Up The Wooden Hill

I wish I didn’t have to sleep, it’s such a waste of time. Sadly, millennia of evolution and human biology means a nightly trip to slumberland (the abstract location for unconscious thoughts, not the bed shop) is nothing short of mandatory in order to remain a useful and fully functioning member of society.

Bugger.

Popular stats tell us that “normal” people spend around a third of their life asleep (“abnormal” people such as students spend even more, while Mrs Thatcher famously needed only four hours a night). This seems to be such a nonsensical frittering away of the piddly amount of time we spend on the planet, which at best is only around 100 years (and during the latter years it’s arguable whether we contribute much at all except shouting, extra laundry and strange musty odours).

If you were always awake, just think of all the things you could do. You could spend more time with loved ones, read all the books you could, go all the places you’ve ever wanted to go, or alternatively find a cure for cancer or create a literary masterpiece etc. You’d have more time, and we live in an era in which time is in fairly short supply. Plus you wouldn’t have any more disturbing dreams about being naked in a supermarket (or maybe that’s just me).

There are downsides though. Far from producing literary masterpieces, people like John Grisham would produce more crap books (though steadily administering sleeping pills could prevent him from picking up a pen). People would also be much shorter as physical growth speeds up while asleep. Plus there’d be no more amusing programmes about sleep disorders in which footage showing people twatting themselves over the head with vases and beating up duvets is shown for public entertainment.

On balance though, I think I’d like more time in a state of consciousness.

"Braahn" Bread

The bill at the Celestial Palladium has a new variety act in the shape of t’riffic super-toothed cockney wanker Mike Reid. Hope sprang eternal, on hearing the news of his demise, that it was in fact speccy be-mulleted ‘80s DJ Mike Reid that threw a seven, but alas it wasn’t and he’s still very much with us.

He’s the second of the old school comedians to have recently shuffled off this mortal coil as Bernard Manning also wheezed his last no more than few weeks ago. However, while Mike is now no doubt having a cracking “Runaraahnd” in heaven and regaling God with ‘stenders anecdotes, Manning is probably downstairs in his own private hell in a roomful of homosexual Pakistani alternative comedians.

Frank Carson was understandably distressed by the news (which you can be sure he didn’t think was 'a cracker'), saying it was “absolutely devastating”. You can’t help but think his alarm was heightened by the very real realisation that he’s a member of a dying breed. Things happen in threes Frank…

Brucie’s safe as he sold his soul to Bealzebub back in 1962 in return for eternal sprightliness, though Tarbuck, Lynch, Bowen and Carson are probably looking more than a little nervous this morning and not tucking into their fry-ups with quite as much gusto.

Shaky Relationships

It’s never an entirely comfortable feeling finding out that your other half has, in the past, been affectionate towards another. However, it’s important to face the fact that he/she has had a history pre-you and that this history, which necessarily involves romantic involvement with somebody else, is directly responsible for producing the three-dimensional and multi-faceted creature who today forms your perfect other half.

I say this because of a recent incident in which a missive of affection, written by my wonderwife, was found in one of her old school books, dredged from a dusty box which had been long since forgotten. In the spirit of honesty, I’ve reproduced it, word for word, below.

Dear Shaky,

I am a great fan of yours and will always be. My name is [my wife]. My birthday is September 15th. I was born in 1975. I am 10 years old. I watch every programme you are on. I adore your song Merry Christmas everyone because I no every single word.

I like men who are handsome and I think your great.

Some of my friend say you’re nice but I didn’t I said you’re gorgeous.

Yours sincerely

[my wife]

I’m happy to note though, that Shaky didn’t get a closing “X”, which I get as standard in my texts and emails. So, in your face Shaky! In your face! Who’s the winner! Me, that’s who. Yes, very much so. Eat my dust...

My Singalonga Car

The car I drive to work in is not particularly old, but it has been around the block and consequently has a few loose bits on it. Lately I’ve discovered that, if you crank the music up (which I often do in the mornings) it causes each of these loose bits to resonate, sometimes fairly loudly, at certain bass frequencies.

For example, the rattly bit in the driver’s door has particular issues with bottom E, while the wobbly bit in the glove compartment vibrates somewhere around F# and whatever’s slack under the passenger seat buzzes when it hears B.

Therefore if I play any song in the key of E or C#min (like She Said by Longpigs or And I Love Her by The Beatles), it sounds like I’m sharing my journey with a swarm of angry bees.

Emily’s Flushing Gluteus Maximus

I’m quite a fan of Simon and Garfunkel as it ‘appens, and am particularly fond of the beautiful “For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her”, which contains the ever-so-slightly-pretentious line “…and when ran to me, your cheeks flushed with the night, we danced on frosted fields of juniper and lamplight…” Hmm.

Four years ago, my wonderwife, in a throwaway comedy remark, suggested that “cheeks” referred to those of the arsular, rather than facial, variety, which I’m pretty sure isn’t what Paul Simon meant, but the interpretation conjures up a peculiar and entertaining mental image which is arguably worth the obliteration of the song’s sentiment.

The End For Harry P

After a two year wait, the final installment in the Harry Potter canon is finally out tomorrow. Personally, I’m a big fan. The literature’s not half bad, though I’m particularly grateful for the notions it’s actively promoted over the course of ten years that it’s cool to wear glasses and that ginger people can have friends too (all I need is for the little fella to go prematurely bald and I’ll instantly be Mr Cool).

Cheery-faced laughmeister J K Rowling should be applauded for encouraging an entire generation of kids (and their parents) to pick up books, which in these days of distractions such as violent computer games, t’internet chat rooms and 2,000 channels of shite on telly, can’t be underestimated.

Apparently, as a result of penning the escapades of the boy wizard over the last decade, she’s now worth £350 million, which isn’t bad for an idea that just popped into her head while she was sitting around the kitchen table.

We haven’t got a kitchen table. (This I believe to be the root cause of why we don’t also have £350 million.) Though now the Harry saga has concluded and there’s a bit of a void to fill, I think it might be a good time to get one. In fact, even without the benefit of a kitchen table, I’ve already had a germ of an idea – it’s about this 34-year-old wizard called Steve who goes to this mystical office five days a week in a non-flying car etc.

Caught By The Fuzz

Caught a bit of Police Camera Action the other night. A scolding, pointy-lipped Alasdair Stewart tut-tutted his way through half an hour of footage of wispy-moustached baseball-capped delinquents and their gormless mates stealing high-powered something or others, careering down country lanes and bouncing off trees and cyclists, before spinning off at a roundabout or disappearing into a ditch.

The offenders are always collared by the constabulary and the long arm of the law is again promoted as an inescapable outcome of such misdemeanours. The message is that if you engage in such behaviour, it’s an inevitable conclusion that you’ll be apprehended, but they only show those that get caught. I wonder how many hours of VT researchers have to sit through before they have a programme’s worth.

However, the sentences are so light, and driving bans so often ignored that it’s probably the same individuals re-offending week-after-week. It’s almost as if the police have a vested interest in re-offending as they, in turn, are able to gather more footage to flog to the network in order to make them look as if they’re doing a smashing job. Hence the filth get their PR, the delinquents get to nick more cars, the public get entertained and Alistair Stewart gets a bit of pocket money for those slow weeks when he’s not reading the news. Everyone’s a winner!