The Orbiting Queen Mother

“I’ll have a pee please, Bob.”

2009-07-21T12:31:00.004+01:00

The differences between the sexes is well documented (predominantly in emails which periodically pepper inboxes with titles like Why men are crap and 100 shitty chat-up lines and 100 witty ripostes to 100 shitty chat up lines etc. These usually arrive with such proliferation it’s almost as if email itself was invented as a vehicle to convey anti-male sentiments by dreary imbeciles reliant on similarly comedically-challenged individuals to tell them what’s funny. But I digress…) For all the physiological and emotional differences, there’s one which I find particularly baffling: namely, the ability to pee on demand.

Now, I’m an average bloke. I might urinate, three, or perhaps four times a day, depending on the volume I imbibe and my body’s ability to strip it of its nutritional value and expel the yellowy stuff it doesn’t need. I think this is typical of chaps: when we need to go, we go. When we don’t, we can’t. Femalekind, however, is a very different kettle of proverbials.

The reason it’s recently caught my attention is that we’re in the process of potty training our two-year-old. She’s actually doing very well indeed and appears to have got the hang of it pretty swiftly. This could be something to do with the fact that she knows she’ll be rewarded by encouraging cheers of delight and general whooping sounds every time she produces something. On receiving these, she’s beside herself with glee.

To keep the parental delight coming therefore, she’s able to generate something what seems like every few minutes: more wee equals more praise which, in turn, equals more endorphins coursing through her tiny frame making her feel happy. The fact she’s able to do this at will though, isn’t unusual. Any female can do this. Take, for example, a doctor’s request for a urine sample. Personally, unless it falls into my four-hourly cycle as described above, Doc could be in for a very long wait, though any woman is able to produce something seemingly out of thin air. Long car journeys are another example. Women can generally ‘strain the greens’ before getting into the car whether they need to go or not, though blokes will cheerfully sit in a car for hours without feeling the urge.

There may be an evolutionary reason for this mysterious ability. Perhaps, on making the long journey out of Africa, it prevented our nomadic ancient ancestors from having to stop every five minutes to find a convenient shrub, thereby keeping them from the clutches of long-grass-dwelling predators. It probably didn’t impact other elements of the journey though which remain hereditary to this day: “Brake! You’re walking too fast!”, “I told you we should have turned right back there.” “I’m sure I’ve forgotten something…”, “Did I leave the grill on?” etc. Ho, ho!

“I Scream, You Scream…”

2009-07-15T17:30:00.003+01:00

The quality of music these days is amazing: ga-zillion track studios record each instrument with crystal clarity before mashing it all together into a format compatible with a device of your choice. Every genre and taste is catered for – digitally reproduced and delivered earwards to be experienced exactly as the artist intended.

There’s one remaining outpost of music though which has remained unchanged for decades.

When I was a kid, I remember the excitement generated by Mr Whippy’s ice cream van as it chugged apologetically into our street, the arrival of which was announced by a tinkly-tonkly Bontempi cacophony of Beethoven’s Für Elise (which no doubt would have caused Ludwig to turn in his grave with such rapidity, it ironically could have been used as an ice cream churn). The clanging ting-a-linging was often set to a frequency so piercing, our ears would bleed, drizzling down T-shirts like the strawberry sauce atop the ice creams we’d cheerfully ram into our faces.

Thirty years later, ice cream vans sound exactly the same. What’s that all about? True, the vans themselves haven’t really changed much either, though I can’t believe that they’re all the same ones I got so excited about when I was in short trousers. There must be a factory tucked away somewhere where an army of workers, probably dressed in seventies clothes, manufacture not only the vehicles, but the recordings to be bolted onto the top of them. How do they choose the music? Why hasn’t it changed?

Personally, I like the sound of ice cream vans – purely based on nostalgia and the imminent possibility of a ‘99’. It’s true that they’re about as tuneful as a tanked-up Quasimodo in a bell shop, but I’m not sure I like the thought of Mr Whippy merely plugging in his i-Pod, and delivering a symphony of lighthearted classical tunes with sharp digital precision to alert kids as to his whereabouts. It wouldn’t be right.

As an aside, there used to be three vans working our ‘hood, the most popular of which was the aforementioned Mr Whippy. In my naïve, pre-brand-awareness days, I remember thinking how appropriate it was that his name was Mr Whippy and he sold ice cream (how could he sell anything but?) I probably thought he spent his evenings with Mr Kipling and Dr Pepper chewing the fat and munching confectionery. Happy days.

Thank God For Lightearted News Stories

2009-07-15T13:36:00.002+01:00

Now, I'm having a particularly shitty day today, which seems to heighten my sense of schadenfreude. Perhaps cruelly this made me laugh.

Shrouded In Mystery

2009-07-06T16:57:00.005+01:00

Typical sensationalist documentary on telly the other day, narrated by Sean Pertwee whose gruffly-sombre overtones could make CBeebies sound like The Evil Dead.

The Da Vinci Shroud (Channel 5 - who else?) purported that the Turin Shroud, famously denounced as a fraudulent holy relic when it was carbon dated a few years ago, was produced using a camera obscura by none other than heretical genius, and all-round medieval man-of-mystery, Leonardo Da Vinci himself.

Hmm…

There was actually some tenuous evidence for this which had been inflated in a recent book by a couple of hairy sub-prime academics. You’ve got to wonder though whether it was just another example of inserting Leonardo’s name to a subject to give it a bit of topical clout. For anyone looking for add some conspiratorial gravitas to their latest book/film/TV programme/dance routine/puppet show, all that’s required is to add the words “Da Vinci” to the title, and hey presto! Instant intrigue!

The programme did end with a bit of a cliffhanger though: despite managing to uncover who made it and how they did it, the identity of the man it depicts remains a mystery.

Not a problem as far as I’m concerned. I think I’ve cracked it. Click below.

“It’s easy as ECG…”

2009-06-26T16:59:00.002+01:00

Woke up this morning to the news that Jacko’s brown bread (or should that be white bread?) having died of a coronary sometime when I was in the Land of Nod. It’s a sad day for music lovers, simians and sellers of fairground equipment everywhere as the King of Pop has popped his clogs, aged a youthful 50 (though other parts of him were far younger). When the news broke at around 7am, mobile phone networks went into meltdown as the news was communicated to anyone with a bar of battery life left. And at 7:15 they no doubt started to be replaced by the first of the inevitable jokes.

But seriously, rather than reel off a string of gags about someone whose life was a rich treasure trove of weirdness and eccentric behaviour, it’s a shame that he’s (or should that be “hee-hee’s”? Aaargh! Stop it Steve…) no longer around. If only for the occasional strange news story or to keep Channel 5 documentary makers in employment. maybe it's better he went now though as thinking about it, given the imminency of this world tour which was scheduled to start next month, he was in serious danger of doing a ‘doing a Tommy Cooper’. Just like that.

Tellingly, eight of the top ten most-read news stories on the BBC at lunchtime were Michael Jackson related stories. The remaining two were about people being burned as witches in Kenya and a story about Abercrombie & Fitch’s employment policy. The most shared news story of the day though, for the second day running, was ‘Stoned wallabies make crop circles' - an amusing tale of opium-poppy-munching marsupials and the circular patterns they make when under the influence.

It’s a crazy world, but I wouldn’t want to Hoover it.

There Goes The Summer Again…

2009-06-25T13:22:00.010+01:00

Once again, we’re hooked in our house. It’s a few weeks in now, and the melting pot of Big Brother 2009 is simmering nicely. It’s another mixed bag of housemate fruit & nuts this year, though the producers seem to have consciously shied away from the usual incendiary band of mutants, with many of this year’s crop being uncharacteristically, err… normal.

Not too normal though. There hopefully won’t be a repeat of last year’s travesty of a result where the eventual winner, Rachel, had about as much personality as carrion and managed to escape eviction by virtue of the fact she was so spectacularly nondescript.

Among the people peopling the house this year are Sree, whose wandering ‘Dr Octopus’ hands among the ladies is creeping a few of them out and causing some consternation among the competition, notably Marcus, whose sideburns of Dickensian proportions and generous “Billy-Bob” mullet give him the appearance of a line-dancing Victorian urchin.

Their affections currently have the thoroughly likeable, though unfortunate, Noireen in an ugly pincer movement from which she’s struggling to escape, though where Sree adopts what he thinks is a respectful heartfelt approach (despite being unable to keep his tentacles in his trousers), Marcus plumps for the brash “show us yer tits” method. The fact they employ these dubious tactics to ensnare the same woman makes for highly entertaining viewing.

Noireen is actually proving to be bit of a magnet for freaks and oddballs, having also drawn the icy attention of the less-than-angelic Angel – an emaciated fitness obsessive who has abs like the corrugated roof of a Belarusian Portakabin and angular features which cause her to look like a Cold War Bond villain or Transylvanian serf. But at least she’s not permanently stuck to her side like a barnacle on the hull of Hagar’s longboat like Sree.

Currently nominated for the third week in succession, though hanging on by his upper-class manicured fingertips is Freddie, whose plans for a post-BB political career have been squarely shat upon before they’ve even started by the fact he’s forbidden from using his real name, instead being known only as Half-Wit. That, and the fact that he’s a clueless fop with a penchant for re-enacting Meg Ryan’s restaurant scene in When Harry Met Sally whenever he samples food and bursting into tuneless song at the drop of his Cossack-style hat.

BB wouldn’t be the same without homosexuals, and this year boasts two: Charlie and Lisa. One has a cheeky line in innuendo and hasn’t covered his torso since day one, while the other has a voice indicative of the systematic smoking of 80-a-day and a red mohican. Both have clichés oozing out of them, but they’re pleasant enough.

The token ‘beautiful people’ also make an appearance. Professional Geoff Lynne lookalike Chris, whose unruly hair and unkempt beard are no doubt a hit among the younger female audience, and his current beau – the hefty-chested Sophie with whom he spends much of his time canoodling. The romance, fake or otherwise can only help their longevity.

Struggling to make the grade is Carly who’s of such a concentrated Scottishness that she’s rendered almost unintelligible, talking with a Glaswegian accent so thick you could spread it on a slice of bread and sporting a permanent expression which can be easily misread as “break eye contact with me and I’ll rip them out and replace them with your balls”. With eyes permanently ringed with eyeliner which looks like it’s been applied with a bingo pen and the complete inability to smile, I don’t anticipate she’ll last long. Which is probably just as well as an early exit will give her time to get herself a nice footballer to marry, divorce and bitch to the press about before Davina announces the eventual winner in two months time.

Then there’s the culturally-bewildered and spectacularly effeminate Rodrigo, who despite coming across as a chirpy songbird on his opening night VT, lost his smile swifter than an undernourished con who’s just been introduced to a gang of heavily-mustachioed randy cellmates the instant he entered the house.

My vote’s currently for the effortlessly uber-cool Siavash – reasons being his enviable hair and ability to remain aloof from petty arguments about cans of cider. Brilliant.

Wire In The Blood

2009-06-23T17:11:00.007+01:00

There’s a bubbling corner of my spleen that I’ve long held back from venting due to the subject’s popularity among people who hold him up as some kind of lyrical genius, but I’ve decided it’s time…

Nicky Wire, the Manics’ bassist, is a nobhead of quite overwhelming proportions. He represents everything that’s wrong with working class intellectuals who think just because they’ve read a few books, they can re-hash the bits that have sank into their spongy brains, pepper their speech with cultural references and bamboozle individuals more impressionable than they are, promoting themselves as some kind of bohemian academic.

The tipping point came when reading the interview in the latest edition of Q, where he name-dropped more people per column inch than Piers Morgan after an Elton John party. In a three page interview, he managed (deep breath): Bill Drummond, Bruce Springsteen, Julie Burchill, Lipstick traces, Greil Marcus, Allen Ginsberg, The Clash, Oscar Wilde, Morrissey, Alex Turner, Crystal Castles, Alan Bennet, Alex Kapranos, Brian Eno, Coldplay, Enya, George Bernard Shaw, Andy Warhol, Stanley Kubrick, Will Young, The Horrors, Robbie Coltrane, Emma Thompson, Will Self, Andrew Marr, Simon Jenkins, Kirsty Wark, Jeremy Paxman, Alexei Sayle, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Jennings, Carol Anne Duffy, Emily Dickinson and Stevie Smith.

As if this pompous splurge wasn’t enough, he later wrote a series of statements he wasn’t spontaneous enough to voice at the time to the interviewer in the hope they’d be included. Among these were such wanky gems as, “The internet destroys the mystery and serendipity of knowledge.” and “A blank piece of paper and a pen is the greatest invention. It is so exciting to be confronted by possibility.” Hmm, all sounds a little bit ‘GCSE’ to me.

In the sparse text that nestled in between this systematic reeling off of names, he actually revealed himself to be not unpleasant, but the sort of chap who probably shuffled around in his awkward teenage years gazing shoeward and mumbling “But I know I’m special…” under his breath, though he doesn’t seem to have ever grown out of it. The impression he gives now is that of a friendless twentysomething at a kids’ kickabout in the park, impressing young-uns who are in no position to compete with his silky skills but remaining a creature of ridicule among his own peers.

Frankly, we’ve all been there. I know I have, and I’ll unhappily be the first to admit that I spent a few years being a bit of a nob in not dissimilar fashion. I’m not saying he’s thick – far from it. I’m not even saying he’s not interesting, but give it a rest matey-pops; you’re spectacularly normal, nothing more. Stephen Fry once said something along the lines of ‘Real intelligence means never actually using it’. However, at the polar end of the intellectual scale is Nicky, who spouts tin-pot philosophy like an ejaculating adolescent.

I went to a see Everything Must Go once – a play written by his brother, Patrick Jones. The script, which was pretty awful, deliberately incorporated many of The Manics’ lyrics (a dodgy gimmick at the best of times), but far from being seamless, the torturous insertion of these little nuggets were like the textual equivalent of pushing a frantic and reluctant cat into a cardboard box prior to a trip to the vet’s:

“I can’t believe you’ve let me down.”
“Yeah, well you stole the sun from my heart.”

Ouch. It must run in the family.

Hippy Hum

2009-06-22T16:42:00.002+01:00

It was the longest day of the year yesterday. English Heritage threw open the gates of Stonehenge once more to allow 36,000 people to hug the ancient stones, beat bongos, talk bollocks and drink Tesco Value cider at six o’clock in the morning, err… just like what the druids did in the olden days.

Looking at the BBC’s pictorial coverage of the event showing the great unwashed corralled in tightly-packed groups, my first thought (perhaps cruelly, though probably not inaccurately) was “Jesus, I bet that stank.” An entrepreneurial deodorant salesperson could have made a killing. Or perhaps the authorities could have taken the opportunity to set up some kind of makeshift sheep dip for the crusty masses on exit? Glastonbury would have certainly been a lot more fragrant.

Feel The Burn

2009-06-10T12:59:00.003+01:00

It’s that time of year again, when the sun finally peeps expectantly out from behind towers of cumulonimbus like an elderly relative checking on kids in the garden, and as it does so releases a stream of ultra-violet unpleasantness capable of turning the average British male from milky white to fuscia pink in the blink of an eye.

You’d think this would make native honkeys hurtle for the nearest shade where they’d spend the ensuing two months (such is the length of the average British summer) in darkness, awaiting the relative safety of autumn when they can emerge blinking into the much weaker sunlight. But no. It seems the first sight of the summer sun causes the entire male population to disrobe en masse despite the unsightliness of what’s been concealed ‘neath winter garments for the previous ten months. Masses of English skin offers itself up to the sun-shee-ine and wide expanses of pasty-white, slightly blobby Caucasian bodies turn as crispy as a hog roast by the time the sun disappears behind the horizon.
Despite being unsightly, this gives an opportunity to look at the range of tattoos on offer. Following Beckham’s lead, the inclination in recent years has been to emblazon your kids’ names across the base of your spine in three-inch gothic script. The chap I saw the other day had just such a set of tattoos, with “Paige” and “Ashton” inscribed across his shoulder blades and the base of his back respectively. At least I assume they were his kids’ names. He could have been a really big fan of Elaine Paige and Ashton Kutcher for all I know. I wasn’t about to ask him though due to the fact he was around twice my size, although if any disagreement did ensue I could have just slapped his sunburn, which can render a man temporarily immobile with more effectiveness than a police tazer.

Les, Matt and Mrs C

2009-06-02T14:21:00.006+01:00

Seven years on and my lovely wife never fails to surprise me. Among claims to fame that include: appearing on The Pepsi Chart Show, sharing a bouncy castle with impressively-bespectacled brown-bread TV host Leslie Crowther and being asked to read the news for L!ve TV, the following conversation took place as we drove past a sign for The Bath and West Show the other day.

“That’s where I met Matthew Kelly,” she mused.
“Eh, you’ve met Matthew Kelly? I never knew that. How come?”
“My brother won a regional karaoke competition when we were kids and he had to attend to compete in the nationals.”
“Really? What did he sing?”
“Wild Thing.”
“Hang on, are you making this up?”
“No.”

Brilliant.

Hats off to Tom and Barbara

2009-05-29T17:19:00.004+01:00

Like many other organically-infused thirtysomethings of the modern age, we’ve got a veg patch (in the sense that we’ve allocated a rectangular strip of garden for growing veg rather than we have a rectangular strip of garden with veg actually growing in it).

It’s a bloody slow business horticulture, and I’m an impatient man. What started off as a bank of mud was, for over a month, a resplendent, err… bank of mud, visually indistinguishable to how it looked when we popped a few optimistic seeds ‘neath its granular surface a few weeks earlier. For ages though – not a bloody sausage (not that sausages grow on trees. I may not be that green-fingered but an afternoon spent trailing round the gardening section of B&Q confirmed my suspicions that meat products can’t be grown from seed). This absence of sausages was matched by a notable absence of actual veg. I’d done my homework and was under no illusions about how long things would take; I didn’t expect a climbable beanstalk shooting up overnight, but it took an age before the tiniest bit of greenery restored some hope.

I’m happy to report though that now there are lettuces, tomato plants and straggly bit of greenery I’m desperately trying to convince people are spring onions. I’m hopeful that some of these may even survive being munched by ravenous slugs, trampled by the kids or shat on by the neighbour’s cat who seems to find our garden an excellent place to crimp one off. If so, I’ll likely be tucking into crisp, home-grown produce for only a singular evening meal (which all the waiting and watering is likely to produce), before the whole process starts again.

I don’t even like veg.

Cheeses Christ

2009-05-28T13:25:00.003+01:00

Periodically, stories about deities appearing in foodstuffs pop up in the news. These items are usually identified by the owner (and would-be consumer) and taken as some kind of sign that whatever god it happens to resemble is with us and has chosen, for some unfathomable reason, to manifest himself in common comestibles.

The latest of these is a small figurine of Jesus appearing in a bag of cheesy crisps which the owner (who has since housed the statuette in a small plastic box surrounded by toilet roll, lest he be crushed or munched by the cat) maintains is the image of the Son of God. Call me a heathen, but the resemblance could only be accurate if Jesus himself went about his daily miracles and wine-making if he was systematically enclosed in bubbling cheese and painted orange, but anyway…

To me, the tenuous resemblance owes more to the brand of crisps he was discovered lurking amongst. Everyone knows that no two Nik-Naks look the same (a quality that was also their USP in an 80s ad campaign). Surely it was only a matter of time before one resembled Jesus? In my packet of Nik-Naks today I was able to successfully identify an exhaust from an Austin Allegro, an antique telephone receiver and Chunk from The Goonies. And even some crisps. Frankly, I’m amazed that sightings of deities aren’t more commonplace. I’m sure there are similar effigies of Ganesh, Shiva and Bealzebub lurking in packets of Nice ‘n’ Spicy, awaiting some gullible nut to spot them.

The difference between these gullible nuts and everyone else is that most normal people would say, “Hey, look everyone. My crisp looks a bit like Jesus!” before popping it into our mouths and appreciating it as the good people at Golden Wonder intended, rather than taking it as undisputable evidence that the second coming is upon us.

If however, three days after consumption, the lookalikey crisp in question was able to rise from its intestinal tomb and emerge unscathed from the mouth of the person who consumed it, rolling the tongue aside and ascending to crisp heaven, I might just be impressed.

Jimmy And Graeme’s Aerosol Hair

2009-04-22T12:48:00.003+01:00

You know you have those moments where you think “Hang on, was that real or did I dream it?”

I had such a thought recently about a product that used to be advertised on the back on red-top Sunday tabloids, typically at the foot of the sports page. I forget the brand name, but essentially, it was hair in a can. I remember also that it was endorsed by Jimmy White and Graeme Gooch, whose joy at once more sporting a full and luxuriant thatch was evident in the latter image of before-and-after proof.

I’ve just Googled it and can’t find any evidence of the product itself, though there are tantalising reports of hair transplants Jimmy’s undergone and a few baldy forums which namecheck him, which indicate that he’s exactly the sort of person to endorse such a invention.

I’m 99% sure it was real, though my main thought which accounts for the remaining 1% is that surely it could never have worked. Could it? Hair grows in rows. Not as a random foamy bouffant. The image I have in my head is more like that Silly String stuff that children squirt at each other at parties. Though having said that, a hairpiece of such construction wouldn’t look any less convincing than some of the rugs you see on daily display – their owners smug under a tufty toupee that looks as if the kindest thing to do would be to shovel it off their cranium and bury it in some sort of pet cemetery.

Maybe that's why Jimmy and Graeme gave it up and chose to destroy all the evidence.

Jog On

2009-04-22T12:27:00.006+01:00

I’ve been jogging lately. Well, I’ve been twice in the past few days, but already this is more than the last ten years so I reckon I’m well up on my average.

I’m no stranger to gyms, but jogging has always been a form of exercise I’m particularly crap at, which is why I thought it high time to face my demons (and the fact that my waistline is expanding at a rate greater than is strictly comfortable), and start regularly pounding the streets – of the village I live in that is, not Mike Skinner.

Everything you read about jogging stresses the importance of getting into a rhythm. Being both male and Caucasian however, as well as really quite unfit (my breathing, as I thumped round my predetermined mile-and-a-half course, sounded more like a pack of huskies being mushed by an asthmatic Rolf Harris) I’m immediately at a disadvantage. Luckily though, no one was awake to hear me as I decided to venture out for the first time at 6am on Sunday morning when there wasn’t a soul around.

The danger with road running, unlike the gym where you can step off the treadmill and pretend it was just a warm-up, is that I could have found myself stranded half a mile from home, too exhausted to return, forced to erect a makeshift shelter and live off berries until such time that I could be rescued. By my lovely lady wife. In our Citroen Picasso. It’s a hazardous business…

Even though my legs feel like they’ve been driven over by a fleet of monster trucks I’m quite looking forward to going out again and might even start to venture further afield. Luckily I’ve been watching a lot of Ray Mears' Bushcraft lately and feel informed enough to subsist in the wilds of Wiltshire and await rescue. Well, Ray seems to do alright out of it as his bulging safari suits will testify. Now there’s a man who needs to go jogging.

Parky’s 2p Worth

2009-04-20T16:23:00.004+01:00

I take back what I’ve said about Parky in the past. Fair play to him for not quite hitting the nail squarely on the head, but giving it a good glancing blow, providing one of the more lucid and reasoned comments surrounding the passing of Russell Brand’s “Primark Princess”.

There was more than a smidgen of hypocrisy around on the death of Jade Goody, with hundreds lining the streets and people weeping openly. There’s an unspoken law against speaking ill of the dead, and it’s the fear of breaking this law that too-often results in the Great British public (or maybe it’s human nature in general) having a tendency to over-compensate by waxing lyrical about the passing of someone whose conduct, in their life, was less than perfect. Maybe I’m just a cynic, but if it’s not this, it’s sad that it takes someone’s untimely demise for people to realise they quite liked someone. Either way, it’s a bit of a sad reflection.

At the end of the day (Brian), no one deserved to go through what she went through and I felt desperately sorry for her and her kids, but I’m not going to be a hypocrite and pretend she was someone who I liked; I often thought she was odious in the extreme. "Her death is as sad as the death of any young person but it's not the passing of a martyr or a saint or, God help us, Princess Di," wrote Parky in the Radio Times, "[she represented] all that's paltry and wretched about Britain... the perfect victim of our times".

While you can read this in a number of ways, he didn’t shirk from describing what she was, though he seemed to obliquely place the blame on both society and the times we’re living through. It’s the old nature and nurture thing: was she unpleasant because of who she was, or was she unpleasant because of what her environment turned her into? It’s probably a bit of both; the two aren’t mutually exclusive. A product of society and lifestyle she may have been, but it didn’t stop her being objectionable.

I disagree with Mr P on the role of the press though. I always thought the relationship between Jade and the media was pretty symbiotic. On a steady fulcrum of mutual exploitation, they fed off her pseudo-celebrity to sell their magazines and she was all-too-willing to give of herself in exchange for a few quid. They existed more or less in equilibrium to the benefit of both parties (which is a lot healthier than some celebrities’ dalliances with the paparazzi). The relationship was one of mutual use rather than abuse.

It’s a shame that she’s gone. No right-thinking human being should celebrate the passing of another human being in such circumstances, though the double standards from both individuals and the media is highly questionable. Now she’s gone, she’s undoubtedly left a Jade-sized void which will be difficult to fill, though my money’s on Kerry Katona.

The real benefactor from all this misery is Max Clifford who’s emerged earnest-faced, richer and smelling of proverbials.

Nostalgic Workout

2009-04-16T12:53:00.002+01:00

There are many forms of exercise around and a myriad ways for fatties to shift the pounds. The problem with exercising though, is that it’s always been arse-crunchingly boring, which is why people are always coming up with novel ways to detract from the fact that you’re actually exercising at all by marrying it with another physical activity.

The naming convention for these hybrid activities often involves nothing more than the unceremonious mashing together of the name of the desired activity, and the second and third syllables of the word “exercise”; hence: dancercise and boxercise (fittingly, there was an on the wall of the caff in Albert Square the other day for an activity called fightercise).

However, not all activities lend themselves to a hybridisation of two verbs, as exemplified by a local advert I saw the other day offering classes in “pole-da-cise” which just sounds weird. I assume it’s something to do with the current appeal of pole dancing. Applying the strict linguistic rules above, it should theoretically be called polercise, which sounds as if it might be something to do with Arctic exploration (when spoken, not spelled obviously).

The prerequisite for these new forms of getting fit is obviously some kind of physical activity: you couldn’t, for example, readercise or drivercise, but you could, in theory, spelunkercise or even scrumpercise.

To my knowledge, no one’s trademarked either of these yet, so watch for my Scrumpercise DVD – out in time for Christmas – in which I can be seen dressed in a tweed leotard, scaling the fences of orchards across Britain and pilfering apples before being chased by angry farmers with sticks in scenes reminiscent of a bygone age of innocent juvenile thievery.

Dogged Determination

2009-04-09T12:41:00.006+01:00

Heartwarming story of canine survival on the Beeb (as well as numerous “and finally...” sections of broadcast news bulletins) the other day, where a dog swam five miles through shark-infested waters in Australia after falling off a boat, was marooned on a semi-inhabited island where it lived a feral existence for months, subsisting on a diet of baby goats, before being finally reunited with its owner. Aaaah…

The oddest thing about the story though is not the fact that the dog failed to be shark bait, but that its name is Sophie Tucker. Apparently it was named after a US entertainer from the 1920s.

Most normal people, if they were going to name a pet after their favourite burlesque/vaudeville artiste, would opt for a first name only; dogs aren’t usually given surnames. Or if they are, they’re usually the same as the owner's.

"She surprised us all," said owner Jan Griffith (probably not named after anyone). "We wish she could talk, we truly do."

Talking would be a start. I imagine the piano-playing and showtunes would come later.

Putting The L In ‘Band’

2009-04-08T15:03:00.005+01:00

Now I don’t want to sound like grandad here, but how crap is Akon? It’s not just me is it? Whether you like the genre or not, this smiling little cheesemonger peddles a particularly clichéd brand of R&B that’s remained unchanged for ten years.

The ad on telly for his new album at the moment showcases a selection of his latest choons with accompanying videos in which he invariably appears dressed in white, complete with complementary heavies and obligatory scantily-clad filly (who’s also dressed in white). Striking a variety of homeboy poses he croons to this faceless female a childlike selection of spectacularly uninspired words. I struggle to think of a more wishy-washy and banal slice of insipid and unoriginal lyricism/melody than “You’re so beautiful, so damn beautifuuuuuul…”; it out-Lighthouse-Familys The Lighthouse Family.

Coming a close second though is the second song in the ad, entitled Right Now (Na Na Na). Songs are full of “doo-be-doo”s and “a wop-bop a loo-bops and “laaaah, la la lah-lah-lah-laaaah”s, though the “na na na na” in Akon’s effort just seems to be a bit of a placeholder about which he probably thought “Sod it, that’ll do; I’ll just ad lib that bit”.

I’m not suggesting for a second that it’s an R&B thing as there’s good and bad in every genre. God knows there are equivalent indie bands out there content to bash away at Telecasters and arpeggiate a G/Em/C/D chord sequence in a sub-Beatles style that, were it any less imaginative, would be the reserve of lobotomy patients and Oasis-tribute acts.

Not every band/artist can be a trailblazer admittedly, but musical drabness, where the same old kak is just re-hashed in a kind of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ way which tries to ride on the coattails of successful predecessors, bugs me.

Anyway, there. “Neeurgh… it’s all just noise these days… You can’t tell the girls from the boys etc.”

Geronimo’s Hairy Carpet

2009-04-07T15:19:00.004+01:00

Dan recently wrote a post in which he tried to convey the magnitude of a trillion dollars. It’s an almost unimaginable amount of money and is in danger of sounding like an almost trivial, throwaway number; like it’s just one step up from a billion. To understand just how much money it is, it needs converting into a visual – abstract or otherwise. If you were to stack it up on pallets in $100 bills, for example, it would look like this.

Alternatively, imagine that a Native American chief collected scalp after scalp with the intention of attaining a trillion human hairs to make himself a nice carpet for his tepee. Given that the average number of hairs on the human head is around 115,000* he’d have to lop the dermises off 8,695,652 paleface craniums.

Taking the human head as roughly spherical with an approximate 13cm radius and calculating the surface area (using the formula 4πR2) and dividing by three, we’re able to determine the approximate coverage of the flap of hairy skin our chief’s bloodthirsty braves might remove (though subsequent stretching might add a little extra). Each scalp would give us an area of around 708cm2, or 26.5 x 26.5cm.

The square root of 8,695,652 is 2948.83, and multiplying this by the dimensions above gives us our final figure: a patchwork of human axminster containing a trillion human hairs would measure approximately 0.8 kilometres square. More than enough for the big chief’s wigwam, and almost certainly enough to provide a smashing underfoot experience for his whole village, even without underlay.

Bringing things up-to-date, the traditional method of imagining surface area is to use a common denominator of football pitches. Given that the average football pitch is 100m x 50m, with Geronimo’s carpet, you’d have enough for around 121 pitches. That’s the whole of the Premier League, Championship, Leagues 1 & 2 and Conference (though sadly, not Conferences North and South who’d have to stick with grass).

Given that 8.5m (the amount of scalps needed) is approximately the population of Greater London, in theory, if everyone had hair, there would be just enough in the capital to cover the pitches of the English leagues. However, this doesn’t account for baldies who constitute around 25% of the population to varying degrees. Just across the channel however, the population of Paris is around 10.5m which more or less allows for the chrome-dome contingent. Not that I’m advocating the widespread maiming of the denizens of France’s capital to re-turf the football pitches of England in any way.

It would be quite groovy though.

* Fair hair is finer with around 140,000 peppering the heads of blondies, while redheads only have about 90,000. If you were to embark on such an undertaking and wanted something that was softer (and arguably more sightly) underfoot, you’d be well-advised to avoid the gingers.

Singular Characters

2009-04-01T17:08:00.003+01:00

It seems there’s a much under-exploited gimmick by the celebrity fraternity in the adoption of single character names. The only ones I can think of are H from Steps, E from Eels and Mr T (who is often affectionately referred to as a casual “T”, as if “Mr T” wasn’t abbreviation enough). Then there’s always fictional characters like M and Q from James Bond. Zorro also had a single letter moniker which he’d casually slash onto doors as his calling card.

Punctuation marks have been used as signatures, notably, The Riddler from Batman, and famously, Prince had a symbol representing his name (but that doesn’t really count cos it was made up, plus he’s a pretentious little wanker).

Surprisingly though, the vast majority of single letter names are still available. This would make autograph signings much easier as many letters/names could be achieved with a single swipe of a pen. They’re also instantly memorable, can be copied by schoolchildren (to be gouged into desks or marker-penned across rucksacks) and guest appearances on Sesame Street would be inevitable.

If I was a celebrity, I’d choose U. No reason.

Removes Limescale, Skidmarks And All Traces Of Irony

2009-03-27T17:08:00.003Z

What on earth’s happened to Mr Muscle lately? His depiction in the new advert is a bit of a sad departure from its predecessors.

There was something quirky though comfortingly British about a nerdy, badly-dressed middle-aged superhero cleaning a toilet with undoubtedly sub-super powers. You got the impression that he shared a house with his mum, drank weak lemon squash and routinely cried himself to sleep in a bedroom plastered with yellowing Star Wars wallpaper – the donning of an ill-fitting costume being the only release from days filled with ridicule and drudgery. Still, you knew where you were with him

However, all trace of irony has now been removed with his recent reinvention. He’s been transformed from an emaciated geek with NHS specs to an individual of rippling Schwarzennegarian musculature, a jaw you could stack books on and thighs of an overtly thunderous nature. As if this wasn’t indicative enough of an all-conquering hero, he’s also been given an American accent. (As an aside, I can’t help but notice that Barry ‘Cillit Bang’ Scott has calmed down a bit lately. Maybe the two are connected.)

Despite being beefed-up bigstyle though, I don’t think I’d like the new Mr Muscle wielding my loo brush, even though he’d be well-equipped to administer a bit more purchase to shift the more stubborn traces of excrement. Bring back the skinny fella. I wouldn’t even mind if he missed a couple of skidders.

Game On

2009-03-25T15:58:00.008Z

I must confess to having a weakness for computer games and my thumbs can occasionally be seen waggling across the front of a PSP of an evening. I don’t own many games, but I’ve realised that for some reason a disproportionate amount of these require me to adopt the persona of a small mammal such as Crash Bandicoot, Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter, Sly Raccoon (then there’s the variants of Ratchet & Clank: Locked & Loaded, Daxter etc.)

While Sly Raccoon is obviously a raccoon and Crash Bandicoot is obviously a bandicoot, Daxter – according to the accompanying notes – is an ‘otsel’ (a biologically impossible hybrid of an otter and a weasel) and Ratchet is some kind of space-travelling creature, clearly based on a small weaselly/ottery/bandicooty/raccoony type mammal. There seems to be a proliferation of these games which I have such a penchant for, which is a bit puzzling.

Another favourite, and not dissimilar game, is Ray-Man, who doesn’t really resemble an animal of any sort, but embarks on similar adventures in a cutesy platform cartoon land. The first time this game was suggested to me I mis-heard it as Rainman, which I remember thinking was the worst idea for a computer game ever. It’s difficult to imagine what a game about an autistic savant would entail. Counting probably. In that sense it’s probably not dissimilar to that that Brain Training rubbish that Ronan Keating and Captain Jean-Luc Picard are always telling me to buy, which looks about as entertaining as watching grass grow. Give me small mammalian cosmonauts any day.

Teatotal

2009-03-06T12:28:00.003Z

I gave up coffee last week. I would say it was the longest week of my life, but that’s not strictly true as without the benefit of caffeine coursing around my bloodstream, I spent most of it asleep, which made the time between giving it up and resuming it again mercifully short.

Its temporary replacement (which was more down to a [probably misplaced] belief that it did me good rather than because it tasted nice) was herbal tea. This came in a variety of hippieish flavours, which sounded more like an explosion in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s garden than any palatable, or even drinkable beverage.

One cup and one teabag is all you need. After a few minutes soaking, the lucky drinker is rewarded with unspectacular brew which looks like the sort of water you find in the toilet when a stubbornly unflushable turd, produced by the previous visitor, has been allowed to steep for several hours.

My main problem with it though, is not its appearance; it’s the fact that although it smells really flavoursome, it tastes like weak squash (the sort of squash that old ladies used to make you when you were a kid). Despite your nostrils being assaulted by the tangy odour of echinacea and elderflower, the taste is pretty much that of water. It promises so much and then completely fails to deliver.

Also, as well as being almost entirely devoid of taste, the absence of a glop of cold milk (which is such an integral part of other hot beverages) means it’s delivered lipwards at temperatures approaching that of the surface of the sun, causing the drinker to look like a post-surgical Leslie Ash by the end of the day.

Apparently, it takes two weeks for caffeine to leave the system of a regular coffee drinker. My self-imposed one-week sentence was up on Saturday and I’m back on the good stuff. What’s more, I’m awake enough to appreciate it.

Heston Services

2009-03-06T12:17:00.002Z

Is it me, or is the gimmick with Heston Blumenthal wearing a bit thin now? Yes, yes, yes… he’s a ground-breaking chef who turns snails into porridge, uses liquid nitrogen in a mad-professor type way and pushes the culinary envelope (I’ve never understood that metaphor – why do envelopes need to be pushed?) further than any balding bespectacled chef has done before, but it’s starting to border on sensationalism.

In his show on telly the other night, he recreated Victorian feasts like mock turtle soup (real turtles are extremely expensive and ever-so-slightly endangered), deep-fried insects, and an Absinthe jelly with dildos embedded in it like some deviant Desperate Dan cow pie.

Strangely, as the credits rolled, the announcer announced (as is common with most announcements at the end of cookery shows), that all recipes were available on the Channel 4 website.

Somehow I don’t think many mums will be recreating Heston’s dishes in the little kitchens of their semi-detacheds up and down the land. Or maybe I’ll be proved wrong and the sales of vibrators will increase tenfold, like when Delia started cooking with eggs a few years ago and their sales subsequently rocketed.

Also, call me repressed and overtly English, but I think I’d find the presence of a sex aid in my dessert a little disconcerting.

“Err… sorry Mum, but I’ll just have mine with ice cream thanks.”

Every Cloud...

2009-03-05T12:31:00.012Z

More gloomy news today as ITN announced that they’re the latest to feel the bite of the economic downturn. They’’ll shortly be making around 400 staff redundant in Leeds and London, with further cutbacks in programming (the production on many regular shows, such as Heartbeat, has already ceased).

The lack of advertising revenue in recent months which funds the organisation has resulted in the need to reduce its programme budget by a substantial £65m, and it’s feared there are more job losses to come in other ITN offices around the country.

Still, good news about Heartbeat though.

“Enthusiastic Self-Starter with GSOH…”

2009-02-18T13:27:00.001Z

The big fella’s almost five weeks in now and has his feet firmly under the desk in the Oval Office. It’s like any new job: I reckon he’s got past the enthusiasm common among new starters and is now probably spending a high percentage of his day on Facebook, emailing jokes to his mates or nicking Post-It notes. Actually, he’s probably not nicking Post-It notes given that he’s “working from home”; he probably just logs in first thing in the morning, ambles around in his pants watching Loose Women and sends the occasional email to give the impression that he’s actively hard at work. Pretty soon he’ll start having a shave once a week and throwing sickies.

In all fairness though, he’s earned it and all power to him. He’s now one of the few people alive who doesn’t have to lie on his CV – having a job title of The Most Powerful Man in the World is difficult to top and not something many people can boast. If I put that on my CV, eyebrows might raise skywards among prospective employers who would immediately question my sanity. Still, I like to think I’d have got the inauguration speech right.

“He fucked that right up” commented my lovely wife, and I’m afraid she was right.

Cha-Cha-Cha? Sh-Sh-Shit…

2009-02-17T12:24:00.006Z

There’s a question I’ve been subconsciously pondering for years now but it’s like one of those Chinese puzzles in that, the more you contemplate it, the more difficult it becomes to answer. Who on earth watches Strictly Come Dancing? I’m genuinely baffled, not only that it’s lasted for more than the odd series, but that it commands an audience of millions. Who in God’s name are these people? I didn’t think there were that many lobotomy patients in the country.

Having a stab at the demographic (not literally, that’s just wishful thinking), I can only assume they’re either individuals too lethargic to raise a sweaty bingo-winged arm to reach for the remote to change channel, or are immobile hospital patients unable to turn the TV off despite frantic efforts to summon a nurse.

It’s dancing for God’s sake! The only possible entertainment value dancing can ever possess is watching awkward men in nightclubs, stomping around with telltale beads of sweat rolling down their brows, undergoing the ritual humiliation synonymous with trying to engage a member of the opposite sex with desperate gyrations. This would be a much more entertaining show, and one the producers of SCD should seriously think of adopting:

“John Sergeant now takes to the floor, exhibiting the classic ‘white-man’s overbite’, clutching a half pint of snakebite with one hand while using the other for counterbalance, gazing lasciviously at his prospective partner, sweat stains under the arms of his best Top Man shirt… etc.”

The judges would have to rate his chances based on cringeworthy technique, ‘gone-to-bed’ eyes and percentage of the room he manages to fill with the tangy odour of Joop!.

I reckon it’s the shallow celebrity element which is the cause of the inflated viewing figures. You could screen Celebrity Toenail Clipping or Celebrity Manure Sculpture, and the same people would watch it in their droves.

That said, Celebrity Big Brother was pretty good this year. I liked the bit where Coolio had to wear a car costume and get sprayed with foam in a miniature car wash in the garden every time Rose Royce was played. Or there was the bit where that chap who played Mini-Me had to dress up like Lionel Richie and sing a duet with Ulrika Johnsson. In fact, the only thing it was missing was a manure sculpture task. Still, maybe next year…

"With [luke]warmest wishes"

2009-02-13T12:21:00.007Z

"Happy 100th Birthday!” bore the message on a card I spotted while ambling round one of those cheap card shops the other day.

While the specificness of cards is a good thing, I can’t help but think the market for those commemorating such a comparatively rare event is fairly limited, and I’m surprised that some manufacturer somewhere has deemed it to be economically viable to print a stash of them up.

Apparently, there are about 8,000 centenarians in the UK. Given that the population of Trowbridge is about, ooh, at a guess… 28,163, there’s probably about three or four of them knocking around the local area. The chances of well-wishing relatives of selecting a card to commemorate such a monumental achievement of longevity from a crap collection in a sub-Clintons “three-for-a-quid” card shop is, however, I believe minimal.

If I hit 100 years old, I’d want Olympic-style fireworks and cards hand-fashioned from pulp from the rarest trees; not some wafer-thin half-hearted tawdry effort which I’d be embarrassed to display on the mantelpiece.

It didn’t even come with one of those flashing badges.

Here’s One For You James…

2009-02-13T12:17:00.004Z

Footage from the Australian Open tennis tournament was on the news earlier this week, including the closing moments of the men’s wheelchair final. For able-bodied individuals to fling themselves around a tennis court is demanding enough, but doing it in any kind of vehicle while brandishing a racquet and having balls belted towards you at tip-top speed must be nigh-on impossible.

“They should invent wheelchairs with those balls underneath, like Dysons,” mused my wife while we sat there, hugely impressed at the ability of the individuals taking part.

Come on James! Let’s see you put your Ball™ Technology to good use and come up with an ultra-maneuverable chair. Balance would, of course, be the primary obstacle – maybe four little rocket boosters could be used to steady the device – but such problems should be mere piffle to an engineer of JD’s undoubted talents. The man is, after all, worth £1.1 bn. (I’ll say it again - 1.1 billion pounds)…

Right, I’ll shut up about him now (though I can’t believe he’s been allowed to trademark the word “Ball”…)

Hot Birds

2009-02-13T12:15:00.002Z

Strange top story on the Beeb a couple of days ago in which a chap was caught trying to smuggle a couple of live pigeons into Australia by popping them in Jiffy Bags and Sellotaping them to his legs. Looking at the accompanying picture, I can’t be the only person who’s noticed the hairyness of his limbs. I bet the little fellas were warm as toast on their inbound flight.

Apparently, airport police also seized eggs, seeds and an undeclared aubergine from him. He must have waded through customs like John Wayne, or some carrier-bagless Ready Steady Cook contestant ready to empty his pockets onto Ainsley’s table. Maybe he too felt the social pressure of not accepting a bag when asked and chose to inventively secrete his purchases about his person instead.

I ate pigeon in a restaurant once. It made me ill.

Unrestricted Diet

2009-01-29T13:33:00.001Z

There was another example of the liberal and uninformed use of the word “literally” during a documentary presented by adolescent biffer turned camp sweary fashionista Gok Wan the other day:

“What would you eat in a typical day?” a sincere Gok quizzed a gargantuan teenager, who apparently now wasn‘t quite as gargantuan as she used to be.
“I’d eat anything and everything… literally.” she replied.

I’m not surprised she ballooned to 18 stone. Frankly, I think she did well to keep it below 50.

Sucking Up Millions

2009-01-19T13:12:00.004Z

James Dyson – why do people hold him in such high regard? He invented a bloody Hoover (and I know Hoover is a brand name and I should use “vacuum” instead, but I don’t care).

In fact, he didn’t even invent, but improved an already existing device for picking up dust from carpets. In the grand scheme of things (and call me controversial) this seems a fairly unimportant contribution to the awesome scope of human engineering. Other unnamed and undoubtedly less wealthy engineers have built tunnels under the French/Swiss border to recreate the big bang, landed probes on the surface of Mars or spanned seemingly unspannable distances with cantilevered constructions. James Dyson removes fluff from floors and he’s held up as some kind of engineering hero.

Whilst this post was bubbling in my head, and lest I vented my spleen Dysonwards without justification, I conducted a little research and looked him up on Wikipedia in case there was anything more to him. Strangely, it appears there is. He also invented those wheelbarrows with plastic balls instead of wheels. And that’s pretty much it.

James Dyson is worth £1.1 billion.

Carrot Bop

2009-01-19T13:11:00.003Z

While idly looking at the telly on Saturday night when the boxing was on, I couldn’t help but notice that both fighters (John Murray and Lee McAllistair) were ginger. To me, this exemplified a win/win situation perfectly.

On The Buses

2009-01-16T13:07:00.003Z

"There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” runs the brave and excellent ad backed by the British Humanist Association, causing miffed Christian bus driver Ron Heather to walk out of his shift and elect to have the day off instead. Not quite sure why he’s so tetchy at what's nothing more than a point of view, particularly when the church seems to put its, err… hard-earned tithe money to similar good use.

"If God exists, what would you ask him?" screamed an ad for The Alpha Course on the back of the Warminster to Chippenham bus as I waited behind it at the traffic lights on the way to work this morning.

On pondering this, I suppose the first thing I'd ask him is where my wife's mobile phone is. The kids made off with it a couple of months ago, and it's bound to be in amongst all their toys somewhere, but we've searched high and low for it without success. The battery was almost dead when it disappeared so we couldn’t even call it to discover its whereabouts.

All that other stuff about war, famine, man’s inhumanity to man and what kind of omniscient being would allow the slaughter of innocent women and children would come later (you know, the usual stuff about how it’s possible to let people to pootle along pre-determined paths towards unjustifiable injustice and torture).

Still, the mobile thing is quite annoying…

Recycle, Reduce, Re-use (And Remember)

2009-01-14T13:47:00.005Z

M & S bloody started it. In an effort to cut back on using so many posh carrier bags (with these cost-saving efforts masquerading as an eco-friendly “save the planet!” crusade to prevent landfill sites being full of non-biodegradable plasticky shit sporting their logo), they stopped automatically giving them out whenever you bought something.

Now other stores have followed suit and it’s become the norm for shop assistants to ask if you want a bag for your purchases (thereby rendering them portable). The problem is that, too often, I buckle under the weight of guilt and refuse one, instead replying “Nah, it’s alright. I don’t mind carrying this collection of large objects in my hands”. Hence I struggle out of shops like a Crackerjack contestant with armfuls of oddly-shaped boxes or untransportable handle-free purchases.

Even supermarkets now keep their bags under the counter like forbidden items or ‘precious things’ and only give them out on request as if they’re made of gold, but there’s no way you can carry your shopping without them. I know you’re meant to recycle them, or use those Bags For Life which look like they’ve been fashioned from hessian, grubby potato sacks and human hair, but it’s extremely hard to remember. Too often, while the tree-hugger at the adjacent checkout fills their hippy bags with humous, nut roast, pond weed falafel bake cake and other sundry items, I pack my items shamefaced by the accompanying rustle of micron-thick plastic, subsequently slunking out the door like a leper in a Hanson T-shirt.

If our consumer society continues ad infinitum down this path, maybe humans will eventually evolve to develop enormous hands not unlike the foamy ones traditionally waved around at sporting events or Gladiators. But then everything would have to be supersized to correspond to the enormous digits. Computer keyboards would be as big as the desk they sat on, mobile phones would be like computer screens and doorbells would be as big as dinner plates. The next time I’m asked if I need a bag, I’m going to proudly say yes to do my bit to prevent this nightmarish vision of the future.

Big Kids

2009-01-08T13:22:00.005Z

Soft play areas didn’t exist when I was a kid. We had hard play areas instead (they bred ‘em tough in the seventies). The nearest most kids got to soft play was bouncing on beds, though often a moment of poor coordination would swiftly remind you of the hardness of surrounding furniture when you careered into the wardrobe, cracking your head and landing in a tangle of juvenile limbs.

There was also none of this bark chipping nonsense in parks. Instead the surfaces where covered with gravel and cold, hard bitumen, often bearing the whitish fleshy skidmark from a small child’s knee – the distance of which was an object of pride for the unfortunate involved and which went some way to countering the unbearable pain. Many a proud tear rolled down a freckly face in parklands up and down the land.

However, I defy any modern dad to resist soft play areas. There’s something inherent in blokes’ makeup that means the urge to scamper over an oversized padded climbing frame is strongly felt (I’ll even confess to, while sitting in one, contemplating where the living room would be if it was my house). With enjoyment comes unease though. There’s a difficulty in these hyper-sensitive times of not looking like a paedophile while doing so.

I was playing with our four-year-old on a bouncy castle recently, standing over him as he lay giggling, and tickling him into submission in the traditional manner, when suddenly his face was replaced with someone who I didn’t recognise.

“My turn! My name’s Dylan and I’m three!” announced the owner of the small face (presumably Dylan in his third year of existence on this safe, rounded-cornered planet), diving between my feet and looking up expectantly, clearly awaiting a similar tickling.
“Aaargh!” I responded and immediately leapt away as if I’d been electrified (which on a bouncy castle makes for an impressive distance), looking around in case an angry mob was about to steam in with poorly-spelled placards demanding the systematic castration of paediatricians or pedestrians or pedallers or something.

I’m thinking of having a T-shirt made along the lines of “I’m not a paedo, I’m just an average dad…” which I could sell at the doors of these places to anyone looking ‘dadular’. The only problem is that you couldn’t ensure that everyone who bought one was unwarranting of systematic castration by an angry mob of Daily Mail readers. You just can’t win…

Stingy Primates

2009-01-08T13:19:00.001Z

It’s a habit (and almost a mandatory requirement) in our house, when referring to song titles/lyrics that contain either the word “money” or “love” that these words are replaced with “monkey” and “lunch” respectively; examples being What’s The Colour of Monkey?, Monkey’s Too Tight To Mention, You Can’t Hurry Lunch and of course The Power Of Lunch etc.

Nowhere, however, do these combine quite so beautifully, and nonsensically, as in a classic Beatles song: “I don’t care too much for monkey, monkey can’t buy me lunch…” So much so, in fact, that it’s ruined any chance of ever singing the correct lyrics again. But I think I almost prefer it that way.

Poundland Indeed…

2008-12-30T13:53:00.002Z

There was a disappointing story about the state of the Wiltshire juvenile criminal fraternity in the local paper this week.

Under cover of darkness, a gang of youths broke into the local Poundland, followed by Julian Graves a few doors down. I’m not sure how successful they anticipated their less-than-daring raids to be, but surely there’s only so many poorly-crafted ornaments and Bombay Mix you can cram in your pockets. The doors probably weren’t even locked.

If their intention was obtaining money rather than stock, again they were thwarted, making off with the safe from the latter establishment which contained the princely sum of around two pounds in loose change (they’d probably get more than that by flogging the safe on Ebay).

In these lean times, I can’t help but feel that these trainee criminals should consider their retail establishments more thoughtfully in order not to waste valuable time which could be spent terrorising elderly people or imitating black people (why is it that any be-hooded individual between the ages of 13 and 18 sounds like a Tim Westwood acolyte?), unless they’re black, whereupon maybe they could imitate white people.

Our young criminals were once the best in the world. What’s happened? Come on boys and girls of Britain! Shame on you – put some effort into it…

Beastly Criminals

2008-12-05T12:47:00.006Z

So Shannon Matthews’ pikey mum and oddball unc have been banged to rights over her “kidnap”, and quite right too. The details of the case make for disturbing reading, though one of the things that I find most strange is that, Michael Donovan, the chap who held her in his flat while everyone looked for her outside, changed his name from Paul Drake to Michael Donovan in tribute to a character from reptilian alien telly sci-fi 80’s drama V. This brings back echoes of Barry George changing his name to Barry Bulsara (after Freddie Mercury’s real surname of Bulsara) of whom he was quite a fan, before popping a cap in poor Jill Dando. Although he didn’t.

Maybe all the authorities need to do to find future transgressors is to search for anyone who sounds like they were famous in the 80s (the incarceration of people like Paul Daniels, Rick Astley and other real celebrities sporting similar names is just a cross society will have to bear).

As I recall, the same actor who played the character of Mike Donovan – Marc Singer – also played the title character in a film around the same time called The Beastmaster which was a sub-Conan fantasy effort about a muscular, luxuriantly-coiffured nomad whose best friend was a ferret. I’m not mocking the severity of Shannon’s plight, but I can’t help but think how much more entertaining events would have been had Paul Drake changed his name to the eponymous hero’s name from this film instead.

Spore Of The Devil

2008-12-04T12:32:00.005Z

Around the same time that the switch was finally flicked on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) buried underneath Switzerland in order to recreate the moments directly after the big bang (thereby allowing a hitherto impossible insight into the building blocks of matter and tantalising clues as to why the universe, which includes us, is here at all), so a Christian group has set up a website to rally the faithful against the release of computer game Spore.

Whereas a metre-long stream of protons travels the 11 mile super-cooled magnetic circuit at speeds approaching that of light, the synapses of the individuals who set up this site are more than a little sluggish.

The game allows the player (and I think the key word here good Christian folk) is “player” to create and nurture a species from single-celled organism, through to multi-celled organism capable of cognitive thought, fostering its biological and social development through generations in order to arrive, ultimately, at a state of civilisation. I dunno, maybe there’s even an opportunity to fart, invent cappuccino machines and crucify a deluded member claiming to be some kind of earthly deity.

Their beef is with that most dangerous of concepts (though for those who aren’t chunky-jumpered simpletons, read “dangerous” as “irrefutable” and “concepts” as “facts”), namely evolution. They claim the game promotes the ghastly notion that we aren’t all descended from two little people in a magical garden who cheerfully pootled around munching fruit until a talking snake convinced them to eat something untoward, thereby fucking it up for everyone.

I propose the building of a Large Christian Collider (or LCC) buried under rural Wiltshire in which fervent believers can be smashed together in order to try and knock some sense into them.

Wired For Sound

2008-12-03T12:30:00.007Z

Continuing the motoring theme from the last entry, tootling into work the past couple of days has been twenty minutes of comparative luxury due to the fact that I have a new car. At 9am I swished noiselessly into a parking space with a notable absence of the toots, parps and puffs of smoke which had hitherto announced my arrival (with doors which threatened to fall off in theatrical style and a nearby colleague on standby to empty a bucket of glittery paper over my head).

The new one is navy blue and shiny and sports such features as (it’s best if this is read in Generation Game “conveyor belt” style)…

- a radiator which doesn’t require filling up before the start of each journey
- a rear view mirror
- windows that go both up and down
- an engine which doesn’t sound like a plane coming in to land
- the ability to reverse
- a full set of windscreen wipers
- a heating system which doesn’t blast arctic air in your face, irrespective of the temperature dial

…all of which were lacking in its predecesor.

Perhaps the most noticeable thing though is the stereo which, in the car it replaced, wasn’t actually a stereo as only the left channel worked. Occasionally, it proved quite enlightening as the isolation of the various instruments and vocals which make up songs forced you to regard them in a whole new light, though for the most part it was lacking in substance. From now on, however, Simon will be accompanied by Garfunkel, Kool, will be able to boast a full complement of Gang members, and Bruce Horsnby (if I ever let him in my car via the medium of magical medium of muzak) will be backed up by his entire Range.

My only gripe is that there’s nowhere to position the wobbly-head Mr T who has been a perennial passenger on many a workward journey. Maybe he can live in the glove compartment from now on – even that’s cosy.

In the meantime, for anybody wishing to buy a clapped-out Fiat Punto, it’s on Ebay. Thirty quid and it’s yours (“T” not included).

Keep On Trucking

2008-12-01T16:55:00.004Z

We recently moved house and, rather than pay a local removal company over £500 (five hundred squids!) to cart our stuff around the corner, we opted to hire a couple of Luton vans and shift it ourselves.

There’s a feeling of motoring superiority that comes with being eight foot up in the air at the helm of a “rig”. It wasn’t quite Convoy, (there were no bull horns on the front of the cab and we were pootling through a Wiltshire village rather than speeding across the Badlands, saluting fellow truckers with a celebratory parp) but a Yorkie bar did seem mandatory and I got more respect at roundabouts than I usually get in my Fiat Punto.

Fortunately, I didn’t feel the urge to eat three fried breakfasts or murder any hitchikers, but then we only rented the vans for the day which is probably just as well. God knows what would have happened by the end of the week.

Ronseal Telly

2008-11-27T13:06:00.003Z

There seems to be a trend amongst TV producers at the moment for up-front, honest, unambiguous programme names. Recent examples are The Whale that Blew up in the Street (regarding a sperm whale that, as you might expect, exploded in a Tokyo city street) and The largest Penis in the World (not about a sperm whale that exploded but there are tenuous parallels should you choose to draw them).

I was undecided as to whether these are examples of clear and truthful promotion which cut through the usual clever-clever pun-laden marketing labeling, or whether they were sensationalist appeals to the lowest common denominator of viewer. The fact that most of these programmes appear to be on Channel 5, however, leads me to the latter.

"HELLO. I SAID 'HELLO'. YES…"

2008-11-26T12:47:00.004Z

According to a new directive from the Nursing and Midwifery Council, health workers are to be dissuaded from calling older patients “dearie” and “love” as this has been deemed to be offensive to senior citizens.

Nurses have instead been encouraged to speak “courteously and respectfully” towards patients, using their preferred names, like “wrinkly” or “coffin-dodger”. No doubt spoken in a very loud voice.

A Year Of Cheese

2008-11-14T12:50:00.003Z

An annual tradition in our household is the purchase, around this time of year, of a Daniel O’Donnell calendar. It started about four years ago where it was bought in jest, and it’s been a family tradition ever since.

Every family needs a calendar to log the various birthdays, anniversaries and miscellany of other appointments which pepper domestic life. And what better way to diarise these events than with an accompanying snap of a lemon-yellow jumpered cheese-merchant, horribly-posed, and sporting a smile to make any octogenarian go weak at her proboscine knees?

The pictures, year-on-year, rarely fail to disappoint. My favourite this year, is October which shows our Daniel in his study, looking scholarly and vaguely heroic.

This year, our sense of irony cost us £7.99. I’d have gladly paid double.

More Reasons To Like Nordic Comedy

2008-11-06T13:24:00.003Z

"Daddy! Look at the funny man!” exclaimed our four-year-old the other day while out shopping in our local branch of Morrisons (there are “more reasons” to shop at “Morrisons” after all – a pun of questionable quality which went undetected in our house for some time, despite the best efforts of Nick Hancock, Alan Hansen, Denise Van Outen, Lulu and, err… Barry George, probably…)

Anyway, looking directly to where his tiny digits were pointing, I spotted an average-looking chap going about his business filling his basket with bread, canned food and other sundry items.
“Why is he a funny man?” I tentatively asked.
“He’s got orange hair!” he replied.

Surely enough, the chap was a “ginger”, though I was baffled as to why would this render him instantly amusing to a four-year-old mind (which you have to assume is largely untarnished by notions of social ostracism of our carrot-topped brethren). On pondering this, it occurred to me that the comedic properties of gingers may be an inherited trait passed down through the generations. Is there an evolutionary reason why gingers are amusing?

Perhaps the “ginger jesters” that walk among us were necessary light relief to our ancestors as some kind of Neanderthal entertainers, while in the modern world is it coincidence that so many clowns have red hair? Historically, has the expansion of the human skull to accommodate the increased brain capacity necessitated a requirement for light relief, and have the ginger genes been allowed to pass down ancestrally in order to fill this void?

Everyone knows that red hair is indicative of the presence of Viking genes. Logic states, therefore, that Scandinavia must be the most amusing place on the planet. I’ve never witnessed any Swedish comedy, but I bet it’s brilliant.

Bias? What Bias?

2008-11-06T13:19:00.003Z

Excellent example of entirely biased news reporting on the Beeb today regarding comments made by Jeremy Clarkson about lorry drivers and hookers. The article is entirely factual, though the order of these reported facts completely discredits the view of the 500 people referred to in the opening line.

Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson has prompted more than 500 people to complain to the BBC about a joke he made on Sunday's motoring show.

Clarkson, 48, was taking part in a lorry-driving task, when he joked about lorry drivers killing sex workers.

"Change gear, change gear, check mirror, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, murder. That's a lot of effort in a day," he said.

The BBC said the joke had made "ridiculous an unfair urban myth".

Forklift truck driver Steve Wright was jailed in February for killing five prostitutes in Ipswich.

America Now Able To Talk To Morrissey

2008-11-05T12:53:00.002Z

"In America, The Land of the Free, they said,
And of opportunity, in a just and a truthful way,
But where the president is never black, female or gay,
And until that day you've got nothing to say to me."

Morrissey - America Is Not The World (2004)

2012 – Spectacularly Unspectacular?

2008-11-04T16:52:00.003Z

Tch! Typical British luck. Just when we manage to bag the biggest sporting show on earth and set about creating an extravaganza to rival the Chinese, the world’s money markets implode in spectacular fashion and tumps of private funding is withdrawn. The upshot is, that there now exists the very real possibility that our Olympic games might be a bit shit.

Downsizing the Games when the world’s collective gaze is upon us shouldn’t really be an option. However, spinning it on its head for a second, it could be a prime opportunity to embrace our own Britishness and show the world what we’re all about by holding an event akin to a school sports day.

Instead of hammer throwing and hurdles, we could hold three-legged or egg and spoon races, with the athletes’ mums and dads cheering embarrassingly from the sidelines. The marathon could be replaced with a freezing cold cross country run (the more overweight competitors would be lagging behind while their swifter counterparts jeer and throw mud), and if no kit was available due to diminished resources, our proud athletes could be forced to do it in their pants and vest.

As far as opening and closing ceremonies go, I happen to know it’s two-for-one on a twenty quid box of fireworks in Tesco at the moment, so that’s both those covered.

Rule Brittania…

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Beans

2008-10-21T13:17:00.003+01:00

I consider myself a reasonably intelligent chap, but there’s something that baffles me. It’s a puzzlement over my recently-diagnosed lactose intolerant wife’s purchase of a carton of Alpro Soya Milk: how on earth do they make milk out of beans? Look at the picture, they’re beans. And they make milk out of them… What’s that all about?

God Lives In Mysterious Ways

2008-10-21T13:15:00.003+01:00

Bit of a strange story on the Beeb the other day about a US judge throwing out a court case brought against God on the basis that the defendant doesn’t have an address (and therefore legal papers can’t be served). Perhaps a better reason would be because the defendant doesn’t actually exist, but there you go.

I’m not entirely sure I agree with Judge Marlon Polk’s reasoning though, as technically therefore, any homeless person is free to commit crime without fear of retribution. Additionally, as any good Christian will testify, God is omnipotent and is thereby surely a resident of every domicile worldwide, from the lowliest straw hut to the most opulent mansion. You could pick an address at random out of the phone book and he’s bound to be living there, no doubt helping himself to tea and biscuits in front of The Antiques Roadshow when everyone’s out.

I’m not sure where God lives in my house cos I’ve never seen him, but I suspect he’s under the stairs where we hang our coats and kick off our shoes. On the other hand, maybe he doesn’t exist at all and we haven’t got an imaginary lodger capable of raining down fire and brimstone upon our heads when his godly duties are interrupted, which is just as well given the amount of pairs of wellies or leather brogues constantly belting him in the face.

The Usurping of Butch Gok

2008-10-21T13:13:00.003+01:00

It was while watching Alan Carr’s Celebrity Ding Dong the other night that the following conversation took place twixt my wondrous other half and I:

“I wish he was my best friend,” she wistfully proclaimed.
“I thought you wanted Gok Wan to be your best friend?” I replied.
“Nah, he’s not camp enough.”

It seems that Gok, despite registering a respectable 8.2 on the Campometer, has been out-gayed by a toothier rival. They should be forced to fight it out.

Premiershit

2008-10-02T17:18:00.004+01:00

There’s an ad that’s been on telly for a little while now, though I remain confused (and more than a little disturbed).

Premier Travel Inn’s Lenny Henry-endorsed campaign is difficult viewing enough – watching him sell his soul to the god of celebrity endorsements in a piss-poor set-to that reeks of the finest Stilton – but, unsettlingly, his companion is a small toy duck who he bathes with and takes to dinner (even going so far as to order him/her/it bread).

What happens after dinner is anyone’s guess, though the image of Lenny Henry nobbing a small plastic waterfowl in a motorway service station hotel isn’t one that encourages me to spend a night there, even given the promise of a “small time” bill.

I suppose after seeing Dawn French in the buff, I suppose anything’s going to look good.

Barry’s Heavenly Pickles

2008-09-30T13:26:00.003+01:00

Celebrity endorsement shifts shitloads of product – fact. Paul Newman and George Foreman spring immediately to mind as figureheads for salad cream and grilling machines, but now there’s another odd member of this peculiar club. Rankling among the Lloyd Grossman cooking sauces and Jamie Oliver god-knows-whats in my local Tesco the other day, I encountered a jar of Barry Norman pickled onions.

Agent: Finally got you something Barry, food endorsement, how does your own range sound?
Barry: Sounds good. Maybe something film-related like popcorn or nachos?
Agent: It’s pickled onions.
Barry: Right.
[beat]
Agent: You haven’t worked for quite a while now Barry.
Barry: I know, I know…

Despite the linkless celeb/product concept, http://www.pickleodeon.co.uk/ is almost a good enough pun to redress the strange connection. The site is quick to state that it’s Barry Norman’s Pickled Onions Official Website, which is useful to know as there are undoubtedly a plethora of unofficial sites out there jumping on the bag-eyed movie mogul’s pickling bandwagon.

Unlike Newman and Foreman though, it seems that pickles are no trivial thing for Baz; the site reveals him to be quite an enthusiast. “I never buy pickled onions,” he writes, “No need to - I make my own. Crisp, luscious, sweet and spicy, pickled onions fit for the gods.”

That’s an impressive claim. If deities themselves would be inclined to pop some of them on their little paper buffet plates then I feel I’m in good company indeed.

Incidentally, where have his bags gone? Barry Norman’s eye-bags, which resembled pockets of loose change, were almost trademarked, being as identifiable as Elton’s roadkill hairpiece or Beadle’s strange little hand. In recent pictures, however, they appear to have mysteriously vanished. Maybe it’s airbrushing, maybe it’s surgery, or maybe he’s struck a deal with him upstairs to remove them in exchange for a jar of “Hot & Spicy” shallots. He could be onto something big…

Hanging's Too Good For Him

2008-09-24T12:29:00.007+01:00

Men and ladies of this sceptred isle, please join me in lifting a mighty chorus to heaven proclaiming, with vim and vigour and intestinal fortitude, lest there be any doubt, that David Blaine is a cock.

As if swimming in a fish bowl, encasing himself in ice, living in a glass box and standing on top of a big pillar wasn’t enough, he’s now dangling upside-down above an ice rink. Please tell me I’m not the only one who finds watching a man suspended from a crane devoid of entertainment value. If he was simultaneously singing a repertoire of Abba songs, or making balloon animals, then I might just concede his antics could be appealing to slower-witted observers; but as it stands (or indeed hangs), it’s impossible to acknowledge his efforts as remotely entertaining.

The media keep referring to his escapades as “stunts”. I disagree. A stunt is Evil Knievel belting over a bunch of buses and landing like a lump of strawberry jam on the other side, shattering all 206 of his bones and rendering the resulting shards indistinguishable from the twisted metal that was once his bike in the process. What Blaine does isn’t “stunty” at all.

It’s notable that only one of his exploits was undertaken in the UK (the one where he starved himself in a glass box above the Thames). He hasn’t ventured across the pond since, possibly because us Brits aren’t terribly impressed with this sort of egotistical tomfoolery. As I recall, people threw kebabs and drove golf balls at him (there’s your entertainment value).

Wiping a red, white and blue tear from my eye like a advertiser’s drop of multi-hued Macleans, these actions make me proud to be Briitish. We don’t put up with such self-aggrandising shenanigans and see it for what it really is: an unsavoury hybrid of the “look what I can do!” school of exhibitionism usually displayed by small children and the cheesy air of mystique that was the trademark of Vegas-dwelling magicians sometime in the ‘80s.

In these lean financial times where travel plans are scuppered by the demise of holiday firms and rising oil prices puts air travel beyond the grasp of many, perhaps Dickie Branson can be encouraged to lay on a Boeing or two to New York full of jingoistic revellers singing God Save The Queen, kebabs in hand ready to pelt David Blaine en masse. It’s what this country needs to remind us who we are.

The image of him, suspended upside-down and covered from 'toe to head' in kebab meat and bits of salad, chilli sauce dripping from his upended cranium, makes me proud to be British. Alternatively, I’m all for a UK version whereby Paul Daniels could be forcibly suspended from a crane above Hyde Park, perhaps with an adjacent driving range in order to thwack dimpled missiles at him. People would be queueing up.

Teed Off

2008-09-24T12:23:00.004+01:00

Drawing on recent holiday experiences, as well as assessing the facilities around my immediate locale, I must confess to being more than a little disappointed with the current state of Britain’s crazy golf courses. The condition of many is poor with most exhibiting an entirely inadequate level of craziness, and can perhaps be most accurately described as Mildly Unhinged Golf.

Therein lies the problem: “crazy” is ill-defined term, which opens the sport to the provision of facilities of a poor nature. Add to this the fact that there are no recognised guidelines and no governing body in order to determine those courses deserving of the moniker (something the Olympic Committee might want to address ahead of the games in 2012), and it’s anarchy.

Being an enthusiast, I therefore propose the following mandatory requirements for any course purporting to be “crazy”. Any course falling short of these would be forced to refer to itself as Miniature, Fun or Family Golf to alleviate confusion. Each course must have, within its 18 holes, the following:

- At least one windmill, with rotating blades and a small doorway
- Water features with the very real danger that to ball will be irretrievably lost
- A small bridge, the exit ramp of which is far too fast for the hole
- Tunnels
- A cooling-off area, for irate children (and competitive dads)
- A rotating clown’s head with opening/closing mouth
- At least two holes where which require the player to twat the ball with gusto in a “death or glory” attempt at a result

It’s my hope that one day a green-blazered Tiger Woods might parade his skills in the superior game.

"Wooooargh! Ooo-aar! Wye-aye!"

2008-09-05T12:23:00.002+01:00

It was during Richard Dawkins’ excellent programme on Darwin on Channel 4 recently that he perfectly illustrated just how closely related all living beings are. He envisioned that, if your average person stood side by side with his mother, and she stood next to her mother, and so on etc. and chimps did the same, after only 300 miles the two would converge to arrive at a common ancestor that could develop into either species, though would essentially be a creature not quite ape, and not quite human.

He went on to surmise that man’s genetic proximity to chimpanzees is such that it’s not biologically inconceivable that the two would be able to mate, in the same way that horses and donkeys, while distinct species, are able to produce sterile offspring.

Taking London as the centre of UK civilization, a 300 mile radius might just clip the edge of Cornwall and extend almost as far north as Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.

It’s probably just coincidence, that’s all I’m saying.

Dr Doctor Needed?

2008-09-04T13:26:00.008+01:00

In the mid-80s - around the time when men were wearing pink for the first time and “bum” was in the process of becoming both a verb and a noun - Mr Mister were dubiously encouraging one particular individual to “Take these broken wings and learn to fly again, learn to fly so free”.

Surely if the welfare of this person was of true concern, then pushing them to take to the air on wings which are broken is both foolhardy and hazardous. Perhaps a more accurate reflection of intent might have been “Take these repaired wings…” or “Take this wing repair kit and learn to fly again…”

The danger of flying on malfunctioning avian limbs is further exacerbated by the fact that they were subsequently urged to “learn” to fly again, thereby indicating that flight was an activity they were perhaps a little out of practice with – a dangerous enough predicament, without being persuaded to do so with faulty apparatus.

In these modern times where litigation is brought against individuals at the drop of the proverbial headgear, perhaps Mr Mister ought to think twice about their lyrics, and would be wise to adopt either of the suggestions above for their inevitable ‘80s revival tour. I charge no fee; just a small mention in the sleeve notes.

Home From Home

2008-09-04T13:17:00.006+01:00

[Being back from holibobs today, I’ve finally got around to putting a post together about our excursion earlier in the year. I’ll probably get around to writing about the one we recently returned from sometime around Christmas…]

The OED defines the word haven as being “a place of shelter and safety; refuge”; Collins doubtless has a similar view, though having recently holidayed in a Haven Holiday Park I’d seriously question this.

It’s true that it rained every day, which didn’t help matters, though any spirits which weren’t dampened by drizzle were swiftly extinguished by the misery of the staff whose ability to raise a smile was on a par with my body’s ability to undergo childbirth.

The Britishness of the weather aside, the place resembled Auschwitz-on-Sea with not dissimilar facilities. The soft play area smelled of damp (maybe the ‘softness’ was attributable to the furry mould and exotic fungi), the outdoor activities were boarded shut, and what was optimistically referred to as a “beach” consisted of a series of irregular rocks waiting to lacerate the cold white feet of anyone with the foolish courage to venture seawards. No doubt some brave souls made a break for the surf in the past, though were probably thwarted when the bloody stumps of what remained of their legs could no longer support their weight and they fell earthwards in slo-mo in a manner akin to Willem Dafoe’s death scene in Platoon, only to be swept out by the merciless tide as if the tragedy had never occurred.

Looking at the clientele, I felt quite underdressed without a football shirt, a cranial tattoo, and accompanying baseball-capped kids and an enormous wife. We gathered in the entertainment complex nightly for an evening of what could loosely be termed “entertainment”, consisting primarily of bingo, bingo, and more bingo during which conversation of any sort was seriously frowned upon. Woe betide the person who dared to utter a word as he/she was likely to be pounced upon by a gaggle of Neanderthal ladies wielding those special blunt pens (I think they’re called dabbers – the pens, not the ladies), their bingo wings propelling them across the room like pikey pterodactyls. Maybe it’s best that they don’t let them use sharp implements. But I shouldn’t mock; it’s serious stuff as failing to stab a little number on your sheet may have led to missing out on such “prizes” as colouring-in pencils or a lucky gonk.

Attached to the entertainment hall was a café which served up a selection of inedible (and instantly refundable) meals. Tuesday’s ‘Curry Night’ seemed to be no more than an excuse to throw the previous week’s collective leftovers into a pot, along with a few spices to mask the flavour of rancid offerings, and serve it up en masse to people whose taste buds had been mashed by lager the night before.

Luckily the caravan was comfy, which was useful as it’s where we spent much of our time; particularly the toilet which we became very familiar with after the aforementioned Tuesday.

All in all, the best thing about Donniford Bay Haven Holiday Park (for the purposes of search engines, that’s Donniford – yes, “Donniford” Bay Haven Holiday Park) was the road out of there. “Look daddy, the sea’s all brown.” observed our four-year-old as we were leaving via the cliff-top road. And brown it indeed was – coincidentally the colour of the curry, both on its way in, and its way out. Maybe there’s a more sinister reason for the correlation.

The Mark Of A Man

2008-08-22T13:55:00.000+01:00

In a recent conversation with Dan, we established that the true sign of masculinity was twofold: namely, shed ownership and the ability to bear children. Being in possession of two of each, I can therefore only assume that testosterone courses around my veins like Usain Bolt after a couple of coffees.

A Cure For Society's Ills

2008-08-22T13:40:00.009+01:00

A debate has broken out in work lately regarding the treatment of criminals.

During the lunchtime collective surfing of the BBC Newspages (which invariably contain a daily glut of stories about society’s transgressors), much head-shaking and grumbling is visible from the other side of my desk.

The head shaker’s solution involves a zero-tolerance approach to criminality, advocating the state-sanctioned termination of perpetrators irrespective of misdemeanour, from paedophilia to thievery to, err… scrumping, and to this end a number of inventive methods of snuffing-out have been suggested. These range from the use of large vats of acid, to quarries and lots of concrete, to gassing (though as I recall, a little chap with a cheeky moustache had a not dissimilar idea some sixty-odd years ago, much to the world’s chagrin).

These right wing solutions don’t sit quite right with me, and my woolly-hearted liberalism believes that using criminals as landfill can never be justified. Indeed, killing anybody, on a basic human level, is more than a little morally dubious, no matter how creative or amusing their dispatch.

By way of compromise, I’ll concede that maybe they could be given a fighting chance, with,perhaps, the new Wembley Stadium converted into some sort of gladiatorial arena where terrified rat boys can scamper round in rags in an effort to save themselves from a tooled-up Tony “Maximus” Martin wielding a blunderbuss to pepper them with buckshot.

To go down the route of social cleansing is foolish though. If there were no criminal fraternity in society, what would pensioners find to tut about? Or Daily Mail readers twitch their curtains at?

That’s not to say, however, that I’m not in favour of the systematic culling of the following individuals: Caroline Quentin (see posts passim), Cher, Chico, all weathermen, Matthew Davenport from Form 4G. I think the world would be a much better place without them. Well, my world anyway…

Maybe He Just Skips Breakfast?

2008-08-15T14:12:00.005+01:00

As I tootle to work in the morning in my little blue car, I see some familiar faces in the cars around me, as they’re also tootling towards their respective workplaces at exactly the same time. One such face belongs to a be-suited chap with an aggressive sea-faring beard, who drives a much larger, greener car. Green would seem to be an appropriate colour as I often encounter him in my rear-view mirror, typically at the lights, and watch with fascination as he busies himself scooping out and gorging on the contents of his nose.

With a furrowed brow he examines his fingers like he’s choosing the appropriate blade of a Swiss Army knife, before plunging the appropriate digit into each nostril in turn and emerging triumphantly with his mucous prize. He then pops these valuable comestibles into his waiting mouth.

I’m not sure what it is about being in a car (and I’m sure he’s not the only one), where there’s an erroneously-perceived distance between you and the outside world. A car is an extension of your home, and being as you are, surrounded by personal effects and the comfortable knowledge that the space in which you sit is owned (or at least partially-owned) by you, there’s a tendency to relax in your automotive kingdom.

For those who regularly scoff bogeys during lengthy drives - you’re surrounded by glass. We can still see you, you know.

Freeman Freeway

2008-08-06T13:04:00.003+01:00

71-year-old Morgan Freeman's in a bad way after he totalled his car by rolling it over a couple of times and landing in a ditch. It just goes to show that it's always the ones you least expect to be road hogs that are burning up the tarmac like teenagers. Driving Miss Daisy my arse. I bet he installed those blue flashing lights under Jessica Tandy's Bentley and put a 1000 megawatt amplifier in the boot. The man's a menace...

On-Board Entertainment

2008-08-06T12:54:00.003+01:00

A particularly unsavoury story in the news on Friday concerned a man who stabbed and beheaded a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus as it trundled across the Canadian prairies.

Having traversed Australia in the same way I know just how boring long Greyhound journeys can be, and have previously in this blog, documented a succession of journeys during which my lovely wife and I were forced to watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding seven times on the on-board telly.

By the fifth viewing I was losing the will to live; by the sixth, the red murderous mist was starting to descend, and by the seventh, the sweet release of death itself would have been welcome reprieve to the constant jaunty bouzouki music and cross-cultural gaggery.

Out Of This World Looky-Likey

2008-08-06T12:48:00.003+01:00

My lovely other half proffered a bizarre lookalike while walking around Morrison’s the other day. On viewing one of the larger plastic bottles of milk (the one that weighs as much as a cow’s udder and is impossible to pour into a cup of coffee without dumping a sixth of its content, thereby rendering any hot beverage undrinkable) she confessed to being reminded of the alien’s head (from Alien).

Can’t see it myself, but I wonder just how terrified Ripley would be, scurrying towards the escape hatch, with six pints of semi-skimmed sloshing around behind her.

“Helping criminals commit suicide since 1852…”

2008-07-31T13:31:00.004+01:00

When prisoners on suicide watch in prison have their shoelaces removed for fear they may hang themselves, I can’t be alone in being impressed at the robustness of their choice in footwear fastenings. I’m not sure of the breaking point of the average shoelace, but I’d hypothesise that it would be less than the weight of the average person.

Fred West, arguably the most well-known of shoelace related suicides, wasn’t a small man (exacerbated by a sizeable bouffant and Mungo Jerry sideburns), but successfully bought the farm via this self-inflicted route. Conversely, my shoelaces snap on a fairly regular basis when I’m merely popping shoes on my feet, so either I’m tying them in a heavy-handed and unsustainable fashion, or I’m buying crap laces. It seems that the crims and perps of unstable mind that populate our prisons either have a predilection towards good quality laces (maybe there’s something subliminal in their psyche that, possibly, they may have to swing from a door frame with them one day), or, err… have hollow bones. Like birds.

The ability for such simple items to support the weight of a fully grown serial killer is impressive and perhaps something that the Shoelace Marketing Board should be actively shouting about, perhaps with an ad campaign along the lines of Araldite (the one where a man is suspended over a frothing sea of sharks, though is prevented from being torn limb-from-limb as he’s bonded to a board by his super-strong glue).

Ironically, had Fred sported shoes with Velcro fastenings, he could still have carried out his plan by sticking them onto his Dickensian mutton-chops before leaping off the chair. Not the most dignified way to go perhaps, though effective nonetheless. I bet when he was alive, you never saw him in slip-ons. Some people are just born to be serial killers.

“Dey do do dat don’t dey dough?”

2008-07-18T12:53:00.001+01:00

While watching the semi-final of Masterchef last night, it occurred to me that three of the four contestants (Liz McLachan [the Atomic Kitten], Louis Emerick [“Migch” from Brookside] and Mark Morahan [from some soap or other]) were Liverpudlian.

It’s an observation I’m struggling with as there didn’t appear to be a box of McCain’s Micro Chips in sight.

What’s It Called In Your House?

2008-07-09T12:47:00.006+01:00

Nowadays, the prospect of hoiking one’s arse off the sofa and shuffling across the room to press a button on the telly seems unthinkable, though unbelievably, there was a day when this was the only way of changing the channel. This all changed when remote controls were first introduced in the early ‘80s and there ensued a wide variety of nicknames for them. “Remote” now seems to be pretty much the norm, though there are still a few hangovers from the old days.

Among examples I still hear today are “The Blip”, “The Zapper” (and rarely “The Frank” [Zapper]). My lovely wife’s name of choice is the beautifully explanatory “The Presser”, while it was always known in our house when I was growing up, as simply “The Sound Thing”. As I recall our original Sound Thing had six buttons (volume up/down, channel up/down, mute and standby), ran off a car battery and had to be held an inch from the telly, thereby negating the need for a “Sound Thing” at all.

These days, our front room is overrun with remote controls with buttons of every shape and description for devices that form part of the modern entertainment system. The capabilities of even the most simplistic of machines is now vast and hence the buttons have shrunk accordingly. Sadly, evolution has yet to catch up and human fingers have remained the same size; the result is that often buttons are pressed in error, but this is a minor gripe.

With the plethora of buttons at your fingertips, you either need the dexterity of Liberace or small child-like digits, which might go some way to explaining why our four-year old is so adept at pressing 7 and 4 to watch children’s channel CITV (to clarify, he’s a small child, not a flamboyant pianist). Jeremy Beadle, God rest his soul, was also probably quite tasty with a Sound Thing. On the other hand, maybe he was crap. Ho ho…

“I’ll have ‘War’ please Jim...”

2008-07-08T13:08:00.005+01:00

Hands are being gleefully rubbed in the Ministry of Defence this week as it was confirmed that two spanking new aircraft carriers are to be built at enormous cost. Firms including Corus in Scunthorpe, and MacTaggart Scott & Co. in Mid Lothian (I defy anyone to think of a more Scottish sounding name) will bag over £91m to Airfix them together.

In order to convey the magnitude of such enormous and costly vessels, the BBC 6 O'clock News, using a topical comparison, showed their size in terms of tennis courts, illustrated by a natty graphic depicting aircraft carriers covered in prime Wimbledon turf complete with chalk markings. The correspondent helpfully informed the viewer that the deck surface of these immense warships is equivalent to 104 such courts.

While topical, this was slightly confusing. As my lovely wife pointed out, everyone knows that dimensions of large objects are measured in football pitches, not tennis courts, and as such, they would each be as big as four football pitches. It’s just as well the there was no major boxing bout over the weekend or they may have been illustrated in terms of 450 boxing rings. Alternatively, 753 snooker tables or even (using a little schoolboy geometry and the formula piR2 to determine surface area) 119,439 dartboards, though laid end-to-end, this amounts to no more than 93,700.

Come to think about it, a giant dartboard might be of benefit in helping planes to land, with points awarded for ‘Bullseye’ accuracy. Pilots could be encouraged to “listen to Tony” in the control tower, with prizes such as caravans and speedboats awarded for exemplary landings. Overshooting the runway, however, would result in them receiving nothing more than their PFH (plane fare home).

Muzak To My Ears

2008-07-07T16:32:00.002+01:00

While out browsing/shopping the other day I became gently aware that the music being piped around the shop was a pan pipe version of If You Leave Me Now by Chicago.

Try as I might, I can’t think of a more bland and impassive example of tunesmithery; not unpleasant, but just empty and devoid of any emotion. It was like having melted mild cheddar dripped into my ears.

Irritating Irritating Irritating

2008-07-07T16:25:00.006+01:00

A fresh crop of egotistical individuals have joined the Big Brother house, including the flamboyant and theatrical (and annoying) Belinda, who persisted in announcing her name to her fellow housemates as “Belinda Belinda Belinda!”, the rationale behind this repetition being “If you say it three times, no-one forgets it.”

It probably wouldn’t have been a good policy to adopt had her name been Kay. Her housemates might taken her to be some kind of white supremacist, and first impressions count in the highly volatile BB melting pot. Talk about getting off on the wrong foot with Mohamed.

Hopefully, Magnus Magnusson will never be persuaded to join Celebrity Big Brother, as he runs the risk of sounding like some sort of rabid dog.

Matured Longpig

2008-07-01T13:16:00.003+01:00

“OAP Carvery £4.50” said a hastily-scrawled sign outside a pub the other day, advertising its traditional comestibles to passing trade.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think I’ll stick with beef, (I’ve always found pensioners far too tough).

Geek Chic

2008-06-24T12:59:00.003+01:00

Our eldest starts school in September and his new headmistress, Mrs O’Brien has stipulated (given the amount of unidentified clothing they harvest at the end of each term) that all parts of his uniform are labelled with his name in the traditional manner. This seems a bit of an undertaking, so we’re thinking of changing his name to George and buying all his clothes at ASDA to save us the hassle.

Calvin Klein’s mum doubtless had the same problem, but she just went overboard and plastered his name over everything, even his pants. Weirdly, when I was in school, any kid whose pants showed above his beltline and whose trousers were in permanent danger of falling earthward was regarded as a bit of a spanner and was ostracized to eat his irregularly-cut sandwiches in a corner of the playground on his own. Nowadays, however, such kids are the epitome of cool.

It just goes to show that geeks are years ahead in the fashion stakes and are the trendsetters of tomorrow. Look out for Karl Lagerfeld’s new collection which includes nylon slacks worn fashionably two inches above the ankle, glasses so thick you could burn ants with them on a hot summer day and hand-me down graying shirts with substantial lapels, all sported by models whose teeth protrude at 90 degrees to the perpendicular.

Euthanasia On A Budget

2008-06-19T17:34:00.003+01:00

There was a programme about euthanasia on TV recently in which the law was once again under fire (its adversary being reason) when approaching the question of whether the individual has the right to take his or her own life (or more contentiously, whether caring family members can ethically assist). Presently the only countries where assisted suicide is legal are Holland and Switzerland (though Switzerland seems to be the location of choice, possibly cos it’s prettier).

Such trips are expensive however and prevent this option being available to all. So for anyone who’s watching the pennies, why not just pop down to your local embassy, which of course, is not governed by the laws of land where it is situated but by the country it represents? You could tootle down with your elderly relative during a lunch hour, or even on your way home from work, send them on their metaphorical way, and arrive home while your dinner is still warm and just in time for the start of EastEnders.

Peace of mind I’m sure to the individual involved, who surely wouldn't wish to be a burden, living or dead.

Glint Eastwood

2008-06-13T14:06:00.003+01:00

A discussion arose in our house the other day about the origins and usage of the word “glint” (also “glinter” – someone who glints, and “glinting” – the act of performing a glint).

After asking around and getting nothing more than blank expressions in response, it seems that it’s a word that my wife has made up, and its usage extends to us two, though I’m thinking of starting a campaign for it to be included in the OED.

For those who don’t know what it means (ie. everyone apart from us), a definition is thus: the unfortunate effect that the action of squinting, or otherwise raising one’s cheeks to limit the intake of sunshine (or wind, though typically sunshine) into your eyes has on raising the upper lip, thereby revealing the top teeth. It’s not quite a squint (as it’s not just a narrowing of the eyes), and it’s not quite a grimace (as it’s an emotionless by-product of squinting, rather than an expression of umbrage).

For an excellent example, see the picture on the left. To the casual observer, it almost looks like a smile, but look closer and there’s no joy behind it.

Australia, being a sunny, outdoorsy kind of place, was excellent glinting territory with a array of teeth bared at the elements. The UK is less so, though with the onset of the great British summer, it’s now coming into prime glinting season with some fantastic examples to be had on the Great British High Street.

While out shopping of a Saturday, we often rate glints on a scale of 1-10 (usually accompanied by the expression “Glinter!”), with variables which determine the glint quality being teeth size, height to which the upper lip is hauled and gormlessness of the expression. Look out for them…

Starsky, Hutch and Huggy Bears

2008-06-12T09:03:00.005+01:00

It was after listening to Silver Lady by David Soul in a restaurant the other day, that I was mulling over the names children (or more accurately in most cases, their parents) give to their favourite anthropomorphic toys.

Our eldest’s soft companion of choice was a small Kermit the Frog (known affectionately as Kermy or Mr K, depending on circumstance), complete with pointed ruff and dangly limbs. Our youngest, however, chooses to eschew all expensive soft toys in favour of a crappy little penguin which was given away with boxes of Persil when they were promoting the film Happy Feet. This bedtime cohort of choice is called – somewhat unimaginatively – Mr Penguin. Our nephew’s much beaten and eaten companion meanwhile, is called Gerry the Giraffe.

Some thirty-something years ago, my own little furry chum was called Jaffa – a small orange bear. My sister’s, bizarrely, was called David Soul, named after an affection for the lusciously-bouffanted actor from Starsky & Hutch.

Jaffa has sadly long since been lost, as has Kermy (documented elsewhere in this blog), and it’s possible that Mr Penguin and Gerry will one day follow, though strangely, David Soul still inhabits a place in my sister’s house as well as her heart. Now in his late thirties, he requires handling with the utmost care as his threadbare skin is excessively fragile and his foamy innards are in constant danger of spilling forth in an unsavoury manner.

Co-incidentally, the real David Soul is now equally decrepit, but to my knowledge doesn’t live in my sister’s house. Or does he? No-one’s seen him for years; he could be tucked away in the attic subsisting on bugs, dew and sporadic displays of regressive affection. Or perhaps he’s kept in a hutch of some sort? No, that would be too ironic.

Phonetic Tactics

2008-06-03T12:59:00.004+01:00

I’m more-or-less familiar with the phonetic alphabet: “hotel, sierra, whiskey, tango, etc.”, though sadly only on those occasions where it’s not required. If put on the spot by someone on the phone, why is it that the correct words go out the window in favour of more atypical examples?

“My postcode? Yep, it’s Biscuit Acrobat thirteen, three Jam Quagga.”

Six In A Row

2008-05-28T13:36:00.005+01:00

Although a bit of a crap sequel and a poor follow-up to the Zucker Brothers' excellent original, Airplane II (which was on telly the other day) does contain the following puntastic gem of courtroom dialogue between a prosecutor and an Air Force pilot who flew with the protagonist during the "Macho Grande" campaign:

Witness: Striker was the squadron leader. He brought us in real low. But he couldn't handle it.
Prosecutor: Buddy couldn't handle it? Was Buddy one of your crew?
Witness: Right. Buddy was the bombardier. But it was Striker who couldn't handle it, and he went to pieces.
Prosecutor: Andy went to pieces?
Witness: No. Andy was the navigator. He was all right. Buddy went to pieces. It was awful how he came unglued.
Prosecutor: Howie came unglued?
Witness: Oh, no. Howie was a rock, the best tailgunner in the outfit. Buddy came unglued.
Prosecutor: And he bailed out?
Witness: No. Andy hung tough. Buddy bailed out. How he survived, it was a miracle.
Prosecutor: Then Howie survived?
Witness: No, 'fraid not. We lost Howie the next day.
Prosecutor: Over Macho Grande?
Witness: No. I don't think I'll ever get over Macho Grande.

Puns are normally the arse-end of humour, reserved for the comedically-challenged and the under-10s, but this proves otherwise.

“Pig, Horse or Cow?”

2008-05-27T14:01:00.002+01:00

My wife has an excellent excremental nose. Driving through the beautiful English landscape the other day, which was bursting with summertime greenery and general countrysideness, our olfactory glands sporadically encountered the stench of slurry which had been recently strewn fieldwards by an army of Farmer Palmers. To me, shit smells largely like shit, but identifying its origin is mere piffle to my wonderful Wiltshire wife.

“That’s pig shit,” she’ll announce with conviction. Horse and cow are also readily classified, much to my surprise.

For the record, pig seems to have more of a vinegary stench about it.

My Green Surrogate Hair

2008-05-23T13:38:00.003+01:00

Sporting a hairstyle which, from the front, mimics the swooping contours of the line on a tennis ball, and which from the top resembles one of those crop circles that so enthralled Reg Presley in the ‘90s, I can safely conclude that my halcyon days of grooming are unfortunately behind me. Much like the hair itself in fact – peppering the ground of yesteryear like loose grass cuttings (which is ironic, given that the effort I once put into combing my tresses has subliminally found output in the treatment of our lawn).

I take great delight in mowing the grass into neat rows, carefully strimming the edges and making it generally presentable. Such efforts (albeit on the much smaller scale of my head and using a variety of implements which didn’t include a Flymo 2000) were previously reserved for the follicular topiary atop my cranium, though the feeling is essentially the same on viewing the fruits of my labour.

In the back of my mind though, I’m all too aware that, come the winter, it too will wither and die. But even then, I know a springtime resurrection bursting with life and verdancy is only a season away. Sadly, the flowing locks that once crowned my strange-shaped head will forever remain but a distant memory.

Steve, Florence & Fred

2008-05-21T13:04:00.000+01:00

“Let’s all go to Tesco’s, where [fill in name here] gets his best clothes! Dah daah dah da! Dah daah dah da!”

Sung to the tune of We’re All Going To Wembley, this was an oft-heard playground taunt when I was a kid. Ironically, as I approach my thirty-fifth year, I now find this to be true of myself.

Tell Me I’m Not The Only One

2008-05-16T12:39:00.002+01:00

“Do you ever do that thing when you’re cooking,” I asked my lovely wife while we were in the kitchen preparing dinner together a few nights ago, “where you imagine you’re starring in your own cookery show [complete with running narrative of what you’re doing, with delivery for an imaginary camera]?”
‘”No, you weirdo.” She replied.
“Err, right. No, me neither.” I confirmed.

The Dilemma Surrounding Self-Cannibalism

2008-05-12T13:23:00.009+01:00

An interesting debate arose in the car recently which concerned a (with hindsight, almost certainly fictional) story I once read about an unfortunate individual trapped on a desert island, who was stranded and alone with nothing to eat. Being the only meat source on his island prison he was therefore forced to eat his own limbs in order to survive.

We couldn’t agree, however, on which would be the best limb to start munching on. For me, taking into account the variables of a) limb usefulness, b) food volume, c) loss of dexterity and d) ability to prevent signaling for help (should a ship pootle by on the horizon), I plumped for my left arm. My lovely lady wife however, opted for the left leg.

There is, of course, no right or wrong answer. Is it better to be able to run down the beach on two legs, gathering wood for a fire (though then be unable to gather wood at any useful rate), or to be able to gather wood at a rate of knots though have to hop around at a fraction of the speed while doing so?

Scoffing one’s self in order to stave off hunger in order to survive (but in doing so limiting your chances of survival by adversely affecting your bodily movements) is one of those catch-22s most (if not all) people will never find themselves in, so I don’t think it’s much cause for concern. That said, I intend to carry around a set of cutlery whenever I travel abroad from now on (although I will have to learn how to use my fork in my right hand).

Priorities for Armageddon

2008-05-09T13:25:00.001+01:00

"We’ve only got four minutes to save the world!” urge Madonna and Justin from their lofty position at the top of this week’s hit parade. However, they then go on to waste around 80% of the time remaining before impending doom by singing a shit song about it.

And is it me, or has Madonna contracted a serious bout of Cher Syndrome in recent years, where the sufferer labours under the serious misapprehension that they remain a figure of desire and overt sexuality despite their advancing years (and where the increase in age is inversely proportional to the amount of clothes worn)? Out of the limelight for some years now, Cher is probably languishing in some nursing home dribbling soup down her chin and reminiscing about the times she used to straddle warship cannons clad only in a few ribbony strips of lycra. Urrgh. If they could turn back time indeed…

Youthful Evil

2008-04-21T13:11:00.002+01:00

After twenty-odd years, Robert Mugabe is still refusing to respect the democratic process and remains in power in impoverished Zimbabwe. His legacy of economic meltdown and tyranny will ultimately leave the country in tatters with any hope of recovery decades and even generations away – a gargantuan task for whatever incoming party will eventually pick up the poisoned chalice of leadership.

Still, I can’t be the only one who thinks he looks bloody good for his age. He’s 82 (yes, eighty-two years old!) and with a spring in his step and a disproportionate lack of wrinkles, it seems that being a totalitarian despot is good for the complexion, though not the soul.

Maybe he found the fountain of eternal youth on one of the previously white-owned farms he ran into the ground.

I Robot

2008-04-11T13:08:00.003+01:00

Sad news for sci-fi fans today as Kenny Baker, who played R2-D2 in the Star Wars films, was admitted to hospital after suffering long-running problems with asthma.

Family are attending the 73-year-old’s bedside, though his son was available for comment. “Brrrb-tik-tik weee!” said T2-D2, 45, “Woo-beeew chucka-chucka”.

Air Rage Incidents Set To Increase

2008-04-03T13:10:00.008+01:00

Bad news for air travellers this week as Ofcom gave the nod for mobile phones to be used on planes, which was, up until now, the last bastion of public transport where passengers’ ears could remain unmolested by nobheads barking into their mobys. At least on a train, if glaring doesn’t work, you can switch carriages or alight at the next station, but being entrapped in a flying tube at 30,000 feet limits your options for escape.

Recipients of calls from aeroplanes will now, no doubt, be subjected to the hilarious “I can’t talk now, I’m on the plane!” (probably swiftly followed by “Aaaargh! Jesus! Not the face!” as the caller is beaten repeatedly around the head by his/her fellow passengers).

Toytown’s Defiance Of The Laws Of Physics

2008-03-28T12:54:00.005Z

This morning’s episode of Make Way For Noddy depicted a scenario where Toytown was devoid of all colour after a magic spell had been cast, reducing the normally colourful conurbation to black and white. In order to restore the myriad hues to this monochrome world, Noddy and his friend, Tessie Bear, took to the skies in Noddy’s plane, and scooped colour in a bucket from a convenient rainbow. The contents were then sprinkled over the town below which promptly reappeared in all its vibrancy.

I wasted no time in informing our spellbound three-year-old that such actions were impossible, and that a rainbow is nothing more than an optical and meteorological phenomenon whereby an arc of prismatic colours is manifested when our nearest star shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. Ergo, collecting them in a bucket is just fanciful nonsense, not to mention the questionable logistics of using an high-velocity aircraft to do so.

I also took the opportunity to inform him that bears can’t talk (let alone forge close friendships with humans) and there’s no such thing as magic.

I like to think I’ve equipped him with factual information which will stand him in good stead later in life. I also intend to write a stiff letter of complaint to the show’s producers querying their gross innacuracies. As for entrusting a small boy the piloting of a plane – that’s just irresponsible.

Easter Feast

2008-03-19T13:28:00.007Z

It's Easter in a few days. Hoorah! Time to limber up for a choc-fest feeding frenzy and not even think about work for four days (as opposed to the usual two). Oh, and celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ of course, who emerged from a giant egg-like tomb on the fourth day, and ascended heavenwards dressed as a giant bunny. Or something.

Like all Christian holibobs, the origins have now been largely superseded by the event (Christmas is obviously a more extreme example). Ask any schoolkid what Easter means to them, and they’ll start drooling about chocolate and palling at the thought of freezing-cold bank holiday trips to the seaside etc. It’s pretty much only toothy Christians and TV executives (who will no doubt run a documentary or two on the decline of the role of the church in modern society) who serve to remind people of the true meaning of Easter, and why they’re eating ovoid cocoa products and wearing hats with baby chickens on them.

I might give off the opinion that I don’t have much time for organised religion. It’s true that religion, in its many forms, has been responsible for all manner of ills throughout recorded history – when ardent believers start blasting holes in each other, calling round my house at 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning proffering copies of Watchtower, or indeed start crucifying deluded individuals who think they’re some kind of earthly deity, it fails to enrich global society and advance mankind’s understanding of himself and the world he lives in.

Still, as long as there’s chocolate in it at the end of the day, I’m prepared to cut them some slack. You’ve got to take the (Green & Black’s) rough with the (Galaxy) smooth I suppose.

It’s Behind You

2008-03-19T13:24:00.006Z

When looking at photos I always look beyond the smiling faces of those immortalised on celluloid at what’s going on in the background. Often this is far more interesting as it reveals all sorts of stuff about the circumstances in which the photo was taken and provides a natural snapshot of time that’s all the better for being unposed and (and for the most part disregarded) by whoever took the photo.

The reverse of the dust jacket for the adult version of the latest Harry Potter depicts the obligatory black and white photo of the author standing in front of his/her bookcase, and an examination of the contents of the bookshelf itself reveals a right old mixed bag of non-fictional fruit and literary nuts.

There’s a mix of classics, modernist and contemporary, from the letters of Jane Austen to Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and even Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole diaries. Other volumes include a collection of Agatha Christie, a Trollope and a Peter Cook.

Vladimir Nabokov also features (the title isn’t quite clear, but it’s probably not Lolita as I doubt the publishers wouldn’t want that on the back of one of the best-selling children’s books of all time), as does Freud: even schoolboy psychoanalysts can read a wealth of meaning into wand-waving and invisibility cloaks. There’s also a strange lesbian section including The Ladies of Llangollen, and Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness. The rest of the titles are too unclear.

JK stands proudly in front of all this looking just a little bit smug, which she’s fully entitled to be given that she’s worth a mint. It’s strange to think that the people she’s inspired to be writers will one day be standing in front of their bookcases on the dust jackets of their own publications, possibly with a copy or two of her stories visible behind them.

As American As Tree Potato Pie

2008-03-14T13:40:00.002Z

Potatoes. Or pommes de terre as the French call them which translates into something like ‘apples from the ground’. Elsewhere in Europe, the Dutch call them aardappels (literally, earth apples). There are probably more but this is where my polyglotism ends and I haven’t got time to Google it.

This has always struck me as odd as barring a vaguely similar crunchy texture, potatoes aren’t green, sweet or likely to keep doctors away. The French/Dutch must have eaten some pretty ropey apples in order to draw a comparison between them and the muddy hunks of irregular root they dug up and decided to munch. (Adopt Dutch accent: “Heng on cheps, these rooty things have the tixture and taste of epples, but grow underground. Therefore we shall call them earth epples.”)

In moments of idle speculation I wonder: if they’d been familiar with spuds before discovered the palatability of apples, would apples now be called tree potatoes?

If Only They’d Opened A Window…

2008-03-14T13:14:00.005Z

To bastardise a much-quoted philosophical question: if a lath and plaster ceiling in the living room of a 1930’s semi- falls off and smashes to the floor, and there’s no-one around to hear it, does it make a noise? I know it’s meant to be one of those unanswerable conundrums, though I’d hazard a guess at yes.

Sadly, a large chunk of our living room ceiling is no more as it recently crashed carpetward in spectacular fashion creating a huge mess (thankfully, no-one was in the room at the time). In much the same way as the meteorite that killed off the dinosaurs, the atmosphere was filled with fine dust particles which reduced the regular stream of photons streaming through available windows to a hazy few. The problem was immediately solved though by opening several of them (windows, not photons). If only the dinosaurs had thought of that they may have survived the impact, but then again, they had tiny brains and probably just ran around freaking out and shitting their scaly pants.

Unfortunately for all but a few terrible lizards, they were doomed and the world of mammals was allowed to rise and flourish to the point where one particular ape would develop into a creature able to tame fire, form complex societies, and invent important things like stone tools, the wheel and Kenwood pasta makers. It’s strange to think that if dinosaurs had survived we’d be the inheritors of their reptilian genes and would all look like characters in Dinosaurs. Probably… Even so though, I reckon even the worst modern-day dinosaur plasterer would have made a better job of doing our ceiling than the last opposably-thumbed cowboy ape that did it.

Texty-Text

2008-03-05T12:30:00.007Z

Britain, apparently, sends one billion texts a week (a swift pounding of the buttons on my calculator reveals this to be around 17 per person). This seems high to me as I seldom send texts, though I‘m sure some spotty nimble-fingered teenager is gleefully making up the numbers.

I don’t much like texting, primarily due to my inability to write succinctly and unwillingness to abbreviate. Antidisestablishmentarianism would cost 10p on its own, while tintinnabulations, floccinaucinihilipilification and other wordage of the sort which used to generate enormous word scores on Catchword* would leave scant space for horrible hybrid number/letter compound wordage such as “C U l8er gr8 m8!” etc.” Urgh…

But then maybe I’m a Luddite, or old. Or both.

* Catchword was a late ‘80s teatime gameshow presented by Paul Coia and is not to be confused with Catchphrase hosted by Roy “Riiiiiiiiight!” Walker. It consisted of word-play in a sub-Countdown sort of way with a bargain-bin set and a noteable absence of Mr Chips. In one particularly unfair round, contestants were tasked with coming up with as many words as possible from a random selection of three letters. Invariably, the first contestant would get letters like S N G and reel off a list of 20 words (singing, slaughtering, sleeping etc.), while his opponent would get a bastard selection of letters like B Z J and spend an uncomfortable 30 seconds sweating like a boxer with the camera looming in for a close-up on his red glistening face while his blood pressure swelled to bursting point.

The prize for winning was a dictionary.

Bipedal or Bi?

2008-02-25T13:08:00.000Z

This week’s prize for the most bafflingly inane example of graffiti goes to the chap who scrawled “are gay” underneath the sign directing “Wheelchair Users” to the lift in a multi-storey car park in Trowbridge. I don’t currently know any wheelchair users, though I think I’m pretty confident in assuming that their sexuality is in no way connected to their inability to walk.

If it was, then nursing homes would be like Blue Oyster bars.

The Agony Of Choice

2008-02-22T13:06:00.007Z

There’s far too much choice in supermarkets these days. A short while ago, Dan identified 17 varieties of Colgate toothpaste alone in his local Sainsbury’s (though perhaps even more unsettling is the fact he stood there tippy-tapping them all into his phone for later transfer to his blog).

Beans are another example. In any decent supermarket you’ll find pinto, cannelini, black-eyed, haricot, lima, green, runner, flageolet, magic… (well, maybe not the last one though aficionados of the world of canned pulses may rank the superior quality of Heinz among this category).

Talking of Heinz, you don’t just get Baked Beans any more. Now there are Mexican, Sweet Chilli, Tikka, BBQ, Curried and Jalfrezi varieties, not to mention Organic, Weight Watchers No added Sugar, and Reduced Sugar & Salt, and even “Hidden Veg” (to help you on your way to five-a-day by concealing the less palatable ingredients behind a smokescreen of tomato sauce). It’s a minefield (or beanfield).

On the off-chance you manage to locate a normal can of beans to use as a little lunchtime toast topping, you’ll then have to further navigate a bewildering aisle stretching as far as the eye can see which contains a huge number of variants on the humble loaf (including reduced fat, wheat-free and crustless varieties. Crustless bread! The world’s gone mad…)

Consumer choice is all well and good, but it’s much to the chagrin of indecisive individuals like me for who a shopping trip can turn into a weekend break.

[Also, please tell me I’m not the only person who mentally starts singing “Invisible Crust” to the tune of Genesis’ Invisible Touch when spotting a loaf of it on the shelves.]

“The time? It’s exactly Tuesday…”

2008-02-18T13:20:00.005Z

Welcome, one and all, to the wonderful world of DayClocks. They’re a bit like normal clocks, but instead of hours they have days, and instead of two hands they have just one which takes a week to complete a full revolution. For those individuals who don’t know what day it is, it’s an invaluable item. For the other 99% of humanity, it’s useless sub-Betterware junk.

It’s the sort of product that, if it were presented in Dragons’ Den, would see its creators set upon and beaten to a bloody pulp and flung back down the stairs like pin-striped strawberry jam. Not having run this gauntlet however, Mark Pierce and John Kallestad (whose brainchild this futile piece of tat is) are upbeat: “Everyone owns a watch,” they claim “but the day of the week timepiece is definitely a fun item! It’s a whole new way of looking at time.” Hmm, not my idea of fun I’m afraid lads.

The website helpfully supplies a list of scenarios in which people may benefit from their invention: “Retirement, Motor Home Accessory, Birthday Gift, Anniversary Gift, Premium Incentive, Child’s Room, College Dorm, "Your" Living Room, Any Occasion for a Gift”. It also explains the origins of this useless chronological trinket: “The idea for the DayClock was born in the heart of the Black Rock Desert of Nevada in the middle of July. Mark and John had been dirt sailing for several days knowing their wives would be showing up on Friday. The problem was they didn't know what day it was and their wristwatches only gave them the date, which didn't help."

It's probably best not to speculate what “dirt sailing” is, but what grown men get up to in the middle of the desert is their business and their business alone.

Luckily, Mark and John had the foresight to patent the DayClock design, and now “have plans to expand on many different variations of the original theme”. What next I wonder? The MonthClock? The YearClock? A Beatles version with eight days in a week? Ironically, unlike time itself, the possibilities would seem limited.

Ultimately though, I can’t help but feel the DayClock has a self-defeating purpose: ie. if you don’t know what day it is, then you probably couldn’t give a shit what day it is. Ergo, you have no need for a DayClock.

The Common Touch

2008-02-15T13:24:00.005Z

Has anyone else noticed the disproportionately large head atop the diminutive shoulders of the little chap (‘Thomas from Leeds’) in the new Halifax ads? My lovely wife pointed this out the other day, and since then, his unsteady cranium seems to get bigger with each screening.

Halifax’s policy of using employees to advertise their wares in order to show they’re in touch with the needs of the clichéd ‘man-on-the-street’ is an oft-used marketing ploy. Steve Punt once said that in order for companies to show normal people in their adverts, they have to make them a little bit ugly. In other words, in order to make them more believable, they can’t look like actors. For instance, you wouldn’t find Tom Cruise in an ad for B&Q (though they probably wouldn’t be able to find a uniform small enough anyway).

I’m not sure I’d go as far as to call them ugly, from the geeky bespectacled Howard, to the bargain-bin Aretha to the new smiling wobbly-headed individual, but they’ve all got something not-quite-right about them which presumably just proves how ordinary they are and how well-placed they are to flog you a mortgage or a fixed-rate savings bond, or something…

It’s a paradox for any budding actors hoping for advert work in order to further their career: the only way their physiognomy can be presented to the nation is if they are essentially nondescript, and are therefore destined to a life of “It’s him, you know, whatsisname off thingy…”

Rich Within Our Mildest Dreams

2008-02-08T12:37:00.000Z

As mentioned in a previous post, we don’t really do the Lottery in Castle Collier. Last Saturday however we dutifully spent £3 and sat with bated breath, holding our little pink ticket twixt tremulous thumb and forefinger as the chirpy chap with the ‘80s DJ tones reeled off four of our numbers, much to our astonishment. What do we get for four numbers? we excitedly speculated – is it going to change our life, could this be a nice little windfall?

A swift shufty on tellytext a few minutes later however revealed our winnings to be the princely sum of just £36 (thirty-six pounds. I’ll say it again – thirty-six pounds!) Frankly I was disgusted. I had visions of driving smugly into work on Monday, having a shit on my desk and marching triumphantly out the door pausing only to push over the water cooler and upturn some bins. In the light of our “winnings”, this seems like madness, though it’s still tempting.

We spent a third of our winnings at McDonalds within half an hour of collecting it, and the rest of it at B & Q on a number plaque for our house which, for the moment remains a ‘30s semi- and not an opulent and palatial Cribs-style pad. Might need to tick a few more numbers off for that.

Superbook

2008-02-07T13:45:00.000Z

I spotted Christopher Reeve’s autobiography while browsing in a charity shop recently. It’s called Still Me. Is this a pun?

Not Alarmed

2008-02-07T13:42:00.000Z

We have the worst alarm clock in the world, as it gains approximately 30 seconds each day. This may not sound like much, but over the course of four weeks, it increases by 15 minutes so we end up waking up quarter of an hour earlier each month.

If left unchecked, this means that by August 2010 the alarm would go off at 11pm the previous night – roughly the time we trudge up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire, thereby allowing us no sleep at all (any date beyond this and we would have to get up before we went to bed). However, this is sweetened somewhat by the fact that we would be allowed 180 successive ten-minute snoozes before clambering out of bed again and heading bleary-eyed downstairs for cornflakes.

We would change it but we're just too tired.