s. Sorry a third of it is hidden. Probably best to go to the link after all.

Boxing Day Blues

Christmas is a time for families to get together at the feet of the matriarch, even if you're feeling like shit, as I was.

We spent Boxing Day eating a mixture of salad, jacket potatoes, cold turkey and ham, pickles, quiches, pigs in blankets, apricot cheese, stuffing balls, mince pies, trifle, Quality Street, nuts, crisps and our own bile.

"I always enjoy this more than Christmas Dinner," is said every year without fail.

After dinner, the tv recorders are put to work. There's one downstairs and one upstairs.

"BBC1: 6.30, Countryfile. 7.30 Antiques Roadshow. 9.00 Upstairs Downstairs."

"I'll go upstairs and record Benidorm and Deal Or No Deal".

"What about Harry Hill?"

"No, I'm not bothered about Harry Hill."

They have 150 hours of unwatched tv on the recorder. They're going to spend the rest of the week catching up.

We, however, have caught up. Our Sky Plus box is free for the first time in years.

You can judge a Christmas by the quality of its telly. This has not been a good one.

Simply Having a Wonderful...Oh, please yerselves

I'm back!

And here's a little something for the festive period.

OK, it's not Guy Ritchie yet, but it's a start!

Brucey Bonus Tracks

I'm sitting here listening to Bruce Springsteen's The Promise, songs from the Darkness on the Edge of Town sessions, thinking Bruce chose the right songs to release back then when he blew my teenage mind, man. There's an urgency, a passion, a spirit in that album that spoke to naive boys and made us think anything was possible, that even owning a car might be romantic. Of course cars and young relationships could never live up to Bruce's billing but I still get a rush of adrenaline whenever I hear that album. The Promise is OK but not essential, a bit like the reality of the motor car.

***

I'm sure you were all riveted by the Golden Twit Awards yesterday. So pleased for Stephen Fry and the Greater Manchester Police. Fry's childish strops and the Force's kettling puns have been essential reading. And they had the gall to have "Public" awards for certain categories, as if the general public actually give a shit about nonentities' egos. Twitter's a great source of news and good for pissing around on with like minds but awards and books and sitcoms based on of-the-moment Twitter accounts? Get a life!

The Drinker's Tale

I walk into the pub. A big place with a stage where they put on entertainment. I go to the bar and the barman greets me.

"What can I get you, sir?"

There is an array of fine real ales. I can't choose, there is too much choice.

A bearded man appears to my left and says to the barman, "He's a newbie. He'll have what newbies have."

The barman pours me two halves of two different ales. Medium strength.

"You owe me 50p," says the bearded man.

Of course I don't.

I find a stool at the bar and sit alone with my two halves. Except there aren't two, there are three. Where did the other one come from and which are mine?

I spend the next hour drinking the beer. I compare and contrast, taking gulps from each of the three glasses in turn. Three glasses because I don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

I am feeling pleasantly relaxed. This is the pub I've been looking for all my life. Nobody is bothering me, nobody is annoying me.

"One two, one two."

Somebody's on stage. It's the man with the beard. He has an acoustic guitar. He starts to sing.

50p. That's all I ask,
To point you to the tastiest cask.
To cap it all you drink my half.
Do you see this fucker laugh?
When you leave you'll meet outside
Some friends of mine, you cannot hide.
They'll beat you to a bloody mess

And that's my story, more or less.

Limbo

I keep preparing myself for change but change never comes. I don't want change so I should be grateful. But this is a very strange feeling, the most weird I have felt in my life.

I never used to think of the future, just took each day as it came. Good or bad, the present was where it was at, the future would take care of itself. Now my head's in the future and the past. The present is running on empty. The future's looking stressed and over-busy or it's looking relaxed and easy. The past? I had it good though I often had it pretty bad. But I never had this feeling of strangeness.

This week I thought it was shingles. The shingles never materialised. A soreness of the midriff which lasted four days. That's it, I said, it's shingles, it's the stress. But the shingles never came. I tried not to touch my eye as I knew someone whose sight was damaged by shingles. But I'm not a doctor and I really shouldn't be diagnosing myself. It wasn't shingles after all. It was just the stress. The stress that comes not from overwork but from a lack of control.

I don't want change, change is the unknown. Frying pan, fire. Fire, frying pan. Just like that.

Whiskey in the Jar

It was my stepdad's 75th birthday last week. He was in hospital for some time earlier in the year and it was good to see him tucking into his Sunday roast. And his prawn cocktail. And his pudding. And half my mum's pudding.

My mum has a friend who has also been ill recently. But for her, living it up is not on the menu. Her doctor's told her in no uncertain terms that she must give up alcohol. Altogether.

Her favourite tipple is whiskey. It just so happened that her giving up drinking coincided with my stepdad's 75th birthday. What special gift would she give him to celebrate this landmark, considering he has driven her and her husband here there and everywhere for the past 15 years?

Three quarters of a bottle of whiskey.

He is a brandy drinker.

Perfect 10

The young woman giving out leaflets for Gym Box (remember them and their Chav Fighting classes?) has a jacket adorned with the words "Get the body your partner always dreams of."

So I pluck up the courage to ask her...

"What's the body your partner always dreams of?"

"James? He dreams of a body that's dismembered, caked in dried blood, bruised black and blue, oozing with pus, crawling with maggots and smelling to high heaven. But that's James and he has a vivid imagination which doesn't switch off when he goes to sleep."

One Is Busy Washing One's Hair

Her Royal Majesty has cancelled this year's Christmas Party for her staff. The party was an annual event until two years ago when she decided to make it biennial.

This year, said an unofficial spokesman, she "couldn't be fucking bothered".

An official spokesman said, "The Queen is acutely aware of the difficult economic circumstances facing the country and, given the current economic climate, it was thought that it was appropriate for the Royal Household to show restraint."

When confronted with the latter, the unofficial spokesman reiterated, "No. The truth is she couldn't be fucking bothered. She's an old woman. Prince Philip is an old man. They've met the great and the good over the years. They see members of the Royal Household every day of the year. They know they're not going to get a conversation as entertaining as the one they had with Michael Bentine in 1995."

Twitter Love

We met on Twitter. We fell in love in 140 characters or less. We have a common interest in music. We love festivals, that communal coming together of like minds. I play the guitar, Rachel plays the drums. We lived 140 miles away from each other but 140 miles is nothing in cyberspace. Within four months Rachel had moved down to London with her drums. Luckily one of my flatmates had fallen in love with a nice girl 140 miles away and was moving out. We formed a band. You wouldn't have heard of us but we're a bit like the Tings Tings although in our band the drummer's female and the guitarist is male, a bit like the White Stripes but not really if you see what I mean.

When we saw the advert asking for young thin white indie musicians who fell in love on Twitter we immediately contacted ITV. They filmed us holding hands in the park and looking lovingly into each others eyes. They filmed the band too but they didn't show the performance on morning television as they said it wasn't suitable for their audience. We feel a bit let down but we're going to carry on as we think we've got something to offer.

The Time of My Life

In a bid to make the evening more special we decide to go to the pub before the restaurant.

The bus journey is a mile and a half, two pounds each one way, a bargain. The pub we choose is one we used to go in when in this town, run by no-nonsense middle-aged women.

Oh well, not any more. Younger bar staff, loud male punters everywhere, swearing at the tops of their voices.

And the tellies are on. And here comes the football.

I see John Terry's gormless face in the tunnel. Oh well, Chelsea. I look around and see Chelsea memorabilia on the walls. Great. Just what I wanted.

Chelsea score two goals, one bloke shouts his appreciation. Most people are ignoring the football. As they should. Televisions, karaoke, live music and tv game show machines should have no place in pubs in a civilised society. But they do. They're everywhere, we're supposed to need these distractions nowadays. Ever since the 80s when it was decided by the Pub God that jukeboxes were not good enough any more and the hated video jukebox made an appearance with Michael Hutchence wanting to make us sweat greasily like him and Sting and Dire Straits screwing with our minds and starting us on the road to buying our Sky dishes.

So we leave this pub and head for another, distracted on the way by a pub that looks as though it's closed down. But it isn't. It's no longer the haunt of desperate alcoholics but it's now a Real Ale Pub, recommended by CAMRA, winning awards.

We go inside. There are Union Jacks everywhere, posters telling us about a Battle of Britain Day on Saturday, dressing up in Wartime clothes required, kids very welcome to come along as long as they're dressed as evacuees. That'll teach the kids what the War was like, except of course they'll be with their pissed-up mum rubbing Bisto into her legs and their paralytic dad moaning about how long it takes for him to get his willy out of his uniform to go for his half-hourly piss, not hundreds of miles away with smiling, welcoming strangers and glasses of creamy milk straight from the cow's udder.

Next week there's an Irish night when the theme is Green and leprechaun children with large heads and false ginger beards are welcome.

Meanwhile on the telly, we have Top Gear with the odious Jeremy and his mates.

So we leave this pub and head for the Turkish restaurant.

The restaurant is busy for a Wednesday night. Big men are getting stuck into big steaks, cramming chips into their big mouths. Out of the front window of this tastefully decorated very pleasant establishment I see the bookies over the road, bereft of customers, next door to the greengrocer's, which is next door to the Londis which doubles up as the local Post Office. The heart of the town.

The background music is awful 80s. Young at Heart, Eternal Flame, (I've Had) The Time of My Life, you get the picture. Pure shite but loved by everyone of a certain age, the age for coming out on a Wednesday night, stuffing your face with your partner.

So we leave the restaurant and, oh fuck, it's the bus: "RUN!"

The 6Music Subspecies

The Simon Armitage interview with Morrissey said far more about the state of my BBC sponsored demographic's establishment attitudes than about the plodding indie anachronism himself.

I feel like I should be part of the Mark, Lard, Armitage, middle-aged dry-humoured serious music fan set, but I just can't bring myself to raise my game and stroke my chin to a succession of bands that wouldn't have got record contracts in the 70s but are now lauded on 6Music's Pub Lunch With Graham Beard.

Talking about a new band called the Smiths, "Peel was never one for hype or eulogy, but somewhere within the lugubrious voice and deadpan delivery, I thought I heard a little note of excitement and perhaps even an adjective of praise."

Wrong, Simon. Peel's little note of excitement was his mind drifting to images of pretty young girls. He thought the Smiths were a load of old cunt and would much rather be playing something sent in by some unlistenable no-hope band recorded in some poor old deaf gran's kitchen in Uttoxeter.

One of the rules for my generation when talking about music is to drop John Peel's name into the conversation. As if we didn't have minds of our own. This nostalgia is suffocating and inaccurate and would send me to prison if ever I were to come across ex public schoolboy Phill Jupitus in the flesh and tempt him into talking about ex public schoolboys Peel and Strummer and wait for the sentimental "we're in this together" tear in his eye.

Armitage hides his not quite double platinum selling band's CD in his book of poetry gift to Morrissey. Morrissey is embarrassed as he forgot to bring his own 40 year old book of poetry Salacious Salford to give to Armitage and return the compliment.

I cringe for my establishment figures.

Gentle Giant

In the pub I overhear a man mention the words "gentle giant".

I hope he's talking about this...



Or maybe this...



But looking at him out of the corner of my eye I know he's talking about this...

Faith School Menace?

I love watching Richard Dawkins documentaries. The naivety of the man is supreme. He cracks me up. Richard brought his kids up to be questioning, skeptical, fully-rounded human beings. He believes that children have the right not to be indoctrinated by their parents or teachers. He believes in a right that doesn't exist. Just like the "enemies of reason" believe in gods that don't exist. How does a young child stand up for their right not to be indoctrinated by religious parents? And if the child can't, who will? Do we have an army of questioning, skeptical, fully-rounded humanist social workers watching CCTV footage of a parent's every interaction with their child? Does a questioning, skeptical, fully-rounded SWAT team storm the home and arrest the brain-washing mum or dad?

Young minds are open to the possibilities of the supernatural, things that go bump in the night. Mums and dads are there to protect their kids from evil ghosts, monsters and carnivorous wallpaper. They're there to cuddle and suffocate with their overbearing love. And if they have a god to help banish the evil from the home and protect the child, they will call upon him.

Maybe A Bunk Bed Would Be A Good Idea After All

I could smell smoke before I saw it. Someone was having a crafty fag.

My mother appeared. She was sitting on the armchair, her right hand hidden from me. I could see smoke rising from behind the right arm of the chair.

I asked her if she was smoking. I said she can't start again now, not after giving up in her 60s. People don't start up again at the age of 78.

She said she wasn't smoking. The smoke was filling the room and my sensitive nose.

I asked her again. She turned to me and regally lifted her hand to her face, as if she were Princess Margaret. She left the cigarette in her mouth and dangled it like a flat-capped commoner.

I reacted like Bruce Lee. I leapt in the air and kicked the offending stick from her mouth.

***

I woke up with a start. Betty seemed to be sleeping. But she often wakes up in the mornings with bruises on her leg.

Nothing Seems Right In Cars

The 60s boy next door has moved up from a Lambretta to a Mini. Today he is out lovingly washing it as we walk past. My filthy, sticky car is a few feet away. If I were a normal middle aged man I'd say to him, "You can do mine when you've finished." I'm not normal, though. Some cars are aesthetically pleasing to me, like the boy's Mini. But that's as far as it goes for me. My car stays plain-looking, unwashed and unloved, covered in tree and bird emissions. I ought to give it a once-over but that can wait till the week before its service.

Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag And Stick It Up Your...

Googling only makes Eliza Doolittle depressed. Is she depressed about the state of the world? Conflict, poverty and "natural" disasters, Eliza?

No, it's the nasty people on the internet saying how fucking awful her music is and how she should fuck off back to public school.

Named after a cockney flower girl who provides wank material eye candy for an old man in payment for elocution lessons, Eliza was born into the world of the stage school female "artist" bollocks infecting current pop music. She is the granddaughter of Sylvia Young!

I hear Eliza's latest song every day on the radio at work. It annoys me so much I've gone beyond hate. I'm somewhere much darker.

The other day I blurted my distaste out loud.

"I've never heard this song before," was the reply, even though it had been played every day for five weeks solid.

And then, probably to spite me...

"I love it! It's really lively! It's got a really lively beat! It's so happy!"

What do you think?

Free Prog & Krautrock!

It will go down in history that the last CDs I bought were Peter Gabriel's first two solo albums. I had them on vinyl a long long time ago and my memory isn't what it is. I still like the first one but that's about it of Mr WOMAD's long, distinguished, boring solo career.

Our house is bursting with CDs, DVDs and books. There just isn't room for any more. Admittedly we have listened to the CDs at least once each. But many of the books and DVDs will have to wait for my release from that hamster wheel called work as Philip Larkin said so eloquently.

I suppose Spotify is my friend. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about it as it makes finding new and old music too easy and hardly rewards the artists for their art. But that's the modern way. They make their money from live shows nowadays. So why should I feel guilty? But I do.

I'm spending a fiver a month on Spotify's "Unlimited" package, free of those five-an-hour British Gas adverts. I suppose it's about time Rupert Murdoch got his grubby paws on it and it's incorporated into Sky Songs.

You Know This Much Is True

I was reading Gary Kemp's autobiography and, boy, did it go on!

Gary can write a mean, lean tune with concise, deep lyrics. But when he starts tapping those computer keyboard keys, well, did we really have to know EVERYTHING about his life? He only reaches his third birthday on page 147!

Three months I was at it, learning more about the Kemp brothers than I thought humanly possible and by the time they'd been through Bert Weedon's Play In A Day for 73 consecutive days I had just about had enough. I stood up from my seat in the train carriage, held the book aloft and shouted at the top of my voice "Tony Hadley is the greatest soul singer the world has ever produced!" and with palpable relief threw the book out of the open window just as we passed Millwall's football ground.

To cut a long story short I had truly lost my mind.

Middle Aged Fred

On Saturday night the conversation was about festivals and live music. I felt so old. I've reluctantly been to one festival: an awful GLC one where the highlight was The Three Johns! And my last gig was Air at the Brixton Academy, which was full of idiots talking all the way through as I kept going to the bar in frustration.

I doubt my cynicism is welcome when live music enthusiasts attempt to get me to join them down memory lane. I couldn't feel less at home if classic cars were being discussed. In fact in my twenties I would spend many hours in pubs listening to my friends enjoy themselves in this way.

I'm not good company. My glass is half-empty, ready to be knocked out of my hand by someone punching the air to Pendulum on the jukebox.

No Dill

I've just bought a sofa online from IKEA after several hours looking for one that will fit through our front door.

In order for IKEA to remember me when I next decide to purchase something, I was obliged to create my profile.

In order to get some uniformity in my life I have decided to have the same profile on my Blogger account, too.

So I am currently a 48 year old male with the following interests...

Beds

Sofas

Chairs

Storage Solutions

I have no interest in tables or footstools but I am open to suggestion on the subject of Swedish food which I know many of you enjoy on a regular basis.

Sorry, I Can't Do Any Better At The Moment

Now Cheryl is going back to calling herself Tweedy and completely disassociating herself from "the best left back in the world", we can but dream that she falls in love with a mid-life crisis "grumpy" comedian, that Jade Goody is brought back to life and back in the arms of her greatest love and that they all go out in a foursome.

Tweedy, Dee and Tweed and Dumb.

Our Week in North Yorkshire

As you can see, we were lucky with the weather. It could have been a week indoors watching the unimaginably awful Frost/Nixon and other DVD delights. We took the Green route to Scarborough by train, tube, train and train. I wouldn't recommend going by tube from Charing Cross to King's Cross with two extremely large bags. But enough about my aunts!




Filey Brigg



Scarborough Links



Scarborough North Beach, Lovely Colours!



Scarborough South Beach, Best from a Distance



Whitby, Goth Heaven



Whitby's Blues Singer, Muddy Boots, Welcome Here!



Moo Moos



Chuff Chuff!

Give Peace a Chance

A friend's nine year old daughter is doing a half-term project: The Life Of John Lennon.

I ask her what she knows about Lennon.

"He was shot by Mark Chapman. We found the video on YouTube."

She has to draw a picture of a Lennon album cover. We find her the Plastic Ono Band cover as a tree is preferable to a close-up of Lennon's face or a full-frontal luxuriously-pubed John and Yoko.

The schoolteacher has asked for the children to bring in Beatles and Lennon CD cases to hang on a tree, presumably a Yoko-style tree of peace. This is unlikely to be a success.

I ask the girl what she knows about Lennon's upbringing. What does she know about his mother?

"She was killed by an off-duty policeman."

Cockney Singalong Sunday

To be sung to the tune of the chorus of Daisy Bell. You know the one: "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do..."

TROUSIES, TROUSIES



Trousies, trousies, love 'em I really do,


I wear trousies all the summer through.


I love to wear me trousies,
Accompanied wiv me blousies,


And socks look sweet
Upon me feet
Wiv trousies and sandals, too.

Buster and the New Boy

At school there was a kid nicknamed Buster who would terrorise the more timid boys. He would demand their pocket money and if they'd already spent it at the tuck shop he would take their savoury snacks and sweets.

He was a truly horrid specimen and the prefects didn't do anything because they fancied his sister who was devoted to little Buster and wouldn't have a word said against him.

One day a new boy joined our school. He was weedy, wore glasses and had a stutter. A perfect victim for Buster's cruelty.

After a month of giving up his pocket money, snacks and sweets, the new boy joined the school's lunchtime Chemistry Club which kept him away from Buster's playground domain. The boy was very enthusiastic about his subject but very secretive and would shield what he was working on from the other swots and the naive teacher.

One lunchtime, as he left the club, he was confronted by an angry Buster in the quadrangle. Buster asked the boy if he had any money. The boy said no. Buster demanded savoury snacks. The boy said he hadn't any. Then, sweets?

The boy produced something Buster hadn't seen before. Little white pills in a see-through flip-top plastic container. Buster asked what these new treats were.

"Only mints," said the boy.

Buster grabbed them from the boy's hand, flipped the top and greedily tipped half the contents into his mouth. He gave a superior smile as he crunched the mints with his strong teeth.

Seconds later, he held his neck. He was burning inside. More than that, he couldn't breathe. Red rose from his Adam's apple to his forehead. His heart was thumping like mad and his brain was an uncontrollable kaleidoscope of colours. He was dying.

With his last breath he forced the words out.

"What...the fuck...are they?"

He fell to the ground and expired. The container of mints fell out of his hand.

Later that year the new boy went to court. The case made the national press. The headlines said...

BULLY BOY TIC TACS

The Heart Ward

My dear fellow,

When I visit your father in hospital, I do not wish to hear about your £2,000 lawnmower, your £8,000 boat, or the "fantastic" wedding reception you went to where the "blinding touch" of egg and bacon sandwiches being served to a plethora of pissed up philistines is the highlight of your life till now.

No, if you've got nothing to say about football or Coronation Street can you kindly keep your mouth zipped shut.

Ghouls & Boys

Well, I got my hung Parliament and probably the best result I could have expected. A horrible one.

But the promise of a referendum on getting rid of the unfair first-past-the-post voting system will be making a lot of Tories choking on their foie gras. I'm surprised Cameron hasn't been lynched.

Speaking with a Lib Dem activist today, as you do, I was informed that during all the dithering they'd been contacted by angry people saying either "I didn't vote Lib Dem to get a Conservative government" or "I didn't vote Lib Dem to get a Labour government." Don't you just hate manic optimists?

So a step towards a fair voting system? That's what I wanted out of this election. Of course PR might produce the same result as we've got now. And there'll be even more people to blame.

2010 Election Broadcast

"Hello, Geoff. I am your Member. Would you like to touch me?"


Yesterday evening I was in a bad mood when I got off the train. My mood didn't exactly improve as I was greeted by our MP and his team as I left the station. David had a big false smile on his big smug face.

Although he's a shoe-in to keep his seat, I'm relying on those of you in marginals (sound like skimpy pants, don't they?) to "do the right thing" and "vote for change".

Now where have I heard those phrases before?

A Future Fairer For All

The latest YouCunt poll results are as follows:-

50% of the UK electorate would like a fairer society
30% of the UK electorate would like a less fair society
20% of the UK electorate haven't got a fucking clue what they want

Of course in the current first-past-the-post system, elections are decided by the people who haven't got a fucking clue. But this time, with the very real possibility of a hung parliament, the 50% of the electorate who would like a fairer society may get one. If the Lib Dems get to hold the balance of power, proportional representation could well be on the cards and the Tory Scum will never form a government on their own again. (Well, that's the theory).

If you want a hung parliament, to help you choose, this site looks just the ticket.

Looks like I'll be voting Lib Dem as a tactical vote for only the second time. Last time I voted for them the bastard came third.

Tijuana Brass Neck

If England insist on playing Terry, Lampard and Gerrard in the World Cup, I'm going to have to support another team.

And as my favorite player of this season has been West Ham striker Guillermo Franco, it's going to be Mexico for me.

Of course our countries have a history of mutual admiration. Who could forget this tribute to Bobby Charlton from Mexico's greatest rock guitarist?

It's All We Seem To Hear About Nowadays

I say to my mum, "Did you hear about Malcolm McLaren? He's dead."

"The racing driver?" she says.

"No, the Sex Pistols manager."

"Oh, the Sex Pistols manager."

I take a different tack.

"And Christopher Cazenove."

"That was strange, wasn't it?"

Herr Wallander

I bought three Wallander books the other week. I haven't started reading them yet but I'm looking forward to the descriptions of the surly detective's hair.

Kurt just can't seem to decide what to do with it.

Does he have it au naturel?



Or does he try to look younger by using the cheap option, Just For Men?



Or does he indeed splash the cash and get it done professionally at Benny & Bjorn?



If this is what the male menopause is like, I'm not looking forward to the next fifteen years.

Weally Wotten Wiposte

At the weekend, Fulham fielded a weakened side against the Irons' fierce relegation rivals, Hull City. The Tigers (Grrr) won 2-0.

I think it was this that was the cause of a dream I had last night.

Fulham's manager, Roy Hodgson, was the England coach. By a miracle (beating Germany on penalties), we won the World Cup. To show his appreciation to the players, Roy decided to hold a party.

It was a fancy dress party. And to remind the players of their humble beginnings and their good fortune at now being wealthy heroes, Roy decided on a special theme. He gathered the players together and told them it would be a "Rags To Riches" party.

Here is a photo of a few of the players' other halves at said party:

The Dead Sea

As some of you may know, I've joined Facebook. It's not for me. There's just none of the energy of Twitter, the forward momentum. If Twitter is a vigorous river, Facebook is the Dead Sea. I've been banging my head against my Wall trying to think of a creative use for Facebook. I've given up.

Maybe I just can't be myself.

Who's The Daddy?

Doesn't the Camerons' news put a smile on your face. A pregnancy is just the thing to perk up an election campaign. Mothers and mothers-to-be can relate to politics once again for the first time since Mrs Blair and Mrs Brown were in that wonderful life-giving state.

But who would make the best prime minister? He's got to be seen as virile and a good father. Fathers are so important in politics. Edward Heath was not a father. Look at what happened there!

The current state of affairs for the main UK political party leaders is as follows:-

Gordon Brown (Labour) - 2 children
David Cameron (Conservative) - 2 children, happily one on the way
Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrats) - 3 children
The Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP) - 3 children, but disappointingly married 3 times
Caroline Lucas (Green) - 2 children, though yet to be a father
Nick Griffin (BNP) - 4 children

Of course it is important for the prime minister to have an impeccable marital history. This would rule out The Lord Pearson of Rannoch. Caroline Lucas is also a no no as the time for mothers running the country has gone - the Thatcher era was an historical blip. Gordon Brown has tried over the past few years to demonstrate his virility but no matter how good a father he may be he is just not young and thrusting enough for the modern electorate. David Cameron and Nick Clegg talk the talk but do they really walk the walk? Neither could honestly be described as "Mr Lover Man".

No, only one man will do as Prime Minister. Uncommonly handsome, exceedingly virile, a wonderful father, a moral leader, a man to bring the nation together, Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer.

May 2010 will be Springtime for Griffin!

F for Fake

This week I have learned how to make a fly-on-the-wall workplace documentary. The following guide is indispensable.

1. Don't worry about chronology. It doesn't matter when or where something really happens.

2. Set up false situations to make things more interesting. The protagonists will be happy to go along with this if you tell them it will make more interesting viewing.

3. Get your "stars" to ham it up for the camera. Create fake arguments to make it seem as if there is passionate debate when in reality things had already been decided beforehand.

4. Film some "quirky" footage in the building to make the atmosphere seem unreal and non-contemporary. Stupid people watching will be saying "what a surreal place to work, like going back in time. I would never have realised such places still existed if they ever did."

5. Film some completely unrelated footage featuring real celebrities who turn up at the workplace for no reason whatsoever. This gives your documentary a link to the "real" celebrity world which your viewers can use as a point of reference.

And last but not least...

6. Do not include the people doing the vast majority of the work. They will be too busy to put on an act.

Do Not Buy This Book

After all these years of blogging I've decided it's time to keep a hard copy of my best stuff to date in the form of a book. Something to show to somebody else's grandkids as I'm dressed like Clive Dunn.

So I've done a little 30 pager, just enough to use as a shin pad.

The price shown on the home page isn't inclusive of postage which is a rather expensive addition. This is just an offer for friends and family people who don't personally know me and I'm expecting a very small take up. So please don't disappoint me by ordering a copy.

I mean, why pay for something you can get for free online?

Bollocks idea, really.

Save The Khan

We fell asleep last night whilst watching our recording of BBC4's Heavy Metal Britannia. I'm not much of a heavy fan now but I was there at the start of the musical revolution that was the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, or NWOBHM as it was imaginatively known in rock weekly Sounds.

We went to see bands such as Vardis, Angel Witch, Praying Mantis and Iron Maiden (whatever happened to them?).

But my favourite nights out were in the Red Lion in Gravesend watching local heroes, Triarchy. I knew the singer/bassist and drummer and I don't know if you've experienced it but it's a very strange feeling seeing kids you've grown up with suddenly onstage in front of you. As a member of the audience in this situation you can't really let yourself go in the way you would in front of, say, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band or Lionel Richie. You've got to stay cool in front of your peers.

This is the band's self-financed single, Save The Khan, which has a lot more going on in it than you might expect. The Ultravox influence is undeniable!

On 6Music

Twitter's gone a bit loopy today with the news that the BBC could be axing digital radio station 6Music. Thousands of Tweeters are angry enough to #savebbc6music. Apparently George Lamb, Tom Robinson, Bruce Dickinson, Craig Charles, Dave Pearce, Don Letts, Guy Garvey, Liz Kershaw, Steve Lamacq et al are producing shows in the spirit of John Peel (one good reggae track followed by ten fucking awful indie tracks?) and are doing what the BBC is all about (innovation and education) and not just lining their pockets with licence payers' money by doing bugger all other than making self-love to the sound of their own boring voices and playing generally boring music in a boring vacuum of boringness.

As a middle-aged white man with impeccable music taste you would think 6Music would be aimed at the likes of me but even if I did like 80% of the tracks they played I've got music coming out of my ears here at home and there on the internet.

I don't need self-appointed music experts droning on, advising me on what I should be listening to. I'm old enough to work that out myself.

The Media's Perception Of Blogging Is Wrong, So Wrong

I was listening to a discussion on the Guardian Technology podcast yesterday. It was claimed that people are stopping blogging because a blog post takes so much effort from which the blogger obtains so little reward.

Well, I've always found the act of writing on here an enjoyable piece of piss. It doesn't take much effort to type the crap that comes into your head which is what true blogging is all about. If you want to pore over something with a furrowed brow then you should be writing a book, not a blog.

As for the "little reward", what do you expect? It's free to publish, it's free to read. The reward should be in the heads and faces of your readers. The knowing nods, the wry grins, the explosive laughter, the tears of empathy. And then the comments that communicate these emotions across the miles.



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The Boys Are Back

I am currently listening to Thin Lizzy. It happens at this time of life that songs I never thought of buying in the past suddenly creep up on me and I get a hankering.

One of Lizzy's songs is, of course, Dancing In The Moonlight (not to be confused with the Toploader toss). It contains the following lines.

"Now we go steady to the pictures
I always get chocolate stains on my pants"

The first line is clearly how the young Lynott would have spoken, as in 1960s Ireland teenagers would "go steady", as good young Catholic boys would, and he would have gone to "the pictures", the wonderful traditional description of a cinema for those of us growing up in the British Isles.

When we come to the second line, however, Phil is clearly going for the North American market, unless he actually went on dates in his underwear which would have been an arrestable offence in tight-assed Dublin.

Interesting.

Also of great interest to me is from which confectionery product did Phil's chocolate stains emanate. I have discussed this on Twitter and at home and come up with the following list, in order of probability:-

1. Flake (as suggested by Beth) 27%
2. Chocolate Buttons (as suggested by Betty) 24%
3. A finger of Fudge 21%
4. Curly Wurly 10%
5. Ice Breaker 8%
6. Old Jamaica (we know he had a taste for the hard stuff) 7%
7. Revels 3%

Are there any glaring omissions in the list? If only we could bring Phil back to life for just this one question!

Homework

Imagine you are a nine year old child. You are used to doing homework because that's what nine year old children do nowadays. Your teacher gives you an assignment.

"I want you to draw an A-Z of mathematical shapes, including both 2D and 3D examples."

So you ring up your mum.

"Mum, we've got to draw an A-Z of mathematical shapes, including both 2D and 3D examples."

So your mum says "don't worry, I'll help you".

So your mum boots up the computer and looks on Google for lists of mathematical shapes. She finds some sites such as A to Z Of Maths Is Fun, Wikipedia's List Of Mathematical Shapes, etc, prints off the shapes such as Acute Triangle, Bezier Curve, Circle, Decagon, etc, says "there you are, love," gives you the examples and you sit down and copy them, making sure the shapes have the right number of sides, the correct angles, etc.

Your mum checks you have copied the shapes properly and you are allowed to go to your bedroom to call your friends.

I'm So Excited And I Just Can't Hide It

She was really excited.

"I'm so excited!"

She'd just booked a holiday to Florida. She'll be going with two of her friends though originally there were going to be seven of them but four dropped out with pathetic excuses.

I felt really happy for her as she loudly told her friend on the other end of the phone line how excited she was about the hotel being near the beach, near the clubs where they're bound to meet some people, near lots of watersports which they'll all be trying out even though Kirsty has never done watersports before and she's so excited she's going on holiday with a couple of friends who've done watersports before and get a real thrill from them, near the docking point for a one day cruise to the Bahamas which is really good value and the experience of a lifetime...

And of course she mentioned twice, yes twice, that the hotel was so fantastic that CONTINENTAL breakfast is included in the price of £800 for 10 days, yes, CONTINENTAL breakfast!

I was feeling really pleased for her as she said she couldn't believe how lucky she was going to her dream destination, Florida, and that she was sure she'll have an even better time than the last time she went there a couple of years ago!

I was feeling even more pleased for her as she shouted that she couldn't believe how excited she was about this year as it is Kirsty's birthday next week, then next month it's Vicki's birthday, then she's going to India, then it's another friend's birthday, then it's another friend's birthday, then it's June and Florida for the holiday of a lifetime! She said that without all these wonderful things to look forward to she really thought she would be depressed.

The train stopped at Charing Cross and she got off. A blind woman in a wheelchair and her guide dog were waiting patiently by the door. A kind man asked her if he could get her some help to get off.

"Yes please," she said. "Thank you. I wanted to get off at London Bridge but they put me on the wrong train."

Our train doesn't stop at London Bridge.

"Geoff Wet Blanket" Part 2

Many thanks to Rog who has taken Dave's words out of context (something all politicians moan about) and put them into something far more meaningful and true.

Rog's video here.

The Day I Spoke To The Future Prime Minister

Watch live streaming video from conservatives at livestream.com

Could somebody go to 36 minutes into this and tell me what Dave's answer is because every time I try it I piss myself laughing and can't hear him talk.

Make Your Own David Cameron Poster

click to make bigger

Make Your Own David Cameron Poster

Staying Blinkered

You control what you can. You have to concentrate on what you can do. Everything else is not your responsibility. If things around you are falling apart you concentrate even harder on what you can control. Don't look at the bigger picture. Stay focused on small things.

That load of bollocks is my introduction into what I've been watching, listening to and reading recently.

I have been watching Nurse Jackie, starring the marvellous Edie Falco.




It's a "dark" comedy with a heart of gold and a fantastic performance from its leading actress. It may be a bit too sugary for some cynical tastes and the script and performances not as funny as my favourite hospital comedy Only When I Laugh Getting On, but Edie deserves every award going for her portrayal of a drugged-up, two-timing, hard-working mother-of-two with a (yes, you've guessed it) heart of gold.

I have been listening to the weekly podcast of Thinking Aloud. I hadn't sat down and listened to the radio since Little Nicky Horne on Capital in the 70s. Now I feel I've been missing out on Laurie Taylor's show since it started on Radio 4 in 1998 but now I am a devoted listener, one of Laurie's Old Gits or LOGS as we are known.

I have been reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first novel in Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. It really is a rattling good thriller and worthy of selling all the copies it has, though you wonder whether it would have sold as many if the author hadn't tragically died before its publication.

Diary A

The Dear Diary season on BBC4 gets off to a disjointed start with Richard E Grant visiting friends and family of diarists Joe Orton and Kenneth Williams, talking about the death diary of John Diamond and visiting Rosemary Ackland's actor husband Joss who compiled and edited her diaries after her death, emphasising all the bits where Joss made "exquisite" love to her.

The most controversial subject, however, was prison diarist Erwin James. If you look at Erwin's biography on his website you will see a story of triumph over adversity, a previously ill-educated man who took a degree and wrote about life on the inside in a very truthful, real way, giving Guardian readers a special insight the string 'em up readers of the Daily Mail will never have. Erwin now works full-time as a freelance writer and the Guardian still loves him.

On the programme, Erwin's work gets a big thumbs-up from "prison reformer" Jonathan Aitken who praises the authenticity of the diaries.


Prison Reformer, Jonathan Aitken

Oh, by the way, did I mention what Erwin was in prison for, which he glaringly omits from his biography?

I'd better not say it here. Instead I'll direct you to the third paragraph of his Wikipedia page.

It's wonderful what an education can do, isn't it? Aitken calls James a "remarkable rehabilitated ex-prisoner". He is the product of a forgiving Christian society which dismisses revenge as Old Testament and realises that people do change over time and if given a second chance may well become good, literate people who can hold their own at nice intelligent dinner parties.

James was in prison for twenty years.

Former England cricketer Chris Lewis is currently serving thirteen years for smuggling cocaine into the UK.

Yes, cocaine, the stuff hidden in judges' white wigs to keep them awake.

Yes, London's Moving, Mr Mayor

Yes, it's been snowing. And we here in the wilderness of South East London are suffering.

Today, in their wisdom, on our line and every other "Metro" line, Southeastern Trains decided to run two trains an hour into London and two trains an hour out of London. When you consider a normal weekday rush hour service contains four times that number, you may see where a problem could occur.

I left early this afternoon and with my fellow departmental employees (we all got the same train, isn't that cute?) we watched our train fill up by Waterloo East and leave lots of people unable to get on at London Bridge. You had to laugh.

And there was more jolity to come. While we made a scenic stop at middle-class Blackheath, we watched the hilarious sight of drivers failing to drive their cars out of the station car park as the incline was too icy. Their tyres just couldn't get a grip! Yes, I know! You pay for a car parking space and a car parking space is what you get!

Still, tomorrow there will be four trains an hour, otherwise known as a "Saturday service". Except it's not really a Saturday, is it?