Radio Times (Part The One)

There is background to my days. There is traffic noise, human noise, and radio noise.

The traffic noise is fine. The human noise is OK, I mean I'm not working with annoying children or screaming babies.

Then there's the radio noise. The radio is tuned to either Heart or Capital. Two seriously shit radio stations, both aimed at women in offices. Luckily, I am able to concentrate on my work and my mind registers the stuff as background musak. As if there is a tiny James Morrison or James Blunt singing into a tiny microphone which plugs into a tiny amplifier, all of whom and which I could crush with a gentle stamp of my delicate foot.

So it doesn't bother me that much.

But of course now and then I have to say something, for I am an arbiter of good taste and I feel I have a duty to impart some of my vast knowledge of popular music and thereby improve the lives of my fellow human beings.

"If you were at home every day, and you didn't have access to a radio, you surely wouldn't play the same few CDs over and over again, day after day, the same songs every day, day after day, over and over again, every day, the same songs by the same artists, day after day, the same songs every day for every day of the year. Would you?"

"I've probably got about five CDs that I play at home."

"I've been listening to Elton John at home these past couple of weeks. Going through his late sixties to mid seventies albums. When I've finished with them, I probably won't listen to him for about a year. Except for Are You Ready For Love? and Step Into Christmas which they play on Heart over and over and over again."

"I can't stand Elton John."

If...

Robert Swipe were to have a favourite advertising agency, it would be called something like this.



(Check out the address)

ITV1, 8.40 p.m. - Midsomer Murders Country (New Series)

Tonight, John Nettles sings Stand By Your Man.

Sheer Heart Attack

On the right of the picture you can see the last few steps we walked down yesterday, on our way to the Faerie Ring. As we started our descent of the hill, a mad jogger was ending his ascent.

Shorne Wood Country Park isn't a bad place for a walk. We hadn't been there for a few years and had always seen the odd rabbit on the bit of grassland two-thirds of the way round the mainly wooded red trail. Yesterday, we didn't see the odd rabbit.

The place was very busy. The car park is so much bigger than I remember. And the new visitor centre/cafe really deserves a more idyllic setting. It is constructed in local sympathetic materials and the piss water from the toilets is recycled as drinking water.

The two teenagers whacking branches against tree trunks, having a competition to see whose bit of branch would fly furthest were not really in harmony with their local surroundings.

Jamie Oliver Beetroot Cancer Scare

Looks harmless, doesn't it?



But this little red root vegetable was yesterday at the centre of an enormous furore which at one point seemed to be leading towards litigation against Channel 4 by the famous celebrity chef.



"I thought I was pissing blood," said the celebrity chef after eating 3 kilos of the superfood in one week in preparation for the forthcoming Jamie Oliver series, Superfoods For Super Kids.

The premise behind the series is to hothouse three poor inner city five year old children to prepare them to take Media Studies GCSEs at the age of 11.

The controversial "Superfood" method of study developed by controversial University of Utah professor, Professor Gordon Osmond, includes eating seemingly vomit-inducing volumes of porridge, turkey, blueberries and beetroot. Oliver was persuaded to front the series by British Superfood Guru, Dr Gillian McKeith.

"She said she really fucking believed in the guy," said Oliver. "I told her I'd go ahead with the series but I'd have to test the method myself before trying it out on the kids. She said it was ok, my shit could take it."

Neither McKeith nor Channel 4, however, thought to warn Oliver about the side effects of eating large amounts of beetroot.

"They made me feel such an idiot," said Oliver. "How was I to know my piss would turn red because of the beetroot? I was worried out of my mind for a whole week. I couldn't sleep and I couldn't tell Jools what was wrong."

Channel 4 have today apologised to the chef and made an undisclosed donation to a charity of his choice.

Great Post, Geoff

Post sponsored by the Own Little World blogging community.

Little Arrows

Jacques Peretti's excellent programme Darts Tarts displays a real love for the game and affection for the obsessive characters who play it.

I should rephrase that as a real love for the sport, as darts is now officially a sport. That's thanks to this inconsistent government which bangs on about obesity and drinking and smoking, and now classes darts in the same category as healthy, exciting competitions like ice dancing and rifle shooting.

Peretti describes darts as the working class game, as opposed to middle class snooker which drove darts into the wilderness of satellite tv in Thatcher's eighties.

But was Thatcher to blame for this seismic shift?

Or was it the fact that snooker is just so much more bloody sexy?

Betty has already clearly demonstrated the sheer horn factor of snooker. Where else do you see fit men, bent over a table, a four foot pole perfectly balanced between their gentle hands, their smouldering eyes peering intently at a hard ball, the ball just aching to be kissed into a soft, tight pocket.

How could darts compete? Besides the fact that darts players are generally 5 stone heavier than snooker players, you are extremely unlikely to see a professional darts player bend over and show his arse to the world. A poor arrow thrower may spend half the game bending over to pick up a dart that has missed the board or hit it at the wrong angle and plummeted to the floor. But how many times has that happened to John Lowe over the past 30 years? And really, who would want to see it happen?

So Thatcher's not really to blame. In fact, she probably encouraged many workers to take up darts, practising throwing at a photo of her face on the wall.

No, it really is down to eye candy, not the destruction of working class culture.

Be honest. Cliff Thorburn or Eric Bristow?

Come on.

The End of An Era

I am losing the ability to communicate. I think I gave the impression that I saw Peter Crouch walking along The Strand. I didn't see him.

My dream blog is probably at its end. I've run out of dreams and I haven't had any new ones for months. But, hey, at least I didn't go out at the top of my game and finish a year ago, eh? If you left one or more comments on it, thank you. If you didn't like it, I'm sorry for wasting ten seconds of your life.

This blog will go on forever, however. I may not get many comments because I do not give many elsewhere. As I said, I'm losing the ability to communicate. I can't think of many witty comments and certainly no serious ones.

So this blog will go on and on even after you're all sick of it. I promise to continue to try to be entertaining. Yes, I said "continue", I really have been trying these past 15 years.

In other news, we have just finished watching the brilliant I Claudius. Or "One Clavdivs" as we called it. Then we watched a programme about television portrayals of the Romans. And an unknown (to me) comedian on this programme said that at school he and his chums called it "I Clavdivs".

So our humour is on a slightly lower level than that of twatty 14 year old schoolboys 30 years ago.

Top of the Form, Ma!

A Hero For Our Times

Walking along The Strand, I notice a Dad and his two kids ahead of me. Dad is dressed in casual England style teeshirt. The two teenagers are wearing England football shirts.

The girl has blonde hair in a pony-tail. She has the word "Beckham" on her back.

The boy is turned towards his father. I see sticky-out teeth and a gormless expression. He is lanky with short fair hair.

Come on. Turn, you bugger. You've got to be.

He is.

Net Curtains

Jessica Bandwidth wasn't happy. Her boyfriend, Thomas Kilobyte was very sluggish. He would not get up off the sofa. Once he got his feet into those comfy slippers, his heels resting on that luxurious pouffe, his lap full of Doritos, and a beer in his hand, he was just like any other man.

"But I need my rest," said Thomas. "I work hard all day and I do love my Dorito Time."

Jessica couldn't complain. She was getting bigger each week herself. How could she expect Thomas to get off his arse and work in the evening after a long day in the office if she stuffed her face all day with cake?

"I've got a really good idea," said Jessica. "How about you and me joining the gym? It'll give us more energy for the evenings. Look at what it's done for Cassandra!"

"Your sister's an obsessive," said Thomas. "She lives on her nerves. She's not happy. Not by a long chalk. And neither's her uptight prig of a husband."

Thomas took a swig of beer and produced an enormous belch.

Jessica couldn't look at her boyfriend. His swinish habits disgusted her. So he was happy, was he? Well let's see how happy he'd be without a girlfriend.

"If you don't join me in going to the gym, it's all over between you and me, Thomas," she said.

He crushed a can and opened a fresh one.

"It's a choice between me and the Doritos," she said, turning on the BBC News.

"Hasn't Natasha Kaplinsky got fantastic bone structure?"

Only Dr Freud Can Help Me Now

On the Duloxetine, I am sleeping well. I am sleeping too well. I sleep well all night and given the chance I'd sleep well all day. I've only been taking the little chaps for just over a week so maybe this is an initial side effect. Or maybe the old pills are still in my system, increasing the drowsy effect. Or maybe I'm turning into a modern day Rip Van Winkle. I am becoming my avatar.

Of course getting a good night's sleep means plenty of opportunity to dream. And now my main dream interpreter seems to have too many questions of his own, I'd like to throw last night's dreams open to the House. Does anybody else think I'm losing it?

Dream One - My sister gives birth to five large white seahorses. Thankfully I do not see the birth, but I see them joyfully bobbing around in a tank of water.

Dream Two - Bob Geldof approaches a group of us in a pub. He is collecting money for starving Africans. Everybody enthusiastically gives apart from me. I tell him to "f**k off, you c**t".

Dream Three - I am walking towards the train station from school. I have to walk through an alley which is blocked by a gauntlet of two rows of boys from another school. One of them checks my train ticket. He is not happy with it and is about to hit me when he is called away to another fight.


God knows what I'd be like on acid. I'm such a lightweight.

Geoff's Shoes

These are my new trainers. I wore them in Nottingham a couple of weeks ago. And yesterday I wore them to my mum's.

"Did those laces come with those shoes?" she asked me.

"Yes. Why?"

"They don't look right. Brown laces would look better with brown shoes."

"They're not shoes, they're trainers."

"OK, but white laces still don't look right."

"I think they look alright."

"They do brown laces in Sainsbury's."



Does Mother know best?

Hot Stuff

These people are not my friends. I'm not in the sauna with them, behind the camera, a towel covering my modesty.

The Holy Grail light shining from the midriff of the bloke at the back is not real. What you see is a poor photograph of the front of an advertising booklet. I am not a good photographer.

The words on the front of the booklet, above these four charming young people, are "What is it like in your office during the summer?" The booklet is advertising air conditioning.

Now if this was my office, I would be very unhappy. Because it looks as though I'd be the one doing all the work. To be frank, each of these four employees look as though they're in the midst of their own highly personal erotic dream. I wouldn't mind if it was in their lunch hour but they can't all be on the same lunch, surely. Who's going to cover for them? Muggins, that's who.

It's alright, guys and gals. I'll answer your phones. Even though the calls are probably personal ones from some model agency or other.

This is just typical of the younger generation. They really think they can have it all.

Away

I keep yawning. My ears itch. Surely the penicillin should be working by now?

I am at the bottom of the garden amongst the toadstools, playing keepy uppy with Pat Nevin and Graeme Le Saux. We are 19 years old, 4 inches tall, and beautiful.

Elizabeth Fraser calls us in for some elderberry cordial.

Telly Under The Influence - Thank God For Duck Soup

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Two Americans in Tokyo. Both unhappily married. One man in his fifties. One woman of about twenty. His wife and family are back in the US. Her husband is based in the same hotel but continually leaves her to go on photographic assignments.

Neither of them can speak Japanese and the Japanese people they meet cannot speak good American.

They naturally come together and fall in love, although because of the fucking enormous age gap they realise there is no future in their union and they go back to their uncaring partners.

Can she only be happy in a relationship with a father figure?

Can he only be happy in a relationship with a daughter figure?

Can Sophia Coppola only be happy under her father's wing?

Can Francis only be happy knowing he is protecting his daughter from the Hollywood devils?

Do I give a shit about any of it?


THE STORY OF LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT - RADIO STARS

The IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME I'M GREAT WITH PEOPLE DON'T YOU REMEMBER THE HOPEFULS? Award goes to Terry Christian with this beautiful put down of multi-millionaire Chris Evans...

"If you've got anybody hailing fucking Chris Evans as a genius, you've got something very wrong with the world, right? He's a working-class kid from Warrington. No passion, no conviction, not interested in music, not interested in culture, not interested in the world of people...Hates people. He's like Morrissey, he's a complete fucking misanthrope."

Poor Terry.

And poor Kenny Everett, such a comic genius, he did all his own jingles, he was a broadcasting original, he died tragically young.

Remember Sid Snot, the high voiced Bee Gees, big-arsed Rod Stewart, the all in the best possible taste woman, Marcel whatever the bloody hell his name was (the shit mime artist)?

Christ, wasn't Kenny Everett crap?

Apparently I Used To Do A Good Impression Of Normski - I Can't Remember Ever Doing One

I'm not supposed to be here, at home. I have one sick day in a blue moon but today I feel like shit so I rang in sick and called the doctors'...

"Hello. Can I help you?"

"I've had a sore throat for the past week and now I ache all over and I'm bringing up this yellow mucus."

"I think you've got the wrong number. This is The Co-operative Funeral Directors."


******

Actually that didn't really happen. But just imagine if it did! No, I saw the Practice Nurse and she stuck something in my ear to check my temperature, asked me to lift my teeshirt so she could listen to my chest, and shone a light down my throat.

"You're not allergic to Penicillin, are you?"

"No."

"These'll sort you out. You'll be feeling right as rain after taking these."

I picked up my Duloxetine along with the Penicillin. My cold turkey starts tonight before I can start taking the new pills on Monday evening.


*****


The wonderful thing about blogging is you can write anything you like about anything that happens in your life without some sharp-minded editor saying, "You can't write that, Geoff. Who's going to be interested in that?"

That's why I left The Independent (after pissing in Janet Street-Porter's coffee).

Freshen Up Your Blog...

With Ewe Tube

An Old, Bitter Sadist Speaks

Due to popular disinterest, we shut up shop on Search Me a week and a half ago.

But as it's easy money, I'm going to continue to bring my legion of reader all those hilarious searches brought to me exclusively by Statcounter.

But first an explanation of the title of this post...

The vast majority of my hits are continuing to come from surfers looking for the lyrics to the Sandi Thorn song. Yes, that's Sandi THORN. And of course many of these searchers are big fans of Ms Thorn. And some can't help themselves from telling me exactly what they think of me and my friends...

I love this song..jenne x


you know that i'm just like you people , making fun of everything that is idiotic and sensless , but maybe just maybe you are so wrong ....k the words don't make a lot of sence , she's truly lost when it comes to what is a hippy rocker or punker etc. but she has a point there.anyways just thaught that eventually someone will leave all the judgemental crap behind and read between the pooooorllllllllly done lyrics.heck i could never write a song and i'm betting that all of u are unable 2 do so 2 .

well actully i love tht song it dusent matta wat the words are its the tune people listen to leave sandi alone i bet u cudnt write a better song then tht actully im puttin it as my ringtone !!!!11


ITS AN AWESOME SONG. WHY ARE YOU SO DAMN BITTER? WHO CARES WHETHER SHE IS CORRECT OR NOT? I FEEL SORRY FOR YOU; A BUNCH OF OLD, BITTER SADISTS

OK, I've probably been had and these anonymous comments are really by my blogging friends taking the piss out of the idiotic text speak of the younger generation. But, hey, whatever. Whoever you are you've given me a good laugh anyway.


*******


Another thing that makes me laugh is Google's William Burroughs style cut up technique. So when a googler types in...

Frank Sinatra is the shit

They see under Contains Mild Peril...

Frank Sinatra is a man's man. Just look at the Rat Pack...link arms, and do a kind of hokey cokey, kicking the shit out of the 30 year old spinster...

Go on, Deano! Fuck me, you can't even walk straight let alone kick!

Or when a punter asks for...

Beverley Callard breasts...

They get...

Beverley Callard and Simon Gregson perform Guns & Roses Sweet Child O' Mine. Wow!...Matronly breasts.

And when they look for...

Country Artist 'Bleeding Angels'

I say...

How many more times in my life will I have to listen to bleeding Angels?



*******


And finally in this extremely bitty post (not "bitty" as in Bev and Simon), 22 of the best searches I've had recently.

1. In Peril
2. Boneless boy falling
3. Pictures of obese men
4. What does a dream mean when dreaming of a policeman with the name Harry?
5. Wet arseholes
6. Wish I was a punk rocker shite
7. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty To Long-Haired Men (No. 4 in Google search from Finland)
8. Paul Merton wank sock
9. Tuna smell cheese
10. Boris Yeltsin gooses (a 19 minute reader from New York)
11. I hate Ben Elton
12. I hate Chelsea
13. I think I'm James Dean
14. Paul Merton is living at...?
15. Pulled Arseholes
16. Mild scarf bondage
17. Taking a bath in public dream
18. Ritchie Blackmore, wig
19. Sexy girls crapping
20. Thigh squeezing
21. The great white shark spotted in Kent in 2006
22. Ground control to make the thumb David Bowie

Now you see why Search Me failed.

Old Misery Guts

They're few and far between now, our visits to pubs.

There was a time when I'd enjoy being in these joyless, characterless shitholes. I'd enjoy meeting up with friends, enjoy a creamy headed pint of Guinness or five, enjoy the conversation, the catching up, the odd laugh.

And I'd also enjoy the goodbyes at 11.30 and the see you soons.

That was when friends were local.

Now, apart from the fact that beer is too belchy and voluminous for me, because friends aren't local, a night out is once in a blue moon and is followed by after hours drinks in front of the telly or stereo. And here I'm struggling.

I keep going because I always drink until the night peters out. So I'm drinking lager at 2.30 in the morning, outstaying my welcome, fed up with myself, fed up with other people, knowing I'm going to get four hours sleep, wanting my own comfortable bed 160 miles away, two hours ago. Wanting a belly nicely warmed with red wine rather than full to bursting with gassy beer.

I'm just not a social animal. I'm a good listener, yes. If you've got a story or ten to tell me, I'll listen and maybe even remember some of them the next day. You just won't get much out of me. The more I drink, the less able I am to tell my own stories. My vocabulary shrinks. I stop talking and carry on listening.

So when this carries on after midnight, I want my daddy to ring on the bell and take me home in his car. But my daddy's dead and he wouldn't be able to take me home if he was alive because if he was alive he'd be more pissed than me.

And he would've been drinking alone.

Gut Reaction

I like my gastroenterologist. He must be in his mid 60s now, a very tall man, impeccably dressed in pinstripe suit and very shiny shoes. Extremely friendly. I hadn't seen him for a couple of years until yesterday and he hasn't changed. Lovely man.

Though I did once see him outside the consulting room environment. In 1998 when I had the endoscopy. He was dressed in a bloodstained butcher's apron and had an evil grin on his face as he forced the 3 inch diameter ribbed rubber hose down my throat with demonic glee.

Admittedly I was under giggly anaesthetic at the time.

He's now trying a new drug on me. Not that he wants to, but the antipsychotic which has calmed my digestive system for the past 6 years is no longer in production. The company that manufactured it don't think it's making enough money for them. So they're producing a completely different, more profitable drug at the factory instead.

So for the next few weeks, please be gentle with me. I'm to do cold turkey for three days next week, followed by the introduction of new foreign matter into my system.

The new stuff's a more recently developed drug and hopefully won't make me so drowsy.

The only question is, as it's not a drug designed to deal with digestive disorders, will it do the job we want it to?

So I'd be most grateful if you all would stand up and give a big cheer for Duloxetine 30 mg. Maybe with the encouragement of good people like yourselves, the little guy will perform.

Altogether now...

"We love Duloxetine, we do! We love Duloxetine, we do! We love Duloxetine, we do! Oh, Duloxetine, we love you!"

And no fucking Mexican waves.